Ok, so since there hasn't been anyone talking about ManaCon, I'm going to write out the argument in math, logic and reasoning:

Player A - invests heavily in Attacking skills, throws a token amount into Building skills
Player B - invests heavily in Building skills and the Clan, puts a token amount into Attacking skills


Xeno-Duels:
Player A dominates, rarely/never losing a battle - gets +3AP & +3DP potions on a regular basis - a lock for the top attacking prize
Player B has great difficulty winning battles - gets few if any potions - no real chance at an attacking prize

Building:
Player A spends his daily 1 point of ManaCon skill, and converts the +3AP and +3DP into SE, putting all into into the Build part of the event- easily achieving a top building prize
Player B doesn't want to spend 50 levels of ManaCon to get just one Build point, and since they don't get the AP potions, any SE building comes straight out of their daily AP allotment - it's better to not participate at all

Clans:
Player A has no real impact on the Clan, as their Building is marginal, and the building gained from one point of ManaCon is insignificant
Player B is a huge asset to the Clan, and losing their daily ManaBuild would definitely hinder Clan development


So, this event, that was designed to give both Attackers and Builders a chance to compete equally has suddenly become a cakewalk for the Attackers who can double up on both halves of the event with no cost, and tremendously expensive for Builders and their Clans. Calling the build portions of this event "fair" and "equal" is pure horsecrap. Getting the same benefit for having base-level magic and L1 ManaCon vs. someone with high Magic and top ManaCon is neither "Fair" nor "Equal".

Most events are already geared to attackers only - why are you guys screwing up this one as well???

How about you can manaconstruct twice per day, once for the event and once for your clan? To avoid fighters getting an extra build point per day for level 1 manaconstruct, could you scale it? So at manaconstruct 50, you get the full build point, but at manaconstruct 25, you get half a build point, even if you use the full amount of SP.

Or, you could do the average manaconstruction; for levels 55-60 it could be 30k a day, 30k = 1 build point. If a player has above average and builds 90k a day, that's 3 points. If a player builds 1k, that's 1/30th of a build point.

Viridel: the main styles are not "attacking" and "builder" characters in this game. Some players prefer pvp (fighting other players) others prefer pve (focusing on character development). There are no primary characters who enjoy nothing else but clicking manacon once a day and spending all their SE on building, there are no primary characters with twice as high magic as others so they can build better, for a simple reason - these actions come with no character development, these are tools which can be used to strengthen the clan, and as such, every member of the clan will build as much as then can. Any player who is 'good at combat', will have a maximalized manacon.

The building aspect was not added to the event to make it viable for secondary characters with only 20s abilties and no skills but manacon and building, but to give the event more variety, more ways to compete for characters who really play the game.

Idézet: Phalanxii - 2011.01.10. 19:38:49

That was one of my suggestions - if you are ManaCon L30+, you can build once into the Clan, and once into an event.

But that still doesn't compensate for the disparity in actual building quantities, since 7500 points of L50 ManaCon builds about 60,000 - and 4000 points of L1 ManaCon builds about 1000 (going by memory) - treating these two as "equal" is just a joke.

Idézet: Miklos - 2011.01.10. 20:16:05

In other words - you are TELLING players HOW to develop their characters....

From YOUR OWN POST on the Forum (Doomlord forum -> Doomlord Game Forums -> Veteran forum -> Strategies, Post #1 Miklos):
Strategies
1. post - 2009.07.16. 00:21:36
Some words about strategies, based on testing information. Spoiler alert! If you like experimenting stop reading now.

The ability focuser: The essence of this strategy is not to buy any items initially but to spend all the SE on increasing skills, as all items need to be replaced sooner or later. They only buy items if it means a huge advancement.
Disadvantage: you will actually save some SE but will lose more battles, since by buying items you can get higher ability scores using the same amount of SE and if you lose battles you will not get as many experience points.

