Perfect Robot Shooter has been turned into a Vegas Style Slot machine (AI/BOTS/Teams)
I've been playing this game for some time, and on a couple of iPhones and I have one observation. Deterministrically player skills, experience or anything else no longer matters, what matters are game item purchasing habits, estimated player budget (free to play or paying) and reducing the per player load on servers where the outcome of a match is 100% predicted ahead of time, no more than a roll of dice or other game of chance that is computer controlled.
The following changes were made and have a compound effect on game play quality and enjoyment.
1. Modification of scoring of the control point matches, ending matches earlier to disallow additional captures or kills.
Convert control point battle into a predictive ML model from it's classic state, it no longer matters if "your team" captured all control points or killed almost all the other teams mechs, other unknown conditions determine from 0 to 100 if you won or lost, thusly ending in 99/100 wins or 100/99 losses and battles ending prematurely, limiting ones ability for retribution, time in action. Where the average 5 minute - timed battle lasts no longer than 2.5 minutes at best usually less. Probably in an attempt to get the players off the game server and back into the awards screeen microservices as fast as possible.
2. High Reaction time and co-ordinated enemy AI players.
All enemy AI Players are able to trigger their ability or defense mechanisms in record time, detect when your mech is about to reload, have perfect aim and work like an equivalent of your teams "human players" being on headsets with no lag telling eachother what to do - (I'll slow him down using the Panther net, and you shoot him in the back as I'm out of ammo) - AI enemy players work as a solid team, covering exact map angles with perfect precision - some of them are near impossible to hit with any kind of weapon, I don't know if the developers play this game on low latency keyboards I believe the rest of us play on touch screen phones.
3. Completely un-coordinated bumbling idiot AI Team Mates
Those who run around in circles, insert themselves into the line of fire to the enemy mech will take less damage, push your into the line of fire or generally are underpowered to battle enemy AI such that no matter how many of the enemy you kill the 5v5 Battles or Control Point Clashes are lost since your comrades are all K.O. or did not aggressively complete the objectives.
4. In game upgrades urgency, disappearing A-Coins (I will skip this as this is a profit motive)
So in conclusion, a round of mech arena is slowly becoming less and less enjoyable from a gameplay perspective, Whether in Level 1 or 10. The outcome seems a percentage calculated by RNG (Random Number Generator) combined with a Win Percentage Factor.
Thusly before the match even starts the game already has decided that User XYZ needs to win 8 and lose 2 because someone crunched analytics and decided that a player on platform X (iPhone/Android - including the phone price and their GeoIP for their likelyhood to purchase an item) with a win/loss ratio of say 60% is more likely to react to an offer than at 70% win/loss rate.
How does Plarium take such a enjoyable game, which was fun to play and turn it into this synthetic experience that builds nothing but frustration or dull battles where you kill everyone like a champ. Under the guise of the word "rebalancing" the gameplay itself whether free to play or with purchased mechs and weapons the experience has become dull and mindnubming after said "tunings" were released with the last 3 months of updates. The new levels are dull, mostly duplicates of the 3 point sky map or the Aisan themed 5 point map with again 3 control points.
In my humble opinion the game updates were made to increase profit margin while ruining gameplay for the players as a whole. My complaint is probably mirrored here many times over by other posters.
TLDR - My general view on "freemeium" games is I'll pay for it not to level up but to support the work of the company and developers - as If I were paying for a paid title on PC or Playstation. But to reneg on that social contract of taking an enjoyable product that I gladly paid to support and convert it to abhorent gameplay is in bad taste. At the end of the day the game is supposed to get MORE FUN and not LESS FUN with devs efforts funded by our dollars. For a $500 million game company it seems as a minimal effort to add mechs, weapons and refine the gameplay, hire or croud souce testers such that the game returns to it's orginal glory.