He still talks to us in the VLogs. I haven’t been following the recent Friday Raw, but I do know Hazel joined some of the early live streams. I see his point, though. Interacting directly on the forum... well, people don’t always mind their manners, and I get that Hazel has no patience for those players. On the other hand, the community has lost something since he left the forum. I wonder if he would be open to something like a moderated Ask Hazel thread, where we can go ask whatever we want, but just like I&S, our comments and questions aren’t visible to the public or submitted for Hazel to respond until a moderator pre-screens them. For obvious reasons, such a thread would have to lock for a period of time following game updates.

Tanker’s Day has historically been one of the better holidays in terms of discounts. 40%, sometimes 50%. We’ve recently had 25% and 30% sales, so my gut tells me Tanker’s day will be good.

Sounds like fun for new players but for veterans like me, I am doubtful that they can put anything appealing enough inside the pass for me or other Legends to buy into yet another real money mechanic. This also feels like an abrupt shift away from Containers as the de facto ‘pay real money for goodies’, so I’m skeptical. Maybe this is as simple as two tiers of Premium?

That’s fair. Honestly, I hadn’t considered Parkour as a means for Tanki to sell supplies. But a lot of players are parkourists, so I respect that.

Yep, what’s your point? I actually intend to so something along these lines, but have to wait until early 2019. But that’s really not the point. The point was that there is no reason to buy Supplies with real money. I don’t understand how Supplies can be a revenue stream for the company. But no problem adding Magum :ph34r:

But.. but... you can tell if a tank is ‘cooler’ than yours! Better run away! </sarcasm>

But are kits a mistake? I certainly think they are the wrong choice for most players, but IF YOU -catch a kit at its unlock rank AND -choose a kit which suits your style of play AND -has a useful module to you AND -has a paint you would actually consider wearing in a lot of battles AND -you can afford it with crystals to spare for MUs THEN - you have not made a mistake but have given yourself an advantage through quite a number of rank ups.

Well..... if you think about it:-Gold Box isn’t a new supply, rather a bundle of crystals which are already in the game -Batteries aren’t a new supply, they only give access to slight improvements to the usage of the 1-5 Supplies. -Nuclear Energy is not a new supply, it merely activated overdrive, which again does nothing beyond the existing 1-5 supplies. Why can’t there be a supply which does something *gasp* DIFFERENT? Invisibility. Detonation. Shot Reflection. Range Increase. There are endless possibilities. I’ve heard this too but find it really hard to believe. I have literally tens of thousands of supplies in my garage. Even my M2 alts have about 2k of each, okay more like 1k for RKs. Point is, if I’m swimming in them, how can anyone need to buy with real money? .

This post, for the win. JGR, ASL, and RGB have been great adds to the game. So yeah, my original point is a bit unfair. But only a bit. In my opinion there has been orders of magnitude too much functionality built on top of, and on top of again, Supplies.

Ugh - if there is a mod out there, kindly correct my typo in the Thread Title :(

This is neither a tirade nor a rant. I want to have a discussion about the pattern we’re seeing with updates and supposedly new features boiling down to little more than new and interesting ways to use the same supplies we’ve had in the game for a very long time... yes the 0-5 key supplies ranging from Repair Kit through Mines. The pattern seemed to start with Overdrives (formerly Zero Supply) which activates all five existing supplies. Tactically interesting and good for gameplay, but at the end of the day, not a new game feature. Just a new way to use an existing one. We already had Missions and Mission Chain rewards which did give out precious crystals but also flooded casual players with supplies they couldn’t use as fast as they obtained them. Shop bundles increasinlgly award players with hundreds of each supply, whether the player needs them or not. Then Containers appeared. Again, this was a great idea for the game. Containers are wildly popular, but again, at the end of the day, anyone who has opened containers know what you mostly get from them. You guessed it - Supplies. Next came Drones. Guess what they do. Allow players to use... wait for it... Supplies in different and (only slightly) more effective ways. But wait, they introduced a new supply, right? Well, yes and no. Batteries are new, but batteries themselves do nothing more than power Drones, which takes us right back to Supplies. Most recently, Designers teased us with a new supply drop, Nuclear Energy. Players offered great ideas as to what this might have brought to the game. But when the release arrived, we learned that Nuclear Energy supply drop is nothing more than a way to activate Overdrive, which is nothing more than Supplies. All of this brings me to two questions. 1-Why are the designers so focused on Supplies and their use as the basis for so many game updates this past year? 2-Does the future hold anything for the game beyond more variations on how to obtain and use Supplies?

IMO light hull usability in MM battles suffers because of crowded maps and over exposed areas within those maps. Light hulls just can’t survive with turrets designed to take out medium hulls and keep heavy hulls from seeming immortal. And in any given MM battle, turrets are dealing a lot of damage. My suggestion is to redesign maps to have areas safe for small light hulls. Like long narrow tunnels or ramps impassable by larger tanks. Future has some of these in the central building, but it’s not useful enough.

