I had an idea earlier this morning about the forts while smoking a cigarette at work. I took a while to think it over and this is what I came up with. Just a warning though; it's well thought out, unorganized, and rather long.

The HQ fortifications were a great addition to the game, I think. Real mobs had a headquarters, some kind of manor or such, and they were normally well protected. I think it adds realism to the game, not to mention protection for those who cannot afford to be BGed up. I love that fact: that every member is protected in some way. However my suggestion takes the realism a bit further.

I'm suggesting a "return to HQ" feature. This may be a bit complex to explain it exactly how I envision it, but here it goes. Recently, when war strikes or a rogue runs rampant, everyone returns to their home city for the protection. This is all fine and great, but I see some problems in the reality of this. We've essentially made people untouchable in their home city.

From what I have gathered, the HQ forts are supposedly equivalent to 50 bodyguards. Don't quote me on that though; I'm not 100% certain on that number. Assuming that number is correct, it would take at least 250 kills to take down anyone in their home city (if they are unprotected BG wise.) This makes quite a few middling type guns useless. 250 is not a huge or unreachable number, but it's certainly not an easy number to get too quickly for most players.

My suggestion is not to make people weaker, or anything like that. The "return to HQ" button would be sort of like...a flight? Only if you returned to your HQ, you would not be able to do anything. I mean anything. No petties, felonies, shooting, JBing, or drug dealing for a certain period of time.

If you think about it, if you were to return to this heavily fortified manor, you would be confined to that place. You wouldn't be able to run around robbing post offices and dealing drugs. You'd be stuck at the HQ until the war is over, unless you were ordered somewhere else. If you chose not to return to the HQ, you would be risking your own life out on the streets. It would be the user's option to return there or not. A byproduct of this could be that the more users who return to your HQ, the tougher it gets to attack and destroy the fortifications. If people are there to defend the HQ, it would be much harder to bring down the place. (If there was still WB, I might even have suggested a possible WB while HQ attacking, due to users inside being able to "shoot back" in a sense.)

Those who chose not to enter the fort would not receive any of the bonuses from the forts, but would be able to do all of the normal activities of a Mafiosi. Therefore they could shoot at people coming to attack their family, but not be able to just sit behind the forts and gain extra protection. I feel this will make wars a bit slow and stagnant.

Something that has me stumped is what to do with players who are offline at the time. Should they be left on the street until they log on to press the button? Or should a crew leader be able to "jail" a member into the HQ for protection, regardless of activity (that one would only work if the offline person was in their home city at the time, wouldn't be right to force the flight of an offline player. Now also seems like a good time to mention that the button would only be available if you were in your home city. IE, if you're from LV and you're stuck in NY for another hour, the button couldn't just teleport you to your home city).

I'm not expecting this idea to jump quickly. I have a feeling many people will think it makes the forts a stupid feature. Maybe after a couple wars it might be a better time, idk. I can imagine how angry people would get at being stuck without shit to do while they wait for a war to end. Perhaps there could be new features only available when inside the fort? That could be a whole other idea entirely though….might be over thinking it.

Pros

Realism Helps out attack in a defense heavy game Prevents people from hiding in their home city during war, but still being able to shoot assailants.

Cons

People won't like being stuck with nothing to do for hours on end. People won't like sacrificing their defense Might make the forts a useless feature to hitters (not necessarily a con in my book) Probably a lot more I'm not thinking of.

Let me know what you think.

Since the HQ fortifications came into play, I've actually thought about posting a suggestion like yours. In mobterms they call it "go to the mattresses". It would make the defense bonus a bit more realistic, so I agree with you on this one.

... The "return to HQ" button would be sort of like...a flight? Only if you returned to your HQ, you would not be able to do anything. I mean anything. No petties, felonies, shooting, JBing, or drug dealing for a certain period of time.

Yes, at the moment you are looking for protection in a safe house/ HQ you're not on the streets anymore, so it makes sense you can't do certain crimes or activities anymore.

Maybe crews could buy safe houses in other cities, to which people can go to in times of war. Just an idea.

I also like this suggestion.

I think this is actually a great idea. However, I'd like to see the aspect of this incorporated. I don't think people could do petties, felonies or pickpocketing as all would involve actually the headquarters. However, drug runs and wacking should be able to remain.

You can fire a gun from a distance as well as be able to have someone else come get the drugs or drop them off. Perhaps the profit margin could be skewed so you make less since it's kind of a "house call". On top of this I think what would be a cool feature is the leader to auto fly offline members home at cost. It would remain relatively cheap say $750,000 per member regardless of their flight time (IE even if they fly, logoff they can be flown home and under protection). What that would do though is cause them to lose all of their drugs on hand and their shot timer would be reset to one hour along with flight timer to two hours. Perhaps individual highlighting or to make it tougher to decide make it so they have to do the whole family so it's not abused perhaps and not favorable to individual players. Could do the cost based on rank. $250,000 increases per rank.

I like it though.