Which Clan Do You Hate Most?
Fellow Pilots,
It's sort of a trick question, because we don't actually "hate" any players or clans. After all, we don't know them. We know that RUIN and WAR WOLVES had the magnum gepard gangs running around blasting newbies to bits, and that was uncool. We know VOX is stuffed full of Adriannnnnn's hand-selected robot destroying cronies, and every time we see a bunch of the same symbols drop we worry that we're facing down a clan of "wallet warriors."
I think I should have been including soundtracks to my posts all along ...
Anyway, today's lecture is kind of a photo essay from the past week, with a spot light on the clans that make life difficult for their opponents in a variety of ways - some more entertaining than others.
Here I am hiding at one of Arab VIP's (ARtm) home beacons. My squad dominated the first five minutes of this battle ...
And still lost. At about the five minute mark, Dreadnought became Shock Train City. All of our remaining robots were destroyed in the next two minutes. Yup, hate Arab VIP. Ima kill twenty of y'all next time I see you. And if I ever get shock trains, you're going to eat red lasers.
For some reason I can't explain, I like playing with and against Turks. Knowing KHAN (former member of Aurora Doctrina, now with Ancient Warriors) helps, but I don't feel cheated if I lose to Dirilis or these guys. They seem to fight hard but fair.
The Griffin with four different weapons is a rare breed, no matter what the clan!
It wasn't personal, IRON. Beacon Rush mode can be very good for long-range robots - spawn where you can shoot a beacon possessed by the enemy from a good distance, and wipe them out!
After playing with Xenocide (XENO) for about a week, my "world tour" moved on to the Iran-based Immortals (the IR with the wings). I don't understand most of what they say in the Discord voice channels, but I know they were targeting the guy from Imperial (IMP)! Because everybody hates IMP. You love it if LORDEX drops in on your team, but your finger is hovering over the "Leave Battle" button when you see a bunch of them in red. There's even a parody clan called IMB (Imbalance)!
And while we are talking about imbalances, there's nothing more one-sided than a clan that's so overpowered it can walk its Gekko Leo all the way across Yamantau to the enemy spawn area, destroying about 28 of your 30 robots en route. This Criminal Minds (CM) group did not include one of my least favorite opponents, Brutal Kallas, but it was still a lopsided beatdown.
Most of us know that video games require a fair amount of talent and time to produce, especially the good ones. But did you know that the $100B+ game industry is larger in economic terms than movies and music combined? As players, we experience many different business models - from very high upfront costs to the "free to download," but full of commercials or in-app purchases. Experienced gamers understand the dynamic of "Free to Play" and "Pay To Win." If the game is indeed F2P, the company's profit must occur elsewhere, and that often means selling a competitive advantage. In other words, you can almost always pay to win in the free games. In War Robots, you can immediately obtain a hangar for thousands of dollars/pounds/Euros/yen that would take over two years to achieve for free (see our post on the cost of competing with the newest/best premium gear).
Here's what it would look like, complete with the kind of win rate you can expect if you play alongside five similarly situated pilots:
We are attempting to determine the unit price of percentage improvements in win rate, and what we can say for now is that it's damned expensive to go above 65% or so. If you guessed that I hate Stoned Raiders (CDxx) the most*, you win the prize**!
*If a Stoned Raider should read this post, I don't actually hate you fellas, but you could chill with the boosted MK2 death squads. Or you could change your names to say stuff like "we know we aren't any better than you, we just spend more."
**There is no prize.
Reiterating a few things that we know about War Robots:
It's sort of a trick question, because we don't actually "hate" any players or clans. After all, we don't know them. We know that RUIN and WAR WOLVES had the magnum gepard gangs running around blasting newbies to bits, and that was uncool. We know VOX is stuffed full of Adriannnnnn's hand-selected robot destroying cronies, and every time we see a bunch of the same symbols drop we worry that we're facing down a clan of "wallet warriors."
I think I should have been including soundtracks to my posts all along ...
Anyway, today's lecture is kind of a photo essay from the past week, with a spot light on the clans that make life difficult for their opponents in a variety of ways - some more entertaining than others.
Here I am hiding at one of Arab VIP's (ARtm) home beacons. My squad dominated the first five minutes of this battle ...
And still lost. At about the five minute mark, Dreadnought became Shock Train City. All of our remaining robots were destroyed in the next two minutes. Yup, hate Arab VIP. Ima kill twenty of y'all next time I see you. And if I ever get shock trains, you're going to eat red lasers.
For some reason I can't explain, I like playing with and against Turks. Knowing KHAN (former member of Aurora Doctrina, now with Ancient Warriors) helps, but I don't feel cheated if I lose to Dirilis or these guys. They seem to fight hard but fair.
The Griffin with four different weapons is a rare breed, no matter what the clan!
It wasn't personal, IRON. Beacon Rush mode can be very good for long-range robots - spawn where you can shoot a beacon possessed by the enemy from a good distance, and wipe them out!
