Arena weapon tricks (spoiler alert)

[burtosis]

So, I have been interested in how the weapons in the arena summoning work given some of the latest high scores. I can't seem to solve some mysteries - but I thought I would post a few things I have learned so do not read this if you want to find out about them yourself!





If you have scrolled down to here, read on!

First neat trick is the multicolor alchemy trick. For this, set up the old trick this person posted ( aurorafeint.proboards100.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=world&thread=849&page=1 )

Basically, in arena, this scores you big time by getting an additional x1 for each brick. Done on a full screen, you can expect upto x32 or more in one shot.

Now, the next is to use a 'feature' of the illusionist weapon. When you use illusion, the double multiplier effect stays going for about 2 seconds or so after the weapon effect timer wears off. Munchkin this rule with multicolor alchemy to get up to x57 or even x61 in three game seconds.

To do this, push up hard at the start to get a full screen asap. Don't worry about losing, if you move fast you can use both weapons easily before you fail. At the top row, bust a illusionist using the least common bricks on the screen (if you can). Then set up a multicolor alchemy but do not set it off yet! Use the least common color on the screen as the center for max effect. As soon as the illustion wears off then use the multicolor alchemy. This nets you an amazing x2 for each block you can pop with the alchemy. Because illusion stops the game timer, you can get x57 (with three blocks left typically to keep the chain) you can do this in three game seconds.

Continue with an illusionist or alchemy to gain more multipliers. A good thing to do is if you use illusion, pull as many chains as fast as you can after it to keep getting more x2s and maximize your return.

This illusionist multiplier chain works with sorcery too. Push up hard to start and bust an illusion on the top row. Let it wear off and then use sorcery right away. You then get an additional x2 for each block popped instead of just a continued juggle (no additional multiplier). This also does damage.

IIRC Pinion60 may have been the first to use the sorcery trick.

Finally, there is a neat trick to getting several orb attacks in a row using illusion, but theConfused1 will have to post as I never mastered his technique!

The difficulty with these is you can't score super big unless you also continue the chain to the end, while getting in many orb attacks. The more orb attacks the better, I got nine and it made my hostility score about double what I thought it should be if I got no orb attacks.

Anyhow, there is, I suspect, an exploit using the illusion/sorcery or alchemy then following with another illusion. It does something to the game to allow you to get really insane points, but you do not need a high multiplier or even more than possibly 1 orb attack. I have been unable to figure it out, but have tried lots of things like enter/exiting the game at particular points, using the illusionist on the alchemy brick (using a tool on a tool), poping everything on the screen, timing the illusion to the orb flashes and timer#, using the illusion on the bricks after the alchemy is over but before they fal, getting five 5 color matches at once using the final illusion, etc... but I can't figure it out. If anyone can reproduce this, and wants to post I would like to hear it!

Finally, to the Developers, if you nerf these methods of getting points please reset the leaderboard (or some equivelant action) as it is only fair to have the leaderboard operating under the same rules as the game and give newcommers a chance to get on the leaderboard!

I also invite others to share their weapon tricks too.

[theconfuzed1]

You're breaking the first rule of fight club!

It wasn't really any big secret that I was using to make the orb attacks. I was just using the illusionist to set up several in a row. That created a very powerful ghost, that was hard to beat, because it would essentially turn all of your opponent's pieces into stone. However, it wasn't the most effective way to get a high score, so I have moved on to other techniques... However, the few techniques that I have managed to come up with are effective for different styles of combat, and I have been working on trying to combine them together.

The top scores right now are insane! I held the top of the leaderboard during most of the beta, but my top beta score wouldn't even be on the current leaderboard!

I also believe there is an exploit--I just haven't nailed it down yet.

[samuraijack]

You are not explaining the Illusionist weapon properly. Here's how it works: at the weapon's highest level, the weapon is meant to create an 8 second window of time for which you can move any resource block anywhere on the screen. At the end of 8 seconds, any matches created are worth +2 to your multiplier, and each matched block is worth +1 damage to your opponent. Now try something: activate the Illusionist weapon by itself, then do nothing. At the end of 8 seconds, start making matches with the blocks on screen. They still add to the multiplier. The Illusionist weapon leaves a residual charge on the blocks to increase the multiplier when a match is made.

