SRC Broken as grind level?

[Anonymous]

@pointless
LOL. If I know teething one year olds (and I do!), they’re good for two things: Keeping their parents up at night (which should help in your endeavor), and not letting their parents focus on other things (which should not). My fingers are crossed that you’ll be able to mine some useful data, but I am NOT holding my breath! :D

@all
I did some more autoplay research on caves 1-5 and 4-5. Results were similar to what I posted this morning:

– Using my Elite Knight and Priestess for ten runs in each level, mastery/minute was 16% higher in 4-5, and snouts/minute were 24% higher in 1-5. Run times were 26% longer in 4-5.

– Ten runs with my Wizard (M13 with L52/E9 Twin Lightning) and Treasure Hunters (M12 with L52/E7 Artillery Strike) resulted in 15% higher mastery/minute in 4-5, and a whopping 62% more snouts/minute in 1-5. (Again, I wasnmt paying attention to count Wealthy Rogues, which presumably accounted for the disparity here). Run times were only 11% longer in 4-5 for this data set, but my borrowed birds were MUCH stronger in 4-5 (319.1 avg power) than in 1-5 (206.6 avg). (The reason for the bird power discrepancy is I was just going through my friend list in order, and this data set happened to coincide with a run of really strong friends’ birds.)

For the record, I chose Wizard and THunters for the second set, because I noticed that my times were consistently lower when I borrowed those birds from friends while running my various Red and Matilda classes in all the prior tests.

I’m officially done testing those two levels.

[EpicGrindr]

Well, I debated posting this, but my good nature won out in the end. Apparently, if you run the same level of each cave (e.g. 1-5, 2-5, 3-5, 4-5, etc) consecutively, the amount of mastery earned per level roughly doubles after cave 5-5, and again after 10-5. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work if you activate Autoplay feature at any point. Also, if you play a non-consecutive cave or other level, the bonus resets. Hopefully this will benefit you hard-working mastery grinders…

Edit: wait… Hang on… Sobering up and checking my horribly optimistic math… No, no, no, disregard all the above. Apparently, I can’t do basic subtraction after a couple pints… Sorry…

[Anonymous]

@epicgrindr
Ha! Well guess what, you’re not the only one. In my post above, where I explained the mastery formula, I should have said divide by seven, rather than by three. Sorry all!

[angryde]

@epicgrindr My God that’s funny… post of the week, for mine!! XD

[RedYoshi45]

@poptimus
Going by your formula, Level 60 pigs would be capped at 9 mastery (60/7 rounded up to the nearest whole number which is 63), or 18 for the big pigs.
Level 49 pigs would be capped at 7/14.
Level 16 pigs (the ones from Cave 1) would be capped at 2/4. Does a Brute from Cave 1 really only give four mastery points? I’ll give it a try, play until a Brute drops mastery and see how much it changed.

[Anonymous]

@smwforever45
Those guys in cave 1-5 drop six mastery. 16/7 = 2.3ish, rounded up is 3, doubled since they’re not minions = 6.
But after posting the formula last night, I decided to check my work, and now I’m not so sure, because the L27 zombie pigs in cave 6 seem to drop 5 or 10, rather than the expected 4/8. *shrug?*

[RedYoshi45]

Ok. Here’s my results.

I defeated a Shaman in 1-5. He gave 6 Mastery.
I defeated a Brute in 1-9. He gave 6 Mastery also.
A Pigmy Shooter in 1-1 gave 3 Mastery, so yes, it is indeed half the amount given compared to the “big” pigs.
Cave 1 has Level 16 pigs.

Then, I defeated a Brute in 17-5. He gave 14 Mastery.
I also defeated a Shaman in 17-1. He also gave 14 Mastery.
Cave 17 has Level 49 pigs.

A Brute in Moorlands-2, which has Level 13 Brutes, gives 4 Mastery.

I should probably do tests for every cave and enter it into an Excel chart to see how the pig level and the Mastery given correlate.

EDIT: @poptimus
You said “rounded to the nearest whole number”. 2 is nearer to 2.3 than 3 is.

