Is King's Crown (xp gain +7%) ever worth taking?

[metanet_raigan]

I'm trying to figure out if it ever makes sense to choose Crown when levelling up; obviously late-game it doesn't, but even early I'm not sure it particularly works out.

The best-case scenario is if you take 3 levels of crown immediately, which will give +21% xp: approximately 1 free level for every 5 level-ups. That means that you break even at level 15 (gaining 3 bonus levels to offset the 3 levels you wasted on Crown), however (a) you're still not ahead, you'll need to make it to level 20+ before you see a net positive return on your investment, (b) there's a huge opportunity cost to taking crown for your first 3 upgrades (ie it's going to be hard if not impossible to make it to level 4 if you're only using your starting weapon).

So, more realistically, let's say you manage to gain 3 levels of Crown by level 15: now you need to make it to level 30 to break even (recoup the 3 levels you spent on Crown), and 35+ in order to actually gain anything.

So in the end you've gained maybe an additional 2-3 levels over the course of a run, which to me doesn't seem worth the opportunity cost of taking it.

IMO it might make more sense if the Crown lowered the level-up threshold by 7% rather than increasing your xp gain... maybe?

Anyway, please let me know what you think, since I'm not sure if my analysis is correct. Specifically I'm not sure whether increasing your xp gain by x% is equivalent to reducing the xp requirement of levelling up by x% (I think it's not, xp gain is linear on the number of gems you pick up, level-up requirement isn't).

Cheers,
Raigan

[Panquequita de miel]

yes

[[unassigned]]

i think its a waste of a slot that could be used for something else that helps you survive or kill stuff. so for that alone i avoid
but to your point it definitely seems like if you dont get it super early then it becomes completely pointless as time goes on

[mark.gardn3r]

its good for two things imo - power spiking mid game (faster levels = fast capped powers) and gold farming (the level rewards become gold once everything is maxed). so in short - yeah its worth taking.

[GameDragonZero]

Great job on the math. So a question - what % exp gain would make it worth it? I wonder if "scaling" would help - each Crown taken has MORE experience gain.

[Orzeker]

Seems very strong, at some point on the runs xp gets a little dry, you can get stronger quickly when it matter it feels like.

Also i bring a lot more money.

[Daergar]

I always take it when it comes up.

Your calculation is off since green xp gems drop more frequently later on, letting you max out quicker, not to mention the gold gains from the last few minutes of vacuuming up red gems.

That said, once you've unlocked everything, there's not much point in it, though that is when you stop playing and wait for more content anyway, so...

[dejaime=D-Newbie]

Good for beating the game? Probably not. Good for farming gold for the meta progression? Yes.

[just alyx]

yeah, it's basically just convert that exp% into extra money like another stone mask. it's a farming item. there are certainly way worse items you could take!

[yimimoto]

that 21% extra xp is 21% more levels you gain end game. Therefore, 21% more gold per run. You'd have to do some serious math to figure out what passive item will net you more kills to compensate that.

[Not Axel]

yimimoto původně napsal:

that 21% extra xp is 21% more levels you gain end game. Therefore, 21% more gold per run. You'd have to do some serious math to figure out what passive item will net you more kills to compensate that.

21% more xp is not 21% more levels.
Level xp requirement is not linear. As OP stated it's around 3-4 levels of difference.

Imo it is NOT worth it. It's a waste of a slot place for the whole play that could be used for something more fun and powerful and instead it gets you like a hundred coins extra pre-multipliers.

[Carlos Spicywiener]

Id say no. The slot would be better suited to almost anything else.

[metanet_raigan]

About maxing-out quicker, etc: my point is that I don't think you'll actually see an appreciable net increase in levelling, *because you have to sacrifice levels* in order to get the Crown. And you have to sacrifice *early* levels to reap the biggest reward, but early levels are the most precious for generating dps so you can get the ball rolling.

As I mentioned, if you spend 3 levels on Crown to get +21%, then by level 25 this will have only netted you 1-2 extra levels at best (ie 4-5 total (quite likely closer to 3), minus the 3 you spent on Crown), ie you're barely ahead.

If you make it to level 50 you'll have gained maybe 7 extra levels (10 minus the 3 you paid initially) which is good, but comes at a very high opportunity cost (eg 2x Duplicator should cause enough extra dps to drop a few levels worth of extra gems by the end of a run, and only costs 2 levels instead of 3) so it's really not clear that there's a strong benefit.

And this only works if you get 3x Crown before you're level 10-15ish, otherwise it looks like an even worse proposition! Like: holding a single level of Crown from the start of the game seems more or less worthless, at level 50 you'll only have gained about 3 extra levels, and you paid 1 level for it! That means you're ahead by only 2 levels, which cost you an upgrade to a weapon which could have actually been useful for something.

Anyway, I'd be interested if someone better at math could break down the actual curves here. :)

[yimimoto]

Not Axel původně napsal:

yimimoto původně napsal:

that 21% extra xp is 21% more levels you gain end game. Therefore, 21% more gold per run. You'd have to do some serious math to figure out what passive item will net you more kills to compensate that.

21% more xp is not 21% more levels.
Level xp requirement is not linear. As OP stated it's around 3-4 levels of difference.

Imo it is NOT worth it. It's a waste of a slot place for the whole play that could be used for something more fun and powerful and instead it gets you like a hundred coins extra pre-multipliers.

Ah, yes. I stand corrected.

[metanet_raigan]

My suggestion would be that if Crown instead reduced the required xp by a %, this would scale powerfully with level; in comparison the current formula of +X% xp increase seems to get less useful as the cost of the next level increases.

ie if I collected 1000xp + 100 bonus xp, and the next level costs 100, then Crown has given me the equivalent of a bonus level. If the next level costs 1000, Crown has given me 1/10th of a bonus level... less useful.

(I'm assuming that the level-up threshold grows non-linearly as is common in RPGs, if it's linear then the linear scaling of Crown makes a bit more sense... AFAICT.)

Also please note: I'm quite a noob at this sort of analysis so I'd appreciate being corrected if someone has a better handle on the actual statistics/dynamics of these numbers. :)

[King Smidgens]

In theory you might "waste" one level picking it up and then proceed to max it out via chests.

But it's a fairly weak item IMO. Level scaling is a large part of its downfall.