u/OCCobblepot

Balloon Ride, one of the earliest Monday events is back. I think the first was Big Dig, then this, then Honey Hunt. If I’m wrong about this please educate me.

Tuscan Villa and Wordscapes Birthday again. If you haven’t finished either best get it done. You’re not likely to see them again for a long time.

We also started the Summer Crown Season. The crowns are ok. It’s a sandcastle that keeps getting bigger and more ornate.

In the news:

Big news for our subreddit this week. Our beloved mod, SMothra57 has decided to hang up her thumb (or index finger or stylus) and retire from the game and from her mod role. We wish her all the best in whatever comes next. You can check out her farewell post and all the love in the room here: https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/7szbRAqSwz

Be sure to cue up Boys II Men’s End of the Road before you start reading.

Now those, let’s say big, shoes must be filled. Myself and u/DisillusionedPie have joined the mods. We will do our best to help in keeping the standards that SMothra57 has set.

We had a dash for Wordscapes 9th Birthday (https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/Z5mtiCl596) and we have a new cow egg. It’s weird for the non-avian animals to come out of an egg, but it feels especially strange for a cow. Cow egg. No getting used to that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/d0VtOeqcTf

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/kwMXMamUvD

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/2xxRjcKMyJ

Cow stats: https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/DBdk3zMFaJ

There was one day where the cow booster or, as some in the thread were cleverly calling it, the ‘mooster’ was delayed 15 hours. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/DBdk3zMFaJ

Mt Fortune is still missing for those who haven’t updated to 3.12.x. I assume this is out for everyone now. The mistaken appearance of the timer did cause some players to try to finish in a rush. Some players who complained to support did get compensated for this, which I think was a good move by People Fun.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/ijTy5bQOnM

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/dtKPZdH7Ak

There were many posts on leveling up the green egg. Now we know a little bit more about it, I’ll work out a new average cost prediction. There were two things that meant the estimate I provided before the egg was released was lower than the actual cost. My estimate was around 1.8 million and most reports are giving a figure of 2.4-2.7 million. The first is that PF has changed the gem returns on maxed animals to a much lower figure than previously. I’m still missing the gem return amount for a jackpot uncommon. If you know it, please let me know. The other item is that the number of shards needed to go for level 9 to level 10 is 1000 shards, not the 800 that was predicted by the pattern. This means the uncommon is slower to max than predicted and therefore you don’t start getting returns as early.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/NBE03CExEF

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/wWowfCh6Up

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/HiFK59icBz

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/eYiFylEqpC

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/BNNRwk7ZPf

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/fwYGUaMwEx

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/CKTOnACs3B

Finally, I’ll share this as news because it was news to me. Did you know you can take off your crown by tapping on the crown you have currently selected? For some, like me, it stays off. For others, only for the current session. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/928QkPJKK4

Same format as usual. 51 levels in total. 42 to get the portrait. 750 tokens.

1. ⁠4 Levels for 50 Cow Tokens
2. ⁠6 Levels for 100 Cow Tokens
3. ⁠8 Levels for 150 Cow Tokens
4. ⁠8 Levels for 200 Cow Tokens
5. ⁠15 Levels for Exclusive Wordscapes Day Portrait
6. ⁠10 Levels for 250 Cow Tokens

Double tokens if you watched ads.

It’s Wordscapes 9th birthday! We will get a Birthday themed Monday event, and the portrait event will be one many have not completed - Wordscapes Birthday. I also saw an advertisement for a portrait dash event in the App Store that should be coming in the next day or so. Tuscan Villa is the throwback Butterfly Habitat.

And of course, the Summer Crown Tournament starts. Can’t wait to see the new crowns!

In the news:

Main story this week is the release of the expanded wildlife levels for the animals in the green egg, which was rolled out with the release of 3.12.0 to some Apple users.

