Mafia Wars Loot Lady: July 2010

Jul 31, 2010

Free Reward Points

Click HERE to get some free Reward Points. The link will only work once per account. I got 4 of them and will try not to accidentally use them on the slot machine!

The implementation of the new fighting features have caused some of our favorite bookmarklet programs to stop working. The script writers of these programs need time to figure out what the changes are and write them into their code. According to the Arch-Angel Nemesis , Zynga changed the "internal" PHP FILES on "GIFTING" and on the "FIGHTING" pages. We all need to be patient and know that they are all working hard on fixing them. I suggest you go to the Fan Pages,Websites and Forums page on my blog and visit the fan sites for your favorite programs to check on the status.
(click on any image to enlarge)
This is what Martin of Team Spockholm had to say on The Spockholm Mafia Tools Fan Page.

I tried out some of the popular bookmarklet programs and here are a few that currently are not working.

The Chucker and Brawler by Arun's Mafia Helpers

AttackX by Team Spockholm

The Mafia Wars Auto Player is currently working for fighting. If you haven't used this program yet, read my article titled Mafia Wars AutoPlayer and visit PlayerScripts.com for installation and setting adjustment instructions. Here is my log for a small run. I adjusted the settings so that everything but fighting was turned off.

Jul 30, 2010

Las Vegas Loot Gifting Status Change: Bug or Nerf?

Another possible nerf was seen today. Las Vegas consumables and most of the loot became non-giftable. There are many discussions about this as well as the one on decreased exp payouts on The Zynga Forum Boards. The one titled Las Vegas Consumables? is the one will follow because one the moderators, FionaWG has posted a reply.

Here are a few before and after pictures of some of the loot items that we giftable yesterday but are not today. None of the Las Vegas Job Consumables are giftable at this time but all of the consumables to build your casino are. From everything I have read so far it looks like it may not stay this way and is possibly a bug from implementing the new fighting features. I will update you when more is known.

Yesterday

Today

Yesterday

Today

Exp/Energy Changes: Bug or Nerf?

I'm not sure what is going on, but the exp/energy ratios for jobs keep changing. One of my mafia members, MrSimy0 thinks maybe this is a sign that the New Top Mafia feature may be coming back. I will use the NY Boss Tier job "Settle a Beef Permanently" as an example. Last month the exp/energy ratio of this job decreased when Zynga implemented a reduction in the Top Mafia Bonuses. I don't have an explanation for the reduction in experience points paid out on this job today. I couldn't find anything on The Zynga Forum Boards so I started my very first discussion thread. Click HERE to follow it. I hope this is just a bug but I've learned that these kind of things are usually not unintentional.

Pre Top Mafia Bonus Reduction Nerf = 2.114

Post Top Mafia Bonus Reduction Nerf = 2.028

Today = 1.917

Fight Club and Fighting Mastery

There are some new items and clues to what the Fight Club is going to be all about. The first thing that has changed is The Fight Club tab in the Marketplace now say "New" instead of "Coming Soon".

When you click on this tab, you can see all the items available and what they cost.

I haven't tried the Fighting Tournaments yet but checked one out to see how many Victory Points I would get.

As more is known we should get a better feel on how long it takes to collect these Victory Coins. I'm sure the Mafia Wars Wiki Fight Club Page will keep us all updated.

You can find out how many Victory Coins you have by checking the new section that appears within the Fighting Tab or going to your profile and checking the recently added Finances section.

From this new window on the fighting page, I see we are going to have to master fighting. This will probably be like robbing in which advancement requirements to reach the next level exponentially increase. I did a few PvP style fights and my progress bar went up 3% and I got another Victory Coin.

I clicked on the little question mark and got the following window which contains two tabs. Not a lot of information but it's better than nothing. I will keep you updated as more is learned.

There are also 4 new Fighting Achievements Badges to work on.

