suggestions

While a style of diplomacy has been needed on the game for a long, long time to increase the diversity of builds and types of people that can consistently score without worrying about declanning whores etc., I think the need has become more urgent in the past few months. You have consistently seen clans push then give up for 1st, other clans (namely Pirate Haven), try their all to win with what limited resources they have in comparison to a clan that's been around for years with thousands of dumpers and trophy points, and Escapism coming back with ease and defeating any competition there is on the game. They plan on doing this for the next 7-8 months at least to beat Eternal's #1 streak. So without change, nothing will actually change within the next 7-8 months regardless of how anybody tries. 2017 will be a wipe due to all of this.

The solution is simple enough, come up with a diplomacy system. Either the bots2 system or a new one where say, people in war get the regular energy of 16 per fight and people in hostile status get 1/8 to 1/4 of that to incentivize making their own whores and dumpers. Have 3 clans available for war and a 2 times per day rotation (or 1 day) available. This way people stop attacking others bots and there will be no more complaining of "this guy makes 0 whores and I make 1,000 whores and he attacks them all so I just declan everything because screw him".

Also, inb4 Escapism claims that if everyone works together they can defeat them because everyone gets along super well and knows how to make dumpers, ratio whores, whores, how to prevent getting leveled up by them in low levels, how to make only dumpers and make your main bot a tourney bot or else be raped by theirs if you're lucky or they'll just use more of their dumpers, and on top of all this, will waste hundreds of hours to build lots of bots or buy lots of bots to accomplish this in what could all ultimately be a vain attempt anyway. Not like a diplomacy system will fix all of this, but hey, it's better than nothing.

Both systems still require you to make whores that you ultimately use for yourself (and clanmates if desired). The only real major difference is that the current systems calls for them not being trash builds which prevents others from taking energy freely. The diplomacy system inherently locks out other people from using them efficiently regardless of build.

Fresh upstarts with no preparation should not be expected to win, I don't see any problem that needs a solution. Repeating the same thing every month will also yield the same results, big surprise.

incentivize making their own whores and dumpers

There's a serious conflict of interest here. Making your own dumpers is the core concept of everything you even mention in the last paragraph. Making your own sources of energy is precisely what people need to do to compete right now and has been for ages. There should already be huge incentive but apparently people don't care enough or are too lazy to do so. I've already exclaimed time and time again how simple a process it really is, but I'm tired of caring about "potential" competition. I will wait for a competent player to lead, teach and give a clan some direction because I don't see anybody willing to adapt to the meta on their own.

In"competent player to lead, teach and give a clan some direction", reporting for duty sir!

Before I start I want to remind us all that I'm really the official bots 4 player that has rightfully so earned the title "lazy noob that took a month to build a level 100 whore clan" that everybody else but himself uses it seems, but who cares.

With the above said I'll say this. Zal we all luv ya bro and you always have some great ideas and on and on. However, this topic has been hashed over, disagreed upon, fought over, gotten nasty over, gotten called names over and discussed so damn many times that even a noob like myself can't count how many times it has been gone over. It's an old and dead topic imo...

That's my personal feelings about, in reality, any and all discussions on improving the game. These are the facts, Ender is happy with the way the game is operating and so are probably 3/4 of the games population. Myself I no longer care about anything other than getting some levels on Pirate and maybe getting one of my scorers in to the top 10. Thats it because everything else has been decided upon and it really is a closed discussion so why keep discussing it. it is futile.

I do not want to be fighting or discussing anything with anybody. I just want to do what I'm doing and I would like to be friends with everyone. If players want to kill my energy whore clans so my single pitiful fighter doesn't have anything to fight then go ahead cause I do not care. I'll just move on to doing something else in the game and be happy while I'm doing it. I suggest that as a strategy to others that may now be feeling like they are not being heard. It's not worth the time taken to write it all up in the forum. Really, it isn't.

