This will ultimately end up being a guide to the items phases of the Epic Battle, The Haunting. Right now I have very preliminary results, after having run a series of tests across only maybe 10 EB's. There are still many, many aspects to test before I can say with certainty exactly how they work. Here's what I have observed and am comfortable stating so far. 1) Just as with your personal plunder (not ally bonus) and your steal plunder, the item-based plunder appears to decrease with each item used. This is easily seen by comparing an EB where a player uses only 1 item (0 atk and 0 assassinate) vs an EB where they use 5 or 10 or 100 items (0 atk or assassination) and taking the total plunder earned and dividing by the number of actions. To do this properly requires multiple EB's so the variances mentioned below will lose significance. The test that should show this most clearly is one where we compare an EB where a player has only 1 action, using an item, vs an EB where a player has used 50 or 100 items (0 atk or assn8), where you will see something like $20m to $30m for the single hit, and $1m per item used for the 50 or 100 item test. We have illustrated exactly this in recent EB tests. 2) There is a cap on the maximum amount an item can pay, and that cap changes from one EB to the next. This can be seen from tests we have done where two slightly different or radically different builds, with radically different bonus from allies, earn exactly the same amount per item as each other. We have now illustrated this in 3 separate EB's, where significantly different builds with significantly different ally bonuses produce exactly the same plunder for the same number of items. 3) That amount that items pay, and the cap on how much they pay, varies from each EB to the next. This can be seen by having the same players use the same number of items in different EB's and produce different plunder amounts. That's all I feel I can say with certainty right now. What we still have yet to test... So far all tests have been with items used only in the first phase. Down the road, when we have more complete information about how the first phase works, we'll compare that with results we get from second-phase items, and see if there is a difference between first phase and second phase. We have nothing to indicate that there is a difference, because we haven't tested for it yet, but it seems like that is a possibility so in the interest of a good analysis we have not done anything in the second phase yet. The exact nature of the payout cap is not known yet. What we do know is that the exact same builds, with the exact same ally bonuses, with the exact same number of actions, in two EB's that generated nearly identical total plunder, have produced VERY different total plunder. In one EB vs another the plunder cap was 60% higher, which is a significant difference. In the near term we're going to look at a possible relationship between the item payout cap and the total number of actions in the EB, and if that doesn't prove itself to be the relevant driver, we'll do tests where we record the amount of damage done, though I don't expect that to be the driver. That's about all I can say for now. I'll be updating this first post with new results by appending additional info below when it's reliable enough to share. If you are interested in helping out, please feel free to say that here. So far we have a wide enough pool of builds that we can test everything we need, but down the road we may find we need to test something outside of our current capability, so would need to bring in outside help. One thing I can say for sure is that I will not incorporate any findings that anyone else tells me about, since I will have no way of verifying their methods or the certainty of their data. So far everything I've heard people say about how items work has been wrong, and many people are telling me about tests they've done that showed x y or z, when the data I'm collecting here (in a very calculated method) is proving it to be false. Feel free to look at the EB history of my clan, as of this writing (12/13/2011) the last 10 or 15 EB's have the results that are the data pool for this analysis. Feel free to take a look at the numbers and offer up any observations, if you think you've found a trend in the data that I may have missed. Cheers. tmh ----------------------------
Very nice!! Item cap info very helpful. Can you find out what the cap is for the reckoning, to the chamber and no mans land? Please
Thanks tmh, this is invaluable information. It could effectively change the method that clans use during EB.
Oh, good idea on what to investigate. My theory is this: Payout is based on total value of EB divided by amount of damage you did in eb. So here's the odd thing- the thing which you're trying to quantify. My pot does more damage than someone else's pot. I feel that the pot phase is either free assassinate or free attack after win calculation based on attacker's size vs eb and allies. I have no proof to verify this but I have strong inclinations since I get paid an extra 1/4 to 1/2 pay per eb if I'm in pot phase and if it's long.
Swabia I agree that damage may be a factor, and that's also planned for a future round of tests. That's a definite variable. Total actions in the EB are another possible driver, and I can test that easily just by looking at numbers from our past two EB's as of this moment. Damage is a little tougher, as it requires recording damage of every single pot you use. Lucky for us we have a very disciplined clan where we already have a system for sharing the item phases and people are ok with waiting for a green light to start using them.
I attempted to test this at one stage. But there were way too many variables to test so I ended up giving up. All I found for sure though was that damage down does not seem to be a factor of the payout of an item. This was by doing 1 item per EB though. After that I didn't have the patience to continue tests. Good luck with it!
Even though you said you won't take people's word for it (which makes sense), I will still share you with my results. The only reason I say damage does not appear to be a factor is because I was a 1.2mill comb Hansel when I first recorded my single item payout. Since then my stats had double, and tripled and my item payout had barely changed and in fact even went down. This was done with consistent EBs so it's not like the overall plunder of the EB was significantly different. Id be very interested to see what your findings will be.
Tmh doing 90-something damage per item and BTILC doing 40-something per item have received identical plunder payouts. BUT. I believe that is because of a cap on item payout. Testing this as a possible driver requires multiple rounds of EB's with smaller, non-capped builds attacking.
I'll also gladly help on both this account and my attack build alt if you like. It would hopefully give you answers a lot quicker. Waiting out an entire EB is not fun, so the more help you can get the better
I had a idea something similar to that Swabia unfortunately there is so many variables it was near impossible to determine what the differences are from.