User burnout (in General)

I'm not sure if it's "just me", but does nobody else feel like the current BA regen rates combined with the BA cap (and last but not least the way the N*Bonus works) just cause a lot of people (that might have stuck around) to quit ?
I mean, since there's hardly 300 players active in a whole week, you can't say the population is booming... from what I understand, a longer time ago, there were a lot more users around (the guy who told me about the game spoke of thousands per week).

Wouldn't the game be better served with a "login once a day for best results" approach towards the BA regen/cap ?
Heck, for those that get higher and higher, even less than once a day.
And wouldn't a more time-lenient approach towards the New-something-Bonus help keep up user counts ?

I have no idea about you other guys, and the game's going on (I understand this is the second version?) since quite a long time... but that's just my take on it, as a relatively new user (just finished the NUB and started a NCB).
From the supporterships and item naming payments, I gather the more people play "competitively", the better for the game owner... right ? Or am I missing something ?

It's quite depressing to start a NCB "in force" (since I wasted a lot of time of the NUB due to the fact I was out of the town, or simply too busy doing other things for entire days) only to realize that somewhere down the road, a "break" in that forceful start will almost certainly mean you have absolutely no chance at geting "competitive enough", and your next chance is 4 months away... but in the next run, pretty much the same issue.

Like I was saying, no idea about you other guys, but from where I'm standing, the fact you "lose out" of portions of your potential progress by simply being away longer than 5-6 hours from the game is just... depressing.
And don't even get me started on stuff like going on a camping trip for the weekend, or taking a week (or two) of vacation with your significant other.

NO WONDER so many people burn out.
Heck, would I be truly competitive, I guess I would have burned out already myself.
Luckily, I'm more of a "whine but tolerate" person ;)
So, here is my whine :)
Where's my cheeze ? :D

"Where's my cheeze ? :D "

I moved it :)


(Bonus points if you get that reference...)

agreed

Google knew the answer, but I never heard of that book before :p
Anyway, back to slightly more ranting on the original issue :D

Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but the "intention" of the game maker is to both provide an enjoyable game for the community and at least pay the bills (I don't suppose the server and bandwidth is for free), if not make a profit.
Therefore, I suppose the task is to keep as many old users around, and get as much new fresh meat as possible (since ther is a referral program, that kind of supports my assumption).

So, I ask you "older guys" (older in the game, not sure aboutt the age though)... was there a time when the game was much more full of people ?
Was it more fun to be around back then, or is this "as fun as it gets" ?
And if the answer is "yes", it was more fun in some "golden age", do you believe reducing user burnout reasons (in some way that would not upset the "status quo" and still favor older users slightly) might in time lead to a return to those "glory days" ?

wait....u want to restrict my fun to once a day or even less than once a day? ur crazy man! its bad enough jon already limits our fun to 160 ba!

i think sick1 here just needs a first person mode to go through at his own pace

some people would call 6hrs a long time some would consider it short... i mean its prefect the way it is for me i think mainly because at most you work from say 8am-5.30pm and you get like an hour break... in between... however i think the prob comes when people wana sleep lol... yep

Oh how I wish there was an "edit post" button...

The "burnout" and the "retiring characters to get better BA for new ones" also seems to cause another side-problem, if I may say so.
I was browsing the score and MPR lists in search of targets these past days, and there's a HUGE number of retired characters in my scores and PR/MPR ranges (pretty much every time I checked and re-checked).

The not so fun part though is this, there were three major groups in the retired character zone : one group, with very small score but big PR (I suppose those got auto-retired), that was the smallest group ; the second group had scores roughly equal to their PR/MPR, and the group was not much larger ; the final third group consists of characters with a much larger score than their PR/MPR (and my first char, the one I played the NUB with, he's one of them right now).
That last group was the largest group of retired characters.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the fact that score is mostly shifted around rather than created means that score is "sucked out" of the game pretty violently overall every time such a character is retired, and there's not much you can do about it. This in turn means that combat opportunities with a significant reward are far between, and finding targets is quite a nasty bussiness. Which, in turn, means the overall progress of the game is slowed down.

