Final word on tattoos and virtual PR (in Changelog)

There is no such thing as Virtual PR anymore.

This does not mean that tattoos do not affect your fight rewards anymore; this means that equipping a tattoo visibly increases your displayed PR.

There is no such thing as an oversize or undersize tattoo; there are only tattoos that increase your PR more or less.

Hopefully this will clarify why your rewards act they way they do.

So does this mean equipping a tattoo will affect forging?

yes!

This is greatly appreciated :)

I went up abit in PR.

okay, but how come my displayed pr went from 120k with or without a tattoo, to 98k with a tat, and 92k without?

Happy! forging is easier with a tattoo!

Oh great, now its just like all other online games, you can buy your way to the top.

so my tattoo now doubles my PR because it originally was double the level of my PR.

also is forging indeed affected by tattoo size now? that would definately change some things...

and about rewards, i get around the same rewards as before then virtual pr => pr change but am forced to fight people with lower pr now due to my big bottom tattoo :(

I find plenty of people to fight, be I think it's just strange that a 100k PR character fighting people with 200-250,000 score averages under $100/fight.

Why did characters without tattoos equipped lose PR?

For <a href="http://www.carnageblender.com/directory/party-power-graph.tcl?opponent_id=327&include_score_p=1">example</a> one of my farms lost ~10k PR or so with no tattoo equipped, or even one in his inventory.

oops, example

The PR scale changed to keep the existing PR range constant. You didn't lose any experience.

ah, ok, thanks Jonathan.

But what about rewards Jonathan? It seems like 105k PR should average over $100/fight. My range is ~70-160, but at least half of it us under 90, while fighting people with score MUCH higher than my PR.

does this change forging as well?

This affects BA buy rate too... Meaning: Take off the Tattoos before buying BA!!!!!!!!!!

Rewards are as they should be.

Some people got used to bonuses they should never have received when tattoos weren't counted in PR. Those won't be coming back.

I was getting...bonuses? My old tattoo was 75% my PR, I should have been getting penalties o,O

BA purchasing and forge effectiveness are back to using exclusively XP trained, not the new PR stat.

see what you did Moose?

yeah.. would have bugged me in the long run to remember taking off the ToS before buying BA

So should we worry if our PR dropped with this change ? I see that no XP was lost, but from the graph, maybe 5-10k pr was lost. Does that mean I should see somewhat larger rewards, given my mostly constant fight list ?

I like that dip on everyone's graph :P.

And i would assume that BA refresh rate is based on the trained XP not including tattoo PR.

"Final word on tattoos and virtual PR"

I'm surprised at the use of the word "Final"!!!!. I thought nothing in this game was final, permanent or unchangeable. I suspect this is the final current version of the most recent change. ;)

I wonder if this will create some farm strats (since they wants high PR, low score).
The rewards will probably be a little low though.

Jon, why not apply a net worth-based pr rating to every equipped item. Therefore pr can truly reflect the experience and total net worth of an equipped character. I understand that Tattoos gain experience, but they also gain net worth as they gain experience. Other items gain net worth as they are forged. So it would be a natural progression to apply that net worth increase to a characters pr as well. And for that matter just get rid of the whole pr vs score thing and just use one measure that accounts for experience trained and net worth.

Because that would be dumb.

Also, it seems that new stat Minion PR is developed.

Wow, I was really mad about the loss of PR (25K even!) on my no-tattoo char at first, but the nice reminder from Douglas Adams has put it all in perspective. Things really are much better this way; high-level tattoo's aren't messing up the curve for low-level opponents any more, and a no-tattoo character can still fight opponents with close PR without fearing for the uber-level tattoo. Virtual PR was confusing anyway. I imagine high-level chars saw a PR boost from their high-level tattoos as well, so it seems like an elegant solution. Kudos to Jonathan's creative nerve.

Ah... So now to become giant killers, instead of equiping massive Tattoos, low PR characters should just equip Massive weapons.

;)

hmmm. since you say it that way. now strats play more of a role in the game.

i was mad at first but, thanks Jon.

I for one and very glad for this change.

Tattoos should be like a normal minion (in my opinion), consuming experience, with certain advantages and disadvantages:

Minions:
More flexible in the way skills may be learned.
Don't use up an armor/cloak spot.

