I don't care if they add Ultra skins instead of HD, but it bothers me that Ultra skins are really just HD with a different name and slightly different look. Unlike XTs, there's absolutely nothing about Ultras that would suggest they are better than HD.

Well you know how the saying goes... no gain no pain

...said the camper.

But if an update brings in mad cash, can you really consider it "a negative effect on the game"? ?

Seeing as his most used turret and hull, as well as the top 3 modules, surpass the next items almost tenfold by time played, I imagine this is the kind of player that logs in, selects Control Points, and plays for hours non-stop without ever changing equipment. There's a lot of players like that, who don't care about using the most effective strategy or picking the most suitable equipment — they just get online and play. It's the reason why we've had a bunch of updates over the past few years which simplify and streamline the gameplay process, because that's what the majority of players actually likes.

We have have different standards regarding how time should be spent, but 2.5 hours playing the same thing every single day for 8 years? That's a lot. Most people barely have an hour of free time to spend on video games every day.

11,287 hours: https://ratings.tankionline.com/en/user/35011

This is his profile: https://ratings.tankionline.com/ru/user/v55_tanki At nearly 9000 hours played, I'm scared to ask him about his lifestyle choices.

Every finished battle = 10 shards (after watching ads). To get one container you have to finish 10 battles on TO mobile. So that's one container for every ≈30-80 minutes of gameplay. The amount of containers is unlimited. AlternativaPlatform used to be a software development studio, and the early prototype of Tanki was just a technology showcase to demonstrate how Flash can be used for in-browser 3D gaming. But when Tanki became massively popular, they rebranded into AlternativaGames and started developing other games, but Tanki Online is definitely their flagship project even now. I don't think they have significant revenue coming in from other sources.

Watching a few thousand ads (i.e. also finishing thousands of battles on mobile) and doing missions ?

Ads are usually about recognition. It's not about making you click on the ad right as you're watching it (or going to buy the product right after you see it on TV), but it's about long term effects. What happens is that people see the product in ads multiple times a day for a few months, and even if they say they hate the ads and they will never buy the product because of the annoying ads, the product name and design stays in their brain. And a few months after they stop seeing the ads, they might go to the store to look for a new product of the same type. Upon being presented with a shelf full of a variety of different brands, they are more likely to pick the one they saw ads for, simply because it's the only one they're familiar with (but they don't remember that they hate it). I think with mobile game ads it's a bit different. Either way I can tell you from personal experience that there's been 3 or 4 apps which I downloaded after watching an ad for them. So it does work to some extent.

I honestly don't know how they deal with the feedback that gets forwarded to them. We just make weekly and monthly reports with all ideas, and how that gets treated is a mystery to me. I'd like to believe it all gets noticed at least to some extent. As for taking credit — IIRC, Opex told me once that they can never directly announce something like "Tomorrow we're adding [new thing], as suggested by [nickname]", due to the fact that it could lead to legal issues, such as the player in question demanding to be rewarded and suing them for non-compliance. Something like that.

Umm, I'm pretty sure a Viking can get 2 overdrives in 7 minutes just by passive charging. Probably 3 by actively getting score.

I probably declined it because you were suggesting to add a new source of rewards. That still holds true — we don't accept ideas for adding new rewards, even if the idea itself is viable. This is simply because it's only up to devs and their finance person/team to decide how many and what kind of rewards players should be able to get.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was introduction of shards and watching ads to get them. When they first came out, even people like myself, who already have everything they need, spent hours in the mobile version watching ads to get free containers. I have a friend who farmed literally a thousand containers in the past 3 months mainly from shards. If we assume that 800 of those were exclusively from shards, that's 8000 ads watched. And from what I found online, a "reward ad", which forces the user to watch the full video in order to receive a reward, can pay up to $0.16 PER AD to the company hosting those ads. So that's up to $1260 Tanki earned from a single player watching ads. Even if the average per player earning is an order of magnitude less, multiply by the number of active players and add to it sales of bundles and ultra containers, and I would assume you'd get a hefty amount. Though a 25x jump in revenue does indeed seem strange. I hope it's true, since it would mean we could get more cool stuff being added and perhaps fewer P2W updates...

A grand total of TWO times! ? I mean, you asked for F2P counters and viking OD is a F2P counter. It's not great, but there are better things which would be considered P2W.

And how is that going to help the flying-across-the-map-in-one-jump issue in any way?

