Numbers from the Long Grind

[skinnyman]

@dov

[quote=Kaijyuu]Calling in favors with revolutionaries is ridiculously profitable.

Except, you know, for the morality cost for helping the Liberation of Night![/quote]
Which is totally worth it!
Lovely description, Artful and it’s almost similar to mine. Difference is that I grind connections to a high level (and other useless qualities) and use different cash in because I’m a Shepherd; Society goes to Tomb, Constable goes to Criminal, Church is pilling up.

[kaijyuu]

I’m getting burned right now for neglecting connections (still possible for me to get that rubbery bellringer but it’ll be close), so I keep all the ones likely to be made into renown someday as high as possible.

[artful]

@Optimatum

You’re a Correspondent rather than a Doctor or Notary? With max Watchful gear, the only difference the Violant Ink makes for me is a slight increase in chance on the Overgoat card’s challenge and a couple pence more on average for two card options scaling with Watchful. Even with a well-trimmed deck the four additional points of Watchful has a far smaller impact for me than ten extra echoes a week.

Interesting; I had not seriously considered this. I certainly do not get enough invitations to Orphanages as a Correspondent to make up the difference. I’ll give this a try next month and see if it pays out.

@Optimatum

Also, why a five-card lodgings rather than a Remote Address? Two fewer slots to bank cards isn’t as relevant when you’re cutting a handful of bad (and unfortunately common) cards from your deck.

I do like the extra slots. I usually have a Mood card in reserve, and the extra slots come in handy when waiting for things like the 7th Tomb Colony or the desired conflict card when sitting on 7 favours. I should try it for a month and see if a remote address does help my EpA, I just have not had the nerve yet.

@Optimatum

Given that stealing souls in Spite gives 1-120 Souls, and that Storynexus doesn’t seem to have any type of weighted RNG, the average outcome is almost certainly 60.5 Souls per action. This puts spirifage at 1.72 EPA, increasing to 1.74 when turning in C: Hell in the Forgotten Quarter. (This would presumably increase further once Hell gets converted to use favours.) Harvesting the hotel is very profitable but due to the inherent unpredictability of cards can’t be accurately counted towards a base grind’s EPA. Likewise, including spare Criminal favours that happen to be exchanged for Souls is even less predictable. After all, what happens when they add or remove cards? Hallowmas adds an Abundant card for example - that changes how often you’ll draw specific profitable cards, so they can’t be measured as appearing at a constant rate relative to the base grind.

This is what I thought, until one day I got 121 souls from Spite. This made me wonder if the payout is actually 1-(Shadowy/2) - the basis of the 63 souls per action guess. So, this month I started running the experiment. My results so far have shown 1.95 EpA for Spiriferage. If it starts to drop at times like the Feast of the Rose, I will flip back to the Box grind.

@Optimatum

I assume you’re referring to one of the ending cards from The Gift? Isn’t that the one that costs 50 Whispered Hints per Docks favour? The moment you run out of Hints on hand, the EPA goes way down.

True, if that were the only source of Favours the profitability would drop. However, it is only 1 of 5 sources and I have over 100k hints on hand so I should be good for a while. The drain on my Rostygold is actually more of a concern at the moment. Still 90k on hand, so it should hold out until I reach my goal.

@Optimatum

It’s pretty lucky that you don’t have a high criminal record, as that outright makes Instant Ablution Absolution useless. I’m also surprised you don’t draw cards in Lodgings, given that the two location-specific cards are both highly profitable rather than having any pointless cards dilute your deck.

It is not luck - I studiously avoid menaces. It does seem quite unforgiving that there is no way to reduce it, tho.

I used to flip cards in my Lodgings, but my average EpA went up about 0.1 after switching to the Liberation. A function of the relative frequency of the cards, I assume. As for the morality of supporting the Liberation, Artful is already a Spirifer - how much worse can it get?

@Optimatum

Why trade in Rubbery favours to the Tomb-Colonists? According to my math they’re the worst option, assuming the wiki’s right of course. The Tomb-Colonists and Constables give the exact same monetary reward but the Constables give a Suspicion reduction while the Tomb-Colonists gives a slight Wounds increase. Unless you’ve found some highly profitable use for the Carnival Tickets, those are irrelevant.

Below the Neath has a Soul option, 70 souls for 2 tickets. May not be worth it if your next comment proves correct. Crime or Punishment tends to keep my Suspicion at bay enough where I don’t feel the need to always use the Constables. Wounds don’t bother me too much, I just use the Society card to cure it while building my Society stockpile and maintaining Notability.

@Optimatum

I also get higher EPA for trading in 5 favours at once rather than 7. In addition, again assuming the wiki’s right, it’s actually more profitable to turn in Rubbery favours via the Revolutionaries conflict card. That gives 18.80 E at 5 favours and 24.40 E at 7 favours, compared to 17.50 E and 22.5 E for the other two factions.