Since my clan Pirate Haven seems to be of note due to it's ability to get in to 2nd place (which in reality isn't even a major accomplishment, it's nothing.) I'll make this statement once again. Pirate haven members only have the goal of trying to get a plat for a few bots each month. Personally, if my bot can't do that and it ends up with a gold then who cares, i don't. Myself and the one (or maybe 2 other) active members just do NOT care about going for a clan win and as long as I'm in the clan we won't be doing that. If some other clan decides to quit or whatever then maybe PH would try to slide in to the vacant top spot. Other wise it just ain't a priority.

And I'm not the competent leader of anything because I don't care. I just want to do my own thing and get along with everyone and so do the guys in PH..

Thats my long winded speech for today. Cheers.

Keep in mind there only seem to be FOUR clans that actively "compete" these days. The game may not be dead, but it's definitely on life support. New players come and go, and many long time players have long since quit. There are clans that can get into the top 10 based on mostly idle energy alone, what does that tell you?

I was going to write something really long, but fuck it, why bother? The Captain said it perfectly. We've had 4 bots in the top 10 the past 2 months, and I myself have placed in the top 10 TEN times since October, and have created well over 100 whore bots that everyone seems to use, even you Escapism. But we're all lazy. Whatever, I don't care anymore. I've tried to be friendly...I've respected all of your clans accomplishments, been nice, respectful...But I'm done. Have fun dominating a game that only has 4 active scoring clans left, 2 of which are practically brand new. We're all SUPER impressed! Soon you will be the only active clan left. Our clan has been slowly dwindling, and we already lost one first mate. We have THREE core members...THREE.

Zal, I'm sorry to say this, but you're wasting your time. I know you love this game, and that's why you're so frustrated to see it in it's current state...But sometimes all you can do is just LET GO. I wish that I could do the same to be honest...But to be honest, I don't have much else in my life, so... :/

Not even gonna bother checking up on this thread. I'm out. Gonna go back to just doing my own thing as I have always done. I'm glad that I have the Captain, and MarvelVsCapcom, the other remaining first mate by my side. If it wasn't for them, and our clan, I would've quit again a loooong time ago. Games on terri schiavo status.

I agree with a lot of what you said Mr. Pirate, this is definitely a worn topic. I think it's still healthy to converse about things as long as new and relevant things are brought up. As for your mention of the level 100 whore clan, I'd like to just throw a question at that, although it applies to anybody; Instead of making X amount of whores, why not do standard/stronger builds for them instead? That's all that needs to be changed to make them as dumpers for yourself. Of course that only matters if you're worried about competing, but making whores is still appreciated by others even if they don't really show it.

Whatever you decide though, I'm glad there's players like yourself who can still find enjoyment in other aspects of the game if one of them doesn't work out as planned.

I've tried to be friendly...I've respected all of your clans accomplishments, been nice, respectful...But I'm done. Have fun dominating a game that only has 4 active scoring clans left, 2 of which are practically brand new. We're all SUPER impressed! Soon you will be the only active clan left. Our clan has been slowly dwindling, and we already lost one first mate. We have THREE core members...THREE.

It sounds like you're faulting Escapism for playing to win, as well as blaming us for the current state of things, am I interpreting that correctly? If that is the case, it's ludacrous. Perhaps you're just venting or talking about the activity in general though, and I'm sorry for assuming if it's something of that sort. There's a lot of different viewpoints and perspectives between those of us that are playing, even some who are no longer, but I'm sure we'd all love to see more activity on here.

I won't comment on whether I think this is a good idea or not as I get called out for being biased or wanting Escapisms dominance to continue unaffected, but I really don't think a diplomacy system will change up who wins. If Escapism need the best whore clans for wars to win, we'll make them and be back to being #1. It's not a matter of rules of the game, we just have more active players and so any changes that're made will just make us adapt, and then continue to dominate. And quite frankly, that's how it should be. There are not many games where 10 good players can lose to 3 good players without making some arbitrary competitor limit. I'm sorry that that makes the game apparently so horrendous for anyone else, but we like playing together.

For what its worth, the games been at this level of activity for 3-4 years. We have to go back to 2013 to see significantly more people on than we get currently. The only reason it feels more dead is because tomato and fifty have stopped keeping Eternal on life support so to speak, but with those losses we've gained the Pirate Heaven players so it's not all that different. Still manage to get 20+ bots online sometimes which is cool to see.

