Summary of changes to Air Matchmaking in 2.45.1.61 (22 Apr)

Game Discussion Arcade Battle
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Just so there’s a summary somewhere of what actually changed on air matchmaking with this patch (as the wiki article only describes how it is now, not what changed), here’s a quick table:

Spoiler

BR changes-rev
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The table uses a lineup with a top BR of 3.3 as the example, but the same rules apply to all AB Air lineups as the average matchmaking formula has changed.

Basically a top plane plus anything in the lineup below it in BR other than a second plane of the same BR or the next highest plane being only 0.3 below gets you the 0.3 BR advantage now. Before if your second or third planes were of significantly lower BR, they wouldn’t count and you wouldn’t get the advantage. Now, at any BR, if you’re willing for your third plane out (assuming you use a backup for #2) to be utter junk, you can get that small advantage.

The reason that Air AB still uses average matchmaking rather than just using the top BR is some large BR gaps still exist, particularly in the BR 5.0-8.0 region, where you still have single planes without much close below them to make a lineup with. It’s obviously a rules provision that has been and will continue to be exploited by min/maxers, but I would argue this most recent change was still a useful and overdue simplification. Before you had to be really selective with your #2 and #3 planes (and if you just had tech tree to pick from, often you couldn’t make the BR ladder work just right, so you often couldn’t take advantage), so it didn’t really meet the aim of helping to fill those BR voids and make those 1 of 1s more playable. But YMMV.

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Another way, with a more visual model, showing the changes as annotations to the graphic from the old wiki (which doesn’t include the 1 and 2 vehicle lineups):

Spoiler

graphic
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And even with some places where some nations have less planes at certain BR’s, imho it would still be better to just do away with the entire “averaging” system and make it Highest BR determines what the matchmaker uses to set a player into a match. . . . just like all other modes, except the Sim list thing . . but that’s another story.
The game has huge discrepancies and lacks continuity in many places, usually differences in the modes, which is understandable in some places.
But in many cases, the stark difference between one mode and another is so vast and game changing . . . well, it would seem obvious some things need to be addressed. To me this Air AB BR averaging thing is one of them.
Make it simple, straight forward and just remove the ability to manipulate and abuse the current system. Everybody wins with a more level playing field.
Just my opinion . . as a long time Air AB player . . many spawns, much pew pew

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Your spoilers are incorrect (while they depict what I’d expect from the wiki article)…

In game I tried 2.3 - 2.0 - 1.7, expected result 2.0 lineup, what I get is 2.3,
and just to be sure 11.7 - 11.3 - 11.0, expected result 11.3, what I get is 11.7.

So currently if you want to downtier it’s BR x + BR x-0.6 + BR x-0.6 maximum. Or just pair anything (like the shiny new jet you just bought & for which you don’t have anything else even close to the BR) with a single reserve plane…

Only plane that’s really impacted is the Sakeen, being at 3.3 and being the ‘reserve’ plane… just had a couple of games against full 4.3 lineups…

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Typo, fixed, thanks.

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The wiki states :

For 3 vehicles

The average BR is calculated using this formula:

BR = A/2 + B/4 + C/4

where A, B, and C are the three highest BRs of the vehicles in the crew slots, ranked in descending order (highest first).

The final result is rounded to the closest decimal from possible options: .0, .3, or .7 (these are the BR steps in the game).

Using their formula for 2.3 - 2.0 - 1.7 the result is 2.075, which would give a BR of 2.0, not 2.3, 2.0 being the closest step…

I thought your post was fine, but their actual implementation was faulty…

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good stuff. Sick of the clubbers.

