Terry White
10-31-2011, 06:07 PM
Hi been reading this forum for a while and really appreciated Mickey's thread!
Like many others I have made a lot of mistakes early, followed the quest line, mastered each area five times, and got stuck at level 50 with 3000 attack/defense and just $8000 per hour. I was hoping for a character reset but toughed it out, changed my playing style and got a lot better.
In 3 Weeks I went from:
Level 50
3000 Offense
3200 Defense
$8000 per hour income
To
Level 76
9500 Offense
9400 Defense
$21000 per hour income
With this short and simple guide I am hoping you will have a better experience. I hate paying real money for virtual items/buildings. I hate sitting on my character because "I leveled too fast". I hate not getting maximum number of mobsters for my level. And here is what I would do if I have a lower level character, doing it all over again.
PVE vs PVP:
Unfortunately Crime City favors PVP tremendously, as the quest lines forces you to spend ridiculous of money on non-ideal items and upgrade a ton of silly buildings. Respect items are also vastly superior to cash items (but are of course inferior to gold items bought with real dollars). If you level by PVPing you will be much stronger than people who level by PVEing.
I Leveled Too Fast:
Just go pure PVP for a while and slow down on your upgrades/expansions, spend cash on some cost effective items. You will be right back up. Higher level is a GOOD thing, you will have access to players with far richer neighborhoods to rob. As long as you are strong enough to rob just about everyone you come across and do your PVP quests, it is much better to be at a higher level than lower level.
You only need to be as strong as 80% of the people you run into, which means you can rob 85-90% of the hoods of your level and do winning streak quests on 50-60% of the players. Spend your cash on buildings/upgrades instead of gear as long as you feel this way. Respect will take care of you.
Class: Take 10% more income, not even a question.
Your First 10 Gold:
Buy an icecream shop, I was newbie and bought a basketball court, takes up way too much space and not nearly as profitable. If I ever spend my $4.99 to support Funzio and get 50 gold, it would be two smoke shops and two icecream shops, those small buildings are unbeatable.
Stats Distribution:
For every level, get 1 stamina (2 points) and 10 energy (1 point). It takes 3 minutes to fill 1 stamina and 9 energy so it all works out. At higher levels, stamina gives you so much more bang for the buck because respect points eats cash alive (that and the chance of robbing good buildings goes up tremendous). At level 60 you will have 600 energy and 60 stamina, which takes 3 hours to fill up, perfect for each playing session.
If your character is already high on energy, just go pure stamina for a while. I had 1500 energy and 10 stamina once, not a problem, stopped spending energy and went pure PVP. It was slow at first but as I leveled, I got more stamina.
Strategy:
PVE: Spend your energy on early quests and buy the neccessary gear for them. If you can't afford items for the next quests, do the area you just completed to collect more loot. Finish each area 5 times to collect the bonus stat point at the end.
As soon as you unlock Junkyard, hit the blue trash box and later Shooting Range in Boardwalk, once you unlock those areas, save up and get the required items needed for those two farming spots and you can farm yourself some M4A1's. They also pay decent cash. You should spend all of your energy at those two spots.
Of course, if you feel you are much weaker than your peers (I certainly did at level 50 when I was only doing PVE), then you should sit at full energy and just stick to pure PVP for a while to slow down your leveling process.
PVP:
Attack other players whenever there is a PVP quest. To ensure winning streaks, only attack opponents whose defense is lower than 80% of your attack. If you want to be 100% safe you can go as low as 75% of your attack, but 80% is good enough for me (I ran out of PVP quests already).
I currently still feel I outclass 90% of the players on my list, so I just attack them without even going into their hoods to check their stats (I don't care about win/loss records at all). If I lose even once I hit to the next guy on the list and so forth. Even without PVP quest's bonus respect, the random PVP loot really helps, and it saves time of looking in each hood to find good buildings.
If everyone is stronger than you because you messed up your character, switch into robbery mode. I look for buildings with good experience to respect ratios, to ensure that for every point of experience I am getting close to a point of respect.
