Summary of the Russian (unofficial) stream with Hazel

[Maf 32,300]

Hi

 

I've already done this for the first stream with Hazel to fill in the questions that were missing from the EN stream, but this time I think it's more necessary than before, since the livestream in focus here was only held in Russian.

 

As some of you may know, yesterday Killjet (a Tanki youtuber) hosted a stream with Hazel Rah, the goal of which was to get him to answer questions, mostly regarding the purpose of some of the latest updates, such as the repair kit nerf. This was the result of numerous protests, where the youtubers encouraged players to spam server chats (including some servers in the EN community), thus getting all chats stopped.

 

Overall, the stream was less informative than the official ones we've seen on the Tanki YouTube channel, mostly due to the unofficial and casual nature of it. Nonetheless, there was still some interesting, new information, which hasn't been said before.

 

So I am posting this topic to make some of those questions and answers available to you.

 

---

Click on "Show" to read the explanation in the spoiler.

 

 

Why did the repair kit get nerfed?

 

 

The reasoning for this change goes back to an earlier decision to improve the balance between free and paying users. In late 2015 - early 2016 the game basically passed a point which could be referred to as "the end of Tanki 1.0". Nothing really happened there other than the fact that developers ceased to advertise the game, since it did not pay off. The costs of marketing became greater than the revenue produced from new players starting to play the game.

 

In fact, at that point is was planned that Tanki Online will fairly quickly die off and get replaced with Tanki X. Back then Unity was still supported by browsers and Tanki X was meant to be the new, better version of Tanki Online, but otherwise an identical copy. Devs even seriously planned to transfer all TO accounts to the new game so that players could simply continue their Tanki career there. But then Unity suddenly pulled out of browsers and Tanki X became a standalone game that could not in any way replace Tanki Online.

 

So then  it was decided to turn Tanki Online  into a proper MMO, since before that it was basically still just a software demo with a few cool-ish features. "Old Tanki" was over, and now the game needs a complete reworking in order to make it playable for old players and new players alike, so that they can co-exist in the same servers and communities.

 

One of the issues that got in the way of this grand plan was the fact that the game had a massive imbalance between buyers and free players. If new players started coming in, they would soon be demolished by the established old players, and the new players would leave. If the game is to have a second life, this needed to be fixed.

 

Developers hired professional analytics experts to study the game and come up with an evaluation regarding how badly does this imbalance affect the game. And the results showed that there were actually tons of players leaving because of it. And the funny thing was that some players know how the system works and how to use it smartly to avoid getting "beaten up", but most don't figure it out just start playing how they like, spending all their crystals on random stuff and not realising how it will affect them later. They then end up in a hole, can't progress anymore due to the difficulty in playing against the smarter players, and leave the game.

 

So the repair kit nerf was part of this long process of making the game more playable for those weaker players. Before the change, one "drugger" could kill most other players at least twice, until his supplies wore off completely. Then he activates the repair kit, waits for supplies to recharge and goes on a rampage again.

 

What's interesting is that developers did not release the repair kit nerf and expect everyone to love it. They knew that they would get a ton of negative feedback and hate for it. But it was a necessary evil to prepare the game for future development, since with supplies giving experienced players such a massive advantage, there was no way to make gameplay balanced. So the repair kit will not go back to the way it was before.

 

 

 

Why didn't you just leave the project as is was during its best time, instead of ruining it with all these updates?

 

 

Back in 2015, when developers realised that the game no longer provided enough revenue to cover the costs of advertisement, they had a few options. The first one if the most common option game development companies go for when their projects reach this stage - leave the game to die off on its own. It makes sense, right? Players have the game in its present state, they enjoy it the way it is and you let them do their thing. Everyone is happy. In fact, this is exactly what developers did around 2015 - they didn't do any major updates and focused on Tanki X instead. There were only 3 or 4 developers left to work on Tanki Online, while everyone else put their efforts towards Tanki X.

 

That kind of attitude lasted for some time, and devs were so confident about the imminent success of Tanki X that it was all hands on deck, and the release date was predicted to be sometime around October 2015. But then various problems and setbacks started coming up, and it slowly became apparent that Tanki X will be delayed significantly, while Tanki Online is still very much needed for the project to succeed. And the biggest stick-up was when it became apparent that Tanki X will no longer be a liable replacement for TO, since it won't be available as a browser game.

