Rank 5 Air Simulator Battles should be split into Rank 5 and Rank 6

[Herra_Tohtori 1,575]

I'd like to open a discussion about the current handling of jet aircraft in Simulator Battles.

 

Currently, all jet aircraft in the game are simply thrown into one battle rating bracket (Rank 5, BR 6.7-9.3) with the same mechanics as the lower BR brackets (Rank I-IV). This has created numerous issues, which make high tier gameplay much less interesting and entertaining than it could be.

 

To start with, the Rank V bracket is simply too broad for its own good. The "WW2 brackets" from Rank 1 to Rank 4 work quite well because the technological gap between "low BR" and "high BR" aircraft is not overwhelmingly large. For example, a BR 2.3 aircraft can usually compete against a BR 3.3 aircraft (in general terms).

 

With jets, however, the bracket itself is very large (from BR 6.7 to BR 9.0), but more importantly the technological gap from He 162 or Me 262 to Hawker Hunter or MiG-17 is really quite massive.

 

The early jets can't effectively compete with high tier jets on equal terms. That would in itself be fine, and I quite enjoy bringing high tier jets down with lower ranked aircraft - but that generally speaking relies on the pilots of those faster jets making mistakes, and you shouldn't *always* have to fight at a massive disadvantage. The early jets currently have absolutely no environment in SB where they are the "top dog", and high tier jets are crippled by the spawn point costs and timers, which makes it incredibly difficult to research the upgrade modules for these aircraft. Granted, this is not generally an issue because you can still vastly overperform most other aircraft you see in Rank 5 EC games, since most games just don't have worthy opponents for them.

 

It's not exactly rewarding to zoom around the map at 1000+ km/g in a Hunter or MiG-17 and pop an occasional Me 262 or P-80 to bits. Not only is it extremely demoralizing for the early jet pilots, it is thoroughly unsatisfying for the top tier jet pilots. And something is deeply wrong in a game where a victory feels empty and hollow because the enemy could do absolutely nothing about it.

 

These issues combined mean that most of the time, it's just plain unfun to fly jets in SB EC - low tier jets because they can't compete beyond the start of the game, and high tier jets because it takes ages to get them to fly well and carry ordnance needed to kill ground targets other than howitzers and AAA.

 

In SB Operations, high tier jets are more viable to grind because they don't need to worry about spawn points or timers, but low tier jets simply don't have an environment where they're worth flying, and that's a crying shame. In addition, bombers often make these operations their "grinding field", but that's an issue that should be addressed by improving bomber gameplay so that it doesn't disrupt everyone else's gameplay - and this thread is not the right place to discuss that.

 

 

My proposed solution to the issues with jet gameplay would be to create a new Rank VI bracket just for SB Air games. This doesn't mean a new Rank VI should be created for aircraft in the tech tree, just that the current Rank 5 battles in SB Air needs to be split into two separate BR brackets.

 

With this system, Rank 5 should be BR 6.3-8.0.

 

The new Rank 6 would then include aircraft from BR 8.0-9.3. Because of the narrow BR range of this bracket, spawn point costs and timers should be lower since top tier jets (currently BR 9.0) would be only BR 0.7 higher than the "base" level for the bracket.

 

There are a handful of BR 8.0 aircraft which should receive an increase to BR 8.3 in Simulator Battles specifically to exclude them from Rank 5 battles. These include:

 

* USSR: Yak-30, La-15, La-174, La-200

* Italy: G.91 pre-serie and G.91 R/1

 

The goal of this battle rating bracket setup would accomplish the following:

 

1. Rank 5 would be a playground for superprops, first generation jets (WW2 and early Cold War), and jet bombers. No second generation, swept-wing fighters.

 

2. Superprops (BR 6.3 propeller-driven fighters) would have an environment where they can be flown without spawn point costs.

 

3. Early jets (BR 6.7-8.0) would have an environment where they would be - generally speaking - the best aircraft available.

 

4. Top tier jets (BR 8.3-9.3) would have an environment where they would be able to have good fights with equal opponents, without being crippled by constant issues with timers and spawn costs.

 

 

I firmly believe that something along these lines could drastically improve high tier SB economy and gameplay environment, and make it much more populated as well.

