Your point makes sense, see my comment above, I agree so. On the other hand, there are entire trees who have horrible armored tanks and has to resort to flanking. Yes I am back on the topic of Italy but let’s be fair there are not a tank that someone can’t flank on. As I previously mentioned, there are no tanks that cannot CQC or flank or camp or snipe or…stroll around and troll with, they are bad at it but nothing says they can’t. I can flank with a challenger 2 or brawl with a centauro, I can’t see why you cant, given you do have better stats than me.
Then we arrive at the problem, are people forced to flank, or they flank because it yields them more? For 5.7 China, players chose to flank because it yields them more. But if we talk about, say, 8.7 France, it is because the lack of stabilized weapons make frontal pushings hard.
I am going to exaggerate this, but I cannot see how can we discuss about maps without mentioning the context. Finishing up Italy, I do want the changes to go back, because it benefits me. You think it is balanced while I want it reverted is not weird, because we play different vehicles at different styles.
Of course you’re not forced physically to do anything, it’s the second one. You’re “‘forced’ to IF you want to have the highest stats, progress the fastest, etc”. Especially if you want to do so most efficiently i.e. for the least effort expended as well – since you only need to learn 1 skill.
But if we talk about, say, 8.7 France, it is because the lack of stabilized weapons make frontal pushings hard.
France is “overtiered” mainly because it’s skill of its players is so high, which already compensates for this.
But if, for sake of argument, it truly is the case that France 8.7 cannot do anything other than flank, and flank routes are taken away on a bunch of maps, then French 8.7 tanks will start performing badly, and will simply drop to 8.3 or 8.0 and then do fine again in roles other than flanking.
Because BR algorithm. No big deal really.
But I think this situation is quite rare, and in most cases where it appears to exist, it’s usually because of that nation being full of ace drivers (which makes them already able to just win even when using the tanks in other ways regardless)
Annnnnnd that is the problem, do people think it is a good idea? Some say it is good, some say it is not. From gaijin’s perspective, it is the most objective way to do it. Mass polls are more effective to sort out the overall message but expecting the company size of gaijin to do it without some superbuffed AI is harder than making them restore the ariete’s armor or the pen of DTC10.
But we are going offtopic here, now back onto the problem with maps. Like you(and rest of us discussing) argued, it may be true that it makes it more fair. It may even help to deflate certain overstat-ed vehicles and hence overtiered because, they were always used on flanking, and hence having KDAs or WRs that are a bit inflated as well.
Unironically I am having a better time on the new sinai by camping with the freccia. There are more tanks to throw spikes at.
Yes, it’s not only a good idea, it’s basically the only possible way to do it (other than going EVEN FURTHER with individual SBMM)
If you don’t do this, then France would just have like a 75% chance to win a match before the first tank spawns in, and nobody would have fun. It’s not fun to effortlessly crush ants while barely needing to pay attention, and it’s not fun to be curbstomped. 50% win rates are the most fun in any game ever.
And objectively the most accurate way to achieve 50% win rates is to nerf or buff directly on final measured win rates. The only sense in which it is not literally foolproof is that there’s the 1-2 month delay in each round of changes (otherwise people would get upset with having to change lineups every day)
some superbuffed AI
No possible AI could even do it better. There is nothing to “do better”. We already have a measurement of the exact number we want to balance: 50% win rate, it’s literally impossible to “do better” than adjusting on the exact thing you want to adjust for.
Anyway, I don’t really care about “vehicles being trated more fairly” or not, I was just replying to you. The reason I think it’s better overall is because it causes more skilled, actually good players (ones who can flank well, CQC well, snipe well, do anything well) to win more than 1 trick pony, flank-only-savants. So it makes the meta and strategy of the game deeper and more complex, and there’s more to master.
