Why is it a bad thing ores wre ( almost ) taken away from certain mobs ?

Jennson

Elite
Joined
May 22, 2009
Posts
2,942
Location
Germany
Society
The Ministry
Avatar Name
Jennson Laudi Marakomm
Why is it a bad thing ores were ( almost ) taken away from certain mobs ?

Yes ( yet again ) i am writing about the recent changes on Drone and Argonaut loot and taken away the MU of those mobs. We have no official statment until now + a semi-official one via ingame pm from Kim towards a community member, which states this is not a bug, but an intentional change. -> source



O.K. let's see what the effect was and is now.

A few days ago Drones and Argos dropped around 20-30% of their loot as ores. Iron on Argos and Gazzurdite on Drones.

For the Drone hunters Gazz were the only reason which made Drones worth hunting as the remaining drop were mostly Robot components ( almost TT food ), (L) Armor like bear and Aurora ( almost TT food ), LR41 ( at least some MU on it, but the droprate was low enogh to play no significant role in MU compared to PEDs cycled on them. The rare ESIs ( 2 for me in 3 years should say enough ) are neglectable in the big picture. The generic loot like Tiering components etc - well i won't comment on that.

Argo hunters had iron fluctuating between 105 and 110 % MU on average over the last 2 years, A CB19 around the same MU now and then and i was lucky to loot a Nemesis helmet.

With (L) gear i was able to break even on them most of the time and i invested in some lowish UL gear and had a break even point when iron was >= 106%. Those optimazations to these
MOBs costed me around 15k PED in total and ofc the profit does not pay it, but the feeling to come out after a month of hunting saying i made a small profit was even worth
to purchase those.

To make it easy to break-even on that mob ( or at least have a mob cheap to hunt ), combined with good untaxed spawns made those mob very popular for some groups of hunters.

1. The grinders: Those hunted for small MU and aim for small profit on MU. They tend to invest in some gear which they want to utilize. Those are mostly medium level hunter who want to skill up to aim for bigger mobs in the future.

2. The higher-level medium hunters who need to stretch their playtime due to losses on bigger mobs

3. The newcomer after leveling on smaller mobs who can hunt a mob now which globals fairly often compared to mobs they hunted earlier with a mission that gives a nice skillboost as a bonus. The newcomer go to Argo mostly because they are recommended by older players as cheap-to-skill-up-mobs.

4. The iron-mission collector who collects as many missions as possible to collect the skill reward ( mostly high level player like Dan ).


All those factors made them to quite popular mobs in EU with a good amount of hunters going for them. And at least people from groups 1-3 i assume will reduce their activity on those mobs drastically.

What is the problem when those mhunters decide to go to different mobs ?

I for example went to Arkadia for some weeks to hunt Tiarak dropping a considerable amount of Tiarak hide ( 180% ~20-25% of their loot ). Also all the other loot was fairly easy sellable on Arkadia - except the items which came back a few times from Arkadia auc, but were sold on Caly easily. Still i lost around 1000 peds in 8 weeks hunting them.

Why ?
-There are no proper untaxed spawns. With the taxrate you sacrifice 5% TT of your loot which is considerably
-The big Tiarak spawn is a nice spawn, but contains a lot of prowlers and stalkers. My gear on them means high defensive cost + Teleportaion, because crits send me to revive 1-2 times per run ( only 155 hp )

Let's apply the situation to the hunter on Caly. How many mobs do we have that have such a MU and are suitable for low-medium hunter? Hmmm....

Okay let's give it another try - as this is a mostly in tailoring needed resource we can assume the demand for the hides is very limited. What would the MU of the hides be if every grinder moves over to hunt a mob like Tiarak ?

We have a few mobs on Caly who still have a MU making it worth to hunt them like Bristlehogs and Mollisk - let's lookout for a decent untaxed spawn ... ahhh wait.