So, by reducing burnout (and reducing the need for people to retire characters by uncoupling "new something bonuses" from time restraints), you would have both more users around that might create score, and also have a much slower score drain out of the game, which in turn means it's better for everybody else too.

That, in case somebody decides to play the "why should older members care" card.
Proactive whines FTW ;)

"drudge : wait....u want to restrict my fun to once a day or even less than once a day? ur crazy man! its bad enough jon already limits our fun to 160 ba!"

I think you misunderstood me completely, or you're just being sarcastic, I really can't tell.
Allow me to clarify.
As you put it, "Jon already limits your fun to 160 BA".
At 10/20 BA regen rate, that means you MUST login every 16*20 minutes (little over 5 hours) or else you lose some BA.
What I was suggesting was that BA would accrue for at least one day.
In other words, a 24h*3*10 BA = 720 BA cap instead of 160.
Or even more, say 36h*3*10 BA = 1080 BA cap.

Those with better BA regen rates would benefit even more, as they could accrue more than just one day's (or one and a half day's) worth of BA before being forced to login.
You could alternatively put the cap on a timelimit (24h or 36h... so while those at 10/20 BA regen would accrue BA up to 720 or 1080, those at 9/20 BA regen would accrue only up to 648 or 972 BA... different amount caps, same time between being "forced to login" to avoid BA loss).

cool idea.













I don't like it.

If you don't mind me asking, you're one of the few people who managed to pull off the seemingly next to impossible : getting very close to the top with a NUB.
As such, you must be in the unique position to enlighten us about how you managed to pull it off.

Would you mind sharing your exploits with us ?
How hard was it to not miss too many BA ?
What do you do for a living ?
Was your work and/or social life adversely affected by your tribulations ?

And last but not least, why don't you like the idea ?
"Because you worked so hard to pull it off", and you are very put off by the idea that somebody with less dedication would stand a chance to do something similar in some point in the future... or is it something else ?

Seriously, do tell. I am most curious.

after 4 months, i seriously can tell you now I enjoyed 6/20 very very much.
fun doesn't have to be a chores.

I don't see the BA regen cycle as too much of an obstacle, especially for people that works 9-5. You are not gonna be stuck at 10/20 or 9/20 for long. Majority of a character's life is usually in 7/20 and hopefully 6/20. That's a good 7-8 hours of sleep a day (usually what I get max anyways). I burn a set of BA before work, one set at lunch and one set after work. One last set before bed. All in all, just burning ba doesn't take that long since my list is near static anyways, especially with the new feature. (10mins). I pull this off even on a busy day. What's the problem?

Trying to save up for a new minion isn't fun, especially since i have so many items I still need to buy or upgrade :\

the more fun the better then i agree!

Sigh...

The problem is that while "you guys" see no problem with it, the casual user does see a BIG problem with it.
By definition, a casual user will hardly ever bother logging in more than once, maybe twice some days, and spend up to half an hour or maybe one hour in each entry or so, not much more.

A lot of people that create an account here probably are casual users, at first anyway.
Right now, the game is highly unappealing to casual users, and a casual user doesn't even have a CHANCE to become a competitive user.
A casual user will not pay for supportership, will not buy item namings, and once he sees no chance of doing something significant, he'll just fade away.

By having a more relaxed schedule, you increase the userbase with those casual users, which in turn, IF they have a certainty that they COULD become competitive if they wanted to, might just do that (that's the reason for the "no time limits" on bonuses argument, having it a rolling bonus dependant on "position" in the game ranking).
Competitive user -> supportership and item namings -> cash for Jon.

The other side-effect of a higher ACTIVE "casual player" userbase would be a normalisation of scores-vs-strategies-vs-challengebonusrewards.
Right now, there's only a small handfull of strategies you are pretty much FORCED to use if you want to have higher-than-zero challenge bonuses.
And even so, finding targets is tricky.
Inactive targets don't recover score, they fall "off the map" fast.
Less choice means less fun, in my book anyway.


