Some opinions from players of eleven years

[SAO-Kirito 17]

I'm not feeling well recently, please forgive me for the English something translated by Google. My Tanki ID is SAO-Kirito, and I'm a small uploader of Bilibili in China is named “花火繁星”as well（Bilibili is the largest video company for the young in China）.After suffering from continuous chaos in "3dtank" (tanki online in China) for a year (where there are many hackers with a high probability of not being Banned, and only updated once a year), many Pro players in China and I came to the international server in 2020 . We bear high international payment fees and high cross-border network fees, which are no less than the cost of 20KTankoins a year. In this year, I got almost all the legendary Augments, all the Shot Effects, and the only new SP skin in my Exotic option in Tanker's Day's ultra containers. I got all of them by completing tasks and purchasing moderately. However, from August last year to the present, I have witnessed many disaster-level updates while making many pleasant changes. On October 29th, I witnessed the destruction of the strongest Hornet; after updating the critical damage effect, I witnessed the further demise of Railgun after the loss of Hornet; late last night, I dragged my exhausted body, turned on the VPN and prepared to watch Tanki Online news to alleviate the headache caused to me, and finally I saw the update news that made me desperate. Today, there was a Mk8 9999GS Railgun who worked very hard and hits every shot. But he can only cause 115.5 points of damage to me almost every time, so that I even don't use Repair Kit for 30 seconds (I have Armadillo Module, Falcon Module and Defender-20). In the eyes of Pro players, this part of the changes you made is very inconsistent with the balance of the game, especially the great weakening of Hornet once rashly, and this time the "cleaning" of the long-range turret. The long-range ability of the long-range turret was originally obtained by them with a low DPS! It shouldn't be so severely weakened, especially Railgun（900 to 700, 1600 to 1310??? are you kidding me?）. "Each version weakens Railgun" is not a simple complaint. When updating the critical damage before, you simply changed the laser's minimum damage to normal damage, and the maximum damage to crit damage. Anyone who knows a little bit of statistics knows that it has weakened more than a little bit! Why do many people often say "Bring it back!" In fact, many of the updates in the past few years are not very perfect, but many people did not mention it. They just think that the game is getting more and more strange, so they gave up tanki online. Therefore, I sincerely initiate a request. Please don't make inexplicable adjustments that are very large. Please listen carefully to the opinions of Pro players who understand the balance of the game. (Actually, I have thought about many solutions, if you want to know the details, you can email me.)

[Spy 14,759]

Topic moved.

[PirateSpider 1,491]

3 hours ago, SAO-Kirito said:

Railgun（900 to 700, 1600 to 1310??? are you kidding me?）. "Each version weakens Railgun" is not a simple complaint.

Yep, it was a bad move. All their reasons to support the nerf has either failed to hold water, or there were better solutions.

[tanksargent2 9]

      This is going to be long. Moreover somewhere between 8-10 years worth of complaining, I'm afraid. This is going to be both a complaint and a review of some aspects that I think are important to note about the topic I want to discuss: the Railgun.

       I don't know much about statistics, but I do carry a bag of 10+ years of experience in this game that I think let me talk about what I think is not right in the game right now. I've been playing Tanki Online since 2010, and regarding my personal favorite turret, the Railgun, it has never been the same since the paint/protection split. The pseudo buffs it received in the form of augments and critical damage were good for some time, and maybe OP if we factor in other mechanics like Hornet's OD before its rework or some augments combined with the Booster Drone (what turret has not had it's OP time?); but even so, I believe Railgun has barely seen regular use in high ranked battles outside of those peaks and particularly not in serious battles. It just can't deal enough damage to be considered for mid or close-range play, even though it has, and I emphasize, augments that have made that playstyle viable in the past with this turret. Nowadays it's one of the, if not the most, hit-and-run turrets in the game, which forces the player to be much more cautious when using the turret than with most, if not all, other turrets in the game, and probably consider using it only in not just big maps, but very big ones, so that they can find a spot from where to shoot and not get hit that easily. Not because of their hull's defensive capabilities, but because of the lack of Railgun's offensive ones. That raises the question: why use a turret with inconsistent results and an unclear purpose in this meta (2016-2021) (more on that later), when there are several more that do its job better, require less effort and have a clearer niche?

      Just as @SAO-Kirito , I find myself unable to replicate the amazing K/Ds I used to do back in the day just out of skill with the Railgun, or even be of much help to my teammates when using the turret in most battles. Let me tell you this: no, it's not a matter of "getting better at the game", because I did nothing but improve and adapt to the changes every match I played since 2010, just like the rest of players, and I do think I know a lot about how to play with this turret and exploit its traits as much as possible. The problem is not us players not getting better or adapting, but the solution, ironically. I find it difficult to understand why nerfing turrets is always seen as the solution, or even hulls for that matter. So, let me expose the three major problems to the Railgun that I see with this patch:

