Treasure Hunting: looks like nobody bothers anymore

Three months ago I posted this somewhat provoking thread

http://arkadiaforum.com/showthread.php?4600-Treasure-Hunting-why-should-anyone-bother

I showed a picture of the auction prices and concluded the market for treasure is basically dead, lacking a desirable use of Treasure.

Now that we have the keys for a while, I made a new picture and sadly, it looks remarkable like the old one.

I added the price for alloy plate in it, as it is a key key ingredient and requires treasure to be crafted.
View attachment 5766
My conclusion now is that despite the Instances released, the treasure market is still basically dead, and there is no sustainable economy around the profession.

I reached my goals to skill up and stopped. I won't bother anymore. :surrender:

However I still think it's a pity, and I hope that Arkadia management will come up with a plan to get new life into the dying profession.

/Slupor

 

I think that the broken arkoin brokers situation has really hurt the market for keys. So yeah that sort of cripples the demand for those particlar components.

 

isn't Dave fly to Sweden soon(or already there), we can only hope he could bring us some good news after the meeting with Mindark. IE: Amp, arkoin broker, my ATH etc..... There's something we might be able to looking forward to is possibly some new crafted weapons would come in December. Hope new crafted weapons would uses both Ores, Enmatters, Treasure and those animal parts as materials to bring us higher average markup in both hunting and mining profession.

 

indeed,

and if i may add,as a hunter there is after last vu not much incentive anymore to continue to hunt at arkadia
mark up has disappeared
big teladons/big korwils/big beladoth use dto drop generic calypsian components like enhanced fluid memory/enhanced combat procc..etc
not anymore..not a single drop

also,esis dont seem to drop at arkadia
+ before vu i used to loot a lot of guns/armours on the globals/hofs..that is also down

the rewards for the missions are poor meaning most people dont care about explosves/plasma/vehicle repairing
rewards that are worth doing mission for is hp/evade/medic related

the only markup to be found is in the ul sniperrifles
mind you,i have over 200 globals(solo +teaming witgh my wife) since last vu so its not like i have done small sample

after ive finished mission on bela/otorugi theres not much for me to come back to arkadia,which is an pity cvause i really really like arkadia,but if there is no possibility to loot markup its no use to come back

 

Unlike last time, this time i have to agree. There are three things that are bad for the mining treasure hunters.

1. Some treasures aren't needed in crafting (either keys or tt-crafting)
2. there is no need for arkoins in the game, so not a lot of people are doing instances
3. Instances are a guaranteed 30% tt loss, so only gamblers or occasional soc hunts enter the instances

 

Before this VU i saw hope for this even if it was on the horison. Now im not so sure anymore however this is not based on arkadia and treasure alone. Recently I get more lyst and zulax while mining overall and my loggs show a decrease in return atm. Granted its only a small sample of like 2k peds or so unamped atm. but still pure none profit runs on this is usualy not the case for me.

On topp of this treasure is low in demand IT DOES SELL however .
Atm we have a few problems imo but not really treasure only.

MA dont seem to like MU mining anymore I find more zulax and lyst then ever before in areas which this was rare before or none existant. So more and more it feels like if U aim to hunt for high MU U will have to get a ton of bad MU to go with it.

This seems to have hurt the market some as ppl
1. is slowing down on buying.
2. PPL on ark are DESPERATE to sell. Look at halix hides as the best current example. Within a few hours yesterday the weekly MU was 145 but since everyone gotta undercut sometimes with 10% or more well then that will kill the market halix was at 120% yesterday now thats a good way of killing profit fast and hard.

Not sure if this is the case but more and more it feels like so. Check the ruga post in PCF its not only on arkadia thou Rocktropia and Amathera has been hit to and quite hard. In general this is a patch that seems to aim to make profiting harder for everyone

 

the main problem has to be the population issue, marketing takes time to work, and if you are new or battling a negative reputation it can take a serious effort to get any kind of meaningful result. many people underestimate how much serious marketing costs, the normal advice is 5-10% of gross for a established company/brand.
of course it does not help that there are issues with delivery of content but the main issue is lack of demand, no demand no crafters, no crafters no use for resources, and round it goes. panic selling by participants doesnt help either, if something does not sell or sell fast enough crashing prices and doing the same thing over again is not likely to be a success.

