[Discussion] Balance, Bias, Matchmaking and Battle Ratings

[Cymera 4]

I love this game I genuinely do, it is also quite well balanced. One vehicle however needs a rebalance and that is the E.B.R. What is that thing doing in a match with WWII tanks? After all of my tanks got one-shotted (Pz.IV F2, StuH III F, Pz.III L) nevermind the ISU 152 next to me I had to kindly request to please review the E.B.R. I belongs in another rank or needs a serious rework. 

Besides that keep up the good work and thank you for the great game. 

[_TheCrimsonKing_ 150]

I would like to know why the G.91 R/3 is 99k RP to research while being an end-of-the-line vehicle, meanwhile the F-86F-2 and the MiG-17 are 380k RP to research and they have 3 OR 4 PLANES after them. No wonder it takes so long to reach the end. 4 planes that are 380k-390k RP to research? Come on man. Not even gonna talk about purchase cost. This is one of the reasons the G.91 R/3 is spammed so much, because people just grind it in 10 matches in the Ju 288.

 

And before anyone says "but they are rank VI"... yeah, they are, so what? Research and purchase parameters based on rank and position in the correspondent line of tech tree make 0 sense, and it should be determined by BR. And if this doesn't get fixed, at least be consistent with the logic of end-of-the-line thing and make the R/3 more expensive to research and purchase, and lower the MiG-17, MiG-19PT, MiG-19S, MiG-21F-13, F-2 Sabre, F-100D... there's more, but just to name a few.

Edited January 18 by _TheCrimsonKing_
added stuff and examples

[Cpt_Bel_V 1,936]

G. 91R3 is in German TT,... There is your answer. 

 

But yes there is a problem. 

[_pips_ 349]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Bel_V said:

G. 91R3 is in German TT,... There is your answer. 

 

But yes there is a problem. 

The biggest problem is the 8.7 BR.The flight performance is 9.0 and the payload 9.7,so 9.3 would be a reasonable BR!

[Cpt_Bel_V 1,936]

2 hours ago, _pips_ said:

The biggest problem is the 8.7 BR.The flight performance is 9.0 and the payload 9.7,so 9.3 would be a reasonable BR!

No payload ain't 9.7,...

FJ-4B VMF have approx. Same AG payload,

F9F-8 have the same AAM load,...

Both are not 9.7

 

But the global note of the plane has to be 9.0/9.3 not 8.7

 

But you know,... G

[efetenekeci 785]

4 hours ago, _TheCrimsonKing_ said:

I would like to know why the G.91 R/3 is 99k RP to research while being an end-of-the-line vehicle, meanwhile the F-86F-2 and the MiG-17 are 380k RP to research and they have 3 OR 4 PLANES after them. No wonder it takes so long to reach the end. 4 planes that are 380k-390k RP to research? Come on man. Not even gonna talk about purchase cost. This is one of the reasons the G.91 R/3 is spammed so much, because people just grind it in 10 matches in the Ju 288.

 

And before anyone says "but they are rank VI"... yeah, they are, so what? Research and purchase parameters based on rank and position in the correspondent line of tech tree make 0 sense, and it should be determined by BR. And if this doesn't get fixed, at least be consistent with the logic of end-of-the-line thing and make the R/3 more expensive to research and purchase, and lower the MiG-17, MiG-19PT, MiG-19S, MiG-21F-13, F-2 Sabre, F-100D... there's more, but just to name a few.

 

Any aircraft without aams + F9F-8 should be rank 5.

[_TheCrimsonKing_ 150]

1 hour ago, efetenekeci said:

 

Any aircraft without aams + F9F-8 should be rank 5.

As I said, rank V or VI doesn't (shouldn't) matter for research parameters, it should be dependant on BR.

[Clangokkuner 102]

excuse me when will the **** poor swedish low tier actually be balanced? how do you have to gall to put at M3 Lee at 2.7 and Pz III M at 3.0 meanwhile the m/42 EH that's completely inferior to both gets to be stuck at 3.0? who actually decided that this is a balanced BR when it faces Chaffee's and Sherman's all the time to the point that it's almost impossible to do any effective damage with it, meanwhile those tanks can one shot you across the map without even aiming because they have 104mm pen nuke shells with stab?

