I haven't played in a while and here are *some* reasons. WARNING: This is LONG

Hello everyone! Thanks for reading my post! This will be a long one, so please be patient as you read. I'll attempt to make it as legible as possible.

I will begin by saying, Robocraft has gone down massively in quality over the years. I believe the developers, FreeJam, and they way they've handled the game has a lot to do with this decline, though not entirely.

The game is horribly unbalanced and mismanaged. It was clear from the start the developers did not take the 'meta-bot' into their planning of the game. If they did, they did a very poor job of it.

Meta-bots tend to abuse the rules, rather than abide by them. Which wouldn't be bad if the CRF, the store, wasn't there; allowing the propagation of these toxic/meta-bots.

The Suicide-Mortar bot was one such meta-bot, which was created shortly after the release of the mortar. This meta-bot had blocks built AROUND the mortar. This blocked the shot, not allowing the projectile to travel the distance it rightfully should, and shielding the mortar from damage. It was still able to damage bots, using the splash damage of the mortar. Creating a short-raged aoe damage.

The weakness of this bot was in order to use the bot effectively you were only able to have a singular mortar, nothing else. Any weapon you tried putting on there were either too weak or got shot off too quickly, to be effective. The bot would have limited HP and it would be easy to disarm. You could fire at one spot, the front is usually fortified, and you'll pierce into the hull and destroy the mortar making the bot only good to run away. You could do this at range and be completely fine.

Yet it was remove and no substitute was added to fill the roll this 'broken meta' did. This was a flanking bot, adding to more dynamic game play, that did not rely on the movement methods of other flanking bots, allowing players to have a choice!

It was rightfully 'removed' for the reason of; it should be doing damage to itself by doing this technique. It was literally an unintended concequence of the weapon. That's it... it abused the rules and thus should be removed. However, they have far more broken meta-bots in-game, currently. That should have been worked on before this new weapon was introduced in the first place. Instead of shunning the broken mechanic Freejam should have embraced it. It wasn't more broken than others.

They get rid of the Suicicde runners, but keep the ever so over powered and broken; Tank-Heli-Mortar. Yes, this is a 'face-tank', that flies. It's broken and defeats the purpose of teamwork, by being every single archetype possible (DPS/Tank/Healer/Support). Usually they're equiped with 2 or 3 Rotors that shouldn't be able to lift the mass on the bot, but can. I think rotors should have a max carry weight, which reduces speeed, and a max lift weight, which reduces height. This bot allows a ground only weapon to be used, from the air, abusing game logic, by being x-feet from the surface works; Hoverblades do this, too. This allows you to use the mortar in areas you shouldn't be able to.

The Heli-Tank-Mortar-Bot can take so much abuse and has the ability to still function after. It is greater than any ground tank can offer, due to aerial movement speed, and general immunity to a tank's biggest weakness, mortars and plasmas, and flies low enough making flak nearly useless. This makes the bot a solo-DPS dream, it has a lot of HP, Good Speed, high maneuverability, range, and a broken meta to it. It could even be used as healer, it's simply way too powerful.

Let's compare the Suicicde-Runner with a more akin archetype of unit; Ion-Hover. These bots usually have stealth units on them, are somewhat fast, and have the most OP DPS weapon in the game, besides the AeroFlak. Ions (Shotguns) are the highest Single Hit Damage, Burst DPS, and one of the highest Sustained DPS in the game. The Ion's also have lots of HP, compared to the meta THEY overshadow, which are blades, that are totally useless now-a-days, unless they are used by someone with specific skills to use them. The Ion-Hover's limited range is actually greater than the Suicide Runner's Range and speed was generally about the same or slightly faster. Clearly the DPS Edge is in the Ion-Hover's favor, but the one downside; it was single target based while the Runner was shorter-ranged AOE DPS.

The problem people had with the Runner was the fact it was a new meta and no one had learned how to deal with it yet and has an easy out to get it nerfed. Hell, instead of introducing new weapons as a dynamic change to the Runner we just get rid of the problem, they just got rid of the playstyle entirely.