               1) Before today, Railgun's base damage at MK7+ was 900 (although not so long ago it was not a fixed number either). So, in order to destroy medium tanks like Viking or Hunter (3000 HP at MK7+, without supplies up nor drone), 4 shots were required (leaving aside the critical damage and protections, that is). Now that it has been reduced to 700, the required number has raised to 5 (since 700 times 4 is 2800), and that comes into conflict with the statement made in the Forum under the title "Patch Update #661 - Released 3rd September 2021", which states (and I quote): "We've decided to decrease the damage of long-range turrets while keeping the number of shots needed to destroy a tank the same." What this implies is, first and foremost, that it is not true that (at least) Railgun keeps needing only 4 shots to destroy a medium hull, becasue the base HP of hulls has not been decreased. For heavy hulls, the same issue applies: at MK7+, Mammoth, Titan and Ares have 4000 HP, which means 5 shots were required to destroy such tanks (900*5= 4500), but now with the decrease from 900 to 700 that is no longer true, as 700 times 5 is 3500 and thus is 500 points short. So, for heavy hulls, now the minimum shots required is 6. It does suffice for light hulls as their maximum HP is 2000, but not if they have a drone equipped to boost their defense by more than 100 HP points, which would then mean that instead of 3 shots, 4 shots would be required to destroy light hulls as well (700*3=2100, but if hull + defense boost is 2101+, then it's 4 shots or more). So now, in order to deal those 200 HP required to destroy a medium hull or 500 for a heavy hull, we need to do it through either supplies or augments. I am not going to plunge into that pool, but any player with several hours invested into the game knows how unlikely it is to find an opponent with either no protection module from Railgun, no defense boost up, not enough MUs invested in the hull, no drone (or sufficiently MUed), etc., not to mention everything at once. That is rather unreal and quite the opposite: more than 50% of the opponent's team is filled with protection modules for Railgun usually (40-45% protection, if not more), Defender Drones everywhere, supplies always up (as it is to be expected), etc. So I think it is safe to assume that in most cases not even 5 shots will suffice to destroy an opponent (in a 1 vs 1 scenario, that is), which renders Railgun less viable for mid and close-range combat even if we now took into account all the augments and boosts available to it in the game, since other hulls and turrets have them too and can make better use of them under the same circumstances. I believe what the developers meant to say was that, for lower ranks, he decrease in damage for long-range turrets would not affect how many shots were required to destroy opposing tanks, though I haven't made the calculations for that. But this leads me to the next issue:

 

               2) First-Aid supply. So, say I am right about the patch and it was intended for lower ranks. Let's keep with the 4 shot requirement to destroy an opposing hull with Railgun for now. So, imagine I just shot that tank three times, and I am about to shoot for the fourth time, which should ensure the kill, right? Well, if the opposing player decides to heal up, s/he will employ the First-Aid supply to heal back up to full... That is, until getting hit, in which case the supply stops healing the tank up. Well, I don't know for lower ranks, but for higher ranks, that extra damage that the turret can deal can come in clutch to destroy an opposing tank that has just healed with the First-Aid supply, given that we can't know exactly how many HP it healed and that all turrets now have fixed DPS. So, back to the hypothetical situation from before, now that the opposing tank has healed who knows how much, depending on how much time it took me to shoot the other tank and stop the healing process (with that 4th shot, that is), now instead of say 1 additional shot to ensure the kill, I may need 2 because the opposing tank healed up from 200 HP left to 800 HP (as I said, we can't know the exact amount, the current HP are not displayed on screen), and given that now my Railgun can't deal more than 700 HP per shot (again, this is hypothetical, no drones nor supplies involved), I am forced to shoot 2 additional shots to finally ensure the kill, which I might not achieve because 6 shots is already too many shots to destroy a tank for turrets like the Railgun, and even though it doesn't charge that slowly, that only applies for the first 2 to 3 shots, but not for 6. It is quite clear to me that dealing 3600 HP damage with 4 shots to a Viking is more likely to require 1 or 2 additional shots to ensure a kill after a First-Aid supply than dealing 3500 HP damage with 5 shots and the First-Aid supply, which will most likely mean 7 to 8 shots total if played correctly with no external interventions.

 

               3) 50% protection is too much. For any turret. To combat the overwhelming (defensive) power of this combo, that is, Defender Drone +50% protection module (which I dare say is the worst enemy for the Railgun player) and other defensive upgrades to various mechanics in the game, other turrets gained extra tools over the past years like (excessive) critical damage that conveniently overcome the effect of the drone (namely Freeze and Firebird), reworking their shooting speed or receiving augments that shut down all supllies at once (Gauss was the first I believe) and thus neglecting the drone's effect or any supply activated for that matter. The Railgun has received some augments that looked good on paper, but even the developers had to rework them because they were underwhelming in power compared to other augments for Railgun and even other turrets. In addition, the addition of new modules such as the Armadillo and AP Immunity counter too well the most viable options for Railgun to deal damage in my opinion, that is, with the newly added Super-Armor Piercing Rounds augment (which adds a 40% boost to the base damage in addition to the armor-piercing effect), and the Large Caliber Rounds and the Round Destabilization augments, which all give a boost to the base damage and also increase the damage per critical shot. If we talk about my personal favorite, the Electromagnetic "accelerator" Scout augment, whose description goes like this: "this modification will help you in dynamic one-on-one battles" and whose purpose is to enable Railgun as a medium-close range weapon, if with the aforementioned defensive combo it was already impossible to beat any opponent equipped with it one on one, now with the reduction in base power it will likely be even more difficult to deal with other combos that were not as difficult to deal with for Railgun, despite the faster reload time compared to the rest of augments for it. From my perspective, I think the 50% protection modules are one of the sources of the problem with the imbalance in the game, and I think that should get a nerf too, say from 50% to 30-35% (with its corresponing turret damage adjustments, of course).

