By the way I just remembered - Hazel said in the RU stream that Thunder will face a change that will indirectly nerf the Sledgehammer alt. He didn't give any more details about it tho.

Economy Oh boy, the everlasting desire to bask in millions of crystals never leaves our brains. Such is human nature, which is why so many questions were in one way or another related to the economic situation in the game. The developers were quite brutally honest in their answers, which was fairly surprising given their understandable conservatism when it comes to being asked about the business aspect of Tanki Online. Let's break down what they said. The first question was, of course, about the ability to sell items. Developers replied that they won’t add it and never planned to add it. Even if they do add something like that, the players won’t gain much. Let’s say you sell an M4 turret you don't want and buy an M3. Then you spend ages upgrading it again and then bam — it gets nerfed. You’ll be upset and as a result you only lost crystals. There's no benefit in it for players, while if there was — the game would quickly lose revenue. Speaking of M3, players often ask why M3 equipment (as well as other modifications) is unlocked at such early ranks. The answer was pretty simple — there are too many ranks and not enough modifications, but they need to sell more stuff. Another complaint was regarding the reduction of rewards in the June challenge. Devs' reply was that he challenge mechanics are still being balanced to fit the economy. The fact that the June challenge was during Tanki’s birthday doesn’t affect the rewards, and they are being adjusted based on other data. While we're on the topic of challenges, it worth addressing a fairly common complaint about them: "they're too hard". yes, they are, because they are meant to be challenging. The requirements are intentionally made to benefit the more dedicated players, while casual gamers, who may only play a few battles every other day, should stick to completing daily missions and treat challenges as an opportunity to get a few additional small bonuses from the first few tiers. But if challenges were easy to complete, they wouldn't give brand new skins as reward. At this point it's worth noting another complaint: why do stars depend on someone's place in the battle, rather than their actual effectiveness. The reason is simply to prevent too many stars from being earned in order to fit with the economic balance. There are no plans to change this system. Moving on, another relevant point is regarding the reduction of "normal" containers in daily missions and their subsequent replacement with weekly containers. The explanation was that these containers were moved into challenges, while the weekly containers are better, since they provide a more reliable and consistent flow of rewards. Now, some of you may remember the events where one could log in to Facebook to receive a reward. Well, the reason that feature was removed is because it served its purpose. The aim was to encourage players to use a different way to enter the game. The result? People logged in to get their reward, then left to go play using the method they always used. Therefore the event was pointless and it didn't bring any benefit to developers. Whew, with the complex stuff out of the way, let's end with some quick questions: Why does the supplies kit not include batteries? Because adding them would result in its price being increased. Will there be another rebalance? Not the kind where you get all your equipment sold back and crystals returned - that will never happen again. But there are a couple major gameplay updates planned! Will supply prices be reduced for lower ranks? No. Why is there just one kit available at my rank? Because players are encouraged to buy from the Shop using real money. Will you be able to buy containers with crystals? No point — such containers would have terrible rewards in order to balance the economy, so no one would want to buy them. Will there be compensation for challenge rewards already owned? Not planned at the moment, but it may change. And now the big one: When will Pay-to-Win be removed? The answer? Never. Pay-to-win has been a core part of this game from the moment the first supply and modification upgrade was added by the original developers. Whether or not it was the right decision and whether Tanki would be more successful if revenue was generated by other means is unknown. But what is certain is that the only way to remove Pay-to-Win is to create a separate game without it.

