It's here (in Changelog)

The new character bonus.

Update 1: those of you who created a NCB character that you didn't intend to use may transfer that char to me so your BA price goes back to normal.

Update 2: disregard update 1. Just retire the NCB character instead.

wow... how long does it last?

OMG! Hark, the end is near!!!!

Great. Hopefully this will help everyone who wish to restart.

wow

um.... how does it work? I'm making a character, I hope it doesn't strip me of my gold or anything.

WOW! Jon you are an amazing, amazing person!

how many new ones can we make?=P

What is the bonus?

WE LOVER YOU JON!

Ah, I see. When I clicked the link it wasn't showing anything about bonuses.

Can we get some details from those who are able to create a new party? I'm full at the moment so I can't see what the bonus looks like. :)

New character created with bonus of 171%.... ;)

I fought with a new character created from the link, from what i see, no change.

Tow, you did it too quickly - I did too! Created one with the bonus 171% -on the manage characters page it says: ' NCB until Mar 02 2006.'

Probably it will change after cache flush later.

I can see Sefton returning with a vengeance.:)

Purchasing BA bug by chance?

went from 379 to 988 on all toons?

* well it doesn't say 2006 but Nov 2nd until Mar 2nd - that's a long enough time to build a very strong character.

A good change Jon. I've always been on the side of the NUB, because I do believe that you can get somewhere without it if you put in the work. But I also believed that the NUB was dividing the best thing about CB - it's community. The fact that it's only an XP bonus is nice - most vets starting over will probably have enough cash on hand - and by vets I include ex NUB players too.

Nicely considered change. Some might say elegant... ;)

MMM I'm with Mr Wuss on this one - my ba price just tripled... unless that's the downside of the bonus....

I think that the price is right. If I remembered correctly Jon increased the newbie BA purchase price in the last change month. So I assume it will be the same in this case.

hahaha.. I think Jon is forcing you to play the new char and buying BA at hefty price :P As long as you have a new char created and not retired, you will have to pay double for BA. Just to make sure no one exploit the bonus like Mikel :P

If you want to run with the NCB, then you have to pay for that BA.
It's the same with the NUB.

Ok, I've created a new char and retired it - just to get the details. So your BA stays at the inflated price even if you don't use the char you've created? Oh well, bang goes my clan points for the day!

Hoo rah! Let's see what this does to the resale char market.

Does the NCB carry over to tattoo gains? Would I grow a tat as fast as kitty if I played as hard?

well, considering tattoo gains are made by exp per battle, it ought to, unless he made a change in how it affects tattoos specifically - doubt he did that.

If you create a char using the NCB it appears you can only have one character with that bonus - whether or not you retire the existing one. If you try to create a second char you can't.

And yet the notes on the create a character page make it seem that the one char at a time only applies to ex NUB players. I've never had an NUB.

Jon, can you clarify if the one NCB char - retired or otherwise - at a time applies only to ex- NUB players or to all.

Cool Change! Thanks Jonathan!
Time to make my new character on Sundays :p

If we let a character go into full retirement, can we make a new NCB char, or is this just a single chance to try and get closer to the top?

/me waits for ranger to start flaming the NCB

Kai, I created a new char, retired it and I definitely can't create another. Whether or not that applies once that char goes into full retirement I don't know.

Wow... so now we've all got a fair chance! Oh I love it!

OMG!

Thank you so much!! :D Here I come back to fighting lads!!!

*bows to Jonathan's greatness*

Now, I don't have to play the impossible game of catchup with my main guy :D

:(

I usually agree with your decisions but this time... I've got to say I think this is a mistake. Then again, you seem to have pleased most people...

I guess it's not so bad, if it doesn't increase money earned. Makes it pretty hard to buy all your BA (hopefully anyway).

Well I forsee that CB2 will go up in price once a bunch of NCB's are running around, most of you won't be able to afford the BA costs without any enhancements to the cb2 rewards. But you got what you wished for.
I haven't been in a Clan for 5 months (6 days shy of it) yet and I cracked the top 20 Clan MVP's for the year. Mikel (459,725), do the math, Ya'll just lazy. ;)

A hell of a way to begin change month

/me wonders what the big Boom will be at the end...

Down with Bush:

While I disagree with your politics, I think the NCB is quite fair.

I don't know all the details about it but it fair to ALL cb players.

My contention is that 4 months of hard work should not get you higher than 11 months of equal playing but that's just my opinion.

The NUB and NCB should get you near the top, perhaps 90 percent there, and then you will need to slowly fight your way to the top.