I don’t see why your theory is bad. I do think that going by the stats is the only choice of gaijin. If the gameplay now displays that certain tanks that were over-reliant on flanking were indeed overtiered, I would call it a good move. Unfortunatly stats is the most effective way to do so, talking about top tier, you do see Israel, Italy and Japan being the top 3 KD on heat map(although its accuracy is, as we know, not very high), though they only totals to around 6,000 game over 3 days. But according to theoritical predictions, Japan and Italy with these new changes should reflect their qualities more effectively, to gaijin at least, by showing that they are horrible at CQC. Again, they can, the type 10 has a 4 sec reload with 610mm pen - but armor wise not so much. Arietes has the fastest(I believe) turret traverse in top tier, but its optics is a big meh.
Once again top tier is a pooshow though, we cannot predict how it goes, not even gaijin. All it takes to make something the top dog might be as small as a bug or some new shells. We can argue that the m/95 is the first step of Sweden becoming the latest member of top 4, where people began to see strv 122s in a more objective manner, realizing its good armor etc, and then snowballing into the shape of Sweden today because gaijin saw Swedish mains numbers skyrocketed and introduced more vehicles and premiums. Here we are at the first day of 2024, where the only playerbase did not talk about they are suffering is Sweden and Russia.
But for 4.0-6.0, which I also liked a lot, it seems not too shabby - maybe except for the US, but US mains knows how to spawn a CAS without hellcat flanking 200 miles off the battlefield anyways, and they are fine as well as they can spawn a CAS.
I think this could actually, if very carefully used, make top tier MORE balanced. Because Gaijin could use it as another variable to counteract the other things they do that cause new imbalance constantly.
For example, if some nation is weak at CQC, then if you intentionally add a squadron vehicle to them, but one that is also good at CQC–then you might be able to make it so that the usual negative impact of a squad vehicle (lots of new players flooding into the nation dragging its wins down) is counteracted by it now having a good CQC vehicle to fill that gap on CQC maps.
If not done very carefully, then the two problems could instead stack and get twice as bad instead, but it could potentially be used wisely.
Once again, the thing I thought about your statement is the ariete hitfact mk.2, with a 3 second reload, its neglegible armor is no longer a downside.
Anyways, I cannot state anything for top tier as well. I have not played top tier recently and stayed at 10.3(the trees I played have very overpowered 10.3 lineups and they offer max score for event grinding). The thesis you put out does sounds promising, but the problem then lies in, does gaijin really want to introduce squadron vehicles for nations that are not popular? But that aside, I do think your point makes sense.
I personally do believe some of the map changes should be reverted. On a map like Sands of Sinai, it is removing any sort of non-close quarters direct combat. There is no thinking involved, pretty much just press W. Light tanks lose a lot of benefits they had (as the hill had some very good sniping positions/a decent flanking route to get RID of those sniping positions) and it pretty much forces controlled, boring, and one-sided gameplay.
I also don’t think this is fair to the people who have played for a while. Yeah, obviously if you are a new person who bought your way into top tier, having people kill you from “unknown” (positions really only known by veterans) good positions is rough. but that said, you also bought your way into top tier, so you don’t have the skill level everyone else does. Most people who DIDN’T buy there way into top tier know about the spot and either know to avoid it or how to flush it out. So it isn’t fair to the people who actually spent time to grind.
Yeah honestly screw these map changes, I am just Jing out and leaving the match anytime these piece of fecal matter maps show up. I refuse to play these abhorrent maps and will rather spend 10min with a crew lock then play this bull. I wanted to play Call of Duty close quarters combat type of game-play there are plenty of other games to play. You literally have no way to flank on some maps, no cover just direct frontal engagements . God forbid the players have to learn map knowledge like before and know about sight lines or do more then just mouse1 and press W .
I make every effort to play the battle without quitting on my teammates but not going to play these alleyway maps. Alaska, Stalingrad and some of the other changes ruined maps I once enjoyed playing. Now they just plain suck.
I think they added it to try and make CAS harder, which it absolutely does. But it also makes playing on the ground just a pain in the ass and forces everyone closer together yet again.
Its fine as an occasional mixup, its not fine when its literally every second game as it is currently.