Imagine everyone have 100% TT returns, would the game survive?

Fanan

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Imagine everyone having 100% returns or really close to it like 99.999%, where the Markup gained is where You profit or not.

Some would say it's impossible and that MindArk need money to pay their staff and the servers. And yes I agree! No company in this world can act like charity but then I started to make a list of all the things where we spend our PEDs without a way of see it returning.

Here it goes:

- Deposit fees (3.5% when depositing via CC)
- Withdrawal fee (1%)
- Auctions fees (selling / buying from a different Planet)
- Shares fees (buy / sell of shares)
- Oil consumed in all vehicles
- Mind Essense used on Personal Teleport Chips
- Vehicles decay when attacked (some without even get attacked just by using them)
- Truster decay every time we enter Space
- Repair of vehicles
- Cloths decay when equipped
- Rings decay when equipped
- Mining Extractor decay
- Refiner decay (most of time it increase MU but that is payed by a player never by MA)
- Pets food
- Stable special effects for Pets
- Teleports fee (those 7 peds every time you TP from CP, FOMA, Monria, Ark Moon)
- Pills (right they have a function but the TT is lost when taken)
- Upgraded Items (more TT value in than out, the increased MU is payed by player)
- Advertising Screens fee
- Events creation fee
- Fertilizer consumed
- Tier upgrades (item become better but that is translated in form of Markup payed by players)
- Soul Bound items (only partial TT refund if you want to sell it)
- Chipping out fee (10% of all chipped out skills are lost and they have a TT value)
- Payn-Inc Implant Inserter decay
- Distractor decay and ammunition (decoys)
- Scanner decay
- Pheromones use (Neomex cave)
- Structural Integrity Upgrade of Motherships and Privateers
- Numerous wave/event/boss spawns like The Husk or Gorgon wave that asks items from players in order to start the event.


Hope I remembered all the fees, if more they will be added. Most of these decays didn't existed in 2008. Many were added recently.

Adding all these fees would the game survive giving players a 99.999% return rate if they were not so greedy? What you think? Never is enough right?

Comment please.
 
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i would say that 95 to 97% would be the most correct, but not having to cycle tons of peds.
new players, low budget players tend to leave because they can´t reach that kind of return.
 
The game wouldn't survive because everyone would die of boredom getting 3k ped "ATHs" every month. and a few globals a week. However if they make it less volatile for lower level hunting, it may actually improve player retention rate which is good for the game.

Imo they should fix how fast you lose after you get your payback that fixes your return. Basically should not set your avatar to cursed mode until you paid it all back. I think the big problem that fucked the game's economy was several things.

Over excessive amount of events for long periods. Atm we still got Daspeltor, Cornaterion, Robots, and now Mayhem.
By running events for so long and since they all drop important MU like outputs and spleen it really ruins the markup. Last year outputs were 185-190% MU. today 110%?

If they want to keep running excessive events like this they need to do the right thing for the players.

My proposal is for them to remove important MU for event mobs that most players normally grind for when it's not event running.
Outputs, Spleen. Those mobs that currently drop spleen should drop a lower quality oil. Outputs can be replaced for same TT amount of tier components depending on mob level.

Then it will actually help a lot of players because people can hunt for MU both from event mobs and non event mobs still.

Ideally MA should give a period of at least 1 month between events also and never run them simultaneously.

It would probably be good for economy if Exp 3, 4 used something like liver oil else instead of nanocubes.

The key is to improve the MU not the return of all players. They have good balance already when it comes to efficiency and looter skills vs return.
 
Imagine everyone having 100% returns or really close to it like 99.999%, where the Markup gained is where You profit or not.

You mean exactly how it works right now, but with very little volatility?

Summing all of these fees would the game survive giving players a 99.999% return rate if they were not so greedy? What you think? Never is enough right? Comment please.

I find it very unlikely that people would keep playing with no volatility, and if nothing else it would be very hard to get new players to start. So the game would die eventually. I suppose.

But less volatility == no gamblers == less players == less market flow == less MU == less money to be made == less players and so on. So even if MA probably could survive short term, EU would likely die and MA with it, eventually
 
I don't think there is really any point in a thread like this. MA are not going to change their business model on returns to give near 100% return no matter how many polls/petitions, etc would be done by the playerbase.

The only way they would change to this sort of thing would be a last ditch effort if most of the playerbase gave up and left. Then it would be a quick money grab and then server shut down.

