Dragon Slayer Statistical Cost Analysis

[Joebob]

Alright, let’s look at some statistical data regarding this dragon slayer event we have going on. I performed calculations to determine the value of enchanting dragon slayers. After that, I compared this event to last year’s dragon slayer event.

ASSUMPTIONS

Let’s start with some assumptions for my calculations:

1.       Chronos server

2.       Using mysterious weapon enchant scrolls (I will discuss greater scrolls further down)

3.       Using current enchant scroll cost of 57,000,000 adena/scroll which results in 14.25 adena/ncoin (keep in mind this is lower than recent good events. During the previous event it was around 16,000,000 adena/ncoin.)

4.       120 luc or 10% luc proc chance

CALCULATION DATA

See the table below for the calculated statistical effective costs:

Slayer Enchant Level	# of Scrolls Needed*	Cost to Enchant (billion adena)	Item	Market Value (billion adena)**	Profit
7	34	2.20	Forgotten Ch1 (x1)	0.9	-144%
8	54	3.44	Historical Tome (x7)	1.75	-97%
9	84	5.37	Dye Crystal (x6)	2.2	-144%
10	131	8.39	Gem Energy (x4)	4	-110%
11	205	13.1	Greater Kaliel	3	-337%
12	320	20.5	Sayha’s Blessing	6	-242%
13	501	32.0	Gold Save Ticket	12	-167%
14	782	50.0	Shiny Gem Energy	50	0
15	1222	78.1	Top Kaliel	50	-56%
16	3304	211	Dragon Claw	100	-111%

 

* Keep in mind that this does not give you a 100% chance. It gives you the statistical amount of scrolls it will take on average. This is a 60 to 70% chance to succeed at least one slayer to a specific enchant level. Sometimes you could succeed more or less. However, over many slayer enchant attempts, it will average out to this many scrolls per slayer enchanted to a specific level.

** Market values are taken from best auction house or sell shops in Giran.

Side note: I don’t want to get into the details because it’s complicated but using a greater enchant at enchant level 14 is still not worth it. A top kaliels is not worth much and a greater jewel box is also only worth 100b maximum. Assuming a dragon claw value of 100b results in the weighted average value of 52.2b when the cost to succeed is ~73b.

RESULTS

I added a column for the profit and you may have noticed that everything is negative. So, as you can tell there is nothing on the list that is even close to worth it except for one item, maybe. Enchanting for almost all items nets you a loss of over half the cost. The one item that might be worth it is the shiny gem energy, but only because there’s no other way to get them and there are none on the market. But I don’t think there is any market demand for shiny gem energies.

This is a problem that people have seen with multiple events. It was most obvious during the last night market in October because it is very easy to calculate the value of the items for sale. People were outraged. Almost everything was not worth it. But there is more to this event that makes it much worse than any other event. Let’s compare this event to the slayer event of last year in January.

DRAGON SLAYER EVENT 2022

Last year, the dragon slayer event was known to be highly profitable. We did not know for sure what the enchant rates were, however, it was generally accepted that the enchant rate was 70%. Well, luck would have it that I actually have enchant data from that event. I logged 567 enchants (I ignored all luc procs) which resulted in an average enchant chance of 73.9%. That is significantly higher than the 60% we got for this event. But let’s find out how significant that really is.

I revised the calculations with the assumed enchant chance of 70%. I don’t have any data for enchanting above 15 but it was generally accepted that 30% was the rate which is the same as it is with the current event so I went with 30%. All other assumptions are the same.

The calculation results are below:

 

Slayer Enchant Level	Cost to Enchant 2023 (billion adena)	Cost to Enchant 2022 (billion adena)
7	2.20	1.48
8	3.44	2.02
9	5.37	2.77
10	8.39	3.80
11	13.1	5.20
12	20.5	7.12
13	32.0	9.76
14	50.0	13.4
15	78.1	18.3
16	211	49.5

 

As you can see, the cost to enchant to each level was dramatically less last year with only a 10% decrease in the chance. A dragon claw was 1/4 the cost of what it is during the current event. I can only imagine that the NCSoft team decided last year was too profitable, so they decreased the enchant rate, which is understandable. What I can’t imagine is that they just randomly decided a 10% reduction was a good number without doing the calculations (calculations that, including the market research, only took me a couple hours to do).  

