Abyss vs Runecrafting Tablets [UPDATED]

[Ghost Phoenix]

After seeing the new RCing tablets that teleport you right to the altars, obviously everyone's been wondering if they do or do not work out faster than the Abyss, the main method of runecrafting.

So I set to test this.

I bought 23 Nature altar tablets with my leftover tokens and timed each run (I am aware that 23 is hardly a lot, but as the run times are roughly equal and there were no majorly anomalous results I don't feel that 100+ runs is needed for an accurate average).
A "run" is considered to be from when I break the tablet to when I reach the bank screen again. Therefore banking isn't included in the run times, but banking should be a roughly constant time regardless of the method.

I took a stack of the tabs in my inventory, equipped a glory(4), took pouches and essence. Due to the method, there was no need to use run restore as most of the time was spent banking or RCing.

My average time per run for the nature rune tablets was 28.6 seconds.
My average time through the Abyss is 68.35 seconds.

If the tabs were tradable, this would easily put using them as faster than the Abyss. However, they aren't tradable so we have to factor the length of each game in.

I assumed 700 tokens per game originally, but I have now tested the results at various amounts, each with differing results. I will stick with 700 to go through some example figures, however.

Nature tablets are 42 tokens each and at 700 tokens per game, you get 16.67 tablets with each game.
If we needed 100 tablets, that'd be 4200 tokens and therefore 6 games to play to obtain those.

As I did 23 runs, let's assume 23 x 42 tokens, which is 966. That requires 1.38 games of The Great Orb Project. As you get tokens even if you do not play a full game, you can feasibly play 1.5 games to get the tokens you need (each round being 0.125 of a game). Because it was considerably too much effort to make my spreadsheet round to the nearest 0.125 I simply left the number as it was. This may skew the results slightly but by less than one round worth so I don't believe it's worth worrying about.
As each game is about 1120 seconds (or 18.67 minutes long), 1.38 games takes 1545.6 seconds (25.76 minutes).
By adding this value to the total actual crafting time we can get the total time for the process:
(23 x 28.6) + 1545.6 = 2203.4 seconds (36.72 minutes).
Comparatively, it takes 26.2 minutes to do the same number of runs through the Abyss. While it may look at this point like the Abyss is faster, an important factor isn't being considered: you get experience whilst playing The Great Orb Project.

I was unsure exactly how to work out the amount of experience that would be given during the game - I have no idea how the game determines how much essence to give you, all I know is that it increases based on the number of orbs you get and it is considerably higher if you win the round - so I decided to take the maximum amount of essence one could carry in their inventory at levels 50 and 75 and then give 18 experience per piece, assuming each player would attempt to get as many nature runes as possible from the game. This is most certainly the least accurate part of my calcuations.
At level 50, this is 774 exp, and at level 75, 972 exp. I used these levels as they are the level at which you can use the higher level pouches, and 50 is the Guild entry level so there was no need to compare the lower level pouches alone.

By multiplying this value by the number of games you need to play I was able to get a rough average of the total experience gained while playing the game. I suspect my number is rather too high, however, so if anyone has any better values I'd like them to share them.
Therefore in my example:
At Lv50: 1068.12 exp while playing
At Lv75: 1341.36 exp while playing

Now by adding this value to the amount of experience you get from doing the runs themselves:
Nature tablets: (As you need a stack of tabs in your inventory, you can actually carry one less essence than normal)
At Lv50: (23 x 378) + 1068.12 = 9,762.1
At Lv75: (23 x 477) + 1341.36 = 12,312.4

The Abyss:
At Lv50: 23 x 387 = 8901
At Lv75: 23 x 486 = 11178

Of course just the experience alone is useless to know, so by taking the time values from earlier:
Nature tablets:
At Lv50: 15,949.7 exp/hour
At Lv75: 20,116.4 exp/hour

The Abyss:
At Lv50: 20,383.3 exp/hour
At Lv75: 25,597.7 exp/hour

This very clearly makes the Abyss the better choice in your typical situation.

