Difference between revisions of "Lancer Knightz (Guild)/Missions"

Revision as of 23:01, 19 December 2013

This page is part of the Lancer Knightz data collection project. Its goal is to quantify the crown payouts of all missions. These particular data were collected by Vanzanz, Epoxee, Bopp, and Donkeyhaute. The "Classic" data were collected between April and July of 2013 — just before release 2013-07-30. We are currently collecting Normal, Advanced, and Elite data.

Procedure

For missions that exist on multiple strata (danger missions, Operation Crimson Hammer, etc.), we always measure on Tier 3 / Stratum 6. The tester carries out the entire mission, from mission lobby to mission report. The tester goes down every side path, killing every monster. Slashing plants and lamps to get extra crowns is optional. The tester does not spend any extra energy opening treasure rooms, danger rooms, etc. After the mission, the tester examines the mission report, and sends this information to Donkeyhaute:

1. The difficulty: Normal, Advanced, or Elite.
2. The number of knights in the party. If the number changes over time, then an estimate of the average (1.5, 2.3, etc.) is fine.
3. The total crowns earned by the tester (not the other party members). This figure appears at the top of the mission report.
4. The total number of Forge, Grim, and Primal Sparks earned by the tester. These appear at the bottom of the mission report.

The tester may optionally add a note at the end. For example, the note could indicate which branch of depth 26 of the King of Ashes was taken, or it could report that many Beast Scales were found. (Crowns earned by selling lucrative materials do not enter into our other calculations.) Donkeyhaute enters the data into a computer program that outputs the wiki markup for the table below. Each mission is measured multiple times, to give a better idea of the crown and spark payout.

Summary of Data

Here is a summary of the crown and spark data for all of the fighting missions beyond level 1.

• Name, Rnk: Name and rank of the mission.
• Lvls: The number of levels in the mission, excluding non-fighting levels (treasure levels, core terminal, etc.).
• Cls, Nrm, Adv, Elt: Average crowns earned on each difficulty level: Classic, Normal, Advanced, Elite.
• Ns: The number of spark data for each difficulty. The number of crowns data is always at least this large.
• Cls, Nrm, Adv, Elt: Average sparks earned on each difficulty level.

Analysis

We are currently re-working our analyses, as we finish collecting data. Here are some of the questions that we will answer, that we have not yet answered:

• Which missions are most efficient, in terms of crowns per level? The value of sparks (100 crowns per) and boss tokens (75, 233, 175, or 1,000 per) could be included.
• Do knights in large parties earn more crowns than knights in small parties?

We will not analyze crowns per minute. We are no longer collecting time data, because those data vary so much from player to player.

As far as difficulty goes, preliminary results suggest that:

• Normal payouts are about 80% of Classic payouts.
• Advanced payouts are about equal to (98% of) Classic payouts.
• Elite payouts are about 122% of Classic payouts.

Prior to release 2013-07-30, each level cost 10 energy. So, while a knight was gaining crowns, materials, and everything else on his adventure, he was also spending energy. A natural question to ask was: Am I gaining crowns faster than I'm spending energy? The table below shows some benchmark prices for 100 energy — in other words, 10 levels — from 5000 to 9500. For each price, the table shows how many missions have a payout per level exceeding one tenth of that energy price. In other words, this table gives tells us how many missions were profitable relative to the price of energy.