I know I am late to this party but I hope I am not too late to have some input. I have played this game off and on for 8 years and have been staff, builder, imp, and above all a player so I think I have a somewhat unique understanding and point of view on this subject. The following is my point of view and I hope this sparks discussion, further compromises and suggestions so that this becomes a beloved feature that is used somewhat often.


The Purpose:
In my eyes, the reason this feature is being implemented is to give the nobles a reason to come back and play by give them a way to get stronger. Very few nobles/warlords play anymore and people like me (knight seyan) see no reason to actually get to warlord. If implemented correctly this could bring alot of old players back by giving them a goal and encourage other players to keep powering through.


The Cost vs The Benefit:
The current posted proposal includes +10 max base values to all attributes and skills and keeping your arch skills when you reset to private. The cost is sacrificing a warlord character of which there are only currently 30 with only about 100 noble characters all together. A warlord character takes a long time to raise, at the minimum 2 weeks of in game time with the average being 3 weeks; that equals out to 84 days at 6 hours a day playing. So you are asking people to give up something they have spent almost 3 months 6 hours a day building up. You can make up most of those +10 to attributes with prison armor and you can use a bless set to boost your skills/attributes to make up most of if not all of the difference. The added cost is having to pent another 2 months 6 hours a day to see a difference. I think some people will use it even for the little bit of benefit it offers and the vast amount of time it will take to earn it.


Current Suggested Incentives:
To offset the cost of losing a warlord and having to re-raise a character there have been several options suggested by both staff and the players and I think there will be a compromise or combination of the options suggested in the end.

Option A) 16 poles totaling 10 million exp to mostly offset the increased exp costs of higher bases (poor seyans like me will get less mileage out of this)
Pros: It is easier to do, it does not mess with ranks to do with grouping and pvp, it does not make a rebirthed character any stronger then a normal character until high general/low noble rank.
Cons: Makes for a choppy experience (700k or over a million exp at once), and a rebirthed character is not any stronger until late officer/low noble, insane exp requirements near max.

Option B) Reduce the experience cost to raise skills by 1 setting so the last points will not cost considerably more then they do now but in between skills will cost alittle bit less with the gap slowly increasing as the ranks go by making for a slower but more satisfying and realistic increase in power.
Pros: instead of being handed massive free experience, your experience goes further due to reduced exp cost, giving you slightly higher skills at the same rank to a non-rbed character so you see the benefits of losing your warlord from the get go and you slowly gain your rebirth advantage.
Cons: It can potentially unbalance pvp as well as grouping for pve content which is a major concern even though there is not much grouping/pvp going on nowadays.

Option C) Any half of the proposed idea above such as: +10 bases to attributes (bwisa) and reduced exp costs across the board, +10 bases to skills and exp reduced across the board, +10 bases to everything and exp reduced for attributes, or +10 bases to everything and exp reduced for skills.
Pros: you gain some power at the end and some along the way, decreasing the gap between rb and non-rb but you will have a power curve between option A and B.
Cons: because its a middle of the road solution it still has a power gap but less of one so it will probably not please anyone completely.

Option D) Something else that someone has not thought of yet

Examining The Gap:
Here I will examine what difference a exp reduction will make, be prepared for numbers and math ahead

These are some experience ranges of some different ranks to give you an idea of how the difference would play out along the rank spectrum.

SGM: 438,600-766,649 328,049 difference or another way: someone close to ranking will have 75% more experience then someone who just ranked
Major: 3,035,500-4,463,549 1,428,049 difference or another way: 47% more exp
Brig: 8,915,600-12,192,399 3,276,799 difference or another way: 37% more exp
FDM: 28,133,300-36,133,299 7,999,999 difference or another way: 28% more exp

So in conclusion the experience you need to rank up when compared to the experience you have goes down as you rank up which makes sense if you had to double your exp each rank it would get old fast. What this means is if exp cost reduction is used at say -25% off it is the same as giving you +33% more exp which would mean at lower levels the difference between re-birthed and non re-birthed would be less then the difference between two people the same rank but at the start and end of the rank and would only exceed it in mid general levels. If the exp reduction is less/more then -25% the tipping point will be moved earlier/later in the rank progression but one thing is sure, you will not be a rank ahead of a non re-birthed character until you are in the general ranks where a brig can group/pk as high as general and as low as major where people have about 1/3 the exp to more then double your exp.

Full disclosure: I am all for the exp reduction and that is what I am voting for because I don't think it makes a big enough difference to worry about.

Your choices are a bit confusing.

Overwhelming majority of players who posted on the old forums were for exp redux with increase stats.

I voted for the exp redux.

Exp reduction is 33% and you may find my old max stats @ x rank calculations on the old forum. That being said, there has been no news of this feature for months. I have stopped playing because this feature was the end all be all for me. Even pushed me to rank to warlord in a hurry but obviously, the lack of response or signs of life has really pushed me away from the game.

Just like you, I have been a staff/imp/god/player and I do have an understanding of the implications of such a feature. Right now, people talk about balance. I say, it is irrelevant. Stun/WC are god tier in pvp which makes pvp a who stuns first mechanic while group pvp has barely been seen over the past few years. Clans have become large depots and a vast majority of the population have no interest in pvp (as long as they don't win or PK). Balancing this feature around pvp and grouping (which is illegal in this game..... Not illegal but very frowned up outside rigid and idiotic rules) is completely useless.

I actually want this feature and it is pretty much the only thing that will bring me back, I can also safely say that quite a few players have told me that they are staying away until the desired version of WR is released.

Cheers

I'm going to end up rebirthing either way as I enjoy playing my seyan and would enjoy raising it again, but of all the options I would prefer option C with reducing exp costs on BWIAS(roughly 20-33%, cant make them all equal sadly), and giving +10 to all stats and skills, and the exp poles. I also wanted +5% spellpower seeing as spellcasters get almost no benefit from rebirthing, they cap everything they need to cap anyways.

Stun being too powerful in pvp is a separate issue, I'd like to address it at some point without making spell casting classes totally useless.