As everyone knows by now, many people were waiting for this event to upgrade to a stage 2 dragon weapon or to make some adena. Increasing the cost by 4x feels like a huge slap in the face. However, there is an even bigger issue here.

The biggest issue with this event in my personal opinion is that we were not told that the enchant rates were decreased from last year. We all know that many people spent money on this event thinking it would be just like last year: “yay, dragon claws are +16 slayers again!” only to realize that they are getting barely any slayers out of it after spending hundreds of dollars. By definition, this event “scammed” all of the people who spent money on this event expecting it to be similar to last year’s event. There was no reason for people to believe that it wouldn’t be as good as last year considering the event pages (with the exception that greater enchants were only from opening boxes). Whoever is in charge of determining market values and determining enchant rates for these events should be ashamed of themselves.

If anyone at NCSoft would like to see any of the spreadsheet calculations or the 2022 event test data referenced above, feel free to reach out to me. @Hermes @Wissp

[Nisha]

This is the level of detail that clearly isn't considered when putting together an event. In most workplaces this would be evidence that would lead to the dismissal of underperforming team members, at NC Soft it just seems common practice.

Along with the facts that are listed above ill share another fact, my CP alone have 10K USD +/- between 5 people ready to upgrade dragon weapons. I know for fact that none of that 10k has been put into the game for exactly the reasons stated above. 

The missed revenue opportunity from an old dying game just dumb founds me.

[iAndouille]

@Wissp@Hermes @Hyunkel
 

Take notes on this post on how to make a good event, Ncwest revenue is drastically dropping due to our current management team and above has all the statements that proves it. 

You guys are responsible for totally making the game an unhealthy place to spend money.

[L2Policeman]

10 hours ago, iAndouille said:

@Wissp@Hermes @Hyunkel
 

Take notes on this post on how to make a good event, Ncwest revenue is drastically dropping due to our current management team and above has all the statements that proves it. 

You guys are responsible for totally making the game an unhealthy place to spend money.

hypocrisy....

[gabby]

Does anyone here really think they are going to reply to a thread that basically says they're incompetent? They wont even reply to that poor guy with the gambling issue.. they don't seem to care about a human destroying their own life because of this game, and yall think they're going to comment on the horrible rates? 

 

I mean.. they SHOULD.. any human with a conscience would.. but they won't. 

[Joebob]

23 minutes ago, gabby said:

Does anyone here really think they are going to reply to a thread that basically says they're incompetent? They wont even reply to that poor guy with the gambling issue.. they don't seem to care about a human destroying their own life because of this game, and yall think they're going to comment on the horrible rates? 

 

I mean.. they SHOULD.. any human with a conscience would.. but they won't. 

I don't really expect a response. I'm sure that they know that this event was not a hit. I'm sure they see that their revenue from this event is low when they expected more. It's obvious even to us when the adena/NCoin has dropped from 16 adena/NCoin during a good event down to 12 adena/NCoin looking at current scroll buy/sell values. What I really want is that they see this post and understand why this event failed and the data I provided above shows why. I just really hope that they take a good look at it and are surprised by it. I really don't want to believe that they set the rates from this event with the intent to screw us.

I also posted this in the hopes that more people see how bad the value of enchanting dragon slayers is this time around so that less people gamble on enchanting. Even if you have 120 luc and get scrolls for 45m each, you're still going to statistically pay higher than market value for anything on the list. When was the last time an event provided an adena/NCoin value under 12?

[Cudezim]

I did 24/7 enchanting last two rounds and ended up buying Dragon Boxes from others with 20k USD per event. This time around I wont be buying any since the rates are Horrible.

[Brawo]

Isn't that sick, you know it, and yet you spend money. Is it getting sick? I always say only they should have the profit, not the player. Come to your senses and don't let yourself be told that the game is life. I don't know whether to feel sorry for you or laugh. more slack, don't focus on the game, in the name of father and son, save these minds.

[Original]

Alot of talk about this event or anything els huppening in this game yes 

What is mising ? 

the F@#$@# replay from some 1 that they  axtualy reading what the F@# c we talking here 

But no no1 care no 1 replay so wy bother