Hi everyone,
We have made a plan which sees several changes made to mugging. This plan has been fully accepted by the committee, but I felt it was worth gathering feedback from players too.
There's obviously going to be people screaming to make mugging stronger, and people screaming to make mugging weaker. Everyone will have their own unique opinions. Our aim is to find the happy medium.
I understand GD will be biased towards stronger / more active players, but the feedback should be useful nonetheless.
We plan to give a week's notice of changes in an announcement. This won't be before October 15th as we're planning a three week deployment pause while we implement important security features.
Introduction
As you may be aware by now, we're gradually revamping different areas of the attacking engine to make them more intuitive, and to ensure they are correctly balanced in today's environment. We are currently looking at Mugging.
In summary it's a mix of positives and negatives for whoever you are - The victim or the mugger. But it brings in more balance, simplicity and hopefully better overall gameplay.
- Change mug protection so it can fulfil its purpose without being taken advantage of.
- Simplify mug protection so it doesn't need a massive tutorial in order to understand it.
- Reduce 'Masterful looting' power from +100% to +50% and provide a merit reset to everyone.
- Reduce high gains on lower values primarily affecting new players & buy mugging victims.
- Increase lower cap for higher-yielding big mugs.
Mug protection
Currently mug protection is applied to the total amount mugged, it slowly degrades over 15 hours, but otherwise it's permanent. As expected, many players take advantage of this by having their friends mug them for the protection, and then they're invulnerable to future mugs for a duration of time.
We're currently beta testing a new system where the protection gained after being mugged is lost if the money is then used / moved / transferred...
- Whenever a user is mugged, their remaining balance is 100% protected but will steadily degrade linearly over 12 hours.
- The funds in the user's wallet are only protected while they remain in the wallet. After a mug, all of the remaining money is protected, but if any of the protected funds move out of the wallet, even just temporarily, that value will lose its protection.
- Any new mug will fully reset the protection, to the full wallet balance, for another 12 hours.
This system fully restores the original idea of mug protection, while removing any mechanics that allow players to take unintended advantage of it.
Mugging gains
Because mug protection will now be weaker in a sense, and many will be more vulnerable, I felt it was worth reviewing the amount of money that can be mugged from players at a time, and the merit upgrade which is currently inconsistently powerful compared with other upgrades.
If we can reduce the sting of mugs, especially for new players and buy-mugging victims, it is likely this will result in players being more casual about leaving funds in their wallet occasionally - reducing the extreme requirement to always keep funds out of their wallets. It would also allow for a smoother transition with the changes to mug protection.
Here we can see the current system. The first value is the money in the user's wallet, and the second is the percentage taken during a successful mugging. The list on the left without mugging merits, and the list on the right with fully upgraded mugging merits.
As you can see, it's clear that the 'Masterful Looting' upgrade providing a 100% bonus to mugging gains is quite extreme. It's also clear that newer players may be the hardest hit in terms of percentage removed. While the lower values are insignificant to most of the playerbase, they could represent a majority of a new player's networth.
We would like to implement a smoother scale to the percentages being lost, while somewhat maintaining and increasing the levels on the high-end. We'd also like to reduce 'Masterful Looting' to provide +5% per upgrade for +50% maximum. It should look something like this...
Take note of the minimum caps being 3.00% and 4.50% rather than 1.00% and 2.00%.
With the reduction in quality to 'Masterful Looting', we would provide everyone with a free merit reset.
Interesting stats
2,049 players have Masterful Looting fully upgraded. While 16,721 people have Bank Interest fully upgraded.
Over the last month $330,734,418,577 has been mugged over 783,322 muggings (averaging $422,220 per mug). However, this does include people faking mug protection too.
Between 15th August to 15th September, 10,474 out of 781,511 (1.3%) bazaar purchases resulted in a buy-mugging within 3 minutes of the sale by any user. Purchases of over $10m resulted in 3,135 out of 49,812 (6%) buy mugs. Purchases of over $50m resulted in 969 out of 7,146 (13%) buy mugs. This includes those who had mug protection, but we should keep in mind some sellers may have been invulnerable to attack (in hospital or travelling).
Thanks.
We have made a plan which sees several changes made to mugging. This plan has been fully accepted by the committee, but I felt it was worth gathering feedback from players too.
There's obviously going to be people screaming to make mugging stronger, and people screaming to make mugging weaker. Everyone will have their own unique opinions. Our aim is to find the happy medium.
I understand GD will be biased towards stronger / more active players, but the feedback should be useful nonetheless.
We plan to give a week's notice of changes in an announcement. This won't be before October 15th as we're planning a three week deployment pause while we implement important security features.
Introduction
As you may be aware by now, we're gradually revamping different areas of the attacking engine to make them more intuitive, and to ensure they are correctly balanced in today's environment. We are currently looking at Mugging.
