Clan war? (in General)

Below is Avoid's Battle Log for the last hour or so. Note that I removed all the attacks where he was the defender. But I left in all of the battles where he was the attacker. Note a common theme?

So, anyway, for almost an hour he has been attacking me exclusively. This is a little abnormal for him, normally he has 3 people in his favorites list: Spid, Alienfb, and Almuric. Right now, it's just me. I queried him as to the reason; he said I give him slightly better experience than the other two.

There's really no other reason. My clan is getting 1% reward right now, we're no threat to his clan standings. And, none of the people in my clan are in the top 16 of people taking points away from his clan.

I would like input from everyone as to what I should do. Here's what I've come up with: 1) Clan war. We did this a little over a year ago on CB1. It's a possibility. I mean, if the reason he's attacking me is that he gets slightly better rewards, then the punishment should be that his whole clan gets reduced rewards. 2) Ask Jon to change the character reset timer to something like 90 seconds again. This was actually my first choice, but I figured that would get pretty much everyone (except maybe Spydah and Alienfb) mad at me.
3) Ignore it.
4) Spend a bunch of money and become like Gyaxx so I can turn the tables.
5) Start a new character that won't be attacked by him. (Although that's not a certainty.)

What does everyone think? Options 4 and 5 are probably not going to happen and I've been doing #3 for months. Look at my clan's stats for the last 30 days. And it's been that way - Avoid's been the top point-taker since February. Usually by a factor of 2. And Almuric is the only character in my clan that he fights. There are people who fight 3 or 4 of the characters in my clan who don't take away nearly as many points as he does by just fighting one.

And I don't take any of this personally, just like none of what I say here is a personal attack on Avoid. I'm sure he's a nice guy in person. He's just not one on here. And it's somewhat annoying. (And the reason it became annoying right now, is that I wanted to fight to get through my BA. But I couldn't, because if I did he'd just farm the crap out of me.)

Insights would be appreciated.

1000 most recent battles
Attacker		Defender		Winner		Rounds		Date
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:08 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:07 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		2:06 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		2:05 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		2:05 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:04 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:04 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		2:03 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:02 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:02 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:01 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		2:01 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:00 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		2:00 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:59 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:59 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:58 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:58 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:57 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:57 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:56 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:56 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:55 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:55 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:54 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:54 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:53 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:53 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:52 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:51 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:50 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:49 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:49 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:48 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:48 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:47 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:47 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:46 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:46 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:45 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:45 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:44 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:44 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:43 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:43 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:42 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:42 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:41 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:41 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:40 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:40 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:39 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:38 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:38 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:37 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:37 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:36 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:36 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:35 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:35 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:34 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:34 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:33 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:33 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:32 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:32 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:31 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:30 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:29 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:29 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:28 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		5		1:28 PM EDT
The First (HellFire)		almuric (Force Majeure)		The First		4		1:27 PM EDT

u prolly give good exp/rewards and they have to get that title for most points taken from one clan :)

oh..and ignore it :)

Ah, the ever-insightful Monty. Your deep examination of the problem and general erudition leave me speechless.

2) Ask Jon to change the character reset timer to something like 90 seconds again. This was actually my first choice, but I figured that would get pretty much everyone (except maybe Spydah and Alienfb) mad at me.

-Using all purchasable BA takes long enough as it is, let's not make it take any longer, okay?

6) Drop out of clans altogether, because clans are stupid.

I would opt for Number 6, especially in light of you saying your clan bonus is generally so low as to be useless.

He does that to poor Spid all the time as well. Just grin and bear it.

If we were normally at 1%, Chet, I would, but we're usually 10%ers. Right now it's final exam/graduation time, so one or two people aren't as active as they are normally. 10% is nothing to sneeze at.

Achoo.

I'd say deal. Farming happens. I farm all the time. Just the way it is.

Here's our top 3 scourges for the past 30 days. Ranger and Markxe were hitting 3 of us until i changed characters, now they hit two. Avoid only hits Spid.

QBRanger -15,324
markxe -16,264
AvoidCXT -17,605



Really, all you can do is shrug. He certainly does well with maximizing his rewards.

