Psychological Effects of Tanki

[beaku 2,656]

I have been playing Tanki for almost 10 years now. In that time my life has been through many ups and downs. However, what has remain unchanged is my love-hate (and quite frankly a bit toxic) relationship with Tanki Online. I have made this topic to explore and discuss the psychological effects of this game and associations with mental health. 

I was in a bit of lull period from 2017 to 2020 and only started playing regularly again in 2020 lockdown. A few key things stood out to me when compared with pre 2015 era:

- The total number of players has noticeably decreased 

- At the same time, the number of buyers is radically more. While I can't say for sure, it's not hard to presume that Alternativa is doing well financially by successfully squeezing out more money per player to compensate for lower player base. 

- Microtransactions are a far bigger part of the game than ever before. Not only do they provide immense performance advantages (which, to be fair also existed in earlier days in form of kits, supplies and later on, micro-upgrades), but they're practically necessary if you want to maintain a decent win ratio. I've spent a couple hundred dollars on my account and still barely scrap by in matchmaking battles. To be fair a large reason for that is also the heavily unbalanced teams that I often end up in thanks to the a m a z i n g algorithms running this game. But the special DM modes have proven time and time again to me that I'm nowhere close to top notch stuff. For comparison, a fraction of this money I spent back in older days to purchase one kit gave me ability to throw decent punches against players much higher ranked. 

To be clear, this topic is not just a rant about Pay-2-win and degradation of Tanki Online. I'm aware there's plenty of those going around. Alternativa, just like Facebook, YouTube, etc is a for profit company that does exactly that. Exploit our natural mental biology to entice us into spending more on their products. The effects of this exploitation is what I hope to discuss here. 

The first thing I have noticed is immense anger, frustration and hopelessness. Losing 8/10 battles everyday is frustrating enough on its own, but it's even harsher when you barely even get to fight back. I'd provide some screenshots but I'm sure everyone knows the battles with 6-8k players on one side and half a dozen 9k+ or 9999's on the other. Broken system, probably. Idk. Point is that it drags me into extreme despair to try and fight flying hulls with crisis who enter my base and are gone before I can even react. Add some incompetent teammates and constant spawn deaths to the mix and you get a perfect soup of colorful langauge in my head which don't make it to chat only because I'm too busy trying to stay alive. The result of these battles are generally revenge playing. Instead of logging off like I initially thought, I keep playing more in hopes of winning at some point. And that point rarely gives the satisfaction that I'd hope it would. The result is daily grind mostly full of frustrating moments. 

Another effect is revenge buying. The more deficit I perceive between me and "perfect score" players, the more I end up buying battle passes, containers and such stuff in hopes of performing better. Obviously, this is a similar effect that gambling, narcotics and other addictions have. This knowledge just adds to guilt of unnecessary spending but doesn't really stop me from doing it again. The long history and memories I have with this game in addition to the effects of sunken cost fallacy keeps me in this spiral of doom. 

 

Share your thoughts as well and how you cope with similar issues, if you face any. 

[Tanker-Arthur 2,971]

Here is how to cope:

Just stop playing Tanki and embrace its downfall. 

[Venerable 2,967]

First of all, let me be clear - I am not "defending" Tanki because I'm a Helper. I agree with quite a few points of your topic, especially the negative effects on mental health.

However, before we proceed, I think we must accept that this is true for many other games and social media platforms. Singling Tanki out is unfair.

I think the main issue most players face is getting out of the playing loop: if a player loses, they play again, hoping to win and get rid of the frustration. If a player wins, they play yet again hoping to fight another equally thrilling battle, if not more (thrilling). 

This loop continues until something drastic happens (like mom barging into your room just to search for that one missing earring, when she is actually trying to check your laptop screen).

If this gets too bad, extreme steps are necessary. For starters, ask Tech Support to block your account(s) permanently. If you think you're addicted enough to write to them again and get it unblocked, perhaps try de-linking your email address first (before getting the account blocked), and then link an obscure email address with the account. Get the account blocked. Then, keep changing the password of the obscure email address multiple times until you finally don't know the actual password. Getting the account unblocked now will be a nearly impossible task. The advantage of blocking your account is that you can still access the forum. 

