Clan Points need a tweak (in General)

Help Jon! I have a strange problem.

I am at around 1.6 mil score, and my character is in a clan, I fight and fight as much as I can, but I'm still finding it difficult, and near impossible to be in a clan, and fight for points. Why is this you say? This is what I am going to explain.

I looked through the characters near me and I noticed something strange. Above me there are a number of clan characters, lots infact; Most of the really good clans have members in the top 100 score range. Below me however, is a different story, there is a huge gap between clan members below me, huge expanses of space where there are no clan members at all.

This of course can be explained as the result of high-level characters in clans beating the crap out of characters even vaguely near them in score so they can get decent rewards. It makes sense that high level characters would be people who play all the time, and therefore would be able to bring in alot of clan points.

But this uncovers a strange side to clan points. The people immediately below me suffer a great disadvantage if they are in a clan, they will have every single person above me attacking them, constantly. It is almost a given that most high level people aren't going to want to waste thier valuable BA attacking very low level characters.

What this does is create dead-zones, huge dead-zones where clan characters simply cannot exist, because they will get wailed on so badly that they will ever be able to improve their clan, and subsequently be kicked from their clan, or have their own clan disbanded.

Now, what to do about this problem? I have thought it over, and come up with a couple ideas, I was hoping maybe someone could come up with other ideas as well.

1. Limit the number of negative points a person can get from people X amount of score away from them.
2. Only give 3 CP's for clan attacks within X score range.
3. Limit amount of CPs someone can gain from characters X score range away from them.

Clans should be hard to maintain...

Hey, i know the feeling. My clan was disbanded because i couldn't keep up. People way above me score-wise kept bombarding me!
fchuck

this has been an issue for some time. i do agree that there needs to be some way of filling in those vast empty spaces as well. i also agree that clans should be difficult to maintain, but not impossible. taking a look at clan members in the 1 mill to 2 mill range shows that it may be more than just difficult at the moment.

i have no input however on how to remedy this. the only reason i keep my clan going is for the rare bonuses and inherent benefits.

Well admittedly I'm still a noob but I don't see why clans should be hard to maintain. Some people are going to clan up no matter the reasons not to and loners are going to be the same way. If the dead spots were filled that would be great but at the same time is it worth the extra complexity?? Boy thats a little wishy washy oh well.

There is a reason for the problem. NCB.

Above you are lots of older chars, many of whom are buying ba to get the maximum CPs.

Below you are lots and lots of NCB chars. Buying BA for NCB chars is next to impossible due to the high cost of doing so.

Add to that, those older chars are long established in a lot of cases and are very high in MPR/PR. The newer chars are fast growing and quite often over half the size of the chars they are amongst.

And as you say, the bigger older chars farm those lower chars mercilessly. Right into the negative.

And yes it puts them at a disadvantage, but it feeds down. Those chars are doing exactly the same thing to the people below them.

But you can't maintain decent CPs if you can't buy BA. So, NCB is killing the clans. Maybe. Or maybe it was Miss Scarlett in the study with a candlestick....

I feel you. 2306 cps earned, 28 net score for me at the moment >.< I'm right around your score range.

There is an upside to the shortage of clanners though....

Providing your clan is managing at least 1-2k points a day you can get some kind of a bonus. If there are four of you earning around 1k points each you will get the best part of 10%.

So in some ways it has never been harder to clan fight, but in others it has never been more easy.

its what happens, its clan life. you need to buy BA to survive w/o negative points.

What I find odd, is that if you start a NCB and you are not in a top clan, you would be foolish to not start a single clan. You can get a decent bonus easily, up to 10%, because you hardly, if at all, get farmed. You don't have to fight much or fight clan characters either.

So when 5 people have to keep fighting hardcore for a bonus of 15%, I can get a bonus of up to 10% without any effort, that's just strange. (in my case an average bonus of only 6-7% because I don't have any clan characters in my fight list)

I'm not too sure if your solutions would solve the problem, Verifex.

Consider my character: with reasonably high NW equipment, I'm able to fight characters much larger than mine, making my score 2-3 times larger than my PR. This in turn means that opponents near my score range can easily defeat me.

So, in my case, the opponents farming me to death are close to my score, but far far larger than my PR. Thus your clan point adjustments wouldn't make much of a difference.

Also, your ideas don't address the problem that you've noticed: the dead-zones in the score listings. When I was building this character up, there were almost no clan members between 500k to 1.2 mil score (I think). Due to the lack of clan members in that range, I had to fight non-clan members, or wait between fights for the clan members to auto-heal. Since non-clan members typically have higher scores, this again drove my score up, making me an even better target for opponents.

So, to summarize, I think something needs to be done to dissuade people from fighting characters far below their PR, not their score.

