Misc 2 - Optimal Loot Multiplier & Raw Manipulation

Hi agents,

Today I'll give you a short tutorial on how to count your loot multiplier wisely. This might be useful for your knowledge especially that Celebration Week 2 is coming and definitely you want to get the most out of the event.

To count your loot multiplier (not official, but at least the way most agents do) is by adding 1 (base multiplier) to the bonus multiplier. For example if you have Pixe (x2.5 = +150%) + Countess Wilhelmina (x1.5 = +50%), you have a loot multiplier of 1+150%+50% = 3. Basically, an additional stacking.

Now, talking about maximizing loot multiplier, some people said just max your loot, others suggested to lower your t/sc, but mathematically both are not quite correct. It should be the combination of both, of what I call optimal loot multiplier.

Take a look at this particular example. We assume a 8 min traditional setup (without counting companion, contract and ID).

Setup 1 : Leprechaun (-1 min, x2.75), Sir Hyronimus Quartermain (-3 min, x2), Cosmic Agent (-1 min), t/sc = 3 min

Loot multiplier = 1+175%+100% = 3.75

Active hunt = 2 (friend hunt) + 1 (automatic hunt) + 20 (60/3 normal hunt) = 23 hunts in 1 hour.

Optimal loot multiplier (active) = 3.75*23 = 86.25

Passive hunt = 2 (friend hunt) + 1 (automatic hunt) = 3 hunts in 1 hour.

Optimal loot multiplier (passive) = 3.75*3 = 11.25

Setup 2 : Amber dragon whelp (-3 min), Sir Hyronimus Quartermain (-3 min, x2), Twilight ID (x1.5), t/sc = 2 min

Loot multiplier = 1+100%+50% = 2.5

Active hunt = 2 (friend hunt) + 1 (automatic hunt) + 30 (60/2 normal hunt) = 33 hunts in 1 hour.

Optimal loot multiplier (active) = 2.5*33 = 82.5

Passive hunt = 2 (friend hunt) + 1 (automatic hunt) = 3 hunts in 1 hour.

Optimal loot multiplier (passive) = 2.5*3 = 7.5

(Passive means you're afk, Active means you're clicking every time the cooldown reaches 0, both assuming you have lots of friends from different timezone that you're getting one friend hunt every 30 minutes)

The higher the value, means the better your optimal loot multiplier. By optimal, I'm talking about  the probability in the long run of you getting a certain loot. Don't talk about luck, I'm not a fans of Gladstone Gander, afterall my motto is quantity > quality =)

PRACTICE 

For setup 1, try to change Cosmic Agent to Twilight Agent, call this setup 3.

a) In active hunting, which has better optimal loot multiplier, Setup 1 or 3 ?

b) In passive hunting, which has better optimal loot multiplier, Setup 1 or 3 ?

c) In active hunting, which has better optimal loot multiplier, Setup 2 or 3 ?

You can see the answers in the end of this post, but try counting yourself first.

As you can see in your GT camp, today we have the Ether Distortion buff (see the complete explanation at wiki here), and of course the aim is to get the drop from Ethereal ghost, which is a super rare contract called Ether Guardian (EG).

By super rare, because you must collect all three parts which are available only on this kind of one day buff. And rare means expensive; I've seen my friend sold an EG. 2 for 50 million, yeah that much money. Anyway, the stats are not bad, actually it's pretty cool for midnight hunting while catching ghost monsters, but lacking on t/sc. I'll say it doesn't worth that much money, but it's still an okay contract for me.

Just for your information, the common belief is that the seasonal ghost such as Ethereal ghost itself can be caught more easily with low attraction baits (Silver Star, Moonshadow, etc). Yup, it might be true, but some people wouldn't be able to reach 2 minutes cooldown using those baits. And some people use Nessy because it's kinda balance on the attraction and you can have very low t/sc to catch more ghosts. Another thing is that this ghost can be caught using very low raw (as low as 15-20 I guess), so no matter what your rank is, you can definitely conquer them.

Now, I want to reveal some ideas that my friends and I generate while talking best setup in this particular buff. 

Setup 1 : Mystic

Take a look at this setup Magic Maze/Black Dragon's Breath/Nessy/Coutess Wilhelmina/Cosmic Agent/Mighty Chrono Crystal/any -1t/sc companion.

A 2 minute setup with at least 25 raw (from BDB), this setup is a good for hunting nessy while catching the seasonal ghosts. Of course if you want to maximize the loot multiplier, it's natural to use Special Pixie / Leprechaun. 

Setup 2 : Fake Raw

There is no specific setup for this, but the point is to use any setup whose raw isn't sufficient to catch any normal ghost in an area. Any normal raw setup should be sufficient to catch seasonal ghosts, and you can use any bait you want. For example, using Nessy and 250 raw setup in Count Church won't get you any normal ghost catches from the raw itself (depends on mystic). Minimizing mystic, lowering t/sc, maximizing loot multi are the next moves you want to think of, and thus you will use your bait mainly (or entirely, if your mystic is 0) for the special ghosts. Of course you will sacrifice some exp/money as much as one day hunting, but you'll save a lot of your baits, especially if you use Nessy.

(Credits to Rudy Kwok for pointing out this tricky setup =p)

You got the idea folks, it's all about manipulating your raw.

To end this post, let me give you some informal proof of the last week's issue about the midnight occurrence of the HeartBreaking Temptress ghost (read it here). My latest data shows this :

SETUP : Magic Maze / Wax Pyramid / Devil Driver / Icy Dragon Whelp / Countess Wilhelmina / Devoted Agent / Mighty Chrono Crystal / Super Jura Atomizer

Non-midnight (91 ghosts) : 1 Succubus (1.1%), 0 Heartbreaking Temptress (0%) ! 

Midnight (241 ghosts) : 16 Seducing Succubus (6.64%), 16 Heartbreaking Temptress (6.64%)

Note that those are the numbers of ghosts I attracted (not caught). You can see the big difference on the percentage. Althought I didn't continue my findings until attracted at least a single HBT for the non-midnight part, we can safely assume that we can attract her more often on midnight, so you might not want to waste your daylight hunting.

That's all for today. On this Friday/Saturday, I'll post some exclusive info regarding Nessy ghosts so stay tuned for next updates and happy hunting !

*Highlight the row below for the answer of the practice questions*

(Answer for practice, a) setup 1 , b) setup 3, c) setup 2 )