As we all know, uptiers and downtiers are made so we wouldn’t have to wait for too long to get into a match. Well I’m sure I ain’t the only one who wouldn’t mind waiting a few seconds more and not get an uptier. This is absolutely absurd. Out of 15 matches I’ve played with my Finnish PT-76, 13 were full uptiers and 2 were 0.7 higher uptiers. Funnily enough, when I played 4.0 Sweden I constantly got uptierd to 5.0. Or when playing 3.7, I only went to 4.7. Personally, lower the uptier, downtier br from 1.0 to 0.7 and lets wait for a bit longer.
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I’m right there with you. I’ve been playing more AIR AB/ Air realistic because the uptiers seem less severe especially in the lower-mid tiers.
Ground uptiers are really painful and way too common. it’s killed my motivation to keep playing. I’ve already spent a lot of money on tanks so I guess they got their money’s worth but not being able to enjoy certain tanks because of this ‘mechanic’ is really … ugh.
I firmly believe it’s a psychological mechanism to make you PAY more to grind through it. Well I’ve had it.
I play 3.7 I face 4.7 I play 4.3-4.7 I face 5.7 and so on and so on.
Say confirmation bias all you want but the ratio of uptiers to balanced games is REALLY really skewed.
Yes, that is by design. You might ask yourself “if I’m getting uptiered all the time, how are these people getting downtiered all the time?” The answer is that they’re not. We’re all uptiered the vast majority of the time.
Explanation: there can only be up to four people at top BR in any match. No more.
This prevents “curbstomp” situations where you’re the only 6.7 against a team of 7.7 for example, but it also means that by design, we’re all going to be in an uptier (not necessarily a full uptier, mind) 75% of the time. That’s all else being equal. In reality, different BRs have different popularity and populations, which can impact this percentage. For example, 7.3 is a very popular BR (for France and Russia especially), so 6.7 gets more uptiers than other BRs do. Conversely, 7.7 seems to get a lot more downtiers than average, or at least it does for me.
In a way, this is a pull factor to get you to keep progressing through the tree. The first time you meet 4.7 tanks when playing 3.7, you think man, those are awesome, can’t wait to get to those so I can have a good time too! Except you’re being given an incomplete image. You see how that enemy tank behaves in a downtier, but when you finally get it, you’ll mostly be uptiered, and struggle with it, and will seek to move on to the next BR; and the cycle continues.
If you can reject this frustration and just play the game, you’ll find out that this uptier system has a few interesting implications.
If only four people can be top BR at any one time, that means a good chunk, maybe even most of the enemy team, will be at your own BR. Or if you’re in a full uptier, they’ll be 0.3 above you most commonly, with only a few guys having the really strong stuff.
You may think you’re at a disadvantage, but that’s not necessarily true. Most of the enemy team will have comparable hardware to yours. And in a partial uptier, a good chunk of the enemy team may actually be of a BR lower than yours.
Truth be told, I am actually more nervous when in a full downtier these days, because I feel a lot of responsibility towards the team. Playing a lot of German 6.7, for example, I am unironically more comfortable in 7.3 games than I am in 6.7 full downtiers. Never once have I gotten a nuke in a downtier, but all of my nukes have come while either being uptiered from 6.7 to 7.3, or once being fully uptiered from 5.7 to 6.7 (and just to make it more absurd, ,y first seven kills of that nuke match were scored in a Dicker Max).
My only issue with uptiers at certain BRs is that they penalise heavies even further (and they’re already quite disadvantaged by the way the game is structured), but that’s a pure balance issue. And the recent decompression has helped with that a little bit.
Moreover: it’s the same for everyone. Those guys you’re fighting in an uptier that are of a higher BR? They’re going right back to being uptiered after their match with you has ended. It’s an even playing field, so you can perform as well or as poorly as other players do in the same uptier situation.
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Actually, the +/- 1.0 BR “spread” for matchmaking has been around at least since they changed it to a 5 tier system which was right before I began playing over 9-1/2 years ago. And the terms “uptier/downtier” were never even used here until 3 - 4 years ago. And frankly it has and still seems to be just used as an excuse for poor results. No one ever complained about this stuff before then. Granted, when I started it was 5 nations, just planes and there weren’t a lot of jets at that time, Korean maybe early 'Nam era? . . I forget now. Then they added tanks and later naval, and 5 more nations and all of them keep getting more and more vehicles and the BR “spread” matchmaking hasn’t changed thru all of that. And every time they add ONE vehicle, it will change the dynamic of whatever +/- 1.0 “spread” it fits into. All this means that there have been/are “gaps” where not as many vehicles at one BR as another, and this can be reflected in the MM’ing at times. And another thing is what is an “uptier”? is it having one vehicle with a higher BR than yours on either team? 3 or 4? . . . the perception here leaves a great deal of this wide open. A full uptier or downtier is pretty simple to figure, but most games are usually some kinda mix of several BRs. Heck I play AB Air usually, 4.3, and I see games pretty regular where almost everyone is 4.3 and none more than 1 step up or down. What you face in games is wholly dependent on what the players have in the queue, as the MM’er can only place that which is in queue into a battle . . and that can vary widely by the servers you choose to play, time of day, nation, BR . . . etc. . . you get the picture. While the idea of shrinking the spread has been around a long time and I would not oppose it, there are some obstacles keeping it from happening. One thing, they can’t just “flip a switch” and change one little bit of code to make that happen. And the effect it might have on wait times cannot be predicted. And as most of us know, Gaijin won’t do anything to extend wait times . . . bad for business. Personally I don’t bother looking at that stuff, I check the leaderboard for a second at the start of the game to see if it is a full game or not, that’s about it. As always you have a few options when you see something bigger/better than you, you can run away, get some buddies and gang up on them, or . . . give it your best shot and die like a dog . . because . . yeah that happens . . . it’s a war game . . and no one wins all the time. Personally I like killing stuff of a higher BR, you get that little “Rank doesn’t matter” award . . maybe if they raised those rewards a good deal then people wouldn’t mind so much facing higher BR enemies . . I dunno. I just think it is easier to just not worry about that stuff, because you can’t really do anything about it. If this is a reason for one death leavers, well that’s just kinda sad . . .
But whatever you decide, just give it your best shot . . sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug . . .
Good Luck
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