if we cant remove the bgs then the cap should be placed at iwpand once you reach it no more can be purchased. as for those well over iwp there bgs should be removed and the purchashed price refunded.

What astonishes me is this idea that folks in power during the Roman/Prem era convinced themselves and others they were "doing what was best for the game", yet blatantly abusing the demotion feature. Everytime someone takes a demotion for bodyguards, increasing their defense while virtually preserving all other stats, the more powerful distance themselves from the less powerful. Want to know what killed the game? Demotion abuse.

It is meant to be a punishment, but has turned into a form of honorable protection. Where demotion started as a punishment for those not fit to hold a rank; it turned into a way of protecting those that were more than deserving of it. Every day that wears on without fixing the demotion abuse is killing the game. I don't care if it makes it more difficult for anyone to catch up with the IWP bunch. It's time to stop using that as an excuse for not righting the wrongs that have been so plainly obvious the past few years.

BG Demotions where happening way before the Roman/Prem era. They're happening now. Dont pin this problem on their shoulders

Hawk; I'm pinning the problem on the leaders who blatantly abuse a game feature. Whoever that may be, I'm blaming them.

Despite previously always maintaining that this would present an unfair advantage to old accounts, this problem doesn't seem to be rectifying itself any time soon.

Therefore, I think that it is time we attempt to tackle it. I believe this to be the best method of doing so and I guess implementing it at some point in the future and giving ample notice is the only way to achieve this.

Back to the top.

I agree. Demotion should be used for punishment only.

If you do this you will in fact kill the game largely and I will more than likely step down if such an action is taken to cripple the game financially, strategically as well as other means. Limiting the cost to the rank achieved is not the answer.

Please explain why this logical step would "cripple the game financially, strategically as well as other means"?

Why do you feel "limiting the cost to the rank achieved is not the answer"?

I haven't seen a viable change that can solve this issue that won't drastically tilt things even more in favour of those already at the top & those that have already demoted for BG's.

I think the whole idea of BG's being priced based on rank is stupid when they all offer the same defence. BG's should be a set price & be done with it. And for those who say "But then those with high ranks and more money can get more BG's than lower ranks" so what, they earned it & worked for it & the way the game works they would still do the same damn thing by taking a demotion.

I've long been in that camp PC-Flash-Fire.

However, if we don't act about this and provide someone with a temporary advantage, the long term consequences will not be resolved. This issue has been bubbling away for not just weeks, not just months, but years and years. Seriously, more or less right from when BGs were uncapped this has been a problem that needs to be solved. That was more than five years ago.

I believe that this change would remove the demotions and double demotions that will doubtlessly continue until something is done. We have to ask ourselves whether we would prefer to play on a broken system or potentially temporarily disadvantage some people so that in the long term things will be rectified. There will never be an optimum time for this to be implemented. Unless someone resets the game manually by killing everyone, commits suicide and the administration step in and code something; this will not change.

We have lived through countless regimes adopting these practices and nothing is going to change because it is simply too advantageous to players not to utilise this flaw in the system. I would and have done do it, you would and have done it and every player of the game to follow will do it. It is inevitable. We can expect nothing less and as players there is nothing wrong with doing so.

That is why it needs to be resolved externally by objective people who can accept the temporary problems it may cause in order to rectify the long term problems that will continue to arise.

If this was changed immediately, the 10-20 people who have already taken a demotion for cheaper bodyguards would reap the benefits of the change. Everyone else would be at a disadvantage to them temporarily. If this wasn't changed, in 6 months, a year or two years, when one of these demoted or double demoted accounts gets to the top, everyone will be at a disadvantage to them. The cycle will start over and nothing will be any different.

Having a skewed system is not ideal, that much is evident. However, I firmly believe that it is time to act about this and institute changes that will improve the long term future of the game. The whole process is flawed and at odds with the entire nature of the game. You are weak initially and things are cheap. You are strong at the end and things are expensive. That makes sense and maintains some semblance of the game's economy. If you make yourself strong and take a demotion to get things cheap you're defying the way things are meant to be. You shouldn't be able to get the best of both worlds, it hinders the game.

Think how many threads, discussions and IRC conversations have been held over demotions for bodyguards. Think how long ago, if you can even remember, when this issue was first raised. Think how long it will be and what will happen in the game during that time, if we still don't act now. If we do not take steps to address this - it will not change.

Although I totally agree with you Grin, I fear this will never happen because the admins are not wanting to upset the few (whichever regime it may be) at the top.

I would love to see a cap of just 100. That is SURELY enough for anyone... that's (roughly) 500 kills needed to "shoot through" said bodyguards. How many other games that any of us have played do you have to get 500 kills to make a serious difference?

