Magnum Opus

Dark_Rag

I created a gamependium roster, despite it being a little baby roster compared to all of yours..

ADChaos

I feel inspired to embark on a hoarding project myself.

Aweberman

ADChaos wrote:

I feel inspired to embark on a hoarding project myself.

It's fun! I recommend it. ... And that was only 18 days' worth, so I'm expecting my next haul (which will be almost a week longer, after Time Gem Season) to be even better.

Although, to be clear, it's not like this is any different from opening them up as they come. It just feels different.

ADChaos

Ah yeah it's just the illusion of it being something bigger!

Aweberman

TriggerTime posted the following in the chat: "I've often wondered if there's some kind of formula for optimal playing. Sometimes I find myself wondering if I should play another round or wait for the scores to recharge a bit first."

I'd like to provide some information on that (assuming, of course, that we're discussing Story mode here -- PvE).

In each subchapter of a Story event, there are 9 missions (nodes) that can be replayed, 6 "regular" missions and 3 "essential" missions (which require you to have a particular character. (Note: Sometimes there are more that can be played once; frequently there is also an "opening" mission that gives you the three characters from the essential missions to play with.) For each mission, there are 6 total rewards for finishing it. They are distributed in a fixed way, according to the following distribution:

Easy missions (the first three regular and 2* essential)

100 Iso-8 200 Iso-8 140 Iso-8 Standard Token 100 Iso-8 100 Iso-8

Hard missions (the fourth and fifth regular and 3* essential)

140 Iso-8 Standard Token 250 Iso-8 500 Iso-8 100 Iso-8 Mystery Boost

Hardest missions (the sixth regular and 4* essential)

140 Iso-8 500 Iso-8 250 Iso-8 Command Point 140 Iso-8 Mystery Boost

There are also some less-common distribution models.

Hardest missions in a 2-day subchapter

250 Iso-8 Command Point 500 Iso-8 Command Point 140 Iso-8 140 Iso-8

Wave missions -- normal (more than 3 enemies in a round or more than one round)
NOTE: These only have 4 rewards.

Event Token 500 Iso-8 Standard Token 250 Iso-8

Wave missions -- hard (i.e., the sixth regular mission)

Command Point 500 Iso-8 Standard Token 250 Iso-8

Wave missions -- hard, 2-day subchapter

Command Point Command Point 500 Iso-8 250 Iso-8

However, each mission is only worth its full amount of points for the first 4 times you clear it. After that, the point value is reduced by one-third and a 24-hour timer is started. Over the course of this 24-hour period, the point value steadily increases toward its maximum value. Since it takes 24 hours to recover one-third of the full point value of the mission, the amount recovered per hour is 1.388% of the full point value of the mission, and the amount recovered per minute is 0.023% of that value.

Let's use a simple value as an example. Say that a particular mission is worth 100 points. If you play the mission 6 consecutive times in order to collect all 6 rewards, the point value of each clear will be:

100 100 100 100 67 33

... and a 7th clear would only be worth 1 point, as the value never goes below 1.

However, if you were to play the mission 4 times and then wait 24 hours before gathering the 5th and 6th rewards, the point value would refill back up to its full amount. In this scenario, the point value of each clear would be the following:

100 100 100 100 100 67

... and now a 7th clear would be worth 33 points and the 8th clear would be 1.

The difference between the two scenarios above is clear. In the first example, 6 clears gets you 500 points, while in the second scenario, 6 clears gets you 567 -- a small but substantial increase.

Of course, it isn't usually possible to wait the full 24 hours before playing the mission a 5th and 6th time, as each subchapter only lasts 24 hours, so the second example above could be considered a "theoretical maximum", while the first example would be considered a "minimum."

"Optimal clearing" of the missions, then, is the following: Start the 24-hour timers as soon as possible, then wait as long as possible to finish. Here's how one might do that:

Begin playing immediately when the subchapter begins. Follow this path after any opening missions:

4* required (4 clears)
3* required (4 clears)
2* required (4 clears)
Easy missions (1 clear)
Hard missions (1 clear)
Hardest mission (4 clears)
5th mission (3 clears)
4th mission (3 clears)
3rd mission (3 clears)
2nd mission (3 clears)
1st mission (3 clears)

This order will generate the most possible points by starting the timers on the missions with the highest point value first.

