suggestions

The main idea was mentioned within the announcement thread after I jokingly made the comment of EPH removal for clanned bots and placing it only on unclanned bots and thought I'd make a new thread here to really have discussion of fleshing out this notion.

Remove EPH from clanned bots completely, and have only non-clanned bots gain energy (EPH).

Some of the main sticking points that I thought this would help solve are:

This would allow Ender to alter the EPH system on bots gaining energy without any real damage to the clan race. (if your bot is only gaining energy from attacking - which is where the bulk of most clan race energy comes from - then this won't affect that).

"Gpof - or what is probably best, don't make the modifier affect eph anymore since clanned bots don't generate anyway"
Removal of the modifier in tandem of this change (as it would no longer be necessary). I see no adverse affect of this.

This change would in turn grow the energy population (as all non clanned bots would have EPH gains).

It would limit unnecessary clans in the clan pages. Reduce the overall population of clanned bots (and maintance cost and time associated with them). It would also stop idle clans from populating the game's HoF pages. Only activity would be awarded at that point.

This would also not hurt the notion of Ender wanting to make historical energy gains on bots a stat that is saved both for the individual and the clan if we assume only clanned bots can "bank" their EoM energy (done with the EoM scripts), and thus all the unclanned bots that have EPH their "total" energy would remain zero moving forward.

This would also help Ender solve (moving forward) any issues he could gleam from altering the formulas as the main effects would be felt on the EPH bots rather than the clanned energy gaining population.

Just thought about the strategic aspect people use to "remove" bots from the energy pool would just be done in reverse here so you wouldn't lose that aspect of the game as far as that goes. You'd just have to clan them in order to remove them from gaining energy and being pulled from the energy pool.

I think it might help the thread along if you made an example of how you think it would work.

I'm guessing it would go like this:

You are in a clan. You gain 0 energy if you just sit there and idle.
Every bot in the game generates energy that's not clanned.
You gain energy by attacking all the unclanned bots you can.
All clans now have energy that's reflective of active scoring vs. idle energy since no idling is allowed really. You either have 0 energy or positive energy.
Theoretically the most active clan wins and dumper/low ratio/idle clans gain nothing.

How exactly would attacking people in other clans work though? If you both have + energy then you still exchange energy? Or just a win/loss situation? I could also see it reducing trophy points heavily or would have to be adjusted. Or along with this we could get rid of trophy points altogether and just let people have free buffs everyday. Trophy points are a barrier to having people stay active on one bot as is anyway.

This builds on the "all bots generate energy" idea, and I can definitely see the merits (some of those QoL changes would be super - who really wants to maintain a treasury?).

However I can't fully support it, and to be honest, any idea of a permanent switch to all bots generating energy. This would automatically put every new player/bot into the clan race as a target. Being in a clan to avoid being part of the clan race seems counter-intuitive.

Grouping together with other players and fighting for a common goal is kind of what I see as the whole point of the race. My view is that should be a choice you decide to opt-in to, rather than being flung into the lion's den by default, or any other option you need to select to get out.

Open to changes - the ones this month were fresh and fun (I just don't think the level of scaling will help with competition at the top). For me, this one would need to be talked through a bit more.

However I can't fully support it, and to be honest, any idea of a permanent switch to all bots generating energy. This would automatically put every new player/bot into the clan race as a target. Being in a clan to avoid being part of the clan race seems counter-intuitive.

Good points darkweb, but the ability to have Energy Gained turned on in settings isn't going anywhere. Being unclanned and having energy generation turned off would net the same result as it does now within a clan. I could understand your point and maintaining that as an option should remain.

Grouping together with other players and fighting for a common goal is kind of what I see as the whole point of the race. My view is that should be a choice you decide to opt-in to, rather than being flung into the lion's den by default, or any other option you need to select to get out.

I think my previous statement covers this as well. As this change doesn't alter you requiring to be in a clan in order to refrain from the clan race. And being part of a clan nets the same result, you work together to fight others in order to score energy (it only places more energy in the pool to gain).