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All the more reason to just toss this averaging stuff . . they said make it “simple”
Highest BR is as simple as you can make it, more fair to all players and frankly, is the only thing that actually makes sense.
These over complicated & convoluted systems benefit no one and are just rife for exploitation . . just really hard for me to get my head around the waste of time, manpower and resources to continue with such a system as that which is in place now . . . but that’s just me . … ☻

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Most times when Gaijin tries to improve something they just come up with another tar baby, I just try to adjust to that :)

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This new br system is making even less sense. If I play one 10.7 solo, it is 10.7, but if I add one 10.0 below into the lineup, the br actually drop to 10.3 by adding a plane. This does not make any senses.

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Doesn’t stop clubbing

I make it 2.0875, but it still should be 2 according to wiki - needs a bug report
image

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Raised an issue - please add yourselves to it:
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/7ycR9v0Job3Y

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This is already explained by the bug moderator:

There is a mistranslation in English wiki. It’s supposed to be “rounded up”. See Russian wiki:
Матчмейкинг | War Thunder Wiki

Окончательное значение округляется до ближайшей десятой в большую сторону из списка значений: .0, .3 или .7 (это шаги БР в игре).

I’ll tell to responsible for wiki that they have an error in the English article. Thanks for the report.

It’s just a mistranslation. This is a Russian game, so the original language in which everything is written is Russian. Then it’s translated to English and to be honest, I see many translation mistakes. It’s always worth to check the source (original Russian text) first.

So this is not a bug and it won’t be fixed.

Personally, I see this new system favors one vehicle + one reserve lineups. There is little sense now to use e.g. 4.0 + many 3.3 BR planes as a lineup. It makes more sense to use one 4.0 BR and one reserve plane to reduce the BR of the 4.0 plane to 3.7 and just play with this one plane. When you die, just change the battle and play with your 4.0 BR plane again. Unfortunately, unless you are fully downtiered, the 3.3 BR planes will have a big disadvantage, and if you really want to play them, you can just create one 3.3 BR plane + one reserve plane lineup and use it at 3.0 BR.

The only exception is when you do specific challenges and tasks that require more effort in one battle. Then it makes sense to use full lineups, but I would probably take full lineup of 4.0 BR planes and possibly face 5.3 planes (unfortunately, it is how it is). To be honest, in full uptiers you won’t be able to complete harder tasks anyway, like e.g. the Hero of the Sky (12 or more kills in one battle). If someone wants to complete this kind of task and get a full uptier, it’s probably better not to even spawn.

There are a lot of issues with how everything works in War Thunder, but we have what we have. I don’t see this change as a good change. If anything, the new rules are just stupid and not well thought out at all.

Yesterday I saw a lot of players in Air Arcade using two planes lineups. Of course additional plane was there only to reduce the BR of the main plane. In my opinion, this is the new Air Arcade META.

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That’s actually nonsense, according to that answer it seems vehicles are strictly rounded up, i.e.

3.7 - 3.3 - 3.0 = 3.7/2+3.3/4+3.0/4 = 3.425, that number would be closer to 3.3 but gives us a 3.7 lineup which apparently is not a bug.

3.7 - 3.0 - 3.0 = 3.7/2+3.0/4+3.0/4 = 3.35, which gives us a lineup of BR 3.3… which would be a bug according to the russian original, it getting rounded up to the nearest step which would be 3.7

So which one is it? There clearly is an issue… Gaijin, don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken, you just make it worse =o

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The explanation could be this part:

Battle ratings exist in steps of 0.3 or 0.4 (strictly speaking: steps of 0.33 rounded to the nearest tenth), and range between 1.0 and 14.0.

It could mean that something that we see as 3.7 is actually coded as 3.66(6).

So, in your example:

3.7 - 3.0 - 3.0 = 3.66(6) / 2 + 3.0 / 4 + 3.0 / 4 = 1.83(3) + 0.75 + 0.75 = 3.33(3). Which is actually what we see as 3.3 BR.

But this is just how I try to explain what we see, based on available info. I obviously have no idea how the system is implemented internally.

