Enhancing and enchanting, or: Statistics and you

[tehngion]

DISCLAIMER:
I wrote this pretty late at night. If anything sounds incoherent or just plain needs more in-depth stuff, PLEASE let me know, and I'll do my best to fix it up.



Table of contents
I. INTRO
II. ENCHANTING
III. ENHANCING
III a. THE AUTHOR'S ENHANCING STRATEGY
IV. WHICH IS BETTER?
V. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


I. INTRODUCTION
Alright, here we go. This here guide will attempt to explain what enchanting and enhancing are, how to go about doing them, and the advantages and disadvantages of one method over the other. It'll examine both options from a cost-effectiveness standpoint as well as a simple probability standpoint.

II. ENCHANTING - what is it, and why should I care?
If you're reading this, chances are you've played Atlantica a little bit. Good for you. Good game, isn't it? :P

Anyways, because you've played Atlantica, you probably already know exactly what enchanting is, since a very early quest involves enchanting an item, and you probably already know everything I'm about to type and are wondering to yourself when the guide gets interesting. Well, skip ahead if it bores you, ya know-it-all.

Enchanting is a method for increasing the strength of your equipment that works all the time, every time. Essentially, to enchant something, you need two identical pieces of equipment (be they armor, weapons, or accessories) and the proper enchant stone (an armor, weapon, or accessory enchant stone of the proper grade). The number of stones required varies depending on the enchantment of the items used in the process; the formula for determining this is

x + 1 = stones

where x is the enchantment value (the number next to the +) of either item involved.

Once you have obtained these materials, you can start enchanting. One of the good things about enchanting is that it can be done anywhere in the world. To access the enchanting menu, click the enchant button, located in My Info > Enchant

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/9286/guide1zt5.jpg

The enchant menu shows up, containing three empty slots as well as the inventory of your currently selected mercenary.

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4336/guide2kw7.jpg

To begin the process of enchanting, you can either place the item to be enchanted into the "Item to enchant" slot (imagine that!) or you can click the "auto" button (do this instead, it's much more convenient) and then click the enchant button. If you keep clicking the auto button, it will cycle through any available items you can enchant, by the way. Very handy trick.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2199/guide3xw1.jpg

Now, just wait a bit, and...

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/6674/guide4sf7.jpg

Ta-dah! A +1 spirit rifle!
Now, if we took two +1 spirit rifles and enchanted them together, we'd get a +2, although keep in mind this requires two "weapon enchant stone [beg]" instead of one, as per the previous formula.

Now, as you might have guessed, the [beg] enchant stones won't work on all items, dear reader! Alas, [beg] stones only work on items up to level 30 (that is, items with a level requirement of 30 or below). [int] stones are needed for the next tier of items, and those are effective up through level 60. [adv] stones are currently the highest level stones in-game, and can be used on all items up through level 100.

There's also a very, very miniscule chance that your weapon will gain more than 1 in its grade when you enchant it; the luckiest of these (as in +0 to +7!) are announced server-wide.

That about covers that topic. Now onto something you ALSO already knew!

III. Okay, but what's this ENHANCING business all about, anyhow?

"Well," you might say to yourself one day, "Enchanting's nice, and all, but I don't like the predictability. Two items enter, one item leaves, and I'm less the money for stones, every time. Blah, blah, blah. Day in, and day out. I'm sick of it. I want some adventure. I'm a gambler, and I want to put it all on the line for top of the line equipment. Where can I find something like that in this game?" Well, my friend, enhancing is exactly the answer you're looking for!

Basically, enhancing is much like upgrading weapons and armor in other MMOs you may be familiar with (Ragnarok Online comes to mind). Instead of using two identical pieces of equipment, you use one piece of equipment, and instead of ENCHANT stones you use ENHANCE stones! (gasp!) Sounds great, don't it?

Well, there's a catch. There's only a certain chance it'll work.

And if it doesn't work, you lose the item. Forever.

As in, gone.
For good.

And, as if to kick you in the face even more, you still lose the stones, too.


AND NOW, A HOW-TO:

First, you have to go to the bazaar of rome. You can either walk there (haha) or you can teleport there using the menu on the right side of your screen. (This option is available only after level 20, and it takes a buncha will to do it.)

Once there...

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/994/guide5rg2.jpg

...turn around...

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4513/guide6bs1.jpg

...and walk forward until you see this guy.

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/5760/guide7bj3.jpg

Besides having one of the badassest names in the entire game, Vulcanus is also the only person in the game who can enhance your stuff. This is one of the downfalls of enhancing; you have to go to this guy, and this guy alone, to do it.

Talk to him, and this menu pops up.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/537/guide8ov4.jpg

It functions almost identically to the enchanting menu; either click auto, and the stones and item will be placed automagically, or click the item to enhance and move it to the empty slot yourself. When this is done, click enhance, say a prayer to your deity of choice (I reccommend Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck), and wait the unbearable five seconds or so for the bar to fill up. If you're lucky...

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/2909/guide10xw1.jpg

...this'll happen, and your weapon will get +1 to its grade. I think there's also a tiny, tiny chance that it'll get more than +1, like enchanting, although I can't personally recall this happenning to me. Could someone confirm this for me?

If you're unlucky...

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2340/guide9yq5.jpg

...this'll happen, and the item and stones will be reduced to nothing but a memory. Don't worry, though, it happens to the best of us, and you've just got to pick your feet up and try again, among other cliches.

