Is the player population low?

Not many players are on the server. Once, I played the same guy twice consecutively

This game is mostly geared towards the European and Eurasian markets. The NAs didn't exactly get the biggest fanfare when this game was released. I've played the same people many times already. Amusingly, a lot of them are the same people who actively post on these forums.

It sucks for now. I'm hoping that with more marketing and more exposure from streamers that this game's playerbase will grow.

I think I have played each of you guys who have posted on these forums if not once but multiple times. My friends run a wot podcast that I am going to talk about the game on and try to get it done more exposure. Worst comes to worst I will just have to make an account on the ru or EU server.

This should not happen. I believe there is algorithm in the match maker which prevents you from playing the same guy twice in a row.

Edited by Nas_sa, 05 January 2016 - 12:18 PM.

Lokeen and Lephturn from Blitz Alo. It is called "Tank Boom". Check out the episode where I break down the IS-7. I am hoping another appearance and interview where I will talk about Generals will give it some more exposure in the community.

The population isn't huge as the game may have launched with some issues, but the other major hurdle is how the population is so heavily fragmented.

1) You can't match up against anyone already in game. Makes sense of course, but that's a good chunk of players unavailable.

2) You have some players doing some other activity such as deck building, looking at their stats, etc. Basically equal to being AFK in regards to availability.

3) The remaining players who are looking for battle are segregated into small deck ranges. This is probably the biggest issue that can probably be addressed some or at least mitigated. More tools for players that helps them find opponents when they want would be very welcome. Using general chat is a very inefficient and clunky way for players to find each other. And the more players spamming general chat makes it more difficult to have any other discussions.

4) The stealth change to the rating systems punishes experienced/veteran player accounts with high ratings to participate in lower tier battles. This further reduces the available pool of opponents for newer players.

5) Game started a bit rocky with early access tanks given to alpha/beta players, which gave a feeling of unfair seal-clubbing, probably scared off some new players. Long queue times is probably main thing that drives many new players away.

6) This is niche game. Not only because it's a turn based strategy game, but also because the subject of tank names are not the most user-friendly to recognize. To most people, tank names such as Pz. (number & letters) are not easily recognizable for a lay person from another Pz. (different numbers & letters). The game has a fairly steep learning curve, and is made more difficult by this recognition obstacle. Of course, art helps to distinguish them, but at some point, many tanks will have some similar appearance as another tank. Time and repeated play is the best way to get familiar & recognize the various tanks most players probably are not familiar with tanks.

IDEA: maybe a setting could be added that when activated, allows Matchmaker to prompt players who are not in queue (say that this is might be you for this example) with an invite to a random person who has been waiting in queue for over some minutes (2 to 5) while you are not in queue (maybe because you're deck building). MM will never send these invites to those who disable the feature. I kind of doubt that this can be done efficiently for the server, but thought I'd throw the idea out there. I also reckon being a browser game may have limitations to game development.

Just my thoughts.

EDIT: Added another bullet point and inserted as new #4. Rest pushed down one spot.

Edited by naejin, 06 January 2016 - 04:59 PM.

Yes, the long queue wait times are definitely the number one issue in terms of playability right now. I personally don't care about ratings very much (since IMHO the system is pretty messed up so it's not that meaningful... WR is more meaningful I think) so I play tier 4 games all the time. But the minute(s) long wait time is pretty frustrating. Even when I can find games, it seems that I am playing the same few players over and over again, which gets old quickly. I would suggest WG make this a priority issue if it wishes this game to perform well. As I suggested back in beta, allowing a player to queue up more than one deck at a time (presumably of different deck powers) would increase the chance of a match significantly.

The game certainly needs more exposure and aggressive advertising. This game is very good, but just isn't getting the right amount of attention due to TCGs like Hearthstone and MtG taking the spotlight. At the moment, the only way it can spread is by recommendation. I'm doing my best, but I'm no marketing specialist.