Advanced NUBs (in General)

Inspired by a recent thread. You all know which one. Instead of going offtopic, here's a thread about it.

SO, when I started the game, I was a nub. _even_ though I played CB1 for a little while beforehand.

Here's what I did -
train dex on my mages/enchanters so I don't get hit as often, train FB and GA in conjunction (for a fiery doom... and wondering "why oh why?!?"), and
hire 4 minions _immediately_.
For a time, I had a huge weapon too, which reduced my rewards to nothing.

After retraining 5~10 times (not knowing how costly it was) changing from CoC, MM, decay etc, and not buying BA, I had a terribly slow start.

Now, I realise I had no mentoring but I have to ask -
1. doesn't the newbie tutoring go as far as not suggest, but _tell_ you to hire 4 minions? I can't remember.
2. why would a nub go against a suggestion anyway?
3. It took me like a month to figure out that I could buy BA, let alone start spending all of it.

More importantly,

4. Am I simply retarded, and a slow learner?
5. How good is our system at catching 'restarters' rather than multis?

Your opinons!

I said this in the other thread so I'll just copy/paste it here.

I think I figured this game out. Veterans threaten and intimidate promising new players to get them to leave; they form an alliance to harass newbs via pm. And (judging from this thread) you are either with them or against them.

Geez TH. At least confine your ranting to one thread.

TH, he's talking about what the system tutorial tells you to do. Usually it is the veterans of the game who step in and correct their badly created strategies and explain how the game mechanics work.

Thx for your 2 cents TH, but...

1. I wasn't even talking about you in specific, your case simply reminded me of things I've thought about.

2. If you are not a multi, you have nothing to be afraid of, and you will never, ever, hear me bully you, criticise you, or intimidating you. Questioning our game system, people's thought processes and admins' strategies are not things designed to intimidate _you_, but I guess it would intimidate a multi.

3. If you are not a multi, and you think I'm just picking on you, all we are doing is caressing your suitably sized ego, in which case you should take it as an ultimate compliment -
"how can he be that good?"

I'd feel damn honored if people were saying stuff like that about me.

4. I wanted my carefully numbered questions answered, and we're going off topic ;)

I think the methods of catching "retamultirds" are effective, I could be wrong. Unless you want to start paying monthly fee's I'd be thankful it's done at all.

I wasn't a "quick" study either. Have seen enough people come through this game and play it logically (when compared with similar games) enough to make me feel REALLY stupid however. Remember how angry the hoard got when Sab (I think that was a shortening of his name...can't remember the full handle) showed up and
owned everyone but the gods at camping? When Mikel arrived (still the most "Advanced" NUB I ever saw)?

You know what happens when you assume *stoneface*

Novice,

Mikel was the most "advanced" new player due to the fact those in BR gave him guidance, help on strategy and loan of items almost from the beginning. At the time, BR was looking for another clan member due to someone leaving. Mikel at the time we available and was given a spot in BR. He quickly showed he was more than a capable player.

He is an excellent player, a great friend, and a very loyal person. However, without a good mentor, he likely would have floundered for a while before picking the game up on his own (which I am certain he would have).

That explains a lot...

hahaha, I love Flounder! My favorite from The Little Mermaid

Nov - Shabbleflab was the "god camper" you are remembering, also the first to get a x26 ELB, if memory serves. :)


As for the original post: Ranger said it well, its not the ability of the player who joins, its the people who help him learn the game, and his or her willingness to ask for help that makes a "good" newb, versus a "bad" one.

Back on topic, I have to agree that BR is indeed the most helpful clan I've ever been in. Makes a pretty big difference. I certainly wouldn't be growing this fast if I were in a different clan, and the loan of items has added me more than a few extra 100% targets that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten.

That, and I'm not a NUB. =P

I guess you're right Knovice, when i'm not paying a monthly-fee I should be happy with whatever service that happens :)

sadly, it's the people who play legitimately that loses out the most if/when people do these 'retard-multis'...

If only new players had a huge supply of BA (inflated BA as opposed to inflated rewards), maybe they could learn on their own, at the same time their interest is piqued (that "new player burn")?

I know from experience that actual fighting was the only way I learned (and I'm a slow learner). At this point, I can't for the life of me figure out how we expect a NUB to get his/her head around the simplistic complexity CB has to offer in a mere four months. Accelerating that curve tends to generate multis, malcontents, or sycophants (or all three at once).

At some point aren't we going to realize you can't fit 3 years of a game in four months? That having BA worth more and more (seriously, each bonus BA must account for hundreds and hundreds in MPR by now, yes?) is going to reach a point where it no longer "fits"?