Anyway and that is THE MOST concerning part. All those mobs together produce less globals TOGETHER as it used to be on Argo alone. As an indicator of hunting activity imagine the hunters hinting now Argo and drones move over to those mobs. How much MU do you think will remain on those ? Especially this point cannot be pointed out often enough, because this is the part which affects every hunter hunting mobs on the same level. And as it is balanced now hunting MU for low and medium level hunters is
well i would not say non-existant, but not far away from it either.
Well i guess a few of those who want to look for MU on mobs will move over to mining, but as i think they won't become heavy amped miner they propably won't affect your mining market anyway, but who knows...


Those who appreciate the change are mostly miners, because - their argument - mobs should not drop ores. Imho a very slim argument, because imho their is no reason why a mob should not pick-up ores. Anyway miners can collect steady MU. I mined 2010 and last year for almost 6 months and during that time my average MU was around 123% and that was with
noobish mining skills < 20 ghighest mining profession mining combined ore & enmatter. So despite the discussion how easy it is to profit in mining or not - it is definitly easier to collect markup in mining opposed to hunting period. So this creates even more unbalanced in hunting MU vs. Mining MU. And please forget about dropping so nice items in hunting - in fact for 97% of the hunters 97% of their hunting time the stuff that drops are wools & oils. And the very few who really get a nice item you can count them on 2 hands each year in between several thousand players.

Well it was promised the removed / reduced ores will be replaced by something new to cover the MU - then i have to ask why remove it and then put something which may have MU or not in 1 month, 6 months, 24 months ( as we know what soon means in MA terms ) or VU 23.7. Why not create demand for stuff first, release components for it, so people can test it and check wehter it is something useful which will actually be crafted and AFTER that replace the loots ?

Instead of making other mobs worth hunting again by replacing THEIR loot first by something making those mobs worth to hunt, and so the situation with overhunting those 2 will regulate automatically ? If only MAs goal was to treat their customers ( or well the customers of their customers to not quibble over this point ) like customers AND in addition to that communicate also with them - instead of kicking their (our) butts over and over again.

Sometimes I get the impressions they simply don't know their own game and foremost players.

rant over
BR
 
Last edited:
Last drone elite hunt numbers
TT turnover = 3494.47 ped
TT+ mu = 3499.65 ped

Loot TT = 3846.61 ped
Loot TT + MU = 3935.04 ped

110.08% TT return
112.44% after MU

That's what's left of markup lol
Defense cost at lvl 48 dodger with an adjusted fapper for decay only 25.06%

Guess who won't be hunting drone elite anymore..
 
Too bad argo silver mission was introduced so late, because there is completely no point to hunt them anymore.
 
What if future loots on argo bring better stuff than the iron was? People keep bitching about wanting the good ol days when there was good stuff in loots. Mindark tweaks something just a tad and suddenly it's a huge bitchfest. How can they tweak things to make them better when people keep complaining any time they make any change at all? I'm not saying that there will be great loot in argos in the future, but maybe, just maybe there will be? It's all still random/dynamic? Maybe there's some unlimited eon, thunderbird, etc. waiting in a loot pool out there somewhere or something crazy like that?

On a more serious note... maybe balancing manager was seeing too many people hunt argos and not enough other mobs, and Mindark decided they needed to fix that so here's the fix. Planet Partners have control over which mobs loot what according to the Rocktropia Q&A from a while back, so this is defintly something Kim has a say in. If Kim says it was done on purpose, I can only assume that there is a reason to that purpose. If Kim wants it reverted back to the old way, I'm sure he will try to do something to get it back that way.

If they removed the ores to put them in other planet's loot, well, that's just another reason Mindark should bring back the auctions between planets with the transport fee and/or the ability to bypass space with the tp system that goes to other planets.
 
