I completed the rank-up test for weekly container rewards this morning. I ranked up to Sergeant, then when I opened the weekly container I claimed yesterday as a Master Corporal, the rewards were those for the higher rank (428 crystals, etc) This was option b ) Austen Pierce correctly predicted this. This is important to know. If you don't need the crystals immediately, then claim, but don't open the weekly containers until you need to spend the crystals. Here's a scenario which makes this clear: Assume I play 20 battles per week, and earn 200 XPs per battle. I've just reached rank 6 (Sergeant), and I bought the Firefly Kit (Wasp/Firebird M1). I'm happy to stick with this until the M2 kits become available. I fancy Avalanche kit (Hornet/Freeze M2) at Rank 14 (Warrant Officer 4). So I'm starting at 7,100 XPs, and my target is to reach 125,000 XPs. As I earn 4,000 XPs per week, this will take me 29 weeks. I will earn 87 weekly containers in that time. If I open weekly containers as I receive them, I will open 3 at rank 6, 6 at rank 7, 6 at rank 8, 9 at rank 9, 12 at rank 10, 15 at rank 11, 15 at rank 12, 18 at rank 13 and 3 at rank 14. This is a total of 78,030 crystals. If instead I bank them and only open the 87 weekly containers when I reach rank 14, I'll receive a total of 108,750 crystals (over 30,000 more!), and that's just enough to buy Avalanche kit (price 106,830), using weekly containers alone. So, I'll say it again: claim the Weekly containers, but don't open them - leave them in the bank until you need them.

I'm about to test this. Today I claimed a weekly container at rank 5, but I haven't yet opened it. It should contain 321 crystals (and a few supplies). Tomorrow there are new missions, and I'll probably rank up to rank 6 (in which a weekly container gives 428 crystals, etc). So when I open the weekly container tomorrow the options are: a ) I get 321 crystals (i.e. what I earned at the lower rank) b ) I get 428 crystals (i.e. what pays out at my current rank) c ) I have no weekly container to open, as the weekly reset removed it So, what's your money on?

If you earn Weekly containers, and then rank up before you claim them, will you get the rewards for your new rank, or for the lower rank you earned them at? If it pays out at the higher rank, then there's no need to claim them at all - just leave them as an index-linked bank account until you need to buy something.

11-11: Batteries - 50 , Paint - Football (Iceland) , Paint - Garage (Sakura) , Batteries - 50 , Batteries - 50 9-11: Crystals - 3500 , Crystals - 3500 , Supplies - M - 125 , Batteries - 50 , Paint - Garage (Invader) 9-11: Crystals - 3500 , Crystals - 10000 9-11: Crystals - 10000 , Crystals - 3500 I knew it was a mistake to joke about Invader paint...

If anyone wants some stats, here are mine from my rank 5 (Master Sergeant) account this week:: Rank 5 (Master Sergeant) 2060 XP earned 32927 crystals earned 15 battles played 20 daily missions completed 3 weekly missions completed 7 normal containers opened, including 1 star week reward 3 weekly containers opened Crystal breakdown (approximately): 28500 in normal containers 963 in weekly containers 2331 as battle rewards 1133 as daily mission rewards. Notes: Next week is no longer double battle funds, so I will earn fewer battle crystals and make take more battles to complete the daily missions with crystal targets. I was lucky with container contents this week. Normally, I'd expect to earn around 2000-2500 crystals per container. I earned 4071 per container this week. Star week is over, so I can only win 6 containers next week. Higher-ranked accounts have much harder missions, so you can't really extrapolate from this, but it may give you an idea of what you might earn with a new account.

Not long to go now until we find out whether missions carry over to next week. Those of you who are on 19/20 missions must be very anxious. Common sense tells me that you should be ok tomorrow, but there's not a lot of that around right now. I hope your faith is rewarded. I can't imagine how you would feel if it went back to 0/20 tomorrow.

5-11: Shot Effect (Shaft Blue) , Crystals - 3500 5-11: Supplies - RK - 125 , Crystals - 10000 , Supplies - M - 125 5-11: Gold Boxes - 5 , Batteries - 50 , Paint - Garage (Hive) 4-11: Paint - Container (Silicate) , Supplies - DD - 125 4-11: Crystals - 25000 , Supplies - SB - 125 4-11: Crystals - 25000 , Supplies - SB - 125 Some lucky boxes this time, but I don't get the point of the shot effects. Will making the shaft blue confuse folks on the red team? It won't confuse them for long.

There are two further things which confuse me about this update: 1. Why put weekly rewards in a container? If the contents are entirely predictable, why gift-wrap it at all? 2. Why do we still have to claim missions after we complete them? Why not just have a pop-up window telling us we've earned mission containers? This is how we get star rewards, so the functionality is already in the code.

