A lesson learned from the "New Horizons Bonus" event : Loot Pills = FUN , now let's find a way to popularize them

General
1

I’ve never been a Loot-pill user, so this “New Horizons-bonus” Event was my occasion to try those Loot-pills given as Event-Rewards.

My Take : hunting with a Loot-pill is a totally better experience, it is funnier, more relaxing and the Player is prone to hunt/spend MORE.
So far I had avoided Loot-pills since they are a cost, at least at current prices :
1 ped per hour, using the basic TT Loot-pill, is frankly quite too much, it’s not sustainable for the Average-Player.

I suggest MindArk to evaluate a substantial rebalance regarding Loot-pills : e.g. “1 ped for a 12 hour TT Loot-pill”. The price is still something, it’s not free, but I -and many others- definitely would consider to buy a TT Loot-pill with those exact conditions.
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Down-Side for MindArk : yes, “1 ped for a 12 hour TT-Loot-pill” means less ped gained from TT Loot-pill, at least in the SHORT-TERM, but with a substantial benefit for the Company, that is :

UP-SIDE for MindArk : 12 hour TT-loot pills, costing 1 ped, become an EXTREMELY popular good, and now Players are much more relaxed/entertained while hunting, and thus prone to spend significantly MORE in their hunts : I easily forecast a STRONG increase in the Hunting-turnover, and also an increase in the Player-Retention rate.
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This perspective is VERY promising…
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Paul

2

A lot of us just buy the $10 starter pack. TT everything and the pill ends up costing 3.50ped (transaction fee) for 50 hours

4 Likes
3

This*

Beside last time i’v checked old Trade Terminal loot pills were removed from terminal, Unless those have been added back? Those aren’t real option anymore.

1000 hour with Frontier pill cost 60,20 PED (Req depo)

1000 hour with TT loot pill cost 500 PED (Removed)

1000 hour with Mayhem loot pill cost 601 PED ( Math time MU rate)

Additional bonus:

1000 hours with 50% skill juice cost 1500 PED ( Math time MU rate)

If you deposit anyway and hunt alot, it is clear which pill is most reasonable priced. :+1:

New Horizon Track surely wake ups some people who overlooked these pills this entire time. MA gonna be happy about those sale numbers. :head_shaking_vertically:

4

They screwed this up IMO. Getting this buff from fishing was a good idea but they made it too expensive so people are just buying starter packs instead.

5

Well maybe fishermen should sell their fish cheaper?

1 Like
6

oh ? is that why the food buffs are expensive ? Is that a “these are not the droids you’re looking for” kind of reply ?

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[Contract_CH_Hunter] :
“old Trade Terminal loot pills were removed from terminal, those aren’t an option anymore”
… … … … … … … … …

Lol, you are right about TT-pills : I even didn’t know it…
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[Contract_CH_Hunter] :
“1000 hour with Frontier pill cost 60,20 PED (Requires depo)”

[WhiningSkeptic] :
“A lot of us just buy the $10 starter pack. TT everything and the pill ends up costing 3.50ped (transaction fee) for 50 hours”
… … … … … … … … …

Here I admit that such a price is OK : 1000 hours at 60-70 ped … And, addressing MindArk about this subject :

still I would STRONGLY prefer a STRAIGHT Trade-Terminal pill, for an EQUIVALENT price ,
and I guess that MANY players would like that as a preferred, more comfortable , choice…

More equivalent options = MORE Quality-of-Life
(a very important theme, often evoked nowadays in Entropia Universe… :thinking: )

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Paul

8

Current prices for most foods means it is only for ubers. I’m sure prices will fall over time, as more people wake up to the opportunity to make some PED from fishing and cooking, but in the meantime, it just looks hilariously stupid for anyone without an obscene amount of disposable income to spend on foods made from fish.

9

Removing the loot pills from the tt was just one of the causes of lowering my time spent in EU.

On the face of it, not a major change, but a dick one in my opinion, as I didn’t have a stack of them left, with fishing taking a while to provide a supply again. Now that they are available and prices have come down, it’s now seemingly somewhere between 70-100 pecs for 1 hour, which is higher than it used to be (50 pecs, not 1 ped Paul), but not dramatic.

Unfortunately, NOT doing runs of punies or equivalent at a rate of 2k an hour or so removed a pastime I did quite regularly at a slowish but quite acceptable turnover, especially compared to that setesh pistol or fishing. More importantly, I’ve not returned to doing them after having diverted to auto-loot instances on Arkadia for a while.

Out in RL I’d call it snowflake or childish to not do something over something so small, but hey, it’s my choice for my actions. Old routines may fall away and new routines may or may not replace them. Maybe it’s a sign that my relationship with EU is decidedly near to Dear John time.