III a. My personal strategy for enhancing
My strategy is simple. Always have at least two of the item you're trying to enhance, and never try to enhance the highest-graded one. For example, if I want to enhance a destroyer's spear, I would first get two of them, and I would then proceed to enhance all of them, one by one, making sure not to enhance the highest-graded one, until all but one broke or I had a +10. I would then keep the other. This way, I always end up with SOMETHING from my exploits, instead of risking both spears and losing them.

Here's a (purely theoretical) example of this strategy in action. After each line I try enhancing the spears one level higher, from left to right.

Starting with 3 destroyer's spears:
+0 +0 +0
+1 +1 +1 (I got lucky, and all of them were successful)
+2 +2 +2 (again I was lucky and all three of them were enhanced)
x +3 +3 (one of them broke, but I continue enhancing the other two)
- x (the other has broken, and I cease enhancing at this point)

This isn't really better or worse than other methods. This is just the one I use, because it always leaves me with SOMETHING, even if it isn't much.

[tehngion]

IV. Alright, I think I get it. Now, tell me: WHICH IS BETTER?
Well, this is a tricky subject. At the end of the day, it's very dependant on the market you're operating in: the price of the item and the price of each of the stones is very important in factoring which is more cost-effective.

Now, assuming that the helpfile on enhancing is not lying when it says "Enhancing an item will be successful more than 50% of them [sic] time", then enhancing will statistically be far better for you. Why? Well, let's look at raw numbers. Assuming we start with +0 items, and that the probability of enhance working is 55% (I figure this is a reasonable assumption), here are the number of items we'd need, using each method, to get to a certain grade:


approx.
items items
to to
grade enchant enhance
+0 1 1
+1 2 1.818181
+2 4 3.305785
+3 8 6.010518
+4 16 10.92822
+5 32 19.86948
+6 64 36.12633
+7 128 65.68424
+8 256 119.4259
+9 512 217.1380
+10 1024 394.7963


The formula used to calculate the number of items needed for enhancements is (1/n)^g, where n is the probability of success (in this case .55) and g is the grade of the item.

Looking at the chart, you can see the difference is astounding. At lower levels the difference in items needed is not too significant; 6 vs. 8 at +3 does not seem like that much, in terms of +0 items. However, the difference becomes far more pronounced as the grade of the item we're trying to get increases, up to +10, where there is a staggering difference of 629 pieces of equipment used in the process! Statistically speaking, you are clearly much better off enhancing your items.

But statistical probability isn't the only thing we can consider in this game. All materials involved cost money, and armor and weapon enchant stones are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than their enhance stone equivalent, at [beg], [int], and [adv]. As far as stone cost is concerned, enchanting is therefore the better bet, because at lower levels the enhance stones would usually cost more than the items themselves. Essentially, while low-level and dealing with lower-leveled weapons and armor, you are better off enchanting your items.

However, when dealing with accessories and higher-leveled equipment, the item cost FAR outweighs the enhance stone cost. In this case, the opposite is true; because enhancing uses far less items, on average, than enchanting does, you are much better off enhancing your items to increase your mercs' power.

And that, essentially, is the essence of enhancing vs. enchanting, and this is the tl;dr of that gigantic wall of text you just (maybe) read:


IF THE ITEMS COST AN ASSTON, ENHANCE THEM.

IF THE ITEMS ARE A DIME A DOZEN, ENCHANT THEM.


V. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my keyboard, for being typed on without complaint.

I would like to thank the printscreen button, for working flawlessly whenever called upon.

I would like to thank my mouse, for allowing me to click things with extreme prejudice.

I would like to thank MSPaint, for putting completely ridiculous jpeg artifacts on all my images. Thanks a bunch!

And I would like to thank ndoors for making this game. Kudos, guys.

[Kiena]

Awesome guide, very well written (and funny!:p). :) Should be sticked.

Two things - first, you can indeed end up with higher pluses than expected from enhancing, and some of the announcements in game are for enhancing jumps, not enchanting. (The announcement will say).

Second, you don't have to go the menu to open the enchant menu - you can also right-click on an enchant stone.

[Nightroad]

There's also a very, very miniscule chance that your weapon will gain more than 1 in its grade when you enchant it; the luckiest of these (as in +0 to +7!) are announced server-wide.

Highest thus far is an increase of 4 grades, which is announced. Also when making a +10 they are announced aswell, enhancing an item will also do this when going +10. Items that get an announcement must be Asura and above.


Two things - first, you can indeed end up with higher pluses than expected from enhancing, and some of the announcements in game are for enhancing jumps, not enchanting. (The announcement will say).


There is no such thing as enhancing jumps.

[jesada89237]

I've always felt that if an item costs an asston, I would enchant because I wouldn't be able to afford the loss of a failure. If an item is cheap, I can afford many chances at enhancing.

[Axiom]

There is no such thing as enhancing jumps.

Yes there are, apparently you just haven't enhanced enough.

