Developer-Notes--2

Nothing is really revealed, and I agree they will never do so. Contrary to the popular belief that MA does these announcements to screw us up even more, I think it is a good move (though too much open for interpretation, ditto) and in fact should be treated a warning for those trying to squeeze ATH out of the game knowing their TT return is around 90% (thinking the game owes them something based on personal loot) and a warning for those using tools over their skill level. However I believe most of them will continue it anyway, gambling ftw.

Maybe their being investigated again by what the Swedish gambling / lottery commission and this is to say they're not giving preferential treatment, encouraging people to spend more than they should and implying that skills do matter and it's not random.
 
It could, but 2 considerations make it highly unlikely:
  1. If there's no info about previous actions (and their results) you effectively disable all safety mechanisms, therefore becoming extremely vulnerable against all new exploits and software glitches.
  2. Tests are showing a pattern* of few considerably higher (ten times up to thousands) returns among large amount of lower returns, the difference is too big for a simple randomization. If you are using some more complex algorithm for randomization it quickly becomes too resource consuming to execute with every single click.
In other words, it's not impossible but it's unlikely.

______________________
* "pattern" here isn't a clear and easily recognizable pattern ofc, obviously the goal is to make the system unpredictable, and we can assume special efforts to make it so. Could be several overlapping sinus waves or if it's just one then it might have random length... it's only examples how it could be made, idk ofc how it really works.

I agree it is unlikely, but i was just showing there are many possibly ways of doing it.

For mobs it is easy for MA, they can easily work out the least cost to kill any mob. Then make a random generator around 90% of that as payback. That way they would not payout over 100% tt. So if you are inefficient you are losing peds quicker than an eco person

Rgds

Ace

PS just an example, i have no proof of anything!
 
Anyone who is smart, or good in math and statistic can tell that the 90% TT return cannot happen if this is purely random and gambling.

Huh?

Ok ... Here's my point of view

A.) making good choices will affect your results ... BS ... Why? ... It's vague ... It is like telling someone oh you didn't win that lottery because you didn't buy the ticket ... It is still gambling. " good choices" has nothing to do with this game I can guarantee you that ... Right place at the right time ... Maybe ... But not good choices ... Tell me how can MA say dynamic and efficient way of playing in the same sentence. If an avatar/noob wins an ATH by doing something stupid we say ...oh it's dynamic ... And if an older avatar loses his shirt by doing the same we call him "inefficient" ... Or he can't play the game? ... To me that's just GAMBLING!

You think it would be right if a player who doesn't think about his approach and spends an average of 2 PED killing every mob X would end up doing as well as a player who carefully thinks about his approach and kills mob X with an average of 1.5 PED? If you think that then you might as well just buy lottery tickets instead.

B.) much less lottery is still gambling .... Just because people have more controll over poker or black jack it doesn't mean they will start putting them in your theme parks ... It is still gambling!

Sure, I've never said it's not gambling. It is skill-gambling imo, like poker, another gambling game where skillful players do better than less skillful players.

So why not have the discussion on EF where it'd actually belong to?

We can have the discussion anywhere. The discussion is more involved here, because this is the forum with the highest readership. The only way to have the same discussion on EF would be to tell everyone who's posted in this thread to go and post on EF instead. Many of us only have time to read one forum, and since this forum is essentially the old EF, this is where most people still post.
 
* "pattern" here isn't a clear and easily recognizable pattern ofc, obviously the goal is to make the system unpredictable, and we can assume special efforts to make it so. Could be several overlapping sinus waves or if it's just one then it might have random length... it's only examples how it could be made, idk ofc how it really works.
Those are the things I like and hope to be true for all players all the time....

I think the cyclical nature with variable length of loot drop is obvious to most players!

Personally I can live with no personal loot pool provided things like this doesn't happen.

However, I'd have preferred to have a personal loot pool withe a base tt return of ~ 90% with the most efficient setup.

For mobs it is easy for MA, they can easily work out the least cost to kill any mob. Then make a random generator around 90% of that as payback. That way they would not payout over 100% tt. So if you are inefficient you are losing peds quicker than an eco person

I like this model :)
 
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overlapping sinus waves???

:tongue2:
 
For mobs it is easy for MA, they can easily work out the least cost to kill any mob. Then make a random generator around 90% of that as payback. That way they would not payout over 100% tt.
You are psychic, that's exactly how i imagined it! :)
Kinda good cop - bad cop system. By default you always spend more than you get (bad cop) and the next correction cycle is the good cop who gives it back. On special occasions there's swirlies.

overlapping sinus waves???
umm.. maybe it's not perfect english, but i hope u get the point.
On a second thought, no, it's the other way around - actually it's very useful if nobody gets the point. :p
 
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What MA is saying is that you should take care about your skills and playing style as spending more thus not necessarily imply to get more. This is old news, but at least officially confirmed now.

