Frustrating Foundables: The Threat Scale Explained
Acumen
Posts: 1,102 ✭✭✭✭✭
Sometimes it can feel like your chances of successfully overpowering a Confoundable are entirely random and have nothing to do with skill or player level. This is mostly because the frustrating experiences within the game tend to be more memorable than the positive ones. You might be happily wizarding it up at your favorite spot, rescuing several low or medium level Foundables on the first or second cast, even if the casts are only good or fair. Suddenly, you'll encounter a low level threat that departs on you after four casts, and two of those casts were masterful. Sometimes this might even happen several times in a row. That can't be right! Surely the game is broken!
While that's a perfectly natural reaction, there is a method to the apparent madness. The round threat scale which resembles a clock gives you three important points of data: base return rate, effective base return rate, and effective max return rate. Base return rate is what you can expect with a fair cast, while max represents your chances with a masterful cast. Good and great casts fall within the area between those two, obviously.
The return rate ranges from 0% t0 100%, but the scale doesn't divide those percentages equally among the 8 pie sections, so it's a little counter intuitive. The return rate decreases from 100% to 40% in first (darkest green) sector of the scale, and this is what has most people confused. It is natural to believe the success rate should be around 50% at the halfway point of the scale (the fifth sector), but really your chances only range from 10% to 21% in that section.
The base return rate of a Foundable remains the same, but the effective base and max return rates increase with every 5 player levels (Level 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on). The easiest low-level threats with a base return rate of 60% are the exception. Those stay the same (60% base - 92% max) regardless of player level.
Confused yet? It gets more complicated, so buckle up. While your effective rates get a buff every five levels, this does not apply the same increase across all threats. My chances for success increase a little bit more on severe or emergency level threats versus medium level threats. This actually makes sense since the base level return rate on severe or emergency level threats range from 1.7% all the way down to 0.1%. There's a LOT more room for improvement on those compared to medium or low level threats which have a base return rate ranging from 25% all the way up to 60%.
So far, we've learned that there is never a 100% chance for success, unless you introduce yet another modifier: exstimulo potions. Depending on the strength, these can increase your effective base/max return rates as much as 35%. On low or medium level threats, this can virtually guarantee success. BUT... on an emergency level threat like Albus Dumbledore, someone at player level 30-35 will only have a 50% return rate, and that's with a masterful spell cast AND potent exstimulo potion.
TLDR: The game's design guarantees that some Foundables will give you trouble. If you feel like this happens more than it should, start tracking your numbers. I think you'll find that your success rates vastly outnumber the failures. For peace of mind, many people employ the "three strikes and you're out" methodology. If your third spell cast doesn't work just say, "Bye, Felicia!"
There are only a few things that add any degree of difficulty to this game. If we remove those, what would be the point? We might as well just be popping bubble wrap. Don't get me wrong, I love popping bubble wrap, but it's not very challenging.
Anyway, if you're still having trouble with wrapping your head around how the return rates work, I don't blame you at all! Honestly, it isn't important to remember all of this because none of it will make you a better player. For the inquisitive types who just like to know how stuff works, here's a link to an article with some helpful screenshots and charts:
Comments
I have my own theories about additional circumstances which can influence success rates. Sometimes when I open the app, depending on my location, it can take a few seconds or more for the GPS on my phone to lock in my location. I believe this can result in the client (your phone) sending a false location to the server at first, which can result in spawns appearing that shouldn't be in your immediate area. If you engage one of these spawns and your location updates during that time, the client may encounter errors. The server's response when receiving data for an actively engaged Foundable that doesn't exist where you are might be to send a message back to get the Foundable to depart, but this might not be received successfully by the client until after several casts. I don't know what sort of network trace data I might look for to confirm this though, so this is little more than a wild guess.
I used (you're) where I should have used (your) in the TLDR section, and it's making my eye twitch. It sucks that you can no longer edit posts here after 60 minutes. Or was it 30? I don't know. Either way, it sucks.
Hey forum administrators! I'd like to make a humble request. Please navigate to Forum > Advanced Settings in the administrator dashboard and change the "Edit for ... minutes" option on posts to a greater value, like 24 hours. If you do this, I will reward you with shiny trinkets and, I don't know, bread or something. 😁
@Acumen I approve of your self-criticism on grammar. For your reading pleasure, I give you something I wrote a long time ago. It was spurred by reading and being a part of gaming forums; specifically, World of Warcraft.
Please grab a hot beverage of your choice, sit back, relax, and enjoy.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread of frustration.
That rant speaks to my soul, @Craeft, though I have to admit I’m often guilty of #9. When I write, it looks like a comma bomb exploded all over the page. I write in, very much, the same way Christopher Walken... speaks.
Aside from my son, the Oxford comma is the only thing I ever truly loved.
This literally made me LOL
I write in, very much, the same way Christopher Walken... speaks.
And yes. I am a fan of the Oxford comma, myself.
Great post!
@Craeft I enjoyed reading your article; had me chuckling all the way through though honestly, I was holding my breath. I love to write but I have zero formal education. I write like I play musical instruments, by ear. So to speak. Decades of reading the works of others has pretty much been my guide. I feel like I got through your rant relatively unscathed. I've often wondered if it would have been beneficial, to have pursued a more classical education when I was younger. I don't regret taking the road less travelled, it's who I am. But I've been caught off guard in conversation a few times over the years when my lack of formal education became apparent. I consider it a by-product of being self-educated. Anyway, that was fun and I learned a thing or two. Thanks.
convinced that algorithm mandates minimum number of disintegrations of any trace for which you need just one more fragment to place the image, no matter what potions you use ... and at double that number of disintegrations if that image is the last you need to prestige the page
murphy’s law
@Acumen Nice explanation of the threat scale. I had not considered it in this much detail. Thanks. I usually just do the traces without thinking too much about the details behind them.
@Craeft I just read through your article and it reminded me of English lessons at school. I wasn’t the best at it and I’m still not great with my grammar, but I try. Hopefully none of my posts fall short of your expectations (or you don’t notice any that do). 😊
You say Christopher Walken, I say William Shatner. Lol. Depends on the darkness of the tone, I guess.
Just ran across this in the discord, and as this thread was revived thought it might help for those of us who are more visual learners. 🧐🤓👀🤔
Credit goes to celebros112 & the research channel on wizards unite on discord.
This does not seem to have some of the newest foundables listed. Just FYI.