Mage Blender for me! (in General)

I just changed from using a TOA to an IF.

Wow, what a difference.

Now I get to lower my PR by 1 million, getting up to 10% challenge bonus.

Also, now I added 1 character who used to farm me and 3 that stalemated or occasionally beat me.

Still lose to 1 that always beat me and now to another that I used to beat occasionally.

Big question for me is what to do with my 321m SoD?

I really believe this is the future of CB if things are not changed.

And also, the best of all, I do not have to worry about the stupid elbow!

I'll get you back on my list soon enough Ranger :-P

Would you like a cookie?

Chocolate chip please!

Sell it for USD. I've said about 10 billion times that NW/PR/CBonus hurts the economy, but it just feels like I'm bashing my head against a wall.

I likely will try. Key word is try.

But others, especially novice, have railed against NW/PR/Cbonus. And I do believe they are correct.

Yeah, nov is the only one who ever agrees with me.

I have agreed with you on numerous things. Only is a very strong word, like never.

Yeah, in the past, I was speaking more of like 5-6 months ago when I was really vocal about it. I'm sure you would of agreed with me, but it was when you weren't here. There's been a few others who agree with me here and there, but we are far from the majority.

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, I agree with you too.

Yeah, that's one thing that always makes me giggle LB, how we align almost identically on our CB politics, but are almost polar opposites on our real world politics.

Ranger and I are the same way.

the funny thing is that i was just thinking that the game may be becoming more balanced as we get to these higher numbers. on one hand you have the ability to jump ahead with physical damage due to the linear damage modifier upgrade cost, however as you get higher that may become a hindrance as others can grow faster due to the fact that the added pr will diminish any possible challenge bonus.

if you look at it from the other angle, with magical damage and its non-linear item boost upgrade cost you cannot buy more damage after a certain point and have to grow it with xp. is it coincidental that what hinders this earlier on actually allows it to catch up later?

in some of our recent discussions i have held that the damage modifier on weapons having the only linear item cost in the game is very powerful. i also believe that being able to maintain a challenge bonus up top if very powerful as well.

I think we went over this quite a few times.

While the upgrade to weapons is indeed linear, it does not give a linear increase in damage ability.

One needs both to increase the x on a weapon and the strength of the wielder to get the same proportionate increase in damage.

While one only needs xp to increase magic damage.

Also, with AC being higher near the top ranks, magical damage has another advantage of less mitigation.

For someone like myself, when I was ToA tank, or Z to get double damage, we would have had to both double the x on our weapon, which would be hundreds of millions of CB AND double our strength. While as a mage, I only have to increase my spell level via xp.

But the key thing is the fact I now get a challenge bonus, up to 10% presently, while before I had none. My SoD alone added over 1M to my PR. While my fightlist improved.

Exactly, I saved my money, I spent my money well, I am stronger than you. Yet my PR is higher b/c I was smart with my money, and now I'm receiving the same rewards as you, even though I can kill better opponents, and I have more NW. I don't know what you call that, but that is not balance.

that kind of balance would need some way to separate the smart cb economists from the people who just have deep pockets and a willingness to spend usd on cb items in my humble opinion.

had cb2 been a closed system from the start, i would fully support your ideal though as that would fit the bill.

While I'm not taking either side:

while it may be more expensive (needing xp/st to grow physical damage), there are also more powerful bonuses to physical damage attributes, physical can get multiple hits and there are more powerful magic damage mitigants. Its not nearly so easy as saying, physical damage is weaker since it needs $ and xp vs just xp.

Meh, gains from any challenge bonus under 30-40% are pretty negligible IMO. Having a 10-20% bonus really doesn't make a whole lot of difference over having none, at that point your base rewards are more important.

Btw Ranger saying it improved your fight list is debatable, considering I've been watching who you've been fighting all day and who you've been losing to. There are certain characters now that are giving you more trouble to 100% win then before.

I don't think it's so much "Mage Blender" as it is "Decay" blender.

>.>

I think the exbow would disagree with you there.

It has the most powerful damage mitigation in the game.

But you are correct in that physical can do multiple hits and generally can have more damage.

But here are the pros/cons of each as I see it:

Physical damage:

PROS:

1) Multiple hits.
2) Can spend money for higher damage.
3) More items to boost strength and damage. IE BG, TSA, BOM. But remember a 1:1 strength boost does not give you that proportion of damage without boosting your weapon.
4) Many different weapons for different uses. IE VB vs armor, MoD vs AS/PL, MH to leech etc...