 

     Now, strictly talking about my performance with Railgun, I admit I still make memorable plays and end up very high at the end of the match sometimes, wether lost or won. But that doesn't alter the fact that, in comparison, it is much easier to use and earn points (and win matches for that matter) in any playmodes with turrets such as Hammer, Magnum, Shaft or Ricochet than Railgun. And the gap is wide enough to come to the Forum myself (not that I feel more important than other people) and join other players in the complaint about the management of all aspects regarding this turret. I could also add a word or two for Thunder, because I think its nerf has also been significant, but I think Railgun got it worse (until developers decide to release a protection module against splash damage, of course). However, I understand, as a defeated-by-railgun player myself, that had the game less tools to deal with the Railgun, even though I just complained it has been nerfed too much and is not viable in high level matches, the turret could become broken because, if it wasn't clear, it does have the tools to be great and deal the damage it used to (when it was much more popular, back when, you guessed it, modules and paints were tied together), but that could cause serious imbalance issues given that 900 base damage (what we've had up until now for a while) is quite high for a long-range turret that does not recharge that slowly barring any modifications in that parameter from augments. With the Electromagnetic Scout, for instance, as it has no damage reduction, dealing 1800 HP damage every less than 3 seconds or so is definitely difficult to defeat, and a skilfull player could and would exploit that fact and it would be the other way round: Railgun being too strong and difficult to play against.

     Unfortunately, even if we factor in the drones such as the Booster one and augments that increase the raw damage of the turret, that number is unlikely to go higher because the 50% protection module(s) and boosts to the defense such as that from the Defender Drone impede such increase in power, which is fine as long as it doesn't go too far... But I believe that is the case, because on top of putting a stop to the potential of being too broken for the game (which is reasonable), these two (although not restricted to these) measures reduce Railgun's power so much that it now doesn't stand a chance in most matchups without a lot of support from drones, supplies and/or teammates, in addition of higher skill level from the player. Now that is a real lack of balance for a turret that is barely seen in others. For instance, Gauss does not suffer (as much?) from this, nor does Magnum. Shaft can be dealt with with 50% protection modules too when it comes to mid-close range combat, since the alterations that let it function in those scenarios do allow it to deal extra damage in exchange for higher shot reload time or shoot faster in exchange for more energy consumption, but for now it is still viable to use these long-range turrets in mid to close-range play as there are many turrets to protect from and a skilfull player will know how to use them more efficiently in either small, medium or big maps (if ever using them if the matchup is not favorable to their use). As for Railgun, I'm afraid skill is not only a must to make the most out of it, but also not enough to be consistent. Certain conditions have to be met, such as not more than 50% (actually 30% or so should be the percentage in my opinion) of opponents having 40-50% protection from Railgun, one's gear being slightly to way more upgraded than theirs, or simply have luck and fill in the match like a glove due to circumstances like the  lack of opponents you would most likely face over and over over the course of the battle (say Shafts, Gausses or Magnums, given that they are long-range turrets too).

     If, as I mentioned, there were not enough tools available to control Railgun's power and/or the opponent player were not equipped with enough defensive tools against it (although that could happen in the current state of affairs too), Railgun could potentially be broken. Nonetheless, I still believe there is no reason to apply such high defensive measures against it, because they certainly do not only put Railgun below other turrets in terms of viability, but also force many players to switch to other turrets like Shaft or Gauss, that serve similar purposes to the Railgun, but are not the Railgun. Also, the addition of new alterations only obtainable via Ultra Containers such as the Cryo Rounds and EMP Rounds seem to be of some help in slowing down enemies that may be running away with the flag or carrying the rugby ball and igniting opponents to defeat them more easily without the need of too many shots, but honestly that is a rather very specific purpose that other turrets (Freeze, Firebird, Vulcan) do better, and besides the measures against these strategies are widely spread because they are common and effective, so it is also hard to justify the use of these alterations over the ones that just increase damage overall and may be more helpful in achieving a better K/D ratio at the end of the day.

 

     Now of course not all players have all the tools to deal with the Railgun, or every turret for that matter, at their disposal, I know that. Also, this game is not only about 1 vs 1 all the time, nor facing tanks from full HP around every corner. But often times, that is the case, and we always need to make our predictions, moves and attacks based on the premise that our opponent is at full HP, with full use of all his/her supplies, so that we don't take the kill for granted and play to the best of our ability. Also, it is not fair to face an opponent with (much more) upgraded gear in comparison to yours either, right? And we can't just rely on facing players that will just not use drugs for some reason, always target light hulls from long distances, play the biggest maps possible or rely on our opponents having significantly worse gear than us or just being unprepared to resist Railgun's damage suitably. These are all some of the measures I myself had to (and still have to) use in order to either have fun, be of help to my teammates in some way or just earn as many points as possible for, say, completing daily/weekly/special missions and challenges if Railgun is my turret of choice. And that is not the way I want to play with it, because it just is not fun, not useful, and most certainly not strategicall at all for the most part. So, to conclude, my complaint center around two main issues: for one, the measures to contain Railgun from becoming broken, which I think are too restrictive and counterproductive, as well as not doing any favors to both the balance of the game nor the player community, and for two, the excessive % of protection against all turrets, which I think does need a patch and possibly drones too, although we had a recent one for them too but I don't think on the right features.

 

Hopefully I didn't misunderstand any of the data I read and didn't embarrass myself writing this wall. Anyway, if anyone detects any errors in my argumentation or just wants to respond to it, please make constructive comments, not destructive ones :)

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by tanksargent2
Adding more information, rewriting

[wild001 1,424]

that is long post, basically tanki need making changes in order to keep game interesting.

I play tanki for 9 years, free player, but i got full garage maxed as well.
(of course, it take long time, but recent years much better crystal income compared to old years, it took me 9 yr for full Maxed garage/module/augment/paints, but it should have took around 4 yr for new players based on current double fund/double xp events)

I played 3dtank as well till WO2 (2 square rank) compared to my tanki legend 53 rank. because china server is not popular for tanki,
there is only 10 players in server after mid night, since all in china timezone, and no one player after 12am, while international server is always full of people on other side of earth awake. also less sale and events than international ones and their forum is dead one. so I dropped it.
--------------------------

I watch bilibili as well, as I read Chinese,
I would suggest you try new playing style, since you already has full garage with even more OP augment and criss drone.

