I've posted this basically because PC-Warrior said I should, in order to give you the players a chance to shout me down... erm I mean give constructive feedback. ;)

I see the simplest way of making a demotion into a punishment is this:

If you are demoted, the game looks at the average stats of everyone playing at the rank you are demoted to, all the thugs, all the gangsters, or all the Earners etc.

It then resets your stats to that average. So if you have 250 kills, and you are demoted to Gangster, and the average kills for a Gangster in the game is 8 then your kills are now 8. Same with all the other stats.

Sure this doesn't take into account your initial answer set, but so what? Demotion is supposed to be a punishment, not a bonus. If you are demoted and your Wack or Def is now lower than when you first started, then that's your own fault for being demoted.


At the moment the things you loose when you are demoted are easily replaced, Drug Units, DFPs and the like, plus you can now buy 100s of BGs at next to nothing. This effectively makes demotion a non punishment, which is why you only ever see it used to BG up RHM and the like.


As for those who cry about it being unfare to people who haven't been demoted and BG'd up already, well I have 2 suggestions for that:

1) Its announced with a date in the near future, say 1st Jan 2013. This gives plenty of time for people to continue to abuse the current system if that is what they are planning doing/saving up for.

2) Its a game for gods sake, get over it. Its been proven that you can still get there if you put the work in. Sure for the immediate future, there will be a slight imbalance between the haves and the have-nots, but over time this will level out as war and sneak attacks take their toll. But then again, that's life isn't it? there is always an imbalance between the haves and the have-nots.


Suggestions? Clarifications? Improvements? Baseless name-calling? That may all begin.

I don't see why anyone would be calling you names on the suggestion forum, they are afterall only suggestions. It's a valid idea and I don't see the realism in being demoted just to go and pick up lots of bodyguards. They bodyguards you hire should be out of hard work for your city and family. This would bring back that balance.

It's an interesting idea, but it makes demotion too harsh of a punishment. People would have to start from practically nothing, making this almost the same as just killing them?

Well its a graduated system. you can be demoted 1 or 2 ranks DS, not necessarily all the way back to Thug.

Last time I posted regarding the whole Demotion thing, the consensus was that Associates are generally wacked for any infraction, but how do you punish a Consig who makes a minor slip, such as breaking a minor city rule, or giving abuse to someone he shouldn't have? In times like those I feel that straight forward wacking is too harsh. A drop of a rank or two thosugh is fair.

Also, as a thought, if a person has 0 in a stat, or below average for their rank in a stat, then that stat should stay as is. In mathematical terms:

If statA < StatAve then let StatA = StatA
If StatA > StatAve then let StatA = StatAve

This would prevent someone ranking to Don, without wacking etc, and then taking a 1 rank demotion for a huge boost to the average stat level.

I agree with DeadlySin, say a Don with 600 kills is mouthy to the wrong person so as a punishment they are demoted to consig. The average kills of the site for consig will probably be 100-150 at the most (factoring those that don't shoot or not even maxed by consig), so that's around 500 kills lost when it would have simply been the rank experience and 5 drug units, far too harsh.

I don't think the problem is that demoting is not harsh enough but the fact that BG's cost less at a lower rank & offer the exact same protection so unless one of those 2 things change people will demote for BG's.

At the end of the day its a punishment. I think if you asked someone, would you like me to kill your 600 kill Consig, or take 450 kills off you and allow you to live, most would take the option to live. Chances are at the moment the Don would be killed, end of story. I know if I was GF of Chi and someone from another City was disrespectful to my RHM, at the moment I'd be demanding their death, as demotion just isn't a punishment in any form.

I agree that the issue isn't that demoting isn't harsh enough, but unless it is made harsher, it will never be used as anything but a way to buy cheap BGs. It's the thing about MR and .org before it that always got to me, people here are dead against any change that will take away a chance for them to get one over on their rivals, or any change that means person A benefits whilst person B doesn't.

In the end you are left with 3 choices:

Make Demotion a punishment. Lets be clear here, its a punishment, it should be something you fear and not something you just shrug your shoulders at and carry on. Like Picking Pockets. Picking Pockets is a joke. It has no real use, it generates no real income, so its just a side game to help folks pass the time. I mean honestly, who steals your wallet, takes a percentage out of it and then returns the rest?

Make BGs 1 uniform price across the site. This is one I've always been in favour off. The reason being, why would a guy in the Protection industry charge 10 times as much to protect person A as Person B? We're all criminals, we are all targets, and BGs all have a chance to die regardless of whom they are protecting.

Limit the numbers of BGs that can be bought at each rank. Not one of my favourites, purely because, why should a lower rank individual with a wealthy patron not be able to hire as many BGs as that patron? its not as if a prospective BG is gonna look and go, jesus you are only a Goomba, you don't need any more protection at that rank.

The main issue is that over the years all these solutions have been suggested, and they have all been shot down, so the issue has never been resolved. Lets face it, the site owners need the income generated by credit sales, and nothing generates credit sales like the need to BG up half a dozen crew members. I've no problem with someone who donates $100 a month to the game getting an edge over someone who donates $10 or less, to me that is fair. Making demotions harsher won't stop it happening, but it will make accounts weaker, for longer, and therefore limit it from happening.