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Dear players,
since there were more changes lately, including disabling the Smart Matchmaking system, this will be a new place where you can discuss the matchmaking issues.

We would like to get your feedback on the current state of the Matchmaker. Any and all constructive feedback will be passed on to the team and taken into consideration when deciding on any further changes in the system.

To keep the thread easy-to-navigate and useful, please stay on the topic. If you want to post screenshots of various matches, we recommend you to use the spoiler function:

To do so, you can copy following and remove asterisks (*):
[*spoiler]
[*/spoiler]

Thank you in advance for your feedback
Your Wargaming Community Team

First congratulations with the game, never been so addictive to a game since 2004, this is a marvellous game that has an amazing balance between arcade and realism.

Now about the MM:

Im new to the game, been in something like 500 battles, better I have is an almost elite Panzer III-IV. Has a low tier player Im always in the bottom half tiers in battles, that does not particullary annoys me as I like the challenge, what annoys me is when Im in my tier 5 tank and there's seven tier 7 or even tier 8 tanks in each team, its like anywhere I go Im cannon fodder, if I don't try to flank I do almost nothing other than trying to hit the weak zones which isnt easy when you die with one hit. The problem is that this happens just to often and its quite uncommon for my tank to be in the top half, rarely Im the biggest badass in the place.

To get better tanks you need to play with the one that unlocks it, therefore players have to play with their biggest tanks, this creates a gap between new players in light tanks and the senior players in heavies and medium-heavies. This gap causes the emerging players in medium tanks to almost always be among the big tier players.

So the problem is in the XP distribution imho which I have thought about two solutions:

First you can simply increase a lot the free experience earning, encouraging players to play with other tanks other than the latest big badass steel cage, if to get my Panzer 3001 wasn't necessary to play with my PanzerIII-IV I would be playing a lot more with the BT-2 and the Panzer III instead of grinding over and over again always with the same. I would say even to eliminate the experience limitations, everything would be free experience, Im not well aware of the consequences of this so this might be a very bad solution, you tell me =)

Second solution would be to each player can choose three tanks, prime, second, third. Matchmaking would try to get the prime choice in battle, however if the prime choice wouldn't comply with the required tier for a battle it would check with the second choice and then the third. Experience earned this way would always go to the free experience or to the prime choice, enabling players to earn experience for their next tank without being required to play in their big tank. Of course the choices would have to be in different tiers, a player couldn't choose tanks in the same tier for his three choices. Also players could for example only choose two enable only prime and second or only prime, enabling the player to play only with the tank they want, of course this would increase the waiting time for them to enter the battlefield. Matchmaking of course would be much more complex and would need to use formulas like for example:
2x(top tier) + 5x(top tier -1) + 8x(top tier -2)
or even a more spread tier formula like
1x(top tier) + 3x(top tier -1) + 6x(top tier -2) + 5x(top tier -3)

So here you have my feedback, hope it is useful in some way, if not, well with 500 battles in low tiers Im quite used to shoot and see it bounce! =)

Edit: I have to say that as opposed to all other days since I started playing this game, today I got half of my battles in a Panzer III-IV as top half, the other half I was just cannon fodder, still it was not as bad as it was in other days. Also there are some tanks that have a high tendency to be always top tier, BT-2 for example, today like 80% of my battles in a BT-2 were as top tier and the remaining 20% were as top half tier, previous days it was also similar. I was happy because its fun as hell to feint everyone and shoot all those paper tanks while they can do little less than get seasick from seeing my BT-2 circling around them!

