I've seen it many times, but it seems so hard to be sure. There are a lot of what-ifs, especially counting drones.

I feel your pain, but it is just luck of the draw. My biggest peeve in missions is when not liking the reward, I change it and get the exact same reward for an even hard mission. Go figure. Again, it is just the luck of the draw.

Gear Score is totally pointless for matches. If I have an M4 turret, 2000, M4 hull, 2000, Fully MU'd drone, 1000. So, 5000 GS no matter which ones. As Blue in Assault, is M4 Wasp worth as much as M4 Titan? Of course not. One drone will be important in a particular battle, but another would be useless in that particular battle, yet both are the same GS value. Three modules of 50% are 3000 more GS, yet it doesn't matter which ones. If my team is fighting 3 Rails, 3 Shafts, and 2 Isida, yet I equip protection modules for Fire, Thunder, and Smoky, what good is that? Supplies are worth exactly 1 GS each, up to 300. So, if I have 300 each (or 2000 each) of all six supplies, I have 1800 GS. But, consider: If I start a battle with 8 batteries, 10 mines, 10 speeds, 10 double armor, 10 double damage, and 7 repair kits, I have only 55 GS. YET! here, the 55 GS is the same as the 1800 GS because I have all the supplies I can use in 8 minutes. In this instance, 1800 GS difference is totally meaningless. the 55 GS is exactly the same as the 1800 GS for the supplies consideration. Another way to see a very significant difference in Gear Score is to be short one microupgrade level for turret, hull, drone, and the three modules. Is M3.19 equipment noticeably, on average, any less effective than M3.20 (M4)? You know good and well the drop in GS is much more obvious than the actual difference in the equipment. Get it? Gear Score is a prestige score, or more accurately, a superficial estimate of how impressive your current tank configuration is. There are plenty of players in the game who have specialized on a turret. Consider a Titan with Rail or Shaft. The player may have fully upgraded equipment and the drone (fully upgraded) that suits that player and the playing style. That player may be very good with that tank configuration, but assume the player either saved up long and patiently or simply dropped some cash into getting new equipment. Now the player has the exact same gear score with all the new equipment fully upgraded. Let's assume the new equipment is a Wasp-Striker or a Hunter-Twins. Now, the player enters a battle with the exact same Gear Score, but no experience. All the player's skills are wrong for the new equipment. All the player's tactics are ineffective for the new equipment. It will take many hours of battles for the player to develop the new expertise required. Gear Score is meaningless as a measure of general effectiveness. Gear Score is in no way indicative of ones usefulness in a given battle. Gear Score in no way takes into account the suitableness of your configuration for the given battle. Gear Score in no way considers whether you are having an off day or an exceptionally great day. Gear Score in no way considers whether any of your teammates think like you and play with a complementary style. Gear Score in no way takes into account how lucky you get in being in the right place or wrong place at any given moment, and how often in a battle one befalls you over the other. Efficiency Rating kinda considers some of those factors, but only in your long-term average performance. Though this post has grown overly verbose, I do hope the point comes across. Gear Score does not and must not factor into sorting teams. It is woefully inadequate and even counter productive for comparing one player to another.

This topic is the complaint book. If you don't want to see complaining, don't come here.

The Mods have stated plainly and repeatedly that Gear Score is NOT used with matchmaking. 16 players are chosen by rank. Then they are sorted into teams, trying to balance by Efficiency Rating and other undisclosed factors. Well, everything for sorting is undisclosed. We don't know, but Efficiency is almost certainly the primary criteria. The problem is NOT gear. GS doesn't consider which gear, just how high it is MU'd. GS is meaningless, and it would be despicable if Tanki used it for criteria for anything.

Are you sure? I'm not fully convinced they are working devotedly on it. More importantly, I'm nearly certain it is impossible to reliably balance teams within the existing system. Yes, it is incredibly challenging, even worse. The only thing I can think might help is truly tracking every individual's stats, not with the efficiency rating, but actual performance and behavior. I have too little data to guess what matters most, but per mode performance is likely significant. That is, a player who is good in CTF may be poor in CP. A player who tends to snipe and camp may be good for some battles/teams and bad for others. I also suffer from playing near server reset. Most of my playing time is limited to when fewer than 7,000 players are online (often fewer than 3,000). I suspect my first-hand experience is not representative of the majority of players. (Something I'm having to remind myself of often.)