Why? Because the developers personally didn't like it?

There is really no real reason to get rid of the sucide runner concept in it's entirety, especially considering there was ways to counter it, easily, and there are equally or more broken metas out there. I don't deny it needed nerfing though.

They could have balanced the Suicide runner by making the Mortar fire much slower than it did at the time which was a 1 second Cool-down. Instead, they entirely remove it's special 'quirk' from the game. Even after the Suicide runner, the Mortar's 1 second CD was still OP and needed a nerf. So, maybe the mortar's ability to be blocked by the bot wasn't what was broken about it, in the first place. Hell, a reduction in area of splash-damage could have been implemented; I think it has, or if it hasn't it needs to be done.

It's a matter of the developers liking a meta whether it stays in the game or doesn't stay. I believe this, due to games I've had with people with a '[DEV]' in front of their name, usually very unpleasant games. Every-time I encounter these individuals, they're always in meta-bots, usually the most broken and complained about versions. These would be Tank-Heli, Ion-Hover, Drones (which I think COULD be balanced), and usually the current Mech-leg meta (which changes a lot). [Note: While I can't confirm most of the bots seemed to be the exact meta-bots that infest the game. Meaning they don't even build their own metas, they're aiding the spread of hated metas. ]

The developers seem okay with certain broken designs that the community complains about, but not others. It seems to be more up to their fancy rather than for balance. The Suicide Runner didn't create an unbalance that wasn't caused by the mortar's natural unbalanced state, when it first came out.

Having options to pick from for the same roll is great! Not having options, because a meta that completely dominates all other metas that it's the only viable option, is a bad thing. This is robocraft right now; it's this bot or you lose. Don't get me wrong, a meta is good, but when the meta comes down to very speficific bots, that's bad. This game should encourage people to build their OWN bots, which the game tries to, but the Meta is too powerful and out of control.

They just recently had an update related to building. This added prefabricated bots, that a person could then use as a template for their own builds; an excellent update! They also claim they added a system that allowed players to gain XP while building. I did not notice any XP gain or anything after 5 hours of straight building, a day after the update. This is a good update, it had no affect on me, but I still appretiated it.

I don't use any of the prefabs and will not, I love building from scratch. I do appretiate it, because it encourages others to build instead of buying from the CRF.

Hey! The developers are trying to fix some issues, related to meta-bots and building, but there are still problems.

Developing Bots is very simple, which is good, but there is no 'advanced' form of information given in the game. As a means to teach myself how to use excel, I have come to develop 'bot character sheets' and data sheets that show me all the information I could find useful for building. While I've seen, what seems to be more 'sophisticated' forms out there, with fancier math than mine, I haven't found 'character' sheets out there before and these provide enough infromation to be useful. (I'm still trying to figure out how Carry weight infleunces speed).

These "Bot Sheets" give me so much more information, that is useful, that what in-game provides. In-game information is literally 3-Basic stats, then percentages to those stats, then some minor numbers new people ignore and some vets ignore, such as gross weight. My sheets give me things like: Moblility information, Weight Information, Individual Weapon information, Health Information, and gives a grading system for me to get an idea of how capable the bot could be, before bringing it out in combat. I even added a record keeping section, so you could get win averages and do further work on a bot after to see improvements; I've rarely used it.

This information I've amassed wouldn't be useful to a person who would only play the game for 20 total hours and quits. It would help someone who plays for hundreds of hours, like myself, and builds hundreds of bots, like myself. An advanced player would bennifit more from such a system of 'advanced information' in game.

While building is becoming more simple over time, as such with the previous update, it's also has become more quant over time, which I don't think is good. Previously, there was more to focus on than what I call the " ____ Boost Carrot", which is the percentage bonus on one of the 3 stats provided: Damage Boost Carrot, Speed Boost carrot, Health Boost Carrot. This is in reference of attaching a carrot to a stick with a string and dangling it front of a beast of burden to carry you forward. I think these carrots have broken down the game into a further negative-meta pandering game.

