LoA - About the Quest Cards

dandyman@cableone.net

We are led to believe that the cards at the end of a quest loop are randomly set.  What I'm about to present to you is NOT what they would like you to know because it contradicts that perception.  Although, I'll leave it up to you to decide for yourself if, in fact, what's presented does refute the idea of randomness.

Background:
When I first started playing LoA, approximately 6 weeks ago, I was fascinated by the great artwork and was focused on learning the gameplay which somewhat distracted me from the nuances of the mechanics behind the visual awesomeness.  It was later during the quests that I began to wonder about what was going on with the resulting quest card choices.  So I began a project to track them.  After a few iterations to get a model setup that would provide the data analysis that was needed, I set about following what was happening.  Now, after 1500+ loop completions, I have discovered a few enlightening things about the quest cards.

Definition of terms:
I used the following as coded references to the results of each card:
  L = Large Gold amount
  S = Small Gold amount (half the amount of the Large)
  T = Angel Tears
  C = Holy Crystals (no designation of which crystal because of insignificance to the study)

Only the main quests were used which excluded the Zodiac, Eternal Spire, etc.

Results:
The first discovery was that of the 24 combinations of the arrangement of the L, S, T, C values, only 10 ever appeared...less than 42% of the possible combinations.  Odd result as this would indicate a definitive lack of random order.  In addition, even amongst the 10 combinations that were used, the crystal only appeared in one position 4 times in over 1500 loops.  Again, that amounted to a .29% occurrance.  This percentage not only was the overall result.  It was also +/- on a daily basis which only confirmed the validity of the result due to being consistent with the overall result.  Daily results were added to the Overall after the day's quests were completed.

So now, on to the behavioral aspects of the combinations.  First of all, it needs to be understood what the value of each of the selections are.  The least value is the Small Gold amount followed by the Large Gold amount.  In the early quests, the Holy Crystal-1 is less value than the Angel Tears, however, in later quests when the crystal is Holy Crystal-3 or greater, the Angel Tears are less in value.  This raised the question as to why that might be so.  Well, gold is easy to get and is everywhere.  To get the Angel Tears or the Crystals, you either have to get them through quests, special events, or by buying them in the shops with diamonds...NOT gold.

Now, more on the behaviorals.  In observing the combinations after making a choice, it became somewhat suspicious that the values of the cards were NOT set before the choice was made.  Instead, the mouse click was the trigger to set the value.  I used all sorts of criteria to measure this, including long strings of choosing the same card position each time.  The crystal would not be one of the values of a chosen card.  So, a change of position should do the trick, right?  Wrong!  The crystal would move away from where the choice was made every time.  Bad luck you say?  The law of averages tells you that with 4 possible values, you should get a particular value around 25% of the time, however, a 0% hit rate is skewed and definitely NOT random.

My conclusions (you may form your own or do your own tracking to verify my experiences):
Bottom line...we are being deceived into presuming an implied random setting of the quest card values before we make our choices.  The high valued items are allowed to be a result very occasionally and far below the law of averages.

Final comments:
So when you get frustrated with your choices not getting you what you need or want in doing the loop quests, just remember...there are apparent factors working against you for the higher valued items to get you to buy them rather than earn them as you should be able to do.

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syameimaru

Didn't read but no the Loop Quests end cards are not random. I don't really know how it works but you only get the Crystals and Tears a couple times a day and the rest is Gold no matter how many times you try.

So yes, this is totally deceptive and I think it's the only proven case of such manipulation. As such I think it's the worst thing in LoA and wish it could be changed.

The good thing though is that you don't need these rewards at all. That might have been the case when the game launched but nowadays they barely make any difference.

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novaruby26

Dude, first I'd like to know where you found the time to do this research...and second why? lol.  The sheer fact that your brain is bothered by this simple game feature BUT is also able to break the mess down in some sort of John Nash type way...is amazing.  Left me totally confused but intrigued.....and slightly turned on.  If you're male, I would so leave my husband for you.

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novaruby26

bump bump

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argo nias

Hah, dandy dont leave her hanging, shes waiting for a reply

Good test data by the way.
And to syameimaru, dont know how it is for you, but im lvl 93, 18 mio br, yet i still have a massive lack of holy crystals to the point that i still run around with pretty old angels.
I bet many are in those shoes, especially those who dont bother with team arena.
And tell you what? Those angel tears you also state as worthless, i could need them to upgrade many many angels once i have enough of the so worthless angel crystals. And if not, i use them in homestead instead of more valueable resources to me, like runestones, blessstones etc

Dont deem something worthless just because it might be for you..

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erolthegreat

This dude deserves an award

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viiii

Yes it is manipulated. It should be "normally" when 4 items stand parallel equally, we would  think the chance to grab one of the items are equal, but its wont work on this game system. The display of that 4 items stand equally is the manipulation itself, the real hidden system I supposed to think is the chance of lower gold rewards come out is much higher then the  large gold so does the crystal.

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dandyman@cableone.net

To novaruby...yes, I am male and have always had an eye for sequences and patterns.  I somewhat eluded to my penchant for curiosity when there seemed to be a definitive lack of chance to get something other than the low valued items.  And...spreadsheets are wonderful for recording raw data, then performing calculations on the results, as well as filtering counts.

To viiii...the "hit" rate for the Small Gold was the greatest, yes.  It was interesting to watch it follow the mouse clicks across different positional cards.  There were even sequences where the same combination repeated not once, not twice, but innumerable times without variance.  It would vary every once in a while, however, like I stated, once I moved off the position that I was testing to see if the combinations were random, the combination did change to where the crystal was in another place than the selected card.  Same was true for the Tears.

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king_of_kings

i have no words for this guy. *FacePlam*

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syameimaru

After reading I find it hard to believe that you actually did 1,500 quests manually even with an auto clicker or why you thought you needed this many. Oh well.

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