 

 

EDIT: It's been pointed out that the use of the word "Rank" in conjunction with Roman numerals seems to be confusing people, because the same notation is used for tech tree ranks. The use of the word "Rank" is something I don't want to change since the game currently uses that word as well, but instead I have edited all instances of Roman numerals to normal numbers when used to refer to the battle "Rank", and kept them Roman numerals when referring to tech tree "Rank". With this notation:

 

"Rank V" = top rank in Tech Tree.

 

"Rank 5" = current top rank of SB Air battles.

 

Hopefully this helps.

Edited July 3, 2018 by Herra_Tohtori
clarification of terminology

[Radom 4,245]

Open for discussion

[Daffan 6,158]

I like  the suggestion.

 

I have absolutely no incentive to play early tier jets when I am getting crushed by jets that can fly over 1000kph that would never be able to see each other in other game modes by a long shot. Add in the spawn timers and reward rate problem and you have real trouble with progression too.

 

From the outside it would look like it's splitting the playerbase even more because yet another event room is coming  but in reality it's actually better for the population because it brings all the jet people back due to better balance and progression. 

Edited July 2, 2018 by DaffanZ

[Herra_Tohtori 1,575]

20 hours ago, DaffanZ said:

From the outside it would look like it's splitting the playerbase even more because yet another event room is coming  but in reality it's actually better for the population because it brings all the jet people back due to better balance and progression.  

 

Indeed. I believe the small number of people playing jets is largely caused by the issues like early jets being outmatched, late jets being a pain to fly, and the economy issues you outlined in another thread.

 

It's kind of like a Catch-22. Players don't play jets because it's not enjoyable, so the battle rating bracket stays huge in order to not split the small jet player base... but this keeps driving people away from actually flying jets.

 

I think it would be at least worth a test for a month or two to see what happens when the bracket it split into Rank 5 and Rank 6. I have high hopes that it might actually attract enough people to play both brackets actively, when they aren't "interfering" with each other the way they are now. There must be a lot of players who are holding off from playing their unlocked jets because they've simply been disappointed with the opportunities to fly them in SB.

 

Ironically, the best jet gameplay currently can be found in SB Ground games, on the days when the high tier games are available. But that shouldn't really "replace" dedicated SB Air games, I think...

Edited July 3, 2018 by Herra_Tohtori
roman numerals to regular numbers

[Daffan 6,158]

1 minute ago, Herra_Tohtori said:

 

Indeed. I believe the small number of people playing jets is largely caused by the issues like early jets being outmatched, late jets being a pain to fly, and the economy issues you outlined in another thread.

 

It's kind of like a Catch-22. Players don't play jets because it's not enjoyable, so the battle rating bracket stays huge in order to not split the small jet player base... but this keeps driving people away from actually flying jets.

 

I think it would be at least worth a test for a month or two to see what happens when the bracket it split into Rank V and Rank VI. I have high hopes that it might actually attract enough people to play both brackets actively, when they aren't "interfering" with each other the way they are now. There must be a lot of players who are holding off from playing their unlocked jets because they've simply been disappointed with the opportunities to fly them in SB.

 

Ironically, the best jet gameplay currently can be found in SB Ground games, on the days when the high tier games are available. But that shouldn't really "replace" dedicated SB Air games, I think...

You should see my stats revolving around jets, very little game time. I   am one of those people waiting on the side lines.

 

I LIKE the dogfighting and everything but its' these 'exterior' problems that really drive me off. 

[_IFF 608]

5 hours ago, Herra_Tohtori said:

2. Superprops (BR 6.3 propeller-driven fighters) would have an environment where they can be flown without spawn point costs.

Does this imply limiting the ec4 bracket at 6.0 or are you suggesting the two brackets, the current ec4 and the new ec5, overlap? Does that need its own suggestion? Already in the current ec4 the performance range is massive between current ec4 low-br fighters to high-br fighters between certain nations.

 

2 hours ago, Herra_Tohtori said:

I have high hopes that it might actually attract enough people to play both brackets actively

If that fails then an alternative to try is to limit whether the new ec5 or the new ec6 is available at any given time. The "rotation" could be every-other-match, every-other-hour, every-N-hours and so on. There's room to experiment here to be able to draw a player base. I would expect quite few players are willing to sacrifice plane availability in exchange for narrower performance range if needed.