In summary it's a mix of positives and negatives for whoever you are - The victim or the mugger. But it brings in more balance, simplicity and hopefully better overall gameplay.
- Change mug protection so it can fulfil its purpose without being taken advantage of.
- Simplify mug protection so it doesn't need a massive tutorial in order to understand it.
- Reduce 'Masterful looting' power from +100% to +50% and provide a merit reset to everyone.
- Reduce high gains on lower values primarily affecting new players & buy mugging victims.
- Increase lower cap for higher-yielding big mugs.
Mug protection
Currently mug protection is applied to the total amount mugged, it slowly degrades over 15 hours, but otherwise it's permanent. As expected, many players take advantage of this by having their friends mug them for the protection, and then they're invulnerable to future mugs for a duration of time.
We're currently beta testing a new system where the protection gained after being mugged is lost if the money is then used / moved / transferred...
- Whenever a user is mugged, their remaining balance is 100% protected but will steadily degrade linearly over 12 hours.
- The funds in the user's wallet are only protected while they remain in the wallet. After a mug, all of the remaining money is protected, but if any of the protected funds move out of the wallet, even just temporarily, that value will lose its protection.
- Any new mug will fully reset the protection, to the full wallet balance, for another 12 hours.
This system fully restores the original idea of mug protection, while removing any mechanics that allow players to take unintended advantage of it.
Mugging gains
Because mug protection will now be weaker in a sense, and many will be more vulnerable, I felt it was worth reviewing the amount of money that can be mugged from players at a time, and the merit upgrade which is currently inconsistently powerful compared with other upgrades.
If we can reduce the sting of mugs, especially for new players and buy-mugging victims, it is likely this will result in players being more casual about leaving funds in their wallet occasionally - reducing the extreme requirement to always keep funds out of their wallets. It would also allow for a smoother transition with the changes to mug protection.
Here we can see the current system. The first value is the money in the user's wallet, and the second is the percentage taken during a successful mugging. The list on the left without mugging merits, and the list on the right with fully upgraded mugging merits.
| Without mugging merits | With mugging merits (+100%) |
| $10 : 20.70% $100 : 18.39% $1,000 : 16.09% $10,000 : 13.79% $100,000 : 11.49% $1,000,000 : 9.18% $10,000,000 : 6.88% $100,000,000 : 4.58% $1,000,000,000 : 2.28% $10,000,000,000 : 1.00% | $10 : 41.39% $100 : 36.79% $1,000 : 32.18% $10,000 : 27.58% $100,000 : 22.97% $1,000,000 : 18.37% $10,000,000 : 13.76% $100,000,000 : 9.16% $1,000,000,000 : 4.55% $10,000,000,000 : 2.00% |
As you can see, it's clear that the 'Masterful Looting' upgrade providing a 100% bonus to mugging gains is quite extreme. It's also clear that newer players may be the hardest hit in terms of percentage removed. While the lower values are insignificant to most of the playerbase, they could represent a majority of a new player's networth.
We would like to implement a smoother scale to the percentages being lost, while somewhat maintaining and increasing the levels on the high-end. We'd also like to reduce 'Masterful Looting' to provide +5% per upgrade for +50% maximum. It should look something like this...
| Without mugging merits | With mugging merits (+50%) |
| $10 : 10.00% $100 : 9.00% $1,000 : 8.00% $10,000 : 7.00% $100,000 : 6.00% $1,000,000 : 5.00% $10,000,000 : 4.00% $100,000,000 : 3.00% $1,000,000,000 : 3.00% $10,00,000,000 : 3.00% | $10 : 15.00% $100 : 13.50% $1,000 : 12.00% $10,000 : 10.50% $100,000 : 9.00% $1,000,000 : 7.50% $10,000,000 : 6.00% $100,000,000 : 4.50% $1,000,000,000 : 4.50% $10,000,000,000 : 4.50% |
Take note of the minimum caps being 3.00% and 4.50% rather than 1.00% and 2.00%.
With the reduction in quality to 'Masterful Looting', we would provide everyone with a free merit reset.
Interesting stats
2,049 players have Masterful Looting fully upgraded. While 16,721 people have Bank Interest fully upgraded.
Over the last month $330,734,418,577 has been mugged over 783,322 muggings (averaging $422,220 per mug). However, this does include people faking mug protection too.
Between 15th August to 15th September, 10,474 out of 781,511 (1.3%) bazaar purchases resulted in a buy-mugging within 3 minutes of the sale by any user. Purchases of over $10m resulted in 3,135 out of 49,812 (6%) buy mugs. Purchases of over $50m resulted in 969 out of 7,146 (13%) buy mugs. This includes those who had mug protection, but we should keep in mind some sellers may have been invulnerable to attack (in hospital or travelling).
Thanks.