 

I believe brokers not working at the start of instances has crippled treasure hunting a lot. I also believe that makign treasure hunting nothing more then just more expensive mining has detracted from the experience, pretty sure most like me was hoping for something completely new and original. Same about instances they could have been so much more then just new graphics for Calypso Beacons. But oh well we got what we got and we trudge on.

Next let downs will be fishing, I am seeing mining in water but costing more then treasure hunting Followed by taming being pushed back farther, followed by promises broken and nothing being done for the land deeds on calypso, followed by more bad changes being done in space.

So stick to the basics is my plan and just play on.

 

Don't really agree with this. Mind you, I've been hunting the new mission mobs so have not been on the teledons, korwil, bela for a while and the biggest ones were always a little out of my reach. To me it feels like weapon drop frequency has increased since vu. We've all seen the surge in discovered weapons,some of which were actually added to loot tables months ago. THis week I looted 3 good MU guns (L) on 400 bokol. A few weeks ago I got a 90 ped esi. And I am still seeing output amp components drop etc.

 

I have taken into hunting spiders on Calypso cause of the MU... Here would be somethign that gets me into hunting big mobs.

1) a mob that drops spleen oil
2) a mob that drops heart oil
3) a mob that drops high mu guns IE law 404s

I do like arkadia though, and plan to finish doing some of the missions i had completed stage 4 on. I am just prepping myself for the losses. So hunting spiders to profit on, so I can loose out on Madana stage 5. I tracked stage 4 and i had lost 1400 ped (including mu in and out). So for me stage 5 should be around -3500 peds. Im +1200 on spiders atm from the oils and high mu guns (though im -1600 on tt). So just a couple more weeks, and ill be back to arkadia to finish my madana mission.

I also tried the treasure hutning, but had to tt most of my treasure, only a little sold on teh AH. I did a fairly large run (1k ped tt, all unamped). I was unable to sell 80% of it on auction. 1 in particular had nice markup. Thankfully i also tripled bombed, so was able to break even due to the ore and enmatter pricing.

Anyways , I think we just have to be patient Arkadia is an awesome planet and it wont grow overnight. I hope no one holds us travelers as being "anti arkadian" though. cause i am def not.. anti. But I do have to look out for the best interest of my avatar. As eu is not free.

- Sam

 

lol lol.

I havent manged to kill a spider yet. one day.

BTW - bokol -> ark-40 D, Asi-30 J

 

I've been triple bombing for the past 5k ped or so. The MU on ores and enmats covers any loss on treasures, and I do have the chance of getting a good sooto (armor/weapon) which would also cover all losses. I like getting more claims and getting the "free amp" of treasure hunting.

But we do need the Arkoin brokers up, since they would create more demand for treasure resources.

 

I've killed them but it is a coin toss who dies first, me shooting and fapping or the spider cleaning the skull and bones hovering over my broken body.

 

LOL

Well .. tbh u cant compare bokol to spider. The mu on the guns is ~ 120%. the MU on spider guns is 127% - 150%.

Bokol drop 101-105% oils... spider drops 104-115% oils.

I think there is even a BP on ark that uses spleen oil? Does any mob on ark drop spleen? I have recently sold some spleen to an ark crafter for a bp he had that used it. But he said he couldn't find any on arkadia. OFC i did not do any research if it drops on ark... I just have quite the stash on storage . (well had sold it yesterday for 112%). Getting more as we speak tho

 

Maybe since the new calypso guns are so damn eco ... arkadia could put new ark guns? Like that use treasure that are as equally as eco as the zero-four? or DOA boneshatter?

Cause ... i used to use ark guns only... but now im only using the guns I loot from my hunting .. and its even enough so I dont touch ah.

Treasure for new eco guns... would be one hell of a boost to the treasure dillema.

 

You just did. lol. BTW you should be able to do better than 101% for any oils sold here on Ark, though I have never managed better than 111%. Usual range for me is 103 - 108.

Yeah there is though it appears to be quite rare as I had a small amount in storage after over a year of hunting here.