I’ve also expressed my desire for YEARS to be able to allocate peds I can withdraw after 50 days to shop purchases instead, but no, nothing doing. I realise most people are depositors, so why not deposit in the form of packs or box keys, but I get an ever smaller amount of peds from deed income that I use to play with, so again, why are they making something unattractive that they could so easily make easy? I’ve thus NEVER bought a single box key (so not opened any boxes), nor deposited in order to get nicer/cheaper loot pills.

Now, currently, I do have loot filets in inventory, but I can’t be arsed to use them. Decay and rot sets in that way too - ah well.

[Thanks for reading - it may or may not apply to others; is just my take on things as we move closer to a BIG change to UE5]

10

Jets : “Removing the loot pills from the tt was just one of the causes of lowering my time spent in EU”

Thanks for Sharing !
Many players 100% agree with your position !

Imagine now a NEW TT Loot-pill replicating the ones accessible by Deposit (therefore 10 hours cost 60-70 pec, 100 hours cost 6-7 ped, 1000 hours cost 60-70 ped), as reported by Contract_CH_Hunter and Whining Skeptic :

[Contract_CH_Hunter] :
“1000 hour with Frontier pill cost 60,20 PED (Requires depo)”

[WhiningSkeptic] :
“A lot of us just buy the $10 starter pack. TT everything and the pill ends up costing 3.50ped (transaction fee) for 50 hours”

…

This would be a guaranteed boost in Hunting turnover, with 0 effort for MindArk, and also a boost in Player-Enjoyment (everything starts from that : “Player-Enjoyment”).

Paul

11

The old “1-hour loot pills” from TT are still given in some of the Ammo packs on the WebShop.

1 Like
12

I got to hand it to Mindark on this 1. They can do some dumb and smart choices sometimes. Taking TT pill away was a smart choice. Instead of 0 help to the economy or the company

  1. Food - now players get to get the money from loot pills keeping money in game and flowing thru the economy burning 1 pec tt cost instead of 50. Those people fishing and cooking etc now arnt fighting you in the hunting loot pool so you get more MU.
  2. Deposit for starter pack - this makes lootpill essentially free but a much bigger bonus to this that many don’t realize is not only does it help the company out but it adds a bunch of peds into the game that otherwise wouldn’t be there. It helps our items and gear values, account values, sales etc when more ped is in the game for people to be able to buy/sell things.
2 Likes
13

RECAP :
Those who currently buy Loot-pills from Fishers actually spend A LOT more than the Depositers “exploiting” the 10$ Frontier pack ; likely they didn’t know the Starter-pack “trick” : otherwise they wouldn’t accept the price-penalty paid to Fishers :
but now everyone knows the $10 “trick” for Loot-pills, so I simply can’t imagine this absurd Market-discrepancy still lasting long term…

Meanwhile, there is a VERY Important 3rd part : a vast lot of players not prone to these 2 options (“nor fishers nor $10 pack”), but still interested in Loot-pills…
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So we could study a COMPROMISE to please every part involved :

while Fishers will have to adjust their prices to overcome to the $10 pack “trick” -that from now on is known by everyone- we still can ADD again a TT Loot-pill, that is just SIMPLER than the Frontier loot-pill (which provides some buffs, that the TT pill reasonably will NOT offer) :
in other words the TT Loot-pill will be a pure Loot-pill, IDENTICAL to the Frontier pill but WITHOUT the additional buffs of the Frontier Loot-Pill.

Meanwhile, to further encourage deposits, which are always good for the Game-Economy,
I suggest MindArk to add a NEW dedicated “Deposit-section” INSIDE the Trade Terminal-UI :

in other words, while Players are about to buy items from the TT and they realise that their Ped-amount is particularly low to buy anything, they will spot -inside the NEW TT-User Interface - a VERY visible “Deposit” Button/Option/Section, to solve instantly their problem of lack of funds…
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By constant optimizations like these ones, MindArk and the Players together can cooperate to create a more successful Economy, while adding the necessary QUALITY of LIFE for ALL the Players , and the much needed Player-Enjoyment …
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WIN-WIN Scenario…
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PS
In this new Scenario, Fisher Loot-pills should also become particularly more potent than Frontier Loot-pills to justify their higher cost.

So, in the end, we will have 3 Categories of Loot-Pills :

  1. PRESTIGE Loot-pills provided by Fishers, with better buffs, that justify a higher cost.

  2. QUALITY Loot-pills still provided by the Frontier pack, with their very convenient price (10 hours cost 0.6-0.7 ped, 100 hours cost 6-7 ped, 1000 hours cost 60-70 ped), and still including the current nice additional buffs.

  3. BASIC Loot-pills, sold by TT, IDENTICAL to Frontier Loot-pills but simply WITHOUT additional buffs …
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ENJOY,

Paul