Bottom line, having a big pool of casual players that actually remain active for a long time would be good for the game, and it would be even better if those casual players have a chance to convert to competitive users at any given time.
From where I'm standing, it looks like the game is trying as hard as possible to weed out pretty much any casual user, or at least offer him next to zero incentive to become a competitive player later on.

"I think you misunderstood me completely, or you're just being sarcastic, I really can't tell.
Allow me to clarify.
As you put it, "Jon already limits your fun to 160 BA".
At 10/20 BA regen rate, that means you MUST login every 16*20 minutes (little over 5 hours) or else you lose some BA.
What I was suggesting was that BA would accrue for at least one day.
In other words, a 24h*3*10 BA = 720 BA cap instead of 160.
Or even more, say 36h*3*10 BA = 1080 BA cap.

Those with better BA regen rates would benefit even more, as they could accrue more than just one day's (or one and a half day's) worth of BA before being forced to login.
You could alternatively put the cap on a timelimit (24h or 36h... so while those at 10/20 BA regen would accrue BA up to 720 or 1080, those at 9/20 BA regen would accrue only up to 648 or 972 BA... different amount caps, same time between being "forced to login" to avoid BA loss)."


And this change would screw Clans up more than they already are... one person could burn all 1080 (Using your Example) and completely knock a clan off the list and even make it disband... Let alone those that have spent countless hours and days accrued time burning their BA to stay near the top... Why make it any easier for those that don't want to work for a top spot... now I understand that some people "Can't" log in as many times as needed in a day... but not everyone can be on top either... I have worked for my spot and I don't want someone who isn't hardly even trying, to pass me like I was standing still all because they can save more BA than I can... or could in the past.

Ah. Well that has been brought up before. Jon likes the 160 for whatever reason. Instead of changing it, he halved the BA regen rate and doubled rewards. It was once every 3 hours that you had to log in. I think we lost some players because of that change, actually, because it was now less competitive.

"The problem is that while "you guys" see no problem with it, the casual user does see a BIG problem with it.
By definition, a casual user will hardly ever bother logging in more than once, maybe twice some days, and spend up to half an hour or maybe one hour in each entry or so, not much more."

Is it that hard to log in 3-4 times a day for you? Why do you need any more bonus to play... what is it that you really want... You after all have been one of the only people to bring this sort of change up... The BA was way different before you came... it used to accrue 10 every 10 down to 6 every 10... feel happy that you weren't here when it was like that.

Clan rankings/points could be changed to a 4-day or even 6-day sum instead of a "daily thing".
What's the difference between "burning" 160+240 BA each day, or "burning" 720+240 BA or 1080+240 BA every 4 to 6 days ?
I mean, from a clan standings standpoint, that is.


Oh, and also... this might just mean a fresh new start for the forger bussiness.
I mean, seriously, how many DECENT forgers are there right now ?
I bet you can count them on your hands.
Can't find enough targets ? Way too much BA accrued ?
Fret not, forging is the answer !

Would it be so bad ?

"Is it that hard to log in 3-4 times a day for you?"

Actually, quite hard, to be honest.
I am self-employed, and my work hours are quite... bizzare.
Some days, I can't even sleep for one entire day because I have so much work to do, other days it's dead-beat with absolutely nothiong to do.
I regularly end up sleeping up to 12 hours or more some days.
That's also one reason why I try to take as many "mini-vacations" away from technology as possible, and that means taking a trip to the nearby mountain resorts for the weekend, for instance, at least once a month, if not more often.

I find this game refreshing in CONCEPT, and it managed to catch my interest in spite of the "hardcore" approach to online presence.
I only wished it wasn't so UNFORGIVING when it comes to not being online almost constantly.

Nods to what Draco said.

That's the general sentiment. Some dedication is a must in order to compete. That's only fair.

Good argument about the casual player base though. With 300 and a bit active members, CB has a rather modest player base. I think that's where the facebook connectivity comes in. People do log onto facebook multiple times in a day and burning BA could be one of the thing to do while on facebooik. ( so what happened to CB on facebook anyways...).