HTML5 As you probably heard of by now (and I'm sure you have, unless you've been living under a rock), developers are planning to convert Tanki Online from the outdated Flash engine to HTML5. This has been in the works for over a year now, and the reason why it's taking them so long is because they literally have to remake the whole game from scratch, which involves not only writing the code, but also testing it and making sure it's flawless. There's also the additional pressure of having a previous version to compare to. People hate change, so if HTML5 is even a tiny bit worse, or the gameplay feels different, everyone will hate it regardless of how many bugs it will fix. Nonetheless, this enormous project is necessary due to Flash becoming harder and harder to use, which you can see happening right now with Google starting to cancel Flash support to discourage people from using it. HTML5 has additional benefits too, allowing a bunch of cool new features to potentially be added due to it being much more flexible and versatile than Flash. It will also be more optimised than Flash due to being designed similar to the Mobile version. So if TO Mobile already works decently on low end phones, then you can be sure that HTML5 will work even better on low-end PCs. During the livestream, multiple players raised their concerns regarding certain bugs and issues in the game, to most of which developers' reply was "It will be fixed in HTML5". So here's a breakdown of the list of things they hope to add with this magical HTML5 upgrade: Release of New Maps Current maps are being tweaked, but work on developing whole new maps can only begin once HTML5 is released. Remember the map that was announced a while ago but never released? It caused a bunch of performance issues because of Flash, so the HTML5 upgrade might fix those and allow the map to be released. "Main" Missions Tab It will be functional once the new interface and HTML5 is released. These missions are mostly meant for new players who are getting to know the game, like a tutorial. It will also become an easier way to collect various rewards, like rank-up goodies and Premium Account time. Voice Chat It's unclear yet whether it will be done, but HTML5 definitely allows it to be implemented with relative ease. Any attempt to add voice chat in Flash would have been disastrous! Preset System for Favourite Combos Planned for HTML5 interface, and besides speeding up the equipment change process, it will improve other things too. New Anti-Cheat Current anti-cheat definitely needs updating, but there's no point doing it now. A brand new system with an improved architecture will be developed specifically for HTML5. New Downloadable Client The existing client could also use some updates, but once again there's no point doing it for Flash, so instead a whole new improved one will be made for HTML5. It might also open up new opportunities, like allowing you to login via Steam (although no plans for this yet). New Hull Sounds Sounds are already made and just waiting for HTML5, since the game engine deals with sound better. Improved PRO Battle Sorting Instead of the puny little game mode filter we have now, you'll be able to sort the battle list in a bunch of different ways, making the list convenient and easy to follow. And a bunch more things hopefully getting fixed: Blaze paint's gear score value being wrong Critical errors Mouse control glitches Getting stuck on props (the issue is with physics, which will be redesigned) No damage bug Infinite loading bug Incorrect points in CP These were just the issues mentioned in the livestream — the update as a whole will fix a LOT more bugs and glitches, even many which you never knew existed. Keep in mind that despite the game code being completely rewritten, devs are trying their best to keep the physics as close as possible to Flash, so you shouldn't feel any difference while playing.

