I know it’s a test, but I don’t like the old balance direction and was hoping for Update 114 (Rebalance).   This isn’t about easy crystals. OG balance just isn’t fun. Rebalance was harder and more rewarding, and Classic isn’t one specific year, so I don’t see why sticking to this balance is needed.

Happy New Year!

This is literally the OG balance of the game. The issue is crystals are too easy to earn right now due to funds growing too fast. If you spent a minute reading before posting, you would see that hazel has already addressed this issue and said it will be fixed and progression will be tested and adjusted throughout the test.

I’ve spent a good amount of time playing and here's some feedback (trying not to repeat what others have already said) The good From a gameplay perspective, the pacing also feels almost perfectly balanced. The current version of TO is too fast and hectic, while the old TO would feel outdated by today’s standards. This version strikes a great middle ground and feels just right. I am also VERY happy you chose to branch off the pre-rebalance system. The higher quality textures look great, I personally love it.   Potential minor improvements With the older, heavily compressed textures, overall quality issues masked some problems that are now more noticeable. After the texture improvements, certain assets stand out due to what I think is overly aggressive LOD behavior. Distant textures transition to overly soft/low levels too quickly, causing a noticeable loss of depth/detail. particularly on surfaces like building roofs. For example, in Sandbox, if you stand in front of a ramp and look at the platform’s ground texture, the distance at which the LOD blur becomes significant is very short, making the transition obvious and out of place. Some colors are too bright/satured, maybe due to the newer lighting? This is not very important, I just pointed it out since the dev team did spend time working on modernizing the textures so might as well just mention it.   Bugs/Missing features Shot effects for twins, and railgun are in the plans however, I don't see firebird mentioned which should also be adjusted i.e. blue fire on m3 like back in a day Sometimes the tank will randomly explode sometimes, usually happens when in the air or going up a ramp. Overdrive is missing from the keybind settings.   Most impotant (by far) the physics are weird, I am not sure if they are the same as current TO or not, but either way the current system does not fit in classic. The main issue is the punch/knockback from turrets is almost nonexistent. You used to be able to flip yourself back over with smoky if you were sideways now you can't. (well, in 2009 it would mostly just rock you and not fully flip you at least with m0 but post 2013 physics update it'd definitely flip you). Another case where it's obvious is if you try shooting sideways to spin/flip in the air, it feels like the shots don't carry any weight and the hull is just floaty and light. Are you planning on playing around with the physics & hull/turret characteristics? because I think this is the single most important thing for classic tbh.  

Imo, I wouldn't look at the progression harshly right now, just check everything works as intended to be, that's the point of it, naturally yes if progression feels too easy, say so, but I don't think these values are final.