Do the Devs even realize that their new "cool" ideas are ruining the game?

[Tanker-Arthur 2,971]

9 hours ago, cosmic666 said:

Agree, the html5 version is pants.

They should have implemented all the good qualities of flash into their new look html5, then it could be called better.

It is nowhere near as user friendly as flash. The garage is useless, especially if you want to change equipment during a battle, takes far to long and is so glitchy that i don't even bother changing anymore, just isn't worth the hassle.

Agreed. I don't understand how hard it is for the devs to make the HTML5 version, AT THE VERY LEAST, have stuff be arranged in the same places they were in the Flash version.
And yes! The garage is so bad. Sometimes, it won't even let me change stuff in a battle, despite me waiting the cooldown timer that is applied from the last time I changed equipment.

9 hours ago, cosmic666 said:

One more thing. Who cares about skins ,xt, shot effects, they do not help you in battle one bit.

I have a account that is now parked up until they reverse the xp/cry ratio, never gonna use it again until that happens. (been parked up for over a year now)

I have over 200 paints (over 40 animated) numerous XTs, maxed out garage, every shot effect apart from the new ones, and my lowest supply is just over 70,000 repair kits (17,000 batteries). I don't care one bit that i will never use a fraction of what i have because if and when i ever use this account again it's all about how strong i can be in battle. 

As for nostalgia, again who cares, being nostalgic won't help you in battle.

I agree that they are useless in terms of how efficient you are in a battle.

But still, it would be nice to have skins and shot effects change as you upgrade things. It helps spice up the gameplay, and it gives more of a reason for people to grind for the upgrade.

On the other hand, you're right about paints. They barely matter, now that there's hundreds of them.
I'm fine with millions of paints added, but as long as they don't affect gameplay at all.

 

9 hours ago, cosmic666 said:

The real issues are BALANCE and RANK SPREADS, these effect game play a lot. 

 

Agreed. Sadly, its been almost a year since Tanki did a decent balance update.

They've been ignoring it for months, which I absolutely hate.

[OUTAMYWAY 48]

On 12/4/2020 at 3:25 PM, Emeraldcat345 said:

 If you learn to master Magnum, you'd have no trouble.

I actually had a great deal of respect for magnum users. I play Shaft and whilst it isnt my primary concern in most battles, it is impossible to find a decent position with a magnum player who can use it well. They undermine the cover that i need. The awkwardness of control comes with the territory of being artillery, like the low damage of shaft.

The recent changes has made it into just another turret.

 

[EmeraldCat 562]

22 hours ago, OUTAMYWAY said:

I actually had a great deal of respect for magnum users. I play Shaft and whilst it isnt my primary concern in most battles, it is impossible to find a decent position with a magnum player who can use it well. They undermine the cover that i need. The awkwardness of control comes with the territory of being artillery, like the low damage of shaft.

The recent changes has made it into just another turret.

 

Agreed. They stripped magnum partially of its specialness. The only thing it's good for now is shooting above walls and stuff. You can't adjust your aim or anything.

[Picassoo 191]

On 12/10/2020 at 12:56 AM, Emeraldcat345 said:

Agreed. They stripped magnum partially of its specialness. The only thing it's good for now is shooting above walls and stuff. You can't adjust your aim or anything.

Magnum is bad for the game regardless of the fact that it takes skill to use. It's not too hard though — I once played it on test server and after an hour my aim was pretty good.

You can still readjust your aim btw

[brahaha 3]

I feel like the devs should just add a feature for the tank to turn left/right wherever you look. The turret can be locked to the hull for mobile/pc players. Obviously, This should be an option, that can be toggled on/off. It would be great in my opinion because controlling the hull when you are looking the other direction can be hard. 

[EmeraldCat 562]

4 hours ago, brahaha said:

I feel like the devs should just add a feature for the tank to turn left/right wherever you look. The turret can be locked to the hull for mobile/pc players. Obviously, This should be an option, that can be toggled on/off. It would be great in my opinion because controlling the hull when you are looking the other direction can be hard. 

