Aug 23, 2014

Understanding the New Family Boss Fight

Share:

The key to defeating a Family Boss in a reasonable amount of time is understanding the Fatigue and Rage Meters. First and foremost these two meters are totally independent and one does not effect the other. Most of us already know how these meters coupled with their boosts work. What wasn’t so apparent when the new Family Boss was introduced were the changes in these meters. There are drastic differences between the old and new Fatigue and Rage Meters as both have been expanded. This in turn has multiplied the number of boosts needed by about 4 and doesn’t even take into consideration that the health of the boss was increased up to 6 times. Since the health score of the boss is based on family size, we aren’t going to focus on that. The range of health possibilities is 1,000,000 to 6,000,000 [1]. Each single attack will subtract from the bosses health by a number we call the BAM! score. The BAM! score is the amount of damage done per attack. It’s called this because ‘BAM!’ appear on top of the number when the attack takes place. When stamina is used, every player has a unique BAM! score based on their attack skill and equipment scores. The BAM! score = damage = points subtracted from the bosses health meter. When ammo is used the BAM! score is a flat range and is the same for all players. A review of all the statistics associated with the Fatigue and Rage Meters is shown below.

bossfightreview
These charts are the result of many hours of testing by with various accounts in many different families. The basic logistics of how the Family Boss Fight works haven’t changed but as you can see by the numbers the expanded meters have caused the strategies used in the past to not work as well.

Fatigue Meter
Points
Stamina
XP Ratio
↑/Click
# Clicks
# Boosts
0 5 3.0 +39 1 (9)
25 6 2.5 +38 --
50 15 1.0 +39 1 (56)
80 45 0.333 +38 --
100 90 0.166 +316 --
150 180 0.083 +317 1 (103)
200 200 0.075 ---- 1 (150)
Rage Meter
Points
BAM Score
↑/Click
# Clicks
# Boosts
0-199 100% +15 14 --
200-499 75% +13 23 1 (-250)
500-999 50% +10 50 4 (-150/-50)
1000-1999 25% +8 125 9 (-100)
2000 <1% -- -- 1 (-100)

Many more Rage boosts are needed and there is now much incentive to go after Fatigue Boosts. In the previous version of the Family Boss Fight the Fatigue Meter went from 0-100 and the Rage Meter from 0-1,000. To get a maximum Rage Meter below 250 only 5 Rage boosts were required. It now takes 15 and the optimum Rage Meter is less than 200. Each Rage boost reduces the rage Meter by the following pattern:

2000--1900--1800--1700--1600--1500--1400--1300--1200--1100--1000
--850--700--550--400--160

The Fatigue Meter isn’t as harsh as far as Fatigue boosts are concerned as it only takes 4 to get from 200 to less than 25. What changed are the number of stamina groupings and the experience/stamina ratios. In the previous version there were 5 tiers and in the new one there are 7. The 6 stamina attack button may seem harmless but Fatigue boosts will be used to get to 5 and the players have no choice in the matter. The lowest ratio in the old boss fight was 0.1 and it wasn’t hit until the Fatigue Meter was maxed. Once the Fatigue Meter hits 80 (45 stamina) the ratios are so bad that your account will be stalled as far as leveling is concerned.  In the old version of the fight many could afford to gain several thousand points with a maxed out Fatigue Meter but that is not the case with this one. There will be serious consequences to your leveling if you try. The end result is more players will desire Fatigue boosts and there may not be enough to go around. This is easier to demonstrate by comparing the old Fatigue Meter with the new.