3, duh :P

Almuric, this may a blend of your various solutions, or it maybe in left field, but for me The First is vulnearable to seeker arrows. Where as you may not have to dump 60mil into your char to beat The First, you might be able to do it with "defensive seekers" Get a batch of say 1K seekers drop say 1mil into upping them, put them on your char and sit back and relax :) I would certainly recommend testing it out on a smaller scale (no reason to blow 1mil if it doesn't help) Anyway, its been my experience that if a person suddenly starts losing to you and they have other options, they tend to take the easy road vs. losing to you sufficient number of times to deplete your massive seeker stack. It is a stop gap/temporary solution, but if it works, you may find him taking you off his fight list, and you just being upredictable enough to slap them on now and then, might keep you off his list. Certainly a suggestion only, but something to consider :)

Or just drop NW = lower reward for him.

Sarcasm Alumric? =)

Al, look at his 1,000 battles log. I farm the soy out of Avoid as much as 4 days a week.

This morning I happened to catch both Avoid and DAWG, as well as some Memnot and Rubberduck. (it was a good morning for me!) So that was most of 600 BA on just two clans.

When being farmed, I either stop fighting and let my opponent expend his BA on some other target, or continue fighting and take my losses. Spydah and Todd and Avoid all seem to fight on, regardless of how mercilessly they are being attacked. I recall Chet doing the same, back when he played.

Certainly, Spydah has seen hours at a stretch as Avoid's sole target.

Yes, it takes more "attention" to get our rewards out of clanfighting, I think that's the way it's meant to be. It's the "suck it up" part of clanfighting -- wait out your opponent (investing time in CB) or fight on (losing your clanpoints and potential bonus).

Avoid's OCD does not a clan war make. :) ( and he never complains about my dogged carping of The First. I used to invest in seekers, just for him!)

Conclusion: Ignore it. Take your points back by beating the soy out of Rubberduck. Grow big and strong and eventually you'll be off his fightlist. :)

Almuric, I'm sure there is nothing personal. Avoid is a machine, period. He, more than anyone here in the entire world of CB, pays attention to his rewards. If you give him slightly higher rewards than the next guy does, he will fight you. If 3 people give the same rewards, he will fight those 3.

Remember his post on how to calculate rewards based on 2 fights? He took the time to figure all of that out. This guy is awesome in every sense of the word.

If it wasn't you, it would be someone else. Just deal with it.

Although, now that you have mentioned all of this, if I were Avoid, I'd tend to fight you a little more, even if the rewards lessened to the old levels. You know, just for the irritation factor. But, that's me. hehe. I found some strange satisfaction in bringing down Spid's single tank with FoD a few years back, even though his PR was x10 mine :) I found it more satisfying the more he complained about it. Man, I'm warped.

Chet, 3:00 PM EDT
6) Drop out of clans altogether, because clans are stupid.

Did I miss something ? Clan MVPs: 1 year ... Chet (419,944)
--

Almuric, either equip yourself so that Avoid can't harm you like this, or ignore it.

Don't ya just love clans :)

Bast, I wasn't fighting at the time. Notice the date stamp on the fights. Twice a minute. Over and over. He didn't catch me fighting, he caught me... idling.

Sefton, that's a good idea. I had tried seekers, but I didn't have any success with them. But I only went to x11 with them. Maybe a little higher will do the trick. Part of the problem is that seeker arrows are hard to find, though.

Chet, I know your clan wasn't doing well. That doesn't mean all clans are bad. Care to elaborate?

Monty, your perspicacity is only exceeded by your cluelessness.

That is just Avoid's peculiar brand of OCD. He has spent upwards of 4 hours on no one but Spydah, when Spydah wasn't fighting. I could beat The First twice for every one time he beat Spid -- didn't matter. His determination is really something to behold.

Note I have more fights in than him, but I haven't maximized my rewards as efficiently. See MPR -- a lot of that is due to his persistent (pernicious) bonus, but some is due to his willingness to spend that long clicking once every 30 seconds.

