Developer-Notes--3

P.S.
About scopes and sights, I got information from MA official stating that in hunting the only difference is getting more skills, no HA changes.

Interesting if what that MA official states is true: as that would contradict the VU notes from 2010 "The attachment gives a bonus to the user's hit ability and it has full effect". If a statement on a VU note can be totally incorrect - playing devil's advocate here - so could these dev notes.
 
There is one way it could be true, e.g. if you're not yet maxed on a gun, scopes etc. COULD give a bonus. However this is a speculation as the question I asked to the official was more like if I am maxed, do I need the scopes/sights on which the answer was no, unless i want increased skill-gain.
Interesting if what that MA official states is true: as that would contradict the VU notes from 2010 "The attachment gives a bonus to the user's hit ability and it has full effect". If a statement on a VU note can be totally incorrect - playing devil's advocate here - so could these dev notes.
 
Agreed, best of luck to minim but imho with level 60 it's a bad idea.
P.S. MA placed HA over dmg/pec...
It did before everyone moved to SIBs. It's a bit trickier with 2.9x eco now that the average eco is north of 2.8.
 
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Well, I like to take statements at face value, then consider if they are wrong, or technically right but leaving other important things out of the statement.
“The single most important effort a hunter can make in becoming more efficient in his or her hunting activities is to always use weapons which are “maxed”...”
Stating that ‘maxing’ IS the single most important effort... has to mean that nothing tops this – unless the statement is wrong....
Either this wrongly leaves out the effects of not using a finisher weapon in some circumstances, or there is no STRONG effect of overkill. This point also relates to the number of shots needed to kill a particular mob, as it changes the balance between missed shots and overkill factor.

“An avatar will enjoy much better overall hunting results over time when using weapons with higher damage per pec.”
If tips such as these really are the TOP TIPS, then it should also mean that slowly killing a mob with high regen is not more inefficient than what we are being advised here – otherwise that would be a top tip instead.

What we therefore actually need to know for these tips to be truly meaningful is what loot payout in tt is actually based upon – the hp of the mob killed or the damage we do to it (including possible overkill). I realise that what is actually looted will depend on loot tables etc, but a basic statement here is more meaningful than these ‘top tips’, which many people (including me) will question....

Still, thank you MA for this interesting series, and you can see that there is VERY high interest in this. Please continue, and I accept that it is not not easy to do a great job, but am thankful that you are now improving communication. :)
 
There is one way it could be true, e.g. if you're not yet maxed on a gun, scopes etc. COULD give a bonus. However this is a speculation as the question I asked to the official was more like if I am maxed, do I need the scopes/sights on which the answer was no, unless i want increased skill-gain.

In any case, I think the attachment issue is due to be addressed in a Dev Note. It's been a bundle of mystery and cryptic messages since the beginning.
 
There is one way it could be true, e.g. if you're not yet maxed on a gun, scopes etc. COULD give a bonus. However this is a speculation as the question I asked to the official was more like if I am maxed, do I need the scopes/sights on which the answer was no, unless i want increased skill-gain.

Ahh, ok, that makes more sense, because my tests have shown a statistically significant increase in hit-rate when using attachments on unmaxed weapons. I haven't done a comprehensive test on maxed weapons yet but I did run a couple K ped through with attachments and could not see any difference. Hitrate was ~89.6 iirc. Details of my previous tests are in my mission log if anyone is interested.
 
Agreed, best of luck to minim but imho with level 60 it's a bad idea.
P.S. MA placed HA over dmg/pec...

Might also be just because there is a very very few guns you can use at lower lvls and pass the sib weapons in dmg/pec but time will show :p Might just get impatient and chip to 80-sh tho :ahh:
 
Either this wrongly leaves out the effects of not using a finisher weapon in some circumstances, or there is no STRONG effect of overkill. This point also relates to the number of shots needed to kill a particular mob, as it changes the balance between missed shots and overkill factor.

