No, by "serious games" I mean games that actually take the whole "being a game" thing seriously. In fact, I do not play games that I've got to install on my computer. In the past few years I have only played browser-based games. So no, Tanki people would probably love being compared with those games that you talk about, but I'm comparing it with other browser-based games. Also, have you bothered to read anything besides the title? What I am talking about is how other games deal with their players, not how much better their quality is. Spot on!

Hello my dear ladies and gentlemen, I haven't been very active in the forum for the past couple of months (and you did not even miss me!), because I've been having some adventures. Now, I have come back to share my thoughts with you. In August I started playing this other game. I saw an advertisement on TV, and I decided to try it out. So I went and I created an account. Silly me, I chose a silly nickname because I was still on Tanki mood and I thought that I would make the normal learning mistakes during the game and I would have to start a new account. And, guess what? Mistakes and sub-optimal choices don't make the game unplayable! So I'm there still stuck with a silly nickname (mind you, I'm very happy with a silly nickname). Realising that, led me to compare that other game with Tanki, and this is what I have found: Sharing Information: Do you know how Tanki never says anything? Everything is a state secret up until the day before being released or so. Well, apparently serious games make an effort to share information with their players. In the other game, I had access to the complete description of the Halloween event since September. Tanki? Just a sneak peak (discounts and same decorations as every year, what a surprise!) towards the middle of October, and the complete information two days ago. Same with html5. The other game, tells me that they'll complete migration to html5 by the first half of 2018 (which we all now that more likely it'll be second half). Tanki? When are the alterations for all the modifications and turrets going to be finished? Are you even going to finish them? What about html5? Is Tanki going to die if you release an approximate date? And this big new project with shinies? Are you going to do it some time soon, or is it just smoke to hide all the other things that you are not doing? Protecting New Players: In the other game, they've just implemented a new mechanic that prevents veteran players from creating a new account and abuse new players. Tanki, on the other hand, is completely alright with you creating a new account, paying €15 for supplies, and bullying all the new players at private rank (of course, every time I check there are less and less actual new players at private). Playing at Your Own Pace: One of the thins that bothers me the most in Tanki is that the system forces highly encourages you to play only to complete missions and then log out, unless you want to pay for premium and participate in even more blow-outs. In the other game, it is okay if you play 20 minutes a day, and it is also okay if you play 2 hours. Obviously, there is a point in which you really can't play much more unless you pay, that's the thing with online games. But the difference is that the other game actually encourages you to play, even if you don't pay, and there's a lot of flexibility to find your own pace. In-game Currency: Do you know how if you lose too many battles, buy too many pieces of equipment, or simply play too much in Tanki the system does not reward you enough to keep playing at a competitive level and you get stuck with low modification stuff for a long while? Well, in the other game, should you happen to run low on in-game currency, you aren't forced to climb up the ladder in order to gain more in-game currency. You can simply generate more in-game currency without moving forward in the experience ladder. I understand that there a loads of different genres of games and that Tanki cannot allow players to gain crystals without also gaining experience (or can't it? I wonder), as that would generate imbalance and abuse. But my point is that in serious games, bad decisions and sub-optimal choices don't make you lag behind everyone else for the following five levels. All that is not to say that Tanki is a bad game per se. Tanki is a great game, it's just fallen prey to really bad management. I really loved playing it up until they merged the servers, and they started adding shinies that encourage drugging. I'll probably drop by every once in a while and play a game or two, just to remember the good old days (and then I'll probably remember why I stopped playing Tanki and not come in another while). But my recommendation to all of you is this: Just find a serious game and enjoy it. Your time and money will be put to a much better, more rewarding use.

Critical Error

Unless you can get two or three kills with it and damage other tanks. Even if you only get one kill, you're more than likely to get more than the 5 points that you lose. Though, I do agree with you complete, it's a pretty stupid tactic.

I really don't know what you're talking about. Magnum makes everything so much easier. If, say, I arrive at the foot of a cliff, and I find that there is a Magnum on top of it, it doesn't matter if I stay, if I run, or if I find cover, it blows my tank up either way. So, as you can see, choices are much easier now, because they have no consequences whatsoever. Also, being blown up out of the blue is so much fun, as it is seeing those enemies against whom you are fighting being blown up out of the blue. Before Magnum, you had to take them down by shooting them yourself, and you ran into the risk of being blown up in the process. Not anymore. Now, as soon as you get to the enemy base, a Magnum in your team starts firing and you needn't worry about it. Or haven't you seen you much easier gameplay is now? Do you remember all that hassle that you had to go with after spawning? You had to drive around, pick up boxes, think of a route to take, sneak, use your environment to your advantage and such stuff. Now, since they are so kind as to destroy your tank as soon as it spawns, you don't need to go through the trouble of considering all those variables. Magnum's made everything better.

You were complaining that, when the mission button is relocated, you won't be able to join long battles and claim your reward toward the end of it. I simply commented that I don't think that this is the purpose of premium missions.

Oh, the important word here is still, that is, without moving. If you move your hull as well as your turret, find good shooting places, use the environment and other tanks to dodge enemy fire, work as part of a team and all that, then that's pretty much as good as it gets.

It's really too early to say, as turrets might undergo serious changes before Christmas. What roles, modes, and maps do you like playing?

I had something similar yesterday. I'm not completely sure that that was it, but for a while, I think I was able to see my allies' damage.

Camping is about the first thing I learned to do in Tanki. With regards to level of skill, it's only marginally superior to standing still on the field shooting. The only difference is that you use a hiding spot after shooting. It really does not seem the best example here.

