In the pre-loot 2.0 system you didn't need an in depth knowledge of the game. All you needed was level 100 laser sniper/damage and an Imk2 and you could figuratively print PEDs by hunting and getting over 100% return in the TT. Markup didn't hardly matter except to push the profits further.
Arguably, loot 2.0 making that 7% max variance actually makes in depth knowledge of the game far more valuable, as profits are now based more on markup than they are on DPP.
Hunting specific mobs is more important than ever before. With no more ability to consistently make PEDs by hyper eco hunting, you MUST pick your mobs based on markup in order to generate a profit.
When you say "useful items were removed" what exactly are you referring to? There are some old school components (advanced target assessment units, BTAUs, etc) which were removed, but they were replaced with a new blueprint series (ArMatrix) which has done a better job of improving the overall economy, as animal oils actually sell now to ArMatrix crafters consistently (whereas before they were sold basically to gamblers looking for cheap BPs to click).
If you take an objective look at the threads on the forums regarding loot, you will notice several trends. "This creature didn't carry any loot", absence of markup due to looting BLP packs/weapon cells, and the exaggerated swings high and low of loot volatility were all major issues that a large number of the playerbase found frustrating for years. All three of these have been resolved over time. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it's just a sample of examples to make the point.
Would you mind showing me an example of a suggestion made by a "non-depositing beginner who has seen the game for a single week" which was actually implemented?
There is a fundamental issue here - and that is that this is not WoW or Runescape or some other subscription based game where you can just boycott for a few weeks, come back, and the game will be running as usual. This is a dynamic real cash economy. The vast majority of value ingame is in markup, which is exclusively based on the players. If the economy ingame collapsed everyone would lose significant value. You can't just boycott and then expect to come back to business as usual, it's more complex than that.
The system doesn't favor beginners more. If you go out and kill 100,000 punies with a weapon that has 60% efficiency rating, your returns will be nearly the same as if you had hunted 100,000 Warlocks with a weapon that has a 60% efficiency rating. The difference is that along the way, you would probably end up with more marketable loot (and therefor more markup) from the warlocks than the punies.
Yes, for the first part, definitely. HALF of the 2.0 implementation is good, which is loot composition then. But turning the global return from a specific mob by being more eco then others into a watered down version of a 'personal lootpool' is just nasty. I wouldn't have complained one bit if the implementation was 'ok, we got a large problem with people being able to turn over thousands of dollars by investing tens of thousands of dollars', but they didn't stop there. Now, it's only about composition, not anymore about how much PED you actually stuff into any sort of mob. Got 5% extra crit as well as 30% extra crit damage? Pfft.. who cares, actually, let us punish you for paying a literal 2500 Dollars for it, you won't even get as much as someone not using them since you overkill regularly by a larger margin!
Now, imagine the other way around. Mcdumb which just came into the game, not even wanting to see what 'eco' is, or why he shouldn't use the biggest of the biggest items in a Carabok goes out after paying a thousand dollars in the game, starting to shoot with an unmaxed gun 40 levels above him and Angel armor at them. He nearly returns the same amount of PED as the other one, well, nearly because his hit ratio is a mess, but otherwise the TT return is THE SAME, exactly. Why? He still gets at least some MU, not much, but definitely more then the 5% return that could be expected formerly, roughly around 85%. Such stupidity is now able to suck dry the loot-pool
of the others. He will be able to play a 'decent' amount of time with his money, time he hasn't earned in any way, just the contrary, who needs any sort of system rewarding those players in any way rather then those putting tons and tons of effort into it?
Armatrix: Yes, a great thing. It's a good change definitely, one I can approve of. Those 'useful items' I mean are the following things. Have you tried hunting smaller ranged mobs in the last months? Trying to get any sort of weapon from them? Before I returned roughly a month ago I looted a gun every 500 PED at least, given I was hunting Hadraada for instance, which are always a loss, but I did it for fun. I could do it with the other parts making me profit. Now, hunting Carabok made me definitely get 5-10 guns for beginners with 500 PED. Not anymore. I can be glad, very and extremely glad if I get a single gun somehwere, actually, I haven't dropped one singular piece of equipment in any form since returning, and my turnover in hunting to test out the new system was bigger then my whole testing amount of 2 years before already since I wasn't overly active.
Besides that ArMatrix did a very good job of at least saving part of the downsides from initiating other systems, like already said, MA is great in introducing great systems and with the same breath breaking 2 others on the side.
As by the reasons you stated as complaints. Sure, they were, I wasn't happy with no-peders either, nur was I with fragments or ridiculous swings. It was an extreme, one which wasn't good in any way and it needed to be remedied. Now it's the other extreme. It's the same as giving someone food. If you give him none he will complain, and of you shove a week worth of food down his throat I very likely guess he'll complain as well, is any of those good? No, it's the balancing line.
Formerly loot was ridiculously unbalanced at some times, it needed slight shifts, adaptations to the existing system. Not a bulldozer turning it around into the exact opposite position. Why not make it a flat line completely? No more multipliers, no more extra events, just pure return for each mob which is always the same? Sounds boring? Yes, definitely is, that's what happened with the changes which are many seeing, it's friggin boring, volatility was taken down too much, now we need to put it back up again.
Also, show me one single implementation which was suggested that hasn't been warped beyond oblivion but actually implemented exactly as stated, without extra baggage attached, same conundrum, you won't be able to find one, MA usually needs to make it 'extra sparkly' and thus failing, keep it simple.
And yes, a boycott would risk the ruin of this game, immediate action needs to be taken then, or the other way people will just silently leave and people will then cry 'oh why, why is this happening?' I'm rather making it clear up-front then simply vanish into nothingness.
As for the 60% efficiency model you presented: wrong. Sorry to say that. A beginner can't return the same rate as an uber at the exact same mobs. Loot composition ruins it because of looter skills which are a bad idea. Also since the events for an actual drop can't trigger you'll see more % of loot being returned in shrapnel rather then actual MU items. Also the initial thought process of mine was revolving around the concept of 'whales' as well as the concept of the pareto principal which is showing that those upper few are always shifting in and out, never staying the same for extended periods of time with exception of a few core members. Meaning you need them, there needs to be a way for others to achieve this status and those people need an incentive to get this status and therefore put money into the system since they feel it's 'worth' it.
For a proper model you need to take in every variable, forgetting them is fine, but leaving out already mentioned ones means it's just shifting it into your favor, I can do that easily as well, but I want to get to the core of the problem, not step around it while trying to defend a point per se. The moment I realize that there actually is a way to profit along the way, there is a way for people to stay above 100% permanently as long as they keep their eyes open and there isn't an actual broken system is the first second I'll say 'good, topic resolved, let's close it!' which sadly isn't the case in the least.
As for the other 2 posts: Neither the game nor the theory is complicated, just not the right size for the playerbase, which is absolutely true. Shrapnel still is a bad thing, and I still come back with the exact same amount of stackables when hunting prolonged amounts of time, meaning 4+ hours, just the amount of items at all is less, meaning I return less MU then before which is killing my rates without any crafters making up for it, therefore making me loose out, therefore ruining my motivation, therefore slowly loosing me as an active player as soon as my funds are fully dwindled down.