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Saturday, October 31, 2009

How Using Influence for Rackets Works

Rackets come in four flavors: Cash, Attack Boosts, Defensive Boosts, Job Boosts. Each Racket requires you invest Influence into it and then wait for a specified amount of time for the Racket to finish. Once the timer expires and the Racket is complete, you get back your Influence investment + the reward (cash or boost).

It's important to think of these Rackets as investments (rather than purchases) because you get 100% of your Influence back when you collect on the Racket. This is important because you only GAIN 1pt of Influence every hour. You don't get a refill on level ups like you do with Energy and Stamina.

So in other words, it would take you 24 real-time hours to GAIN 24 pts of Influence. So getting back your Influence investment by collecting is absolutely critical to being successful at Racketeering.

However, once a Racket is ready to collect, you have a very limited amount of time to collect on the racket before it is "busted" and you lose your Influence investment. Given the slow regen timer on Influence, the Influence loss from a "busted" job is much more hurtful than losing the cash or extra boost. Hwaaaaaaaaa



Influence Skill Points

When you increase your Influence skill, you increase the amount of Influence you can "hold" at one time. The maximum amount you can you hold is 20% greater than the number of skill points you have invested. So if you have 20 Influence skill points, you can "hold" up to 24 Influence points at one time (24/20). However, just like an Energy Pack, you stop GAINING pts from the regen timer if your current Influence is greater than the amount of pts you have invested.

This means that with 20 skill points, the largest Racket you could invest in would have a 24 point cost. If the Racket you want to invest in has an Influence cost greater than that amount, then you'll need to increase the number of skill points. Otherwise, if it is equal to or less than 24, there is little reason to invest more skill points into Influence. This is critical because investing skill points above that number is wasteful and they could be better spent elsewhere.


Re-Investing Influence

The reason this is wasteful is because if you manage it correctly, you'll never exceed 24 pts. Lets say that the Racket you use most often requires 16 Influence. You would invest that 16 Influence into a Racket.

The regen timer ticks away gaining you additional Influence. When it reaches 16 again, you invest in a second Racket. Then you collect on your original Racket, gaining back the original 16 investment and immediately re-investing it back into a new Racket.

As long as your Rackets don't bust, your total amount of Influence invested in Rackets continues to increase. The only limitation is the total number of Rackets you have at the same time (based on the number of slots purchased - 20 max).


Source : Mafia Wars Wiki!
http://mafiawars.wikia.com/wiki/Rackets

28 comments:

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

No entirely true. You don't always get 1 influence point back for every one spent on racket at the end. Once the raquet is ready, the influence return value start to diminish. I don't know the speed of this but I often found myself 20-30 influence short of the original cost of a raquet

Giridhar said... [Reply to comment]

The best thing with it is probably that you can get energy boosts more often than those who have properties... I heard that they have extra boosts ....

Ade Andriyani said... [Reply to comment]

Yes, Giridhar.. will post about the boost soon ^_^
Thank you.

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

There is a problem with your math:
If you currently have 15 influence pts (meaning you can't buy a new racket yet), and your current racket finishes just now - when you collect it you have 15+16=31 pts total.
If you only had 24 pts cap, you just waisted 7 pts for nothing.
Btw, there are rackets that need 75 pts, so there is definitely no need to stop on 24 !

Giridhar said... [Reply to comment]

Dear Anonymous please put your name and explain so that you could be thanked for it... She already said that she doesn't have experience with it yet.. so she is collecting information from people like you only...

Vinay said... [Reply to comment]

I have unlocked most of the rackets and I known a many stuff about it.I think it is better than properties. We can get many stuff from rackets.I get like 100 energy from it(will explain it later). But there is a problems how am i suppose to get

Vinay said... [Reply to comment]

Cont.. how am i suppose to get slumlord and other achievements. That energy one is we get truck driver will decrease our energy consumption. I get like 20 truck driver in a day that means 1 truck driver= 6 energy 20=120. There are lot others too. but that achievment stuff i dont know

Don Daugherty said... [Reply to comment]

wow nobody that i know has this system, we all still have the properties way of geting money. i love it, i get several billion per day

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Hey there,
i only started playing today so i have the 'racket' system but it is different to what you are explaining...
My acount does not have influence at all and only money is just to invest in the rackets. I am only lvl 11 so maybe influence is not unlocked untill a later level? im not sure. Different rackets are unlocked every few lvls until lvl 50 and there are 11 in total...

Kaettavan said... [Reply to comment]

im level 167 there is no rackets or something.. wer to find it?

Vinay said... [Reply to comment]

Its random i think I played way to earlier I am 201 level and i have rackets.

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Well, i have rackets & i like them, but would still like to have an option to get properties, so i could get that 2 achievements....(Slum lord & cashing out)
I have unlocked all 20 racket slots, and i'm gaining alot of stuff, mostly truck drivers, but i do other things too, so my influence "ratio" is increasing all the time. If you are carefull with rackets, you exceed the amount of influence you have by 5-6-7-8 times... Currently, i have 53 influence, and i'm working rackets with a total of 430.... This means that i get between 50 & 80 truck drivers per day (that is 300-480 energy per day) which is great :))) !!!!!!!

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

I think they have already changed rackets to remove Influence. Now rackets are unlocked when you reach certain levels, and so far they are only cash.

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

In other words, the new rackets are more like businesses in Cuba and Moscow. I never had experience with properties, but I hear most people like them and like the now gone attack a property option.

I like my old racket, using influence points. I also get a lot of truck drivers to help out. If the new racket works like businesses, then no thank you. Why do we want three of the same things in three cities??? As it is, it annoys me to have to give cashing out in Cuba and Moscow, especially the political corrupto (every 6 hours if you have it fully developed)!

