Episode 140 of the V-LOG is here

[Later 76]

I can translate on Serbian. (Counties like Serbia, Croatia, Bosna and Hercegovina and Montenegro use this language)

[Heles 9,220]

no, not gone, just too busy playing on the Game Forum :ph34r:

Ya, spamming the helper vs player and count b4 a staff comes

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

They kept saying that they don't want Tanki to be a pay to play game. Then they keep having sale after sale and they keep making it harder and harder to be able to build your garage through game earnings. Some things, such as kits, can now only be paid for except by cash. In the past you could pay with crystals. They say limiting the effectiveness of the health kit was to better balance the game. It has had the exact opposite effect. In fact it has caused a greater use in the other supplies to compensate. Which of course causes players to spend more money. Once again, boys and girls, notice that they again took away the ability to buy supply kits with crystals and now you have to use cash.

 

Every change over the last few years has been made to make people spend more cash. Separating paints and protections, changes in the shop doing away with the ability to purchase with crystals, and ridiculous prices on upgrades and speed-ups with the added incentive to use speed-ups because of the insanely long times it takes for an upgrade to take place (up to 2 weeks in some cases), and now the change to supplies. Everything has been designed to put pressure on you to be a buyer if you want to be competitive. Yeah baby, pay to play is here to stay no matter how they try to explain it away.

1. You can still buy plenty of kits with crystals.

 

2. Greater use of supplies had nothing to do with the change in repair kit. It is because the smart cooldowns on supplies were decreased, so you can enable multiple supplies at once without using pickups.

 

3. You forget that you can buy the 100 supplies kit with crystals. Also supplies are so easy to get in missions. I've bought at most a couple supplies in total, yet I have over 1500 of DD, DA, and speed boost each, all from missions. 

 

4. I fail to see how separating paints and protections encourages players to buy.

 

5. The cost of micro-upgrades is at an all time low, as of the most recent update. Fully micro-upgrading equipment (without speed-ups) costs the same as buying the equipment, whereas before MUs about two times more, not including speed-ups.. Besides, there are MU sales once every couple of weeks. Concerning your complaints about the time it takes for equipment to upgrade, consider that before, there were 50 upgrades, while now there are 20 (for M3 equipment). Before, there were more steps but less waiting for each step, now there are less steps but more waiting for each one. The total time however, has remained roughly the same.

 

6. Somehow your pay to play argument doesn't hold up. Out of all the things you listed, kits are the only pay to win aspect. But that's been true ever since the moment they came out, which was years ago, even when you could only buy them with crystals. Before kits were added to the shop, buyers would still have good kits because they bought the crystals to do so. Nothing has changed by their addition to the shop. In fact, it's better to buy crystals rather than buy a kit, because with the same money you can get a lot more.

Edited July 26, 2017 by ThirdOnion

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

I can translate on Serbian. (Counties like Serbia, Croatia, Bosna and Hercegovina and Montenegro use this language)

If you want to volunteer to write translated subtitles for the vLogs, then I think it's better if you post that in Cedric's Virtual Office thread :)

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

I see that the average number of players is continuing to drop even after the new changes that the highly intelligent and all wise Pony Tail Boy and his Dev's have implemented. In fact they are running on average about 10,000 less during peak times than they were this time last year. The number of players just keeps dropping and dropping. I wonder at what point that it will suddenly dawn on them that they've made very bad decisions? I guess it'll be when their paycheck bounces because there are not enough players left to support the game. Watch out guys and gals pretty soon they'll probably start charging to change servers or equipment. LOL

Pony Tail Boy....funny.  Is their room in there for arrogant and possibly smarmy?

 

The thing is, as Rome burns in front of them while they fiddle around, they will jump up and down and claim that the horribly unpopular updates have had nothing to do with the demise of Tanki..."it's an old game that is dying of natural attrition"  And I think they really believe this fairy tail they tell themselves.  There are posts in this forum (maybe even on this or the last patch note thread) that spout the Tanki Party line; da comrade, is trrue. For some reason they can't see the thousands of complaints about the majority of the updates.  Even the V-log QA was mostly players basically asking, "Why to do you keep degrading the game?  Can't you change it back?"  

 

But the all wise Pony Tail Boy seems to be at the helm and it's DAMN THE TORPEDOES...FULL SPEED AHEAD!  What I really don't understand is someone has to have their money invested in this enterprise...I doubt it is the all wise Pony Tail Boy   Why don't the money people step in and do something about this consistent death march Tanki seems to be doing?  It is a mystery.

