Developer-Notes--3

Just to clear up some apparent confusion and misunderstandings related to the Personal Lootpool portion of Developer Notes #2-- Entropia Universe has never had any kind of so called personal lootpool mechanic.

It seems some participants have incorrectly interpreted the developer note article to mean that personal lootpools or some other sort of loot tracking / avatar compensation mechanic existed in the past and was later removed. This is not the case.

The fundamental loot architecture in Entropia Universe has been unchanged since public beta. Of course, minor tweaks and adjustments have been made over the years to improve balancing and to accomdate new game systems, but the basic underlying concept is the same as ever.

Bertha Bot said:

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

Click to expand...

And how are you going to know which ones those are?

Maybe someone can give me some pointers and or tell me what I do wrong. Lately when I hunt I do it with out armor, low level mobs that I don't have to fap alot and using a Herman cap 101 arctic. Bigger mobs that will kill me without armor I will wear Spartacus and use my Karma Killer. I hate to have to change armor and gun for this mob and a different one for that mob.

For skills
Laser sniper hit = 39
BLP sniper hit = 37
ranged laser dmg =36
laser pistoleer hit = 35
blp pistoleer hit = 33
ranged blp dmg = 32
evander = 18
dodger =14

Bertha Bot said:

The single most important effort a hunter can make in becoming more efficient in his or her hunting activities is to always use weapons which are “maxed” -- weapons with which your avatar has 10.0 Hit Ability. The importance of this cannot be stressed strongly enough.

A second and very important part of efficient hunting is to consider the relative cost of using a particular weapon, often referred to as weapon economy, usually measured as damage per PEC.

Finally, be sure to hunt creatures within your avatar's skill level. Creatures within Entropia Universe are designed with avatars of varying skill levels and equipment in mind, and each creature type has different attack speeds, regeneration rates, hit probabilities and damage potential.

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

Click to expand...

Thanks for clarifying this. When I get back to a EU capable computer I'll try my best to get a weapon that fulfills the above requirements. (Kind'a guessing how item loots work, I guess the most fun new mindforce chips will be gone by the time I'm back - for about a week I'll have to use a linux based backup computer (laptop).)
The constraint I have is that the only gun I have that fullfills those requirements is a X5(L) handgun. Yes (L). And when it is broken, what I will have left will be my old crappy oldschool weapons with HA<10, or SIB weapons designed for people at half my skill level, unless I either loot a good repairable weapon or I get an ATH so I can enquire on the market for a good weapon.

I had planned to save that gun for an event, but I gues it's more important now to get a useful weapon that fullfills the guidelines. (Neither my IRL economy nor my PED card balance allows me to buy a good weapon at the market prices in auction.)

Bjorn|MindArk said:

The fundamental loot architecture in Entropia Universe has been unchanged since public beta. Of course, minor tweaks and adjustments have been made over the years to improve balancing and to accomdate new game systems, but the basic underlying concept is the same as ever.

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Retrograde amnesia much?

How about the loot nerf over 4 years ago?

This has been everything but a "minor tweak".

wizzszz said:

How about the loot nerf over 4 years ago?

Click to expand...

1) How was the loot nerfed 4 years ago?
2) Do you have any kind of proof of that?

SoftHart said:

And how are you going to know which ones those are?

Maybe someone can give me some pointers and or tell me what I do wrong. Lately when I hunt I do it with out armor, low level mobs that I don't have to fap alot and using a Herman cap 101 arctic. Bigger mobs that will kill me without armor I will wear Spartacus and use my Karma Killer. I hate to have to change armor and gun for this mob and a different one for that mob.

For skills
Laser sniper hit = 39
BLP sniper hit = 37
ranged laser dmg =36
laser pistoleer hit = 35
blp pistoleer hit = 33
ranged blp dmg = 32
evander = 18
dodger =14

Click to expand...

Wrong is

Laser pistoleer = 35 and then use a karma killer for one (check HA on the weapon) not efficient
Use a P5A instead maybe?

