Study of the effect of buffs on loot per mob in Loot 2.0

I am reporting some results of a study on the effect of focus blows and increased critical damage buffs performed by myself and Eli in the past couple weeks since the implementation of Loot 2.0. The results, which is likely not a surprise to those who have consistently benefited from the use of these buffs to improve DPP and subsequently produce TT profits prior to Loot 2.0. However, the data does with good confidence show that, as MA has suggested they would do, loot has moved away from the DPP model and is instead heavily based on the individual avatar's cost to kill a mob.

The impetus of the study is MA's developer notes, specifically the following quotes:
"A new Economy rating parameter will be introduced, on a scale of 1-100, that indicates the efficiency of a tool and which influences loot calculations. This change from the once dominant damage/pec model will provide the design team with more freedom to release exciting and interesting items with a wider range of damage output and special effects. For example, our team will have the ability to create powerful new items that provide access to challenging and exciting content without dramatically increasing cost to play. Existing items will be assigned Economy values that reflect their relative efficiency to one another and to the entire array of items in the universe."
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?298019-Developer-Notes-11-Loot-2-0

"The largest components by far in loot value calculations are costs, such as weapon deterioration, ammo consumption, armor deterioration, healing costs, etc."
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...?298429-Developer-Notes-12-Loot-2-0-Follow-Up

These posts suggest a new way to calculate loot that is based on the cost to use, instead of damage per pec with a minimum loot that exists that is mob based. This raised the question of the effect of focused blows and increased critical damage buffs on loot, which increase DPP but actually decrease cost to kill. As a result, we ran a couple experiments, killing a similar sample number of creatures with and without buffs, tracking the loots we received from each individual mob to generate a distribution of loots in either case. Experiment details and links to data is described below:

Experiment 1: Caperons with and without buffs
Gear: (with buffs) Summer Ring 2016, Athenic Modified, EST, Easter Egg, LC-55+A106
Gear: (without buffs) Hermetic Perfected, LC-55+A106
Defensive costs are negligible as I am walking out of range of caperons with long range weapon.
Sample size with and without buffs: N = 543.
Data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EjIOSw_li-WMbceIf-KINhslLvOixZIyh2W3mDQ6D3k/edit?usp=sharing

As you can see in the sorted data spreadsheet, once the top x% of data is removed to account for outliers, the difference in loot/mob over ~500 mobs can be seen:
Removing the top 5% of loots in both colums: loot without buffs is 111% that of loot with buffs.
Removing the top 1.3%, that number is 110%. Removing no outliers, that number is 122% but doesn't really mean much since outliers can skew data a great deal.
The expected increase in dpp is ~8.5%, so increase in cost to kill without buffs should be about 9%. The 10% increase correlates well with this expectation. Contribution for regen should be minimal, as dps improvement is ~20%, and caperons only regenerate ~0.1%/second. The decrease in dps should only cause a 1% difference due to higher regen in the case with no buffs.

At the same time, Eli has conducted a similar experiment on bristlehogs, with similar results:
Mob: Bristlehogs with and with out buffs
Gear: (With Buffs) Ares improved, EST, Easter Egg, Shagadi with VI
Gear: (Without Buffs): Shagadi with VI only
N = 312
Data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AG-NXszmGMW9MZban_CLkoV1Mn6uc7ukvXNwB22vq1c/edit?usp=sharing

The results are quite similar. Removing the top 6 percent of loots to remove outliers, loot without buffs is 11% higher than that of loot with buffs. Expected increase dpp with buffs is ~5.7%

Our conclusion is that, as loot is no longer DPP based but mainly cost based, the effect of buffs on DPP results in decreased cost to kill a mob, and lowered loot that is proportional to the decrease in cost. This has major implications with focused blows and increased critical damage affects economy. Previously, the improvement in eco allowed many top players to improve their DPP to a point where they can consistently break into TT profit region. However, anecdotal reports suggest this is no longer the case.

I would argue that this amounts to a silent nerf that has been introduced to all focused blows and increased critical damage items in Loot 2.0.

I have posted our raw data and analysis for everyone to peruse, as we do believe sharing this data will improve understanding of this game by the community overall. I suspect there will be some with some angry comments as well as those who are happy that we posted this. In the end, I know that providing this data to the community is the right thing to do.

If you have any feedback to the study and also to the analysis, please feel free to reply here. And if you also have data to share, my hope is that you will as well.