General Before we get to the list of minor rapid-fire questions, let's cover the major issues discussed in this livestream. These are a number of questions regarding the long lasting topics of debate in Tanki Online. Developers' response for them was quite detailed and sometimes even surprising, so make sure to check out this important section. Without further ado: Why is the number of online players still dropping? There's no denying the fact that Tanki Online is getting less popular. It's rare for any video game to stay relevant for over 10 years (*cough* Minecraft *cough*), especially if the game was originally intended to be a software demo for a then-new Flash-based graphics engine that AlternativaPlatform developed. It's incredible that such a basic game managed to accumulate such a massive following, and the player retention has actually surpassed most original predictions that devs made. At the moment the numbers are reducing "at an expected rate", but devs are doing their best to release updates that help keep current players in the game. However, the numbers are declining not because more people are leaving - that number has been more or less constant throughout the years - but because less new players are coming in to replace those, who leave. And the reason less new players are coming in is because of a certain change that was made in 2015 - the game stopped being advertised. Back then the Unity version of TO (now known as Tanki X) was seen as a modernised replacement for the outdated game, which didn't end up being the case for reasons you probably remember. But even though Tanki Online is still Alternativa's "flagship" project, they still don't advertise it, because the faulty progression system and unstable game engine made the game unattractive to new players. Because of how broken Flash is, most players couldn't even register for the first time. As you can imagine, if you're trying to check out a new game you just stumbled upon and you can't even open it, you won't stick around trying to solve the issue. As a result, more money was being spent on marketing than the estimated return investment from new players spending money, therefore the ads were stopped. Developers are working on the HTML5 version of the game, which will hopefully be easier to get started with (less issues when logging in, better performance, etc.) and at that point advertisement can be considered again. With that in mind, moving on to the follow-up question: Will Tanki Online close soon? Hazel Rah has been hearing this question ever since he joined the developers' team 6 years ago. Yes, all online projects come to an end sooner or later. But Tanki Online is already way into the "later" stage, meaning that it exceeded all expectations for how long it will survive, yet there are still tens of thousands of active players. As you can see, developers are still actively working on major updates and have a lot of plans for the future, so at the moment the end is nowhere near. When will we get the GAME and another big WAR event? The GAME is planned for August or September, and we didn't do it in June because there was already way too much other stuff to do for both - players participating in it and developers trying to organise it. As for the WAR, we plan to do it again and perhaps introduce some new mechanics too, so if the actual process of fighting over territories and devising strategy is something you enjoyed in the first two wars, then you'll enjoy the third one too. However, if you liked the first two wars only because of the insane amount of containers you got, then you'll be greatly disappointed by the next one, because the rewards will be much, MUCH lower. This is because there's only so many free containers we can give you without breaking the game economy. Before, a big chunk of this "container quota" was given in the two wars, but now they are regularly given in Challenges and the themed "mini-wars", so the amount of containers from a proper WAR will have to be reduced. When will you start listening to players? Developers do listen to players, but you have to be aware that collecting and considering player feedback is very different from actually doing exactly what players demand. The reason they can't just do what players ask is because if they did, the game would be a total mess. Moreover, everyone has different opinions, so it's impossible to please everyone regardless of what we do. You'll realise this yourself if you just go around and ask a few people what their version of "good old Tanki" is. 2015? 2012? 2009? Everyone has different opinions, and on top of that different people have different opinions about the same versions, since they were in a different position back then. Another important factor is that developers have limited resources and a budget that constrains them. Even if everyone requests a cool feature that would genuinely improve the game and be great to have, a lot of the time it would be too expensive, too time consuming, or simply impossible to implement due to limitations of the game engine (especially when said engine is Flash). Let's also not forget that Tanki Online needs to remain profitable in order to support the company, so while 100% of players may be in favour of things that economically benefit them (more containers, cheaper kits, selling items, etc.), these things cannot be done to avoid negatively affecting the game. For this reason they really have to carefully select which changes they are able to implement, to have a balance between "quality of life" updates and features that help the economy. Can you change the rank system so that bad players stay at low ranks? Unfortunately, the ranks and progression system in this game were poorly designed from the start, and it's way too late to change the system now. As you can see, a better system was implemented in Tanki X, but nothing can be done about it in Tanki Online, but there are other ways to solve the rank balance issues in battles. Will there ever be a way to play older versions of Tanki? There won't be a way to just pick and choose which version you want to play on, but developers are actually considering adding a "Tanki Online Classic" kind of limited demo version of Tanki from 2010 that you'd be able to check out. This is similar to what Warcraft has done, to give you an idea of what to expect. If the Warcraft Classic concept proves to be popular in their community, Hazel says he will consider doing a similar thing for Tanki as well. But it does involve basically coding the whole game from scratch again, which requires massive amounts of time and resources, so for all intents and purposes assume it will never be done. Why are you making so many paints instead of actual useful features? Paints and game updates are made by different teams. To make a paint, a designer just needs to draw a texture and give it to the programmer, who then adds it to the game within 5-10 minutes. On the other hand, to make a change in-game (like a new supply, or even a small improvement in the interface), a programmer needs to make the code, test it, fix any bugs, test it again and only then release it. All of the programmers are already busy with important updates like HTML5, so they can't just ask the designers to start working on code instead. And that's why simple things like paints are released while major updates are in development. Can you add crystal boxes to DM and Juggernaut? Juggernaut - definitely not. As soon as currency starts dropping from the sky, people go and collect it while the Juggernaut lives forever. As for DM, it actually makes sense to add them there, but the problem is we can't just bring back a previous version. All that old code is no longer compatible, so the feature would have to be made from scratch again. It it really worth doing for a single game mode? More importantly, don't think that if we add it you will suddenly be getting tons of extra crystals from DM. In order to balance the economy the battle funds would have to be reduced instead. So some of the crystals you now gain from fighting enemies would then go towards players, who run around collecting boxes all game. Why do many turrets have a damage range instead of specific damage? What’s the logic behind making my Magnum sometimes one-shot heavy hulls, but sometimes not one-shot medium hulls? This is a complex theory related to the predictability of a duel. It is done to ensure that gameplay is a bit random and chaotic in order to have some more variety. Studies have shown that without it, people get bored quicker and the game ends up losing players at a greater rate. If you are really interested to know how it works, watch “Randomness in Game Design” on YouTube - it's an interesting 30-minute video about this exact concept.

