State of the game discussion

[Storm]

Hi Everyone

When I try to find out how things are in the game,...speaking to players about the game can sometimes be tough as they will sometimes tend to chat about changes that they feel will be good for the way they play and it won’t always include a bigger picture. While the best intentions are always there, it simply isn't always the best way always to find out how things are going. And it is not the only way

So, a few recent rounds back Tiki and I made some small private incognito accounts and played the game a few different ways to get the experience of how it is, with the new rules on prizes distribution, families and unions game play. It didn’t take long under any style we played to get zeroed for no reason. When we built operatives we found that players went out of their way to wipe these out, in one instance, one time, we were in a small 4 person family not doing any harm to anyone. We were no threat, not even playing to rank, just to build a new family.... and yet we got killed without reason or rhyme, no messages why, nothing. I found the same thing happen to me under different guises, as I tested the state of the game over a few rounds.

It became clear to us that the strategy of the way this game is played and the new rules we put in place is under threat. It’s about kill for no reason and the schoolyard bullies rule the roost and no one is allowed to build, and collectors are hit the hardest. It doesn't matter what level of player you are. They are no threat to the big guns, yet here we are. All dead, lol. After countless hints and discussions with the community it becomes clear that player behaviour won't change on this. So you will notice this current main round I have sent a clear message that I am not satisfied with the way things are and also its based on that I have got a lot of messages asking for help from smaller players as their experience is made short lived in any given main round.

Yes, I know it’s a Mafia game. Yes, I know players get killed, but for this game to be successful it has to be regulated, so that players have some value and enjoyment that lasts for a 10 day main round. But from a management point of view...seeing as killers don't allow build time anymore it’s just all difficult to achieve. If players don't get this point we will circle around for years arguing.

So now it’s not just players complaining because they are too lazy to play actively, or that they are "bad" players, it’s just simply that the game has become into a state where player behaviour has made the game intolerable for new players, and any spenders who come in - well their experience is also not great because we have to create draconian rules to prevent all out killing, so everything is just out of whack.

Whilst the new rules we made on the prizes distribution and transfers is widely positively accepted, there are still aspects of the game we do know needs improvement. So I won't shy away from the areas that still need improvement. Killing, we do know needs some better way to gain kill points, the last of the "battle trophy" way needs to go, and it must be based on proper killing, and collectors need a way to be able to survive the main round so they can at least have some value in the game, with bankers, maxers and looters all having a reason to play. I do admit this all, it needs tweaking and we will have a great game on our hands...and we ARE working on it

I also have heard that many players feel the diamond sub is just too strong and creates a lot of disparity, so also lets discuss that while we are at it.

The way it used to be when the game was enjoyable, when I used to play was: Killers get kill points from killing DU's and that’s your motivation, and how you rank, and killers got some family ranks for being good soldiers in the past,...collectors and looters make money for the bigger picture and that’s how they rank in a bigger play environment, Bankers, bank, maxers max and that’s how the wheels of this game used to turn and it was fun. These new prize, union and family rules do bring some of that older exciting aspects back now, but it’s being spoiled from growing further by excessive ops killing, and unstrategic killing, and it’s time to rectify this. We are close now to making things better but my recent playing experience has revealed the glaring problems.

I am going to open the comments to this thread to everyone and we will moderate it, remove anything unnecessary or off topic stuff and apply the rules of the game where needed. You can see clearly from what I wrote, where I found problems, based on my experiences in the game recently, and from speaking to various players.

Try not to bash the game or the staff. Just stick to the rules and we will be fine. I also won't pull any punches with responses if needs be, but try to keep it objective from my side so you can also understand the issues we get faced with from staff and management side. But I hope rather.... let's hear solutions instead of blame and see what comes out, if we can.

Thanks
- Storm

[Super_Fly]

Well said Storm. Well said indeed. I notice the ops hits this main round being increased to 500 turns per hit, which is nice and not nice depending how you look at it. I enjoy killing unarmed defensive units, so it does hinder my ability to drop my net that extra 10 mill to do that sort of thing. But it equally hinders everyone else so that isn't unfair I suppose. I did notice at least before with the battle trophy system in place, best free kilelr ranks were rewarded to the most sleep deprived hardest working no life having players which is the most fair thing to do, because with hard work and dedication results should show moreso than now, as you can see in the past few rounds players like Pops and others have been dominating the free killers ranks by less than fair tactics and dare I say bending or all out breaking the rules but not being caught because there is only so much the staff can do to prove if this is happening? Not to mention farming, which is bad enough as it is, but cmon where does the madness end? And without as going as far to be considered game bashing, would I be out line to assume that the game's biggest supporters/spenders have the biggest say after management/staff as to what rulesw changes and new implementations to the game will end up being made? I am not being malicious here, I am just stating actual concerns which I feel have some merit or suspicions of truth behind them.

