A peek at a possible future (in General)

If we fastforwarded to the beginning of May, and if I then changed the PR formula (again) to reflect all item nw, not just tattoos, here's what the top 20 PR by the new formula would look like. (And no, this won't happen exactly like this -- there are some obvious problems with a simplistic approach. But something along these lines might.)

        name         |  mpr   | power  | new_pr
---------------------+--------+--------+--------
 The Apocalypse Book | 256355 | 360823 | 639610
 Jochumia            | 229474 | 298354 | 601836
 Gyaxx               | 134211 | 179211 | 587234
 Shield              | 297379 | 445219 | 541666
 The Steveh          | 320942 | 441504 | 514432
 Nardo Polo          | 252630 | 379325 | 480644
 Alienfb             | 209759 | 287437 | 454905
 Bartlett            | 277589 | 371442 | 441630
 Cau                 | 127465 | 216845 | 414680
 HypnoToad           | 283314 | 337059 | 404827
 The First           | 296650 | 400622 | 400809
 Cougars             | 268485 | 364923 | 397336
 Czech Forger        | 197716 | 282831 | 396651
 Spid                | 234844 | 315731 | 389490
 Becoming            | 276871 | 375038 | 377817
 Fear                | 125642 | 184742 | 375508
 almuric             | 221282 | 294948 | 371035
 Saints              | 176299 | 234554 | 323540
 Don Kixothe         | 135706 | 170602 | 318131
 dnnxone             | 124410 | 136041 | 317445
(20 rows)

This is what I'm talkin' 'bout! It's nice to see a more accurate representation of power that takes NW into consideration. Very interesting stuff. :)

Good idea and i largely agree

haha, mages with their low NW

Definately a nice change, makes PR actually a much more accurate representation when it comes to tanks.

Yes, but one problem, low NW mages get the best rewards?

I like it though ... NW increases your power. It makes sense to show it in PR.

what would happen to unequipped items?...

ranger, if I remember correctly, the top 10 is exempt from the opponents'-score-versus-your-PR aspect of battle rewards. Although in general, yes, low NW mage teams would earn more.

Just don't forget: "(And no, this won't happen exactly like this -- there are some obvious problems with a simplistic approach. But something along these lines might.)" I'm sure that Jonathan will use a nice sliding scale that changes with your minion pr. For example, only networth over the value of mpr/5 would add to your teams PR (5mil NW per 100k mpr) or something along these lines.

This is from a changelog post in March:

[Loan Officer] Barron, March 13 2005 5:18 PM EST
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.


Jonathan, March 13 2005 5:21 PM EST
Because that would be dumb.

Again, I think it's a good idea, and I hope Jon finds a way to implement it fairly and accurately. This will be a new age for CB--one where strategy and NW both are incorporated to reflect the true value and power of a character.

to paraphrase:

I have a dream, where a character is judged not by the level of his minions and his tattoo, but by the items he carries....

interesting

Yeah i like it!!
Go Renegades

Hmm well if only the pr did not reflect being able to fight someone lower higher then sure, that could work. Aslong as minion pr stays the same.

This idea gets the...

Reebok Seal of Approval

Not sure the net worth of a base corn or some other base mage itmes but if your reading this Jon i think you may have to assign a higher value to some of the items to make your Net Worth idea fair. A base corn will sell for 3mil easy, a base cobf are going for 3.5mil but a base cobf does almost nothing for a char while a base corn is great, you get what im trying to say.

budice has a good point. A base corn has high 'value' but a base CBF has essentially no 'value'. A single mage could be outfitted with the best stuff and NW be very low. Tough one. How can you measure the 'effective value' of an item?

Simple, look at its average price over NW in auctions. It the most reliable source.

not that simple is what im trying to say the base cobf will do nothing for you but has a net worth of over 3.5mil. now it works great after you put another 4mil into it but i don't think Jon should assign a value of 3.5mil to a base cobf. On the other hand a base corn works great and should have a higher value assigned to it.

Some things have never been sold in auction, in any case trusting the market value of the items (tho perhaps the easiest) is not the way I would want to go. I would think each item would require a virtual NW( or PR if you like) and then perhaps an individual weighting for its added NW from base.
Tricky to sort out the details for sure.
High AC tank versus ToE single mage..

An idea like this was brought up in CB1, it came about because of a discussion into if NW effected battle rewards and / if it effected them enough.

It was generally agreed that NW is something people worked and paid for over months and months of effort. The ability to get greater fight rewards and beat higher people was the reward for all this effort. A few points I'd like you (Jon) and everyone to consider If you could spare the time.

1) The majority in the game are relatively low NW, when asked a question most people think "how will this effect me?" to which the answer will be "it is positive". Then saying it is a good idea... Take for example the tattoo artist, most people did not have the tattoo they wanted when the poll was made and said "yeah! I want a ToE, do it!", now after it has come into effect people see the larger picture and realise that maybe it wasnt the best idea....

2) The balancing issues in this are so huge it will be virtually impossible to properly *balance* what items are worth. Take armour, one extra + point on a corn will cost millions at relatively low +, while on an Adam 1mil will give +50, too simple an example to say what I'm trying to get at. I'll give a simple HUGE imbalance currently that is already present in the game before this next change even arrives, take a team, two minions, the first minion has AS the second GA and CoC. Now this team say is about 500K PR. Now, add a lesser tattoo of ice to it... Suddenly you have another minion with 250K hps easily and a huge GA cast upon it, and the cost the system deems it is worth? 100 pr or so...

3) Also on balancing, take into account minion numbers, one corn on a single mage increases exp by a huge amount, on a 5 minion team a corn will be 80% less of an increase, the person wont have paid 80% less for it... So therefore teams with more than one minion will be penalised?

4) It may make mathematical sense, but this is meant to be a game. Strategy should be at it's core making the best use of your resources. If one of the, erm, *aims* of the game is to increase the quality and amount of your resources, one shouldn't be penalised for "doing well".

As most know I love creating strategies and this change will benefit me hugely, it dosent stop me from being annoyed that I wont be able to wield a huge weapon without thinking 'Is the NW I am using on this weapon way over balanced in comparison to my character and it's armour?'

*phew, if anyone reads all that you have more will power than I :p

I was going to post what budice have say it unfair for tank team.

So item should add a virtual NW and after it real NW.A corn will never have a high NW so a VNW should be add to show reality.VNW should not be base on market price.

Mage higher rewards would result only in parity Nw tank.

Next thing nerf the ToE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I sort of appreciate the idea, especially after all the tattoo changes. However this would affect people in much the same way - high nw on a low pr character would suddenly force you to fight way above your pr. Where tattoos were concerned this wasn't necessarily a problem. A large ToJ would have a harder fight but would still be a large ToJ. One of my chars is a single tank, about 15k pr with a mage shield of +22, a rented CoBF (+5). a medium sized compound and katana and a rented MCM. The combined NW is about 3 million. But the minion is only 15k pr. He may have decent weapons but he still hits like a 15k pr minion. If I suddenly find that char having to fight 45k pr mage teams say I will lose to all of them probably. Now my views on this are definitely from a selfish point of view but I think people should really think this one through and see what a big change this will make to their own personal game.

A low NW mage team will stay roughly at the pr it's at already - any tank team - and there are loads of those on the way up - will find itself a lot higher in pr than it probably should be and will be poorer for it.

Admittedly this would be one sure way to slow down NW gain but I'm not sure it's a good one. The tattoo changes I agreed with. This possible change I can see the point of but it may make the whole game completely lopsided and will certainly leave many people running back to their mage teams.

And then we're back to Mage Blender.....

Unless Jon has something incredibly clever planned here, I think I'll have to agree with Mythology and Jonnywas.

Maybe this is designed to make UC more popular ;)

I agree with the above named as well. This would likely hurt many, many people with high NW and make renting near-useless, if not detrimental. I think that if this is the way Jon wants to go, that's fine IF he can keep the alterations down to an absolute, token-significance minimum.

As one of the players very obviously effected by a change like this I should give my point of view. It is probably more verbose than this if you wish dialogue, but I will state it simply for now.

I gained the nw you see on my character Gyaxx from camping the store, selling the items (or trading them) to other CB2 players, then taking them to the Blacksmith and having him do all the work. I respectfully call it the Shabbleflab strategy, because it is not an original idea. If you make such that the high nw on my character (which is the largest character I own, I could not but it on a higher PR character of mine) is a penalty, it will be a choice of mine to decide if it is better to keep trying with perhaps a doomed character, or simply camp the store, sell the items for USD and call it a day.

I personally feel that the if you wish to have camping as a part of the game, and do not wish to have USD weigh heavily on that part of the game, adding NW to PR is the wrong way to go about solving whatever imbalance you are trying to correct.

I'm not sure, but i think this may be something to make this game MageBlender. No one will want a tank due to the penalty. (how i like to think of it)

We don't need another tank nerf in this game.

Why is everyone seeing this as a NW nerf? I think it will simply follow score better this way. People with the high NW will still be able to beat big dudes and get better rewards. Why should someone with high NW get BETTER than average rewards because their ace in the whole isn't factored in?

Ha. So the more you forge, the faster you'll forge?
I still cast my vote for my nw cap idea :)

the people with the high NW arnt ready for the big dudes thought.
ex.
100k pr +300k nw PR VS 400k PR mage team
the 100k guys stats are too low the mage team would eat him

the reason everyone is seeing it as a NW/tank nerf is that a tank and mage at the same level that draw most of the time,(if they liked drawing and kept fighting) after the "nerf" the mage team would get A LOT more rewards and the tank team would get significantly less rewards.

I think this suggestion is just another symptom of people buying their way to the top. If that weren't possible I think wealth would be looked at more favourably -- forging and store visits cost BA too, BA which would otherwise have gone to strengthening your character directly in combat. You should have the option of either route with its own advantages and disadvantages, independently of how hard it is to weight either mages or items' real value.

And I'm a 180k score tank with a networth of 1.6m. :D

In sefton's case, this would be a slap in the face if it were a way to get rid of USD purchases. he spends his BA to camp and upgrade his weapons. i don't remember the last time i saw sefton buying CB2 with USD.

Wow, I'm surprised to see this being contemplated after so much resistence in the past. I can't say that I think this is a good idea. And I definetly agree that "there are some obvious problems with a simplistic approach".

