Menu
What's New
By:
Filters

My Impressions After 30 Days

Detritus

Detritus

Sel-requested Deactivation
Joined
Sep 25, 2016
Posts
1,084
Avatar Name
Detritus the Troll
I've now put in about a month of active duty, I have mixed feelings about the game. What follows are my initial impressions so far, I would be curious to hear others opinions. My activity is hunting. Sorry for wall of text, just skip this thread if you don't want to read. :)

The bad:

1. This game is expensive AF.

A coworker (who's been playing for a very long time) got me into it, and gave me ample warning about the cost, but I was still surprised. I don't see how anyone can deny this is a pay-to-win game. I depo'd a decent amount to cover initial equipment costs and getting my feet wet. I've now managed to level up to almost lvl 20 laser pistol, and I'm discovering that a) any decent weapon setup at that level is going to run about $500, b) I also need to throw a few hundred bucks for rings/buffs if I want to stay competitive with other players. It's becoming a pretty big turnoff for me. If I decide to bite the bullet and invest in my player now, then in another 20 levels I'm looking at 10x that investment to compete at the next level.

As a side note, I also think MindArk has set you up for failure to some degree. In the developer notes they explicitly warn against using unmaxed weapons. Ok, so go look for UL guns, about 95% of them are maxed at level 100. My mentor explained that these are largely legacy items. Ok, so where are the new ones to replace them?


2. This game is buggy AF.

As a software engineer, it's hard for me to even believe this is now over a decade in development. MindArk's QA team must be absent from the equation. Honestly the game feels like an early access beta to me.

The pathfinding and raytracing are terrible. Mobs frequently become "Unaccessible" even though they are 1 meter away from you on flat ground. Conversely, I have frequent issues "moving into range" of a mob if there happens to be a tiny bump in between. Mobs going into that weird circle thing around you. Lag that allows the mob to hit you but you can't hit them. Don't touch that wall or plant, you'll get stuck and have to TP! The shops that keep vanishing while you're in them. It goes on and on....

The physics are ridiculous. Why does my 35ton VTOL bounce around like a beach ball? Why can't I spawn my fighter jet if there's a small pebble in the way?

Let's not talk about the shaders...

I will stop talking about the bugs since I could probably just go on forever...


3. The mechanics are extremely dull.

There's no positional damage, you can't evade through movement, etc. "Combat" amounts to just standing in front of the mob and hitting the auto-tool and watching the graph go down. It's really just glorified dice combat. The animations are not synced with the actions, and there's no damage stickers or blood or anything. Shooters from 1995 are light years ahead of this.

I tried mining, it's very boring IMO. It amounts to long amounts of time spend just running and dropping probes, then spending a very long and boring amount of time picking up the loot. I didn't enjoy it at all. I understand there's a lot involved in figuring out the right area/depth to get the best ores and watching the market and all that. For people who like extremely tedious activities, I bet this is the greatest thing in the world.

I would have thought crafting would be creative and interesting, but it's the worst of them all. There's no discovery through combining parts, there's really nothing to it at all. You just load a bunch of mats into the machine and then walk away for a couple hours, then come back and see how much you've lost. It's the first time I've seen a "game" where you go do something else while you play it. I can't fathom why anybody does it, tbh.


4. The missions feel like an after-thought, and are mostly meaningless and disconnected. 99% of them are just "kill xxx of this mob.... hey great job, now kill xxxx more". There were a few so far that were mildly interesting, but mostly not so much. I hear RT has some fun noob missions, but I haven't made it over there yet.


The good:

1. The players.

Almost everyone I've met so far has been really cool. For the most part everyone is very helpful and welcoming towards new players. Also, the player base is spread all over the world, and I've really enjoyed meeting people from different cultures. Hands down, the players are the best part of this game.

2. The avatars are pretty neat.

If I could pick one component that MA did well on, it's the avatars. They are better than any other MMO I've played. They look pretty good, and there's a huge variety of actions/emotes available; and the customizing of various clothes/armor/accessories is well done. I don't really care about playing dress-up, but everyone wants to be able to create something unique for themselves, and I think MA has provided a good system for this.

3. The reward feedback.

All game developers know the key to engagement is rewarding the players (e.g. achievements, prizes, etc), which is known to trigger dopamine release. The only reason I think many people are still playing this game, is because MindArk has hit this one out of the park. Yes, I'm talking about the golden swirls.

It doesn't take much insight to quickly see this whole game is a thinly veiled casino. As I mentioned in the "bad" section, the game itself is super boring. If you removed the real-cash component, I doubt anybody would play it at all. The reason I'm still playing, and I would guess most others, is the damned swirls.

