I think it's been pretty well established that levelling bots have less appeal in bots4 than bots2. High level bots can no longer contribute meaningfully since there is no avg level taken into consideration in clan rankings, and due to clan size and energy gaining limitations, there is no room for them to fill treasuries either.
So with this new update, energy scoring bots are now rewarded even more? I mean the top scorer can get top energy, top energy monthly AND top 10 energy? While in the meantime levelling bots have to settle for slogging it out for the top level trophy, with a slight chance of snaring one of the top stat trophies if you're fine with screwing your bot over.
I don't think there should be this much emphasis on one part of the game. Levelling bots is a completely different aspect of the game that should be embraced. Personally, I focus on levelling because it is less static and I enjoy the challenge of building the best bot possible. There's no reason why there should not be equal benefits for gaining levels and energy/wins imo.
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The reason there's still only 100 trophies for stats like level and wins is because your progress isn't reset in these stats each month, giving players that have been around awhile a large benefit. In contrast, everyone starts fresh on monthly energy so it's far more immediate effort to obtain these.
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That still doesn't really address the levelling vs energy issue. Energy scorers have way more monthly platinums that are available to them than levelling bots. I forgot to include the top clan achievement as well, so that makes 4(!) potential plats that someone can take in one month, versus 1 for levellers.
Besides, it is a lot easier to get a plat for top 10 monthly energy than top level or top wins. You have to work your ass off for months on end to maintain no.1 spot in either of these categories, whereas with monthly energy all you have to do is work a bit harder for one month. Top 100 monthly energy could be feasibly earned in a few days, whereas top 10 level requires many weeks/months to obtain and then maintain.
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I can see Myriad's point, and Ender's as well. I have a wins bot, energy scorer bot, and this bot. My wins bot and levelling bot I startd playing at the end of open beta, and my energy scoring bot I started playing after the first month.
Neps - 5 plats (Level 200, Top STR, Terror Inc., 100k trains, Super+ STR)
Small Neps - 4 plats (2 top wins month, 100.0 ratio, 100k wins)
Little Neps - 5 plats (2 Top 1 Clan, 2 Top Energy Month, 100.0 Ratio)
I left out other plats on this bot that aren't really part of the "set" you'd attribute to levelling bots (Top Clan, All-Star, etc.)
I have to admit, I have spent considerably less time and effort on my energy scorer (or on dumpers) than on either of the two bots. Yet in two months time (and with less effort) it managed to get as many plats as my training bot, and more than my wins bot.
Also, I must admit, gathering energy is much more complicated than the mindless clicking involved with levelling or wins. I am always working/doing other stuff while playing bots, so endless training and raping 0.01 bots is easy, after some time it becomes second nature and you don't even notice it. Gathering energy requires attention and is much more involved. Levelling bots require thinking, but not constant attention. Plan a build. Figure out optimal trainbot. That's it, click to your hearts content over 9000 times, rinse and repeat. Same with wins.
Then again, this is only the fourth month of the game. I doubt plats will come easy to levelling bots a year into training, unless you are consistently getting Top Level monthly.
I do understand Ender's reasoning that Wins and Level are not reset. For example, for my wins bot, If I put a big enough lead on #2, I can take a month off and not worry about losing my spot. But still, what plats do I hope to achieve other than the 250k, 500k, 750k, and 1M wins trophies? 1M should take a year at least.
Where am I going with all this? I guess I'm trying to say that the most recent update is nice, but I hope the next update will be more plats for levelling bots. Ender has stated that more plats are to come, so I sure hope that's on his agenda. Whatever he does, however, I trust in his judgement. (inb4 fanboy, get your snorkel out of ass, etc) I have not always agreed with updates on first contact, but Ender has yet to implement something that I eventually did not see for the insightful change that it was.
(wtf, long-ass post)
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I don't see any reason to complain. If Ender didn't add the energy scorer update you would be running along merrily. You're exactly in the same situation as before except now you can also get another trophy every month. You've got 2 top clan platinums and a new energy achievement. The only thing to complain about is that last month you came 11th for in monthly energy. Just missed the platinum :) You will probably never have another chance to get it as the competition for a top 10 spot just went through the roof.