1. We already have a way of telling a groups actual power level, it's called score.
2. Is it ok that a high NW gets higher rewards? Well that only counts if they fight people who haven't invested in their own gear. People of same levels have relatively same NW. This is true of the vast majority.
3. Changing this will not mean that people can't buy their way to the top. It only means that their purchases are represented differently.
4. If NW is taken into account, then market value should be also. There is a big difference between a 4 mil NW CoBF and a 4 mil NW Corn. I do see this as a huge obstacle.
5. After implementation, what is the point of buying anything. or improving your gear? None. Improve your gear and get nothing aside from a few more levels in PR and a few extra bucks per fight.

I fear that this would turn the flavor of CB strategy to bland.

This would be far too large a slap in the face for those who have attained their NW the right way (being Sefton). That, for me, overrides any other practical need that this would fill.

It just wouldn't be fair to do that.

I'm far too lazy to read through this whole thread. But am I wrong, or is this another change that could potentially benefit me?

This just doesn't seem like a "fair" change. Unless there is some solution to this that the Big Kahuna is contemplating, I see no way for this to work.

If this is a way to counter the ever-increasing USD market within the game, then I call it the wrong way to go about it.

True, there are many campers (and other players, for that matter) that sell their items for USD only. However, I do no see how that should effect those of us who camp as a main source of income within the game. Without devoting a ton of time to it, I can think of myself and Sefton that use a majority of their BA to camp the stores for the purpose of selling camped items for $cb. This money is then used for upgrading the equipment that we already have.

I fail to see how having incredibly upgraded equipment should set me at a disadvantage in the fighting grounds. One of the main draws of this game since I've been playing is that there are multiple ways for people to enjoy themselves. There is an ever-growing amount of people who truly love camping, others who enjoy fighting, and yet many more that enjoy getting forging for their income. Any one of these avenues leads to money gained by the player, which leads to increased NW.

I guess I just don't understand why anyone but the fighter will suffer what seems like it will be negative effects (to me). I, personally, have an MPR of 46k, PR of 73k, and a NW of over 17m. As far as I can tell from the above listed ranking from Jon, the NW of a character will greatly increase the "PR" of a character. I mean, Ranger's character "The Apocalypse Book" will nearly double in PR when his NW is taken into account.

I realize that the above is a rough and simplified idea of what Jon has in mind. However I feel like this could be a very bad move, and will likely isolate and tick off a good portion of the community.

Please, please think this through.

/end drunken rant

my biggest thing here.. is everyone doesn't realize that jon is not going to kill rewards because of this change.

Now that that is over. I have a problem with this. Because as a solo mage I am trying to get to the top of the pr list, and every change has taken me lower and lower. First it was the adding Tat's into the pr and that pushed me from 9th to 23rd or so. Now this change would push me right off the first page. That seems kinda like a sucky thing if you ask me.

Oh and yes. I play this game trying to reach the top. This is the first time I have bought a char, but I have made very good changes and fought hard to keep this char towards the top and every change has pushed me down farther. Now I am finally starting to slowly catch up and the tat artist comes out and I go farther down because of people changing huge ToJ's for different tats and I'm lower. Now I'm catching up again and this. This would so very much discourage me from playing. Yes I know I can look at MPR stat and see I'm still top 10 but that's not the pr that people look at and therefore not the one that counts. So yes I think this is a rather terrible change for solo Mages. Now if I was a solo tank and had a huge NW and my goal was to be top pr then it would be different... but I still wouldn't like the change. It just wouldnt' hurt my attempt at being #1.

Cylo

Not sure if I like this idea much either. As it is now, a mage team and a tank team can often come out around even in fights. That's only because the tank has enough NW to stay alive. It comes down to mages using DD spells vs tanks using weapons with their NW. If you add this, to balance wouldn't adding NW to DD spells be appropriate if not necessary?

On another note, I heard a good point with rentals. If higher NW in any way affects rewards negatively, that's a good incentive to not rent. And having decent stuff available at the start for new / mid range players is a good thing, at least in my mind. This would severely limit that.

Basically, mage teams can go naked. Tanks can't. If NW affects your power rating by raising it, tanks (as I see it) get a slap in the face. It may be arguably minor, but CB is a game about using minor advantages to get ahead. Thanks for your time. It's late, hope this made sense.

At first, you could put an oversized tattoo on a low PR character and earn tons of cash easily. Then there was a change: tattoo had to match your minions PR.
Now, you could have oversized items and fight higher PR. The next step seems to be that the NW you place on your items should match your PR.
Now it's more difficult to make an advantage of an oversized tattoo, why should we be allowed to benefit so easily from oversized weapons (or anything else)? It makes sense, in a way. Jon will have the whole next change month to balance this properly (if it really happens anyway). Besides this change could be a problem for the top NW tank teams (or the oversized NW tank teams), but it shouldn't be for teams that actually spend only the cash they have earned in their NW. Being number one then is based more on your skill at spending your XP the best way possible, and how you invest your cash in NW. For those that want to go faster and pay USD, it would go in rare items instead of common ones, and pay USD or cb1$ for cb2 cash to buy more BA and grow faster.
But anyway, I hope a weapon will not lose a percentage of its NW when you unequip it ;)

There's another problem where NW is concerned. I know that most people wouldn't do this but there's always one person who wants to have the biggest whip or dagger or light xbow. Wouldn't a large short bow be far higher in NW than a large ELB? So if you were doing it for fun or because you had way too much cash to play with you could be in the top 10 chars armed with an Uber-Sling.....

One more thought - there is an element to the game of NW (read purchasing power) getting people to the top. Spid in CB1 springs to mind when it comes to large NW being a massive help. But none of these chars would stay at number one purely because of NW, strategy has to count for something in most of their cases. So penalising players for large NW seems unfair if that was the only factor in their rise....

I know, I know it's not really a penalty Jon is talking about here but as I said before it would become one if you're raised to a level by your NW that you can't fight at.

Another thought - as I turn into Firebreathing Chicken for a moment - NW:

NW would have to based on something other than real NW or you would have serious imbalances in the game.

Check out auctions:

composite bow (4x8)(+8) nw: $67348
Assassins xbow (4x10)(+5) nw: $69418


Very little difference in the NW there but the difference in effect and power between the two weapons? A 100k pr character armed with a composite and the same character armed with an Axbow? I know who my money would be on to be more successful.....

I'm going to shut up now. If this possible future happens most of know we won't stop playing! So I'm just going to keep quiet and get on with it.... =)

Spending tons of cash on a whip is as if you were trying to have the highest fireball, and you trained FB only, without training hit points. You can do it if you think it's fun, but it's not the best way to spend your XP.
But I agree that you could do the FB thing then untrain and lose only some percentage of your XP, and it wouldn't be completely wasted. If NW had to match PR, then maybe there should be some way to "untrain" your items (without going through insta in FS forum), at least for some time after the change.
Again, oversized NW comes from buying a lot more cash than you should have earned. Balanced correctly, you could be a part time camper that sells some items to upgrade other items. You would base your strategy slightly more on NW than PR, and would not suffer any penalty.

Why is everyone seeing this as a NW nerf? I think it will simply follow score better this way. People with the high NW will still be able to beat big dudes and get better rewards. Why should someone with high NW get BETTER than average rewards because their ace in the whole isn't factored in?
--Chet, April 7 2005 11:23 PM EDT

Perhaps I am being too simplistic about this, but I agree 100% with Chet on this one. We all know that the "best character" has several factors, with NW being one of them.

I suppose the ones who are most upset about this would be the ones who have a disproportionately higher NW than the other people in their PR/score range, so now they won't get a free ride by spending USD or being uber campers.

I think this is an excellent equalizer. It now factors in, like Chet said, something that was previously an "ace in the hole".

One word: Bad Idea!

Or is it? May be it's two words. But again it still holds true no matter.

Not the reply I'd have expected from Todd...Oh yea you sold your ELB ;).
Certainly this would aim at levelling the playing field for those who don't aquire NW by other means than fighting. However unless you consider mages underpowered right now it would surely have to include some sort of change in DD or STR effects. Any tank needs a weapon to do damage so unless STR effect is boosted or DD toned down I gain PR compared to a mage and our effectiveness stays the same. Unless there is a certain level of NW (relative to pr from minions and tats) under which NW doesn't add to PR how can this happen without hurting all tanks and changing balance dramatically. Not to mention the many other potential problems.

I'm OK with this. The people above me on the list I can't beat and the people below me I can. So it seems like it's accurate.

Sefton, you don't need to worry - the top 10 characters don't get reduced rewards from fighting below their Score/PR. But then, of course, you keep having to spend enough to stay in the top 10. :p

It's been a very popular complaint that people can buy their way to the top. This is a more 'realistic' ranking of characters. I can see it being tweaked (perhaps only half as much NW PR gain than displayed in this table), but that's an implementation detail.

Besides, Score is what everyone looks at, right? All PR tells you (or at least used to tell you) is how little sleep you get.

I think this is a very useful new stat. It will, though, mess up the 'Standings' page. A small price to pay. ;}

Maybe I'm in the minority but I'm slightly interested in PR when it comes to its relation to the score and PR of the people I fight as it seems to have something to do with the rewards I get. Maybe I'm weird.

I could see this as a FS/WTB post shortly after or right before a change like this......

Come one come all! You thought it was easy to buy your way to the top before, now check this out. Purchase my 15mil nw bow and can go straight to the top. No more toiling away for PR by fighting, why bother, just equip this bad boy on on a top 10 PR character and poof you are instantly #1! Thats right! Want to pass all those pesky every single BA burner without having to spend all that time? Cylo, want to be #1? Buy this bow, equip it and dont even use it. Your single mage will explode in PR and you wont even have to use the weapon to get there! Thats right without lifting anything but your wallet you go from a top 10 PR man to the most PR in all of CB2. Brag to your friends, tell your wife, add a screen cap of your character sitting on top the PR ladder to your portrait. Now buying your way to #1 is even easier, don't miss your chance! If ranger or budice gets this bow you will never catch them, so buy it as a defensive move. Protect your own PR by not letting a top 5 guy become so far ahead in PR you cannot catch him. Chet, I see it now, get a change like this in place buy my bow and poof #9 no longer! You are #1 with a bullet baby.

