miscellaneous

just a thought, people are complaining there is no real clan race anymore.

So why dont the several small top 10 clans join up and form one active clan, i mean reapers is pretty active, silence is golden did pretty good last month, pirate heaven is pretty active, MV still scored over a million last month, why all the small clans?

Team up and lets compete, maybe even some eternal members who still score join, whenever they have time and the will to play.

lets bring some spice back in the game. i dont mind taking platinums every month though.

This just wouldn't happen as I wouldn't like to play in the same clan as Luthrin or Zal for example and there is no way an eternal member would leave. Me and Bazza can make it competitive but my problem is I don't have time to go all out to beat escapism again like we did in incredible fashion last December, and Bazza and fifty have in two later months(skills).

I have suggested reducing the amount of contributing bots to ten so many times but nobody listens to me because I'm a pothead and smoking weed instantly makes you dumb!!! I haven't even seen 20 bots online at the same time in ages.

I agree, there is no clan race because most of the best scorers are all on one clan. That's fine with me. If they can get most of the best scorers in the game to be on their clan then thats cool, they will win every month. Thats not the problem.

The real problem is that there are not enough easy energy targets to score on. I have a lot of time on my hands at the present so I have come back to bots. I'm leveling this bot while having low level energy bots where I try to score as much energy on the single bot and try to get in to the top 10 so I can get a plat.

I think that there should be some changes and it isn't to break up the monopoly that wins every month. Below are a couple of my thoughts on how to spice this game up a bit because it has indeed become stale:

1). Gather up the thousands of inactive and abandoned bots and put them in to whore clans so that they can keep generating energy each day. This will supply an endless amount of energy for the players (like me) that likes to sit around all day mindlessly clicking...

2). Bring back the Bots 2 system of letting clans declare war on other clans. That way you would get double the energy just like in Bots 2. This way you won't need to rely on trying to get trophies so that you can buy dark energy buffs to increase the amount of energy you get. The monopoly clans have an endless supply of plats because they win all the time and they can keep themselves supplied. I can't. Get rid of that.

3) I have other ideas that would liven things up a bit. Let the possibility of a one player clan like mine get itself in to the top 10. The way it is now it's impossible because there are a bunch of inactive clans that just sit there generating energy while doing nothing. Please don't say to just start fighting bots in other clans like are present in clans like Escapism. Thats just not realistic and everyone knows it. I'm not a bot building expert like some are and my builds can't beat their tourny winners.

I scored 430k energy last month and finished in 3rd place. The only thing that hindered me was a lack of energy targets. I do not have any dumpers (that others apparently use) to help me. I could easily have scored a lot more than the 430k that I scored. A million energy might have been possible on that one bot.

Sorry for the long novel but I think that Bots 4 could become more interesting if this energy system was changed up a bit. Cheers...

Build you some dumpers playa

Lack of targets isn't a new problem though, this is just how it'd be if people committed to big scores didn't set up their "infrastructure". Both dumpers and whores only exist cause "pro" players wanted to optimize scoring, nothing stopping the newbies doing that.

That being said, I'd probably be up for any radical changes to the game that mess things up, but I don't think anything will work. It's 2016, no one wants to spend hours on end clicking a hyperlink.

Dumpers are the easiest way to get a ton of energy but they're tedious to make and maintain. You need ratio whores to level them, kudos whores to supply them on top of camping all the equipment for them. It would be nice to see more competition in the game but theres no incentive to make more clans when you can be in something like escapism with endless resources that others built over the years. Its easy to tell someone to make dumpers to compete but its not as easy as it seems.

It's easy for me to tell someone to make dumpers. I've made around 35 without the first ratio whore. You wanna be a scorer you put in the time

Spoken like a player that loves the status quo. As long as he remains on a clan that has absolutely no competition so it can win everything every month then no problem.

What could easily be done is that the game would create whore clans and if your bot is inactive for 90 days (and it's not in a clan) then "the game" would place it in various whore clans based on the abandoned bots level. Then it can happily generate energy while new players have something to do rather than create more legions of abandoned bots after they get tired of the game in a few months. Other games do this or they delete the old accounts.

Some of you guys are always complaining about there being no competition and about unfair tourneys and other things but you refuse to want to change anything if it doesn't suit your needs.

No problem because Ender doesn't have any time anymore to make any changes at all. He still hasn't done some of the things he had planned to do 4 years ago when I lost interest back then. Plus I'll just build a new bot each month and beat up on your whores before you can milk them every day yourself. lol. No problemo... Have a great day...

The problems that you are describing Master Blaster, are the reasons why dumper clans exist. A guaranteed source of energy that is available regardless of how many free targets are available, regardless of how many active scorers are at a similar level draining said targets. They also spread out the trophy point demand over many bots.

It's easy to complain and ask for whores to target, but it's up to those who have the time to score to find the means. Cosby built 50+ lower level bots all himself just so he could drain them last month. When Eternal were dominating in 2012, Escapism slowly built up its player base and resources, and eventually prevailed. If you want to get to the top, you need to earn it as well.

I love how not one person has responded to my suggestion of cutting the contributing bots of monthly energy to ten and instead chose to respond to the ridiculous ones of the other guys about limitless energy etc. Escapism is the only clan this favours or works for. If Ender isn't going to change it he might as well just reverse the 20 bot rule and every bot in a clan contributes as there isn't any clan I can think of with 3 active players(yes 3) yet escapism has easily 20 plus if they are needed.

Escapism would still have a huge advantage with the 10 bot rule whilst giving other clans more of a chance(well an actual chance) but of course most escapism players would rather just score a measly 100-300k and pretend they are incredible because their clan won, but who did you win against? No one else bothers playing because they don't stand a chance.

I would love to spend all day clicking links fishwick if I wasn't busy why does what year it is change that, this wasn't exactly the latest technology in gaming ten years ago, if you enjoy playing the game you would probably come back to it, but why should I spend 6 hours a day each month playing on multiple bots when I still can't win, so I just focus on my bot and forget the clan race because there isn't one.

I think that your idea pothed is an excellent one. That might level the playing field a bit... I'm all for it.

