Adventure Queue

The adventure queue is a feature in the game coding that makes high occurances of the same adventure in a short period of time less likely. For example, if you head to the goatlet for the first time and fight a dairy goat, dairy goats will be slightly less frequent for the next several adventures.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Specifically, the way an adventure is chosen is

• Roll for a Superlikely adventure (probability exactly 1/4). If not,
• Decide on either combat or non-combat.

• (c) If combat: choose a combat encounter.

• If it's not in the combat queue, that's the encounter.
• If it is in the combat queue,

• 25% of the time: accept the encounter.
• 75% of the time: go to (c) and choose a new combat encounter, subjecting that choice to the combat queue as well.

• (nc) If non-combat: choose a non-combat encounter.

• If it's not in the non-combat queue, that's the encounter.
• If it is in the non-combat queue,

• 25% of the time: accept the encounter.
• 75% of the time: go to (nc) and choose a new non-combat encounter, subjecting that choice to the non-combat queue as well.

Note that once you enter the queue-elimination process, you don't reroll for superlikely or the type of encounter: if a non-combat is first selected you only examine non-combats against the non-combat queue, and similarly for combats. Also be aware that the rejection probability, given above as 75%, is not totally nailed down. It could be more or less than that fraction.

Equations for Encounter Frequency

For one type (combat or non-combat) of encounter, with

• e total encounters in a zone, all equally likely,
• j fractional chance of rejecting an adventure in the queue (assumed to be 3/4 or 75%), and
• u unique encounters from this zone in the adventure queue,

The chance of drawing an encounter that is present in the queue is

                 1 - j
 inq(j;e,u)  = ---------
                e - j u

The chance of drawing an encounter not present in the queue is

                   1 
 outq(j;e,u) = ---------
                e - j u

The adventure queue is 5 encounters long (it was changed from 3 encounters to 5 encounters in Fall of 2006). Note that these formulas only hold if the zone's encounters are equally likely. If the adventures are not equally likely, the chance of drawing an encounter that is present in the queue is

                                                       1
 inq(j,R,U;i)  = r_i (1-j) ----------------------------------------------------
                           sum(j r_k) over this zone's adventures in the queue

The chance of drawing an encounter not present in the queue is

                                                       1
 outq(j,R,U;i) = r_i       ----------------------------------------------------
                           sum(j r_k) over this zone's adventures in the queue

with

• r_i elements of R, the frequencies of encounters of our type in this zone
• k elements of U, the indexes for all the adventures from this zone in the queue

Table of Encounter Frequency

For j=75%, among e total encounters of that flavor in the zone (all equally likely), and u unique encounters from the zone already in the queue:

Percent chance to draw an encounter that is in the queue

u \ e	3 enc. in zone	4 enc. in zone	5 enc. in zone	6 enc. in zone	7 enc. in zone	8 enc. in zone	9 enc. in zone
1 zone enc in queue	11.11%	7.69%	5.88%	4.76%	4.00%	3.45%	3.03%
2 zone enc in queue	16.67%	10.00%	7.14%	5.56%	4.55%	3.85%	3.33%
3 zone enc in queue	33.33%	14.29%	9.09%	6.67%	5.26%	4.35%	3.70%
4 zone enc in queue		25.00%	12.50%	8.33%	6.25%	5.00%	4.17%
5 zone enc in queue			20.00%	11.11%	7.69%	5.88%	4.76%

Percent chance to draw an encounter that is not in the queue

u \ e	3 enc. in zone	4 enc. in zone	5 enc. in zone	6 enc. in zone	7 enc. in zone	8 enc. in zone	9 enc. in zone
0 zone enc. in queue	33.33%	25.00%	20.00%	16.67%	14.29%	12.50%	11.11%
1 zone enc. in queue	44.44%	30.77%	23.53%	19.05%	16.00%	13.79%	12.12%
2 zone enc. in queue	66.67%	40.00%	28.57%	22.22%	18.18%	15.38%	13.33%
3 zone enc. in queue		57.14%	36.36%	26.67%	21.05%	17.39%	14.81%
4 zone enc. in queue			50.00%	33.33%	25.00%	20.00%	16.67%
5 zone enc. in queue				44.44%	30.77%	23.53%	19.05%

Notes

• The adventure queue is thought to reset at rollover (although this has not been tested).
• All zones share the same two queues. If you head to a zone for the first time, or with 5 of each encounter flavor from some other zone, there will initially be zero, then one, ... applicable encounters in the queue.
• The adventure queue can have duplicates. If you meet 5 dairy goats in a row, the combat queue contains 5 dairy goats and no other encounters.
• This area of game mechanics is not well-understood. For current investigation, see the work by godskook, eit_brad and others in this HCO forum thread on Adventure Outcome -- the material on this page is derived from that investigation.