The aggressive dueller (a.k.a. "spider"): Be as powerful compared to your level as possible. Less hunt, more duels: get as much SE from duels as possible via the skills creative affinity and execution. Increase abilities and pet level a lot before starting to level.
Disadvantage: the spider is usually out of the real competition, because falls back in level advancement, but at least will be able to beat the lower level players easily.

The builder: Joins a clan immediately and spends all SE on building so no one will be able to steal from him and he will also almost always lose. Of course this strategy also has its tricks. Building increases luck, which gives you more SE when hunting, because you will have a better chance of attacking a bigger monster. Additionally, he will have more treasure points in epic battles. Also he will not be attacked as often and will get a lot of benefits from buildings.
Disadvantage: Don’t forget that the clan gives only indirect support for your character and the strength of your clan relies on how much others invest in it. You can build as much as you want if the others don’t care about the clan.

The optimizer: they play in a most bizarre way, not like a real Doomlord would... Their only purpose is to maximise the use of SE and everything else is secondary. They deliberately get beaten, down to 1 HP, so that they can gather SE, increase their abilities so they will always have little SE and when hitting level 4, immediately focus on skills that increase the flow of soul energy, ignoring other skills abilities and equipment.
Disadvantage: The optimizer will bit the dust quite a lot initially and won’t be in the top ten for a while, but if he is capable, will dominate others eventually.

Of course most players use a mix of these strategies, but it is worth building up, defining and following a clear strategy.

Regarding the building aspect, I see that the maximum prize will be granted to who has more than 40 points. But isn't it only one point a day for 3 weeks, totalling 21 points max?!
Unless 2 points are possible (manaconstruction + SE). In this case, some people might do 42 points. Is it the case?

Cruel>

I'm afraid you're quite wrong there.

If you take a look at the top clans you'll notice players who dedicate their playing time for the sole advancement of the clans.

Idézet: Miklos - 2011.01.10. 20:16:05

I'm afraid you're wrong again here. Manaconstruction doesn't give any benefits apart from 50k+ daily building; yet in order to do that one needs to spend all the mana reserves - not to mention the considerable amount of SE required to level it. So, a dueller will only use this skill in order to "dump" any remaining mana left after he is done with the target list. It doesn't even increase luck, so what's the reason that stems your belief?






And on a slightly off-topic footnote; who's the twerp having fun de-scoring posts?

I agree 100% with Viridel. The way it's now is nowhere balanced.

Idézet: LydonB - 2011.01.11. 13:33:19

I think what Miklos is saying there is that those players usually have non-builder characters on other worlds, which are their primary characters. I know in my clan, we had the #1 builder in W2 for a long time, until he got bored and deleted his W2 character.

Idézet: LydonB - 2011.01.11. 13:33:19

Because a clan doesn't get any benefit from a strong dueler who doesn't build (since winning wars is counterproductive due to citadels of destruction). So the other clan members will put pressure on everyone to get their manacon maxed out and used daily.

I don't see why all the fuss about this builders x duelers thing?
In order to get the 1 point with manaconstruction, the player has to use it with FULL MANA.
I am not sure any dueler is going to sacrifice all its mana just to get this 1 point, specially because no dueler will be expecting to win in the building contest anyway (I know I won't).

So, at the end of the event, the builders who decide to participate will have to compromise by not building for the clan and the duelers will have to compromise by getting a lot of XP for few SE in the battles.

In my view, it is very fair.

Cruel.

Idézet: Cruel01 - 2011.01.11. 18:04:06

how is is fair?

let's say you need 100 in each attribute to be able to win an attack :

dueller has 100 in each attribute + 1 mana construction

a "builder" has 50 mana construction already; now he has to get 100 in each atribute to be able to win a duel...

the 49 mana construction difference counts for nothing.

In my view, duellers won't compete with builders because they simply can't afford to spend all their Mana with building.

Cruel.

builders, duelers

i dont care, i just wanna kill pets lol

Idézet: Cruel01 - 2011.01.11. 20:02:21

we all have to sleep sometimes, real duelers don t have that much need for mana actually, I can easily find at least 4 targets I can beat w/o spending single mana point. That means when I wake up in the morning I can dump full mana with lvl 1 manacon in the event, win 4 fights than rest. when the time comes to fight again I will have enough mana restored to continue fighting on normal way.

