Merry Mayhem Update

[jetsina]

It depends, in this case it's MA that handle the PED payouts, so it's first a cost for MA and they probably take it from the revenue Calypso normally gets.

ERM? MA may be the ones handling the payouts (as part of the platform operation), but the planet partners are the 'front of the shop'. All statements in the past have been that the gross revenue is split up and allocated to each edit[group involved: the pp, investors (CLD), other planet commission and MA themselves]. What now appears to be happening here is not according to that procedure, and as John says, that would be 'intelligent accounting' [creative accounting is what I know the term under John - I assume you mean that].

There can be deals made about fees on the lines of 'no win, no fees', yes, but that is NOT the basis on which all previous information to us has rested!

Edit: it is not just about CLDs: imagine a player born on another planet goes to Caly and plays there for a while. Is the situation really such that because of some error in bonuses made by the pp, the result is that MA could say: "sorry, no commission for you this week, because Caly made a loss!"?
That would be like a travel agent getting no commission from a holiday booking because the hotel gave out too much free beer, or whatever!

...where MA does not meet reality....

 

[awe]

Just saying; tomorrow is Tuesday; and there might be an update to the event.
If I was doing the solo I'dd make sure I had the mission complete by then.
Just in case of course.

 

[billairboy]

ERM? MA may be the ones handling the payouts (as part of the platform operation), but the planet partners are the 'front of the shop'. All statements in the past have been that the gross revenue is split up and allocated to each edit[group involved: the pp, investors (CLD), other planet commission and MA themselves]. What now appears to be happening here is not according to that procedure, and as John says, that would be 'intelligent accounting' [creative accounting is what I know the term under John - I assume you mean that].

Well, it's the revenue of the planet-partner and that probably is: Revenue for the planet=Decay/Fees spent by players on the planet - PED Cost of rewards in missions and events

 

[jetsina]

Well, it's the revenue of the planet-partner and that probably is: Revenue for the planet=Decay/Fees spent by players on the planet - PED Cost of rewards in missions and events

Well that simply isn't what the word revenue means! If you want to talk about a splitting of profits, or net income, then ok, but that is not what MA have said that CLD income is!

It becomes a very slippery slope when we become justifyably uncertain about the situation.

Consider this: maybe MA have decided not to treat all stakeholders of the 'gross revenue' the same (or have never done so). Caly doesn't really need to make a 'profit', as long as it can cover its costs, provided there is a steady flow of 'currency' to MA. What if MA siphons off from a different decay equation, and having loads of UA to be burnt up is great for the platform provider, but reduces Caly and CLD amounts. Now there's a way to 'shift' the balance, eh?

All I'm saying is that this is now a relevant question. As far as CLD payouts over the years are concerned, I've been very happy so far. They have paid out, and the CLD market valued has doubled as well (to now equate to a return of about 10% a year roundabouts for new buyers). This does not stop me from watching closely, though. The return on Ark AUDs is now pretty much the same (and rising) and MA will soon be competing more seriously soon (definition of soon uncertain) with Compet deeds. Maybe they want to make it a 'closer competition'.....

 

[Dan59]

The return on Ark AUDs is now pretty much the same (and rising) and MA will soon be competing more seriously soon (definition of soon uncertain) with Compet deeds. Maybe they want to make it a 'closer competition'.....

Possible, investors like stories and they are smart
Investors invest -ie give money to developers to develop a dysfunctional stable for pigs witch allow pigs to eat food more than they grow / produce meat. In the end stable get broke and investors do not care about dysfunctional stable but they suspect that some of pigs are really pigs (exploiters) so they will not have any problem to invest in another similar stable like compet deeds because investors are smart after all...?

 

[robotech master]

After reading this mess its seem fairly clear cut that its unlikely an "exploit" took place. It looks like MA screwed up and is trying to to claim an exploit caused the problem. First some people have posted saying you can abandon the mission and restart the awards, others saying not possible... either way thats not an exploit. One of the things that I hate about MA and MA/Caly is the fact they use this god damn forum for posting information. Its both annoying as hell and legally dubious. The missions(and past MM missions) have been setup to drop and restart if you wish to. The rewards are tied to the mission that MA KNOWS is repeatable/drop and get back/reset mission. The fact that the rewards were tied to the mission means its perfectly legit to drop and restart the mission. The forum post is meaningless vs the well known and well established mission reward. Further since you have a launcher with news on it info posted on the forum is meaningless. No lawyer is going to look at the info on this forum and say that info is legit vs the launcher and ingame mission system. Its like comparing a court sending a letter to someone to show up for court vs having an official subpoena done. A subpoena is legally binding... the letter no one can prove it was sent, it was delivered to the address, the person really lives at that address, etc, etc, etc 1000x. Another way to look at it. Your a sports player and your watching espn and espn says that X sports rules have been change to X new rules. You go out and get rdy to play your sport for money. The ref gives out the rule book. That rule book doesn't show any changes that espn claimed. You follow those rules. Later after placing it turns out you broke the new rules. Can they remove you from placing YES. Can they ban you from the sport when they failed to inform you of the rules... basically impossible.

