Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Jack of All Trades Turns 50

You advanced to level 50 of Jack of All Trades!


Yeah, okay, that's never actually shown. But with this range level, I finally hit "all skills 50+".




You advanced to level 50 of ranging!


Ranging 50


Next goal... all skills 60+ hehe. Though not prioritized, as I wanna get eng and manu to 100 and do the god switch stuff.


NEW PERK - Managed to get in and get the new quest perk before certain prices rose.

Meanwhile...

Tailoring: Decided running back and forth on school days to get about 35 blue dyes poofed in the tailor school each time was getting monotonous. So, with some calculating, determined that if I do things right I can get slightly better "exp per gc" by poofing blue fabrics instead.

So I'm prepping 3k ings to do so. Started with the 3k blue dyes, which led to...




You advanced to level 51 of tailoring!


Tailoring 51


To do that, I needed saltpeter of course, and the ashes for those. So 3k saltpeter for the dyes led to:




You advanced to level 75 of engineering!


Engineering 75


3k of saltpeter requires 6k of ashes, which in turn requires 18k branches. Some proof that I don't bother going to high level stuff to level harvesting anymore, I got this while harving those branches:




You advanced to level 111 of harvesting!


Harvesting 111




Current Plans (always subject to change, heh):
- Waiting on special days to get more poofing of ings done for speed leveling
- restocking my C1 rings. Been eating them like candy lately, so harving to mix more.
- Continue stocking for tailoring school. Next up is 3k white fabrics, and some AEs.
- Um... other stuff. Whatever I feel like doing. ;-)



The Pears Continue to be Munched

13 more found since last post, bringing the total found to 59. And well, much more to come, hehe.





Aeth Aelfan - Wyrmgoth Cave - This was a particularly tricky one. One of the last maps checked, and it turned out to be in the very last possible piece of wolframite after having checked everything else. Patience and determination were definite keys for this one. Oh, and swords of course. ;-)

Pear



North Redmoon - Volcano - Big Red was following me around, so keeping to a pattern so I knew what had been checked was particularly difficult. But I finally managed to stumble on it.

Pear



Hurquin - Hobgoblin cave - Not so much in the way of harvables here, just very spread out. A few unreachables as well.

Pear



Imbroglio Islands - Hydro Cave - If it's on this map, it has to be in the hydro. I've learned to keep enough swords around after my hydro runs for just such a case.

Pear



Iscalrith - A tricky map with harvs well spread out and many "hiding" under trees and such. I got lucky this time and stumbled on it only 5.5 minutes into the day, which included actually finding the map.

Pear



Aeth Aelfan - Wyrmgoth Cave (again) - A "kinda secret" area with iron and coal inside here, the pear was in the iron.

Pear



Southern Kileran Field - Limited number of harvables, most all low-level, means it's only a matter of minutes to find the pear on here once the map is determined.

Pear



Irinveron - Yeti Cave - Some trickiness to this map in that most all the minerals/ores have at least a few hidden inside the walls. Fortunately found it before I had to start checking all those.

Pear



Tahraji Desert - Dragon Cave - Limited harvables but two different ores requiring swords, which I've had to check before. This time I was fortunate and found it in the first group of quartz not far from the entrance.

Pear



Idaloran - Double FCW cave - A few of the white chantarelles seen near me in this pic are unreachable, and it's been there on a past occasion. This time it was reachable though.

Pear



Ruins of Tirnym - First time hunting here. And it was a real competition with at least 3 others hunting on the map along with me. I lucked out and found it first.

Pear



Valley of the Dwarves - Gold Mine 2nd Level - So much, so spread out, and a load of gold that is unreachable due to bad mapmaking (honestly). However, in this case it was just in the ogre toes.

Pear



Tarsengaard - 4th time hunting on this map, first time being the first to find it. So much, so spread out that it can be difficult keeping track of what's been checked.

Pear

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

50 Shades of Tailoring

Attack, Summoning, and 4 levels of Tailoring among the levels achieved since last update.

And of course, the pear hunts have continued, though I have intentionally not hunted sometimes due to real life stuff, or just a desire to get other things done. Being a regular pear hunter takes time from other projects, sometimes just gotta "not hunt" to get other things done. But no matter, there's always another hunt later.



As I've said before, most of my a/d leveling comes from daily quests, with the rare taking advantage of a sun tzu day if I can be bothered with it. Still, they get leveled. Like after this white tiger daily.



You advanced to level 125 of attack!


Attack 125





Alchemy is still going strong of course. I'm now well over 900k HEs mixed in my stats, mixing both on my own and as well mixing large batches for others, for the experience. However, at this point getting an alch level is the equivalent of about 100k HEs mixed so doing a lot doesn't get me there. Currently about 3/5 of the way to the next level for that.

Manu is still being done, with breaks from doing other things to make runs to Trik for helm mixing. It hasn't had a major focus, but it's still in progress at least.


I've been spending a lot of time stocking for various skills for special days, particularly school day. Engineering being one, I got enough ings to last two Engineering days when they happen, poofing point defenses in school.


Summoning I hadn't gotten around to stocking for though, so when a summoner's day showed up I had to spend the first half mixing stock.

However, in the end I managed to squeeze in a level.



You advanced to level 54 of summoning!