We also don't know which (if any) of those 'fees' are returned to the loot pool in any way. We can assume that most are not from a business stand point, but you can't 100% for sure know unless you have seen the code of the game.
 
The current loot distribution you're seeing is what this game needs to survive. You can get fancy with numbers, sure, give everyone 100% tt return. However, MindArk is going to find a way to take the same amount they're taking from the playerbase with the new changes as they are now. Why wouldn't they? They've got a company to run and a lot of expenses to keep everything running.

All this 100% tt return change would do is flatten loot for everyone, and likely demotivate a lot of people. There might be more negative consequences than positive ones if a change like this were implemented. You'd discover new fees, new decay, new areas where players bleed PED, and likely not be able to identify all of the areas, and forbid the rake might even get higher.

At the end of the day, MindArk has a lot of fixed costs. And it's not possible to give more to the players without positive change/growth of the company, or them figuring new ways to cut costs. They rely on us, we rely on them. They have to make $, and we won't pay them $ unless we're being entertained or enjoying their product.

The quickest way to improve loot for everyone is to increase your deposit, increase your cycle, and increase your spending. This is just like the real world. This game goes round and round by people spending money. If you're not interested in doing that, that's OK, I'm not here to bad mouth non depositors. I'm just noticing you want to improve loot for everyone, and my suggestion is do your best to help bring in new players. Game growth is the fastest way we can increase loot value and item value for everyone.

Props to all of the Twitch streamers who actively promote this game and spend their time and money answering questions, explaining things and getting people interested. Props to all the YouTube channels that do the same. That kind of stuff is incredible for the community, and helpful overall, we all benefit from that kind of content.

Everything has a cost. Giving everyone 100% tt returns is going to come with a lot of visible, and hidden costs, its not something I would be in favor of.
 
You mean exactly how it works right now, but with very little volatility?

The 99.999% return rates would be in the long run like it happens at the moment, not every kill/drop of course.

You could have days with 90% tt returns and next day have 110% tt returns, it would be on the long run otherwise the ATHs would be over. The return rate fluctuates or it would be a really boring game but the tendency would be for 100% tt return.

...
Everything has a cost. Giving everyone 100% tt returns is going to come with a lot of visible, and hidden costs, its not something I would be in favor of.

But those hidden costs already exist, that's why I made this list and I'm sure that I'm missing some.
 
The game wouldn't survive because everyone would die of boredom getting 3k ped "ATHs" every month. and a few globals a week. However if they make it less volatile for lower level hunting, it may actually improve player retention rate which is good for the game.

pretty sure there's a lot more people currently quitting over a lot of 60-80% TT-return runs with a 5-digit every couple years than there would be people quitting because of 90% TT-return runs with a monthly 4-digit hof...

MsPudding
The current loot distribution you're seeing is what this game needs to survive. You can get fancy with numbers, sure, give everyone 100% tt return. However, MindArk is going to find a way to take the same amount they're taking from the playerbase with the new changes as they are now. Why wouldn't they? They've got a company to run and a lot of expenses to keep everything running.
then MA would just make a lot more money through auction fees etc. as there's alot more traffic going on in the game.... the 30-40% MA may currently take in the bad runs would then simply be spend on something else...
 
MA is a company. They are in business to make money. As much as they can from whatever they can. You want them to make money from pie in the sky. The system they have works rather well. They will not change it too much, simply because of the old saying. If something works, don't fix it. From their perspective, things are working just fine. They have the numbers to know when or if they need to make a change.

I do not believe MA makes profit, as a company, from decay, as it makes profit from deposits and interest they get on your deposit. From what I've seen in financial reports - and I may not be that smart to understand it all- all deposits are counted as income. The income is not the decay inside the game in accounting papers. Withdrawals are expenses. You have no contract to get 90% back or 100% back or even 10% back on any specific activity.

The game design for MA to be successful is to make all people lose as much as possible in whatever way possible to reduce expenses and after all that, make people feel like they can still get it back somehow. For this reason, whatever you do, you will lose in TT in EU. It is a matter of time. How much time... I think it is not a game design problem, but an accounting problem. If they need to have 90% of players have 40% returns for 2 days... they can. You may get some bit hof once in a while... some items with markup... or you may not. The first part of the goal is to get your money. The second part is to make you give more money. The first part is the important part. The second part... it may not be even needed. People may just deposit even when they lose like crazy. They have the data to know how this behavior works in detail.
 
why stop at 100% TT return, I say make it 150% TT return and charge huge fees on everything I don't do myself to make up the loss....
 
has anyone here claimed MA wouldn't be a company which wants to make money?

take less money =/= take no money

The purpose of a company is to make maximum profit. They know exactly how loot should work for that to happen. They have the data. We can only speculate on what may or may not work. If it is not in their interest, they would not do it. For a company, take less money === incompetent management.
 