No way in hell can MA ban someone for doing that they would be crushed in court. MA could go into the logs(omg MA has to work) and post-facto claim you can only get the mission reward once our mistake. But ban... impossible.

As to the alt abuse... hasn't alt abuse been a major issue with MM before? MA would be hard pressed to ban anyone for abusing alts now when they have been doing it for years. Even if people are creating alts and giving them stars to cash in the whole purpose of MM stars was to be traded to and from people. Sure they are making alts to trade too but once again thats highly questionable whether MA can ban anyone for it.

Simply put
1. MA has allowed alt account whole-sale in both MM and in general.
2. Stars are allowed to be traded
3. The reward is uni-ammo which is account specific meaning that you are required to play that account to spend the ammo. This means they are not simply cashing out ped and trading it to another account.... they must actively use that account...<--- this being the place where MA completely ****s themselves. If they had given out straight ped that'd have a leg to stand on but because its account specific uni-ammo that must be shot(aka account must be used) they really got nothing. Its a huge difference for any active to be active for say an hour to conduct a scam and an account that has to be played for 10-30 hours.

Since the account is being legitimately used (aka being played) they are boned unless they go back and deal with problem number 1. Since they haven't done anything about muti-accounts pretty much ever they probably aren't going to do jack all now. On top of that since alt abuse is so common for things like MM even if they claw back ped from alts created sololy for this action they will struggle with all the alts that have been on the books for years.

Unless their is some real exploit going I think the best people can hope for is that MA stops being lazy, goes through the logs and takes back all the uni-ammo given to other alts. That said its doubtful MA will be willing to work to do that. Instead they will give some people a 15 day temp ban and let them basically keep the money.

I know its sucks to rain on some people parade that people will get banned but under the current known possible "exploits" none of them seem to be ban worthy. Mainly from the fact it was MA fault through and through.

 

[John B Knight]

Unless their is some real exploit going I think the best people can hope for is that MA stops being lazy, goes through the logs and takes back all the uni-ammo given to other alts. That said its doubtful MA will be willing to work to do that. Instead they will give some people a 15 day temp ban and let them basically keep the money.

I know its sucks to rain on some people parade that people will get banned but under the current known possible "exploits" none of them seem to be ban worthy. Mainly from the fact it was MA fault through and through.

Creating alt accounts to gain an 'unfair' advantage ingame is against ToU and mindark can ban for that - they dont need to prove anything in court either - after all they own everything and players are just allowed to use the stuff.
They cant reasonably ban people for looting and trading tokens - they would shoot themself in their own leg and kill trust of players in ma events even more.
They however can take actions based on aborting and restarting the mission repeatedly due to the rules they posted at event start.

I agree the whole issue is mainly caused by a badly prepared event which leave many loopholes - which shouldnt happen especially not in an rce and maybe they will finally wake up and realize that being lazy costs them more money then it safes them...

 

[billairboy]

After reading this mess its seem fairly clear cut that its unlikely an "exploit" took place. It looks like MA screwed up and is trying to to claim an exploit caused the problem. First some people have posted saying you can abandon the mission and restart the awards, others saying not possible... either way thats not an exploit.

I pretty sure MA would see the abandon a mission to redo it again to get the rewards in this case would be seen as an exploit, also using more than one avatar account would also be an exploit. Don't know which one or both was causing the exploit sitaution, but both is morally wrong. If it's immoral, it's also probably an exploit.

And claiming that the it's not an exploit just because you can't trade the ammunition reward is just stupid because you can use it to loot items you can exchange for peds.

 

[jetsina]

I agree that cancelling and restarting missions with the aim of regetting rewards you would otherwise get only once per avatar is an exploit. Also the use of alts, yes.

