What went wrong and why? Thoughts.

Entropia Universe Discussion General Discussion
1

Reasons why I think Mindark mismanaged and destroyed some in-game systems because of not understanding its own game. If its too long to read, just see my P.S.2 for TLDR explanation.

Lifesteal & Restoration Chips

Not much explanation needed here. Its pretty obvious.
[ul]
[li]Lower level players to heal others as a service no longer needed[/li][li]Players investing in higher-level FAPs to offer proper medical support no longer needed[/li][li]Less need for armor and faps therefore less DECAY[/li][li]Lifesteal HAS NO DECAY!!![/li][/ul]
Armors are not needed as much since lifesteal gives the player healing without any decay. Lifesteal was probably the WORST addition to the game as it also helped the botting problem even more. Yes Lifesteal and Heal over time help shoot more, but that just drives markup of loot down even more, since it isnt used in crafting anything because usually people have UL weapon, and LIFESTEAL :slight_smile: Resto chips are also too eco, compared to regular faps. Its just terrible overall for a healthy economy.

[COLOR=rgb(209, 72, 65)]Medic Profession DESTROYED.

Clothes with buffs

Due to clothes all being UL tailoring wasn’t too great. Demand for crafted clothing was low but what COMPLETELY killed it was adding buffs to clothes. Now no one is going to wear clothes that are made by any tailorers left and also no need to color them, when instead they can wear buffed clothes. Buffs should have ALWAYS stayed exclusive to rings. Additions to Weapons, Armors and Clothes was a stupid decision from the get-go.
[ul]
[li]No tailoring demand[/li][li]No coloring demand[/li][li]Crafted clothes are practically useless[/li][li]The tailor & coloring professions has minimal or no role in the economy[/li][/ul]
[COLOR=rgb(209, 72, 65)]Tailorer & Colorer Profession DESTROYED.

All options of Hair/Face/Body when starting game

In the early years of the game there were only 5 options to start the game. If you wanted something more unique, you went to an in-game beautician. Now the problem is that this profession is basically non-existent and used minimally
[ul]
[li]Beauticians barely get any customers[/li][li]Resource consumption minimal[/li][li]Markup for hunters is lower[/li][/ul]
It makes NO SENSE at all to unlock everything in the beginning.(Player retention in this game is not based on fully customizing you avatar). There was a great system no one complained about, and MA just had to make it irrelevant.

[B][COLOR=rgb(209, 72, 65)]Hairstyling Profession DESTROYED.

Land Owners[/B]

There has been zero incentive from MA to move LA’s and development of this system forward. No events where LA owners could gather special DNA parts to put together a new MOB but most importantly mobs all dropping generic stuff so why the need to hunt on a TAXed land when there is basically zero chance to loot something that would cover the Tax?
[ul]
[li]No demand for LA development[/li][li]Existing LAs stagnate[/li][li]Landowners lose motivation[/li][/ul]
[COLOR=rgb(209, 72, 65)]Land Owner Profession DESTROYED.

Taming

Due to all effects on rings/clothes and other items, the buffs Pets provide are not needed since they are the same. Therefore there is no need for tamers, to tame high level mobs. No need for services such as skilling up pets. Also most good pets are now given out via some mission or prize etc. Only a handful of pets have real meaning in game which makes the system almost obsolete.

[COLOR=rgb(209, 72, 65)]Taming Profession DESTROYED.

Beacons

Beacons were 10x more fun and better in the past. Several levels, and especially the maze where you had to know where to go and open the boxes.
[ul]
[li]Runners were needed to open boxes quickly (even new players could contribute)[/li][li]Each level needed coordination, with players deciding who takes care of what[/li][li]It was impossible to do solo if you wanted to loot all boxes in time[/li][/ul]
In the past beacons had great prices, which added bonus markup to miners.

[B][COLOR=rgb(209, 72, 65)]Beacon system DESTROYED.

