Mai's Guide to Efficient Farming – List of best lvls to farm monster, different resources, wanted missions and XP

reference
#70

Example of what I mean, lvl 8-7

Try 1
Wave 1 (4 monsters) A gave me 4 items, B gave me 3, C none, D 7, closing the wave
Wave 2 (3 monsters) A, B, C none
Wave 3 (4 monsters) A none, B gave 3, C and D none
Wave boss (2) A none, B 3
Total 20 – 9 recruits, 8 different items, a few double 1 star. One 1x3*, rest 1*.
5 monsters gave items

Try 2
Wave 1 (4) A none, B 3, C 3, D none
Wave 2 (3) A 3, B and C none
Wave 3 (4) A 3, B 2, C and D none
Wave boss (2) A none, B 2
Total 16 – 8 recruits, 6 different items, a few double 1 star. One 1x2*, rest 1*.
6 monsters gave items

Try 3
Wave 1 (4) A 7, B, C, D none
Wave 2 (3) A none, B 4 and C 6
Wave 3 (4) A 3, B, C and D none
Wave boss (2) A none, B none
Total 20 – 10 recruits, 9 different items, a few double 1 star. Two 1x2*, rest 1*.
4 monsters gave items

Try 4
Wave 1 (4) A 3, B, C, D none
Wave 2 (4) A 3, B and C none, D 3
Wave 3 (4) A none, B 3, C 3 and D 3
Wave boss (2) A none, B none
Total 18 – 9 recruits, 6 different items, a few 2* and 1* double. 1x2* and 2x2*, rest 1*.
6 monsters gave items

Try 5
Wave 1 (4) A, B, C, D none
Wave 2 (4) A 6, B and C none
Wave 3 (4) A 3, B 3 , C 3 and D none
Wave boss (2) A 2, B none
Total 17 – 9 recruits, 6 different items, a one double 1 star, one double 2 stars. One 1x2*, one 2x2*, one 3*, rest 1*.
5 monsters gave items

The only thing I can see is that it’s a random loot chance per enemy. Other than that can you see any thing else?

#71

That 6 is strong for adventurers kit, that a fact stated by the game itself. But inside it, god only knows, and devs hehe

#72

@Revelate: Don’t forget to check 12-2 for boots; that’s where nearly all of mine have come from. :wink:

#73

Oh how I wish for proper tooltips! We can hope.

#74

Mai,

Help me understand this, why do I care at all which monsters drop what inside a map?

Of course it’s semi-random on each one in terms of which mob in a zone drops, repeating a level shows that different chest icon counts get built in different orders, you can see that it on a very small sample set, like 3 repeats almost guarunteed. Sure it would help to figure out what’s going on there, but that doesn’t mean it changes the average drop quantity of a given zone… your own data makes the case for that point, individual maps have ranges, not above, not below and there’s even a distribution on them based on my data: that’s probability / chance in action but the results have rules.

That’s basically a given, Occam’s Razor and the KISS principal apply too: these are humans writing a loot system, they didn’t do that with a oujia board heh.

I’m a little surprised by your response actually :). This isn’t a complicated thing, and over enough entries (it may be a lot but apparently I have lots of time on my hands farming the same things over and over in game and maybe others will pitch in) it should map out fairly well.

What’s the worst case really, it’s going to be less accurate than what’s being passed around today for farming specific maps for particular items? Really? :smile:

Something useful might come out of it, maybe not, but it’s possible; I don’t think there’s as much complication in the loot system as you describe, there’s just limited entries as to what can go into the table on a pseudo random algorithm.

If I’m wrong hey, I’m wrong, but I’m confident that we don’t need to reverse engineer the full loot algorithm to observe it’s results and potentially get something meaningful out of it.

Anyway we can do smarter stuff too, like to your point that 8-7 is better than virtually anything else beyond that for hero leveling, given enough data we can get stuff like:

Screen Shot 2017-07-17 at 12.18.51 PM.png774×138 8.36 KB

and actually really quantify it for hero levelling efficiency which is what I care about personally. Certainly the results there match with what you already have found, so it’s not like the data is completely unviable :).

