Isn't it about time the NUB was recalibrated? (in General)

Since Mantra bought those minions and jumped ahead in MPR I don't believe the NUB has been recalibrated. In order to live up to its intended purpose shouldn't it be increased. I'd be interested to know some of the latest ncbs fight densities and how far behind in MPR they ended up.

the NCB/NUB increase in their "%" based on the top MPR, it does not require manual recalibration every time someone takes the lead in MPR

Thats not what Jon says.

Where did Jon say otherwise? 0.o

I'll see if I can find it, I may be some time ;)

The bonus is based upon the top Minion Power Rating (MPR) in the game at the time of sign up of a new account. The goal was to calibrate the bonus such that a character under bonus can achieve 95% of the XP earned by a veteran, given equivalent effort, by the time the NUB is over. The NUB is seen as a percentage, ie 150%, which means that the rewards are 250% that of a normal character of the same Power Rating.



^^ from help : )

So if mantra was a single minion at the time of your bonus calculation, your bonus percent is based upon that.

He then buys (for example) three additional minions, increases his MPR by a significant amount, and your bonus is no longer enough to catch him.

But the bonus of the guy who starts today is.

Suggestion. Would it be possible/make sense, to adjust all the existing NUB/NCB bonuses every time (and only when this happens) the number one team (who the bonus is based off) hires or fires a new minion?

Apart from that, leave the bonus as is.

Everyone, especially those with high PR characters, fire all your minions! There the NUB, cut in half (hopefully) lol :P

Sure, and when you hire them again, it will re callibrate! ;)

"ranger: you seem to be under the impression that the NUB code thinks, "oh, so this guy has more MPR than ranger? I'd better up the rewards."

it does not."


"I've already mentioned my two goals for the NUB:
- give motivated players a chance to get to the top if they're willing to work as hard as the players who are already there
- retain new players by showing them they have a chance to catch up

Since apparently a lot of people missed the explanation in what I call "the bartjan thread" even though someone else started it, the NUB works like this:

Rate * Duration ~ time CB2 has been open

Right now, Duration is capped at 4 months, so every day the rate a new player gets goes up a bit."

--Jonathan, July 3 2005 10:03 PM EDT

"Ranger: that is how I calibrate the NUB/NCB bonus, but none of the coefficients I described is automatically changed, except of course the time-based one(s)."

--Jonathan, March 7 2006 11:03 PM EST

All from Jon.

I believe at least that post from July 3rd is from before the NUB got recalibrated...

Border, you can test this theory out by CM'ing some of the newer players and asking them what their % is.

I know wifey (who loses her NUB today) is on 153% for example.

You can also see when Mantra hired new minions by looking at the graph on his char. I believe Cosmos is now owned by Ranger.

From a quick glance at the facts I was able to pull together, all looks well to me - but hey, I've been wrong lots of times before :)

It seems that recent "hardcore" ncbers have fallen quite a way short, just wondering if this was to do with them or the bonus.

TrueDevil has done 'pretty well'. Still has the NCB for a few days and 4th in standings...

I know that Bart but was just showing Slayer that it does indeed require manual calibration which hasn't happened since the rise of Cosmos (as far as I know)

I'm not sure that it's manually calibrated ?

I was always under the impression that the NUB / NCB was formulaic based on when the char was created 'vs the highest character in the game.

That is the misapprehension many were/are under. If you look at my quotes from Jon you will see this is not the case.

I have a higher MPR than TrueDevil (though not by much), and our NCBs are over at the same time. I figure I will be a bit north of 1.4 million MPR when all is said and done. Here are the things I missed out on:

-- High clan bonuses. I assume Jonathan uses something like 10% clan bonus figured into his NUB/NCB calculations, since 10% is easy to get. I should have been in a clan (even a single person clan would have helped, but I wasn't at first).
-- Probably missed, on average, 4-5 hours per day (bed by 12, up around 8 most days).
-- Lost a total of 3-4 days completely right at beginning of my NCB

Here are things that helped:

-- Had RoE on the whole time, still able to beat targets with high score in comparison to my PR.
-- Bought ALL my BA, every day (we're talking 25-26 million in cash burned). Always buy BA during high exp times, play as little as possible through high money times (I would use that time to build fight list and explore upwards).