The simplicity of the building system stats didn't encourage more creative design, it disencouraged anything that didn't work like the meta-bots. Instead of saying "create anything" the game states "here is the way to work the meta". Which very much could be a good thing, but with how entrenched in broken meta the game is, I think it's detremental rather than bennificial.

I was around for when Radar was somthing you had to build for. I understand this was removed to make building more accessible and easy for the masses. However, I hate that this was done. I feel this made less creative designs and strategies.

The radar gave a reason to have a true 'support' unit in the game. Basically a radar vehichle that traveled around and spoted Invisible bots, comminicated with the planes and snipers to relay the information back to the rest of the team! I believe that would encourage more team work, with better tutorials on the way the system worked. Instead of teaching everyone how the system worked they made it simpiler. This has also lead to the lack of 'utility' among the block available to design with.

I remember when I would design a sniper bot with low radar signiture and a broadcasting block on it. I could purch somewhere and quietly take out things and duck away and avoid detection, while giving my team an advantage of knowledge with my radar.

There are no blocks that control other aspects of the bot. What I mean is there is no block out there that changes: Weapon energy, Radar, Turn speed, Jump/Hover Height, Health Regen, or Zooming, and so-on.

There's a specific block I can think of that is needed, due to it having a utility over a broken mechanic, not meta, of the game; the Anti-Lock-On block. I feel that having weapons that lock on and will automatically go towards the target is not okay without some sort of counter to them. I believe the auto-target/hit weapons have no place in an online multiplayer competitive game, such as Robocraft, and especially at the strength value they have. Though, if they had a counter, such as a block that either reduced the accuracy of the projectile, by either shooting it down or making it miss, and/or a block that would increase the time limit to be locked onto, I think that would be fine.

There really is no such thing as support or tank in Robocraft, and it's due to the lack of options in building. Tanks could specialize more in tank like behavior, flankers could be more flanky, DPS could focus on dps in ways other than 'damage boost', and support could actually exist; if more dynamic building would be allowed. I also believe the meta would change dramatically from "DPS is king" to a meta that focuses on team-work far more.

Due the the building stats and available blocks in the game, currently there is no incentive to work together other than all being DPS pros. Tank is a 'fake' archetype in this game, because no tank can really defend other players well enough, more than someone just slapping a disk shield on their bot. Healer archetypes are just DPS that switch out their weapon for a very piss poor healing weapon and there's also no options for healing. Support could exist, by introducing minor modules to the game; modules being the blocks that gives extra abilities to bots.

Simply; If building was more complex then the game would be able to self balance and allow variety to be viable once again. Yes, metas could still be created, but instead of being so broken they could just be 'specialists'. Bots that are designed for different aspects of the game and not just DPS.

Quickly I'm going to touch on how healing is so bad in this game.

A quote I've seen and it does apply "Healing in Robocraft goes like this: If you have a healer, it feels under powered. If you're going against a healer it feels over powered." I think that has a lot a lot with how singular healing is treated in this game. The only weapon that can heal, the Nano, is a slow heal that does a tiny amount of healing. To the point were there are debates that are on whether or not Damage boost is infleuncing healing. I think it does but the increased by the bonus is so small it's negligable.

Nanos are short ranged and soft-auto-targets people. This sucks because in a close combat situation you may want to heal someone that's not close to you, but the person closest to you gets the healing anyways.

There is only one way to heal and it's not an active healing roll; healing is more like a mobile 'tune-up'. The most useful healing gets in combat is keeping someone's mobility blocks alive so they can run to saftey somewhere and heal up via auto-healing. In reality, healing is there for someone to run out from behind cover, get hit a few times, and run back to get healed quickly so they can run back out sooner.

Another aspect I want to cover is the community! The in-game for Robocraft community is horrible! The tools to escape or limit toxicity are minimal to non-existant.

The meta encourages those who are concerned only with frags and nothing else to play with a "it's only me" mentality. This destroys the incentive for team-work. This is a minor point, so I'm just throwing it out there and moving on.

Not allowing players to leave mid-match is actually one of the bigger breeders of toxic players. The argument I've seen on the RC forums before is that "it's toxic to leave in mid game"... it really isn't.