Jul 29, 2010

Hitlist Servers

Since I've mastered robbing, I've been using my stamina to fight. I've been out of the fighting game for a while now and I've discovered a lot has changed. Especially with the hitlist.

What I'm finding is that people don't like it when you ice them. I'm always discovering that I've been placed on the hitlist. This used to be a good thing because I would gain experience points. There have been a few changes in fighting which have caused this to no longer be the case. I don't think I will ever beat my longest hitlist survival time. I was so close to lasting 2 hours which is the maximum amount of time anybody can stay on the hitlist.

The three main changes that made hitlist survival a lot more difficult are.
1. Loot now drops when fighting off the hitlist. This has attracted more players to use their stamina on the hitlist. Fighting off the hitlist is much faster than PvP fighting and now that you get loot, why waste time.
2. The Power Attack feature enables a player to attack you five times instead of one. This makes it a lot faster to knock someone off the hitlist.
3. Attacking iced players yields less experience and zero loot. In order to make it to the hitlist, your health has to be above 20 so the hitlist is a good place to troll for living targets.

In my article on The [LCN] Combat Calculator I mentioned a feature which will tell you what hitlist server your character is on. There are a total of 20 hitlist servers and mine was on #19.

There is also a website called Hamstergaming.com which lists and updates all 20 servers. This is good to use if you know you are on the hitlist and want to keep an eye on your progress or if you want to watch the person you placed on it die. You can also go to the profile of anybody listed and attack them. This way you are not limited to just one server. Click on the link above to view all 20 servers. I have this link bookmarked and refer to it on a regular basis.

We all just need to accept and roll with the fighting changes. I don't like always being iced but I'm getting used to it. One of my mafia members, James Neil, wrote an excellent note about the hitlist titled Hitlisting for Dummies 101. While you are there check out some of his other notes. I've learned a lot of things from reading them. I also found a funny link on his wall. I'm not 100% sure who created this so if you know please comment. Click HERE here to see and bookmark it for later so you can send it to your mafia members whenever they whine and complain about being put on the hitlist.

How To Defeat Juliana 'Black Widow' Trieste

After many tries, I'm proud to say that I finally defeated Juliana 'Black Widow' Trieste, Las Vegas Disrict 3 Boss in the Ruby Level. Many don't realize how difficult this task is because she is easily defeated in the other levels of mastery. Since my article Las Vegas Boss Fights was posted, many of my mafia members have given me advice and helped me completely master District 3. (click on images to enlarge)

Before Asking For Help

After Asking For Help

I mentioned in the article that asking for help wasn't an option for me because my help requests for Boss Fights were not posting. I found the solution to this problem on The Zynga Forum Boards. Al Catraz suggested that those who are having posting issues remove the apostrophe before their name if they have one. When I first started playing Mafia Wars, I added the apostrophe because I wanted more free gifts and figured if I was on top of the list I would get lots of them. Silly me, I get too many now so I was happy to lose the apostrophe. I jumped the gun and told Al that this didn't work as I was still having posting issues. I should have been more patient because in about 24 hours my posts were working again. Click HERE to read the entire thread or click on the images below to enlarge.

Once I was able to post for help, good things started to happen. My mafia members were also fighting this boss and the next day I logged in and got a pop up telling me that ten people helped and Juliana was defeated. I had a great Kodak moment but missed the opportunity to take a screen shot because I was excited and wasn't thinking about my blog. I quickly hit the OK button to see if it was really true. The next thing I got was the green "You Win" pop-up. I was so happy and felt like a bad a$$ but really it was my mafia who made it possible.

One of my great mafia members and informants MrSimy0 beat the boss on his own. He was so proud of his accomplishment that he made a video and posted it on youtube (actually he was proving to somebody that he did it without help or cheating). It's cool to see that this is possible but MrSimy0 needs some cool back ground music added to this video. Thanks for sharing this MrSimy0!

