Economics of Pig Cherry Juice

[aVIP2u]

It takes a pretty long time to ‘farm’ the resources needed to mix up Pig Cherry Juice, so I got to wondering whether it’s better just farm Snoutlings and buy it.

To dissect the economics, you first need an assumption of your average dice roll. Here’s my guess:

Basic Cauldron, average roll of 1 star (0 stars 40%, 1 star 30%, 2 stars 20%, 3 stars 10%) will give you 2 of the item you are crafting per each ‘cook’ – – the base one plus the one from 1 star = 2 items. Again this is on average.

Gold Cauldron, similar slanted probabilities to above (but no zero’s) give approx 1.7 stars average roll, so 2.7 items from each cook.

Diamond Cauldron, average roll of around 2.3 stars and thus 3.3 items per cook.

Next, you work through the alchemy chain:

5 Shiny Sand = Vial, then 5 Vials = Great Vial

5 Water = Crystal Water, then 5 C-Water = Magic Water

12 Seeds + 1 M. Water = 1 cook of Pig Cherries

Finally, 4 Great Vials + 4 Magic Waters + 5 Pig Cherries = 1 ‘cook’ of Pig Cherry Juice

Purchase prices, not on sale:
Shiny Sand, 100/10 = 10 each
Water, 100/10 = 10 each
Seeds, 150/15 = 10 each

Working through an example with the basic cauldron (average of 1 star, yields 2 items per cook):
a) 25 shiny sands make 10 vials which make 4 G.vials.
b1) 25 waters make 10 C.waters which make 4 M.waters
b2) 15.625 waters make 6.25 waters which make 2.5 M.waters for the pig cherries (c)
c) 2.5 M.waters + 30 seeds = 5 Pig Cherries
d) 4 G.vials + 4 M.waters + 5 P.cherries = 2 Pig Cherry Juices

You would have spent
sand = 250
water = 406.25
seed = 300
TOTAL = 956.25 or 478.125 Snoutlings per P.C.Juice

Re-running the analysis with a gold cauldron, I calculate about 210 Snoutlings per PCJ.

And the Diamond Cauldron drops it down to ~120 S/PCJ.

…or you can just buy PCJ for 300/5 = 60 each!

Of course, you can farm all of the above items for free in the appropriate levels and then spend the time cooking your way through. On the other hand, you might choose to farm snoutlings from dungeons and then spend them to more quickly stock up on PCJ.

I’ll see about doing this for fruit and veggie cakes as well.

Topic

[Toby]

Excellent article, thanks!

I usually farm for snouts at Western Cobalt Plateau, so I’ve got a ton of seeds as is. I’ve not run the analysis, but my impression is that buying water and vials is not as good a deal as buying the potions directly. Thoughts?

[aVIP2u]

It takes a lot of seeds to grow any of the fruits & vegetables. They’re not that expensive at 10 each (and much better when occasionally on sale), but if you’re getting them for free while building XP and Snoutlings, it will certainly change the economics.

Using only basic ingredients to make PCJ, water costs the most (406.25) then seeds (300) and sand (250). So, it might be “cheaper” to find a good place to get waters (as well as XP and snoutlings).

South Beach 4 is the lowest level to get water – – but not much XP nor snoutlings unless the thief shows up.

[Toby]

I have some actual numbers for the Golden Caldron (GC). In 100 rolls I got:

0 stars* – 1 roll
1 star – 13 rolls
2 stars – 57 rolls
3 stars – 29 rolls

*There is a bug with the GC that it will sometimes give 0 instead of 3 stars.

This would seem to imply that the actual ratios are 1:4:2 for 1-3 stars. Thus the average stars would be 2.14, or 3.14 items per brew.

Also, in evaluating the ingredients based on their price in snouts, it seems to me that the main thing you’ve shown is that it’s more economical to buy potions than to buy the ingredients (which is a very worthwhile analysis). In order to determine if you should spend your time farming snouts or ingredients, you need to reduce both methods to TIME spent, not snouts spent.

In Western Cobalt Plateau (WCP), I can farm 100 snouts and 21.4 seeds (based on 10.5 snouts and 2.25 seeds per battle) in about 5 minutes. The average loot roll from a dungeon is 234. If we figure you get an average of 50 snouts from the pigs directly (which I think is about right if you let Piggy McCool knock the snoutlings out of them), then the dungeons and WCP are break even on snouts when it takes 14 minutes per dungeon run. I haven’t timed it, but that seems a little slow to me. I timed it once at about 11 minutes, so 14 is a little slow. However, WCP also gives you the seeds (and forging items), so it may be overall best.

Since your analysis shows that buying water is not as economical as buying potions, but since I already have the seeds, I prefer to farm South Beach 4 for water and Golden Fields 2 for sand, and spend my snouts at the dojo.

EDIT: Corrected some of my figures.

[aVIP2u]

Update: assuming 2.14 stars per roll on average, as you calculated, then per the above methodology, potions cooked up from the basic ingredients cost 138 S/PCJ vs. buying them for 60. Of course getting the resources for free from battles lowers this, potentially down to zero.

I agree with you about “time” being what we really “invest” in the game, unless you spend $.

Also, as you point out there is *no* alternative to spending Snoutlings at the DOJO , the Professor’s (etc). There *is* an alternative for potions — make vs. buy. So, until you’re at a high level and “finished” spending Snoutlings on upgrades and thus have a choice, probably best to save them to spend on upgrades.

In my experience, games like these encourage the player to move forward just rapidly enough such that s/he is always on the edge and thus feels the need to spend $, but not too frustrated to give up. If one would pause forward progress for a while, and significantly level up, while also collecting resources, then one would not need to use so much stuff when progress through the levels is resumed.

[Toby]

@avip2u : I agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph. I play all RPGs at a snails pace!

[aVIP2u]

The prices for some items have dropped, in a recent update (9 or 10?). I posted the changes in the “change log” thread.

It’s still cheaper to buy potions instead of the ingredients. The cost to cook a potion is down to about 90 each (depends on your cauldron being steel, gold or diamond). Buying them costs 60 each.

Naturally, getting ingredients for free via loot, and then cooking the potions, is obviously the lowest cost way to go.

Another route: play the dungeons each day, with plenty of friendship essence if possible. You can get 300 to 325 snoutlings per play IF you get the 200 (you could re-roll until you do). That’s enough for 5 potions per play.

[TheBirdStunna]

So basically either take your time and farm sand, water, seeds or buy the potions directly is basically your best two options

[aVIP2u]

Yes.

Or you can farm intermediate items … Pig Cherries for example from Magic Shield area. Magic Water from the very long Mouth Pool or Crystal Water from (I forget where) to make Magic Water.

My preference is to farm dungeons for snoutlings and buy what I need directly. Use friendship essence to get 300-325 per play of each dungeon.

[TomC]

I just buy the potions whenever it’s on Special Offer for only 50 Snoutlings; best deal by far and they do come around fairly often. Accumulated around 100 potions this way so far in about 2 weeks.

[Woods]

@tomc Yep. Thats one way how I get potions easily. Just need to remember to have at least 50 Snoutlings.

@avip2u I farm Crystal Water from Canyon Land-2.