All-time Negative Challenge Bonus FTW! (in General)

Well, yeah, Where I am now, my fightlist is all negatives. The top person is -1%. The bottom person is -5%. This is all clannies. If I was to fight people that weren't in clans, I would get 9% from the best person I can beat and 0% from the next person. I think its inflated score for the 9%.

This is right isn't it? I want my 6/20 now, not in another 400k MPR or a bit less. I have no choice but to fight negative bonus.

I'm fighting up quite high, my BA is 8/20. My highest challenge bonus is 30%. I couldn't go any higher than I'm fighting...I've tried. My NCB finished yesterday. It's no wonder I normally quit a char the day after NCB and start again!

And looking at your post I think I'm seeing my future.....nice.....

It's not just me, might I add. But you've probably gathered that. You can ask around, anyone over 1 mil MPR with a tat, they'll tell you their wondrous challenge bonus.

Hasn't it always been like this, only now it's more visible given that the info is displayed?

Prolly.

before the changes in rewards and BA regeneration I was consistantly getting a minimum of 15-20% on 7-8 people in my list, now I have 3 members on my list who float between -4% and at their highest score moments about 7%.
Something is up because it isn't just because it became visible.

I can hit a peak of about 22% challenge bonus..but I'm wearing 0 armor and a small tat so my PR is on a smaller scale.

The amount of score received isn't affected by the inflated rewards, so as a result, there is less score to go around. Score is created by fighting and winning, and distributed by losing to smaller people. With less total fights per day, there is less score created and added to the system. With less score entering the mix, bonuses based on score drop significantly.

So, the way score is affected should double? Because of half of our BA?

Yesterday I found someone with a 1.8M score and I dropped all my equipments and beat on them for a little bit for a nice little 80% challenge bonus. First time I've had that in several weeks.


Then my score went away very fast and I am now 3k CPs in the hole, and the said opponent gives something like a 20% challenge bonus when I fight them naked. =(

Looks like it Flamey.

OB, is the opponent TEoD? That was the person giving me 9% other than that its 0%...

Nope! =)

who was it?

VP

Would anyone else like to share their experiences? It still would be helpful. Especially if you're 1 mil+ MPR.

I'm not asking for a positive challenge bonus, just not a negative, It's not my fault, the people that are farming me are way over my MPR except for maybe 2 who are still over it, just not so much.

"NightStrike, 7:05 AM EDT
The amount of score received isn't affected by the inflated rewards, so as a result, there is less score to go around. Score is created by fighting and winning, and distributed by losing to smaller people. With less total fights per day, there is less score created and added to the system. With less score entering the mix, bonuses based on score drop significantly. "


This is part of it, but scores haven't risen at all since last summer. You only need to see my char The Clash and where it sits in the score standings. I retired that char at the end of September; and it was actually lower in the standings when I retired it.

Not really, JW. You take away more score than you gain when you fight, and there are more people fighting in the upper ranks due to NCB growth that will spread the score out.

Yeah, true. The tides of score have always confused me a little anyhow; I understand how somebody of a low score fighting high can have an impact. But I've never quite understood how high scores at the top impact downwards. Or even if they do.

But that's a topic for another post.

I don't know what can be done about this particular problem. Changing how score works so that scores start to inflate more at the top end? Or is this just one of those things where the bigger teams suffer more than smaller?

The middle teams suffer the most.
The bigger teams would have little to no challenge bonus regardless of the amount of score given and received and they expect it (the reason for the penalty exemption).
The smaller teams are almost always going to get high bonuses as long as they choose carefully.
The teams in the middle can't afford to fight down due to the penalties but can't fight up enough for a worthwhile bonus and there really is no way around it as far as I can see.

Before the change in the Top Ten exemption (the 6/20 rule), all of my fightlist was negative challenge bonus, and that was clan and non-clan. If I ever fell out of the Top Ten, my rewards were decimated. That's why I double tapped to get in.

Now the cut-off is just moved down. But I don't think it is really any different. Targets get very, very hard to find after you grow large. That's why bonus characters level off so quickly. Some growers can hit 1 million MPR in a month or two, but then barely reach 1.4 or 1.5 million by the time they are done.

