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Fallen Sword Mythbusters Redux: Part 1 - Frag Finder (HCS Attention May Be Required)


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#1 Toreth

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Posted 05 May 2021 - 17:44

Mythbusters is back! Albeit without its founder, RJEM - may his FS account rest in peace. That said, I will never be able to replicate, exactly, what the wonderful RJEM was able to produce during his time with FS, I would like to make an attempt to carry even just a slight portion of the giant mantle he created for something of this magnitude.

 

Now, let’s get to what everyone came here to see: the results!

 

When Frag Finder was introduced with the new Composing Levels, it was a sign for potential “easier frags” for all of those looking to make big moves on the frag farming front:

 

Frag Finder: +0.1% chance per point that a Fragment Stash will drop the maximum number of Fragments

 

This sounds like an easy win for those looking to maximize their frag gain during our beloved Global Events that HCS so graciously provides to us. The question proposed here, though, is, “is Frag Finder worth using to maximize my optimal frag gain?” To answer this question, two separate hunts were done initially to see what effect Frag Finder would have on the optimal frag income as opposed to the original frag hunting way.

 

Frags Per Kill.jpg

Frags Per Stam.jpg

 

As we can see by both of the graphs here, the amount of frags gained per 1 stam and per 1 kill is actually GENERALLY LOWER when using Frag Finder during your hunting sessions. When using Reckoning and the usual frag farming buffs, you actually still yield more frags than when taking the chance by adding another potential buff for Reckoning to activate on.

 

Hmm...well that doesn’t look right. Farming with Frag Finder actually yields less? Well, then what’s the point in having Frag Finder around as a buff at all? That brings us to question number two: is there a feasible use for Frag Finder, and if so, where?

 

What if we were to turn off “Auto Open Fragment Stashes,” farm frags without Frag Finder first, then, when our hunt was over, use Frag Finder on the stashes that we have allowed to drop to our backpack? Seems like a lot of work, but let’s think a little more about it: I gain the positives of only using Reckoning, Conserve, Animal Magnetism, Lady Luck, and Find Item without having the added buff of Frag Finder for Reckoning while also gaining the benefit of Frag Finder at the very end for the frag stashes that have dropped to my backpack. That seems like a lot of work for minor benefit. On top of that, how many people would benefit from using Frag Finder this way? Probably only the minority who are able to keep a large number of open Backpack spaces to allow those frag stashes to drop.

 

While looking at some of the numbers throughout the farming process and testing Frag Finder, it was also thought to take a look at just how often Frag Finder would potentially activate throughout the time it was used. Three separate farms were conducted over the course of the Piñata Global Event that just occurred: 3000 kills were completed without Frag Finder while auto-open frag stashes was turned on, 3000 kills were completed with Frag Finder DURING the hunt while auto-open frag stashes was turned on, and 3000 kills were completed where Frag Finder was used ONLY AT THE END as frag stashes were allowed to drop to the backpack. The overall yield here shows that Frag Finder at the END is the best option, no Frag Finder AT ALL is the second best, and lastly, using Frag Finder during your hunt actually provides the least benefit. Wait, what!? That also can’t be right, can it? There must be something wrong.

 

Let’s take a deeper dive here: when manually opening frag stashes, you are provided a log message that shows when Frag Finder activates as such:

 

FF.jpeg

 

With the use of Find Item and Lady Luck throughout the 3000 kills, a drop was gained 821 times; out of the 821 times, using Frag Finder 200, a log message as above was displayed only 15 times. 15 out of 821 times sounds a little low at level 200. Revisiting our skill description, we should hope to achieve an activation rate of around 20%, but 15/821 = 1.82704%. A-ha! That might be a little bit of a problem. Is there a misplaced decimal point, or is the lower activation rate intended and the skill description is what needs to be adjusted?

 

While I do believe in outliers, the difference between 20% and 1.8% (2%), is much too large to be a simple outlier - stealing a page from the great RJEM’s Find Item findings, I hope something here gets taken a look at for the benefit of the newly introduced buff. HCS, we could really use your input here, even if it’s just taking a little look over it to ensure things are working correctly.



#2 Thoran

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Posted 05 May 2021 - 17:49

Very interesting, great post !


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#3 kokorog

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Posted 05 May 2021 - 19:43

Well done on the post and the ​meticulous work smile.png

 

I was not aware that manually opening the stashes will register where 'Frag Finder' was activated. 

 

Nevertheless, I've already sent a ticket to HCS 7 days ago about the fact that 'Frag Finder' was not working correctly. Only today I got a partial response that is still pending further clarification. 


Edited by kokorog, 05 May 2021 - 20:02.


#4 Alisa

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Posted 05 May 2021 - 22:29

What if we were to turn off “Auto Open Fragment Stashes,” farm frags without Frag Finder first, then, when our hunt was over, use Frag Finder on the stashes that we have allowed to drop to our backpack? Seems like a lot of work, but let’s think a little more about it: I gain the positives of only using Reckoning, Conserve, Animal Magnetism, Lady Luck, and Find Item without having the added buff of Frag Finder for Reckoning while also gaining the benefit of Frag Finder at the very end for the frag stashes that have dropped to my backpack. That seems like a lot of work for minor benefit. On top of that, how many people would benefit from using Frag Finder this way? Probably only the minority who are able to keep a large number of open Backpack spaces to allow those frag stashes to drop.


