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Hm, that didn't seem to work. Let me try again:
My problem with all of this is that I disagree with handing kills out. However, I'm more or less forced to accept that my concerns in that regard are redundant - MIAs are here and appear to be here to stay. Therefore, we just have to accept that.
Running with this acceptance, from playing the game it appears to me that the problem isn't in the number of kills available. I would assume that we currently have more kills across the users of the game than ever before; I would assume that the volume of people in triple figures is greater than ever before and I would also assume that more people are involved in wacking than ever before.
It would seem to me then that the problem doesn't lie with the offensive options available, but rather with the defence options available. Further to the above, I would guess that there are more bodyguards employed across the users of the game than ever before. I would assume that the volume of people in excess of 50 bodyguards is greater than ever before and I would also assume that more people have bodyguards than ever before.
Assuming I am correct, and I should say that I haven't done the research to be certain that I am (but I think it is a fair assumption), then we are struggling to find the balance. Having both attack and defence increasing into perpetuity seems to be causing the problem, due to the increased length of accounts, the balance between answer sets and the volume of money in the game.
I will address each of these problems:
Problems
1) The balance
This is the most significant problem as I see it. The balance between wack and defence, to me, appears to be way out of kilter. The advantages are all with defence at the moment. Why would you go on wack, when you can train a weapon to the same standard (if not greater with the increased longevity) and not face the fear of wackbacks that inevitably fells wackers due to their low defence? It isn't a viable option and stands you at a disadvantage in the long run. The training range offers a risk free option for all defensive accounts to become master of both offence and defence.
I know there was a discussion about striking a new balance in Suggestions awhile ago, I'm not sure what the outcome of that was and apologise if tweaks have been made that I'm not aware of.
Unfortunately, the problem is not merely between the answer sets, it is between the two options that govern our accounts, attack and defence. At the moment defence is vastly superior to wack, which is why we've introduced another MIA to increase kills thus to increase attack. However, this is unlikely to resolve the imbalance, because bodyguards are such an easy commodity to replenish. This leads me to the second major issue.
2) The volume of money in the game
Due to the credit marketplace and the ability to use real money and translate this into game cash, some players are prepared to literally throw hundreds and hundreds of dollars into the game. Whilst I appreciate this is massively beneficial to the owners, at a player level it has created a huge imbalance. I remember seeing posts when the use of real money was first introduced (then for solely crackdowns) that it would never reach a level where people could 'buy success' and it would not compromise 'free players'. I think we have reached a stage where that is no longer the case.
Why do I believe this?
We have seen recently that when some players die, they plunge credits onto the marketplace and in a couple of hours they are Obscenely Well Protected. Traditionally, this would not have been possible. I'm not talking about people getting a few million here, this is $30,000,000, $40,000,000 and $50,000,000 that is being generated and then added to an account. For a free-player who has to utilise contacts forged within the game, it is incredibly difficult to raise the necessary finance to outfit yourself like this and increasingly difficult with each new account. It is also governed by which of your contacts is still alive, where as the marketplace allowed real money to rinse and repeat this process again and again.
Even for free-players there is more money available than ever before. With so many more drug units available at the lower ranks, with static drug prices allowing co-ordination between accounts and with drug front properties, the average player has more money than they ever have in the past. This means that individuals have enough to finance higher levels of defence than was previously possible.
3) Increased length of accounts
The reason why these problems haven't really cropped up before now is because these problems have more or less culminated concurrently and have been given a greater period of time than ever before to grow. With the average account living for several months rather than several weeks, all these issues have been compounded. When it was difficult to survive for any length of time, money flittered out of the game when crews had been toppled. Defensive accounts never traditionally survived long enough to train a gun far into triple figures and if they did this would be met with a wackback before long.
However, we've now allowed more money than ever before to be generated, both through internal and external factors, with an imbalance between accounts and done so for the longest length of time in our history. This has led us to a situation where the stats now are far in excess of what is realistic or reasonable, but worse than that due to the imbalance, both the highest attacks and the highest defences belong to the same accounts, which I can't believe was ever intended to be the case.
4) Increasing stats into perpetuity
I guess I had always just had a false belief that everything ran on percentages. I don't know why I assumed it would work like that, but I just did and I guess that I was wrong with that assumption.
It seems that at no point in time does defence or offence stop increasing. This to me is a huge issue with the game at the moment and it isn't really anyone's fault other than excellent game playing by those who achieved it. They put the hours in, they reaped the rewards and well done to them. However, we've now reached the stage where we're now left with the proposition of 'what next?'
