suggestions

Now I know we've been over this before, but the last tourney from 3 hours ago is yet another month of exploiting the treasury of a clan to increase members to unsustainable levels temporarily to guarantee one clan's success. Lusitania has a staggering 337 bots take place and yet I hear from Ender and Fish etc. that the new top 10 clan members thing is helping the clan race, well, why haven't we done something about exploiting the tournament for platinum trophies too? Myriad for example has 70 tourney 1 cat winner and 81 1 place clan trophies. This has gone on too damn long now :/ With Gpof and Peet joining Lusitania, the numbers have grown even more out of control.

My solution to this is fairly simple:

1) Stop tournaments until we fix this finally.
2) Every clan should have a MAX 10-20 tournament slots (depending on new top 10 energy idea)
3) Stop treasuries from being exploited to have 300+ members for a day. I suggested a hard limit of 50 members for all clans but it seems nobody liked that. I thought it was simple and easy though :/
4) Improve the tournaments so they're more random than just having everyone be level 40 etc. then having people try and level those bots (not a problem later on but annoying at lower levels)
5) A few people seemed to like the free stash spaces to try and increase competition from free to play players but super-freaking itself is more of the problem. Making a bot that can't be used regularly without its armors/weapons being destroyed is stupid. Ideally there would be more skill involved with an actual tournament than just blindly making 20 bots the exact same build and joining one clan.

Now I see the cons and the complaints coming already but does anyone other than Lusitania really want to have tourneys go on like this indefinitely? One day we'll be at tourney 300 and nothing will have changed if we don't do something about it :/

And yes, I already know what everyone will say "just buy some stars and make 300 of your own blah blah blah". Maybe if stars didn't cost more than a game on sale on Steam and the need for like, a 100 of them for efficient building and ordering. The showroom on this game is kind of against free to play or people with less than 9/10 stars by making them wait to find everything.

I will state that with no fundamental changes other than changing say, reducing tournament slots to 10 or 20, would just have tournaments with 100 clans rather than 1 top clan but I'd even prefer that than the hilarity of what it is now. It seems that most bots now are fighting bots in their OWN CLAN xD

 

Honestly I agree that limited participation within clans should push beyond the clan race. However, another solution to the bloated clan tourney bots system currently pushed would be a limited amount of bots per clan per category. That would force the clan to actually plan which bots they want to put forward for the clan.

 

I've enjoyed making bots for tourneys even if they aren't perfect. As is stands (with how many years people have had to refine and test the perfect builds), you'll have a very small chance of winning - but it is RNG.

Calling for them to be scrapped is more than a bit alarmist. I'm sure some kind of new features to the current format would be welcomed. There are a few good ideas within your post and no doubt some others will have solid input around potential changes.

 

Never said anything about scrapping them completely. Just you know, suspending until it's fixed. It's pretty common in game development when there's bugs or problems but I was just highlighting that maybe it'd be better to suspend them until they get fixed than just keep handing out more trophies to the same people over and over because of the bloated one clan has all the tourney bots in it system. I think we've just grown used to it but since Ender wanted to focus on improving the game I thought it'd be a good place to focus on. I will say he should suspend it when he's more ready to work on it though (like he might need 1-2 months to work on something, would make sense to suspend it then).

 

why haven't we done something about exploiting the tournament for platinum trophies too? Myriad for example has 70 tourney 1 cat winner and 81 1 place clan trophies. This has gone on too damn long now :/

Pretty bad example seeing as you pointed out yourself he has 70 wins, how is getting the win for an individual bot an exploit in any way? As for the clan related trophy, he also is one of the few with tourny bots across the board and easily deserves those as well.

Recent years I would argue have been "exploited" less as there are hardly any bots taking trophies that aren't purpose built for tournaments as more and more are built over time. Myriad being one of the few active levelers that do benefit from it, but as mentioned also heavily participates beyond his one bot and more than earns the clan trophy. The days of scorer bots gaining free plats from this is pretty much over which was the only thing I'd even remotely consider an "exploit", and we're talking 180 tps per month assuming your clan continues winning.

I do agree that entering theoretically unlimited bots and the insane treasury is pretty silly, with enough effort there could be a system to make a decent competition out of it (at least for awhile until X number of people make the maximum allowed number of perfect bots across each category). But in the end it will always become a solved system and get perfectly min-maxed, so I think it's mostly futile personally. Not many strong opinions from me on the rest of the numbered points, but I think suspending tournaments is a ridiculous notion lol.

 

Few quick ideas;

• For every 10 bots a clan has over 40, it cuts the time for treasury in half. If over 75 or something, the 7 day lax 0 treasury thing becomes no days
• The first 5 bots in each category to apply within the clan get a spot
• Hard limit of 60 bots in a clan

It's not Lusitania fault for exploiting it. If they can manage it, sweet. It is "fair", ehhhh.

 

Thanks Zal for the concrete suggestions. I agree that the tournament meta is ripe for improvement. To set expectations, my current focus is on the monthly clan energy race (see my recent Clan competition changes for June + looking ahead announcement for specifics), so I don't know when I'll circle back on tournaments, but I agree that it's something that deserves investment at some point.