Nighthawk said:

1) How was the loot nerfed 4 years ago?
2) Do you have any kind of proof of that?

Click to expand...

I said over 4 years ago.

Are you saying that you somehow managed to miss or forget about "THE(!!!1111) infamous lootnerf"???

wizzszz said:

I said over 4 years ago.

Click to expand...

Fine, "over 4 years ago", nitpicker.

wizzszz said:

Are you saying that you somehow managed to miss or forget about "THE(!!!1111) infamous lootnerf"???

Click to expand...

I am saying that I sure did not notice one, and most of those I have talked to that has actually been keeping logs over that period has said in the past that it was an illusion and/or imagination.

wizzszz said:

I said over 4 years ago.

Are you saying that you somehow managed to miss or forget about "THE(!!!1111) infamous lootnerf"???

Click to expand...

Apparently I did. I remember the infamous skill nerf, which could be plainly demonstrated. I haven't ever seen a change in loot. Mob regen, yes, tweaking of the lowest possible loot and median for particular mobs, yes, but mean loot return and clear changes in loot mechanism? No, I've never seen that.

Nighthawk said:

I am saying that I sure did not notice one, and most of those I have talked to that has actually been keeping logs over that period has said in the past that it was an illusion and/or imagination.

Click to expand...

Doer said:

Apparently I did. I remember the infamous skill nerf, which could be plainly demonstrated. I haven't ever seen a change in loot. Mob regen, yes, tweaking of the lowest possible loot and median for particular mobs, yes, but mean loot return and clear changes in loot mechanism? No, I've never seen that.

Click to expand...

Were you playing the same game back then?

The changes to loot were drastic, to say the least.

I'm quite surprised that you seem to have forgotten how loots were before MA came up with SIB & (L).

Hello? THE loot nerf, the big, much-cited loot N E R F !
And all you remember is a "minor tweak"???

wizzszz said:

Were you playing the same game back then?

The changes to loot were drastic, to say the least.

I'm quite surprised that you seem to have forgotten how loots were before MA came up with SIB & (L).

Hello? THE loot nerf, the big, much-cited loot N E R F !
And all you remember is a "minor tweak"???

Click to expand...

Hmm and guess who we are going to believe on one hand we have the person that did the most statistical analysis in the history of the game. And on the other hand we have someone that finds everyone that disagress with him stupid....

wizzszz said:

Were you playing the same game back then?

The changes to loot were drastic, to say the least.

I'm quite surprised that you seem to have forgotten how loots were before MA came up with SIB & (L).

Hello? THE loot nerf, the big, much-cited loot N E R F !
And all you remember is a "minor tweak"???

Click to expand...

I have tt returns going back 5 years, always around the 95% return, occasionly like in mining, it dropped to 89% in the short term but that is the lowest in the 5 years (it crept back up to around 94-95%)

So unless it is before 5 years ago, i call bolloxs on that

Rgds

Ace

wizzszz said:

much-cited

Click to expand...

... And equally much disproven. Your point?

SoftHart said:

Maybe someone can give me some pointers and or tell me what I do wrong. Lately when I hunt I do it with out armor, low level mobs that I don't have to fap alot and using a Herman cap 101 arctic.

Click to expand...

Sounds OK, although absorbing damage through armour is normally cheaper than fapping damage, even if it's between mobs. I'd try wearing something with a small bit of protection like Explorer/Warrior+1A/2C on one hunt, and then without armour on another run of the same length and see whether your armour+fap decay in the first hunt is more or less than your fap decay in the second.

SoftHart said:

Bigger mobs that will kill me without armor I will wear Spartacus and use my Karma Killer. I hate to have to change armor and gun for this mob and a different one for that mob.

Click to expand...

That's a fun combo for sure, but also ped-card suicide. The gun is unmaxed and really uneco, but the Spartacus is an even bigger problem. OK for the odd event on really big mobs you can't otherwise kill, but for regular hunting it is (a) seriously overprotecting and hence you're paying for more protection than you need and (b) on top of that you're paying a heap of markup.