As it is, as soon as Kitty passes me, there will be little incentive to continue played TAB. One of the reasons I did was to keep on top. I will freely admit it. Once Kitty passes me, that will show it can be done by a very dedicated person, and TAB will fall further behind as time goes on and more players (new and old alike) do it.

As it is now, cb2 is now a 4 month cycle. But it is that for ALL, which is the fair thing.

also those NCB's will have no use for their highly upgraded items...

which either means they sell out and start over, or that they keep them and need more gear in the meanwhile

*cough*Mage*cough*

;)

ever saw a puny mage fighting good with a huge Cornuthaum or Cloak of the Istari ?

Lol, my thoughts exactly GL. Start a single mage with a couple days worth of bought ba then when you get high enough just switch back to a tank with all your items neatly kept on a storage minion.

Couple of days bought BA? You'll need to make sure you have the best part of a million in the bank to do that....

If you buy all your ba before creating the new char and retire all your high mpr ones then ba is cheap;)

You may want to keep your higher char to make some money with during crazy XP........

and it becomes even cheaper when you retire your highest characters before buying ba also ;)

Don't forget that this NCB is XP only - not cash - admittedly some of the players around here will be able to get their chars very high very quickly so money won't be a problem but in the short term you're looking at normal cash gain....

Does the price of bought ba drop if you retire your higher char with the new bonus set-up?

If you already have enough good items highly upgraded then who cares about cash rewards? Besides if someone where to say buy all their ba for a week or so and then create a new char they could quickly get back to the cash rewards they are used too.

Does the BA price stay at the same level once the bonus is over or does it revert back?

Sorry to keep banging on about BA costs....lol. I'm just annoyed at myself for jumping in to check out the new character creation stuff before I was ready to..call it an idiot tax for me...

I do see this affecting some things, at least in the short term. Clans may suffer some. Veterans, deciding to start over, will find they can't afford to buy extra BA for a while, so clan points will drop.

If you change your mind about starting over and revert to a higher character you'll also be hit by the higher rate.

Now hopefully, people starting over will have money/gear to help them. But what happens if you were one of the veterans who went mage? You'll have to stay mage I guess - it's obviously the cheap option. And with the NW/PR level there will be a lot of higher end gear that people won't be able to use for a while... we could be seeing lots of large tattoos without homes for a while....

I foresee people buying up cash with USD not only to boost equipment but to be able to afford BA...

Johnny, my BA purchasing is now fixed, and now costs me 48 a pop instead of 800 odd with Tal.

:)

ba da ba ba baaa

I'm lovin' it.

GL: so BA buying cost is the same with a NCB character and a non NCB character now?

Yup. With a cost of 48 a BA, I've been able to buy all my BA today and make a profit.

"most of you won't be able to afford the BA costs without any enhancements to the cb2 rewards. But you got what you wished for."

Doesn't seem like that at all.

Keep going GL, kitty pays over $900 per ba. It escalates fast.

Well he does have a point, your money rewards will later on not be higher than without the NCB, but your mpr will be... making it more expensive nonetheless

If all players now get charged the same BA costs as NUB's had I'm stuck on my higher with costs of 967 per BA, which means that I can't afford at least for the moment to buy extra BA. Which means that I'll lose ground slowly, which means I will fall behind...... so the top players will now get passed by NUB's and NCB's....lol....

Retire the bonus character.

Which makes you wonder if it's worth building a character past the bonus period.

Wonderpuff - I have retired the bonus character. I'm stuck with 967 per BA.

wait a minute... my BA price is 214 per at 261 MPR that can't be correct

what yours or mine MM?

tried training with the current highest character?

retired him

Tried training. Considered retiring him and waiting until the new char unretires. Considered giving it all up and going and sitting on a beach in Thailand. Thought about throwing the computer out of the window.

I'm not a happy boy today....lol ;)

Mikel, my cash rewards for my old character at 300K were such that I was still able to buy full BA per day and make a profit. If my BA costs are not inflated, which they don't seem to be, then why will I reach a point that I can't afford to buy BA daily?

I understand NUB BA costs have been inflated (I suppose to counter the inflated cash rewards), and maybe NCBs are as well. I'll judge that when I get to 300K. I can't remember what my BA cost back in January. :)

But, if you're saying that *no-one* can afford to buy all BA daily and make a profit at the high end of the game, as that's the way it's been set up, well *shrug* everyone will be in that possition.


:)

Oh great, price of BA has just gone up to 968....

lovely...