There is no strong effect in overkill in any realistic scenario.
 
[h=3]Developer Notes #3[/h]



Hunting Efficiency Examined - The last Developer Notes article sought to stress the importance of efficiency in Entropia Universe, but did not provide a clear definition of what is meant by the term efficiency. We would like to offer a bit more insight for the benefit of the community, and in this article will focus on ways to become more efficient in Entropia Universe’s most popular profession, hunting. Efficiency tips for the mining and manufacturing professions will be covered in a future article.

Efficiency in hunting has several components, the most vital of which is Hit Ability (sometimes abbreviated as HA). Hit Ability is a measure of how accurate you avatar is with a weapon. You can view your avatar’s Hit Ability on a weapon by right-clicking on the weapon and viewing the item’s information panel. Based on your avatar’s skills and the requirements for the particular weapon, a number between 0.0 and 10.0 will be calculated and displayed. The single most important effort a hunter can make in becoming more efficient in his or her hunting activities is to always use weapons which are “maxed” -- weapons with which your avatar has 10.0 Hit Ability. The importance of this cannot be stressed strongly enough.

A second and very important part of efficient hunting is to consider the relative cost of using a particular weapon, often referred to as weapon economy, usually measured as damage per PEC. This measures how efficiently, in terms of weapon decay and ammo consumption, a weapon produces each point of damage. An avatar will enjoy much better overall hunting results over time when using weapons with higher damage per pec. Many community websites, such as www.entropiawiki.com, offer detailed statistics on the economy of nearly all the various weapons available in Entropia Universe. The MindArk development team is also considering including more detailed economy statistics on the item information panel in an upcoming release to improve the availability of such information.

Another important part of hunting efficiently is making sure that your avatar has achieved the full damage capability of the weapon being used. Like Hit Ability, damage capability is calculated based on the avatar’s skills and the weapon’s requirements, and is shown in the format Actual_Damage / Maximum_Damage on the item information panel. For example: 10.0-20.0 / 10.0-20.0. To be the most efficient as possible, make sure to hunt with weapons on which your avatar has reached the weapon’s maximum damage potential.

Finally, be sure to hunt creatures within your avatar's skill level. Creatures within Entropia Universe are designed with avatars of varying skill levels and equipment in mind, and each creature type has different attack speeds, regeneration rates, hit probabilities and damage potential. It is a good idea to avoid excessive armor decay and healing costs when trying to hunt as efficiently as possible.

One of the wonderful things about Entropia Universe is its very knowledgeable and helpful community of participants. There is a wealth of information available to newcomers and veterans alike on the various Entropia Universe community websites and forums, and participants are encouraged to seek out the accumulated wisdom and tutorials available there. There are also many helpful mentors and societies that can be found in major cities on each planet, or contacted through the Mentor Register and Society Terminals.

We hope that this article has provided some valuable tips for your future hunting expeditions.
Happy hunting!




Originally Posted Here



For years, information like this has been shared throughout the community on forums.

Now, MindArk seems it is important to "officially" verify important game information on the forums.




Will all the detailed information about Entropia that is now being provided by MindArk be available for new players directly in the game? Maybe this information would be better utilized as detailed training instructional manuals available on terminals in the starter areas of each planet partner?

<Please forgive the question if the above information is indeed already available in game, as I haven't been to a new player starter area since the release of Arkadia over a year ago... I don't recall reading info about hunting that was quite this detailed.>
 
After thinking about it for a while, i came to the conclusion that the dev notes we have all of a sudden are nothing but MAs response to the survey...


Loot sucks? Yeah, that's YOUR fault, because your play INEFFICIENTLY!


And in between the lines you can read this:

No, we're not going to change the loot system to reduce the costs to play. Are you nuts? That'd mean "less money for us"!!!11


There definitely WAS a "personal loot pool", as long term loots always converged towards a certain percentile.
This is not possible without "tracking losses".



