why does it cost so much to hire (in General)

why does it cost so much to hire a minion? way to high a price. over 12 million CBD at just under 900k MPR and it keeps going up...

Why ?

Same answer as anything else a bit bizarre, outdated or plain out flat wrong in the game right now.

Because Jon, game maker, considered it a good idea to do it that way, and would not take conflicting viewpoints into consideration as valid, and his word is sort of gospel (as in, he's as good as not around anymore, and can't be question for motives, but whoever's left in charge can interpret it whichever way he chooses as long as they don't contradict the "letter of the law" at any time).

Now, granted, the reasons for doing it that exact way MAY be actually good reasons, and doing it in another way would break something else in a worse way, but since these things were never openly discussed nor even seen as a valid enough problem in possible need of a solution... well, you get the idea.

it took me an entire week to make 3m so a month for a minion seems rediculous

Some of the bits and pieces that (now) play some role in that particular issue:
- if minions would only cost somewhat less, that would still make the single minion team the clearly best N*B ascension strategy, followed by 3 minion purchases at the very end (it's still the best actually possible method, yet an expensive option, because CB$-for-US$ is quite allowed)
- if the minions would cost a lot less (even if they had next to no XP on them on creation), then hiring and firing minions as temporary killslots would borderline work, especially in conjunction with a RoE while the killslots are active
- the RoE was altered from its original utility (for different but somewhat related reasons), the previous version of the RoE made this far less of a palatable option ; not just that, but the RoE didn't actually exist when the decision to do it this way was made, making it a bit difficult to consider as a valid excuse for the original decision, which only leaves us with some kind of "Jon didn't want people to change minion team count easily" argument which feels at best somewhat arbitrary

You're not "supposed" to really be able to change your team's minion composition from single minion cheaply, at least not without real life money being involved in the mix (which is perplexing since the GAME itself makes no cash from it, as you buy it from other players, not the system) while you maintain a decent NW.
A purely magic-oriented initially solo minion character might pull off having enough spare cash for doing that on a more or less regular basis, and the more minions you have, the easier it is to get an extra one (as the cost - and XP you get on the new minion - gets higher slower due to XP dilution on the top XP minion).

Bottom line, hire all extra minions as early as possible.
Or, you know, at least hire the second minion ASAP.
Preferably in the first few minutes of a character's life.

P.S. It's entirely possible and actually quite feasible to go on as a single minion for as long as you like, especially ever since the "one level of something always costs 12 XP" linearization which made single minions far more attractive.
And of course, there's always the option of simply starting fresh with a NCB and hiring all needed/desired minions from the word go. In time, the XP concentration on the top minion gets less and less relevant either way, so, meh, who cares.

thats dumb. eh a month to go...

P.P.S. Costs for me:
Enlist for $142,573,219
Enlist for $57,029,287

thats straight up retarted. should i just quit now if its RL cash only to grow properly?

The more you go on, the more expensive it gets.

CB$ and XP are earned at a more or less constant ratio (barring crazy money/XP time), and the cost of hiring goes up with amount of XP on the top XP minion.
This hilariously makes the time spent collecting the cash for hiring a fresh minion be a nearly fixed percentage of THE AMOUNT OF TIME PLAYED ON THE CHARACTER SO FAR. So the more you wait to hire, the longer it takes to save up enough cash to be able to do it.
And the cheaper option gives you a worse XP-to-CB$ ratio.
So the overall most cash-efficient alternative is to hire all the ones you want almost immediately after creating the character.

In fact, it's sometimes better to just start a new character from scratch and hire your desired minion count before even battling once.

that is a very stupid design

No, it's "pick your team count at the start, stick with it".
You can make your team work just fine with as many minions as you have.
If you really want more minions, you should consider retiring the character and starting a new one instead.
NOT the account, just the character. It bears mentioning. That would be against the game rules.

And, you know, the sad truth is that characters are very disposable, especially the ones that didn't perform very well so far.
A fresh NCB - run even just slightly better from the start - will easily outperform it by a lot in a few months.

I got a loan way back for 70 million to hire my last 2 minions and it was worth it.

I would quit but if you want a 2nd minion buy it asap same for 3&4 but its not necessary to have 4-5 minions some top contenders has less.

Not really.
It only seems stupid if you consider that it would be an intended initial mechanics not a concession made to the players (I suspect).

Imagine what if you COULD NOT hire nor fire any minions at all and you had to select the number of minions when you create the character - which might actually be what Jon initially intended, but might have considered allowing players a very EXPENSIVE way to change it mid-play.

Each selection of 1, 2, 3 or 4 minions has distinct advantages and disadvantages compared to other team setups, and they're far more balanced nowadays than they used to be (ignoring equipment which was nerfed, that is, which would actually have made single minions more powerful in the distant past even before the linearization).
In that respect, what actually seems stupid is to even allow people to hire/fire minions at all, NOT the high cost of doing so.

I guess it all depends on perspective.

P.S. I'm a huge single minion and don't really mind at all. There's only three larger. And they don't really show signs of wanting to change either, at least not for now.

If I wanted a 2, 3 or 4-minion team (or even 4+familiar=5), I would simply start a NCB either way.
HECK, I might even want to start a NCB and STAY a single minion on THAT NCB as well, as that option also has some pretty good advantages (chiefly the use of overpowered gear/tattoo on this char shifted on the NCB char with a nearly identical strategy making the ascension to better status much easier).
But I don't have the patience for running a NCB anymore, I would even hate to be in 7/20, let alone 9/20.