I will when Ender starts allowing automated scripts, else it's too boring.

I'm ready to score again. who's with me ?

I kind of like the idea of bringing down the number of competing bots to 10 (or something like that). One of the ways bots4 clans are different than bots2 is the 20 member cap (this has existed in various forms - first it was a strict cap, then there were "NC" bots, and now we have the "contributing member" cap which seems to be the best of all worlds). I recall this being somewhat controversial when I first rolled it out, but Pothead's reasons for wanting an even lower cap are the same as mine were for introducing the lower cap in bots4 in the first place - more competition. Smaller clan sizes mean less barrier for entry and more room for more clans to grow. As long as the active playerbase is smaller, scaling down the "contributing member" cap seems like a fairly reasonable thing to do. Along the same lines, if/when the game grows more and the clan race shifts into a free-for-all, raising it back up to let a few bigger groups emerge would also make sense.

I disagree that reducing the number of competing clan members will lower the barrier to new players joining top clans. If anything that barrier will go up, as the likelihood of a new player contributing enough to make the top 10 of a top clan will be low. If you don't secure a top 10 spot, then in effect you had zero impact on the placing of your clan that month. Is that how you want to feel as the new member of a clan?

Anyway the low player base is not a new issue. Despite the perceived low activity, Escapism has recruited several players in the past months who have made very valuable contributions to the clan. Recruitment is just as, if not more important than individual scoring. You can't neglect to recruit and then act as if there is no one around to recruit and lament a dead clan race.

I agree, lower it back to the 10 top scorers in the clan that count at the end of the month.

Will that go for trophies if you get in the top 100 and you are not in the top 10 of the clan?

Also, how about turning on energy generation for bots that are not in clans? My idea above might be too hard to implement. Put those thousands upon thousands of abandoned bots to work doing something other than just sitting around clogging up the game. They can generate energy and then that will eliminate the need for energy dumpers and provide enough energy for all. I bet that would liven the game up and it could bring in more players too.

Bots has to be the only game on the net that does not provide the players with something to do other than training and leveling. There is no game created things to fight other than train bots which is nice but if players didn't create tons of bots there would be nothing else to do. We just need a better reason to fight them and turning on energy would do that.

I play other fighting games like Army Duel as an example. You can fight other players and game provided bots. They have clans, tourneys multiple times per day and a bunch of other competitions. Unfortunately they limit the number of fights you can have per day and it's real low. Thats why I like Bots better. I can while my day away mindlessly clicking.

Well, enough bitching by me. I'm just glad and happy you brought Bots back Ender. You certainly are doing a good job and we all understand that you are busy with real life stuff. You always come in to the forum to discuss things and that is way more than other game admins do. Thank you again. :-)

the only reason I don't like the 10 contributing bots idea is that it wouldn't even come close to changing anything. Escapism doesn't even have 10 scorers every month so what would be different?

Anyway, I think the one thing everyone seems to be forgetting is that Escapism are far from unbeatable in our current state. Our winning streak is only 4 months old, nothing compared to previous streaks, and our winning margins have been consistently less than 1.5 mill, sometimes even under 1 mill. Child's play compared to the dominant wins of Eternal in 2012 for example. All it takes is one or two players to step up and not be afraid to lose, and we'll already see more competition and activity without needing to take the dramatic steps of slashing clan sizes and the like.

it surprises me that everyone is always bitching about escapism winning and having all the resources.

When Eternal was dominating for like 2 years in a row nobody said anything.

Anyway, i just had a thought that maybe some top 10 clans could join forces and create a fun environment( i understand that not all players want to be in the same clan), i also disagree strongly with bringing it back to 10 players.

Finally an interesting discussion on the forum :)

I don't mind limiting clans to 10 contributing members although I also think it won't change anything.

Pothead, if you wanna have a chance, employ your limited time into recruiting and teaching players. Take advantage of the fact Escapism is winning every month to motivate people to beat us. MV won with just 3 people although I suspect 2 of them (luthrin and wilderness) used an ac.

Master blaster, you said you arent a build master, you dont have dumpers, you even dont have whores. Nothing is free you know? If you wanna get trophies and be well placed you should work as others did. If you dont want to work, you dont deserve to win. I dont agree you should benefit from whores built for example by players like Zal, who contributed much to this game in that aspect.

Bots isn't just clicking. It is building bots with different uses to make it possible to reach the goal you want to achieve.

To conclude, I dont mind any changes to the game. I know Escapism will adapt and dominate as we always done.

Of course escapism has ten scorers sully.. You along with Zord, the cause, myriad, ezvrainzas and malix have already scored this month on multiple bots that's six scorers already I'm sure lyrad will score when his dumpers fill up then there is execute, rene, fishwick, gpof and samuli could all score if needed where as in the second clan which is eternal currently just me and Bazza have scored,, this is the most active eternal have been in ages shoe and fifty have stopped playing and many others stopped playing a long time ago or have left so we could possibly get a bit of help from mr poo but that's about it or maybe we could let some forum readers in and hope they score a little to disguise the fact they are a forum reader.

I can understand escapism players feeling a little hard done to but it might encourage smaller clans to try and go for the win and therefore more competition and make the game a bit more active who knows? The cause even said himself that he doesn't mind taking plats each month as if to say it's ridiculously easy and that he wants to compete yet he is in escapism.

The cap would apply to the plats recieved for being in the top clan too which might encourage players to try harder for this plat, like Ender said it can be changed back if need be but at the moment I think a lowering of the cap would be very appropriate.

Recruit what players? There are no new players, very few existing players that actually play and most of them are in escapism, the game is also pretty hard to sell to your friends in real life too without explaining it to them for atleast an hour or so by which time they have got bored and don't want to see words scrolling down a screen ever again in their life. I would also rather play the game than teach others how to play it in my limited time.

I dont know if i will score much this month too focused on leveling my main atm :P

Maybe you're right and making it 10 would even things out. I don't think so but what the hell lets do it :)

Well malix and executed for example are two new recruits who are "new players": old players that comeback to the game after some inactive years.

