New Idea For Bonus: Formal Thread (in General)

Hey all,

This is all Lord Bob's idea, I just want to make sure it gets the proper visibility (and credit). Also, the idea was originally started on a thread about the RoE, so I thought it deserved its own, dedicated area to increase focus and brainstorming.

Current State of Bonus -- Currently, the bonus (NUB or NCB, henceforth just referred to as "bonus") is based on increased rewards over a period of time. Issues with this (some subjective) are that the growth is too concentrated, thereby throwing off some other game dynamics. For example, the bonus affecting forging was turned off because augmenting rewards didn't work as well there and was deemed unfair for the forging community. As time goes on, increasing rewards more and more, even with a time extension, is only going to make these issues worse (again, in some people's opinions, I am not really siding one way or another when it comes to that).

Lord Bob's idea -- Instead of increasing rewards over a set period of time, increase BA accrual rates and have the rate converge to "standard" once the player reaches whatever goal the bonus is meant to facilitate. It's just that simple. In a sense, this is a "rolling" bonus (or at least it could be implemented that way), but with a CRUCIAL difference: the additional awards from this scheme are based on WORK -- having to use all that extra BA and having to use it in what would probably be a more-often fashion.

Implementation -- Lord Bob will be better at providing details, but just looking at it logically, additional BA accrual can be implemented in a couple different ways (at least). Bonus could simply have the accruals be at the same time (every 20 minutes), but have them be larger amounts. Fractional amounts might have to be saved until they reached a full BA. I could be wrong, but I believe fractional accrual would be necessary in order to make the ever-increasing bonus work. Than again, since this is a rolling bonus (of sorts) with a known rule for convergence, I guess that maybe would not be necessary. BA accrual could also just become more often than every 20 minutes -- that would accomplish the same thing.

Problems? Unlike the rolling bonus that is rewards based, a BA accrual bonus scheme does not reward laziness. On the contrary, it will require players to burn more BA overall and play more often, depending on implementation. The longer a player is away, the more they would have to click to work their way up and to avoid the dreaded 160 max BA pool staring them in the face. So yes, you could take several months off, but getting competitive again would not be as simple as just fighting and getting big rewards. You would have earn that growth with BA burn.

All ideas and comments are welcome, and hopefully Lord Bob will have a chance to make some more formalized explanations on this thread. Hopefully this also gives the idea increased visibility for the community and the game's creator. Lord Bob, please correct me where I have made mistakes...

i believe this would get past jon's stated complaint against the rolling bonus which was that it would reward laziness. in effect, if you stayed away for months, you would actually have it easier when you came back than if you had stayed and fought for the same time period.

so with the rolling bonus you would come back to the reward, a higher bonus. with this idea, you would simply come back to a better ba rate. then you would have to fight to take advantage of it.

as i stated in the other thread, anything that supports non-disposable teams and rewards veterans while helping new players is golden in my mind. i think the new players should be able to compete but not at the expense of the veterans as we have seen so far in cb2.

Other possible issues (I think LB may have already addressed some...):

Clan points... There would have to be a reduction of clan points for people with higher BA rates, otherwise points would skew toward new players.

NCB vs NUB. Right now, there is a distinction. Would this new scheme just do away with that entirely? I suppose it would... One could be a new player, start a new team, or even start with an old farm and just get the better BA rate, gaining more experience and money (but having to click for it).

Forging: We all know that having a massive MPR is not really necessary to excel at forging. So, a much lower team could sit there with a higher BA accrual rate and forge away, never losing that higher BA rate (since forging doesn't increase MPR). In fact, a forger just sitting there would get more and more BA as time went on and the top MPR team grew further away, correct? How would this problem be resolved?

Another issue (kind of like the forging one, and brought up on the RoE thread): ANYTHING net worth based could be taken advantage of, couldn't it? Maybe not, since if you are making money, you almost have to be growing in MPR, too. Would that be enough? Or could someone stay lower and make a lot of cash, build huge weapons, and then burst out stronger (in terms of NW) by the time their BA accrual converged on standard?

I suppose Encumbrance and WA are two things that would help alleviate that, just wanted to bring it up as potential issue.

By untraining/retraining it's possible to stay right below the rate, that's why you'd have to adjust money rewards as well as forging efficiency.

I still think switching to this system would require resetting all the characters to be fair, as under this I bet it would take a year or more to catch up starting from scratch.

The nw gain isn't that much of an issue because it happens right now even. You can just stay right at the limit of where you can get 100% cb bonus and gain around 4-5 mil a week. That is a lot more than most people get.

