50 straight eh? That’s alot. When you are driving tier 3 and tier 4 you tend not to get good matchups but your role in the battle is different. I suspect 50 straight battles would put you easily into tier 5 though.
Frankly though you sound like an edge case. I get bad matchups just like anyone else but plenty of good matchups also. It’s really a question of patience and clever play, being able to play the hand you are dealt in the most meaningful way possible.
maxle
3362
As painful as it is, I have to agree with Brett. The matchmaking is shit, and it caused me to leave the game.
I wonder whether the curve is simply too abrupt. That is, people start in the game, and if they are in premium particularly, they get out of the lower tiers rather rapidly. That means those still in the lower tiers, especially those without premium who need more matches to get the experience to rise in tiers, are stuck without a critical mass of players to form good matchups.
People who blitz through the lower tiers, using gold to transfer experience from elite/premium tanks, bypassing upgrades that aren’t on the main path, and maintaining a premium account the whole time, don’t seem to be complaining as much about the matchmaking. If that’s true, then the game is “working” in forcing you to pay for premium, but it’s kind of unfriendly and even nasty about it.
50 straight battles in a tier 3 to tier 4 tank will earn you enough money to move up to tier 5, but not nearly enough experience unless you’re killing multiple enemy tanks per game. It’s going to be a long, slow grind for me to get from my SU-85B to the SU-85 (where I’ll be content to stay for a while, owing to the TD version of the KV’s 107mm), especially because the -85B begins really, really anemic and is going to take at least another 3000 XP to be reasonably playable against higher-tier vehicles.
maxle
3365
Since I don’t know what you mean by “lower”, I only started to get pissed off by matchmaking once I hit tier V/VI and was constantly thrown in with tanks three or four tiers above me. I was premium at the time, though I certainly wasn’t going to pay to transfer experience or, god forbid, buy a fucking tank.
People who blitz through the lower tiers, using gold to transfer experience from elite/premium tanks, bypassing upgrades that aren’t on the main path, and maintaining a premium account the whole time, don’t seem to be complaining as much about the matchmaking. If that’s true, then the game is “working” in forcing you to pay for premium, but it’s kind of unfriendly and even nasty about it.
That’s not actually working. If you alienate your free players, you have a smaller userbase. Which is bad for all sorts of reasons, two of which are that more players = more word of mouth and better matchmaking (see the posts a few pages back where the developers state matchmaking would be fine if only they had another hundred thousand people on simultaneously).
Dejin
3366
Just saw a Pzkw III shoot a SU-85 probably 4-5 times in the rear right out of the starting area. They were not in a platoon, the Pzkw III ended up killing the SU-85, got a -1. Still no aqua. So clearly the TK system must be fairly forgiving. I wonder how many TKs you have to do before it flags you?
The devs do everything possible to “encourage” people to spend money. Even this past week the 5x experience bonus is designed to soak up people’s gold stacks and make them purchase more. The temptation to convert to free experience is strong especially for people grinding to the higher tier’s.
Hey, I agree in general–the matchmaking is frustrating. And in the long term, from most of our perspectives, you’re also probably right that the strategy the devs are following seems to be alienating as many people as it pleases. It’s their money, so I suppose they’ll figure it out one way or another eventually.
If you’re getting that frustrated with the matchmaking in Tier V/VI, though, this is definitely not a game that will get better with age for you. I certainly understand that. Tier V tanks constantly get tossed in with high-tier heavies that seem nearly invulnerable, and which one-shot them. It’s really tough at around Tier VI with heavies because unless you’re in a KV you often have low everything compared to everyone else. It’s more fun in those tiers, for me, to be a TD or a medium, where I have options besides slugging it out. Most of my stuff is VI/VII now and it’s a lot better but yeah, it can get frustrating. But something like a Ram II premium, Tier V I think, is great because you can run circles around bigger tanks and pump them full of 57mm fun at machine-gun like speeds. You will die eventually, but killing a T-44 that way is hilarious.
And my comments weren’t meant to imply I knew what was going on, just that I was speculating. It could well be simply that their matchmaking is fucked up beyond all recognition. :)
Tman
3369
I have no idea where you are getting your information.
Have you LOOKED at their forums and the currently 28 page thread on matchmaking?
Not to mention the 5 or so matchmaking threads that are spawned daily in complaints???
Very few people are saying anything positive.
The real news is the developers are staying mum and not participating at all.
maxle
3370
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m fully prepared believe it’s working as intended. I just don’t believe they should intend it to work that way, as everytime WoT is brought up in my hearing now I rant about how much I hate it, which is sort of the opposite of what you want to have people do; I went from “I LOVE THIS GAME” to “FUCK YOUR GAME AND FUCK YOUR FACE” in less than a month.
More generally, if you make the game unpleasant for freeloaders and/or people who aren’t paying as much as you’d like, then they’ll either start paying you (more), which you want, or leave with a bad taste in their mouth, which you don’t want. In the latter case, not only are they not likely to recommend their friends play the game, they’re likely to recommend that their friends not play the game.