Having a larger player base means more strategies and bigger market, but there needs to be a limit on how much leniency to give. Games should award more dedication over less dedication. Nobody spends all of their BA anyways. Even ranger takes a weekend off once in a while (he does right?)

"Games should award more dedication over less dedication."

Agreed. Never said anything else.

"there needs to be a limit on how much leniency to give."

Well, the curent leniency limit of 5 to 9 hours (depending on BA regen rate) yields 300-ish active users weekly.
Are you happy with that ? If yes, well, there's nothing more I could say, you would not care anyway, right ?


A more relaxed but still pretty intense leniency limit might mean less active users (those that feel "it's not hardcore enough anymore") at first, and runs the risk of not "catching" enough newcomers. Like you claim it happened when the 10/10 got changed to 10/20.

A MUCH more relaxed leniency limit might mean a major initial loss of dissapointed older players, but in time, a much higher userbase, and even manage to "re-convert" the older quitters, back with a slightly more mellow attitude.


Risks exist in both the gentle and the hardline change, and only Jon is the one who has any say in it, over which risk-vs-reward road is to be taken.
But it doesn't hurt to narate a point of view and present the alternatives, no ?

how about multiple "servers" different instances of the game, where the regeneration rates are changed...

server 1= 10ba/10 min (normal back in the day)
server 2=10ba/20 min (current)
server 3= 10ba/day(OMG LAZY)

I'm sorry but I like the 300 some odd player base... I know most of them by name when they enter the room... I know little quirks about their thought process and how they feel about certain ideas... I talk to about 50 of them on a regular basis one way or another. I also know which people I can trust and which ones I can't... I feel closer to the community as a whole since it is relatively small compared to some games...

And why would someone want to alienate the Vets when they have been here ever since the beginning... they have helped test the game and brought it together as a whole. Most of us know each other by name and will greet each other as we enter the room (Read /Hail Comrade)...

Now I don't mind ideas but to change the entire way the game is just because one person can't log in every 5-7 hours... maybe a good idea would be for you to buy a 6/20 char so you only have to log in 3 times a day... then you don't have to worry about much other than fighting 60% of your BA to keep up and maintain 6/20...

i hate the idea of different servers when theres already so FEW active players

I don't believe changing the BA regen rate is the way to attract more casual players. It's a perfectly valid idea, but the BA regen rate is the way it is because the current players like it, not the prospective ones :).

I haven't been here very long, but I love the community :P. I don't talk/post as much as the older players, but I certainly take the time to read and contribute. Altering the BA regen rate is probably going to alienate a large portion of the current players, and I don't think anyone would want that.

As for 'user burnout,' it is basically a do-or-die scenario from what I've seen. Either your NUB carries you very close to the top (or at least 6/20) or you're hooped :P. But, ideas have been floating around about that for quite some time, so I won't discuss here.

A very simple idea that could work very well even without touching BA regen rates or BA caps would be to ELIMINATE the existance of N*B time-limited XP bonuses, and make XP bonuses HIGHLY dependant on MPR (the lower the MPR, the higher the bonus).

That way, it wouldn't really matter when you start or re-start an activity spree, you could always get a chance to get near the top using only one character, IF you start being active enough.

Become inactive for a while, no problem... as long as you resume "hyperactivity", you still get a chance.

I understand where Sickone is coming from, actually. I work for the military, so when I go to work, there is no internet. There is no "burning BA" at lunch ... there is only 8-12 hours of seclusion from the world before you're released to do as you please... unless it's PT day, in which case 2 more hours of your day go to that.

I get onto CB twice a day, if Im lucky. And it isn't for lack of trying.

Just FYI.

well i use my handphone to burn... unless you really cant even bring a handphone to army or to work... i know that you cant bring a phone with a camera into secure facilities... but i suppose you could bring one with internet?

Most military places wouldn't let you take anything like that in to work. A lot of them you can't even take your mobile (cellphone).

It's too much of a security risk.

like Ulord i to burn one set of ba before work, one at lunch one when i get home and 1 before bed so the regen suits me fine.