Summon 54




That stocking was done first for tailoring though. And that paid off. With a school day, I speed-haxed my way back and forth between the fashion runway (tailor school) and storage to multi-level.



You advanced to level 47 of tailoring!


Tailor 47



You advanced to level 48 of tailoring!


Tailor 48



You advanced to level 49 of tailoring!


Tailor 49



You advanced to level 50 of tailoring!


Tailor 50



BSFs continue to be harved in the tens of thousands since, hell, I poofed well over 70k of them alone on this one school day.



Almost to my goal of "All Skills 50+" ... I've bought arena tickets and stocked training arrows, as I only have 2/3 of a ranging level to go to reach that goal.





Pear Runs Continue...

"Just a few" more finds, heh.



Trassian - Has very few harvables considering it's on top of such harvestable insides.

Pear



Valley of the Dwarves - As can be seen in the pic, it could be so close to where people normally harvest, but since noone harvs logs in this area, just the toadies...

Pear



Tahraji Desert - Not the funnest of maps to hunt, but assuming there's noone around trying to PK, er, stop you, it's not that difficult since the harvs are almost all pretty visible (and almost all cactus for that matter).

Pear



Isle of the Forgotten - This is where knowing the map came in very useful. The tiger lillies in the screenshot are almost completely hidden, and likely would go completely unnoticed without closer examination or learning of them some other way.

Pear



North Redmoon - Volcano - All the harvables are in with the red dragon. And horribly spread out at that.

Pear



Nordcarn - Ruby Cave - A few areas of a lot of harvs, but despite the map size it's a quick map to check as there's relatively few harvs for the size.

Pear



Zirakinbar - There were at least 3 of us who determined this map pretty quick. But it's a huge map to check. Out of what was sheer luck, I stumbled on the pear in 5 minutes (including time to actually find the map).

Pear








Friday, August 10, 2012

Harvesting: How It Works and How to Level It

Official forum stuff as well as a few responses I got from my last entry about harvesting had me decide to write this. Of course, as always, there's a lot of personal opinion involved, but you're getting those particular opinions from a level 110 harvester.



How Harvesting Works

Ignoring experience for a moment, there seems to be some that still don't understand how rec levels or harving speed works, so I'll try and explain it. Disclaimer: Much of this is based on experience, not any officially provided info, so there may be inaccuracies.

When mixing something (such as an essence), the rec level for that item is essentially when you have a 50/50 chance of success. As your level in the skill goes up, you have a higher chance of success. And of course, higher chance of failure if you're below the rec level. Very much below and it's sheer luck if you succeed. You wouldn't want to try and mix a level 80 potion if you only were a level 10 potioner, right?


Harvesting actually works similarly, as we're about to see in example.



Inorganic Nexus and Books: As you go up in harvesting, some items such as quartz and ores require knowledge, so you'll need to read a book before harvesting them. As well, some items require inorganic nexus to harvest, up to as many as 6 for things like dung. Check the encyclopedia in-game before deciding to start harvesting something to ensure you have what is needed.

Tools: Some items, particularly minerals and ores, require tools (gloves, pickaxe, saw) to harvest. Again check the encyclopedia to see what's needed. Always carry a couple spares with you as they can break as a major event (per events described below).


* Base times¨

Base time between mixes for mixing skills like alchemy is 1 second. That is, if you hit the mix all but and don't fail or run out of food, you'll mix one per second.

Harvestables also have base times. Whether it's 1 second for very low-level items, or 9 seconds for dung. This means the fastest you can harvest is that base time if you harvest without fail.

Base times aren't given in the encyclopia, and at this point it doesn't seem anyone's taken the time to place them on EL-wiki either. However, the EL-CEL site does have them on the info page for each specific harvestable.

* Example of How Harvesting Success/Fail Works

For this example, assume your harvest level is 34, the rec level of harvesting red currents.

According to the EL-CEL Red Current Page, the base time for currents is 3 seconds. That is, if you successfully harvest each time, you'll get 1 harvest every 3 seconds.

It's the success part that is determined by your harvest level.

First, completely ignore the events for this part, both major and mini. These are irrelevant for this portion.

For these currents, every 3 seconds you'll either succeed or fail at harvesting them. If you succeed, you'll get them. If not, you won't, and have to wait another 3 seconds for the next attempt.

Unlike mixing, you won't stop harvesting on these fails. You just don't get the item/exp, and have to wait until the next base time period to harv again. This generally goes unnoticed since there's no harv stop on failing.

If you're level 34, harving red currents then, just like mixing you have a 50/50 chance of success each base time period of harvesting.

This is how your harvest level determines the speed you harvest. Lower harvest level = more fails = more base time periods to go through to fill your inventory. As your harvest level increases, you "fail" less which means you harvest more quickly. A level 80 harvester will get a full load of red currents much faster than a rec level 34 harvester for this reason. The speed of the harvest never actually changes over levels, just changes in the amount of fails make it seem that way.

This also means that technically, yes, this same level 34 harvester could in fact harvest a piece of level 100 dung. However, the fail rate would be so high that, along with dung's 9 second(!) base time, it could take hours if not days just to get one full load. Thus not recommended. (In fact, touching dung before level 90 or so is a complete waste of time.)

