Interview [Issue 34] Product Kits: Your Viewpoints

[Remaine 4,687]

 

 

Greetings, readers. It has been announced by , one of the game designers of Tanki Online, that he's experimenting on the product kits in game. Previously, we had a system where a kit could only be obtained if you were a rank that's identical to or higher than the unlock rank of the equipment in question. For example, if you wanted a kit with Thunder M2 and Mammoth M2 in it, you had to be a Major. Recently, that's all changed - it's temporarily possible to have Thunder M3 at Major, or M2 Viking at Second Lieutenant. Therefore, this article aims to illustrate the sentiments of the public on this matter.

 

Do you like the direction the product kits are going?

 

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aniketsharmarocks098

 

Personally, I liked it the way they were before and gave items available at your rank. But now, they give items that are available to you before your rank and that, in my opinion, is really OP and the kits should be removed.

 

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dilsharox

 

some kits keeps repeating & they contain popular hulls like mammoth m2 & viking m3 in bulldozer which i think titan should take its place & unlock at brigadier 

its ok to have kits which unlocks turrets & hulls before a rank at m3 but kits which contain m3 equipment should not unlock before brigadier

this might affect the balance of the game but buying a turret & a hull at 50% is better rather than to buy both for 35% after it unlocks

 

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fighter309

 

Ok so the product kits are there for the people who would like to gain an advantage over their opponents. Despite being discounted items, they are usually quite expensive, thus, it is usually those who buy crystals get them. 

 

Many months ago, the product kits give way too much of an advantage, thus spoiling game balance heavily.

 

Not too long ago, they changed the kits so that they would not be  destructive to gameplay. It turned out, they were not really all that useful.

 

Recently, the kits were changed once again. It follows the recent kit system (such as, rotation, gifts, and discount). But now, some items are given out *way* before they are unlocked... such as the Mosquito kit which gives those who buy it Wasp M2 at 3rd Lieutenant (6 ranks apart!). It is not as 'broken' as the old kits, and certainly more useful and fun than the recent kits.

 

In a way, I like the direction the kits are going. The only thing I am worried about is that I hope they do not blow things out of proportion and drive some us up the wall >_<. It is fine to have some of an advantage if you are willing to pay the price, but generally, too much of anything is bad. 

 

I personally believe kits should not go away as they do encourage people to buy crystals and support the game.

 

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Papaya14

 

Short answer: No.

 

Long answer: If you take a look at some of the V-Logs announcing changes in parameters of turrets and hulls, you'd see that developers are supposedly focused on keeping games balanced. But by releasing these kits, they go back on everything they've said. Why?

 

Take a look at the Bulldozer kit. Now, some of you might remember the "good old days" of the Light, Medium, and Heavy kits. Do you remember how unbalanced this made the gameplay in some battles? Tanki removed these kits, promising to make equipment in kits available only at the rank you unlock them. Again, they've gone back on the promise. Again, I ask why?

 

The Bulldozer kit allows you to play with M3 Thunder, at Major. In case you forgot, Thunder M2 unlocks one rank earlier. Where is the logic in that? Could you imagine, you've worked hard for many months - through blood, sweat, tears, and hackers - to earn the crystals you need to unlock M2 Thunder. All that work is made null by this kit. You've got a player running around with expensive M3 equipment at a rank when most tankers are still working hard to get past the M1 phase! Again, where is the logic in that? Where is the "balance" in that? Why would Tanki allow such a monstrous tank to come and destroy the balance that developers promised in removing the original kits?

 

I won't even begin to dabble on the Mosquito kit. You all know how that went.

 

Only the developers know the answers to the questions I've asked above. But I wouldn't doubt if their financial department played a hand in this decision, by giving an edge to tankers who could easily purchase more crystals to obtain the kit. And to me it makes a sickening amount of sense.

 

So to answer your question, no Remaine. I do not like how these kits are going, not one bit. As someone who's enjoyed Tanki since 2011, adding these kits makes me hearken back to the days of WO5s running around with M3-M3. Sure, they are fun to people who can afford them. But to the layperson, like you and I, they're just the opposite.

 

I agree with fighter309, and believe that kits should remain in the game. Just not the way they currently are, by giving rich tankers earlier access to equipment and allowing them to become "king of the ring." Kits should contain appropriate equipment for a rank. Perhaps one rank earlier, at most, like the Eyjafjallajokul kit, that's alright. But nothing like Mosquito or Bulldozer, with equipment 4-7 ranks earlier.

