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Sleep Mode

tobapopalos

Hydroponics Developer
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Dec 14, 2007
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Change it so the minimum length of time you can hit sleep for is 1 week. I'm getting tired of people hitting sleep to avoid a bit of incoming like the great big vagina-faced weeny tools they are.

This could also class as a gripe.
 

Toast

Pruner
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Sep 1, 2008
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and not only are they great big vagina faced weeny tools (Greatest Insult Ever?), their face smells like fish.
 

Steve_God

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That would kinda defeat the point of it being called 'Sleep' mode :p
(More 'holiday' mode instead)

Also, they can't just hit sleep to avoid a 'bit' of incoming - it takes 3 ticks to activate, so even if an alliance was mass waving someone, they could still get 3 or 4 waves in before the player goes into sleep, even if they only hit sleep when the first inc was seen (and if an alliance was clever and suspected it, they would also get other players to send with higher etas with tractors/combines, etc...)
 

willymchilybily

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That would kinda defeat the point of it being called 'Sleep' mode :p
(More 'holiday' mode instead)

Also, they can't just hit sleep to avoid a 'bit' of incoming - it takes 3 ticks to activate, so even if an alliance was mass waving someone, they could still get 3 or 4 waves in before the player goes into sleep, even if they only hit sleep when the first inc was seen (and if an alliance was clever and suspected it, they would also get other players to send with higher etas with tractors/combines, etc...)

agreed.

some people care too much to not sleep, and dont know how to rebuild.. let them have thier sleepmode. or go with one of those many suggestions dax/polo etc mentioned a few times where sleep mode is removed and replaced by a 1week holiday mode. and the actual sleepmode doesnt lock your id from being attacked/defended just boosts insurance and injuries greatly whilst preventing you from sending out mobs.
 

tobapopalos

Hydroponics Developer
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Fine, change it to being called holiday mode. I really don't give a flying fart what you call it.

Don't think I haven't thought about all this already. I think having 8 hour sleep mode is a bad thing. It rewards people for laziness and encourages scorequeening. People need to learn to die and rebuild rather than believing getting zeroed is the end of the round. If you die you have more targets, easier land, quicker to rebuild. Plus insurance/injuries means you always have something to attack with.

And Steve - In all honesty I have no idea wtf your post was aiming at. So what if they have 3 ticks when they can get hit? They then have a further 8 hours when they can't get hit and everyone else in their alliance can. Not to mention the old "hey guys ID NOOB has gone into sleep mode in this alliance. Pick and send!"

I'm not complaining about targets I'm trying to hit going into sleep mode. The trigger for this suggestion/gripe was someone in my own alliance hitting sleep mode because they might not be able to send out from incoming. In the mean time the other 19 members are sitting there like chumps getting attacked and trying to defend because that's what you're supposed to do.

As I said on IRC last night, it's a crappy thing to do and it implies that you and your troops are far more important than anyone else, and you don't trust anyone else to defend you. Sure, everyone else might die and get land raped but why should you care?

I don't buy the "well it means when I get out of sleep I'll have troops to defend with", which is just daft. As long as your troops are safe you're just going to become more and more isolated in score from the rest of the alliance because they'll all be defending and dying while you're nice and safe. Which means you'll be a bigger target when you're out of sleep mode, forcing everyone else to defend against relatively bigger and bigger incs, and probably dying even more than they would if you had stayed out of sleep mode in the first place.

And solos are pussies as well, but that's a discussion for another time.
 

Souls

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Toby's point is, there should be no reason anyone can go to sleep for 8 hours and essentially "pause" the game for themselves.
 

Iamsmart

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Quit trying to change the way people play the game to the way you play the game toby. It makes you quite the smelly vagina you were describing in your OP.

Some people play the game for SCORE and RANK. There's nothing score queeny or lame about it. That's what we find FUN. If you make sleep moding a habit you WILL get caught with your pants down against a semi-intelligent enemy. If you use it as a 'I need a break for the night' I don't see anything wrong with it.
 

Souls

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Quit trying to change the way people play the game to the way you play the game toby. It makes you quite the smelly vagina you were describing in your OP.

Some people play the game for SCORE and RANK. There's nothing score queeny or lame about it. That's what we find FUN. If you make sleep moding a habit you WILL get caught with your pants down against a semi-intelligent enemy. If you use it as a 'I need a break for the night' I don't see anything wrong with it.

It's a real-time game that operates on a clock. Why are you allowed to "pause" a multiplayer game for short amounts of time to suit your needs?
 

