If You Want to Be Heard By Pix - Vote with App Store Ratings

<stupid>
And now I wonder for the rest of my life what "this" might be. Fix WHAT?
</stupid>

I tried this before and it didn't work. Google Play still carries my original rating and not my updated, lower rating.

Interestingly I was frustrated and wrote to Pix about mm issues. Yesterday I got an answer: "Now, we truly hope your issue already got resolved".

They did not say what was done but suddenly I see Cossacks and Destries again. Did they alter my account (unlikely) or were they altering mm in the background and the change happend to be close to the moment I wrote to then?

Have you noticed similar changes lately?

I don't really rate much because I'm lazy to. Still love the game even though stupid rhinos stalkers stoled our playground.

We can rant on a ranter. Section 3, paragraph 1, sub article "C" clearly states this.

Come on,,, the game is screwed up right now!,, don't sugar coat it just because your a maxed player!,, think about how the game is and how it would be if you weren't maxed right now!!! Bottom line the game is broken and it's a clear money grab by pixonic!, I'd love to believe there was a crash, or something is wrong with the game but COME ON!!! If it quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck..... dont get pissed on while someone tells u it's raining... take a stand and tell pixonic you are not going to play until they fix the crippled matchmaking system, whether intentionally messed up or not!! TAKE A STAND PEOPLE

In my opinion, this is better than complaining on the forums.

For one, it might actually do something.

The ironic part is the the MM changed BECAUSE people were rating the game poorly after being clubbed by Seal Clubbers.

Did it, though? I remember that for the few months before this they kept saying "the new MM that you [the players] asked for is in the works" and they did make it seem it was because of seal clubbing.

What it looks like right now though is that that was just a simple excuse and Gepards were scapegoats. Most people both on here and elsewhere seem to enjoy the game a lot less under the new MM and the only thing that's really obvious is that they should all upgrade faster (myself included. And I did cave in and speed up some upgrades and buy AU heavies for the first time).

So in other words... I think it had nothing to do with seal clubbers, that was just PR speaking. I mean come on, Pixonic is a mobile game development company with all the resources of one. They're not idiots - it's not that they were helpless to stop Gepards from seal clubbing poor Destriers ad nauseam. It's not that they are helpless now to stop all this stuff going on currently.


It's just that it presumably served them then - because Gepard was the best in-app ad for spending money they could have had (I got seal clubbed and guess what - I bought a Gepard!). And it serves them now, because people are all the more desperate to get to large bots. Which, incidentally, they have a chance to get if they spend on a gambling wheel in events. The thinking goes, "I won't spend $50 on a bot! Outrageous!" but then those same people spend "just one more" for spins in the event anyway, and do it again and again before they realize how much they've put in. And the events are conveniently more and more common so more chances to do so.

It's all old news of course, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't think this has anything to do with seal clubbing or fairness. Pix is a business, they behave like one, it's unrealistic to expect them not to. And as players, well, we have a choice to adapt or give it up. Or, like some people said above, try to influence them by hitting where it hurts (ratings).

EDIT: And ultimately, it's just a game. It has no bearing on real life and isn't something to get upset about (I've been greatly guilty of that since the new MM, but no more).

I'm not defending the new MM, cos I agree it has it's flaws.

However, all I am trying to show is the irony that the exact medium which caused this MM to exist in the first place is the same medium you now want to use to get them to listen to you.

On the iOS side, the comments were all about how the game was Pay 2 Play, seal clubbing, and being bullied.
Go ahead, rate and comment.  It's a valid way and legitimate way of protesting.  Just be aware that it was part of how we ended here in the first place.

And on a separate note, your rant doesnt make sense because based on that, they just screwed over their biggest cash cow buy screwing the gep.  There are dozens of good reasons why they didnt just "touch-up" the MM.  It was because it was getting insane to have so many bots with penalties.  There were 11 (ELEVEN) bots with MM penalties in order to protect clubbers.  ELEVEN!  Even if they had done it with the gep, the clubbers might have just switched to mag-pattons instead.  Who knows? 

The system seriously needed an overhaul. 

However, I have to agree that this overhaul sucks and they have been too impatient, giving us an incomplete MM that has short changed a lot of people.  That being said, it HAS balanced out more or less and I have to say I'm enjoying it right now.  But for those in silver, I understand the issue.  So go ahead, rate and comment.  You SHOULD if you want to.  I'm just going to wait for the leagues to come into play and see what my next step should be.

As the original poster of this thread I just thought people were doing some good venting but that might not do much good if Pix is not watching (although I am sure they are). Not only was I frustrated with the new MM, but also that maybe MM would never improve. It is not in a good place for me currently.



My highest level bot is 6. I have played a lot of games and have some higher level weapons but instead of "going deep" I went wide and took almost everything I had to 4/8 up until MM hit. Now I have a few bots at 6 and am matched regularly with bots 9+ and similar weapons. Win rate 50% +/- 5%. The games are competitive, but I rarely win more than 2 coins because I am matched against higher damage players. I do OK getting beacons and get 5 gold in about half my wins. So only 25% of games yield some gain to me.



I agree that they should have done something to prevent clubbing of new players by veterans for gold. I think users all would have been fine if that was addressed and MM left alone. Pix has created more problems than they solved IMO.

I am not familiar with the Leagues that have been mentioned. That sounds very good. I am all for competition between similar level hangars, or otherwise voluntarily. I am playing a lot less now, watching for changes, just leveling in the background. 

