suggestions

There have been a couple threads discussing possible changes to how clans work:

http://bots4.net/forum/4/183
http://bots4.net/forum/4/188

I read through these and liked some of the ideas I saw. I'd like to propose some refinements on those ideas and get some initial feedback before I go off and start writing a lot of code.

New system overview:

- Clanscore is gone and replaced with "energy".
- At the start of every month, every bot in a clan is reset to 1000 energy. You get more energy by attacking other bots; the winner gets 1 energy from the loser, provided they have energy to give.
- Diplomacy is gone. You can get energy from any bot.
- Clan rank is based on the sum of its members' energy.
- Clans are capped at 20 members.
- Level 100 to make a clan, level 50 to join one.
- Leaving a clan sets your energy to 0.
- Joining a clan after leaving one in the same month does not reset your energy to 1000. On the other hand, bots that were clanless at the start of a month who join a clan mid-month receive a one-time 1000 energy bonus and are then subject to the same policies as other bots.

I'm not sure how this system will play out over the long run. The intention is for there to be less whoring (though not completely eliminated and still allowed, just less effective) and more focus on having strong builds and real PvP. Removing diplomacy makes the barriers to entry to be a top clan lower. In the later years of bots2, you had to invest too much time or money building up whore clans to be competitive. Similarly, the smaller clan size cap will hopefully bring about a larger number of competiting groups. The higher level requirements are just so there aren't hundreds of noob clans.

In any case, I think it's worth at least trying out this idea during the beta phase to see how people like it. Please provide your feedback on anything you see fit. Even the name "energy" is fair game...surely we can come up with something more imaginative. Would "Jans" work? It seems pretty fitting, considering who the previous system was named after and that he was the one who submitted most of this new system. :)

I like it. 'Energy' is a great name! They're bots, they need energy, and it has purpose to collect/protect it. 'clanscore' was pretty vague and unimaginative..

All the points you mention i agree with. Two remarks;
- i think lvl 50 is rather high to be able to join. I know experienced players reach that in like 2 hours, but new players dont put everything in Int. It might take a lot longer for them to level up. And why exclude complete level ranges from this in the first place?
- i'm not sure i like a fixed cap on clansize. Im on the fence though, because i do like smaller clans over big ones. How about some natural way to prevent them from getting too large? How about it will cost energy? A large clan would cost more energy per day than could be collected.

Random thought:
- should it still be called 'clans'? Maybe something more robotic would be more suitable. 'collective', 'unit', 'station'. I dont know..

I thought energy sounded kind of bad. It reminds me of those cookie-cutter text RPGs where you have energy and train every day. Makes me throw up in my mouth a little thinking about it <_<.

But Jans put some logic behind the energy thing though. Since they're robots, yea I guess it would work *shrug*

I think their should be dips. So you can at least target a couple of clans instead of searching. 'War' should be a kept thing. 1 'energy' still, but shows that they are against the other clans/guilds.

20 members? How about 50 or so...

Yea, 20 seems really small. Wouldn't this really defeat the purpose of merging too?

Thinking about it to myself though, the player count IS a lot smaller now. So 20 isn't too bad. Perhaps increase it later in the full release if we get more players.

i would agree with 50 on the clan limit, maybe there not too many players but they would still have 2-3 bots per person so you could fill up the clan pretty fast

If we do any testing of the clans during the closed beta though, I think we should stick with 20. At least until open beta :]

yeah for open beta it should be enough

The lowest level to join a clan should be the same as the lowest level allowed in the tournaments (level 40 as in bots2)

I like all the proposed changes except the term "energy"

I think something like "plasma" would be better suited for the role it is taking.

Anything but energy!

plasma is worse than energy.

Think of it this way :
"I scored 10k energys last month!"
"I scored 10k plasma last month!" <-- robots don't need plasma
"I scored 10k jans last month!" <-- Seems like a better term

If you used jans, you would be ranked by total jans per month, no ratio/ highest level bull crap. This would put a hindering on then older clans/guilds.
Think of it this way :
If i were to make a car company, to compete against Toyota or Dodge, would we make them take their car prices double prices so my cars could sell until we catch up with the big guys? I don't think so. I have to work to show my car is the better buy to compete. Until that time, I work my ass of to take first place. The same principals applies in all aspects of this game.