#75

Why do I care which monster drop what?
Ok, what if bosses drop A LOT more items guarantee? Let’s imagine monster with mana drops 7 items guarantee, that would mean you want levels with a lot of bosses and mana users.

Is by that you should care for that specifically, you should care about understanding how that mechanic of loot works. So to understand how to take advantage of it.

I meant that you don’t go straight to a list of loot, you start by figuring out what’s happening. So to make the list. Example, before making my list I figured out how waves work, so to know what I should be looking for on those fights. To calculate how many monster a lvl can have and then test out.

I had this question about whether low lvls could spawn waves with 5 monsters and I farmed the crap out of 8-7 until it happened. So I have proof that my theory was right.

If you can’t understand the mechanic, your data has little value, since it’s unrefined and unfiltered. 5 tries showed little, but I did noticed that the amount of different items is equal or superior of the amount of monsters that dropped loots. If I continue to test it out and that holds up, it proves that you want to do levels with the higher number of enemies you can, so to increase the possibility of loot.

Another aspect of it, trying to figure out if color chance loot in anyway, if special levels give more quality loots and so on.

Like I said in the main post, I’m methodical. I first figure out the logic behind it, without assuming something as obvious. I check every possibility and then compose a list that I can say is accurate.

Currently what puzzles me is how they made the loot, specially the XP part. They all end in 0 or 7, the high ones. That’s really weird. It’s also weird that they did it by hand. So I’m puzzled.

#76

I guess we disagree regarding value.

The boss count is fixed per level, that part of the zone isn’t random, whether the boss drops or not is somewhat determined by the number of drops you’ve gotten previously… if you get 10 loots on a typical 14 loot map off the top on the first wave (it happened to me once) that doesn’t leave much for the other waves. Also the mob distribution is within a range, and it does vary some but that’s a probability distribution to your point too regarding 5 waves in 8-7.

All of that comes out to a wash for the end result on a large enough sample size. What can drop can be characterized (I’m only tracking things germane to leveling/ascending heroes) and it’s frequency can be determined just by recording the final result and aggregating over a large enough data set. That’s statistics and not of the damned lies variety.

You’ve already done a great job characterizing the maps, tracking the drops is a different path to a result that complements what you are doing it doesn’t replace or invalidate it: if you figure out that yes, we want as many mobs as possible, that’s fantastic! That’s what I was getting at for places to go help test, figure out the best levels and go and hit them and just collect some data.

For the record, I’m basing a lot of the zones to go try this approach on with using your own excellent analysis… heck that’s part of science, someone takes a result someone has already accomplished and tries to do something a little different with it.

It’s not as sophisticated of an approach as yours and I fully admit that your analysis will likely produce results in excess of this, but things like special levels can be tested, 5-8 vs. 8-7 can be directly compared, and 12-9 or 13-6 vs. 16-9 for chain mail drops can be done so as well.

I’ll admit, this is basic stuff and not nuclear physics, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.

If I have stepped on your toes or offended you as you suggest in your top post, that’s not my intention and I apologize.

#77

Not at all, not saying not do to either. I was just trying to explain, clearly failed, that the local analysis won’t help figuring out the “general laws”. You would have to do to one by one, but if you figure the math behind it, you might figure all lvls at once.

As I said a few times, English is my second language and my vocabulary and ways to express myself is limited, if I sound hash or too critical, it is mostly a loss in translation then actually me being mean. If anything I was trying to share my logic so maybe you could take advantage of it, and warning not to be mislead by some good odds and suddenly declare that’s gotta be the best lvl to do so.

If you tell me what lvls you looking into, I can send you my printscreens of it (if they have the info you seek) and help you out by increasing your data pool. :slightly_smiling_face:

Clearly gotta use some more smiles around so people don’t get mislead by my poor choice of words. :smiley: now that sounded ironic, ■■■■ you English.

