[OUTDATED] The Return of FGei (for v1.32x)

[CuCN]

Yes. You lose a game, be it by skipping or losing it the hard way, your FGei drops. Simple as that. Of course, if you have already played like 400 games it will not drop significantly but it will drop. A skip is usually accounted for as a ~1sec game. Of course this will hardly inflict your FGei because losing 30 electrum in 1sec is nothing when weighed against winning 1160 electrum in 120 secs. That's why people skip.
And accouting for the loss adequately by weighing the time played against electrumg gained is what the Statmasta (when used correctly) does. Always.
The mere fact that the google-sheet used here sometimes shows an increase in FGei after entering a loss/skip tells me that it is (was?) definitely not working correctly.

I disagree. Let's take a simpler example.
Assume:

• Only two FGs exist: Serket (S) and Decay (D).
• The average value of a win against either FG is 1200 electrum.

Now I play PDials against these two FGs and record my data:

FG	W/L	Time
S	W	100
S	W	90
S	W	120
S	W	90
S	L	150
D	W	120
D	L	150
D	L	130
D	L	120

Average time per game against Serket: (100+90+120+90+150)/5=110 seconds
Average electrum gain per game against Serket: (1200+1200+1200+1200-30)/5=954 electrum
Average time per game against Decay: (120+150+130+120)/4=130 seconds
Average electrum gain per game against  Decay: (1200-30-30-30)/4=277.5 electrum
Normalized average time per game: (110+130)/2=120 seconds
Normalized average number of games per hour: 3600/120=30
Normalized FGei: 30*(954+277.5)/2=18,472.5 electrum per hour

Now I play another game:

FG	W/L	Time
D	L	55

I add this game to my data set and recalculate.
Average time per game against Serket: (100+90+120+90+150)/5=110 seconds
Average electrum gain per game against Serket: (1200+1200+1200+1200-30)/5=954 electrum
Average time per game against Decay: (120+150+130+120+55)/5=115 seconds
Average electrum gain per game against  Decay: (1200-30-30-30-30)/5=216 electrum
Normalized average time per game: (110+115)/2=112.5 seconds
Normalized average number of games per hour: 3600/112.5=32
Normalized FGei: 32*(954+216)/2=18,720 electrum per hour

The FGei rises by 247.5 electrum per hour when I record a loss!

It is possible for a quick loss to raise the FGei, because of normalization. If you enter a game, win or loss, that reduces the weight of every other game against that FG.

[Pella]

When v1.4 arrives, FGei will be a thing of the past.  Over.  Done.  Useless.  Kaput.

Although I can somehow anticipate and welcome the "adventurous unpredictablility" of the intended 1.4 system, it would be a shame if the great tradition of FG-farming simply vanished in a blur of randomness. Crafting and refining decks to that specific purpose has always been the "Kings discipline" of Elements and a 1.4 like that would be like introducting a new idea to the 100m mens: "Every now and then somebody randomly shoots a few contestants in the leg" 

zanz stated long ago that nothing will be removed in 1.4 (actually have zero idea why Pella said FGei will be obsolete). FG's will be "moving" around on the map, as will our Arena decks if everything goes as he wants, but all current functions will still remain. He's only going to -add- stuff.

Because I'm stupid and have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

This is the original post in which I made that statement:

In the final version false gods will appear in rare occasions and randomly on the map in areas level 60 or higher.
The Oracle will also find one for you once every day and mark its location on the map.
To approach a false god it is necessary to defeat at least one of their minions, any damage taken while in a false god lair will be permanent: next duel does not start at hpmax. (does not happen in the trainer yet)

This.

When v1.4 arrives, FGei will be a thing of the past.  Over.  Done.  Useless.  Kaput.

The only reason FGei works is because both you and the FG have a known, consistent starting point.  Under the new system that Zanzarino wants to implement, the player's starting point will be variable.  Therefore, FGei will be impossible to calculate.

Enjoy it while it lasts, boys and girls, 'cuz it's goin' away!!

I'm obviously a complete moron.  There is absolutely no reason of any kind whatsoever that a random minion, inflicting an unknown amount of damage upon a player, would have any effect of any kind whatsoever upon that player's ability to defeat the False God.  Obviously, the player will be equally as effective at fighting FGs beginning from 1HP as he would beginning at 100HP.  Forgive me for being a complete and utter moron.  Forgive me for ever drawing any conclusions based upon someone else's statements.  I assure you, it will never happen again.

