USD Spender vs Non-USD Spender is there a Balance? (in Debates)

First it is no secret that I use USD and so does a lot of other people but the opposite is true as well. I have seen success stories in both instances but I have seen the flops as well. I have had several discussions with people and the conclusions have been very different. So I pose 3 questions as to the intelligence/understanding factors of each party as far as strategy and ability. In all of the Questions include this Question as well: Is there a Balance Between them?

Are you smarter to use USD?

Are you smarter not to use USD?

Does it depend on the person?

Now the answers are your own but I ask you all to:

1) Keep it civil.
2) Stay on subject.
3) Not to Highjack the Thread for personal arguments.

I have seen USD spenders dump cash for years and not get into the Top 10, whereas I have seen other Non-USD spenders break the Top 25-50 with only one NCB run. I have seen USD Spenders that are Master Strategists, and Non-USD Spenders that have the IQ of a rock.

Personally I feel that it depends on the person. I have spoken in depth with both sides of the fence here and have been on both sides of the fence. I have seen and understand a lot of the arguments/discussions of many and have agreed to disagree with people on both sides.

I have never once seen that either side was better than the other, simply that they were a part of CB. Both sides have at times shaken the foundations of CB and have managed to awaken the CB God Jon into action to implement a Nerf.

In this I do believe that there is a balance and it is not as tenuous as some may believe. There is a fine line yes but the balance itself in my mind is not in question. It is the players themselves and the choices that they decide to make........

Are you smarter not to use USD?

I have not used a single USD in this game. My supportership and item namings are paid up completely from CB cash. I don't need/want to use USD to make this game fun for me.

I may be new, but from watching sox play for a long time and seeing how things in the game seem to go, I see a very big imballance.

Here is the way to look at it. If you take two people with the exact same strategic intelligence and one is a USD spender and the other isn't there is no contest who is going to end up doing a much better job in the end towards making it to the top. This is both in MPR and in score. The reason for the MPR is because the USD spender will continue to get a better challenge bonus thru their run up the ranks because of their USD whereas the non-usd spender will lose the challenge bonus because their gear won't keep up with the rate of the USD spender. Then in the end game of things the non-usd spender will never have a shot at beating the USD spender because of gear and mpr.

This is again assuming that both have an equal footing on time available, strategic smarts, and everything else that goes along in the game.

This is just my opinion based on the time I have played <which is short> and watching Sox flounder around and beg to spend some of his money, which I always told him was smarter to be spent on me. I hope this explains my views on the subject.

NW-PR and Encumbrance have both been attempts to level the playing field. They both certainly have an effect on $US spending (I'm unlikely to upgrade my melee weapon any time soon as a result) however I see them as also punishing the folks who have chosen to invest in high NW items outside of the USD market.

The thing is... As far as challenge bonus goes the bigger the item doesnt mean its better... Optimumly you should beat your opponent by only about 10% for the best challenge bonus... Using the most efficient items meaning most bang for buck... Meaning effectiveness vs pr gained

USD in CB is like steroids in baseball. It is a somewhat unfair advantage, but if you can't hit a fastball right down the pipe, it's a wasted one, and if you stop using it, just look at how fast all the non-users catch up in ability ;)

It also tends to take a little of the fun out of watching certain users... novice, Ranger, Zenai, and a few other great strategic minds, all forgoing the strategic side of things more in favor of comparing their banks. My biggest gripe with USD in CB is that it encourages those who play this game just to turn a quick buck or two, and, in conjunction with the NUB, encourages cheating, both on the parts of those just wanting to get as much cash out of CB as they can, and on the parts of those who are just so far behind "the top" in both MPR and net worth...

Another gripe is when users spend USD but then want to look at it as an "investment"... I see money spent on CB as just that, money *spent*... I personally believe that those with large quantites of cash spent on CB back when the rate was closer to $10/m lost absolutely nothing when the rate got cut in half or even now that it's even lower. If you buy something for x, then it was apparently worth x to you, and there's no sense in complaining just because ya can't sell it for x.

told *golf clap*

If you want to be "one of the very best" as a latecomer, or god forbid, as somebody who missed the NUB train and has to try out a NCB, then USD-usage becomes _MANDATORY_ in order to accomplish that goal.
Of course, you can always be content with whatever you have (as in, not top 5, but top 50), in which case, why bother spending any USD at all ?

Getting into the top 50 only requires (nowadays) a smidgen of gear, a half-decent strategy, some patience and (this is the most vital part) 6 months of _CONSTANT_ online presence, several times a day.
I mean, there's not more than 50 actually competitive active CB players total, so there's no need to worry, you'll get there even if you don't try that hard the way the field is set right now.

Getting into the top 5 all on your own however is bordering on the "nearly impossible" without heavy USD spending.
And when I mean "heavy", I mean "go single character until end of NCB, then buy 3 minions with the expensive option, and you better have had bought all the BA too".