Old VS New
oldversusnewfatigue
The Fatigue Meter is personal and punishes the individual by requiring more stamina for the same pay out thus decreasing the experience to stamina ratio. The Rage Meter is public and affects the amount of damage done per attack by all members in the family yet one player is all it takes to maximize it. The goal of any family working on a boss fight should be to keep the rage meter below 200. A full blown Rage Meter can bring the boss fight to a stand still. For the rage jackers, it’s like spinning 2 wheels in opposite directions. For some reason understanding the Rage Meter is hard for some players and they are the ones who usually jack it up. Looking at the numbers above it’s easy to see why. Jo Blow will come in and think he is helping the family. He will bang on his attack button until his finger falls off. When he decided to stop he leaves the Rage Meter at 2,000 and all members who know what they are doing have to wait for Rage boosts. While Jo Blow was only doing 13 damage per hit he was also spending 200 stamina to get 15 experience points. The only good thing about the expanded Fatigue Meter is it will slow down all the Jo Blows as they will run out of stamina. 
bossfight
In the past we recommended a 1:1 ratio of Racketeers to Arsonists but it will probably be better to have a 2:1 ratio. This assumes that all players know not to attack the boss when the Rage Meter is above 200.  We don’t know why the Bruiser role and the Bruiser boosts even exist as they are totally worthless. Each Bruiser boost is only worth 1 attack. If a player has a BAM! score of 200 and he will do 400 damage in one hit instead of 200. If the Rage Meter is between 1,000 and 1,999 he will only do 50 damage and that Bruiser boost will take it to 100. Bringing the Rage Meter down is much more important than doubling damage for 1 attack. We suspect Zynga added the Bruiser boost and placed it on top of the list just for the players and families who don’t understand how the fight works. Those who do should steer clear of this role.
bossfight3
Some trivial observations and peculiarities are that Fatigue and Rage boosts can not be used at the same time. If you have a set of both boosts, the Fatigue boosts will be used first and then the Rage boosts. The only one this benefits is Zynga. It would be better for the players if the Rage boosts were used first.
ragefatigue
When a Rage boost is used the damage done for that attack is 0.  Your stamina is still taken and you get 15 experience points but the attack does not contribute to decreasing the health of the boss. This doesn’t happen with Fatigue boosts.
rageboost
Since Fatigue boosts will be more desirable and in shorter supply, combos will probably be used more often.  No where in the instructions or FAQ does it say where to get these items. Nothing has changed in the ammo department since the update so we can use the older posts for this information. The chart below shows the rages for individual ammo items when the Rage Meter is below 200 and the locations of where to get them. The queue for each item is 20 and they must be used in order to get more (excluding the ones purchased in the Marketplace).

Ammo Item Drop Location Damage Range
Jobs 80-110
Fighting 90-110
Robbing 70-100
Feed Requests 100-130

Like stamina attacks, damage done with ammo items is affected by the Rage Meter.

Rage Meter <200
ammo1
ammo2

Rage Meter 2000
ammo3ammo4
The exception to this rule is the bonus damage you get from using combos. As with any boss fight in the game, ammo is best used in combos. The 4 combos for this boss fight are shown below. The score of the combo seen on boss fight screen includes the points earned by the combo plus the points earned by the last ammo item used so it won’t necessarily fall with in the range stated on the combo page. The Rage Meter doesn’t affect the extra points for using a combo but it does affect the points for each individual ammo item used. In the example below I used the combo outlined in red. The range is +100-+140. When the Rage Meter was less than 200,
combos
combos1
As discussed in a previous post, the distribution of loot rewards was changed [1]. Players can now earn up to 3 superior items instead of just one. This is great for the players but it appears the random factor dominates and it has upset quite a few top scorers. In both versions of this feature placing high on the leaderboard only increases your chances of getting a superior loot item, it doesn’t guarantee it. This is confusing those who come in 1st and don’t get any superior items as in the past it seem the chances were much better. Those who don’t realize this fact assume something is wrong and get upset about it. It could be Zynga’s way of encouraging participation of all family members and not just a select few who continually hog the fight. All of the images below except for the 1st one came from players who scored in the Top 10. The one with 3 superior items was from the one with the worst score!
bossloot1 bfrewards2 bfrewards1 bfrewards0
A few days ago we posted a survey from the Godfathers/Godmothers Group [1]. This survey is now available to all players and you can take it by using the link below. I was questioned by a few players as to why I didn’t like the revised parameters of the Rage/Fatigue. After reading this post I hope that everyone can see why. These new parameters make things a lot more difficult and are probably designed to get us to spend reward points. Remember the Family Boss Fight only payout loot and reward points should only be used for skill points. If Zynga wants us to invest in this feature than skill points should also be included with the rewards.
bosssurvey2
Many thanks to all the players who made it possible to get the data used in this post. Jo Gilliam and I were obsessed with this and it took some time to get everything that was needed. One thing that can be said when testing a feature that involves a large group of players is it’s much easier to use mini families and accounts. Thanks to Don Louis Cyphre, Mult McMult and all the members of the {ASS} Family who provided valuable information. Mult thinks that the simple message “Keep the Rage Meter down” would be just as effective as this post but he did helped supply information. There is something about numbers and I really wanted it to be figured out and organized.

