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Posted by Ender on Sunday, June 1, 2025, 3:04:24 pm (ET)

Hi everyone, as we kick off the June clan race, I want to thank you all for the fantastic amount of detailed feedback and thoughtful discussion over the past month regarding the May experiment and future ideas for the clan race. I've been reading through all of it - in the official May feedback thread, the All Bots Gain Monthly Energy discussion, and more. It's clear how passionate everyone is about this core aspect of the game, and I truly appreciate you sharing your insights.

This post will outline changes for June, as well as my current thinking on longer-term directions based on that feedback and ongoing observation. First though, a note on future plans: The ideas below for "later in June" and beyond are currently in various stages of planning or early consideration. Game development, especially for a solo developer, can have unpredictable timelines, and details may evolve as I work through implementation, balance, or based on further feedback and testing. Please consider these as directions I'm actively exploring, not firm promises with fixed ETAs. I always reserve the right to adjust plans to best serve the game's overall health.

Live now (effective June 1)

Daily energy exchange growth reduced from 10% to 5%

  • Based on a lot of feedback from the May experiment, the daily energy exchange increase has been reduced from 10% to 5% per day. The spreadsheet I'd shared before has been updated to reflect this.
  • Reasoning: While the 10% scaling aimed to keep the end-of-month competitive, many of you felt it was a bit too extreme, potentially devaluing early month effort more than intended and raising valid concerns about the rapid drain of system-wide "loose energy." Although the math showed the first half of the month still carried significant weight (~1/3 of total impact), perception and feel are very important. The new 5% daily increase will still provide a significant end-of-month multiplier (around 2.5x the base rate on the final day), aiming to keep things interesting and comebacks feasible, but in a way that should feel more balanced throughout the entire month.
  • Regarding "total energy inflation" caused by scaling - I'm less concerned about this for the "total energy" stat itself in the long run, as I plan to re-evaluate its meaning and how we track long-term achievement (more on that below).

Ranking clan member cap remains at 10

  • The reduction from 20 to 10 members for clan ranking and end-of-month clan trophies will remain in place for June.
  • Reasoning: The primary goal here was to lower the barrier to entry for more clans to compete effectively. While May's race still saw a significant lead at the very top (often a reflection of concentrated resources or exceptional individual performance, as some of you noted, rather than just raw numbers of scorers), the top 10 change is a step I believe is in the right direction. I'll continue to monitor its impact on clan formation and competitive dynamics, and I'm mindful of balancing this with the experience of players in larger clans (like high-level training bots) and their opportunities for recognition.

Targeting later in June

Visible global buff for daily energy scaling

  • To make the daily energy exchange scaling more transparent and easier for everyone to track, I'll be working to display it as a visible global buff that clearly shows the current day's energy exchange multiplier. This will remove any guesswork.

Fight list page revamp

  • A significant quality-of-life improvement I'm aiming to get out later this month is a revamp of the fight list page. The goal is to drastically improve the process for identifying viable targets. My tentative plan is to move towards a single, paginated table (as opposed to level-specific tables/pages) that is sortable by various columns (like level, energy, ratio) and also filterable. I'm also looking to add new information/features, such as how recently you've attacked a bot and the ability to apply custom labels or notes to bots (e.g. "favorite", "easy", "hard", etc.).

Targeting July or later (requires more design and development)

"All bots gain energy" (conceptual exploration)

  • There's clearly a lot of community interest in making energy more broadly accessible. I'm strongly considering and actively exploring concepts where a wider base of bots (i.e. unclanned) generate some baseline EPH.
  • Reasoning: This could create a more ambient level of energy, provide more targets, and further lower the barrier to entry for new players and clans, while still ensuring that focused strategy and investment (like well-built dumpers or active clanned play) remain valuable.
  • Key considerations would be limiting this to recently-active bots, providing an opt-out mechanism, and setting the EPH rate lower than dedicated clanned bots. This is a complex change with many potential effects, so tuning details are very much TBD and will require careful thought.

Ranked clan qualification

  • To make the clan rankings better reflect active, competitive entities, I'm exploring ideas for qualification.
  • Reasoning: The goal is to reduce the number of "fluff" or placeholder clans in the rankings. One tentative idea is requiring a clan to have a minimum energy ratio (say, x2) to be formally "ranked". Unranked clans would still be listed, though likely in a separate, collapsed-by-default section.

Differentiated rewards for clan ranks 2-10

  • To further incentivize the fight for every spot in the top 10, I plan to introduce more differentiated rewards.
  • Reasoning: The current drop-off in reward value after 1st place is significant. I'm tentatively looking at using the F1 scoring system already used elsewhere in the game to scale the value of rewards for ranks 2 through 10. This would give more meaning to finishing 2nd vs. 3rd, 3rd vs. 4th, etc.

