Fusionstrike
10-21-2012, 11:39 AM
Now that the Blacksmoke expansion is here, I thought I'd take a look back at the now-removed ichor quest and report some numbers that measure what it was like. As a reminder, the ichor quest was for the Blacksmoke preview area, accessible only by level cap players (level 71) until the Blacksmoke expansion came out. Players were asked to collect 500 ichors- drops from the boss on the preview level. It required clearing about 50 fire ward monsters and then killing the Dragonet boss, which would randomly drop either zero or one ichor to each player.
I completed the quest by doing thrasher elixir runs in public games. Almost all runs were with full thrasher teams. Some teams were more effective than others. The shortest time to clear the map was about 1 min 30 sec, with the longest times usually going out to 3 or 4 minutes. This means I completed 20-25 runs per hour on average.
The drop rate of ichors seemed to be about 50% on average. Sometimes I saw higher, sometimes lower, but I could reasonably bank on getting 10-12 ichors per hour. Doing the math, this means the quest required about 45 hours to complete (with an elixir-using party).
The total platinum required to do the quest this way was (for a tier-3 guild member) 36x45 = 1620. The theoretical lowest price to accomplish this method would be all "deal of the day" thrashers at 30 each, for a total of 1350. Paying full price of 40 would have cost 1800.
The preview was released on Sept 7 and ended on Oct 18. This means the quest was available for 40 days total. I completed mine in 10 days, which was an average of 4.5 hours per day, but it turns out that playing for only 1 hour 10 minutes per day would have gotten the job done.
Recap (for full thrasher parties)
Ichor drop rate: 50%
Ichors/hour: 10-12
Time per run (average, all overhead included): 2.5-3 mins
Total play time: 45 hours
Total plat spent: 1350-1620 (for a mixture of "dotd" and "tier-3 guild discount" thrashers)
Total days quest available: 40
Minimum hours/day needed to complete quest: 1.2
Conclusions
It seems like this quest theoretically could have been done without spending any plat on elixirs given that there were 40 days to complete it. I don't have the numbers for a non-thrasher run, but just to estimate it: even if it took 3x as long per run players could play 4 hours per day and still be done in time without a single elixir. However, the quest's end date was not known ahead of time, so in practice I think nobody would have even tried to invest that kind of time without using elixirs because they would have assumed they'd never finish in time. Of course, there are daily blessings in play now, so it could have been significantly shorter if players used those free boosts effectively. (If anyone did complete this quest without spending any plat, please weigh in!)
Nevertheless, I suspect every fire weapon handed out represents a significant amount of plat spent (probably at least 1000 on average). My guess is STS did very well indeed on this preview with the elite weapon reward, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar event again in the future. I'd love to see numbers on how many total completions of this quest there were, but only STS knows that and I doubt they're likely to share.
I completed the quest by doing thrasher elixir runs in public games. Almost all runs were with full thrasher teams. Some teams were more effective than others. The shortest time to clear the map was about 1 min 30 sec, with the longest times usually going out to 3 or 4 minutes. This means I completed 20-25 runs per hour on average.
The drop rate of ichors seemed to be about 50% on average. Sometimes I saw higher, sometimes lower, but I could reasonably bank on getting 10-12 ichors per hour. Doing the math, this means the quest required about 45 hours to complete (with an elixir-using party).
The total platinum required to do the quest this way was (for a tier-3 guild member) 36x45 = 1620. The theoretical lowest price to accomplish this method would be all "deal of the day" thrashers at 30 each, for a total of 1350. Paying full price of 40 would have cost 1800.
The preview was released on Sept 7 and ended on Oct 18. This means the quest was available for 40 days total. I completed mine in 10 days, which was an average of 4.5 hours per day, but it turns out that playing for only 1 hour 10 minutes per day would have gotten the job done.
Recap (for full thrasher parties)
Ichor drop rate: 50%
Ichors/hour: 10-12
Time per run (average, all overhead included): 2.5-3 mins
Total play time: 45 hours
Total plat spent: 1350-1620 (for a mixture of "dotd" and "tier-3 guild discount" thrashers)
Total days quest available: 40
Minimum hours/day needed to complete quest: 1.2
Conclusions
It seems like this quest theoretically could have been done without spending any plat on elixirs given that there were 40 days to complete it. I don't have the numbers for a non-thrasher run, but just to estimate it: even if it took 3x as long per run players could play 4 hours per day and still be done in time without a single elixir. However, the quest's end date was not known ahead of time, so in practice I think nobody would have even tried to invest that kind of time without using elixirs because they would have assumed they'd never finish in time. Of course, there are daily blessings in play now, so it could have been significantly shorter if players used those free boosts effectively. (If anyone did complete this quest without spending any plat, please weigh in!)
Nevertheless, I suspect every fire weapon handed out represents a significant amount of plat spent (probably at least 1000 on average). My guess is STS did very well indeed on this preview with the elite weapon reward, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar event again in the future. I'd love to see numbers on how many total completions of this quest there were, but only STS knows that and I doubt they're likely to share.