Open to changes - the ones this month were fresh and fun (I just don't think the level of scaling will help with competition at the top). For me, this one would need to be talked through a bit more.

Completely agree. I wanted a lot of feedback (mostly looking for negative reasons to why this wouldn't work well and I think you brought up a lot of valid counter arguements in that regard).

How exactly would attacking people in other clans work though? If you both have + energy then you still exchange energy? Or just a win/loss situation?

Not sure what you mean here, this aspect doesn't change. If that person has energy to take, and you can take it, then take it. Being in a clan/not in a clan doesn't change the ability to attack for energy.

I could also see it reducing trophy points heavily or would have to be adjusted. Or along with this we could get rid of trophy points altogether and just let people have free buffs everyday. Trophy points are a barrier to having people stay active on one bot as is anyway.

I disagree with tps management being a valid argument in respect to a barrier for implementaion. Learn to play to that aspect of the game if you want to only play with buffs.

Being in a clan to avoid being part of the clan race seems counter-intuitive.

This is my feeling about this suggestion. However, this suggestion is interesting in the sense you don't have to keep your resources clanned.

About being thrown in the lion's den, a new bot should generate energy only when it reaches level 20. At this point a warning could pop-up saying that "you are going to start generating energy and for that reason you may start being attacked by other bots. If you want to be protected please turn off energy generation here."

This change would drastically reduce clans page. It also means no more tps for dumpers that normally get into the top 25 and for sure in the top 100. I think it would be interesting to see which clans would compete for top 10, top 25 and top 100. What kind of bots would you clan? The ones that you want to build tps: scorers, levelers. If you clan dumpers to gather tps, you can't use them for that month. Now that I'm thinking, a valid strategy for dumpers would be let them unclanned all month for the case you might need their energy, let them build energy and in the last day of the month clan them to get tps from clan rankings. However, this could be easily prevented by setting the energy to 0 of a bot that enters in a clan (in fact this would make sense to be enforced).

This makes me think on what happens to the energy of a bot that leaves a clan? I'm not sure about the answer here. Imagine you scored in the first week of the month, but the clan gets deleted because of treasury. Should the bots keep their energy? People could score with dumpers at the beginning of the month and then leave to continue building energy for the rest of the month to use later?

About the infinite energy pool, I think we would need to test this out to see which bots really add to the energy pool (weak bots or more of somewhat good ones?). I don't know if there is too many crap bots lost because the owners don't remember the pw or quitted long ago...

I disagree with tps management being a valid argument in respect to a barrier for implementaion. Learn to play to that aspect of the game if you want to only play with buffs.

100%. I don't like all this "buffs should be free" stuff recently. Trophy points are one of the only things that make the game even a slight bit more interesting than infinitely clicking fight again. It takes planning and strategy to not run out of buffs and encourages you to take part in different aspects of the game and get a deeper understanding of what everyone else is doing. Someone who just makes weak bots and attacks them is missing out on like 95% of the game.

Think I agree with the sentiment that clan races/being targeted for energy should be opt in rather than opt out, and feels counter intuitive to not get the resource you are trying to acquire as a clan by being clanned.

Just going to expand what I said yesterday with trying to actually work out the mechanics of this:

Not sure what you mean here, this aspect doesn't change. If that person has energy to take, and you can take it, then take it. Being in a clan/not in a clan doesn't change the ability to attack for energy.

Since all non-clanned bots now gain energy and all clanned bots don't gain energy unless they're actively attacking other bots, I was just wondering how if say, Bot A with 50k energy attacked Bot B with say, 100k energy or if they attacked Bot C with 0 energy. I did say this too:

If you both have + energy then you still exchange energy? Or just a win/loss situation?

So I guess it was yes. The win/loss thing was that if you gain energy from non-clanned bots then attacking other active people wouldn't have much purpose since most of their energy would also be from non-clanned bots. Dumper clans for example would serve no purpose since they'd have 0 energy EPH unless they attacked other non-clanned bots then dumped onto their main bots, which just seems like a giant hassle. All dumper clans would just be unclanned and do the same thing they did before. I'm guessing.