Walking_Death

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Jun 28, 2009
Messages
212
Quit trying to change the way people play the game to the way you play the game toby. It makes you quite the smelly vagina you were describing in your OP.

Some people play the game for SCORE and RANK. There's nothing score queeny or lame about it. That's what we find FUN. If you make sleep moding a habit you WILL get caught with your pants down against a semi-intelligent enemy. If you use it as a 'I need a break for the night' I don't see anything wrong with it.

It's a real-time game that operates on a clock. Why are you allowed to "pause" a multiplayer game for short amounts of time to suit your needs?

because antirape is unreliable for solos. They have to have someone to help keep their mod high without 0ing them, or live in constant fear of being 0ed, which while it isn't the end of the round, it's certainly not a good thing. I believe sleep mode is something that only solos should have access to, and I disagree that solos are all pussies :p.

But for once, I agree with Toby partway. I agree that alliances don't need it because they (should, at least) have constant protection should someone decide, "Hey, I'm going to 0 that person." as well as having someone to contact them to send out should the **** hit the fan. A lot of solos don't have that, but alliances do and I agree, if you're in an alliance, they shouldn't be able to just hit "pause."
 

Iamsmart

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Quit trying to change the way people play the game to the way you play the game toby. It makes you quite the smelly vagina you were describing in your OP.

Some people play the game for SCORE and RANK. There's nothing score queeny or lame about it. That's what we find FUN. If you make sleep moding a habit you WILL get caught with your pants down against a semi-intelligent enemy. If you use it as a 'I need a break for the night' I don't see anything wrong with it.

It's a real-time game that operates on a clock. Why are you allowed to "pause" a multiplayer game for short amounts of time to suit your needs?

Because it's the only way solo is semi-viable to play at a competitive level. Implementation of ideas aren't about 'making sense' it's about balancing the game.

And your 'pause' analogy is a bit of an exaggeration.
 

willymchilybily

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Quit trying to change the way people play the game to the way you play the game toby. It makes you quite the smelly vagina you were describing in your OP.

Some people play the game for SCORE and RANK. There's nothing score queeny or lame about it. That's what we find FUN. If you make sleep moding a habit you WILL get caught with your pants down against a semi-intelligent enemy. If you use it as a 'I need a break for the night' I don't see anything wrong with it.

It's a real-time game that operates on a clock. Why are you allowed to "pause" a multiplayer game for short amounts of time to suit your needs?

because antirape is unreliable for solos. They have to have someone to help keep their mod high without 0ing them, or live in constant fear of being 0ed, which while it isn't the end of the round, it's certainly not a good thing. I believe sleep mode is something that only solos should have access to, and I disagree that solos are all pussies :p.

But for once, I agree with Toby partway. I agree that alliances don't need it because they (should, at least) have constant protection should someone decide, "Hey, I'm going to 0 that person." as well as having someone to contact them to send out should the **** hit the fan. A lot of solos don't have that, but alliances do and I agree, if you're in an alliance, they shouldn't be able to just hit "pause."

although in theory good. i remeber one round i joined a low down alliance, my only aim was to keep them alive. i had no land all i had was the troops from when i was high ranked, and i would sleep mode when i slept and be on all the time in between. it took the alliance from below rank 10 to rank 7 iirc. and made it very hard for many viable enemies to pick at them. they would need to organise proper attacks to do anything. i was in effect "boosting" a friends alliance by not caring about land or final rank but keeping them alive.

long and short of my post is that in some situations i think sleepmode is fine. for 8 hrs generally is how long a person sleeps if they are lucky. and i wouldnt begrudge its use in allies in the right circumstances. ive seen allies mass sleep mode so they could take a break. so to say it shouldnt be used if allied only applies to the majority of occasions, if someone in an allie uses it to be a score queen and doesnt understand that when they come out of sleep mode they will get so screwed over and trained to death then its the player not the game mechanics fault. maybe in time and after experiencing being trained once out of sleepmode and not getting defence from his allies (as you can call a land hit instead of everyone dying, and it is sometimes smarter to live to fight another day) the player in question will have learnt adn become better for his/her experience.
 

Steve_God

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And Steve - In all honesty I have no idea wtf your post was aiming at. So what if they have 3 ticks when they can get hit? They then have a further 8 hours when they can't get hit and everyone else in their alliance can. Not to mention the old "hey guys ID NOOB has gone into sleep mode in this alliance. Pick and send!"
Your initial post had a vibe of 'My target keeps going into sleep - I want to rant!' - obviously I picked up on that wrongly :p

The trigger for this suggestion/gripe was someone in my own alliance hitting sleep mode because they might not be able to send out from incoming. In the mean time the other 19 members are sitting there like chumps getting attacked and trying to defend because that's what you're supposed to do.
Then that's an issue for the Leader of the alliance to make a call on. Simple as.