CONS:

1) All AC works vs physical.
2) DBs are extremely effective. 14M gives +100 which is 1 less hit a round.
3) Need to increase both weapon x and strength to increase damage proportionally.
4) The mother of all damage reducers - the exbow.

Magic damage:

PROS:

1) Linear growth with xp.
2) Always hits.
3) Can significantly reduce AMF backlash and increase damage with the NSC.
4) Typically compared to tanks you have a much lower PR meaning a higher challenge bonus.
5) Only the + on armor lowers damage.

CONS:

1) Mage shield.
2) Cannot increase damage analogous to physical with money. Mage items do not have a linear upgrade curve like weapons.
3) AMF both lowers damage and gives backlash, however this can be significantly reduced with the NSC.
4) The most powerful spells start damage in last round of ranged.
5) The mageseeker. Which with TSA/PL/HP minions is hardly a problem for most mages. Add some DBs and you are pretty safe from most mageseekers.
6) The RBF lowers damage vs DD spells.

For me it was easy, the IF works for numerous reasons.

I have been testing all day.

I have 1 character who I cannot get, who I did sometimes before.

I have 1 who I think I lose to, who I lost to badly before.

I have 1 who I used to beat who I lose to rarely.

There is 1 that I lose to, but have not tested with some retraining.

I have 2 that I used to win/stalemate/lose randomly who now I beat easily.

I have 1 that I used to lose to 90%+ who now I beat almost 100%.

So, with a few more tweaks, my fightlist will be no worse and likely improved, with up to a 10% challenge bonus. And freeing up a 321M NW SoD that I can sell, insta down, rent out etc....

But not needing a 321M NW weapon to keep my same fightlist is quite a feat, something that I am pleased to do.

The exbow is an exception and sounds broken (never used myself).

Also, your needing to spend $ and xp helps in a way. Amf equal to DD would be .5 reduction. Going by your 2xX and 2xST formula, EC equal to ST would be a .25 reduction.

Do not forget the NSC, it is one incredible item. Nerfs millions upon millions of AMF.


Certainly.

However, the best tanks are of course, TOA. To get enough EC to compensate for the huge strength bonus, the propped up by items such as the AoM and BoM is impossible.

At best you can try to dent the TOA tanks strength but realistically you can never get more than 50% of their strength, spending a huge percentage of your xp in the attempt.

If there was not a TOA in the game, then EC would be very useful.

Don't forget the ToA also easily helps overcome the DBs and the vorpal blade can overcome AC(from your phys cons). The real differentiator on the lists seems to be the exbow. Other than that, they sound fairly balanced, imo.

Well when you are done with your testing then we shall see how the current strat holds up against the teams I was looking at.

But like I said, gains from a 10% bonus are negligible, especially when offensive losses start happening, makes those small gains completely obsolete.

Keeping your list pretty much intact when only changing like 1-2 things is fairly easy, and considering your AS level I don't see how adding a familiar wouldn't help keep things pretty much the same. Hell I did the same thing with a total retrain, losing no one, kept my entire list and dropped half the people attacking me at the time.

Dropping a 321m NW weapon is not a "small" change IMO.

It's very easy to get 80-90% wins 100% wins...

his current strategy is much more efficient then his previous.

VB dmg is so so low.

So, until then, let's just punish those who don't spend USD and decide to play a tank? I made more CBD than you, I beat better opponents, I get the same rewards. That's not fair any way you slice it. Instead it incentivizes non-USD tanks just to switch to magic and make abunch of USD. Hell, it's almost to the point where even heavy USD spenders could perform just as well with a mage, or non-tank, for less money spent. If you beat bigger opponents, you should get bigger rewards. This "doing more with less" idea is retarded. It should matter how you win, it should matter *that* you win. Isn't that what we care about, being the best? Oh it doesn't matter that he can be everyone in the game, I can beat most people, and I have half the net worth, guess I did a better job than him. NO! That sounds retarded.

It's not negligible, it's 10%. No matter how you cut it, it's 10%. And if you play correctly, you shouldn't get offensive losses, like ever. Especially not anywhere close to 10%, not even 5%.

i disagree titan, i think there should be tradeoffs. i really do not enjoy playing games where one can have it all...they do not leave room for much else.

choices are good in my opinion.

