Dear Mark,

I am Juvar23, and would like to try provide some insights, feedback, and opinions from the eyes of myself and the community. Please bear with me, as I am trying to cover a lot of topics - at the very least, I'd highly appreciate a humorous "TL;DR!" reply.

	I guess I should start with introducing myself, so here goes: I've been a dedicated player of Robocraft for just over a year now, and am probably closing in (or have already surpassed) 2000 hours in the game. About 6-8 months ago (I don't remember the exact date), I have become a moderator for the game with the ambition of improving the gaming experience for all players by being an active part of the community, being able to help out new players and protect them from toxic ones, trolls and hackers. I have enjoyed this experience so far very much, and am an active participant of the MOD chat on Skype including Drognin, trying to keep learning and partaking in discussions regarding all kinds of topics related to the game (as well as the occasional off-topic jokes and banter).

	Furthermore, I am an active contributor on reddit, am trying to create a Youtube channel for Robocrafters, use Twitter primarily to engage in the Robocraft related discussions going on there, and was part of the unofficial bug-tester team comprised of Admins QueWhat and Zinrius, Moderator Kostas91 and myself, as well as the relentless testers Gottchar, Damer_Flinn and Titansmasher, who have put all their efforts into providing support on the forums, identifying and replicating bugs, and being responsible for this amazing list of confirmed bugs in order to help the developers fix them.

	This directly leads to the first point I want to focus on: We are willing to help, as you can evidently see from just glancing at the bug list, and we are still waiting to be "called to service". Even now, many of us keep working on this list, hoping that they will eventually be fixed. If there is any way we can be of more help, please, we would love to know.

	My second point is going to address a certain number of game-breaking bugs that I believe require highest priority to fix. It is possible you are working on a lot of these already, but (as a sub-point), we are lacking information/communication/transparency regarding these things, and so I apologise for listing things you are probably tired of hearing about.

1. Ejector Seats. A currently hot-topic thanks to kill-denying in the PIT, and an annoyance over all. There's two main bugs at work here that make these especially annoying:
- the pilot seat “takes” damage, but it jumps to a cube furthest away from the seat and cannot be connected to the seat.
FIX: allow the damage hitting the seat to jump to connected blocks. This will largely increase the hitbox of ejector seats, and no more absorbing infinite amounts of damage. See Baerentoeter's video to see the bug at work!
- plasma splash radius isn’t applied properly to bots at low health. This bug has been there for a while now, and since the last PIT update, it’s gotten several times worse.
FIX: the plasma damage to be applied correctly. these fixes will solve a HUGE DEAL of issues related to ejector seats by making them not game-breaking, and able to hit with any weapon type, without absorbing infinite amounts of damage. This video showcases one of the current plasma bugs!
I ask of you to address these bugs before making game mechanic related changes, like deciding a robot is "dead" when without weapons, or at a certain amount of health. Fixing these problems will make ejector seats much less viable, and much less frustrating to deal with, tackling the problem's root directly by removing the reason that makes them so alluring to use/frustrating to deal with without making people unhappy, as it is the most logical fix.
2. Random disconnecting from the game and de-synchronisation. Here is an example of one of our unofficial bug tester's disconnecting report. The problem of desynching from a game is another very common bug that has been occurring for over half a year now, definitely before the implementation of the Battle Arena game mode (so quite a while back!). It results in ghost damage, and people shouting "hacker!", and a generally very bad player experience for anyone who encounters it - see this thread, for example. The person desynched is also not having a fun time - on his screen, every other player is frozen in place, and shooting them won't deal any "damage" on his screen, however the player is still receiving damage without seeing any enemies shooting at him. Also, the base (in Team Deathmatch) can be capped by ghost-players (desynchs), and in Battle Arena, they can destroy the enemy protonium reactor. If the desynched player leaves the match, he won't get any rewards, has wasted his time, and will also get a leaver's penalty, despite this never being his fault and/or intention. This seriously affects players' enjoyment of the game.
3. Another annoying bug is clipping through the map texture. This sometimes occurs randomly at the start of a match, and cannot be fixed through simple respawning. However, you can also no-clip through the world after being hit by a tesla-blade. This is another old bug that is still active. After respawning, this secondary bug happens, which will need you to respawn a second time. I personally had to spend 2 minutes in a row respawning, due to this bug, only to get tesla'd a second time, and having to wait another 2-3 full minutes (respawning twice only to get it to work again). Our tester Damer_Flinn managed to reproduce this no-clipping using a simple thruster bot.
4. Incorrect aim for weapons without zooming. For some reason, weapons shoot higher than what the crosshair indicates. Mostly this is simply mildly infuriating.

