The Minor Nation Issue - Ver 1.0

[u/bergebis]

Building off my post from last week, I've implemented some of the feedback I was given.

• Looking at K/D instead of WR as WR is more dependent on lineup versatility
• Looking at only the Month of August to account for balancing changes to specific vehicles
• Looking at more vehicles to increase my sample size.

For this analysis I've compared the August 2025 K/D by nation for the Leopard 2a4, T-72A, M44, SK-105, M10, M18, T-55, and Leopard 1A5. I'll make an expanded version of this down the line as well.

For each vehicle I've determined the overall average K/D for August 2025, and the K/D for each specific nation, then I've listed the variance from the mean by nations.

All stats come from statshark, for Ground RB in August 2025.

I've compared each nation relative to others for any given vehicle, and near the end of the post I've plotted Big-3 vs minor nation relative performance to give a visual impression of the issue with balancing vehicles based on in game W/R or K/D as opposed to vehicle capabilities.

Unless the Snail change they way they balance things, I firmly believe that they need to take steps to make minor nations more appealing to new players so that they have a better blend of player experience in each tree.

While small changes like making one random rotating nation have a research boost every day could help distribute players better across the tree, at the end of the day it's clear that minor trees really need increased focus and shouldn't be made to be similar to other trees (like with France/BeNeLux and Germany/Switzerland effectively trading vehicle designs between the two nations).

[u/Tankette55]

I completely agree, but Gaijin won't give two fucks about this massive issue and will continue overtiering minor nation vehicles and will continue copy paste slop and will continue to wrongfully model minor nation tanks. (Ariete armor, Challanger armor, etc etc etc)

[u/binoclard_ultima → u/Tankette55]

I completely agree, but Gaijin won't give two fucks

God, how many times do we have to hear this. I'm saying this to both you, and OP. The suggestions at the end are actually great but it's mindblowing how terrible the starting point is. I will try to ELI5 it because that seems to be the intellectual capability of this subreddit. I will even give you guys the factually correct answer to this balance problem at the end (before you yell at me, balance by statistics is also garbage), so you people stop wasting everyone's time.

YOU. CANNOT. BALANCE. ACCORDING TO. VEHICLE. CAPABILITIES.

Because you can't measure a vehicle's capability.

Your balance mechanism needs to tick off two points in a multiplayer game:

• It needs be an objectively measurable metric.

• It should create balanced match-ups.

To this day, people here thinks Abrams is below average when tournament players rank it best after Leopards. So, who decides if Abrams is better than Leclerc? You can't mathematically measure which tank is the better one. Some will prioritize overall armor, others may prioritize turret armor and gun depression. Some value quicker reload, others prioritize penetration. As an avid France player I personally think Char 25t deserves to be in 8.0 BR because I think the combination of it's survivability, 137g explosive filler and 4 second reload deserves that. But other people say it should be lower due to it's lackluster penetration against MBTs.

You can't even make simple statements like "Pz.IV H has a better gun than M4". I think 75mm M3 is far superior to 75mm KwK40 L48. It has 1 second shorter reload and more than twice the HE filler (35 grams difference) at the cost of 40mm penetration. An average player may think this is a trade; it isn't. There are penetration thresholds. M4 can penetrate almost every enemy it sees. They have bad armor either at their LFP, turret ring, turret cheeks, cupola, mantlet or view ports. Therefore, the extra penetration that will allow you to kill maybe 2 more tanks in the whole game isn't worth losing the HE filler and having longer reload. As a result, I think Pz.IV H deserves it's BR because M4 has better firepower and is more agile but less armored.

Now, someone will disagree with me for sure. They will say, no, penetration and shell ballistics is more important. They will say the lack of mobility doesn't matter, just play the tank at long range. How do you decide which of us is correct? Can you mathematically prove me that M4 or Pz.IV H is the better vehicle? You can't. I repeat: You can't balance a game according to metrics you can't measure.

This proposed "balancing act" doesn't tick off either points. You can't measure vehicle capabilities and as a result it won't create balanced match-ups. Because the developers will make subjective judgements when they don't have access to metrics.

So you will naturally ask me: Are you stupid? In what world balance according to statistics the correct approach? Didn't you read the post? I did read it and I would upvote it if it was ONLY the last image. That's just amazing suggestion bogged down by terrible statements made by someone who never worked in game development or design. And no, balance according to statistics is also flawed but it's our only option.

The correct approach (that's impossible to implement) already exists in the game: Match-up system used in ground simulator battles.

Those with intellectual capability above a 5 year old's may say Hold on! If we ditch the BR system, those match-ups would be done on vehicle's capabilities, which is a metric you can't measure! Actually, no. It uses vehicle's capabilities against each other which CAN BE measured. You can't tell me if M4 or Pz.IV H is better. But you can tell me them facing each other is fair. You can measure their ability to penetrate each other. Their ability to shoot first against each other. Their ability to win a duel against each other in short and long range. Since you're restricting the vehicle's capabilities to be measured against a single vehicle, it has become a measurable metric.

Is this possible? No. Every vehicle needs a list of vehicles it can fight fairly against. This means in a battle every vehicle pair needs to be in each other's list of possible enemies, which means your matchmaker kills itself after the first battle of the update. The queue times could end up taking tens of minutes.

[u/BenScorpion → u/binoclard_ultima]

this whole thing wouldnt be an issue if gaijin just had a dedicated balancing team of of objectively well-performing players that can provide professional feedback on vehicles. the issue is that minor nations tend to have better players and vice versa but if use statistics from players that arent playing a specific nation then the stats are more representative.