suggestions

I would like to suggest an alternative clan type for managing energy sources.

The new clan type could allow a high number of bots (say up to 1000) with a fixed clan tax per bot (let's say 1000 kudos per day). The bots in these clans would be able to generate energy but the clan would not be eligible for clan competition rewards (instead of the top 10 counting towards the rankings make it so none of the bots do, don't allow bots in these clans to earn points in tournaments either). This would allow players to manage their energy sources much more easily.

I have seen some players suggest all bots generate energy but I personally would prefer to avoid that as a solution as it seems a bit too broad in scope.

Still prefer the all bots generate energy option (turned on by default and allowed to turn off in settings same as it is now).

While it appears broad in scope it is a simplier implementation to address issues with both clan management for crappy bots vs good bots.

Your suggestion would be picking what bots you want to generate energy that are crappy and dont care about their trophy points which is fine. But good dumpers still need clan rankings over time to generate passive trophy points.

Turning on energy regardless of clan status for all bots would remove the need to maintain crappy bot clans entirely instead of needing to create a seperate clan system to handle this over sized clans.

The other beneficial impact of all bots generating energy by default is it would greatly increase scoring for people that dont have unlimited resources to dump on 1 bot making the clan race significantly more interesting and could steer the meta to be less reliant on hording resources and winning months for clans through years of collecting bots in reserve to use last minute.

The current attempt to address it via the Crescendo buff has clearly failed as it only increased the issue. The ideal path has 2 options I think to truely fix the meta.

1: Remove crescendo and turn on energy generation for all bots at the same time.

2: Double down on crescendo and add a scaling speed increase that would help low levels offset the power of dumpers that always have speed on anyways. While also turning on energy for all bots.

The second option might sound weird because this would indeed increase dumping speed but from a fight length % reduction arguement a crappy bot dumping energy every half second with an added 200% speed buff is only going to help save .25 ish seconds a fight. Vs the low level scorer that typically cant keep speed and energy buffs going cutting half the fight time off their anywhere from 1-5/6 second fights. Granted scaling through the month so at the start its impact wont cause cause insurmountable leads but by months end should be competitive to dumpers and have the ability to just keep no buff scoring if needed as the faster fights make it less painful to deal with.

I am not sure I agree with the solution being virtually unlimited energy availability. Especially if the change opts people in by default. Especially when established players with access to bots they normally wouldn't want to spend the time managing in clans potentially becoming free energy producing dumpers.

Potentially endless energy is the goal (IMO) for a game that has 3 current avenues of play, with 2 of them being completely irrelevant in the clan race aspect (tourney bot building and leveling), thus my argument for more energy is to help offset the requirement for new players to build massive amounts of individual armies to fuel their energy (because currently the entire games "free attack energy" is in the hands of a very select amount of people).

Ender's goal is to create ew players, and keep them. As the current system of play doesn't sustain that nor would it (no one is going to jump into this game with that mindset in mind). So they do what everyone else does when they first start. Tinker around, level, train, join a clan, and start fighting.

If every bot generated energy, they would be able to locate the bots that they can win against, gain energy, and actually lend themselves to being a productive member of the clan (and likely result in them staying and playing more and learning).

This doesn't remove the more advanced player's individual ability to have control over their bots' energy production, nor does it take away their advantage from owning said dumpers because fight limit and speed is still a factor.

It's just a more all around better solution to the problem of the game. Everyone fighting for the scraps and relying on those select people to maintain their massive amount of easily beatable bots and keeping them claned.

I don't believe new players are worried about energy availability. I feel new players are mostly interested in getting stronger, winning fights and gaining levels. However, the primary barriers to keeping new players interested would be the limited availability of buffs (fight speed in particular), the lack of any cosmetic/performance based rewards outside of trophy points (which are only there to maintain buffs), and the games monetization being stuck in the 90's.

If you want new players to stick around you need to focus on these issues, rather than diminishing one of the primary reasons players have for making new bots. Making it easier to manage, but not removing the need to manage them entirely, energy generators (particularly ones that don't rely on buffs to be useful) is really all that's needed on that front. It would also de-clutter the clan page, so that ziz/ot bots don't need 20 clans to house them all.

Actually forgot camping as an issue for new players, haha. Oh god, it's probably the single worst aspect of the entire game. I find it quite relaxing but I am unsure if that's because of some kind of 20 year long internalized trauma or if I am just autistic.