I would say by being clanned up the whole time, I would have ended up around 1.5 million MPR instead of 1.4 million. That's still not 95% of the top MPR, but I think Cosmos had one more minion added as I was coming up.

Someone with a lot more time and better master of building a good fightlist could probably do better -- if that I have no doubt. Dixie Cousins is knocking on 1 million MPR, and I don't think she has bought BA every day (but had purchased minions, so it's hard to say...)

All I know is that I won't bother with trying an NCB again. Burning 25 million in cash and coming up this far out of the running (I _might_ crack Top 15 or Top 10 score once in a while once I strap on a decent tattoo) makes it pretty worthless if your goal is to reall make a run for the top (without using USD).
I'm with GL, I think the bonuses need to flux in some pro-rated way when the top team adds a minion.

Your quotes are from the old NUB system. The new system is more dynamic.

BL, that is how the NUB/NCB bonus is calculated. Look at the large thread where Jon explains the formula.

The moment you create a bonus charcater the NUB/NCB looks at the top MPR and predicts where they will be in four months. It then works out what bonus you would need to reach 95% of that target in four months, with equal effort.

That bonus is then fixed for your all your bonus time (check with a new bonus user, and ask again in a coupel of weeks to see if the bonus has changed, I'll bet it hasn't) - unless jon manually changes it -.

The problem here is the top spot increasing their MPR by purchasing minions.

This has thorwn out the equation for those that got their bonus determined before the minion purchase. They are now unable to reach 95% of the top MPR.

Those created after the purchase are fine. Lucky devils! ;)

Bart, what 'new' system?

I see Bart, so are you saying that it now does take account of the highest MPR at the time of NUB/NCB character creation? You're being rather vague.

"Jonathan, November 15 2005 7:29 PM EST
My goal was to calibrate the bonus such that a char under bonus can achieve 95% of the XP earned by a veteran, given equivalent effort. (This is not the place to argue with the 95% number or the duration of the NUB. I'm just setting out the facts here.)
In math, we represent this as finding a bonus N such that

0.95 * [vet's xp in 12.5 months] = (1 + N) * [new user's bonus-less xp in 4 months]

Let's normalize to xp per 1 month (XPM):

0.95 * 12.5 * [vet's XPM] = (1 + N) * 4 * [NUB XPM]

But this assumes equivalent effort. We need to adjust for one or the other fighting more battles per month (BPM). In other words, we don't want to penalize a new user for fighting extra battles, or reward him for fighting less, when we proceed to use actual numbers to calculate N:

0.95 * 12.5 * [vet's XPM] / [vet's BPM] = (1 + N) * 4 * [NUB XPM] / [NUB BPM]

Equivalently,

0.95 * 12.5 * [vet's XPB] = (1 + N) * 4 * [NUB XPB]

where XPB = XP/battle = XPM / BPM.

Now solving for the "correct" NUB is trivial.

N = -1 + (0.95 * 12.5 * [vet's XPM] * [NUB BPM]) / (4 * [NUB XPM] * [vet's BPM])

Now we can start plugging in numbers. We'll pick Ranger's and Kitty's numbers as the highest vet and NUB representatives, respectively -- for this we want to use maxima, not averages.


battles xp months played* BPM XPM** XPB**
Ranger 400223 47332812 10.6 37756 4115896 118
Kitty 125939 43540595 2.99 42120 6331335 150
* actually "sets of 30 days played"
** kitty's current bonus is 1.3, so XPM had to be divided by 2.3

N = -1 + (0.95 * 12.5 * 4115896 * 42120) / (4 * 6331335 * 37756)
= 1.15

Thus, all NUB and NCB have been multiplied by (1.15 / 1.3) = 0.887, adjusted for the lifetime of the bonus. E.g., kitty's new bonus is about 0.71 for its remaining month.

I'm explicit about the process here to the point of tedium for the benefit of those of you who still keep an open mind. Those of you who do not will continue to hate on the NUB anyway, of course."