-Alan

Think of it this way, what is a potential resource that could be of value to robots? plasma.

If you want to think of it logically how teh fark are you supposed to steal energy?

For all i care we call it marbles. Maybe these bots have this crazy urge to collect them :)

On a more serious note;
Amps? From ampere
Joule?
Watt?


Either way, we shouldn't be too concerned with the logic behind it. After all, what was 'clanscore'? And what would robots want with it?

Technically robots would be just as capable of joining a clan and acquiring clanscore as any other sentient being, haha.

But it is up to Ender, whatever he thinks is best.

I'll take it as a good sign that most of the discussion so far has focused on what to call the arbitrary units we fight for and that there hasn't been any vehement opposition to the actual proposed mechanics. :)

I still have the same reservation as I had when Jans suggested this, if all bots start with a nominal amount of cs/energy/mana/plasma whatever the fuck you call it will not smaller clans be disadvantaged? Which in turn deters newbies from starting up clans?

But I do like the abandonment of dips & JI :)

& btw I like the terms hives or collectives for a clan ;)

[i]will not smaller clans be disadvantaged? Which in turn deters newbies from starting up clans?[/i]

But that doesnt change from before? Unless i'm missing something. A clan with 5 members will always be at a disadvantage over a clan with 20.

What does change: no need to have whores to be able to compete. So new clans have a far better chance than before.

At the end of bots, smaller clans had a much bigger advantage, higher avg level and ratio=more jans. No need for all the deadweight

Hmmmm.. a clan with 20 guys starts with 20k marbles, while the smaller clan only starts with 5k. That is a double disadvantage indeed; they smaller, and start off with a handicap.

Fixable though:
- instead of one, there's two fields that come into play: energy reserve, and energy collected.
- at the start of a month you get 1000 'energy reserve'
- your 'energy collected' starts off at 0
- clans are ranked on collected energy

This way, the two clans both start at 0.

Oh, when a guy has 1000 in reserve + 500 collected, and he's attacked, the loss should be deducted from his collected amount first. And when that's all gone, from the reserve.

Yes that did apply before . However I am not convinced that one flawed system should be replaced by another flawed system.

Here we go :

- Members : 50 (more power to get big scores, face it, people like getting millions of cs)
- Minimum Level : 50 (Tournaments could be a way to 'show' you are a good bot, before you join a clan)
- Clan Score : 1000 per bot per month, rejoin = 0 cs, unless you had no clan at the beginning of the clan. Clans would be ranked by total clan score per month.
- Merging : Lose 1/3 of cs when merged.
- Treasury : Same as before, money gets minused everyday and for applications
- Diplomacy : Kept, not for higher cs, but for targetting certain clans, easier access. This game is more about ease, The notifications at the side, easier showroom and workshop mechanics. The game is basically more user friendly.
- Clan score Name : Ender should make a poll of the 'best' ideas. Kept as clan score, plasma, energy, amps, etc.


-Alan

Something just occurred to me that might be a problem with this system. It might sound far-fetched, but keep in mind people are going to find and exploit the path of least resistance for acquiring energy. And I don't see that as a bad thing, but it's important to keep that in mind when designing things. Anyway, if people still wanted to use whores as a resource like they were in bots2, they could just leave them clanless. When ready to use them, they'd join a clan with the whore bot and then immediately attack them on their main bot. Being clanless effectively acts as a shelter for the energy.

I'm not sure what the best way around this is. Giving starting energy only to bots that are in clans at the start of the month is the obvious solution, but I get the feeling there are better alternatives. I'll think about this. Suggestions are welcome.

As for larger clans having an advantage over smaller clans, this seems okay to me. A large clan alone isn't going to win the month for you. If the bots suck, they'll lose their energy. Yes there is a short-term advantage for larger clans at the start of the month, but I think this will be washed out over the course of the month.

