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Discussion News from Beta (may contain spoilers!)

Sir Derf

Adept
Wow, this is a lot harder to theorize general techniques, especially with obstacles included, and without any data to estimate the frequency of chest and cat occurrences, coming up with a theoretical optimal purchase and play strategy, let alone expected cost-to-prizes obtained ratio sounds nigh-impossible.

This might only be describable with user experienced observations, providing a spread of observed long-term outcomes, with the randomness, personal preferences, and possibly wildly-varying techniques all baked in and inseparable.

With earlier events, we could give good predictions on likely outcomes, and the standard deviations, so could get a feel for if a particular outcome was more or less than expected average, and by how much. Now, who knows...
 

Timneh

Artisan
@Silmaril on Beta it has been said by Marindor that a instructional video will be made before the live release showing how the new mechanics for the coming event work, do you have any idea when this video will be released ?
 

Silmaril

Community Manager
Elvenar Team
@Timneh I am aware that one will be made and will be included in the official announcement here. As to dates, sadly they have not been released to us yet.....but as soon as I have the info it will be posted here.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Overnight ponders...

1) In past events, you have an array of chests/orbs to choose from, you pay your currency, and you get one or more flags star/flag. Every payment, you moved at least one step forward on the Grand Prize progression. In this event, you pay your currency on the Candles, Lanterns and Flasks. And receive no Cats. And then, you use the Candles, Lanterns and Flasks, and that might not get, let alone find, any Cats. There is/will be a perception that this event is not as rewarding as past events.

2) Let's talk actual, eventual numbers. Take the most recent Autumn Zodiac event. Every orb you pay for you got one or more stars. The direct average across the nine orbs was about 35 keys per star, the worst direct single orb was 60 keys for a single star. Factor in compound interest, and the numbers don't change that much. To be equal to the optimal play in past event, you want to be finding cats in something around every 4 squares. To be equal to the WORST pace in past events, you want to be finding cats about every 6 squares.

Okay, the math works out a little differently, since you get cleared squares and misty squares. But still, you gotta be uncovering cats rapidly to have a favorable cat cost compared to the cost of stars and flags in past events.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Despite all my other comments and questions, let me say, I am excited by this format.

Random chest events, there is thought involved, but that thought is pretty much. These are my options, let me consult my chart, and it will tell me which is my best choice.

The lottery board of last Winter event, there were choices, but no really difference between any of them, and so again, no real thought.

This event, there is thought, decisions to be made, options to choose between, all with consequences.

I would like to have more information, so as to better make those choices, but even with more information, there will still be more thought involved, more agency, more participation. I won't simply be the robotic arm pushing the button on the pre-determined best chest.

Excited by the play mechanics, possibly disappointed by the relative payoffs compared to past events.

I'm still a cheerleader of "These events aren't zero sum. I don't end up worse off after playing an event. The rewards, all the rewards, are extra. Getting less extra is not the same as losing some of your current."
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Question - Would there be a problem starting a thread specifically for discussing the mechanics of this event? Presumably with a Early discussion spoiler mention in the title? Or does this need to stay in the Beta thread?
 

Pauly7

Magus
Question - Would there be a problem starting a thread specifically for discussing the mechanics of this event? Presumably with a Early discussion spoiler mention in the title? Or does this need to stay in the Beta thread?
As far as I understand it this is the only thread where we are supposed to discuss anything that hasn't yet come to the Live server. It's labelled "spoilers" so people can avoid it if they don't want to see stuff in advance.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Yeah, wasn't sure if that was a this-and-only-this-thread designation or not.

Given the massive novelty of this, compared to the usually "This is 98% like the previous, here's the 2% adjustment", coupled with the usefulness after it leaves the spoiler timeframe, if it would be useful to for information gathering and dissemination to break this out into it's own thread.

I highly agree it would need a spoiler warning in the title, and would then highly petition the moderators to remove allow the name change to the thread once the event starts.

The biggest stumbling block I can see is if the details of the event were to radically change between Beta and Live, making the majority of this discussion erroneous and/or misleading. The answer to that is to keep the thread as a pre-live spoiler thread, and force the inevitable creation of the actual live event discussion thread.

While I appreciate member feedback on the idea (and hopefully support), I'm more wanting an official statement on the idea from a moderator.
 

Timneh

Artisan
As soon as the announcement is made a new thread can be started about how the new mechanics work and that will hopefully give us a few days to get some information about how it works. I still think it sounds quite complicated. I hope the video that will come with the announcement will explain things as well.
 

Pauly7

Magus
I think it's working out a specific strategy that can become complicated, but when you get into it, it's more a case of just clicking squares to light them up and keep it scrolling. It's fairly quick. The biggest problem is the lack of progress towards artefacts. Dailies seem hard to come by, but there aren't really any exciting ones. There's something which is a direct replacement for the Orc Ship which may pique some interest, but other than that, not much.
 

Pauly7

Magus
Oh my, I hope not! I do enjoy FA. Just not too often. :cool:
I agree entirely. We had a big push on the late August FA, but we don't really want to put that kind of heart and soul into it any more than once every three or four months. So this one we're taking it easy. Maybe we would do the same if there's another one in a month's time. It would be a much better competition if there's long enough in between so that everyone is up for it.

If only it made the slightest difference what any of us think. :oops:
 

Sir Derf

Adept
So if the mechanics of the Halloween event remain insufficient for significant progress on artifacts, this means another FA is looming in everyone's near future.
I assumed it was a foregone conclusion that there would be a FA shortly after the Halloween event. Are you suggesting a second FA?
 
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