Oct 7, 2015

VIP Elite Black Benefits Review

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It’s officially month 43 of the VIP Membership Program and those who have been subscribed since the 1st month (and spent $1,073.71) will received Elite Black benefits. If you signed up at a later time you will get them as soon as you pay your bill for the 43rd time.  A breakdown of the new benefits are outlined below. To review the other tiers of benefits use the links below. Thanks to Lynn Amber for posting the update on our fan page and to Jo Gilliam for the screen shots from an account she is babysitting below.

Most of the benefits are just upgrades from the previous tiers. Reaching the Diamond tier gets you +500 attack skill and +500 defense skills. When combined with the other tiers the total is +2,075 on each side. If you cancel your subscription you will lose these. You also get an additional +20,000 added to your mafia attack and +20,000 added to your mafia defense. Combined with the other tiers the total is now +50,000 on each side. As with the skill points you will lose these as well if you cancel. The extra +17,000 that shows up on the fight page is from the Family Properties (+12,000) and Family Siege (+5,000) features.
The next benefit is the Elite Harbinger Upgrade. Once you hit the Diamond tier, you have a total of 5 Harbingers (1 per category of weapon, armor, vehicle, animal and henchmen). When you get to Elite Black an additional +250 attack and +250 defense will be added to the stats. The items will also increase in stats at the rate of +2 per week. To upgrade, you need to go to the Marketplace and
Additional upgrades (which are considered a benefit even though you have to pay for them) are a little bit trickier. There are rules. In order to upgrade Harbingers beyond the free ones, you need to first purchase them ($99.00 for the Harbinger of Havoc and $109.00 for all the others). You must have all 5 to purchase the upgrade. The upgrade costs $149.00. In order to have 2 of each Elite Harbinger, it will cost a total of $684.00! The regular Harbingers cost $99 +$109+$109+$109+$109 and the upgrade for all 5 is $149. If you want to do this right away, you can't. Each month you will be able to do it 1 time for a total of 4 times. If one were to 'take advantage' of this deal is would cost $2,736 to own 5 of each Elite Harbinger.
It would be nice if Zynga let players keep the old Harbingers but this is an upgrade. Once you get the Elite Harbingers, you lose the regular Harbingers. Although these items are cool and all, with loot scores escalating the way they do, it's not really a big help. Considering average loot scores for free players are around 800,000, an extra 3,000 or so isn't that big of an increase.
Access to Elite Marketplace deals for reward points and skill points is hardly a benefit. You have to purchase them with real money! Zynga needs to stop calling some of these things benefits. These 'deals' aren't even that great. In fact it's cheaper to wait and buy reward points at 50% during Marketplace sales.
The Elite Punch is a boost that increases attack or defense skill or mafia strength and it lasts for 4 hours. Elite Black members will get 1 for free each week.
If you want to use more than 1 in a week it will cost 100 reward points. Being allowed to purchase extra ones is listed and therefore considered a benefit by Zynga. I don't know if these can be used at the same time as a Fighter's Frenzy boost. Please comment if you know.
Elite Black Power Cards can be used to craft Kamikazes and Arena Stamina Refills and are exclusive to Elite Black members. They cost the same as regular Power Cards but you can only own 500 at a time. We aren't 100% sure when and how they drop because there are no instructions. Zynga should do a better job at explaining things. They do drop in Arenas but it's hard to tell if they drop anywhere else and if there are caps for each day like there are with regular Power Cards. Please comment if you see a pattern.
It takes 16 Elite Black Power Cards to craft 1 Stamina Refills and 8 to craft 1 Kamikaze. You can't craft these items with regular Power Cards so this is a useful benefit.
The next benefit is '10% higher XP payout from all the Missions (Not valid for Challenge Missions)'. The extra experience from Missions could be useful to those who aren't serial levelers. The extra experience will display on Urban Assault Missions, Limited Time Missions and City Missions.
The last benefit is  'Get best XP to Stamina ratio from Fights (Not valid for Mini Boss fights)'. The top experience ratio for fights is very useful if you are a fighter. The extra experience you get is shown under the experience you normally get for the fight(s). This is a huge benefit for those who use stamina in fighting. The ratio for Elite Black VIP members in fighting is now better than anywhere else in the game. If you didn't have to wait 3 and a half years to get it and fighting wasn't so slow, it could be incentive to subscribe.

10 comments:

  1. I'm so glad I quit VIP months ago. I cant believe there are still zombies out there that still blindly fork over their money to Zynga for this. Seems like the only benefit to "Elite Black" is to be able to buy more things and give them more money, lol! Zynga is crazy.This game has been on life support for at least a year if not longer, its time to pull the plug already.

