Tanki deserves to be taken off the developers' (Opex-Rah) hands. They drove it to the ground.

[Committee 12]

This is a direct criticism of Opex-Rah and the Tanki Development team.

They have directly brought the game from a thing of beauty into something that is widely ridiculed and looked down upon.

People use Tanki Online as an example of how NOT to develop a game. When criticism overshadows praise for the game by this much, it's not a matter of statistical bias anymore.

 

Before I say anything, I have the utmost respect for all the helpers, community managers and admins of the game. Having worked with quite a few of them before, I know they are truly dedicated. They are the engine, the wheels. It is only the developers that are driving them in the wrong direction.

 

 

THE FALL OF TANKI ONLINE

 

This game has become a classic case of the sunk cost fallacy. 

When you go past a point of no return, there is no turning back. This is the very case in Tanki Online's development.

Where was that point of no return? - One can say, the paint-protection separation, the addition of augments, the addition of drones, the addition of overdrives etc.

We should all understand that not everyone will like an update. However, when you see the droves of masses of players leaving, WITHOUT new players replacing them, then there is a real problem.

 

Here is what a well maintained game would look like:

Old players leave. DO NOT TRY TO KEEP THEM. they are already high-leveled, and will not spend money on the game. They become a liability. But if the game is good, they might just advertise word-of-mouth. 

New players come in. Don't change the game too drastically, or they will have too much to deal with. Leave the game the same, and add 1 or 2 minor updates every year to slightly freshen up the game.

 

Here is what Tanki did:

Old players want to leave. Opex-Rah doesn't like that. He makes a bunch of random, new stuff, with the purpose of giving the players "more things to play with". This might have worked if it was only 1 or 2 things. Instead, all these new updates made the game intolerable, too much and too crazy.

New players com in. They see all the crazy hovering hulls and drones and god knows what alien stuff the developers came up with. They leave. Why play a tank game that features alien tanks and all that random stuff?

 

No. Opex-Rah did not seem to care. Instead, he continued adding dumber and dumber stuff. 

The success of a game is all about its niche. Tanki Online went from a partially realistic tank game into some fantasy, alien fps that no one understands, no one is familiar with. Battles have become messy.

There has been so many additions that when I left for one month and came back, I thought people were hacking. Oh no sir, they weren't, it was just new augments.

 

Admins, moderators and people who support the game will be like: ok but who are you, and why do you think you have a say in how they manage their game? That's what they always say to one of these critical topics.

 

Why? I spent thousands of USD on this game. In a regular business, that means I contributed equity and capital to the game. That would make me a shareholder of the company. That gives ME voting rights, gives me a say. Without any of us buyers, the game would not exist. There would be no revenue.

The least the game developers could do is listen to us. was listen to us. No one is gonna suggest anything anymore cause the game is dead. I have given up on this game that defined my childhood. It's a dud now.

No one is going to spend anything on this game anymore, because it would be a waste of money, waste of capital, waste of resources, waste of investment. Nothing you buy in this game has value anymore. Not when something better comes out to replace it within 2 weeks. 

I suspect the game will run out of money in the coming few months. Opex-rah is delusional if he thinks the game has a lot of funding to play with. with such dwindling numbers, they probably can't even afford 50k USD in advertising, and that is the minimum to launch a succesful targetted campaign on social media.

 

The game has failed. Tanki Development team will not listen. did not listen. now it is too late. It was good yall but whenever I come across an old, 2016 video of Tanki Online, I wonder: would anyone have played if they knew the game would be driven to the ground like this just 8 years later?

 

Edited April 6, 2024 by Committee

[Maf 32,300]

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

People use Tanki Online as an example of how NOT to develop a game.

"People" being the typical gamers? Because I'm fairly certain that any self-respecting game dev has been taking notes from an indie game studio that managed to create an F2P MMO which is still (presumably) profitable after 15 years since release.

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

New players come in. Don't change the game too drastically, or they will have too much to deal with. Leave the game the same, and add 1 or 2 minor updates every year to slightly freshen up the game.

This makes no sense whatsoever. If the game stayed mostly the same as it was in, say, 2013, then the game would die. The "meta" for gaming is constantly changing, so the new players have different expectations depending on the year they discovered the game. A new player joining in 2024 will have drastically different things that interest them compared to a new player in 2018, and even more different from a new player in 2013. Therefore, games like Tanki Online have to adapt and change in drastic ways if they want to stay relevant and be interesting to new players.

I'll remind you that the absolute worst time period for Tanki Online was in 2015, when a huge number of players left because there were no major updates (due to most resources going into Tanki X). People leave because they get bored of lack of new content, and not because "ew this new thing made the game too different".

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

New players com in. They see all the crazy hovering hulls and drones and god knows what alien stuff the developers came up with. They leave. Why play a tank game that features alien tanks and all that random stuff?

In the last few years devs made a number of changes to the early game process specifically to counter this problem. Instead of immediately being thrown into all-in Legend battles, new players are gradually introduced to mechanics like overdrives, supplies, drones, protection modules.

"Why play a tank game that features alien tanks?"
Because it's cool as hell. Tanki never claimed to be a realistic tank battle simulator. It's a sci-fi arcade game, so anything goes.

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

Tanki Online went from a partially realistic tank game...

Maybe in the first few months in 2009? With the exception of Smoky, Firebird and Thunder, most of the early turrets were already very much sci-fi.

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

There has been so many additions that when I left for one month and came back, I thought people were hacking. Oh no sir, they weren't, it was just new augments.

This part I agree with. Some of the new augments are overpowered to such an extent that they may as well be hacks. It's ridiculous.

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

Why? I spent thousands of USD on this game. In a regular business, that means I contributed equity and capital to the game. That would make me a shareholder of the company. That gives ME voting rights, gives me a say. Without any of us buyers, the game would not exist. There would be no revenue.

Lol no. That's not how it works, especially not for a game that counts its annual revenue in millions.
Anyone who says "I spent [insert amount] on this game and therefore my opinion is more important" needs to get off their high horse. 

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

The least the game developers could do is listen to us. was listen to us. No one is gonna suggest anything anymore cause the game is dead.

Listening to the player base and doing exactly what the player base demands are two very different things. Devs listen and collect feedback all the time, but the changes that are actually implemented are also driven by current industry trends, budget constraints, and actual numerical data. As someone who's been on the forum since 2011, I can tell you that the stuff people post on the forum does not reflect the actual needs of the player base, and some of the suggestions I've seen are outright ridiculous. For the most part, the players themselves don't know what they actually want.

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

I suspect the game will run out of money in the coming few months

I've seen this statement once every few weeks starting from... around 2014. In fact, I even made that statement myself back in 2020, saying that the game will likely shut down by 2022, yet I was proven wrong. But hey, surely this time it will actually happen?

On 4/6/2024 at 4:32 AM, Committee said:

The game has failed.

As said above, the game still generates stable income after 15 years. In the gaming industry, that's about as far from failure as it gets.

[Venerable 2,967]

It took me a while to digest it but... there are players who actually like overdrives. They like using Hopper (hovering hull, often called "Flying Monkey" by many old players). They like the remastered maps. There is a generation of players who want new updates every week or else they'll get bored and annoyed. They want variety. They want novelty. 

I hate a lot of things about the game. But the game is far from dead even though the playerbase has dwindled. Those who wish that the developers would "listen to the community" usually don't see what most of the community is actually like - I would go so far as to say that there's a significant amount of immaturity and negativity in the community, and there's also a lack of clarity in the way the feedback is conveyed. When it matters, feedback and constructive criticism has always been heard, but it's not reasonable to expect the development team to act on all this immediately. Sometimes the changes are very gradual, almost impossible to notice. Sometimes it's just not possible for them to explain why an idea is not feasible.

I've stopped playing. The playing experience is more frustrating than fun to me even though I have a pretty good garage. But maybe that's because I'm not ready or willing to learn the nuances of the game that are introduced or modified after every update. I can't be bothered to keep track of all the changes and tweaks, whereas an avid player would diligently strategize and adapt.

 

Just my thoughts!

Edited April 6, 2024 by Venerable

[demon09 89]

I think that the game has serious problems (servers, matchmaking, OP equipment) but I still have enough fun to come back.

I DEFINITELY want Tanki to keep adding stuff. I want to see more hulls with new overdrives, new turrets with game-changing abilities (like Scorpion's rockets and Tesla's lightning ball) and augments. More abilities, like the soon to come grenades. I find it hard to believe how anyone can think that even something like the overdrives were too far from the ancient (and extremely bare-bones) version of the game.

I played the old (2014-era?) Tanki not long ago (I won't say how because it's forbidden) and it didn't have the server issues and had fairer matchmaking, so I thought it would be great, but I had a bad time because it was so very boring--very barebones, clunky and slow gameplay...Current Tanki, despite all its problems, is far, far more fun IMO.

Edited April 6, 2024 by demon09

[Son_Goku 514]

On 4/6/2024 at 2:32 AM, Committee said:

They have directly brought the game from a thing of beauty into something that is widely ridiculed and looked down upon.

 

Literally Tanki players

[Hypersomnia 1,695]

(Playing since 2013)

I do like them adding new things constantly. I would not be interested anymore if it stayed the same. Tho all I want is augments and skins not grenades and other spam.
I also think they should reduce the junk in Epic Containers. The "Featured" system (bringing legendary augments to exotic so they're easier to get for a week or two) is a good idea but we have too much absolutely useless filler. Paints were created as filler but now we have so many LITERALLY UNUSABLE augments due to nerfs that getting even a single useful item that is not locked behind 1% chance is getting near impossible and will only get harder. Which is going to lead to bigger and bigger gap between old and new players since new players will likely not work their asses off and get skills. Instead they'll chase for new OP toys.