I have been only using Railgun/Hornet from Start for 6years, only then switch to heavy hull and isida/twins (due to too many 1-shot-kill-hornet  guns --> old 1000 damage thunder/hammer/striker/shaft/magnum)

I changed from rail to guass, then guass to smoky, as right now, Smoky/Strike/Rico/Vulcan are still playable than Rail/Thunder/Magnum/Gauss.

(the only time I still use railgun is after I got AP railgun augment, as Defender drone kill railgun's long reload, in old days heavy calib rail can confirm 2-shot kill, but now you need AP/EMP gun to counter Defender drone users. so far, i got AP rail, EMP gauss, EMP smoky)
 

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by wild001

[wolverine848 13,097]

15 hours ago, tanksargent2 said:

1) Before today, Railgun's base damage at MK7+ was 900 (although not so long ago it was not a fixed number either). So, in order to destroy medium tanks like Viking or Hunter (3000 HP at MK7+, without supplies up nor drone), 4 shots were required (leaving aside the critical damage and protections, that is). Now that it has been reduced to 700, the required number has raised to 5 (since 700 times 4 is 2800), and that comes into conflict with the statement made in the Forum under the title "Patch Update #661 - Released 3rd September 2021", which states (and I quote): "We've decided to decrease the damage of long-range turrets while keeping the number of shots needed to destroy a tank the same." What this implies is, first and foremost, that it is not true that (at least) Railgun keeps needing only 4 shots to destroy a medium hull, becasue the base HP of hulls has not been decreased. For heavy hulls, the same issue applies: at MK7+, Mammoth, Titan and Ares have 4000 HP, which means 5 shots were required to destroy such tanks (900*5= 4500), but now with the decrease from 900 to 700 that is no longer true, as 700 times 5 is 3500 and thus is 500 points short. So, for heavy hulls, now the minimum shots required is 6. It does suffice for light hulls as their maximum HP is 2000, but not if they have a drone equipped to boost their defense by more than 100 HP points, which would then mean that instead of 3 shots, 4 shots would be required to destroy light hulls as well (700*3=2100, but if hull + defense boost is 2101+, then it's 4 shots or more). So now, in order to deal those 200 HP required to destroy a medium hull or 500 for a heavy hull, we need to do it through either supplies or augments. I am not going to plunge into that pool, but any player with several hours invested into the game knows how unlikely it is to find an opponent with either no protection module from Railgun, no defense boost up, not enough MUs invested in the hull, no drone (or sufficiently MUed), etc., not to mention everything at once. That is rather unreal and quite the opposite: more than 50% of the opponent's team is filled with protection modules for Railgun usually (40-45% protection, if not more), Defender Drones everywhere, supplies always up (as it is to be expected), etc. So I think it is safe to assume that in most cases not even 5 shots will suffice to destroy an opponent (in a 1 vs 1 scenario, that is), which renders Railgun less viable for mid and close-range combat even if we now took into account all the augments and boosts available to it in the game, since other hulls and turrets have them too and can make better use of them under the same circumstances. I believe what the developers meant to say was that, for lower ranks, he decrease in damage for long-range turrets would not affect how many shots were required to destroy opposing tanks, though I haven't made the calculations for that. But this leads me to the next issue:

How can you honestly ignore Critical hits in your analysis?

Railgun has one of the highest critical hit % in the game.  In most cases it did not take 4 shots to destroy a Viking.  Nor will it take 5 shots now.

And DD,  booster and status effects counter many of the defenses you bring up.

[TheCongoSpider 8,957]

25 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

How can you honestly ignore Critical hits in your analysis?

Railgun has one of the highest critical hit % in the game.  In most cases it did not take 4 shots to destroy a Viking.  Nor will it take 5 shots now.

And DD,  booster and status effects counter many of the defenses you bring up.

Maybe you'd like to actually use Railgun yourself for this one. It was hit pretty hard. While the other long range turrets retained their ability to oneshot enemies, Railgun's damage was reduced enough to need another shot to kill them when they're unprotected, which means much more time to kill them if they are protected. 

 

I can definitely understand the frustration they're having. 

[wolverine848 13,097]

Just now, TheCongoSpider said:

Maybe you'd like to actually use Railgun yourself for this one. It was hit pretty hard. While the other long range turrets retained their ability to oneshot enemies, Railgun's damage was reduced enough to need another shot to kill them when they're unprotected, which means much more time to kill them if they are protected. 

 

I can definitely understand the frustration they're having. 

So... you're gonna ignore the fact the analysis ignored one of the key components to Rail as well?

The entire paragraph I quoted was based on false facts.

[TheCongoSpider 8,957]

3 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

So... you're gonna ignore the fact the analysis ignored one of the key components to Rail as well?

The entire paragraph I quoted was based on false facts.

I don't see anything wrong with the paragraph you quoted. He's right, from. my perspective. 

[wolverine848 13,097]

3 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

I don't see anything wrong with the paragraph you quoted. He's right, from. my perspective. 

On the number of shots required?  Seriously?

[TheCongoSpider 8,957]

1 hour ago, wolverine848 said:

On the number of shots required?  Seriously?

Yes. He's talking about equal footing there and mostly with the norm damage. I'm unsure if you read this post in the Tanker's Day topic, so I'll show it here, the interaction changes that occurred with Railgun:

 

On 9/2/2021 at 11:18 AM, TheCongoSpider said:

It does appear that Railgun was hit fruitfully hard with this. 

