Mar 11 2009
Mafia Wars - Tips 10
Robbing
Looks like a lot of players must have been unhappy with property maintenance and rackateerimg because they are gone or have been dramatically altered in both the Facebook and MySpace versions of the game.
The current replacement for rackateering is now robbing which is a different listing of targets than fights which is a good improvement. You still only get loot in fights but now you may get loot and a bonus (like 2X experience or cash) in the same attack.
The intent in robbing is to target a particular set of properties and get it down to 30% which puts it out of action. I am assuming that this is as long as the player doesn’t pay for protection for that set of properties. You cannot attack Louie’s Deli, Mafia Mike’s, Rent House or Undeveloped Space. The player continues to get money from these properties. If you could attack everything, the bigger players would put all the smaller players out of the game totally.
You also will find it difficult to destroy enough of the property protection to get property health down to 30% in one series of passes unless you have a lot of health and stamina. It seems that the more properties you have of any one type, that more attacks would be necessary to get the number down to the 30% mark. That would be seem to make good sense. If you only have 2 restaurants versus 200, your customers’ dining pleasure is in jeopardy and so is the revenue you earn from these properties.
Based on some recent comments elsewhere, robbing isn’t turning out to be too fair for the weaker player so expect some changes. The best way to protect yourself seems to be about having a lot of one particular property so you are not as vulnerable. Robbing is in “beta” which means it’s on trial and it appears it needs tweaking.
Buying Properties
With this change, I now buy properties by starting at the top of the list and buying as many of the highest value that I can afford and working my way down the list. I spend what is left on undeveloped space or sometimes start with boosting undeveloped space if there are not enough units in reserve. You now are not as reliant on the bank. In fact, it isn’t that important anymore at higher levels so banking your money for protection doesn’t appear to be as useful as it was before. Instead sink your money into properties.
If you are beginning the game and just starting to buy properties, you may want to stay away from the restaurant and above until you can get enough cash to protect it. Otherwise, you may lose your properties. It looks like the designers have considered this because I’m pretty sure you can’t rob or be robbed until you reach level 15. You can rob with 1 member/level as long as you have similar numers. At level 100 with 80 players, you rob with 80 but could rob with 100 if you had enough players. So inviting additional players is still wise.
I’m having great difficulty inviting players in MySpace because the app just doesn’t operate properly. It works much better in Facebook, which is why the next category may not be available in MySpace for a bit.
Top Mafia (Facebook version)
There are now six categories that give different improvements such as wheelman reduces your energy requirement for each job. You will have to work with your mafia a bit to figure out which player is better suited for each category because not every category is available for each player. It appears that the higher the ranking of each member, the higher the reward. These are very useful adjustments to the game and you do need to assign one player to each top mafia category.
Since I am at level 112 or so in Facebook, I can’t comment on how this might impact you at lower levels. It would make sense that this is a very valuable area in the game and has much better values for effort than mastering jobs.
So the folks at Zynga are trying to improve the play of the game. The Facebook version has become a lot slower but that could be temporary as they load the new changes. Change had to come, just like the competition would make that happen.
Have you tried Mobties yet? It is a different way to play gang and mob games and will spawn another series of games I would think.
The real problem is in the astronomical fees charged to repair property damage. Lower and middle level players just starting out… lacking the $25 million+ / hour income the higher level players enjoy would literally go broke if they bothered to repair property damage from being robbed everyday.
This aspect of the gameplay would be easily fixed by doing just a few things.
1.) Make robbing locations more dificult by boosting the defense bonus “property protection” can grant you. If they have to make it more expensive or needing to be renewed FINE just give me SOME kind of beef up option to prevent being a chronic victim.
As of right now “protection” does virtually nothing for me as I am being successfully robbed by people 10 levels lower than me with less mob members and worse weapons.
2.) Take a tip from the upcoming Godfather II game coming out. Allow Dons to assign certain numbers of Mob members to protect each location. That way if one of your “unattended” properties gets robbed you have no one to blame but yourself instead of poor game mechanics.
There’s simply nothing I can do about being victimized right now until I gain like 50 more levels and find more rare loot. Takes fun out of it when it doesn’t have to be that way. Just let me tweak my locations so the word “protection” actually means something!
3.) Limit robberies to only people within your own level or within a +/- 5 level radius of your character. This would eliminate much of the griefing going on and would be very simple to program for.