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It’s just fishy, it used to be clear, they ‘simplified’ it and now it’s simply worse than before…

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Apparently it’s easier to do weird math over just switching it from +/-1 BR to +/-0.7 BR

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If you meant the gaps between BR steps, it’s actually the same as it was before. It’s just some players misinterpreted the system and thought that the gap between e.g. 1.3 and 1.7 BR vehicles is “bigger” than between 1.0 and 1.3 BR vehicles. This is of course not true and it never worked like this. The BR step between vehicles is always 0.33(3). We only see this x.3 and x.7 vehicle BR rounding because it would look very strange if we saw e.g. 1.33(3) BR on the vehicle stats card. It’s just simplified on the UI for us, the players. At least that’s how I understand the BR step system.

If you meant how the lineup BR is calculated then it’s not really that hard to get used to the new system. You don’t really have to do any calculations, you just have to remember you can’t use now additional vehicle that is only one BR step lower than your main vehicle. But I do agree that the new system is not simplifying anything. They obviously had to write something as a reason for this change.

They probably noticed that players overuse the previous system and too many players used e.g. 4.0 + 3.7 + 3.3 lineups (with playing only 4.0 + 3.7 BR vehicles and only gaining when compared to proper 3.7 + 3.7 lineups). Now the choice is more like: one strong plane + many much weaker planes in the lineup (which is not really worth it imo) or on paper stronger lineup with many vehicles at the same BR, but without BR reduction. Of course they missed the fact that there is also a third option, using just one strong plane with BR reduction (thanks to additional plane) and just leaving battles as soon as you die. I believe that the third option is the best way to get good scores and rewards. Essentially, you maximize your time and efficiency in the vehicle with artificially lowered BR.

That’s why I don’t think this is a good change. But I’m not a dev, so it’s not up to me.

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I agree (plane plus plane two steps lower) is probably the meta now, and I agree they probably did this to stop the previous (plane+1-BR-step-lower-plane at the lower plane’s BR) meta, replacing it with a (plane-plus-2-BR-step-lower-plane at the in-between BR), that and the Sakeen spam at 3.0. As such, it’s slightly, ever so slightly fairer, than the rule that preceded it.

I think if you’re running a full lineup because you’re spading multiple vehicles at once and trying to leverage backups and a single big RP booster on that game to do so it still makes sense to run matched-BR lineups (since maximizing the booster means staying in as long as possible and there’s still value to getting boosted modification RP on your second and third planes). Same but to a lesser extent with a big SL booster or even if you’re just grinding for score that day. Every minute spent in lobby is wasted time, might as well stay in to the end of a match if you can with a big lineup.

If you care about kills though, or bases bombed etc., for instance because you need that for a daily or event task or a decal, or you only have one aircraft at a certain BR to spade out still, it now entirely makes sense to run the plane you plan to play in a lineup now with only other aircraft two or more steps lower and give yourself that 0.3 BR advantage.

Before it was finicky, having to have one plane exactly one step lower, and then another one two steps lower (but not more than five steps lower), I often couldn’t be bothered. But now that everything two or more steps lower counts, and that’s the only rule I need to remember, why wouldn’t I do it all the time?

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I guess it depends. I currently do the event on EU/CIS servers, playing at lower BRs with propellers in Air Arcade. I use the system with one strong plane + one backup plane and the score is very good. The battle is also funnier, because I don’t have to use planes that are two BR steps lower (which would be a big disadvantage). This way I always play with a strong plane.
My waiting times for battles are usually less than 15 seconds (often a few seconds), so I don’t really lose much here.

Personally, I wouldn’t use big boosters in Air Arcade, the rewards here are really bad. But if someone only plays this game mode then of course it makes the most sense to use full lineups with big boosters. There are definitely situations, where full lineups are a better option.

The funny thing is that I still see many players using lineups from the old system in Air Arcade battles (this doesn’t make any sense in the new system). We need to give this change some time to see what the effects will be. I don’t see myself using e.g. 4.0 + 3.3 + 3.3 lineup and actually use 3.3 planes. This option doesn’t make much sense to me.