The point several of us have been making is that the far bigger problem seems to have been the drop rate of stars, which was too high compared to the rewards, or possibly that someone miscalculated the reward stacking.

Whichever mistake, it was out of balance and MA would have had to act anyway, regardless of any exploits we are assuming (and not assuming).

 

[whiteknut]

So much fuss over few ppl getting possibly banned? It doesnt affect regular players at all (only CLD owners as MA took a loss and there is no profit to be shared thanks to it).

Easily put:
1. Some ppl discovered they can abuse the system by claiming prizes multiple times.
2. Ma discovered it and disabled it until it can be fixed (as not disabling it would have lead to more and more ppl abusing it).
3. MA said all participants who were honest are still getting a chance to turn their FFA points in.
4. PPL who did nothing wrong are most likely still going to get their FFA rewards.. while all the abusers will most likely be banned or penalized in the sum of damage done to MA. For example if you did this abuse several times getting lets say 10k ped worth of UA, you are forced to pay 1k usd (maybe stuff taken from account), or if it can be clearly seen from chat logs that it was on purpose permaban and all the assets auctioned.

MA made a small mistake, BUT the players created the fuss by trying to outsmart the system (tbh i see it very hard to believe that someone didnt see abandoning mission and redoing it as not abuse of glitch).

So Ban the sinners and we can go on with our lives.
No regular players are affected (atleast so far it looks like so).

Snablesnot

 

[Norbert]

So much fuss over few ppl getting possibly banned? It doesnt affect regular players at all (only CLD owners as MA took a loss and there is no profit to be shared thanks to it).

Easily put:
1. Some ppl discovered they can abuse the system by claiming prizes multiple times.
2. Ma discovered it and disabled it until it can be fixed (as not disabling it would have lead to more and more ppl abusing it).
3. MA said all participants who were honest are still getting a chance to turn their FFA points in.
4. PPL who did nothing wrong are most likely still going to get their FFA rewards.. while all the abusers will most likely be banned or penalized in the sum of damage done to MA. For example if you did this abuse several times getting lets say 10k ped worth of UA, you are forced to pay 1k usd (maybe stuff taken from account), or if it can be clearly seen from chat logs that it was on purpose permaban and all the assets auctioned.

MA made a small mistake, BUT the players created the fuss by trying to outsmart the system (tbh i see it very hard to believe that someone didnt see abandoning mission and redoing it as not abuse of glitch).

So Ban the sinners and we can go on with our lives.
No regular players are affected (atleast so far it looks like so).

Snablesnot

What he said , saved me typing

 

[jetsina]

You guys really don't get it?

If you could make a profit by doing mayhem and its reward once, then EVERYONE was siphoning peds off Caly.

Anybody trying to do it more than once (which still involves doing hours of the event or at least buying FFA stars which others have gathered by spending hours doing the event), is not really the relevant point here.

Normal players who are something like 500 peds of UA in profit (and might still be 450 peds up or so after they 'convert' it into live peds); well, I can see why they are happy and they have done nothing wrong at all!

It is the deepening story of the relevance to CLDs which is a further worry!

 

[atomicstorm]

Well, they had this bonus option last year too.. so it isn't something new to CLDs. It is just a noticeable problem because of how the team event changed and everyone could quickly drain the pool with all these stars. If it were just the solo version then clds wouldnot be impacted. It's simply bad design. Someone forgot to do math. They just got carried away and seems like it was rushed or they don't have someone there so think about ramifications of changes or things they implement.. which is not actually uncommon. It's called the Army Game model.

The thing here is that if you don't like what you are getting with CLDs, which is a share of calypso revenue as it always has been, you can certainly sell them off and go about your day. They are already extremely overpriced anyway, this would be a good time.

 

[hottygurl]

Calm down people,
i bet it will be fixed next vu and all can turn in their points.

//mg Joda VVV VVV

I agree with this sentiment. They have already announced they're going to allow legitimate rewards to be given out, and I hope it winds up like this:

1) All accounts using glitch for universal ammo and exploit will get banned for longer than the liquidation period, and their universal weapon cells taken back since they have no real tt.
2) All accounts that were the mains of these players when alts were used get banned and do not get ANY ped back from this, they injected THEIR ped into our economy by buying the points and burning them up, and get nothing from it.
3) Mindark take the opportunity to take a tough stance on abuse of a REAL CASH ECONOMY where people can rob them, and lead 2016 out on a new foot to really make us trust you. Ban the exploiters, TT all of their shit and if law requires hand them back the ped alone to their debit card or otherwise give them NOTHING, and put ALL THEIR ITEMS into the loot pools for the various planets. Extend the event 2 weeks to give us some time to react to the situation, ensure a significant number of these items(items looted on caly) are dropped in the merry mayhem event to give us some markup and...
ALL IS FIXED WITH A HAPPY COMMUNITY.

