Salutations!

I think that this game is fairly balanced and that most actions have a risk vs reward except for bodyguards

Right now, it doesnt take skill, rather money to easily slide through the ranks and to the top

What I think is that there should be a risk for having bodyguards. The amount of bodyguards one has, should be inversely correlated with the strength of ones gun. The more bodyguards one has, the less effective should be their gun.

When we start with wack answers, we have less defence. When we start with defence, we have less wack.

The roleplay behind this is that people with cannons are killers and they are not going to invest in a fleet of bodyguards around them.

People with bodyguards in the mafia stay safe and out of harms way, and call on others to do their dirty work.

I think this offers a risk vs reward that fits in with  the already current theme of the game. I believe the reason that the game is grinding to a stall is because of this bodyguard problem, and this is easily seen by the age of some characters.

Many people will not like this, but I think this is only because they are getting to comfortable with how easy things are for them.

This will encourage new players to come and stay in the game and it will encourage a new prospective by fresh minds to the gameplay.

Right now, it doesnt take skill, rather money to easily slide through the ranks and to the top

I will happily request you try and prove this point. It's horridly incorrect and isn't the case, at all.

I'd like you to point out one single example of this? You won't, for one simple reason. It's wrong.

I don't care how much cash you have. I don't care how many bg's you have. If you don't have the skill to back it up, you die.

Its funny that you should be the first to come in here.

There is many people in your city of NY that have a rank they would not of gotten elsewhere

This is not your game Deimne, no matter how long you have been alive

I see you come into all the Suggestion threads that go against your way of thinking or threaten how you run things

Were you not the one just recently saying something about being all for risk and reward?

What fun is it if the same people are ranking to the top with their same ideals? The admins can just close the site and let those people play on their own.

This isnt about whining its about risk vs reward and fresh ideas.

I am all for risk versus reward. Where in the hell is the risk or reward in this suggestion?

What you're suggesting is a change in balance. That a hitter has to have low defence, or someone with high defence suffers as a hitter. That isn't good for gameplay, it isn't good for fun and it isn't good for the players as a whole.

Where have I ever gone into a suggestion thread that goes against how I run things? If you look through the suggestion threads, you will notice that I frequently am the one suggesting that the 'power' one player can hold is reduced. I don't post in suggestions as 'deimne', I post OOC as Satanta. I always have and always will. I post for what I believe is in the good of the game. What will make for the best game possible long after my character is dead. At times, this might agree with how I choose to run my city... as I obviously will run my city as I believe it should be run. But if you check any of the recent threads that impact on significant gameplay changes, you'll actually see that I've been one of the most vocal advocates of lowering CL boosts (negative for me), lowering bg benefits (negative for me), making it easier to wound a bg (negative for me), increasing the number of targets available (negative for me).... etc etc etc.

The same people? Hahaha, just so you know, this is the first time I've ever been a leader on MR. So not exactly 'same people'. In my time, I have gone out of my way to auth new players as it's probably the most rewarding part of being able to control a city. So, if you have an issue with me or how I choose to run NY... fine, take it up with me.

If all you can do is make false (or stupid) claims that have no truth behind them, then you'll look like an idiot..... ooops, too late.

What you're suggesting is a change in balance. That a hitter has to have low defence, or someone with high defence suffers as a hitter. That isn't good for gameplay, it isn't good for fun and it isn't good for the players as a whole.

To be clear here, while I don't agree with the theory personally (someone should be able to form a well rounded character if they work hard enough), I have no great issue with it being suggested. If others see merit in it, it's something that could create an interesting dynamic. My issue is with the false claim that people can simply buy their way to the top without having the abilities to back it up... which is blatenly false.

I'd prefer to sleep my way to the top personally. wink wink nudge nudge Deimne.

Personally I dont like this Idea. Why should we have to choose between bg's and a gun? If i/anyone wants to work hard and achieve both as a player, then you should be able to.

This will have an adverse affect on the game making money too i think. At the moment people buy CD's to sell for BG's and also to make MIA's so in the long run, wont they sell less CD's making less money for the game, which would then lower the amount of advertising etc that they can afford?

So I say no, because i dont think there is any proble with how the bg/gun balance is. with the new ia system in place,and mia's it is easy to get a good gun these days, and bg's are still achieveable if you want to work for them.

With the way the system works at the moment with both defence and wack being easily increased, we've reached the point where it isn't particularly difficult to have a good gun on a defensive account.

Money never gotten me anywhere... it is my awesomeness that did! Hehe!

Ok... joke aside... money has nothing to do with success. It helps yes... it helps to buy more bg's yes. But when you sleep you can easily be shot with or without 50 bg's. As for ranking up and gaining positions... that requires a little brain work. It has nothing to do with cash... money wont keep your members alive when you are CL. You are emplying that one can succeed with cash only, that is false thinking.

Money and success are permanently intertwined.

We are living in an era where, in my opinion at least, the current system has pushed to the extreme and broken. We've got uncapped bodyguards and uncapped guns, which caters to the 20+ hour players and those who will devote more to this than their own advancement in life, forsaking sleep to make sure they are ahead. The days of 200 kills being in the upper limit of the most established guns are dead and it is now the work of a middling gunman. 10 bodyguards, once the achievement of the most successful, is now nothing more than fodder. The same can be said for 27, 50, even 100.

But, without money, these people would still fail. A 5000000000000 kill gun isn't all the great unless you can take a shot or two yourself - enter the money factor. With DFPs, static prices between accounts, year old benefactors and the ability to transfer real cash into game money, the amount of money in the game is greater than ever before. As a result and without a cap on bodyguard purchasing as well as with some accounts having their bodyguards from a past life returned to them on sign up, we're left with the situation where triple figure amount of bodyguards aren't just a pipe dream, they are an increasingly common sight.

The game used to be able to govern itself through wackbacks and severely limiting defence of wacking accounts. This was further weakened through the removal of a cap on BGs, the training range and the linking of wackback and wack accounts. This led to the development of the defensive gunman; virtually impossible to wackback, capable of equalling and surpassing the abilities of a wacker through the range and obviously incredibly difficult to kill. The best guns now belong to the strongest characters, usually in terms of wack, defence and volume of bodyguards.

Money will 100% help to keep you and your members alive when you are a crewleader. Clearly a monkey wouldn't be able to take advantage of it, but anyone with a basic knowledge of the system and how most wars pan out can give themselves a fighting chance. It is only no more than a fighting chance because we've exploited the system to the point where 100 bodyguards are actually made redundant and a single shot still finds the mark.

To bring this back around, any suggestion of money/bodyguards like this one only brush up against the larger problem with the game as a whole, which is either not being addressed or not being recognised. I'm sure some people don't see it the way I do, after all, why shouldn't someone who is prepared to put 20 out of every 24 hours into the game succeed? A fair question. I would suggest however that catering to the minority of your market isn't the right intention for any game/business if it wants to be a success.

I know from a personal perspective, I find the game extremely difficult to login to now because of the level of permanent work expected to achieve anything remotely successful. Knowing that it is going to take sustained effort to maintain adequate vision, dedicated patience in racing for IAs, astute use of contacts to raise cash for bodyguards and all the while watching people use real money to surpass your bodyguards, as well as knowing that you're competing against something that it would be impossible to rival without devoting at least 5 months of your life to, really doesn't appeal to me anymore and I know with absolute certainty if I wasn't responsible for 31 of my members and didn't have a duty to my city I'd probably have called it a day.