CB Rewards: A novel Idea (in General)

OK, so I have seen threads in the past about changing the reward system, but I am not sure if I have seen this idea presented. If so I apologize in advance. :)

What if rares did not spawn into auctions, be instead spawned into your rewards. Randomly, to a person who fought and won a fight. That simple really, just when the item spawns grant it immediately to that person's character who just won the fight chosen at random.

* One rare per person per spawn, even if multiple rares spawn.

* If that person does not have room for the rare, delete the item. (or essentially do not spawn it, do not regenerate a spawn) You could also, just randomly select again until you find someone who meets the criteria. Or simply eliminate anyone who does not meet the criteria from the pool in advance. However is best.

Why?

Well first it rewards those people who click fight the most. The people who are playing CB the most, because their odds of getting an item are better. You want to argue for a forging reward, go right ahead, I do not forge.

It adds back the Lottery based factor of a new player or old player waltzing into the store for arrows, and waltzing out with an elbow.

It brings back the rare item spawn commodity economy that allowed for more merchant based activities. The market determined price.

Some items would go to someone who has no clue what it is, how it works, and if they can use it. But if it is a valuable item, that person will get chatmails, and eventually help, I am certain of it. This creates a sort of lottery based mentor system if John Doe gets an elbow his second day here.

In the end it encourages people to click fight even more, it encourages more communication amongst the community as one person gets rewarded an item they do not need.

So...

Why not?

You tell me :)

Clever, I like it! =)

Indeed why not?

One point, is it fair? we already have some kind of merchant system here. People are buying up rares that they don't need in auctions. Removing some cash from the game.
If you remove the "removing part" of cash from the game. What options are there to limit cash in the game?

An economy that only takes in cash but never a cash flow out, is doomed to fail.
No this idea can't work for CB.
Beside the obvious, guys that buy there BA and have over 1500 fights a day. Compared to a NUB with maybe 160 fights, the odds are far favour of the vetran player. Giving the vetran player more cash after the sales.
Thus more cash, more ba and even more chance.

Even if you manage to get a sort of lottery in it. The tickets will be based on number of fights and days spent on CB.

And if a NUB user gets an elb, there are peeps in CB that will try to scam it away or the nub quits after a day. Gone ELB.

No this is another attempt to get camping back. The current system is far better and we should just leave it alone.

So you're not into helping out the forgers huh Sef ... well I am a forger and I'd like to be able to dip into the rewards :) I've ben fighting for forging rewards of some sort for a couple months now. I personally like the idea you presented. Forging could easily be added into the equation just as fighting uses BA for a fight forging uses BA for each step of a forge.

Loss of a cash sink is a valid point. One I had not considered. Is it a compelling reason not to, well for me no it is not.

You do not understand the word economy. When you have a Morg and you sell it to me for CB2 $, then this an economy in action. The fact that I do not buy it from the Government Supplied Surplus Depot, does not doom the economy to failure. CB already taxes your when you transfer money and items, or when you list items as auctions, so it still gets a cut no matter what, unless you keep the item for yourself.

Yes, it rewards those who play CB more. If you think this is a bad thing, that is a valid disagreement. I think it is a good thing.

No lottery, simply at the time of spawn send out the item.

You assume scamming, that is OK, I assuming assistance. I think the truth will be somewhere in the middle. Will their be attempts, yes, but a fool and his money, caveat emptor, etc. No matter, it will generate more communication. I think this is good as well.

Gone ELB, cash sink returns, the economy recovers. Sort of like Central Bank bidding on system generated auction spawned items.

An attempt to get camping back. Camping took skill. This is pure luck. I see absolutely no correlation, other than it requires you to play CB more, to have a better chance to win. It think this is a good thing.

You help yourself chappy my friend, I certainly will not argue against it. You pay your BA like everyone else. I have no problem with forgers being added to the pool, just I am not equipped to argue in favor of it :)

Would this be on wins? Or any fight outcome?

I don't like it simply because some people can afford to buy BA while others cannot.

Buying BA is equivalent to 12 hours of fighting -- a 50% increase in battle capability even if you fight 24 hours a day.

That's a 50% chance extra of winning this "lottery".

NCBs, for example, cannot afford to buy BA.
Heavy tankers (especially ones who use ammo) who don't use USD have a harder time buying BA too, so you are giving advantage to mages.
People saving to buy minions cannot afford BA, so once again this change would indirectly give multi-minion teams a boost.
NUBs can buy BA, but they already get cash and rewards that can get them rares.
And as someone else pointed out, this leaves forgers out dead-cold.

