User:Us3r1OO425457/Farm Evaluation

This is a proposal for evaluating farming builds. It is related to PvXwiki:Project_Standardized_Testing. This only evaluates farming builds which seek to obtain valuable loot.

Please provide feedback in the discussion page. Most of this is theoretical at this point, and my numbers are just very quick estimates!!

Goals

 * Develop a reasonable method for objectively evaluating farming builds.
 * Reasonable is defined as the trade-off between complexity and accuracy. The method should provide a sufficiently accurate score, while not being overly complicated.
 * Should be future-proof.
 * Example: sufficient data should be collected to allow recalculation of a farm's evaluation score, given significant changes in the guild wars market, or given changes to how this guide values drops.

Methods

 * The seemingly most straightforward way to evaluate a farming build, is to measure its profitability.
 * Profitability is defined as gold divided by time.
 * Example: 50k per hour
 * Another consideration is accessibility.
 * Speed clears and other team farms are undoubtedly the most profitable farms in the game, but require planning/scheduling.
 * Some farms may be significantly more difficult, or require more up-front investment.
 * To keep things simple, this guide will define only two categories of accessibility: team farms/speed clears, and solo farms.
 * It is the opinion of this proposal, that these two "accessibility" categories warrant storage on PvX. Solo farming builds can be done at a player's leisure/outside of team farming schedules, so have their own inherit purpose.
 * Could consider adding other accessibility categories, such as dual farms, which can theoretically be easier to arrange without planning.
 * Data sets
 * Testers will collect data on at least 5 runs, and provide the data in a report.
 * Data will include time for each run, gold collected, and drops obtained.
 * This guide will provide a technique for estimating the value of drops, with statistical significance in mind.
 * "Farming areas" (User:Us3r1OO425457/Farming_Areas) is also a consideration, because data collected from one build, can be used to easily infer the evaluation of an alternative build which farms the same area.
 * For example, if data already exists for a Gates of Kryta HM farming build, and a new build is able to half the farming time of the previous build, then we can simply collect a few runtime data points for the new build to make an evaluation, without collecting the full drop data set.
 * This guide will first only provide a method for evaluating solo farming builds. Speed clear and other team builds could require vastly different evaluation methods.

Data which should be collected for each run

 * The total time, from entering the instance to resigning/leaving the map.
 * If a farm requires that the player "rezones" to find a more ideal spawn, the rezoning time will also be taken into consideration. The clock will begin at the first zoning, and will remain running for all rezones. The clock will end when the farm is complete.
 * If the player dies during the run or otherwise makes a mistake, the run is completely discarded. Only include full runs in your data report. This will help in acquiring a more accurate evaluation.
 * Number of creatures killed.
 * This can be helpful in determining a farm's profitability during certain events.
 * Total gold collected (from gold drops).
 * Total gold collected from selling the following items to the merchant:
 * White weapons, trophies, white salvage items, and blue weapons.
 * Number of blue salvage items collected.
 * Number of purple salvage items collected.
 * Number of gold salvage items collected.
 * Number of purple weapons collected.
 * Number of gold weapons collected.
 * Even though some gold weapons/skins may be significantly more valuable than others, include them in this total.
 * Number of regular tomes collected.
 * Number of elite tomes collected.
 * All materials and material counts which were collected, either through direct drop, or through salvaging.
 * Number of dyes collected.
 * Notable drops in the following category:
 * Trophies which are valuable to players/not valuable to merchants.
 * Green items.
 * Include any rare max gold weapons which were obtained (unidentified). It is difficult to form an accurate evaluation based on a few data points, but recording this data will be helpful for historical/information reasons.
 * Note: this guide disregards the exact type of rune, weapon mod, weapon skin (for the most part), etc, which you obtained. This is in an effort to create an accurate evaluation/not let extreme data points affect an average.

Scoring a build

 * Using the data collected from a minimum of 5 runs, calculate the following:
 * Add the run times together to get the total run time across all runs.
 * Add all the gold obtained between all runs, including the value of all items obtained, to obtain the total gold obtained across all runs.
 * Use this guide to determine the average value of particular items (see the below valuation section).
 * Score will then be calculated as total gold divided by total time.

Using a previous build's data to evaluate a new build which farms the same area+enemy

 * Measure the run time for a minimum of 3 runs.
 * Calculate the average run time of the new build.
 * Calculate the average run time of the previous build.
 * Multiply the previous build's score by previous run time average, divided by new run time average.

Valuation

 * This guide will provide a rough estimate of the value of each of the following drop categories. Instead of recording specific runes, weapon modes, etc, which are obtained, this guide attempts to value all drops of a certain category with average estimated values. This is to help obtain a more accurate score by managing extreme data points, and acknowledging that we have a very limited sample size in most cases.

Blue salvage items

 * 500g
 * These items can actually be pretty valuable, as some minor runes seek a significant price.

Purple salvage items

 * 100g
 * Although there are some valuable purple runes/insignias, most are not valuable.

Gold salvage items

 * 500g
 * Some superior runes are very valuable, while others are not sought after.

Purple weapons

 * 200g
 * There is a chance that a purple weapon can have a decently valuable weapon mod, but for the most part, they are just sold to the merchant.

Gold weapons

 * 300g
 * There is a change that a gold weapon can have a decent weapon mod, and it is more likely that they have good mods than purple weapons, but for the most part, they are just sold to the merchant.

Regular tomes

 * 500g

Elite tomes

 * 5k

Dye

 * 50g

Materials

 * Use the middle price between the material trader NPC's buy and sell price to obtain value. Record the value in your report.

Other notable items

 * Provide your own estimate as to their value, and the PvX community will approve or challenge your valuation.
 * Provide an estimate on the likelihood to obtain valuable weapon skins. Use any weapon drops you obtained to help make your case. Provide an estimated value on the particular weapon skins. Use the likelihood of obtaining a valuable item, along with its estimated value, to calculate an estimated gold-per-run from obtaining these items. This can be very error prone and is not a perfect system, but is better than nothing. The PvX community will approve or challenge your valuation.

Sharing your report

 * Include the exact skill bar and equipment you used.
 * Include any relevant notes. For example:
 * In Gates of Kryta, some farmers use the "corner trick", and some do not. This should definitely be noted.
 * Also in Gates of Kryta, some farmers only farm the "main mob", while others continue onward after the main mob to fight additional groups. Note how many groups you fought if your path varies from the typical path, or if there is variation in how people farm an area.
 * Include the complete data set collected from each run.
 * Provide the added totals (add all counts together in each item category).
 * Provide the calculated score in gold per hour.

Example reports

 * User:Us3r1OO425457/Farm_Evaluation_-_Gates_of_Kryta_NM