[X] My Assistant

New Season Notes (2021 S2 -> 2022 S1)

The following things have carried over from the previous Isekai season to the current Isekai season:

- Credit balance + value of item + equipment inventory, capped to 1 million

- Leftover trophy value for Snowflake's Shrine


The following things have been added to Persistent:

- Peerless equipment and all soulfused equipment

- Any unspent peerless vouchers

- Credit balance + value of item + equipment inventory exceeding 1 million

- Primary stat bonuses and a global damage bonus depending on the number of tower floors cleared

- A peerless voucher for everyone who reached Floor 100, or Top 20 Floor Clears:

CODE

Floor 205: youshi1 (3146277)
Floor 205: Ming28561 (3775954)
Floor 205: Bolide (2309354)
Floor 204: Xeda (4388600)
Floor 201: sssss2 (1843795)
Floor 200: gehelife (1070629)
Floor 180: raraha (4071895)
Floor 177: Treesion (707354)
Floor 161: sabregimp (188779)
Floor 155: Nero-Arc (700155)
Floor 145: HT862 (1751283)
Floor 139: newzhenterzzf (5585303)
Floor 139: conatime (5595606)
Floor 130: BlackPantsu (586593)
Floor 130: accelkatana (4012458)
Floor 122: NeoAlden (5940217)
Floor 121: P-Killer (2968580)
Floor 120: Scarlet Tear (5159860)
Floor 120: ashlikt (2309737)
Floor 115: ace_amuro (896192)
Floor 112: unikwind (2480915)
Floor 108: eomivan (808303)
Floor 106: Altair.AC (3905888)
Floor 105: Chizuru Ichinose (638489)
Floor 104: Ass Spanker (1068757)
Floor 103: chanman2021 (5678409)
Floor 101: ex-homehome (1284678)
Floor 101: XMike (8053)

Isekai Changes

- Minor correction to the difficulty calculation for Tower difficulty. It should now actually reach PDUFOR at Floor 40 rather than a few floors earlier.

- The season rewards (Peerless Voucher) for The Tower now cap out at reaching (not necessarily clearing) Floor 100, or Top 20 if less than 20 people reach Floor 100. A toplist will still be posted at the end of each season, and you can still proceed past Floor 100, but it is only for bragging rights.

- You can now attempt/clear The Tower 5 times per day until you reach Floor 20.

- The stat bonus thresholds are now for reaching the floor rather than clearing it, since the readout makes it a bit confusing.


Riddlemaster

The pony riddles are now multiple-choice and can have several correct answers. The generated image will always show three ponies; these can all be the same pony, or be two or three different ponies. To solve the riddle, check all the ponies you see in the image and hit Submit Answer within the time limit.

The riddlemaster no longer tells you if the answer is correct or not. It will always give the buff if you answer within the time limit, as well as the heal if the answer is given within the bonus time limit, both of which were adjusted. A spirit heal was also added.

Instead of valuating answers as binary "right" or "wrong" it will internally calculate an accuracy score based on how many unique ponies were displayed and how many right and wrong answers you made. Instead of docking stamina directly, the recent average of these accuracy scores is used interally to adjust the per-battle stamina cost. If your accuracy is low enough to sustain a stamina penalty, the "Stamina" readout at the top of the screen will show in red.

If you fail to answer within the time limit, you will be docked 10 stamina directly regardless of your riddle history. (It will not affect the per-round stamina cost.)

If you do not submit the answers to the riddle within the time limit, it will automatically submit it and use the checked answers unless the answer is more than a couple seconds overdue; if it is, it will be considered a blank answer for accuracy purposes. You do not get the buff in the latter case.

The obfuscation factors (blobbiness and graininess) are now dynamic and adjusted interally based on various factors, primarily your level and how much you played lately. Most other aspects of the generation have also been reworked.

Because the images are all randomly generated, you may occasionally (rarely?) encounter jumbled riddles that are difficult or near-impossible to fully discern. Due to this, you will still keep the normal stamina consumption up to some margin of error.

In other words, while it is more difficult to answer perfectly, it is also more forgiving of occasional mistakes.

Detailed internal numbers (accuracy calculations/requirements, stamina cost factors, obfuscation factor thresholds etc) are not disclosed and no readout will be provided for them.

