I am surprised by quite a few of my fellow pilot's comments about how there is nothing which can be done to stop leavers and tankers. About weapons being too powerful or not powerful enough.

Pricksonix could fix all these issues...simply and easily!

How? THROUGH MATCHMAKING! By going back to a matchmaking formula based upon hangar strength. Anyone who has been playing since 2016 or earlier know all these issues came up after the December 2016 update. You almost never saw tankers because there was no benefit to it. Weapons and robots didn't need to be nerfed of buffed.

Back then, skill and tactics mattered more than what bots and weapons you brought to the match.

Now we have utter chaos with endless adjustments

They said leagues would fix the problems. It hasn't.
They said buffing and nerfing weapons and robots would fix it. It hasn't.
They said the low priority queue would fix it. Nope!

The root cause of all these issues is matchmaking. But they won't go back to the old matchmaking because it will impact the revenue of their Pay2Win model.

The fix to all this issues requires only one simple change. If Pricksonic really wanted to fix these issues they would have done so long ago.

That is the simple truth.

WWR, the reason most the players at silver and gold level is because you (mail.ru) fuc-ed up matchmaking after you took over the game with your December 2016 update. Now there is incentive to tank games to keep at a lower levels (bronze 1 to Gold 1). This drop "scheme" will be just another attempt to get the matchmaking to work.

It will fail just like leagues. Why?

Because even with the incentive to get better gear, the actual game experience will still suck! There will still be players with level 9+ heavy bot hangars in silver and gold league beating the crap out of hangars will light, medium or lower strength heavy bots.

The guys at Pixonic who originally developed the game had it right. You need to match based upon the potential of a hangar lineup and not the actual damage inflicted. Your approach to do matchmaking is, to be blunt, stupid.

Example for illustration - HOW MATCHMAKING SHOULD WORK: A one on one battle of a light bot at level 12 with 2 level 12 weapons VS a heavy bot at 6 with 4 level 3 weapons.

Light Bot Damage Absorption - 80,000
Light Bot Damage Infliction - 140,000

Heavy Bot Damage Absorption - 140,000
Heavy Bot Damage Infliction - 80,000


The damage infliction is the total amount of damage the robots weapons can discharge during the entire 8 minute match. This needs to be an assumption you make for matchmaking purpose: that a single robot can last the entire match. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But that is where player skill comes into play and who you team up with in the match. NEITHER of these (player skill or who you team up with) should be part of the matchmaking formula. This is why the current system of using the amount of damage a player inflicted in the last 50 matches is wrong and why Pixonic (pre mail.ru acquisition) didn't implement it.


The example above would be the perfect matching scenario, assuming a 100% hit rate for each player, the match would end in a draw. This is as fair as it comes without taking player skill into consideration (and it shouldn't be taken into consideration). You have a heavy bot competing equally with a light bot. If you used this system with leagues today, you would see Masters Leagues Hangars with all light or medium lineups. Today you don't (more on that - as it's another example of how you, mail.ru, have fuc-ed up the game). So for each player, we have a total of 220,000 ( 80,000 + 140,000) points. Let's call this the cumulative damage score.

So now you have as evenly matched 1-on-1 battle as you can get. What about other players to make up the team of six? Well, to your point and credit, there probably aren't enough players with a cumulative battle score of exactly 220,000. So you would need to do a bit of analysis of all the current hangars out there to get an idea on the +/- percentage you need to get a match together. I think 10% is probably a bit much (198,000 to 242,000) but 5% might not give enough range to quickly fill a match with players. You need to do some homework to come up with the right equation. Note I say 10% is probably a bit much because the higher amount of variance you allow the more you negate player skill.

Using the baseline of 220,000, you can now find 12 players within the range of variation for the battle. The last step of course is once you have the 12 players, teaming them up so that the cumulative battle score of each team has as little variance as possible.

The above is far superior to your current broken system. It will multiple benefits that will remove the need for the current assortments of schemes needed to address it's flaws.
1. A player will get ZERO benefit to tanking games. They can tank 50 games to get their average battle damage score to zero but they will continue to be matched up against hangars of similar strength.
2. You will have better top to bottom balance on each team. No more 1 player causing 50% (or more) damage to the enemy and carrying the team.
3. You will have better balance to enemy team you are facing. Unless the players are all duds, no more matches being decided in the first minute.
4. League will see more diversity.

Item 4 is directed at my comment on Leagues being biased and why in Masters League you don't see any all light or all medium bot hangars. In fact, looking at the Top 10 players in Masters League, there are only 2 light bots and they are all dashers. In fact, ALL THE ROBOTS EXCEPT 2 ARE DASH BOTS! There is 1 Giffin and 1 Lancelot. Before the dash bots were introduced, the hangars of the top 10 were almost exclusively heavy bots.