Mine is still 48. :) For a grand MPR of 6K. :P

Lucky you matey! I may switch off and go to the pub instead. Interact with beer instead of numbers..........lol.....

gotta be a bug mine is half my MPR per BA this is crazy

Holy coolness batman this is awesome...

Yeah, I bet I broke something while I was getting all those server errors...

Hmmm, maybe my BA cost is fixed on Tal and his base minion...

I'm in the same situation as Mega.

the NCB is a joke if this really is the proper BA cost. without the ability to buy BA regularly you still can't catch up

Mega: I have 130% NUB, well I don't buy BA and I have gotten to 450k MPR.

do you know that Ranger is double that?

I do not seem to be getting the NCB on my new character Havoc. I am even wearing a RoE on one of my minions. Can someone verify the bonus is working?

Is the cost to buy BA the same as for an equivalent NUB, I'm still not sure. The primary difference to the NUB is no increased money, what are the other differences?

Glory, I've been earning up to 100 odd xp so far, so I think it's working.

RD, I've still got a 48 BA cost at 7.5K (OK, it's not that big!) MPR.

One question for clarification...Does the NCB apply to forging like the NUB does?

does this last forever? will we always have a chance to make a NCB character?

I think the amount you can forge, depends on how much your char can earn per fight. If this NCB doesn't give extra bucks, then forging capability should be equal to normal char.

i thought the increase in BA cost was to stop NUB's from gaining a massive profit when buying BA? why does it apply to the NCB when we don't make a profit buying BA. jon i really implore you to think this over. the NCB will not help anybody the way it currently is. i make 70$ a fight max my BA costs 294$ a pop.

MM7, I'm sure there's a bug (Unless you haven't retired/fired a larger active character). My BA cost is still 48.

Sure it will help some... Bah thought I had got away from getting beaten on constantly by USD.

inspect me GL i retired all my char's but the NCB

Best Change yet!

I retired my NCB character as I am not interested in paying 1k per BA for the character I am going to play (Kaiousama), yet the price did not change.

most likely a bug regarding to NCB characters and the BA buying cost before and after retiring them, johnnywas also had that problem, solution so far: send the character to jon...

MM, deff a bug then.

MrWuss, check Johnnywas' post in General, it's a feature of the NCB. You have to perm get rid of that character for the increased B to go away.

Which kind of infers that the NCB gives an increased BA cost. Why does it do this if the cash rewards are not increased?

Same question from me GL, it is compared to the NUB, yet the NUB has greater money rewards by default, the NCB does not. Which is fine and I understand, no need to create a cash cow problem, but the out going far out paces the incoming.

Which is exactly the bug i think...

the NCB characters shouldn't even have an increased BA cost, well your's hasn't got it...?

I think we all want confirmation on this ... is the high cost of BA a bug or is it going to stay? If it stays then I don't think anybody can afford the change ... if it's a bug then at least those that have already made the change can figure out what they want to do ...


A little insight might be good on this...

I sent the character to Jon, and the BA cost is the same. Currently waiting on a mini cache flush and see if it clears up.

fixed BA price calculation when retired characters are involved

Thank you Jon!

yay!!! I've got my old BA costs back! Best change ever! I like the warning on the create character page now!!!

However, it does look like I've lost the ability to create a new character with bonus. Ah, well you don't get something for nothing.

Thanks Jon for sorting out my BA problem!

:'(

My BA cost has now increased to 359 per BA...

From 48.

I won't be buying any BA anytime soon...

GL - that's more in line with Jon's intent. I'm paying $365 per BA at 9k MPR.

It's not going to stop me fighting again for 4 months though! I'll see how far I can push it without buying any BA.

I just won't be able to catch Johnnywas in a Month, so I guess I already owe him a beer! It's ok, he'll be legless after the first one, so I won't need to buy any more! >;)

BUG FIXES RULE!

Right everyone, the NCB is going to be better for most even without buying an additional BA.

The bonus give you 2.71 times the normal XP you would get from fighting.

If we assume someone fights naturally as many times a day as they can buy BA (and again, assume all fights are won), the purchased BA is in effect (on average...) doubling your normal XP. A x2 Bonus you could say. The NCB is going to be better for you. And you can still buy at least some extra BA.

The more BA you spend naturaly a day the better the NCB is for you. But I think we all grasped that! :P

You would have to fight a/1.71 or less battles naturally per day (where a = amount of purchasable BA) for not getting the NCB to be the better option for you.

