Retrains (in General)

Just getting a feel but are people still against free retrains i was thinking possibly the first day of every season we should have a free retrain day what do u guys think, keep things moving and changing i hear a number of people going on about fightlist stagnation and such?

Yes!

No!

Maybe?

Free retrains are pretty worthless with the tattoo artist as it currently is. Unless you've a stash of tattoos to hand.

I've always felt free retrains were worthless, period.

and I don't like how they set a precedent for everyone to expect the next one.

Agreed, OB.

Seriously, is a 2% experience loss really that bad? No.

Do you need a free retrain to try a different strat? No.

Let's be real here...

No.

Retrains are stupid. I hope we never have any of them again.

-Free retrains are pretty worthless with the tattoo artist as it currently is. Unless you've a stash of tattoos to hand.

I assume a free retrain would be coupled with a free tattoo artist.

-I've always felt free retrains were worthless, period. and I don't like how they set a precedent for everyone to expect the next one.

I think they have their place, such as when Jon wanted people to try out SG so it could be debugged/balanced accordingly. It's better to get people to train it to get the kinks out earlier no? However, I don't think a regular retrain is needed in the slightest.

Anyone else notice how the player's with higher MPRs want the free retrain and those with less don't?


I've never understood the concept of -reducing- player's desire to try different strategies.


I mean, what's the DOWNSIDE to a free retrain (besides the fact that some people just don't like it)? It offers everyone a fresh breath, allows people to experiment.... and it's fair for everyone. NO ONE benefits from it more.

I don't know. I always enjoyed them. Brings a bit of excitement to the game for a week.

Now, while I'm for them, I'm hardly so passionate about them as to yell about it on the forums. But, if we MUST have this discussion, can we at least get rid of the garbage like "Yes!" or "No!". Might as well say nothing, as you're not saying about it.

If you don't want them, explain yourself. If you do, EXPLAIN yourself.

Yeah, I suppose I'll rephrase that: I do think they have their place. Dropping Evasion or Protection from the game entirely and other ground-shaking moves such as that one potentially warrant a free retrain.

The simple occurance of Changemonth, however, I don't believe warrants "wild strat swap week."

Offering periodic free retrains is counter-intuitive, why retrain now when you can do it without penalty if you just wait? You create a disincentive to experiment with strategy, and lock everyone in.

There, my "No." is supported.

I think they compress the fun of the game into a small span of time, removing that fun which would otherwise occur over a long period.

That being said, I've enjoyed them previously and personally requested that Jon give us the second one.

Maybe the changes will warrant it, maybe they won't.

only free retrain when there is a new skill or spell is introduced else no

I dunno, people with high MPR and no N*B bonus will loose weeks of exp for every retrain, it's hard to do.

It's really hard to pull the trigger, I guess. I know I'll loose over a 100k MPR if I retrain. :/

But, you could make your team better regardless of losing that 100k MPR. Though, it would likely be a test so you don't really know if you'll be better until after.

Maybe some way of only being charged EXP on the retrain if you keep it. Say, 50 BA to try it out, then you decide. Also, possible restrictions on how many times you can try retrains in a period of time. Like 1 test retrain a month, all others cost right away.

As what happened with the last retrain, this gives mages a huge advantage.

They can try different DD spells all while the tanks of the game have to again be stuck with the same damage dealing weapon.

With the salvage yard, one can change only melee weapon so if a tank wanted to go from a melee one to a missile one, o well, tough luck. And that was probably the biggest reason I left CB back then. Mages and their ilk learned massive evasions and made my weapon near useless at the level I played at. That and the fact Jon lowered the PTH on MH's so much at that time.

If there is to be another "free" retrain, it has to encompass the entire spectrum of CB to make it fair. Otherwise it is a mage centric fiasco yet again.

That is it has to include:

1) No xp loss for retraining
2) Free tattoo artisan
3) Free weapon artisan

Anything else is pure garbage in my book.

I understand your pain Ranger, but fair and equality between mages and tanks would require MUCH more than that.

