Throwing down the gauntlet

Artrat

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Jin Artrat Mugen
*Update: Challenge over! Please see post #136*

This is an open challenge to the Entropia Universe community.

Many very vocal members of the community have claimed that they consistently get 30-60% average returns. I believe they are lying.

EDIT: Ok perhaps lying is a strong word, I don't believe in going back on my words though so I'll leave it there. Perhaps a better expression would be "vastly mistaken in their perception of reality".

We all have bad loot periods, sometimes very bad, and I certainly do not begrudge anyone the right to be dissapointed by their returns and even to to moan and complain about them within reason. However it irks me when people make what I believe to be blatantly false assertions without offering any supporting data. It irks me even more that when people challenge these assertions they are labelled "fanbois" and "brown-nosers".

I have no particular love for MA, but I believe in cold hard data; and my own data and observations lead me to believe that these people cannot be telling the truth.

So, this is how it's going to work:

I will give 1000 ped to the first person to prove to me that they have gotten less than 70% average returns over an appropriate period of time/ ped cycled whilst behaving reasonably within the Entropia Universe.

The terms of the challenge are as follows:

  • The claimant must register their acceptance of this challenge in this thread.
  • The claimant must demonstrate < 70% average TT return over at least 10k ped cycled.
  • This is the average return rate that is being measured, so the aggregated return percentage over all runs, not whether or not you have less than 70% or your original ped stack remaining (unless of course you take 10k ped and cycle it once :))
  • Purely TT in vs TT out - if you're overpaying markup on weapons or materials that's your own deal.
  • The claimaint must offer proof in the form of screenshots, logs etc to a degree which satisfies me that they have not been fabricated *. Ideally I'd like to see a spreadsheet or log of results, plus a screenshot from the beginning and end of each run showing date, time, ammo purchased, TT window with loot etc.
  • The claimant should post a summary thier results and proof in this thread. If they wish to maintain a more detailed log in another thread that is fine with me.
  • The activities must be reasonable*, i.e. no mining FOMA with high level amps, no using sib weapons or BPs that you do not have the skills for, no overamping weapons/shooting in the air, no crafting high TT BPs on condition etc. The activities should be of the sort that are generally considered reasonable by the community for someone with a ped buffer of 2-3k ped.
  • UL non-sib hunting is acceptable, but the return rate must then be < 60% (65% is my personal worst with UL non-sib).
  • I'd prefer it if you stick to one activity i.e. hunting, mining or crafting and behave reasonably*.

I am aware that not everyone can cycle 10k ped, so I will be willing to modify the conditions if there are no takers for the current challenge. The terms would have to be agreed between myself the claimant and the award offered may be modified in this case. In the event that a claimant wishes to modify the terms I reserve the right set some conditions in terms of the nature of the activity e.g. choosing the mob / weapon etc.

* Should a dispute arise between myself and the claimant as to what constitutes "reasonable proof" or "reasonable activity", I will create a poll on PCF and let the community decide whether or not the claimant deserves the money.

If you do not have proof of your returns, please do not clutter the thread with your tales of woe.
 
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Question 1: Would you consider mining high MU areas (which have a tendency to be overmined ) as a non regular activity and out of the scope of your challenge?

Question 2: Would mining the same area after 2 hrs period be considered an inappropriate way??

Just want some clarifications in terms of the scope of the challenge.
 
So people can start with lets say 3k on hunting and cycle until they reach 10k on total cycled , I think many here could do that 1-4 days and have less than that 60% :cool:
 
Question 1: Would you consider mining high MU areas (which have a tendency to be overmined ) as a non regular activity and out of the scope of your challenge?

Question 2: Would mining the same area after 2 hrs period be considered an inappropriate way??

Just want some clarifications in terms of the scope of the challenge.

Personally I don't believe in overmining (at least not by different avatars) so I have no issue with that. As for the two hour period thing, I'm not much of a miner, but if that is something miners do regularly I have no issue with it. The main reason I have the terms is to avoid someone doing something deliberately stupid just to screw me out of 1000 ped. If it's considered a normal in-game activity I have no problem with it.