The purpose of a company is to make maximum profit.

only if you're a hardcore capitalist and maximally greedy.
If you're not, then the purpose of a company is saturating citizens needs and having satisfied customers.
 
in old period , I never saw anyone complaining at the time of looting from 100 to 1kped with lots of clothes / armor / weapon in it, except that MA then implanted the oils and the big HOF to attract young ambitious players. maybe if MA had invested in EU instead of buying a castle and other bullshit it would remain stable the loot pool.
MA may be trying to find a balance but the mind is no longer there
 

Just imagine :D
 
The purpose of a company is to make maximum profit. They know exactly how loot should work for that to happen. They have the data. We can only speculate on what may or may not work. If it is not in their interest, they would not do it. For a company, take less money === incompetent management.

there was a fastfood chain here in japan that was about to go bankrupt. you know what they did? they reduced all prices by an average of 60% and now they are one of the top5 fastfood chains in japan.
reducing prices doesnt mean less income. they got a lot more profit due to more traffic with 60% reduced prices than before.
 
but that doesn't work with EU, they can't even sustain the servers us few buggers are playing on :silly2:
 
but that doesn't work with EU, they can't even sustain the servers us few buggers are playing on :silly2:

lets assume they reduce their cut by 50%. when you double the playerbase then you still make the same profit as before. if you get even more due to popularity you even make more profit than before.
 
doing this would remove the globals/hofs which are the main attraction
 
lets assume they reduce their cut by 50%. when you double the playerbase then you still make the same profit as before. if you get even more due to popularity you even make more profit than before.

Yeah, cos with twice the player base they obviously wouldn't need extra servers, bandwidth, tech support, etc. :scratch2:
 
Of course capitalism world and everything revolves around it but there is also the happy costumers right? Or are some of you trying to imply that even all these recent bugs were also designed with solo intention of bring even more money to the house? I don't want to believe it! Still they are very suspicious, why 2.5 years without doing nothing?

My last deposit of 150$ USD resulted in 5 USD instantly profit for MA. (instantly profit, without even open the game)

The auction house, more or less 800 pages, each page 15 items, imagine a fee average of 0.75 because some items pay a lot more. I remember selling a Dante amp at +/-2k ped mu and that cost me around 90ped just in fee (9 bucks!)

800 items in auction at 0,75 each average (being very modest with fee average here) is 900 USD / week! Full mouth is 3600 USD, not accounting orders fee nor other planets auction.


lets assume they reduce their cut by 50%. when you double the playerbase then you still make the same profit as before. if you get even more due to popularity you even make more profit than before.

I like your thinking but of course their servers are probably the worst in the world and couldn't never sustain a 2x increase in player base!



doing this would remove the globals/hofs which are the main attraction

Currently do you have 95% return in every hit? The system would be the same, the tendency would be 100%. You would still losing in some days but long term it would be close to 100%. I explained this before, otherwise HOFs and ATHs would be gone!
 
Yeah, cos with twice the player base they obviously wouldn't need extra servers, bandwidth, tech support, etc. :scratch2:

well. looking at the servers i highly doubt that they are the big profit margin killer. id guess the servers cost less than 3 of them MA employees. and those are highly useless, as we can see every day again :D
 
Of course capitalism world and everything revolves around it but there is also the happy costumers right? Or are some of you trying to imply that even all these recent bugs were also designed with solo intention of bring even more money to the house? I don't want to believe it! Still they are very suspicious, why 2.5 years without doing nothing?

My last deposit of 150$ USD resulted in 5 USD instantly profit for MA. (instantly profit, without even open the game)

The auction house, more or less 800 pages, each page 15 items, imagine a fee average of 0.75 because some items pay a lot more. I remember selling a Dante amp at +/-2k ped mu and that cost me around 90ped just in fee (9 bucks!)

800 items in auction at 0,75 each average (being very modest with fee average here) is 900 USD / week! Full mouth is 3600 USD, not accounting orders fee nor other planets auction.

oh, back when they didn't charge that much via bad returns, i had like 40-50$ in auction fees per month and people did depo about 400-600$ per month to buy stuff from me. Oh well, those days are over :rolleyes:

btw, the amount of players increases exponentially with cost reduction... it's not just half the price double the playerbase, it may just be half the price, quadruple the playerbase...
 