Note that soliciting people to submit riddle images with answers as well as providing such are now bannable offenses - riddle images can be traced to the account they were generated for. (This doesn't disallow "look at this stupidly impossible riddle lol" kind of posts at a small scale.)


Salvaging

When salvaging Legendary and Peerless equipment, you will now gain "Equipment Cores" - these will be used for a future mechanics where you can improve the base stats of legendary and peerless equipment. See "Future Changes to Equipment Mechanics" below.

There are six types of Equipment Cores; Legendary/Peerless, corresponding to the equipment quality, and Weapon/Staff/Armor, corresponding to the equipment type. Shields count as Armor for this mechanics.

"Rare" equipment types (Phase/Shade/Power Armor as well as Force Shields) give 5 cores, while other equipment types all give 1 core.

Equipment Cores obtained in Isekai will be transferred to Persistent at the end of each season.

Peerless Cores are not tradeable, primary due to the lottery, which when this update hits persistent will have an alternative 1st prize with cores based on the equipment 1st prize. Legendary Cores may however be traded freely.


Misc

- IW stamina cost now rounds to the nearest .1 decimal rather than rounding up to the closest whole digit.

- The base durations for most debuff spells was significantly increased.

- When shrining trophies for armor, you can now select the armor slot of the generated equipment. (The new UI also saves 1 whole click over the old way.)

- Catalysts are no longer tradeable. They will likely be retired in the future, with the forge charging credits directly instead.

- The limit for primary attribute reassignments was removed. You can now freely reassign EXP at any time.

- Replaced the old "system message" popup. You can now click anywhere to dismiss it, and it no longer lets you click through to the background outside the box.

- Various UI tweaks and improvements.


Future Changes to Equipment Mechanics

Future updates will rework the internals of how equipment is generated and stored to, among other things, allow base stats improvements. Base stat improvements will be limited to Legendary and Peerless equipment only; the ultimate goal being to increase the odds of being able to obtain the ultimate equipment set to a level slightly above "mathematically insignificant" while still preserving the value of existing equipment and not making any existing ways to obtain equipment pointless.

The long and short of it is that with a lot of credits (in the hundreds of millions range) and legendary cores, or a lot of peerless cores, you will be able to turn a Legendary equipment into a Peerless equipment. Peerless equipment will (probably) also be possible to upgrade further.

The "base stat improvement" and "upgrade" mechanics are separate, though there will be various changes to the "upgrade" mechanics as well; you will no longer be "upgrading" stats individually, and tweaks will be made so that "upgrading" below-Legenday equipment is still viable. Existing upgrades will be converted, but I'll get back to the details on that later.

All existing equipment will be converted to the new system, and there should not be any differences between old and new equipment. After the conversion to the new system, any future changes to equipment can also be made retroactively, meaning that the concept of "prepatch" and "postpatch" equipment will no longer be a thing. Various disabled equipment types will also be re-enabled as rare drops.

These changes will also involve replacing the existing "potency" mechanics with a different (less random) system. Existing unlocked potencies will not carry over in any way. The Item World will basically work like The Tower, and will be used to increase an equipment's upgrade cap.

Due to the scale of the changes, it is unlikely that it all makes it into one update. Until the changes have been fully implemented, the updates will be deployed to Isekai only. In other words, this won't be be relevant for Persistent for at least one year.

When the changes eventually reach Persistent, it will no longer be possible to get a refund on upgrades by salvaging, due to a combination of conversion complexity and the fact that equipment stats will be permanently altered. You will of course have the option to do until the updates make it to Persistent.

Further details will be made available as the updates are deployed to Isekai.

I could be wrong, but as I read it, the only time you lose stamina is because of not answering riddlemaster in time.

You may consume more stamina per round, but there seems to be some leniency for error that most people probably won't get hit hard if at all by it.

(I may get corrected on this)

Riddlemaster
Instead of valuating answers as binary "right" or "wrong" it will internally calculate an accuracy score based on how many unique ponies were displayed and how many right and wrong answers you made. Instead of docking stamina directly, the recent average of these accuracy scores is used interally to adjust the per-battle stamina cost.