Another recruit was sully who decided to leave atreides to join a more competitive clan. He didn't choose eternal because he dont like that clan (as many people in this game...).

Ofc all active people is in Escapism. We recruited them and thats why we keep winning.

I will tell you some possible recruits: priceless, master blaster and cosby. Well master blaster has an open invitation to join escapism if he wants to.

You, bazza and priceless should be able to beat us... I will say again, shoe was eternal's recruiter. Eternal's state is due to shoe inactiveness.

No one wants to work to win, they want it handed to them. Escapism have been super weak for a while now as a lot of us don't have time to score, but people just sit around moaning instead of clicking dem links.

Reducing clans to 10 players would certainly give other teams of people a chance to win, but it'd also stop lots of people playing. I wouldn't make a new clan or join another if I couldn't make escapisms top 10 scorers, I just wouldn't play.

i agree with Fishwick, you punish the less active players denying them a trophy, whatever colour of metal the trophy might be.

Escapism players clearly don't want to work to win fishwick if they want to keep the game this way, I'm simply asking for a chance to win, I could work all month 50 hours a week on bots and still probably wouldn't win. Exactly esvrainzas the relatively small amount of new players have joined escapism because they look unbeatable.

I'm not going to interfere with shoes recruiting just like most other eternal players never did even if he is inactive it's still his clan and he logs in every few months or so and accepts/rejects maybe sends a bmail or two, but a lot of new recruits sit waiting for his decision because Eternal members respect he is the owner we don't know who he wants to join. Of course if I know them and they would actively score then I would accept I got players to help me in alliance simplicity, port Royal, chimpus, leader, flo and a few I have probably missed but they either have stopped playing or joined escapism.

I don't think only the top 10 scorers of the clan only getting a winning clan plat, or top 10 clan gold trophy etc is unfair at all because it wouldn't be overly hard to do and the 10th to 20th place scorers for each clan still get to keep whatever small amount of wins and energy that they have picked up for the month(which is probably not deserving of a trophy).

I don't wanna argue too much on here, cause any change would be welcome/interesting (though I would say if we're making only 10 peoples score count, you need something else to go alongside it. No one wants to score on just 1 bot these days, its too slow and inefficient, so you're limiting clans to just 3/4 members essentially)... but:

I could work all month 50 hours a week on bots and still probably wouldn't win

You'd win the individual top score plat, just like you have done before, and you'd deserve it. But the clan race is about teams and Escapism is the only group of people that act like a team (though honestly not recently, we've not done 5m+ in 2016 yet). Everyone is acting like Escapism are unbeatable but we've lost 4 months already this year, and as far as I'm aware, no one would be up for a 10m+ battle right now.

I'm not going to interfere with shoes recruiting

That's a cop-out, admit it :P I don't like recruiting either. Esv has always been our #1 recruiter even though he isn't Rene/Myriad and he was responsible for many of our high scorers joining, including me.

No one wants to score on just 1 bot these days

I do !

Well we won't argue then that you welcome the idea, the bottom line is a lot of players have stopped playing leaving one clan a Goliath with none of the David's wanting to take it on and making the 20 bot rule look unreasonable. I enjoy playing on one bot and so do others sometimes if you look at the online page there is normally a higher amount of ip's on one bot rather than using say 5 bots at a time.

i get your point Pot, but we never had these discussions when Eternal was active and dominating in the earlier years, they were pretty much untouchable but people were still trying, and sometimes succeeded.

So now when it it is not ending up the way people want the system needs to change? I find that a bit strange.

You made this thread trying to solve a problem in the game, I gave you an answer and you say you get my point so how can you argue against it bringing up the past when the player base was much more active.

i started this thread with a complete different intention!

I understand your point of lowering it to 10 bots but it it wont solve the problem of player base, why punish the less active players.

Ok there are less active players now, just because there are less players does not mean the system has to change.

I brought up the past because nobody has had any complains then, Escapism was already there and we had some nice battles, most of them we lost but we were close, so members of Escapism invested time to improve win chances, which paid out on a coupe occasions.

Its true that most active players are in Escapism, because they never gave up and worked hard for their cause, still, we did not even reach the amount of clan wins Eternal had in total.

Soo now when we are more active then the rest its suddenly a problem? Even though your clan already did that?

Every Escapism member has worked hard and spend a lot of time to get to the point they are. Eternal did the same in the beginning, too bad most retired(i really mean this because the monthly battles were epic)

Neps. Rivan. Nos, were amazing when they were playing, look at Hof Energy, all still top 10, and retired for 2 years at least, Gpof joined us eventually, because leader joined.

And all the work we put into this clan is now suddenly being rated as supreme leadership? We ruined the game? Sounds kinda harsh, we never gave up when Eternal was owning it 8-9 months in a row, we kept trying, and now we are labelled as unbeatable?

Escapism is a very select group of good players which understand eachoter very well and we plan things ahead.

So yes we are currently dominating because of the lack of active players, this brings me back to the origin of my post, if some top 10 clans/players decide to team up it could be interesting again.

Sorry for this long ass post.

Great night all, im on holiday as of now :)

Since my name was mentioned twice in this thread, I guess I kinda have an obligation to talk about this. I spent a lot of time making a lot of suggestion/bitching threads much like The Pirate's to not much use. I can see why a thread like this has erupted in the past couple of days since without me around there is very little forum activity really. So, I'll try and keep this short:

1) As for TheCause's idea of having people come together, nice idea, but there are actually very few leaders on this game. For a couple months I helped to bring Malicious Villainous together and what I learned about leadership is that people generally do not like being told what to do and without someone right there at all times to prep others up, you just give up. So people have to want to win and they have to want to listen in order for you to win. And the people that can do that on this game are pretty much non-existent now. They just want a casual click-fest. This game is not for casuals.

2) I love you too Pothead. You've gotten better over the years though. I don't hate you though but between you, Bazza, and fifty, I don't see why anybody would really join Eternal. It's not what I would call a very welcoming place.