Look at it this way: In 7 months, a 4 month equivalent will be worth THREE YEARS of CB fighting. Being conservative, let's say I make a low-worth team and fight without buying BA. In four months I will have earned what a 3 year veteran may have had if he/she had saved all his/her pennies. That would be, what -- at least 100 million? Even at $5 per million, that's a cool half-grand.

This idea scales?

With the depth of knowledge in the Help wiki I don't think that is unreasonable at all. The learning curve is not the same as when you started, Sutekh. :)

When I signed up, Ranger was my Mentor, so call it luck or whatever you want, but I was an annoying little critter to him after I read all about the spells and EO/ED, and I had tons of help right from the start, and not just Ranger, but everyone wanted to tell me a trick or two and of course a few that I discovered on my own. :) The smartest move I did was to buy a big tattoo right away, and with no Max Tattoo Limit back then, I was on fire.... or should I say, I FB'ed my way to the top.

My first month was spent on some so-so strategies playing around, testing CoC, FB and MM. Settled on a FB, MM, AS, GA team and was rocking it. Then I had a chance to get into BR and so I took it, of course I lost a month of my NUB because I started all over, but it was well worth it. To make matters worse, I lost a month of my NUB at the end. So I nearly beat the top MPR person in just 2 months using my Strategy and activity helps as much as a solid strat does.

Others that helped me: *forgive me if I forgot a few names. Memnot, Duke, Chocolate Thunder, Sefton, Maelstrom, and many others.

I agree mostly Sut, but in the end it really boils down to the support system the new player has.

CB is a vast game with a lot of nuisances to learn. With out a nice guide/mentor, it is almost impossible to learn the game quickly enough to maximize your NUB.

And the problem with getting a good mentor/guide is the NUB itself. While we try to foster a nice learning environment, it is human nature at its core to be jealous. Seeing people with the NUB rocket past you is very discouraging to say the least.

I know seeing Kitty, then Mantra pass or nearly pass TAB was very very upsetting. Why would someone want to guide or mentor someone who would pass them in power? That is the question we have to answer.

The older players do not go out of their way to sabotage new players like TH seems to believe. But in the same tone, some do not go out of their way to mentor.

I have always stated the NUB is too much too fast. I would have liked it to be less for longer duration. 4 months is too short compared to the length cb has been alive. But my opinion does not really matter, and I respect Jon for how he believes it should be done. A longer duration would make it seem, at least to me, that the new players are actually working/playing for a while to get a good character. Not basically given one out of the box if they play well.

It is a fine line the game is causing us to walk.

I pestered my Mentor. A lot.

I didn't know what wepaons did, I spent my cash and couldn't heal my minions after losing my next fight, I didn't know *what* to do.

I created two themed teams, Shaman King and Dark Lament (I made my own clan for DL). I asked my Mentor things time again. I can't stress how useful, helpful and approachable my Mentor was.

I read the forums, started to get a little understanding, made my first forum post with the then off the wall idea for a Single Mage, when everyone advocated a HP/STR/DEX only signle Tank till 500K MPR.

Then Kenneth Irons was born.

I didn't use chat, and the forum posts where way above me, I was a little intimidated before first posting, as I was so out of my depth.

Rely on your Mentor, they will make all the difference.

From what I remember, the tutorial does not tell you to hire 4 minions, not in the slightest. It at most tells you that after a few battles you can choose to hire additional minions if you want to. My impression was that it was something for a more advance strategy.

For what it's worth, Kitty and Mantra got a lot of tutoring and help from mentors who saw potential and specifically wanted to see them get past TAB. I know, I was one of them, at least with Kitty (not that I'm overly happy about how it turned out in hindsight).

I know I never took advantage of having a mentor, and it was 6 or 7 months of "dabbling" before I really figured anything out on my own, again a regret in hindsight.

How what turned out in hindsight??

I think it was the fact that Kitty and YOU were 99.9% multils.

Same computer, same Paypal address.

That Kitty sold out for USD as soon as her NUB was up, instead of staying as a top player, and that Mantra also eventually sold out for USD and turned out to be a multi.

Both results were very disappointing considering their potential, and the effort some of us put into helping them. Heck, it's disappointing when anyone does that.

I remember when I started long before the mentor system or NP were around and I mostly only used chat for chatting.
I taught myself the majority of the game mechanics within about 3 days and from day 1 I had a basic single tank and started working my way up through the different weapons (only way you could do it back then with rewards in relation to cost, no way you could get a Loch within your first week).
I remember buying my first Elven Cloak for a market price of 15k from another player and then selling it on for 90k a couple months later with hardly an NW added to it.
With average rewards at the upper end about $50 a fight back then and exp being even lower, coupled with unlimited BA there was almost a forced slow learning curve. I was just lucky that it all came to me as quickly as it did.