That's actually not a bad idea. You'd just need to figure out what the button requirements are. My hands would be tied, with my left hand being the hand that uses suplies, increases/decreases my camera angle, increases my camera angle, turning my turret, pressing shift, and using the spacebar to fire. As for my left hand is for moving my tank forward, left/right, or backwards.

Little fun fact though, with mouse controls, you're actually able to rotate the camera angle as fast as you want, and your turret will follow where you're facing. All turrets have a turn speed limit, so, you'll need to focus on your turret as well as your surroundings.

[EmeraldCat 562]

13 hours ago, Picassoo said:

Magnum is bad for the game regardless of the fact that it takes skill to use. It's not too hard though — I once played it on test server and after an hour my aim was pretty good.

You can still readjust your aim btw

It's only a bad turret if you're not good at it, it's a good turret if you're good at it. That's what makes it balanced. There's not a lot of players who are actually good at it. Most people just give up on it. The only problem I currently see is that on M0, its reload is 5 seconds long. That's not a bad reload for a mortar type weapon, but at M4, its reload is 2 seconds long. Now, this wouldn't be a problem if all turrets decrease 60% reload at M4 from M0, but that's not the case. Normally, from M0-M4, reload decreases to about 25%, for all turrets. Which makes this a problem because a Magnum with high amount of damage could just shoot every 2 seconds. You wouldn't even have to be a long ranged turret. If you have the vertical rotation alt(Which shoulda been magnum's normal ability), you could just shoot with a 0 degree angle, and shoot your Magnum at max capacity, to give you a short to medium ranged shot. You could then just reload your turret in 2 seconds, then do it again. Magnum's M4 reload is in need of fixing, but other than that, it's a good turret.

[Picassoo 191]

8 hours ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

It's only a bad turret if you're not good at it, it's a good turret if you're good at it. That's what makes it balanced. There's not a lot of players who are actually good at it. Most people just give up on it. The only problem I currently see is that on M0, its reload is 5 seconds long. That's not a bad reload for a mortar type weapon, but at M4, its reload is 2 seconds long. Now, this wouldn't be a problem if all turrets decrease 60% reload at M4 from M0, but that's not the case. Normally, from M0-M4, reload decreases to about 25%, for all turrets. Which makes this a problem because a Magnum with high amount of damage could just shoot every 2 seconds. You wouldn't even have to be a long ranged turret. If you have the vertical rotation alt(Which shoulda been magnum's normal ability), you could just shoot with a 0 degree angle, and shoot your Magnum at max capacity, to give you a short to medium ranged shot. You could then just reload your turret in 2 seconds, then do it again. Magnum's M4 reload is in need of fixing, but other than that, it's a good turret.

I'm not talking about balance here. It's just that the whole concept of a turret that can hit people behind multiple obstacles at long range is incompatible with this game. Cover should allow attackers to advance and defenders to avoid long range fire, and this is what it used to do back in the day.

Also, a high skill cap doesn't balance being OP in any way. A turret that has greater potential than others in the hands of a good player has to be nerfed even if it is hard to use.

[Michael828 816]

Take away some certain drones, the new defense disabling alt. as well as the Gauss one, and this game becomes 10 times better than it was just last year.

 

[Tokamak 1,021]

40 minutes ago, Picassoo said:

 It's just that the whole concept of a turret that can hit people behind multiple obstacles at long range is incompatible with this game. Cover should allow attackers to advance and defenders to avoid long range fire, and this is what it used to do back in the day.

So this game is all about head-on strategy? No camping strategy is allowed? Let's get back my viking/twins/brick combo then.

[Picassoo 191]

3 hours ago, Tokamak said:

So this game is all about head-on strategy? No camping strategy is allowed? Let's get back my viking/twins/brick combo then.

You got it all wrong. The game used to be about guerilla tactics, moving from cover to cover avoiding fire and trying to work around enemy defense. All this was killed by  Magnum. Talking about medium-big map CTFs a few years ago. If you liked it different, you could play Poly CP/small maps.