 

So all that happened and devs came to a conclusion that they need to go back to developing Tanki Online. And that was a problem since on one hand they didn't want to bother all dedicated TO players, who are used to the game as it was, but on the other hand they had to keep improving the project and bringing new players in, which couldn't be done without changing the "good old Tanki Online".

 

From a business point of view, developers had a fairly sensible option of turning the game into a money generator - total P2W and only addition of features aimed at buyers. The P2W course was never pursued, but we did have revenue generation updates such as the addition of Gold Box supply and removal of the 1500 supply kits from the garage.

 

But that was stopped soon enough, and instead devs decided to recreate the project and adapt it to fit the current gaming market. There was no way a software demo from 2009 would become popular again in its current state, so it needed a very major reworking. That's why we've seen updates such as change of the supplies and repair kit, battle creation change ("Battle! button), the upcoming Matchmaking system, Overdrives, etc.

 

Now, the biggest challenge is changing the game in such a way, that old players will be able to co-exist with new players in one environment, which is an extremely difficult task.

 

 

 

Will the old repair kit be available as an option in custom battle?

 

 

It's too early to say that, since developers haven't fully decided yet about how the custom battles will function. At the moment there are no plans to add the old repair kit mechanism in any type of battles, but devs are monitoring and analysing all server activity now and will continue to do so once Matchmaking is released, so if it becomes evident that players are actually leaving and playing less because of the repair kit, then action will be taken.

 

The thing is, custom battles the way they are now is how they should have been as soon as the game was released. The old battle creation system had a massive advantage in the fact that players could give their battles custom titles, and thus create a sort of "mini-community" of people with similar interests within one battle. But instead of doing what's being done now with the MM system (separation of games into quick automatic matches and custom games), back in 2013 developers started to put all the features of standard games into the PRO pass, so as a result, as time went on, free battles became less and less customisable and the only way to get those extra options was to buy a PRO pass. Believe it or not, but back in 2013 the overall plan was to lock ALL custom settings behind a pay-wall by replacing the PRO pass with Premium accounts. So if that were to happen, standard battles with no customisation would be the only free option, and you'd have to buy Premium for money to get the rest of the options. Fortunately, that never happened.

 

 

 

Why did the price of the repair kit not go down despite it becoming a lot less effective?

 

 

Now here's the thing. Back in 2014, before Smart Cooldowns were released, the repair kit pretty much worked the way it worked a few weeks ago. It healed you until you had full health and then it stopped. However, the healing rate per second was much lower, and it's effectiveness wasn't much better than the current Repair Kit. Back then its price was also three times greater than that of other supplies, and it was worth it. Only later, when smart cooldowns were released, it was changed to be the way it was until recently, which actually made it a lot more powerful. In fact, it became a lot more powerful than what it should have been, which is why now it finally got nerfed.

 

---

 

Point added by @Cedric Debono for clarification:

 

There have been 3 versions of the Repair Kit in Tanki Online

1. RK that healed slowly, but was healing all the way for as long as it was active. You could out-damage the healing, so the power check was in place.
2. RK that was OP as it worked the same way but was healing way faster. No power check, only invincibility effect due to really fast healing.
3. The current RK, which is very similar to the first version, but forces players to go for "off-battle repair".

---

 

A similar thing can be said about supplies. They gave a way too big of an advantage for their price, which is why their duration was reduced to better reflect the price. Overall, supplies are now less effective for winning battles, but they still give you the same level of boost when you activate them, meaning that the core mechanics are still as fun as they have always been. Devs are going to keep it that way, otherwise we would end up with the same kind of supplies (a.k.a. modules) that Tanki X has - 50% armor or 50% damage boost.

 

Anyway, when the repair kit got a buff from smart cooldowns, nobody complained that the repair kit should become more expensive because it became more powerful, but now everyone is complaining that it should become less expensive because it became less powerful. There's no logic here. The repair kit got back its old mechanics and its old price. If you're one of those nostalgic players, who want "old Tanki" to be brought back, then you should be happy about this change.