Is that a glimpse of a possible FS/WTB...... you tell me?

Man, I never see Sefton so sarcastic before. It is a warning of impeding doom. I can see it clearly now. It's not a nerf. It's really beneficial for the mass if you can see it: CoC+ToE+Corn(0)+EG(0) = the beneficial.

Sefton, sure, I think it is a valid FS/WTB post...but are you expressing disdain or approval? One could ALWAYS make that sort of post.

This whole scheme does NOT change the ability to beat someone. It is merely a new metric. A new, meaningless list. The quicker people realize that EVERY list is pretty much meaningless and has aberrations, the quicker this will settle down.

Yes, I would like to know how rewards will play out using this new, all-encompassing "PR", but I have every reason to think it will work out. Why? Because Jon is good.

And yes, I am #1 with a bullet. *smile*

A Pure FB single Mage could buy the most expensive Ranged weapon, ammo and melee weapon s/he could get thier hands on, jump to the number 1 spot, and receive no reward penalty for fighting everyone else below them...

Other mages could do this as well, but they would have to be careful not to equip ammo...

We all know mages have no need to spend cash, so instead of saving, they plow this cash into weapons (just like tanks) they won't need to use, just to keep themselves in the "no reward penalty" sweet spot.

More cash that sinks out of the game, but those with the most Cash/USD/Camping skillz now get the best rewards. As they will be the only people to hit the top 10...

Chet... what?
1) Since when is PR new?
2) Since when is PR just a meaningless list?

OK how about this....

Congratulations on finishing the tutorial new player X
Welcome to New Players

Psst kid, come here have I got a deal for you. Give me 15 minutes of your time I will teach you ALL about forging. Then I am going to loan you my bow. Now sure if you fought with it you would rock, but I have a better way, forge with it. Thats right the PR you gain from equipping my bow will make you an instantly effective forger. Now go out at get a forge job at 70%, the blacksmith will charge you 20%, and I will charge you 20%. You should get about 200K nw a day in with your new PR so thats 30% in your pocket. Basically thats thats 60K a day net profit in your pocket. Do you know how long you are going to have to fight to make 60K at your PR? Well use my bow for a 3 day forge job, and make 180K net profit. Now you can start the game off right with a little jack in your pocket. Sure your start is delayed 3 days big deal. But having 180K to spend at 1PR you will find you can shoot past your peers in no time. So what do you think want to make a quick 150K or more starting out?

So you say no problem, it does not count towards forging. Problem. The moment you this goes into effect, every forger with any NW items immediately loses forging ability because now it is assumed that part of the PR they have was gained from item NW and it must be subtracted out. So poof every forger on the planet takes a hit, except those smart enough to unequip all NW items before the change and transfer them to another character you own. When the recalculation occurs your PR will appear pure as it has no NW so you won't get rescaled, then just add the items back on after the change completes, your other PR will increase, but your existing PR will not decrease. Oh you had a funeral over the weekend and couldn't take advantage of this loop hole and the 9mil nw elbow you were forging for someone got factored in to your PR and now when it goes back you will lose PR!

It goes on and on of course, someone can say Jon just pulls back all loaned items, and returns all rentals or even look at code if person is not true owner do not apply. But still, if you remove the nw increase from the forging pool then I send all my gear to Sefton before the change (except my tat of course) and now poof a rescale occurs Sefton's PR is assumed to be partly gained from nw, Gyaxx has only the tat, so his rescale is small, Sefton is large. Now stick items back on Gyaxx, PR shoots up, but the rescale didn't effect him.

So you want to do a rent-your-PR so you can forge better game? Im just looking at ways I can make a change obviously targeted at me work for me. If my character falls apart because of the change, I need fall back positions. No problem with this new future either right?

what are you smoking, sefton?

*cough* MPR *cough*

Basic Ultralight Menthol 100's in a box.

I assume from that response your counter will be Jon, that when it goes into effect you will not be rescaling non minion PR based upon current NW so forgers will be unaffected by the change and that the new PR would not affect forging. I was hoping to change a few minds to my way of thinking before you brought that kind of thing up, but oh well.

Hey, Im just looking for ways to make it work for me, just like Chet is trying to change the system to make it work for him :) Ill have many other ideas that could work. But I want to keep poking as many holes as I can real or imagined in order to aggressively defend my position that this change is wrong.

GL you're understanding of the game seems to differ from mine somewhat. For one thing I don't think being in the top 10 makes you exempt from lower rewards for fighting down it just helps. I go on the assumption that wasted PR is a bad thing so why you would want to boost you PR with useless items confuses me.

Chet I have some reason to believe it will work out too, in the end (if anything happens at all) but just because jon is good doesn't guarantee it. I think I would like the new game if it could be made to work and Jon would certainly get my admiration if he could get it anywhere near to balanced straight away. As you will see from the above paragraph I'm still not convinced PR is a meaningless statistic.

Read this Rubberduck... about halfway down Todd-Spydah asks about the exemption, and Jonathan tells him the exemption is still valid. Or, you can read this where again, he says the top 10 are exempt from the reduced rewards from fighting with an oversized tat.

Nightmare so are you saying for example that steve g can get the same sort of rewards fighting say the germs as he would beating you?

Myth, why don't you go ahead and tell me how PR is meaningful? Does it represent...

- Dominance? No.
- Time spent on the game? Nope.
- Money spent on the game? Nah.
- Any meaningful "real-world" metric? Negative.

PR is too encompassing (even without the net worth addition) to really mean anything focused (that is my definition of it being "meaningful". I can't look at PR and say anything other than "He has a big PR," or "That PR is bigger than thi sother PR." To me, a list that is simply self-referencing doesn't have a lot of "meaning." We are arguing semantics at this point, I think.

This thread is denoting the possibility that that indicator will soon have NW bundled in as well. That won't make the list any more or less meaningful, just more complete.

I still want to shout a big, "so what?" to that fact, and so far no one has said anything other than "rewards will be affected!!!!!". Well, assuming Jon is not a complete idiot (anyone care to debate that with me?) rewards will be OK. It will all work out.

I do wholeheartedly believe almost every list in the game is meaningless except Score. The problem with score is that it can be very fleeting (but actually that is what makes it so "real"...dominance IS fleeting for the most part).

And considering this new way of summing up PR has not even been implemented yet, I would consider it to be quite "new". I was referring to the new scheme. Feel free to re-read my post if necessary.

Sefton, think tattoos, and the way they were rolled into PR. That's what this is, but with net worth. So forging will not be affected. Yes, the scheme is replete with pitfalls in how to roll a dollar figure into PR, but conceptually it is just isn't that crazy, and I still can't figure out what all the fuss is about?I didn't hear you or much of anyone sticking up for Steve or budice when their large tattoos shot their PRs into the stratosphere, so why should we be freaking out of a NW addition shoots yours to the sky? It's the same thing.

well, after surfing the CB1 changelogs for awhile (bring back force bolt! :-P) I can't find where he mentioned exactly the terms of the exemption.. so, it's up to Jonathan whether he wants to say or not

"Sefton, think tattoos, and the way they were rolled into PR. That's what this is, but with net worth. So forging will not be affected. Yes, the scheme is replete with pitfalls in how to roll a dollar figure into PR, but conceptually it is just isn't that crazy, and I still can't figure out what all the fuss is about?I didn't hear you or much of anyone sticking up for Steve or budice when their large tattoos shot their PRs into the stratosphere, so why should we be freaking out of a NW addition shoots yours to the sky? It's the same thing."

I firmly and respectfully disagree. Its not the same thing. A tattoo is one item you can choose or not choose to use, and you still have a chance at success. You cannot say the same thing about NW unless you are a all mage team. No tank can go through the game with out some NW even your own NW low as it is, you require it. But HOPEFULLY a tank could go through the game without a tattoo. So if you don't like his tattoo PR change, unequip it and go your own way, most likely with enough NW on items you can make up for the loss of tattoo. Are you saying to all of those who don't like this NW change to go all mage in response? I would certainly tell someone who didn't like the Tattoo change to unequip it, sell it, make some $$$ and buy some stuff and you should be good to go, eventually at least. So I think these issues are related only by the fact they add PR and from there the comparison pretty much ends. NW is a necessity for every tank in the game, hopefully you cannot say the same thing about tattoos.

Reality check: You simply cannot compete without a tattoo of some sort. Period.

I challenge that Todd, if I give a character, a single tank not wearing a tattoo:

An Adamantite Cuirass [40] (+50)
A Cloak of Balrog Flame [0] (+25)
A Pair of Displacement Boots [6] (+55)
A Helm of Durin [8] (+10)
A Mage Shield [0] (+25)
A Pair of Beleg's Gloves [3] (+7)

5,603 Stone Shafts [11x5] (+4)
The Soul Thief [73x70] (+55)
The Stone Bow [6x90] (+65)

(all equipment I own and could give out immediately)

He has AC of 143 not too bad, 92 of which protect from both magic and physical. He has evasion of 55. He nerfs 50K or 40% of all magical damage he takes which ever is less. Everytime you strike him in melee you take around 30K damage. For simplicity sake this tank trained even HP ST and DX no other enchantments. Now with the tattoo PR rolled in put him up against equal PR how do you think he does against any opponent, tatto or otherwise? I say he does VERY well.

Now roll his NW into his PR, wait Todd you are right you do have to have a tattoo to win, after the change that is, Mage Blender, Tattoo Blender, take your pick :)

Sefton, you have good points, but we don't want Camping Blender or USD Belnder either (I get tired of people throwing around "Mage Blender" all the time...I can make up silly names too...)

You are a great camper, and I have never detracted from that. But that doesn't mean you are entitled to have that skill allowing you to beat someone twice your PR (yes, you started being able to beat me and my fairly average strategy when you were only HALF my PR). That's frustrating. "Click Blender", "Store Blender", "Cash Blender"...those aren't fun either.

So we work it ALL into PR -- fighting (MPR), tattoo growth (tattoo PR) and net worth (camping/investing/USD PR). What is unfair about that? Why do you feel your investments in camping (which are substantial, I agree) should be immune from a "power" rating. It IS power, and treating it as such does not seem like a big deal in my eyes. Should I say, "Why are fights included in PR! Why is it that the more i fight the more I should have to move up and beat other people?" Yes, that would be ridiculous. In this game, you grow or die. I grow through massive BA usage in the form of fighting, and you grow through massive net worth gain in the form of camping. Both are "powerful".

