suggestions

Was thinking about new systems on the horizons, and the ability for more people to play and gain more. Thought perhaps people might be interested in having a system where all bots gain monthly energy. Only bots in clans would be able to keep said energy for their personal/clan gains ("banked" when EoM scripts are ran).

Granted the downside is you no longer have the "authority" to command your bots energy (and have the ability to disband your clan removing it from the gained energy pool during an overly active month) but I thought it'd be interesting enough to warrant a possible trial run?

It would also remove the need for said people to "maintain" their clans in order for them to be useful month in and month out.

Which would further reduced the amount of clans in the clan page filled with useless clans that are created just for that purpose.

This idea seems to have a fair bit of momentum at this point.

I actually find it kinda interesting because it large would seem like a pretty straightforward QOL improvement from most players' perspectives... but from the game's perspective, I actual wonder if it wouldn't just be detrimental to generating player activity.

I mean... I think a lot of people spend more time in game creating and managing these terrible bots we fight than they do on "real bots"

It's a huge grind and all... but that's often the point, as that can increase player activity.

The recent changes very much mean some people are thinking they want even more targets to work from at many different level ranges right now... but that may very well have been part of what Ender was banking on and we should just accept that you may have to invest more time in some area you had been comfortable with prior.

Obviously, I have no idea what Ender's thought process was with everything... but I do find it interesting how this idea has naturally gained so much momentum right now and it's very possible the playerbase is accidentally call for a bit of a reversal on the decision-making.

TLDR: it's very arguable that this suggestion is a "player's perspective" one that has no chance because it fails.to realize the players and game itself don't actually have the same exact objectives.

Not really arguing for or against either (could actually make pretty strong arguments for either position, imo)... just have found it all mildly interesting.

Personally I'd prefer to hear the side of the people that have spent time making a mass amount of crappy bots because they know the entire community will be using them so they need to be mass produced in order for them to also benefit from them. They're the ones that have the "most to lose" with something of this nature.

It should be said that this idea I gleemed originated from a player who themselves have a ton of these crap bots.

Which would further reduced the amount of clans in the clan page filled with useless clans that are created just for that purpose.

It does get old seeing a bunch of fluff clans in the clan page, and it would be nice seeing that trimmed down considerably. Personally, I think it would be an idea worth a try if Ender is going to keep this energy change indefinitely.

It also wouldn't make dumpers useless because that's still very fast energy distribution to the scorer no matter if there's tons of targets in all level ranges. Not to mention that the 1000 battle DE limit will still be in place as well.

hear the side of the people that have spent time making a mass amount of crappy bots

I think the interesting part is whether this is even a question of what any of the players want at all!

At the very least... I'd be very surprised if this kinda thing happened very soon. There's almost certainly gonna be a few more months where the game would try to capitalize on the recent changes wanting to encourage more player activity in making more of these crap bots to increase total energy in some ranges before it potentially makes this kinda change to make such activity much less enticing.

That's just my take, anyhow. Now I'll go back to just mildly enjoying the debate, thanks.

Open to the idea, but do I think there should be an opt-out for bots that don't want to particpate in the monthly race.

I went through the archives and dug out the original suggestion which gives some good context and background. It was first made when traditional dumpers reigned supreme in the energy race (bots which can securely safeguard their 60 EPH and be used to transfer large amounts of energy to a single bot).

For the final week of May I suspect we'll see how the test-run changes to energy scaling heavily swing the balance of power back into the hands of those with larger stockpiles of traditional dumpers (and/or workshopped tourneys to drain normal builds). End result being barriers of entry are put back up to an even higher level than before (at least for clans wanting to get 1st).

Currently there's still a fair amount of energy floating around out there for players to take from easy-beat bots, and whether these changes stick or not, players motivated enough to aim for a higher place on the scoreboard will probably still make the effort to build a few resources to help their cause.

I also stumbled into this post which looks to set out a few pros and cons of the traditional bots4 scoring system from a time when it looks like it was being established.