When I first started playing, my initial impressions were "what the crap is this? this is stupid". Then I got some green particle effects and applause when I leveled up and was like "hellz yea!". Even understanding the psychological process at play, I still wanted more. But then, when I got my first global, I was like "holy balls, I need more swirls in my life!!". When I looted my first ring from a box, I lost my shit.

My mentor described it best as "MindArk's golden carrot" that they dangle in front of you. But damn it, it works.



All in all, I do enjoy it so far. I'm not sure how long I'll keep playing, since as I mentioned in the first part, it's quickly pricing itself out of my budget. I know I can just stay at my current level and keep going indefinitely, but then, what's the point?
 
subsrcibed for later

hope its a good read.
 
1) yes.. but if everyone could win on $100 that wouldn't work well either.

2) thank you sweet baby Jesus. I have seen Dev teams of four or less make games on cryengine and not have 1/10 the bugginess that EU has. Sadly bug free is impossible with a game this size, but that's no excuse for lazy programming and shitty net code. Seriously we've been dealing with memory leaks for years.. EA got sued to oblivion when they had memory leak problems.

3) combat in any mmo is boring in my opinion.. considering real money is involved, allowing player movement to affect hits or evades could cause a lot of problems and even create further exploits.


It's really refreshing to have a new player's opinion of EU with a knowledgeable background. MA should take note from this.

Additionally, there is a lot of good in EU. We have hands down the best gaming community around, and you can really do absolutely whatever you want in EU. It's a true MMO sandbox.

The reward mechanisms are excellent as you've mentioned. Additionally, skilling in EU is insanely difficult and very rewarding because of that.

Also, using UL setups while leveling is futile. Your skill gain is based on decay and UL items continue to decrease in value. Until you're able to get a gun you want at a high level that lets you hunt whatever you want, you're best to stick with L guns and UL amps.
 
Rocket192 said:
1) yes.. but if everyone could win on $100 that wouldn't work well either.

3) combat in any mmo is boring in my opinion.. considering real money is involved, allowing player movement to affect hits or evades could cause a lot of problems and even create further exploits.


Also, using UL setups while leveling is futile. Your skill gain is based on decay and UL items continue to decrease in value. Until you're able to get a gun you want at a high level that lets you hunt whatever you want, you're best to stick with L guns and UL amps.
Click to expand...


1) You're right, and this is a common problem with PTW games. I don't really have any solution to offer, I just wish someone would get creative and come up with a system that could be enjoyed by players of any budget, and that doesn't allow the players with the most money to essentially take the loot from other players with less.

3) To be fair, I don't really play MMOs, so I suppose I don't have a good reference point. I certainly understand why they made the combat the way they did, but I also think they could have put more effort into it. It's the biggest activity. The aesthetics of it (combat stickers, blood, better animations) don't impact the money flow at all. Even things like positional damage could be rolled into the algorithm safely without impacting their bottom line. It would be nice to see body parts flying off.

As for the UL conundrum, I have been stubbornly moving towards acceptance of what you are saying. I have been trying to stick with UL since the MU of L weapons hurts your eco and it's just MU that you have to keep paying over and over. It does seem that's the way it must be for now, though.
 
Last edited:
The level of your gameplay should be your budget not the profession levels . I bet there are a lot a missions you skipped and are still doable on a fairly low expense .
Find a level witch you are comfortable with and optimize your hunts + setup and look for markup to minimize losses or even turn in a profit . This way with a stable monthly depo you will see progress . Skilling up to levels where you can loose a lot fast is not so hard , getting there smart and cheap is the biggest challenge of this game .
 
WildD3mon said:
The level of your gameplay should be your budget not the profession levels . I bet there are a lot a missions you skipped and are still doable on a fairly low expense .
Find a level witch you are comfortable with and optimize your hunts + setup and look for markup to minimize losses or even turn in a profit . This way with a stable monthly depo you will see progress . Skilling up to levels where you can loose a lot fast is not so hard , getting there smart and cheap is the biggest challenge of this game .
Click to expand...

The problem i see is that most of the mark up has been destroyed for low/mid mobs, molisk for instance the teeth would get you by and now tameable mobs drop more teeth than molisk :eyecrazy:. Drones when they dropped gazz also were a good mob to grind for low/mid but now why hunt them, on top of this ofc we have shrapnel/ammo cutting available possible mark up. Add into this the expl bp which took away amp crafter gamblers and we are where we are today. Sure there are bristles which drop short stinktree, but how long will that last before they are not in demand.

Mining has suffered also due to low demand for ores, you hardly see ore buyers anymore where 2 years ago twin peaks was rammed with them.