[Herra_Tohtori 1,575]

17 hours ago, _IFF said:

Does this imply limiting the ec4 bracket at 6.0 or are you suggesting the two brackets, the current ec4 and the new ec5, overlap? Does that need its own suggestion? Already in the current ec4 the performance range is massive between current ec4 low-br fighters to high-br fighters between certain nations.

 

The Rank 4 battles would still have the upper limit of 6.3, and in this environment the superprops would be the top of the line fighters.

 

The reason why I would set the Rank 4 lower limit to 6.3 also is to allow players who have not yet unlocked jets to fly their superprops in this line-up.

 

And yes, I think in general the BR brackets would work better if they had an "overlap" like this. However, it's not super critical, because as soon as you have one plane that is qualified for the higher bracket, you can bring any plane there in your line-up anyway. It's just a thought from the way the transition from props to jets happened historically.

 

I would be fine with BR brackets set up like this as well:

 

Rank 1: BR 1.0-2.0

Rank 2: BR 2.3-3.3

Rank 3: BR 3.7-4.7

Rank 4: BR 5.0-6.3

Rank 5: BR 6.7-8.0

Rank 6: BR 8.3-9.3

 

The exact numbers aren't really important. Rank 5 could just as well be BR 6.7-7.7 and Rank 6 would then be BR 8.0-9.3. However, there are a lot of BR 8.0 aircraft which should then be dropped to BR 7.7 in order to be eligible for Rank 5 battles, and that is mainly why I chose 8.0 as the upper limit for Rank 5... less work to do with battle ratings, I believe.

 

17 hours ago, _IFF said:

If that fails then an alternative to try is to limit whether the new ec5 or the new ec6 is available at any given time. The "rotation" could be every-other-match, every-other-hour, every-N-hours and so on. There's room to experiment here to be able to draw a player base. I would expect quite few players are willing to sacrifice plane availability in exchange for narrower performance range if needed.

 

That could also work, but if it goes to that direction I would actually rather see something more similar to how SB Ground currently works: Line-ups of aircraft, instead of relying on battle rating brackets.

 

In actual fact the end result would be much the same, but the line-ups would allow some more freedom in setting up events instead of having to adjust a whole bunch of battle ratings in order to include or exclude certain aircraft from a certain bracket...

Edited July 3, 2018 by Herra_Tohtori
roman numerals to regular numbers

[Lukas_SVK 1,587]

+1

[Hikhara 5,196]

Splitting the rank V SB bracket into two sounds like a good idea, however, jets such as the F-86, FJ-4, MiG-15, and CL-13A are by no means rank VI. They are still rank V. Rank VI would come after the Sabres (so whatever succeeds the F-86 and MiG-17 (probably F-100, MiG-19, F-4, MiG-21, etc.)).

[_IFF 608]

Think he chose an unfortunate word "rank" to use. Seems to be confusing people. He is not talking about the ranks you see in the tech tree. He is talking about simply splitting the current EC5 BR range 6.7-9.0 in two. So that there is new EC5 with the low-br planes, 6.3-8.0, and new EC6 with the high-br, 8.3-9.3, planes. No changes to the tech tree.

[LuizBarros99 436]

11 hours ago, Herra_Tohtori said:

There are a handful of BR 8.0 aircraft which should receive an increase to BR 8.3 in Simulator Battles specifically to exclude them from Rank V battles. These include:

 

* USSR: Yak-30, La-15, La-174, La-200

* Italy: G.91 pre-serie and G.91 R/1

I would add to that the F-84G, and Tu-4.

[Herra_Tohtori 1,575]

13 hours ago, Woudwolf said:

Splitting the rank V SB bracket into two sounds like a good idea, however, jets such as the F-86, FJ-4, MiG-15, and CL-13A are by no means rank VI. They are still rank V. Rank VI would come after the Sabres (so whatever succeeds the F-86 and MiG-17 (probably F-100, MiG-19, F-4, MiG-21, etc.)). 

 

There are no Rank VI planes in the game, and I'm not asking for them.

 

This thread is about trying to create sensible gameplay out of the aircraft that are currently in the game.

 

Any bracket is always going to have weaker and stronger planes in general terms. The trick is to try and make sure the gap isn't too overwhelming. Currently, it is for Rank 5 battles since you have BR 6.7 jets fighting BR 9.0 jets.

 

What I'm proposing is the creation of Rank 6 battles for SB Air, not Rank VI as separate rank in the tech tree.

