Loot X.0 - or how to generate lasting mu in an economy

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John Black Knight
I have seen many threads talking about what was good or bad on loot 1.0,2.0 even some asking for 3.0 but the most important matter to make hunting/mining/crafting work is lasting mu's througout the chain so that all players can make up for the tt return they might be lacking.

So how to build these lasting mu's ?

We do have some examples of were mindark introduced upgrade missions that had a longlasting effect on the economy 5b/6a plate upgrades, 2350/2600 fap upgrades, armor and weapon upgrade missions, but all of these examples always had one weakness - they were taking stuff out off the economy instead of creating additional demands and the trading/bussiness partners were NPC's instead of players.

Why would it be more beneficial if players were able to support or specialize in the process of upgrade chains ?

Because it would create a deeper crafting chain and more advanced economy, crafters specialised in certain crafting professions with access the boosted blueprints that have higher requirements then normal bp's could add value to crafting chains especially if there were alternate ways to reach the end products. For example you could have NPC's in place to set a 'ceiling' on how expensive a product could become in the 'worst' case and allow players to supply said products cheaper to other players through crafting. NPC's could provide information in dialogue of existing alternate (cheaper) options and that they themself are the least specialised but still able to get the job done.
For example ancient greece has recently created a very deep crafting chain that led to in part very inflated mu's, this was good for hunters but very bad for crafters who miscalculated the total expense to reach the endresult. Had there been NPC's in place to give a rough guidance estimate and alternate aproach, crafters would have been more able to provide a good service/mu's to hunters while staying competitive to each other.

What type of items could provide lasting mu and profit to everyone participating in the economy ?

Consumable items like pills,potions,foods,fuels that provide temporary buffs usefull for ingame activities, be it optimised hunting, convenience, survivability, faster running/driving/flying, etc.
More upgradeable armors that actually include crafting chains to create tools/advanced mats which then are combined through refiner or NPC to yield the upgrade.

Allow an upgrade path for existing armors that will keep their already achieved Tier and carry on their tierrates - such an advanced upgrade could be more expensive then the standard version that looses tierrates, but would be highly valued by many players and keep the items at high tiers providing continuous increasing demand for enhancers as more and more items reach higher tiers.

Most importantly provide an upgrade path for weapons normal/adjusted to perfected which includes crafting chains in the upgrade process - there should be a balanced standardized upgrade path for all weapons similar to how tierrates improve weapons equaly to a certain percentage.
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Additionally introduce a new crafting chain that allows to produce a specialized amplifier/extender version that improves a weapons efficiency/dpp - this specialised item should be UL and even in its least powerfull version expensive eg. a luxury item that you work towards and improve throughout your hunting career.
It should have a wide range of potential upgrades to allow players to essentially improve the weapon of their choice all the way up to 99.9999% efficiency. But only after a long chain of upgrades should an item become that powerfull, eg. 20-40stages of upgrades all of which should be consuming mats and crafting supplies from various stages. This should be the/an alternative for those hunters who choose to work for their weapon upgrades outside of mayhem events.
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At last remember the one thing that makes an economy longlasting - avoid to hand out top of the line rewards in events/strongboxes/ other means that give max efficiency or any other stat close to maxed form.
When rings got introduced there was a huge potential to give players additional upgrade paths and leave players the choice on which stats they wanted to focus - do not make the error of introducing 'caps' and then handing out items that max out all the stats to all the caps - the point is to need many different items to eventually max out a cap otherwise what is the point of a cap in the first place ?
For something like an efficiency booster or item upgrade chain to provide longlasting mu in an economy it is essential that there is no shortcuts - no eventdrops that make the long upgrade path redundant, no wave of lootable items or even L items that makes people not want to work through the upgrade chains - there can be rewards in events/loots but they should enhance choices not reduce them.
It is also important that the economy does not hang on singular mats for mu like output amplifiers components were relied on to give mu in events and various other mobs, now that their mu has dropped from 200%ish to 110%ish this is impacting hunters in many places and on many mobs - this has happened many times before that single items got chosen to provide mu to many hunters because it was easy to balance one item as opposed to many, but imo it would be easier to give players the freedom to move mu's by spreading out the 'needs' for crafting chains and if there needs to be a protective layer like a 'ceiling' to avoid intentional mu's to go to high or make crafts to expensive this is were the NPC's come into play that can provide alternate 'bad deals' and can be easily beaten by specialised crafters/hunters/miners.
Keep in mind that you dont want to 'deteriorate' item mu's to much to have the resale value of items drop below the cost to create them - make sure there is a demand for such items in the crafting chain, even if its just like with 5b plates to dissassemble them to create something better.