This is how your harvesting level affects your harvesting ability, and why the recommended levels are there. Those tell you when, like mixing, you have about a 50/50 chance of success.

Level 0 items: Like level 0 for other skills (Potion of mana, bones powder), these are no-fail. There's 7 level 0 harvestables, all with 1 second base times, and due to no-fail as well as some giving 2 items per harv, these are all easy to store. Bad for leveling, of course, but easy to stock.


Since "fails" on harvest don't stop your harvesting like fails do when mixing, let's look at what does stop harvesting...

Events

Events were included to reduce the amount of afk-harvesting, and "add a little something" to the harvesting experience as well. They can be both good and bad, like most things in game.

Major Events

These are the "original" events. These are the ones you see messages for when harvesting near others and they happen to others. Break a pickaxe, finding a stone, hitting a teleport nexus, finding a bag of gold, and so on.

Astrology is a major determining factor in how often you get these. Using a "harvest/degrade indicator", the top "Harvest Events Increase" bar shows how likely you are to get a major event.



Astro of exactly 0 is considered the norm. In the above example, the astro is "in the red", meaning less major events will occur than normal. At an extreme red, you will likely see little to no major events. On the opposite end, you could be getting one as often as every few harvs with a "high green" positive astro.

(Important Note: The second "degrade" bar on the H/D indicator determines break chances of armor/weapons when fighting, and has no effect on harvesting. As such, ignore it for this tutorial. There are some who believe this affects how often your gloves/pickaxes break, but that's not true. Those breaks are determined by random major events, thus they're determined by the top bar and how often you get major events.)

There's not much you can do about major events. To avoid them, try to time your stock-harvesting to times you have red astro per an indicator. Indicators can be purchased from an NPC in Arius, and as well from many bots and players as they are makeable by engineers.

Of course, this also means you're avoiding the chance of getting a good event (like finding a rare stone) as well as bad, so you have to weigh your options and decide what's best for yourself.

Reducing harm from major events: You should be prepared to "not die" from harvesting events. Be able to heal yourself at all times through magic or potions. Armor can help reduce the amount of damage taken from things like cavern walls collapsing and radon pouches, but weigh in that armor also takes some of your emu so you'll not be able to harvest as much in one load.

Mini Events

Minor events, called "mini events", were added later to the game. These are small events that cause harvesting to stop. Only you see the message for these, noone around you sees them. These are the ones like:

- You hurt yourself, and lost 1 HP.
- You gained 10 extra harvesting exp.
- You found 6 coins.  (Not a bag of coins, which is a major event)

Unlike major events, mini events are not affected by astro. You have a steady chance of getting one of these regardless of if your astro is red or green. You stop harvesting on each of these.

With a Harvester Medallion, you can avoid stopping when you get these, and as well you'll get more coins and experience on each. More on this below.



Special Days

There are three special days that can randomly occur (or someone who has a stone can start) that affect harvesting.

Green Day - This is the bad one. Absolutely no harvesting can be done during this day. It doesn't happen often, but does happen. Always be prepared to do something else in case it comes up.

Non-Stop Day - The text that shows in-game with this one isn't precise. What actually happens on this day is that there are no mini events at all, so less stops while harvest. Major events do not change. (You are recommended to not use a harvester medallion on this day, since its primary benefit is not stopping with mini events.)

Day of Aleksei Stakhanov - On this day, you get three times the harvest experience that you would normally get. This is a day you should particularly sit at something where you'll get the best experience possible. All harv exp, including dailies and other quests, as well as mini events and queen blessings, is tripled as well.


Harvester Medallion

This medallion is used during harvesting to get some benefits. Due to its cost, normally around 7.4-7.5kgc, it's up to you to determine if it's worth it. Some never use one. Others like myself rarely harvest without one.

Medallion Benefits:
- You don't stop harvesting on mini events. This means a lot less harvest stops in general. If you have red astro, you can likely get repeated full loads without any stop. (This does not affect major events. Only astro affects how often you get those, and you will still stop on a major event.)
- You get double the experience and coins from mini events.
- Bags of coins major events are increased, 15 times what would normally be received.
- Queen of Nature blessings are 12 times what they would normally be.
- Chance of a major event breaking your tool is halved.
- (who cares...) You won't pull a rat out of the dung while harvesting that.

Drawback: Medallions are fragile. On a major event (which by the way, also includes one where nothing happens, you just "stopped harvesting"), there is a chance mother nature will break your medallion.

On red astro with few major events, if you only harvest during those times, a medallion could last you months. On heavy major events, you can break several in one day.

So as said, it's up to you to decide if it's worth the gc to use them, and how you will use them.

Personal opinion: Very beneficial to use during red astro when you need to get a lot of stock of something. You can go for hours with no major events, the medallion prevents you from stopping on mini events, so harvesting is essentially non-stop until you get a full load.

Global Quest Rewards

When global (community) quests are completed, a long period ensues where a special benefit is given. There are two benefits that can come up that will aid in harvesting or leveling harvesting.

1- Fewer harvesting mini events - Less stops while harvesting.
2- Daily quests can be done every 3 game days instead of 4 (every 18 real-life hours instead of 24) - This will allow you to do both of the harvesting dailies more often, helping with leveling.

Harvesting Perks and Capes

There are three perks that affect harvesting in some way.

