suggestions

There should be a requirement to enter a bot into the tournament. I suggest that a bot must have done 500 fights in the last 30 days to be able to enter. This requirement should exclude attacks from other bots.

Reason: It is possible to make some really powerful bots that will always win the tournament but they will be unplayable. I.e. the armours/weapons will never be able to be replaced. So the bot will just be logged in every month to win the tournament. If there is a requirement of 500 fights per month then these bots armours will eventually break, rendering them useless.

What about the high level bots, how are they going to be able to rack up 500 attacks to enter the tourney? In any case, the more you limit the entries the less exciting the tournaments become. If someone wants to make a fully freaked level 130 bot just so it can win the tournament every month, I say more power to them.

Nobody else will ever stand a chance to win. Not so much fun in that. There are builds that are possible which will win 90% against a normal perfect soul or blaster build. I'm not really against it because I can make that bot and keep winning until someone else does the same or ender changes things because of people complaining. Just a warning for the future. No normal or sustainably freaked bot will ever win a tournament.

That may be true, but one bot can't win everything. There are specialised bots for getting certain achievements, which will always beat out 'regular' bots. For example, I can't get the Top Con achievement if someone decides to make a 300 base con bot. Neither should I expect to beat a bot to that achievement if they make it for the special purpose of getting that achievement.

I see tournaments in a similar way. A bot created for the purpose of winning a tournament should have a better chance of winning than someone who wants to energy score, get wins, etc. at the same time.

theres always a bigger fish, dont worry.

for every maniac that freaks his bot so its wins 90% to perfect souls there will be a maniac that will try to go 1 better, and make his bot 91% win to perfect souls.

Btw, I hope I don't derail this thread with this, but an alternate/additional tournament may also help mix things up and prevent freaked bots from winning tournaments:

http://bots4.net/forum/4/1208

In short, a tournament where you have to shop all your gear beforehand in a set time frame would prevent fully freaked builds from winning, or existing for that matter.

then again ... if the perfect soul hits the last 10% against the freak, wouldn't he win the tourney?

no because you dont get 1 fight in tourney, i think its atleast 10, if not 100 :l

Negatory good buddy, I think if you make a perfect tourney bot that can't do anything else more power too ya. Also alternate tourney sounds like it will dissadvantage people in different timezones so -1

On a semi-related, super freaked bots note, doesn't armour get damaged offline? Wouldn't you be able to wreck a super freak if you really hated it winning every tourney?

The only real concern is that bots that will never be able to play the game, will be the only ones that win. If you want a chance to win a tournament then you got to make a specialist tourney bot and just have it sit at a level, unbeatable and unplayable, till the end of time.

id be first to sacrifice my ratio and give you a few levels. :D

In bots2, most tourney bots were never played except for being logged in on the eve of a tournament to sign up. Personally I did the same thing with all of my tourney bots. I don't really see how this would differ with freaked bots, except that the owner simply couldn't play the bot even if they wanted to.

i remember attacking one lvl 130 ish bot with like 8 or 9 my bots, all whored to give the motherfucker enough xp to level and kick him out of tourny cat.

this things will be fun :P

On a semi-related, super freaked bots note, doesn't armour get damaged offline? Wouldn't you be able to wreck a super freak if you really hated it winning every tourney?

Yes, it does. The durability drops to 0, however the condition will not go under 100%, which basically means that the owner really can't do anything with it.

@Myriad. At least my main CS bot was also a regular tourney winner. I think it won up to ~20 tourney's, and always ended up in top 5-10.

It doesn't really matter what level the super-freaked bots are. Especially if the categories keep changing each month. Nonetheless, a level 130 super-freaked bot can beat a normal perfect level 140 bot over 70% of the time. So even if it is at the bottom of the category, nobody else will even come close. The only bot that will beat it is a higher level super-freaked bot.

Dont say I didn't warn anyone ;)

i am aware that only bot that wins is super freaked higher level bot, but you missed my point.

varying tournys will make it harder for same bot to win all the time, and also it will stop everybody from making lvl 130 freaked blaster, because what if someone makes lvl 135 freaked blaster and random tourny category just nails it?

variable categories wont make freaked bots easier to beat, but they will give variety and insecurity. and i think thats ok :)

variable cats!

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/6/11/thesiscatizr128576496600449086.jpg

I'm sure there will be a category of people who like to focus on winning tournaments. I dont really like that they would be forced to participate in stuff they might not be interested in.