#78

The screenshots I got here:

8-7 LVL

SWORD	BACKPACK	RECRUITS	HEROES
1	1		8		0
1	1		8		0
0	0		9		1
1	0		8		0
2	1		10		0
1	0		8		0
0	0		9		0
0	1		10		1
#79

Yeah, but I’m taking baby steps as figuring out everything is likely going to be a long time horizon project.

I’ll take whatever you have to try to improve the data, the only thing for 8-7 that gets tracked in addition to what you posted is troops and total item count (might be useful later), the basic things I’m tracking to input in general into the database are:

image.png721×17 1.88 KB

I think I have all the rare farmable ascension items in there, not tracking the base ones like sharpening stones as I have a dumb amount of those already under 2 weeks played

Edit: that’s hard to read
Level
Sword
Backpack
Chainmail
Battle Manual
Tall Boots
Scabbard
Heroes
Troops
Total Items
Recruits

I can go create a Google Drive folder or similar if you just want to upload screenshots, or if you’re parsing them into some other spreadsheet or similar I don’t mind inputting that every so often.

Likewise if I can wrap my head around what you’re tracking I’ll try to get some data around that too haha. Thanks!

#80

Just checking in to see if 8-7 still seems to be the go-to level for things to help level your characters? Also, if my Stronghold is level 12, is three the maximum training camps I can have? I have one of them training “Advanced” troops so one every day or so, and the other two doing Uncommon currently but man my troops seem to be going up real slow (none have been maxed since my post about a month ago (currently on Province but only do one or two levels a day, rest of the energy goes on 8-7):

Screenshot_2017-08-07-10-55-55
Screenshot_2017-08-07-10-55-55.png720×1280 559 KB

#81

Although provinces 3 and 4 have increased change to drop adventurer’s kit and practice swords, 8-7 drops a lot more loot than the best lvls of those two provinces. Not to mention the better exp and better amounts of recruits. If your goal is farming items for training in the training camp I strongly suggest 8-7. :slight_smile:

#82

Just to add to Mai’s response, 8-7 is the best level for farming recruits, which is obviously the main thing you need to level your characters. But remember you’ll also need a fair amount of chain shirts, scabbards, and tall boots, which don’t start dropping until province 12. You don’t want to be in a position where you’ve got heroes to train with but you’re capped waiting for Ascension materials.

For those Ascension items, I farm 13-6 (the last 4-wave stage that costs 4 energy). I used to split my time fairly evenly between 8-7 and 13-6. Now that I have 15+ spare copies of each item, I mostly just do 8-7 again.

Also, you are correct that you only should have three training camps at stronghold level 12. You don’t get your fourth camp until stronghold level 20.

#83

Traevon, suggestion: try out 12-9. Better exp, better number of recruits and more items, same 4 cost.

lvl		Energy	XP		Food		Iron		Recruit	Item
12-9		4	1387	2402		5436		9		18
13-6		4	1290	2651-2693	5461-5693	5-7		14
#84

Well I’ll be.

I guess I just assumed that a level with more waves of more, higher-level enemies would give more experience and items… :roll_eyes:

I swear, so many design decisions in this game just make absolutely zero sense.

Thanks for all the work you put in to figure out what’s actually going on, Mai!

#85

Ikr??? And it’s not a hiccup either. Check the list and look the first column the exp per energy is completely drunk, heheh

#86

That’s it, my list is completely filled, yay! I’m currently traveling so can’t make a graph, but if someone else would like to do one, go ahead! Heh :smiley:

#87

Thanks so much for all this info. I have used this info so much and it all really has helped me to level n ascend heros n get battle items. It’s been so much of a great help i copied and pasted it in my notebook. I have also shared it with my alliance members, even out in GC. I just wanted to thank you mai. Hugs Skunky

#88

Thanks so much for the monster effort that went into this!

Only one question: Why not include which levels drop troops? I was specifically looking for them. Thanks!

#89

All levels have a chance to drop troops just like heroes