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    Your Elvenar Team

Forbidden Ruins Discussion Thread

The Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
Of course Inno is predatory. They may not be smooth but they are predatory. How do we know? They make use of volunteer support for a start. That's a predatory practice considering they're a profitable business.
At every opportunity they're trimming back on those free diamonds and jacking up costs. Look how quickly we've adjusted to pay-to-complete sets?
If you know what to look for you see proof of behavioural economics everywhere.
It's at worst, dishonest... "we're terribad at math because we don't actually even play our own game" is pretty common. Coupled with awful RNG gimmicks can make events miserable for sure.

But predatory? Nope.
Truly predatory practices are what Sony & Microsoft constantly do... You want a new X-bone system? Cool, spend $500 for the console itself... oh, but the 1 controller you get is trash, so now you really *need* to spend another $100+ for a proper 'pro' controller... ah but you want to play more than 1 or 2 games? Well, now you *need* to buy a memory card, because the basic system memory is hot garbo... and 99% of our games require on-line access to really engage in, so, yep, now you also *need* a monthly/yearly on-line play pass too!

...or else companies like EA, who are not only the undisputed kings of the nickle-and-dime DLC style crap, BUT ALSO, are absolute scum who aim in-game 'booster boxes' at kids!! (and these 'booster boxes' are as pathetic as 1-use-only boosters for things like NBA/MLB games)

THAT'S what actual predatory practices in gaming look like. ;)
 

Raccon

Well-Known Member
@Raccon There is a tome in the Silver prizes that offers the set buildings from last year.
My main point ( in response to tTehya 1's wish) is; that it took inno one year to make that last piece available and not in the same accessible manner as the moonstone library set is ;)
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
My main point ( in response to tTehya 1's wish) is; that it took inno one year to make that last piece available and not in the same accessible manner as the moonstone library set is ;)

Eight months, since that was in June of last year, but I am sure it feels like longer than a year for players who did not get the last piece last year.
 

Raccon

Well-Known Member
For the old timers it makes no difference, they mostly have reached the last chapter, so 8 months later you're still in the same chapter or maybe a new chapter was added so your building is only one chapter old which is nothing. For new players 8 months means 6-7 chapters later.
Probably inno, having waited so long, had those who reached to the latest chapters in mind ;)
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
@Raccon depends on how fast you are moving. My chapter 16 city was in chapter 12 eight months ago. And there are certain players around here who have been in chapter 4 or 5 for over a year.
 

Iyapo1

Well-Known Member
Offering the Pilgrim's Manor pieces in this years Pilgrimage event leads to the hope that maybe they will offer Forbidden Ruins pieces in next years Pilgrimage event.

But that might be wishful thinking!
 

YarL

Member
In the world you spent 8k diamonds, what was your score? I would have guessed you could have been well over 2 sets for that.
Maybe my math is off…
 

DeletedUser26654

Guest
Is there a gagging reflex icon for this impossible-to-gather-it-all event without overspending and over-province gathering? These events are getting too costly. :mad::mad::mad:
 

Dominionofgod

Thinker of Ideas
This has never happened to me before so i felt ill mention it.
Running two nearly identical cities for so many of these events, even when theyve done the same quests and collected the same things, and not cashed in.. there event currency totals have always varied. Likely form the random drops around the city edge (even tho they are collected at the same time.) But they have always varied. Some times a little.. some time a lot :/ ...

Today, with only 4 days 10h left on event, and no cashing in yet, my two cities have exactly the same amount of event currency. 0.0 - I know it makes sense that they would, but its never happened before. This is actually the very first time its ever happened. Im curious if its jsut random luck or if inno adjusted the random drops to be more even. May never know, but i wonder.
Almost creepy lol. Not only all that. I started to cash in half my currencies today. Both had the same first three chests, both got the same reward form the chest. Then both got a currency reward form the second chest... bizarre'

Similarities ended there tho. Cashed in half my currency in both cities. Main city got 114 points. Second city got 158 points.... Thats one hell of a difference lol

Final results for two cities that started out nearly identically.
Both cities finished all quests, both collected around the city at the same times, both got the 100 currency email. And both cashed in currency for the best possible value to get grand prize for every single chest.

City 2: Ended with 281 what ever those pieces of 20 are actually called. (that get you to the next grand prize)
That got him the entire 5 piece link set and even the portrait. Which is the ideal finishing point in my opinion.
Silver league
But he got many currency rewards while cashing in. (or at least more then main city.)

City 1: Ended with 244 pieces of 20.
Failed to get the last piece of the set. Failed to get the portrait.
Bronze league.
Obviously got very few, if any, currency in chests.
I can deal with the lack of portrait. But to complete an entire event in its entirty and not be able to finish the reward bothers the hell outa me. (even if i dont care about the reward... its principle)
To get the final set piece i would likely need to buy the 500 currency for 2250 diamonds. And that would cost me today, $19.99 and thats with a supposed +20% bonus currency.

For me personally... im not paying $20 to get a single item to complete a set. I am not paying that for the value of that piece. I am not paying that on principle either.
It MIGHT be one thign if it was a dolar or two micro transaction to finish... but $20? Come on...