If I was a leader going FTW, I would always allow someone to go into sleep if they weren't going to be online and wouldn't be contactable.
Other leaders may take a view that it shows a weakness, however I don't, as if anything it reduces the number of targets you may need to defend against, especially if you know they can't get online to send out.

If you've got a gripe against other members of your ally gonig into sleep and you feeling less important, then I'd advice to take it up with your leader.


It's a real-time game that operates on a clock. Why are you allowed to "pause" a multiplayer game for short amounts of time to suit your needs?
Because not everyone can be awake at all hours :p
Luckily, at the moment I'm happy to be 'contactable' and be woken at all hours of the night if I've got incoming, but not everyone is able to, personally I think others should be allowed to grab some sleep if they want to.
They get the disadvantage of not getting any income during that time, but that's the downside.
 

tobapopalos

Hydroponics Developer
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Sleep mode is something I've always had a thing about. I don't like seeing people sleep mode unless they're going on holiday. Anything less than that is cowardly.

I don't think a solo should be invincible. If they're active all day and sleep mode all night it is lilterally impossible to kill them. If they want to stay alive they should have to work for it by being active at day and having PNAPs covering them at night. To me, sleep moding every night just shouldn't be allowed. I can't blame them for doing it while the game mechanics allow them to, but I would quite like to see the mechanics changed so they can't.

I believe it is possible to compete as a solo without sleep mode and I think people are just scared to try. I portalled last round as a bunker on 1 hour a day activity and no PNAPs, so it should be possible to do far better with a strong route and active PNAPs without sleepmoding. Obviously you won't be able to do it as a 4 hour-a-day RPG with an extremist PNAP, but good solo play is about adapting your play style. If you're worried about getting killed then you make yourself a horrible target. Don't get land fat. Buy jeeps instead of PBs. You'll never be able to combine attacking powerhouse style with defensive bastion style, so pick one. Sleep moding is trying to have your cake and eat it, which I don't think should be possible.

I also think that when you have a playerbase this small and you have dozens of people sleepmoding every night it stagnates the game. There have been times in previous rounds where I've looked for targets on the search page only to see half of the people in my range in sleep mode.

I'm well aware that people want to play for score and rank (although you say this doesn't make them scorequeens? We'll have to debate this later) but if you really care about your score that much then play in an alliance. It's much easier than playing solo. The only real reason to go solo if you want a high score (unless you hate everyone and don't want to join an alliance for that reason) is because you like a challenge, which is usually why I do it. But doesn't hitting sleep mode every night vastly diminish that challenge?

We're trying to encourage people to be more free with their troops and to discourage contactability. Insurance and injuries are both there to support those who get zeroed, but we still have sleep mode there shouting "hey guys! don't listen to insurance and injuries! those guys suck and they want you to die. come and have my babies instead!".
 

Yochoko

Head Gardener
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
314
first of all, i'm still noob to this game and don't know entirely about the game (still lots of learning to do!), so, if i'm incoherent, excuse me! =p


i want to play any games while i'm awake and not while i sleep. i don't want to get pranked during my sleep for defense or for sending out. that's why i play solo in bush now. i don't mind getting caught after hitting sleep and losing troops and lands (if i'm not wrong, 3 land grabs at worst as i'm solo?). but i do mind getting 0'd AND losing MANY lands at the same time while having my sleep.. like being left with the money 1/5th worth of the troops i had before dying AND the 1/5th of lands (tbh, it's really a quite demoralising and discouraging moment. i haven't reached the stage where i can get over with it so easily yet. :S and hey, i doubt lots of people would go "not a big deal!" with a smile). even with 90% AR mod, one can be flak'd and lose so many lands. and with AR mod decreasing and having to buy some non-flak troops to keep saving lands against some incs, solos can't just buy up on flak and hit easy flakkable targets to get fat quickly unlike allied people who are in the same situation. i'm playing with 2 freinds in the (almost) same time zone who can defend me when they can. i don't want to impose 24/7 defense from them or defense for every single inc. sometimes we are busy and can't send defense nor send out during the day. so, yeah, it's unfortunate if we get big incs and we die. but i accept that as long as it's happening while i'm awake 'coz i know i'll check bush sooner than when i'm asleep, and will be able to plant, buy troops etc to stop the land hemorhage. or maybe one of my pnaps will notice my socre drop and will defend. but i care to have a decent sleep every night. i don't want to be deprived of it. and for the reason i mentioned earlier in my post, i hit sleep mode every night.

