Pixionic speaks, and they want you to know they care!

I'm happy with leagues, being opposed to enemy with weapon usually from 20 to 50% better than mine is a challenge i like and i'm able to do a decent amount of gold to ( about 40 per day) so i think that the skill based system work fine, only problem for me are tankers and ditchers but i think pixo will fix this sooner or later, also i think they have to communicate more with player base but in the end i love this game and i'm happy to throw some money at it.

To offset all the negativity, and perhaps explain why everybody hasn't stopped playing:

My games have been just fine for past week or so at least (in Android Silver2/Silver1). I have had no crappy battles. Not too much battle reward gold either, but daily missions bring in enough steady income to keep me happy.

And I think players like me are in the majority. And it doesn't help the cause of improving MmM, that many of the complainers seem to be ranting... like coming here with a screenshot of their worst match-up in fifty games, and ranting like all their games are like that.

This is what I do at this point as well lol. Use fun bots and don't care win or lose that much.

Exactly. Elo works for chess because the game pieces are equal. It works for mobas because of the constant strive for balance.

Pix is matching vastly different hanger strengths. Their goal is to get players to spend $ to reach 12/12 for a fair fight. The tanker can "justify" to themselves tanking because of this. Also their system isnt even a real elo system where points earned depend on opponent's skill.

What Pix created was a system that drives 50/50 win rates by giving poor players and tankers easy competition and good players unfair matches. They removed a fair system for a revenue generating system. The tanking is but a symptom, the MM is the cause.

Note: quote was edited for space. 

This is a common theme among "freemium" apps.  These apps provide over 90% of app store revenues at the moment, so Pixonic didn't put it out there this way out of the goodness of their hearts.  On the other hand, as someone who has written a number of donation-ware apps, I can tell you that the vast majority of people will not give a company money for an app if they don't have to... no matter how good it is.  In order to manage a complex game like this, Pixonic is undoubtedly utilizing an algorithm to seperate "average" players from the outliers.  Once this is done, a model built using game theory is sufficient to maximize profits among the average players, while providing a satisfying experience for them.  The outliers however, have a particular set of tendancies, and the algorithm will apply pressure to leverage them.  I think what we're seeing is the result of a mixture of Pixonic casting their "over-performer" net a little too wide along with over-shooting the threshold for tolerance of the pressure they're applying.

I agree you have do disincentivize tanking and to me the easiest solution and the most logical one to fix a lot of the tanking and complaints is to simply stop giving Au as a match reward.
I understand not everyone will necessarily care for the idea but it is a simple balanced fix - stop issuing Au as a match reward and instead have additional skill points/Ag given to those spots (why tank when there is no reason and as soon as you start winning you get shot back up to your proper league).  
Yes I know this means Au is even harder/slower to get but even that can be fixed by increasing the available objectives and making the reward greater the higher your tier (again incentivize people to play up not down).  
Would this change require a re-evaluation of items and bots Au cost maybe or maybe not, it depends on how you chose to offset the change in the revenue stream.
Either way the solution isn't perfect but should prove to be fairly effective in reducing tanking and the reward increase at higher tier will provide some tangible benefit to the players that make it there. 

And before someone throws the "then you have to buy Au to win" argument out there "No you don't".   In a game like this winning is subjective are you winning if you win a match or if your climbing leagues or if you make it to Legandary or are you winning if you're just having fun?  That is for you to decide but there does need to be some advantage/incentive to buy Au  (secret: revenue - it's what keeps these games going) now there are different ways to generate revenue in a game like this - Pix has chosen to sell a single in game currency.  With Pix's decision to sell Au there are a number of ways to promote that and they do use some of those 1) Au speeds up build time 2) Au allows access to some of the better bots/weapons (buying it is quicker then earning it but you don't have to buy it)  3) personal customization (paint jobs/skins) I have thought on how to make that last one better but that is further off topic then I already am.   

Point is we want to incentivize the type of behavior we want to see, while maintaining some system of balance/progression and still allowing the Developer to keep the lights on.

It may be true that they have limited some of their revenue sources, but when you consider the typical freemium developer gets 50% of their revenue from 10% of it's user base,  you have to rethink how much revenue they're actually losing by doing so.  The new system "balances" players by giving "underperformers" a hanger advantage, which as you mention removes any ability to actually assess skill.  While this might destroy the game experience for YOU, there does exist a certain number of players who will respond by paying more real dollars.  This is what I meant when I said that Pixonic cast their net too wide.  You have apparently been identified as an "overperformer" which equates with a tendency to pay more money.  If you aren't spending more money than you were, then you aren't one of those that will and Pixonic will have lost your money.  Now, you have to realize that you are a minority among an minority.  If they lose your money, they may not be that concerned because the next guy in line will more than make up the difference.  The exploitative route will undoubtedly result in some lost players, however you can bet they wouldn't have implemented this if they weren't confident they could compensate by upping the ante on the top 10% spenders.

