What am I doing wrong?- Where are my Elemental chests?

Is skipping the timer even affordable now where the loot rarely exceeds 3 gems, but skipping the wait costs 20? If there is some kind of genius that you are hiding by buying 1 x oil, 1 x small mana potion and a sturdy jacket or knife scabbard, 30,000 iron and 20,000 ham for 20 gems could you please let me know the secret? Serious question.

I can’t pay, but I would be grateful. TIA

I time my skips when my energies are full and the timers are below costing 10 gems myself.

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20 gems is to skip the whole timer. you can do that only once or twice before the limit kicks in and you have to wait around 7 hours before you can skip. then you skip only around 4 hours and it costs 6-7 gems only.
when your storages are max level, you get around 100k food and iron per chest.
and of course nobody skips them for crafting mats and battle items - people skip them for non-farmable ascension mats. what gem price would you put on those? elemental chests also give you 20-50 gems and 10-50 emblems. plus loot tickets, trainer heroes, atlantis coins and a chance at epic summon tokens. it is totally worth it.

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The cost is proportional to the length of time remaining on the chest. Since there’s a cooldown timer that limits you to an average of 5 chests a day at max skip rate, if you skip right after the chest fills, you’re just wasting gems. Try waiting until the cooldown timer is 8h or less. It’s far cheaper for the same overall rate of chest completion.

The objective of skipping chests to get to elemental chests is nonfarmable ascension materials. Skipping chests is one of the few ways you can increase your acquisition rate of nonfarmable AM. The fact that they’re not guaranteed to be in a chest doesn’t make the strategy unwise.

Finally, I’m not sure what you think gregschen has done to warrant your heavy sarcasm here, but it seems pretty inappropriate given the circumstances.

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there is a thread on this very forum with a formula for gem cost dependence on the time left. someone figured it out.
briefly, it starts at 20 gems, then drops to 19 at 11:41 time left, then drops by 1 gem every 36 minutes.
I try to time my skipping soon after the cost drop, so that I dont pay an extra gem for just several minutes.

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Here is one thread, not sure if the answer is in there somewhere

EDIT: this is why I didn’t go through the posts looking for the answer … I wouldn’t understand it even if I found it :rofl:

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This looks like it:

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To try to state the cost for skipping chests in a simpler fashion, thinking of it like a parking meter:

It’s 1 gem for the first 53 minutes, and an additional gem for each 36 minutes thereafter.


It becomes 10 gems at 6:17 time remaining.

(@Garanwyn @princess1 @baga)

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Thank you all for taking the time to respond. Given the time frame that the forum covers, it might be reasonable to expect change and as such, what applied 15 months ago does not always mean it does now. Some things are the same, while other things are notably different. I’ve followed a couple of shocking tips that I was directed to follow and I’ve neglected others that I probably should have. I’m sure all of us with just the one account wishes they could just start over with the benefit of hindsight.

Farming materials (to fill chests, get recruits etc.), I have determined, is not quite as precise a practice as those public spread sheets suggest and frankly; some of the things I have read about particular 3* and 4* items, where can you find them and I have like 200 and some people are struggling, I don’t understand. I have, however, taken up filling the monster chest more reliably regularly, but the one I filled just earlier gave me just 1 (one) piece of 1 star loot and 2 gems, an emblem and an ordinary summon token (long term range 2-5 gems, 1-2 emblems and the other stuff). I wondered… Clearly, the answer is, it seems, that now, it really doesn’t pay for people like me (I can’t speak for any others) unless you have some kind of use for the extra recruits you will pick up as a byproduct. Oh well.

Then those dang elusive ascension materials; I have no idea why they need to be quite so rare; it’s not like you can buy them as an alternative. I’ve compared my statistics to those available for public scrutiny and I’m bewildered by the evidence of both abundance and famine.

Cheers and thank you very much again.

G, After re-reading your T&C’s, I’m yet to be convinced my sin was heinous, when it was moderate in context and in comparison IMO. I’m not going to debate it with you. Being a moderator is a pretty thankless task in my experience (I wouldn’t do it again) so I’m totally cool with you taking a public shot that I can’t take down.; let’s leave it at that okay?

Take care. Have a wonderful day.

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I skip chests whenever I can, but will wait until either raid or world energy is full (or almost) to pay the least possible gem cost. I tend to skip the raid chest more often, because of the better rewards, so I tend to get more elemental chests in that spot.

I started keeping track almost 3 months ago, but didn’t pay attention to the gem cost…it seems in line with what has been reported by previous posters here.

FWIW here are my results so far:

Date Position Color
2-11-19 raid fire
2-23-19 raid fire
3-3-19 raid nature
3-16-19 monster holy
3-28-19 raid fire
4-5-19 monster ice
4-14-19 monster ice
4-19-19 monster ice
5-1-19 raid dark
5-6-19 raid holy

That is awesome! I have only gotten 2 in 3-4 months, one in the first week and another 2 days ago (yellow and red). The loot, however, was excellent the other day. I was stoked.

You’ve already gotten enough replies on this, but since your reply was to me directly, and since space on this forum is free, I figure it can’t hurt to throw my two cents in too:

I’m guessing you’re referring to Mai’s farming guide (which is super old, and probably largely defunct) and Barry Farms Here (which is new, and which I contributed to heavily, but which I think is also unfortunately a little too hard to parse for most, and which I think is also overly ambitious given the data collection constraints), but correct me if I’m wrong. My personal take on farming the map for mats is that the distribution is truly random, with modifications for item rarity and specific frequencies in each province. I think the data collection efforts to try to pinpoint specific levels to farm for specific mats is futile. I arrived at that conclusion via my own extensive data collection efforts, as well as my contribution to (and discussion in the course of contributing to) Barry’s project.

