Proportional EXP Bonus (in General)

Reflecting on Ankou's thread regarding his NUB run, it occurred to me that a potential "fix" (whether or not it's broken might be a matter of personal preference and expectations from the game) to the 6 month NCB/NUB run, which if something goes bad then you don't have much other choices than to scrap the character and start anew.

The idea would be that rather than having a time constrained period for EXP bonuses (you can have it time constrained for money/BA purchases, I'm just talking EXP here) or after the period has ended, there would be some bonus to exp up until you hit 80-90% of the max MPR. This bonus would gradually decrease as you climb the ranks, in a fashion that would allow you through effort to catch up with the top players, yet still take off the pressure of making the "perfect NCB run". I feel that for a run if you don't hit a certain MPR mark then you'll just never be able to play catch up, making your only realistic option to save up and have another run.

I realize that maybe for some having runs might be more appealing that having a long term character, but this was just an idea I was toying around with and would like to hear other views on it.

This has been an idea for a long time now. It is called the rolling bonus idea and a lot of people are in favor of it. Personally I think it is a pretty stupid idea limiting competition and promoting not playing but that is just my take on it. But as I said tons of people like it and have been pushing for it for some time now.

Rolling Bonus > NCB/NUB.

It in no way promotes laziness any more than the current Bonuses do.

Jon doesn't like it, so not going to happen. Unless we can pursuade NS to override Jon. ;)

I agree elite it does dumb the game down a little and cater more towards the casual gamer. But I also feel cb needs to start pleasing the masses rather then the handfull of People sitting at the top.. I mean pretty soon you ten to fifteen at the top are going to be the only ones left playing the game.

A Rolling Bonus would also solve the major mechanics failing of CB.

That of its exponential growth.

One of CBs largest selling points is it's never ending. There is no level cap, and you can continue to play and grow.

There are two problmes with this currently.

1: The design is the larger you are, the larger rewards you get, therefore the larger you conitnue to grow.

Which necessitates some artificial method for players to catch up. Thus the N*B was born.

2: An artifical 'level cap' was introduced by the ending of your Bonus period. This is also refered to as Disposable Teams. Didn't do well enough this time? Scrpa it and start again.

Both would go if this underlying mechanic flaw was changed (and it was noticed to a lesser extent in CB1, where the upgrade curve on XP costs obfuscated the fact. As the larger you got, the slower you improved (not grew), due to the increase in XP costs. But I digress).

If we're not changing this mechanic, the next best solution is to 'fix' it with a permanent, rolling bonus.

Anything less is a 'band aid' that includes it's own failings (like 1600 BA, disposable teams, recalibration, length, etc, etc).

I can't see how the rolling bonus promotes lazyness. If I log on and spend 100 ba a day now, I'd get nowhere. If I log on and spend 100 ba under the rolling bonus.... I'd still be nowhere. I think the bonus would be based on spending all your ba a day.

Yup.

If you take a 6 month break, you're still 6 months of solid play behind everyone else.

You just don't need to start a new team to catch up. You can do it with your old existing team.

I think we should implement a rolling bonus since it won't be long until the game dies if things stay the same as they are now.

I've still never heard a valid reason for why it shouldn't be implemented other than "no" and "it promotes laziness."

As far as the laziness part, if you play at 60% effort, you'll still find yourself far behind the pack. It doesn't promote laziness at all. You can argue that it will create a dead zone of active players in the 1-2 million MPR range, but that's not enough reason to reject it.

On the positive side, it will remove the aspect of disposable characters and lessen the penalty for retraining. Since we're clearly not getting boosts, nerfs, or new items anymore, we desperately need something to spice it up.

I've argued this so many times I'm just tired of it. Giving someone a larger bonus for fighting less is by definition encouraging laziness.
Making buying BA lower your bonus is almost as stupid as NW-PR.

it would be fairly simple to set the bonus so that is not the case novice. remember it gets smaller as you get closer to the top. if the point where it promotes laziness is longer than the six months we have for the current ncb then it no more promotes laziness than the current system. ; )

Eh, we changed to a /20 system from a /10 system, and even dropped the BA regen rate down to 6/*. How is this lazier than that??

to better explain that last statement, with the current system the longer i put off the ncb the higher it gets. if i quit playing for two years i will come back to a much higher bonus than if i make an ncb run now.

in effect it would be no different other than the fact that we could pick up an old team rather than the disposable nature we have now.

The definition of "competitive" in this community is how many times you can get online to click the fight button in a 6 month period.

Until you convince the current community that's not a good definition for competitive, you won't see very much pro-rolling bonus from the older players.

I think it's a great idea, since casual players will not be competitive even with the rolling bonus, and competitive players won't have to save up for 6 years to make a good NCB run or just shell out $1000 in order to play with the top guys.

Maybe it's just that the top guys don't want new people challenging them for top spots?

Whatever the reason, lots of people are against any form of allowing all players to compete in less than 10 years of playing. It's a good way to maintain your lead by just being online to hit fight.

And how does the N*B differ?

If it doesn't then my whole post aobut CBs utterly failing underlying mechanic holds true, doesn't it?

I almost think this is necessary as the top mpr continues to grow.

