suggestions

This buff needs a massive nerf or removal from the game. 1 person should not be able to influence a clan race this much with low effort. If zach tucks rene oldtime me etc ran this in what use to be a competitive race on 5 bots scattering it would be doing 2mil+ a day. It is far too easy to snipe a clan race vs an unprepared clan with this buff.

Remove this terrible addition to the game.

From the may feedback thread.

Increasing the rate of energy doesn't really change anything, only inflates numbers and the amount of energy/bots one needs to possess to fully utilize. This is contradictive with trying to make scoring more easily accessible. All this progressively increasing rate achieves will be to allow whichever dominant clan to only need to score the last week of the month until a real contender comes along.

It greatly weighs more heavily towards the people with more resources, IE the clans that have been around longer and built up. It is quite literally the opposite of what Ender was trying to do.

As a casual I like the whole “race to the finish” kinda feeling, but I can see the points being made.

The number jump in the past few days is kinda insane, but I’m also not active enough/enough of a competent player to fully speak on it

The race to the finish is definitely exciting, but I do agree that it just causes the big clan(s) to win more often as they can close any gap in the last week, regardless of what the opponent did the rest of the month. This month is a fairly good example.

The multiplier also seems to be messing with the amount of energy someone needs to "own" to do well. You need at least 200 bots generating 20 EPH just to use up a single buff each day in the later stages of the month.

If we read what Pat posted , it's all true. The buff actually doesn't do anything to effect the clan race, just the numbers are inflated. If you took away the buff the standings would still be the same. While I get it makes the start of the month a little less desired as you don't the full easy drains it still doesn't matter, if you scored consistently it wouldn't chance the outcome of those who decided last minute dumping to catch up.

Well, that's not true. It certainly changes the math.

What it doesn't do is affect any imbalance between clans and change anything there. Still, it can be seen as a feels-bad mechanic where it's very possible for someone to think they "earned" a better placement for having actually done more total work. I get that.

But the idea of simply looking at the top spot as the "clan race" is kinda silly anyways. I can't imagine Ender thought it was supposed to address that issue... and if we're considering any impact there then we should try to imagine what the result would be were two evenly-matched clans tried to compete against each other.

If the point was simply to try to increase game activity overall, as Ender seemed to suggest then that's probably what we should look at when trying to judge how successful the change is at that, imo. Or, possibly, argue how any other detrimental effects (of which there are very real arguments) make the change a bad one.

The buff itself heavily favors clans with resources as I predicted but didn’t have time to test at its inception. In a 24 hour period I score about 1 million total this month on 2 slow bots and 1 with 1 hit bots not really min maxing what I was doing like I use to. It was broken into 2 sessions covering I think 12 hours. Last time I did 1 mil in a single day I had to use 5 bots scatterdumping non stop for close to 18 hours and pushed very hard to pull that off.

There was on old strategy in escapism when months were close where people would say wait for rene to show up at the end as a back pocket clincher. Looking back at what he could do then and what could be done now isn’t a comparison at all. Unless it’s a super coordinated clan effort to win a month I’m fairly confident I could completely ignore the clan race and show up for the last week and beat everyone active atm.

I don’t think thats healthy gameplay for a clan wide competition by any means. I felt bad doing it this time and stopped when we took the lead that fast.

While I think that buff does help with scoring for low level bots and new players it’s just compounded the issue of who has the most resources wins. Even worse so as now you have half the wins to dump to maintain those resources. It’s a cool experiment but it’s not a good long term solution it will just inflate those that are already far ahead even more.

Also I’ve been sick with Covid so that further slowed me down and 1 mil still fell pretty easy. Thank you for giving me a distraction from being sick fish it helped a bit

Unless it’s a super coordinated clan effort to win a month I’m fairly confident I could completely ignore the clan race and show up for the last week and beat everyone active atm.

Then... do that?

Sorry, if almost everyone wants to be in a single clan and everyone in general just has a ton of apathy and indifference in regards to the clan race... then... does it even matter what the rules are?

