Originally Posted by Torquemada :
To clarify things related to the subject of the thread: there is no real cap for the pvp loot and never has been one. But it is true that we modified how the pvp loot is calculated in the recent update.
Note that looting vs. losing resources has never been a symmetrical trading of resources. Why so? Let's think what would happen if that would be the case: In this case, players could in real time scout the opponents and always see the opponent’s current amount of resources. Players could then stalk and wait for the optimal moment to attack. We thought it would deliver poor gameplay if players would need to constantly scout opponents for the optimal result. That's why we decided against it.
Instead the system has always worked so that when you first time scout or attack a player, the reward is decided using a "snapshot" of the resource in the storages. Even if the opponent now uses all of his resources after the snapshot, the lootable amount does not change. In this way the attackers can save the loots on their map and plan the resource management part of the game better.
Secondly, we wanted to guarantee that players could always save certain minimum amount of resources in their vault. In this way they never can lose all of their resources even if they get raided multiple times. However, as observant players might have noticed, you never get zero amount of resources when you raid someone! This is because we always add certain amount of bonus resources to all PvP targets (in addition to the "real" lootable resource amount at the moment of the snapshot). This amount is approximately comparable to NPC loots of the corresponding difficulty level (the exact amount to be added depends on the difficulty level of the target and the experience level difference between you and the opponent). To compensate for the bonus resources we add to the system, we've been reducing the total final loot by a certain factor.
So how did we change this system in the newest update? We did two things:
1) We increased the minimum guaranteed amount of loot you gain when you attack a PvP target.
2) We changed how the total loot is reduced: previously the final loot (loot = bonus loot + "real loot" unprotected by the vault) was reduced by a certain factor. Now instead of fixed reduction, it is now reduced progressively: the lower loots are not reduced at all, but the higher the loot, the more it will be reduced.
In the end this should even out the loots more: the smallest loot you can gain should be now larger and highest loot now should be less. The idea was to balance out both of the extreme cases.
It was perhaps unfortunate that this was not communicated properly, but the reasons were that it is quite complicated to explain and we can't really know the total effect before it is live.
To clarify things related to the subject of the thread: there is no real cap for the pvp loot and never has been one. But it is true that we modified how the pvp loot is calculated in the recent update.
Note that looting vs. losing resources has never been a symmetrical trading of resources. Why so? Let's think what would happen if that would be the case: In this case, players could in real time scout the opponents and always see the opponent’s current amount of resources. Players could then stalk and wait for the optimal moment to attack. We thought it would deliver poor gameplay if players would need to constantly scout opponents for the optimal result. That's why we decided against it.
Instead the system has always worked so that when you first time scout or attack a player, the reward is decided using a "snapshot" of the resource in the storages. Even if the opponent now uses all of his resources after the snapshot, the lootable amount does not change. In this way the attackers can save the loots on their map and plan the resource management part of the game better.
Secondly, we wanted to guarantee that players could always save certain minimum amount of resources in their vault. In this way they never can lose all of their resources even if they get raided multiple times. However, as observant players might have noticed, you never get zero amount of resources when you raid someone! This is because we always add certain amount of bonus resources to all PvP targets (in addition to the "real" lootable resource amount at the moment of the snapshot). This amount is approximately comparable to NPC loots of the corresponding difficulty level (the exact amount to be added depends on the difficulty level of the target and the experience level difference between you and the opponent). To compensate for the bonus resources we add to the system, we've been reducing the total final loot by a certain factor.
So how did we change this system in the newest update? We did two things:
1) We increased the minimum guaranteed amount of loot you gain when you attack a PvP target.
2) We changed how the total loot is reduced: previously the final loot (loot = bonus loot + "real loot" unprotected by the vault) was reduced by a certain factor. Now instead of fixed reduction, it is now reduced progressively: the lower loots are not reduced at all, but the higher the loot, the more it will be reduced.
In the end this should even out the loots more: the smallest loot you can gain should be now larger and highest loot now should be less. The idea was to balance out both of the extreme cases.
It was perhaps unfortunate that this was not communicated properly, but the reasons were that it is quite complicated to explain and we can't really know the total effect before it is live.