Also i have to second DrAcO5676 in regards to liking the 300 odd community. It is a much friendlier less alienated environment and u do get to know many if not most of the players i know i have chatted with and come in contact with just about everyone and many people know me.

Sickone i made a post a while back in regards to activity needing more advertising if not anything if we get 10 people out of 1000 coming to this site and staying then we'll build up, we just need some way to better advertise it.

After a while though u don't seem to need it anymore u get used to and u spend most your time making game suggestions, trying out strats and discussing game plan with other people, athough it would be nice to get up to say 500 active players per week.

Finally if u had a regen cap like that it would cause some big problems to things like the n*b bonus which would have to be readjusted to accomdate for people saving up ba and spending all during exp bonus times imagine all the extra ba Little Anthony would have generated for FTW he would end up bigger than koy which i reckon is a bit unfair.

I say leave the regen rate the way it is, keep the current advertising going if not increase it. The only other suggestion i would like to c happen is a holiday button bit like the retire one but u can select between 2,5 and 10 days for your character to be put on hold. U don't accumlate ba but u don't get attacked, your n*b status is put on hold meaning u don't lose any time and your character automatically ractivates when the time is up so u don't lose your character accidently.

On second thought, how about something like this ?

At "buyable BA refresh" time, if your character is at (or over) the 160 BA cap and you have bought no BA the previous day (the one that just finished seconds ago), one day is added to your N*B.
Basically, it's an auto-vacation-mode.
You get 120 active days of N*B, not just 4 months from creation.

Everything else stays the same.
How does THAT sound ?

You get 120 active days of N*B, not just 4 months from creation.

Sickone you're a genious

"at "buyable BA refresh" time, if your character is at (or over) the 160 BA cap and you have bought no BA the previous day (the one that just finished seconds ago), one day is added to your N*B.
Basically, it's an auto-vacation-mode.
You get 120 active days of N*B, not just 4 months from creation. "

It is far too obvious why that is a wretched idea.

My god, new players now except everything to be given to them. How about when you join, you just get a 4M MPR character and 250M cb2 to spend on whatever you want. Would that satisfy you?

Just forget about all the older players who make CB2 what it currently is. Seems Jon has with the "accelerated NUB".

Give a fingers, users will want to take the whole hand ;)
I already warned you I'm "whiney by nature" :P

The idea in its previously presented form is somewhat abusable (not very, but possible).
Revamped version: if you didn't spend any BA *and* you bought no BA the day that just finished, you get an extra day of N*B.
Now it's truly an "auto vacation mode".

I mean, seriously, what's wrong with only getting days you actually play counted towards the duration of the N*B ?
It's not like you would get to the top faster or anything like that.

As far as I remember CB2 has never had more than about 400 active users at one time.


And as far as playing casually, if that's what you're doing then what does it matter how fast you progress?



If/When the Facebook CB begins I suspect we'll see a lot more users.

Daz is right. No phones, no cameras, no cassette players, CDs, DVDs, or even flashdrives are allowed at work. The only phones you can use are the ones the military put in there for you... why? security issues. You never know who's listening to your call, who's saying something classified while you're talking on the phone, etc... and the CD/DVD/cassette/Flashdrive too... its all about protecting military information.

And the internet they let us use is extremely limited. No websites outside of the intranet the military runs.

And in my specific job, we cant even leave the building for lunch, so I can't come home and burn BA.

Ain't the military fun! :)

"And as far as playing casually, if that's what you're doing then what does it matter how fast you progress?"


Let me rephrase...
Just because somebody starts out as a casual (NUB), why should you penalise him if/when he decides to convert to a heavy-duty user, compared to some other NUB that started the "heavy duty cycle" from day one ?

Ok, in other words, let's take "me" for instance.
Since apparently, I'm the only one who has a problem.
I started more or less casually, after having been referred to the game, and having read quite a bit of the wiki before starting.
I got into a bit of "issues" regarding play-time, I had days where I just in the nick of time remembered to login to buy BA but had no time to spend it, I had many days where I didn't login at all, and even had a couple of "I hope I didn't get deleted for inactivity" moments, ESPECIALLY later on, when the "super bonus" was active, which was particularly hurtful.