 

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michael470

 

I like the current kits as they add a little twist to the game by allowing the equipment to unlock earlier. Personally, I think it is great that the kits include less popular items, such as Vulcan and rarely used paints, in order to encourage diversity of gameplay. Nonetheless, everything in the kits should not unlock more than three ranks earlier, enabling the buyers to have a slight edge over others while not being overpowered. For example, the fact that hunter m1 unlocks at WO2 is nice as it certainly has a reasonable advantage over another medium hull available at this rank, Viking. On the other hand, I regard the kits are a bit overpriced. In fact, the kits should be at least 35% off. Think about it, most players are buying the kits, to be frank, just for particular items, like thunder m3 in the bulldozer, and I am pretty sure no one will bother about mammy. Therefore, when buyers are forced to buy a bunch of equipment together, they deserve more discounts (if it is the drugs in the kits that make them overpriced, drugs may as well be removed). In this sense, more non- buyers can take the kits into account and view them as buying options, instead of treating them as a biased prestige exclusively for buyers.

 

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duck100101

 

Well to start off with a quick answer, I do like the way the kits are going, here's why.

 

I like how the kits have a well thought out gift it makes them a bit better. Also they only have one paint, instead of 3, which cost less, I like this because, in the old kits some tankers never used some of the paints in the kits

 

I also like the combos tanki is using in these kits, like for example the bulldozer kit, which includes "Mammoth and  Thunder" which is a very good combo! Also the "Mosquito Kit" which has Wasp and Railgun, which is also a very fun and cool combo, and the kit firewall is also very good! So I like the way tanki is make these kits more fun and useful..

 

The only thing I don't like in the kits is, the fact that you can get some of the kits at very low ranks, like

the kit  Mosquito which you can get at 3rd Lt. This is stretching it a bit I think, because you can't buy Wasp M2

till Colonel.

 

But other wise I think the new kits are great, keep up the good progress tanki!

 

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Lord-of-the-Snipers

 

Product kits can be benificial for both players and Tanki Online 's economy:

if they don 't unbalance the game too much.

 

Underneath the spoiler an example of a former Product kit:

As you can see older Product kits were extremely overpowered.

I have two accounts (with now partially active parts) with these no longer available Medium M2 kits.

With this kit you own for example the paint Prodigi at the rank of First Lieutenant and that 's

ofcourse way too early.

The normal rank for Prodigi is Marshal. So it was already available nine ranks earlier!

 

At a sidenote: discussing the "ethics" of owning such an OP Kit is a neverending story so

I would rather lay down the question: what would you do if Tanki Online makes it available,

and you like the combo in the kit and would have the means/crystals to get it?

Besides skills are never included in a Product kit or drugs. If you get and use these items

to camouflage your own weak spots: you will be into a nasty surprise when you rank towards 

higher ranks and face more and more players who did their "homework".

 

Quite understandably this Medium M2 kit was a very popular kit and I guess only

the Light Tank M3 (XP) kit surpassed it in popularity.

Though TO life is sweet for the owners of such a kind of overpowered kit, you don 't need to be

a genius to understand what this meant for the game balance and most non-buyers.

 

That 's why it 's good that Tanki Online decided that this was too much of a "good thing" and they

(too) radically changed their policy to Product kits with items that only contained equipment

that was available at your current rank.

This may sound sympathic, but I am pretty sure this also meant that most Tankers lost their interest

in these renewed Product kits and a majority would rather wait for the next major 50% sale.

 

So now we see Product kits appear that again have equipment with "rank benefits" and resemble

a bit like the old OP kits.

Though I think that 's a good thing on one hand because now these kits have become enticing again:

I really hope TO won 't continue to be heading the same way as they did with the overpowered old kits.

The Devs say they are just experimenting, but kits like the "Mosquito" with a Wasp M2

available at Third Lieutenant instead of Colonel (six ranks earlier) don 't look promising.

 

In my opinion Product kits with at most three ranks earlier avaible equipment till Brigadier and

from Brigadier onward at most two ranks earlier available equipment (because of the greater gap

between higher ranks) would be more than enticing enough.

 

More importantly that wouldn 't unbalance the game itself that much.

You can sell many way too strong new Product kits again and make a good fast profit,

but we also only have just one Tanki Online.

TO should stay an easy accessible game for buyers and especially non-buyers who one day

could decide to also spend a little.

 

Let 's become and stay Unityd!