Issimo, the problem isn't time - it's the number of missions you need to complete each week. Before this update, a reasonably competent player could complete 7 daily missions in maybe 10 battles. You could often complete multiple missions within the same battle. Now it can take 20-30 battles to earn your weekly bonuses. You earn XPs in proportion to the number of battles you play, so you are now ranking up two or three times as quickly, but without the proportionate increase in crystals that you would use to keep your garage updated and stay competitive.

It's normal for the game operators to sugar-coat bad updates by hiding them behind some temporary distraction, but I've never seen one with so much sugar coating - just look at all the things they've had to do over the last couple of weeks to fool you: * Dictator XT skin * New mission types (Finish Battle, etc) * 9 new drones * Halloween holiday celebration (map, holiday paint, gifts, gold drops, x2 battle funds, Firebird skin, star week, new animated paints, 30% sale) * 30 new alterations * Shot colour alterations Just reflect on this next week, when all of that frippery has gone and you're left with your accounts that can't complete the daily missions or earn crystals.

Containers awarded to my 2 new accounts for weekly missions: 2-11: Supplies - DD - 125 , Batteries - 50 2-11: Crystals - 3500 , Paint - Animated (Meteor shower) I opened a couple of 'weekly containers', too, but they contained around a third of the old weekly mission rewards, as others have found. I don't think there's any point tracking these.

Yes, I take your points that it will be the same for all (well, all non-buyers) and that you can choose to take more time to gain the same number of crystals. I'll counter the second point by saying that if you make missions harder, so that people play more battles to achieve the same number of crystals, then they will earn more experience points doing so, and when they rank up, they will have done so with fewer crystals than before. This means they will have less to spend on upgrading kit in order to compete with the higher ranks they will face at the new level. They will be at a disadvantage to buyers and also to tankers who reached that rank previously with more crystals to spare. Yes, this will even itself out over time, to a degree, but it's going to be a tough time for many, especially those tanks which have spent their crystals unwisely. There's no way they can catch up, now.

I think the point people are making here is that you could do that, but now you no longer can.

I disagree with your analysis, but I agree with your statement that you don't have the data and are guessing :-) I would be a regular player under your analysis, but I use multiple accounts (one uses a wasp/shaft, another a viking/twins, etc). I could keep all of these accounts competitive without buying crystals under the old mission chains. Now I cannot. That is the rationale behind this update.

Yes, you're right I could be overestimating the weekly containers. If what you say is correct, it could bring down the average weekly crystals earned to 10,000 overall, at a rough guess. This would see an effective 50% drop in crystals for the average player from what we would have expected to earn before this update. I'll see if I can test this on one of my established accounts (I don't have the capacity to do it on all four). New accounts will gain, as they have the opportunity to earn multiple containers per week where they could only earn one before. There will be a point when the mission difficulty outweighs the benefits of that. I'm operating a couple of new-ish accounts so I'll see when this happens. This isn't about frustration, it's a solid business plan to reduce the number of crystals awarded so that people feel obliged to buy more in order to keep up with their previous rate. It is however unscrupulous to fool folks into thinking that they will be better off from this - they won't. It's also unscrupulous to introduce this at the same time as the Halloween event/new drones, etc. It's a tactic that politicians call 'burying bad news'. It may not affect numbers of concurrent players too much, but it will affect people with multiple accounts. It will also make it very difficult for players to progress through to the higher ranks. It's interesting to know how commercially successful it will be for the game operators, but we may never know that.

Sporkzilla's hit the nail on the head. I have four established accounts from 3rd Lieutenant up to Brigadier, but it's going to be much more difficult to earn the crystals on any of them to be competitive in this game. I may have to retire all four and start again from the beginning. Before, I needed to claim one mission a day for 7 days in order to win 4 containers. The choice of missions available made this possible - I could often do it in a single battle (say earn 150 crystals in one mode or other). On average I'd earn around 10,000 crystals out of those four containers. Along with the weekly bonus (let's say rank average of 5000 crystals) and a few thousand more from battles, I could be earning around 20,000 crystals in a week, for not much increase in XP. I was able to buy and maintain a good level of equipment for my rank and dominate the battles I played in. I only needed to play 10-15 battles per week, so my XP increase was low. Now, that's going to be very difficult. Daily missions are harder, maybe taking an average of 2 battles to complete. The first weekly super-mission (say kill 500 enemies) will take many, many battles to complete. Even if I kill an impressive 20 enemies per battle, that's 25 battles. And the reward is one container plus one weekly container, let's say 2000 + 3000 = 5000 crystals. If the mission carries over to the next week, then this could take me 3 or 4 weeks to achieve at my current playing rate. As to the other weekly missions, the rewards will depend on how they carry over to future weeks - the helpers here don't seem to be entirely sure when they've been asked the question. Assuming they do carry over, then if I complete 7 missions per week, then I may complete Weekly mission 2 in 2 weeks, and mission 3 in 4 weeks. So, over a 4-week period, I should earn Weekly Mission #1 once, Weekly Mission #2 twice and Weekly Mission #3 once. That's 8 normal containers and 3 weekly containers. I estimate they would contain (8 x 2500) + (3 x 3000) = 29000 crystals over 4 weeks, roughly 7000 crystals per week. Adding the 5000 earned from the battles themselves, this is around 12000 crystals. So in summary: Old missions = 20,000 crystals per week, New (harder) missions = 12,000 crystals per week And if the weekly missions don't carry over, then it's a disaster.