So people can start with lets say 3k on hunting and cycle until they reach 10k on total cycled , I think many here could do that 1-4 days and have less than that 60% :cool:

That may well be the case, that's the whole point. I'm just tired of people throwing numbers like that around without ever backing it up. Also, remember I'm talking about return rate here, so the average return percentage of all your runs over 10k ped cycled. Of course it's easily possible to have less than 60% of the original amount, no disputing that. I'll put a point in the first post to clarify that in case anyone is confused.
 
what if you do runs of 200 ped and at the end of the month you're left with nothing? Does that count? Because that's normal for me. That would count as 0% return rate?
 
what if you do runs of 200 ped and at the end of the month you're left with nothing? Does that count? Because that's normal for me. That would count as 0% return rate?

If you do one run with 200 peds and get 0 return your return rate is 0%
If you do a gazillion runs and get back 99.99% each time, and end up with 0 peds in the end your return rate is 99.99%

By your maths everyone has 0% return in the long run :)
 
Very mining centric topic. If you want to act like mu on weapons etc doesn't count then you are asking people to cycle 10k with an opalo.

Might want to restructure the "gauntlet" to have some relevance to hunters. Or edit the title to show that it's specifically meant for miners.
 
so i did a 10 ped puny run got 5 peds back now give me 1k peds :D
 
Do you count the protection costs? :silly2:
 
Hmm, think unmaxed sibs would be a very bad idea to allow. I have seen learning period the returns are very low. Just my 2 cents.
 
If you do one run with 200 peds and get 0 return your return rate is 0%
If you do a gazillion runs and get back 99.99% each time, and end up with 0 peds in the end your return rate is 99.99%

By your maths everyone has 0% return in the long run :)

70% average returns over an appropriate period of time/ ped cycled whilst behaving reasonably within the Entropia Universe
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I behave reasonably. If I do five 200 ped runs every month and do this for 10 months and the average return is lower than 70% I win 1000 peds? Because I can almost say for certain that the average return will be lower. Unless there is some other math involved that I don't understand.
 
I have not read all the post I will later, I have seen 30-60% over 20k ped cycled. I shall give you my log when I have time. (busy atm)


- log from level 1
 
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I behave reasonably. If I do five 200 ped runs every month and do this for 10 months and the average return is lower than 70% I win 1000 peds? Because I can almost say for certain that the average return will be lower. Unless there is some other math involved that I don't understand.

From reading the OP, i would say yes.
 
I behave reasonably. If I do five 200 ped runs every month and do this for 10 months and the average return is lower than 70% I win 1000 peds? Because I can almost say for certain that the average return will be lower. Unless there is some other math involved that I don't understand.

As long as you see the difference between average returns (returns per hunt) and end result (returns total) :silly2:
 
Very mining centric topic. If you want to act like mu on weapons etc doesn't count then you are asking people to cycle 10k with an opalo.

Might want to restructure the "gauntlet" to have some relevance to hunters. Or edit the title to show that it's specifically meant for miners.

I don't think this is really an issue, because we are looking at TT in vs TT out. So people are welcome to use say an Apis@120%, but they may only count the TT value towards the cost of the run. They are also not including the MU in thier return, so it should even out. I have included this condition to prevent people paying 200% for an Apis and then claiming that their returns are bad. My own TT in/TT out results have always fallen above the thresholds I've set.

Do you count the protection costs? :silly2:

All protection and healing costs may be included. However, I would regard a disproportionately high armour/fap bill as being "unreasonable play".

Hmm, think unmaxed sibs would be a very bad idea to allow. I have seen learning period the returns are very low. Just my 2 cents.

I'm only allowing unmaxed non-sib. Unmaxed-sib would qualify as "unreasonable" as it is generally accepted in the community that the only benefit this may have is increased skills, and probably lower return. In fact, the only reason i'm allowing non-sib at all is because a lot of people use them, so it can be regarded as "normal play". Personally I don't touch the DOA anymore unless it's an event. I could allow unmaxed sib, but the 60% return condition would also apply in this case.