I may have to revisit my math on this. I had originally looked at things and found 7 better to trade than 5. If 5 is more optimal, a 5 card Lodging may be needed to minimize Favour loss/inefficiency while waiting for the less frequent conflict cards to appear. Definitely worth an experiment.

@Optimatum

Wait a moment, is the wiki correct when it says cashing out through Going Gentle giving Greyfields 1882? If so that’s ridiculously more profitable than other conflict cards, wow. That would also make it the only conflict card more profitable when trading in 7 favours.

Yup.

Thanks for the discussion. Always looking for ways to squeeze a little more EpA out.
edited by Artful on 10/25/2016

[optimatum]

Apparently the cost for cashing in C: Hell has been changed recently from 120 CP to 15 CP. Assuming the original estimation of 60.5 Souls on average is correct* that changes the EPA of spirifage from ~1.74 with cashing in to ~1.80. That’s a pretty big deal!

*What with Hallowmas and grinding for all the companions I doubt I’ll be able to do any soul-grinding for a couple weeks, sadly.

[dov]

@Artful

As for the morality of supporting the Liberation, Artful is already a Spirifer - how much worse can it get?

Oh, you should never say something like that. That’s like asking: &quotwhat could possibly go wrong?&quot

[xkiv]

@Optimatum

Apparently the cost for cashing in C: Hell has been changed recently from 120 CP to 15 CP.

What the whaaat!
It did!
Well, that puts roughly a 1.6e value on the hell connection gotten on conflict cards … (for somebody whose opportunity cost is AotB …)

[zoviir]

So I’ve only just started to really grind and I was pleasantly surprised to find this thread. Not a big fan of AotB, I’ve mostly been doing WoA > Strong Backed Labor (which has started to seem like too low of an EPA) or Tigers > Secrets (which is definitely too low) into Expeditions. Hadn’t really thought about Tales of Terror as a big earner, what level is the biggest cash out?

That aside, I’ve got a question for you AI, or for the thread at large. What do you guys keep in reserve? I know I like to keep at least one of the high value items, because I feel like I’m going to run into high level content one day that needs one, and some items I’m just never giving up… Strokes the binding on the life’s work of January.

All the rest though? shrugs A quantity of tier 3 items for converting and enough glim to tag the Widow is all I’ve really got.

[anindividual]

[quote=Zoviir]So I’ve only just started to really grind and I was pleasantly surprised to find this thread. Not a big fan of AotB, I’ve mostly been doing WoA > Strong Backed Labor (which has started to seem like too low of an EPA) or Tigers > Secrets (which is definitely too low) into Expeditions. Hadn’t really thought about Tales of Terror as a big earner, what level is the biggest cash out?

That aside, I’ve got a question for you AI, or for the thread at large. What do you guys keep in reserve? I know I like to keep at least one of the high value items, because I feel like I’m going to run into high level content one day that needs one, and some items I’m just never giving up… Strokes the binding on the life’s work of January.

All the rest though? shrugs A quantity of tier 3 items for converting and enough glim to tag the Widow is all I’ve really got.[/quote]
I have generally kept my gear and anything I use regularly or would have difficult re-obtaining in reserve and sold the rest. With Cider though I’m putting much more on the table. Partially out of impatience and partially because I’ll be making a trip to winking isle after I’m done and there are many things one cannot take with them on such a journey.

[kaijyuu]

I’ve got most purchaseable things that I want already, so I keep a good reserve of all items. I’m in no rush to get an ubergoat or a cider. Though if I need cash, I will first sell things I know I can easily replenish, like the items I get from my normal money making grinds. I won’t sell, say, foxfire candles because those are relatively difficult to acquire if I were to need them.

[optimatum]

As a completionist type of player, I have almost every item already. Outside gear and my Ubergoat I’ll be selling everything when in reach of Cider. Then I can visit Winking Isle and after turning back at the brink I’ll grind back to having all the different items.

The most profitable stage of the Fidgeting Writer is definitely gambling all the way to the end for Coruscating Souls. It’s ~1.92 EPA if you have all the necessary items already, but with grinding it’s more like ~1.57 EPA.

[artful]

I tend to keep a couple of classes of things:

1. Rare stuff I don’t know how to get another of - special items handed out as one-off rewards (like items from Sunless Sea that have made special appearances here in London).

2. Things I know are needed for special items - I am holding onto 49 Searing Enigmas to attempt an Impossible Theorem once I get my Cider.

3. Items that power my grind - I will be holding onto Whispered Hints and Rostygold since they power my Expeditions and efficient methods to gain them are rare.

4. My gear - I will not be selling any of the gear I use to hit my stat caps.