[Anonymous]

@smwforever45
I swear I have not edited my post. It said, “rounded up to the nearest whole number.”

[Anonymous]

I wonder if somehow the zombies in cave 6 give more mastery than normal level 27 pigs because the effect in that cave is all pigs get +25% health? Because I’m pretty sure all the rest fall in line with my formula.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Never mind. My formula is wrong elsewhere too. The L33 pigs in cave 9 drop 6/12 mastery. So I’ve got nothing.

[RedYoshi45]

Ok here is what I’ve got after doing my research once again :P. This applies to Level 60 players; not sure how Mastery distribution works with lower-level players.

Pigs will drop how much mastery at which level (numbers in parentheses are “big” pigs like corporals, knights or brutes):
1-8: 1 (2) (Island levels: South Beach-1 to Great Cliffs-4)
9-14: 2 (4) (Island levels: Star Reef-1 to Pig City-3)
15-20: 3 (6) (Island levels: Pig Head Mountain-1 to Magic Shield-5, South Sea-4, any levels behind Red Key Gates; Cave levels: Caves 1-3)
22-25: 4 (8) (Cave levels: Caves 4+5)
27-29: 5 (10) (Cave levels: Caves 6+7)
31-35: 6 (12) (Cave levels: Caves 8-10)
37-60: 7 (14) (Cave levels: Caves 11-17; any castle, dungeon (normal AND elite) or event levels)

The mastery drop correlations are far from proportional to the pig level.

There is also no level with level 21, level 26, level 30, or level 36 pigs, that’s why the numbers are missing.
However, based on the data above, I would say that 1/2 mastery is given from level 1-8; 2/4 mastery from level 9-14; 3/6 mastery from level 15-20; 4/8 mastery from level 21-25; 5/10 mastery from level 26-30; 6/12 mastery from level 31-35; and 7/14 mastery from level 36-60.

And yes, Cave 11 enemies drop the same mastery as the enemies you’ll meet in Elite dungeons; there is no mastery difference between them. I played today’s dungeon on Elite mode and they dropped 7/14 mastery.

@poptimus
Ok I looked again and you’re right, sorry…

[EpicGrindr]

@smwforever45
Thanks for your mastery analysis: most helpful, thorough, and probably tedious study I’ve seen yet on the subject. Thought I would help clarify your last post for anyone following: where you say “I didn’t find a level where pigs drop 4 mastery”, you aren’t contradicting your previous post saying that a Moorlands 2 brute drops 4 mastery.
Should read “No Small pig dropped 4 mastery”.

As far as lower level players goes, I once read an old forum topic on mastery which said that mastery awarded by a pig doubled at level 45 (which was max level at the time). That might still apply: maybe I will make a new account sometime to verify.

[RedYoshi45]

@epicgrindr
Corrected, sorry for the confusion.

And if that was correct, wouldn’t that mean that pigs at levels 1-8 would drop NO mastery until you reached maximum level? There’s no half mastery points.

[Anonymous]

@smwforever45
Hate to tell you, but the piggies in cave 4 do indeed drop 4/8 mastery

[RedYoshi45]

@poptimus
I’ve been there and I got 5/10 drops!

Let me check up again……

EDIT: Hm, it’s suddenly 4/8…
I might want to check in Caves 3 and 5, too…

EDIT 2: Pigs in Cave 5 drop 4/8 mastery too.
I’ll check them all up again.

EDIT 3: Cave 6 pigs definitely drop 5/10 mastery.
Cave 3 pigs definitely drop 3/6 mastery.

I’ll correct my post above.

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the extra tedium @smwforever45! I suspect you’re glad to have fixed it though. :P

[EpicGrindr]

@smwforever45 @poptimus @angryde
Well, they DID just release an update, so BLAM! Once again we don’t know for sure what is what for mastery OR snouts! Update text even ominously specifies “Mastery Tiers rebalanced.” Argh! It’s like they’re spying on us in here and cackling like evil monkeys as they gleefully screw with the game code to keep players guessing… I swear it’s enough to drive me nuttier than a Reese’s Straightjacket.