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This post still feels abit rushed after rereading it, but i will just leave these thougths out there for others to build on anyways.
All i wanted to say is - dont try to reinvent the wheel, dont ask for loot 3.0 - all the economy needs is demand - create the demand the supply will follow.
Use ingame ressources to advance, dont just drop 80% to TT and then use event rewards to provide upgrade paths.

Good luck out there and safe travels :)
 
answer to that is easy... remove UL gear, don't let hunters loot hunting items, don't let miners loot mining items
 
answer to that is easy... remove UL gear, don't let hunters loot hunting items, don't let miners loot mining items

After you also have to decide what game you will play when EU goes down. ;)
It isn't so that people are pleased with current situation, do you seriously think that
would increase interest to play?
If everyone gonna loot same stuff MU will die out.
 
Think I said it before but will say it now as well.

Having high efficiency UL stuff in a RCE makes no sense, the loot one using the high efficiency tool gets, who is going to use that and why, if the efficiency is inferior for the output tool?

The game should be mostly made of crafted stuff and not 90%+ efficinency ul tools, this just destroys the game gradually until higher eff ul stuff is released, kinda stupid actually, this is only making the one with most time and cash to succeed.
 
Think I said it before but will say it now as well.

Having high efficiency UL stuff in a RCE makes no sense, the loot one using the high efficiency tool gets, who is going to use that and why, if the efficiency is inferior for the output tool?

The game should be mostly made of crafted stuff and not 90%+ efficinency ul tools, this just destroys the game gradually until higher eff ul stuff is released, kinda stupid actually, this is only making the one with most time and cash to succeed.

I use to say that basic gear should be available in UL, it shall always be a way to improve it as
it is today, but high end increasement of that gear should be with L attachment.
 
answer to that is easy... remove UL gear, don't let hunters loot hunting items, don't let miners loot mining items

I don't think the answer is quite that simple, as having better and better UL is one of the main aims people have as they skill up. I really don't think UL can now be operated out of the system as such. However, repairs could involve parts swap-outs, special oils etc. We already have enhancers which break and need fresh supplies, so an element of this is already well established. Also, MA has reduced player costs by returning the tt element when enhancers break and items are tiered now, so it's an attempt to improve the popularity of using the tiering system. It's just a pity that tier rates still appear to be screwed up.

In another thread on the Ancient Greece upgrades, I asked about whether tier stats could be saved. I didn't go into detail, but it would be something like sticking the item to save the tier on in one window, and the item to be destroyed in a different window. This would have the effect of better tier items making it all the way through to very desirable perfected tier status. Alternatively there could be something like using paints or the spacecraft si upgrade system to work on improving tiers on an item. They would no longer be 'unique'.. but it's a thought about how to not make upgrading items a tier reset lottery!

John said:
For example ancient greece has recently created a very deep crafting chain that led to in part very inflated mu's, this was good for hunters but very bad for crafters who miscalculated the total expense to reach the endresult. Had there been NPC's in place to give a rough guidance estimate and alternate aproach, crafters would have been more able to provide a good service/mu's to hunters while staying competitive to each other.

I'm not sure I understand which crafting chain you mean. Do you mean the gorgon upgrade chain or that gorgon mission of mining, hunting achelous and crafting chisels (and other stuff?)? If you mean upgrades, then the info was at least provided from the start this time - and it was quickly worked out that we are talking pretty expensive to upgrade to perfected - also quite a long time involved getting the pieces together.
If you mean the mission, then I don't even know what IS involved, or how many stages there are. Mining stage one just ticks over to mining stage two etc, so there is nothing I CAN calculate in advance (except probably not to try very hard...)

On a lot of stuff I agree with you. Loots should not just be: wham, you've finally looted a beauty! It should be potential which also requires materials from busy players. For me, a very deep crafting chain would involve dozens of levels, maybe ending up with a new class of spaceship, or so. It would be important here to have less and less risk of a crafting failure, however, maybe even no risk at some point - just feed in the mats to the npc at higher levels...

Maybe it's too late for this universe, though. Maybe a new 1.0 somewhere more virtuous will show the way forward from now on?
 
