NCB The broken system. Continued (in General)

First Kefeck I Apologize for helping to derail your Thread. It is a good Topic and should not die because two players have a problem with each other.

Second in the midst of OB and I going at it this is pretty much the way the conversation would have gone without our comments to each other and others to us because of said exchange.


Zenai October 15 11:39 PM EDT
Sickone:


You mean some type of Sliding Scale?

Sickone 1:53 AM EDT


I mean something like this (XP only bonus):
0%-5% of top MPR : 900% bonus
5%-95% of top MPR : bonus = 900% * (95%-Your%)/90
95%-100% of top MPR : no bonus

Replace 900% with whatever you feel appropriate.
Could even be variable in time too, set at, for instance, whatever 2*N*Bonus would have been.
You can set a separate gold-only bonus for new characters if you want, even keep the current one.

This XP-only bonus would be permanently active on all (non-tournament) characters at all times, regardless of age.

QBGentlemanLoser 3:03 AM EDT

I would love to take that Mushu bonus. Whichever gender you consider to be my opposite I would use. ^_^

One another note that's just a rolling bonus without calling it a rolling bonus.

A bonus that drives you all the way up to 95% of the top mpr for sure I feel that that ruins the entire purpose of MPR in the first place. A bonus that drives you to 60% no matter what on the other hand would be fine I think. (Maybe I should point out that its easier to get above 60% with the current ncb) Should probably leave the n*b in the system too so that when people are good and ready they can make a shot for higher up.

If I remember right GL and I were talking about a RB Type that could make things far easier for Old and New chars alike to have a chance at being competitive while at the same time preventing the Lazy Factor. He has all the details though since it was his idea to begin with.

The only type of RB that would not have a real laziness factor would be one that has a very small bonus. It would have to be less than 25% and ramp down farther as you go. At that point though people really aren't going to catch up though.

Well as dudemus once said if the 95% of the Top MPR had not been Stated/Guaranteed then the N*B could be easily seen as a good thing/replaced. Now I agree that the N*B is not all that bad but it could be better, we have all in some way agreed with this point. Unfortunately we just don't seem to be able to agree on what would make it better(Same with a RB).

There has been a TON of people with good points/ideas. Let's face it if worked out properly most of them could work, just not exactly as everyone sees that it should be done. All we truly need to do is get I don't know maybe the Top 5 - 10 Suggestions and refine them. Couldn't we get the Top Number Crunchers in the Game to sit down and hash something out for each? This could be presented to NS/Jon and I'm sure they will at least take a look at it if we as a community could pull together and do something worthwhile.

It would be a big project but honestly if it is something that could possibly better the game is it not worth it?

the only way i would really want the bonus system changed is if we magically had dev time go back to what jon was able to give us in the first couple of years of cb2 plus ns at that same level of input! the chance for breaking the game is very real and present with that kind of overhaul and it would take careful monitoring to see that it wasn't too much or too little.

with that being said, if we had that level of input there are many things that i think are more broken than our current bonus system. i am in no way saying to not give feedback however i wouldn't expect that feedback to be implemented on major game overhauls.

with jon spending no dev time and ns being quite limited in the amount he can give, expecting anything other than small tweaks and bug fixes just does not seem grounded in reality as far as i am concerned.

What exactly do you meant dudemus, remember I took a 3 year hiatus from 05' - 08' so I have a gap in my CB Memory.....lol

you can check out the changelogs to see just how active jon was at that time. by reading some of the titles you will see how he was monitoring game mechanics and tweaking them along the way. the changes were often quite numerous as well.

Something that has been mentioned a few times and would definitely improve the NCB would be to reduce the BA costs during a run. If you think that would make it then too EASY, reduce the BA cap to 800 or something.

Nayab: True reduced BA Costs would definitely help with this situation. However I feel it to only be a smaller piece of the overall scenario. Sickone made a thread about Eve-Online and their Learning Curve:

http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0035lP

I find that while sarcastic that it is also quite true. It will not be long until CB ends up doing the same thing with the N*B System.

Consider this, the Bonus is already getting close to 600% when will it become too much for NP and Vet alike? More than just a reduction in BA Costs will be needed....

Revised "radical change" setup:

1. Remove the "get more" option for BA.
ALL fights gain 33% more XP and CB$.

2. Keep the current "NUBonus", BUT FOR CB$ REWARDS ONLY !!!

3. Add a permanent XP-only bonus to all characters.
Value of rolling bonus for people between 5% and 95% of top MPR
= 2*NUBonus * (95%-your%ofMaxMPR) / 90
Below 5% you get the top cap of the bonus (twice the NUBonus cash value, but in XP), above 95% you get no bonus at all.