Good buildings are ones with a high cash/respect to experience ratio:
a) Laundrymats (simply because they are always available and you get more respect than experience, the only building that offers this)
b) Anything with the word "restaurants" (Diner does not count)
c) Clothing store, shoe store, and collection agency
d) Barber shop, smoke shop, gun shop
e) Houses, Bagel Store, Fish Store
I can dump 6 energy on someone with just two laundry mats, I don't look for high cash buildings like lofts, movie theatres, level 7 warehouses, etc. But because I go through a large list of rivals per playing session, I will eventually hit them (I have robbed a couple of anchor shops and churches for example).
I try to avoid things like meat factory which is 20xp 10 respect, unless it is really high inlevel. Same with lower level warehouses.
Robbery: The Heart Of My Playing Style
Think of it this way, it takes $150000 to buy a sniper rifle which rivals the Tommy Gun at 100 respect. By just robbing a pair of laundry mats 5 times (something you get in almost every hood), you got at least 10 respect which is worth $15000! The stat is even more in your favor with later items like Yamaha bikes. You also only get 10 experience, keeping yourself lean and mean.
Building Your Hood:
Buy two of every building and upgrade them to level 4 each. The higher level building/upgrade you get, the longer it takes to regain your investment. A level 4 Italian restaurant ($1400 every 3 hours) for example will cost you maybe $50-60K and it beats a Fancy Restaurant ($1100 every 3 hours) which costs $270000 to build! Do not move onto higher level buildings until you have built all the lower ones!
From there expand for bigger hood, do not sell your upgraded buildings, they are cash cows! I don't worry about building collection time, 48 hours or 3 hours, no difference to me because 48 hours have much higher chance of being robbed and I am not always there to collect it.
Above level 4, upgrade will take much longer and it will take much longer for you to regain your investment. Upgrade only if your other buildings are already at level 4 or above OR you can not afford a shorter upgrade on a higher level building (or are saving up for a big upgrade like movie theatre).
BUILDINGS TO GET TO HIGHER LEVELS: Laundrymat, House, Italian Restaurant, Icecream Shop, Movie Theatre (Some buildings give you 2.5-3x income on the first upgrade, they scale much better than their peers that gives only a double on a first upgrade)
ALWAYS BE UPGRADING!
Layout:
Always put bigger buildings in front of smaller ones to hide the levels, add $1200 pine trees on sidewalks to hide the levels of anything on the outside. It doesn't stop professional robbers like me, but definitely helps to a degree and is very cheap to do. Stack buildings as tightly as possible, do not waste space!
Defense Buildings:
I don't build them, robberies are too strong in this game. You have to out class your opponent by too much to stop robberies. So I just deal with it by building a lot of buildings and spread out my investments.
Remember you are wasting invaluable building time, upgrade time and space that could be used for more money buildings. It cripples your income as it is and it will not save you from gold buyers.
Items:
Early Levels:
Guns: Shotgun (2/1 $600)
Armor: Steel Toed Boots (2/2 $400)
Melee: Brass Knuckles (3/2 $540)
Cars: Skip cars for now
Respect: Armored Boots (5/8 for 50 points) and Tommy Guns (10/6 for 100 points).
Coupled with respect items and random loot from attacking other players, you should get through early game with a breeze. Don't spend too much money here as those items are replaced quickly. DO NOT buy too many Tommy Guns and try to go low on Combat Boots, just enough for you to do PVP quests and rob people easily. Remember respect is a limited resource. You can not get it without getting higher levels. Unlike cash which you can get by sitting on your buildings.
Mid-Game (Level 40 Or So):
Guns: Combat Shotgun (6/4 $15000)
Melee: Meat Cleaver (6/4 $11000)
Armor: Swat Helmet (4/8 $18000)
Cars: Hatchback (3/2 $10000)
Respect: Some more Tommy Guns and switch to full Yamaha Bikes (13/12 325 respect).
End Game (Level 80 Or So For Most):
Guns: Golden Magnum (8/7 $70000)
Melee: Steel Garrote (10/5 $53000)
Armor: Swat Helmet (4/8 $18000)
Cars: 69 Camaro (5/4 $35000)
Respect: Full Yamaha Bikes (13/12 325 respect), some sawed-off shotgun if you are low on guns but M4A1 farming should take care of it.
Again, remember to spend as much money on buildings/upgrades as possible. If you don't have problems robbing people and doing your PVP quests, spend your cash on income! You will be much stronger in the end, good luck!
