What with all these favors and renown popping up it might be time to recalcuate what grinds are profitable more then others. I am no math person but will be curious to hear results in a simple manner.
edited by Kylestien on 6/29/2017
Unless new grinds appear that involve Favours, I highly doubt they will change anything. Favours are inherently card-based with no efficient storylet-based sources.
That said, I am working on something similar - a list of all profitable cards and the most profitable ways to cash in Favours, taking into account things only profitable for AotB users or Spirifers.
Anything that involves upconversion from tier 3 or 4 took a devastating hit.
Yeah, base grinds aren’t affected since favor grinds cannot replace them. New profitable opportunities are continually popping up in the game, but are almost universally card based, and not common enough take up all your actions. Until every single one of your actions is taken up by something, it will not replace your base grind.
Currently I’m spending the entirety of my time giving public lectures due to the festival’s mostly-free menace reduction. It CAN take up all my actions, so for the next week and a half, it has replaced my base grind (and shoved a large number of cards into discard territory due to lack of profitability). Thing will be back to normal after the election though.
Well technically, any actions that cycles Airs has a 5% chance of letting you spend three actions on a Docks favor. Assuming that Docks favors are worth three actions, that gives Airs a small-but-calculatable Echo value that involves favors.
4.2 Echoes for four actions is absolutely terrible by grind standards, not to mention the actions you have to spend cycling Airs (which are universally equally unprofitable).
Who in the world turns in docks favors in the Call in Favors storylet? They’re far far more valuable as expedition supplies.
That said, I don’t value Docks favors high enough to spend 3 actions on one. Maybe 2.
That only applies for AotB users - spirifers will be constantly refreshing Airs while grinding Souls through UB.
I mean like I said I have no idea what is profitable or not so I was just thinking it’s time to recalculate. What made me think it was the fact I went to Unfinished Business in ladybones road and the great game wine action needs some renown. It’s going to eventualy impact some grinds if it does not already.
So far I think renown has made some grinds inaccessible before getting enough renown, which is inconvenient. Spirifers are hardest hit there. Selling souls also did take a small hit to profitability now that you can’t gain some Connected: Hell along with your pile of brass, but it’s still more lucrative than other traditional grind choices.
Let me know if I missed any grinds:
- The Affair of the Box (using the Correspondence Plaque option from 7-10 and cashing out for Mourning Candles): 1.64 EPA
- Fate- and now Renown-locked, but Spirifage (grinding Souls in Unfinished Business in Spite, then trading them in on the Spirifer’s storylet from A Trade In Souls): 1.73 EPA (was previously 1.8 but the loss of Connections from the cash-in has made it take a small hit)
- Possible to lock yourself out, but University-Flit interactions (grind Clues and Investigating by Interviewing the Department of ________, then raiding message-drops, then use the resulting Clues to fuel "A bag of low-quality diamonds"): 1.85 EPA
- Fidgeting Writer IFF you already have supplies on hand: 1.92 EPA (drops to less than the Box if you have to grind your supplies from scratch)
- Extremely optimized Port Carnelian play (also requires you to ignore Making Waves and Exceptional Stories if done for extended periods): [someone get me a current number on this][li]
So, of the "pure" grinds, the only one that Renown has touched is Spirifage, and Connections aren’t currently involved in any of the others. There’s also been a slight impact on the War of Assassins, which now requires two of the same card rather than just one, but also went up from 1.83 to 1.85 EPA in compensation. (Rounding errors mean that this is very slightly better than the University.)
edited by Jeremy Avalon on 7/1/2017
[quote=Jeremy Avalon]
- Fate- and now Renown-locked, but Spirifage (grinding Souls in Unfinished Business in Spite, then trading them in on the Spirifer’s storylet from A Trade In Souls): 1.73 EPA (was previously 1.8 but the loss of Connections from the cash-in has made it take a small hit)
- Possible to lock yourself out, but University-Flit interactions (grind Clues and Investigating by Interviewing the Department of ________, then raiding message-drops, then use the resulting Clues to fuel "A bag of low-quality diamonds"): 1.85 EPA
So, of the "pure" grinds, the only one that Renown has touched is Spirifage, and Connections aren’t currently involved in any of the others. There’s also been a slight impact on the War of Assassins, which now requires two of the same card rather than just one, but also went up from 1.83 to 1.85 EPA in compensation. (Rounding errors mean that this is very slightly better than the University.)[/quote]
- By my math, Spirifage is now 1.75 EPA (rounded up).[/li][li]The University-Flit grind is only 1.78 EPA according to the wiki; has that changed?[/li][li]By my math the WoA grind is only 1.81 EPA (rounded up) ignoring that one rare success. This grind also requires giving up other profitable opportunities.
edited by Optimatum on 7/1/2017
Well, uh, by my math, I can acquire 44.64 echos per action!