Jab
3371
I think I’m starting to reach my fill of WoT. Tier 7 is just a nightmare, I have at least 20 or more hours to get the necessary credits to upgrade and that is if I win all my battles. Even with the 122 MM for the SU 152, I can’t reliably fight against heavies at this tier or above, which is what almost all my matches have turned into.
Dejin
3372
Hmm, maybe its the difference between playing a TD and a medium, but I’ve found the Tier VII mediums to be great fun. I’ve got both a T-43 and a T20. They are both great tanks. I’ve played them enough to unlock the tier VIII T-44 and very recently the T23.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. They fly across the battlefield and pound high tier heavies from the side and back. They get in knife fights with other mediums, jousting about. Sometimes I use them to snipe, and sometimes they do bounce, but in general they do good damage and are a lot of fun to play.
I have a lot of fun with tier 6 and 7. KV3, T34-85, VK3002db, Tiger, M4E4A8, T29… Sure some matches are monster mashes but even then all these tanks have guns that can make a difference in the battlefield. I am working on a Stug now, played a match on Malinovka where I was the 2nd weakest tank, but still managed to do damage to 8 enemy tanks and score 1100xp and a confederate medal.
Would I prefer the matchmaking to have a little less tier spread? Yes. I am thinking they should have a sort of bell curve, i.e. If you wind up the lightest tier tank in a battle there should be no more than 1 or 2 tanks 3 tiers above you.
And I agree tier 3 and 4 are hideous slogs.
I made a heroic action to get an enemy maus killed with my KV3. We had a small group with our maus and they had a small group with theirs. With some sniping and back and forth there had been some casualties on each side and each maus was at about 65%. I saw the maus overextend a bit and i hit the throttle and moved get to its flank. It recognized the threat and hit me once, then missed me twice with my dodging. I managed to get perpendicular to it directly behind it before it killed me (and i’d damaged it at least 6-7 times with my 122mm as well). It ended up blocked in with nowhere to maneuver and got taken out very fast by the rest of our forces. Granted, not all tier 6 tanks have as great of a gun as the soviet 122mm to be able to damage maus from side with AP or front with HE, but it was exciting to make such a big difference. with the 5x experience right now I made almost 6k XP off that fight, with just damaging 4 tanks and no kills.
Yeah, it can be disheartening to be in tier 6 and get matched against one of those beasts, but support your team and do your best and you can turn the tide.
JoshV
3375
It would be interesting to see the numbers as to when people convert to premium, and when people quit. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a fair number of people that quit right at tier 3 and 4. That moment when you first convert from being a light tank in all light tank fights, to a light tank that’s supposed to just be a scout, and that gets thrown up against tanks at ridiculously higher tiers.
Tier 5 is also a bit of a crapshoot, it’s loads of fun when its only matched up against tanks a tier above or below, but just craptastic being 3 tiers below everything. I honestly wouldn’t mind if the matchmaker took a bit longer to try to find better matches, right now it’s almost instantly getting me a game, and i’d happily wait a minute to get a good game, rather than get stuck playing a shitty one for five.
Read what I wrote again, if you would. I have no “information,” nor am I offering any. I’m speculating on what is driving the complaints–and including in that speculation the possibility that, yes, it is as screwed up as most people think it is. But not everyone hates the matchmaking, or there wouldn’t be anyone playing. And even if people dislike it–and I agree most folks have at least some level of hate for it–it clearly is “working” at some level, as people continue to play and pay.
No one is saying the matchmaking is fine, from a player’s point of view.
Yeah, this is what I mean by perhaps the transitions are too abrupt. The shift from IV to V is brutal, and the matchmaker should do something to smooth that out.
Tman
3378
Hey I’m not trying to pick any fights, sorry for coming off abrupt, I’m just pissed at this game and it gets worse when I really,really like a game, but things are holding it back that gets me all riled up.
When you said (bold added for emphasis)
I took this as not speculation, but rather you had read something somewhere that premium account holders don’t complain as much. I personally haven’t seen any differentiation in the bitching contest. I had premium for a month and while it did let me earn xp faster, it really didn’t solve the matchmaking problem. I’ve seen countless other posts that basically come out & say “I’m not spending any more money until MM is fixed”.
The whole matchmaking controversy has completely passed me by, since, as an early beta participant, I compare the current system to what we had then and love it. I remember when T10’s and T4’s (not scouts, ALL T4’s) routinely showed up in the same battles. Sure, matchmaking could use a bit more tinkering, but I’m satisfied that it’s already gone from an F- to a solid B.
Cool; it’s hard to read nuance in forum postings, so sorry if I in turn sounded prickly. I agree with you that something is amiss, though I’m not quite sure how exactly to solve it in a game where the whole point, from the developers’ point of view, is to get us to spend money advancing to a point where everyone is in Tier X tanks and having to spend real money to keep them going.