4. Add minion hiring third option, at minimal or even no CB$ cost, but 0 XP on it. Better still, make this the ONLY option.
Immediately dismissing newly hired minions should be impossible, put that on a 3- or 7- or even a 30-day cooldown to avoid exploits.

5. Either
5.A. increase tattoo growth rates by a factor of anywhere betweem 1.5 to 2.
or
5.B. decrease MTL by a factor of 1.5 to 2

____


EFFECTS:

1 & 2 - Heavily reduced USD importance.
The only character growth differences between a new user and any other character is purely a matter of cash available for gear and gear upgrades.
Encumbrance might actually start mattering in the higher echelons.

3 - The end of the "disposable teams" syndrome.
The higher the MPR of a character, the better that character is likely to be.
Slacking off is NOT encouraged, because everybody else that is not slacking off will surpass you if you do. You'll just be able to get a bit closer to them easier later on when you stop slacking off, and only surpass them when THEY start slacking off.
Jon is horribly wrong about this encouraging laziness.

4 - Currently, any person that runs a single minion at the start is pretty much doomed to remain a single minion unless they resort to serious USD usage or run a low NW strategy. Needless to say, this is a BAD thing, and needs changing.

5. A "regular" tattoo should grow AT LEAST at the same rate the character's MTL does, preferably even a bit faster.
Depending on what you consider more desirable, either tweak the growth rate of the tattoo (this keeps the max balance in place but lowers long-term the value of current tattoos) or tweak the MTL formula (this keeps most current tattoos relatively as valuable as they are, but changes the max power balance).

Slight corrections...
Currently the New User Cash bonus is already lower than the new user XP bonus since it already figures in the BA purchase costs.
So keep the current already-low-ish cash bonus, don't ramp it up, even if the BA purchase option gets removed.
As for the universal XP bonus, use the current new user XP bonus as base for calculations as described (not the "NUB cash" value as hurriedly written).
But I suppose you knew what I meant. Had to say it just in case it caused any confusions.

Just to clarify, your position is that there should be an over-abundance of CBD - rather than a lack - so that everyone can reach encumbrance limits and so that USD's effect is further limited. Do I understand correctly?

yes ob... that would be awesome

Aye, I too see more positives to an overabundance of CBD than a lack of it

But, but, Rares won't be Rare...

And no one would like the drop system...

Boys...my sarcasm meter just fried itself in GL's general direction.

The N*B just doesn't work how it is supposed to. You can't possibly get to 95% of the mpr unless under the most perfect, heavily funded settings.

That's not something that bothers me these days, but I do think it wouldn't hurt the community to allow as many high mpr characters as possible.

>But, but, Rares won't be Rare... And no one would like the drop system...

:D

Speaking of a game equilibrium point where CB$ are more plentiful but useful in less situations and encumbrance actually could matter... the result of all of that could very well be a serious boost in "rares" value, and therefore also a stealth boost in drop system relevance (not much though).

Of course, since this would actually be a good thing yet far too radical, so it'll never make it into the game :P

So we're all agreed : this is what should be done, and this is something that will never get done... right ?
:)

No

Nat please explain. It's not like you to throw an answer out without a reason behind it.

Hard to explain, I will give it a shot though. The no was to sickone saying we are all agreed on what he said.

Well I kinda gathered that Nat. I was asking for a why?...or rather a why not?, in reference to the system he set up. Wqhat is it that you feel is not right or what would you change?

I can see the type of game that sickone wants. It would work, it would be fun to play for a bit, however its not CB. That is the best way I can put it.

Essentially whats being advocated is a game where everyone is the same size, and everyone has more money than they need. While yes this would make the game more based on strategy in that strategy will be the only reason why you are winning or losing. This would actually kill a lot of the game's appeal. People will not stick around in a game like that for very long.

Whats necessary is to be able to find a happy medium. Giving a full ride all the way up to 95% of the top MPR is WAY WAY too much of a free ride. That number was given for if you ran an absolutely perfect ncb. It was not for if you just did well on your n*b. Why should we make it a free ride up there.

I understand that a lot of people would rather run an older team even if they messed up on it in its n*b period. I think that if you give them a bonus up to 60% of the top mpr that would be a fair amount. Believe it or not it is entirely possible to catch the top from there. You just have to remember that the people at the top are most likely there for a reason in that they are using all those little extra techniques to grow just a little bit faster than the competition.