Harvester of Sorrow - This is a negative perk. The usual teleport nexus major events will send you to Nordcarn PK Arena where you can be PKed, away from whatever map you are harvesting on (even on the second continent). It is highly recommended that you not take this perk if you plan to be a heavy harvester or mixer. It's only the "pure fighters" that take this perk for the pickpoints it gives.

Excavator Perk - This perk allows you to harvest two of an item instead of one with each harvest. It has no effect on high-level ores and such that require you to have swords or matter conglomerates, but works on everything else.

The general consensus on this perk is to not waste your pickpoints on it, as they are too valuable. Instead, wear the Excavator Cape (brown cape) while harvesting as it gives you the same benefit.

Note: The number of items you harvest is twice the number of harvests when using this perk/cape. So for things like Xaquelina dailies that tell you to, say, harvest 100 of an item, you'll actually have to collect 200 of them to finish the daily. You're getting 200, but only doing 100 successful harvests in doing so. Quests generally count the number of harvests you do, not the number of the item you collect.

Dedicated Harvester Perk - A newer perk, considered "neutral" as whether it is beneficial or detrimental is determined more by your playing style. As well, it requires no pickpoints, just some gc to get it.

With this perk, you'll get experience for the first 140 harvests every hour instead of the usual 120. Thus more experience per hour, every hour, for the rest of your game days.

However, it also comes with increased mini events. As well, the global quest bonus of "fewer mini events" will not work for you.

(Personal opinion: Don't get Dedicated Harvester unless you regularly use harvester medallions, as it could get annoying with more stops during harvesting, and there's as of this writing no way to remove the perk. With medallion, this means more experience/coins as well from the increased mini events.)


How to Level Harvesting Skill


Harvesting is an odd skill to level compared to normal mix and fight skills.

Only the first 120 harvests of a game hour give experience

This being the big oddity. Unlike other skills, this limit is in place for harvesting. (Note: 140 harvests instead of 120 with the Dedicated Harvester perk mentioned above.)

Because of it, if you're wanting to level harvesting as quickly as possible, you need to learn ways to get the biggest experience for your allotted harvests.

Here are some tips:
1- You must be online when the game hour changes for your harvest exp to reset. If you're not, you have to wait for the next game hour to get experience.

2- Find the highest level harvestable you can for experience harvests. You can use things that have a rec level above your actual level for this.

3- Don't go too high above your rec level. Remember that the lower you are below the rec level, the longer it will take to harvest. If you go for something too far above your level, you may not even get the full 120/140 harvests done in an hour. That means you'd be better off doing something lower level and getting the full number of harvests. Trial and error will help you determine this for your level. Also keep in mind how much time you want to waste just getting harv experience.

Personal opinion: Try something maybe 10 rec levels above your current level, see how long it takes you to get a full 120/140 harvs, and move up/down based on that.

4- Are you harving something useful? While you may harv something that's nice experience, is it something you think you'll be able to use later? Or if not, is it something that is easily sellable? You'll level harvesting a lot faster than you expect, so there's no point in wasting that time on something that's useless just for a few extra points.

5- Always do the harvest dailies - Both Xaquelina (who the newbie tutorial shows you) and the dung daily. Even if you can't harvest dung, you can still buy it from others or bots and get experience, and it's not that expensive.

6- Take advantage of the triple harvest special day - This is like three days worth of harvest experience in one day. This would be the time to put serious focus on harv experience, getting the absolute best exp possible regardless of what you have to harv to do it. Queen of Nature blessings, bonus experience from mini events while wearing a harv medallion, and so on are all triple as well. Definitely do your harvest dailies on this special day.

7- Once you get to higher levels and can afford the regular breakages, the harv medallion can heavily add to your daily experience intake. Especially combined with Dedicated Harvester perk. DO NOT, however, take this perk or use medallions until you're certain you can live with the breakages and the extra mini events.


Leveling harvesting may feel incredibly slow, but if done right you'll be at a point where extra levels don't mean much to your game play in no time. You don't need to be a "top harvester" unless you want to be. 20 or so levels above the highest item you regularly harvest, and you're pretty much set for the rest of your game life. Any further levels from that, which you'll still get, will help slightly with harv speed, but not enough to be concerned about. Just like mixing, there's no special level you can get to that's no-fail, but at a certain point the fails just don't mean much.

Basically put, don't stress harvesting, unless your plan is to be a full-time harvester. You'll get to a good point sooner than you think!

Thursday, August 9, 2012

First Harvestable Hits 1,000,000 Harvs

I thought it was going to be iron, as it was getting close and I was doing (and still plan to do) large quantities of S2Es.

However, doing some heavy stocking for school supplies to poof on school days, I ended up harving extreme quantities of blue star flowers for blue dyes to poof in the tailoring school. And those dyes take 20 flowers each. Add to that stock for mixing SRs and I guess it's no surprise that BSFs became my first harvestable to hit the 1,000,000 harvs mark.

Current status: Harvest level 110, with only about 500k exp to go to level.


That's the full list. Green indicates items that are still regularly harvested. Red is stuff I almost never touch unless absolutely necessary these days (they've either been replaced with buying them or the item they're used for, or just are simply not used by me anymore). No dot means they do get harved on occasion, just not as much as the green dots. Those include things like flowers for creature food... not normally harved, but when I do, it's in large (10-20k batches) of them.