Ditch Karma Killer, and use lowish MU L guns. Get a set of something like Ghost/Grem/Bear/Boar/Vigi, and keep the Sparta for special occasional outings.

wizzszz said:

Were you playing the same game back then?

The changes to loot were drastic, to say the least.

I'm quite surprised that you seem to have forgotten how loots were before MA came up with SIB & (L).

Hello? THE loot nerf, the big, much-cited loot N E R F !

Click to expand...

I remember loot becoming more volatile, I don't remember a nerf. It was around the time we all had to ditch our Opalo+106s too though, which inevitably made many of us less eco, and also likely we started cycling ped faster (e.g. Opalo+106 -> H400+106).

Silvia Universe said:

Wrong is

Laser pistoleer = 35 and then use a karma killer for one (check HA on the weapon) not efficient
Use a P5A instead maybe?

Click to expand...

At level 60 I should use LR66 maybe LR68... As for handgun HL15. Probably not economically sane to use the (L) versions of those - if there is one in auction (I can't say I have luck looting those).

I have enough skills to use (max) eredicator type four, but not PEDs enough to buy one.

When it come to fap, I've practically maxed SK80(L). Of which there typically are 3 or so in auction.

Whip: I did do some work, using Cobra ME whip, to be able to use/max my Umbraiond Time Warp whip(L). Problem? It's (L) and they dropped during an event years ago. For whips beside event prizes the biggest whip with SIB is designed to tame daikibas (when it comes to dmg/sec), not to hunt with. (And you can't tame daikibas with them either..)

Mindforce: I got enough skills to have maxed the VIII electokinetic chip. Problem? There might be one for sale, but I don't have enough PEDs (around 15000 ped). I got an XI(L) chip at last robot event - but again it's (L) and was handed out as event prize - so when it's broken it's broken.

Harmony. said:

Hmm and guess who we are going to believe on one hand we have the person that did the most statistical analysis in the history of the game. And on the other hand we have someone that finds everyone that disagress with him stupid....

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Ad hominem fallacy, and a pretty insulting one i might add.
(And you know how much of statistical analysis i made, albeit not in public? From where?)

Ace Flyster said:

I have tt returns going back 5 years, always around the 95% return, occasionly like in mining, it dropped to 89% in the short term but that is the lowest in the 5 years (it crept back up to around 94-95%)

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I don't have an exact date, and with all the replies here i can't be arsed to look it up, let alone post again, but it could be very well 5 years ago (i said OVER 4).

However, i have not said that the nerfed RETURN RATES.

Nighthawk said:

... And equally much disproven. Your point?

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Disproven? Where? When?
How did you "disprove" something MA confirmed?


MA announced the nerf, it was in the old release notes, yet you folks are saying it never happened?

What are you going to dispute next, gravity?

aia said:

At level 60 I should use LR66 maybe LR68... As for handgun HL15. Probably not economically sane to use the (L) versions of those - if there is one in auction (I can't say I have luck looting those).

I have enough skills to use (max) eredicator type four, but not PEDs enough to buy one.

When it come to fap, I've practically maxed SK80(L). Of which there typically are 3 or so in auction.

Whip: I did do some work, using Cobra ME whip, to be able to use/max my Umbraiond Time Warp whip(L). Problem? It's (L) and they dropped during an event years ago. For whips beside event prizes the biggest whip with SIB is designed to tame daikibas (when it comes to dmg/sec), not to hunt with. (And you can't tame daikibas with them either..)

Mindforce: I got enough skills to have maxed the VIII electokinetic chip. Problem? There might be one for sale, but I don't have enough PEDs (around 15000 ped). I got an XI(L) chip at last robot event - but again it's (L) and was handed out as event prize - so when it's broken it's broken.

Click to expand...

