Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2017 16:07:02 GMT -5
Hello fellow users.
You may have noticed that I have been posting less recently on this forum, and if you were lucky to play with / against me in the Battle, my cup counts are extremely low. Ever since Pixonic released the Dash robots, my interest in War Robots slowly faded. I find no interest in playing the game of War Robots anymore because Pixonic is transforming War Robots into a whole other game: just another skill-less, pay-to-win game in the App Store.
A year ago when I first downloaded War Robots, the game was incredibly diverse and fun. Every bot and weapon build was viable in one tier or the other. The hangar based matchmaking was able to consistently bring up fair enemies and teammates, with the exception of the low silver tier and below. And because everyone had mostly the same leveled weapons, matches were decided particularly by skilled play and good teamwork. If you were skilled, you were awarded with a very high win rate. If you stunk, well, your win rate would be comparable to the win rates of current non-dash or non-tanking players. The only drawback of this system was the Gepards, where 4/12, 4/9, 2/9 Gepards would be dominant in the meta because of their superior weaponry, and sometimes, skill. I hated Gepards, but Gepards were beatable. And if you somehow could not beat them, you could escape the Gepards by running a Leo with level 8 weapons.
But all that skill and fun changed when Pixonic introduced the Leagued system, which is a failed system in game which skill plays no part in. Originally, the League system was a celebrated idea because Pixonic claimed it was designed to get rid of seal clubbing by making matches determined by skill. To be fair to Pixonic, many players still approved of them and they were frank with the majority of the player base. We saw that was not the case when players of all sorts of hangar and skill were pitted up -- and still pitted up -- unfair matchups and teammates. And that's when Pixonic started making false promises of 'Don't worry, we will fix it soon'. It has been 9 months of the Elo matchmaking and matches comparably the same, or arguably worse, than when they first introduced it.
Part of the reason why is because the direction that Pixonic is opting to take this game. Originally, the Elo matchmaking was meant for Chess competitions before the game industry adopted it. A game of Chess is based on pure skill and nothing else. And that is why an Elo system will work. Once you start factoring in unchangeable factors, factors that give you a slight advantage, factors that give your opponents a disadvantage. That's why the current matchmaking gets so many complaints because games are no longer based on skill, and rather the amount of tankers and dash bots. If there was any skill involved in a normal match, it would just be the 'skill' point-and-shoot slog fest or the 'skill' finding a beatable opponent in a rock-paper-scissors-gun game. The rockets buff (backpedal removal + Pins / Tulumbas buff) and the Ancile buff were probably the more prominent game revamps that were absolutely killed the skill in the game. Going back a few months ago, the almighty Death Button Griffin could be defeated by a measly Plasma Gareth. The invincible Thunder Orkan Lancelot could be defeated by an Orkan Rog by the use of backpedal. The ability of backpedaling made lights and mediums still relevant to the game meta. If you were aware that there was a Death Button Griffin coming 'round the corner, you could start preparing to run backwards. The removal of that ability and the buff to Tulumbas and Pins simply made the use of non-Ancile and non-Dashing mediums and light robots obsolete. That buff just promoted brainless shooting near the target to damage them severely. Adding on, the Ancile buff basically substituted the skill of backpedaling for an unchangeable factor.
Furthermore, Pixonic decided to aggrandize the problem with the imbalanced matchmaking by adding in overpowered content, the Dash robots. I don't know how to even start this, because the Dash robots are the reason why many players (myself included) quit or wants to quit War Robots. The predecessors to the Dash robots, the Wild West robots, cost a decent amount of cash, but weren't terribly overpowered. The way I see it, Wild West robots were a novelty item; it made you stand out when you march into battle with your Doc or Butch. Sure you weren't going to change the outcome of the battle by just that one robot, but the more important thing was that they were not game-breakers. The Dash robots are. The way that Pixonic released them initially, the Black Market, was just a scam to milk the cow. The Black Market basically gave the players who were able to pay more than $100 in gambling a way to
get a huge advantage over their enemies because of their robots. Let's face it -- Dash robots are overpowered. Someone with significantly less skill and a Dash robot will easily beat a skilled player without one. I consider myself a fairly skilled player and it is just ridiculous that in this sort of game, a player who handed Pixonic wads of cash is given a victory of me and other pilots who may not be able to pay a grand sum per robot. We have begged Pixonic to nerf the Dashes and have gotten only the response 'We're still collecting data'. That is complete bull?poo-poo?. When almost everyone in Legends and the competitive clans run multiple Dash robots per hangar, statistics aren't needed to be collected. Nerfs need to be given.