 

The problem with supplies, is that experienced players (especially ones who buy), are so good at demolishing other players, that they were the cause of removing a major part of Tanki's playerbase and revenue, i.e. those less experienced players who buy $5 a month. And that was a problem, which is why supplies got nerfed in a way that still makes them fun to use, but ultimately lowers their effectiveness and reduces the amount of "demolition" of less experienced players.

 

 

 

Why can't all the "noobs", who have no supplies, just go to PRO battles and play there?

 

 

Because the players you refer to as "noobs" are mostly just casual gamers who don't care about mastering the game or becoming a professional tryhard who can beat anyone in 1v1. Those players come from school or work in the evening and play Tanki for an hour or two just to relax and do some mindless shooting for a while. Those players want to quickly join a game, play for a bit, get some reward and leave. They couldn't care less about the different settings for maps, supplies, time limits, MUs, overdrives, etc., so the battle list is just a confusing feature that they have no interest in exploring, even if PRO battles were free.

 

You might say "well, if supplies cause so much imbalance in standard battles, why not just disable them there and make them a PRO-battle-exclusive feature?", but the answer is simple: the game gets a massive part of its revenue from those average players buying supplies. They don't buy much, but there's a lot of them. So 10 000 of those average players spending $5 every month to buy supplies every month bring much more revenue than 100 hardcore druggers, who buy a ton of supplies every week.

 

Besides, supplies are an infinite source of revenue, since they continuously get used up and players need more of them, unlike MUs, paints and XTs, which the player buys and keeps forever, never needing to spend any more money/crystals on them. So yeah, even though Hazel is trying his best to make the game less P2W, it's his job to also keep the revenue high, and thus he is trying to find a balance of power, where supplies get nerfed to make them less advantageous, but they still give a significant advantage to encourage players to buy them. Same with kits - they got nerfed once to prevent them giving such a massive advantage (remember M3 rico at lieutenant rank?), but they still unlock 2 ranks earlier than the equipment in them, so that it's worth buying them.

 

It's true that the game is still somewhat P2W, but unfortunately that's the only way for the company to survive and keep the project running.

 

 

 

Are you OK with players leaving because of these updates?

 

 

Hazel says that he would gladly believe and agree with this statement if it were true, but he has the actual statistics about what's happening in the game and he will be closely watching that, rather than panicking when someone posts in chat "this game is trash, I quit". He knows that the recent changes were not received well by players and that they want them removed, but that can't happen since, as stated previously, the game needs to develop and this was the least damaging option that had to be chosen in order to continue this development.

 

Because ideally, they want to attract new players and have them stay to play for the next however-many-years. But if supplies were kept as they were, those new players would get steamrolled by experienced druggers and they would leave without bringing much profit to the company. And if that were to happen, then the next inevitable step would be to release a bunch of P2W and money-oriented updates in order to make up for the lost revenue. And that's not a good road to head down.

 

They don't want old players to leave. In fact, they want the opposite - they want everyone to stay and have even more people to play with. But to have more people, a compromise needs to be found to make the game suitable for the old and the new.

 

Also, many seems to misunderstand how everything works. This isn't just a case of "oh, I released an update and now people will stop leaving". Players are leaving naturally, not because of updates but because no normal person keeps playing the same game for over 8 years. Players get bored, or they find a better game, or they grow up and become busy with real life, or they get forced to sell their computer... doesn't matter. Point is that players leave regardless of updates and they constantly need to be replaced. And the reason why the overall number of players has been declining for the past 2 years is not because of bad updates, but because developers stopped attracting new players into this old, outdated game (because it's too expensive and not effective). So there's no new players to replace the old ones that leave, thus the overall number will obviously go down. Right now, they're working on a bunch of cool updates that will turn Tanki into a proper MMO, and once that happens they can once again start working on increasing the player count.

 

Hazel is personally responsible for the quality of gameplay updates (such as balance changes), and if any single update could be directly linked to a major loss of players, then he wouldn't last much longer as a game dev in tanki.

 

 

 

Are developers killing off Tanki Online to force everyone to go into Tanki X?

