Hcom3 [2003693] —
Original article
Thanks to a series of nerfs, mugging people isn't as profitable as it once was. So why has this happened, what was it like in the past, and what is Chedburn planning to do about it?
On the 17th of June, a change was made to Russian Roulette which prevented games in progress from being visible to those outside the table. This may seem like a useful and innocuous alteration on the surface, but it had a huge impact upon one group in particular - muggers.
The problem stemmed from the fact that the identity of the person who started a game of RR could be seen, whereas their opponents remained anonymous. Ever since this loophole was discovered, experienced muggers have stalked Russian roulette games in search of high stakes matches. When said match was found, the muggers would wait in the shadows while the game played out.
If the anonymous player won then they could exit the game safely. However, if the winner was the player who started the game, they would be immediately pounced upon, losing their winnings as violently as they had acquired them. RR players became wise to this tactic and were known to bank their cash as quickly as possible following a match - oftentimes they weren't quick enough.
However, with the ability to watch RR games unfold having been removed, this very specific type of mugging has now been completely eradicated. Russian roulette players were delighted, but many experienced muggers were and continue to be outraged.
In response to this patch, JussiJernKuuk made a thread in suggestions arguing that mug protection should be nerfed to even out the situation. In case you don't know what mug protection is, read this thread by Proxima which explains precisely how it works. In short, this function prevents players from losing huge amounts of money from consecutive mugs, with the protection losing effectiveness gradually over twelve hours from the initial attack.
Jussi wants to reduce this to twelve minutes from the moment a player appears online. While this may be a little extreme, it is true that mugging needs a boost having been nerfed repeatedly over the past few years. So should we roll back some of the changes and return Torn to its former glories? What was the mugging scene even like back in the days of yore?
"Mugging was so much better and tbh it fit the description of the game where Ched claims TC to be a 'dark, murky underworld' I remember refreshing the homepage repeatedly to check who kept getting mugged, these usually would be the high profile mugs where some pros were constantly paying for revives and if you had a good connection, you'd keep trying to get your hit in and make decent cash within minutes."
This quote came from resident buy mugger, restart, and general ******* Abdullah (an opinion held solely by the reporter and not the TCT staff in general), who recently hit a total of $10 billion mugged from his salty tear-strewn victims. In some people's opinions, he is a prime example of what happens when people cannot earn money from legitimate sources. If we wish to discourage buy mugging and scamming, then we must encourage the art of a good old fashioned shakedown.
In the past, if someone got mugged, people would hang around until they got out of the hospital and mug them again, as they would not be protected in the immediate aftermath. This made people very angry, and rightfully so. If you forgot to turn revives off, a buy mugger could just buy something from your bazaar, get you revived and mug you again and again, until you had lost all of your cash.
Was this punishment too extreme? Who can say. It is a crime game after all, and if you forget to turn your revives off, that's hardly anyone's fault but your own. Stupidity should be punished, and criminal ingenuity should most definitely be rewarded. But where is the line drawn? Obviously we don't want anyone to lose so much that they end up rage quitting the game, but Torn can't be a safe space where mistakes cannot be made.
Mistakes build character. If you are rinsed clean by a mugger, the mechanics should allow you to do the same to someone weaker or stupider than yourself. What we need is a hierarchy of violent robbery; a mugger's food chain, with apex predators at the top and bottom-feeding organisms at the base. Right now, it feels like we've got a great big safety net protecting those at the lower end from those above.
As a result, some feel that Torn City is getting too soft, with protections for new players having a negative effect on those who've been here for a long time. We can't ignore the requirements of newcomers entirely, though, as if we make Torn too hostile an environment for those fresh off the boat, we may lose the essential lifeblood that new players provide.
"Now that I see it, I can understand the POV behind the mugging nerf as it's unfair to new players who didn't learn enough in their 2-week protection phase, invested some RL money and lost it all to muggers."
Abdullah makes a good point there; it is incredibly unfair to lose all your money that you may have only just bought. People use real-life funds to buy DPs, so if someone comes along and pilfers your Torn pockets, it's like someone stole the cash straight out of your actual wallet. Abdullah also complained about blacklists, and how he believes they shouldn't be allowed to exist.
"[Blacklists are] basically punishing a mugger for playing a crime game the way it was intended to be played. You take the first look on my profile and you'll think this guy either attempts petty scams or has a shitty personality. It definitely doesn't feel like an exciting or risky 'crime' game anymore."