As usual Chet, you also make good points, you are much more difficult to counter than others. I will however make an attempt.

One in regards to camping, it costs BA to camp. Thus you have to make a choice. And you have to make that choice wisely. If you make it unwisely you either waste a lot of BA or miss all the stuff you are camping for. So as far as it is a skill it certainly takes more to camp and fight than it does to camp only or fight only. So you can encourage people to do one or the other with a change like this, but make it even more difficult to do both. So if you can actually do both there should be no benefit to that? You should not gain an advantage over someone without the skill to do as you can?

You certainly gain an advantage over someone if you can better allocate your experience than another. You certainly gain an advantage if you know all the forge colors by heart, and can know when to switch over from heating to casting spell over a person who makes mistakes more often. So basically if you have the skill to camp and fight that should not also create an advantage? So you conceed some and say yes there should be some, your advantage is just too great now, I need it toned down.

Well in toning down my advantage, you say OK you have two skills pick. You can roll with the punches, do your best with what the rules allow, and see if your current strategy can survive this change, or you can camp and since its no longer really worthwhile to bump your own gear, or sell for CB2 $ to bump your own gear, might as well sell for USD and call it a day. So basically if the change nerfs your current strategy, you should just switch over to USD camper?

All you campers out there saying man I think Sefton has it figured out, camp, earn CB2 $, bump your gear, be a contender. Wrong, a change like this is will be best to simply get your $$$ and get out of dodge. Granted if you don't camp it doesn't effect you except to drive down purchase prices of rare items and high net worth items.

As a matter of fact this change will drive down all the prices. Speaking with one person in favor of the change they expected economic stagnation and recession as a result and could have cared less about it as they are marginally involved in the economy at best. So if you were thinking of holding onto those items for a better time for prices, with a change like this, there will not be such a thing. Not only will the demand for rares and high nw items decrease, but I think anyone will conceed that when this change occurs it will improve dramitically over time from its initial roll out. So now you have decreased demand AND increased insecurity over the overall CB2 climate and rules and how it will effect you.

So Economic clans, better rally or better hurry, cause your profits are plummeting. Get it while the getting is still marginally good, or help me oppose this change.

You too campers. Thought 20 to 1 was a nice ratio. Good luck getting that after a change like this. Thought 3.5mil was a nice price for a CoBF. Now the thing adds nw like a demon at 100K a clip. Going to have to be awfully sure the CoBF will help you, or maybe you will just wait until the price is low enough the risk/reward means its more worthwhile to risk buying it than passing. Rally or hurry because if a change like this occurs, your profits will drop. It might be 1% it might be 50%, but I would take the +1% now vs. the risk of losing -50% later :)

I think in trying to tone down the advantage of a minority of people who, whether through USD or camping like me, have high level net worth, you end up with a far reaching change whose ramification will be felt in every corner of CB and will have new effects on all of us that I hope I can think of and add to this post before it becomes a reality.

Just today I found out that this change will increase the dependency on tattoos for overall success. I had not even considered that yesterday. Hopefully I will think of enough them that the while it appears a minority are effected, in truth it will show the majority are, and negatively so, and thus the change is bad.

Sefton, the first portion of your message is making my point for me.

Everything in the game is a choice because it ALL uses BA. I fight. Some camp. You camp and fight. Why should the BA I use for fighting count toward BA and make me grow, but the BA you use for camping and growing your net worth not make you grow in PR? This new scheme is a BA-to-PR equalizer. It essentially insures that BA gets translated into PR (except for USD being in the mix).

Fighting actually increaes PR faster because of tattoos. As a camper, you could conceivabley make your Net Worth so mighty that you didn't need a tattoo (as you pointed out). The new scheme would show overall PR as about similar -- me with a bog old tattoo, and you with 35 million net worth. In any case, it ALL came from BA. Our choices decide how we get there, but it will all end up as "power".

The rest of your message deals with the economy, and in all honesty, I have no idea what this would do to the economy. Why would you change your current mode of operation if net worth worked into power? The name of the game is still to beat people, and you still would (this does not change that part of things one iota). Are you so attached to your score/PR ratio that this is bothering you?

Right now, people see a huge score/PR ratio and they think, well, must be his net worth. If net worth is already built into the PR, the only thing that can make a good score/PR ratio is a good allocation of MPR, tattoo PR and NW PR on the team. If I have a high PR because of NW, but all my money is pumped into a double chain mail, guess what? My score/PR ratio will suck. If I have a high MPR but have invested in a moronic combination of FB and VA, again, suckage. Incorporating all BA choices into a single power metric makes it a better index of success when looked at with score (provided it can all be balanced...*smile*)

Error in my post...insert PR for the second instance of BA in the line, "Why should the BA I use for fighting count toward BA..." Sorry about that.

This post is funny as heck to look at... all the whiners who have tons of NW and don't want to be "nerfed" (aka brought back into balance) vs. the people who can see the situation for what it really is...

All of you huge NW people who claim your nw doesn't directly translate to power, try this... unequip your minions for a day and pick up some newbie items if you've got tanks... then tell me that your NW isn't making you more powerful :)

It's funny to see people overreacting to every proposed change because it hurts them in the short term, rather than seeing the benefits to the game on the whole. I especially loved the one post where someone argued that this change would make it pointless to upgrade your equipment cause all it would do was add a few more points of PR... i guess that guy also doesn't like to train his minions once he fights :)...

Anyway... keep up the posting and the ridiculous arguments... these are the kinds of threads that can really keep me entertained :)

...and you are unbiased? jeez

honestly? i could care less about the change from a personal standpoint, but if we're talking ultimate game balance, factoring nw into pr is definitely the way to go, if you don't think your high nw is making you more powerful then you're either an idiot or... well an idiot

I really had to spend some time thinking about this rather then giving a knee jerk reaction.

The one line summary: Good Change.

The boring stuff:
Ever since Shafflebob<sp?> quickly rose through the ranks of cb1 with a 120 Million NW elven bow, people have become to really realize how over powering NW can be IF USED CORRECTLY. I am not a big fan of all caps, but I do want to burn that point in your heads. The only people that this change will negatively impact are teams that have poor applications of NW, for everyone else it will be moot. A poor application of NW will have the same effect as a single having a crappy strategy. A team with a single minion with all its exp in protection will have an inflated PR and a low score just like a team with 200 million NW in a sling using arrows as ammo. The only difference now is this will affect rewards.

Jon is a smart guy, and I bet he is spending a lot of time with his favorite curve fitting program to create formulas to represent various items NW factor versus the amount of power it adds. As many people have stated adding 1 million NW to a corn isn't as effective as adding 1 million to a CBF. Jon understands this and will weight things accordingly. A CBF may get a relatively flat curve for NW value vs. PR, a Corn may get a relatively shallow curve for how much PR NW adds. Jon will break every item into a function of change in NW = change in VPR. Most items will have their own unique curve.

There isn't a single argument that was applied against adding Tattoos to virtual PR that can't be applied to NW effecting PR. NW may not have as profound effect (more so if used ineffectually) but it does have an impact and Jon will relate that impact in his design.

p.s. On a side note, if your going to cry about every change Jon makes that may or may not adversely affect your current strategy you probably aren't ready for CB yet. Many of us veterans have long realized if something is too good to be true it will be either a) brought down to power (nerfed) or b) a counter strategy/effect will be introduced by Jon.

When Tattoos where out gaining minions in pr growth, Jon corrected the tattoos and brought them back to their current values ( an example of a).

When + on weapons became to powerful in CB1 Jon introduced DBs which exactly countered + (and example of b)

Man its never easy, again you make good points, but let me say I disagree again. Your investment of BA in fighting is a sure thing. Discounting a stalemate as too rare to matter, even in a loss you gain exp and $. Assuming you can operate the forge correctly 90% of the time, your BA is also pretty much a sure thing. Click the link enough times corectly and you get a net worth gain.

Camping and spending that BA is not. In opposition to a sure thing, clicking the armor link and walking out with a rare item is not a sure thing. Hundreds of BA invested in something that pays no reward what so ever, until you do actually get that rare, if you fast enough to keep it. And now, that rare will be worth even less after a change like this. So basically you spend lots of BA with little success to get a rare item, and now that rare item is worth even less. I do not see how that BA spent equates to the BA you spend fighting and losing let alone fighting and winning. Or even how forging to increase NW BA spent equates to camping BA spent. If you want people to stop camping perhaps this is the change for you :)

As far as the economy goes, this game exists in the real world. The real world is driven by money and economy. Thus the game is. If you go to a pool hall grab a stick off the wall slap $10 on the table and say Ill beat anyone at 8 ball. I walk up, pull out a ivory inlaid case, whip out a $5,000 stick and say sure Ill take you on. You look at your bar over used, crooked stick, with semi bent point. You look at my pefectly balanced, meticulously tipped stick, and say if we are even skill he wins more times than not because of my better tools, do you pick up your $10 and tell him you won't play me because I have better tools. Or force me to use the bar stick vs. my own? If the latter then why did I buy the stick in the first place if no one will let me use it?

You are trying to resolve an inequity in the world through a game. Those that have money will do better than those that do not. This is a hard fact of life. Is it fair, I guess it depends on if you have or have not. The haves say sure it is I worked hard for it, and I deserve the right to use it. The have nots say no it is not, I do not have it so it is unfair that you do.

In the end, by making this change to "help" the game you actually hurt it. In trying to fight unfairness in the world you create unfairness in the game. I believe this change will, increase the dependancy on tattoos for success, increase the number of camped items sold for USD, decrease the value of all items and create a price and demand recession. I believe forgers will find less work. So yah your fight against me or ranger might be fair after this change, but tell that to the out of work forger, the jaded camper or the lone guy trying to make it in a world of tattoos without one.

I understand your point. I understand the inequity you present between our two characters and the fairness of that fight. I do not understand your solution however, and I feel that as a solution it will do more harm overall than good for the few you really mean to affect. I won't argue the fight between us is fair, I will aurgue that your solution is not.