So far sounds like good ideas. My only comment is that clan points are ALREADY skewed in favor of new players. We've seen it happen, a bunch of new (NUB) players get together and with all the free ba (read free points) rocket to the top 10 easily all the way thru the NUB.

True, j'bob, though the opposite end of the spectrum has advantages too -- being hard to beat, so fewer negative points.

Top and bottom both have advantages as clanners, it's the poor folks in the middle slugging it out who have a hard time...

Okay, after further thought maybe it wouldn't require a reset, but it would definitely be a drastic change.

Personally though, I'd rather not simply give the top spot to someone who is able to be online all the time.

That wouldn't happen, as any sort of 'bonus' (through extra BA) would stop when you hit a region close to the Top SPot. I'd like 95% of the top MPR, as that's what the current bonuses are set to.

Reach that, and you become on equal foting with those above you.

Then you have to put in more effort than those above, to surpase them.

Just like now. ;)

How about scaling the money rewards so that it's equal all across? NUBs would get a small bonus just for money.

You bring up a good philosophical question, Cubic.

Then who SHOULD get to the top spot? Someone who doesn't spend the most time in the game? Someone who uses USD? Someone with a good strategy? Someone with a bad strategy?

I would say that spending the most time on the game is most DEFINITELY one of the best qualities to have in a top player. This works, because of competition. There will always be multiple people spending a lot of time. So, who will advance the most? The person with the best strategy, and the person who spends the most time doing things like maximizing their fight list and getting all the bonuses they can (clan, challenge, high experience time, etc.)

If not amount of playing, what should be the best way to success to build into a game-sanctioned bonus scheme?

I was really hoping this was going to be about bonuses for formal threads.

A formal thread on mis-placed modifiers, perhaps? *smile*

I guess that's true, but something doesn't feel right. You have to trust I'm not trying to destroy this idea, just to poke holes that can be fixed/work around. I think the problem is the way it'd scale, keeping it simple say below 99% of top MPR gets a +100% bonus to xp.

If it took the top guy 1 year to get to let's say 1 mil mpr.

Then for someone new it will take 6 months to get to 1 mil mpr, in that time the top player gets to 1.5 mil mpr.

6 months later, both players should be about 2 mil mpr.

So in total it took 1 year to catch the top player, which means equal playing time with the +100% bonus.

As the game goes longer it takes longer to catch up, so how old is this game? Almost four years? So even with my theoretical +100% bonus it would take a new player four years to catch up.

So the percentages would have to be dynamic, or instead of the constant 4 months we have now, it would take what 5, 6, 7, 10 years to catch up?

This is why it couldn't be done by BA regen rate, if you have dynamic BA regen, then what's to stopping it from eventually going to 160BA/20 min in the lower ends.

So in short, top spot goes to whoever's been playing the longest in this scheme. Until someone devotes just as much time to catch them (assuming +100% bonus).

"You have to trust I'm not trying to destroy this idea, just to poke holes that can be fixed/work around."

:D

I'd label myself as a nay-smith! ;)

Sorry for the triple post, but I didn't really answer your question, always the problem with making a long post isn't it.

I guess ideally the top player should be someone who's played for a certain amount of time, not necessarily the longest, but enough, this is what I like about the NCB right now the requirement for being top player is simply devote at least six months to the game, growing your character directly, come up with an effective strategy, and remain active.

Basically, the top player could be anyone vets and new players alike, and that's what I like.

If we renamed the N*B into "The Tuxedo Bonus," then the title would satisfy both definitions, Bast.

Huzzah for compromise!

...oh yeah, and a reset probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. Look at the prices high MPR characters are going for right now - clearly EXP is worthless.

The curve to convergence can be as steep (read: fast) or as shallow (read: slow) as you want. In fact, mathematically it can have any shape it wants. And since the top player won't be on the curve at all (they will be an end-point/asymptote), they will, by definition, have to be moving slower than everyone else.

So, it doesn't have to take two years of playing to catch up, though the faster the curve, the more BA a bonus player will have to burn through. But that's a good thing, right? Earning the growth?

In fact, the curve can be created with "X number of months" or "N% of time CB has been around" already built into the accrual bonus algorithm. Just like the current system has two factors, bonus percentage and time-of-bonus, the new curve would take into account elapsed time and largest character. As long as the curve converges to target, there is theoretically no difference at all between this idea and the current reward scheme. EXCEPT, this is more rolling (meaning it can NEVER miss convergence), and it "rolls" in a work-required fashion (no laziness involved).