Sometimes when Ranfas fights up I get a 1% bonus, but most often its always negative. Since I am stuck with my accursed ToA I am unable to use a RoE, and the only oppenents I can beat with it on give a -30% challenge bonus anyways :P

Well I get 8/20 ba and my bonus is way better then all yours but i don't fight all clanies but my top bonus is 100% and lowest is 6% and I have like 10 or 12 in the 90% range too.

There are two conflicting strategies at work that combine to hurt those in the 7/20 category. For those that get the negative challenge bonuses (i.e. everyone in the (10-7)/20 groups) the incentive is to take off as much equipment as possible in order to keep PR low and challenge bonus high. However, at the 6/20 category, the incentive is to put on as much equipment as possible, because there is no downside, and this is the only way to beat the other people in this category. Thus, the people in the 7/20 category, if they want to fight upwards into the 6/20 category (which they have to in order to get their challenge bonus), then they are faced with people with massive amounts of PR that the 7/20 can't afford to match. Thus, they must fight down and get crappy rewards.

oops I lied at this very moment I have 8 people who I get 100% and about 9 people I get in the 90% range with

My highest challenge bonus is zero, and that's including non-clannies. You think it's hard in the middle? I find it hardest at the top. No weak strategies that give challenge bonuses because they have higher MPR. At this area (I guess top 75 or so?) There simply is no easy victory and that makes getting challenge bonuses difficult.

On my old character (Quetzacotl - who was sold, renamed, and had minions fired) I was about 1.2m MPR, getting a _max_ of -1% Challenge Bonus. Its tough trying to fight between 7/20 and 6/20

TIp: update your fight list to reflect the scores of your opponents properly ;)

I am still fighting with my old NCB char, Miami Vice, with a MPR of 1,2mil. The challenge bonus I get range from 0% to -5% :p

I don't have much to add to this thread apart that I agree with Flamey.

We should all add[7/20] to our names, out of solidarity! We can show our discontent together! *laughs and hides under his desk*

I'm also in the 7/10 BA rate and all my fightlist, both clan and non-clan, give me negative bonus. While I don't change my fightlist often I do check it often enough to know that at most I might find a char which will give a positive bonus but only for a brief period, until everyone farms their score down to giving negative rewards again. As for fighting naked that would get me nowhere. What is a ToA tank without a big NW ToA or a wall without armor?

This has led me to believe that in order for those in the same situation that I'm in they have to be in a bonused clan in order to at least get some type of bonus. With the BA change this has at least made it easier for us casual players to remain in a clan without spending tons of $$ on BA just to keep positive CP's while those in the 6/10 range farm us to heck.

Jake: That's because your PR is at only 550k. It is easy for you to find opponents with a score of 1.1M or greater that you can beat, therefore you can easily find opponents with 100% challenge bonus. Imagine being 1M PR and trying to find 2M score opponents to beat for that 100% challenge bonus ;) hint: it is a *teeny* bit more difficult.

@Synge - Even at 6/10, I fight with as low PR as possible. I still get a challenge bonus on at least one but up to 3 opponents. During XP time, I try to fight ONLY those people. AND I'm using my Roe :)

Also, I never had a full clan person fightlist until I got to 6/10. Up to the very last day of 7/10, I fought purely based on challenge bonus, and let clan points suffer. CPs aren't the be-all, end-all of your character.

Looks like I'm staying in the middle, the highest I could get is the High-Middle. I just don't get all my BA in like the top people, I miss out on maybe 50, I'm not sure, so it doesn't look like I can catch up AT ALL, if I get a negative challenge bonus and they get 0% and we fight the same, the gap will get larger.

Mages are overpowered again me thinks ;P

If that's the case, flamey, then it's time to tweak your strategy.

Number crunch time!

Lets say that a person who spends all of his/her BA every day without any challenge bonuses is moving at 100% speed. Let's say that if this person also buys BA, he/she would be moving at 150% speed. Let's say also that this person is in a good clan and fights only clan people. This provides a ~(14+5)% bonus, multiplied by all of those BA, so this person would be moving at 150% x 1.19 = 178.5% speed. Let's now say that this person is Ranger.

For those within the 6/20 region, just keeping up with Ranger requires you to be within 60% of him, and grow at this rate or else his growth will eventually push you out of the 6/20 range. So, you need to be moving at a speed of 178.5% x 0.6 = 107.1%. That's just to keep up.