Is that the balance you were looking for when you introduced Leagues, Pixonic (mail.ru)? (Oh, and by the way, the current points awarded/deducted in battles going toward leagues is also terrible - I'll explain why you guys missed the boat on this one in another comment). I don't know if you guys are pretending you want to fix the problem or actually want to fix it. Given that the prior system worked better and you refuse to trash your current system to go back to it, I am inclined to believe you are pretenders, using the imbalance created by the matchmaking system and the DASH bots to increase your revenue. In other words: PAY 2 WIN.

If more people enjoyed the game more people would play. If more people sensed the game was fair more people would invest in the game and pay for upgrades.

This is a problem on phones and on tablets. I play on tablets as big at 10" to phones as small as 5" and it's the same issue. Like you say, it's a damn easy fix!

I have emailed and replied in their online form that if they moved the jump/shield/cloak action button to just below the menu button at the top right hand corner this issue could be fixed. For whatever reason they refuse.

No joke. Before dash bots you would only see the classic heavy bots in Masters League Top 10 - Natasha, Leo, Lancelot and Griffin. Now in the only classic bots is 1 Griffin and 1 Lancelot.

I'd like to know who can defend mail.ru against the claim that the game has not turned to Pay2Win.

AND the additional cover should be exclusively for TDM. Putting the cover in place takes away the benefit of long-range, line-of-sight weapons.

Fix Matchmaking

The reason most the players tank games is that you (mail.ru) fuc-ed up matchmaking after you took over the game with your December 2016 update.

All these patches and gimmicks will fail just like leagues. Why?

Because even with the incentive to get better gear, the actual game experience will still suck! There will still be players with level 9+ heavy bot hangars in silver and gold league beating the crap out of hangars will light, medium or lower strength heavy bots.

The guys at Pixonic who originally developed the game had it right. You need to match based upon the potential of a hangar lineup and not the actual damage inflicted. Your approach to do matchmaking is, to be blunt, stupid.

Example for illustration - HOW MATCHMAKING SHOULD WORK: A one on one battle of a light bot at level 12 with 2 level 12 weapons VS a heavy bot at 6 with 4 level 3 weapons.

Light Bot Damage Absorption - 80,000
Light Bot Damage Infliction - 140,000

Heavy Bot Damage Absorption - 140,000
Heavy Bot Damage Infliction - 80,000


The damage infliction is the total amount of damage the robots weapons can discharge during the entire 8 minute match. This needs to be an assumption you make for matchmaking purpose: that a single robot can last the entire match. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But that is where player skill comes into play and who you team up with in the match. NEITHER of these (player skill or who you team up with) should be part of the matchmaking formula. This is why the current system of using the amount of damage a player inflicted in the last 50 matches is wrong and why Pixonic (pre mail.ru acquisition) didn't implement it.


The example above would be the perfect matching scenario, assuming a 100% hit rate for each player, the match would end in a draw. This is as fair as it comes without taking player skill into consideration (and it shouldn't be taken into consideration). You have a heavy bot competing equally with a light bot. If you used this system with leagues today, you would see Masters Leagues Hangars with all light or medium lineups. Today you don't (more on that - as it's another example of how you, mail.ru, have fuc-ed up the game). So for each player, we have a total of 220,000 ( 80,000 + 140,000) points. Let's call this the cumulative damage score.

So now you have as evenly matched 1-on-1 battle as you can get. What about other players to make up the team of six? Well, to your point and credit, there probably aren't enough players with a cumulative battle score of exactly 220,000. So you would need to do a bit of analysis of all the current hangars out there to get an idea on the +/- percentage you need to get a match together. I think 10% is probably a bit much (198,000 to 242,000) but 5% might not give enough range to quickly fill a match with players. You need to do some homework to come up with the right equation. Note I say 10% is probably a bit much because the higher amount of variance you allow the more you negate player skill.

Using the baseline of 220,000, you can now find 12 players within the range of variation for the battle. The last step of course is once you have the 12 players, teaming them up so that the cumulative battle score of each team has as little variance as possible.

The above is far superior to your current broken system. It will multiple benefits that will remove the need for the current assortments of schemes needed to address it's flaws.
1. A player will get ZERO benefit to tanking games. They can tank 50 games to get their average battle damage score to zero but they will continue to be matched up against hangars of similar strength.
2. You will have better top to bottom balance on each team. No more 1 player causing 50% (or more) damage to the enemy and carrying the team.
3. You will have better balance to enemy team you are facing. Unless the players are all duds, no more matches being decided in the first minute.
4. League will see more diversity.

