Today I would like to discuss a matter which irritates me the most in WT. The madness that is 16v16 mixed matchmaker in AIR RB. Especially at rank 6-8. Do you enjoy the missile spam and snowballing teams where even if you are a TOP GUN ace, you can’t do anything because your team fell apart and you were left alone to face 12 enemies?
What do you think about mixed matchmaker? Do you like fighting your own nation every match?
I don’t know Gaijin, AIR RB feels like AIR AB 2.0 for the past half a year.
My solution would be:
A) From rank 6 to top tier only 6v6 matches. This would also make it easier to introduce FOX3 missiles.
B) Make historical matchmaker great again. Axis vs USSR vs Allies and higher ranks NATO vs USSR.
C) Introduce back full AIR RB EC, at least as a form of recurring weekend events.
AIR RB EC is the only RB mode in WT suitable for high player count. You can even go as far as 64v64 IMO if your server could handle it.
If 6v6 is so desired why is 6.0 air so absent of players?
I can’t speak for others; the reason I avoid 6.0 air is precisely because it’s 6v6, I’d avoid rank 6 & higher permanently if it was 6v6 as well. I’m not here to play CSGO in aircraft.
EC maps and top RB maps are identical in size with the exception of small Spain, and City.
As for “historical” matchmaking… no. I started playing more because those arbitrary restrictions were removed. The fact I can play with my friends using any of my 10 tech trees is why I love War Thunder, and it’s far easier to balance vehicles in the modern way.
I do not miss the days when Japan only faced USA in air and no one else, and I was forced to play the same tech tree as my friend.
People want to play 6.0, but Ju-288 destroyed the matchmaker by pitting 4 bombers (which is the limit per team) and 2 maybe fighters vs 6 fighters. That ain’t a fair example now is it?
I am not talking about EC maps, I am talking about full AIR RB EC. The one we had in 2018-2019.
We can test air RB EC without crippling normal air RB with COD-CSGO player counts.
And of course we can theoretically have air RB EC with no changes to normal air RB.
We need a reduction of team size or the implementation of Air RB EC. With the new added missiles furballs are more unbearable than ever, and they are all there ever is in a match of Air RB. Just 5 mins of furball and the match ends with one of the teams completely destroyed. I miss BVR and dogfights.
In my view its the other way around. Its crippling AIR RB with AIR AB player counts and AB mixed matchmaker. No offense, but why don’t you go play AB instead?
Realistic should be realistic, it should not cater to people who want Ace Combat madness. Thats what arcade battles are for. RB should have been kept at least in the form it was before the 16v16 change. In AB people respawn, that way the snowball effect does not occur. In RB, where people can’t respawn, you literally have to fight 1v12 most of the time after the first 5 minutes. I just don’t see how thats fun in any shape or form.
AMRAAMs will completely destroy top tier if its kept at 16v16. On top of that, mixed matchmaker will ensure that you have no idea which missile has been fired at you, so you will have no idea how to defend it. This is why we need a faction MM, not mixed MM.
Cause AB doesn’t have ground clutter, reheat use, etc.
Realistic battles are realistic, they aren’t 6v6 Ace Combat madness.
We don’t need faction matchmaking, that’s worse than mixed.
Tech tree matchmaking is the middle ground, which you should be proposing instead of extremism.
Oh, I almost forgot, mixed matchmaking allows for ultimate data collection for balancing vehicles.
Which is likely the primary reason why it’s the default for 12.3.
16 vs 16 is aweful. 6 vs 6 is probably too little for PVP since squads would probably dominate the mode. I think a reduction to 10 vs 10 is more feasible for the current top tier meta but when fox 3’s are prevalent, this may need to go down to 8 vs 8.
Historical matchmaker is really difficult. I dont know if this can be balanced. I would be in favor of keeping countries on the same teams though. All this would require is for Gaijin to add vehicle counterparts at the same time - like they did with the f16 and mig 29 but they would need to do something similar each update so that the matchmaker stays fairly balanced.
A full Historical matchmaker should probably be reserved for events and/or a full PVE mode, if we ever get one.
I also absolutely agree that a separate Air RB EC mode with respawning needs to be added! It needed to be added years ago. They definitely would need to work on specific mechanics a bit since Sim EC has some problems.
Overall Air RB is pretty aweful right now at top tier.
You don’t avoid 6.0 because you don’t like it, you avoid it because of Ju 288’s that intentionally destroyed the br in Gaijin’s greed for money. Thats also my reason for avoiding it and probably a reason for a lot of other players to avoid it. 6.0 is just a cash grab for gaijin
Examples: Ju 288, Do 335 B-2, premium Spitfires LF Mk IX, A2D-1, Hornet Mk.I etc…
There were also Japan vs USSR matches - you might have forgotten the epic matches whilst 4 Be-6s wiped out entire A6M lobbies thanks to insane range of their 23mm turrets.
Ok, they nerfed ai gunners significantly since those days, but nvm it was more than often a real pain; same as to play US on pacific maps- being 1 vs 6 after a few minutes whilst having 4 J2Ms at your six the whole match…for 1 hour…
Your “playing with a friend” argument as “pro mixed matches” is not applicable for all players, but it is a valid point.
There is no absence of players - it is more an absence of experienced 5.0 German/Italian prop players. I mean you play 85% of your time in full uptiers outclassed by 6.0 fighters and outnumbered with 2 vs 6 US/GB fighters.