Calypso is particularly bad for low/mid, other planets have possibilities but weak markets.

Not sure what the answer is tbh just what i see as issues currently, although the community in EU is great as the OP said. I did find myself nodding while reading the OP though, i hope the devs take note.
 
Norbert said:
Calypso is particularly bad for low/mid, other planets have possibilities but weak markets.

Not sure what the answer is tbh just what i see as issues currently, although the community in EU is great as the OP said.
Click to expand...


First, a fellow Pratchett fan *and* Little Britain fan?! Dude!


Yes, I am mainly hunting on Ark. There seems to be better MU and a wider variety of lower mobs. BUT, the problem is as you describe, the economy is weaker. It's a lot harder to sell things. What I've discovered is that the best way to handle this is storing all your loots for the week and then taking a scheduling flight to Caly to sell them.

The bummer about this is:

1) This just further discourages the growth of the economy on other planets.

2) PvP space makes this a hassle, since I have to pay for a MS flight. The flights are not that expensive, but it still eats into profits and I have to make sure I schedule time for it.
 
One more thought I would like to add:

This game has a serious lack of in-game data. I've learned this most recently now that Entropedia.info is down. I have no idea how to pick a proper gun for myself now.

I think it's a bit lame that MA has placed so much importance on economy, yet fails to provide those statistics on the item info pages.
 
I agree on all of your points, and it's a shame because with a little effort from the developers this could be a really popular game.

I play because I like the challenge, and unless you are wealthy this game is really hard.

Cheers, I hope you stick around :)
 
Detritus said:
One more thought I would like to add:

This game has a serious lack of in-game data. I've learned this most recently now that Entropedia.info is down. I have no idea how to pick a proper gun for myself now.

I think it's a bit lame that MA has placed so much importance on economy, yet fails to provide those statistics on the item info pages.
Click to expand...

Join an soc and make some old guard friends ,also in rookie chat you will find plenty of help
 
One of the biggest issues I think new (and many longer term) players have is breaking away from the mindset you get from other games of "I am a higher level now, therefore I must hunt bigger mobs". In other games, this is how you move forward and progress. Here it is not required and I would actually advise against it if your budget doesn't allow it. Then again, as you mentioned about MA nailing the carrot that everyone wants - many want to hunt big to get a bigger "win" now rather than a slow, steady increase of PEDs.

You will find it all over these forums (and a great thread from $5 https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?287791-Risk-of-Ruin-Bankroll-Management but the key is playing within your budget. Sure the bigger mobs tend to give bigger swirlies and can have better MU (although that is not always true) but if you can find a mob that you can kill within your budget that has moderate MU you can do well. A good example of doing this is Mark Ruffen Power https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?273519-How-To-Survive!.

Just my thoughts on it, and I do overspend on gear all the time as well - but it is definitely not a requirement to be able to keep playing without huge losses.
 
Detritus said:
This game has a serious lack of in-game data.
Click to expand...

I believe it's already way too much info provided. Look what kind of info was available in the old times:

album_pic.jpg


In competitive economy it's normal if those who bother to research and test everything themselves (or at least those who are good at making friends, as WildD3mon pointed out) would have an advantage over those who prefer a mindless "pew-pew".
 
Fyrs said:
One of the biggest issues I think new (and many longer term) players have is breaking away from the mindset you get from other games of "I am a higher level now, therefore I must hunt bigger mobs" (....)
Click to expand...

Agreed, it's been a tough mental barrier. My mentor repeatedly told me this, and I understand and agree with it, but it's so hard to resist trying to go bigger and bigger. It's like playing Skyrim and only hunting skeletons the whole time.

Fyrs said:
You will find it all over these forums (and a great thread from $5 (...)

A good example of doing this is Mark Ruffen Power (....)[/URL].
Click to expand...

The post from $5 is really cool, I hadn't seen that one yet. He's obviously very clever with math, I've read a lot of good posts from him.

Rufen and I chat in game, he's got a lot of good advice for new players. I recommend any other noobs reading this to read the post and join his channel.
 
Yeah we knows its shit, but we like it.

Once you've been here years, all the bugs become part of games character. Like trying to hunt Rex and the Sandking, the hit boxes are awful yet we still go there.

I often see ads for xbox or play station games and think wow, how come EU isn't like that. I guess because it's trying to fit multiple Pc platforms.

There's literally loads of different activities and choice though growing all the time.

Sure it can eat peds, if you let it...choice choices. I'm into the taming lately, it's entertaining low level stuff.

I get the impression Ma are trying hard to fix much of the game lately. The last update was welcomed, even if the new stuff didn't work.

