It’s entirely possible that the odds could have been switched without anyone really noticing; the descriptor for both 50% and 60% odds is “it could go either way”, so there’d be no obvious tell. Or there could be some cross-pollination between both spreadsheets, though I dunno how much that’d affect things unless it was pretty major.
Those are more likely than there being some weird doppelganger of Luck which looks and behaves exactly like Luck in all regards but is Narrow 5 instead of 10 and only Fallen London uses it and only for like two checks in the whole game, at least. That’s not impossible, but it’s also not very likely.
So, I made a google spreadsheet, and looked at The Fidgeting Writer stuff, and, if my math is right, I think it may be more profitable than people think.
In terms of sheer echo value, getting a Coruscating Soul only yields about 1.89 Echoes/Action.
However, if you grind for the component parts in the most efficient way possible, the profitability jumps up to 2.44 Echoes/Action.
Here is a link to the spreadsheet where I show my math:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zKz3jeAKbX_dDm-zFvZgUMdnoElor7o-kNpfz3fwOOM/edit?usp=sharing
The first page shows my estimation of the profitability of The Fidgeting Writer (using the chances of success provided earlier in the topic)
The second page describes the most efficient way to grind for the component parts. Note: I’m only looking at the most grindeable actions. I’m certain there are opportunity cards that provide an even more efficient way of acquiring the components.
P.S. I tried to make the spreadsheet nice and readable. If there’s some way I could improve it, please let me know.
[quote=ancusohm]… if my math is right, I think it may be more profitable than people think.[/quote]Looking at the Extraordinary Implications, it seems like you’re getting slightly more than two per Action, which seems strange when they originate from the 1.26 Echos/Action Tale of Terror!! grind. Which might explain how you can magically improve upon a 1.89 Echoes/Action grind by combining it with a bunch of inferior grinds, when all my experience tells me that doing so would actually even out the grinds to an average level between the lowest and the highest number of Echoes/Action. Not to mention that if I could get two Extraordinary Implications for one Action, that’d be a 5 Echoes/Action grind, so I wouldn’t bother with piddly 1.89 Echoes/Action. :)
Has anyone had the patience to go back through this thread and combine everyone’s data? Between everybody who was tracking it, it’s a pretty darn big sample size.
I quit when I earned my overgoat but might someday be bored enough to go for the übergoat…
On the note of efficiently grinding some of the necessary items, does anyone have a really good storylet source of Identities Uncovered? Right now I’m just gossiping with Mrs. Plenty at her carnival, but 1 echo per action seems like something that can be improved upon.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 9/19/2014
I think the only way adding more grinds would INCREASE the average output is if one or more of those grinds was even more profitable. Which, yeah, the 5.20 echo/action on extraordinary implications is far more profitable than the whole coruscating soul business.
(is it possible you got the ratio backwards, because 0.48 extraordinary implications/action comes out to 1.20 echo/action which is fairly reasonable)
I looked at things again and, yes, there were a couple bugs in my code. It looks like the efficiency is about 1.5 echoes/action if you grind for everything.
My mistake. Sorry.
[quote=ancusohm]I looked at things again and, yes, there were a couple bugs in my code. It looks like the efficiency is about 1.5 echoes/action if you grind for everything.
My mistake. Sorry.[/quote]
~150 ppa (in expectation) is very close to Affair of the Box, which gives mourning candles, correspondence plaques and connected criminals, all at a guaranteed rate. Though I suppose Fidgeting Writer is more efficient in terms of player clicks.
[quote=Sara Hysaro]On the note of efficiently grinding some of the necessary items, does anyone have a really good storylet source of Identities Uncovered? Right now I’m just gossiping with Mrs. Plenty at her carnival, but 1 echo per action seems like something that can be improved upon.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 9/19/2014[/quote]
The best way i know to get identities Uncovered is to grind for Society Connections at the Palace, turn that into Jade in the Temple Club(this is a better Jade rate than Watchmaker’s Hill) and turn that Jade into Identities in The Labyrinth of Tigers.
It’s one of the longer grinds for items needed.
Thank you for the answer! I think I’ll deal with the lower yield for now (I’m almost done with getting the 49 Black Lenses), but once I get back into it I’ll get all the necessary components beforehand rather than getting them when they’re needed.