Edit2: Just a following point, everything in life is about resources, which is usually defined by currency given that most resources are widely available, warfare is not an exception, everything is about balance of how much resources you have, how much resources you need for a given task and how much resources you are willingly to lose to accomplish such task, therefore back in the time when tank warfare became major and there was no missiles and sattelites there was a large variety of tanks, now speaking in game terms, an assault/defence force would never be made with a predominant force of higher tiers for all the reasons above, first its not cost effective, second it wouldnt be required such a massive power and third in the event of loss it would be a crushing blow. My point being that for each high tier there's usually a much higher number of support vehicles and it should be thought as a fleet, the flagship is always supported by a few cruisers and then a few frigates, ensuring that the group has both firepower/reconnaissance/survivability/speed. In the game tank divisions should be as close as possible to this as it ensures that everything is useful.

Well, I just had a match and well, I think the picture says it all


Needles to say, the match was lost right from the start. I didn't make any screenshots of the final result, but if I recall we only managed to destroy 4 enemies while they wiped us out.

Now I realize that matches like this are an extreme rarity, but none the less they are extremely frustrating and quite frankly, it shouldn't happen in my opinion. How can the matchmaker make half of one team tier 5 or lower, whilst giving the enemy team tier 6 tanks at the bottom and 5 Type 59's. Sure, we had tier 8 heavies and they didn't have a single one, but still, if the matchmaker had just switched two Lowe's for type 59's and mixed the low tier tanks with some of the enemy tier 6 tanks, this could have been a fair and more importantly fun match.

Things I'd like to get fixed or atleast looked at are:

1. Tighter tier spread. There's just no point to have BDR fighting mostly T8/9 opponents. Tier spread should be 3 tiers, so everyone is meeting +-2 tier tanks only. Arties and scouts with their own tier spreads.

2. Fix unbalanced numbers of every tank type. There's no point to have 5 scout per team or 5 arties. And most likely you get those in maps where they are totally unsuitable. Both sides should have similar number of scouts, same as arties now, max deviation of 1.

3. Fix balance between teams. Having different tank types is intresting, but have some limit there. Also look at weight of different tanks. T8 meds is not equal to T7 heavy. It's T7 heavy with speed boost. Also having T6 heavy against opponents T5 medium is little help, if enemy has more T8/9 tanks. Try to balance teams within tiers, as having extra weight in higher tiers is superior to having extra weight on lowest tanks.

4. Fix balance inside teams. This would be corrected if tier spead is tightened, but I mention it separately in case you donät want to fox tierspread. Having few top tanks to decide whole battle is bad thing. Often it's just question of which sides top tanks win if they meet, or which are faster to slaughter opponents lower tanks if tops donät meet. I mean like having 2 T10 on both teams and then rest of the teams are from tiers 6-8. And same in other direction. Having most tanks same tier and then 1 or 2 tanks of 2 tiers lower means that both sides lowbies can't do anything, as they always meet those higher tanks.

As a basic rule. Every tanks should be able to harm any opponent. It might need flanking shot or aiming at weakspot and hitting 10+ times to opponent that can 1 or 2 shot you, but it should be doable.

I think those are most important at the moment. You could add easier MM when stock or new to tank, but that shouldn't be necessary if tier spread isn't as horrible as now.

EDIT: You might want to add end check before releasing a battle. If MM makes teams as now, but then makes fast check if there are anomalities (stacked TD's, Type's or whatever) it could redistribute teams. That would correct some problems. And I think it would be very much needed on aborted battles, where teams are not finished and can have very bad balance like 2 T10 and 2 arties meeting 1 T9 and 3 arties. In such case just resuffle tanks to more balanced teams.

Hi!

First of all here is an example of a battle i just finished.


As you can see the teams were:

1 tier 7  vs. 1 tier 7
1 tier 6  vs. 5 tier 6
10 tier 5  vs. 6 tier 5
3 tier 4  vs. 3 tier 4

Using the score used in company battles the difference is not so great: 75 vs. 79. But the result of the battle was quite bad, as more higher tier tanks was in one team vs. the other team, creating a unbalanced battle (set aside the tactics).

So, my feed back on this change of MM is that the change is bad.

That doesn't mean that the previous setting of MM was much better... Try, for example, using previous setting of MM, to play with Wolverine and see the results.

