Question: Wave Hunting

atomicstorm said:

Mine werent. All big hits of mine were prime time swedish time when I took off work or had a free day... including the ath.

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There you have it
Quit your job, ATH all the time

It should be obvious that it is ridiculous for the system to work in such a way that people are encouraged to play less.

Predictable rare/high MU loot waves are obviously a design flaw. MA's attitude is clear from their actions - they have changed how things work several times and always the change was towards less predictable.
AFAIK the same goes for several PP's as well.

So in general we know what's their official position. Then again, we don't know how much they really understand or even care about it. So far they never did anything with loot cycles unless there was a problem with it. Like lot of ppl (mis)using it, other ppl reporting it, making support cases and posting on the forums. Would they have done anything if there wasn't this public outcry? Prolly not.
Was it ever fixed? Nope. Little less predictable now but still predictable.
Should it be totally random? As in 100% unpredictable? Sure. Those who're making money off it atm won't like it if we take their toys away ofc. Game as a whole would win thou. The game should not put ppl who can only play a hour or 2 a day into disadvantage.

Hiding the rare messages will not solve the problem, it might even make the problem worse (think: advantage for the large societies that can internally share info in real time). Also, only a small part of high MU loot has rare messages anyaway.

Can MA really fix the problem? Like design a completely new algorithm instead of trying to tweak the old one?
Your guess is as good as mine. It's prolly not easy, and if done by notorious MA, it could mess things up pretty bad. Can't see why it's totally impossible thou. Anything's possible..

IMO, Oleg nailed it, again:

Oleg said:

It should be obvious that it is ridiculous for the system to work in such a way that people are encouraged to play less.

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It seems obvious things that influence total turnover directly should have higher priority than, say, visual improvements or making a new and worse interface for a mission tracker. Then again, lot of decisions MA's making can't be rationally explained or predicted. Maybe they could apply their decisionmaking procedure to the loot waves? Would solve the problem instantly.

Oleg said:

It should be obvious that it is ridiculous for the system to work in such a way that people are encouraged to play less.

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^This

A game that makes its money on ingame turnover (tt decay) that has a huge ingame incentive to have players play only during short moments seems like it's fighting itself. It should be encouraging players to grind long and hard.

Manique said:

Just for the record, i spoke about wave loot in terms of items and special stuff that drops only on those
as far as my experience goes and comparing data to some friends, tt returns are volatile, in a personal way

This item / whatever wave loot, everyone can experience, and if some get it during that time cos they can time it / get informed, others wont get it, making them have an edge over another player.

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Speaking specifically about rare item drops I think the design of the system is flawed...

Oleg said:

It should be obvious that it is ridiculous for the system to work in such a way that people are encouraged to play less.

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I agree with Oleg on this point.

I grinded out all the large shrooms for my mod2600. It took over the 5 months to do it part time in the evenings after work. I only had these times to work with, but over time, I was able to discern a "wave" pattern of drops. I first started noticing it when the same avatars would show up at certain times and "get the drop" and disappear. I would see them global on other mobs, then pop in the area, get the drop, then disappear and I would see them global in some other area and/or activity which clearly showed over time they were just popping in to get the drop and leave. Other times avatars would be sitting in their vtol waiting, and would pop out at the appropriate time and get the drop, then jump back in their vtol and wait for the next "wave". It was easy to see what was happening with the global rare message. But people figured out that if you held one shroom in carried inventory then it wouldn't announce the loot in the global message so that wasn't really reliable.

I noticed that even though they were there when the drops came, that they didn't always get the drop, sometimes I would get the drop. Also, sometimes the drop would come before the normal time and I would get it, then they would show up and grind for a while until they realized it wasn't dropping for that time period and leave. Sometimes it would come after the drop period came and went and nobody got a drop and they left. Sometimes one would drop, they would get it and leave and I would immediately get one or two more drops (a very rare but welcome event!).

