One should absolutely never do Bronze contracts ever! While they are free, they require 5x the amount of time and supplies that you would use for the paid Silver contract and still only giving you 1 roll which is absolutely abysmal. At that rate you will be spending more currency on supplies in MM than actual benefit getting from rewards of the event. The only time you should ever activate Bronze contract is when you capture the Gingerbread gold boxes and you are missing a small amount for one roll e.g you have 8 currency so you activate Bronze contract to get those 2 remaining for one roll. If you dont have the crystals to push significant amount of Silver Contracts, it is smarter to rather skip the event. Bronze contracts are mostly just a marketing placebo that is meant to give an illusion for noobs that there exists a "free" way to do this event.

Wow, actually won on 1 acc and it took only like 10+ tries

Given how much they nerfed basically every single f2p rewards from containers, to passes, to removing f2p advent calendar and how incredibly expensive all these events are for f2p I dont really think it is asking too much, especially if we talk about crystals and relatively small ruby compensations. If you would receive 50k crystals as a compensation for 1 item it would hardly make a dent in a game economy that asks for hundreds of thousands if not millions of crystals for upgrades and f2p crystal progress in some of the events. I dont think they would give rubys though, giving even 50 rubys would be asking for miracles, but all in all I dont think compensations are irrational, especially when entry itself has become more expensive over the years. Ofc, I dont think this will become reality, given the trends of them removing as much f2p rewards as possible without any explanation.

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Nobody is using Healing Emitters anymore. Its more of a rarity after the nerfs to healing score. Most people these days will use either Rapid Fire, or Stelarrator. Nanotech is still the most used Healing augment from what I saw, although its usage has dropped a bit as well.

The freezing effect in general should receive a nerf, its incredibly busted that it debuffs DD while also slowing down movement and for some reason they just keep on buffing it (disabeling Camper and hitting through Paladin polarization). At least the DD debuff should be lowered.

Ngl, its weird that even after years of various events, you still havent clarified your announcements to include some sort of timeline for distributing the prizes. 'Prizes will be distributed within a day/48h/72h a week/ insert whatever time period you are comfortable with.' The general panic of newbies not receiving their prizes after a server restart is a bit funny, but it gets a bit old :)

In reality they should actually do less of that and be more careful with what they say and how they phrase it in their Vlogs and official statements, especially with their track record of promising stuff and then not deliviring the promise (like that laughable statement about delivering Tanki Classic this year xD). And as for patch notes they should not be about teasing stuff, but about actually implementing changes. If you want teasers watch the Vlogs or check the Wiki page for development plans.

Ah yeah, no balance changes, because what would those be needed for..

Well, I would agree with you that the first couple of instalments (those that had -5 rolls) were defo not for f2p. I think last years was made for endgame f2ps and those that saved millions of crystals very specifically for sales or events. So that was the charm of it for some like me. You did not have to spend 25k rubies or spend rubies/tankoins at all and go full crystal grind. Heck, they even gave a f2p event mode in CP Firebird/Wasp without supplies which made the grind even easier and saved your drugs for regular MM. You just had to run in the middle and got hundreds of points for free. I spend somewhere between 4.5-5 mill crystals on last Halloween, but got 6 skins, shot effect, and bunch of supplies, crystals and nades from the individual tiles. Those end game players who saw the value got a godsend of event where they could use the otherwise pointless crystal banks on some of the best skins in the game. Its just that some people missed the value because the system changed from free progress locked to second or third checkpoint to contract system that gave possibility to go further but was conditioned by spending crystals/tankoins/your time on contracts. You are right though, if we consider the regular f2ps with very limited resources which make the majority of the playerbase, this event was never made for them and actually got worse with last years instalment. I also agree with you when we look from the perspective of going just full Gold Contracts. If you are going completely 'buyer' mode this event got much cheaper, so if the prizes are good for you, its still a win despite the contract progression and -2s with the UCs, grenades, Excelsior and Boxer as the main prizes to set ones eyes on. I think a lot of buyers can actually call it a day on fourth checkpoint if they arent invested on the prizes on individual tiles after this checkpoint given that Isida Pulsar is an old augment, legendary key is useless for many buyers with all skins and new DC is for turret that many players stopped playing after recent updates.

