Thanks Little Anthony (in General)

...for pushing me out of 6/20 today. I am extremely upset.

Well, you only have to achieve 60% of his growth to stay in your bracket. Managing even 61% will have you stay ahead.
I know it's hard when you can't buy all your BA or you miss burning some, but it is doable.
Ask Flamey how he feels chasing 6/20 from the 7/20 bracket for all these months.

Well it is more complicated then that.

LA is using a ROE so his growth is quite high. And since he buys all his BA, if you do not, there is almost no chance to get 60% of his MPR growth.

I think this is a problem. It can't simply be a game mechanic we can accept.

Random fact: Yes, it can!

i am now having negative bonus big time also. And i was in 6/20 for more than 2 weeks, until today. This negative bonus (ranging for -8 to -10 percent will hurt)

Actually, good point. Once you drop out, you're at a big disadvantage. I remember when I was using an ROE to get into the 6/20 bracket, I was fighting a list from -1 down to -15 or so.

Despite my recent post, I agree that it's annoying that the #1 MPR spot grows faster than all others using a tattoo. :P However, we simply have to match his 120% growth at 60% - so what, something like 75% of our potential should do it?

Or one can start a NCB and try to catch LA the way he caught up to me.

he caught up to you with an NUB, not an NCB. Don't act like it's an easy thing.

It's easier than all the effort put into whining about somebody who did better... Save the money, buy the money, whatever. RoE, minimize PR, specialize your strat as much as necessary to keep your challenge bonus for as long as you can, hire minions as late and expensive as possible, and voila, you're top MPR... Yeah, he had the NUB helping him, he was also heavily backed by USD, but he missed very little BA and has been fighting with a named RoE almost from the start... Seems he's utilized the most effective means of MPR growth, and whaddayaknow, he's at the top. He continues to use the RoE that is available to nearly everyone at the expense of not raising a tat. If it is that big of a deal that he's outpacing you, work an RoE into your team. Can't do it? That was your choice...

Summary: Whining that you are being outpaced by someone using the RoE is like whining that someone spending more BA is growing faster.

in many games over the past decade, i have felt the need to clarify this point. if you are upset with game dynamics, blame those truly to blame. your ire would be better placed with jon rather than little anthony who is doing nothing that is not allowed within the game mechanics.

ranger did it for a while as well. at that time many in the community expressed concern over that feature with no change being implemented. perhaps you will have better luck though.

Never stated it was easy.

But it certainly can be done.

Save up money for BA and make a run at the top.

just look at both your graphs... you will see LA isnt growing that fast after all

Ranger - I am not a big fan of the "you must abandon your team to remain competitive" feature.

Never have been, don't think I ever will be. My preference still would have been to keep using Hejin as long as possible.

I am whining because it is no longer possible to reach 6 BA and maintain it without buying almost all ones BA and using an RoE. The buying BA bothers me a bit, but the RoE requirement really peeves me.
I always reveled the concept in the game where you never HAVE to do something to reach the top. You don't have to use an RoBF, you don't have to train Evasion. Sure some things work better than others, but there is no centralization of strats. An RoE requirement angers me that you need one to keep 6 BA, not just to get to the top.

Don't get me wrong I don't think getting to the top should be at all easy.

But 6 BA is the standard that I think should be reasonable for a goal, even for non USD spenders.

Well I do believe that to stay in the 6 BA regeneration zone, one should be "forced" to buy all their available BA.

To be able to stay there without is a disservice to those that do everyday.

The ROE issue is a problem. There have been posts and polls on it before.

I personally have never liked the ROE or even the idea of it. Especially on a N*B, it can skew things as we are seeing with LA.

Nothing against LA, he used the items available to him perfectly.

O yea,

And I would like to add 2 words:

Rolling Bonus!!!!

I would like to add my own word at the end of your two:

"FTW!!!"

well it doesn't really matter how you guys put it. It's not that people aren't putting effort into growing their char. It's the outrageous amount of bonus that the top #1 can get. Given time, he can put more and more people out of 6/20 bucket. And you really won't see many NUB or NCB that could make it even into 6/20 within 4 months, even with ROE.

I would suggest instead of having Challenge Bonus completely removed from 6/20. Let's do it in a waiver system.
6/20 - You will only get negative when you fight lower than 30%
7/20 - You will only get negative when you fight lower than 15%
8/20, 9/20 & 10/20 will act like now.
In other words, 6/20 gets first -30% waived and 7/20 gets first -15% waived.

