What I would like to see next month: (in General)

When changemonth officially comes about I would like to see:

1) Evasion fix/nerf. Either lower its (xxx) or give it less defensive dexterity, or have no multipliers in missile now that BGs are fixed. Or all 3!!

2) Weapon cap based on MPR or VPR. The + and x based up the MPR/VPR. So equipping a uber weapon will be very much like equipping an uber tattoo. It does not add more PR but only functions to a certain level.

3) Rolling bonus. I know Jon is against it, but it seems the fairest way to help both new and old players alike.

4) Non-upgradeable ammo. Enough has been stated in the past about this.

5) Fix the RBF.

a) Make its damage have a counter other then the standard AC/TOE/Protection axis.

b) Also make its magic reduction function like the MgS instead of a complete reduction. Perhaps based on a MgS of 1/2 the NW of the tattoo. IE, a 100M RBF would work like a 50M MgS. That is about 50% reduction that ramps up very slowly from there.

6) Immediately stop the NUB forging bonus. Or at least make it back to how it was before the recent super-boost. 250% bonus is enough. Even too much but still.

Just a wishlist.

And before anyone can post it:

This is all designed to give ME an unfair advantage!

I would amend the MgS/RoBF idea to say: get rid of the MgS (due to it not having any symmetry for mages), and then have the RoBF do what Ranger states above... No reason to allow two MgS-like options on one team, one is enough.

Either that, or give mages an equivalent item.

Another idea would be to make damage reduction more additive in its layering instead of multiplicative, but that would be a pretty radical change. I personally think that layers of damage reduction and HP regeneration are too powerful (and also rather dull).

I might post more about my thoughts on that in a different thread, though...

Mages do not been any help right now. With the exp training cost change, they were made very powerful. Then with AoF and junction Familars are uber powerful. Yes, the RoBF needs fixing, but really the only other major thing I see needing fixing (other than the RoBF) is evasion.

Sut,

Without the MgS, all the top teams will be mages. I know of no tank that can live through your FB, Conundrum's CoC, NWO's MM, or novice's IF without either the MgS or MsB. And now with the BG fix, only perhaps Mikel and myself can hit you and Atomic's mages. Edyit, with his 4M AMF would certainly lose to at least 2 mages, I would lose to at least 2.

And I will give you the item that mages have that tanks do not----NSC's.

They have no tank equivalent. Playing a tank, with a 2M AMF, I only cast for .09 vs Conundrum and .02 vs novice. So basically almost 1.6M levels of a spell made useless by 1 items. Yes, Novice has 40+M invested in his but still that is quite a hit to AMF I take.

If you want to make a mage equivalent MgS, then make a tank equivalent NSC!

Perhaps something that lowers your enemies evasion. Perhaps a glove of true hitting.

But also remember, the MgS does have quite a lot of restrictions. What if the mage equivalent item has all the restrictions as the MgS? Such as only lets DD spells cast and all skill/spells otherwise are nerfed. Would that be ok? I would love such an item for mages.

Please, let us know what the item you would propose for mage as the equivalent to the MgS. You have posted this idea a lot, now please give your details of it. Remember though, it has to have enough restrictions to be comparable to the MgS.

What I would like to see if evasion gets nerfed:

1) UC gets a bit of love: Every trained UC effect grants an effective natural AC (blocks both magic / physical damages). If Gi is worn, then natural AC = effective UC

Why? Coz evasion is the only thing that kept UC alive against tanks now. And against mages, they don't even stand any chance.

OR

2) Give us VA glove or some ranged stuff that scales with UC level. Like a shurinken / boomerang that has at most 2 ranged round, but PTH of weap comes from UC level :P

I think UC is ok where it is. The fact you do not have to spend CB2 is the trade off. You cannot have both a decent melee attack and evasion for only XP cost. My opinion only.

That said, I would like to see HG's have inate VA like the MH does, 20%, non dispelled. Of course it would only work with UC and not with other melee weapons..

Ranger - you sure about that? FB and Evasion is the same deal, but a lot more offense for your XP.

You -can- have strong DD and Evasion, so why not a decent (note: I'm not asking for my BoNE redone in UC form, just something that you don't have to abandon past 800k MPR) weapon?

Yes OB,

I feel confidant about it.

NS does quite well with a UC tank, even without a CGI. One could convert all the UC xp to a DD spell and do well, but to play a tank, one needs a weapon.

The benefit of UC is the ability to hit multiple times a round compared to DD. If evasion was fixed, then they would.

If one wants to give a "vorpal" ability to UC at a certain level, like (100) that would be good also. I have proposed a scaling set of benefits for UC based upon its level.

