Yes, actually it does. But there's a fine line between shaving the sheep and cutting them. When you cut them, they leave. This latest change comes very close to slashing throats. The reduction was probably necessary - because if no one buys crystals, who pays the developers? But if the cost to play become onerous, the developers will lose out because there will be fewer customers. I've purchased crystals in the past - not because I was in a rush to upgrade - but because I thought the developers had done a decent job and I wasn't looking to ride for free. That was before I had as many encounters with the "moderators" and "customer service" as I have. And I have grown very tired of having to clear my caches after every game. So until Tanki cleans those up (cut back the moderators, either get REAL customer service, or just get rid of the ruse altogether) and stop blaming the caches for all the BUGS - no more "real" money. Here's an idea: Why not get rid of some of the Flash crap? It shouldn't take a 5 Mb download to log in. Nor should it take Flash for a chat stream. Those can be handled easily via HTML5. FIX the cache corruption errors (if that's what they are). And what's with the servers "closing the connection" all the time? Most of the time the game works - WHEN YOU'RE IN THE GAME. But getting into the game can take long minutes, browser restarts, cache clears, page reloads, page reloads, page reloads, page reloads - and data rates as low as <1Kb per second. (This last has improved greatly in the past few weeks.) When the game works properly, more people will play. I'm not easily frustrated - but a lot of people are, and I'd be willing to bet a lot have dropped off because of Tanki BUGS that "customer service" won't even acknowledge. So, yeah. They need REAL MONEY. But they should EARN it.

The last couple days the rewards have been crap. Now I know why. I have two accounts. I've had TWO crystal reward in the past three days... and that's with mission changes. So figure 24 missions - 2 for crystal missions. The higher ranked account was a reasonable sum (about 1300), but the lower-ranked account got something like 363 crystals. Really? Less than 400 crystals? So if you average it out, it works out to be about 250 cystals per day per account. The other awards were such crap, I paid the 750 crystals to change the mission a SECOND time... and got more crap. Out 750 crystals... for crap. I understand that the Tanki group thinks they were being "too generous", and perhaps they were. But now they're being so stingy, the missions are scarcely worth it. Spend 30-45 minutes on a map you don't like playing a game you'd rather not play to get a few supplies? Pfaugh! Bring back the old system - or fix this one.

Now that thunder owners are screwed by the upgrades in ricochet and firebird, do you have an exchange program where we can trade in our old (useless) weapons for the new upgraded ones? I'm pretty close to an M1 Thunder - but I'd much rather have the ricochet with the new upgrades and the same level of micro-upgrades. Seems to me that if Tanki is going to change the rules for current weapon owners by downgrading their weapons and upgrading others, they ought to have a trade-in program. How about it? Allow current players to get a "refund" of all the crystals they've spent on their equipment to buy new equipment?

The changes to firebird are WAY too much. It has become and "automatic kill" weapon. In the time it takes any other weapon to cycle once (except maybe twins), firebird virtually guarantees a kill. Both power AND range are a mess. Here's an idea: Instead of having the firebird require the player to aim and fire, why not just set a radius of 20 meters and anyone who enters dies? It would be almost the same thing. The only element of firebird that limits its overwhelming advantage is the requirement to recharge. That is, after barbecuing a half dozen enemy tanks (in one shot) it has to recharge. Set firebird back to the way it was. The new settings are ruining the game.

Reducing Shaft damage in arcade mode is a big mistake. It's hard enough to defend against all the other close-quarters weapons. Shaft was weak enough in arcade mode. Now it just makes those who use it helpless in close battles.