 

New players can easily compete even if they're F2P and put in impossible scenarios on paper. One of the new players that started playing the game would ask me for advice constantly (started when he was around WO2). I told him the best f2p combo that is not locked behind any containers. He used it till he got to Legend. By pure coincidence I got matched with him. He was Marshal (7000+ GS) and was literally the only non legend player. The match was pure chaos with my team spawning and instantly rushing to the enemy base creating absolute chaos in the middle of the map. The map had the "Big Boys" with Heavy Artillery like Faust, Triplet etc. That guy while he didn't get first place he was in the TOP 3 for the entire match with Smoky and Hunter with Crystal Augments and had very good K/D not to say he's a new player. So yes if you actually want to improve you can easily have a fun time in the "Legend VS Low Rank" phase of MM. Even though he was on my team I did not try to help him. He was all alone.

 

On 4/6/2024 at 6:34 PM, demon09 said:

I played the old (2014-era?) Tanki not long ago (I won't say how because it's forbidden) and it didn't have the server issues and had fairer matchmaking, so I thought it would be great, but I had a bad time because it was so very boring--very barebones, clunky and slow gameplay...Current Tanki, despite all its problems, is far, far more fun IMO.

People don't want to accept it but it is the biggest fact this game will ever have.

[PirateSpider 1,489]

Honestly, tanki in 2024 is just frustration simulator.

2014-2015 tanki may have been a bit boring at times, but it was pretty chill.

2016-2017 tanki is where I felt it was at its best. Was still chill but had levels of excitement.

2018-2019 were the last years that it was still decent. Started going downhill 2020 and after.

I wont list all that have brought the game to its knees, but some of the biggest ones:

•Failure to properly optimize the servers or add options to disable unnecessary visuals like drones bobbing up and down, retracting turrets, map's sprite animations.

•A failing MM system that is incapable of creating balanced battles. Too many game modes being available at once, player capacity in battles being too high contributes to it.

• Constant additions of status augments and hybrid augments.

• The way the devs just make changes without a second thought it seems quite often.

[Maf 32,300]

On 4/7/2024 at 12:31 AM, PirateSpider said:

Started going downhill 2020 and after

That kinda checks out. Early 2020 was when the first truly P2W elements appeared, starting with the EMP augment for Gauss (which was insanely OP at the time). That addition marked the beginning of the transition from a model where every player could gradually save up crystals by playing and gradually obtain all the items they wanted, to the current model where you either buy paid bundles with OP items, or hope to get insanely lucky with containers.

[Snafu 139]

On 4/6/2024 at 1:34 AM, Maf said:

I'll remind you that the absolute worst time period for Tanki Online was in 2015, when a huge number of players left because there were no major updates (due to most resources going into Tanki X). People leave because they get bored of lack of new content, and not because "ew this new thing made the game too different".

Is this a fact? That in 2015 so many players left that in 2016, aprils fool day marked an absolute online record, all servers red, etc. 

I don't have access to internal stats and only recollect this from my memory. Maybe ton of players left but that was not visible as it is now.

[Apollo 127]

On 4/6/2024 at 2:04 PM, Maf said:

"People" being the typical gamers? Because I'm fairly certain that any self-respecting game dev has been taking notes from an indie game studio that managed to create an F2P MMO which is still (presumably) profitable after 15 years since release.

Yes, this is by far the most mistleading comment in the section and at the same time the most trustworthy comment. No self respectable company is actually taking notes from Tanki Online on how to create a long lasting profitable F2P MMO but how to not lead an MMO to a disaster.

One example, the biggest video made about Tanki Online in the last 5 years potentially longer, is titled "The Tragic History of Tanki Online"

The reason for this, is the failure of all old players, and old developers to have any common sense at all to even admit that. The growth of Tanki Online, why did it even happen? One key reason was Tanki Online advertised and placed their game on numerous, numerous gaming sites aimed at children. The game was intended for children. Ofcourse, not only children played it, but adults as well. 

The great thing about MMOs, they have some of the most loyal players. The bubble of MMO, it feels like everyone plays or, it very well did. The MMO genre is very niche part of gaming, and it can really be a big part of your life. The one thing Tanki Online did good, was content creation in the old days - compared to any other MMO, and they penalised all the big YouTubers if you don't know this. The building of eSports, the advertisements. The forum was a completely different place, as well as the game.

Yes there were bad updates, but this is not the reason for the real downfall. The real downfall, was due to the halt in advertising, the halt of Starladder which was the time of eSports being at its biggest. The prevention of communities on forum, such as clan closures, causing people to fully create their own communities which resulted in it being harder to join communities - the main point of MMOs. You can see Hazel mentioned about re-introducing advertising, which says they were not advertising for a long time already since TankiX. And this is a known thing for many old players.

The most profitable work Tanki Online has done in the last 10 years was the introduction of Android compatibility. This allowed mobile gamers to play Tanki Online, which back in 2018 wasn't really a common thing. The route they took, which again MOST MMOs cannot take, since mobile compatibility is not really possible for the biggest MMOs.

When was the last time Tanki Online mentioned in major MMO newspapers on a front page? Let's say, Alternativa Games had a shareholders meeting and the notes were publicised, would this meet the news? It simply would not. There are other MMOs talking about expanding to a next generation of their game, reaching the news or expansions. Tanki Online, what would they talk about? The next new bundle they are going to release so children can buy it? 

They absolutely fumbled everything and destroyed the whole point of an MMO, and it is a reason why TankiX really failed.

On 4/6/2024 at 2:04 PM, Maf said:

Listening to the player base and doing exactly what the player base demands are two very different things. Devs listen and collect feedback all the time, but the changes that are actually implemented are also driven by current industry trends, budget constraints, and actual numerical data. As someone who's been on the forum since 2011, I can tell you that the stuff people post on the forum does not reflect the actual needs of the player base, and some of the suggestions I've seen are outright ridiculous. For the most part, the players themselves don't know what they actually want.

This is also the most stupid way to lead an MMO. Any project lead would say the opposite. When a huge chunk of player base complains about an update, and threaten to leave and do leave, and it is ignored. If 1000 players complained about an update instantly, you listen to them. One example was the initial update on supplies where hundreds of players flocked to complain. 

There are other ways to introduce new updates, test new things, without causing players to leave. Complete change in mechanics? Not good. Introduction of a new game mode mechanic? Good

This is one example, ofcourse it's silly to talk how things should have happened during the downfall of Tanki Online, but it shows how Alternativa Games' behaviour is. There's projects in this game which have never finished and will never finished - private battles, no password implementations since creation, most games had this. Achievements page, no update on this, despite nearly all surviving MMOs have this.

The reason Tanki Online is hitting profits again, is mainly due to the change in society. People are more willing to spend money for games, compared to the past. £1,000,000 now is not worth £1,000,000 10 years ago. As a person who works within finance, I can tell you, Tanki Online is on the verge of collapse if it does not start bringing in more players. Industry trends and numerical data also do not suggest P2W bringing in more profits, yes it was a smart money making decision to do during the COVID era and onwards especially with the change of society. But it's also another negative factor to moving away from the MMO standards.

The bottom line is. There are a dozen MMOs, some older than TO or just as old, and to this day, they have a much active player base than TO. A much greater community driven game in compared to Tanki Online's ignorant developer driven sense. And achieve way more profits without being P2W like Tanki Online transitioned into to achieve greater profits.

On 4/6/2024 at 4:19 PM, Venerable said:

When it matters, feedback and constructive criticism has always been heard, but it's not reasonable to expect the development team to act on all this immediately.

Source for this information, for the era of 2013-2017?

On 4/6/2024 at 2:04 PM, Maf said:

As said above, the game still generates stable income after 15 years. In the gaming industry, that's about as far from failure as it gets.

Again, there was a massive loss for TankiX, Tanki Online is owned by Alternativa Games and not Tanki Online. Alternativa Games, produces several games and most of them have been losses. This is also a very misleading statement, have you even reviewed the accounts yourself? Or just taken words from a stakeholder? I would suggest you read about this, and how so many have been swindled by the words of others. There's been very famous situations and how much has changed in the west to reduce such tricks.

The accounting treatment of a Russian company vs a Western company is also very different. If Hazel said the truth, HOW come, not even 10% is going into advertisements. Why have they not held any of their Tanki MeetNGreets even in Russia. Why are they not focusing on eSports Growth by employing a reputable company such as Starladder in the past. Why aren't they working on hiring more developers, and finishing the updates they have not done since creation.

This is another misleading comment, yes the game generates income. But the expenses have decreased at the same time. Is this considered a successful company? Time is money, in easy words for the ones with not a lot of knowledge: if they work 10 hours and profit £1 with expenses at £99, yes they gained £100 but £1 for 10 hours is not a success but a failure.

I think it is fair to say, the MMO aspect of the game was driven to the ground at the expense of ignorance and profits. The growth of the game is unlikely, and I doubt anyone is interested to work for Alternativa Games as a developer. Their former ones and actually good ones left to work at reputable companies, such as Facebook.

Regardless of what I said above, yes Tanki Online is generating income and survived for 16 years. But Tanki Online has never favoured criticism, has intentionally not worked on developing their MMO but wasted their time on updates which should not have happened. Yes Tanki Online will release new bundles to achieve more money from naive individuals.  And that is the whole point of this forum topic, if it failed as a game and not as a company.

Edited April 14, 2024 by NikmanGT

[Apollo 127]

Additional read, to really emphasise on everything I said above, you can read from Hazel in Russian here: https://ru.tankiforum.com/topic/320853/

For those who don't understand Russian, please translate it. It really shows, how they moved from the traditional MMO game model, and began to copy actually successful companies instead of bringing their innovation. A full soliloquy written by a Russian, who dreams to have a game such as these western companies. Comparing Tanki Online to a 1st person shooter or even games like DOTA is absolutely a red flag. He has absolutely no understanding of even asian MMOs, and said so himself. He's fixated on non MMO games from the west, absolutely ludicrous and should show all old players there is no hope in terms of game development, which is often based around: content, progression, community engagement, fun, competitiveness.

