Would it really kill us to have a VACATION MODE !? (in General)

Sure, some people like to yap on about how CB is supposed to be competitive and all that jazz (personally, I fail to see how "sacrificing social life and/or sleep in order to burn BA at specific dates and times" is a desirable competitiveness criteria, but let's not digress about BA caps and regen rates) and that's, let's call it arguably fine. However, every now and then, ALMOST EVERYBODY has a period in time eventually when they can find it a problem to log into CB... could be they are leaving for an area with no internet connection, could be they have no mobile internet solution and have to go away from home, could be they're physically incapacitated so they can't get to a computer, a lot of other things, some planned but unavoidable (or at least, nobody in their right mind would consider CB a good excuse to skip it), others accidental (you don't exactly choose to have an accident or emergency surgery or something like that).
To punish people as far as CB performance goes for NOT going beyond what a normal human would be expected to do... now that's just wrong now, isn't it ?

BECAUSE OF THAT, I MOVE THAT WE SHOULD HAVE A VACATION MODE FEATURE IMPLEMENTED A.S.A.P.

Technically, the feature would work the following way : whenever triggered, there is a minimum period of time it will stay active (to prevent abuse) and it will take a while to become really active (again, to prevent abuse) in which time burning any BA would cancel its triggering.

After being triggered and having been succesfully activated, the characters on the account become (for practical intents and purposes) almost like retired - they can't be attacked or otherwise interacted with.
The only outside difference is that the character is still physically present in whatever clan he was in.
From the inside, a few more differences exist, namely that BA is not recharging and you can't buy any BA either. Also, there's a counter displaying the length of time you're considered as having had been in vacation mode.
After the minimum duration has passed (whatever that might be, anything between 24h and 5 days are decent options), the user can select to exit vacation mode. If he comes back earlier than the minimum period, well, tough luck, he has to wait some more.

When reactivated after a vacation mode, the counter that so far has been ticking up recording the duration of time spent in vacation mode will now start counting down... and while it's not yet depleted, EVERY FIGHT WILL BE YIELDING DOUBLE REWARDS (for XP and CB$, but not clan points, those remain normal) AND BA PURCHASE PRICE WILL BE DOUBLE THE USUAL PRICE (on top of any existing modifiers like NCB already increased price). This effectively almost perfectly compensates for the time spent in vacation mode in a relatively fair way.

HOW CAN YOU TRIGGER VACATION MODE ?

The manual trigger option is mandatory.
You can only activate vacation mode when you have 160 BA or less, but it would be highly advisable to activate it after you have burned all your BA, for reasons that will be clear immediately.
The "warm up" period for vacation mode should be at least 4 hours, but preferably more around 8 hours. If you fight, forge or buy BA so your total goes above 160 during that period, the vacation mode request gets canceled.
There should be a warning (preferably on the sidebar, but on every page works too) that you have requested vacation mode and the warm up period is still running, to prevent you from accidentally canceling your vacation mode request without realizing it.

The automatic trigger option would be nice to have, for all unplanned breaks from CB.
To prevent abuse, any BA you migt have in excess of 160 will get discarded when the auto-triggered vacation mode gets activated.
This automatic trigger oprion could be either fixed duration for everybody, it could be user-enableable or even fully user-customizable.
If fixed, a generous timer should be used, like, say, 7 days, to prevent people from unwillingly intering vacation mode. If user-enableable, the timer could be slighty lower, around 3 days or so. For fully user-customizable settings, anything between one day and one week should be selectable.
This will only be processed at cache flush, to prevent heavy CPU usage. If the last login date is longer than the vacation mode timer selected, vacation mode is instantly triggered AND the vacation timer is set to the auto-triggering timer duration minus 8 hours (so, for instance, if the timer was 3 days and you have logged in last 4 days ago one hour after cache flush, your vacation mode gets enabled at this cache flush and your vacation bonus timer gets set to 2 days 16 hours, and keeps increasing from there as long as you're gone).


Yeah, I know, it sounds wordy, but code-wise, is should be relatively straightforward. I just needed to cover all possible abuse methods and apply a CB-favourable (as opposed to user-favourable) tie-breaker for anything potentially abusive. The vacation mode still remains a valuable addition to the game even after all those abuse proofing caveats.

Perhaps this helps others, but i don't take the game too serious to need a vacation mode. It's a game after all.

I would abuse this to get double exp at wacky exp times. I know what you are trying to get accomplish but it does sound like a fancy retiring system full of if, ands & buts.

First, nice idea and seems ya tried to cover every aspect of it also tried to treat for future abuse of said idea.

But how about going on your vacation and not worry about CB for a week and just come back and play it as usual?

Only drawback I see is that ya might get kicked out of clan, so perhaps have a vacation mode that prevent simply this.

You are not punished if you don't burn BA, you simply don't get any reward which makes total sense since your not using BA.

Here's the thing I see......over and over again. People come up with generally good ideas and others come by and poke holes in it until it is no longer viable. There are two ways this can be taken now.

