Stupid question about fight rewards (in General)

This question was sparked by two things... first, hearing from several people that they "leave XP untrained" intentionally just to have better challenge bonuses... and second, by the recent wiki edits to the "rewards" page.

So my question is this... is the BASE reward (you know, before randomisations, before the challenge bonus and N*Bonus, and especially BEFORE the VPR / BA regen rate multiplier) dependant ONLY your PR and opponent score, or does your VPR (or maybe even opponent PR/MPR/VPR) also have something to do with it ?

Because if it does involve your VPR too in the "base" value, not just the subsequent modifier, then all those people who leave XP untrained are making a big mistake.
But if it doesn't, then it's actually much, much worse... since a person could intentionally "lay low" in PR/MPR (but keep growing like mad in VPR) and never actually experience "the dead zone" at all !

So... which one is it ?

...which also reminds me of a question I have had in my mind for long.

How do you get 1300% NCB bonus for fights?

it's based on VPR, sadly. the reason people don't train, is because there is no reason to until you need to change your fightless, or you want to counter a farmer. It leaves more options if you save exp.

You had to be a NCB at the time "the big N*B rescale" happened ;)
Everybody got their remaining time's bonus boosted so that on average, you'd end up with the "revamped" bonus when you finished the N*B.

"it's based on VPR, sadly"

But how exactly is it based on VPR ?
Because the actual PR (which is based on MPR) matters most, by the looks of it.

And note that I don't mean the VPR modifier (the one which also modifies your BA purchase price), I mean the actual base value.

So what's the new value of NCB bonus?

I always thought VPR counted -- in other words, it is best to stay trained (unless you'd just rather wait and see what to invest in, and your fight list is stable without training).

As a new player working up, I am almost certain things were VPR based, because if you didn't stay trained enough to keep fighting high, rewards started to suck.

I have no idea how this applies to base/challenge/bonus rewards -- that all makes my head spin too much...

But watch your BA price -- that controls it. If it goes up based on VPR, then VPR is the key. At least I think that is the key. *smile*

As far as a mistake, I have not trained in a long time because I don't need to. I beat those I beat easily, and I have no chance of beating the folks I lose bad too. The folks in between would get dropped eventually anyway, since whatever they are doing, usually damage reduction, will ALWAYS outpace my offense. So, I am waiting and trying to figure out what to do next. No real disadvantage there as long as I can keep beating the targets. But yes, that may not be true for someone working up the ranks. They should stay trained, IMHO.

a gigantic NCB bonus, is caused when there is an N*B rescale in the middle of ones N*B. This causes a bonus proportional to the time missed. When I had an NCB bonus well over a thousand, we had just had the current rescale, and I had 2 weeks of NUB left.

"But watch your BA price -- that controls it. If it goes up based on VPR, then VPR is the key. At least I think that is the key."

Yes, that's the modifier I mentioned when I said "especially BEFORE the VPR/BA regen multiplier".
The question was... if you do not train at all, and your BA purchase price is unchanged, and your opponent's score remains unmodified... do you get less and less of a reward as your VPR goes up, or does it stay constant ?

I remember, during both my growth of my NUBs and NCB I didn't trained for a few days, and I watched my challenge bonus go down.

VPR affects BA cost, there is no way around it. The only way to get infinite rewards, is to do what lostling does, which is to keep retraining to lower the VPR.

three4 has it -- there is no such thing as "what if VPR increases but BA cost stays the same" -- they are related. Are you saying you are in a scenario where your VPR is growing a lot but BA cost is staying the same?

Or, let's put it another way.

I am fighting at a (hypothetical) 500k PR / 400k MPR against an opponent with a score above 1 mil.
Now, my reward (on average) would be something like this:

XP gain = base gain (???) * BA cost multiplier (VPR-based, big jumps at ) * 2 (100% challenge bonus for fighting up) * 5 (400% NUB)

Case A, I have all my XP trained (VPR = MPR).
Case B, I have a bit of XP untrained (VPR > MPR).

Assuming my VPR is not high enough to "jump" me into a higher BA cost multiplier bracket yet... does the base gain in case A equal that for case B, or do I get LESS base gains in case B ?

And, going even further, in case C... my VPR is now high enough to get me in a higher BA purchase price.
The "BA cost multiplier" ensures the fact I get higher overall rewards... but is the base gain still the same as in cases A and B, or is it even lower now ?