Land Grabs [/B]

Land grab in the past was better, there were several societies fighting for land because 1 society was not able to fight in 8 places at the same time. Yes the top socs still maybe got 2-3 best LA’s but the rest was divided between other societies. Now that Langrab on each LA takes place at a different time, only one society has had the Land Areas for years basically without any fight.
[ul]
[li]No fights mean no extra markup for MA[/li][li]No incentive for players to skill up for PvP[/li][li]No incentive to join or grow a society[/li][li]No opportunities for mid-level societies to even have a low chance of grabbing land[/li][/ul]
[COLOR=rgb(209, 72, 65)]Land Grab System DESTROYED

Mining

Introduction of pyrite into argus, No scarcity of any valuable resources. Now the the addition of space mining, Lots of resources went down in markup.
Great post by kingofaces in this thread: https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/what-went-wrong-and-why-thoughts.307008/post-4022097

F to target

This removed player skill. In the past you had to manually aim, and actually see your target. Now you just spam F and target is auto selected.
[ul]
[li]No need to aim[/li][li]Promotes Botting/AFK play[/li][/ul]
Mayhem Instances

Mayhem was once an exciting event but the current instance-based system has created serious issues
[ul]
[li]Botting - closed instance setup makes it far too easy for people to bot without being noticed.[/li][li]Unnatural Skill Gains – due to botting players gained skills at a much faster rate compared to normal hunting, destroying progression balance[/li][/ul]
Resource Mayhem

Flooding the market with tokens which meant flooding the market with many weapons does not even need any commenting. This was a very bad idea and if there was at least one person in MA HQ that understands the game, they knew what would happen.

If you have anything to add, just post and I will add it to the list. Or if you want to give better descriptions to what I already wrote. (Im lazy to write everything).

When you destroy many parts of the game ofcourse there is less incentive to play. When 80% people botted in Mayhem instances, ofcourse theres now less incentive to play when before you could just use autoclicker. But thats only one of the factors and destroying systems leads to another issue. What does a player now look up to? Or who? There is no Etopia/Freyr as top tailors, no Sorg/Ido as top Beauticians, no Sarah/Leeloo as top Colorers etc, no Star/foudil and other great PVPers or Miggobar as top tamer in TODAYS entropia (And many others I have not mentioned). Yes we have JBK, Evey, Alina, Auktuma and some other great players (Messi if he still plays), but I’m talking VARIETY across all different professions. Basically there are less and less professions leading to less success stories and when new players dont have a dream to aim for, they have less will to play.

When the only aim Mindark has for the last several years is squeezing the MOST money out of 1 player (increasing the turnover per player to absolute max, allowing botting, with lifesteal, instances, adding autocraft and other), instead of trying to get more players in, it cant end well. Instead of getting a $200 profit from a player a month, they aim at $400 but people have limits, and there always comes a day, where players ask themselves: Is it worth it?
Now I am not complaining because I lost money or something. I have not deposited for several years now (and im doing just fine). I have withdrawn around 70% of what I had in-game (my trust in Mindark is currently low), and I am comfortable to lose the rest (Which is still not considered a small amount for many players). But currently this game has MANY FLAWS and I think Mindark needs to really sit down, draw up an EXCEPTIONAL PLAN and work overtime to turn it around. STEAM wont save us.

I want this game to be better, to move in the right direction, and it has been in the wrong one for at least 5-7 years. (Only thing that saved the situation for a while and everything seemed nice and dandy was COVID and people being stuck at home). But yes I know some of you are happy how much peds you made in the last few years (I’ve made some too) but that does not automatically mean the game is moving in the right direction.

You have to ask yourself a question: What can todays new players(even the old ones) now aim for?

  • Low chance of profit/break even
  • No interesting items/mu in loot
  • Less professions to aim for in the game
  • No point in being in society as there is nothing a society can aim for (Not even some stupid ranking or stats).

Just adding a new area, new weapons, and basically copy paste event all the time, doesn’t cut it.
You have to create systems, and goals. But instead of getting more options, we have even less.
(I will say that Armatrix weapon series, Armor plate upgrades missions, RDI and CODEX were great additions, so there were also some positives along the way, but overall there are just too many negatives).