Well my point being was that it is not so good to go hunt with a lvl 100 weapon if you are not even close to lvl 70, 80 so if the question was what he/she is doing wrong i think that could be one of the problems.

I also always used P5a (L) at lvl 42 pistoleer now and i bought a karma killer and went hunting with that...I can assure you, my returns were significant lesser than with my P5a, so i dumped it in my storage

Same as it's always been.

How to hunt:

Pick a mob and maturity.

A = Figure your cost to kill by testing. (Highest dmg/pec may not be the lowest cost to kill)

B = Figure the average loot including markup by testing

If A > B then don't hunt that mob except for fun.

Always keep track of everything in case the loot changes (and MU).


Testing is expensive.

It's not just an adventure, it's a job.

You got my vote! SIB period is soooo misleading and has lead to new to mid players losing a TON of ped.

I know of many players that quit because of heavy losses, most of them where mislead in thinking "Recommended" level is good and some of them even refused to use sib weapons that says "Not Anymore"...

"Recommended level" should be changed to "Start level" with a warning that you lose 25% economy by using the gun at start level.

Neil Stockton said:

If any devs are reading this, you need to change the wording in the item info panel. Most of us know not to use items in SIB period if we can help it. However, the item info window is misleading and confuses the heck out of newbies. They always think that when it says "recommended level", that's the level they need to start using it. When I talk to a new player I inevitably spend a lot of time trying to persuade them why they should not be using the tool that says "Yes". And some of them never really believe me, at least until they progress and see the difference for themselves.

The best thing would be to completely remove the word "Bonus". It gives the wrong idea and any "bonus" is very small anyway. Since "Recommended level" is not the level being recommended by MA, change it to read something like this instead:

Learning period (start / end): 5 / 10

Take the focus away from the SIB period and put it on the usability of the item:

Below SIB it would say
Usable/Maxed: Not yet / Not yet

In SIB it would say
Usable/Maxed: Yes / Not yet

Above SIB it would say
Usable/Maxed: Yes / Yes


Old school non-sib items would say:
Learning period (start / end): 0 / 100

and for most of us, those items would say
Usable/Maxed: Yes / Not yet

Click to expand...

wizzszz said:

Were you playing the same game back then?

The changes to loot were drastic, to say the least.

I'm quite surprised that you seem to have forgotten how loots were before MA came up with SIB & (L).

Hello? THE loot nerf, the big, much-cited loot N E R F !
And all you remember is a "minor tweak"???

Click to expand...

I take it you mean when +10k loot were rare and +20k even rarer i.e. months apart and then suddenly they became every day occurances to the point where now people think the sky is falling when one doesn't appear on a hof table for a couple of days.

MA gave the excuse it allowed them to drop high tt L items, that fact that they gave the items such stupidly high values in the first place never entered the discussion.

Jimmy B said:

That's a fun combo for sure, but also ped-card suicide. The gun is unmaxed and really uneco, but the Spartacus is an even bigger problem. OK for the odd event on really big mobs you can't otherwise kill, but for regular hunting it is (a) seriously overprotecting and hence you're paying for more protection than you need and (b) on top of that you're paying a heap of markup.

Ditch Karma Killer, and use lowish MU L guns. Get a set of something like Ghost/Grem/Bear/Boar/Vigi, and keep the Sparta for special occasional outings.

Click to expand...

It seems L guns never last long and I pay more to buy them then to repair the one I have. But then the opposite for the armor. I used to use my gremlin alot but the cost of repairing it was more them I was spending on the L armor. Granted I never kept an actual account, so its quite possible that I might be wrong.

Maybe the changes to MU? If not, could you describe what the drastical changes were about?

wizzszz said:

The changes to loot were drastic, to say the least.

Click to expand...

The changes to loot were drastic, to say the least!

SpikeBlack said:

I take it you mean when +10k loot were rare and +20k even rarer i.e. months apart and then suddenly they became every day occurances to the point where now people think the sky is falling when one doesn't appear on a hof table for a couple of days.