8 comments:

  1. It appears this article was written with the idea that the goal was to eleminate the Boss with the fewest number of clicks. Our idea is everyone in the family just picking Racketeer and passing out Fatigue debuffs. We're not interesting in ending the Boss Fight quickly, but gaining the 3x XP earned when Fatigue costs 5 or less Stamina. Looking at the tables still shows we get a 3.0 XP ratio (15 XP) when we use 5 or less Stamina. We still complete the Boss fight way before it expires to get the loot (less than 24 hours), so for us, only picking Racketer, and passing out fatigue debuffs meets our goal of leveling faster.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The new bosses are dumb, I placed 2nd on the leaderboard and after defeating the boss with around 40k score... all 4 of my items were in the uncommon section... at least before you always got 1 superior item

    ReplyDelete
  3. Please stop flirting with me

    ReplyDelete
  4. One thing is missing from this -

    Has there ever been an analysis of what causes the amount of fatigue per attack to lower, and your rage goes higher, as your character improves?

    My characters started out as 5 fatigue per stamina attack, and over the years, they decreased to 4, then 3, and currently 2. The amount of rage per hit slowly increased from about 5 or 6 early on, to now 10 rage per hit.

    Other Info (not sure if there's been a change - my family's barely even ATTEMPTED these boss fights due to needing the stamina for family business and the op event):
    Scoring - you get points (75?) for sending boosts, though that only effects your rank in the fight.
    Similarly, for each 50 points of damage (or part thereof) you do in a single attack, you score 10 points. 1-50 = 10, 51-100 = 20, 101-150 = 30, 151-200 = 40, etc.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is in the chart under the down arrow. The 2 meters have nothing to do with each other. Using a fatigue boost will lower the stamina from 200 to 103 to 56 to 9. The rage goes up by 15 per click when it's below 200 then 13 then 10 then 8. If goes back down by 100 per boost until it get towards the lower end. Are you saying that some of your accounts are different? I didn't look into the scoring part of it.

      Delete
    2. I've tried posting stuff relating to this multiple times on the blog (via responses) and fan page with no response, over the years, that you seemed to be treating account-based variables as fixed values. I've watched the numbers change on my own accounts as the time passed by.

      My Fatigue meters all still say 100 - I don't care to spend stamina to push them to 100 to see if they will go higher.

      My fatigue only goes up TWO points every time I attack with stamina. NOT 3, which you seem to assume is a fixed number. In fact, the numbers started at 5 or 6 when I first started (one of my accounts predates the original implementation, the other dates from a couple years later), and the cost went down at separate times months apart, between my main and my mini (with the mini going down when roughly meeting the point where my main was when it went from 3 to 2 fatigue points). IT gets worse in some ways as that the game is STILL triggering the use of a racketeer boost when you hit or exceed 20 fatigue, even though I could have gone to 24/26 without incurring the increased cost.

      Rage lowering, prior to this event, had its trigger point and amount reduced based on your BAM number. When your BAM! was less than the Rage total, if you had a Arsonist/Rage boost, it triggered. This made the use of weapons cost even more Rage boosts than stamina fighting (silly 67-70 point fist ammo!), though prior to the changes I could go all the way to 250 on stamina alone. The rage reduction appeared to be 1.25 times the damage done by stamina or weapon.

      Now, while it looks that's triggering at an arbitrary 200 for stamina, the same crappy weapon damage < rage trigger remains, including that a weapon will only reduce 1.25 times its damage value.

      As for incrementing upward per attack - Against the current boss (Daniella)

      I'm doing 255 on BAM per 5-stamina hit on my main with rage below 200, and Rage meter goes up 15, not 13.
      I'm doing 235 on BAM per 5-stamina hit on my mini with rage below 200, and the Rage meter goes up 14, not 13.

      PRIOR to the event, the increments were BAM/20 (can't remember if the remainder was truncated or rounded to the nearest) for stamina.
      I still am unsure what the weapon rage increases are, as they seem to be different from use to use for me, even for the same weapon.


      Again, this indicates these are NOT fixed numbers, but based on some calculation derived from account stats.

      For reference:
      Main is level 6904, A: 24584, D: 24584, H: 25749, E: 10172, S: 10172
      Mini is level 5794, A: 17183, D: 17183, H: 22726, E: 9898, S: 9898

      Delete
    3. We only tested the 5th boss and didn't do any checking on the first 4 since they are 1 time deals. This post is only about the 5th boss and bot the old ones (other than to show some differences). We tested many accounts in many different families and none of them fluctuated from what is shown here. But that doesn't mean what you are seeing doesn't exist, you never know if Zynga has a handful of experiments going on and some families or accounts are different.

      Delete
  5. Does anyone know if Spockholm has updated Family Boss Fighter for the new bossfights? It no longer respects "<250" for the rage and will run it up over 1000.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated and will not be published until they are reviewed. Please don't use bad language or insult others. For faster feedback on questions, visit our fan page.