 

12 hours ago, _IFF said:

Think he chose an unfortunate word "rank" to use. Seems to be confusing people. He is not talking about the ranks you see in the tech tree. He is talking about simply splitting the current EC5 BR range 6.7-9.0 in two. So that there is new EC5 with the low-br planes, 6.3-8.0, and new EC6 with the high-br, 8.3-9.3, planes. No changes to the tech tree. 

 

I'm using the same word as the game. I agree that it's unfortunate, but the game itself is not exactly consistent about these things either...

 

11 hours ago, LuizBarros99 said:

I would add to that the F-84G, and Tu-4.

 

The Tu-4 should be available in Rank 5 battles, just as the B-29 is. There are other things that should be done to make bomber gameplay less disruptive for all non-bomber players, but that's a different issue altogether.

 

I considered excluding the F-84G as well. The problem with removing the F-84G is that then Italy would have no jets available for Rank 5 at all. The G.91 definitely doesn't belong there, but I'd like to see every nation have at least some aircraft to participate in this tier... even if it's just one plane for now.

 

Technically I would also like to remove the MD.450B Ouragan/Barougan, but again, that would only leave the F-84G for the French in Rank 5 and the MD.540B doesn't really punch in the same weight class as the G.91 for example. And I feel like they would be a reasonable match for planes like the F2H-2 Banshee.

 

So, the planes that I proposed to be excluded are all quite fast, swept-wing aircraft. The F-84G is fast, but only at low altitudes, and it's a straight-wing aircraft, part of the first generation of jet fighters. It's going to be one of the "top dogs" in the proposed new Rank 5, but hey, there's always going to be some plane that takes that role.

 

On the topic of some nations having a very limited roster of planes in the BR 6.7-8.0 range: I would really like to see some more low tier jets for French and Italian air forces specifically to expand the amount of planes for this new Rank V, but the selection is kind of limited. Scrounging at the bottom of the barrel kind of limited...

 

For the French, I can see four aircraft being eligible for addition. Two of them are indigenous French designs, while two are foreign:

 

1. Sud-Ouest SO.6020 Espadon, a prototype interceptor. Four built, no further production.

 

2. SNCAC NC.1080, a prototype carrier fighter. One built, no production. Crashed during testing and development was abandoned.

 

3. de Havilland Sea Venom, selected by Aéronavale (French Naval Aviation) in 1952 instead of the above NC.1080. Solid choice, already in the game, so implementation in Italian colours would be simple.

 

4. AT-33A, ground attack capable jet trainer based on the F-80 design. French Air Force used a bunch of these for training purposes. Carries up to 2,000 lb of bombs or rockets on two hardpoints under the wings. According to Wikipedia's information, "some" T-33 specimens also retained machine guns for training purposes. Although I don't know exactly what kind of machine guns these were, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch of imagination to arm them with some M2 or M3 machine guns, but maybe fewer than the regular F-80 (which would make sense for a trainer jet). It wouldn't be the best armed aircraft, but it could still find its place in War Thunder.

 

 

Italians could hopefully get the Aerfer Sagittario 2, Aerfer Ariete, or the Fiat G.80. The Aerfer jets were only prototypes and were never put into production, and the G.80 had only a handful of aircraft manufactured. Regardless, these aircraft have better justification for being put into the game than the R2Y2 for the Japanese, so I'm holding some hopes of seeing them in the game at some point...

 

Not sure if any of these planes have been suggested so far for Italian or French tech trees.

Edited July 3, 2018 by Herra_Tohtori

[kamikazi21358 998]

4 hours ago, Herra_Tohtori said:

 

There are no Rank VI planes in the game, and I'm not asking for them.

 

This thread is about trying to create sensible gameplay out of the aircraft that are currently in the game.

 

Any bracket is always going to have weaker and stronger planes in general terms. The trick is to try and make sure the gap isn't too overwhelming. Currently, it is for Rank V battles since you have BR 6.7 jets fighting BR 9.0 jets.

 

What I'm proposing is the creation of Rank VI battles for SB Air, not Rank VI as separate rank in the tech tree.

 

 

I'm using the same word as the game. I agree that it's unfortunate, but the game itself is not exactly consistent about these things either...