If you can convince yourself that you're doing absolutely nothing different every time you play (the same monotonous cycle is repeating), then just click on that 'close' button. You are clearly not enjoying the battles and are in a losing cycle, so irrespective of whether you're in a crucial moment or not, just close the client/tab. Or delete the mobile app. Once you do this, get away from your device, take a long walk (preferably outside your house), and turn off the WiFi on your way. This break can help you in calming down, collecting your thoughts and emotions, and just looking at something different, for a change. The sooner you remind yourself that it's just an online game, the better.

 

As a Helper of the game, do I not have the duty to help the game by encouraging people to play? In a way, yes. However, it is also my duty as a fellow human to ask you to stop playing if you're not enjoying battles and are in the vicious loop of endless playing. It is my duty as a fellow human to actively discourage you from playing, if you're playing and giving your real life obligations a lower priority. Whatever the world says, there is nothing more important than your real life, and this virtual life is no exception! 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Venerable

[beaku 2,656]

On 10/22/2021 at 10:09 AM, Venerable said:

First of all, let me be clear - I am not "defending" Tanki because I'm a Helper. I agree with quite a few points of your topic, especially the negative effects on mental health.

However, before we proceed, I think we must accept that this is true for many other games and social media platforms. Singling Tanki out is unfair.

I think the main issue most players face is getting out of the playing loop: if a player loses, they play again, hoping to win and get rid of the frustration. If a player wins, they play yet again hoping to fight another equally thrilling battle, if not more (thrilling). 

This loop continues until something drastic happens (like mom barging into your room just to search for that one missing earring, when she is actually trying to check your laptop screen).

If this gets too bad, extreme steps are necessary. For starters, ask Tech Support to block your account(s) permanently. If you think you're addicted enough to write to them again and get it unblocked, perhaps try de-linking your email address first (before getting the account blocked), and then link an obscure email address with the account. Get the account blocked. Then, keep changing the password of the obscure email address multiple times until you finally don't know the actual password. Getting the account unblocked now will be a nearly impossible task. The advantage of blocking your account is that you can still access the forum. 

If you can convince yourself that you're doing absolutely nothing different every time you play (the same monotonous cycle is repeating), then just click on that 'close' button. You are clearly not enjoying the battles and are in a losing cycle, so irrespective of whether you're in a crucial moment or not, just close the client/tab. Or delete the mobile app. Once you do this, get away from your device, take a long walk (preferably outside your house), and turn off the WiFi on your way. This break can help you in calming down, collecting your thoughts and emotions, and just looking at something different, for a change. The sooner you remind yourself that it's just an online game, the better.

 

As a Helper of the game, do I not have the duty to help the game by encouraging people to play? In a way, yes. However, it is also my duty as a fellow human to ask you to stop playing if you're not enjoying battles and are in the vicious loop of endless playing. It is my duty as a fellow human to actively discourage you from playing if you're playing, and giving your real life obligations a lower priority. Whatever the world says, there is nothing more important than your real life, and this virtual life is no exception! 

I mostly agree. Tanki is indeed not very unique as a platform which actively exploits dopamine reward cycles to keep us in the loop. But it doesn't make it any less depressing and frustrating to watch something you've invested years and years of your life into stoop to levels where its more of a detriment to mental health than an enjoyable past time. This is a larger problem with the microtransactions and "Free"-to-play model in general as well. Its just unfortunate to see Tanki on the worse side of that spectrum though. 
Thanks for the advices though. While I do get stuck in these ghastly loops, it tends to get better when I have something else to do in life. I just hope to avoid turning into one of those toxic  Twitch streamers and find at least some sort of enjoyment in this nostalgia fueled relationship with Tanki despite the hellscape it has become :3 

[Catbird 117]

Maybe I’m being cynical, but in my eyes it’s all good business. You can’t ask for-profit endeavours to not do whatever they can to achieve what they exist for—make a profit. However it’s obviously important to be mindful of how it affects us, because they won’t do it for us (or at least they won’t do it by themselves).