Money, this is another aspect of competition really. If it has no value, i.e. everyone has more than they need, it is pointless. There would be no draw for competition in this front. For a game that is all about PvP you absolutely need to fuel friendly competition between things. Balancing out the power of USD users is a most of course. Again there is a difference between everyone having excess and a good competitive area.

What we really need is a wider spread of growth potential in order to speed up the process of overtaking people at any size.

That was a well thought out explanation. Now I would ask for another explanation. In light of the things that you have listed I tend to agree. So I would ask what would you instill in place of the Current N*B System,

following along with the players have already listed:

1) Make Old Teams Relevant and Competitive again to help solve the Disposable Character System that is becoming the norm.
2) Make New Teams more player friendly as far as the learning curve and speed of growth while still retaining the MPR Promise.
3) Make the Rewards System balance out for both including the Random Drop System.

and with what you have listed:

1) Not dilute the MPR pool with all players in one place.
2) Allow for more than just game mechanics strategy.
3) Retain the competitive edge by encouraging competitiveness.
4) Balance Gameplay internal Mechanics and USD.
5) A System for a wide variety of growth methods.

PS: Please let me know if I missed/misinterpreted a point I did this in a hurry.

That number below is WEEKS.
The whole graph lasts little under 4 years.

P.S. A linear MPR growth does *not* mean a linear XP/CB$ gain.
The higher you are in MPR, the more each additional MPR point is worth, XP-wise and also in equivalent earned CB$ rewards.
That's just how XP-vs-MPR works.
So even if the graph looks as if characters are "progressing at an even rate, that's not really the case - the "lead" characters actually constantly earn more XP and CB$ than the characters a bit below.

I disagree with this.

An absolutley perfect N*B run would utterly surpase the 95% figure. Unless the Top Team had also, and was continuing, to run absolutely perfect itself.

The 95% figure is for equivalent effort to the top team. If the top team only won 90% of daily BA, then a Bonus run winning 90% of daily BA would reach 95%. Anything more would surpass it.

(This is also winning that amount of BA with an equivalent CB as well. If the top team didn't hit 100% CB for x amount of time in it's run, and a 'perfect' N*B hit 100% for more, then it would also surpase the 95% target)

Sorry for double post, I'd love to be able to edit. ;)

>It was not for if you just did well on your n*b. Why should we make it a free ride up there.

It's not a free ride. You have to match the effort of the top spot to reach 95%.

If the top guy hits 100% CB and never loses a BA, then you have to do exactly the same to reach the 95%.

That's not a free ride...

I still think the attitude of giving some one a 'free ride' in mpr is very unhealthy for the game. The top still has advantage in NW and those little tricks. How could it possibly hurt the game to have as many high mpr characters as possible?

Any bonus that gives 33% or more bonus and is permanent dependent on your size is a free ride. If it is lower than 33% it will no longer be a free ride. Of course at this size you won't notice that much difference in growth.

Are you kidding ?

33% difference in growth rate is the difference between somebody stuck in 7/20 forever (or worse) and somebody steadily progressing towards the upper echelons !
A 33% bonus is the difference between not buying any BA at all and buying all your BA.
A 33% bonus is several times higher than the difference between possible total bonuses from clan sources, and clan rivalry is pretty serious at times.

Even if the rolling bonus WOULD be upper-capped to 33%, it still would matter in the long run quite a bit.
The lower you cap it, the longer it takes to really matter, but it will matter either way.

Having just finished my NUB some of my thoughts...

Fast XP should continue up to the 6/20 rank at a minimum, potentially up to 80% of max MPR -- going to 95% is probably too far. You don't have to be within 5% MPR to have a strategy to beat somebody.

Tattoo Level and CB$ also dramatically impact the power and effectiveness of a team.

When I first started I wanted to run a tank strategy and as I progressed I realized that it isn't even an option without significant USD spend or many years of earning CB$.

New players are thus forced into playing a familiar / mage strategy which for some may be a turn off to the game.

does 95% of the top players xp equate to 95% of the top players mpr?

No. Although the difference isn't huge. Something like 93% vs 95%.
But 60% of top MPR, for instance, means a bit over 52% of top XP.
The lower you go percentage-wise, the worse it gets.