 

• Scout will no longer be able to 2-shot medium hulls (good or bad change depending on who you ask) 
• Stock will no longer be able to oneshot medium hulls (which was the only reason you'd use it over Scout) 
• Round Stabilisation's damage will now be below 1,000 damage, as if it wasn't suffering enough against Railgun modules
• Hyperspace won't be able to make good use of its gimmick anymore, repeating the same with Round Stabilisation above
• Round Destabilisation will be even worse than it already was 
• Large Calibre Rounds will be even more garbage, but it will gain a niche where it will be one of the two only Railgun augments with the ability to oneshot medium hulls after the change
• Cryo Railgun, after finally not being garbage for a week, is back where it started, once again being powercrept by the other status augments. 
• Adrenaline will no longer do anything for it besides allowing it to 2-shot unprotected medium hulls with the normal damage when it is at half HP. Key word being unprotected. Many players still religiously use Railgun protection at endgame it seems. 

 

 

Shaft's nerf is more or less negligible since even before the buff, it was already too potent at lower ranks. Adrenaline easily solves the nerfed critical damage. 

 

I do find it reassuring though, that they're addressing the TTK currently, as it has been becoming too short recently especially with the ranged turrets. 

The important interaction changes to look at are for Scout, Round Stabilisation and Hyperspace. Scout embodies what is good about Railgun. It had high enough damage to make it a menace to unprotected players with the increased firing rate and would act as a fast forward button for Railgun's critical hit scheme, the same way Autocannon used to do to for Stock Smoky. As you know, the majority of Railgun's shots deal normal damage. When Railgun's damage was nerfed in the Patch, it was nerfed enough in the normal damage to reduce it to below 750, which creates a barrier for Railgun. It will no longer be able to 2-shot unprotected medium hulls, but more importantly, it will now take significantly longer to kill players when you start stacking damage reducers (DA and Falcon). 

 

Round Stabilisation and Hyperspace going below 1,000 damage is very bad. They take away their critical hits, and don't even gain anything from it now. It takes 3 hits to take down a light hull with RS and Hyperspace on equal footing. Now add a maxed Falcon, and that turns into 9 hits. Why 9 hits? Because repair kits exist. After the 4th shot when the light hull is nearly dead, they can use a repair kit to start the entire process over again, this is of course, not taking into account the fact that DD is only 30 seconds, temporary. 

 

To give a clearer example, take Shaft. Lets assume the nerf to Shaft in the patch reduced its maximum sniping damage from 3,300 to 2,900. It's fighting a medium hull with 50% Shaft protection and DA. It needs 3 sniping shots to kill the target with DD. After the 2nd sniping shot, the medium hull uses a repair kit and restarts the process. It now will take double the time to kill it. Why? Because the damage nerf created a barrier. It did not deal 3,000/1,500 damage. This allows the player to survive significantly longer against this turret simply because of this barrier. 

 

Because Gauss, Magnum. and Shaft still are able to deal 1,500/3,000 damage, this is not a big problem for them. But it is a huge problem for Railgun and I sympathise with those affected. 

[2shots2kills 2,367]

18 hours ago, tanksargent2 said:

50% protection is too much. For any turret.

 

I think the 50% protection modules are one of the sources of the problem with the imbalance in the game, and I think that should get a nerf too, say from 50% to 30-35% (with its corresponing turret damage adjustments, of course).

I am an old player as well (2011) and I always said the same thing. 50% is just too much, and causes a lot of problems in the balance department of the game.

Turrets become useless against 50%, and the devs are forced to make drastic decisions to improve them. 

Prot should go no higher than 30%, an overall damage should be decreased. You can't be killed in 1-2 seconds with a tank, it's absurd.

[wolverine848 13,097]

53 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

He's talking about equal footing there and mostly with the norm damage.

It's like discounting smoky's critical and saying smoky suks because it takes 4 shots to kill a light hull and is terrible at long range because of the damage drop-off.

If only smoky's avg damamge was higher than 535 and it had some mechanism to bring up it's long-range damage.  If only...

 

No one has to use the augments - they are optional.  I don't use auto-cannon since it received a double-nerf.

And many think Scout needed a nerf anyway - it was arguably quite OP.

 

As for comparison to a hypothetical shaft nerf - apples to oranges. Damage IS shafts only saving grace.  They ambush and kill.  Or not.  Rail can move around a lot better than a sniping shaft, and use it's high impact to help it for the next shot. It does not rely just on one shot.  At least it should not be.

Edited September 4, 2021 by wolverine848

[wolverine848 13,097]

30 minutes ago, 2shots2kills said:

I am an old player as well (2011) and I always said the same thing. 50% is just too much, and causes a lot of problems in the balance department of the game.

Turrets become useless against 50%, and the devs are forced to make drastic decisions to improve them. 

Prot should go no higher than 30%, an overall damage should be decreased. You can't be killed in 1-2 seconds with a tank, it's absurd.

I beg to differ.  Happens in every battle.

Booster.  DD.  many ODs. AP.  EMP.  Stun.  Freeze.  Burning. Critical hits which... negate that 50% module you are worried about.

All of the above contribute immensely to the destruction of tanks.  Tanks get destroyed faster today than they did 4 years ago.

Edited September 4, 2021 by wolverine848

[2shots2kills 2,367]

12 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

I beg to differ.  Happens in every battle.

Booster.  DD.  many ODs. AP.  EMP.  Stun.  Freeze.  Burning. Critical hits which... negate that 50% module you are worried about.

All of the above contribute immensely to the destruction of tanks.  Tanks get destroyed faster today than they did 4 years ago.

That's exactly what I said, that being killed in 1-2 seconds it's absurd.

[wolverine848 13,097]

23 minutes ago, 2shots2kills said:

That's exactly what I said, that being killed in 1-2 seconds it's absurd.