Part of me actually speculates on the reasons why Pixonic is ignorant to our complaints. Pixonic is not stupid. They are a fairly large company (mobile game company, respectably) and according to this site, Pixonic has about a ~$100K daily revenue. True or not, any company that has the ability to manipulate the game to bring in that amount of currency are not fools. Pixonic designed War Robots since they started making major changes to become a club-or-get-clubbed game. It's true. Pixonic foresaw that the Elo system was able to be manipulated more easily and more unfairly and they made the switch. In the lower leagues (Bronze to Diamond), tankers run rampant clubbing the less experienced players. In the upper leagues, the tankers are replaced by Dash bots and the normal Champion / Expert games, clubbing the less geared players. Pixonic has taken no action against such practices and even ballooned it by adding in the LQ. The LQ was basically another window for clubbing. Pixonic, 6 months ago, announced that rewards would be diminished for the LQ. Their promise did not surface until they recently released an video talking about the Low Priority League. Whether that exists or not, I do not know. Pixonic allows these such practices to happen because it's designed to promoted spending among the players who are clubbed. It is a complete lie that the playerbase is not large enough to create games that have no interleagued play. Just a few days ago, I was playing for my qualification matches, and the average waiting time was 6 seconds. 6 ?firetruck?ing seconds. The matchmaking could not wait the extra time for more fair matches. Instead it opted to churn out matches, unfair matches, faster than ever.
We have given our input on what the community wanted in the game. Their facebook page was cluttered with angry players warning against the MK2s and yet Pixonic still proceeded to implement that feature in the game shifting the balance even more. The same thing goes for test server feedback. I am willing to bet the money that #1 Legends player put in the game that there were more complaints about the balance of the Dash bots than there were good remarks about them. Pixonic does not give two ?poo-poo?s about our feedback. They are now a buisness, not a gaming company. And I am not sure if I'd want to still stick with Pixonic and spend my time cursing at the screen while playing War Robots.
I can say that right now, I am no longer playing War Robots except for custom battles. Although I have not uninstalled it, it may be getting the boot once Battle of Titans is released on November 25th unless a family player wants to play on my account. Battle of Titans beta is absolutely amazing and it's comparable to War Robots two years ago. Everything --weapons, titans, backpacks-- is viable and all takes skill to play. Such games like that are ones that I will be putting money into. The developers are excellent and do understand and implement feedback given to them. I have also been building the Battle of Titans Wikia for a couple of weeks now, and it's fun.
To the Forum: I thank you guys for providing an friendly atmosphere for myself and others. You guys are what makes War Robots tolerable these days. I will still be around in the Forum and the War Robots Wiki offering my limited advice for newer players in the game. I do hope to see you guys in Battle of Titans once it releases. Until then, good luck to all of you.
- Darkangel
You may have noticed that I have been posting less recently on this forum, and if you were lucky to play with / against me in the Battle, my cup counts are extremely low. Ever since Pixonic released the Dash robots, my interest in War Robots slowly faded. I find no interest in playing the game of War Robots anymore because Pixonic is transforming War Robots into a whole other game: just another skill-less, pay-to-win game in the App Store.
A year ago when I first downloaded War Robots, the game was incredibly diverse and fun. Every bot and weapon build was viable in one tier or the other. The hangar based matchmaking was able to consistently bring up fair enemies and teammates, with the exception of the low silver tier and below. And because everyone had mostly the same leveled weapons, matches were decided particularly by skilled play and good teamwork. If you were skilled, you were awarded with a very high win rate. If you stunk, well, your win rate would be comparable to the win rates of current non-dash or non-tanking players. The only drawback of this system was the Gepards, where 4/12, 4/9, 2/9 Gepards would be dominant in the meta because of their superior weaponry, and sometimes, skill. I hated Gepards, but Gepards were beatable. And if you somehow could not beat them, you could escape the Gepards by running a Leo with level 8 weapons.
But all that skill and fun changed when Pixonic introduced the Leagued system, which is a failed system in game which skill plays no part in. Originally, the League system was a celebrated idea because Pixonic claimed it was designed to get rid of seal clubbing by making matches determined by skill. To be fair to Pixonic, many players still approved of them and they were frank with the majority of the player base. We saw that was not the case when players of all sorts of hangar and skill were pitted up -- and still pitted up -- unfair matchups and teammates. And that's when Pixonic started making false promises of 'Don't worry, we will fix it soon'. It has been 9 months of the Elo matchmaking and matches comparably the same, or arguably worse, than when they first introduced it.
