Historically, CB didn't offer free retraining, ever; many players took the position that trying to design a strat that could bend and flow with the changemonths was part of the fun. Now though more players prefer to try for "optimal" strategies which means they tend to get grumpy when their strat get hit. What should we do?

Total of 176 votes


Man up. No free retrains 38.1
Free retrain every changemonth 17.6
Free retrain on especially large changemonths 27.8
Chuck Norris doesn't retrain; he [fill in the blank] 16.5

Comments

2

man up!

-- INDColtsFan18

Man up.

Besides, it is annoying during a free retrain when your opponent can just keep retraining to cause you to lose to them. Also, you can retrain in real-time to cause opponents to lose to you, as well.

No more of this free retraining bull. Man up, CB! You too, Jon!


Besides, whatever happened to all the GOOD players? You know, the ones who adapted so well that every change was "to their benefit?" *cough*

-- QBOddBird

5

across the face!

-- A Lesser AR of 15

Let em pay for it..

... with the xp loss if they want to retrain! OB has most of the reasons why down, I'm not going to repeat it. But let em pay!!

-- QBJohnnywas

Anyone voting for either free retrain option want to cough up a good reason?

-- AdminQBnovice

Reason

"I don't want to risk possibly losing MPR on my strategy to make a change because"

1) BA regen is so low that any ground I lose I cannot make up
2) I'm not willing to suck up the penalty
3) I'm spoiled
4) I wanna keep this character at a high MPR so I can sell it and start a new character later, because characters are currently throwaway-style



-- QBOddBird

NUB

You forgot: the NUBs are taking over, it's just not fair that they can get bigger than me; I don't want them to be any bigger.

(It does seem that every change Jon brings makes people grumpy. Was CB always this grumpy?)


-- QBJohnnywas

Man up, all the way.

If a strat is hit hard in a change month, chances are it was for a reason.

-- dversouri

I don't know what I want to go with yet.

While I would be inclined to say Man up, it hurts the older players more than the NUB characters - Not only do you grow slower, get less cash, etc, the 2% cost also hits hit just THAT much harder, sice it's harder to make that ground back up.

-- Daz

NCB

If it hits anybody hard it's those players who've run an NCB and had to pay the rather large BA costs. That's a double blow to those guys.

But still...you get what you pay for! We're getting way too many things easy. It's lucky what I enjoy here is the fighting, seeing how strat ideas work out. I'm quite happy to pay for changes to my strat with XP. Did a retrain yesterday funnily enough...

-- QBJohnnywas

I'd like a free retrain, period, change month or not. Without a free retrain, it's impossible to experiment with new strategies AND remain competitive. Currently, the only way to do that is with the NCB

-- [SIBT]Gardiner Amarth

Two Words.

Chuck. Norris.



-- Xiaz on Hiatus

voted

but leaving the comment blank, for fear that my opinion on the matter may very well differ from someone else's. And apparently, not agreeing with someone is offensive...

-- TheHatchetman

bla bla bla

I glanced at just a few of the above and decided to stop reading. I will say what I've said before. When a spell/skill/stat is removed from a game (and a certain someone of Action winds up having to find something to do with roughly 5 odd million xp) or when a new spell/skill/stat is introduced I think a free retrain would be in order. Heck, just let the people who had xp invested in protection have a freebe (come on, that was funny and yes I know it was untrained for free before you start).
Other than that I don't think we need it but hey, who the heck am I anyway.

-- j'bob

oh. and CHUCK NORRIS is actually 37 words. The rest are either unpronounceable or silent (but deadly!)

-- j'bob

another option

i think retrains should cost both a flat cb expenditure and a percentage of your total xp, such as 5 percent of total xp. once you initiate the retrain, you actually have 24 to 48 hours in which you can move points around freely. it might even be nice to have three payment options for the retrain, cb and xp, all cb or all xp. in effect if you have a total of 100 million xp. it would cost you 5 million xp, 5 million cb or 2.5 million xp and cb.

-- Admindudemus

Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris doesn't retrain, he roundhouse kicks the system into oblivion.

-- Zoglog[T]

Free retrain on especially large changemonths

Yep.

-- Lord Bob

(Wo)man Up...

And for those out there not of the masculine persuasion.... they should WOman up. For the rest of us... MAN UP DUDES!

-- Last Gasp

Change is good.