The NCB is designed to catch the top spot, yet the cost of BA is getting so expensive that this is not all that realistic anymore. The NCB seems more now that if you want a character around 50ish % of the top mpr you make one up. I'm not saying I disagree with that, since the players at the top have put a lot of time and effort in. I just think trying to condense that into 6 months is a flawed system.

Lets face it, the community is A LOT smaller since a couple years ago. Most active players I recognize save for maybe 3-4 new faces. An average growth rate of 2 active players a year shouldn't be acceptable, and I think a change to how bonuses work might draw more people into the game.

I agree it does cater to the casual player, but maybe when that casual player starts seeing big damage and big numbers and has a chance at competition they might turn into an active player. We NEED new blood around here to keep this game alive and grow.

Every effort to make things easier has brought further drops in active players... when the hell are we going to stop?

Our current problem is getting people through the tutorial, not something that's going to be solved by further lowering the bar.

You think the lack of retention is because the game was made easier? Really?

How does a rolling bonus "make it easier"?

It's just a different way to manage the current bonuses, that actually the majority (and if we need apoll to proove this, I'm happy to ask for one to be put up!) of players would prefer over the N*B we currently have.

Both ways give players increased XP soley to catch up to the top.

Both ways need contant gameplay to work, with the same equivalent effort involved.

What is 'easier' about not having to ditch your team, for a newer one with a larger bonus?

If anything, a Rolling bonus would be 'harder' as it would be inplace for longer, and not be condensed into a tiny 6 month timeframe.

i thought that was the problem too, but in all of the feedback (granted it wasn't much) no new player mentioned the tutorial as the reason they weren't returning. many stated the game was boring, not enough ba or no graphics.

as far as your other statement goes, correlation does not imply causation. do you have any data to back up these theories nov or are they just theories?

Actually, I already asked for the poll, recently too.

http://www.carnageblender.com/poll/poll-results.tcl?poll_id=464

68% of CBers prefered a Rolling Bonus.

I'm painfully aware the the bonus isn't the only factor, but it's certainly shared a time frame. When CB was at it's peak getting to the top was a year and a half of careful fighting and well used NW. The more we cheapen the experience the less value it has... how am I the only one who sees that?

well usually when you are the only one who understands things and everyone else is just crazy... ; )


honestly though, we could all say the same thing about our pet peeve in the game, no?

i think uc needs to be on a linear damage model like the rest of the game. i can then say that the longer uc stays non-linear the more people leave the game.

someone else hates the specialty crossbows, the longer they stay overpowered the more people leave the game. the robf is becoming the de facto tat, the longer this continues the more people leave the game. jon seems to have forsaken us, the more time that goes on between his logins the more people leave the game.

breast implant surgery has increased over the last decade, the more boobage around, the less people play cb. alien abductions are on the rise...correlation does not imply causation.

meanwhile we have gotten feedback from people that have left and stated that they no longer liked the disposable nature of teams in the game. no one is saying make the game any easier, we are asking for a different implementation of the current bonus. one that instead of encouraging disposability of teams would do the opposite.

Then make the Rolling bonus take 1 and a half years of constant fighting to get to 95% of the top MPR...

You could increase the N*B length to 1 and a half years as well.

Doesn't change a thing about the discussion mate.

Novice, the game is slowly bleeding to death. Who cares if it'll promote laziness as long as it can potentially keep people interested.

I see it as almost common sense that people would rather always have a shot of getting to the top rather than fighting forever and still failing, unless of course, they pour $ into CB.

The tutorial takes a few minutes, an hour at most? The problem of not having a shot to make it to the top is a fairly larger problem I believe.

I take offense at this! The more boobage I have will not mean that I play less cb... Well actually it might.

On another note, I will post a big post here after I get back from class because there isn't enough perspective in here yet.

Personally I think people crying wolf is a far bigger issue for long term survival than the difficulty in getting to 95% of the top.

The number of hardcore active players is pretty damn stable, I'm not saying it's great but it's a fair bit better than the troop of "the game is dying" folks make it out to be.

> I take offense at this! The more boobage I have will not mean that I play less cb... Well actually it might.

At very least it will cost you your ability to figure out the more complex elements of CB, because, ya know, girls suck at math.
Sorry Nat :-)

I think its important any rolling bonus should be exp only. That still rewards those that are here longer through the power of NW. Right now people that want to crack the top 10 are seriously hindered by the fact that you need serious CB investment to get to the mpr needed, which doesn't leave much left over in the way of NW. You have to spend USD to get there or you have to wait a couple of years.

I don't think that is healthy for player retention.

Out of curiosity I would like to see an admin start a community NUB with a near perfect strategy for optimized growth and see how it ends up like after 6 months. If we can't get it near the top in terms of NW or mpr then the bonus is truly flawed.

Horseguy ftw. I am back to playing CB casually, but if I were to try to play competitively I would almost certainly end up quitting again. There is just no point unless you have money to dump on the game.

That is, unless you were one of the very consistent players who kept their team from the start and managed to miss a negligible amount of BA, and thus kept *both* their NW and MPR.

and you're just ignoring the non-usd spenders who've built huge NW and have high mpr teams...

Cheapen the experience and lower the bar further... it's worked so well thus far

Seriously Novice? There is only like maybe 5 who have insane networth's without USD spending. (aside from nub's of course).

