Yeah right, don't think for a second that I'm gonna let this one slide!

Topic merged What could possibly go wrong?

Under review

Lolwut? That's not a new audience. Tanki Online runs on HTML5, so if Tanki Classic is also made with HTML5, then both games can essentially run the same back-end systems while maintaining completely different front-end facades. This allows devs to release technical updates (like anti-cheat and performance improvements) to both projects simultaneously. It also means that they can have one big team of HTML5 devs who can work on either project, if needed, as opposed to two separate teams with different people specialising in different game engines. By the way, Tanki X was created in Unity and that project failed. Why would it work the second time? I suppose the kind of people that will actively play Tanki Classic are the type that are disappointed in the current game and likely spend little to no money on it, whereas in Tanki Classic they'll be more inclined to support the project. There's also another indirect reason for creating Tanki Classic, which I can't disclose. But it boils down to "we need to give existing players something nice that they will appreciate".

I'm sharing my opinions, as well as what I hear directly from devs. The fact is that whatever is said by Opex or explained in the Vlogs is our only official information about the game's development. Sure, you can take what they say with a grain of salt, but I don't think that they're outright lying. Now, since devs are planning to continue developing Tanki Classic for HTML5 and in-browser access, logically it must mean that enabling browser access is essential enough for them to make this major decision. That's my "thinking and analysis" in action, if you will. How would we NOT see the player count graually dropping? Tanki Classic won't be attracting any new audience, while the existing audience will gradually stop playing as they get bored. It's inevitable.

Yeah, I'm a pretty active player, doing daily missions almost every day and sometimes playing a bit extra, yet I'm only at around 330k points on my most used turret and hull. I don't remember when those trophies were added, but I think it's been around a year. At this rate it's gonna take me 15 years to complete one set of trophies ? I'd be pretty happy with a set of mini-trophies which give me a couple nice freebies per year on top of all the other existing rewards. @POWER-OF-ONE On top of that, consider that we're getting ONE (1) common container as reward for every rank up, which is kind of a joke. So my opinion that the above proposed rewards align with Tanki's economy is party based on that.

If ASL flags count, then let's say you cap 3 flags per day, so it will take about a year to complete if you're playing casually. Like a mini-trophy mission for normal players. If multiple such missions are ongoing at the same time (like trophies), then it seems reasonable to me.

I don't have enough information to argue about your other points, but I do want to address one thing: Opex said multiple times that being available in browsers without any downloads is Tanki's main selling point, even after all these years. They have the data, so they know how many people play via browser. If that number was insignificant, then I'm sure they wouldn't put so much effort into keeping the game playable in browsers. Besides, browser support is just one of the advantages of HTML5, out of many.

If Opex is to be believed (and I do believe him), none of this is true. Alternativa started as an innovative technology company. The things they were working on before becomign a game dev studio were extremely innovative in their field. It's this innovation that allowed them to create the first ever full 3D, completely in-browser online game. As a for-profit company, they also study the market and aim to optimise their project's monetisation. If you're a game dev and you see another game dev studio implement a new feature in their game that proves to be extremely successful, not "copying" the same feature into your own game doesn't earn you any honour. It just makes you struggle financially. Besides, while a concept as a whole may be copied, its implementation is often completely different. For example, the way lootboxes were added to Tanki is different from Overwatch and provides players with a better experience, but I won't get into these details now. They blame the environment because they have the facts to support it. For example, would you really argue that all popular browsers unanimously dropping support for Flash and causing the demise of the Flash version is the Tanki devs' own fault? Opex knows that developers made mistakes in the past and he admits it. I'm not sure where you get the sentiment that devs think that all their decisions are correct and flawless. This was discussed in quite a lot of detail in the video I summarised. However, since you're saying this in such a condescending manner, it appears that you know the answer? So, in your opinion, why was Tanki a successful project, and why doesn't a similar formula work today?

The way you said it makes it seem like a problem. Why do you think so?

