TLDR → Map scale leads to less diversity of gameplay and hampers the performance of certain trees, and annoyed me enough to complain for several paragraphs that may or may not make sense.
Just got 4 maps that are utterly ruined, and descend into spawn to spawn shooting in seconds. The worst examples of this being short Normandy and short Hurtgen. I can’t think this is particularly enjoyable in low tier, but I have not seen these in low tier and instead only run into it at 10.7-11.7. This leads to problems where Italy, Japan(?), France, and Britain are basically removed straight from the start of a match. This is not the way the game should move forwards, as it drastically limits playstyles that people can engage with.
Personally, I don’t like CQC. It is boring to my mind. However, I am aware some of the playerbase enjoys it for some reason. The devs seem to cater only to these people, which seem to be generally Russia/America players, who benefit more from the point blank brawling. But I am of the mind that this isn’t necessary, that a properly made map can cater to most preferences at once, with my ideal example being Sands of Tunisia.
*Tunisia does have issues, but to my mind it is their best map at present.
With maps like this, you’ve long range sections for people who find it more enjoyable (left), medium-short range (center), and CQC (right). I am not entirely sure any other map does a similar thing regarding this, and I personally find most the rest quite a drag to play on. Few cater to long range tanks (Partially because a vocal portion of the playerbase can’t aim and complain, but also because long range engagements need further refinement which certainly doesn’t help the prior issue), with most catering to point blank engagements or if you’re lucky you’ll get a medium-short range map. These shorter maps also are progressively cutting out flanking paths with each change to them which hampers some nations, mainly minor nations.
I think the best example of this problem is the Challenger 2. The shoddy job modeling could at least be worked with on long range maps, but the continued shortening of them is making the challenger pretty rough to play. I assume this is a similar problem for Italy, with it definitely being a little bit of a headache for France due to the flanking paths being taken out and Gaijin assuming the Leclerc is made of pixie dust and Camembert. This poor modeling could at least be accounted for easier due to being able to flank on the shorter maps, and relatively accurately engage things at long range with more chance of the armour actually working.
I assume a similar issue for Japan given the armour profile but I don’t play Japan and have not discussed it with anyone who does so take this with a grain of salt.
I also have reached the conclusion in discussions with folk that this also impacts the stock grind. This has been alleviated to an extent with the stock darts and such, but forcing tanks to brawl when they don’t necessarily have the performance in armour to carry them through until they have a dart that makes brawling somewhat more workable is likely making it far slower going. Opening up maps to more playstyles can help people get through the stock grind in a way they prefer (Not necessarily better or worse), without feeling pressured to GE things. This may just be personal opinion of me and those I discussed it with though.
Spent way too long writing this. But those maps were annoying. If it looks like I left an idea half finished, please let me know. Seems my keyboard ate half of my sentences.