Usually I pay premium to support the developers, but no more

Kinda getting there too.

agree, I've been playing for less than 2 months and actually had to request my money back as when I invested the game was completely different than it is today...zero diversity in any matches...furys griffins and stalkers everywhere...I didn't even get to enjoy medium bots at all, had to pretty much go straight from light to heavy or get destroyed every match

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Not only what you said, but this deal of a battle beginning and the red team has six players and the blue team only has five players sux. Then one of the "blues" just stands there and waits 'til the reds use him for target practice !?!?
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I agree with you about the progression model, except I think they overdid it. In the long run, imo, they need to figure out how to encourage progression in a way that tempts more people to spend a ltitle bit here and there, not that either requires whale-level spending or discourages people so much that they give up. As others have said - they NEED a large player base even if their main goal is to milk the whales for more. As it stands right now, in the past I've spent a little here and there to support the game. But where I'm at right now (win rate 44% and sinking), it feels like to progress to being truly competitive again will either take months of beatings or hundreds of dollars. I'm definitely not going to spend hundreds of dollars, and I'm losing interest in slogging it out through the months of beatings. If the player base shrinks too much, the whales also lose interest because it will get boring, then where will Pixonic be?
Probably moving on to their next game...then it's RIP War Robots.

I get that Pixonics is trying to make the game more balanced and it is a business. But, I know in my business the best customer is the one you already have. It feels like they are trying to alienate the people who got the game where it is in favor of the new players that have no idea what the old MM was like. Almost like they are trying to "purge" us from the game in a sense.

With as many people that are not happy with the changes and rapidly loosing interest it seems they would have implemented the changes the did over a wider space of time to let people acclimate to the game better. Many silver tier players who had just gotten out of bronze now feel thy are being forced to play gold tier and either have to deal with 30% win stats or spend a ton of money to be competitive. Coupled with the fact the Pixonics has become notorious for Buffing a weapon/bot to make people buy it only to nerf it a few months later has left a bad taste in many peoples mouths. The simply dont trust the they wont do it again.

Sooo, this is the rant section. Let the dude rant. There are a good number of us that think the new tweaks suck. Those of you that like them, good for you! Some of us will have to make choices on how we modify our involvement with the game.

As for spending money, maybe to help purchasing a new weapon, or bot - if that happens in a reasonable and normal fashion. Not to boost leveling times, etc. Forget these theme games. Halloween was good for me, and Christmas was great. This one sucked for me.

The only video game this mm would have been good for is pvp pong....lol

Well, I'm a paying customer and have a complete set of weapons and bots, except the new bots. I paid because I enjoy this game, but somehow Pixonic need to protect their old customers...kids and teens are just there to play free games, and I'm not going to play heavy bots all the time.