 

I guess it was pointed out in another post that you can still buy supplies, as kit packages, in the garage for crystals along with individual supply units.  And you can buy tank kits in the garage for crystals...well, not today, but probably tomorrow (I hope this is just a glitch and  they bring back full tank kits anyway).  But overall, I agree with you that all the changes link back to the quest for real money and selling pixel equipment.  My contention is that all the horrendously bad changes and the reconfiguration of the entire game will come to bite them in the, you know where, and their bottom-line is going (and probably already has gone) to be lower and even lower as proposed changes are implemented...dread the Foul Matchmaking System otherwise know as Tanki-Killer.

 

Alas, my favorite game is mostly gone...

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

The new Repair Kit doesn't help in balancing the turrets or the battle.

 

As battles are today, unbalanced because of long brackets, where most people only join the winning teams with the most high ranks and premiums, and avoid the losing team of almost always low ranks; .................

 

.................I'm not alone in avoiding losing teams, many people do it, they even leave your team to go to the opposing team when things are not looking good. Now with OD, they can see which team will have ODs faster just by looking the numbers before they even join a battle. 

 

The problem is that those that don't join winning teams, don't look for different servers, and are not careful in choosing "good battles" (winning teams), are probably very frustrated, and who knows, maybe many of them are the ones leaving Tanki. Lately I'm seeing the number of players from around 5000 to below 30000.

 

So, the real thing is not a perfect scenario of balanced battles like the vlog portrays where the new Repair Kit is wonderful.

I think Tanki increased the range of the rank brackets to help bolster the Matchmaking system.  Matchmaking promises to lower the range of the brackets...as long as there are enough players of similar rank.  If not, there will be rank 8s competing with rank30+ (M0 vsM4).  Tanki will then claim that Matchmaking has generated a much more "balanced" game play because the ranks are closer to each other.  It's a ruin it to fix it type of ploy to make Matchmaking more tolerable.

 

The downside of Matchmaking is vast.  I foresee a few of the possible pitfalls as:

1. Long waits for battles to begin (both sides filling up)

2. Zero choice of maps (I hate Solikamsk)

3. Exacerbated exodus of losing team members (start to lose and quit)

4. Strong players can't come in with guns blazing to rescue a losing side (no choice in where you are sent)

5. Overall, less freedom of play...choices are all made for us by those that know how we should be playing Tanki

6. Probably lots more, but too depressing to contemplate 

[Blue-Flame-Dragon 591]

 

When I see a new v-log :ph34r:  :ph34r:  :ph34r:  :ph34r:

 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2017 by Blue-Flame-Dragon

[Blue-Flame-Dragon 591]

The downside of Matchmaking is vast.  I foresee a few of the possible pitfalls as:

1. Long waits for battles to begin (both sides filling up)

2. Zero choice of maps (I hate Solikamsk)

3. Exacerbated exodus of losing team members (start to lose and quit)

4. Strong players can't come in with guns blazing to rescue a losing side (no choice in where you are sent)

5. Overall, less freedom of play...choices are all made for us by those that know how we should be playing Tanki

6. Probably lots more, but too depressing to contemplate 

 

 

I am afraid they are correct

 

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

Here's a complete analysis of the Repair Kit if you want to see how the newer Repair Kit has affected the game, what has it changed and what changes could be expected.

---

Great article Hexed...well thought out and well written.  I disagree strongly with one of the points you make though;

 

Quote: "the developers have made the Repair Kit more balanced and have potentially eliminated the huge unrest of 'drugging' between buyers and non-buyers. If buyers have any real advantages now, they're from buying product kits at an early stage or things like Premium Account and so on." End Quote

 

Buyers have an even bigger advantage now.  What do they care about less efficient repair kits?  They just have to buy more now where the free player must hoard rep-kits since there is a finite supply of them or they will have to use upgrade crystals to buy supplies.  From what I have seen there is WAY more drug use now than ever before...nobody thinks twice about popping that rep-kit.  Remember when you popped a repair kit and two or three chatters would call you noob or drugger for it?  Doesn't happen now...that is because everyone is using supplies at an alarming rate. The special Summer Bonuses of choke supplies are to get players wired into using lots of supplies including rep-kits.  Summer ends and the supply bounty ends (probably), but we are all acclimated to clicking those sweet DDs, DAs, and the ultimate supply, Repair Kits.  Many non-buyers will give up and send in money to continue the supply orgy and become buyers.  The current buyers will just buy supplies as they do now...only a marginal greater expense for the extra supplies they burn with abandon.

 

I'm sure this is what Tanki has in mind with the changes to drugs and big drug rewards in mission chains...turn some non-buyers into buyers, which is all well and good, but it might backfire and people might just walk away when their store of supplies is gone rather than paying money for more.  Regardless, no matter what, drug use is way up and will continue as such...part of the continued deterioration of Tanki.

