Hello everyone,

this is a sort of followup on the corridors post, but it will involve skill MM topic as well, so bear with me, because it’s going to be a bit longer.

The corridor post certainly raised some discussion about good and bad maps and I’ve read some of the feedback in the comments (the one not beginning with OMG U SUX and such anyway) and I still have the feeling that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the underlying principles, that made World of Tanks successful in the first place. I also have the feeling that a LOT of (even otherwise very skilled) players fail to see the “big picture” so to say – a feeling, that is shared by the developers according to the developer discussion on the matter (the earlier “skill MM” post).

There are some extremely basic principles, that noone really usually bothers to take into consideration when talking about such fundamental changes as “skill MM” or overall map design. One of them is what I call “sometimes up, sometimes down“. When you say it like that, most people imagine something along the lines of “sometimes you get lucky (team, map), sometimes you don’t” – and that is certainly true, but this principle is one of the fundamental “fun-makers” of the game as well and is there intentionally. Let’s have a look at it – and again, just try to be open minded and imagine this all (if you can) from a perspective of an average player, not someone who takes World of Tanks “really seriously”.

When are you having fun? Is it because you win? Well, yes, certainly, but that is only a part of that. It’s when odds are stacked in your favour that a lot (most) players actually have fun. The most elemental expression of this principle is the way matchmaker spread works. Sometimes, you end up at the bottom of the team and you hate it, but sometimes, you end up on top and you just pwn. But this goes further than that, like that awesome moment when you get to your favourite position with a vehicle, that has a certain advantage on that particular map (we’ll get to that) and you know this is just great, because first enemies are starting to appear right before the barrel of your gun. In that particular game, you have the advantage.

What I am trying to say: this game has a set of maps and a set of vehicle classes. Some maps intentionally (!) are advantageous to certain classes, some maps to other classes. Heavies aren’t that awesome on Steppes, light tanks aren’t that awesome on Mountain Pass. This is intentional – it’s a part of the odds stacking basic principle and this is also the reason why I personally don’t mind having some maps not as “class friendly” to some classes as the other ones. Sure, you might be pissed you end up on Mountain Pass with a light tank, but in the next battle, you’ll end up on Steppes. Yes, you’ll remember the bad experience more, since that’s how human mind works, but on average, it’s balanced (not considering the “bad streaks” of bad maps, but that is another matter). Please note that this does NOT mean that there aren’t maps, that are simply BAD. The question of course is, how subjective is that. Some people hate Malinovka, I love it (it’s probably my favourite map). Some people love Ruinberg, I don’t like it – not sure why, it just doesn’t sit with me. Does that mean Ruinberg is a bad map? No. Just doesn’t suit my playstyle I guess.

In any case, the corridors are simply a method of making the map more inexperienced user friendly, as I explained in the previous post. The fact that some map has corridors however does NOT mean lighter classes (LT, MT) are completely useless on that map. One of the often mentioned maps, that is allegedly “bad”, is the North-West. And yet, only yesterday, I was in a battle where the opposing team had a T37 with a player from Odem Mortis. That guy absolutely dominated (it was really great gameplay, IIRC 6 kills and top damage of his team) and it was only because the rest of his team folded that we brought him down in the end. It’s completely possible to play well on such a map – IF you are good enough. Currently, I do not believe there is any map in the game where any class of vehicles would be absolutely useless (and again, keep in mind, I am talking in absolutes now, sure – arty on Himmelsdorf sucks for example, but it doesn’t suck as to not being able to do a single point of damage).

By the way, about this “sometimes up, sometimes down” principle… that’s not just a figment of my imagination, the fact it works like that was confirmed numerous times by developers.

So, how does this tie in with the skill MM?

Well, simple. Just like the maps, the quality of the team is an odds stacking element as well. Skill MM (ladder system) would completely negate that – I am sure I don’t have to explain, see the “developer post” for the arguments.