Rather than look at the top spot, isn't it probably more useful to look at spots 2-10 or whatever and see if there is any difference there?

Or is the argument simply that shattering any illusions some may have wanted to have is detrimental?

As long as plat trophies are tied to top clan only then the race will only ever be about first there is very little incentive to get a rank below that and waste resources losing which is honestly a bigger issue that’s ignored.

Well... I've always agreed there are many issues with the trophy system. Absolutely not gonna start arguing against that...

Even if my clan doesn't finish in first doesn't mean I won't get a plat for being in the top 10 individually. It's about time and resources, last month I did 3m on goergethegreat and wasn't really giving it my all I was just focused

Remove this terrible addition to the game

Aka; Take away the means for others to win so I dont have to try

I freaking hate how it always results in any input being offered as some kinda accusation about the poster being "whiny" or whatever and supposedly just trying to make demands for "free stuff" and, ultimately, just being jealous.

There are very reasonable arguments to be made about the issue and... I gotta be honest here: I kinda don't think anyone can honestly say it's perfect.

But what's the point? The playerbase has shown time and time again that they aren't ever interested in having any reasonable debates... or even trying to ever even begin being remotely reasonable at all.

It's all a complete and utter waste and we're all a bunch of complete and utter wastes. Seriously, why? Just... why?

aka take away my way to win without trying dont think peach can read

for me it is good. is it suppose to be random? it should. but most of the time i can only play certain days of month and it helps me because i like to score but no motivation. now i do have motivation because of the crescendo

I think what bazza is trying to say is the game would be less alive without the buff in terms of scoring. Might be true. But the game is what it is. I could care less if there's a buff or not, the buff only inflated the numbers and killed the time required to get over the 1m mark or higher.

i take back the random part...lol

Make the buff active for the last week only? Goes up 10% each day for a max of 79% increase. Just an idea

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts on the Monthly Crescendo buff. I've been reading all the feedback in this thread and wanted to wait for the August clan competition to finish before chiming in so that I could also ask for a fresh round of feedback reflecting on how the end of the month felt.

I was inspired by Gpof's analysis and did another similar one. This chart shows Lusitania and Mount Wario throughout the August race. For each clan there are 2 lines: 1 for what actually happened with the MC buff and 1 for what would have happened without the MC buff. The result was interesting. The end-of-month outcome didn't change (i.e. Lusitania still wins in this alternate reality), but it's much closer: Lusitania finishes at 5,109,781 and Mount Wario finishes at 5,066,157, i.e. a gap of a mere 43,624 energy.

It's challenging to draw firm conclusions on what would or wouldn't have happened without the buff. A reasonable argument could possibly be made that MC not existing might have meant Lusitania didn't push as hard to catch up in the final week. Or maybe they wouldn't have let them fall behind as much earlier on in the month.

It's also worth restating the goal of the MC buff. Its primary function is to keep the clan competition relevant throughout the month, i.e. reduce the possibility of the race feeling "over" mid-month (it's not a goal for the buff to help "new clans" win, so the "established clans dominate the game" topic is separate). By this measure, you could view the come-from-behind August win as a success. I have read some feedback from some players that enjoyed the "close race" aspect of the final week of August, which aligns with this goal. Then again, the chart I linked above shows that it would have been even closer without the buff. But again, maybe there wouldn't have been as much motivation for a come-from-behind victory without the buff - it's really hard to say with confidence what would or would not have happened.

I also agree with the point about the "feels bad" aspect. Regardless of all the data and what would have / could have happened, if the buff just isn't fun and feels like a drain on the game for a majority of players, then it should be removed. It's not clear to me that this is how the majority of players feel, but forum threads like this help me get a pulse on things. If you have feelings either way about the MC buff (especially if you like it though - since people that don't like the current system are more incentivized to be vocal about it), please do continue sharing.