[jkdfdkjfd]

I believe that the sub could go back to the old way and op hits lowered.

That way you wont have the massive gap between levels and allows families to still kill ops as they see fit.

[hazziano]

I personally have enjoyed the last few rounds - including building ops and collecting, but also a bit of warring. Ops hits are important in this game too - if you are battling with another family on collecting - you need to be able to kill off their ops and keep them behind you - but i guess its that amount per hour that you can take that needs careful consideration as much as how many turns it takes to kill them.

Relationships between players and families is a vital part of this game too, so negotiating NAPs or alliances is key to survival too. Perhaps people need to improve their diplomacy skills and apply them in the right places to help protect their DU's.

Im no killer so my comments wont be very valid in this area, but, a count based on dus killed is fairer than kill points. But when a level 4 built player takes out a level 1 player, who has spent 2-3 days trying to protect their dus its kind of unfair. Im not sure how this should be rectified, but maybe only being able to attack a player within a 2 tier band would help. For example a level 4 could only take out level 4 or 3. Level 3 could only take out level 2,3 or 4. Evens out the speed of build a little. It may also encourage families to have a nice blend of all levels so they can attack players in other families at different levels. Maybe this concept could be helped with modifying range a little too.

But overall, the game has improved significantly in recent rounds - enough for my family to be resurrected and enjoy playing together again.

On a last note, I have had the diamond sub this round and yes, wow it holds a lot of power. I could influence how another families round goes just on my own. Im not sure that is such a good thing, but it would be acceptable if I could only go at it with the other players in another family at level 3 or 4...

[StickyCat]

Game is going in a good direction. No need to over kill though, don't change the whole game up.. Only thing needs fixed now is kill points. Bring back old kill count

[rayray77]

The higher op hit costs is good it solves the big unions from dominating all the lower players because they have massive turns. This way now they burn them or sit on them. The only thing would be nice is actual revenges so a player can 00 people nit just hit one or the other. Kill points are ok but many get them even not earning them just because they build big and do not kill for them. I must agree actually killing would be awesome. Its not very fun to kill 500k dus and have 8k kill points

[Bianca]

This suggestion may be far fetched but, how about this? The game bullying is from players, that think because they spend, and don't get challenged anymore - they run this game. They became to big headed, and sucked the fun out of the game for some. Getting back to building, and hitting like I did last round, was a great feel for me, and it brough back the love of this game for me. I enjoyed going back to the old days, in my mind, and doing an all out war.

Op hits need to be apart of the game, they just do. But, they need to be modernized in the sense that a level 4 player can't just start his menstrual cycle and take out ops, on a whim.


Level 1- regular old op hit rules - we free players are lost in the debate, and we are limited to what we can do with 2500 turns. We should be able to hit the big dogs if we want, I mean not like we will do damage, but it will give the level 4 players the feel that they aren't un-touchable.

Level 2 players - 25-50 turns per op hit , they are the sub holders, an although a 5 dollar sub makes them a level 2, the extra turns you get for that, is beneficial in any killers point of view.

Level 3 - 100-200 turns per op hit. Now, it gets on the touchy part, level 3's are the supporters, with the big subs, and this level and above seems to be where a lot of people want to pick on, and bully the small free players, for sport.

Level 4 - 500-1000 turns per op hit. It makes sense that these players should only hit large opponents, it's always been like that - in our golden days. Level 4 and 3's found it stupid, and un-neccasary to pick on free player families, simply because.

If you can somehow moderate the hits that each level of player can do, after awhile, like a probation of sorts. Everyone will get back to the way things were. Which is what we want. The game has shrunk horribly since the last time I played, and I fear that in 3 years, if something drastic happens, this game will no longer be how it was..

[Chukalonee]

I am going to be brutally honest.