Now it is about driving forwards, spamming drugs, using OD against a bunch of enemy tanks. You aren't safe behind cover anymore due to the huge amount of splash damage we have now. No attack/defense/midfield, just one man pushes with OP equipment or tanks bunched up under a Titan dome.

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

3 hours ago, Michael828 said:

Take away some certain drones, the new defense disabling alt. as well as the Gauss one, and this game becomes 10 times better than it was just last year.

May you specify which drones would you like to get removed?

AP augments from turret yes, but then Hornet OD will have to get reworked again. And so is AP-Immunity augments will be gone too.

The Gauss one... are you talking about EMP Gauss?

[EmeraldCat 562]

7 hours ago, FrozenRailgun said:

May you specify which drones would you like to get removed?

AP augments from turret yes, but then Hornet OD will have to get reworked again. And so is AP-Immunity augments will be gone too.

The Gauss one... are you talking about EMP Gauss?

Drones that should get deleted: All of them

AP Augments: Deleted

Hull Augments: Deleted

OD's: Deleted and reverted back to the Zero Supply OD

Gauss: Super Balance

Hulls: Differentiate them from hp and speed

Gauss EMP Augment: Delete

Mk-System: Deleted and reverted back to the old M-System

Skins/Shot Effects: Return each skin that belonged to each modification(M0-M3) as well as their shot effects.

Hover Hulls: Deleted, or converted into tracked hulls and have a similar design to the other hulls. Also, delete Crusader. 

With these things taken into affect, I believe the game will start getting better again.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Emeraldcat3451

[EmeraldCat 562]

11 hours ago, Picassoo said:

I'm not talking about balance here. It's just that the whole concept of a turret that can hit people behind multiple obstacles at long range is incompatible with this game. Cover should allow attackers to advance and defenders to avoid long range fire, and this is what it used to do back in the day.

Also, a high skill cap doesn't balance being OP in any way. A turret that has greater potential than others in the hands of a good player has to be nerfed even if it is hard to use.

I say I never liked Magnum, but it was an interesting idea to the game. Focusing on artillery. I think now, if enemies were hiding behind obstacles, a Magnum user can make them run out of their hiding spot. Magnum was the last turret that was added to the game that was actually a good idea. Compared to Gauss, which is a combination of 7 other turrets. The only thing it's special for is the fact that it's way to overpowered.

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

2 hours ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

Drones that should get deleted: All of them

AP Augments: Deleted

Hull Augments: Deleted

OD's: Deleted and reverted back to the Zero Supply OD

Gauss: Super Balance

Hulls: Differentiate them from hp and speed

Gauss EMP Augment: Delete

Mk-System: Deleted and reverted back to the old M-System

Skins/Shot Effects: Return each skin that belonged to each modification(M0-M3) as well as their shot effects.

Hover Hulls: Deleted, or converted into tracked hulls and have a similar design to the other hulls. Also, delete Crusader. 

With these things taken into affect, I believe the game will start getting better again.

Drones: What?! Even Brutus?! That drone is far from OP. I can agree on most Drones need to go but Brutus? What?

AP/Hull augments.... hard to say but definitely agree of AP auggies.

OD: WTH? Then that means every hulls will have Dictator's pre-buffed OD (you know what I am talking about).

Gauss: Hm...

Hulls: Hard to say.

Gauss EMP auggy: How you gonna refund hmmm.

Mk-System: Yes.

Skin/Shot effect: Yes.

Hover hull: Hard to say.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

5 hours ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

OD's: Deleted and reverted back to the Zero Supply OD

In my opinion that would be much worse than the current OD system. Everyone in the match would have multiple supplies enabled almost always.

ODs result in a positive feedback loop. Enabling OD allows you to easily gain kills or score, which charges your OD further, which allows you to enable it again, which allows you to get more kills, and so on. Currently, most ODs (save Dictator's) create a positive feedback loop that primarily only affects the user - for example Viking's OD. With Zero Supply, the positive feedback loop affected multiple players - everyone who received the effect of the OD, and not just the player who enabled it. This resulted in very lopsided battles where the team who activated their ODs first had an enormous advantage. The other team could not charge their ODs fast enough to respond and ended up getting wiped.