If you fail to answer within the time limit, you will be docked 10 stamina directly regardless of your riddle history. (It will not affect the per-round stamina cost.)

The obfuscation factors (blobbiness and graininess) are now dynamic and adjusted interally based on various factors, primarily your level and how much you played lately. Most other aspects of the generation have also been reworked.

Yes, I think that basically repeats what I said, if you also include:

Because the images are all randomly generated, you may occasionally (rarely?) encounter jumbled riddles that are difficult or near-impossible to fully discern. Due to this, you will still keep the normal stamina consumption up to some margin of error.

In other words, while it is more difficult to answer perfectly, it is also more forgiving of occasional mistakes.

Snom offers to have more time limit for Ponies's (was Pony's) Ambush (aka Riddle) because there will be more Ponies to recognize them than usual.

This post has been edited by shote1369: Dec 22 2021, 08:13

I could be wrong, but as I read it, the only time you lose stamina is because of not answering riddlemaster in time.

You may consume more stamina per round, but there seems to be some leniency for error that most people probably won't get hit hard if at all by it.

Pretty much, yeah. Looking at the actual stats, the majority of people are well within the set accuracy requirement for no penalty. But a bunch of people obviously didn't get the memo yet that there can be more than 1 solution, so it should improve over the next few days.

Because the images are all randomly generated, you may occasionally (rarely?) encounter jumbled riddles that are difficult or near-impossible to fully discern.

[...]

Internal numbers (accuracy calculations/requirements, stamina cost factors, obfuscation factor thresholds etc) are not disclosed and no readout will be provided for them.

Note that soliciting people to submit riddle images with answers as well as providing such are now bannable offenses - riddle images can be traced to the account they were generated for. (This doesn't disallow "look at this stupidly impossible riddle lol" kind of posts at a small scale.)

Not afraid of Google Recaptcha lawyers knocking on your door for concept stealing?

What's wrong with the previous system?

It's obviously intended to make it harder to set up a neural network which automatically learns to solve the riddlemaster.

This post has been edited by Necromusume: Dec 22 2021, 08:31

For the Riddlemaster, could Applejack be placed on the A option if that's not random as well?

The most times I got the riddle wrong were when I was half asleep, saw Applejack, then chose A without thinking, even if the correct answer was B or C.

Anyone else noticed that there's significantly less rounds in the arena?

Never mind.

This post has been edited by Honeycat: Dec 23 2021, 09:42

When will the last season Isekai Peerlesses appear in Persistent inventory ?

And shouldn't the credits above 1M also appear in Credits Log ?

'Cause I haven't seen either until now ...

When will the last season Isekai Peerlesses appear in Persistent inventory ?

And shouldn't the credits above 1M also appear in Credits Log ?

'Cause I haven't seen either until now ...

Takes a while, I think last time it felt like a month before it was transfered (maybe more like 2 weeks)

Takes a while, I think last time it felt like a month before it was transfered (maybe more like 2 weeks)

Welp, thanks. Talk about automation ...

Uhhm, so I just hit 0 Stamina in Isekai while doing arenas, even though I started it with like 34.

I got a RE, and I'm pretty sure I answered properly...

EDIT: if there's going to be such a harsh punishment now, can we at least have a stamina log to check how much we are using for each modes, and if we messed up a RE at some point somewhere.

EDIT2: Having the current stamina displayed in battle would be great as well. I never know if it's the right moment to use an energy drink on persistent, and it was an awful surprise finishing the Isekai arena and finding a sad smiley with a 0 right next to it.

This post has been edited by Kinights: Dec 22 2021, 11:50

This is a dramatic update.

Uhhm, so I just hit 0 Stamina in Isekai while doing arenas, even though I started it with like 34.

I got a RE, and I'm pretty sure I answered properly...

EDIT: if there's going to be such a harsh punishment now, can we at least have a stamina log to check how much we are using for each modes, and if we messed up a RE at some point somewhere.

EDIT2: Having the current stamina displayed in battle would be great as well. I never know if it's the right moment to use an energy drink on persistent, and it was an awful surprise finishing the Isekai arena and finding a sad smiley with a 0 right next to it.

