Starting tapering with .5 isn't going to slow down the training of big guns. By removing wackback death players who were only killing bgs will have more opportunities for stats on Mias, Durdens and RIAs/IAs. Shooting those targets everyday for .5 will add up to more than the .5 bg stat they were getting before. Other than Durden's bgs every 2 days or so bg kills are few and far between, even less now that IWP characters don't die from wb.

By removing wackback death except on real players it will lead to characters living longer to train bigger guns. The risk of it happening only on real players will only be a factor to big guns during wars if CLs and Hands HQ wack members who break rules or give the kill to a hitter who doesn't have much to lose if he wb dies.

If wb death is meant to slow down the training of big guns it should be a risk with every shot over a certain stat. Replacing it with more chances for big guns to get .5 and only a risk during wars doesn't make sense.

I do not quite understand how fatal WB does not work. You wanted fatal WB to slow down the progression of guns, now maybe it doesn't in the way of killing the big guns but the pure fear of it slows down 90 percent of any gun that reaches the 500 plus level. So can somebody tell me how it doesn't work?

It doesn't work because it is a random factor.

Think of wackback death like a driving ban for speeding in your car.

You take your chance knowing that there is a remote possibility that you may get caught.

Now think of tapering as a speed limiting exercise. It is hard coded that at x kills each kill only increases your gun by x% etc etc. There is no way you can take your chance on that it is unavoidable.

Innocence the tapering % haven't been concluded on yet. It could be that they are .25 of a kill or .1 of a kill.

I still just think it worked in a fear type of way which was fine with everybody until now. The tapering should be very low to match what is apparently trying to be accomplished.

Squishy has said that he favors the 0.5 minimum for tapering.

Since his original post, I don't think I've seen anything where he considered anything lower than that.

Squishy, I have never had a problem with any opinion you have on the game as I feel you do what is best for the game. I will never agree with this one though. Whether your gun is 10 or 500 you are training a gun still. Training has consequences that can occur. The most common should be death. Fatal WB stopped the majority of players at 500-700. I personally think you are overlooking a few things.

Like how are we going to know which taper we are in? I do not think it is fair that we dont know our own gun strength.

How do you think implementing this now is best for the future? If you felt so strongly about fatal WB why was a tapering system not implementing when the time was right? Such as after the huge NO war when 90 percent of the userbase was killed? The tapering at that point would make the big guns still under 900.

How about just using one taper percentage? I mean the point of this is to slow down progression of guns right? Players with 500 or more gun or the majority atleast gained signifcant less on their gun then those under 500. I have no problem with the mention above of a low taper which kicks in at about 700.

I just think we are not addressing everything that needs to be addressed and only addressing the taper itself.

Fatal WB, or at least fatal WB kicking in after X amount of unknown time coupled with a tapering system would definitely be my suggestion of choice.

Diminishing returns is logical for the numerous reasons already covered here and elsewhere. I think around the 500 mark would be the most effective point after which time that should kick in, steadily decreasing with each subsequent milestone. These levels should be unknown and not disclosed to the players so that they have no accurate way of measuring their gun totals.

Ambiguity in the amount of confirmed information leads to ineffective player knowledge, which leads to more risks. Plenty of hands have been stayed over the years because their consigliere had some insight into their likelihood of success.

Coupled with a tapering system, I'd like to keep fatal WB in. I think it does, and has in the past, created events and triggered the unraveling of regimes. This is an all too uncommon element in our world where cycles last for years rather than months. It isn't all about the gun someone has trained that makes their account dying due to WB important as that is not the be-all-end-all. When an account loaded with 100+ BGs falls it always has an impact, even when they aren't the biggest gun because it takes another IWP hitter being required out of a potential takedown. That is often crucial.

I appreciate that for every important account that falls, there are also a some largely insignificant ones. As a result, I could understand modifying fatal WB to kick in after a certain point, which I hope incidentally would be somewhat short of 500 and affect all shots, but removing it all together is just not something I think we should do. It was already scaled right back so that at one point only 0.05% of all shots resulted in a WB death. I don't think there is much in that figure that suggests the need for this overhaul.

Tapering love it, it will do exactly what we want.

Fatal Wackback - I think Grin has said it all, it creates events and triggers the unraveling of regimes. That is the purpose it does and as such I fear hasn't a role to play in our world. As a person I would much rather I put the work into taking someone out than some random chance event making my life easier. It gives me a far bigger sense of achievement.

The two together I feel is far too much over kill for the purpose we are aiming for. It just isn't something I would feel comfortable supporting.

"That is the purpose it does and as such I fear hasn't a role to play in our world. As a person I would much rather I put the work into taking someone out than some random chance event making my life easier. It gives me a far bigger sense of achievement."