3) As for 10 member limits, screw it, lets all go 1v1 because that's how the people on this game treat each other XD

4) I've wanted clan diplomacy back since bots4 started. But I think the biggest problem is this game is staleness. Diablo 2 had the same problem and they came up with ladders/non-ladders + seasons to deal with the staleness instead. Say every year we start anew on a new ladder with everything reset but all our old bots are on a non-ladder and stay there and continue gaining platinums etc. Or maybe make a new server with just yearly resets. It would have to go back to the jans index system or something similar though so everybody just didn't make a billion level 20s to score on. But this would be a huge undertaking.

Overall though, I've stopped caring. I told Ender before how much I love this game and how much I want it to succeed, but to love something for so long without change is hard. If it was easier for Ender to do with his knowledge of coding now, I'd suggest he rewrite the game into something easier for him to work on and make bots5. All in all bots4 was a nice experiment to me, but it will never replace the love I had for bots2, the thing I actually wanted to play. The ability to talk to floR back in the day and help make new features like merging or get rid of milking etc. helped entwine me in the game since I felt like I was actually contributing and the owner was doing something. Now we have years worth of suggestions and Ender has no time to work on some of the bigger issues, it feels like we're all on this island and he's on another island and all we can do is talk by smoke signals every once and awhile. And it all just makes me sad, the entirety of all this.

Sorry this wasn't as short of post as I was hoping for. So I'll end with a joke since you probably won't hear from me much anymore:

Q: What does bots4 and a pregnant woman have in common?
A: They both haven't been touched in 9 months!

Rim shot.

1)This game is perfect for casual play from a scale of 1-10000 clicks approximately a day you can be as casual as you want, and people do play casually look at the hof history.

2)We don't really care if people don't want to join eternal although we are obviously recruiting we are quite happy playing .....casually, also im welcoming with anyone who is welcoming to me and get along just fine with most players.

3)Pointless suggestion from you, how strange.

4)Cool.

Q:What makes me sick?

A:Zals comedy.

Yes, but the casual nature of the game is why Escapism wins every month. Which is what the main topic is about here. Also, I thought of this a bit more and maybe a good idea would be to simply let people keep their total energy when they leave a clan instead of the current "you lose everything when you leave" route. This would allow people to join new clans and their friends easier and not have to make new bots or rid of their entire total energy mark on the game. I mean, we keep all our wins and losses, why not our energy?

Only downside I would see is maybe a lot of clan hopping and somehow not being able to transfer over your monthly energy. So it might be a bit hard to code in.

PS: I know you dislike my comedy Pothead. And the pointless suggestion was pointing out it doesn't matter if you had 2, 10, 20, 200 people in a clan, if people are going after you 1v1 and leveling your bots or onlining you or trying to ruin your fun of the game, then it doesn't matter does it? All reducing the number of top scorers in a clan would do is make it easier for 1-2 people to win clan races themselves. We should be thinking bigger than that.

But it's not like anything we say will come to fruition so this has been a giant waste of time on all our parts anyway.

I was going to say the exact same thing about keeping your energy if / when you leave a clan. Didn't feel like being laughed at like all my other suggestions are.

Thats a great suggestion... Why not make some changes that would better the game instead of keeping it the same way it has basically always been... Even small changes like keeping energy would be a small improvement over doing nothing all the time...

I totally agree! Keep the energy - it's not like you didn't score it if you leave a clan or it is disbanded...

Buuuut nothing is being changed or implemented anyways....

If the second largest clan is 1 to 2 active players then it makes sense for it to be easier for 1 to 2 players to win, if the game was more active the ideal situation would be more than 20 active players in 2 separate competing clans but it simply isn't. You can moan about history and try and argue against it with whatever quite unrelated points you have but no one can explain how the current situation promotes competition or a "race" it's more just like a weigh in each month to see how much more escapism weighs than everybody else, and sadly just drives inactivity into an inactive game.

As for the keep your energy thing I would rather just have this stat on the profile as it's nice to see how much total energy you have scored for the current clan.

If the second largest clan is 1 to 2 active players then it makes sense for it to be easier for 1 to 2 players to win

Are you serious? Pothead, it's eternal's fault for having just 1 or 2 people active. Recruit and you will have more people active. Atm I'm not sure if eternal is the second's largest clan... MV is as competitive as you are atm.

My advice: stop moaning and start working for a change in eternal current status. If you can't make a strong clan, maybe you don't deserve to win. What you can't do is switch the game's rules to fit your clan...

As for the keep your energy thing I would rather just have this stat on the profile as it's nice to see how much total energy you have scored for the current clan.

There no reason you can't have both montly energy, current clan energy and all time energy....

Yes Esvrainzas I'm serious, so I'm to blame for there being no competition on the game? Ok I will go and recruit players on a game which nobody plays anymore because there is no competition? This whole argument is laughable, the 20 bot rule was put in place for the exact same reason as Ender has already stated. Now it isn't in sync with the activity of the game. If I was in eternal back in 2012 then I would of left like I did in 2014 because I would have found winning way too easy and it's pretty boring.

Zord yeah I guess having total energy scored on the clan profile would work too.

no competition in the game*

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, everyone. There's some interesting discussion here - good indeed to see a lively debate on the forums. Thinking about this some more, bringing down the number of competing bots in clans to 10 would ultimately be a band-aid solution to the lack of competition. The real solution is to grow and promote the game, which I've of course been wanting to do anyway, so I'll probably continue focusing my (admittedly slow at times) attention in that direction for the time being.

More generally, I do want to provide more variety and things to do in the game as a way of stemming off the boredom/staleness that can eventually arise. I think reaching some sort of critical mass of features where there's lots of ways to explore/compete, combined with a flow of new players, will be a more sustainable way of running the game (as opposed to providing a constant stream of smaller updates/tweaks, which hasn't really proved sustainable/feasible over the now 6+ year lifespan of this game's existence).

Just lol. Can you explain the reason for the 20 bot cap and how it currently makes sense then?

And surely you have been trying to promote the game for the last 6 years but the player base has got smaller and smaller. It's just an excuse to save yourself some time and a lot of players moaning at you because they can't pretend they are winners for doing basically nothing anymore. I'd argue flor run this game better than you.

i agree with alot of what you said pothead but i have to disagree with the part about flor, flor was wank and absolutely useless, atleast ender does an update once a year no matter how useless they are and actually reads the forums to make it look like he is active lol

I think we should have a feature on this game where we can vote off people like Survivor. No SJ, no Pothead, no Luthrin etc.. it'd be like living in paradise.