Welcome to the world of mages where CBD doesn't influence your damage and you don't do something stupid with your tattoo like equip a ToA to get your USD based gears under your encumbrance.

Depending on how much you cut your PR by and how your targets differ, 10% can be pretty negligible or even detrimental to your actual rewards.

Dropping a 321m NW and adding a 5th minion with a 12m level spell buffed by a large AS complementing your setup better*

Small change IMO.

I'm confused, you don't like games where people can have it all? Does that mean you don't like games with winners? You don't like games that reward good play? What does that even mean. B/c right now, CB doesn't reward the people with the best play.... And that's the kindof games I like.

Titan,

I think Dude likes game with winners, however, when one person can "buy" his way to the top compared to others, he has a problem.

If CB was a closed system he would not have such a problem.

If I get the gist of what Dude is typing.

If dude would admit that I'd be perfectly okay with that. I just don't think that the solution to that problem is to punish everyone who chooses to value money. There has to be a better solution, I just don't accept that.

yeppers, that is definitely the gist.

to be a bit more clear though, i see the system we have now as having two winners or two different choices fairly well in balance. those who boost physical damage with usd or have made money in the economy and those who use magical damage. we do have losers, that is those that choose to use non-usd boosted physical damage. for the last 8+ years i have played it has been fairly well known that if you can spend usd or have lots of cbd, go physical otherwise go with a different damage type.

if usd is made to be king then we really only have one winner,physical damage types and everyone else is a second-class citizen. this is why i stated that the system we have now actually has more choices and i think more players due to that fact.

mage blender has been predicted for years now, in my opinion we still haven't seen it and we have actually had more physical or mixed physical and other damage teams. the pendulum does swing but is it because the two are out of whack or is it in reaction to what others are doing at the top?

titan, i said the same thing ranger did in my 6:40 p.m. post. i am unsure how exactly i am supposed to agree with something i already stated! : 0

But, I'd like to have the ability to jump forward with my money, the money I earned *without* USD. Money should have power, lots of it, and it shouldn't be punished just b/c there are others who can gain it from other means.

how much money do you have on your character that you cannot use?

I could use it all, it's a theoretical can't use. It's a I "can't" use it b/c I get punished for it. Of course I can use it, but it's not worth it.

i would be interested to know of an actual case where someone with no usd input, other than supportership, item namings and supporter items has hit the ceiling and is being punished. i have more faith in jon's balance system than that!

I could do that with my current char before I sold my weapon. But, I don't think ENC is bad, I think the way PR/NW/Cbonus are related are bad.

i am not convinced of that either, a lack of a bonus does not a punishment make.

that is much like saying that if i choose to give my employees a bonus for being on time i am punishing people for being late because they don't get the bonus? now if i dock their pay for tardiness that is punishment.

i believe that is why the negative challenge bonus is removed at the top. i would agree with the statement that you are punished if we still had a negative challenge bonus up here.

i think that the current system tends to reward people for doing more with less.

in a corporation if one division increases market share by 100% but shows a net loss while another one increases market share by 90% while still showing a profit which one do you think should get rewarded more?

*sigh* I shouldn't even get into this.

Hatchet was solidly up against the cap with his team.

Multi-minion tank teams are quite capable of being hamstrung by enc without USD.

As for weapons being hindered by the NW-PR link, we're back to this.

Increasing your NW (PR? It's been a while so I'm unsure of the nuances, and I never really agreed with it) actually increases your rewards.

You can have a massive weapon without it adding any PR by dumping all your NW into the X.

If you find large weapons too much of a hindrance by them increasing your PR, then just don't increase your Weapon +. There's always the ToA to cover that...

(As for not hitting versus DBs. You'll always get your Dex hit per round anyway, and you absolutely ignore all thier NW in DBs or trained XP in Evasion. /shrug)

And you would never hit. A useless weapon.

Not every tank-based team is best suited to a ToA.

That's where we need accuracy (+).

(Sorry, but I refuse to call a weapon's "+" stat "to-hit" when there is a perfectly good word in the English language for it, and that word is accuracy.)

Always?

Also: I currently have the strongest (x-wise) Morgul Hammer in the game. My main tank doesn't come close to single-minion strength levels, but is no slouch in the strength department, especially after AoF-backed Giant Strength.