In this perspective, from two bad settings, it is logical to chose the lesser bad. The hard work is to find the good setting, and being a player with some experience in this game i can propose an simple idea as how to do a better MM, and from this idea you guys, can work and discuss how to improve it and so on, if you find it of some value.

So, my idea is divided in several points:
1. there should be no battles with more than 3 consecutive tiers tanks in it, with the exceptions, as it is now, of tier 1 and, of course, the platoons which are unpredictable as participants can take whatever tanks they wish;
2. the composition of tiers per team (i.e. how many of each of the 3 tiers should be in the team) and type of tanks (i.e. arty's, td's, ht's, e.t.c.) should be made from a few standard preset modules, that can be done and changed from statistics you have already gathered and will gather in the future;
3. the opposing team should be in mirror in regard to the tiers of the tanks present in team (by that i mean that if in one team there are 5 tier 3 tanks, 5 tier 4 tanks and 5 tier 5 tanks, the opposite team should be identical), and from a few preset module that is acceptable in regard to the type's of the tanks;
4. if a platoon does not respect the preset composition of the team, should be considered only the biggest tier tank/tanks, as it is the case in the present.

I hope that this idea could help you in your work to improve the game.

There still remain a problem that I ran into, for which i have no clear idea of how to remedy it, is the problem of the lack of accuracy of statistical tier of the battle, meaning that a player with a certain tank could be in more battles were the tank is in the last part of tier setting, than in the middle or first, or vice-verse. The only way to fix this, although I'm not sure it will work, is that for each tank that is used, a player receive a tag (not necessary know by that player) that marks in what place of the tier the tank was in a number of battles and using statistics and that tag, a program try to balance the position, giving the tank a priority in one of those preset modules mention above.

Best regards!

1. 3x T9 mediums dont equal 2xIS-4 and E-75. The 3 heavies kill your whole team and the mediums fly around the map somewhere.  Always use same type (heavy, medium) and tier tanks in oposite slot.

2. 2x T3,t4 arty is not equal 1 T5 arty. The small tier arty shoots 270 dmg shots that ends up with 270/2-armor which is something like 0-80 dmg on average. The T5 arty shoots 910dmg shots which ends with 300-400 dmg in the end.   The small tier arty ends with 0 kills and the high tier arty wins the match. So fix it pls, same as point 1. Same tier on both sides.

3. And try to avoid matches with extreme tier spread. Like 4-5 t9 and then lots of t5-6. Its not realy fun to run in the wrong direction and get obliterated in 1 minute because u randomly choose the wrong direction.

Matchmaking should have a gaussian distribution.

That means, you have a higher chance of getting a match where you're in the middle, than a match where you're on top or on the bottom.

50% in middle
25% on top
25% on bottom

That would be a fair way. Here, take a look at this statistic that I've been gathering:

Tank: JagdpanzerIV

What tier matches it's been getting

t9 IIIIIIIIIIIIII           (unable to damage 2/3 of enemy tanks because of 132mm penetration gun)
t8 IIIIIIIIIIII             (unable to damage 1/3 of enemy tanks because of 132mm penetration gun)
t7 IIIIIIIIII               (fair matches)
t6 III                      (me on top)

That is, about
68% at bottom of list
25% in middle
7% on top

See the problem? You need to stop putting low tiers so MUCH in high tier battles, and let them fight against things closer to themselves for once! IMPLEMENT GAUSSIAN DISTRIBUTION, just like gun aiming and damage has.

T9 battles being the most common for a tier 6 tank = BROKEN matchmaking

Screw instant invites, narrow tier spreads already, geez...

Not constructive enough? PLEASE narrow the tier spread already.

I would say that the MM has gotten worse.

1.The spread is to high for middle (5-6) tiers
2.After 7.0 or 7.1 the MM doesn't take same number of tiers into battle anymore, ex pics below.
3.A medium tank is not worth the same as a tank destroyer, heavy tank or light tank. Every class should be matched with a similar tank at the same tier.
4.All light tanks that are r4 should not be classified as scouts ex. amx 40 aka ducky tank.

