More Rolling Bonus thoughts. (in General)

So, I thought about the way Jon had a problem with the Rolling Bonus - he felt like it would reward people who are lazy, in essence. That makes sense, it isn't a good idea for that to happen.

But what if they had to play for over a year to completely catch up - in essence, run 3 NCBs without missing any BA? That's a complete absence of laziness. In other words, if they can't maintain a competitive BA spending rate, they can't reach upper competitive echelons.

The solution is simple: Rolling Bonus as we've suggested it, with a maximum cap of 1/3 the N*B bonus. In other words, if you managed to run all your BA for 3x the N*B period - which would be a total of 1 year - then assuming the bonus did not decrease, which it would, then it would take a year to catch up.

This isn't counting in Challenge Bonus, of course. That would allow for superior strategies to catch up more quickly.


Basically, I'm offering up a set formula based on the work Jon's already done that doesn't allow for characters to catch up toooo quickly - remember, this bonus would decay as characters approached the top - but still allows older characters an opportunity to reach the top.

This would also help new players. The NUB is currently increasing bonus as the top player grows. The problem with that is that with a massive bonus on each fight, newbies end up running through ranks faster than they can keep up. Those who become supporters find their perks less useful, as they have to make a new fightlist every 200 fights or so. With this reduced growth rate, decaying as the player nears the top, a new player would have more time to work on their fightlist and strategies.


As a new player just said in chat moments ago,

"<Rebeler07> i am leveling quick...i cant keep up with the ppl im attacking...:P"

And I think for the retention of new players, something really ought be done about that before it is impossible to keep up with the opponents one is attacking.

i think that anything that would combat the idea of disposable characters and bring back the ability to have old teams that you can stay competitive with would be great.

i have also toyed with the idea of the rolling bonus having a max and min scaled amount. if you miss little to no ba and also are buying, you get the top end of the scale. failing to do those things would decrease your bonus towards the minimum end.

"i think that anything that would combat the idea of disposable characters and bring back the ability to have old teams that you can stay competitive with would be great. "

I can't agree more.

I am still against the rolling bonus idea. You are essentially relabeling the gaps without helping the new players.

on a linear scale. you earn 10 MPR a day. from 100 to 1000 takes 90 days. with rolling bonus, you earn 20 for a bit, then less and less. so its just 100 120 140 160 180 200 215 230 ... 950 955 960 965 ... 1000, instead of 100 110 120... 980 990 1000.

sorry for double post. I have to add that rolling bonus is merely "removing" some of the top player's XP.

On the contrary, PK, it is a -bonus-. Your scale dips down below normal rewards at the end. You're seeing it as

on a linear scale. you earn 10 MPR a day. from 100 to 1000 takes 90 days. with rolling bonus, you earn 20 for a bit, then less and less. so its just 100 120 140 160 180 200 215 230 ... 950 955 960 965 ... 1000, instead of 100 110 120... 980 990 1000.

When in reality the proposition is

Normal: 100 110 120....980 990 1000
RB: 100 120 140...515 530 545... 980 990 1000

Does that make a little better sense? Those at the bottom grow fast, those in the middle grow a little better than usual, and those at the top grow equally.

I feel that rolling bonus provide disincentive to advance.

on the other hand, I can accept that the bonus comes at a cost (in game money or real cash) and is something that you "activate" when you feel that you need the boost.

Disincentive to advance? How so? "I have a bonus to fight, so I'm not going to"...?

clarification (as requested): I support a boost to help a old character (abandoned or fall behind otherwise) to catch up to 95%, but would only last for like a year (or less) and would come at a cost (cash or CB money - like people do with NCB anyway)

Better yet, it could be an old supporter's buy-in back to the game.

Example: could work like supportership. Pay Jon $25 or something, and you get a rolling bonus for the year, allowing you to catch up and make your old character a viable player again!

Can't make it into the 6/20? Send Jon the RB fee.

It would come at a cost, just as the NCB does now.