Depends on what event you are comparing it with. Some other event from this year or last Trick or treat event? If we compare it with last years event: Last year Rewards: Paint, 4 DC skins, 2 Legendary keys, Rare Shot effect, Module Slot, 30 Nuclear Energies, and 15 of each container This year Rewards: Paint, 1 DC skins, 1 Legendary key, 3 augments, 10 Pumpkin and Tsar Grenades, and 15 of each container Comparatibly, I believe last year there were more rewards with more focus on cosmetics while this year there is less rewards with more focus on augments (Excelsior and Boxer will likely be kind of a cancer as expected, Pulsar Isida probably wont be anything incredibly toxic). I am not surprised they changed the skins for augments in this year's installement as last year they leaned too much into cosmetics making all of the existing DCs available at the same time either from UCs, Elite pass or Minigame. I believe they were hesitant to repeat DC skins again in fear of disinteresting the buyer playerbase, given that a lot of endgame nolifers and buyes probably got all or majority of the existing skins last year. Personally, I think they should have taken some middle road, making at least 1 or 2 old DC skins available in minigame, replacing others with something new to motivate buyers to spend like new cool shot effect and some new augments, and make the rest of old DCs available later in Day of the Dead and/ or Black Friday UCs. As for whether this minigame is better or worse than last year's, the only thing that positively changed is the much cheaper Golden Contract going from 990 to 290, which is significant for sure, making it far more available for buyers and better for f2ps who somehow saved some rubies. However, we must also account for the fact that "Islands of fortune" or whatever they are called now, were only -1 last year while this year they are -2, possibly making progression harder and thus more expensive. And the contract progression itself has been significantly nerfed going from 3 000 to crazy 5 000 points. This also significantly lowers the ammount of contracts you can finish and puts a strain on your other ingame resources like supplies as well as your personal time. Also for pure f2p (just Silver contracts) nothing positive happened. The price is the same, but progression is slower and much more dependent on the islands of fortune coin drop. The other factors like prizes for individual islands, ammount of islands of fortune and the total length of the minigame (103 jumps) seems to be the same as last year. All in all for f2p, its completely nerfed minigame. For buyers it depends whether that GC prize is worth all the negatives (5k exp contracts, -2 islands and questionable prizes for each lap)

Stellarators, Excaliburs, Nemesis, Boxers seem balanced. Please nerf Railgun Scout instead!

So glad I grinded Silver contracts and got all the DC skins last year xD. I was so sure they will nerf this minigame this year given how relatively 'easy' it was to nolife it last year xD Two first checkpoints are basically nothing. Excelsior is okay, but you will probs do just as good with Solenoid Cooling. Boxer Rico sounds like it might be a pain like the infamous Hammer augment of that same name, but we will see once its unlocked by some Youtuber or buyer. Genuinely, I have no idea why fifth checkpoint is a thousand year old augment like Pulsar, and on top of that on Isida, because who even cares about that ravaged turret. Legendary key is an absolute hit or miss. If you havent unlocked all the crap skins there, then good luck actually pulling out something decent looking. And the final DC skin looks just okay and not to mention its on Isida, one of the most disliked turrets right now thanks to your updates. What a way to shoot yourself in a leg. Also where did all the old skins disappear? I wont even go into the 5k contracts. Last year, the 3k ones were pain, but more manageable to grind as an end game f2p, but have fun wasting your life on grinding 5 000 exp points.

