Quality vs Quantity...

[KoolB]

Ok... now with Funzio throwing a spanner into the works of all the low mafia believers (like me)... it becomes important to scale up the mob quickly...
I need some help if anyone on this forum has done the following analysis and is willing to share... thanks in advance...

When equipping the mafia... does quality matter as well as quantity... to give an example of what I am asking...
Suppose KoolB attacks KoolA... both guys have five mafia members with all else equal...
the only difference is...
KoolB has one Chain Whip (Atk 25) and four butterfly Knives (Atk 5)
KoolA has 5 Columbian Knives (Defence 9)
Total Attack = Total Defence = 45

Qn 1. Does the Chain Whip sway the fight (all else, including skill points etc, equal)
Qn 2. What if the Attack points was slightly lesser... say one Butterfly Knife replaced by a Street Knife... then any clues as to what might happen..

Any answers / thoughts will be helpful... like I said... TIA...

[Max Power]

The mob members you add stats are irrelevant. They do not factor. They are using your weapons, not theirs.

Let's wait a little before saying Funzio threw any spanners. I have seen all sorts of threads insisting that Funzio changed their formulas, and within days they go away. Hell, a million threads have been started on the reduced drop rate of M4s, only to have people look at the code and see it is unchanged.

[Matthew91188]

What are they supposedly changing?

[JimmyShines]

In your example, assuming that both players are at the exact same level, and only have the exact same mafia (plus I will not talk about the random and bonus modifiers here that would add way to much complexity).

KoolA would win the fight. Why you ask? 51% win decides the fight, in your example, KoolB wins the first fight because there attack is larger than the first mafia in KoolA list, but the following 4 fights would be a loss for KoolB, cause KoolA has a higher defense, so KoolA has won 80% of the fight.

And yes, for PvP it is based on a mafia/item list per mafia/item list fight (from top down, higher fighter first). For fights where some has more mafia than the other, it's based on the defender mafia total, the attacker needs to achieve 51% wins of the defender total mafia.

[Cooz]

In your example, assuming that both players are at the exact same level, and only have the exact same mafia (plus I will not talk about the random and bonus modifiers here that would add way to much complexity).

KoolA would win the fight. Why you ask? 51% win decides the fight, in your example, KoolB wins the first fight because there attack is larger than the first mafia in KoolA list, but the following 4 fights would be a loss for KoolB, cause KoolA has a higher defense, so KoolA has won 80% of the fight.

And yes, for PvP it is based on a mafia/item list per mafia/item list fight (from top down, higher fighter first). For fights where some has more mafia than the other, it's based on the defender mafia total, the attacker needs to achieve 51% wins of the defender total mafia.

Not arguing with you, but where are you getting that information from?

[downrange]

Q1: No. The chain whip does not sway the fight. In my opinion and in my experience so far, there is no difference between acquiring a base mafia attack (and/or defense) of 45 (or any other number) via 1 good item plus 4 bad items, vs 5 average items.

Think about it from a practical perspective, and it becomes obvious why. It would require far more computational power on the server side to calculate individual mafia members "fighting" each other with their individual item combinations, doing the sort algorithms to match them up, etc. No way. The server processing is a cost to the game, and overdoing it would further delay the response time for players, which is already significantly hampered by network latency. There's just no way the fight mechanics are factoring in *how* the base atk/def values are added up from items, other than perhaps some crude distribution curve calculation, which should be totally unnecessary. The fight mechanics have other factors involved which are widely known and certainly exist to create sufficient variance.

I have my own thoughts on how the "multipliers" and other adjustments are factored in - and I've never seen anyone here type up anything close to how I think it's calculated, so I'll leave that for another day, another post.

Q2. Yes. If you hold all else the same but decrease the overall attack number, the attack success chance will be less. Again though it doesn't matter in the slightest *how* the attack number was decreased - by changing one butterfly for a street knife, or by any other way. What matters is that it was 43 and not 45.

In the overall question/scenario You could also use 45 junkers and nothing else and the results would be the same. It just doesn't matter at all how you get to an overall mafia atk of 45 if 45 is the number you're keying on.

[Nudie]

In the long run Quality will beat Quantity. However to get a lot of Quality takes a lot of resources in time, money, respect. You will still need to survive and have an enjoyable playing experience while building Quality for the future. I would suggest getting 40% of your mob equipped with mid Quality equipment as a first step. Then 20% of the mob equipped with the best stuff you can afford. As your resources and ability to equip your mob goes up, increase the % of top Quality stuff. Having an idea of where you are in relation to your current rival list will help you verify if you need to be stronger. Aim to be able to successfully PvP/rob at least 70% of your rival list.