Every possible item that can currently be harvested in the game is represented above. Total harvests for this list is over 11 million.

A quick look at how the top 10 ended up being the top 10...

1) Blue Star Flower - As said above, primarily due to use of blue dyes to level tailoring, with a good amount needed for mixing SR potions. Two heavy uses.

2) Iron Ore - The usual, iron/steel bars to make S2Es. I also regularly mix a lot of energy essences (both for self-use in magic and poofing them in the engineering school as point defense).

I expect this will also hit the 1,000,000 as well very soon.

3) Sunflowers - There was a time I used tons of these for BRs while leveling potion. Potion has taken a back seat for leveling so I barely touch these now. They still get harved on occasion to stock LEs when I want to work on summoning stones.

They'll be back in heavy harv rotation again in the future, after I'm done with manu/eng gods and switch to magic/summon gods, which will mean tons of summon stone grinding, calling for tons of LEs.

4) Chrysanthemum - I've mentioned before that I heavily use HEs to level alchemy, so this is no surprise. I'm currently at 880k HEs mixed, so 827k mums is about right for that. (I do regularly mix other people's HE ings for them, explaining why I have a lot more HEs mixed than mums harved.)

5) Silver ore - 818k obviously doesn't cover the 880k HEs I've mixed, not to mention all the silver bars I've done. These days I heavily trade items for silver, or buy silver, so the need to harv it is drastically reduced. But it does still get harved, regularly.

6) Coal - No explanation needed... bars, bars, bars, bars, and, yes, bars.

7) Red Rose, 9) Red Snapdragons, and 10) Sulfur - From days gone by, when I used to do tons of FEs. Mixing these now is incredibly rare (a level 131 alcher doesn't get much out of them), so they're red-marked above. They still get harved on occasion but for the most part are avoided now, and will likely drop rapidly in the list over coming time.

8) Lilacs - Much higher than other magic ess ings, likely due to days of old when lilacs were used to get gc at the flower shop, plus harving them for a harv shop my guild back then used to run.

These days, I'm heavily stockpiling magic essence ings for poofing in the school on school days, so this along with impatiens and emeralds will continue to rise in harv count.



Wednesday, August 8, 2012

How to Find a Pear

[UPDATED: April 5, 2014]

Every 6 hours (every new "game day") a new pear appears in the game. It's hidden somewhere in any one of the many, many harvestables found throughout the game.

Simple enough, right? Not exactly. If you plan to start pear hunting, you need to be prepared, and it can take weeks of attempts before you start getting the hang of it.

Everything you should know to get started in pear hunting is here. It's so based on luck that I have no qualms in providing this info.

Pear hunting can be a fun change of pace from the normal game grind, as you never know what map it's going to lead you to or where you'll be surprised to find it. It's essentially a treasure hunt that occurs every 6 hours.


Requirements for Pear Hunting

1) Ability to harvest every harvestable item in-game - The pear can be found in literally anything that can be harvested. Make sure you've read every harvesting book, have inorganic 6, and a stock of swords/gloms. Yes, the pear can be and has been found even in things like dvarium, wolfram, copper, and hydro.

Right, even in amber, which means your action points could limit you.

Now, the overwhelming majority of the time it will be in an inorganic 4 or less item, so you can still hunt at that level. You'll just miss out if it's in a 5 or 6 item.

2) Pear Finders - And lots of them. There's up to 100 maps that have harvestable items. As luck is involved, it could be the first or even the very last map you can possibly check. You should have a minimum of 100 pear finders available before starting a hunt.

How pear finders work: You use 1 for each map you go to. Click it, and it will tell you if the pear is on that map or not. It will not give you any idea *where* on the map, just if it's on that map.

Once a pear is found, the rest of that game day the pear finders are set so that if you click one, it'll tell you there's no pear available. You don't lose the finder if this occurs, so you lose nothing trying. This is a way you can tell if a pear has been found that day already or not.

3) Tools - While you won't carry gloms/swords with you, have the basic pickaxes/gloves/saw in inventory. You should have gloms and swords well-stocked though for each possible harvestable item in your storage.

4) Potion of Speed Hax - Those people (like me) that you see regularly finding pears are using this. It drastically cuts down the amount of time spent finding the right map, and on maps where harvestables are spread out, it can drastically cut time there as well.

How valuable is this? Consider that, when haxed and fully knowledged in maps so you have a pattern for checking them, it can still take up to 40 minutes to check every possible map. Speed hax doubles your moving speed, so that means it could take up to 80 minutes to check every possible map (fully knowledged and with a pattern) without it.

That's a huge difference.

5) Map Knowledge - Do you know every secret spot? (Yes, there's harvables in some secret areas and yes, the pear can show up there) Do you have a good idea of where harvestables are on maps, not just "closest to storage" that many learn?

Sites like EL-wiki cannot be relied on for this, as those pages don't cover even a small part of the actual harvables on most maps. For example, look at the Arius page on EL-wiki, then take a walk around Arius seeing all the harvs spread out there. Huge difference.

You also need to know which maps actually have harvestables. A map such as SKF insides (with the 4 houses) or even Hulda have nothing harvestable, therefore the pear obviously won't be there. Eliminate maps such as those.

