Increase BA softcap from 160 to 720 (in General)

Increase BA softcap from 160 to 720
Also, DECREASE the hardcap of 1600 to the same value, 720.
In other words, just one cap, no more differentiation.

720 BA represents one entire day's worth of BA at 10/20 accrual rate.

Also, while you're at it, remove purchaseable BA cost for everybody.
Give it for free not just for NUBs, but also NCBs and regular characters.
Or better still, remove the ability to purchase BA altogether and adjust base rewards accordingly.

Speaking of annoyances, also obliterate the black market, system auctions AND ESPECIALLY THE DROP SYSTEM. Leave only player auctions in place.
Revamp the shops so they ALWAYS have for sale base versions of EVERY item in the game no matter how many you buy. Also, no more "sell to shop", instead introduce a "trash it" option.

Also, remove forging from the game altogether. Yes, no more forging for anybody.
Make it so that disenchanting works on EVERY item in the game (except tattoos) and gives back 100% of invested NW.
Change "reinking" of tattoos, instead making it a MERGER of tattoos. On a merger, levels of tattoos merged are summed up and you get to pick the type out of one of the two being merged.

Oh, and remove the retraining penalty. Everybody gets retrain for free at any time.
Also, add a new "recruit 0 XP minion for 100 CB$" option.

And that's how you stop bleeding users.
Will it still be CB afterwars ?
I frankly don't give a damn.
I am ->||<- THIS close to downright hating this game.

This nerve-wracking blowing off of steam brought to you by our corporate sponsors, absolutely bloody nobody.

right....

Alright, at least give us a chance to respond...


Why? What do you wish to accomplish with this?


Don't have an opinion of this yet, but why?


Love this idea.


I'm not for this, could you explain why you are and how you think it will benefit the game?


Always thought there should be a recruit minion for like 1M cost. Don't think it should be free, but not 40M for like no exp either.

Sorry, missed two:


No for two reasons, a fair amount of people enjoy forging and that's all they do for a good amount of time, removing forge will almost guarantee losing them. Secondly, this game has plenty of liquid assets right now, cash sinks are good.


Hellllll no. I don't want everyone at their MTL, this game is already hardly favored for strong tattoos, we don't need to increase this dependence.

Sorry I am going to have to disagree with everything you said. i wish I had time to write why.

I'm not a fan of the drop system either, but when I am in Chat I quite often see new players get surprised and super excited about getting an item drop. I think it should stay for that reason if none other - it actually provides a bit of excitement for someone new to the game, and excitement is not something CB does well.

And yeah...I pretty much think all of these change suggestions are horrible. :(

I accept all changes. $_$

Like them all.

So all we get to do is fight? Sounds boring. Only reason I would ever fight only is if I am doing an NCB or leveling a tattoo for someone or some such. I've never kept a top tier character for very long because I thought it was sooo boring. Another reason this idea will never fly is that NS would have to erase a lot of code and I doubt he would want to.

come on, if you make an idea, please put it in 1 post instead of bumping your own thread 4 times after another before anyone can even remotely reply to it...

Do I hear Edit button.......? Please give me one.

To be fair shade, his initial 4 posts were over a 20 minute span

I find it funny that I'm the only one who responded thoughtfully... lol.

It's not that much of a problem but still, I'd have find it more well thought of if he'd wait 20 minutes and make 1 post instead.

But I already know (or think to know) the answer to this idea which had been suggested lots of times. The BA cap most likely won't be changed to have people sign onto CB less. :)

>The BA cap most likely won't be changed to have people sign onto CB less.

indeed it gives me something to do as a college student i have quite abit of free time :D

Didn't think my initial post was thoughtful? Or do you mean that I didn't address every single point? In any event...


If you're going to make the game a sign-in-once-a-day thing, remove purchaseable BA and just adjust rewards accordingly, put all items in the store and make disenchantment/retraining completely penalty free, then you've killed the game. You might as well just hand everyone an equally sized character, a given amount of CBD, and let us fight against each other without any change in EXP or $$$.

Not to mention that if retraining involves no penalty, we can all just retrain as soon as we see someone fighting us and winning. No more fightlists.

I know it's a rant, but the ideas are horrible, and surprising to see coming from Sickone - who usually is a much more thought out poster.

HOW? Im up to my @ with work its getting close to the end of semester and theres tons of work to do.

I realise you're just being sarcastic. However, as dumb as it sounds, it IS true that these changes are all things that would probably help retain more people. So in my opinion they are all ''good'' changes. Changes I would make myself would I be in charge. (With all due respect to the devs.)

Making the game less dependant on stupidly forsaking sleep in favor of MPR? Awesome. I really like the idea of rewarding players for their strategic choices instead of their RL resistance to fatigue. And well, most people enjoy sleeping as much as gaming. These two things shouldn't be mutually exclusive.

It would also be less hypocritical to stop pretending that we can't already buy all the uber gear we want. Or that getting Kat drops is exciting. (I like the drop system, but Kats? Really?)

Allowing free retrains? Would make the game a lot less static, and would really spice up the competition. Not only in the highest of ranks, but also when racing against rival NCBs. (Made even awesomer by them not requiring people to save CBD for a thousand years!) I'm absolutely loving the idea of a constantly moving ladder massacre. We'd be like fruits in a blender...

Going this way means more people fighting for the top spots. For the top scores. Which forces the top to think of strats that not only beat a selected few individuals with inflated score, (gained by strats designed to beat a selected few individuals...) but to come up with 'all around' strats that I think are much sexier strategically. Keeps you on your toes and keeps the game active, moving, interesting.

