Mafia Wars iPhone: Why are my attack and defense staying the same when I buy more weapons?

Everyone always seems to be asking the same question...

Why are my attack and defense staying the same when I buy more weapons?

The answer is pretty easy to explain, but there are some things you need to keep in mind before the answer is explained:

1. You are allowed to take 500 mafia members into battle with you.

2. Since you're only allowed to take 500 mafia into a fight with you, that means you're only allowed to take 501 weapons, 501 defensive items, and 501 vehicles with you into battle. (500 mafia plus yourself = 501)

3. The highest-level items you can buy are Rocket Launcher, Night Vision Goggles, and Towncar.

4. The system will automatically add your highest attack and defense items together to form your overall attack and defensive stats. For example, if you have 100 mafia, and only buy 100 bonus weapons, then your total attack and defense score will be 200/200, since each bonus weapon has 20 attack and 20 defense.


So, with these things in mind, if you have been buying more weapons but your attack stats aren't going up, then one of the following things might be wrong.

1. Do you have 500 mafia members? If you only have say, 100 mafia, then the system is only going to be adding your attack and defense stats from weapons for the 100 mafia members you have. If you add more mafia members, and buy more weapons, your attack and defense stats should go up.

2. Are you buying the very best weapons, defensive items, and vehicles available to you? If you are buying weapons that are less in attack or defense power than what you currently have, then those numbers won't be added to your total stats.


[Via Mafia Wars for iPhone forums]

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Double Mastery Weekend

The Double Mastery Weekend has started on Mafia Wars. You'll be rewarded with double mastery from doing jobs in all cities except London. Be ready to take advantage of this weekend as it ends on Sunday night. This is one of the surprises launched by Zynga Mafia Wars this weekend and there is more to come over the whole month. The month of June marks two years since Mafia Wars was launched.

So all jobs you do will pay double mastery and therefore finish in half the time. As seen from the picture below there are also going to be some sort of fight rewards that you would need to check back on Wednesday 16th to find out you Fight Rewards.

Don't waste time and get your fight rewards and help Mafia Wars celebrate two years of crime. 

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Robbing Thought Process Explained

Recently Mafia Wars went out of their way to explain robbing. This was incited by a players letter to the Mafia Wars team that stirred them into action to explain what robbing is and what is the thought process that went into creating this feature on Mafia Wars. It also seeks to answer and clear questions that players may have about robbing. This letter also explains what features of robbing are going to stay and features that are going to be added.

Please find a copy of the letter below

Dear Mafia Wars Player,

First of all, I want to thank you for this thoughtful, well articulated letter. I always like hearing feedback from our most passionate players. Your wants and desires for this game are tremendously important to us here at Mafia Wars, and we hope that every feature we create will delight you.

In fact, we hope that our features will delight all of our customers, and therein, I fear, lies much of your angst. For you see, robbing was not primarily designed for the hard core player, a player archetype we like to call the social fighter. It was designed to try bring more players who might not ever fight someone into the PvP game, to try and nudge them down the path to becoming social fighters. As I am sure you know, for people who are not in clans, or refuse to go to “add me” threads, it is almost impossible to compete at all in fighting. There is almost no point in putting any points into stamina, or atk/def if you do not have 501 mafia. Robbing was designed to try and encourage those people to become more interested in PvP, to try and convince them to get more people into their mafia, and to get them to participate more in fighting. The data is still coming in, but so far it seems to be doing exactly that. We are noticing many more people putting points into stamina now, and many more people are taking part in some kind of PvP (fighting or robbing) than previously.

While this is good news for me as a designer, it is certainly not good news for you guys, the people that already have 501 in their mafia, and don’t need the gentle nudging towards becoming social fighters. All I can say to this is I DO feel that we have greatly underserved our fighting community in Mafia Wars, and that we are working on systems that should reward fighters greatly (I mean, please, there isn’t even any mastery bars for fighting  ). I think that you will enjoy the things we have planned.

It seems that your main concern for robbing is that it is not adversarial enough, and actually, I agree with you here to a point. However, the old robbing was WAY too punishing to players who could not defend themselves. If one person decided to “pick” on my properties, it quickly became worthless for me to ever even think about repairing them, or upgrading them. Essentially, if you were not an active fighter, with a large group of friends to back you up, there was no point to even investing anything into properties, since they would quickly be robbed down to 20% effectiveness, and the repair costs were so prohibitive. Many, many players were just giving up on properties, and not using the feature. So, when we redesigned robbing, we wanted it to matter when someone robbed you, but we did not want it to be the case that any one person (or groups of people) could completely shut you out of your properties and make them useless. Thus we came up with the “wither” idea, where people robbing your properties would be stealing the money your properties produced, but would not prevent you from collecting in the future. On the whole, I think this is a good system, however our implementation still needs some work.

