[Feedback] MP vs SP rewards

True and true. Although I'm curious on metrics like "time spent playing the game" compared to "percent of items found."

Percent should be enough to factor in drop rates because of the large numbers though.

The rare I was missing for the longest time was Acolyte's Axe. I farmed the level 9 questsions for about 5 or 6 hours and never got it. Then Randimar reset and he had it... ><

 

So I've been thinking about this more and may have a way to compare farming methods in a more direct way.

Assumptions:
-A regular adventure seems to give you about a 1/25 chance of getting a legendary. (with treasure club)
-The loot fairy chest (with 2 guaranteed rares) reportedly gives you a 1 in 10 chance of a legendary. (again assuming treasure club)
-Purchased epic chests(with 2 guaranteed epics) reportedly give a roughly 1 in 4 chance of a legendary. (treasure club doesn't apply)

Put another way, farming an adventure to completion is worth 1, the loot fairy is worth 2.5 normal adventures and buying an epic chest is worth 6.25 normal adventures (only in terms of obtaining legendary items).


Using these assumed values we can start to assign values to MP chests. I'll also assume treasure club membership to keep this simpler.

-The final epic chest (with treasure club) also guarantees 2 epics, so it should be roughly equivalent to a purchased epic chest.
-The 11 win chest is roughly the same as a loot fairy chest (2 guaranteed rares or better plus a third for treasure club).
-The other 3 gold chests with treasure club, should be worth roughly 2/3's of a loot fairy chest since each grants 2 guaranteed rares instead of 3. In total they would be worth 3* 2/3 or roughly 2 loot fairy chests.


I haven't seen any evidence that the other brown MP chests are any better or worse than normal adventure chests that you get at lower levels. Based on peoples' reports from buying the low level chests with 2 random items they grant legendaries at very low rates so for now I'll ignore these types of chests both in MP and SP. It would be worth getting these numbers, since this would give us a number to assign to some of Sir Veza's farming methods, but that's outside this discussion.

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Using these values, that would make completing the MP ladder worth 6.25 (for the epic chest) + 3 (For the total value of the gold chests in MP) * 2.5. That adds up to roughly 13.75 adventures worth of a chance at legendary items.

Comparatively in SP that would be worth the loot fairy adventure and another 11 adventures. I'd say that with a good firestorm build you can do that in about an hour, which is significantly less than it takes to get to 20 wins in MP.

Some of my assumed data may be off, please discuss below, but with these numbers MP doesn't seem to offer equal or better rewards to SP farming.

 

That is very interesting Oberon, but you are forgetting the easiest way to earn an epic chest in mp, the leagues. You can play about 2 leagues per day with the current schedule, and it's very easy to win an epic chest there. Even less experienced players are often favoured by other players in the pod that don't play any game. So, you can easily get 2 epic chests this way, and the time it takes you is about 2 hours, one per league. It's far more beneficial than the ladder. But there's more: if you win these 2 epic chests means that (in most of the cases) you have won at least 3 matches, meaning 2 gold chests from the ladder. And many times you reach the 6th chest (3th gold) only playing 2 hours in the leagues. Taking this into account, I would say that mp is better to farm epics and legendaries, but less targetable (does this word exist?).

Edit: I forgot, if you end 1st or 2nd you get 2 or 1 gold chests respectively, so that would add more points to mp farming.

 

I wasn't forgetting the leagues, just wanted to look at the standard MP ladder. Leagues are definitely a great option at the moment, especially for the league winner.

 

I see. And which would be the statistics if we included leagues? I'm too lazy to do the maths

 

If we're not calling leagues MP, I also wouldn't call the Loot Fairy strict SP. It's not really SP farming if you just jump in for a single adventure that's been identified beforehand.

 

Yeah, that's why I'm asking to include the leagues here, as they are also part of MP. The thread is "SP vs MP rewards" after all, so we shouldn't leave anything behind.