In smaller maps (which happen to be the majority of maps I get put into), it can take between 3-5 seconds to go from base to base after using OD. That additional 5-second wait near our flag base has cost me the flag multiple times due to enemies catching up and killing me. A lot of times I end up just capping the flag and forfeiting the OD charge boost from it. And due to the slower charge rate and the fact that my combo is near useless without an OD, the enemy gets a lot more chances to launch successful counter-attacks while I'm working to get another OD.

This wouldn't solve anything because even a free player with smart spending strategy can get a near-maximum GS at low Legend ranks, and especially if they spend real money. Separating higher legends doesn't make sense because at Legend ranks everyone has all equipment available to them, so the ranks themselves are the same. Separating the player base into groups would also make MM a lot less effective.

Which point? The fact that Hopper is OP in capture modes? Literally everyone (myself and devs included) agrees on this. You're just beating the same dead horse over and over again with that. But in order to understand how Hopper got nerfed, you would have had to actually play with it before and after the changes happened — same with every single piece of equipment that undergoes balance changes. It's very rare to see a noticeable difference in an item's performance from an outside point of view. I played with Hopper ever since it became publicly available. I remember when I could use OD just before dying, stun and burn all nearby enemies, only to respawn with another OD fully charged. I also remember hopping into the enemy base, scoring a flag, and respawning with 80-90% OD already charged. And I remember always being the first to have an OD ready, while enemy Hunters were still at 50% charge, allowing me to easily score the first flag. None of this happens anymore. And as I continue playing with Hopper, I'm telling you from first-hand experience that scoring flags became much harder. Now, I'd like you to pay close attention to the wording here. It became much harder compared to how it was, but it did not become hard. I can still easily win most battles and score 5 flags, but this is exacerbated by the fact that I'm using the lightweight-crisis combo, which, yeah, I fully agree with you about calling it a legal hack. But even with that insane advantage I still quite often come across skilled enemies, who manage to stop me and defeat me, even without using Hoppers on their own team. As for normal Hoppers — I regularly see them fail over and over again when trying to score, because people learned to counter their OD.

I think it's mediocre at best if you use it without Lightweight and a speed drone (Trickster or Crisis). Normally I would recommend just Adrenaline for Rico, or AP if you have it available. But since @LambSauce is quite a low rank, I would recommend something more versatile like Hunter or Viking paired with Thunder/Smoky/Railgun/Gauss.

I know what you meant, but I thought it was an interesting coincidence that a few players are close to the 9000 mark, but none are over it (or so I thought).

10% slower idle OD charge rate Zero OD retention (you use it and die instantly — it's wasted) 10 seconds delay on OD charge bonus from battle score (longest of all hulls, very significant) Stun duration nerf down to 1 second (biggest nerf of all) I think there's something else I missed, but even just those four together made Hopper a lot less effective in many situations. And in the recent Russian Q&A, Opex said that he plans to make another change to counter Hopper's ability to "grab and fly". His initial suggestion (subject to change) is to make it impossible for enemies to use overdrives while inside a Titan's dome. Any long range turret (preferably hitscan) paired with Viking. So ideally Shaft or Railgun, but Striker (Hunter augment), Gauss, Smoky, Thunder, Hammer (Slugger) can also work. Not as effective as the P2W stuff, but still works with a bit of skill.

I outlined my opinion in the I&S topic quite nicely, and you conveniently chose to ignore it and continue your baseless accusations. This is the direct quote: Every part of this sentence is factual, unbiased truth. I cannot force you to believe me and you probably won't, but that's what it is. Now I would appreciate if you stopped spreading any further misinformation. Light Hopper + PT Rico + Crisis is an insanely fun combo and takes a lot of skill to use effectively. Dare I say that a game mode (CTF or RGB) where everyone had this combo fully upgraded with infinite supplies would have a far higher skill cap than XP/BP ever did. The problem is obviously that it has a massive advantage over all other combos when it comes to mobility, to a point where a lot of the battles are boring due to how easy it is to score and win. That being said, there are counters to this combo, and I regularly end up facing skilled and powerful enemies, who manage to put up a strong fight and often even defeat me. Those are the games I enjoy, even if I lose. Any long range AP/EMP turret on just a slightly open map is all it takes to make my life hell. Pair that with stun immunity Viking/Hunter, and there's not much I can do.

Actually, I clicked on a few of the profiles and haven't found an acc with over 9000 hours. There were a couple with around 8500 though ?