How many times does Jon have to point out that the bonuses are based on how long cb has been up, not the mpr of any char.

Nov;

"0.95 * [vet's xp in 12.5 months]"

Change the 12.5 to however long CB2's been running + 4 (or rather I suppose the life of the top spot character +4, as the top spot is no longer held by a character created on the 1 Jan 05...)

That is for manual recalibration GL. Though Bart is inferring something may have changed in that respect now.

When I started this NCB my goal was to create the number 1 UC tank from the ground up. When I'd achieved that it also coincided with a busy time at home and work so effectively I gave up. But I'd also realised that in order to go any higher with the char I needed to do one of a couple of things or all - switch from UC to straight tank, preferably with one of the Big 4 weapons. Add some more minions. Or switch to DD and save some cash to buy BA or pay for those changes.

Well, the bigger weapons and extra minions would have probably cost too much - I'm not one for saving my cash wisely! And once I switched to DD I realised I had some other ideas which meant that I started saving/buying for my next NCB. If I'd stuck with the char (life permitting) and made the changes I would have liked I think I would have ended up a lot higher at this point.

I'm not sure it's the bonus that's the problem. TrueDevil's char proves that an NCB is capable of getting up there. But there is something of a glass ceiling - around the 1.5 mill score mark. You have a lot of bonus players new and old sitting there, and a certain amount of older 'bigger' characters hanging around too. And by that point you can either beat the people around you or they can beat you. There is no new meat to attack and you have to play the waiting game, waiting for your MPR to rise or you have to boost your overall PR somehow. It all comes down to two things. Persistence and CASH..... ;)

BL, the first half of the post explains how the bonus is created, it's when Jon get's to the second, and the plugging in of numbers to solve it, he shows how it was off and what was needed to recalibrate.

The last couple of lines are the manual recalibration.

The bonuses HAVE to be based on top MPR (just intuitively...) What if we had all been lazy for the past 18 months, and the top MPR was 100K? Are you saying Jonathan would still make the bonus at 149% (my current percentage) and let a new player skyrocket to 1.4 million MPR?

I'll just say it again :) this quote is from a post in early March 2006

"ranger: you seem to be under the impression that the NUB code thinks, "oh, so this guy has more MPR than ranger? I'd better up the rewards."

it does not."

** Minor divergence:

4-month NCB + single-minion + RoE + some clan bonus + all purchasable BA + no retraining? = (+/-) largest possible singe-minion MPR at-or-about 1.4m MPR. (or 100k off of Sons of Lorhar, a 7-month old? and the only one short minions in the Top 5ish)

1.4m MPR + 3 very expensive minions = +/- 1.9m MPR. (just guessing, feel free to do the math on your own) A significant MPR.

**Back on topic, after a fashion

The bonus can't take into account how many minions you do/will have -- it's a value assigned to you at the moment you start. MPR is _purchasable_ via minion hiring. So as long as you use your entire bonus as a single minion, you leave yourself room for a significant jump in MPR. Which is, rather, what I thought was the whole point of remaining single-minion (RoE!, no less) for 4 months.

It's only those who _start out_ as 4-minions, and end up at the 1.4m above, that don't have _the possibility_ of making that last leap up into the top MPR spot. (Yes, I'm at 1m MPR already, and I have two months + one minion purchase left.)

Thus and so: why _would_ the bonus aim to get one, as a single minion, within 95% of the Top MPR if that spot is occupied by a 4-minion team? (And is it really problematic if the single-minion team above doesn't get there?) Is it just "the best way", mathematically speaking, to use MPR-per-team instead of MPR-per-team/minions?

[No, I can't read Jon's highly-detailed post on the math involved -- that many variables just looks like "things spelled wrong + bad punctuation". :P ]

The NUB/NCB does exactly what a few others have mentioned, specificaly what GL mentioned about 11 posts up. Your bonus is based on the top MPR at the time you start your character and does not adjust to a new higher one if someone buys minions (from what I understand from Jon's writings). Which is why if I was considering starting a NCB character, I would wait until Mikel finishes his NCB or Son of Lorhar buy his 3 minions.