The bottom line for me was, I only had so much time to hunt, over time the waves didn't really matter to me, I knew if I just kept grinding I was going to get a shroom, and I was always getting some loot back and there was the very rare occasional uber hof that was always a possibility ( I never got one on them, but some did) but I was always getting skills!


As for US timing of big loots, I can say that for many years I have been in situations where I was grinding mobs for hours and hours and getting shit, but knowing that it felt like some big loot was building up, but I would have to go to bed to get up and go to work, and low and behold, I would check the hof board the next night and sure enough, while I was asleep or at work, someone would hit big. So often, weather it was real or for some other reason, it always has appeared that the majority of the big loots were not on US time, but that could be just my imagination, I would guess someone with access could analyze the tracker data over time and see what the distribution by timezone would look like. As long as I can remember there has been a running joke about having to be on swedish time or be from there to get the big loots, I don't know that there is a lot of proof for it, but real or not, it has always felt like there was something to the speculation.

Random should be random!

and this is why i dont play anylonger.

No use in playing or grinding.
Wait for the waves and get your shit.... very poorly done.

Amber Knightley said:

Speaking specifically about rare item drops I think the design of the system is flawed...

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Nothing exhibited it more than when three nvidia gfx cards dropped to one player.

I know it's 8 years old but it just shows how long the problem has been happening, it was old even then.

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?128286-Are-you-sick-of-this

Dollymaus said:

Dont hate the players hate the game...MA should make item drops really random and not come in waves and such shit wouldn't happened

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I agree with this, I left Cyrene in disgust when doing that SI Heart upgrade mission after discovering that the Bone-In meat etc drop only during a few minutes each hour.

Farcical.

Oleg said:

It should be obvious that it is ridiculous for the system to work in such a way that people are encouraged to play less.

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JohnCapital said:

^This

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I voted others.
IMO, this behaviour would need to be fixed but as there are no acknowledged bugs in EU, beside

Entropia Universe 15.8.5 Release Notes said:

Known Issues
Before launching Entropia Universe, make sure to clear the shader cache. This option can be found in the Tools menu in the Client Loader.

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, there is nothing which can be classified as exploit.

I don't see it as a problem, everyone in game has the same resources in this issue.

A true exploit in my opinion would be doing something that not everyone has the ability to replicate.

Everyone can discern a pattern over time, hear it from soc mates, see people come and go at certain times ect.

I do find it interesting that many people mention times of bigger loots being in the off hours.

I have often wondered if the system doesn't calculate when you are not playing the most and making your high probability multipliers happen at those hours. Especially after some of these comments, and the fact that I deliberately wake up at 2am (when the conditions are right) for my largest HOFs....on several occasions, for this very theory.

I noticed that the early morning hours are my best hunting hours years ago, for whatever reason.

If you want to force the system to be changed or at the very least give everyone the same advantage, make sure everyone has the all information available to them.

forgo said:

I don't see it as a problem, everyone in game has the same resources in this issue.

A true exploit in my opinion would be doing something that not everyone has the ability to replicate.

Everyone can discern a pattern over time, hear it from soc mates, see people come and go at certain times ect.

I do find it interesting that many people mention times of bigger loots being in the off hours.

I have often wondered if the system doesn't calculate when you are not playing the most and making your high probability multipliers happen at those hours. Especially after some of these comments, and the fact that I deliberately wake up at 2am (when the conditions are right) for my largest HOFs....on several occasions, for this very theory.

I noticed that the early morning hours are my best hunting hours years ago, for whatever reason.

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The issue is though that if everyone sat in their VTOL this migration for example for "the E.L.M waves" then firstly MA/PP's lose money and the stuff people loot will be next to worthless. I mean look at last migration and waves, there are still so many e.l.m weapons around i doubt people will buy them this migration. .

Hmm in fact maybe a few of us should set up a "#migration_wave" chat channel to truly show how bad this could/will get.

The system atm is crazy in my humble opinion, doesn't encourage people to grind at all and more encourages people to sit and do nothing for most of the time.

