Contest Entry: Not a kit owner myself, so I will discuss a kit available at the time of writing: Northerner. This kit is the epitome of efficiency in terms of dealing consistent damage and moderate tanking. Starting out with the gun, Smoky M2, a great single target gun that relies on quick, intense action, winning most duels at medium ranges. Smoky is great to be upgraded in an earlier rank as it is scary how much damage it deals. The M2 upgrade renders M1 obsolete with its minimal damage higher than the maximum damage of M1. In a TDM/DM, it is crucial the Smoky can score kills with the least amount of shots as well as the increased ability to "last hit" kills from other players. In a CTF/CP game, Smoky does not bring utility like Freeze or AOE damage like Thunder, so M2 upgrade is a must. 25 damage shot tickles; 40 damage shot hurts, not to mention the 75 damage crit. However, the hull and module combination is the real reason why this kit is effective. With Viking being one of the heaviest hull in the game, it prevents the player to be knocked off aim at medium range by Wet Noodles (Railgun), Fireworks(Thunder), and Fruit Candies (Ricochets). The nice amounts of HP also means it is impossible for guns such as Spray Painter (Hammer) to play the DPS game against the Northerner. The module combination with the kit is simply disgusting. By blocking 25% of Thunder damage, it gives Northerner edge when attacking the base in maps such as Silence where the enemies gets to free hit you until you get to their face. 25% against enemy Tickler Beam (Isida) will make sure the enemies have an "electrifying" experience as they respawn. 25% against Wet Noodle Mk2 (Shaft) blocks one way of counter play against this kit that is long range sniping. Not enough? Click the "1" and only call-your-local-healer button and keep going. (Did I mention this kit is ridiculous supplies?) And this brings us to the final question. How to counter play against this kit? As a believer in "non-kit-owning-since-the-paints-suck," the easiest ways to turn Northerner into a Baby Seal is the following: 1) Never engage head on. Have your mothers told you not to have a fist fight against school bullies? Same deal here. Don't fight muscle against the WWE superstar that is Northerner. 2) Make friends. Have your mothers told you not to have a fist fight against school bullies? You can if you out number them. Smoky only hits one target, take advantage of that. 3) flank, Flank, FLANK. A Charizard (Firebird) or Crystal Maiden (Freeze) flank attack can do wonders. 4) Don't bother using Mammoth. The Smoky explosion sound will send you to your psychologist. So there you have it, my evaluation of Northerner: a strong and worth owning kit with limited yet still possible counter play.

Greetings friends. This post will be a long one. I'd appreciate if you guys can actually read it through. I am sure I am not the only one who is somewhat unsatisfied with the new premium system due to the potential of the Pay2Win trend being introduced into the game, but since we didn't get any actual numbers besides the paint (kits information, XT stats, etc.), let's forget about balance for the moment and talk about economics. A game's economy needs to suit its player base. As much as I can tell by simply playing and talking to people, the majority of the players may be divided up into several categories based on age groups: 1. The under-aged children/teens: What is that about the age 16 rating in Russia? Americans and Europeans don't give a damn. Plentiful of under-aged children flood the servers since this game was also once featured on Miniclip. The game itself has a simple learning curve so it is quite addictive to young players. How do you detect their existence? Whenever "your mom" is considered the most terrible insult in the world, you will know. 2. The (mostly) mature adults: Probably the most enjoyable to play with: holding back on profanity and simply being not terrible at the game. 3. The adolescent: Everyone reading this post probably has witnessed some sort of awkward or inappropriate conversation on the forums or in game, whether its sex jokes or straight up pornhub. These players also tend to rage a lot at the game (their amount of rage scales inversely with skill, who knew) and be the ones who are drugging to no end. With these players in mind, let's first see why Premium will get the devs cash. 2 out of the 3 groups are not 100% financially independent. The kids need their parents, and the adolescent still needs some support; however, these people also spend the most on the game. The adults have better judgement about whether it's worth it to pay for extra in game features, but the kids don't. The kids want to WIN, and they will do whatever is necessary to win that game regardless of the means. This can be already seen with the product kits. When the kits provide you with gears that should not be available for the rank, the children, wanting to win so bad, purchase crystals to grab them. When this is compounded with the tendency to buy ALL THE GEARS, Tanki naturally gets money. Premium would be the same deal with the new kits and paints. However, there is no easy solution to this problem. While Tanki has done a good job preventing power creep by balancing, the game itself needs some way to attract its players. Tanki can't push new contents out like popular games such as LOL, DOTA 2 (cosmetics), Hearthstone, etc. Imagine Tanki releasing 1 new turret and hull a month. That will make the game a LIVING HELL. How does Tanki cope with this? Making it possible to use money to buy power, and it works wonderfully at the moment. The only draw backs is that Tanki joins the countless games in the rank of "Social" or "Facebook" games while its design concept prefers a larger scale of market. The game is designed with professional play in mind, but due to this, its professional scene is growing to no where. Hearthstone, the TCG by Blizzard, had world champion ships with 250k USD awards after only 2 years of operation. Dota 2 had the International during its beta phase. Why can these two games to better? They make the game accessible to all players. Dota 2 requires no cost to play, and paying is optional and it will only gets you cosmetic equipment that does not impact game play. You might ask why people buy them if it doesn't give them an advantage? Because if the cosmetics are done right, it provides the game a different feel when you are playing, essentially leveling up the gaming experience. So where am I going with this? I am not saying Tanki should scratch the premium idea completely but rather take a different route. Let's look at another game, SkyForge. This game has a premium system, but the system itself does not give power but simply acceleration. It makes leveling faster for premium players, but no advantages in PvP match ups are present. Tanki can do something similar. Tripling both EXP and Crystal gain? Sure. The tripling of leveling speed should be able to prevent premium players from having an advantage over the players at the same rank. Unique discounts? Sure, as long as the items offered are also available for regular purchase at the same rank. New paints? Sure, as long as the new paints are on par with the current paints in terms of power (Tanki can definitely make the new skins look pretty, since art work doesn't affect game play). Best of hopes for the new Tanki to escape the social gaming archetype. tl;dr - Premium is a viable idea Tanki can take on, but not in the current form. Thank you all for reading. Disclaimer: This forum post is not connected with the games mentioned in any way, and the games mentioned do not endorse nor support this post.

Best communist related parodies ever seen.

Hey guys. Wonder if you guys are experiencing glitches where you can fire at anyone, but they won't die no matter how much I tried. I'm using RailGun-M2 and I can't kill a wasp/thunder camper with NINE HITS. You may say it's lag or I'm disconnected from the game, but other players can still kill me just like usual. Later, I tested the glitch with my friend, and he said when I thought I was shooting, there are no hit animations on his screen nor my weapon dealt any damage/knock back. I will try to get a video in if the glitch continues, but if someone can tell me how to fix it, that will be better. Thank you.