 

If you wanted to include leagues, first off you wouldn't count the MP chest ladder on top of what Oberon already calculated because whichever way you climb the ladder you're only doing it once. That said, if we're assuming someone who plays to the purple chest daily I would estimate that they average 2nd place in the league (somewhat arbitrary but reasonable), that would be 1 epic, 1 gold chest. If they played 2 leagues a day in the current schedule then by Oberon's numbers you would add 6.25*2 + 2/3*2.5*2 = almost another 16 adventures.

As far as considering the LF for SP, though its true that a lot of MP players will jump over to run the LF each day, a lot of SP players will play the 1st, or the first 3 MP wins each day too so it's probably best to leave them in their own respective categories.

One thing that hasn't been factored (specifically for those who don't sleep) SP resets every 24 hours while MP can reset as often as every 16? (I think 16 is right, feel free to correct.)

 

League epic gives 1 epic, MP epic gives 2 epics, that's a big difference.

Edit: No wait, both give 2, my bad. I have it right in my VP hunting thread, shouldn't have trusted my memory here.

 

I didn't remember that, good call. Regarding only MP, we could say that it's far better in terms of time-benefit to play 2 leagues per day than to climb up the whole ladder:
2 leagues (in average) = 2 epics and 2 gold chests + 2 or 3 more chests from the ladder
Whole ladder= 2 epics + 4 gold chests (omitting the small differences between each of them)

So, the prize is almost the same, while the time needed is not. 2 hours aprox for the leagues and much more for the ladder. What is it, 5 or 6 hours with a good win rate? It's been a while since my last time, so I don't remember accurately.

 

Every 18 hours it resets. Also, I'd say the average person gets 3rd place (which is the average between 1st and 5th).

SP still offers a ton better reward for the time no matter the way you look a it. With a decent Firestorm build you can finish adventures SUPER fast. I can finish the first level of one of the Diamond Mines in under 30 seconds...

Essentially, it boils down to the fact that MP should offer better rewards. MP play keeps a community engaged for longer because it encourages playing with others. Based on the analysis in this thread, I'd heavily recommend that the current MP rewards are doubled if not more. Some people like Fyra have gotten to 90% items just from playing MP -- but she is the exception due to playing a TON (top of the most played chart by a good margin).

 

For number of items and gaining gold I agree that SP has a much better reward for time spent. We can blow through the low levels and get low level gear very quickly. The high level stuff takes longer, but there are some relatively quick adventures at many levels.
I still think MP may be more rewarding for time spent in regard to epic and legendary items.
For best results, play both sides.
It might help MP rewards/time if the delay between games could be reduced. I've only played to the purple chest once, but the delays past the halfway point got huge. I can understand queuing players who have played many games after players who've played few, but if server load permits I think it would be better to reduce or eliminate the delay.
MP maps tend to take longer to play, so putting 3 or 4 items in the brown chests might be a good move.

I believe you believe this. It may be true, and I'll believe it when I see proof.

 

Leagues give standard epic chests (the same as can be bought with pizza) which are "5 random items, 2 epic or better."

Thanks, 16 didn't sound quite right but I couldn't remember.

As I noted, my choice of 2nd was specifically an average for the type of player "who plays to the purple chest daily" as that's what we're talking about here. For someone that well versed in MP, I think 2nd is a reasonable average. Otherwise I would agree on 3rd.

I want to pump the brakes here (I'm not ready to disagree, I'm just not on board with doubling rewards yet either). First off we can't say Fyra is an exception but SP farmers are the rule. Diehard SP farmers are also an exception, you have to have serious dedication to grind the same maps over and over again (even if you can improve it by listening to podcasts ). There are plenty of comments from players in the farming threads that talk about not being able to farm because it would drive them to hate the game. The same reaction is much less prevalent in MP because its an engaging community.

