Supporter item change idea (in General)

Okay, so the title is a lie. Kinda. But why not change something about their abilities? Their prices are ballooning until reintroduced and they are practically indispensable the higher you go. Plus, I figured it's been ages since my last idea rant thread, so here goes.

In general, supporter items are very powerful. MgS, AoI, TSA, HoC, RoE, need I go on? A team can be competitive without, but having access to these gives a wide range of strategies and advantages unavailable to those not wanting to wait months for one to appear on AH or pay millions for their ever-inflating prices. But people paid for a good item, and they are supposed to be a boon to a team, so don't change that.

To finally get around to it, my idea is this: why not introduce a new skill along with most every supporter item? One that takes a large amount of investment, but does an albeit reduced version of what the item does.

For example, allow someone to train a magic damage reduction skill (like MgS), but make it only effective if trained to say 50% of total HP (AS and trained) on the minion. Same with regeneration. No idea on how RoE would fit in, probably wouldn't, but the rest for the most part could be added skills. It would be a big xp dillution, but at least would give people wanting to test, or people wanting to spend cash elsewhere, an option to try the same strategies as the guys with a dozen supporter items.

Thoughts?

Your title is misleading. Should be called "skills to mimic supporter item effects." For a second, thought you mean to allow the blacksmith to "morph" a supporter item to another supporter item.

Anyways, it's a sound idea but might require alot of work on Jon's part to balance a change like that.

Yeah, I'm sure it would take a bit of doing on his part, but the mechanics are already balanced and in play, so it's just a matter of deciding how much xp they would require and how effective compared to their items the abilities would be.

"MgS, AoI, TSA, HoC, RoE, need I go on?"

Aside from the AoF, name one more... :P


"A team can be competitive without, but having access to these gives a wide range of strategies and advantages unavailable to those not wanting to wait months for one to appear on AH or pay millions for their ever-inflating prices."

translates to:

"Supporter items have awesome power and flexibility, but are rare and expensive like many powerful things of legend... Seems the longer time goes on, the rarer these relics get, and it actually takes more effort than saving money for a few days to get one. I have to actively seek out said rare relics of awesome power, and then pay handsomely for them."

Makes a bit more sense when ya read it my way ;)


"To finally get around to it, my idea is this: why not introduce a new skill along with most every supporter item? One that takes a large amount of investment, but does an albeit reduced version of what the item does."

Too large of an investment, or for too little end result, means they will be as much a waste of space as DCMs and Axbows (yeah, i said it! :P)... Give them too little required investment, or too great of an effect, then supporter item prices are in the tubes and only for the people that don't want to spend the bit of XP...


"For example, allow someone to train a magic damage reduction skill (like MgS), but make it only effective if trained to say 50% of total HP"

Perfect example :P Instead of training a skill to 50% of HP, You could train 50% more HP... With 150k HP instead of 100k HP, your minion is now resisting the equivalent of 33% more physical and magical... :P


Rentals give a perfect way for people to try different strategies. If they like something and/or find it to be effective, they can find the market value of said item, and do some trading and/or saving ^_^ If they try something and don't like it or feel it is ineffective, they've wasted only the small rental fee, as opposed to the retrain penalty for a skill and/or the effort of reselling whatever expensive item(s) ya just wasted half your money on...

Overall, decent suggestion. But way too difficult to incorperate into things effectively without throwing a monkey wrench in the whole works ~_^

personally i think markets are self regulating... once the prices reach crazy prices... (around now) people will start to not offer so much for supporter items... incase you dont notice... its mainly normal players who pay so much for the items instead of the NUBs who come in with a wad of cash

I agree, Hatchet, that rares should be rare. But CB has always been about equal opportunity for all to fight and exceed (see NUB). Why do new users and those changing strategy have to pay over $10mill for something that probably cost some supporter $1million back in the day? And yes, it's usually not that pronounced but it could get worse. With supporter items being limited in number, and people needing them always growing, prices will only go up (barring changes).