Anyone that brings a $5000 cue to a 10$ table has wasted $4990.

Considering the camping question, I would be in favor of having stores supply the 'rare' items more often. But the kicker is that the price in the store reflects the average auction price or nw of that item. So there won't be any such thing as "rare" per se, just very expensive. So that CBF will be in the store and it's price will be 3.5 mil. If you have the money and want it you buy it, or you can borrow the money to buy it. Either way the economy is not affected that much and it does take away the camping phenomenon. So basically the store prices change to reflect Jon's new NW/PR calculation that also takes into account market value.

Valgasu, you tell me you do not care that you will have increased dependancies on tattoos, decreased prices, more items sold for USD, and less work for forgers, or counter those points. To simply say I whine because I believe those things will happen without any sort of counter-aurgument is wasted ergs on typing.

Myonax, same thing really you say this change is good because it fixes a small problem. I say the change is bad because it creates many large problems. Should the small problem be fixed, sure if it is a problem, fix it. However the proposed solution is not the way to do it. If it will not create the large problems I forecast it will, tell me why not. If you can show me how those problems will not be created, then you can defeat my aurgument. I am not saying do not change, I am saying do not change in this fashion. Do I have a better solution than the proposed one, yah the only one I can think of, do not change a thing, it is better than the alternative.

blargh! I don't really care about this change. :P :B :D :) >) >( :( :| :P and so on.

increased dependence on tattoos? well, how can that be? as i see it we are already very dependent on tattoos... it is essential to most characters that they have one tattoo or another... furthermore, you are claiming that this change would make items worth less because they increase your pr, so wouldn't it by that logic make tattoos worth less too since they also increase your pr?

decreased prices? this is a bad thing... oh wait you're a camper so to YOU it is a bad thing... again you're short sighted looking at personal gains rather than game balance

more items sold for usd? but items are worthless now or even detrimental according to your other arguments... why would people still be willing to waste usd on them... not to mention the fact that if you go into fs/wtb forums most of the stuff in there is for usd already anyway

less work for forgers? i fail to see how this is a horrible thing either... even if it's true (which i'm not convinced it is) forging is a niche market and the # of forgers in the game will be determined by the amount of forging that needs to be done and the willingness of people to fill that role... so what if there's a bit less work for them?

again, the bottom line is nw affects your "power" period... you can't argue that point because there is no argument for it... why shouldn't it be figured into the formula like everything else is? oh, because it would hurt YOU, that's right

I realized one thing a while back, Jon didn't want people changing PR's rapidly by equipping and unequipping tattoos all the time. That has changed, there is a penalty for equipping and unequipping tattoos.

Now I didn't necessarily agree with that, because this is a text game, we play it and it is fun to discover new ways to defeat our enemies and gain experience. Most people don't change their strategies that often because of the untraining penalty.

Now if this change is implemented, I see Jon also implementing some kind of penalty for equipping and unequipping weapons and armor as well (because NW affects PR, and PR changing rapidly is bad according to previous changes Jon has made). Now I may be jumping to conclusions, but that sounds like a very unhappy conclusion to this.

I like this game, and I think penalizing us for trying new things really hurts the game.

Sefton,
Please enumerate the problems this change causes in a clear concise manor. I haven't seen any problems that you claim exist.

From reading your threads the only two that I think you are perceiving is:

a) making NW add to VPR is an incentive not to add NW.

Which is relatively simplistic, in the same way as saying training exp on your minions is bad because it adds PR and reduces rewards. If the NW you add doesn't increase your overall ability to kill other teams compared to the amount of PR it adds then as I mentioned in my long post, it is a poor application of NW.

b) your camping the store was hard and risky move so you should be compensated more for it (my extrapolation not your wording).

Your use of time camping the store shouldn't be rewarded any more then Steve lack of sleep for the last 3 months buying all of his BA should be rewarded.

Those are the only real negative impacts you seem to mention and are easily refuted. If I missed more important concerns of yours please point them out.

Sefton, using BA at the store does not use as much as fighting...isn't there a chance built in where the store won't take a BA? Or a chance it can take two?

That's all part of the balance. If Jon does this, maybe he will lessen those odds of a store visit burning BA. Maybe not. That's the devil in the details, a devil I have total faith in Jon for. Is you do not have that faith, then we simply have to agree to disagree and see where things go. I still would like you to reason for me why you would change anything that you are doing? The goal is still to beat people and grow your fight list. What you are doing is apparently very good at that. Don't change.

This PR change is not going to be easy. But we are talking about the CONCEPT -- no more, no less. The concept is to involve everything that contributes to "power" into the "power rating".

How can that be wrong?

Your worries about the economy are warranted, but it is like ANY economy. The USA could tax the hell out of gas to jumpstart more alternative research. The economy (short-term) would suffer, things would be in turmoil, etc. But would it be a "bad idea"? I don't have the answer for you. Economics is a very complicated thing, and even then, only a portion of the Big Picture.

But back to CB, this is a change that, if done right, is correct BY DEFINITION. Incorporating all source of power (thereby BA usage) into a single rating. So the only thing to worry about is it being done right, and trust me, it will.

Valgusu -

Look at an earlier post responding to Todd saying tattoos were essential. I won't reiterate here, but that's my basis for saying we become increasingly dependent on having a tattoo because we can no longer make up for the lack of one with nw.

"so wouldn't it by that logic make tattoos worth less too since they also increase your pr?" It does make logic and it very much did affect tattoos in exactly that manner. Granted adding the Tattoo Artist drove the price down MUCH further, but as soon as there was a penalty for unequipping tattoos and that penalty affected PR the demand for tattoos dropped dramatically and so did the price. So yes it does by that logic make tattoos worth less because they add to your PR (or subtract from it) and history shows that to be the case.

Decreased prices, you get lucky in store today and get a Morg. Pure luck, now after the change, same thing, now its worth 50% less, now you are affected still OK with prices dropping? Your buddy last week sold his elbow for 5mil, today after the change you get 2 for yours. Maybe you are OK with that, and if you are, then you do not care about prices at all increase or decrease so that point is not for you :)

If I am a camper I can do one of four things with my items, sell for CB2, sell for USD, trade for other CB2 items or keep the items and use them myself. If I sell or trade then I get cb2 or the equivalent in items. Now I either use that cb2 $ and items to either make my own character better or to make USD, what else is there to do with it? But now you are making a change that makes its less worthwhile to increase my own characters, and more worthwhile to sell for USD, thus I present forth the idea more items will sell for USD.

Obviously you don't care about forgers, so I will let that go.

As far as power is concerned do you not hear what your own side is saying? My power does not change. My rewards may or may not change, but I still defeat the same opponents. After Chet's excellent and well thought out post on the subject I realized he was right, and dropped that portion of my aurgument for ones that he had not yet proven to be false, and I felt were more compelling. So, I do not care about this power issue you speak of, just like you do not care about losing 3mil from a lucky store grab :)

True, your favorite opponents list may not change significantly. But if the PR change causes a significant gap compared to your favorites, your rewards may change, up or down. For tanks, I suspect the rewards will be somewhat less, and for mage based teams my bet the rewards will go up for the same favorite opponents.

Wow, Veriffex brought out a very valid point. Anyone remember the anti-unequiping for low PR, high score characters who deliberately unquipment their equipments when not fighting in CB1? Remember how Jon fixed it? By making those characters lose exp and cash. Anyone care to remember how that do to CB1? People are several milion cash into minus.

With CB2 Tattoo, Jon did the same thing for tattoo unequiping. Penalize for unequip tattoo. Now if NW does effect PR and based on the history of Jon's view of deflating PR, he's against it.

It's look more and more if NW starts to effect PR, you will see unequip penalty for regular armours and weapons. How would you like that?

Certianly Myonax,

And to you interesting post in regards to the pool cue, if you bought the cue to beat professionals with, should you not use it all the time even if you are not? And to the analogy I was hoping for, my elbow. If I only need to hit your for 20K damage to kill you but I hit you for 40K damage, is my elbow wasted? Even if I need the 40K damage to beat Cougars but dont need anything close to beat you? And if so is it unfair that I use a tool greater than needed to win? Do I waste my money everytime I use the elbow during that one fight I didn't need x90 to win, but only x75?

As for the other points, please refer to my reply to Valgusu, for Im sure everyone hates to give me the chance to reiterate them :)

The ones you found Chet did a great job of refuting most of them :)

Your "more items selling for USD" thing neglects one key factor... if in fact it is true that improving your own items/characters is a less worthwhile prospect under the new system and you gain less from using the money you make camping to do this, then the USD players will also be gaining less from those same items, and thus be willing to spend less USD on them... so there will be some balancing out between the two to the point where if you feel its more worthwhile to improve your character now, then it would most likely be after the change as well...

also the prices going down thing is completely arbitrary... i still don't even believe prices will go down... ESPECIALLY if the nw tune was only based on nw and not base cost of an item... if that were the case, then adding a base corn would be a HUGE benefit to a team, so the price might actually go up...

furthermore, to the issue of nw not being a worthy route to go now, just listen to what myo's saying... all it means is that more efficient spreading of your nw will be required... it would be a detriment now to have a huge dagger (just as having a single mage with huge va would be a detriment)... but if you have a huge morgul with large nw, provided that jon balances it properly (which isn't/hasn't been the argument to this point that i can see in this thread) then you will be doing better than without that weapon...

I must again respectfully disagree with this point of yours "thing neglects one key factor... if in fact it is true that improving your own items/characters is a less worthwhile prospect under the new system and you gain less from using the money you make camping to do this, then the USD players will also be gaining less from those same items, and thus be willing to spend less USD on them"

Would you not agree with me, that person who spends $1,000 on an online game does not really care about his dollar's buying power? The only person your example might effect are those people with marginal USD buying power, you are right they just might keep it in their pocket. That could have a balancing effect on the economy, as you make a good point there, BUT it still means those that have USD will be able to spend and buy items, and those that do not, will not. And as you bring up, after the change there will be less USD spent from these marginal USD buyers as they see the value of their dollar deflate. So you create a further disparity over those willing to spend USD (those who have enough not to care) and those who do not. As long as there one person willing to spend USD when none other are, that one person can use his USD to buy what others work hard to achieve.