1) No one wants progress/change.

2) No one can see past their own wants/needs.

Either way nothing is happening but the repetitive argument of "Here's an idea!" and "I would exploit it!" Or "There is" X" amount of problems wrong with it and therefore will never ever work, I am me, I have spoken and it is law."

Now yes I am being a little sarcastic but unfortunately it is true. I honestly would like to see CBers stop the selfish snobby crap and actually pitch in. It doesn't have to affect you for you to be able to think about it and come up with a viable solution. If you can see the holes in the suggestion/idea why not try to think of how to plug them up? Why should there ALWAYS be side A and B? Why not side "Make CB Better for everyone instead of just one individual.....yourself?" Actions are gonna make or break CB and honestly I think that NS and crew would like to see some more togetherness in the ranks. This would probably inspire them to put just a bit more work in if they see a good reason to do so.

/End Pet Peeve & Mini Rant

Sorry, I still disagree with rewarding people for being gone. Even when you use caps so liberally on your key points, I remain unconvinced.

Yes, almost everybody has a time eventually when they can find it a problem to log into CB. So we don't log in. Problem solved.

I could have capped that last bit but I didn't, 'Birdie.

Poking fun at the way I type doesn't detract from what is there OB. For some that are competitive this is a problem. This also hits on something that was addressed once already.......BA Regen rates were changed for the fact they were actually rewarding those who could be on CB every waking moment. This is not so far from just that, players should have something to compensate for those who can be on here day in and day out no matter what. Everyone needs a break now and then and shouldn't be punished rewardwise because of it. No Bast simply not logging in doesn't solve the problem it just ignores it.

people can disagree with game changes for many reasons:

~ it adds nothing to the game
~ it changes the game in a fundamental way that they disagree with
~ they would rather see other fixes or changes with limited dev resources than the idea being brought forth
~ etc.

we are all strong-willed, opinionated people here. if we disagree with something we will likely tell you. hopefully we will describe why we are against it!

sometimes it seems that people take dissent as a nail in the coffin for their ideas. i have seen plenty of ideas over the years that get implemented with only the presenter getting behind it. i have likewise seen many fairly unanimous ideas get ignored.

our devs also have strong opinions and vision. i actually love dissent on my threads as opposed to everyone ignoring them...it keeps them near the top hopefully long enough for those that matter to see them! ; )

as for the idea, i am ok with it as it is now but not against a vacation mode. i do think that if it is done it needs to help clans more though.

perhaps it could remove the person from the clan without removing them. in effect they lose the c in front of their names whilst in v mode. if they aren't fighting the clan bonus wouldn't apply anyway and as stated above one fight would knock them out of v mode.

they stay in the clan in reality though so that you don't have to worry about swapping in a small character only to find out that your big guy doesn't fit back in afterward.

i have no idea how difficult that is for implementation though. i think most exploits would be fixed by only allowing this once or twice a year though.

Personally I don't think a feature like this is necessary at all. The main thing leaving would be a problem with is during an ncb.

If we were to have a vacation feature like this though. I would say it needs to be a week minimum time and 80% bonus rather than 100%.

As for clans, you guys should know when you are in a clan that won't be able to allow you to switch in and out and your clan mates should be able to support the clan without you for a bit so I don't really think its that much of a problem currently.

Oh I have no problems with disagreement or dissent. My point is that more often than not the general connotations are consistently negative without even a modicum of positive content. If all you have is negativity we are going to snuff out those who actually have good ideas who will refuse to bring it up due to being afraid of being shot down with an ICBM.

Point blank I believe that if you are going to throw negativity out there throw in a bit of positive as well honestly would it kill CBers to do this? Thoughts, Opinions, Perspectives etc are a general part of a discussion of course but do not have to be as cutthroat as many on CB make it out to be.

I disagree for those who are competitive but are burned out and need a break should have an alternate way to stay on track.

For NCBs best I could say is use the V Mode as a pause button on their NIB time Meter so at the very least all they are is a week behind but don't actually loose that week timewise.


Agreed. I see this a being fair as most paid vacations are not more than 70-80% anyway.


I could see that maybe when in V Mode that Clan members cannot be fought like as if they are retired this would solve a lot of problems.

My view is that a vacation mode should simply "hide" you in your clan without making you leave. I don't think there should be any bonuses upon returning or anything else going on. I like cooldown periods and the inability to buy BA during it to prevent potential abuse.

There should be no "benefit" to going into vacation mode unless you're really on vacation. Perhaps when it's on, you drop to 0 BA and do not start regenerating again until you are back -- I think that would remove any potential abuse if you were being heavily farmed and wanted to "hide." Trying to do things automatically based on login wouldn't be a good idea either, because you may be on vacation but still log in once or twice to check the forums etc.

There are lots of interesting ideas in the OP but I think that it is complicating things more than it needs to.