I think the reward is fine right now, the current rate of NCB/NUB is probably like 160-170 % ?

I haven't really played my best here, not exactly 1500-1600 battles per 24 hr for the past 4 months. (Going out during saturday, sunday, had some days totally off because of some personal family problems, etc). If anyone could play constantly every day, I'm pretty sure he/she will get up to 95 % exp of the Top MPR or maybe more if he/she keep using RoE until the end like Sutekh.

If the NUB is to give new players an opportunity to reach the top, then why are the money fight rewards so large? Doesn't this encourage these "dodgy" players who just sell their money?

NUBs also can buy minions. How should it compensate for that?

Wasp, for truly new players, the NUB is meant to help our with MPR _and_ net worth, otherwise you aren't really putting the new kids up to that 95% potential, are you?

Bast: good points all around. Except for how expensive new minions are (doesn't detract from the accuracy of your point, merely the feasibility). 23-24 million times 3? Sorry, but I don't have $750 lying around for such a purpose (and have already burned an equivalent of $250 on BA), and it will take an eternity (man, money rewards are squat up here...) to get that cash fighting. But yes, 1.9 million MPR is a very reasonable assumption (perhaps even a bit low) if I bought all three minions at 1.5 million MPR. In other words, if I were to spend a cool grand on an NCB, then, and only then would I truly be able to take a shot at the top. The NUB, on the other hand, gives money and MPR, as it should, so a wily newbie has a better chance of playing the buy-minions game to achieve greatness.

GL's point (if any) seems the most valid. _IF_ Jonathan were to implement a more dynamic NCB/NUB (read: percentage can change during the 4-month period for a specific character), it should only happen for minion hiring. All other growth estimates should be "close enough". I wonder how retirement affects things... Even if Cosmos were retired, would that MPR still be used for bonus estimates?

It does seem there has to be a misunderstanding somewhere. A few of us are completely convinced that the top mpr isn't a factor, and the rest are rehashing arguments I myself made at one point. Where oh where is our fearless leader.

Time for an experiment! Let's retire Cosmos for a month and find out --
Jon shouldn't have to spoonfeed us _everything_! ;-)

Why doesn't GL's post resolve this?

Jonathan uses a "vet's XPM" in the calculations. How is that not congruent with using the vet's MPR? It's the _same thing_, except XPM actually counts all experience, trained or untrained (i.e. the top guy hoarding experience doesn't fool the bonus calculator).

Who is saying it isn't based on MPR, and where are the equations to prove it? I don't listen to off-hand, vague comments made to Ranger -- GL's post is the word of Jonathan, replete with equations, and it involves the venerable letters "XP". Experience matters to the bonus calculation. End of story, yes?

I think it's based on what a vet could have earned, rather than what we did earn.

It's an extrapolation of what he could/should earn in your (the new bonus characters) 4 month bonus time, based on what he has already earned.

That is, if you start a new bonus character now, and the top player goofs off for four months, you will pass his current MPR easily.

Bast, as for your point, the bonus isn't capable of catering for MPR spikes in the four month extrapolation period.

If things are to stay even, beople with bonuses should gain (for the remaining time of thier bonus period) an increase of 95% of the MPR of the newley bought minion.

Otherwise the original calculation has been thrown off and is moot.

Third! :D

Getting back to BLs original question, yes, I think the current bonuses need a manual recalibration (preferably thought the formula gets changed) to adjust for new minions being purchased by the top spot (the basis of the bonus) during bonus time.

:)

If we don't want to penalise the top spot for fireing minions, make it adjust backwards in that as well. But I can see Jon leaving that as is, being another veteren tax like the NCB BA costs. ;)

As far as I can tell experience matters when Jon calibrates it but is not taken into account automatically. Again;

"Ranger: that is how I calibrate the NUB/NCB bonus, but none of the coefficients I described is automatically changed, except of course the time-based one(s)."

--Jonathan, March 7 2006 11:03 PM EST

Yes, I see your point on that front, BL... Sorry I was being so snippy.

Time travel is fun.