Edit: Not 100% sure yet, but “the Mastery Tier rebalancing” the update refers to May actually just reduce the amount of mastery needed to reach the next level, instead of having to get 50,000 for each level beyond 10.

[EpicGrindr]

On an unrelated but interesting note, it seems I no longer have to “McCool away” 5-10 opponents in arena to find a matchup I have a chance to win! Huzzah! Guess there were literally hundreds of arena cheaters that got removed! I’m almost as happy about that as I am pissed to have been suffering through that up til now, lol.

Edit: In fact, not a single opponent I’ve faced tonight has had a matched set banner.
Other Arena weirdness:
* everyone else in my weekly league disappeared from the list.. (Were they All cheaters? Lol)
* My EPaladin got the “Mastery Level Up” animation after killing an opponent’s banner! Mind you, he didn’t actually level up, but I’ve only had one Redd’s Wicked tonight, so I doubt I was hallucinating it… So now I am wondering: “Can we FINALLY earn mastery in the Arena????

[miserablegoat]

Paweł (Rovio Entertainment Ltd)

Aug 3, 17:00 EEST

Hi there,

and thanks for contacting us.

The developers have changed the number of Snoutlings rewarded in Star Reef Castle and Desert Pig Castle.

Although we understand that it has been like this for a long time, it was never intended that these levels give out so many Snoutlings, and the developers have now fixed this.

Best regards,

Paweł
Rovio Support Team

[angryde]

@epicgrindr I had the same with Bomb… one of his classes/hats levelled up during an Arena battle :-D

[RedYoshi45]

While it is AWESOME that birds now gain Mastery through being borrowed and through Arena play…
That doesn’t help my problem that I can’t play :(

[angryde]

@smwforever45 OK, bad news… I just did a test of mastery earned in the Arena… nope, nada, nichts. D’oh!

My suspicious were aroused after I had another random level up while grinding… on my Wiz… who was nowhere near levelling up…

So, it seems to be a mastery re-balancing bug…

My Wiz was only 2000 away from cracking 14… the level up graphic said ‘Congrats you’ve gone from 12 – 13’…

Now my Wiz is 7500 from 14… so, yeah.

Sorry to get everyone’s hopes up!

@epicgrindr linked in.

[RedYoshi45]

@angryde
Huh… So for some it goes down, for others it goes up…
My suspicion is they may have moved the 12-13 and 13-14 steps (which were shorter than the 11-12 step) to the back which would rank up all classes between 9 and 11 but rank down all classes between 12 and 14. Maybe that is why people have issues?!?

[EpicGrindr]

@miserablegoat
That’s cool… I am going to try a similar approach at my job and see if my customers are ok with it… “Although your computer has been booting up in 15 seconds, we never intended to be so fast, so your IT support team has applied an update to your computer which will reduce boot speed to the intended 20 minutes. Best Regards!”

@angryde
I am beginning to see a pattern to the rebalancing, but it is still too fuzzy a picture to tell what I’m looking at.

@smwforever45
On a positive note, if the developers’ hold to their past approach to bug fixes, there might be some compensatory LCs heading your way.. :-)

[EpicGrindr]

@smwforever45
Well, after 10 runs of cave 13-5, kinda sold on it for a mastery autogrind level, at least for (Reset)Wizard/(Nightmare)Bard combination. That is the only 2-bird combo I can use on Autoplay though.
Takes about 2x longer than cave 1-5, but I got more than double avg mastery per run and don’t have to restart level as often. The cave effect of random stun hits the brutes sometimes for enough bonus damage (due to Nightmare set effect) that I don’t need a borrowed bird to reliably clear the level. Avg Mastery per bird/run was 210, compared to 1-5 which was giving avg of 72 Mastery per bird/run.
Snouts on 13-5 are comparable to 1-5, with equivalent appearance rate of wealthy rogue.

Just thought you’d be glad to hear that your recent Pig Mastery Drop study seems to still be accurate post-update.