Ostrica suggested I post about my complaint here. I opened a container, and the glow seemed to take longer than usual, and it came up red, obviously red, not orange or gold. I received an animated paint, not a million crystals, not a skin. What happened? Why did I get gold level when it turned red?

I'm hoping for an answer to this question, please. I managed to snag a black box drop. After the match, I opened it. It turned red. The wiki page for containers says, "Red — extremely rare items (unique skins, a package of a million crystals)" {What I would do with a million crystals!} You can imagine I was a bit excited. However, I received the Mt Fuji paint. (I'll never wear that baby blue (and pink) paint.) I suppose that is the Gold level, "Gold — legendary items (crystals and animated paints, which were or not available, but now unavailable for purchase)." But the container turned red, not gold. Also, I have three Legendary animated paints now, and I hope to pick up another at Tier 22. How legendary can they be if I have so many? How legendary can they be if many thousands of players will have more than one before 25 January 2019? My main question is why did I receive the gold reward for the red color?

From the wiki page for Matchmaker: Advantages of Matchmaking System: In the literal sense, the matchmaking system makes it impossible to send a mult into the enemy team. You will no longer need to worry about someone possibly playing for the other team (a.k.a sabotaging his/her own team) in any battle. In the matchmaking system, every battle will start from exactly eight minutes. Joining a battle in the middle is still possible, but the system favors creating new battles more than making people join battles that are already underway. The teams in Matchmaking battles will be almost always full right from when the battle begins - the system tries to fill up empty slots in battles as fast as possible. Mults? No, I still see them. Perhaps the other team didn't send them, but inactive players are still too common, and some players still work against the team. That second one is problematic on its face. I can't think of any possible good, nor any possible fix for such an intentionality. The third one and the second one cannot both be true. ------------------ The wiki page for history stops in 2016, long before matchmaking was postulated. The history paragraph on the MM wiki page indicates the MM test was a total failure and the biggest gripe Tanki ever had. Yet, it went forward anyway. It continues to be a failure, but it continues to be required for missions and challenges (and "black" box drops) anyway. If anyone might provide additional information and history on MM, and links to document, I'd appreciate.

Not important, but I think you might change your mind if you review the forums at least two years farther back. My review of the forums started in May of 2014.

I've become quite conscientious about looking at the timer when I enter the battle. If it is under five minutes remaining, I leave without further consideration. (I almost never leave battles. It is a new effort for me.) I've found one must pick a different battle button, or it will stick you back in the same hopeless battle. I've seen battles where no one on the losing team received stars (during the last Star Week). It sure seemed to me the reason was simply being that outmatched. It is not possible for an entire team to be inactive. I'm no fan of the points/kills threshold. If it was time-in-match dependent, and the threshold was clearly stated and acknowledged as such, I'd have no complaint for the limit. (I still think the Stars system is a poor effort tracker.)

Very next battle, same Ricosck, but CTF in Serpahov. My team was mixed, from General to Legend. The other team was all Legend. Things seemed even for about four minutes. Then, we got the advantage, and it was down hill for them to the end. It took all eight minutes, and it ended about 3 seconds before we'd have capp'd the seventh flag. It seemed even, balanced, at first. By the end, the other team was down to five players, but I was focused on helping my team, and didn't see if numbers grew lopsided at about that three minute mark. I mean, it was even. Why would players start bailing? I don't know why for much of any of it. I do know the match making system doesn't work. It rarely sets up even teams.

Match Making doesn't work. I was just in a Tribute CP that lasted just over five minutes. My team lost 50 to 0. Oddly, I dropped in at the start, and was rolling by 7:57. Freeky. I was playing Field Marshall Ricosck. I was the lowest rank, so that wasn't a problem. (I'm full M4 with a good garage.) I captured a point, captured a second. Died, respawned, got the second point back, and that was the last point we held for over two minutes. We had two for a few seconds at about the three minute mark (~5:00 remaining). Somehow, I had an even K/D. It sure seemed like we were all just being spawnkilled the whole time after the first 30 seconds. My point is the teams were horribly unbalanced. My team obtained a significant edge by half-a-minute into the match, but we were hopeless another half-minute in. Why? That was my complaint, now some rambling, explaining my thinking: MM doesn't work, and it cannot. I keep trying to find keys to why it is so bad, but I have to look up the profiles of each player immediately after the match to hope to see the actual conditions of that match. I figure if I can spot something significant, I can point it out, and maybe someone will think of a fix. Maybe I will find a useful suggestion to make. The big problem is it takes so long to analyze a single match, and then I only have one more data point. It will take months to even gather a few data points. Don't the Devs have the stats I'm trying to look at? Can't the Devs look at the stats for Tanki as a whole, rather than me trying to find something one match at a time when I have the extra time required, and an itch that has to be scratched? Can't the Devs see that team battles on Massacre are always one-sided? Can't the Devs feel our frustration with match making? Match making was intended to eliminate lopsided battles caused by "teams" raiding the battles when players began leaving hopeless losses. Players leaving hopeless battles still happens all the time; so no gain there. Group-rules or no, teams still get into the MM battles and make them lopsided. So, no gain there. And! MM makes lopsided battles that seem to have no rhyme or reason. So, no gain there. Why are we sill subjected to match making for all potentially rewarding game play?