I'd disagree. I can still recall when I started and it went exactly how I described. Start playing, fighting and leveling, someone notices and says hi (this could be done on discord now), they show you how to play the game a little, and you desire jumping right into 1 of the aforementioned 3 categories this game caters to (and the competition of the clan race is going to be the biggest draw of the 3).

Buffs are a blight on the game. They created this notion that you can't play without them because of how much they've distorted the gameplay. Trophies are cosmetic (even though we currently treat them otherwise because they're linked to trophy points and TPS buy buffs).

Cosmetics for a text based game is hilarious. Someone I'd be willing to argue would be pointless (but fine if they were linked to TPS rather than buffs and buffs were removed completely).

And to your point they're not worried about energy. I could see that as an argument on day 1, but the moment they start playing, and discover the sheer amount of time and effort required to get to the point that the main players are, without so called free energy available to them, I can't imagine anyone wanting to "play" for 6 months before they even start playing.

We have 100k+ bots, many of which that have been offline for years, that could lend to benefitting the game as a whole.

I can understand that a new player may be hooked to bots4 by seeing that he can compete in the monthly energy, but what would make a player stick to the game in long term is the need to build resources.

For me that's what I like most in bots4, that you need to own different types of bots for different purposes, and crappy bots + dumpers are a great part of it.

Nothing quite like debating points with people that have resources already, that have spent 20+ years playing, and definitely aren't looking back at the first few months they played but rather seem to be making points based on their current sticking point. By all means, yes, let's refrain from looking at it from a new player perspective where they login on their newly created bot to play but rather 10+ years in where they understand they need 100+ bots to play.

For a new player yes scoring is probably the lowest barrier to get started playing the game. If you find a clan to take you and teach you a build and maybe give you some stars to help out cool you can start playing. The issues gonna start to appear with the most likely thing being getting the correct armor in this link someone sent me the showroom doesn’t have that thing I’ve waited for an hour what did I miss? Then you get kudos starved because they won’t have a method to easily refill as needed when handed a build. Their not gonna know oh shit I’m on 1 int trainings giving me nothing and none of these bots I fight have any what do I do? This build I got told is good needs millions of kudos how do I get them? Even some established scorers don’t have kudo chains to address this quickly. And it snowballs from there to buffs tp etc.

If they ask a vet how to resolve this stuff the easiest answer is you gotta build x to solve y for you. There’s no easy way to just inherently guide them in that direction right out the gate it’s trial and error in most cases error until they get bored and quit.

I don’t envy Enders role at all trying to solve issues like this without a vet finding a way to exploit it and there’s no easy solution at all. The games very niche already and you have to weed out people leaving quickly with those they like this type of grinding. When you find the one in 20 or whatever that makes it past this point they can usually stay around and enjoy it. But will always remain behind the power curve forever due to the massive head start people have

I might have been around when the game started but I have basically zero of my own resources. The only resource I have is my reputation as a player, whether that's good or bad, and the game knowledge I have developed over the years. So when I am making suggestions I am making them from the point of view as someone that hasn't got these resources built up.

That being said I believe it is a core function of the game to need to make multiple bots, and always be looking for ways to become more efficient with your play time. Making your own energy sources might not be glamorous, but it serves the purpose of keeping players engaged with the process of learning and improving their position within the game.

I also feel there is enough free energy available at the moment if players are willing to seek it out they won't have any problems finding it. Joining any of the top clans will give you access to RWs and kudos, which will provide you will the opportunity to make your own chains.

Bots is a slow burn. I believe removing the need for energy to be managed will have a detrimental effect on the game in the short and long terms, the main purpose of my suggestion is to allow players an easier way to manage their energy sources, which would hopefully also incentivize players to pursue that avenue of play for themselves.

I do believe the game has some glaring issues when it comes to the new player experience, however the main point here is to offer a relatively easy solution to one of the major hurdles when it comes to managing your own energy sources.

You could even remove the need to manage clan tax if the clans themselves are not eligible for clan related rewards, which would make it even more accessible for new players, and potentially have the benefit of a larger proportion of unmaintained energy sources being available, although I am not sure I would be in favor of that.

Dear horse has been beat enough, and topic has been brought back to original point, and I'm against it. It serves as a bandaid to a single sided issue that doesn't do anything for any player benefit. If a player has the resources to achieve what your suggestion seeks to solve, they have the resources that make this request moot. 👎

Dead horse*