Currently, properties do not stay on the robbing list for long enough, and so it is rare for a property to get robbed all the ways down to 30%. This is part of the reason why new robbing does not feel adversarial enough. We are looking in to why this is the case, and hope to have a fix out for this in the near future ( the tech behind generating the lists of properties that are vulnerable to being robbed is more complex than you might think!). Further, I agree that robbing someone from their profile page is not as satisfying as it should be. In the future, you will be able to see how badly a person’s properties have been robbed, right down to the yellow tape. Also, I think it will be possible for us to let you know with a countdown timer when a person’s properties will become vulnerable to being robbed.

A couple of other small improvements are planned for robbing soon including adding it to the other cities, as well an achievement for 9-0 clears, and the ability to retry a rob when you fail.

I hope that provides some insight behind the curtain. Now, to your specific suggestions about robbing:

1) “Return times robbed to player stats.”
Agreed. We will add this in a future push.

2) “Add real time robbing to player updates.”
Agreed. We will add this in a future push. Further, I think we will be doing away with the “coming soon” map on the properties page, and putting a special robbing only player updates there.

3) “Disallow robbing from the grave.”
Here, I disagree. 20 health is the bar for attacking. That is, you cannot attack, or be attacked when your health drops below 20. Since robbing does not do damage to the defender, we do not feel it is fair to prevent someone from robbing when their health is low.

4) “Add the progress bars and yellow tape to robbing.”
As I mentioned above, we will be adding this to robbing from the profile page, along with a timer letting you know when the other properties will become vulnerable. Also, the rewards for robbing from the profile page will be tuned up in a future push.

Again, thank you for your letter. I hope you keep enjoying our game!

Source: Mafia Wars Official Forums

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Arctic Crates

Mafia Wars now has two types of Arctic Crates. One Arctic crate which can be purchased for 12 Reward Points and three Arctic crates which can by purchased for 35 reward points.


The Item Chances of these crates are


10% Rare
30% Uncommon
60% Common


The Loot items you get are as follows




Armor
snow shoes (36 attack 21 defense) – common
immersion suit (28 attack 44 defense) – uncommon


Weapons
ice pick (22 attack 35 defense) – common
polar bear (43 attack 25 defense) – uncommon
glacier (42 attack 25 defense) – uncommon
tundra smg (37 attack 61 defense) – rare


Vehicles
penguin aquacraft (36 attack 25 defense) – common
snow monster (62 attack 30 defense) – rare

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Subterfuge Crates

Mafia Wars has launched brand new subterfuge crates in the Marketplace. Crates are filled with limited edition items and users will love. The pictures below show a Con Man, Fake ID and Poison filled ring. The art of subterfuge is to dodge and escape.

The Subterfuge Crates are available in the same setup as other crates in the game, and can be purchased either one at a time, or in groups of three. A single Subterfuge Crate costs 12 Reward Points, and the trio costs 35, for a savings of a single Reward Point when buying in bulk.

Either way, you have a 10% chance of receiving a Rare item from your crate, a 30% chance of finding something Uncommon and a 60% chance of finding a Common item. Some of the items you might find within are Con Men, Poison-Filled Rings, or even Fake IDs.

What did you receive inside your Subterfuge Crate? Let us know in the comments – we’d love to hear if you thought it was worth it!

An original post by

Sociolatte

How to hide or unhide Mafia Wars on Facebook

How to hide Mafia Wars updates from appearing on your News Feed.

1. Login to Facebook.

2. Hover over the Mafia Wars update 

3. The 'Hide' button appears on the left hand side of the update

4. Click on Hide.

Once that is done you no longer have updates appearing on your News Feed

How to Unhide Mafia Wars

1. Login to Facebook.

2. Scroll right to the bottom of your News Feed Home page

3. On the right hand side of the last News Feed you find the button 'Edit Options'

4. Clicking on 'Edit Option' brings up a list or people or applications you might have hid.

5. Find Mafia Wars and click the button next to it which says 'Add To News Feed"

Your done, Mafia Wars updates are back on your News Feed.

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars: Most Wanted

Mafia Wars is definitely adding new features to the game and for now Mafia Wars may start following story lines and webisodes.


The story line has been launched in Mafia Wars Paris and all the details have still not been revealed. 



Paris, the 'City of Lights,' home of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower is also the birthplace to one of the world's most infamous criminals. Having eluded the FBI, MI-6, and the KGB, the Shadow is on the loose and wreaking havoc on the streets. Preview this criminal mastermind's first act of vengeance in the newest Mafia Wars webisode, then continue the adventure in Mafia Wars!


For now it looks like Mafia Wars will launch a webisode and players can then continue the game in Mafia Wars. To get the story that needs to be followed players would need to watch the webisode and then continue the story line in the game itself.