"Imba" is literally that - imbalanced item, implying that the item is overpowered (not lacking). "ponerfil" is the act of nerfing something, while "zanerfili" is the same thing with a slight spelling variation. "bends" is actually an inappropriate innuendo that somehow came to be acceptable in the RU community. Can't explain it here for obvious reasons, but basically if something or someone "bends", it means it's OP.

I meant 5% weak damage only for the alteration, while standard Thunder remains the same. "Sledgehammer" is specifically made for close range engagements, so if people buy it and use it, no one is forcing them to fight closer battles - it's completely their choice. And if the 5% weak damage is too much of a nerf, perhaps all the previous Sledgehammer nerfs could be reverted in order to compensate. I remember when ODs were still in development, Hazel said that for the duration of Viking's OD the turret's parameters will revert to standard settings in order to balance it out. I think that's was the correct decision, but for some reason they decided to actually include some of the alteration effects in the end, which ended up causing this discrepancy. I don't get the logic there tbh.

Nerfing damage isn't a fun way to balance a turret, but I proposed a different solution. At the moment the biggest issue is that while the 95% max range nerf seems like a lot, but it only means that at medium-long range Thunder will deal around 50% damage, as opposed to 100% with normal settings. Considering the increased fire rate, that's still the same Thunder with just a bit less DPS, while at close range (which is actually where most fights happen) it's an absolute beast, and at super long range it's still better than default Thunder, because both default and sledge are shooting with minimal damage, but sledge still has a higher firing rate. Anyway, my alternative suggestion was to to nerf Sledgehammer's minimum damage and thus make it completely useless at long range. This means that at any range beyond medium, Sledgehammer Thunder will basically deal zero damage (or maybe 5% or something), effectively turning it into a close range turret like Twins or Hammer. I discussed it with Hazel, and he agreed with the idea, so we might see something like that being done in the future. But I agree that so far his attempts at nerfing this alt were not every effective.

I interpreted it as "use the same combo in X battles in a row without changing". So you can choose any combo you like, but you must play with it for a certain amount of battles without changing anything - this obviously includes turret and hull, but if devs are feeling extra mean about it, they could make it require drones, modules and alterations too.

Valid I think you expect too much from MM players. This kind of gameplay would probably be fun for eSports (or a special event), but in normal gameplay it would just be pure frustration from your teammates either being clueless, or intentionally trolling.

At least you can see your own mistakes and reflect on them :)

I was actually going to mark this topic valid, but Destrod has some good points. Although I feel like if friendly fire (damage) is already disabled by default then it makes sense to also get rid of the impact force. I'll be honest - getting your aim knocked off by a teammate happens more often than them helping you get back on tracks by shooting.