My test of 500 tokens/game is quite high, however. 500 tokens/game is far more likely which increases the time spent in TGOP but quite a lot. However in the process this does mean you are getting more experience in the game due to playing it for longer. This experience doesn't come close to covering the extra time spent however.
And if you assume you can get 1000 tokens every game, the experience/hour figure for tabbing comes very close to that of the Abyss, 24k/hour whereas the Abyss (for natures) is 25k/hour at level 75. Even if you factor in an increased amount of experience in the minigame itself, the experience/hour figure for TGOP and tabs just doesn't beat that of the Abyss although it comes close.

It does appear from here then, that the new means of Runecrafting added directly to the game only just matches up the Abyss at the top end. Most of the time, the Abyss wins (If you're crafting low level runes, you actually get more exp/hour from using tabs, however crafting higher level runes through the Abyss has a higher exp/hour rate in comparison (as expected) which means it's not particularly worthwhile to do i unless you're a very dedicated DIYer.

Of course the runecrafting tabs aren't all that useless asthey make getting about the world much easier (Single click teleports to Lunar magic anyone?), but for runecrafting, stick to other methods.

[Craven Range]

genius. great read. excellent.

[Ghost Phoenix]

genius. great read. excellent.

Thanks!

[Doomedrusher]

The game is considerably less boring than the abyss, not to mention less dangerous.

[Ghost Phoenix]

The game is considerably less boring than the abyss, not to mention less dangerous.

That is quite true. Though after the 1500 odd games you'd need to play to get 99 Runecrafting you'd never want to hear the word "orb" again.
And for a more common goal of 91 Runecrafting, tabs are only slightly faster, and that's still based on the 700 tokens/game assumption. At 500/game the Abyss is considerably faster and 300/game puts the Abyss at over twice as fast.

[Kudelv]

Very nice analysis

Wasn't the ZMI supposed to be almost as good as the abbys?

I'm already bored of the game, of course I cashed my 2k tokens in p ess and now I realized the astral and blood tabs are pretty useful so I'll have to play it again, I'm not amused though.

[Ghost Phoenix]

I think ZMI is a little faster than the Abyss but I haven't been there at all this year. Prehaps with some Terrorbird magic and the new easy-access to the Lunar spellbook...

I just made some changes to the spreadsheet to include the type of rune and exp/minute and having gone through them all, there's no significant difference at any point.
If I noticed anything, it is that crafting lower level runes, although faster looking at the numbers, works out slower due to getting less experience compared to natures or cosmics and so having to do 1.5 (or so) times as many runs. On the other hand the higher level runes require more games due to increased tab costs and so aren't too great either.
It is marginally faster to use air tabs than to craft airs through the Abyss, but at the 50 Runecrafting you need for the tabs anyway you can craft natures which are better experience anyway.

[Boa1891]

I consider the rewards from minigames to be "byproducts"; With the exception of void, I never played a minigame to get an item, only to have fun. If you get free items while having fun, so be it.
If you don't like the game, however, you MUST factor in the time grinding the game, regardless of semantics.

[Rue Night]

As a runecrafter with some amount of interest in the skill, I think that this type of information is quite interesting. Good job.*a few claps and huzzahs*

[Draste1]

I'm not even a member, but that was a really interesting read.

It was interesting to see the differences in time. Thanks for posting this!

[The Gaffled]

Great info - tyvm for taking the time to make this.

[Da_Dragon555]

Interesting....
I have Yet to do the Abyss though...

[Heleor]

You gain experience and runes during the game, don't you?

[Omega Skaarj]

Only if you bother to craft the ess into runes in the game (you get double the normal xp)

[Noxrid]

You gain experience and runes during the game, don't you?

This needs to be factored in.

Also you said that you would assume that for every 1.38 games they must play 2 games and or it would be complicated and weird to do the calculations. It would be complicated, but that's the responsibility you take on when announcing the effectiveness of a mini game. The difference between calculating in the amount of runs to the amount of 1.38 games vs calculating the same amount of runs to the amount 2 games is a BIG difference.

I can't be bothered to do the math atm, but I will help you out and do the exact math later.