I wouldn't mind longer queues or at least and option box to check "Check this for more balanced battles, WARING longer queues!"

Probably something more but thats whats in my head atm.

Some of the battles I remembered to print, tho not the worst I've seen.

r8 - 4 vs 5
r7 - 3 vs 4
r6 - 0 vs 2
r5 - 7 vs 4
r4 - 1 vs 0
r9 - 1 vs 1
r8 - 4 vs 2
r7 - 0 vs 4
r6 - 5 vs 7
r5 - 4 vs 1
r8 - 6 vs 7
r7 - 0 vs 1
r6 - 1 vs 3
r5 - 7 vs 3
r4 - 0 vs 1
r3 - 1 vs 0
r10 - 1 vs 1
r9 - 6 vs 2
r8 - 0 vs 8
r7 - 2 vs 2
r6 - 2 vs 2
r5 - 4 vs 0
r10 - 1 vs 1
r9 - 2 vs 4
r8 - 7 vs 2
r7 - 2 vs 4
r6 - 3 vs 2
r5 - 0 vs 2

By saper1313 at 2012-01-28


By saper1313 at 2012-01-28


By saper1313 at 2012-01-28

By saper1313 at 2012-01-28

By saper1313 at 2012-01-28

By saper1313 at 2012-01-28

By SAper1313 at 2012-01-28


All in current patch.

Broken before, still broken now. Too wide tiers spread (what can a tiers 5 do in a game with tiers 8, 9 and 10 except being OS ? Even more with the HE nerf...), strange appariements (6 Type 59 in a single team, 2 of them ranked as tiers 7 on the opposing side), stock tanks no longer "protected"... Total failure.

There are solutions, players ask for them for countless monthes. Apply them or not, now it's up to you.

think maybe it would be time to adjust the MM to account for equipped modules, being stock in some tanks compared to fully upgraded can make a huge difference, easier solution may be to give us the 30seonds before the battle starts to adjust equipped modules to the tank for the battle. For eg i am currently running through the 38na, its a solid little tank that can if adjusted right be very versatile. When equipped with the most basics its light and fast for scouting for when slapped into tier 8-9 heavy battles for which i could barely scratch the paintwork even on the gwpanther from the back.
When its dropped in a more balanced match and halfway up (30 battles down so far only been towards the half way line twice nearly always at the bottom) it can pack a punch with the better modules but is alot slower.

Maybe the MM could take into account performane stats of the player? we all know it takes a little time to get used to a new tank, its role, strengths and weaknesses. If the MM took into account some of the performance stats of the player in that tank and saw that they had say only won 1 out of 10 matches and caused 200hp of damage then drop him into an easier setup so they would appear closer to the top of the list. If they were 10/10 and caused 2000hp of damage then drop them towards the bottom of the list in a harder battle.

Dear Devs!
The disappointing attitude of your players. I do not undersand how You do not think a little bit. Your mach making system is shit. Sorry about the swearing, but i can not going on side that fact, how You make a worst and worst mach making system time after time.

First few times was more acceptable this system. (max 3 tier difference in the same battle)


Now is terribile.


Tier 6 tanks fighting with the Tier 10 tanks??~(5 tier difference!!!!!) Players they do not feel good themselves. If You send palyer with the low tier tanks opposit big tier tanks, they are goes in the hopeless siutuation.

Why good this for You??
Why You can not make a mach making system by the little tanks?? (with the 1-2 tier difference)
I am and much more players is wait gladly 2-3 minuts between the battles, if we can know it no need fighting a hopeless battle.