Madness.

voted no because I say if you figure something out about EU - go for it, but being on the outside sucks so I think it's not fair. I think it's a flaw in the way they program it - seems dumb when items rain down and then don't for 2 hours. Not very "dynamic" IMO.

Is it an exploit? Yes.

Anything that says your peds spent are "bigger" than mine...are more "entitled" to "items" than mine screams of being an outright exploit.

After all, we're all using the same thing called peds...to hunt the same monsters and/or do the same stuff...so what gives you the right to be more "deserving" of them than me or anyone else who's doing the same activity (albeit not being "in the wave" or "exploiting on the wave")?

However, is it bannable? Nope, I don't think so.

Since its something that MA allows to be left free and unfixed...who cares? They don't care much to do something about it...I don't care if this ends up sinking them.

Just bad design. It's time for an update.

forgo said:

I don't see it as a problem, everyone in game has the same resources in this issue.

A true exploit in my opinion would be doing something that not everyone has the ability to replicate.

Everyone can discern a pattern over time, hear it from soc mates, see people come and go at certain times ect.

I do find it interesting that many people mention times of bigger loots being in the off hours.

I have often wondered if the system doesn't calculate when you are not playing the most and making your high probability multipliers happen at those hours. Especially after some of these comments, and the fact that I deliberately wake up at 2am (when the conditions are right) for my largest HOFs....on several occasions, for this very theory.

I noticed that the early morning hours are my best hunting hours years ago, for whatever reason.

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I surprisingly agree with every word this man wrote. I also voted no and all of my "bigger" loots occurred when I should have been asleep. I also believe that working to gain knowledge that others lack is part of the lure of this game.

*randomly points finger*

its like that since i play this game , so 13 years...

loot was always in wave , nothing new under the sun.

MA never did want to change it...

i dont see why it would be an exploit today to hunt when you feel its the best time...

MA should have remade the whole loot system long ago.
player complain about the lack of fairness of that system for years now.

I don't get it. Why people post pages of whine instead doing something?

Make a guide for wave crafting, hunting and mining and post the guide under all professions. Detailed descriptions how it works.

Once half of the game population starts using it, Mindark will react. Until then you can keep whining on a forum and change nothing. What a bunch of vags!

I have been banned for x days or weeks from several games because game company refused to fix x y z exploits or "features". Once you rub it in their face, all over it, they will react. Maybe you get a short ban, but system does not change unless you do something.

My latest 2 week ban was from The Secret World. I reported item dupe over period of 6 months several times, they did not fix it. I then duped hundreds of most rare items in game and flooded the market. There, fixed, in next day patch.

I have often wondered if MA's hands are tied, sort of speaking, because making loot distribution more random or equitable would make this more a game of chance and not of knowledge and/or skill. That would make it a lottery which would immediately be banned by many countries.

As I am U.S. based, I have also noticed that large HOF's and ATH's seem to happen at hours when I would be off. I wish there was a way to make things seem better distributed, but I also realize that high skilled hunters / crafters / miners would be upset that their dedication and skills would be minimized over dumb luck.

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to satisfy everyone. However, we control our ultimate fate: to play or not to play. Or better yet, to deposit or not to deposit. It is our choice to make and I can't blame anyone but myself for beating my head against this wall called Entropia Universe!

NPV said:

I don't get it. Why people post pages of whine instead doing something?

Make a guide for wave crafting, hunting and mining and post the guide under all professions. Detailed descriptions how it works.

Once half of the game population starts using it, Mindark will react. Until then you can keep whining on a forum and change nothing. What a bunch of vags!

I have been banned for x days or weeks from several games because game company refused to fix x y z exploits or "features". Once you rub it in their face, all over it, they will react. Maybe you get a short ban, but system does not change unless you do something.

My latest 2 week ban was from The Secret World. I reported item dupe over period of 6 months several times, they did not fix it. I then duped hundreds of most rare items in game and flooded the market. There, fixed, in next day patch.