I don't come anywhere near the damage levels of CoC or SG spells, even on the rare occasion I score three consecutive hits.

LB, your Str is 4 times your Dex. For a long time we've skimped on Dex as really, it wasn't deemed necessary. It's been seen as the secondary stat, the poor cousin to Str since the days of Red Dwarf.

Now I'm not saying this is the best route to go, but if you wanted to build around a free PR weapon, then you might want to prioritise Dex.

Still, fix free weapon X and then we can move on to tweaking the whole NW-PR link arrangement.

I still support that weapon X should be reflected in PR. You only get it for 'free' at it's designed/balanced level. Too much and it should increase PR, like + does. Too little and it should actually reduce PR.

But I see why it doesn't, as that leads to defensive shenanigans by swapping out to a base weapon when you're not fighting.

To be honest so much of CB needs to be rebuilt, from the ground up.

The first to go would be gaining more rewards the larger you get.

(I'd also like to be corrected if I'm wrong that increasing your PR actually increases your rewards)

Less than twice after enchantments.

You're still making my point for me. With more Dex and less Str, I'd be hitting even weaker in comparison to CoC or SG.

Since the days of Encumbrance. Find that changelog. That marks the day I stopped training 33/33/33.

So:
Pump more money to damage, less to accuracy.
Pump more XP to Dex, less to Strength.

Doesn't this trade off even out? Wouldn't I still be doing comparative damage to my current levels?

Keep in mind I still have the most damaging Morg in the game.

I still support that it should not, since tanks have to train TWO different stats to do damage that already count toward MPR, whereas mages get to train one, not spend (much) cash to maintain it, and do greater damage.

We should probably just agree on this and call it a day.

Agreed! :P

But I do have to mention two things first though. ;)

You're not using BL. And we have to assume that Physical damage is balanced around having either Archery or Bloodlust depending. Otherwise if damage was balanced without these skills, then using them would make you OP. ;)

How much of the DD damage you're comparing yourself to is from a trained minions, or from Familiars?

I think we can all agree that the XP based familiars aren't really balanced, and that you couldn't make a trained minion perform as well as them (either the Jig, or any of the DD Familiars).

GL, increasing your PR only increases your rewards if you're not getting any CB, or if that increase outweighs the decrease you receive in CB, which it usually doesn't.

Dudemus:

A more fitting analogy would be you paying all of your employees the same. Then any of them that decide to use that money, you decrease their pay 10% for every 5% of money that they use.

I've since seen folks claim PR isn't the cause of the rewards bump... but that made my head hurt. DoS and Nat need to chime in.

PR does increase rewards, it's a huge really complicated formula, but PR is definitely a part of it.

i think we have found our disagreement then. you equate a lack of a bonus to a decrease in rewards. a negative challenge bonus is exactly that so in the lower levels your analogy is fine. at the upper levels it no longer holds true though.

how would you change our current system if you were the visionary behind cb titan?

So if it was discussed in terms of a rewards for low NW being unfair would that offend you less than talking about being punished for high NW?

is that directed at me nov?

if so, that would allow the discussion to move beyond semantics and onto a discussion regarding game mechanics.

so you guys are saying people should not be rewarded for doing more with less?

Have someone drain out the score some and make it moot.

Here's the point, in a game about items and upgrades it's counter productive to own and upgrade items, I think that's the bottom line.

the game is only really about upgrades for certain strategies though due to the non-linear upgrade cost curve for most items. even for my ac wall it used to be about upgrades but that has slowed way down.

again though if cb were closed from transfers i would be all for it as your items and upgrades would be an indication of how well you have played the game.

i still like the fact that the current system allows for more winners as opposed to the alternative which would end up with whoever spends the most usd on the game would be the only winner.

Upgrades, possibly.

Own, never.

It's all about owning the right items, and most of them give you the full benefit base.

Yeah I think we focus way to much on doing CB right...

right < fun

Yes. People should be rewarding for doing the most, doesn't matter how they do it. Do we penalize a first class scientist for being smart? Who cares if he discovers the cure for cancer, he was smart, let's just reward him the same as everyone else, he did more, but he had more too. That sounds stupid.

titan, i asked earlier how you would set it up if you were the visionary force behind the game. perhaps you could share your unretarded, non-stupid reward system with us.