Additional thoughts:

• On whether to suspend tournaments in the meantime: This is overkill IMO. Suspending features is something typically reserved for game-breaking bugs or technical issues, not something that's functional but could be improved.

• On whether the current state is being "exploited": Perhaps a semantic point, but I wouldn't characterize players min-maxing the current meta to be "exploiting" anything in the sense of breaking a game rule, but rather working within the established rules and mechanics to maximize their chance of success.

• On how the treasury currently works: I agree this needs to totally change w.r.t. tournament meta. The whole "stuff 300+ bots into a clan before the B.O.T.S. Union notices" thing is kind of silly.

• On the design and feedback process: When I do circle back on improving the tournament meta, threads like this will be my primary starting point for getting a pulse on how players are thinking about it, so please keep the discussion and detailed feedback coming.

 

If we want to be all into semantics then I would think "exploit" is absolutely the right word and would off proof there by a following statement that stuffing 300+ bots into a clan before game notices as being "silly" to illustrate the fact that it's abusing game mechanics in an unintended manner and, as such, an "exploit.".

The game removed the old clan maximum and instead relies solely on the mechanic of treasury to limit membership. It scales exponentially and clearly pushes towards an effective maximum membership and wants to have one. This created the "loophole" here and seems to very clearly then be an "exploit."

But, whatever. I dunno... maybe just reinstate an actual max cap to clan membership again? Doesn't have to be the old 99... but... something. Or not. Whatever.

 

No problemo. It may or may not need as much improvement as I stated (maybe it was an overstatement) but it does get boring seeing the same thing happen month after month. And in my use of exploit I meant it by its definition: make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource). The exploit in this sense is that a clan can have way too many members and pretty much win no matter what because they have more tourney bots than the combined rest of the tournament. I'd call that an exploit really since I don't think it was intended design. As I said, if all 300 bots were put in like, 30 clans, then it would at least randomize who wins.

Pretty bad example seeing as you pointed out yourself he has 70 wins, how is getting the win for an individual bot an exploit in any way? As for the clan related trophy, he also is one of the few with tourny bots across the board and easily deserves those as well.

I just picked a random bot that's been in a lot of tournaments. Individually winning is fine but I should also state that category 1 is kindof...dumb? You have bots from all the way from 303 to 432. Theoretically any bot with the most amount of +str etc. and best armors would have an advantage. Not saying he didn't earn it but it's the only category with no real good max level. And the 81 clan plats is part of the other thing I mentioned. His bot does help a lot in securing them though. My point was to showcase the 151 or so platinum trophies he's gotten from just tourneys alone.

Honestly if the 337 member thing alone were to be addressed to a limit per clan I think that by itself would make things more interesting. if it were say 20, then that would be easier for everyone to manage and might get more people interested than say, make 20 bots to compete against 337 and hope to win.

 

That's fair. I was just trying to make my stance clear that engaging in the current meta is not considered a violation of any official game rules, i.e. I don't view it as doing something underhanded that deserves a penalty. Some might have viewed the use of the word "exploit" in that way, so I wanted to clarify.

 

Nah, everyone Rocket Jumped in Quake and just thought it was awesome.

 

I agree that having 300+ bots in a clan and having to apply, accept and later kick every bot one by one is silly, but the solution I think is not that straightforward. If you limit the number of entrants per clan to say 20, how will you decide who gets to sign up for the tourney if your clan has >20 members? First come first served? Seems unfair for those in time zones where they will be asleep when sign up for the tourney opens. Same with limiting the number of bots joining a clan. It will be whoever joins and signs up all their bots first. Having to make a joint decision over which bots join the tourney and which don't every month sounds like a chore.

The reality is that it's not uncommon for players to have >100 bots these days. If they all belong to you, why shouldn't you be able to enter them under the same clan? Tourney bots are set and forget anyway, so the limits should not be compared to scorers.

On the other hand I don't think it's unreasonable to randomise the tourney categories a bit. It would discourage the levelling of tourney bots in lower level categories and would create more build diversity and encourage more theorycrafting.

 

THIS.

I think your points about."fairness" and not.comparonh tourney bots to scoring bots and everything else start to actually work if the trophy.point system didn't have a clan reward and it was just individual rewards. As is, however... the tourney scene is actually VERY similar to the monthly scoring clan race, when it comes to the game. Sorry, it just is - that's how it works.

Remove the clan reward and just make the clan you represent anything more.than a pure pride thing and I don't think anyone sees any issues with the exploit of the clan treasury system either though, I guess...

 

Heck, I suppose you could even argue that getting rid of clan treasuries is also a solution and we could just embrace the "silliness" of it all...

 

Not really sure what point you're trying to make. You say in order to make things fair remove all trophies for tourney clan members. To make it equivalent to scoring where you do get trophies for being a contributing clan member?

It seems there's a lot of complaining recently for the sake of it by those who aren't interested in investing the time and/or money into the game. I got tourney clan runner ups for years while Apex was dominating with superior numbers and didn't complain. Like it or not, the game rewards time and money, and no amount of complaining will change that.

 

I'm saying the game has a system which attempts to limit clan size and was not designed for this exploit to circumvent all that.

It's not working as intended.

I'd never try to argue about the concept of "fair" and care very little about such abstract and vague concepts or appeals.