Personally I think it entirely depends on the person. The only one that I think who really gets ahead is the person who uses USD but ends up paying nothing in the end through judicious buying and selling. There are a lot of ways for non USD spenders to augment their money as well. So it depends on each person as some none USD may actually end up with more than some of the USD spenders anyways.

I feel that USD is best-used when it is on NCB BA and minion hiring, with armor coming in second, but not weapons.

I find it shocking that people will get gigantic weapons that grossly inflate their PR when they'd likely do better without them, especially when you near the top where there's a huge gap in MPR that you have to overcome but only very small potential increases in score (and therefore challenge bonus) for beating a higher person. Then again, I've had a bit of a problem with the + adding huge amounts of PR since it was created.

Anybody can throw a $999 billion weapon and $5 billion worth of armor on a decent team and win every fight. That's boring, not to mention inefficient. The real strategy comes when you minimize your gear to maximize your effectiveness, which is where people without USD gear tend to shine (whether they've used USD to fund an NCB or not), IMO.

i liked closed systems better than ones that allow manipulation by outside forces. if i am to be beaten by someone, i like it to be a better player rather than someone who decides to throw money at an online game.

we have the system we have though and the best opportunity to go closed was passed up and cannot really change now. i do appreciate the things that have been done to minimize its impact though.

I guess what I was saying with my previous post is that USD doesn't replace a brain. It does give you an advantage when you use it properly though, but it can also hurt you if you don't use it well.

I think the balance would be fine or close to fine if USD weren't required for a Top whatever finish with an NCB. It still takes some strategy to use it and use it well.

"If you want to be "one of the very best" as a latecomer, or god forbid, as somebody who missed the NUB train and has to try out a NCB, then USD-usage becomes _MANDATORY_ in order to accomplish that goal."

This guy seems to have done pretty well... This guy too... You'd be pretty hard-pressed to find somebody that would say that this guy wasn't a helluva competitor without USD back when he was around more often... And I'd be really curious to see what this dude would have accomplished if he had put all of the effort he has into the 4 top ten characters he's had over the last couple years into one...


"Getting into the top 5 all on your own however is bordering on the "nearly impossible" without heavy USD spending. And when I mean "heavy", I mean "go single character until end of NCB, then buy 3 minions with the expensive option, and you better have had bought all the BA too".

*clears throat*

That's me at top score with a 1.4m MPR disadvantage on the top spot and with a net worth about 25-30% lower than the average of those chars listed just under mine...

First... MPR, not Score, nor PR.
Score is largely irrelevant, as it can be manipulated easily either way, it fluctuates a lot even during the day and so on and so forth.
MPR is the only reasonable indicator of success.

Second... none of the people you listed really qualify as "newcomer characters" (that would be like talking about a theoretical me in 8 to 10 years from now and calling me a "newcomer" by then).
The only two major "almost exceptions" to what I said so far were FTW and SingleMinion. But FTW wasn't exactly USD-free (and he was a NUB that under the current rules would have been a NCB if he restarted now not then), and he also benefitted from the crazy-high bonus after the amount adjustment to literally pierce through the "dead zone". And SingleMinion was a two-man effort, and also his performance prompted some gameplay changes (transfer fees) so that doesn't really count either.

Last... let's see how your last NCB works out without USD spending.
Then also compare your ascent with FGoD, who spent a truckload of USD, and tell me what you think about the results... if only BA purchase would have been the issue, you wouldn't see a huge difference later on, but I bet you will, because the gear matters a lot too. Heck, compare with Death-Note, he didn't buy a lot of BA at all.

USD spending in NCB is not the problem, and it is possible without USD.... Anyone seen how much NW JS has? ($277,558,397...without his tat) Ask him how much USD he has spent.

I'm not of the opinion that "newcomers" *should* be at the very top taking spots away from those who've earned it through dedication. Handups, not handouts. They should have the chance to get there, but not a free ride. If it was easy to get there, how fulfilling would it be to do so? Took the people I mentioned quite awhile to get where they are/were, do you seriously think others should be given their spots just cuz they want em?

Seriously, how many "top 10" characters can there be?

I know this one, it's 50, wait no 5, no 100! Goshh you make my head hurt Hatch.

"eriously, how many "top 10" characters can there be? "

Uh, 10?

pipe down college boy and let sum of us'ens whose ain't so lernd have a shot at it!

I'm guessing 2.... and 17

The answer is always 42... but on a serious note... Thank you Hatch for that bit of recognition for what I have done on both Oxcha and Koy... Yes I have been top 5 twice with 2 different chars... no it was not based on mpr but I could beat nearly everyone at the time of my top 5 ascensions.