Like at level (50) VA ability
level (100) vorpal ability
level (150) always hit 1 time
level (200) tough skin, reduces damage by 20%.
Etc...

That would be nice, Ranger. My point is was this:

"You cannot have both a decent melee attack and evasion for only XP cost."

being wrong...DD users get it, but the UC users don't. In fact, it isn't just melee. It's ranged + melee.

A vorpal effect, or a vampiric effect, or anything like that would be nice to give UC a little boost...but right now, the only people who use it are those who are determined to. Sure, NS runs a great UC tank. -But-, with that said, 'll bet if you asked if there were better uses for that XP, he'd agree. Fact is, UC is the bottom choice in skills, even below Junction now. It isn't really fine where it is, it needs some help.

UC is the most powerful low level skill by a mile. The problem with UC lies in its higher level effectiveness. I am not sure what to do to fix that however.

i support the ideas perhaps not the specifics, but most of the balance issues are covered in my opinion.

i would like to add that any weapon cap needs to function better in the 6/20 range than the mtl though and perhaps even tweak that as well, as others have asked for in the past.

as for the robf, i would encourage baby steps so as not to make it unusable again. i still think we should look at just dropping the evasion and magic blocking effects entirely and leaving other things unchanged. the xp would have to then be diluted and really never able to do what it can to magic damage at the present. along with an evasion balancing i think this might be enough as the robf strategies, at least for lesser minion teams, rules out the use of the roe and that is one serious disadvantage as is.

i do wish jon was more open to the rolling bonus and i had envisioned that when i first heard of some type of "catch-up" bonus would be incorporated in cb2. he says it tips the scales too much in favor of an easy ride. i say that what we have now tips the scales too much in favor of disposable teams. i really liked having a team for years in cb1 and getting somewhere with it. i have only done one ncb in cb2 and actually, like an idiot, kept my existing team even though that hurt me in the long run.

I was just talking with edy, I think the solution to evasion is to have the minus to hit decay in melee... that way if they have invested in dbs they can still compete, but on a NW for NW basis.

Ranger: No, I won't post the item that would be equivalent for a mage, because my primary goal would be to see the MgS removed, first. No need for a mage counterpart item in that case. *smile*

And you know, there WAS a game before the MgS existed, and not everyone was a mage! Imagine that! There was a WHOLE FUN GAME in existence before a LOT of things around here, including you! Including me! "Fun" has never needed X number of items, or Y number in interacting parts to be fun.

Of course, if mages did suddenly dominate after the removal of the MgS, then reduce the mage in some other way (simply lessening DD comes to mind). My main beef is not actually that the MgS is specific against mages, it is that it is specific against mages AND layers with the multitude of other damage reduction layers to create a very hard-to-beat combination. You worry about the number of powerful mages in the top ranks? I worry about the number of walls and damage-reduction builds that are boring the corneas off my eyes and are now accepted as just a "must-have" part of the game. I don't even come CLOSE to killing someone like Oxcha, and that's with multiple battles (and no RoBF involved). So your comments about how mighty Hubbell is really are annoying. Hubbell SHOULD be mighty. Hubbell has a fairly large total PR and is very specific (with luckily plenty of targets to target with that specificity). I'm not even close to beating several teams, and that was before the RoBF! Failure can draw with me most battles when he is wearing just an RoE for goodness sake. So even with a substantial PR advantage, I can't beat a two-minion team? With a massively augmented Familiar (thanks, AoF!)? Failure's team has some AMF, sure, but it is actually kinda small -- only casts for 0.20 on my mage and familiar (for comparison, Dixie Cousins casts around 0.36).

So, I see the issue in my opinion (layers and layers of damage reduction and HP regeneration), and I see one of those layers as anti-magic only (the MgS). I see another as tank-only (VA). Your response? "Well, we just need that because mages are too strong..." LAME. If mages are too strong, then ask for the _obvious_ thing -- lessen mage offense. Don't add one-sided dynamics to the game to overcome what you clearly think is an obvious imbalance in power. Even worse, don't allow those dynamics to be hidden from total PR: the low PR factor for MgS and the fact that VA in weapons is hidden by the Weapon Allowance!

Every time you have the gall to counter anti-MgS/layering comments (many of which are made by me, and I stand by that), I wonder if you are just blind or just want to use enough bluster to make sure no one else can even see other viewpoints? I'm not saying I am 100% right -- these are opinions, to be sure. But they are experienced opinions, as experienced as yours. Your best rebuttal is, "But we wouldn't be able to survive without the MgS!" Even though tanks have survived just fine through the years without the MgS. Or VA-imbued weapons. Or PL. Or EH. Or TSA. There's NO SUCH THING in this game as, "but X group of players will totally die out if you do action A!" To say that is to not ask for any changes at all.

