I would like to suggest a reform to the matchmaking system based on Battle Rating (BR) to something that considers the historical evolution of vehicles in the game. While the BR system was effective in the early years of the game, it now presents significant challenges due to the inclusion of modern vehicles. This results in unbalanced and frustrating matches, such as tanks from 1948 facing vehicles from 2010.
Problems with the Current System
Historical Imbalance: Vehicles with advanced technologies face others with outdated systems, such as ineffective armor or weapons against more modern tanks.
Loss of Realism and Fun: Many players seek historical authenticity, and facing vehicles from different eras diminishes immersion and gameplay satisfaction.
Strategic Inequality: Modern vehicles, equipped with thermal sights and advanced munitions, have overwhelming advantages against those from earlier periods.
The Solution: Era-Based Matchmaking
I propose separating vehicles into historical eras, with BR adjusted within these categories. This would enable more balanced and engaging combat while preserving the game’s authenticity.
Suggested Era Divisions
World War I and Interwar Period: Light vehicles and prototypes up to the mid-1930s.
World War II: Tanks and aircraft developed between 1939 and 1945.
Early Cold War: Post-WWII vehicles from 1946 to the 1960s, featuring improved armor and weaponry.
Late Cold War: Vehicles from the 1970s to 1990s, including significant technological advancements.
Modern Era: Vehicles from 2000 onward, focusing on reactive armor, electronic systems, and advanced weaponry.
Benefits of the Proposal
More Balanced Matches: Players would face vehicles with similar capabilities, promoting fair and strategic gameplay.
Enhanced Historical Immersion: The separation by eras would reinforce realism, appealing to players who value historical accuracy.
Diverse Gameplay: Each era would have unique characteristics, encouraging players to explore different combat styles.
Community Engagement: This change could attract new players and reignite interest among veterans.
Gradual Implementation
The system could be introduced gradually, starting with tests in specific modes, such as events or custom battles. This would allow adjustments based on community feedback before full implementation.
I invite everyone to discuss this proposal and share their thoughts. Together, we can contribute to a fairer, more engaging, and enjoyable game for all.
What about post WWII tanks with WWII era tech? For planes this would include some high BR props that didn’t see combat during WWII, and for tanks that includes much of Sweden, and France. Should they be forced to face vehicles that vastly outclass them?
All tanks in each era would have similar characteristics, leading to less unique matches and gameplay.
I think balance should be a priority over any sort of historical MM, and any sort of date based MM will cause imbalance in one way or another.
I believe it would be possible to make some adjustments and changes to address these issues. An interesting outcome of this would be the unique gameplay styles that would emerge with the tanks. For example, light and medium tanks would need to focus on flanking maneuvers, and each nation would have its own distinct playstyle.
Era based matchmaking would have some very funny, very unwanted consequences.
It turns out a good number of “WW2” props never actually seen combat in WW2. They did however get ubiquitous usage in the korean war as CAS platforms.
Especially naval aircraft. The navy didn’t really like jets early on due to weak acceleration and poor low speed flying characteristics - both of which are pretty important for carrier operations.
Corsair on Mig 15 action, let’s go!
I think capability-based balancing makes more sense - propeller aircraft, early jets that cane a whole runway to take off due to such pitiful acceleration, proper korean war fighters that actually got the engine power to engage in dogfighting without falling out of the sky, supersonics, and tiers of missile capability.
This would make battles between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War particularly interesting. We would see a wide variety of battle styles and tactics to be employed.
I would very much like to see an implementation kind of similar to your proposal.
Fighting a early post ww2 tank in a german heavy was olay back in the days, but currently i get matched against VIDAR’s from 2019. This is a 74 year difference.
This is mainly an US/USSR issue (USSR has just few of them) and the average pilot skill drags their Air RB BRs way below actual WW 2 planes.
Subsequently they are bullying actual WW 2 props in Air RB.
Same as the RN - that’s why we see the Seafire FR 47 at 5.7 in Air RB despite it saw 1st service in 1948…
Btw - currently the post war carrier-based USN/RN props are artificially protected. Technically seen they would have face land-based opponents in case of offensive operations - so if they would have faced early jets they would have paid the price to go with a knife to a gunfight.
Imho it is time that especially US props have to pay for their sins in the last 4-5 years. I mean even the F4U-4b is a post-WW 2 aircraft. And technically seen there is nothing wrong with fighting jets in a prop.
If you fly a 5.3 JP aircraft you have >90% full uptiers. So if the A6M5 pilots at 5.3 face mostly P-51 H-5s (which has a 240 kmph higher top speed) or the nerfed Re 2005 got back to 6.0 facing 300 kmph faster (on the deck) jets there is nothing wrong with using a F4U-7 vs a MiG 15.