The current scheme is a set reward for a set time. If the guess on what the bonus should be is off, then the new player has just used 6 months for naught, not to mention all the "gaming" that can be done to the bonus via running single minion and using the RoE, etc. The beauty of the BA accrual bonus is that all other aspects of gameplay are standard. Will someone really stay single minion all the way up? Will people still use RoE? At least the questions will be the same for everyone.

Answers will vary. That's why we like this game. *smile*

Question: Where would purchasable BA fit into this new scheme? Would it still be around? Would cost become constant? Would cost vary between new players and new characters? If buying BA did go away, there would go one of the biggest money-sinks in the game, and one of the major ones for mages.

I guess there would be nothing wrong with it staying around, allowing someone to still buy 12 hours worth of BA per 24-hour period, whatever that amount would be. The price is what I wouldn't be sure about...

Bump, come on folks.

I can see no flaws with it, it bypasses the "Jon hates rewarding lazy people" clause, and I've always been in favour of some sort of auto-adjustable permanent bonus.
Two thumbs up.

P.S. Yes, there's nothing to stop a 160/20 accrual rate eventually (when top MPR would be huge) at the bottom... but then the "range" in which you get 160/20 would become larger and larger, or you could even cap BA accrual to the minimum between 160 and BA regen to side-step the issue altogether.

The major flaws I see are...

The current NCB I have right now is 465%.

If you took my BA accrual rate and made it 465% faster, there is no way I could keep up with BA burn unless the BA cap was raised by 465% to compensate.

This would mean a tremendous amount of time you would have to dedicate during your NCB period. Imagine trying to fight the same amount of battles that a person over 4 years has done in only 4 months.

465% is less than five times your current rate. since you are in 6/20 that would be less that 30 ba per 20 minutes. it would take you about 2 hours to cap 160 ba.

"This would mean a tremendous amount of time you would have to dedicate during your NCB period. Imagine trying to fight the same amount of battles that a person over 4 years has done in only 4 months."

if i understand correctly, you really wouldn't have a set time period in which to do it though so your thinking is incorrect in that regard.

you can take as long as is necessary, your ba accrual would just get larger the longer you take. since you are fairly close to the top mpr, your ba accrual would be lesser though than when you first started your character. maybe that helps clarify the issue.

dude, yes, I think this would roll, not be a set thing from the start...

But even that is implementation. Maybe the idea has legs in ways we don't even know?

I am extremely inebriated. Ten days coming up of no work, seven of such days spent in a Mexican resort with all expenses paid. Bottom line: I probably can't be trusted from here until September.

*grin*

Though I've been logged into CB for most of the day, I was at work, which was a total disaster. I had to help facilitate a few classes to get new students... ah, heck, nobody cares. My point is that I couldn't respond properly to this thread amidst all the chaos.

"This is all Lord Bob's idea,"

Hardly anymore. I think the rest of you fine people have improved on it enough to where it's a community effort now.

"Implementation -- ... Bonus could simply have the accruals be at the same time (every 20 minutes), but have them be larger amounts. Fractional amounts might have to be saved until they reached a full BA."

Or we could use different times for different brackets as well, which halts the need for fractional values, which could be confusing to players ("I got 9 BA when I got 7 ten minutes ago. Why?"). Integers are easier to work with anyway *lazy programmer's grin*.

But instead of just changing the x value of the x/y BA rate, we could have different y values as well. Need a rate between 7/10 and 6/10? 13/20 works. We know the server can refresh BA at 10 or 20 minute intervals without undue stress. Jon knows what the exact mechanism for BA regen is, but all we know is that x/10 and x/20 are safe. I say let the first half (3/4, 9/10, whatever, the first part) of the BA brackets use the x/10 rate, and the rest use x/20. Of course, this is only if we need "fractional" amounts at all.

"I could be wrong, but I believe fractional accrual would be necessary in order to make the ever-increasing bonus work."

Yeah, this is one of those "why didn't I remember..." things. I forgot that the BA rates would have to dynamically change as the highest MPR rises. But Jon should figure that part out.

"as i stated in the other thread, anything that supports non-disposable teams and rewards veterans while helping new players is golden in my mind."

EXACTLY!

"Clan points... There would have to be a reduction of clan points for people with higher BA rates, otherwise points would skew toward new players."

My (rough) idea for clan points is this: right now we have a one for one relationship for wins and clan points. Win one battle, get one clan point. Double for vs. another clan wins (i.e.: 2 points).