On the other hand, farming for other resources (monsters to fill chests, recruits, ham, iron, XP) are much more predictable, and Barry’s spreadsheet does a good job of reflecting same.

You probably have built up large quantities of 3-star and 4-star mats because you’re not yet at the point where all your buildings are maxed, and your primary use for iron shifts to crafting. (Correct me I’m wrong on that, too!) Those of us who have reached that point, ran out of crafting mats quite quickly, and many of us have used up all our tornadoes and time stops fighting 11-star and 12-star titans, so trying to find a good level to farm nuggets or dragon bones has become a bit of a Holy Grail, hence all the effort going into those spreadsheets you’re talking about.

Similarly, for recruits, you DO eventually run out, if you use optimal TC strategies. But it’s a very long-run/endgame sort of problem.

Finally, to answer your original question (even though several others already have), the main reason to skip raid chest timers is to get to the next elemental chest more quickly. It’s a gem-negative strategy, to be sure, but the purpose is to get more chances at non-farmable ascension materials, which you can’t buy with gems straight up.

And I skip raid chest timers rather than monster chest timers because raid chests (especially in Diamond) are way more likely (although still unlikely overall - about 7% or 8% chance?) to contain non-farmable AMs themselves, in addition to speeding up the next elemental chest appearance.

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Just to help you understand moderation standards: if I thought it was a heinous violation of the forum rules, I’d have exercised my powers as a moderator and flagged the post (which would have hidden it).

Since it was heavy but incidental sarcasm in an otherwise useful question, I answered you, but commented on the fact that I considered it inappropriate. But I’ll make you a deal: I’m happy to edit out my comment if you edit out the sarcasm. Fair enough?

ahem Okay first off topic, congrats on being promoted to official Moderator status (I assume this is a promotion for you). I’m not just saying that so that you won’t ban me, because I’m not one for butt kissing and you don’t seem like the type who would be easily persuaded by my poorly feigned attempts at self-debasement. Just wanted to offer sincere congratulations (and condolences) on getting (having) to deal with this wonderful, vibrant (irritable), diverse (opinionated) community. Feel free to ban me if (when) I cross a line. Or, conversely, you could go flip the magic RNG switch that we all know you guys have access to and give me perfect boards and summons all the time, and we’ll all be happy and I’ll never ever bother you again. :grin:

Okay, jokes aside, now on topic. Where are my elemental chests? Seriously. It’s been weeks, SG. Weeks. The last 2 or 3 only gave me common summon tokens. I really need some good loot. Getting tired of doing the same quests, killing the same titans, over and over again, filling multiple chests just to get 2 gems, an herb and a piece of string, day after day. Even the damn war chest - hidden blade and farsight telescope were nice and much appreciated, as was the 2* trainer hero, but come on, not a single epic summon? 10 gems, oh whoopdy doo, I’ll throw it in the pile, then once I get 300, I’ll summon myself another Dawa. Yeehaw. Great fun.

Come on, guys. Is it because I haven’t spent enough? Because I read countless posts from people who have spent hundreds (or thousands) of dollars, and they still haven’t gotten the heroes they want. I already have bad luck as it is, am I supposed to believe that if I spend enough money, I’ll miraculously pull Wilbur, Vivica and Gravemaker out of my butt? Okay… how much? $100 enough? $500? Name your price.

Kidding. We’ve already established that RNG rules here, and I’m (mostly) okay with that. I just wish I could get some more pulls on the slot machine. Is it really going to hurt SG’s bottom line to give me an elemental chest? We already know that it’s just going to give me common tokens anyway, and even if it did give me an epic token, I’m still going to pull a 3*. I’d just like a chance. To feel, for a very brief moment, that I might actually get something good. Let me experience that 5 second thrill of doing an epic summon, to feel that ever so fleeting rush of hope and anticipation, before my hopes get dashed in a giant green splash of FRIAR TUCK.

Is that too much to ask?

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Thanks! Yup, I think technically going from random forum user #47,225 to mod counts as a promotion.

Here’s my last Elemental Chest (incidentally, 3 weeks ago):

'Nuff said? :laughing:

You got an epic troop token at least. I don’t get epic anything anymore. :frowning_face:

And you can’t tell me they don’t slide you some extra EHT on the side as a mod. Maybe a few hidden blades go “missing” from inventory. Etc. :wink:

Found what? What were you looking for in the first place?

Interesting. I’ve tried searching for variations of this quotation using the forum search feature, and I can’t find anything similar. Who said it, and where? The forum allows you to both quote posts and drop in links to them, if you’re trying to reference something someone has said.

On the assumption that you’re attempting to refer to someone who’s a forum user, I’ll refer you back to the forum rules:

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Because I am lazy and cheap, I only skip a chest when it costs 2 gems or less. The frequency for my elemental chests are around once every two weeks. I also, am loathe to use any of my flasks so speeding up the chests too much causes me anxiety because I won’t use my flasks and I hate it when a chest isn’t on the countdown. On the daily I usually fill one raid and two monster chests. But, we all have our own styles of play. I have a long way to go before I reach the top tier and just enjoy the slog of slowly grinding away at my little kingdom.

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Hrairoo, thanks for taking the time. I guess elemental chests are just one of those things that is the luck of the draw and I wish I were luckier but I’m not, so I’m kind of philosophical about it too. I’m also cheap, but also spend modestly, so try to time raids (heroes for the chest) for before I’m likely to back for many hours. I have spent a gem or two skipping the last hour for chests but that is a convenience based on whatever I’m doing, like farming, at the time. Gotta get value for those WE points. For what it’s worth, it seems to me that the grind keeps me interested.

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Some of that was probably self deprecation and the rest born of frustration. The issue now is one can’t really open a thread to apologise to the community.