To an extent, Abdullah is right. Blacklisting does punish a player for playing the game, and if you don't want to be buy mugged, you should learn to protect yourself. However, such lists could easily be compiled outside of the game, and in reality, they are no different than the mental list of dark alleyways you avoid on your way home to steer clear of those guys who ask you for the time, your phone and your sneakers in that order.
Some level of protection for newcomers and indeed all players is essential. But in providing these safety nets, Torn must also take care to avoid creating potential exploits, as Abdullah explains:
"Intentional mug protection using your friends is basically taking advantage of a loophole (Don't get me wrong, I use it too) because it sucks that traders get a free pass if they can pay for 2-3 mug protects a day, and have billions of dollars worth of stuff getting sold with not a worry in the world. No risk, no excitement, nothing. Plain, boring, vanilla gameplay."
If you are a trader and you aren't in the top 100 for stats, you need all the protection you can muster, regardless of whether it has been obtained legitimately or through gaming the system. But even with such protections, there will always be someone stronger than you. This is fine, you should lose sometimes, regardless of your stats.
Imagine this issue as a set of armour being prepared for a fight between two knights. As the knights are wounded in places that aren't covered, more metal is added to the armour protect their soft, fleshy bits. But without a few gaps in that armour, all sense of jeopardy is lost - the fight is boring. The result is two weaklings encased in metal bashing each other relentlessly until the end of time, with neither capable of using skill or smarts to inflict injury upon the other, and both doomed to remain unscarred until the fight is abandoned out of boredom.
I began this article by focusing on the change to RR games which prevented one type of mugging. In a pinned response to Jussi's suggestion, Chedburn explained that he closed this loophole because it led to a 100% guaranteed mugging after every high value game. The Torn boss elaborates further below:
"Muggers could simply watch Russian Roulette games until they complete and then mug the person who started the game. That gives an unfair edge to the RR game joiner who remains anonymous and generally makes RR less desirable to play if there's a high chance you'd get mugged if you won. Now, there's no way to tell when the RR game finished, so no way to tell when to mug them."
The single act of removing this loophole seems fair enough to me, but in the context of countless other mugging nerfs, the system is now unbalanced in favor of the weak. Thankfully, I can confirm that changes to mugging are on the horizon.
Chedburn told the TCT that he plans to present the committee with plans to boost mugging shortly. What will this buff consist of? Will mug amounts be increased or protections decreased? We'll have to wait to find out. But one thing is for certain; the muggers can't wait, and it seems JussiJernKuuk's suggestion title may finally be heeded after all.
The problem stemmed from the fact that the identity of the person who started a game of RR could be seen, whereas their opponents remained anonymous. Ever since this loophole was discovered, experienced muggers have stalked Russian roulette games in search of high stakes matches. When said match was found, the muggers would wait in the shadows while the game played out.
If the anonymous player won then they could exit the game safely. However, if the winner was the player who started the game, they would be immediately pounced upon, losing their winnings as violently as they had acquired them. RR players became wise to this tactic and were known to bank their cash as quickly as possible following a match - oftentimes they weren't quick enough.
However, with the ability to watch RR games unfold having been removed, this very specific type of mugging has now been completely eradicated. Russian roulette players were delighted, but many experienced muggers were and continue to be outraged.
In response to this patch, JussiJernKuuk made a thread in suggestions arguing that mug protection should be nerfed to even out the situation. In case you don't know what mug protection is, read this thread by Proxima which explains precisely how it works. In short, this function prevents players from losing huge amounts of money from consecutive mugs, with the protection losing effectiveness gradually over twelve hours from the initial attack.
Jussi wants to reduce this to twelve minutes from the moment a player appears online. While this may be a little extreme, it is true that mugging needs a boost having been nerfed repeatedly over the past few years. So should we roll back some of the changes and return Torn to its former glories? What was the mugging scene even like back in the days of yore?
"Mugging was so much better and tbh it fit the description of the game where Ched claims TC to be a 'dark, murky underworld' I remember refreshing the homepage repeatedly to check who kept getting mugged, these usually would be the high profile mugs where some pros were constantly paying for revives and if you had a good connection, you'd keep trying to get your hit in and make decent cash within minutes."
This quote came from resident buy mugger, restart, and general ******* Abdullah (an opinion held solely by the reporter and not the TCT staff in general), who recently hit a total of $10 billion mugged from his salty tear-strewn victims. In some people's opinions, he is a prime example of what happens when people cannot earn money from legitimate sources. If we wish to discourage buy mugging and scamming, then we must encourage the art of a good old fashioned shakedown.
