The only way to leave is by removing all Permissions to Linger.
Attar does remain for future visits, as is your relative location within Arbor.
The only way to leave is by removing all Permissions to Linger.
Attar does remain for future visits, as is your relative location within Arbor.[/quote]
Oh, ok. 70 lingers to go with 276 attar in pocket. Any recommendations when to start visiting queen for rare success?
On average, you’ll probably need about 5 attempts for the rare success, so the theoretical number is to leave 7 Permission (2 to travel south to the Palcace, and 5 for the attempts with the Queen).
However, results will vary around that "5 attempts" number (which might not even be accurate), so it’s a question of how you feel about risk/reward:
If the rare success happens sooner (yay!), this means you’ve "wasted" some Permission which could have been spent on getting more Attar. You’l;l also then need to spend some actions to leave Arbor.
On the other hand, if the rare success doesn’t appear for a while (boo!), then you might exhaust your Permission and have to leave Arbor. But you can continue where you left off when you next draw the card, so it’s just a delay, not a setback.
Personally, when I do this in the hundreds, I’m OK with "wasting" some Permission and usually go to the Queen with roughly 7-10 Permission remaining.
So i got lucky and got 134 FiHP from first try.
Which brings the math to:
424 Actions (card, spying, walking, converting, gifting queen)
1675 E earned, so 3,95 EPA.
In conclusion, if you are pursuing a goal that needs several thousands echoes and don’t need to do anything else, ~4 EPA is great. Otherwise, spy embassy for 25E and continue business as usual.
edited by fafer.forums on 9/5/2019
[quote=fafer.forums]So i got lucky and got 134 FiHP from first try.
Which brings the math to:
424 Actions (card, spying, walking, converting, gifting queen)
1675 E earned, so 3,95 EPA.
In conclusion, if you are pursuing a goal that needs several thousands echoes and don’t need to do anything else, ~4 EPA is great. Otherwise, spy embassy for 25E and continue business as usual.[/quote]
Did you use one card, or work over multiple card draws?
Did you generate Implications or used up existing ones?
edited by dov on 9/5/2019
Update: After 100 recorded attempts gifting Attar to the queen, I’ve received the rare success 24 times.
That’s still a too low sample size to draw conclusive conclusions, but we’re narrowing down on a number.
With a confidence level of 95%, the actual rare success rate is somewhere between 16% and 33.6%.
[quote=dov]
Did you use one card, or work over multiple card draws?
Did you generate Implications or used up existing ones?
edited by dov on 9/5/2019[/quote]
Didn’t really follow how i got Implications but i guess more then half were from spying embassy since Arbor become available.
Conversion to P2L and then Attar were all within single card.
[quote=fafer.forums][quote=dov]
Did you use one card, or work over multiple card draws?
Did you generate Implications or used up existing ones?
edited by dov on 9/5/2019[/quote]
Didn’t really follow how i got Implications but i guess more then half were from spying embassy since Arbor become available.
Conversion to P2L and then Attar were all within single card.[/quote]
That sounds about right:
- Using only pre-existing Implications converges towards 4.375 EPA (but is limited by how many you have going in).[/li][li]Using only Implications you generate in Arbor converges towards 3.125 EPA (but you can repeat as much as you want)
By the way, here’s my attempt to calculate optimal grinds. A relatively conservative non-EF grind (120 actions per day, for 13 days with one day free) is achieved by trading in 1170 EIs for Permission. An active EF (perfect 136 actions per day, again with one day off out of 14) should cycle through 1326 EIs. In both cases, the grind cycle involves paying all the EIs for Permission, using half the permission to get exactly the same amount of EIs back, and the other half on grinding Attar.
This isn’t a strict number, since doing more or less will simply leave more or less time to spend in London while waiting for two TtHs (or equivalently give more or less slack for missing some actions), though the actions to cash in the Attar with the Queen are included in this "slack" (and while in London, there should be enough time to draw the card again - though using Flash Lay resets can make that a lot easier).
In terms of returns, while it depends on gifting luck as usual, assuming usual odds that leads to about 436 FiHP over a bit over 1780 actions for EFs, leading to just over 3.05-3.06EPA. The equivalent grind for non-EFs gives 384 FiHP over ~1575 actions (3.04-3.05EPA). This is the optimal grind, since skipping TtH is never worth it for the absolutely minuscule improvements beyond this point.
edited by Dudebro Pyro on 9/11/2019
Are there any differences between ambassadors and non-ambs? Also, how about the character who accompanied the player back then in Hallowmas? Will there be any snippets variations or something?
A couple of storylets have different text - notably, around the Embassy - but to my knowledge there are no mechanical differences. I went with the Contrarian at Hallowmas and haven’t seen hide nor hair of him now, nor any indication at all about possible precense or even mention of the others.
The intersection of Arbor with Flash Lay card resets is extremely profitable.
For example, when I am doing nothing but drawing cards, I already intend to spend 2 actions resetting my deck. Drawing an Arbor card, I immediately hold it and begin drawing other cards. At 0/10 cards, I enter Arbor and Walk the Walls.