After playing with Xenocide (XENO) for about a week, my "world tour" moved on to the Iran-based Immortals (the IR with the wings). I don't understand most of what they say in the Discord voice channels, but I know they were targeting the guy from Imperial (IMP)! Because everybody hates IMP. You love it if LORDEX drops in on your team, but your finger is hovering over the "Leave Battle" button when you see a bunch of them in red. There's even a parody clan called IMB (Imbalance)!
And while we are talking about imbalances, there's nothing more one-sided than a clan that's so overpowered it can walk its Gekko Leo all the way across Yamantau to the enemy spawn area, destroying about 28 of your 30 robots en route. This Criminal Minds (CM) group did not include one of my least favorite opponents, Brutal Kallas, but it was still a lopsided beatdown.
Most of us know that video games require a fair amount of talent and time to produce, especially the good ones. But did you know that the $100B+ game industry is larger in economic terms than movies and music combined? As players, we experience many different business models - from very high upfront costs to the "free to download," but full of commercials or in-app purchases. Experienced gamers understand the dynamic of "Free to Play" and "Pay To Win." If the game is indeed F2P, the company's profit must occur elsewhere, and that often means selling a competitive advantage. In other words, you can almost always pay to win in the free games. In War Robots, you can immediately obtain a hangar for thousands of dollars/pounds/Euros/yen that would take over two years to achieve for free (see our post on the cost of competing with the newest/best premium gear).
Here's what it would look like, complete with the kind of win rate you can expect if you play alongside five similarly situated pilots:
We are attempting to determine the unit price of percentage improvements in win rate, and what we can say for now is that it's damned expensive to go above 65% or so. If you guessed that I hate Stoned Raiders (CDxx) the most*, you win the prize**!
*If a Stoned Raider should read this post, I don't actually hate you fellas, but you could chill with the boosted MK2 death squads. Or you could change your names to say stuff like "we know we aren't any better than you, we just spend more."
**There is no prize.
Reiterating a few things that we know about War Robots:
- Individual tankers win 25% because of the "5vs6" principle - teams of five win 25% against teams of six.
- Specialist snipers win between 30-40%.
- All other players tend to win between 40-60%.
- Experienced players can hit 70%.
- Pay To Win/P2W/"Whales" can win 70-80% in random matches.
- "Whale squads" can win 90-100% of their matches.
Speaking for the University, we would like to see the game progress in a direction that would make it impossible to win all your battles. No players should be able to buy such a tremendous competitive advantage that they never lose. It is our position that the game could be more profitable by allowing every player to have a chance to win in every match. Fortnite, y'all. It's kind of a money maker.
Happy Friday! I'm off to therapy to deal with my anger management issues regarding other clans. 😉
Have a great weekend,
Professor Yat
Faculty Notes
If you read the U's blog, please hit the subscribe button here and at our YouTube channel! We do not (and can not) spam or bother you. You get an email notification when we post new content. Contact us at warrobotsu@gmail.com.
The U is not just a blog ... we are also iOS clans #48669 and #139479. We welcome skilled communicators from around the world.
If you read the U's blog, please hit the subscribe button here and at our YouTube channel! We do not (and can not) spam or bother you. You get an email notification when we post new content. Contact us at warrobotsu@gmail.com.
The U is not just a blog ... we are also iOS clans #48669 and #139479. We welcome skilled communicators from around the world.
The U is not just a blog ... we are also iOS clans #48669 and #139479. We welcome skilled communicators from around the world.
Dear Prof Yat,
ReplyDeleteI am a fellow pilot and diligent student of the U, and go by the call sign Schrotter0815.
Germans might be able to translate my call sign into "ordinary/average (0815) producer of scrap metal (Schrott), just to get this out of the way. I am a stout subscriber to your WR philosophy of playing small ball. Or I at least I have been until recently... .
Here is my story:
I run a hanger of "agile brawlers" (Rogatka, Doc, Hover, Carnage, Griffin) armed to effectively shred and tear metal at short range (Orkans, Tarans, Punishers, Thunders) - all between level 9 and 11. I enjoy flanking and love to turn the tide of a game by grabbing the odd elusive beacon and sending persistent reds to the junk pile.
Accumulating damage is less important to me than making sure my team wins. Pushing my personal best of 64% Victory rate (I am in Diamond II) is what fills me with pride. Like you, I despise Tankers/Clubbers and almost feel sorry for Whales, who pay 1000s of $ for an utterly boring hanger full of dashbots, only to play 6v6 battles with 55 more dashbots.
But observing how Pixonic is shaping the game I find myself wondering if the so despised Tankers/Clubbers are actually getting it right... . Here is why:
What made this game great was a wonderful balance, no bot or setup was ever perfect. There was always a situation that would utterly challenge your hangar, and there were always ways to counter the mightiest war machine (like your "Answer" countering the once so prevalent Ancilot).
But ever since the dashbots, Pixonic has started to justify hefty price tags with hugely overpowered gear beginning to tilt the so carefully crafted balance. To add insult to injury (but really to increase the valuation of Pixonic for investors and potential buyers) Pixonic started to continuously limit all ways for Pilots to buy new gear at no or lower costs, e.g. by grinding for gold and waiting for special component offers.
