Review Neo-Tanki Versus Tanki 2016 - Part II

[Viking4s 10,791]

 

Greetings, Tankers, welcome back to the second and final part of this special 10^th year anniversary review article series. Without further ado, let’s read.

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 Introduction

 

Since its launch in June 2009, many changes, updates and patches have continuously shaped and metamorphosed Tanki Online, however, as the wiki page, History of the Game, covers them in details up to 2015, this review series focuses primarily on the updates from Tanki 2016 (7th anniversary) up to Neo-Tanki (10th anniversary). In the first part, I presented eight key topics related to updates, to name a few: Events, PRO-Battles, equipment changes and supplies, among others. In the second part, I will cover seven additional ones, such as the novel cosmetics equipment features: Skins and Shot effects. Of course, the two contentious favourites, Drones and Matchmaking are also included. And finally, I keep the review of the evolution of the number of players as the cherry on the top.  

 

 

 Supply: Gold Boxes & Containers

 

The Gold Box is the iconic feature of Tanki Online since its debut, both coveted by gold hunters or desperate players in need of quick crystals. The precious “Gold” did not stay untouched by developers who found ways to play around with several of its key mechanics to improve it.

 

First, the drop delay after the initial siren is now 10 seconds, reduced from 30 seconds back in 2016. Secondly, the drop rate is now independent of the battle fund - the estimated chance per 7 minute battle is one third, and is harmonised across all ranks. Thirdly, on rare occasions, a “special Black Box” drops instead, easily recognised because of its typical black coloured appearance. It offers a Container instead of the usual 1000 crystals.

 

Last but definitely not least (in fact the best change in my opinion), the ability for players to drop their own Gold Box! Press the [6] key and transform your boring rank up party into a feverish and chaotic Gold Hunt. Save the Gold events are now easier to set up and, of course, disrupting normal battle to help your team win is always a plus despite the haters who see it only as a distraction from the real game (yeah, right).

 

Neo-Tanki also customised Gold Boxes to celebrate specific events. The in-game announcement siren, the drop zone icon, the parachute, and the box skin and sometimes shape, are temporally revamped to fit the event spirits: like the pumpkin box for Halloween. On very special occasions, Neo-Tanki went even further, offering several very special drop schemes and mechanics.

 

The April’s Fool Gold Box (April 2016-2018) contained numerous tricks, including: crystals (up to fifty thousand), five minutes of permanently active supplies, 1-3 days of premium, temporary immortality mode and of course the despicable Monster Kill trickery, which kills all players near the Gold Box and credits to the catcher with all the kills.

 

During the 2017 November Black Friday celebrations, a brand-new feature was launched: containers, and for this occasion every single Gold dropped was Black. Once caught it would appear in your garage as a container, and once opened they granted the catcher with random items (same as loot box mechanics). These created a lot of controversy when initially introduced, mainly because they offered the chance to get the legendary 'legacy paints', Moonwalker, Eternity, and Red Suit, but also because they were seen by many to be the pay-to-win death of Tanki.

 

The destructive Meteorite Golds were introduced to celebrate the first TO World UFO Day in July 2017. The explosion during the landing of the meteorite diversified the way to catch this out of space Gold Box, and soon the Dictator hull ceased to be the prevalent equipment choice these days. The concept was revamped for the latest New Year celebration (New Year 2019), with the meteorite taking the shape of a Christmas tree rocket hurling from the sky towards the poor unaware tankers below. To conclude, the Gold Box is a good vehicle to introduce fun in a creative way to the game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Equipment: Paint

 

In Tanki 2016, the main purpose of paints was to be defensive equipment, shielding you against specific types of turrets (granting protection against 1-4 turrets), with the visual aspect of the variety of colours and patterns coming in as a clear secondary use. Consequently, your protection choice also influenced the look of your tank, making it either stand out in a crowd or camouflaging it with the environment. The advantage of this system was that, for players with a good memory, they could tell what type of protection the enemy had with a quick glance. The main drawback was the limited number of protection combinations and that you might have to use a bright or colourful paint making you an easy target.

 

Since the paint separation update in July 2016, also known as the «Disintegration» update, all paints were been separated into their two  basicelements: Paint Elements (purely visual, with no protections whatsoever) and Protection Modules (for protective purposes only).