@OP:

Your table was messed up, here's a better version. Remember to wrap things with whitespace in a code block so it maintains the whitespace
approx.
items items
to to
grade enchant enhance
+0 1 1
+1 2 1.818181
+2 4 3.305785
+3 8 6.010518
+4 16 10.92822
+5 32 19.86948
+6 64 36.12633
+7 128 65.68424
+8 256 119.4259
+9 512 217.1380
+10 1024 394.7963

[Flexor]

To tell u all the truth vulcanus is an expert in theft too

[tehngion]

Argh. when I made that table, I used tab indents, and the table was fine when I had the guide on one post. guess when I had to move it to two I screwed it up on accident. you win this round, lack of sleep.

Also, I see we have two votes for yes enhance jumps exist, and one for no they don't guys what the hell. For now, I'll edit the guide and say they do, but some kinda proof would be nice. I think the reason I never see those messages is because people don't enhance as often as they should :p


I've always felt that if an item costs an asston, I would enchant because I wouldn't be able to afford the loss of a failure. If an item is cheap, I can afford many chances at enhancing.

intuitively that's what you'd think, isn't it? and, strictly speaking, you should never enhance with just ONE of the item you're trying to enhance, in my opinion. but, if you have two or more of them, and the item is really expensive, then strictly speaking you're much better off monetarily if you enhance them, because in the long run you'll end up having to buy less of that item to get to a higher enchantment.

On the other hand, with cheap items, you're better off enchanting because the stones are much cheaper and you can buy a ton of the item anyways.

unless we're talking about accessories. in my experience, the price of accessory enhance stones there has ALWAYS been lower than accessory enchant stones, so you're better off sticking with enhancing for those.

[nem4z17esis]

Great guide.. I just want to say, I always love to gamble at rome.
But i am never a lucky guy, always fail when I try to enchance a +4 item.
Tragedy happen to some of my precious spear (Dark Knight) and my precious armor (amon heavy). =[

[Arietta]

honestly now... common sense.

Don't enhance something if you don't have a replacement for it. :)

[Newell]

Which defeats the purpose of enhancing if you have the second item lol

Oh well, I still do it when I get the stones and I'm bored.

[Flexor]

Bring along 3,break 1? enchant the another 2,there a single +1.Happy.

[Ferishi]

I don't know why they made enhance stones so expensive in this game. Heck, to give an idea of how expensive the developers wanted it to be, it takes enchant stones (and a bunch of other much more expensive stuff) to craft enhance stones. Yet have fun leveling up your mana stone craft, because no one wants to pay so much for the cost of crafting enhance stones just to end up breaking most of their stuff.

...stupid Vulcanus.

[D4NY0]

nice guide - but never trust statistics that weren't fixed by yourself ;)

lol, so true... they should lower the fail-rate a tiny bit then maybe i would use them - but as it's now i just sell those enhance stones (and always wonder why people buy them - guess they have more luck, somewhere your numbers have to come from ;))

[Innos]

Epic fail:

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5441/atlantica20081028222626gl9.jpg

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/3092/atlantica20081028222658hx4.jpg

[tehngion]

Which defeats the purpose of enhancing if you have the second item lol

Not at all. If you enchant the items, you'll lose one item, every time.

On the other hand, the odds are more in your favor for an enhance succeeding on one item. Even if you decide not to enhance the other, you're still up one possibly very expensive piece of equipment at the end of the day :P

[Ferishi]

My odds are a lot worse than 50% for this guy. I suppose it's supposed to be50% but like with any coin flip, you can be lucky or unlucky, and I seem to always be the latter-_- ...ditto for lots of people from what I can tell from the complaints in guild and nation and peer chat.

[tehngion]

Obviously it's all got a fair amount of randomness to it but at the end of the day, if the helpfile is to be believed and it's the same chance at every level of enchantment, you're still better off enhancing. The helpfile says the chance is actually ABOVE 50%, and my table assumes 55%.

I'm willing to bet that there are just as many (probably more) people that got lucky with enhances as there are people who were unlucky. You just don't hear from the lucky ones as much; what've they got to complain about?

[Zpirit]

Epic fail:


They say curiosity killed the cannons. ;)

Gotta love how Xargrr tried it and failed too LOL.

[LtKillroy]

And now I know what enhancing is at all.

And there wsa much rejoicing, hurray.

Good guide, long, detailed, and with pictures, the best kind.

[jesada89237]

We should do a community project where everyone records their successes and fails, and once we have enough results, we'll see just what the rates are.

[tehngion]

And now I know what enhancing is at all.

And there wsa much rejoicing, hurray.

Good guide, long, detailed, and with pictures, the best kind.

yeah I figured since I never read anything without pictures it'd be silly of me to write anything without pictures

[yuanjia]

I think to get a balanced picture, you should include columns to calculate the cost of enchant/enhance stones. Of cos, prices differ from server to server, but i think its relevant

[tehngion]

I think to get a balanced picture, you should include columns to calculate the cost of enchant/enhance stones. Of cos, prices differ from server to server, but i think its relevant

this is actually a pretty good idea. I'll work on this and edit the guide later.

[laz]

Great guide, I've always wondered how Enhancing worked. Think I'll give a couple of my leftover Asura eq a go with this after I've used up all my beginner enchant stones.

[MiaFLSurf]

Awesome guide... truly great. Th second post with the number breakdown is CLUTCH

[Zinrae]

Awesome guide... truly great. Th second post with the number breakdown is CLUTCH

I thought it was a pretty good guide too, but I'm going to have to disagree on the numbers breakdown. That whole thing was done using a guess with no evidence to back it up.

