Eyes on your own paper! (in General)

This is in regards to tourney characters. Is there anyway we can close off the inspect list for tourney characters, at least while tournaments are active? This has been something that bugged me before, but this most recent tourney just rubs it in that much harder...

As it stands now, as long as there's a BA cap, all you need to do is wait until the second day, inspect the guy that is doing the best, copy his strat and his fightlist, then make 1 less mistake to get the edge... It doesn't matter that the dude came up with whatever strat they did (albeit, in this tourney, it took no rocket scientist... I think there was one similar char before OB, RD, and myself started, but there was a lot more variation than there is now...), or that the person went through the effort of inspecting every single minion character in the game above 13k score. You can just get a brief summary of all the info with only a couple clicks, and wait, he lost to that one guy, so don't attack him. You win...

Without a BA cap, you have to start as soon as the tournament does, and if you miss more than a couple of BA refreshes, you're out, so this isn't a rip on BA caps. Without randomness, all ya gotta do is find who gives the best rewards, and have the patience to spend every single BA on them and them alone.

I've not been a fan of the tournaments that come down to sheer randomness and/or luck, but I love the ones that require more than just participation and a live rabbit on a keychain (have you ever tried taking just a foot from a bunny that's just staring at you like "watsup?")...

Far as the high scores list, that should be well enough if left as is (maybe not the attributes page), except kill the inspection links, or have them route to a rick astley video or something... Nothing wrong with knowing how you're doing, but it's a bit annoying to have everyone know how you're doing it... My 2 cents

Hatch,

You do that and the same 4 or 5 people will do the tourneys.

They will know the exact people to attack at each level.

If that happens, I would never spend time on a tourney.

However, I do understand your point. But if you get to a character first and beat him/her/it, does its score not drop and make the rewards less for those that follow?

If you drop someone's score from 700k to 300k, however, everyone under 150k MPR is completely unaffected.


Such is the case here - nobody's at a high enough MPR for the score drop to really matter.

That's pretty much what happened to me exactly this tourney. I can't say I didn't steal targets from others though. Then again people could test fight you or something, but I think this would be pretty interesting to do. Make sure to nuke the battle summary page too.

Yeah, let's bring in some sort of copyright or patent, so that nobody can copy my strategy without my permission. And while we're at it, why don't we introduce a dualwielding skill or a mage staff?

Copying a strat that works is exactly what people have done throughout all CB history. Of course you get three minions with Decay, that's how you can take down large single minion characters..

I don't see a problem here. If someone ran a tourney with the same strat as me, and ended up winning, he deserved it. After all, he did do better than me.



As for the battle logs, well, a tourney with them being hidden would be awesome... :P

Even if the strategy's obvious, don't make it so easy for someone to just wander in and beat whoever's on top.

Running with the strategy isn't the problem. It's the fact that anyone can copy the top person's strategy. They didn't even need to think it up.

Yeah, because needing multiple decay minions was really a CB-wide top secret strat...

Example:
I was top in the tourney the first few days. I am now fourth or so? I might get third I'm not sure how it will work out. I have 39 lost fights, which is much more than most people.

I'm pretty sure few people who started later made these mistakes, but at least give them a chance to instead of something to automatically follow. Also, if the strategy is so obvious, then what is the problem hiding it anyways? You don't need to confirm, oh he's using the same strategy as me do you?

Mistakes I made:
Not fighting up extremely high right from the start because I hadn't searched for any characters yet.

I had a single mage for a while - no reason to not have had four people from near the start, could have saved the money hiring.

After adding three decay people, not switching from fire ball to cone of cold immediately lost a few fights because of that.

The only advantage of doing any target hunting is those 5 fights before everyone else notices who to kill. This happened: I find a 1.3 mpr target, 15 minutes later his score is half of what it was due to other people. Within a day I have to drop him because his score is too low. It now lies at 17,947 / 1,345,891 / 1,345,891. Target I found yesterday, 1.7 mil mpr, now lies at 1/3rd his score. Yes, I stole targets from other people, but it still seems like something that needs a change.