It's a nifty idea, but the marketplace already levels everything out, in my opinion. In essence, the economy is already the "lottery", and people can make well-planned decisions based on that stable economy.

Considering that Jonathan made massive efforts long ago to take "chance" out of the game (remember % cast rates and AMF being a percentage chance at backfiring?), I am thinking this might be one chance too many...

the idea i had for this a few months back was more to help out the black market. keep the spawns in auctions for the above stated reasons. treat the black market though as the lottery system. do not base it on fights though, just on the list of people voting for that item. on this smaller scale it wouldn't effect the economy and it would encourage people to vote and vote for the item/items most likely to be spawned.

i think most have access to black market voting as well.

More precisely:

"Supporters and/or players who have been members of a standard clan for at least 1 week receive 1 vote per week."

So, I'm still not liking it. *smile* Supporters shouldn't be the only ones advantaged, and I think clans are stupid.

Perhaps if the voting were based on something else? Not sure... Good point, though, dudemus, as my only balk at the idea is the BA purchase issue. Base it on something else and it sounds fun. However, there's the rub -- what to base it on?

Active Time? Forum Posts? Clicks? (not necessarily fighting, but page loading...though people would abuse that and click like mad through the site)


*shrugs* Dunno.

As it stands now, and if you can provide data to the contrary, please do so, but I think it is impossible to run a tank in the 500K MPR + arena without injecting USD to keep your gear in step with your peers who are or even your own MPR growth. Your fight rewards (without a NUB I never had one so I have no idea if NUB can keep up where NCB cannot) do not give you enough cash to bump your gear. You have to either win a lot of contests, or turn USD into CB2. I tried to keep up. I could not, thus I sold all my tank gear and now run a mage team. I would love to run a tank team again.

I think this idea allows for the random chance of fortune such that, an active player who played a lot, and at different times all throughout the day, could win enough random gear to perhaps do something to leverage those that can and do spend USD on CB2.

I think Sut you are sort of using the cart and horse thing though. If a person was gifted an item that they could sell for 2 million CB2, then they would have money to spend buying the BA you say they cannot buy now for other reasons.

This would help level the playing field between USD and non USD spenders. If a typical USD spender suddenly had some gear for free, they might even reconsider spending the USD at all, and perhaps the use of USD in CB2 would decrease. I think these are all good things, and out weigh the initial advantage mage teams or NUB teams would have in the system over the long term effect of random "gifts".

I tried to think of another method for creating who gets the random spawn, and this was the best one I could come up with. The only other option would be to send it to each person's most active character randomly without regard for whether they are on CB or not. I felt this encouraged the opposite of what I wanted, more community communication, more community interaction.

I cannot imagine a more un level marketplace than having to wait until the last 10 minutes of an auction to guarentee your ability to out bid Central Bank, OR you immediately offering an average market price to keep him away. I cannot in any way fathom how that is seen as level, nor cannot think of any real life situation where this system was mirrored and that system was seen as good.

I cannot think of a less friendly marketplace where you have to wait until the last few minutes of an auction, then end up in a bidding war with some one you had no idea wanted the item, or who might be bidding against you simply to drive up the average price for their own future auction.

This would still occur of course as people would use the auction system to sell the free gear they recieved, but I think more player to player deals would occur, than do now, and thusly reduce the number of player auctions.

Central Bank would still be able to bid and delete unwanted items that could not be sold via thread or private conversations, leaving the existing auction system in place.

I am OK will forgers being dead in, since their BA is spent just like everyone else's. I however have no idea how much they make, if they need a reward for their BA, so I left them out of my initial proposal for the simple reason of being unble to speak intelligently about forging.

I am saying that this can make the USD folks MORE powerful. The people who already spend money are probably buying all BA, and would get 50% more rares. Rich getting richer.

I was thinking why not do away with clan bonuses, and instead make the better clans have more chance at spawns. Looking at clan standings, there would be a fair amount of rich getting richer there too...

Like I said, the economy is already the balance. I don't see how a randomization scheme is going to stop USD, when such a scehem is, at some point, going to come back to fighting, or clanning, or whatever -- all of which can be aided by USD anyway.

If stopping USD is the point (I don't think it is your point, your point is to have fun, with which I do indeed wholeheartedly concur), then stop transfers. Jonathan has said "careful what you wish for" before, but I am not afraid of lack of transfers. I would love it.

I disagree.