[Kaiten]

The rate under the ingame help says it's 50/50 chance. To truly reach the true probability, we would need an infinite number of trials. Now if it was 50%, the theorethical number of weapons you'd need for +10 is the same for both enchanting and enhancing.

[Kelnari]

Agreed- but what fun is enchanting? Vulcanis is awesome! Arena betting is awesome! And yet, I seem to lose out at both... =\

(Great guide btw... it's not often a clear, concise guide w/ pictures is posted for Atalantica.)

[tehngion]

The rate under the ingame help says it's 50/50 chance. To truly reach the true probability, we would need an infinite number of trials. Now if it was 50%, the theorethical number of weapons you'd need for +10 is the same for both enchanting and enhancing.

Actually, no, it doesn't.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/145/atlantica20081123170841mj0.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=atlantica20081123170841mj0.jpg)http://img530.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

note where it says "more than 50%".

also, I'm fully aware that my table is nothing more than a guess, but I figured it was a very reasonable one; I only have it at 55%, which is barely over 50%.

[Arietta]

oh cmon, everyone knows that you fail the enhance on the item you really want to succeed :)

[bakedpotato]

Lovely guide indeed. Wish I knew about enhancing a little early. I didn't even know they use different type of stones lol. Oh what a silly n00b!

[aphrodite]

ugh... enhancing is raping me... -.- lol supposed to b higher than 50% so far...i've enchanted around 6-7 ghost items, 2 succeeded
30 +0 gilga armors, 9 went to +1, 2 went to +2, 0 went to +3
+3,+4,+5 anu, all failed going to next +
walachia heavy armors +5, going to +6, 8 tried, 4 succeeded, +6-->+7 2 succeeded
the walachias were the only thing i actually had a decent rate of success =.=

is there any methods to enhance? cuz i when i succeeded, i had a few succeed in a row and when i failed, alot failed in a row

i saw sum1 upgrade by doing spirits till they started succeeding, and then went on w/ their high lvl gears, and when those failed, tehy went back to spirit till they started suceed again

[Arietta]

ugh... enhancing is raping me... -.- lol supposed to b higher than 50% so far...i've enchanted around 6-7 ghost items, 2 succeeded
30 +0 gilga armors, 9 went to +1, 2 went to +2, 0 went to +3
+3,+4,+5 anu, all failed going to next +
walachia heavy armors +5, going to +6, 8 tried, 4 succeeded, +6-->+7 2 succeeded
the walachias were the only thing i actually had a decent rate of success =.=

is there any methods to enhance? cuz i when i succeeded, i had a few succeed in a row and when i failed, alot failed in a row

i saw sum1 upgrade by doing spirits till they started succeeding, and then went on w/ their high lvl gears, and when those failed, tehy went back to spirit till they started suceed again

thats what i see in general too. I dunno if that works or not, but maybe its them being superstitious. I generally start with my least important items to enhance then slowly build up to the highest valued ones.

Aka ill start with my +0s obviously and start with the range/caster gear first then if im succeeding start on melee

[meloku2]

ugh... enhancing is raping me... -.- lol supposed to b higher than 50% so far...i've enchanted around 6-7 ghost items, 2 succeeded
30 +0 gilga armors, 9 went to +1, 2 went to +2, 0 went to +3
+3,+4,+5 anu, all failed going to next +
walachia heavy armors +5, going to +6, 8 tried, 4 succeeded, +6-->+7 2 succeeded
the walachias were the only thing i actually had a decent rate of success =.=

is there any methods to enhance? cuz i when i succeeded, i had a few succeed in a row and when i failed, alot failed in a row

i saw sum1 upgrade by doing spirits till they started succeeding, and then went on w/ their high lvl gears, and when those failed, tehy went back to spirit till they started suceed again


it's all random, i tried with orisis weapons, for example i got spear to +5 from enhance and with axe i got to +1 with 15 weapons, so luck has somethign to do with. But i seen noobs, like lvl 60-70 get conq boxes, open them enhance and sell for like 12mil and make a ton of profit.
Obviously i never get that lucky.

[Jimsta]

I tend to start failing more than usual after I make a big success, so recently I havn't been enhancing as much...
Slowly but surely I'll end up with all +10's. ^^

[LanAltec8]

It would be really cool if you could come up with a table for the number of stones required for each enchanting level like you did for number of items. Obviously for enchanting the number of stones will be constant. And the number of stones for enhancing would vary quite a bit depending on when and where you fail certain items, but I think with the probability you could come up with a decent approximation that tells the other half of the story of when to Enhance and when to Enchant. Would be really nice.

[MrSharp]

Tada!

whoops.... html formatting not accepted

[MrSharp]

Trying again...

taking screenshot of my html table...
tada!

[Xovian]

To tell u all the truth vulcanus is an expert in theft too
I concur, and couldn't agree more. I once ended up spending over 1mil just trying to enhance something useful. Reason i was enhancing? The stupid #%@#T$%@ quests that require you to do so.

I have a less then 1 in 8 ratio of successes.
If there is anything in the game i out right HATE, it's the quests that require stuff like that.

Love the guide, great statistics. :)
We need more like this.

[Arietta]

i tend to lose in the long run...