Also, random side note: what I really like about this new system is that it gives people a way to *take away* from other clans. In bots2, all you could do to get ahead was to get more people and click faster. With this setup, if clan A gets ahead of everyone else early on, clans B, C, D, and E can collectively attack A to bring it down. This seems like a far more interesting dynamic than each clan essentially acting independently to get the most CS.

Clanless bots could still fight right? They just wouldn't accrue/lose energy?

& btw it is certainly worth giving this idea a go ... I just remain to be convinced ^^

Yeah clanless bots can still fight, they just won't gain energy.

"will not smaller clans be disadvantaged?"

Of course, that's the whole point. Otherwise it's like the old tournament system where having a high level was a disadvantage, it just didn't make any sense.

I like these clan ideas though, at the end of the month the best clan bots would have the the most <INSERT-NAME-HERE>, and it'd be hard to steal it from them since well, they're the best.

I don't think the whoring will be too big of a deal, maybe whores will be used the first week of the month, but then all the clans would have to start getting the <INSERT-NAME-HERE> from each other instead.

Also, some name suggestions:

power
force
capacity
vitality

In regards to leaving/joining clans; i think it would be nice if players are able to switch clans during a month. But if you can hop clans without losing your score, it would lead to what Ender described; people would take out their whores when going offline, to prevent others from getting points off them.

In relation to what i suggested earlier (where 1000 points is considered the 'base' amount, and everything on top of that is 'collected score'), how about you lose 1/3 of your monthly base when you switch clans? You'd keep your collected amount, only your reserve is cut by 33%. That would stop people from taking out their whores, and still enables players to switch clans. They'd lose 333 points as a max. A small price to pay.

Also; should new members get 1000 points when they join a clan at the 29th of a month? It could lead to interesting tactics at the end of the month for sure. But could it be abused as well?

I kinda like 'force' :)
And how about 'mojo'? ^_^

New question on this. What about the attack limits? There would be more energy than everyones attack limits. Say Clan A is superior to Clan B in terms of builds. So Clan A attacks Clan B. The most energy Clan A could take from Clan B is about 20%, and that's if Clan B hasn't taken energy from anyone else.

On the other hand though, if the attack limit was raised, there would be obvious problems there too. What does everyone else think about this?

How about removing that online attack thing, if wars and cs(energy) will be mostly about PvP, if someone attacks you you can't do anything anymore, that sucks alot, if you can still go do yout thing would be much better.

I'm not sure I like the idea of energy being transferable across clans (minus a small penalty). There should be a larger cost involved with changing teams because otherwise it doesn't really matter what clan you're in *during* the month, only at the end.

I don't see the "1000 free energy from new member on last day of month" being too big an issue either. Who knows how much energy the top clans will end up obtaining over the course of a month, but I would imagine 1000 won't make much of a difference.

Anyway, I think I thought of something that addresses these problems. Instead of everyone starting with 1000 energy at the start of the month, everyone gets a smaller amount, say 100 or 200 energy at the start of every day. This prevents things from getting too stale mid-month while still allowing for players to join a clan mid-month and obtain energy.

Gpof raises a good point about attack limits. There is only so much that one clan can do to another in a small period of time because of this. The first thought that comes to mind is to remove the attack limit when attacking a bot with more energy, but I get the feeling there would be some unforeseen implications with this, particularly involving reverse whoring. I'll have to think about it some more, but maybe it's not so bad how it is now. You'll still be able to obtain energy from other sources once the attack limits on the top clan's bots are reached, so maybe it's not a bad thing that there is limited damage you can do to one clan by yourself.

I don't know if I like the idea of removing online attacks either. I could see that being abused by people wanting to protect their energy, plus it's an interesting game component that leads to and/or fuel rivalries, which I think is a good thing.

What if you have the energy gain based on your level, same as the attack limit on you? So at level 100-149 you'd get 200 energy at the start of every month.


What happens if you lose a fight you initiated yourself? Will you lose energy?

Although it sounds logical, if the amount of energy depends on the bot's level, clans will discriminate against lower level players. I think it will benefit the game if new players are welcomed and not shut out. So in my view, everyone should start off with the same amount, regardless of level, ratio, etc.