Last edited:
What if future loots on argo bring better stuff than the iron was? People keep bitching about wanting the good ol days when there was good stuff in loots. Mindark tweaks something just a tad and suddenly it's a huge bitchfest. How can they tweak things to make them better when people keep complaining any time they make any change at all? I'm not saying that there will be great loot in argos in the future, but maybe, just maybe there will be? It's all still random/dynamic? Maybe there's some unlimited eon, thunderbird, etc. waiting in a loot pool out there somewhere or something crazy like that?



you must be new here.... :lolup:


well, was happy to this removal... but sadly it seem they dont replaced ore loot by anything attractive, all my last hunt on drones were very bad...

I dont understand, hunter are in the end of the commercial chain... so if you remove their money, who will buy to crafter ?

I think commerce need to be more than crafting amp for miners...
 
The only mob I liked to hunt was argos, mainly because of their iron drops, which usually gave me break even or sometimes profit. Not any point for me to return to calypso now, unless it's to buy something from auction. Well done MA. :)
 
I couldnt express my words as well as you did there.

This is surelly a problem.
Funny thing,

We have a Silver mission for argos... but ... who is doing it ? ohh wait ? :yup: No one.

If this is to stay like some Staff from MA said, you can bring drone mission, whatever, no one would care
 
My 2 pecs here

This wasnt intentional to "hit" hunters in my opinion. MA target are crafters, specially lvl2 slot machine players.

I may be wrong but for me it makes some sense...

Lets see how high MU goes, specially on gazz when BB are gone. 90% gazz from auction its coming from them...


Garco
 
What if future loots on argo bring better stuff than the iron was? People keep bitching about wanting the good ol days when there was good stuff in loots. Mindark tweaks something just a tad and suddenly it's a huge bitchfest. How can they tweak things to make them better when people keep complaining any time they make any change at all? I'm not saying that there will be great loot in argos in the future, but maybe, just maybe there will be? It's all still random/dynamic? Maybe there's some unlimited eon, thunderbird, etc. waiting in a loot pool out there somewhere or something crazy like that?

On a more serious note... maybe balancing manager was seeing too many people hunt argos and not enough other mobs, and Mindark decided they needed to fix that so here's the fix. Planet Partners have control over which mobs loot what according to the Rocktropia Q&A from a while back, so this is defintly something Kim has a say in. If Kim says it was done on purpose, I can only assume that there is a reason to that purpose. If Kim wants it reverted back to the old way, I'm sure he will try to do something to get it back that way.

If they removed the ores to put them in other planet's loot, well, that's just another reason Mindark should bring back the auctions between planets with the transport fee and/or the ability to bypass space with the tp system that goes to other planets.

This point is adressed in my post. How i think a proper way would be to handle it without fucking up the hunters on those mobs. And as i wrote already we are not exactly speaking about huge profits you can make there. And Kim's statment was it was decided by mindark and ... ah meh. forget it
 
My 2 pecs here

This wasnt intentional to "hit" hunters in my opinion. MA target are crafters, specially lvl2 slot machine players.

I may be wrong but for me it makes some sense...

Lets see how high MU goes, specially on gazz when BB are gone. 90% gazz from auction its coming from them...


Garco

Garco, if it wasnt for the argonauts, i'd understand a temporary adjustment to protect the market,
It'd be fair enough, since the ores take some time to bounce back.

But then... why the hell the argonauts?
Specially after introducing the silver mission
 
The only mob I liked to hunt was argos, mainly because of their iron drops, which usually gave me break even or sometimes profit. Not any point for me to return to calypso now, unless it's to buy something from auction. Well done MA. :)
I've already left & if MA decide to "piss off" hunters some more I'm walking, simple.
I dare you Mindark to keep pushing the playerbase like you have (hunters), just do it!

@ Mastermesh I know your fond of Jam Raiders when they infiltrate the cities for a good dense spawn. You won't when they stop dropping BELKAR :laugh: who's to say more mobs won't be affected by this eh?
+rep! Btw small error on the title Jenn? Why it's a bad thing ores were taken away from certain mobs.
 
