That abandoned feeling

Armored Warfare these days has the very same feel to it as this picture of a shot up and abandoned Chieftain tank in the Imber Live Firing Area, on the Salisbury Plain of England.

Anyone who logs into the North America server at any time of day will have a very tough time getting into a player versus player match. No, let's call it nearly impossible, unless a group of players can communicate and coordinate on the forums for a rendezvous ingame with enough people to make battles in agreed tiers.

One of the most recent events that has added to this situation is the controversy surrounding the departure Obsidian Entertainment from the Armored Warfare project and my.com/mail.ru assuming future development responsibilities. More to the point, the exact details of who, what, where, when and why from both sides, has been the unanswered question for players who have been sitting on the fence to just finally leave altogether.

A surprising number of bloggers, YouTubers and forum posting players have made notice about how they feel about this situation, spreading their feeling of distrust in my.com/mail.ru and left on not-so-pleasant terms. Others have been outright banned for sharing/leaking what is considered to be confidential information (ie: the recent Reddit post and a few others).

However, this pales in comparison in what some might agree with the first nail in the coffin....

A year ago, a new word was floating around on the Armored Warfare forums, SIMM. Skill Influenced Match Making was designed to place statistically above average players on teams that were then filled out with average to below average teammates, for player versus player battles. The theory was that if both teams would be skill statistically balanced, it would give both sides a more level field chance at winning.

Some highly skilled, well above average players discovered that the system didn't work in their favor, since their statistics were started a downward trend. They weren't winning battles like they believed they should and started to complain about how "carrying their teams" solo was impossible. Of course, they were ridiculed of how since they claimed to be such professionals at the game, they shouldn't be losing more than usual.

After a long, back and forth debate on the forums, many of those players left, stating they were personally "punished" by the system (some were able to manipulate SIMM by staying in high-skill stacked platoons, a known force modifier that was explained as the thinly disguised "playing with friends" excuse, but this was noticed, posted and discussed at length on the forums).

Quite a few of these above average players had come over from World of Tanks and one of the repeated requests/demands there was the introduction of skill based matchmaking, which was delivered to them in Armored Warfare. In essence, they got what the wanted, but didn't like the results of the AW system and returned to WOT, where the still-in-place random matchmaker and all their old tricks still worked in their favor.

With SIMM turned off, many players moved on to the next scapegoat for the plummeting PvP population, PvE.

Despite all the claims that people play online games for the competitiveness of matching wits and tactics against other human players and teams, this isn't the whole truth. Some just can't accept that other people like the idea of a story based, singleplayer/co-operative progression mode. These players have been labeled from "casuals" to "play4funs" and a few other choice titles in between. They avoid playing in the PvP arena, but have been known to venture into that environment out of curiosity or a few rewarding payouts.

Another one of these groups are known as "burnouts," having playing countless hours in World of Tanks and/or War Thunder, where neither title offers a PvE experience. They are tired of being outplayed and out skilled, also known as "farmed", by better solo players, platoons or even entire teams. Despite their best efforts (granted, some don't have any desire to learn the game in the same scope as the "better players"), they just can't get the satisfaction of consistent winning, from a variety of reasons (the better players always shoot down their explanations on the forums as "excuses" or use the tired and unoriginal catch phrase of "get gud."

So, even with all of the disinterest from one crowd and the other baring scars of ridicule and insults, these players still want to partake in an armored vehicle combat game and the PvE portion of Armored Warfare gives them what they are looking for, in a much less toxic, nearly elitist absent environment.

Once again, I look at the wrecked and almost forgotten Chieftain tank at the top of this page. I see a vehicle that could very well be saved, but that would come at the high price of time, money and resources. Then I look at the state of Armored Warfare and take note of an abandoned PvP mode and a barely hanging on PvE alternative with a skeleton population.

Both images bring out a certain sad feeling from me.