Higgins Performance

[shiverczar]

I'm kind of curious about Higgins.

He starts with an absurdly high score, but it seems like it ticks up extremely slowly over time. It's not clear to me the mechanism by which this happens. However, it IS clearly influenced by *something*. Whether that something is RNGesus or player action, I don't know.

Decided to challenge myself to beat him in the first Spring, so I just played through Y1 Spring twice more [I'd never beaten him in that time-frame before], and the second time Higgins' score was higher than it was the first time.

He scored 6012 the first time to my 5979, and the second time he scored 6079 to my 6081 [yes, I did it! By TWO POINTS!]

As far as I recall, I contributed the same amount to the various story commissions, so it's not like he took more story contracts the second time through; but his score was higher.

The wiki says he gains 144-214 points per day, but if that were true, after 4 weeks his starting score of 5250 should be bumped all the way up to 9282 at minimum so that's clearly not accurate. If we exclude weekends, that should still be 8130 - far higher than even the 6079 he ended with in my second attempt.

What scores have you seen Higgins have by the end of the season? Does anyone have a better explanation than what the Wiki gives me which is clearly inaccurate?

If not, that's fine. Just curiosity at this point, mainly. If I'd failed the second attempt, it'd be for planning purposes, to see if I could sabotage his score in some way.

Also, seems kind of silly that he's somehow able to do all those commissions with only two industrial furnaces that - between the two of them - only seem to produce a single bar per day

[Buttfart Princesspants VIII]

I'm unsure completely, but I've found it can depend on you as a player. If you're struggling, he does work considerably slower in later seasons. He's not particularly meant to be beaten during the first spring, and it is more of a second playthrough occurence, that I bet isn't calculated very sophisticatedly.
Plus - the wiki must be off to some degree because it entirely depends on whether he gets the contracts that are more lucrative than you, so whether he beats you there, whether there's some you're unable to do on the day, whether there's more than one worthwhile/high scoring commission.
And I believe you can "sabotage" him to some degree, and lower his overall score by nicking his ingots in his furnace on a morning. But again, that's quite difficult because you're also wanting to beat him to the commissions first thing.
- He does also receive materials you can't, which can advantage him more. ie, he'll get crystals and flowers you can't acquire in that time period.

Regardless, I think he's absolutely affected by player action.

[Meevers]

I've been testing things with Higgins lately. If you enter the guild at 8am before him and then walk into him repeatedly, he doesn't take a commission because he leaves the guild at 9am due to his scheduling. Doing this consistently for about 3 weeks in game has made him earn zero points. This included the end of a season.

Therefore, you can completely sabotage him making him never earn points at all if you just consistently walk into him every day in the Guild from 8am - 9am. I even had the 'deedee stops here mission', where he is commissioned to complete 2 of the stops. I was preventing him from taking any board commissions at that time as well. But, his points did not raise after that was completed, either. I'm going to continue testing this as the bigger commissions come up that are handed out to us both, but it doesn't look good for him so far. He also doesn't appear to earn points at the weekends from the spot the difference mini game, even though he does run into the Guild on the weekends as if he is completing them.

I find it a little odd he doesn't naturally gain SOME points at the end of the week or season, but he doesn't seem to. His points seem to be explicitly linked to the commissions he takes from the board. But hey, this method is good if you either hate Higgins and want him to fail miserably, or you want all the commissions for yourself at certain parts of the story such as the DeeDee mission since you can prevent him from taking any of them.

[Fox Loaf Liz]

Sounds like you found an exploit, although a rather easy one for any person to perform. AI pathing can be so easily disrupted in any game if they can't force their way through your avatar. Stardew Valley though takes this to the next level and they just bulldoze their way through their usual pathing making it harder to disrupt their schedules.

[Buttfart Princesspants VIII]

It *is* an exploit, but in my experience, it's a hard one to create. I can never accurately stop him, as he does just clip off of me and walks around.

[Meevers]

Originally posted by Buttfart Princesspants VIII:

It *is* an exploit, but in my experience, it's a hard one to create. I can never accurately stop him, as he does just clip off of me and walks around.

I've not had a problem with doing it. If you walk into him, like every NPC, they stop and get pushed saying things like 'Don't push!' which makes them stand there for a second. If you do that consistently, then he can't even get to the board. However you can also just talk to him over and over. Open up the social menu, close it. Wait a second, open it again, close it. This also prevents him from moving or, if he's at the board, cancels his animation he does when taking a commission making him not take one.

He is... very easy to stop and exploit. As such, it's very easy to also ruin his life haha.

[shiverczar]

Originally posted by Meevers:

I've been testing things with Higgins lately. If you enter the guild at 8am before him and then walk into him repeatedly, he doesn't take a commission because he leaves the guild at 9am due to his scheduling. Doing this consistently for about 3 weeks in game has made him earn zero points. This included the end of a season.