Because let's be honest, it's not really Ender's fault we quit this game, it's because the people left are cunts lol. And I'm probably one of them. But at least I have the decency to quit and not bother people anymore :)

true dat TRUE DAT but if we didnt play there would be less people on the game and tbh i dont ply no more anyway in the last few months iv probably only clicked train 50 times lol

Pot, what Ender said is fair, imo (rumour is that I have to say that or he'll remove my mod...)

You've obviously got a pretty big problem with the game, but the problem is just the way the players are playing the game, not with the game itself. It wasn't a problem 1/2/3 years ago when we had lots of competition, so does it really make sense to arbitrarily change 20 to 10 just to temporarily "fix" it?

What if Eternal then start to dominate and no one else can win a month, does he move it back up to 20 when Escapism start complaining? What if setting it to 10 motivates 3-4 top Escapism guys to come back and "dominate" more than they currently are?

the thing with lowering the clan to 10 would be that most people wouldnt leave the clan they are in as that will result in a loss of total energy so it would be the same as it is now really just with 10 people

and the smaller clans still wouldnt have a chance to win

I've changed my mind. I say to keep it at 20. Why change it. Also, Ender is doing a fine job with this game. He brought it back didn't he and I'm glad he did. There is a thing called real life and I for one understand that he has a life outside of Bots. Now if this were his full time job (which it isn't) and no updates were being done then I would be concerned. When it comes to who is or was a better game admin, Ender beats flor hands down. Flor had absolutely no personality at all and he listened to no one. It was like he wasn't even a part of the game. cheers...

What's the point in me even posting anything, an escapism member moans there is no competition so I point out a perfectly reasonable solution to help the game, which the games owner agrees with and a few others do also but wait it's a band-aid solution so let's not bother and just carry on enjoying there being no clan race.

I have no problem with the game I still enjoy it and probably always will there is more than a "clan race" for me to focus on, but let's be honest the cap lowering makes perfect sense, harsh admittedly on escapism members who have done a great job of building a successful clan but it's what's best for the game, escapism would still probably win most months because we don't even have 3 active scorers... Like every other clan.

As Ender already said before people unsurprisingly started moaning it would be pretty easy to raise it back to 20 when activity grows but at the moment the 20 cap imo is plain stupidity. All the scenarios you have pointed out fishwick would involve much more competitive months than we currently have. This month it's myself versus like 10 other players in escapism what a nail-biting unpredictable month!

myself versus like 10 other players in escapism

3, not 10

myself

There's your problem, why should we change the rules because only one guy in a clan is scoring and wants to win?

You wouldn't even come remotely close to winning, regardless of what the clan limit was. You'd lose at the minute even if it was just 1 person per clan, and every number above that. The reason no one can challenge Escapisms slacky 3 top scorers this month is because everyone that's scoring elsewhere has decided to do it in different clans, otherwise they'd be winning.

If anything, I blame that on Eternals reputation loss over the past 2 years, not Escapisms "amazing" 3 scorers.

5 bots have gained energy for eternal and 17 bots for escapism. That's all you can come back at my previous post with?.... what a shock.

Anyway I give up, you're right and I'm wrong.

Maybe escapism members shouldnt make threads asking for someone to play against though in the future.

I forgot to ask how eternal has lost reputation though? If you're hinting that its because i rejoined then thats funny because i managed to get a hell of a lot of support from numerous players at alliance all great people who i got on well with and who wanted to score for me. eternal has done nothing wrong and we certainly dont exploit bugs to not have to pay clan taxes like escapism do, nice cheating there guys.

shhhh about the tax bug cant help it if people have better accountants than others lol

I'm open to scoring for a "proper" clan.

You know, one that isn't just me haha.

Pot, I did not start this thread to troll, but just to give an idea or an alternative to make things more active and competitive.

And to specify, 17 bots scored, 3 people own 2 I own 5 in top 20(clan), so still not that many players, plus most don't have that much energy, but apparently enough.

I forgot to ask how eternal has lost reputation though?

Mostly through Shoegazer quitting I think. He did a lot for Eternal, there's no doubting that. Nosferatu, Titan, Rivan, Draoi's silliness, thing, Neps, these were the people that made Eternal a nice place to be and score in. Between Rivan's, Nosferatu's and Neps knowledge and crazy amount of dumpers and Shoe, thing, Titan and Draoi's fun demeanor, there were always conversations, ideas, builds, how-to-beat Escapism strategies going around, stuff like that. The forum fell into disrepute when it was thought that Escapism members were joining to spy, which they probably were at the time, they like to know their enemies after all. So, after I say all this, what exactly is Eternal now?

Pothead, fifty, and Bazza mostly. Not much in the way of recruiting because of your severe distrust of Escapism members. Where you guys have stopped recruiting and keeping active members, Escapism has kept their rosters up. In Escapism's eyes you have lost reputation, but I think it's more of a general laziness from whatever leaders you have to recruit new people. Who cares about reputation really.

Generally speaking if you can't get along with the few people left in this game, there isn't much reason to play it. It's much the same with a lot of other multiplayer games that let professionals play with noobs. A good example would be ogame or Tribal Wars, two multiplayer browser games that give noobs a week's protection but who really cares when as soon as that protection wears off, some guy with a million score who's been playing for 10 years comes along and destroys you like nothing? It's an exercise in futility. What needs to be done is to find a way to keep the game new without pissing off the old players.