Would frag finder be worth using if Crystal and LE fragments were 0-3 instead of 0-1? I think this is the only way to Buff frag finder.

Edited by Alisa, 06 May 2021 - 14:07.

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#5 Prop

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Posted 06 May 2021 - 01:32

Do we know that every frag stash has a standard max they can give with every drop, or are they randomised?

 

That would be the only way to compare really in the log message. It dropped this but you got this because of frag finder when it activates with a comparison.

 

Are we most of the time getting the maximum from every stash with a very happy percentage without frag finder being needed?

 

Your findings are interesting none the less.


Edited by Prop, 06 May 2021 - 01:51.


#6 Tilley10

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Posted 06 May 2021 - 04:29

Do we know that every frag stash has a standard max they can give with every drop, or are they randomised?

 

That would be the only way to compare really in the log message. It dropped this but you got this because of frag finder when it activates with a comparison.

 

Are we most of the time getting the maximum from every stash with a very happy percentage without frag finder being needed?

 

Your findings are interesting none the less.

Yes, each frag stash has a range that it can drop. The following is the drop that is from the Shadow Bunny from the Easter Global: 

Common: 10 - 15     Rare: 5 - 10     Unique: 1 - 5     Legendary: 0 - 1     Crystalline: 0 - 1

 

The frag stash drops a random amount of frags in each stash: as you can see in the OP logs. Frag Finder guarantees that specific drops receives the max amount of frags from that stash.



#7 Prop

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Posted 06 May 2021 - 07:09

I get that, though what I'm asking is if the stash doesn't have the max amount of frags to start with, i.e. it's randomised below what the maximum can be would frag finder be able to activate to give the maximum amount.

 

What I see in the OP screenshot could be such a case. Where 10 and 5 were available so it activated. Of course 10 and 5 could have been available in some of the others too, but the frag finder percentage didn't kick in.

 

Is the percentage chance of it kicking in based on the maximum frags being available to start with? Without knowing the initial values of 'what you could have had' it's difficult to say.

 

I'm not saying it's right or how we expect it to work, just a possible outcome of what is going on.


Edited by Prop, 06 May 2021 - 07:44.


#8 kokorog

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Posted 06 May 2021 - 12:13

Assuming uniform distribution sampling, the probability to get a full stash without FrF is just 1 over the total number of possible outcomes which is for Tilley's Bunnies example:

 

6 x 6 x 5 x 2 x 2 = 720   ->   1/720 ~ 0.14% 

 

I have checked 600 stashes, and found only 9 full. Compare that to 600 / 720 ~ 1 which is the 'natural' expected frequency without FrF and you can see it is about 10 times higher.   

 

I had FrF lvl 184 on me so I was supposed to get about  0.184 x 600 = 110 full stashes. I got just 9 which is about 10 times less than that.  This somewhat supports Toreth's guess that there is a decimal point shift here.

 

Anyway, got a msg today from Grim that the guys are on it, so no doubt they will fix it soon.



#9 Windbattle

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Posted 09 October 2021 - 06:59

Would be interesting to hear from the cows on this topic. I'd speculate that they don't want the activation rate to be high for obvious reasons, it would yield too many frags.



#10 andyvince

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Posted 09 October 2021 - 23:48

Would be interesting to hear from the cows on this topic. I'd speculate that they don't want the activation rate to be high for obvious reasons, it would yield too many frags.

 

 

So perhaps it's 

...the skill description is what needs to be adjusted?



#11 andyvince

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Posted 10 October 2021 - 10:41

Great work and certainly a very interesting post. Not that I would ever need any extra fragments, it's just more fun reading this research,  :lol:

 

Want to be clearer about few of things…:

  • If part of cause is having another buff: Frag Finder taken away some of chances on Reckoning activating on original set of frag farming buffs… Then, another way for testing-purpose of Frag Finder (without holding lots of fragment stashes in backpack to open later) is not using Reckoning when farm> Compare the fragment gains of 2 separate farms where the only difference is using Frag Finder or not.
  • Only by manually opening frag stashes you can tell it’s from the Frag Finder activated? If having Auto Open Fragment Stashes checked and Hide Fragment Stash Logs unchecked, the logs don’t tell?

Edited by andyvince, 10 October 2021 - 10:44.


#12 Windbattle

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Posted 11 October 2021 - 02:02

I'd like to see a skill that reduces the cost of making composed pots. Maybe for composing level 80 to 100 update in a year or two.



#13 PointyHair

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Posted 08 November 2021 - 16:50

I look forward to this research being updated since the fix :P



#14 RebornJedi

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Posted 08 November 2021 - 16:59

...that fix took a minute huh?

 



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