Developer Notes #14 - Loot 2.0 Update

I totally understand that is how it works, but it's the amount of time said bankroll lasts is the problem. As we all know it doesn't work nice and tidy like your example. I'm not sure we want to to be nice and tidy either to tell the truth. My experience remains that I deposit $80 and it lasts a few days maybe 1 week. Not sure how that's 90% return. I guess the math says it is, but when those 8 runs last 2 days - it's too expensive.
What I want to see is I put $100 in on the first of the month, and by the last day of the month I have 8-900 peds worth left. I'll dream on.

if your bankroll is fixed and you want to increase the time it lasts the only way is to decrease the turnover, in other words: use a smaller gun and hunt smaller mobs. there are no other options, apart from swunting (waste of time imo) or teamhunting with a friend exclusively
 
I think the reason they didn't put a metric for below 10k cycled in the past two and a half weeks is because they consider those players to be small time/softcore players and decided to put information on how new players were doing instead, to represent this group.

I don't believe this is the explanation.

New players do probably not cycle 10000-50000 ped in 2,5 weeks so their volatility is probably even more obvious than for the mid level small time/softcore players (who most likelly have a larger turnover). So is this 96,94% for new players the average for ONE particular newby or is it an average of the entire newby player base?

They just say

Accounts created in 2017 have enjoyed returns of 96.94% on average since the changes implemented on Sept. 11.

But this doesnt mean every newby who shot 1000 punies got 96,94% in return.

MA doesnt want to state that group as they are probably way below 90%. And that doesnt look good for player retention.

Noooo, that can't be true, Mindark just told us:

One of MindArk’s primary long-term goals is to make Entropia Universe as affordable and entertaining as possible for all participants.
 
What I want to see is I put $100 in on the first of the month, and by the last day of the month I have 8-900 peds worth left. I'll dream on.

This is easy to do.

Lets say, you play 2 hours per day. This is a total of 60 hours in the month (assuming 30 day month). Simple maths say 1000 ped / 60 hours = 16.67 ped per hour can be spent, to achieve 90% of 1000 (900).

At 16.67 ped/hour, or 0.46 pec/s, just go on the wiki and arrange by cost/sec and pick a gun which suits. Then you can shoot 2 hours a day solid for the whole month and only lose ~100ped. Probably free if you can be arsed to swunt.

It'll be dull as hell but that's what you get paying $10 for 60 hours of entertainment.
 
but it's the amount of time said bankroll lasts is the problem. As we all know it doesn't work nice and tidy like your example.

Of course is never so tidy. But hunting proterons and LT with 1k budget and expect and the end of month to have 900 is... I don't know what words to use. You exagerate and you know it very well, you have a sizable amount of globals on elife, not like now you started hunting for first time. You're just being a child :p

Think again about that so very obvious math I posted. The difference between having 1k and 10k bankroll is not only about effectively capitalizing the 95%+ tt return, is also about changing your own perspective and frustrations.

If you can't put in or is not reasonable to put in 1k$, then maybe lower the level for few months and but deposit over deposit until you have more to move on mob ladder.

I understand you as human, I have a socmate who starts to whine after 3rd mob of the day and shuts up only at hofs :laugh: But math is math, you have to respect it in order to reap the advantages.
 
I'm Surprised

I am really surprised that the usual suspects aren't on here blowing a kidney like the one we have seen so far...

:yay:
 
Off the chart, lol

Problem 4 me is simple I can get like 2h/day active hunting

Log in, repair 1 A106, Adj Ewe41, armor. .. go for small trooper. .. ckeck balance @ start, shoot, using also finishers.... check when Amp is broken(2k shot)+ some DMG more from other weapons,Sib maxed
Check@ the end balance, and see TT loss between 40 to 178 PED, check MU. ..

Whisper some Rude words.... and regret going hunting...use ALT+F4.....

That plain Cost2 play for2h......is above2 $/h....(same setup... same mob @ a times10$/h).... (DPS ~ 40 but not pressing, hunting slower, aiming single agro)

Ps. I do keep Log, although I little care about % cost 2 play...but real cost and there has not been profitable run in last 2 monthes (also did smaller mobs)

Resnis
 
Ive done more than 10k turnover but nowhere near those numbers =) how do we know that they are for real ?
 
