You, sir, are one of the most coherent people I have come across for quite some long time. This isn't because your views align with mine, but simply because you show really good analysis. I respect that you actually took the time to get the details of the game, as I haven't really looked into it. The fact is this: This forum is primarily composed of people who like the game. Afterall, only the people who like the game would have remained. The others would have all left. This is just another form of survivorship bias and the sampling is completely skewed. The total number of people who like the game, however, have declined because less people are using the forum, less people are playing the game: that is the best and possibly only indication that the game is declining and failing.

Trust me, it's impossible to be competitive against buyers as an F2P player. Unless you spend 8 hours a day playing this game. people don't do that because they keey dying to buyers. I was formerly a buyer, and I know what the kill-death ratio is like. Having maxed equipment and augments vs a 6k GS is like 1 shotting them. You don't look twice in their direction. They just cannot compete. Thats what was so attractive about buying - you become better, just by paying money. That is greedy.

This is a direct criticism of Opex-Rah and the Tanki Development team. They have directly brought the game from a thing of beauty into something that is widely ridiculed and looked down upon. People use Tanki Online as an example of how NOT to develop a game. When criticism overshadows praise for the game by this much, it's not a matter of statistical bias anymore. Before I say anything, I have the utmost respect for all the helpers, community managers and admins of the game. Having worked with quite a few of them before, I know they are truly dedicated. They are the engine, the wheels. It is only the developers that are driving them in the wrong direction. THE FALL OF TANKI ONLINE This game has become a classic case of the sunk cost fallacy. When you go past a point of no return, there is no turning back. This is the very case in Tanki Online's development. Where was that point of no return? - One can say, the paint-protection separation, the addition of augments, the addition of drones, the addition of overdrives etc. We should all understand that not everyone will like an update. However, when you see the droves of masses of players leaving, WITHOUT new players replacing them, then there is a real problem. Here is what a well maintained game would look like: Old players leave. DO NOT TRY TO KEEP THEM. they are already high-leveled, and will not spend money on the game. They become a liability. But if the game is good, they might just advertise word-of-mouth. New players come in. Don't change the game too drastically, or they will have too much to deal with. Leave the game the same, and add 1 or 2 minor updates every year to slightly freshen up the game. Here is what Tanki did: Old players want to leave. Opex-Rah doesn't like that. He makes a bunch of random, new stuff, with the purpose of giving the players "more things to play with". This might have worked if it was only 1 or 2 things. Instead, all these new updates made the game intolerable, too much and too crazy. New players com in. They see all the crazy hovering hulls and drones and god knows what alien stuff the developers came up with. They leave. Why play a tank game that features alien tanks and all that random stuff? No. Opex-Rah did not seem to care. Instead, he continued adding dumber and dumber stuff. The success of a game is all about its niche. Tanki Online went from a partially realistic tank game into some fantasy, alien fps that no one understands, no one is familiar with. Battles have become messy. There has been so many additions that when I left for one month and came back, I thought people were hacking. Oh no sir, they weren't, it was just new augments. Admins, moderators and people who support the game will be like: ok but who are you, and why do you think you have a say in how they manage their game? That's what they always say to one of these critical topics. Why? I spent thousands of USD on this game. In a regular business, that means I contributed equity and capital to the game. That would make me a shareholder of the company. That gives ME voting rights, gives me a say. Without any of us buyers, the game would not exist. There would be no revenue. The least the game developers could do is listen to us. was listen to us. No one is gonna suggest anything anymore cause the game is dead. I have given up on this game that defined my childhood. It's a dud now. No one is going to spend anything on this game anymore, because it would be a waste of money, waste of capital, waste of resources, waste of investment. Nothing you buy in this game has value anymore. Not when something better comes out to replace it within 2 weeks. I suspect the game will run out of money in the coming few months. Opex-rah is delusional if he thinks the game has a lot of funding to play with. with such dwindling numbers, they probably can't even afford 50k USD in advertising, and that is the minimum to launch a succesful targetted campaign on social media. The game has failed. Tanki Development team will not listen. did not listen. now it is too late. It was good yall but whenever I come across an old, 2016 video of Tanki Online, I wonder: would anyone have played if they knew the game would be driven to the ground like this just 8 years later?

Who said high school kids cannot program based on knowledge from a 'HTML 5' book? Sure, the game has its problems, and there are a handful of bugs that needs to be fixed. But isn't it in the interest of the developers to fix this? So that players continue to play this game? This must mean that they are trying to fix every problem. Perhaps it is just difficult to fix these problems, and they just need time to compute the ways to fix it.

The price of skins in the shop range from 5k to like 12k. I do not think that 500 tankoins and completing 3 missions a day is with that much.

Some overdrives are insanely overpowered right now (Paladin), while others are very weak (Hopper). My idea is that, with an 'hours played' time progression system, players could add more status effects to their overdrives as they level up their overdrives by playing more on a specific hull. Giving an example for viking's overdrive, on top of its rapid fire ability, added status effects could be: Level 1: 50 hours played on viking - adds temporary freeze effect for all nearby enemies Level 2: 100 hours - adds short jammer effect for all nearby enemies Level 3: 250 hours - Armor Piercing for all nearby enemies Level 4: 500 hours - Supercharge for a short amount of time Level 5: 1000 hours - Immunity for a short time For hulls that already give some kind of status effect, they should add different ones for each level. Also, for faster reloading hulls, the overdrive status effect duration should be shorter, or weaker than longer reloading hulls. Obviously, everything needs to be well thought through and nothing should be too overpowered. This could potentially make players more inclined to play more, as it it benefits them, while also being completely free and non p2w.

There's quite an obsession with words as nicknames recently, I think personally i prefer nicknames with numbers and letters that has a unique meaning to yourself. of course, words also have meaning, but you are a truly famous tanker if other players actually take the effort to remember your nickname which is a jumble of letters and numbers rather than an actual word.

mmm I've had a ghosting issue with up arrow, right arrow and space, causing quite some issues. Good thing is, tho, that I'm now very good at driving the tank backwards

Skins should be a cosmetic that's very rare to get, I mean imagine if you were able to get all the skins very easily, then you would have nothing to work towards right? This used to be the same with paints, but as you can see, as soon as they removed the rarity of the paints by making a bunch more of them, and also making them easily obtainable in containers and at a very cheap price, they have lost all their value. Paints like Graffiti, Golden Stars or Frost were like the top of the top in the old days, but now it's not even a flex to have them. I hope they don't make skins easily obtainable again, because that would only make them less rare and have less value.