Now, you will at least pick your opponent correctly even when you are in the top or 6/20. If one wants the extra bonus of ROE, he needs to make sure his strat is good enough to find target efficiently

"And you really won't see many NUB or NCB that could make it even into 6/20 within 4 months, even with ROE. "

I hate to correct you so quickly, Ryosuke, but many will.

I started a NCB - granted, school got in the way and I couldn't complete it - but I got to 150k MPR in a day. I then watched Nemerizt, who started his NCB after me, get his to 200k within a day.

NUBs may not get a headstart like that, but any NCB starting off at 9/20 on the second day and growing so quickly can EASILY plow his/her way into the 6/20 zone.

it's hard to tell, the dead zone is growing larger and larger, as 6 BA is that much harder to reach. In the end it's not how well you start, but how well you tough it through the dead zone.

You are correct; I am assuming everyone who attempts a NCB/NUB has at least a moderate grasp on strategy.

It isn't too hard to tell right now, though, considering how many NCBs are rising through the ranks - even through the ranks of the 6/20, yes! Just check out Ancient Anubis and his uber-successful NCB.

Most of those in 6/20 already pick and choose their fightlists based on PR. If the PR is linked to Base rewards like has been established... then most of those in 6/20 will fight those with the highest pr more often... I will tell you right now.... I rarely fight anyone that is under 2 mil pr as it is.... and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

"NUBs may not get a headstart like that, but any NCB starting off at 9/20 on the second day and growing so quickly can EASILY plow his/her way into the 6/20 zone."

Sorry OB, most of the time I agree with you, but nothing about running a NCB is _easy_ other than pressing enter. The BA costs are so high now, that USD involvement or a ridiculous amount of time saving CB2 is required.

Growing so quickly to start off is simple, it is the BA costs along the way that _most_ players cannot afford. Yes, you can use a RoE, but you must also purchase all your BA. Simply look at Ancient_Anubis (Soul Collector) compared to Relic (Bleys), we both started our NCB the same day. AA has used the RoE the entire time and purchased BA, I only used my RoE for a little over a month and have also purchased all BA. Look at the difference it made to use the RoE for the entire run.

Now, I have spent around 100 million on BA during this NCB _and_ due to LA and his great run and subsequent RoE usage. I am going to be a full 1 million MPR back from the top, after running a very solid NCB that 90%+ could not afford to run.

From the looks of it, the problem will only get worse the longer the top MPR uses a RoE.

Lastly, if I had not bought BA during my NCB, or only bought it during xp time, I would not even be close to the MPR I am currently at. Far from "easily" reaching the top BA refresh rate imo.

Oh, by no means did I intend to insinuate that it was affordable.

However, in the way of fighting, it is very easy.

Also, after 2 weeks I was at 600k MPR without buying BA except on Saturday EXP times. That was the only time I could afford to buy, running on the money I made normally - but I still would've at least come close to 6/20, if not just into it. After all, I could've kept 100% bonus until right up in 1m MPR with the strat I was running (I was actually trying to avoid higher score targets as long as I could so that I could save them for later!)

Again, I agree that it is extremely expensive to run a full-fledged NCB. However, for a more meager investment, one can break into the 6/20 without dedicating themselves all the way.

I think the problem is, is that by breaking in, it gains you nothing if the top MPR breaks you right back out after your NCB is over.

Correct. Currently, the top MPR is currently growing a little faster than normal - what's it, 5% faster than max w/o RoE if he hits all BA?

However, you only have to gain 60% of the same EXP as him to stay at 60%. So at most that's like burning 75% of your BA.

If people are really complaining that they are at 6/20 and can't hit 75%, I think the correct answer is "you ought to have dropped out long ago, and this is simply speeding the process along."

However, perhaps I'm misunderstanding and he's growing vastly faster than one can keep up with even if they burn 90% of their BA. I find this highly unlikely.

I think your math is off OB.

If LA had 100 MPR and I had 60 MPR, then I would be 60% of his MPR. Now, if he double to 200 MPR, then I would also have to double in order to maintain a 60% ratio to his new MPR.

If you add in the RoE bonus he is receiving, and you couple that with the fact that he is able to fight and win against higher PR characters than you, then he will not only get higher fight rewards from fighting higher PR characters than you, but with the RoE, he is uncatchable and even burning 100% BA daily will only delay the inevitable (being pushed from the top BA rate).

