Noman Melt Rate Tracking (2021)

Greetings from the Surface!

The lack of deck refresh is a burden for some, but in the end those are called opportunity cards.
With data gathered about 1 year ago, on average, an EF (10 cards) checking the game almost constantly and with 8 hours of absence for sleep, will draw about 105 cards per day. With this number, any card will standard frequency will pop about 1.35 times per day.
Don’t have enough data, but a slower game pace lowers that number to ~1 so I will go with this number. All the above required will enable a player draw the Noman card 5 times per day.

For The Sense of an Ending option, the card must be drew at least 41 times which is about 8-9 days. Not impossible specially if you grab the Noman ASAP which will give you 14-21 days; the average is almost double the required days.

Because there are no more deck refreshes, all the extra AP can be easily invested in the increase of the quirks that give 3 Noman Knows.

So yes, getting that option is still doable, but it must be done in time and can’t be rushed like it used to. Please remember that that option was made available when there were no deck refreshing! :)

[quote=Skinnyman]Greetings from the Surface!

The lack of deck refresh is a burden for some, but in the end those are called opportunity cards.
With data gathered about 1 year ago, on average, an EF (10 cards) checking the game almost constantly and with 8 hours of absence for sleep, will draw about 105 cards per day. With this number, any card will standard frequency will pop about 1.35 times per day.
Don’t have enough data, but a slower game pace lowers that number to ~1 so I will go with this number. All the above required will enable a player draw the Noman card 5 times per day.

For The Sense of an Ending option, the card must be drew at least 41 times which is about 8-9 days. Not impossible specially if you grab the Noman ASAP which will give you 14-21 days; the average is almost double the required days.

Because there are no more deck refreshes, all the extra AP can be easily invested in the increase of the quirks that give 3 Noman Knows.

So yes, getting that option is still doable, but it must be done in time and can’t be rushed like it used to. Please remember that that option was made available when there were no deck refreshing! :)[/quote]

I agree with your math; I also came to the same approximate theoretical numbers. Nevertheless, over the last two weeks (I was able to generate the Noman on 7th or 8th January on both my accounts), I don’t think I’ve drawn the Noman card 5-times on one day more than maybe 2-6 times, out of ~28 days of drawing (14 per account).
Of course, that’s hardly a sufficient number of repetitions to reasonably claim that the card’s frequency is in reality lower than it says; this sort of bad luck does, however, create disappointment when it happens on two separate accounts. Particularly when I went into the grind with a reasonable assumption that 14 days should be more than enough.

In many cases, there is some sort of a compensatory mechanism which allows you to invest more resources or reliably grind to prevent total loss (such as the newly added options to repeatably though inefficiently grind all the faction favours); or else the relevant cards become pinned at the end of the event so you can scrounge out at least a partial success. In the case of trying to achieve Noman’s End, there is nothing like that in place, although it presumably is meant to be much easier to accomplish than the Noman tattoo (and for that reason, I don’t count investing a large amount of Lacre into keeping the Noman alive for three TtH hits, which would far exceed the value of the Elemental Secret you’re grinding for).

TL: DR - I don’t believe the reset removal is such a big deal, actually; I’d just like to see more &quotsafety nets&quot for players being hated by RNG, especially in cases like this where you invest a lot of time and resources and risk falling short by 1 card draw out of 20.

I guess I’m just averse to chance-dependent gambits, and always pining for ways to counteract these and stick to controllable ones…
edited by Sir Reginald Monteroy on 1/21/2021

Yesterday (Jan 21): 54 Loss.
That + the fact Sir Reginald Monteroy mentioned that its very hard to get hands on the necessary cards will make me ignore the norman cards from now. I’m still at Norman Knows 5, so I see no chance to get it done in time without risking my only tear.
edited by Judaspriester on 1/21/2021

Huh. I guess that RNG decided to consider my incessant complains as a form of veneration, since today, I’ve drawn the requisite card no less than 7 times, allowing me to finally harvest my Noman.

I am still in favour of safety nets being in place for endeavours of this length and magnitude, but perhaps it’s just a matter of reasonable probabilities, and I was just randomly unlucky this year…

[quote=Sir Reginald Monteroy]Of course, that’s hardly a sufficient number of repetitions to reasonably claim that the card’s frequency is in reality lower than it says; this sort of bad luck does, however, create disappointment when it happens on two separate accounts. Particularly when I went into the grind with a reasonable assumption that 14 days should be more than enough.[/quote]This I can perfectly understand and RNG can be a big bastard some times.