If the minimum vacation period would be, say, 5 days (not the auto-trigger, but the minimum duration once activated), since the vacation timer only runs from the next cache flush after activation request and 8 hours after last fight, and you can only take 160 BA max into vacation mode (you could probably time it all just right, I suppose), the most you can hope for out of that would be two XP times in which you burn those 160 BA at double effect and also whatever XP you buy during XP time (but at double cost, so it's kind of a wash)... however, you DID just miss the previous XP time which was during the vacation mode, so overall, it's not such a big deal... at most you're looking at the equivalent of 160 extra BA being burned during XP time as opposed to during normal time, so about 96 normal BA's worth of XP extra once a week... if you get all the timings JUST right.
Not much exploit-worthy stuff there if you ask me.



And come back to not completely verbalized reproaches that you're not taking the game seriously enough, and with a slither of a negative feeling in the pit of your stomach saying "if I would have had an internet connection there, I could be ahead of this guy, but no, he's now ahead of me"... granted, not the best of arguments, but you can't deny it's at least partially true.



It's not REWARDING them for being gone, it's compensating for an absence. Heck, make that 50% extra for twice the vacation period if you like (so they have to work twice as long as they were gone to go back to where they would have been) if you feel a 1:1 time ratio is too advantageous.
However, I STRONGLY disagree with severely punishing people game-performance-wise just because they can't be around.

Almost everybody seemed to agree CB needs more active players, and we know that one of the nastiest reasons that vets quote for quitting is basically BUROUNT.
With a vacation mode, you could eliminate a great deal of the burnout sensation, thus helping more of the older players back in a competitive position a while after they return from a well-deserved break.
It might not be the solution, but it's a small part of a bigger solution for sure.



Sure, it's not necessary. Just like playing CB competitively is not necessary. Or how buying supportership or naming items is not necessary. Or any other number of things.
It's not SUPPOSED to be necessary. It's supposed to be nice and/or useful to have.



The exploitability as presented is already almost non-existant.
I'd much rather see BA getting dropped to 10 or 6 or however much your BA regeneration rate is from however many you had when your vacation mode kicked in (hours after the request, so some BA is lost for sure) instead of putting any time or frequency limitations up.

Putting too many limitations on it is unfair for people that might encounter unexpected circumstances... case in point, I would have been strongly penalized myself this year, since I had a 1-week vacation on new year's eve (minimal CB time, so I would have mostlikely activated vacmode if available), followed by a more-than-a-week vacation at a hot springs spa (where 4 days I had no internet access at all and 4 days after minimal access, so again, I would have activated vacmode), then just a few days later, I found myself in need to get into hospital to get surgery (which would have been an obvious vacation mode case)... but hey, that would have been the third vacation mode in just two months, not one year.
Grented, that seldom happens, but it DOES happen.



In the USA, maybe. Over here, all official vacation time is paid AT LEAST 100%. In fact, many jobs pay you a vacation bonus, so you end up earning more than 100% while you're gone, up to 200% in some cases (my first job was like that, and I was getting 20 paid vacation workdays a year MINIMUM at double-salary, that's almost one full calendar month, PLUS my birthday and official holidays free at normal salary, and the number of days were supposed to go up with time spent on the job).

The whole point of a vacation mode is so that you can eventually get back to almost exactly where you'd had been if you didn't go on the vacation at all in the first place.

I could live with a 95% or maybe a 90% boost for the same duration instead of 100% (so, a minor loss), but I would prefer instead (as previously mentioned) full compensation in time, even if the "payback" time is stretched over a period longer than the facation (so, say, 50% bonus for twice the vacation length, or even 33% bonus over 3 times the vacation length).



Like I said, it's plenty wordy, but that's for expoit prevention purposes mainly.
It all can be summed up very easily : activate vacation mode, optionally pay a small price (some BA loss), stay gone as much as you need to (but at least X days), and when you come back, if you keep playing normally, you'll eventually get back to almost where you would have been if you never left.

Problem, part 1: I want to be competitive.

Problem, part 2: Being competitive requires that I be here often.

Problem, part 3: Sometimes I can't be here.

Solution: I shouldn't necessarily have to be here to be competitive?

wuttttt

I deny any truth to it. I'd use this to become that much more of a casual player - and I'm casual to begin with, taking advantage of 6/20 to be both casual and competitive - and would also use it to allow my better targets to obtain more score without me farming them, then using up my double bonus BA on them with their higher challenge bonus (I manage about 25% on my best targets atm, so it might rise to a 30-35% challenge bonus if I left them alone for a while, plus double bonus!)

Sorry, but I see this as one of those "I want to have my cake and eat it too, so let's devise a system where I can do that" ideas. I can't even take it seriously.

Vacation mode should not offer any benefit. Yes when I go on vacation I get vacation pay(so you want cb to take 4% of your earning and save them for you until you take a holiday?) and I get no bonus when I go back to work. All that work from the past 5 business days is still there waiting for me with no bonus to help me get ahead any.