 

Now, the paint choice is independent of the protection and allows tankers to wear whichever paints they wish to: tasteless, stealthy or showy. Tanki had also free rein to sell new paints as cosmetics for real money in the shop, diversifying its source of income. Buyers now had the opportunity to spend money on cosmetics rather than pay-to-win features (such as drugs and whatnot), which rebalances, a little bit, the game towards fairer game-play. Furthermore, following the paint update, Tanki has created many new iconic paints, most notably the “animated paints”. The first of these, Flow, was introduced in July 2017 and displays a moving pattern of water. More special paints were created for many occasions and events, as rewards for the containers, Wars, Challenges tiers or for shop bundles.

 

Developer’s imagination seems unstoppable, and in Neo-Tanki the number of new paints has been really skyrocketing. The sky's the limit!

 

 

 

 

 Equipment: Protection Modules

 

As explained above, the paint disintegration update created the Protection Modules which have granted the developers more flexibility to improve the protection system, facilitating the implementation of additional protection for new turrets that would normally have required new paints. The update harmonised the equipment upgrade system, normalising it across the Mastery levels like the one in place for turrets and hulls. Unfortunately, this change was not perceived well by players as the newly designed system introduced far too many modules (single, double and triple) on top of the existing legacy modules, and the legacy modules could not follow the Mastery level principle, so you still had to buy the new module to get better protection. Furthermore, some modules were still offering redundant protection that you had to pay for upgrading and not all protection combinations were available.

 

Eventually, two years later, in June 2018, a follow-up update simplified and fixed modules once and for all: legacy, triple and double modules are dismantled into their fourteen single modules (one per turret plus one against mines), which can now be reassembled in a customisable protection module with three allotments. Therefore in Neo-Tanki, a player is able to wear a maximum of three protection modules of his choice with up to 50% protection granted by each. Despite the final feature offering more flexibility to adapt to the game situation, players felt that the cost of each module is too high (each individual protection cost the same to buy and MU as a Tri module had before the update) and that three protection choices is not enough and would prefer to have four instead.

 

Additionally, the compensation in Battery supplies offered to players who owned many redundant protection modules was not judged as fair and as a marketing ploy to sell the new Drones equipment. Anyhow, in my opinion, the advantages of this system surpass all its disadvantages and finally closes the Paint disintegration chapter, which could have been sorted three years ago, if AlternativaGames did not lack assertiveness.

 

 

 

 

 Game: Platforms

 

How many options to play the game? In the old days, you had the choices between two options, the Browser or the Standalone Flash player. You would log on at Tankionline.com or via free-to-play platforms (like Miniclip) relying on the Flash technology. But Flash is getting obsolete and will disappear soon (by end of this year), leaving Tanki with no other alternative but to search for more suitable support and  a better platform to run Neo-Tanki. Neo-Tanki offers now more options which were added gradually: The Client (September 2016), Steam platform (March 2017) and more recently the Mobile version on Android (early 2019). HTML5 for the browser is planned to replace Flash but is still in development.

The Client is undoubtedly my preferred option, a little bit rough when it was first launched, but it is now more stable, easy to install, and it provides faster access to battles once all the props (maps, equipment, …) are saved on your machine. After testing the Client, few would want to go back to the slow browsers.

 

Finally, six months after the client was introduced, Tanki was made available from Steam. Nobody knows why it was not done before, especially since it had been accepting and registering hundreds of new games the previous year alone. This move was liked by many as it provided more exposure to potential new gamers on this popular platform.

 

Unfortunately not that many new gamers actually came via Steam, as the platform is very restrictive (only one account authorised). 

 

The Android mobile app was the second most anticipated update of the year. As more and more games are available on Mobile it was logic for Neo-Tanki to be available there, again it is about exposure and finding new players. The developers have also talked about extending the option to Apple Mobile system (iOS), however, no dates have been shared as yet.

 

 

 

 

 Equipment: Skins and Shot Colours

 

On top of the turret alterations feature (a topic covered in part 1), two additional features altering the aspect of your tank have been added: skins for both turrets and hulls (June 2017) and the Shot colours for turrets (November 2018). Their main purpose is to make your tank unique by embellishing it with non-standard equipment. (Basically, making your fellow tankers jelly of your tank.)

