Slot wheel mysteries revealed (finally!)

[Evil Hamster]

OK...

I rooted around some more on that monstrous flashkit thread and found this: (http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?p=4184724#post4184724)

When a deck is made mostly of pillars, there is an increasing chance to win pillars from the "slot-machine" (this should prevent people from distributing rares using all pillars decks)

No real details given about numbers or odds.

[foyle]

Given that method for the spins, and the fact that we now know the composition of the T3 decks, this presumably means we can calculate the odds of winning various cards (read: rares) from those decks.

EDIT: This should also help us optimise rare farms, too, if someone so inclined wants to run through the maths.

Daxx, I tried to get into this issue on another thread in this category:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,570.msg5612#msg5612 (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,570.msg5612#msg5612)

I have a couple posts looking at the math and the results of a simulation I ran.  It seems the best is probably 6xRareA, 6xRareB, 6xRareC, 12xPillar.  This makes it so Pillars will almost never be in your spinner, so you have a decent chance of winning the other 3 rares.  6xRare A, 6x RareB, 18x Pillar also works and will give a little higher chance for winning rare's A and B than the 6x6x6x12 method, but you will also get a fair amount of pillars in there too and less overall rares than 6x6x6x12

[sillyking14]

this topic was buried i wonder if it should be stickied, can be useful for noobs

[Uncle Jellyfish]

this topic was buried i wonder if it should be stickied, can be useful for noobs

Not a bad idea. If anyone complains, I'll unsticky.

[chriskang]

http://elementsthegame.wikia.com/wiki/Ferox

His strategy seems quite simple:
- dump 12 feral bonds
- surround you with mass creatures (44 in his deck)

This is somewhat similar to Fire Queen but doesn't rely on the queen's skill. Therefore, it's probably a bit more effective.

[chriskang]

For the gods, are cards selected from the base 30-60 card deck, or from the doubled 60-120 card deck?

From the base 30-60. Actually when I was working on the stats for the wiki I was curious and tested both cases in my simulator.
The results are exactly the same when picking from the doubled deck

And while we're on the topic of decks and spins, we know the composition of AI1, AI3 and god decks. How about AI2?

AI2 decks are taken from a set of 12 premade builds
AI3 decks are taken from a set of 11 other premade builds
FG decks are taken from a set of 11 other premade builds
It's interesting to notice that the data file actually contains 12 premade builds for AI3 and 12 for FG. But for some reason, the 12th can never be reached by the code. This is probably a bug.
If you want, I can put the build of the 12th fake god on the wiki (he's called "Ferox" and has mainly Life cards).

So farming decks should use quantum pillars instead of towers? Or any elemental pillar/tower?

Anything BUT quantum towers is OK.
The farming deck that gives the most chances for the player to win something is probably:
24 x pillar
6 x rare card of your choice

Also, if you have a wiki page or something I can link to in the first post that would be better than general statements from Zanzarino

Not yet. I'll try to create that soon.

[chriskang]

Interesting. He looks extremely weak compared to the rest- which is probably why he hasn't been activated.

Oh wait.
Did I forget to mention that I'm hosting the trainer on my personal website?
http://chriskang.free.fr/trainer/trainer.html

For some reason, it doesn't seem to work properly
You might want to try fighting a FG there to see what I mean.

[chriskang]

I wish I had seen this before... I wouldn't have explained everything again here (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,712.msg7409#msg7409).

A few comments though:

* The first part of the algorithm creates what I call a "shortlist" of 5 cards, but only the first 4 are actually used afterwards (and that's what really counts). So the chances to get something are higher than what Zanzarino says. I don't know if it's bug or not, but that's how it works.

* The mechanism to prevent infinite loops described at the end of the post, doesn't stop searching for non-pillar cards after 50 failed attempts but after 10. That makes the risks to get a pillar from the spinning wheel much higher for builds that have about 50% pillars (or more). Also, only elemental pillars, elemental towers and quantum pillars are excluded. For some reasons, quantum towers are considered valid.

* There are also 2 undescribed mechanisms:
- one that converts every card into its non-upgraded version if you're not fighting against a fake god. This mechanism takes place after the exclusion of pillars, so quantum towers might be chosen in first place and then converted into quantum pillars (that's common in PvP)
- and another that has a 10% chance to replace the first card of the shortlist by a shard, if you're fighting against a fake god. The shard inserted here is always the one that upgrades into Shard of Divinity.

[Delreich]

When the cards for the spinner are selected, if the selected card is a pillar or tower it is reselected up to ten times.
However, for some reason quantum towers aren't considered towers, so they can be selected just like a non-pillar.

Clearer?

- and another that has a 10% chance to replace the first card of the shortlist by a shard, if you're fighting against a fake god. The shard inserted here is always the one that upgrades into Shard of Divinity.

Ah, so that's how that works. For the gods, are cards selected from the base 30-60 card deck, or from the doubled 60-120 card deck?
And while we're on the topic of decks and spins, we know the composition of AI1, AI3 and god decks. How about AI2?

[Essence]

Bah.  Ferox is easy-peasy as long as you can survive long enough to get your Sundial/Dim Shield lock on.  I beat him 9/10 times with my only-barely-modified-but-fully-upgraded ScaredGirl Rainbow.

[Essence]

I think he started out at 50 pillar checks, then cut it down to 10 to make farming decks a bit less effective- I just was burned out reading so many pages of the flashkit threaad!

You know, Evil Hamster, you can just use the Search function to look for the username "Zanzarino", and see all of his posts with no interspersing garbage. 



Essence

P.S. chriskang, I edited your sandbox page to reflect that some creatureskills are possessed by animated weapons, when you had no creature listed for them (Destroy=Pulverizer, Sniper=Owl's Eye, etc.)

[Evil Hamster]

Believe me, I did that.

He was VERY active in that thread, so it didn't help a whole lot