Zho

There are lots of dedicated hunters out there and we welcome you to run similar tests to add to our sample. The thing that is most important is to remember that loot 2.0 suggests we study each variable for changes but not at the same time. I see many posts where it sounded like tests contained to many secondary variables that could impact results. Good luck all.

too small volume to make any conclusion.
In beinging of 2.0 i tracked every single mob loot with 3 diffrent guns and got the conclusion that imk2 pays less per mob and also gave less % return on killcost, thousands of mobs.

The next day my theory broke when i had a friend do several thousand mobs with equal gear.

First of all please let me start by saying WELL DONE for such a well detailed and documented study and THANK YOU for sharing it.

Now that doesn't come as a surprise to me at all since I read the announcements the same way you did and I envisioned this exact same result; even posted about it like two weeks ago:

DoA said:

On a more general view, I read the whole loot 2.0 as:

Step 1: Loot value is determined (TT value) and here pretty much everything is compensated (they mentioned ammo, decay, healing costs, armor costs, etc), maybe not entirely, but still quite a bit, with a small (maximum 7%) boost to the high-efficiency weapons. So having higher kill costs is not necessarily so bad in this regard.

Imagine something like (obviously oversimplified): loot_return = kill_costs * (92.5 + efficiency/10)%, resuling in 92.5% return rate at 0% efficiency and 99.5% return rate at 100% efficiency.

Step 2: Once the loot value is determined, determining the loot composition follows, and the lower the cost to kill, the more rare loot you'll get. And here it matters if you're minimizing your costs or not.



That post clearly states exactly that... minimizing costs to kill moved from affecting loot quantity (in 1.0) to affecting loot quality (in 2.0).



So by not minimizing your costs (aka overprotecting with armor, in-combat healing or whatever you can think at) you won't (necessarily) get (much) lower return rates, but you will just get more shrapnel / common loot and less rare loot (items).

Click to expand...

Anyway is great to see my thoughts confirmed by an actual practical study.

Now if anyone could take the things to the next level and do the same for defensive costs.

My data suggests the following:


1) base weapon decay is not as important in loot 2.0 since decay seems to be paid back at a higher rate in 2.0 than previously... This would mean your lower-dpp UL items with higher decay are essentially not as shitty as they once were.


2) buffs from rings or pills still operate with the same utility --> decreasing cost to kill.

decreasing cost to kill obviously reduces ped input and thus ped output. This essentially means buff effects are slightly dilluted since MA has moved more towards input=output based loot rather than mob hp or a variety of other also important factors.

However, lowering cost to kill allows you to hunt for cheaper for longer, enabling you to get more multipliers per ped spent than the competition, this is essentially how most uber-dpp players profited prior to loot 2.0.... i suspect this hasn't really changed, and a lot of players are prematurely fire-saling all of their gear.

My takeaway from loot 2.0 is that low-eco setups are punished less while high-eco setups are dilluted in their efficacy in producing profits.. My second takeaway is that players are require to hunt smaller relative to their dps, longer, and much more within their bankroll. Since most EU players do none of those things i am not surprised to see players that hop around bitching about 90% loot with a 150k setup.


Edit: But I mostly mine so what the fuck do I know.

Rocket192 said:

My takeaway from loot 2.0 is that low-eco setups are punished less while high-eco setups are dilluted in their efficacy in producing profits.

Click to expand...

Hence why I named it the "Robin Hood update".

Rocket192 said:

My second takeaway is that players are require to hunt smaller relative to their dps, longer, and much more within their bankroll. Since most EU players do none of those things i am not surprised to see players that hop around bitching about 90% loot with a 150k setup.

Click to expand...

Spot on!

Well that makes sense. Its more or less still like loot 1.0, but I guess the difference being to dps as fast as possible?

Just that inefficient setups are punished less and overly geared avatars aren't pushing tt profits as well as before? (but get better chances at various items in loot though)

Still, if that's the case how was it that people with efficient setups before update were doing poorly after?

Was it just they needed to hunt lower to kill enemies faster to get the mini's and globals in the loot waves now?

Does the volatility even out and get closer to tt profits if your able to dps fast enough to hit the loot waves?

Zanathos said:

Still, if that's the case how was it that people with efficient setups before update were doing poorly after?

Click to expand...

I think it's just that different people have different definitions of "poorly". I know at least three examples of ubers selling out their hunting gears despite still reporting 98%+ (one of them even 100%+) return rates prior to loot 2.0, still by their previous returns that are classified as "poor results" while the average player would probably kill for something similar.