That 'dead zone' wasn't there when I was on my way up with this NCB. All the chars I have been clan fighting have been growing at a similar rate to me. So there is a bit of a gap because the next lot of NCB'ers aren't there yet. Give it a couple of weeks and that dead zone will probably be crowded again....

Hmmm. Yeah, I started my NCB about a month after you, so that might be it... I wonder where the dead zone is now? ;)

If you need something to blame it on, blame it on NCB ;)

Fine, I get it, so because "clans are supposed to be hard to maintain" I interpret that to mean to me that I can only join a clan if I am in the "sweet spot" score range. If that isn't freakin' stupid I don't know what is.

Last night I had a dream that Jon had fixed the clan system.For some reason if you weren't in a clan you turned into a zombie . Since my clan auto died I turned into a zombie and I must say brains are sort of creamy and very nice on a ritz. Of course I woke up then so I can't tell you what happens when you get back into a clan. Hopfully the taste goes away....

O.K. this might be a good Idea the points we miss from Sunday being used to entice people into joining in the dead spots??

I think everyone seems to be affected by this, which is why large MPR characters are no fun, I'm being drug through this MPR currently and it isn't fun, all the really high MPR characters are beating the crap out of me as they don't have any better targets. What to do? What to do?

Verifex, I think you covered the whole clan concept very well with the phrase "freakin' stupid". *smile*

Don't be in a clan, or be a one-man clan (the 10% figure mentioned above for a singleton clan is a bit high, by the way, and impossible to maintain consistently). Also, take solace in the fact that the folks above you are still fighting down, albeit not much. While you are in a dead zone, it probably means you can get decent rewards by simply fighting up.

I'd say we need more players. Less then 500 players were active this week. So imho CB needs a total makeover(game mechanics, visual, technical, usability, game play) to attract a wider range of players.

I'm not happy to fight players only half as strong as me, but on the other side I don't want to spend too much time for clicking per day. I like the limited negative points, but not the score range part.

PoisoN, do you have any specific ideas for this "total makeover"?

I don't agree that the whole game needs work, but the clan system probably does. Right now, there are three reasons why I'm in a clan:

1. Increased rewards
2. Easier way to communicate with friends in clan
3. Easier way to view my own stats

On the other hand, there are two big reasons why I don't like being in a clan, which seem to get worse all the time:

1. Very tedious and takes a long time to use up all BA, with such a small list of opponents in clans within my score range that I can beat
2. Nearly impossible to keep clan points positive, with so few clan members to fight, and so many larger clan members farming me

Now, these problems would not be an issue if more people joined clans, so I think there needs to be some increased motivation for doing so. I don't mean a greater bonus, since those are fine as they are. I don't know what should be done, since I don't know why other people aren't in clans.

I guess the obvious reason for not being in a clan is that you don't use enough BA to maintain your score. This reason makes sense.

If you're not in a clan, could you state here why you are not? Please, be more specific than "it's not fun". Also, try to state ways to make the clan system better.

excellent way of putting it in perspective mael!

i have stayed in my own small clan even through these tough times, so i cannot really answer your question from that point of view. however i can from my perspective, farming is the biggest pain to me. i expect the larger and especially the top ten to fight down and spank me throughout the day, what is annoying as hell though is when i have a short amount of time to spend my ba, i have to constantly be watching my score to make sure that i am not being farmed. often i fight for 3 minutes, then have to wait for someone else to run out of ba for 15 minutes, only to fight again for a few minutes and have someone else start at me again.

kill clan farming! anyone else think this would help clans? no idea how to implement, just trying to focus on the main issue for me.

Farming is the _point_ of clans. Beat up on other clans, right? If you take clan vs. clan out of it, why have clans?

Farming is ok, and beating on clans too. What is infuriating is when people ten times stronger than you farm you.

i wasn't suggesting removing clan vs. clan entirely. however now it is possible for you to lose many more points than you are gaining. should that necessarily be the case. i wouldn't have a problem having to be careful with my fighting so that i don't break even. the daily attrition is also fully understandable.

mainly the farming, finding someone who is fighting and clicking on them solely is what is my main issue with clans. it is especially annoying just below the top ten area, but holds true for as long as i can remember. the situation where many people are working my list as well as me. often times i hit fight, only to find that the person is no longer conscious. i however lost clan points because i auto healed.

these factors coupled with the ability of the top ten to not suffer the fighting down penalty really seem to compound the issues in the plus 1.5 mill score area and make slim pickings for clan fighting. i think we are trying to make it better, not kill clan fighting altogether.

I want to know why people even give a turd whether or not someone 10x the PR is farming them...!

All that is going to do is make your score go down. If your score is smaller, the people you can beat will provide you with better rewards due to the gap.

You don't lose MPR when you lose a fight... I wish I could maintain a score under 100k forever!

I actually don't give a turd about my score. Clan score is a whole different matter, though. What I think is wrong is the fact that it is not representative of my success fighting people who are actually in my league.