Family Property Updates

The official Mafia Wars blog has posted some more information about the Artillery Station for the Family Properties in Mafia Wars. Most of this we already knew or have figured out, but there's a point of two worth reading:

Mobsters,
We've edited the in-game explantion of Family Properties for clarity and to include some tweaks (in bold italics below) we've since made to the feature:

Your Family Property is a property shared by your family. It provides a bonus stat to the entire family. The higher the level of your Family Property, the higher the bonus stat received by your family. The bonus stat is calculated based on the level of your property and the damage status, so ensure that you upgrade and repair your property frequently in order to earn the highest bonus stat possible.

You can upgrade your property by using consumable parts. Your property can be upgraded up to a maximum of Level 10. If damaged, you will need to repair your property before you can upgrade it.

The defense of your property is determined by the items allocated to your property by the individual members of your family. Each member can contribute 5 items per property, but these will be permanently removed from one's Inventory, so choose wisely. Both the attack and the defense stats of these items count towards the defense of your property. Items of all classes may be contributed, excluding limited or restricted items.

Different combinations could earn special bonuses.
Once damaged, the health of your property regenerates over time. You can also repair your property by using consumable parts. Remember, you can only upgrade your property once it is fully repaired, so make sure that you repair any damage to your property immediately.

You and each member of your family can obtain the following maximum number of consumable parts per day to repair/upgrade your property:

– 20 parts from requests
– 20 parts from feeds (a feed can be published every 6 hours)
– 60 parts from successfully robbing rival properties

You can rob your rivals' Family Properties as you stand to win repair/upgrade consumable parts. The damage dealt to a rival property is determined by two factors – the strength of the player attacking the property and the defense strength of the property being attacked.

Mafia Strength and Family Property Bonus clarified

It's nice to wake up and see some positive change in the game, for once! Zynga implemented some minor changes to the Family Property recently, which is why there's now a new banner about the Artillery Station and Family Properties on your Mafia Wars home page banner.

The main change, which Keith noted on our fan page, is that mafia defense and attack strength is now differentiated from the bonus added by your Family Properties. In the days following the release of the Artillery Station, many players were confused by fluctuations and seeming losses in their mafia defense strength. We learned, eventually, through trial and error and a late explanation from Zynga, that this wasn't our actual Mafia strength changing in most cases, but changes in the bonus given by the Artillery Station. Separating the display of defense strength and bonus strength was even a suggestion I made in that post, however I'm sure I wasn't the only one with that idea; it was common sense. And now if you look at your fight page, you'll see Zynga has done just that. Hover your mouse over the yellow number in parenthesis and you'll it is labeled as your Family Property Bonus.

It's not often I say this, but...thanks Zynga!

This was actually the first thing I noticed, from my news feed, before I even logged into the game. I think the posts asking for artillery shells have gotten a nice face lift, too. These posts now bear a little Family pride simply by identifying the Family name of the person asking for artillery shells. I like.

EDIT...so we can now collect more than 20 artillery shells a day--we can get 20 a day from gifts sent to us, and I *think* we can get 20 a day from a combination of clicking on other players' posts and others clicking on our posts. As long as this can still be done daily, then this is a good thing as it doubles the number of shells we get and save. This will help a bit, because upgrades have been so slow as to lose significance and interest. I'll check it again tomorrow.

There may be more, but I'm still on my first cup of coffee :P

more on Family Properties

Last night the official Mafia Wars blog posted--FINALLY--about the Family Properties. I had a good laugh over the opening sentence: "we're excited about all the attention the new Family Properties feature has been getting" --what world do they live in?????

The outpouring of sentiment from Mafia Wars players hasn't been in the least bit positive. I have yet to personally see a single positive comment about this feature. It's confusing as hell, complicated, and seems to require a lot of effort for not a lot of payoff. Players everywhere have been complaining, or simply confused. So much so that it's impossible to put a positive spin on it, yet somehow Zynga managed to do so. ::giggle:: But thanks for the laugh, Zynga.

So this isn't a typical property in the sense that we are normally accustomed to; you don't build anything from it. Rather, its level and health provide and affect additional mafia attack strength, over and above what you personally have. I think, anyway. 

We're excited about all the attention the new Family Properties feature has been getting and are working hard to iron out the last remaining bugs. (Be sure to let us know in the Bugs & Support forum if you're experiencing any.) There has been some confusion regarding how Family Properties work; we're going to try to clear that up here. (SOME???)

Let’s start with explaining why it's a good idea to build and defend Family Properties: for the Family Property Bonus! The reason to build the first Family Property, the Artillery Station, for example, is that it nets you a 1,000 point bonus to your Mafia attack (when its health is at 100%).(Ah, so that explains the fluctuating mafia attack scores players were noticing. So it shouldn't affect your actual numbers, only the "bonus" received.)

There are 10 levels to each Family Property and, in the case of the Artillery Station, each level grants a 1,000 point Mafia attack bonus. A Level 10 Artillery Station, then, will grant you a 10,000 point bonus to your Mafia attack! (Again, that's when the Artillery Station is at 100% health.)

As rival families rob from your Family Property, its health decreases and the Family Property Bonus you receive is reduced. Keep your Family Property fully repaired and maximally defended to maintain 100% of the bonus its level can grant you.