Tanks (which I'm REALLY enjoying now that I've added one to my team) have an everyday flexibility and variety that mages will never have here. The flip side to this is heavy cash investment in specific items.
The only times mages have this type of flexibility is during a free retrain. I believe that XP should always be more flexible than NW.
That's the trade off for being able to transfer it from char to char, or from account to account. Never mind rentals, which I've found to be useful enough that I've fended off opponents using them. In the blink of an eye I can pick when and to who my tank does damage, with a full blown mage that requires a permanent loss of power. I can continue to switch the focus of my tank, for essentially free once I obtain the items. It's well worth the locked in nature of NW.

The gifts (that's right, I called them gifts) Jon did give us regarding high NW items certainly went a long way towards offering
tanks a bit more flexibility in the NW arena.

every six months you get a NCB or a FREE RETrAIN!!!

I would say we should instead get a retrain every season or make it permanent that doesn't affect total EXP, but rather takes away CBD equivalent to the formula in calculating new minion cost for what EXP you're supposed to lose.

Introducing cash sink is always good.

I like them cause it adds variety to the game. Allows you to tweak things to maximize skills/attributes.

And keeps you from being stuck in the same old strategy for ever and ever.

I hate losing my exp and score when I retrain it's a pain. I wish it were free.

Free all the time would be the worst thing ever.


Imagine how quickly/often strats would change. There would be no point to a favorites list, everyone would go mage, etc

No, just no.

That would be horrible. In the middle of attacking someone, they could just switch strategies. The high score boards would be meaningless!

And, talking of score, if there were a free retrain now then people's scores would rise and fall fairly dramatically, what with the way you lose score on a retrain now.

score loss and gain during retraining seems to be tied linearly to MPR, as long as they fully trained their XP during a free retrain, the most you'd see is a rounding of numbers...

Far as being "tough to pull the trigger" it's only become tougher now that people have come to expect a free retrain at some point... Without free retrains, strategy changes would require more thought, and would force you to answer the hard question; "Is it worth the loss in power for the gain in strategy?"

Free retrain = click click click, see what happens, repeat... Thought is required, however it is minimalized by the ability to try 100+ different things a day...

penalized retraining = develop a strategy, think through the best way to optimize it, make a decision, act. Thought process should be thorough and complete.


The BA thing tends to lead me to believe that CB leans more towards strategy than aimless clicking. But that's just my quarter in the wishing well ^_^

*fishes out his $.23 change*

Is it still safe to say that a tank "can" be far more powerful then a mage. Since tanks can enhance their EXP with weapons and pure NW while mages only have EXP to gain more damage. Even though encumbrance is in effect?

People are updating the "quality" of their strategies all the time. Most don't know it but they follow the PDCA cycle.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA)

People plan their strategy. (plan)
They implement it. (do)
They check if it still works. (check)
They act on it if it doesn't or does. (act)

Quality doesn't come without costs. Same principal that implies on any businesess, implies on CB and strategies.

I really want an untrain option, like locking in my strat (and XP) with an undo option within 2 hours. Like say I want to try to be a archer, I choose to lock it in, untrain, train STR/HP and what not, equip my bow in my inventory, and try for 2 hour, then if I don't want to, I press undo and get exactly my XP distribution as is when I locked it in, which means I have missed out on the BA that I experimented with, but no further XP loss.

that's exactly what we're trying to avoid.

it is very frustrating to lose XP to try new strat, then lose XP to revert when it doesn't work. I am ok with losing 2% if I am changing to something viable, but 4% (or more when HP is involved) for experimenting hurts.

"it is very frustrating to lose XP to try new strat, then lose XP to revert when it doesn't work."

Don't try strats that don't work? :P

There are always risks.
I've been wondering if anyone has though of making a bonus system based off of MPR? Like having way lower (noobies) with big bonuses and higher ups less and less bonus? I figure this allows for some retrains, with some penalty, but not as severe.

no one has come up with that before, Rawr, that is also called the rolling bonus (tm). search it in the forum. :P </sarcasm>

O.O sorry lol

btw, who drew that portrait thing of yours, Rawr? I like it.

I wish I knew it :)
It has somewhat inspired me to learn how to draw manga

someday -.-