[SpaghettiJack 99]

The title. I know i may be asking a lot, but can we please have someone that knows something about the game checking on what the algorithm is doing instead of letting it go freely? Like a quality control mechanism? Which is something unheard of around here i know, but it never hurts asking...
Or at least revise it and introduce more rules...
Like, "Vehicles of the same family with few differences, move together"... or "The same vehicle, in different nations, can never be more then 0.3 a part"...
The obvious references of my last two "rules" are directed to the Panther family and the M48 in the German tech tree.
In the first case the shortcomings of your algorithm are completely exposed: the Panther F is now finally being moved to 5.7, the same BR as the arguably stronger and more meta friendly Panther A. It took months for the F to reach its brother A that was already at 5.7, just because the A is extremely more played then the F and hence reached the BR drop point much sooner. But that's not what really highlight the deficeny of your system. What really does is the fact that the G variant will still be 6.0. A nerfed A with many limitations that traded many of its benefits for... 10 mm more side armor and a small chin. It will now be at a higher BR then even the last modification of the Panther, just because it's the least played variant of all. There's no doubt it will one day reach the others but why wait? What's the logic behind it?
I'm not ranting about it because i'm a huge fan of the Panthers but rather because it's the perfect opportunity to show the algorithm faults and holes. A vehicle worse then others of its family staying at a higher BR while everyone else moved down just because it's much less played then the others and thus have less statistics to support its BR change.
About the M48 instead... where to begin...
Of course it's not a good idea to have a better variant than the one found in the american TT at 7.3 being 6.7 in the german TT now... it was already controversial when it got moved to 7.0, but 6.7?!?! I do not support the fact that you balance vehicles based entirely on players performance, i may understand it, but at least put a limit to it!! Facing different and sometimes harsher opposition is understandable (shouldn't your BR system be there to make it fair for all nations though?) but the same tank should never be so far apart in different tech trees!! Introduce a 0.3 BR max spread between nations, like that it doesn't make any sense!
Germany will now have a tank at 6.7 that makes things like the Tiger II and Panther II seem useless both from an armor and firepower perspective... literally why would you spend more points to spawn a heavy tank like the Tiger II when you can spawn a better armored, more mobile and HEATFS-firing cold war... american... tank???
PLEASE put someone to supervise on the non-sense that the algorithm is spilling out! Putting such a thing at 6.7 will just mean that his oppostion will just get deleted and then dropped in BR, wich will then make relative axis vehicles drop in BR and so on and so forth. How can you not see this?


EDIT: Just in case someone doesn't know what i'm talking about, this just got announced 

 

Edited January 22 by SpaghettiJack

[NuclearRain7777 579]

+1

[QuintusMaximus99 22]

+2

[Unnamed_91 104]

Absolutly agree with everything op wrote.

 

Cold war era and ww2 tanks should not face each other. This is becoming ridiculous. I hate facing things like r3, ebr etc in my ww2 tanks, no matrer what nation i play. It just totaly breaks immersion to me.

 

Heavy tanks are officialy dead.

Edited January 23 by Unnamed_MUTED_

[Valcour 676]

I think the mixing of eras is now to well entrenched to be undone.  Though it does seem a bit ludicrous to have the same vehicle at a variety of BR's based on which nation is running.  Seems to be more work than needed.

 

As to revamping the BR setting algorithms, I don't know.  It is a good idea to do it that way on the face of it, but it is getting to the point where it creates some very odd results.

 

[TR1GG3R_3D 0]

Just bumped into this thread.
This game? Balance? Wuutt? Exclaimer said match making is "trying to balance the game", WUT?

Panhard EBR (1954) destroying every thing in BR 3.5 to 5. Punching though heavy tank's front uber sloped armor with a ridiculous amount of sharpnels.
Oh wait, is this still WW2? Cause I'm seeing 2 race cars with Cold War weapons / ammo flying around the map.
Match making pitting a bunch of level 5~25 newbies against an army of try hard level 80~100. Happen almost every 3 rounds that I play.
Repair price is ridiculous for certain variant of the same vehicle. How come the repair for Swedish Leopard cost almost double compared to German Leopard? It's the same tank.
Also, that guy Clangokkuner is right, so read that and slap it under this too for a more extended list if you want. 乁( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ)ㄏ

[Valcour 676]

1 hour ago, TR1GG3R_3D said:

Match making pitting a bunch of level 5~25 newbies against an army of try hard level 80~100. Happen almost every 3 rounds that I play.
 