I am yet to see anyone with at least a somehow statistically significant sample, coming with a log showing less than 90% return rates; most of the logs I saw reported results between 92% and 98%, which are exactly where I think they should be.

tl;dr

DoA said:

most of the logs I saw reported results between 92% and 98%, which are exactly where I think they should be.

Click to expand...

This is because your lack of experience with hunting. Very active hunters cycle a lot. 92% is really really bad.
It is great when you swunt and cycle 100 ped a month, but not when you hunt. Which you don't. And probably never did, properly. But you're all over this hunting thread and all the threads like this.

Since 2.0, my tt return is 93.3%. It started with 88-90, but it went up a little, as I lowered my DPP from 3.2 to 3.1 - 3. If I would have spent 100 ped, 93.3 ped tt return would have been cool. But I am an active hunter and even if I turned it down a notch, I cycled over 133000 PED and 93% is ~ 9k PED loss.
If I shoot hard, I can cycle 240k a month, no dmg enh which woudl result in a 17k ped loss in tt - is this exactly what you think it should be? People study and work many years to get such a salary and you think it's exactly what this game should cost me a month as an active hunter? How ridiculous is this?

My loot experience post 2.0:

(9.6k tt loss)

IMHO you should be a little less hyper-active on these hunting threads and all post or pre Loot 2.0 discussions and either experience the loot phenomenon yourself, or, try to put some numbers on a paper. For example, you could try and make a simulation: adj ep41 pistol + imp a105 + imp ares & 4-5 hours a day - this is your average hunter. See what such a setup could cycle and from this try to envision a fair cost of the game in these circumstances. I don't need the answer, but I think you do, in order to understand the figure you see fit for us, hunters.

Regards.

Evey said:

People study and work many years to get such a salary and you think it's exactly what this game should cost me a month as an active hunter? How ridiculous is this?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how MA would solve this kind of problem honestly.

When you consider how much mid to high level hunters can cycle on a regular basis, such heavy losses would certainly drive people away.

How do you be fair to the average joe who may put 10-30 dollars a month into the game, or even someone playing for free, vs someone who has thousands of dollars in peds and equipment, cycling hundred or more a day.

Developing multiple different systems to cater to each person would be pretty hard to do. Only way I can figure is MA would be giving back so much shrapnel and only occationally dropping anything else, that way people can play and have close to TT returns with the rare chance of getting other items, anything, including oils and hides.

Even at 10k peds cycled a day, 99% is a loss of 100 peds , which is 10 bucks, pretty fair amount overall when you consider it, but that loss has to be made up by someone else too, and if that is the most efficient setup, if someone has average gear, say 95% efficiency for argument sake, that's 500 peds or 50 bucks, pretty high price to play a game for a day.

The system seems better for casual or low level hunters, or those with an odd assortment of gear. Does MA want the high level cyclers to bring it down a notch? Cycle less? Hunt lower level? Minimize their own costs? Whats there to achieve? Not sure what the high rollers would feel about that, probably not good.

96-104% TT should be the bottom and the top end of hunting returns... IMO, if we're going to get into that debate.

The big grinders pay the bills to MA with their decay. even if grinder A gets 103% TT on 400k cycled in one month, MA and PPs still get all of that decay money. Those at the very bottom of the returns spectrum pay players like grinder A their high TT profit.

IMO, if players want to shoot with unmaxed garbage and jump around and play over their bankroll, then fuck it... let them pay for the grinder profits.


I'm willing to run a 30k cycle at ~2.75 dpp and virtually no buffs to pit up against the 30k i pumped into LT at 3.17 dpp buffed, but i'm certain it'll cost me lol. People will always say sample size is too small, but 10k kills should be sufficient I think.

Evey said:

blah blah blah

.

Click to expand...

LOL @ your anti-DOA crusade. She's a little eager to be recognized but she's also mostly not wrong, and certainly not misrepresenting herself or her experience. At least, not in the matter of math and statistics. She has provided considerably more value, and useful analyses to this discussion than you have.

It shouldn't bother you so much that a computer simulation is based on math and not on "experience".

It seems to me you're crying that 93% isn't good enough? Hmm I was always told that 90% was an 'average' expectation. How many PED will you have to 'experience' out of your ped card to realize that MA is working to fix your above average returns to something a little more sustainable for them?

srsly, cry me a river with your 93%. It's the players working themselves to the bone to find these cracks and min/max the system that are putting the rest of us through this anyways.