 

 

The Tu-4 should be available in Rank V, just as the B-29 is. There are other things that should be done to make bomber gameplay less disruptive for all non-bomber players, but that's a different issue altogether.

 

I considered excluding the F-84G as well. The problem with removing the F-84G is that then Italy would have no jets available for Rank V at all. The G.91 definitely doesn't belong there, but I'd like to see every nation have at least some aircraft to participate in this tier... even if it's just one plane for now.

 

Technically I would also like to remove the MD.450B Ouragan/Barougan, but again, that would only leave the F-84G for the French in Rank V and the MD.540B doesn't really punch in the same weight class as the G.91 for example. And I feel like they would be a reasonable match for planes like the F2H-2 Banshee.

 

So, the planes that I proposed to be excluded are all quite fast, swept-wing aircraft. The F-84G is fast, but only at low altitudes, and it's a straight-wing aircraft, part of the first generation of jet fighters. It's going to be one of the "top dogs" in the proposed new Rank V, but hey, there's always going to be some plane that takes that role.

 

On the topic of some nations having a very limited roster of planes in the BR 6.7-8.0 range: I would really like to see some more low tier jets for French and Italian air forces specifically to expand the amount of planes for this new Rank V, but the selection is kind of limited. Scrounging at the bottom of the barrel kind of limited...

 

For the French, I can see four aircraft being eligible for addition. Two of them are indigenous French designs, while two are foreign:

 

1. Sud-Ouest SO.6020 Espadon, a prototype interceptor. Four built, no further production.

 

2. SNCAC NC.1080, a prototype carrier fighter. One built, no production. Crashed during testing and development was abandoned.

 

3. de Havilland Sea Venom, selected by Aéronavale (French Naval Aviation) in 1952 instead of the above NC.1080. Solid choice, already in the game, so implementation in Italian colours would be simple.

 

4. AT-33A, ground attack capable jet trainer based on the F-80 design. French Air Force used a bunch of these for training purposes. Carries up to 2,000 lb of bombs or rockets on two hardpoints under the wings. According to Wikipedia's information, "some" T-33 specimens also retained machine guns for training purposes. Although I don't know exactly what kind of machine guns these were, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch of imagination to arm them with some M2 or M3 machine guns, but maybe fewer than the regular F-80 (which would make sense for a trainer jet). It wouldn't be the best armed aircraft, but it could still find its place in War Thunder.

 

 

Italians could hopefully get the Aerfer Sagittario 2, Aerfer Ariete, or the Fiat G.80. The Aerfer jets were only prototypes and were never put into production, and the G.80 had only a handful of aircraft manufactured. Regardless, these aircraft have better justification for being put into the game than the R2Y2 for the Japanese, so I'm holding some hopes of seeing them in the game at some point...

 

Not sure if any of these planes have been suggested so far for Italian or French tech trees.

This, I think, is perfect.  My suggestion to keep bomber spam lower would be to put the B-29 at 7.3, and keep the Tu-4 at 7.7.  Since 8.0 would be the new top tier, SP for the B29 and Tu4 at these brs would increase as well as the cool down timer after death for these; illeviating the bomber spam.  Another reason they should have the longer cooldown and higher SP is they would no longer fight MiG-15s and other more powerful aircraft that before could counter the bombers.  

The only other counter offer would be a 6.3-7.7 and 8.0-9.3 span; I think that would work better tbh, if they re-evaluate 7.0-9.0 and didn’t clump all the aircraft into a single br range (like there are no 8.3 or 8.7s, they’re all 9.0s; more 7.3s and 7.7s would be needed to make this work).  I suggest this because I think it would be a better span, not only that because of the 8.0 br clumping, you wouldn’t be able to take out any 8.0 jets in top tier: you could only join if you had a 9.0 aircraft.  Which another issue with this suggestion is there will be less players per room because they will be split.  I think the last one will make top tier jets barren since they will not be able to join with 8.0s; which also means some nations like Italy would physically be unable to play top tier SB EC.

[Herra_Tohtori 1,575]

6 hours ago, kamikazi21358 said:

My suggestion to keep bomber spam lower would be to put the B-29 at 7.3, and keep the Tu-4 at 7.7.  Since 8.0 would be the new top tier, SP for the B29 and Tu4 at these brs would increase as well as the cool down timer after death for these; illeviating the bomber spam.

