The shrapnel conundrom

Hello, I have a question in regards to the new shrapnel loot change.

As of now it is possible to p2p trade, TT or convert shrapnel, it is however not possible to auction it. My question is why was the decision to allow for all avenues of trade except auctioning, by far the most convenient way to trade.

By disabling auctioning i think that melee users who was just recently graced with amps to be more equal to ranged will now be faced with a new dissadvantage, Not only will they have a certain % lower turn over posibility on a per ped basis but if they actually want to sell there shrapnel with a markup then they will need to stand in the rain for hours looking for a buyer.

In addition to the issue for melee users there is the issue of bound items, or in this case not bound but severely restricted to how effectively it can be traded. I think this is rather odd since if it could be traded rapidly it would mean less liability on the part of MindArk in the long run as well as less stagnation for the ingame economy helping everyone involved.

My understanding of items that had similair properties in the past, like calypso bone samples were that they were aimed at beginners thus making trade restricted to p2p trades ment that the new player would need to interact with others upon arrival rather then a GUI strengthening a sense of community, thus helping retention rates. With shrapnel this is not really the case.

I am not here for a witch hunt i am genuinely interested in why this decision was taken, so please lets keep this clean and give MA/PP's ample time to answer here or in a dev note.

Thank you and best regards
Zweshi

when was the last time that you sold something in auction for less than 101% ?


MA is doing some people a favour by disallowing them to make a obvious mistake.

Would it be that hard to make a private trade with one of your friends or even a random person passing by and sell it for 100.8% (for a product with a reasonable demand)?

With auction fee to get that much from auction you need a pretty big stack, if you are able to accumulate that much, it shouldn't be hard to get a buyer.



What MA can do to make melee users happy would be something like:

Besides creating universal ammo the shrapnel could also create a consumable TT repairing item (which could be used, for example, to repair an UL item for the TT ammount that the item had available).
Melee weapons and mining gear users would also start buying shrapnel for sure, making your auction issue void.

MG Mighty said:

when was the last time that you sold something in auction for less than 101% ?


MA is doing some people a favour by disallowing them to make a obvious mistake.

Would it be that hard to make a private trade with one of your friends or even a random person passing by and sell it for 100.8% (for a product with a reasonable demand)?

With auction fee to get that much from auction you need a pretty big stack, if you are able to accumulate that much, it shouldn't be hard to get a buyer.



What MA can do to make melee users happy would be something like:

Besides creating universal ammo the shrapnel could also create a consumable TT repairing item (which could be used, for example, to repair an UL item for the TT ammount that the item had available).
Melee weapons and mining gear users would also start buying shrapnel for sure, making your auction issue void.

Click to expand...

It dosnt take a very large bankroll to make the 0.6-0.7 ped fee irrelevant and there are more then enough hunters in the 1000-10000+ cycle range to justify very quick sales through the auction of stacks of large size. The issue is how freely the commodity should travel through the economy and the easiest and most accessable way is undeniably the auction.

Ensuring that the shrapnel is used in perpetuity under most circumstances will limit liability to the max and increase economic movement on all levels, the auction would only serve to simplify this proccess through constant up time of orders and a large customer base.


The issue with melee is that there is no ammo component to the equation thus making a implementation like shrapnel for them difficult. Adding repair to UL melee items would not result in a good out come as that would further slow down the melee (L) market. Adding repair to L items would simply crush the market outright.

Best regards
Zweshi

repairing option with shrapnel (with somekind of "formula"? idk)
it is a smart suggestion to make melee users happy enough.

This might be more of a psychological issue - I feel uneasy about TT-ing shrapnel although never had much problem TT-ing explosive projectiles (I do collect animal oil residue though).

That said, I wonder why it can't be auctioned, too.

Just buy a gun to use it as tagger or for last shot when blade needs repair. Which ul gun is most eco for this?

Why would anyone buy shrapnel? You can get ammo from the TT for 100%.

If you convert to universal ammo it is only 1% gain to just shoot up, no-one in their right mind would pay more then 101% for it anyways and they would be loosing out because there is ammo in TT for 1 % less then that.

I really see no point in ever trading it or selling it actually, if they remove ammo from the TT then I can see this being important issue.

Melee hunter it is TT food, you are gun hunter or mindforce hunter you get extra to go get that next 70% ROI. I don't see everyone making profit consistently from that 1% extra gift they get for cycling it back into mobs.

what bothers me is that shrapnel is essentially ammo .. so now instead of 30% ammo in loot I'm getting 60%(atleast while knifing some small mobs earlier. only 30ped tt or so but if I was a noob that wouldn't leave me very satisfied)
so between novas, no loots, shrapnel and ammo, loot couldn't be more boring

K-Max said:

Why would anyone buy shrapnel? You can get ammo from the TT for 100%.

If you convert to universal ammo it is only 1% gain to just shoot up, no-one in their right mind would pay more then 101% for it anyways and they would be loosing out because there is ammo in TT for 1 % less then that.

I really see no point in ever trading it or selling it actually, if they remove ammo from the TT then I can see this being important issue.

