Aygabtu’s Storm8 iMobsters mob guide and site

Essential to many games are team members and one game that this is certainly true is in Storm8’s iMobsters real-time RPG game for the IPhone and Android market.  In iMobsters your team is referred to as your mob and the players on your team as mob members.  To effectively play the game you need to know how your mob members are used, factors in deciding how large your mob should and can be, and how you can increase your mob size.  We’ve tried to answer those questions below.

·         What do you need to know before adding mob members?

·         The level of your mob members or what gear they own doesn’t matter.  They are just a number to you.  You are responsible for equipping them for fights.

·         Each mob member can and will use one of each type of equipment (Weapons, Protection, and Vehicle) in a fight

·         You can only use 5 times your level in mob members.  You can have more in your mob, but in a fight you will only use 5 per your level, so if you are level 12, you can only use a maximum of 60 mob members.

·         What are the advantages of having mob members and how do you use them?

·         More mob members give you a larger mob size, which when properly equipped by you means your attacks and defense are stronger so you win more

·         When you are in a fight, whether attacking or defending, the game will automatically calculate your attack and defense values factoring in your usable mob members and their gear.  Remember, the gear they use is what you own, not what the mob member owns.

·         How many mob members should you have?

·         Players are grouped into brackets which are groups with about the same number of mob members as each other.  The bracket cutoffs for low levels are 4, 9, 14, 19, etc. Here are some examples and the advantages of staying at the top of your brackets:

·   A player has 4 mob members.  When attacking they can only see players with 1-4 mob members and only players with 1-4 mob members can see them. This gives them an advantage over anyone with 3 or less mob members

·   A player has 6 mob members.  When attacking they can only see players with 5-9 mob members and players with 5-9 mob members can see them.  This puts them at a disadvantage when dealing with players with mob sizes of 7, 8, or 9 members.

·         For lower levels, under level 20, stick to 4 or 9 mob members.  This keeps your purchase costs and upkeep costs lower. The higher level you are, the more mob members you should have, as long as you can properly equip them.  This is because the brackets start to open up more, so someone as a level 40 and 9 mob members may be seen and attacked by someone with 10-15 or more mob members.

·         At levels above 100, it is definitely an advantage to have as many mob members as you can afford.  This is due to the best equipment for attack having better stats than defense.  The more mob members you have the fewer people will be able to equip all their mob members with the best gear, so you will win more fights.

·         There is also a strategy where players will go with the maximum mob members their level will allow. Although they can’t equip them with the best gear, they can buy lower gear, but outnumber their opponent.  Using this strategy can be difficult because you open yourself up to players that have the money to equip their mob better, but for farmers, more active players, and players looking for a challenge find this strategy can be more fun.

·         How do you find mob members to add?

·         Aygabtu’s iMobsters mob codes site provides a large list of mob codes as well as features to track the mob codes you’ve added and to also flag bad codes.  This saves you time in keeping you from re-entering codes or trying bad codes someone else has already flagged.  There are other sites out there with mob code lists, but to our knowledge, no other sites allow you to track the mob codes you’ve added or show the number or time a mob code has been added.

·         In addition the site also allows you to list your mob code so others can add you as well.  With over 1000 registered users and even more that use the site daily, posting your mob code will get you mob members when you are ready.

·         What are clans and how do they work iMobsters

·         Clans are groups of players that join together for the specific purpose of helping each other.  Whether it is answering questions for newer players, helping retaliate against someone farming a player or identifying ‘cows’ for other clan member to use, clans can be a very effective and fun way to play the game.

·         Communication, though, is key to a clan’s effectiveness.  There are few, if any sites out there for iMobster players to communicate privately and effectively with others.  One such site is Aygbatu iMobsters clan page.  Their clan features are very new but they are continuously enhancing the functionality.  Several features the site has that every clan should have access to are:

·   Clan list, so people can view at a glance the different clans available

·   Private message board, only for clan members.  You don’t want other players, especially farmers, to know the codes of your clan members

·   Easy recruiting tools, to join, accept, and manage your clan

·   Their iMobsters clan page is not limited to iMobsters.  It can be used to create clans for other Storm8 games like World War, Vampires Live, as well as Zynga game like Mafia Wars and Addmired games like iMob Online.

·   The site also includes other tools like iMobsters Real Estate Calculator, which is an essential tool for members to maximize their income and know the best units to buy

·   A future feature will be to allow clans to upload their own coat of arms or clan symbol

Two terms we’ve used in this article and should define for newer players are ‘farmers’ and ‘cows’.  Cows are players with good hourly income and weak defenses.  This makes you a target for people to attack you regularly for your income, which is referred to as ‘farming’.  While cows can bank their income.  Most players do not login enough to keep all their money from being exposed to farmers.  Farmers are players who are taking advantage of the cows by attacking them for their money.  Farmers use different strategies with varying levels of intensity.  The casual farmer attacks other players several times a day and will try to remember names, but won’t have hard links to players.  If the cow attack backs, the farmer will use that link, but once it gets pushed off their attack message log, they focus on other players.  When they find someone giving good money, they will attack to their limit or the cows limit and then move on.  Hard core farmers try to create hard links to cows, by hit listing them, or having links through their own mob members.  Hard core farmers will repeatedly attack a cow several times a day, every day.
We hope this guide has been helpful.  Feel free to post comments here or on Aygabtu’s iMobsters forum page or their iMobsters clan page.