Shortly before the end of the subchapter (1-2 hours from the end, depending on the strength of your roster), perform 3 more clears of each mission, starting with the lowest point value mission and ending with the highest.

This is how to score the most possible points, which is only a concern if you're trying for a high placement.

The way the progression rewards are structured, however, makes it unnecessary to clear the missions in this optimal fashion. Simply clearing each mission 4 times -- which can be done at any point during the 24-hour duration of the subchapter -- will allow you to reach full progression, whereas in order to get just the 4* cover (in Level 7 or higher), all one has to do is clear each hardest mission 4 times and each other mission once. (Or, to put it another way, clear every mission once, but also get all Command Points.)

Aweberman

As for ADChaos' specific question from yesterday -- how much difference does it make to do the 6th clear right away compared to waiting -- here's some data on that.

One clear of each repeatable node in day 3 of Prodigal Sun (Los Angeles) is worth 3157 points.
After the fourth clear, the total drops to around 2105 points (two-thirds of the full value).
After the fifth clear, the total drops to around 1052 points (one-third of the full value).

(Note that the actual amounts will be a few points higher due to regeneration. For example, the full score for Poison Truths -- the hardest regular node -- is 493. After the fourth clear, this drops to 329. Due to the rate of points recovery, however -- 0.023% of the full amount per minute -- it will be worth 1 additional point every 9 minutes or so.)

If ADChaos were to have done the final clear without waiting, this would have been worth an additional 1052 points (again, approximately -- and assuming that he did the 5th clear immediately on the heels of the 4th clear).

If he were to wait 8 hours, though, points would have rebuilt enough to make that same final clear worth an additional 350 points.

(recovery speed of 1.388% per hour) multiplied by (8 hours) = 11.104% of full value
0.111 x 3157 = 350

This means that a 7th clear (which, of course, would have no rewards attached to it) would also be worth an additional 350 points (again, plus a few due to time).

So waiting an additional 8 hours to do the same 6th clear would have gained about 1400 points instead of 1050 ... or about 1750 for doing 7 clears.

ADChaos

Thanks for the explanation!

TriggerTime

Aweberman wrote:

...I'd like to provide some information on that (assuming, of course, that we're discussing Story mode here -- PvE)...

That's very useful info, I'll try and put that into action for the next round.

Thanks

Dark_Rag

If only I had a convenient slice now... I'll try to use this though!

Aweberman

I meant to jump on here yesterday morning with a final report for my LT/CP hoard for November (if only to have an easy place for me to remember). And it was:

8 Lightning Tokens
517 Command Points

When I popped my stash on 18 November, I had 86 standard, 77 elite, 41 heroic, and assorted event.
As of right now (14 days of hoarding), I have 105 standard, 65 elite, 32 heroic, and assorted event. (More standard because more full clears.)

My goal is to open between PVP seasons, which according to the app is at least 9d 20h from now.

EDIT: I also meant to jump on here and edit my big PVE post above with the bit of information I missed, which is relevant in Hearts of Darkness: On wave missions, the 24-hour countdown starts after only 2 clears, rather than the normal 4.

Calnexin

Aweberman wrote:

If a player like that then is also regularly missing days of any play (something else I need to track), I will feel much less hesitation about kicking that player.

If we get to a place where everybody is putting at least some kind of effort into events, then we can start worrying about whether we want to set a threshold. Note, too, that when I say this, I'm not expecting everybody to play in BOTH PVP and PVE. One or the other is fine with me.

I applaud your effort. I've been a commander in three alliances, for no reason other than I was active. I'm happy to be in an alliance where the commanders are tracking effort, and reacting appropriately.

Aweberman

I was hoarding tokens during No-Pull November, then decided that it would be more to my liking to time the hoarding with the PVP seasons. So I opened everything on November 18, then started hoarding again in keeping with the Time Gem Season. Now that the season is over, it's time to open.