Another one of my mafia members Dimitri Ktos posted the following tip on his wall.
"TIP for beating the bosses in LV: open tab in MW NY, then open a fight in another tab. 1. hit the boss, then if your health gets to low, reheal in the next tab. Fight can take even 30 min ...and 15-30 reheals.....depending on your stats :)"/Dimitri Ktos

I tried this out and didn't have much luck. I didn't spend a lot of time with it and moved on after trying it only once. One of my mafia members sent me an inbox message asking about the boss fight so I gave her Dimitri's tip. She tried and got the same results as me. I know it works for Dimitri because his wall is filled with posts about defeating this boss. He has been very nice to help others. He was one of the ten people who helped me and I can't thank him enough.
"I tried the second window for the black widow - it didn't work - I was able to renew my health once and even though I was in NY it used up most of my Vegas money."/Diane Shiramizu., Loyal Mafia Member

Summary of what you need to defeat Juliana Trieste
1. Ensure that you are at full health before you initiate the attack
2. Click on the "Ask For Help" button and make the post for help.
3. Be active in getting your stronger mafia members to help you.
Don't think that everyone will rush in and fight this boss for you. It costs your mafia members 20 stamina and will most likely bring their health down to zero.
4. Use all of your boosts.
5. Keep attacking on your own. You need to be quick between attacks so her health doesn't regenerate.
6. Do jobs to replenish your supply of Boss Fight boosts. Never go into this fight without all ten of your health kits.

UPDATE, AUG 10, 2010: Bossy Don of Top Mafia.Info made a post today with some more tips on taking out this boss. Here is the post. To read it on the Top Mafia.Info fan page so you can view all the comments, click HERE. At this time there is a known glitch which prevents some players from helping with the Las Vegas boss fights. Zynga is aware of the problem and they are working hard to fix it. What a load of crap!

Boss Fights everyone is asking for Advice and tips and ideas on How to beat them, Well the Advice starts here

So far just about EVERYONE has had their 2 cents on How to finish a Boss, And lets be Honest u don't want to know HOW to beat A boss you want to know how to beat the 'Bitches' right?

Well I've been researching asking people to fight for me, asking others to fight there bosses and perform actions in a set order for me etc And now ill give you guys some Answers!

To fight the Bitches, there are a few important facts

IF YOU LEAVE THE CITY, RUN AWAY, SWAP JOB TIERS she Regens 25% Health, for Red that's not so bad 1K but for the Black Widow that's going to cause some problems at 5K a hit, its not something you want to see!

So Lesson 1 Stay PUT! you can do jobs in the same tier you can heal in Vegas but that's all your can do Anything else is a Pipe Dream! and she regens 25% after 5min (unconfirmed)

Lesson 2, Black Widow, Now she has eaten Many a Man in her time, and has pissed off many a woman as well. So this is when you ask all those People to give you a Hand, don't rush into it let others Help! I helped a energy account today who had been STUCK for 4 days on her, has spent over 50RP on energy and health refills and still lost!

She asked for help, then waited @ the screen for a Hour before starting the fight! So ask for help, go have dinner, come back and Shiv her ONCE if all is well in the world you might of won! if not you should be close! this is her Screen shot after dumping what consumables she had left into the boss! and Loot @ her MW name, you cant say she has a lot of attack or defence!

Lesson 2.5 If asking for Help didnt work Refer to Lesson 7

Lesson 3. Your stats Matter! Tasha Looty, is a LEVEL 10 Player yet she can take Black Widow down 5K By her self WITHOUT consumables! Sure her attack is 45 TIMES her Level so im not asking everyone to get that high, But the higher it is the better chance u have at beating a Boss

Lesson 4. Your Stats, and damage dealt, So far between both ends of the Scale (low level players with high attacks, and High level players with low attacks) everyone seems to be doing vastly different damage! So guys the only thing i can say is the highest amount of damage dealt I've seen is 600 so if your close, maybe more health or defence is the answer

Lesson 5. Your Henchmen, ask around your Mafia, try to find players with High Attack Skill (if it helps) and more importantly High health! I have someone as my Top Mafia that has 2K health, he can take a few hits by the Bitches which means I can get more hits in before Dying!