Tattoos:
Transferable to other teams.
Great for farms and other teams.
Can easily be sold or swapped for other tattoos/strategies.

Up to now they effectively doubled the experience you earned (if you were smart and equipped them on a single minion team). Now they count, if not exactly like a minion, then closer to one than before. It will be interesting to see exactly how much of the experience they consume! I think there still an experience premium given for tattoos though.



As for someone being able to buy their way to the top - that is true with or without tattoos. The #5 rated team recently posted the sale of his team. Talk about an instant buy to the top! And what about ELBows! You can't touch one of these without about $100 US! Nope. Those willing to pay out lots of green will get instant success. But in my mind, the success is far more fun if you earn it so I don't mind - besides, my bet is that staying on top is harder than buying your way to the top!

I'm a bit lost. Jon changed the PR scale and made tattoos give PR, correct? It seems that my rewards have gone down, so now I will gain PR slower?

Took me a while, but I finally understand the rescale... Interesting to see how it will pan out...

If we have a high tattoo, will our rewards be lower or will we just have more PR? I'm sorry, but something isn't clicking :/

Heh and said "#5 team" bought his way to the top in the first place.

My 2cents:
This is a horrible change, why keep making tattoos worthless, i dont even use mine anymore becuase it made my PR so low.
Also, why am i only getting like $50 a fight when im fighting people around my same PR/score when i used to be getting nearly $150.
The same thing happend with XP, im now getting like 8 when i was getting around 15

CT, with a tattoo, your PR is higher, and as a result your rewards are lower. The higher the gap between your PR and your opponent's score, the better the rewards. Equipping a tattoo rises your PR, thus you have lower rewards, when fighting the same opponent.
I also noticed rewards reduction between now (new PR) and before the last change (I mean the one a few hours ago, not the one two or three days ago). Same opponent, same tattoo, but clearly not same rewards.

This is bad though, because people without Tattoos or very low ones like my 24K Jig just lost a huge portion of their PR. I lost 30K from this change, and I don't see how I gain anything from it. It seems now that those big tatts are just fast ways of getting to Number 1. Free PR anyone?

Changes Are Bad.
My Scores are Bad.
My Tattoo is Bad.
My Character is Bad.

Awwww. Well things could be worse..., for you.

I also don't like how now tattoos seem to be a necessity, I don't think you can really do well without one :-\

Pssst, if everyone's rewards dropped, we're still all doing as well as we were before.

Just to give you all some perspective, I've had no noticeable PR change (I already trained to make sure). I bought my ToJ early and only loaned it out once for a short time. I have had it equipped on my main character ever since. So I guess the rescale looks fair to me.

Spaceman: yes, that's how it was designed. Quite deliberately.

Having a big tat raises your power rating, but your "regular"minions still only have the trained stats of a lower power rating character. It makes one's strat rely more on experience earned. Great change.

Ok, so my PR raised about 10K no biggie change, however, now I get a third the gains I was getting. I am fighting people above my PR and only getting half the cash it costs to buy a single BA. So, during crazy money time it will not even come close to being worth it to buy BA. Was this by design? I was getting 150 to 300 in cash and 50 to 80 exp per minion, now I get at most 100 cash and at most 35 exp. Sucks to be me I guess....

The thing is if reward are deduce in overall to all players.All the economic just change also most have see a reduction in Pr so all forger will also do less money.So 1 million now value much more that it was 1 week ago.

I like this change and think it balanced the game. Tattoos were an abusive item.

Now that tattoos directly affect PR, confusion problems have completely dissipated since now the XP/$ gained makes more sense for the Score/PR of your opponent. Also, those who were using tattoos no longer feel like they're being penalized and those who don't are no longer getting a massive XP boost. Lastly, tattoos are now useful outside of the 70%/PR range since they directly alter PR rather than XP/$ gained. There's also the nice side effect of never meeting oversize tattoos unexpectedly; a huge tattoo means a huge PR automatically, so it's expected.

Sigh... before the tattoo changes, I could get to $200ish and 30ish xp rewards. Now, with or without tattoo, I can barely get $150 and 20 xp rewards. :\ The massive $ and xp bonus was a great time but it would be nice to actually get similar rewards prior to the great tattoo change.