1 set of 15 walachia +3
5 reached +4
2 reached +5
0 reached +6

1 set of 15 walachia +1
7 reached +2
4 reached +3
2 reached +4
(I was pissed off by this point and stopped enhancing and just enchanted it to +5)

1 set of 15 blood knight robes +2
4 reached +3
2 reached +4
(And then i was REALLY pissed off and just sold the +4 and used the other one)

[jesada89237]

I was very lucky in my enhancing this weekend =)

First enhance: Anu cannon +8 (succeeded to +9)
Second enhance: Anu cannon +9 (succeeded to +10)
Third enhance: Dragon cannon +4 (succeeded to +5)
Fourth ehance: Conquerer's cannon +3 (failed to +4)...

[LanAltec8]

That's a useful table for the number of enchanting stones necessary. But one for enhancing stones would also be useful.

I realize the number of enhancing stones varies greatly depending on your luck and where certain fails occur. But I think using the probability you could could up with decent estimates using the model laid out in the first post.

i.e.

3 spears

3 stones used to get 3 +1 spears
6 stones used to get 3 +2 spears
9 stones used to get 2 +3 spears (1 fails)
8 stones used to get 1 +4 spear (1 fails)

total of 26 stones to get a +4 item

Something like that I guess. Maybe it will vary too greatly without how many fails you have, how many items you start with, and where the fails occur but I'm not sure.

[MrSharp]

Sry, that model would simply not be sufficient for a table indicating the number of enhanced stones likely to be required (which is what I think you are wanting) to enhance an item to a certain enchantment.

[jesada89237]

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/7807/atlantica20081210173017dx9.th.jpg (http://img159.imageshack.us/my.php?image=atlantica20081210173017dx9.jpg)
This ended up failing :mad:

[Flexor]

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/7807/atlantica20081210173017dx9.th.jpg (http://img159.imageshack.us/my.php?image=atlantica20081210173017dx9.jpg)
This ended up failing :mad:

is that a orban +6? wow...

[jesada89237]

is that a orban +6? wow...

Nah, that's a +6 conqueror's cannon.

This...is an Orban's cannon
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/958/blahlx9.th.jpg (http://img518.imageshack.us/my.php?image=blahlx9.jpg)
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/7412/13708420bq8.th.jpg (http://img518.imageshack.us/my.php?image=13708420bq8.jpg)

[BuzzardJoe]

For those that wanted all the info in one spot...


Starting from +0
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+1 2 1 2 2
+2 4 4 4 6
+3 8 11 7 13
+4 16 26 11 24
+5 32 57 20 44
+6 64 120 37 81
+7 128 247 66 147
+8 256 502 120 267
+9 512 1013 218 485
+10 1024 2036 395 880

============================================

Starting from +1
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+2 2 2 2 2
+3 4 7 4 6
+4 8 18 7 13
+5 16 41 11 24
+6 32 88 20 44
+7 64 183 37 81
+8 128 374 66 147
+9 256 757 120 267
+10 512 1524 395 485

============================================

Starting from +2
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+3 2 3 2 2
+4 4 10 4 6
+5 8 25 7 13
+6 16 56 11 24
+7 32 119 20 44
+8 64 246 37 81
+9 128 501 66 147
+10 256 1012 120 267

============================================

Starting from +3
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+4 2 4 2 2
+5 3 13 4 6
+6 8 32 7 13
+7 16 71 11 24
+8 32 150 20 44
+9 64 309 37 81
+10 128 628 66 147

============================================

Starting from +4
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+5 2 5 2 2
+6 4 16 4 6
+7 8 39 7 13
+8 16 86 11 24
+9 32 181 20 44
+10 64 372 37 81

============================================

Starting from +5
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+6 2 6 2 2
+7 4 19 4 6
+8 8 46 7 13
+9 16 101 11 24
+10 32 212 20 44

============================================

Starting from +6
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+7 2 7 2 2
+8 4 22 4 6
+9 8 53 7 13
+10 16 116 11 24

============================================

Starting from +7
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+8 2 8 2 2
+9 4 25 4 6
+10 8 60 7 13

============================================

Starting from +8
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+9 2 9 2 2
+10 4 28 4 6

============================================

Starting from +9
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+10 2 10 2 2

[BuzzardJoe]

Attached is a nifty little spreadsheet calculator for analyzing enchantment and enhancement options.
Both OpenOffice and Excel formats are included.

-Joe

[MrSharp]

Hey Buzzard,

sorry to be a party pooper, but I don;t think your formula for approx. number of stones required to enhance when the starting grade is >+1 is correct.
i.e to enhance from +9 definitely requires more than 2 enhance stones

I can;t open your spreadsheet to check your formula for working this out.

[BuzzardJoe]

The approximation for enhancement success rate is based upon tehngion's research that started this thread, which claimed an enhancement success rate of approximately 55%, regardless of the starting level (+0 or +9). The spreadsheet allows you to adjust the anticipated success rate to your own number, but also assumes that the success rate is the same from different starting levels.
If you have data to suggest that the success rate varies depending on starting level, I would love to see that info, and I would adjust my tables and spreadsheet accordingly.
I posted both an OpenOffice version and MS Excel version of the spreadsheet, zipped together to upload them. What problem are you experiencing with it?
- BuzzardJoe

[MrSharp]

Hmmm,
what did you use to zip them? My version of winrar is not able to extract the zip.