First PF put out updated FAQs on the topic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/h8rDQxWqEC

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/HnOTPP70ok

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/TOGTRg6Y68

Then there was the release of 3.12.0 to the App Store. We found out there are new filtering and sorting features for the animals, too. Also new wildlife portraits are available for reaching level 9. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/7lLeQfXqe8

In 3.12.0 it became apparent that egg hatches made after maxing the animal previously were stored somewhere in the app, for instance through opening the rainbow egg, and were credited as progress towards the new levels. In some cases, this was sufficient to get to level 8 and beyond, for example seeing 572/200 for an uncommon. u/DM_Fitz did some initial work, showing that the overrun was realised as soon as the animal was opened in an egg. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/iX3L0TwAfD

Then u/URedditt went all the way, maxing out every animal in the green egg for a cost of 1,649,493 gems. I’m quite proud to say that this was very close to my prediction of 1.8 million. My assumption was that we would start with zero progress, which was not the case for u/URedditt who started with 29 lions. We also got to see the reward increases, which were meagre. Some might be disappointed in this. I’m happy they didn’t increase too much. I’d rather tournaments not be too much about using animals. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/YHMXrF6vD5

It wouldn’t be the game we know and love if things went smoothly. The extra progress towards level 8 and 9 from previous hatches that we saw appears to not have been intentional. So PF very quickly released 3.12.1 which reversed this progress. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/HUEYi27bhp

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/WvOA7Y0fu1

Many had noticed that if we were getting credit for previous hatches that it would be to your advantage to open eggs before updating. In this way you would not only get the repeats that would help you progress once you did update, you would also get returned gems, meaning you could achieve this progress at a 50-60% discount. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/GfmZML8lwr

This may have been the reason they decided to undo those credits. They also indicated that they would remove the green egg from rotation due to unspecified issues with it, which some users had already reported. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/q7ZdwTNQyg

While it seems a bit unfair that some have obtained benefits that others haven’t in virtue of them having the 3.12.0 version available and having the green egg at the time before they rectified the issue, I don’t begrudge them. They got lucky. I’m in no worse position than I assumed I would be before they released the update.

If you haven’t updated, and you are still on 3.11.x then I think it is too late to take advantage of this credit. There is no 3.12.0 available anymore so as soon as you update it would be to 3.12.1 which will wipe out your extras.

If you’re on 3.12.0, like me, then maybe we can lock in some progress by leveling up our Lion before we move to 3.12.1. But I want to see what happens to those that did level up in 3.12.0 first. I have to wait a week before my green egg swings around (though SMothra57’s recent post suggests it might have been removed from the rotation). I should know how it works before then and will see what I can do. I haven’t given up hope yet.

There was something strange that we saw for those who had updated to 3.12.0 which was a pop up prompting us to restart to continue playing. I wonder if this had something to do with the removal of the green egg from rotation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/Zy7CdXZxtJ

Another sine wave of a change this week was the end of the Under the Sea Mt Fortune theme. We had learned previously from a Facebook reply by PF that Under the Sea would finish at the end of June. But this week a countdown timer appeared indicating a week left, which would see it finish at the end of May. Those on 3.11.x can still see this timer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/OKEK8sbLy2

Even support confirmed this new end date.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/4Bka2CYb0a

But the timer had disappeared for those who had updated to 3.12.x. Then PF put out an announcement on Facebook saying that the timer was an error and that it will finish at the end of June as had been originally indicated. PF also said that the Mt Fortune icon would disappear at the end of May if one didn’t update to 3.12.1, which aligns with the end of the timer. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/P8PwPDbG2D

We also saw some buggy team tournaments last weekend. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/rmSWkV1yH6

There was also a good post promoting the benefits of being on a team. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/fln3RCNd2i

Cool filters and sorting on the animals. I’m a while away from my green egg so didn’t open anything yet. The only two animals I can see as being able to level up are Kangaroo and Sloth. Maybe it will take a while. Edit: I didn’t look closely enough. All the animals in the green egg can be leveled up. It appears I have retained rewards for opening previously, even after maxing. Some even seem overloaded. See screenshots in comments.