Yes, these are mistakes, but why should it be 10x easier for people starting behind me? Maybe I should add the mistake of starting early to the list.

I think the strategy should be open to all.

The bigger question I have is the fightlist and targets to attack.

"Maybe I should add the mistake of starting early to the list."

perhaps this is the key and we will find that starting at the right time is the best tournament strategy of them all.

I started 3 hours late and have only fought one non-win (draw), all fights at 100% bonus from the very first one.

Yet randomness is going to make this a "who will win?" tourney anyways.

""Maybe I should add the mistake of starting early to the list."

perhaps this is the key and we will find that starting at the right time is the best tournament strategy of them all."

If the key to winning every tournament is not starting first, nobody will ever participate.

I started within the first couple hours of the tourney. But I gave up after 300 BA when I saw that people were getting 2x, 3x, 4x, whatever times more MPR and cash than I was because 1) they have lots of time to choose targets, 2) they know some weak characters with high PRs/scores, and 3) the people they attacked had low score, so I couldn't attack them for as much as they did, and they had much higher MPR than me (as well as tattoos >.>), so I couldn't beat them, and so I basically had nobody to attack for the astronomical rewards they did.

"Hatch,

You do that and the same 4 or 5 people will do the tourneys.

They will know the exact people to attack at each level.

If that happens, I would never spend time on a tourney. "

It's a lot like the "in group" thing that was recently posted about. We haven't gotten the Monopoly on tourneys, we just win all the time because we're always the ones playing... The same people play tournaments because those that don't, have their reasons.

Either they have a winning complex, where they must be the best, or damn near, at just about anything. Or, they don't think they can win because the other people know how to do it better. Or they have gotten to a point in the game where thinking is behind them, because their main char is as effective now as it was a year ago, and fights the same people, with the only difference being the numbers involved. Finally, there's the people that don't have the time.

For the first group; Do what you do. The need to win and avoid "losing" (even when nothing material is wasted) isn't necessarily a bad thing, just look at Brett Favre.

For the second group; How do you suppose the same group of people that usually win got so good? I'm a strong contender in almost any tourney I enter nowadays... But look at my previous chars. Winning takes experience, and in this case, you don't necessarily "need it to get it", and you certainly don't "need it to get more of it"... But oh well, I guess we'll just continue stockpiling it until we may be someday asked to share it. (+2 if you recognized the wording of the last part)

For the third group; Sucks to be you. Well, from my POV at least. But to each their own, enjoy, and rock on!

For the last group; If you don't have the time, you don't have the time. Seeya next tourney (hopefully).


"Yeah, because needing multiple decay minions was really a CB-wide top secret strat..."

Like I said, this strat didn't take much thinking, but there always seems to be someone in a tournament that is doing exactly what I'm doing, even if they weren't doing it when I started... As far as the "top secret" part, before OB, Rubberduck, and myself joined, there was ONE other char with 3 Decays + CoC. Have ya looked at the tourney list lately? Everybody has the same basic setup, and the same fightlist, with very few exceptions. Randomness wins!

i agree with much of that, however there are some things that could be done to make tourneys much fairer. the first and foremost idea would be to supply every tourney character, in tourneys allowing them of course, a base level lesser tat. if it could be made to spawn on the first minion they create that would rock. this tat could be reinked, but you cannot get a new tat in any manner during the tournament, no upgrades etc.

this would reduce the temptation we have seen to manipulate the stores and auction systems to not only get a good tat for yourself but deprive others as well. i have fun with the tourneys but rarely win myself. i will most likely quit them if some changes are not made to ensure fairness though. it really sucks to be hampered by your own conscience when others are not equally restrained.

expanding upon my last statement, if jon has an issue with tats being created by tourneys, he could make it to where tourney tats cannot be auctioned off, i don't think you can sell them to the store currently.

excellent idea dude. I was actually thinking of a mini (travelling if you will) store for tourney chars only. this way you can still have that silly cooling period but not allow non tourney chars to interfere. like buying a lesser tat when it's soooo obvious you don't need one and you've only bought one other in the see-able past. :p
it would protect anything in the store. it could spawn what ever the tourney overlord (slayer? heh) wanted it to. Course that may be difficult to put together which would be why your idea is so nice.

