FYI: How Loot Returns Work as Function of Looter Level and Efficiency, Based on Actual Data, as of March 3rd, 2022

Holy crap, this turned into a whole discussion (a surprisingly interesting one) when there didn't really need to be one in the first place.

MindaArk rarely speak, and when they do, it is generally the truth (albeit, sometimes a bit mysterious in wording). MindArk has stated several times throughout the years that "there is no personal lootpool".

There has been some backlash at these statements inferring that we do not know what MA means when they say "personal lootpool". My earliest findings of the term (in the words of MindArk) was in response to a discussion on a topic claiming that "Eco is a lie" to which MA responded "there is no system in place to track individual returns and compensate players for bad returns" (paraphrased). This was a long time ago. it was also referenced in a dev note, a long time ago.

This is going to sound very contradictory to the people who keep questioning whether this is gambling or not, but MindArk (or rather Entropia) works exactly like a "dealer" at a poker table every hand you play, you pay a fee (big blind, small blind). This is the "house money". Every interaction with Entropia (that incur a cost) gives "house money" to MA. The rest goes to the table.

This is where the poker similarities end (almost).

Every time you shoot a mob, you add more money to the table, when you loot you are paid out of the table.

How much of the stake being paid out is unknown to us. It is decided by factors unknown to us. We know there is a randomizer. We are fairly certain that it can be influenced by the choices we make. What we know for certain is that there will never be more money paid out than is "in the table" unless a glitch occurs.

Basically whenever you get more out than you put in, you get paid out of what you or someone else put on the table.

As such, there is a lootpool (in terms of valuable funds to pay out) and there is a lootpool in other aspects (such as available items to loot, which has been clearly observed over the years. Still unclear how deep this goes. Common resources? Who knows?)

But there is no personal lootpool. There is no system in place that keeps track of your returns and pays up if you are down too much. There is no system in place to take back if you have taken too much from the table.

How do we know? MindArk has stated so, several times. But more important, there doesn't need to be such a system. Statistics fixes this all by itself. MA makes money without all that extra work of adding a system that keeps track of things and fixed things.

(this also means that there are likely people with exceptionally poor experiences all around. These people quit. And there are people with exceptionally good experiences all around and these are the ones wondering what most other people are complaining about)
 
Holy crap, this turned into a whole discussion (a surprisingly interesting one) when there didn't really need to be one in the first place.

MindaArk rarely speak, and when they do, it is generally the truth (albeit, sometimes a bit mysterious in wording). MindArk has stated several times throughout the years that "there is no personal lootpool".

There has been some backlash at these statements inferring that we do not know what MA means when they say "personal lootpool". My earliest findings of the term (in the words of MindArk) was in response to a discussion on a topic claiming that "Eco is a lie" to which MA responded "there is no system in place to track individual returns and compensate players for bad returns" (paraphrased). This was a long time ago. it was also referenced in a dev note, a long time ago.

This is going to sound very contradictory to the people who keep questioning whether this is gambling or not, but MindArk (or rather Entropia) works exactly like a "dealer" at a poker table every hand you play, you pay a fee (big blind, small blind). This is the "house money". Every interaction with Entropia (that incur a cost) gives "house money" to MA. The rest goes to the table.

This is where the poker similarities end (almost).

Every time you shoot a mob, you add more money to the table, when you loot you are paid out of the table.

How much of the stake being paid out is unknown to us. It is decided by factors unknown to us. We know there is a randomizer. We are fairly certain that it can be influenced by the choices we make. What we know for certain is that there will never be more money paid out than is "in the table" unless a glitch occurs.

Basically whenever you get more out than you put in, you get paid out of what you or someone else put on the table.

As such, there is a lootpool (in terms of valuable funds to pay out) and there is a lootpool in other aspects (such as available items to loot, which has been clearly observed over the years. Still unclear how deep this goes. Common resources? Who knows?)

