Robby the Robber and You: Or Why Your Defense Score Probably Doesn't Matter

[MajorOffensive]

I know this has been brought up before, and probably since Peacock did his guide on the PvP defenses. But I find different results from his. It seems rob and attack defense are both the same. I've noticed on multiple targets and had someone in-game confirm on my own for me.

Naturally, defense buildings don't work as advertised and serve only to inflate your defense stats. I tested explosives, and they do seem to add to attack and defense, or at least they are shown to in the results. But I'm not sure they factor into PvP results as advertised by the shown stats, either.

What makes me wonder this? Robberies that don't seem to make sense unless the game is more random than it relies on your stats. After all, what is the point of 20800 shown defense in PvP if someone with 15800 attack can rob you and win regularly? The losses don't cost much to them, but even a few wins are enough to devastate a collection even a few minutes too late.

A defense that is about a third stronger than the attacker's strength, intuitively, should flat out win. Otherwise, stats don't mean a whole lot, and there wouldn't be any point to the loot or gold weapons (le gasp!). Sure, there is some random factor to make things exciting, but too much or hidden behaviors (*glares at you, defense buildings*), and it is an exercise in futile frustration and disappointment.

So what is going on here? Well, either there is an obnoxious degree of randomness to PvP combat, or, as I read someone say, "If you need explosives to turn the tide, you weren't going to win anyway." They inflate without adding their advertised value. What this would mean is my Defense is about 2880 points lower (assuming they add nothing), which puts me squarely in range of semi-successful robbery for my attacker. But instead of being measurable, like the difference with defense buildings, they contribute to PvP combat results stats. The more I play this game, the less I feel I understand its mechanics. And that's before they give moderate gold spenders a nerd-gasm by making changes like nerfing farming to hell.

[Boom]

It says the same but it's really half... That's for everyone

[Dr BoneCrusher]

Must agree with the Major. Just attacked some one with 33% more deffence then my attack but half of his deffence is buildings and bombs. My attack is 99% equipment not bombs. Beat him 10 times head to head and robbed his buildings 8 times with no losses. Took 400k

[nopenopenope]

Okay, I think I can step in and clear some of this up.

Yes, only (your level * 5) mafia contribute in a fight. There is also a hard cap of 500 mafia.
Defense buildings give defense in all cases, not just robs.
You probably lost because of consumed explosives or attack skill.

-and-

http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?12205-Who-can-explain-this&p=55449#post55449

[murf]

I know this has been brought up before, and probably since Peacock did his guide on the PvP defenses. But I find different results from his. It seems rob and attack defense are both the same. I've noticed on multiple targets and had someone in-game confirm on my own for me.

Naturally, defense buildings don't work as advertised and serve only to inflate your defense stats. I tested explosives, and they do seem to add to attack and defense, or at least they are shown to in the results. But I'm not sure they factor into PvP results as advertised by the shown stats, either.

What makes me wonder this? Robberies that don't seem to make sense unless the game is more random than it relies on your stats. After all, what is the point of 20800 shown defense in PvP if someone with 15800 attack can rob you and win regularly? The losses don't cost much to them, but even a few wins are enough to devastate a collection even a few minutes too late.

A defense that is about a third stronger than the attacker's strength, intuitively, should flat out win. Otherwise, stats don't mean a whole lot, and there wouldn't be any point to the loot or gold weapons (le gasp!). Sure, there is some random factor to make things exciting, but too much or hidden behaviors (*glares at you, defense buildings*), and it is an exercise in futile frustration and disappointment.

So what is going on here? Well, either there is an obnoxious degree of randomness to PvP combat, or, as I read someone say, "If you need explosives to turn the tide, you weren't going to win anyway." They inflate without adding their advertised value. What this would mean is my Defense is about 2880 points lower (assuming they add nothing), which puts me squarely in range of semi-successful robbery for my attacker. But instead of being measurable, like the difference with defense buildings, they contribute to PvP combat results stats. The more I play this game, the less I feel I understand its mechanics. And that's before they give moderate gold spenders a nerd-gasm by making changes like nerfing farming to hell.

I think Peacock's / Jihy calculations are still pretty accurate if not exact...the few unknowns to their equations are

1) adjustment for rob vs attack - this is assumed to be halved for robberies, whether the total defense in halved or your armed mafia (non-building)is halved is up for debate

2) skill points - general consensus (I believe) is each skill point is worth max(1.09+(.09*Level),10)

3) inherent defense points in money buildings - there seems to be agreement from empirical evidence that this exists and increases with level, but it is so hard to test that whether this or true is not or what values each building has is unknown

[white frog]

Peacock's calculations are still accurate.. they have been tested and proven many times, and also recently! The devs never expected anyone to figure this out, but since they did figure it out, something needed to be done. The solution.. mask the attack and rob screen. They now both show the exact same thing, but there is something very different going on there!
As far as the defense points offered from each money building, we only know (and will probably ever know) the base defense offered, and it's pretty small. Most buildings have a defense of 1, a few have 2.

[murf]

Peacock's calculations are still accurate.. they have been tested and proven many times, and also recently! The devs never expected anyone to figure this out, but since they did figure it out, something needed to be done. The solution.. mask the attack and rob screen. They now both show the exact same thing, but there is something very different going on there!
As far as the defense points offered from each money building, we only know (and will probably ever know) the base defense offered, and it's pretty small. Most buildings have a defense of 1, a few have 2.

I still think that leveling money buildings adds a decent amount of defense points (by decent I mean max in the hundreds for top buildings). I do remember in my early days, being able to rob L4 warehouses, but not L7...before I knew how to play the game and didn't respect XP like I should have

[nopenopenope]

I brought light back to this issue not too long ago:


Here's a side-fact to consider:

Matured economies will produce significantly higher return at a growing, exponential rate. The higher a building becomes, it is also mysteriously harder to rob by someone with like stats. In the land of level 10 NCs, you will be outearned, outspent, out-equipped, and thus will lose more attacks/robs.

[MajorOffensive]

-and-

http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?12205-Who-can-explain-this&p=55449#post55449
Which means this:
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/158/329/9189283.jpg


Peacock's calculations are still accurate.. they have been tested and proven many times, and also recently! The devs never expected anyone to figure this out, but since they did figure it out, something needed to be done. The solution.. mask the attack and rob screen. They now both show the exact same thing, but there is something very different going on there!
As far as the defense points offered from each money building, we only know (and will probably ever know) the base defense offered, and it's pretty small. Most buildings have a defense of 1, a few have 2.
Are you sure the black box isn't outputting results from something different? You can't test what you can't see in this case. So going by my hypothesis, the mechanics work by a formula thought up by the love-child of Gandalf and a Twi'lek stripper. You are expected to throw points at your stats while having no clue whatsoever how they affect your gameplay. So much for the RPG aspect of the game.

My primary concern wasn't for robbery, which I am aware has long been thought to be somewhat easier than attacking. Rather, I was irritated when I was attacked by someone whose attack was significantly lower than my attack proportionally. So either absurd randomness intervened, or the attack stat compensated sometimes for a rough 25% deficit. That's a lot of combined randomness and attack to still win 50% of the time.

Considered reasonably, they may have put points in their attack, but I know for a fact I have quite a few points in my defense stat. So they overcame a 25% deficit in attack rating, must have more than compensated for my own character defense points, and then still managed to win 50% of the time. So either they put almost all their points into attack or attack points are worth a lot more than defense points. While that is possible, it seems more likely the PvP model is overwhelmingly random, regardless of stats.