Everyone else is so strong...

[Santa]

...should I start over?

I've invested a lot of time into this game. A couple iTunes cards. So what should I do?

I'm guessing I'll be better if I start over. But what it the M4's and the couple gold weapons I owned were the difference?

I've seen so many people on this forum that are a lower level, have less mafia, and yet are still stronger than me!

The only other option is to camp. What do you guys think?

[CounterSniper]

Unless you plan to spend your college fund on this game the end result will be the same for you and everyone else.

Fodder for the Gold Elites with scraps for the rest of us to fight over.

Just keep playing until you no longer have fun. imho

[TenderPlacebo]

You could camp: build economy and buy strongest in game weapons.
You could crawl: rob high respect to low xp buildings, then you can purchase R weapons. This will be slow going but will make you stronger in long run. Where I'm at lvl 94 I could gain a min. Of 10k R per level by using this method.
You could also do thug lifes, which give you crazy R, but will level you quick.
I don't think starting over is the best decision,IMO. How would that benifits you?
You can't farm those boss weapons anymore, so not much reason to start from scratch.

[bjornrey]

Focus solely on finding weaker oppents and beat the **** out of them until you cleared all Thug life goals etc. then you will have earnt enough RP to to buy items to beat at least half of your rival list! :) depending on your level ofc! If you have more than a 100 M4a1 I would not start over! :) I was lucky to have 461 when they got nerfed so that is a big advantage over new players!

[Rhino72]

...should I start over?

I've invested a lot of time into this game. A couple iTunes cards. So what should I do?

I'm guessing I'll be better if I start over. But what it the M4's and the couple gold weapons I owned were the difference?

I've seen so many people on this forum that are a lower level, have less mafia, and yet are still stronger than me!

The only other option is to camp. What do you guys think?

Farm respect take your lumps and build up your end game respect items plus economy. All you have is time in this game and to adjust to whatever changes come good or bad. Don't start over...

[cookies]

I would suggest camping until your income is high enough to buy some halfway decent cash weapons. Using the spreadsheet Nicholas has in his signature to get a better handle on what of your gear needs improving, if you havent.

Stock up cheap weapons to be sure you dont bring weapons to fights that are poor. You can easily fill up cheaply and fast with alot of Uzis, Maces, Steel Garrotes, armors in the 7-18k range and 69 Camaros. Get best offensive and defensive explosives if you havent already.
That should put you into the top % range for your level if you also have a few respect items.

Another other option, if you dont care for win/loss statistics and camping is too boring for you, would be to go all out pvp. Rob and Attack as much as you can while maximizing respect gained vs XP. (possibly while keeping a low mafia count to increase strengh per mob member)

Dropping Mafia to a low level might be worth a try, but i can't really speak to that. I am running with way too many people right now (like 900).

Unless you have *a lot* of money burning in your pockets, i don't think starting over would gain you much.

[Joeycool]

Nice to see good old cookies here! :)

Santa... If people around you are much stronger, then drop your mafia members. How many do you have now?

If you drop your mafia size you will be bracketed with players who are much lower level than you. This will allow you to compete.

Give it a try. It may feel wrong removing mafia members and watching your stats go down as you do it... but it does work.

I think Nicolost did an in depth analysis confirming that this technique works. It may be in his profile signature.

[cookies]

Hi Joey! *waves* :D

[Nicholost]

Santa, you're getting some good advice from your peers. I agree with all that has been posted so far. Before taking the leap on any of these options, I would use Lars' or white frog's stats calculators and run scenarios. Enter all your inventory, then save a copy and play with that copy to see how your stats change. For instance, increase or decrease your mafia size, determine where your weak areas are and see how many cash/farming items you need to improve them, give yourself a 10k RP budget and see how spending it on different RP items improves stats, etc. My bet is that you'll find you need to do two things after this analysis: decrease your mafia size somewhat and start crawling while farming high RP/XP buildings. Don't blindly follow this advice though. Use a stats calculator, it'll show you what to do based on your inventory.

[Santa]

Nonononono! I'm in the top 5% of my bracket. I'm talking about other forum members. I've seen some players at least 20 levels below me who are already at or close to 100k/hr and have better stats with less mafia.

I think I will go the RP/XP option, sticking only to LM's for a couple of levels. Give my economy time to "catch up".

Any tips?

[Joeycool]

If you are in the top 5% then you have no worries Santa.

the only way you will compete with the people you are on about is by spending large amounts of gold. You will never be the "best" at this game.