At this point, add whatever, it makes no difference anymore. You remember the Test Boxes they used to do as VLOG segments like 9 years ago? Might as well xD

Ah yeah, "Teleport grenade", that will definitely make those capture modes like CTF and Rugby much more "interesting" hhh. cant wait for battle objectives to be ruined even more. long live TDM.

RIP an actually usefull old Advent Calendar... RIP free containers, you will be missed....

You would literally had to put your whole life on a pause to grind the Silver Contracts like 24/7. Personally I dont think it is worth it for f2p unless you are willing to also cash out some rubbies for GC and possibly even for sweeping the mines, as hitting one effectively doubles the ammount of effort you have to put in.

The festive mode is absolute brainrot, do you not test anymore your own modes or something, or you just enjoy your game to be annoying? 500 score in this garbage where you shoot 12 minutes to get 5 kills lol.

These two are not mutually exclusive options. You can be a good player who performs quite alright regardless of equipment, but you will switch to whatever is meta and performs on top for better experience (more points, crystals, Top 3 spot, more fun, etc.) You can as well be a bad player who switches his playstyle and get much better when equiping hovering hull. From my personal experience, I used to be a track hull main. This was my bread and butter way back to first tracked hull game on old Silence OG map to first Titan kit, to Dictator main when Gold catching was actually interesting, to then turning to Hunter main cause I liked its OD when hovering hulls started appearing. I just did not find the hovering hulls comfortable at first, but then after years of basically having Hunter equipped nonstop (1 mil exp towards Phoenix), I switched to hovers. Gotta say, I did not find the playstyle comfortable coming from years of playing on tracked hulls, but after a couple of battles, the experience was uncomparable. The range of motion on hovering hulls is just massive, especially the side motion, or strafing as it is reffered to, does change the playing experience and quality of gameplay for many people. These days I dont pick tracked hulls as often, the only one I have been using lately is Wasp, because I like the different experience of its OD bomb and because I prefer it for certain turrets (mainly for Railgun and the ability of rocking your hull for altering the trajectory down or up).

Hyperspeed is nice if you like playing big maps, but Nemesis will probs be better overall Shotgun Rounds - personally dont like it, because it just does not feel good for Rail to go to close combat, I think this still loses at close and mid range unless opponent's already weakened or light hull, but I just rarely see this ever used. Death Herald - same as Shotgun, majority of people dont use this, used to be fun but I rarely see it, most people use either Large Caliber or Destab still, personally I dont see a reason to choose either Shotgun or Death Herald over Excalibur Excalibur - despite catching a nerf recently, it still is the best Rail augment currently Plasmatron - I dunno, I rarely touch Twins these days, I still prefer Plasma Turbo accelerator over this, but I think its pretty good. Shock Nanobot Injection - nobody uses this afaik, not really worth using Freeze Critical Mix - still very good, defo worth, I use it as well and it still performs above average.

Whats funny to me is the type of mental gymnastics we are doing here. You say your problem is not surface level and easy, that it is some hidden mechanic behavior that cannot be charted, yet here are YOUR own words from this topic: "Compared with teammates and previous replays: the same hull/drone/module/augment setup performed markedly worse after rank-up." - you say that Hammer Boxer, Excelsiors are surface level and easy and that this isnt an OP combo you can chart, but in the same breath what you mention here is literally a some sort of COMBO of hull/drone/module/ augment that you say you compared with teammates. I dont know what combo you tested, but from what you are claiming here you did test something if you did some comparisons. If you are able to compare this with someone of the same level, how is it impossible to provide evidence of what you compared, who you compared it with and what parameters were you comparing? "Observed consistent reduction in movement speed, responsiveness and damage (measured subjectively across identical engagements as before rank-up)." - you claim your problem is some mechanical behavior, but some of these stats like movement speed and damage can easily be recorded and compared with either Wiki stats whether they are matching or compared with other player of matching equipment. And how exactly are we gatekeeping here? You are not limited in any way to share your experience, its just that nobody can relate to your experience or subjective feeling, because we are not given anything tangible to work with. Your claims are simply in the same realm as religion is, where one is presented with a choice to either beilieve or not believe it based on claims that supposedly cannot be even proven in any way. You can swing around these big words about intelectual laziness and how you are not willing to bend the knee to these "selfproclaimed authorities", but those same words can be thrown at you! What intelectual thing are you bringing to the discussion other than a claim that is not rooted in evidence but rather in what you feel and perceive in battle? Why should we bend our knee and entertain your claim as factual when we aren't convinced? You can portray the people who tried to help you here as gatekeepers or some bullying authorities, but the fact remains that video tends to be the simplest way of conveying an issue to others, especially when they themselves have not experienced it. And if this hidden mechanic that somehow only you are experiencing cannot be recorded because it is so hidden that only devs can check it, then what are we even discussing here? You somehow cant convey your experience through video despite mentioning comparing certain parameters that should be recordable, and we cant help you or discuss the issue in any way because literally noone can relate to your experience.