For many of us, it's a virtual world we call home. I've got a really great home life and family, it's not like I'm trying to escape from reality. But logging into EU after work, just feels the right thing to do, after so many years immersed in it.


Rick

ps: Like I've always said. EU is not really a game. It's a Swedish art project, and they let us play around in their world. And like real art it costs a lot...LOL.
 
Last edited:
Detritus said:
[...]I also need to throw a few hundred bucks for rings/buffs if I want to stay competitive with other players. It's becoming a pretty big turnoff for me. If I decide to bite the bullet and invest in my player now, then in another 20 levels I'm looking at 10x that investment to compete at the next level. [...]
Click to expand...

why did you not did sweating ?
when i begun i did that for 5monthes i think, and i did my first hunts like that
entropia has no ending lvl, there's no use to be competitive with other players
you just play your game at your rythm


Detritus said:
[...]There's no positional damage, you can't evade through movement, etc. "Combat" amounts to just standing in front of the mob and hitting the auto-tool and watching the graph go down. It's really just glorified dice combat. The animations are not synced with the actions, and there's no damage stickers or blood or anything. Shooters from 1995 are light years ahead of this.[...]
Click to expand...

some mobs have positional damage, there's some types of big robots launching energy balls, you can avoid them
there are thorifoids shamans too launching balls, cold ones this time, if you are far from them like 1st circle of radar you can avoid them easily
there's surely others mobs launching balls on others planets i think

Detritus said:
[...]I tried mining, it's very boring IMO. It amounts to long amounts of time spend just running and dropping probes, then spending a very long and boring amount of time picking up the loot. I didn't enjoy it at all. I understand there's a lot involved in figuring out the right area/depth to get the best ores and watching the market and all that. For people who like extremely tedious activities, I bet this is the greatest thing in the world.

I would have thought crafting would be creative and interesting, but it's the worst of them all. There's no discovery through combining parts, there's really nothing to it at all. You just load a bunch of mats into the machine and then walk away for a couple hours, then come back and see how much you've lost. It's the first time I've seen a "game" where you go do something else while you play it. I can't fathom why anybody does it, tbh.
[...]
Click to expand...

well for mining it's more a the fact to write coords with item found, some players prefer action
but there's a bit of action too in mining as you always get chased by some mobs

for crafting you have to like economics, it's like some players who are doing 80% trading in town for 20% other activities, for them entropia is like that, just an economic game more than an action game

so if you want to earn even a bit of peds by crafting you need to check which items are on high demands and what is the % or the tt+ of this item
then if you have the level to craft and by your calculations you can get an inferior price of the selling price, then it could be a profitable craft

Detritus said:
[...]
4. The missions feel like an after-thought, and are mostly meaningless and disconnected. 99% of them are just "kill xxx of this mob.... hey great job, now kill xxxx more". There were a few so far that were mildly interesting, but mostly not so much. I hear RT has some fun noob missions, but I haven't made it over there yet.[...]
Click to expand...

well as i say at the end of the previous, you can see this game as you want, an action one, an economic one, a real miner one, etc... (i forgot the LA for example, then for the player it's like an event organizer game)
but it's not really a role game in fact even if now you can get a passport on arkadia, be a member of the IFN, and begin an apprentice smugler in the same time (then you're an apprentice double agent !)
 
  • Like
Reactions: San
I only read the first paragraph and I'll comment a bit on that.
It all depends on your motive. If you want to go solo and compete on the highest level, sure you will probably need 50 thousand USD invested into your items plus bankroll. On the far end of the spectrum, I can give you as an example, a former socmate started off as a non-depo, grind through to get a bankroll going by collecting crude oil and fruits, in the meantime traded by spamming several trade channels. By trading the right items, that person has a bankroll of 5000 PED after merely 2 months of playing. I was impressed because that was a lot more than I could accomplish with a much significant bankroll than that person did. Now said person is hunting small mobs such as Kerberos Young and is doing quite well. Without giving out too much information, I hope you get a sense of where I am coming from. Speaking about exponential cost as a function of level, what you can do is hunt in a team to overcome high bankroll and high PED cycle. I'll give you a personal example, our team hunted high maturity Proterons last night. Here is the link to my temporary Twitch video if you are interested to relive the moment. Proteron Stalker costs approximately 47.5 PED to kill, as a team. I didn't even wear armor, so defensive costs are kept at a minimal. As for the weapon of choice, it was a LLC 30 (L) + RDI Alpha and Arso chip. The chip was there as an extra, most people on the team just used limited weapons around level 25 to 50. So, in retrospective, most of us were equipped with gears for hunting medium maturity Atrox, but without any armor, and yet with all of us combined we can hunt one of the biggest mob in the universe. If you were to hunt these alone, you probably would need at the very least 3000 USD invested in gear and skills, and another 2000 USD just as bankroll, not to mention hiring a mod fapper and did I mention defensive cost yet? Anyway, I have said more than I should have. I hope that have been helpful information.