Ive done more than 10k turnover but nowhere near those numbers =) how do we know that they are for real ?

I would be more worried if you were near those numbers as it would mean a predetermination :)
 
[h=3]Developer Notes #14 - Loot 2.0 Update[/h]
As noted in a previous Developer Notes, Loot 2.0 drastically lowered the costs for armor decay and healing

How exactly did Loot 2.0 drastically lowered cost of healing?
 
How exactly did Loot 2.0 drastically lowered cost of healing?

Maybe they mean armor decay is now less and more will wear it , leaving less healing overall. Just a guess of course.
 
Maybe they mean armor decay is now less and more will wear it , leaving less healing overall. Just a guess of course.

Armor is about twice as efficient as before and

Loot Changes
  • Loot calculations will be optimized and improved to better factor in the various costs associated with hunting activity, including: healing, ammo consumption, buffs, tool and armor deterioration, attachments, and more.

This change says it has made healing used in combat, armor decayed in combat, as well as attachment use "better" accounted for in loot, which has been my experience since loot 2.0.
 
How exactly did Loot 2.0 drastically lowered cost of healing?
Armor decay is lowered since it deflects a lot more... so it does less damage to the armor/plates.
entropia_2017-09-29_00.21.47.jpg


http://www.entropiauniverse.com/bulletin/buzz/2017/06/08/Developer-Notes--11---Loot-2.0.xml
Loot calculations will be optimized and improved to better factor in the various costs associated with hunting activity, including: healing, ammo consumption, buffs, tool and armor deterioration, attachments, and more.

Also in the Loot 2.0 Version Update will be a range of improvements to various other systems with an eye toward lowering costs and increasing enjoyment for all Entropians. An example of such are the following planned changes to armor:

Armor Changes

Armor now decays significantly less per point of damage absorbed.
Armor no longer has a minimum decay based on total protection, it will now always decay proportionally to the amount of damage absorbed.
Armor can now absorb all incoming damage down to a minimum of 0.1 point of damage taken, instead of the previous 1.0 points of damage.
Armor and armor platings now decay independently based on the amount of damage they each actually absorb, rather than both decaying as if absorbing the full amount of received damage.
Armor decay is now linear per point of damage absorbed, rather than increasing in cost per damage absorbed.
A profession level requirement will be introduced for non-(L) armors. Meeting the required level results in the armor offering full protection at all condition values. If the profession requirement is not met, armor works as before, with protection decreasing relative to condition.


As for healing, haven't really tested it much, but suspect that a percentage of fap decay comes back in loot. I can definitely tell that a percentage of armor decay is coming back in loot, so it probably uses a similar formula.

I believe they are tweaking the hell out of things lately, and will continue to do so, so the total effect of it all on healing probably isn't 'done' yet... at least not completely. Suspect more changes will come when they introduce the level requirement on the armor...
 
deflect means it blocked 100% of the damage, that has nothing at all to do with armor decaying less...

:duh:
 
I don't believe in personal loot pool, but isn't this proof that personal loot pool exists

No, there still is no personal loot pool.

Actually, this doesn't read like "most efficient hunters = highest returns" at all.

I know plenty of people with low dpp setups turning over high ped, whom would fall into this >50k bracket. If (as you assume) this would be pure high efficiency, they would artificially skew the return % lower.

What the statement actually reads (to me) is that, MA are identifying what cycle amounts are appropriate in identifying loot. I.e. >50k turnover, they expect >98, >10k >97, and all >96.

They've been pretty clear that dpp (or eff, whatever you wanna go with) only affects loot composition (by 7% min/max) and now they've highlighted that crit bonuses only boost this composition factor.
No, DPP and Efficiency are not the same thing. DPP affects loot composition and critical hit/damage etc affect the DPP. Efficiency directly affects average TT return by 0-7%.

First off, thanks for the update!
Just a slight point about that list; there are presumably a huge number of players who don't fit any category there, namely those with a daily turnover of less than 600 peds or so a day since the test began, but have been around a lot longer than just this year!
I wonder what those returns are ???

