I was browsing Youtube looking at older WoT videos when I stumbled across this video from 2012 and it brought back so many memories:
This guy's team was tier 7-10 and had 7 arty. The enemy team had "only" 5 arty but also had a tier 5 and two tier 6s. This was a time where the MM had uncapped arty, didn't bother matching tanks by class or even by tier, and tier 5s could see tier 10s. So every time I hear someone complaining in 2022 about +2 matchmaking or 3 arty, I kinda chuckle to myself and think "be glad you didn't play this game way back in the day." 😉
And while I make this sound like the old WoT was awful, it actually wasn't that bad. HE was much more effective on non-penetrations (both for arty and for regular tanks), so HE was actually a viable option if you couldn't pen with your standard rounds. And for arty in particular, the splash radius was a lot smaller and the stun mechanic didn't exist, so if arty missed they did basically nothing but if they got a direct hit they'd fuck you up bad.
Good times…
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/x8kj9a/people_like_to_complain_about_the_matchmaker/