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  2. As someone said on Jens Loot lady page-->Zynga don't need to pull the plug, if you no longer want to do the game, just quit. I personally enjoy mafia wars to this day and in no way have I ever blindly forked over money to Zynga. I give it of my own free will. Some are competitive and have fun trying to outdo the big boys. Some look at this as a hobby and come to play as a form of fun and relaxation. You can always pick what to do in the game that suits you best. If you dont want to beg for properties then plain and simple just dont. Same with missions and challenges. Shoot I have members that dont spend a dime and have just as much fun as I do.. That's cause everyone has a choice in this game. I appreciate that even tho some have quit VIP they still look for the good side of all our endeavor's. Thanks Jen for all you do for us.

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    1. I agree totally! I have spent very little (I think it was $5 for a "French Passport" many years ago) and am not at all competitive, but have lots of fun with this game! My only complaint is that, even picking and choosing events/activities to participate in, the game is quite time consuming! The seemingly infinite different ways to play Mafia Wars is definitely a strong point, though!
      And, Jen, thank you so much for your great contribution to our enjoyment of this game! It wouldn't be at all the same without you!!

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  3. I cant believe all the people that come to the blog saying oh i quit this and guit that but i still come to the blog and try to bash those that like the game . So yes YOU that cant believe there are still zombies out there GO find another blog to bash and Remember nobody loves a QUITER..

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  4. These benefits are for a reason, i.e. you inventory/portfolio improves - do all the extra items actually make a difference?
    I have kept a daily record of each item that can change daily. The only 2 - Attack & Defense it will make no difference whether you add 500 or 5000 other than up you score. All the others increase your ability to play or make your Mafia stronger.
    Attack - benefit - none
    Defense - benefit - none
    Health -benefit - improves the length of time when needed before a refill is required
    Energy - benefit - play longer before levelling up
    Stamina - benefit - play longer before levelling up
    Attack skill strength - benefit - stronger when attacking
    Defense skill strength - benefit - stronger when defending
    What I would like to know is WHY??

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  5. I have not seen the black power card drop from any other place other than the Arena. I noticed that you get one per each arena fight.. (mob fury or shootout). It does not matter if you finish 1st or not.. you still get one per fight.. from what I can see anyway.

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  6. It looks like 20-25 per day from the arena (when the arena levels you, so no dink and dunk arenas to get 20)

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  7. If they wanted to encourage more people onto this thing they could have done this so it would be better in such a way it wouldn't either:

    1. cost them any more money to do ... or
    2. Lost them any money in the process.

    Firstly trying to get a cheap extra 5 months out of people by only letting them upgrade 1 Harbinger at a time is low. Even for Zynga. Considering the price they charge for the items THEN they charge even more to upgrade them and none of that is even considering the monthly subscription fee it already covers many many thousands for a single item. It's a few pixels on a FB game. One made of text and totally static images at that it's not even like it's a flash built game. Thousands can get a high end gaming machine and they charge it for a single item on such a cheaply made game ... Then have the cheek to keep people signed up for an extra 5 months making them upgrade one a time?

    Moving on ...

    Similar to the last thing ... Don't make the new Harbingers an upgrade for the old ones make them in addition to. Simple. They already paid designers to make both. It's not like it'll cost them anything. In fact it could actually make them more money as it might encourage more people to do it.

    The Elite Power Cards could have bought better stamina refills. Say 110% like a regular stamina pack does. Maybe call it an elite stamina refill or something.

    Could also be used to get a set of the 4 stamina skill points daily. Say if your limited to 25 dropping a day like someone mentioned further up the page they could allow people to trade that 25 Elite Power Cards for 4 stamina points. It's not a lot a day but over time it's a worth while benefit getting 4 free skill points a day.

    And finally going back to the Harbingers seeing as it's the final one as well as not making them an upgrade and making them an addition as well as they are not doing any more Harbingers now maybe they should have doubled the limited from 5 of each to 10 of each as well.

    so 10 of each regular AND 10 of each Elite. If they don't wanna have people closing there subscriptions down once they stop making extra tiers for it they really need to do some stuff to sweeten the deal on this. It's just not going to be enough.

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  8. I was upgraded to Black VIP 3 days ago. My ratio for fighting is 2.36, not 2.38. Not sure of where and how many black power cards drop, but in 3 days so far i've collected 34. Made 2 stam refills and have 2 cards leftover. The 30% boost for 4 hours is great. My clan was in a driveby yesterday and I activated it for 30% defense skills and many that were beating me were then losing, so I ended up in a lot of ignore lists from using it :D

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  9. lets see if i understood right with the Elite Harbiger upgrade !!!
    even when i am a Elite Black VIP member who is already owning 5X1 Harbiger of each typ i still need to buy a Harbiger for 109 $ to upgrade the item ???

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