Gpof2 I agree with what you are saying about the dumpers in place of regular whores at level 100. I suppose I could convert them in to dumpers but whats the point. They can't dump on to Pirate so it doesn't matter. Dumping on one of my level 100 fighters might not actually be feasible because if the dumpers are almost as strong as my fighter then I'm thinking there would be losses by my fighter and not worth the effort.

So let others use them up, the Clintons deserved to get reamed and thats what I built them for! lol I'm not going to declan them just to stop somebody from using them. The Cause is using them and he indicated that he would stop, I said to go ahead and use them because if he don't use them somebody else will. Plus I don't care.

When I bring up that quote about being a noob that took a month to build a level 100 clan kind of stuck with me when it was said by whomever I don't even remember. it's just funny and I get a kick out of using it. Thats all because it doesn't matter.

Fish & Gopf, I think that you might be missing Maleficents point a little. We have stated as a clan that our main goal is not to go for any clan placings and it is the truth.

I think what Mal was trying to get across is that we only go for a few individual top 10 plats with various bots and that sometimes when our own whore clans are totally drained it makes it a bit harder. Having diplomacy might even out the playing field a bit and give the edge back to the whore clan owner. It has absolutely nothing to do with us getting in to 1st because, yes, I agree, you would just make a work around so that it wouldn't matter to you. Thats all he's saying. Myself, who cares. I know it sounds like a broken record but I no longer care. I did before but I no longer do.

I know it's all part of the game and all and I'm not accusing anybody of anything so do not take this next part in that way. Sometimes when Mal, mainly him because he is our top scorer (and others in our clan) are putting an effort in and "others" see this (even though these "others") might not even be going for a top 10 they are out there draining the available energy and sometimes if it gets real close near the end of the month then our fighters start getting attacked or the whore we are fighting starts getting logged into or fought to disrupt the fight. Again, myself I don't care and I just move on to something else.

With the above said. I however wonder why some of these tactics are even needed. Maybe its not intended but it seems like even the table scraps of a couple top 10s are being taken away along with everything else in the game and it really doesn't feel all that good. Even though there are no rules and "it's all part of the game" to me at least, tactics like that don't seem to be a normal part of the game. We all either just beat up our whores and others dump and thats fine. I just don't understand why some tactics need to be used in order to simply piss other players off and to hinder them because they are putting the time and effort in.

This doesn't happen all the time but it has happened in the past. Again, I have changed my personal outlook about that and I don't care. However some of the guys in PH do care and Mal is one of them I think because like you and your clan win streak Mal has his own personal top 10 streak that he is trying to keep intact..

At any rate, I think that the desire for diplomacy might not be for the reasons you think they are. Myself, like I said, I'm happy to be leveling up Pirate and to be making a go for a top 10. If diplomacy is never instituted it doesn't make any difference to me.

Thanks for reading my long posting... Cheers.

The first dumper comment I meant as a more in general thing, not directly at you. I agree 100% it's not worth messing with ones you've already built, and you wouldn't want your dumpers to be the same level anyway.

Fish & Gopf, I think that you might be missing Maleficents point a little. We have stated as a clan that our main goal is not to go for any clan placings and it is the truth.

I don't think he was trying to get any point across, all I read was him expressing his dissatisfaction toward the activity of the game. Although this bit

I myself have placed in the top 10 TEN times since October, and have created well over 100 whore bots that everyone seems to use, even you Escapism. But we're all lazy. Whatever, I don't care anymore. I've tried to be friendly...I've respected all of your clans accomplishments, been nice, respectful...But I'm done.

makes me assume he has an issue with Escapism in general. The lazy part I'm guessing is in reference to what was said in another thread, so maybe I can clear that up a bit (as I think I'm one of the ones who said something along those lines). The laziness I was speaking of was the willingness to adapt to the meta, using dumpers instead of whores in particular. I did not mean lazy in general as players, because clearly you aren't, Cosby.

My previous comments regarding clan competition were not aimed at Pirate Haven, I'm not concerned with what other peoples goals may or may not be. I'm merely picking apart the suggestion by commenting on what it's trying to address and how it would fail or accomplish to do so.