Here's some personal character info.

I'm running a sub optimal strat, and haven't ever hit 100% CB with it.

I've never bought BA (bar the 1600 to start with, yet another flaw with the N*B).

I've never had any cash in CB, and for this team not spent any USD on it.

I started with minimal gear, giving just aobut everything I owned away as prizes before this NCB.

I've hit a lot of natural BA, but missed a bit and missed days.

With just under a month left, I've got an MPR of 2.5M. So the 3M 'target' isn't so far fetched. I could have easily have reached it. (There's no way in hell I could get to 95% of the top MPR, but then I don't think *any* NCB could without serious USD investment. I know I'll *never* be competitive in CB, and I'm actually not sure what I will do once i've reach the personal goal of actually finishing a Bonus run.)


I also have my original January 1st 2005 Character active as a bank alt. If I had the ability to play him, and not have to cycle through disposable teams, I'd go right back to him.

Rolling Bonus aside, I think it's telling that back when I asked for that poll to be run, 87% of CB players who voted wanted some sort of change to the Bonus system.

Of the 13% who liked the N*B, we never did find out how many of those were actually running a NUB at the time, and would be biased towards the massive bonuses it grants.

Now you could write the result off as the masses not knowing what they want. But if the majority of players aren't happy with a feature is it really good design to ignore them?

This is how you get people to play and STAY!!!

I personally don't like the Rolling bonus. Why? Because it really does encourage more laziness. Now encouraging laziness isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it is not good to give a free ride with no drawbacks.

Under the current method with a nub run you can take a free ride up a certain extend, but to move up farther you have to do it without any sort of bonus. (This can be done people. No one ever seems to take the time to figure out what you need to do to move up in the ranks. I personally have moved from around 15th highest mpr to 5th highest mpr in about 7 months with 2 people hiring to jump ahead of me in that period. Ask me if you want help on what can be done to get ahead.) With a rolling bonus however, you can move up at the same pace for free all the way up the ladder until you cant grow as fast at the top ranks without buying ba. If the RB actually works this would be somewhere around 75-80% of the top MPR. You would be able to maintain around 75-80% of the top players mpr without ever spending anything to buy ba and getting most of your ba while at that level. Lower levels it would be less important to actually hit all your ba. Not only would you have a free ride this high, but you would still have just as much bonus as if you had been working at buying all ba burning at 100% CB and all the other host of things you can do to fight hard these days. You would be able to start burning bought ba and jump into the top ranks. If everyone can hit the top ranks without a significant investment that makes the top ranks meaningless and growth also becomes meaningless. You might as well just make a cap on size and be done with it.

Another problem with the RB that the NCB currently addresses is shuffling in the ranks. ALL the RB does is shrink the gap. It will never let you pass someone you wouldn't pass without a bonus. The ncb does allow for shifting in the ranks because if you work hard or not the bonus is a set time period. What will end up happening is the RB will either not work, and no one can catch up with the top ranks to their satisfaction. Or it will work and everyone gets shoved up there or near there.

That all said I think the ncb works better than a rolling bonus would for the needs of this game. However I can see that what the problem is is that the more hardcore players think that the game isn't competitive enough and don't want to see that drop farther. The more casual players often find this game too competitive to be to their liking. You need to cater to both sides of the population, not 1 or the other.

My solution to this would be to change the way the BA regeneration accrues and the BA cap limit. Rather than having BA accrue at a certain rate dependent on the character size, you instead have the option to choose at what rate the BA will accrue at and at what limit it will stop accruing. The setup would be like this. There is a new bonus called something I am going to nominally call it a Difficulty bonus. At the hardest setting of 150 max BA and 10 BA regen you get a 20% bonus on all of your fights. (Note that base rewards are adjusted for your BA regen rate still. So at 10 BA regen you get the proportionally smaller rewards per fight from ones at 6 BA regen.) You can choose anywhere from 10 to 5 BA regeneration each point below 10 will remove 2% of your difficulty bonus. You can also choose to increase the maximum BA accrued amount from 150 to 250 in multiples of 10 each multiple over 150 takes away 1% of your Difficulty bonus. A change to the BA limit and regeneration rate will only take into effect at cache flush each day to prevent abuse of the system.

This should cater to both the more competitive players in that they can try fight at a higher regen rate to gain that extra edge on other players. More casual players can also find it easier to find the time to play without feeling like they are missing out. With a 250 BA cap and 5 regen rate you would have 16 hours and 40 minutes before you hit the cap. I think having an almost once a day max is pretty forgiving. I don't expect too many people to choose all the way to a maximum on either end, most will have the amount they like somewhere in the middle. This also gives a sort of ability for vacation mode. You can switch it to the minimum and only log in 1 time a day without losing too much ba.

I hope this wasn't too long for everyone. ^_^

so your setup would keep the n*b? if so how do we deal with the fact that the bonus keeps growing? it is well over 500% now and jon recalibrated it once and it is likely overdue for another.