So more items will be sold for USD because campers will not see value in making better characters. These items offered for sale will most likely be lowered in price and value. But those with money to spend will still buy them and thus the disparity of those who have USD and those who do not will still exist, and you will create more dependancy on USD to cb economy and I think that is a bad thing, and thus I think this change is bad.

Responses to Val have been remarkably free of content. Let's see what was said in response to him:

Assertion: Campers will be screwed because prices will go down!

Analysis: Yes, all 20 people engaged in price-gouging will be take it in the chin. They may only make 2/5 (from your example) the money they did before, which will then be only about 3x what regular players make. With such a large population of upstanding citizens brought down to poverty, whatever will we do?

Assertion: More items will sell for USD because $CB2 is worth less.

Analysis: Balancing this, items will be worth less, so less people will be willing to buy items for USD. I know I would.
The laws of diminishing returns and opertunity costs mean something to most people.
Diminishing returns: Each $CB they buy adds less than it used to.
Opertunity costs : Other spending options become more attractive because people get less for their money now.
Of course, all 5 people who spend hundreds of dollars might continue buying items ... but then, they're limited to 50 unequippet items now, so that can't go on forever :)

Assertion: Forgers will be screwed!

Analysis: One of two things will happen
1. People will upgrade their items less.
2. People will continue to upgrade their items at the same or greater rate.
People will continue to make the same amount of CB1, and you already said that they will be spending less of it on base items, that leaves the other main cash sink for them to do things with: Upgrading items.
Here's a question, if people don't (can't, from your example) spend their $CB buying items or upgrading items, what will they spend it on? Magic CB space monkeys? You have to spend your money on something, and those are the only 2 things to spend it on (not counting buying BA, which is a low % of what you make per day).
Thus, forgers will not be screwed, especially given your first assumption. Remember, all that money has to go somewhere.

Assertion: There will be an item unequipping fee because there was a tattoo unequipping fee!

Analysis: The situations are different. Jonathan's goals here are 1. Make power more accurate and 2. Reduce the advantage of USD in CB (as you may have guessed from a recent poll).
Regarding tattoos, he was reacting against people playing musical tattoos to get outsize tattoos (because tattoos are the only items that intrinsicly gain net worth).
To ask if this is a parallel situation, ask yourself, Do items intrinsicly gain net worth? No. Does Jon want people to pour money into items? Yes, because it's one of the two main cash sinks in the game.
Would an item unequip fee mean more people would use base items to get around it? Yes. So are the situations parallel? No.

I agree with Val: High NW people are complaining that their stated power will accurately reflect their character power instead of being able to attribute it to their own mystic genius.

I, for one, welcome the increase in accuracy when I use the 'fight by power' list.

A couple of responses:

1) Though it's been mentioned before, the rentals market would be massively hit by this change.

I for one listened to all that advice from others and in the tutorial about renting a good weapon to start. Sure, having that high level bow didn't let my 1000 PR minion take out a 10k guy, but it did give me the edge I needed over a 1500 PR guy or two, just enough of them to let me climb the initial ranks a bit faster. If, however, I had my PR adjusted to reflect the fact that I rented a million NW bow, then that wouldn't have been true at all.

2) I see plenty of naked mages, and plenty of naked mages around my PR and score can kick my minions butt. I have a 1 tank 4 minion team, and I've gotten my equip through trading and fighting... but if suddenly my compound bows, rented BoThung, borrowed exec, armor, gloves (pure luck spawn), etc, on my tank make my PR even higher... well, I don't see how this could possibly be a good thing. As it is now, there are a few people above my PR I can beat, and many I can't. Lots of people below my PR I can, and a few I can't. The game seems to be nicely balanced, and NW is less important than strategy, skills, and minion choices. Were this change to occur, I suppose I would simply retrain myself, sell whatever I had taken the time to collect for whatever I could get and go naked mage, but frankly, that's not the strategy I want to play... it would just be the only strategy worth playing if you wanted to climb ranks fast.

Whew another tough one. Is Grant a Chet mulit? Either way he makes good points. And that will force me to make some concessions.

"Assertion: Campers will be screwed because prices will go down! "

You are right Grant. Campers really are not screwed. Whether you give me $10, $20, or $80 for this virtual object I happened to buy quickly really does not dissaude me from camping. The reward is much greater than the effort regardless, assuming I can take something I can do as a pass time, and use it to supplement the cost of my internet bill. So the campers issue really isn't a strong one. Add in that there are so few of them, and most people do not like them any way, we should not really concern ourselves what happens to those overly fortunate few. So campers are not screwed. Well I guess I mean campers who camp for USD are not screwed. Campers who camp to improve their characters are screwed but they are an even smaller, soon to be absorbed by the larger, subset.

This one is a little easier to tackle of course, "Here's a question, if people don't (can't, from your example) spend their $CB buying items or upgrading items, what will they spend it on? Magic CB space monkeys?"

No sell it for USD of course, as you say other than making your characters better what choice do you have?

Forgers - "People will continue to make the same amount of CB1, and you already said that they will be spending less of it on base items, that leaves the other main cash sink for them to do things with: Upgrading items." Or sell it for USD. And I do not think people will make the same amount of money after the change or I am really uncertain of the purpose of this change. If the purpose is to prevent me from using my gap of PR and NW vs. opponent PR and NW for an advantage (I assume this advantage is greater rewards) then I really missed something. And since I do not think anyone cares if a 20K PR gets his 100K NW rolled into his PR or not, nor do I imagine many people care if a 50K PR rolls his 1mil nw rolled into his PR or not. I have to assume the idea is to reduce my rewards and other people like me with high NW and medium PR. So no people will not be making the same amount of money.

I beieive my point earlier in response to Val about USD address your point about USD Grant, but if not, I will add to it :)

I wanna holler the loud funny words!

What if...
Jon has been asked to calm down the generation of USD and where the money goes? ie the volume of money leaving the US economy for no product gain.
I'm not saying that this one game is so significant to the US economy that it alone warrants a stern eye from the authorities, but this type of game may need regulating in some way.

It 'could' be something on the Agenda as well as balancing the gameplay.
This change as shown so far seems capable of reducing items NW meaning peoples interest in revenue generating schemes will drop.

Perhaps the virtual items are worth too much and have become a concern?
Its not to say that other games dont have high USD worth items, they could have been asked to do the same or already have some regulation in place? Just a suggestion, not a lot of foundation in fact but I felt it worth mentioning.

Feasible?

(I'm expecting a single word answer from Jon ;))

So, Alan Greenspan called Jonathan up and told him that the tiny amount of USD spent on this game that actually makes it into non-US citizen hands (minus the non-US funds that are converted to USD) are responsible for the various ailments in the US economy and now require regulation?

CB2 is part of a bigger picture that 'may' need regulation.

I believe FatalXception's 2nd point is one that really must be considered.

Ignoring a tank that uses UC, I think this change could have an adverse effect on tank strats relative to mage strats.

Example: Two single minion characters, 1 being a tank and 1 being a mage.
The mage puts his exp into HP and FB for example, while the tank does a HP/STR/DX. At this point, the mage (obviously) would win in a battle as the tank can deal no damage without a weapon.

Now if the tank equips a weapon (say a bow, so that both parties can attack starting in the first round), his NW would jump up, and hence his PR would also increase. Now, both characters could kill one another (assume the bow deals damage approximately equal to the FB, and that either character could win depending on the random damage factor inherent in each fight). But now the tank has a higher PR, but the same "killing capacity" as the mage. Both teams would have the same score, but the tank would earn less rewards than the mage due to the "score-to-PR" calculation of battle rewards.

Granted the scenario above is a bit simplistic, but I think the idea is universal: tanks NEED NW to kill, mages don't. In order to be effective, I believe tanks would require an equalizer as they can't kill without NW, while mages can. Perhaps some sort of exempt net-worth, where a tank can have up to X NW without incurring any PR increase, where X is based on the PR of the tank. There are problems with this (what defines a tank character, and how do you separate them from an enchanter that someone equips with a base whip or something to increase the exempt NW). There are probably many problems that I haven't foreseen with this, but it is just a base idea.

wow.. ok now here is food for thought. if this change goes into effect it will be even harder for new players to achieve high PR without usd unless they want a solo mage. why you ask? tanks rely on NW if NW increases PR a new tank who slaps on a good sized weapon will get owned with no hp str or dx to back it. this kills the shabbleflab strat. campers who sell purely for cb2 will feel serious cash shortages with deflation, this will force lower NW items which will also hurt newbies because Sefton and Ranger are so far ahead on NW it will be very difficult to catch them. IMHO bad all around

bad enough adding tats as part of your NW..but now adding NW to it?? tis insane now what about mages they dont have as much NW as tank because they dont have the huge armor or the big weapons....I dont think its fair at all.

I've had some time to think about this and have had some fun reading it to be sure. =)

I had some knee jerk reactions to this early on although I did admit to seeing a point to this proposal.

The more I think about though the less of a problem I see it being for the higher level players it might affect. Sefton, being the bearer of a huge NW, sees it as a change that would affect him in a bad way. At first I did too. But looking at Gyaxx's standing currently he is only a short way from the top anyway and will pretty soon be fighting in the top ten, if his current growth continues. Ranger's char is obviously capable of holding his own up there too.

Where a change like this will be more detrimental will be lower level chars. The old strat of equipping large rental weapons to gain a foothold will - like the recent equip a large tatt strat - probably disappear. As I said in an earlier comment a 15k pr character still hits like a 15k pr character regardless of the size of the weapon it bears. The effect that may have on the rental market will be interesting to watch.


It shouldn't effect camping too much actually. If you are going on real NW a base pair of Tulka's for instance are very low NW. So you could equip those on a low level character and not change pr very much. So that shouldn't effect their value in the market.

What it will change is the use of external money - ie USD to raise your coffers. If you raise your NW through legitimate means - money made in the game not by buying huge amounts with USD - your NW should rise naturally with your character's natural growth. I'm not sure how clear I'm making that so I'll try and say again. If you fought from the beginning and only spent the money you make in the game your NW would be at a level fitting your character. You will still be able to fight and grow and develop. But you won't be able to rise through the ranks at an inflated rate. So all in all it's not that bad a change really. I hope.....=)

Jon, I get the feeling that you've opened a HUGE can of worms.

