Gaming Loot Mindset

[Sirhc]

Originally Posted by Kass

I think we need to get rid of the myths and labels applied to new people and look at them as real human beings.. we are a community are we not?

I am a depositor ...just like you are. I am struggling to get somewhere...you have already made it. Thats the difference between us.

hmmmm Maybe we need Bene Gesserit Agony Boxes to put people up to the Test before labelling them "Human" lol jk

In Dune, the Bene Gesserit tested ordinary people to find the humans, the ones with sufficient emotional intelligence to rise above a merely animal existence. One test was by pain and observation.

Ok one thing to think of when it comes to EU is you never quite "make it" you can get to the upper echelon either through money or time and money but even at those levels you are always still working to improve your avatar. EU is something that can never be mastered although many have come close. Also there are avatars that have uncanny luck while others continually struggle.

Now back the the original subject of this thread, the loot. I have never played another MMO except PE/EU. I have come to accept that good and bad cycles come and go when it comes to loot in general. I've been here long enough to know when its probably best to just sign off until things improve. Participant's attitudes will always revolve around loot thats just a fact of playing this RCE MMORPG. I don't think many people mind paying for entertainment in EU but I think most complaints arise from participant's not thinking they are getting a value for their entertainment dollar.

Now going back to where I said you never quite "make it" in EU I think everyone needs some rough structure or rough path to follow that will lead to improvement in all aspects of EU including loot. Not every creature, nor bomb/probe drop, nor crafting machine click needs to produce a loot but I do think participants need milestones or goals to reach for. People need motivation and they need to see tangible results for their effort or it starts to look like a pointless endevour. Seeing high level players of my early days looting storm coats, imp faps, and sentinel pieces made me want to get to that level so one day I might have a chance at looting such items. It was clear where I needed to be and worth it IMO deposting arse loads of cash to work towards those goals.

EU is different these days and I understand that. I know its turned to a more crafting based system and while I would love to see some great item of my past pop up in one of my loot windows I know my chances of happening are slim. Then I start to think about the people just starting today and what they see from people who have been in EU 3+ years or more is loot such a great motivator or are they looking for that big ATH score of Anal oil so they can cash in and leave?

If EU is going to remain focused on crafting then by all means start dropping super widgets or resources that are used in super BPs that make super weapons, super FAPs, or super unique like clothing that motivate new people to say "hey I want to get to that level so I can loot some super widgets". Everyone still wants the (R) items and the old looted clothing why not make that happen with the crafting focus of today. I just think of McCormick trying to get Marine pants which look to have never been looted make that happen within the constraints of how EU is today.

There is just such a huge library of items in the Entropia Universe some of which eco wise are not that great yet they are doled out like they are a bag of diamonds.

Ahhh well I can rant on and on about this. I do agree with you Dion in many ways and I have tons of posts stating that if loot is bad to change what you are doing all the way to signing off and playing another game which is something I don't think MA wants to hear. So unless they change something up I will continue to say the same things in different ways lol

Maybe from my perspective I just think of things in simple terms. So if you make money from people participating in your MMO then you need to promote an atmosphere that keeps people participating in your MMO no matter what it takes. Isn’t that in the 101 game development manual somewhere? Even if you are going to franchise your platform I still think the basics need to apply.

[Djarro Morgari]

Originally Posted by safara

Kinda harsh ending there.

Define what you mean by Whiner?

I could round up atleast one name, perhaps including myself "speaking for other persons"

[SpikeBlack]

Maybe from my perspective I just think of things in simple terms. So if you make money from people participating in your MMO then you need to promote an atmosphere that keeps people participating in your MMO no matter what it takes

This sums up my belief but something MA seems to find extremely hard to do.

If new / old players could profit more often during a hunt, not from getting a single big loot / global / ath, I believe we would have a much larger playerbase than we do currently. How many give up within the first few days / weeks when they find themselves depositing more than a monthly fee than competing and more well known mmorpgs and if they don't deposit they find themselves sweating for days at time to scrape enough together to use for a single hunt.

The overall loot could be spread out a little more than the what seems like daily +20k hofs (I'm sure some would like only +20k hofs and nothing else) but profiting / breaking even only 1 in 10 or 20 hunts just causes more people to complain and possibly in their early EU experience to quit, if the profitable runs were more often i.e. 1 in 5 hunts then more new people would stay and possibly deposit more, providing more customers to crafters and so contributing to the economy

[Tussi]

Originally Posted by Dion Red Strike

to further expand on my earlier statements...

I would even hypothesize that people would be less irritated by the slow progession of 'story lines' in Entropia had they no previous knowledge of any other game.

Because of the instant gratification of other games, Entropia often has a hard time with the slow progression of it's life span. Most games are to have a short life span of 3-5 years, with a sequal coming out within 2-4 years. It has been reitterated many times that Entropia is expected to last many many decades. Entropia has no sequal planned, ever. So, it would seem logical that the 'life span' of 'story lines' would be greatly extended in comparrison to the other games.

To take your brainmelted logical fallacy to a final conclusion:

Best case for MA is when all players were directly imported from a timeperiod where electricity hasn't been discovered yet - then they would be really impressed by the great things presented to them.