Let's assume that Jon has retained Doctor Who's services to help him figure out who is going to be the #1 char if/when they hire any additional minions and adjust the NUB percentage accordingly.
Let's also assume that a single minion NUB signs on today, plays 24x7 for the next 4 months and then hires his 3 additional minions.

Given these 2 conditions, how large is the chance we see a thread by then titled "Isn't it about time the NUB was recalibrated?", arguing about the NUB being too high as it fails to predict and account for the minion hiring habits of new players?

*shrug*

The bonus is supposed to give new players the same opotuinities as people playing from day one.

If that allows them to play for 4 months and save enough cash, while buying items and BA daily, to afford three expensive minions the moment thier bonus time ends, isn't that 'working as intended'?

of course that's as is intended. But that mechanism fails when you boost the NUB to "compensate" for the veterans doing the same.

Why?

If you don't, then only vet's using that system can compete, which is what the NUB is set out to avoid.

As it is now, both NUBs and vets can (ab)use the option of buying minions "untaxed". If the NUB bonus percentage gets adjusted for the possibility of vets buying minions (How high should that adjustment be? Noticed my post about time travel?) then only the vets get taxed for their bought minions, but NUBs are still untaxed. Is that fair?

Bart, the Doctor already has a companion, and she is far cuter than Jonathan (even without seeing a real picture, sorry Jon). Though, in a couple weeks there will supposedly be an opening on that front, so maybe Jonathan can hitch a ride in the TARDIS then.

All GL is asking for is a more dynamic bonus as opposed to one that is a set rate from the get-go. It really isn't that crazy of an idea. In fact, I always assumed that was the way it already was until GL set me straight several months back.

The whole point of a variable bonus would be so that the Doctor's wonderful services aren't required, in fact.

:) Billy Piper isn't that cute!

Bart, it shouldn't take the possibility of minion change into account upon creation time, but maybe be dynamic enough to change if the top spot purchases a new minion?

The name's "Billie", you tasteless plebe.

*smile*

What if that top minion is added near the end of the NUB? Should the NUB then increase by a few thousand %? What about those for which the NUB just ended, do they also get compensated?

Just ended, plain out of luck. Go buy some minions yourself. ;)

If you still have your bonus, just like the other recalibration post above, your bonus should be changed to reflect how much bonus time you actually have left. So it would be a couple of days * 0.95 * MPR from new minion. :)

Billie has grown on me but she is from Swindon. Which isn't so good.

I'm drunken posting now which also might not be so good. Just played a gig which was great and another band on the same bill were excellent. They're called Pale Man Made. Check them out on Myspace.


Anyhow. Personally I think the bonuses are fair, nice and dandy. I think if they don't let a player achieve what they're meant to it's down to the player not the bonus. I know based on the way I play and what's available to me that the bonus would have gotten me a lot higher than I ended up if I'd fought more and made more resources available to myself. Increase it by all means, I won't complain, but don't blame the NUB/NCB for any of us users not reaching the top ten.....it's down to us......

s/Mantra/Ranger

Don't worry, Johnny, you won't have to put up with her for long. Only two more eps to go and then you can just re-join us for Season Three (new style).

Information for those interested:
http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001bal


Further, the %bonus changes for NUB users. It does not for NCB users. This may be a bug. As an example, my NCB has been 151% since day one, and still is. It will expire on July the 8th.

The calculation, from that thread above, is very simple. It's the vet's XP earned per battle divided by the new user's XP earned per battle. Time drops out regarding the player. The only time involved is the constant of 4 for the desired length of the bonus, and the linearly increasing time of CB's length. The time that either the vet or the new user has been playing cancels out (XPM/BPM => months cancel out, yielding XP Per Battle).

Based on 545 total days running, that's 18.166666 months. Dividing by 4 and multiplying by 95% yields a bonus equal to:

-1 + 4.315 (vet's XPB) / (nub's XPB)

So..... why recalibrate? The variables are based on a ratio of how much the number one veteran fights versus the number one new user. If the number one veteran fights less and/or the new user fights more, the bonus will go down. If the veteran starts fighting more than new users, then the bonus will go up. Time has absolutely no part in this equation. It's based strictly on how *well* players fight (not how often or how many battles total.... just how *well* -- how much XP you earn per battle is what matters).

