Pay to win is ruining war robots, wait I mean mech arena. This sentance isn't just to grab your attention. This is an actual thought that crossed me mind. The lines have become so blurred I forgot which "game" I was actually playing. And I put "game" in quotation marks because this is a FAKE GAME. And these criticisms may seem rash and harsh. Or maybe not with the read I get on this forum. Quit calling Drew an AI please. He's not. At least not from what I can tell. If he's an AI, he'd had to have been replaced very recently. Oh anyways why do I say this is a fake game so confidently?

Quite simply, I've been here a long time. On top of that, I had a recent experience with support that echoed an early experience and I realized nothing is ever going to change for the better. And it relates to everyone's favorite topic, matchmaking! So back during beta and up to around 3-4 years ago the matchmmaking was based on XP. F2Ps at similar XP could be matched together and have an even match because they have made similar progress. But nobody knew about the matchmaking algorithm until after global release it became clear there was problems and we asked and were told about matchmaking and p2p who were also at the same XP could be far ahead. They'd be buying redox at 5 star or higher and you could have whatever at 3 star or lower and be matched against them. Things would die to one use of the ability. If you paid, you got the privilege to seal-club. If you had the balls to call this what it is, pay to win, so called "support" and "moderators" would actually argue with you! They'd say things like "we don't think mech arena is pay to win because you can acquire every item in the game without paying". And that was sometimes before I said anything about why I thought MA was p2w. Just no concern for why you believe what you do. No concern for what yo feel. Other players in this time had problems with "support" trying to argue with them. They would be condescending. Had to chew out some "support" staffers after I tried multiple times already to politely tell them they shouldn't be arguing with me or be condescending and they kept trying to push back and argue. 

Even had a moderator try and put words in my mouth when talking about having to pay to get the final rewards of an event. They basically said "by your logic any game in which you can pay for stuff is pay to win. A better definition is a game where you hit a wall where you can't progress further without paying". Mischaracterized my words and of course gave a definition where MA couldn't possibly be pay to win as a "correction". Again, no regard for why anyone felt it was pay to win, despite the fact that it was in the most literal sense. Just focused on denying it. Focused on denying a problem as opposed to fixing it, because they didn't see it as a problem.

They were assholes, like the p2w elitists that would always troll they must have wanted to be saying they pay money so they deserve to be able to seal club. That they're the only reason we have the game as if it's not the other way around. The ones that act like they're the backbone forgetting f2p are the legs. Hell, some of the support and mods did say that.

I got them to not directly paywall the final prize. So then they made you buy a certain amount of upgrades for whatever. I explained to them this is still coercing people to pay because they may not be able to afford to upgrade but they could if they paid. Then we complained about that they tried to argue saying you CAN complete the events f2p but of course won't acknowledge that's only under certain circumstances and some will still need to pay. And I have argued with them a few times about this very thing since. They keep trying to nickel and dime people. They're greedy, I knew that. But this should have told me more about the matchmaking.

Eventually got them to change the matchmaking logic finally, to a very squad power based system. And that made things quite a bit better until cracks began to emerge. People discovered you could exploit the matchmaking by having a really strong mech ore two and a bunch of much weaker mechs and you'd get to seal-club. So they updated the matchmaking logic again and for a short time it was inventory power based. I bet you can imagine how that went over with players. So they updated the system again. So they updated the logic again. Once again SP cheaters were a problem. You see them at the top of master and grandmaster bracket all the time. So what changed? Well I don't know exactly. They tell us now the matchmaking is "skill based" but of course they won't give us further details about the actual matchmaking logic.

We had once again started getting matched against players who would always squash us, who we had no chance against because they were too high rank. I could never exploit their success in the matchmaking system. Each day I would reset back to a level playing field (SP wise I was still trying to seal club to because the problem wasn't going away and frankly getting even worse it became the only way to compete). I tried this test with a more balanced hangar too again I would always end up in matches where I was squashed. But the top performers in tournaments never seemed to have matchmaking catch up to them. I couldn't identify the real problem at first but as time went on the answer became clear.

See I couldn't tell what was going on before because all the people performing at the top level in tournament all still were using stuff you could acquire f2p. Of course though you could pay to progress faster, maybe get a high level META mech to squash weaker players with cheating the matchmaking. And I figure that must actually be what a lot of players were doing. Then again they could have also had a secret optimum forumula to exploit the matchmaking I hadn't figured out yet. That's what I thought. A few players speculated it was rigged for pay to win. Regardless a lot of us figured they would never make any significant changes that fix the SP cheating because p2p benefit from it. They still haven't made major changes like many of us speculated they outright refuse to. And why that is goes beyond p2p benefiting it. Because that's not by accident that's by design. Yup, the matchmaking is rigged. But you don't just gotta pay, you gotta go seal-clubbing too.

