Evilness income?

[Archimedes]

Hello there, I've played quite a lot of this game (I am now at the level with vampires as a new unit) and I still don't understand one thing - why is it, that after every mission I collect so little evilness compared to average player?

This problem just boggles my mind as I capture islands of evilness as quickly as I can, I always build prison and torture champers ASAP, but after every mission it says, that I've earned only third or half of average player's evilness...

Is there something I am missing?

[Blake Walsh]

If you win the game fast you'll collect less evilness.

[Archimedes]

Yeah, I get that and I would not write this post if that would be the case... last time I finished mission 1 minute early and earned only half of the evilness... how much evilness can one earn in 1 minute?

please stick to the main question

[Blake Walsh]

Um, if you complete the game earlier than the average time you're faster than average, and of course you're going to get considerably less than average evilness, that's because evilness income is 0/minute at the start of the game and it gets higher the longer the game lasts, because of more ways to turn heroes into evilness and such. The longer the game lasts the more evilness per minute you get. A player who wins in 80 minutes is going to get way more than twice as much evilness as a player who wins in 40 minutes.

The World evilness is probably inflated by players who like to build a big dungeon with a well-provisioned torture chamber and play on for at least an hour after the point when they could've won, generating massive amounts of evil per minute relative to what a player who just wins gets.

[Archimedes]

NO...

now I've played the mission after baptism by fire and I finished 10 minutes after the average player and I've only earned 6864 evilness while the average player (that finished 10 minutes before me) earned 25815 evilness... that is why I told to to stick with the main question... what am I missing?

[Jet City Gambler]

Yeah, I think that stat is not correct. After seeing your post I played a few missions and noticed the same thing, the evilness score average is far higher than you'd expect. All my other scores (gold, mana, etc.) are within normal parameters but that one is way out of bounds.

Maybe it's a maximum or something, but it's certainly not the average evilness collected by all players who've completed the level.

[Archimedes]

Thank you for your answer, that would make sense... :) I thought that at first as well, but as no one was answering my question, I thought I am just really bad at the game

[Blake Walsh]

Originally posted by Jet City Gambler:

Yeah, I think that stat is not correct. After seeing your post I played a few missions and noticed the same thing, the evilness score average is far higher than you'd expect. All my other scores (gold, mana, etc.) are within normal parameters but that one is way out of bounds.

Maybe it's a maximum or something, but it's certainly not the average evilness collected by all players who've completed the level.

Unfortunately, there is very little evidence to suggest a flaw in the reporting system.

Let's take a very simple early mission like The Gehenna Stones (level 3), I tried it:
Me: 22 minutes, 3918 evilness
Word: 1 hour 11 minutes, 13528 evilness

So I completed the mission in 31% of world average time, and I got 28% of the evilness for a total EvilPerMInute of 178, while the world average EPM is 190 . This is exactly what you'd expect given that at the opening of the game no evilness income is possible. Incidentally, the maximum possible EPM on this level is 225 which is the rate at which the 3 islands of evilness generate evilness, the fact that a real and the average EPM are both highly compatible with the maximum possible EPM strongly indicates nothing wonky going on.


I also tried another level "Two sides of the Medal" (3rd to last level)
Me: 33 minutes, 7677 evilness: EPM=232
World: 1 hour 47 minutes, 38060 evilness, EPM=357

Once again there is nothing unexpected here. because I didn't futz around I never got a torture chamber and just blitzed the map. Now it's worth noting my EPM is significantly better than an inexperienced player would get over a 30 minute timespan because I captured all the islands of evilness extremely quickly: probably in 1/3rd the time relative to my first play through. On the other hand, my EPM is still much lower than the world average, that's because the world average includes lots of noobs who don't know the torture chamber is a complete waste of time and so can get a much higher EPM.

