In World of Tanks, platoons allow players to team up and enter battles together in small groups of two or three. Update 9.18 brought many changes to the way platoons and matchmaking works in World of Tanks, and most of these changes are for the better. "Fail platoons" are almost non-esistant now, and matchmaking battle tiers work a bit differently. We'll explain how the new matchmaking system works for those who are new to these recent changes.
How Matchmaking Works
World of Tanks matchmaking now follows a template-based algorithm. This means that the matchmaking system will try to fit players into a 3/5/7 matchmaking template, with a ±2 tier difference for each level. Ideally, the matchmaking system will create teams with only three tanks at top tier, five at mid-tier, and seven at the bottom. This setup comes in various iterations, but the same ratio still applies, keeping the bottom tier players as the majority on both sides.
This system also tries to take into account the speed of matchmaking to avoid long wait times. If the queue time is taking too long, then the matchmaking system will adapt so that players can get into battle more quickly. To speed up matchmaking, players may get put into a two-tier or one-tier battle instead, with the latter being much more rare. A two-tiered battle will still have a majority of bottom-tier players.
Tank Destroyers, Artillery, and Light tanks will be placed evenly on each team, with no more than one additional of those tank types on either side. Medium and Heavy tanks are distributed randomly, as this prevents longer wait times. This is why you may still encounter battles with an uneven distribution of Heavy tanks on one side. No more than three SPGs are allowed on either team, and they can no longer platoon with other tanks.
This algorithm creates more even team composition overall. Bottom tier players now have a better chance at success during battle, as they no longer have to face an overwhelming amount of top tier opponents.
No More Fail Platoons
In World of Tanks, a “fail platoon” occurred when at least two players in a platoon choose to use tanks that are several tiers apart from one another. The tiers of each tank would effect the way matchmaking treats the platoon as a whole. Thanks to the platoon changes in Update 9.18, now players can only platoon using tanks of the same tier, nearly eliminating fail platoons altogether.
The only way to fail platoon now is by platooning a Premium tank with preferential matchmaking with tanks that do not have preferential matchmaking. This too will become a much more rare occurance, as future tanks will no longer have this special matchmaking. All the tanks in a platoon need to be the same tier with the same preferential matchmaking to benefit from it.
So, if you happen to platoon with someone while using a vehicle that originally had unique matchmaking, make sure your platoonmate uses a tank of the same tier with the same unique matchmaking as well to prevent fail platooning.
Additionally, Light tanks no longer receive scout matchmaking as they did before. Due to the addition of new Tier 10 Light tanks, scout matchmaking is no longer needed. Light tanks now receive the same matchmaking as all other tanks, unless the tank originally received preferential matchmaking.
Wargaming North America offers more details about how the new matchmaking system works in World of Tanks in the video below (around the 3-minute mark).
The new matchmaking system also takes into account the maps that players on each team have battled on recently to avoid selecting duplicate maps. This new map rotation logic reduces the chances of seeing the same map multiple times in a row, adding variety to matchmaking and making the maps seem less repetitive.
Now that these new World of Tanks matchmaking changes have been in effect for some time, let us know what you think of this new matchmaking system in the comments below.