I think making a post stating your vacation intentions and retiring your character is good enough until a real need to give the current retiring system a jazzy face lift.

What if it worked in a very simple way. A lump sum of exp(and Cps if found to be necessary for clans) based on your yearly performance. Per day, week, month, quarter (whatever) the average earnings (Rewards/CPs) was "X". Now you activate V Mode at the end of the Vacation you deactivate it and for "X" Days you are awarded the average earnings (or 70-90% of them) . Alternately this can be done each day at cache flush until the player returns and deactivates the V Mode. During this time your char is treated as if it is retired for farming purposes but can have" X" CPs. Taken away for Clan purposes so this doesn't become an exploit.....ie only CPs retained counts toward the Clan total if this route is to be taken.

That seems highly unfair! I would have to devise a vacation, just to take advantage of the bonus I would otherwise be denied!

Less rhetorically, why is being gone for a week or a month or a semester something that should be given special consideration but only being able to log in once every 10 hours (instead of every 8) isn't?

>Now you activate V Mode at the end of the Vacation you deactivate it and for "X" Days you are awarded the average earnings (or 70-90% of them)

Awarded something for taking time off? more people would use it. and the rest of what you said Zen I dont fully understand.

>During this time your char is treated as if it is retired for farming purposes but can have" X" CPs. Taken away for Clan purposes so this doesn't become an exploit.....ie only CPs retained counts toward the Clan total if this route is to be taken.

Umm yes that is what the vacation mode would look like at first but in all actuality it's a reward for sticking with CB all year and staying active as well as preventing burnout and loss of player as a result. All in all the Vacation Mode would be to keep the dedicated......well dedicated an incentive to stay without the burnout and falling behind because of a needed break.


Well let's see if I can Clarify.

You pound away on the enter key for CB day in and day out as a result you accrue Vacation Time once(or twice) a year you get the option for V Mode. So as to not fall behind terribly as a result of having time off there is s system set in place.

When you fight you have earnings (Cash, Exp& CPs) If you are not here you don't get them and you fall behind well as with any company if you accrue Vacation time it's paid V Mode should be no different here in CB.

So going with a general rule of thumb(70-90%) I would go with the average earned up to date (it may be easier to go by Quarter) at the end of each day at Cache Flush (or V Mode overall say a minimum of 5 - 7 Days) the player is awarded their averaged earnings.

If you add clans and CPs to this mix the avid clanner should have an average earned amount of CPs as well as retained CPs for their clan after they are farmed. These should be taken into account as well to prevent an exploit and not punish the player for being on vacation. To keep from other clans exploiting the player being on vacation their char should be treated as retired (to prevent extreme unreturnable as normal farming.)

How about more rethorically instead ?
Why do we even have a NUB at all, or any NCB for that matter ? Or heck, even a challenge bonus ? Or any bonuses at all ?
Why not just have everybody have an XP proportional to how long they've been playing, no bonuses of any kind, period ?
By the way, this was not so much rethorical, but more sarcastic, actually.

Sarcasm can be quite an effective rhetorical tool, but I'm not seeing it.

The opposite of what he just said.
Namely why do we give special consideration to people that never played before (NUB) or people that decide whatever they played with so far is meaningless except accumulated NW (NCB) ?
And why don't we give then any special consideration to people that do care about their character and have been playing for a long time, but want to take a break from the multiple-times-a-day, every-day-of-the-year chore of burning BA ?

We just took that hit.

The point is why should we just take the hit? If others have a consideration shouldn't long standing active, avid and dedicated players? Is not player activity on an overall what we are looking for anyway(ie player retention). If a person gets burned out they either lessen their time here or just leave if they were competitive. They mainly just leave because they know that they can never catch up the same way without double or even triple the effort.

In short it is unfair to those those that are active, avid and dedicated and can lead to player loss as a result.

Giving priority to a online game that you made a commitment to, over real life to doesnt validate a paid holiday. Thats self-inflicted. You give CB its level of importance in your life. If you cant log out and walk away I not qualified to help.

Umm no one said anyone gave a game priority over RL there bro. We have said several times that with all of the daily in and out of keeping up in a highly competitive neverending game it is a shame there is not a way to give an active, avid and dedicated player some time off without massive repercussion character growthwise(and possibly CPwise as well). We get CB has a place below RL, we also get that we choose to be competitive, what we don't get is why there is consideration for many other grumps in CB but the active, avid dedicated players are not therefore we have placed a consideration there in hopes of some attention to it.

I was really all for this idea. Missed, what, a month of my NCB due to trying to work enough ot pay rent and get food. And now this character is shot, I didn't earn CPs for my Clan, if anything I took them away, and I have to restart a NCB, again.

And then I see everyone here saying, "Changes, changes are stupid! And they hack. And... poopie-face." Seriously, EVERY time I see a change thread here anymore, its someone trying to put anything forward to make the game better and then the vets tearing it up, using it for toilet paper and then throwing it back in their face. It makes me sad and disgusted with what the community has become.

