My response to "Response on Bad Loot and my MA tracked 91% Returns"

Geralt

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Hello everyone,

Recently I have been following on thread where one of us showed his long term 91% TT returns considered by community as very poor. There was an outrage over MA's claims that average TT return is 97% but most common return among players i 89-91%. That is why I wanted to introduce you my point of view on how the loot TT % return distribution in EU look like.

I am not going to include all math and statistical details, it would be far too time consuming and I assume just far to complicated for anyone who never was any close to math, statistics and theory of probability. If you have some knowledge you can always have a quick reminder here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
Focus also on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skewness
And: https://www.statisticshowto.datasciencecentral.com/probability-and-statistics/skewed-distribution/

Imagine situation where on planet Calypso, let's say 2k players with same setup hunt the same mob of the same maturity in a similar time range, ceteris paribus. How would their % TT return distribution look like?

After recent thread I am almost 100% convinced it would look like this:

tt_return.jpg


I think MindArk's loot distribution coding is designed to bring such results (with small deviations) for everyone. Surely, there are plenty of things that can influence your position on the chart (gear, amount of loot events [I think that the more the better], buffs, mob type, efficiency etc.) but in general, on average and in long term, in % TT return terms you are always going to lose.

We do not know the influence of those listed factors and factors we are not aware of but it may happen that one or two players with very high-end gear and proper skills may get around 99% or even past 100% in long run. But vast majority of you will be closer to 91% (mode) when significantly less amount of people will see the average 97% return.

MA says that technically personal loot pool does not exist. I agree. What exist imho is personal loot distribution. In this case instead of amount of players on Y axis you would have amount of loot events and on X axis you would have % TT return per kill. As I said, it is a little different for all of you due to differences in setup, skills etc. but for all of you it is less or more right skewed (screwed? ;)).

This is the reality we live in. You may acknowledge what I present here, you may disagree. All feedback is welcomed. It is always good to have nice and not derailed discussion.

Thanks.
 
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I agree as a business MA needs to take a 5-10% cut for its own profit margin, pay staff, overheads etc etc.
The thing is the loot pool may indeed return 91% of what you put in TT value wise, that is not the issue in my view.

What has been shaped is what drops in the loot. When you have a microeconomy based on hunters and miners feeding crafters who in turn supply crafted goods back to the hunters, miners and others in the EU community there flows an equilibrium for economic growth where some players can be quite successful and actually make a profit and even a living from the game.

The reality is miners and hunter loot a lot of useless stuff shrapnel for example. There are many blueprints crafters cant use because they cant get the ingredients. To craft you want to at least 100 or more clicks.

As a crafter for example I own a full set of Arkadian clothing blueprints. Yet the only stuff I sell is my stock in storage I crafted a few years ago when I could easily buy most ingredients on auction or directly from hunters and miners.

The ingame economy could be a vibrant profitable place for all, but it remains suffocated by lack of varied loot and items no longer dropping. A few years ago I would drop up to 65000Ped in game per month as crafting was fun and I could sell a variety of things...I don't recall the last time I deposited :(

I do hope 2020 is a year the crafting economy is revived and MA takes the brakes off all the loot items taken off the loot algorithm,

my 2 cents
Bjorn
 
Loot composition is another issue but what drives away miners and hunters from gaming and depositing is very poor 91% return which is most common. Brutal truth may be that this is exactly how returns were designed to be on average of 97%.

If you do not get that desired 98-99% and in addition all you loot is TT food then I understand that many of us just do not want to play anymore.

This may require some serious review from MindArk including code of the game and how economy is designed.
MA needs skilled economists and programmers but they seem to be very far away from that.
 
I agree as a business MA needs to take a 5-10% cut for its own profit margin, pay staff, overheads etc etc.

They're taking a cut when people depo, withdraw, list stuff in auction and on top of all that stuff, do they really need all that 5-10% cut?
I don't think so, someone stated here a few days ago, that MA even said in their fiscal report, that EU is a highly profitable product...
maybe reduce the cut and make it less profitable before people run away and it won't be profitable at all anymore?
 
<Truncated>

Imagine situation where on planet Calypso, let's say 2k players with same setup hunt the same mob of the same maturity in a similar time range, ceteris paribus. How would their % TT return distribution look like?

After recent thread I am almost 100% convinced it would look like this:

tt_return.jpg


I think MindArk's loot distribution coding is designed to bring such results (with small deviations) for everyone. Surely, there are plenty of things that can influence your position on the chart (gear, amount of loot events [I think that the more the better], buffs, mob type, efficiency etc.) but in general, on average and in long term, in % TT return terms you are always going to lose.

<Truncated>

I think your assumed distribution is not quite accurate (it might be for a very low number of loot events). Yes in general, players must lose in TT so MA can support their business, but if all players had same setup and hunted the same mobs with same skills, the distribution should converge to a delta function i.e. everyone will achieve the same TT return % as the number of mobs hunted approaches a very large number.

Your distribution would be the result of the the distribution of multipliers on loot events, and for a low number of events (few mob hunted).

Another point: assuming that MA says average return is 97% and they weighted the average appropriately, it does not matter if the distribution looks like what you are showing, or if everyone hunts at 97%. MA will make the same amount of money.

If everyone hunted at 97% tt return, I think you would see this game fail, because there would be no incentive for gear and skill improvement.

Best,
Zho
 
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They're taking a cut when people depo, withdraw, list stuff in auction and on top of all that stuff, do they really need all that 5-10% cut?
I don't think so, someone stated here a few days ago, that MA even said in their fiscal report, that EU is a highly profitable product...
maybe reduce the cut and make it less profitable before people run away and it won't be profitable at all anymore?

It was me who quoted that Financial Statement and that is why I intended to have some pun in the name of my chart. What you point out is also important. This chart does not include all small "fees" MA is taking during our activities.

I guess MA could lower their costs and that is why I was joking about "Fika employees" in MindArk in that main thread. There are 40+ people there, most of them occupy "Board of directors". Just check them on LinkedIn. Plenty of people who do not contribute to the level of service at all. VR guy, community manager, pretend-to-work directors, managers of this and that. Very few actual game & code developers, art designers, in-game economy designers etc. Many people there leech on MindArk's lack of courage to re-define their priorities. Sad but true.
 
It ..... most of them occupy "Board of directors". Just check them on LinkedIn. Plenty of people who do not contribute to the level of service at all. VR guy, community manager, pretend-to-work directors, managers of this and that. Very few actual game & code developers, art designers, in-game economy designers etc....

well, this is the reason why entropia is in the situation where it actually is :girl:
 
Well, what you show seems to be a fixed distribution which may or may not be a close approximation.

What ppl are, however, yelling about are perceived changes in l00t returns, quite noticably to the worse.

:dunno:

Example, why it looks so bad: Say, you cycled 100,000 PEDs with a return of 93.5%, you get 93,500 PEDs back. If your returns over the next 20,000 PEDs revert to a 90.5% average overall (3% less), you actually got back only 15,100 PEDs during this last period resulting in 75.5%... therefore, you perceive a whopping 18% l00t return loss (from 93.5% down to 75.5%), which is why ppl are hurting and what they are complaining about. (Plus, psychologically, spirit lifting runs in the green will be very scarce and would be paid for with even more abysmal results otherwise.)
 
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