One aspect of “skill MM” would however also be the “both teams of equal skill” version – not a ladder, just having both teams have same amount of equally skilled players. Personally, I think this is just as bad as the “ladder/league” system – here’s why: imagine being a single unicum in the battle. Now, the first thing you know is that the other team has exactly one unicum as well (let’s go with the 1:1 skill MM model for the sake of conversation). This itself alters the gameplay – in vanilla World of Tanks, there is no way of viewing player skill rating within the battle, so if you don’t have XVM or something (and noone on your team does as well) while the other team does have it, they will know you are the unicum while you don’t know who the most dangerous opponent is. So, you can guess who will be the primary target of their team – that’s right, yours truly. It already works like that (“kill their KV-85 he’s the only skilled player they have” – just today), skill MM would only reinforce this.

But let’s get back to the “odds stacking” principle. Introducing skill MM would mean that victories with strong players on your side and tomatoes on the other would not happen, simply because both teams would always be roughly equal in skill. And no, that’s not a good thing.

You see, even though few would admit it, people LOVE to roflstomp the enemy team. No matter how much you deny it, it will always be true and people sometimes feel guilty about it (that’s why polls in this are generally pointless or at least “tipped”). And I am not talking about you, who read this. I am not even talking about all the FTR readers. I am talking about ALL the players (except the very, very few, who honestly, genuinely, really want a fair fight every time).

Sure, there are (very few) people who really want every battle to be thrilling, on the edge of the knife. But you have to consider that in such a case, a game (that is essentially relaxing) turns into a competition and that is not what most people want. And yes, again, what I wrote above was confirmed by the developers time and time again. World of Tanks is a game for “daddies”, who come home from work – or, rather, for everyone, not for competitive players only.

Depriving the players of at least some “easy victories” (that come as a part of the game model, I don’t mean completely random ones where for example a key player goes AFK for some reason and the rest folds) will make players lose interest.

Summary

And so, we reach this point again, where the odds stacking returns back to the maps. Imagine if all maps were – let’s say “normalized”. Let’s say – half of the map a city, half of the map open space. Surely, this would satisfy the people, who loudly proclaim how some of the maps are imbalanced. And yet, for the entire playerbase, it would make the gameplay more boring. Naturally, the mediums don’t go through the city, they would flank through the open side, while the city would end in a stalemate (as it often does even now) and the side with better flankers would win. The battles would become certainly more monotonous, which in turn would promote less actual thinking on maps, that are stacked against you (a light tank on the North-West map, like that Odem Mortis guy).

Current El-Halluf, so bashed by everyone else, is in my opinion far from unplayable. Sure, you can be angry about corridors as much as you want – you can be angry even that the game map promotes defensive gameplay (do people really have such a short memory as to not remember how bad El-Halluf was before the center overhaul? THAT was bad), but that is okay, because this map is there for people, who actually PREFER defensive gameplay. That’s a valid choice you know, other – open – maps (such as the Steppes) are in turn there for you, if you prefer fast tanks.

In the end, it’s all about the big picture, which a lot of the commenters seem to be missing. This game HAS to be friendly to lower skilled players, to players who prefer defensive combat, to players, who are kept in the game by the fact that once per blue moon, the game stacks the odds in their favour (map, tech, top of the team) so much they pwn too. Because these are the players that drive the game.

Don’t believe me? Let me give you an example to put the numbers in perspective. I pulled out the stats and yesterday, the article about the corridors was viewed by cca 15 thousand people. If Wargaming banned EVERYONE, who did read that article including me, they would hardly even feel it on their profits, because neither the “skilled players” nor “whales” carry this game economically, the “daddies” do. There is a proof to this statement as well: recently, Wargaming banned several thousand (on RU, ASIA and EU in total, I think the number reaches cca 30 thousand) players and large majority of those players had a premium account, because that’s what most of the advanced bots require to run. Would they do that, if they couldn’t afford such “losses”? Of course not.

I hope that puts the numbers in perspective. Having large amounts of players is the essence of the Free to Play model after all. I tried to explain as best as I could the “big picture” above the decisions Wargaming took.

Important: Again, I would like to emphasize that what was written above does NOT mean that all the maps are fine and don’t need any overhaul. God knows there are some seriously shitty maps in this game (I think we can all agree on Hidden Village) and some parts of existing maps do need tweaks. This post is about the general ideas, not concrete map issues.