Keeping it simple, exactly my thoughts too, and nicely put.

Rick
 
The lack of a personal loot tracker still doesn't disprove the fact that MA gives back an average of 90% TT back and takes a 10% cut, it could just mean our loots average in the long term due to increased volume to match the expected return. Still...

We are neither. It seems we were simply wrong.

This changes nothing about the returns we've found in our tests. It simply means we came to the wrong conclusions.

RULE #1: When you find you are wrong, admit it and move on.

We simply try to figure out which variables we missed & do more tests. We try to figure out exactly what "Efficiency" means. We drop the "personal loot pool" concept. We move on.

This is not a bad thing.

Why do I have to admit I am wrong with no proof?
Just because MA says so? They are known to always tell the truth, right? Perhaps you remember a previous VU this year about robot beacons?

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...?224686-Planet-calypso-content-release-2012-2

Check it out, how does that thing they say there about loot works if there is no tracking?

Oh, I've been told, better admit it and move on... sorry, I'm not an american.


MY RULE #N: When you find you are wrong, admit it and move on. BUT only when "I find", not only when someone else says that "I am wrong".


In this case, the community does NOT find that we are wrong, so we don't admit it. There is no guarantee that this Developer Note is made to be 100% correct, at least not in EULA.

Some people get it.

I've to admit that MA is correct about the above statement about the methodology!
Sadly this is true. Most test done here are not very well planned or executed. Still most test trying to prove personal loot theory have shown a bias towards personal tracking compared to random expectations. I can't ignore this, because numbers don't lie.

You go with the evidence you have and cling to your beliefs, but when you find evidence to the contrary,

What evidence?!

Anyway, I'll shut up now and go find some evidence....
 
8looks at my own signature*

:silly2:
 
The lack of a personal loot tracker still doesn't disprove the fact that MA gives back an average of 90% TT back and takes a 10% cut

Once upon a time MA stated, in a very similar note with this dev note, that they only take decay money and that the rest returns.. :)
 
Once upon a time MA stated, in a very similar note with this dev note, that they only take decay money and that the rest returns.. :)

Sure, so they take 40% decay from my MF chips + MF implant + Armor and give back the ME value? Nope!
Do they take just 2% decay from Opalo and Mod Merc and return only ammo value? Nope!


They posted lots of stuff about decay, that they only take decay, but wait, decay is not what we think it is, they take just a part of it, and so on... very contradicting statements where words mean something else every time, just like now.
 
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lol if i had my imp mk2 again i would show you that there is no personal lootpool and dmg/pec really matter
but i'm not ready to spend 16+ hours a day having only +300 ped profits in the end of the day, also, knowing that a wave of good loot on a mob will enevitable bring people who spend their time sitting in the tracker just for it.

I'd rather have an IMK2 and have 300 peds over at the end of the day, than having to deposit 300 peds/day for markup on (good) (L) items (looted by the people with the IMK2s).

Especially if all what counts is pure efficiency/weapon economics. And if each killed mob is an individual lottery ticket - if your chance of getting let's say an item is proportional to how many mobs you're able to grind through (can be measured in dmg/sec or kill/hour, or the number of kills you'll make until your out of PEDs for the month).

In a way the MA post I wonder if it's directed to me lol. Yesterday evening I decided to use up the gazz I looted throughout the robot event (some 100 ped worth) on "oreamp 101" on condition (to see if there was a 110k ped oreamp HOF waiting). That run was a failure lol. (It was a deliberate risk from my side, I wanted to see if I would get something out of the ordinary.)
 
Oh, and how random can you get:

9EQcS.png


Why are MISSes and Criticals grouped together? Why are rare loots dropping together? Why are some loot parts dropped in bigger stacks after a period where you didn't get enough of them, or in some periods they drop in low constant volume, ALWAYS aiming for a preset return constant that can be seen.

Guess what falkao, Steffel and Noodles, your proof work here, is wrong.
And guess what jjmatrix, you were wrong too.
Noiseless that tracked his activity over 3 years, is wrong too.
BaronNuss, stop logging your 90% returns, you are clearly wrong somehow...
Oh, DoubleWolf is wrong too, JimmyB is wrong too, and even mrproper is wrong too.

Now, who is right?! Show yourselves and step forward so we may admit our mistakes to you.
 
Now, who is right?! Show yourselves and step forward so we may admit our mistakes to you.


:scratch2:

I don't quite understand your point here.