Ridiculous numbers on both sides of the equation... kills and BG's.

Without "upsetting the few" I truly believe Mafia Returns has no room for growth. If I was a new player right now with any sort of ambition to make a difference and found out I needed a MINIMUM of 500 kills to take out the top players then I would laugh out loud and move on.

Sure, the counter argument is "but people can shoot BG's if they team up and it wont be 500 kills"... but to kill a Godfathers BG's you need around 50 kills anyway (this has been tried and tested) and if that Godfather has 200 BG's (not even the cap i believe) then you're going to need at least TEN people to get TEN kills EACH in without being killed themselves before your gun of 500 kills can "shoot through" and kill the target.

I don't believe this suggestion is the solution to the problem, but I believe it is better than the current system we have so I would be happy to see it implemented.

The other way of doing this would be to take some money out of the game somehow. With CA's and unlimited units no matter what rank (wtf is that all about? 35 units at gangster? ridiculous!) the amount of money floating around is far, far, FAR too much. If you take some of the cash out of the game then people won't be able to re-train these bodyguards as often and therefore will be easier to take down.

Just please... do something so that new players have a chance to achieve their ambitions, we're not asking for BG's to be done away with... just something better than a cap of over 200.

How would it cripple the game strategically?

Anyone with 100 kills could make a run at taking over again. Before people demoted for bodyguards most normally capped around 50 or 65 and that was getting WAY up there back then. If you make the cost go up less bgs requires less kills which means regimes aren't regimes anymore. They're easily defeated if 5-10 people come together and simply take them down.

How would it cripple the game financially?

Credit prices would skyrocket leaving those with RL funds to literally OWN the game more than ever. People sell credits now for around 350kish average. That would probably double or triple. So those that would have money RL would be at the advantage to those without. Then you could face people not being responsible RL and over spending money on a game they shouldn't be.


Making one flat rate price would be too drastic. A system would need implemented to gradually work towards that however there really isn't one. I wrote up a suggestion thread but it seems to not please the "few" that disagree with it either. Which was actually a well thought out idea. Just because it isn't a complete "punishment" doesn't mean it wasn't a better compromise than this.

This game will go back to how it use to be where power regimes were easier to take down but more prone to blood lining those capable of taking them down. CP? Remember them? They didn't like Prem, Ralph and others because they were constantly shooting them. Now you put the ball back in the court of rogues possibly being able to effectively take over without nearly any really difficulty.

Anyone with 100 kills could make a run at taking over again. Before people demoted for bodyguards most normally capped around 50 or 65 and that was getting WAY up there back then. If you make the cost go up less bgs requires less kills which means regimes aren't regimes anymore. They're easily defeated if 5-10 people come together and simply take them down.

That just isn't factually accurate. Even when BGs were capped at 10, people had far more than 50-65 kills on average. When it was made so that BGs were not capped, people had significantly higher than that on average.

Personally, I think it would be great if people had to work harder to ensure they survived, taking away the crutch made from copious amounts of bodyguards will require better gameplay to survive. I don't see how that is a problem? As to the 100 kills statement, that is suggesting that the average crewleader will have less than 20 bodyguards, which is just complete fallacy.

Credit prices would skyrocket leaving those with RL funds to literally OWN the game more than ever. People sell credits now for around 350kish average. That would probably double or triple. So those that would have money RL would be at the advantage to those without. Then you could face people not being responsible RL and over spending money on a game they shouldn't be.

The concept of supply and demand means that would not happen. If we as consumers decide that credit prices are too high, credit prices will fall as we won't purchase them until they reach an appropriate level - the market value. That is basic economics and is irrelevant to the wealth of any individual. They would have no greater or lesser impact than they do now.

Making one flat rate price would be too drastic. A system would need implemented to gradually work towards that however there really isn't one. I wrote up a suggestion thread but it seems to not please the "few" that disagree with it either. Which was actually a well thought out idea. Just because it isn't a complete "punishment" doesn't mean it wasn't a better compromise than this.

I didn't agree with your suggestion as this seems to be a far more simpler fix to me.

This game will go back to how it use to be where power regimes were easier to take down but more prone to blood lining those capable of taking them down. CP? Remember them? They didn't like Prem, Ralph and others because they were constantly shooting them. Now you put the ball back in the court of rogues possibly being able to effectively take over without nearly any really difficulty.