And no, i dont think you should lose energy if you lose a fight you initiated yourself. Otherwise it's of little use challenging opponents who are almost as strong as you. Alternative; if you lose a fight you started, you -both- lose energy.

hm, scratch that last sentence, that makes no sense. People would start attacking others with lots of points, and even with the shittiest of bots, they could take someone down :)

I think variable amounts of energy is an interesting idea to explore for the future, but for now I think I'll just do a simple system to see how that works out.

I had just sort of assumed the same rules applied to losing as they do to winning: if you lose, you give 1 of your energy to the winner. Any reason why this wouldn't be best, or some reason why the loser shouldn't lose energy?

What do you guys think of the daily energy infusion vs. the monthly starting energy?

It stems from the real-wars thread. If you lose points when you lose a fight, it's kind of discouraging to attack someone who's roughly as strong as you. If you do 1:1 against someone, it becomes pointless to fight; you lose as much as you win. The easy fix would be to not lose points when you attack and lose. It sorta makes sense too. If you try to rob someone, that either succeeds or it doesn't. But it's kinda weird if the robber suddenly gets robbed himself if his action failed.

"What do you guys think of the daily energy infusion vs. the monthly starting energy?"

I'll sleep on it :P I think i like it. But 200 per day, or even 100, is way too much imo.

I see what you mean, but there does need to be some sort of risk involved with initiating attacks. Maybe there's some middle ground we can find on this.

Let's forget about cs for a moment, how about if you get like 10-15 energy in a fight, depending on how long it was etc. And when you lose a fight you started you lose maybe 3-4 energy.

I believe if you attack and lose you should lose an energy, if you attack and win you gain one.

Also I like the idea that you begin with 1000 at the start of every month and then afterwards anyone else that joins during the month does not get this starting bonus, they can still earn energy ofc, but they have to begin from 0.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of deviating from 1 energy per fight, that's interesting. It would make it a little bit more interesting when hunting for targets, plus it allows for lower-but-still-present risks when initiating attacks.

I think that if you get attacked and you win that you shouldn't get any reward, whatever it may be called. If you do get something for winning then all you have to do is take a lower lvl bot and attack a higher lvl bot to replace their energy or add to their energy amount. It would almost create a double system of whoring wouldn't it?

"I think that if you get attacked and you win that you shouldn't get any reward, whatever it may be called."

You did in bots2, but not when you won against a bot whose level was lower than yours (unless it's a war).

I still see no point in that 1000 energy at start, but w/e.

Anyway I like the whole idea and especially Jans "For all i care we call it marbles. Maybe these bots have this crazy urge to collect them :)" ^^ Looks kinda cute and pretty fitting here. (Not like collecting smth energy bubbles in space or w/e).

Also, I think it could be something like:
You attack: win 10 marbles / lose 5 marbles.
You get attacked offline: win 5 marbles / lose 10 marbles.
This would prevent from raping your bot with other ones, also (I think) would work pretty well.

Btw, there should be like 50 members in clan, 20 is really too low number, for example I have 3 bots (like in bots2), 20=6x3+2. So this means there could be only 7 players in clan? Looks pretty weird for me.

Another point, we should get rid of dips, instead of that we should be able to mark some bots (easier target) or something like that.

I think it'd be funny if the bots were chasing something different every month :)
This month: marbles
Next month: paperclips!

So after a year, your bot would have collected 2640 paperclips, 4311 can openers, 595 napkins, 8480 spoons, etc. It doesn't serve any purpose at all, but does emphasize that every month it's a whole new game. Last month's coffee cups no longer matter, it's about paper weights now.

Regarding the amounts, 2/1 would work just as well as 10/5
You attack and win = +2
You attack and lose = -1

And i'm still not sure what to think of daily or monthly infusion of .. stuff. I'm leaning towards monthly i think. If every bot gets a daily amount (say 50), i'm afraid people will fight whores until they're out, and then think "fuck it, i'll wait for tomorrow's batch" and stop attacking. Also, if this would to happen every day at the same time, it would be beneficial for some players in some time zones, while others are sound asleep.