It's obviously broken. It just is. Not working as intended. Obvious and apparent. Simple, really.

 

Think there's definitely space to improve the existing tourney meta, randomized categories being an obvious one, and something to solve the invite/kick 300 bots meta. Focusing a change around clans not being able to compete as a clan seems strange in a clan-based competition/game. The only reason it's so one sided at the minute is because no one is trying to compete, not even the guy who recently bought a ton of tourney bots from Lusi's old rival (who did compete, and win).

It does feel like this post is driven by a desire to take away rather than add something new, don't think there's any reason to suspend tournaments just to stop people getting a few plats as a reward for putting work into the existing system.

As I do on all posts like this, I'll remind everyone that [top clan at the time] will still end up dominating whatever system comes next. It's about gathering the knowledge and players that will put the time into being the best at whatever the system ends up being, and if everyone else doesn't even bother to give it a go, that won't change.

 

The only reason it's so one sided at the minute is because no one is trying to compete

Isn't that about the crappiest thing possible that one could say about something?

Like... from the game's standpoint, isn't that just about the worst thing possible?

 

Not really, no.

Other clans have competed (and dominated) in this exact setup. The guys complaining that they can't compete now actually haven't tried at all, ever, even after buying up half the tourney bots. Says more about the people than the game imo.

There can definitely be positive changes and hopefully we see them - tourneys are very stale. Just needs to be constructive and from people who've tried to compete, not people who just want the whole thing stopped because someone else is winning.

 

Funny how hard the fish is trying to bait someone here...

I find that enjoyable.

 

Agree with Fish on the notion of posts like those in this thread aiming to take away features rather than add something new or make positive change. Although it's another topic entirely, this is where a ladder/season reset would keep things fresh and new.

Also, the soft clan cap that was introduced through exponential clan tax was not designed to prevent players entering lots of tourney bots. It was to encourage monthly clan scoring competition by limiting clan size. Tournies were implemented years later. Having said that I don't think Ender has ever intended the current tourney meta, but as I've mentioned it is not a really simple problem to solve. Personally I don't like the idea of having to enter hundreds of bots, I would much rather just enter one per category and let the best bot win. Just ask Gpof :p

 

I feel like lately everything that is suggested and/or developed by Ender, is the community that needs to be tempered. It's all about they can't compete with a clan who is dominating.

We can't win the energy race -> Ender develops the global energy buff so it helps with scoring. Ender looks into the possibility to every bot that generates energy. But what is forgotten, is that people actually took time to make these bots and therefor can use them (dumpers) but also the easy bots, that everyone can attack and take their energy. And yes, the owner can declan if he wants, that is his right.

We can't win tourneys -> take away (clan) trophies, make clans to max 40 etc. Ender jumps in and i'll look into this to make this fair! But here also, people have invested time to make these bots and making restriction in what whatever way, is demeaning to them who invested time in making (or invested money!! to take over these bots ) - on a side note, I don't own any tourney bot at the moment.

Also with the code of conduct. It is all so tempering. Some rules are actually needed, but you get my point (hopefully)

Anyway, most of the playerbase are playing a long time and invested a lot of time and money where they are now. I don't think anyone that is new to a game, can compete for top places and expects that. You gotta invest time and/or money and prepare before you can achieve anything. That is not only on bots, but on every game you play.

 

Also, the soft clan cap that was introduced through exponential clan tax was not designed to prevent players entering lots of tourney bots. It was to encourage monthly clan scoring competition by limiting clan size. Tournies were implemented years later.

Wait. What is this?

Did tournaments not exist for awhile in bots4?

In bots2 you couldn't even merge with another clan if you'd be over the 99 limit. Was a hard cap. I definitely believe the hard cap was removed with thought that the changes to treasury system would still effectively provide a cap to clan membership.

And based on previous comments from Ender, those changes seemed to be very clearly made with idea of trying to give value to really high-leveled bots... which would be necessary to increase your effective clan size possible...

I wasn't around for all this, of course...

But .. this has all been very consistently repeated and whatever you're currently suggesting would be something completely different and total news to me...

 

And, for the record, exploits aren't inherently bad - there's a reason I compared it to Rocket Jumping in Quake. Could you cheese a level in 11 seconds and do things you very much weren't supposed to be doing? Absolutely... but it was awesome still. Unintentional Consequences can be awesome.

Am I and is everyone else "just jealous?" Ummm... hardly. Ice always made it very clear I don't really care at all about this topic. I meant "whatever" very much, thanks!

But what is any actual argument that this exploit improves the game experience?

I'd want to think the best argument, besides generic "players feel smart" when it comes any exploit, would be that this should encourage more game activity by increasing the number of bots people feel a need to create. THAT would be a fine argument, imo... though I'm very skeptical that's even true at this point.

And your examples of players complaining about the game until it gets changed to weaken a clan? What the crap is that? A hypothetical here that isn't going to happen, a CoC thing that very much was targeted against those "complainers," and... one thing that happened once. That's... one thing that happened once, right? And... what if that one thing just happened to be a positive change overall and wasn't specifically made to target your clan? Doesn't that seem... most likely?

 

Whatever the case, I'm out.

In theory, I'm down for discussing almost any suggestion (even about things I kinda don't care much about). Fun thought experiments.

