*pay off

Given that the best guns in the game are probably those with the most BGs, something doesn't seem quite right about this. The way this is coming across it seems very unlikely that you're going to be able to do it in a way that doesn't somehow provide an advantage to established characters.

However, if you are saying that no-one has yet reached the cap. Why not just leave aside trying to make it dynamic and set a hard coded limit for the moment? Then, when they die, drop the hard-coded limit to match the new highest number of BGs. And so on, until you reach the number you were aiming for. The effect is that you will never have anyone beyond the current cap, but it will fall gradually as the natural process takes place.

For example, Godfather A has 200BGs, Godfather B has 150BGs, Godfather C has 100BGs. You set the max to 205BGs. We're all fair and square, the other GFs aren't hindered. After a long war, GF B kills GF A. Now, GF B has 130BGs, GF C has 110BGs (he wasn't involved you see!). The max is reduced to 135 BGs. Then there's another war, GF C kills GF B. GF C is left with 95 BGs. The max is reduced to 100BGs. At all points, there is no inequality in the potential BGs available to all. If GF A had won the first war, that remains true. There is NO CHANCE of him being above any maximum threshold.

Initially at least, is there a great pressing need for this to be dynamic? If not, I don't see any problem with doing the above. It will absolutely rule out any chance of the "dynamism" causing disparity when there is a massive war, most of the good guns die, but the GF with the most BGs is the last man standing (ie, the "max cap" drops due to the death of some great guns, but the survivor still has well over the cap in terms of BGs).

BBT/Kenda will never die anyway.

I agree with Boaby, and believe that there's a lot of wisdom in his idea.

As I stated before, I believe that a dynamic calculation that factors in wack ability is an unnecessarily complicated solution. The main idea against a static cap, as far as I know, was that it would have to continuously be adjusted.

I believe that this can be solved either by choosing a number over any existing amount of bodyguards, or by undergoing Boaby's process of choosing a number and gradually the static cap so as not to disadvantage existing accounts.

As reluctant as I am to agree with village idiot come Vegas Don BoabyWanKenobi, I think he may be onto something here.

~T~

The main idea against a static cap, as far as I know, was that it would have to continuously be adjusted.

The main reason against a static cap is the lack of balance between wack and def it would/could cause.

The idea of all wars turning into a 'one shot win' situation is not something any of us would be in favour with. Unless the person doing the 'one shot' has put in a huge amount more work than the person on the other side, and not simply because 'the other guy was capped'.

The whole idea behind the 'dynamic cap' is that it means someone can't just run away and hide behind their bodyguards.

If there is no cap in place, a 'top dog' can simply build up a level of bg's (say 300) that make a realistic attack (no matter how many bg shooters they can get) a non plausible feat. However, if the proposed 'dynamic cap' is introduced, it means that while a 'top dog' can avoid the 'one shot kill' scenario, they are still in danger from a well planned and organised attack. If the attacking side has enough bg shooters, has timed it to give them enough of a window to get those shots in and has a big enough gun to take the final shot... a war is possible against any 'top dog'.

If however the game ever hit a stage where one player ran away and hid behind multiple hundreds of bg's (which isn't the case with any of the existing gf's/cl's), a realistic war would never be possible. Hence the proposed dynamic cap. I've seen many comments raised against it, but none of which have lead me to believe that the (few) cons outweigh the (numerous) pros from the change.

If at any time a dynamic cap would present a scenario where one account has more bodyguards in operation than another account could possibly buy, then it would make that account at a significant disadvantage and nothing they could individually do would change that.

To me Deimne, that is a huge con which is not even close to being outweighed by the pros of a dynamic cap.

~T~

Given that (at least from my own understanding of it, apologies if i've gotten it wrong) the proposed cap is at a level well above where someone could be 'one shot' by the best gun in the game, I'm not sure I would agree it's a 'significant disadvantage'.

Personally, I've no problem with the system as it stands (getting rewards for the hard work put in). I wouldn't mind seeing some tweaks in terms of hard caps based on rank for a few steps and then a limitless upper end for the Don's and GF's.. but that's just me. The idea of an OWP thug/earner just doesn't make sense to me.

I, personally, support the BG cap.  Just in case anyone cares what I think. Two cents plus two cents adds up to a dollar eventually.

Why would we not care what you think?

I did start that sentence with 'if at any time', which is entirely plausible given a dynamic cap. If the proposed cap is above the level where anyone will exceed it, I don't see the need for it to be dynamic and potentially unfair.

And Cosmo, Awesome and I were just discussing how much we value your opinion.

~T~

I did start that sentence with 'if at any time', which is entirely plausible given a dynamic cap. If the proposed cap is above the level where anyone will exceed it, I don't see the need for it to be dynamic and potentially unfair.

I wouldn't say 'plausible', given the dynamics of the game.. it will happen at some point in time. The point I was trying to make, in my own ham fisted way, was that even if one player is at the cap and another is well above it, both are untouchable by the best gun in the game... so it's not a very 'significant disadvantage'.

I also wouldn't suggest that nobody would ever exceed such a cap. If Marietta, ThomasRourke, Premeir, Aurora, etc. made a significant effort to do it, I'm sure they could get to a level which would exceed the cap. The whole idea behind the cap is to prevent a case where one of these old and strong characters gets to a stage where they can just run and hide behind hundreds of bg's. Again, it's not something I personally feel needs to be 'stopped', if they put in the work to do it they deserve that situation, but if it keeps the whiners and complainers happy... it does have the potential to be a move worth making.