Free retrains at exceptionally large changemonths are needed. I'm only talking once a year tops. Sometimes they are needed otherwise people up the top would lose so much in MPR that it becomes silly. No strat can come up on top after *every* change month, eventually it will come unstuck, only to cost the owner a large sum in MPR.

-- Wasp

Change to leisure

Am I the only one who feels like the game is totally tailored to laziness though?

What we're pushing for: Sit down once every 9 hours, hold the enter key for 5 minutes, retrain to beat those farming you, get up and leave. If retraining doesn't do it, buy whatever gear you need at a low cost from Jon, it's all available.

No need to think, spend time planning, etc. - why plan something out when there's no penalty for just going crazy and hopin' stuff works?

So, so lazy. Then again, we're totally spoiled. I've seen whining for a free retraining every month - and I don't remember EVER seeing that before the first one.


Besides, isn't it a good thing when people up top have to retrain to adapt and keep their foothold as the undefeatable upper level guys? There's no other way to make ground in MPR against them. :P -especially- when the #1 player uses a RoE to grow superfast.

-- QBOddBird

Addendum

If we do see free retrains becoming something standard, I have one request.

Make it a single individual free retrain for each user. No "period of retraining" where so much abuse and whatnot can happen.

Keep the planning, strategic thought, etc. in play for the free retrain. I would be far happier to see free retrains of that sort.

-- QBOddBird

Laziness...?

I don't understand why people are calling a free retrain "laziness". What does work ethic have to do with anything? It is already arguable that no matter how much "work" I put into using BA, etc., I will not be able to catch the top teams, and will likely be passed up by a few NCB/NUBs here and there (check previous posts on rewards, NCB/NUB, ROE usage...). That is a different topic entirely, but it has bearing here. Who thinks a retrain is going to totally change the balance of the game? What is all this talk of "manning up" (a nice, sexist colloquialism to start with)?

This is a game. "Work" has nothing to do with it. So, it follows that the word "lazy" doesn't apply either (you can't be lazy if you aren't working in the first place).

Here's a different angle -- I don't really care if I get to retrain, but this poll asked my opinion, and I offered it (I voted for retrains only in large change-months). But it is so inconsequential that if I get it or not, no big deal. If anyone plays this game and finds it more interesting because of "manning up" or making some sort of sacrifice, then all I have for that person is pity... Doesn't sound like such a person is having much fun at all, in that case. :\

-- QBsutekh137

Awww, that's sweet

You don't have to say "people", sutekh, I posted it right before you ;)

Clearly laziness does have some bearing on the game, or else Jon would not have used it as the reasoning behind why we don't use a rolling bonus. He wants people to put forth some effort to reach their position, which translates into some form of "work" (though you are correct, this is a game and there is no real "work" involved.)

Similarly, I keep seeing this game moving more toward convenience than gameplay. Instead of "earning" (is it better if I put all these words in quotations?) your way to the top, you can sit back, relax, and hold enter for 5 minutes every 9 hours. Instead of thinking out any retrains and weighing the pros and cons, you can simply train over and over and over at your heart's content with absolutely no penalty.

And yes, I agree that the system of advancement is impossible at the moment. There's no way to make ground, all you can do is hold ground.

Either way, again, the phrase "manning up" being used by the original poll-maker - if you think anyone is truly offended by the phrase's sexist origins, take it up with the poll-maker - is simply being used to say suck up the penalty and move on. And I think that's a good thing.

I think making people think about what they're doing before doing it is a better approach, rather than offering freebies along the way every time some small potential obstacle comes in a player's way.

-- QBOddBird

Thinking

If you aren't thinking every time you train, then that truly is sad indeed. I know I do, or at least did when my fight list was changing as I was coming up the ranks with an NCB.

If the game is such that anyone can train anything and still succeed, then that would be a lame game! Luckily, that is not the case with CB. If you are training poorly, you are probably losing. That's why I don't see retrains as having anything to do with that. Competition keeps the game honest on a daily basis.

Additionally, my comment wasn't directed at you, OB. You are not the only one who has talked about work, laziness, and convenience on this thread, and I certainly did not say you were responsible for the "man up" comment. So, there really isn't anything to "take up" with anyone. You are completely entitled to your opinion on the matter, I just was not understanding the theme of "laziness."