Which clearly you aren't doing, since your original post is ASKING for change. Just seems kind of funny to me that the changes someone other than you would like to see are wrong 100% of the time, while your suggestions are always "clearly needed to even the most casual observer." (sorry, but you say that a lot.)

And Glory, please stop with the misinformation about the straight experience scale benefiting mages more than anyone else. Good grief, why is that still around? It benefited two things: people who had large minions, and people with large tattoos (a corollary of the former). A huge wall or PL battery benefits from the straight scale just like anything else, for example.

Here's my wishlist:

"1) Evasion fix/nerf. Either lower its (xxx) or give it less defensive dexterity, or have no multipliers in missile now that BGs are fixed. Or all 3!!"

I agree that we definitely need an Evasion nerf. It should be first on the agenda. My suggestions for fixing it: no ranged bonus. Let the effect start at 1.0, and decay by 10% every round.

I could do with or without a weapon cap. The idea doesn't really appeal to me, and I think there is a better solution.

"3) Rolling bonus."

Agreed. I hate the N*B as it is now. I agree with Dudemus that it encourages disposable teams, and I don't like that one bit. I'd rather have a chance with my current team, which I'm very happy with, instead of being told that it's basically worthless and that I need to start over. I like the idea of sticking with one team for an extended period.

The RBF needs to go back to retaliatory damage, and have it's magic damage reduction fixed. I liked it much better as a kind of offensive wall tattoo, rather than the one item strategy that it is now.

Forging should be slightly buffed across the board. Implementing a non N*B bonus would solve the NUB forging problem.

There are way too many "rares" out there right now, and I think this needs to be fixed. Here's my solution:
-Rares are no longer automatically spawned in auctions.
-Rares are now only spawned through the Black Market.
-Votes never expire.
-Anyone can bid in Black Market auctions.
-The number of votes for certain items will have to be adjusted.

With this fix in place the number of rares will go down, which means prices should rise (cash sink!), and we can finally kill off Central Bank!

I could go on my usual rant about how weapon damage upgrade costs need to increase by a constant amount per x, but most of you are probably getting sick of it.

I'd like to see old supporter items added to the Black Market for a very high vote cost.

And someone needs to give me a Mage Shield.

"And Glory, please stop with the misinformation about the straight experience scale benefiting mages more than anyone else. Good grief, why is that still around? It benefited two things: people who had large minions, and people with large tattoos (a corollary of the former). A huge wall or PL battery benefits from the straight scale just like anything else, for example."

Sorry Sut I have to disagree with you. More exp into DD has more bang for the buck than AMF for example, or EC. The percentage was the same across the board, but the effect is not the same, so yes DD did get a boost that _most_ other strats did not benefit from. DD is never wasted exp, it always hits and with more exp always hits for higher damage. So, if you want sympathy for DD you will find none here. If you had run a NCB any time recently, I have run one just recently and am in the middle of another one, you would know that DD is the flavor of choice by a ton of mages AND they have a ton of exp to throw into evasion which makes non-usd pumped tanks completely ineffective.

To whom Ranger is concerned:

1) There is an anti EC. Its call STR/DX boosting gears.
2) I believe that a CBer as dedicated as you are should retain the throne for as long as you actively play. People should be allowed to catch up, but never ever pass the king. (I truely believe it.)

One of the other thing I like to see is that Xshot spawn normally. Since we are allowed to farm it, why make players go through the loop? It is annoying when you go buy arrow and the top 4 or 5 slots are IS in the 10k, while the biggest bundle of arrow is like 700, and I end up buying the 300s as well.

Glory -

Look at it this way: Yes mages will be doing more damage per point of experience then they did before, but against more HP/AS/PL as well. Mages didn't really benefit any more from the change as anyone else really. Like was mentioned previously large minions and large tattoos saw the most benefit from the change.

Glory, you are mixing two things together... If you think that DD is simply a superior thing to start with, then of course that leads to your next logical conclusion that the scale change benefits mages more. But if DD is really that superior to start with, why am I not hearing you say you think DD needs a nerf?

Why does everyone use DD as a strawman into other, non-supportable points?

I could make the same argument about STR, saying people with high STR benefited from the scale change more. I could say, STR is CLEARLY superior to everything else because look how hard you can hit, plus you can use USD to pump your weapon and REALLY have that STR mean something. Plus, once we get Evasion fixed, tanks will not only hit once, but twice, three, four times!

Clearly, the straight-scale benefited STR the most.

