@edit:
seems that 12.7 update fixed this issue ;). Time to do some tests.
Current system with mindforce is really unbalanced. You probably wonder: “what this guy is talking about, it was re-made after vu10 and now is suited to be similar to other hunting professions”.
Well if you will go to entropiawiki.com and look at the mindforce attack chips eco - you will see that by default most are around 2.80 - 2.85 eco. So very similar to most weapons, seems pretty normal. Well the catch is: by default entropedia does NOT include the implant decay to the cost of use.
If you will choose the most eco implant (the NeoPsion 10 avaible at TT) you will see that most chips will have eco 2.50 - 2.60.
What is even worse NeoPsion 10 is suitable only for chips that have “recomended” level of 10 or lower. This have few more disadvatages. For example the lowest chip Corrosive Attack Chip I (L) (2.5-5.0 damage) with most eco implant has eco on level 2.078. And this is counted if you will actually buy the chip for TT, they usually go for quite some markup which lowers eco even more.
So the system is implemented in a way that if you want to keep eco at reasonable level you need to use only chips that have recomended level close to the implant you are wearing - otherwise you will be loosing on eco a bit (or in case of most small chips - a lot). This leads to a situation when you are forced to decide if you want to hunt big or small - because change costs you 2peds (or even 4peds - i am not sure if you have to use the tool twice to remove and add new implant) and to “get back” on those 2peds sometimes you need to do few thousands shoots.
The only exception from this rule seems to be the old “First Gen” unlimited chips - but yet only Combustive and Electric exist.
It is similar with the healing chips. By default the implant decay is not included. If you will count the cost with implant and try to compare MF chips with normal eco faps yo uwill see that for each MF chips that has some heal/sec level there exists a tool that usually has ~2.00-3.00pec more eco with same heal/sec level (example: chip lev III - hedoc SK-20, chip lev VIII - hedoc SK-50).
Now i understand that “probably” the eco actually does not matter and everythign goes to lootpool*90% anyway but still - i would feel much better if th eco level would be at similar level.
So to sum up:
disadvatages:
[ul]
[li]really low eco espetially for low level chips[/li][li]needs decision to hunt big or small - otherwise you will lower eco on small chips even more[/li][li]except skills you will also need bigger implant to use bigger chips (=lower eco + they are actually not that avaible) and even after that the chips are not that powerfull after all comapred with common weapons.[/li][/ul]
advantages:
[ul]
[li]it is fun and cool to use them :laugh:[/li][li]the skills they give are worth more than most hunting skills[/li][li]the strike chips may be used as good first blow attack (due to “charge first” possibility).[/li][/ul]
Feel free to post any thoughts and comments about this ;).
Agreed, there are tons of things that are badly balanced in MindForce at the moment (too high level requirements on heal field and metabolic chips, synch chips near useless since VU10 except while sweating, strike chips completely useless, too low eco, barely any health gain and no pro to counter this, etc), think I have made at least a dozen threads about different problems and suggestions on how to fix them.
(There are also several MindForce-related posts by Charlie after that one in the same thread if you are interested)
One thing to note is that they will have to make new implants to be able to make higher level chips, since the biggest now only goes to level 55 requirement :silly2:
Only with the AoE heal chip, which requires a very high level compared to the effect.
The AoE combat chips are like extremely slow, low-damage, low-range rocket launchers that malfunction if you are hit or move within a few seconds before firing it.
The AoE heal chips are nice, but have way too low heal/sec to be of that much use, too high level requirements and barely gives any skills at all.
the developers note 2 - in which they state that eco actually DOES matter
So if they are right - then mindforce just suck ;).
(notice that i have started this thread at 10:11am and dev notes 2 are at 11:00am - really big coincedence - i had no idea this was comming)
@NightHawk:
thanks for posting - i will read what Charlie said in that thread when i have some more time ;). I really hope they will adjust the mindforce a bit more.
What is eco then? Seems like dmg/pec is the only logical definition of being eco.
Of course yo ucan consider whole setups as “eco” which could mean proper armor (best = no armor) + porper healing (best = none) + proper weapon (best = the one that has best dmg/pec and does not overkill a mob).
Hmmm… i have re-read the dev notes again and i am really confused now :eyecrazy:. You are right - nothing about dmg/pec.
Yet connected with snd part of the dev notes (that the system does not track personal lootpool) it is either:
[ul]
[li]killing a mob with maxed weapon but with low dmg/pec and maxed weapon with high dmg/pec makes no difference - the chance of looting stuff is either predemined or the same for both cases. This would equal that dmg/pec actualy matters - becasue killing somethign with lower costs and having same chance of looting same stuff would mean i would be getting better results with better dmg/pec weapon.[/li][li]there is a difference between high and low dmg/pec maxed weapons - since devs stated no loot tracking then there has to be some sort of dmg done to mob related to weapon tracking system. This way low dmg/pec may be getting better loots to compensate this right away (without tracking personal spendings).[/li][li]somehow the weapon you use to kill a mob has random (uknown effect) on the loot you will get. A bit similar situation to snd point but it may be that dmg/pec actually does not matter but for example Opalo is more lucky with killing Daikiba Young than TT fist ;). Only way to find this out would be making very long and exact logs of each weapon vs each mob and yet MA may change the realions with any update (randomly). Seems this solution is most “dynamic” ;).[/li][/ul]
To stay on topic about Mindforce:
in this case (no matter what eco actually means) i exchange the word “eco” with “dmg/pec” in my first post. I think everyone will agree that most small chips have really low dmg/pec ratio ;). And the fact that if you want to use both high and low chips the dmg/pec will be even lower for small chips.