I agree that robbing is not fair the way it’s currently constructed. I have a small mafia of 6, and it’s going to stay that way. I’m not going to bother my real-life friends to play this game just so I can better protect my property. I am level 25 and have several hotels and office buildings. There’s no way I can defend myself no matter how much money or how good of weapons I have. Everyone else just has bigger mafias so I have a $10 million bill to repair damaged property every 12 hours. That’s just lame. There should be some way to remedy this. Maybe the answer is making it so you can hire more mafia to your crew for 10 or 20 million each instead of making the Godfather the only way to get more. Perhaps there could be a booby trap you could buy that would blow the robbing mafia away for enough money. One way or another, this has to change because I have reached a plateau in how fun this game is. I know there’s more to it, but I’m not going to keep playing if it’s like this.
(Most game designers seem to be intent on only one thing and that is make it easier for the bigger squads. You can’t get bigger if you aren’t playing. Try inviting players from other games that you may play on Facebook or MySpace, whichever site you are using if you feel like continuing. There are tips in gamestuff on how to do that.)
Just to let you know, you can be robbed before level 15. I’m a level 13 and I’ve been robbed 14 times with a small mafia of 8. I’m sure the properties are as low as you can go, but I can’t verify that nor can I repair them or add protection as I can’t find that functionality - presumably because it’s hidden from view until I reach level 15.
If I can’t rob, defend or repair, why allow higher ups to rob me? Doesn’t make sense.
(In that case I would only buy rent houses and undeveloped space in Properties which can’t be robbed. Robbing generally doesn’t make a lot of game sense. I just avoid it because it is very boring to be honest. You can only gain cash which at higher levels is not that important. Concentrate on fights and jobs so you can improve your mob. You need properties for cash flow but there is no sense in buying the better ones (for now) if they get robbed all the time. The guys that are higher up should look elsewhere since your payout will be small relative to players at their own level.)
I would agree that the robbing function in the game is pretty much rigged. i am a level 43 master enforcer, and i have a 20 mil bill to repair every morning i wake up. i hope that this robbing function is removed, or at least altered to reducing the damage till 50%.
I like the robbing feature the way it is .. its just like real life, if you can’t afford or take the effort to protect your high priced properties you shouldn’t have them in the first place. I rob people blind daily who have 30 Mega Casinos and 5 mafia members, cause that’s what the game is about - Mafia Wars. If you are weak you will get crushed - the game isn’t about neing nice or fair. Now at first I was with a lot of posters here that I didn’t want a bunch of people I don’t know mixed in with my real life freinds in facebook. But the answer is simple - once you add a new friend, and then they are in your mafia, simply delete them from your freinds list on Facebook. You won’t be able to send them requests for loot or see their request for help - but no big deal, your not seeing any anyway. The only way to move up and be successful in the game is to add to the family .. strength in numbers. The real fun in the game comes from attacking and robbing and being attcked and roobed - otherwise what’s the point ? Sit around and click little job buttons all day to see what level you can get to and how much money you can make under the radar without dealing with other players ? There must be other games for that somewhere.
I definitely agree that the robbing needs to be tweaked. It is a great part of the game but really unfair to lower levels and smaller mafia. You can definitely get robbed before you are even allowed to protect your property, so this seems to be an oversight. Also, how else are lower levels able to establish a decent income to keep up with all the upkeep weapons and vehicles cost without having property?? And so many expensive weapons and vehicles are needed for jobs. It makes it really hard to advance if you are lower or have a small mafia and makes it not as fun.
(And it looks like robbery might be a thing of the past as it may be replaced with going to war)
The big problem is for people who are new to the game like me. You are encouraged to get more and more money and therefore you go for as high a property return as possible. When you get to level 15 you have a high value property portfolio and you start to be robbed blind. You only find out about this until it becomes a problem. In my ignorance I am now being targettted by one person in particular and it is not as much fun as it used to be. I play for fun not necessarily to be some hot shot don who likes to prey on newer members. I am now tempted to start again and keep under the radar as it is definitely not as good with the robbing feature.
Yes this is a whinge but with problems like this you are likely to discourage people going further. I am also of the opinion that I only want to be playing this game with friends rather than countless others. Maybe the people who prey on smaller clans take this into account. Remeber this is a game and don’t knock on the people who are out for fun
You can sit in Cuba and not be robbed at all so level up quickly to 35 and only go to New York as needed.
I’m of the same thinking as David Swales. I’m new to the game. I’ve only been playing for less than a week and have been building my property. No problem until I get about level 15 and now I’m targeted by several level 300+ players who think it’s cool to attack someone that can’t defend themselves.
The only thing this will do is cause people to stop playing because they can’t even get started. That’s what I’m thinking since it isn’t very fun to do nothing but repair robbery damage from some high level jerk.
What I’d change is I’d make it know loud and clear that the costs to repair robbery damage is extremely high. I’d also make it so players can only rob close to their own levels, maybe +/- 5 levels.