Data Gathering: The Flesh Horror Battlecrasher

sighs

Guess I might as well.

Post your encounters below of any of the following relevant data points:

  1. How long in playtime/how many battles after daily reset for first and second encounter with The Flesh Horror that you were able to win the battle and get The Devil Drop and/or how many Keeper of Souls did you encounter before getting your first and second
  2. How long in playtime/how many battles after daily reset for your third encounter with The Flesh Horror that you were able to win the battle and get The Devil Drop and/or how many Keeper of Souls did you encounter before getting your first and second

This will unfortunately probably be too late since most people hardcore enough to grind out their initial copies for the weapon craft + mythic ascenscion are likely at 5 copies already. But at least a few people are probably hardcore chain exploring for 3 battles every couple minutes to maybe get a decent sample size.

If we can get even an anecdotal evidence of a third drop per day, that would be helpful in maybe spurring people on to see if it is worth trying to model this out.

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I didn’t see this post until I’d got my two Devils for Wednesday, but I don’t believe I saw any KoS before the two Devils and I’ve seen a couple since.

In terms of worth modelling, until at least a single player confirms dropping 3 Devils in the same day anywhere on the forum, I think there is zero point or possibility modelling it.

3 Likes

Todays explore1 fights.

Fights Gnome Devil Soul
5 1
5 2
5
5
5 2
4
5
5 1
6 2
5 2
5 1 1
TOTAL 55 1 2 9
4 Likes

Had 2 copies from Monday, 0 from Tuesday
Starting Wednesday

Explore 1, Wild Plains

Battle 9 - KOS
Battle 10 - KOS
Battle 12 - Flesh Horror /The Devil
Battle 14 - Flesh Horror/ The Devil
Battle 16 - KOS
Battle 27 - KOS
Battle 30 - KOS
Battle 33 - KOS
Battle 34 - KOS
Battle 37 - KOS
Battle 42 - KOS
Battle 43 - KOS
Battle 45 - KOS
Battle 46 - KOS
Battle 51 - KOS
Battle 54 - KOS
Battle 60 - KOS
Battle 63 - KOS
Battle 65 - KOS
Battle 68 - KOS
Battle 81 - KOS
Battle 82 - KOS
Battle 86 - KOS
Battle 92 - Verse 1 Gnome
Battle 96 - KOS
Battle 98 - Treasure Gnome (normal, 2500 gold)
Battle 101 - KOS
Battle 103 - KOS
Battle 107 - KOS
Battle 109 - KOS
Battle 112 - KOS
Battle 114 - KOS
Battle 116 - KOS
Battle 123 - KOS
Battle 125 - KOS
Battle 126 - KOS
Battle 127 - KOS (oh baby a triple)
Battle 128 - KOS (!?)
Battle 129 - KOS (…)
Battle 133 - KOS
Battle 138 - KOS
Battle 141 - KOS
Battle 153 - KOS
Battle 161 - KOS
Battle 162 - KOS
Battle 166 - KOS
Battle 175 - KOS
Battle 182 - KOS
Battle 192 - KOS
Battle 194 - KOS
Battle 195 - KOS
Battle 199 - KOS
Battle 200 - Treasure Gnome (regular, 5 diamonds)
Battle 201 - Soul Gnome
Battle 202 - Glory Gnome 200 glory
Battle 203 - KOS
Battle 210 - KOS
Battle 220 - KOS
Battle 222 - KOS
Battle 234 - Treasure Gnome (regular, 100 souls)
Battle 242 - KOS
Battle 243 - KOS
Battle 248 - KOS
Battle 249 - KOS
Battle 252 - Treasure Gnome (regular, 500 souls)

Totals:
7 gnomes
2 The Flesh Horror Battlecrashers, 2 The Devil Drops
56 KOS Battlecrashers, 54 of them after both Flesh Horrors were encountered

Edit:
Video:

Some impressive streaking there, but nothing I haven’t seen before.

Will include video link tomorrow.

I’m every bit as interested in modeling the drop rates for drops 1 and 2 as the third one as drops 1 and 2 with a claim of “reduces every time you encounter it” informs what a “reasonable expectation” for drop 3 would be. A high confidence rate model for drops 1 and 2 shows that the “cliff” at drop 3 is might be more severe than intended, even if drop 3 is just a documented several dozen “misses” in a row. For example, something that could sort of reasonably fit just my sample would be a 40% (of all battlecrashers) > 10% > 2.5% reduction, where no individual sample segment would be that extreme of an outlier (getting 0/54 on a 2.5% would actually be much closer to expectation than getting 1/1 on a 1/10). However, I highly doubt this will hold over multiple samples based on what people had already reported from Monday/Tuesday. A linear reduction model that subtracts the same number would always hit zero based on where we are at drop 3, which at this point already cannot reasonably be higher than ~5.5% or so based on just my data above to see 0/54, and that is using a very conservative estimate of “reasonable”. Meaning if it were 15.5% > 10.5% > 5.5% > 0.5%… then there is still a hard cap in place, which has now been claimed three times is not the case.