"it really sucks to be hampered by your own conscience when others are not equally restrained."

I soooo know what ya mean dude... Works that way everywhere though, not just the web =/

"it really sucks to be hampered by your own conscience when others are not equally restrained."

"I soooo know what ya mean dude... Works that way everywhere though, not just the web =/ "

Yeah, like how there are actually people out there who's conscience will allow them to walk around with an AXE swinging from their hip while the rest of us try to live life passing ourselves off as sane individuals. ESPECIALLY those of us who are no where NEAR 6 feet 6.
;p

"As far as the "top secret" part, before OB, Rubberduck, and myself joined, there was ONE other char with 3 Decays + CoC. Have ya looked at the tourney list lately? Everybody has the same basic setup, and the same fightlist, with very few exceptions. Randomness wins! "

Well, its a pretty obvious strategy and it's why decay is usually banned from the tourneys. The objective is to make as much money as possible. Thus, spend as little money as possible, so hire quickly, hence 4 minions. Then take out as many high level characters as possible. How to do this? Multiple decay minions with some kind of finishing minion. I chose MM *shrug*.

As much as I'm sure the three of you are indeed certified geniuses, this time around it didn't take much thought. If people are "copying" your other tourney strats by staying single minion "whatever" for a significant amount of time, trust me, they arent copying you, its just smart.

Looking at your retired tourney characters, I find it a little hard to believe that other players had your exact same strategy unless it was the same base strat and the hiring was different. When theres a stated objective, which there always is in a tourney, the good players often think alike.

I think I'm misunderstanding you... =/

The way I'm reading it, what you're trying to say is that the ability of others to copy a strategy and fightlist doesn't cheapen the efforts of the person who made the strategy, and found the fightlist targets?

I've always been able to find small tweaks that can make a world of difference in effect.

I have notepads of potential opponents for different strategies I found via inspecting certain aspects of character standings, and I must have inspected _every_character_ between 30k and 800k score (at the time of inspection) at least 7 times. Over 90% of my teams are no longer valid, as they've either been drained of score to the point of retirement, or some aspect of strategy changed. Because of this, I need to repeat the process every tournament.

I know for a fact I'm not nearly the only one. Should those who haven't done the legwork be able to see exactly what others have done to get the success they've gotten? Someone who didn't even read the rules of the tourney could walk in, and get the necessary strategy, and the fightlist to go with it. So long as they make one less mistake (for which, they also have the list of who not to fight to aid them), they now have the advantage... This is fair?


If that's not what you're saying (I don't think it is), please rephrase. If it is, you're silly, and I'll help you out with something I just thought of :P

Hiding the character inspection and fight log would make it easier for people to cheat... In a tourney that didn't allow DDs, someone could train a DD that gives them an extra edge and just unlearn it once they've spent their BA. Admin checks the char, char is in compliance with the rules, cheater gets away with it... It's still possible to do as it is now, but with as many people inspecting tourney chars as there are, you'd be a fool to try it... =/

I just don't think it's as big of a problem as you're making it out to be. If we start making tournies a lot of work for Jon (which I don't think Jon did the leg work anyway), he'd rather just drop them as opposed to making changes such as hiding fight lists and character inspection.

I definitely don't put forth the effort that you do. I do have a short list of people that are easy targets for certain strats or arent equipped with ammo, but nothing as extravagant as you have. Tournies as usually just common sense, so if people are copying you, well, they're just bright as well.

Another thing...being able to start early is a huge advantage for tournies with a lot of BA for some people (which includes me). I consider 3k+ to be a lot of BA. It's hard for me to burn that much in a week and I always join up as early as I can. An easier fix would just be to have more BA intensive tournaments in which if you started late, you're out of luck.