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leveling bots need to be more important to clans
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I don't know where you're coming from Saiyan. I'm complaining about the update because it is further tipping the balance of platinum trophies even further towards energy scoring bots. Yes, I earned a few trophies due to the update, but I would rather see better game balance than have a few more trophy points to spend. If you have nothing but taunts to contribute to this thread, then please don't post here again.
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Well, you're just complaining about others getting stuff without giving any suggestions.
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Yeah, what a strange thing to do in a complaints sections.
facepalms
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Any change that encourages people to play more or promotes bot-building is a good thing. The platinums for Top 10 monthly energy does just that. So I see it as a great addition to the game.
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This is remotely similar to the one buff/day scenario. If people could buy as many as they wanted in whatever time frame, more people would be playing, but would that necessarily be a good thing for the game? Similarly, if Ender gave everyone a free 1000x speed buff every day, that would also get more people involved in the game, but you couldn't say that would be good for the game.
In the end, I wouldn't mind the change as long as there were equivalents on the levelling side of things. I don't know what exactly, but there needs to be something.
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It looks like our views on what the focus of the game should be diverge at wanting to put energy and level on equal ground. I always saw leveling as a niche activity that was secondary to the monthly clan race. Even in bots2, Project X was all but useless for anything besides looking cool. Yes level factored into the jansindex equation, but the effect of my joining a clan was negligible and not once tipped the balance in favor of that clan.
I just don't see level as being as central to the game as energy is. The energy race is what players that join the game five years from now are going to compete in because it resets every month and won't become stale. It's great if players want to build leveling bots if that's what they're into, but I disagree that they should have equal benefits.
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but I disagree that they should have equal benefits.
that is lame
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but I disagree that they should have equal benefits.
that is lame
This.
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I have to agree with Ender on this one. This game is by design, to compete with other people, and in order to achieve this on a month to month basis the focus should be on something that is fluid and constantly changing which is quite obviously the monthly clan race.
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It seems the tactic atm is to build a whole bunch of low level whores and use scarab bots to plunder huge amounts of energy. I don't really see how that is changing and dynamic compared to levelling where you upgrade your bot every now and then, but if that is what the focus of the game is going to be on, then far be it for me to say otherwise. I will admit that there is less interaction going on between players in the level race, but since most top clans are just building whores as their main avenue of energy, I don't think there's a big difference.
I still think there are too many platinums available to energy bots. Before the change, there were a total of 9 monthly platinums available (4 stats, clan, wins, energy, energy monthly and level). Now there are 19, more than double what there were before, and all of these new trophies are given to bots less deserving of them than the other platinums (eg. getting 10th place monthly vs. top energy/wins/level).
I'm not totally against more incentives for energy gaining bots, but certainly not this many. I think if it were reduced to 5 or less, with golds perhaps restricted to top 25, silvers restricted to top 100 and bronzes top 250, there would still be enough competition without making platinums too abundant. Platinums are supposed to be extremely hard to come by and with 10 players in the energy race getting them every month I think that diminishes this somewhat.
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I agree with Myriad on the monthly energy being undeserving. I myself was one of the recipients of a top 10 monthly platinum.
I felt I deserved the gold I had before, but I don't deserve the platinum. In most cases I was comfortably top 10, but I was miles away from top spot, who now gets the same reward as me. Same goes to the bot who was 10th, who was usually further away from me than I was from 1st.
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The only platinum readily available to an energy gatherer is the top 10 monthly one. Plus it's not going to be as easy to get into the top 10 as it was before. Limited to one per month as well. So it will take 10 months placing in the top 10 to get 10 platinums, whereas a leveling bot can get platinums at a much faster rate. Can get the same in 2-3 months.
- Top wins (only one bot gets and nobody will catch up unless they quit)
- Top energy (same as above)
- Top clan (both leveling and energy bots can get)
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A levelling bot can get plats faster initially, but none of them are repeatable except for the level ones, and I'm pretty sure there aren't going to be many people who get any of those more than once. Energy bots get a steady stream of plats over many months which will allow them to get more than levelling bots in the long run. Also, besides neps and I there aren't any levellers who have the top clan achievement, which owes to the fact that energy is obviously hard to come by at high levels. Anyway, Ender has pretty much acknowledged that plats are more readily available to energy bots so I'm not going to continue with that any further.
I would still like to see fewer monthly plats and other trophies for energy, but maybe that's just me.
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