Item 4 is directed at my comment on Leagues being biased and why in Masters League you don't see any all light or all medium bot hangars. In fact, looking at the Top 10 players in Masters League, there are only 2 light bots and they are all dashers. In fact, ALL THE ROBOTS EXCEPT 2 ARE DASH BOTS! There is 1 Giffin and 1 Lancelot. Before the dash bots were introduced, the hangars of the top 10 were almost exclusively heavy bots.

Is that the balance you were looking for when you introduced Leagues, Pixonic (mail.ru)? (Oh, and by the way, the current points awarded/deducted in battles going toward leagues is also terrible - I'll explain why you guys missed the boat on this one in another comment). I don't know if you guys are pretending you want to fix the problem or actually want to fix it. Given that the prior system worked better and you refuse to trash your current system to go back to it, I am inclined to believe you are pretenders, using the imbalance created by the matchmaking system and the DASH bots to increase your revenue. In other words: PAY 2 WIN.

If more people enjoyed the game more people would play. If more people sensed the game was fair more people would invest in the game and pay for upgrades.

You mean before mail.ru bought out Pixonic and then implemented this crap matchmaking system?

It doesn't matter what Pixonic does as it's evident the players are a hell of a lot smarter than the people calling the shots.

I can already see the work around on this. I dump my regular lineup and put all level 1 cossacks with level 1 weapons. I can't inflict much damage so I get the same effect as tanking. That is my average damage goes way down so I get -22 and soon am back down in bronze 1 league.

The guys from mail.ru now running the show are a bunch of clueless hacks.

Why do you look forward to the changes? Do you actually believe they will fix the problem?

You have got to be kidding. Go look at the top 10...or 20 players in the Masters League. How many non-dash bots do you see? I checked today. In the top 10 there are only 2 non-dash bots. So what happened to all those players who had MK2 Griffin, Leo, Natasha and Lancelots who were in the top 10 2 months ago? Think about perspective indeed!

Haha - Yep, something's wrong with that comment.

Make no mistake. The game's matchmaking was ruined by mail.ru when they bought the company and changed the matchmaking logic with the December 2016 update. I've written a long comment about why the current matchmaking is unfair, unbalanced and will never allow anyone other than those with the most powerful bots (at the present time medium and heavy dash bots) in Master's League.

Is allowing a very good player using light bots at level 4 and 5 with average damage scores of 250,000 going against a poor player with heavy bots at level 6 and 7 with an average score of 250,000 sporting?

It's akin to putting an over the hill heavyweight against a up and coming flyweight or a scratch golfer against a 20 handicap golfer.

Ask yourself why you almost never saw people tank games before the December 2016 update.

Mail.ru - Tell me how getting points for beacons doesn't give even more advantage to the PAY2WIN bots like maxed out DASHers. In less than 20 seconds a maxed dash bot can capture 3 beacons and kill any light or medium non-dash bots that tries to stop them. FAIL again. Just wait and see.

Look at the top 10 players in Masters League It's already completely changed the game.

PAY 2 WIN - Yippee!

Haha. Dream on. They can't make it easy otherwise people won't PAY 2 WIN.

Very well said! The new reporting (tattletale) system for tankers will just change the way people go about tanking. I can already see tankers changing their lineup to all light level 1 bots.

Half-heartedly play and those 5 bots will inflict maybe 20,000 damage in a battle. Haha. Tanking achieved.

SCORE:

TANKERS: 1
PIXONIC: 0

Absolutely correct. This game has turned to garbage since mail.ru took over Pixonic.

BS. People have been complaining about the matchmaking for a year and Pixonic keeps adding these stupid tweaks that will not fix the core issue: Matchmaking logic is flawed.

Using a system based upon amount of damage a robot can inflict favors heavy bots. Before the December 2016 update you could play with an all light or medium hangar and be equally matched with light, medium or heavy bots based up a formula of how much damage you could potentially inflict, not how much you actually inflict. The people who complained about that system were the bad players. This new system was the perfect fit for those players because they can heavy up their hangar and get into battles with medium and light bots.

EXACTLY!

Don't go so hard on the idiots calling the shots at mail.ru. They realize that they aren't getting their return on their $30 million investment in Pixonic they thought they were going to get.

So let me make sure I understand you correctly. Players who do the most to contribute to a team win should get the same rewards as those who do the least? If that's what you mean, I'm guessing you like socialism.

Great idea. Let's just all not try hard because in the end we get the same rewards (rolling eyes).

AND just imagine - over 20 different weapons and robots to select from. It will take me years to win them all.

Or I can just PAY 2 WIN because I'm getting slaughters in the months it takes to win enough components for even 1 DASH bot.

OH, I AM SO EXCITED.