> > I think this is good. It gives quite a lot of money over time. Just look at the point difference between the top and the bottom (this was better before the elimination rounds though). You can get about 1000 more then the losers during the qualification round,
>
> I'd really love to know why everyone seems to think that winners can get 1000 more than losers during the qualification rounds. A loser gets 400 per round, guaranteed. A winner can get AT MOST 500 per round, and it is essentially impossible to do so (although 495 or so is not an unreasonable average). Assuming the perfect case, then seven rounds gives you 700 extra over a loser, and that assumes NO losses to enchantment or service fees, which is also pretty hard to do will winning all of your fights.

And in case you haven't done the math, even if you only have one level of enchantment on every peice of armor and weapon, that's 45 gp a round that you're throwing away - half the difference between you and the losing accounts. Also look at the fact that the money gained from losing 7 qualifers add your starting 500 gives you 3300 - enough to buy a death bringer, power armor, fully enchant them both, and have a little left over for permanent enchantments. I doubt many winning acounts had that going into first elimination round. You also have perfect knowledge of the stats that you gain, so you can better tweak your characters in the elim rounds. The unused wealth cap should help with this, but as Don points out you can still jsut purchase teh equipment as you have the money for it.

>
> I have a feeling that if I had planned ahead a bit more and not given Monkeylose all the same element, I could probably have taken Iss out in the first elimination round, or at least hurt him a lot more. Oh, how I wish I had created a losing account with three different elements...

My losing account did lose to someone who did avoid enchantments - and I lost because I didn't play the "guessing game" with my oppoenet and move around my Death Bringer/Power Armor. And really, I think that the guessing game is a problem - it makes elemental enchantments meaningless, and reduces the strategy to "out-guess your oppoenet". I'm wonderng if there can be a penalty for switching, such as "a character who just picked up a weapon only usees it at 2/3rds effectiveness", or a bonus for not switching (eg: "for every 2 rounds your character has held a weapon, they get +1 attack") - although I think that system encourages me to buy a deathbringer second round.
Another option is that weapons, when purchased, are imbued permantently with an element, and so opponents could buy defence against "big stick" of their opponent. Armor in the same way could have permanent elemental weakness. This would reduce the effectiveness of the guessing game, as you can buy elemental enchatments against the equipment rather then the characters who happens to be holding it.
And I'm unsure that the new damage system solves the problem either - it just means that instead of guessing whether the equipment will be on one of two equivalent characters, you have to guess whether it will be on one of two chracters with radically different stats. (taking the armor off the character you though would have it doubles or triples your "s" value, but only lets you kill that character 2 pts/dam quicker every attack... which is insignficant, as my character with the equipment is beating down on you). What might actually be more effective is that instead of decreasing the damage you do at higher "s" values, you increeas it dramatically, so that unprotected characters go down rapidly, and don't act as meat shields for the "hero" character. The nice thing about the changed damage system is I think it gives agility more meaning.

Sorry.. that got too long...