discussion: proposal for score infusion (in Debates)

if the random drop is going to stay in the game as is with the decrease in monetary rewards, i would propose an increase in score. with my current ncb, i started out with a not so good strategy that i had tried up high but never down low. i could not maintain a 100 percent challenge bonus out of the gate.

without the 100 percent challenge bonus, i was not going to be able to keep buying ba only twice a week during xp time. since i switched back to my kwai chang jiggy strat i have been keeping a more respectable challenge bonus and breaking even on buying the ba two days out of the week.

after jon fixed the score boost on retraining issue we had discussed if we thought the dead zone would return due to the score lost when retraining. while it wasn't dire, i do think that it is harder to keep a challenge bonus while growing now than before this change.

since it is not up to us whether to keep the random drop or not (i personally like it though) i am proposing an increase in score through fight rewards to even out the monetary reward loss and still allow ncb's to at least buy ba twice a week. i don't think it would take much tweaking and would propose starting out small and going forward from there.

i don't really think ncb's should be buying all there ba without prior planning, but buying ba during xp times would still allow ncb's to get to a respectable level (somewhere in the 6/20 zone) with some hard work, dedication and an alarm clock for the first few weeks! ; )

I agree challenge bonuses tail off at a rather low MPR now, meaning the N*B is perhaps not calibrated quite correctly. The most satisfactory solution would be an increase in player base. I still have concerns about tourneys sucking score out.

tournaments, while not having a major impact, have had some effect as well. that is a very good point and another reason to perhaps do something to increase score in the system.

Increasing the score at the top won't help this problem. The problem is that every time an NCB, tourney char or NUB runs through the lower levels they all drain out some of the score on all the characters left that they used to fight their way up. Eventually it will become incredibly hard to get a good challenge bonus for all of the beginning. It is still possible right now but only for a few very strong strats in the lowest levels.

I think that one way to help alleviate this would be to increase the score gain on defensive wins. This will also help stop people from wanting to double tap. It wont help that much but it might help give a little score back to those characters lying around that everyone uses when the start a new character.

The dynamics of score in this game are complicated, to say the least. I would tend to agree with Nem that adding score to the top won't let it trickle down.

The situation is that there will not be many players in the lower ranks for long periods of time. This is due mainly to the fact that people don't play a character at a low level without a bonus.

So, having characters at all levels of the spectrum requires a *constant* influx of new characters.

Now, having a stream of new NCB characters is much harder because of the cost. Which means that like most things in this game, what we need are new players.

Without new players, many mechanics of the in-game math tend to break down.

granting more score per fight would be adding score to everyone though, not just the top.

i do agree that more people would help but that doesn't seem to be happening so we may need to look at making it work with what we got?

Given that explanation, Admin Nightstrike, would it be reasonable to assume that part of the reason disposable characters are so promoted is to keep a fresh spectrum for the newbies that join the game?

I agree with dudemus; simply offering more score per win / less score per loss, to adjust for the developments that hinder the score formula as-is, seems like a simple and effective solution. (but as you say, the score system is complicated.)

Capping the score gain on training XP to 1*PR was the only mistake that needs any correction whatsoever. Just make it cap out at 2*PR and we're golden.

I agree with Sickone. (This happens once in a blue moon, so don't you ruin it XD)

Sickone - I don't follow your post; sorry.

QB Oddbird: I think your first question is rather loaded. I wouldn't say that disposable characters are promoted at all. The idea is that people build a "second chance" character, get into the top ranks, and then work like crazy to stay there. Look at my character for a good example of a non-disposable NCB run.

Your second question I know not the answer to. Would changing the score system address that? Sure, maybe. I don't understand it, myself. Maybe I need to read a few more math books :)

NS - To explain Sickone's post: Right now your score won't increase through training if your score is higher than your PR. Jon did this to fix the problem of small characters un-training, fighting a battle, then retraining and getting stuff like 11M score. While this does fix the problem, it also eliminates a lot of the score that was being put into the game. People who are fighting for a challenge bonus have scores higher than their PR and thus create no score when they train. Characters like me, whose PR outweighs their score, do create score when they train. However, there is a larger amount of people who fall in the first category. If you changed it to 2x PR, people receiving anything less than 100% challenge bonus would accumulate score when they train. Thereby, putting more score into the system, especially down low.

the top 5 pr's could still exploit the system to the effect of 15m score to over 19m score. i know in the past sickone has admitted to this flaw in his idea, he has claimed basically that there would be no reason to do so though. if the system can be exploited, some people will do it for the heck of it though. i don't see jon going back and modifying his fix for that reason.

adding more score with each fight cannot be exploited as we have a limited number of fights. this system cannot be gamed. it is a complex system and i am not sure it would help all that much. there have been other changes to the game that fit that description as well though that we have been willing to try. all i am really suggesting is a five to ten percent increase in score granted by fighting.

"I wouldn't say that disposable characters are promoted at all. The idea is that people build a "second chance" character, get into the top ranks, and then work like crazy to stay there. Look at my character for a good example of a non-disposable NCB run."

not to be argumentative, but are you staying competitive because of your 14th place mpr or your 4th place net worth? for those with more moderate net worths, the system does in fact encourage disposability of teams as our mpr rank falls further and further away from the top whether that was the intention or not.

"the top 5 pr's could still exploit the system to the effect of 15m score to over 19m score. i know in the past sickone has admitted to this flaw in his idea, he has claimed basically that there would be no reason to do so though. "


More precisely, it would be extremely counter-productive to do so, for at least two separate reasons :

* you would have to untrain a huge portion of your XP (and therefore lose a lot of XP in the process) to pull this off, and it could take a long time to recover (a longer and longer time as the game progresses - MPR growth is nearly linear, but amount of XP lost is a percentage of total XP)

* afterwards you'd have to intentionally lose a couple of times to your favourite targets, but then again the attractiveness of double-tapping of targets you can't beat in a single hit very high up the score chain also increases by a lot, rendering the entire process quite moot as that extra score will tend to disseminate down the MPR ranks sooner rather than later

Basically, there's no significant permanent advantage anybody from the top could possibly gain from that, or if they would gain an advantage, it will be short-lived and unable to compensate for the losses they suffered while "gaming the system".

The main score infusion in the "2x PR cap" scenario will be coming NATURALLY from NCB and NUB that reach 7/20 and head towards 6/20, everything else that tries to exploit the system will be too short-lived to have any lasting effect.
Also, if anything, the current rules already allow wanton score destruction way too easily, score which is slow to recover after such a scenario (and only to a certain degree). All we'd do is set the recovery bar cap higher and make the gain slope better.

in my experience, people do not need an advantage to exploit merely the opportunity.

instead of benefiting a few and hoping it trickles down, i like the idea of giving more score to all fighting then we don't have to wait on the trickle, but if more trickles that is a bonus as well.

the only reason i think that we have a score boost on training in the first place is so that it automatically jumps the fight list for people that do not know to keep updating and moving it on their own. if that is the case, then jon's fix of capping it at pr could be seen as the perfect solution. if your score is already above your pr, you probably know how to adjust your fight list on your own.

Sickone - while it's not the primary focus of the game, I do think tournament play has to be considered. Score exploits admittedly do not affect the main game all THAT much - someone make make the EXP sacrifice to give everyone some challenge bonus for a while, but that's about it - however, this completely eliminates the possibility of Score being a factor in tournaments.