You won, enjoy your prize. Your experience will never put you ahead of the people that did the math and said "Nope, not worth it".

Atrax said:

It seems to me you're crying that 93% isn't good enough? Hmm I was always told that 90% was an 'average' expectation. How many PED will you have to 'experience' out of your ped card to realize that MA is working to fix your above average returns to something a little more sustainable for them?

srsly, cry me a river with your 93%. It's the players working themselves to the bone to find these cracks and min/max the system that are putting the rest of us through this anyways.

Click to expand...

If ubers achieve 90% returns EU dies... why is that so hard to grasp?

Those on top must succeed or else everyone is aimlessly shooting with no goal and no hope. that's like going to the casino and signing a contract that states "you will not leave with more than 90% of whatever you gamble."

Rocket192 said:

If ubers achieve 90% returns EU dies... why is that so hard to grasp?

Those on top must succeed or else everyone is aimlessly shooting with no goal and no hope. that's like going to the casino and signing a contract that states "you will not leave with more than 90% of whatever you gamble."

Click to expand...

Yeah I've grown irritated by evey snotty attitude as much as her numbers, anyways.

There was a certain time and ethos that pushed PE to where it was at it's peak. And most of those players are long, long gone due to the unending battle between MA trying to provide an entertainment experience, and the people that are strictly here to do whatever it takes to try and get someone else's money out of the game.

I'm not willing to honestly say either side of that issue is 'right' - but just to be clear we sit on different sides of that fence.

The old PE economy is never coming back, the game is too well known now for that. There are a few players and dedicated resellers working hard to hold up the inflated values of old gear and what is considered 'uber' based on a very long term misuse of the term 'investment' in relationship to EU.

So yes, I think that if someone who you might consider 'uber' in this game and 'deserves' to get a payout based on their dedication to the game is looked at from another perspective, you might see someone who is trying to make a living off of my entertainment money, while providing me with absolutely zero entertainment.

The way to profit in EU is and should always be (and here my opinion vs yours) to provide value to other players.

If you want to hunt, you pay. If you want to craft, you pay. If you want to mine, you pay.

In this way, there is no way that someone who wants to hunt 14 hours a day 'deserves' or 'earned' to get paid. I think that someone who hunts 14 hours a day should pay 7 times as much as someone who hunts in a similar fashion for two hours a day. You don't see the sense in this?

TT returns should not ever be a source of profit for a player. period. When it is, it breaks the system. And when someone hammers out a way, and publishes it, and so many players are doing it that TT returns in excess of cycled peds minus decay are a consistent expectation, the system has to be fixed.

And that's where we are today.

Evey said:

This is because your lack of experience with hunting. Very active hunters cycle a lot. 92% is really really bad.
It is great when you swunt and cycle 100 ped a month, but not when you hunt. Which you don't. And probably never did, properly. But you're all over this hunting thread and all the threads like this.

Since 2.0, my tt return is 93.3%. It started with 88-90, but it went up a little, as I lowered my DPP from 3.2 to 3.1 - 3. If I would have spent 100 ped, 93.3 ped tt return would have been cool. But I am an active hunter and even if I turned it down a notch, I cycled over 133000 PED and 93% is ~ 9k PED loss.
If I shoot hard, I can cycle 240k a month, no dmg enh which woudl result in a 17k ped loss in tt - is this exactly what you think it should be? People study and work many years to get such a salary and you think it's exactly what this game should cost me a month as an active hunter? How ridiculous is this?

IMHO you should be a little less hyper-active on these hunting threads and all post or pre Loot 2.0 discussions and either experience the loot phenomenon yourself, or, try to put some numbers on a paper. For example, you could try and make a simulation: adj ep41 pistol + imp a105 + imp ares & 4-5 hours a day - this is your average hunter. See what such a setup could cycle and from this try to envision a fair cost of the game in these circumstances. I don't need the answer, but I think you do, in order to understand the figure you see fit for us, hunters.

Regards.

Click to expand...

All due respect, but I think you are focusing only on your own results and fail to see the bigger picture.

We are in a (sub) zero sum game, what one player wins another player loses and vice-versa. I think we all agree on that.

You used to get better returns and now that they dropped to 93.3% you consider that this unfair and unacceptable. OK, I can understand that and resonate with you.

But the simple logic tells me that what you lost means another player's win. And since you are still hunting smart, it means that, probably, even in the new context, you're still getting better return rates than the other less smart/eco/optimized hunters. Not as much better than before, but still better; the (apparent) goal of the update was to lower the gap between efficient and inefficient hunting, not to reverse the positions (that would sure be dumb).