Detritus said:
...
1. This game is expensive AF.

A coworker (who's been playing for a very long time) got me into it, and gave me ample warning about the cost, but I was still surprised. I don't see how anyone can deny this is a pay-to-win game. I depo'd a decent amount to cover initial equipment costs and getting my feet wet. I've now managed to level up to almost lvl 20 laser pistol, and I'm discovering that a) any decent weapon setup at that level is going to run about $500, b) I also need to throw a few hundred bucks for rings/buffs if I want to stay competitive with other players. It's becoming a pretty big turnoff for me. If I decide to bite the bullet and invest in my player now, then in another 20 levels I'm looking at 10x that investment to compete at the next level.

As a side note, I also think MindArk has set you up for failure to some degree. In the developer notes they explicitly warn against using unmaxed weapons. Ok, so go look for UL guns, about 95% of them are maxed at level 100. My mentor explained that these are largely legacy items. Ok, so where are the new ones to replace them?
...
Click to expand...
 
I agree with the OP in most ways.
Maybe we don't play this game. The game plays you! It will play with you to find how much money you are willing to spend or invest here. What keeps me in still, is all the hassle it would take to sell out.. I know if I stop, I have to let go of some of my MU and skills.

Tbh, if I wanted to make money, I would do other activities than playing games. I can, but it will put me under obligations. I go in here to relax, to get my natural high, but I have to control my spendings. At the same time, I know someone has to loose a bit to keep the game running, so I dont mind loosing some. Most players are so focused on earning money that they forget this, or leave it to everyone else. If you find an income, you should keep it for yourself, like in everyday business life.
 
osten said:
I agree with the OP in most ways.
Maybe we don't play this game. The game plays you! It will play with you to find how much money you are willing to spend or invest here. What keeps me in still, is all the hassle it would take to sell out.. I know if I stop, I have to let go of some of my MU and skills.
Click to expand...

I decided to clear down storage 4 months ago and am still nowhere near lol, takes forever. :laugh:
 
Detritus said:
I've now put in about a month of active duty, I have mixed feelings about the game. What follows are my initial impressions so far, I would be curious to hear others opinions. My activity is hunting. Sorry for wall of text, just skip this thread if you don't want to read. :)

The bad:

1. This game is expensive AF.

A coworker (who's been playing for a very long time) got me into it, and gave me ample warning about the cost, but I was still surprised. I don't see how anyone can deny this is a pay-to-win game. I depo'd a decent amount to cover initial equipment costs and getting my feet wet. I've now managed to level up to almost lvl 20 laser pistol, and I'm discovering that a) any decent weapon setup at that level is going to run about $500, b) I also need to throw a few hundred bucks for rings/buffs if I want to stay competitive with other players. It's becoming a pretty big turnoff for me. If I decide to bite the bullet and invest in my player now, then in another 20 levels I'm looking at 10x that investment to compete at the next level.

As a side note, I also think MindArk has set you up for failure to some degree. In the developer notes they explicitly warn against using unmaxed weapons. Ok, so go look for UL guns, about 95% of them are maxed at level 100. My mentor explained that these are largely legacy items. Ok, so where are the new ones to replace them?


2. This game is buggy AF.

As a software engineer, it's hard for me to even believe this is now over a decade in development. MindArk's QA team must be absent from the equation. Honestly the game feels like an early access beta to me.

The pathfinding and raytracing are terrible. Mobs frequently become "Unaccessible" even though they are 1 meter away from you on flat ground. Conversely, I have frequent issues "moving into range" of a mob if there happens to be a tiny bump in between. Mobs going into that weird circle thing around you. Lag that allows the mob to hit you but you can't hit them. Don't touch that wall or plant, you'll get stuck and have to TP! The shops that keep vanishing while you're in them. It goes on and on....

The physics are ridiculous. Why does my 35ton VTOL bounce around like a beach ball? Why can't I spawn my fighter jet if there's a small pebble in the way?

Let's not talk about the shaders...

I will stop talking about the bugs since I could probably just go on forever...


3. The mechanics are extremely dull.

There's no positional damage, you can't evade through movement, etc. "Combat" amounts to just standing in front of the mob and hitting the auto-tool and watching the graph go down. It's really just glorified dice combat. The animations are not synced with the actions, and there's no damage stickers or blood or anything. Shooters from 1995 are light years ahead of this.

