Nice work developers! Keep working on such useless ***** updates while putting off issues that should be more important! What's the point of gaining new mouse-preferring users when you can't keep your current users?!

Here's the puzzle for day 3, which will have to be changed now! 1. The video will lead to the keyword Hornet. 2. Check the garage description for Hornet, and notice that the dot after "steady" links to this forum post. 3. You will see the following picture at the bottom of the post with a link to this YouTube video. 4. The sigma sign (Σ) is the summation operator in mathematics. 5. In the video Semyon tests the microphone with a series of 1's and 2's - the summation of which is 57 (unless I got it wrong again)!

And the the answer for day 3 is 57! I think Tanki needs to make another puzzle for day 3, quickly! EDIT: It seems to be 57 not 55!

Well, an idea just popped into my head, so here it goes: I'll call it Predictable Collectors. The idea is to go back to the 10 crystal box drops but with an automatic on/off feature. The crystal drops will be off by default for all battles and their value will go into the battle fund, but when action starts then drops may be turned on if all players are actively engaging in the battle, but if a crystal collector is suspected then it turns off and the value of the drops will again be added to the battle fund instead, and so on... This will only apply to team matches - more details below. Crystal drops will be on if ALL of the following conditions are met: All players on both teams have been in the battle for at least 5 minutes. All players have a D/L rate above 0.25 in CTF, and above 0.40 in TDM. All players have a score above 100. If any of these conditions is not met then crystal drops are automatically turned off until all conditions are met again. So, if a new player (who could be a crystal collector) joins an active battle where crystal drops are on, they will be turned off immediately (conditions 1 and 3 not met), and remain off until the new player proves that they joined to actively play. Notes: Some of the suggested numbers (limits) can be reconsidered. Crystal boxes can have values ranging from 1-10 but not greater than 10. They drop randomly with no marked spots. A similar idea could be applied to DM battles.

So, if mults now have a bigger motive to sabotage games, the solution (as some see it) is to give up part of the reward honest players work for in order to keep those mults occupied collecting free crystals, right? This is like paying the neighborhood bully so he won't beat you up when you pass near him. Having crystal drops is not the right solution to multing. Instead, some measures can help minimize the problem: If a mult is blocking other players from capturing flags by parking a heavy tank on top of the flag base, you get a mammoth or titan and sabotage his sabotage. If a mult is pushing, blocking, flipping, etc. his team mates, then leave the battle, join the other team with a shaft and let him have it! :lol: I do that oftentimes and many mults end up leaving shortly after. If there are more mults than serious players in the match, then you are in the wrong battle, so just leave. Report mults with video proof. A player moderation/kick out system is indispensable and I believe the developers must be working on it. Mults of all types must be dealt with radically for a better game experience. Removing crystal boxes eliminates half of the problem, which is crystal miners. The other half of the multing problem, which is saboteurs, must also be addressed, not by "bribing" them with crystal boxes, but by implementing the suggestions I made above.

This issue will determine the direction of this game in one of two ways: This is a game about collecting crystal boxes for "fun" and occasionally planning and engaging in combat when you are in the mood. So, you are always "winning" regardless of whether your team wins or loses. There are THOUSANDS of players who'd prefer this. This is a game about planning and engaging in battles where you can either win or LOSE (yes, you may lose and get nothing after hours of playing!). Winning rewards you with crystals and losing incites you to reconsider your techniques and improve your skills so you can win battles (which is the only way to get rewarded). There are THOUSANDS of players who'd prefer this. At the end of the day, it's the developers' decision what they want this game to be about. Those who suggested having PRO battles with a no-crystals option don't get this point. It's about the definition or image of this game. When this game is introduced to other people and professionals they won't see those special-setting matches. They will judge the game by its normal playing mode, so they'll either see battles where every player is focused on winning the match, or they'll see battles where half the players are trying to win while the other half is going in circles around the center of the map collecting crystals and not really minding the course of the battle. I understand that there are many honest players who actually play the game and try to win while enjoying the occasional pick-up of crystal boxes, but unfortunately the existence of crystal boxes promotes the proliferation of mults and lingerers and thus negatively affects the game play. So, something must be sacrificed to preserve the essence of this game. There are two alternatives that I like, however: Having crystal boxes with nominal values (1 and 2 crystals for example) falling randomly just for the "fun" of collecting them. The big reward will still be in the battle fund. Rewarding players with crystals in real-time for engaging in the battle, for example you get 50 crystals for capturing a flag, or 10 for destroying an enemy tank. Those crystals would amount to the value of crystal boxes that would have normally dropped.