Quote

yes this would be much better, it's why after iv'e got my daily xp X2, i go back and play tier 1/2, its the only fair and fun matches you get  

The problem is the power difference between tiers, as you go up tiers the power gap increases, so tier 7 for example has it just as bad as tier 5/6, especialy if you're in somthing like a jagdpanther as your tech 8 gun qutie often bounces off tanks of the same tier as you and sometimes lower, never mind tiers 8/9 and 10, for example again in a jagdpanther with your aforementioned tech 8; 88mm L/71, while 3 out of 5 shots will bounce off the front of a tiger and 2 out of 5 on a kv-3 when they have no trouble damageing you, so when you see the line up at the start and you're team has 3x jpanthers at the top and your opponants have 3x tigers you know straight away here we go another loss, please narrow the spread and and sort out the stacking problem, there must be a way to distribute the tanks more evenly.  

The matchmaker is in a sorry state. It does several mistakes.

First it often give high tiers advantages and then try to make up for it by increasing the power of lower tiers, but that doesn't add up since an extra tier 6 tank instead of tier 5 in a tier 8 match means nothing for the power of the team. You cannot balance high tier advantage against a low tier advantage in a battle.

Secondly the current stacking of the same type of tank on one side hurts the game badly. This is caused because each individual tank has advantages and disadvantages depending on the map. So if you stack many tanks on a map where its weak you give the team a serious disadvantage, and if you put them on a map where it is strong you give the team an unfair advantage.

Third the spread is still far far too high. No tank should meet a tank more than 2 tiers above it. And this goes for light tanks too. Light tanks except for the T50 and the T50-2 are useless as scouts in high tier battles, they do not have the visual range or even radio range to be useful. Therefore lights should not be tiered differently than mediums and heavies.

Its also weird that the MM tries to put all platoons on one side.

Generally it looks like the algorithm determines something it wants and then it adds all applicants who fit what it wants without regard to how many of them there is on a side. This is very bad.

I suggest that if you cannot stop the MM from stacking then put in an extra code after the teams are formed to shuffle the individual tanks on the two teams around to blend the teams as much as possible (except for platoons of course) and then you never ever balance stronger low tiers against weaker high tiers.

Last you need to value a tank apart from its tier. A T30 does not equal an IS7, none of the tier 9 heavies equal an IS4 and so on. Put individual values on each tank based on how strong it actually is please.

Matchmaking never been so bad as it is now. All because of type 59 and french tanks. T59 is matched with 7 tier tanks mostly. It should be treated as normal t8 medium tank. French tanks have too high rating so in my arl44 90% of games im matched against 7 tier heavy tank. To make squad even MM puts some 6 tiers (like vk3001p) against 5 tier (kv) which makes game even more unbalanced.

Here is example of one of my last games:

Rly?! Arl44 = T59. Thats just ridicolous and mostly decides about game result. Ive never paid as much money in game as ive paid for gold in WoT and im very dissapointed about current state of MM. Ive just lost 10 games in a row in my ARL just because of MM. I could easily say before game that it will be lost. Fix it or next time i'll think two times before buying more gold....

Another epic MM... Guess what was the result...

And another...

Acctually im pasting pics from next games... MM is so bad that this happens in 95% of games. Well balanced game (I mean rly well) is very rare.

And another form today

No i have stats 1 win 7 loses in my amx45 which isnt stock. I put some free xp into it and its useless just becuase of MM which is ruining now games one after another.

If there is some1 competent here pls explain me this one:

I cant even imagine explanation of this crappy balance. Guess the result...

Everybody keeps saying that the tier spread should be reduced. This has been going on for months, and I never saw even an acknowledgment.  The game is potentially great, but you spend 70% of the time bored out of your mind because of this tier spread, it's just ridiculous to waste the potential of this game this way.

It gets better with my Tier 9 tank, and I have fun every time. The problem is I tried to play other tanks to have other tiers 9 for a change, but there's no way I'll go again through the pain of leveling a tank line.

