Wow. I mean, I don't even know what to make of this post. Where to begin? Um, er, well, first, ARTILLERY SHOULD NOT BE "better for close range combat". As for only effective at long range, it's there to pound path in front of the attackers and wipe out the defense at the base. Artillery is to rain down on enemies, not barrel down roads. You and I have had plenty of arguments, if I'm not mistaken, thus I won't bother trying to debate this with you. Point is, the underlined part. You have simply confirmed everything discussed here, not that you would know exactly, or maybe you do, maybe you're best friends with Hazel, but, close range turret with anti camping, um, that sounds a lot like what I said about his statement. He intentionally nerfs long range turrets in favor of brawling gear. He admitted as much in that he stated he hates the long game, wants people to all drive into each other and knock down drag it out. There is no explaining this away, and back to the topic, hence why little innovation occurs then, everything is focused on the near game, and anything that gets in the way of just shooting is seen as bad.

IKR?

From your mouth to the devs ears, hopefully. I'm thinking we'll never see that until they get everything HTML 5 first. They're not gonna do the complicated vector graphics for smoke in flash and then have to move it all over. That said, no promises they ever will do that. Everything has always been to press the agenda of, how you put it, bang bang, and in that of course, they increase the usage of, dun dun dun, yes, say it with me, say it loud or quietly, or however you feel, but, say it, "Supplies". I had a huge conversation with Hazel a number years ago, here, about Shaft, about sniping, about game mechanics. My point was the game was too in our face for anything resembling armored combat. Sure you had brawls, but one would hope that was the culmination of planning after laying out a path to a base and getting in there for a flag. It shouldn't be easy to get flags, it should be work, and brawls should only serve to destroy everyone, and not be used as the modus operandi for game play. His response I am summarizing here, but it went like this: I hate campers, I hate people who hide and pick people off from afar, if I had my way, shafts would be gone or nerfed to the point of uselessness. The body politic that followed was his. We saw close quarter unit and long range units that all required much more exposure, Hammer and Stryker. Everything is about moving and frenetic action. Lasers ensured no amount of cleverness by snipers could ever overcome the changes desired. Then came the "chaos". Changes were constantly being made to turrets and their behavior. It became impossible to gauge what one was going to have to do in order to defeat an enemy in terms of timing and overall effort as turrets effectively changed. I tweak here, a change there, one day you were doing well, the next you couldn't get ahead at all. Again, we descended further into brawls. Then came Magnum and Overdrive. Now we have a situation where a offender can cross a map, heal up, take a flag, Overdrive, battle their way back to a base, and in the time taken, heal up is cooled down again to save them in the last leg of their trip. Supplies, always supplies. Magnums, in terms of innovation, were a great idea, the indirect fire bit, but I've said my peace on that elsewhere, they need to be overhauled or removed, but then, no, and again, convo for a different place. The point about them is they are NOT used as intended, but rather over-sized Thunders that wreck havoc on defenders and force everyone to spawn and scramble to chase after offenders, and what will be the deciding factor if they can rip the flag from the clutches of the enemy? Supplies. A brawl to the enemy base, again, always a brawl. There was a time where teams could hold down their end of a map for minutes without a single breach (given, it was the best of the best, and it happened rarely, but I was in battles like that and saw it myself). Items such as flash bang, smoke, etc, would all get in the way of forward, direct movement towards an objective, and even now, I laugh. I had said sometime time ago that the game was degenerating into some sort of armored rugby match, and low and behold, they even introduced Rugby as a gameplay model. The game is made for the lowest common denominator of player. Start tank, kill and blow up stuff, rinse, repeat. Hell, they added mouse controls because the stats said new players came and couldn't figure out how to use the turret buttons. If you can't read simple instructions and use three keys, your not really anyone who should be playing games, you need to go back to school because you have much bigger problems, but alas, they were catered to. Point is, don't hold your breath for lots of cool stuff that will transform gameplay in any fashion that will change the standard dynamic of spawn, drug, drive forward, blow stuff up, come back with something or continue blowing stuff up. Strategy, tactics, use of terrain (with the exception of Ledgy Online), and clever gameplay is not something likely to be seen in the future. I had high hopes for Tanki X, and to it's credit, the module system is far superior, but, all this innovation but the maps are ridiculously small often times, and the lack of variety makes it frustrating there as well, albeit for different reasons.