With a monthly distribution, the time zones aren't an issue anymore, but there's also the risk of the game stalling in the middle of a month. That's why the starting amount is very important. It can't be too high, or people will fight whores for 3 weeks, and take the last week off. Then again, it can't be too low either. But, i'm curious to see what would happen if all whores are cleaned out, and there's still 2 weeks to go. A clan in 2nd place won't shrug and say 'oh well, better luck next month'. No, they'll try to steal more from others, maybe take down the number 1 clan, etc. Since there's no diplomacy anymore, everyone can attack everyone. I think a monthly distribution will lead to a greater variety of strategies. It's also a bigger 'event' than daily infusion of little amounts.

So yea, if you're in a clan at the 1st of a month, the God of Household Appliances comes along and gives you 1000 salad forks and tells you to go forth and multiply that. If you join a clan mid-month, you have to wait till next month, but in the meantime you can still start stealing salad forks from others. If you hop clans, you lose x% of your monthly amount.

We could give both scenarios a try though. Or even alternate every month.

"So after a year, your bot would have collected 2640 paperclips, 4311 can openers, 595 napkins, 8480 spoons, etc. It doesn't serve any purpose at all, but does emphasize that every month it's a whole new game. Last month's coffee cups no longer matter, it's about paper weights now."

+1337

I don't think the gain/loss should be a fixed value though, it should somehow be calculated but stay around 12-18 for a win and 3-6 for a loss.

"So after a year, your bot would have collected 2640 paperclips, 4311 can openers, 595 napkins, 8480 spoons, etc. It doesn't serve any purpose at all, but does emphasize that every month it's a whole new game. Last month's coffee cups no longer matter, it's about paper weights now."

That's a kickass idea Jans :D

So if I would join a clan mid-month I wouldn´t get my 1000 My Little Ponnys? :(

And I think we should keep dips. But not for waring other clans, but to form alliances (smaller clans teaming up on the big boys). Perhaps making it impossible to form alliances after the 1st week or something.


"- Level 100 to make a clan, level 50 to join one."

Time to start training Jans.

"Although it sounds logical, if the amount of energy depends on the bot's level, clans will discriminate against lower level players. I think it will benefit the game if new players are welcomed and not shut out. So in my view, everyone should start off with the same amount, regardless of level, ratio, etc. "

Actually I think regardless of having less energy, clans will want a range of levels. If you have a whole clan of level 150+, how many targets can you take energy from? The wider range of levels your clan has the better, assuming everyones build is good.

Why should you gain more for winning than you lose for losing? It just doesn't seem fair.

Possible way of determining gains/losses should be along the lines of a pvp rating, the better the opponent the higher the gain, ect.

Already explained why. Fair has nothing to do with it, it's for practical reasons. The exact same principle has applied to kudos for years; when you attack & win you get more kudos than when you lose.

I thought you take 1/3 for winning and lose 1/3 for losing?
If I lose to someone, don't they gain the amount I lose?
Jans, you're confusing me.

hm, maybe im wrong

But when it comes to kudos, breaking even is just fine, cs on the other hand...

What about clanscore? I don't know about you but I never lost any clanscore o_O

I like the idea of taking "energy" off someone else when I win, and also giving some up if I lose.

Otherwise if I don't lose any energy and ratio is not involved I would fight better builds in competing clans even if i lose say 2 or 3 out of 5 as it would decrease their lead or increase mine if we're winning basically crappier builds could gain score by "raping" better builds? which kinda sucks.

also I propose "Runcibles" as the new word for energy/cs because its cool, but Jans idea of changing the term every months is cool a well.

What about floRs to collect? :)

I just though of another problem.

This will involve clan A, B, and C

Clan A is winning this month. Clan B and C both despise clan A. So say somebody in clan B attacks a member in clan A for their energy. Clan A is too pro and the clan B member only wins 1/10 times. So each time the Clan B member wins, he attacks a strong clan C member to give him the energy he earned. This process gets repeated by several clans to boost clan C to the top.

