hints

Following along Fish's waste of breath to help young players figure out how to do basic things just so they can get to a stage where they'll quit the game once they realize how broken it is, I'll give a guide on how to quit.

Step 1: Realize that there are people that have been here way, way too long and have abused the shit out of the trophy point system, stars, dumpers and freaking. There are bots that have simply been reset and rebuilt that have over 8,000 trophy points, some even higher, essentially giving them around 150 45 point energy buffs x 32,000 energy = 4,800,000 energy they could abuse for 5 months or more. On top of this they have high level ratio whores so they can make level 300s faster than you can make a level 100. They also have armies of dumpers to back them up to crush whatever hope you have of wanting to win.

Step 2: Realize the tournament isn't even worth entering since it's based on 1 battle and you need a good 3+ workshop+showroom freaked bots bots in each category to guarantee some sort of top 3 win.

Step 3: Realize having broken weapons with 0 damage is dumb and lets people do ridiculous things like level 300 in under 10 trains or have over 1,000 int.

Step 4: Know that Ender won't probably fix anything you want. The entire suggestions forums should highlight this.

Step 5: Make dumpers because making whores is a selfless business and people will abuse your kindness without any thought whatsoever. You think hey, I made 100 of these whores, maybe this guy that's attacking them should make at least 10? Nope, they have no obligation to. That's why diplomacy in bots2 was better, especially if the owner is just going to let things rot overall.

Step 6: Half of the people on this game + bots2 end up being cheaters if they achieve some form of success.

Step 7: There is no point in resetting the game because the same stuff would happen. That is why I call it broken. If Ender wants to make a better bots4, I suggest making it an app, giving it an easier overlay, simplifying the game more (maybe get rid of the 3 links to fight, just have 1, it's not like it stops autoclickers anyway), ridding of captcha, adding diplomacy or PvE, add merging, change up the trophy system so people can't just reset and camp points, adding tournament interactions or member limits, make recruiting easier (if this was an app since it would be annoying adding 30 members to a clan by using a stylus), and so, so much more.

Step 8: At the end of the day if you came here from bots2 you will find that this game lacks features bots2 had and you will end up missing them. Merging, diplomacy, wars, 2 cs per fight until rape limit, lack of targets whereas before you could go all day if you had 3 good whore clans, higher barriers to achieving 1st since people are less of an even plane, jans index making people want to level to 100+ and have 3.0+ ratios, 2/3 of stats ratio whoring (I'd suggest this be higher even), higher clan member limits, rank colors, clan leader forums, 2 showrooms on green, no buffs, no stupid trophies, just the glory of being in the top 10 on an active game and beating your rivals, not just the outright pay to win assholes on this game. You will find one day this game has not even finished beta.

Step 9: Logout, never come back, enjoy your life. Maybe go play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or something.

Step 10: Stick around and whine constantly.

Rant in complaints forum if you must.

Thats actually a very insightful, well written and thought out critique of the situation this game is in right now. I don't think it indicates any hostile feelings towards anything, maybe just some frustration there on the part of the author but that's it.

Bots 4 never really did leave the beta stage of development and that fact can not be disputed by anyone that possesses any rationality. If it did reach a finished state then you wouldn't see any of the MOTD tags that are still present in some places. And you probably wouldn't see this energy and trophy point system because all it does is totally hobble game play.

I don't understand how some folks here can dispute the simple fact that Bots 4 is very much unfinished and in reality it is a lot less desirable and playable with many of the old Bots 2 features taken away. How can you dispute the fact that diplomacy and so many other features from bots 2 aren't in 4 and that Bots 4 is better! By returning to something like was present in Bots 2 it would seem like a pretty good thing actually and I can't understand how that could possibly be disagreed with.

I don't know Zal (other than from his forum postings) but honestly, some of the stuff he comes up with are right on for everyone in the game, not just for himself or for only one group in the game.

Zal, maybe you should get a job writing game reviews or something because you really do have a gift and a way with words. However, what you have to say here is only going to fall on def ears. Cheers...

Hmm, so we're back to this again. It'd probably be better to discuss in complaints or miscellaneous but oh well. I'll try to address most of the things you mentioned. Wall of text incoming:

Response 1: There is no "abuse". People playing the game in a way to make use of the tools given to them is not abuse. All of the mentioned and supposed offenders of abuse have been directly talked about by Ender. None of them are new either, even freaking which is probably the biggest change as far as gameplay goes, has been publicly known since the beta. Trophy points are clearly intended as opposed to being some hidden mechanic, as well as resets. Said points also do not directly convert into energy on a whim, all it does is mean you can score on the same bot indefinitely if you wish (and only 1k fights a day at most are affected). Ironically, the people with the means to accrue so many points don't need to because they can score with dumpers. So really it's a moot point. Personally I think trophies/points were a wonderful addition as it saves so much time with building new bots.

