World of Tanks news » Matchmaker Changes Coming in 7.5

Dear community,

We are all excited about the 7.5 update, with the inclusion of tier 10 medium and Tank Destroyers. These vehicles are sure to change the dynamics of the game.

We wanted to draw your attention to a single line in the patch notes “reworked match making for most vehicles”. It’s a short and simple line, but it will have dramatic effects on the game.

For those not aware, the Match Making system decides what match you join and who your opponents will be when you click on the big red battle button.

The process works like this:

• There are 12 “battles tiers” that represent every type of match that can be created.
• The Match Maker randomly determines a battle tier for a match it wishes to create for the players that are waiting
• Each vehicle you own only can participate in a specific number of these tiers. This is in place so that a tier 1 tanks don’t have to face off against tier 10 tanks
• The match making chart is a matrix that shows all the possible combinations of matches
• The chart is easy to read; just pick the type of vehicle you are driving on the left and trace that line to the right and you will see what battle tiers your vehicle is qualified to fight.
• If you look up and down from any of those boxes that are marked (colored) you will see all the possibilities of opponents you may face.

The change comes in the form of most vehicles seeing a reduced pool of tanks that they can face in battle. Medium, Heavy, and Tank Destroyers will now only face an opponent a maximum of 2 tiers (levels) higher than themselves! This is a reduction of up to 2 tiers in some cases.

As an example, if you are driving a M4 Sherman tank (tier 5) the range of opponents will be between tiers 3 and 7.  You will no longer face off against tanks like the Tiger II, IS3, and Type 59. The new matchmaker also does not force a tier spread so it’s even possible that you could see tanks only of your same tier.

This is a huge change! It will allow all tanks to be a major factor in the outcome of the match.

There are 2 exceptions to the change:

Light tanks. These tanks are meant for scouting purposes and will still see matches against higher tiers.  Their strength is in their speed, small size, stealth, and spotting ability to help their team to victory.

Self-Propelled guns are very powerful and their tier does not accurately reflect this power. In a recent interview it was disclosed that the current SPG’s will be moved up 2 tiers each, and new less powerful SPG’s will backfill their positions. In the meantime, understand that these machines are more powerful than their tier would suggest and you will always be in matches with tanks of higher listed level than you.

While we hope this article has been informative, we also want to take this opportunity to thank you, the community, for supporting the game and continuing to give your feedback on changes you want to see in the game.

It’s been a long road to get to this point.

There have been countless threads, discussions, polls, private messages, and emails on the subject. We have taken all of this in, and here is the result.

It seems like a simple solution, and it was, but there was an issue that needed to be solved prior to making the adjustment. The concern was that the middle-tier vehicles needed to be rebalanced. You saw the first sign of this in 7.3 where the KV got split in the KV-1 and KV-2. In 7.5 you will continue to see many mid-tier tanks rebalanced. These changes, and a few more to come, have laid down the foundation for a healthy mid-tier game.

Thank you again for all of your feedback and comments over the many months leading up to this release, we are excited to be working with a community that is passionate about the game and willing to express their opinions. We ask you to continue this trend and make your feelings and suggestions known.  We appreciate all constructive criticism you participate in on the forums.

See you on the battlefield.

Roll out!