Why is a growing bonus a problem?

each fight becomes so much more valuable to attaining the goals. ncb's understand this but true new users don't quite comprehend the fact that they should be only fighting winning battles. the higher the bonus goes, each individual battle is then all the more important in regards to reaching the top.

also, as we have seen in tournaments, the big bonuses make it very hard to manage a fight list. you really need to be fighting each person only a few times and watching the challenge bonus very closely. then you run into the issue where finding new opponents becomes a finesse issue itself. the better you are at that the better you will do. for ncb's not a big deal, again for newer players it isn't something that would seem that important to success.

most of all, if it wasn't necessary why did jon take it from 3 months to 6? i think he understood the need to make the game accessible to new players, not just the hard-core cb'ers! this will be an ongoing process with much intervention. the rolling bonus would be a one time implementation at least.

another ? how does your idea discourage the disposable nature of teams on cb that we currently have? that would be the reason, in my opinion, that most support the rolling bonus.

While you can do that, the 'free ride' is supposed to take you to 95%. Whichever bonus we use.

And if it's really wanted we close the gap this way, then we don't need the Bonus at all. ;)


It would be exactly the same free ride as constantly restarting a N*C with a larger bonus.

What you're mentioning I suppose is more of a change of pace. With the N*B you *have* to make sure you get 100% out of everything you do! No wasting BA! A loss is a massive detriment on your bonus time.

With a RB, the pace is more, sedate. It doesn't matter if you don't maximise your BA, as you can still keep plodding along.

But if you don't maximise, and don't get everythng out of your BA, you won't keep pace.


But isn't that how the game is supposed to work? Don't pass someone unless;

You're getting a higher CB, Higher Clan Bonus, whatever else to get the slight edge on them.

All the RB would do is let that facet of gameplay exist at all character sizes, at any time in a characters life.

No shooting past the old vet while you have a worse set up or win ratio becuase yout N*B gives you a massive bonus to XP compared to his nothing.

The RB would bring back the focus of CBs old gameplay. Being that bit more dedicated/clever/strategic to your peers in order to get the foot up on them.

With the N*B, you don't get that. You get 6 months to 'powerlevel' to your final footing, then at that level you start to try to claw above your current peers, but that's about all you've got to hope for. So unless your Bonus run took you to the 'tier' you want to play at, it was wasted.


Wouldn't the RB bring this together? The 'casual' players could compete at thier own pace, while the 'hardcore' players could still be doing what they do, and have an increased amount of competition.

Isn't that win/win?


I'm not sure that would allow people to catch up. It also causes issues with CP generation and the Drop System.


Not for me! I love posts like this! ;)

This is very true

but I REALLY like the proposal of "choose your own difficulty" playing! Being able to choose your own regen rate, at the expense or gain of bonus exp, would be awesome.

It's a great idea! ;)

But one I see balanced with itself, if that makes any sense. ;) Increase your Ca and regen rate, so you can Click more, but your rewards decrease so you don't gain anything over anyone else by doing so.

So you've got two chars in a rolling bonus setup;

A: specialized setup geared towards maximized rewards. Vulnerable to massive farming and with a short fightlist

B: the worst setup possible

The chars fight the exact same amount of BA over the lifetime of the chars. Strat Ninja (A) gets approximately 10% more in rewards over the life of the char. Dedicated and stupid (B) gets a higher rolling bonus because of being smaller than A, thus bringing the gap between them to less than 10%. I find this to be an undesirable result, if you then add in the possible issues with BA (which with JS's help I finally explained to OB) I just don't see it working.

We need to decide what is important for the health of CB.

but to move up farther you have to do it without any sort of bonus. (This can be done people. No one ever seems to take the time to figure out what you need to do to move up in the ranks. I personally have moved from around 15th highest mpr to 5th highest mpr in about 7 months

This is the problem. 6 months for a NUB and 7 months to move up some ranks is 13 months of investment. This is also assuming you have a very thorough and solid understanding of the game and didn't squander any of your bonus time. Very few people actually want to spend that much time playing a game unless it is something as involved as WoW.

You would be able to start burning bought ba and jump into the top ranks. If everyone can hit the top ranks without a significant investment that makes the top ranks meaningless and growth also becomes meaningless.

I don't agree here. As it is now no one can hit even close to the top ranks without a significant investment. What is worse here? Making growth meaningless for the top 10 (I don't think it would anyways, it would increase competition and create a healthy metagame), or giving everyone else a reason to keep growing their character? There is no attachment to characters, only NW and tattoos. That should change.

The game won't change for those at the top anyways since they still have a NW advantage and have a level playing field in terms of growth with everyone else at the top. I don't see why it is a problem to give everyone an opportunity to eventually participate and contribute to the metagame, instead of having almost no opportunity as it is now.

Strat Ninja would still be at the top, 100% MPR, and S&D would still be behind him, but at 92% of his MPR instead of 90%.

Big freakin' whoop, he is still behind, and that still won't change unless he improves his strategy.

My question is, why does that 2% matter? Strat Ninja is on top because of his strategy, and unless S&D BECOMES COMPETITIVE, always will be.

You keep saying how hard it is... yet you yourself made it there prior to quitting. We've continued to have shakeups at even the highest levels, right now no one in game is even close to holding the #1 spot.

Wouldn't work like that mate.

The crappy crap guy wouldn't;

1: Be winning as many fights
2: Won't be getting as large a Challenge Bonus

So would massivly lag behind.

Sure, his bonus would be remaining larger than the strat master, but he would still be falling behind in overall MPR/etc.