I admit those things are true because they can be simply explained and proved. Everyone can explain why balance is poor and what is unbalanced by simply fact checking what equipment is used in battles and how it performs. If I go to 50 battles, and in 50 battles I will see constantly the same equipment like Hammer Boxers, Smoky Excelsiors, Railgun Excalibur rounds, Crusaders in Top 3 being used by multiple different people, we can assume that this equipment is very likely on the overpowered side, given how it constantly outperforms other competition. We can fact check servers being poor, because it is pretty common for them being down, which is also proved by MULTIPLE if not ALL people sharing this experience and writting about it on platforms like Discord. We can also prove it by the fact that Tanki often admits these things in public statements and even provides occasional tokens of apology for these issues. However your issue is basically a one-person phenomenon that does not stand on any logical ground and noone can relate, prove or explain it properly in any way because every possible attempt at discussion or resolvement of the issue with you is met with your victim mentality and entitlement that leads you to only accepting your opinion and experience as the only correct one. I wont even go into the details of how contradictory your own statements are. In one post you mention you can easily provide recordings, and yet when we actually ask for them to help us understand your situation and possibly help, there is nothing to be provided by you other than a dismissive post that you do not owe us a video diary of your gameplay. To be honest with you, I genuinely dont see a way for this discussion to continue in any productive way. The owner of the topic basically treats it as a one-off statement that is unshakable in its truth and his mentality does not provide us with much room for an actual, meaningful conversation or resolvement of his issue. This is basically a witch hunt where this person screams he found a "witch" in a form of rather strange phenomenon occuring only to him and we are all here just to accept this "witch" as a reality or be accussed of gaslighting when we try to relate, explain or resolve anything. I mean, even the person who is the closest to actually providing any explanation, Hazel, seems to be rather flabbergasted by this. So where can we go from here, when no one can relate and the only person experiencing it wont give us anything to work with other than his statement that factually proves nothing?

Its funny how your evidence is simply: "I ranked, I played some games, it sucked, so somehow the system is rigged against me because this is how I feel. " People dont ask for video evidence without a reason. First, it actually proves there is something happening to you that should not be in the game environment, and secondly it provides people with oppotunity to help you resolve the issue. I will give it to you that there are some pointless, aggravating posts here (funnily enough, from exmod and dev himself xD), but the fact you feel offended by people who actually provided explanations or asked for a tool to help you is saddening. You frankly sound like Karen who claims something is true because she simply said so. Either provide evidence so people can help you resolve your issue, or swallow the hard truth that you simply werent good enough (whether its skill issue, or the rather poor balance of this game) to compete in those battles or other things occured like lag, server locations delay, etc you are not factoring in. I also dont see how or why you are somehow the only one affected by this. I have seen heavy offenders, with multiple bans, blocks or whatever performing or outperforming just fine in battles. I dont see why you would be specifically selected for this hidden nerfing you claim experiencing.