For those that want to move faster than him, for example those that are in the 7/20 region and want to upgrade, you have to be moving at a speed higher than 107.1%, with the higher over this you go, the faster you gain on the 6/20 region.

What does this mean? Well, you have to figure out what speed you are moving at, and making sure it is greater than 107.1%. How to increase this speed? Here's a formula:
Speed = A x B x C x D x E, where
A = a1 + a2, and
B = 1 + b
C = 1 + c
D = 1 + d
E = 1 + e
The variables above are:
*Use normal BA (a1 = 0 -> 100%)
*Buy BA (a2 = 0 -> 50%)
*Get a challenge bonus (B = 0 -> 100%))
*Get into a clan and fight clan opponents (C = 5 -> 20%)
*Use a RoE (D = ~20%)
*NUB or NCB (E = 146%?)

Thus, for example, if I use all my BA every day (a1 = 100%) and I buy all my BA every day (a2 = 50%) and I use a RoE (D = 20%) but don't do anything else, then I am moving at (100% + 50%) x 1.20 = 180%, and I am moving closer to Ranger and/or the 6/20 region.

If I do the above, but forge every other week instead of fighting, then over two weeks I move at 180%/2 = 90%, which is less than 107.1%, and so I am moving farther away from the 6/20 region. If I were not in the 6/20 region I will never get there; if I were in the 6/20 region, eventually I will fall out of it.

Useless? Probably, but still interesting...

I have only glanced through this thread, but Synge, that post is awesome :D

This is exactly what I was asking in chat a week earlier. To access 6/20, one does not absolutely need to go at the same speed as the top player, right?

hmm, I love you, Synge. :)

I almost get all my BA, maybe 80-90% of it, and I buy all my BA which is 50%, so I'm still getting at least 130% and about 14% from clan, so that's good to know. I'm curious where do you get up to 20% on the Clan Bonus part of the formula?

NS, I get told I have a good strat, I've asked numerous times for advice and everyone just says its good there's nothing really else to do.

An update also, my highest Challenge bonus is 0%, the character that gave me that positive changed his strat and beat me.

And unless you mean a different tattoo, then I have to change my whole strat, Is the only way to go ToA so I can actually hit things?

This is ridiculous for Non-ToA tanks, people pump their evasion to massive amounts so they make ToA Tanks miss who can easily have effective PTH over 150. These 150 evasions are killing the non-ToA Tanks.

ToA needs a nerf, end of story, too much PTH granted.

Hidden inside the description of clan bonuses (I forget where) there is a small mention that when one clan fighter fights another clan fighter, you get a 5% bonus in addition to the clan bonus. This bonus isn't mentioned anywhere in the bonus box when you win, but I have verified from doing some number crunching that it is there. It's something to factor in when determining whether you should fight clan folks or not. Note that it is still worthwhile to fight non-clan folks if they give you a challenge bonus higher than 5% and the clan folks do not.

That was verified as being complete rubbish Synge, disregard that notion :)

"That was verified as being complete rubbish Synge, disregard that notion :)"

I was thinking something similar along those lines, I thought someone (Shade?) tested it to see it was non-existent? But wasn't Jon the one that said that?

Oh good its not just be struggling with challenge bonuses. :(

The numbers that I have in front of me show that there does exist a ~5% bonus for clanners fighting one another. It is possible that I made a mistake, but there is an experiment we can run to settle it once and for all. I'll just a need a volunteer that is in a clan, and wouldn't mind swapping in an alt char for a day. Maybe tonight I'll try to set it up.

25 - 30% consistently. I have an mpr of 925k - pr of 1.04 mil. I had to take off my ROS to get those bonuses though... went to a ROE. With the ROS my challenge bonuses fall to 5 - 15% ($15 mil nw ROS).

Flamey - post a screenshot of your char and we'll see what can be tweaked.

'Clan Bonuses'

No official word from Jon but some decent figures showing a negligible difference even though the clan join page apparantly states a boost in rewards

If anyone wants to volunteer for my experiment, I will be able to tell you to within 3 significant digits if there is a bonus and how much it is. Here are the requirements for the volunteers:
-Must be in a clan
-Must be beatable by my char Oliver Thrace
-Must be willing to temporarily drop out of the clan during the middle of the experiment (if you switch in an alt char, your main can jump back in 24 hours later with no further cost)

Any takers? CM me.