6) Patience - You get to Idaloran. The pear is in that map. Where do you start? Do you even try? No try, no get. But as well, considering how incredibly long it would take to find it, is it worth spending the time chancing you'll find it early on? Despite its "rarity", it still has a limited value, and time is valuable. (More on cost below.)

7) Ability to accept the inevitable - Not every harvestable item can be reached. Most every map has a few or sometimes a lot of items that you cannot possibly check. Example: Outside of the Portland potion school cave there's quite a few blue quartz for design, intentionally not reachable for harvest.

The random pear location generator has no ability to take into account where players can actually walk or reach, thus it can be in one of those. The only way to know is to check every single item on the map you possibly can check, which in the end means both wasted time and pear finders.

You have to be able to accept that this is a fact of pear hunting life and it will happen sometimes. "Shit Happens." 

8) No Bad Perks - Harvester of Sorrow perk is obviously going to be a serious detriment to pear hunting as hunting is a constant harv-fest. As well, Hellspawn can seriously slow down your ability to find the map, as a huge amount of the maps to check are internal. If you have either of these perks, you've essentially taken yourself out of the competition (though with hellspawn, you may luck out and it'll be on a map you don't have to "change maps" to get to).


Cost

(Note: Prices are accurate as of the "UPDATE" date at the top of this article. Do not use this as a price check, but as an example. Price on my bot IWannaRock tends to be accurate.)

Pear Finders as of this writing are about 170gc each. Having 100 available and normally using most of them, that's up to 17,000gc per hunt. (Or 170gc, if you luck out and it's on the first map you check.)

A pear runs about 27kgc market value. Now, is that right when only a possible up to 17kgc in finders is involved? Yes, as there's other determining factors.

1) Only a maximum of 4 pears can get into the game each (real-life) day, making it a rare item. If a pear isn't found on a game day, it's gone. Which can mean less than 4 per real-life day. This can happen when nobody hunts it, or it ends up in an unreachable/unharvable item, or even if it ends up on a map like White Stone which "pro hunters" won't bother with because of the incredible amount of time that could be involved.

2) Pear hunting includes risks, like PK maps, the NRM red dragon cave, and so on. A true hunter has to take those risks.

3) Time is gc. A hunter has to expect and plan to possibly be searching for a couple hours if necessary, even if it is regularly found within an hour. Whether it's found in 5 minutes or 3 hours, every hunter has to be prepared to expect the longer time.

Which means putting aside anything else being worked on.

How much gc can you make in an hour doing something else? Say, harving iron and selling it? Is the pear value, minus the combined time and finder/food/essies/SRs cost making it worthwhile to hunt, or would you be better off spending that time harv/selling?

4) Important factor: Add to that all the pear finders and time wasted on those game days where the pear is determined to be unattainable. And those wasted on days where someone else finds it first. That time and those finders are wasted gc as well.

5) As well, cost of gloms and various swords used to check every individual piece of ore where those are needed. Including hunting on days where the pear ends up being in some random unreachable flower and those gloms/swords as well as pear finders are wasted. That "one area of seridium" could actually have 30 individual pieces to check, only to find it's not there.

6) And right... It's a rare item! So it should be worth something on top of all that.




Okay, Time to Hunt

I am not going to give away exactly how I go about this. I will, however, provide tips on ways you can improve your ability to hunt. These are the exact same "tips" I learned myself to get to my current hunting abilities.These tips can be used to create your own patterns and such. None of the current hunters use the same patterns.

1) Determine the Fastest Way to Check Maps - This takes some time, but eventually you can develop a pattern that gets you through maps quickly. Tele room, boats, walk to the next map... in every case, decide how you could streamline the way around to all maps, both external and internal. Is there more than one place to check an internal, and where would be the fastest way to check it? Those are the kind of questions to think of. Do you need an item to "use with" to get to a map?

And I can't stress enough for this part of the hunt in particular... speed hax.

In the end though, it's still luck who gets to the map first. With so many possible maps, the pattern you choose to use in finding the right map isn't the same as others, and those others may happen upon the map quickly whereas your pattern has it being one of the last you check.

2) Section off maps - Once you've found the actual map, in most cases harvs can be very randomly spread out. Mentally learn to section off each map, working one section at a time. Use things like trees or even your own map marks to keep track of where you've checked. Having walked through and studied/marked the map before you actually hunt on it can very much improve the time spent finding the pear.

Particularly in larger maps, luck continues to determine who gets it first. In North Redmoon for example, one hunter starts up north working down the west side of the map. Another starts at the South Redmoon exit and works on the southern area first. Who's gonna get it? There's no way to know where to start. Have I mentioned the word "luck"?

3) Check everything - Every single individual harvestable. And this is where map knowledge comes in to play very well. There's all kinds of things not normally noticed. Thelinor has some wood logs half-hidden under tents. Some maps have branches everywhere, some of which can be almost completely hidden in the ground. Palon Vertas has almost 400 individual branches alone throughout the map, particularly in the north desert area.

Ore/mineral areas are rampant with pieces that are "hidden" in the cave walls, only visible if you adjust the camera so you can see through the walls.

