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Re: Re: XP and level balancing

by ChemBoy (Priest)
on Oct 25, 2002 at 17:17 UTC ( [id://208088]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re: XP and level balancing
in thread XP and level balancing

That doesn't surprise me. Relatively speaking, there are not a lot of people that put in the time to reach level nine. Once they have, sainthood seems finally in reach and there is some motivation to try to sprint through that last 700 XP.

Actually, I think this is an unnecessary level of psychoanalysis. At the present moment, there are 184 monks with 2300 or more XP. Leaving aside vroom for the moment (for obvious reasons) their XP totals range from 2311 to 29341. Even assuming a strongly left-skewed distribution (which is a reasonable assumption) it isn't really to be expected that a majority of that population will be in the left-most 700 XP of that 27030-XP range.

(Generation of a statistical comparison of this population to the overall Perlmonks population is left as an exercise to the reader, assuming the reader has some time on his hands.)



If God had meant us to fly, he would *never* have given us the railroads.
    --Michael Flanders

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Re: Re: Re: XP and level balancing
by sauoq (Abbot) on Oct 25, 2002 at 20:37 UTC

    On first inspection that analysis seems sufficient but it falls apart when you take a slightly wider view.

    There are 351 monks with 1600 or more XP and well over half are in the left-most 1400 XP of that approx. 27730 range.

    Only 38.7 percent of monks that have reached level eight have gone on to sainthood but a whopping 73.9 percent of monks that have made it to level nine have become saints.

    That's the phenomenon that I was attempting to explain with my "psychoanalysis." Of course, I have no idea of its accuracy. I've always had an insatiable need to speculate about why things happen though, and I don't think these observations are entirely due to the system's structure.

    For what it's worth, I think there is a similar threshold at level six.

    -sauoq
    "My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
    

      You raise some interesting points--I had to hold off responding until I had time to tabulate a little more data, since arguing "that doesn't seem right" when you're talking about population statistics is silly at best. Below is the table I came up with from jcwren's stats pages.

      Level PopulationCumulative totalFraction not yet advanced
      10 136 136 0.993
      9 48 184 0.261
      8 100 284 0.352
      7 167 451 0.370
      6 342 793 0.431
      5 517 1310 0.395
      4 371 1681 0.221
      3 512 2193 0.233
      2 868 3061 0.284
      1 16958 20019 0.847

      In case the headings aren't clear, the cumulative total is the number of monks at that level or higher, which is (generally) equivalent to the total number of monks who have ever been at that level; the fraction not yet advanced is the portion of that total who still are at that level.

      Ignoring the last few rows for now, it seems your point about the high fraction of pontiffs moving on to sainthood is a valid one. I wouldn't put it as dramtically as you do above (though those numbers are certainly correct): roughly 65% of bishops have gone on to become pontiffs, while 74% of pontiffs have gone on to be saints, which seems a slightly more apples-to-apples comparison. In general, this seems to be a trend from level six onward: each level from six through nine has a lower retention rate. This is consistent with my theory, but the large drop at level 9 is still out of line with the trend, which lends some support to yours.

      Of course, this analysis leaves something to be desired, since it only looks at the levels as black boxes, rather than what they are (points on a number line). I don't think it alters the conclusion significantly, but for the record, the percentage increase in points required to move from each level to the next is (starting with 2 -> 3, for obvious reasons) 150%, 100%, 100%, 150%, 100%, 60%, 44%, 30%. So in the higher levels, each transition is, in fact (relatively) easier than the previous one. Though that last step is a doozy. ;-)

      In any case, thank you for the reply, it's always good to be forced to check your numbers. :-)



      If God had meant us to fly, he would *never* have given us the railroads.
          --Michael Flanders

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