Hire Minion Suggestion (in General)

For players that are trying to maximize their N*B, they are left at the end with a Hire New Minion cost of sometimes 25+ mil. If they are a single minion, getting that 75+ mil to hire a full minion set forces USD purchasing of CB2. Trying to save up that cash is silly, almost laughable in fact.

I propose that Jonathan allow players to Hire New Minions with CB2 or USD at a rate voted on by the community (or a group of community veterans). This gives Jonathan back some cash for his time and efforts and lessens the hassle of buying CB2 from someone else. It will also (imo) help with the sellout problem (not completely, but hey anything helps).

Minion purchases are the single best cash sink in game...

are cash sinks good or bad?

"Trying to save up that cash is silly, almost laughable in fact."

I personally think it is not that hard. Anyone with a bit of talent and patience could hire at least one minion per month at that rate once a single minion NCB is over. That is not such a long time considering most of the top players took over 2 years to get where they are.

Reply to tailon

You have to ask yourself is that money would be better invest somewhere else.If he a tank is not better to spend that money on is weapon, naming is also a very good way to improve your power without any increase in PR.Most item are PR wise cheaper that MPR, a corn add 2% while adding 1% MPR others ex could be found like not to mention the best ex of all BG.

With the current game dynamic, item upgrade beyond a reasonable point is actually discouraged, barring weapons. So if you do not run a tank team, the cas is best spent hiring minions. Want to up your corn to +11? Better think again. That'll add 50k on your PR and reduce your reward by a few percentage point. Maximum growth can only be achieved with minimal equipment, and the need to level tats at relatively high MPR means you can't slap on needless networth to slow yourself down. If you run tank team, you better sink all your money into your weapon to keep up with evasion. Essentially, don't expect to run too competitive a team with tanks if you don't spend mass amount of USD. Minion hiring is one of the best/only way to launch yourself into 6/20. It should not come cheap.

Reply to Duke.

That is why I mentioned that players have to be patient. You cannot have it all right away. You have to be patient to reach top MPR.

If you want to try doing it with existing minions, use your $ to upgrade your equipment. If you want to go single minion and hire new ones to boost your MPR, save your $ for that.

The choice is yours. Whichever choice you goal you aim to reach, you will need patience to reach it.

Look at Mikel. It took him just over a year to reach 3M MPR and he just hired his 3rd minion last week. He was patient and now it is paying off.

Mikel is not the regular players making conclusion from is history will be confusing for the others.

You are correct, Mikel is not a typical player. However, I just wanted to point out that even he waited a year to hire a new minion even if he could have done so sooner. He chose instead to give priority to upgrading his equipment and making his damage dealer more powerful with more XP.

My point is that with BA purchasing and item upgrading trying to save up that much CB2 will take you at least 6 months. Then you need to invest at least 12 months (2 for saving up CB2 (probably more), 4 for NCB, 6 for saving up minion hiring cash) in order to get to the top spot. If the intention is to have 40+ mil be necessary for NCB, then an additional 75+ mil for hiring minions to reach the top, then why is anyone wasting their time trying, the costs are becoming astronomical and the rewards less and less. The gap between the top players and the meat/heart of the players is widening daily.

Basically it is going to cost you 500 USD to effectively make a NCB run and even then you will be shy of the top players by around 1 mil MPR. If this is the reality, why not make it easier to just purchase the minion from Jonathan is all I am saying.

Cash sinks help to prevent inflation of CB2.
Buying Minions with USD could cause an inflation of CB2.
It does sound like a good idea, but it has it's pros and cons.

I would also suggest making the blacksmith upgrades CB2 or USD also, but a lot of people will whine about that also. But it will stop the selling out problems if people who buy CB2 anyway, are given a way to payback someone who actually deserves it.