I tried mining, it's very boring IMO. It amounts to long amounts of time spend just running and dropping probes, then spending a very long and boring amount of time picking up the loot. I didn't enjoy it at all. I understand there's a lot involved in figuring out the right area/depth to get the best ores and watching the market and all that. For people who like extremely tedious activities, I bet this is the greatest thing in the world.

I would have thought crafting would be creative and interesting, but it's the worst of them all. There's no discovery through combining parts, there's really nothing to it at all. You just load a bunch of mats into the machine and then walk away for a couple hours, then come back and see how much you've lost. It's the first time I've seen a "game" where you go do something else while you play it. I can't fathom why anybody does it, tbh.


4. The missions feel like an after-thought, and are mostly meaningless and disconnected. 99% of them are just "kill xxx of this mob.... hey great job, now kill xxxx more". There were a few so far that were mildly interesting, but mostly not so much. I hear RT has some fun noob missions, but I haven't made it over there yet.


The good:

1. The players.

Almost everyone I've met so far has been really cool. For the most part everyone is very helpful and welcoming towards new players. Also, the player base is spread all over the world, and I've really enjoyed meeting people from different cultures. Hands down, the players are the best part of this game.

2. The avatars are pretty neat.

If I could pick one component that MA did well on, it's the avatars. They are better than any other MMO I've played. They look pretty good, and there's a huge variety of actions/emotes available; and the customizing of various clothes/armor/accessories is well done. I don't really care about playing dress-up, but everyone wants to be able to create something unique for themselves, and I think MA has provided a good system for this.

3. The reward feedback.

All game developers know the key to engagement is rewarding the players (e.g. achievements, prizes, etc), which is known to trigger dopamine release. The only reason I think many people are still playing this game, is because MindArk has hit this one out of the park. Yes, I'm talking about the golden swirls.

It doesn't take much insight to quickly see this whole game is a thinly veiled casino. As I mentioned in the "bad" section, the game itself is super boring. If you removed the real-cash component, I doubt anybody would play it at all. The reason I'm still playing, and I would guess most others, is the damned swirls.

When I first started playing, my initial impressions were "what the crap is this? this is stupid". Then I got some green particle effects and applause when I leveled up and was like "hellz yea!". Even understanding the psychological process at play, I still wanted more. But then, when I got my first global, I was like "holy balls, I need more swirls in my life!!". When I looted my first ring from a box, I lost my shit.

My mentor described it best as "MindArk's golden carrot" that they dangle in front of you. But damn it, it works.



All in all, I do enjoy it so far. I'm not sure how long I'll keep playing, since as I mentioned in the first part, it's quickly pricing itself out of my budget. I know I can just stay at my current level and keep going indefinitely, but then, what's the point?
Click to expand...

Great feedback and all very true.

1) The cost of the game is what will cause it to forever remain a "niche" game (that, and the lack of marketing). The majority of the veteran playerbase has already come to terms with this. Any MMO with a real cash economy will trend in this direction; the business model won't work without player success leaning towards a pyramid model.

Luckily in Entropia, information is just as valuable as gear investment in most cases. With the addition of shared loot events, even fresh players have a chance to hit it big. Also the less fun you're willing to have (ie: switching from hunting to mining), the less your gear investment will matter :laugh:

2) The bugs are rampant and a huge turn-off to all players. Mindark has a very small development team and they seem to be prioritizing making the game flashier and more attractive to new players; however lately we have seem some minor progress on the polishing/bug removal front.

3) This one is what pushed me away from the game. Hitting big swirls feels good the first few times, but eventually it becomes a routine and I find myself continuously asking "Am I having fun yet?". And I disagree that MMO combat is always boring. Some MMOs have excellent combat. Of course Mindark can't make hunting purely personal-skill based, but there is definitely a lot more they could do to make it a fun and engaging experience. Same goes for mining.

Thanks for your feedback and as others have said, I really hope Mindark reads threads like this!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Meg
Detritus said:
I've now managed to level up to almost lvl 20 laser pistol,
Click to expand...

lvl 20 in 1 month? Damn. :eyecrazy:

As an example of where I'm coming from, I found a screenshot showing me at lvl 25 about 1 year into playing.

9 years after that, I'm ~lvl 65.

So you are already playing at a much higher ped turnover than it seems I ever did. (again, few hours/day almost every day for 10 years)

Always felt like my ava skilled slower than everyone else. :laugh:

Your impressions of this game (both good and bad) aren't wrong. The only question then becomes how long do we get to enjoy your presence? 2 months? 20 years? We'll see.