Fuck the exploiters, burn them hard, take their money and make them cry for destroying our community. Take money directly from THEM and use it to pay for your expenses and christmas bonuses and to send a strong message, and improve our overall loot so we CAN cycle more peds faster and skill higher. Lower the % you take per cycle and we will have a much healthier market equilibrium with our markup making up a much more significant portion of our loss, if you put useful materials in that are not over dropped.

 

[Naifas Anaconda]

In the meantime, the balance of stars in loot seems to have been changed.. an unfair disadvantage to who started only a couple days ago (if this is true).

 

[mg Joda VVV]

In the meantime, the balance of stars in loot seems to have been changed.. an unfair disadvantage to who started only a couple days ago (if this is true).

for me all is same, nothing changed.

 

[robotech master]

Creating alt accounts to gain an 'unfair' advantage ingame is against ToU and mindark can ban for that - they dont need to prove anything in court either - after all they own everything and players are just allowed to use the stuff.

The problem is the whole "unfair" part. How was getting uni-ammo from stars "unfair". It wasn't. Doesn't affect the event at all. If they were using alt actions to grinds stars you could make that argument... but as fair as event wise nothing unfair about it. It was only really unfair to MA because they found a way to suck money from MA. Further once again while I believe MA can easily ban the alt account.... banning alts is meaningless. I see no way that MA will ball up and do 1. The leg work to gather evidence to support a ban on the main account, 2. Have the balls to go through with it being that the rules were grey at best. Once again a forum post vs an in-game system most courts are going to go with the in-game system since this game doesn't require you to log in via the forum.

They however can take actions based on aborting and restarting the mission repeatedly due to the rules they posted at event start.

I agree the whole issue is mainly caused by a badly prepared event which leave many loopholes - which shouldnt happen especially not in an rce and maybe they will finally wake up and realize that being lazy costs them more money then it safes them...

This however is the problem... can you ban players for using a dynamic that the game itself allows and is well known(quitting and restarting the mission is a well known dynamic for MM). MA can say yeah were taking this ammo back, etc, etc... but to ban someone not seeing it. A slap on the wrist of a few weeks maybe.

 

[Buck Wyld]

I'm getting similar star returns in solo, maybe slightly lower but I'm doing more s2 rather than s3's
Loot in the other hand......

 

[Sunsout Gunsout]

My first 28 hours of solo averaged over 1k points per hour. (Excluding 5k's)

After MA's post, in 10 solo hours, I average 425 points per hour.

There is a difference.

Joda says there is no difference, but that is because he got a 5k (which are still possible to drop)...but you can't count the 5ks when trying to look at averages.

My hours IS a big enough sample sizes to see that something changed.

Everyone fails to omit the 5k's when looking at averages. People love to skew their own data with statistical outlyers. Show your numbers without 5k's for it to have any relevance!

 

[SnowLeopard]

My first 28 hours of solo averaged over 1k points per hour. (Excluding 5k's)
After MA's post, in 10 solo hours, I average 425 points per hour.

I don't understand why the drop-rate for SOLO STARS needed to change. The exploit/abuse is only for the Free-For-All category.
Lowering the drop-rate for solo stars has given those that already spent a significant amount of time in solo an unfair advantage over those that concentrated on FFA to start.

 

[AtamiKiangola]

I don't understand why the drop-rate for SOLO STARS needed to change. The exploit/abuse is only for the Free-For-All category.
Lowering the drop-rate for solo stars has given those that already spent a significant amount of time in solo an unfair advantage over those that concentrated on FFA to start.

Since when does MA play fair ?

 

[Lorfat]

for me all is same, nothing changed.

Just because you looted your 4th Glorious Star and things are normal for you, it doesn't mean that the other people continue to get the same pattern as before!

In my last 3 runs, I got HALF the points that I was averaging during all my previous rounds (and in all rounds I have consistently killed over 300 spiders per hour).
So yep... to me, it looks like the star drop pattern has now changed too. Significantly, I must say!!

 

[Falagor]

Just because you looted your 4th Glorious Star and things are normal for you, it doesn't mean that the other people continue to get the same pattern as before!