I would gladly make a new clan and train all the new players in this game, but it would be better if I could do it with a fresh slate with them. Telling them that dumping exists and 0 damage weapons has always gotten the same "WTF are these doing in the game? That sounds broken as hell" responses. And that's without me giving anything but the facts. Ender views the game from up on high and has not actually played it since he made it. If he secretly played it like a normal player I'm sure he would hate his own creation. Now he has vacation and will he use any of that time to work or play the game? Hell no, this is his hobby. I've told him to sell it or give it to someone else so many times because he simply has no time for it but here we are years later and just standard PR responses every time something comes up. Escapism gets whatever the hell they want, nobody gets anything else. I would outright say that I'd hire a hacker to delete this game but it'd probably cost me more than Ender makes in donations. There's also something Ender hasn't told you about in the months since I brought it up with him. A meeting in which I had to schedule days ahead of time -_-

Sorry for the meandering as I'm kinda in pain at the moment. I have a lot of hate for certain people on this game, and Ender is not free from scorn. I go on other games and find such nice people all the time and have so much more fun that this game barely registers on my radar anymore. Why make whores for assholes to use? Why make dumpers when I really have no idea how to use them (xD)? Why lead a clan when I can't trust if people are legit or not? Why spend hours making dumpers with a showroom that is more random than Diablo's loot system? Why play with people who have an advantage with stars and can make dumpers in a matter of minutes and just order a set of armour for them? Some of these are my fault for not being "interested" enough to do. But what I feel is that I don't have any choice on this game. I did on bots2 with who I went to war with with my whore clans, and I had jans index to keep me interested in making whores/my main bots, but the legit thing has never really changed. Everyone just gets to do whatever they want, like 4chan xD

GG if anybody actually reads all this.

fuck reading that shit its way to long maybe you should just keep it short and sweet next time

I read it Zal, if that makes you feel like it wasn't wasted time.

Ville certainly had a negative affect on Eternals reputation too. And for me at least, I just preferred when the rivalry was with Gpof, Sam, Nos, Shoe, etc. They were fun to try to beat as there was some level of comradery, even if we were rivals. With Pothead, Fifty and co its like we're mortal enemies, and that might be a bit of motivation, but it makes the game much less enjoyable. Interactions were banter and fun (which probably led Gpof and Sam to join us after leaving Eternal), but any interaction with Pothead and Fifty is well... stressful and "meh".

I'm only going to point out what all the older players have stated countless times, but explain the reason why I continued to play bots2 from 2003 until its demise, but quit playing bots4 very quickly. Simply put, the energy system.

I understand both flor's and Ender's disdain for both "whore clans" and "dumper clans". They both go against their original vision of this game, whereas people actually fighting other people. That being said, and I'd assume after nearly 15 years, they'd have realized no one likes to work overly hard for their rewards when it comes to gaming. Give us a challenge, of course, because making it too easy (think about cheat codes in your normal pc games) usually ruins the experience and you end up moving on anyway. Make it too hard and people give up and move on also.

For me, I liked the clan score system as a base. It allowed anyone and everyone to start the game and be able to utilize them to gain clan score. It didn't matter your level. It didn't matter your build. You could literally make anything and participate in the clan race.

With the way the system currently is. IE Ender being able to do a lot more than flor ever was to push more people to play the game as they both originally intended. This forces older players to go against the status quo, and having the knowledge of the game to do so, and work around it to circumvent the system as designed and still be able to compete. This explains why there is rarely more than 2-3 clans really making a push for #1. Those clans have established members with the knowledge and understanding of the game and are able to work with it to accomplish what other players can't. Putting aside the fact they have spent the last 6 years developing what they have now. If we wiped the slate clean (deleted everything today) Those players would be able to build those systems back quickly. New players who don't even understand this system now, wouldn't be able to do it then. You have to put everyone on the same playing field in order to retain players.

Now I'm not saying if you brought back the old system, older players would return (not likely, most have moved on), but at least new players would be able to pick up the game, play it easily enough to reap rewards and possibly stick around to continue to play.

fuck reading that shit its way to long maybe you should just keep it short and sweet next time

I would've made it shorter but it was a series of topics that I've kinda built up as to why the game isn't working that well. Plus when I'm bored I tend to go on long tangents. Probably could make a book if my body didn't hurt :P Also, games are complex things, making a simple, useless Steam review like "Harambe likes this game, 10/10" or "gud game, bad players" is just something I don't like doing.

And Fishwick, I forgot about Ville lol. Those memories tend to get thrown away and replaced with much better ones as time goes on. Oh, and something you might not know if you haven't talked to Bazza, but Bazza hates Escapism more than both Pothead and fifty put together xD It was/maybe still is his only sole reason in playing this game.

And as always, I agree with Nos. Anyone with half a brain can figure out what's wrong with the game, including Ender. But having the time/will to fix something is different. I can see why Ender didn't want to make the game the exact same as bots2. I'm fairly certain that floR told him that he would let him do it if it wasn't the exact same. So specifically, the problem with this game has always been its creator. They both started out strong, changing things, then got complacent and let whatever happened happen. Once development stops on a game, people who play it later on tend to see what wasn't fixed much more. Games are very disposable, and the fact that floR/Ender ever found a long-lasting community for this game is a miracle in itself. People buy/rent a $60 game now, play it for 10 hours, go buy another $60, do it again a week later now. That's why games like Evolve had to adapt or die. There is nothing more annoying to a creator to watch their creation die. The only way to cope with it is to slowly give up on it or try your best to save it.

Generally speaking I hope he never listens to me since I never donated anyway lol. All of this could of course be changed if there was more dialogue between the clans. While everyone else uses dumpers, you other clans could make a set number of rules to play against each other with, it doesn't have to be the way Ender designed the game :) Who cares about the stupid HoF, it's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Fun :P

tl;dr for SJ: caveman clicking noises OOOGG, OOOGGGG, AHHHORRRGGG

I read it too Zal and to be honest I sort of agree Although I don't think me, shoe or Bazza fifty etc can really be blamed for eternal reputation we all work and don't have as much time to recruit etc and shoe has probably hit 1mil and thought "do I really want to spend any more of my life playing this game?"or has simply got bored of winning or the fact that there is hardly anyone playing anymore might put him off.