Right, in the time he earned another 100 MPR you'd have to earn another 60 - that's working at 60% rate. That means my math isn't off.


However, talking with Loch in Chat he says it'd probably be around 80% to keep up with him if he's using a RoE. That's quite a bit more, and brings a bit more substance to the amount of concern I'm seeing here, though I daresay hitting 80% of one's BA when it takes NINE hours to regenerate is not a daunting goal...

so what does all this mean in regards to an RoE?

"However, talking with Loch in Chat he says it'd probably be around 75-80% to keep up with him if he's using a RoE. That's quite a bit more, and brings a bit more substance to the amount of concern I'm seeing here, though I daresay hitting 80% of one's BA when it takes NINE hours to regenerate is not a daunting goal..."

That much, in order to maintain 60% growth status and remain in 6/20 (I added the 75% because that is the exact calculation, but I agree with Loch regarding the margin of error) and more if you want to increase the gap between yourself and that 60% mark.

just for your information. i have been tracking in a spreadsheet for several weeks now ftw/koy/igot's mtl numbers. my total growth over that time has been around 82 percent of ftw's while koy has grown at about 89 percent of ftw's. ftw has had several retrains and lost some ground, if he hadn't done that, i would likely be around 70 percent of his growth. i buy all my ba daily and rarely miss ba other than through partial ba refreshes.

Have we got a reliable correlation between MPR and MTL worked out yet or are your ratios already converted?

This issue is a mix off;

1: The larger characters you fight, the better rewards you get for fighting

2: The fighting down exemption

3: RoE

Ignoring the Bonuses atm (and a Rolling bonus would help greatly here...) if we assume equivalent effort for all players (same amount of BA spent) and same amount of wins/xp gained from being attacked, then the current model has a major flaw.

If you don't use a RoE, you can never catch up to someone who does. This should be balanced by the power a Tattoo brings to your strat, allowing you to fight higher.

The problem here is if the top spot can use one, and beat the largest characters, for the largest inherant rewards, then no one (bar a bonus users) can grow as fast as them.

And this *will* continue to push people out of the exemption zone, which when you hit it will make you grow that much slower still.

Currently, CB is only competitive for a bonus character. Fail to take the top spot with your Bonus character, you have no option but to save the rediculous amount of cash needed to fuel another one.

CB is really on a 4 month personal reset.

The whole problem might be fixed if everybody in 6/20 and parts of 7/20 all retired and started NCB's around the same time.

Bonus is calculated at the time you create it, and takes into account what the top player *will* be in 4 months, no? Lower characters to fight = lower rewards.

Suddenly we have 547350345 top players. Problem solved?

If only life were like that. Then we wouldn't need the Visa Win What You Buy contest.

I'm so tired, nobody's probably going to get that, and I'm going to have to direct people to videos of the commercials just to understand what I meant. :P

I still don't understand why Jon is so opposed to a permanent, dynamically adjusted XP bonus based on self MPR / top MPR instead of the current ever-increasing fixed (short) length XP N*B.

Because he doesn't want to reward lazyness.

Jon doesn't want people taking a month break, then coming back to find they have a bigger bonus that will allow them to remain competitive, and even leap frog people who didn't take that break.

I have never reached 6/20 and probably never will with this character setup - even with buying all BA which I do every day. However I still think it is about right - achieving the top in any game requires extraordinary effort and maybe some USD spending or certainly some neat wheeling and dealing on the markets.

"Jon doesn't want people taking a month break, then coming back to find they have a bigger bonus that will allow them to remain competitive, and even leap frog people who didn't take that break."

The leapfrogging counter-argument makes no sense. You can't leapfrog anybody by simply being behind, unless THEY stop being active... the closer you get, the smaller the bonus difference becomes, and as you get to the same level, the bonus becomes equal.

As for the "taking a break" argument...

Right, so instead, let's reward people who abandon their team and focus for 4 months on a new team instead, in order to leapfrog a lot of people.
I should know, I WAS one of those "taking a break" people, and of all possible moments to do it, I chose the better part of my NCB (yes, NCB, not NUB) to do it.
Now, I started a NCB, I hardly bought any of the BA (except in the first week and during XP times the first month), stopped using a RoE by the end of the first month, barely 2 months have passed, and I should be entering 7/20 by the end of today... reaching 6/20 before NCB runs out might actually be a distinct possibility.


I fail to see how this is in any way, shape or form better for the game.