I do not have any data regarding the success rate dependent on starting level. To get adequate statistical data would require a ver large sample. the 55% success rate has always been an assumption as the odds are supposed to be better than 50%.

However I was not querying that, just the approx number of enhance stones (based on the 55% assumption) that you;ve supplied when the starting grade of equipment is +1 or more.

i.e. starting grade is +9, to get to +10 would require at the very least 10 stones even with a 100% rate.

Your table for the enchanting side of things looks good though :)

[BuzzardJoe]

I had used WinZip v11.1, which appears to have used a compression method which is incompatible with your zip software. The new upload attached to this post uses the "legacy" compression method.

I misunderstood how enhancing worked - I assumed one enhance stone for every enhancement, regardless of starting level. I have updated the calculator and chart below to use a multiplier for each destination level.


Starting from +0
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+1 2 1 2 2
+2 4 4 4 8
+3 8 11 7 21
+4 16 26 11 45
+5 32 57 20 89
+6 64 120 37 170
+7 128 247 66 317
+8 256 502 120 584
+9 512 1013 218 1069
+10 1024 2036 395 1949

============================================

Starting from +1
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+2 2 2 2 4
+3 4 7 4 14
+4 8 18 7 34
+5 16 41 11 69
+6 32 88 20 133
+7 64 183 37 251
+8 128 374 66 464
+9 256 757 120 851
+10 512 1524 395 1554

============================================

Starting from +2
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+3 2 3 2 6
+4 4 10 4 20
+5 8 25 7 47
+6 16 56 11 93
+7 32 119 20 177
+8 64 246 37 332
+9 128 501 66 611
+10 256 1012 120 1118

============================================

Starting from +3
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+4 2 4 2 8
+5 3 13 4 26
+6 8 32 7 60
+7 16 71 11 117
+8 32 150 20 221
+9 64 309 37 413
+10 128 628 66 758

============================================

Starting from +4
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+5 2 5 2 10
+6 4 16 4 32
+7 8 39 7 73
+8 16 86 11 141
+9 32 181 20 265
+10 64 372 37 494

============================================

Starting from +5
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+6 2 6 2 12
+7 4 19 4 38
+8 8 46 7 86
+9 16 101 11 165
+10 32 212 20 309

============================================

Starting from +6
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+7 2 7 2 14
+8 4 22 4 44
+9 8 53 7 99
+10 16 116 11 189

============================================

Starting from +7
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+8 2 8 2 16
+9 4 25 4 50
+10 8 60 7 112

============================================

Starting from +8
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+9 2 9 2 18
+10 4 28 4 56

============================================

Starting from +9
approx. approx.
items enchant items enhance
to stones to stones
grade enchant required enhance required
+10 2 10 2 20

[MrSharp]

Yay!

I can extract your spreadsheet now.
Very well designed spredsheet btw, nice one!

It looks like your formula for enhance in the spreadsheet is still the same as before (the excel version as I am at work).
I'll take a look at it when i get more break time ;)

[C3nsoredAx3]

it isnt that hard to see the amount of items needed in total to enchant an item to a certain level. The formula is 2^x, where x is the level of the item. Say if you want a +4, if you do not get any extra enchant levels while enchanting, you would need 2^4, which means you need 16 of the same items.

[MrSharp]

Yeah, enchant side of things is pretty simple.

It's the enhancing where things get a lot more complex with the probabilites involved.
Now if I could only remember the things I was taught on stochastic modelling...

[Nijo]

IV. Alright, I think I get it. Now, tell me: WHICH IS BETTER?
Well, this is a tricky subject. At the end of the day, it's very dependant on the market you're operating in: the price of the item and the price of each of the stones is very important in factoring which is more cost-effective.

Now, assuming that the helpfile on enhancing is not lying when it says "Enhancing an item will be successful more than 50% of them [sic] time", then enhancing will statistically be far better for you. Why? Well, let's look at raw numbers. Assuming we start with +0 items, and that the probability of enhance working is 55% (I figure this is a reasonable assumption), here are the number of items we'd need, using each method, to get to a certain grade:


approx.
items items
to to
grade enchant enhance
+0 1 1
+1 2 1.818181
+2 4 3.305785
+3 8 6.010518
+4 16 10.92822
+5 32 19.86948
+6 64 36.12633
+7 128 65.68424
+8 256 119.4259
+9 512 217.1380
+10 1024 394.7963


The formula used to calculate the number of items needed for enhancements is (1/n)^g, where n is the probability of success (in this case .55) and g is the grade of the item.

Looking at the chart, you can see the difference is astounding. At lower levels the difference in items needed is not too significant; 6 vs. 8 at +3 does not seem like that much, in terms of +0 items. However, the difference becomes far more pronounced as the grade of the item we're trying to get increases, up to +10, where there is a staggering difference of 629 pieces of equipment used in the process! Statistically speaking, you are clearly much better off enhancing your items.

But statistical probability isn't the only thing we can consider in this game. All materials involved cost money, and armor and weapon enchant stones are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than their enhance stone equivalent, at [beg], [int], and [adv]. As far as stone cost is concerned, enchanting is therefore the better bet, because at lower levels the enhance stones would usually cost more than the items themselves. Essentially, while low-level and dealing with lower-leveled weapons and armor, you are better off enchanting your items.