 

 

Flappy1233

 

I think that Product Kits are VERY useful for us Tankers, however, they are somethings that I hate about the Product Kits, so here it is:

Items are unlocked earlier. Like, the Mosquito Kit, which is unlocked at Third Lieutenant. M2 Railgun, unlocked at First Lieutenant, and Wasp M2, unlocked at Colonel. Now, I do appreciate the fact that Tanki is making Kits having items unlocked earlier. However, this is the same situation with the old kits, but they were MUCH overpowered. For example:


Now, here's the Light Tank M3 Kit, starting from Brigadier. It has equipments and paint which is unlocked later on, as you rank up. Like Wasp M3, usually unlocked at General, but instead, this kit made it available starting from Brigadier. Also, making paints like Zeus available 6 ranks lower is bad, since Zeus is a powerful paint, having 50% protection from Firebird. Other paints like Winter and Loam included in it are unlocked before reaching Brigadier so, that's a good thing that Tanki included items unlocked before Brigadier.

However, a new recent kit came out with the name of "Bulldozer" starting from Major. Including Thunder M3, Mammoth M2. Including a M3 Turret 3 ranks to unlock it is good. However, it is a bit unfair since players'd have advantage in M1-M2 battles since M3 is quite overpowered for those rankers. So, that is why, it was a bad thing Tanki made a M3 Turret available at the ending of the M2 Stage ranks.

Now, here's the part that I like about Product Kits:

From buying Product Kits, you can actually save-up crystals, which is a good thing since with the crystals you have left, if you want to buy something else, you can start saving up for it and in no time flat, you can get it. Also, from buying Product Kits, you can get Supplies as gift, which is pretty good especially when you're broke at Supplies, so that's something.

Overall, I'd get Product Kits a rating of 6.5/10. 6 Marks for being able to get supplies as gifts and able to have some crystals left in your pocket. .5 For making equipment available at early ranks.

 

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genak138

 

Well, the product kits have always been a controversial topic for many tankers. Some people think that they are overpowered, while others want them to be more powerful. A couple of recent kits considered to be OP were the Mosquito kit, containing Wasp M2 and Railgun M2, and the kits released on April Fool's, all containing Vulcan, a hull, and a paint. 

 

Now, my assessment of the Mosquito kit is this: Although it does give Wasp M2 6 ranks early, this is not not that much of a problem. Having played against users of this kit many times, it is actually not that much of a challenge as buyers of this kit don't know how to use that speed because they are simply not used to it. Also, the chances of a normal player having enough crystals for this kit when it came out were very low. Of course, those who buy crystals could purchase this kit, but if they were buying crystals, it would be extremely likely for them to be buying M2 equipment already, such as Vulcan M2, which could easily take out the wasp before it got too close. And anyways, the developers were only planning to let it be bought for a while, so it will not be able to be bought anymore. Overall, this kit was not that big of a problem.

 

Now, for the April Fool's kits containing Vulcan: I only had experience fighting against one of the kits, containing M1 Hunter, M1 Vulcan, and Sakura. This was not that much of a problem, as it did not make the equipment available at a large number of ranks early. The piece of equipment that was most ahead of its time was the paint Sakura, but the effect of that would not be immensely noticeable to many enemies as it provides protection against Hammer, Isida, and a bit of Vulcan. The protection of this paint that is most useful would be Hammer. The reason is that Isida rarely attacks, so that protection won't be useful a lot of the time. It's one of the least-used turrets for DM and in team battles, it mostly heals. The Vulcan protection won't be that useful either because of the low amount of protection this paint offers against it. So this kit wasn't really a problem either. 

 

Now, the other April Fool's kits I haven't seen in action, but I have heard numerous complaints about them being too OP for their ranks. While these kits might be overpowered, they were only intended as an April Fool's prank, and won't appear again. After all, the April Fool's gold boxes did more good than bad (the chances of getting over 1000 crystals was higher than getting less) and it can't be April Fool's without some sort of prank that lots of people dislike, right? Well, the Vulcan kits were that prank.

 

Now, for the advantages of kits: Getting a discount is a always a good thing, and people don't seem to realize that product kits are a never-ending discount. Not only do you get a discount on the actual equipment, but there are free supplies as a bonus. And when you think about it, that's another discount, only this time it's 100% off! (of course, you never can get away from those "with purchase" statements, can you? :P ) Plus, the supplies help make up for your skills lacking in your new equipment due to your not using it for a while. If that didn't make sense, let me explain: Say you have a mainly M1 garage. However, you have M3 Railgun, Thunder, Mammoth, and Dictator. You decide to buy a kit with M3 Wasp and Isida. Of course, since you have not used short-range turrets or light hulls for a while (or else you would be obliterated: M1 doesn't last against M3) you find it difficult to get used to this style again. The supplies would help make up for you getting a low score.

 

Also, the fact that you get the equipment a few ranks early never hurts. So long as it doesn't get too bad such as the old kits. 

 

And there is yet another advantage to kits: You don't have to buy previous modifications of a piece of equipment if you buy it in a kit! This means that you can jump from M0 Mammoth to M3 if you buy the right kit. This adds more money to the amount you save from free supplies and a discount.

