I’ve been playing since open beta, and over the years I have seen enlisted go through a lot of really good changes that have helped the game be more player friendly and fun!..
The is new matchmaking system is definitely not one of those changes, it’s unintuitive, and completely throws balance out the window. Older campaigns like Normandy and Moscow already had some issues with newer players being thrown against equipment much better than theirs to the point where some engagements (even as infantry) were literally impossible to win. The new matchmaking system not only fails to solve this issue, but makes it much much worse, I can’t help but wonder how a new player with an M3 Grant or Mp28 can hope to beat someone wielding a King Tiger or a player with a thompson-50 drum.
There is a very small gap between high and low tier that can easily be exploited, or exploited unintentionally, I would absolutely love to just play with my M1 Garand, and M4A2 Sherman whilst facing opponents of similar weapon grade; but I find that the only matches I get into are ones facing much more powerful Germans, or much weaker Japanese. The only faction that doesn’t really suffer with this system is the USSR, I don’t know if that’s because they were the faction this was based around, but at least it works.
I don’t really know why this approach to matchmaking was taken, whether it was to avoid becoming “war thunder but infantry”, or for historical accuracy’s sake. But I seriously would recommend a basic battle rating system like the one warthunder has with some matchmaking “preferences” to make it more accurate.
I really love this game, and I have been just as excited for the merge as anyone else, but if this update was delayed until 2024 to fix these issues I honestly wouldn’t complain, because as it is on the test server its nearly unplayable.