However, the system has obviously been changed ~1.5 years ago, in one of those "bugfix only VUs", because my mining, which worked absolutely fine before, has turned into utter gambling - and no, i didn't change anything, use maxed tools only and not even amps. How could i be "more efficient"?


That they pick a (player created, mind you!) value like Dmg/PEC now to tell us that is all OUR fault is merely a joke, and i consider this new "loot system" gambling. I wonder if these changes got the approval of the swedish authorities (don't they have to announce any changes? So the authorities can re-evaluate them?).


However, as i see no way to "improve my efficiency" i will simply stick to the most logical step:

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

Just looking forward to dev notes #4, where they tell me WHAT an experienced miner with over 5 years ingame is doing so incredibly wrong all of a sudden, and based upon these, decide if i cash out and reduce my playing to opalo hunting and rookie mining.
 
...
There definitely WAS a "personal loot pool", as long term loots always converged towards a certain percentile.
This is not possible without "tracking losses".

sry, but this does not hold true. Take a fair die. All numbers will have the same frequency on the long run, but there is for sure no memory.
 
Take a fair die.

Take a fair weapon that does 50dps (lvl 40+ avatar) and uses 20 pecs per second. Now you lose 2 pecs a second because 90% return. Don't put in armor, fap, fees, oil, whatever fees in. Go play the game like any other normal person having fun in their free time for about 20$ a month (a decent pay for a more "active' gameplay). Perhaps you think there is markup or something, and you can utilize about 5% of it. Ok then, you only lose 1 pec a second. Begin hunt:

20$ = 200 PED = 10000 seconds x 0.02 PED = 2.77 hours of gameplay.

"Fair enjoyment"
 
sry, but this does not hold true. Take a fair die. All numbers will have the same frequency on the long run, but there is for sure no memory.

I didn't post more details because i wanted to avoid exactly this discussion.

However, if you take 2000 bombs (old bombs, 2k PED - and i did that countless times) and go mining, and track your return all the time, and if you go below 66% you always get a bigger claim that gets you back to 66% - that alone would mean they just repay 2/3rd per bomb, which could be generated by a "fair die".


But then you hit a global, and end up with pretty exactly 90% of TT spent (give or take a few ped).
All the time.

And the payouts always come at the same time (not going to say more here, this is already too much info), after a 5 min streak of next to nothing - how could your "fair dice" explain this?


These results do require tracking of (personal) losses (at least session based) and imo prove the existance of a player based loot.


However, it changed a while after cryengine came out - they changed it and they did not tell us, until now.
 
sry, but this does not hold true. Take a fair die. All numbers will have the same frequency on the long run, but there is for sure no memory.

i hope its good for you to see your research officially confirmed after all these years, the statistical analysis you did at the time for mining loot helped the community a lot, at least for those that made their decisions based on this work.
 
I didn't post more details because i wanted to avoid exactly this discussion.

...

sry, but although loot is random there is an upper and lower limit on it and hence there will be a correlation between adjacent loot values.
Get a series of uniform random numbers in the range 0-1 and then make a scatterplot of x(n), x(n+1) - x(n) and you'll see what I mean.
 
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sry, but although loot is random there is an upper and lower limit on it and hence there will be a correlation between adjacent loot values.
Get a series of uniform random numbers in the range 0-1 and then make a scatterplot of x(n), x(n+1) - x(n) and you'll see what I mean.

Upper and lower limit? Based on what exactly?

How would you calculate a "limit" without tracking returns?
Based on costs of drop?

How would you hit a 100K ped tower with one unamped bomb drop when there are "limits"?
 
Upper and lower limit? Based on what exactly?

Zero is the lower limit as none of us ever observed a negative loot.
The upper limit? Who knows, might be is several 10k's.
 
Zero is the lower limit as none of us ever observed a negative loot.

Obviously.

The upper limit? Who knows, might be is several 10k's.