Would you disagree? How would you illustrate your disagreement? It is clear STR is very important, has a lot of items that augment it, and the counterpart that goes hand in hand with it (weapon x) is a straight scale too, ever pumpable with cash.

All I am asking is that you keep separate discussion points just that -- separate. Saying, "I think DD is overpowered and now this straight scale made it even worse" is one thing (and a very logical, supportable argument, providing you can show that DD was overpowered, in and of itself, to start with). But saying that "Mages benefited more from the scale change because DD was already the best bang for buck" is actually a strawman of sorts. Your conclusion counts on us believing the part you are stating as given... Sorry, I don't buy it. So, like most strawman arguments, it all falls down.

Bottom line for me for all the folks out there who defend every anti-mage or tank-only item out there is this: If mages are such a power, so very unstoppable, then how did tanks get on before these items or game elements were added? In CB1, why was one of many titanic battles tank vs. tank? (as Red Dwarf vs. Spid was) In that dark, dire time for tanks, why can I not recall the simplest argument of all being made, to simply reduce DD power, the way some are asking for ranged damage to be reduced now? Seems pretty straightforward to me. If that is what you believe, then put forth the idea of a DD nerf and stick with it.

I think the point he is making is that if you train both strength and dex in order to successfully deal damage out, you gained less by the 12 xp change.

Hmmm,

Novice is not beating Oxcha.

Think the AoF boost to familars helped there? It overcame his TOE!!!

Mages are already starting to dominate over tanks. If not mages, then RBF.

The game for the last few months has been RBF >> mage/tank.

Now it is becoming RBF>mage>tank.

The MgS is needed more then ever.

Novice is not beating Oxcha, but overcame his ToE...what? I'm confued, is there a typo there?

I'm not talking about the RoBF, etc. I am asking a simple question -- if mages are so powerful, why wasn't the Top 25 pure mage before the MgS was introduced?

If there are other things broken in the game that now REQUIRE the MgS to be successful, then let's fiz those things, shall we? Why add another item to the complexity instead if fixing what is imbalanced in the first place? But that's where I either have a faulty memory or it was just never an issue -- no one seemed to be going on about overpowered DD back before the MgS was created. Subsequently, I don't recall anyone saying, "MgS! Yes, FINALLY!". In fact, it was met with some disdain at first (at least by some) because of its Power Shield nature and penalties. But then people figured out how to use them (Yay! More walls! CB is so fun! Today I built a...wall...um, yeah! WALLS!)

What I haven't even gotten into is that it isn't that MgSes allow teams to just BARELY hold on against mages... They allow a common PL/HP/TSA/VA team to have that one extra thing that turns draws into wins (that is CRUCIAL in this game, especially with clan play) Ranger, you are fond of always talking about how close I am to beating you -- 1) It simply isn't true, and 2) The only times I have gotten even close (still not very) it is because you were tweaking your strategy so that you could continue to beat EVERYONE (well, those you choose to fight, anyway). You don't have to make choices. If me getting close allows you to still continue to beat other tank teams, etc, then you can't really say, "SEE! I need an MgS so I can keep beating Hubbell! Look how close he is!!!!" You aren't _entitled_ to beat everyone. There isn't some sort of Monroe Doctrine or Manifest Destiny written that says, "Ranger gets to beat everyone."

Novice is beating LD.

You probably could beat him if you turned everything except most of your dd into a very high EC, if it weren't for that RoBF.

Sorry, just saw that...

If I were LD, I'd seriously be wondering how someone with 3.5 million total PR was beating my 4.7 million (because I agree -- that seems nuts!).

When I post things about lower teams beating me, the common (and correct, IMO) next step is to analyze the pieces of "effective" PR.

Novice isn't just all CoC. He has the fourth highest AS and second highest GA in the game -- that has to help, though not sure how much without seing a battle log. LD has no DM. I checked that first because I CAN beat VF. He made the choice to use DEs, I made the choice to foil that. LD didn't. Other than that, I don't think there is anything glaringly apparent that one team has over the other. Oxcha has some AMF to foil the CoC, and VF has a mix of AMF, EC, and DM to work against the various parts of Oxcha.

Next up we have the tattoo comparison, always a good thing to analyze. Massive augmented CoC (VF invests in Junction too, another choice) vs. a massive ToE. You know I will be the first to say I think the ToE is brain-dead with its overwhelm/underwhelm thing. Only we usually are discussing underwhelming (like I do against Oxcha -- again, my choice: my team can't last long enough for CoC to matter, so now I sit here unable to beat Oxcha no matter how many rounds I try).