Also speaking of gold and mana: these are both somewhat limited, technically there is unlimited gold but not unlimited income, most the gold will be mined from gold veins rather than diamond veins. Good players will max out their snot population quickly and mine 3 veins, a bad player might be content with 4 snots working 1 vein and only find a second vein when the first runs out. It should be no surprise that it's possible to match the world average in gold even when winning much faster. Mana earned is mostly tied to mana spent and there's no real limit to how quickly you can spend mana, a good player will generally cast spells much more often because mana is basically free but can be turned into useful stuff (like magic room can be used to make undead heal much faster). The world average for mana is almost completely meaningless.

Overall I can find nothing to suggest that there is anything odd about the statistics other than them being statistics. It's just that there are players like me who are experienced with the game and can blitz levels and so drive down the average time (and achivements often encourage this), and then there are players who spend 3 hours on the level running a huge EPM thanks to a large torture chamber who do much to drive up the average evilness (I'm not saying these are nessecarily unskilled players, some probably create highly optimized evilness production factories). The averages end up pretty meaningless.

If you get an average game time and whether or not you get a low evilness that does mean you're a slow/inexperienced player: a good/experienced player will complete the level in 1/3rd the time (hint: make lots of orcs or arachnids). On the other hand the amount of evilness you get, and your EPM, is really a function of your fetish for the torture chamber, which happens to be roughly inversely proportional to skill as player, the forture chamber is completely irrelevant and even detrimental to winning the level but massively inflates evilness.

Basically, total evilness is a measure of how much you suck at winning, and the lower it is the better you are (though the better measure of skill is game time).

[Archimedes]

wow, what a thorough answer! thank you!
now it makes sense... so I don't suck at this game, what a relief ;)

[Japtan]

Interesting points but, in some missions, you don't have a dungeon, so no way that I know to mine evilness. But still, the world average is 3k or something. So, I only see 3 explanations : I miss something, it's buggy or there are some cheaters around😁

[Dragon]

Originally posted by Blake Walsh:

Basically, total evilness is a measure of how much you suck at winning, and the lower it is the better you are (though the better measure of skill is game time).

Those conclusions don't follow from the stuff you explained in this thread.

'Winning fast' does not equal 'being good at the game.'

One could just as easily argue that 'winning fast' equals 'sucking at enjoying the game.'

And I'm sure people who use cheat codes can 'win faster' than people who didn't. So if 'winning fast' is the criteria for 'being good,' then people who use cheat codes are the most good of all, and people who don't use cheat codes must not be as good.

[Blake Walsh]

Originally posted by Dragon:

'Winning fast' does not equal 'being good at the game.'

You know this is like saying the best marathon runners are those who have the most fun, or those who are best at cheating, not those who run the track in the least amount of time.

I'd have respect for a viewpoint that "it's better not to measure performance at all", but if you *are* going to measure performance, as OP does in this thread, then the time it takes to win is one of the best metrics you can use to gauge your skill relative to other players.

[Nightshade]

Originally posted by Blake Walsh:

Originally posted by Dragon:

'Winning fast' does not equal 'being good at the game.'

You know this is like saying the best marathon runners are those who have the most fun, or those who are best at cheating, not those who run the track in the least amount of time.

No. Just, no. A marathon is a race. Speed is the metric.

This is a game. By definition, something you do for fun.

And, might I point out, a game about building a dungeon, setting up traps, managing creatures and building an army. If you rush through, skipping the main point of the game, I have no problem saying you suck-- as in, suck all the fun out of it.

Sure, you can turn it into a race-- same as anything else-- but I would not categorically associate speed-- read: "lack of evilness" -- with "being good."

[Katitoff]

Do you capture evilnes spots?
Just one will net you less then if you captured more(which is pretty obvious).

Another thing, prison generates evilness of heroes dying there.
Same for Torture chamber later on.

[Archimedes]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

Do you capture evilnes spots?
Just one will net you less then if you captured more(which is pretty obvious).

Another thing, prison generates evilness of heroes dying there.
Same for Torture chamber later on.

you know, you could just read my original post...