7) Pat yourself on the back. You just made 1 man spend 1 hour 20 minutes dedicated to fighting you out of his real life while you did real work in the real world.

To go through 160 BA w/ 2 fights per minutes = 80 minutes of clicking.

Bast, I stopped playing? You have me a bit confused there...

Almuric, if you didn't know that I hate clans, then you haven't been paying attention. *grin* I have hated them since day one. The "clans are stupid" line I uttered in this forum is probably at least the tenth time I have said the phrase in posts, and the zillionth overall (posts, chat, PMs, etc.)

Tell me this:

- Do clans really make the game more fun for you?
- Is a 10% bonus going to allow you to catch those who now or in the past have utilized USD, camping, or CB1 as a means to build a large wealth disparity? (Hint: Even at 15% bonus, 24-hr-a-day fighting, and buying all BA, I would never catch the likes of Sefton, Ranger, DAWG, etc. without expending at least a little bit of USD or trying to leverage what is left of CB1 -- not sure there is even a market there, anyway).
- Have clan issues ever turned you off in anyway?

When I stepped back to answer these questions, my answers were no, no, and a very resounding yes. So, a few nights back when I watched my score go down (I was winning, but getting farm/raped faster than I could gain score) as I was trying to use up BA late at night over a flaky Internet connection (I was at a friend's house in a very rural setting), I said enough is enough.

If I want a boost later, I will spend a couple hundred bucks and make my character far stronger than any 10% ever could. MPR is easy. Always has been, even without clans.

Were clans ever fun? Sure. But it was hard enough finding folks who fought as much as me (and didn't drop out to forge now and again) but weren't back-stabbing obsessives who would leap at the first sign of trouble or lower rewards. The friends who were a good fit for me have generally stopped playing as attrition, work rules, and life caught up to them, so that leaves me with very little incentive to participate in something I only did grudgingly in the first place.

Elaborate enough for ya? *smile*

Almuric, i'll help you get some seekers. Like Sefton says you don't need a lot of them. You only need enough to break Avoid's habit. If you can get stacks less than 100 arrows, you can really jack up the X and pths cheaper.

re: clans

1. Do clans provide extra incentive for individual's to fight more? Yes.
2. Does the 10-15% really make a difference? Yes, the difference is about 10-15% in XP and $$. How much would you pay for a rare item that instantly gave you 10-15% bonus to XP and $$?
3. Do clans make the game more fun? My guess is yes since there seems to be a lot of people in clans.
4. Will 10% let you catch up to Sefton, Ranger, or Dawg? Absolutely not. Using that same argument though, a 10% raise to your salary won't let you catch up to Bill Gates either but who in their right mind would turn away a 10% raise????

i would've quit CB1 a long time ago if i wasnt in a clan i liked.

There are also other benefits of being in a clan. I'll give you 2 examples which are a bit to the extreme but you'll get the point if you take a good look... Meet two of my old clanmates that have benefitted greatly from the clan relationship, Bolfen and Hellblender.

Then by all means, Nixon, clan away. More power to you.

Almuric,

I think the problem is with the way clan points are done. Your clan getting a 1% bonus is worth just as much as my clan with its 13+% bonus. Therefore the incentive to attack a top 5 clan is not there. Go after the straglers on the fringes of 3 point clans.

IMO, there has to be some bonus for attacking a top 5 or even the top clan to make people try to bring it down. Right now everyone plays "safe" in clan warfare, that is attacking only those they can beat in 1 battle. Somehow, someway, things need to be done as to make attacking top clanmembers beneficial.

Long ago I proposed a sliding scale of clan point with those in the top clan being worth 7 points, those in the top 3 or 5 being worth 5 points. Or something like that. Something to make it worthwhile to go after the top clans. Or make those in the top clans worth just a bit more xp/$ perhaps you get 1.1 or 1.2 times your clan bonus for defeating a top 5 clan person.

Something, anything to differential top clans from bonus clans.

Just my 2 cents.

after reviewing my fight list.......all I can say is:

POT/KETTLE/BLACK

stuff occurs....

actually its the two of you that farm the heck out of Walker Boh...and 1 or 2 others who have posted in this thread before me.....