But then... why the hell the argonauts?
Specially after introducing the silver mission

Clearly two independently working parties - one party adding silver mission to a very popular mob, while another rebalancing iron drops.

I really can't see the Calypso team being happy about it. Among other things, if Argonauts stop being hunted a lot, introducing a line of powerclaws to drop from argonauts was a waste of time 8and these are nice powerclaws), and making argonaut instances would be rather futile, so any time spent towards that would be written off.
 
Clearly two independently working parties - one party adding silver mission to a very popular mob, while another rebalancing iron drops.

I really can't see the Calypso team being happy about it. Among other things, if Argonauts stop being hunted a lot, introducing a line of powerclaws to drop from argonauts was a waste of time 8and these are nice powerclaws), and making argonaut instances would be rather futile, so any time spent towards that would be written off.

What made the argonauts popular was the explained above on the topic
Being rather cheap to hunt, Markup Source, Missions, etc
Now the only point to hunt them is mission.
Not everyone is hunting for mission just because its a mission
 
  • Like
Reactions: dj.
Clearly two independently working parties - one party adding silver mission to a very popular mob, while another rebalancing iron drops. I really can't see the Calypso team being happy about it.
That's exactly what happened. Underlined; which is why KIM said he will speak with MA this coming week.
 
What made the argonauts popular was the explained above on the topic
Being rather cheap to hunt, Markup Source, Missions, etc
Now the only point to hunt them is mission.
Not everyone is hunting for mission just because its a mission

We appear to be in violent agreement ;)
 
What if future loots on argo bring better stuff than the iron was? People keep bitching about wanting the good ol days when there was good stuff in loots. Mindark tweaks something just a tad and suddenly it's a huge bitchfest.

20-30% of loot is not "just a tad", that is a massive change, and the reason some are complaining is because it is important to have decent stuff to hunt for low lvl players or they will not stick around to become higher lvl players, and if MA was a competent company they would of fixed the argo/drone loot to drop better stuff before removing the iron and gaz?
You dont see me in threads about estate bugs saying people should stop the bitchfest its just a few years wait give MA time to fix it. :p
I dont hunt drones or argo, but i understand why this is important, you dont hunt drones or argo but could be a bit more understanding, or you could go back to whipping punies :p
 
Those buggers always had to much iron in them. Would have been better to let them drop 1 ruga stone every global :wtg:

I do agree with the sentiment that the replacement for iron could be 23 VU´s away and it just sounds insane to make the adjustment before they had the replacement ready
 
I've already left & if MA decide to "piss off" hunters some more I'm walking, simple.
I dare you Mindark to keep pushing the playerbase like you have (hunters), just do it!

@ Mastermesh I know your fond of Jam Raiders when they infiltrate the cities for a good dense spawn. You won't when they stop dropping BELKAR :laugh: who's to say more mobs won't be affected by this eh?+rep! Btw small error on the title Jenn? Why it's a bad thing ores were taken away from certain mobs.
I don't mind Jam Raiders, or other bots. Hell, I love argos too, just like all of you when my pedcard allows for it. I'm just saying maybe there is some reason Mindark did this and will counterbalance the losses in the ores in hunting in some way?

The change just happened a few days back. There's not been really enough time to pass to know for sure exactly what they've done. Maybe the moved the ores in to other mobs that they want people hunting more. Since Mindark has not said one way or the other why they made the changes, it's hard to tell the exact reason, and jump to conclusions all of a sudden.

I know, I know, I've jumped to conclusions on other things in the past more than a few times. Mindark typically listens to the community, and are about 6 months behind the times when they do the changes they do for some oddball reason, unless maybe there's enough people complaining... guess that's the goal here, get enough community outcry to get MA to change it back? Keep going with that theory if you want. Usually it just leads to frustration since Mindark does what they want when they want on their own terms.

