NCB Musings... (in General)

Now that I am in the thick of yet another NCB Character, I feel I have to put in a two cents summation of things to be considered by the players and also hopefully Jonathan.

The exp bonus is not and I repeat not being questioned. I have faith in Jonathan's mathmatical capabilities in regards to figuring out how much of a bonus you should receive based on the top players MPR.

Ok, now for the nitty gritty. It is becoming impossible (without tremendous USD investment) to have enough cb2 cash to effectively "challenge" the top spot/player. There are I believe two vital things that must be done before starting a NCB and in order to have a prayer of reaching the top player(s).

1. Have or Purchase a HUGE Tattoo, one that will stay above your Max Tattoo the entire time, thereby enabling you to fight up as much as possible and get the highest rewards possible.

2. Have or Purchase a HUGE Amount of cb2 for BA purchasing. Without buying ALL of your daily allotted BA and missing very litte BA along the way is the only hope you have of challenging the top.

I am sitting at a little over 325K MPR after a month on the NCB, yes I have missed BA purchases and also regular BA regen due to RL things, that is not what this thread is about. Although the server being inaccessible has been the bane of my NCB so far...but I digress.

My BA purchase cost atm is already 796 per BA. My daily allottment is 576 for a total price of $458,496. If I fight a lot during the day I may have a hope to regen about 50 to 100K. So, I am going into the hole 300K daily at this point for BA purchasing. I started with 25 mil CB2. I have bought a few items for my char, but for the most part all of the CB2 has been used for BA purchasing.

I will run out before my NCB is over and I don't think I will purchase more CB2. Why? Because I am realizing that I already have no prayer of being a top player due to RL time constraints, and CB being inaccessible or down.

Ok, for those of you that have read this entire monologue, here is my summation and request. Give NCB characters a slight bonus to CB2 gains, not as much as a NUB, but more than normal. Why? Because the top spots are enlarging their items and tattoos day by day and the cost is going up day by day, and it is going to reach a point (I believe very soon) where even starting a NCB with a hope of being a top spot contender is insane if not impossible.

BTW, in order for me to come back into the game and attempt to challenge the top spot cost $250 USD in CB2 purchases and another $200 USD for a HUGE Tattoo. Call me crazy, I don't mind, it is my money after all, not yours. Anyway, there is my rant, rave and whatever else this will be construed as.

the BA costs need to replicate the amount that has been spent by the top on BA, it's only fair. Even without spending too much money you can using some methods gain high MPR Sut had proved this very very well. I've hit 500k in a month with meager money stores, sure it takes a lot of work, but how much work has DAWG done? or PoisoN? Yes the NCB has lost it popular appeal as a means to the the top, the question is why it ever held any appeal in the first place. Buying a high mpr char is a much cheaper way, and I think you'll see more and more of that as the NCB tops 50-60 mil for BA costs.

i see both your points.

this will end up costing way more than 30 mil, which already an extraordinary amount. The amount the top players play, isn't all that much, I've observed and if I just buy all my BA (576) and play when i can, I fight the same amount of battles if not more, that is just my observation, on total battles fought in 24 hours.

all they have done is be here since CB1 or the start of CB2, thats all, they buy all their BA and fight whenever.

I guess you could call that their reward for being here so long and fighting consistently.

I thought of running an NCB, but why bother? if its already gonna cost me 30 mil in BA costs. I would need all the gear for the team i will have, which probably wouldn't be a tank, which i have now. so i would have to buy UC or Mage gear.

now lets see, i can make ~4 mil a month, without buying BA. It'll take 7 months to get that 28 mil, without buying BA.

So, I think the NCB is for people who don't buy BA, and just want to watch a character grow fast, not to get near the top.

Flamey, I think you are right on. The NCB is geared towards players who want to try out different strategies, or who want to just grow a large character, without spending large amounts of money to buy ba. If a person really wanted to challenge for the top, they would be much better off buying a large single minion character, and buy 1-2 minions and then try to get to the top (ie: SNK3R with TB101's character).

The NCB allows you grow a tattoo without $US, it also allows you to make decent money on the way if you fight high enough with a specific strat.
I'm using this NCB specifically to grow my JKF, and put together some NW.
when it's time is up, I can do a single minion RoE FB mage then add the JKF later to boost it even more. All this without a single penny spent of $US. The final run will of course cost some astronomical sum...but I hope the price of cb2 goes down by then...

Glory you were right on point 2 no arguement from me on that at all. How ever, I started this NCB with a mid sized tat, it is now the 5th largest ToA on the game, granted someone can reink a larger tat and all that will change. I have bought every BA every day from day 1 with this character. Right now BA is 1103 each. That means i spend over 500k per day on BA. I did have a huge nest egg set aside for the sole purpose of BA though so there was some forthought in this. As for how much i've spent on BA, I didn't keep track. Yes i could have bought a high level character for a lot cheaper than this, but there is a certain satisfaction in "growing" your own character (and its tat).

yep thats right, there is satisfaction in growing a character.

maybe I should buy a top character and change the strat and grow it, so i can label it mine, but i don't see that happening anytime soon.

I have a different view on the NCB.

I make enough money per week fighting to buy all my BA for wacky exp time, which is good for about 12-15k MPR each go. I will be at 300k MPR by the end of the first month, and will probobly hit around 1.2 mil at the end. This is with no investment on my part (I already had all the gear I needed, just had to re-ink a tatoo) and I can achieve an MPR that is comparable to people in the top 25, including those that have been around alot longer.

I am not trying to say whether or not something is fair/unfair, however the NCB seems to give me a huge advantage due to the fact I can get quite a large MPR with little investment.

On my last NCB I made about 14 million in the first three months. My choice was to put it all into my weapon, but I could have spent some on buying BA if I'd chosen to. However the choice of pumping my weapon meant I increased my char's power without actually adding to PR thanks to the weapon allowance. So I actually increased my rewards because I was able to fight up.

Throw in a decent clan bonus and my char was on target to grow to a decent size.

You don't need to buy BA - granted, it helps, but if you plan your fight and your subsequent spends properly you still have a good chance of getting up there.

(My char The Clash is now retired so is still sitting at the score I left him. That's not a bad score for a char that was actually not that big in comparison to those around him...)

Oh, and just to add, that retirement happened while I still had a month left to go on the NCB. (It's a boring story so don't ask why!)

we were saying you can't get to the top, which is what the NUB/NCB is supposed to do. Yes you can get a high MPR, 1 mil or so, but now is 1 mil MPR really that high? when i joint, i think, the top MPR was 1.1- 1.3 mil, something like that. now the top MPR is over 2 mil, 1 mil isn't a lot when we're talking NUB and NCB, and it may turn out to be ridiculous, in a year or so, NUB making 2k a battle, can get 1 mil MPR in a week, if we let time progress, that is what we're looking it.

It's a bit scary. when you think of it that way, and what will happen in a year or some other date down the future.

When it all gets out of hand Jon always has the dreaded R word :)

"we were saying you can't get to the top, which is what the NUB/NCB is supposed to do."

tell that to jayuu, or mantra when he was playing.

Oh, and just to add, that retirement happened while I still had a month left to go on the NCB. (It's a boring story so don't ask why!)

--Johnnywas, 3:08 AM EST

^^ you fell asleep :P