Sick, along with Ranger I'm one of the loudest supporters for a rolling bonus. ;)

Oh, then I misunderstood sarcasm for zealotry... my bad ;)

It wasn't sarcasm, Jon's posted his reasons for not liking a rolling bonus. ;)

Freed, a quick question.

"achieving the top in any game requires extraordinary effort and maybe some USD spending or certainly some neat wheeling and dealing on the markets"

If you've bought all possible BA daily, and spent a (considerable?) amount of USD on your character, what more effort could you have put in?

Why do you think it's ok to have not hit 6/20 with what you've done? what would you have changed (or done more of)?

What more could you have done?

He has fought less BA than he could have had even if he hadn't bought any since his character started.
Also, his growth in MPR decayed far quicker than expected, showing that he's been missing more and more BA as time went by.
IF he would have been online all the time to "burn" all his BA, even if he bought none, he'd be in 6/20 right now.
If he bought all the BA too, he'd be in the middle of 6/20, or even closer to the top.

"even with buying all BA which I do every day"

I meant if he didn't miss any BA in the first place, THEN also did what he already does.
As it stands right now, his total challenged battles are barely on par with the BA he could have gotten merely from the "free regen".

"Well I do believe that to stay in the 6 BA regeneration zone, one should be "forced" to buy all their available BA."

I buy all my BA two times a week: during XP time on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Together with that, if I spend too much money on ammo, I won't even break even for the week, burning about 95% of naturally regenerating BA. For the record, I bought all BA every day for the first couple months, until I was below about 70% Challenge Bonus.

Still, that's 336 extra BA with a 60% bonus to experience per week. That's more BA that LA can get assuming he has 160 at the start of XP time, buys all he can, and burns everything he's accumulated during the 6 hours before they end (which is what I do). Add to that my 427% NCB, add to that the RoE I've been using for nearly 3 months, add to that my consistently 14%-ish clan bonus. And I'm sitting here, supposedly able to grow 4 times as fast as any regular character could, saying "you know, I'm really, for the first time, really understanding that stuck-on-the-top-edge-of-7/20-forever problem that so many people have complained of."

Back when I started my NCB, I had other NCBers like JS complaining of an inability to farm me because I was growing so fast. HA! In a week, I think the gap between my MPR and that required to enter 6/20 has widened. And I've managed to keep my Challenge Bonus above -3%. I feel bad for those with -15% on their fightlist who aren't in as good a clan and who no longer have a bonus character.

I'm not saying I've run a perfect NCB, but I think that it is still quite respectable, and fairly close to a best-case-scenario example of how things go, assuming limited funds. I have a month left, so I may very slowly close the gap. Maybe. I am starting to doubt that, though.

It's funny how long the N*B was broken, and then once it gets adjusted and 6/20 is within reach of the common man, the standard that needs to be reached gets raised absurdly high.

I just checked our history graphs. In the last 60 days, I have gained about 1 mil MPR, with all my afore-mentioned bonuses. FTW has gained ~800k in that same time period. That means that, without my NCB, I'd be at less than 30% of his growth rate for the past 2 months.

Now, since FTW was created on November 29th, that figure is skewed by about 8 final days of NUB or so, but still...

Ok, so that little week skewed it more than I thought...

He's gained about 300k MPR since the beginning of April. I've gained about 700k.

Given my stats, this still doesn't seem as it should be.

Sorry for the triple post.

Did I mention a Rolling Bonus would solve some of these problems?

One question I have had about the proposed rolling bonus is BA cost. How will it be calculated considering NCB goes away?

BA cost would have to be proportional to the bonus %.

However, it would be far more reasonable since at most BA cost would be 100% more then base.

IE, a new character getting a 100% bonus would pay 2x normal BA cost.

The N*B would be gone.

One can accelerate the first 1/2 of the MPR growth by doubling the rolling bonus, then BA cost for that time would be 3x normal. Still a lot less then the current NCB BA cost.

New players would get free BA for the first 4-6 months in my initial proposal.

I think you did, but it deserves another mention.

Considering a Rolling Bonus would solve the RoE problem as well - it would enable a user to catch up at a faster rate using a RoE, but once you reached the top with it, increasing your MPR distance from others merely increases their own bonus. It would do what it is designed to - help one reach the top at the expense of a tattoo - without that nasty little side effect of making them uncatchable.