As well, when you see a large group of an item, keep in mind that there could be several blue star flowers there, not just one, for example. Know the size and shape of harvestable bushes/flowers. Every individual piece of ore or quartz or mineral is a separate harvestable, you have to check every single one. And in the end, it could very easily be in the lone wood branch in the corner of the map as it could be in a large garden of wheat or veggies.

4) Study maps - Study, study, study. Choose a map, learn where the harvs are. Mark them, especially ones that are "kinda hidden" and you might forget during a hunt. This is time spent outside of the actual hunt time.



FAQ

Not really frequent, but some of the things people have asked that don't fit in above.

* What is a pear used for?

(Note: Answer as of the date of this post, subject to change, check other sources if you're reading this late.)  Current use is for Potion of Action Points. One is also required for one of the Redeemer NPC achievement perks.

* Do they sell?

Yes, if you know who to sell to. Who can actually make use of them? It's not a "fast seller", but then they don't come in the game fast, either.

* With certain people always finding the pears, should I even bother trying?

Don't expect to start finding them immediately on your first attempts, though the possibility is always there as luck is a huge factor. As you try more, you improve your speed/skill in getting around to finding the right map and harvestable, and your chances improve greatly.

My first two weeks, I wasted many a pear finder and only found it once in all that time. And that time likely only because I was the only one hunting it. I didn't start regularly finding it until after I improved my speed in finding the correct map, and spent some time studying maps I didn't have as much knowledge of. I can't stress enough how knowledge of where harvestables are is an important factor. Right, and spending days constantly speed haxed so I could get used to traveling and food-eating while it was in use.

Those "certain people" who "always" find it, like myself for example, have no special abilities over you. Just practice. Like a fighter can't kick an arctic chim until they've trained enough to get to that point, a pear hunter cannot expect to find a pear before others until they've "trained" by learning a good map checking pattern, and studied the maps to have a good idea of all available harvestables on it. The only difference between the two is that the skill required for a pear hunt doesn't give experience.

* Do you get upset when someone else finds it while you're looking?

No. It's part of what is expected. If you're a sore loser, hunting's not for you. You'll never see me bragging when I get it, or complaining/whining if someone else does before me. It's just a game, and I'm not that childish.

Once the pear is found, by me or someone else, I'm done with it, and already moving to go back to whatever I was doing pre-hunt.

* What if everything on a map is checked and the pear still isn't found?

There's several possibilities here:

1- You missed something. Some harvs are kinda hidden. Once you feel you've checked an entire map, walk through it again, looking closer and in more detail everywhere. Even I have found something I missed by doing this. Did you really check everything? Is that group of lilacs one bush or multiple and you only checked one? That stack of wood logs, did you check every individual log? And such.

2- If you did check "everything", then you should also know if you've found certain harvables that you couldn't reach. There's a very good chance it's in those.

3- Some maps also have "you can't harvest here!" type harvestables. Though the pear doesn't seem to hit maps where nothing is harvestable (like maps full of just rooms), it can end up in these harvables if they're on a normally harvestable map. An example of these is in Palon Vertas... the center house that storage is behind. If you go around to the side of the house that has the entrance, the flowers around the door can't be harved, shut off because they're too close to storage.

4- Something's hidden. Due to map construction, pieces of ores and minerals can be so far in a cave wall (for example) that they can only be seen if you angle/rotate the view just right so you're looking from inside the wall. A spot with 15 visible pieces of coal for example could actually have 20 with 5 hidden from normal view. The maps weren't exactly designed with pear hunts in mind.

Assuming it's not in a missed item, you just have to accept that it can't be gotten that day. A bad prospect, but it happens, regularly.

* Does knowing where the pear has been found before help in finding it?

No. The pear is truly random in its location. There's nothing to say "it'll be on c1 next time since it was on c2 the previous time", or that it won't even be on the same map. Remember programming code doesn't see "maps", it only sees a list of available harvestables and what maps have harvestable items on them, and one is randomly chosen from those.

There is absolutely nothing of this kind of nature that will help predict where the pear will be next time.

* Is hunting for it in groups a good idea?

I've never done this, but I've known it to be done before. Obviously this could help speed up the process. Splitting up and checking certain groups of maps to find the map faster. Splitting a map into sections with each person checking a section. I can, however, think of a few negatives to this. I can't give you a proper yes/no to this question. Whether these negatives are worth it is up to you.

- When the pear is found, you split the value of it among the group. The more people, the less you get. Long-term, this may be found to not be worth it.
- You're reliant on other players knowing the maps well, not just yourself. Someone claims to have finished their section, but missed a bunch of harvs. How are you to know?

I personally prefer doing this solo, mostly because I enjoy the hunt and finally having a good use for my map knowledge. But I can't speak for others in the case of this question. It's up to you.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

I Dyed... and Other Stuff

Alchemy, magic, ranging, dye-poofing for tailoring, and overalls have been just a part of the latest round of leveling.

First, a quick word on the nonsense that's been going on of late, as I keep getting PMs, and I can't really say much... Despite what several of the trolls (many of which are now banned) have said, there was a lot more involved than just a "Hi" to me in 6 that led to their removal. What all was involved won't be discussed, it's a mod issue. As was mentioned by the "higher powers" in channel 6, there was heavy violating of rule 2, which they'd been repeatedly warned for over a period of months. I can say that much because they said it in channel. They chose to try and find ways around those warnings as a collective group, and it failed for them miserably. In channel it looked differently, as the trolls were trying to claim, but there was a lot more involved that wasn't mentioned publicly.