[Higurashi]

Minions don't affect the profitability of the FG's themselves, but will affect winrate and indirectly profitability. If we'll always have to face the minions that'll certainly hurt some decks (however it's unclear whether you'll always have to because you may be able to face FG's with a different option than the map itself before the final version). That said, they're around HB strength and won't affect all decks (PDials will actually be stronger if HP increase is kept much like HP decrease will be). Furthermore, if minions will always have to be faced, a new FGei study thread would of course be started where this is taken into consideration. I don't see a reason why the study would be obsolete. If anything, a change would inspire new curiosity as it tends to do.

[Pella]

Like I said, no f**king clue what I'm talking about.  Obviously, someone with a clue needs to take over the FGei project, since I'm obviously incompetent.

[Higurashi]

No need for that. Everybody needs feedback. We're a community, after all.

[Pella]

There's a difference between needing feedback and being incapable of understanding the first thing that's happening here, which I obviously don't.
If I can't read a simple statement and draw a simple conclusion, I need more than feedback.  I need to be replaced.

Edited to add:  In other words, I still have no clue what you said, or why what Zanz said does not invalidate FGei.  Since I cannot understand such a childishly simple concept, how the hell can you possibly expect me to translate that into a much more difficult concept like FGei?  The answer is, you can't.  Whoever steps up to replace me will have the job.  If no one steps up, then the FGei project will die.  Again.

[Jangoo]

It is possible for a quick loss to raise the FGei, because of normalization. If you enter a game, win or loss, that reduces the weight of every other game against that FG.

You are right of course. Sorry I didn't think this through all the way to the end last night and hastily fell for common sense logic.

In your example with Decay and Serket, if this were a real situation with the real FGs and the real win- and spin-rates your FGei(cn) would go from ~9893 to ~9917. Considering there are only 9 games (10 games respectively) played, the last of which severly falls out of the previous pattern, this change is pretty damn small.
But the case shows that it is very well possible in a few (pretty damn rare) situations. Losing fast can be a blessing for the FGei: In the example, Serket has an FGei(c) of 16062, Decay has got 4673 after four games and 4038 after the fifth game. Now even though Decay of course gets less efficient, the point is that he now occupies relatively less time in the whole set which includes Serket: Relatively less time spent losing against Decay means relatively more time spent winning against the cash-cow Serket.
Likewise (and probably easier to understand) it is possible for a very lengthy win to drop the FGei. Several decktesting sessions come to my mind, where Miracle insisted on duking it out effectively leading to a drop in electrum/time efficiency: In the meantime I could have just as well played 3 more games, ~2 of which would have been won against possibly FGs that have a better card-spin-rate ...


@Pella:
Sorry for not stating this clearly before: Thank you for running the study.
Everybody always has an opinion and knows everything better but when it comes to doing the tedious work and arguing with the know-it-alls, suddenly nobody is around to step in. Cudos that you apparently took the job and consequentially the "mandatory" verbal beatings.   
Having known Higurashi earlier, I found his statements to be pretty neutral, rational and not meaning to offend you. But perhaps you two have history ... I can't know that.

Funny enough you are both "right" if there is such a thing concerning the mysterious 1.4 version of the game:

- If there still is the "traditional" way of FG farming in 1.4 then of course neither the FGei-concept nor the Statmasta/Gdocs-sheet are obsolete
- If there is some sort of "minion-battle first, unpredictable persisting HP-damage before the actual battle" then of course the sheets can't be used in their present form anymore and FGei as calculated now doesn't work anymore.
- However, this new FG-battle mode will follow certain rules because complete randomness would suck and Zanz wouldn't do that: Be it that you always battle 1/3 possible minion-decks beforehand or be it that the minion-deck is generated from a set pool of cards, there is still going to be sufficient predictability to base a revamped efficiency index on it. Call it FGei1.4. and it is clear that it includes a minion-battle before the actual FG-battle or something.


Now, since this is a study-thread, I will spam it with some preliminary result (with a slightly different deck) from a little while ago. I never made it past 110 games. Just too tedious. 

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

710 710 710 710 710 710 710 710 718 718 718 718 718 718 71a 71a 71a 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 71u 7km 7km 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pq

deck	PoisonDials
players	Jangoo

version	1.32		win-rate	52,73%
$ track ?	enabled		win-rate (n)	n.a.
games	110		Score/h	1183*
win-loss-(EM)	58-52-(37)		Score/h (n)	n.a.
time (h:m:s)	04:10:19		FGei[c]*	8415*
min/game	02:17		FGei[cn]*	n.a.

