Fighting: Promotions and Possible Changes

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When I logged into my Mafia Wars account, I saw the image below notifying me that a limited time event called Double Fight Loot! to celebrate 2 years of crime will start tomorrow (June 16th).  This sounds like a good deal and I wanted to know more about it.  Unfortunately, this is all I can tell you. I checked the "Coming Soon" page directly from my game, nothing.  The Official Zynga Mafia Wars Blog...Nothing, The Official Mafia Wars Fan Page...Nothing, The Zynga Support FAQ Page and once again...Nothing.  I did find a small discussion thread on the The Zynga Forum Boards but this was only people complaining about the loot that currently drops from fighting and wishing they would offer double money instead.  I'm used to this lack of information from Zynga and will just have to wait until tomorrow like everybody else.  Zynga doesn't like to keep us informed on anything that doesn't have to do with spending money.

UPDATE:  About 30 min ago The Official Mafia Wars Fan Page made a post about this event and filled in all the details I was searching for.  They want us to "man up and fight" for the next two days.  What about the ladies???  This can't be a bad thing so I'll do some fighting and see what kind of loot I get.  The 5 Throwing Knives are a nice gesture but why not give us 5 Hollow Points, the best attack boost?  All the loot is free to Zynga anyways.
 "It’s time to man up and fight. For two days only, get TWICE THE LOOT in all cities. Fight for new loot. Fight for revenge. Fight now. We’re celebrating 2 years of crime, and giving you 5 Throwing Knives to get started. Double Fight Loot starts tonight at 12:00 AM PT and ends June 17 11:59 PM PT."

While I'm on the subject of fighting, now is a good time to share this Zynga Forum post that I talked about in a previous article.  One of the game developers Fenris, started a thread asking for our opinions on fighting.  He gave us some feedback in a thread titled Update on Fighting.  You can see entire thread including comments by clicking on the link.  I've also copied and pasted it here.  Sorry Zynga if I'm guilty of copyright infringement but I did list you as the source. 

Yesterday, 04:46 PM

Fenris Developer Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Zynga HQ Posts: 63