 

I honestly think other methods should be used to resolve "bomber spam", mainly by making it so that people playing bombers can do so without disrupting everyone else's game.

 

The simple solution to this is to put in strategic bombing targets which affect the battle differently from just ending the battle after enough bombs have been dropped. The options range from affecting the strategic situation for the other team (resource system) to simply implementing an additional ticket counter so that you could have "Tactical ticket counter" and "Strategic ticket counter" separately, and victory conditions would need to be achieved for both before the mission ends.

 

But like I said before, this is a topic that could be discussed in another thread.

 

6 hours ago, kamikazi21358 said:

The only other counter offer would be a 6.3-7.7 and 8.0-9.3 span; I think that would work better tbh, if they re-evaluate 7.0-9.0 and didn’t clump all the aircraft into a single br range (like there are no 8.3 or 8.7s, they’re all 9.0s; more 7.3s and 7.7s would be needed to make this work).

 

I considered this as well, but ended up on Rank 5 being 6.3-8.0 and Rank 6 being 8.3-9.3 simply for the sake of convenience:

 

There are several aircraft that are currently at BR 8.0, but which by all rights should definitely be present in Rank 5. With the lower bracket (top BR 7.7), these aircraft would need to be dropped down to BR 7.7 to remain eligible for Rank 5 battles.

 

Similarly, there are several aircraft that are currently at BR 8.0, but which by all rights shouldn't be present in Rank 5. With the higher bracket (top BR 8.0) these aircraft would need to be increased up to BR 8.3 in order to exclude them from Rank 5 battles.

 

It's just a matter of which one represents more work. At the moment, I believe it is the former that would require more planes' BR to be adjusted, and the latter would get away with fewer necessary BR adjustments.

 

As I listed in the first post, the planes that would need to be increased to 8.3 to exclude them from Rank 5 battles are:

 

* USSR: Yak-30, La-15, La-174, La-200

* Italy: G.91 pre-serie and G.91 R/1

 

That's six aircraft.

 

By comparison, looking at current 8.0 aircraft that should be dropped down to 7.7 with the lower bracket design seems more extensive. Me 163, Me 262 C-1a, Me 262 C-2b, B-57B, Canberra Mk.6, Ki-200, MB.450B Ouragan/Barougan at the very least. That's eight aircraft.

 

It's close enough that it doesn't make a huge difference, but I think the higher bracket (6.3-8.0) still makes a bit more sense than the lower (6.3-7.7).

 

However, this kind of detail isn't really relevant for the basic idea I'm putting forth here. Regardless of the exact numbers, the main point is that the current Rank 5 battle rating bracket has too much of a performance gap and should be split into two - preferably in a way that all nations still have at least some planes in both Rank 5 and Rank 6 brackets.

[Bingoblast_Wilcz 248]

I see I'm not the only one who gets clubbed in jet ECs.

 

I agree. The jet ECs should be split in two. Having bots fly jets from the Korean War while you fly WWII jets is one of the most frustrating things that can happen in this game. I'm fine flying against Meteors, Vampires and F-80s but once a Sabre, Mig-15 or FJ-4 sees you flying Me 262 there's simply no escaping them.

 

*Sees Sabre*

*Holds J to not waste any more time*

Edited September 15, 2018 by Bingoblast_Wilcz

[Pony51 6,572]

I swear I did not see this till now, but I made similar suggestion of blending low end jets to high end props.

This is a must do.

[J1775_Venom 75]

I absolutely agree and support this suggestion. The performance range in tier V is much to big to make tier V battles a playground for all 6.7+ aircraft. I have many jet planes that I NEVER fly, some have still free repairs on it! But even those low BR jets that I fully grinded stay unused in the hangar resp. their slots.
A Me-262, e.g. should be fun to fly (Galland described his feelings as "pushed by angels"), but when you meet a MiG-15, a Sabre or a Hunter you feel like those angels sit on your brakes and you're a sitting duck ─ they have climb rates 2-3 times yours!

Another (more general) solution for the "un-balance problem" with "mothballed" low-in-tier aircraft would be, if the fixed bonds between BR and tiers were loosened up. What I mean by this is that the BR-tier-correlation would change on a regular basis, so that EVERY BR would sometimes be "best-in-tier", "lowest-in-tier" or "middle-in-tier". Has that been discussed yet?

[CokeSpray 7,274]

Moved to Implemented suggestions.