If Leagues don't happen I may leave altogether.  I would have more fun playing campaigns against progressively tougher artificial intelligences (AIs)  with progressively better weapons, than I do playing War Robots right now. Even learning a whole new game with balanced competition would be better. There are a lot of options for gaming on many platforms now. 

I totally believe that a strong motivator of the new MM was to slow gold earning and incent people to spend real cash.  

I still say vote using the App ratings.

Trust me, they are watching to a certain extent.

And if there is anything that the admins or mods deem to be vital, we do our best to bring it up to them.

It is not so much the slow gold as it is the lack of even matches against players similar to my hangars. I can choose whether or not to invest my time in a slow progressive game, or a faster progressive game.

This game GUARANTEES a percentage of wins, and GUARANTEES a percentage of losses. Because Pix chooses the teams to accomplish that as their objective. Pix matches me (all of us) into hangars that assure I will lose 40%+ of the games I play. If it takes maxed hangars to do that, that is what happens. I got straight walked over by a maxed 12/12 Griffin today. Not fun.

So IMO I am penalized for being a good player, kept in line. Socialized, as I wrote in my other thread as you know Conflict.

The reality is it is about money. Pix thinks slowing the game down makes players more likely to spend money to accelerate upgrades.

The problem for Pix now is that even upgrading does not give a player much benefit now. And people will not pay the cost without a benefit. I cannot "feel" the benefit because I will only probably more frequently face 12/12 players when upgrading 7>8>9. For maxed players there is no level above, so they whip on everyone below that they were never matched with previously. They are now playing equals or players 2-4 levels below. TT are the new clubbers! No offense to them since they did not ask for it. Leagues might be a great solution. I have hope.

And I am not Outraged. I really don't have a temper. Just frustrated to have invested so much time in War Robots and then the rules are completely changed to where it is a new game. I am not alone. Look at the Rant > "Games You Couldn't Win" thread. 9 pages of contributors.

Are you really in the (US) NAVY Conflict? That is your clan. I know we disagree on some things but thank you for your service if so. Really.

No doubt. I just hope the game can remain fun for people playing for free or for a little money, because trying to satisfy the "whales" never lasts long once everyone else leaves. Only time will tell as the 'freemium' business model requires constant change to keep people interested (and spending).  


Yes and I think this is where our perceptions diverge. I think we both agree that uncertain outcomes are desirable in PvP.  I just don't think the new MM is designed to set up high percentages of guaranteed wins and guaranteed losses.  I do think it's having a hard time getting established while so many people are doing wonky things like dropping matches or fielding ridiculous lineups to try to trick the system.  A significant fraction of the player base wants to prevent the MM from putting them in matches where the outcome is uncertain, making it more difficult to achieve this ideal.  Separately, I acknowledge there are people who simply prefer more casual victories (not you, but it's another perspective posted here about being unhappy with the new MM) but I don't think a PvP game is a reasonable place to expect easy wins.

An ideal game MM would find everyone matches where the outcomes are always uncertain, rather than 50% "gimmes" and 50% "never had a chance" - but maybe Pixonic doesn't trust their ability to deliver true uncertainty when so many players have historically shown intent to manipulate uncertainty out of the system in their favor.  Obviously Pixonic as a business can't afford for some players to consistently win more matches and gold than others because (a) the players winning more will eventually spend less and (b) the players winning less will eventually play less, if at all.  So maybe they do force a certain fraction of "unwinnable" and "unlosable" matches to help reach that notional 50% win rate.  If so, that's certainly suboptimal from a player's perspective but maybe it isn't entirely terrible.  

If the game does need me to lose and/or fail to claim gold a certain percentage of the time for business reasons - which I assume to be one of Pixonic's constraints in MM design - then I'd prefer my share of losses to come against higher-quality competition where I'm still able to learn something new.   Obviously I'd much rather lose to a highly skilled 9/9 player than a button-mashing 12/12, but I'm not sure there are very many highly skilled 9/9s running around.  Maybe I can still learn something when trying to make 6/8s last as long as possible in the face of 12/12.  The same goes for my wins: I'd rather experience them as down-to-the-wire nailbiters against people who force me to find new and creative ways to blow them up, instead of rolling over people with 6/8s equal to my own but who don't know how to use them.  And ideally, the game wouldn't even resort to tricks like guaranteeing wins or losses unless my win rate exceeded some basic limit on variance like going outside a 40-60% range, or showed other patterns of manipulating the system (like losing every game in a row from the top variance boundary to the bottom variance boundary).  With sufficient ability to consistently deliver uncertain matchups using accurate player ratings, players would only rarely hit those variance boundaries so we would almost never encounter heavy-handed measures like 'fixed' matches.  

I think the new MM did a pretty good job at uncertain outcomes late last week, although this week the uncertainty seems to come more from who will have 6 people on their team actually stay around to fight. I don't know if that's in reaction to the MM, or people trying unsuccessfully to abuse the coin event, or simply servers struggling with load, but there has definitely been a pattern of more people dropping out of matches in the last few days. And that sort of "noise" can't possibly help the new MM rating system improve.


Thanks man, I was privileged to serve but my time in uniform has ended.  We can both be glad someone else stands the watch today; I'll be sure to raise a glass to them tonight.  And I'm always glad to disagree with people who make a case to help me understand what I'm not yet seeing, while also hearing what I have to say, in hopes of suggesting solutions that take both points of view into account.  Rants, on the other hand, are just letting off steam... which is OK too, being the whole point of having a Rants section in the first place.