1.) get more players to play the game.
2.) reduce the volatily, min tt-return 90% wether it's a small; medium or big run. Also let players hit the 95+% return goal much more frequently. The less MA takes in bad runs, the more people can spend on buying guns, ressources etc.
something like this:
Hunting loot events:
10% Chance for 90% return on kill
44% Chance for 93% return on kill
45% Chance for 95% return on kill
1% Chance for 100+% return on kill (aka Multiplier)
garantueed TT-return: 90+%

Crafting (quantity + maxed for chances):
turn all BPs into SIB BPs
5% Chance for fail
1% Chance for 100+% return success (aka multiplier)
36% Chance for 100% TT-return success
58% Chance for 90% TT-return near success

Mining (based on 1 ped per drop):
33% chance for nrf
66% chance for 1,35 PED claim
1% chance for Multplier
add level 14 amplifier > 1,5 times the decay of level 13 amp & 1,5 times the claim size of level 13 amp
add level 15 amplifier > 2 times the decay of level 13 & 2 times the claim size of level 13 amp

this outdoor mining/quantity crafting of course.
3.) introduce chemist skill along with pill crafts as well as new craftable ressources for higher level items.
those new craftable ressources are additives or something like Lystionite Steel Ingot. Make it so those special ingots can no longer be made via refiner but have to be crafted instead.
4.) introduce cooking skill along with cooking crafts. Along with this add fishing!
5.) move boards for carpentry from monsters to trees.
Carpentry is a pain in the ass atm, because you need to hunt monsters and get so much unneeded/worthless hunting loot. The combination of having to cycle a lot on hunting and it's tt-losses combined with quite some worthless loot in it, makes crafting of some furniture quite unattractive and/or just unnecessarily bloats up the supply of hunted loot.
With all boards only droping from trees, the hunting loot supply should decrease a bit and the terratech tools will gain more use.
6.) remove UL items or just make L items better than the UL ones, like it already is with armor & armor plates.
For guns & Attachments it could be something like this:
short lasting L amps (like the RT amps) > no ammo use, highest efficiency (because you got to pay full MU on every shot), rather low tt.
medium lasting L amps > medium ammo usage, medium efficiency, medium max tt.
long lasting L amps > rather high ammo usage, low effiency, high max tt.
UL amps > whatever ammo usage, lowest efficiency, whatever max tt.
note about the efficiency part: from lowest to highest the gap shouldn't be 100% , maybe 10 to 30%, just so the items can get balanced later via MU.
7.) there's already a spacecraft profession, now just add spacecrafts to craft. Why not allow to craft Motherships, which take tenthousands TT of materials to make? Very fast, unarmed, low hull durability taxis?
a lot more small asteroid where players can build mining stations, which need a lot of ressources and the player gets a taxed area in return. Basically player build FOMAs, some with outdoor properties, some with indoor properties, all with unique ressource distribution.
On one ignisium may be "common", but terridite can't be found at all, on another one it's the other way around.
So basically, expand the whole space thingy.
 
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Unlimited gear is already effectively L as it is continuously phased out by newer, better unlimited items. If I had to buy L for everything I need I'd probably quit.
 
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We need more players in the game it will solve those problems mate. Its a simple demand problem. The more players The more MU,gear has more value, crafting has MU than mining and hunting. All benefit even MA. We just need more People ingame. IT WILL SOLVE THOSE PROBLEMS.
 
We need more players in the game it will solve those problems mate. Its a simple demand problem. The more players The more MU,gear has more value, crafting has MU than mining and hunting. All benefit even MA. We just need more People ingame. IT WILL SOLVE THOSE PROBLEMS.

And to get more players the game needs to become more attractive.
 
Yes exactly need to advertise bigg time.

Advertising doesn't help much if the game & reward structure is bad.
I'd like to play entropia and i certainly have the peds to play a little, but i usually don't play it, because the first thing that pop ups when thinking about crafting or mining or hunting is "it's gonna be another 70-80% TT-return anyway, why waste that money, better go to play BDO"...
I certainly would play more and put more money into EU if it weren't that bad...

btw, before loot 2.0, when the returns generally were much higher, i played EU almost all week. that stoped when they made changes and 60-80% TT-return run without follow-up payback hof/globals became a very common thing.
 
And to get more players the game needs to become more attractive.

The game is already very attractive on Very High with a Direct X 11 capable card.

I think Mindark should concentrate on losing fewer players. Though it sounds counter-productive, banning the cheats and the alts would improve things.
 
The game is already very attractive on Very High with a Direct X 11 capable card.
for me attractivity of a game is more than just optics... stuff like gameplay, complexity, reward structure etc.
 
for me attractivity of a game is more than just optics... stuff like gameplay, complexity, reward structure etc.

