Poll: What should be the base return rate?

Marco has recently stated that he is working on the “no loot” problem. Taken literally, this means the number of mobs that have no loot.

There are many ways to address this problem, but most of us can probably agree that the real problem (if there is one) is not the empty mobs, but the base return rate. Some of us refer to this problem as the “average” return problem, though more correctly the word “median” should be used. I am assuming (hoping) that this is what he is really working on.

I define “base return” as the tt return from an activity not including “big” loots—mini’s, globals, and hofs, depending on the level at which you are playing.

After reading a few years worth of mining/hunting/crafting logs by dedicated and analytically-minded Calypsians, and doing my own research (c.f. here and here), it seems reasonable to assume that the current base return rate is around 60%. That means that if you go on a reasonably long, economical hunt/mine/craft run, and do not get any “big” loots, you can expect to get 60% of your tt expenses back. “Economical” means, for example, that you hunt at your level using maxed weapons without excessive fapping, overprotection, or overkill, that you craft with max COS (whether on quantity or condition), that you do not stand in one spot and drop many bombs, etc.

Over the long term, most player analyses indicate a return of greater than 90% for economical play. This means that at least 30% (90% - 60% base) of your return is in the form of “big” loots. Since only about 5% of loots are “big,” you can go for quite some time with very poor returns (the base return) before you hit the big one (hopefully). Or you can get lucky and hit the big one right away. This is what players tend to complain about on EF.

Here is another chance to tell FPC/MA your vision for the loot distribution, if they happen to take a peek at this thread. Keep it as it is? Have more globals/hofs? Less?

Though there are many ways to imagine reorganizing the loot distribution, a logical way to increase the base return would be to lessen the number of “big” loots. Here are some numbers:

<=50% base…>30% more big loots than currently, but worse median return (more really bad hunts, and more really good hunts; less “normal” hunts).

60% base…big loots ~5% of the time. The current system.

70% base…big loots less than now, about 25% less.

80% base…~40% as many big loots as now (2.5x less).

>=90% base…big loots are quite rare (10% of current rate or less), but returns are much more consistent (most hunts would be “normal”).

No, there is no poll option for, “increase the long-term return rate!” Have that discussion in another thread, please.

Enjoy.

Noodles said:

After reading a few years worth of mining/hunting/crafting logs by dedicated and analytically-minded Calypsians, and doing my own research, it seems reasonable to assume that the current base return rate is around 60%. .

Click to expand...

Before I start the whining.. Mind giving any references to these logs?
I suppose it's quite relative since "base return" isn't a very solid term, but I do hope you're not suggesting the average return rate to be anywhere near 60%.

Akoz said:

I suppose it's quite relative since "base return" isn't a very solid term, but I do hope you're not suggesting the average return rate to be anywhere near 60%.

Click to expand...

I have heard before from some other people that the average returns in hunting is about 80%

EDIT: Actually, removing "no loot"s entirely would make me happier, even if it meant less big loots

This is because if you're low on PED and have enough to kill, say, 10 mobs for 2PED each:

10 no looters = 0PED, short fun time
10 x 1PED loots all the time = The returns from earlier "short hunts" would make the same PED last for maybe 20 mobs instead if you go on shorter and shorter hunts, making it be more fun time, but with the same end result.

Akoz said:

Before I start the whining.. Mind giving any references to these logs?
I suppose it's quite relative since "base return" isn't a very solid term, but I do hope you're not suggesting the average return rate to be anywhere near 60%.

Click to expand...

Added a couple links to the big mining loot analysis by falkao et al. It is true that base return is hard to dig out of most of the blogs, but you have a chance if the blogger has listed all of his/her "big" loots.

"Base return" is as defined as above. Return without "big" loots. The average return, including big loots is >=90%.

Examples of "big" loots: Unamped enmatter, size VI or greater. Unamped ore, size VIII or greater. Mobs that no-loot a lot, a loot with a pec value ~2x the mob's hitpoints or more.

Nighthawk said:

I have heard before from some other people that the average returns in hunting is about 80%

Click to expand...

I have "heard" that it's 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 95% and all inbetween. That's kind of my point.. What sort of evidence are we basing this on?

