Monday 4 October 2010

Las Vegas Districts 7 and 8 - Loot and Strategy

Impressively, Zynga got two new districts of Vegas up just as the first people were finishing District 6 (which itself was an add-on). Let's start with the new loot in Districts 7 and 8, and then some ideas on mastering them.
District 7 - Area 51
X-22 Peregrine (53/24) - vehiclePitbull Sentry Gun (28, 52) - weaponPronghorn Antelope (21, 53) - animalAres Power Armor (33, 58) - armorFoo Fighter (37, 60) - vehicle (hard to find)Diamondback (56, 48) - animal (also a District 6 drop item)
Boss Item - Experimental Exosuit - armor (149, 90) for bronze through (185, 106) for Ruby
District 8 - Hoover Dam
Hopped Up Thug (56, 18) - armorCooling Vest (31, 61) - armorArcturiuon Assault Rifle (59, 27) - weaponRipper Assault Rifle (57, 30) - weaponBalista Missle Launcher (62, 15) - vehicleBighorn (26, 64) - animalAmphiquad (58, 24) - vehicle
Boss Item - Halloran's Helicopter - vehicle (90, 145) for bronze...
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A few thoughts here:
1. Halloran's Helicopter - even at bronze - will immediately be your top defensive vehicle. The boss - Governor Halloran - gets stronger and harder to injure as you go.
2. Experimental Exosuit - even at bronze - will immediately be your top offensive armor. The boss - Dr. Hank Williams - has two henchmen. LOAD UP ON STUN GUNS. You will find yourself using 6 to kill the henchmen alone on the Ruby level.
3. These are some serious stats for drop loot! Would you ever play in Cuba or Moscow again for loot? With attack and defense stats in the 50s and into the 60s, even Bangkok high end loot (BHEL, to use the trading group lingo) will drop on your rankings...
4. ...except that Vegas high end loot (VHEL) is not - readily - tradeable. You can't gift it, as you can with a Royal Thai Marine, or add it to your Wishlist through other MW websites. Though some people apparently are doing it...
5. For the energy jobs on Distrcits 7 and 8, you will need TONS of three items from earlier Districts in Vegas: Hot Tips (D2), Alarm Codes (D3), and Hotel Security Key Cards (D4). I mean TONS. This is like Bangkok on steroids when you needed Untraceable Cells for a few levels and then Satellite Phones forever. If you've already finished Ruby level on the lower Vegas Districts, you'll see that acquiring ONE such item requires up to 108 energy points. And District 7's final energy job requires ONE OF EACH (of alarm code, hotel key) - and get 2% mastery per job - so your "cover charge" for each job is 165 energy points just for the "tools" you'll need to do the final job in District 7, which itself is 144 energy. Total retail price for that ONE job? 15,450 energy points. So be patient.
One reader below commented on a strategy I've used in Vegas that I *wish* I'd used in Bangkok, and even earlier in Vegas. STOP FINISHING THE LEVELS OF THE TOP DISTRICTS SO QUICKLY. There is GREAT loot here - there are some things in District 7 that are as good as the District 8 loot (Foo Fighter, Diamondback). Or - at least - if you finish District 7's Ruby level, stay on Bronze level in District 8 for a LONG time - why not? You will get tons of the top loot in the game. Your stats will skyrocket. And until a new city or District comes along, why wouldn't you want to max out on all this great loot, which drops fairly generously?
Compare the slow climb of Distrct 7's Ruby level - 309 points PER JOB on the final job, doing it 50x, not to mention the other jobs on Energy and Fight Path. The final job on District 8 Bronze level, by contrast, requires no codes/tips/key cards... and costs 19 energy. NINETEEN. If you have an energy account with 4,000 to 5,000 points, you can do roughly 250 jobs and watch all the loot, boss fight items, casino upgrade items, vault upgrade items, Weapons Depot and Chop Shop parts and specialties, and the 4 new Vegas collection items (matchbooks, cactus, animals, card hands... more on these later) drop day after day. Just a suggestion - hold tight on District 8 bronze.
Folks, your Railguns and Mugatis and Hunters - and your Lamangs, Vipers, Marines, and Katars - should start to drop into the middle/lower tier of your weaponry with these great District 7 and District 8 items. Don't fly through it and find that you still have Zolotos and Shturmoviks as part of your top 501 items. Even the Bangkok Faction Store is close to obsolete - why spend your stamina points robbing properties to save up Baht to buy a Xiamen Tiger (52 defense) when at least two drop loot animals in Vegas beat it? Even the Banded Krait (51 attack) - a very expensive B$540,000 - is only 5 attack points higher than all your vipers, but 5 points LOWER than the Diamondback - which drops in Vegas Districts 6 and 7. If anything (since you can't amass 501 Diamondbacks unless you hold back in District 7 at Bronze for more drops), you should simply load up on Vipers, and use the Baht that you accumulate to buy Kraits or Tigers in the Faction Store. The rest of the merchandise is blown away by what you'll accumulate in Districts 6 and 7 in Vegas... so if you're robbing (and we're going to discuss HOW you should be robbing) it should be in... NEW YORK. More to come on that topic.
For more information on the Vegas MADE event on October 15 and 16, please see http://mafiawarsmade.eventbrite.com/ No - I don't work for Zynga and this blog will not be a shill for it - you will see plenty of critique and cheats as we uncover together the threadbare parts of the game (how's that Crime Spree feature working out for everyone??). But this event sounds like fun.
Good night for now, and good fighting.
Best,
-Phil



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