It could be that they didn’t use this type of multiplicative encounter rate reduction and instead used a table or some other type of math that has a more extreme cliff, like 30%/15%/0.5%… but this would just point to that cliff being intentionally behind hidden behind two “generous” drops to establish a pattern purely to have people futilely hunt for the third, which for now I’m at least giving the benefit of the doubt this isn’t the case, but it also does not fit the “encounter rate will decrease (drastically, according to Kafka) after every time it is defeated” claim (taken to meant here, every time it is defeated and the reward is collected, since losing the battle doesn’t give a reward and doesn’t seem to count against your rates).

Basically, if said claim holds true (read: not stated in a way to hide the fact that there is an intentional cliff after expectations have been established by a 2 drop pattern) that have now been repeated on three separate occasions, there should be a model that could show a reduction between 1 and 2 where a similar reduction could be applied between 2 and 3.

But the disparity between 1 and 2 being very small and 2 and 3 being gigantic, given how the event was described, presents kind of a problem. Since the idea that drop rate reduction could possibly go to 0 and result in a per day cap despite there technically not being a cap in the code (whether accidental or intentional) was directly denied, either it is broken in some other way and there is a chance it can be fixed before the weekend players come in, the cliff is not as severe as we are noticing from preliminary data which we can only determine with more data, or the “hidden cliff” exists intentionally and informs a very bad policy when it comes to giving misleading information about chance based mechanics.

13 Likes

Pretty sure the math is 50/50 KOS or Flesh Horror until you get your first Devil. Then it’s maybe 75/25 until you get your second. Then it’s 100/0.

Until someone shows a screenshot with more than 5 Devils I’m going to just assume the above is true. Whether devs intended 0% chance after 2 Devils is the real question.

4 Likes

That won’t be enough. At least one person reported getting one in legendary tasks (probably also not intended :man_shrugging:) and I know of one other that logged in between the fix was implemented and when it was announced, before reset, and got their two Tuesday copies in addition to their two Wednesday copies and mailed copy. Both were very clear about where these extra copies came from. There is as of yet no evidence supporting a third daily drop.

I’m basically kinda hoping someone already tracking explore for a different reason can jot down how many times they see KOS, or is abextrous enough to do this simultaneously without losing speed, or someone has a stream archive of like multiple hours of explore grinding or something (but then I’d have to parse the data myself), since most are already convinced there is a “cap” and because of that probably won’t get enough data to at least show with some degree of certainty there is a precipitous cliff at the third drop that is either indicative of a repeated and intentional misrepresentation of chance based mechanics or is not intended.

The first two drops are still pretty important to lock down into a range of probabilities though, since that informs what the third one should be if there is any sort of pattern (with the absence of such a pattern entirely meaning the other bad thing).

Ahh, I didn’t track KOS. I farmed some Explore 1 this morning to see if I could get the last two Devils before work.

I got my 1st Flesh Horror encounter after 8 fights. The 2nd encounter occurred 7 fights later. I had a few KOS crash my battles before and between the Flesh Horrors.

I’ll be doing more battles in the evening.

I didn’f track Pre-“fix”, but here’s the Post-“fix”:

Less than (but about) an hour of Ironhawking in Explore 1 yielded…

1
2
3
4
5
6 - KoS
7
8
9
10
11 - KoS
12
13
14
15 - TFH
16 - TFH
17
18 - KoS
19 - KoS
20 - KoS
21
22 - KoS
23
24
25
26
27
28 - KoS
29 - KoS
30
31 - KoS
32
33
34
35
36
37 - KoS
38
39
40
41 - KoS
42 - KoS
43 - KoS
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52 - KoS
53
54
55
56 - KoS
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64 - KoS
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72 - KoS
73 - KoS
74
75 - KoS
76
77 - KoS
78
79
80
81
82
83 - KoS
84
85 - Jewel Gnome
86
87
88
89
90
91
92 - KoS
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100

Will report back if I continue the goose chase, or at the very least after reset to do another hundred :+1:

5 Likes

I fought 45 battles in total. Took about 20 minutes (mainly because of taking notes :wink:). All battles were won.

I got KoS 13 times, in the battles 1, 3, 11, 13, 16, 17, 20, 31, 35, 36, 37, 43, 44

I got TFH 2 times, in the battles 32, 45

Done farming for now but should I find a 3rd horror today, I’ll report it

1 Like

I got 2 on monday, 0 Tuesday, today Wed, i got 2 devils show up, both dropped devil, and then after a while got 3rd devil to show up in battle, but didnt get devil as a drop… will see if i get more tonight and i’ll update this then.

After encountering my 2nd Flesh Horror and getting my 2nd Devil for the day, I tracked my next 200 fights. It was mostly Explore 1 with a few Explore 12 runs in-between.

I encountered 40 KOS, and no Flesh Horrors. I saw them in battles 4, 6, 10 ,13 , 24, 25, 30, 34, 39, 50, 52, 61, 67, 73, 74, 90, 92, 95, 108, 113, 125, 128, 135, 136, 144, 145, 147, 150, 152, 157, 158, 160, 178, 181, 183, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192.