Noodles said:

I define “base return” as the tt return from an activity not including “big” loots—mini’s, globals, and hofs, depending on the level at which you are playing.

Click to expand...

That's too diffuse to me.. how do you define a mini? is a 1 ped snable a mini? is a 40 ped dasp a mini? Do you want to discuss the average return rate or the distribution of loot between globals/hofs and the smaller loot classes?

Edit: I see now that you added the poll that it is the latter you want to discuss. In that case.. old topic.. I was going to dig up some nice EP threads, but the EP seems to be down atm :\

Noodles said:

"Base return" is as defined as above. Return without "big" loots. The average return, including big loots is >=90%.

Click to expand...

Well, "base return" is pretty useless when discussing average loot then, since it will all even out in the end

However, might be relevant for this discussion, but not in the way presented you need to make clear both "base" and "total" average returns then

Nighthawk said:

Well, "base return" is pretty useless when discussing average loot then, since it will all even out in the end

However, might be relevant for this discussion, but not in the way presented you need to make clear both "base" and "total" average returns then

Click to expand...

"Base return" is not at all useless, as there seems to be a large number of complaints that people have gone broke long before they have achieved the "total" average return, due to not hitting the big loot(s) in time. There are also many calls to "bring back the old loot system," which clearly had a higher base return. Or perhaps there are just a few loud complaints.

This poll is not for "total" returns, nor average loot. I assume MA is not going to change those, as they need to make money.
*********************
I did try to keep this as simple as possible. For those of you who would like to learn more, you can read the links in the first post, or Utterly Insane Tests (gets interesting around page 10) or How to Analyze Loot.

With regard to the mining links in the first post, loot classes 1, 1.66, and 2 are all common, accounting for 95% of finds. For hunting, there seems to be a few more classes that are common, before the jump to mini's and higher.

Akoz said:

That's too diffuse to me.. how do you define a mini? is a 1 ped snable a mini? is a 40 ped dasp a mini?

Click to expand...

A 1 ped snable young is a mini (happens 5% of loots or less). A 1 pedder on a larger snable would probably be common. I don't have much experience hunting mobs that loot most of the time, but since dasps have over 8k hp, I'd assume a 40 ped dasp is quite common.

And yes, I'm sure this is an old topic. So looking forward to reading old EP threads. On the other hand, if it's on EP, it's worth another look, I'd say.

This is a tough one.

On the one hand, more swirlies I feel would lead to more excitement in gameplay, but the cost of that could be longer stretches of no return due to the dynamics.

On the other hand, fewer noloots would make for a nice slower decline of the old ped card but without the excitement would it still draw you in?

Have you considered maybe a modulation to the sizes of globals. As we see now, even quite frequently, there are 30k+ sized globals. So I propose a change/addition to this which would place a sort of ceiling on the global size. Thus amounts currently getting dispensed which are over the ceiling could be routed into the regular non-global loots. Would this be a win-win?

Does anyone know the average global rate and size?

Nobatbbi said:

This is a tough one.

On the one hand, more swirlies I feel would lead to more excitement in gameplay, but the cost of that could be longer stretches of no return due to the dynamics.

On the other hand, fewer noloots would make for a nice slower decline of the old ped card but without the excitement would it still draw you in?

Have you considered maybe a modulation to the sizes of globals. As we see now, even quite frequently, there are 30k+ sized globals. So I propose a change/addition to this which would place a sort of ceiling on the global size. Thus amounts currently getting dispensed which are over the ceiling could be routed into the regular non-global loots. Would this be a win-win?

Does anyone know the average global rate and size?

Click to expand...

This is true, you could modulate the global size. However, I suspect that the contribution of the 30k+ globals to the total return of the community is so small, that having a lower ceiling wouldn't do much. You'd have to lower the size of the "normal" globals/minis to have much of an impact.

Noodles said:

This is true, you could modulate the global size. However, I suspect that the contribution of the 30k+ globals to the total return of the community is so small, that having a lower ceiling wouldn't do much. You'd have to lower the size of the "normal" globals/minis to have much of an impact.

Click to expand...

This is pretty much the same thing as you see in the crafting system. Quality vs Quantity.
It should be possible to do something similar in hunting, quantity(many small loots) or quality (few big loots).. I'm not sure how it would affect item drops though. I'd hate to be the one having to figure out a credible excuse for implementing it though.