*pats Jonathan on the back*

Have fun with this one, buddy! ;p

With my non-serious mood-lightening post out of the way, I'd like to add a few things. I'm not gong to waste too much space to make a simple point.
We already have a system for knowing the true "power rating" of a character. It's called "score"! You may have heard of it. If we want a truer representation of a character's power, we already have it. I've been reading this thread and it bugs me that some people keep forgetting that.
We could calculate the exact power of a character (given enough time and patience). But we'd end up with that characters score. Dumb, huh? What's the point? Calculating the power added by a corn would be easy, but you would gain little by doing so. You'd gain the ability to find a character "true power". And that true power would be +1.06*(the power level of the effected skill) higher. "YAY, I just bought a Corn, now I gain PR faster!"

I will reiterate again, that this change would turn the strategy of CB bland.

Dont Do It! lol I'll give u candy jon u know u want it....mmmmm...mmmmm...Good :)

Let me add this, and I will let others speak. The whole thing boils down to should NW give you an advantage? Those with NW say yah (duh) and those without it say no (duh). But if you don't have it now let me show you what you are up against.

Without or rarely buying BA as I understand it. Since January 1st of 2005 till the first minute of April 9, 2005, counting Leap Year, there have been 142,560 minutes of actual time. An extreme example of a person who really want this change has challenged 119,256 battles as a challenger. That means basically one fight every 1.195 minutes for three straight months, with no sign of let up. So he wants to turn it into a race. Instead of allowing the luck of a store visit, the kindness of a stranger, or even a 20K raffle ticket, change your fortune, you are going to have to click, and click a lot. Without any sort of equalizer, how do you catch that? Ever? His lead is so big, that as long as he continues the pace, and as long as you don't have the ability to suddenly leap forward, you are in a race against one dedicated individual.

So you say but I can leap forward, I can add a big NW item to me, and jump my PR past his, with one item application. This whole thing is about rewards. Don't let them tell you otherwise. They want the rewards reduced for people that have a high NW and lower PR by comparison to their opponents NW and PR. Otherwise this is an exercise in semantices over Score and PR. I doubt Chet would waste that much energy on semantics. So, in the past, thats how you caught people who played a lot. You got a greater proportion of reward because you had some other advantage besides being able to play CB on average once every 2 minutes for 3 solid months, this does not include sleep. That advantage might be a bonus check in real life that gives you $20 to spend on CB. Or a lucky store visit, or winning a raffle, or someone quits and gives you his stuff, or gosh I don't know someone sticks CMLs into auction buy now 250K and you turn it around and sell it for 750K. Whatever it is besides clicking fight.

So in the past it took both. You look at the top character PR wise from CB1 and the battles challenged before CB2 and you will see that the top individual did both PR and NW. Had pretty much a solid lock on both. Played as much if not more than anyone in the game, and had ridiculously high NW.

So reduced rewards no big deal right? Wrong. You are 1PR they are 1PR. You add a bunch of nw and leap ahead in PR, now your rewards are even less, they steadily apply the same rewards. You leap ahead with a bunch of NW, your rewards decrease further. Now it costs 1mil CB2 $ to "leap" forward one +, so you dont "leap" you hop. They steadily apply same rewards. Now it cost 2mil to "hop" so you sort of plop. They apply the same steady rewards. You eventually hit a wall where it costs massive amounts of $$$ to even pretend to move. They remain patient and steady, applying a constant stream of reward every 1.3 minutes. Who wins? Could it possibly be beat going any other direction but applying a constant reward every 1.3 minutes?

In the end it comes down to does NW provide an advantage. If it does then yes you could catch this individual, enventually. The real question is at what ratio should NW provide an advantage and is that current ratio too much of one, but that may be too complex to address. So, if you make it so that in reality because of rewards the adding of NW does not provide an advantage, then let me know now because this race started January 1st and no one told me when to start.

And that will be my parting shot. Using the rules as they exist in the past and now, you play the game to use those rules to the best of your advantage to win. If however you play the game a different way, then get the game to change to your way, who has the advantage now? Is it my fault that Chet has not spent any USD or caught a lucky store purchase or won a raffle? He has no NW he is a top 9 character he should be amazed and proud that he can hang with that little NW. As Chet will say often, the race for the top on CB1 ended a long time ago, and could not and would not be moved.

If you make it so that adding NW reduces your rewards (again don't let them fool you if it does not do this, then there is no reason for this change just make Score and PR equal) and take away the advantage your NW gives you, then once again folks there are about 20 people with enough battles as challengers that if they keep pace or step it up in repsonse to this change, the race is over, they win. If you say reduced rewards do not cause them to have an advantage, you let me know how you plan to cover the X90 to X95 upgrade on your elbow, while every 1.3 minutes they get just a little more money and a little more experience than you.

Sefton, you conveniently leave things out of your "logical" arguments...

"reduced rewards" is a relative term... reduced to what you're making now, yes... but it should bring you right in line with the people you are actively competing against... as it is now, because your pr is much lower than theirs is, you have much GREATER rewards against these people than they do against you, even though your characters are evenly matched (and not due to some great application of strategy on your part); that is where the unfairness lies...

Also, you argue that this makes it impossible for you to ever catch up because your rewards are being reduced... well, if reduced rewards is THAT crippling, then how could the person in front possibly maintain a lead... he is after all fighting people below him all the time... we all know fighting lower people gives worse rewards... so he must be getting shafted too...

and finally you again make it sound like this makes you a victim for having high nw, but i fail to see how that is the case... by your logic perhaps i should fight and fight and fight and never train, because adding that pr i would get from training would make my rewards go down and only make me worse... so it couldn't possibly be a good thing

Val all these changes do not include top 10

The top 10 thing refers to using oversized tattoos when virtual PR was used. Now that its not, I do not think any exceptions exist.

So Sefton, you believe that you should be able to spend a moderate amount of time camping and then be able catch up to and maybe even surpass someone that has used " ... one fight every 1.195 minutes for three straight months, with no sign of let up"?

You think that you should be awarded for the time you dedicate to camping. You're right about that, and you are awarded - greatly. If someone like you can just pump up NW and then fight your way to the top in half the time as Chet, for example, is that right? In the current system you can do that thanks to the ridiculous rewards you get since you're beating people with scores so much greater than your PR. But where are the rewards for people like Chet and myself, that do nothing but fight? Being on top for a few months before being blown away by a NW "strategy" is not a reward.

I will go with becoming on this.

Sefton will still beat ppl with 300K of score or so his camping have result in higher rewards.A normal team with his PR would have much less rewards.

And I think the whole point here is exatly that -- the rewards... Let's not throw out a logical concept just because we can't get our head around Jon will be able to make rewards "fair" for tank teams vs mage teams (because I agree that there are issues there).

For all we know, Jon is going to completely re-normalize the PR scale and do something crazy like make mage experience count for more to make up for the NW gap compared to a tank. That is a totally crazy idea, because how will things like "mage" and "tank" be defined, but it is just something I am throwing out to show that PR can still be constructed in such a way as to make rewards acceptable.

So, if the concept is good (I have yet to see anyone show how NW does NOT contribute to power), and we trust Jon to balance the rewards, what exactly are we all still arguing about?

I have to admit, Sefton, that some of these posts have gotten so long (mine included) that the point has been kind of lost. I am not even sure what your issue is any more. If Jon decides not to incorporate NW into PR, then you are golden. If he DOES decide to incorporate it, he will balance rewards, and you will STILL be fine. And no matter what, you will still be walloping people left and right because your gear is so exceptional. I'm sorry, it is just hard for me to understand any types of complaints when someone is sitting on 35 million in net worth (yeah, poor me). Kudos to you for amassing that wealth -- my playing time is simply not structured such that I can be an effective camper. But it DOES lend itself well to 24-hour BA usage (when I care to do so -- not recently). Potayto, potahto.

With ref to the recent argument that this is a good change because of camping. You cannot say that "This is a good change" because "camping is unfair". Camping is one way to get $ other than fighting, there are many many more....

If camping is unbalanced (which about 95% of people agree it is), change the store, dont change fighting...

Ranger if a top 10 player's rewards are effected by this how can they counter it, they can't fight up. so top 10 will probably be exempt from these changes to the rewards scale.

camping is not unbalanced, by definition it can't be... if camping were SOOO uber, more people would do it, that has always been jon's argument on the issue as well, and it makes logical sense... if it were such a better way to advance than just playing the game, then more people would start camping until it got to the point where it leveled off... it is a self regulating thing...

the fact that your nw (a stat that clearly affects how powerful your character is) is not factored into your character's POWER rating is the issue here... it doesn't matter where you got that nw from... whether it be camping, buying it with usd or just getting it from fighting and spending your money rewards on stuff... the fact remains that it DOES make your character more powerful...

the thing i don't get is the people whining that it will make gaining nw pointless cause it just increases their pr... they will still be as powerful as they are now from their upgrades, it's just that now it will be factored into their rating as well, which yes, will lower their rewards, so that they're not gaining ridiculous rewards relative to others who are equally powerful... in other words balancing them...

quit whining and see the change for what it is... fairness...

if you can't change your current strategy to adapt to this type of a change then perhaps this isn't the place for you anyway, because this game is always changing and evolving and will remain that way... go play cb1 if you want a static game that you can find the ultimate strategy for and never have to change your playstyle

megaman... that doesn't even make any sense... there is no change to the rewards scale... the change is in how your pr is factored... individuals rewards will be changed because of this, yes, but it will not change the scale in any way... how could you exempt the top 10 from that? you obviously don't understand what's being discussed

the top 10 has no way to fight up, therefore in most PR scale changes they will not be effected. if they are effected it will be theoretically bad to be # 1. i think it is you who does not know what is being discussed Val.

Yes, Megaman.

It will be very very bad for me.

Since I will have the highest adjusted PR, I will have noone to fight up against and likely have very bad rewards. But intially there was a reason to keep NW out of the equation.

To use a quote from the FORS:

"Tanks: Can become more powerful than mages, but cost lots of money to maintain. Mages: Tend to be cheaper than tanks, but also tend to be less powerful (and less able to deal with armor penalties)
I think this provides a nice balance between spending money on your chars and spending exp on them; I see no reason to change it." FORS: #13, Q&A

So, if the change occurs, we will see a large "sell off". That is people will find the items that are not needed and get rid of them in an attempt to lower their PR and get better rewards. Personally I can get rid of over 6 million NW and still do as well as I do. I assume others will do the same flooding the market with items/armor.