Edited December 13, 2020 by ThirdOnion

[EmeraldCat 562]

4 hours ago, FrozenRailgun said:

Drones: What?! Even Brutus?! That drone is far from OP. I can agree on most Drones need to go but Brutus? What?

AP/Hull augments.... hard to say but definitely agree of AP auggies.

OD: WTH? Then that means every hulls will have Dictator's pre-buffed OD (you know what I am talking about).

Gauss: Hm...

Hulls: Hard to say.

Gauss EMP auggy: How you gonna refund hmmm.

Mk-System: Yes.

Skin/Shot effect: Yes.

Hover hull: Hard to say.

Drones: If you delete almost all the drones, there's no point in keeping the rest. 

Hull Augments: The Devs created hull augments so that you could defend against other stuff, like, for example, "We've officially made Firebird's burn damage too overpowered, but now we don't know how to fix it. OH! I got it!, Fire Immunity! Where only buyers can get it easily and the rest will have to get lucky in containers, now that's a good idea." Same goes for Freezing(Which is probably not a bad as burning), EMP, Stunning, AP. When I was young, I thought of an idea to give hulls alterations, but even I realized back then that it was a stupid idea. Alterations are supposed to be special to the specific equipment, alterations will increase a stat, but decrease something in return, giving you a new feel for it. The problem with hulls, is that, they're all the same. Well, now Alterations are ruined, with the name "augment" because all it'll do it benefit you in battle, there's no downside to it, it'll make you way more strong.

ODs: That would mean, everyone has a chance to get supplies, even those who don't have any. I'd much prefer this over, let's say, a Viking with his OD, where I'm literally so close to destroying him, and he just activates it and instantly kills me, and probably a few other teammates. 

Gauss: There is no denying that it's in desperate need of fixing.

Gauss EMP: That's literally what all games would do if they got rid of an item people spent money on. I'm sure if Tanki didn't decide to refund players if they deleted something, they'd probably get sued.

Hover Hull: They make no sense with the current game, and were created for the sole purpose of helping mobile and making money, which could've been fixed without affecting game mechanics.

 

[EmeraldCat 562]

1 hour ago, ThirdOnion said:

In my opinion that would be much worse than the current OD system. Everyone in the match would have multiple supplies enabled almost always.

ODs result in a positive feedback loop. Enabling OD allows you to easily gain kills or score, which charges your OD further, which allows you to enable it again, which allows you to get more kills, and so on. Currently, most ODs (save Dictator's) create a positive feedback loop that primarily only affects the user - for example Viking's OD. With Zero Supply, the positive feedback loop affected multiple players - everyone who received the effect of the OD, and not just the player who enabled it. This resulted in very lopsided battles where the team who activated their ODs first had an enormous advantage. The other team could not charge their ODs fast enough to respond and ended up getting wiped.

Exactly, you get what I'm saying, if everyone uses supplies anyways, then an OD that instantly gives you supplies is perfect. Back then, when times were simple, supplies were our only way of gaining the upper hand. But, not all players had supplies, but that didn't mean it was impossible to play. At least back then, we didn't have Titans that subtracted 90% of all incoming damage for a long while, or a Viking that has quadrupled damage and reload that makes you insta-kill everything. I'd say back then, supplies were the most balanced way to actually have a chance of winning. When Zero Supplies entered the game, it was rather questionable, but everyone actually liked it, it gave those who didn't have any supplies a chance. Take the current Dictator overdrive, get rid of the freezing effect, keep the 10 points per teammate feature, and you got yourself a pretty awesome and balanced overdrive that everyone can have with any hull. If you wanna fight solo, and use the OD to yourself, that's fine, that'll mean you won't get points. You wanna work as a team, like how all Tanki battles should be(Excluding DM), then you'll get those bonus points.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

47 minutes ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

Exactly, you get what I'm saying, if everyone uses supplies anyways, then an OD that instantly gives you supplies is perfect.

