Finally, the much discussed Demotion/Bodyguards makes the long journey from Suggestions to PC forum. Grin.

I'm sure there is going to be lots and lots of opinion on this, so I will keep my summation short.

The idea is currently that once you achieve a certain rank, your BG price always reflects that price regardless of whether you are subsequently demoted to a lower rank.

This means that the first time around, all your prices remain the same, so:

Thug - $750,000
Gangster - $1,250,000
Goomba - $1,750,000
Earner - $2,250,000
Wise Guy - $2,750,000
Made Man - $3,250,000
Capo - $3,750,000
Boss - $4,250,000
Consigliere - $4,750,000
Don - $5,250,000
Godfather - $5,750,000

However, if you reached Don and then got demoted to Thug, your BG price would remain $5,250,000 rather than revert back to $750,000 as it does at the moment.

I'm going to open up the discussion as there are numerous issues that need to be given consideration and I'm sure there is going to be plenty that people want to say.

As someone in the past who had tried (and failed) to get this changed in my early days, I've been watching this thread make the rounds for the past few weeks, so I have a few questions that need to be resolved to qualm the skepticism I've developed over the past few years against the idea:


With there being an artificial cap to how many bodyguards one can purchase, how will this not effect (to a severe degree, I would imagine) the long-term position of players when there will be undoubtedly far less purchases of bodyguards, with the advent of Durden spawns, artificial RIA's, MIA's, etc - for the worst?

As I see it, it appears it could eventually create a system where protection is increasingly rare and wars will be far more common than they are today, and with a cap in place on how many bodyguards one can purchase, wack will inevitably win out over defense.

Second - will this not eventually prompt a good portion of players who will merely create accounts that hoard cash, suicide, and return with a new account that has the required cash to purchase protection?


That appears to be the route I would take - as the window for purchasing bodyguards at a reasonable rate would eclipse my account if this was implemented. I can't help but think that cheapens gameplay to an extent where it starts a game of cat and mouse in the race to keep protected from the site's best guns in exchange for constantly sacrificing one account for another.

First and foremost.

Demotion should never be a reward for something end of. You shouldn't get something better or easier as a result of a demotion.

Now what will this do to the game.

1) People will create cash earning accounts, work their arses off to generate cash take a death and start back up again.

Is this necessarily a bad thing, I am really not sure, it won't put off any one new coming to the game and the logic behind the change proposed is sufficiently sound that they wont think of it as odd.

2) People will get held at Wise Guy and BG'd up from their.

This increases the cost dramatically circa $200 million, however this could be offset to an extent by making cash easier to come be earnt. It is widely acknowledged that earnings have fallen over the past 3 years with the max drugs levels being considerably lower than before.

3) Reducing the protection levels will have an odd effect on the wack:Def concept of the game.

This is by far the hardest element of the game to balance off, we have a BG cap in place which is organic in that it is constantly checked against the top guns in the game and adjusted so that people can not be out massively out of reach. There does have to be an element of checks and balance in place which I fear has been lost at some point in time.

Let me explain further.

It is commonly known that if you have x kills, then you can hit x rank. With x kills getting easier to obtain, then it stands to reason that x should have risen by factor to keep in track with ease at which a gun can be built. I am not sure that this is the case.

4) What will happen to the existing BGs

A number of things have been mentioned regarding this point, a few that require a chunk of admin work others that seem rather silly. I think in the past we have seen major game changing elements and they have been dealt with by Izzy and co in the most effective way. You tell the game base it will happen and set in stone a date on the horizon. The date is sufficiently far ahead (90 days) that other than the very best then people will probably have rotated through an account, therefore everyone has an equal opportunity to take advantage of the querk. After that date the loophole is closed.

I think that with the BG cap being so high it really won't come into play all that much and I'm not sure how it will as this change would likely lead to a reduction in the protection levels on the whole rather than an increase? Unless I've misunderstood you.

I'm not sure that protection will become rare, but probably reduced or reserved for those a CL thinks merits it the most. If a CL waited until his chosen candidate was Don, which they probably wouldn't instead buying them progressively but for this example lets assume they do; it would take them 7x the amount to IWP them compared to a drop down to Thug. I don't think that is a bad thing to be honest.

There are players now who create accounts to hoard cash, suicide and load up on bodyguards. They typically don't get very far as all crewleaders identify them as selfish. I don't see why that attitude would suddenly change or why it is a problem if players decide to do that. The system is designed so that you can have cheap bodyguards when you are also starting out, so if you want to load up your account that has no skill, why not?

I think this change will more likely encourage people to engage their brains and try to play the game better rather than lazily sitting behind their protection knowing that other than a handful of people or a nationwide assault, they are largely untouchable. The game is at its best when people have to work to survive and if you work to the point that someone else thinks you're worth $500m, then I don't think anyone can deny you've earned it.

Everyone would be affected equally by this and my concern for years and years has been that this will limit people in the future from exploiting the loopholes that some have done. I'm still a little worried by that, but until we do something this will just keep happening and happening.

With this change less people will have less BG's in which case the amount of available kills will have to eventually dialled down such as limiting MIA's to 2 per 2 days & having less RIA's spawn.

Surely that can be considered if it is required?

Before this is taken to a vote, I would eventually like to hear from a developer what the immediate effects of this would be in terms of game balance - while I do agree that demotions shouldn't be a pathway to a reward, I'd be more in favour of severely handicapping people who choose this route to make it a more arduous process (limiting the amount of bodyguards a thug can buy a day, prone to losing more HP, etc) than closing it altogether, because at the moment, I'm still up in the air as to whether or not this will severely affect game balance.

With this idea put forward now, it is not something that would work short term or long term in the current game. Even if voted in majority, it will still be vetoed on the admin level and will not be put into the game. Feel free to keep discussing other ideas, maybe you can find one that works, but this current suggestion as it stands, is not able to be put into the game.

The problem, for me at least, isn't so much the volume of protection (which I guess is why this would be vetoed as it would likely result in a drop in that, but I'm not sure) but the manner in which it is being required.

I would like to see the demotion for bodyguards element removed.

Would it be possible to see a uniform BG pricing structure implemented to prevent the drop downs for BGs? If you could purchase them for a set price, regardless of rank, it would make demotion purely for punishment - as it is meant to be.

{Should this be knocked back to Suggestions for user input too?}