You know who you are and you are all winning on borrowed time ...MUHAHAHAHAHAHA........its a game .....

I liked being in a clan simply because I could c enter c enter c enter by BA away.

I wish there was something similar for non-clan people. Perhaps "n".
n enter n enter n enter... would certainly be better than the down enter down enter oops, I just hit the last guy on my list 3 times. :-)

(Oh and the part where I keep hitting comatose characters)

I like clans because Chet dislikes them.

Sukotto, I still fight almost all clan members because of the very thing you state, and because most targets are clan members in the top fifty or so. "C"-Enter is a wonderful thing!

I like clan it just a others thing that i excel at.

Didn't I see a post just after the NW-PR change where one of the top 10 apologized for stripping the non top 10 out of his fight list? If Avoid's in the top 10, his rewards may suck for targeting non top 10 players, and the top 10 may not generate consistent wins (ie - if he's 8 or 9th of 10). My $0.02.

Well, x16 seeker arrows didn't do it. And the arrows were probably $1000 each, so that wouldn't have been a sustainable option, anyway.

So, instead, I unlearned one of my AMFs and learned DM with it. Helps against Magnus and Spid, too. Guess I need to set my sights on Gyaxx and Apocalypse Book now. ;}

Um, only unlearned one of your AMFs? So now your AMF gets fizzled by your DM? Not sure I see the point in that...? If you are going to go DM, go ALL DM. ToA/ELB/DM is pretty much the tank-team status quo these days (just look at the top three most days).

The Last's had two big advantages: AS and GA. A big AS took a while for me to chew through and the GA gave me big damage when I hit him. In the meanwhile, his MM's were doing a good bit of damage to me.

The DM appears to be big enough now. It stops his GA. It halves his AS. And the AMF is still big enough that he's doing big damage to himself while I'm cutting my way through his big TJK. If I can kill at least two of his mages in the ranged round, I've got a good chance of tying or winning.

So, I think I still need the AMF. Especially against people like Susan Death and Black Card Situation. I'm gonna leave it like this for a while. There's no-one that I used to win against that can now beat me easily. There's a few that I draw against now, but the trade-off looks like a good one.

I know the conventional wisdom is to choose either DM or AMF. I'm gonna try to make both work. It'll give me something to do. Besides, I like being different.

I would say you are onto something, empirically speaking at least.

The ultra-net worth folks can depend solely on DM and quick kills. The smaller ToA teams (I am thinking you and Spid) still need some AMF to make sure mages don't overpower you. Once you get your offense higher, you can probably shift to more DM.

The only downside in that strategy is that training DM going forward will continue to eat away your AMF till you might as well unlearn it. Training the AMF too just means a bigger unlearn penalty later on.

Or do you think it is viable in an ongoing basis to do it that way?

If it works, how can it be wrong, eh? *smile*

The DM is big enough to take out all but the biggest GAs, VAs, Haste, GS, and Prot. And it decreases ASs to a large degree also. So I'm getting a lot of bang for the buck. If I increase it, I'm really only further affecting AS.

And on the other hand, big DD spells still hurt. So I'm increasing my AMF and leaving the DM alone. I'll keep watching my fights and I'll increase the DM when I notice that I need it.

What I'm kind-of afraid of is that Spydah will learn DM and then I'll be in the same war of attrition that Sefton and Ranger are engaged in.

But in the meanwhile, I love the effect. Making a big strat change like that is always scary - you're wondering if you're just wasting XP - but this worked out pretty good.

Excellent idea. If I hire another minion I will have to seriously think about making him DM instead of another AMF like I was thinking. My AMF is probably sort of topping out anyway.

I think the ToA war of attrition is going to get you eventually no matter what you do. You will just be better able to handle mages teams if you hold onto the AMF...

Bah!!

I've been saving XP on Spid for just this, so I can have the AMF/DM combo, and what does he do!?!? Spoils my fun I tells ya!

It's comin Al, it's comin ;)

/\88/\