Perhaps dig a bit in history of the forums back that far and you'll see an outcry for various changes. Mindark finally got around to reading that stuff and here come what they think the changes were that were being called for... of course, they always misinterpret what's really needed and called for, lol.
 
Last edited:
You dont see me in threads about estate bugs saying people should stop the bitchfest its just a few years wait give MA time to fix it. :p

Its easy to say this does not effect me and maybe at some point in the future MA will change things for the better when its not a problem that directly effects you :)

If you choose to do that, go ahead. My estates actually function correctly at this time. When people bring up estates thinking it'll piss me off, it just makes me laugh these days.

However, there were plenty complaining about my bitching before that happened, even if it wasn't you personally. Some other estates still don't work I hear, but that's getting way off topic here (note the off topic estate related stuff was started by you in this thread, not me).

One major difference between the estate issue and this... People already paid for the estates... They are/were goods that people expected to function a certain way, they were purchased based on that assumption, and they they stopped working that way later. With loot related issues - it's all based on stuff that isn't really 'purchased' since loot is random/dynamic. It's like the difference between people complaining to apple after they bought an ipad and it overheats and dies and people thinking about buying the next version of the ipad and being pissed off that it's missing some functionality they want apple to put in before they buy. Big difference between those that already paid for something and those that potentially might possibly/will pay for/will want to loot something in the future, especially when that thing that is potentially going to be paid for is something like loot that is random anyways...

Complaining about loot balancing is like complaining to the manager at a circus booth when they run out of big mickey mouse dolls that you were wanting to try for your kid by throwing rings at the bottles -- they replaced the mickey mouse with barney so you are not a happy camper. If you don't like the circus booths prizes, why not try another circus booth/hunt something different for a while other than argos?

Mindark definitely did this for some reason. Their reason may be complicated and related to RCE or may be something as silly as they wanted to lower amount of avatars at Twin that are logged in all the time there, so they made the change knowing fewer folks will be there all the time?... Doubt that's the reason, but balancing is balancing and they do it for some reason, which they most likely won't explain to us since they don't want to explain the inner workings of loot algorithms to the world or how incompetent they, or their hardware is, etc.

You can't control Mindark. However, you definitely can control your own actions. Adapt.
 
Last edited:
If you choose to do that, go ahead. My estates actually function correctly at this time. When people bring up estates thinking it'll piss me off, it just makes me laugh these days.

However, there were plenty complaining about my bitching before that happened, even if it wasn't you personally. Some other estates still don't work I hear, but that's getting way off topic here (note the off estate realted topicness was started by you in this thread, not me).

what i meant by that is it is good to have some empathy and understanding of other peoples points of view, in the past when there have been serious issues with estates i have voiced sympathy even though i dont own any property in game. Its easy to say this does not effect me and maybe at some point in the future MA will change things for the better when its not a problem that directly effects you :)
 
It's really simple. No ore in argo and drone.. No deposit from me. Good luck Mindark/calypso team nerf. This is the straw. You finally got me.
 
As with everything, if something gets unbalanced from MAs p.o.v, it will be changed.
Always been like this, even changes that might look as if it is good for playerbase,
in the end, MA will gain on it.
When it comes to Drone+Argo, and if these changes really are ment to be as it is now,
reason are probably that too many had too high ROI from their hunts.
Majority *must* lose a certain percent, even with MU included.
These kind of changes are hard to predict outcome from. Some players will not be
able to reduce their losses with help of decent ROI, so they will either reduce
playtime, or quit.
Some that break even or profit and who don't depo, will probably do same as the
category above. If these quit, it might actualy gain rest of the playerbase, in a
general economic p.o.v. Could be a real loss from player vs player p.o.v thou'.
"Win some, lose some" could be said, no matter from what p.o.v we have.
Thats only two category of players, there are tons more, so it will be interesting
to see how much impact this will have on Argos + Drones in general.