Just open up FTW's graph and mine together.
Look at what I mean.
We started almost at the same time, we were progressing more or less similarly, then I stopped.
Quite frankly, the moment I noticed the huge slip between me and Little Anthony after my first non-planned absence, that's when I kinda' lost most of my zeal and will to carry on.
Most of the BAs I was getting, I was using on forging, since I didn't see a future in trying to "level up" the character.
And it only got worse afterwards.
It got a little better near the end, when I had more time and the "super bonus" was active, but it wasn't nearly enough.

Now, I have a bit of extra time available, so I said to myself, "hmm, why not try a NCB then?"
I even managed to snatch a RoE from auctions.
Well, I can only say, kinda' big mistake... whatever CB$ I had leftover, they simply vanished in the couple of days I started, down to BA purchases (and I kinda' HAD to, at this early age in a NCB, as I have to get as high as possible in the BA regen tiers or risk failing this attempt before it even got ahead properly), and I find myself missing sleep or neglecting work because of this obsession to spend BA before they go to waste.
It's downright toxic, and I hate it.

Now, would I have been granted extra NCB days for the days I wasn't even around (that is, probably more than half of my NCB, and worst of all, mostly in the "super bonus" part), it would have been a completely different matter.


Seriously, tell me, what the heck am I supposed to do ?
INTENTIONALLY let my character die off of inactivity and start a new NUB ?
Is that even legal ?
Is this the sort of thing you'd really want from somebody who started liking the game ?

Then I guess it won't be long before I completely lose interest.
No big loss for you guys apparently, since you don't appreciate new blood that doesn't share your attitude.

Well, excuse me, but I'm upset, and when I'm upset I rant a bit more than usual.

> the guy who told me about the game spoke of thousands per week

nope, we peaked around 500.

and that was with *more* BA to burn, with *less* time to spend it in. so no, I don't think that's the problem.

I think you're right that there are people who don't really want new blood; I'm not one of them. I don't buy ba - on an NCB it costs far more than I'm able to pay. I have a life; I work, I'm married, I go out, go away quite often. But it's still possible to raise a character to quite a high MPR. You have to ask yourself what do you want from the game? Do you want to be playing at the high level?

I'd advise just playing, don't compare your progress to other players. And take a longer view on progress. Even for the hardcore players it's not a short game. Look at the creation dates of the big characters - that is the top 50 MPR. A lot of those characters have been around for a very long time. You have to be prepared to take the long view on playing. Your progress will be good if you do that.

"INTENTIONALLY let my character die off of inactivity and start a new NUB ?
Is that even legal ?"

No, that is not legal. Little_Antony is a big exception. Try to find another NUB player that has stats like his. No one even comes close.

I am on my 3rd NCB now and yes I regret all that $$$ I threw away on failed starts. But that's the luck of the draw. That is the way this game works.

NCB's are expensive because you can take all the time you want planning for them and when you start one, you know exactly what you are doing as opposed to a user playing for the first time.

I feel your pain Sickone, but at the same time I disagree that anything needs to change. It's fine the way it is.

Now start by becoming a supporter to show that you are really taking this game seriously, then maybe people will start sympathizing a bit more with your point of views.

How about unintentionally then ? :)
I just don't login for a month or two, half a year maybe.
Heck, wait until next year's seasonal "slump in workload", when I'll have plenty of time.
Would I be forced to reactivate my old account, if it even exists at all ?
Am I the only one realizing how ridiculous this all sounds ?

The only ACTIVE users I see in my fight list are other N*Bs right now.
It's downright depressing.
Fighting with what seems to be "shadows of the past".
And forced to do the same next time IF I decide to re-create a NUB.


A "rolling XP-only bonus", linked to the difference between current MPR and some arbitrary value of the top MPR would solve most of these issues altogether.

I wouldn't mind spending 2 years catching up to the top, or three years for that matter... heck, as long as CB "version 2" has existed wouldn't sound bad either, time is not relevant... well, or at least getting somewhere close to, I don't know, 80% of the top or somesuch ?
Right now, it's "get up there in 4 months in a single run or forever remain in a certain range".