Fishwick how could anyone of known vile was cheating he did it for years and he only got caught because he confessed, eternal members can't take any blame for that, we should get sympathy as he was a close friend to us but was lying all along. You make out me and fifty are spiteful and interactions are hard but when have I ever cursed at you or done anything unsporting? It's hard because you will argue that white is black and don't like to accept I'm right especially on this occasion you were all for it when Ender agreed and had your own ideas on it, this thread makes me laugh. You create this evil picture of me I guess probably because it feels better to beat me or because you don't like how well I have done individually on this game idk? But in reality I'm a pretty normal 24 year old who goes to work, pays taxes and helps whoever needs it in real life, and I'm sure if you met me in real life your opinion of me would change, yes I smoke weed instead of drinking like most other Brits.. Does that make me a bad person? I think if I was nasty at all then I wouldn't be so close to dragon rose and shoe and as I have said already so many times got a a lot of players to score for me in alliance.

Nosferatu If you are suggesting bots is recreated then I definitely wouldn't come back I have invested too much time and won too much to start again.

I forgot to add though to nosferatu (sorry last few posts have been a lot to take in) I agree that clan score was more enjoyable but I don't think new players would really want to have to build whore clans to start a new clan and hope for success. I also kind of disagree that it's harder for new players to start playing, playing the game isn't the hard part I think understanding it is ...a new player could make 4 bot of varying levels under 100 and if they work hard all month and have a little help can win without having to build dumpers. I agree with the cheat codes on a game though that sucks lol.

ville is the one who made eternal lose rep

Pothead, you take things personally for some reason. I didn't say at any point what I thought of you as a person or anything close, all I said was we're hardly friendly, especially compared to how I was with the old eternal guys. Its not fun like that.

Eternal DOES take blame for Ville, because Shoe knew about it for a period and didn't kick him/tell Ender, just said "don't do it again", which of course Ville didn't listen to.

was funny when everybody found out about ville as i knew for quite a while but to know shoe knew and never said anything that helped to fuck eternal over also

Fishwick if we are not friendly then thats you with a problem, you have never done anything to offend me e.g personal insults or w.e, so I have no real reason to dislike you. We are just in rival clans and obviously clash opinions in heated debates..

I struggle to believe shoegazer knew and if I owned Eternal and I knew ville would be kicked instantly so why hasve other eternal members lost thier reputation surely on ville has lost rep

He did know, Ville told me himself. You're taking it personal again. I never said other eternal members lost rep because of that, just that the clan did. Harbouring a cheater and coasting off his success isn't a good thing.

Honestly though, its an insult to what Eternal was if you try to say they're seen as the same now as they were then, and I don't mean that as an attack on current-Eternal. Eternal were full of the best players in the game, innovating, coming up with the best strategies and just dominating the game for a long, long time. It took a massive organisation, with multiple failed attempts, (and mostly the fact that Neps quit) to finally pluck them from first. Current Eternal are capable of winning months, but they won't win 15+ months unanswered, create new methods of dominating the game and be known as the only elite players around.

Compare it to Man Utd or Liverpool now - they're pretty good teams, capable of winning the premier league (and it'll be expected of them in the coming seasons), but they aren't the world beating, unstoppable forces they once were (90s/00s for United, 70s/80s for Liverpool).

Shoe saw the AC with his own eyes

maybe shoe should respond on this and confirm lol

If Ville told you, who as we all know was probably the biggest liar on bots for the last few years then its hardly solid evidence. If its true then i would of disagreed with shoes reaction. He is a legend of the game and him and bazza are by far the best scorers to have graced the game and deserve the utmost respect for their accomplishments.

I wasnt taking anything personally, only questioning imo a ridiculous statement.

High man o/

Do you mean graced Bots4? Because Bots2 had legends that made me play the game just to try and be as good as them :P

High man o/

Yes bots4 but of all bots players I don't remember too many having over 1 mil wins on one bot or like 1.2 mil wins on 3 combined for the same clan that's ultra consistency yet consistently at the top.

Stfu pothead!

Shoe himself told us on IRC forever ago, not just Ville. Just throwing that out there for your disbelief. That priority of winning over integrity he has, it's the same thing that through me for a loop when he let you join, even after I asked him not to. I didn't think he would do it, but he did.

haters. i dont really understand what i have done to both of you, you both just seem very unwelcoming and maybe should consider councelling. Thats great gpof but as a forum mod i highly suspect he would be against cheating....i would of acted differently like i said but i think the main thing here is me and shoe are not cheating.

I didn't mean anything by it, it's the past. I just though it was a similar scenario.

No that's not the main thing, pothead. As usual, everything has to be about you but that's not what we were discussing, sorry.

Eternals name, as a clan, not as individuals, has partly been drawn into disrepute because of how the owner handled having a cheater in the clan. He chose winning and success over fair play and morals. This has absolutely nothing to do with any active eternal players being a cheater.

Fair enough, I'm not here to argue..the topic is about creating competition so i made a reasonable suggestion.

pothead just accept that they hate you and think you are a cunt lol

I dont care if they hate me, I know I'm not a bad person.

well i have to disagree with you as you once told many people you APPARENTLY have dealt drugs that my friend is a bad person

To sum up this thread:

Ender is Hitler.
Fishwick is the SS.
Pothead is the Jews.
SJ is the Pope.

And everyone else is French.

Haha that was quite funny!

SJ I apparently sold a little bit of weed when I was younger, like 0.5 ounces some say! So what i didn't harm anyone.

-pothead

oh so you aren't as much of a drug dealer as you made out you were lol

This thread has been seriously derailed and I will only add that there is misinformation being asserted regarding what I did regarding Ville.

Ville never showed me his AC - only claimed he had one and claimed to use it. Ville confessed to me and within a few days confessed to Ender himself.

I've been preoccupied with other interests for quite awhile now and do not foresee me returning to the same level of activity as previously in this game, however, I still enjoy grabbing a quick 1000 energy here and there.

Maybe we all need just a fresh new start. Reset hype !

Let me assist with the derailing process. Zal, Fuck you! Pothead no one hates you, it's just no one likes you. FISH! you still owe me 77 battles on one of your RW's. Shoe you're hot as fuck buddy keep it up. All this talk about ville is turning me on, dude can stretch my inward anal wrinkles anytime.

And Ender wonders why this game isn't attracting new people lol.

