I don't know that loot will be substantially different enough that the difference in cost between the TEN, FEN, TWEN gear vs the non anniversary UL's, that there will ever be any kind of a ROI on that difference in markup value. I know the specs and things like decay eco and efficiency should be different even if only slightly between all of those... But for me, DPS is efficiency and eco; more DPS means less hits to armor, less healing, more mobs cycled, more chances for good loot. In my own tracked runs, the indication is strong that this makes up for any gains you might otherwise have from penny pinching your damage per pec ratios. So, for me, anything that fires faster, may well be worth extra markup, i.e. Adjusted or Modified or Perfected over non modified gear. And indeed I've seen data that suggests modified gear is better to run than non-modified gear, hence, the extra markups seem to be justified. But. IMO... Whomevers paying five digits for any kind of Opalo, will probably never live long enough to see a return on that investment, you are saving a small fraction of a pec per shot over the standard Opalo, and to have to recoup five digits of peds at a fraction of a pec per shot, well... Just saying. If you are able to prove me wrong, then I congratulate you for doing that much low-stakes grinding. I just personally would never be able to. My time is valuable to me. So, I will only spend it at levels commensurate with how much I hope to loot for my time invested.
Ultimately, consider whether the TWEN items you like justify the price difference between the non TWEN versions that may be on the market and what the tokens will cost you for the TWEN edition.
As for solo-grinding for 50K or 100K tokens... I have been running LootNanny to track my hunts. I have found a mob, which, I am not going to give exact details unless someone is willing to make a small donation to this blog, I mean lets face it, Adsense permabanned me for something I didn't do and I can't monetize my blog, everyone else is getting donations for all their other projects... But the results of my tracked runs on this particular mob have consistently been thus: Using my Tier 8 damage enhanced R-150 with Dante amp, (around 45 pecs a shot in ammo and decay if memory serves), 1K peds cycled reliably provides me with 40 TWEN tokens. And the occasional unreal token still drops too, which yes it surprised me too, they have been such a rare drop these days. Some of you may have better ratios or worse ratios, I've seen people kill thousands of small mobs for only a handful of tokens. So, I really don't know what is "average". I just know what I can personally observe and measure. Nevertheless, lets use this number. 40 tokens per 1000 ped cycled. That is win, lose, or draw, everything you cycle and recycle cumulatively.
Upon doing the math here, it basically came out to 2.5 million peds needing cycled and recycled to have any expectation of me looting 100K tokens. Thats about 1550 hours doing one shot per second at approximately 45 pecs a shot to cycle 2.5 million peds, for me. With a ring and pills, I get about 60 shots per second, maybe a bit more maybe a bit less.
In 1550 hours of that kind of grinding, I would hope like hell a TWEN would drop in normal loot, though I've been skunked for TEN, FEN, and so far TWEN. And way to go, MA, for trolling us, by giving us all TWEN face masks ffs for easter was it? I forget, time is going by so fast everythings a blur for me right now.
So is it a pipedream to try to grind for 50K or 100K tokens? I don't know. Of course if you are enterprising, you can probably trade certain loots with people who need them in exchange for TWEN tokens to speed the process up. But... For me, it is enough to hoard the ones I do get until the pile of them is large enough that if I sell them, I will have enough PED all in one pile that I can do something I need to do with them. Selling them as I go, what's a few PED... A few here few there doesn't really do anything. But a few thousand here and a few thousand there will.
As for the M tokens, I feel bad using the ones I used, but the piece of armor I got with them sold for enough I was able to correct a past mistake as a critical piece of gear I'd regrettably sold long time ago came back on the market for less than I sold it for. The difference here though is... The M token stuff is a straight up grind, there is nothing tradeable about them except for cashing them in for something that is tradeable, and I don't know if, when, or what MA will decide to restock the M trader with... All I know is the gun I really wanted is sold out, so it made the decision easier to use my rare M token to at least get my old gun back. The M-Tokens not being tradeable, means that I set myself back at least a year in the occasion something else epic I do want IS put back into the trader. But the benefit of having my reliable looter with satisfactory DPS for what I want to do with it, without having to pay markup on any decay, allows me to grind better and hopefully recover the lost ground quickly.
Any token you loot in Entropia has some kind of use or value that is different to all of us. It may have more leverage trading for other forms of loot than just selling outright. It may function better as a reserve currency, where, you save it until you can't afford to save it any longer and using it serves a greater purpose than anything else you would have needed it for.
But I do caution, with TWEN tokens, there is no clear view of a timeline as to when these tokens will cease being valuable. Hoarding them will only be a benefit for so long, after that, they may become a liability. I don't know what MA will do for those of us who inevitably have leftover tokens, if anything. They just might turn into being another collectible in our storage terminals like so many other things have over the years. Many of us older players could probably open museums with the things we've got laying around, and who knows... That might even be a trend that catches on some day.
So, I do wish all of you good luck for whatever you are trying to accomplish. Its not so much there isn't opportunity in Entropia, there's just a lot of overlooked opportunity. Thinking about things differently may be just enough to make a difference.
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