But Zog,

You have to admit that the game is infinitely more complicated now then when you or I started.

New skills, spells, items.

It is quite a lot for someone to take in the first few weeks of playing without a guide to help them.

Well, when I started, all we had was spit and pocket lint, and indoor plumbing was still considered "way cool!" Sorry folks, I forgot to mention my four-year CB anniversary a couple weeks back...

Yes, Jonathan, I see your point. But I don't think "help" is as pronounced as you might think, and that still doesn't address the scaling issue when it comes to cash. Follow my train of thought here:

-- I am starting with two premises: we want CB to be wildly popular, and we want it to have a healthy economy.
-- As we have seen historically, CB has the money-creators and the USD-spenders (sometimes folks are both). In a healthy economy, there are always folks who will buy CB cash. NUBs are tremendous money-creators, unless you totally make low-NW teams (i.e. mages) disappear (I, for one, would quit the game if that happened).
-- So, we have the NUBs creating cash, and always have people there to buy it (going by original premises).
-- As I illustrate in a previous post, A NUB could probably quite easily make $500-$1000 worth of CB cash running up a character. No big deal -- anyone can take the time to earn 100 million CB and sell it... But a NUB can do that in _four months_. And the amount the NUB can earn will only go up.

One thousand dollars is a lot of scratch. Especially to a 12-15 year old who may very will be filling NUB shoes. With all that cash coming in, USD prices will keep going down. That's fine, that's still a healthy economy. But I am saying that, in any case, it is time compression. The cash becomes a temptation, or at the very least a distraction.

Contrast that with the "more BA" idea. Let's say the NUB were just a huge mass of BA that a new player could spend any time they wish, and make the period of spending be 6-9 months from date of creation. The new player could use it however they wish, though I suppose there would have to be some daily metering in place to stop it all from being spent on high experience time. I also still haven't figured out how clanning would work. But the BA would be there to use at the new player's discretion. They could load it all up at the front end of the period or save it for later when they know what they are doing. A character's life-cycle is somewhat self-balancing... The more BA used, the bigger the character gets, so there really is no such thing as "loading it all up at the beginning" -- the "beginning" will disappear once a lot of BA is used up.

Like I said, the only issues would be with controlling wacky times and how to handle clanning. Other than that, I cannot think of a single downside to making the bonus be BA-based instead of reward-based. Talk about the Wiki all you like -- the Wiki is just words. Also, the game changes, new strategies are discussed every day. Just because one can more easily find definitions of "Ablative Shield" and "To-Hit" doesn't mean anything until you fight a team you think you can beat, get your backside handed to you, and then look at their build and the fight-log and say, "aha!" Then you start running numbers (with BA in it's current valuation? Heavens no!) to get a better feel for what works and what doesn't. The Wiki can't help with that. The day the Wiki can totally help with that is the day that CB is a stale piece of garbage -- that is not currently the case.

The BA-based bonus does not solve the issue of more cash coming in... That is why I also mentioned 6-9 months to stretch out the BA usage above. The reason I think a longer period would be acceptable is because the new player isn't going to be twiddling his/her thumbs in this new scheme -- they will have this massive store of BA to use (man, it makes me drool just thinking about it *smile*). THAT will keep their interest, not just strapping a rocket to their butts and hoping they don't fall off when the boosters poop out.

Which was the point I was getting cross Ranger, if you read my post properly you would notice that I said it was a forced slow learning curve even with a small amount of stuff.
And Sut, you've been around longer than me, only 4 fours?

Sut, about clanning in your idea,

Easy to solve, Just put a cap on the CPs someone can make in a 24 hour period, Based on the max someone without the extra BA can do in that same period for the same BA regeneration rate.

I have always thought that the NUB should be more than 4 months. I believe Jon picked that time for a reason, but with CB nearing 2 1/2 years of age, 4 months is far too short. Stretch the NUB to 8-10 months and lower the NUB/NCB accordingly.

Other than that, your ideas are well thought out.

Yes Zog,

Were typing the same thing. The game is far more complicated.

Sry if I seemed to be going after you in my post. I was not.

*only 4 years?

I'm not quite sure where I got 4 fours from lol

Zog, you are this:

A member of Carnage Blender since July 29, 2003.

I only started a little more than two months ahead of you.

I actually started in the October before Sut, I made the mistake of merging in January and getting screwed over and then not rejoining until July.

Well, there you go. *smile*