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I behave reasonably. If I do five 200 ped runs every month and do this for 10 months and the average return is lower than 70% I win 1000 peds? Because I can almost say for certain that the average return will be lower. Unless there is some other math involved that I don't understand.

Yes, that is correct. Or, put another way, if the sum of the TT loot value of all 50 hunts is less than 7k ped, I will give you 1000 peds (provided you're the first to show me evidence of this of course).


I'm perfectly open to the possibility that someone may do this and I will happily give them the 1k ped. My issue lately has been that so many people claim these bad reurns without offering any proof. I'm hoping this challenge will encourage some people to look closer at their returns, and hopefully see that it's not as bad as they percieve it to be. If I'm proven wrong, so be it, I'll admit it and apologise.
 
Unfortunately "reasonable" is a very subjective word. Are these ok :
- fapping with a 2600?
- maximum overkill by hunting Punies with an Apis?
- hunting Merps in a Martial?
- hunting naked in a Trox area?

I won't participate, no chance for me to reach 70% on 10K PED, but I'm curious to see what setup and tactic the winner will use... Guess Trox or some other high-regen mob eating armor are good candidates.


Sorry for the off-topic, but speaking about maximum overkill brought this image in my head :laugh:.
ComancheMaximumOverkill.png
 
This thread is just useless posturing.

Not really sure how your post makes sense or what the point of it is, but okay :coffee:
 
Unfortunately "reasonable" is a very subjective word. Are these ok :
- fapping with a 2600? Yes
- maximum overkill by hunting Punies with an Apis? No
- hunting Merps in a Martial? No
- hunting naked in a Trox area? Sure, if someone wants to substitute armour costs for fap costs that's their business. However I'm not willing to include tp and vehicle costs.

Also, as I said, if someone disagrees with my definition of what's "reasonable" I'm willing to open it to the community for a vote.

This thread is just useless posturing.

Thank you for your valuable insights. You have a nice day now :D.
 
Unfortunately "reasonable" is a very subjective word. Are these ok :
- fapping with a 2600?
- hunting Merps in a Martial?

Neither of these matter the least bit, because the thing should be about "offensive" costs only, until there is at least a shred of credible evidence that anything else matters loot wise. All you spend at armor is irretrievably lost, and so is fap costs, except you get skills. So these costs must be excluded from start.

Ek-2600, Ghost and merps is an easy way to show this.
 
Neither of these matter the least bit, because the thing should be about "offensive" costs only, until there is at least a shred of credible evidence that anything else matters loot wise. All you spend at armor is irretrievably lost, and so is fap costs, except you get skills. So these costs must be excluded from start.

Ek-2600, Ghost and merps is an easy way to show this.


I think it is safer to write that all we spend in defensive (armor & FAP) may be lost. (This question could be a subject for a separate thread, in which I would be glad to discuss, being a 90% hunter / 10% healer...) ;)

Anyway, many people are neglicting their defensive costs which hit their overall return. As I read, the experiment is supposed to be as much realistic as possible, so all ("reasonable") costs should be taken into account.
 
By your maths everyone has 0% return in the long run :)
That's the point... in the long haul, the house always wins. Period. Nothing more to it than that. It's statistically not likely that if you flip a coin it'll land on the edge instead of on the face, but if you do flip a coin enough times, it might probably eventually possibly maybe land on the edge instead of on heads or tails up... Over the long run, if there are some losses, there will be losses, and eventually they can likely approach 100% at some point in time... stocks go up, stocks go down. Housing market crashes and depressions don't happen every year, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt the economy when they do happen.
 
