An insight into toxic updates

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

I just had an epiphany.   I think I may have figured out the reason Tanki wants MM and all the horrible anit-fun updates that have led up to the implementation of the dread MM. 

 

I'm sure most of us keep wondering WHY?  Why would Tanki seem so oblivious to the wishes of it's player base?  Why would they keep making the game less and less fun?  Why would they spend all this coding time ($$$) to generate an inferior, less versatile placement system?

 

I think I have the answer:  Fewer employees/coders at Perm.  When we could choose battles on any of 30+ maps, when there were 100,000 players (mostly free players I would venture to guess), and almost everything about Tanki was adjustable by the player, it had to generate lots and lots of critical errors, code bugs, glitches, etc.  With MM everything is automatic so it just has to run more smoothly from managements perspective. 

 

MM probably provides an environment where you need way less staff to maintain it.  If in Tanki's heyday they needed (guess) 15 coders working like crazy, with MM they might only need 4 or 5 once it settles in...maybe even less.  If you could get rid of even one monthly salary that would increase the bottom line dramatically...if you could get rid of 5, 6, 10 coders, that is a hell of a lot of savings, and you would need to sell WAY way less kits, crystals, paints, etc for cash. 

 

If you could cut your player base by 80% but still retain the majority of your cash buyers that is another big bottom line win.  It would also make maintenance even easier, so again, less employees.  I think their ultimate goal is to have Tanki as an almost automatically running online game.  Well, that and trying to develop a mobile market.  The less hands on more auto-running MM lends itself to the mobile platform also.

 

This is all just conjecture, but it does seem to make the seemingly insane management decisions much more plausible.  Any thoughts?

[sensei_tanker 3,098]

I'm not into business or marketing but the marketing team knows what they are doing and how to generate the most $$$. They make mathematical functions to calculate how to make the highest profits. That is exactly what they are doing. 

[sensei_tanker 3,098]

It costs about 10x more to obtain a new customer than keeping an old customer. So naturally, it would make sense to ignore attracting new players and only keeping the buyers in the game. 

[splitterpoint 10,986]

But I want matchmaking to stay because it is more fun than the old battle list.

[Hancho 3,902]

I honestly don't mind MM because I get the first place anyway. 

[LUCIFER1_the_dark 1,230]

MM is good honestly.

 

I get in matches based on my equipments and not rank.

 

So with m2.5s I hardly see any m3.5 so its good to score.

[Maf 32,300]

It costs about 10x more to obtain a new customer than keeping an old customer. So naturally, it would make sense to ignore attracting new players and only keeping the buyers in the game. 

But aren't they doing the exact opposite - not doing much for the old players and adapting the game for new audiences?

[LittleWillie 3,199]

But aren't they doing the exact opposite - not doing much for the old players and adapting the game for new audiences?

It does not seem that way to me. Drones are an entire new category of item for the old "got-it-all" player. I can't think of anything comperable for newbies. But ask enough people and you will get every answer in the book.

 

MM is in the game because that is how modern games are organized.  Most of the player base has gotten past the predictions of horror and disaster and is now fine with it. There will always be people blaming MM for all ills. Just like there will always be people blaming "Druggers" for all their ills. Dead-end-despair -or- move on / game on.... every player's choice.

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

Guys, this thread is not really a re-hash of "I like MM, I don't like MM".  There is already an over burdened highly repetitive thread where you can voice your MM opinions.  I would like to hear feedback on the plausibility of my idea concerning the reasoning behind the implementation of MM.

 

Is it to save money by reducing staff?  Does the reduction in player base have a positive aspect to management that we may have missed?

 

PLEASE...no "MM is the best thing since sliced bread" or "The floccinaucinihilipilification of MM is truly epic".  We already have both sides to the argument....lets try to figure out the WHY of MM for better or worse.

Edited July 19, 2018 by ByeByeBye

[Delta_Rail 142]

It costs about 10x more to obtain a new customer than keeping an old customer. So naturally, it would make sense to ignore attracting new players and only keeping the buyers in the game. 

but the thing is tanki is making the game better for new players, thats why I see people who have 0 skill at all with M3s at WO4

[badmonkey69 12]

but the thing is tanki is making the game better for new players, thats why I see people who have 0 skill at all with M3s at WO4

If that where true new players would be increasing and its not.  They are just milking the remaining players and letting it die.  

[sensei_tanker 3,098]

But aren't they doing the exact opposite - not doing much for the old players and adapting the game for new audiences?

This might actually be different for Tanki Online. I feel like its milking the cow. Once the cow runs out of milk, you aren't going to get anymore. Basically, if a player has gotten to the point where he doesn't need to spend anymore on the game and is satisfied with what he/she has, TO won't be making any profits from that player... so they have to create a new player-base. Then they get another cow they can milk. 