I must say that if every bot produces energy, this would help clans with less resources. Right now Lusitania has many crappy bots and some fair amount of dumpers. With these new energy changes, we could perfectly unclan all our crappy bots reducing the energy available and give power to dumpers. We can't do that if every bot produces energy which makes easier for another clan to go for the win.

If this applies, remember that are some bots that would be protected because they are unseen in the fight list (500 bots per fight page or all the clanned bots). If clans disappear, many bots may become unseen.

I cut myself off earlier, but the point of bringing up that last old thread was some of the pro's listed (still relevant since the system has been in place for so many years). These were:

• Energy is a finite resource and effort to increase resources is rewarded (i.e. the owner can decide if they want use them to contribute in the race).
• Effort required by new clans is reduced since they don't need to start off with their own resources.

In my opinion there is a bit of a balancing act between keeping some strategy to the race and being as friendly as possible to new players. Another workaround might be to dial back the energy inflation.

There's some 100k bots, that is a minum of 2 million energy every hour.

That sounds....too much? What if only bots logged in the last 365 days? Which I guess the 500 fight page limit would stop a lot of it.

What if all unclanned bots got like 10 eph.

Not to take away from fish being the first to create a thread based around this idea, but, I was infact the first to mention it in a previous thread.

Just sayin

Hey everyone, thanks for the active discussion in this thread and thank you darkweb for digging up the related thread from 2023. I’ve been following along - the idea of having a much broader base of bots generate some energy by default is an interesting one, and I can see how it could align with the goals of making the game more accessible and dynamic for more players.

Conceptually, I'm supportive of exploring this further. If we were to go down this path, I'd likley be leaning towards a system that includes key details like:

• Only generating energy for recently-active bots (to manage overall energy input and avoid issues with older abandoned bots). The exact window for "recent activity" would need to be determined.
• The existing "Generate energy" checkbox in workshop settings would give players who don't want specific bots to generate energy to opt-out, same as how it works right now for clanned bots.
• Giving a lower EPH range for this default generation compared to what clanned bots can achieve, ensuring that targeting bots in dedicated clans still offers some advantage.

This is something I'll be looking into and considering as a potential future change. However, the specifics will need careful thought and balancing, and as always, I reserve the right to adjust plans as I work through the details and potential impacts.

In terms of timeline, it's TBD. It's not something I can slot in immediately, but I'm hoping to give it serious consideration for changes sometime during June or shortly thereafter, though no guarantees on that timing yet.

Appreciate the suggestions and the discussion!

Only generating energy for recently-active bots (to manage overall energy input and avoid issues with older abandoned bots). The exact window for "recent activity" would need to be determined.

Okay, this is hilarious to me.

See... I still think this is basically just like every other instance of playerbase thinking "free stuff" and less grind would be better and asking for such.

...and what could the result be? A game where they not only have to occasionally fill some treasuries for all those trashy bots... but now one that is "making them" log on to every single one of those bots every couple months or whatever.

That's pretty bloody fantastic, imo. Totally dying here.

For the record, I've thought the talk about dumpers becoming OP was greatly exaggerated... but I'd ONLY use dumpers under this system (if I gotta log on to these bots anyways...)

Whatever the case, I don't think this one is ending well - but I can work with it...

I don't think it should only be recently active bots that generate energy if we had this, would like to see it for all bots. Maybe you could choose some fight page sorting settings in the workshop, hide bot's above 0.4 ratio, and sort by how much energy they have. So you could still keep the 500 bot per page limit, but be able to target the ones you want to.

Not sure about lower EPH if unclanned - one of the annoyances is having to keep clans together, and the spamming of the clan page. It would be nice if we could just forget about them completely, and simultaneously make the clan page actually mean something, not just what we have at the minute (90% of clans just exist to generate energy).

Would prefer to see this as a one-off month rather than every month. Would quickly devalue making bots if energy was essentially infinite.

I do now realize that no one would declan their bots if the change was just for a month, so the prettier clan page might not actually be the case.