MinMax Gamer
Well-Known Member
Indeed, this question pops up on a regular basis. Here is an extreme example that illustrates why using prioritization strictly on individual ratios is not the best approach:
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Discussion Elvarian Carnival 2021
- Thread starter Marindor
- Start date
Enevhar Aldarion
Well-Known Member
This event is definitely going the opposite of how they usually go for me on Beta, that is, winning hardly any daily prizes. So far I have gotten 2 of the day 1 prize, 2 of the day 2 prize, did not spend any on day 3, 1 on day 4, and 2 today on day 5. And I am also caught up on the quests. Did quest 57 tonight and now relaxing til the next quest unlocks tomorrow.
ekarat
Well-Known Member
No, I get it. I know how optimization works. It's a non-greedy strategy. Greedy may not always be optimal, but it's easy to implement, easy to analyze, and sometimes good enough in practice to not make that much of a difference.
For purpose of analysis, you can assume a number of rounds where each combination comes up once, total up all the flags of the chosen chests and divide by the total number of candies (or take the inverse of that, if you prefer). A greedy algorithm will cost you 21.7 candies/flag (assuming I didn't typo the numbers I punched into the calculator). That's a better ratio than all but the chest with the very best ratio -- that's how much better that chest is, and it comes up 1/3 of the time, so you have an incentive to choose a cheaper chest in hopes of getting that better chest more often with the same budget.
If the very best chest, weren't about 10% better than the others, and if it didn't come up 1/3 of the time, your incentive to act in a non-greedy fashion would drop, and it wouldn't make a difference, but it can here.
Lelanya
Well-Known Member
Hi @Marindor.
I read somewhere that the developers have balanced things so that it is possible to win enough Artifacts to Evolve a building up to 10 without resorting to the Fellowship Adventures. In light of this, it seems that the daily candy has increased from 45 to 50, and I noticed that the early quests gave more than the Misty Forest event. However, we are using the rotating chest system for rewards, so perhaps that will negate the advantage. If the extra does give an advantage that allows us to mainly skip a big effort in the Adventures, that will be a great improvement. At this point I am cautiously optimistic.
I am wondering where the sequential quests give out and the dailies start, however. So any information you can give will be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much,
Lel
I read somewhere that the developers have balanced things so that it is possible to win enough Artifacts to Evolve a building up to 10 without resorting to the Fellowship Adventures. In light of this, it seems that the daily candy has increased from 45 to 50, and I noticed that the early quests gave more than the Misty Forest event. However, we are using the rotating chest system for rewards, so perhaps that will negate the advantage. If the extra does give an advantage that allows us to mainly skip a big effort in the Adventures, that will be a great improvement. At this point I am cautiously optimistic.
I am wondering where the sequential quests give out and the dailies start, however. So any information you can give will be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much,
Lel
FieryArien
Well-Known Member
From my point of view it seems ok. I’m 2 researches from Orcs (planning to get there soon, so I can finally claim the base building with next chapter stats). And currently I’m at 38(ish) quest.
- Quests ask for A LOT of relics/encounters. I was lucky and have a lot of opened provinces, so luckily it wasn’t a problem, but even I’m noticing the amount.
- There is one thing I love on several recent events’ quests: I’m playing without spoilers. It’s fun! I liked the old old style too - when I could go through the whole quests set in a few days using spoilers and then focus on my city as if there wasn’t an event at all. It was less disruptive. The only combination I don’t like is: too hard sequential quest (maybe even spoilers needed) and then daily-locked quests. That takes the worst from each of those two approaches.
- Mechanics of this event - the rotating chests - is my favorite, because I can choose what “consolation prices” I prefer. Being at the Orc’s door for example means I always take a chest with portal profit spell. It will probably negatively influence the amount of artifacts I get, but I strongly prefer to tailor my event strategy based on my current development than to have everything totally random.
- Chest rewards surprised me this time by offering T2 and T3 goods. Not interested, but not complaining either. Even now I’m sometimes hard pressed for T2/3 goods (doing whole Spire for 6 week didn’t help), so I guess I should be interested ... Maybe increase the amount a bit?
- Daily prices are hard to comment, since it’s too soon. And I’ll leave that to others, because being where I am, basically only portal profit interests me.
Now what do I expect in my Traders-chapter live city (researching Trade center 3)? Quests look doable, not too hard not too easy. Mechanics is still my favorite. Chest rewards depend - will I get T2 or T3 goods? I’m really really not interested in some small amounts or those (though everything’s better than 1 rune). Orcs would be good (they also don’t decay, just like T2/3). Maybe Unurium. (Just a joke - it just happens to be my most limiting resource right now. A daily prize producing Unurium would be a pleasant surprise.)