Anyway, I think you get where I'm going with this. It would be futile to respond to every suggestion made above since I agree with almost all of them, as rage-fueled and sarcastic as they are. Now, I know many of the forum-goers like their Math-fest, hardcore no-sleep CB. That's fine and a matter of taste. I cannot argue with taste and am not here to dictate what CB means to you. However, as time goes by I think we will observe that a game such as this one cannot be successful in it's current state. And that whatever you can come up with to get players in here will result in failure as they leave to get some rest. Bottomline: there is such a thing as too hardcore.

Just my two cents. Peace out.

(PS: RB, blood vials, blah blah blah...good stuff too. Also much less drastic than almost anything in the OP! Also, forging needs to stay. More ways to play is never a bad thing. Especially when it works fine like forging.)

OB put it pretty well. I would just like to add that making it sign on once a day just compounds it all by discouraging signing in. I really don't want to play another Elements. It just doesn't sound fun...

>However, as dumb as it sounds, it IS true that these changes are all things that would probably help retain more people.

I would like to see you retain forgers without forging.

Yeah, you addressed one part of the whole post. Some of his ideas aren't terrible.

Horrible ideas all around, but one in particular really bad enough to respond to.

No. A whole universe of no. Removing rarity from the game entirely is exactly the opposite direction we need to be taking CB's economy.

I did add a line in the PS that says forging is fine. It's fine :)

If these were implemented, especially the end of rare items, I would sell out instantly.

So what you're saying is that because you addressed the whole post, your post was the only thoughtful one?


^ thoughtful

All of the ideas are pretty terrible. They're comfortable, nice little thoughts to think about, but they kill gameplay. Anyone who puts a minute and a half of thought into reading the post can see this.

While it might be true that you could retain more players, it wouldn't be the same type. You would get players to stick around for a couple or a few weeks. Then they will feel done with the game and leave.

OB, why is decreasing the insane amount of items in the game bad?

Meh.

I know. As would most people on these forums. Which doesn't make the ideas bad. It just makes them unpopular to the hardcore crowd that takes residence here.

Their implementation would result in more people playing overall, though. Un CB-like, but more accessible.

I never said you'd all like that hypothetical 'new' CB.

What do you mean? Sickone suggests putting all items in the store as base items. The number of items ingame would increase drastically as people purchased whatever items they needed. There would be absolutely no demand for anything.

everyone pretty much owns everything they need atm. The only player base is the old players. Its the supporter items that people want.

Correct. The fact that the ideas are wrong for this game makes them bad.


You have data to support this?

Wow, you're right, I completely missed the word "Every." I think Sickone might have just been trollin'

Only the observations I can make by looking at everything going on in the online game scene at the moment. (Especially by looking at text-based games, which I play a lot of.)

I don't really keep spreadsheets with that kind of info, no. I also do not possess the ability to travel to an hypothetical future for data-gathering purposes. Like everyone here, I can only speculate and give my personal opinion.

Lol nice one The Chronokeeper.

So you have nothing to back up your statement with then. Got it.

But chorno...your the chronokeeper you should be able to go into hypothetical futures.

On behalf of my hubby who "will get banned for life for stating his opinion of this" Those are insane... Even I someone who doesn't even really play that much just drops in for good talks knows that you would destroy CB as you know it to make those changes yea maybe you would have more players but they would ALL be new b/c at most you might have 10% or less of those playing now that would play with those options changed in the system.... At most some might be able to think about one maybe two of those options and makes changes to it so that it only barely resembles the ideas you have stated here and utilize them in the game... Just thought I'd give my month two cents Enjoy!!! q=-P

This is why we need a test server.

end.

Make CB a one-time-daily game? No

Remove buy-up BA? No

Remove drops? Yes, or at least replace less desireable drops with money drops

Remove selling to shops? No

Add "trash it" option? Yes

Remove store spawns? No

Remove forging? No

I like the idea of money drops

actually i like the ba ideas he had. i say we remove purchasable ba, i feel like they have no point. But maybe instead of 720, have the cap at 240. Since there is no purchasable ba, there would be no cap of accruing ba beyond 240.

Or one of those non stop running tourney's

Quick "Devil's Advocate" number here...

1. Why NOT make CB a "only one login absolutely necessary per day" thing ?
It's not like you can't log in every 4-6-8 hours like now and burn those BA, you don't HAVE to wait that long. In fact, buring 720 BA in one go could be quite tiresome.
However, it means that when you get to 6/20, you CAN leave for a weekend somewhere without an internet connection and not suffer from it much, if at all.
There is absolutely no good logical argument against it except "I had to suffer through it SO EVERYBODY ELSE SHOULD TOO". That's at best selfish, at worst a total jerk move.

2. Difference in BA purchase costs, or the mere fact BA can be purchased at all is NOT a good thing.
People that want to get and then stay competitive have to purchase quite a bit of BA on a regular basis (preferably all of it, the only exceptions being maybe NCB runs, and even there, at least twice a week during XP time it's borderline mandatory).
It's either spend a lot of CB$ on BA and neglect your gear, or improve your gear (still not really hitting ENC limits) but fall behind MPR-wise... at least, for a 100% honest player.
Yes, I just implied that people that purchase CB$ for cash are not 100% honest players. You KNOW you aren't, it doesn't matter if it's allowed, it should have never been allowed in the first place and it's really only alowed because it's nigh-unenforceable otherwise.