4 Likes

Got “The Devil” on 15th and 33th fights.

Gnome TFH KoS
1 1
1 Soul
3 Pet
9 1
1 1
3 1
8 1
1 1
6 1
TOTAL 33 2 2 5
2 Likes

Here is the first anecdotal report of a third daily copy appearing:

Now if we could just get a few in our samples, we can have an idea of how severe that third drop cliff is.

I guess it does present a different question “what triggers the chance reset?” Ie., would it just be tracked entirely server side, is it related to when the daily reset splash screen is encountered (most things are), or is a full game restart necessary?

For example, if you logged on Wednesday and didn’t play all day but were in the PvP menu, and you continued playing PvP without exiting thus not triggering the splash screen and not restarting, and then you encountered two Flesh Horrors and got two Devil drops would your copies be contributed to Wednesday or Thursday? Unfortunately, I was on the map screen during the reset period so I’m only able to test if I can encounter The Flesh Horror after having not restarted the game.

If I hit 100 battles without hitting a Flesh Horror I’m going to restart.

Edit: As I’m 8 battles in having already seen 2 flesh horrors I’m going to say the chance reset is likely linked to seeing the splash screen. Will try to remember to confirm tomorrow by “parking” my account in an area that does not force a daily reset splash screen to appear where you can continuously battle.

2 Likes

Thrusday, Oct 28

Encountered 2 Flesh Horror yesterday with drops
Encountered daily reset splash screen but did NOT restart client

number of battles - encounter
5 - KOS
7 - Flesh Horror/The Devil Drop
8 - Flesh Horror/The Devil Drop
10 - KOS
12 - KOS
15 - KOS
16 - KOS
19 - KOS
21 - KOS
28 - KOS
31 - KOS
35 - KOS
42 - KOS
47 - KOS
49 - KOS
50 - KOS
55 - KOS
58 - KOS
60 - KOS
68 - KOS
72 - KOS
76 - KOS
82 - Soul Gnome (5000 souls)
86 - KOS
88 - KOS
100 - KOS

stopped at 101 for now

Totals - 2 Flesh Horror/The Devil drops, back to back, within 8 battles
23 KOS, 22 after the second Flesh Horror/Devil drop
1 Gnome

Edit: Data Gather - The Flesh Horror Battlecrasher day2 - YouTube
Apologies for the echo, fixed in next video.

Based on the data now recorded in this thread alone, it is extremely unlikely that the second TFH encounter to encompass less than ~15% of all battlecrashers when it is encountered (taking a very charitable estimate here by averaging the chances of all BC from 1 and 2 TFH encounters, since many of the “second” TFH encounteres happened sooner after the second TFH, otherwise 20%+) and it is extremely unlikely for the chance at the third one to be anything greater than ~2.5%. A 75% > 15% > 3% (chance of any battlecrashers encountered being specifically TFH) pattern would imply nearly all gathered data here is an artifact, because most of the individual sample sets would be outliers would be outliers on just the first two encounters (and all of them that tracked beyond the second would be with respect to the third).

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Got my 2nd Devil after 12 battles today.

KOS
KOS
KOS
_
FH
_
KOS
_
_
_
_
FH

I played fast explore for class XP yesterday, about 3h. No 3rd flesh horror. Didn’t write down the others but I had quite a few KoS.

From anecdotal evidence in this thread, it seems like the 2nd TFH comes faster than the first. I wonder if they implemented the “reduced chance” backwards…

anyway, here are my numbers from a few minutes in PvP

5th fight KoS
10th fight TFH
11 KoS
12 KoS
15 KoS
17 TFH

My second Flesh Horror certainly wasn’t faster than my first. I have data from 100 battles after FH #2. In case it becomes relevant, the first 18 battles were in Explore 12 and the remainder were in Explore 1. I did not see a third Flesh Horror, for what it’s worth.

Battle 3: FH
Battle 7: KoS
Battle 8: Treasure Gnome
10: KoS
13: KoS
18: FH
20: Daemon Gnome
24: KoS
25: KoS
27: KoS
30: KoS
34: Treasure Gnome
35: KoS
38: KoS
40: KoS
41: KoS
42: KoS
(I thought my game was broken here, after 17 consecutive battles with no battlecrashers)
60: KoS
63: Glory Gnome
66: KoS
67: KoS
68: KoS
70: Soul Gnome
71: KoS
74: KoS
76: KoS
79: KoS
83: KoS
86: KoS
87: KoS
89: KoS
90: KoS
91: Treasure Gnome
97: KoS
101: KoS
105: KoS
106: KoS
114: KoS
116: KoS
118: KoS

1 - KoS
2
3
4 - TFH
5
6 - KoS
7 - KoS
8
9 - KoS
10
11 - KoS
12
13 - TFH

EDIT — my game just quickly downloaded a small update. Think they ninja-fixed the “non-existent” hard-cap? :joy:

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According to TaransWorld, the update earlier was 6 changes to 5 troops. I don’t know if TaransWorld can check for the kind of changes associated with the appearance rate of troops, though.

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