Example: I am a relative new player and I want this item. I do not have the money for it now. As it is now, I either a) get a loan or b) spend USD. With this in place you could add in c) wait for the item to land in my lap by just fighthing as much as I can or d) wait for another item that I could then sell or trade for the item I wish.

I do not have to tell you that if you have two options vs. four options, the chance of any one option being chosen is less for four than two.

Example: I am an old established player and I have USD to spend on my character as I wish. I want to bump my gear. So I spend USD. Now if there was a chance that an item could fall in my lap, I may say, yah I could spend the USD, or I could fight a little more and perhaps get an item I can sell to use to bump my gear and save my USD for the upcoming Christmas season.

Again more options, the less likely one option will be chosen. Simple math and probability. Add in the fact that the new system would force more community interaction with the idea that to play CB is the only criteria for fortune to land on your head, I cannot see any of those things as bad.

Adding random cash into the CB2 players hand can only have the effect of reducing the USD spent overall. There will be less demand for CB2 and more supply of it. You welcome to start another thread yet again espousing the loss of transfers between characters. I do not think you will get much support.

What happens to me is, I see something in the system that affected me directly, caused me to change the way I play CB from the way I want to, to the way I have to. I think it could be corrected. I think this is a way to do it.

You may not like the idea of BA spent as the trigger, but try to name another way more deserving of reward than actually playing the game as much as you can and as much as you can afford to.

I can't think of a better trigger. That's why your name is on this thread and not mine, and that's why I am not on board with the idea and you are.

Take BA purchasing away and I'd like your idea better. However, removing BA purchasing would reduce the overall game experience far more than random spawns would help, in my opinion.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

This would be a good idea aslong as it didn't have very many flaws..

A major flaw in this game would be that there could be a brand new player, that is just starting and has fought approx 100 fights and then all of a sudden gets an ELB or a Morg? Making the player, that much better right as they begin the game. As slim as the chance may be, there is always the possibility of it happening at any moment in time. Also if a new player did get one, that would mean one of the higher players that would have gotten it, wouldn't be able to benefit from it.

At a lower MPR in the game, people are told to stay low in PT : MPR ratio, for the reason of losing too many battles.. Getting these items may want them to get them forged or blacksmithed and use them on there character and try to make the best strat they can, revolving around that one weapon. Im not saying this will happen, but a possibility at that.

I believe camping in the stores was taken out for this particular reason. People will just camp the stores... waitaing for that ELB or Morg to spawn.. doing this, allows people to make money or USD, right off that. I believe one of the main reasons for making rare items spawn in the auctions was so people would have to pay the amount the item was worth to recieve it(even if the people who won the auction dont need it). Making rares spawn in fights won, would conflict with this thus again, giving someone a free weapon or piece of armour that others cannot afford.

The idea was well worth mentioning, and I applaud you for taking the time to think this over. This is just my 2 cents..
Thanks

Zach

im not for against this idea as i dont know everything about this game yet but i can already see usd spenders get an advantage but if thats up to them the game allows it and im certainly not going to moan. (the couple that i know of that spend usd are super active so even if they restarted they prob fight more battles than me but buying ba would give them more of an advantage with the first suggestion)

but most active players use over 1k of BA per day .. just make it that you get a chance at a drop if you have used 1k of BA that say?

still not got a clue if i like dislike the idea but i wouldnt moan at an equal chance of a free drop as everyone else (still only seen 3 lots of exp in the stores lol)

Forgot to add about the buying BA concept.. The players who do not spend USD or cannot spend USD, can normally not buy BA(unless they save their money for some time). The advantage of people who buy BA to the people who do not is almost a 2:1 advantage. As sutekh mentioned, removing this from the game would make this idea much more amusing, but would make the game less exciting.

Buying BA lets players grow at a signiffigant rate, and the 500-700 BA they can buy a day would raise their odds of recieving a rare that much more.. 600 BA is about 65% of what i spend daily, and i try to spend as much BA as i can(school interferes with this).

Sorry if spelling is off.. can't spell very well.

Zach

Zach, I disagree that randomly giving a new player is a bad idea. I can say from the past when a new player would walk into the store and walk out with an elbow, those people were more likely to stick around, be active and continuing to play CB. I think it was Hippogriff on CB1 that did this, and I believe it was a major reason he got interested and stuck around.

The fact that the new player could waste the item is no different than not being there at 4am server time to out bid Central Bank and having the item wasted there. I honestly think there will be less wasting of items that are randomly handed out, than there are now items people want but Central Bank out bids them like the machine it is.