But it does highlight the extreme range and randomness of the RNG for currency in those chests. Even if we do everything possible in the event, we are still at the mercy of that randomness. And we can fail through no real fault of our own.
I understand doing certain things to try and get a buck, and i dont fault them for that. But this does not fall in that category in my opinion.
 

Dominionofgod

Thinker of Ideas
Are your cities on the same account? I always thought the 100 currency email was only valid for 1 city.
No. Two separate accounts. Long time ago i wanted a second city to play in the same FS at the same time. And you cant do that on the same account. I used a second, older, comp to load up my second city on. So i can play both at the same time.
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
To get the final set piece i would likely need to buy the 500 currency for 2250 diamonds. And that would cost me today, $19.99 and thats with a supposed +20% bonus currency.

If you could have known in advance it would be that short in that city, when you got the 3-hour flash sale today for currency, you could have bought 400 for $9.99, or almost the same amount for half the price.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
If you could have known in advance it would be that short in that city, when you got the 3-hour flash sale today for currency, you could have bought 400 for $9.99, or almost the same amount for half the price.
I wonder how that compares to the Stash Outpost as far as value? Any idea how much extra currency a Stash Outpost would give over the course of the event, assuming a player is diligent and makes multiple daily collections of dropped currency?
 

hoopity

Well-Known Member
I tracked my results for this event a little too closely. As always, the big question is: "Can a player complete the set/evo without using diamonds?"

Setup

I completed the event across each of the 8 main worlds.
  • The quests reward a total of 3,857 SK
  • The daily log-in quest rewards 690 SK (23 days x 30 SK)
  • The quest milestone rewards give a combined 300 SK
  • The ground-spawn objects can be expected to give around 25-30 SK a day, depending on your activity and luck so 575-690 SK total (23 days x 25-30)
  • This totals roughly 5,500 SK for the event
  • This doesn't include the email bonus -- we'll come back to that at the end
  • This doesn't include the ashen phoenix -- we'll come back to that at the end
The below table shows my SK stats. I had an average of 5,519 SK across worlds, with a 95% confidence interval 5,506 - 5,532. These is a surprisingly narrow range, and it makes me suspicious that the ground spawn values are not completely random.

Value by WorldAWFKESCHAverage
Total SK​
5,5235,5165,5045,5145,4885,5505,5345,5205,519
Ground Spawn​
676669657667641703687673672

Method

Now it's time to spend this haul, right? No, before we start clicking away, we need to decide on which of the 3 prize options we're presented that we want to take. Each prize costs a different amount of SK and rewards 1-3 Grand Prize Currency. To optimize for the grand prize set, we should always be choosing the prize that has the lowest SK cost per GP Currency.

But some prizes also offer bonus SK as a reward, so shouldn't we factor that in? You betcha. We can calculate the expected amount of Bonus SK offered in each prize as the chance of receiving the bonus times the amount of bonus SK. Then, we can recalculate our SK cost per GP Currency earned after subtracting that expected bonus SK from each prizes' SK costs. This new value tells us what we should expect the average SK cost per GP Currency to be including the bonuses.

The long and short of it is this: we should prioritize choosing the rewards in the following order: 23, 75, 22, 79, 29, 58, 48, 60, 33. There are some strategic edge cases where it might make sense to deviate from this, but this approach is good enough for now.

SK CostGP CurrencySK per GP CurrencyChance of SK BonusBonus SKSK per GP Currency (after bonus)
22​
122.00%022.0
23​
123.012%3019.4
29​
129.012%5023.0
33​
133.011%4028.6
48​
224.00%024.0
58​
229.013%8023.8
60​
230.09%12024.6
75​
325.06%15022.0
79​
326.36%20022.3

Results

After a lot of clicking, following the priority described above, my results are in the table below. The columns contain how many times each prize was selected per world, with the number of bonus chests won in parenthesis. Three of the eight worlds completed the set with 260+ GP Currency. The final average score was 257, with a 95% confidence interval 243 - 271. I think it's worth pointing out just how wide these results can swing given your luck -- the highest score was 292, and the lowest 230, for a range of 62. That's the difference of 3 Grand Prize rewards starting from the same SK!

Prize Count by WorldAWFKESCHAverage
23 SK
32 (4)36 (9)26 (4)45 (8)36 (4)31 (3)40 (2)25 (2)34 (5)
75 SK
39 (2)49 (7)48 (3)37 (1)42 (1)39 (1)36 (1)41 (3)41 (2)
22 SK
19271614107101615
79 SK
35 (5)25 (2)23 (2)28 (3)22 (2)24 (0)28 (2)26 (1)26 (2)
29 SK
3 (1)1 (1)3 (0)0 (0)2 (0)1 (0)2 (0)2 (0)2 (0)
58 SK
1 (0)2 (0)0 (0)2 (0)2 (0)1 (0)0 (0)2 (0)1 (0)
48 SK
010110000
GP Currency Earned
278292258260246230244248257


So how lucky or unlucky did I get? One thing we can look at is how much GP Currency did I earn per 100 SK spent. To be precise, this is per 100 SK spent of my starting currency, not what I ultimately spent after bonuses. This post is already too long, so for now take my word that this is a good approach. We can then compare how I performed with the average expected currency per 100 SK, found by combining the prize counts with the information from the table in the Method section up above. If we earned more GP Currency per 100 SK than expected, I was lucky. If not, unlucky.