[quote=Sir Reginald Monteroy]Huh. I guess that RNG decided to consider my incessant complains as a form of veneration, since today, I’ve drawn the requisite card no less than 7 times, allowing me to finally harvest my Noman.

I am still in favour of safety nets being in place for endeavours of this length and magnitude, but perhaps it’s just a matter of reasonable probabilities, and I was just randomly unlucky this year…[/quote]But it seems to compensate! :D

The problem with those average numbers is that they aren’t evenly distributed, but higher frequencies tend to do so faster.

In theory, a mood card can be drawn about once in 10 days with those numbers, but this is the example of lower distribution. While I was testing those numbers, they were hastened with FLs and in less than 2 weeks I had: 3 mood cards in a single day, 2 mood cards in another day and, the rarest of them all, 2 mood cards one after the other.

Got my 3rd TtH so here are my numbers for ~14:00 GMT:
Jan 08 - 33 lost NF
Jan 15 - 42
Jan 22 - 58

A simple fact that nobody seems to be mentioning: Noman’s Progress has two requirements: 1x Noman and 1x Noman’s Friend. This means that, due to the card bug that got fixed last year, the frequency of the card dropped to half. That’s probably why everyone is having such a rough time with it.

[quote=NotaWalrus]A simple fact that nobody seems to be mentioning: Noman’s Progress has two requirements: 1x Noman and 1x Noman’s Friend. This means that, due to the card bug that got fixed last year, the frequency of the card dropped to half. That’s probably why everyone is having such a rough time with it.[/quote]Oh, indeed! This already impacted last year’s frequency.

Thanks to that bug and FL resets, one could easily get this card 20+ times per day. Aaaah, what days!

I’ve had my noman for 6 days. I lost 72 NF this first week. Jan 22.

22 January, 14:43 UTC:

Acct 1: lost 61 NF
Acct 2: lost 57 NF

22 January, 14:something UTC:
You’ve lost 77 x Noman’s Friend (new total 104 - The Noman is pristine).

I got some additional mileage out of my snow buckets after I made my initial post, but still, yikes?!
edited by CameoAppearance on 1/23/2021

You’ve lost 48 x Noman’s Friend (from 48 to 0, so possible more).

I just saw this thread, so here are my characters’ melt rates (all times are CET):

Cattus
06 January, 10:17: -48 x Noman’s Friend (new total 52)
13 January, 10:17: -38 x Noman’s Friend (new total 14)
(17 January: Noman is gone due to &quotThe Sense of an Ending&quot)

Kitty
12 January, 00:42: -24 Noman’s Friend (new total 76)
(15 January: Noman is gone due to &quotThe Sense of an Ending&quot)

17:01 GMT +3, lost 96 x Noman’s Friend

29 January, 14:43 UTC:

Acct 1: lost 92 NF
Acct 2: lost 120 NF

29 January, ~13:56 UTC:

You’ve lost 116 x Noman’s Friend (new total 0).

Absolutely blindsided by the fact that the melt rate got that high before January even ended, to be perfectly honest. I suspected my noman wouldn’t last until the Feast considering last week’s melt, but what I expected to happen at this point in the season was that it’d survive this TtH with anywhere from thirtyish NF to a single-digit number left over. My luck seems to be particularly rotten this year.

What this thread taught me is that I’m very glad I got the tattoo last year.

I have five Noman tattoos on each of my two characters, and I’ll be damned if an unexpected surge in the melt rate one year delays me in getting to 7, so I massively overprepare just in case. This is probably the main reason I’ve been playing since 2013 and still don’t have Cider…

In order to prevent people from being surprised in the future, I put together a calendar view of when the melt-rates have changed over the years: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

While there might be a few dates that are slightly off (due to not having any data for a few days), it’s fairly consistent across all of them. Hope this helps.


edited by idyl on 1/30/2021

[quote=idyl]In order to prevent people from being surprised in the future, I put together a calendar view of when the melt-rates have changed over the years: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

While there might be a few dates that are slightly off (due to not having any data for a few days), it’s fairly consistent across all of them. Hope this helps.


edited by idyl on 1/30/2021[/quote]

That is a well-presented graphic! Although I am not so much concerned about when the rates increase as the total number of loss needing to be averted in a given year. That they haven’t massively boosted it recently is no guarantee they won’t in future years…