I don’t break flasks for VF, relying on free energy mostly, unless Vf clashes with other quests that I want to do. At most, I use only 2 energy flasks.
My previous VF focused on 3WE stages mostly. Met about 5-6 gnomes on average, yielding mix of crafting mats, emblems and coins. Nothing to get exited about.
This round, however, has been more productive, probably because I am mission-farming for Goo and Teaks. I have been replaying P23-2 or P23-4 to complete that H special stage mission.
My haul of gnomes reached 12 over 3 days. The rewards have been surprisingly nice in general : enough of =>100k ham crates, 15x dragon bones, 15x coins, to make me smile. As I keep on grinding.
I am not sure if it’s because I am replaying higher stages. Or maybe system decided to be nice to me.
Perhaps you can test higher WE stages for VF in the next round, to see whether you can meet more gnomes (I am assuming that you have completed S3 yah)
I have primarely been playing 9:2 because I read that the number of coins depends on the number of enemies, not the difficulty. Previously it has served me well but not this time.
Anyway I am just trying to find out if I am the only one experiencing this “problem”.
I remember that in AR i got my best results farming 13-1 normal.
Which would translate in some sort of saddle point between minimum energy and maximum mob number.
Note that this does take a toll on loot tickets if that’s how you farm.
Click for lots of sound, and lots of fury both signifying lots of nothing
There is so much statistical noise ( see notes ) in AR dragon, and likely VF gnome, we are unlikely to ever know the true formula
Coin / loot rolls appear designed to make it worse
Daily limit on VF gnomes makes research on live server more difficult
But SGG has gone to great length to prevent one province from standing out significantly
So much data
Rumor from beta,
no one really cared about VF gnome
But
Beta testers REALLY cared about AR dragon
Several beta testers spent a crazy amount of time, and infinite loot tickets, testing it during multiple beta releases
Many live server big spenders spent huge hoards of flasks, tickets and micro transactions, testing it
Testing tools
I would love if someone cracked the AR dragon formula
The best tool for this was the Seadragon Avatar Mission ( 100 seadragons ) but rumor says most Beta testers finished the mission during the first AR it was offered
It will be interesting if SGG skips a similar avatar mission for VF gnomes
Conclusion
The conclusion among the beta testers, and some live server math people I know,
SGG deliberately designed AR dragon ( and very likely VF gnome ) to be
Heavily influenced by WE spent
Little difference between where you spend 12 WE ( minimum 3 WE, maximum 12 WE )
Roughly 0.01666 dragon per 1x WE or 1x dragon per roughly 60 WE
Highly variable ( minimum 0, theoretically maximum of 18 per run, odds 1 in 2.337716869172e34 of 18 seadragons in one run )
Very streaky ( like scratch off lottery tickets )
Resistant to reverse engineering
Note
Click for notes
AR dragon
Avatar Mission
Avatar mission requires 100 seadragons and an average of 6000 WE for approximately
Very few gnomes this time round. I typically get 7-10 gnomes by farming without using any flask but only 3 this time round - two bundles + 3 barb emblems.
In any case, I am just using VF to farm for avatars so any rewards from gnomes will be considered as extra loots to me.
It was mentioned many times. Gnomes don’t give coins only. You can receive food or iron bundles, emblems 4* farmable materials as well. So you probably got something else.
