Are Drones Relevant?

[sensei_tanker 3,098]

20000 crystals for a single drone on top of 300 crystals per battery for a minor benefit that you cannot control when to use and only lasts like 5 seconds. Plus, you already need supplies activated to use it.... 

 

Clearly a pay-2-win feature in this game and undeniably p-2-w

 

but still, an overpriced feature that barely does anything when you want it to, is it even relevant?

 

 

It appears to be right now that TROOPER drone is by-far the most powerful/useful and most popular of all the drones. 

Edited August 19, 2018 by sensei_tanker

[Musa 5,352]

Tanki online isn't worth playing now. 

Just events, contests, esports etc are good things in this game, but normal battles are not fun anymore.

[lukey0 27,543]

They are relevant, but not essential. They do give a small advantage but they are mostly just a crystal sink hole. There are much better things to buy to give yourself an advantage. 

[TaffyTank 1,890]

I'm pretty happy at how useful a barely-upgraded Trooper that I bought for 20k is in certain circumstances, but only cos I was using free chain batteries.

Screen of a Highland DM battle I used my trooper in.......

 

About 10 of those kills were using Trooper respawn drugs...TBH, I've paid more cry for modules that will never get me as many extra kills as that in DM, so in that sense 20k isn't too bad, especially if I mainly used it in double funds battles.

Edited June 17, 2018 by TaffyTank

[Maf 32,300]

You forgot the 1 million needed to MU it :P

 

I hardly ever see drones in battles. I'm pretty sure that the only people using drones are buyers, people using up their weekly reward or those who still have some left over after the module and XT conversions. I'm personally saving mine so that I can use them when more interesting drones come out and when the battery price hopefully gets fixed so that drones become a thing you can actually use on a regular basis without it costing an arm and a leg.

 

 

made an idea & suggestion about making it cheaper and affordable and the topic never showed up... how suspicious...

Pretty sure it's been merged into the news topic. Check your profile.

 

 

I'm pretty happy at how useful a barely-upgraded Trooper that I bought for 20k is in certain circumstances, but only cos I was using free chain batteries.

Yeah, out of the current three, trooper seems best. Mechanic is just too hard to use to its full benefit, and its reload it too slow. Assault is good, but usually pointless because you lose all your health and die before your supplies run out. If there's a future drone that recovers health after every kill - I'd use it in a heartbeat.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

I can see Mechanic granting a noticeable advantage to a coordinated team. The rest, not so much.

[Shadowmaster2.o 125]

no I've seen a few people using drones  and when I am shooting at them they just don't die  so its safe to say that these drones are effective.

[Shadowmaster2.o 125]

sorry I meant to say yes I thought you said irrelevant.

[Wes.Is.Just.A.Digger 1,712]

          It depends. I always wanted an animated pet at my tank :wub: . Now there are drones. Too bad I'm not gonna buy batteries anymore, since tanki did a rip off billion crystals by erasing all +100 excising gifts at our garages. What a shame.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

no I've seen a few people using drones  and when I am shooting at them they just don't die  so its safe to say that these drones are effective.

None of the drones besides Mechanic give you any HP or defensive advantages. Trooper or whichever gives all supplies on for 5 seconds upon respawn, but then again anyone can use double armor. Mechanic's advantage too, is fairly minor and you can only use it once every 30 seconds. What was more likely is that the players with drones were simply buyers with upgraded equipment and/or supplies.

[Rhythmic 80]

small advantage with an immense cost... not worth until you have m4'd every other garage item.

[Maf 32,300]

small advantage with an immense cost... not worth until you have m4'd every other garage item.

Yeah, pretty much. Seems like this is a toy added for specifically for legends who have nothing to spend crystals on. Although I don't think there would be enough players like that to justify a whole new gameplay mechanic specifically for them.

[Viking4s 10,791]

New Drones:

* Engineer: support drone - Increase duration time of pick up drops

* Driver: assault drone - Speed up overdrive recharge time each time you kill a tank (+10%) - this one has a nice design

* Supplier : supply drone - increase duration of supply once used and extend their effect to nearby tanks - wow this is like a mini overdrive

Cost looks like 50k each. And MUing the same as the first 3: 1M (3M with speed up).

 

[splitterpoint 10,986]

Yeah, pretty much. Seems like this is a toy added for specifically for legends who have nothing to spend crystals on. Although I don't think there would be enough players like that to justify a whole new gameplay mechanic specifically for them.

That's how it works in everyday life; cost/performance ratio drops significantly when you're going for the best of the best.

Graphics cards, cameras, cars, pocket knifes with increasing options, last steps of MU's... you name it.

 

Drone users aren't much more powerful than players without them; it doesn't justify the cost at all and I think that's normal.. and good for balance ofcourse. There's not much of a P2W aspect in here; one could argue about how modules got transfered into this system of consumables though.