Just accept that there are people who are always going to beat you... and that there are people you are always going to beat. Its like a food chain.

If you currently sit in the top 5% at your level then you are doing well.

My advice to you would be to concentrate solely on attack.

There is always going to be people who can beat you... so why bother wasting effort on defence. Make yourself better at attacking you can take on more people.

Do not bother with defence explosives at all until you can EASILY afford them. You will get attacked and loose them all in one night if a stronger player gets his teeth into you. You would be far better spending $ on attack explosives or permanent weapons to allow you to attack higher levels.

go with 12 24 48 buildings and synch them.

Thats it!

[Ramshutu]

Santa, I've taken a look at your stats, and you are sitting at around 54 atk/def per mafia. This is actually pretty good. With your mafia count maxed out you would be look at stats of ~17k atk/def. This is 'relatively' competitive at level 103.

I wouldnt recommend camping, mainly as your economy isn't too bad either (although it would be worthwhile building up only collectible income 12/24/48 buildings).

What I would do is as follows:

Don't do thug life for the moment, even considering the bonus items, it has a poor xp/RP payout. I would recommend raiding high return buildings, lofts, collection agencies and laundromats. Just for a few levels. Where TL does benefit you in the short term, is drop loot. While butterfly knives don't add anything for me at the moment, they probably will for you. The extra stats can be useful, but I suspect not much to you unless you start adding mafia.

Secondly, I think you are coming up with some higher level people for two possible reasons. 1. The only other people you see at 100 mafia at your level, is all the other campers. The (more likely) alternative is that at your level, with RP rewards people with 180 mafia, can have higher stats with relatively poor mafia equipment.

I suspect, if you added 50 mafia, you'd be looking at a gain of at least 20a/d per mafia. This would bring you up to 7-8k depending. You can bulk this up a bit with purchases.

The big, big issue, is that the effective cost of items ($\stat) goes up exponentially. After swat helmets, gaining stats with cash items is not very fast and is very expensive. This is where RP items have to build up the slack.

Bear in mind, that it looks like your RP focus is on mid and high level items. This is good. I found at around your level, that you will come up against people with 100 tommy guns and 200 combat boots. These guys will pwn you in the short term, I think at about level 80 or so, my CW and NVB inventory started to overtake them.

[Aloysius2009]

Focus solely on finding weaker oppents and beat the **** out of them until you cleared all Thug life goals etc. then you will have earnt enough RP to to buy items to beat at least half of your rival list! :) depending on your level ofc! If you have more than a 100 M4a1 I would not start over! :) I was lucky to have 461 when they got nerfed so that is a big advantage over new players!

Truly unfair to new player. By rushing to earn RP it will simply level up fast.
With that it will become totally unfair to new players in very near future.
The only solution to solve these atm is buying item with gold.
Funzio is earning big bucks through this.

Funzio should take into consideration for new players whom are new to this game.
.

[Santa]

Thank you all for your advice! Keep it coming!

Until at least level 75 (69 ATM) I will follow ramshutu's advice, robbing LM's, Lofts, etc. Use the slow leveling to boost my economy (Lofts, MT's, and gold equivalent Type B's are a priority) and be able to purchase some "filler" cash items. Focus on spending RP on mid-late game items such as CW's and NVB. Plan to get 80 NVB (20 ATM) and 40 CW (20 ATM) by level 75.

Sound good?

What cash items would you guys recommend? Steel Garrotes are still a little pricey for me ATM. I'm thinking SWAT Helmets and Camaro's. Also stocked up on Molotovs, then Hand Grenades.

And would you guys go for 80 NVB or 40 CW first?

Thanks so much, again! I couldn't do this without you guys... :)

[Ramshutu]

Thank you all for your advice! Keep it coming!

Until at least level 75 (69 ATM) I will follow ramshutu's advice, robbing LM's, Lofts, etc. Use the slow leveling to boost my economy (Lofts, MT's, and gold equivalent Type B's are a priority) and be able to purchase some "filler" cash items. Focus on spending RP on mid-late game items such as CW's and NVB. Plan to get 80 NVB (20 ATM) and 40 CW (20 ATM) by level 75.

Sound good?

What cash items would you guys recommend? Steel Garrotes are still a little pricey for me ATM. I'm thinking SWAT Helmets and Camaro's. Also stocked up on Molotovs, then Hand Grenades.

And would you guys go for 80 NVB or 40 CW first?