It's interesting how many times Pirate Haven members seem to post despite the fact that they apparently don't 'care' about anything. It's a good thing they clarified that point, otherwise one could be forgiven for almost thinking they just have sour grape syndrome about all the runner up placings they've had since the start of the year.

In response to the actual suggestion, it might be worth noting that Ender implemented the energy system instead of the clanscore system as he wanted to discourage whoring and promote PvP somewhat. Although that obviously hasn't worked as planned, I doubt he would make changes now that would contradict those ideals.

This way people stop attacking others bots and there will be no more complaining of "this guy makes 0 whores and I make 1,000 whores and he attacks them all so I just declan everything because screw him".

Heaven forbid someone attacks other players' bots in a multiplayer game. If you really want to score unaffected by anyone else you could build some dumpers, just like everyone else has been doing since 2011. But I guess it's easier to stamp your feet and pray that something changes in your favour in the meantime.

I spent a good half hour trying to come up with a nice detailed reply to all of this and reiterate my point but I've just come to the conclusion that nothing I say will change anyone's opinions. So why try...

as in bmail, fuck you too, only thing you do is complain, you dont even play anymore, and please dont blame the system.

If you dont like it then fuck off, you bring nothing to this game, except for bullshit stories and complaints.

Keep it civil, Otto :p this is a suggestion thread!

You deserve it you fucking locust. You don't do anything to warrant my or anyone else's whores or help at all. Neither you or anyone in Escapism has a fucking hint of respect in their bones to what others do and just rape rape rape everything in sight like bloody locusts. You all just build your fucking dumpers and rape yourselves and everything else without care for the time anyone put into anything on this game, not the hours spent making whores, not the time to gain treasury or clan all those dumb bots, nothing at all!

So yes, you, Myriad, and Fishwick can all go fuck yourselves because you have forgotten how to play a multiplayer game. You play it with respect and if you beat someone else, you say good game, not rape their low levels to gain them levels or attack all their whores in an attempt to get first place because hey, maybe THEY WILL ALSO WANT TO FUCKING USE THEM. I don't blame you Cause or Escapism or Eternal or anyone else for being this way though, it was Ender's dumb decision to make this game "real wars" that has driven me and many others away from the game. I make a suggestion to change one pissy little aspect of it and you all start stroking your egos and saying you want nothing to change.

So yeah, there you go, it's all out in the open. Ender and Escapism can go fuck themselves for being assholes and not doing enough to change anything. Go ahead and mute me like you did SJ because apparently any concern me or anyone else on this game has about how things are going are supposed to be silenced. Ooo I swear a bit, ooo I don't like 5 people on the game, grow up Ender and you others and actually do something to prove me wrong rather than 5 paragraph long phrases of nothing.

Now if you excuse me I have some stuff to declan and negative fucks to give about you idiots. And I have done things for the game Cause, if you got your head out of your ass long enough you might have actually noticed there's other people on here that don't like what you're doing and that people actually made the things you attack and they might not like it. You want a PvE game or something you can play at work, go find something else. That's what I'm doing.

I should state that I don't mind Gpof. I have nothing against him. But bye everyone ;)

So as I can gather ITT:

1. Zal makes a suggestion to turn bots4 into bots2

2. Other players point out why bots4 is bots4 and not bots2

3. Zal cries and tells everyone to fuck themselves

4. Everyone else moves on

it was Ender's dumb decision to make this game "real wars" that has driven me and many others away from the game

If only that first statement were true, we wouldn't have to hear this periodical bitchfest

Dude, why don't you just let it go? Why keep going on and on about this. Nothings going to change so who cares. Why you think I personally care anymore is beyond me. Just ask some of your compatriots how I am because I have struck up a pretty nice friendship with some of them. It all has to do with respect among the different players. They have respect for me and I have respect for them and you don't and thats fine. I don't hate you, I don't even know you. No need for so much drama. I try to rationally explain things and you dismiss it out of hand. Thats fine because I really do not care. Believe that... You will be happy to know that I am done with this forum drama. Get over it.