Clan points should be weighted according to your current BA bracket (and if this N*B replacement doesn't happen, this clan point change should happen anyway...). For example, if you're getting 10/10, for example the lowest BA bracket, you get one point per fight. If you are in 5/20 (these are hypothetical numbers here; fives are easy to calculate of the fly...) you get four per battle.

"NCB vs NUB. Right now, there is a distinction. Would this new scheme just do away with that entirely? I suppose it would..."

Eh, add another to the "flew by Bob's head" category. Right now, new players get an extra bonus to money. Is giving the same BA bonus to new characters of existing players fair? I mean, we already have hundreds of millions at least in NW at our disposal. I guess with the Encumbrance/WA nerf changes the advantage is lessened somewhat, but it's still there.

But should it be? There are those, myself included, that believe that vets should have -some- advantage. If it turns out we're wrong, maybe a side money bonus could be added as well. Or maybe tie rewards into completing the tutorial.

"Forging: We all know that having a massive MPR is not really necessary to excel at forging. So, a much lower team could sit there with a higher BA accrual rate and forge away,"

Isn't Forging something that needs fixing anyway? I'm no expert on the subject, but I seem to hear a bit of talk on the subject.

"Another issue .. ANYTHING net worth based could be taken advantage of, couldn't it? Maybe not, since if you are making money, you almost have to be growing in MPR, too. Would that be enough? Or could someone stay lower and make a lot of cash, build huge weapons, and then burst out stronger (in terms of NW) by the time their BA accrual converged on standard?"

Doesn't VPR have something to do with BA bracket now? Maybe it should under the new system.

"P.S. Yes, there's nothing to stop a 160/20 accrual rate eventually (when top MPR would be huge) at the bottom..."

That's a ridiculous extreme. We would need 488,000,000,000,000,000 MPR characters for something like that to happen. At the growth rate of current 6/20, which is most likely where the top bracket would remain under this new system, that would take a player thousands of years to reach. It's as mythical as the +100 Mage Shield, except worse.

We're talking about a starting rate of roughly 14 or 15/10 or 20 here. Nothing more.

"If you took my BA accrual rate and made it 465% faster, there is no way I could keep up with BA burn unless the BA cap was raised by 465% to compensate."

Exactly. There are those here that would post why that is a good thing. Less total BA expenditure = more competition.

"This would mean a tremendous amount of time you would have to dedicate during your NCB period."

There would be no bonus "period" though. You keep getting that BA untill you hit a high enough MPR to get a lower rate.

"I am extremely inebriated."

You and I both.

Can i just say if we reset i would most likely leave the amount of time and money i've spent during my ncb to get to where i am and the constant effort each day to fight is massive same for other top characters like mikels and little anthony's. To say exp is worthless is untrue exp is highly valued but as said many times people like to earn that and build up characters themselves i consider my character highly value able to me if not others.

Oh and don't whack me over the head for my usd expenditure i've had enough people point out the benefits of what i've bought i'm sorry if i splurge out on a game i really like and enjoy and is pretty much the only thing i do besides work and sleep.

otherwise i support the idea of a rolling ba accumulation instead of raw bonuses.

The only other thing i'll say is why would it throw out forging. Lower player forges heaps builds up money and nw then starts fighting building up quickly. But a top character can stop fighting as well use their mpr to forge effectively as well improving their nw and if they slip in mpr % the ba increases and they can catch back up. Might slow down the top 5 or so players but i can't c how that's a negative?

resetting would not be necessary at all and in fact would be counter-intuitive to what the plan is here. the whole idea is to allow everyone to catch up while doing nothing different, just fighting all of their ba that they can each day. the ba accrual would be based on your distance from the top.

resetting everyone would just mean that it would be years before we could even know if the accrual rates were correct and if the new plan was effective. in effect, we need the disparities we currently have to determine if the bonus is correct and resetting would do nothing but postpone the real world test of the system.

"But should it be? There are those, myself included, that believe that vets should have -some- advantage. If it turns out we're wrong, maybe a side money bonus could be added as well. Or maybe tie rewards into completing the tutorial."

The tutorial is a great tie.

Have the last 'Goal' of the tutorial, when completed, give your an increase to money rewards, for a set amount of time.

If it's needed at all.

As for a restart cost, I don't think there needs to be one at all. Everyone would just be startign an ew charcater, and would have to work harder than normal to proceed. That's 'taxing' enough.

There would be no draw to ditch an existing character to restart, as you gain *nothing* from doing so, so all the existing guys aren't at a disadvantage.