Campers will be affect also in that certain items will be valuable while others like a HOD will drop in value since they become Luxury items. Personally I have made a list of those essential tank items and those that are "luxury".

"Ignoring a tank that uses UC, I think this change could have an adverse effect on tank strats relative to mage strats."

UC is already a good skill that doesn't get the respect it deserves... this would make it quite powerful.

the top 10 will be CHANGED because of this... so it WILL affect them

It will change them, yes. But it will not effect them just as it does not now. They are exempt because they can not fight up.

Thats an easy one to figure out.

"camping is not unbalanced, by definition it can't be... if camping were SOOO uber, more people would do it, that has always been jon's argument on the issue as well, and it makes logical sense... "

WRONG...
1) We are not robots, camping is not for everyone... I've camped solidly in my life on CB for about 5 days, which netted me stuff worth about 3 months of fighting. I don't camp because it isnt rewarding enough, I dont camp because it is about as interesting as reading Sefton and Chet complimenting one another :p
2) Jon has always just said flatly that camping will not be removed, he, like often did not back it up with this fact or at least not in the threads I read and / or started on camping. Jon does not need to back up arguments...

------

Secondly Valgasu,
Whining, complaining, moaning... Very easy to give emotive names to "having a different opinion and stating it". That aside there is something no one seems to be able to grasp on the "this is great!!!!" side, it may make the game "fair" but that is the whole idea of RPGs, the better you do, the more of an advantage you get.


Going to Chess as an analogy... If I was playing and took your queen, I wouldn't want the rules to dictate I had to then remove my queen from the table to make it "fair", I will have played better meaning I now have an advantage (not, an unfair one...). If I couldnt get this advantage through playing, what is the point in, well, playing.

It could be argued that if you could buy a second queen for USD, then it would be an unfair advantage, but you cant punish all chess players because of people spending USD, camping or forging...

Ranger, that is assuming that Jonathan makes this NW-wrapped-into-PR change and then stops there. Why is everyone assuming that is the case?

It is my belief that Jonathan WILL adjust the way rewards are done to account for this. He ABHORS the idea of "Mage Blender", so he is not going to do anything to make a massive tank sell-off requisite. No, I can't guarantee or even guess what Jon is going to do, but do you honestly believe he is going to sabotage his own game?

But you are correct, people WILL be smarter about keeping NW at the minimum needed to win. This is a Good Thing. Just like people ask, "How high should I train VA?" people will begin to ask "Is it worth not being able to beat a few people with lesser gear in order to get better rewards from the folks I CAN beat." I personally think that's neat. It's one of those things I can honestly say I had never thought about before, so bringing it to the fore with this new PR idea is deep and rich.

Here's the way I see it.

If I have three 1 minion teams, each with 100k exp.

Teams of:

tank, good damage, high NW.
mage, good damage, mid NW (some magic boosters).
mage, lower damage, low NW.

Well, it seems to me that the reward for having bought, shopped for the good NW stuff, rewards you. In most cases the top two guys will win, and they should. Now, if in this situation, however, the rewards for fighting are higher for the two mages, and highest for a naked mage, how can you think everyone won't be retraining? I know I would.

This game, as it is now, is NOT affected in a big way by NW. Of the thousands of guys I've fought, only a few had a giant NW that made any real difference. The vast, VAST, majority of battles are affected by one thing: STRATEGY. Guys who've got wasted points doing DM and EC, or people who have AS on a 1 minion group, etc, loose to a better built team.

I think the game is very well balanced now. I am a tank, with rentals, owned, and borrowed stuff, giving me a decently high NW (3 mil right now, I think). I can beat most, but not all people below me, and those I can't beat are almost always just built in a way that defeats my setup, not someone with high NW. Same goes for above me. I have a couple people on my fightlist with higher PR AND NW than I have, and yet I beat them consistently. Why? Because my strategy works well in defeating theirs.

This is a strategy game. There is no one setup that trumps all others. It's like rock paper scissors, but with hundreds of possible setups, each one which beats some, and looses to some. Start nerfing whole groups of setups (ie, anyone who relies on their NW to have a CHANCE of beating equal-pr chars), and you will see a big shift of this game towards lots and lots of mage teams. I know I already started to test one, just in case this change goes through, so I know how to retrain my character.

After the change, I'll be buying any and all tank gear, unload your crappy, high NW rares on me.. don't be a sucker, prepare for Armageddon today. :-D

Some of you are so nihilistic when it comes to change. If Jon wanted tanks to be crap, he'd only have to triple the blacksmith cost from x/+1 to x/+50, and make it go up expotenially from there :-P He's managed to build a well balanced game thus far, what makes you think he won't balance this as well? Have faith folks.

When emotions come into play in a heated issue such as this, the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) principle often helps to clarify things.

Does NW affect the outcome of battles in CB2? It seems there is little disagreement as to this. Then, logically and in all fairness, should NW be taken into account to determine battle rewards?

Seems clear to me, the complexity arises when we look at solutions...so g'luck Jon, I have faith in ya!

/me sees Ego's flying all over the place.

/me ducks as he sees chet, sefton, todd and myth go at it in a brawl.

first of all, to myth, jon HAS used the argument i said, in fact, he used it so often in threads early on in cb1 that he ended up putting it in the faq's in the store section under "why don't you implement one of the zillions of suggested ways to limit store camping?" question... 2nd of all, yes it IS true that if camping were giving people THAT unfair of an advantage then there would be more campers... YOU might not camp because you don't want the boredom/don't have time (as is the reason i am no longer a camper) but that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be enough people willing to do it if it were really THAT big of an advantage in the game, and that is precisely why it is in balance... if only a few people were allowed to camp, then it would be unfair

to your other point... yes playing an rpg well is supposed to give you an advantage, exactly, and having more money/items is and still will be an advantage... again with the assumption that high nw will HURT you after the change... why does everyone think this? tattoos add to pr now (thus reducing rewards) i don't see a ton of tat-less characters up near the top... same for training exp... it makes pr go up... but no one's adopted the strategy of not training his exp in order to avoid the reduced fight rewards... stop thinking that high nw will be a bad thing after this change, that's not what's happening, it will just be more in balance with other things...

and yeah, i've got a bit of cash set aside... as it is now i have a mage team, but if this change goes through and you all want to ditch your high nw tank gear, just send me a cm please, i'll be in the business to buy too as you all overreact and sell off your stuff

Valg camping well gives you a massive advantage and surely sefton is testament to that. The reason more people don't do it is because of the people who camp just for usd spending all their ba that way and making it too competitive for the not so great campers. If all the really good campers started actually playing a bit the advantage to be gained would be far more visible.

Wow Rubberduck, I read all those camper posts and had this great answer building in my head. The I got to your post and you had already said it.

Some (emphasizing the some there) campers barely even play this game. They just camp and make USD off it. That's it. Don't even interact with the other people in the game besides through FS/WTB threads.

I look at CB as an entertaining way to spend my time, like playing football. Now, would you still want to play football if there was a guy who grabbed the ball every time it hit the ground and made you pay him to give it back? That's the way I look at the purely USD campers. They add nothing to the game, besides taking money away from us people who are here simply to enjoy playing.

I have stated many times that I won't spend USD to buy items, partly because I'm poor, but mostly because I refuse to reinforce that mentality. I know it's a dying battle, because there are always people who will do whatever they can to be the best in this game, in fact I feel like I'm pretty quickly approaching the point where I need to make that decision. I want to be competitive, but I don't want to spend my grocery money to do it.

Basically there's no way to stop this (unless Jon makes a rule, and I've already stated my feelings on how that rule will enforce itself) unless people start consciously making an effort to put an end to USD campers. Don't buy from these people, start camping yourself and only sell for CB2, whatever it takes.

These people are taking advantage of you, stand up and fight them! START A REVOLUTION!

*note: that last part was dramatic sarcasm =)*

People that simply play this game to camp and sell for USD actually do lessen this game in my eyes. I don't mind the person who plays the game , and happens to get a lucky grab and sells it for USD, but those who just sit here and leech the store 24/7 just make me unhappy, I don't like the idea of this game turning into diablo or everquest in terms of playing simply for profit. Besides who is doing this anyways? The best way to stop the store-leechers is to boycott that person, it will make them stop their little business.

I wonder how many people here can hold back their urge to buy equipment from someone based on moralistic ideals. I bet the number is in the high 5's or maybe 10's.

My solution would be to limit the number of store visits a day. something reasonable like 100-160 is more than enough to get what essentials you want and camp a bit, and at the same time limits the hardout 24/7 campers that spend all their living BA on it. (800+ visits per day or something ridiculous like that).

It would make someone choose when to spend their 'camping' ba, and put the emphasis back on luck instead of making it a tedious, time consuming excercise. All of a sudden you run out of arrows, but spent the day (and store ba limit) camping? tough luck.

I'm obviously not a fan of the pure camp/USD players either, and this way a lot of casual campers, new players, or just people with less time would get a good slice of the rares without feeding USD into some snake's pocket.

I've made my position clear on the NW thing...

as for campers, as I understand it Jon has stated he isn't going to limit their ability to camp. That said, I would like to see it limited. People who don't play at all, and just camp 24/7 to make money ruin the idea of the rares from the store... it should be that anyone has a small chance for getting a rare, not that campers get it, and sell it to the rest. I think that 50-100 visits a day would be plenty, maybe a bit more, but having people go 1000 times in a day tells me that they aren't playing characters/leveling. I spent a few hours camping, and I make sure that I visit while I fight, and I have found a couple of decent items in 3 weeks. Camping is incredibly rewarding, however, the one time I did do it was when I got my aXbow, and I saw, but just missed an Exec. It's also incredibly boring. I suppose if I wanted ot supplement my income by 50-100 bucks a week, though, I might just camp 24/7 like some.

My solution would be that if this change was instituted; Spells would have to gain an NW to balance them with Tanks

Also, the PR gain should be no more than your (n)*(MPR), as even with uber equip; you can't beat people with overly higher PR. You are still limited by the whole dex/str not being high enough to hit.