Its just frustrating to look at how a company doesnt know its product and the customer base. Thats all.

True :bandit:

P.S. If you feel everything is fine, good. You can ignore my rant :slight_smile:
P.S.2 TLDR: I dont like how MA destroyed professions, where the game is heading, and that there is less to aim for than in the past :slight_smile:

55 Likes
Unreal Engine 5: The Future of Entropia Universe is Coming Soon
2

100% agree, everything posted is totally accurate.

4 Likes
3

Not read it all yet, but I sense this is a great OP.

I disagree with this one though. Players should all be enjoying playing the game, but in an RCE economy the chance of profit or complete break-even should indeed be low.
So I wouldn’t say that this is something broken, apart from the very long road for new players to reach expenses they wish to accept - and it’s even longer if they skill slowly but more cheaply at less than average player speeds. If the quote were saying basically it’s zero chance for a new player these days, then ok…

4

What happened is that MA has been chasing buzzwords for 10+ years instead of actually developing and improving the game. Every single person that really loved entropia was fired years ago.

... virtual properties --> pokemon --> blockchain --> metaverse --> UE5 --> AI --> ? ^we are here

They are always late to the party and fumble the implementation of every buzzwordy concept they try. They abandon systems halfway because they have to, because management wants all the resources on the new shiny thing that will put Mindarks name on a couple of bottom tier online magazines.

In summary: they have no idea of what to do with this project. I think the word is “vision”, they lack vision.

11 Likes
5

I can only speak for myself RM destroyed my dreams in-game, it was the worst decision ever made for the hunting community in my opinion. Of course many did profit out of it but now we got a situation where the market is flooded, not everyone is gonna buy pricy stuff many would have grinded them themselves and this opportunity is now gone. With that my motivation was gone also. I could survive bad MU and all other things easy and I did so most of the time but this situation with Mayhem the removal of UL Items cause auf the flood through RM was just a punch in my face. I feel scammed in a particular way

3 Likes
6

Not a complete list , but what was provided seems spot on.
What is more disheartening , most if not all of these failures were discussed as happening and still ignored.

Everyone responsible for this betrayal are gone now , maybe the current owners will listen.

Don’t reinvent the wheel , just realign it. ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo

2 Likes
7

Lifesteal & Restoration Chips
Its one of the best move for hunters, i love resto and lifesteal.

Tailorer & Colorer Profession DESTROYED
What do you want with this the market over saturated before buffs. Since you are old you recall how expensive clothes were. For what ? They had 0 benefits.

Hairstyling Profession DESTROYED.
Well same as my comment about its always been an useless profession.

Land Owner Profession DESTROYED.

I dont understand why MA stopped developing this branch. Like it was fun to loot DNA parts and look how many useless lands are now. Also i think the owners with their tax are way to greedy and once MA said how the tax work everyone stopped hunting on those lands.

Ill comment only on those.

2 Likes
8

Partially agree, there is still demand for top of the line healers, but people with mod2350 or equivalents are in a pickle.
I get your beef with LS i think the same, but I just love it. It has no way to exist lore wise, but I love it for convenience sake.

Besides all that I think what doomed Tailoring was introduction of stupid decay on wearing clothes. Most people just refused to pay and stopped wearing them, stopped aspiring to have a specific look, so the whole culture disappeared, few people still continued to do it, but it went form having the fashionable playerbase to a few cool cats. Also, more officially sponsored fashion shows would help I suppose. I would love to see the figures how much money clothes 2 PEC decay made them money in the years since it was introduced until it was finally killed and hopefully cremated an cast into the wind, never to be even contemplated to be introduced again. 1000 PED maybe?

Again, same as with LS, I both hate it and love it. Its fun to hunt something manually, its not fun to hunt manually for hours and hours on end (at least for me, hats off to you if you do it.), also, mobs glitch around, make sudden unpredictable motions, I wouldn’t really like to manually aim at that Longtooth that ran into his buddy and decided to go straight to stratosphere, only to then appear next to me.

