I was a wreckless casual player who was best friends with the TT machine. Decided to start tracking everything, selling everything, and see if I could play more sustainably.
I did this for myself, but decided to post as a way to keep myself honest and to provide a view of what average mid-level play looks like. For this exercise, my main rule is to not TT anything. I auction everything over 101% and recycle everything under that.
Skills:
Highest combat skill is lvl 75 BLP pistoleer, but I have recently switched to laser rifle.
Animal/Robot/Mutant looter: 44/36/32
Evage/Dodge: 45/41
Slightly less than 95% TT return is probably where MA wants me to be based on current skills/gear, but it’s still disappointing when you look at the numbers. This represents about 3 weeks of play for me, so if I sustain the same numbers, the game will cost me about 20-25€ a week if I extract as much MU as I can. That’s affordable, but I’m on the fence as to whether it’s worth it. This feels like a lot of work for not really any reward.
MU is hard. I feel like I’ve tried to extract what I could, but bridging the gap from TT returns feels unlikely at this level. There’s very likely some knowledge I don’t have as well, as far as specific mobs or loot to look for, idk.
Selling everything is so tedious, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how much extra I’ve been able to squeeze versus my previous lifestyle of just TTing everything. Don’t TT stuff, people!
I’m not sure how long I’ll keep the log up since it’s very tedious, but I will probably do at least another 25k turnover minimum to try and get better statistics.
Side note: does anyone know of a good screen shot client that works with EU running under wine? I haven’t tried any of them yet.
Not in the logs, but yea ultimately if I don’t make back the ~5000 PED cost of the rifle + amps, it will have been a wasted expense. I am basically starting at a loss.
I always used UL in the past but decided to try this for the extra efficiency and DPS over the Adj Maddox I was using. I’m not sure it was worth it, but we’ll see.
Updated totals now that I’ve hit 50k cycled. This will probably be my last update as I’m feeling pretty demotivated with the results, and I need to think about what I want to do.
I’ve been converging on around 92% TT return, which is pretty lame. I’ve had no HOFs during this time so I’m probably missing some correction but seeing the numbers just makes me not want to hunt. I realize 50k cycled is not a lot for some, and maybe this isn’t enough to really get a feel for the averages, but it’s still a lot for me.
I’ve been getting pretty good MU from the ARIS armor catalysts and BP pulls, but it seems like long-term I’m averaging about ~3% extra on top of TT, so bridging the gap from 92% seems impossible without some sacred lucky drop. I’d be happy with more like ~96% return where at least I’d be close to break-even, but giving back 8% is expensive.
In retrospect, this was a pretty good exercise that I recommend everyone do. Tracking every pec was very tedious but it was enlightening. I found out defense is negligible even on hunts when I’m using full armor. I found the AH to be an unexpected fun mini-game, but the AH fees are absolute bullshit. I found out shrapnel conversion and nano recycling makes a real difference long-term. I’m proud to say I haven’t TT’d anything since starting this.
On the whole, though, these results make me feel like I’m a sucker if I keep playing (spoiler alert: i probably still will). Sometimes the unlucky periods last a long time so maybe there’s a correction due, but I’m not counting on it. I am thinking about trying mining or crafting or something. The game has become unfun and I need to figure out how to shake things up.
Also I’m completely sick of ARIS, it’s a buggy unstable laggy mess and everything is designed to be as inconvenient as possible. I at least need to get off this planet and maybe head back to Cyrene where everything makes sense, or maybe start a tour of the planets, idk.
Yea maybe, but it feels like an incredibly long grind to get that up. I have no intention of just bleeding out 8% for the next couple of years. There just don’t feel like enough opportunities to bridge the gap in the interim. Maybe I’m just not good at finding the right opportunities.
The reward feedback loop is just unbalanced for me. Every day cycling 2-3k and just getting 70-80% returns every hunt. About once a week getting in that good cycle and getting some shrapnel globals to come up a bit ahead. It’s become difficult to justify now that I see the actual price tag. It’s ironic I was much happier with the game before I started logging everything. I don’t care about profiting, but the amount of money I’m willing to spend on entertainment needs to be proportional to the value of the entertainment received.
And while you grind up towards the skills etc you just lose more money even if you get higher with your percentage, it’s just a cash grab because the market is dead and no measures are taken.
To less new players, to less demand and that won’t change somehow with an magic trick or so
I got this 70-80% returns for nearly a year now was always hoping for some bigger hits to get me near where it needs to be but it seems impossible, I can completely relate with you log
I disagree respectfully. There are more consistent MU opportunities in the game nothing big but very consistent. I will give you an example the AI missions, NI dailies etc. those can be done while you skill up your looter. While you do skill up, use a high efficiency weapon, with MU and high efficiency weapon and low looter even, it should be almost free to slowly skill up.
I am stubborn and apparently a masochist, so I kept going to see what my pain threshold is. I think I’m getting pretty close to it, but we’ll see. Updated the totals in OP since I will probably break for a bit.
Results keep going down. Now just over 70k cycled and closing in on 90% return. Still no HOF in sight. This is with 83% efficiency and 45 looter.
Here’s what the last 2 weeks of daily hunts looks like, this is pretty much the norm for me:
[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]P/L[/TD]
[TD]ROI[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]102.79[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]105.13%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-626.39[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]69.55%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-495.48[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]82.88%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-53.72[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]96.02%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-243.29[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]89.76%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]76.46[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]103.05%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-322.66[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]74.34%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-262.17[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]72.88%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-294.31[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]65.25%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-228.89[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]70.30%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-325.21[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]80.07%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][RIGHT]-359.5[/RIGHT][/TD]
[TD][RIGHT]72.87%[/RIGHT][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Basically burning about 100€/week for the pleasure of looting oils and shraps. ?
Also almost burned through my Pegasus on the dailies/bots so there’s a few hundred PED of MU lost there. I still don’t like to think about the 4500 PED MU lost on the gun, and I’m not sure how many amps I’ve burned so far but they are I think 40 PED MU each, so a few hundred PED there also. ?
OP updated with new totals. I had decided to try and survive to 100k and see where the stats lay, and I almost made it. I finally got a small correction HOF (1200 PED shrapnel) at around 97k cycled. Rather than cycle the last 3k and lose 30% of it, I’m going to take a break for a while as the grind has become so boring. It’s just a constant money drain with no real reward. I will still be playing, but I need to rethink what I want to do in the game (again).
Final stats:
[B]97k cycled (58 days)
93.16% TT return (-6634.5)
Total: -3287.97 PED after MU sold (96.61%)
This is giving me an approximate cost to play of about 40€/wk with MU sold. Honestly not as bad as I thought it would be, especially with my last update as I was in a pretty bad downswing at the time.
I moved up 2 looter levels during this period, so that’s exciting. At this rate, I should be able to get to 100 and start getting decent returns in the next 6 or 7 years.
Lessons learned:
Between shrapnel conversion and nanos, MA gives you a blanket 1% free MU. Don’t sell anything to the TT. 1% makes a big difference in the long run.
Bankroll and kill count needed to even out your return are typically severely underestimated.