Therefore, you can completely sabotage him making him never earn points at all if you just consistently walk into him every day in the Guild from 8am - 9am. I even had the 'deedee stops here mission', where he is commissioned to complete 2 of the stops. I was preventing him from taking any board commissions at that time as well. But, his points did not raise after that was completed, either. I'm going to continue testing this as the bigger commissions come up that are handed out to us both, but it doesn't look good for him so far. He also doesn't appear to earn points at the weekends from the spot the difference mini game, even though he does run into the Guild on the weekends as if he is completing them.

I find it a little odd he doesn't naturally gain SOME points at the end of the week or season, but he doesn't seem to. His points seem to be explicitly linked to the commissions he takes from the board. But hey, this method is good if you either hate Higgins and want him to fail miserably, or you want all the commissions for yourself at certain parts of the story such as the DeeDee mission since you can prevent him from taking any of them.

That's quite interesting to know.
So he actually does get points based on whether he takes commissions. Pretty cool...

As far as if you really do want to block him - Time doesn't freeze during conversations, right? Only as it's opening/closing the talk menu. Just talk to him and wait a minute and it'd be 9 and he'd leave, if what you're saying is accurate.

If I'd known that, I could've gotten an extra Deedee completed, only got 4 in my game =p
(But that is definitely an exploit, and I'd feel too guilty about that. I don't feel guilty about pre-building parts, and slowing him down on his way to the commission board as I run back and forth with completed jobs to Albert or Antoine, but actually completely preventing him from accessing the board... Yeah, that seems sketchy )

[shiverczar]

Originally posted by Buttfart Princesspants VIII:

And I believe you can "sabotage" him to some degree, and lower his overall score by nicking his ingots in his furnace on a morning. But again, that's quite difficult because you're also wanting to beat him to the commissions first thing.
- He does also receive materials you can't, which can advantage him more. ie, he'll get crystals and flowers you can't acquire in that time period.

Regardless, I think he's absolutely affected by player action.

For the record, in my first attempt where he got a final score of 6012, I didn't know you could steal his ingots and never did.

In my second attempt, I knew about this and took advantage of it probably 15+ days (especially the first few days this was a huuuuge help to me - getting a free bronze bar on Day 2 meant I got the bronze pick like 3 1/2 hours earlier than I otherwise would've), and he scored higher (6079) so I don't believe taking his ingots affects him at all.

Edit: Also, if you grab the commission first thing, you've got about an in-game hour to run over to his furnaces and steal his bar before he makes it back there. He strolls pretty slowly too. Basically comes down to whether the time to run over there and grab the ingot is worth it to you, and you remember to do so

[Meevers]

Originally posted by shiverczar:

That's quite interesting to know.
So he actually does get points based on whether he takes commissions. Pretty cool...

As far as if you really do want to block him - Time doesn't freeze during conversations, right? Only as it's opening/closing the talk menu. Just talk to him and wait a minute and it'd be 9 and he'd leave, if what you're saying is accurate.

If I'd known that, I could've gotten an extra Deedee completed, only got 4 in my game =p
(But that is definitely an exploit, and I'd feel too guilty about that. I don't feel guilty about pre-building parts, and slowing him down on his way to the commission board as I run back and forth with completed jobs to Albert or Antoine, but actually completely preventing him from accessing the board... Yeah, that seems sketchy :cgrazz:)

I'm not 100% if time does freeze during conversations, however just spamming the social menu on him and exiting it does make time pass and also cancels any animation the person is doing. Higgins has an animation at the board that is him choosing a commission, cancelling that repeatedly, makes him not take any at all.

But yes, it's definitely a huge exploit and very cheaty considering it makes him gain absolutely no points if done consistently every day. However, it was very interesting to find and see how he actually works in terms of point gaining. I'll be doing it again when larger commissions come up as well, to see if he actually gains points from ones that are said to be given to us both or not. Though, it doesn't seem like he will at this point.

[pcdeltalink]

Originally posted by Meevers:

But yes, it's definitely a huge exploit and very cheaty considering it makes him gain absolutely no points if done consistently every day. However, it was very interesting to find and see how he actually works in terms of point gaining. I'll be doing it again when larger commissions come up as well, to see if he actually gains points from ones that are said to be given to us both or not. Though, it doesn't seem like he will at this point.

Exploit or no it is hilarious and extremely satisfying to know that I can sabotage him like that. Never liked him from day 1 and, more importantly, I didn't like him taking my story mission contracts that I needed more because I was desperate for the money that they paid out.

[shiverczar]

So, not actually sure about time passing during conversations now. Other people definitely continue to walk around and animate, but it seems like time itself actually freezes. Which is an interesting gimmick, since it means that people can travel ludicrously far in a minute :P

I tested it for like 30 seconds and time didn't seem to have progressed, didn't check whether it eventually does or not though.