Completely false. CP didn't bloodline people. To give you a history lesson to provide you with some facts rather than your baseless inaccuracies, ralph and Premeir were never "bloodlined". People got killed because they refused to change their behavioural paradigm. CP had to justify things probably more than any other regime in game history because they didn't pander to the Administration, their desires or their visions for the game. If CP had bloodlined anyone, I can promise you with absolute certainty that Squishy would not have tolerated it.

There are pertinent examples of bloodlining that I would have accepted to make a point, so even assuming you had picked one of those, rather than plucked a false one out of the sky, how exactly would this put the "ball back in the court of rogues". You seem to be operating under the false assumption that by making demotions for bodyguards impossible, things would fall apart. Why? The only thing that would happen is that people would save up more money to pay the correct price or buy their bodyguards earlier on in their life - both valid tools at their disposal

So I ask again, why would this cripple the game strategically or financially?

No answer is good enough for you. What happened when everyone died, credit prices went down. As people comeback up and rank credits would thus be more valuable as buying bodyguards would be harder.

So say now it takes 3 credits to buy one BG at thug at 250k per credit. Say you rank up and bgs are now 2.75 mill each. You need 11 credits instead. However, people will want more for their credits as they know the value of them is higher. It inflates everything. People stop buying them then it's easily for people to simply stockpile. Leaders and others always will buy them with excess funds. Not to mention if leaders refused to purchase them then yes, credit pricing would drop however that would make people put less credits in because it doesn't go quite as far. You get less bang for your buck.

Also, having to implement a vouch system where three people had to vouch you wouldn't rogue may not be bloodlining but it makes it clear there was a problem with rogues and certain individuals. I was bloodlined by SelenityCP and Gregz0r. I was even shot with no warning because it was assumed I was assisting a rogue with no evidence of a W/S or anything.

The 100 kills was an example. When someone can get to say wackstat defense of 500 from 100 bgs and pay 75 mill, but then be stuck buying at 5 mill each it makes them more expensive. It also would mean people would take auth with less or no bodyguards. So it would take much longer to BG themself up and could drive some veterans out of the game or they'd choose to wait until a leader saved up to even return. Many comeback and get bg'ed up. Which is why my suggestion lowered the benefit of demoting and incorporated this idea to an extent. It was a happier median that wouldn't effect credit cost nearly as much or other aspects of the game.

It would leave the choice in the users preference. Either buy bgs and get less but pay less so ultimately not as beneficial or gradually buy and get a better benefit and defense.

Any factually supported answer will be fine for me if it makes your argument against this suggestion stronger than mine for it.

Supply and demand is what determines credit price, not bodyguard price. If nobody buys credits for the price they are listed, the price will come down until a sale can be agreed. The price comes down when everyone dies because people are either unable or unwilling to pay the price asked previously. The price drops to what people are prepared to pay which is then the market value.

Changing the BG pricing structure so that demotions and double demotions are irrelevant will not automatically have huge impact on credit price as markets are influenced by confidence. If people feel that credit price has risen too high then they shouldn't buy them and the price will fall. If they pay the inflated price anyway...that is their own fault for allowing the market value to increase.

A vouching system was suggested by Squishy. It has nothing to do with rogues or certain individuals. It is a great system that I will always adopt because it is realistic. How many people would get Made without knowing anyone in their family or having people prepared to vouch for them? Nobody.

You were not bloodlined. Nobody at any point said "lets find the Asylum bloodline and kill them" and you need to honestly get over yourself if you think you were that important. You were not. If you died it was for things that you did at the time. I can only recall you dying twice, once was when someone put a hit on you and Selenity wanted the money. The latter for assisting a rogue and whether you did or not is irrelevant; that was the reason, not because of who you are. Therefore, no bloodlining so please do not use this as a flawed example again.

Even with a relevant example of bloodlining, there is nothing to suggest that because demotions for bodyguards would be removed this would occur. I don't see the link between these two eventualities.

Your veterans leaving the game point is entirely subjective and dependent upon the individual. I think you will be hard pushed to find many veterans who are in favour of demotions for bodyguards. It stands at odds with the principle upon which the game is founded. You should not be able to get stronger and then drop back down to a point where you can buy things cheaply. That is not the intention of the system. You can buy things cheaply when you're weak or you can buy things expensively when you're strong.

Wow

I have said this suggestion how many thousand times.

A demotion is a punishment, no where ever has it been anything but a punishment. It seems total folly that people are demoted to make them stronger without.

A demotion is a punishment, no where ever has it been anything but a punishment.

I think that's a bit of an inaccurate statement. I would say demotion is a tool. Players can use this tool to punish OR reward.

As far as the suggestion... I can't think of a way to implement a change to bodyguards or that system without seriously unbalancing it either way.