3. RARES ARE NOT RARE AT ALL, THEY ARE PLENTIFUL AND MANDATORY.
When prices of so-called "rares" are at an all time low and anybody can get one at a reasonably affordable price, they're not rares, they're at best "not common junk". One only needs to put up a WTB and there's next to no difficulty in getting just about any "rare" you want. Plus, NOT getting one and spending CB$ on anything else is DOWNRIGHT STUPID with the current system anyway.
So, rares are not really rare, and spending any cash on non-rares is a bad idea... why the bloody hell do we still have them be that way ?
For all of those crying that they'd go away in an instance if "rares" would get sold in the shops nonstop... "well, boo-hoo". GET OVER IT. They stopped being rare even before I started playing, you have to be blind to claim otherwise.
Want actual rares ? You have supporter items for that. Those are the only true "rares" that still exist, and the only ones that should still exist as somewhat rare.
Introduce more of those, USEFUL ones, that people would want to have.

4. FORGING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CARNAGEBLENDER GAMEPLAY-WISE.
The only remotely reasonable motive to engage in forging is if... uh... no, wait, THERE ISN'T ONE.
You can almost always make more CB$ by fighting regardless of character size, and forging in itself is the most non-thinking activity you can possibly engage in, right after holding down the ENTER button to burn BA in a fight list. However, at least you have to think on how to spend that XP and change your fightlist every now and then.
And for those arguing that forging is a CB$ sink ? Want a CB$ sink ? Well, what do you know, THE BLACKSMITH is an excellent CB$ sink, no waiting time at all and eats up much more CB$ per same NW increase.
Also, experimenting should not be discouraged. However, limited disenchant options and heavy-duty disenchant value penalties DO discourage experimenting, especially when you make it your goal gameplay-wise to NOT GIVE ANYBODY SECOND CHANCES through the stark contrast between NCB and NUB, not to speak of absence of a rolling bonus. But I digress.

5. What exactly would be the problem if people did manage to all get their tattoos up to MTL ?
If they can afford to pay enough CB$ for enough tattoos, why the hell not ?
THAT'S THE REASON WE HAVE A MTL IN THE FIRST PLACE, TO LIMIT THE MAXIMUM BENEFICIAL EFFECT A TATTOO CAN GRANT.
Why even have a MTL at all if you prefer your tattoo size control method to be the lack of large enough tattoos ?

6. Why the eliminated (or at least drastically lowered) retraining penalty and the cheap extra minion option ?
Well, remember on the forging paragraph where we talked about how the only think MORE dull than forging is a brainless BA burn cycle (only interrupted by botchecks or cerebral aneurisms) and about how discouraging experimentation is a bad thing especially with a "no second chances" policy in place ?
Yeah, GUESS WHAT EXACTLY THE RETRAIN PENALTY DOES. If you guessed "pretty much that", you guessed right.
With a much milder or almost no penalty for retraining (especially if we also have no penalty for disenchanting, and people can experiment with minion counts relatively cheaply), it creates a far more fluid, downright dynamic fighting environment even in a low-player-count situation, like the one we're so obviously facing right now.
Fine, have a token penalty to discourage continuous retraining, but it should be somethink in the vicinity of "it'll take me a day or so to go back to where I was" after going through with it... not a matter of weeks or even months.

7. The current mentality of the typical CB user (the one the vast majority of those still playing subscribe to) annoys and almost disgusts me.
IT IS THE MENTALITY OF A MURIBUND SOCIETY, DUE TO TOO MUCH TUNNEL VISION.
It is completely opposed to change of some of the more "core" systems or sets of rules..."that's how it always was, you can't change that" or "no, if you do that, it's no longer CB"... and it's full of entitlement... "I had to go through that, why shouldn't others", "well, I spent money on it, if it changes so I feel like it was money not very well spent, I'm going to start screaming" or the more selfish "I put money into it, I want to get my money back" to the downright cringeworthy "I put a lot of effort into it and I want to cash out, this makes my stuff un-cash-out-worthy so to hell with you" (never outright stated, but heavy in the subtext of some).


You think only of yourselves, then you complain the game is dying.
OF COURSE IT'S FREAKING DYING, THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN STILL STAND IT ARE THOSE IN A POSITION GOOD ENOUGH TO NOT CARE WHAT NEW PLAYERS HAVE TO GO THROUGH AND FEEL NEW PLAYERS SHOULD HAVE TO GO THROUGH WHAT THEY WENT THROUGH OR WORSE.
Especially with the audacity of claiming you're pro-community-building, but unwilling to compromise one bit to achieve that.
To put it into an analogy more accessible, you are campaigning against minimum wage laws and social security, asking for higher qualities and lower prices, but deluding yourselves into thinking you're helping by giving a couple of meals to the poor or running some other meaningless charity campaign, meaningless compared to the disaster wrought by the system you perpetually want to be kept in place that enables those poor conditions for everybody else.
So... let me repeat that.
MOST OF YOU NOW DISGUST ME.

Your caps lock got stuck on...

Mind telling me how well I'm doing? MPR, NW, tattoo?

I cant say I agree with all of these ideas, but one that I do like is increasing the BA cap. Maybe not as high as a full days worth but I think somewhere in the range of 240-320 is good.