Melee hunter it is TT food, you are gun hunter or mindforce hunter you get extra to go get that next 70% ROI. I don't see everyone making profit consistently from that 1% extra gift they get for cycling it back into mobs.

Click to expand...

Ask any1 who cycles over 2-3k peds daily? Unfortunately the 1% is not the problem but the ratio between shrapnel/ammo and normal loot (seems to be around 50-60% shrapnel/ammo). But time will tell.

As to whether shrapnel is good or bad for game, time will tell. However Ammo+shrapnel as % of loot make up seems rather high imo, either mark ups on stackables rise or profit becomes thing of past.

Will be interesting how participation in WOF goes.

Why do we need shrapnel? Couldn't Ma have just dropped more ammo? The 101% conversion rate is better i guess but seems a lot of work for something that could have been done with current mechanics.

I don't object to shrapnel, just % of loot (shrapnel+ ammo) is quite high.

I can see only one good side of shrapnel. If you do your hunts in lootable PvP (or Space), and will be found by PK, in your last seconds, you can convert about 30-50% of your overall loot (shrapnel) into universal ammo and your killer cannot loot it.

Yesterday i had ~850ped hunt (on ambulimax) with 908ped return including ~540ped ammo +shrapnel. Imho with 90% average return from hunt that much TT stuff in loot is too much

Omnius said:

Imho with 90% average return from hunt that much TT stuff in loot is too much

Click to expand...

Yes, but that will increase the price (MU) for other loot.

But I was going to ask now - how does that work, this game is real cash economy and lets say i have 40k peds of shrapnel ammo and now i have need for this money to buy something in the game or just take out this money to rl world - How do i do because i looking at a big P here in the " real economy".

Gewitter said:

Yes, but that will increase the price (MU) for other loot.

Click to expand...

Shrapnel may have opposite effect as people convert to universal ammo = less ped after hunting to buy from auction to craft through loot they have or whatever. Only option after conversion is to keep hunting with that ped converted.

Or crafters stop as mark ups make crafting no longer viable, crafted goods increase in cost to produce = more cost to end user = stop buying as no longer viable to use.

Only time will show how economy effected, depends on players actions.

valentin said:

But I was going to ask now - how does that work, this game is real cash economy and lets say i have 40k peds of shrapnel ammo and now i have need for this money to buy something in the game or just take out this money to rl world - How do i do because i looking at a big P here in the " real economy".

Click to expand...

Do not convert it to universal ammo and sell to the TT instead ?

johan roadkill said:

what bothers me is that shrapnel is essentially ammo .. so now instead of 30% ammo in loot I'm getting 60%(atleast while knifing some small mobs earlier. only 30ped tt or so but if I was a noob that wouldn't leave me very satisfied)
so between novas, no loots, shrapnel and ammo, loot couldn't be more boring

Click to expand...

Yep my solo and team hunts both show loot made up now mostly of ammo making hunting loot even more worthless. Shrapnel aside, the actual ammo in loot has largely increased so you have to be even more careful not to burn up a significant portion of your measly returns.

The current changes to loot/ammo/shrapnel is a BIG change to the economy. Do you guys really think that you will see the impact 2 days later? Give it some time before freaking out about mostly shrap/ammo being in loot.

Stout said:

The current changes to loot/ammo/shrapnel is a BIG change to the economy. Do you guys really think that you will see the impact 2 days later? Give it some time before freaking out about mostly shrap/ammo being in loot.

Click to expand...

I agree will take time for effects to show in auction etc. Depends on reaction/actions of players.

First pointer to how things will go is to watch entropia life global rates, if down then people moving away from hunting. Over next 2-3 weeks should see effects. May be skewed from WOF event tho.

I did two 300 ped ammo rounds last night, one on a high regen mob with amp and one unamped on a low regen mobs and I got more globals then in 4k ped spent on Foma on dasps.

The overall return was not bad either. I got both globals with ammo/shrapnel and globals with only oil(liver in this case).

I'm willing to give the changes from VU15 in loot a chance. I have finally got again that feeling of eagerness to log in after I get home from work and hunt something. It's been more then a year since I felt it due to the hopelessness I felt after saw the return and the kind of loot I got nearly every round.

The most annoying thing I noticed yesterday is the automatic merging of looted ammo with bought ammo. It makes it so hard to avoid using looted ammo. There is the option to buy enough ammo to last until the amp or gun breaks but if I use a tier 9 gun with a bad ass amp on it, that could mean a few k's stuck in ammo. Shrapnel converted in universal ammo should make it easier to track. It takes however a few rounds to gather enough to shrapnel to convert it in universal ammo for a decent round for a serious hunter.

I recommend to those that decide to use shrapnel, to convert fixed batches, based on the amount of ammo used for a shot, in order to minimize the money stuck in the small batches left after a hunt.

My guess is that the shrapnel will take the place of items that may have dropped liked (L) weapons and armor pieces, amps, and the like. Watching to see the amount of those items still dropping and how this will affect their MU. just my .02pec

Time will show us the real effect on the economy and specialy for oil loots but the only thing i can say :

I have done my worst hunting run ever after this VU on a 1k ammo ped (+ammo drop) run and got a return about 30% TT of total decay...