Tussi

[valentin]

Originally Posted by WoenK

You always get better conditions in a beta (aka "project").
My ava is only 4 months old and I am really not happy, that I found out about Entropia that late. But still, my return rate seems to be around 80%, although I do not hunt at all economical and mainly for fun. If one sees it as a "game", it is very expensive.
As an "investment" it is not. Lost about 20% of my deposits, mainly because I did some very, very stupid things (like hunting Allophyl Stalkers).
But still, that loss was none because I really enjoyed it

The ones that were in EP have really not a single reason to complain, they had a hell lot of chances and they simply TTed them

What can i say after 1601 globals and hofs total only 1 "semi"-uber item in loot it was a ESI 464 TT.( thats EU today ).

The game is fun but the loot......

[Dion Red Strike]

Originally Posted by Tussi

To take your brainmelted logical fallacy to a final conclusion:

Best case for MA is when all players were directly imported from a timeperiod where electricity hasn't been discovered yet - then they would be really impressed by the great things presented to them.



Tussi

No, not at all. Imagine if you lived in a country that had no internet access then moved to a more industrialized country. Or, if you were one of those mormon kids from Texas, or, in my sons case, had a parent that played EU.

What I am LOGICALLY reffering to (by the way, I love the way you tried to demean me..) is that if you had no prior experiance, then EU would be the norm. Everything else would be weird. 'Every monster I loot gives me shit, what fun is that?' or 'What do you mean I have to pay a monthly fee, and I never get that money back?'

A lot of good arguements can be made against other games in relation to Entropia. If one never played those games, then that persons view would be quite different than an avid gamer.

~Red

[Tussi]

Originally Posted by Dion Red Strike

No, not at all. Imagine if you lived in a country that had no internet access then moved to a more industrialized country. Or, if you were one of those mormon kids from Texas, or, in my sons case, had a parent that played EU.

What I am LOGICALLY reffering to (by the way, I love the way you tried to demean me..)

I ment you no harm .

is that if you had no prior experiance, then EU would be the norm.

Well, i'm neither mormon nor from a 3rd world country.
Nevertheless: PE was the first MMORPG i played (i tended to stay away from games without an end for personal health reasons).

But still i could tell quite soon that there have been things which clearly sucked (and for a good part are still in existance or worse)

And be sure that i have verified my feelings by trying other products after i came in march 2006 to the conclusion that PE is in fact a good vacuum cleaner - because there were just to many things that sucked big time back then ... but my masochism seems to have increased over the years so that i can cope with them barely for the moment.

Everything else would be weird. 'Every monster I loot gives me shit, what fun is that?' or 'What do you mean I have to pay a monthly fee, and I never get that money back?'

Havn't had that experience while trying other products because a non-RCE type can have other game dynamics (different type of resource drains).

A lot of good arguements can be made against other games in relation to Entropia. If one never played those games, then that persons view would be quite different than an avid gamer.

I think a lot of good arguments can be made against Entropia in relation to other games too.

But my criticism of Entropia is mainly targetet at the product (or the way it's managed) itself - for most issues there is no need to point toward other products because the situation is self-evident.

Tussi

[Gluepot]

Well, in any game people like to profit whether they can withdraw their money or not. In the MMO I played previous to EU, I often hunted mobs that had a chance for a high value loot, although I always would profit off of the median loot. Hell, you could profit off of the few drops I decided were worth my time to pick up. In many skill grinding places, you would find higher level players semi-afk training in a place where the mobs would automatically aggro (and you could turn on a setting to automatically attack back) to gain skills, picking up very few of the loots. However, they could select a few loots they wished to keep and still profit.
Because most games make it very easy to profit, and give quests and such that are FUN that ALL LEVELS can participate (and win) in, they make the game fun and keep players. Because of this, people expect the same in EU.
I had a talk with a friend of mine in real life, who I know enjoys playing the latest MMORPGs. He tried out EU and told me that in a game, you must either be able to farm currency and sell it for real profit, or simply have fun in the game. He claims that EU fails to do both. Repeatedly shooting a mob over and over with the same shitty gun and getting crap loots just to go broke and have to cram MORE money into the game was not fun at all. He then looked for quests and could not find any. He found the events to be horrible because nearly all of them catered the ubers and gave him no chance whatsoever. He quit long ago and has no intention of coming back.

[Xandra]

Hi,

with all due respect, but:

Originally Posted by Dion Red Strike

The Effect Other Games Have Had on Peoples Expectations of Gaming

and what you're deriving from reminds me of ore deposits ordered in spirals ;-)

Originally Posted by Dion Red Strike

I got to thinking about this while reading another thread with people whining about loot....

Guess your speaking about this thread? Sorry Dion, but labeling people "whiners" that are discussing in a very civilized manner, bringing tons of proposals for improvement in a very long, lively and interesting thread doesn't exactly help your cause.

