Reduced N*B rates (in Changelog)

In conjunction with the BA change, NUB and NCB bonuses have been reduced about 16%.

Blech... I hope this changes back to normal if this whole experiment doesn't work out...

Umm 168% to 141% is a far cry from 16% difference.

not a set 16% from 168% but 16% of the total 168

Etc etc.... 168% * .84 = 141%

168*.84=141.12

Looks right to me.

Call me stupid, but why?

This is somewhat confusing. The BA change made it more likely that the top players will be able to fight all of their BA, and thus the NUB/NCB's lost their "bonus" of being able to fight an extra, say 25% of battles compared to the top teams (as NS has explained).

And now the effectiveness of their normal bonus is reduced too?

It does beg the question... why?

Yes,

I am confused. If the BA regeneration rate is cut in 1/2, and the xp/money is doubled should things not be a wash?

I always assumed that the NUB/NCB was based upon someone using all the BA they could. This change, while making it possible for people now to really use all their BA, should not change the NUB/NCB based on that fact. At least that is what I assume, which could totally be wrong.

The only possible reason I can see is this,

Before xp time one would save up 160 BA and use them and all bought BA during that time.

Now, with xp/money doubled, that 160 BA is more like saving 320 worth of old BA and using it during xp or money time.

jon givith in one hand and taketh away in the other

I will elaborate.

2x rewards, 1/2 BA means equal outcomes all things being equal.

But because you now only have to log on half as often, it's easier to use more BA than before. So I'm estimating that on average, someone starting now will be able to use 19% more BA than someone who started in Jan 05 -- or someone who started NCB 4 months ago. So the bonus needs to be adjusted downwards. (The inverse of 1.19 is roughly 0.84.)

Thanks for the explanation.

OK, that makes sense. But only if the NUB/NCB bonus is calculated with "average BA use" in mind. If it is calculated with the assumption that 100% of BA will be used by the character with the NUB/NCB bonus, then this seems to be a wrong calculation...

I mean, you could argue that not only the NUB/NCB's get 19% more battles in, but the vets do as well...

But, yeah, I can see the idea behind the change.

Reductions to your NUB/NCB, This is almost like my NUB nightmare all over again.

[EDITED by Mikel for some very UN-PG remarks]

"you could argue that not only the NUB/NCB's get 19% more battles in, but the vets do as well"

not retroactively they don't

Oooh. Silly me. This is obvious now that you explain it.

will length of bonus time reduce in half ?

Great.... the one edge I had in this game was fighting 24/7....

I think a big hole in your thinking, Jon, is that an NCB and a NUB fight the same. They don't. An NCB will always fight more, as it requires way more attention and hits the pocketbook much harder.

Even if that weren't true, the basic premise of the bonus as you explained it when calibrating against I Love Hello Kitty's character, is that ILHK challenged X battles and Ranger (at the time with TAB) challenged Y battles. You mentioned that it doesn't account for any BA she chose to use in the forge, and that that's ok. You then created a ratio of battles between the vet and the NUB, and normalized them to XP per month. Specifically, these are your words:

*----
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
*----

It sounds to me like we are now doing just that -- being penalized for fighting more and rewarded for fighting less.


The equations as you worked them out in that original thread of November 2005 made sense (I thought). You already handled accounting for inequivalent effort. You are now removing that equivalence.

"not retroactively they don't "

That shouldn't matter at all, again given your explanation of the intrinsics of the NUB back in November.

"So I'm estimating that on average, someone starting now will be able to use 19% more BA than someone who started in Jan 05"

The above assumes you purchase BA during your NCB, if you do not, then imo you just took this potential benefit away by decreasing the N*B bonus'.

Reduced rates. I was expecting this one.

But don't forget NCB guys, reducing the bonus only reduces your XP rewards. You will still be capable of getting that 19% extra cash......And for somebody like me for instance, the reduction in bonus only puts me back to where I was before the BA change as far as XP gain is concerned.