Anything that encourages a new player to ask, what is this, what do I do with this, how can I best make it work is a good thing. Anything that prompts an old player to say to a new player, hey you just got a ToA and you have mages, I have lvl 200K LToE I will trade for your base ToA is a good thing.

I think camping was removed for the simple fact that some people were able to create an unfair advantage by using scripts that could not be easily detected or twarted. I have never seen evidence contrary to this thought.

I welcome EVERYONE's two cents. We may not agree, but in trying to convince you to agree with me, it just makes the intial idea better and my ability to present it as a good thing easier.

As to your last post Zach, I think this is cart before the horse again. If you suddenly had been given a corn for free, then you would have less impetus to spend USD, more cash to spend on BA or other gear, creating more movement in the economy and less need to inject USD.

I can say from my own experience that I could easily keep up with USD spenders when I was able to go to the store and get good rares and resell them for a huge profit. Now I cannot, and I do not think anyone can, unless the NUB allows for it, which I have no experience in, nor am I able to say it can or cannot.

*Hippogryph

I think that was how he spelled it.....should I have added a [sic]?

I still think the idea is clever, and the more I hear of it, the more I like it.

And how is the 'everyone not being able to afford BA' thing an advantage for the USD spenders? I've never spent USD a day in my life on this game. In fact, I've sold 11M to DAWG before. Yet I had 9M to spend on BA for this NCB....so they can afford BA, and they'll get even more money to buy it when they get a random rare item.

=)

It's not impossible to run a tank team over the 500k mpr without USD, I was doing pretty well with The Clash before I finally caved into my boredom. Incase I didn't make it clear to anyone at the time I didn't like the changes to tankery this last month. And last week I got hold of a big ELB, trained archery and found that I could take on people in the top 25 - 3 times my MPR and beat them....some people will say -- go for it then, but where's the challenge in that?? Anyhow, my team were about 650k mpr and I did alright without the USD.

Slightly off topic, but connected to one thing you said Seft. Just thought I'd answer that one point. You can do a tank team in the upper reaches without the USD, not sure if you could take on the top rankers though......

Just to add, that cost of ammo and rentals aside, all my cash rewards went into my Morg for the first three months of my last NCB. I added 13 million to the Morg's NW and I got it named. All paid for by rewards. A couple of big boosts were from loans, but they were all paid back from rewards. Now, obviously that's not necessarily a huge amount of cash, but still...13 million in 3 months aint too shabby.

(There's some numbers for you Seft...remember I don't do numbers....lol ;) )

Hippo is still on the books, that's how I remembered and verified the spelling. *smile*

Didn't see anything but I tried and didn't read it all. If this has been suggested then sorry.

To alleviate the big problem of buying BA (not fair even a little bit), make it so the max "tickets" a player can get every 3 hour is 160. This would work in groups. I know this is unfair to those who use BA as they get it, but it really wouldn't be a disadvantage.

Advantages: Players who play a lot still get an advantage i it. People who can't buy BA aren't completely out of luck.

Disadvantages: Hurts those who use BA as they get it.


For the Improvement of Wolf:
Any comments or advice?

Where did this thread come from? Neat idea! Might be hard to implement (or just to implement efficiently), but it does sound like it could bring some of the fun randomness of camping to the greater CB community.

Naturally, spawned rares could only be rewarded to people who are active: no one wants an ELB to spawn on a user that has been inactive for months. So if the spawns are fight rewards, then it should be the winner who receives the item.

As for forgers, I don't see why they couldn't also have a chance to get item rewards when forging. Maybe after completing a cycle, the dwarf could occasionally give you a present ;)

I agree it may seem unfair that those who spend $USD for $CB should have greater chances at getting items, but when you think of it, they're already the ones buying items from auctions, aren't they?

And not all BA buyers are $CB buyers: some people just spend all their battle rewards on buying more BA, and those people would definitely deserve to get some items, since they couldn't afford them otherwise. It might even encourage people to buy more BA.

Can anyone think of (other) ways that this idea could be abused or tricked? I would think the idea would appeal to Jon, given all the randomness involved ;)

"Naturally, spawned rares could only be rewarded to people who are active: no one wants an ELB to spawn on a user that has been inactive for months. So if the spawns are fight rewards, then it should be the winner who receives the item."

Ummm, so if you fight an inactive player and they win, the inactive player gets the ELB? I think it should be that the person who initiates the fight (ie: the player who is active and spending the BA) should get the item, regardless of win/draw/loss.

Yeah, that's what I said, right? :P