Once you've built a Family Property, there are 3 main things you can do to it:

1) Upgrade it. This increases the max Family Property Bonus the property can grant you. Upgrades are performed with consumable parts, which are available from robbing rival families' properties (max. 30/day) and from requests & gifts (max. 20/day). Note: Damaged properties cannot be upgraded until they are fully repaired. Read on to learn more about repairing your Family Properties.

2) Defend it. This makes it harder for rival families to reduce the Family Property Bonus the property is granting you. Each family member can add up to 5 items to a Family Property (higher defense stats = higher property health), but be sure to choose carefully, as the items you select will be removed from your personal inventory and cannot be recovered, even if you decide to better equip the Family Property later on. Items of all classes may be contributed; try combinations to earn a bonus!

3) Repair it. Restoring your Family Property's health recovers any Family Property Bonus reductions resulting from rival families robbing the property. Family Properties do not heal themselves; repairs, like upgrades, are performed with consumable parts, which are available from robbing rival families' properties (max. 30/day) and from requests & gifts (max. 20/day).

Now that you know how Family Properties work, head to your family page to upgrade, defend, and repair your family’s Artillery Station and rob from those of your rival families! (You can also rob the Family Properties of a rival family by going to the “Properties” tab on their Family Page.)

Family Properties

 When Family property items hit the Mafia Wars inventory last night, we knew we would be getting the Family Properties very soon. This was something I've been very much looking forward to. As Jon, one of our admins recently commented, it sounds good, but he wondered how Zynga would mess it up. When I woke up this morning, another great admin of ours, Ann, told me I should drink my coffee before trying to get a grip on the new Family Properties feature, which was released last night. I knew that couldn't bode well, but trusting Ann, I took her advice and waited awhile before delving into this...mess.

Sigh.

That gives me a headache just looking at it. That doesn't look fun. It looks tedious.

Protect your Family's shared property and rob your rival's families.

Build Property – Upgrade and repair your property with consumable parts. Parts are available from robbing properties (max.30/day), requests & gifts (max. 20/day).

Rob Property – Successful robberies cause damage to the opposition's property and has a chance of awarding crafting parts. 

Defend Property – Health/Defense is determined by items allocated to property by individual players (higher defense stats = higher defense). Allocated items will be consumed. Each player can contribute 5 items per property. Items of all classes may be contributed, excluding limited or restricted items; try combinations to earn a bonus.

Upgrade/Repair Property – Upgrade or repair property by individual contributions of property parts and part requests. Properties can be upgraded up to Level 10; damaged properties can't be upgraded until repaired. Parts will be consumed.

Family Property Bonuses – Bonuses are calculated based on shared property level and damage status.

So we're supposed to protect it from other Families, and attack the properties of other Families? That sounds like more work to me. The only "good" thing I read here was that we can get rid of unused loot items by tossing them into our Family property. But that bad thing about that is, if you want to get rid of junk loot, it's not going to benefit the property much. 

You can heal your Family's property by using those Artillery Shells, which are giftable. I'm sure there's some asinine limit on how many you can accept per day, and there's a whole lot of health on a property. 20 Artillery Shells a day isn't going to go far.

This thing really needs a better way to scroll through your inventory. Maybe even a search box. It takes a lot of clicking to scroll down to items you actually want to donate. Being able to specify the quantity would nice as well, instead of having to choose 5 times in a row. And every single item you'll get prompted about whether you're "sure". Too much clicking, ahhhhh!

It says you can change the items, which takes you back to the annoying scroll box. I doubt that replaces the previous items back to your inventory, but I haven't checked. Maybe, with the right script, this could be a good way to get rid of that crap loot that's been sitting around your inventory for years.We've long wanted a way to rid ourselves of junk loot....this isn't exactly what we had in mind, though.

I'm not sure exactly how the robbing works. Obviously you can rob the Artillery Stations of other Families. They incorporated an annoying feature in which the stamina cost of each attack goes up, and comes with a cool down timer. Ugh. I was only able to rob a few times and then it wouldn't let me rob more. Maybe there's a limit on the number of times each member can rob. Not sure. And I'm fresh out of interest.

This feature looks purely annoying. It's tedious, and if I lost patience trying to read about it and figure it out, I can bet that half of my Family is going to feel the same way. I had hoped for something fun for our family, not more work, not something that is intended to keep us busy defending, not something that is complicated to figure out. I had hoped for something requiring cooperative Family effort for maybe XP and/or GOOD loot items, or Family XP. This is not what I hoped for. I was really looking forward to this; now I can't wait to get back to studying for final exams :-/

What do YOU think of this feature? I think it's going to be just another thing to ignore, without major changes to it. Just my $0.02 worth.

Family Property items added

Consumable for Clan property (A:80 D:129) from Special Event
Artillery Shell from Property

These items were *just* added to our Mafia Wars inventory within the past hour, so we may be seeing those Family Properties tonight.

I'm not sure about how these are labeled. It seems odd for the vehicle to be called a consumable. Hazarding a guess, the Artillery Shell looks like a consumable and the vehicle is something the Family can build? I guess we'll find out soon. Giggity!