So:
- you now have 93.3% return rate
- the inefficient hunter probably has lower than 93.3% return rate
- since you saw a drop in your return rate, it probably means he saw an increase in returns rate
- so prior to loot 2.0, he had less than "less than 93.3%" return rate, which I think we can translate by "much less than 93.3%"

So now you complain that 93.3% return rate is unacceptable. And, as said, I can understand and resonate with you. But please tell me how having much lower than 93.3% return rate prior to loot 2.0 was acceptable for that other player? Isn't that a bit of hypocrisy? Double standards?

I'm sure that, no matter what level we're playing at (btw, is up to us to choose what level we're playing at, according to our budget - not that I wouldn't like to hunt big if I would afford it, but I know I don't afford it, so I hunt at the level that I afford) we would sure love to have as high returns as possible, if possible why not over 100%. But that's simply not possible, MA takes their share and whatever is left is split between us and everyone gets some money back, most probably less than what we put in in the first place. If you profit, or don't lose anything, or lose less than the MA's share that means that some other players have to cover the difference for you (and the more you cycle the more PEDs the other players have to cover) since total return rates across all players are always (money in - MA rake) and they will lose more than MA's share. So, all I'm saying is that a system where we're all getting back pretty much the same returns is a more fair one than one where some people have to carry the burden of others.

That's the problem, that while we understand to adapt our gameplay style to what we actually afford, you would like to simply be able to play at the level you want at the cost you want (or, ideally, at no cost). Well, guess what, I would also like that, but that's simply wishful thinking, not something realistic.

Atrax said:

Yeah I've grown irritated by evey snotty attitude as much as her numbers, anyways.

There was a certain time and ethos that pushed PE to where it was at it's peak. And most of those players are long, long gone due to the unending battle between MA trying to provide an entertainment experience, and the people that are strictly here to do whatever it takes to try and get someone else's money out of the game.

I'm not willing to honestly say either side of that issue is 'right' - but just to be clear we sit on different sides of that fence.

The old PE economy is never coming back, the game is too well known now for that. There are a few players and dedicated resellers working hard to hold up the inflated values of old gear and what is considered 'uber' based on a very long term misuse of the term 'investment' in relationship to EU.

So yes, I think that if someone who you might consider 'uber' in this game and 'deserves' to get a payout based on their dedication to the game is looked at from another perspective, you might see someone who is trying to make a living off of my entertainment money, while providing me with absolutely zero entertainment.

The way to profit in EU is and should always be (and here my opinion vs yours) to provide value to other players.

If you want to hunt, you pay. If you want to craft, you pay. If you want to mine, you pay.

In this way, there is no way that someone who wants to hunt 14 hours a day 'deserves' or 'earned' to get paid. I think that someone who hunts 14 hours a day should pay 7 times as much as someone who hunts in a similar fashion for two hours a day. You don't see the sense in this?

TT returns should not ever be a source of profit for a player. period. When it is, it breaks the system. And when someone hammers out a way, and publishes it, and so many players are doing it that TT returns in excess of cycled peds minus decay are a consistent expectation, the system has to be fixed.

And that's where we are today.

Click to expand...

Alright I'm going to break this down...

1) yeah evey is sour lately.. I get that way every month before I tower... just check my thread. It shouldn't cost $1k+ USD to play this game each month even at the highest level.

2) Old PE economy cannot come back due to EP4 or else loot 2.0 would have effectively reinstated old-pe economy except you get 101% shrap instead of ped in loot.

3) Being uber means two things... 1) being over lvl 100, and 2) having tens of thousands USD in gear, grinding your ass off, and profiting...

4) If players cannot profit hunting in terms of TT %, EU dies as all of these players will migrate to mining or crafting where they can or sell out and quit where than cannot. 93% TT returns would be acceptable if oils were 110% at worst.. and hides/wools/etc were all above 110%... see what I'm saying here? It's an infinite loop of hyper-inflation where every profession loses to the TT (aka MA makes money) and profits through markup. obviously players will continue to deposit as prices would inflate to tremendous proportions like they were in old-pe economy and even EU from 2009-2012.


The fourth point cannot happen because MA needs some fucking income stream and the only way they could pull that off after selling half of fucking calypso to the players was to create EP4... there is no other reason behind EP4's creation other than to segregate gamblers from the rest of the players and provide revenue to MA.