      Statmasta™realtec                                                               
106 bonus electrum added for 37 EM-wins at an average 124HP
53 bonus score added for 37 EM-wins at an average 124HP

Spoiler for god by god:

score/h	FGei(c)	Statmasta™realtec	wins	losses	skips	EM/Wins
434    1734    945    -1078    2449    -108000    680    735    1983    -108000    n.a.    2945    1946    -634       1657    n.a.    382    2054    -108000    n.a.    n.a.    1391    -1117    n.a.    744    827    1196    1663    3003	7484    9267    6670    -1078    13824    -108000    6548    4945    14019    -108000    n.a.    17114    11868    -634       8517    n.a.    4788    12382    -108000    n.a.    n.a.    12763    -1117    n.a.    5897    4977    6755    9277    17022	Akebono Chaos Lord Dark Matter Decay Destiny Divine Glory Dream Catcher Elidnis Eternal Phoenix Ferox Fire Queen Gemini Graviton Hecate Hermes Incarnate Jezebel Lionheart Miracle Morte Neptune Obliterator Octane Osiris Paradox Rainbow Scorpio Seism Serket	1    3    3        2         1    2    6            3    3        3        1    8                3            2    4    3    4    6	2     1     3     6               1     2     1                     3     1         2                     1     6         2     3     2     1	5                4                                    6	2      2            1                  1      4                  3      2            3            1      4                                          1      2      2      3      6

[Higurashi]

I can clear some of that up for ya. Each FG on the map in the final version of 1.4 has one minion. Any HP loss against that will remain when you proceed to the FG, yada yada. Minion decks will be predetermined and have been described to be "around half-blood strength" (zanz is technically still accepting minion NPC builds from the community, the thread just kinda died for now without more of his feedback), so farming FG's via the map changes, but in a predetermined measurable way.

However, earlier than that zanz also stated he wouldn't be taking away any current features, which implies you'll still be able to fight FG's by clicking the good ol' False God button without entering the map. Whether this turns out to hold true remains to be seen. Regardless, FG farming will still work essentially the same. We'll just have the fun of adding strategies for every minion, and subsequently change how FGei works. I imagine the minions will also have a chance to drop upped cards, so it'll be interesting to see how FGei will be affected. I predict strong decks that can heal and/or increase max HP will become more profitable (most notably PDials of course).

Hell, since we're getting insane AI with 900 HP too, I bet ye olde timebows with Stone Skins will come back into fashion. 500 EM against those would be amazing, and you're going to need extreme defences to survive them in the first place anyway.

[Jangoo]

Ah yes. Thank you Higurashi.
That sounds pretty interesting. I think I will pick up playing again once 1.4 is out. 

[Pella]

So, if my infantile brain is able to glean a tiny morsel from what you wrote, we'll have two completely separate FGei tracks--one with minions, one without.  Just fricking awesome.  We don't have enough people testing decks for ONE track.  What in the name of all creation makes you think we would ever have enough testers for two?  **IF** v1.4 spawns a bunch of new players and playtesting, it will be for the new (with minion) track, and the current track will continue to be neglected, just as it is now.  Plus, of course, all the crazy amount of work that will go into just figuring out how the hell everything works, since Zanz is guaranteed not to tell us, so we can create new formulas, new spreadsheets, and all that other happy jazz.

Add to that... whatever is in Jangoo's superlong post above, because I still haven't read the whole thing... on top of all my RL issues, and it becomes MANDATORY that someone else pick up the FGei project.  I just see no possible way I can keep up with anything.  Hell, as it is, I haven't done anything with it since at least a month before my "major turn" happened.  I have no reason to believe that I'll be stable enough to handle that level of new work, when/if it ever happens.

[ColorlessGreen]

While I would encourage you not to talk yourself out of working on the project because of how things may develop in the future (and rather to wait and see how they actually develop ), and while I greatly appreciate the work you have done thusfar, if you truly do not wish to manage the project anymore, please just let me know and I'll find someone to take over. It's yours as long as you want it, but if you decide you no longer want the responsibility, someone else can manage it. Your input will always be appreciated even if you do decide to resign as manager.

Please let me know how you'd like to proceed at your convenience. PM is perfectly fine, though if you feel like just posting in here that's your choice. The study is functionally basically on hold until 1.4 comes out anyways, so this isn't a decision you need to make at this moment.

[Pella]

I don't know what the hell I want.  I can't deal with anything right now.