I don't really know what point you were going for there, McDermott, and you may well be much more in the know than I am because I barely keep track of my own past characters, let alone everyone else's because I have a life, but since you threw it out there, here is a list of everyone who has posted in the thread, their rank, and their protection level:

RichardWad - Don - Protected
Sho (RHM) - Don - Insanely Well Protected
RW318 - Made Man - Well Protected
Ezekiel - Capo - Not Protected
AlexKeene - Wise Guy - Not Protected
BinDippingWalrus - Gangster - Not Protected
TWENTYCHARACTERLIMIT - Wise Guy - Protected
Underdog (RHM) - Don - Insanely Well Protected
AriGold - Made Man - Well Protected
Branston (LHM) - Boss - Protected
Benton_Frazer - Made Man - Protected
IL_Postino - Don - Protected
ZackeryZack - Wise Guy - Not Protected
TheWildCard - Capo - Protected
McDermott - Don - Insanely Well Protected

My vision may not be what it used to be, but I'm not seeing anyone on this list who has a protection level well above their station. I can't speak to prior accounts, but if 'quite a few' of the people suggesting the bodyguard penalties have 'abused' the demotion/cheap bg purchase system, I'm not really seeing it. In fact, of the three people on this list who are Insanely Well Protected, two are Right Hand Men and their stature in their families would deem it appropriate that they would be very protected and could have very well have purchased the bodyguards with their own money and/or with help from the leader they serve so closely with.

The other Insanely Well Protected person... is you.

I think logically it would make more senses to link the price of BG's to the number BG's you own. This would stop any abuse of the system and even things out a little.

Just because you have used a feature in the past does not mean you do not have ideas on how to improve it. I mean I once owned a Betamax, then I upgraded to VHS, next it was onto DVD. Does the ownership of these video systems mean I cannot buy a Blu-Ray player? It is called progress McDermott.

Since I am here, I think the removal of DFPs make good RP sense and also like Sho's idea and yes I have taken a demotion for bodyguards on past characters. I still believe an ideas of this sort could help us to continue to move forward.

Maybe the system can be turned up right down, for e.x instead of being able to buy a BG at Thug at 750k inverse it and a Don could buy it at 750k like wise.

Jester, your suggestion makes no sense. The higher you rank, the cheaper the BGs? Won't everyone be IWP then?

"I love how quite a few people suggesting this have either demoted on past accounts for bgs or even their current account.
Reply by: McDermott at Dec 29, '10 00:36 "

Well of course I'm going to 'exploit' or utilise the system in the same way as others would. I think the system could be a lot better, I don't think it's good that one can simply use the process of being demoted as a loophole to buy cheap bgs in bulk. However, what exactly would I achieve by making a poetic gesture and refusing to take part, thus placing myself at a disadvantage to other players?

The higher your rank the more you deserve Bgs then a Thug, maybe increase the price of Bgs. You need 40 days to get to Don .

i think the simplest solution would be is to wipe every ones bodygaurds. yes there will be alot of crying but its the only thing to balance any change you make. realistically no one has even 50 body gaurds in real life. I dont even think the president of the united states has thata many at any given moment. so to think that a godfather would have that many is rediculous. really no one is walking around with a troop of body gaurds the size of a thirdworld army. i think capping it at 12 and raising the prices extremely higher would be the easiest solution.

Izzy

I have read your post three times and I am still unsure as to what your worries are.

Currently as I see it the game is swung quite considerably towards defense based stats, added to that the in built function for further improving your defense is bodyguards, the in game function to improve your gun is MIAs.

A person can sign up on defense stats, throw a chunk of real life cash at the game and in a short period of time max their wack stat, have the bonus of being on defense stats and purchase a mass of bodyguards.


What the players are trying to sort is remove the rather unrealistic function of gangsters walking around with 300 bodyguards. I hope you would agree that this is not ideal and rather unrealistic, the inclusion of the health of the bodyguard reducing on a daily basis was supposed to make this less possible, however the inclusion of the cash for credits has removed the effect from the game totally.

This leaves us with a couple of options as I see it.

1) The cost of purchasing of bodyguards increase incrementally as your purchase more bodyguards

2) You cap the number of bodyguards a rank can have



I am not 100% sure about the wack/defense balance that you are on about, having personally spent a considerable period of my life as an active hitter chasing kills all the time, the changes made have made it pointless for me I think I have won about 2 of 130 races so removing a some RIAs really wont make a difference to me because I can't win the races in the first place and I know alot of other people who are in exactly the same position. Those who can't get RIAs always have MIAs to purchase if they wish to train a gun.

