4Game

I know, the mismatches made the first iteration way too imbalanced to ever last. But hear me out; with some tweaks to the mode, the current (and upcoming) tech trees actually allow for a potential comeback.

The two things that killed national battles in the past were lack of variety within any non-USSR nation's tech tree at any given tier and the MM forcing 10 Hellcats against 10 KV-1Ss and expecting a fair fight. I think that changing the parameters from a single nation to a GROUP of nations would solve both of these problems. The added variety would allow for MM to create teams with an equal number of SPGS, lights, heavies, mediums, and TDs without having to spend 5 minutes in queue.

But IS there enough variety? Using the nation groups that are already in the game for personal missions, let's see based on tier X tech tree and collector tanks. As it sits right now, each group has at least 4 heavies, 3 mediums, 3 TDS, 1 scout, and 1 arty, each covering the necessary broad roles for a standard team and a few with specialized roles. This division of tech trees still creates unique and special gameplay for each group, but allows for matches to be balanced significantly better than the previous iteration by providing options for each important role for each nation. Balance obviously isn't perfect, however, so each group ends up having its own strengths and weaknesses.

Bloc: Germany and Japan – Strong armor and accuracy, poor mobility.
HT: (4+1?) – MT: (3) – TD: (2+1) – LT: (1) – SPG: (1)
Honestly, Bloc feels the weakest of all simply for lack of having a non-superheavy. The nation that feels most natural to add here would be Italy, due to their affiliation during WWII, but once the new Japanese HT is added I don't think it'd be necessary to do that. If the heavy problem was resolved, there's enough variation across the board to be strong on every map in the rotation.

Alliance: USA, UK, Poland – Great general purpose, but not specialized in anything.
HT: (5) – MT: (3) – TD: (4) – LT: (2) – SPG: (2)
Alliance is a tough one, because it feels like it has more than enough options even without either the UK or Poland. It may even be arguable to separate the UK and pair them with another nation, but I think the maximum number of groups for some semblence of balance to exist is four. As it sits, the mediums lack a true brawler but the M48 is probably good enough for this.

Union: USSR and China – Perfect blend of armor and maneuverability, but horrible gun depression.
HT: (8) – MT: (5) – TD: (3) – LT: (2) – SPG: (1)
The USSR tech tree alone has enough lines that it could field two teams against itself without repeating tanks, so having China here feels a bit like overkill. However, due to lack of variety and SPGs, the Chinese don't quite have enough to stand alone in a balanced version of this mode. They fit better with Russia than any other nation, so here they stay for now.

Coalition: France, Sweden, Italy, and Czechoslovakia – Incredible mobility and fast damage potential, but no armor to brawl.
HT: (5) – MT: (5) – TD: (3) – LT: (1-2) – SPG: (1)
Coalition actually ends up being the most diverse here despite the number of tank lines being about equal with the other groups, though the heavy tank department feels pretty lacking without a true superheavy, even if the Kran moonlights as one when hull down opportunities arise. The medium roster feels pretty light when it comes to general purpose tanks too, since there are two assassins and an autoreloader.
Note that the EBR probably should be banned in this mode if it has to be paired with itself to be balanced in randoms. One could argue that allowing the EBR would balance the lack of brawling tanks in Coalition to some degree and better allow for the ambush/hit and run playstyle necessary for the team to succeed, but it's likely that would be game-breaking compared to other lights.

While this look has been with tier 10 tech tree tanks in mind, the top tier tanks reflect their lines for the most part and most reward vehicles fit within the general characteristics of their nations. Tier 8 premiums also generally fit within these bounds, so the only balance issues I'd foresee come from wheeled vehicles and teams stacked with the more OP premiums like BZ-176 and Obj. 703 II being put up against teams of AMX M4 49s and AMX 65ts, though there would also be Skoda T56s in the mix in that case. It's kind of amusing how certain tanks are so strong that the only way to balance them is to pair them against one another, which isn't possible for this mode.

I, for one, would be willing to face a few BZs in my Renegade or T832 for a chance play national battles again. While I know that there's a big difference between how it looks on paper and the practical application of this, theoretically it would give most maps a completely different feel due to each team trying to play to its strengths and weaknesses. A battle between Bloc and Coalition on Prok would play out way differently than one between Union and Alliance on the same map, just like Bloc vs Union would be different than Coalition vs Alliance on Ruinberg.

The following limitations from MM would hopefully keep it balanced:
– No more than 2 SPGs per side. If we made this mode arty-free it'd be a dream, but I'm being realistic here.
– Lights per side should cap out at either 2 or 3, but reasonably 2 since those triple light games in randoms are far from enjoyable.
– A maximum of 8 tanks of the same class per team. Really there should be a further limit here on specific tanks not appearing more than 3 or 4 times in the same battle. This would at least limit the potential for a team to be too overpowered.
– Teams must be matching in terms of number of each class. For example, the game wouldn't be filled until both teams had 6 heavies, 4 mediums, 3 TDs, 1 light, and 1 arty. Depending on queue times in testing, maybe this can be opened up some to allow heavy TDs to be matched as heavies. If WG is serious about promoting their subclasses (i.e. breakthrough heavy, sniper medium, assault TD, etc.) tweaking MM to balance these out would be the most ideal.
– Play testing would have to be done to determine if allowing wheeled vehicles gives too much advantage to the Coalition teams or not. If yes, then they'd have to be removed from the mode.

For those of you who suffered through this novel, thank you. This is probably wishful thinking, but I feel like if WG focused more on adding fun and unique modes that could be part of the game longer-term than the week-long events we've been getting, instead of completely overhauling the foundation of the game, we'd be a much happier playerbase.

I'm curious what others think would be necessary to balance a new national battles mode. Would you group the nations differently?