Nothing what the dev notes say makes the data "wrong". If someone says, well, I look at my numbers and see that I get back 70%, 80%, 90% or x% of what I regularly put in, then this statement is not wrong, either, if this is what the numbers show.

What the dev notes say is: Your money input is irrelevant for the calculation of your loot.

EDIT: I should probably rephrase that to "the sum of money you have put into the game", as the amount of peds you use for a click or a kill seems to be a factor.
 
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:scratch2:

I don't quite understand your point here.

Nothing what the dev notes say makes the data "wrong". If someone says, well, I look at my numbers and see that I get back 70%, 80%, 90% or x% of what I regularly put in, then this statement is not wrong, either, if this is what the numbers show.

What the dev notes say is: Your money input is irrelevant for the calculation of your loot.

There are clearly two things:
- using uneco gear (not specified if UL lvl 100 weps used at lower lvls, or not yet SIB weps and tools) will result in penalties, expenses are not returned. Also doing stupid shit like shooting dead mobs, bombing the same place after no hits and crafting unskilled BPs will not be compensated.
- there is no loot or expenses tracking, if you have a bad day, then those losses are forever, if you get a big hof, you get to keep it forever.

Both of these have not been confirmed by any test that I know of. The tests that I linked to contradict the dev notes in some manner.
 
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Guess what falkao, Steffel and Noodles, your proof work here, is wrong.

I fail to see anything about this test that has been disproven or is contradicted by the developer note number 2. Then again, their test does not touch upon personal loot pools at all either.
 
And there I was thinking that discussion of religion and politics was not allowed on PCF... :laugh:

Still don't get why some are saying that without a personal loot pool you can't have a spike of good loot after poor loot, all that takes is a cyclic function around some mean. If you want to capture a short-term inefficiency to soften the landing for idiots and sleep-hunters :ahh:, you can track a short-term efficiency and include it in the function somewhere.

I've long assumed that hunting loot return averages out to some value near the 3 dmg/pec range, which has obviously been adjusted up as the overall economy of weapons used has increased (everyone is now on maxed SIBs). So let's say that average has been reduced to around 0.32 pec / hp today (making 3.125 dmg/pec the magical "break even" economy). That gives your average hunter, if your average hunter hunts at what seems like a reasonable level of 2.85 dmg/pec effective economy, a return of 91% over a very long time (remember that the data DOES show the loot to be long-tailed, whatever else may be at dispute here).

Assume a function like the one i describe above that cycles around a 0.32 pec/hp average. At a shorter time for most people, return could come out as 90%, and if you look at a short segment you could get even 50% or 150% over a few hunts, even with this same "reasonable economy".

Now, maybe that function's average value is actually a bit lower 0.31pec / hp, which might be more accurate. That would make 3.2 dmg/pec the break-even number, something unattainable by most everyone. This would give the 2.85 average Joe an 88% return.

You don't need to posit a "personal loot pool" to see most people getting around 90% return. That doesn't make it a magic number, though. There have been long-term logs showing returns nearer 100% (one that MrProper about crapped his pants at as I recall). That was from an imk2, not surprisingly.

Anyway, I mostly wanted to repeat what I said on page 14: you don't need a loot pool to get boom/bust cycles on an avatar.
 
There are clearly two things:
- using uneco gear (not specified if UL lvl 100 weps used at lower lvls, or not yet SIB weps and tools) will result in penalties, expenses are not returned. Also doing stupid shit like shooting dead mobs, bombing the same place after no hits and crafting unskilled BPs will not be compensated.
- there is no loot or expenses tracking, if you have a bad day, then those losses are forever, if you get a big hof, you get to keep it forever.

Both of these have not been confirmed by any test that I know of. The tests that I linked to contradict the dev notes in some manner.


Whether "efficient" (as they put it in the dev notes) is exactly the same as "eco" is not clear. - Some results suggest that this is not the case.

I can see nothing in these test that can actually prove whether there is a tracking of expenses or not. - How do you suggest such a test would look like?
 
Wow... I took the time to read through most of this thread. I think the statement by MA just more proves that things have changed and that they are telling us. There's to many people, including myself that have used the same set up for years and know it's changed. We noticed a big change last fall. I can't speak to what's happened over the past few months as I've not been playing due to that change. From what's posted, seems even more has changed.

I sadly have 0 enthusiasm to play this anymore. NO, not due to just the loot but I've felt for a long time that's there's not been a 'fair' exchange of skills for time and effort spent. Skills is a big part of what motivates gamers.

One more thing - I call BULLSHIT on the skills thing at least when it comes to HA. I miss just as much with a 10/10 Weapon as one that it 7.4 ish / 10. So telling us that it 'matters' well,... guess I don't see that part of it.

