The ‘pay to win’ model of business is not usually sustainable in the long term. Over time, the gaming experience tends to consume itself, resulting in a stagnant or decreasing player base. This mainly occurs because an indirect barrier to entry is created by disadvantages those who are not willing to spend money . However, in the case of War Thunder, they may have balanced it enough to minimize its impact. In that scenario, it couldn’t be argued that they are not attempting to provide a fair gaming experience for all…
Yeah…i know that it wouldnt work probably…but then there should be more tutorials that would teach you more things that are in game. Like my mention mini map and how to work with it, how to mark with it. A SPAA tutorial for both low tier, radar, SAM SPAAs how they work, how to aim them…to teach people more.
But then there is the problem of the high tier premiums where a new players just buy them, know nothing about the game how it works, where to aim. Have only 1 vehicle in line up. That just massivly hurt high/top tiers. Maybe if the premiums were level lock then maybe it would help…but then there is still the problem of 1 dead leavers or just people that barely bring even 2 vehicles in line up. But that is a another problem.
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Newbie kills experienced player in his meta-vehicle - let´s say KV1B, with a thousand kills under his belt - and gets a massive reward (RP and Leones). Now skilled meta-hero kills newbie who tries to figure out his latest Panzer III, skilled player has now a thousand and one kills on his shiny KV1B but next to none reward. How about?
I played MW2019 and stopped precisely because of SBMM. The matches were becoming increasingly sweaty to the point where it was just ridiculous.
From this time on, I avoid any game with SBMM in place. When a new COD comes out and it has SBMM, its a pass for me.
Having a mix of good and bad players on both teams is important. This is why original Modern Warfare, Insurgency and CS Source gripped me for so long in the past. Dedicated servers for the win. If a bad player thinks he is getting destroyed on the server, he was always free to choose a different one. Nobody forced anyone via matchmaker into a certain playstyle.
I think a matchmaker is a major flaw in War Thunder. I was not joking in my previous reply. It really is quite noticeable some mild form of SBMM is in place in the past few years, especially if you play the game as long as I do (2015).
I think WT should have a server list just like its in custom battles or at least the way sim battles are done. I want full EC. No idea why is Gaijin so hellbent on having a matchmaker.
Mhm - also here i have a different pov.
From a holistic pov f2p players are simply there to play target for p2w players. And it is not a question of “willing to spend money” - gaijin is simply not offering the “right” products for them. So “non-paying” players are never a problem for f2p games, either they can be turned into paying players or they are not worth to deal with them.
The backlash in May this year was simply based on the fact that the p2w scheme has changed to a p2play scheme over the years. So even with premium time and premium vehicles a hell of players simply get stuck in the grind…
Attempting is imho not the right wording - pretending fits much better.
The key elements for fair gameplay are either unknown (like ALL features of the MM) or highly questionable (BR setting policy), so i am not sure how you get to your conclusion.
I mean from a pure quality pov - i never understood why they are able to gain 120+ million € in revenues with such a flawed product. Some of the bugs in game play, game mechanics, vehicle models, damage models etc are there for years; despite being addressed multiple times.
QC of patches got better the last few times, but it looks like that they simply focus only on stuff able to gain income for gaijin - any significant improvements for players (before May 2023) were either not intended or happend by accident.
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The damn game doesn’t even give you clear instructions on how to win a game; what means the all-important ticket bleed.
In the objectives it says “destroy enemy bases”, so you destroy them and absolutely nothing happens…
The issue is that you are considering features such as pay progression as a pay to win feature, when it cannot be considered one. For a player to progress artificially slower is not usually perceived as an unfair disadvantage, to the same degree as premium vehicles are, which can have a real impact on the outcome of competition between players, since they start from an inequality of power.
I mean, it is time consuming to advance significantly within the game and it definitely affects the overall satisfaction; but it is not a barrier to entry as such. It simply means that players who don’t pay will invest more time in the game to achieve the same progress. But, can I get a premium aircraft just by playing? Certainly not.
This discussion drifted far away from the topic - You claimed that there is a difficulty curve implemented in wt - and i claimed there is no such thing as the absence of it is essential for the necessary mix of success and frustration.
If you search the old forum for MM features you will find a hell of posts indicating that the MM considers experience, current and overall performance to a certain degree.
Regarding your last post: The whole event concept is based on giving the illusion that you can get premium planes for free - they are free of charging money, but you have to invest time.
In addition war bonds offer regularly highly profitable premium aircraft for free.
So to answer your last question - yes you can.
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A current example of a “fair” and “balanced” game play provided by gaijin:
6 vs 6 on Pacific map - 4 JP bombers plus 2 fighters vs 6 US/GB fighters
If you select SA and NA servers you find a lot (i guess 30-40%) of those matches - it is similar to the Ju 288 “black hole”.
As soon as the allies have 1 smarter than average (often a Wyvern) pilot they win - all he has to do is running, as on this map (Saipan) it is impossible for the JP team to kill 18 cargo ships which will launch 2 to 4 landing craft each, which carries 2 - 4 tanks, which will capture either A or B point - assisted by 6-8 ai planes (F6Ffs) which kill ground tickets like hell.