On the subject of RIAs I was always under the impression that the number of RIAs was dependent on the number of people attempting to develop a gun.

i think the real thing is if i may underdog, that its unrealistic for anyone to have 300 bodygaurds. even a godfather. when was the last time you heard of a 1930's godfather even having 50 bgs?

I agree with you underdog. Through all the kills I've made in the last 2 years only maybe a half dozen where RIAs for the same reasons you stated, in fact the ones I did get where usually during a durden spawn and where overlooked by other hitters or had been proed. Reducing RIAs by 90% wouldn't bother me. I have similarly never been better protected than well protected, and that was a gift from my CL. Averaging the amount of bgs in game only makes sense if they are well spread out. Instead I believe it is more Likely that 80% of the BGs in game are owned by 10% of the players.

I don't see freezing bg price at the rank you achieved affecting in game bgs, for the simple reason that those who are always IWP will just get their bgs at the start. I believe the perfect solution is maximum guards per rank as already suggested. It is far more realistic than 100 bg gangsters

squishy have you thought about just rolling back the accounts to 0 and then implementing what ever change would fix it. there would be some complaining but i doubt anyone would stop playing.

didnt we just limit bg's on org, and just make the people distribute the bgs to their members...then you cut back on ria's/durden spawns to equalise things?  the question should be though, how much would the money loss to the game affect things??

The way I see it, it is a catch 22 situation. The MIAS (and to an extent) the RIAS exist to address an imbalance in favour of defence. Now the imbalance is balanced, nothing can be done to the BG set up because it will create a further imbalance. The scales are finely weighted and any change tips them over, so the only option can be to alter both side of the scales for it to remain balanced.

BGs becoming more expensive with each purchase makes a LOT of sense to me:

Currently. 10 bgs = 7,500,000 (at the cheapest rate)

Using an incremental system adding (for ease of maths) an additional 500k per bg, 10 bgs = $18,750,000.

As this is considerable more expensive, the MIA limit and number of RIAS would have to be reduced to keep the balance. This will not have a negative effect on the game's economy as credits that are now being purchased for mias would be purchased for raising money for more expensive bgs.

This seems pretty reasonable to me, but perhaps I am missing something?

Here you go Squishy:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aqegfi4pU15_dGtvR0s2a3VaX1hmYmtSTUhaRGhWUXc&hl=en&authkey=CIa62YUC

I've increased BG price by 100K while stopping at certain levels (2.5M, etc) so the price won't be exponentially ridiculous.

You'll notice that the prices are relatively low, yet the allocated costs for reaching each BG tier are as follows:

Protected: 500K

Well Protected: 9.5M

Very Well Protected: 21.5M

Extremely Well Protected: 59.5M

Obscenely Well Protected: 133.5M

Insanely Well Protected: 227M

You might notice that the costs for hitting P thru VWP are relatively close to how they are now (via demotion). However, reaching EWP+ becomes a much costlier endeavor, even though the highest cost for a BG was only 4M.

The point is, implementing something like this (doesn't necessarily have to be these specific prices) will eliminate all loop holes. BGs will simply cost the same for all people.

As for how to implement a change while not giving people who existed 'before the change' a huge edge, a practical (though drastic) suggestion would be to refund all users of the money they paid for BGs (and clearing all BGs), giving them a choice to buy their BGs back using the new price system. This would level everyone to the same playing field without punishing or short-changing anyone.

Hey you know whats been totally ignored...The fact if you reset everyones accounts any change you make will effect everyone equally.

you cant just take things away from everyone in the middle of a game

it happens all the time when devs and admins have to fix things. its like saying im 24 now but i know ive had a bad hart since i was born. the surgeons cannot take and give me a new one. theres no logic im your statement. only resentment. i dont know about you but i dont care about anyones resentment if it gives a more balanced fun enviroment.

It's not so much "resentment" as it is fairness to what some people have actually earned the right way. There will never be a "good" time to do a reset...some people will always be getting f****d over.

About the only way to fairly usher in anything would be to do the cutoff for BGs by rank....and compensate people with game cash for what they end up losing. (of course everything would be BG price at the rank of gangster as far as the compesation). That would be an epic (EPIC) pain in the ass....but the only way to fairly do anything without a reset. (and a reset wouldn't be fair to some either....there's never gonna be a win win scenario)