Click to expand...

Hall of fame was 10 entries per profession back then, too.
You all remember the amp nerf, don't you?

Why is the big loot nerf (whch wasn't that long before the amp nerf iirc) suddenly deleted from people memories somehow?

SpikeBlack said:

MA gave the excuse it allowed them to drop high tt L items, that fact that they gave the items such stupidly high values in the first place never entered the discussion.

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Exactly.

And nobody ever needed these high TT items, useable down to 50% only.
A cheap trick to tie up PEDs ingame, and they even did this to TT items, like the Vivo, they only reverted it after the resulting shitstorm on the forum.Apparently everybody was on vacation back then.
I guess (at least) you remember that as well.


However, it was not just a "minor tweak", but a fundamental change in the loot system.
Who knows, maybe Bjorn wasn't working for MA back then yet.

wizzszz said:

(And you know how much of statistical analysis i made, albeit not in public? From where?)

What are you going to dispute next, gravity?

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Vast amounts of research on gravity is publicly available. Your claims about your statistical analyses are inevitably at best going to end up as shouting matches. However confident of your conclusions you are, no-one else can be, until they can see how you came to them.

I think ultimately these Notes and Bjorns subsequent additional comments are extremely clear. At some point you have to accept you drew the wrong conclusion from your data and start looking for other explanations of whatever it is you see in your private data set.

SoftHart said:

It seems L guns never last long and I pay more to buy them then to repair the one I have. But then the opposite for the armor. I used to use my gremlin alot but the cost of repairing it was more them I was spending on the L armor. Granted I never kept an actual account, so its quite possible that I might be wrong.

Click to expand...

I don't know the stats of Karma Killer, it could be low decay and use mostly ammo. In which case it may well be that its repairs are less than a corresponding L weapon over the same amount of PED cycled (since you're paying more in ammo instead). The L gun will still be more economical, as long as you stay away from the stuff with crazy MU.

Gremlin decaying more the Spartacus is just not possible in normal circumstances. But they're not even really worth comparing, there's no mob in-game that you should hunt in Gremlin and also hunt in Spartacus.

Jimmy B said:

Vast amounts of research on gravity is publicly available. Your claims about your statistical analyses are inevitably at best going to end up as shouting matches. However confident of your conclusions you are, no-one else can be, until they can see how you came to them.

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If i want to publish my conclusions, yes, or actually give a damn whether people believe me or not.

Which i don't, i think i made it very clear that i don't want to discuss the loot return part.

Jimmy B said:

I think ultimately these Notes and Bjorns subsequent additional comments are extremely clear. At some point you have to accept you drew the wrong conclusion from your data and start looking for other explanations of whatever it is you see in your private data set.

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That is one possible explanation.
Another explanation would be that they phrase it in a way to make us believe something they didn't really say.
Maybe the simply lie because we came too close to the truth?


And just look at it - i don't know what you see, but i read "It is your own fault when you lose money".
Great reaction on the countless "loot sucks" complaints.


And have you read dev notes #2?
Are you happy with the "all tests players made are false" part?
Do you think the system is so complex, so tricky that it made several people arrive at the same WRONG conclusion?

Mind you, we're talking about MA devs here, who didn't release a single VU without new bugs yet.

Who knows, maybe the loot system is simply bugged, maybe the last dev who actually knew how things work was fired long ago?


If i ran EU, only ONE coder would be allow to know about the inner workings of the loot server (actually, i'D code it myself and not let anone near it), and i'd for sure make him sign a non-disclosure agreement instead of allowing him to post dev notes about one of the most closely guarded company secrets.
And this is exactly the policy MA has shown for almost a decade, for a damn good reason.
You think they changed their policy on that? I don't.

4 years ago i was in EEEE, Karma Killer + A105 was the standard combo and loot was more uneven on smaller mobs than today.
About a year later i bought adj Stark and tried heroically to hunt with it... which brought a disaster to my ped card and the story ended with taking a 2 year break from the game.