Could be no limit at all then?
Or an arbitrary limit?

This renders your whole objection pointless somehow.
 
wizz is exactly right that there were personal loot pools which have now been removed. I believe the change happened around the beginning of March. Have no doubt that these personal loot pools did return even ped wasted into thin air. As myself and others mentioned in the previous dev notes, this is something that has been tested multiple times by wasting large amounts of ped only to see it returned in big hofs.
 
Very strange that i never got anything back in a big hof during my 8 years here then...
There were never personal lootpools, NEVER!
 
Very interesting, I currently use a completely maxed unl version of a L weapon with an amp that is a perfect fit for that weapon, I've hunted all sorts of mobs with this combo both armored and unarmored, the highest solo hunting achived was around 200 ped. However the best hunting hof I ever got was 4k+ using a gdc with a HA of 1.5 and a beast amp that's one damage point too large for that gun, talk about the most UN Eco set up, go figure???
 
it should be noted that only one person in this thread backs up what he says with a statistical analysis of data

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?132510-Mining-loot-analysis

It should be noted that he's not the only one analysing loots, he's just one of the few who published his results.

It is, however, not the point which (whos) data are published, only how you interprete them.
And publishing your data doesn't make your conclusions any better, just more transparent.
 
It should be noted that he's not the only one analysing loots, he's just one of the few who published his results.

It is, however, not the point which (whos) data are published, only how you interprete them.
And publishing your data doesn't make your conclusions any better, just more transparent.

true of course, maybe i was hoping others could back up their interpretations with data in the same way falkao did?
because i hope we all understand the difference in credibility between published data and it is so because i tell you it is so? :)
otherwise everyone would be buying these rejuvenating face creams they advertise that are proven to make you younger

oh...wait.. :p
 
true of course, maybe i was hoping others could back up their interpretations with data in the same way falkao did?
because i hope we all understand the difference in credibility between published data and it is so because i tell you it is so? :)

Yes, and it is always better to have some hard facts - i just never wanted to discuss this nor publish my data.

I mentioned my own observations/conclusions because some people here know exactly what i refer to (i.e. have made similar comments in the past).
Feel free to not believe me, for me it is a proven fact that returns are (were) somehow tracked.


otherwise everyone would be buying these rejuvenating face creams they advertise that are proven to make you younger

oh...wait.. :p

:D

Who knows, placebos work by only believing they do work...



And in general:

Roulette long term results do converge to an (easily calculateable) return rate, too - it is STILL gambling, which we know EU is NOT. And that's the only 100% credible official statement (read: not from MA) we have.
 
true of course, maybe i was hoping others could back up their interpretations with data in the same way falkao did?
because i hope we all understand the difference in credibility between published data and it is so because i tell you it is so? :)
otherwise everyone would be buying these rejuvenating face creams they advertise that are proven to make you younger

oh...wait.. :p
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArCjwt1opDOedEpUYXRUaXFtZk9TVzlGX0dRTWZGLVE#gid=0
Not even once i've been over 90% in TT returns, may i say that it's a rubbish fallacy that there's a personal loot pool, or there's something like "90% returns".
Of course it's not analyzed, but i can happily throw my data to falkao to make what ever conclusions from it.
 
First Let me say I am glad they put more information, because it was vague.

Now the problem:
the steps they say
check
check
and double check

I get the most dmg/pec gun I can afford... to go beyond that I have to spent like 8k to buy it
Maybe If i can find a mod LR59(L), but otherwise I do the best I can.
So doing all that, and my money usually still goes super fast

The next thing is they say pick ur mob wisely. This is sort of vague also, but I don't expect them to define this.
I mean should I hunt Bibos if I'm uber because no armor and fap decay?
Should I hunt one big mob instead of 10 smaller?

So I'm left with... do what your doing and I may or may not be wrong in my choices

so I'm left where I already am
Thanks for the info though, it's more than we ever have had
 
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