Competition Arkadian Colony Defence – Another Attack Detected!

IFN Intelligence: More Oratan forces detected!​

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IFN Command have been alerted to more Oratan forces advancing on some of our Firebases. Whilst IFN reconnaissance forces continue to search for the main Oratan staging areas, we have managed to narrow the parameters of where such a staging area could be hidden.


In an effort to rapidly ascertain the location of this staging area, IFN Command Arkadia have once again deployed significant resources in order for a coordinated strike to be executed. As before, the majority of reserve forces are being used to reinforce vital assets whilst civilian militia augment the Firebases that have had their main combat forces stripped from them.


The IFN are calling on Arkadia's loyal colonists, to assist in plugging the gaps in our defensive lines and bolster the IFN combat forces. Colonists of all levels are encouraged to attend. This attack is liable to be a heavy and sustained attack for an extended period of time, so people from different time-zones are encouraged to join and leave in at their convenience.


If you are able to lend support, please assemble at REPULSE FIREBASE (Coordinates 15015, 15047) or COURAGEOUS FIREBASE (Coordinates 15182, 25704).


The attacks are estimated to hit around the following dates and times (MA/in-game time):

• 28th February 2014 @ 19:00
• 1st March 2014 @ 19:00

Please Note: This attack is liable to be a heavy and sustained attack for an extended period of time, similar to previous attacks. We encourage people from different time-zones to join and leave in at their convenience.

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Due to issues arising from previous engagements, we once again ask colonists to please NOT shoot from the walls or from under the entrance of the base, as this causes the Oratan to become UNREACHABLE and spoils the event for other participants. We kindly ask that all players actually advance into the field and engage the enemy forces.



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The Oratan are, once again, likely to be throwing all they have at these bases including the largest and strongest warriors they can muster. As with previous engagements, IFN Command will be deploying Commandos from Alpha Team to assist colonial fighters with paramedical duties.



Please arrive early and ensure all equipment is clean and in good repair, and you have adequate supplies of ammunition.
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I hope they use those User Controlled mobs to clean that area.

 

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I think this picture says enough - someone over at MA did change the loot returns on this mobs, look at the event from 01.02.2014 and then at todays returns, kinda sad to see that this event goes down the drain the more often it will repeat.

Please Ark Dev team stop this and maybe give us a better event with the usage of the "User controlled" mobs like Kim did yesterday on Calypso

 

Your tracker data is not sufficient evidence of a change in loot distribution by MA. A less nefarious explanation is that less mobs are being killed, thus generating less globals.

The reason less event mobs are being killed is that there is less dps at the event, owing to fewer high dps players and fewer event participants overall. Evidence of less total dps is my increased damage share. In early events I was getting around 5% of loot from a global and if I was lucky, as much as 10%. Last event I was consistently getting around 10% of the loot from any mob I killed. And this week I am getting as much as 20% or even more. Now my average dps hasn't really changed much so others must be doing less damage.

An example of an absent high dps player is Lunchbox. He had other commitments last time so he couldn't be on as much. I am yet to see him this event. There are a few observations supporting the idea that less people are participating. Firstly, I am just seeing less green dots on the radar at the event. I am at the event for many hours each day so I get a good feeling for typical radar density and I can say it is down significantly this time. And I noticed it was a little low last time, compared to previous events. Secondly we saw that the second base was abandoned after only a couple of hours. We did not have enough participants to man both bases. And then there is my increase damage share as discussed above.

So a reasonable question is why are participant numbers down this time and the time before? I can think of three contributing factors. Firstly, this weekend we have a competing event over on Caly. The player base is being split. And we are seeing some nice Hofs on that. I suspect our high dps players are likely to be attending that in preference to the Oratan event. (i'll explain why in a little while).

I also think some players will be hitting the magurg challenge though I haven't checked the data on that. With the increased minimum value for a HOF there are definite advantages in hunting magurgs during the oratan event. When I logged off tonigh, you needed more than 550 ped from a mob to HOF.

The last contributing factor is the perceived and actual lack of good items dropping from the Oratan mobs. Really there just isnt any special gear dropping. Today as far as I know, there have been a few L blades, a few low level pirons and one gravis. I'm sorry but Gravis weapons are not very exciting. It was the same last event (and the event before). But expectations were very high in that late January event, (we had in the previous event see the mod-gyro drop) so the lack of item drops only impacted attendance the following time. Last event there was a drop of one UL Pegasus part - but it wasn't actually from a shared loot mob.

I believe that good item drops have a significant influence on participation and we now have a situation where the expectation is very low. This problem is compounded because there are so few Arkadian items tagged as rare. Even if something nice dropped we might not know.

This is why I think high dps players are preferring the bot event on caly. Caly has a rep for good item drops in shared loot events. Ark now has a rep for crap item drops in shared loot events.