Just convert Tales of Terror into Coruscating souls every seven actions via the Fidgeting Writer! It’s easy!
And here you guys are… coming up with single digit numbers.
I think that the number quoted in the wiki came from a forum discussion only taking into account getting the Cryptic Clues, not also converting those into diamonds.
[quote=Optimatum]
- By my math, Spirifage is now 1.75 EPA (rounded up).[/li][li]The University-Flit grind is only 1.78 EPA according to the wiki; has that changed?[/li][li]By my math the WoA grind is only 1.81 EPA (rounded up) ignoring that one rare success. This grind also requires giving up other profitable opportunities.
edited by Optimatum on 7/1/2017[/quote]
[li]
Thanks for the notice about Spirifage; I don’t have access to it myself and was using older numbers.
Also, yes, I forgot to add the cash-in action to my WoA calculations.
As for the University:
- The University/Flit "carousel" is 1.78 EPA, as determined here
- So, on average, it takes ~2.2472 actions to gain 4E worth of Clues
- Which is worth one use of the 2.019EPA diamond cash-in [(1.4 * 0.95) + (13.78 * 0.05)]
- So, for 3.2472 actions, we get 6.019E of diamonds, or ~1.85 EPA.[/li][li]
edited by Jeremy Avalon on 7/1/2017
[quote=Tystefy]Well, uh, by my math, I can acquire 44.64 echos per action!
Just convert Tales of Terror into Coruscating souls every seven actions via the Fidgeting Writer! It’s easy!
And here you guys are… coming up with single digit numbers.[/quote]
Wow, you only have two-digits? By my math, I can get 312.5 echoes per action! Just spend ludicrous amounts of money! :P
[quote=Tystefy]Well, uh, by my math, I can acquire 44.64 echos per action!
Just convert Tales of Terror into Coruscating souls every seven actions via the Fidgeting Writer! It’s easy!
And here you guys are… coming up with single digit numbers.[/quote]
You have a whooping 0.025% chance that this actually works. Every action during FW has between 30% and 50% chance of failure.
That’s the joke :)
The Third Coil Hunt is On grind was nerfed, but is still profitable. By my math, dealing with mirror smugglers + killing marsh hounds results in 1.76 EPA. It’s slightly above spirifage now, apparently. It also has the added benefit of providing enormous amounts of rostygold, which is a common requirement in favor gaining and usage.
edited by Kaijyuu on 7/1/2017
[quote=rahv7][quote=Tystefy]Well, uh, by my math, I can acquire 44.64 echos per action!
Just convert Tales of Terror into Coruscating souls every seven actions via the Fidgeting Writer! It’s easy!
And here you guys are… coming up with single digit numbers.[/quote]
You have a whooping 0.025% chance that this actually works. Every action during FW has between 30% and 50% chance of failure.[/quote]
Its a simple fix: you just don’t fail. Think you’re going to fail? Just don’t do it.
I’d not heard anything about trading clues for diamonds being notably profitable. Let’s see, 200 clues for 45 flawed diamonds is a loss of £4.00 and a gain of £5.40, which on its own is £1.40pa. Does anyone know how often the rare success occurs?
The University/Flit grind relies on an Investigating test with a 30% failure chance, which needs to be accounted for in calculating the £pa. Here’s a look at an average set of ten loops through the grind.
7 first-attempt successes: 4 actions @ 53 clues, 1 action @ 270 clues
2 second-attempt successes: 5 @ 53 clues, 1 @ 0 clues, 1 @ 270 clues
1 third-attempt success: 7 @ 53, 2 @ 0, 1 @ 270
totals: 45 @ 53, 4 @ 0, 10 @ 270
Based on the above, ten message-drops will earn 5085 clues in 59 actions, averaging to 86.2 clues per action.
A challenger appears! Cashing in Investigating through Making Use of Cats uses a Shadowy challenge which becomes a certain success at Shadowy 142. Four actions at 53 clues to build Investigating, five zero-return actions to build Making Use of Cats, and one action at 540 clues to cash in, results in an average of… 75.2 clues per action. Darn. I was hoping the ability to ensure success would count for more. Without the University investigations, however, using Investigating alongside Making Use of Cats is better than just grinding message-drops.