Sheriff Pay: A Fatal Flaw that Partially Accounts for the Unforgiving Nature of Wildwest for Newbies

DISCLAIMER​

This point of this thread is NOT to ask for an increase in sheriff profits. It's to address the problem of sheriffs making more money by going after noobs instead of experienced players.

A major flaw with the current way sheriff pay works is that it encourages attacking newer players. How so? In my seven consecutive months spent as a sheriff, here is how the situation appears in my eyes. You have two options as a sheriff. You know that a big team is dominating grass as usual and there are probably a few noobs scattered around the other bases. Here are your options if you decide to go against the big team.

1. Die to a big team because you have no kevlar or pots.
2. Die to a big team with kevlar and pots.
3. Kill the big team with kevlar and pots and make next to no money because they only have guns and D instead of drugs. (This happens all the time. If you fail in your first attack, essentially teams will store a great ammount of their drugs.)
4. Kill the team with normal gear and still make next to no money for the aforementioned reasons.
5. Kill the big team with kevlar and pots and make money because they have guns and drugs.
6. Kill them without kevlar and pots and make money because they have drugs.

In the event you decide to go without kevlar and pots, you are going to need roughly an equal, if not, greater ammount of sheriffs to take the bandits down. This brings up the issue of profit splitting, which only means that you make a heck of a lot loss money. You stand a better chance at taking on multiple bandits with kevlar and pots, but this costs a crapton of money, so you might not even break even if you do this.

In my experience, the average profit made from killing an experienced team is about 7.5k from drugs and illegals and two sets of diamond armor that you can't even use. You can sometimes sell the armor back to them for approximately 1/2 - 3/4 of it's original price which means an additional 10-15k. Mind you, you can't always sell back. Bandits nowadays have so much diamond armor that they oftentimes aren't interested in buying it back. Overall that's anywhere from 17.5k-22.5k. Kevlar alone is 20k. If you are a cheapskate like me, all the potions cost around 4k. (10 health potions, 2 whiskey, and 2 morphine). With kevlar and pots, you make a decent profit of -6.5 to -1.5k! With just pots, you actually do make a decent profit of 13.5-18.5k. Pretty good, right? Wrong. You aren't guaranteed this money. You're very likely to die at least once during this process. Die with Kevlar? You're profits are screwed. Die with potions? You get nickeled and dimed to death.

Now let's move on to the player who aren't part of a big OP team. They usually don't have diamond armor or illegal guns. Heck, they might not have anything other than a dagger. What do they have instead? Drugs, and lots of 'em! They usually don't bother storing what they have as they go along, so you're in for a treat as a sheriff. Profits that I have made from these players usually range anywhere from 3k-10k. Let's say 6.5k is the average. Here are your options when going after these players.

1. There's nobody at the base. Bummer, you wasted your time, but heck, you aren't losing any money.
2. There are players at the base, but they give you the slip. (lol, jk, you have a horse so like this ever happens. :V)
3. There are players at the base but they log when you get there. (lol, jk, they're noobs. They don't know about /logout and are more interested in trying to dagger you to death.)
4. They kill you. (LOL)
5. Ooor, the most likely option of all when there are players at the base: You arrest them and make your 6.5k profit.

Here's the deal. There is virtually no risk in going after newer players. Sure they give you less money than experienced players, but you don't lose anything so you actually might be making more of a profit going after them. You never really have to buy pots or kevlar, and it's way more fun than mining. It also makes money just about twice as quickly than mining.

Are you starting to see the problem here? It's way more profitable to go after newer players than experienced ones. Heck, I'd argue that it's more profitable to go mining or raid indian camps than it is to fight experienced players. The balance of risk/reward is completely screwed up.

Now it goes to you. Do you see this as an issue? @sheriffs, talking to you guys especially. You have better experience of this than anyone else on the server. But great ideas don't just stem from the minds of the sheriffs. Needless to say, they come from bandits as well. What do you think? How would you go about solving this problem?

 

tbh, it doesn't even matter how much money they make. The point of this thread wasn't even to increase the money sheriffs make. It doesn't matter if they make 5 cents going after noobs and 1 cent going after experienced players. If they make more money going after newer players, they are going to be inclined to do just that. This is the issue.

^^^ This essentially.

I'd definitely say that allowing them to sell diamond armor would be a good start.

Again, I'm not asking for an increase in sheriff profits.

Let me add a disclaimer to the top of my thread. :V

 

Great idea! It wouldn't only be sheriffs benefitting from this either!

I mean, yes and no. I never get the full price for D when I sell it, so if it was fixed at the full price sheriffs could make more from experienced players.