Sorry... thought you meant it never happens. My bad. 

[TheCongoSpider 8,957]

3 hours ago, wolverine848 said:

As for comparison to a hypothetical shaft nerf - apples to oranges. Damage IS shafts only saving grace.  They ambush and kill.  Or not.  Rail can move around a lot better than a sniping shaft, and use it's high impact to help it for the next shot. It does not rely just on one shot.  At least it should not be.

You're missing the point, which I tried to convey by reducing Shaft's damage below 3,000. The other long range turrets have one-shot potential, Railgun does not. That is the problem occurring with Railgun. This lack of one-shot capability is why the complaints are so loud. The survivability against a Railgun has significantly increased while nothing much changed for the other 3 turrets at endgame. 

[wolverine848 13,097]

2 hours ago, TheCongoSpider said:

You're missing the point, which I tried to convey by reducing Shaft's damage below 3,000. The other long range turrets have one-shot potential, Railgun does not. That is the problem occurring with Railgun. This lack of one-shot capability is why the complaints are so loud. The survivability against a Railgun has significantly increased while nothing much changed for the other 3 turrets at endgame. 

I like how you've changed to the topic from...

"his post completely ignores critical so the number of shots required is not accurate"

to

"Rail can't one-shot enemies like shaft (and others can)"

 

For the record I would have been fine with Rail damage staying the same, so long as the Critical % was lowered a bit.  And for Scouts stinking impact to get lowered - having a quick reload should result in a penalty to impact (see auto-cannon for example).

Edited September 5, 2021 by wolverine848

[PirateSpider 1,491]

33 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

I like how you've changed to the topic from...

"his post completely ignores critical so the number of shots required is not accurate"

to

"Rail can't one-shot enemies like shaft (and others can)"

 

For the record I would have been fine with Rail damage staying the same, so long as the Critical % was lowered a bit.  And for Scouts stinking impact to get lowered - having a quick reload should result in a penalty to impact (see auto-cannon for example).

Scout should not only deal less impact but also less damage.

[G-92 104]

6 hours ago, 2shots2kills said:

50% is just too much, and causes a lot of problems in the balance department of the game.

Turrets become useless against 50%, and the devs are forced to make drastic decisions to improve them.

I think you and a lot of others are missing a rather large point. It's not protection modules that are the problem, it's the pathetic Crit hits, emp, overdrives, stun, that have ruined the game, the list is endless. All of these have butchered the game and the devs create these problems (imbalances) deliberately, to coax more cash out of players.

In essence the biggest problem with TO are in fact the devs, but seeing as TO belongs to them they can do with it what they like, which is a big problem for the players.

There greed has no limits, so unfortunately TO will continue to fluctuate regarding what is OP. Once that OP item has lost it's monetary value the devs create another OP item and the vicious, greedy cycle starts all over again.

They have obliterated the dilatory augment for tesla and that has only been out for a short time and yet the flying hack remains untouched, (the nerf it got was pathetic) and still dominates cap modes.

My opinion regarding TO is that it is 100% P2W with no thought whatsoever given to balance. When the devs do mention the word balance, it really means there after more cash and so use it as a way of justifying their next OP cash update. 

[Vigour 12]

The game has been in complete disarray ever since the introduction of overdrives. 

 

I know there are mixed opinions about overdrives but as a whole, it completely changed gameplay into a crazy game of 'wait-until-my-overdrive-charge-is-full-so-I-can-instantly-destroy-you'.

 

The other day, I was playing, and I was SHOCKED at the number of paints, skins and shot colors? also at the fact that there is a new modification system.

 

Paints which are supposed to be unique are now nothing. a few of the paints look so similar they may as well be the same. I really miss having a smaller amount of paints which had value, instead of a large cache of paints that mean nothing anymore.

 

I loved the old colors of M1/M2/M3 turrets, even more the different textures. When you save up to buy something, you actually feel the achievement as you proudly show your modification to other players in battle.

Now, its all the same and indifferent. I don't even see a point anymore to upgrade, since, as I said before, a M0/Mk1 or whatever its called, can use an overdrive to instantly kill a M1/M2, or Mk3/Mk4.

 

Lets think about this: players used to be upset at the paint seperation update, well, the overdrive update is 1000x worse. I don't know where they got this idea but Tanki is much better off without it. 

This game used to be about skill and persistance. Now its just crazy, and completely unbalanced. When you look at the map, it is so messy that a billion things are going on at the same time, and I am extremely confused by everything that is happening. 

Is this really what became of my favourite game?

[Vigour 12]

3 hours ago, G-92 said:

I think you and a lot of others are missing a rather large point. It's not protection modules that are the problem, it's the pathetic Crit hits, emp, overdrives, stun, that have ruined the game, the list is endless. All of these have butchered the game and the devs create these problems (imbalances) deliberately, to coax more cash out of players.

In essence the biggest problem with TO are in fact the devs, but seeing as TO belongs to them they can do with it what they like, which is a big problem for the players.

There greed has no limits, so unfortunately TO will continue to fluctuate regarding what is OP. Once that OP item has lost it's monetary value the devs create another OP item and the vicious, greedy cycle starts all over again.

They have obliterated the dilatory augment for tesla and that has only been out for a short time and yet the flying hack remains untouched, (the nerf it got was pathetic) and still dominates cap modes.

My opinion regarding TO is that it is 100% P2W with no thought whatsoever given to balance. When the devs do mention the word balance, it really means there after more cash and so use it as a way of justifying their next OP cash update. 

I agree completely with everything you have said; I just came back to the game after quite a while of inactivity, and the presence of new content is INSANE - and not good content either. I don't understand what a stun is, or critical hits, or emps... the list goes on.