Nothing is stopping players from making their own ratio whores or whatever one would argue is making things unfair. It's incredibly easy to build a small chain of ratio whores for practical use, and you'd only need 1 star on maybe 4-5 bots if you want to do some serious dumper building. Hell, you can do it with no stars if you do shielded builds for your ratio whores. Stars is one thing I will admit leads to an arguably unfair advantage, but it's definitely not that severe. The game has been around for awhile now and lots of people have access to bundles of stars. If some clan needs them to be competitive it's not some insurmountable feat to build a ratio whore chain together and share them. As for people having chains that go to 200, 300 or whatever, how does that even affect people who don't? It serves zero practical use for scoring, except for helping people like Myriad or Lyrad get some score on their main levelers. But again, extremely impractical and if they want to seriously score they will do so on lower levels. Sure it's ridiculous, but it inhibits nothing. This topic as been discussed ad nauseam and it's not even anything new from bots2 outside of the bots built from it being nonsensical.

As for freaking, I honestly find it less of an issue than I originally accredited it the more I think about it. There's hardly anybody who actually has taken advantage of making freaked builds to benefit themselves from attacking others. Sure plenty of people score on freaked builds, but that's mostly from attacking themselves so it makes little difference. Nobody attacks unfreaked dumpers if they're built properly and scorers are no different. I'll get back to that one in the second point, but for scoring, freaking hasn't been very impactful.

Response 2: Your 2 complaints are even contradictory of each other. The first one implies the build doesn't even matter, the second says if you don't use a specific mechanic on multiple builds you have no hope of top 3? The 1 battle makes it more feasible for a non freaked build to do well, but it's nowhere near random. As you get to higher levels it does however get into more random territory. The nature of shielded fights with 70% block inherently involve a lot of luck due to extra variables. I don't feel like getting too into that can of worms though.

The showroom and workshop freaking being a necessity is definitely true, but that shouldn't be a surprise. A tournament should inherently require you doing the most convoluted and ridiculous things for any advantage possible to win. This shouldn't even be a tournament complaint as it stems from freaking in general. Stars definitely do give an advantage here, more so than with ratio whores I would say. It's still possible to do freaked builds without stars, but it takes quite a long time to camp all your armors in what's usually a specific order. Also, you most certainly do not need to try and brute force wins with absurd numbers of bots. Myriad has been competing with a single bot in each category (with the exception of bots not intended to be tourny bots) and has done extremely well.

Response 3: I should just repeat what I said regarding ratio whores and trophy points. This is the complete opposite of restrictive and should be a welcomed change. You don't even need stars to make use of this, and just 1 to have broken weapons in both hands. Once again, this in no way limits other players just because somebody has a retarded bot with 1000 int.

Response 4: Suggestions are just that, suggestions. They are not obligated to be implemented or adhered to.

Response 5: Yes, making whores is selfless, but that as well as humans abusing each others kindness is nothing new. People should make dumpers even without that in mind because it's something better to invest your time into if you want to win the energy race. It's possible to be selfless while remaining competitive, build the dumpers for your clanmates, hell, just dump energy straight to them. The public whores are appreciated don't get me wrong, but if you're going to use human nature as fuel for ill-placed complaints then just stop.

Response 6: I'm not sure which you're implying; that people who do well are cheaters, or that anyone who does well is accused of being one. This seems like a completely subjective matter, so whichever it is, we'll just leave it at that.

Response 7: Because the game would be played the same way after a reset, that makes it broken? I'm sorry but that just sounds extremely stupid to me. Why would people play it any differently just because of a reset and nothing else has changed? As for the rest of the suggestions listed, most I would agree with or just be indifferent towards. Regardless of the reasoning, a mobile app would be pretty nice.

Response 8: I really hate to break the news, but this is not bots2. I find just as many things I like and prefer today than I miss from yesteryear. Too many people dislike that bots4 was not an exact clone of bots2 and continue to look at it from a jaded perspective. The change between old csing and the current energy system is the main point of conflict in my eyes. Cs had the appeal of simplicity, just clicking fight again without any micromanagement. People leaving/quitting because of that change I can understand, but so many complaints I fail to see any logic behind.

Thats actually a very insightful, well written and thought out critique of a critique. I don't think it indicates any hostile feelings towards anything, maybe just some frustration there on the part of the responder but that's it.

I don't know Gpof (other than years of playing with and against him in multiple games) but honestly, some of the stuff he comes up with are right on for everyone in the game, not just for himself or for only one group in the game.

N Fishwick [134]

51
2017-04-17 13:45:01
[8 hours ago]


Perfect example of why I dislike your presence. When people actually try and help new people, you complain and attempt to get some attention for yourself. If the games that bad, why are you still here? Take your own advice. And don't try to tell people whether they should play a game or not, its their choice, even if you don't agree with it.

I'm not trying to get attention for myself, I'm trying to get attention to areas that need improvement. I wouldn't have added so many suggestions in my post otherwise. I'm giving the advice of a veteran player who knows the ups and downs of the game and just trying to prepare them for what's ahead. They will likely get raped, they will likely have to make better builds, if they make whores others will use them without care, and on and on. I just stated the end result of what most people's time on here has become.