 

The XT equipment, which was available for a few selections of turrets and hulls back in 2016, has been converted into XT Skins, at the same time removing any duplicated equipment (e.g. Wasp M1 and Wasp M3 XT was merged to become Wasp M3 + XT skin). Sadly the option to buy skins with crystals was removed in the process, and they can now only be obtained with real money via the Shop, via hard work for some contests, in challenges, or via sheer luck thanks to the Containers. On the plus side, skins can be worn at any Mastery level and Neo-Tanki offers the whole XT range, for all turrets and all hulls. Furthermore, the developers are now adding even more new skin families such as Demonic (Halloween 2018), Legacy (skin for all equipment that was existing prior to the graphics update in 2011; first added in the WAR 2.0, as mentioned in the first chapter) and Prime (2019).

 

The second cosmetic alteration, shot colours for turrets, is available for a group of turrets. Previously, the shot colour used to be a sign of the Mastery level, so you knew the overall strength of your adversary at one glance. In Neo-Tanki it has become a cosmetic item, which can only be obtainable via contests, containers, challenges and special temporary bundles. Shot Effect brings some colour variety to the game, but it also makes players stand out and be easily recognisable, so it helps the enemy to identify and locate specific players (weak or strong).

 

 

 

 

 Equipment: Drones

 

Let’s now talk about new equipment, the Drones. With these, Neo-Tanki has seriously increased the in-game complexity with more items for the player to choose from and to equally avoid in battles. These perky companions pop out of your tank as a surprise for your enemies, and hover obediently above your tank while in use. Overall, they don’t introduce any new mechanics, mainly playing with existing features (e.g. boosting supplies duration/strength, laying additional mines, increasing overdrive charge speed, etc.). A recent update has given all drones a passive increase to damage  and further protection to your hull, from 1% to 5%, depending on the drone micro-upgrades level.

 

They may look cute, but they are expensive to operate as they consume one battery per minute at 300 crystals per battery. Yes, twice the cost of a repair kit and five times the cost of the basic supplies. Furthermore, they are very, very expensive to upgrade: up to 3 million crystals for a full, sped up upgrade. They have been labelled by many, for good reason, as a Pay-to-Win feature, especially at low ranks. For Legends with a full garage, they give an incentive for players to continue spending money in the game or playing for additional countless hours to earn enough crystals required to upgrade them and buy batteries to operate them.

 

For me, I like the pet concept but not the proposed mechanics, only two or three have some degree of innovation, the rest is old news. Alternatively, they could have been proposed as cosmetic items to buy and make money for TO against, or alternatively to make them available only at high ranks to be less pay to win at low ranks.

 

 

 

 

 Lobby: Matchmaking

 

Where to start? This is the biggest upset transformation at the heart of Neo-Tanki, a game-changer, splitting Tanki's history into Pre-MM and Post-MM eras. All the other features and functionalities have been built and tailored around it, creating an intricate interdependence - you cannot change one without affecting the other, and you certainly  can't remove it on a whim. The impact of MM is even greater than the removal of the crystal boxes back in November 2014.

 

Why? Well, compared to the open system of Tanki 2016, MM is an isolated system where you cannot pick and choose who you play with and against. Players are selected from a queue of players and sent to a random map to start on the same foot. With this new system, there is no possible collusion with the opposite team, rampant raids, organised multing or planned sabotage - this is not conceivable anymore. What MM battle creation does not prevent is individual sabotage and trolling or hackers. These types of players would need to be tackled by other tools during the battle like the anti-cheat system or by calling a Battle moderator to the rescue. Because any players, skilled and unskilled, are all queuing together, there is an equally random possibility to finish in a weak team, in a strong team or average. Having weak players in your team does not mean that they are sabotaging, it only means they are not as skilled as you.

 

The current limitation of MM is that it needs a certain number of players to send you quickly to battles, therefore, the less players online, the longer the wait. To palliate this issue, Neo-Tanki has set several measures, most of them deemed unpopular or unwanted by players:

-    All communities have been merged into one (to the dislike of short-minded players).

-    Battle duration has been drastically reduced from 15 minutes to 7 minutes.

-    Many perks are only available in MM (missions, challenges, war, stars, …) in order to incentivise players to move from Pro battles to MM battles (a.k.a. normal battles).

 

Despite the above set-up, issues remain for the USA/LATAM peak time: when the number of players is at its lowest, the system takes ages to send you to a battle, leaving you forced to press the  Quick Battle button (thus sacrificing the ability to choose your game mode).