Depressing.

I mean, even for the top bunch... doesn't it get boring fighting the very same opponents over and over again ?
Wouldn't you like some diversity ?
In other words, more people that could provide a little bit of challenge ?

I think its fine the way it is. You can always start a NCB when you are not satisfied with the current character. You can even start a few and earn lots of cash and get all the wonderful gears you can lay your hands on. I have started quite a few characters, retired some and sold some. All this while, I've been preparing to make the ultimate character ;) As long there is NCB, you'll always have a chance to be competitive. NCB is a great feature! :)

And what if you ARE satisfied with your current character? What then? Once your N*B runs out, if you still want that char to grow, too bad.

I think the N*B encourages too many re-starts and disposable characters. I've never liked it, and I hope it's eventually replaced with a better system.

Like that rolling bonus I keep mentioning ? ;)

"The only ACTIVE users I see in my fight list are other N*Bs right now. "

REALLY? The only characters active on your fightlist at 230k MPR are N*B's? WELL I'M SURPRISED. No, really. What I want to do is start a non-N*B character and raise it.

"Like that rolling bonus I keep mentioning ?"

Exactly. I've been a proponent of a rolling bonus for some time now.

oh sure rolling bonus... then i will stay at 10/20 where i would have the most money :)

It's not forever. You suffered from loss of zeal and will to carry on. Let me pour you a glass.

I have run two characters up to the top 10. One with no bonus but plenty of prior experience, the other as an NCB.

Again, we used to have to log in every 3.5 hrs. Now you get substantially more time than that at the "fastest" end of the scale.

At the slow end, I only have to spend 5 minutes, 3 times a day, if I choose to ignore the forums and CMs. Not even "bought" BA takes more than 5 minutes and that used to take forvirtuallyever to get through daily.

There's no store farming for which to hang around. There's no opponent farming to hang around for or hang around to avoid. If you can't play this game in 25 minutes a day (5 minutes, 5 times a day), then you are a casual player. It is entirely your right to be one. Hang out. Have fun.

If you want to be something other than a casual player, it's time to mouse around with a few NCBs, no expenses, focusing on financial rewards. With some vigilance and luck, you can start yourself a rental business. In two years, with zeal and strength of will, you will have the money for the run at the top you wasted originally. That, of course, is the definition of competitiveness, zeal, and sheer determination.

Or you can open your wallet. You are certainly welcome to Dix if you want to sub your bank account for your waning will to live. ;)

"Hey, how 'bout we make it so it takes no time or thought, and I still win?" doesn't sound like a user burnout question. What exactly is the challenge of the log-in once-a-day game? The whole thing is mathematical, if it didn't require you to put in some time, you'd only be "winning" against the people from outer Mogamibia, who have the dodgy internet.

Or, if you had to log-in once daily, then school/work/showering wouldn't get in the way, but ... that camping trip is just sitting there taunting you. So maybe once-a-week instead? Because you're the sort who only travels in increments of less than 7 days?

But someone who does take the two-week vacation will come along making a post about how it would be better [read: easier] if he only had to log in once every 2.09 weeks. ;)

Yeah, I moved recently, and due to internet connectivity issues, I missed about 8 days worth of BA... Any chance I can get those back? ;)

i was in china for 2 years and 3 mths do you think it stored me unused BA...because CB is a blocked site

At an 8/20 refresh rate, you are entitled to 682,560 BA. It would have been more, because the old rate gave ya BA every 10 minutes, but since your rewards would be calculated at the new rate, your BA will be too ^_^

"oh sure rolling bonus... then i will stay at 10/20 where i would have the most money :) "

*cough* XP-only rolling bonus, dear sir, XP ONLY.

If there is to be a rolling bonus for cash rewards... and I'm not saying it should exist... but in case there was one for cash too, it should be scaled inversely proportional to the rolling XP bonus (i.e. at low MPR, get a huge XP bonus, but no cash bonus at all... higher up, slightly less XP bonus, and a tiny bit of cash bonus... and so on until the top, where you get no XP bonus whatsoever, but a huge cash bonus).

