Warning: This post is going to be part genuine curiosity/player asking for help and part venting/angry ranting. I dont know how much of each it will be. I apologize to any readers in advance.

Recently got my first Tier 4 ship (JA Artillery Cruiser, Onager), and played a few games in it. The stock grind is kinda tough since I am so used to the set up I had on the previous Tier (gameplay shift). As a player of two Wargaming titles (World of Tanks and Warships) I normally don't mind having to use a stock vehicle in order to gain exp and get it up to spec. However, here I am starting to not like the grind among other things. Going through the first two tiers i had fun, playing different vessels, researching modules, and trying the different game modes. Once I got to Tier 3, things got a little messy. The power difference between Tier 3 and 4 in Veteran Fleet games is insane. Tier 4 has access to a lot of options and some are difficult to counter without another Tier 4 vessel. To stand a decent chance against a fully upgraded/tuned Tier 4 ship with an experienced captain, you need to bring in anther Tier 4 vessel that is researched to some extent. Tier 3 vessels lack the modules to counter certain Tier 4 modules, and stock Tier 4 vessels sometimes don't match the play style of their capatain. Teamwork is helpful, but it works for both sides. Also the exp cost jump between Tiers 3 and 4 is crazy. 40,000 exp minimum to research a single module at Tier 4, compared to approximately 12000 exp minimum a tier lower. Considering that you need to use the ship you want to research modules for, and earnings of around 2000 exp a game (Onslaught match, active participation, no battle bonus or premium), that means around 20 matches for a single Tier 4 module. It gets worse if you want multiple modules changed and/or have multiple ships.

The point of this post is to ask why is there such a difference between Tier 3 and 4? The power and cost differences make sense in some ways, but also don't make sense. Before the changes to Fleets, poor Tier 2's had to face Tier 4's. WIth current system Tier 4's can either be the bottom tier (Legendary Fleet) or the top (Veteran Fleet). And since there is apparently a small population for Legendary Fleet matchmaking, most Tier 4 captains head to Veteran matches just to find a game in a timely manner. Tier 2's never had any business to see a Tier 4 ship, but Tier 3 has to. People used to (and sometimes still do) complain about Wargaming giving players 10 tiers to grind through, but here we have too few tiers.

TLR - Tier 4 ships are painful to get up to spec from stock. Tier 3 ships have trouble taking down Tier 4 ships at times. Tier 4 ships have access to way more stuff than Tier 3 ships. Veteran matches slowly stop being much fun due to grind at Tier 4 and matchmaking being run by RNGsus.

PS - Again sorry if ths post got a bit ranty, but seriously what's with the differences between Tier 3 and 4. Other tier jumps aren't that drastic.

Panzer_Yoshi#4988 posted (#post-220414) said:

Onslaught match, active participation, no battle bonus

Why play without battle bonus tho? All rewards are balanced around gains with the battle bonus. Refreshing it after every game for credits will pay off since you'll get those credits back anyway if you make at least 1200 but also you'll receive twice as much xp

one very important thing I can put here that have redeemed myself from very painfull period of t4 readjustment is that you can equip everything you had researched on t3 on your t4. so basically you can just slap your old balista build on onager and see if that's better then the set of stock t3 modules you'd otherwise have

You should check out the cost of T5 modules. =)

First off I completely agree the power disparity between T3 and T4 is very punishing, especially to newer players who are just trying to get into the Veteran rank. A stock T3 with T2 modules and basic Officer Briefings is barely better then allowing T2's in the Veteran queue. And with the relatively recent change that drastically increases the amount of XP required to unlock modules I believe it is one of the directly impacting factors of player retention.

In my opinion the Veteran queue should be only T3, and T4's should be moved to the Legendary queue. This would also help in actually getting Legendary matches played without having to arrange premades via Discord. There may be a similar power difference between a new T4 and a maxed out T5, but at least in the short term the player population that even has T5's unlocked is so minuscule that the impact should be much less.

Limiting Veteran to T3 only would allow for an even playing field for both new and old players to get the initial ranks of Officer Briefings, that do make such a difference towards performance. While at this point I can field a full fleet of T4's (and even have one T5 unlocked) there are still plenty of T3's I've not played to unlock those tree's/Briefings that could be useful. But going back to play them now is just a painful experience.

As Cemenotar has noted, when you play in a new T4 you can equip any unlocked and purchased modules from your T3 version of that ship. Since you start with T3 modules anyway, you might as well return to the modules you prefer for playstyles sake until you unlock some T4 variants.