My thoughts so far: 1. The removal of crystal boxes discourages mults/slackers who only join battles to collect crystal boxes (usually contributing to their team's loss), and encourages everyone to focus on the game play to get rewarded. 2. The new (instant) Gold Box system seems to do the opposite of what it was intended to, i.e. instead of not distracting players there are now many players (mostly previous crystal harvesters) camping in vantage spots waiting for gold and hoping to get lucky without really engaging in the battle. Making gold drop after about a minute of the siren seems to be a better setting since it would only disturb game play for a minute (or so) and then everything goes back to normal, which is acceptable. Finally, a new player moderation system where mults and saboteurs can be removed by their team mates is necessary.

It seems that most high ranked players are in favor of this change, which indicates this would be a good move in the long run. I say if this results in the loss of hundreds, or even thousands, of mult accounts and crystal warriors then so be it! The game will move on and be better off without their "contribution" anyway. I'll try to address some of the common concerns raised here: 1. If your team loses you get nothing: Yes, if your team loses with a score of 0 you get nothing, otherwise even if your team loses you'll still get some of the reward. That is if your team loses, and if your team wins you'll get a bigger reward. Some make it sound like you're most likely than not to be on the losing team and thus end up getting nothing! This is not typically the case. A smart player will learn how to assess the situation and choose winning teams. So, if your team has 5 players ranked Colonel and lower and you're playing against 10 Generalissimos you shouldn't be surprised if your team loses. At the end of the day, just like any other game, you cannot always win - sometimes you'll win and other times you'll lose and this is the nature of this game. If you don't like it don't play it! 2. Players who capture flags will get everything: CTF battles are about Capturing The Flag, so it makes sense that players who do that get the highest reward. If you capture enemy flags, return your own flag or destroy enemy tanks you will be rewarded. If you camp where crystal boxes drop and only kill enemy tanks when they're shooting at you or coming near your crystals then you should NOT be rewarded. I've seen it in many CTF matches where the enemy tank holding our flag passes by crystal campers and they don't even try to shoot at it, they just turn their back and go for the crystals like it's none of their business. No more of that, please! Players who should be rewarded are those trying to capture/guard flags in CTF battles, and those trying to kill as many enemy tanks as they could in TDM battles. This change is just perfect, especially for team battles. 3. Low ranked players will have no chance at raising enough funds to buy equipment: Not true! But it is true that a WO5 player who joins a Gen. dominated battle will most likely get very little to nothing, which should be the case anyway as they're not likely to efficiently contribute to their team's win. But if they do they'll get rewarded for helping their team win and not for guarding crystal drop spots. Play battles with players similar or close to your rank, and you'll have a better chance of winning and raising enough funds if you know how to play this game, not if you know where crystal boxes drop. 4. This will remove a lot of fun from the game: The main fun of this game should be in battling not in collecting crystals. Improving the game experience for players who want to battle is way more important that the "fun" that some have while collecting crystals. However, crystal boxes are indeed a cool feature of this game, so if the goal is to only keep the "fun" then I made a suggestion to have crystal boxes with a nominal value that won't be tempting to lingerers, just for the "fun" of it. Read my previous post here. Now what I want is 10,000 crystals for the time I spent writing this! :lol:

Decent update! Now the only way to get rewarded is to participate in the actual game play. However, I have the following two suggestions: 1. The crystal boxes are an amusing feature of TO. So, if they must remain in the game I suggest you make them of a value ranging from 1-5 crystals only, and drop less frequently ANYWHERE in the map with no specific drop zones. The ratio could be 50 crystals worth of boxes (for example, 30 "1 crystal boxes" + 5 "2 crystal boxes" + 2 "5 crystal boxes") for every 1000 in the battle fund. This means more reward for players in the battle fund instead of crystal boxes, but we'd still have the cool feature of crystal boxes in a nominal sense that doesn't make it attractive to mults or distractive to players. 2. The instantly-dropping Gold Box can be made fall from a higher spot so that everyone has a better chance of seeing it and getting to the spot before it reaches the ground.

Nickname: PuncherTank