And then I was overwhelmed instantly. Time to really sit down and carefully read out that most recently posted spreadsheet.
I could add my own data to the sample, if anyone is going to compile it. I’m realizing only now, though, that there are whole new levels to efficiency and this game then I knew prior.
[quote=Sara Hysaro]On the note of efficiently grinding some of the necessary items, does anyone have a really good storylet source of Identities Uncovered? Right now I’m just gossiping with Mrs. Plenty at her carnival, but 1 echo per action seems like something that can be improved upon.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 9/19/2014[/quote]
I use the Velocipede Squad when I need item from that line (Identities or Blackmail Material). I think it gains north of 1.4 ppa, but not all of it is directly useful for the grind so shrug
I’ve finally taken some time to write up a script which automagically does all of the fidgeting writer math, and it outputs some nifty graphs as well. You can find it here: http://guyscrum.github.io/fidgeting-writer-stats/. Enjoy!
Oh, and if anyone wants to make improvements and is sufficiently git-savvy, just fork the git repo and I’ll happily merge in changes.
edited by Guy Scrum on 11/9/2014
Are we sure the stats haven’t changed? It feels like it’s been modified sometime recently, reducing the reward output.
Individual experiences can vary. It’s easy to hit a run of bad luck and feel like things have been changed to not be in your favour (like just recently when I got An Instrument 3 times in 4 expeditions).
Indeed - my horrible run of failures with my Last Hopes today have reminded me why I really, really dislike the Fidgeting Writer. Back to the predictable, if dull, Affair of the Box for me.
I just started a Fidgeting Writer run, with a plan to do about 1000 Tales of Terror and see where that leads. I read somewhere that there might be a time-of-day factor to the story, but in my 200+ ToT conversions thus far I haven’t seen any evidence of it (currently 67.9% success across different times). I’ll report my numbers once I’ve finished to add to the DB if anyone is still managing that.
Regarding confidence intervals, you would have to select a sample size (say 100 attempts) and see what success you have for that sample. Repeat that across 100 samples (for 10,000 conversions) to get a range of success probabilities. Stdev comes from the comparison of the sample sets. Of course, ideally, all sample sets should be identical (same user, same time of day, same whatever-else-might-impact-the-result) to ensure repeatability.
[quote=Maelwys]I just started a Fidgeting Writer run, with a plan to do about 1000 Tales of Terror and see where that leads. I read somewhere that there might be a time-of-day factor to the story, but in my 200+ ToT conversions thus far I haven’t seen any evidence of it (currently 67.9% success across different times). I’ll report my numbers once I’ve finished to add to the DB if anyone is still managing that.
Regarding confidence intervals, you would have to select a sample size (say 100 attempts) and see what success you have for that sample. Repeat that across 100 samples (for 10,000 conversions) to get a range of success probabilities. Stdev comes from the comparison of the sample sets. Of course, ideally, all sample sets should be identical (same user, same time of day, same whatever-else-might-impact-the-result) to ensure repeatability.[/quote]
I’ve done this over different parts of the day with about 30,000 data points.
There is no time of day correlation. It’s set at a standard of 70% across the board.
Side note: JESUS CHRIST NIGEL!!! How did you get 114 Hedonist!?
Because Narci is a very close second: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/narcissus_echo
We both started at Hedonism 40 3 years ago. Back then it wasn’t too terribly hard as Hedonism had no level cap and you could grind it at the Palace for at a pretty decent rate while getting the honey you needed for a Royal Beth address.
But at the '90 Feast, there was an option to increase your Hedonism by 5 cp per action. They had also just released the daily action cap. So we ground up the stat like crazy during the Feast and ended up at about 85 and 80, respectively.
But that wasn’t enough. There is an action in the Labyrinth of Tigers that used to increase it at less than 1cp per action, but it was a dedicated source.
So we both ground it until I reached 115 and Narci reached 100. At that point we called a truce because no one was even close.
Due to other story requirement, we’ve both lost a level, but it’s still higher than anyone else in the game by a lot.
I called it the War of Hedonism. I’m convinced it was part of the reason Quirks have caps now.