"Total energy" rethink

  • The "total energy kept when leaving clans" feature is still a high priority. However, as many of you observed, and as the May scaling experiment highlighted, dramatic month-to-month variations in energy generation can make a single, cumulative "total energy" number less meaningful for comparing achievements across different months/mechanics.
  • Reasoning: My goal is to reward longevity and a bot's historical achievements without being anchored to a single stat that might become inflated or less comparable over time. This gives us more freedom to experiment with core race mechanics. I'm exploring alternatives, possibly using a system that scores or ranks historical monthly performances (again, F1-style points for past monthly energy results could be one avenue) rather than a simple sum. More details on this once the path is clearer.

Maybe sometime in the future (speculative ideas)

Energy from trainers (PvE)

  • Further down the line, I'm open to exploring how PvE activity, like battling trainers, could contribute some energy. It would need very careful tuning to ensure it's less efficient than dedicated PvP or energy-focused strategies but could offer a first step towards a more fleshed-out PvE mode. One idea is to have dynamic scaling for energy received based on attacker level vs. lowest level to beat that trainer in past X hours.

New clan-based game mode

  • I'm also in the very early conceptual stages for an entirely new clan-based game mode. This would be designed to complement (definitely not replace!) the core battle loop and clan race, offering a different avenue for clans to work together on shared objectives and progression, adding another dimension to clan identity and teamwork. This is still extremely early thinking and I'm being intentionally vague about details, but it's a direction I'm interested in.

The May experiment was very informative. Please continue to share your constructive thoughts and suggestions - your feedback is invaluable as we work together to make the game more engaging for everyone!

Congrats to Myriad [431] for leading <Lusitania> to victory in the May 2025 clan competition and securing a 11th George Washington platinum trophy! Monthly energy has been reset and a new round has begun.

rank clan owner energy month
1 <Lusitania> Myriad [431]
20,271,770 (x45.41)
2 <Mount Wario> Starbot [145]
5,910,514 (x18.21)
3 <Valhalla> Nosferatu [364] 5,881,783 (x13.90)
4 <Apex> Guardian Angel [75]
3,699,457 (x8.73)
5 <No Clan> Dragon Summoner [140]
2,122,006 (x5.03)
6 <DOOM> DrEvilZal [100] 1,708,384 (x12.25)
7 <dogs> Mr Tomato [81]
1,521,786 (x3.58)
8 <The Gunners> PeeT2 [387]
1,504,496 (x7.84)
9 <Tarnished> God Malachorn [30] 1,339,318 (x3.30)
10 <Pirate Haven> The Pirate [350]
1,226,004 (x2.75)

Also see:

Posted by Ender on Sunday, May 25, 2025, 10:22:06 pm (ET)

Hi everyone, as we head into the home stretch of the May clan race, I wanted to start a dedicated thread to gather your feedback on the experimental changes we trialed this month (the daily scaling energy exchange and reducing ranking member cap from 20 to 10).

Now that you've had a chance to experience most of the month with these mechanics, I'd love to hear your thoughts:

  • How has the daily energy scaling felt? Has it kept the race more competitive or engaging deeper into the month? How did it affect your strategy, activity levels, or perception of early vs. late-month effort?
  • What are your impressions of the ranking member cap reduction from 20 to 10? Has it noticeably impacted competition, or the ability for more clans to contest top spots? Could going even lower, at least for a time, be fun?
  • Overall, what worked well, and what didn't, with this May experiment?

I've noticed this month's race is still quite lopsided at the top (with first place having more than double the energy of second place currently). This might suggest that one month isn't enough to fully gauge the impact, that different player strategies are still adapting, or that further tweaks might be needed to achieve the goal of broader, sustained competition. All constructive feedback on this is very welcome.

Looking ahead: Ideas for June and beyond

Beyond just feedback on the May changes, I'm also keen to hear your broader ideas for June and future clan race iterations. There's already some great discussion happening in other threads, like the one suggesting All Bots Gain Monthly Energy, which I'm following with interest (and have just replied to with my initial thoughts).

  • What other changes could make the clan race more engaging for more people?
  • Are there tweaks to the current May experiment you'd suggest?
  • Do you have ideas for new energy sources, ways to spend energy, or different clan incentive structures?

Please share your suggestions here! A quick note on timing: Implementing entirely new, complex systems for the June race is likely unrealistic unless they are very simple adjustments. More significant changes will take more design and development time, but gathering your ideas now is crucial for effective future planning.