 

 

Not at all. They realised that Tanki Online has massive advantages in a sense that it's a browser 3D game that you can play without any separate downloads, and it has ridiculously low hardware requirements, meaning that even the cheapest, oldest devices can run it fairly well. That's particularly great for releasing the mobile version of the game, since mobile devices have worse performance ability, so Tanki is perfect for it compared to other online MMOs that started off as a PC version.

 

Tanki X lost a lot of its potential when Unity could no longer be supported by browsers. Having a download-only game made it quite unpopular and even now, after nearly a year of open beta it is still far from being popular or profitable.

 

NOTE FOR CLARIFICATION: In today's marketplace, it takes a long time for any game to become profitable and self-supportive, unless it is being pushed by a big publisher that is pumping huge loads of cash into marketing it. Please bear in mind that even though Alternativa Platform is kept afloat by Tanki Online's success, it still remains an indie-publisher, which means it needs to go the slow route when it comes to growing the user base for its projects, and making a profit. Tanki X IS on the right track to becoming a profitable project. But like any indie-project, it's going to take some time, and this is perfectly normal.

 

 

 

Why did the DM tournaments get removed if the same thing is basically being added now, only with a different name (Matchmaking)?

 

 

This is somewhat of a messy topic, since Hazel initially saw the DM tournaments as a pretty good initial test of the Matchmaking system. It was a good initiative, and players were actually waiting for it and wanted to try it out, since the online user number even had a spike on the day of the release. But unfortunately it was far from what Hazel wanted it to be, since DM tournaments were basically added for the crystal aspect, in a sense that it was a system that forced players to pay crystals for entry.

 

And because players were expecting one thing but got something completely different, the tournaments were removed since they quickly lost popularity. Some parts of DM tournaments did end up being used in the upcoming Matchmaking, but it was far from what should have ideally happened.

 

 

 

Where are the double battle funds? How are players expected to earn crystals?

 

 

Hazel said right away that the 1.5x battle funds are an absolute joke. After the first time they were used in an event, he went straight to the guys responsible for choosing all the promotions and bonuses for events (discounts, battle funds, gold box values and drop rates, etc.) and told them that the 1.5x funds should never be done, since the players don't like them and it has no benefit for the company. So he said right away that ideally if there is an increased fund event, it should be at least double funds.

 

 

 

Why did developers stop supporting eSports?

 

 

Simply because it's no longer a priority. Everyone loved it when devs were working with Starladder to have those super cool matches, but unfortunately it far too expensive, considering that Tanki didn't even have anything in-game to support clan battles. They'd love to bring it all back, but at the moment Tanki is not ready for big eSports and therefore massive tournaments with amazing prizes will have to wait for some time.

 

eSports is exactly what the game needs for players who already did everything else in the game - bought and upgraded all equipment, played on all maps, got the highest rank, completed achievements, tried every format. At the moment there's nothing to do once you complete all those basic challenges of the game, and eSports is the perfect way to go further. Devs would love to provide that opportunity to the players, but at the moment it's just not the right time for that.

 

 

 

Do developers even play their own game to see how their updates feel?

 

 

Yes, they do. Especially game designers such as Hazel. He has multiple accounts which he uses to test the updates. And not just "manufactured" accounts to which he gave maximum level equipment using his admin permissions, but also normal accounts of various ranks, which he uses to play anonymously just like an average player, to see what it's like for everyone else. Testing updates with personal experience is a crucial part of game design, so he does it on a regular basis.

 

 

[Ninja 10,468]

Wow, Maf with the text walls, definitely gonna read dis.

 

Edit: One of the most interesting articles I have EVER read about TO. Players don't usually get to hear about how the game needs to generate revenue and how such things are done. So glad we got PRO passes instead of a paywall :x

[CabbageRoll 3,018]

I just want to point out that new repair is in some cases even better then old repair kit.

Why?

Because when you activate repair kit too late you get destroyed and you lose repair kit too

 

New repair kit gives you instant 1000 armor while old repair would give you that in 2 ticks (0.5 second) so there was high chance of getting destroyed if you have less than 500 armor points left

Edited July 29, 2017 by CabbageRoll

[splitterpoint 10,986]

Maf my man, well done, this is some seriously interesting stuff.

I'm not someone who watches these kind of streams so it's nice to see a readable version.