But there is no personal lootpool. There is no system in place that keeps track of your returns and pays up if you are down too much. There is no system in place to take back if you have taken too much from the table.

How do we know? MindArk has stated so, several times. But more important, there doesn't need to be such a system. Statistics fixes this all by itself. MA makes money without all that extra work of adding a system that keeps track of things and fixed things.

(this also means that there are likely people with exceptionally poor experiences all around. These people quit. And there are people with exceptionally good experiences all around and these are the ones wondering what most other people are complaining about)

Interesting indeed. Well I'm far outnumbered lol maybe I'm wrong then. But I'm amazed that you guys can trust the MA wording on the no personal loot pool tho when all they'd have to do is add a tiny fraction of a % to community pool or something for it to technically not be a lie and just call it a loot algorithm. They do like to keep us in the dark afterall. It still doesn't explain why people that can wave hunt only wouldn't have tt+ results while people who macro or play straight thru constant should have worse results than those people but dont? Or does no one notice that the multis and/or success rates are increased like for crafting etc at certain times. Or if anyone has mined argus where 100 people mine same small area and hit rate is horrible but yet no one cares because they know they'll just get paid back and get bigger hits to make up for the loss of lowered hit rate mining behind others. While statistics would fix all of this in the long run it would still like you said give people horrible results and new players coming from other games don't understand this you gotta wait years crap to even out and just keep depoing until then and would leave. It makes all the sense in the world that MA would switch to what we refer to as a personal loot pool after loot 1.0 where so many got killed and constantly left. They already mess with returns that we know about whether it's looter/eff changing results, bad hit rate mining behind others or dropping in same spot to make it kind of more realistic etc so would probably be easier to code it in than not. Like I said if you only hunt you'd never be able to tell and simple statistics could seem like the answer. If you do like high input crafting and lose a lot then go mining or something you can see it. If you constantly always mix professions and mob sizes you can't see it because you don't know what the norm is supposed to be for long periods (months) doing same inputs on same thing and are all over the place. It took me a long time to get past what MA had said about there being no personal loot pool and I kept thinking they wouldn't lie it must be true until I kept seeing things that are dam near impossible for an activity that i know like the back of hand. Either way it ends up being I guess it doesn't really matter and either way doesn't refute Zho's work here on expected return, my bad for the post derailment lol.
 
I am sure I have read of a player asking Mindark with a support case for their overall returns over time and receiving it.
Yeah it was Messi of all people. They 100% track your rtp. They track crazy things like distance travelled by certain vehicles, shots fired by certain guns, specific mobs killed and give you badges for it on Rocktropia. You think they track that and don't track your rtp in a real cash economy. They just lied about this imo to prevent an avalanche of support tickets.

"No personal loot pool" has been misunderstood a bunch of times aswell imo. Re-read the context in which it was first said, it was replying to a specific question and with a bit of word fuckery managed to mislead a lot of the community. A personal loot pool in that context was referring to items not to your specific rtp. They have to be extremely careful with how they define how this game returns a player's spend back to the player to avoid the gambling definition. They can't for everyone's sake be too clear on this otherwise they'd tank the whole operation, where we'd all lose out. Its why the ex-MD shit himself and started talking about riding bikes when he was pressed on the gambling definition of Entropia, it's the big elephant in the room pretending to be a lamp shade, as long as we all pretend its a lamp shade the show goes on.

Either way you interpret it the outcome is the same just keep shooting for MU within a risk of ruin level you can manage. Track everything and it'll come clear over time how it works.
 
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yeah my data shows the same. so your not wrong. also great details. I am solid on looter and scanning skills and staying on animals than anything else to gain more gains than anything else. I hunt for 24 hours 7 days a week with multi eff and eff is way better the more you have. it might take longer to hof or global but it will come like anything. only way to gain is to gain MU. or depo. there is alot more to factor in also. but im not going into all the details. Compare and contrast and keep learning and testing. Good Luck out there :)
 
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