I dont think this is a big problem anyway. Competitors will always be able to force someone out of a category by attacking him (well except cat 1 obviously, but that's a problem-cat anyway, and i'm sure Ender will think of something for that, as he remembers the frustration of having the highest level bot but never was able to win a tourney ^^)

It is possible to make some really powerful bots that will always win the tournament but they will be unplayable.

I'm actually in favor of people building unmaintainable special-purpose one-use bots specifically for tournament use that have no practical value in the energy race. Think of it as something like Deep Blue, a computer built with custom hardware and custom software for the specific purpose of playing chess.

No normal or sustainably freaked bot will ever win a tournament.

As it should be. The runner that makes it his all-consuming purpose to be the best should win the race, not the all-around athlete. Jack of all trades, master of none.

All that being said, I do hear you on not wanting things to become stale with the same bot winning every month. I will likely make the exp prizes for top finishers fairly substantial.

And yes, for historical reasons that Jans mentioned, I'm naturally against suggestions aimed at "evening the playing field" when it comes to tournaments. :P

P.S. Thanks for linking that thread btw, Myriad. I'd forgotten about it and I still like the idea.

P.S.2. Are you guys sure about defender's equipment taking durability loss? Defender's equipment takes damage in battle, but I thought I'd written it so that items go back up to 100% condition at the end of the battle without actually taking away durability/kudos for repairs.

Whoah, who suggested defenders taking equipment damage? That's madness, I'd have to recamp even if I hadn't been online?!

on topic: i think if people are prepared to make a bot freaked so badly they can't use it for anything but tournament entry then they should go for it, but i really like where ender said the exp prize would be substantial. that will give bot builders something to do after they win a few months at least, and have to plan new builds for their bots if they want to win another tournament. that stops it from being stale, i at least would enjoy having to rethink and remake.

@champ: defenders taking equipment damage is compliant with common sense. why shouldn't it take damage? it's been in series of battles whether you started them or not. it's silly that a bot would come out unscathed.

the condition should deteriorate as well as the durability.

So people coming back from holiday could log on to a ruined bot?

I loved tournies in bots2. Always coming up with a brand new build for the next month.

Now, I know 100x more than I did in bots2. I want to see either the same categories or some new mixed up ones. Not random.

Think of the Olympics. You are in a category for competition not for the Olympics to decide who races against who randomly.

The exp prize raising? Boo. Think of the fastest car in the world. It was the Bugatti. It stayed the fastest car until it was beat. Not getting "second" because somebody said it had to use crappy tires the next race.

Good good, now that the OK has been given for super-freaked bots, will wait and see how the first tourney pans out before making an army of bots :)

:D

omg <3 you Ender for knowing Deep Blue!

i think the tourney should not be like bots2 it should go to the most powerful bot none of this adding 100 points cause he is 50 levels lowershit that always gave george the advantage for about 2 yrs

I think ender mentioned somewhere before that there will be no level adjustments. Just pure wins will count.

To reiterate as this relates to what i'm about to say;

Jans

Ender will think of something for that, as he remembers the frustration of having the highest level bot but never was able to win a tourney

Ender

And yes, for historical reasons that Jans mentioned, I'm naturally against suggestions aimed at "evening the playing field" when it comes to tournaments. :P

So yeah, considering how much Ender thought the Bots2 tournament sucked and how hard he pushed to get it changed (to no avail) I'm pretty sure the Bots4 tournament will blow us all out of the water.

After all he's only had like have a decade to formulate ideas on how he'd do it ;)

see i enjoyed the tournements probably cause i was also winning them lol :) but would be much better if it was actually correct and the person who won the tourney was actually the most powerful

I think the 200+ category should be broken up though. Now it won't matter or have any effect, but later on it will and it royally sucks to have a lvl 200 bot in a category with a lvl 350. This is the equivalent of have a category with a lvl range from 50 - 200, it's just too much of a spread in my eyes.

I agree i think it should be 200-230 231-260 261-300 etc or something like that

i'll have to rediss my bot prior 200... or i suck dick when that happens :P

What will/would happen if the highest lvl bot is alone in his "category"? :)

He automatically wins I guess.

automagically*

I allways had an idea that only top 10 bots (level vise) should make a cat1 so it would be kinda special

automagically

Let's hope not. :)

I allways had an idea that only top 10 bots (level vise) should make a cat1 so it would be kinda special

Although good in "Theory" This is also not a good idea to be honest. Look at the HoF now, there is a 48 level gap between the 10th and 1st spot. That is a lot of stats and thus hinders the lvl 155 greatly against the lvl 203.

I think we need a specific set of categories from level 500 (which is probably never going to be seen) to the minimum level allowed to enter (Which I believe should be around lvl 40ish.