Grumps = Groups. Although that could work as well......lol

Active, avid and dedicated players don't vacation.

Normal people do, and since it eventually happens to "everybody", on average over the length of years upon years, it all averages out.

Even they need a break now and then is what the subject matter is about Bast. If they were given the option to break they most certainly would.

Oh as a side note it doesn't actually average out Bast, nice try though. There is only one way to actually get that data and that is to pull it from the source code so you cannot say that with a definite air of authority and be correct unless you have that kind of access. So I will ask do you have the ability to access that data?

Making the option? so instead of having 3 steps(leave clan, retire, and log out) just make it one(V-mode). Since mid 2003 of being active in cb1 and then 2 Ive never know anything to get geared towards getting the played to do less. I even recall this being said by the powers that be.

I will ask why you're arguing against "However, every now and then, ALMOST EVERYBODY has a period in time eventually when they can find it a problem to log into CB." by insisting it happens to everybody but we need a way that not everybody gets penalized.

Either it's a special case or it's not. If it's not, it's not a problem. And if it is, then kudos to those who are, in fact, "Active, avid and dedicated" enough to get around something that happens to the all the rest of us. All hail their winning ways and they deserve their high rankings.

My view is basically the same as bast's.

As an additional note, I think that people are poking at the wrong place. In most other games they won't give you any benefit for not logging in and that's normal. The difference is that you can try harder and work towards passing others. In CB it is just too easy to hit maximum potential or at least within 95% of max for people to make noticeable progress unless they are extremely dedicated and work any corners they can. I think the real problem is we need to make the game harder while at the same time lowering the difficulty curve so it isn't rather easy to get 95% efficiency and near impossible to get 100%.

I'd like to take a break sometime.. but I can't because I know taking a break is competitive suicide for my entire run, which is barely even halfway over right now. I'm starting to get burnt out already, its amazing I've been able to keep at this pace.

Seems to me, and this is just casual observation and opinion mind you, that most of the people against the idea of such a thing fall into two groups: either they are casual players to begin with and aren't bothered by what happens if they leave for awhile, or they are the extremely hardcore player that wouldn't be caught dead walking away for more then a day anyway.

I could easily go for some kind of vacation mode that basically freezes the account N*B wise, helps prevent you from getting kicked out of your clan, and maybe give some little bump to help you get back on your feet and running back up to speed again.

I see no issues with this, and I don't see how anyone could really abuse it because if you go on vacation mode you are still missing out on lots of potential growth had you actually been playing at the time. There seems to be no incentive to abuse it to me, especially if we're talking about a possible small bonus (not a 100% bonus upon return) over the course of a relatively short amount of time.

Meh, that's my two cents anyway.

The root of the issue for me is that if I am on vacation (like I was last week with my wife and kids), my entire clan suffers. I cannot swap a character out because we are overfull, so my only choices are to drag them down during my vacation or to leave and hope I can get back in sometime down the road if a few other big players leave, which is unlikely.

If I had a vacation switch that made me a non-clan target for the duration, I wouldn't be harming others. As I noted before, I don't believe there should be any benefit to going on vacation, no bonus upon returning. I would be happy with vacation mode setting you at 0 BA and not accrue for the entirety of the time, so I can't just switch on vacation mode to prevent getting farmed and losing CPs while still fighting.

I'm sure one of you will say "well too bad, that's the nature of clans and this highly competitive and time-consuming game," and you may be right, but we're also still bleeding players and want to make the game accessible to more than the top 60 players. If I come here as a new player and am basically told that if I miss a few days then I've screwed myself and/or my clan, that wouldn't be an incentive to stick around, it'd be a reason to not play.

Why should you have to leave and not be able to get back in your clan of a very long time just because you need a break? More often than not when you leave your clan you cannot get back in because your character has become too big, what then NCB? throw your char away after you have put so much into it? Pick between your Clan and your Char? Why should player have to make a choice like this? On a Side note I fail to understand how what was before has anything to do with right now since honestly in time things change. What worked before doesn't work now and what didn't work before just might be the proper fix now.


I'm not arguing it Bast I'm pointing out the fact that players shouldn't be penalized for wanting to take a much needed break. The concept is fairly simple you don't play you don't grow and if you don't grow then you are definitely going to fall behind. Why should that be if you are a active, avid, and dedicated players? There are considerations for other groups in CB why not for them too?


Bast honestly that comment is beneath you. You know exactly where I am coming from and where I am going. Besides you still failed to answer my question until then I will not see fit to answer your stated question.


Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.


90% of those other games have an end or at the very least set in-game goals, CB has neither so those other game's rules just do not apply. Besides since when has CB ever followed the norm of other games?


I partially agree with this I would rather CM you about this rather than derail the Topic.


Gun if you had nothing worthwhile to actually add to the topic why do this? Seriously this is quite trollish of you.