I'm not kidding Sickone. You imply that just because you are getting a bonus means that you will catch up with the top ranks. That isn't necessarily true. It depends on how large that bonus is and how effective relatively you are fighting compared with how the top is fighting.

was just asking because i went back and read jon's post and it actually says the formula was designed to get you to 95% of the top players xp, not mpr as we have been thinking.

Exactly why a perm bonus wouldn't be a free ride. ;)

It is for those who are willing to use it in that manner.

QFT

For nat's defense, I would use it that way.

So if you are fighting effectively in comparison to the top ranks, and catching up, that's a free ride? I'm lost.

If the bonus is 33%, I would not buy BA, I would still catch up, and I would gain ground CBD wise... free ride, yay!!!

Sorry Nat, you lost me. :(

the bonus could only apply to bought ba then?

But you can already do this now to a lesser extent with challenge bonus. Just sit around 1M MPR, don't buy BA, and gain ground CBD-wise. You'll gain ground on them, you'll just even out eventually and stop gaining - just like you would with a bonus that shrinks as you approach upper ranks.

So I'm still confused about how it's a free ride.

If the bonus were 33%, you would fall behind if you did not buy BA.

You'd gain as much EXP as another character buying no bonus BA at the _same_ MPR. But since the top character is a much higher MPR, they would be gaining more exp than you would.

And free ride? You still need to fight as hard as the top player to hit the 95% mark. You have to match his challenge bonus, his money spent buying BA, and amount of times hitting the enter button.

That's precisely what I'm saying.
Yes, as long as you get ANY bonus compared to the top MPR, assuming you fight at least as effectively, you WILL catch up to the top ranks... up to the point where the bonus ceases to apply.
The smaller the bonus, the longer it will take you to catch up. With a maximum 33% bonus, it might take a couple of years, but you WILL catch up.

if everyone grew at the same pace there would be no difference in mpr at all.

What was that post in relation to? It's obvious that if everyone grows at the same pace there would be no difference in MPR. (at least, rate of MPR gain. There are already differing MPRs.)

That's what I am saying OB. The people at the top are there for a reason. They are the ones growing faster in the first place. Any bonus would have to offset that difference to begin with. If people are stuck in around 60% of the top mpr that means they are growing at a 40% slower rate than the top mpr. This would mean that they need at least a 66% bonus in order to offset this difference. Remember that anything 33% or more is a free ride essentially.

Ok Nat you have still not answered my question. I know a lot of people are picking your brain right now, but, I would still like to get an answer. Please refer to my last post.

I thought it was because they had no challenge bonus penalties, whereas the low amount of score in the system caused others to start running into this problem before they hit 60%.


OK, I'm following you there.


You never proved this assertion. I'm still looking for an explanation of how this is a 'free ride.'

Ok, I think this is what you are looking for. I actually think that the current ncb bonus is better than a rolling bonus. That said I know it encourages disposing of your team (whether it is actually better to dispose of your team or not is an entirely different matter).

Again, my thoughts on the whole matter are that what people want is to be able to compete on a better standing even though different people will have different ability to log in a burn ba. I believe the best solution to that would be to allow for a difficulty bonus that determines your ba regeneration rate and cap. This way would allow for the people less able to get on to compete in the higher ranks. I am pretty sure logging in 1-2 times a day and being able to burn all your ba is pretty reasonable. In order to make it fairer for clan point generation you can of course just multiply the current amount and give a ratio of the total dependent on your BA regen rate.

Give people the means to make it to the top ranks on their own power rather than giving them a free boost up there is a much better thing in my opinion. This will leave them with a better sense of accomplishment as well. Another benefit of it would be that it makes it far harder to keep a hold on the top ranks while leaving them worth a lot.

I still agree with your alternative bonus suggestion. I think it is a good idea.

But you never answered my questions. :( Why is anything over 33% a free ride? What's the reasoning behind this statement?


On an aside, my personal concern is not this at all. I don't care if someone is unable to log in as often, and is thus unable to compete as well. In fact, I'd say that being able to compete while logging in as little as 2-3 times a day currently is more a cause of stagnation than improved competition.

What I am looking for in a bonus system is not "let's create convenient competition," but rather "let's allow everyone a shot at competitiveness if they put in the effort." Note: that doesn't mean putting in 400 million CBD, because that almost always translates to a USD influx, and I don't feel that should be a necessary part of a character bonus. Right now, it is all but necessary, and the cost increases every day with the bonus percentage.

The percentage itself is an issue, as well. The bonus system we have now has a constantly increasing percentage, and will soon enough be so high that one cannot maintain a fightlist with it. That's counterproductive to growth, and counterproductive to the concept of a bonus altogether. That's one of the biggest reasons I like the idea of the rolling bonus: because the percentage is a static one that decreases with growth. There's no need to keep patching the system.