I was the first to predict that XT Skins would be Shop-only, so, yes, I definitely see the buyer-related updates. Obviously, I can’t see where the money is going, but seriously doubt it is mostly going to TX. Regarding Overdrives, I honestly think the designers backed themselves into a corner with the hull-based overdrives. MM battles, and now the implementation and usage of the Driver drone have evolved based on the activation of all supplies, which in the future state will only apply to Dictator. That future state will make MM battles VERY different as some players scramble to adapt to their new overdrive function while others try Dictator in order to keep their Omni-drug powers. My guess is that Designers know this and are understandably cagey about pulling the trigger on such a disruptive change to their beloved MM battles. That change also moves MM battles a bit away from the supplies-centric approach resulting from the current Overdrive implementation. That’s a different direction than Drones, Mission Rewards, Containers, Nuclear Supply, etc, all of which revolve around the 5 traditional supplies. Personally, I would love to see the game become more diverse than those supplies, but I’m not seeing that in any of the recent updates, which is why I think Hull Overdrives are a problematic change for the Designers.

I’m curious about your views on TX. Prevailing wisdom seems to be that TX is a failure, so I’m struggling to get on board with the ‘TX killed TO’ theory unless you are going to simply recount the years Alterniva starved TO while developing TX. That WAS a problem, but is not a problem now. Furthermore, I do not believe that the decline in TO players has anything to do with TX. Which leads me to the future of TO - the ‘where do we go from here’. Alterniva has talked a lot about how the decline in players is the result of no marketing for the game. So why aren’t they marketing? Because the game hasn’t been where the company wants it. XT hulls and the Module systems were just plain awkward, but those problems have been addressed. The Flash to HTML conversion seems like the only hold up now. The game needs a graphics update in the worst way, but I don’t see that as a reason not to market your product.

I can’t tell if MM is the culprit or if basic human nature is to blame. Or maybe a combination of both. I have seen a lot, A LOT of battles end in a complete shut out of one team. Some start out that way, with one team coming out swinging while the other team sleeps. Other battles are skewed by the map - one side is at a disadvantage regardless of player equipment and skill. But what I’ve noticed lately is that players just give up. With battles being so short at 10 minutes, I beleive that once a team pulls ahead, there just isn’t any chance for the losing team to reclaim the lead. So the exodus begins, followed by spawn-kill slaughters, then new players join the losing team (thanks MM) and immediately rage-quit. These battles don’t end early since winning teams hold flags and rugby balls in order to maximize their crystal hoard. Bottom line - sure MM could use some tweaks, but no computer algorithm will ever counter basic human nature. Thus, no algorithm can force players to finish a battle once said players perceive the cause is lost. Furthermore, no algorithm will force players to keep playing a game once said players perceive they will lose most battles. .

You must be a drone user and actually need batteries.

Ugh. Preacher tellin da truth and it hurts.

A million crystals to fully upgrade. First step is cheap enough, 100 or 1000 I don’t remember, but they get expensive quickly. Step 2 is 5000, step 3 is 10000, step 4 is 20000. That’s as far as I’ve gotten - I only did step 4 because I could use the 30% MU sale yesterday.

Could just be my perception, but it seems like batteries reward missions became more frequent this week. I have two drones, but haven’t used either one. Can’t afford the MUs.

IDK, probably Nightmare Vavilon Glitch Might throw Arachnid in there too. I really want Halloween paint.

I think all M2 equipment should unlock at the same rank, similar to what they did with M3. Not sure if I feel that way about M1, but if done right, then sure. Done right would mean that players with M1 can no longer play with M0 players. Maybe this is where they are going with the GS mechanic, yet including paints in GS is silly, so maybe not.

Nives, why no patch notes?

Quick battles are the most fun, since the unpredictable map and mode combination is the most interesting. Plus, as Maf said, wait time is the lowest. Plus, if you stay sharp, you can kill enemy tanks who haven’t yet noticed that they spawned into battle.

I agree with this. At half charge, the player should have an option to release two rockets. This would give a player a chance to do at least some damage if he sees his target is nearing cover. It would also make Striker somewhat useful.

But don’t bother purchasing Striker module :ph34r: Vulcan module is also a very low priority or a pass altogether, despite the recent buff. Expect Vulcan to go back into players closets as they get frustrated by its performance in MM battles. Shaft module is also a low or no priority. You’ll never see enough in MM to justify the expense. So, IMO a new players module choices for MM should be in this order: 1 Rail 2 Thunder 3 Firebird (nerf or not, still very popular and thus common) 4 Freeze (still 20% more powerful than it was in January) 5 Isida (would have take. 3rd place before Fire and Freeze buffs) 6 Twins (all around annoyance) 7 Magnum (would be higher, but protection doesn’t really help your survivability in battle - if Magnum doesn’t kill you, the next hit you take will) 8 Ricochet (uselessly low DPS, thus uncommon) 9 Hammer (deadly yet not very common) 10 Smoky (less deadly and less common)