I pose several questions that, I believe, lead to the eventual answer of 'mid-game leaving penality is wrong' and should be adjusted for higher satisfaction for players.

What if you join a match with a non-usable bot, by accident. This could be just the body of a bot without movement and weapons on it. I've personally done this. You're not trying to troll, but it happens. Okay, strike one, nothing going to happen, right? The problem lies in the fact now, if something goes wrong again, you're punished for a mistake or it not being your fault, such as the internet goes out.

What if a player is purposefully throwing the match? There is at least one guy who constantly joins TDM and Battle Arena to just drive around in some tiny sports car to do flips. This guy isn't getting punished for being a troll, but the fun of the people on his team is reduced, and if their fun is totally ruined they can be punished for not wanting to play the game. This could all be due to a singular toxic player; one person ruining the game for multiple people and Freejam rewards them.

Sadly, reporting is not a viable option, mid offense or even after the offens takes place. Mute works, cool, but that doesn't stop all offenses, such as Hacking and Trolls. Reporting players in Robocraft is rediculous anways!

I don't report much in games, only when I feel it's absolutely nessesarry to get 'higher-authority' invovled. However, in Robocraft, I never have, and never will, report someone for anything, even hacking, because it's a series of hoops you have to jump through so that the people who deal with these issues can sit on their laurels. You need several photographs, and/or video, then you need to goto the website, which has no link in-game, just to find an option for reporting.

It's not a huge barrier to surmount, however, you're not wanting this person to ruin more of your time. This person ruins even more of your time, because you now have to go on a quest to submit a report, out-of-game, ceasing your gameplay even further. This is all with the knowledge that your report may mot amount to anything or might just be a negligble punishment. You may be ruining more of your time for nothing at all.

So, people who SHOULD get reported, such as Hackers, don't because for the average person this method is just not simple enough to make it easy on them; which would help clean up the community. Sadly, only the most empassioned/obsessed person would take more time out of their day to submit such a report in this beauricratic and bloated system. Which may not lead to the most rational of reports either, in the first place.

Those are the major problems I see with the game, it's not entirely the community itself its the way Freejam handles the community. It's how Freejam doesn't seem to think ahead with their releases. How they don't seem to care about the actual core engagement of the game. I believe the system that Freejam has is inefficient and ironically breeds toxcitity, rather than eliminates it.

Then to top it all off; Freejam is basically saying 'screw Robocraft, let's chase the fad train' with Robocraft BattleRoyale. Mesh two types of genres that COULD work well in a way that doesn't work at all in the way they are formating the game!

The new game gets rid of the creativity Robocraft allows is entering a market that's currently being flooded with competing titles, all of whom are building their mechanics around the Battle Royale format and have already expirenced success in the field.

Freejam even has a history of being unable to handle the level of traffic they are proffessing. Robocraft currently has terrible servers; in a 5v5 match if I'm paired up with anyone from Russia, China, or anywhere in the eastern continent lag is a real issue. In Robocraft when they do 10v10 matches, the game lags so badly it causes about a 75-90% frame rate loss.

As a 'disclaimer of sorts':

I paid for Permenant Premium from the game, fairly early on. I've had a rather positive relationship with this game, so I'm not covering the unfairness I've seen in the forums over 'pricing' and the loot-box controvesy. Personally, I don't think the loot boxes are done badly. If you didn't get what you want, sell eveything and buy what you want. It's better than Overwatches "Can't sell your duplicates and you will get duplicates" system.

I am hoping to actually turn my critique of Robocraft into a video review someday. What do ya'll think as a sub question? Do I seem too ranty? Am I not critical or detailed enough? Is it something that's past the opportune time to do it?

Also, please, if you disagree with me, let me know what and why! I would love to have a discussion on this, but there's too many people out there that simply like to say "You're wrong. I like this game." It's actually the biggest problem with RC's forums, they are filled with the toxic players and Modders/Devs I'm talking about.

I haven't touched the game in 2 weeks because of the state of the game.

Thank you for reading!