I understand the disparity which arrises where someone ends up significantly above the cap and thus the concerns some may have with the situation. I'm just not sure if it would lead to any major negatives in terms of gameplay or war strategy which make it a major concern.

Maybe the higher the rank is, the more bodyguards one is allowed to have?

The point I was trying to make, in my own ham fisted way, was that even if one player is at the cap and another is well above it, both are untouchable by the best gun in the game... so it's not a very 'significant disadvantage'.

[...]

I understand the disparity which arrises where someone ends up significantly above the cap and thus the concerns some may have with the situation. I'm just not sure if it would lead to any major negatives in terms of gameplay or war strategy which make it a major concern.

I understand what you are saying Deimne and I understand the want for it to be dynamic on the coding end. However, as long as there is an opportunity for any account to have a code-induced advantage over another, I think alternatives have to be explored. I have no issue with old or powerful accounts having all the advantages they earn over time in-game (through hard work - like BGs, great guns, etc). However, from an out-of-game or code perspective, an account is just an account and they should all have the same opportunities.

As long as we can arrive at a situation where one person comes through a war pretty much unscathed, whilst lots of good guns die and this person breaches the dynamic cap, then it's not a good solution if parity is to be maintained.

Taking a recent example, there was a war where several cities were warring, amongst others, NY. I remember (because it was staggering) Billy saying in the streets that not one of the 3-4 opposing city leaders took a shot at him (and perhaps he had 1-2 BGs shot at?) during the whole war. On that occasion, as we know, lots of people died. This will have taken the attack average down drastically you'd imagine. Which then has a knock on effect for the dynamic BG cap, which could then have left the surviving GFs above the cap. Note, I've no idea about the actual numbers of course, or whether it would have affected it, but the point is that it theoretically could.

Regarding war strategy/negatives, does a GF who ends up over the cap have the luxury of his "capped" BGs stepping in to replace dead ones? If so, then that is a significant advantage coming from the fact he has BGs sitting on the back burner from a possibly flawed system resulting in imbalance.

I guess there is no easy answer, but we (they, the coders) should be pursuing the path that provides equality and ignores in-game effort, where the advantages come through other in-game means. It's a tricky one, but why make it even more tricky to try and apply it evenly across the board.

By the way, it would also be easy to implement this dynamic code if it's really desired, yet still provide equality. Do it as planned, but before updating the dynamic figure straight off...find the "current max BGs". If the current max is greater than the proposed dynamic figure, set the new max to the current max + 1. Again, it will gradually drop, but at no point in time can anyone have more than the cap. It can still increase in future.

I don't believe this theory is really necessary, for has not the game been getting along fine while there was no cap? Pray, tell, why is there a need for such a cap now? It will keep the higher players at the same level, yes, but they will increase the amoutn of poeple they kill so that they can be the better guns and raise the cap of bodyguards. This will lead to fewer poeple playing the game, because they will be killed almost immediately. Things are going fine at the moment, why interfere where no interference is needed?

Terry.

Personally I think they should do off with non active player BG's in general. All BG's should be live accounts who's defense depict the level of protection they offer.

Quick question, not sure if its been covered or not.

What happens when you are in breach of the cap?

Currently nobody has exceeded the proposed cap but for arguments sake. Marietta has 150 BGs the cap is 160. The cap is calculated as double that of kills so Sherminator has 320 kills and is in effect the cap calculator.

When Sherminator wacks back on an IA, the next highest gun is Premier, now Prem has but 200 kills, so the revised cap is 100 BGs, yet Marietta is now over the cap by 50.

What happens to the 50? Do they enter stasis until such a time as the cap is raised sufficiently?

What then happens if a war occurs? Marietta has 100 active bgs, 50 in Stasis, someone shoots 30 of her BGs. does she now have 70 BGs because of the cap and stasis or have 30 come out of stasis?

That's the argument here El_Nino. The proposition is that all 150 would still be active, when others could never reach the 150. I had proposed putting the 50 over into stasis, and in the situation you're describing, if 30 got wacked, 30 would come out of stasis using my idea. So, in essence, she'd have 50 bodyguard wacks before her defense would be dropped at all.

This seems to be a not popular idea, but I can't see a solution to this problem that everyone will agree on.

Just for the sake of argument a CL could realistically reach the BG cap then hoard money waiting for a war. Then rebuy BG's as they're killed off. In this case even if a CL was at the BG limit they could keep a fairly constant number of BG's. All in all what this does is change how people will hoard their BG's keeping them in cash form until they need to refill. Regardless of how BG's above the BG limit are handled by the game there are plenty of ways to stay near maxed even during war assuming you have the cash to supply it. (I know thats an expensive argument but its possible)

In my opinion the only way a BG limit would be reasonable is if the limit was set in such a way that the strongest guns in the game would have lets say a 5~20% chance of killing a person with maxed out BG's. Though thats purely theoretical it would probably have to be balanced in a way where the top guns have some increased chance of hitting the people with the most BG's for it to work.

Maybe the real question in all of this is, "How do you want the game to be skewed? Towards the people with better guns or the people with the highest defense?"

My issue with the BG system in general is it's unrealistic nature from the gates... I see leaders with 10 members and 50 BG's ... How does a person with only ten members have 50 BG's ? There aren't even that many bodies around him/her. The only way the BG system becomes fair is by making it user based. Increase defense based on members online and in the same city as their CL. Offer a way for a crew member or user in general to accept jumping infront of a bullet for you. But having false BG's is simply rediculous in nature and always has been.