[xclusiv]

i see it like this,

you have the top quailty items, mid quality, and then bottom quaility.

top quality:
excelro 1,200 x 500 = 600,000 respect points - time = 20 months
full combat gear 800 x 500 = 400,000 - time = about 15 months
chainwhip 750 x 500 = 375,000 - time = about 14 months
rpg 1,000 x 500 = 500,000 - time = about 17 months

total = 66 months = about 5 and a years

500 of each items how long do u think it would it take?

ive been playing this game for 4 months now,
in that 4 months i have accumulated 120,000 respect points

so with that being said it would take around 5 and a half years to get 500 of each of those give or take

so in my opnion i think it would be better off focusing on the midrange items,

like yamaha race bike, serrated blade, night vision binicoulars, sawn off shotgun.

people say it would be better in the long run to get the top items, but the question how long is this run lol

[greeneyes]

the more you level up, the more quality becomes important. Quantity with poor quality soon becomes waste.

[Nudie]

Definitely a very long stretch if you try to get 100% high quality equipment. My goals are much more modest.
Vehicles: 200 Yamahas, 100 Mustangs, remaining from drops ( afew execelos, police trucks, pimps)and $$$
Armor: 200 Night vision, 100 combat boots, remaining from drops - police armor, boxer shorts, wrestling masks (plenty of these)
Melee: 100 Columbian, remaining from drops etc - nail bats, butterfly knives (plenty of these)
Guns: 50 Sawn off shotguns, many M4s, Steyr AUGs, M14s, RPGs
When get economy up, can use cash to buy Audis, Steel Garrotts to augment vehicles & melee.

[KoolB]

Tks a ton everyone... and especially JimmyShines and downrange...
The funny thing is though the two of you are saying diametrically opposite things (and both with very reasonable logic to back it up I must say)... the strategy that emerges from both your views is the same... go for a good average attack... rather than aiming for a couple of heavy-hitters...

On a different note... the rival's list is back to normal... but now I already have an additional 50 mafia... I could be so mad at Funzio... had it not been for the poor blundering guy they sent in my direction with 160k of unbanked cash... :)
Life has a way of making things even...

[Anubis]

so in my opnion i think it would be better off focusing on the midrange items,

like yamaha race bike, serrated blade, night vision binicoulars, sawn off shotgun.

You firstly need to take into account other factors. For starters, Common PVP loot. Your melee will be getting equipped with Knives and Batons. The mid-range melee is a waste of respect points because as your economy grows by ~lvl140 you can invest in 500 Steel Garrotes if you wanted too giving all 500 mafia 10att.

Guns are taken up by farming up M4's

~The two areas that give best gains for R are Vehicles Yam BIkes (Mustangs are good two for layering vehicle att but I wouldnt go above 100), and the Goggles. Remember from PVP for armor you will stack up a load of Boxing Trunks, Wrestle Masks, and Police Armors so the Goggles wil only give 11-12att (similar gains to the Yam bikes).

Depending on your level, if your before the 'Big Wig' zone (lower than lvl90) then you should really just be robbing for respect and taking it very slow. Once you hit 90 PVP your ass off and watch the loot come rolling in. Respect builds fast from fighting for you to invest in vehicles or goggles.

You have to think long term. In the long term you WILL get your M4's, and you WILL get all the PVP general loot. If you can, check Cooz's hood out, hes the perfect example of how it should be done. His none-gold buying stats are excellant for early 90's. Once you get to the RED zone (90-125) the leveling slow style falls out the window and you just need to PVP + loot M4's to stat up. Get 500 Mafia by that time. I have no idea what the game will be like after 125, but I feel it will be more farming for the higher respect items and perhaps a change from primarily Whacking back to Primarily Robbing (have no idea tho - I do know I will be complete on PVP general loot by then and the only beneficial loot will be lowriders and police trucks for defence).

[Rarelibra]

Tks a ton everyone... and especially JimmyShines and downrange...
The funny thing is though the two of you are saying diametrically opposite things (and both with very reasonable logic to back it up I must say)... the strategy that emerges from both your views is the same... go for a good average attack... rather than aiming for a couple of heavy-hitters...

On a different note... the rival's list is back to normal... but now I already have an additional 50 mafia... I could be so mad at Funzio... had it not been for the poor blundering guy they sent in my direction with 160k of unbanked cash... :)
Life has a way of making things even...

Best hit I ever had was when I was like level 60 or 70 and I hit a guy three times in a row for $30,000 each hit. Must have caught him with his wallet open or something. But he came back and posted on my wall that he wanted his money back.

[Nudie]

Best hit I ever had was when I was like level 60 or 70 and I hit a guy three times in a row for $30,000 each hit. Must have caught him with his wallet open or something. But he came back and posted on my wall that he wanted his money back.

I hear you. I spend like a couple of hours a day searching the hoods for big fat ripe buildings or a chump with a big wad of cash on his person waving nothing more than a pocket knife. When the stars align and we get such a sweet hit, it makes all the hours of searching worthwhile. This game is strange that way.

[Tren]

Likewise, I spend countless hours searching for a specific criteria for robbing and pvp to limit overexposure to XP; and when the stars do align and am able to rob or loot, the game drops me..

Ohhhh Funzio, how I hate theeeee