I disagree with tps management being a valid argument in respect to a barrier for implementaion. Learn to play to that aspect of the game if you want to only play with buffs.

100%. I don't like all this "buffs should be free" stuff recently.

I was referring to the idea that if most clans would be unclanned in order to generate energy then by effect those bots would not gain clan trophy points anymore. No top 10s, no top 100s, no energy trophies, none of the main (easy) ways people gain the trophies on the game. This would heavily reduce the amount of trophy points bots gained per month to the point that only the active scorers on the game would receive any. With a regular idle bot essentially gaining 0 trophy points per month then how are you supposed to get any trophy points to get buffs to use another bot other than building or actively scoring?

That's why I said having a daily free buff would negate the mass reduction of trophy points so that everyone could be an active scorer if they wanted. It's not about managing trophy points, you would literally have next to none to work with month to month.

Course there would be top 10s and 100s still, all you'd need to do is log in once, steal the tiniest bit of energy, and you'd be ranked + almost certainly top 100 clan. If anything, actually making people have to have done something to get a trophy is probably a good thing. Not that I'm really behind the change, but I would like to see less clans filling the clan list.

Besides, getting 2 bronze trophies once a month is going to take years of waiting before you're ready to score properly. Better to learn how to reset for plats as you get way more tp's and reduce future buff costs and thanks to Mount Wario, there's no better time to learn.

Free buffs would ruin like half the motivation to do anything in this game, and punish people who strategized for the future and reward people who blew their TP load with no plan.

14, 35, 88 (Cost of Buffs with max discount). 420, 1050, 2640 would be the cost for each to run any of the 3 for a 30 day period. Using the x3 Buff as the mark, you would need to idle for roughly 7 years in order to score for 1. (Just counting pure cost vs gaining 2 bronze trophies each month).

Again Zal, arguing for the sake of arguing is fine assuming the basis actually has some legitimacy behind it. Arguing for TPs on idle bots in order to use them later for scoring is ignorant.

People do THIS if they plan on building a scorer bot. Do some plat runs, grab 10-20k TPs, then build a scorer and go HAM for a few months, Rinse and Repeat.

7 years in order to score for 1

7 years in order to score for 1 month

Trophy points are a barrier to having people stay active on one bot as is anyway.

Zal,

Although I initially felt your pain there, I've been able to use this bot to score intermittently (with some bigger months as well as a 2M+ month) for probably over a year now, and I didn't do any plat runs beforehand. However, I have NEVER used DE3, which has been the biggest tps saver and has allowed me to create more longevity with this bot, which was what I wanted anyways.

I've only used DE2, even when I scored over 2M this past February. I've also helped combat draining all my tps on this bot by using LOTS of poop dumpers (can't use real term) to dump energy as well. Not to mention that yes, I have been on the winning clan more months than I haven't been since scoring on this bot which has allowed me to get the free 180 tps each of those months.

So even if there's someone who doesn't want to put in the time for multiple plat runs in order to eventually garner a few months' worth of intense DE3 scoring like Animus calculated, this is one workaround to create longevity as well as a consistent way to get into the top 10 each month (other than CRAZY months like last November). Not to mention with the longevity I've created on this bot, I will now get an extra silver trophy (top 25 energy) as well as an extra bronze trophy each month (top 100 wins), so these factors will just keep adding on to the residual tps this bot will continue getting each month.

Like others have stated, I don't think buffs should go anywhere at this point in the game. People have spent so much time working to accumulate tps and strategize their assets for all sorts of different use-cases and scenarios, and I do think there's a charm to that which adds onto the complexity of the game and gives the game more depth.

But now, I have some bots who are on standby with plenty of tps that I will full send on for any super competitive months in the future. Until then, Laurence LIVES ON!!