"Better yet, it could be an old supporter's buy-in back to the game.
Example: could work like supportership. Pay Jon $25 or something, and you get a rolling bonus for the year, allowing you to catch up and make your old character a viable player again!"

I love this idea, though I think $25 is a bit steep. Make it $15 at the most, and only open to supporters.

"Better yet, it could be an old supporter's buy-in back to the game."

I agree 100% with this idea as long as there is a grace period between every rolling bonus buy-in (4 months sounds good).

That way a player that can reach the top with a new character and a rolling bonus the has to give every other player a shot at catching up and staying at the top for at least a little while.

25$ is way too cheap. People running NCBs now can't even get into the 95% zone without going crazy in BA buying(Spending $250 on BA).

i suggest making it ingame money... that would bring down the inflation levels...

On the contrary, I'd rather see Jon get the money.

I agree that Jon should get the cash, but making it $25 or higher hurts us poor players (I have bills to pay!) and risks outcries from those claiming this will be USD blender again. Keep it $15 or less. Jon will still benefit from it.

$25 if you pay someone is only 5-6mil....

Here's a proposal for the rolling bonus... XP bonus only, of course... applied to all characters at all time.

The rolling bonus will be calibrated in such a way that if you are at full usage of the rolling bonus, you will need 4 months to get to same MPR as the top MPR, assuming 0 challenge bonus fights for top MPR and yourself AND assuming the rolling bonus remains constant (but it won't).

The maximum value of the rolling bonus will be recalculated daily based on your char's MPR and top char's MPR

The rolling bonus will be a per-character bonus, adjusted by BA used in the previous day compared to max BA you could possibly use ; people constantly not buying any BA will automatically only get 75% of the max rolling bonus. People constantly missing 1/3 of their BA on average and not buying any will only get 50% of the max rolling bonus they could, and so on.

The adjustment will not be immediate, rather a modifier... suddendly starting to be active will slowly ramp up the bonus, becoming inactive will slowly ramp down the bonus. For instance, it could take a full month to reach the max by using all possible BA after a long period of inactitity (1++ months) in which your actual rolling bonus has reached zero. Of course, the reverse is also valid, it takes one month of complete inactivity to reach zero if you were at max.

Still, the max will constantly be adjusted too, not only the actual effect, so the higher you get, the lower the bonus gets anyway, so even if the bonus would be calibrated for "4 months catch-up", in practice it might just as well be that you will NEVER catch up to the top in MPR unless you constantly buy all your BA and you constantly fight at higher challenge bonus than the top is fighting at, and the closer you get, the slower you catch up with them.

Going inactive means you have to spend a while before you get any significant bonus when you return, and you have to keep the activity level up if you wish to have full benefits for it.

IF you want to have something akin to paying cash for Jon, then have it for something like faster rolling bonus increase after a period of inactivity, or a higher rolling bonus ramp (i.e. the "time to catch up" factor in the max rolling bonus calculation - say you pay 15$ for a 50% increase in the max rolling bonus for 4 months - you still have to be active to take advantage of it, and the higher in MPR you are, the less relevant it is).

P.S. Also, the absolute max rolling bonus any character could have should be capped upwards at 500%, and all new characters should be started at 200% only... activity level should decide on wether they get to increase it at all or not in the early MPR days, and later on in a character's life, it will be highly unusual to have a high bonus anyway.

side note: there must be a cap so that Freed cannot rebuy the bonus as often as he can and get super growth. I think paying Jon and get an equivalent of your last 4 months' missed BA might work (in rolling bonus form, so you still don't get "extra" XP, just a portion of the ones you missed.)

You don't get any sort of super-ultra-huge growth compared to others of similar activity levels either way... at best, it's as if you're slightly more active than you actually are.

The basic core concept of a rolling bonus is that you always have a chance to catch up to some degree (how much you catch up depends on activity level and how good your strategy is), but you NEVER have a chance to get above somebody with an activity/performance level similar to yours without any extra aid... at best, you can hope to get close.

Or, in the case of the proposed "paid bonus bonus", you can catach up and surpass people that have the same activity level, but you still have trouble keeping up with the people that are ever so slightly more active.