The upcoming 3.6 release is yet another decisive step into this direction. Our daily gold income through tasks is further reduced. Saving gold to buy component offers will now become pointless. Yet there still is no way to earn components of your choice, not even by revenue-generating means like watching bloody video ads.
Instead, Pixonic has doubled down on new & overpowered gear that only can be acquired for 100s of $ per item. In simple terms: bigger catalog of gear that you can ONLY buy for heaps of cash... did I mention that Pixonic is trying to push the valuation of its business?
Giving us all free Kumihos is just an attempt to keep complaints at bay. But this "same for all" approach will not help players like me to get a hangar full of setups that suite my individual play style. Or more precisely: stick your Kumiho where the sun don't shine, especially if everyone else has one.
The question remains: how can players who are willing to pay say 10s instead of 1000s of $ per year add recently release gear to their hangar?
This is why I wonder if Tankers/Clubbers don't get it right.
Their way is the last way to gold, which in turn is the last in game currency giving pilots the flexibility and freedom to actually acquire at least some of the gear they like.
Tanking/Clubbing is probably never the way I will enjoy, but will it be the last way for pilots who would like to spice up their hangar with new gear every once in a while?
In need of advise,
Schrotter0815
Dear Prof Yat,
ReplyDeleteI am a fellow pilot and diligent student of the U, and go by the call sign Schrotter0815.
Germans might be able to translate my call sign into "ordinary/average (0815) producer of scrap metal (Schrott), just to get this out of the way. I am a stout subscriber to your WR philosophy of playing small ball. Or at least I have been until recently... .
Here is my story:
I run a hanger of "agile brawlers" (Rogatka, Doc, Hover, Carnage, Griffin) armed to effectively shred and tear metal at short range (Orkans, Tarans, Punishers, Thunders) - all between level 9 and 11. I enjoy flanking and turning the tide of a game by grabbing the odd elusive beacon and sending persistent reds to the junk pile.
Accumulating damage is less important to me than making sure my team wins. Pushing my personal best of a 64% Victory rate (I am in Diamond II) is what makes me pick up the game again and again. Like you, I despise Tankers/Clubbers and almost feel sorry for Whales, who pay 1000s of $ for an utterly boring hanger full of dashbots, only to play 6v6 battles with 55 more dashbots.
But observing how Pixonic is shaping the game I find myself wondering if the so despised Tankers/Clubbers are actually getting it right... . Here is why:
What made this game great was a wonderful balance, no bot or setup was ever perfect. There was always a situation that would utterly challenge your hangar, and there were always ways to counter the mightiest war machine (like your "Answer" countering the once so prevalent Ancilot).
But ever since the dashbots, Pixonic has started to justify hefty price tags with hugely overpowered gear beginning to tilt the so carefully crafted balance. To add insult to injury (but really to increase the valuation of Pixonic for investors and potential buyers) Pixonic began to continuously limit all ways for Pilots to buy new gear at no or lower costs, e.g. by grinding for gold and waiting for special component offers.
The upcoming 3.6 release is yet another decisive step into this direction. Our daily gold income through tasks is further reduced. Saving gold to buy component offers will now become pointless. Yet there still is no way to earn components of your choice, not even by revenue-generating means like watching video ads.
Instead, Pixonic has doubled down on new & overpowered gear that only can be acquired for 100s of $ per item. In simple terms: bigger catalog of gear that you can ONLY buy for heaps of cash... did I mention that Pixonic is trying to push the valuation of its business?
Giving us all free Kumihos is just an attempt to keep complaints at bay. But this "same for all" approach will not help players like me to get a hangar full of setups that actually suite my individual play style. Or more precisely: stick your Kumiho where the sun don't shine, especially if everyone else has one.
The question remains: how can players who are willing to pay say 10s instead of 1000s of $ per year add recently release gear to their hangar?
This is why I wonder if Tankers/Clubbers don't get it right.
Their way sure seems to be the last way to gold, which in turn is the last in game currency giving pilots the flexibility and freedom to actually acquire at least some of the gear they like.
Tanking/Clubbing is probably never the way I will enjoy, but will it be the last way for pilots who would like to spice up their hangar with new gear every once in a while?
In need of advise,
Schrotter0815
Hey Schrotter, there are some players in Aurora Nova who are having success using workshop points and gold to get components. While it's still a grind, you can have new gear without paying a ton. As you probably know, I REALLY like Hover, and it's cheap compared to the other stuff.
DeleteAlso, check out SOLVM's videos. He plays with five Griffins. I spoke to him the other day, and was surprised to learn that he previously used Lancelots and other things, but selected Griffins to show that it was possible. You, of course, are going in a different direction, but your goal is the same - win with what you've got. With that in mind, I would level up my medium weapons and buy components at every opportunity.
Finally, in case you didn't see "Pixonic's New Years Resolutions," I went a season without opening any chests, and was rewarded mostly with components.
Keep me posted, and good luck!