I think you guys are overstating the amount of time people want to invest on a over-decade old text based game that maybe 10-50 people play regularly. I was just stating the easiest way of getting people involved in the new system with less trophy points available. I'm sorry that I'm not thinking 5 years down the line and have hundreds of bots to get to level 200+ easy or something of the sort so I can continually get Super STR++ plats or something. You guys are so far removed from the casual player experience on here that you wonder why nobody wants to play, well, that's the reason why. You guys are SWEATLORDS. You sit with all your clan resources and just continually say "git gud everyone, try harder next time, oh wait, I mean, plan 5 years ahead from now and maybe you'll win one month."

No regular player gives two shits about resetting their bots 50 times or making 100 tourney bots or make 1,000 dumpers. You might and that's fine, but most people don't.

Regardless the trophy point discussion is a bit off topic from the original thread, so sorry for bringing it up. Was just a random idea. It's not like this system is going to be implemented anyway.

I get what you're saying Zal. The barrier of entry for the fabled new player is quite high. I just think the way this game has evolved over the past 15 years, has just turned it into such. The game hasn't received THAT many groundbreaking updates in 15 years' time, so the player base over that time has just adapted to what the game is, and have obviously had all that time to create these resources, create the most effective meta(s), and adapt to the meta(s).

I would like it to be easier and more seamless for a new player to actually fare a chance against the top dogs and not feel completely overwhelmed against the endless resources that some players have put years of time into creating... but at this point, it almost seems near-impossible to try and create that balance without effectively negating the years' worth of time veterans have spent playing the game creating those resources.

I'm sure there's a way, but I have nothing else to offer for ideas. Hopefully you or some others can come up with some more ideas that could work out or that most people would agree on atleast trying.

I guess I just disagree with the fundamental notion of a new player being able to come into this game and compete at the same level as a veteran.

Do I want them to be able to play with a lower barrier of entry than what it feels like we currently have? (where the resources that are available to compete in the clan race are legitimately owned by individual players who hold the resources and do with them as they see fit) Yes.

Should we expect a new player, to be able to join an established game of 15 years and be able to compete at the same level as players that have played for 3-15 years? I'd say no.

Finding a happy medium, where the new players can actually play, is all I'm searching for. Will the veteran players also benefit from this type of system? Obviously, yes. But the goal isn't to raise the ceiling, or lower the ceiling, but rather raise the floor.

I guess I just disagree with the fundamental notion of a new player being able to come into this game and compete at the same level as a veteran.

My thoughts too. Someone who has supported a game for however long compared to a new player should be rewarded in some way... and in this game's case... it's really just all of the bots that people have spent the time making.

I think most of us agree on the notion of an easier barrier of entry, and for NOT lowering the ceiling, but it just seems as if the biggest obstacle for everyone to agree on is finding the balance of doing so.

Well the problem really becomes we have system A, say trophy points and buffs, that we could lower the barrier to or improve so that more people can use them more often but also people that at the same time that say "we can't lower the barrier because people who worked hard for those points over the past decade want to keep their utility". So one set of people think you're giving away the cow so to speak and the other one thinks that you own all the cows (just making it funny). The people on this game have done between a good job and really, really bad job when it comes to supporting people to learn the game and keep active and I admit, people like me have pushed the narrative that "what's the point of trying if your opponent has 100x the resources you do and you don't want to spend the time to get to their level".

Regardless like I said, this isn't really on topic. The only thing I'm pondering about still is how this system is that much different than the total war system where every bot just gains energy regardless of clan affiliation except this one wants people to de-clan more than clan up. I get the want of no idling bots in the rankings though but maybe a better way of doing that would be to separate active vs. idle energy in the rankings. Since 60 EPH is the norm for idle bots so 60 x 24 hours x 31 days max would = 44,640 so we could (theoretically) just say that any bot with 50k-60k or less energy in a month would be considered idle energy historically or going forward and any bot with higher than that could be considered active energy. That way we get lots of targets with total war, idle and active energy is sorted, and EPH doesn't have to be changed). Clans would also not be affected other than what type of energy they have. But this sounds like a lot of work and I'm not even sure if it's work to have 2 different systems like that working together. I can see both systems working to a degree but I'm really not sure if Ender wants to change things that much.