Well, technically you're asking for a tl;dw. I'm about 1.5 hours into the Russian interview. There's a lot of repetition and talk about nothing, but here are the main points I remembered: (Edit: ok I finished it, so the below is a complete, though somewhat rough, summary) Tanki Online Peak Concurrent Players (PCU) happened around late 2014. Players claim that it was anywhere between 90k and 200k, but the official number is 132k. However, devs later reworked the counter and in reality it was probably closer to 100k. Tanki's player base has been dwindling ever since the PCU moment, but that does NOT mean that Tanki was the best in 2014 and the quality went downhill. Therefore, Tanki Classic doesn't have to use the 2014 version of Tanki. Tanki player base started reducing for a number of reasons, most importantly: - The business directors decided to redirect resources into other projects (Tanki X and other new games), so Tanki Online was getting no content updates. - The internet moved away from banner-based advertising, which is how Tanki got most of its audience. Advertising became ineffective and was completely stopped. - Youtube changed its algorithm and far fewer people were discovering the game through youtube videos. Despite the playerbase reducing around 10x, the game's revenue has been affcted much less, due to monetisation becoming far more effective in recent years, allowing the game to continue being developed without cutting too many costs. Opex is very pessimistic about expected users for Tanki Classic. After the initial hype, he expects to see around 1500 daily active users, but hopes that it will be more. Nonetheless, 1500 is enough for the project to be viable. Monetisation is a big question. Tanki Classic can't have content updates (new skins, equipment, paints), because then it will stop being classic, so the only remaining items to sell are "infinite" things like supplies, Premium Account and crystals. Developers could, in theory, create Tanki Classic using Flash, but it's a terrible idea for a number of reasons: - There is almost no advantage in using Flash, because HTML5 can be used to create almost the exact same game more efficiently. - If both games (main TO and Classic) use HTML5, it means that Tanki Classic can get technical updates along with the main game, improving its QoL and security. - No self-respecting developer wants to make things in Flash, so finding such devs would be difficult and expensive. - Accessibility is an issue. An HTML5 game loads in any browser with one click. A Flash game needs Flash to be installed, then the game's client to be downloaded, and on top of that every browser warns users of the risks of using Flash when they attempt to install it. Most importantly, the reason devs moved Tanki Online from Flash to HTML5 is to avoid legal issues. Since Flash has serious security flaws, if developers were to actively encourage users to download a client with known security vulnerabilities, it would be extremely easy for users to sue the company (and win) on grounds of the company promoting software that could harm users' personal data. Tanki Online actually had terrible, completely unbalanced gameplay a decade ago. The P2W issues were far worse than today, and the only reason why Tanki built up such a large audience in its early years was because it was the only in-browser 3D online game, so it had a monopoly on its target audience for a few years. People asking for "old Tanki" to be returned simply forgot how bad it used to be. The whole essense of "old tanki" is the idea that you join as a weak noob that gets abused by big scary high ranks all the time, you go through the hard grind while aspiring to become the high rank, and when you become the high rank with a powerful tank, you want to go and enjoy your turn of abusing weak noobs. This only works when the game is constantly getting new players, and won't work with the new Tanki Classic, which will have a stable, slowly declining audience. Tanki Classic will be primarily monetised through a special version of Premium Account. The game will still be playable for free (and all battles+equipment will be available), but the paid subscription will unlock numerous extra bonuses and features. Opex emphasised that the subsciption will be far, far cheaper than Premium Account in Tanki Online, and he expects most of the true fans of "old tanki", who have been demanding and old version to be returned, to put their money where their mouth is and pay for the subscription, because the revenue from this subscription will go directly into supporting Tanki Classic itself. Tanki Classic will not be a single old version of the game that's 100% true to the original. Instead, it will be a remake of the game, which will include all of the best features from earlier years, which the players want to see. It will aim to recreate the original authentic experience without any of the negatives. tl;dr of the above tl;dw: Tanki Classic will not be based on any single previous version of Tanki Online Tanki Online is still doing great for its age and will continue to develop Tanki Classic monetisation will focus on a type of premium account Flash is bad "Old Tanki" is horrible P2W The most important point was discussed at the very end. Opex pointed out that it's useless to argue about which year was the greatest time in Tanki Online, because everyone has different answers and there is no correct answer. Instead, he requests everyone to share which specific features (old or current) you like in Tanki Online and would like to see added to Tanki Classic. Developers will be sorting through as much feedback as they possibly can in order to find out what the players really want to see in Tanki Classic, and they will do their best to create a remake in a form that pleases as many people as they can.

Topic merged Thanks, we'll investigate.

I think you're spot-on with the rewards. If we're talking about a new set of missions which don't have a time limit, get passively completed while you're playing, and simply add more rewards on top of everything else, then capturing 1000 flags for an augment seems very reasonable. Hell, it's almost too generous.

Wait, for whom is it a problem?

Yeah that's fair. I guess I can afford to not care about the "efficiency" of my gameplay since I've been in the game for so long, so I have no shortage of equipment or supplies and don't need to grind for anything. I have to note though, people who camp at base and only go for kills are not entirely useless. For example, a smart camper in Parma SGE (like in the OP's screenshot) will target enemy players who are going for the objective and/or shooting at teammates on the objective. This will make it easier for teammates to capture the point. Even if they aren't strategic about it and just go for whatever potential kills they can see, it still helps in the long run since the enemy players spend less time engaged in the battle.

I go for the objective because it's fun, and I play Tanki to have fun, so I don't really think about whether it's worth it in terms of rewards earned ?

I agree. Perhaps the number should only be displayed once it's below a certain threshold, like 1000 for normal supplies, 100 for grenades, 10 for nuclear energy, etc.

I like the idea, but consider this: when my repair kit is about to finish recharging, I want to be able to know exactly how long I have until I'm able to use it again. With the current setup you're seeing a precise countdown, but with a colour bar it's not as obvious and often difficult to tell. It's like having your phone's battery set to only show an icon, rather than exact percentage. And people who don't have their phone's battery percentage displayed are psychopaths.

You know what, I think it will be easier if we summon the man himself to explain this, instead of guessing random theories. My conjuring spells are a bit rusty, but perhaps it might work. @Opex-Rah Could you please clarify if Nanotech Rounds for Thunder intentionally doesn't have auto-aim on teammates for balance reasons, or is this something you'd still like to implement?

I'm still not convinced that this is an intentional nerf. If it was, then why is healing Thunder the only augment with such a disadvantage? Why didn't Opex add, say, a Railgun augment with +100% damage, but no autoaim so you have to aim precisely by leaning your hull? The answer is because it's not a fun way to play.

I don't remember the order of nerfs and buffs, but I do remember that at one point the range of arcade shots was so bad that you'd basically have to get as close to a teammate as an Isida in order to get full healing potential. But at another point, the range was absolutely insane, so you could actually heal your teammates with arcade shots across the whole map and have no range penalty. Right now it's somewhere in the middle, where the effective healing range is a bit more than Ricochet, but you can still heal at longer ranges, albeit with significantly reduced power (or by using sniping shots).

Gotcha. Also, I didn't know users could edit their own topic titles ?

But... that's exactly what the post title says, no? I agree that HE Shaft seems OP, but I'm just saying that removing its autoaim is probably the least "fun" way to nerf it. It's much better to nerf by reducing effective range, auto-aim angle, or turret rotation. Worst case scenario, the firing rate or damage/healing could be reduced.

Oh you didn't have to. I voted to delete devs

"Parkourists" in shambles.