After discussing this many times with other long term players, it is pretty apparent that aside from huge amounts of luck it isn't really possible for a new account to reach the heights of an older one. Even if Deimne was to stop shooting and stop buying bodyguards, it would take a new account at least 6 months of incredible work to reach a similar position. Can you honestly say you would play a game that weighted against you if knew that?
For this reason I think the current system is broken and increasing stats forever is going to just compound the problems further. With more BGs and more kills than ever before, but still clear problems between the two most fundamental forces of our accounts, it should be apparent that this isn't going to resolve itself. I don't think adding 15 kills a month is going to resolve the problem.
For the record, in case it becomes lost amidst the use of account names, the problem isn't Deimne or anyone having a dominant position over the rest of the game. The problem is the imbalance with accounts and the colossal stats that have been produced.
I know I've been typing this for a very long time, so I apologise if I lost anyone and if my reasoning loses focus at some points. It made sense in my head, so I've tried to get as much down as coherently as possible. I will be happy to clarify any point.
Solutions
1) 'Taper' stats and benefits
I have mentioned this in passing to other long term players and we've never really been able to agree on the best way to get around this problem. It is difficult to say 'after X amount of time you die' or 'after X amount of kills nothing helps anymore' because as Deimne put it to me 'I would just stop logging in', which is the problem. You don't want to make it pointless, but you can't keep the current system that creates such a huge imbalance. I've come up with the following; it was in fact, how I believed the system to work in my younger days.
I had believed that everything you did added a percentage of your total. What I mean by this is that your first 100 kills would be more beneficial to you than your second 100 kills and these more beneficial than your third 100 kills. To make this a little simpler:
Assuming my wack is 10 and each subsequent kill adds 1 divided by my total number of kills, 0.1 to my existing stat. Therefore, this would make my new total 10.1.
This would mean that if my wack was 100 and each subsequent kill adds 1 divided by my total wack, I would still get a benefit from the kill, but it wouldn't keep increasing my total at the same rate as before. I would get 0.01 for this kill rather than the 0.1 that I was getting initially.
I can't code and I don't know the difficulties involved, but I would have thought a system that incorporated tapered benefits based on your existing ability would be a far more balanced way to operate. It prevents a huge imbalance arising between those who put more of their lives into the game than is particularly healthy and those who play casually. It does this whilst not hindering them - they will still be stronger which reflects their increased workload but a new account should never be faced with the thought that, 'no matter what I do, I'll never be able to reach the top.'
The same I believe should be happening for defence. Each new bodyguard adds 1 divided by the total defence. Therefore if my defence is ten, a new bodyguard would add 0.1, but if it was 100, it would only add 0.01. I still get the benefit, but it is less beneficial.
This would mean that for the likes of Deimne and the other Godfathers their increased work still has a purpose and one who has done more will be stronger than one who has done less. However, it will do this to within a set level that is achievable by anyone (or not dependent upon where the coders felt it should go).
2) Real money, static prices & DFPs
I can see the huge benefits to the owners from allowing people to use real money and good for them. I feel they are entitled to generate an income from this when and where they can. However, they have attempted to do so without impacting significantly upon game play, which appears to me not to have worked.
I really can't think of much reason to alter the system from a business perspective, it works, it generates money, bingo. However as a player, it offers a massive advantage to those who utilise real money and it significantly affects the game. I can only suggest that money generated from the marketplace can't be used to buy bodyguards or to buy over a certain amount of bodyguards.
Perhaps it is perceived as ample reward for contributing to the site? I don't know.
I would happily open the floor on this issue, in a bid to see it resolved.
3) Account length
I personally believe that by tapering stats, the issue with account length would be resolved. People would no longer be astride the mountain, millions of miles beyond everyone else, even if they had been left as the sole survivor following a massive conflict. Everything would be achievable with a high level of work, but not requiring the devotion of one's life.
I believe that the current system is broken. Even from my own position as an OWP Don, a fairly high level account, I know that the gulf between myself and the more established accounts is enormous. Some days it puts me off trying to close the gap and I'm already 5 months down the path, how disheartening must it be for those just starting out?
The return of stats to users when their account dies is also not helping the situation. This again creates an opportunity for 'overpowered' accounts. When these accounts die due to either cheating on the part of the killer or due to a problem with the code, I'm sure everyone agrees it is fair they are compensated. However, to give these accounts back all of their stats as if they haven't died and then the opportunity to add more and more onto the account due to the cheap availability of bodyguards makes them far stronger than they would ever have been had they not died.
I understand the difficulty with rollbacks, but I don't think returning stats fairly compensates them if it is at the expense of everyone else.
I apologise for the length of this and that it probably wasn't due here. But, there we go.
If you're interested, the full thread can be seen here: http://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/93501 |