I reiterate: It's not how much XP you have. It's how much you earn per battle.

That wouldn't work NS. Take a new user starting tody. If cosmos didn't fight for four months, the new user would then have no hope of catching him.

It's based on where the game thinks the Vet will be at the end of your bonus time, which is based on where they are now (And how they got there).

But again, spiking due to purchasing MPR (through buying a new minion) isn't taken into account. This probably wasn't much of an issue as all the big boys were four minions teams anyway (although I remember TAB droping to three for a while...).

What do you mean, "that wouldn't work?" It is how it works. Perhaps you mean to say that you disagree with how Jon designed it, which is understandable.

Also, remember, there's a difference between the NUB and the NCB. For instance, G_Bee posted that his wife's NUB expired yesterday and was at 153%, yet I mentioned that my NCB has been 151% all along, and never changed. That may be a bug that perhaps someone should elevate.

No, it wouldn't work how you suggest. I posted an example why.

No Nightstrike that is how Jon ran the numbers in order to recalibrate the bonus at that point in time. Must I say again that the latest comment he has made on it is quite straightforward and states that the only coefficients which change automatically are the time based ones.

It's very simple, if the bonus was correct at the time when cosmos jumped in mpr thanks to buying minions then it is likely that now it is impossible to get to within 95% of the top MPR with a bonus character unless you buy minions near the end of your bonus time. Of course what Mantra did showed up one of the deficiencies of the bonus, I'm just wondering if this deficiency is now addressed by a downgrading of the NUB (ie not upgrading it to account for the bigger top MPR) or if others are going to get the same chance Mantra had.

Just out of interest I looked over the top 25 standings. Out of those 25, 7 are NCB or recently finished NCB; 5 are recent NUB's and one - Elros - still in his NUB period.

That's just under half of the top 25. I'd say that's a fairly good showing of both of the bonus systems doing what they are supposed to.

But obviously that doesn't take into account the current level of MPR at the top..

Borderliner, yes, you're right. I read the entire thread you quoted, and there's additional information in there that I didn't realize. I amend my previous post to instead agree with you and state that the bonus equals 0.57413% * days CB2 has been running. Now I see what you mean in that you want the XPB/XPB ratio to be looked at again to possibly recalibrate the bonus and change that 0.574% coefficient. I must have been on crack last night to say that a number that changes is a constant, and a constant is a variable.

Let's use some numbers.
Assume we have a single minion vet who's at 90% of the top and decides to hire all 3 minions at once. This means his XP is boosted by 33%, or in other words: his XP is suddenly at 120% of the amount of XP the former #1 had.

Yes, this means that the NUB was too low for everyone who signed up before the day that this boost happened. How do you think you can compensate for that?

Assume for example a NUB who has a month bonus of 150% remaining, based on the former #1 player's XP. Adjusted to the new #1, his NUB should have been 200% *from the start of his account*. What should be done? Boost his NUB to 350% for the remaining month? Rescale his char by 20% upwards?
What about any ex-NUB? Do they also get a 20% rescale over their first 4 months?

Time travel is still needed, in order to really do what you want.
There's no need to change the system, as it does deliver what it promises: a chance for a NUB to get within 95% (or was it 90%?) of the current #1.

I agree, the NUB should not have a bonus for the whole of his bonus time, but it should be adjusted from the time of purchase. Give him 95% of the 20% increase (the new top player is 20% over the value the old bonus was based on) for his last month.

Otherwise, he is no longer competitive, but the guy who starts a day later now is...

The bonus already takes work rate into account, but it doesn't take spikes from minion purchase.

"What about any ex-NUB? Do they also get a 20% rescale over their first 4 months?"

No. because the purchase was out of the bonus time. They have ahd their chance to be as competitive as possible.

huh, I don't want the NUB at all :) but I've given up that argument. I just want to know what exactly the NUB is supposed to let you achieve now and I think there are quite a few that have spent/are spending/are planning to spend millions on an ncb who should be interested too.