The same could be said about the 1% Nino, that one kills more up and coming hitters in times of wars because they needed the protection the most, not to mention it's killed plenty of well trained hitters and leaders as well, yet I do not see that discussion in this thread. So I don't really see why keeping WB is such a huge problem, WB has always been there, long before the 1% was even coded into MR, yet that feature kills more players than WB ever has. People use the argument that you are agreeing to take the pro when you die to a 1%, yet refuse to accept the fact that you don't have to train your gun if you are so scared of the fatal WB, leave it to those who aren't if that's the case. But in both cases you yourself know full well what it is you're doing and what you are risking, as you have for years now, and by you I mean the players in general.

My only concern about the tapering and the WB being implemented together at this point is that it might work too well, but that really depends on how the mechanics of WB work in general. I could be wrong but the way I saw it you have a certain amount of shots fired and in that time a certain amount of WB's will occur (jail, gun loss or fatal), wouldn't the risk then be even greater for those who have recently gotten above the required kills for the fatal WB to kick in? I ask because majority of the shots fired will be by people under 500 kills for a while, and those people will be hogging the jail and gun loss WB's as they won't risk a fatal one while under 500 kills. - Perhaps Squishy could answer this one unless anyone else knows exactly how it works. :P

I agree with Jaqen. During the last big war we saw alot of 1 percent's which killed big guns and players with alot of BGs yet nobody complains about that just fatal WB. I think everybody knows the danger of changing the gun and if all you want to see is for it to stop killing people under 500 guns then make it kick in at 500 and the problem is solved. Also if it kicks in at 500 turn off all these other things and make fatal WB 1 percent again past 500 gun. That solves the problem right?

A 1% is a helluva lot more likely to happen, than dying from a gun malfunction. You may have 100's of bodyguards in your employment, but there is always a percentage of a chance that a bullet could get to someone regardless of the bodyguards, regardless of the amount of defense you've surrounded yourself with. At least in a 1% a gun is actually aimed at you. In a wb you die for nothing aside from training a gun. I feel like we should at least let tapering go see how it works and if we need to introduce wb in once they reach a certain amount, if it's deemed necessary, then we make changes. For the time being... Something needs to be done and compromises need to be reached. Instead of this... It has to be all or nothing.

Adding a taper system is fine but a taper system that allows more kills then was previously getting through BGs is not in my opinion acceptable. If the taper system tested is like .25 for each kill for anyone in top 10 guns might be fine. Anything other then that does not sound fair to me. Just my opinion though.

I myself actually prefer the first tier that was offered where it starts at .1. I believe that will accomplish the goal of what we're trying to do here and if it needs tweaked, then we can go from there. I just think tapering and death on every account is a bit redundant.

I agree with Taper and Death for now is not needed. I agree with the first tier my problem is with what Grin said about people not knowing where their gun is exactly. However I guess if the taper is top 10 guns you should know you are about to enter it since you are at like 600 or 500 or w/e it may be.

I think the biggest problem lies in the failed wacks, and with that I mean.. how often do the good or great guns even see a normal Fa(i)lure? From my own observations I'd say never, unless they are shooting at something that is somewhat equal in defense or slightly above compared to their wack, there's been so many new things added and tweaked to wack that all you ever get on a good gun is a straight up WB, be it jail, gun or fatal. I'm not sure why that is as you'd assume decently trained hitters would avoid getting caught and shot back at if they miss their target, but if the people who have reached a certain wack stat are only getting WB's as failures, then yeah.. there's a big problem and the fatal WB will kick in more often than it should. Maybe if that was slightly changed so that you could get the normal fails more often, all you'd need to do is figure out the tapering thing and hope that the amount of deaths caused by WB is lowered.

And I have to disagree about dying for nothing, Cassiopeia, you die trying to shoot at something, murder shouldn't come without a risk, and every action should have a reaction as far as wacking goes... WB and 1% are basically the same thing, the latter occurs a lot more frequently, just that you don't notice it as much because in times of peace all that 1% ever does is help some lucky untrained gun kill an IA or a Durden, in times of war is when you really notice it when your hitters start dying to a shitty 1% because you wanted to keep them safe or because your opponent got lucky, shit happens, but it does so on both features, so one shouldn't be held more highly of than the other as they are both the necessary evil this game needs to keep things balanced.

I don't, and honestly never will, have a problem with people knowing absolutely nothing about how the internal mechanics of the game works. I think we should do absolutely everything we can to get back to that stage.

I don't mind the lack of knowledge on a gun either, especially that high. It adds more mystery to the game. I also think this whole thing will add more people willing to take risks, that they don't take now.

I am still new school so if someone could inform me. Basically what your saying is that with the taper system that you will know your gun until 500-600 I assume then after that the higher you go the less you know where your gun is at?