Now apply that with an Alchemist or Sorcerer weapon. They each destroy, or allow to be destroyed, mass amounts of individual resource blocks. A normal Alchemist adds +1 to your multiplier and +1 damage to your opponent for each resource block destroyed, a normal Sorcerer does +2 damage to your opponent, but nothing to your multiplier. What matters in that is how the game itself registers a match. Each block destroyed with either the Alchemist or Sorcerer is considered a match. There is not a time limit of a few seconds for which you have to use either Alchemist or Sorcerer after the Illusionist time is up in order to get the extra multiplier. The resource blocks have the residual charge until they are destroyed. It just makes sense to use Alchemist or Sorcerer immediately after. But what all that means is:

Activating Illusionist charges the resource blocks with the potential multiplier increases : Alchemist and Sorcerer destroy blocks for what the game considers individual matches : each match, or each block destroyed in this scenerio, is worth the +2 multiplier increase.

And since you are focusing so hard on an Illusionist-Alchemist combination, I'll provide the math for the Illusionist-Sorcerer combo. A full screen has 42 blocks. Subtract three for activating Illusionist, three for activating Sorcerer, three for maintaining the multiplier. That leaves 33 blocks. Activating Sorcerer is worth +3 to the multiplier, 33 destroyed blocks is worth +66 to the multiplier, the three remaining resources are worth +3 to the multiplier, for a total of 72x multiplier. Slightly higher than the Illusionist-Alchemist combination. And, if you are really quick, those two weapons can be used from the 1:30 mark to the 1:29 mark. A 72x multiplier in 1 game second. I wonder what kind of score someone could get starting out with a 72x multiplier, 89 more seconds and a whole other weapon to use. Anybody want to guess?

[fireopal]

Thank you burtosis and samurai. Now I just have to work on maintaining my multiplier.....

[burtosis]

Thanks for the posts.

First off, I don't mean to nitpick your awesome post, but adding the sorcery does not count for +3 to the multiplier, it counts as +2. If you do as jack mentions, and start with a full screen and leave 3 to match, you finish popping sorcery at x69 and the final drop and match of 3 brings it to 72. A minor point to be sure.

It is true you can get to a high multiplier to start. But multipliers and making frantic matches cannot explian the exploit being used to get a score so high it is not remotely possible to get through any other means. (unless I am totally mistaken!)

The way the math of calculating score is 'supposed' to work IIRC is that it is the multiplier bonus at the time, applied to the bricks broken. Thus you get 100 score for 1 brick broken at x100 multiplier. Hostillity is harder to quantify, but there appears to be a 10% additional bonus (or similar) applied to your hostility for each orb attack.

For example, look at Pinion60 right now. He has x113 for a multiplier and 2 orb attacks. His score is 19301 (very good but resonable math) and a hostility of 17440 (also reasonable math).

However, Rodent has x83 and 7 orb attacks. The score is 34437 with 48954 for hostillity. The hostillity seems to be derived from the base score. The base score is far far to high for this run. The hostillity, given the base score, seems to be right. I have gotten x100 and 9 orb attacks (with matches thrown in) and it resulted in 1/2 the score.

So what is puzzling to me, if you assume matches of 3 for simplicity then it is basically the math. If you take the score as a summation (Sum of 3*i, i = 1 to the highest multiplier) then you can calculate what it should be. For example I got 18113 score for x100 (and a few matches but lets just ignore them for now if you do the summation then you only get 15150) Samauri Jack got 52110 and finished with a x104. To get 52173 points through chains of 3 you would need exactly x186 which of coruse, nobody has posted anything like that yet.

Lets say for Jack, no additional matches were made, just multipliers. This does not make sense given that the math works as above because the score is about 2.8 times more. To get this, 33,997 additional points are needed. Even if all the blocks cleared got a x100 bonus this means clearing 340 additional blocks or an additional 8 screens full of bricks.

Because of the pausing during the run, and due to frantic fast matches often counting as a multiplier instead, it is clear most of the matches take place at a lower multiplier. Given that each block is worth an average score of 85 (Midway between 70 and 100) then this climbs to 400 blocks or 9.5 additional whole screens. Note that this is over the amount that I had scored, not total.