Time to get some skill for the point and click players.
In case technical capabilities would be actually considered - with the current approach by gaijin nations with high numbers of noobs drag the BRs of highly capable aircraft way too low, it doesn’t matter of being in service, saw combat or not, etc…
That’s why you see a hell of clowns playing preferred the most undertiered US/USSR aircraft whilst they suck in any half-most adequately BRd plane.
One thing I’d be curious about would be how ARB would change if it used ASB’s prop tier balancing.
This is something I consider a very funny (in a painful manner) image:
Top is RB, bottom is SB
Some other examples
Over all trend seems to be U.S/soviet planes getting pretty large 1.0 BR bumps compared to ARB while the rest either stay in place or even get downtiered (Re 2005 goes from 6.0 to 5.3 for instance).
These do seem to line up somewhat better with historical potentials (50 cal F4U-4 showing up in 1945 fighting Ta-152H that also showed up in 1945 rather than 1945 Ta152H fighting P51H.) The F4U-4B still remains a… bit of a thing, alongside xp-50/xp-55/p-39. Other than these things, I tend to find prop tier brackets “I can join in a down or uptier with my japanese props, bf109F4, F4U-4 and P-51 and have fun as long as the weather isn’t a pain and it isn’t a pve farm lobby” which to me feels like a decent balance. Obviously there’s factors that don’t matter for RB (ergonomics, handling) so 1:1 copy pasting ASB to ARB is probably not perfect.
Spoiler
Biggest argument I could see against the sim BRs from americans is ARB meta (low TTK snapshot potential is considered best because markers and amount of aircraft mean getting on someone’s tail for tracking shots will likely kill you, and slowly whittling someone down with repeat shots doesn’t work as well with the instructor to compensate the damage immediately and the pace of matches).
At least, it’s one of the most common arguments I see for america suffering (from reading forums and reddit) - the fifty cals and “every other nation gets cannons”. I’ve had a lengthy argument in the CAS thread about it. Biggest thing about them is I feel they’re very sensitive to convergence (hit enemy at ideal range and they catch on fire from engine/tank damage. hit them from too close/far and you’re just poking holes in the wing).
Since my post was linked and because I play both game modes…there are a lot of things about SB/RB lineups that you are overlooking.
First off…SB has as many terrible and unbalanced battle ratings placements as RB. In a lot of cases they are worse across the board.
J2M2 is 3.7BR in SB. XP-55 is 3.0 BR. Spitfire LF IX is 5.0 BR. P-47 D-30 is 3.7 BR. The list could go on and on.
Second…SB just plays much differently. There are multiple spawns and there are no air spawns. Planes like XP-50 are overpowered in RB due to their air spawn and basically a side grade to a 109 in SB because there is no air spawn. Heck…the guy you are replying to is pretty infamous for abusing nothing but air spawning planes and then forcing the match to run to the time limit via space climbing or airfield camping.
(This point is even funnier when you realize he’s playing on a HOTAS setup but will never just play sim)
Third…flight models between the two modes should be treated differently. The F4U-4B in RB is a lot more gimped due to instructor limitations than in SB. On the opposite end, the LF IX is practically unflyable for most novice SB players.
Fourth…Sim BRs are more fixed and slower to change. It took almost an entire year for the Ariete to move from 8.3BR to 9.0BR…and it’s still the best 9.0 plane in the game by thousands of miles. Some of the stuff I named earlier for props is also untouchable in its own BR brackets.
Fifth…year based matchmaking would be terrible. There is a spreadsheet out there of everything on service date and basically you would have Me-163 vs P-51 D-5. I don’t think it’s hard to figure out what side wins that one.
I was highly amused to see a reply of a guy even more infamous guy - well known amongst forum mods, community managers and long term players. He has and had the tendency to get rather unwanted attention due to annoying & provoking appearances in conversations and ofc whilst playing the game.
But to be fair: Things got way better in the recent years and and besides suffering to something similar to a god-complex his analysis regarding certain aspects within the game (like wt history, game modes like the often requested Air RB EC) are usually high quality content and always worth to read.
Regarding your reply:
I agree to most of it (ok the A6M5 ko is still 5.3 in Air RB) - especially the difficulties regarding convergence settings of wing mounted armaments, but as written above the game modes are tailored for masses (RB) or niche products (SB) which can’t be compared.
From a realistic pov this debate is (like many similar threads in the last years) purely academic as Air RB has nothing to do with realism.
