Boost Control Please

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Since Hollow Points and A19 Riot Shields are on the Free Gift Page this weekend, it's a good time to review their benefit. A boost of +100 Attack/+100 Defense sounds good in theory but more often than not these boosts are totally useless. Boosts would be way more valuable if we could control when they are used.

Attack boosts are automatically used (from best to worst) in the game regardless if you need them or not. I attacked a level 27 with 15 mafia members and a defense equipment score of 1,732. The Hollow Point didn't help me win the fight and the A19 Riot Shield didn't do anything useful for my opponent. Both boost items were wasted.

It's not fun to learn you lost a fight and it's really annoying to see you wasted another Hollow Point.

Regardless if the person you are attacking is dead or alive, your boost is going to be used. One of the reasons we fight is to acquire loot. Hollow Points won't help you get more loot because they are often wasted on iced/dead targets.

Alive

Dead

I reviewed each of the 4 attack buttons and how they are applied to your statistics here and here. Boosts are utilized accordingly. To verify, I took screen shots of my boosts in my inventory before and after using each type of button. 

 New York Attack Button

 New York Power Attack Button

Brazil 5 Attack Button

Brazil 25 Attack Button

Hollow Points are also utilized when you rob. I don't like this at all because the robbing equation has random variables in it and I would rather use a Burner to help me pull off a successful heist. Why can't Hollow Points be more like Burners and have an element of control? 

It would be best if attack boosts were not utilized when robbing. We have robbing boosts in the game, why not call attack boosts like Hollow Points fighting boosts and leave them for exclusively for fights. At the very least, an additional attack boost should not be used in conjunction with a Burner. It took 2 Hollow Points and and 1 Burner to win the robbery shown above.

A19 Riot Shields are not utilized when you are robbed. I send a bunch of them to a non-Mafia Wars playing account and then robbed it. I wasn't surprised that none of the A19 Riot Shields were gone because the description states +100 fight defense skill as compared to the Hollow Points that say +100 attack skill.

Defense boosts are harder to track as you have no control over who attacks you. One of my mafia members sent me 100 A19 Riot Shields and I immediately took a screen shot of them in my inventory. 4 of them were gone within a page load. 

In less than 3 minutes, the 96 remaining A19 Riot Shields were gone.

Shortly after, I went to my Player Updates and saw they were totally useless to me.

The fact that 10 A19 Riot Shields cost 50 Reward Points in the Marketplace is entertaining to say the least.

Another comical fact is that on November 25th of last year all Mr. Hot Sauces were converted to A19 Riot Shields (1). Why would Zynga waste developer time on this move? Maybe it was because Mr. Hot Sauce was "wasting" away and the irony was too much to handle.

Article written by Jennifer Patterson, Creator of the MW Loot Lady Blog, The Mafia Wars Loot Lady Facebook Fan Page and Co-Host of The Informant Podcast. All material is protected by copyright law