Becuase to stay level would mean equivalent wins and rewards, including bonuses.

Imagine those exact same two running a new NCB at the same time.

That would be the outcome, only it wouldn't stop after 6 months...

Would he be less far behind than without a rolling bonus?

most new users actually use the worst setup possible. if we could keep more of them around for longer, then perhaps they would have time to learn better setups?

there are a ton of smart players, some have left, but we still have some major smarts here! we can still find a way to reward those who fight smarter, harder or both. there are multiple reward structures already in the game and we can create more.

surely though there is a way to make teams less disposable and still make everyone happy?

of course we can discuss and theorize all day but even if we can come to some grand conclusion there are still some pretty substantial hurdles.

Would he be less far behind with a Rolling Bonus? Possibly. But who cares? What folk do in the lower ranks is meaningless. It has fun only to them.

Would it allow the bad player to make it to the competitive top? No.

The Bonus is *only* here (in any fashion)to allow competitive play. You don't want to play competitively, you don't need to start a NCB. Just make a new guy and do whatever it is you want to do with him.

The reaosn CB2 was created was for competition. And allowing *all* players to have an equivlaent shot for the top, regardless of when thier charcater was created.

Catering to the middle ground has never been CBs way. You make your own fun, without backing, if you don't want to shoot for the top.

have a char reset that allows for re-NCB... poof less disposable chars

I'm still of the mind that easier on CB means less complicated. There are too many options early on, and too many traps item wise. By far the biggest trap is NW-PR. Lowering rewards for gaining NW is so absurd it hurts me.

I would say if you make it within 60% of the top mpr that team is not disposable. Running a current ncb with no investments and a fair knowledge of fighting and strategy you can easily make this mark.

Nat, it's still 'failed' the Bonus time. And you'd be better off restarting to hit the magical 95% than continuing to plod along. That's the disposable team issue.

(Caveate: It's only ever better ot restart if you think you can improve on your run. Miss less BA, hit higher CB, be in a higher Clan. But if you *can't* do any of that, your non Bonus charcater will never climb the ranks anyway...)

So why is it such a poor thing if the person evens out at 92% of the other guy instead of 90% by having a poorer strat? He's still behind.

I was under the impression that the main argument was that no matter how long you stop, as long as the bonus extends to anything that isn't in first place, you can always get arbitrarily close to #1, regardless of how long you quit.

The main argument against seems the same as the main argument for, right?

/thisisanexcerptfromchatwithibananconoviceandoddbird

And a NCB char reset that allows for less-disposable characters would be at least a minor improvement, novice, but it still doesn't change the fact that it is effectively deleting your character. You're just automatically setting the new name to be the same as the old. There are still starting-from-scratch encumbrance issues, where you have to go find tiny crap to play with until you can get into real fighting, as an example.

I have cracked it in the past however I also had to spend 700 USD to do it, sleep <5 hours a night for little while, etc.

I'm only a casual player now, but I think it would do wonders for the game to allow as many people as possible into that top etchelon of the game.

Vets would still have all of their NW, so they would still retain the advantage.

No. Lol!


Balance mate. I tohught we'd discussed this to death. There's no way not to have a NW-PR link. The game would colapse and sease to be if NW-PR was removed. That would have a far more detrimental effect on the longevity of CB than a RB ever would.

BTW, 100% agreeeeeed

Which makes me think, why not code in a 'class' system for NUB players.

Warrior / Mage / Archer / Enchanter

Lock all other skills/hiring more minions until they hit a certain mpr. Would certainly add a 'level up' feel to the game, and help eliminate terrible strategy choices early on that lead to losing most battles. Ease people into the massive amount of choices that exist in this game :)

CB1 rocked without NW-PR, items could help you level faster thus eliminating the need for any kind of bonus outside of challenge.

Which was why CB2 was created...

maybe cb1 with usd added rocked, it sucked butt with no money put into the game other than what i made in it. i started in march of '03 and i think i was only about 70 percent of the top mpr when cb2 came about. i was only about 5 percent of the top net worth plowing all of my proceeds back into my character.

CB2 was created because Jon felt that new players believed they'd never catch up. The reality was that they had as much opportunity as they do now, but the system required specialization and/or NW and more than a year of work. The current system subsidizes their growth, but punishes them for using the NW they gain while growing. NW-PR is only detrimental to new players.

CB2 allows all types of teams to have an equivalent chance to reach the top.

Unlike CB1 totally favouring those who could sink USD into a massive weapon (preferably an ELBow).

It's kinda obvious which one's we prefer. ;)

HORSEPOO

A team with significant PR or a non damage tat has FAR less chance of hitting the top. The huge pain of PR cripples teams...

Optimal strats have optimal growth. Suboptimal strats have suboptimal growth. Tattoo use and PR are strategy. Optimise them and thier use for optimal growth... Independant of chatacter type.

In CB1 a Mage could never have the ability to grow as well as a Tank.

There was no balance in CB1. It was massive Weapon and USD ruled all.

that encompasses my experience as well. i was a mage though. ; 0

Same.

I ran a MM mage (single back then) as I couldn't afford to run a Tank.

an optimal strat here is naked... naked enough to have completely decimated the item market... ITEMS are one of the major points that make cb awesome!