Since I am already going to use 2 actions to reset my deck, this means I gain a cumulative 9 attar for 5 actions. Let’s say I do this 50 times, which is not improbable if I am straight up grinding. This leads me to 450 attar, 90 actions. For the sake of this exercise I will assume that I previously turned in my attar with 1 PtL remaining.
I’d like to restate that since my normal grind involves using 2 actions to reset, I am not counting that, since instead I am using flash lay resets to fuel my normal grind already.
- Go north
(free) leave Arbor
(free)came back
2-4: Get 6 Attar for 3 actions - Enter Far Arbor
- north
(free)Leave arbor
(free)Back with 5 attar
So that’s 6 actions to get the loop started. Now let’s assume I draw the arbor card 50 times. Since I draw over a hundred cards a day when going full effort grind, it takes less time than you think. (I get about 7 docks favors, give or take 1, a day). Let’s assume it takes ten actions to hit the rare success.
Anyway!
257: South
258: South
259-261: Turn in. 455 - 9 = 446 attar. 3 fihp.
(free) Leave
(free) Re-enter. 446 - 1 = 445 attar. 8
262-266: Turn in. 445 - 15 = 430. 8 fihp
(free) Leave
(free) Re-enter.
267-271: Crit on 110, 0 remaining. 429/3 = 143. 151 fihp.
151*12.5= 1887.5/271 = 6.96 EPA. (This is the real EPA)
Since I know someone will be a grump and add in the extra actions, so I will add them below.
50 trips = 2 extra actions each. 371.
4 entries and 4 exits while setting up and turning in: 8 actions. 379. 4.98 EPA.
While not the most profitable per card, this is most profitable if you have high EPA grinds (cough cough, flash lay card resets + expeditions) outside Arbor, to the point where the theoretical 3.5 EPA grinds are probably worth less.
Yup, pretty much what was posted on the previous page. :) Even if you need 3 cards to get the rare success, only 12 cards are required to break 3.86 EPA while 50 cards (422 Attar) will reach 5 EPA.
That EPA is valid, but only if you’re not doing Flash Lay reset grinding already. If you are, you can easily hit 7+ EPA if you wait long enough. Entering/leaving doesn’t count against you in reset grinding, because you’re just replacing the reset from flash lays with the Arbor reset.
It tops out at about 7.4 epa at 240 card draws.
How do you get to 7.4 EPA?
Basically, this is about using the first X card draws to raise Attar and then gift to the queen until hitting the rare success.
Raising Attar: 9X Attar over 7X actions.
Gifting to the queen: currently recorded success rate is ~22%. So let’s assume that on average you’ll get it on the fifth attempt, which means on average you’ll need one card draw for this step: 3X Favours (worth 37.5X Echoes) over 7 actions.
Given high enough values of X, we can ignore the fixed 7 actions of gifting to the queen. The max theoretical EPA of this is 37.5X / 7X = ~5.35
edited by dov on 9/25/2019
They’re saying that, as part of Flash Lay grinding, the two actions spent to enter and exit are equivalent to the two actions otherwise spent on refreshing the deck. That way you get 9 Attar for effectively 5 actions, which approaches 7.5 EPA.
Valid about Flash Lays, but I think I never got around to the number that was running around about card reset. An EPA above 4 or something.
edited by Skinnyman on 9/25/2019
That should go into comparison of alternative costs (i.e. on what else would I have used those actions had I not taken these steps?)
Likewise you can say that you’d have used any of those actions for any other thing.
The max theoretical EPA of this grind proper is 5.35. That’s how much you’re expected to get in the long run, per actual action spent on it.
That should go into comparison of alternative costs (i.e. on what else would I have used those actions had I not taken these steps?)
Likewise you can say that you’d have used any of those actions for any other thing.
The max theoretical EPA of this grind proper is 5.35. That’s how much you’re expected to get in the long run, per actual action spent on it.[/quote]
Except in Flash Lay grinding, you absolutely must do those two actions. They are counted as part of the grind to consistently return, once your deck is set up properly (and recent changes might have buffed this), 3.5-4+ EPA. While they should be counted as 5.35 EPA for calculating how much echoes you actually profit, in the terms of comparing to other actions within flash lay grinding, you should be comparing them using the 7.4 EPA figure.
That being said, I recognize that not all players want to do flash lay grinding and I see your point about the 5.35 EPA figure.
Sure, but that makes for an inaccurate comparison of the numbers. For example, I could say that my "go to grind" is the Affair of the Box, so I’d be spending those 7 actions on something else anyway, so might as well claim that the Arbor grind doesn’t cost me any actions at all (infinite EPA).
It’s tricky, comparing EPA of different activities which cost different numbers of actions. You can’t subtract some of the cost of one method from the cost of the other one. You need to analyze each separately, and then make the proper modifications to account for the difference in the number of actions.
edited by dov on 10/2/2019