PS: Originally it wasn’t supposed to be this long! Sorry for such a wall of text Marindor, I swear there is really some feedback hidden there. ;-)
SoggyShorts
Well-Known Member
@Marindor
Quests:
I'm not sure if we're supposed to be able to finish the sequential list with no spoilers and no timers in a couple of days, but it's very doable this event. Like many others, I find the quests to be quite repetitive, but I'm not sure what the cure for that is since any non-generic quest gets a massive amount of negative feedback.
Players want quests that they can complete "without disrupting their city" that are also "varied and interesting" and "a reasonable challenge"
Good luck with that.
Mechanics:
I find the 3-chest system to be far too reliant on luck and overall to be extremely boring. It's really unfortunate that the consolation prizes on the shuffleboard were so dismal as that was objectively a much more fair system where you could get guaranteed outcomes. If you just replaced those silly 1-relic boxes with some very minor KP or time instants it would have been a huge hit.
Also, despite the surprisingly steep learning curve for some the misty forest event was clearly the most engaging format Elvenar has had the only tweak that one needed was a better tutorial and the chests there could have been grouped so that when you uncovered one you could choose from 3 chests (the best of 2 formats rolled into one)
It's fine to sprinkle in some of these 3-chest events but I sincerely hope there are more of the interesting kind of Event formats coming down the pipe.
----------------------------------------
Prizes:
It's always hard to follow the winter event where really good pop&culture hybrids are offered, but from what I can see all of the daily offerings are a little underwhelming.
The thing is with near-back-to-back events you don't need to offer the same category of powerful prizes to make us happy. I mean anyone who got Goblin Gift Shops is likely still in the same chapter and doesn't need to replace them yet.
So what would be nice is a different category of focus, perhaps on rotation?
While the introduction of RR spells was something that many players really wanted, it also created a very serious issue of advanced players not being interested in any of the new offerings.
The solution to this could be the introduction of more expiring buildings. If the average number of dailies winable is ~16 in an event the current 5-day boosters might be too powerful of a prize, but there's no reason you can't make a +10% UUU style building or a +25% ELR/MMM. Adding such a building for HR, LM, and HM would be fantastic too.
For the pacifists among us, a building that had a similar effect to an activated EE spell could be interesting. +X% to culture for a limited time would be like a fountain of coins and supplies. Different from culture building in that it can expire without breaking a city.
The same thing for goods should be doable as well: A 5-day building that acts like an Elvenar Trade Center to boost MM spell effectiveness.
Actually, I'm sure if we just take a look at the wonders and make 5-day effects for some of them we can come up with a bunch of fun, useful and most importantly replaceable little buildings.
Well... that was going to be much shorter and almost morphed into an ideas&suggestions thread. Ah well, hope it helps.
Quests:
I'm not sure if we're supposed to be able to finish the sequential list with no spoilers and no timers in a couple of days, but it's very doable this event. Like many others, I find the quests to be quite repetitive, but I'm not sure what the cure for that is since any non-generic quest gets a massive amount of negative feedback.
Players want quests that they can complete "without disrupting their city" that are also "varied and interesting" and "a reasonable challenge"
Good luck with that.
Mechanics:
I find the 3-chest system to be far too reliant on luck and overall to be extremely boring. It's really unfortunate that the consolation prizes on the shuffleboard were so dismal as that was objectively a much more fair system where you could get guaranteed outcomes. If you just replaced those silly 1-relic boxes with some very minor KP or time instants it would have been a huge hit.
Also, despite the surprisingly steep learning curve for some the misty forest event was clearly the most engaging format Elvenar has had the only tweak that one needed was a better tutorial and the chests there could have been grouped so that when you uncovered one you could choose from 3 chests (the best of 2 formats rolled into one)
It's fine to sprinkle in some of these 3-chest events but I sincerely hope there are more of the interesting kind of Event formats coming down the pipe.
----------------------------------------
Prizes:
It's always hard to follow the winter event where really good pop&culture hybrids are offered, but from what I can see all of the daily offerings are a little underwhelming.
The thing is with near-back-to-back events you don't need to offer the same category of powerful prizes to make us happy. I mean anyone who got Goblin Gift Shops is likely still in the same chapter and doesn't need to replace them yet.
So what would be nice is a different category of focus, perhaps on rotation?
A seed producer that is slightly better than a Festival Merchant
A pure culture building better than a Lava codex
A mana building better than a sawmill
An orc producer better than an orc nest
Basically, if it's not better than a craftable building it's not going to spark joy for anyone.While the introduction of RR spells was something that many players really wanted, it also created a very serious issue of advanced players not being interested in any of the new offerings.
The solution to this could be the introduction of more expiring buildings. If the average number of dailies winable is ~16 in an event the current 5-day boosters might be too powerful of a prize, but there's no reason you can't make a +10% UUU style building or a +25% ELR/MMM. Adding such a building for HR, LM, and HM would be fantastic too.