The new rules break out and in round after round there is multiple errors in the distribution of prizes.
The killing prizes were to be awarded only two per class. Round after round I seen iu receiving in excess of two awards per class.
Especially in the killing category I noticed this. Now if a family gets over 10's of thousands of turns they were not suppose to and another receives 10's of thousands less, this disrupts the balance of the game because it compounds the error.
I hope you can appreciate how many rounds it would take to destabilize these types of avoidable errors.
Also the people that got shoved out of the ranks and or pushed several spots below where they should be is going to take more wind out of your sails then getting your ops hit.

My brother has simulated how much it takes to build, zero ops, get hit, and repeat vs just building ops and collecting. It actually takes more turns to kill those ops and dus then if the "bullies" just collected. So if the so called bullies just collected and maximized their turns and maxed out the tiers would they still be considered bullies?

New players are going to get hit and leave. We were trying to train a new person and they got hit a couple of times and said screw this and left. You are going to have to realize the reality of the state of the game with such few numbers that shit is going to happen.

I see round after round where iu has a supporter get hit but then no one takes their ops. You seem to be blaming iu because other families play stupid and use their resources like untrained noobs. You can't regulate for untrained noobs and not destroy the "game".

If you look at the distribution of turns going out you will note that a noob now gets pretty good compensation for what they do compared to the time and money you call bullies. The bully factor will automatically get reigned in by the simple fact that iu will now have to choose more wisely who to fight. There is going to be too many turns by random players.

We have been running a small family and I think the ranks speak for themselves. As free players two rounds ago we took out level 4 players and took a substantial amount of their ops. Sure there is a pops farming his ass off but so what. If he put the infrastructure together to do that and he gets off killing his family so what. Our small group got gold silver and would have also received bronze in free killing. Everything as a free player is dependent on the natural game progressing unencumbered by management trying to block an activity.
Everytime you do this you destroy a complete section of the game. You actually end up getting pops clones just as when people were looting dead players for kill points. It becomes unnatural. Successful free players know what is going to happen and be in the right place at the right time with the limited resources they have.

Looting used to be an enjoyable part of the game. Now the game is flat and looting is dead.

All these changes you are trying to affect will take out the legitimate free killers motivation to do another activity.

You are in my view for the aforementioned reasons way off track.

If bullies are wasting their turns hitting random targets their organized good family opponents will or should capitalize on this.

If you think a collecting game is going to thrive on its own you may be right but there will be a further exodus. In this case you are trying to massage the game into you may as well just tally up the turns at the beginning and distribute the prizes.

[SOExclusive]

I'm going to add on to a few people ideas in my suggestion
I don't believe limited what a supporter does is the right answer. They support this game, so I believe they should be able to enjoy it to the full extent.

However, I'm not going to ignore the fact free players have it hard

1.) Increase the amount of max turns free players get to at least 5,000.
level 2 Subscription (silver)- 6,000
level 2 Subscription (gold)- 6,500
level 2 Subscription (platinum)- 8,000
level 2 Subscription (Titanium)- 10,000
level 3 Subscription (Titanium Black)- 15,000
level 4 Subscription (Diamond)- 20,000


As @Hazziano has said, he was able to affect the outcome of a family by himself with a level 4 subscription. I do agree its too much power, but if people are going to buy that subscription, they deserve some type of edge



2.) I agree with increasing the op hit cost, but I think 500 is kind of outrageous. I can build whore and card dealers and people will have to really burn turns to get to my cards. Ops hits like many have said, need to be part of the game. Its a way to affect the competition.

Without it, its like putting a Iphone 3G against the Iphone 4G LTE. One is clearly better than the other and there is no way for the weaker one to have an advantage.



3.) The accumulation of Kill Points has to stop at a certain point. Like max it at 50k kill points or something. Just having players sit with dus and ranking in killer ranks is NOT RIGHT. They did nothing to earn that spot. Just sat on their ass.

There is nothing you can really do about farming. Its going to happen one way or another.



4.) There should be an enforcer in a family (Another rank)
What the enforcer is able to do is keep members in line and max family members. ONLY 1 ENFORCER

I say this because right now, families who work alone can't start a banking system, let alone get a max unless they got friends in the game.
Also in those rare cases where a family member goes berserk and goes on a killing spree without being sanctioned by the bosses, the enforcer can be there to take care of the problem (zero them).

Only the enforcer can hit family members, so its not like family members can use revenge and zero them.

[Bunch]

I understand that....BUT iu are not called bullys b.c they win or rank.,...