When the initial conversation with a new user involves having to beg them not to buy or upgrade anything there is something horribly wrong.

No it's not.

In now way is it optimal to remain naked.

Most of the powerful items grant thier bonuses without upgrades, and they add next to no PR. Like a base TSA.

Weapon PTH adds the most PR in the game, and it's not necessary. Just a pure bonus.

The minimal amount of PR armour adds is totally off set by the higher Challenge Bonus it allows you.

It also increases your base rewards, as they are based on your PR...

Isn't this more the fault of lesser familiars and store weaponry/armor than NW-PR?

"Seriously Novice? There is only like maybe 5 who have insane networth's without USD spending. (aside from nub's of course)."

I don't have an "insane" networth but I think I am doing pretty well at the game. I have only played for 2.5 years; I did not do amazing at my NUB. However, through dedication and such I have the 6th biggest tattoo, several top items in the game, ~25 mill cash, and another 40 or so million floating around in loans. I have challenged the top spot 2-3 times without ever buying tons of BA or buying CB with USD. So I don't think its impossible to do good at this game without USD or playing from the start. If you play consistently and don't sell out/get reset you can do quite well in this game.

Only playing 2.5 years? I think that is a looooong time to play a game.

Be proud of your achievements though, please don't take this as a shot at what you have accomplished in this game! Keep going!

Disclaimer* I loove CB and what it offers. I play casually now but will continue to play as long as I can. However, looking at it form another point of view:

- CB is stagnant in the sense that there will more then likely be very little that changes in terms of items and gameplay any more.
- Usually in games that require years of investment from players come chock full of updates and new content. CB does not.
- The community expects people with no prior knowledge of the incredibly advance strategies/team combinations to essentially suck it up and hope for the best.
- If you don't have a great NUB run you can save for 1 year and hopefully after 6 months of a well thought out NCB and another 7 months of active playing you can get within 90-95% of the top mpr. Forget about NW unless you have some USD to spend.


IMO, I'm not so sure if this looks to attractive for some one just getting into the game.

It is definitely frustrating as it is repeated like a freaking broken record with absolutely no explaination behind it. (>.<)



Indeed but only a select few get it and usuall don't know what to do with it until a month into it....what a waste of time!




Indeed but to be honest the definition of competitiveness per person is a bit different. Currently everyone is of a consesus Competitive = Click Enter to burn all BA. Now to set it straight the way the system is currently set up that is 75% true. Add in a good strat and items and well you already know. No BA burn = no growth and therefore not competitive.




To a point yes but at the same time you would still be forced to click enter more to be competitive. The difference here I believe is easing your way into it rather than the Cliff N*Bs are placed on at present. If you mess up you will have time to fix it without saying hold crap well this one is done, time to start another one.



One the bar technically is not lowered it is simply more ramped rather than a freaking Cliff face. Two the Tutorial is a mess and has needed fixing for a long time. I do believe you were working on a different version, what happened to it nov?



We should listen and at least give this a try. If there was a way to beta test this theory I would definity give it a try.



The Experience is defined by the player and every player is different nov. However if you really want to keep the ubergrind experience what if there was different levels of it? Easy, Moderate, and Hardcore. You get a different RB% for each, everyone is separated into different Realms by the choice they make. Just a thought.......



It still doesn't take away from the fact that overall for an online game the #'s here for Stable Active Players suck we need more people to stay and play if an RB does it then so be it.



Indeed, not to mention no matter which way you go you will need help and have to pay for it or you will still be left behind rather quickly.



In that light I do believe many that valued their original char would do the same.



Taking into account everything you have said Nat honestly you could tier the Rolling Bonus in a similar way and get much better results both in short and long run that would address the problem more thoroughly. GL addressed you more in depth and eloquently though.



As it should be yet it would still be nice to have MORE players competing at that level of gameplay. A RB with proper Mechanics in place could verywell do just that with truly dedicated players. Just a chance can make people work just that little bit harder.



Which is truly sad considering the amount of investment is required Timewise just to be competitive. Not to say the cool stuff added so far is nil but come on we're talking about truly game altering stuff, something that shakes the foundations of CB.


Honestly there should be a 2 week delay from the tutorial to the actual NUB....although I do think a RB would greatly help with this problem :-)



Even USD doesn't automatically net you a top 10 spot or 90-95% of the highest MPR. IE this game no matter how good is just demanding a bit too much from New Players and Old Players alike.


Rolling Bonus with better mechanics, add in difficulty levels,throw in Nats Vacation Mode, sprinkle in Sealing and watch the fireworks!

now that i think of it a little deeper... i do believe the N*B is actually a valid way to go even into the future...

granted the bonus just keeps getting bigger... however a new player's inexperience will often make them fall way short of the expected target ( of course its provided they ARE new players in the first place )

however... i believe to counter the crazy amount of money people burn to buy BA during N*B i think that N*B's BA should be the cost of normal BA... this is simply due to the fact that its for a limited time and as the game goes on 95% of the top MPR will be increasingly hard to meet.

Why is this a good thing?