It makes you look like one of these well known old timers that have seriously profited from MA's errors in the past, now playing a very different "non-game" than all participants that came later. And that now love to propose strange strategys to the newbies that might have worked 3 years ago, that love to paint EU in the brightest colors to keep enough participants to further profit from their skills and gear no one of the newbies ever will have without depositing insane sums - profit is made from participants not from MA, so they need a lot of "customer sheep", "loot pool feeders", and ppl that admire their Uberness, for sure. Exactly these are the ones usually harshly massacring any constructive critique, because it really doesn't suit their needs when the unwashed masses would become discontent - it's all about money in this "non-game".

Dion, please recognize my use of "makes you look like" above - I don't know you, and I'm far from insinuating anything; it's just that this interpretation came to my mind when reading your OP, and I don't know if this was intended. Maybe I misunderstood, maybe you formulated unhappily, maybe you haven't read all of the very long thread I guess you're referring to, maybe you're referring to another thread. No offense meant!

I guess the problem with loot very much participants obviously have is to be expressed rather shortly. There was a change in loot distribution some time ago, late '06 if I remember correctly:

• The values (and maybe the frequency, I'm not sure) of the "very big loots" have been dramatically increased.
• The values of the "usual loots" have been reduced seriously to compensate for this - there's just a given amount of money MA is able to distribute.
• The old time "always looters" aren't looting always anymore, instead there's a most tiny chance now that even a small mob might carry a serious jackpot.

This has very much added to the "gambling aspect" of EU, making a rather big difference to the more constant loot in former PE, and not all people are happy with this. I know that in '05 and '06 it was much easier to "keep alive", even if we didn't have (L) gear and didn't use the "amped opalo" exploit - even small mobs usually dropped at least a part of the cost-to-kill, and I know I rather often looted juicy things like GSI's even from small mobs. No profit, though. ;-)
In this time, when I was really low skilled, my favorite hunting prey was smaller Atrax that I killed with axe 2x0 (HA about 1.3 then ...) and Honor/ Determination - today this would be a pure roulette: If I don't have a really big global/ HoF or a really decent number of small globals it easily ends in a dramatic loss. EU is dynamic, and things have changed - skills don't mean this much anymore, luck factor has to be your friend now!

The "usual loot" has been heavily nerfed in favor of few "big numbers", and this made EU ways more like a lotto.

Right, "GSI" - this was what once ESI's was; low TT, but nice markup and ways more common, even among smaller mobs. Leads to the other change in loot we suffered.

The introduction of (L) gear completely changed the way PE/ EU worked for the lower skilled participants:

• It was now possible to act with maxed gear.
• And, due to the other changes (see above) this was urgently needed.
• Because of the availability of (L) gear any UL weapon/ FAP you'd loot from mobs up to middle class became TT fodder.
• And the few remaining "cool loots" became near to non-existant meanwhile, as the prices for things like Marber Bravo, small FireForges, Nemesis etc. clearly shows.

Hunting up to middle class mobs (Trox Guardian?) these days doesn't give anything in loot anymore worth cheering, usually. For sure, one time in ages maybe ... But the best things I ever looted was Neme gloves (F) and a Bravo, and this was before the change. Some loots in this region since among my friends, but extremely rarely. And nothing better that I'd know of.

I looted a M2722 yesterday, and believe me, I was this much happy about this useless TT fodder - at least I looted an item that I maybe might use one day!

IMHO it is exactly this sad situation that causes ppl to complain, and that caused the thread I linked above. For not-so-well skilled participants (like me, where my "combat" page doesn't show anything below 2K if sorted descending):

• it became very rare to experience kind of feeling of success - skill gains have been nerfed into oblivion, and even the occasional phat global usually consists of nothing but boring TT fodder
• there's no means at all to ever even come close to the top without depositing 5-digit $ sums, and even there a high first number might be needed
• the only means of survival seems to be absurdly grinding on boring small mobs/ crafting boring TT fodder endlessly! We have reached a point where even the meanest Korean grinder MMORPG's seems like fascinating action-packed games compared to month-long slaying of tantillions, month-long crafting of standard dampers, search for "AC" - you'll understand what I mean!

IMHO EU at the moment has a serious problem, and the number of participants I meet "out in the wilderness" clearly proves this - very rarely I even meet one but the occasional miner. Right, Swamp Camp is full, there's a lot of interest for MMORPG like virtual worlds at the moment!

But EU isn't able to keep this newcomers, and they usually fade away as fast as they joined. Places like PA or Twins that were overcrowded some year ago are now populated by maybe 20 avas, at my gaming times.

Discussing this problem is of essential interest for all of us, as it is to talk MA into an improvement. We, as dedicated Entropians, are dependent of enough fresh blood, are dependent of enough co-participants, are dependent of a perspective for our own improvement!

Ignoring the major flaws we suffer, devaluating those that desperately try to work on an improvement as "whiners" isn't exactly what would help us all. IMHO.

Thanks for reading this long text!
Have fun!

[Dion Red Strike]

Originally Posted by Xandra

...

Wow, you said a lot... I actually liked the thread you mentioned... it wasn't whining at all, quite to the contrary.. it was stating a fact...



And, to the rest of the post... it's very far off topic... I'm glad that you felt the need to get something off your shoulders, I really don't mind constructive posts like yours.. and the bit about the WGT