"Have we got a reliable correlation between MPR and MTL worked out yet or are your ratios already converted?"

i used to track mpr, but if people were hoarding, or even not trainning regularly it threw things off. i was told in a former post to track mtl as it is based off of vpr. i never really saw any proof of this, but it seems to be correct. maybe some of those who told me i should use mtl will come forward and say where they got that idea?

I don't think we should use MTL. I checked my MTL right before yesterday's XP time and after it's done (160+full bought BA+6 hours fighting on 4x NUB), and the numbers are the same. MTL did increase when I trained right after.

When I horded xp on Koy, my max tattoo level continued to grow.

MTL is not a linear relationship with MPR, but it can be used to access growth.

MTL does not increase on the fly.

It will after cache flush or training.

I think the real point here is the dead zone.

The theory behind a true, well-distributed score ladder is that there should be no reason to lament dropping into a lower status. Dropping down _should_ mean that you can find better targets and actually get BETTER bonus.

That doesn't appear to be the case, though. The "dead zone" totally kills the honesty of the score ladder.

It is my intuitive thought (but no reason to assume it is really correct) that a rolling bonus would level all of that out since people would be able to grow and catch the top player more easily. Gaps in the ladder would close more easily with the base bonus making up for the lack of suitable targets. Then, once distribution is more even, challenge bonus will help too. No dead zones.

That's my thought on a rolling bonus...

...but I also understand why Jonathan is against it. *smile*

MTL updates every time you hit the Train button (even if you don't have anything selected to be trained.)

Tattoo levels get updated at this time, too.

(or cache flush or when someone clicks Update Stats on your character)

You could make the rolling bonus apply only to the ROE instead of across the board to every character.

i like that idea ns! the higher you get the less the roe does. furthermore if you want to catch up without the n*b, it is still possible, but might take some strategy changes.

Agreed, I totally understand why as well.



The current system confuses me to death, though. Why is it that newer and lower players - those on the lower end of the regen scale - have to fight so hard and often to catch up, while those on the upper end have LESS required of them to maintain their position?

I.E. down low you have to fight, say, 750 battles a day and up top only 500 - not only that, but up top, no more challenge bonus worries.

But that's not my point. My point here is that the way things are, laziness is rewarded the stronger you are, as you get a longer gap between total BA regeneration....surely Jon's intention was not for newbies to struggle their way up the ladder while the #1 character easily maintains or increases his or her lead?

Yes,

However LA is feeling the pinch of not having/growing a tattoo.

At his MPR he should be all but unbeatable, especially with 4 minions and a massive COC (which overwhelms the TOE).

I do however, think the dead zone and the 6 BA regeneration level are problems that need to be fixed STAT.

OB - that's the theme across all of CB. Look at upgrade prices. The most powerful weapons and the highest AC items are the cheapest (by a longshot) to upgrade. It is counter-intuitive.

"Ranger - I am not a big fan of the "you must abandon your team to remain competitive" feature."

Agreed. I'm also a big opponent of the N*B, which I find to be a awful way of making the game more "competitive." All it really does is encourage disposable characters, and there are those of us that are perfectly happy with our teams, and want to take those to the top, not scrap them and start over.

If CB was a tournament style game, where every few months every player was reset and everyone started anew, I could see the point of a very short term N*B. But as it is now it greatly discourages long term character growth, unless you pull a Little Anthony and nail it perfectly out of the gate.

I'm boycotting the N*B by sticking with my "dead zone" character Lord Bob, who I'm still having fun playing even though I know he'll NEVER have a shot at the top ranks.

LB and others,

My posts above were of a sarcastic nature.
I had hoped that would be understood.

My utter disappointment about the N*B should be well known. I agree that "disposable" characters is a poor design of the current CB.

That is why I proposed the Rolling Bonus. To make characters be playable after the 4 month window of which to grow.

Since, once that 4 months of the N*B is over, if your not where you want to be, you will likely never get there.

One can do as NS and use a ROE. But he is lucky he has someone growing his tattoo while he does so.

LA has a large MPR advantage over everyone but perhaps myself, where a ROE---> TOE would only stop him from losing to 3 characters. But lower MPR characters do not have the luxury. Without a tattoo, using a ROE, they will not a) grow their tattoo, b) likely not fight to their potential---> lower challenge bonus.

But, things will not change in the overall status of CB unless the N*B changes. Radically.

So again, I am sorry my post was taken as serious when my intention was the opposite. It is however, the only option available right now. Unfortunately.