Secondly as you noted earlier we need a comparison of "time spent" to results to have an appropriate comparison. Personally I have no idea how long it would take to play two leagues and to the purple chest in MP. Nor to play 27 SP adventures in one day. And how long would it take if MP time was maximized like SP farming is? (By maximized I mean queuing immediately following a game, not taking time to chat about it or getting pulled into other chats, playing the MP ladder early as MP and late for leagues (since leagues don't have the lengthening timer), choosing builds that maximize speed - both speed in winning and speed in strategy, etc.)

Right now we have (if Oberon's numbers are right) 2 leagues + MP ladder ~ LF + 27 adventures. Anyone want to weigh in on how long either would take when maximized for time (it would probably be good to estimate SP for adventures from a wide smattering of levels if we're wanting the loot to be compared across the board).

 

I never said that diehard SP farmers are not the exception as well. But look at the extremes. One person in MP who plays to the purple chest once a day. It takes how long? Let's say a minimum of 4 hours (which is a very low estimate I'd say). The same person could farm SP for 4 hours and get (as estimated in this discussion) about 3 to 4 times the amount of loot. Why not reduce the gap a bit?

How many people talk about playing MP on a regular basis (say after they've played 100 games)? How many talk about playing SP on a regular basis (after they've finished the campaign)?

How many single player games are still being played by a huge number of people years later? How many multiplayer games are still being played by a huge number of people years later?

MP is much more important to longevity of a product, especially one like Card Hunter. Imagine if Magic: The Gathering only had a single player mode with AI challenges to overcome. It would be no where as successful or wide played.

 

3 to 4 times the amount? So you're saying in 4 hours someone can get through 84 to 115 adventures plus the LF?

 

That's not what was said above in the analysis.

Assuming this:

 

My numbers were including leagues. If we just want to compare farming methods for the sake of the best way to get loot, I'm perfectly fine with excluding leagues or anything else for the discussion (in which case your "3 to 4 times" would still be saying 41-55 adventures in 4 hours, or nearly every adventure and treasure hunt in the game).

However, if we're going to expand the discussion to changing the reward system to balance loot possibilities from both SP and MP then leagues need to be part of the equation (no point in changing a system based on only part of the system). Which admittedly might require waiting for leagues to entirely normalize before a true balance point can be determined.

 

By my count, "55 adventures" is everything except the level 1s (which give lousy loot) but including every treasure hunt and all the Mauve Manticores. I have difficulty believing that takes less time than completing the MP ladder (without leagues).

 

Ok, yesterday I farmed all the adventures except the level 1 ones, the Mauve Manticores and Black Plume Mountain (in that level was the loot fairy, so I didn't want to count it as a regular adventure).
The results: 12 epics and 4 legendaries.
Time: 4h 50 miuntes.

The last time I also got 4 legendaries, so maybe we could establish that 4 is the average amount of legendaries if you farm all the modules. With the epics is more difficult to estimate an average.
About the time and method, I farm all adventures with FS and vulcano and a FS/Fireball/Vulcano combo for the levels 15,16 and 17. The new 18 level adventures are another thing, I use 2 war 1 priest or 1-1-1 there.
I don't have the best items (no Wym's Lavastaff, only 1 Firehide Robes), but good enough to pack 10 FS per wizard (4 Staff of the Inferno, 2 Chartwell's Ring, 4 Magma Scepter, etc.)that, combined with a lot of traits, lets me complete the levels fairly quickly. So, maybe we could establish the average time needed here between 4h 30 and 5h.

What we need is, first of all, more experiences of players doing the same in SP (to compare with these results), and secondly, players who play an average of 2 leagues per day and reach the epic chest daily to compare SP vs MP results.

 

I have 3 Wym's Lavastaves (but only one 2 FS 0 token Arcane Item) and the last time I did every level (this was before the expansion when I only had 2 Wym's) I finished in just under 4 hours (and did Mauve Manticore #1). With the expansions and my new items I'd estimate I could probably do it in 4 hours 15 minutes or so (only difficult level in expansion is Elder Mind and the White Dragon for FS teams with armor removal). Saying 4 hours and 30 minutes average sounds like a good guess.

How long does it take an experienced MP farmer to get to the Epic Chest?