A note on "Total energy kept when leaving clans"

Separately, regarding the planned "total energy preserved when leaving clans" change: The energy inflation we've seen from May's scaling experiment has made it clear that the meaning and comparability of a single "total energy" stat across different months or eras of the game is becoming less straightforward.

To ensure we have the flexibility to continue experimenting with race mechanics that might affect monthly energy generation, I'm currently re-evaluating the best way to represent a bot's long-term clan-related achievements. The goal is still to allow players to retain a sense of their bot's history without being penalized for changing clans, but I want to do it in a way that doesn't "lock us down" by making a single, ever-inflating stat (i.e. total energy) the only measure of this, especially when its perceived value can change drastically based on changing month-to-month mechanics. We might need to explore alternative ways to track or display historical progress. This feature is still a high priority, but I want to ensure it’s implemented thoughtfully in a way that supports the game's continued evolution. More on this when I have a clearer path.

Thanks for participating in these experiments and for helping to shape the future of the clan race. I look forward to your constructive thoughts and suggestions!

Congrats to Supernaut [250] for leading <Mount Wario> to victory in the April 2025 clan competition and securing a 1st George Washington platinum trophy! Monthly energy has been reset and a new round has begun.

rank clan owner energy month
1 <Mount Wario> Supernaut [250] 9,150,734 (x11.15)
2 <Valhalla> Nosferatu [364] 3,539,253 (x4.34)
3 <Lusitania> Esvrainzas [359]
3,073,745 (x3.67)
4 <Apex> Zach01 [382]
1,224,039 (x1.44)
5 <House of Batiatus> Seppius [162]
1,120,902 (x1.32)
6 <Laser Kiwis> koduck [159]
1,119,555 (x1.32)
7 <Silence is Golden> Michelle Yeoh [130]
1,074,495 (x1.35)
8 <dogs> Mr Tomato [81]
1,065,858 (x1.29)
9 <Tarnished> Hellboy [34] 1,045,870 (x1.24)
10 <Pirate Haven> The Pirate [350]
1,032,643 (x1.22)

Also see:

Posted by Ender on Monday, April 28, 2025, 12:06:08 am (ET)

With the May clan race just around the corner, I wanted to announce some experimental changes we'll be trying out for the month. The primary goal behind these adjustments is to increase competition, lower the barrier for more clans to meaningfully participate, and address some of the feedback regarding long-term clan race stagnation.

Here are the changes:

  • 10% daily energy exchange increase (effective May 1): To keep the competition relevant throughout the month (i.e. reduce the possibility of the race feeling "over" mid-month), energy exchanged during battles will now scale upwards as the month progresses. It will start at the normal rate on day 1 and increase by 10% per day (approximately - energy gets rounded), meaning battles near the end of the month will have significantly more impact (reaching 4x the base rate on the final day). This should still reward sustained effort all month long (the first 1/2 of the month still counts for 1/3 of the effort) while making end-of-month comebacks more feasible. See this spreadsheet for the exact math and how the total weight will change for each day of the month.

  • Ranking member cap decreased from 20 to 10 (effective May 1): To lower the barrier for a clan to effectively compete and make the top spots more attainable for smaller, focused teams, a clan's monthly rank will now be determined by the sum of the monthly energy of its top 10 members (down from 20). Correspondingly, end-of-month clan trophies will be awarded to top 10 members instead of 20. Individual energy trophies are unaffected and awarded based on individual performance as usual.

  • Total energy kept when leaving clans (coming soon^TM): As a (mostly) quality-of-life change, your total energy will no longer be reset when you leave a clan. This is mostly a vanity stat, but it does affect some monthly trophies. The intention of this is to reduce the "pain" of leaving a clan, thus encouraging more competition. I will make a separate announcement post when this is live - I want to do some work to backfill historical total energy (as much as is possible - using end-of-month stats), which is taking some time. So while this change is related to encouraging competition, this change will launch separately once the historical data work is complete. Stay tuned.

Finally, keep in mind that this is an experiment! I want to be clear that these changes (the energy scaling and 10 member changes specifically) are being introduced in May on a trial basis. I'll be monitoring how these changes affect race dynamics, participation, and competitiveness. All of this is subject to change.

Your feedback is crucial for evaluating this experiment. Initial thoughts are of course welcome, but what will be most helpful is constructive feedback based on your actual gameplay experience throughout May. How does the scaling feel in practice? Does the 10 member change make the race feel more fresh and possible to get your foot in the door? I'm particularly interested in hearing your thoughts later in May or early June, once everyone has had a chance to see how these changes play out over the course of a full month.

My hope is that these adjustments lead to a more exciting and engaging monthly clan race. Thanks for your understanding, participation, and feedback!