If you check the lobby you will see that the allies had 3 4.7 fighters plus 3 3.7 fighters vs 1 4.3 and 1 4.0 fighter plus 4 3.7 B7A2s. I mean the F4U-4 has the same flight performance like the 5.7 F4U-4b - just another example of BS BR setting by gaijin. Correct flown the plane is untouchable due to speed and climb vs the JP opponents.
I had to focus on the only plane i can not outturn (Spitfire) and cleaned up later both remaining 4.7 F4Us as they went low (and slow) without any need, so winning there was luck combined with some experience.
So fighting with 4 bombers and 2 fighters vs 6 allied fighters with severe performance advantages for the allies is a classic example how the MM is working…
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Lack of competition.
WT is detailed enough to feel much less arcadey than it actually is, while being just arcade enough that players can get into it.
Also, most of its crippling quality issues are built around an actual, solid core of excellence. The control system - for aircraft especially, but tanks too - achieves the dream of many devs in similar niches. It combines complexity of the actions it is possible to undertake, with easy and intuitive controls. This isn’t a game where aircraft can just do whatever, flying like physics are no limitation, but it also isn’t a game where you need a spreadsheet of settings to control that complexity. You can input everything with a mouse (or joystick) and a few keyboard keys. Same thing for tanks. When you’ve played thousands of hours on a machine, and you know it inside out to the point that you can know what its gun basculation is going to do in a snap-shot engagement, before it happens, and compensate for it in advance - in ways that are specific and unique to that tank - you see what this means. Perfect blend of complexity and simplicity. It’s beautiful; almost… poetic.
The damage model also makes it very hard to take more arcadey games seriously. Yes, it’s broken, half-baked, incomplete in its implementation, and riddled with bugs, but it has set a new expectation. It becomes much less satisfying to go to another game (whether RTS, MMO, whatever) and see an IS-2 be shot in the lower front plate and suffer X amount of HP damage, when your brain intuitively expects it to die :P
And as you grow older and have less time to “reinvent the wheel” there is also less appeal of trying to master a simulator that requires the equivalent of a uni degree to play well.
WT is “just good enough” to be tempting. It’s microwave pizza. It’s convenient. It has a very well-made core, and then the further you go out, the more the game’s problems accumulate. Both the intentional type, and the ones that are emergent from how the game has evolved over so many years with little to no QC.
Not only that, the actual elegance of it is that F2P players are populating lobbies, so even if they don’t pay, they are furthering Gaijin’s bottom line. It makes sense.
Yes. Or that you’re led to believe it will overcome those obstacles.
In practice, the issue is trivial for me. Does EOMM technology exist? Yes, it’s patented. Do other MMOs use it? Yes. That alone makes it inherently feasible that Gaijin also uses a form of EOMM. Can we prove that this is the case? No. That leaves us on uncertain terrain, as all of our observations could be pertinent, or they could just be our pattern-seeking brains looking for confirmation bias, and we have no way to know which.
I have my thoughts on this, as you know. But of course it’s ultimately speculative, so until such time as the details of the MM are revealed, I “suspend judgement” while having very legitimate suspicions and hypotheses about the presence of an EOMM and (more fuzzily) what it does in WT.
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Pearl Clutching? I started as arcade, still sometimes i play it fairly i play like 90% realistic battles. Like them overall more. Was just pointing out there is huge player skill gap. As long as ppl dont cheat im fine losing to better player =)
It is what others do when criticising players who play what they want, my final comment was meant to show I was not refering to your position on it.
But it still is the fact when I went through it it is just part of the learning process, just as it is now. The difference now is the top is even further away and people are actually spread out a lot more (highest tiers now get new players filling in games).
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"The matchmaker selects the game session for the player in which the spread of the opponent’s vehicle BR will not exceed +/- 1.0 BR from the player’s vehicle. This means that the player will not meet a vehicle which exceeds the BR of his key vehicle (the one on which the matchmaker bases its search for a game session) in battle by more than 1 point of the BR.
Additional rules
- By searching for the team within the maximum spread (+/- 1.0 BR) the number of players in the vehicles with the highest BR in each team will not exceed 4 players.
- In aircraft RB there is a limit of 4 bombers from the total number of the team.
These are all the rules that the matchmaker uses in random battles. There are no exceptions such as matching by player performance statistics at all." (emphasis added)
Dude - citing wiki is either sarcasm or a blatant denial of reality.
I am not here to educate you, but in case you want to get enlightened:
Read this post and the whole tread:
I’ve read all the threads you referred to, been here a long time. I’ve never seen anything that rose above data noise. The human brain is wired to find patterns where there are none: that’s really all you need to explain everything people have “found” in this regard. And all of Gaijin’s statements on this have been entirely internally consistent with what is on their wiki today for years now, so you’re saying they are overtly lying to their players about this and have been for years; my benefit of the doubt extends farther than that. As you say dismissively in the other thread, to believe otherwise on the available data really is still in “tin foil hat” territory.