Tanki Online, had everything a MMO would dream to have: Match Making, player made formats, Clans, eSports, Parkour, Private battles, communities. Things for the community, to enjoy the game and stick around. None of these were developed. Imagine being so idiotic to spend your time now purely playing Match-making to achieve some container keys. He even smugly mentions how he is going to make it more F2P friendly by one day allowing players to easily obtain the augments/alterations. And this is really sad how players can't see, they do not want to develop the game. They intend to develop on these profits, by copying major corporations in the west, as they have always done. By drawing into the consumerism aspect of westerners (proven behaviour) -> hitting stable income.

I think a web based game was and is a fantastic idea, but TO did not work on the aspects I mentioned above in yellow. Now with a mere 5000-8000 players, the best they can hope so is for squeezing the lemon until the pips squeak. 

On 4/14/2024 at 10:13 AM, Snafu said:

Is this a fact? That in 2015 so many players left that in 2016, aprils fool day marked an absolute online record, all servers red, etc. 

A reduced # of servers, with smaller server capacity can also indicate this. But I believe what the fact is around that, many players left but many players started to play, and you get an equilibrium of a somewhat small net player increase. Right now there are very few servers. 3 Communities have been closed (ES, BR, PL), DE is very inactive and is being kept for memorable reasons. More players are leaving than coming in, the newer players that come in don't have the same time commitments as the older times. It's much easier to rank now, the introduction of bots and insane experience gain, with early encouragement to buy to rank quicker.

I personally would like to see if the game really cared, not that my ideas are better than others but are definitely better than the developers who have shown to have very little understanding of MMOs and how to develop these aspects. Instead of fixating on augments, more augments, container keys, development of P2W for money.

• the introduction of blitz games into the MM, such as 3v3 games for 5 minutes. TDM style, or some funny ones such as collecting the most boxes whilst fighting. Ofcourse with drugs, drugs is the fundamental aspect of the game, shame they made them way too easy to obtain. This would encourage tactical use of supplies, as well as more competitive nature between heavy druggers. Many games do this, and it would not be a controversial copy but a way to increase content which TO does not have much.
• 1v1 PvP games into MM, or 2v2 PvP games, this would introduce more content. Development of the clan profile and clan structure. Remove all money from eSports pools and tankifund, and put this into advertising. Create funds to increase player base and then work on the eSports element. eSports element can be like the past, MotS, TOF, clan championships on numerous formats. So we won't see the same team winning. Increases competition, fun, and engagement. Also way more content.
• You could copy other games with a rank system, and lead it where you want. Have ranked PvP games, without inviting others to carry you and so on. Rank system can be based on either military but TO ranks are like this, so either a symbol of a culture. Embraces culture of the world, so much this can lead to. Some MMOs do this, one key one would be Chinese New Year for the rank names.
• Great to lead to another point, China is a big part of the game, TO should also merge 3dtank.com with TO, right now in 3dtank.com people have 10 accs joining MM and earning 500,000 crystals in a few hours of playing against their own accounts. This is ludicrous.
• Community engagement by different approach. V-LOGS should be like the days of Semyon Kirov, the face of the EN Community. Or before him, Bruce Lunga. These guys were fantastic, even Cedric did some community engagement.  https://en.tankiforum.com/topic/397150-changes-to-the-tanki-v-log/ was even suggested by a good friend of mine. Even player based engagement like from Ilia.Archangel was fantastic, I saw Taspens does some videos like this where he talks with his audience with at a face level. Sadly no YTer wants to do things like this since they do not see the point.
• Introductions of clan topics, so clans can create a competitive nature. Or a more developed clan system. Where have you seen clans training or having private battles against each other, other than for eSports. You can't see this and most likely there are none.
• Introduction of new turrets, with the removal of 50% augments, there are way too many. Would have been better to create a trait system, where you can choose if your tank moves slightly faster, does slightly more damage, has more defence at a mere 1-5% increase once you have reached endgame (M4 and Legend Rank, Legend rank is important so it encourages players to achieve end game gameplay).
• Development of achievement pages, to encourage more playtime. Have a player kill someone with a shaft at the back of Massacre map, a lot more code to track this effectively and requires good skill of the developers but MMOs can and do this - but TO is lazy? YES. TO still has a very primitive and BORING reward system, for pointless keys. Have a player do this 100 times, repeatable once a week, and gives a unique cosmetic. Does it matter if there are 100 cosmetics? NO. Does it matter if there are 100 augments or insanely hard to obtain augments? YES.

The biggest content creation for TO, in early days was Gold Box Montages. Then it became XPBP montages and some Let's Play videos, and now it's MM reviews of augments with no vocals. The views decreased as the time went on, since the content creation on MM augments is not fun to watch. The montages were somewhat comparable to other big games, and allowed creators to show off their skills and was not an embarrassment to the game.

The downside to all of these changes, IT TAKES TIME. It won't give results such as easily realisable income. BUT it provides content. It makes players want to play more. 

And the worst downside to all of this, it will never happen because as you saw from the post from Hazel, their eyes are on copying western corporations and have little understanding of MMOs. Where they see money, they copy. Where they see player satisfaction and gratification, they turn their eyes from. And they had all of this in their pockets for 16 years, and have done nothing except create a really bad Matchmaking system, and virtually destroyed all aspects of the game. It's very conclusive Tanki Online has driven this game to the ground, and every second you play is a wasted second of not real fun. I would advise you all to play other MMOs, get into a community, and see the massive difference in it (yes TO Community is slightly more immature but it had nearly everything in the days, and now it's mainly just the same repetitive MM battles which provide you a fake conception of how much fun you really could be having).

 

 

Below are things more for the front side of the game and I think the moderators/admins/CMs would learn well to read from this:

I would appreciate if this was shared but I don't know if you would do so.

Yes these are helper jobs, but are there KPIs, do they actually want to improve the game? The reason I say this, is because they genuinely believe their job is just to moderate instead of be the face and try do bring positives to the game in comparison to their predecessors.

Spoiler

Some of the things I listed above, are the fault of the administration.  The joint responsibility of forum growth and clan growth on forum, is due to the Forum Administrators over the last 7 years as well as the eSports Administration. The fault of bad VLOG community engagement is due to the Community Managers over the last 7+ years. The destroyal of eSports formats, is the fault of the eSports Administration over the last 7 years. They compensated this by handing real money which has no meaning. This is the fault of the old players of the game who run the front side of the interaction with the MMO players. Do they have an understanding? No. Do they want to change? No. Do they want to introduce such ideas or make such commitment to their moderation or administration roles? No. Do they want an easy life and not do much? Yes.

 

Did the moderation or administration do things differently in the eras of 2012-2017 despite the fall of Starladder? YES. They created MotS, and Domination Series. Some of the most underdog players were born then, and veterans of 1v1 were shown despite having little popularity in the game. Did they create forum contests and what more? Yes. I focus a bit on the eSports, because it showed huge innovation and community engagement.

We can talk of Parkour, SwiftSmoky introduced different Parkour competitions. Even if paints were temporary, it created thrill. Ofc back then paints meant more. Now paints don't mean as much, but still would create engagement. Lennard tried to do something similar, and I can say some moderators care about the development and engagement. Some are lazy and do not care. The Community Manager sees this as a job, he will not come on the forum on the weekends. The other community managers, some of them take this job as a joke and think their job is literally a translation job. 

 

I think it's worth noting everything well someone did and what someone did not do. I can list a dozen things the CMs did which benefitted the game somewhat drastically in terms of engagement, but what has @Marcus done?

• a discord server which was setup by others?
• a eSports checker which does not work.
• A tankisport site which is the modern face of a poor performing eSports.
• What else is he doing?
• Translating and managing head adminstrators? Is he going to do anything else?

 

What have the chat admins done since Ostrica/Shar0n/EddyBeGood/Hate left the game?

What have the forum admins done since Yele moved over, since FBI and CooperO left?

What has Marcus done that has benefitted community improvement in eSports, since joostcool left for the EN Community?

What have the wiki editors done? Well they do a superb job in comparison to other roles but still, the wiki is not updated as the RU wiki is.

What did the Events team do so good since skeletorXVIII/Nikk left the game?

Rent a Spec? They actually improved the service since Mia and Ilia left the game, and whoever led that team most likely did a super job to create such a role in the game.

Are content helpers needed if they are just translating subtitles? How many people use these subtitles, has the VLOG YT team checked the analytics, see if this is a wasted resource for player-based roles to assist in the MMO? Auto translation might be better in such cases.

Edited April 14, 2024 by Lord

[Venerable 2,967]

On 4/14/2024 at 8:04 PM, Lord said:

Source for this information, for the era of 2013-2017?

trust me bro

Spoiler

On a serious note, I don't have any source that I can openly talk about. I joined the game in 2016-17, so feel free to completely disregard everything I've said if this fact matters that much.

 

For what it's worth, I've seen admins discussing player-feedback (ultimately they're the ones who forward stuff to the development team), I've seen Opex-Rah talking about some ideas from players, but a lot of this is not publicly available (I used to be a helper). Let's just say I've seen enough to know that feedback has always been received, it's just that in many cases, no immediate (or quick) action was taken to address the feedback/suggestions. This is sufficient for me, personally. And I completely understand the doubt in players' minds about how the game's management functions. However, I've also seen some ridiculous/impractical suggestions from players who then expected themselves to be taken very seriously by the developers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

As I said, these are my thoughts. Here's what I believe: Just as you can't conclusively prove that feedback is ignored (re: difference between listening and taking action), I can't prove that feedback is truly considered or scrutinized.