I don't care man, I don't care! I'm done with the forum! I just need to reiterate how little I care so everyone knows, yeah!

Am I doing it right?

Why can't everyone just get along? No need to keep bitching about it other but I personally think that bots 2 was a way better game than what it is now. I agree with zal also. Let's face it the game is on it's last legs.

Let's face it the game is on it's last legs

Apparently this game has a lot of legs to stand on because it's been on its last ones for eons if we're to believe it when people say this. The beta and few months initially after launch were the only times it was noticeably more active in my opinion.

This is missing few lines from but cba to write it all over again. Zal and Juv0 will get my point if they want to.

First of all, your suggestions are utter bullshit.
Here are my two cents on this matter in the form of a chatlog

12:52 samulii i really cant see how diplomacy would change things 12:52 samulii all people need to start building as good whores as possible
12:52 samulii only difference between 20eph dumper and a whore is that you need actually camp those dumpers from time to time
12:53 samulii and you get to use those only by yourself
12:53 samulii and you could also actually succeed by building whores
12:53 samulii you just need to build a lot more than in bots2
12:53 samulii but
12:53 samulii its easier to level in bots4
12:53 samulii so i dont understand what is the fucking problem

escapism too stronk

too many resource

resources are too many and too stronk

neps has no life

hello ville we all know you still watch the forums sadcunt

benny is rich and bought them platinum medals, but i prefer wanking in the time that i could be getting platinum trohpees

ender is corrupt and helps escapism, i have proofs

mods are corrupt fishwick will probably delete this and is therefore corrupt

game is dead (circa 2013) game is dead (2014) game is dead (2015) game is dead (2016) game is dead (2017) why do people post this every year

why cant things be the way they were 17 years ago ender is stoopid

etc

How can I be corrupt and delete your message to hide the corruption, if deleting it would just serve to prove that I'm corrupt :(

forum complainer - nice written, but show your balls and tell all people who are you :P

I should state that what caused my outburst was Cause randomly messaging me asking me to reclan some whores nicely. It's obvious he's going for #1 this month so that's fine and all, but it was weirdly antagonizing in comparison to this thread and my dislike of Escapism. Why would I clan whores for Escapism? I'm not an Escapism member. It showed me that Cause never really changed and you all ignore the obvious problems with the game. That's why I lost it.

As per samulii's idea about making 20 EPH dumpers instead, that's fine and all, it does take the odd camping and are fairly easy to make. But nothing would stop others from attacking them either unless they were the same build or equally good build. As the levels go up the time investment in camping gets higher and more annoying. And I've seen samuli use 1.0 level 150 or so dumpers that he probably put 0 damage weapons on to gain fast energy a few months ago when Escapism was worried about Pirate Haven. So when people use dumpers with 0 damage weapons to their main bot gains no exp, what is the difference between using them and whores? Oh yes, the ability to simply switch a weapon or two after camping a bit.

Diplomacy would not take away the ability to use 20 EPH or 60 EPH dumpers. Diplomacy would simply allow people to keep more energy to themselves rather than help their enemies. To say someone should make 100 dumpers of 20 EPh or 60 EPH is fine but the camping is pretty damn boring and most people don't end up using their dumpers. I know the toll of making 20+ level 100 answerers, my God that was boring. On top of this you need fairly good ratio whores, which aren't hard to make, but the combination of having to make kudos bots, camp for hours, level bots with low int, gain wins, get weapons to 0 damage, and then finally use them takes more time than it really should to accomplish something like have a source of energy to yourself. Then on top of this look at how many others have and you'll wonder to yourself why you would even try. The ability to hoard one source of energy on this game and not others has given power to those with dumpers mostly. You can make dumpers, and I would have suggested it years ago, but I don't see the point now.

So yes, the problem is the power is too lopsided to those who started this stuff years ago versus those just trying to start now. I make a suggestion to help those newer players have an easier time (and I myself would enjoy it more, but nobody here cares what I like) and not have to worry about 5+ years of hoarding dumpers that others have done and the ones with dumpers all shoot it down. Things can change, but Ender needs to have the will to change things. Worrying about every detail and caution and trying to make things perfect makes you not want to do anything in the least bit fun or groundbreaking.