This is a problem with the N*B that many of us knew would be coming. As the bonus becomes larger and larger it becomes more and more imperative to not miss a single BA. Sooner or later the pressure to be almost perfect will become too much and rather than attract NPs it will deter them.


You sir are quite correct unfortunately. For those that are casual players this shouldn't even be a topic for them to even be bothered with in the first place. Inevitably though they will comment and do whatever they can to say no change is needed.


I agree with most of it except the extra bump. For the N*B System maybe a pause button but honestly I would only see this for players that are out of their N*B.


If anything it can be fixed accordingly to fill in the holes/gaps in it all anyone has to do is point them out and give their opinion on what could be done to alleviate it.


Thanks for that :-)


Hence my point in simply making the Clan Character seem as if it is retired.


Vacation Mode to me would make your Char inaccessible or at the very least when you attempt to fight it is automatically turned off so this exploit cannot be used. Furthermore having and Averaged earnings generated is not technically a bonus if you are only getting say 70-90% of them. All this would do is not punish you and your clan for you taking a much needed break.


And here is a very valid and much needed to be voiced point. As has already been pointed out the main reason Vets leave is because of burnout, NPs see this and will follow suit sooner or later because they will know what is coming. Bottom line we need a few fixes here and one of them is a Vacation mode before we have too few players to even make the game worthwhile to play. Some will call this naysay or doomsday talk but honestly if we stay on this track we most definitely will cause this to happen by our own inaction in this. This won't happen tomorrow or the next day but it will happen sooner or later by not preparing and implementing a fix for it.

Yes, I can see the writing on the wall now!

"Without a vacation mode, Carnage Blender shall surely fall!"

Consider said trollish pic applied to you as well, Zen. You stay under your bridge and I'll stay under mine. ;p

Since when is logic beneath Bast? She makes a perfectly good point.


Either everyone periodically cannot help but miss BA, and things average out

Or some people periodically cannot help but miss BA more often than others, and things don't even out, and they want assistance to help make them competitive

Or some people never miss BA, and others sometimes cannot help but miss BA and things don't even out, and they want assistance to help make them competitive


Note that this applies only the the mildly retarded "I should get EXP for not being here" portion of the suggestion, whereas I wholeheartedly agree that it would be cool if you could turn off CPs for a character if you are going to be gone for a good while. That's an entirely different argument.

OB that is enough I am done with this conversation with you. Obviously you cannot have a civil conversation without attempting to make it personal.

Gun same as above with you.

Both of you thanks for derailing the topic in this manner.

I fully agree, availability is one of the things that make one competetive or not in his game.
Just like intelligence on which spells/skills to use, or barter.

If you don't have the availibility, you are simply not as competetive, and need to make up. But don't blame the game for your availibility, or the people stating they have no issue with less availibility.

Simply said, you are trying to fit the game to your circumstances and won't accept other views.

So i reject your reality of this game and substitute it for my own.
Enough others do as well, so your reality of this game seems to be a minority reality.

Availability, Ability and need for a Break are 3 entirely different things.


See now I have to point out that this issue has already been addressed in the for of changing the Regen Rates and the inability to merge on accounts. You see availability shouldn't necessarily be the nail in the coffin for a competitive game like this. Case in point Todd/Spydah dominated CB 1 in 2 ways money and availability. Now many did compete monetarily but is was the availability that allowed them to get a mil MPR ahead of the rest of the competitors.

Then it was pointed out that those that have a ton of time on their hands can simply outgrow those that simply need some sleep due the Regen Rates being set so high. Players began to get up in arms, many even quit because they say this was unfair which it was. Both in short pointed out a problem in the long run this in all honesty is no different. There is a problem and we have lost players as a result of it. It is unfair and should be addressed.



Not sure exactly who you are directing this at since this seems to be a blanket statement to me so I will digress until there is clarification.

I didn't say anything personal to or about you. Try re-reading my post. I will not be held accountable for the illiteracy of strangers on the internet.

Besides that, my earlier comment that you decided to take offense to was directed to Sickone, and his generous use of capslock in the original post. This conversation has been entirely civil everywhere except for in your own mind.

As a personal favor to myself and the CB community, would everyone be so kind as to to cut it the hell out.

De/ = Demi aka Demigod

Maybe posting it in this forum will make it better.




Really? This is in my own mind?


So you are saying that anyone that doesn"t agree with your standpoint and has an opposing one that fololows along the lines of what you p[osted are mildly retarded is not a personal insult? Yeah sure OB like I said I am done with you in this conversation unless you stop this and actually have a civil conversation without blanket insults.

Zenai, I said that that portion of the suggestion is mildly retarded. Nowhere in that post do I say anything about you. Could you please not take offense to the fact that I think giving people bonus XP for not being here is, in fact, a mildly retarded idea?

TL;DR: Unless you are an idea, specifically of giving XP to people who are gone, then my comment does not pertain to you.

he clearly stated that he thought a portion of the suggestion is mildly retarded which is very different from how you interpreted it. step back and breathe! ; )

As a side note CB is the biggest "grind fest" I"ve every played... Even worse then the old maple story, that's pretty bad..