But how do I know this? Well I should have realized it sooner. The mech and weapon grade update made it so the highest performing people in tournament were for the most part using legendary mechs now. That should have been the cue. I still didn't realize that. And it wasn't super problematic for my personal matches because I for the most part got these guys near my star rank and they still have the same energy capacity at this level as some of my mechs. But it was almost like facing the 5 star redoxes in the early days with XP based matchmaking because going up a grade is like going up a star rank in terms of stats besides energy capacity.

Then it was EXACTLY like facing the 5 star redox or higher vs my 3 star mechs when we had xp based matchmaking when they added nomad. I started getting matched against these 4 star nomads that would ONE SHOT every one of my 3 star rare mechs which were the best I had. And it was a lot worse than getting one shot by a killshot because they could chain dash which means they got 2 melee dashes in 1 cooldown. They were too tanky for me to reasonably beat like the redox and it was worse because the damage reduction on their ability. I told them I shouldn't be matched against these players and they told me what you would expect about this time "we understand your frustration and will forward your feedback to the devs". But it kept happening so I started asking why it was happening. They told me something along the lines of "the matchmaking algorithm is skill based it has determined you're equipped to fight these players". I told them "well I have determined I'm not because I haven't won a single match against them ever". And so they told me the same thing they had before. Surprisingly had seen changes. I started getting matched against 3 star. But even they could take me out in an instant with one mag from ember guns and a chain dash and they were still very tanky. And so being unable to win or even play a match against these 3 star nomads I complained again. And the nomads went down to 2 stars, for a tiny bit. If you're wondering why I always have 3 star mechs? Well I always get to a point where I became convinced how I'd chosen to spend my resources has eternally screwed my matchmaking prospects. Of course my naivity blinding me to the truth that anything would be as effective as bashing my head into a brick wall.

Anyways ever since the nomads had gone down to 2 stars for once they started going up in stars again. I contacted support telling them I thought I told them I'm not supposed to be matched against these 3 star or higher nomad with ember guns (later revokers) over and over and always got the same response. Always along the lines of "we understand your frustration and will take your feedback into account". Maybe even a "we're constantly working to improve matchmaking and make it fair for all players". But it kept happening so I started asking why and for a while they wouldn't answer me they just gave the same responses all the while the rank discrepancies between myself and my opponent's mechs got worse I had to keep complaining I think support even tried to argue with me then too. And that should have been the wake up call but surprisingly I still didn't catch on.

So how did I finally figure it out? Well since I was away they added the sealclubber's latest favorite toy the dreadturd (dreadnought), and it has the stupidest most broken ability ever seal-clubbing their f2p cannon fodder. Their f**king dumb ability like the other legendary mechs is not super strong on a level playing field. But with mech arena's absurd matchmaking you can have rare mechs at 3 stars and these will also be 3 stars and it's more stupid and broken than you could possibly imagine. This thing is worse than nomad for 2 reasons. First reason is the missiles for the wipeout will almost ALWAYS instakill without fail because how easy they are to get behind your opponent. The only way they don't instakill is if they don't shoot the missiles behind you. And the only way to really do that with rare mechs is use ares. And even then you have to be really bad not to get the missiles behind and instakill the ares because of how fast it is. The second reason its worse is THE F**KING ABILITY COOLDOWN RESETS AND IT SPEEDS UP IF IT KILLS AN OPPONENT WITH THE ABILITY! And it's always going to kill with that sort of discrepancy. So they get to no skill spam their ability repeatedly with no cooldown f**king ever and they're faster than the fastest scout mechs to boot because of the speed boost they get WHEN THEY'RE ALREADY.

