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Hi everyone! My name is Kirill Oreshkin and today I will try and help you solve one of the mysteries of World of Tanks: how matchmaking works.
The matchmaker is designed to find a team for every player who presses the “Battle” button.
This requires that several, seemingly competing requirements be met.
On the one hand, team should be equal in class and tier of vehicles.
On the other hand, teams should differ so that the outcome of the battle is unpredictable.
Another important thing is that players should wait as little as possible to enter a battle.
World of Tanks players often ask: “How does the matchmaker do it?” We are about to tell you.
But first there’s an important point: the matchmaker ignores a number of factors.
It ignores nationality of tanks.
It ignores the modules mounted on them: weapons, turrets, engines, etc;
any installed equipment and consumables; crew experience level, and the players’ skill.
The matchmaker considers the following: class of vehicles, tier of vehicles in general and the so-called “balance weight” of vehicles,
as well as the number of platoons—disregarding the skill of players platooned and tiers of their vehicles.
Balance weight is a key characteristic.
You can’t understand how matchmaking works without understanding what balance weight is.
Moreover, balance weight is a hidden parameter, and it is not displayed in the description of vehicles.
Balance weight is determined by the standard balance weight of a certain tier and the class multiplier.
Class multiplier equals one for light tanks, medium tanks and tank destroyers.
It equals 1.2 for heavy tanks and SPGs.
For example let’s take the IS-3 heavy tank.
Its tier weight is 40.
The class multiplier is 1.2.
So its balance weight is 48.
However, some vehicles outmatch others of the same tier in some parameters.
And their balance weight is calculated separately, to even out the teams.
Classic examples of such unusual vehicles are the scouts.
For example, take the AMX 13-90.
The light tank class multiplier equals 1 and the base tier weight is 40.
But the 13-90 gets special balance weight—equal to a heavy tank.
So its balance is 48.
Also, note that all medium tanks, heavy tanks, tank destroyers, and SPGs of Tier 9 and 10 have an increased multiplier of 1.2.
The matchmaker sees no difference between these vehicles, except for their class.
You can find more detailed info on tank distribution by tiers on the World of Tanks official forum..
Now we have come to the most interesting part.
Vehicle enters the waiting queue when the player hits the “Battle!” button.
There are a total of 36 queues: 3 for each of the 12 battle tiers.
The first set gathers teams for Standard battles.
The second queue is used for Encounter.
And the third one for the Assault mode.
The tank enters all of the queues that fit its battle level.
Every one of them gathers vehicles for both teams at the same time.
Templates are used to speed up the work.
For example, the matchmaker has just started working.
It gathers statistics for the server and remembers the average number of players in every type of vehicle.
The following parameters are particularly important: the average number of SPGs, the average number of scouts,
and the average number of players in a platoon.
The results are summed up after 30 minutes.
Let us assume that the teams had four heavy tanks on average during these thirty minutes.
There will be 4 positions with the necessary balance weight reserved for them in the template.
The same calculations are made for the rest of the classes.
That is how a team template is made.
With it the matchmaker knows exactly what vehicles to take from the queue.
As a result the players spend less time waiting for a battle.
The matchmaker constantly tracks the vehicles that have entered combat, and adjusts the template as needed.
A logical question is: how does the matchmaker work in the first half hour, when it doesn’t have a template yet?
Simply put – it works without one.
If a large number of TDs enter the queue, then it’s possible that the matchmaker could create a battle with eight of ten TDs on a team.
But after the stats have been gathered, the matchmaker will realize this discrepancy, and will form a balanced team next time.
Now let’s consider how a team is formed using the template.
Artillery is picked first.
The total number of SPGs on a team cannot exceed 5 vehicles.
The total weight of one team’s artillery cannot exceed the artillery weight of the other team by more than 20%,
and their number can’t differ by more than one.
Scouts are picked next.
Their number differs by no more than one and the total balance weight by more than 30%.
This rule doesn’t affect slow light tanks such as the Valentine and the AMX-40.
The remaining positions are filled in order of decreasing balance weight.
At the same time the first five lines of a team must be of equal tier.
Total weights of each team can differ by no more than 10%.
The last point here is platoons.
The total number of one team’s platooned players can’t exceed this number of the other team by more than three.
How does the matchmaker decide the level of battles that a platoon may get into?
It looks at the tanks in a platoon.
Finds a vehicle with the highest balance weight and works with it.
The platoon will only get into battles that suit this vehicle.
The balance weights of the platoon’s other vehicles are ignored.
This is why a T-150 platooned with a Leichttraktor can’t get into the low-tier battles no matter how hard he tries.
When the teams are assembled, the matchmaker re-checks the balance rules,
and if everything complies with the rules, then the teams are sent into battle.
The vehicles leave all of the queues and other ones take their places.
If the team is not compliant, then it’s disbanded and the matchmaker tries to send these vehicles into combat again.
Sometimes there are too many vehicles of the same type in a queue.
In this case the matchmaker stops adding this type of vehicle to the teams until the vehicle setup changes.
Only the queue experiencing problems is frozen.
This doesn’t affect the remaining ones.
The longer a tank waits in the queue, the harder the matchmaker tries to send it into battle.
If a vehicle spends more than a minute waiting, then the matching rules are made much less strict.
The difference in the teams’ balance weight can go as high as twenty percent.
Any free spaces will be occupied by the vehicles with the closest balance weight possible.
This is the reason why some battles have different number of top heavy tanks in the teams or different numbers of scouts.
After two minutes of waiting, the matchmaker receives the right to create incomplete teams.
The number of vehicles on both teams will be the same.
After five minutes you will see a message suggesting you choose a different tank.
Your tank is transferred back to the garage.
Let’s summarize.
Unbalanced teams are mainly caused by players being unable to enter combat for a long time.
When does this happen? Usually inthe first minutes of a server’s start, on test servers, after a game update,
on new clusters, or right after technical maintenance.
The number of such battles in the first minutes of the server’s operation can reach 5%.
However, even peak online hours have balance problems.
This often happens during promotional events, when lots of players select the same vehicles.
However, these sorts of battles make up less than 1% of the total, which means that the matchmaker is doing its job.
The teams’ power is roughly equal and the players get into battle fast.
The random battle matchmaking in World of Tanks is constantly being improved,
but the core principles remain the same: equality, variety, and unpredictable battle results.
Victory will be decided by the players’ skills and their ability to think and make unexpected decisions on the field of battle.