The thing is supplies on their own do not last long - only 30 seconds. With an OD that duration is extended to 90 seconds. Currently the supply situation is tolerable because even though it is possible to activate multiple supplies relatively quickly in succession, that ability is balanced by having short supply durations. Thus not all players have multiple supplies active at all times. With Zero Supply one team was able to continually have all or most of their supplies active by chaining ODs while the other team was not able to destroy players fast enough in order to charge their ODs. This was a serious problem - I suggested introducing a cooldown on the Zero Supply OD at the time.

47 minutes ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

When Zero Supplies entered the game, it was rather questionable, but everyone actually liked it, it gave those who didn't have any supplies a chance. Take the current Dictator overdrive, get rid of the freezing effect, keep the 10 points per teammate feature, and you got yourself a pretty awesome and balanced overdrive that everyone can have with any hull. If you wanna fight solo, and use the OD to yourself, that's fine, that'll mean you won't get points. You wanna work as a team, like how all Tanki battles should be(Excluding DM), then you'll get those bonus points.

Most liked it launch because it was novel mechanic. I remember voting that it was a great feature when it was first released, and then wishing it was gone a week later.

The issue was that if you used the Zero Supply OD for yourself only, you would put your team at a disadvantage. At the time Zero Supply was released if the players on your team did not share their ODs you were more or less guaranteed to lose, because they would disrupt the positive feedback loop. At least with the current ODs, selfish activations don't cost the entire team that much.

Also note that Dictator's OD charges the ODs of your teammates. So if that feature were to be kept, a team could have several ODs ready to go at any given moment.

There were plenty of problems with the Zero Supply OD that were widely discussed when it was first released. While the current ODs are far from perfect, things back then weren't so rosy either.

Edited December 13, 2020 by ThirdOnion

[EmeraldCat 562]

4 minutes ago, ThirdOnion said:

The thing is supplies on their own do not last long - only 30 seconds. With an OD that duration is extended to 90 seconds. Currently the supply situation is tolerable because even though it is possible to activate multiple supplies relatively quickly in succession, that ability is balanced by having short supply durations. Thus not all players have multiple supplies active at all times. With Zero Supply one team was able to continually have all or most of their supplies active by chaining ODs while the other team was not able to destroy players fast enough in order to charge their ODs. This was a serious problem - I suggested introducing a cooldown on the Zero Supply OD at the time.

Most liked it launch because it was novel mechanic. I remember voting that it was a great feature when it was first released, and then wishing it was gone a week later.

The issue was that if you used the Zero Supply OD for yourself only, you would put your team at a disadvantage. At the time Zero Supply was released if the players on your team did not share their ODs you were more or less guaranteed to lose, because they would disrupt the positive feedback loop. At least with the current ODs, using your OD selfishly does not cost your team that much.

There were plenty of problems with the Zero Supply OD that were widely discussed when it was first released. While the current ODs are far from perfect, things back then weren't so rosy either.

Well dang, the increased duration is something I actually forgot about. The overdrive I'm asking for is one that charges up in 142 seconds, gives the boosted effect to all the teammates near you, acts as if you're activating a regular supply or acts as if you already have a supply activated but you collect a box to reset the time, and whatever else I said I'd rather have. If this were the OD everyone had, I wouldn't see any problems.

Yeah, but it's come to my realization that people only rely on ODs to win. They don't actually use skill most of the time. Imagine a Siege battle, and one team has 4 Titans, that's a lot of immortality and a lot of easy kills to recharge the shield again. Even 2 Titans are bad. If you got attacking wasps on Assault, your defending team that's crammed into one spot will easily be blown to bits. Same goes for a Viking who has a splash damage weapon like Thunder. Hoppers use their jump hacks so that they won't die when capturing the flag, because they're so low on hp, they're vulnerable, not like speed made up for that, or their sideways movements. They rely on their ability to actually win a game. They can even stop people from taking the flag, stop a Hunter from using its OD, and all that is mixed with a high amount of burning. Might as well get the Fire Immunity alt for thousands of Tankcoins, right? ODs are bad enough, but add Augments and Drones, and you got yourself a player that doesn't rely on primary power to get a victory.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