Lesson 6. Consumables, they are there to be Consumed! so far with the testing we have done, it doesn't matter if you use them all or just the stun guns it takes the same amount of energy to replace 10 stun guns as it does to replace all 40 consumables so USE them! If your planing on replenishing them, do so but stop when you have 10 stun guns as these are the Best at taking out a boss!

Lesson 7. If you have followed this far then Either You Suck or your Mafia Sucks, IF you suck buy some stats that will help with a Boss fight! Attack, Health Defence anything other then what your buying currently! If your Mafia Sucks BRIBE THEM! Ask around find 10 Larger Fighters, give them LOOT to help you, 2x10 Rail guns wont hurt you, BRIBE THEM TO HELP YOU WIN!

If all else fails go back to lesson 7

-Bossy Don

Las Vegas Loot Drop Statistics

I was able to master all levels in all 5 Districts with my energy account today. I couldn't wait to do so because I have been very eager to get a feel for the loot drop statistics. I love to analyze statistics and this is the main reason I like to use scripts. Scripts log all relevant data for you which would be nearly impossible to do manually. It would require too much time as you would need to stop after every job, write everything down and then calculate the statistical elements you are seeking. The charts below represent the numbers I got for loot drop rates and percentages using small runs of 1,000 jobs on Spockholm Mafia Tools RepeatJob Vegas Beta. I chose the first job of District 5 and did runs before and after defeating the Boss (there will be more on this topic in a future article). After mastery was completed, I did the same job on each of the different pathways to see if one was better than the other as far a loot drop rates were concerned. I found them all the be pretty much the same. I circled one of the loot items, The Bark Scorpion (50/32) to make it easier to track. This item was randomly selected. It doesn't seem to make a difference if you have completely mastered the District or not. I actually got a higher percentage before but the better loot items appear to slightly increase once mastery is achieved. Since my data pool is relatively small it's hard to say one way or the other.

District 5 Before Complete Mastery

Loot Drop Rate = 23.0%

# of Bark Scorpions = 4

District 5 After Complete Mastery

Fight Path

Loot Drop Rate = 21.9%

# of Bark Scorpions = 6

Social Path

Loot Drop Rate = 20.9%

# of Bark Scorpions = 8

Energy Path

Loot Drop Rate = 20.9%

5 Bark Scorpions = 5

Every time a new city opens, I always feel confused about the loot. I worry I'm missing something and don't know what the best items are. I see the numbers when I first look at the lists but it takes a while to get comfortable with them and know which ones are better then the loot I already have. Here are all the loot items discovered by players who edit the Mafia Wars Wiki Las Vegas Page. Click on any item name and you will be directed to the Mafia Wars Wiki Page for that item. If you found something that isn't listed here, click on edit to add it to the Wiki.
(the following list was created on the Mafia Wars Wiki Las Vegas Page and pasted here)

[edit] Weapons

Carver

22 - The Lower Strip

30 - The Lower Strip

42 - The Lower Strip

54 - Mojave Desert

30 - Mojave Desert
[edit] Armor

Reinforced Tuxedo

Rhinestone Cowboy

Femme Fatale

28 - The Lower Strip - Shogun Casino

Football Jersey

Ventilated Blast Cap

Set of Biker Leathers

32
[edit] Vehicles

34 - Mojave Desert

15 - Paradise City

50
[edit] Animals
Desert Spider - North Las Vegas

Bison

40 - The Lower Strip

Bark Scorpion

32 - Mojave Desert

Big Horn Ram

42 - Mojave Desert

Here are the loot items I received from doing the jobs in Districts 1-5. I didn't get all of the items listed on the Wiki Page so either they are dropping from fighting and/or robbing or the drop rates are just really bad.

Weapons