Here is where I stood after the last opening spree:

SHIELD Rank 63 (1760/2025 XP)
435542 Iso-8
1295 Hero Points
321 Command Points

And here's where I stand now:

SHIELD Rank 65 (2088/2125 XP)
915310 Iso-8
1430 Hero Points
691 Command Points

I will not provide a full breakdown of what I get, but I will do so by rarity.

174 standard tokens: 145 1*, 25 2*, 4 3*
108 elite tokens: 81 2*, 27 3*
76 heroic tokens: 56 2*, 14 3*, 6 4*
35 event tokens: 27 2*, 6 3*, 2 4*
37 taco tokens: 11 2*, 5 3*, 1 4*, 11 iso, 4 HP (250), 3 health packs
8 PVE vault tokens: 6 2*, 2 3*
residual heroic tokens: 9 2*, 5 3*, 1 4*

The final tally:

SHIELD Rank 67 (80/2200 XP)
1242440 Iso-8
4505 Hero Points
724 Command Points
12 Legendary Tokens (because I'm not opening those until I can open 260-300 at once from the latest legends)

Themakingofme

I joined so I can keep up with everything going on.
I'm also up for tips on how to improve my gameplay and team roster.
Between four kids, I try to play as much as possible, which is mostly at night.
Thankful to find this alliance.

TriggerTime

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into PVP...

Aweberman

TriggerTime wrote:

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into PVP...

But ... but ... but ...

... You said it was okay!

I swear!!

TriggerTime

Suddenly -




...and karma was finally restored.

TriggerTime

...and they became best friends forever.





"You'll always be my plus one!"

They both laughed.


The End.

Aweberman

TriggerTime wrote:

...and they became best friends forever.

"You'll always be my plus one!"

They both laughed.


The End.

Aweberman

I have been charting my SHIELD Intercepts since the last time I made a VIP purchase. Here is the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

In short, here are the results for what I've earned from intercepts in the last 28 days:

- 22 heroic tokens
- 38 elite tokens
- 4 command points
- 750 hero points
- 101,500 ISO-8

Seems pretty good.


Additionally, I started charting my bonus heroes last Monday in this spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Here are the results for that:

standard: 41 opened, 2 bonus heroes -- streaks of 1 and 25 (with an incomplete streak of 15)
elite: 50 opened, 1 bonus hero -- streak of 42, wherein I opened 14 2* in a row (with an incomplete streak of 8)
heroic: 31 opened, 2 bonus heroes -- streaks of 15 and 8 (with an incomplete streak of 7)
latest legends: 4 opened, 0 bonus heroes
heroic event: 4 opened, 0 bonus heroes
legendary event: 3 opened, 0 bonus heroes
heroic 10-packs: 3 opened, 4 bonus heroes (0 in one, 2 in each of the others)

So how does this stack up to the 5% rate? At the moment, it's right on for standard ... except that the rate is really 1:43 for 3* in standards. Elites really let me down, since I should have gotten 2 in that streak of 42 opens, rather than 1. Heroics have been good, running ahead of schedule so far at an 8.7% rate for the first two I received. The 3 10-packs I opened after the last PVP season were also overperformers with 13.3%; I should have probably gotten only 2 or 3 to hit the 8% mark. (No data at the moment on classic legends; I'm not opening any while I have a 50/50 chance of pulling a cover that would be excess.)

Aweberman

Another week, another set of 3* bonus heroes and no 4* or 5*. Of course, I'm sure I could solve that problem by actually spending my Command Points.

standard: 58 opened, 2 bonus heroes -- streaks of 38 and 34 (and a start of 1)
elite: 54 opened, 2 bonus heroes -- streaks of 14 and 24 (and an incomplete streak of 24)
heroic: 27 opened, 1 bonus hero -- streak of 11 (and an incomplete 23)
latest legends: 6 opened, 0 bonus heroes
heroic event: 4 opened, 0 bonus heroes

That's a total pull rate over the last two weeks of:

standard: 4.04% (which compares very favorably to the 2.32% chance of pulling a 3* from a standard pack)
elite: 2.88% (barely half of the advertised 5% ... though this week just ending was an improvement on the week before)
heroic: 5.26% (very close to the target, but down from the heady total of 8.7% in the first week ... and all 3*)
legendary: 0.00% -- but I've only opened 13 total, so it's not yet a statistical anomaly