Hell, I'd even crack open my January 1st 2005 character (who has no minions atm) and fight him up from base. Just to have a Jan 1st Character. ;) It would be a hard slog, and take me ages. But there would be the mechanics to make it possible. While never infringing on the achiements of the current players.

LB, thanks for weighing in...I had the feeling you were swamped yesterday since I didn't see a reply... Sorry about the work stress, I hope the inebriation took the edge off! *smile*

Yes, the BA tiers will be VPR-based, they are now. So, if everything is weighted properly, I don't think anyone can soak cash up by staying low. Even if they did, they wouldn't be able to use weapons or gear because of WA and Encumbrance (again, assuming everything gets weighted properly).

Forging might still be an issue, but then again, it is based on BA cost. So, I am not sure where I was seeing "something for nothing" there, except that the BA accrual would keep going up, keep being useful, and wouldn't increase a forger's MPR. That could be non-converging variable in the equation.

I agree with keeping things integer-based as much as possible. And by changing both the timing and accrual amount, it can probably get pretty close, rational numbers being what they are and all. *smile* I don't think anyone will need Pi BA every square-root-of-two minutes.

Thanks for fleshing out the details on this, I'll be mulling this over more in the week to come (going to Mexico!).

If it becomes 30+ BA/20 min I probably won't play, it'd take too much dedication to catch up. I don't know why you want to just turn it into a click fest when you could simply use bonus xp %.

Cubic, your point is valid, but the reason that this has come up is not some casual "let's just change for change's sake" idea... There are real problems with inflating rewards:

-- The bonus is really just a guess... A SIX MONTH ADVANCE guess, no less. If it is too long or too short, there is intense outrage, as we have already seen...
-- Concentrated rewards over a set period of time lead to a big shock when the bonus ends. It's all then nothing instead of something gradual/rolling.
-- Concentrated rewards over a set period of time lead to "sameyness" in strategies. People are starting single-minion with RoE a lot, and it sounds like things are boring (some of that might have to do with Evasion making tanks that much harder to run, though).
-- Characters become disposable and bland when not in bonus, yet it is virtually impossible to fund an NCB properly. So new folks get six months, then disenchanted, while veterans older and newer don't even really know what to do.

This new idea is at least a shot at amending some of these things. Is it a big change? Yep. Is change scary? Yep. But it comes from an authentic source and is meant to address some real issues.

cubic, you joined last september, have you actually played a non-bonus character as of yet in this game and for how long?

BA regeneration actually was every 10 minutes before, Cubic. So the 10/10 regen then would be equivalent to a 20/20 regen now....and people handled that just fine. I don't think 30 every 20 minutes would be too tough of a stretch, as you can burn 30 BA in a single minute with a 15 member fightlist...

GentlemanLoser,
"There would be no draw to ditch an existing character to restart, as you gain *nothing* from doing so, so all the existing guys aren't at a disadvantage.

Hell, I'd even crack open my January 1st 2005 character (who has no minions atm) and fight him up from base. Just to have a Jan 1st Character. ;) It would be a hard slog, and take me ages. But there would be the mechanics to make it possible. While never infringing on the achiements of the current players. "


That's EXACTLY what I'd love to see...no more disposable teams, no more "if you want a shot at the top, start over" - I could actually play Hejin competitively! - this would be absolutely fantastic, and would reward STICKING WITH your team instead of rewarding throwing it away when it is of no further use to you.

"If it becomes 30+ BA/20 min I probably won't play" It won't become 30/20, even in the lowest bracket, for a while (pending Jon weighing in one/completely dismissing this idea; he may decide the lowest bracket should be somewhere around there).

The 30/20 example was dude's calculation of what the 6/20 bracket would be like IF BA refresh rates were increased by 465% (which no one is suggesting). Under what's currently being proposed, I would expect that most of the people currently in 6/20 would probably get bumped into the 8/20 range or so, whereas LA and maybe the second and third character would stay in 6/20, and the others in between would be in 7/20. People currently in 10/20 would be put in 14/20, and then the current 9/20, 8/20, and 7/20 brackets would be divided up into the 13/20-9/20 brackets, or something along those lines.

So, Cubic, how about having 8 BA every 20 minutes for a while? That would increase chat activity and competition for characters finished with their bonus, and make it all-around more fun.

I'd also like to say I agree with everything GL has said, and think the tutorial-completion money bonus thing will be great. However, I don't think it should be linked to a particular goal, because then someone could intentionally wait to complete that goal (like refrain from posting in forums for 3 months) and then effectively start their NUB money bonus when they're in a higher bracket, getting higher rewards.

