Developer’s Diary #30
Welcome to the 30th episode of our developer’s diary. It’s awesome that you’ve stayed with us this long! Today, we’re going to tell you about the recent changes to hulls, and about the relationship between equipment and ranks. We’ll also be telling you a couple of things about the new map.
Game balance
At the end of last month, we released an update in which we made the front and rear end of the hull, two different hit zones. This update caused a lot of discussion among tankers. In our monthly survey and on our forum, many players insisted that the update was a good idea overall, but needs further development and polishing.
On Saturday morning, we released a balance update in which we set different levels of armor to the front end of hulls, depending on the hull type. Heavy hulls now take 70% of the regular damage to the front side, medium hulls take 65%, and light hulls now take 60%, instead of the 50% that was initially set for all hulls.
“Some of you may think that it makes no sense for a heavy hull to take more damage than a light hull. That is true, but in practice, the heavy hulls were almost invincible, and this had a negative impact on game dynamics and battle funds.”
With the same balance update, we’ve also improved 3 turrets. Firebird and Freeze now spray through tanks, ignoring stacked tanks, including the ones that have been destroyed.
“We’ve made several changes to Vulcan. We’ve buffed its barrel rotation speed and increased the time before it overheats. The idea was to make the turret more powerful and easier to use, and thanks to these changes, Vulcan’s damage per minute has increased significantly.”
Equipment bound to ranks
This week, we’ve made some changes that affected the availability of equipment for low-rank players.
“We decided to take a close look at the game from the perspective of a new player, one who has never played Tanki X or Tanki Online. When entering the game for the first time, a player sees 11 turrets and 7 hulls. There’s a lot to choose from and it can get confusing. So we believe it would be better to make the progression through the content more gradual, so that players have something to focus on or look forward to.”
Of course, any equipment purchased BEFORE the update, will remain in the owner’s garage.
Once a player reaches the required rank, the equipment will be unlocked and become available to purchase for Crystals.
Prices have gone up a bit, but are still affordable. For those who want to try a turret immediately, there’s the option to buy them for X-crystals.
Graphic settings
In an upcoming update, we’ll be releasing a long-awaited feature — advanced graphics settings.
This update will allow players to adjust some advanced graphics settings, such as the quality of textures and shadows, grass and vegetation, anti-aliasing, filtering, and after-effects.
These changes will be added over the old interface, so that you will be able to set the graphics to your preference, while still maintaining a good performance. We will later change the layout of this menu so that it matches the new interface.
New map
There are currently two maps in development. One of them is getting ready to be released this month.
The new map will be a continuation of the space theme in Tanki X. Legend says that it is a Frontier base on Mars. The landscape of the map bears a resemblance to Massacre, with lots of “so called” funnels, which in this case are called craters.
The level of gravity on this new map will be lower, just like on Moon Silence, but not as low. In practice, the tanks will still feel lighter, but they will be less likely to flip or jump too far. This new gravity setting is a new gameplay element, and we think that’s always good news.
With the release of the matchmaking system, such maps will be placed under separate modes.
Hit the like button if you enjoyed our video and see you soon, tankers!