The change to BA refresh meant that it was completely possible to use all your BA and still not need to log on 24/7.

Sut described it clear enough that a non maths head like me could understand it:

"QBsutekh137, April 27
Johnny, the other way to think of it is in terms of "gap". My "gap" of time to get to a full 160 is now 8 hours and 40 minutes. That means if I get 8 hours of sleep I still have not lost any BA. That means 24x7 usage, which of course means greater rewards. Look at the top forgers today -- they are over 500K, whereas 400K was a pretty good day before. That's a 20-25% increase, which makes sense, considering my actual BA usage was around 19-20 hours per day before, now it is pretty much 24 hours"

For bonus players Jon has only put it back to what it was prior to the change. And again, I repeat, NCB players only lose out on XP not cash. Non bonus players now have a small advantage possibly, but only time will tell if that makes any difference to a bonus player's chances of catching them.

I think this change contradicts your original rational for the decreased BA rate. Of course by allowing CB to fit more easily into the schedule of those with families, jobs, and school they would obviously become more competitive. That should have been the point.

Even still, you penalize the most vigorous players based on the advantage gained by the average player. Those who were competitive before gain a much smaller advantage through the slower BA rate. Their productivity is increased by a much smaller percent. Your decrease to rewards ought compare the top BA consumers from January 2005 to the top BA consumers now, not the average consumer.

This follows the one step forward and two steps back routine that I pointed out with the RoE. In the end you simply make it so that despite the point of the slower BA rate being a boon to people like Johnnywas, it really only puts him right back where he was before.

And there was me trying to show the positive elements to the change lol. I'm depressed now. ;)

My brain is quite literally exploding trying to think about all this.
I liked getting up this morning and getting the double reward on top of the wacky $$.
I'm not liking the thought that now I have to stop playing at 11 to get all my BA for wacky XP. This means I can't tweak my fightlist before the off.
But I know that come 5 the numbers will make me happy again.
On the other hand, if I miss 5 and don't start till 6, I'm missing out again, so timing is even more critical... Or is it? Aaarrggghhh I just don't know :-s

Lol at VC!

===============================================

Where the NUB is concerned, reducing the bonus makes a lot of sense unless you want to have the potential of near to 20% extra cash being earned by NUB players. A huge amount over four months. Ripe for exploitation.

Anybody who thinks an NUB can't fight like a vet is naive in the extreme.

My clickbot isn't gonna be happy, now he only has to do half of what he used to do.

With the BA rate cut in half, and the NCB bonus lowered, I think you should also lower the Random factor on rewards. We just don't have enough ba now to average it all out.
Let me put it this way, I can hit a person for 2k xp one time, then on the next 3-4, I hit for 1k, when I'm totally maximizing my PR vs Score, and then I hit someone with a much lower score and hit 2k again.... of course this is during wacky xp time.

"when I'm totally maximizing my PR vs Score,"

You still get 100%???

way off NS, try 25%

I gotta agree, rewards during wacky XP time aren't as 'inflated' as the cash equivalent. In fact some of the rewards I'm seeing are no different to normal time where XP is concerned.

that's not possible NS...

nov - well, he said he was maximizing....

Well I think the reduction to the N*B was a bit too low.

Just look at Mikel's final MPR, way too low for all the fighting he has done. Which includes buying a minion, using a ROE for 3/4th the time, and missing almost no BA-even before the change in regeneration rate.

Nightstrike I think Jon's reasoning is the following.

Lets say there are two "average" players, one that is currently playing a character that doesn't get a NUB/NCB bonus currently and one that does. Both players are as active as each other.

Before the BA change the N*B would end up at about 95% of the MPR of the non N*B character.

After the BA change however this "average" player now uses 18% more BA than he would've otherwise. This means at the end of his N*B the N*B will actually be ahead of the non NUB/NCB since the NCB character gets the 18% benefit over its entire lifetime whereas the other character has only received it for a small period of its lifetime.