It's like taking energy and stashing it so the person who gets attacked won't know who to take it back from.

I know this takes a lot of organization and the probability of a this happening on a significant scale isn't high, but I thought I'd bring it up.

Seems unlikely someone is willing to completely destroy their ratio to help another clan, but yeah, its possible. Bigger question is; whats wrong with it? :) Clans will cooperate and fight with each other, thats the whole point.

Earn reserve -name- by fighting rare's? create bots at random levels with random weps/armors/stats additionally random train bots for those who choose not to fight. You are required to fight these random targets 10/20/50/100 times in a month to earn reserve -name- for the next month.

The diplo thing could open up targets, you could fight many levels down with the old war system, would you get no -name- for fighting a bot lower level than you?

As we know people will go to extraordinary lengths to manipulate the system to maximise points easily (cheat) If fighting lower levels is available again surely a whored bot could fight a lower leveled bot via diplomacy to regain lost -name- so the main bot could continue to gain -name- from the same whore? Nothings bullet proof this just adds an additional step to gaining the points to win.

Clan wise people are worried about larger clans starting with more points so; how about all clans regardless of size start with 10,000 -name- and they are evenly distributed among the members? again the members of the clan have to have in the previous months earned enough to be distributed. Pass.

Long thread sorry if anyone else suggested the above.

~Angelo

I'm really really concerned about this new system, (I will make a much longer post later today)

But my #1 concern is that you have to be level 100 to make a clan. That just seems ridiculous to me. 50 seems more reasonable, even 60. 100 is just crazy. Sure it doesn't take "time" to get to level 100, but I thought we were trying to make a new open system, and (at the moment) level 60 is enough to get you into the HoF's top 100, I feel 100 is a little bit absurd.

Once the game is public 100 won't seem so bad.

I think it would seriously dissuade new players, will it cost kudos as well? I think fifty to found and 20 to join are much more feasible

Here it is

Could this scenario become reality?

Once open beta is started, i can create as many bots as i like, right? So, i start a clan "1 single monkey", and then create 20 new low level bots and put them all in a clan, "20 sucky whores".

Since they're in a clan, they automatically gain energy. Every hour i log on all 20 of them, and fight my higher level main bot. Of course i lose all fights, so i'm 'feeding' my main bot energy.

And since the whores are low level, most other regular players cant attack them.

Could happen? Would be problem?

A pretty easy way to get energy without to much work? Yeah I guess it could happen.

I have already told Ender about the flaw in the system, all you need to do is make 20 strong bots and let them regen nrg throughout the month, at random intervals whore them and take all the nrg.


He doesn't seem to think it will have a massive effect on the outcome of monthly battles, but I believe it would, considering how nrg is a capped resource.

Maybe regen will have to differ per lvl/ratio after all. We'll have to see how it turns out.

And the game gets to be so much fun when there are 10000+ lvl 30 whores lying around.

Even better if your one good bot is nearly unbeatable like some people can build

Bazza

There are a couple of builds that are extremely difficult to beat, the only problem is everyone will have them, once they know what they are.

Also you don't need to sign your posts on your main.

Well at least the good news is that these energy farms will be attackable by all. Just a matter of having some decent low level bots around to collect energy with.

See, it does pay to have low level members in your clan!

And regarding nearly unbeatable bots, that's kinds the point of the game, innit? Ender should make sure bots cant ever be made unattackable though, like in bots2, or they'll be used as 'safe energy storage'.

This whole thing will result in less brainless clicking and more thinking. I'm loving it!

It will overall result in a less enjoyable experience, because you will end up having no choice but to attack bots that you will at best have a 52% win chance against, it is not ideal.

Also, Ender has already made it so there is no "unattackable".

People will undoubtedly find easier ways than two equal bots fighting each other (which still gives you more energy per win than you'd lose from a loss btw)

Defeats the entire purpose of having a ratio though, why would I want to know I have a 1.2 ratio even if I am one of the strongest bots at my level?

It will just look ugly.