To the people saying the tankers are on their side every single time - no they are not. That is literally impossible. You might get more one day and then have less th next day. But the matchmaking doesn't choose specific players to pick on. It takes people in similar leagues and randomly assigns them to teams. You're just proving the fact stated in the Pix quote. People only remember their negative experiences. They never remember the status quo experiences.

I've been recording the # of "tankers" in Android Silver 2  In 42 matches played in the last 48 hours I have seen 2.77% of the players were "tankers". That is to say 14 tankers out of 504 players available.   I defined a "tanker" as one who stood idle, ejected before the match started, cycled their hanger, or did 1 "activity" (IE a single cap or fight with a single bot before leaving).

However, ~31% of the 42 matches featured a "tanker": 13 of 42. Of those 13 matches, 11 of them the side at full player strength won.

I can say this, I'm a spender. I don't mind paying for a quality product that I enjoy. I've spent some serious money on this game. I've got about 5000 wins so I've also got some experience. How does someone like me feel about where the game is going?......in the wrong direction. I'm actually really worried about its future. I love the game, warts and all but some of the decisions pixonic is making border on insanity.....like they are trying to sink the game on purpose.

I'm a "whale" spender and the spigot has turned almost totally off except for premium. I don't like the new matchmaking. I don't like the league system. I don't like the punitive punishment that has been implemented for losing games when it's matchmaking causing the loss. The biggest issue I have though is the blatant pattern of "thievery" (imo) that has been made into a common practice through the use of targeted nerfs. It is unconscionable to offer a product with certain specs and then nerf it 8-10 weeks later (ex. lancelot shield). It has happened so often that I have lost all confidence in spending any more money. If someone like me, who loves the game and spends a lot has lost confidence in the integrity of future purchases......pixonic has a BIG problem on their hands. I simply don't trust them anymore to deliver and protect my investments into the game.

Increase activity and decrease cause for tanking:

-Remove Match based Au, give 4 daily tasks with a max of 8. 100-150au daily was (from an anecdotal standpoint) was the number that non-clubbing, high activity players would normally reach, while clubbers and now tankers usually aim for 2-300au per day. This would give pix a solid metric to monitor non-coin Au, where, if it cuts into their bottom line too much, they could simply reduce the Au payout per task by a small amount (5) so that each active player earns 100au at most per day (or slightly more with a 40 (35) Au task.) With match based Au gone, the incentive to tank for rewards is halved.

-Increase Ag rewards with a small modifier per league. Say x1 for bronze, with a .2 modifier per main league (x1.2 for silver, 1.4 for gold, 1.6 for diamond etc), as upgrade costs demand(Not nudge at, not ask) either a huge amount of time, or a sum of cash. This removes the other reward based incentive of tankers/clubbers, as the winning multiplier would factor after the league multiplier for Ag rewards.

What we'd have left are the folks doing it out of spite and e-peen stroking, and those are the folks we want to toss into a room together(similar to the "cheater server" in other PvP games)

Dealing with tankers is tricky because while we as players know if someone tanked (unless there was a legitimate connection issue) it is a lot harder to set heuristics that work for everyone and do this on an automated basis. How would any legitimate player feel if they somehow ended up in the tanker queue? It would suck...

Regarding the guy who has trouble being outclassed in diamond, I'm getting close to entering it myself so I'll have some first hand experience but as someone who moved through gold it seems that there was some crazy rubber banding going on from the mm. It seems like when I'm on a role they throw berserk leveled guys against me to beat me down but my overall (weekly/monthly) rating to climb (1-3rd place losses and 2nd - 4th place wins for example) seem to make my net average over a week go up. To counteract this, I'm playing less and just letting my weapon upgrades happen to push me into diamond through higher placements. This will work for me because I currently have enough silver to upgrade for a month or two at my current level without playing another match, by then maybe things will be better. Obviously, this won't work for everyone.

For everyone, the only thing I can reccommend is to play what you want how you want when you solo because ranking and winning has a lot more to do with if you are playing 5 on 6 than if you did 100K more or less damage. 

Lastly and I know this doesn't help many people, once your hangar is near max I imagine you will see many less tankers since they will simply not want to farm against maxed bots...

Thank you for your input!  THIS is what will make/break this game.  If players like spartan44 aren't supporting this game in the current model, we should all be worried about it being around for any of us to enjoy.