Nice GL. ;)

Barron has, what? $6-12 million a month for sale? TrueDevil has been selling $CB2 hand over fist. Certainly Dawg has found plenty to buy. Are you all not seeing that, as Bart seems to have pointed out more than once, to maximize your NCB seems to require some planning, forethought, strategy? Like saving the money that you know, experienced vet that you are, you will need?

Did you honestly think Someone (not you, obviously, because you don't have millions tucked away for whatever reason/what have you been doing for 11 months?) should get inexpensive, bonused, BA and have it cost next-to-nothing of the massive millions earned over the lifetime of the game?

NUB starts from nothing, not even any knowledge, and therefore has money to go with the XP. You have all that money and gear you've been hoarding for 11 months, don't you?

/me agrees with Bast on this subject.

Burr it's cold here in Hell.

Nah, being the great guy I am, I gave all my stuff away when I stopped fighting. I could have sold out, but thought it woulod be better to give what I could to mates I knew needed what I had or could at least get some use out of it all. :)

But for all you potential NCBers out there, I don't know how much extra BA you can buy (mine was bugged and I bought it all, so know it just reads zero, I dodn't know my proper total) so I'll take a guess at 703 I heard in another post. With 703 buyable BA, you'd be better off without the NCB if you would fight less than 411 battles a day which is around 2.5 full sets of BA!

If you'er not going to use more than 2.5 full sets of BA a day, should really shouldn't worry about how much you fight, or can buy! ;)

so good for building a character .. not all that good for rollin in the CP! ...

Bast, did you miss out the word "some" from the start of your last sentence :P

I'm with Bast on this one. My problems with my main char and bought BA aside, if I was to start over with the NCB I've got at least 5 million worth of gear sitting on my main that I can sell to bankroll a new character. And in a very short time you can be back at the same cash reward level you were at with a higher char - especially if you do like lots will and run with a mage team for the length of the bonus - lots of cash and no need to use it on anything but bought BA...

Come on people - strategy isn't just about what enchantments to use.....

Oh and GL, you can always depend on the kindness of mates if you need anything!

I have only been hoarding for 10 months. Bast must live in a strange place, as here it is only the 2nd of month 11.

Time travel maybe? Bast, is that it? Is that how you manage to be online all the time? Or are you an army of clones?

Jon.........your the coolest :D

My roommates YOU/Kitty occasionally sub for me. ;)

OMG! O_O Banination!!!!!

Bast has been reset, and renamed to Pinko.

I win!

Pinko?

o_O

To be clear: If you make a NCB char, your BA cost has the penalty applied to it as if you had an equivalent NUB?

So it seems, puff.

Pinko = Communist = Bast.

Apparently.

When I go to create a NCB character here is what I get:

Sorry... database error. Guess this new Character will have to wait.

I will try again after the flush in the morning, but just a heads up.

are previous NUB users not allowed this NCB?

Once the nub is gone.

Looks like the latest tweak to it is that you can't save BA allocation prior to starting an NCB character beyond the 160 you get normally.

Check out the notes on create character page.

dunno if i'm the only one experiencing this, but my ba purchase price went down from ~$750 yesterday to $378 tonight. i still have a 101% NUB 'til the 8th. please don't fix this anytime soon.

/me wanders off whistling nonchalantly

LOL @ darkie . No wonder you fight so much today :P

fixed mikel's and empty's bugs

I think I had the same thing as empty did :( another week of the high prices I suppose :)

Ty :)

My ba price went down too ::sigh:: I SUPPOSE you'll get right on that, won't you? :(

I have noticed that the CB2 earned isn't as good as without the NCB. Maybe it's just me. But that seems like whole lot of nerfing since ba costs rise steeply. Basically fight all you want, but you better save up for BA if you want to go that route.

money earned is completely unchanged by NCB

I am fighting characters 3 times my PR and I was only getting max of 200 cb2 per battle with a BA purchase cost of around 550 cb2 per ba. That seems a little low for fighting up that much...

sounds fairly awesome as far as rewards go ;)

I am getting around 85 exp per minion per ba, no complaints on the exp side. I have lots of funds, so the cb2 doesn't hurt me as much as most...

Is there any possibility of allowing a certain character to be reset with the NCB to keep the same name? This would alleviate having to rename a character, retire him, then create a new one with the original name.

Yes, fire the minions.

as far as money goes...you get about enough to buy all BA during XP times...and not much more...that is fighting folks with a score around 2-3 times my pr

mrwuss -- And then what?

and then re-hire them, silly.

If you mean the get character reset and then the NCB added to it, then no.

Rename it and create the new character like everyone else has to do.