So why is there a problem with item drops. Well I think this is where we can place the responsibility on MA. Either they aren't putting the items in the pool at all. Or the drop rate is way way too low. This is an issue they need to take a hard look at.

Regards,
KikkiJikki

 

I agree fully with this analysis.

Especially this part.

 

I kinda agree with you both, but it still feels like there is something wrong with loot on those mobs.

And as you said: Item drops are not great and could explain why so many people simply ignore this event. And i still hope that some officials see this problem...

 

Oooo nooo here come jonnykill joy

I believe the event has started becoming redundant to some players because as you said KIKKI the items are not their or dropping. And another thing why would MA want to give up its golden chicken “CALY” to Arkadia’s events? It would be like the old saying goes “cut off your nose, despite your face”. In other words why would MA alloy cool loot to drop on Arkadia when they themselves have an event running at the same time? People see cool items and rare items dropping on Oratan then they might just say “hey, let me go check that out”. Thus, taking ped from the golden hen of MA (better known as Calypso). This event has great potential but like a horse if you ride the hell out of it, chances are it will go lame sooner than later.

Every other weekend without any consistency on item drops will not work and while it is shared loot items tend to go to the higher dps player. It’s sad but true, some will say its random – its random but the information does not support that. There might be 1 or 2 times out of how many 10-20-30-40? One guy got lucky out of how many drops? See we just don’t have the numbers to show actual % or the way ma distributes the “shared loot pool”. Its not the A-teams fault ……..NO they can do only so much.

They offer us this great event then ma has control over the loot it just seems fishy. It’s like if a person owned the only pizza shop in an area, and the owner sat on the board to approve new business to the area. Would they want another pizza shop to open in their coverage area???? Of course not, it would be competition they might approve the business as long as it did not interfere with their operations or revenue (like outside their delivery area). I personally would welcome them why? It would make me maintain a higher standard of service to my customers/community and it would help me see what I might be doing wrong or what might need improvement on. But you have to be open minded and not greedy and well we all know………. Greed will get the best of most of us.

I would rather sell 100 items at a lower mu (but within reason), than sell 10 at full mu. If a person would rather sell 10 items at full mu that’s their prerogative, but it’s also called backwards economics and it only works in opposite world not the real word well…… not for long anyways. Case and point RT

So with MA in control of all the loot what should we expect of them???? To be fourth coming and generous or what they have always been……..greedy and manipulative. If I was a betting man I would bet on the latter. (MA = patterns of mistrust)

 

I just don't subscribe to this line that MA are out to screw PPs so that Caly does ok. Why launch new planets like Toulan if you want them to fail. It's in MA's interest for the PPs to thrive and grow the player base.

So really I'm not interested in arguements along the lines that MA is out to fuck us over and cripple Arkadia. If you take a look at planetary activity during the events, Arkadia turnover has grown without seriously impacting Caly turnover. That's got to be good for MA's bottom line.

So IMO, MA's issues are caused by poor decisions rather than bias and evil intentions.

 

Never said Ma was out to screw the PP but players there are many many many instances where ma has shown bias to its own best interest. And I’m sure many people out there would agree, but that’s the great thing about opinions we all have one. And why launch new planets and have PP I could count 2million plus reasons lol. Not to mention its free advertising for MA as a whole with a new PP they spend hundreds even hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising to promote their planet in “ENTROPIA UNIVERSE”.

Plus they make revenue off everything done in the EU even double at times because the get a portion of the OLA’s income (not a pp) and they get income from the PP as well. So double payday Not saying it’s a bad thing (for them), but don’t be deceived that MA is this all and powerful giving force to help support player growth if it were would there be 1000’s of threads ignored about problems that MA has yet to fix. Case and point taming

NOTE: maybe MA does not get % of the loot on the OLA or fees that is charged in my shops but some one does and im sure ma takes a % from who ever get it

 

So you've basically just put forward some reasons why MA would NOT be favouring Caly over other planets. They make money from the PPs and successful PPs make for good advertising at no cost to MA.

Not sure where u are going with OLA. Land owners get the tax from activity on their land. Estate owners get the tax from shops. For example here on Arkadia Hawkwing gets the tax from my SC sales, while Ark PP gets the tax from my CH and Quarry sales.

To try and get back on topic, it's not in MA's interest to nobble the loot on Arkadia. Yes there is a problem with the item distribution, but I don't think it has anything to do with Caly.

 

Boss attacks seems like a common thing now

 

Will this be a recurring thing like every weekend or is this over for a while?

 

We can expect more of these. Have previously been told there have been things added to the next VU to help deal with the issues encountered. (Flying mobs, unreachable mobs, annoying players, etc)

 

In keeping with their character, Oratan are uncreative and attack every two weeks.