 

[Jeers4U 665]

On 4/6/2024 at 11:59 AM, Son_Goku said:

 

Literally Tanki players

Except... that it WAS fun back then.

Source: Me. Back then.

 

Remove the people employed by tanki from the voting results  and I wonder what the poll would look like...

Edited April 14, 2024 by Jeers4U

[Son_Goku 514]

On 4/14/2024 at 8:08 PM, Jeers4U said:

Except... that it WAS fun back then.

Source: Me. Back then.

It was fun for me as well, but you know why? Because many of us were kids, and this game was something new back then. Tanki was one of the first PC games I had ever played when I was a kid, of course it was fun.

We didn't realize all the flaws back then and remember only the positive things because of nostalgia. If I had to play 2011's version of Tanki today and grind all the way up to Marshal, I straight up wouldn't, lol. Same goes for newer versions.

[Jeers4U 665]

On 4/14/2024 at 2:16 PM, Son_Goku said:

It was fun for me as well, but you know why? Because many of us were kids, and this game was something new back then. Tanki was one of the first PC games I had ever played when I was a kid, of course it was fun.

We didn't realize all the flaws back then and remember only the positive things because of nostalgia. If I had to play 2011's version of Tanki today and grind all the way up to Marshal, I straight up wouldn't, lol. Same goes for newer versions.

And for me, this wasn't my first game and I wasn't a kid.

And there were flaws, sure.

But the flaws back then were something you could live with because they weren't as ridiculous as the flaws the game has now.

[Maf 32,300]

On 4/14/2024 at 6:34 PM, Lord said:

Yes, this is by far the most mistleading comment in the section and at the same time the most trustworthy comment. No self respectable company is actually taking notes from Tanki Online on how to create a long lasting profitable F2P MMO but how to not lead an MMO to a disaster.

Dude, seriously — where's the disaster? There's dozens (hundreds?) of similar games out there, which were created and then shut down because they struggles to compete, often due to developers making poor decisions. Very few games from the 2000s managed to retain at least some of their audience and survive for over a decade. Some of the titles include TF2, WoW and Minecraft, so even if you're simply comparing Tanki Online to them, it's automatically an acknowledgement of Alternativa's success.

Tanki Online followed a natural curve of a successful MMO, where it peaked after a few years and then slowly dwindled in popularity until becoming stable again. You can see this on Google Trends, where I compared Tanki Online to World of Tanks — a similar game in concept. WoT did a little better than TO, but the shape of the graph is strikingly similar.

There's no way to know whether the changes and additions that devs made in TO over the years would have been better or worse for audience retention, so claims like "if devs didn't do X, then there would be more players now" are baseless.

On 4/14/2024 at 6:34 PM, Lord said:

The game was intended for children. Ofcourse, not only children played it, but adults as well. 

[...]
This is also the most stupid way to lead an MMO. Any project lead would say the opposite. When a huge chunk of player base complains about an update, and threaten to leave and do leave, and it is ignored. If 1000 players complained about an update instantly, you listen to them. One example was the initial update on supplies where hundreds of players flocked to complain. 

The game is still intended for children. Always had been, and children have always been the biggest demographic in Tanki.

And, spoiler alert, children don't go on the forum to complain about updates. They open Tanki on their phone, play a few quick battles, and click on whatever shiny things developers show them. This is why even when the whole forum thread is filled with complaints, it still doesn't reflect the actual opinion of the whole player base, because the forum is used by a tiny portion of users. A lot of the updates you hate were designed for (and are effective on) the demographic that doesn't share its feedback, so the feedback that actually reflects an update's reception is in the numerical data collected from people using the game. 

On 4/14/2024 at 6:34 PM, Lord said:

There are a dozen MMOs, some older than TO or just as old, and to this day, they have a much active player base than TO

Can you give some examples? I'm genuinely curious which games you consider to be similar to Tanki, but more successfully managed by their developers.

On 4/14/2024 at 6:34 PM, Lord said:

The real downfall, was due to the halt in advertising, the halt of Starladder which was the time of eSports being at its biggest. The prevention of communities on forum, such as clan closures, causing people to fully create their own communities which resulted in it being harder to join communities - the main point of MMOs.

Not really. Advertising is just a calculation of return investment. If the return diminishes, then you either change your advertising method or you stop it completely.

Starladder was a similar situation — the partnership was extremely expensive, and it was done with the goal of generating profits after the financial success of eSports in DotA. Not every game is suitable for creating an engaging eSports community, and so Tanki Online's eSports was not as popular as devs had hoped. So yeah, sorry to burst your bubble, but Tanki Online Starladder was created to generate income as the main motivation, as opposed to to strengthening the player community (which was just a side bonus). It didn't work as well as devs had hoped and was therefore cancelled.

On 4/14/2024 at 6:34 PM, Lord said:

They absolutely fumbled everything and destroyed the whole point of an MMO, and it is a reason why TankiX really failed.

You're completely mixing up different things here. Tanki Online is an in-browser game, and that's its main selling point. Tanki X was meant to be a replacement for TO, just built on a completely different, more capable game engine. The game was more than halfway through development when most of the big web browser developers announced that they will no longer support Unity within their browsers. That immediately killed Tanki X (as it became a client-only game), but devs fell for the sunk cost fallacy and finished development anyway, hoping that the the game would succeed despite this disadvantage. It didn't, and was eventually shut down. It has absolutely nothing to do with decisions made in Tanki Online. In fact, a lot of features from Tanki X have already been implemented in Tanki Online, because they were actually good design decisions.

On 4/14/2024 at 6:34 PM, Lord said:

Alternativa Games, produces several games and most of them have been losses

That's how game development works for a typical indie game studio. You make a bunch of games and some/most of them will inevitably flop. Especially if they're mobile games (which have about a 0.2% success rate). Tanki Online is Alternativa's flagship project, so those other games were an attempt to diversify income and plan for the future while Tanki Online provided enough profits that could be reinvested into development of new games.

On 4/14/2024 at 6:34 PM, Lord said:

if they work 10 hours and profit £1 with expenses at £99, yes they gained £100 but £1 for 10 hours is not a success but a failure.

I don't know how you quantify success, but if I'm running a business and its income has been able to pay all of my expenses, employees' salaries, and my own spending needs for 15 years, I'd consider it successful. Anyway, neither of us have the data of Alternativa's financial performance, so this is a pointless argument.

 

A few more points:

• "The Tragic History of Tanki Online" is nothing but a view-farming meme compilation (of course, made to be just over 10 minutes for that sweet extra ad revenue). It's not an actual analysis and its target audience is children, not game developers. 
• The vast majority of players who proudly proclaim that they're "leaving the game because of bad updates" don't actually leave. It's hilariously ironic, but true.
• Many illegal clones of Tanki were created to appeal to the old players and give them the "Old Tanki experience". All of them are dying or have died, despite trying to implement changes based on player feedback and not repeating the same mistakes Tanki made. people simply don't want to play old, outdated garbage.
• Opex is not the owner of AlternativaGames. If his leadership was harming the project, he'd be fired years ago. Is it possible that the forum experts are wrong? We'll never know...

 

Lastly, I want to note that I do agree with you on the game's development being far from perfect. Two things I strongly dislike, which the game seems to consistently fail on:

1. Game balance
   The constant addition of obviously OP items and then taking an absurdly long time to nerf them. From EMP Gauss, to Helios, to Booster, to Blunderbuss, and now Miner-Saboteur combo. It seems insane that some features get added to the game without the obvious implication that they will destroy game balance. This happens time and time again and I find it extremely frustrating.
2. Lack of QoL updates
   There are some features missing that I simply don't understand why devs can't dedicate some resources to implement them. Biggest one for me — ability to buy items as gifts for other players. Why is this not a thing? It's literally PROFIT! But no, instead if I want to buy something for a friend with real money, I have to ask them for a payment link, which is a terrible idea for them to give me that link because it can be used to block their game account via payment refund (fraud). There are multiple other features which have been suggested years ago and are still missing for some unknown reason.

[Apollo 127]

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

Tanki Online followed a natural curve of a successful MMO, where it peaked after a few years and then slowly dwindled in popularity until becoming stable again. You can see this on Google Trends, where I compared Tanki Online to World of Tanks — a similar game in concept. WoT did a little better than TO, but the shape of the graph is strikingly similar.

There's no way to know whether the changes and additions that devs made in TO over the years would have been better or worse for audience retention, so claims like "if devs didn't do X, then there would be more players now" are baseless.

We can compare WoT to TO, Wargaming out performed Alternativa Games as a company. As a company they established communities, clans which are very prominent to the game to this day. eSports, mobile development on numerous games and transitioned it well initially. All MMOs have decreased in the gaming community so the peak was not because TO is successful but it had the gleam. Now it does not have that gleam, but there's things out of your control and things within your control.

There is no way to know because what the developers did, was stop audience retention. Stop community engagement, stop growth. Since the covid eras, they put their focus on lazy development and establishing profits, for the shareholders and not to invest. They learnt their lesson from investments from TankiX, last time they did any serious investments.

Google trends is a remarkable tool, but yet fails to provide everything you are asking for. You are being either naive to the understanding MMO games have their own nature. One does not google MMOs to watch videos, which again content creation is very hard to do around this and many MMOs struggle with this fact. TO had a good search trend which diminshed. Others had a good search trend on release, which is very common. And they still hit the markers, when releasing DLCs/Expansions/eSports News. TO does not hit these markers, you are putting WoT as the only competitor which is just wrong.

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

The game is still intended for children. Always had been, and children have always been the biggest demographic in Tanki.