Since the MM does not take player level into account you may be seeing that sort of mix more often than you realize.

 

BR compression is the culprit especially in the upper tiers.

 

[Whiskoof 1,474]

Their algorithm work fine, it's the application of it which is wrong. It can be used to hightlight problems and debate, it should not be used directly to tweak things with.

 

Stats are ignoring the most important factor in balance work: Human factor.

Map design influence, players skill, situational advantages, tactics, squads, game mechanics. So much details a simple algorithm can't take in consideration when gamers could point out precisely what is wrong.

 

That why Gaijin should hire a new Community Manager directly in charge of Battlerating, to read correctly their algorithm reports and take actions in consequences. It's not a work to do alone so we could imagine a group of volunteers, representative of the community (air/ground/naval, casual/hardcore/competitive gamers) helping him on his duty.

 

Economy patch threads should serve to debate on this team decisions and validate their choice or not. We should not be forced to extinguish fires and mistakes this algorithm is setting off, like we do since more than 2 years, because a bot is in charge of our fun instead of a competent staff.

Edited January 23 by Whiskoof

[slipnslyde 886]

Just speaking to Air RB:

 

The J21 series getting a bump up looks ok, though at 4.0 a 109F4 will be the better option.

 

The JU288C to 6.0. All I can say is *finally*.

 

F2G1 to 6.3. Wow that's debatable. I have no problem wrecking them in every jet I've played lately. Their mm seems terrible. But sure enough will those things destroy in 5.3 downtiers!

 

The Canberras and B-57s well I just don't care, but they have better acceleration and vertical energy retention and turn rate than Panthers and Banshees at 8.3. I would say the better choice would be to reduce Panthers and Banshees.

 

F84Fs down to 8.3. Good call!

 

Mig 19s, J6, J7, and Q5s down to 9.7, well all I can say is RIP 8.7 which generally speaking is already terrible in uptiers.

 

Honestly I'd give up all of these BR changes in trade for another BR of range and some jet decompression.

 

[[email protected] 2,063]

I'm torn on the MiG-19 change to 9.7. It would surely be very good, but would it be OP? What I despise most about vehicles in that BR range is the missiles that lower tiers have absolutely no chance to evade (like R60). Those are basically free kills at this tier, which feels cheap. The MiG-19 variants don't have this issue, but their flight performance is arguably too good for 9.7. I personally think it's less of a problem to see those at 9.7 than for instance the A7D. I'm prepared to wait and see how they perform at 9.7, since in my view there is a chance it could work. But there's an equally realistic chance they will be very OP. Let's wait and see on that one. The MiG-21PFM goes too far though and should imo stay at 10.0.

[Thodin 2,221]

M48 getting mixed up with WW2 tanks is just wrong. Kanonenjagdpanzer getting the same BR like the WW2 Jadgpanther is just wrong. EBR postwar at 5.0 is just wrong. R3 car at 4.0 is just wrong. And PT-79 at 5.3 is wrong as well. 

 

This algorythm of doom is destroying the immersion of War Thunder. Lets wait 2 more years and and its one total wild mix of vehicles from totally different eras insteat of a WW2 tank game. Taking over those algorythm stats just totally unreflected is not the right way. Some vehicle are just not easy to play and just don't have good stats, thats no reason to put a Cold War vehicle into WW2 (where it stats usually won't really improve anyways).

[yoloman1224 0]

Everyone forgets about naval. British Naval actually xxxx sucks from 5.0-5.7. You get no APCBC for the entirety of ALL cruisers in the BRITISH TREE ONLY and only have SAPCBC to fight DREADNOUGHTS and HEAVY CRUISERS with. The only cruisers that can be considered as 'good' are the heavy cruisers, and they still have only 180mm of pen with SAP at actual plausible engagement ranges (ie. more than 7500 meters) and as you get further out, the british suffer more and more. Yes, I know this isn't relevant to the BR changes, but British naval is the one department that actually DOES suffer. You get jacked high repair costs in ships that barely xxxx tickle any other cruiser, much less dreadnoughts.