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

I have no idea how and why you think MM requires less maintenance than the old system.

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

I have no idea how and why you think MM requires less maintenance than the old system.

I am only making a guess...I'm not a game designer.  But it does seem logical to me that if you reduce the amount of variables you reduce the chance for glitches.  I think when players could control almost every aspect of each and every battle even to the point of selecting a server, it had to be a much more complex system than what MM is.  With MM everything is automatic and therefore less prone to glitches...less glitches, less people to chase and correct the glitches...less staff, less overheard, larger bottom line.  I would guess that eventually, after all the initial bugs are worked out of MM, Tanki will be able to run almost on auto-pilot.

 

Employees are probably the biggest expense Tanki faces.  Facility rent/mortgage, equipment, servers, utilities, insurance, taxes all must add up to a bunch of overhead, but staff almost has to be the number one expense.  Get rid of a few salaries each month and it is the same as selling outrageous amounts of in-game doo-dads.  A player buys 2,800,000 crystals with his discount card and 500 gold boxes along with a couple of product kits....he has made a big purchase but even though all that is gross profit for Tanki since there is no intrinsic value to pixel product, it probably doesn't even pay for a half a months salary of one coder.  

Edited July 20, 2018 by ByeByeBye

[thethiefofvictory 339]

Simple. MM is the multiplayer standard, and probably was back in 2009 too (note: just a guess). What is actually shocking is the fact that Tanki waited so long before implementing MM. Also, MM makes it easy to get into battles, assuming it works well enough, so I don't see a reason why Tanki wouldn't implement MM. 

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

Simple. MM is the multiplayer standard, and probably was back in 2009 too (note: just a guess). What is actually shocking is the fact that Tanki waited so long before implementing MM. Also, MM makes it easy to get into battles, assuming it works well enough, so I don't see a reason why Tanki wouldn't implement MM. 

In marketing and sales you usually try to point out why you are different and then develop benefits to the differences.  Generally you try to avoid being like everyone else.  Tanki getting rid of diversity and choice, one of the best things they had going for them, is ludicrous from a textbook marketing perspective.  I just don't see that decimating your player base (100K down to 25K) is justified just to keep up with the Jones or, in other words, conform the the multiplayer standard.  

 

If your game is like everyone else's game, well, your game is like everyone else's....why would a customer choose your game over another?  I think there is something else afoot and Tanki must have some other more rational reason for MM...possibly the hope of drawing a huge mobile market...dunno.

 

And...when was it that battles were ever hard to get into?  Only Little Willie had trouble making a choice on which battle to join.

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

Simple. MM is the multiplayer standard, and probably was back in 2009 too (note: just a guess). What is actually shocking is the fact that Tanki waited so long before implementing MM. Also, MM makes it easy to get into battles, assuming it works well enough, so I don't see a reason why Tanki wouldn't implement MM. 

OMG...The entire "I love MM squad" liked this post of yours. 

 

Anyway, your reasoning is mundane at best.  I do have a nice bridge I'd be willing to part with for just a small investment on your part :)

 

On a more serious note, after playing TankiX for a bit I think my theory that MM was implemented to reduce employee costs might be spot on.  TX and TO run on almost the same code for everything now.  A year ago AP would have had to have had more staff to keep two very different sets of codeing up and running smoothly.  Now with TX and TO being so close and the coding so similar, they will need less staff to keep both games running smoothly.  MM for both games makes them better candidates for semi-autopilot mode also, so less staff again. 

 

I am more and more convinced that this is the real reason behind MM and why Tanki really doesn't care if they lose player base...they hope to see a heftier bottom line by trimming overhead.

[gokuMI6 1,290]

OMG...The entire "I love MM squad" liked this post of yours. 

Lool you have nice eye's bro

But i am not one of "I love MM"

I like it cause it is a very good improvement from what we had on the battle portion

 

Seriously try to write something 

i mean you have good skills try the AWS section

[thethiefofvictory 339]

 

 

 

Sorry for not replying earlier. Thing is, while it may appear that it's better to be unique, unfortunately nowadays in gaming everybody follows the leader. Everyone obeys the trend. Look at the surge in Battle Royale games and their popularity. Not a very good example, I know, but thing is, while employee trimming may be a factor (I'm not well versed in this), I highly suspect the reason is merely to shift to mainstream. Actually, the mobile market point is good too, now that Tanki is testing on mobile (something they talked about waay back in 2014/15), I would imagine they would want to simplify. Fairly sure playerbase decimation occurred long before MM, may or may not be a factor. 

 

Personally, while I had no problem with the battle list before MM, now I find it far easier to join battles because I won't need to choose which map or what teams. That is my own opinion on MM and its reasons though, please ignore if you will. 