And, spoiler alert, children don't go on the forum to complain about updates. They open Tanki on their phone, play a few quick battles, and click on whatever shiny things developers show them. This is why even when the whole forum thread is filled with complaints, it still doesn't reflect the actual opinion of the whole player base, because the forum is used by a tiny portion of users. A lot of the updates you hate were designed for (and are effective on) the demographic that doesn't share its feedback, so the feedback that actually reflects an update's reception is in the numerical data collected from people using the game. 

And this is the exact reason why less and less play the game. As I said, it is for children and the primary users are children which I don't know why you repeat. The opinion of the player base is very weak since most players do not have an opinion. I did not have an opinion as a young adult of what would be more fun, but I know what I would have enjoyed and liked to see more of now, and still linger in the hopes they create additional content. I think what kept me so long in this game, was creating my own content despite so much limitations against me doing so, I was able to create my own content for myself aka parkour wars and it kept the game interesting for me. With the occasional reminiscent xpbp which was never the same, and drug wars never the same, and MM with no playtime and at the same time - dominating every map from basic mechanic knowledge, controlling OD box zone, having a strong tank - the content was limited and the skill levels to advance are limited. eSports is shambles, with 1 boring format which the old sport players throw mud on.

What is not an opinion, is players get bored. Children get bored when they run out of things to do - most probably don't grind to get a high level tank anymore or even to get that gold box which rushes your heart a 1000 bpm. Tanki has a very limited # of things to do, and this is where you need engagement. Am I the only one who thinks TO has literally driven it to the ground because they do not care about the community and have never cared?

I don't hate any updates, and I believe the updates were done to benefit the times and modernisation - which is good development, change is not necessarily bad. But a lack of change or a lack of desire to develop aspects of the game, is bad. Too much change is bad, such as overloading of augments with releases being OP until nerfdom. 

You can quote me on my old post here which still retains everything I said. You are not focusing on the actual point of the question, but hopping on the pips of monetary data.

I think money speaks a thousand words, and this is a good focus. But the only focus is where foolishness comes in, players should not really be happy to spend 5$ a month but should not be against it, IF THEY ARE GETTING CONTENT!! They are not getting anything from BPs to enjoy the same old boring maps and some boring events with primitive releases.

Numerical data is a known fact that retention has significantly reduced, Hazel despite being foolish admitted himself that they have done absolutely little to no advertising and are still in the TESTING phase as a 16 YEAR OLD game. These are red flags. I don't talk about player retention for old players but new players as well, this is a common theme and should be discussed in virtually every shareholder meetings instead of focusing on OH WE PROFITED 1,000,000 bucks, let's put 0 into advertisement for years on years - I'm amused he's probably telling the shareholders we're in testing phase now for advertisements.

What you don't seem to understand, the company puts very little investment into their own game, and pools more into others from what it seems? I don't know why anyone should be defensive for Alternativa Games if they cannot invest into Tanki Online as they should.

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

Can you give some examples? I'm genuinely curious which games you consider to be similar to Tanki, but more successfully managed by their developers.

There are no games similar to Tanki, which is what I am trying to point out about innovation and the need for engagement. Tanki Online is an MMO. It's not Fortnite, it's not Brawl Stars, it's not Overwatch, it's not World of Warcraft, it's not Guild Wars, it's not Final Fantasy. It's good to take ideas, but Hazel focuses on the 1st person shooters or Russian based games such as DOTA2 which aren't traditional MMOs and much newer releases or a completely different style of play and community.

Tanki had a much higher MMO engaged community like World of Tanks, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2. It had players interacting, it was one of the biggest MMOs of our era, and why the ONLY video about Tanki Online in the last 5 years that hit more than 100,000 views actually now this video is over 1,000,000 views is entirely based on the fall of Tanki Online.

Anyone saying otherwise is in denial, because that is simply not the way to think that Tanki is successful. These other games have successfully allowed F2P to continue to be the essence of gameplay, retained player retention, allowed players their own free reign. Brawl Stars is a much newer game, created by Supercell, and it's a reasonable intake that a newer MMO shooter PvP game can be made with a different traditional MMO intake and design. Not P2W but skill to win, and fun with a lot more community engagement than Tanki Online tends to have. I am not against the new updates but the lack of development the game really should have had in place for years and lack of investment since Hazel's lead and the execs do not care. Their focus is elsewhere and has never shown to be on the interest of the players for nearly a decade now.

Games from different genres can out perform Tanki Online, not because of your belief success is monetary but community engagement. Length of a game lasting so long does not contribute to success. You're so fixated on the small profit, if you breakeven you consider yourself a successful business man. I tell you now, you are infact a very poor business man and would land no successful job with the mindset breakeven is good, or not hitting KPIs are good. If I underscore in any of my KPIs for running a business, we look at these areas and check the variance of what we need to hit these KPIs. 

I believe tanki online has no variances on these areas due to bad lead development and that is my point. If they can boldly say we are testing advertisement and we're so fixated on removing errors, for the last few years, what do you expect them to do that will make Tanki Online a shining MMO in the next few years then? I have no good faith they will create amazing content but will be the same boring content with few minor changes, introduction of even more augments which we won't know what they do, no real end game content for legend rank players and additional player reduction by 50%.

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

You're completely mixing up different things here. Tanki Online is an in-browser game, and that's its main selling point. Tanki X was meant to be a replacement for TO, just built on a completely different, more capable game engine. The game was more than halfway through development when most of the big web browser developers announced that they will no longer support Unity within their browsers. That immediately killed Tanki X (as it became a client-only game), but devs fell for the sunk cost fallacy and finished development anyway, hoping that the the game would succeed despite this disadvantage. It didn't, and was eventually shut down. It has absolutely nothing to do with decisions made in Tanki Online. In fact, a lot of features from Tanki X have already been implemented in Tanki Online, because they were actually good design decisions.

What? Do you really think the internet was obsessed over browser based games in 2017? No. it was not, and this was already understood by all developers especially since the fall of agar.io. Client based games for PC was the way to go. It gave them much more power to create powerful applications, than be limited to a browser based game. Tanki Online's selling point was it is an inbrowser game. TankiX was meant to be a Tanki 2.0, much greater graphics, yet little to no TO player wanted to play Tanki X. Fun fact, it was boring. It did not have the same feel as Tanki Online, they were future planning at a too early time - even TO players then did not appreciate the graphics. There were bugs, there was very limited contents and ranks if I remember? There was quite a big push from players to create content amongst themselves, but this did not last long.

They had a massive sunk cost and would never dare to dream to make a Tanki 2.0, WHY? Because it would flop. Other MMOs can take this risk knowing they won't flop, why is that? I call this, simping over MMOs as some of the stans of these games are so upright they advertise their games nearly everywhere. Potentially Runescape 3 was a flop but other MMOs are able to release expansions freely, work proactively on releasing new content for players, knowing it's not likely to flop. This is a huge testament to the fact Alternativa Games cannot and will never be able to release another game ever again, and the whole memorial of Tanki Online's popularity is based on the era of 2012-2015.

Also please read my statement, I said "a" reason and not "the" reason. The reason you pointed out is a valid one but is not the only reason. TankiX also had very little advertisement, I don't know what is it with Tanki Online and the reduction in community engagement and advertisement and growth in eSports is considered based, when it is absolutely not like that at all.

If you truly disagree, ask yourself this, would you play Tanki Online if you never knew anything about the game to this day, play for the next 11 years of your life, be a moderator and administrator like you were? Invest so much time where you get very little fun and engagement, I think you are on the forum due to the forum being the biggest engagement you find from this game? Or is that not the case, perhaps I am reading that wrong?

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

That's how game development works for a typical indie game studio. You make a bunch of games and some/most of them will inevitably flop. Especially if they're mobile games (which have about a 0.2% success rate). Tanki Online is Alternativa's flagship project, so those other games were an attempt to diversify income and plan for the future while Tanki Online provided enough profits that could be reinvested into development of new games.

Yes, other sunk cost fallacies such as TankiX? And little to no investment in the real development of Tanki Online, except where they see a potential monetary gain in liquid cash. Why I underline this? Because your primary focus is liquid cash, as an investor into a gaming publisher, your interests are not only about liquid cash over a small time. As I said, if there are no future prospects there is little to no point to play the game as a gamer. You can get a better experience elsewhere, and Tanki Online has a very little selling point to it's current standing point. I would suggest you to play other MMOs so you can get a much larger experience on how development works. Be in other forums, be in other communities in groups or clans. Play competitively, casually, and you'll see a whole range of fun Tanki Online does not even dare to commit to for the last 16 years. There are over a dozen projects in the game which were never finished, and it really speaks loud words except to you but to the hundreds of thousands of players who understand and see Tanki Online as a failed MMO.

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

I don't know how you quantify success, but if I'm running a business and its income has been able to pay all of my expenses, employees' salaries, and my own spending needs for 15 years, I'd consider it successful. Anyway, neither of us have the data of Alternativa's financial performance, so this is a pointless argument.

Aside from the immaculate bad ethical behaviour of quantifying success to be about breaking even and no warranty of the future expenses (economy is forever changing, and Russia has taken a massive hit with the ruble and same time all time high. They should and probably profited a lot in 2022 due to the skyrocketting of the ruble. Maybe this is why capital was withdrawn? And now 2023,2024 they are losing due to currency exchange). Alternativa Games does stand by law to be sanctioned at any time, given appropriate evidence is presented against it's tax avoiding company in Cyprus as well as full barring from taking additional income. source: Me and X which I can't reveal here.

Why you didn't spend those moments to research into the financial performance!!? You can find this online and for anyone interested in finance, it would say a lot. You are free to google this. 