But yeah, I agree on pretty much all. They should work on what they have currently and make it robust, integrated, and enjoyable, and then focus on expansion and improvement. There is a ton of stuff introduced through the years that I just hate and that i love, but variety is a good thing people say, it should all just be more integrated. There is a ton of bloat that serves absolutely no purpose. But damn, I still like a ton of things in this game, still have hopes.

They need to go system by system, profession by profession and make them great again. No sudden moves on things that work well-ish, and big changes on things that just dont, and go from there.

I would love more instances of different variety, non soloable, maybe even 5 player minimum, would make people work together and maybe motivate socs a bit to work on rewards, have them have a some % chance to loot a rare item once completed, like ARIS AI missons or something, would maybe even revive healers.

I’m still waiting for beer to become available at Zychion Citadel bar, 20 years and counting. One day… one day.

3 Likes
9

I always loved your look Alina.

That’s why it matters, if the culture of cool remained strong, it would mean something even if you can’t quantify it with a stat or a buff. People don’t buy skins in games for nothing, they like how they look or want to show off, or both. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. People like nice and cool things, I do , and I bet you do too. I love seeing different looks and how people present themselves in this game, It is still one of the things I love about it the most.

Stay fashionable people! :tiphat:

3 Likes
10

The player-base did not understand how much RM would impact the game.
MindArk cannot simply stop adding carrots and incentives to the game - Because its going to kill their own game.

You are going to see in the next financial report what happens when you remove incentives and carrots from a game.
It’s like launching a WoW-server where you don’t add loot to Raid bosses - How many people do you think will play it?

Lots of good issues raised in OP - But RM and the removal of real Mayhems is a core issue going forward. They need to replace it with something which
pulls players back into the game again. I wish them luck.

4 Likes
11

Nothing makes sense, nothing links together, there are to many pointless items, people are quitting, events are boring.

I’m just holding on that when UE5 launches they are doing a big make over and that’s why nothing has changed over the last years.

3 Likes
12

make mining vendoor for minners with mayhem tokens

tks for all minners in game.

4 Likes
13

I don’t think pyrite in argus was that bad as it was just one material. I can see how MA may have thought from a balancing perspective to lower the MU of pyrite to encourage hunters to use damage enhancers more. How that logic really pans out may be up for debate, but it would have been fine if the rest of MU hadn’t tanked for other resources.

I’m usually not much of one to complain or jump into threads like this, but there are definitely a few things building up in mining for problems.

The challenge for planetside mining though is that there actually is a scarcity of valuable resources, though it’s artificial. There are some resources you cannot easily use amps for, and you’ll instead be getting primarily lyst/crude. There just isn’t an incentive to increase drop cost or cycling, and you don’t see that penalty in crafting or hunting as much. Once you are “mid-level” in mining using DSEC L30 + L5 or D-class amps, you’re at the point you get penalized if you increase drop cost more. I can make Terra 6 amps work out mining, but it takes a lot of work behind the scenes to push that even. What MA really should be doing instead of capping resources is adjusting to make a hit more rare overall rather than capping resource sizes if they need to modify availability. At least that way, I know I’d be doing bigger drops and cycling more while mining. I think they’ve eased up a little on some resources, but the incentive to go for a bigger “gun” in mining just isn’t there like hunting or crafting.

I also undestand that mining can have the potential to flood markets, so that needs to be balanced. A good example right now is alternative and D-class amps. Alternative is being majorly farmed right now to the point that MU is really low, and D-class’s are being sold in a shop or two for under the long-term cost of production at these prices. If I were MA looking to tweak things, I wouldn’t be looking first at putting a size cap on alternative, but instead tweaking the find percentage of that resource to make the resource less common. Scrap whatever is behind the cap or wave system. I know I’d be mining more if I could simply go by what’s in the ground on average rather than gimmicks like reducing drop cost or sitting idle and timing “waves”. It’s ok if filler items like lyst are the most predominant resource regardless of claim size if MU still pencils out on the other items. Tweaking the percentage means someone with an ULP50 may not be able to flood the market as easy, but it still keeps miners with bigger amps cycling.