I don't plan to make any changes for now. I'm very open to changing or even entirely removing the MC buff, but I want to let the change soak for a bit longer before taking any action. In particular, I'd be very curious to see how some of the other clan race changes I talked about in this announcement a few months ago (e.g. all bots gaining energy, better incentives for second, third, etc. place, and so on) shake things up with this buff being in play. I'm behind on my tentative timeline from that thread, so expect to see an announcement / dev update later this month that talks more broadly about my upcoming plans.

Knowing you have the resources to make up any gap a clan creates in the first 3 weeks, by utilizing the MC buff in the last week, is where I take issue with this. And IMO, this is what you got in August, not a "come from behind tough fought battle to win by Lus".

(it's not a goal for the buff to help "new clans" win, so the "established clans dominate the game" topic is separate)

I wasn't aware of this so that lessens my gripe with it. However I think it is more detrimental in regards to the whole barrier of entry/newer player thing when compared to benefits of increased end of month activity, both of which very much affect the real goal of promoting activity in the clan scoring space which is why I will still compare it. I'd also argue the end of month activity increase is likely to be a fleeting trend as everybody but the dominant clan will become discouraged over time and it will go back to looking like the past.

Won't dive deeper though since I've already covered my thoughts in-depth on the feedback thread and still hold them. For now I will enjoy feeling zero compulsion to score until the last week.

Imagine a game where you accumulate some kinda resource (feels rewarding to the players) to try and beat opponents. There's a ladder system with a ton of opponents and you are constantly working your way up, or down, that ladder. Your activity seems to constantly reward you (it's kinda addicting!) Now, as the month goes you are likely to end up "stuck" in such a system. The gaps between opponents sorta "settle" groups and you're very likely just constantly exchanging spots with the same people over-and-over. Now, it all feels less rewarding... unless there's some mechanic that makes things "swingier" as time goes on - and now we're back and as the month goes on it's even MORE rewarding. And even the person/clan at very top can't stop and feel safe, as all their gains have less value than the future gains of people below.

I'm BASICALLY describing the same game we're playing. If I'd never played bots before then I wouldn't feel the least bit surprised to see such a thing existing in this game.

Having said all that, I'm actually very skeptical it's gonna work out positively in the long run. I kinda just don't even think it matters too much.

And... I actually think last month was a really bad omen where top clan has adopted idea of just being able to do even less just to still end up with their TPs. Worst case scenario if point is to increase activity is a world where no one really bothers at all because it never feels rewarding enough - minus bare minimum effort towards very end by one giant clan. But, whatever. Honestly, there's a very real argument that majority of playerbase would kinda prefer not having to ever even go through the motions, probably.

My anology for what is happening vs what was the idea is more likely like a car race.

Ender's expectations was that we're running a 200 lap race, but each lap we get a 1hp boost. The idea is that every car gets the same boost, and the end results wouldn't alter any because the boost was applied unilaterally, the only difference would be the time each lap took.

The real world application of this would also suffer the exact same issues we're currently seeing, because in that instance not all cars are created equally. Of course there are rules and guidelines that people have to stay within, but drivers differ, material types differ, kind of gas differ (IE resources aren't all equal), so it would in turn start to give some people more of an advantage than others. Those people wouldn't need to drive as fast in the begging, because they could calculate their resources and how it affects them and be able to catch up in the last few laps to take the win based on coasting the beginning part.

That is precisely what we have here. The overall buff isn't affecting the simulation of results, because Ender's simulation doesn't account for real world resources that are required to obtain said numbers.

People will generally take the path of least resisitance. Gpof showcased what could be if someone utilized the buff and resources an entire month. That was essentially just his resources (granted he had a few loaners, but ultimately he could have probably aquired those himself had he had more time to prepare). So what are people doing, not wasting their resources throughout the month, maintaining a "healthy" race until the final week, then blitzing) because they now get much more bang per buck for each fight) and taking the lead and the win, and I imagine actually causing less damage on their resources than if they had been using them all month.