Mean time, happy hoffing. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Meg
You “read” it alright tho, that’s in general, what all experienced in first days-months.

Can't resist to add my brief comment. My 2 pecs as many used to say :)

Personally, I love so many things in Entropia that you didn’t mention, but probably didn’t found out yet of course.
Many if not all tried hard and spend some bucks (kk not “few” actually…) to get quick in a certain level, like you did, most of them to try earlier the next … bigger level mob. That’s can be very disappointing and can have as result to rage quit. I know this because many “early” friends of mine are gone, from the first or second year.

If you understand, how things/systems/loot is working, what’s the philosophy of MA for this platform, then you can have a longer journey, that’s a fact. Participating in this Forum can help a lot to this.

To be successive and kind eco in long term is very tricky. Not many can manage this, because it required strategy, patience, discipline and accurate information, in long term. Many of us couldn’t make it, because sooner or later the “player's/gamblers psychology” it will prevails. Achieving that, will make you a..”Winner”, whatever winner mean in this… crazy but high addictive world!

As about ATH – HOF’s – global's and swirls? Oh man!!!!! This is the number one addiction of all!

Players base of EU? Is by 99.9% THE BEST community on the net, not only as MMO comparison?

A suggestion, that I do to every new fellow! Go around the universe. Visit all the planets or as many you can. Try to spend some time there, do the new player missions and do not rush to draw conclusions. All planets in this universe have hidden “graces” – surprises, you might love or hate whatsoever! But in the bottom line you will get a great experience. Never is late to do this.
 
Last edited:
Detritus said:
As a software engineer, it's hard for me to even believe this is now over a decade in development.
Click to expand...

A decade and a half. Late 2002 was initial beta for a few of us! We were given guns, bought bullets, looted underwear from sabakumas and got eaten by trox/watched trox eat other fauna.

Thing is, for a long time a main selling point for the game was it ran on graphics equivalent of a 1989 digital watch. This suited the gaming at the time with poor or shaky home internet and an abundance of online game cafes. Also a more mature audience hadn't quite gone all in on the gadgetry yet.
The world changed, www connections got better and there was no longer a need to have games run on a potato.

Cue 2009 (I think it was). Cryengine was implemented. Pretty shaders everywhere. Also entirely unplayable for 75% of the then player base. It wasn't so much the game engine demanding state of the art hardware, it was the game dev team having no experience with the engine. Super bad optimization ensued. I think during 2-3 years, my character had a free remodel once every six months. I exaggerate, of course. The game could still be played if you ran it on graphics settings that made everything look like dough. To some extent, this is still the case. Sadly, making it look like dough in cryengine makes the game look way uglier than the old game ever was.

We always had a large portion of players who mainly used their home computers for nothing more onerous than excel. Those are all gone.

Also - you were warned and still went? Dangerous habits :eyecrazy:
 
Billy Jean Ruby said:
Players base of EU? Is by 99.9% THE BEST community on the net, not only as MMO comparison?
Click to expand...

:yup: you need to love grinding, spreadsheets and analyzing every step you take (it cost money).
kiddies, smartasses,..... will stay away because of that.
very mature and intelligent ppl around here indeed. love it :banana: :nutkick:
 
Meg said:
A decade and a half. Late 2002 was initial beta for a few of us! We were given guns, bought bullets, looted underwear from sabakumas and got eaten by trox/watched trox eat other fauna.
...
Cue 2009 (I think it was). Cryengine was implemented. Pretty shaders everywhere. Also entirely unplayable for 75% of the then player base. It wasn't so much the game engine demanding state of the art hardware, ...
Click to expand...

With the advantages of Cryengine also came a disadvantage, the loss of many hand-coded features and mechanisms which made up a lot of the charm of the old game. I was in hibernation when that happened, otherwise it's not likely I would be here again.

As for OP, this must be about the most well-reasoned and well-spoken feedback of a new player I've ever seen. Respect!

The final question, what's the point, you can only answer for yourself. You have to define your own goals. As others already pointed out, a competitive approach can be a money trap. Nothing wrong with it if that's what someone likes, but it's always good to be aware and able to reign in one's impulses.
 
Meg said:
[...]
Cue 2009 (I think it was). Cryengine was implemented. Pretty shaders everywhere.[...]
Click to expand...

i can't agree with that, Brigadier General de Souza, Major Ushakov and Professor Marvin from the CDF yet explained all that in 2009
it's an asteroid which crashed on our beautiful planet calypso in 2009 who destroyed the maps we knew and then of course CDF had to implement the new binocular vision for colonists after their DNA regeneration, binocular vision thus called "CryEngine"

this was the true story, i had to point it out
 
JohnCapital said:
lvl 20 in 1 month? Damn. :eyecrazy:

As an example of where I'm coming from, I found a screenshot showing me at lvl 25 about 1 year into playing.