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I appreciate everyone's replies especially Black Hawks - I think he is right about how MA manages/makes their money.
However, I totally agree with the OP - and that's what I think about mostly -
Ped is 1:10 ratio, however that never is true in reality and I will try not to repeat all the things he listed. As soon as I deposit I already lost... 95 ped for $10 in the webshop FFS! How is the ratio 1:10 when it already cost more than that. Then all the built in ways that I "decay" just to function in the game that the OP listed.
Then add in the hurdles and waits and fee to take money back out? The simple act of depositing and then withdrawing the next day MA has made money.
To this end I would think 100% return wouldn't be out of the question, because NO MATTER WHAT I do , I still won't get 100% back no matter what I do. Now did they make a ton of money off my ten bucks? Not really, I'm sure some of those fees they also pay into, but they make SOME.
We can see the minimal staffing, customer service, slow development, lack of new content that they continue to provide. We also see ways of them cash grabbing some bigger sales: avatar statues, mayhem events, Equs Quads, CLD sales and so on. The rate of return leads to the comparison to a casino... you almost have to try on purpose not to make money (house always wins)
Problem is their house has too little people in it.
Problem is when they do get new players they are met with this mountain of challenges to not see their $20 gone in 2 hours of game play.

I'd love to envision a game where they make their money from the things the OP posted and most everyone gets very CLOSE to 100%. Most get 95-99 no matter what more or less (none of this "oh you need to cycle more")
And then very few get 100% to maybe 105-110.
Reason I think they can't pull that off is because too small player base. If they had numbers even half of some other MMOs the money they would pull in could be massive...

Anyhow that's my rant.
I think all the time "come on MA give me a huge hof... you KNOW i'm not withdrawing FFS... I haven't in 10+ years once.. what all of a sudden I'm just going to." We both know my money was theirs when I hit deposit, so let me have some fun FFS... let me play longer than 100 ped an hour.
 
I kind of like the old system before 2.0 loot and i like the 2.0 loot.But i dont like that when u hunt the only thing u get is damn shrapnel or other no MU crap.
Even when u look at those hofs for what people brags and makes them happy is 99% shrap again.
The excitement is gone.
They suppose to make mixture of old loot and new loot where u will have that 90%+ return and some chance to loot something nice depends on hunted mob,your loot lvl,cycled peds etc.
That would bring some fun,expectations even if u loot something maybe tt +50/100 still there is some MU where it can makes your % better.
 
If MA got a tiny percentage of each players activities only, then they would be incentivised to get more people playing. Since they obviously don't want more people playing, what does that tell you about their income?
 
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lets assume they reduce their cut by 50%. when you double the player-base then you still make the same profit as before. if you get even more due to popularity you even make more profit than before.

That is not true. More people means higher server load, more people on support cases, they will need more people to work in just about all departments, so the expenses will go up a lot.
Another important aspect is that the bigger the team becomes on a software development, the harder is to manage, so the costs go up even more and the efficiency decreases. I suspect that they keep the player base at a level they know how to manage, because if they do grow above a threshold, they could collapse.

More is not always better.

I believe they are smart and know what they are doing. However, I am convinced that the return is decided by the data they have. None of us knows it and none of us can actually understand why it is the way it is. They are in this business for many years, so they must be doing something right, while dealing with a community that mostly complains about just about everything.
 
That is not true. More people means higher server load, more people on support cases, they will need more people to work in just about all departments, so the expenses will go up a lot.
Another important aspect is that the bigger the team becomes on a software development, the harder is to manage, so the costs go up even more and the efficiency decreases. I suspect that they keep the player base at a level they know how to manage, because if they do grow above a threshold, they could collapse.

that's only half of the story...
sure server capacity will need to increase, but the amount of extra players will pay for it, if players per server wouldn't cover the costs of server the game wouldn't be here in the first place. So that whole server load argument makes no sense.
development costs may just stay the same, if they keep the current pace of development.
amount of support work may decrease, let's face it, there will be a lot less complaining.
the spending on advertising can be decreased, players who like a game will advertise it for MA.
more players brings financial stability.

bottom line, it may just get MA more money/profit to make the game cheaper to play... ofc only if they stick to EU and stop wasting money on unsuccessful side projects, like they did with compet, blockchain etc...
 
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