This is staying closed for a few minutes. I'll open it back up after folks have had a chance to calm down.

[sarcasm] Sure thing. And they never have emergencies, they never get tired, they never lose internet connectivity, they never have to sleep, they never go on trips, they never get assigned to a different city so they never have to move and so on and so forth. [/sarcasm]
If you're a bot or a sharer, yeah, maybe.
And you know what happens to an avid, dedicated player that USUALLY doesn't miss much BA at all when we DOES need to take a vacation for some reason ?


{sarcasm] Oh, yes, because if player A vacations 5 days a year on average in an environment that does not allow him to access CB (or his access is at best sporadic) because he has some kind of nice internet access plan for his mobile phone so basically he only misses BA when he's somewhere without signal or if he sleeps too much... but player B vacations in similar conditions every time he actually leaves home... YEAH, SURE, IT REALLY DOES ALL AVERAGE OUT. [/sarcasm]

It's already mildly displeasing that one can use his RL financial standing to get a leg up in the game by purchasing CB$ (that's another pet peeve of mine, but far less poignant), but the fact that RL wealth (or simple RL geolocation) can even influence performance while not spending any money on the game itself... that's just not right no matter how you look at it.

There's more to life than black and white, something can happen seldom or often, not just either "never" or "always".



And look out how GREAT this has worked out for player retention !
I mean, sure, you can chest-thump as much as you like and call it "the most hardcore game that ever existed" (you actually wouldn't be correct, but you can claim that regardless) and keep on PUNISHING (yes, punishing) people for being both loyal to the game and, well, PEOPLE (as in, not mindless automatons that never need a break), but it's not going to help you maintain, even less grow the userbase.
But then again what do I know, right, I never say something pertinent, and I'm not a dev, let alone godlike figure Jon who's never wrong and could never possibly be ever wrong... right ?



Oh, how HORRIBLY WRONG you are.
In a lot of other online games, you DO get benefits for NOT logging in for a while. Ranging from income bonuses on turn-based games for staying offline for 12 to 20 hours or thereabouts, to daily-granted BA-equivalent dispensing (as opposed to three times per hour), to daily-runnable quests that can represent the largest XP chunk you'll probably earn, to bonuses for XP gain after a certain period of offline time, to penalties for fighting the same target too many times in the same day and so on and so forth. Gaming nowadays is CHOCK-FULL of such features, and it's been having such features for quite a while now.
Your statement that this doesn't happen is at best misguided, at worst downright dishonest.
Oh... and in other countries (mainly China, Korea and other Asian countries), you even get PENALTIES for logging in too often or too long, and the more time you spend online the nastier the penalties get (to the point of making it almost impossible to progress past a certain total online time).

And don't get me started on how many games DO have a vacation mode, and how many of those vacation modes DO have some kind of bonus system, in which your absence is rewarded in some way, instantly, without even needing to do anything except STAY AWAY.
In comparison, this proposed CB vacation system does not grant anything instantly (it actually penalizes you in the very short run), but it allows you to regain the lost standing by working normally for a period equal to the one you spent vacationing (or probably 2 to 3 times longer, depending on implementation), careful to NOT give you an advantage compared to those that stuck around.


More like "without FUNDAMENTAL changes in the way CB plays, CB will eventually run out of players that can stomach it".
It's funny how almost everybody decries the fact the community is getting smaller, it's even funnier that admins occasionally feel the need to quash "soothsayer" threads and seemingly promote an atmosphere where suggestions for improvement are claimed to be desirable...
...only to have EACH AND EVERY NON-COSMETIC SUGGESTION REPEATEDLY RAPED AND TORN APART BY THE SAME CORE GROUP OF GRUMPS THAT LOATHE CHANGE of any kind while professing their undying love for CB and their alleged desire to keep it afloat indefinetely.

Awesome, isn't it ?!?


You're not getting XP for not being there. You're getting more XP per fight when you come back.
It's fundamentally NOT radically different from the concept of NUB or NCB, dammit !
You know, except that instead of fostering a "disposable team" attitude focused on a compressed full-gametime-duration run shoved into (now) 6 months, it would focus on compensating for a certain absence duration SLOWLY, IN TIME... so it's actually BETTER from just about any possible viewpoint.
Of course, except the viewpoint of the usual ultraconservative contrarians (which has never been a logical one, but rather a visceral, emotional, envy-filled one).


Oh, really ? And how exactly is one supposed to compensate for low availability ? By spending oodles and oodles of RL cash on CB$ to maybe have a chance to not fall too much behind ? And what exactly is stopping the hardcore players from doing the same and still keeping an advantage ? Oh, right, nothing is, and they do, so there is NOTHING you can do to compensate for low availability.