I log in every single day and I always burn all the BA I have. I'm sure most of you see that I'm almost never logged off, and I would consider myself a rather hardcore player. But there is that oh so precious needed thing called sleep which I need at least 8 hours or more of sometimes, and at my low of MPR my regen rate is 9/20 that's 6 hours it takes to stock me up to the 160 cap. I always end up missing at least 2-3 hours worth of BA every day because of this, that's anywhere from 60-90 BA I could have had if were I not sleeping.

I've been playing very competitively at my level and I've been getting really upset that I'm missing such a small amount of BA per day, but that small amount is adds up over time, that 60-90 per day I'm missing becomes 420-960 per week if not more. I feel like I'm being punished because I cant log in enough, when I'm already logging in as much as I physically can. Sure this wouldnt matter if I was in the 6/20 regen rate, I would never miss BA at all, but just how long is it going to take me to get to those rates? Especially when I'm losing out on much needed BA every day.


So I ask you guys, especially those who have been around for a very long time, would increasing the BA cap such a small amount really be that detrimental to the game? From the current 160 to 240-320, still requires you to log in more then once every day, still keeps people active, but doesn't punish those down low who's BA regen is faster then they can keep up with.

Just my 2 cents.

This. But I want to address two things.


And this is what I consider to be one of the top two things wrong with the game at this point. We need to reverse this, not further it.


With the N*B and and proliferation of top items that you seem to like so much, new players have never had it better. Do I think new players "SHOULD HAVE TO GO THROUGH WHAT [I] WENT THROUGH"? Absolutely! Abso-freakin'-lutely! "OR WORSE"??? Seriously? How is the current system - which amounts to "here's a gigantic bonus and the best weapon in the game so you can race to the top ranks, enjoy!" - in any way considered worse than what new players had before the current system? Please try to spin this one for me.

Stop the Press... Today is a rare day. Lord Bob and myself... agree. I can't believe I'm saying it. I think LB is right here... damn that was hard.

Have you ever even ran an NCB? You have no idea. Run an NCB and maybe then you'll have some credit behind your postings.

I agree it's a problem. A top two problem? Far from it.

*raises his hand...

I've ran an NCB sir.

I've been saying the same thing for years. Where have you been?

*grin*


*yawn* Oh please, enough with the "you have no idea" nonsense again. Try taking a team to 6/20 WITHOUT an N*B, and working your way up the equipment ranks instead of starting with rare equipment, then we'll talk.

It's the simplest math in the world.
(Base Rewards * Massive Bonus) > (Base Rewards + 0)
Therefore, teams with bonuses move up the ranks faster than teams without bonuses. Say it with me this time. Teams. With. Bonuses. Advance. FASTER!!!!! Than. Teams. Without. This can't be any easier.

There's a lot of posts in this thread I didn't read, but I think what Sickone is trying to do is make the best THEORETICAL situation for CB which I don't think will work. The few CB players that I've taken the time to get to know can't tell people why they love CB... they just do. It's a weird combination of all the things put together that make the game addicting to us select few. I do think that it's way too easy to get to the top ranks, and that removes a lot of fun out of the game. Maybe that can be addressed, but not like this; not by essentially creating CB3, with a lot of aspects that people enjoy about CB taken out.

I'm not usually one to post in threads like this... but with the current atmosphere lately of "CB is messed up, let's pinpoint what's wrong with it so we can change it" needs a dash of "CB really rocks, let's pinpoint what we LOVE about it so we can accentuate it."

My 2 wulong ;)

What's that got to do with anything ? You're about one and a half years old, you have a large tattoo and quite a bit of NW. Your point being what exactly ? Have you ever purchased CB$ or items with cash ? Do you still owe people CB$ ? Do you consider yourself an old or a new player ? Care to be a bit more specific ? On second thought, forget it.


And why exactly is that ?
If somebody wants to make a wall minion, would you recommend ANYBODY to ever invest CB$ into NW on anything except a "full rares" set, or would you call it a completely useless waste of funds ? And why exactly should that wall set be anything except easily available ?
If anything, some of the current supporter items should become rares, current rares should become commons, CURRENT COMMONS NEED TO BE DELETED and new supporter items need to be introduced.
The only differences between items should be of circumstance, not of "this one is CLEARLY better than almost everything else".


Ah, yes, the old "back in my day we walked to and from school in the snowstorm, uphill, both ways" combined with "the grass is greener on the other side, so I need to get my flamethrower and torch it".
Mighty magnanimous of you, might I say ?
This reeks of truckloads of bitterness with a side-order of entitlement.


Wrong.

The huge bonus they get is just as much of a curse as you seem to think it's a blessing.
New players right now have to wade through a morass of autoretired and defunct characters, QUICKLY shifting between them because they outgrow them heavily in no time at all, at the same time wasting their best opportunity time trying out strategies which will not be representative for what they'll be facing in the later stages.
They also have less and less time to GET the items which are almost mandatory for certain strategies compared to absolute MPR size, precisely because they grow so fast. They're extremely tempted to invest those CB$ into whatever gear they do manage to obtain, only to realize they pretty much just wasted a lot of cash.
Succesful NCB runs are made by heavily gaming the system and outside assistance, most NUBs will instead either be heavily demoralized or confused, and by the time realisation dawns on them just how badly they ended up screwing themselves with no second chances, they might as well give up, because hey, this game is no big deal anyway, why the bloody hell bother to swim against the current while being kicked in the shins anwyay ?

So, no, new players never had it WORSE, and the higher the bonus goes and the less active people remain playing, the worse it will keep on getting.

So why not just clean up the opponents list, make searching for targets easier (find similar?) and look at ways to improve the training tutorial system?