You can see the results of this in the table below. In general, I was slightly unlucky on average, I was very lucky on worlds A and W, and very unlucky on world S. It's worth pointing out here that this "luck" concept measured here is only accounting for how lucky I was with bonus chest rewards -- it's not accounting for luck associated with which prizes are offered. This explains why world F somehow got luckier than world K by about 1%, but still ended with slightly less GP Currency. Regardless of bonus SK luck, the 23 SK chest is significantly more valuable than the others, and world K opened that chest much more often.

Value by WorldAWFKESCHAverage
Currency per 100 SK​
5.045.314.704.724.484.164.444.494.67
Expected Currency per 100 SK​
4.654.664.654.724.694.694.724.644.68
% Above Expected​
8.2%13.9%1.2%0.1%-4.5%-11.4%-5.9%-3.2%-0.2%


Wrap-up

Based on my experience, I would say that a player not spending diamonds has about a 50% chance of completing this event without spending diamonds. Wait! What about the email bonus (100 SK) or ashen phoenix (114 SK fully evolved)? In my case, the extra SK would have been worth, on average, about 9-10 more GP Currency, moving me from a 3/8 completion rate to 4/8.

But we don't just have to use my 8 cities to make this judgement. If the average player has 5,600 SK (5,500 from the Setup section plus 100 from email) and every 100 SK is worth about 4.65-4.70 GP Currency, then the average player should earn just over 260 GP Currency. If half the players are lucky, and half the players are unlucky, then that leaves us around a 50% likelihood to complete the set.

I'm not a statistician, of course, so I welcome challenges to any of the logic I've laid out!


Recommendation

It's not my business to run, but it's awful lot of clicking and paying attention over the course of a few weeks to earn all the currency in the event. If Inno wants more than ~50% of players who complete the event to win finish the set without spending diamonds, I would recommend that they increase the offered SK pool by 100-200, and change the bonus SK math to be less swing-y. Whether they want they or not is a business decision, not a design decision, but either way, they should be clear in their communication to the player base.
 

Maplestone

Active Member
My luck finally run out. In the end it wasn't even close: 238, 22 short, so at least I was spared any agonizing nail-biting at the end.

Still, I think I'll sulk for a little while.

(edit: because of some insomnia, eeked out an extra +2 for 240)
 
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Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
I wonder how that compares to the Stash Outpost as far as value? Any idea how much extra currency a Stash Outpost would give over the course of the event, assuming a player is diligent and makes multiple daily collections of dropped currency?

Being conservative and saying you pick up 20 spawns per day, in a 23-day event you would get 460 extra for that $7.99, so for someone who plans on spending real money, and not just extra diamonds at the end, the outpost is a good way to go. And when we have the next Winter event, at 30+ days long, it will be a very good value for real money spenders.
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
@hoopity if you go and look at the league numbers in the other thread, you can see that Inno's bad RNG led to a lot more bad luck for players than in previous events. While we will never see exact numbers, seeing where bronze and silver are for staffs collected, we can say that maybe around 10% of active players on each of the eight servers will finish with 260+ and a full set.

Oh, and to compare rough numbers between my Beta city and my Live city, after completing the final quest and collecting the last free 30, I was at 250 staffs in both cities, yet in Beta I won back 260 more SK than in my US city. I guess I was a little more picky in my beacons on Live than on Beta, plus Beta does not get the newsletter, and my Beta Ashen is not max level, but still to finish with the exact same number of staffs was weird. So of course, in both cities, I burned 1200 of my accumulated free diamonds for 250 more SK and got to 260 in both for the full set. No way I would pass that up when I have the diamonds just sitting there. lol
 
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Henroo

Oh Wise One
Here is my final report. I have 3 cities. Each has a fully evolved Ashen Phoenix. Multiple daily collections of dropped scrolls in all 3. They are on the same account, so only 1 gets the benefit of the 100 scroll email (I always save it for the last day of the event so I know which city most needs it). I focused on the 75, 23, and 79 point beacons exclusively. On the rare occasions where none of these 3 were present, I would instead pick the 22 or 48 point beacons.

Khelonaar had the best luck winning extra scrolls from beacons. I finished with 264 staffs there and completed the set with no outside help.

Arrendyll's luck winning extra scrolls was not quite as good. After using the last of my scrolls today, I was at 256 staffs. However I had the 100 scroll email in reserve. I cashed it in there today and with the help of the extra 100 scrolls, I ended at exactly 260 and completed the set.

Winyandor had the worst RNG. After my final cash in today, I was at 251 staffs with about 15 or 20 scrolls left. Paid 1200 diamonds for 250 extra scrolls. In the process of cashing these in, I also hit for 30 extra scrolls on a 23 point beacon. I ended at 262 staffs there.
 
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