I've encounter similar problem, drained more than 20 stamina in a single arena, and pretty sure answered the riddle correctly...
and since there's no ED in isk so forced to stop

Uhhm, so I just hit 0 Stamina in Isekai while doing arenas, even though I started it with like 34.

I got a RE, and I'm pretty sure I answered properly...

EDIT: if there's going to be such a harsh punishment now, can we at least have a stamina log to check how much we are using for each modes, and if we messed up a RE at some point somewhere.

EDIT2: Having the current stamina displayed in battle would be great as well. I never know if it's the right moment to use an energy drink on persistent, and it was an awful surprise finishing the Isekai arena and finding a sad smiley with a 0 right next to it.

I've encounter similar problem, drained more than 20 stamina in a single arena, and pretty sure answered the riddle correctly...
and since there's no ED in isk so forced to stop

The same happened to two friends purifiedcat and onceforall, their staminas were dropped by 9 points in a single IW (around 20-35 rounds)

The same happened to two friends purifiedcat and onceforall, their staminas were dropped by 9 points in a single IW (around 20-35 rounds)

And it is getting worse. I am now at 8 Stamina and I don't even have enough Stamina to even start a new 32 round IW again. I might have missed 1 of 2 unique ponies once or twice before (My strategy is rather select less, don't select anything wrong), and now the punishment just surprises me.


This post has been edited by OnceForAll: Dec 22 2021, 12:41

Without being able to see stamina penalties it is very hard to provide feedback except where you are losing significant amounts of stamina. People could be using more stamina per round due to penalties and unless they are claculating expected stamina each battle they may never know, which I certainly do not like the idea of.

New Season Notes (2021 S2 -> 2022 S1)
Persistent awards will be added soon.

Looking forward to that

Isekai Changes
- Minor correction to the difficulty calculation for Tower difficulty. It should now actually reach PDUFOR at Floor 40 rather than a few floors earlier.
- You can now attempt/clear The Tower 5 times per day until you reach Floor 20.
- The stat bonus thresholds are now for reaching the floor rather than clearing it, since the readout makes it a bit confusing.

Hurray, now it sounds eaasier to reach at least Floor 30 now

Thank you very much for the Updates, Tenboro!

It's obviously intended to make it harder to set up a neural network which automatically learns to solve the riddlemaster.

I get that but is a severe first time penalty really necessary?
By previous system I was referring to the previous penalty system that was lenient to the occasional miss but gets just as severe for repeat offenders.

Penalty aside I think the new riddles themselves are ok
but time could be an issue in Persistent where I would only have 20 seconds
as I have been staring at some of these for way more than that.
Then again that's partially because I am being more cautious than usual to avoid the steep penalties.

I've changed the behavior when running out of time to consider it as a blank answer with no direct stamina loss. I also tweaked some of the internal numbers based on the actual accuracy stats to make it a bit more lenient and bring most people within the "no penalty" range, and set it to only consider riddles answered after right now, but;

Uhhm, so I just hit 0 Stamina in Isekai while doing arenas, even though I started it with like 34.

I got a RE, and I'm pretty sure I answered properly...

You only got 12 out of 23 across 12 riddles, so you may not have noticed that there can be several answers.

I've encounter similar problem, drained more than 20 stamina in a single arena, and pretty sure answered the riddle correctly...
and since there's no ED in isk so forced to stop

You got 13 out of 23 across 13 riddles, so the same applies to you.

And it is getting worse. I am now at 8 Stamina and I don't even have enough Stamina to even start a new 32 round IW again. I might have missed 1 of 2 unique ponies once or twice before (My strategy is rather select less, don't select anything wrong), and now the punishment just surprises me.

17 out of 23 with 2 wrong answers in 11 riddles.

I get that but is a severe first time penalty really necessary?
By previous system I was referring to the previous penalty system that was lenient to the occasional miss but gets just as severe for repeat offenders.

It's not. It doesn't start to apply any stamina penalties until a number of riddles have been answered and the accuracy is below a certain threshold, and the penalty scales exponentially so if you're just a little bit below the threshold it would be barely noticeable. The occasional miss has no penalties whatsoever, unlike the old system.

but time could be an issue in Persistent where I would only have 20 seconds

The min time was increased to 30 seconds.