this is how *I* play and i don't think anyone can demand me to play other ways to suit *their* convenience. (unless ofc, i'm part of an ally. i'll commit and devote myself for the better of my ally.) i enjoy playing bush with friends. i enjoy good fights. i enjoy my sleep as well. as long as i'm around, i'm always up for a good battle. if my incs recall in view of my pnaps defending me, it's not my fault. if i don't want to expose myself blatantly "i'm asleep, so you can hit me" without hitting sleep mode, that's my choice. and i have some difficulties to understand for being accused/blamed for having my own choice to play a game.

besides, i think 'eventual sleep deprivation' isn't a positive point for attracting new players. (sleep deprivation as in, people worrying too much about their troops/lands and not being able to sleep, or/and getting pranked all night and ending up having only 2-3 hours of sleep per day for a few days or a longer period of time by playing in an ally.)
 
Last edited:

CFalcon

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While I do think sleep mode has many inadequacies, I'm also very much of the opinion that you shouldn't need to be available 24/7 if you want play competitively. The one thing that's damaged this game more than anything is excessive activity requirements courtesy of the chance of losing a months work and development in a single tick.

So until a better system to reduce fear of being wiped while sleeping is introduced, sleep mode has to stay. Either that or we cut away yet another chunk of the community.
 

Iamsmart

Landscape Designer
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Apr 26, 2008
Messages
1,668
Sleep mode is something I've always had a thing about. I don't like seeing people sleep mode unless they're going on holiday. Anything less than that is cowardly.

I don't think a solo should be invincible. If they're active all day and sleep mode all night it is lilterally impossible to kill them. If they want to stay alive they should have to work for it by being active at day and having PNAPs covering them at night. To me, sleep moding every night just shouldn't be allowed. I can't blame them for doing it while the game mechanics allow them to, but I would quite like to see the mechanics changed so they can't.

I believe it is possible to compete as a solo without sleep mode and I think people are just scared to try. I portalled last round as a bunker on 1 hour a day activity and no PNAPs, so it should be possible to do far better with a strong route and active PNAPs without sleepmoding. Obviously you won't be able to do it as a 4 hour-a-day RPG with an extremist PNAP, but good solo play is about adapting your play style. If you're worried about getting killed then you make yourself a horrible target. Don't get land fat. Buy jeeps instead of PBs. You'll never be able to combine attacking powerhouse style with defensive bastion style, so pick one. Sleep moding is trying to have your cake and eat it, which I don't think should be possible.

I also think that when you have a playerbase this small and you have dozens of people sleepmoding every night it stagnates the game. There have been times in previous rounds where I've looked for targets on the search page only to see half of the people in my range in sleep mode.

I'm well aware that people want to play for score and rank (although you say this doesn't make them scorequeens? We'll have to debate this later) but if you really care about your score that much then play in an alliance. It's much easier than playing solo. The only real reason to go solo if you want a high score (unless you hate everyone and don't want to join an alliance for that reason) is because you like a challenge, which is usually why I do it. But doesn't hitting sleep mode every night vastly diminish that challenge?

We're trying to encourage people to be more free with their troops and to discourage contactability. Insurance and injuries are both there to support those who get zeroed, but we still have sleep mode there shouting "hey guys! don't listen to insurance and injuries! those guys suck and they want you to die. come and have my babies instead!".

Just because you say it, it doesn't make it true. Solo's aren't incinvible - First of all of they sleep mode only at night, that's SIXTEEN HOURS to get them. That's a lot of time - more than almost any player is willing to put in consistently on a daily basis. Second - HE HITS SLEEP MODE EVERY NIGHT. I'm pretty sure that's a giant weakness you could probably explore. I'll leave that one to you.

Answer: Put some effort in to killing your targets. It takes time but you will eventually get them (unless its me, bizzaaaaaatch)

As for your 'achievement':

You went bunkers, so to use that as an example of being 'competitive' is a bit silly. My definition of being competitive is being top 25 all round and consistently fighting the top alliance(s) and beating them.

[more opinions by toby that I can't really argue against because they 'sound good' but don't have an actual point in the discussion]

As for the score queens bit - Depends on your definition of score queen. Most people refer to it with a negative connotation. If that's what you're referring to, then yes, it's bullshit.