This thing I can tell since my return is TAILOR MADE exactly for the pay-to-exploit seal-clubbing crew. It takes little (if any) skill to use the ability effectively when seal-clubbers use it. If they don't happen to instant kill your mech? It doesn't matter it EMPs too so it can finish you off easily, and that doesn't happen often anyways. Its ability cooldown resets if it kills a mech. Something that's not often going to happen on a level playing field, but is virtually guaranteed to happen at a major power discrepancy. It will never be vulnerable if there's a major power discrepancy between it and its opponents. It always has its ability which instant kills it's opponents it will simply kill everything accumulating up to 25 kills in under a minute. It can just sit at your spawn and do it. Not enough proof? Watch this video. They filmed it seal-clubbing with dreadnought https://web.archive.org/web/20250716040208/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tDOEfRZuGQ

Raw youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tDOEfRZuGQ

And if that wasn't enough support started being condescending and argumentative again. That's right, we've come full circle with their most agregious practices. Obvious pay to win matchmaking, and condescending and argumentative devs. So what happened here? Soon as I started getting matched against these dreadturds it started out at 3 stars. Of course they were problematic right from the start. I contacted support about getting matched against them and they explained to me something along the lines of "we understand facing difficult opponents can be frustraing sometimes. The matchmaking matches you up against strong opponents if you do well. It's like this to keep matches competitive. We recommend experimenting various mechs, weapons and tactics until you find something that works." So I explained to them I already know nothing works. Then they tried to say it again that they recommend experimenting with various mech and weapon combos and tactics to find something that works, even try teaming. At this point it's starting to feel condescending. I explained to them again I already know nothing is going to work. I already did the experimenting with the combos and tactics and the teams. I always end up in fights that are un-winnable

THE VERY NEXT DAY they put me against a 5 star dreadturd. Yeah, as if it wasn't enough they could instakill me with and never be vulnerable with effectively no cooldown thanks to that they just had to make them unkillable for me just like even the 3 star nomads. So I contacted them again they gave the generic answer "experiment and try teaming". And I told them I already had this discussion in the same ticket (that means I don't wanna hear this BS). I told them I wasn't happy about them condescending me when I was talking about unfair fights. So what do they say? The same condescending BS! So I chewed out another support staffer because apparently they've forgotten the lesson I taught them all those years ago. And that's the moment my eyes opened. We are back to jackass, condescending and argumentative devs and support. And this time all while I went against progressively stronger mechs until finally I got matched against a 7 star one. The matchmaking is rigged and they openly have no actual intention of fixing it. They say they're constantly tweaking it, but yet we somehow always end up back in the same place.

You wanna know why they give that generic response all the time? "We understand your frustration and are constantly working to improve the matchmaking system to make it fair for all players." Wanna know why they can never give you further details? It's because they're not actually doing anything. It's meant to disarm you. Devs learned they can sit on their ass and do nothing if they have support feigning care for them. But the matchmaking isn't always pay to win. They testify they're constantly tweaking the matchmaking. So what's actually happening when it gets easier? Or harder? What tweaking are they doing? Well, it's one of 3 things. The first thing is you finish your matches, you put the game down and the next day you pick up the game you start off on a fair playing field so it looks like maybe something changed. But by the time you've finished your matches you're back in the same position as the day before. The other things are bots forcing you to lose by either underperforming on one side while overperforming on the other or blocking your shots so you underperform. They will juggle you between these 3 frustrating things that essentially force players to lose. P2P that you always see at the top of master and grandmaster bracket seem to never be affected and they always seem to be whales so regardless of which of these 3 things are occuring in the matchmaking is rigged for pay to win and especially whales.

Know how else I know mech arena is never going to have the matchmaking fixed? That "game" I mentioned at the start of this. They have been dealing with a similar matchmaking problem for much longer than even mech arena has. They have a "skill based" matchmaking system that arguably actually is skill based. Except it can also be exploited, and is. And no matter what pigsonic has said over the years they have done NOTHING to fix it. The pigsonic devs also have a history of openly viewing their players as stupid. And speaking of war robots, where is that today by the way? It's dying. Right now it's plagued with lags, tankers and hackers. Yes hackers. They were free from hackers for years but they are losing the battle to hackers now they aren't fixing it they're just continuing to try and milk the player base for more money. In fact a lot of p2p are hackers thats why they don't ban them because those are the only people that stick around. They pay to cheat to win. Update after update of new content but nothing about the real problems with the game. Solely focused on milking the player for every dollar possible. Sound familiar?

That is how I know mech arena is never going to fix the matchmaking. They may constantly tweak it (juggle you between 3 different things which punish you for doing well and not opening your wallet), but they will never make it fair. The support staff themselves they say they have no intentions of making changes to the matchmaking logic. Yes the same logic that has been getting you squashed for years now. If they do change the matchmaking logic it will never not be RIGGED. Because what's "fair for all players" to them just so happens to be what's best for their bottom line. The devs don't care about you. They hate you and they think you're stupid. All they care about is your money.

Edited: explicit language is prohibited