In my last 3 runs, I got HALF the points that I was averaging during all my previous rounds (and in all rounds I have consistently killed over 300 spiders per hour).
So yep... to me, it looks like the star drop pattern has now changed too. Significantly, I must say!!

I can confirm it: i am killing ~230 spiders in cat 3 and got about 60% of points compared to my previous runs (my last 2 runs) - not big sampel but it IS notcable - i am glad ihave only 2 hour left to go .

Falagor

 

[mg Joda VVV]

Just because you looted your 4th Glorious Star and things are normal for you, it doesn't mean that the other people continue to get the same pattern as before!

In my last 3 runs, I got HALF the points that I was averaging during all my previous rounds (and in all rounds I have consistently killed over 300 spiders per hour).
So yep... to me, it looks like the star drop pattern has now changed too. Significantly, I must say!!

i just compared Fridays and Mondays my ffa5 points, not solo. sorry for not quiet enough info.


//mg

 

[atomicstorm]

Should have left it kill based. Loot distribution in this game cannot be expected to be steady and reliable when it comes to anything.. whether due to resource caps or other limitations.

Now we will spend the next 6 weeks talking about some internal conspiracy by mindark to get free coffee from a player who owns a coffee shop or something equivalent to [insert inside job] because of a change in loot patterns, whether tweaked or not, on a system intended to be random and not predictable.

I hope points aren't impacted by resource caps but we saw multiple time frames during gold rush where points didn't drop as often as they were.

 

[John B Knight]

Should have left it kill based. Loot distribution in this game cannot be expected to be steady and reliable when it comes to anything.. whether due to resource caps or other limitations.

Now we will spend the next 6 weeks talking about some internal conspiracy by mindark to get free coffee from a player who owns a coffee shop or something equivalent to [insert inside job] because of a change in loot patterns, whether tweaked or not, on a system intended to be random and not predictable.

I hope points aren't impacted by resource caps but we saw multiple time frames during gold rush where points didn't drop as often as they were.

In gold rush it was possible to step in for the token drops but it was going up and down in waves all the way through whereas its likely that those who logged their 40hours in by now in merry mayhem have no reason to try any further as they can only decrease their normalized score and all others likely cant catch up to those who had the good droprates anymore.

 

[Chuck Wholrey]

In gold rush it was possible to step in for the token drops but it was going up and down in waves all the way through whereas its likely that those who logged their 40hours in by now in merry mayhem have no reason to try any further as they can only decrease their normalized score and all others likely cant catch up to those who had the good droprates anymore.

In most of the events. all of the good stuff drops hard and heavy in the first few hours / days.... MA does not know how to throttle the drops. It is not on the PP holding any event since they do not control the drops, that's all MA. The major problem with MA running events is they seem to flick the switch, and run off for some holiday, or take the weekend off, then come back a scream FOUL-PLAY.... Or just not own up to their mistakes.

Most of the player base is getting tired of having to watch this. I think it is time to see some heads roll. Throw a name out there, say they were dismissed, and how this will just not be allowed to happen again.

 

[SnowLeopard]

I think it's appropriate to remind everyone of Hanlon's Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

Similar quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774):

...misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice.

 

[StefanT]

I don't understand why the drop-rate for SOLO STARS needed to change. The exploit/abuse is only for the Free-For-All category.
Lowering the drop-rate for solo stars has given those that already spent a significant amount of time in solo an unfair advantage over those that concentrated on FFA to start.

What did you think? That MA CEO is going to sell his sports car and cancel trip to bora bora because players abused the system and got away with money? Lowering stars drop just means players need to cycle more (lose more) to get those rewards. Its easier to do this and not explain to players then explaining to his wife lol. Also its always better to compensate for losses with other peoples money then yours. Marry mayhem and a happy new year to all)). Btw i think loot is going to suck too

 

[jaydub]

Leave it to taco...

Haha...well, if you want the Charm of Luck, you need to rub a bull testicle on a rubber chicken, then melt both in a fire, grind up the charred residue, then snort it as you are sitting on a rhino horn and singing Mr. Bo Jangles.

The only reason people fail at this game is because rhino horns are kinda rare.

Edit: You can also use eSoul's horn too.


MA thought I was over-qualified and said "no thanks" but the interview was fun...we just got a keg, played foosball, and watched McCormick mexican videos

...taco to talk about sitting on people's horns...

Brick