But... what's the point if the "discussion" doesn't consist of anyone else trying to participate in a genuine discussion?

So... WHATEVER.

 

I'd like to steer the conversation towards how tournaments can be improved for the future. The specific, concrete ideas that are being brought up in this thread and replied to are what will be most helpful for me when I circle back on this in the future and it's time to evaluate changes. I think some of the philosophical debates, while interesting, are leading to unproductive dead ends. That said, as game admin, I do want to make my stance clear on a couple of the other points raised:

• Exploits, original intent, etc.: I think this largely does not matter. Whether the current meta is an "exploit" or not is a semantic debate. What's important is that I've stated that optimizing for the current meta is not considered a violation of any official game rules. Similarly, the original intent of a game mechanic designed over a decade ago is less important than how we can make it work best for the game today.

• New player experience vs. veteran investment: This topic comes up a lot, and I understand why veteran players may have concerns about the prospect of change and whether it could mean their past efforts are nullified/reduced. I don't see this as zero-sum. The goal of any change to the tournament meta (or any other system for that matter) would be to grow the pie for everyone, not to take away from one group. A couple examples of this that I've talked about recently that are squarely in that camp are "Differentiated rewards for clan ranks 2-10" and "New clan-based game mode" (source). The best changes should increase overall game activity and create more opportunities for fun and competition across the board. And I believe changes can be made to the existing tournament system that align with that. See also what I had shared on this topic a ~month ago (source):

This is a crucial balance. I believe long-term investment and building significant infrastructure should be rewarded, and new players shouldn't expect to be at the very top immediately. However, I do want new players (and new clans) to feel they can become competitive and make meaningful progress sooner than they might currently. This will be a guiding principle for future changes.

 

Did tournaments not exist for awhile in bots4?

Correct, they weren't a thing until 2015.

 

To steer things back, I'll just sum up some points people made + my own:

1) I'm not talking about taking features away from the game. Just because something has been the same for a long time doesn't mean it can't be improved. My idea was fairly simple, suspend the tournament while Ender works on it so that the next tournament would be more fair. It's mostly just a coding thing.

2) A fair tournament would be one where an equal number of bots fight against clans with another equal number of bots. Investing in the game and making tournament bots is fine, I just don't think the meta to build 300+ of them and cram them into one clan to win makes any sense (seems to be a common statement). There might be problems with what bots to sign up if large clans had to choose though. That may or may not be moot because a true tournament with say, 50 clans fighting each other with 20 members, would be randomized enough to pretty much change the winner per month anyway just based on randomness (maybe, it might end up the same as 337 members lol). Maybe instead of first people to sign up the owner of a clan could choose which bots to place in the tournament or there could be a second option of "whoever applies first gets in".

3) Half of the problem with the tournaments is actually the clan treasuries and member limits. Those would have to be addressed at the same time most likely.

4) Member limit entering tournaments would likely have to be adjusted over time to see how it goes.

It's less about removing features and just making the tournament less lopsided and more entertaining. Personally if Lusitania had 20 members it might motivate me to make 20 bots to compete but at the current 337 it's like "why bother?". It'd be fun to actually check the tournament results and see some random clan called "Butter Tarts" or something get 1st xD

 

Its just the same again, the other clan has too much, so i won't compete. But if the rules change, eg. you can only clan 20 tourney bots, then i can compete because it doesn't take much to do so! IMO, that is BS.

Start making tourneys, start making dumper clan. If you put more time in building, then talking and complaining, you would have had more tourneys and more dumpers. Put in some damn effort and then complain.

 

Big words coming from a guy that's always stayed in the #1 clan for the entirety of his existence on bots4. Apex didn't work out, you joined Lusitania. Maybe if you actually tried fighting for first place rather than just joining whoever has the most resources you'd understand my/others experience vs. yours. My top level bots are level 150 for example and that's mostly from fighting public bots. Meanwhile you get access to hundreds of bots to make whatever you want whenever you want. I'm just talking about making the tournaments fair after years worth of them not being very fair :/

If you're so good at doing this stuff, then go ahead and make 300 bots to beat Lusitania and prove us all wrong. I and many others don't have the resources to do so.

 

Peet, you're 100% entitled to your opinion on this, but please keep it constructive. Comments like "Put in some damn effort and then complain" are unproductive and lead to the kind of toxicity that devolves an opportunity to make improvements to the game into a hostile back-and-forth. You can disagree with what other people are saying without being unpleasant.

...and as I was writing this, the predictable outcome has happened. Zal took the bait and is firing back. Toxic in-fighting like this is so damaging to this game's community. Please everyone, just stop engaging in this way. If you see it, report it - don't reply to it. I'm going to start deleting posts that continue to resort to personal attacks, even if they contain otherwise valid points.

On topic: Multiple Lusitania members have chimed in agreeing that the "stuff 300+ bots into a clan before the B.O.T.S. Union notices" meta can be improved on, so I think it's fair to say there's a baseline consensus that it's reasonable to evaluate changes. Again, you're free to push back on specific suggestions, but please do so in a way that doesn't involve attacking other people.

 

I'm not talking about taking features away from the game. Just because something has been the same for a long time doesn't mean it can't be improved. My idea was fairly simple, suspend the tournament while Ender works on it so that the next tournament would be more fair. It's mostly just a coding thing.