These are all great ideas, but from the sound of it, they have, in one shape or another, been proposed before. If that is the case, and they weren't implemented before, why would they be now? Why wouldn't this just become another neglected 'this needs fixing' rant thread? Is there any way we could sandbox these to see if any of them could actually work?

that keeps the older players who keep playing persistent characters happy.... *shrug* the NUB leaves little room for error... either learn quick or you lose say 10 exp for every 1 you would have gained without nub... however if you made the N*B's BA normal instead of inflated a NUB can still run a N*B after his NUB has ended...

if people are concerned about people using NCBs to farm up tatts... simply make it only avaible once a year or soemthing

i think most of us here actually enjoy beating our heads against a stone wall just in case this time we can knock it down! ; )

It makes older players happy that the NUB is set up for failure?

Not this older player.

A tournament style tutorial that lasts up to 2 weeks would go a long way to alleviating the jump into a nub. And of course you give lots of warnings about how you only get 1 nub run and it is very important.

& how you need to win every fight as every fight is crucial. also that you need to somehow find the highest challenge bonus opponents as possible while somehow managing to waste no fights looking for those opponents.

A tournament style tutorial that lasts up to 2 weeks would go a long way to alleviating the jump into a nub. And of course you give lots of warnings about how you only get 1 nub run and it is very important.

This! I posted something very similar in a new thread so as not to hijack this one. I think it is a great idea!

This.

The larger the N*B bonus beocmes, the more important this is.

Some people might enjoy the hardcore challenge.

Why not have both options runing side by side? A RB by default, but the option to opt out of it (for ever on that character) for the usual NCB. If you want to condense your run into a shorter time frame, with the added difficulty that every fight is that much more important.

I believe I adressed this inmy uber post. The RB could be Tiered into 3 levels for those that wan to have a harder faster run go the Hardcore path, want to take your time and take it easy then go the Marshmellow path, then of course there would be the run of the mil path. These of course would be picked at the beginning of the chars creation and would be changeable in "X" timeframes.

Justa a thought.......

You wanna rap? I'll make you delirious;
You'll hear my rhymes, be like "Is he for serious?";
You're gettin warmed up, I'm doin hurdles;
Wanna race me? You're with the turtles.
Yeah I'm an intellectual, I got the All Spark;
To me, you're Gollum, and I'mma leave you in the dark.
If you think that's all, I'mma disappoint you;
I'm the messiah, with my words I anoint you.

^

why CB is dying

I hardly doubt my attempts to lighten the mood in this thread causes the game to die.

Don't you get it people? Nothing will ever change. There'tll be 300 replies in this thread and it'll just stop and everyone moves onto the next topic of debate. It's stupid to discuss the game mechanics over and over because ultimately, I don't think NS and Jon care that much how well thought-out your posts are. Regardless of everyones' opinions, I doubt the game will be changed in any drastic way because the game isn't even on their list of priorities.

Nope, rap is killing CB

Rap that contains references to The Transformers and LotR?

That's nerdy Rap my friend! And one of a kind! :P

That "other" thread got me thinking. Why doesn't CB sell cash?

I've thought about that beore, and the only reason I can think of is a closed economy.

Selling cash would in essence allow an unlimited amount of CBD to enter the game.

Then there would be complaints about Central Bank setting the USD per min rate.

Fine, then purchasable consumables... the games who have those sort of cash for play elements seem popular as hell.

Have one that adds to damage and one that adds to defense.
Special Rituals or something...

Why?

Then CB becomes even more of 'spend cash to compete'. Most popular gmes with cash for features are usually not balance ones. Like larger inventory slots, customisation, and maybe even unlocking classes. But it's usually just a faster thing.

Save up for a month to unlock this class, or buy it right now!

Adding extra damage/defense for cash just makes CB pay to play. And I know that owuld turn a lot more people off than it would interest.

GL: That solely depends on the group CB would then be catering to. Tons play WoW and are drawn in by the fact that they can buy into it some and compete to a point with the upper ranks in a relatively short amount of time. Roughly 3-4 Months with USD infusions and good strategy and it is possible, here it is most definitely not even a year after the fact......it can be a greater deterrent for Players to have to tough it out because the Vets like their spots than making it easier.

Just a thought......

WoW is totalyl different mate. True, you pay to play, but everyone is then the same. No bonuses can be bought over others. Only 'comsetic' or Realm changes can be purchased.

As for the subscription, with that comes the two way street that WoW is constantly upgraded through regular patches.

In WoW you couldn't pay 10USD a month to get an extra 100 DPS over every other Rogue on your Relam...

GL: WoW was just the most Prevalent example for me to use there are Dozens of other Games that use a Pay to Play at it's basis and Still the Strategists are the ones that are ripping them apart. I've stated it before and I will do so again, USD most Certainly does not guarantee a Top Spot it is only a possible stepping stone to the next difficulty level. If you are not ready for said difficulty level what does it matter if you are there? I'm all for having more juicy Targets and Honestly have no problem being one. I Love a Challenge and would have a ton of fun passing them up after crushing them and grinding them into the dirt.

In most cases of pay-to-play games, I would agree, I see the paying strategists at the top, owning everyone.

But just below them are the paying non-strategists

and then everyone else.

The paying members still seem to dominate the top.

Hmm, I thought I was doing pretty good without paying.