P.P.S. In your particular case, I would stay a single minion + familiar magic user AND SAVING AS MUCH CB$ AS POSSIBLE until the 7th of April 2013, when your NUB expires (which actually grants you pretty damn strong benefits, free daily BA and a CASH EARNING BONUS is something an older player can only dream of) and just starting a NCB with as many minions as you like a few days later.

It takes me a whole month to make 3m.
None of that NUB cash earning bonus for me.

General Message: I'll say the same to you bicie that I say to all NUBs. It may seem like a daunting task right now but because of your bonus you will reach your monetary goal before you know it. So going into debt is not so big of a deal right now. If you plan properly and honor every deal that you make you should reach at least 60% of your preset goals. If you are REALLY good at working deals or have someone to help you (read financially back you) then this will be a piece of cake and should for the most part get you to 80-100% of your goals.


In Depth Explanation: CBD will come hand over fist if you take it one step/day at a time and stay consistent in your fighting/updating your fight list. If you don't then it won't so in the end your monetary accrual is up to the things you as a player decide to do. Be active, search forums for deals, and talk to people and you will be surprised at the results!

The bottom Line: Player Factor is the #1 Component in this game.

The price is reasonable considering the xp you gain. The problem is that the way the NUB has evolved means the xp bonus outstrips the cash bonus (cost to hire is based on the xp in your largest minion) and this effect is magnified at this late stage in the game. This is partly why I advocate a 3rd, cheaper hiring option.

Do you see only one price to hire? there should be two. The last time this was brought up Natasha said there is a bug where if you don't complete the tutorial you only see one price.

i only see 1

There is a fixed conversion between $ and XP that is used all throughout the game for many different things. You are buying a lot of XP, so it costs a lot.

I have a 2 minion team so it's not as bad for me as it is for you, but I'm going through a similar issue. My biggest concern is that since I've started saving for a third minion I've come up with $900k. During that time the price of a new minion has gone up nearly $500k. I tried not training exp, but it seems to go by exp earned (whether spent or not). Good luck!

While in the NUB phase (first 6 months since first joining the game), your XP bonus far outstrips your CB$ bonus, so hiring minions is slower than for a non-NUB-nor-NCB.

The non-NUB-nor-NCB has the best overall ratio, with no bonuses to either cash nor XP, but then again some would call that "blessed with suck".
However, the "regular" player has to pay for his BA, whereas a NUB gets his extra BA for free.

It's actually the worst of all for a NCB, where you get the same XP bonus as a NUB that started on the same day and NO cash bonus at all, and your BA cost a lot more to purchase than normally (proportional to the XP bonus value).

Quick back-of-envelope calculation...

If memory serves right, you earn CB$ at a rough rate of 33% higher than XP. If you're a single minion, all that XP goes into a single stack, making the cost of hiring new minions rise the fastest.

The *TWO* hiring options (which you should normally see) grant different XP amounts:
- the "cheap" option gives you a bit under 2.7% of the leading minion XP at a cost of 5 CB$ per XP, or about 13.33% of your total income so far made on that particular character
- the "expensive" option gives you a bit over 11% of the leading minion XP at a cost of 3 CB$ per XP, or about 33.33% of your total income so far made on that particular character

What this means is that if you would have never spent a single dime out of all the CB$ you earned since you started, you would have been able to hire ALL THREE minions with the EXPENSIVE option.

You can all too easily spend CB$ on ludicrously useless things which you can't recover your investment from (or if you can recover any of it, it's at a drastically reduced rate).
Learning to manage one's earnings is a pretty important skill in this game.

P.S. If you had two minions since almost the very start, since the XP on the leading minion is halved, you can cut all costs per additional minion in two compared to the numbers above. Same story for three, but even more advantageous.

P.P.S. The numbers above are assuming an ideally simplified non-N*B situation.
It's actually about two to three times less facile for NUBs, but that's still quite doable.
And it's about 7 to 8 times more difficult for NCBs (and keeps getting worse st the XP bonuses keep growing) - that is to say, already as good as impossible for a single minion NCB to be able to purchase even the cheap minion at the end of a run just with the cash earned in that run, even if he buys no BA at all.

should read "even the 3 cheap minions"

Also, ever since the RoE was redesigned, it's ludicrously easy to manipulate minion XP allocation from the word go - just hire all minions and stick the RoE on whichever minion you want to get all the XP. Bonus points for earning higher bonuses due to lower PR. Then stick a defensive tattoo on (most likely a familiar, but others to supplement your main minion's fighting power work too) when not actively fighting to discourage people from farming you.
It means that you can effectively turn a 4-minion team in a single minion team with 3 permanent kill-slots if you keep up the rotations.

For THAT reason alone I believe the old thinking is obsolete, and we should also get an uber-cheap hiring option THAT GIVES NEXT TO NO XP on the newly hired minion (like, say, 0.1% of the top minion XP). And make it cost 10 CB$ per XP if you like, or even 20 CB$/XP.

That last option is doable.

But for the record, the ROE isn't as great as you might imply. Don't forget, minion hiring is the ONLY way to use CBD to increase MPR. And you can only do it 3 times in the life of your party. The longer you wait, the more you can increase the MPR. Although, I'm not sure if the % increase changes... just the linear amount.

Actually the RoE is pretty good. I was thinking about running a 4 minion team using the RoE and then at the end of the NCB, fire the 4 minions and buy them back for bonus EXP.

Of course this costs a ton :(. Plus, it is hard to spend the entire time of an NCB with an RoE. If you don't switch to a normal tattoo during the dead zone you can easily get stuck there with 0 to negative challenge bonus.

Also, you have to remember that rewards are tied in with your PR so having very low PR isn't always a good thing.