That's also something I liked about your idea: it's not a constantly increasing bonus that needs patching and actually ends up hindering growth.

THAT is what I'm looking for in a bonus system: a fix. Not convenient competition.

Actually, no, they aren't there for a good reason.

A person fighting at about the best of his ability will always have an almost perfectly LINEAR MPR growth once the big positive challenge bonus has been passed.
The ones at the top are there at the top because either they started a long time ago very near the top, or they reached the top with a N*B. If you would cut their MPR to 80% of their current MPR, they would NEVER be able to regain the loss compared to the rest that have a similar amount of effort put in, not unless they restart as a N*B.

To me, it seems far more appealing to reward CONSISTENT long-term hard work rather than the "burst" 4-month and now 6-month performance during a N*B run, with absolutely no chance to do anything else about it later.

Let me repeat that to you : right now, almost everybody in 6/20 that is out of the N*B period will be earning roughly 25k-30k MPR per week, with the HIGHER MPRs earning ever so slightly more, because they have a slightly better target selection.
The top MPRs are gaining MPR at about 10%-15% faster rate than those in the bottom of 6/20. It would take a literal miracle for anybody to overtake the top MPRs in any reasonable amount of time, and that miracle includes the top MPR players slacking off badly while the one trying to overtake would work their behinds off.

There is absolutely no excuse in any of that. The guys at the top, if putting in a proportionate amount of effort, should NOT be earning XP, let alone MPR at a greater rate than somebody half their size putting in just as much effort. THAT IS BACKWARDS from how any remotely fair system would play out.


Want it to not be a "free ride" ? Fine. Cap the bonus to a very low value. Cap it to 200% for those in 10/20, cap it to 160% for those in 9/20, 120% for 8/20, 80% for 7/20, 40% for the bottom of 6/20 and only 20% for the mid-high 6/20 region, ceasing to exist at 95% of top MPR, but HAVE some form of bonus that CAN compensate for the higher MPR growth rate of people higher up thanks to better target selection.

Alternatively, remove the reduction of the penalties for fighting below your power level.
That would have the same end-effect, just backwards - instead of accelerating the growth of the bottom, you would slow down the growth of the top.
Your choice.

But anything except what we already have. ANYTHING ELSE that is even remotely fair for non-heavy-USD-spenders.

STOP THE FREE RIDE THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP OF THE MPR SCALE GET NOWADAYS >:)

In fact, even that before would be an awesome idea :
- remove the N*B system altogether,
- remove the diminished penalties for attacking below your power rating,
- and increase the top cap of the challenge bonus to double the rate of the then-current-equivalent N*B XP gain.

Stuff will sort itself out, but only as far as you really, TRULY earn it.

Removing the bottom cap on challenge bonus for 6 BA regen is a much better suggestion. Me and NS have talked about just that quite a lot in fact.

Yes they are....they worked for it in one way or another.


Almost but not quite, there are quite a few tricks that can be used to alleviate that problem. I have used a few myself and have since the end of my NCB moved from just into the Top 20 to the Top 10 and this is with several setbacks.


That means jack squat, the N*B is just a tool in my honest opinion and afterwards comes the TRUE work. If done correctly you can indeed move up it just takes a while to do so.



Try me. As I pointed out above you can indeed move up if you do it right.


I tend to lean towards what you are saying however I do not agree with the last part of your statement you can do something it's just long term.



Yes but even that comes with consequences if someone retrains.



Not a miracle just a TON of hard work, grinding and deal making.



Honestly I think they should get a bit of a reprieve, the Top is not as pretty as people would like to make it out to be. There is a LOT more to it than just clicking enter.




Generally a decent idea I think. Just let's not destroy the Top MPR Ranks for the sake of boosting people up there.



that is not a choice that is a death sentence and a penalty for being in the Top Ranks, more and more people would retrain/restart just to not be there.


Without proper planning and effort USD means squat.


Sickone 8:21 PM EDT
STOP THE FREE RIDE THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP OF THE MPR SCALE GET NOWADAYS >:)



I actually like this Idea.