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Next City Survey

Zynga makers of Mafia Wars and other popular Facebook games have been releasing surveys to help take the game to the next level. The new survey launched for Mafia Wars has to do with helping them choose the next city when you would like the game to be played in.

The survey has three main categories. 1. Which new city would you choose, 2. Which city would be your second choice. 3. Which current Mafia Wars city is your favorite.

Mafia Wars would like your input and we have a list of the survey questions below.


1. If you could choose the next city in Mafia Wars, which would you select? Please select your top choice.

 Athens, Greece

Dublin, Ireland

Istanbul, Turkey

Johannesburg, South Africa

London, England

Los Angeles, USA

Mumbai, India

Prague, Czech Republic

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rome, Italy

Sydney, Australia



2. What would be your second choice?

What would be your second choice?   Athens, Greece

Dublin, Ireland

Istanbul, Turkey

Johannesburg, South Africa

London, England

Los Angeles, USA

Mumbai, India

Prague, Czech Republic

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rome, Italy

Sydney, Australia



3. Out of the existing cities in Mafia Wars, which is your favorite?

Out of the existing cities in Mafia Wars, which is your favorite?   New York

Cuba

Moscow

Bangkok


4. Please explain why the existing city you chose is your favorite.

To take the survey please click here.

Which city would you want to play Mafia Wars in next? let us know.

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Paris

Mafia Wars will be coming soon to the city if lights Paris, France. And it seems reasonable enough to expect bread, wine and cheese collections.

You and your mafia can now get ready to conquer the city of lights.

Paris has now been added to the game's drop down menu with the tag "Coming Soon"

Las Vegas was announced on the same drop down menu but it seems Paris is coming first. Will keep this post updated as and when news is released by Mafia Wars

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Mystery Vault

The Mystery vault in Mafia Wars is a randomly occurring event. Your Mafia has discovered a locked vault. Hack a secure terminal to intercept the email with the security code.


When you login to Mafia Wars you stand he chance of discovering the Mystery vault. 

Once you discover the Mystery Vault you need to click on Email me the code. Once you click on email me the code you get an email with a link to click which takes you back to your Facebook page and the game. There you find another link to open the vault. Once your able to open the vault to stand to win some limited edition loot uptp 1000 Reward Points and up to 250 XP.


There maybe some technical related issues though and you find that the link is not opening. Most users recommend that you keep clicking and eventually it will open. Please share your experiences with the Mystery Vault and what loot you found etc

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Explosive Crates

Prize items that you can get inside explosive crates :


Weapons :
suspicious package – common – 30 attack 18 defense
explosive putty – common – 31 attack 15 defense
flame broiled – rare – 56 attack 33 defense

Armor :
trip wire bomb – common – 32 attack 19 defense
depth charge – uncommon – 23 attack 40 defense

Vehicles
rigged tanker truck – uncommon – 39 attack 29 defense
rigged oil tanker – rare – 30 attack 57 defense

• These items are purchasable for Godfather points. One crate for 12 or Three crates for 35.


• 
  Items in this category may NOT be gifted.
  

Available: April 6, 2010 - ?

 One Explosive Crate (12 Reward Points)

60% chance for  items

30% chance for  items

10% chance for  items

 Three Explosive Crates (35 Reward Points)

60% chance for  items

30% chance for  items

10% chance for  items

Crates
Godfather Crate	Tools Of Persuasion	Yakuza Crate	Red Hammer Crate	Woodsman Crate	Wild West Crate
Street Crate	Colosseum Crate	Best of Crate	Hard Labor Crate	Tiger Crate	Cuban Crate
Halloween Crate	Experimental Crate	Food Fight Crate	Best of 2009 Crate	Spy Tech Crate	Sports Mystery Crate
Bangkok Crate	Crisis Crate	Spy Tech Crate 2	Urban Crate	Explosive Crate
Special Crate
Super Stuffed Crate

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars Golden Egg

Mafia Wars has a new Easter featured job - Assemble an Easter Crime Basket. There are a choice of 2 jobs, each will give you unique limited edition loot. You can then decide how you want to play and master the featured job. And you will be rewarded with the prized Golden Egg.

An original post by

Sociolatte

Mafia Wars easter egg hunt

Mafia Wars Easter Event, to ensure that you succeed at this job you need to go and secure the Easter Egg collection. The Easter Egg hunt is happening at the Market Place. You need to do the Featured job, ask your friends for help and ask your mafia to send an Easter Egg to complete the Easter Egg hunt. Check out the easter egg album we have uploaded below to find out which eggs you would need to complete your Easter Basket. Start the hunt to day as you on have about a day left.

An original post by

Sociolatte