I was upset at first just like most when I saw my pr drop drastically. But then I noticed the nice new minion pr stat on the stats page. So I am still the 11th highest pr char in the game when it comes to minion pr, but because I am using a very low brand new ToE my new pr drops me to barely top 25. So I think the new minion pr stat will be important for forging and also for selling of chars because that is the actual pr of the char without any tattoos. and then the other pr stat is the one used to fight and help keep your rewards lvl with what you have equiped on your character..

It's late and I hope that made a little sense. lol

Fully agreed with Glory on all counts. Any differential in personal PR is negligible (can't remember precisely, but on the graph it's identical to pre-change when the tattoo of endurance -- 1/2.2 of my pr without it, roughly, in level -- is equipped, and 7,000-ish lower with it off) but my rewards have suffered even against the same opponents I had been fighting before, so now i gain roughly 2/3 what I had been. I bought and raised the little tattoo with loving care and good wholesome food.

I'm still new to CB2 so I can't explain it cleanly, but I don't see a good reason for this off-hand.

If you think about this hard enough, it makes the game easier in a way, particularly when selecting opponents.

All I want to know is has this change affected the forging ability of my character?

I just spent 2 mil for Aabada to get a 205k pr character so that my ability to forge was improved. Now this change has come and I have lost 45k pr! Aaargh!
Just go look at its graph...

I don't know why this happened but this change seems like a sore loss of money.

The BA price before/after the change is constant, so I think the forging ability is too.

"BA purchasing and forge effectiveness are back to using exclusively XP trained, not the new PR stat." - Jonathan around post 15-20?

Forging is exactly as it was before.

Not sure whats going on with Paaul there, When I transfered Aabada he had 200k+ PR with no Tattoo on. I had already moved it off by that point.

The PR scale changed to keep the existing PR range constant. You didn't lose any experience.

--Jonathan, March 13 2005 4:34 PM EST

Isn't it funny that there was a rescale and hardly anyone noticed? :)

And by the way, my guess is that even though your minion PR is less than your old PR was, your forging ability hasn't changed. I have no facts to base this opinion on; it just feels like the right answer.

How about PR and clan limits?

If someone can't join your clan because their PR is too high and they have a large tattoo equipped, could they unequip their tattoo to lower their PR, join your clan, then re equip the tat?

Of course, that'll probably bring you over the PR limit, but at least you've squeezed in another member...

I assume in case of clan PR limit only the minion PR counts ...

Yeah, that would probably be the case it just hasn't been stated, so I don't want to assume anything...

Yep,

I equipped and unequipped my toa and the pr my clan could accept was exactly the same.

taking away virtual pr now takes away a 'mysterious' part of the game.... but hey i cant play anymore....so what do i have to say about it...
angel

Another thing I noticed is that the PR/score graphs are now more constantly updated since your PR increases even without training. I guess this will cause a bit of a bigger load on the server. I personally don't like a bumpy graph and had started to train only once a day, to get a smooth graph... but hey... it's just a very minor annoyance... :)

Your tat level only increases when you train, when the server restarts and (I think) when it's transferred to another char. The graph already updates when you train, and the other 2 events are uncommon enough to not be a great problem.

FAQs > Armor / Tattoos: "Tattoos gain experience when your minions do, in battle. This experience is automatically "trained" at regular intervals; if you're impatient, going to the Train page yourself or unequipping the tattoo will force converting any untrained xp immediately"

Bartjan, so basically you're trying to tell that almost nothing (should've been) changed with regard to the PR/score graph? I'm kinda missing the point you're trying explain here... I probably need more coffee... :)

And thanks for the faq entry I hadn't seen yet, mihalis.

also when not training your minions your clan pr will still go up (i tested this an evening)

also when training lets say 400K experience your clan pr won't go up because the exp already was on the character.

so there IS some sort of virtual clan pr :P

Don't confuse virtual tattoo PR with virtual untrained PR, which I think still exists?

RIP vpr

it was untrained experience and not tattoo pr which isn't counted as being PR for clans.

Also last week i had 400K experience on my character and i checked the PR our clan could accept.

after i trained this number hasn't moved so Clan pr = MPR of all people in the clan + untrained experience

anything not right then?

oh yeah, clans... vpr is alive and well there.

thanks for the clarification ;)