"nope, we peaked around 500."

Just curious, but at around what time did CB peak? Was it near the start of CB2 or in CB1 just before the announcement of CB2?

At least there is a N*B.

Would you complain in another game that you couldn't make it to the top?

Somehow, I doubt it.

"At least there is a N*B.
Would you complain in another game that you couldn't make it to the top?
Somehow, I doubt it. "

I wouldn't complain there, since there wouldn't be a point in playing a game like that at all.


Before you misunderstand what I am saying, I am referring to a "no-resets" world where character experience (MPR in this case) is one of the few major factors of success (the other being cash spending ability).

To put this into perspective, I come from a long history of EVE-Online, which is to some degree equally harsh, is also a "permanent" (no resets) world and has absolutely no "catch-up" mechanism for player XP.
On the other hand, player XP doesn't matter all that much, and a 60 mil SP (roughly equivalent to a 3-ish mil MPR) character can get his hide beaten up badly by a properly prepared 2 mil SP (so, say 100k-ish MPR) character, if only the circumstances are right... and teaming up several lower-grade characters means almost certain defeat for the "high player".


Sure, in both games (CB and EVE) you can just resort to "wallet power" and buy a top tier character.
But then it's not a game anymore, and certainly not my idea of fun.

Why would you want to have the low level chars be able to challenge up so high? I mean, I would be highly disappointed if all it took was a group of low level people to tear up Koy. There would be no point in even playing anymore, it'd be way too easy, like playing one of those high rate, gold room servers, no skill, no thought involved.

Also, think about the vets, they put in a huge amount of dedication to get to where they are, it should be an accomplishment that they get to keep. As nub and ncb users we are putting in way less work, and still get to catch up if we are lucky and try hard, thats seems to be a pretty good deal to me.

"Why would you want to have the low level chars be able to challenge up so high? I mean, I would be highly disappointed if all it took was a group of low level people to tear up Koy."

Sigh, that's not the point I was trying to make.
In EVE, where there's absolutely no "catch-up" method, this approach is mandatory.
In HERE, the fact that a "catch-up" method exists makes that unnecessary.

I'm simply saying that the CURRENT "catch-up" mechanics (N*B, fixed value bonus, fixed duration) is somewhat lacking, and there are better ways to do it.


"Also, think about the vets, they put in a huge amount of dedication to get to where they are, it should be an accomplishment that they get to keep."

AND by simply adjusting that "catch-up rolling XP-only bonus" to a level X% BELOW that of the "vets" will also ensure the fact no new guy could SURPASS the vets with equal dedication, but he could get close.
To get past them, he'd have to be MORE dedicated and/or be very smart about it.



Think about this : what if there was no N*B at all ?

Instead, all users get a huge XP bonus per battle when in the lower MPR ranks, going down more or less linearly (to no extra XP bonus) at a certain percentage of top MPR.
Wether the bonus reaches ZERO at 80%, 90% or 95% of the top MPR, whatever rocks your boat, you name it.

On the other hand, completely and purely optional, add a CB$ bonus that goes the exact OTHER way around... the freshly created character get no bonus at all, and the higher in MPR you get compared to the top MPR, the higher the CB$ bonus gets.
Wether you grant that CB$ bonus at all, or at what percentage of top MPR you stop increasing it (even going so far, at the extreme, to grant the max bonus only for the top MPR character), that's again a whole different story.

"AND by simply adjusting that "catch-up rolling XP-only bonus" to a level X% BELOW that of the "vets" will also ensure the fact no new guy could SURPASS the vets with equal dedication, but he could get close.
To get past them, he'd have to be MORE dedicated and/or be very smart about it."

Not all vets are in the top 10 or even top 50... There are some vets still playing with 300k mpr characters... So what percent would you propose the bonus be set to, to stay below vets...

All the previous "lower-level vets" would benefit from the exact same bonuses automatically, but would have a much better "starting position" compared to somebody of equal MPR due to higher NW on gear or experience fighting.