And don't give me the "oh but it reduces residue cost for crafters" excuse because that's a load of shit. Crafters were making guns and amps and what the fuck else ever and profitng hand over fist in the tens of thousands of ped prior to ep4 crashing residue. Hunting was basically unaffected because everything you need to hunt was stuck up the ass of the Atrox Young you just killed.

MA is getting away from a lot of the concepts that have trashed EU in the last 2-3 years after what appears to be a really long and drawn out trial period.. Unfortunately right now it means dpp is a load of shit and buffs are a load of shit other than making your bankroll go further. Something will need to be adapted so ubers are profiting in TT % again or we'll need some insane markups on hunting loot asap.



Everyone on this god damn forum should read this and start connecting dots in their own heads...

EDIT: Also ironic that your name is atrax and I mentioned atrox in this reply.

Rocket192 said:

96-104% TT should be the bottom and the top end of hunting returns... IMO, if we're going to get into that debate.

Click to expand...

I like one thing at your example - the spreading distribution of about 8% (+/-4% from the even point. That's quite close to MA's 7% effect of efficiency that they were talking about. So we're all (you, me, MA) on about the same page here.

But what I think is definitely wrong in your example is that you set the even point at 100%, so whatever money gets in, the same amount of money goes out. We know that that's simply not possible. Even online casinos that don't have the kind of expenses that MA has (continuous development and way higher server requirements) have an ~2% rake, so the center point of the returning rates is centered around 98%, not around 100%.

For EU the center point probably has to be somewhere lower (I think around 95%-96%-97%). Now add same distribution as before and you'll be pretty much exactly in the interval I mentioned (91%-99% / 92%-100% / 93%-101%).

DoA said:

I like one thing at your example - the spreading distribution of about 8% (+/-4% from the even point. That's quite close to MA's 7% effect of efficiency that they were talking about. So we're all (you, me, MA) on about the same page here.

But what I think is definitely wrong in your example is that you set the even point at 100%, so whatever money gets in, the same amount of money goes out. We know that that's simply not possible. Even online casinos that don't have the kind of expenses that MA has (continuous development and way higher server requirements) have an ~2% rake, so the center point of the returning rates is centered around 98%, not around 100%.

For EU the center point probably has to be somewhere lower (I think around 95%-96%-97%). Now add same distribution as before and you'll be pretty much exactly in the interval I mentioned (91%-99% / 92%-100% / 93%-101%).

Click to expand...

I never said the mean return needed to be 100%... i just meant the lowest you should see is 96% TT... it might be that 85% of players are between 96-97% TT. Which really is how it should be given the availability of good dpp guns and buff items.. but those don't matter much anymore.

Also, you don't need to be an experienced hunter as some on this forum are quick to dismiss claims made by anyone that isn't an uber with tons of skin in the game. This game is about numbers and a lot of people here tend to be very very very good with numbers and statistics.

I'm not going to give a long drawn out reply, but the argument that if Uber's can't make money, they will quit and that will ruin the game: they shouldn't be making profit like that. And if the low end players can not make a profit, what is to keep them playing? If low end players are not pumping ped into the game, then the high end players cannot profit either. This is a game that is meant to be played for a cost. If you don't want to lose 10k ped a month, don't hunt at that level. End of story.

Anthas said:

I'm not going to give a long drawn out reply, but the argument that if Uber's can't make money, they will quit and that will ruin the game: they shouldn't be making profit like that. And if the low end players can not make a profit, what is to keep them playing? If low end players are not pumping ped into the game, then the high end players cannot profit either. This is a game that is meant to be played for a cost. If you don't want to lose 10k ped a month, don't hunt at that level. End of story.

Click to expand...

low level players play to skill up and build bankroll and gear to one day profit like the ubers.

Entropia player base is officially on the 2nd stage of grief.

Rocket192 said:

I never said the mean return needed to be 100%... i just meant the lowest you should see is 96% TT... it might be that 85% of players are between 96-97% TT. Which really is how it should be given the availability of good dpp guns and buff items.. but those don't matter much anymore.

Click to expand...

Ok, so we both agreed on three things:
- people that are hunting smart and that invested in gear should get better results than people that didn't;
- the difference between top and bottom return rates should not be very high (apparently we agreed on about 8%, but maybe even 10% would be acceptable);
- while, obviously, the total variation from the mean values in both directions should be equal, the distribution should not be uniform.

Now the question that remains is where the mean return needs to be, or in other words how big MA/PP's rake/share has to be to pay for operation cost, future development and still assure them a minimal profit to make it worth to keep the lights on.

