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

There's an error in there. I initially thought 'an extra 500k per bg sounds good', when I did the maths this was far too expensive. Instead I thought the initial price of 750k made more sense, plus an incremental increase of 250k per bg thereafter. I forgot to edit the text to reflect that.

Either way, TCL's spreadsheet is still better. :P

As for being fair... simple, like all other game changes, set the change to take place in 80 days. That gives every player the chance to rank to Don, get demoted to Thug, buy a squillion BGs and rank all the way back to Don. Simples.

The laws of attrition will state that eventually all those who benefited from the old way will die eventually. Look at my old friend Premier. how many times has that poor guy WB to death whilst having BGs falling out of his ass?

like so many people like to quote here...this is the mafia, nothing is fair. since squishy has the power, he should be free to make improvements that are needed without having to worry about being mobbed by a bunch of players who play his game for free.

Basically everyone needs to QQ and just let the guy fix the game.

ok, i read through this entire thread and have the following thoughts.

one, the original reason for this thread, as set by squishy, is the demotion penalties. i like whats been done there, good thinking.

two, i also like the concept of the price increasing per BG.

three, the concept of wiping out all the BGs has merit.

so, if i were in charge(i'm not, this is all hypothetical) i would, A) set the BGs to be priced by number you have useing the same, or a near version of, TCLs spread. B) i would remove all BGs, and compensate the palyers as if they bought the BGs one rank below there current. thus, there is a minimum of screwage, and if you had an assload of BGs you can buy them back.

just my thoughts.

Why so bitter bindipping?

The concept of wiping all bgs has zero merit because of the massive effect on gameplay.

To do it without effecting the characters defence rating would mean coding in large defence stat increases until the bg situation has been sorted out, admin influence on things like that always gets the foil hatted conspiracy theorists going nuts.

With no defence increase to counter act the removal of bgs pretty much anyone with 170 kills or more could shoot anyone in the game, that. Is alot of hard work down the drain for people.

As for the This is mafia blah blah blah, you may have missed the part that said this is ooc, this is a game for an admin to run off and do as he wishes with no thought to the player base will result in a game with considerably less players and probably a fair number who have invested real money in their account demanding a refund. On the other hand I have a sufficiently high level of confidence that izzy and co wouldn't do what you said for them to do.

what i ment was wiping everything but the names. so people would have to start totatly over again. that way it would be easier to add any change that is needed. with how often people die i doubt too many people would be leaving maybe 5 or 10 tops.

AlexKeene, the point was about demoting for bgs, not the amounts. Whether its 1 or 100, what the hell is the difference?

Lol, oh McDermott. The point was that your post had no point whatsoever. Unless you're going to call specific people out for using the system and abusing what many here are saying is a slightly broken feature, your post was unnecessary and pointless. I was illustrating that very few of the people who posted (not including the 4 non protected posters) if any, had been demoted purely to stack up on bgs, and that of the three insanely well protected people who possibly could have used this system, two were rhm and could have been financed by their family. You were the only outlier.

Whether they were demoted or not, what the hell is the difference? If they've used the system and can personally attest to the fact that its a 'broken' system, they're not allowed to post?

Was anything decided from last nights irc get-together as couldn't get online?

yeah, I was wondering that myself.  Can anyone hit the high points of the discussion yesterday?  I had to work. :(  Damn responsibilities!  :@

I know this isn't a priority right now; but will this change be moved back 9 days to compensate for the downtime?

To make demotion a punishment... gun stats should be put back to 0. This would stop all demotions for BGS as the people who are demoted are hitters.

If people can make enough money while at the rank of thug then so be it.


*If this has been touched on my bad, too much to read for my little eyes*

I seconded Barnie's Idea , or just wipe out demotion from the game, how many people used this feature to actually punish people? I bet in its got to be like 1 : 5, the demotion clearly got exploited by the players. But I couldn't blame them, because the system let them exploit it. so I suggest removing all the gun skill or just get this feature out of this game.

I've seen it done as punishment and I agree with Barnie's suggestion :)

or even a percentage of kills are lost... enough to deter people from using the feature to benefit themselves.


Pretty simple solution tbh.

Not really Barnie. People would just kill themselves and start over, or not bother training their gun til they're bg'd up. It solves nothing, except creating a whole load more deaths.

And to be perfectly honest, with the amount of 'free' kills practically just given to people now, we need to be able to bodyguard ourselves up well just to withstand the weakest of guns. So if 'exploiting' a feature is what is required then I see no harm in it.

Good point there Ricketts, yeah the only way to solve this is to find get the bgs price when up based on the amount of their bgs not base on their rank.
but of course this will mean we have to do reset, cause it won't fair to the new guy who try to bg up compete to the guys that armed to the teeth nowadays.

owh btw Cassi, I've seen it also but what I meant was this feature done more harm than good plus demotion is a bit in gray area cause most people sentence death penalty to the offender.

As most of these systems share the fundamental flaw that they don't address Izzy's core concern (That it will inbalance the current offense/defense ratio), I offer the following --

Izzy, log (or if you already have this log, great) the prices at which body guards are bought and average this cost to be the new flat rate for bodyguards. The logic is simple, assuming z is current the wack level, x is the amount of money spent on bodyguards and y is the number of body guards, this balance would be a very simple: z = y/x where y/x = Set price for bodyguards (regardless of rank). This both maintains the current balance of bodyguards in the game and stops any abuse from demotion. This would in fact make it easier for you to adjust defense/offense ratios in the future if you find one to be over powered. Simply changing the cost per bodyguard would adjust defense up or down over time in easy to control and monitor increments. Compare that to the current system of balance:

z = (GF BG cost x average number bought at rank) * (Don BG Cost x average number bought at rank)....(Gangster)

This is just if the game were played correctly, once you take into account that this formula is complicated by demotion abuse to get IWP at lowest price, I think you'd find the balance is already wrong and only appears to be balanced due to abuse (Just an opinion, I can't quantify it without seeing lots of logs)

The biggest problem that might come about in this case, is that it is no longer cheaper for Godfathers to body guard their underlings than it is to body guard themselves, so what you may start to see is Crew Leaders/GFs not purchasing bodyguards for underlings...but I think this will work itself out naturally in the long run when their best shooters and money makers start falling over dead from wackback.