Yes, it does… and another MF nerf with the new system is that synch chip doesn’t protect 100% against x attacks anymore, only like 30% against attacks for x seconds.
eco = dmg/pec is correct understanding of eco (at least in team-hunts)
the small mindforce chips suck due to low dmg/pec ratio.
I did the following small test:
i teamed up with a soc m8 and we went hunting Kerberos Young to Old (link to mob )
[ul]
[li]i was using Corrosive Attack Chip I (L) (wearing NeoPsion Implant 30): damage = 2.5-5.0, attacks/min = 67, dps = 3.9, dmg/pec = 1.961[/li][li]he was using S.I. Combat Knife: damage 2.5-5.0, attacks/min = 67, dps = 3.9, dmg/pec = 2.860[/li][/ul]
As you can see the weapons have exact the same dmg, and attack/min so also dps but are extremly different with dmg/pec.
We were both maxed on each weapon. We engaged each mob at the same time (with microseconds difference mayby). The loot settings was: Damage: Share Loot - the most common and most fair one.
The purpose of this experiment was to check if i will be getting more loot or mayby about the same amount. Sadly the test was very short because my soc m8 had to go but yet even small results are visible. From few first mobs killed we noticed that stackable items are split almost equally (i.e. i got 1543 amo, he got 1604 amo, i got 5 BTAU he got 5 BTAU etc.).
Results:
My total TT cost = -6.64, my total loot = +3.19
His total TT cost = -4.47, his total loot = +3.04
We did not loot any items (only stackables). As you can see those are divided equally proportionally to damage done not to the cost a teammember suffers.
6.64/4.47 gives ratio 1.48
2.860/1.961 gives ratio 1.45 so as expected.
Of course the sample test was very small and i plan on doing this test on a bigger scale (100peds cycled) but still it is clear that stackables are divided proportionally to damage done. So best dmg/pec in team will be winning the most. Of course the “you are wrong!” guy will always saythat probably i would be looting most items due the fact i have bigger costs. If its true that loot is not beeing tracked in any way - then it is not possible to happen) and i should be getting items with ~50% probability as well.
As you can see i counted the TT value for Corrosive I. The markup on them is like 150-200% so i payed even more ;).
I encourage anyone who dissagrees with this - please try doing some similar tests (remember to choose weapons with different dmg/pec ratio but with same dps). Or please point out anything wrong in my proof (except that the test was too short - i will do longer test and update later with results ;)).
dmg/sec and number of attacks per minute both play just as important of a part as dmg/pec, especially when talking about mobs with lots of regeneration speed or weapons with very small range of attack…
You can clearly see from this small sample run that MindArk was not lying… They said that economy aka eco does matter. If you are hunting the same mob as your friend but his setup is more eco than yours.. obviously he will “win” more. What does this mean? Don’t use a weapon that will give you anything below 3.0 damage per pec… idealy you would want as close to 4.0 dmg per pec spent in order to win big.. but there are currently no setups that provide 4.0… only thing that comes close to touching that is the aimk2 but on the low end (3.2~)
Bottom line is, if you are hunting uneco on the same mob for the same value in loots vs your friend who is hunting eco on the same mob for the same value in loots. Who do you think will be “winning” more?
So the purpose was to see if loot was calculated after team distribution ?
Because if loot is calculated before team distribution then what matters is the division of what was calculated accordingly with what the players agreed between them.
The above it’s like saying I had agreed with 100% loot to be given to my friend but I still would expect to receive loot …
Disclaimer may be late at night talking out a hole in lower extremity of body
Hunt a mob with different weapons solo.
I did a quick test on a mob → loot was a lot higher when cost to kill higher. Maybe not related to eco of weapon more of the cost to kill. (Kross 400+A105 vs Overamped Opalo. Loot was under 1 ped with Kross, loot over 2 ped with Opalo)
Loot = cost to kill * (insert dynamic distribution curve)
Long term mindforce may give same results, does anyone track mindforce hunts ??
And without personal loot pool, if you had uneco setups in a team and lost value compared to team mates that gained value, your loss ill never be returned
How to win at playing Entropia? Join teams and go for the best eco guns. Right guys?
I agree with this too - of course. But yet if one weapon has dmg/pec at 2.0 level and snd has at 2.9 level and both do similar dgm and dps, then it is obvious that the snd one is way more eco :). And since most small chips have similr damage and dps to many low level weapons (like Opalo i.e.) but yet have very low dmg/pec ratio… making them really uneco.
From start i never said that MA was lyign or not :). I just stated that small mindforce chips have really low dmg/pec ratio compared to similar weapons in other cathegories.
Btw: if i open entropedia->weapons and sort them out by dmg/pec the top weapons (that are uber ones and cost like +50k peds) reach eco 3.20. Most common weapons that are eco have dmg/pec ratio =~ 2.90. How can you say that reaching the 4.0 eco level is even possible (except the really wierd JUBLEZ weapon which is something out of the ordinary)? Or do you count eco somehow in different way?
Link to the effective damage coutned on entropedia .
No, the purpose of this experiment was to prove that dmg/pec ratio actually matters - at least in team hunts. I see no point why there shoudl be difference in loot drop for teams and solo hunting - seems like this woudl be something not logical.
Yes i agree partially with this. And this is very confusing indeed. Many long term hunting logs show that the stabilise at ~90% TT returns.
Yet i have done some tests (not enough imho though) for hunting caraboks. One test was hunting caraboks with whip only (result was ~81% TT back). Second was hunting caraboks with lacerating I chip (L) only (result was ~70% TT back). Caraboks give pretty steady returns that stabilise after abotu 100ped cycled. But i considered that i was just unlucky at that time.
With whip i have cycled close to 2k peds, with lacerating chips only 500peds that is why i think it was not enough.