And I know that this system is supposed to do away with the incrementalized increases so that all brackets get equal rewards for a full day's BA spent, but there are still increased base rewards based on opponents' Power, and I think that that definitely does need to be kept in the game. Otherwise, there would be an advantage to ditching your character and starting over... if you were the top-ranking player. Otherwise, the top player becomes a sort of placeholder that progresses sluggishly, waiting to be overtaken.

I also agree with OB's sentiments.

I also agree that a reset of all characters is a horrible idea. Not only for the reasons that dude mentioned, but also for player retention, as AA mentioned. When CB1 closed, I felt like I had lost a lot. With this character in particular, if it got reset, I would feel like I lost even more.

I would quit if we had a character reset.

Same LB. I'm not fond of resets. Even though that's what the NCB is in essence. ;) but that's a personal choice, not a forced one.

CC I meant that it oculd be the last goal of the Tutoiral. Complete all of it, and the last goal gets you increased cash rewards for a period, or of a percenatge.

If we really needed to gift new Players extra cash, and not just expect them to fight more. ;)

How about a re_scale_?

I can almost guarantee we won't have a reset. That's just my opinion, but why would we? Jonathan would just create CB3 before that happened (and the same attrition would likely ensue). There is no need for a reset. A rescale would condense things, equal things out, and then we could all run with the ball from there.

I don't care, I just finished one of the endings of GTA4! Huzzah!

Oh I'm fine with a rescale. We've already had one and the sky didn't fall. ;)

We haven't had one on CB2, actually. And since that's the only CB around, I think one could argue we HAVEN'T had a rescale. *smile*

I think he was speaking of the weapon rescale... and Experience cost rescales...

Muhahahahahaha....those aren't rescales!

Yup. ;)

What type of rescale are you talking about Sute?

No, I have not played a non bonus character. Yes, the system needs work I'm not arguing against that. But doing it by BA regen rate won't work if you want a reasonable outcome, that's all I'm saying.

30BA/20 min is theoretically manageable yes, but as the top spot gets higher the rate would have to increase massively on the low end, and as I said the bonus would have to be ever increasing (if you wanted this scheme to work, meaning new players reach the top in a reasonable amount of time). So how high do you let it go? 60BA/20? 100BA/20? If instead of increasing rates you lowered rates at the top end, how do you deal with less than 1 BA/20?

This isn't my opinion at all it's a flaw in the idea. I'm trying to refine it, but you all act like I'm just out to kill it.

"That's a ridiculous extreme. We would need 488,000,000,000,000,000 MPR characters for something like that to happen. At the growth rate of current 6/20, which is most likely where the top bracket would remain under this new system, that would take a player thousands of years to reach. It's as mythical as the +100 Mage Shield, except worse."

It's proportional. Top MPR is 4.25 mil right? If it doubles the percentage doubles, my NCB is +475%, so 575% total which is if you are 10BA/20 * 5 = 50BA/20, let CB continue for another few years, when the top MPR is 10 mil, 10BA/20 * 10 = 100BA/20.

Is 10 mil MPR so mythical?

But your bonus amount is condensed into 4 months (that's a 4 month bonus amount, the new 6 months ones are lower).

The BA Regen rate wouldn't ever have to match that, as there's no set time frame.

yep, the lack of a set time frame would only mean that it might take longer to get to the top not that the ba renewal has to keep increasing. jon has already increased the length of the bonus time we now have as well. so this problem is not just a problem with the proposed system but rather a problem with catch up bonuses in general it would seem. in our current setup, the problem is maintaining fight lists as your mpr changes so quickly.

No one is being consistent on if there would be a set time frame or not. You either have the bonus ever increasing or you have the time to get to the top ever increasing. (At a rate determined by the bonus % to BA)

If you do it by BA regen, you either have a problem with the time to reach to the top increasing linearly (which some might not see as a problem but I think it is) or the BA regen increasing linearly.

Yes, my bonus was condensed into four months, but in the long run it's conceivable for the BA regen to reach that high. My point was that it's not mythical at all.

This idea can work with bonus % to xp, sliding to make you reach the top in what? a year?

Are you really going to get those January 1st characters up to the top if it takes you 3-5 years?

Cubic, you have both.

Just like we have now.

"Are you really going to get those January 1st characters up to the top if it takes you 3-5 years?"

If the answer is no, then this whole idea fails, as that's what entirely new players would be expected to do as well.