How is the tournament not fair, because others spent time making bots while you weren't? By this logic it's unfair that my cousin is a barrister making more money because he spent the time going through university etc. Stopping the tourney is a terrible idea especially just because you personally think it's broken, there is limited content to get excited about on here as is.

I just sold Mal 150 tourney bots at an average of 8 bots per category if you signed them up you would have had a chance of winning although ofcourse the chance is slim and you would need to be lucky, or heaven forbid have a look at them and try to learn how to actually build them, then add to them as a team to increase your chances of winning.

However I do think changes are needed to the tourney not because its unfair which it isn't (everybody starts with 0 tourney bots), it's just a bit old and stale so would be nice to see randomised cats or completely new cats. Also be nice to have QoL change that makes signing them all up and kicking easier.

 

On the other hand I don't think it's unreasonable to randomise the tourney categories a bit. It would discourage the levelling of tourney bots in lower level categories and would create more build diversity and encourage more theorycrafting.

Myriad mentions this here (again as he has before in other tourney threads and others have as well, myself included).

I think this would be a better alternative to "staleness" from limiting participation based on entry numbers. I know I suggested making the clan effort of having so many per cat able to enter, but as Myriad mentioned that creates the first-come-first-served mentality as not all people in a clan are for the clan (I speak personally on this front).

I understand weight classes, and there being a specific nuance to working hard on a specific class so you can dominate it like in certain sports (MMA, Boxing, etc.) but even there people get bored and move up or down in weight to compete with other people. Granted the current weight classes for bots is a bit rough as a 301 bot will not be winning against a 432, but a well built 251 will also not win vs a 300, or a 201 vs a 250, or even a 176 vs a 200. All the winners are literally the best bot at the peak of the weight class, and it isn't feasible to split every cat to every level, so making the variable the weight class seems to be the more ideal option to remove stagnation.

 

How is the tournament not fair, because others spent time making bots while you weren't? By this logic it's unfair that my cousin is a barrister making more money because he spent the time going through university etc. Stopping the tourney is a terrible idea especially just because you personally think it's broken, there is limited content to get excited about on here as is.

I've spent barely any time making tournament bots so I have no chance of winning anyway. I don't even have 20 of them for my 20 member limit idea lol. I'm not talking about myself at all in this by the way, even if this were all to change I may or may not participate in making tournament bots. But if I/others did than 20 or so would be a lot more manageable than 300. I'm talking about equalizing the tournament. To do that it'd need to be changed quite a bit and would likely need to be suspended for a month or two depending on how much coding would be required/testing needed.

If you want an analogy I think of the idea more like sports. If you watch baseball/football/soccer, anything really, there's a set amount of people playing against each other. If someone were to show up to a baseball diamond with 337 players on the same team vs the usual amount and they were all allowed to play at the same time you'd probably think, man, that's just stupid lol. And no, the answer isn't to get 337 members on the other team and have a super stupid baseball game xD I'm just being funny here though ;)

 

Honestly though the tournament is more like the Olympics where you do throw as many people as you can from the same country into each medal competition in order to increase your odds of making it on the podium.

 

Honestly though the tournament is more like the Olympics

Fifty is the Australian breakdancer :D

 

Like seemingly everything else, it might be nice to tie in the overhaul with account management changes. Instead of competing through a clan, you just compete on an individual level tied to your account. So instead of Lusi winning, it'd be an individual player. Would need a juggling of rewards to make competing for 2nd-10th more interesting.

It would also mean you don't have to sign up every bot every time if it's just a setting to auto enrol on the bot level and manage on an account level. Might need something to stop people signing up useless bots, maybe if you place in the bottom 30% 3 times in a row your enrollment setting gets toggled off, or if you lose to all of the top 5 with them having more than 50% HP remaining.

I do think it's important to say that winning the clan aspect of the tournament isn't the be-all and end-all. It is still very much worth competing in tournaments even if you can't win. You can still compete within categories and very easily come first, and tourneys are among the best trophy point:time spent even when not winning. Gold trophies stack up points quick. Besides, the only way to have 300 tourney bots is to make the first 10, then 10 more, etc. Or be appealing enough that people with them want to join you.

 

Didn't tourny winners gain XP? Is that still a thing?

 

In support and recognition of the concrete ideas that have been contributed to this thread (thank you!), I wanted to briefly share my top-of-mind current thinking for each of the ones that I've seen. This is in no way binding for what will actually happen when I do circle back on the topic of tournaments, but I figured folks may want to get some sense of what I'm currently thinking about what's been raised.

• Hard clan member cap: Not really a fan of a hard cap (whether it's 20, 50, 99, etc.). I like the way the soft cap works right now (prohibitively high daily kudos cost that high level training bots can mitigate somewhat), modulo how it can be circumvented for the tournament - see next point.

• Treasury loophole: I don't know exactly how, but I probably will do something about how hundreds of bots can be clanned for the tournament without penalty. I don't think this is a fun meta for anyone.

• Tournament entry slots: Whether it's a clan-wide cap or a clan/category cap, I'm somewhat open to this. I need to think through the details though and about unintended consequences (e.g. does it just result in the same bots getting entered, but now they're spread across clans?). Or maybe closing the treasury loophole partially/mostly addresses this and that's enough.