Make ENC so that it effectively curtails USD domination, yet is fair to both 1 minion and 4 minion teams. Then base Cbonus purely of MPR versus opponents score.

any ideas on accomplishing the first part?

as for the challenge bonus, i think the name implies what jon was trying to do with it. if you can beat more challenging opponents then you get a bonus. if you fight less challenging opponents, then you do not and sometimes even get a penalty.

with that in mind, mpr isn't really as good of an indicator of the challenge involved especially when we have pr. what makes you think mpr is a better way of determining the challenge involved?

I don't care what Jon intended, I care what would be best. Having NW hinder your growth is stupid. The first part I'll post an idea for a little later. Score is a great indicator of challenging opponents. If you beat people with higher score, you'll get larger rewards, regardless of equips.

score is used in the current system as well as the one you proposed, you didn't change that at all so i am unsure of why you bring that up. if i understand correctly, you are saying replace pr in the challenge bonus calculation with mpr.

my question still stands unanswered, why do you think that mpr is a better indicator of the level of challenge than pr that is used now?

if you could explain your ideas without using the words stupid or retarded that would be an added bonus!

MPR is the best suiting b/c it's a level playing ground. Every 3M MPR team gets the same amount of XP to work with. If you use PR, you take into account a bunch of different things. Tattoo sizes, armor and weapons. I don't think these things should be taken into account, both people have the same levels, how they choose to use their money should their choice. A person with 500M NW, and a 12M tat fighting someone with 6M score, should be getting more rewards than someone with an 8M tat and 100M NW fighting a 5M score opponent. Why, b/c we should reward you for fighting bigger opponents, regardless of how you beat them. If you worried about USD, that's the purpose of the ENC curtailing.

I have a question for you Dude. Do you think that if CB were a close system that MPR v. Score would be a fair judge for challenge bonus? B/c if you're answer is no, there is no point in us continuing this conversation.

now that is a tough question, i am going to give that some thought before answering one way or the other.

are we talking no transfers at all? as in a shakes & fidget type game where you can buy from the store but with the option of upgrading with earned cb and blacksmithing of your own items?

i really think that if those are the conditions, or even if as you stated earlier that encumbrance could be used to limit the effect of usd on the game, then the challenge bonus wouldn't be necessary at all.

this is due to the fact that i see the challenge bonus as the balancing mechanism for keeping usd from winning the game. it forces the choice of going high pr and getting little to no growth bonus at the top of the game or controlling your pr and growing faster than those that do not do so.

if you take away the possibility of usd winning then there is no reason to use anything other than base rewards as far as i can see and the idea of a challenge bonus would be unnecessary.

But, if you base it just off of base rewards, then you don't have any incentive to fight opponents with higher score, unless you include your MPR and their score in the base rewards formula.

You can easily do something about the current state of the game if you like. Just be creative as a player.

If I had won the recent 161 million Euro Lottery, I'd considered buying every single character in the game and retiring them.

Go go reset? ;)

if that is true, why isn't it happening now for those at the top exempt from negative challenge bonus and with too high of a pr to get much of a positive challenge bonus.

the base reward formula has plenty of incentive to fight up.

I have gotten it down to:

1 person who smokes me easily. I do not even get off a spell most battles

1 person who used to beat me easily now draws or loses about 50% of the time

1 person who can beat me 75% who I used to smoke easily

The rest I beat fairly easily. Including 1 that beat me fairly easily and 3 others that with their exbow either beat me or caused me to stalemate them over 50% of the time.

Long live Mage Blender!!!

sounds pretty balanced, except for the exbow which i noted earlier ;)

this reminds me of the time you switched to the robf by the way. how long did you stick with that before switching back to physical damage?

Not since I returned to CB.

And I have run a top character using only DD at one time.

i don't understand the answer, sorry.

Remember I took a year off. Before then I think I used the RBF, but at least not with this character did I use that tattoo to this effect.

yeah, i was referring to pre-hiatus times. i couldn't remember how long you stayed robf when you changed.

I think I was not really setup for a RBF strat. I think it was when I was playing Koy and was using DM instead of AMF at that time.

But now, I would have to massivly retrain to use a RBF, and get a nice wall set.

yeah, it was definitely koy. i just couldn't remember how long you played with it.

I do not believe it was longer than a month. And it was, IIRC, about when it first came out.

Nice tattoo, the more I regain my footing in CB, the more I do like it.

Contrary to my first opinions of that tattoo, it is a nice addition.