This has been beaten so badly that it's barely even worth touching upon, but, they were MADE a core part of the game. Many of us feel that a known constant quantity, the enemy and the equipment, would be a far better game than drugs and heal ups. That said, to each their own. And folks, don't turn this into supplies vs no supplies, it's about supplies being the only game in town in terms of innovation and features.

You'll get no argument from me. I know, devs gotta eat, supplies are the bread and butter of purchasing, Legends have it all already, they won't be buying anymore things that aren't there to buy, and everything else they already have. That said, yeah, supplies are here, so why not take that and run, and start throwing new stuff in. It is down right boring. Every time I heard about the hint of something new, it turns into a yawn fest for me. I know somehow it'll be consumer based something or another, not durable goods, or hell, something totally different.

So these things don't disappear, they just get lost in the ether? So how did you find mine just now? Or is that an admin function? This makes sense now too, because lots of things have escaped me, like I said in the original post. Huh, how bizarre. They need to fix this

Riddle me this then. In my posts, in my profile, with Post Only selected, this did not show up. It's gone. If I look for topics, I can't nav to it. And this isn't the first topic this has happened to me on. Also, I should also add, if I search the forums, still found nothing. And again, not the first time.

last seven days long tiraid about why people are leaving tanki, the reasons behind it.

What to even say to this. AMEN brother. Supplies, supplies, supplies (say that all Gomer Pyle style) I won't bother writing an essay. Yes, supplies are all that seem to matter, and their effects. Juggernaut is the closest to novelty yet in years, and it's not especially awesome, in my opinion. I'll even give credit where it's due, they did add game play style with assault and rugby. That said, as far as tankers and personalizations, and what they can do, yeah, it's all in the supplies of the beholder.

So in all fairness, given what I have learned, I wanted to make sure no one sailed in here, read what I wrote, skip the replies, and think that this was the problem. Read below: The REAL PROBLEM is the forum does not track posts properly in the profile, and as such, you are not going to find your recent posts there. It happens regularly from what I learned below from the moderator. So, if you are like me, and losing your mind trying to find a post, it's not gone, just need indexed properly into your profile. Tanki you for proving me wrong about the topic deletions, restores a little faith in me about the world, and Tanki. below is the original post: I am so tired of making lengthy posts and then finding they are gone, moved, deleted, and all nearly without ANY notice. I was looking for a topic that had been raised this month about why people leave Tanki. I read the posts, had an opinion myself, and posted it. The topic had me curious and I decided to find it again. Forgot to at it to content I follow. Sure enough, I can't find it anymore, either by search, by "my posts" list, anything. Gone. It's tiresome and loathsome to think that as long as nothing that breaks the rules inherently is summarily deleted with NO notice or archival to at least see what was said. Hello? Dev? Product managers? Just because you delete the posts means the problem is gone. People read that, people posted to it, it is what it is. Don't bury your head in the sand. Reality sucks, deal with it. It's not like your going out of business either, but that said, you need to listen and let people tell you what's wrong, or they're gonna walk, JUST LIKE the topic said. Now, to be fair, I won't dwell on that one post alone. I'm talking in general, many times posts have been swept away, topics, at a whim. If Tanki is going to maintain that prerogative, at the VERY LEAST, as a for profit commercial enterprise, show some professionalism and archive the topics and label them with explanations as to why they're nerfed. I know your core demographic might be kids, but, the forums are not where most of those are. The forums are for a more cerebral discourse about the details and nuances of the game, thus your target audience here, at least in the English online community, is not here for LOLs, pic swaps, and memes. There is serious discussion about the game often, and the moment it is not flattering of the platform, the game, and decisions made, you often not only refuse to address the matter in form, you destroy the mention of it. Once and for all, grow up, you might make games, play games, but you are all adults who can withstand a little prodding and pushing, a little criticism, and and heaven forbid, advice to at least be considered. You need to realize that the more you squelch the dialog, the louder it gets in the heads of those trying to have it, AND THEY WILL find other places to have that conversation. At least here you can manage it and share information and thoughts and participate in the conversation. In conclusion, at the very least, create notice to players when topics they have posted on are getting archived or destroyed, so we don't waste out time looking for them anymore.

You are what buffers my K/D on a bad day, I never want them to do what you asked. Massacre is just that, a massacre. Rolling hills, lots of cover, not a face to face map all the time, but like real shooting combat, you have to worry about getting picked off, as well you should be in a game of armored combat.