• Random level categories: This idea feels fairly popular. It would address some of the staleness concerns. I'm open to it.

• Remove clan-based rewards: This would remove the incentive to stack a single clan. I'm not too big of a fan of this idea because I still like the idea of rewarding collective effort (but I acknowledge the current situation has issues with that).

• Tie competition to accounts, not bots: This could be interesting. I'll have to think about it more if/when the game's account structure is added (high risk, high reward project).

• Exp for placing highly: bots2 had this. It was briefly considered for bots4. The arguments for it were that it prevents staleness, encourages effort, and the historical precedent from bots2. The arguments against it were that it punishes specialization, rebuilding is tedious, it's ineffective because the most motivated players will still rebuild, and unfair advantage for cat 1.

• Mass invite/kick support: I think the need for this will likely disappear if the meta changes, so not planning to address it.

Again, just to re-iterate, none of the above is binding. Don't be scared if there's something in here that you hate. Similarly, don't be mad if I say I'm open to something that I end up never adding. I spent all of ~10 minutes thinking about this and writing about it just in the spirit of transparency of my thought process. Things may end up in a much different place when I sit down and give this serious thought at some point in the future.

That said, I'm still keen to hear everyone's feedback on all of this (or other new ideas/spins you have in mind). You're also welcome to make an argument that none of these changes are needed - that's a valid position to have. If you do share feedback, just please remember to frame it in a way that focuses on the merits of the idea, not on the person/people that supported it, your perception of their motivations, etc. Thank you!

 

Hard clan member cap: Not really a fan of a hard cap (whether it's 20, 50, 99, etc.). I like the way the soft cap works right now (prohibitively high daily kudos cost that high level training bots can mitigate somewhat), modulo how it can be circumvented for the tournament - see next point.

I, too, am fond of the current system that doesn't create the hard cap though it does realistical create one when taking everything into account. Not certain a hard cap is needed.

Treasury loophole: I don't know exactly how, but I probably will do something about how hundreds of bots can be clanned for the tournament without penalty. I don't think this is a fun meta for anyone.

Tournament entry slots: Whether it's a clan-wide cap or a clan/category cap, I'm somewhat open to this. I need to think through the details though and about unintended consequences (e.g. does it just result in the same bots getting entered, but now they're spread across clans?). Or maybe closing the treasury loophole partially/mostly addresses this and that's enough.

I think these would likely tie together a bit. Capping entries would remove the need for mass bot applicants ot a single clan (whcih would also address the last point as well). Though I do think the negative impact of these would create a more harsh penalty, considering the clan aspect of the tourney that has people doing this in the first place.

Random level categories: This idea feels fairly popular. It would address some of the staleness concerns. I'm open to it.

Just for the sake of the tourney iutself I like this idea.

Remove clan-based rewards: This would remove the incentive to stack a single clan. I'm not too big of a fan of this idea because I still like the idea of rewarding collective effort (but I acknowledge the current situation has issues with that).

I do think removing the clan aspect of the tourney, and turning it into a solo aspect, is a generally decent idea to consider. As mentioned, although there might be rare instances where a clan helps build tourny bots together, ultimately those bots still belong to an individual and thus that individual carries that weight with them. My example of earlier if Myriad and Gpof left Lus and created their own clan, they wouldn't still enter their tourney bots into Lus for the tourney. So I think that does create a valid argument for removing the clan aspect.

Tie competition to accounts, not bots: This could be interesting. I'll have to think about it more if/when the game's account structure is added (high risk, high reward project).

See prior comment. Kind of goes with that.

Exp for placing highly: bots2 had this. It was briefly considered for bots4. The arguments for it were that it prevents staleness, encourages effort, and the historical precedent from bots2. The arguments against it were that it punishes specialization, rebuilding is tedious, it's ineffective because the most motivated players will still rebuild, and unfair advantage for cat 1.

I don't have experience creating tourney bots, but I do have a lot of experience in creating bots in general. Some of them take a massive amount of time and effort to get them to where they are. For anyone wondering. Some of these I didn't build, but a huge amount of them I did, as well as a lot of others. I know I would hate to put in that amount of work and effort only to have them pushed out of where I intended for them to go. I think the variable aspect of cats would help solve staleness and benefit more people than pushing bots out of cats (and having the same people just rebuild those bots as lower ones aren't as much effort).

Mass invite/kick support: I think the need for this will likely disappear if the meta changes, so not planning to address it.

Perhaps not for this purpose specifically, but the ability to handle multiple applicants either accepting or removing, would be useful in more cases than just this one so hopefully adding it for that is still on the radar for the future.

 

The ability to handle multiple applicants either accepting or removing

+1 - this would be a contender for the change that I'd most like to see.

 

I think the general ideas from this thread could also make for some fresh changes to the tourney: https://bots4.net/forum/8/7845

It builds on the randomised category idea - perhaps release 1 category with a random level at the start of the month and let players devise with their new builds for that month :)

 

Would definitely be nice to somehow enforce no ratio/kudo chain/stars/help from existing infrastructure to see how people problem solve if they had to make a bot truly from scratch.