 

However, MM has added benefits, like the group system (allowing you to play with friends). The DM modes are free from groups, therefore they are now truly solo modes. Also, the new fund system splits rewards better between the losing team and the players who participate in the battle. Finally, there is more diversity in the number of maps played (30 maps available in the main battle mode), whereas before, you would always see the same players on the same map with the same tanks playing in the same spots. Therefore, there are good things about MM, and obviously, more work is still required to improve some areas, especially if Neo-Tanki wishes to keep the new players for longer.

 

 

 

 

 Community: Number of Players

 

The number of players online at peak time is an ongoing debate that has been a source of concern for many years now. When a game is introduced there is always a sharp increase of players that reaches an apex at some point in time before eventually falling down. This specific glorious time of the game is often referred to as the “golden age”.

 

For Tanki, the apex of players number occurred around December 2014 with a record high of about 138 000 players at peak time for two consecutive days: the 28th and 29th. To have high numbers of players during the festive time of New Year is quite common as many western players are on holiday and so have time to play all day long. For Tanki, it usually lingers into the first half of January when Russian players can finally enjoy their holidays as well. On Tanki and other game, the number of players for any game varies throughout the years due to holidays, and even numbers fluctuate greatly between weekdays and weekends. As the value is varying between short periods of time, the overall trend is difficult to do. However if you look over longer time scale (years) it is easier, let’s have a look at it. For the year 2016, the overall average high I calculated is 55 thousand players, half of the high average for the year 2014. In Neo-Tanki we are currently oscillating between 25 and 35 thousand, the lowest peak time value I can recall was just above 20k (May 2018), which is a significant two-fold drop again. The slow decrease of players has started five years ago, and the latest changes have not produced significant or sustained improvement.

 

We can all argue about the reasons explaining this trend and propose solutions to remedy it, however, if Tanki did not manage more than 140k at its golden age, I would never expect Neo-Tanki to reach higher numbers or even 100K again. This is a sad but realistic view, and players should start to accept the fact that TO game-play concept is not as appealing as other big renown game. We all have high expectations and want to compare Tanki with the big Players of the Game Industry, these thoughts are nice and honourable, and show how much you care about Tanki, but Alternativa remains a small company with limited funding and resources. You can argue that they maybe lack ambition, or, in my opinion, they still lack focus and long term strategy. Maybe they should pull some resource  from the other game they are currently developing (King Hardcore). Advertising will definitely help, but this cost a lot of money and return on investment might no be there. Is it the next step for Tanki?

 

 

 

 

 Conclusion

 

Neo-Tanki has undergone a massive load of changes since 2016 and they are here to stay. Most of the updates were all planned and directed by a defined and specific goal with matchmaking lobby as a core feature. Along the way, it included many medium and small intermediate updates, often disliked or misunderstood, but necessary to accommodate both the way of working of a small company with limited resources and to limit adverse effects on player’s gameplay and game experience.

 

But don’t be fooled, Neo-Tanki is not finished hitherto, there is more to come, like the new interface with the addition of many languages, more expansion with a potential iOS platform, and whatnot.

 

Yes, the number of players has been plummeting since December 2014, and this is both sad and alarming. However, I am confident that Alternativa has taken notice of it and is working to remedy the situation: Neo-Tanki is their answere. It will require some time and perhaps the possibility of an advertising campaign to replenish the game with new blood. Let us hope for the best. But for now, Happy Birthday Tanki Online! :wub: 

 

 

 Goodies
A short Summary of Tanki history with videos

2008 demo

 

2009-2011

 

2011

 

2012 Trailer and CEO interview: Alex Karpovich

 

2017 Tanki trailer on Steam

 

 

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Thanks for reading this review, stay seated as I believe there are still more updates to come (New Hovering hull called Ares, new turret called Gauss cannon and new interface). Hopefully, we would learn more about it around the 10th year anniversary celebration. And let’s enjoy the events by obliterating as many enemy tanks as possible and by catching the many precious Gold Boxes dropped by our philanthropic admins …

 

See you later laggers.

Viking4s

#ff3300 [VKG4s]

Edited June 9, 2019 by Viking4s

[Flexoo 6,980]

Happy Birthday Tanki Online. Today, the game reached a magical milestone, and so we bring you the second part of the review about the road that preceded it. We hope you will enjoy the celebrations of this epic day.

[r_Given6 859]

Nice

[Viking4s 10,791]

Thanks to @Adriel.RB see also this post screenshot from 4th 2009  Ivan's statement ten years ago when the game was released for the public - Ivan Zykov is the Co-owner AlternativaPlatform, Tanki Online

[Person_Random 4,991]

Happy Birthday Tanki!!!