Big changes in containers from today, as you will have seen.. Please continue to post your contents, and please differentiate between normal and weekly containers. Weekly containers have contents which depend on your rank, so please post your rank too, so we can compare them. This week's containers (all normal ones): 30-10: Crystals - 10000 , Supplies - DA - 125 , Supplies - SB - 125 , Gold Boxes - 5 30-10: Premium - 3 , Crystals - 3500 , Gold Boxes - 5 , Supplies - DA - 125 30-10: Crystals - 3500 , Supplies - SB - 125 , Supplies - DA - 125 , Supplies - DD - 125 30-10: Crystals - 25000 , Supplies - DA - 125 , Supplies - RK - 125 , Supplies - DA - 125 30-10: Supplies - All - 100 , Supplies - DD - 125 30-10: Supplies - SB - 125 , Supplies - DA - 125 30-10: Supplies - SB - 125 , Crystals - 3500 27:10 Supplies - SB - 125 27-10: Supplies - DD - 125

25-10: Supplies - SB - 125 , Batteries - 50 , Crystals - 3500 , Supplies - All - 100 25-10: Supplies - DD - 125 , Crystals - 3500 , Batteries - 50 , Supplies - DA - 125 24-10: Supplies - M - 125 , Supplies - SB - 125 , Crystals - 3500 , Supplies - DA - 125 24-10: Supplies - RK - 125 , Crystals - 3500 , Supplies - DA - 125 , Supplies - M - 125 24-10: Crystals - 3500 20-10: Crystals - 10000 20-10: Supplies - RK - 125 Meh

This week's rewards: 18-10: Supplies - DA - 125 , Supplies - DD - 125 , Supplies - M - 125 , Supplies - DD - 125 18-10: Crystals - 3500 , Premium - 3 , Batteries - 50 , Batteries - 50 17-10: Crystals - 10000 , Crystals - 3500 , Supplies - RK - 125 , Supplies - DD - 125 17-10: Supplies - DA - 125 , Supplies - DA - 125 , Crystals - 25000 , Crystals - 10000 17-10: Premium - 3 , Crystals - 3500 , Crystals - 3500 13-10: Supplies - DA - 125 and no football paints! :D

Well I've drafted an article on The Third Way, but I see now that not only does rishhabhhaunt already follow it, but he's an accomplished expert :D I'm happy to submit mine to the newspaper, though. Can anyone direct me to a link on how to do that? I guess my work (currently text-only) needs formatting, illustrating and sub-editing before you'll publish it.

And I imagine there must be a long list of 'must do' items in Tanki Towers: Improving MM wait times, sending players into fair battles, etc. So what have you decided to do about it? Nerf a couple of turrets and change the colour of Holiday paint.

You've really had it in for Shaft, and I don't know why. Not only do you flood MM with maps having no sniper positions, now you nerf the turret. Depleting the tank on an aimed shot will completely kill it off.

Interesting read, thanks GE. There's a third way too, but rather than discuss it here, maybe I'll write the article. :)

11-10: Supplies - RK - 125 , Gold Boxes - 5 , Supplies - RK - 125 , Supplies - DA - 125 11-10: Supplies - DA - 125 , Batteries - 150 , Supplies - M - 125 , Supplies - RK - 125 10-10: Crystals - 10000 , Supplies - M - 125 , Crystals - 10000 , Supplies - SB - 125 10-10: Supplies - RK - 125 , Supplies - All - 100 , Supplies - DA - 125 , Supplies - DD - 125 10-10: Crystals - 3500 No paints, so I can't really complain, but that account which is desperate for crystals never seems to get any.

4-10: Supplies - SB - 125 , Crystals - 10000 , Supplies - DA - 125 , Premium - 3 4-10: Supplies - DD - 125 , Gold Boxes - 10 , Supplies - DA - 125 , Crystals - 3500 4-10: Supplies - SB - 125 , Crystals - 25000 , Supplies - DD - 125 , Batteries - 150 3-10: Supplies - SB - 125 , Gold Boxes - 10 , Supplies - M - 125 , Supplies - M - 125 And some event containers from last week: 30-9: Crystals - 3500 , Supplies - SB - 125 , Crystals - 10000 28-9: Crystals - 3500 Stat of the week: That was my first Premium 3 days reward since 22 May (I've opened 298 containers since then) In the 199 containers I opened up to 22 May, I had Premium 3 days no less than thirteen times. This is probably the most obvious evidence that they nerfed containers at about that time.