I think you'll find that a lot of people disagree with you. It's already difficult enough to combat Viking and Mammoth on their OD, so additionally making it so Hunter doesn't immobilise them will make them extremely OP. You have to make sure to choose the right moment to use your Viking/Mammoth OD to minimise your chances of wasting it. This includes making sure there are no Hunters nearby.

XxStriker is right - the 3 second recharge rarely makes a difference. The only time it might matter is if you activate DD, and then pick up a DD box once the 3 seconds is up. Drop boxes fall once every 120 seconds. Sure, you might be able to control one box and it will be a bit of an advantage, but DDs don't usually lie around for a long time so I doubt you'd be able to just go from one box to the next so easily.

Well, time to change your name to XxGauss then :rolleyes:

But you can't just activate it repeatedly whenever you want. You have to either activate your own DD, or pick one up off the ground. In most cases you'll just activate it, use up the 3 seconds of power and then play normally until you respawn and activate it again. So the increased recharge will definitely be helpful in some situations, but it surely doesn't compensate the 40% duration nerf.

Interesting changes! Gauss change is nice. Most likely won't affect its actual strength by much, but it will definitely help make the lock-on system a bit more useful, since it's so incredibly frustrating when you're about to lock-on, but lose the target and the progress resets. It's part of the reason why I've been avoiding both Striker and Gauss. The instant reload alts for Rico and Hammer are really interesting to play with, but very difficult to use effectively. This is a nice improvement that will hopefully make them a bit more playable. Defender drone seems kinda OP (on top of drones being OP in general), based on the description. 20 seconds is an incredibly long time, so its balance will greatly depend on how much the defence boost has been nerfed. As for Booster... well, RIP Booster. It was fun, but honestly way too powerful, especially with rapid fire turrets. It will still be useful after this nerf, but not nearly so powerful that it would make no sense to use any other drone besides it. Now the maps I'm really excited about. We haven't seen a brand new map since... Yorkshire or Cologne, right? So that will be fun to check out. Molotov is one of my favourites, so that's cool. Not sure about Cross in MM though, but we'll see. Rest of the minor changes also seem good.

I don't deny that there are situations where it can be very useful, but if a turret can ONLY shoot up, then no. I mean, we already have Magnum, which can shoot straight up. So this new turret is just a more limited, less useful version of Magnum. How about this - try playing with Magnum in a few battles and only shoot straight up at 90 degrees, never lowering the turret. See how "fun" that will be.

It could work as a new supply, or a hull overdrive, but definitely not a whole separate turret. I looked at the gameplay for Vigilante 8, and it looks like this "Skyhammer Mortar" is a secondary special weapon, just like an overdrive. The primary weapon is still just a basic rocket launcher or machine gun, which makes sense. No one would use a turret that can only shoot straight up - there are very few (if any) gameplay situations where it would actually be effective.

Developers are aware of this, but parkour mode is currently not planned to be updated due to other priorities.

I got that. What does lag have to do with advertisement?

...what?

No, "kak" means "how", so the phrase "kak dela?" is basically "how are things?". When said on its own in tanki chat, it's usually when something strange happens, like the Juggernaut getting one-shot, so they ask "how?".

Tanki Online used to be advertised until around 2015. At that point the Flash version was already too broken and difficult to supports, so new players didn't stay for long and therefore it’s pointless to advertise it - the money spent on ads would be greater than the revenue from new players, who found the game because of the ads. Developers are currently working on HTML5 to make it easier for new players to join the game and stay.

I mentioned it in my first post here. Devs talked a lot about adding a "Rating MM" system where the battles will be more even and more competitive. Assuming enough people play them, you should be put into games with evenly matched opponents. Probably. Can't make any promises ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, looks like this upcoming Rating MM will be just the thing for you :)