All of which have been improved over the time I've been here. When I started no missions, no instances, no vehicles , no other planets yada yada.... ;)
 
All of which have been improved over the time I've been here. When I started no missions, no instances, no vehicles , no other planets yada yada.... ;)

Compared to the beginning, sure.
I started later on, 4-5 years ago, and for me some of those aspects have gotten worse over the past years, especially the reward structure. That one has changed from it's okay to it's fucking terrible...
 
answer to that is easy... remove UL gear
There are no simple answers in a complex system. Understand that or you'll get responses a lot less polite.

Unlimited gear is already effectively L as it is continuously phased out by newer, better unlimited items. If I had to buy L for everything I need I'd probably quit.
This. Although there is the problem of constant escalation, you never reach an equilibrium this way. It only works if you can create a sink for the materials produced at similarly escalating rates. For those who play the other side of the system, similar motivating factors need to apply. I don't have any bright idea how to solve this, which was the motivation for posting this AMA question since it is a frequently expressed but not uncontested perception that EP crafting took away a large part of that loot sink. The mind boggles with speculation about why it never got an answer, especially after they stepped forward initially.

Some items created a long time ago in a different context are still topping the item hierarchy and aren't easily outmoded. They naturally land in the hands of "whales" who keep producing large quantities of stuff. Not all of them have the patience to route everything through the market though and rather throw it back into the TT or burn it up themselves, just to be able to continue doing what they like most. Hence not all of them are a problem, quite the opposite (for the game that is, not considering what RL psychologists might say about the healthiness of such a lifestyle).

The numbers needed to make any recommendation for improving balance are in the hands of MA, none of us has them. So everybody's viewpoint is through a lens darkly, and through the filter of their own preferences. It's like the rats trying to run the lab.
 
Ready for sweat balloon fights?
 
Advertising doesn't help much if the game & reward structure is bad.
I'd like to play entropia and i certainly have the peds to play a little, but i usually don't play it, because the first thing that pop ups when thinking about crafting or mining or hunting is "it's gonna be another 70-80% TT-return anyway, why waste that money, better go to play BDO"...
I certainly would play more and put more money into EU if it weren't that bad...

btw, before loot 2.0, when the returns generally were much higher, i played EU almost all week. that stoped when they made changes and 60-80% TT-return run without follow-up payback hof/globals became a very common thing.


I am not into crafting so i can say anything about that.

But i am 100% sure not every run in mining / hunting is not 70-80%

In mining you should be around 90% or up if you dont even get big hofs.
In hunting i have used 52% efficiency weapon for a month without amp i was getting like 92.6% ofc there were few bad days with 79% tt but not always.
I have also hunted with 57% efficiency weapon without amp i was gettig like 94.5% tt.

What i am saying is even if a new players buys weapon from tt he will not get 70-80% tt all the time like you say.


Or may be you doing some calculation wrong like going out hunting with 500 ped ammo and converting shrapnels in between ?
 
I am not into crafting so i can say anything about that.

But i am 100% sure not every run in mining / hunting is not 70-80%

In mining you should be around 90% or up if you dont even get big hofs.
In hunting i have used 52% efficiency weapon for a month without amp i was getting like 92.6% ofc there were few bad days with 79% tt but not always.
I have also hunted with 57% efficiency weapon without amp i was gettig like 94.5% tt.

What i am saying is even if a new players buys weapon from tt he will not get 70-80% tt all the time like you say.


Or may be you doing some calculation wrong like going out hunting with 500 ped ammo and converting shrapnels in between ?

Ofc it's not like that every time, but make it 9 to 9,5 out of 10 times being that bad.
Yesterday i was mining, 101 PED in , 105 PED out with a ~times 12 Multiplier... without that multiplier, which can happen very frequently, it would have been a pathetic 71% TT-return.. my lowest 100 PED run was about 60% TT-return...the quick hell run was only 30ish% ofc... Which just sucks, when trying to just get a few missing ressorces to get the crafting going. The day before i crafted, 80ish% TT-return, before that my crafting run was 73% TT-return...

Last i've tracked overall, my standing was 86,57% TT-return after 73238 drops.

Hunting is quite okay, as it doesn't take an insame amount of kills to get some decent return results, however i'd like to see MA putting an end to those 60-80% TT-return runs.

Nah, there's no error in calculation.
 
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We need more players in the game it will solve those problems mate. Its a simple demand problem. The more players The more MU,gear has more value, crafting has MU than mining and hunting. All benefit even MA. We just need more People ingame. IT WILL SOLVE THOSE PROBLEMS.

Quote Originally Posted by Alukat123 View Post



And to get more players the game needs to become more attractive.