Someone has lost their mind. It's the ONLY open terrain map that simulates anything near real life long range combat in Tanki. Lost temple is big, but slightly contrived. Massacre is a great map, just wish it was wider and longer still, though wider would be better than longer if you needed to choose one thing to change. (Forgot to mention Berlin, it's a decent large urban map. The bridges area little on the "Gamey" side, but still, a great map.)

Everything said so far, and I didn't read it ALL, but I can imagine the sentiments and thoughts, seem to point to one thing. Consistency. Players that leave are the ones that have been around. Tanki is to bent on change and sweeping modifications to the game on a whim, or worse, on an idea that is not vetted with players. Everywhere you look, updates change the core functionality of hulls and turrets, and then some updates affect how you can choose to play, and others add more variables to game play, and others change how the game is played. My example, the Shaft, is one of the most obvious. Invested in this turret, specialized in it's game play, and suddenly had a laser added, and then later damage adjusted, had my penetration removed, turret speed tweaked, and then my arcade firing changed a number of times. For others, the Vulcan. Just recently, added increased spin up time, reduced heat up, all changes that were never considered at the onset when someone decided to invest in the turret and hull. We pick our game play ,we learn it, and we do what we do best with what we have practiced with. The incessant "adjustment of reality" makes the game annoying on a good day, insufferably angering on others. The whole notion that you have invested 100s of hours of game play, 100s of thousands, even millions, of crystals on equipment, all to focus your game play to the style of play you have practiced, just to have it all turn into nothing, or worse, a detractor from the game play makes the game positively NOT FUN to play. It seems like every 3 months I am relearning how to effectively use Shaft. I've been playing since 2015 and I should be able to easily load my account and start swapping blows with the best of them and even if I don't drug, at least give them a run for their money if they do. But no, I have to constantly fight to keep a barely considerable K/D and I'm always having to relearn things, like the behavior and characteristics of other turrets. Timing is crucial in this game very often, understanding your opposition is too. It denigrates into a brawl, constantly. There was a quiet near two year period, where things had become rather pointed, and hard edged towards a certain balance of units in battle, or certain constructions, that really lent themselves to a thinking game. Then turret changes came, then Magnum showed up, and then 7 minutes games and random map selection occurred. There are too many variables, and that wouldn't be so bad, if at least those variables maintained a norm. If you learned how to play a certain way in those environments against known "quantities", then people would stay, they'd enjoy the battles better. The ever changing landscape of the game mechanics (not actual landscape, which has become reduced actually, less maps in MM) makes people frustrated and they give up, especially when it's money/crystals earned and spent on an objective that is then completely changed or wholesale done away with. You want people to stay, offer more, offer novelty, but do not change, reduce, or adjust what is there in the name of balance. Sure we need some re-balancing once in a while, a few percentages here or there if a turret was introduced that ultimately behaved in ways not expected, but these changes are constantly up ending the knowledge curve and the skills of players. To make people stay, offer more maps, offer more alterations, offer more game play styles (battle modes), but don't just yank the carpet out from under people all the time, they get tired of falling down on the floor after a while. With that said, Twins do need to go. They are basically impervious to one on one battle, and very often, a gang takes quite a beating before they can even hope to kill of a twin in a medium or heavy hull with protections, M4 level, and drugs. They're ridiculous. That said, I wouldn't nerf it actually. It SHOULD GO, but you know what, they put it in, they let it run loose, and people invested, so we all need to put up, but then, stop messing with anything else and plan better, rather than wait a year before deciding to drop a bomb on players that spend tons on their equipment and spend countless hours learning how to play it as delivered.

I know people won;t like this, but, um, that's what a shaft is for. Low rate of fire, targeted high damage. Shafts should be able to neutralize Heavy hulls with some expediency. That's what they are for, sniping. Too easy, I'd say too hard now, especially with protections and some drugs. I don't drug, I have an m4 shaft, and I still can't one shot some wasps. Might be drugged, but still, a drugged light wasp should not withstand the brunt of a charge m4 shaft. Whats the point of the turret then? I should have damage in spades. Look at magnum, it's ridiculous, it can fire while moving, has splash damage, and indirect fire. Why can't my "take a shot every century" turret deal enough damage to do what is was initially introduced to do? No need to explain, the explanations are all there already. they want a brawl or they want drugs to be used, so crystals are bought. I know, but really, takes away from the turret, and my investment in it.