This problem led me to a strange paradox: I'm addicted to the game because of the very good time you can have, but I have adviced against playing it to my whole PvP guild because you have way too many games where you just can't do anything, or not enough anyway to get a PvP player motivated. So yeah, I'm paying a subscription. And I did negative comment to 120 people. Check if it such a good idea to try and induce people into paying to remove boredom instead of focusing on them having fun and then collect the money they'll put into a leisure they like unconditionally.

To sum it up, please reduce the tier spread as everybody above already said.

Shaiar, on 29 January 2012 - 01:16 AM, said:

I agree with You!
I hope I understand You good!
I play this game in the fun, but this game is only fun until then when i am feel the fun. I did not make a problem if someone shoot out my tank. It is only a game. But the game give me an option to the good stand up in the battle. If I need to attend a battle where I'm already dead just the beginning of the battle, is not fun.

MM system is give the value of the tanks.
Let's say, tier 10 heavy tanks to 100 points. The tier 9 heavy tanks to 95 points. The 9 tier middle tanks to 90 points. The 9 tier tank destroyers, 85 points. The 8 tier heavy tanks to 85 points. Determine whether the tier 10 heavy tanks can not be play with tanks under the 85 points. This system do not ask complicated calculations. Simple and easy. In the lower tier tanks maximum points must be reduced. This system would be valid in the game all tanks, included in the artillery too. This is not a last perfect, but better than present.

The current system is so bad that it is difficult to know where to start.

I think you shouldn't shoot for perfection though and rather just try to make a change that is an improvement and then refine.

It is pretty clear that the majority think this means 3 tier spread.

How about:

• Take 30 tanks spread over 3 tiers. Include even number of Arty with max of say 4.
  
• Look at top tier heavies and divide them between the teams
  
• Take the top tier mediums and divide them. If the previous stage resulted in an odd number then start with the team with the least tanks first.
  
• continue with lights, then the next tier, then the bottom tier
  
• Once done look to see if you have an imbalance of TD and switch them with equal tier tank if necessary
  
• if platoons have been split switch one of them with a equal tank so they end up together.

Do this and see how it goes and then refine if necessary.
The frustration is not being able to damage a sizeable proportion of the other team which, as a low tier player happens far too often.

I guess you have 5 tier spread to encourage players to grind up through the tanks. Making it frustrating and slow encourages premium accounts to speed things up and the purchase of premium tanks. Reduce the spread to 4 if you fear 3 tiers so much. Even that would improve things a lot.

Current system is just a huge fail!
some points to consider (i don't care if all has been said already, Wargaming seems to ignore all complaints under a million topics anyway):

- Waiting time doesn't have to be as short as possible, no one would mind some seconds more if it results in better balance! So don't start battle as soon as there are barely enough to fill a team. (of course a max time still is needed)
- Your gaps with Guns and Armor are just too great and even within the upgrade path of one tank unreasonable. Lower the Tier spread already!!!
- Limit the behaviour to put identical tanks on one side! No one minds if its just 3, but way too often the unbalance just comes from one sided alpha damage / mobility / armor / ... just because a team gets all KV / IS-4 / T-59 / T-95 / AMX ...
- bring map rotation into the solution, its just pure stupidity to assemble a match with scouts and SPG and then throw this into ultrasmall close combat maps. No Tank commander would even consider to deploy such outfits.

Considering Companies:
- Let Creator decide whats max Tier (introduce one company template for each possible tank max Tier). Community is not so dumb that it can't adapt while too few player online. Thats what a Chat is for. (Current Limits just encourage to one sided choice of tanks, since there still are too many unbalanced tanks which rule certain companies)

And even if you don't agree with the thousands of complaints and suggestions, USE YOUR TESTSERVERS AT LEAST TO PROVE THAT IT WONT WORK THE WAY WE THINK IT WOULD. Since this server is flooded with gold ammo and insane XP (which hides any problems with non elite tanks and general balance), these servers currently are only good for hunting major bugs anyway.

PS: I won't except the excuse you have no time to develop alternatives ... not since you implemented birds, the unnecessary HE-nerf and even tried to introduce horns.