(TO BE CONTINUED WHEN I GET HIGHER LEVELS)
Like many others I have made a lot of mistakes early, followed the quest line, mastered each area five times, and got stuck at level 50 with 3000 attack/defense and just $8000 per hour. I was hoping for a character reset but toughed it out, changed my playing style and got a lot better.
In 3 Weeks I went from:
Level 50
3000 Offense
3200 Defense
$8000 per hour income
To
Level 76
9500 Offense
9400 Defense
$21000 per hour income
With this short and simple guide I am hoping you will have a better experience. I hate paying real money for virtual items/buildings. I hate sitting on my character because "I leveled too fast". I hate not getting maximum number of mobsters for my level. And here is what I would do if I have a lower level character, doing it all over again.
PVE vs PVP:
Unfortunately Crime City favors PVP tremendously, as the quest lines forces you to spend ridiculous of money on non-ideal items and upgrade a ton of silly buildings. Respect items are also vastly superior to cash items (but are of course inferior to gold items bought with real dollars). If you level by PVPing you will be much stronger than people who level by PVEing.
I Leveled Too Fast:
Just go pure PVP for a while and slow down on your upgrades/expansions, spend cash on some cost effective items. You will be right back up. Higher level is a GOOD thing, you will have access to players with far richer neighborhoods to rob. As long as you are strong enough to rob just about everyone you come across and do your PVP quests, it is much better to be at a higher level than lower level.
You only need to be as strong as 80% of the people you run into, which means you can rob 85-90% of the hoods of your level and do winning streak quests on 50-60% of the players. Spend your cash on buildings/upgrades instead of gear as long as you feel this way. Respect will take care of you.
Class: Take 10% more income, not even a question.
Your First 10 Gold:
Buy an icecream shop, I was newbie and bought a basketball court, takes up way too much space and not nearly as profitable. If I ever spend my $4.99 to support Funzio and get 50 gold, it would be two smoke shops and two icecream shops, those small buildings are unbeatable.
Stats Distribution:
For every level, get 1 stamina (2 points) and 10 energy (1 point). It takes 3 minutes to fill 1 stamina and 9 energy so it all works out. At higher levels, stamina gives you so much more bang for the buck because respect points eats cash alive (that and the chance of robbing good buildings goes up tremendous). At level 60 you will have 600 energy and 60 stamina, which takes 3 hours to fill up, perfect for each playing session.
If your character is already high on energy, just go pure stamina for a while. I had 1500 energy and 10 stamina once, not a problem, stopped spending energy and went pure PVP. It was slow at first but as I leveled, I got more stamina.
Strategy:
PVE: Spend your energy on early quests and buy the neccessary gear for them. If you can't afford items for the next quests, do the area you just completed to collect more loot. Finish each area 5 times to collect the bonus stat point at the end.
As soon as you unlock Junkyard, hit the blue trash box and later Shooting Range in Boardwalk, once you unlock those areas, save up and get the required items needed for those two farming spots and you can farm yourself some M4A1's. They also pay decent cash. You should spend all of your energy at those two spots.
Of course, if you feel you are much weaker than your peers (I certainly did at level 50 when I was only doing PVE), then you should sit at full energy and just stick to pure PVP for a while to slow down your leveling process.
PVP:
Attack other players whenever there is a PVP quest. To ensure winning streaks, only attack opponents whose defense is lower than 80% of your attack. If you want to be 100% safe you can go as low as 75% of your attack, but 80% is good enough for me (I ran out of PVP quests already).
I currently still feel I outclass 90% of the players on my list, so I just attack them without even going into their hoods to check their stats (I don't care about win/loss records at all). If I lose even once I hit to the next guy on the list and so forth. Even without PVP quest's bonus respect, the random PVP loot really helps, and it saves time of looking in each hood to find good buildings.
If everyone is stronger than you because you messed up your character, switch into robbery mode. I look for buildings with good experience to respect ratios, to ensure that for every point of experience I am getting close to a point of respect.