30 minutes ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

If this were the OD everyone had, I wouldn't see any problems.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but I think that team-oriented ODs in general are bad for the game. It is impossible to force players to work as a team. Furthermore, you cannot choose who your teammates are. Introducing a mechanic that greatly rewards cooperation results in extremely lopsided matches. If your teammates cooperate, you will be able to exploit that mechanic to steamroll the other team. If the players on your team don't work together, your team will be steamrolled. It is possible to argue that that is how it should be - the more cohesive team should win. But by how large a margin? Giving a small reward for teamwork results in overall more competitive (and therefore more fun) matches, as the better organized team will have a smaller advantage. Giving an excessive reward for teamwork (such as Zero Supply) results in blowout matches, where the more organized team absolutely dominates the other. In a game where you cannot choose your teammates the former option is more desirable. I don't want to get obliterated just because my teammates can't group up together to press a button.

42 minutes ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

Yeah, but it's come to my realization that people only rely on ODs to win.

ODs are now an integral game mechanic like any other. Strategically using your OD in my opinion is comparable to timing your shots, movement, etc.

[Picassoo 191]

13 hours ago, Emeraldcat345 said:

Drones that should get deleted: All of them

AP Augments: Deleted

Hull Augments: Deleted

OD's: Deleted and reverted back to the Zero Supply OD

Gauss: Super Balance

Hulls: Differentiate them from hp and speed

Gauss EMP Augment: Delete

Mk-System: Deleted and reverted back to the old M-System

Skins/Shot Effects: Return each skin that belonged to each modification(M0-M3) as well as their shot effects.

Hover Hulls: Deleted, or converted into tracked hulls and have a similar design to the other hulls. Also, delete Crusader. 

With these things taken into affect, I believe the game will start getting better again.

I'll be even more radical by saying that Magnum should be deleted, protection modules as well and there should be no OD at all.

IK protection modules have been part of the game since pretty much the beginning, but they have no positive impact on the game while causing balance issues and the need to constantly change equipment. Even worse now when you can use any set of protection modules you like.

[wolverine848 13,097]

11 hours ago, ThirdOnion said:

Also note that Dictator's OD charges the ODs of your teammates. So if that feature were to be kept, a team could have several ODs ready to go at any given moment.

I don't see them ever going back to all ODs = Zero Supply    BUT...

If they ever did I doubt they would include the recharge function.  I don't think the original had that - it was added to beef it up as it was weak compared to most other ODs.

[EmeraldCat 562]

11 hours ago, wolverine848 said:

I don't see them ever going back to all ODs = Zero Supply    BUT...

If they ever did I doubt they would include the recharge function.  I don't think the original had that - it was added to beef it up as it was weak compared to most other ODs.

The reason I didn't mention the fact that the charge feature shouldn't be added if we reverted back to Zero Supplies, is because currently, Dictators can't recharge other Dictators, and back then, I don't think Zero Supply recharged other Zero Supplies. Either I thought that there was no point in mentioning it, or I didn't give a full response.

They definitely would never add the recharge feature if everyone had Zero Supplies. 

[EmeraldCat 562]

17 hours ago, Picassoo said:

I'll be even more radical by saying that Magnum should be deleted, protection modules as well and there should be no OD at all.

IK protection modules have been part of the game since pretty much the beginning, but they have no positive impact on the game while causing balance issues and the need to constantly change equipment. Even worse now when you can use any set of protection modules you like.

The modules bring more strategy to the game, the current ones that is. The way I see it, I don't put on a specific Module depending on the enemies, I use the same 3 for every game. Mainly because my main 3 turrets are Firebird, Vulcan, and Shaft, I can have 3 protections just for those. There's no need to change modules in the middle of the game just because someone is kicking your butt.

I'd rather have Magnum then a turret that has 7 features from other turrets already in the game. As long as we don't have more artillery turrets in the game, I see Magnum as a worthy turret for Tanki Online.