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Sorcerers' Homecoming event

Gargon667

Mentor
I think it's a contradiction in terms to have "organised willy nilly" (though I can see that being the name of a band). I can't see why you'd purposefully say to yourself "right, I'm going to spend exactly 200 currency each day that I don't want the daily prize and I'll use what remains on the days I do want the daily prize". What's the purpose for that mindset? Is it to satisfy a chest opening craving without blowing everything?

Indeed, the oxy-moron (pun also intended) was intended :D

Are you saying you need a reason for going willy-nilly? Wouldn´t having a reason already be making it non-willy-nilly? How about willy-nilly that by accident ends up being roughly 200 per day (an exact number will be close to impossible anyway). A willy-nilly that goes all-out in 1 day would also end up in that "all in 1 day" category by accident.
 

Pauly7

Magus
Are you saying you need a reason for going willy-nilly? Wouldn´t having a reason already be making it non-willy-nilly? How about willy-nilly that by accident ends up being roughly 200 per day (an exact number will be close to impossible anyway). A willy-nilly that goes all-out in 1 day would also end up in that "all in 1 day" category by accident.
The beauty of willy-nilly is you can't quantify or predict it.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Well, just spent all my accumulated SK in one go, and boy, are my apprentice's feet sore...

Started with 5,574 SK, opened 156 beacons (If I counted correctly), and got 289 points (currently a solid Silver League on F-world), 14 Grand Prizes, and thus a full Building set.

I wonder at the inequity of having 4x2 buildings producing Marble and Planks, but a 3x2 building producing Steel.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
Well, just spent all my accumulated SK in one go, and boy, are my apprentice's feet sore...

Started with 5,574 SK, opened 156 beacons (If I counted correctly), and got 289 points (currently a solid Silver League on F-world), 14 Grand Prizes, and thus a full Building set.

I wonder at the inequity of having 4x2 buildings producing Marble and Planks, but a 3x2 building producing Steel.

Did you miss a lot of pickups around the town? I thought we were supposed to have 6000+ SK? I unfortunately didn´t pay attention to my own spending...

As to the steel being smaller, I don´t think the effect is especially big, the effect that some people don´t get it at all is most likely bigger than that anyway. But all together i still believe the trouble will be small enough to not cause any major unheavals like the scrolls insanity. I am sure that everybody who doesn´t get their steel fast enough will blame it on this though ;)
 

Sir Derf

Adept
I'm not saying the decrease in size, and therefore production, of the steel is bad, I'm saying it's just relatively smaller.



Also, 6000 is a generic rule of thumb and a convenient round number, but not necessarily a guarantee. As with pudding and tasting, the proof of the total SK is in the performing of the math.

Total of 75 Quests = 3729
23 days of 35 SK = 805
e-mail = 100
Total = 4634

Perfect daily pickup is what, 24 per hour, 23 days, 552 pickups, which gives something between 552 and 1656. That means somewhere between 5186 and 6,290 as a maximum value. I think these are close to the right numbers, I may be off by a day or two somewhere in the above.

Considering I played with 1 day left on the clock, and maybe not perfect pickup every day I did play, I'd say that was a decent value. I'm happy with my result.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Did you miss a lot of pickups around the town? I thought we were supposed to have 6000+ SK? I unfortunately didn´t pay attention to my own spending...

As to the steel being smaller, I don´t think the effect is especially big, the effect that some people don´t get it at all is most likely bigger than that anyway. But all together i still believe the trouble will be small enough to not cause any major unheavals like the scrolls insanity. I am sure that everybody who doesn´t get their steel fast enough will blame it on this though ;)
5700-5900 depending on how wel you are able to pick up, you must sleep less than 6 hours to be able to pick them all up so thats not really feasable for 99,99% of the players.
 
Yeah, I feel this has been set up wrong - I've completed every task, picked up every daily bonus, and picked up SK during the days and I can't reach the final piece. The only way I could have got the final piece was to spend money on SK and I refuse to do that, it should be achievable if you play enough. I'm less I climbed to get involved in competitions like this in future.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Apologies, @dork.mistress . The game is as the game is. It is to INNO's benefit to have that tantalizing goal be unattainalbe to at least some people, so that some of those some people will feel like spending money to finish. You appear to have fallen into the category of 'some people who did not attain' and have decided to be one of the 'some other people of those first some people, who won't spend money'. They wriggled their nice juicy worm in front of you, but you refuse to bite the hook.
 