For the pacifists among us, a building that had a similar effect to an activated EE spell could be interesting. +X% to culture for a limited time would be like a fountain of coins and supplies. Different from culture building in that it can expire without breaking a city.
The same thing for goods should be doable as well: A 5-day building that acts like an Elvenar Trade Center to boost MM spell effectiveness.
Actually, I'm sure if we just take a look at the wonders and make 5-day effects for some of them we can come up with a bunch of fun, useful and most importantly replaceable little buildings.
Well... that was going to be much shorter and almost morphed into an ideas&suggestions thread. Ah well, hope it helps.
M3rLiN
Member
Enevhar Aldarion
Well-Known Member
Hi Marindor,
Any chance of more quests before the daily quests start? please
The Daily quests started on the first day. If you could finish all the quests that are available right away, you will then get the first daily quest, and then you will get locked out til the next day. So today, we are already on the 6th daily quest.
guivou
Well-Known Member
i rather prefer shuffle board than the 3 chests , result here is based on luck ( 500 extra candies for 5%) and on shuffle result is predictable, you are sure to get a least one daily prize using a known amount of event currency, here you can spend 1000 currency without any daily ;..
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Brummbaer
Well-Known Member
I personally prefer the "Rotating Chest System"
It gives me the possibility to choose by my own what kind of reward including side rewards fits best to my playing behavior. Strategic selection +++
The "Shuffle System" is a "Lottery", BUT with the garantee to get the Daily Prize if investing enough currency. Side rewards mostly bad.
The "Mystery of the Myst system": The only event where I did not get enough artefacts to evolve the building to final stage without the following FA
>> so I don't like this <<
It gives me the possibility to choose by my own what kind of reward including side rewards fits best to my playing behavior. Strategic selection +++
The "Shuffle System" is a "Lottery", BUT with the garantee to get the Daily Prize if investing enough currency. Side rewards mostly bad.
The "Mystery of the Myst system": The only event where I did not get enough artefacts to evolve the building to final stage without the following FA
>> so I don't like this <<
PaNonymeB
Well-Known Member
Actually choosing when you shuffle means you can get more of what you want just after you get it.
Pauly7
Well-Known Member
The 3 chest system is a double-edged sword. The majority seem to prefer it. Indeed, for some reason Inno seems much happier to give out a better standard of "filler" prize in this system than they do in shuffle events, so that works in its favour. As such, this system is way better for those people who don't care about daily prizes.
In my Beta city I'm still developing and trying to replace a lot of older buildings. As the evolving building in this event is both underwhelming and ugly, I would quite like to get a few of the dailies. The big problem with the 3-chest system was illustrated to me the first day I decided to start opening chests. I was looking for the culture/pop daily a couple of days ago, spent 1,500 candies trying and didn't win it. That could not happen with the shuffleboard. In fact, I would have won that prize at least 5 times, and maybe 6 or 7 times.
In my Beta city I'm still developing and trying to replace a lot of older buildings. As the evolving building in this event is both underwhelming and ugly, I would quite like to get a few of the dailies. The big problem with the 3-chest system was illustrated to me the first day I decided to start opening chests. I was looking for the culture/pop daily a couple of days ago, spent 1,500 candies trying and didn't win it. That could not happen with the shuffleboard. In fact, I would have won that prize at least 5 times, and maybe 6 or 7 times.
Marindor
Well-Known Member
Lelanya
Well-Known Member
Yes we have MinMaxGamer has his analysis out on the US server :
Jackluyt
Well-Known Member
It is always nice to have a simple-to-use graphic for players who are not particularly computer literate or interested in number crunching.
MinMax has made a calculator - but a graphic would be much appreciated as well!
Please message me if anyone gets round to making a graphic like this.
SoggyShorts
Well-Known Member
What's the total currency available?
SoggyShorts
Well-Known Member
Interesting to have opposite experiences:
Yes, the consolation prizes were bad, but that is not the system's fault. Inno could choose to put those in the 3-chest or the 3-chest prizes in the shuffleboard.
Guaranteed "If I do this, I'll get that" +++
Actually strategy-based, and even some skill involved+++
The 3 chest system is boring and just far too luck-based. The last time I had one city hit that 5% chance at 500 three times and another missed it every time. Way too powerful an RNG. No "strategy" can beat RNG ---
The shuffle system got me and the wife a nice steady 18-22 dailies across 6 accounts and enough artifacts for a full evolution.
Yes, the consolation prizes were bad, but that is not the system's fault. Inno could choose to put those in the 3-chest or the 3-chest prizes in the shuffleboard.
Guaranteed "If I do this, I'll get that" +++
In the mist event not only did I get enough artifacts, I got a second building up to level 4. It wasn't a fluke either as I did that in all 3 cities.
Actually strategy-based, and even some skill involved+++