I suspect that the reason most people get very low return rates is that they do not "behave properly". For example, miners dropping probes too close together or re-mining the same areas within a few hours. I think that for this challenge, you need to have some specific (and conservative) rules. For example:

Mining
• there must be at least 110 meters between all drops and no double-bombing (dropping a second probe of the same type right on top of the first)
• single bombing only, so they must either use a mapping program (LBML) to ensure the circles don't touch or run/drive in a straight line counting meters or the appropriate number of flashes of the sat-nav (which updates once per second) and watching the coords where it's not flat so they get the required distance
• no re-mining the same area within 48 hours
• no more than 100 drops on any server per day
• no high-stakes areas (e.g. FOMA)
• only use maxed equipment
• armor decay is not included

Hunting
• the same SIB rules apply
• limit overkill to, say, 5% of the mob's hp, which means for the last shot they must use a finisher with max damage of 10% of the mob's hp. Note that would generally mean no hunting any mob under 40 hp since weapons under 4 max damage are not very common. If using an opalo as a finisher, the mob must have at least 80 hp
• armor/fap cost must be counted as TT value only and must be under 5% of total TT cost
• weapon + attachments must do at least 2.60 dmg/pec (actual) for the avatar using them, i.e. weapons must be tested with entropia tracker combat log to verify this (500 shots minimum, 1k preferred, and only include the test in the 10k peds if overkill is within limits). 2.60 is not particularly efficient and most players should be able to get closer to 3.0 if they use the right gun and amp (that's 15% more loot!).
• note that the numbers above allow 20-25% pure "ped waste" since overkill, defensive costs, and gun inefficiency are not returned in loot (yes, I'm making some assumptions, but I've seen no evidence to the contrary). You might want to tighten up the gun efficiency to 2.80 dmg/pec minimum.

There are probably more considerations, but these are the suggestions that rolled off the top of my head.
 
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I behave reasonably. If I do five 200 ped runs every month and do this for 10 months and the average return is lower than 70% I win 1000 peds? Because I can almost say for certain that the average return will be lower. Unless there is some other math involved that I don't understand.

From the sound of it, you are an ideal candidate

Rgds

Ace
 
What if you're right. Do we have to pay you something?
 
Neither of these matter the least bit, because the thing should be about "offensive" costs only, until there is at least a shred of credible evidence that anything else matters loot wise. All you spend at armor is irretrievably lost, and so is fap costs, except you get skills. So these costs must be excluded from start.

Ek-2600, Ghost and merps is an easy way to show this.

You may be right here, but I do not mind if people include them. The whole point of this challenge is that I do not believe it is possible to get such consistently bad returns whilst behaving "normally". I track all costs as part of my returns so it is only fair I allow them to do the same, within reason. If they insist on wading into hordes of Trox whilst slowly killing them as they chew on their armour, I would not consider that reasonable, but I don't expect them to carefully tag each mob away from the herd either. I'd consider around 5% of total costs as being a reasonable defense cost.

I'm not expecting the claimant to have to behave like an eco freak, if they are engaging in one of the professions in a sensible manner, that is enough for me.

I suspect that the reason most people get very low return rates is that they do not "behave properly". For example, miners dropping probes too close together or re-mining the same areas within a few hours. I think that for this challenge, you need to have some specific (and conservative) rules.

I want to avoid getting too proscriptive, if I have a serious disagreement about the way they are playing, I'm willing to let the community decide. But in the interests of not wasting their own time, it may be a good idea for anyone intending to take up the challenge to let me know beforehand what their basic strategy is. Many things are just generally considered bad ideas, like doing short runs on big mobs or switching mobs too often, but if the community decides they deserve the ped, I will pay them.

However, it should be noted that if someone has to resort to doing overtly stupid things, or gaming the system in order to claim the peds, then they have kind of proved my point.

What if you're right. Do we have to pay you something?

No, all I'm hoping to achieve with this is to get some of the complainers to actually start logging their results. Many have complained that they don't want to log their results as they find it tedious and unentertaining, so I'm hoping the ped will act as an incentive.
 
I put ped in and they take it everytime...

Where's my 1k... :confused:
 
I just might take you up on this, with my current returns it shouldn't be a problem to get 60% TT return.
Any max hp of mob you wonna set?
untaxed only or..?
 
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