	There are many more on and off the list, as you probably know well. I realise that fixing things isn't the most fun OR lucrative thing to do for the progression of the game. But it is definitely good for game reputation, and player retention. I realise that I don't have developing experience, and thus this might all sound very uneducated and annoying to you. I just want to have my voice heard, and my only intention is trying to help improve this game.

	For my third point, I want to address game mechanics, balance issues, and the continuous question of transparency between you, the developers/producers, and us, the community/consumers. It is clear that you should not tell us every little thing you are thinking about, working on, or considering. However, I believe it is not too much to ask for more information. We are getting a lot of balance changes, changes to RP rewards, changes to physics, changes to damage, et cetera. Often, these are not accompanied by any explanation whatsoever, and the community is left to guess why these changes have even been implemented. Just simple notes telling us what the changes are hoping to achieve will help the community understand the reasoning behind implementing them, as well as enable us to give proper feedback as to whether the intended effect has/has not occurred.  Additionally, keeping us updated on the status of bugs might help a lot of people to unwind their panties.

	On the topic of balance issues - I believe most weapons are fine as they are at the moment, and I strongly believe that making more balance changes that keep going back and forth, buff and nerf, takes too much time from actually working on improving game mechanics and bugs. Please hear me out: if, as discussed, you want to implement only 3-4 different armour values for cubes (light, medium, heavy, TX), and have them repaintable, that will automatically require balance changes. Spending so much time changing values for rails and EP at the moment feels completely pointless to many of us. Take this as a layman's opinion only. I just feel that prioritising certain aspects of development might be more favourable than what I perceive is being prioritised currently. In a nutshell, if there are changes made that do not directly improve the game in any way, then why are they being made instead of the ones that would actually improve or fix stuff? Changing the sound effects comes to mind. Many members of the community feel that there is too much focus on aspects like this, while there are so many issues that actually require fixing, which are not being addressed at all.

	Finally, a note regarding player retention and newbie-friendly interface/mechanics: for one, I feel it is important to improve the matchmaking. This is probably due to the low number of players in lower tiers, but people are likely to quit if they fight Mk3 bots in their first matches and subsequently lose - a way to shield new players from fighting experienced players might be a good solution (and I remember this being mentioned by you sometime ago, I'm all for it). This thread is a good overview of issues for new players. It boils down to matchmaking, tutorials/player tips, et cetera. Matchmaking is also important for higher tiers, and should try and match skills as well as weapon class. Often, this isn't the case. Implementing ranking systems should be a top priority in order to balance match making and fairness. Ranking is also a great way to get long-time players and veterans to stay with the game and keep pushing to improve themselves, and is something many are looking forward to (especially the competitive clans). I know you are already working on it - but making this happen sooner rather than later will have a huge impact on player retention and reviews, I am sure. There are several negative reviews from long-time players on steam, which turns off a lot of potential players. Addressing these issues, prioritising fixes and implementing important improvements will definitely lead to better reviews, more players, and higher player retention rates.

	Mark, I love this game, and I am trying to contribute to its future in as many ways as I can think of. I respect and admire you and your team, and how far you've come already. Please consider my feedback.

	- Respectfully, P. Defferrard / Juvar23