I agree. But how all potential new players will come with all negative post on this forum.
On this forum, there only a small parts of the in game players. Always same guys who post bad comments. More players are fine in game than on this forum.
But who potential new players will heard in first ? Forum complainer :(

I bet, if there was more positive post here, more new players will start the game, just for show at first, maybe more longer after...

Just my think sorry
 
if there was more positive post here

Make the game better, then there will be more positive posts.
Before 2.0, when there were MMO discussions on other websites, i even used to advertise EU there. That stopped when EU became a bad game.
 
Make the game better, then there will be more positive posts.
Before 2.0, when there were MMO discussions on other websites, i even used to advertise EU there. That stopped when EU became a bad game.

Bad game for you, do not mean bad game for other players.
When i read your "return", i can't understand how it is possible. Yes there is bad runs, but how it's possible to have to all time bad runs :scratch2:

You are the only one guy i know who have 60-80% TT return all time...
 
Bad game for you, do not mean bad game for other players.
When i read your "return", i can't understand how it is possible. Yes there is bad runs, but how it's possible to have to all time bad runs :scratch2:

You are the only one guy i know who have 60-80% TT return all time...

Maybe because all the other players who have/had such bad returns as well already left? :scratch2:
A friend of mine had similiar returns for 3 weeks when the changes were fresh, then he sold everything and did withdraw all his cash, then never touched the game again.
Also, here in the forum are plenty of other people around who are complaining about bad returns.

That can happen when multipliers don't happen. I get a small multiplier every couple hundred whatever i do.. which is too rare/too small and then it ends in bad returns..
 
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The saddest part is that it's better to work 2gether on 1 avatar than each creating their own.
 
Bad game for you, do not mean bad game for other players.
When i read your "return", i can't understand how it is possible. Yes there is bad runs, but how it's possible to have to all time bad runs :scratch2:

You are the only one guy i know who have 60-80% TT return all time...

This is quite simple if you only kill 20 or 30 mobs a time. Iv been killing baby kerbs with unmaxed weapon which also is overpowered and getting around 90% tt. Its picking right mob with your budget and getting a good kill count in a session.
 
This is quite simple if you only kill 20 or 30 mobs a time.

200-300 PED hunt on a 0,8 PED kill-cost mob is 20-30 mobs? 200 drop runs are 20-30 mobs as well? 500-4000 click crafting runs are 20-30mobs as well? where did you go to school?
 
200-300 PED hunt on a 0,8 PED kill-cost mob is 20-30 mobs? 200 drop runs are 20-30 mobs as well? 500-4000 click crafting runs are 20-30mobs as well? where did you go to school?

Well before you negative rep me again i am stating what i have seen. The only time i have seen such bad runs is when i didn't get the numbers in a session and i can tell you all about that in crafting.

Also theirs no need for personal attacks.
 
Well before you negative rep me again i am stating what i have seen. The only time i have seen such bad runs is when i didn't get the numbers in a session and i can tell you all about that in crafting.

Also theirs no need for personal attacks.

You stated the kill-count would be only 20-30 mobs, read your entire post again if you've already forgotten what you have written.

Since you tried to imply it would just be a very sample size i'm doing while in fact it's not, you certainly deserved the negative rep for trolling.
 
Alukat, I would suggest something for you, start a little google data sheet, do a large enough cycle on what ever profession you like, big enough cycle depending on how big you go/ kill count/amount clicks crafting/amount of bombs dropped And you will see that the game/loot you speak about is already here and called loot 2.0.

For the game to still be interesting it needs to be so well said by MA themselves "dynamic" Otherwise you would not jump out of the chair when you hit that massive HOF :)

Once you get your head around it, its amazing. As you don't even care anymore about that really bad run on a 87 % tt return. Because the system is almost bulletproof these days, that said the system is still not idiot proof, maybe loot 3.0 will be that :eyecrazy:


I started myself back in 2003 and played for many years, then had a long break and now I'm back. And yes the game was amazing back then and I think it is amazing still. I know that I will most likely play this game until the day I'm old and grey. Its unique, there will be a lot of new games trying the same. But it will be extremely hard to keep it going for 16-17 years like PE ---> EU has done. We all do get tired of it, have breaks. But eventually down the line, we show up again.

The last 2 years since I have been back, I have seen massive change. It's exciting! And I have not even been to space yet. Keep up the good work MA and for us, keep positive vibes. Don't misinform newcomers, guide them. And more players will come. Like a lot of small businesses, WORD OF MOUTH. You must remember MA is not Ubisoft, they run will a very small budget and a very small team. Keep that in mind and always remember, no one is forcing you to play :wise:
 
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