Long story short, this buff if used as intended would separate the top and bottom MUCH more than it is, but instead it's being used to do the least amount of work to achieve the same exact goal. Either way, it needs to be removed.

I would agree more with what nos has said. This buff in the right hands makes the race pointless. Even more so than it’s ever been. The only reason it’s still here is no one with proper resources or scoring ability has abused it to its fullest extent. I had 0 of my bots clanned last month and borrowed from fish to do that comeback. Now all of my bots are clanned. There is 0 incentive to score until the last 5 days of the month for me because that timeframe gets the most bang for my buck and my bots will not take much abuse.

Simply put I’m semi paying attention to the game again and declare no one is allowed to get top clan outside Lusitania until the buff is removed. I will see to it myself that if the race is remotely close that it is ruined at the end.

Remove this buff and restore some sense of balance to the game thanks.

The buff has more downsides then upsides from my point of view. I do like it in terms of scoring, you can pull up big numbers easily. However, because it is so easy, peoply with loads and loads of resources can pull up numbers which can not be beaten.

Also, if you target of bullying (Yes, JJ you are a bully!) they can also take a huge chunk of your energy. I lost over 100k energy for only 5 full attacks, near months end.

Therefor, I think the monthly buff does not help in a good way. But it is fun in scoring terms.

And it only gets further exacerbated by the fact that people that want to compete are forced into 2 scenarios. Either make easily beatable bots in masse, or create bots they can "trash" to dump energy.

Generally people opt for option A, where they produce bots in masse at lower levels. It's easier, less time consuming, and requires less work and maintenance than making dumpers. The issue occurs when Clan A starts making bots to drain said easily beat bots made by Clan B. This causes Clan B to either declan them, or fight it out for the scraps. Clan A doesn't suffer either way, because they already have dumpers in the waiting area, regardless of what happens.

Gpof stated the issue with the bonus being on the resources taken vs the resources gained being the modifier and how it would make the gap much larger when this was first announced. I agreed then, and still do, that the energy modifier being altered to allow more energy being gained per bot (thus increasing the amount of energy available to take) in the game while returning the standard limited energy taken per fight would be a much better idea than keeping the finite resource capacity the same and increasing the amount each attack offers.

My anology for what is happening vs what was the idea...

I wasn't really offering an analogy though. Was literally describing why these kinds of games use such a mechanic.

Ender's expectations was that we're running a 200 lap race, but each lap we get a 1hp boost. The idea is that every car gets the same boost, and the end results wouldn't alter any because the boost was applied unilaterally, the only difference would be the time each lap took.

I would most certainly give Ender enough credit to recognize why other, similar, systems have employed such a mechanic and to have adopted it to try and achieve similar results.

His comments on what it was supposed to try and achieve seem to support this. I mean, if such a thing is trying to increase activity... wouldn't you think it most definitely IS supposed to have an impact and the point is to adopt such a thing precisely to achieve an impact towards the clan race. Does it make any sense whatsoever, really, to believe it was/is supposed to effectively be meaningless?

Of course it is supposed to make the later stages have more value than the early stages to try and encourage players to increase the amount they play at the end because the competition is more "open" and results would hopefully not be "settled" throughout most of month.

I wasn't really offering an analogy though. Was literally describing why these kinds of games use such a mechanic.

Congrats. My post wasn't a direct response to you either.

I lost over 100k energy for only 5 full attacks, near months end.

Having minimum con at 150lvl leaves you vulnerable like this, choices have consequences. You can get drained also without the buff.

Congrats. My post wasn't a direct response to you either.

Oh, then after I posted and you said "the idea is more likely like..." then what idea WERE you responding to?

The literal idea of what the thread is arguing about. What Ender wanted vs what Ender got....

Just because a post follows yours, regardless of time frame, doesn't imply (nor should you infer) that the post is directed at you unless explicitly stated (most often though I understand not always, people will do like you did and quote what they're replying to).

Well, that doesn't even make sense.

You claimed your thoughts were more likely than something else.

