Precisely. The unfortunate effect of Laissez faire capitalism has been dehumanisation of business processes with the sole focus on metrics like profit, efficiency, revenue growth, etc. There's very few for-profit companies left on this planet that still stick to some morals and actively mitigate negative social impacts of their products and processes, but they are a dying breed. Being mindful is a good advice. However, I kind of get lost after that step. Like, I know playing this game is problematic and disruptive to my mental health, but not so disruptive so as to take extreme measures like stopping it altogether. But its mostly frustrating playing it as well. So I am stuck in this kind of limbo

I mostly agree. Tanki is indeed not very unique as a platform which actively exploits dopamine reward cycles to keep us in the loop. But it doesn't make it any less depressing and frustrating to watch something you've invested years and years of your life into stoop to levels where its more of a detriment to mental health than an enjoyable past time. This is a larger problem with the microtransactions and "Free"-to-play model in general as well. Its just unfortunate to see Tanki on the worse side of that spectrum though. Thanks for the advices though. While I do get stuck in these ghastly loops, it tends to get better when I have something else to do in life. I just hope to avoid turning into one of those toxic Twitch streamers and find at least some sort of enjoyment in this nostalgia fueled relationship with Tanki despite the hellscape it has become :3

Would like to see the parameters of this "research" that is behind 15 minute battles now. I don't know anyone who prefers permanent 15 minute battles. It's way too long and frustrating if you get stuck against an OP team buffed up with all the buyer gooodies. Or is that perhaps a factor? Do 15 minute battles end up in increasing microtransactions for you guys? Honestly I see no other reason to have such long battles.

I have been playing Tanki for almost 10 years now. In that time my life has been through many ups and downs. However, what has remain unchanged is my love-hate (and quite frankly a bit toxic) relationship with Tanki Online. I have made this topic to explore and discuss the psychological effects of this game and associations with mental health. I was in a bit of lull period from 2017 to 2020 and only started playing regularly again in 2020 lockdown. A few key things stood out to me when compared with pre 2015 era: - The total number of players has noticeably decreased - At the same time, the number of buyers is radically more. While I can't say for sure, it's not hard to presume that Alternativa is doing well financially by successfully squeezing out more money per player to compensate for lower player base. - Microtransactions are a far bigger part of the game than ever before. Not only do they provide immense performance advantages (which, to be fair also existed in earlier days in form of kits, supplies and later on, micro-upgrades), but they're practically necessary if you want to maintain a decent win ratio. I've spent a couple hundred dollars on my account and still barely scrap by in matchmaking battles. To be fair a large reason for that is also the heavily unbalanced teams that I often end up in thanks to the a m a z i n g algorithms running this game. But the special DM modes have proven time and time again to me that I'm nowhere close to top notch stuff. For comparison, a fraction of this money I spent back in older days to purchase one kit gave me ability to throw decent punches against players much higher ranked. To be clear, this topic is not just a rant about Pay-2-win and degradation of Tanki Online. I'm aware there's plenty of those going around. Alternativa, just like Facebook, YouTube, etc is a for profit company that does exactly that. Exploit our natural mental biology to entice us into spending more on their products. The effects of this exploitation is what I hope to discuss here. The first thing I have noticed is immense anger, frustration and hopelessness. Losing 8/10 battles everyday is frustrating enough on its own, but it's even harsher when you barely even get to fight back. I'd provide some screenshots but I'm sure everyone knows the battles with 6-8k players on one side and half a dozen 9k+ or 9999's on the other. Broken system, probably. Idk. Point is that it drags me into extreme despair to try and fight flying hulls with crisis who enter my base and are gone before I can even react. Add some incompetent teammates and constant spawn deaths to the mix and you get a perfect soup of colorful langauge in my head which don't make it to chat only because I'm too busy trying to stay alive. The result of these battles are generally revenge playing. Instead of logging off like I initially thought, I keep playing more in hopes of winning at some point. And that point rarely gives the satisfaction that I'd hope it would. The result is daily grind mostly full of frustrating moments. Another effect is revenge buying. The more deficit I perceive between me and "perfect score" players, the more I end up buying battle passes, containers and such stuff in hopes of performing better. Obviously, this is a similar effect that gambling, narcotics and other addictions have. This knowledge just adds to guilt of unnecessary spending but doesn't really stop me from doing it again. The long history and memories I have with this game in addition to the effects of sunken cost fallacy keeps me in this spiral of doom. Share your thoughts as well and how you cope with similar issues, if you face any.

Ofc I get skin of a turret I never use -_-

Will there be new maps and/or updates to current maps? What slightly irks me is that most of the current maps were created when half the current turrets and floating hulls and overdrives didn't exist. I feel that in the past few years, there has been an overt significance given to equipment and not enough focus on the maps. While there have been some tweaks to maps over the years and some have been adapted to newer game modes, there is a distinct lack of map (or map features) made specifically with current turrets in mind. For example, Desert was never created with a turret like magnum in mind. Thus, a few magnum/Vikings on defence can blow the enemy's base out without ever putting themselves in line of fire. Similarly, the speed/HP balance has shifted a lot since introduction of drones and overdrives (especially Crisis). Thus, entire team strategies are rendered useless by just a single tank with a well timed overdrive. Not to mention the floating hulls. While they add an incredible new dynamic to battles and equipment diversity, the fields they're playing on weren't really designed for them thus making them sort of foreign entrants that either do exceptionally well or exceptionally bad depending on the map and battle mode. Overall, I think there needs to be significant changes to current generation maps to account for these factors and I would like to know if devs have any such thing in the pipeline.

I've been fighting the urge to buy it outright so bad :c Not to mention the few hundred tankoins I spent refreshing shop in hopes of a Tesla kit before realizing they don't exist yet. 9000iq I know ?

Hihi ? Just trying to finally rank up to Generalissimo after all these years xD I guess it's not really a relevant rank anymore but it'd be nice to achieve that. Same old rage and pay2win annoyances tho so idk how long I'll stick around. Did get myself fairly decent gear tho so that's pretty cool ig

Tfw when I score decently in a game of >9k GS players with my M0 Tesla :3 I know it'll be balanced somehow eventually but its really hard not to be pissed off during this phase. To be honest, Tesla's OPness was fairly clear in test servers itself so I'm not sure what they even tested.

idk rlly, just chillin. Working, buying groceries, paying taxes and checking out old forums from time to time to indulge in nostalgia

I was happy to see the new improved forum but then the first thread I saw was this :(. You were one of the very few people that kept in touch even after I retired. Wish you all the luck for your future, Coop! ?

Well, I'm not sure what I can do to make you agree...:huh:Contact Issho and ask him yourself. I'm sure he will be glad to help :)

The process is completely unbiased. My brother didn't win the last 3 times but won this time. It's a random chance. You're welcome ;) You must have marked 66 otherwise you wouldn't have won.

Yes. Test drives were removed a long time ago and DM tournaments were removed to be reworked. Please use the Q&A topic to ask a single question. Closed.

It is not. Your forum profile did not exist till a few minutes ago when you logged in for the first time. You will still get crystals, though, don't worry.