2020, 2.9M rubles profit, to 81.2M rubles profit in 2021 (that is very suspicious btw, and hit the news unlike anything else Tanki Online does), to a drastic decrease with 43.5M rubles profit in 2022.
Reduction in capital in 2017, and 2018 and 2022 (this was paid as dividends to shareholders at nearly 600,000 USD). I wonder what they pay as dividends is contrasted to advertisement expenses, it is not. Maf please just research all of this.

source: https://companies.rbc.ru/id/1065906035568-ooo-obschestvo-s-ogranichennoj-otvetstvennostyu-alternativa-gejm/

New exec director is now the former legal officer for Alternativa Games, why was the old exec replaced?
source: https://spark-interfax.ru/permski-krai-perm/ooo-alternativa-geim-inn-5906071031-ogrn-1065906035568-09980d7eceef48c8a1ee9759d558c1e7 (if this is true, I've followed the company for a while since I invested into my tank so wanted to know if this was a good decision).
Job turnover? Check out the developers who list they work at Alternativa Games and where they work now, source: linkedin

Customer turnover? Negative for years, assuming ever player is considered a customer or client of the game - sensible since they are stakeholders and data is collected on them.

Why are the execs being changed, why are the founders also leaving after the golden years?

For you this is not important, but for anyone with a keen eye, these things signify negative change. A lot of capital is being introduced but not sure where this is going? I don't know why you don't ask, with all this money, understanding of wages in Russia, costs of operating in Russia and to be able to have access to international customers. Why are no investments being made to bring more developers, to work on these things which should have been done in the last 16 years, or to introduce advertisement which has fallen since 2015? These are sensible questions, and the answer is NOT "i made money i don't care" but how can i improve and work on the areas we are not performing good on.

 

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

• "The Tragic History of Tanki Online" is nothing but a view-farming meme compilation (of course, made to be just over 10 minutes for that sweet extra ad revenue). It's not an actual analysis and its target audience is children, not game developers. 
• The vast majority of players who proudly proclaim that they're "leaving the game because of bad updates" don't actually leave. It's hilariously ironic, but true.
• Many illegal clones of Tanki were created to appeal to the old players and give them the "Old Tanki experience". All of them are dying or have died, despite trying to implement changes based on player feedback and not repeating the same mistakes Tanki made. people simply don't want to play old, outdated garbage.
• Opex is not the owner of AlternativaGames. If his leadership was harming the project, he'd be fired years ago. Is it possible that the forum experts are wrong? We'll never know...

Yes but it hit the jackpot algorithm and went to all old players, GREAT money idea and great resonance on why players moved onto other games. Not because they dislikes Tanki Online or it's updates, but because they got bored to do the same thing over and over again for years and years.

Tanki Online is a very primitive game, and it does not need to be like that, especially as this is how typical MMO thrives. They introduce content, I don't ask too much content and that is wrong. There are some fantastic MMOs which do this and it just puts you off. Newer games somehow have more content than Tanki Online. Investing 50,000$ to hire 2 developers in Perm, Russia with extravagant wages would be a great deal. I don't want to put insults on anyone, But they have 2 CMs in RU Community, 1 in DE which is a dying community. There are wage expenses being spent for things which should be done elsewhere.

The problem is with the shareholders/execs not realising this, exec not acting with bona fide, and lead devs like Opex thinking he is right. As far as I remember, he used to ban players on the forum for speaking out against him and the forum admins had to involve and tell him to back off. source: former admins with medal of merit. This is the pinnacle of Hazel's criticism level of what he can take as a lead dev. The old com beliefs resonating he can only be right, vs the forum experts with their infinite need of consumerism complaining about P2W. I would take my trust with the fools from the forum over a person who does not want to listen to criticisms.

About the illegal clones, some of them are hitting 20,000$ in 1 month of revenue, excluding expenses. So I don't know what your information is based on. Lack of willingness to research into financial statements, lack of research of player status on online - yes to access this data, you need to access it via the front end of their game with data manipulation since they are hiding this information from users. Sadly, that's another L for game development since users are prohibited from making third party tools which may not be cheats but could be useful resources. I have a friend who made a multi login tool more than 1 year ago, and TO has said they would make this for ages now. TO does not invest intself as it should. (source for illegal clones achieving profits, some of my former clan mates invest thousands into the game, the love of a particular type of content seems to give them the thrills, red flag for developing an MMO but green flag for hitting that monetary liquid cash success as you said ). And thus will live for a few more years without game development.

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

There are multiple other features which have been suggested years ago and are still missing for some unknown reason.

They do not put the expenses into hiring developers. I put a link for Hazel's post not because I HATE TANKI. I indeed do love this game. But he is focused on 1 type of development, which is to achieve profits. His comparison are western corporations as he said, and games which are not really traditional MMOs like Tanki Online once was considered. He's focused on introducing ideas as they are introducing them. He's not interested in innovation, making the actual core game better, implementing content for players to play on.

I play brawl stars a little bit whenever I'm in transit and not able to do anything, and this is why I like the idea of blitz mode. It's something easy for mobile players and kids to enjoy, whilst growing their tank and ranks. It can have a competitive nature, and it's nothing to do with monetary gain but engagement gain. It does not even need to be a blitz mode, but this is very good since even World of Tank Blitz and their other variations are a popular hit. I have personally played them, but they require a massive GB space on my phone which I do not like as well as a massive power drain. It can also lead to many different openings, but with a small player base like TO now has, they really need a proper indepth analysis on how to introduce more content and increase net player registrations (instead of silly, create a new account and buy a cheap bundle).

But content is king in my opinion, not for instant liquid cash gain but long term player retainment, long term player loyalty, long term cash gain. This also creates more interest in buying battle passes as well, and loot boxes, if it would somewhat be needed to assist you in gameplay. Not like 1000 augments which no one can keep a check on. And a trait system would be good, from WoW or GW2, this could create a core hull and turret. END GAME Content is what I call it, done really well on GW2. Each person can adjust their tank with trait levels, and the differences should be minor ranging from 0-5% potentially 7% once you are fully M4. Cosmetics should be the key for monetary investment, and easier to gain crystals for trait levels. Trait levels should not be cheap, this would reduce the economy of game crystals which is at an all time sky high. It also allows end game players to want to play or buy to increase the strength. 

There's so much that could be done for end game content instead of releasing new "overpowered augments" every other week, and pumping and dumping over the users. This is what I feel was over the animated paints, it was a huge flex to have these paints. As one of the first users for both Valour and Tankoin Tank, I felt they were a massive investment to have. Now I feel they are worth nothing, and anyone can obtain even the other paints. I remember spending a good 50$ on some of them, and my alts have some of these paints from conts. A pump and dump, initially sold like they were to be limited edition but were not. Seems they are doing the same with the augments, and making them nerfed and easily obtainable at later stages. It's really so sad, that they squeeze and squeeze so they can hit these benchmark profits for the shareholders, but do not care about development of the game. And that's my point on why the game is now a failed MMO.

And I am sure regardless of my essays or your essays, the one thing will never change, Hazel will say his misleading stats about the game; refuse to look in other directions as he always has done, and for sure continue to release more augments. Tanki Online will continue to hit their money targets, but very little game development will be done as it's been for a long time. (Yes UI change is a big change but it is not hard for such a change, and 1 developer could have done that in over a week. I speak from programming experience, and there are third party scripts drastically changing the UI already for the game, I mentioned 1 above to show how poor development is).

Edited April 14, 2024 by Maf

[Son_Goku 514]

On 4/14/2024 at 8:58 PM, Jeers4U said:

But the flaws back then were something you could live with because they weren't as ridiculous as the flaws the game has now.

Really? In old Tanki you could have a full M3 garage by the Lieutenant rank, free to play players would never achieve this, which was a significant flaw. In that same time period, free to play players never had supplies - meanwhile, the paying audience had thousands of them, essentially making their already stronger tank twice as strong, which is also a huge flaw in my opinion. In some cases, Brigadiers had no chance against Lieutenants. Does that seem balanced?

Some time after the re-balance, I think around 2013-2015, they added kits, which were getting paying players paints, hulls and turrets, up to 7 ranks (which was one HELL of a grind back then) before you could actually get them in the garage, giving them a significant advantage over free to play players. As a normal player at the Warrant Officer 4 rank, with I don't know, Thunder and Hornet M1, you were facing self-healing Isida/Viking M2 combinations that had thousands of supplies while you had none. These players with kits were practically invincible for you, killed you in seconds and it took just one of them to turn around entire 8v8 battles. This situation lasted for years. You really think this wasn't ridiculously flawed?

The game has always been an unbalanced, flawed mess, everyone has always been complaining. Yet, you all seem to forget about it, which is quite funny. The pay to win factor has always existed and in newer Tanki it is just shifting, I personally don't believe that it's getting worse than it used to be. What sucks is the gambling part.

Edited April 14, 2024 by Son_Goku

[Jeers4U 665]

I did not engage in the chat/forum until after overdrives were implemented.

If anyone complained, I was not a part of it. And I don't really retain anyone else's complaints.

 

My official complaint has always been the failure of having even strength teams during matchmaking.

Most other complaints are jabs at tanki's silliness.

 

However, I am really enjoying reading all the different perspectives.

Just saying.

Edited April 14, 2024 by Jeers4U

[Hypersomnia 1,695]

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

neither of us have the data of Alternativa's financial performance, so this is a pointless argument.

I saw some data couple years back. Tanki's profits EXPLODED lately with them earning hundreds of thousands in each quarter of the year. This did not seem credible but Hazel couple months said that well TANKI'S PROFITS HAVE EXPLODED LATELY WITH THEM HAVING MILLIONS which does not contradict with the data that I saw. Also I see no reason for Hazel to lie about Tanki's profits. He could've skipped the question or just talk in a way where he kinda gives an answer and then instantly slides to another one.

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

"The Tragic History of Tanki Online" is nothing but a view-farming

its nostalgia bait. the entire video is just "old tanki good, new tanki bad because dev greedy".