I know it's not LD's style, so he likely won't say anything, but he could actually come out as one of the first people to dislike the ToE because of its threasholding on the OVERWHELM side. Someone finally got massive spread-fire blows that can do two things: defeat that ever-so-hard to stop PL/TSA/HP/wall integration (regardless of Oxcha's minion stance), AND still be large enough to overwhelm a ToE. If a ToE didn't have its stupid binary threshold, maybe Oxcha could still hold on and win (the PL/TSA/etc still works _very_ well even without a ToE). In that way, Ranger, I think we are in agreement. The ToE is too powerful when it works, and not powerful enough when overwhelmed. If it didn't have some sort of inflection threshold as part of its mechanics, we wouldn't be seeing this (or at least it would have been more gradual).

The final thing I would like to mention is that novice is a bit of my idol now. *smile* He did what I could never even fathom doing because of the choices I had made -- overcoming Oxcha's endurance AND PL/TSA/HP/Wall all at the same time. How did he do it? By using DEs, Junction, and a big IF. Me? I went the other route -- to defeat DEs. I went with DM. So, he beats Oxcha, I destroy him (I beat VF in one round, currently), and Oxcha utterly destroys me. I would assume NWO could do much the same thing if he junctioned/augmented up his familiar and made it CoC.

The choices were made and they are easy to see in action. The only part I don't like is the threshold nature of the ToE leaving LD somewhat at its mercy. He can't really look and say, "Hm, so-and-so is getting closer and closer to beating me -- better adjust." No, he gets to wake up one day being able to destroy someone and then wake up the next day losing to them because they crossed that threshold line. I suppose some people like that in a game. I personally can't stand it.

I actually still beat LD with an MgS on my GA minion...

It's all about the massive spread damage of the CoC and him casting a 0.00 on my familiar. I've see 2.6 mil damage get through against his lone surviving wallish tank (who has 399 AC and an almost 7 mil level ToE)

my point in all the useless gloating is that I'm coming around to your point of view on the ToE Sut... I had previously been of the opinion that the lousy overwhelm was enough balance for the insane reduction normally. However having passed through the threshold I'm not feeling as satisfied as I'd hoped.

By the way, I do think the AoF is a tad bit much right now. It boosts Junction so that you can invest less in that, adds 3% per upgrade (man, that's huge), and does not appear to pass through the AMF effect in accompanying fashion...

So, I would propose these changes to the AoF, some I think mentioned before:

If used on a minion training Junction, do not enhance the Junction itself. Minion should at least have to invest in Junction the hard way.

When used in that Junction way, each + should only count 2% enhancement to DD, not 3% 20% is still a lot -- it's more than a huge CoI, more than making up for the fact that wearing a familiar precludes the ability to wear a cloak.

I think that might fair things up a bit. Then again, I am saying it just because I am still in awe a bit at the Oxcha takedown... Maybe it is fine as it is given the familiars lack of evasion, targetting by MgS, and the fact that it is hard to get HP on the familiar to fight AMF backlash, etc. That last one doesn't affect VF against Oxcha, but certainly affects him against other teams. DM is far from unpopular.

"I actually still beat LD with an MgS on my GA minion... "

And he still loses to you with a +40 MgS on his wall.

I was actually already beating him before the AoF Sut, only think keeping me down was his use of Ranger's Morg.

I hadn't been on his fightlist for a good week or more.

Even with massive DB my familiar is a pin cushion for anyone with an MsK and decent dexterity, he'll never get off a shot. I don't see a big issue with the AoF, it certainly DOES increase AMF's effect, as people get the same result on me with the AoF as without it.

Oh wait, yeah, I guess AMF is getting through...duh, I didn't even think of that. AMF just as high on a higher DD level. Man, I am slipping...

That is interesting that your GA is useless against him... Certainly helpful in some other scenarios where the AS helps keep you alive too?

I didn't realize Oxcha's AMF was that small, but also didn't realize novice's GA wasn't at least a part of the equation... I guess that puts most of the focus on ToE threshold...

"NS does quite well with a UC tank, even without a CGI"

Hey, don't compare any UC tanks against him. He's part of the USD league with a deep pocket. Heck, his exbow alone has higher networth than all my items combined. His effective UC level would probably be higher than me, even with the 4 minions dilution due to his equipments. Do you even know how hard it is to train UC level to a point that could do decent damage (that includes the high PTH) if not boosted by items? If I were not single minion till recently, I had no hope to even do more than 1 mil damage against a stupid wall with less than 300 AC per round; furthermore I have to survive till melee round to even start considering the possibility. In fact, I can't even train more AMF than I would love to!

I dare say every single UC guys are just plain training for the love of UC (novelty or roleplaying) or pure idiotic determination (me).