If you really think it is neccessary to adjust the NCB and NUB because of the buying-minions option, the only working solution would be to increase your personal bonus with each minion you buy yourself. .. but actually it's just great as it is .. everybody can buy minions in the end or not, just do what you want and be happy that you get any bonus at all :)

OK. Consider this (All figures made up and probably exagerated for emphasis :P).

You are new player Bob.

Bob starts when Top Dog, the number one team, has one minion.

Bob gets 150% bonus for four months.

The next day Top Dog buys three new minions, after sealing a 600USD deal for CB2.

A day later Gary joins. Instead of Gary having 151% bonus (for the extra two days over Bob) he has a whopping 300% bonus, as Top Dog now has a massively increased MPR.

Bob is now no longer competitive, and his bonus time cannot get him to 95% of Top Dogs MPR with equal effort.

But if Bob keeps it as a 1 minion team for as long as Top Dog did, then buys his minions after his NUB is over, he will get to 95% of Top Dog's MPR.

Gary, however, will have an easier time getting to the top and can likely buy his minions along the way.

But, Bob still does have a chance to get to the top.

The problem I still have is the opposite effect.

Lets say Top Dog is a 4 minion team. Bob joins and his NUB is based upon Top Dog's 4 minion team MPR. So when Bob plays his single minion and then adds new minions, he blow Top Dog's MPR away.

But wait, that already happened and no one cared. So why are we caring about the opposite effect?????

We keep on moaning about the injustice to the new players. What about the injustice to the existing players who supported this game from the beginning???

That's a good point. Welcome to the discussion, Ranger. *smile*

:D WB Ranger!

;) In response, Bob started with a four minion team, so cannot purchase new minions.

I'm a NUB but I completely agree with this statement made by Ranger "We keep on moaning about the injustice to the new players. What about the injustice to the existing players who supported this game from the beginning???" It hardly seems fair that someone who has been faithful to this game from day 1 and has played that same team from day 1 could get passed by some highly motivated NUB. Although this might retain the new player it will likely push away the veteran.

As to why its a problem, it's a failing with the Bonus, as it's designed.

Playing a single minion for the bonus time, then after (when reaching 95% of the top) purchasing new minions to take the top (while still a problem in it's own right) isn't a failing of the design of the bonuses.

They are designed to take you to 95% with equivalent effort (and a working strat), regardless of minion amount.

For this to be unreachable if the top spot purchases minions during your bonus time, means the bonus can't work as intended. To get the same MPR boost as the top spot, you would have to purchase your new minion(s) at the same MPR as the top spot is, which is outsie of your projected MPR anyway. So even if you do purchase additional minons, to keep up, you can never gain as much MPR from doing so as the top spot guy.

Misfit. That's why there is the NCB.

Inflation is a seperate problem. :)

GL:

Then Bob can restart a new NUB character only losing 2 days and make his attempt at the top with a single FB mage, as all NUB's should do.

With respect to NCB's, they should know to start as a single minion character and add others later if they really want to make a run for the top.

As I think I am shoing, Misfit, at least to some degree, bnus players no longer "blow by" the veterans. I will barely eke over 1.4 million MPR. Granted, the NW side of my equation is weak, but that's only because I had to blow 26-27 million on BA.

A NUB, on the other hand, will have cash. But let's be very clear here -- Mantra used USD to buy his last minion(s?), at least I am assuming by the quickness and some transfers I saw. Once USD enters the picture, ALL bets are of, PR, NW, or otherwise.

Then shift the purchase time up to two months. So if Bob starts again he's only got 1/2 his bonus time left and can't make it anyway...

;)

GL, you are the master of over-design! *smile*

:) I think it's my raison d'etre!

[Beavis & Butthead mode]

Mine's in my pants.

[/heh heh heeheehehheh]

[Beavis & Butthead mode]

Huh Huh, you said pants!

Mmmm, did someone mention raisins?

Did someone mention hot pants?

And did someone mention a slacker in Flamey's clan (which Verifex and I are part of)?