If you delete my post, I want something marking the spot. If you edit my post, I want an explanation in the audit trail. I want everything audited and public. Specifically, what happened should be clear to anyone looking. The why may sometimes need to be private. I accept that. But, if you want me to change something I do, you have to say so. Hoping I will be annoyed enough to initiate a private discourse is wishful thinking.

Acknowledged. My complaint is about posts that are simply deleted with no audit trail and no note regarding why. I sometimes see my posts edited with a Mod-note, but other times, it is simply changed, no audit trail. Most often, I simply see my posts disappear, never a word as to why. The system may have accountability, but it has no transparency, and references to privacy and airing dirty laundry rarely seem to apply.

The "inactive" rule for Stars is bogus. The actual threshold for earning Stars is not specified. (If it is, officially, please provide the official reference and link, not somebodies studied guess.) I don't know why this complaint is simply deleted. The Devs need a different critieria for Stars. No Stars for Multing is reasonable. No Strars because MM put me in a battle with no hope of getting to the threshold is not dealing straight.

Zny, check the Vlog and the first page of this thread, and if you wish to take the time, look for the comments from the mods on this thread, in the previous 250+ posts. Yes, 25 January 2019 is when this challenge ends. The Devs flubbed the timer on the Challenges tab. Mods have repeatedly announced it is being worked. I don't like to wade through several pages of prior posts either, so I thought I'd answer again for you. For what it's worth, the timers on the missions are never accurate. At roughly 40 minutes to server reset, it is common to see the timer for the next mission showing a single digit. It tends to reset to another number next time one checks, and missions actually reset with the server reset, not the time indicated. It seems safe to assume the current challenge will end with the server reset on 25 January 2019 (the server reset that begins the 26th in Tanki time).

Thank you. Yes, it has to be run on an old browser, like IE. https://tankionline.com/graphic.swf Mr.SkiIIZz , if you haven't noticed.

For what it's worth: https://en.tankiwiki.com/Challenges

Is there some reason the crappiest map ever in Tanki can't be restricted to DM? Massacre map stinks. It is total crap. I run into invisible walls. Shafts make team battles entirely futile, especially when only one team has any. Please! Stop using Massacre for team battles in MM.

Okay, I went to look. It does not look like what I found the first day. I assumed you'd found something somewhere else. As to the players-online graph, that used to be on the "https://tankionline.com/en/"web page. If it is in the wiki, I can't find it. The number of players online at the moment still shows on the web page, but it is a snapshot. There is no data log that I can find. Back when daily totals were rising each month, they were proud to show the graph. I assume they still don't want it viewed routinely. Personally, at the times I play, it is rare to see more than about 3000 to 5000 players online. I sometimes catch 15k, maybe 20k on Saturdays.

Where? Which page?

Guido, where did you get the numbers? (And Viking, where did you get the players-online graph?)

Keeps getting answered. Devs goofed. They are working on it. This current challenge ends 25 January 2019.

Check it. No, it doesn't indicate per tier. It shows you what you need for the one you are on and gives a percent-complete indication. I have completed Tier 5. It shows it took 62 Stars to get that far. It shows I need 78 for Tier 6. Thus, 16 more Stars. It does not show any information about higher tiers. I can scroll to higher tiers, but there is nothing to click. There is no information regarding how many stars are required for each tier except the one you are on at the moment. Of course, 2000 Stars total for all 50 tiers, shows the average will be 40 stars per tier. Given how low the star count is so far, the final few tiers might get to 100 or more Stars.