Ain't that some . . . , first it was "We don't want camping shafters!" Throw the laser on, then we run around and need some arcade damage to be relevant "Nerf that arcade shot, they should only shine as campers!" I mean really, are you serious?! Hate the turret, say what you will, but for heaven's sake, be fair. I got stupid ricos nailing me from across the map but I can't arcade shot for crap, at a rate of fire that makes paint drying seem tolerable? No sir, we need a real advocate for shaft.

The arcade damage change is ridiculous too. I can see the incremental change, a percentage of the shot lost, but I hit for 10, count them, 10 dp sometimes, it's asinine and offensive. You spend all these crystals on this turret, max it out, buy assault emitters, and then just like that, they take all your game play away.

True dat. I don't drug, and I got an m4 shaft, and I can barely get by. One shoting for me is luck now. Gotta hope you are sniping back far enough n their base they haven't 2'3'4'd yet. Now, add shaft protections, DA and Heal Up, plus ODs, if you want to get by AT ALL with shaft, you had better max it out, and GET REALLY good at arcade shot with it.

I've made some beautiful maps with the unused water prop, but it's a lot o work, and there is the problem of them physics engine. I'm sure adding that over head to tanki's process is just a burden they don't want.

Oh FFS, damn, I totally skipped that one too! I've been upgrading an m2 module! I'm SO SICK of their tom-foolery and subtle games. Wasted so much crystals then on all these little upgrades. I'm done even posting for now, SO PISSED OFF I'm gonna start saying crap that will get me banned otherwise.

Serious. Never noticed, never looked. Just figured that's just what happened when you maxed out the turret. This SUCKS.

Oh crude! I've been upgrading my Thunder with that in mind, and some hulls too. Damn. All that money lost. You serious? Once unlocked you don't get the level up free?

Truth be told, while I don't see my M4 as useful as it used to be, the MU path was not as painful as you might think. splitter is right on that.

Dunno about you all, and I know I know I don’t drug, but honestly, kills are getting to be hard to come by, even with my m4 setup, Played yesterday and it’s clear folks have figured out out how to game the matching system. It’s tiresome. Hardly any maps I like to play, 234 players on the opposition, and clearly organized. Same players on opposing team match Ftermatch. It’s getting tiresome. Single shorting even wasps now is a toss up. I’m growing tired of this.

So, I always complain. This time, I will first differ that this needed to happen. The problems with mults and sabs at the higher levels made the game simply too worthless. Now, this fix was over engineered. Too many limits, 8 unit teams, not filtering to at least NOT play maps you never would. It favors units that play the mid range game, punishes long range units, and close range units are a wash, no plus, no minus. I say keep the system, but expand the unit count to AT LEAST 10 players per team. Let users select filters to exclude certain maps. Last, but every important, give players a 30 second "locker room" timer to be in the garage and decide what turret, hull, and paint they want once the map is loaded. You lose precious moments in the game when you need winter paint or summer paint, and if you want to change hardware too, your at a loss. I say in fact allow users to choose their default winter and summer paint, so if you get thrown into a battle that is not on your list, it changes the paint to your default preference for day/night/summer/winter. Two cents

Dear Shaft Players, I regret to inform you that now, more than ever, you will be subject to the mercies (or there lack of) of matchmaking, beware. Since teams are limited to 8, and often matches are launched with as few as 4 per team (this is my experience so far), you are no longer free to support the attacking members of your team or defend with impunity. The low unit count means every unit is subject to being hunt down and attacked, and it makes MUCH easier now for teams to send 3 units in, hunt down defenders, and then leave. Shaft is hard pressed to succeed in low unit count battles. Not to beat a dead horse, but yeah, another nerf on shafts, their role, and their impact and relevance on the game. I won't outright decry the new system, it had to be done, to much multing, sabing, and front loading of teams to then be abandoned. That said, everyone should have to suffer the random nature of the system, letting lost temple and Berlin get mixed in, and unit counts of at least ten. These format lends it self to brawling really, and we ALL KNOW WHY, makes people prone to use drugs, and that's a money maker. I have my thoughts on that too, I think there good reason to assume the matchmaking system is pairing high spenders vs low spenders, in effort to get the purists to give up their ways and start drugging, but that's a matter for another thread. So what to do? One, start practicing that arcade shot, two, learn how to follow, but trail far back, from the rest of the team, and three, resign yourself to the lower stats and kill counts and rewards, it's just not in the cards for us anymore.