[Laurelix 5,279]

The system is flawed heres how...

 

Im just going to show you one example eventhough we all could easily state dozens upon dozens of other examples of this system's failure.

But lets take a look why this way of balancing is completely flawed. 

For the new ones here... vehicle BR's are changed depending on how well players perform with them.

Most of the community agrees that BR's should be based on vehicle performance alone and player performance should be excluded from this.

 

So then why is using player performance such a flawed way of balancing vehicles? Well here's that one example i wanted to show you...

Ignore the in game statcard, its wrong.

Heres its performance:

 

Now before you go take a look at its performance... How do you think a new player who just started playing US as first country and just unlocked his first 2.7BR plane is going to play with that F4U-1a when he goes up against an A6M2 Zero? Exactly, hes going to just turn fight the zero and lose. 

 

So gaijins system will say to them that based on player performance the A6M2 is a better plane than F4U-1a. So what i wanted to say is...

'Vehicle performance based on how well it does when used incorrectly creates undertiered vehicles'
 Likewise in some cases

'Vehicle performance based on how well it does when used flawlessly creates overtiered vehicles'

 

Some vehicles are so overtiered that nobody wants to fly them, which means that terrible players stop playing them and only masochists who can fly it flawlessly tend to only fly them are the only ones flying them. This creates a vicious cycle where overtiered vehicles remain overtiered and unpopular and in extreme cases get overtiered evenmore. This can also work same way for undertiered vehicle that end up getting spammed by favour of the month players who just end up downtiering it even more.

If i vehicle that is incorrectly played has same chance of winning against a plane being used correctly... thats not balancing. That is spoon feeding terrible players instead of forcing them to learn to play the vehicles they play, correctly.

 

That is a fact and we have many of these facts in game, F4U-1a at 2.7BR being one of many obvious ones.

 

F4U-1a (1944) - 2.7BR

Engine: 2250 Horsepower

-

Max Speed: (WEP)

586km/h at Sea Level

659km/h at 5000m

683km/h at 7000m

-

Rate of climb: (WEP)

Time to 3000m: 2:58 (16.85m/s)

-

Max Dive:

845km/h

-

Armament:

6x 12.7mm M2 (2350 rounds total)

-

Turn Time: (WEP)

21 seconds

 

----------------------------------------

 

A6M2 (1940) sits at 3.3BR... so lets see just how much better it is than F4U-1a... OH WAIT NVM its totally not...

Engine: 950 Horsepower

-

Max Speed: (WEP)

441km/h at Sea Level

523km/h at 4000m

500km/h at 7000m

-

Rate of Climb: (WEP)

Time to 3000m: 3:02 (16.48m/s)

-

Max Dive:

630km/h

-

Armament:

2x 7.7mm Type 97 (1360 rounds total)

2x 20mm Type 99 Mk 1 (120 rounds total)

-

Turn Time: (WEP)

14 seconds

 

Datasheet here:

 

Conclusion....

F4U-1a has such good performance it would still do fine even against A6M5 Ko which is 2.0 full BR's higher than it...

 

F4U-1a at 2.7BR has over 160km/h speed advanatge over the 3.3BR A6M zero at any given altitude

F4U-1a has about same climb as A6M2 up to 4000m but after that alt zero losses engine power, the corsair doesnt.

F4U-1a has MUCH greater dive speed

F4U-1a firepower is quite ridiculious especially when it gets thrown against planes at 1.7BR and having 250-300km/h speed advantage over those...

Dont get me started on the roll rate...

 

 

---------------------------

 

I recon the reason why German M48 is being further undertiered to 6.7 is becuase new players unlock it and it has APCR stock shell and the heatfs is a tier 3 modification.

So what happens is, players play 15 games with the tank and suck hard with the stock round and then simply give up on the tank and ignore it. gaijin reads statistics of M48's (most of them being played in stock status with apcr) and see its suffering. so what does gaijin do? they reduce the BR to 6.7. but APCR is still gonna suck at 6.7 so it wil be 6.3 sooner or later.

instead of fixing apcr or giving it a fixed M318A1 APBC stock shell, gaijin just ruins the game more instead with their completely flawed BR adjustment system.