You're terrible Nat, absolutely terrible XD

OB/Nat: Well there will always be a few exceptions of course but it still remains that Ultimately it does take a Strategist to get the best results. More often than not those who pay and are not strategists are paying Strategists for advice or at least bugging the crap out of them.

The part that I am trying to get at here is that if there was more pay to play in CB we would have a higher player base and just maybe a higher retention rate. So far non but the most dedicated CB Zombie Vets are at he Top or on their way to it and it is a long way to get there timewise.......2-3 or more years is a major deterrent to New Players even with a very well run N*B it is out of reach.

A chance at the Top is what players are looking for and honestly they are NOT getting it. Fix the Game Mechanics or make it more Pay to Play before CB dies a horrible death.

You realize that pay-to-play drives players AWAY from games like this, right?

You're associating p2p with a high population, like that somehow attracts players

But in reality, the fact is that really GOOD games draw that population and are capable of being p2p for that reason

They aren't drawn into the game because they have to pay for it, they are -willing- to pay for it because the game is so good.

CB can't match up.

7915 users who created a Character.

I know most are inactive. Natasha and others have certain markets cornered in order to produce wealth. Whether it be loans, price control through auctions or forging, these paths only have so much demand from the community (market).

Not everyone can do what these players are doing to create wealth. That is OK, but it shouldn't be flaunted as an 'I can do it so everyone else can do it too' type of attitude.

We should be looking at 2 goals: In the long term player retention, and short term getting a lot of new users to join. Boasting about what certain personal goals a very small % of people are able to achieve (even in these cases when boasting is appropriate!) doesn't help this.

I'm very sure everyone can use loans, profiteering, and forging to make money. It is actually really easy to make money. It just depends on how hard to you want to work.

Hard work is not a substitute for supply and demand. At the moment, there are only so many players that require forging services and loans. If everyone starting offering forging services and loans the supply would be far too high and prices would fall below profitability.

Well that is why I gave more than one option OB.

Fix the game mechanics or make it Pay to play.

Honestly though I think you are selling CB a bit short there bro I have already paid to play and so do some of the Top players in the game. All I'm talkin about is giving it a bit more of a New Player friendly flare adjustment by adding in a few USD atrractions that assist with gameplay and ease the grind that is at CBs basis.

However in either event CB would be forced into change for the sake of saving it, which is what it needs. That is the true purpose of my posting what I have if you can come up with something better then go for it I'm all ears bro.

Just the 2nd half, fixing the game mechanics. Making CB cost money is not going to make it more popular. Fixing the game mechanics would help, fixing the NUB would help...we all know the issues that need adjusting.

We all know what does not work and what needs to be fixed. Some of these things require big changes, including this N*B thing. Why can't we take a poll, or make a formal debate and try to figure out the best way of fixing ONE ISSUE AT A TIME? The paper cuts thread was great for the little issues, can we make one for the big ones too? Maybe even one thread for each 'big project' and each person posts their fix. One complete and thorough post.

or we could keep poking holes in each others ideas and get nowhere.

The problem with your use of "we" is that it does not involve 99% of us. I can't do jack crap about what goes on in game development, all I can do is brainstorm with everyone, and if you're honest with yourself, same goes for you.

The papercuts thread is great because people who can do something about it are involved. If you think we need to take action instead of talking, then I wish you all the luck in the world in persuading the necessary staff to do so.

I know very well that I too cant do a damn thing when it comes to actually changing anything. We are all to aware of the limitations we all face as a whole when trying to make changes. But what I see here, and what I see in lots of other 'fix' threads is people toss out ideas, great ideas, then we all take turns picking the ideas apart in an attempt to get something viable and then we move onto the next subject. Even though we are essentially powerless to make any real change happen directly, can we as a group decide on one or two of the 'best' ideas and actually, formally, propose them? If Jon is required to make BIG changes, then wouldn't it be best anyways to give one or two well thought out proposals rather than a whole thread of partial ideas? If we can actually come to an agreement on a few possible solutions, I see that as our best shot at getting something changed and that IS something the powerless 99% can do.

That would require us to all agree on something, which is always a problem when you have a discussion between 2 or more people ;D

Sounds like a fine idea to me if someone wants to write up a proposal. It'd have to go to NS, though, since Jonathan...

Last login: Aug 18

We wouldn't necessarily have to all agree on one thing. I see no reason why we couldn't find several ideas that would work. It might be in our best interest to try and leave out minor details and work more on a general scale at first just so we can all agree on an overall idea or two.

That sounds pretty reasonable, digging through threads and providing the ideas all in one thread as a simple summary presentation

No need mate. That's what the CPC does.

It is? This is news to me...

well, if we are all going to collaborate on a proposal, I think we should keep it to one focused idea at a time. So, for instance, the first one would encompass our ideas as a community on how to fix the N*B. We can start here in this thread and then look at older ones to see if previous discussions have any other viable solutions.

I would really like to see us be able to get some common ground between ideas in this thread for how to fix the issue at hand. It seems that everyone has a slightly different idea of how to go about solving the issue but hopefully we can all agree on a few basic ideas and work from there.

Two ideas.

1: Rolling Bonus based on your MPR to the top MPR. There are some examples of curves floating around for this.

2: Uncap Challenge Bonus. If you can fight significantly larger targets, you get more than 100% extra rewards.