No I have rarely used USD... and if anything I have sold nearly everything I owned twice... The whole war about USD Vs. Non-USD is kinda a funny thing. There are those that with superior strategy and the stubbornness to keep playing, even with certain NUB/NCB rising to the top or near the top, that have kept plunking away and kept up with the top. It mostly depends on your strategy not how much you dump into your char via USD. Anyone can have a super huge Elb, but without other items, tats, or strats it is useless. Based off of that just using USD alone will not win you the top, but using your brain in conjunction with some USD use can help you rise to the top alot easier than plunking away day in and day out.

I will always applaud Hzarb and Poison for all their hard work and dedication to the game, they deserve the spots they have and deserve everyone's praise. I also applaud Ranger and Novice for their use of USD and Strats that have always given me something to shoot for. I thank Hatch and Zenai and lostling for being there asking me questions and running strats by me day in and day out. Without them I would have never gotten to where I was and where I am now.

Now back on subject... It all depends on the user... I have seen those who have used over 1 billion nw and hardly gotten into the top ten, I have also seen those with 1/5th that get within the top ten in less effort than should have been required... Again it is all based on the user. I cannot await the next year... I love to see change and I know that the top will be changing alot in the near future.

I have been 'known' to be a USD spender in the past but I havent spent any on this current character although I have Insta'd down gear that probably has had USD spent on it in the past.

Definitely you can get into the top 20 fairly easily without spending USD on gear but staying there as a single minion limits you to a few strats only.

I personally like tank/wall teams but I stopped doing that when the NW cap came into place. This has been a very effective way of negating , certainly, one method of USD spending.

I will be starting a NCB within a month and will probably have to buy a small amount of CB$ - certainly when I get to the time of minion hiring (watches the prices of cb$ immediately jump skyward :) )

Hahah... The price of CB is pegged against whether or not you are buying :)

Freed -- You're starting a NCB soon? So you're retiring The Hens of Daze? I hope you're not permanently quitting a 4.7 mil MPR team.

Draco got to where he is by hording items. He's also lied to people about there rarity. Is that something to applaud? I think not.

How does one horde items and lie to people about their rarity?

The statistics of all the items, including how many are in play are open for everyone to see.

Including prices paid via auctions.

I think Draco is a great example of how to play without USD. As is Shadowsparkle, Hatch, and many others.

When the HoCs price was hovering around 10m CB, Jonathan came into chat and stated that they would likely be reintroduced as a supporter item. Draco was there and whined incessantly about it because he was sitting on three or four at the time. He then dumped them onto the market as quickly as possible all the while maintaining that that conversation either 1) didn't happened or 2) was extremely interpretative (his argument being Jonathan was entirely too vague to determine if they would infact be reintroduced.)

"eriously, how many "top 10" characters can there be? "

Uh, 10?

--QBRanger, September 3 12:31 AM ED


--- Priceless

I personally see no problems with people "playing the market" on items.

Hording or not, trying to find the best time to sell them.

At least Jon came into chat and let people know about this.

And those not in chat now have discovered a reason to get in chat.

Caveat emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware".

ankthay ouyay orfay ethay unsolicitedway essonlay inway atinlay.

Seriously,

No reason to get snippy.

You stated something about Draco.

Knowing him for more than 3 years, I can assure you he is a good person and great player.

However, when it comes to buying or selling items, I would hope each person can make their own informed decision on what to buy and the price one should pay for it.

Like the latin lesson we just explored.

Seriously, Draco is great.

HoC ReRelease
Please produce proof that I lied about anything... and I am currently seeking anyone that can show me that I sold a couple of hoc when they were 10 mil a piece, and even so it is good marketing to sell high and buy low.

I'm rather new to the buying USD, But I would have to say alone with my NUB. I shouldn't be buying, but I'd also be lying if I said that I didn't need those items or becoming a supporter did not help. With all the comments said, I do believe if you play your cards right, you don't have to spend a dime. Balance, I can't claim, But I can claim that depending on the player. USD shouldn't really make A difference.

Thanks for your time. =]

Sorry I don't have nor did I keep chat logs. This is my response to what you said in chat as the situation was happening. You never responded in the thread.

Edicinnej September 28 2007 4:50 PM EDT
Draco: Look at how many of them were posted AFTER Jon said what he did RE: HoC's/rereleased. Oh yeah, four of them. As I've said to other people, I have no problem with anyone trying to make money or protect their investment. Saying that you sold yours to "stop people from whining about supporter items being too rare", after being active in chat when Jonathan said what he said, is a lie.

You want to get the most out of your investment. I'm fine with that. Don't try to make this discussion, as it pertains to you, about anything other than that. Thanks!
----------------------------------------------

This isn't the first time that I've called you out on being a liar. You had an opportunity to defend yourself then when both of our recollections of the events were fresh. You choose not to.

What happened to

1) Keep it Civil
2) Stay On Subject
3) Not to Highjack the thread for personal arguments.

Jenn, Draco. Nothing against you. Just wanted to say that, Admins If I have to pay something for hijacking the thread tell me the price.

Sorry.