Anyway, lots to explore.
New wildlife portraits. This must be for when you level up to level 9, I think.

Another Picnic Day for Monday. Did you think there was only one picnic day? Now you know. Mystic Courtyard and the graphic shows Rolling Meadow, but the post on Facebook and Instagram says Safari, which I assume means Wildlife Safari.

In the news:

Main story this week was the pop up notification that some players received. It was a Fair Play Warning suggesting they had detected activity that may be inconsistent with fair play. This came across as an accusation to most who received it. It seems they may be cracking down on cheating, which is a good thing, however the wording of this notification could have been better.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/D7ai3TxMb7

https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/iLLv1iN2Zo

A new release came out, 3.11.80. It seems the app is relatively stable now. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/uiIq690YtN

There was a Picnic Day Portrait Dash if you can remember that. Fans of sandwiches would have been chuffed to get a portrait of the noble ham sandwich. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/kNsrFAD3e8

I did a post further speculating on the additional wildlife levels coming soon. I think we will need quite a lot of gems to complete these levels, more than I originally thought. https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/lorFUWs3r1

In my last post speculating on what these additional levels might look like and what they might cost, I made a number of assumptions. One of them was how many epics we might need to advance the levels. After examining the Common, Uncommon, and Rare level progressions, I noticed a pattern which suggests that I may have greatly underestimated how many are needed.

If you look at the first table, you’ll see that the progression of the different classes increases in a similar way. You need 15 repeats to get your common animals to level 3, and you need 15 repeats to get your uncommon animals to level 4, and you need 15 repeats to get your rare animals to level 5. I’ve colour coded the cells in the table to make the pattern obvious.

We can also notice that after you require 25 repeats for the different classes to get to the next level that each subsequent amount is doubled. 25 to 50 to 100 to 200.

Not sure why I never noticed this before.

Given this clear pattern I think it is very likely that it will continue to double for the new additional levels. This means that the estimate I provided last time for the gross cost was probably well under what it will actually cost.

In this post I will provide a revised estimate of the gross cost, and also work out the net cost after swaps and gem returns you get back after maxing the other animals in the egg.

In the last post I worked out the adjusted cost per epic (adjusted for multiples) of 7,902 gems per epic. You can see how I arrived at that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/DJqAkvsjVB

I now think we will need 350 epics to go from level 7 to level 10. This means the average gross cost of obtaining these is:

7,902.299x350‎ = 2,765,804.65

The total gross cost for all 6 eggs would therefore be:

2,765,805x6‎ = 16,594,830

Quite a bit more. However, I could be wrong.

Net Cost

To work out the net cost, I first had to work out the cost per draw of all the other classes. Then figure out how much it would take to complete them. Finally, I had to figure out how much I could expect on average in return gems, as well as how many times I would draw them before completing the egg.

The easy part would be to work out the gems earned from swaps. We can do that now.

There are 9 animals in an egg, and there would be 3 level ups per animal. 9x3‎ = 27

How much you get from the swap trick depends on what animal you have doing the activity. The most you could get is from Santa Claws which is 1500.

27x1500‎ = 40,500

But you’re more likely to use it with the giraffe or some other animal that will give you a reward. For simplicity, let’s just assume an average of 1000 gems per swap, or 27,000 gems.

Now to the returns from animals in the egg when you draw them after maxing them out. As you can see from the table in the second picture, this wasn’t a simple matter. I will walk you through the table columns which will reveal how I arrived at my figures. If you’re not interested in walking through the reasoning then you can just scroll to the end.

The first column, ‘Percent of Draws’ lists the percentage for each class that People Fun have given us in the egg. I have included a screenshot of this, too.

The second column, ‘Draws per animal’ tells us how many draws we need to find one of that class of animal. This is calculated by 100 divided by that percentage. For instance a Common is found 54% of the time, so 100/54‎ = 1.852 draws. Remember that a shiny egg has three draws, so we’re likely to see a Common in almost every egg we open.