Then keep your pretty ratio and dont fight ;)

I will, but only after I destroy yours :P

I think some of these claims will only hold true as long as there only a few dozen bots as there now. Once open beta starts and especially after the official start, I think energy regen is going to be an insignificant factor. 20 regen per hour is effectively 1 attack per hour. Maybe people are stuck in CS numbers? Divide energy by 10 if this is happening to you. Would you go through all that trouble to gain 2 CS per hour?

As for the army of level 30 regen whores, assuming regen ends up playing a significant factor, then sure, we can incorporate wins/losses/level/whatever into the equation. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it though.

As for everyone having the same best build, I don't see that as a problem specific to the new energy system. Would completely random outcomes for battles be more fun? Short of making it much, much harder to obtain certain equipment/stats, I don't see what can be done to differentiate builds. And these so-called "perfect builds" are always talked about and how everyone's going to have them, but the reality I see is that people still regularly discuss the pros and cons of certain paths 10+ years after the original game's inception. That says to me that it's a more complex system than people think and that it's not a simple matter of plugging in your cookie-cutter build.

my cookie cutter build was bots2 best kept secret!

I thought the purpose of ratio was bragging rights... kind of like level or wins or whatever. It doesn't have to factor in to the clan energy it already factors in to the exp.

Perfect builds are still coming up and being discovered. Or at least, re-discovered. Asmo found one last night, we both tried to beat it the best we could, but no cigar. I'm gonna have to go with Ender on this one and say, we will have to wait until later to see if this really does hold true on the major whoring and 100's of lvl 30's.

idk but i think 100 to make clan is too high.. im not even on 100 n i been here for a while although i realize ders not much bots to fight but still.. i believe 70 to make clan and 35 to join any thumbs up?

Wrong thread, and its settled on 50 / 20 for a while now ;)

200 (+100)

I'm really liking the new way clans compete. I'm a lousy level 51, but i can STILL get points for my clan!

In the old days, newbies were shooed away. Being told to gain more levels before they could join. Partly because there were no targers (whores) for them to fight, and partly because the average level would drop. Both of these elements are gone now. Yay.

yea i agree 100% and its kinda fun idk i like it

Wait? The reason you like this new system is because it allows you to be lazy Jans? ;)

Im enjoying the new system at the moment.

Btw with "hordes" of level 30's those bots would eventually level up... but as to the reason to not level I would say the "Best" level for the current system would be 50-60 because you're allowed to attack people 100 times you can easily take a mans energy for days, up to 2000 a pop. 2000 every day is a lot of energy (at least so it sees from the current meta game)

I want oldschool gaming (clan score, wars, hostiles), If Ender will do this I promise to donate 50 pounds !

Clan: clanless

Why dont you give something new a chance first? ;)

I tryied yesterday.

No likey huh?

No, clan score was way better and is there bonus xp if you fight bots from other clans ?

Nope, no xp bonus anymore.

you must find a way to incorporate wars/extra bonus for hostility. The most fun of bots was waring another (real) clan, and getting members to beg you to stop attacking.

But that hasn't changed. You can still make your enemies cry and beg to stop.

I agree diplomacy added something to gameplay, but the cons outweighed the pros.
Major con: diplomacy meant that owners could keep their whored bots exclusively to themselves. That's no longer the case. You can get points from any bot in a clan, including whores. Another con: you needed whore(clans) first in order to compete. It became harder and harder for new clans to rise up against the established ones. That's no longer the case either.

Getting rid of diplomacy should lead to a much more dynamic game.

Good points, Jans. I do enjoy the new system, but I feel weak bots will still be of primary focus. There still is very little incentive to attack good/decent bots, because there will still be crap bots in random clans everywhere, making whores more accessible to everyone.
I'll have to wait and see i guess

That probably won't be a problem, the bad bots will run out of energy quickly, and the stronger ones will have to fight each other for it.

It wasn't so much aimed against whores. But they've gone from 'private' to 'public' now ;) And people aren't very likely to spend a lot of effort (or money) on stuff that isn't entirely theirs.

And points aren't infinite anymore. They're like a resource now. More scarce. You will have to fight for it, to get it and to keep it.

I'm sure they'll find ways though. But that's part of the fun.