[sarcasm]
You know, we should then probably just drop the sham act and change the name from "carnageblender" to something more appropriate, if that is indeed the attitiude you honestly think the game should be promoting... just call it "Incredibly free-time demanding grindquest online with grumpy vets and RL cash sinks you wouldn't believe if you want to be competitive - BLENDER" or something.
[/sarcasm]



I couldn't have said it better myself.

I tire of this. I just give up. Have it your way.
Keep on not changing anything for the better. I'm not sure I'll even still be here to smirk when it will go down with a fizzle.

While I appreciate the effort that was put into the idea, I think CB has bigger issues to deal with given limited developer resources. If you'd like to see improvements like this take place, buy a supporter item, name something, tell a friend about the game. While suggestions are great for starting interesting dialog about possible changes, demanding they be made the top immediate priority seems a little foolish.

Complaining about lack of changes doesn't help, supporting the game does.

Honestly I do not think I said it should be a top priority. I do remember that I said this may not affect us greatly now but will soon if we do not plan/prepare for this.


Bringing an idea up and defending it should be par for the course in all honesty. As far as supporting the game I do so whenever I am able thank you very much.


Aside from this why should we simply shut up when this is a valid subject? The thing that get's me is that people can do a veiled insult, mildly troll the thread and they are defended when someone on the other side of things is simply defending themselves and their idea. Where is the point in this huh? Seriously this is just as much of a problem as the original subject matter. Bring something up and when someone else disagrees then we have to stop because of what......keeping the peace in the forums?

You have to be kidding me.

This whole time I have not been mad, simply discontent as I have felt as if I must defend my thought process and agreement to an idea that I feel has validity. However to do so means I must allow any/everyone else to back me into a discussion corner and browbeat me while I keep my mouth shut simply because it is more convenient to keep the peace. In short I cannot voice my thoughts or feelings on the subject but rather only intake others?

If this is the case I am officially done with CB.

@ Sickone


I never said this game was hardcore, not from these lips. People come and they go but I doubt this is ground breaking.

...only to have EACH AND EVERY NON-COSMETIC SUGGESTION REPEATEDLY RAPED AND TORN APART BY THE SAME CORE GROUP OF GRUMPS THAT LOATHE CHANGE of any kind while professing their undying love for CB and their alleged desire to keep it afloat indefinetely.

I wish people would take apart my suggestions... Instead only a couple people post in them and that's about it.

More on topic with this thread. I probably miss around 3 full weeks worth of ba over a years time. At the same time I have been more or less matching AA's growth and he has the largest mpr character. Just pointing out that even people at the very top miss days and have full weeks they miss out on ba.

You just went there ?
Seriously ?
Damn.

That reminds me of the good old times where we had to bribe Jon to implement a change he didn't see as important as the community did.

I really like the idea. I am a new player and already I find times where I'm going to need it. This whole spring to summer 90% of my weekends I probably won't be able to get on due to my racing. Maybe at best on my cell phone but there will be times I'm simply not available. I just think It should kinda keep count of all the BA you miss and or how many you use daily on a regular day and base a reward boost when you get back on that. for the period of time that you were gone. Or maybe only have the period of time you were gone.

I wonder if Zenai would have gone into vacmode instead of quitting :P

I like the idea of a vacation mode as long as it doesn't break the game for those that actually play it.

Doubtful, he said he's done with the game, going into vacmode would imply not really quitting

Indeed that is true but dealing with people like you a break is not enough.

Really, that was necessary? I haven't done anything to warrant this kind of behavior from you, Z. Please stop. =|

Novice - what is currently being worked on?

Wow you have some testicular fortitude to ask that question. Of course it was necessary, just as necessary as every single post you have ever made.


Yes you have you just refuse to admit you are wrong at any point in time whatsoever, at least where you and I are concerned, even when beyond the shadow of a doubt you are and you know it.


Pffft I will follow the exact same guidelines as you OB. That is your answer period.

In short stop making mildly retarded posts and I will stop making mildly retarded rebuttal posts. I think that to be fair eh?

Zenai, you are really hurting my feelings. Please stop, or I'm going to quit. I'm getting really butthurt over here.

;)

Also, I believe I already explained to you that you misunderstood my post. Saying that a facet of a suggestion is mildly retarded is very different from saying anyone who argues for that suggestion assumes that same property.

Now stop trolling me just because you haven't learned how to read comprehensively yet.

Or at very least, help give this thread meaning. Let it finally have accomplished something good, and actually go the hell away, eh?

take it to cm's for the good of the thread, mankind and all of cb land...please?

I don't know. Was your first reply to this thread necessary ? Was a lot of the text in most of your replies necessary ? Probably not, on all counts, but hey, one tends to dish out the same treatment one receives, so...

I don't know. Was the damned thread necessary? I can freely give my opinion to a topic, and shouldn't have to deal with being harassed for doing so. Disagreeing with a given position is not the same as a personal attack on the individual backing that position, and the sooner people can learn that very, very simple fact, the sooner we can actually have civil debates in these forums.

now we will be forced to cm as this thread is officially closed!