Some of the high level Arkadian guns have great eco but the bps still havent dropped. Though of course there is room to add some weapons crafted from TH loot.

 

Your right, I did. My apologies. You are also def right that you can get more markup for oils on arkadia than on Calypso.

I do list my oils before I leave arkadia, and warp out with the rest of the goods to sell on Calypso.

I honestly think Arkadia has the 2nd best economy. I also think Ark is the BEST place for anyone to start on, and go to probably around lvl 40. Then after that, you are a bit shorted on mu vs cost to play with guns at that level.

There are still plenty of mobs I would love to do on Arkadia, and even though it might not be "cost effective" I love Arkadia, and will def finish my missions there.

Sam

 

hey neil, its nothing personal that i have disagreed with you quite often, its just that you make these general statements that from my experience are inaccurate. and im sorry but this is another one of those statements. i find this quite dangerous considering you are an official advisor and your opinion will carry weight with new players.

correct me if i am wrong but i recall the devs stating quite clearly that weapons do not drop from treasure mining.
the blanket statement that the markup on ores and enmatters covers any losses on treasure also has to be questioned, assuming 90% TT return (or 85% if you mine 0 markup treasure on taxed land) you would need a average markup of 113% (or 118% on taxed land) to cover all losses when mining unamped. ill start of being generous and assume the average markup on treasure is 105% (if you can even sell it), since the cost of treasure drops are the same as ore and enmatter combined it is fair to say that long term 50% of your TT will be in treasure.
it does not take a mathematical genius to then calculate that even with a average markup on ore and enmatter of 120% this would not be enough to cover losses, and when considering taxed areas this figure jumps to 130%.

i turn over about 20K ped a month mining, i log my returns, i am careful where i mine due to using amps with additional markup to cover, i have been mining on arkadia almost exclusively since the events started, i have pretty detailed maps of the resource fields on arkadia, and you just cant get a average return of over 120% for both ore and enmatter in most areas on arkadia.

i am glad that you have done well with your mining and i understand you want to promote the positive side of arkadia, i am assuming most people on this forum see many positives here, but i think you have to realise that criticism and feedback that is not 100% positive is valuable to the developers, if people did not bother to give their honest feedback then the developers would have less of a understanding of the motivations and decisions made by players, and would have no idea of what is said about arkadia on peoples FL's in game. i hope you understand where i am coming from.

 

Could you redo the maths with 95% tt return?

 

As Harmony said...

Over the past 6 months I've had a 96.4% TT return, that is including fuel and decay costs which are under 2%. I have never ever had an uber claim, and I only use amps on rare occasions. My costs for treasure hunting have been more than offset by targeting useful treasures, by finding the occasional valuable SOOTO, and then by the MU on ores and enmatters. You misunderstood my post if you thought I was guaranteeing the same results for everyone with every mining method. I am just reporting that for me, treasure hunting has not caused me to lose any peds. I mine some in taxed areas but the majority is untaxed.

Perhaps you think I'm just beating the A-team's drum for them, so perhaps you are automatically dismissing everything I say as inaccurate and biased. Really, though, I think it's more likely that the reason we disagree is that our mining methods are different, and therefore we get different results.

I generally don't sell my treasure claims. I consume them by crafting and selling the products for profit. Aakas, Aarkan, Chemset, Khorudoul, Songkra, Songtil, Vedacore, Khorum, Fossil Tooth are all kept for crafting. For the others, I reserve a small number of each for clothes crafting, then TT the rest. I assume a 110% MU for all craftable resources and price my products accordingly.

Until MA turns on the Arkoin brokers, and we get BPs that make use of the "Part of" treasures, the demand for treasures will stay low and they will be difficult or impossible to sell on the AH.

Regarding weapons: I thought I recalled someone getting a weapon from treasure hunting and if I recall correctly, DD said the weapons should be dropping from treasure hunting but noted that they're rarer drops than armor. Maybe this has changed since then, I don't know. I haven't had a weapon drop from treasure hunting yet (weapons are rare, even from instances). In any case, armor does drop and I have received 3 or 4 armors so far from treasure hunting and the current SOOTO rate for me is on the order of 1 in every 500 drops. Of course most SOOTOs are jars.