Maybe if we had a bit more censoring and a bit more of the old "get rid of the trolls" we'd have a better game. But there's a reason nobody uses these forums. People like Pirate get chewed up and nobody listens. Ender goes on vacation for two weeks and it's anything goes, even with 2 moderators around not doing their job. There's obvious flaming and trolling going on (I even said that Hitler thing as a trap to see if anything happened) and nobody cares.

This community is at its lowest point it has ever been. There's no control, no nothing. So congratulations guys, you made this place worse than 4chan. And I didn't think that was even possible. Mind you there's even worse things going on behind the curtains here, but this is bad enough :(

And I'll take that fuck you Luthrin. I have been bad to you and tricked by others. So I deserve it. But hey, at least we beat Escapism and Eternal together :)

PS: Shoe, we should talk sometime for laughs, you big old treehugger =D

Thank you for posting Shoe. It was nice to read something from you :)

It's a pitty you don't play anymore... Well you will never lose your top energy plat so you can rest and enjoy life now :P

Jeez Zal, aren't you ancient in terms of bots average age? Why are you the one I want to tell to grow up? Calling someone Hitler wouldn't be enough of a reason for me to delete/mute/ban an active contributor, never mind the biggest troll we have, who everyone has come to expect nothing beneficial from. You should move to England, the Government are making huge strides in making everywhere a safe space where no one can ever possibly be made sad because a nasty man on the internet said some words :(

That being said, I'll bite your bait and mute you if you like, you've become a very negative influence on the game because of your constant whining about something that you never actually take part in.

go fishwick go fishwick in your face zal you piece of shit so negative zal pfft should be ashamed lol

You don't take part in anything either Fishwick. Neither does Shoe. Jans and Rose are gone. So you calling me useless is calling the kettle black just because I'm not in Escapism or Eternal with the illusion that I'm doing something. I did help MV win a couple of months while you sat on your fat ass and let your clan lose. So don't talk to me about being useless (for the past while anyway).

I'm normally not negative. I did propose a few suggestions in this thread. I made fun of you guys when you all starting repeating ancient history in the form of Ville/deriding Pothead + Eternal etc. You guys don't let anything go and nothing ever moves forward.

And for the last damn time I'm not a troll. You guys mistake any activity on this forum as a cry for attention. Oh no, I don't like this system, maybe I should talk about it, what, it's never going to be fixed or even talked about? Great. It's easy to be seen as a troll on a game that has had no large updates in years. Everything has been talked about, everything has been decided, and I talk about these things in the event that a new player comes along and wants an explanation of why or wants an actual expansion on their idea than the typical Ender doublespeak that translates to "when I have free time, so like, 2019 or something". I do regret ever talking in this thread though, only did so because of a couple of replies.

To be finally back on topic here: The clan race has improved this month because Escapism pissed off Pothead and Pirate etc. have been active. The idea that these clans should join forces is a good one but this thread clearly shows there's a large rift in the community from a goals perspective.

PS: Blow it out your ass SJ, you're good at that ^_^

And Ender wonders why this game isn't attracting new people lol.

Maybe if we had a bit more censoring and a bit more of the old "get rid of the trolls" we'd have a better game.

You honestly think the management of the forums have a direct correlation to the games activity right now? Please, if these forums were as heavily modded as you seem to expect they should be, there would be nothing. All there would be are suggestions, and this thread is a decent example of how that goes.

Apart from that, the forums are quite tame in comparison to how they've been some other times. In part to less activity I'm sure, but less toxicity either way.

There's no control, no nothing. So congratulations guys, you made this place worse than 4chan.

lol

And for the last damn time I'm not a troll.

I agree with you on that front. Although, often times your responses seem very irrational to me, or at least parts of them.

+1 Gpof.

Also Zal, you didn't do a dam thing for m.v other than disappoint us. You talk the good talk zal, about honor and justice and blah blah blah, but your behavior to your clan mates and other players has shown us that your words are flimsy and unstable to say the least. YES! you are generally a good guy and everyone can see that, but the way you carry yourself, id suggest you should just go to 4chan and leave the bots community alone.

Maybe getting that George Washington was good for you Luthrin, you seem to have grown up a little and clearly get emotional from time to time :)

I think every clan that comes below 100 in the ranking should get a new trophy.

• Name: Donald J Trump
• Description: Lead a clan to top 1000 as owner. Awarded end of each month.
• Grade: Turd
• Repeatable: Yes

Grade: Turd

Is that the trophy, or the recipients grade?

Is that the trophy, or the recipients grade?

Yes.

Moo or not to moo tis the question.

definitely MOO, Moo until you shit yourself mate

Makes sense the smaller clans should merge and make a bug active clan??

So Ender, it's been 8 months after agreeing my idea to cut the energy contributing members of a clan to 10 is the right move for the competition/activity of the game, then suddenly changing your mind(lol)?

NOTHINGS CHANGED: the game is sill dead and uncompetitive, there hasn't been a competitive/fair clan race since this thread was made(waits for the oh we only won by 100k that month comment lmao) would love to hear about the steps you have been taking to attract and retain new players? I understand it might take a while for your response since a vast majority of the player base got fed up with you doing nothing so you announced recently you would do a little less.

You salty?

Only around the genitalia for your mom, she loves the seasoned sausage.

Here's a motivation video for Pothead and Eternal for the month.

As for Ender, we all know he's gone.

Every clan already has less than 10 contributing members pot

.....

Um, what changed? Is it 10 members can only contribute or is it 20 still?

Only around the genitalia for your mom, she loves the seasoned sausage.

Regardless of whom it is for, that implies sweat, which in turns implies you need a shower. Wash your disgusting balls.

\o/

\o/

Regarding the recent Escapism scattering dumping, I want to clarify one thing that some Eternal members may think and it's not true. My scattering dumping was done exclusively with Portugal dumpers. I shared the pw of Runners and Fringess clans with my team mates and all the energy dumped with those clans was performed by them. I don't want to have credits for something I didn't do. I'm not crazy to the point of using 7 dumpers at the same time lol

Ok....

im not even needed :) wonder what will happen if i would score as well, relax, i cant :) go for it, heil escapism :)