Let's see ..

It should be interesting how it all pans out.

After a few 400 ped runs, shrapnel/ammo loot seems to be a little on the high side. Its nice not to have a 100 different low pec tt items in loot, but loot was quite boring. I think I like the idea of shrapnel and universal ammo but we shall how it plays out. I'm sure it will adjust as well as we move forward.

Many of you miss the significance of this. MA slyly dropping this in with the most anticipated re-introduction in 5 years, on the eve of WoF, was no accident. This is the single greatest restructuring of our universe that ever occurred.

I cycled about 4k ped since the update...horrible loot notwithstanding (lost 1.6k of my 4k roll at the beginning of the day.) I got 50% ammo return myself, and I have asked a dozen other shooters, and in their combined 20k of cycling yesterday, they had the same results.

2 things come to mind. After seeing what happened to the loot I normally received and crafted with, in a few weeks...

1) MU is going to COMPLETELY change.

There was so little oil in loot...so little stacks now.

That means that in one swift move, from this day forward, only 50% of ALL materials will be available. The effect of this will be felt in every profession, although for now, it seems that our supply of ores and enmatters will remain stable...however, what good will those loots be when the other stuff you need in the bp went from 103% to 190%...you may think I am exaggerating here, but I have already found the areas where massive shortages will exist, and in 24 hours have seen common ingredients rise from 102% to 110% and higher. The gates have been opened, and the first signs of the change are visible.

This is a very exciting time in the economics of our universe. I can't predict what will happen, but I am betting on MASSIVE shifts of MU and shortages of many of the things we once took for granted. At least for the short term...(see below for why)

Everything that you use every day in the world of hunting just got more expensive...crafters were barely hanging on because of all the L guns in loot...but they were still supplying a huge niche...now, with many of crafters comps facing shortages, crafting will become an even smaller niche. When we are forced out even more, the mu on your L guns will go way up, even the looted ones. In any economy or business, a restriction of 50% of available resources will always create a tipping point where business as usual dies and a whole different world is born.

We are on the edge of that world and walking towards it at this moment.

2) Unless this happens:

I think the genious thing here is that MA figured out a way to make us SAVE most loot, while being allowed to continue SOME hunting with looted ammo. IF you hunt smart, you should be able to build sellable stacks quicker, and sell them quicker too...this design basically gives the user the ability to keep shooting as their stacks sit on auction up to 7 days....if you think about it, it really is just extending our hunts for us...allowing us time to sell, and eliminating constant tt'ing.

Maybe this(the above paragraph) is what offsets it all... by the fact that now everyone starts saving all loot and auctioning it, and stops tt'ing it, maybe the economy will stay balanced...that is something only time will tell, it is too early to see at this point, but if you are not ready to see it, you will be blindsided by it.

Personally, it is really a very exciting to me...I can't fucking wait to get home from work.

Sunsout,
You are absolutely right. But ... this was in EU. In the past. In 2006, in the loot was amounts of money. And only in 2007 MA began to replace the money with oils. Personally, I would be happy to return in 2006. Because now, hunters, poured 50% of loot to the TT, deserve what they got now.

Gewitter said:

Sunsout,
You are absolutely right. But ... this was in EU. In the past. In 2006, in the loot was amounts of money. And only in 2007 MA began to replace the money with oils. Personally, I would be happy to return in 2006. Because now, hunters, poured 50% of loot to the TT, deserve what they got now.

Click to expand...

Yeah you are exactly right too. I wasn't here for that first shift, as you were, back then in 2006...but I DO know that since then, SOOOOO much got tt'ed...and it never should be like that. We want to be able to play AND sell at au....NOT: play, list, stop playing, sell, play again. For anyone with small ped cards, until today, that was their only option, unless they tt'ed 70% of their loot. Now, just maybe, players will be smart enough to stop tt'ing because now they can still have some fun as they wait for auctions to sell.

This is going to be a great thing, and I am truly impressed by something MA did for once.

Since 90% loot now "ammo"
i think new rate be 100 tt sharpnel to 105 universal ammo to reflect this new reality
I realy deslike this patch in old system i never have issues to stack my loots and sold very easy at high mu compared 101% at this rate prety joke and dont cover return+ammo costs to dont say others decays

Plus : Mindark i know you going double you ammount decay if you do it

I really like it too! I basiclly TTed 90% of all my loot and just bought more ammo with it. Now I can do the same, but get that 1% extra back - and I won't TT all the loot stuff because it won't be totally worthless as before!

sighlentz said:

My guess is that the shrapnel will take the place of items that may have dropped liked (L) weapons and armor pieces, amps, and the like. Watching to see the amount of those items still dropping and how this will affect their MU. just my .02pec

Click to expand...

Definately NOT the case if my 500 ped ammo on little Eviscerators last night is anything to go by.
Looted 3 BCC(L) amps and Rapper(L) ... in addition to a lot of shrapnel and ammo, of course.

Suggest everyone should give the changes a chance to bed-in before giving knee-jerk reactions either positive or negative.