Maybe we could make the builds themselves a bit more interesting, maybe one month the tournament has a special rule in the battle code that says

• all bots have 0% absorb
• or block is capped at 50%
• or you always hit your max hit

etc. I think I may have suggested something like this before. It might let some unusual weapons and builds shine, though I'm sure the simmers wouldn't like me suggesting that.
 

release 1 category with a random level at the start of the month

I was actually a bit against the shifting of category levels, but the idea of having one separate random category I actually like a lot. It could also be coupled with the things Fish threw out, certain modifiers in addition to the random level.

Couple small things to account for though. Might need two sign-up buttons for bots that are in the range of the random category so they can choose to be in the regular one instead, that or it could even be held on a different day than the regular categories. Also we probably should have the potential levels for it to be capped somewhere reasonable. I don't think too many people are going to (or are able to) jump at the chance of making a level 280 tournament bot in a month.

 

Also wtf why does only fish's post not have proper space for the reactions

 

Agree it's important to have the level cap relatively low (let's say under 100?).

The aim should be to make this random category more accessible for new players - some extra variances like Fish suggested could be especially helpful. This is also something that could be added independently of any wholesale changes to the format (thinking about reducing the time needed to set up from Ender's POV).

I could also see this providing something new and fresh to the experienced players who already know how to make a good build. Again, I'm sure there are some other players who could throw a few thoughts out there and help build on this concept.

 

For the record, I would personally rather humor bandaid solutions than even fully address the issues of freaking - which really is THE problem here (but I've no belief is going away and that particular discussion just wouldn't be fruitful at all)

 

Anything that makes the tournaments need thought and new ideas every month rather than just being the same meta builds with +2 levels of con or something would be nice and keep it interesting.

Deleted some comments looking for arguments rather than discussing how to improve tournaments, keep it on topic please.

 

Maybe a category specifically for regular bot builds would be fun and inject some variety for people who don't want to build freaked bots all the time. Maybe just call it the "Casual" category and either have the same categories (probably too much work) or a couple of random ones (say 35-48 and 60-72 or something) to test out how random tournaments would work out for freaked bots. That way Ender could both work on the tournament testing to see what works and what doesn't and it wouldn't bother the freaked bot categories. It'd just be a fun category, doesn't even have to have a trophy involved ;) Could also try out the 0 kudo requirement to sign up/longer signup time at the same time since it'd be an entirely separate category.

Just saying it might be useful as a testing tool + fun ;) Mind you it might be too much work for nothing since you'd probably have to make a limit like "weapons equipped must have the strength/dexterity needed on current build" since say, an answerer bot would have 237 str/102 dex with manic etc. equipped and have the necessary str/dex for them while a freaked bot would likely have some messed up str/dex like 260/70 something. But it might be possible to freak that too and get it back down to the str/dex required with higher armors so maybe also having a "armor can't be higher than str" limit would probably also be needed. So yeah, probably too much work.

tl;dr tournament coding is hard.

 

I think it would be fairly easy to limit freaking from Eds end, but I don't think he should, and don't really think freaking is a problem at all. It's the only thing that allows a bit of creativity and strategy when it comes to building a bot and lets the talented builders show off vs everyone just making cookie cutter builds that have been made a million times over already.

I'm sure we all know how to make a standard, non-freaked answerer build after decades of playing, but seeing who can manage to freak the best build without the usual benefits of stash space, ratio chains or free kudos would be interesting. Even at a very basic level, having a twitchthroe in stash to buy your weapons before buying an iron pelt is simple and effective "freaking" that everyone can do. It wouldn't reward established players with the restrictions, just the people willing to think about what bot to build.

 

My idea was to make a category for newer players/people with less time to play and still participate and try out new stuff is all. I think yours with the limits would just make it a challenge for people who already know how to build tournament bots. I think the only ones who would be interested is the same 5-10 people who own most of the tourney bots currently :P Just my thought. I'm sure if my idea was to be made and say, category 5 was level 90-100, then sure, the same cookie cutter build would win, but if randomization would be added every month it would make it different at least. Thought it could lead to more tournament changes overall :) The random special rule idea is not bad though. I think that the "no ratio/kudo chain/stars/help from existing infrastructure" would probably take up way too much time to enforce somehow. I mean, without those things then it'd probably be just a bunch of training bots that people freak somehow. Probably end up with a tournament of nothing but level <50s xD

Or maybe I didn't read into it enough.

 

I think we have wildly different expectations and hopes from the tournament shake up, maybe we need separate threads. I'll summarize my opposition to your ideas and then just focus on my own so we don't need to keep going back and forth.

Your idea of a "casual tournament" seems to be a bit of an oxymoron. Anyone competing in a tournament should be driven to get as good as they can at bot building, not just blindly make the unfreaked build they've been making for 15 years again with no ambition. There is nothing new to discover there for anybody. Any new players will still likely get beat by Gpof, Myriad, Peet etc so they won't win anyway, but you've kind of killed the intrigue and skill ceiling for the existing player base that we know would be interested with a real reshuffle.

I think yours with the limits would just make it a challenge for people who already know how to build tournament bots

This is kind of the point, I think with the right changes it would be actively interesting for the 5-10 players you mention and spawn real competition. There aren't too many legitimate new players who are crying out for tournaments to be made easier so they can compete in them, except you I guess, but after a decade maybe it's time you stop counting yourself with the noobs, open BU and start planning a tourney bot yourself!

