Developer Notes #14 - Loot 2.0 Update One of MindArk’s primary long-term goals is to make Entropia Universe as affordable and entertaining as possible for all participants. Toward that end, MindArk is continually experimenting with various adjustments to in-game systems, with an eye toward lowering cost to play while maintaining a reasonable level of revenue that enables continued development and marketing of Entropia Universe. Reductions in Cost to Play On September 11th, we initiated a temporary test in which the MindArk fee for hunting was lowered significantly. In the long term, we hope that a lower MindArk fee will result in increased overall activity and new participant retention, and thereby compensate for the lower short-term revenue. We plan to continue experimenting with these revenue settings in the near future to gather more data. Early data show positive results from those experiments: Hunters with turnover of more than 50000 PED since Sept. 11 have enjoyed returns of 98.6% on average. Hunters with turnover between 10000 and 50000 PED since Sept. 11 have enjoyed returns of 97.05% on average. Accounts created in 2017 have enjoyed returns of 96.94% on average since the changes implemented on Sept. 11. As noted in a previous Developer Notes, Loot 2.0 drastically lowered the costs for armor decay and healing, which we can now confirm has led to a substantial increase in the usage of those mechanics. This is an example of the type of positive changes we are hoping to identify and implement in other systems: changes that benefit participants (in terms of lower cost to play) as well as MindArk’s revenue, resulting in a better overall gameplay experience and growth of Entropia Universe. Loot Distribution Changes As many participants have already noticed, changes have recently been made to hunting loot distribution, specifically regarding loot volatility and loot sizes. The overall net hunting return was not affected by these changes, but rather the frequency and size of various loot outcomes as a means of promoting more interesting and exciting loot outcomes and removing some of the more frustrating outcomes that were previously possible (especially on larger creatures). Effects of Critical Hits/Damage on Loot Finally, we have noticed several misconceptions in recent community discussions regarding Critical Hits that we would like to clarify. Critical Hits do not have a direct impact on loot value calculations per se. Since loot is now based on the actual cost to kill a creature in Loot 2.0, dealing more damage via critical hits (or by having higher damage per pec) does result in smaller loot events for a given creature, but this effect is directly proportional to the lower cost to kill and allows more creatures to be killed (i.e. more loot events) for a given amount of PED spent. Also, the composition of loot improves in such cases and results in a lower proportion of Shrapnel in loot. In other words, the use of items or consumables that provide increased Critical Hit Chance or Critical Damage can never have a negative effect on loot returns Continue reading...
Seems this is 2 weeks sample size (Sept 11th to presumably 25th..given they then needed to prepare this post and publish).. so for most to compare returns (assuming we keep the data) we need to divide or multiply to get our week or month stats. Given the game has always had cycles of good and bad.. unless MA can categorically say it no longer has cycles / waves then where in the wave are you, how can you tell ? Answer... this post can at best be seen as MA telling us they are trying to re-balance loot to make a better player experience, which I applaud. But like all stats it shows only what they want us to see, for instance where are the accounts created before 2017 but that cycle less than 10k ped ? So don't read too much into the figures given, don't get into a panic or get angry because your returns from your last hunt were only 40%, just wait and see what happens over time. Will they make it better, will we see more return overall (and reduced profit per ped spent for MA) ? Will we see better loot content ? Let's hope so But in the same way we don't expect every day of summer to be hot and sunny, don't expect every hunt in EU to be 96.4% plus returns. It isn't going to happen. Think of the umbrella salesman.. he needs the wet days. We need the bad days.. yes we really do, else we cannot appreciate the good ones. If every day were the same... how quick would we all get bored....really bored Summer can be a good summer even if it sometimes rains. My comment to MA is this.. Thanks for trying to improve the game, thanks for trying to keep us informed, but please be aware that incomplete information such as this can lead to a lot of negativity. Sometimes less is more !