9 years after that, I'm ~lvl 65.

So you are already playing at a much higher ped turnover than it seems I ever did. (again, few hours/day almost every day for 10 years)
Click to expand...


My mentor was impressed with my progress also, but I think mainly it's because instead of direct deposit I bought strong boxes (at her suggestion) and got lucky looting a bunch of boost pills. I think they make a big difference early on. If I'm not mistaken they probably weren't available when you started, so you had to get your skills the hard way. ;)

To put a number on it, I have cycled about 8500 ped total so far. Usually only a couple hundred ped a day, more on days off.
 
Meg said:
Also - you were warned and still went? Dangerous habits :eyecrazy:
Click to expand...

Yep, this is how I roll. :D

I was the kid who's parents would say "don't touch that fire, you'll get burned", so I would immediately touch it to see if they were right.
 
Detritus said:
I was the kid who's parents would say "don't touch that fire, you'll get burned", so I would immediately touch it to see if they were right.
Click to expand...

We are the people our parents warned us about.
 
Detritus said:
I think they make a big difference early on.
Click to expand...

They do make a difference but it's a complete waste compared to if you used them way later on. Skillgain depends on the expenses, so it's a huge difference between shooting a gun that costs 1.5 pec per shot and one that's 50 pec.
 
First off, RCE as a concept, without any intention of make-up, IS pay-to-win. In this MMO it is not an insult. Is the reason we're here.

In what regards progression, to stay in John's trend, I made my account 11 years ago. My highest prostanding is 53. Excluding some excesses (like kadra these days), I am extremely likely to hunt exactly the same mobs as you do. 11 years. (sold skills lots of times, worthy mention, naturally should be around 80 I would guess).

I might insist maybe on this aspect too much, but that is actually what keeps us here, the money. First of all, that brings a consistent higher average age. Our mean age is between 30 and 40, unlike any other mmo out there.

Of course, it can get bad exactly because of same reason. When you work for your money and they go puff in a rhytm way above your real-life style of expense or income, alarm bells should sound.

Yes there are bugs and I never understood why they moved away from Torque. Cryengine migration basically made me quit, there are times when I miss alot the charm of that damn ugly past. But hey, you get used to anything.

In what regards Hofs and swirles, they become routine. I won't deny they are motivation, they must be for many players. For me, that satisfaction comes in .xls, when after some good months I conclude some 20-30k turnover on plus. It happened very rare, because I am not organised and patient. But Hofs? Had my share, up to 4 digits, not impressed anymore after 1 minute of adrenaline from that damn sound and all (by the way, the old Torque Hof graphics were leagues ahead the present one, with camera rolling around and pff... delicious).

I would love the game to be bugfree. It will never be. I saw here a comment about EA. Aside from being a mammooth company by comparison, seeing and paying in the past for some revolting ripoffs to them, I prefer my money going to MindArk any time of the day, as annoying as they might be sometimes.

My only fear is that we'll have the same migration again. Just when EU will become decent, as PE was in Torque, they will move to next engine, next generation of bugs and so on :D

To their credit, very few if none at all game-breaking bugs remained.

And finally, I agree with the comment that is expensive AF. MindArk very often forgets that the new players don't usually understand what an RCE means and they purposely burden them with expenses which seem outrageous for anyone spending 50$ on a full fledged gaming experience. That is why I still consider the colonist jumpsuit mission a very bad move and I hope they will change their mind. At the very least, make it more optional, right now is right in the eyes of news, is not ok, they will feel very bad when they realized they threw off some tens of bucks for literally nothing.

In same time, you should be happy you didn't tried this game in 2009-2010. Bit of badluck and you could have looked at least at double expenses while seeing daily 10k Hofs from atroxes on the HoF board. To MA's credit, now is sensibly easier, 95%ish tt is much easier to achieve, about 20% of what used to be as turnover needed, noobs do have a tutorial, they do have low lvl missions and so on, as clumsy as they are implemented. If just that stupid jumpsuit would not be there :girl:

In the end, yes, this is our game. Expensive AF, buggy, great community, and with these awkward habits of purposely hunt lvl5 or whatever rippersnappers when you're lvl 47 because reasons. For us is fun :)

P.S.: I just bought 40 boxes of Halloween and i am annoyed to no end by the sheer qty of junk which ate away the ammo. Ended up with 290 peds of that. So, there is also my rant.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top