In the past, if someone got mugged, people would hang around until they got out of the hospital and mug them again, as they would not be protected in the immediate aftermath. This made people very angry, and rightfully so. If you forgot to turn revives off, a buy mugger could just buy something from your bazaar, get you revived and mug you again and again, until you had lost all of your cash.
Was this punishment too extreme? Who can say. It is a crime game after all, and if you forget to turn your revives off, that's hardly anyone's fault but your own. Stupidity should be punished, and criminal ingenuity should most definitely be rewarded. But where is the line drawn? Obviously we don't want anyone to lose so much that they end up rage quitting the game, but Torn can't be a safe space where mistakes cannot be made.
Mistakes build character. If you are rinsed clean by a mugger, the mechanics should allow you to do the same to someone weaker or stupider than yourself. What we need is a hierarchy of violent robbery; a mugger's food chain, with apex predators at the top and bottom-feeding organisms at the base. Right now, it feels like we've got a great big safety net protecting those at the lower end from those above.
As a result, some feel that Torn City is getting too soft, with protections for new players having a negative effect on those who've been here for a long time. We can't ignore the requirements of newcomers entirely, though, as if we make Torn too hostile an environment for those fresh off the boat, we may lose the essential lifeblood that new players provide.
"Now that I see it, I can understand the POV behind the mugging nerf as it's unfair to new players who didn't learn enough in their 2-week protection phase, invested some RL money and lost it all to muggers."
Abdullah makes a good point there; it is incredibly unfair to lose all your money that you may have only just bought. People use real-life funds to buy DPs, so if someone comes along and pilfers your Torn pockets, it's like someone stole the cash straight out of your actual wallet. Abdullah also complained about blacklists, and how he believes they shouldn't be allowed to exist.
"[Blacklists are] basically punishing a mugger for playing a crime game the way it was intended to be played. You take the first look on my profile and you'll think this guy either attempts petty scams or has a shitty personality. It definitely doesn't feel like an exciting or risky 'crime' game anymore."
To an extent, Abdullah is right. Blacklisting does punish a player for playing the game, and if you don't want to be buy mugged, you should learn to protect yourself. However, such lists could easily be compiled outside of the game, and in reality, they are no different than the mental list of dark alleyways you avoid on your way home to steer clear of those guys who ask you for the time, your phone and your sneakers in that order.
Some level of protection for newcomers and indeed all players is essential. But in providing these safety nets, Torn must also take care to avoid creating potential exploits, as Abdullah explains:
"Intentional mug protection using your friends is basically taking advantage of a loophole (Don't get me wrong, I use it too) because it sucks that traders get a free pass if they can pay for 2-3 mug protects a day, and have billions of dollars worth of stuff getting sold with not a worry in the world. No risk, no excitement, nothing. Plain, boring, vanilla gameplay."
If you are a trader and you aren't in the top 100 for stats, you need all the protection you can muster, regardless of whether it has been obtained legitimately or through gaming the system. But even with such protections, there will always be someone stronger than you. This is fine, you should lose sometimes, regardless of your stats.
Imagine this issue as a set of armour being prepared for a fight between two knights. As the knights are wounded in places that aren't covered, more metal is added to the armour protect their soft, fleshy bits. But without a few gaps in that armour, all sense of jeopardy is lost - the fight is boring. The result is two weaklings encased in metal bashing each other relentlessly until the end of time, with neither capable of using skill or smarts to inflict injury upon the other, and both doomed to remain unscarred until the fight is abandoned out of boredom.
I began this article by focusing on the change to RR games which prevented one type of mugging. In a pinned response to Jussi's suggestion, Chedburn explained that he closed this loophole because it led to a 100% guaranteed mugging after every high value game. The Torn boss elaborates further below:
"Muggers could simply watch Russian Roulette games until they complete and then mug the person who started the game. That gives an unfair edge to the RR game joiner who remains anonymous and generally makes RR less desirable to play if there's a high chance you'd get mugged if you won. Now, there's no way to tell when the RR game finished, so no way to tell when to mug them."
The single act of removing this loophole seems fair enough to me, but in the context of countless other mugging nerfs, the system is now unbalanced in favor of the weak. Thankfully, I can confirm that changes to mugging are on the horizon.
Chedburn told the TCT that he plans to present the committee with plans to boost mugging shortly. What will this buff consist of? Will mug amounts be increased or protections decreased? We'll have to wait to find out. But one thing is for certain; the muggers can't wait, and it seems JussiJernKuuk's suggestion title may finally be heeded after all.
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