After coming back started using L weapons and cheap UL melee, evade got better, armors smaller and returns noticeably better. Oh, and i learned to keep my eyes open, to track all my returns and to be ready to change things instantly. I guess i learned to be dynamic...

That's the only drastic change i have seen.

aia said:

At level 60 I should use LR66 maybe LR68... As for handgun HL15. Probably not economically sane to use the (L) versions of those - if there is one in auction (I can't say I have luck looting those).

I have enough skills to use (max) eredicator type four, but not PEDs enough to buy one.

When it come to fap, I've practically maxed SK80(L). Of which there typically are 3 or so in auction.

Click to expand...

AL29 Felis(L) + A105 gives 2.650 and they are always available. Not a recommendation though. Similarily, sk-80 is available for tokens in unlimited amounts, but eco would suck.

The blindness to people in the 50+ levels (but not yet at say 80) is certainly interesting.

Oh, and another thought just popped up in my mind:

There was a time before SIB.
Only choice for players below level 100 in Hit AND Dmg profession was Opalo (the only weapon with SIB, the only possibility to have 10/10 HA as a non-uber)


What about those using different weapons?
Weren't these weapons incredibly "inefficient" according to the lastest dev notes?

Yet players were able to get 90% return back then... despite all the (obviously) bad eco...



How? How is that possible?

Loot has never been adapted to the "newly available efficiency" of SIB weapons, according to Bjorn, according to the dev notes - how do they still make money from the game when pretty much everyone can have (has) 10/10 HA and maxed damage (read: extremely efficient, compared to non-SIB times)??

This all simply doesn't add up.

wizzszz said:

Isn't this just a verbose way to say "99% of the weapons in EU are useless"??
(especially all oldschool weapons w/o SIB)




And what kind of magic is it that i can still lose money hunting puny mobs with a maxed opalo (no armour/fap, ofc)...?




Did anyone ever tell the devs that you miss much with a 10/10 weapon as with a 3.5/10 weapon?

Click to expand...

Could'nt have said it better - cant spend less than 1 pec per shot and I cannot more max out the TT pistol or the noobie gun from the TT (forgot the name) but yet at level 30+ i still lost 20 ped on 50 ped spent on punny mobs

I CALL BULLSHIT on everything MA says - they are backpeddling hoping to get people back to wasting thier money -in a week they wil come out saying "there is a lootpool forget what we said and plase give us your money"

Maybe we lose because

1) you miss 10%+ of the shots you take
2) shots disappear into thin air
3) you are lucky to get max damage 20% of the time regardless of what gun you use (dont tell me about that 75% BS either - never seen so many hits at the lower side of the guns damage potential - and yes it is a maxed SIB gun)
4)I loot (lol if I get loot) crap that is TT fodder and have to pay a markup on all guns because I cant loot them on the mobs I should be hunting
5) the rare super eco guns are maxed by only a few people and they seems to be the ones getting 90%+ or profiting - so everyone else is bound to lose to pay them off? - how about reducing the decay on all (L) guns and while your at it reduce the TT value so you dont need $100 to do a short hunt and maybe more people might give this game a try??
6) eliminate worthless .01 pec loot items like fragments completely and fully from loot and put them in the F'n TT
7) make ammo that gets looted equal to at least 1 pec and not some weird 1/256 of a pec by getting 15 cells
8) get rid of regeneration because the BS that those mobs pay out more was BS from day one and now you are just milking it
9) reduce auction costs - having to pay 5% over TT on a lisitng after losing your ass hunting/mining/crafting is just insane
10)go back to the normal spawning of mobs - not nice to have mobs spawn on you when you are hunting - which of course creates more armor decay costs - which you were so kind to tell us to keep to a minimum - not really easy to do when you are coding to make sure we get ripped up by multiple mobs

just a few thoughts of the top of my head as to why any guidance from you about playing eco is completly laughable given the effort you put into making sure you milk every pec you can from your customers.