Fugawe

Seeker
One would think that if you completed all tasks and selected the beacons based on highest staves to sorcerer's knowledge ratios that at the end you would be able to complete all 8 pieces of the set, but I was 0 for 3, with my main world the farest out needing about 60 staves to get the final set. Clearly you either have to get really, really lucky on some of the rolls or buy it. Very frustrating. I'm not going to completely delete the game, but probably cut down to one active world at this point.
 

m4rt1n

Adept
One would think that if you completed all tasks and selected the beacons based on highest staves to sorcerer's knowledge ratios that at the end you would be able to complete all 8 pieces of the set, but I was 0 for 3, with my main world the farest out needing about 60 staves to get the final set. Clearly you either have to get really, really lucky on some of the rolls or buy it. Very frustrating. I'm not going to completely delete the game, but probably cut down to one active world at this point.

How many pieces did you get, there are only 7.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
First, let's talk about SK collection.

What's a reasonable assessment of minimal-effort, bad luck event completion? Suppose someone logs in every two days for what we'll call 12 times, right before the expiration of the daily gift, so they immediately pick up the odd day's gift, and then minutes later they get the even day's gift. They also, each visit, pick up the 6 SK's littered around their city, but with bad luck, every single one is worth only 1 SK. And, they manage to complete all the quests in those 12 visits. Oh, and they don't get the e-mail. So, they complete all the quests for 3729 SK, they get all the dailies for 805, and they pick up 12*6 = 72 SK around their city, for a disappointing total of 4,606 SK.

What's a reasonable assessment of normal-effort, bad luck event completion? Suppose you log in every day for a 3-3-3-3-3-9 production schedule. You get all the daily gifts, you get 21 city pickups a day (you miss 3 overnight), but with bad luck they are still all 1 SK. You complete all the quests. But the bad luck also means you get no e-mail. That's 3729 + 805 + 483 = 5,017 SK. (If you check once in the middle of the night for full-effort, bad luck event completion, that's 69 more village SK, totaling 5,086 SK)

Suppose you have average luck, which I will say is getting the e-mail and averaging 2 SK per pickup. Minimal-effort average luck = 4,778 SK, normal-effort average luck is 5,600 SK, and full-effort average luck is 5,738 SK.

And lastly, if you have good luck, which I will say is getting the e-mail and always picking up 3 SK. Minimal-effort good luck = 4,850 SK, normal-effort good luck is 6,083 SK, and full-effort good luck (a perfect collection) = 6,290.

All together...

Bad LuckAverage LuckGood Luck
Minimal-effort4,606 SK4,778 SK4,850 SK
Normal-effort5,017 SK5,600 SK6,083 SK
Full-effort5,086 SK5,738 SK6,290 SK

Looking at the above, for normal effort, luck gives a -583/+483 (-10.4%/+8.6%) swing around average luck (unequal because of the e-mail), or an overall 19% spread.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Now, let's be really pessimistic. What would be the results of bad luck hitting a player following bad strategy?

Well, bad luck would be always being presented with the most costly options and after selection never getting a bonus, and bad strategy would be to always pick the most costly option. And for this game, the most costly option is the 30 beacon. We all agree on that, given its numbers at 30/staff face value, or 26.25/staff expected value, its just the worst.

To get the full set, 13 Grand Prizes, you need 260 staffs, and a bad luck bad strategy player would need 30*260 = 7,800 SK. Looking at the above chart, not going to happen. Ever. Not that we needed, but there's the proof that not everyone is guaranteed a full set.

Given the tables from the above number, how would our bad luck bad strategy player actually do with those starting numbers?

Bad LuckAverage LuckGood Luck
Minimal-effort153 staffs, 7 GPs, 5/7 set159 staffs, 7 GPs, 5/7 set161 staffs, 8 GPs, 5/7 set
Normal-effort167 staffs, 8 GPs, 5/7 set186 staffs, 9 GPs, 5/7 set202 staffs, 10 GPs, 6/7 set
Full-effort169 staffs, 8 GPs, 5/7 set191 staffs, 9 GPs, 5/7 set209 staffs, 10 GPS, 6/7 set
 

Sir Derf

Adept
How about bad luck hitting a player following good strategy?

Well, this is my post, so I am deciding that I am a player who knows the math, and knows that for Elvenar beacons, there is no point factoring possible luck into my decisions. So I define good strategy as picking the beacon with the best average return factoring in the published average chance at getting the bonus.

Bad luck would always present me with the choice of 30, 54 and 89, and the best choice of those three is 89, so good strategy would be to pick the 89 every time. With bad luck (which I couldn't/didn't count on), my conversion rate is the every so slightly better 29.67 SK per staff. For 7/7, 260 staffs, you would only need 7,713 initial SK, and the grid would look like this...