Edited July 27, 2017 by ByeByeBye

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

Buyers have an even bigger advantage now.  What do they care about less efficient repair kits?  They just have to buy more now where the free player must hoard rep-kits since there is a finite supply of them or they will have to use upgrade crystals to buy supplies.  From what I have seen there is WAY more drug use now than ever before...nobody thinks twice about popping that rep-kit.  Remember when you popped a repair kit and two or three chatters would call you noob or drugger for it?  Doesn't happen now...that is because everyone is using supplies at an alarming rate. The special Summer Bonuses of choke supplies are to get players wired into using lots of supplies including rep-kits.  Summer ends and the supply bounty ends (probably), but we are all acclimated to clicking those sweet DDs, DAs, and the ultimate supply, Repair Kits.  Many non-buyers will give up and send in money to continue the supply orgy and become buyers.  The current buyers will just buy supplies as they do now...only a marginal greater expense for the extra supplies they burn with abandon.

 

Agreed. There is more drug use because you can activate multiple supplies at once without the long smart cooldowns that previously forced you to choose between double armor and double damage. Before, you had to think which was more important at the moment: armor or damage, but now, since you can use both at once it doesn't matter. Just press 2 and 3 keys, no problem.

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

The downside of Matchmaking is vast.  I foresee a few of the possible pitfalls as:

1. Long waits for battles to begin (both sides filling up)

2. Zero choice of maps (I hate Solikamsk)

3. Exacerbated exodus of losing team members (start to lose and quit)

4. Strong players can't come in with guns blazing to rescue a losing side (no choice in where you are sent)

5. Overall, less freedom of play...choices are all made for us by those that know how we should be playing Tanki

6. Probably lots more, but too depressing to contemplate 

I think,

1. will not be as severe, because as players can not decide any more to which battle they go, they all press the buttons that take them into battles. As they are not split up over 15..20 available battles, but all focused into 4 gamemodes, where only one battle fills ata a time, you have a much faster filling time then today.

2. true. Sad thing. You will join and quit right away. I think many will do so. I wonder how what the system does it you press the random button for CTF, it takes you to a battle that you do not like, you quit the battle and press the button right away again. Will you come to the same battle? I don't know.. we will have to see.

3. Not better or worse then today

4+5. true

[LittleWillie 3,199]

1. You can still buy plenty of kits with crystals.

 

Unless you want a Striker or Magnum kit. Those are cash-only.

 

---------------

 

MatchmakingL If I can cluck on a button and get a good competetive game then I can live wihth it. But the map aspect does not have me confident. Some maps I just refuse to play on, like Lost Temple.

 

AS BW777 says plaers will jquit some maps and look for a different game. That might lead to some long wait times. And if so things do not bode well...

[Hate 5,582]

AS BW777 says plaers will jquit some maps and look for a different game. That might lead to some long wait times. And if so things do not bode well...

If they get around this part which you mentioned, I think it is pretty much good to go, at least for me so I hope they will sort this part in one way or another.

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

1. They stated in a vlog or in a Q&A session, that if a player leaves a battle, another player from the queue is drawn in immediately.

 

2. Additionally I assume that this mechanism will not work through out the whole battle duration. Maybe it works like that in the first 3..5 minutes; after this time the battle will be left "as is" and you will not gain any further reinforcements. The loosing team does not proffit from artificial prolonging of the battle anyways.. and beeing called in as reinforcement to an already decided battle all the time is no fun either. So after some time it makes sense to let the battle continue without additional reinforcements.

It also makes more sense for players to join a batte right from the start most of the time when they hit the magic button.

 

But as said.. the first part is official, the second one is an assumption based on the way Tanki acted until now.

[The_Pakistani 16,768]

Mean if I lagged and refreshed I am out of battle?

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

Mean if I lagged and refreshed I am out of battle?

Today:

If you press the refresh button of the browser, your battle slot is reserved for aprox. 2 minutes (pretty much the same amount of time then the pause timer gives you). Within this time you can reconnect to the same battle URL and will end up in the same server and same battle right away.

 

Future:

I see no reason for them to change this, as it works perfectly in those moments when you loose your internet connection temporarily.

[Pink_Legacy 269]

They stated in a vlog or in a Q&A session, that if a player leaves a battle, another player from the queue is drawn in immediately.

Oh good, then it'll just be like the current battle button that no one uses because more often than not it sends you to a hopelessly lost battle.

 

I've got some little hope that it'll be different, though, because I seem to recall that the battle fund would work differently, so it might end up being worth it to stay in a losing battle. However, I can't but wonder why on earth they would spend so much effort on a matchmaking system if they aren't going to sort out the dynamics that make the game unenjoyable.

[Guest]

New V-LOG coming soon. Topic closed and archived.