Define TRULY earn it.

i guess i am the oddball but i truly think that the game would be much more competitive/fun if all of the 150 people active in our small community were actually actively competing against one another instead of spread out over the vast mpr range we have now.

i tire of the "you need to earn it" bullshit while the game slowly dies. desperate times call for desperate measures. decide on a healthy percentage from the top and then create all n*b characters at that percentage, i like 75 percent to be competitive. kill off the xp bonuses on both ncb & nub and just keep the nub money bonus around for the six months.

this puts all of the active player, the few that we are, in a place where the game will seem more competitive and alive. new users will be close to the top but will only get caught up nw wise if they fight a ton and compete.

ncb's will jump up to where they can get back into the game quickly. coding wise, it should be easy to turn off the xp bonuses and only keep the same bonus for nub's for cash rewards over their first six months.

it is a pretty drastic change but the alternative seems to be stasis or slow death. ; (

Dude, MPR growth is a form of competition in and of itself. This is one of the main points I am trying to get across. Would you be happen if clan competition were removed from the game?

Sut would. ;D

I miss Sut.

nat, i would be happy if we quit hemorrhaging users or by some miracle actually started growing the playerbase once again. i am unhappy with the current trend and am willing to try drastic measures to reverse it!

I think that by allowing for the choice of BA regen/cap and removing or limiting the negative challenge bonus exemption this will allow a significantly larger portion of people to get within competing range of the top without sacrificing the MPR competition.

that is fine as well. hell, any change would be better than stasis.

i am not saying mine is better than yours but rather change something...what we have obviously isn't working. ; )

Not spend any real-life $$$ for CB$, not benefit from any significant external assistance that a significant amount of other users haven't benefited from... for starters.


Works for me.
Almost anything except what we have now would.

Let's be serious here... the only reason you did that is because half of the top 20 basically quit playing or severely reduced their activity level, not because you were catching up to them in a "similar effort" race. You didn't outrun them, you outlasted them.

Let me get a few snapshots to see what I mean...
...coming Soon(tm).

Notice any patterns here ?
Because I sure as heck do.

The pattern is pretty obvious - as soon as a character finishes his N*B, his MPR growth becomes almost perfectly linear, with the only noteworthy exceptions being times new minions are hired (so the MPR jumps up a bit and the line gets steeper, as available target pool is widened).
Without a MAJOR shift in strategy (which is pretty harshly punished by the game) or purchasing a new minion (which is quite frankly USD-stuff), everybody goes linear.
And what a surprise, almost always, the higher you were when you ended your N*B, the "better" the line you're on is, with very, very few exceptions (and the exceptions are actually reversed, the ones near the top letting themselves slack).

If the people from the top don't slack off, if they put in just as much effort as you do, you're not getting closer to them, you're getting farther and farther away from them in absolute MPR values. You might be getting ever so slightly closer percentage-wise though. But just barely.

I guess I am the only person who doesn't fit your theory sickone? Not that my growth isn't linear but that it is linear at a different slope from other peoples. I can say with certainty that I have passed up dagoba, Azthral, Dixie Cousins, The Lega and Failure not due to a difference in activity levels as I am pretty sure that all of these players burn 95%+ of their ba. I am on a route to surpass NWO within a few months time among others and steadily gaining MPR on the top as well. Last year I was over 600k MPR behind the top MPR who was KoP at the time. Now I am about 300k behind the top MPR and it isn't KoP either.

Actually your growth is linear with a break.
Up to around August/September 2009, you were on a linear trajectory which would have put you almost precisely on top of Zenai's character.
So can only assume you were a single minion up to that point, where you hired your second minion, experienced a noticeable jump upwards in MPR, and you were growing at a rate almost identical to Zenai ever since... with a minor recent dip, have you retrained recently (this month, early last month) ?
Sorry to break your bubble, but you're not doing better than Zenai. What I just said to him applies to you too.

I have over 2.5 mil levels untrained at the moment. My actual MPR is somewhere around 6.15 mil

Since you want to throw around graphs (they are averaged out and rather rough when you make the area covered too large) I will show you one showing what I mean.



This shows where my hiring occurred, and the months afterwards where I was growing at a steadily faster pace than the top character at the time and even passed it up in mpr before novice stopped fighting with it for a while and then transferred it over to marl.

The graph shows the drop off for untraining a bunch of exp that I did a couple weeks ago which you can ignore of course.

This.

I've been asking for this since day 1.

It's absoulte folly for CB to have exponentially growing rewards. In no other RPG game, ever, do you earn more, and increase faster, the higher you go.

Not only that, in no other RPG, ever, can you conitnue to get the same (lets call it base for ease) rewards from defeating a monster much lower than yourself.