Also, I'm not really arguing with you on items being rare and sought after. They would still be for sought after for the large advantages they offer for no xp investment. I'm not suggesting making these items useless or any less rare, only giving limited options to those without.

lol the MgS example shows why I am not in charge of setting the numbers around here ;) I'm sure Jon could handle it though easy, and find a way to balance it.

And yes, rentals is the obvious answer. But with not many available, and at ludicrous prices ($100,000 for a rent? no thanks!), you could not build a team around something that may or may not be there next week or next month. And maybe I'm alone here, but I like to 'own' my strategy in the long run.

everyone likes owning their strat including me... which is kinda the reason i have all my stuff in the 1st place

MgS is actually remarkably balanced. Because of stacking it doesn't give much of a bonus to DD defense as AC increases opposed to a MS. At upper end equips MgS gives 10% more DD reduction, tops. At the expense of around 10% physical reduction that would've been given by the MS.

Like I've already said some other time, why not simply have the option to order ANY of the supporter items whenever you pay for supportership ?
It's like a perma-reintroduction of all supporter items that ever existed or will be introduced from now on.

I still see supporter items as 'trophies'. I always liked the idea that the one thing we have over the new players is an item we were here for.
Or do we again have to lose yet another advantage for our loyalty Sickone?

I am new, and I don't own any supporter items that directly bought from Jon other than AOL. I have no issue if there's no more chance to pay Jon for the items that I have missed a few years back.

But here's why I think Vaynard and everyone who wants to lower the importance of supporter items makes sense. Consider that you paid only $6/$10 to Jon and get a nice AOF / MGS / TSA (I only type out those that can sell up to 10mil nowadays) By current standard, the lowest possible CBD versus USD is 1mil = $4. That means for out of no reason, you are able to resell that particular item that you only paid $6/$10 for $40 to an eager noob with loads of USD. Is that right? Is that the sense of "trophy" that old player wants?

If fairness of game is important, then fairness in the access of items should also be maintained. If a certain item that will not respawn, has such a huge impact to game play and strategy, as well as generating unfair revenue exploit, then it should be controlled. IMHO Jon should halve the effectiveness of the item's ability or some other actions if it has such an apparent impact to game's economics (he should have data from auction). So that the effective value of the item is still around $10, but also have it's unique rareness in game and serve truly as a token/trophy of appreciation rather than a must have to take on the top spot.

"the one thing we have over the new players is an item we were here for"
Hmm, I guess LA wasn't here when TSA was a supporter, yet he has one. How ? Simple. He bought it from another player.
Everything not reintroducing desirable items solves is price inflation, nothing more, nothing less. If you really want one, you'll get one.

As for "loyalty", I would have said CBD is a good enough reward, but then again, that's not particularly true since you can just buy those too.

i have two TSA actually, paid by blood :P

"I still see supporter items as 'trophies'. I always liked the idea that the one thing we have over the new players is an item we were here for.
Or do we again have to lose yet another advantage for our loyalty Sickone?"

trophies look great but perform no function. are you asking that supporter items keep the cool names but lose all of their abilities?

i think we are stuck with reissues unless some more drastic changes are brought about. limiting accounts to only one supporter item would stop hoarders as well as increasing the supply, at least in the short term.

we could also have a supporter item mod shop, much like the tattoo artist to change one supporter item into another.

i think the reissues are easier for jon and anger the community less than some of the other methods he could employ here.

lol that would probably work well :) i would really like to convert my JKF to a lovely TSA... (jk i like jkfs.... they are just so cute) and yes a supporter converter is a good idea... just make it so that everyone can only convert 1 supporter item... like 4ever

I would rather a few of the supporter items get a minor balance change/nerf (but not the Mage Shield!) and go into the black market. That at lease eliminates the 0% introduction rate of old supporter items, and gives new players the small chance of getting one.