I don't understand why they made the game this complicated.

I really miss the old simplicity of Tanki Online, which has now been turned into a hot mess that seems only to get worse

[2shots2kills 2,367]

6 hours ago, G-92 said:

I think you and a lot of others are missing a rather large point. It's not protection modules that are the problem, it's the pathetic Crit hits, emp, overdrives, stun, that have ruined the game, the list is endless. All of these have butchered the game and the devs create these problems (imbalances) deliberately, to coax more cash out of players.

I think you did not read any of my posts in this forum in the last few years. I have been criticizing all the awful updates since the rebalance of 2012.

I am not missing anything, I am perfectly aware that this game is nothing more than a hot mess at this point.

 

[tanksargent2 9]

On 9/4/2021 at 5:30 PM, wolverine848 said:

How can you honestly ignore Critical hits in your analysis?

Railgun has one of the highest critical hit % in the game.  In most cases it did not take 4 shots to destroy a Viking.  Nor will it take 5 shots now.

And DD,  booster and status effects counter many of the defenses you bring up.

Well first of all, thank you guys for reading the long post. In response to this, I ignored many other aspects that would make a 1 on 1 Railgun-vs-X-turret not necessarily a 4-5 shot KO on purpose for the sake of making it as standard as possible. Is it a real scenario though? Well obviously not, that is true, but I made as simplified as possible because even if we factored in everything else that affects, I repeat, a 1 on 1 with Railgun, I don't think it gets any better than I depicted. And, to make it clear if I didn't properly, it was all about 1 on 1 scenarios, since as I said Railgun has many tools now that make it more of a support turret in certain situations, namely those freezing-burning, EMP and Stun augments, but it used to be a turret you could capture flags with, just make insane K/Ds with some skill and not just clicking a button like Tesla or Magnum back in the day, and other things now it can no longer do in most situations.

You say Railgun has "one of the highest critical hit % in the game", which is true, but I think that is not the reason why you can claim that "in most cases it did not take 4 shots to destroy a Viking. Nor will it take 5 shots now". I see up to three major reasons why:

1) the enemy you targeted had already received damage, if you didn't pick it because you KNEW it had received damage and thus you could potentially kill it before the 4-5 shots required;

2) two, the target you picked, assuming you were seaching for targets from a safe spot and not searching for a different spot because you were low on HP and just bumped into an enemy, was most likely a medium-light tank, because they have less HP overall and therefore the 50% modules do not give them as much protection as it would to heavier tanks;    

3) and three, because there are teammates nearby and you expect them to also focus their target on that same opponent once you open fire or just come by, which is not how a 1 on 1 situation should unfold.

Now tell me, is this the only way a turret should work like? I mean, using Railgun, how many times do you find yourself moving forward when encountering an enemy that is facing you? Usually you shoot and hide in order to wait until you've charged your next shot, and then try to shoot and throw your opponent off so that you gain extra time to charge a third shot and so on until you get the kill, but if we take into account all other mechanics in the game, supplies, drones and so, do you honestly think you can have the upper hand? Because let me tell you, even with a fully upgraded Railgun and Viking, and 40% protection from a Ricochet, and even him/her having 3/4 of HP remaining, I still lose to a Ricochet giving my best more than 50% of the times. To me, this is my everyday experience with Railgun, except for those matches where for some reason people don't carry the Falcon module and it becomes much, much easier to get a very good K/D (which, let me clear, is NOT a demand nor do I think would help balance the game at all).

If we look at past mehcanics, there was Railgun + Hornet's OD and it was busted, but not impenetrable nor unplayable, and still outside of that combo, it was still difficult to perform good to excellent in any given match given everything we have said so far affects it's viability. As for the counter measures you mentioned, yes they do help reduce the critical damage from Raligun, but to what extent? Do you think the right one? Let's put it this way: when there are multiple targets you can pick, do you pick the ones with double defense up or the ones without it? From an instinctive perspective, in your mind you pick them in order, first the one you can kill first, and then either fight the rest if you feel you can take them down by yourself or try to escape safely. What I mean is, not all those counter measures apply at once often times. For example, let's say we have the EMP Rounds augment equipped, and the opponent does not have the Defender Drone either equipped or active. Okay, but s/he can still have the EMP Immunity, or both, which is not that uncommon either, which in turn leaves your chances of defeating your opponent entirely to your raw damage and maybe the OD, which adds insult to the injury, not to mention s/he might also have the almost obligatory 45-50% protection module equipped. Now what? Do you still want to go on 1 on 1 with this opponent? I don't even think the throw off move will save you in this case. And there are more examples of you being in disadvantge just because of the fact that Railgun now does not deal enough damage to even consider going in 1 on 1s, and not having the ability to also work in 1 on 1s is already a handicap other long-range turrets do not have and thus makes it a handicap itself to use Railgun over something like Gauss or Shaft in most cases.

All these reasons do not apply for, say, a Ricochet, since they can just attack recklessly and more often than not still get 1 or 2 kills before going down, which is far less likely to happen for a Railgun even with the Scout augment now. These two turrets serve different purposes, but the Scout augment allows Railgun to just go forward and attack opposing tanks from closer distances thanks to it's higher shot reload like Ricochet or Twins would do, but it's no use if the damage output is not enough to kill the opponent before s/he kills you. Also, most augments do not give enough critical chance boost nor critical boost to justify using Railgun and expect to get a kill under 4-5 shots, at least in my opinion. Besides, it does not shoot fast enough to even feel right to rely on the critical damage to get the kill before going down or just getting it and survive the encounter outside of the Scout augment, which actually reduces the critical damage by 40%...