If you slow down the growth at the top, you don't need an artifical bonus to allow new players to catch up.

...and they are inaccurate and laggy when you make it too small.

That graph covers over a year period. I don't think that is very small.

Also, you might want to look at the recent activity on Dagobah. It decreased very strongly lately. Less than 50% of max possible BA burn in the past month for sure.

Although, granted, going by that graph, you were ever so slightly catching up.

But that could be very well due to stuff like you purchasing all possible BA, while he was only purchasing during XP time, for instance.
You'd also need to be able to see number of challenged battles to make absolutely sure it's not just because you were fighting more.

Just because something is a form of competition doesn't mean it is a good system for the game. So is forging in terms of revenue earned or amount forged, but that isn't too popular.

Focus needs to be placed on what is good for new players and the overall health of the game. Sometimes that means making tough choices. I like the BA difficulty idea, but look at that from a new players point of view with no understanding of everything else in the game. It's just one more thing to fumble through in the wiki.

We obviously need a new tutorial system. I think that it would be a lot better to put the tutorial in the tournament system. You have the tutorial last for 2 weeks for each player and during that time they can get a good feel for how the game works. At any time they can choose to skip ahead and start with their nub with plenty of warnings of course.

I know you said your actual MPR is 6.15M, but you know he's got a ton of untrained exp, right? MTL is over 200k higher than the 2nd place MPR, which denotes he's got a higher actual MPR as well. You've not gained as much as you think...

The difference in MTL between #1 and #2 is 117,498. This means that he has a touch under 235k levels more than #2. In terms of MPR at that level that would translate to very close to 30k mpr. The current difference in MPR is 26,991. This means that depending on how much untrained #2 has #1 has only around 3k MPR untrained.

Whoops! That said 20,081,000 not 20,001,000. That's a lot less than I thought.

Still, I figured 120k MTL difference was a lot more than a measly 3k MPR.

No, what I mean is that he has 3k more MPR than the difference shown. That means that if IM is fully trained or near to it then Immortals is also very nearly fully trained. The full difference of 120k MTL is about 30k MPR. The current difference shown is 27k.

That is why I said almost Sickone. Those graphs do not show subtle nuances only gross calculations. They also do not show % Shifts between all of the chars on the graph just the Gross MPR Growth Slopes. Which to me are not exact....sometimes it takes a month for them to update....definitely not as accurate as they should be.


That is a given, New hires give MPR jumps.


Not really Sickone and this is what I have been trying to tell you. I can do one simple shift in my strategy( which doesn't call for a retrain) and I can jump my rewards by almost 20%. I've tested it out and guess what, I do not have to change my entire fightlist to do it.


In most cases I would agree, but this does not apply to them all.


Subtle tricks here can make a massive difference, if they are used then yes you can catch up. Note I never saisd this process was simple, easy or quick.


Just barely is still more growth which means in the long run you ARE catching up.

You might want to take a look at that from the opposite perspective instead. Rather than them ending on an ncb higher up and having a better line, maybe they were on a better line to begin with and that's why their ncb ended higher? Its just a thought.

Starting off with 1600 BA will let you get out 50k-100k MPR higher, depending on when you start it and if you can find some "easily gimpable" opportunity friendly targets very early on.
Purchasing all your NCB BA will let you get 33% higher than somebody that purchases no NCB BA at all, because they're way, WAY too expensive.
Burning all your BA, especially early on when it's much more difficult to do that thanks to sleep patterns or whatnot, that's also really important.
Restricting your fightlist to an excruciatingly (and very annoying) small size will also help you get similar results.
The actual strategy you employ however, that is only at best tied in fourth place, if not the clear fifth on that list of "things that are important".

I don't see any of that as being all that good at all to begin with.

Never said it was. Point to be made is that some of these are things we are looking at in the first place hence the reason for this thread. The others though are conjecture of opinion that are duly noted.

You can get ahead without buying EVERY BA, look at Dudemus, DoS and EoD's NCB runs. For MPR movement in the ranks after that look at myself, Nat and Nov. It was tough for all of us no matter if USD had a hand in it at all or not. However moved up we all did with Hectic Sleep Schedules, Targeting, Planning and Deal Making.

Now do not get me wrong I see your point I simply do not agree with you wholeheartedly is all. I get that not everyone wants to put in the same work(or USD for that matter) but that is what seperates the successful from the unsuccessful sheer will and determination........ translation: plain old hard headedness.