I know at least I will lose even more now on Argos, and it's quite obvious more
than me will do the same.... ;)
 
Iron ingot is now around 120% and soon maybe even go to 130%. As a result of this high MU gain crafters have no say, now supply has been shortened to craft common things like P5a's they must buy at those high markups unless farmed themselves. The end products market value will obviously reflect the purchase of raw materials so they can get back their ped. Who is going to be the one buying that end product for a far higher purchasing price; the hunters? I know that P5a markup can go as high as 114% & it will still be more eco than the UL version but some believe markup is lost to the seller. You see how this dynamic balance *ucks over the hunter who has lost his own markup he could of obtained?

~Mark~
 
Iron ingot is now around 120% and soon maybe even go to 130%. As a result of this high MU gain crafters have no say, now supply has been shortened to craft common things like P5a's they must buy at those high markups unless farmed themselves. The end products market value will obviously reflect the purchase of raw materials so they can get back their ped. Who is going to be the one buying that end product for a far higher purchasing price; the hunters? I know that P5a markup can go as high as 114% & it will still be more eco than the UL version but some believe markup is lost to the seller. You see how this dynamic balance *ucks over the hunter who has lost his own markup he could of obtained?

~Mark~

simple solution.. say **** miners & buy a korss
ps I used to mine & made some nice profits, in % waaay more then hunting & that was unamped & with way less TT of skills
 
Well, i have always thought it was a bit strange to find large amount of ores on mobs, should not ores be found by miners and not by hunters? As always some players like it, some don't like it. In this case hunters don't like the change, miners like it.
 
Well, i have always thought it was a bit strange to find large amount of ores on mobs, should not ores be found by miners and not by hunters? As always some players like it, some don't like it. In this case hunters don't like the change, miners like it.

Should'nt ul amps be made by crafters?
Not even gonna start about beacon finds..
 
Iron ingot is now around 120% and soon maybe even go to 130%. As a result of this high MU gain crafters have no say, now supply has been shortened to craft common things like P5a's they must buy at those high markups unless farmed themselves. The end products market value will obviously reflect the purchase of raw materials so they can get back their ped. Who is going to be the one buying that end product for a far higher purchasing price; the hunters? I know that P5a markup can go as high as 114% & it will still be more eco than the UL version but some believe markup is lost to the seller. You see how this dynamic balance *ucks over the hunter who has lost his own markup he could of obtained?

~Mark~

I wouldnt worry too much, the vast majority of crafters craft at a loss anyway

Rgds

Ace
 
I wouldnt worry too much, the vast majority of crafters craft at a loss anyway

Rgds

Ace
So basically Miners > Hunters+Crafters? :ahh:. Why did I choose the wrong profession U idiot Mark :duh:! :laugh:

What I would like to see is everyone start Mining & stop Hunting. Then the miners will see their markup diminish overnight & you will all know the true empathy that hunters feel constantly from top to bottom. Right now I feel like doing just that, quitting hunting and taking up my finder! Anyone else feel same?

~Mark~
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: das
So basically Miners > Hunters+Crafters? :ahh:. Why did I choose the wrong profession U idiot Mark :duh:! :laugh:

What I would like to see is everyone start Mining & stop Hunting. Then the miners will see their markup diminish overnight & you will all know the true empathy that hunters feel constantly from top to bottom. Right now I feel like doing just that, quitting hunting and taking up my finder! Anyone else feel same?

~Mark~

Mining will probably always have a better average markup compared to hunting. Why? Because of the "boring factor". Most people think it more fun to shoot and kill mobs than drop probes, so they are prepare to accept lower markups and loose more money to hunt compared to mining.
 
Why? Because of the "boring factor". Most people think it more fun to shoot and kill mobs than drop probes, so they are prepare to accept lower markups and loose more money to hunt compared to mining.

Lol. I was hunting yesterday and found myself saying, "Fuck...This is boring, I shoulda went mining..."

:D







Tippin'
 
Back
Top