 

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

players who proudly proclaim that they're "leaving the game because of bad updates" don't actually leave.

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

All of them are dying or have died, despite trying to implement changes based on player feedback and not repeating the same mistakes Tanki made. people simply don't want to play old, outdated garbage.

lol i can't believe i'm saying this but Maf the Moderator is 100% right here (i am beyond disgusted)

 

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

Is it possible that the forum experts are wrong?

at the end of the day revenue is what matters. games are created to make money not for you to enjoy. you like it or not its a fact.

100% of the playerbase can universally agree that X update is trash but if it generates money you can bet it's staying in the game. Also this is not only tanki community but every game I play community thing is that people just think that forum, twitter etc communities of X game is 99% of the community that plays X game. while the truth is that 90% of people are casuals who do not care about engaging the the "internet community". 

On 4/14/2024 at 11:09 PM, Maf said:

The constant addition of obviously OP items and then taking an absurdly long time to nerf them.

it's the "Gacha" game thing. They release OP items that get POWERCREPT so players have to hunt for the new items which generates a lot of money in the end. Tanki doesn't have powercreep instead they nerf OP items. as i explained before somewhere nerfing is way better than powercreep in tanki.

 

also what's with the whole speeches here lmao i aint readin all that

Edited April 15, 2024 by Maf

[Maf 32,300]

On 4/15/2024 at 1:06 AM, Lord said:

We can compare WoT to TO, Wargaming out performed Alternativa Games as a company.

There's no doubt about that, but Alternativa being outperformed by Wargaming does not make the former a failure.

On 4/15/2024 at 1:06 AM, Lord said:

There is no way to know because [..]

No, you don't get it. There is physically NO WAY to know whether any decision anywhere would have been better it if was done differently, simply because we do not have the technology to check alternate universes. Would Tanki Online be better if the 2012 Rebalance never happened? Would they keep more players if they removed Overdrives? Would the revenue be higher if there wasn't so much P2W content pushing players away? We can only make educated guesses.

On 4/15/2024 at 1:06 AM, Lord said:

What is not an opinion, is players get bored. Children get bored when they run out of things to do - most probably don't grind to get a high level tank anymore or even to get that gold box which rushes your heart a 1000 bpm. Tanki has a very limited # of things to do, and this is where you need engagement. Am I the only one who thinks TO has literally driven it to the ground because they do not care about the community and have never cared?

This is absolutely true - players getting bored is the #1 cause of them leaving the game. The 2015 period I mentioned above was the worst for TO because devs put all their cards into TX development and only kept a "skeleton crew" working on TO to maintain the servers. No new content meant that people got bored, and a huge number of players moved on to other games (google trends reflects this).

But the method to get engagement back is where you're wrong. Like I said, the gaming industry has evolved and the new generation of players doesn't care about community stuff anymore. They don't want clans, or forums, or community events. Instead, they want new features to play with, new cosmetics, and new in-game events to keep themselves entertained. That's why Tanki Online devs phased out things like eSports, the WAR and Youtuber Battles, in favour of Battle Passes, special game modes, Tanki Funds and various "competitons", which merely require the user to buy a pass and play the game, as opposed to engaging in some kind of interaction with others.

On 4/15/2024 at 1:06 AM, Lord said:

If you truly disagree, ask yourself this, would you play Tanki Online if you never knew anything about the game to this day, play for the next 11 years of your life, be a moderator and administrator like you were? Invest so much time where you get very little fun and engagement, I think you are on the forum due to the forum being the biggest engagement you find from this game? Or is that not the case, perhaps I am reading that wrong?

In this day and age I would not recommend Tanki Online to anyone unless they were willing to spend a lot of money to give themselves a comfortable playing experience. Tanki Online is a great game and very fun if you're a Legend with a fully upgraded garage.

On 4/15/2024 at 1:06 AM, Lord said:

But he is focused on 1 type of development, which is to achieve profits. His comparison are western corporations as he said, and games which are not really traditional MMOs like Tanki Online once was considered. He's focused on introducing ideas as they are introducing them. He's not interested in innovation, making the actual core game better, implementing content for players to play on.

Don't blame it all on him. Opex may be a lead game dev, but he's not the owner. His management pushes him to make changes that will generate whatever revenue/profits they're aiming to achieve. Based on his interviews, his posts (here and on RU forum), and a couple private conversations, I can tell you quite confidently that he is well-versed in game design, and he has the desire to do cool things that players would love to experience.

But due to financial and time constraints, he either doesn't have the resources to implement the things he wants the way he wants them, or he has to adapt them in a way that fits into the constrains and meets the project's revenue quotas, which often means significantly changing the core idea to the point where a potentially cool new feature gets ruined down to a crappy, rushed, P2W gimmick.

This is also the reason Tanki is copying successful features from other games. When I said that Tanki is successful and still generating stable revenue, I didn't mean that they're swimming in cash like they may or may not have been around 2014. So while they had the ability to experiment and take risks a decade ago, these days I suspect that they can only make changes that are safe and proven to work in other games (matchmaking, lootboxes, battle passes...).

On 4/15/2024 at 1:06 AM, Lord said:

There are no games similar to Tanki, which is what I am trying to point out about innovation and the need for engagement. Tanki Online is an MMO. It's not Fortnite, it's not Brawl Stars, it's not Overwatch, it's not World of Warcraft, it's not Guild Wars, it's not Final Fantasy. It's good to take ideas, but Hazel focuses on the 1st person shooters or Russian based games such as DOTA2 which aren't traditional MMOs and much newer releases or a completely different style of play and community.

First of all, I think we need to stop with the MMO comparisons altogether. I refer to Tanki as an MMO simply because it's convenient, but it's not an MMO in the typical sense. It's much closer to Overwatch and TF2 than it is to something like WoW or FF, so in that sense Opex is 100% correct in taking Overwatch as an example.

And why do you so defiantly claim that it's not Overwatch? The similarities are uncanny — replace Heroes with Tanks and you basically have Tanki Online. Literally.
Tanki may have been a unique concept in 2009, but that's no longer the case.

On 4/15/2024 at 1:06 AM, Lord said:

But content is king in my opinion, not for instant liquid cash gain but long term player retainment, long term player loyalty, long term cash gain. This also creates more interest in buying battle passes as well, and loot boxes, if it would somewhat be needed to assist you in gameplay. Not like 1000 augments which no one can keep a check on.

Ok so what kind of content are you actually talking about here? In 2024, what kind of new content would you expect Tanki devs to add, which you would praise and enjoy?

[Apollo 127]

On 4/15/2024 at 12:40 PM, Kimura said:

I saw some data couple years back. Tanki's profits EXPLODED lately with them earning hundreds of thousands in each quarter of the year. This did not seem credible but Hazel couple months said that well TANKI'S PROFITS HAVE EXPLODED LATELY WITH THEM HAVING MILLIONS which does not contradict with the data that I saw. Also I see no reason for Hazel to lie about Tanki's profits. He could've skipped the question or just talk in a way where he kinda gives an answer and then instantly slides to another one.

I posted the data above, and did a small breakdown from a quick glance. I didn't really go into it in huge detail since I'm not interested in auditing Russian Financial Accounts with very little understanding of the Russian GAAP. There are very famous scandals such as the Enron scandal, and these are famous only due to the magnitude. You would be more than surprised, the west is very pedantic on audit whilst I believe there is a bigger lever of relaxation in Russia I would say. There's different ways to account for income, expenses, profits, assets, and liabilities. There's all these different ways to manipulate data, and from the whole picture - it is very easy to understand Alternativa Games' intentions are not to develop their MMO but quote on quote "squeeze the lemon until the pips squeak".

Hazel is a lead dev working at the company for or nearly since the beginning, most likely he also has shares invested into the company. The problem with working as a veteran in a company, you also begin to become complacent. Especially as an elder, it's easy to lose the drive for the passion of learning, the passion of creation. I did pinpoint on a massive drawings of 600,000$ paid as dividends, and the comparison to how Hazel mentioned they are testing advertising; indicating they have not done so for years. This is not about lying but manipulation of data. They went from nearly £25000 to £695 000 profits in a single year, their biggest profit.

Not millions so you are being daft and have not checked any data, and the skepticism for such an increase raises real concern on all the things why I pinpoint on why these don't happen. I conclude bad lead development and failure to act with bona fide, but there could be other things going on which we aren't aware of. For audit, this raises fraud issues FYI but not my place to investigate.

On 4/15/2024 at 12:40 PM, Kimura said:

lol i can't believe i'm saying this but Maf the Moderator is 100% right here (i am beyond disgusted)

Again, WRONG! I've informed both the administration and management of the game, on the income earnt by some of these illegal clones. They are proactively attempting to close any advertisement of these clones. The clones have single handedly earned more wages than majority of parents of players in a single month than a typical adult could earn in a year. I've provided the source for this, and if you know my background and having run one of the biggest community of spenders in this game, the figure is not exaggerated. In one of these games signified by the acronym PT, there are dozens of individuals spending hundreds monthly with many spending upto and over a thousand. One of these clones is hitting 2 years very soon, and has not only reached a stable income but with stolen resources and the intent to only keep the servers running.

One also managed to successfully use political volatility on exchange to double-triple their income on the era of release.

I hope fake news is banned one day, because it draws a fiction of realities. Tanki proactively has created lawsuits to attempt close such games and has travelled from Perm to Moscow to attend these. If what Maf was even remotely close to saying the truth, they would not have done so.

[Apollo 127]

On 4/15/2024 at 2:27 PM, Maf said:

No, you don't get it. There is physically NO WAY to know whether any decision anywhere would have been better it if was done differently, simply because we do not have the technology to check alternate universes. Would Tanki Online be better if the 2012 Rebalance never happened? Would they keep more players if they removed Overdrives? Would the revenue be higher if there wasn't so much P2W content pushing players away? We can only make educated guesses.

