Hi
Hope this finds you well.
I had meant to ask this question 6 months ago but due to the pandemic, I delayed it until now.
My question is regarding the matchmaking system. Sure the 3-5-7 and 5-10 etc template work fine on paper but there are some serious flaws in them.
Taking an example, let's say you are tier 7 and bottom tier in 3-5-7 matchmaking. So here the top tiers are a heavy, a medium, and an arty.
Out of all the 2-15, 3-15, and 4-15 5 minute quick losses that I have experienced, the top tiers (tier 8 and 9) on my team have had less than 5000 battles with less than 46% win rate (not a great player but still learning) who cluelessly get themselves killed within the first two minutes.
And it just so happens that the majority (10 out of 15) of the enemy have 10000 + battle experience with an average win rate above 48% (acceptable but not ideal).
So what can I, in a stock tier 7 vehicle trying to grind it out, do against the overwhelming number of higher tier opponents? Shooting gold won't change the fact that I'm outnumbered and RNG simply negates everything when my fully aimed shots just go straight into the ground.
This, of course, is the worst-case scenario.
Taking +1 matchmaking in case of tier 9 battles. If the top tiers, with their powerful firepower, on my team have so low battle experience to deal with the enemy tanks what can the rest of us do against them?
I have tried to support these players but with these huge rushes of enemy tanks, there is no DPM or armor in this game that can counter it.
One solution that I can suggest regarding the +2 and +1 matchmaking is to ensure that the top tier players are matched up against similarly experienced players. Of course, someone can have a bad day when RNG just kicks them in their shins (having +-25% on accuracy and having rng at all on armor penetration is terrible but that's a different can of worms), and in those cases it's acceptable.
This also takes care of all the new players who just start out with their tier 8 premium vehicles and get slaughtered when they don't communicate that they are inexperienced and then the team gets demoralized following that up with harsh words against a complete newbie. They don't deserve such a bad experience in such a great game.
One other solution would be to go 7 on 7 battles or 10 on 10 battles, reducing the tier gap to +1 and thereby spreading out the matchmaking evenly. I know Brawl is a thing but that's for tier 10 right now and that too a special game mode which at that tier the gold spam makes the gameplay unbearable.
I say this a player whole plays tier 6-9 regularly with over 9k battles with a 51% win rate (which isn't great). (Just got my second tier 9 tank)
I hope this doesn't come across as rude or condescending. I truly love this game and want this to be a happy experience, not one that always breeds hate and distrust among teammates.
Please let me know your thoughts.
TLDR:
Matchmaking is broken as we all know, lets balance matchmaking based on battle experience as well.
The new player experience is terrible and despite all its issues, I love playing this game.