When it's DPS was 900, it was kind of okay as other people mentioned with the Scout or Destabilization rounds, maybe for the rest of augments too, and maybe they needed a slight nerf in critical damage or raw damage or something, but now that it is 700 DPS and also the critical damage itself has been reduced too, I see no big difference in taking the critical damage into account for this. Besides, remember there is still the Armadillo module, which I'm pretty sure I mentioned and that it is gradually becoming more popular and seen equipped in other players, as one would expect, which basically makes the idea of using Railgun based on the premise it will get a kill under 4-5 shots thanks to its critical hits not true (nor a thing) in most cases. Relying on critical hits won't get you anywhere because of the Defender Drone, the Armadillo module, Repair Kits and 50% protection amongst others, which is a fairly common combo in high ranked battles. I keep putting it in bold because, as I mentioned in my previous post, I do think this patch was made to solve the problem of brokenness or imbalance in lower ranks, but it does no good for higher ranks.

 

On 9/4/2021 at 8:22 PM, wolverine848 said:

It's like discounting smoky's critical and saying smoky suks because it takes 4 shots to kill a light hull and is terrible at long range because of the damage drop-off.

If only smoky's avg damamge was higher than 535 and it had some mechanism to bring up it's long-range damage.  If only...

 

No one has to use the augments - they are optional.  I don't use auto-cannon since it received a double-nerf.

And many think Scout needed a nerf anyway - it was arguably quite OP.

 

As for comparison to a hypothetical shaft nerf - apples to oranges. Damage IS shafts only saving grace.  They ambush and kill.  Or not.  Rail can move around a lot better than a sniping shaft, and use it's high impact to help it for the next shot. It does not rely just on one shot.  At least it should not be.

Referring back to the Smoky example, if one decides to use it with the Autocannon augment, the moment there are two or three players with the Armadillo module in the opposing team, depending on the map, teammates and other factors, a player could probably feel forced to change either augment or turret, and being forced to play with something other than what you wanted because the match simply won't let you kill anyone to me is a clear sign of imbalance. Not to mention if there are 50% protections, Defender Drones, or even good/bad team support. Is it really impossible to, instead of literally not being able to break through such defenses at all on your own, make it just difficult and skill-requiring? Because it does seem possible to me to make a few changes in some turrets and protections to make that viable, which in turn would help balance things a bit more.

As for the "No one has to use augments - they are optional", tell me, do you think there are turrets that are viable in high ranked battles without augments? Maybe the Twins, the Freeze? Smoky? Well they would be good or better without them if, at least from my perspective, protections and defense boosts were not that high, because yes (in the case of Railgun) you can use Railgun's impact force to throw your opponent off and maybe gain extra seconds to fire a potential second shot, but how many times will that save you? It is a different story with Smoky and Twins, for example, since they fire much faster and also kind of is one of their saving graces. It is a sign of skill, though, to know how to throw off our opponents, and it requires time to master these kind of moves, but it is not worth the effort if it does not pay off in the end is it? It's easier to pick turrets that just one shot everything or two shot everyting and just don't need to rely on such skills. Again, this is 1 on 1 scenarios, because if we add in more players, a Railgun user will most likely be supporting from behind, in which case Railgun is still useful as I play with the turret quite often and that's the main role I accomplish in most game modes and situations, given that 1 on 1s are not a favorable matchup for me in most cases. And yes, this is personal experience and other players might not have my same issues, but overall I do think the nerf to Railgun exceeds what it really needed in order no to be broken with the right combination of hull, augment and drone.

On 9/4/2021 at 6:04 PM, wolverine848 said:

So... you're gonna ignore the fact the analysis ignored one of the key components to Rail as well?

The entire paragraph I quoted was based on false facts.

Well that's the problem, that critical hits are a key component to the Railgun. Smoky can work without critical hits, as well as Twins or Shaft, but Railgun just doesn't, at least not anymore. It actually helps support my argument that Railgun is far less viable now with this patch than before, you just made it more clear that without the critical damage this turret is very easy to handle and poses little threat, even when supporting teammates. A turret should not rely on critical hits to function, because they are one of the best ways through your oponents defenses and thus the counter measures to them are solid, so instead of Shaft's only saving grace being it's damage output, I think it was Raligun's saving grace actually. And now it received a nerf both in damage and critical damage. I would agree for a nerf in critical damage, but was it necessary to lower raw damage for higher ranks? I don't think so.

Edited September 5, 2021 by tanksargent2

[wolverine848 13,097]

2 hours ago, tanksargent2 said:

Well that's the problem, that critical hits are a key component to the Railgun. Smoky can work without critical hits, as well as Twins or Shaft, but Railgun just doesn't, at least not anymore. It actually helps support my argument that Railgun is far less viable now with this patch than before, you just made it more clear that without the critical damage this turret is very easy to handle and poses little threat, even when supporting teammates. A turret should not rely on critical hits to function, because they are one of the best ways through your oponents defenses and thus the counter measures to them are solid, so instead of Shaft's only saving grace being it's damage output, I think it was Raligun's saving grace actually. And now it received a nerf both in damage and critical damage. I would agree for a nerf in critical damage, but was it necessary to lower raw damage for higher ranks? I don't think so.

Smoky does NOT work well without critical hits - unless you are using an augment with status. Which is NOT the argument you are making. The Critical hits have defined smoky since day 1.

It's like saying Shaft would work fine without a scope.  It wouldn't be even close to the same.

You keep trying to use 1 vs 1 scenario - and I will reiterate for the umpteenth time - it is pointless unless you include all the factors. Cherry-picking Critical damage out of the equation makes no sense - since it IS part of the game.