I'm not discussing the negative impact of the updates man, yes they happened. I am just showing you the face of Alternativa and their approach for the last 10 years has always been with strong stubbornness. I don't refute what you are saying and you are turning a blind eye on the core of the details.

Updates are not bad and P2W content is not necessarily bad, and I have not suggested otherwise.

On 4/15/2024 at 2:27 PM, Maf said:

There's no doubt about that, but Alternativa being outperformed by Wargaming does not make the former a failure.

Tanki Online is not a failed project for the company. Tanki Online is a failed MMO. Any project lasting 10 years at least, is not considered a failure. But any developer most likely is not looking at Tanki Online on how to develop a MMO but how to not develop a long lasting MMO. Tanki Online's success was built on being a browser based game with tanks, it was interesting. This success does not resonate with the current generation nor upcoming. Therefore the need for content for an MMO is forever increasing and not being primitive. 

The idea of new augments is not real content and primitive and gets boring - the idea of P2W is not bad if you are provided with value or content, this is not the case for a long time. They have shown to be a real destroyer of game balance often at times, at the sake for being a cash cow. I have shown dozens of examples why TO is failing/failed as an MMO, I have not said they failed as a company. The company from Russia with remotely minimal wages, have out performed majority of Russian companies and is considered a successful gaming publisher in Russia. HOWEVER, they are not considered a successful gaming publisher for elsewhere and the reasons are imminent. Liquid cash is not the only factor in this equation, but other things, such as intangibility and more.

On 4/15/2024 at 2:27 PM, Maf said:

This is absolutely true - players getting bored is the #1 cause of them leaving the game. The 2015 period I mentioned above was the worst for TO because devs put all their cards into TX development and only kept a "skeleton crew" working on TO to maintain the servers. No new content meant that people got bored, and a huge number of players moved on to other games (google trends reflects this).

But the method to get engagement back is where you're wrong. Like I said, the gaming industry has evolved and the new generation of players doesn't care about community stuff anymore. They don't want clans, or forums, or community events. Instead, they want new features to play with, new cosmetics, and new in-game events to keep themselves entertained. That's why Tanki Online devs phased out things like eSports, the WAR and Youtuber Battles, in favour of Battle Passes, special game modes, Tanki Funds and various "competitons", which merely require the user to buy a pass and play the game, as opposed to engaging in some kind of interaction with others.

This is where I disagree with you. The nature of traditional MMOs was to work on these things, and many games flourish with these ideas. eSports grows with these ideas. Tanki Online went the primitive route to create cash cows via augments, potentially a few cosmetics, instead of working on their MMO. Players get bored, the gaming industry did not stop working on their MMOs. Even these newer games, they don't just work on releasing new power tools to ruin the game balance, and the newer MMOs despite taking a slightly different route to the traditional MMO, still contain the ideas of engagement.

• They nearly all have ranked games, to develop one's team ability or one's solo ability.
• They nearly all have way more content with different game modes instead of always the same games and same formats.
• MANY of them have different maps, TO has released a mere 5 maps? I'm not sure on the number, in the last 5 years. They are making remastered maps but not NEW MAPS.
• Their features on the game are very primitive
• Their eSports is really bad, never how it used to be.
• The forum or community events are not bad ideas, and with modern times, you just need to move to different platforms. This is discord, you need to monetize content and this has always been the case. Minecraft does well for this in many of the private servers, not that TO is like them. But this is a great way to engage young people to play the game, and by having interactions in this game, you are more likely to play it more.
• The solo players do not play for long, and the ones who play for long are likely to spend more - unrealised income.

On 4/15/2024 at 2:27 PM, Maf said:

But due to financial and time constraints, he either doesn't have the resources to implement the things he wants the way he wants them, or he has to adapt them in a way that fits into the constrains and meets the project's revenue quotas, which often means significantly changing the core idea to the point where a potentially cool new feature gets ruined down to a crappy, rushed, P2W gimmick.

This is also the reason Tanki is copying successful features from other games. When I said that Tanki is successful and still generating stable revenue, I didn't mean that they're swimming in cash like they may or may not have been around 2014. So while they had the ability to experiment and take risks a decade ago, these days I suspect that they can only make changes that are safe and proven to work in other games (matchmaking, lootboxes, battle passes...).

They must have a really bad accountant working alongside them. I pointed out some wage expenses which are not being used appropriately, having 2 CMs in RU and 1 CM in a dying community is one big example. Having an EN CM, despite being one of the most qualified on paper, attending a fabulous university supposedly and having created a massive eSports tool and site. None of these bring value to the game as of now, or are obsolete. Translation is not the only thing needed for CMs.

Anyone who is here since 2011, can relate to Bruce Lunga, or Semyon Kirov being the face of the community. Interacting as well as openly doing things for the game. Kasim was a great example in RU, same as Sun, and a few more individuals for those who remember.

I understand Hazel can't do everything and spoke of the blame on the execs and sahreholders - not only on Hazel. They need to hire more developers. I know a former admin, a great developer, really wanted to work for Alternativa but was refused since he was not Russian. After this he left. Alternativa can and should be hiring developers, and releasing these small features even, finishing projects and expanding their game. They have wasted years not doing this. And there is no excuse to not fix that. This is the problem with older companies, they do not desire to work efficiently or proactively.

On 4/15/2024 at 2:27 PM, Maf said:

First of all, I think we need to stop with the MMO comparisons altogether. I refer to Tanki as an MMO simply because it's convenient, but it's not an MMO in the typical sense. It's much closer to Overwatch and TF2 than it is to something like WoW or FF, so in that sense Opex is 100% correct in taking Overwatch as an example.

And why do you so defiantly claim that it's not Overwatch? The similarities are uncanny — replace Heroes with Tanks and you basically have Tanki Online. Literally.
Tanki may have been a unique concept in 2009, but that's no longer the case.

Not really, all the MMOs are unique and these newer ones did not follow a traditional route. TO's roots have been more like a traditional MMO even if you want to dispute that. The glorification of TO, the reason why people wanted to be moderators, make unofficial VLOGs such as from Ilia Archangel and more, was due to the player-player interaction. Building a strong team, growing your tank, and winning battles. Sadly, most games are boring without interaction, and would not be anywhere near as fun if there was no interaction. 

Nothing wrong with following newer MMOs partially, but as far as I know they are producing new content unlike TO. TO has kept for the same boring streamline for years by copying other games, no innovation. I have not been against BPs, or events or funds but I find them very repetitive and with all these other things which are in nearly every game, it would make these P2W Components worthwhile and drastically extrapolate the fun a user could achieve. 

On 4/15/2024 at 2:27 PM, Maf said:

Ok so what kind of content are you actually talking about here? In 2024, what kind of new content would you expect Tanki devs to add, which you would praise and enjoy?

- Merge the gameservers from China, don't know why there's a separate game when Chinese also want to come here. I asked for the BR one years ago to be merged, since the whole community wanted it to be merged for a long time, eventually they did it due to money constraints? This would increase more players, and interactions. Chinese guys are cool having played with a few of them in this game, they do want to talk with others.

- Create a proper MM system, ranked ELO, at least from Legend ranks. This would create end game content for Legend ranked users, and encourage users to become better, get better equipment, and upgrades. Stop releasing OP augments which is not end game content for majority of Legend users. Tanki Online has no endgame content as of right now and once you hit Legend rank, there is nothing to do except grow your garage. This is boring, and has been a really bad concept for many years.

- Create new maps, new modes to play. As I said blitz is a really good one for mobile, and PC users. No one wants to play 15 minute maps anymore, it's not like old times.

- FIX the old projects. Fix the clan system, so people can create clans and teams and compete. This does not even have to relate to eSports but it could lead to a more structured eSports than the one it is now.

- They could modernise TO even further, by developing challenges. I saw they introduced bots finally, they could really go anywhere they want for this in terms of content. Imagine one guy, he could make a private game and play vs 5 bots similar to CSGO. And test himself. Many MMOs have some sort of training area to improve one's ability.

The idea of AI play can be used to take content to a whole new level, and my suggestions are small. I am sure game developers have even greater ideas on how to use AI to improve content for players and give more content.

- STOP Creating augments. This destroys game balance. There is no game balance for a long time already now. The meta for sometime is using pulsars or these status effects. Acting very aggressive when attacking, using light hulls, using crisis drones for speed. Having 2-3 massively strong players vs a team of mediocre players. There is no content here. The game can introduce other ways to bring in more income.

- The game economy has slowly been inflating since creation, what is being done to counter this? I think this has been forgotten, and it doesn't necessarily lead to content but it provides users the desire to catch that gold box with a heart of 1000bpm like the old times. To use supplies tactically and more so. Grenades could be a fantastic approach to this.

- VLOG interactions with a face. Not these boring VLOGS which no one truly enjoys to watch every Friday and don't end up caring. Semyon Kirov was a star and a role model to follow on that.

I could go on, on how to create content. But the aim of the game should be to increase player count, so advertise more. Merge game servers if necessary and laws allow it. Introduce end game content for players, and improve player-player interaction and team building. It's really hard to make a forum post about this, but a powerpoint would be easily done. Money will come in the same, and potentially even more. Money constraints are heavily dependent on the accountant at the place, if you have a goal, they need to talk it out with him. Let go of some people, and get people to work harder. Moderators in TO and Admins can also put way more effort like they did in the past, if they cared as well.

[Spy 14,687]

On 4/15/2024 at 3:40 PM, Kimura said:

also what's with the whole speeches here lmao i aint readin all that

When the Forum is used for what it was created for

[Hypersomnia 1,695]

Spoiler

On 4/15/2024 at 8:27 PM, Spy said:

When the Forum is used for what it was created for

 

this thread in a nutshell