The third column, ‘Cost per draw of animal class’ works out how many gems we would expect to pay to find an animal of that class. Remember our cost per draw in a shiny egg is 550/3‎ = 183.333 and so to work out the cost per draw of a particular class, we multiply the Draws per animal by 183.333. For example, we expect to see an Uncommon in every 3.448 draws so 3.448x183.333 is 632 gems.

The fourth column, ‘Average animals per draw’ works out the average number of animals we would expect to see per draw, based on what we learned from the Shallow Dive post about the distribution of multiples.

Below I’ve summarised this information about the distribution of multiples and also how many gems returned when the animal is maxed. For instance, you are likely to draw 1 common (or get 85 gems back if maxed) 50% of the time, 2 commons (or get 105 gems back if maxed) 25% of the time, and so on.

Common: x1 / 85 gems (50%), x2 / 105 gems (25%), x4 / 140 gems (15%), x7 / 185 gems (8%), x15 / 245 gems (2%)

Uncommon: x1 / 95 gems (70%), x2 / 145 gems (20%), x3 / 185 gems (8%), x7 / 275 gems (2%)

Rare: x1 / 120 gems (80%), x2 / 195 gems (18%), x5 / 305 gems (2%)

Epic: x1 / 155 gems (86%), x2 / 245 gems (12%), x3 / 370 gems (2%)

From the above, we can work out the average number of animals we can expect to see per draw. Here is how I worked out the Common:

0.5+(0.25*2)+(0.15*4)+(0.08*7)+(0.02*15)‎ = 2.46

The fifth column, ‘Adjusted cost per animal’ is simply dividing the third column by the fourth column to determine the cost given that we get multiples.

The sixth column, ‘Total needed to Max (7-10)’ sums the assumed number of animals needed for each class to progress the levels and then multiplies by the number of that class in the egg. For example, the number of rares we assume are needed to go from level 7 to level 10 is: (100+200+400)x3‎ = 2,100 since there are 3 rares in each egg.

The seventh column, ‘Gross cost to max (7-10)’ now reveals the gross cost for each class. We simply multiply the adjusted cost by the number of animals we need to go from level 7-10. As expected the lower classes require less than the epic, and so should be completed along the way.

The eighth column, ‘Number of eggs’ really isn’t necessary for this analysis, but it is interesting nonetheless. I’ve just divided the Gross cost for each class by the cost of an egg, 550 gems.

The ninth column, ‘Returned gems per draw’ works out what the average number of gems we would expect to see come back when we draw that class after we have maxed the animals of that class. The calculation is very similar to the adjustment we made for multiple draws to our cost per draw. Here is how I worked out the Common:

(0.5*85)+(0.25*105)+(0.15*140)+(0.08*185)+(0.02*245)‎ = 109.45

The tenth column, ‘Number of draws from Max to Epic Max’ determines how many times we are likely to draw that class from the time we max the animals in that class up to the time we max the epic. First we take the gross cost of maxing the epic, deduct the gross cost of maxing that particular class and then divide that by our (unadjusted) cost per draw of that class. The reason we use the unadjusted is because our returns are already adjusted, and this will figure into our total returns through that. For example, to work out the Uncommon:

(2765,805-1,196,024)/632.184‎ = 2,483.108

The last column, ‘Total returned gems’ finally shows us the number of gems we can expect to get back in return. To work this out we simply multiply the number of draws we worked out in the tenth column by returned gems per draw we worked out in the ninth column. For example, the rare would be:

596x137.2‎ = 81,771.2

If we now sum all of the returned gems for each class we get 887,260 gems.

Therefore our net cost, including the assumed 1000 per swap is:

2,765,805-887,260-27,000‎ = 1,851,545

So for all 6 eggs, the amount I expect we need to save to get from level 7 to level 10 is:

1,851,545x6‎ = 11,109,270

This may take some time.

When they do release the green egg and some gung-ho millionaire charges through it and shows us exactly how many we need, I’ll plug the numbers into my spreadsheet and do another post.

Thanks for getting to the end. Happy hatching!