It seems saner than making changes that follow a line of thinking that has already seen reduced numbers. Switching from a ten minute to a twenty minute refresh rate correlated with decrease in players. Wouldn't further lowering the bar be a bad idea based on history?

You make a good point. There are two things I think are wrong in CB: The N*B and the economy. Given the sea of features in this game, that's pretty good. Regarding everything else, things are better now than I can remember. Sure there are a few warranted patches here and there, but other than the Big Two, they're relatively minor gripes.


Because every mid-level item in the game has been rendered obsolete by the proliferation of rares. And because it has ruined the economy. And because there should be high-level items for high-mpr teams. And because it's yet another handout to new players that those who have been here since forever didn't get. And because it was more fun when this was the case.


Yes, duh. Start with low end armor, work up to a Mithril Curiass, then then get an Adamantine. Just like we used to.


No. There should be different levels of equipment.


In other words, "wah, I posted a bunch of terrible ideas and the people online didn't tell me how awesome I am and said my bad ideas were bad, wah!"


Then kill it with fire and institute a rolling BA bonus like I suggested before. But don't sit here and tell me that a brand new, 1 MPR character with no bonus and a proper economy has an easier time moving up the ranks than new players with a NUB and cheap rare items have now.

Many of the problems you posted are simply more reasons to scrap the N*B entirely and try something else. Others would be erased with the fixes I've been proposing.

Also,
This.

First off, I hope you realize that correlation does not always imply causation.
If anything, /10 was a sweet-spot for hyperactives, while an equivalent /90 or even /60 (but applied to max BA) would be a sweet spot for casuals instead. However, /20 is a sweet spot for just about nobody.

It seems more likely bacon-flavoured monkeys will start manufacturing 500$ solar-powered cars before Jon would agree to that.
Then again, same story for what's in here.
Meh, what's the point, chances are CB will never recover and only keep getting worse.

There is one thing that I will agree with what you are saying sickone. /20 in its current setup really doesn't cater to either the casual players or the hardcore players. However I don't think making it just a 1 time a day log in requirement will really help the game.

"Meh, what's the point, chances are CB will never recover and only keep getting worse."

+1

The latter part seems like a coding pain, but it seems like something that would make the early game for new players a lot less crappy.

Agreed. If we're going to make all items instantly gettable, everyone is at their MTL, no penalties for any actions whatsoever, you only have to log in once a day to compete...then why would we even have BA? Let's just give everyone a, say, 10M MPR character and then it doesn't ever change. No XP earning, maybe a basic cash grant each day, and then everyone fights with their strategies periodically to see what they can do to their score.

I mean really, there's hardcore, there's casual, and then there's removing all sense of competition or gameplay whatsoever and turning the game into a yawnfest. Until I see something to prove otherwise, I'm fairly convinced that you're just trolling the community, Sickone.

:) frankly... you seem angry... personally i have no idea why... is it because nothing is being done? probably... but no i pretty much disagree with everything you said... you are really pushing it to the extremes here...

1st point:
so we are to change cb into a game like s&f where we login once in a day?
2nd point:
whats the reasoning for that? you dont exactly earn more from buying ba unless you are at 100% CB, giving people a choice between exp and money is hardly a bad thing
3rd point:
why should everyone have what other people have?
4th point:
point me 1 game that actually allow you to return an investment 100%
5th point:
refer to last answer
6th point:
no comments

"I frankly don't give a damn.
I am ->||<- THIS close to downright hating this game."

if you dont give a damn just leave seriously

Items instantly gettable ? So what's the problem with that ?
I'd much rather see the primary "rare item getting" barrier being high CB$ cost of items rather than "you can't get it because NOBODY THAT HAS ONE FOR SALE CAN BE BOTHERED TO READ THE FS/WTB FORUM RIGHT NOW".
What's more desirable anyway ?
Having to work for, say, 750k CB$ to buy An Adamantite Cuirass from the shop, or getting one for 80k from the auction house whenever one comes up around ?
If anything, that makes them at least APPEAR more rare than they already are, but increases availability.

Also, what's wrong with everybody THAT CAN AFFORD TO PAY ENOUGH CB$ FOR IT being at their MTL ?
It's not like tattoos would all of a sudden become zero-worth things so everybody can boost theirs. If anything, their value would increase quite a bit, especially the mid-sized ones or even the small ones. It might even encourage some older mediocre-ish players to rather start a tattoo leveling NCB without BA purchase in order to raise funding for a later run by selling the leveled tattoo for those wishing to boost theirs. Also, there will never be a shortage of demand, since MTL grows at a faster rate compared to the actual tattoo.
If anything, this might result in a revival of the "downbelow" regions with new life that is excruciatingly painfully needed.
At the same time, no, you won't see many people at their MTL all the time, because it STILL takes either quite a bit of personal effort or quite a bit of CB$ to get there. It just makes it a bit easier to access those kinds of items if you can only bother to spend enough on them.

Also, what's that about no penalties whatsoever ?
Fine, in the devil's adcocate point section I did say that even a zero-penalties retrain would be decent, but I almost immediately went ahead and re-specified that a MILD penalty is still a better idea, my only serious beef being with the downright crippling current penalty levels that can set your character back even months MPR-wise, which heavily discourages experimentation and therefore heavily encourages stagnation.
And stagnation is pretty much the last thing we need right now.