Good buildings are ones with a high cash/respect to experience ratio:
a) Laundrymats (simply because they are always available and you get more respect than experience, the only building that offers this)
b) Anything with the word "restaurants" (Diner does not count)
c) Clothing store, shoe store, and collection agency
d) Barber shop, smoke shop, gun shop
e) Houses, Bagel Store, Fish Store
I can dump 6 energy on someone with just two laundry mats, I don't look for high cash buildings like lofts, movie theatres, level 7 warehouses, etc. But because I go through a large list of rivals per playing session, I will eventually hit them (I have robbed a couple of anchor shops and churches for example).
I try to avoid things like meat factory which is 20xp 10 respect, unless it is really high inlevel. Same with lower level warehouses.
Robbery: The Heart Of My Playing Style
Think of it this way, it takes $150000 to buy a sniper rifle which rivals the Tommy Gun at 100 respect. By just robbing a pair of laundry mats 5 times (something you get in almost every hood), you got at least 10 respect which is worth $15000! The stat is even more in your favor with later items like Yamaha bikes. You also only get 10 experience, keeping yourself lean and mean.
Building Your Hood:
Buy two of every building and upgrade them to level 4 each. The higher level building/upgrade you get, the longer it takes to regain your investment. A level 4 Italian restaurant ($1400 every 3 hours) for example will cost you maybe $50-60K and it beats a Fancy Restaurant ($1100 every 3 hours) which costs $270000 to build! Do not move onto higher level buildings until you have built all the lower ones!
From there expand for bigger hood, do not sell your upgraded buildings, they are cash cows! I don't worry about building collection time, 48 hours or 3 hours, no difference to me because 48 hours have much higher chance of being robbed and I am not always there to collect it.
Above level 4, upgrade will take much longer and it will take much longer for you to regain your investment. Upgrade only if your other buildings are already at level 4 or above OR you can not afford a shorter upgrade on a higher level building (or are saving up for a big upgrade like movie theatre).
BUILDINGS TO GET TO HIGHER LEVELS: Laundrymat, House, Italian Restaurant, Icecream Shop, Movie Theatre (Some buildings give you 2.5-3x income on the first upgrade, they scale much better than their peers that gives only a double on a first upgrade)
ALWAYS BE UPGRADING!
Layout:
Always put bigger buildings in front of smaller ones to hide the levels, add $1200 pine trees on sidewalks to hide the levels of anything on the outside. It doesn't stop professional robbers like me, but definitely helps to a degree and is very cheap to do. Stack buildings as tightly as possible, do not waste space!
Defense Buildings:
I don't build them, robberies are too strong in this game. You have to out class your opponent by too much to stop robberies. So I just deal with it by building a lot of buildings and spread out my investments.
Remember you are wasting invaluable building time, upgrade time and space that could be used for more money buildings. It cripples your income as it is and it will not save you from gold buyers.
Items:
Early Levels:
Guns: Shotgun (2/1 $600)
Armor: Steel Toed Boots (2/2 $400)
Melee: Brass Knuckles (3/2 $540)
Cars: Skip cars for now
Respect: Armored Boots (5/8 for 50 points) and Tommy Guns (10/6 for 100 points).
Coupled with respect items and random loot from attacking other players, you should get through early game with a breeze. Don't spend too much money here as those items are replaced quickly. DO NOT buy too many Tommy Guns and try to go low on Combat Boots, just enough for you to do PVP quests and rob people easily. Remember respect is a limited resource. You can not get it without getting higher levels. Unlike cash which you can get by sitting on your buildings.
Mid-Game (Level 40 Or So):
Guns: Combat Shotgun (6/4 $15000)
Melee: Meat Cleaver (6/4 $11000)
Armor: Swat Helmet (4/8 $18000)
Cars: Hatchback (3/2 $10000)
Respect: Some more Tommy Guns and switch to full Yamaha Bikes (13/12 325 respect).
End Game (Level 80 Or So For Most):
Guns: Golden Magnum (8/7 $70000)
Melee: Steel Garrote (10/5 $53000)
Armor: Swat Helmet (4/8 $18000)
Cars: 69 Camaro (5/4 $35000)
Respect: Full Yamaha Bikes (13/12 325 respect), some sawed-off shotgun if you are low on guns but M4A1 farming should take care of it.
Again, remember to spend as much money on buildings/upgrades as possible. If you don't have problems robbing people and doing your PVP quests, spend your cash on income! You will be much stronger in the end, good luck!
(TO BE CONTINUED WHEN I GET HIGHER LEVELS)