Akoz said:

This is pretty much the same thing as you see in the crafting system. Quality vs Quantity.
It should be possible to do something similar in hunting, quantity(many small loots) or quality (few big loots).. I'm not sure how it would affect item drops though. I'd hate to be the one having to figure out a credible excuse for implementing it though.

Click to expand...

The item drop observation is important, and one we might consider before voting.


About the quality/quantity, you are right...this poll is basically asking if people want less small loots and more big, or more small loots and less big.

There is a difference though. At least for component crafting, the quality system does seem to have its own "common" loots and "big" loots, they are just both bigger than the corresponding loots on quantity. Same with mining CND versus the planet. In other words, the base return is the same for both quantity and quality (according to my recollection of my data).

So, for example, a run on quantity with ~40% successes would yield approximately 60% tt base return, assuming no "big" loots. A run on quality with ~6% successes would also yield approximately 60% tt base return, assuming no "big" loots. Of course, the quality runs would be more volatile, due to the high chance of getting something like a 3% success rate and 30% return. The corresponding scenario on quantiity is a 20% success rate, which rarely happens. I should doublecheck my data to make sure these statements are correct, but they are consistent with what I remember of the data.

But perhaps crafting more interesting things like mining amps has a different distribution.

Thanks to all who have voted so far

Whats the point of this discussion

SuperKanjo said:

Whats the point of this discussion

Click to expand...

Take a look at the 20 newest threads.. what's the point of any of them?
To spread gossip, false rumors, and to trick ppl into buying your shit ofc.
Oh and to try to influence marco.. he's reading all these threads as hidden user

somthing like 80% would be an acceptible minimum to me. i dont know exactly what it is, but it seems alot lower than that.

as far a no loots are concerned, i dont think they are acceptible, but if they are to remain they need fundemental review on what is on the "always loot " list. a 1000hp mob should always loot somthing.

I'd prefer MA to leave the lootsystem as it is.
I'm also pretty sure that return on ammo and decay is 100% as it is (or very close), you just have to get an uberloot every now and then to even it out.
The "no loot" is a non problem for me, I dont expect to "win" every time.

aridash said:

as far a no loots are concerned, i dont think they are acceptible

Click to expand...

Marco said that they are going to be diminished/removed from the game...

pesa said:

I'm also pretty sure that return on ammo and decay is 100% as it is (or very close), you just have to get an uberloot every now and then to even it out.

Click to expand...

Yeah because MindArk is secretly a charity organization built to support gamers with gambling addict issues! The whole them-making-money-on-us issue is just a facade!

I just want to say, i think the upper end loots should be lowered a little bit. and make up for the common loots. better drop rates for hard mobs giving more better loots insted of nothing over and over. something that basically makes Globals and Hof's a profit maker. not a loss buffer.

What is "average return rate" for MA??

First at all, we must know what is meaning for Mindark for the word "average". Because if means that player "A" obtain a return rate of 90% and other player "B"" obtain a return rate of 50% then the "average return rate" is (90+50) / 2 = 70%

Or if the average means that return rate of round 1 of a player is 90% and the return rate of round 2 of the same player is 50%, then the "average return rate" is (90+50)/2 = 70%

This is very very important. Because it means very different things. So, it is necesary if we want to do a proposal very clear!

PD - It is necesary to know, too; if is referred only to ammunition; or if we are talking about decay of weapons, armor and amplifier.

Besides on what time we must to reach such "average return rate", because if we need loose 2 years and after win 2 year.. would be a very malicious average return rate. (the wide of lucky cycle)

(So, you see that is no easy to talking here about an average return rate)

mmm ?????

Ninety %

A lot of what is presumed goes to Mindark actually goes to other players in taxes and markup.

Think about it.




Think some more.


Where has your money really gone?

thoreau said:

... I want smart players to earn their ammo back. MA gets the decay. And other revenue sources like estate sales, advertising, auction fees, etc feed the global/hof pool.

Click to expand...

Figure out the % how you will.

40, 60, 90 % does not matter. what matters is that people want their 100$ deposit to last longer than 1-2 evenings.


J.

Right now, its not clear, does ECO tools affect better result then high decay tools?