Yesterday my Vulcan seemed to have a lot less ammo than usual. I can't say for sure that it did, but my impression was that the ammo bar didn't last more than a couple of seconds.

I'm positive that it's not getting twice the winning reward of a five-hour battle without getting the extra experience points as well.

It's no alteration. It's a change that developers made to stock Isida a while ago.

...which will make it more powerful than the other one and therefore unbalanced. But even then, players will probably still prefer the other one because it helps attack rather than defend, you can use it effectively in more situations, and it boosts your teammates' power.

It's not balance that concerns me. It's usability. Let's take the current overdrive and the supply-deactivating one as an example. They are equally powerful. They both have the same effect, but in opposite ways. One can get a lot of tanks on drugs, the other can get them off drugs. However, the first one is much more useful. How often are you going to get surrounded by enemies full on supplies? Probably not as often as you'll be surrounded by allies that can use supplies. The former, then, seems easier to use.

So far, overdrive has only made battles more one-sided. Adding new overdrive doesn't seem likely to do otherwise. Besides, I've got my doubts that more Overdrives will make the game more diverse. Even expecting all of them to be balanced, probably not all of them will be equally useful. There is, therefore, the danger that players will gravitate toward one or two hulls and make the game even less diversified.

First of all, I want to acknowledge that there are many reasons why a player would leave a battle, many of them not even related to their amusement level. That said, I want to suggest that the reasons that players complete a mission and then leave a battle are mainly two: First, for some reason they are not enjoying the battle. It may be a more that they don't like, or they may be losing badly. I used to complete my DM missions, but I find the mode so stupid that now I simply change them regardless of their reward. But secondly and most importantly, I think that it is because the whole game economy is out of whack. Items are ridiculously overpriced, both in the garage and on the shop (LittleWillie made a very good post about it). That means that after months playing to tank up, players need to wait an indeterminate amount of time for a sale or the kit they want to come up on the garage. The ridiculous way in which battle funds are distributed is just another expression of the game economy's absurdity, which is even worse with the matchmaking system. Players don't stay in the battle because completing the mission and leaving is more beneficial for them than staying until the end, and since they'll have to wait months for a good sale anyway, what's the point of ranking up quickly? Less experience earned in battles means a better crystal/experience ratio.

I appreciate your advice, but that's besides the point. I (used to) play three accounts and in two of them I've got fully MUed turrets and nice hulls. This one happens to be the one I use the most because I don't need to worry about crystal/experience ratio here (as I made it mainly to test a few combos), and therefore it's no problem if I play too much or end up in losing teams too often. Developers said in their own vlog that they changed the place of the missions button to keep people from completing their missions and leaving a battle. What I am saying is that the problem is not that people complete their missions and leave the battle but the reason that they do so. This is what should be addressed, what many people have been complaining about for a long time, and what Tanki refuses to acknowledge in any way.

Of course they do. This is how the system works. You get a ridiculous amount of crystals from battles, so you need to rely on missions. The best way to do it is to gain as little experience as you can in the process of completing missions. As soon as you're done with them, out of the battle. And then, maybe, if you want to risk it, you can play one or two games in modes that you actually enjoy before logging off. Seriously, the fact that players could check their progress on missions during a battle was the one thing that wasn't wrong with the system.

Why have you hidden the missions button? Battles weren't interesting enough for people. So, instead of finding a way to make battles interesting, we've thought it'd be better to just hide the missions from the player while she's in a battle. Love it.

Then I would suggest Viking + Smoky or Thunder. They both are versatile combos that do well in medium maps. Plus, their fire rate lets you keep shooting enemies while you're carrying the flag, which is a nice thing.

Yes and no. It's true that you can adapt you game style, but if you absolutely loathe XP and don't like dying often, Legend might not be the best kit for you. A brief explanation of what you like/dislike and what maps and modes you usually play would be really helpful for those trying to give you good advice.

Okay, the servers handle the load somewhat fine at times, somewhat badly other times. Sometimes I'll get there just fine, sometimes I won't be able to enter a battle through the matchmaking system. Probably the developers have more data, so any more feedback is unnecessary. Let's just pretend that for the rest the system is completely fine, and hope that developers will either decide to make another test and this time actually want our feedback on issues such as maps, timing, teams, reward, and so on, or that they'll somehow figure out all these things by themselves before they release the matchmaking system.

Okay, I've given it a couple more goes, and my impressions have somewhat changed. First go, I decide that the reward system needs to be completely reworked. Before, there was little reason to stay in a losing team. Now there is little reason to stay in a losing team or the bottom half of a winning team. Especially in CTF, the reward system highly penalises some roles. I don't always feel like capturing flags, sometimes I feel like playing as defender or assistance. But with the ridiculous reward system, if I don't want to play an attacker, I had better not play at all, it's simply not worth it. It should reward teamwork, not encourage sabotaging. This, of course, is not a new problem. The way score is distributed has always benefited certain roles over others. The difference is that when we all got the same crystal/score ratio, I couldn't care less. Now I don't want to play roles that are penalised. There is also a problem with the maps available. They should all be maps where all turrets can compete. Some maps are a great, but Brest? Highways? Really? I got into Brest once, and I hadn't finished spawning that I'd already left. My second go was much better. I tried to get in a game for a while, but it wouldn't let me. It would never finish loading, send me back to the lobby, and so forth. So I went to play a custom battle, and I had the chance to try space mode for the first time. It was a lot of fun.

Ask Tanki, not me. They are the ones who kept insisting that I'd got my chain reward when I did not and fabricating numbers about the amount of crystals and supplies I had the day before which I knew to be false as a matter of fact because I happen to keep a record with my total amount of crystals and purchases.