And what's with the prissypants nonsense take on "just one mandatory daily login means you might as well get rid of BA" ?!?
Does your precious idea of what CB actually means HAVE to include a "no sleep for the ones outside 6/20 shall go unpunished" clause with a "and even for them, sleep too long and also get punished" subtext right alongside a "those taking ONE weekend off in a place without internet access are utter sissies that don't deserve to be competitive" statement ?
What about people that are tired and have to sleep 10, maybe 12 hours in some days ? Or maybe somebody that DOESN'T have mobile internet access, or maybe is going somewhere without internet access at all, like, say, camping ? I mean, no, we couldn't have SUCH slackers having any remotely fair chance of even competition, now could we ? Nooooo, the ideal CB player is a player that for 4-5 months sleeps intentionally in at least 2 shifts of max 4 hours, never leaves the internet connection area, not even for half a day for the first 6 months, and preferably the same later on too... right ?
Seriously ?



You know what ? THAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE MORE DESIRABLE.
But since that's not what I was suggesting at all, I'd say take your strawman with you and take a hike.



IT IS A FREAKING YAWNFEST RIGHT NOW IN CASE YOU CAN'T FREAKING NOTICE.
And half of it is because everybody is sleep-deprived !
There is very little sense of competition because you mainly fight the same people over and over and over again, and very rarely anything changes.
It's also usually more effective in the short to medium run to keep on going with a substandard strategy or a substandard equipment list that was already heavily upgraded than switch to a different strategy or gear list, thanks to the myriad "anti-fun experimentation" penalties in play, with rentals being the only things that allow you to PARTIALLY experiment at all in the first place, and even that is severely limited.


If by "trolling" you mean something akin to "desiring to stir a strong response intended to shake people outside their complacency zone and get them talking about the difficult-to-face issues everybody is afraid to talk about for fear of being reprimanded by the apparent opression of the majority", then yeah, I certainly am.
Oh, right, you somehow meant "trolling" in some other, more negative sense ? Because I made absolutely no arguments along the way, and I haven't written in detail about how or why each and every one of those things negatively affect us all ? Whatever. By the way, I hope you realize, that phrase right there was sarcasm, don't you ?

Please learn to read and comprehend properly, or stop responding to partial quotes taken out of context.
That section you responded to was clearly meant to be read immediately after and always with the preceding statement, in which case the sense changes radically.
In case you genuinely missed that instead of making an intentional fake mistake...
What I don't give a damn about is "maintaining the status quo" (and I have gone to great lengths to describe exactly what and why) or as others like to call it "keeping CB as CB and not some other game" (like your example before where the object lesson was supposed to be Sh&Fi). I do not care if for some of you, or indeed, even for most of you the game changes to something YOU KNOW THINK would be unattractive. You're so afraid of any larger change that would have the opportunity to "rock the boat", as if an emergency rollback rules-wise would be completely impossible. In fact, quite a lot of you might even like how things would end up with all those changes in the long run, but you're too afraid to leave your most routine-filled comfort zone to even attempt to give it a try, instead denying anything more radical with an emphatic "oh, no, we can't have that, it'll be the end of the game as we know it", as if such change automatically has to be bad, and it would always have to be irreversible.
Keep dreaming in your comfortable little stupor, yes, the opium dens are surely nice this time of the year in 19th century Asia, yup, sure do... what do you mean, something else ? No, that's just the wind talking... rantity-rant-rant... whatever.

Several typos above, but meh, you can guess what it's saying.

In case nobody here has noticed, the game right now reeks of good old fashioned communism. I should know, I was born in a country that had one at that time, and still had it for quite a while, even after the official state organisation had changed after a mildly bloody revolution.

Absentee and/or disinterested and/or other-adjective-that-shall-remain-unnamed leader that's being officially idolized by the masses ? Check.
Clique of tightly-knit upper echelon that only wants what's best for them and don't really care about the masses ? Check.
The opressed masses regarded at best as a means to an end, the face presented to the world of contentment and well-being, but everybody either desiring to somehow slither into the upper echelon or leave the heck out of dodge ? Check.

It's not a Johnocracy, it's Soviet Russia, people.
WAKE THE HECK UP ALREADY.

Cool down please. And read this.

http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0037jM

How can you cool down when day in and day out it's only getting danker and darker, and almost nothing of substance ever changes, only some minor bells and whistles, and even that only once in a blue moon ?
You do have some interesting ideas in there, some maybe with a bit of altering... but let's be honest, most of them have about as much chance to make it in as any of those in here or just about any other idea that would upset the status quo.
People need to first get mad as hell and scream they won't take it anymore, only then something might possibly happen.
Chances are, nothing will happen, community will keep dwindling, and it will all end with a fizzle instead of a bang.

Call this a hijack if you'd like, but I'm making the next statements with the hope of maybe steering the attitude this thread is starting to take on and maybe we can talk about it in a PRODUCTIVE manner.

Let's keep one thing in perspective: The ONLY thing that should matter is the one thing that exists regarding everyone... No matter what the ideas, EVERYONE's intention is to improve the game - let's not lose sight of that.

I am all for "outside-the-box" ideas, regardless of whether they have any shot of being implemented or not. What I find depressing to read is when counter-points get personal, people attack the poster instead of the idea, and it turns into a pissing contest for lack of better wording.

When it's all said and done, our community is split on virtually every change that gets brought up, and as we're small in numbers you will probably not see anything put into play that will risk losing a significant number of them (and yes, we're at the point where losing 5-10 forgers would be a BAD thing for the game - I would hate to not see pau1/wasp/the rest of them as part of CB anymore).