And... the thread simply begins with a call to get rid of the thing.

So... your analogy is a more likely explanation than "Ender should get rid of it?"

Okay, bud. "Congrats," I tell you what.

Also, if you target of bullying (Yes, JJ you are a bully!) they can also take a huge chunk of your energy. I lost over 100k energy for only 5 full attacks, near months end.

How did he bully you? This should be interesting

How did he bully you? This should be interesting

To quote from your own clan forum:

My goal for the month has been to stop PeeT from 1st

I'd argue that's more of a rivalry than bullying. If he was onlining you and draining your targets, then you might have an argument to be made about bullying, but if he was just attacking you while you were offline, then ...

It isn't really the action, it's the intent - if we're gonna try and have this pedantic argument.

You can playfully do all sorts of things that would tend to often be considered "bullying" to people and it can be "harmless fun" or literally a part of how you may "make love" to them. You can say and do seemingly trivial and "harmless" things in order to bully and demean people.

Really, the action itself probably doesn't even matter very much if we wanna have this pedantic debate on whether or not it was "bullying."

And... well, it seems here the target may very well have felt bullied, whether or not someone was trying to bully them - so... there's that...

Let's try and keep this thread on topic to give Ender feedback about the energy multiplier

Well, I think it actually does touch on a potentially very real issue of possibly manipulating the clan race by attacking scorers themselves at the end. This would be a VERY feels-bad thing, were these tactics used to reward much less effort to erase much more effort.

In a game where TPs exist as another resource to manage, it's potentially a major issue, I think. TPs, of course, being a very major variable when considering this topic anyways...

manipulating the clan race by attacking scorers themselves

Real wars is considered manipulation now? Interesting.

Who exactly believes the intent of attacking each someone in Real Wars was bullying?

As far as I know, literally no one believes that. What are you talking about?

I will say, if the intent was to hurt another player and not even a part of general strategy (with no personal gain in mind at all even)? It... kinda does sound like it was simple "bullying."

Again... motives kinda are everything if we want to continue this debate.

What was the point, ya know?

There's no rule against attacking scorers so don't need to get stuck debating definitions.

Back on track (again), where it is relevant to this thread is as feedback to the energy multiplier which I think is a fair point for Peet to raise. If someone does want to hit your scorers, they can take energy from you much quicker on the last day than you could have earned it earlier in the month. Hypothetically someone could let you score all month and then reverse everything you did in a few days. Would be pretty demotivating for that to happen and make people feel like they wasted their time.

My opinion is still that the buff encourages dominant clans to be more dominant, but with less effort, which is not ideal. It's a lot easier for 2-3 people with lots of infrastructure to turn up 5 days from the end of the month and claim a win even though other clans put more effort in. With the multiplier, there is less "public energy" around than before as it all gets drained much faster at the end of the month, so "private energy"/dumpers become much more important if you do want to sweep a late win.

That being said, I'd be interested to see a month where 2nd-10th places are more rewarding and the focus isn't on first place. Could imagine lots of people trying to compete for a top 10 on their own little solo clans.

That being said, I'd be interested to see a month where 2nd-10th places are more rewarding and the focus isn't on first place. Could imagine lots of people trying to compete for a top 10 on their own little solo clans.

I'm sure most if not all of us have agreed in other threads that some type of better scaling rewards for 2nd-10th place clans would be a good change all around, regardless of what is/isn't done about the crescendo buff. I recall Mal bringing up activity and such among the rest of the top 10 a few times in other threads which was something I actually agreed with, despite me not liking the crescendo buff as a whole. While I think it is unhealthy for the game long-term (or even relatively short term) especially with the battle for 1st, I do think it has had a positive effect on the energy race below that which inherently extends to the top 100 individual monthly as well. Don't misconstrue this though, I still think the negative far outweighs the positive with the buff.

To quote from your own clan forum:

And how is stopping you from being 1st bullying?

You have made a bold statement, stand by it. Explain yourself