However, when dealing with accessories and higher-leveled equipment, the item cost FAR outweighs the enhance stone cost. In this case, the opposite is true; because enhancing uses far less items, on average, than enchanting does, you are much better off enhancing your items to increase your mercs' power.

And that, essentially, is the essence of enhancing vs. enchanting, and this is the tl;dr of that gigantic wall of text you just (maybe) read:


IF THE ITEMS COST AN ASSTON, ENHANCE THEM.

IF THE ITEMS ARE A DIME A DOZEN, ENCHANT THEM.


V. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my keyboard, for being typed on without complaint.

I would like to thank the printscreen button, for working flawlessly whenever called upon.

I would like to thank my mouse, for allowing me to click things with extreme prejudice.

I would like to thank MSPaint, for putting completely ridiculous jpeg artifacts on all my images. Thanks a bunch!

And I would like to thank ndoors for making this game. Kudos, guys.



Even though this is math, it is still chance related, you may need well over 5,000 items to enhance for one +10 as well as you might only need just one item. It's always inpredictable. For making profits, I would always reccomend going for the slower way is always better, even though making a profit is quite a big possibility, I personally like to be 100% percent certain.

[xenapan]

i tend to go with enchanting after +1 or +2 depending on what im doing. enhancing is only good when the items you have are disposable. because you have to remember if you do 10 items a 50/50 chance doesnt mean you get 5 to +1. a 50/50 chance means the most LIKELY outcome is 5 +1s. you MAY end up with 10 +1s or 0 +1s. its a gamble entirely and the odds are not really in your favor. i prefer enchanting to the end cause theres simply no replacement for cold hard results. if i have 16 items at +0 i KNOW i will get a +3. if i enhance them who knows what i will get. but my experience has it that i dont get a +3. the variance of results is just too high for enhancing to be useful to me.

[soprof]

I'm afraid most of you are wrong...

excepting the items you can't buy at market, you can turn on matematics and Probilities and count then you should enhance and then not.

Not very interested in telling everyone the result of the job, but i can tell that people who say "the items after +4/+5 should be enhanced" are not just wront, they actually lie like hell.

In general, you should watch for the price of the product item and the price of the enchant and enhance stones.

If the formula i recieved, the enhancing got item cost as the factor, and enchanting didn't ( i removed it from the enchanting, cos it depends from the item cost less then enhancing )

As the result, knowing current price of enchance and enhance stones, you can always tell the "deadline cost" of the item, above* which you must enchant to do matematicly correct action.

[RickyRoss]

Vulcanus is a lie!

[BuzzardJoe]

I just had the good fortune to craft 15 +4 gilgamesh robes, so I thought I would try out enhancing. My previous crafting had created a single +4, so I had a total of 16 of them. My enhancing pattern went:
+4 -> +5 = 6/16
+5 -> +6 = 3/6
+6 -> +7 = 3/3
+7 -> +8 = 0/2 (stopped before losing all.)

Not the results I was hoping for. So, now I am curious about the mathematics. Given the debate over the true enhancing success rate, I calculated the binomial probability rates using both 50% and 55% success rates.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
50% 0 0 0 1 3 7 12 17 20 17 12 7 3 1 0 0 0
55% 0 0 0 0 1 3 8 13 18 20 17 11 6 2 1 0 0

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
50% 2 9 23 31 23 9 2
55% 1 6 19 30 28 14 3

0 1 2 3
50% 13 38 38 13
55% 9 33 41 17

0 1 2
50% 25 50 25
55% 20 50 30

Getting exactly 6/16 was a 8-12% chance.
Getting exactly 3/6 was a 30-31% chance.
Getting exactly 3/3 was a 13-17% chance.
Getting exactly 0/2 was a 20-25% chance.

Nothing stands out as being unusual. I modified my previously posted calculator to include a column showing the probability for enhancing a set of items. Using the new calculator, I found the probabilities of enhancing at least one item to the various grades...
enchant enhance
50% 55%
+5 100% 100% 100%
+6 99% 100% 100%
+7 88% 95% 100%
+8 64% 78% 100%
+9 40% 56% 0%
+10 22% 36% 0%
Since those are cumulative numbers, I found the probabilities of each individual grade...
enhance enchant
50% 55%
+5 1% 0% 0%
+6 11% 5% 0%
+7 24% 17% 0%
+8 24% 22% 100%
+9 18% 20% 0%
+10 22% 36% 0%

I want to compare enhancing to enchanting, so I revise the table one last time...
enhance enchant
50% 55%
<+8 36% 22% 0%
+8 24% 22% 100%
>+8 40% 56% 0%

I had a 22-24% chance of getting the same result, a 22-36% chance of doing worse, and a 40-56% chance of doing better. I had the misfortune to land in the “worse” bucket.

I can also more clearly see the affect of having just a 5% higher enhancement probability. The 50% odds show an even chance of doing better or worse. The 55% odds show more than twice as likely to do better than worse. It is unfortunate that we don't have any good data as to what the actual number is.

How did this scenario work out for me financially?
costs:
Enhancement Enchantment
+4 robes 16 16
Stones 153 86
gold/stone 11,000 65,000
total 1,683,000 5,590,000

results:
Enhancement Enchantment
+7 robe +8 robe

I saved 3,907,000 gold on stones, but gave up a guaranteed +8 robe for a +7, which is a loss of about 60,000,00 at current market on Argos.