To try and put this specifically to this post, perhaps we should look at the points that are not as dramatic of changes and see if they are something the majority can agree to. If not, I'm suggesting that future posts of this nature (and I highly encourage "how to fix CB posts" - if we have 200 of them and 1 of them actually comes up with something that betters the game, it's worth it), ideas are created to ADD things to the game, not necessarily change the game. This will serve both the people playing now as well as add elements to the game that may appeal to the new gamer.

Despite your best efforts, I <3 you all :)

getting mad as hell won't get you anything but forum banned

please don't take that as disregard for your complaints, but right here and now
excessive negativity is a bigger problem, and easier for me personally to solve

if you'd like to make suggestions feel free, but the next person to make unsubstantiated claims about CB dying is getting a dunce cap and time in the corner

Oh dear. I was really hoping you were just trolling, but worse, you claim that you actually think these are good changes.


Have you ever played any RPG, ever? We'll take World of Warcraft as an example. They add achievements all the time, new items, updates, new races, classes, and why? Because these are new things to attain.

Attaining something - even something as simple as your next item - is part of what keeps people playing. Having a goal that you have to strive to reach is part of keeping someone addicted to a game. People don't spend 1,000 hours fishing on WoW, clicking that one little spot, because it is *so fun!* - they do it because they want that one more little achievement.

So if you make everything immediately gettable - money, exp, MTL, all items, etc - then you remove almost everything addictive whatsoever about the game.


I don't know what sections you are referring to. If you mean that post where you overused caps to the point where it no longer had any emphatic meaning and was just painful to the eyes...I didn't read most of that for the above stated reason. I suggest asterisks, underlining, emboldening, and italics or the occasional use of caps if you want to emphasize your words.

A zero-penalties retrain would not be decent, it would be stupid. I spot someone fighting me? I retrain. They retrain and fight me again. I retrain. More real-time strategy, right?

Wrong, it'll change into a game of "farm whoever isn't online to stop me from farming them."

The penalties now ARE mild, it is just that the scale of MPR is so large that the resulting effect of taking such a penalty is months of effort lost. You do know that the current penalties are *reduced* from what we used to have, right? Even if they were knocked down to 1%, that is still going to be a very significant loss in ground on this game. That's a gameplay issue, but it isn't one you solve by removing competitive play altogether. Or whatever the hell you're trying to propose here as the superior side of these changes.

Does your precious idea of what CB actually means HAVE to include a "no sleep for the ones outside 6/20 shall go unpunished" clause with a "and even for them, sleep too long and also get punished" subtext right alongside a "those taking ONE weekend off in a place without internet access are utter sissies that don't deserve to be competitive" statement ?

Yep, that's totally what it means, I always jump from getting rid of BA to removing sleep entirely from the equation. No leaps in logic here. I'm not going to respond seriously to this question, because you clearly didn't take mine seriously enough to give me a real response. Try again, son.


I agree that the game is not as competitive as it used to be. For me, I blame 6/20 BA regen and the fact that we're using */20 regeneration rates altogether. It was extremely competitive back when we had BA regenerating every 10 minutes, because increasing your amount of gametime was a viable means of picking up the difference. Your problem is that it is a yawnfest, so you suggest removing all possibility of the game becoming otherwise?

Here, since we're making ridiculous comparisons like calling CB Soviet Russia, here's one. You're like a serial killer facing unrequited love who chooses to kill all the ones he loves so that nobody else can have them! "If it isn't competitive now, just wait until these changes go through! That'll show you all!" /absurdity


Ahhh, I gotcha, because there haven't been a hundred threads about CB needing change in the last week or so. Everyone's so scared to make suggestions, to talk about things, that those threads just aren't popping up everywhere like weeds. Silly. I wish you were trolling. At least then you would be aware of exactly how foolish what are typing is.

Ok, how this for positive : make some radical changes that are TEMPORARY in nature, and if we like them, we keep them, if not, we revert them.
Like, say, "next 6 months the BA cap will be raised to 500, then if people don't like it, it'll be brought back to 160".

I'm just curious, but with Jon gone for the majority of the time if not all the time, what are the admins capable of doing as far as game changes? Can they add new weapons and armour? I only say this because it just doesn't make a lot of sense to put in a bunch of effort for change for it only to remain the same because the admins don't have the ability to perform the change.

That's one question I have asked in the past myself, but was never given a straigth answer to.
What exactly are the admins allowed to change out of their own initiative, and what needs to pass the Jon seal of approval, and how often can Jon even be reached to give it ?

NS can implement game changes... him and Jon and that is it as far as I know.

A number of others have access to the code, but as for putting into CB for real I think it is only one of those two.

Loch, that's not exactly what was asked.
To give a concrete example, if NS wanted to raise the BA cap or change the regen rates or anything like that, it is not under question he would be able to... the question is, would he be allowed to ?

NS owns half the game I believe, so I would think so...

NS owns the game pretty much now. Its all NS. I want to code for CB...but owells.

Plus can someone summarize this wall of text thread into one small paragraph?

OP: Outside-the-box changes to make the game better in their eyes
Responders: Counter-points in as sharp of a tongue as the original post.
OP: Personal insults mixed with small debate regarding original subject
Responders: Personal insults mixed with small debate regarding original poster.
Overall Result: No changes, aggravation by many.

Let me know if I missed anything crucial...

Admins don't change much about the game. They have access to the administration interface, which allows them to administer things.... which means editing forums, changing chat mods, running reports, auditing access logs, maybe a dozen or so other things.