And my personal guess (I pray is not that, but I really fear it is) is that with a relatively low player base as we have, said rake/share has to be quite high, so it is very possible that what you consider the "lowest acceptable value" (96%) to actually have to be the mean value, which obviously pushes down both the bottom and the top floors.

Now, obviously, by all means necessary, I would sure love your model with 96%-104% return rate more than my model with 91%-99% return rate and I doubt there's a single person who wouldn't prefer it since it means higher returns all over the board (top players, average players, bottom players). But the real question is not if this would be nicer or not (since that is really just a rhetorical question) but if it is possible or not. And it seems it isn't.

I'm quite sure that with loot 2.0 MA didn't change the mean point, it is still where it was and where it has to be to ensure covering of operational costs, of development costs and a minimal profit for MA/PP, so is useless to argue on that subject. What they did change though is the variation (and the player's distribution) from the mean point, bringing all of us closer to the mean point (which means that for the average player things probably stayed about the same, for the people at the bottom of the trophic chain things get a bit better, and for the people at the top of the trophic chain things got a bit nastier). And, since as you said yourself, the vast majority of players (you said 85%, MA said 98%) are naturally located at the bottom of the interval, that means that for the vast majority of players that should have been a good move.

Naturally, people located at the top of the interval want a variation as large as possible so they maximize their profits, the people located at the bottom of the interval want a variation (from the mean value) as low as possible so they minimize their losses, while people located somewhere close to the median value probably don't really care about the size of the interval, since they're living around the mean value anyway. So it was expected (at least by me) ever since the change was announced (and when I start calling it the Robin Hood update) that the vocal minority of people at the top of the trophic chain will start whining, while the silent majority of people located at the bottom (many of them probably even without a forum account) would just enjoy their better gaming experience (lower loses than before).

DoA said:

I'm quite sure that with loot 2.0 MA didn't change the mean point, it is still where it was and where it has to be to ensure covering of operational costs, of development costs and a minimal profit for MA/PP. What they did change though is the variation and distribution from the mean point, bringing all of us closer to the mean point (which means that for the average player things probably stayed about the same, for the people at the bottom of the trophic chain things get a bit better, and for the people at the top of the trophic chain things got a bit nastier). And, since as you said yourself, the vast majority of players (you said 85%, MA said 98%) naturally are located at the bottom of the interval, that means that for the vast majority of players that should have been a good move.

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this is probably correct, but just a hypothesis until ubers get 2-3 months of returns logged and publish them, if they publish them.

but whether or not they sell their gear should give a clear indication lol.

Every time there's a thread with loot data collected via hard work, I see the same arguments.

• "Not a big enough sample"
• "It's already been proven highest eco is all you need"
• "Ubers should profit"
• "No they shouldn't"

Since 2006. Same arguments. Every. Single. Time.

Hi folks. Please try to refrain from taking the same arguments that derailed hunting posts here. The dates we provided targets the impact of loot 2.0 on specific buffs. Your data is welcome always.

Seems like the game just needs a greater population, especially of those not looking to withdraw or for MA to at least put in some of their own into the loot so it isn't completely zero sum.

I think any quotes and replies from me will be pretty OT for this particular thread

MA have to bring the loot down.

I think that if ANY profession is consistently profiting at the TT, the system is broken, and needs to be fixed.

Skipping any other drama about it, I think that's the literal truth of it.

The TT is MA's pocket. And the loss of any portion of the player base that is consistently taking a profit from MA's pocket will not hurt them in the long run.

So, that's a pretty fundamental disagreement with some people.

Directly on topic, it has to include buffs (especially permanent buffs), and a great deal of other gear creep that has been put into the game.

Atrax said:

I think any quotes and replies from me will be pretty OT for this particular thread

MA have to bring the loot down.

I think that if ANY profession is consistently profiting at the TT, the system is broken, and needs to be fixed.

Skipping any other drama about it, I think that's the literal truth of it.

The TT is MA's pocket. And the loss of any portion of the player base that is consistently taking a profit from MA's pocket will not hurt them in the long run.

So, that's a pretty fundamental disagreement with some people.

Directly on topic, it has to include buffs (especially permanent buffs), and a great deal of other gear creep that has been put into the game.

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False assertion. No one is taking TT from MA's pocket. They are not leaking money because they can't.