 

So I would say that Tanki is doing a great job on product kits, and so long as they don't go back to having the OP kits, then full speed ahead! :)

 

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What's your opinion on the product kits? Feel free to comment below!

 

Edited July 29, 2017 by Hexed

[samuelmanasseh 35]

Boring, sorry.

[RamzanTheGreat 471]

A Job Weldone...  ;) ;)

[Darren4Turbo 4,913]

Good job @Remaine  :D 

 

Good Luck  ;) 

[genak138 950]

My first "interview" :D

[beaku 2,656]

My first "interview" :D

Congratulations :)

[beaku 2,656]

Boring, sorry.

If you have any suggestions to make it more interesting, I am sure that Reporters would like to hear about it.

[liverpoolaum 811]

nice

[TheUnknownTanki 11]

I mean who would like product kit if they are not buyer or high ranked player with crystals?

[jazz20 1,181]

Nice article :)

[genak138 950]

I mean who would like product kit if they are not buyer or high ranked player with crystals?

I like them, as I stated in my response :mellow:

[EyeLogic 4]

I like the the way they are going especially because they are cheap and easy to buy for a regular tanker.

there are 2 problems though.

1)   They need to be a little closer to their rank. Some kits are just absurd.

2)   This gives an advantage to someone who for example buys the Fujiyama kit (cheap and very much worth it) if they have EXPERIENCE with this kit or WANT to buy Hunter m1 and Vulcan m1 or Sakura since the kit costs only 4000 crystals more than the paint itself. This is good for those people but what if you wanted Viking m1 and Hammer m1 but you want it at a discount well then you would need to wait for a sale which the nearest one I can think of (except may holidays since its only 25% off) would be the Tanki birthday, which is a while away. Therefore the kits aren't exactly balancing the game in fact they are giving advantages to people who use certain combinations and disadvantages to those who don't use those. 

The kits do make you want to try other combinations though for example I have been pondering whether or not to buy Fujiyama for a while and stray from my usual Twins, Hammer, or Thunder combinations.

Edited May 2, 2015 by EyeLogic

[duck100101 965]

:D

[Gurprith_TURBO 11]

I think that the product kits currently available are seriously OP. Lemme give and example of my Exp.

I was running around the other day. I was sweet and happy owing everyone with my M1 Rail nd Hornet. Max rank was Major, which was my rank. Suddenly out of nowhere a Thunder M3 and Hornet M2 drugger comes! I felt so weak that even my mammy was not able to hold against him. It discouraged me a lot and I left the battle. I have also seen many Players leaving the battle just because of the presence of a Thunder M3. Now I have an M2 hull but it still is not able to hold out against Thunder M3. What im trying to say is that the recent kits that have been introduced are discouraging players who face the players having this kit. They often tend to drugg but still the players having kit are invincible. What next? Hornet and Isida M3 at Lieutenant General?! I mean come on. Increase the rate of the kit by adding 3-4 paints BUT with M2 EQUIP. That way players can have M2s have a variety of paints ( since players tend to buy more equip than paints ) and enjoy the gameplay by NOT affecting the gameplay. Thumbs up! If you like and support this!

[momy950666 960]

nicely said most of the kit are really OP

[benjiblob 99]

Not too bad, everyone had a similar opinion but explained it differently, throughout the interview all of the kit's problems were addressed

[Superlative 500]

I support Aniket's point of view.  Good job, Remaine. 

[Omar_Enze 846]

+

[dilsharox 2,395]

nice

[Truthteller 4,204]

Nice interview enjoyed reading all opinions I liked genaks one allot.

[Quarks 2,255]

They should make the kits available from no more than 3 or 4 ranks above( trying to stay inside mwhatever available, or very close that is) but they should stay permanently in garage until obsolete. Nothing is more annoying than getting just enough after the kit has passed, and the new kit is a piece of ****. yes, I just did shift 8, no swearing, but it really sucks.

[thunderousrailgunner 1,934]

All the System of Kits I Like :)
Except the Unlocking Rank -_-

[applications_tanki 129]

I want to get the legend kit please bring it back!

[Rico_Viking_9000 942]

I think that the addition of paints has made the kits too pricey now. I think there should be a way to avoid the paints. Now i have to buy crys to get the current boar kit, with the addition of sandstone. :(

Edited May 6, 2015 by Rico_Viking_9000

[r_qw1212qw1 14]

Just tottaly agree with

aniketsharmarocks098

 

Personally, I liked it the way they were before and gave items available at your rank. But now, they give items that are available to you before your rank and that, in my opinion, is really OP and the kits should be removed.

the problem is that a lot of staff has already went on wrong rank: turret, huls and paints....