[lukey0 27,543]

Well done Maf! This done explain a lot of 'dead/unsure' areas nicely. It was also very entertaining to read. :)

[Kurt_KurtDGreat 2,259]

Lovely article Maf! Hopefully TO progresses to its former glory, gets a lot of new players and then TO has the revenue to focus on other things too such as eSports.

[marc.jp_44 20,837]

#Maf4Reporter #MafNeedsLife

[Hex 11,520]

Simply because it's no longer a priority. Everyone loved it when devs were working with Starladder to have those super cool matches, but unfortunately it was far too expensive, considering that Tanki didn't even have anything in-game to support clan battles.

#MafProWriter

 

But, #MafNoutProuInnGrammer

[Maf 32,300]

 

What's wrong with that "was"?  :wacko:

[Guest Maserati]

Finally, summaries of streams are the best, especially when you are me and can't be asked to watch 2 hour long streams. Good job :)

Because the players you refer to as "noobs" are mostly just casual games

Some grammar errors  :ph34r: Beat the reporters  :X

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

Thanks very much for that big amount of work!

 

Maybe you like to put spoilers around each answer, to slim make the search for relevant questions more easy?

[Fresh 2,390]

I did not like the RK but then I got used to it. The only thing I do not like is how I spent crystals on upgrading my weapon from M0-M3. The new update allows us to buy straight to the highest level of the weapon which means that I have lost a lot of crystals. Will there be a compensation?

[I-Hate-Druggers 192]

I did not like the RK but then I got used to it. The only thing I do not like is how I spent crystals on upgrading my weapon from M0-M3. The new update allows us to buy straight to the highest level of the weapon which means that I have lost a lot of crystals. Will there be a compensation?

Which update again?

 

 

Disappointed though that Semyon didn't talk about if vulcan will be buffed a little or the terrible freeze.

[Maf 32,300]

Which update again?

 

 

Disappointed though that Semyon didn't talk about if vulcan will be buffed a little or the terrible freeze.

Both Vulcan and Freeze got a pretty significant buff from the repair kit change. Since healing stops if you take damage, it means that while being attacked by a Freeze or Vulcan, the player is unable to heal for more than 1000 HP, whereas compared to Railgun or Magnum, you can activate a repair right after getting shot and you will be able to get over 3000 HP from it.

[CabbageRoll 3,018]

Disappointed though that Semyon didn't talk about if vulcan will be buffed a little or the terrible freeze.

Semyon is chef. How do you expect him to talk about development??? He stole Bruce's kitchen and makes double step pisza and pasta.

[Maf 32,300]

Semyon is chef. How do you expect him to talk about development??? He stole Bruce's kitchen and makes double step pisza and pasta.

Hazel-Rah's real name is Semyon, fyi.

[r_Fuse6 289]

Nice article

Edited July 30, 2017 by r_Fuse6

[BlackWasp777 4,498]

Now that I found time to read through it, I find it actually quite interesting, to see the backgrounds behind those decisions.

Thanks again Maf for the translation and transcription, it was worth your work :)

[xX-Reborn-Xx 7]

Hiring 3-4 referees to manage daily/weekly tournaments costs a lot?

[Maf 32,300]

Hiring 3-4 referees to manage daily/weekly tournaments costs a lot?

There's a lot more to eSports than hiring referees.

[SprayGround 2,851]

Good job Maf. #Maf4Reporter2k17

[Mario3108 462]

Which update again?

He's talking about this one.

Before this, you needed to buy each modification level in order to get the best one and it was a waste of crystals.

 

 

By the way, great job Maf! :D

It informs us a lot.

#Maf4Reporter

Edited July 30, 2017 by Mario3108

[DieselPlatinum 5,121]

This was very informative indeed. I think that when I see a post about tanki losing players because of the updates, I should just point them to this topic.

[falcosenna1 8,320]

Quite informative. Though, I question why devs finally confess they stop attracting new players when players have been complaining about a decreasing number of players. I wasn't that hard to tell, right. Seriously, that's poor interaction with the community, or at least the part that's still existent.

[CabbageRoll 3,018]

Hazel-Rah's real name is Semyon, fyi.

yeah i know that was just some content from Semyon's cooking show