If Mr. Cham thought he had an easily provable case based on relative position in replays, he could easily prove it. I’m pretty sure I understand his hypothesis well enough to construct an experiment around it myself, others could too.
EDIT: For those who didn’t read it, the argument is that a sample side of 16 players randomly chosen will not have a cumulative “average relative position” closely comparable to the average relative position of all players (which would be 0.50) as often as they do, so the fix must be in. Simple beans, just start picking random teams/sides, add up their ARPs on one side from their service records, calculate the deviation from 0.50. Stats 101.
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You don’t have to believe me anything. Live in this blissful ignorance
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Oh no, we surely don’t need rank based matchmaking. If anything make a temp ranked mode for some cosmetic rewards or something, but don’t implement ranked matchmaking into the normal game modes. Let people try to have some fun, and don’t put all this tryhard shit into the game.
You are not forced to get nukes. You do not need to use “meta” vehicles to get nukes. I’ve obtained them in a Centurion Mk.10 in a full uptier. I’ve obtained them in M60 tanks in full uptiers. I’ve obtained them in a Gepard at 11.0. Just improve. Stop whining and begging for something other communities actively hate.
They worked for that performance by getting better. Why should they be punished because you refuse to improve?
No one goes into matches fighting for a nuke. It just happens if you do well. And you can’t use a word in its own definition.
You do not need a META vehicle for nukes, nor do I use META vehicles. I use whatever sounds fun. You have access to my profile. It is public. Do not accuse me of things without reason.
Stay at the lower Battleratings. I think 3.7 would be a good place for you.
That’s a flat out lie. You have no proof of that, and data proves the opposite. This game is going on TWELVE years old. This game is almost as old as Minecraft with massive player base. Stop making things up.
Prove it. What vehicle do I “exploit”. I literally play whatever sounds fun. A simple look at my profile shows that I use vehicles that META. I refuse to buy the 2S38 and 2M for that exact reason.
Get better. Learn. Do not settle for mediocrity. I got where I am by playing the game and paying attention. I should see benefits for learning and improving, not punishments.
Then quit. We do not want you here if you’re going to call us all delusional for enjoying a war game that you don’t.
SBMM only makes it harder. And once again, you’re insulting the entire community for literally ZERO reason. Stop being rude. All SBMM will do it punish you for having a good game. Just ask someone who plays modern Call of Duty games. They’ll rant about how bad it is.
Yep. I ruined it for everyone. You’re welcome.
Anyway, here’s my obligational copy/paste till you all get it through your skulls.
Where is the incentive to improve and invest time getting better if you won’t reap the rewards and get ahead of the competition?
Speaking from someone who clocked around 3k hours into ranked Siege between 2017 and 2020, for the game like warthunder, ranked matches would create some of the most frustrating experience known to man.
Im not even sure it could be done for game like WT.
Siege ranked was extremely frustrating during earlier days (until they implemented several features from championships), especially during first ten placement matches, where if youve done well enough during your first placement match, you would be put against nothing but turbosweats for the remainder of placements, skewing your results. Of course i have nothing but annecdotal experience, but it speaks for itself that my clan fumbled first two placements matches on purpose to avoid the turbosweats.
Situation got a lot better with introduction of several mechaics that were previously present only on championships, such as:
Map bans
IMO doable in WT
Ability to exclude certain game modes from matchmaking
IMO doable in WT
Ban phase of operators
And this is where the game would fall apart.
You
either dont implement any similiar feature
and then every match boils down to playing the absolute meta tactic aviable without any variation, and certain “picks” or nations would become actualy detrimental to winning. I can totally see that ranked top tier matches would become for example 8v8, with swedish lineups on both sides, and moment someone brings for example italians to the game he would be called every slur imaginable no matter his skill.
Or implement similiar feature
And now you need to figure out how it works.
You ban certain vehicles?
That would either gut the entire lineup or wouldnt be noticable at all (for example with swedes, banning one Strv122 would do nothing).
You ban entire countries?
Then the ranked would be accessible only to people who have multiple countries researched and thus would suffer from extremely low player count. on top of that not everyone wants to play ranked, further limiting the player count.
Not to mention how would ranking even work.
You will have one rank, no matter the BR?
I can safely say that person that plays 90% of his games with WW2 vehicles and reaches, for example, platinum rank with them, would fare poorly playing ranked with top tier vehicles.
You will have rank for different BR brackets?
IMO that would be the best
Oh I will, always being skeptical about anecdata has been a great way to have success in all walks of life for me, and if nothing else it saves in tin foil…
So is an actual controlled experiment along the lines you outline truly beyond you, or is just telling people to look for their own confirmation bias all you’re ever going to do here?
We do actually have the K2 data leak out in the open now… 72 hours of perfect complete leaked ground RB data, available for the asking. Would be so easy for anyone to take that and work the numbers on the average length of streaks, etc., if they wanted to really advance their claims that Gaijin is lying to us about match making. I’d go for it.
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