It's the perfect trap. Progression and character improvement in this game psychologically makes you think you're getting better and improving your chances, but all you're doing is upping your bet, and by then, you're hooked (at least for a little while).
And improving your chances for what? 99% TT returns... I mean, really when you think about it, it's quite funny.
The sooner you realize you cannot control anything in this game, the better. That is.... if you're playing MA's game. The only people doing okay here are the ones not playing by MA's rules (traders, etc.)
Wow best comment so far !
Off course game is addictive ! Char progression is rly slow but its there too ;D
So i play this game a lot last year or so (120hp to 230 hp 30 lvl hit to 80 lvl hit etc) and i did depo a lot but mostly to buy gear ofc. I have something like 3000+ globals with best loot still 1700 ped ( like 10 days ago
1st huge mistake i did upping the dps without upping the bank roll
2nd huge mistake hunt random mobs for random amount of time that drops nothing with MU
3rd VERY HUGE mistake..thinking that loot 2.0 weapons will magicaly change my overall return
4th big mistake rushing to buy gear for my self at a price that makes me loose ped selling it later
5th mistake i almost never did hunting in Taxed areas
6th SUPER HUGE mistake ..not always having bank roll to keep 102-105%MU items.
7th big mistake.... You can NOT force loot ! Shit is weave based...comes n goes
I am sick of this 90% tt return BS...even 97% is very bad when I cycle 15k per day ! I have over 15 years background playing all kinds of mmos and i know how to trade very well....too well if i start rly putting max efforts but i rarely do that. I also know how risky trading can be if u have no clue that you are doing ! So i decided its time to Learning the prices on most common gear and more important learn the trends and predict them and this investment is starting to pay off from time to time very nicely.
The more you hunt the more ped you goona loose this is the truth ! MU is too small at the moment to cover you looses ...what actually helps A LOT are those silent 500-1500 ped Hofs trading and there are tons of deals to grab if u keep your eyes open and you mind sharp !
Bottom line ped cycled 1.2m+(might be more) Most of the time i was using 80%eff/3.3dpp+ weapons (lr 40 fen i grind 6 months+) constantly loosing ped on a short/medium and long term and i still do lol
Starting point : looter proff. lvl ZERO... atm 51 animal 41 amutant 30 robots(i dont hunt robots)
Ped lost during all this time is around 15k +-2k (i got rare loot 2-3 rings for total value 8k ped)
My Overall return 98%+ or so but this include
all activities.. bad trades good trades(lot more) , hunting mobs with ZERO MU , overextending bad runs into a rly bad runs , loosing 3-5k ped x4 times last Mayhems , playing with L weapons LUL (btw this is around 150-200 ped loost per day vs UL weapon with let say 75 dps or so), using UNMAXED weapons for a good amount of time, using enchancers almost all of the time + mayhem amps and so on and so on
Anyway i still think a good setup combined high looter skills(65-70+) and
proper bank roll + LOTS of time and dedication + some trading skills (the tricky part...i find it boring at a time but its a must if u want to break even) you can play this game for FREE ..just find out that u are best at and exploit it !
The bad part playing this "game" is that you need a HUGE money investment in gear and tons of ped cycled to up your looter prof witch i think is very very ugly nerf from MA that they did with that loot 2.0 BS . What they actually did is adding 2 loot penalties that didnt existed before in form og 0-7% looter prof penalty and another 0-7% from weapon efficency . I can buy 80-90% eff weapon but i really cant chip in high lvl looter skills Kappa !
p.s. bascially if i got lucky to open one good ring (ares perefct is not bad at all but 6k is not 25k) in that 4-5k boxes i opened i would be even and + small profit !
p.s.s. i dont count the skills gain and some of my skilll definitely worth something !