Thanks so much, again! I couldn't do this without you guys... :)

Swat helmets are good, although they mainly build up defence. Camaros are also good.

While it is not fashionable, I would recommend going for NVB first, they will have the biggest overall stat increase per xp. But only go to about 100 at the most before going to CWs.

If you go CW first, you will not be competitive in the short term compared to NVB.

[mnju_03]

Santa I'm going to defriend you and attack/rob you 24/7.





Just kidding! ;) lol

[Boom]

Their stats r better cuz they camped for 5 months...and bought a lot of explosives, garrotes, camaro

[Caleb]

Santa - The lower-level forum members you are comparing your stats to may be some of our long-term campers. I think it is the rare and dedicated player that has a $100K economy below your level.

Since you don't seem to be having any trouble with rivals, there's probably no need to spend cash on weapons atm. Put that money back to work upgrading more buildings instead. You can always revisit buying equipment if your situation changes.

I basically did what Ramshutu is advising in starting with NVBs over CWs. 2 NVBs for the cost of a CW is, depending on what you are replacing, potentially a 32/32 vs. 25/19 difference in stats.

There are still vast numbers of low-stat, bad economy players at my level, and I suspect well over level 100 as well.

[Santa]

I'm at 100 mafia members for the ease of calculating attack and defense per mafia member. Will go to ~80 NVB's, then CW's. Eventually I will be up at 500 mob like all you guys, but I'd rather be up there later when I can actually somewhat compete.


So no cash items if I'm doing fine against all rivals? Well then how do I get stronger? Just through RP items? Not much to farm anymore. Mark 2 Blade (7/9) seems okay. But I'll make that decision after I reach level 75. :)

[fuzzy]

Truly unfair to new player. By rushing to earn RP it will simply level up fast.
With that it will become totally unfair to new players in very near future.
The only solution to solve these atm is buying item with gold.
Funzio is earning big bucks through this.

Funzio should take into consideration for new players whom are new to this game.
.

If they are at level 69 as Santa is then they are not new players.

[Caleb]

So no cash items if I'm doing fine against all rivals?

The problem with a lot of cash equipment is the chance of it being replaced later in the game. If you don't need the stats now, by waiting and building economy, you can possibly afford items with better stats that get unlocked at higher levels. (Although we all know that even the high-end cash items have trouble competing with Respect and obviously Gold equipment.) I found some cash items with good defense stats to be helpful at certain levels, but bought them knowing it was a shorter term investment.

Money spent on equipment now that you don't need could instead build your economy. And if you change your mind later, you can always buy the items at that point, whereas you can't sell back equipment you don't need. If you were constantly losing fights, which you're not, then that would be a different story.

[Gaming Will]

+1. Good advice. Cash items are most certainly a short term fix. Save up RP for good equipment later. I have 30k RP saved up currently waiting on exceleros.

[Swearengen]

Lots of good advice on thise thread. I assume your using Lars all stat calculator, it makes keeping your atk/def per mafia pretty easy to figure out so no need to stay at 100 for ease of calculation.

[Santa]

I plan on staying low for a while. 100 just seemed like an easy number.

I agree, cash items are definitely short term. I bought a bunch of maces in the wayy early game. Helped a lot.

[Swearengen]

I did the mace thing also 100+ I think...

[i need muney]

I didn't read the thread, but don't start over. It's only pointless to do so. You'll have fresh stats and that's it.

[Boom]

Where's the mark 2 blade?

[Mr BigBenga]

Lots of good advice on thise thread. I assume your using Lars all stat calculator, it makes keeping your atk/def per mafia pretty easy to figure out so no need to stay at 100 for ease of calculation.

Where i can find that calculator?

[mnju_03]

Where i can find that calculator?

http://code.google.com/p/cc-all-stats-spreadsheet/downloads/list :)

[bjornrey]

Nonononono! I'm in the top 5% of my bracket. I'm talking about other forum members. I've seen some players at least 20 levels below me who are already at or close to 100k/hr and have better stats with less mafia.

I think I will go the RP/XP option, sticking only to LM's for a couple of levels. Give my economy time to "catch up".

Any tips?

Focus on upgrading MT's and Lofts! the increase from those buildings is essential to having a strong economy! Allways look around for what upgrade / new building gives you the highest increase in hourly income and choose that one. Never mind the ROI, its a secondary matter.

[i need muney]

Never mind the ROI, its a secondary matter.
Eeeeeh! False. F-

Delete the game and go do your homework!