Whenever I have tried this without using some clever trick, I am not able to get anywhere near this amount of clearage. In fact, this seems to fast to do unless you had some other method of fooling the scoring system into dealing out more points.

So, if you would like to post a video showing all that screen clearage, on top of doing everything else at the same time, I would humbly take off my hat to such an awesome master of this puzzle game. If it is just me, but others can reproduce this method of massive clearance, then the same, hats off. Otherwise, since I can see that some scores do not add up the way that seems to be correct, I will assume that there is a clever exploit being used.

[theconfuzed1]

I think it come down to this--You're both insane!!!

Welcome to the forum Jack. I've been watching your character develop, and I've seen you giving other players assistance in the tavern.

Karma for you.

[samuraijack]

You are doing some round the world math. My ghost now has a Score of 52,110 and a Hostility of 61,552 for an overall Strength of 113,662. Using all three weapons I built up my multiplier to -90+ almost instantly. So (52,110)/(90) = 579 resource blocks destroyed. (579)/(80 seconds with 90 multiplier) = 7.2 resource bricks per game second. 7.2*90*80 = 52,000.

AND THAT'S IT. Hostility is a figment of the game's imagination. The numbers at the end of a summoning have no basis. No reality. Unless someone wants to provide a mathmatical formula, the number means nothing to me. Some combination of score, multiplier, weapon use and orb attacks = Hostility, but don't sit there and claim some kind of percentage increase with orb attacks and then use that to denounce anything when you have no idea how the whole thing truly works.

[burtosis]

I guess I am not sure why you are so hostile.

Without meaning to offend, I just can't see how it is possible to get about 7-8 blocks to pop each second with the rules and using instapop as I have been using it. I am good enough at the game to be rather confident of how it works and yet I am nowhere near fast enough to do that. So that is why I see it as confusing.

If you somehow are that good then by all means, awesome!

Also, if that is the case then I apologize if I have upset you as well.

[samuraijack]

Well now we've done a 180 here. Yesterday everything I said was lies, and you thought I as a better person than to pretend my super duper double secret Aurora Feint tricks didn't exist. Today you don't mean to offend, and if I am good enough to clear 7 resource blocks per second then awesome.

So the answer? Grind. Five and a half hours last night of summoning. I had ghosts ranging from 10,000 strength to 110,000 strength. But you can appreciate that. Anyone who has put the time in can appreciate that. What I don't appreciate, and where my hostility arises, is how you go about proving I'm a liar.

Unless someone tells me otherwise, you are not the benchmark. Comparing your reasonable, understandable, mathematically relevant ghost to my unreasonable, baffling, mathematically impossible ghost is getting old. I told you before: we play with two different strategies in mind. You talk about how to grow your multiplier and the "bonus" added for orb attacks. I don't care about my multiplier outside of the first three seconds, and any orb attacks I have are by accident. I want to clear resources. Plain and simple. And when I tell you that, you come back five minutes later and tell me you just tried that and it didn't work. FIVE HOURS. Come back five hours later playing the way I do and say you can't.

So many of your explanations of things are faulty. This of itself isn't bad, but when you are trying to use those explanations to denounce my score, it's irritating to read: the easy explanation of the residual effect of the Illusionist weapon and the interactions with Alchemist and Sorcerer. How hostility is scored. Creating raw score through multiplier increases and screens cleared versus resource matching. Then packaging all that into a spoiler revealed tricks book. That is game design. Intentional or not, I am working within the design of the game. If the developers would like to remove the residual effect of Illusionist, fine. Watch what will happen when I tap into the residual effect of Strategist. My scores won't be AS high, but they will still be higher than what you are getting now. We'll have to start a whole new conversation on super secret tricks then too.

[burtosis]

I dont think a single thing I said was faulty. Incomplete perhaps (because I don't know everything), but not wrong.

And what I meant by being confused, everyone knows what they know. I thought (and think now) I have a good idea of how the game works. Since I don't have that kind of speed, and don't know how to go that fast, why wouldn't be puzzling for me to think that? If you know how to do it, then it is too obvious and perhaps hard for you to realize why others would be confused (if that makes sense). Just like it is obvious that the earth is flat - untill it is obvious it isn't because you know the larger picture.