 

 

Gaijin's current balancing system literally reminds me of communism which btw proved to be a complete failure becuase it relied on unrealistic and idealistic fairytales.

Im sorry gaijin but we dont live in an ideal world where for every vehicle in this game there are equal amount of players playing that vehicle correctly and incorrectly becuase the matter of fact is that there are just far too many variables you ignored. For example a new player always wants to turn fight in a plane and by luck his plane being the A6M, that is the correct play style. Cant say the same when they fly the corsair. That is litterally one of too many variables. Some vehicles are more iconic than others and attract more clueless players. Heck even M48 having terrible stock round and other vehicles at same BR not having bad stock round also counts as a variable. Communism believes in equal pay for all but at the end of the day someone builds more car parts a day than other people, at the end of the day some people are better at physical things which work wise can be useless and some are much better at useful things for works such as mathematics, science etc. Its just the way it is and that is why player based BR's simply do not work!!! But guess what, you can balance a vehicle based on something that doesnt have hundreds of variables and that is simply vehicle performance becuase no matter who plays that vehicle, that vehicle has same performance for all players across the network in a match. Everyone playing Tiger I in a match has 102mm frontal hull armour and 82mm side armour. That is not going to change from player to player. So for the sake of us who have respect for balance... pls just balance vehicles based on their performance and dont get that player skill crap mixed in with it. If they play vehicles incorrectly and suffer for it, thats their problem. We should just pray for them that they will learn.

 

In a way gaijin, the terrible state of the battle ratings that some vehicles have in game is a vivid representation of how screwed up the world would become if communism dominated. At the end of the day you still cant achieve equality becuase US M48 is 7.3 and the german one is 6.7 eventhough both are same tanks. OMEGALOL! The tech tree battle ratings in war thunder could literally be used as evidence to prove it a failure of a system. 

Edited January 24 by Laurelix

[Thodin 2,221]

18 minutes ago, Laurelix said:

The system is flawed heres how...

 

Interesting phenomenon. Always asked myself why pretty much late war US planes have this redicoulus low BRs. P-38, P-51, P-47, F6F, F4U etc... If you watch docs, most of those planes are praised as pinnacle of WW2 fighter development and are regarded plain superior to axis aircraft (japanese ones in particular). Ingame alot of them going vs. 1940ish Axis planes and still seem to have bad stats.

Edited January 24 by Thodin

[Taeblamees 880]

We need to start discussing decompression again, so gaijin will not forget.

There are enough players, so much so the servers are often in poor condition to handle them all. 

 

Take this for benchmarks and balance vehicles in between. That wouldn't be decompressing it so much so that there wouldn't be anything in between either.

7.7 = 8.0

8.7 = 9.3

9.0 = 10.0

10.0 = 11.3

Leopard 2A6 = 12.3 (not that it matters much, but atleast would give 11.0s a bit easier time and limit their numbers when you're 11.3)

All the HEAT bearing vehicles from 6.3 to 7.3 should be moved up, 2 BR steps if necessary. Their performance wouldn't change much, but uptiering them would relieve some lower BR vehicles from their nonsense. I'm especially talking about Italian meme cars around those BRs.

Vehicles at their current state could be decompressed like, for example:

Spoiler

JPz 4-5, T32... = 7.0

Ru251, T54 (1947), IS-3, T32E1... = 7.3

M48A2C, T54 (1949), Maus, IS-4M... = 7.7

Leopard 1, T54 (1951), M60... = 8.0

T95E1... =8.3

M48A2GA2, Begleitpanzer 57... = 8.7

T-55A, T-62A, T-10M, M60A1 (AOS)... = 9.0

Leopard A1A1, T-55AM-1... = 9.3

T-62M-1... = 9.7

Leopard 1A5, Leopard A1A1 (L44)... = 10.0

KPz-70, M48 Super, XM-1, Radkampfwagen 90... = 10.3

T-72B, Leopard 2K... = 10.7

T-72AV (TURMS-T), M1 Abrams... = 11.0

IPM1, Leopard 2A4, T-80B... = 11.3

M1A1... = 11.7

Leopard 2A5, T-80U... = 12.0

Leopard 2A6... = 12.3

 

[slipnslyde 886]

On 24/01/2021 at 15:29, Laurelix said:

The system is flawed heres how...

