Conclusion First:
Set a max time in queue, for example 30sec. When a player waited to join a match at 30 sec, form a room with other waiting players (those player wait less than 30 sec), and fill the remain slots with AI.
So far, the good side of merge update：reduced the waiting time to match, and no more weapons need to be researched multiple times.
The bad side of merge update: For new players and casual players, the more they research, the worse game experience they could have.
For example, a players with full of BR 2 weapons, suddenly unlocked one BR3 weapon and equipped, it is highly like he would be put into BR3-5 room, and being slaughtered.
For this guy, best bet is to wait until he is able to equip BR3 weapons to all squads. According to the currently sliver earning efficiency (assume 500 sliver per match with premium activated), he might need to play 50+ matches to get his squads well equipped. Yet, still being slaughtered by BR4-5 guy.
Even if this guy become a core player and play thousands of matches to get his squads BR5 weapons equipped, he cannot enjoy the game. Why? Because he need to play better than his teammate, he need to kill other players quicker than any other teammates, otherwise his BR5 weapons are useless.
Feeling tired, that is it!
So, currently play BR 1~2 is the only solutions for player to not get slaughtered that easily.
Anyway, we play game for fun, when we are forced to play certain nations, certain BRs, certain weapons to feel fun, it is already not fun.
yeah, I just tried that today, I was forced to play against tier V players.
it’s really really bad.
average casual player is clueless of what he’s supposed to do and what take into consideration.
he will usually just equip gear he likes and go into battle, guess what, he will end up being slaughter and next thing you’ll see is that he gonna rant all over the place just like they did with P2W argument, this will make NOT good reputation about the game. Even that those people will be wrong people will believe them.
Look, let’s say you have a full 5.3 US lineup in War Thunder. M4A3E2, M10, M24, M42, etc
You unlock the next TD (or what is supposed to be a TD), the M18. You’ve been stuck with the M10 since 3.3. You’re sick of the basic 76mm on a slow chassis. You put it in your line up. Guess what? You fight 5.7-6.7 now because the M18’s 5.7
So, this is what everyone asked for. War Thunder: Infantry Edition
Not that BR even really matters in this game anyways. A bullet’s a bullet and a fleshbag’s a fleshbag. You don’t need a specific round, in a specific cannon, and hit a specific spot some couple pixels big. You aim gun at enemy, pull trigger, enemy goes down/dies. Regardless if you’re firing 9mm from a pistol or .50 BMG from the M2. You can kill a man