 

I was worried about the effect of drones on the game balance but in the end it turned out not bad at all. I barely see them and if I do; my supplies themselves are still enough to counter them. I've no problem taking drone users down.

 

 

But they look cute, I would like to see an update where we could have them flying around without using the stupid batteries.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

Once the rest of the drones are added drugging will give even more of an advantage. It seems we are moving towards a meta in which drugging is the norm.

[Viking4s 10,791]

Once the rest of the drones are added drugging will give even more of an advantage. It seems we are moving towards a meta in which drugging is the norm.

I thought that drugging was already the norm?

Was I ahead of my time? :ph34r:

[DRAKO523 795]

Supplier Drone and Driver drone have gotten my attention tried them out in the test servers, and they do work partly well. Although I still think that using supplies to activate a drone that activates more supplies is kind of confusing and pointless, 300 crystals for the short amount of time...

[DieselPlatinum 5,121]

I got some batteries, no drones though. What do I do with the batteries if I don't plan on buying the drones? :ph34r:

[splitterpoint 10,986]

Once the rest of the drones are added drugging will give even more of an advantage. It seems we are moving towards a meta in which drugging is the norm.

Yeah, you're basically underpowered from the moment you spawn.. until you use consumables.

M1 on drugs will beat an M4 without drugs.

 

The cheapest way in this game would be to not microupgrade your equipment an do pro battles with supplies and overdrives off.

But no one does those and the game doesn't promote that way at all with all the missions and contests and I do understand that from business perspective.

 

--

 

I am not using my supplies to have an advantage over others, I am simply using them to counter the enemy's supply usage.

You're indirectly paying for the battles you join. Much more in relation to the 5K per month if you'd choose to do pro battles.

But you earn more aswell in normal battles with all the missions and stuff.

[Maf 32,300]

That's how it works in everyday life; cost/performance ratio drops significantly when you're going for the best of the best.

Graphics cards, cameras, cars, pocket knifes with increasing options, last steps of MU's... you name it.

 

Drone users aren't much more powerful than players without them; it doesn't justify the cost at all and I think that's normal.. and good for balance ofcourse. There's not much of a P2W aspect in here; one could argue about how modules got transfered into this system of consumables though.

 

I was worried about the effect of drones on the game balance but in the end it turned out not bad at all. I barely see them and if I do; my supplies themselves are still enough to counter them. I've no problem taking drone users down.

 

 

But they look cute, I would like to see an update where we could have them flying around without using the stupid batteries.

I don't know, I feel like the only reason it doesn't seem like they make a difference is because usually there's one or rarely two players using then in a battle. And one player won't make that much of a difference. But if you're playing against a full team with all of them using drones vs. none on your team, you surely would feel the difference.

 

Sure, having a drone vs not having one isn't as much of a difference as using supplies vs not using them, but it's still a significant advantage, especially if combined with smart strategy.

[Maf 32,300]

The cheapest way in this game would be to not microupgrade your equipment an do pro battles with supplies and overdrives off.

But no one does those and the game doesn't promote that way at all with all the missions and contests and I do understand that from business perspective.

Which is exactly why developers removed things like double funds, missions and black boxes from PRO, because they give players a huge economical advantage over those playing in standard battles.

[u812ic 1,629]

I got some batteries, no drones though. What do I do with the batteries if I don't plan on buying the drones? :ph34r:

I think we're stuck with them and will continue to get them in containers.

[DieselPlatinum 5,121]

I think we're stuck with them and will continue to get them in containers.

So we let them take up space in our garage? Awesome

[LittleWillie 3,199]

So we let them take up space in our garage? Awesome

This presents a hardship?  This prevents you from storing other items in your garage?  You cannot even see the batteries unless you make am effort to slide over the display.  There's no shortage of real issues with the game why is this important?

 

 

I don't know, I feel like the only reason it doesn't seem like they make a difference is because usually there's one or rarely two players using then in a battle. And one player won't make that much of a difference. But if you're playing against a full team with all of them using drones vs. none on your team, you surely would feel the difference.

 

Sure, having a drone vs not having one isn't as much of a difference as using supplies vs not using them, but it's still a significant advantage, especially if combined with smart strategy.

 

I reckon drones might be a significant aspect of Clan Wars.  But for random battles I am not sure drones will be that significant, even if everyone on one team has them.  I reckon this because my thinking is the TYPES of drones on each team must be COORDINATED in order to have a significant effect.

 

Hat tip to Guido F. who reported on a clan who all had the +healing drones at max MU.  With everyone using that drone an an known team-healing strategy the team was especially robust.  But that level of coordination wil not exist in a basic battle.

 

So: Advantage = yes. Significant advantage = who knows yet?

Edited June 22, 2018 by LittleWillie

[C.O.N.Q.U.E.R.O.R 3,845]

As of yet, I've encountered under 15 players with drones, and I've killed them just as easily as everyone else, so I see no significant difference as of yet.