As pointed out, racketeer do not get two achievements. Also, we will never be strong enough to go for the "safecracker" position because we do not do heist. In fact no body does heist since they took away the option to rob properties. I don't mind change, but Zynga needs to change the awards to them accordingly.

Andy said... [Reply to comment]

By the way, you do get back the full amount of influence, but there is a cap and if you overfill by collecting, the excess will be wasted. I have seen 18 points on a 15 cap, so you can overfill it a little, but I don't know how many percent over.

So make sure you use up what you have, before collecting, or make sure you do not overfill after collecting. I never use the collect all button. Do it ONE BY ONE and do shake down again. If you want to choose something else to shake down, choose something else first before collecting on another racket.

So the motto is that you don't collect influence points. They are meant to be used all the time.

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Whats going on?
I only have properties.

Rajat said... [Reply to comment]

Hello guys...Since i have started to play this game....I have the option of RACKETS.......I dont want thm....coz i cant gian those 2 achievements as stated ....and to all the people i have talked to are saying that they earn 1B approx. in 1 day.....It cant be achieved in RACKETS.....Is there any way to change the option of RACKETS to PROPERTIES????If yes.....PLZ leave a comment here.....

XYZ said... [Reply to comment]

Zynga must have thought of people not having the option of properties.....they must have changed the achievement......something like....'Mastering this or that racket' etc etc.....If anyone working in ZYNGA or Mafia Wars creating or editing team....Plz convey my message to your office.......or HEAD.......and plz see to the matter carefully.......

Karthik said... [Reply to comment]

I'm curious to know what rackets ppl invest in other than energy. I run 20 rackets (which appears to be the max), all with "truck driver" which gives -6 energy boost. It takes 4 hrs to mature, so I roughly get 20 boosts every 4 hrs. A few tips here:
1) If many of ur rackets mature at the same time, don't collect them all together because ur influence can't go up above a certain value. So collect one, re-invest, collect the next etc.
2) If u r a high energy player already, when u r about to use energy pack, these boosts actually become a hindrance coz u'll level up very easily before u use up ur energy pack. So the best use of energy pack would be, wait until u lvl up, transfer all the boosts temporarily to a friend, use up all ur energy, then use up ur energy pack fully, then get back the boosts.

Karthik said... [Reply to comment]

I'm curious to know what rackets ppl invest in other than energy. I run 20 rackets (which appears to be the max), all with "truck driver" which gives -6 energy boost. It takes 4 hrs to mature, so I roughly get 20 boosts every 4 hrs. A few tips here:
1) If many of ur rackets mature at the same time, don't collect them all together because ur influence can't go up above a certain value. So collect one, re-invest, collect the next etc.
2) If u r a high energy player already, when u r about to use energy pack, these boosts actually become a hindrance coz u'll level up very easily before u use up ur energy pack. So the best use of energy pack would be, wait until u lvl up, transfer all the boosts temporarily to a friend, use up all ur energy, then use up ur energy pack fully, then get back the boosts.

Kamiel said... [Reply to comment]

Can Anyone tell me how to get the 2 achievements ( Slum Lord, Cashing Out) when I have rackets instead of properties?

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Why do i not have this on my account?

I DON"T HAVE ANY OF THIS

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Well I was confused about Rackets and influence before I read this. Now Im totally befuddled!! Other than gaining influence to do more Rackets to get more influence. How does this benefit me on Mafia Wars. Do I get RP's, Experience Points, Loot, or what?

Robbie said... [Reply to comment]

Forget money in rackets once you get higher, i have 150 in infulence, I keep 3 defense rackets running purely as a backup, toxic waste they take about 128 infulence each.
Every day i run truck driver rackets which after 4 hrs gives 3 truck drivers, each once takes 6 less energy on a job, so they are energy :)
I run a load of these as i have all racket positions bought. As my total infulence is way more than my alloted profile points (150) At night i start a few 8hr cash rackets which keeps my points safe overnight and keeps the clock ticking so my infulence builds.
Next day its back to job rackets.
At some point when i get mega high only about level 350 now, i,ll put more points to infulence so that if i,m away for a few days and no net i can come back and start all my rackets going with truck drivers, think i need about 320 in infulence to do this so thats a long time away lol

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Cash racket gives US$, and attack, defense and job rackets give the corresponding boost. And yes, re-invest before you collect the next matured racket. There is a "collect-all" button. I would stay away from it.

Finally, if you do overfill, I think it allows for 25%, so for influence points 150, you can overfill it to 187 if you cash out of a matured racket. I do not believe you will continue to gain point hourly above 150 in my example.

I think Zynga is trying to build enough racket people to justify its case to force everyone to give up properties. They will likely let them buy out their properties or something. They are probably just waiting for a good time to do it and to replace the 2 achievements. As it stands now, properties does nothing besides making money since they took away the robbing option. Be careful Zynga, when enough people get close to the trillion achievement and you take away their cash cows, there will be protest.

Interestingly, we can harvest "political favors" (+60 rob defense) in rackets which seems dumb because no one can use it since the robbing option is taken away.

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

In response to Comment #1, you DO get your full invested influence points back. The only reason you lost 20-30 points is because you did not re-invest right away and overfill.

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Why is it in some profiles we can buy Influence with GF points and other profiles dont allow this option?

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

i only have cash rackets. i cant get boosts, any defense or attacks. ive been playing the executive rackets for about a month because the pay out is the best of the rest. i also dont have influence or even know what it is. how do i get more rackets or even influence.

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