Entropia at its basic fundamentals is a parimutuel system. Mindark and Planet Partner's sole means of making money is through decay. Mindark takes a share of said decay. All things being done for the last couple of years from planet partners has been to increase decay (combat masks, various new armor, weapons with high decay etc). The other side of the coin is through profit sharing from items introduced in the game (resto chips, upgrade paths where the input is greater than the TT returned (viceroy, all the new adjusted/improved sets on caly, etc) and instance creation.

None of those folks at the upper end took money from mindark. They took it from players mainly those who would hunt for 30 minutes and quit and then complain about losing 300ped because they could only do a 30 minute hunt on a 8 ped mob OR the gummi bear players who bounced all over the place leaving peds on the table. The top end of hunters couldn't always profit. They profited because they could grind for 12-24 hours a day or avatar share to constantly get the benefits of the buffs. Sometimes said players would lose several thousands of peds and then pop a hof, very similarly to how both other professions work. In the end, it was always about having higher expected value via crazy dpp. We still had to hit multipliers.. but when they took some time to happen, we lost less than the guy with a HL15-18 running 2.78dpp... it's just simply the condition effect.

The above statement is still mostly true with a couple twists.

1. DPP is no longer king. It's sole function now is to help you get better markup from loot. DPP is now efficiency which is now allowing you to have an advantage to hit the good loot but not necessarily a means to TT profit, which tends to be shrapnel kick backs.

2. Buffs are not worthless. Everyone is missing their value. Input based means you can hunt bigger mobs with less variance (because input is less). It also adds a bit of dynamics to loots within the system. Buffs effectively will shorten your sine wave. To what degree is dependent on what you are shooting and the weapon used in conjunction with buffs.

3. Loot has some issues from a fundamental basis. Previously items/loot are subject to resource caps. An uncapped resource (ammo) is now replaced with a capped resource (shrapnel), for reasons I cannot state in open forum but you don't need to think too hard as to why this is. Since there seems to be no more uncapped resources in the system, this likely explains the volatility. Arkadia is missing its uncapped resources (hides, animal parts) and Pirons are infrequent.

So in short.

If you want better markup (increased probability) you go for high efficiency.
If you want a better chance of hitting multipliers, you increase DPS (this was always the case).
If you want less volatility, you increase your buffs thereby increasing your DPP (without the increase in efficiency), and decreasing your input.
If you don't want a lot of volatility, you heed the above statements and you avoid mobs/planets that have tons of players on it cycling. Because in the end, you have to get the multipliers before they do. Hunting something untouched means you have it all to yourself.

The answer is as it always was.. you gotta hit the multipliers and you need to do it as cheaply as possible but this isn't the only factor depending on state of loot at the time. Have to find the balance.

How you hit those multipliers, what triggers them.. I don't have any idea. Still going to be input based. Have to remember that the pieces that allow for you to increase your returns, by MA's admission, are not yet in the game.

Changing the system rectified a few player base complaints.

1. Avatar sharing - rolling buffs is not as fruitful now. Rolling buffs with high efficiency can be fruitful should you get the markup items.

2. Buff compounding - using a super shitty DPP weapon with nice buffs yielded tons of savings. If your weapon popped the kickback uber, you were in the gold.

3. Ammo in loot - they said why.. but isn't actually a good thing if they don't replace ammo with something else uncapped.

4. Not being skill based - it's not skill as in the skills you gain. It is more in line with a parimutuel system where your personal skill matters for reasons I mention in this very post. Then skills allow you to have better gear, bigger DPS, allows you to do bigger mobs (if you ignore bankroll mgmt). They cannot, under any circumstances, put skills directly in the formula. This game would then fall under a ponzi scheme and subject to issues with the SEC. No matter all the bitching and trolling, this game isn't a ponzi or a pyramid. It's just like poker.

atomicstorm said:

<snipped> Wall of text is one post up

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Clearly too much profiting is happening. You can put it how you like, and I don't disagree with your analysis or Rocket's.

But clearly the curve has become top-heavy, and needs adjusting. Or, if you prefer, some NERFs need to occur. Put it however you like.

JohnCapital said:

Every time there's a thread with loot data collected via hard work, I see the same arguments.

• "Not a big enough sample"
• "It's already been proven highest eco is all you need"
• "Ubers should profit"
• "No they shouldn't"

Since 2006. Same arguments. Every. Single. Time.

Click to expand...

I haven't been here that long, but for at least as long as I've been here, you are absolutely correct. Had a great laugh at your progression

I guess I'm not really here to profit. What's that make me, a gummi bear? ouch ...