Dudemus did buy as much BA as he could during XP crazy time, I can only assume the others did too.
While ~4.7 mil MPR is pretty good, I wouldn't exactly call it even a near contender for the top, with over ~6.4 mil MPR... so barely over 73% of the top MPR.

There are only 9 people within 90% of the top MPR. NINE. You're the next one directly below, at #10, with only 88% of the top MPR. And I hear we might have reason to think it might be even less of the top's actual VPR.

Meanwhile, I'm at ~4.2 mil MPR, and I'm pretty far away from the end of my NCB, which wasn't that great at all (it was a SFBM run, btw, I only converted to archer quite a while after the NCB was over), following a (literally) aborted NUB.
I would consider my character to be AT BEST MEDIOCRE, and yet I'm #43 MPR.
Yuck.

Just to be clear, whenever I talk about "the top" anywhere, I mean 95% of top MPR. Right now, there are exactly 4 characters that fit that description.
"The top" of CarnageBlender consists of four people.
ONLY FOUR.

P.S. And just to be even clearer, 6/20 is not the top.
Being in 6/20 at the end of your N*B means that you didn't totally suck. Every N*B run ending up in 7/20 was a failure. Anything below and it doesn't even deserve to be mentioned.

And honestly in a competitive game like CB WHY should it be any more than the Top 5 that IS the Top 5? I truly get tired of people complaining about where they feel they should have gotten at the end of their run because of the 95% MPR Promise.

Look bottom line in my opinion yes the N*B System needs fixing but not to where it is sooo easy that EVERYONE gets into the Top 5 by the end of their run. That would make Carnage Blender into N*B Blender.....whoever starts the lastest one with minimal effort gets there. That would literally KILL CB as we know it.

Earlier in this thread someone posted about the N*B System that made total sense:





The Potential is there a few tweaks and this can happen without a doubt. I agree the N*B System needs either an Overhaul or Replacing but to what you have suggested I have to disagree. In my opinion having EVERYONE in the same MPR Range just would not help CB at all. Diversity is key. So far I like Nat's Idea best although I think even it needs tweaking to better fit CB.

I said "the top", not "top 5". And there's only 4 at what I'd consider "the top". There could be 100 in that area and it would still be "the top".


"Diversity" does not mean different MPRs, it means different strategies, different builds, all on roughly even footing overall power-wise, with different strengths and weaknesses.
Having many more people in close proximity near the MPR-wise top WOULD help the game much more than the current situation.
AND IT WOULDN'T BE BORING, because there's no single "correct" strategy.

Now, seriously, tell me, what would you rather play, a competitive game single field of battle with most of the people between "level 95" and "level 100", or would you enjoy it more if there was just one "level 100", a couple of "level 95", a few between "level 70" and "level 90" yet most still under "level 60" ? When the "level 60"s have practically no chance of killing the "level 100" ? And if you find the second version more appealing, can you EXPLAIN what exactly the appeal of it is ? And how exactly is everybody that's NOT one of the very few near "level 100" supposed to enjoy it anyway ?


So, yes, I am PERFECTLY CONVINCED that having people all but GUARANTEED to reach at least 80%, if not 90% of the top MPR in the game if they keep playing will be far, FAR more beneficial for the game in the long run.
The ones at the top at that time would still beat most of the others below anyway, but it would no longer be such a huge, hopeless gap between them and the rest.

personally i would much rather play cb with all of the 147 active users within striking distance of each other. i think it would be the difference between a seemingly dead game and one that feels alive and competitive.

i do like the 80 or even 75 percent number and still think the easiest solution coding wise would be to create all new characters with an amount of xp equal to the chosen percentage of the top player. then turn off the xp portion of the n*b bonus and leave just the money bonus for nub's.

we no longer need to worry about how large an xp bonus n*b's receive and how that affects their gameplay or our retention. everyone starts at the same point and that point can actually be competitive.

Eh, if you start them off with that much, that's a bit *too* generous, and also, most likely to cause trouble for multiple different reasons (give a truckload of XP to somebody new, and almost guarantee they'll use it, let's say "less than optimally"... also, how are you going to give the XP, on the first minion ? ouch @ hiring costs on next minions then, if not, how would you let them distribute XP around, and how's that fair strategy-wise compared to older guys, unless you let them too start with such a character or have all new characters be created like that and... well, it gets weird fast).
A gradual but eventually nearly guaranteed long-term result of high MPR even without extreme effort (just taking noticeably longer instead of being as good as impossible) is a more desirable methodology.

all new characters would be created like that. if ya screw up you can do it again. ; )