Reasons to go solo? The challenge is sure a good one - But I just in general sometimes get sick of allied play - get sick of the responsibility. Good break round where if I choose to turn of the turbo speed I'm not letting anybody down.

I use sleep mode in a 'I need a break for the day' capacity because for reasons stated above it's not really a consistent thing you can do safely.

@Yochoko

a) sup silence_in_a_wig
b) you can lose eta 5,6,7,8,9,10+2 more if they *REALLY* want to land rape you.
 

tobapopalos

Hydroponics Developer
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I didn't say portalling with bunkers was an achievement. I used it as a comparison to show what someone else could do with more activity and a strong route setup. Plenty of people could've killed me but they didn't because they knew it would hurt and they'd get sod all land for it. I wasn't a worthwhile target. It is possible to do that with other routes as well.

If you want to take a break for a day, to my mind, you should have to pay the consequences. Sometimes you might die, and other times you won't. That's the risk of the game and I think the game would be better with the risk than with sleep mode.

If we're going to talk about achievements as a solo I would like to say that I don't see getting high ranked as a solo by using sleep mode as any kind of achievement. I don't know whether you did or not because I haven't paid any kind of attention to the top ranks in quite a long time, but I have seen a lot of solos get lauded for it plenty of times and I just wonder why. You check for inc every hour or so and then sleep mode at night. So you can be effectively invincible with not very much actual activity.

Also, I was not not complaining about my targets going into sleep mode. Personally if I am playing actively I'll usually go to any lengths to kill someone if I feel like it. Of course there is the possibility of catching someone going into sleep mode, but they can make it much harder than it sounds if they have any brains. All you have to do is change your pattern slightly from day to day and the attacker is going to be relying on pure luck trying to work it out.

1) Leave your troops home and nobody watching will be able to see you entering sleep mode. They'll have to guess. Ofc that opens up a bit of risk if someone guesses right but you can alter what time you enter sleep mode to make it harder to predict.

2) Send most of your troops out and leave some home in case someone sees and tries to sneak in a flak attack. And if they send everything there's always a chance they'll trigger AR anyway.

3) Have one of your PNAPs watching for any incoming while you go into sleep mode to cover those 3 ticks.

4) Or you could wait for incoming and get a PNAP to defend and then go into sleep mode as your attacker is returning home after he recalls (which most attackers do considering you can only send 1.45* the target's troop score in the first place).

There really are a lot of ways to decrease the risk of going into sleep mode to virtually nil. Those are the ones I can think of right now but I'm sure there are more.

This thread wasn't made to bash solos, but inevitably when someone mentions sleep mode the conversation turns to solos eventually.

I'm well aware that I'm in the tiny minority on this one, and, yes, I understand that this is the way I would like the game to be played. Funnily enough, wanting the game to change to what I think would be better is kinda why I made the thread in the first place. Craziness!
 

Yochoko

Head Gardener
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
314
@Yochoko

a) sup silence_in_a_wig
b) you can lose eta 5,6,7,8,9,10+2 more if they *REALLY* want to land rape you.

a) silence_in_a_wig and silence_without_a_wig are both doing fine! ;D the burning-out syndrome has made me play solo for a couple rounds now! :X

b) owwwww... ;__; i was being so optimistic then! i just still doubt anyone would put that much effort to calculate and wave a solo entering sleep mode in 3 tick time, though. (hm.. i hope i didn't jinx that now. :< )


on topic, i agree with CF for 'a better system to reduce fear of being wiped while sleeping is introduced, sleep mode has to stay' 'coz i think that's the reason for most of people who hit sleep mode. not everyone, though. i know some people like rather taking the risk of getting wiped and not hit sleep mode. it's good that they can sleep without worrying. but i'm not like them and will just worry a lot and won't be sleeping much. so, sleep mode is there to keep my health intact! =p
 

willymchilybily

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im a fan of sleepmode. playing solo hardcore isnt easy. and its a way any one can play if they chose, and i dont think even with sleep mode its easier than being allied. like ias says 16 hrs a day not in sleepmode, not many can refresh every few ticks necessary to keep them selves and thier pnaps alive, time it just wrong and death occurs. its alot of hard work. and if they want to play like that fine. i dont think sleep mode facilitates/encourages playing solo ftw because the amount of effort/activity is more demanding than allied play ftw. so it has no real negative impact. just a dwindling player base and people playing stupidly when allied make it seem more negative than it really is.
 
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