Admins don't edit code.

Some people have access to the source code. Only I or Jon can update the copy of the code that is running. So for instance, Lamuness did some recent fixes. He committed them, I reviewed them, and asked for additional changes. Once it was all to my satisfaction, I then updated the checked out version on the server. It pays to know what a VCS is to really understand what that essentially means.

LOL Awesome TY sir $100 sent

NS, that's still not a straight answer to the question... the question being not if you are able to code, nor whether you are able to actually implement the changes, but instead if you are _allowed_ to make ANY changes you see fit, whatever those changes might be, or if you are constrained in what you can and can not do by having to, say, consult Jon before doing any of that or not.

Whoa there !
Sure, there was plenty of anger to go around and some harsh words were said by either side (btw, it wasn't JUST me on one side, if you look closer), but I have yet to see PERSONAL insults being swinged around by ANY of the parties involved anywhere in the thread.
Sarcastic comments about the state of the game, veiled insults to the "political" orientation for the vocal majority, less veiled naked rage at the situation in general, even rhetoric attacks on the opposing arguments, sure... but personal insults ?
I think not.
Although I can see how it might seem so to somebody without strong feelings about the situation and not used to less-than-polite public discourse. You should see some televised political debates about matters of law directly from the house of commons or the european parliament :P

Agreed and Interesting Idea on the Money Drops.


For completely useless items like a Kat yes and YES! However for other items I would rather get another option "Donate" Set up something for NPs to Draw from (kinda like Titan is doing right now with his contest but permenant) and just send your overage items to it.


I happen to like Nat's Difficulty Level by Option Idea I think it would appropriately address things EXACTLY like this. A Customizable CB per player in this fashion would be optimal for player retention in the long run.

2. Difference in BA purchase costs, or the mere fact BA can be purchased at all is NOT a good thing. People that want to get and then stay competitive have to purchase quite a bit of BA on a regular basis (preferably all of it, the only exceptions being maybe NCB runs, and even there, at least twice a week during XP time it's borderline mandatory). It's either spend a lot of CB$ on BA and neglect your gear, or improve your gear (still not really hitting ENC limits) but fall behind MPR-wise... at least, for a 100% honest player. Yes, I just implied that people that purchase CB$ for cash are not 100% honest players. You KNOW you aren't, it doesn't matter if it's allowed, it should have never been allowed in the first place and it's really only alowed because it's nigh-unenforceable otherwise.

Don't force your CB Utopia on others it won't fit everyone and will do exactly to them what it has done to you right now.


To a point I agree but still remember we have that bottom tier junk still laying around. I have seen quite a few ideas for revamping bottom tier and not so rare items as well.


I totally agree. Change in these areas I think are going to be a necessity.

4. FORGING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CARNAGEBLENDER GAMEPLAY-WISE. The only remotely reasonable motive to engage in forging is if... uh... no, wait, THERE ISN'T ONE. You can almost always make more CB$ by fighting regardless of character size, and forging in itself is the most non-thinking activity you can possibly engage in, right after holding down the ENTER button to burn BA in a fight list. However, at least you have to think on how to spend that XP and change your fightlist every now and then. And for those arguing that forging is a CB$ sink ? Want a CB$ sink ? Well, what do you know, THE BLACKSMITH is an excellent CB$ sink, no waiting time at all and eats up much more CB$ per same NW increase. Also, experimenting should not be discouraged. However, limited disenchant options and heavy-duty disenchant value penalties DO discourage experimenting, especially when you make it your goal gameplay-wise to NOT GIVE ANYBODY SECOND CHANCES through the stark contrast between NCB and NUB, not to speak of absence of a rolling bonus. But I digress.

I adressed this a few times myself but here is my 2 cents.....again. Forging no matter where has had its place in battle and it should be no different for CB. Once again CB Utopia and all. That aside if it were changed a bit and spiced up with a bit more of an interactive UI yay! I think though a more interactive/visual UI should be done for Fighting Gameplay as well.


Hmm first thing that comes to mind is lower MTL even more and have at this feature. Honestly a lot of tats are dying, being sold to the store or stagnating this could make them useful again. I'd say for a cost though, maybe 1/10 of tat lvl being consumed.


I agree. Honestly it should be lowered some or one free retrain per year. I know I would have tried at least one thing on FGoD if I didn't KNOW it would cost me almost a two week backstep in MPR. I also agree with OB on this as too much of a good thing is bad....completely free is just too much.



I do hope I'm not included in this statement as I believe I have advocated for plenty of change that would definitely NOT benefit myself or my char.

One recently I came up with and advocated:

http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0038Os

was completely left alone (by everyone including you) but as soon as someone else posted voila! Answered fairly quickly by not one but 2 Admins (no picking guys/gals just pointing out the truth)......yeah I feel ya bro....at least a bit anyway.

I've come to realize that it doesn't matter how well thought out or the best of intentions behind the idea. What does matter is what they want.....now who "They" are is subjective of course but you get my overall meaning.


I totally disagree bro. It was a matter of the "I have ALL DAY to play Clickfest Masters" Now some strategy was in there yes but it was totally killed by those who could click more. Case in point Todd/Spydah, they were able to get what a Mil MPR ahead of everyone else in the old system......did strategy or clicking get them there? A bit of both to be honest but it was the fact that they were able to soak up 80-90% of the BA Regenerating on their char Spid that truly got them ahead. Competitivenes should be a equal combination of Strategy and Fighting not a lopsided version of it.