[beaku 2,656]

3 hours ago, Catbird said:

Maybe I’m being cynical, but in my eyes it’s all good business. You can’t ask for-profit endeavours to not do whatever they can to achieve what they exist for—make a profit. However it’s obviously important to be mindful of how it affects us, because they won’t do it for us (or at least they won’t do it by themselves).

Precisely. The unfortunate effect of Laissez faire capitalism has been dehumanisation of business processes with the sole focus on metrics like profit, efficiency, revenue growth, etc. There's very few for-profit companies left on this planet that still stick to some morals and actively mitigate negative social impacts of their products and processes, but they are a dying breed. 
Being mindful is a good advice. However, I kind of get lost after that step. Like, I know playing this game is problematic and disruptive to my mental health, but not so disruptive so as to take extreme measures like stopping it altogether. But its mostly frustrating playing it as well. So I am stuck in this kind of limbo 

[Akshat.Pr 67]

On 10/22/2021 at 10:09 AM, Venerable said:

This loop continues until something drastic happens (like mom barging into your room just to search for that one missing earring, when she is actually trying to check your laptop screen).

What a realistic like situation, happened with me many times

[JustBlackWolf 875]

I kinda feel in need to reply, since I've been a dedicated player for this game for a lot of years now. (Dedicated medic since 2010, even tho back then Thunder was my top turret)

I gotta say that in the past this game managed to get into my head, convincing me to spend some money to make it easier for me to "survive".

I never spent money to be stronger than others, because if you're a f2p player you really struggle surviving at high ranks.

Thankfully though, there were some tricks and very cheap deals that helped me spending ten time less money i would've spent by directly purchasing whatever I wanted (battle pass is one of the latest for example). Thankfully Tanki X brought me away from this hellhole for 3 years.

As for the anger, that... Doesn't really affect me anymore. I see this game as a huge piece of garbage, even though the last balance changes seemed to be quite reasonable, let's cross the fingers in hope this bunch of greedy devs hired someone better in the game balance department. I win most of the time because i play my favorite combo and nothing else, that's where i've put all my skill in the last 10 years, and on top of that, i only play gamemodes that allow me to have fun with my combo (viking-isida-support nanobots-mechanic, now thinking about buying hornet to experiment a new playstile). The modes i enjoy the most are definitely Siege, and team Juggernaut, even if i don't win, i manage to have at least some fun, it's amusing seeing people equip 50% protection from Isida when my damage is already halved lmfao

Edited October 24, 2021 by JustBlackWolf

[Devoid 2,601]

While it's well known that I am not exactly the biggest fan of the Helper team within this game (I'm not going to go into reasoning, that's not the point I'm attempting to make), I will say, being a member of it had its benefits psychologically. Working in an atmosphere where everyone is distanced, at least for me, gave me some very useful experience that came into play with internships I had during the pandemic, and I was able to more successfully work with employers/clients from what I learned from the Helper team's remote working style. I also learned the importance of managing perceptions, as this was something I often fatally failed at doing, but now, it's my top priority when working under the leadership of one or several layers of people. CYA (obviously not something I can fully spell out) is definitely an important skill, one that everyone needs to learn.

[Crip 4,735]

On 10/22/2021 at 5:39 AM, Venerable said:

First of all, let me be clear - I am not "defending" Tanki because I'm a Helper. I agree with quite a few points of your topic, especially the negative effects on mental health.

However, before we proceed, I think we must accept that this is true for many other games and social media platforms. Singling Tanki out is unfair.

 

I've played plenty of games over the years, and singling Tanki out it definitely not unfair. I must have spent hundreds of pounds on this game over the course of a 6 year period, and I've never done that on any other game I've played. Even on games such as Fifa.

You can't have fun in this game unless you get your wallet out, unless you're into the whole parkour thing.

[DieselPlatinum 5,121]

I honestly didn't think I was gonna leave again so soon. If it wasn't for the sneering comments made by Opex-Rah and the community, I would've stayed until things in my life made it impossible.

But because the community is so damn toxic I don't even feel safe being here. 

I've already planned to announce my departure after black Friday event.