[Blizaga57]

using your times:

100 abyss runs: 6835 seconds
100 pouch runs: 2860 seconds

to make this better than the abyss, you'd need to make 4300 tokens in less than:
6835 - 2860= 3975 seconds.

at your estimate of 1120 seconds per game, you have 3.55 games to get 4300 tokens to get an even speed.

That can't happen, so using your numbers, this method can never be faster than the abyss.



You kind of lost me in the second half of your post and the numbers stopped making sense so I did these calculations.

[ikraz55]

If this is really nearly as fast as the abyss (and 700 per game seems very high), then in no way can this compete with ZMI runecrafting in terms of sheer exp. And it can't even compete with Graahk runecrafting in terms of nats crafted per hour. The only reason you would want to choose this method is for variety. Personally, I'm more interested in the teletabs for non-runecrafting purposes, but I still plan on stocking up on them.

[Blimpyboy2]

In a typical winning game, I've crafted about 15 pure ess at the air altar, 20 pure ess at the earth altar, and 40 pure ess at the nature altar. That's 120+260+720 (total 1100) XP per game that you're not counting. You're also not counting the value of the runes you get while playing, which at my RC level (68) is about 12.5k gp. And the idea of rounding down, based on needing to play a full game in order to get any rewards whatsoever, is flawed. You can leave the game at any time, for starters, and still get the tokens for the rounds you won. Secondly, who in their right mind would just toss out the extra tokens they get from playing 2 games, if they're only planning on needing the tokens from 1.38 games? Those tokens will eventually be used and can't be discounted for simplicity's sake.

I like the initiative you've taken to do this comparison, but you're discounting far too much to make it worthwhile, IMO.

[Ghost Phoenix]

To those who've mentioned the essence you get during the game:
I remembered this also a few hours ago. I'll factor it in.

You can leave the game at any time, for starters, and still get the tokens for the rounds you won. Secondly, who in their right mind would just toss out the extra tokens they get from playing 2 games, if they're only planning on needing the tokens from 1.38 games? Those tokens will eventually be used and can't be discounted for simplicity's sake.

I was unaware that you got tokens if you left the game, assuming you had to play a full game for any reward. This is why I rounded up to 2 games from 1.38 games.
Also I was working on the assumption that player wants to get X amount of Runecrafting exp and chooses to buy tabs to do so at this point and that other points may go towards non-RC exp rewards. As you said, for simplicity's sake. I realise now that this is indeed the wrong thing to do, and so I shall factor this in.

using your times:

100 abyss runs: 6835 seconds
100 pouch runs: 2860 seconds

to make this better than the abyss, you'd need to make 4300 tokens in less than:
6835 - 2860= 3975 seconds.

at your estimate of 1120 seconds per game, you have 3.55 games to get 4300 tokens to get an even speed.

That can't happen, so using your numbers, this method can never be faster than the abyss.



You kind of lost me in the second half of your post and the numbers stopped making sense so I did these calculations.

Ah, you are correct.
I messed up the spreadsheet and was adding the wrong number in for the tab time. So... All my values are incorrect.

Okay, so I shall make some changes, double check my formulae and return with an accurate version.

[Craven Range]

You can leave the game at any time, for starters, and still get the tokens for the rounds you won. Secondly, who in their right mind would just toss out the extra tokens they get from playing 2 games, if they're only planning on needing the tokens from 1.38 games? Those tokens will eventually be used and can't be discounted for simplicity's sake.

I was unaware that you got tokens if you left the game, assuming you had to play a full game for any reward. This is why I rounded up to 2 games from 1.38 games.
Also I was working on the assumption that player wants to get X amount of Runecrafting exp and chooses to buy tabs to do so at this point and that other points may go towards non-RC exp rewards. As you said, for simplicity's sake. I realise now that this is indeed the wrong thing to do, and so I shall factor this in.

Rounding that far is a big no-no. Your rounding for one game. But picture it like this, you won't be playing one game for the whole journey to 99 RC.

For every 138 games you play, effectively you have said you will be playing 200 games. That's 62 games of play being rounded off there, which at 600 tokens a game is a hefty 37,200 tokens.