Daxten#3759 posted (#post-220424) said:

First off I completely agree the power disparity between T3 and T4 is very punishing, especially to newer players who are just trying to get into the Veteran rank. A stock T3 with T2 modules and basic Officer Briefings is barely better then allowing T2's in the Veteran queue. And with the relatively recent change that drastically increases the amount of XP required to unlock modules I believe it is one of the directly impacting factors of player retention.

In my opinion the Veteran queue should be only T3, and T4's should be moved to the Legendary queue. This would also help in actually getting Legendary matches played without having to arrange premades via Discord. There may be a similar power difference between a new T4 and a maxed out T5, but at least in the short term the player population that even has T5's unlocked is so minuscule that the impact should be much less.

Limiting Veteran to T3 only would allow for an even playing field for both new and old players to get the initial ranks of Officer Briefings, that do make such a difference towards performance. While at this point I can field a full fleet of T4's (and even have one T5 unlocked) there are still plenty of T3's I've not played to unlock those tree's/Briefings that could be useful. But going back to play them now is just a painful experience.

As Cemenotar has noted, when you play in a new T4 you can equip any unlocked and purchased modules from your T3 version of that ship. Since you start with T3 modules anyway, you might as well return to the modules you prefer for playstyles sake until you unlock some T4 variants.

Forcing people that fly T4 ships to play legacy would be a gigantic mistake, you would have people leaving in droves. Consider this. Once you get to Legacy, the team creation is even more screwed up because of squads of lvl 50 players where one team will be stacked with T5 lvl 50 players, and the other maybe 1-2. You force T4 pilots to play that kind of match, force them, they are going to leave, I will leave myself.

I don't play legacy after I have played a few hundred games. The matching system is so bad, it's difficult to get a fair match if ever. The reason you see people from squads like LYB begging people to que for legacy is because people who can, avoid it all together. I would prefer to play legacy, I have several T5 ships that I am not playing at all. But until whoever it is that is making decisions, decides it's time to fix the team creation issue, I am avoiding it all together. The power difference between T4 and T5 is much greater, and T5's have modules the T4 ships cannot fit.

The best option in my opinion would be to have each tier of ship have their own matches. Problem is player base. And I have to tell you after grinding out all my T4s for officer mods, if I were a player that ground out even one T4 and was forced to play Legacy, after all that hard work, just to get repeatedly killed in matches I always lost, I would quit for sure.

There has to be a way to retain new players, and veteran players. Moving experienced players into a match they cannot hope to win is just, well, a crazy idea that doesn't take into consideration how many people will flee the game.

Nexeroff#4718 posted (#post-220423) said:

You should check out the cost of T5 modules. =)

Not as bad tho as they are like 50% more expensive than T4 while T4 mods are 200% more expensive than T3.

Daxten#3759 posted (#post-220424) said:

In my opinion the Veteran queue should be only T3, and T4's should be moved to the Legendary queue. This would also help in actually getting Legendary matches played without having to arrange premades via Discord. There may be a similar power difference between a new T4 and a maxed out T5, but at least in the short term the player population that even has T5's unlocked is so minuscule that the impact should be much less.

Limiting Veteran to T3 only would allow for an even playing field for both new and old players to get the initial ranks of Officer Briefings, that do make such a difference towards performance. While at this point I can field a full fleet of T4's (and even have one T5 unlocked) there are still plenty of T3's I've not played to unlock those tree's/Briefings that could be useful. But going back to play them now is just a painful experience.

For this to work, moving Officer Briefings (OBs) to T3s (at least where possible) may be something to be considered, otherwise the discrepancy between T4s without half of the "good" OBs and T5s would be even worse than it is currently. Anyway, whether T3-only Veteran queue happens or not, I suggest moving all OBs to T3s, with a few available after two T3 module unlocks, and the current T4 OBs being available after oh, let's say somewhere around 5-7 T3 module unlocks.

I appreciate this is anecdotal, but I generally do fine in T3s against T4s. The disparity isn't that ridiculous, you just have to play smart. If they're in a squad then yes, it makes it a lot harder, but since team play is a core feature of the game why not squad up yourself?

Fair enough, I don't play on PC and it seems to me we don't see near the issues with matchmaking on PS4 as you do on PC. x.X.x players are rare, squads are rarer. I can count the number of matches I've had where theres more then 2 x.X.x players per side on one hand. The smaller match size (5v5) also makes it "more even" I think.

So what's the solution then? The flipside would to be have a fleet/queue for each of T3/T4/T5 that is seperate, but then we're back to the player population able to support that segreation issue.