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He may not be the hero we want ...

(Nah this doesn't work here for reference see thread(s) regarding map/speed exploit)

NPV said:

I don't get it. Why people post pages of whine instead doing something?

Make a guide for wave crafting, hunting and mining and post the guide under all professions. Detailed descriptions how it works.

Once half of the game population starts using it, Mindark will react. Until then you can keep whining on a forum and change nothing. What a bunch of vags!

I have been banned for x days or weeks from several games because game company refused to fix x y z exploits or "features". Once you rub it in their face, all over it, they will react. Maybe you get a short ban, but system does not change unless you do something.

My latest 2 week ban was from The Secret World. I reported item dupe over period of 6 months several times, they did not fix it. I then duped hundreds of most rare items in game and flooded the market. There, fixed, in next day patch.

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I think you missed the point of the thread, is simply sharing opinion about this matter, not pointing fingers about being bitching or not

Im quite aware how it works overall, but i wondered what people think of it, and yes Etopia, been around for long, but latelly due to some circunstances got more obvious, and also smaller tweeks been done since i created this thread, things got interesting

Thank you all for the votes so far

For me is bad thing but its a service offered by MA and seeing that they didn't change it mean MA want it to be as is.
To bypass MA own will i suggest to stop hunting as soon you feel that wave has begun take it easy doing something else like walking, enjoying scenery or other and come back latter lol.

Manique said:

I think you missed the point of the thread, is simply sharing opinion about this matter, not pointing fingers about being bitching or not

Im quite aware how it works overall, but i wondered what people think of it, and yes Etopia, been around for long, but latelly due to some circunstances got more obvious, and also smaller tweeks been done since i created this thread, things got interesting

Thank you all for the votes so far

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Don't take it wrong, I was not pointing finger at you. This is pointing fingers to community as whole.

As long as we tolerate these "features", nothing will be fixed. Sweden still gets best loots and returns

I also have my own "system", but will look more into it and maybe write a guide or two how to exploit the loot system to max your returns. If they made it that way, lets all gain from it.

I wouldn't say it's an exploit, but it should be fixed so that it's random, or at least so complicated that no one could figure it out.

Xen said:

I wouldn't say it's an exploit, but it should be fixed so that it's random, or at least so complicated that no one could figure it out.

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Such an easy fix. If they just reduced the duration of the waves greatly and randomized the frequency a bit, no one could really abuse them. You would have to grind through them.

Xen said:

I wouldn't say it's an exploit, but it should be fixed so that it's random, or at least so complicated that no one could figure it out.

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If we have enough volume of players using only waves to hunt, craft or mine and during x timeframe, I'd say it's an "loot system exploit" which will affect Mindark.

Question is, will these who use it still keep profiting, or the system gives out less loot since more people using it, or they will overall reduce income for whole game, since x amount of people use the waves to do big/rare stuff.

Since they are audited, they can't just screw the community by reducing returns by a large margin. Entropia will be a true scam then. They are forced to look into the systems itself to even out returns on longer periods of time, not allowing some people be active for few hours to gather HOFs and then dance at Twins til next "wave".

In any other MMO, it does not really matter if you dupe or exploit, since their currency has no value, well except some games were you can sell gazillion gold for x$, but in Entropia PED = real money. Any "trick" or "feature" that allows some players gain more PEDs, should be removed. Every timezone and every players should have same chances and everything comes down to beeing smart at what you do without using holes in the system itself.

NPV said:

...allowing some people be active for few hours to gather HOFs and then dance at Twins til next "wave".

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Y'now, it helps a lot if u at least have a foggy idea what u talking about...

Track Time and Sizes of Globals with dates and u should see a clear indication on the "waves" and which day / time it usually pays out.

But it's sad to say that EU needs more players and the tip most players gets is "don't play" when the loot is bad

Bring back ALOT more no looters please