Arlen

Maybe your buddy’s full art print pulls make you jealous as you’re opening up common trainers from booster boxes. It doesn’t seem fair! But there’s no magic to it, just math. Pokemon TCG Pocket has a tiered system. Some slots is reserved for common cards, while others roll for higher rarities. The way these slots … Read more

The math isn’t always visible, especially if you’re breeding pokemon for shininess. That’s one of those things that requires managing probability. Here you sit, at the picnic blanket (or day care). And you wait. For eggs. Then, for each egg, the game spits out a personality value. If it matches your game ID, then you … Read more

Then there’s the time you’re staring at a pristine-looking Gyarados, perfectly specced out, when it misses finishing blow. Your Dragonite barely dodged what would of knocked him out cold. And then you remember: Hidden Power. That’s where your Pokémon’s hidden Individual Values come into play. This system has always worked like a breed-and-deal-with-it remainder equation, … Read more

Suddenly you realize that something make you excited: a Pokemon is on the screen in front of you. And it has to appear, it’s an animation! It can either happen or not but it’s all down to chance. This is where it become a numbers game. How long do you have to search? An hour? … Read more

“I’m trying to make some Spirit armor but I only have this crappy chest full of runes.” The distance from that point to your goal feels huge…until you crunch the numbers. Players tend to estimate that they’ll need like a couple dozen initial ingredients. In fact, it’s more like thousands. That’s where thoughtful planning prevents … Read more

Diablo II’s Magic Find has a curve where more you add, the less it helps. For example, if you spend hours carefully gearing up to do a run at Mephisto and get a lousy drop, it could make you think that game is rigged against you. But the truth is: your intuition about Magic Find … Read more

This is a Grand Exchange Tax Calculator. The Grand Exchange fills your offer immedately. You look at your bank balance, anticipating a nice chunk of extra gold for your trouble. Instead, your eye twitches as you see a number that makes your eyeball bleed. That’s the Grand Exchange tax, the difference between what you thought … Read more

In Path of Exile, there’s a certain level of panic that hits you while you’re mapping when the boss whacks you for a hit that you couldve survived. You’re covered in all this armor. You’re sitting on six thousand life, wearing heavy armor, and standing still, yet your health bar vanish in a single frame. … Read more

You have offensive supports running, defensive auras active, and you are standing on the edge of the Wraeclast map. You click into a league game and find yourself at critical mana levels. Your resources depleted, you can’t fire off those skills. If this sounds familiar, then it’s a sign of disconnect between theory and mechanics … Read more

You complete a task. You stand before Mazchna. You’ve got forty-nine points, but you can’t spend them. You need five more for Bigger and Badder. But the numbers feels like a trap. Should you switch masters? You risk resetting your streak or grind out ten more tasks, with little reward. That’s why I made the … Read more

You enter an arena with a boss on the map, see your armor glow red, take the damage and boom. Gone. Life bar fades out of existence. A minor hit kills you because you dont understand what resistance caps are. Resistance caps is more than just big numbers on your screen. Resistance caps is there … Read more

In practice, the Trading Post fee cut into profits when selling something. Casual sellers will be impacted as well because listing fee is paid upfront regardless of whether a sale occurs. Players typically consider market price and determine if it’s worth doing so. What they neglect is fact that they pay this fee regardless of … Read more