Why did I lose this assassination attempt? I beat all his stats.

this is a game killing feature right here, if you cant trust that logic will work then your shafted!

The way I understand it, it's got a large element of chance. Lots of point-based games do this (Civilisation is a good example) - beating stats just makes it a lot more likely that you'll win.

Also, killing people is possible. I think they have to have low health anyway though.

The way I see it- alot of this is luck. Everyone bets on the Yankees, but they don't always win.

You guys have to understand that chance plays a role in the assignation and killings. Just like in real assignations there is a possibility that those being attacked have a small possibility of winning in the end. So if you do loose to someone weaker then you it is due to the point stated above, however it should not happen very often. Let me know if it occurs multiple times.

I just retaliated on @ronin (I'm currently lvl14, he's lvl7) - my attack is x4 his defense - out of 4 assassination attempts I succeeded once. My failures cost me about 150 attack points & roughly 100 defense points (I didn't keep track of £ losses). When I did succeed I didn't gain *any* attack or defense.

Chance is fine but if that's all there is, why bother with attack / defense scores and just show a dice roll?

I've seen the same issue. I have avoided assassinations for a while now as a result of it. I've got people who are in very early levels doing attacks.

It sometimes feels like you may as well just attack anyone since you have a good chance of winning due to the random generator.

More importantly, seems there's likely 2 random generators here. One on whether or not you can win at all and then another on just what you win. I've lost 3 armored vehicles already in the last couple of days (not fun having to replace them) but more importantly 2 of them went to people 14 levels back. In both cases, I was attacked.

At this point, I am not in a rush to get a new vehicle which means I'm not working on the last task since it requires the car. Unfortunately, it's hard to earn large buckets of money still.

Yea just got hit again by someone over 10 levels lower than me. I am now just selling all of my Black Market items since the obviously don't help or do anything for you. I'll just keep 1 of whatever item I need on hand. There is just no sense in buying any of that stuff now that I know.

I won't assassinate anymore either I nearly always lose even when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor. I can see losing on occasion to a much lower adversary, but at best I get 40% of the wins in these cases and that is optimistic.

just tried to assassinate @physboy & was stronger in all categorizes including spies, spymasters, attacksum and defense. How did I lose???????

I've never managed to win an assassination the first time I've tried assassinating someone, but the second time always seems to work. Also if you've tried assassinating this particular person multiple times before, he will get to know your techniques, and can smell you a mile away.

I understand the element of chance. But it is starting to seem as if we both are given a 6-faced di and whoever gets the higher number wins, regardless of stats.

Simply unacceptable!

I'm going to share one of my attack tricks. If the point spread between the opponent's energy level and risk level is more than 20, I don't attack. I seem to win more assassinations that way. And now I can understand why I sometimes lose when I attack, even though I am senior in every way. Every assassination is a toss of the dice, no matter how much I outnumber them. Don't let this ruin it for you. It actually throws more excitement into the game.

There's something seriously goofed in the 'fake' randomness here. Some folks appear to be too damn lucky ... Especially if I retaliate against some persistent attacker - I always lose and I do outmatch the opponent in all four criteria. Odds are meaningless, it remains annoying.

And bet you some other person who doesn't understand game theory will opine I'm a fag or lame on my dossier again. Tacky that,

In the past 3 days I've lost 17 attempts in a row. Not like I've gone on a rampage on a single person or even had several attempts an hour, and thus losing the element of surprise (as they warn you about). These were all attempts that I had a 40-55% chance of winning. I understand there will be streaks, but this is absurd.

So fine, quit with assassinations. BUT, the inability to level in the high 30's w/o assassinations is ridiculous, especially if the "randomness" of the assassinations isn't weighted properly. Perhaps like the shuffle function of iTunes, the success rate should be a little less random.

Really this game is meant to be fun and it just isn't anymore. Especially with the people who've got scripts running to auto-level and don't really even play.
Going on vacation for two weeks. Maybe I'll take the game back up then. For now, I'm done.

Thank goodness this is already a topic.

I came around looking because this happens a lot - so much so I just grit my teeth doing assassinations... almost at the point where I won't do it anymore. Seems like a problem that makes the game suddenly pointless?

I worked hard to find a level 1 player who has barely advanced in a long time (basically sitting around hardly playing). I'm 37 with 20k+ Defense and 30K+ Attack - my target was level 1 with diddly.

...I lost more than I won even with a 99% chance of success. After about six tries I just intentionally fell victim to my own declining health and died - but never did kill him.

His stats were 0 spymasters, 208 spies, 15 attack, 5 defense.
No idea how I lost 6/8 times??

I'll post my screenshots when I can figure out where to host them (unless I can just email them to someone at Directorate?).

This is rotten - I've felt it and suspected this for a while but now have proven it to my own standards - percentages aren't even close to accurate, assassinations aren't even close to logical or realistic, and the point of the game diminishes as tasks become backseat to seriously problematic targeting of other players.

It was fun levels 1-5 but not any more. I wish something was being done - this suddenly made the game grind to a halt for me in terms of enjoyment. Shame, because this is quite addictive - till one has to assassinate.

It would seem that there are certain people we can't beat, no matter what their defense and strategy is. If you can't assassinate them the first time, don't try again. I think this is how the system balances itself.

My attack: 3200+
His Defense: 135

He attacked me, and won.
I attacked back, and lost, 6 times in a row.
Supposedly I had a 42% chance of winning.

The odds of that happening in aggregate are fairly high, and yet it happens pretty consistently.

It's shit like this that keeps me from getting into this game.

Edit: Make that seven times in a row that I've lost.

Ah, excellent. How do I delete my account again?

There is no doubt that it is a flawed system, but there has to be some kind of counter-balance. Agreed? And we would seldom if ever attack someone stronger unless there was a chance of winning. I think it's best to cut my losses and not attack someone after I lose to them once. Only nerds quit because they can't always win - and ya'll don't wanna be nerds, do ya? :)

The system is not flawed. In this case it's very simple bad luck or a case where maybe the other player is using in-game tactics (points) to augment their chances.

Sorry if it's not fun for you, I can say as a player I've experienced the same thing both on the winning and losing edge.

Sorry DKR, I was hoping there was enough indicators here to suggest that it's either flawed (or working according to plan as you say) or encourage the PTB's that the plan needs tweaking.

I wonder if one could take a step back and see the sheer disproportionate nature described here is beyond "balance" and not likely the product of in-game tactics. We're describing the instances where it's beyond balance, so no, I don't agree with Deb on that particular degree of point.

I think we're describing something outside the degree of reasonable.

Yes, agreement on balance. Yes, agreement on "things just happen." I believe we're talking about something past this, though?

99% success for me:
6 failures.
2 success.

30,000+ my attack vs. 5 his defense.

0 spymasters for him.

...this leaves little room to understand how in-game tactics (whatever that is) or "balance" apply?

I'm open to enlightenment but I'm hoping for something more tangible considering the details we're providing.