This entire analysis was interesting to me. The previous one focused on the cost/reward comparison before I obtained/crafted the items. This one started because I already had a set of items and needed to know what to do with them. Until better data becomes available on the actual enhancement probability value, I will not be enhancing again. At the low end of the 50-55% range, there is no average difference between enhancing and enchanting. At the high end, the chance of doing better than enchanting is good, but there was still a 22% chance of doing worse in my scenario.

My revised calculator is attached. I welcome your feedback on both the calculator and the math I used here.

[NeoZiKa]

nice guide ...thnx alot

[esgaroth]

Had some time to kill earlier, made a program to calculate enchanting and enhancing with a dynamic success rate on enhance(i.e you can set it yourself and default is 50). Might be some exception bugs there, havent tested alot but it should work fine aslong as you put numbers and not !#%!&!#¤& in the textboxes. Let me know if you miss something in the program, might add things if I have more time to kill! Enjoy.


http://hem.bredband.net/anderashagglund/AtlanticaEnchSim.rar

[poipoi]

Hi all! Just started playing Atlantica.
I've read the entire thread and all I can is it's nicely done.

I have a question though and no one mentioned it here. Since it's part of enchanting/enhancing, how much difference does a +0 to +1 to +2...and so on mean? Is it that big and a must to do? For weapons, how much damage does it improve?

Thanks y'all. Sorry for a noob question. :)

[Cheesecake]

Hi all! Just started playing Atlantica.
I've read the entire thread and all I can is it's nicely done.

I have a question though and no one mentioned it here. Since it's part of enchanting/enhancing, how much difference does a +0 to +1 to +2...and so on mean? Is it that big and a must to do? For weapons, how much damage does it improve?

Thanks y'all. Sorry for a noob question. :)

For all equipment, from +0 to +4 or so, each + adds about 20% to the equipments power (stats, defence, atk, all that stuff), from +5 to +6, each + is about 30%, from +7 to +10, each + adds 40%. This ends up with a +10 being 4x stronger then a +0 weapon. In the early lvls, no enchanting weapon is not neccesary, but it speeds things up a bit. Later on though, you will want to start enhancing(70+), once you get late game(95+), its basically a neccessity to have enchanted equipment thats updated.

[poipoi]

For all equipment, from +0 to +4 or so, each + adds about 20% to the equipments power (stats, defence, atk, all that stuff), from +5 to +6, each + is about 30%, from +7 to +10, each + adds 40%. This ends up with a +10 being 4x stronger then a +0 weapon. In the early lvls, no enchanting weapon is not neccesary, but it speeds things up a bit. Later on though, you will want to start enhancing(70+), once you get late game(95+), its basically a neccessity to have enchanted equipment thats updated.

Wow 20% that's huge!
I also read somewhere that using Sea King, Ocean and Red Soul to +3 will make it useful til 35. Am I on the right track?

Thanks man for the quick response! :)

[Cheesecake]

Wow 20% that's huge!
I also read somewhere that using Sea King, Ocean and Red Soul to +3 will make it useful til 35. Am I on the right track?

Thanks man for the quick response! :)

Thats fine, nothing wrong with being a bit under/over geared in the early levels. It doesn't affect you too much. My first char, i was VERY undergeared and still made it to 97 before starting over and making a new char :P. Just an example..on my first GunM....my viking was using a +5 lvl 35 top at lvl 89, main was 97.

[Habile]

Very, very new to the game, but enchanting has been one of the more enjoyable parts for me so far.

Not sure if you're still around, but your formula for enhancement is a little wonky. I'm not too familiar with probability and statistics myself, so if someone else could correct me where I'm wrong.

You're essentially using the same formula for enhancing that you're using for enchanting, in that 1 in every 1.818181 WILL be successful, just as 1 in every 2 will be successful for enchanting (100% success, 2 items used).

Instead, 1-(0.55)^10 will get you a 99.7467% chance to fail in getting to +10 at some point in the enhancing process.

The 395 items that you're assuming will get a +10 only get you to that 63.28% of the time:
1-(0.997467)^395 = 0.632777

However, we can use logs to find a better approximation of items required. For instance, to find the number of items required for +10 from +0 at a 95% success rate, we can use the following formula:
log[1-0.95] / log[0.997467] = 1181.21 items.

Or at 99.99% success rate:
log[1-0.9999] / log[0.997467] = 3631.6 items.

------

Now for the average number of enhance stones necessary. Obviously, failing at +1 every time except the last will use far fewer stones than always failing at +10.

So, the chance to fail at +1 enhancement is 45%. The chance to fail at +2 is ALSO 45%. However, because it requires not failing at +1, +2 actually has less of an impact on stones used. In other words (or numbers), 0.45*0.55 = 24.75% of your failures will be at +2 enhancement. 0.45*0.55^2 = 13.61% of your failures will be at +3.

To calculate how many stones used per failed item, we can use a summation:
SUM[0.45*0.55^x, in terms of x from 0 to 9] = 2.19126 stones per item.

So, back to our previous numbers of items used:
95% success rate with 1181.21 items = 2588.33 enhance stones.
99.99% success rate with 3631.6 items = 7957.8 enhance stones.

50% success rate with 273 items = 598.884 enhance stones.

Aaand finally:
63.28% success rate with 395 items = 865.549 enhance stones.


Again, correct me if I'm mistaken anywhere.