I sense this thread starting to turn a bit. I'm gonna stay out of where that might go and do my best to keep on topic as I think this could be a valuable discussion.

I tend to side with the camp that thinks the "base return rate" as it has been defined is probably a bit too low.

I think the average return rate, at it's 90%, or whatever it works out to be is just fine. That gives players the opportunity to make up that extra 10% through selling their items to other players. This I don't think needs to be changed.

But the time it takes to realize that 90% for some players would seem to be a bit too long. I think a lot of this has to do with how much money the player has to work with, and how much they can afford to withstand before the loot swings back up in their favor.

It seems to me that it depends on a particular amount of mobs needed to be killed before the loot can start to average out. Let's just hypothetically say (call it an educated guess... ) that it takes 10000 mobs killed for tt return to fall around 90%. The bigger mobs that are more expensive to kill would then need a much larger bankroll to play with before that average starts to settle in. Take a 1000 hp mob that costs around 4 ped to take down. You would then have to spend 40,000 PED ($4000!!! ) before you could realize that average return. I don't think there are many players out there that want to spend that kind of money on a video game. However, acquiring that money in game through wise play, monthly deposit habits and a saving mentality to work up to that point is a different matter entirely which I will leave for other discussions...

I think this large of a sample needed to realize that return could be greatly reduced. MA still gets their cut from the economy, there will still be markup on particular items that will require large deposits to fund. Money will still flow in, but players will overall feel better that they aren't losing an arm and a leg after only spending $100 dollars hunting a mob like Atrox, which are EVERYWHERE in the game...

Mega said:

Ninety %

A lot of what is presumed goes to Mindark actually goes to other players in taxes and markup.

Think about it.




Think some more.


Where has your money really gone?

Click to expand...

I say this often not on ef but in pms with folks. Most don't wanna think about it. Anyways back to the point of the post. I dunno if 60% is a good guess of a return rate. Maybe it sits 75% to 90% depending on if someone hunts in las frequently or other factors I am not sure. For me i sit around 90% to about 94%, but thats only from recording 2009s activities. It fluctuates alot.

I would like to see less no loots myself, but one concern arises. Miners will be hassled if there are less nrfs and more IIs or even Is to drill. A run for me (100 bomb/100 probes), takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to do depending on terrain. If I had to drill twice as often or even more than that It would add more time to already a boring profession. I see no more no loots as a good thing though but there would need to be a reasonable balance. Sorry if I am looking at it a selfish way.

I think quite a few people are a bit confused about what the poll means. The opening post assumes a current return rate of about 90% if you include the big loots (globals Hof's etc) but if you took those very few high loots out of the equation then the return rate is only about 50% currently. Maybe 60% ie 95% of the hunt is only yielding about 60% of the return while 5% of the hunt is giving you the other 40%. If you don't hit that 5% because your run isn't long enough or you've not killed enough mobs you walk away feeling incredibly crap. Now it is quite possible that the big loots are just around the corner but you need to have enough money to get to that point.

Having less no loots and more average and lower loots can only be a good thing as long as the over all return rate stays at about 90%. It means there are less hunts you walk away from feeling crap and still the odd hunt where you get your bigger loots. I actually think that would help player retention immensly.

I just wanna give, so all you folks can have fun! awe i feel so good now.

fuffel said:

Right now, its not clear, does ECO tools affect better result then high decay tools?

Click to expand...

Xavier_Jr said:

First at all, we must know what is meaning for Mindark for the word "average". Because if means that player "A" obtain a return rate of 90% and other player "B"" obtain a return rate of 50% then the "average return rate" is (90+50) / 2 = 70%

Or if the average means that return rate of round 1 of a player is 90% and the return rate of round 2 of the same player is 50%, then the "average return rate" is (90+50)/2 = 70%

This is very very important. Because it means very different things. So, it is necesary if we want to do a proposal very clear!

Click to expand...

Seriously?

Lorespade said:

I just want to say, i think the upper end loots should be lowered a little bit. and make up for the common loots. better drop rates for hard mobs giving more better loots insted of nothing over and over. something that basically makes Globals and Hof's a profit maker. not a loss buffer.

Click to expand...

We're not discussing overall return rate. We're discussing base return rate and the frequency of "abnormal" loot sizes.