So yeah, a bit rambling here, but I wanted to explain this a bit more. Yes, nothing will stop Escapism and their calculators from making changes to any changes Ender makes, thus rendering any change useless anyway. I kinda feel sorry for Ender for even letting these unfun people change his mind so much. Ender works for Google and there's little to no reason to believe this game will get any better with the small amount of time he has. All my suggestions, useless, all your suggestions, useless, all your effort, useless, bots4 has become the futility simulator. Congratulations.

Just to make this thread semi-productive, serpents at 100 are a really good alternative to 100 answerers. They take a few minutes to camp so you can just make lots of them and let them sit at 20 EPH, meaning you never have to windump which is a massive downside of dumping. They'll only get like 15k energy per month, but if you made 100 of those over a few months, you'd have 1.5m of available dumping energy FOREVER (except recamping, which doesn't take long).

The people who have dumpers did not take all these years to make them. Someone could easily make a clan of dumpers in a month after making a few ratio whores. Depending on the level it can be done without ratios easily enough too. No doubt that building dumpers is tedious, but anything in this game is going to take some time, I mean it's a text based game it should almost be expected. There's also a finite amount of time you can spend dumping, after so many dumpers you really don't need more for a single bot.

Diplomacy would indeed do what you say, I just disagree with it being needed. In a multiplayer game with any competitive aspect, there should be a way to punish players for doing something poorly. Personally I find bots4 much more competitive and interactive than bots2 and I enjoy that aspect. I also see the appeal of reverting to bots2 ways as it was much simpler and mostly just came down which clan can hit fight again the most. That just isn't for me though, I prefer the way things are now.

And I've seen samuli use 1.0 level 150 or so dumpers that he probably put 0 damage weapons on to gain fast energy a few months ago when Escapism was worried about Pirate Haven. So when people use dumpers with 0 damage weapons to their main bot gains no exp, what is the difference between using them and whores?

This is just another method. It's only fast when you have buffs so it's much more limited. Also, I don't think anyone has bothered with broken weapons for something like this, you can whore them well enough with just regular shit gear. You do get xp either way though, the bot not doing damage is the one that doesn't get xp, so that too is a limiting factor. Just throwing that one out there. I want to bring Rivan up on that point too as he leveled to 151 raping his 150's. Doing that put him out of range of using either his 150's or his 111 dumpers, ultimately fucking himself over.

Also what Fishwick said, serpents/diamond katana are a good alternative. Even without optimal gear they're passable and won't get raped. Recamping isn't even the worst thing for dumpers, running out of trophy points is the only thing that finishes them off for good.

And also 100lvl answerers can be geared differently and still be effective. No one bothers to attack you even if you have something like blackhorn, hellmouth, bloodseeker and spiritforge.

And I also want to add the FACT that the most important resource is the time that people can spend on bots. It doesn't matter if Escapism has 20000 dumpers to use if there are only a handful of players semi active. We haven't seen clans really compete in almost 2 years, no +10mil months...

And I also want to point out that Pothead and Lobster managed to make huge scores pretty soon after they started playing so in my honest opinion that already makes a lot of your arguments invalid Mr. Zalando

Who the fuck names himself after zalando???

I couldn't care less if diplomacy was brought back or not although I highly doubt it will be, my opinion on this is probably based on the fact I don't have the time and interest I used to have in playing as much as I did due to work, other interests and eternals current state. Winning the clan race would be nice but it doesn't feel like a life goal as I've done it before.

Escapism can't really be blamed for the lack of competition certainly no more than the likes of shoe gazer,rivan and other eternal members who have stopped playing. To the people who really want to see escapism lose you need to think about change there is a spot for you Zal in eternal should you want to chip in with some energy the same goes to pirate haven members we have resources to help and you might encourage some eternal members to chip in more than they have been doing of late. It's the only way forward I can see to beat escapism at the moment if you really want it but to be honest I'm not really that bothered either way I'm happy to see escapism win and try and get a top 10 or do something else each month.

Thank you Pothead for your wise words! This is the first time in my whole damn life that I agree with you :)

Too mach drama