You've killed our investments with the introduction of L weapons and armors. You've killed our ability to skill in any reasonable manner. You've changed the mobs with their regen. You've changed the loots from the mobs.... 0 trust and faith in this anymore... so sad.

/out
Casay
 
Wow... I took the time to read through most of this thread. I think the statement by MA just more proves that things have changed and that they are telling us. There's to many people, including myself that have used the same set up for years and know it's changed. We noticed a big change last fall. I can't speak to what's happened over the past few months as I've not been playing due to that change. From what's posted, seems even more has changed.

I sadly have 0 enthusiasm to play this anymore. NO, not due to just the loot but I've felt for a long time that's there's not been a 'fair' exchange of skills for time and effort spent. Skills is a big part of what motivates gamers.

One more thing - I call BULLSHIT on the skills thing at least when it comes to HA. I miss just as much with a 10/10 Weapon as one that it 7.4 ish / 10. So telling us that it 'matters' well,... guess I don't see that part of it.

You've killed our investments with the introduction of L weapons and armors. You've killed our ability to skill in any reasonable manner. You've changed the mobs with their regen. You've changed the loots from the mobs.... 0 trust and faith in this anymore... so sad.

/out
Casay


Excellent post Casay :)
 
One more thing - I call BULLSHIT on the skills thing at least when it comes to HA. I miss just as much with a 10/10 Weapon as one that it 7.4 ish / 10. So telling us that it 'matters' well,... guess I don't see that part of it.
The problem isn't so much in the hit ability, more in the mean damage that you output, 10-50 dmg range vs. 25-50 dmg range.
 
The problem isn't so much in the hit ability, more in the mean damage that you output, 10-50 dmg range vs. 25-50 dmg range.

And you still get loot proportional to expenses and not mob kills. So skills zero points, money infinity points :)
 
This was a bit vague imo.
They state that eco matters, and so does your efficiency.

They didnt said in which way, there can be a lot of intepertations.

You could say that lower eco and maxed skills would make you have the same avg loot than higher eco. Since eco will make you have higher/ lower loot, and efficiency will tell if you do better or worse.

You could say that Higher eco + maxed skills = profit on long term and higher tt return or even profit tt return.

a lot of things could be taken from here.
Its interesting to see in such a short time such a huge fuzz!

Keep on comming the developers notes!
 
Whether "efficient" (as they put it in the dev notes) is exactly the same as "eco" is not clear. - Some results suggest that this is not the case.

From original post:

Efficiency Matters - One issue that we have noticed being discussed quite frequently on community forums such as PlanetCalypsoForm.com is the concept of efficiency (sometimes referred to as economy)
Originally Posted Here

In usual terms though economy and efficiency is different.
Breer m1+a101 is very economic; but for most mobs, especially regen ones, it's not efficient. (I did a run on atrax with that combo a couple of years ago and got 30 ped armor decay for 20 minutes of hunting.)

As for economics there are two several sides:
- One is the raw cost/shot cost. How much ammo and decay it costs for "1 dmg" at a theoretical max hit; for opalo say 4 HP/pec. For IMK2 4.6 HP/pec. For Mux boxingglove 2 HP/pec.
- Effective eco when less ideal hits are taken into account and this depends on skill level. Let's say 3 HP/pec on a maxed opalo.
- Eco when markup% is accounted for. At 160%, cost for Dai Katana(L) would be say 2 HP/PEC.
 
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We didnt get release notes from the last VU, instead we received this. Did anyone notice?
 
I'd rather have an IMK2 and have 300 peds over at the end of the day, than having to deposit 300 peds/day for markup on (good) (L) items (looted by the people with the IMK2s).

I would just like to say that since I moved up my hunting on more skilled based mobs, for example scips or sumima, I do loot a lot of L weapons. I see HL8 from scips, and sometimes LR53 from sumima.

I use an LR (L) to loot those weapons, and I convinced that skills unlocked those loots for me, using the right weapon + skill to trigger those loots.

I will generally keep any LR's carbines I loot, as I need them to hunt, but if I have a surplus and lucky enough to loot more than I currently need, I will add to auction.

I added an X5 (L) from CP the other day to auction, as I dont really use handguns much.

So point is I don't have uber guns, but I do loot good Limited guns.

Personally I would rather hunt with Limited becasue it seems to work for me. I can not afford an unlimited uber gun, and even if i could, i'm not sure if i would trust it to trgger loot for me.

we all stick with what we know, although I think the community would be surprised to learn that it is not only the ubers that pull good guns from mobs for sale in auction.

I'm level 62 rilfe (hit).

Rick
 
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