Yes new players can still get older supporter items but at a huge cost which is how it should be.
Just think of the cost of classic cars now, no more are made, just sold on for a big profit.
And I think supporter items should be like they were in CB1 'trophies' although I think the extra advantage of them being worthwhile gives that advantage to us being here. New users now will also have advantages for items over even newer players who are just going to pass them by with their NUB's. Some people don't have the chances to be competitive at the higher level and I accept that I know I can never be one, I just like having something I can have over other players unless they fork out a lot of the money they put no effort into earning.
Sick, how is CBD an advantage of loyalty? NUB's can now earn in a couple of weeks what I used to earn playing regularly for at least a couple of months.

I'm not going to really argue this point again, because it's really up to jon, but I will comment on something I read in this thread. The point that vets keep saying that their loyalty should mean something. I am a newer user, been here almost a year but yet missed out on MgS, TSA, and other items that seriously are almost must haves in the top end of hte game. Yes I put my cb money into items that I felt helped me more at the beginning and made a choice there, but how am I any less loyal to the game after being here almost a year, that now I have to either put in USD like LA to purchase the gear I need to try to compete at the top, or just save cb for ... hmm.. 1 mil a week and 15 mil or so per item... so 4 months to 6 months... and that is if the price doesn't go up even more before then. I read some old posts about cb1 and also asked my roommate who played CB1 and to compare the supporter items here to them is a terrible comparison. The cb1 items were "trophies" they didn't help the people at the high ranks and were fun items. The cb2 supporter items are very important to strategies and are almost must haves. I don't think an item that most teams consider to be must haves should not be available to newer players. If you want to have your "trophy" and horde up 2 or 3 of em and not even have them on your character that you playthat is fine, but make the supporter items useless then to strats in the game, or make the items available so other people can still have the same chance of competing. Or is that your final goal... You have an item that the up and comer can't get therefore giving you an advantage. If that is what you are going after then grats on your "trophy"!

That's just how some vets feel, Sox.


Personally, I think they should be like "rares" in other games.

But that discussion is well behind me, and if you want my thoughts and the thoughts of other intelligent folk on the topic, please feel free to look through my old replies.

i agree fully with sox.

also, with your classic cars analogy, that would be a better analogy if no new cars were being produced. in cb though, we have no "new" items that are better in some ways than the classic supporter items and worse in others.

if you are saying then to reintroduce new supporter items that do the same thing, but have a different name, then i am all for that. let people pay through the teeth if they have to have the "classic" version, but don't penalize the ones who started later than yourself.

I believe support items need to remain rare. Otherwise, NUB will win, it will always win, and I imagine there will easily be much more NUB top players.

However, Jon might want to control how rare they are. He can do that by putting a few more MgS or TSA in circulation, as opposed to killing their value completely by reintroducing them. Like Hatch said, powerful items should cost more.

Quite frankly, all I hear are NUBs whining, "Why can't I get the best items?! They cost money!" Well the truth is, vets are on the same boat. Everyone has to deal with this problem, even LA, even me. Yes they cost a huge stack of money, but you know what? Good things never come easy, and NUBs get quite a nice money bonus.

given that reasoning, then the current system really only hurts non-hoarding vets that change strategies as they get no money bonus?

it hurts people who truly believe that they cannot live without at TSA and MgS, which is their own loss.

If it's a must have they can take out a loan :P, vets get loans easier at least.

I believe a good solution is to have supporter items be able to spawn via the BM.

If people can get enough votes, 1 a week should not be enough to devalue the existing items, but should be enough to get some new supply into the system.

Yes, the bidding will be fierce, however, it is better then no items coming up for months.

From the NUB I was able to afford most of these top tier Supporter items (MgS, TSA, HoC I bought the HoC before the reintroduction, I also had an RoE for quite a while and sold it, and I've also bought an AoI), and I'm satisfied with those.. in fact that's your entire list, which missed the AoF, but regardless thats most of them. With the money from the NUB it is definitely feasible to obtain these items.