It's also nice to see discussion on critical hits, for example, being commented on by MA to clear up some misunderstandings . Please continue to show you have been reading our discussions MA, ty!!!

Thank you so much for the update PLEASE keep them regular - we have a community manager after all.... right?

I at first was liking the changes, but quickly my loot fell off like usual. The hope was in less armor/fap decay.
Problems remain with loot items having zero mu and huge swings of volitity exist.

And as posted above, what about the large group of people that go through say 300-1000 peds? or even 5k peds? Your figures start off at 10k, that's pretty high. I still have never maintained 97% or 90% for that matter for more than a couple of days. What's my return after a week to 1 month? 0-10%. Deposit 100 bucks, have 1-10 dollars at end of month. I would LOVE to see myself have 80 even, but I don't so I still keep my distance from this game.

I remain hopeful for the future and involved from a distance.

The amount of turnover isn't very relevant to the average return or volatility in return for any individual player. To reach a stable average return it's really the amount of loot instances or creatures killed that matters. As an example, if a player kills 2 Sand Kings spending about 5000 PED to do so the expected loot returned on those 2 kills can vary greatly. If instead killing 200,000 Punies also about 5000 PED the expected loot return is going to be very close to the expected average of 96%+ seen in the 2017 group. A more realistic example of this is perhaps spending 300 PED hunting Proterons vs spending 300 PED hunting small Argonauts where the Argonaut hunt will usually yield similar results and the Proteron hunt results can be all over the place since the loot events are so few.
The reason turnover is chosen as the metric to present these statistics is because number of kills doesn't really say much about which level of players are in which category since anyone can kill a large number of mobs if they are small enough.

still no definition of what the hell turnover means... Is that the amount of ped they deposited, the number of ped they spent in decay, the amount of ped spent in ammo, or the amount of tt value they turned in when they 'turned it over' to the tt?

Turnover or PED "Cycled" is all PED decayed/destroyed/spent on killing a creature, this means decay for weapons, armor, ammo, healing, attachments etc. It has nothing to do with deposits, trade terminals or repair terminals etc.

Ive done more than 10k turnover but nowhere near those numbers =) how do we know that they are for real ?

These numbers are averages, most players in each category are going to be either above or below said number.
New players do probably not cycle 10000-50000 ped in 2,5 weeks so their volatility is probably even more obvious than for the mid level small time/softcore players (who most likelly have a larger turnover). So is this 96,94% for new players the average for ONE particular newby or is it an average of the entire newby player base?

They just say

Accounts created in 2017 have enjoyed returns of 96.94% on average since the changes implemented on Sept. 11.
But this doesnt mean every newby who shot 1000 punies got 96,94% in return.

As mentioned in a previous answer, the most important part for stable returns is the amount of kills or loot events not the amount of turnover. Most new players have very low turnover but hunt mobs like punies and therefore kill a large amount of mobs, like 1000 as you mentioned. This does produce results pretty close to the average for most new players.

How exactly did Loot 2.0 drastically lowered cost of healing?

Most of the decay from healing and using armor is now compensated for in the loot of the mob. On top of this the actual amount of decay to the armor per damage absorbed was reduced greatly. Overall the cost for healing and armor usage is less than 5% of what it used to be.

It is great that you adjust to lower the fees, even if temporary.
Some questions:
1. Is the temporary test over or still ongoing?
2. Is "returns on average" including costs (repairs)? does it include MU? if so, your MU figures cannot be correct as the auction data is off, there are many items which show MU because of historical sales but really cannot be sold / MU is way lower.
3. Smilgs has enjoyed a tt return of 92.66% since 11th of September and 91.82% before that, the only higher return was when not using the crit buffs for a week - strange coincidence? Losing 15000 peds per month with 39000 peds just before is just as frustrating of an experience...
Yes it is still ongoing and we hope to be able to keep it this way.
As mentioned earlier it includes all decay of weapons, ammo, armor etc associated with killing the creature. Repairing simply moves PED from one place to another much like buying/selling things from the TT, neither has an effect on loot or MindArk revenues.
The loot system never accounts for markup. Not on markup spent on things like enhancers or limited weapons, nor on markup gained from loot such as oils, items and ESI etc, markup values are just transactions between players. It is always TT in vs TT out. These statistics also do not include any loot that was paid as tax on land areas, so the returns are actually slightly higher than stated here.
If those tests of using/not using crit buffs were done during the last two weeks it would have coincided with the increase in overall loot returns and any result would have been skewed by that.
As for your personal returns I will not answer that here but you already have those answers in a support case and will have to post it yourself if you want it shared.

deflect means it blocked 100% of the damage, that has nothing at all to do with armor decaying less...
Correct.
 