So you need to be really good there as GER/IT pilot just to match the technical / performance advantages of your opponents - mainly undertiered postwar US stuff.
So it kills your stats just by those factors, not everybody’s cup of tea… You can still have fun there as the absence of experienced GER/IT players created a kind of “petting area” for US/GB pilots - their experienced players (besides some tryhards) avoid those matches too as fighting in numerical and with performance advantage is simply too easy and not a challenge.
I mean the uptier of Re2005s to 6.0 is simply based on clueless US/GB players facing veterans…
These data have actually zero value as the result of fights between the same planes boils down to pilot skill and luck. Both factors are eliminated by this stupid “simple average”" approach by gaijin.
There were a lot of proposals dealing with the introduction of brackets for MM - like WW2, early, middle and late cold war and “today” as factors which determines the set-up of teams independent from TTs (allowing FRG 104s to fight GDR MiG 21s) - unfortunately none of them were considered.
Your proposal too introduce 2 top dogs for “East” and “West” at the same time looks like the only option to solve some of your issues.
Never once posted a pro-mixed battle argument. I made an anti-historical battles argument.
I followed up with suggesting that unfettered tech tree matchmaking would be best. Where’s it’s just an RNG roll on how the 10 tech trees are divided up for your match with taking squads into account of course.
Changing to 10v10 is the quickest fix at the current time, but that shouldn’t stop Gaijin from wanting to make positive changes to the amount of game modes available to us. If they change Air RB to be 10v10 and then add and additional game mode like RB EC on top of the available just to test it out and on top of that (Crazy idea) take in player feedback, follow OSRS community polling system somewhat and let us decide if we want to keep it?
There is 0 harm in an additional game mode like this and it would even allow us to go back to non-mixed matchmaking, which I don’t personally care about as that itself helps queue times. As opposed to adding an extra game mode increasing said queue times albeit slightly.
Come on Gaijin, do a poll and post it in game, on matchmaking player count and RB EC, so WE can decide.
We already had full AIR RB EC. It was amazing. I think it was too good actually, so that people stopped playing regular AIR RB and Gaijin put an end to it. Forever. But in those times WT had only 20k daily players. I think Gaijin could afford to introduce it back. At least for weekends. It would finally make all planes useful, especially attackers outside of ground RB.
As for the 16v16 change, nobody asked us. Some very important Gaijin employee, who doesn’t play the game obviously, decided one day to change AIR RB to 16v16 for no reason and thats that. Alot of us protested, but forum moderators were eager to delete all the negative feedback ¯_(ツ)_/¯
This gradual arcadification of AIR RB highly irritates me.
increase in ticket bleed
reduction of match time from 45 minutes to 25 minutes
removing historical MM
16v16 matchmaker
We even have air spawn on one map already…
AIR RB is really just AB 2.0
Although i have the same opinion about the state of Air RB i would like to add some observations regarding the MM:
The semi historical MM is still active. At least for props BR 3.7 to 5.0.
Select SA and NA server and depending on daytime you will have up to 40% JP vs US/GB matches (6 vs 6 up to 8-10 vs 8-10) on the maps Saipan, Iwojima, Gualdalcanal and New Guinea if you stay around BR 3.7. Usually i play there with 4 B7A2s + 2 A6Ms vs 6 US/GB planes - ofc with a hell of Wyverns and/or XP-50s…,
Ofc the first 2 maps are still unbalanced like hell (auto loss for JP if allies are running) but i played more on Pacific maps in the last 3 months than in 7 years before; yesterday 4 times in a row…and if you play 5.0 with Germany/Italy it is still axis vs allies if u get ur 85% full uptier chance with 4 Ju 288s vs 6 undertiered US/GB fighters…
Furthermore i played a lot of non-pacific matches 6 vs 6 with GER/IT vs US/GB on those servers, so the semi-historical MM is somehow active…
If you play from Europe and you select SA servers - u got quite often massive lags (so 200 20mm from 400 meters without a hit on a target flying straight), but i really enjoy these small matches, so i accept these downsides.
The absence of semi historical MM in most matches (at least for WW2 era props) is imho just the result of adding these additional nations Israel and Sweden - they played no role in WW2, where should they be placed?
In addition - at least from my pov - semi-historical MM in props was often boring like hell - either u outclimbed everything in a 109 or u got outclimbed by a 109…
For post war jets these mixed battles are from my pov a joke. Despite i play props only, i would see no irl connection to this mess…
That’s actually quite simple IMO. Add them to the team with which they allign the most.
WW2 = USA+UK+CHI+FRA+ISR vs GER+ITA+JAP+SWE vs USSR.
Post War = USA+UK+WGER+FRA+ITA+SWE+ISR+JAP+TAIWAN vs USSR+EGER+CHI.
Germany can split to Eastern and Western Germany. We already had that in the game, because I specifically remember always playing Mig-15BIS with Soviets and CL13 with Americans.
Same could be done with China.
If nothing else, then AT LEAST have a technical matchmaker. Meaning that same type of vehicle, for example F-16 from all nations will be on the same team vs other type of vehicle for example Russian and German Mig-29. I just can’t stand this horrible mischmasch. WT gripped me because it was immersive. Having this global civil war isn’t immersive in the slightest.
But I can only dream, because this would be too much effort for Gaijin.