Part of the reason why is because the direction that Pixonic is opting to take this game. Originally, the Elo matchmaking was meant for Chess competitions before the game industry adopted it. A game of Chess is based on pure skill and nothing else. And that is why an Elo system will work. Once you start factoring in unchangeable factors, factors that give you a slight advantage, factors that give your opponents a disadvantage. That's why the current matchmaking gets so many complaints because games are no longer based on skill, and rather the amount of tankers and dash bots. If there was any skill involved in a normal match, it would just be the 'skill' point-and-shoot slog fest or the 'skill' finding a beatable opponent in a rock-paper-scissors-gun game. The rockets buff (backpedal removal + Pins / Tulumbas buff) and the Ancile buff were probably the more prominent game revamps that were absolutely killed the skill in the game. Going back a few months ago, the almighty Death Button Griffin could be defeated by a measly Plasma Gareth. The invincible Thunder Orkan Lancelot could be defeated by an Orkan Rog by the use of backpedal. The ability of backpedaling made lights and mediums still relevant to the game meta. If you were aware that there was a Death Button Griffin coming 'round the corner, you could start preparing to run backwards. The removal of that ability and the buff to Tulumbas and Pins simply made the use of non-Ancile and non-Dashing mediums and light robots obsolete. That buff just promoted brainless shooting near the target to damage them severely. Adding on, the Ancile buff basically substituted the skill of backpedaling for an unchangeable factor.
Furthermore, Pixonic decided to aggrandize the problem with the imbalanced matchmaking by adding in overpowered content, the Dash robots. I don't know how to even start this, because the Dash robots are the reason why many players (myself included) quit or wants to quit War Robots. The predecessors to the Dash robots, the Wild West robots, cost a decent amount of cash, but weren't terribly overpowered. The way I see it, Wild West robots were a novelty item; it made you stand out when you march into battle with your Doc or Butch. Sure you weren't going to change the outcome of the battle by just that one robot, but the more important thing was that they were not game-breakers. The Dash robots are. The way that Pixonic released them initially, the Black Market, was just a scam to milk the cow. The Black Market basically gave the players who were able to pay more than $100 in gambling a way to
get a huge advantage over their enemies because of their robots. Let's face it -- Dash robots are overpowered. Someone with significantly less skill and a Dash robot will easily beat a skilled player without one. I consider myself a fairly skilled player and it is just ridiculous that in this sort of game, a player who handed Pixonic wads of cash is given a victory of me and other pilots who may not be able to pay a grand sum per robot. We have begged Pixonic to nerf the Dashes and have gotten only the response 'We're still collecting data'. That is complete bull?poo-poo?. When almost everyone in Legends and the competitive clans run multiple Dash robots per hangar, statistics aren't needed to be collected. Nerfs need to be given.
Part of me actually speculates on the reasons why Pixonic is ignorant to our complaints. Pixonic is not stupid. They are a fairly large company (mobile game company, respectably) and according to this site, Pixonic has about a ~$100K daily revenue. True or not, any company that has the ability to manipulate the game to bring in that amount of currency are not fools. Pixonic designed War Robots since they started making major changes to become a club-or-get-clubbed game. It's true. Pixonic foresaw that the Elo system was able to be manipulated more easily and more unfairly and they made the switch. In the lower leagues (Bronze to Diamond), tankers run rampant clubbing the less experienced players. In the upper leagues, the tankers are replaced by Dash bots and the normal Champion / Expert games, clubbing the less geared players. Pixonic has taken no action against such practices and even ballooned it by adding in the LQ. The LQ was basically another window for clubbing. Pixonic, 6 months ago, announced that rewards would be diminished for the LQ. Their promise did not surface until they recently released an video talking about the Low Priority League. Whether that exists or not, I do not know. Pixonic allows these such practices to happen because it's designed to promoted spending among the players who are clubbed. It is a complete lie that the playerbase is not large enough to create games that have no interleagued play. Just a few days ago, I was playing for my qualification matches, and the average waiting time was 6 seconds. 6 ?firetruck?ing seconds. The matchmaking could not wait the extra time for more fair matches. Instead it opted to churn out matches, unfair matches, faster than ever.
We have given our input on what the community wanted in the game. Their facebook page was cluttered with angry players warning against the MK2s and yet Pixonic still proceeded to implement that feature in the game shifting the balance even more. The same thing goes for test server feedback. I am willing to bet the money that #1 Legends player put in the game that there were more complaints about the balance of the Dash bots than there were good remarks about them. Pixonic does not give two ?poo-poo?s about our feedback. They are now a buisness, not a gaming company. And I am not sure if I'd want to still stick with Pixonic and spend my time cursing at the screen while playing War Robots.
I can say that right now, I am no longer playing War Robots except for custom battles. Although I have not uninstalled it, it may be getting the boot once Battle of Titans is released on November 25th unless a family player wants to play on my account. Battle of Titans beta is absolutely amazing and it's comparable to War Robots two years ago. Everything --weapons, titans, backpacks-- is viable and all takes skill to play. Such games like that are ones that I will be putting money into. The developers are excellent and do understand and implement feedback given to them. I have also been building the Battle of Titans Wikia for a couple of weeks now, and it's fun.
To the Forum: I thank you guys for providing an friendly atmosphere for myself and others. You guys are what makes War Robots tolerable these days. I will still be around in the Forum and the War Robots Wiki offering my limited advice for newer players in the game. I do hope to see you guys in Battle of Titans once it releases. Until then, good luck to all of you.
- Darkangel