[Bunch]

Dam u cunts write a lot I keep it simple lmao

[Kenzie]

i agree with most what chuck says

This is a mafia game. now people should be able to have choices. to support or not. people support to give themselves an advantage therefore should be allowed to have this. everyone knows this. I do think there is too much of a divide between level 4 sub and free player turns. why not up the free player turns to even 7k or even 5k. i think this has been suggested before.
Now while the game has concentrated on keeping ops alive. i agree with what got said earlier also. op hits are important in the game. if you put 2 collectors challenging each other how does that affect their game play all round? - Nil cos they cant bring the other guys ops down and outcome is based on their eor spend only making for a dull round in between

If everyone just builds ops cos of the ridiculous expense on hitting them then that also hurts looters. players that keep the game active. a good looting round can bring in average 200 bill for a player.
strategy of the game is. if you build ops - money makers. dus alongside these ops bring in extra protection. you build whores etc you dont get the protection of dus so why should ops get even more extra protection when these are choosing to build whores etc? everything in the game is there for a purpose so should be used for that purpose rather than using some things more and making the other things obsolete

This is my opinion...... if you choose to build ops. hustlers. you get the dus alongside these to give you extra protection. then automatically arm these cos thats what they are there for - to protect them hustlers
if you choose whores etc then thats your choice. to get more but less protection, maybe 50 turns a hit
now before people think oh that will suit the killers. well yes it will in a sense. but killers will then have less turns to get to your ops cos of the dus they have to get thru and the dus they kill off their own.
game needs balance all over. ive killed 100k hitmen all unarmed then hit the ops. now if they were armed it would take 200k dus to kill them over one or 2 tohs before anyone could get to the ops.

Take kill points away cos these are just another word for bts. give killers kill count back then killers will concentrate more on the dus they are killing than ops. and if all dus are armed then killers wont be able to keep their builds for long therefore less concentration on peoples ops.

As for the free players being allowed to build etc and level 3 and 4 are bullies. ive been killed a few times from built up level 1 players. so if you restrict the tier hits things like that wouldnt be able to happen. which works in their favour. you just have to take the good with the bad.

Last round at eor when new rules got put up. i got sent a good few messages. Ha Ha look at the rules. Anti IU. this is wrong. I read constant that no player shall intimidate how the rules should be etc yet this is exactly whats happening. why is it assumed all new players who join are collectors? if i join a game to try it out and stay by myself i kill. when all these rules started getting changed. transfers took away etc. the only thing that was needed back then was the level prizes balanced out.

The bt system is a joke. that gives the same supporters double turns. ranking in a rank they shouldnt be in (collectors) this is been stated a while back yet still going on. take kill points/bts away and this will balance out more
transfers got took cos of organised ranks at eor yet the ranking system is now organised by admin. why support when you will get a few ranks anyway? I do agree there should be some sort of balance there but the way it is now isnt right. cos to support isnt giving you that much difference from not supporting.

The 48hour deadline is a bad thing for new players also. even for other players. some people on holiday. work etc. they miss that deadline and it makes for a boring round for them alone. no leaving families etc how many times have you joined a family only to hate it the day after? some sort of balance needs to be done. i do agree with most whats said. i think the game is trying too hard too achieve something the wrong way and will bring the same results if not worse.
im an old fashioned believer if you cater for all then you will get more of what you need in return

[Kenzie]

lmao i did start writing my post before SOE posted his. just saying :P

[LaMafia]

shits just fucked we need time for building and kill counts and a bunch of other obvious shit etc..

[Drudge]

You can’t umpire a ballgame standing behind the fence so I am happy that game admin have taken the time to come out from around the fence and actually play the game for a while. It’s very easy to suggest to players “you need more teamwork” or “better strategy” or “recruit more supporters”, but until you have actually LIVED it you really don’t understand how unrealistic those suggestions really are.

I believe that admin are on the right path and that slowly, the state of the game IS changing. There are still some problem areas (subs and senseless killing) but with a few tweaks here and there that could change as well.

We are seeing several strong unions develop now. In addition to IU and WC there is also Detroit, London and Legends all doing their own thing but still starting to make a difference in the game. London is getting stronger too and it won’t be long before they are competing for Union ranks at EOR.

It will be interesting to see how the new cost for ops hits (500 turns) will work. It certainly will be more costly for everyone. It might just be a good thing since that annoying free player that hits your ops every hour will either have to sub-up, buy some fucking turns or dip more into his little bag of won credits to do any real damage.

So let’s drink some beer, kill a few people, enjoy some popcorn, and see how it all plays out.