On w2 as a non dueler curentlly I don't have that luxury due to very high MB cost, so I m double screwed even if in the end manacon can be used twice a day (for clan and for event).

Idézet: Cruel01 - 2011.01.11. 18:04:06

Logically, maybe. Practically, not a chance. ManaCon is typically used before the player logs off the the night (or before work, whatever). Why would a Dueler use all his SP? Because they won't be online for several hours, and it will all regenerate by then.



Your view is wrong, since ManaCon is a once-a-day skill, and SP regenerates or can be potioned up. This isn't a flame, or a slander - you are simply wrong.



Duelers have to compromise by getting a lot of XP? Are these Duelers not attacking in the regular course of their daily activity? If you get ##XP by attacking Doomlords and ##XP by attacking Xenos, I'm assuming that Energy Harness and Creative Affinity will still be in play, therefore you gain ##XP to gain $$SE for attacking a Doomer - or ##XP to gain $$SE for attacking a Xeno. Those numbers appear to be balanced. Beyond that, after 12 wins, the Dueler gets the +3AP/+3DP potion - meaning they get an extra 6 actions after 12 wins... For a quality Dueler (12 wins out of 12 battles) - that's a 50% reduction on the cost of participation!

After 24 Wins, a Dueler will have +12 actions PLUS the EH & CA $SE bonuses over a non-dueling character. With those +12 actions, in effect, a player gets 36 SE generating opportunities, while a non-dueler would only have 24. So if the Dueler takes just those extra 12 actions and puts them into building - they are no further behind - but a Builder will have to invest 12 Hunts just to balance. This event is designed to exclude non-duelers, and double-reward high offense players.

Simply put, the balance in this event is absolute shit. It may not be obvious to you all now - but you'll see at the end.

I gave some more thought on the SP matter and you guys are right. Duelers would probably be able to use the manacon once a day.
Therefore, I believe the building contest will end tied with many people getting either 21 or 42 points (depending on the rules).

Regarding the compromise, you are wrong. Duelers don't like XP that much. In my level, I do 400 SE average for every 21 XP when hunting and 1,000 SE average for every 17 XP when dueling. I believe the event battles will give me a similar ratio SE/XP than the one I get hunting (if I recall correctly, Zarknod was like that), which is not very good for me.

Cruel.

When i sugested this event it was supposed to be a relic type reward for those who choose to attack the monster. The ap or dp would not be equal to reward, the rewards tier would be at certain thresholds depending on players group. If you reach the threshold, relic is yours. If you go to next threshold, it becomes either more powerfull or it would be a different, but still better, relic. So there would be just the question of how high do i want to get, balancing the sacrifice of resources in getting a unique item my resources would not have given me. No xp, manacon points, se, potion drops etc. If you like the reward, you fight for it. And ofcourse it would have to be something that people would fight about. How about relics that start with +5% drain soul at tier 1 and at max its +20% soul drain. What dueler would not sacrifice some dp, especially without getting xp to get at max? Or a relic whch gives +5% build up to 20% at highest, for the builders to spend se/ap to get it. Both relics could be accessible, and when the event is done you can choose one you like, at the tier you reached.

Overall i had in mind an event that can make players work together without affecting the rest of the game, exept ofcourse the dp/ap they choose to use. This sound like Zarkond event all over again.

While I may not agree with how Viridel chooses to express the problems all the time, it's rather quite obvious he is exactly right and has put far more thought into the checks and balances than the game administration has. It's really unfortunate that the game administration can't enter this thread and create an open dialog, since the event was invented on the .net server, by .net players.

I will ask the admins to come and answer your Xeno related questions/suggestions.

Okay. Let's break things down.

What is your exact problem Viridiel?

Tell me what do you suggest. Explain it please in order to shorten the process.