From what i get the best you can get from a NCB is 2.5M MPR would its be much cheaper just to buy a char.

aha, give more advantage to USD spenders? no I don't think so, If you want to start with 1 minion your whole ncb long great buying minions is a choice not mandatory

Atm that's true, Duke - but you don't often see characters of that caliber up for sale. Besides, some of us are hoping that one day Jonathan will fix the N*B... :)

Well there a 1.9M MPR char that was FS not so long ago, so how big would be that char after 4 month.So even if that char end up 100K mpr or so lower that the NCB does 100K MPR worth 40 to 60M.

"From what i get the best you can get from a NCB is 2.5M MPR would its be much cheaper just to buy a char."

I for one could never bare to play with a character I bought. I much prefer spending $100M on a NCB and be 100% responsible for my character's success.

I have nothing against those that buy their character, but to me it would just not be the same. I would feel the same as wanting a Rolex but buying a fake one instead. Looks the same, feels the same, but just isn't the real thing. Yuk!

A fixed exchange rate is not a solution in any form, Hiring/CBD/Blacksmith, it is all the same idea, and it doesn't solve the sell out problem.

you guys know what solves the sell out problem? No longer being able to cash in CBD for USD.

"aha, give more advantage to USD spenders? no I don't think so, If you want to start with 1 minion your whole ncb long great buying minions is a choice not mandatory"

Please explain to me what would be different with what I suggest than what is currently in place regarding USD use.

If I want to buy CB2 now and hire minions, I can.
If I want to buy CB2 and upgrade my items, I can.

Where is that money going? To players and sellouts both.

Where do I propose the money go? To Jonathan.

This all but eliminates the sellout problem, pays Jonathan for his work, and eliminates the FS/WTB CB2/USD threads almost completely.

Glory, I think the point brought up before about inflation is the most valid.

If you could just hire minions with USD, you leave so much more CB2 in the game that would only go to inflate the prices of items. If you buy the CB2 with USD and then use that CB2 to buy the minion, that's millions of CB2 that won't go to inflating the prices of items.

Furthermore, that would only unbalance the game as prices skyrocket, only people that use USD would be able to afford items.

"Where do I propose the money go? To Jonathan. "

Technically it does go to Jon bit by bit through transfer fees.

"Technically it does go to Jon bit by bit through transfer fees."

CB2 has no value for Jonathan. So, no "real" value is going to Jonathan, therein imo, lies the problem.

CB2 has no value for Jonathan. So, no "real" value is going to Jonathan, therein imo, lies the problem.

Again, I think the "real" value is not for Jon to make money, but to keep this game's economy in check. And as one of the most potent money drains in the economy, Jon makes sure that the game remains playable rather than ridiculous.

Actually I would like to suggest a much cheaper option :P Other than the current available options.

An option to hire a base minion. Yes ! Base like when you started a new char. And it cost 100k if your MPR is more than 1mil just for the kick of it. I would have hired a base minion if there's an option and let it grow to where I am now when I was 1.5mil than to spend 40mil or 16 mil now.

A base minion hiring option would be good but the price needs to be fairly steep still. A free kill slot contributes quite a lot and frees up tattoo options. Other than that, I'm all for it.

Exactly. Hiring base minions for 0 cost = hire when out of BA, fire when you log back in. Make it $100K or so if it's at all an option.

Base minion!! I think I suggested something similar back in the past. I'd go for a zero xp minion. I don't mind building up the stats from scratch.

0 exp minion with cost based on your mpr :) maybe like 1 MPR = $1 so for someone with 1mil MPR your cost is 1million

Whoa... that's a bit too steep for $1 per MPR, I don't mind $0.5 per MPR though :)

not... going... to... happen...

better minion hiring idea:

Make a third option, allowing the hiring of minions with no XP at all, for a flat 2m. Cash sink is still there. Absurd minion costs are sidestepped. Killslots are available. I believe this was suggested before(I think by Scrabaluminous, but I'm not sure), and it's a pretty decent idea, imo...

That's not steep enough. An extra kill slot needs to cost... a lot. One should not have the ability to concentrate a lot of exp then get a kill slot at nominal fees.