On the other hand, I feel that those who can't afford them shouldn't be that limited in strategy because they are ridiculously expensive. Each item is definitely key to a certain strategy, but I don't think that reintroduction are a bad way of dealing with the problem as long as they are done frequently enough.

Please do not get me wrong.

I want the TSA and MgS re-introduced as they are my only way of beating LA's character who is now top dog while using a TOE for defense only.

With the huge tank nerf last month, there is no way of competing with the top CoC mages without such uber items as the TSA and MgS.

I know I do not feel alone about at least these 2 items.

Where exactly would you put another TSA and Mage shield?

On my wall minion,.

CoC is way powerful, even vs my almost 4.75M AMF (damm NS). I need the extra protection and HP regeneration.

Tanks are almost neutered now. Due to evasion, one cannot use both a missile and melee weapon large enough to hit evasion in both phases of combat. So you either try to kill them before they kill you (Mikel) or try to play a defensive game (Koy).

Either is not working very well vs the top mage. Especially one that is growing much faster then anyone else near the top and using a TOE for defense.

Therefore I am far less worried about tanks, especially with help from my EC, and very much afraid of CoC mages, especially those with walls that use borrowed TOE's in defense.

So the HP regeneration and Magic resistance may (?) help me.

But the reason for a re-introduction is a selfish one I will say.

Way I see it, the point of the 'supporter' items is to support Jon, i.e. a way to encourage people to pay him real money he can then spend on server costs and so forth. Hands up all those who voluntarily paypal Jon a few bucks every now and then without getting anything in return?

At the moment, apart from a brief flurry of activity whenever a new item is released or an old one re-issued, the majority of transactions involve older members selling on their beloved items for (sometimes astronomical) prices.

So how about this: Jon opens up the market, allowing anyone to buy any supporter item they like for $6 or whatever, thus allowing newbies to catch up on items they missed out on (remember, it's a 'supporter' item, not an 'I've been here longer than you' item). To prevent a 4-minion TSA+MgS team (as someone suggested might happen), Jon then changes the settings such that only one of each item can be equipped on a character (much like tats). And finally, to cheer up the older members, Jon gives out items like the CB-T shirt on a regular basis, items that you can wear with pride and maybe have some small booster effect, but can't be sold or transferred.

Just my thoughts.

"I believe a good solution is to have supporter items be able to spawn via the BM.
Yes, the bidding will be fierce, however, it is better then no items coming up for months."

I have this evil, evil idea...

What if they would spawn into auctions... BUT... in order to "spawn" one, you'd have to sacrifice another supporter item ("bribe the blackmarket auctioneer") ?
A 24-hour auction would be ok here however.
The one doing the sacrificing gets a 10-20% discount on the bidding... and nothing else.

So, the one doing the auction trigger... He's still not guaranteed to get it, even if he used up his supporter item... but he does get an advantage over the others in that he pays less.
It's also a pretty good CB$ sink... since, you know, it removes them from the economy this way (if the "briber" wins, it just removes less, but that's it).

Sickone,

I can see all the AoL's in the game gone with your solution.

A more worthless supporter item there never was.

I love the AoL, or at least I would if I could junction it onto my JKF without causing server errors for everyone and creating havoc.

Good riddance to them AoLs, I say then ;)
If some crazy dude really wants one later on, he can sacrifice whatever supporter item would be least useful then to get one.
Prices for supporter items would still be higher than the current USD/CB$ exchange rate would suggest, they'd just be a lot more even amongst eachother.

I don't get how it's evil to have an old supporter item spawn every now and again

"I don't get how it's evil to have an old supporter item spawn every now and again "

But, but, but... it breaks the "I was here longer so I'm entitled to something special" feeling :D
So, yeah, it's pretty darn evil.
[/sarcasm]

Well, I'm all for the no spawning (cause it benefits me :D) but in the end I have to say, the number of support items could use a little tweaking now an again. With a finite number of supporter items, and many supporters hoarding, at the same time an increase of active users, regulation might be a good idea.

Central bank should put the supporter items it bought on sale for a start >.<