No, there still is no personal loot pool.


No, DPP and Efficiency are not the same thing. DPP affects loot composition and critical hit/damage etc affect the DPP. Efficiency directly affects average TT return by 0-7%.


.


:scratch2:

was the efficiency not based on the dpp?
All the high dpp weapons have high effiency.

Now I'm a bit confused.
 
Yes it is still ongoing and we hope to be able to keep it this way.
As mentioned earlier it includes all decay of weapons, ammo, armor etc associated with killing the creature. Repairing simply moves PED from one place to another much like buying/selling things from the TT, neither has an effect on loot or MindArk revenues.
The loot system never accounts for markup. Not on markup spent on things like enhancers or limited weapons, nor on markup gained from loot such as oils, items and ESI etc, markup values are just transactions between players. It is always TT in vs TT out. These statistics also do not include any loot that was paid as tax on land areas, so the returns are actually slightly higher than stated here.

And people will still not believe this.
 
:scratch2:

was the efficiency not based on the dpp?
All the high dpp weapons have high effiency.

Now I'm a bit confused.

Efficiency was based on DPP of the weapon. But you can raise your DPP in other ways too. Like using easter egg buffs with more crit hit chance, crit damage. This is not higher efficiency so will not yield higher TT-result (0-7%) but it is still higher DPP since you will do more damage for the same ped spent and this will put you in a more favorable position for "optimal loot" (less shrapnel).

This is how I interpret Charlie's response along with all the information MA has given about Loot 2.0.
 
The amount of turnover isn't very relevant to the average return or volatility in return for any individual player. To reach a stable average return it's really the amount of loot instances or creatures killed that matters. As an example, if a player kills 2 Sand Kings spending about 5000 PED to do so the expected loot returned on those 2 kills can vary greatly. If instead killing 200,000 Punies also about 5000 PED the expected loot return is going to be very close to the expected average of 96%+ seen in the 2017 group. A more realistic example of this is perhaps spending 300 PED hunting Proterons vs spending 300 PED hunting small Argonauts where the Argonaut hunt will usually yield similar results and the Proteron hunt results can be all over the place since the loot events are so few.
The reason turnover is chosen as the metric to present these statistics is because number of kills doesn't really say much about which level of players are in which category since anyone can kill a large number of mobs if they are small enough.


.

ok, does this then mean that it sucks to get a high multiplier on a small mob after you have hunted big mobs without any significant multiplier?
 
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Awesome stuff MA, very pleased to hear this news and certainly believe this is the way forward for increasing retention and future investment.

It is really nice to see some transparancy and discussion as well.

Any plans to implement loot 2.0 for crafters and miners?
 
Any plans to implement loot 2.0 for crafters and miners?


mining and crafting is already loot 2.0 as loot is based on ped spent and not something else like hunting 1.0 was
 
thanks for the responses, think you are starting to do a very good job on communications in here
Yes it is still ongoing and we hope to be able to keep it this way.
As mentioned earlier it includes all decay of weapons, ammo, armor etc associated with killing the creature. Repairing simply moves PED from one place to another much like buying/selling things from the TT, neither has an effect on loot or MindArk revenues.
The loot system never accounts for markup. Not on markup spent on things like enhancers or limited weapons, nor on markup gained from loot such as oils, items and ESI etc, markup values are just transactions between players. It is always TT in vs TT out. These statistics also do not include any loot that was paid as tax on land areas, so the returns are actually slightly higher than stated here.
If those tests of using/not using crit buffs were done during the last two weeks it would have coincided with the increase in overall loot returns and any result would have been skewed by that.
 
As for your personal returns I will not answer that here but you already have those answers in a support case and will have to post it yourself if you want it shared.