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

 

Personally, while I had no problem with the battle list before MM, now I find it far easier to join battles because I won't need to choose which map or what teams. That is my own opinion on MM and its reasons though, please ignore if you will. 

This is mind boggling to me.  How soon we tend to forget.  When we had the Battle List, we also had the Battle Button which almost no one used because it sucked.   But the Battle Button put you into a random battle almost instantaneously...no queue time and narrower rank brackets...it was more efficient than MM, yet very few players used it because random battles where you can't pick team, duration, or map (just like MM is 100% of the time) are totally lame.

 

Anyway, we are absolutely stuck with MM and it will never go away, so we learn to live with it like any other disability.  You and all of us are better off forgetting the past TO because it is gone forever...we (I) need to move on.

 

I did have another idea, but I don't think there is much evidence to back it up, but I'll toss it out there to see what you all think.  Maybe AP is fluffing the product to sell one arm off.  Bring TO in line with modern game standards, like many of you have said, then sell it off to another company.  The big flaw there is how many players TO has lost over the last year and a half...a buyer would be mostly interested in how large the player base is, so putting TO up for sale after hemorrhaging 75% of it's player base is a long shot reason for MM.

[Guest]

I did have another idea, but I don't think there is much evidence to back it up, but I'll toss it out there to see what you all think.  Maybe AP is fluffing the product to sell one arm off.  Bring TO in line with modern game standards, like many of you have said, then sell it off to another company.  The big flaw there is how many players TO has lost over the last year and a half...a buyer would be mostly interested in how large the player base is, so putting TO up for sale after hemorrhaging 75% of it's player base is a long shot reason for MM.

Or, the devs could be milking the game to fund advertizing for TX. Once that is done, boom, the game will be left for dead.

 

Look what happened with Planetside once Planetside 2 came out and was advertised. 

(For those who don't know, the original Planetside was released in 2003 and was shut down in 2016. Meanwhile, Planetside 2 was released in 2012 and is still going)

 

 

If you want to know what PS looked like right before shutdown, here is a video:

[WARNING: THERE ARE SWEAR WORDS IN THIS VIDEO]

 

 

Edited July 23, 2018 by Guest

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

I am only making a guess...I'm not a game designer.  But it does seem logical to me that if you reduce the amount of variables you reduce the chance for glitches.  I think when players could control almost every aspect of each and every battle even to the point of selecting a server, it had to be a much more complex system than what MM is.  With MM everything is automatic and therefore less prone to glitches...less glitches, less people to chase and correct the glitches...less staff, less overheard, larger bottom line.  I would guess that eventually, after all the initial bugs are worked out of MM, Tanki will be able to run almost on auto-pilot.

I don't see how allowing players to create battles with a few custom settings introduces a large number of variables. At worst, there might be uneven server load. Look how many problems MM has compared to the old system. I think it only requires more work than before to keep things running smoothly.

 

TX and TO run on almost the same code for everything now.

TX and TO do not have remotely the same code. One runs on Unity engine, the other on Flash player. These platforms are completely different.

[ByeByeBye 1,747]

I don't see how allowing players to create battles with a few custom settings introduces a large number of variables. At worst, there might be uneven server load. Look how many problems MM has compared to the old system. I think it only requires more work than before to keep things running smoothly.

 

TX and TO do not have remotely the same code. One runs on Unity engine, the other on Flash player. These platforms are completely different.

I don't see how you can not see how the previous system was more complex.  I think it had to have been more complex...you don't.  Neither of us are game designers(I assume) so we are at an impasse until we get more information.

 

As far as coding goes, both Unity and Flash use C++ ...so lots of the code from TO could be used in TX.  That's why they are so similar; why reinvent the wheel once you have wheels.

[splitterpoint 10,986]

This might actually be different for Tanki Online. I feel like its milking the cow. Once the cow runs out of milk, you aren't going to get anymore. Basically, if a player has gotten to the point where he doesn't need to spend anymore on the game and is satisfied with what he/she has, TO won't be making any profits from that player... so they have to create a new player-base. Then they get another cow they can milk.

 

Agree, I think this is what every succesful online game does. From what I experienced in a few dried out games; players got bored of the peak they reached and made player organized events until that got boring aswell. Core concept of fun is based around developers putting out new updates and new ways of progression. Progression is what people strive for, it's never enough. That's a natural thing if you ask me.

 

The developers made new ways where the player can achieve progression. Now its drones. One can argue about wether it's right to progress in consumables rather than permanent equipment though. But the feature now is in the game.. time to use it.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

As far as coding goes, both Unity and Flash use C++ ...so lots of the code from TO could be used in TX.  That's why they are so similar; why reinvent the wheel once you have wheels.

Flash uses ActionScript.