Update On Fighting Last week, I asked for your help in determining the top issues with fighting. Many of you graciously took the time to post some great replies. Communication between the players and the developers should be a two-way street, and so I'd like to take a moment to re-cap what we regarded as the biggest issues you identified, as well as what we intend to do about them. Disclaimer: Please note that none of these are set in stone and can change at any time, but can be taken as an indicator of how the development team feels about them and their possible solutions. Issue: Fight Lag – this was the most-cited issue and refers specifically to general lag while doing any normal, PvP-related activity. Response: We definitely agree; this is an issue that we're always working to improve on. The technical challenges to creating a game where millions of players can interact with each other every day are significant, but we need to place a greater emphasis on making fighting run more smoothly, as it's the place where timing often matters most in Mafia Wars. Issue: Pop-Ups – no one likes pop-ups much; they block the fight list at inconvenient times and push the robbing list down the page. This applies to both the Iced and Attack/Defense bundle pop-ups. Response: Agreed again; pop-ups are an irritation after you've seen them a few times, even more so if you already know what's going to pop up and aren't interested. I can't make any promises regarding getting rid of pop-ups in Mafia Wars altogether, but we're looking at ways to reduce or move them, particularly in PvP situations. Issue: Hitlist – Players want to be able to "ride" the hitlist again, where a player with high defense and health can be hitlisted and then soak up XP while defending against incoming attacks. Response: Agreed again (I'm sensing a pattern here). Riding the hitlist used to be a real test of how tough you were, but the stingy limits placed on the XP reward made this a lot less attractive. Our plan is to make the following changes to the hitlist: Increase maximum XP gain the first time you're hitlisted in a day to 500 XP; the second time would yield a maximum of 250 XP; then you could be hitlisted 10 more times in a day - earning up to 100 XP each time. Update: Due to feedback from the community, the hospital timer will not be changed at present. However, we may end up having to tweak it at some point in the future. Increase the bounties so that it takes more than $10,000 to hitlist someone; this should scale based on both the level of the person doing the hitlisting and the player being hitlisted, but not be so outrageously expensive that a low-level player can't scrape together the money to hitlist someone who has been picking on them. Note: I know some people wanted hitlists for other countries. This is something we considered when Cuba was released, but ultimately decided against it due to technical and playability concerns. Issue: "Issue Processing Request" – in the portion of the game where fast clicking can mean the difference between collecting a bounty or icing someone, telling someone they’re clicking too fast doesn’t make sense. Response: We've already taken steps to remove this rate limiter from fighting and robbing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you should no longer get this message in fighting. Issue: Fight Loot – high-level players are tired of getting brass knuckles and shamrock medallions as fight loot and many of the best items from jobs don't drop in fights. Response: In the short term, we're planning to release some rather nice new items that can only be earned through PvP, as well as making all Bangkok loot drops available. In the longer term, we plan to make the drops more suited to your level, so that a level 300 player isn't getting brass knuckles and butterfly knives. Issue: More Content – fighting is basically the same as it was 3 months ago, 6 months ago, and 12 months ago. Apart from the re-introduction of robbing, there has been no real update to fighting since the game launched. Response: We're working on some new systems to make fighting more interesting. These sort of features tend to require more time, so it may be a bit before we can provide additional details. We are working on this, however. Issue: PvP in general, and Robbing in particular, doesn't have "teeth" – fighting and robbing today are too "fluffy", with too little consequence; if you're attacking or robbing an opponent, you want them to feel it. Response: We're planning on making some changes to robbing to reduce the amount of time after a property finishes before it is able to be robbed and increasing the amount of damage you can do to a property. We also have some ideas on how to make fighting more attractive in Las Vegas, where banking your money won't be quite so easy. Issue: Counter-attack Lag – when attacking someone who is simultaneously attacking you, the game basically locks up your browser. Response: Our Systems team is working to determine if we can improve performance in these cases. This basically involves two accounts changing states very rapidly in response to actions performed by the other, so there are some technical hurdles to be overcome, but we are working on a solution. Issue: Hitlisting From The Hospital – players shouldn't be able to hitlist you when they're below 20 health Response: Our current plan is to remove the ability to hitlist a player unless your health is above 20. No more phone calls to the heavy hitters from your hospital bed. Robbing "Inefficiency" – robbing used to be much more efficient than it currently is; the board completion bonus being reduced made robbing less attractive. Response: This is one of the few items I'm afraid we're going to have to disagree on. We've reviewed the efficiency of robbing several times and feel that it is where we want it to be at this time, in terms of stamina spent vs XP awarded. We may review it again in the future, but for now it's not likely to change. Issue: Reduce Randomness in Robbing – the random roll when robbing someone isn't fun for players who have invested in making their character a great fighter. Response: We feel that there is a fair bit of confusion over how the robbing formula works, so we would like to better clarify how the robbing results are determined. Basically, when you attempt to rob another player, the result is determined based on the following: (Your Attack Skill) + (25% of your Mafia Attack Strength) + (A Random Roll based on 75% of your Mafia Attack Strength) vs (Defenders Defense Skill) + (25% of their Mafia Defense Strength) + (A Random Roll based on 75% of their Mafia Defense Strength) + (Robbing Defense Boosts, if applicable) As an example, lets say you were trying to rob someone's Flophouse (each player brings one extra friend along for the robbery). Your Attack skill is 800, and your two best offensive weapons, armor, vehicles, and animals add up to a total attack strength of 600. Your opponent has a Defense skill of 400; their two best defensive weapons, armor, vehicles, and animals combine for a total defense strength of 600; and they don't have any Robbing Defense boosts. You initiate the robbery and the following numbers are used: Your result will be: A number between 951 and 1400 800 (Your Attack Skill) + 150 (25% of Mafia Attack Strength) + a random number between 1 and 450 (75% of Mafia Attack Strength) The defenders result will be: A number between 551 and 1000 400 (Their Defense Skill) + 150 (25 of Mafia Defense Strength) + a random number between 1 and 450 (75% of Mafia Defense Strength) So what this means is that your Attack and Defense skills are still very important in robbing, and every point invested in them will give you a real advantage during robberies. Yes, there is still an element of randomness in robbing, but probably not as much as some of you may think. Issue: Inventory Needs Improvement – people would like to be able to see what their top 501 weapons, armor, vehicles, and animals are in their inventory. Response: Agreed, although this isn't a short-term project. We're already in the process of making improvements to how your inventory is displayed as a whole, and hope to provide more details on this in the near future. I realize that some of you had additional issues and suggestions in last week's thread that you would like to see mentioned. Some of your suggestions are already on a separate list I compiled of things we'd like to do in the future. We also hope to do a follow-up in the coming months, after some of these changes are in, to make sure the changes we made are working properly and to see if there are additional things we can improve. -Fenris (Game Designer)