As per Gpof's reply, which could be summed up as "be more politically correct Zal, you silly over-stater, there's some things that are okay" (and yes I read it all), I'm fine with your critique. Just because something isn't optimum doesn't mean it doesn't work (to me the energy system isn't as optimum as the cs system was or other ideas). I do have a habit of making things sound worse than they are but the game could be simplified in certain areas because some things don't truly work that well as the chaotic mess they are (whores, the tournament, broken weapons, the weapons/armours of the game, idle energy of dumpers being top 100 energy, other stupid stuff) and some things should be implemented that would improve the overall experience. I just want the game to be better overall for everyone, but that's near impossible because at this point the system is too skewed towards older members and donators than new players. What I speak of is essentially wanting a new game or server because I know these will never be implemented due to hundreds of stars being out there, hundreds of hours in training spent, and thousands of hours spent on dumpers and whores, all to essentially not be used because most people are just straight up bored.

So this is not so much an attack on the game but an idea for bots5. This will all make sense to some people, none to others at some point if they decide to play longer than 3 days. They can agree with me or they can agree with you two Gpof and Fishwick, but we should let them decide for themselves. All this is just information of what people on this game do and what the game can be like, nothing more. AKA a "hint" as useful as a thread about how to freak etc. I would have made tutorials for this game long ago (I do have one in the marketplace) but Ender has this weird habit of saying "sure you can do that" but essentially leaves it all up to you, like we should do it for his game without payment or thanks of any type. It's like working as an intern at Google but you can't put it on a resume!

You go about things in the wrong way. You try to act as though you care about helping new players, but you just make it a more toxic environment for them. If you think their bots will get raped, why not help them prevent that? Instead of whining and trolling as usual. If you're really the veteran player you think you are, you'd know Ender doesn't keep up to date with every bit of drama that's going on, and there's a very slim chance he'll read all this. But that doesn't matter, as long as you get to have a go at the, as you see it, corrupt establishment that dares try to help new people in any way at all.

Changes are made in suggestions and speaking with Ender, not making petty posts mocking other people for daring to try to help new people. If you don't think that's effective enough, that's fine, rant about how much you hate him in complaints, but don't sit here and pretend you're trying to change the game for the better. You just like complaining.

If you don't like the game, no ones making you stick around to tell us about it. New players can thrive - look at Pirate Haven, just because they haven't won yet doesn't mean anything, there was absolutely no point in bots2 history where a group of reasonably new players won a month. They've been very close behind a few times, that wouldn't have happened in bots2 as they wouldn't have had decent wars (you complain about unfairness to new players, but also reminisce on diplomacy - the one aspect of bots2 that is terrible for fairness and helping new people. If it existed, the top clans would have thousands of perfect whores, and new players would have scraps that they cobbled together. Insanely unfair idea and I've no idea what justification you can have for longing for those days again. It's like the unfairness of dumping, but a hell of a lot easier to maintain and drain the energy).

If you actually wanted changes to be made, this would be in the suggestions forum, but funnily enough, that's pretty much the only forum you're not active in.

Okay, first of all, I do help new players and the only reason I started this thread was because I thought it was funny that you're making hints and guides when the game is 5+ years old now with no real signs of recovery from former levels of activity.

As for suggestions, here's a list of a few I did, not that many, but I'm not sure of all the suggestions I have done in multiple threads or in places that weren't the suggestions forums. Here's 1. Here's 2. Here's 3. Here's 4. Here's 5. Here's a guide on selling your bots that's 5 years old

This thread is meant to help players someday in their future. It's not about publicity. Every time I post something in the forum you have 5 posts worth of stuff to say to me when all of it is the exact same, "oh I hate Zal, his opinion doesn't matter, I like the game as it is" and is very anti-opinion. I guess I should just leave you all to back scratch each other and not care about the glaring problems with the game.

Generally speaking the people that down others suggestions or opinions on this game are still here and feed off this. They commit everything I say in the first post and have effectively made everyone they dislike quit in one way or another. Ender and this game are not infallible. To go around thinking it's perfect is just an illusion you yourself have made Fishwick, Myriad, Esv, Cause, and Lyrad. Gpof is close but not 100% under the illusion (and so long as he enjoys the game, that's good). Me, Pothead, Leader, SJ, Pirate, sometimes even Ender himself, Cali, and others (sorry if I forgot you) have all at one time or another expressed doubts on how good the game actually is, and where are all of them now? Mostly quit or doing other things. And this is why I made this thread, for them, and anybody that thinks like them.

Fishwick [134]

51
2017-04-17 23:43:37
[9 hours ago]


If you don't want attention, why didnt you reply here instead of publicly? Oh. You did want attention? Gotcha.

Here's another suggestion, can I block Fishwick please? I don't want to receive his bullshit bmails anymore. I don't reply to you in bmail Fishwick because I don't think it's polite to leave people out of your hate speech towards me.

Hate speech?

chuckles

.