As to why MA did that cap/filler system, it’s probably to artificially keep MU higher without needing to make sure there’s a heavy enough crafting demand. I can understand that as a stopgap, but the problem here is not having a crafting market that can handle more of these resources. As a miner, I want to be able to cycle more, so that’s one side of the coin above. As a crafter as well, I do like to see some resources near 101% MU. That said, item demand is probably more important where higher MU components can be ok, but if that component is gated propping up it’s MU rather than just in high demand, I’m not going to be doing much crafting on that set. I’m limited by item availability, not MU in those cases. The major resource capping change in mining years ago makes it look like there’s still ok MU to be had in mining, but you need to grind at lower cycle to get that. It just doesn’t scale unlike the other professions.

There’s a multiplier effect in each of these steps above, so once space mining came in, that’s really the straw the broke the camel’s back. MA went to a bit of work to develop entirely new mining ores for ARIS, yet why they didn’t do this for space mining boggles me. There doesn’t appear to be the resource cap that planetside mining has either. They took an already burdened profession and killed the popularity of it with extreme saturation of resources. People aren’t buying mining amps like they used to, even at dirt cheap prices., and that means there’s less crafting using up wider resources as well. I can craft mining stuff cheaper than ever in many cases now, but with decreasing demand, that really kills the mining → crafting → mining cycle. That really should have been addressed before releasing space mining in its current resource pool at least.

I won’t comment much on hunting since when we talk about MU, historically much of that discussion is moreso focused on mining or crafting products that have a bit more value. (not to discount parts of hunting that do have MU). Not getting crafting to act as a better sink for any type of resource (not just mining) is probably one of the biggest things dragging down EU, but that also seems to have led to the throttling of mining as well. Working on improving the balancing of those two professions would go a long ways to supporting hunting as well.

5 Likes
14

This probably isn’t the most important point to respond to, but I just can’t get over the degree of entitlement we attribute to beauticians without any pushback whatsoever. I remember the period during the CryEngine2 and subsequent updates when the narrative was “How are beauticians supposed to thrive when there was just a free avatar recreation 2 years ago?” then “…3 years ago?” then “…4 years ago?” then “How will beauticians ever thrive again if there is a single free avatar recreation at launch of UE5” and now it’s “How will beauticians ever thrive if players have access to their ordinary avatar (non-re)creation?”

A player’s avatar is a pretty central facet of their account. Initializing it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing which should be gatekept behind other players, starter packs, etc. I have to admit, I didn’t know there was a history of EU having more severe avatar creation restrictions; there wasn’t when I started in 2008. I hear players all the time saying they rushed through avatar creation because they didn’t know they were going to stick with Entropia. I hear players frequently talking about finding a beautician to change some aspect of their appearance. Subjectively it feels like the death of the beauty profession may be more of a narrative to siphon affordances away from other players to the benefit of the profession than a real death. I genuine believe that in like five years the narrative is going to be “How will beauticians ever thrive again if avatar modifications are permanent? All avatars should revert to a system default after 90 days.”

15

nono it wasnt me i never paid for clothes many people over the years confused me with Liana :slight_smile: she used to have clothes tho hehe

16

You speak the truth brother, but why stop there.
Gardening - Destroyed.
Tiering - Destroyed.
Shop owner - Destroyed.
Armor crafter - Destroyed.
Hangar owner - Destroyed.
Hoarder - Destroyed beyond recognition.
Fishing - ok, this one is working.
Looking positively nothing left to destroy, so it is only up from here.

7 Likes
17

Na everything is fine you guys don’t know what you are talking about. THats the responce i get when i state the same things . Being done mostly by people that want to dragg others into Entropia !

1 Like
18

What can I say … 100% agree with True Juan !!!

3 Likes
19

Agree 100%

Well written, honest feedback… from someone I have known from the very start of Entropia and greatly respect ?

92.3% say yes… it’s not even a close poll

3 Likes
20

It seems our opinions on mismanagement are a percentage similar to our returns. Maybe the trick is to up the vote here and MA will match the returns percentage to compensate … :sneaky:

1 Like