Also, I have done no 180. I admit I pressed hard for what you were doing, because I would be very mad if someone actually cheated to get a high score. This does not mean I knew or even ever accused anyone, including you, of cheating. With every post, though it could be tempting to be rude, I tried hard (perhaps not enough) to be nice. But since I couldn't understand how you did it, I guess I tried too hard to get an answer and for that I apologize.

Perhaps you did not read all of my chat postings, or misread others as mine because I did see other people accuse you of cheating - but I never did.

Actually, I felt kind of bad having weapon exploits in the game, because I don't feel like a secret should be what keeps good players off the leaderboard in a scoring system like this. So that is why I don't mind telling any 'secrets'. When people asked how I got an impossible score in a short time, I said mostly ' a secret technique' and no-body asked much more. In fact, it wasn't more than an hour before people started doing it after me (If I even was first, as far as I know I was the first to pick up on the illusionist multiplier chaining).

So in short, I am saying that in trying to find out how you played, and because I couldn't see how you did it (as in the sense above) I have obviously upset you and for that I really am sorry. The only thing I ask of you is to try and see it from my persective, so perhaps we won't be so angry with eachother.

Finally, I am happy you found a way to score so well and am honestly relieved that you did it fairly.

[h4l0]

Samurai Jack, I think your knowledge would be best served by creating a new Hydrogen Engine instead of 5 hours in Aurora Feint. Just my 2 cents.

[theconfuzed1]

I think the answer is plain and simple--Those of you who are getting these ridiculously high scores are obviously not of this earth, which is awesome, because it proves the existance of life on other planets!

Greetings. Please don't probe me, but teach me your ninja, alien, Jedi technique, please!!!!!

[aryantes]

I tried my hand at these 'techniques' and it does seem a bit unusual to be able to get 70+ chain after 1 second into the game.

There's no downside to this at all.

It also cheapens it for players who don't know this 'secret' I will agree.

Whether or not it is an intended method of play is still up in the air?


Although, the most interesting part of this to me is, when your chain is 70-100 you have to work so fast in order to maintain this, that this is where the ultimate challenge of the game is.

During chains up to like 30, you have so much time to move and look at the field.

This technique alone only gets you a ghost that is about 6000-10000 in strength. It takes an amazing amount of practice and skill in order to maintain matches and the 100+ multiplier in order to get your base score to 30k+.

I commend Jack (and others of course ) for his ability to do so, but I think that it would make for a more interesting game if the illusion combos did not exist.

Restarting the game every 30 seconds after failing to maintain the multiplier will become mainstream pretty soon, as well as quite tedious.




If I were to make a change to this, I would say, that in order to gain access to a weapon, you should have to accumulate a number of points in game.

IE, 3000 points, then 1st weapon is available, then another 3000 and the second one is available, then you can initiate combo.

The best players, would then need to do well without weapons, and as fast as possible, in order to get the combo and then maintain it once again.

[samuraijack]

In order to understand the direction the game is always going to take, you need to take a step back from these specific weapon combinations. Dueling a ghost is a race specifically for that ghost's base score. Hostility lowers that score a little and orb attacks make achieving that score a little more difficult, but the race is for that score. That makes a certain strategy for both summoning and dueling ghosts more effective than others:

Build as high a multiplier as possible, as quickly as possible, then maintain that multiplier as long as possible.

Take away the residual effect of the Illusionist weapon. That will bring multipliers back down to what they were probably intended to be, but the net effect is only going to decrease scores proportionally, not make scores more competitive. The race for the score will still be there, and the fastest way to that score is building a higher multiplier than the ghost, faster than the ghost, then scoring the ghost's points faster. That makes stacking weapons more effective than not stacking weapons. That makes weapons designed to increase your multiplier quickly more effective than weapons not designed to increase your multiplier quickly.

If the summoning system is changed so certain point levels need to be achieved before weapon use, then it will just be a race to the individual scores. A very specific, very effective strategy will come out of that and the game will simply revolve around that strategy as the game is currently revolving around this one.

[theconfuzed1]

I agree with Jack. As the game evolves, so will the strategy. If you want to change the way that people effectively play the game, don't take anything away--Add something new!