I think the only ones who would be interested is the same 5-10 people who own most of the tourney bots currently

This isn't a bad thing. Though I don't fully agree, if you can remove all the pain points currently, anyone could give it a go. Sure they won't win, but they could start to learn

Alternative idea

If we do want to go all in and almost make a separate monthly tournament that is it's own beast, maybe it could have some perks kind of like leagues/seasonal modes on other games to speed it up and make it more about the build and strategy, and less about clicking a lot.

• Flag the bot as a tourney entrant on registration. Make the future-tourney bot unable to fight other bots/be attacked (removes any infrastructure/ratio chain/kudo bot etc advantage and any griefing)
• Permanent Aura of Eternity buff, we're mostly checking to see build strategies, rather than wanting huge amounts of time investment needed, maybe even 500% instead of 300%
• New ruleset/target level each month as mentioned above (fiddle with absorb/hit/block/capped stats/banned armous/etc etc)
• After the tournament, fight protections are removed and the bot reverts to a normal bot. Shouldn't be any risk here
• As you'd essentially lose your tourney bot flag and be a normal bot, we wouldn't have the current case of the same 300 bots fighting it out for years in the same categories
• This would need new bots building monthly, or however often it ran, but I don't think thats a downside - if the pro-players take some time off, new players could steal a win
• As there would be a lot less entrants, maybe we could have 10-100 fights between each bot so luck doesn't play as big a part
• Maybe you could designate your main bot to receive the plat/trophy points if you win

I think what we've missed from tourneys for a long time is seeing the real build nerds actually needing to think about the best way to approach stuff. I'd be quite keen to see a few players go head to head and see what they can do. I think there's a lot to be said for the strategy when you're missing kudos, stars and ratio chains. Should you try to level with your Shaftstop equipped for 60 levels now like the current meta? Probably not - back to the drawing board. This might even get people like Zach and Kev building again as its not something that needs to be a full time player thing. I think a tourney reshuffle (or extension, if we're happy keeping the existing one) is a good way to get good players interested in building again, rather than trying to jam new players into something that probably wouldn't appeal.

 

Well they're just ideas. I'm not 100% sure we even need tournaments at all except "bots2 had them so bots4 should too" lol. They were supposed to be a way for people to enjoy more endgame content but if people generally stop playing before they ever make tournament bots then it's not much of a feature. That's why I've generally been a proponent of more casual ways of enjoying the game so people don't get bored or hit a wall. You on the other hand have generally been more of a proponent of things for veterans to do :P

There is nothing new to discover there for anybody. Any new players will still likely get beat by Gpof, Myriad, Peet etc so they won't win anyway, but you've kind of killed the intrigue and skill ceiling for the existing player base that we know would be interested with a real reshuffle.

There's nothing new for anybody to discover really even for tournament bots. There's been no new weapons or armors or anything of the sort made for years. But my idea wasn't about worrying about who wins the casual tournament since it had no prizes anyway, it was about letting more people participate so that they learn as they go. Maybe if someone gets a top 10 it'll make them want to play in the normal tournament was my idea. Plus it'd be a neat way of adding features to try out.

Also not sure how I killed the intrigue when it's your clan that has the 337 members that makes nobody else want to play ;)

I was thinking about it a bit after and thought that maybe a normal tournament but with a ladder system like Diablo 2 might work well with your idea in the sense that it'd have seasons like "all bots made within the next six months qualify for this tournament" so that older ones couldn't participate but then I thought that it'd probably end up with the same result as currently with people just making the same bots in just a short timespan and winning anyway (with current rules). You didn't really fully explain your idea though and once you did it did sound more like that except monthly and with rules :P I think that too many rules would end up with only low level bots participating or people just rushing to a high level without caring about weapons etc. if it's only a month at a time even with added buffs.

But as these are just ideas I won't try arguing about them, who knows if Ender will get around to doing them. It might be too much work overall for not that much gain. Doing all these ideas would probably end up being the equivalent of making a new game or server with a ladder system xD

Maybe we could just have a yearly tournament and have every bot participate and crash the game ;P That'd be funny.

 

Tournaments are just a resource flex for players that are well established. There’s not some top secret build pretty much all the cats can be reverse engineered. They are literally spam the right build till you have more bots than the other clan. We took control of them in apex through 4 different people mass producing their own sets of bots for different cats. There’s no secret way to flip them and win every month it’s pure luck and sheer numbers wins them.

As far as a fix for the current situation of overstacking a clan such as what Lusi can do currently I think that instead of just a clan gaining a new maximum treasury cap due to too many bots it should also pull the daily amount out of the treasury every time a bot is added. This would effectively cap how many bots 1 clan can put into tournament. Just add a further limiter that a clan cannot accept new bots at 0 treasury.

Taking Lusitania specifically as the test for this the treasury would hit 0 and be capped in something like 20-30 extra bots added and be forced to refill after tournament ends as well.

 

This would also be a work around to having to implement a clan hard cap as your members in the clan can freely sign up as stated by some others above. It would effectively cripple the 1 clan has all the bots strat without having to handicap active members bots ability to sign up