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

"Despite the final feature offering more flexibility to adapt to the game situation, players felt that the cost of each module is too high (each individual protection cost the same to buy and MU as a Tri module had before the update)...."

 

Oh yes.... This is what most tankers (including me) dislike. Dang, just getting my M3 Eagle to M4 means I have to throw 450k crystals instead in the earlier days, it takes 99,980 to get M3 Falcon S-B upgraded! I prefer the old module system because of cheap price, but now those sneaky mines are so annoying (more than all turrets combined) that I need to protect myself from my own turret and mines real bad!

 

"Yes, the number of players has been plummeting since December 2014, and this is both sad and alarming. However, I am confident that Alternativa has taken notice of it and is working to remedy the situation: Neo-Tanki is their answer. It will require some time and perhaps the possibility of an advertising campaign to replenish the game with new blood."

 

Like you said, I still retain my high faith that Alternativa will keep the game alive despite changes I didn't like. 

[Viking4s 10,791]

The new turret development is on going :) Gauss goes live for testing 

[FenrisLupus 8]

The new turret development is on going :) Gauss goes live for testing 

when i first joined tanki over a year ago my main turret was shaft now its thunder 

gonna be Gauss soon cuz i only need 20k to buy m2  :lol:

[Team_Sniper 7]

" All communities have been merged into one (to the dislike of short-minded players) "

 

Such an ignorant statement. Perhaps people have an issue with all the communities merged because they have the language barrier? I speak both Russian and English and I can understand the frustration those who may only speak English have when no other players can speak their language. 
 

[M-J 123]

I Missed Old Madness map, hope they bring it back.

[Viking4s 10,791]

" All communities have been merged into one (to the dislike of short-minded players) "

 

Such an ignorant statement. Perhaps people have an issue with all the communities merged because they have the language barrier? I speak both Russian and English and I can understand the frustration those who may only speak English have when no other players can speak their language. 

Open your heart and open your eyes as this world is bigger than your own bedroom. 

Don't play a MMO game and expect to meet only people like you. Learn to accept others instead of looking at your navel.

I meet so many people here that I would not have otherwise, and I learnt a lot from them their culture some words and they help me improved at the game. They were from East Europe, Middle east, India, Russia, Africa, ANZ, ...

So yes I repeat short-minded because it is your/their loss. 

Frustration can be overcome if you want to. And in life you will meet with even more frustration so learn to deal with it now in a futile game with  tanks (that never dies). 

Or just ignore me...

a plus, matane, Zàijiàn, ciao, pakka,...

Edited June 6, 2019 by Viking4s

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

Open your heart and open your eyes as this world is bigger than your own bedroom. 

Don't play a MMO game and expect to meet only people like you. Learn to accept others instead of looking at your navel.

I meet so many people here that I would not have otherwise, and I learnt a lot from them their culture some words and they help me improved at the game. They were from East Europe, Middle east, India, Russia, Africa, ANZ, ...

So yes I repeat short-minded because it is your/their loss. 

Frustration can be overcome if you want to. And in life you will meet with even more frustration so learn to deal with it now in a futile game with  tanks (that never dies). 

Or just ignore me...

Dang, nice poem you typed! :)

 

LOL, too bad EU server cannot play with Chinese server. :lol:

[Mr.Flash-TeleporT 9]

Happy Birthday Tanki Online!!!

I'm Happy to be here so long!

Congrulations the All Players

Bye

Flash-TeleporT

[Viking4s 10,791]

 

You are a well of knowledge Mr.Dinosaur of Tanki.

Thank you for sharing the videos.  :wub:

[Viking4s 10,791]

HOT NEWS! Gauss Turret Released! 

[Person_Random 4,991]

HOT NEWS! Gauss Turret Released! 

Nice clickbait there... might want to try other link lol

Edited June 7, 2019 by Person_Random

[Viking4s 10,791]

Some sneak peeks at the new browser/client Neo-Tanki interfaces from Episode 214 of the V-LOG is live! 

The design looks similar to the current mobile design but still hold some flavour of the browser's layout.

(I like the orange stripes  :ph34r: )

 

 

Edited June 24, 2019 by Viking4s

[Regency 2,099]

T pas en repos toi? xD

[Viking4s 10,791]

T pas en repos toi? xD

No, always writing. 

Le repos c'est quand je serais mort ;p