The change should in theory adjust rewards so that the "average" N*B character ends up back at 95% of the "average" non-N*B MPR.

A couple of other points:

1) As some people have stated NUB/NCB users who play more than the "average" person won't end up at the 95% mark anymore because the BA change benefits these players less than it does the "average" player.

2) Over time the "retroactive factor" diminishes for example a non-N*B at the end of August will have had about 28 months normal BA and 4 months with 18% more BA so has only benefitted from the BA changes for 4/32=12.5% of its lifetime compared to the N*B who has benefitted for 100% of its lifetime. Fast forward a year though and the non-N*B would have the benefit of the BA changes for 16/44=35% of its lifetime so gradually the benefit to the N*B of the new BA changes relative to non N*B's diminishes.

But SP:

The NUB was designed, according to past Jon's posts, to let someone using ALL their available BA get to 95% of the top estimated MPR by the time their NUB is over.

The key word is ALL. With the BA change, the person who was getting in all their BA is still getting in all their BA. Like Mikel was.

Not once if I remember, did Jon ever say the average player with reference to the NUB and getting to the top.

I agree with Ranger, and, as I posted on the other thread about Mikel's ending MPR (he has two more days! *smile*), it seems low in proportion to the top MPR, and when compared to my downright-lackadaisical-in-comparison NCB run. And that's even with buying a minion and being in a top clan for the whole run!

Ranger, to be fair, the original NUB was stated as allowing someone to get to 95% of the top, with equivalent effort.

So the NUB user would only have to spend 100% BA if the current top dog had spent 100% BA.

If the current Top Dog only spent 50%, then a NUB spending only 50% would reach 95% by the end of bonus time.

I should add two things, this was the explaination behind people like Kitty passing you, she was explained to have spent more BA than you, surpasing your effort.

It's also in support of the reduciton being too much, if Mikel has spent near 100% of his total BA, then he should be 95% of a top place that also spent near 100% of thier BA, and above those that didn't.

GL that is very invalid, I did worse with The Alchemist (ba wise) than with this character, and TA ended up closer to the top than this character will % wise and going one minion was the way to get there after watching Koy's SFBM and Sut's Mage get to the top MPR spots simply from buying their 3 minions, even if I were to do that, I would still fall short of 95%.

Anyways, I don't expect jon to do anything about it since I only have 2 days left. As most of us already know, his changes are usually a bit extreme one way or another.

jonathan is forgetting that, according to his first post, the n*b bonus was calculated so that after 4 months n*b players would reach 95% of top players.

since during 4 months vets will be able to play as much as the n*b players, the 19% loss, if correct, is too high.

it should be equal to
(x-4)/x*0.19
with x the duration in months that a top player has begun to play.

I believe "x" should be the life of CB. The bonus isn't to gun after the specific top-dog...for one thing, the top dog might have gotten there using a bonus character (so basing it on that number of months would be quite invalid). It needs to be the life of CB itself, since the bonus is to reach a theoretical high that the largest player would have reached by having the advantage a new player does not -- being here the whole time.

So, that factor would be (life of CB - 4)/life of CB, which equals roughly 29-4/29 = 0.86.

0.86 x 0.19 = 0.1637.

Jonathan adjusted the bonus 16%. Doesn't that seem correct in theory?

Still doesn't explain Mikel's situation -- I would have expected a higher finishing MPR, especially with the minion purchase.

US - Thats the point I made as well, and infact as time goes by the reduction to the N*B should become less and less because non N*B's will gradually get a greater percentage of time with the new BA.
So after a year the reduction should be (x-12 / x) * 0.19. after two years (x-24 / x) * 0.19 etc

qbsutek; the 16% comes from the inverse of 1.19 as jonathan told us yesterday
so the correct decrease should be inv(1.19*(29-4)/29)=inv(1.03)=0.97=3% decrease

so in fact the decrease should be very small.

but anyway on this point i agree with sacreadpeanut
the more time will pass since the ba change, the less the decrease should be true
better to not doing something at all