 

Im just going to show you one example eventhough we all could easily state dozens upon dozens of other examples of this system's failure.

But lets take a look why this way of balancing is completely flawed. 

For the new ones here... vehicle BR's are changed depending on how well players perform with them.

 

Conclusion....

F4U-1a has such good performance it would still do fine even against A6M5 Ko which is 2.0 full BR's higher than it...

 

F4U-1a at 2.7BR has over 160km/h speed advanatge over the 3.3BR A6M zero at any given altitude

 

 

The reason planes need to be balanced for how they perform in the hands of players is for several valid reasons:

1. Performance is always debatable. You say speed is the most important thing. Others might argue that acceleration is far more important than some theoretical speed which is rarely reached. Some would say climb rate is the most important thing. Others would argue that vertical energy retention or guns are the most important things. So who is right? Which vehicle characteristics to put more weight behind when balancing is a judgement call. While the only thing you can ever know for *sure* is how well players do with a vehicle.

 

2. Some might even argue that simply being on the nation which consistently wins the most is the most important thing as there is nothing harder than having to track multiple enemies when you are outnumbered. So how much do you change the BRs of specific vehicles depending upon the team they are on? If you don't do this then some teams just get consistently slaughtered which is arguably an even worse state of affairs than having a few possibly imbalanced vehicles.

 

3. Some vehicles require far more skill to use than others, but when used by very skilled players are very powerful, then when used by average players are terrible. Take Russian jets for example. If you have excellent aim they are OP, if you don't then their terrible ammo count can make them unplayable. So how do you set the BRs?

 

Gaijin really has to look at raw vehicle ability, make judgment calls on what stats matter the most, and then balance that with data from player performance.

It's a complicated discussion and IMO both sides of your argument should be considered.

 

IMO climb rate, acceleration, maneuverability, and vertical energy retention are far easier to use in WT than other stats including raw speed. Especially if raw speed is combined with poor acceleration, poor climb rates, or poor vertical energy retention.

 

Regarding your example, that plane and many USA props now have a nose that swings all over the sky when you try even the slightest aim correcting roll. I used to love Corsairs and now I find them massively frustrating and I won't play them ever anymore because of the horrific rudder nerf. Many American planes are in this same boat. Theoretically excellent yet very difficult and extremely frustrating to play. So again it's not as simple as looking at specific stats.

 

I know this might not be popular to say, but I personally believe the balance should be set based upon average player usage, and team win rates.

Germany winning 85% of matches vs USA by 100% slaughter for about 6 years in a row, was absolutely disgusting, and chased hundreds of thousands of players from the game.

The better the balance of vehicles to how they actually perform in players hands, and balance of win rates across nations minimizes toxicity in the community and increases player retention and IMO is the best thing for the game as a whole.

 

Gaijin seems to recognize this and has the prop game in a far better state balance wise than it has been for years, population levels have stabilized and seem to be rising, and I for one appreciate that.

 

 

[slipnslyde 886]

On 24/01/2021 at 15:42, Thodin said:

 

Interesting phenomenon. Always asked myself why pretty much late war US planes have this redicoulus low BRs. P-38, P-51, P-47, F6F, F4U etc... If you watch docs, most of those planes are praised as pinnacle of WW2 fighter development and are regarded plain superior to axis aircraft (japanese ones in particular). Ingame alot of them going vs. 1940ish Axis planes and still seem to have bad stats.

 

A lot of that is because IRL the enemy air field was a few hours flight away, while in WT it's 2 minute flight away. Vehicles designed for high altitude combat are perpetually out of their comfort zone. If War Thunder was real life, then the Americans would be morons for designing high altitude long range aircraft when the enemy AF was *right* there.

 

I have to say that I don't find any of those planes particularly great in the current meta. P-38s are too slow compared to what they face and have too slow rip speed. The very first E is good but the rest are average at best IMO. I would take a 4.0 109F4 over a 4.3 P-38 J15 any day. The D28 is still good but not OP in the least IMO. At 4.7 I would take a 109G6.The P51s suffer from the same horrific rudder nerf as the Corsairs which again is so bad IMO that I won't fly them anymore. F6F is meh. I never even think of it.