Note that I'm still at 500k PR / 400k MPR, and all my opponents are still above 1 mil score in this hypothetical situation.

I have no idea about exactness, but Jon has always stated "it is best to be fully trained".

Whether that is his opinion on how to play, or he is trying to tell us something, I do not know.

Sick, I see what you are saying, and yes, playing with the discreteness of integers could eke out some gains... However, I am thinking there is a larger number behind BA cost, one with more decimals, one not so discrete. I am betting that is what gets used, and I am betting you can't "game" that step.

Also, if that is the case (I am just speculating), that means it is best to buy BA as fast as you can, before it ticks up integer by integer. At least you can save a few bucks there. *smile*

I am currently running an NCB (451% for whoever asked, 3 weeks old), and I can tell you that the challenge bonus is based on the opponents score versus your VPR. Untrained XP does affect your challenge bonus.

I believe there was a thread a while back that came to the conclusion that the base reward is also dependent on the opponents score versus your VPR, and that fighting higher than 2X VPR does give better rewards even though the challenge bonus maxes out at 100%, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

There is no way to "lay low". Leaving untrained XP potentially increases the number of people who can farm you, which is a bad thing.

I think that the benefit of not training is that PR added by gear is based on xp trained not vpr.

Xen: the recent thread was about your opponents PR being the factor in base rewards.

ok the thing is here...

challenge bonus is based on as far as i know...

PR given by equipment + VPR

PR given by equipment is only affected by MPR

hence....

not training would give u a lower MPR and thus lower PR

so higher challenge bonus :)

base rewards are too small as compared to the 5-10% difference the challenge bonus could give you

I thought PR added by gear was just some fraction of NW with the weights (like for AC) built in? Does it also use some algorithm taking PR into account... I didn't know that! Good info!

well i could like totally be wrong so please someone correct me if i am :)

Xenko : "I can tell you that the challenge bonus is based on the opponents score versus your VPR. Untrained XP does affect your challenge bonus. "

No offense, but are you sure ? Can you give a definite example ?
Because, for instance, the score drain due to fighting (losing a fight on defence), even if not updated automatically in the fight list, it still affects your challenge bonus.
I just wanted to be sure there's absolutely no confusion here.


sutekh137 : "I thought PR added by gear was just some fraction of NW with the weights (like for AC) built in? "

Yes, but it's a fraction of the MPR, not of the VPR.
So if lostling and Xenko are right, and the challenge bonus is based on gear PR addition plus VPR (and not on actual PR), then by not training your gear PR addtion is smaller compared to having all XP trained.

base rewards are calculated by BA cost, which is calculated by MPR. However, when figuring your PR to get challenge bonus, your gear is only weighted with the XP you have trained, so if you are able to beat the same opponent without training, you can get a slightly higher challenge bonus. Where this evens out with higher base rewards I don't know...

As far as "making a big mistake" by not training, it depends on if they're pushing their base rewards back, and by how much. If they're not doing too much damage to their base reward, then they are making a great move by not training XP that won't add anyone to their list. This gives them flexability so that if another char gets up there and wants to make itself a threat, you can train 200k MPR and say "What now?!" :P

I've been asking around several people who had a lot of XP saved up what their challenge bonuses were.
It was obvious that the bonus was based on VPR (plus extra PR from gear) and not on actual PR (i.e. MPR plus PR from gear).

And I don't mean "a bit of XP" trained up, but a lot of XP trained up.
How could this mistaken concept persist in CB for so long, I have no idea... but it appears it's pretty far spread.

So, to all people who "save XP" : nope, sorry, you're not doing yourselves any good... you're not avoiding the "dead zone"... you're only deluding yourselves that you are.
Just train up all your XP, and unload some gear when you're fighting if you want better challenge bonuses.

Sorry, I meant "saved up" not "trained up" when talking about XP earlier.

It's a fairly well known fact that the 'bob doesn't like "the math". But out of curiosity I did my own MINI EXPERIMENT.
I kept track of my rewards for several characters and saved up some xp. I saved just shy of 2 mil on each minion. IMMEDIATELY after training said xp my rewards on the people I'd been keeping track of went UP. Out of 5 opponents, 4 went up 1 percent and 1 went up 2 percent. I was sure to note that prior to training the xp there was NO fluctuation in the bonus.
I know its not much but I thought I'd share.