Correct.

What is the needed status to get such answer from support?
I only asked once for a return% and the answer from support was "Calculations like this would take days of work and is unfortunately not something we on support offer as a service."
If its not via support , how did smilgs got one?Do you guys called him or just regular email?
I need to purchase a landarea to unlock that feature? or I didn't complain enough? Or maybe I hunt too much for your system to calculate my returns?
 
:scratch2:

was the efficiency not based on the dpp?
All the high dpp weapons have high effiency.

Now I'm a bit confused.

That's how they did it with all existing weapons when moving to Loot 2.0, but in the future it may be possible they create weapons with say low dpp but high efficiency rating. Maybe.
 
mining and crafting is already loot 2.0 as loot is based on ped spent and not something else like hunting 1.0 was

I would like to see the stats for mining and crafting as well in this case :D
 
It seem that I need to change a lot the hunting technique.
I usually heal after I killed and looted mob.
So to be in line with L 2.0 need to heal before to kill mob and loot it.
I guess calculating loot based on so many different faps and their decay would be too heavy to do in real time.
So system must work on some known variables.
Ok no MU just TT.
But witch one is used ? 1 pec per click?, 19 pec per click or even 2 ped per click?
 
although the question is not for me, it implicates me so will give my feedback in the wished spirit of transparency

the channel mentioned is support cases and it is a result of consistently trying to understand why Smilgs lost 79k in 15 months and then 39k + ~10k in the last 3 months which coincides with loot 2.0 and easter ring 2016, which for me translates to losing a lot and then losing a lot more after what was supposed to improve returns or at least not make them worse

over time i have received tens of responses like the one you had below, and also many saying that my returns are within expectations for my skill level and equipment used
as for the actual response on losing 39k over migration and continuing to lose a lot in September, this is what I got and what Charles is referring to: "As for your returns, your avatar has been looked at by our Economics department and they cannot find any discrepancies related to your avatar, your returns are within the expected range for an avatar of your standing."
disregarding the number of attempts, suppose your last year returns would be a bit different as well...

to simplify, I am getting much more desperate losing such amounts in short amount of time - so I am using the only channels I have to try to rectify (support and forum) - and I consider I have the right to do so as a paying customer, nothing to do with owning an LA
and to simplify what I am seeing wrt. support, return system is treated as a holy cow - it just cannot be there is a bug when using certain item combinations / usage patterns
What is the needed status to get such answer from support?
I only asked once for a return% and the answer from support was "Calculations like this would take days of work and is unfortunately not something we on support offer as a service."
If its not via support , how did smilgs got one?Do you guys called him or just regular email?
I need to purchase a landarea to unlock that feature? or I didn't complain enough? Or maybe I hunt too much for your system to calculate my returns?
 
:scratch2:

was the efficiency not based on the dpp?
All the high dpp weapons have high effiency.

Now I'm a bit confused.

Nah this was just the initial implementation, just to have an easy way to implement efficiency instead of inventing overnight an alghorytm for implementing a stat on 'zounds of items AND do the simulation of how will this affect loot. All this when having dpp at disposal both for statistics, prediction, spread, tiers etc.

So they took the model for dpp, replaced "dpp" variable with "efficiency" variable, reduced variable's impact in loot calculation and kept dpp for its intrinsec role, damage output per consumption.

So for the moment dpp and efficiency are exactly same thing on default items, but only dpp can be improved via buffs.

With this move:

1. they created the possibility to affect the loot impact of weapons without changing weapons themselves, something which is a redline for most of the playerbase.
2. they created the possibility to experiment with the loot from a single variable instead of doing so indirectly (like most probably buffs were originally intended)
3. they salvaged the buffs from becoming neither utter useless neither absolutely mandatory, which both would have been a mistake
4. and as they said they opened up the possibility for new items (for example a possibility would be weapons with buffs and cool-offs, triggered by missions etc) without interfering with the loot of everyone for every small modification

That's what I understood.

39k + ~10k in the last 3 months

Out of curiosity, your losses account for the tax payed by you hunting on your own LA? That is, are those the losses projected if you'd hunt on untaxed land?
 
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