So if a troll tells you they got banned for "saying hi to me" or other such stupidity, know the higher powers of the game have never banned for such a nonsensical reason. Know there was a lot more involved, obviously... Just laugh at them and continue to enjoy playing. They're just hoping you'll be as dumb as them and fall for that reason. They're well aware of their behaviors, they just don't want you to know the real reasons. As trolls tend to do, they'll blame everything and everyone, except themselves. Keep that in mind when listening to them.

They're dealt with now, several banned, and a couple still being watched and on their very last chances. So I and others can return to enjoying the game.

That's all I have to say on the matter.



Magically Leveled

A few magic days led to my usual kicking bears using mana drain and radiation shields. As well, I've been tossing out random magic immunity spells when I have ethereal points sitting there doing nothing, while harving/mixing.


You advanced to level 76 of magic!


Magic 76


The Tailoring School

I'd stocked up a load of blue dye ings specifically waiting for a school day. Using speed hax, I ran back and forth from AA storage to the school. Not a simple task, but then tailoring leveling isn't simple no matter how you try to do it. But I got through 3 levels this way.


You advanced to level 44 of tailoring!


Tailor 44


You advanced to level 45 of tailoring!


Tailor 45


You advanced to level 46 of tailoring!


Tailor 46



And of course, the alchemy continues.

You advanced to level 131 of alchemy!


Alchemy 131


Use of the Manu god continues as well. Trik is getting tired of seeing me. ;-)

You advanced to level 80 of manufacturing!


Manu 80


Finished off an overall while visiting Trik as well.

Your overall level is now 156!


Overall 156


And finally, a couple ranging days allowed for spending a small bit of time in the ranging arena.

You advanced to level 49 of ranging!


Ranging 49




The Pear Hunt Continues

Nine more finds since last post...




Bethel - Feros Cave - Finding the map is the harder part for most "inside" maps. Though on this map there's quite a few harvables. Three of us were hunting in here so it was just matter of dumb luck in being the first to get it.

Pear

Imbroglio Islands - Not many harvables on this map. More an issue of them being so spread out. And of course that there's no pkers around waiting for hydro runners and such.

Pear

Portland - Spread out harvs, but generally not a difficult map.

Pear

Kilaran Field - I'm sure there's a few people who'd like to catch me on this map, but they never seem to be around. ;-)

Pear

Idaloran - A "holy crap" map. Harvs everywhere, and in abundance, probably my most difficult find so far.

Pear

Kilaran Field - Yup, again.

Pear

Idaloran - Secret Cave - The secret cave in Ida. Not many harvables, but due to that it's one of the last places checked with a finder so took a while for that part.

Pear

Aeth Aelfan - Small Cave - Again not a map that has many harvables so one of the last ones checked.

Pear

North Redmoon - A lot of harvables, well spread out, with many of them being slower harvs like various mushrooms, red currents and such. This one took a while.

Pear

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Alchemy Dead Zone I: The Wolfram Bar

There's several items in alchemy that are just never made, at least not without some sort of insanity being involved.

Having worked so heavily in alchemy, I've thought about these time and again, wondering if it were possible to change that.

The primary reason being that the NPC price is cheaper (in some cases much cheaper) than the ings. The NPC prices were set way back when many items cost a lot less.

They do, however, keep the price down in some cases for certain items.

I wondered if an ingredient change might make the actual construction of these items worthwhile again, without upsetting the delicate price that in some cases is only held down by the NPC price.

The first item I decided to look at is the one that is the absolute worst bar to self-mix...

Wolfram Bar


Current ings:
- 10 wolframite ore
- 1 serpent stone
- 30 fire essence

Suggested change:
- 15 wolframite ore
- 10 coal (approx.)
- 30 fire essence

Reasoning: The combo of wolframite and serpent stone makes ings valued at over 18kgc. The NPC sells for 15kgc. The serpent stone being in the mix completely disrupts the value of the ore itself. The serpent stone is currently worth about the same as 10 wolframite ore, whereas it was nowhere near this value back when the NPC price was set.

As such, there is no real reason to mix this bar, and most all of these bars enter into play solely from NPC purchase.

With the above-suggested change, the cost of the ings get brought down to just a bit below the 15kgc NPC price, despite having 5 more wolframite ores.

Benefits: While people could still just buy the bars directly for 15kgc, they could also choose to mix the steel longs (or buy them from other players), harv the wolframite, and mix the bars.

This would not only encourage the mixing of wolfram bars (with the option to buy still), but would also put more value for manuers to mix steel long swords for harvesting the wolframite.

Steel longs cost 900gc directly from the NPC, putting the price of the changed ings at a bit under 15kgc, however there's plenty of places here for lost ings which would likely result in the bar cost from players staying at around the same as the NPC price.

And as well, people would actually have a reason to harvest wolframite again.

The NPC price (and thus the market price) would not change, so this wouldn't affect the current price of items that use wolfram bars. It just allows for more possible mixing to go along with the ability to directly buy from the NPC.