-- QBsutekh137

You missed it

What I mean by "thinking before retraining" is simply this: with a free retrain, you don't have to think through every possibility, have to really think about what you're going to change it to. You can just say "what the hell, this might work, should at least take that guy off" and try it and see. That's not really strategizing, that's taking a shot in the dark.

And yes, that is exactly what people do during these free retrains. I remember quite well, I was in the Chat ;)

It's not about a complete lack of thought when training. Ditto with retraining. It's about how much thought - strategy - is put into it. Think of it like chess: If you didn't think through every move before you made it, you'd easily lose against any talented player. But with free retrains, it's like you can step back to another point in the game. Why not try this move, see where it goes, and then backtrack with 0 penalty if you don't like it?



-- QBOddBird

Yes, but limited

I would like to see a free retrain period for 2 days on the 1st and 2nd day after the changemonth is over. However this can be for massive changemonths only. That matters less to me personally. Changemonths, while quite interesting, can radically alter ones strategy. Having a limited period in which to change would be a good and interesting feature of CB.

I would also like to see a Weapon Artist, analogous to the TA, since new wepaons come and old ones change.

-- QBRanger

Dun Need. That What Me Say. Dun Need Free Retrain. Retain Not Free. Dun Need Free. Retrain Cost, Pay With Yur Blood.

-- PotatoHead

Man up!

All others have already given good reasons =)

-- BluBBen

It would not be as bad IF we had partial unlearning.

But for those with 3M + stats/spells, to unlearn the whole thing to test something, can mean a 2 + 2 % or 5 + 5 % xp loss in a spell or stat.

That is quite a load.

-- QBRanger

A partial retrain would be a good addition. Taking 5% loss on a minor stat is fine for some strats. But when some teams revolve around very specific minion purposes (such as an Evasion minion, enchanter, or even a mage), you can have a significant amount of experience invested into a stat.

A new skill was introduced - Steel Skin. Though not very popular, let's say a minion didn't have a skill yet, but instead had 50% xp into HP, and 40% into AMF, and 10% into GA. It would be nice if I could drop 10% of my AMF, and 10% of my HP, and move that to the new skill to try it, rather than take a full untrain loss for the two.

-- Suqataqus

ANTE UP!

Er, wrong thread. ;) As for this poll, A free retrain is desirable, every now and again. There's a difference between changemotnhs that make your strat worse, or the next mans better.

And changemonths that utterly alter the underlying mechanics of the game. In such a fashion no one could have predicted, or accounted for.

These sort of changes should be more forgiving on us players.

-- AdminQBGentlemanLoser

Chuck Norris

Free retrain is for wimps, Chuck Norris never did nor should we.
It almost looks like you want sandbox CB

-- Brakke Bres

I dunno Henk, as much as I disapprove of free retrains, Chuck Norris as a Ninja or a Monk would be pretty interesting :P

-- Zoglog[T]

Chuck Norris

doesn't retrain; he doesn't play CB II either.

I say free retrains and any kind will do.

-- forktoad

What about lower cost retrains after change months? A 1% fee doesn't sound like a big difference but if you want to retrain multiple times it would make a difference. I guess people could wait till a change month to retrain in that scenario, but is that so bad? They still get dinged and they have to be patient and plan too.

-- Khardin

Ruin things even more...

Free retrain for $11 USD to anyone who wants to do it. That should about cover it.

-- Talion

xD @ Talion

Disgruntledness brings out the funniest of one-liners.

-- VivaPinata

Chuck norris doesn't retrain

He already has everything just the way he wants it to be!

-- AdminShade

I voted only in Large Change Months.

Simple, If I were to unlearn everything, I would lose roughly 125k MPR, that would easily take me from 3rd back to 6th. If everyone has the same option then everyone can run with fresh strats and we can quickly find out if a change is broken! Rather than letting a few discover it and get away with it for months before others catch on.

-- Mikel

voting against free retrains?

a free retrain every once in a while would be awesome - I wouldn't mind tweaking something a bit when there are huge changes..

-- 8DEOTWP

Decision on Retrain

So, what is the decision? Jonathan, are we waiting on any final changes before you decide whether to allow a free retrain?

-- Relic

CHUCK. NORRIS.

doesn't need a re train because he has only one strat...

PAIN!!!!!!!!11!!1!!!!!!!ELEVEN!!ONE!

-- j'bob