Bad LuckAverage LuckGood Luck
Minimal-effort155 staffs, 7 GPs, 5/7 set161 staffs, 8 GPs, 5/7 set163 staffs, 8 GPs,5/7 set
Normal-effort169 staffs, 8 GPs, 5/7 sets188 staffs, 9 GPs, 5/7 set205 staffs, 10 GPs, 6/7 set
Full-effort171 staffs, 8 GPs, 5/7 set193 staffs, 9 GPs, 5/7 set212 staffs, 10 GPs, 6/7 set
 

Leorobin

Dreamer
Well, I focused on optimal cost/benefit beacons, regardless of the reward, and did some pickup, maybe two or three times a day. I managed to get the full set with 261 staffs in the league table and 2 SK leftover. I have no idea of how much I spent though. Maybe got 200 or 300 extra total from the beacons. Considering I always spent 27 SK or less per staff, that would be at most 7020 SK for the 260 staffs. I never saw a trio of beacons that forced me to spend over 27.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
How about average luck on good strategy?

Well, average luck on beacon presentation, I will define as having an equal chance of being presented with beacons of a given value. And I'm going to ignore the effects of ending a map on the last two squares, where you aren't presented with all three types of beacons.

  • 25% of the time you are presented with the 18 beacon, and you should pick it. (25%, 25% total)
  • 25% of the time you are presented with the 27 beacon, and you should pick it. (25%, 50% total)
  • The other 50% of the time you are presented with either the 32 or the 30 beacon, and you should not pick them.
    • 33% of the time you are presented with the 45 beacon that might give SK, and you should pick it. (16.67%, 66.67% total)
    • The other 66% of the time you are presented with either the 45 no SK or the 54 beacon, and you should not pick them.
      • 50% of the time you are presented with the 80 beacon, and you should pick it. (16.67%, 83.33% total)
      • 50% of the time you are presented with the 89 beacon, and you should pick it. (16.67%, 100% total)

At this point, my current method of computing outcomes is insufficient for the task. I will have to modify my spreadsheet to compute the results of a strategy that includes more than one type of chest pick over time.
 

m4rt1n

Adept
@Sir Derf maths will never beat the Inno RNG, +1 for trying though. :p

Have you factored in "Russel" sat in the Hamburg office drinking his Stein of Beer and altering the odds mid event dependent on mood in the background lol
 

Sir Derf

Adept
No, but at one point in the process of writing my bad luck bad strategy post, I did edit out the following to try and describe bad luck.

Suppose an INNO programmer, call him INNO Danno, custom coded the game so that, for a particular account, every call to the RNG would instead call a custom subroutine that would always return 0. Let's call this player account Murphy.

To be clear, this is a hypothetical scenario. And I believe an illegal scenario, as the Murphy account would be subject to operational behavior that differs from published odds. The same would hold true, in my understanding, if accounts were programmed to intentionally have higher or lower weighting then what is published. There is a difference between forcing a player account to have atypical behavior, and allowing a player account to experience atypical behavior as a result of typical operation; the first is, I believe, illegal, the second is simply unfortunate.

I was going to add it, because I thought I was going to discuss the difference in strategy between INNO Danno playing on the Murphy account knowing full well that he would never get a break versus Joe Shmoe playing on the Murphy account, unaware of the tinkering under the hood and strategizing as any normal person should, based on the published expectations of the beacons. And discarded it , as the 30 chest was equally worst in either case, so the whole thing was unnecessary.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
I'm not saying the decrease in size, and therefore production, of the steel is bad, I'm saying it's just relatively smaller.



Also, 6000 is a generic rule of thumb and a convenient round number, but not necessarily a guarantee. As with pudding and tasting, the proof of the total SK is in the performing of the math.

Total of 75 Quests = 3729
23 days of 35 SK = 805
e-mail = 100
Total = 4634

Perfect daily pickup is what, 24 per hour, 23 days, 552 pickups, which gives something between 552 and 1656. That means somewhere between 5186 and 6,290 as a maximum value. I think these are close to the right numbers, I may be off by a day or two somewhere in the above.

Considering I played with 1 day left on the clock, and maybe not perfect pickup every day I did play, I'd say that was a decent value. I'm happy with my result.

Thanks for this one: I will lower the expectation from 6k to 5.5k then :) btw that makes the already completely useless Ash bird just a little bit worse ;) Just mentioning it because you forgot to include it in the maximum effort option ;)
 

Gargon667

Mentor
@Sir Derf maths will never beat the Inno RNG, +1 for trying though. :p

Have you factored in "Russel" sat in the Hamburg office drinking his Stein of Beer and altering the odds mid event dependent on mood in the background lol

Maths always gives you the best chance to beat the RNG :)
 
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