suggestions

Honestly, more of a question than even actual suggestion (I'm kinda still indifferent)... but what exactly are these desired goals and advantages we think exist by making all dead bots make energy versus simply raising the minimum made?

It just seems to me like a simpler and far less clunky solution to most of these suggested "worries" people have thrown out there...

...or... simply reducing the escalation slightly and tweaking that number (personally, as much as I like all the changes, I do sorta think .75x the current rate might be preferable).

Is it really just that we like the feel of being able to hit all the dead bots? Short of the possible "feel" of it all, what even is the point and how would these ideas (or a few other ones) not effectively do what is claimed to be wanted - just, in my opinion, better?

The key difference would be that the energy is still owned/controlled by somebody. So it's either a properly built bot, or they could declan it if it's easily taken. Making inactive bots generate energy is effectively like making npcs so there's a pool of energy that anybody could take from and is always there.

That's exactly what I think.

And I just think it's a ridiculous idea then.

At that point, if we want to get rid of that building aspect of game then... why not just not fight bots at all and simply have a button and see who can click it the most times?

I just think we're asking to remove an aspect of the game which is probably the main factor for generating the majority of player activity in this game...

If, however, we truly were more worried about rebalancing the amount of energy created and taken in the game then it just seems much cleaner to simply rebalance the numbers in those areas. Meh.

The goal of making everything generate energy would be so new players could log in and have guaranteed access to a large energy source (without the need to create any of the bots themselves).

Imagine, for arguments sake, all clanned bots are set to generate 60 EPH (in a world with no energy scaling changes); this would make dumping to your main bot with easy-bots even more OP. Because it's pretty rare for other players to actively drain your easy-beat bots, you almost always have a source of energy at your disposal which requires minimal maintenance (they just need to be clanned). Look at this bot's score from last month to see how dumping using bots generating 20EPH can work.

Now ask yourself; is it really a good idea to give players that control mass quantities of these easy-beat bots 60EPH instead of 20EPH?

It also comes back to the balance between rewarding effort and lowering barriers to entry. Bumping up EPH generation would make it easier for new players to get started on making their own 60EPH dumpers, but it would greatly take away from the traditional dumpers which require more skill/effort/planning etc.

The goal of making everything generate energy would be so new players could log in and have guaranteed access to a large energy source (without the need to create any of the bots themselves).

Pretending that was the motivation (I don't think that's what the playerbase is actively trying to do here) then... wouldn't we effectively be doing the same thing either way? The playerbase has a ton of free-use crappy bots out there. The game naturally has evolved back towards trying to use them and only would have been more limited there and so encouraged dumpers at the beginning because these bots wouldn't have been available from very start.

Imagine, for arguments sake, all clanned bots are set to generate 60 EPH...

Do we have to imagine this?

According to Zal, that's exactly how things worked for a brief time before this was nerfed in some, I imagine, effort to try and pretend bots might continue trying to fight against other real bots... which, of course, would have lengthened the dependency on the scatter-dumping strategies.

...this would make dumping to your main bot with easy-bots even more OP.

Absolutely not.

If energy is available enough then we can ignore the entire point of dumping being needed to create energy supplies and at that it's just a matter of dumping being a strategy in order to try and increase abuse of TPs. Otherwise, dumping is actually just a completely terrible and less effective strategy altogether.

Because it's pretty rare for other players to actively drain your easy-beat bots

???

you almost always have a source of energy at your disposal

If we want everyone to have access to more energy then you can tweak the numbers and do exactly that.

Now ask yourself; is it really a good idea to give players that control mass quantities of these easy-beat bots 60EPH instead of 20EPH?

It's kinda.nothimg, dude.

Opening up regular ol' wh0res decreases value of dumping strategy. It really does. On the other hand, dumpers with Haste and a ton of other TPs that are generating 60 EPH already? I mean... that's HUGE. THAT advantage isn't going away and there's no helping some new player there. So what are we doing pretending this is about new players beating dumpers anyways?

It also comes back to the balance between rewarding effort and lowering barriers to entry. Bumping up EPH generation would make it easier for new players to get started on making their own 60EPH dumpers, but it would greatly take away from the traditional dumpers which require more skill/effort/planning etc.

That's what it's really all about, isn't it?

Everyone's just trying to get theirs and throwing out pretty lame arguments, imo, that only pretend this is actually for some betterment of game and interest in hypothetical "new player."

Yes.

Lol.