User:Dr ishmael/Treasure Hunting

Gold
Calculating averages by region, a character will receive 19904 &plusmn; 507 in cash by opening all treasure in Elona. If we throw out Takashi as an outlier, this improves to 20276 &plusmn; 334.

Calculating averages by individual area, the total is 19976 &plusmn; 491 with Takashi, and 20282 &plusmn; 349 without him.

The number of treasures already opened by a character seems to weigh the gold drop towards the low end of the range. In all regions, Takashi's gold drops were the lowest of all my characters, and he had the most treasures previously opened. Scion proved this wrong - she had the exact same treasures already open as Takashi, yet her drops were always higher (not to mention she got the highest overall drops for May in both Kourna and Vabbi).

Items
Item values vary widely, and can be further varied by receiving gemstones, items with "Show Me The Money!" inscriptions, or items with rare skins or max modifiers that are marketable to other players. Generally, though, item values are proportional to the amount of gold you can receive in the region. On average, a character will receive items with a total merchant value of ~2500-3500.

Rarity
All characters started from the Realm of Torment and worked backwards to Istan.
 * Purples will only drop in Istan and Kourna
 * The high frequency of purple items in these areas may be a result of either:
 * the low level of the areas
 * the number of treasures already opened by a character

Gemstones
Probably too few data to work with, but:
 * gemstones never appear in Istan or Kourna
 * gemstones seem to be most common in Vabbi

Primary Reset
The treasure spots reset for individual characters on a timer of 30 days/1 month since the last time that character "activated" any treasure spot, regardless of whether the treasure was populated or not.
 * This means that if you forget the exact day you last opened the treasures and take a character out to check, if it is on the 29th day, you will find the treasures empty and will have to wait another month.
 * It is not certain whether the game calculates the reset based on 30 days (May 15 - June 14) or 1 month (May 15 - June 15).

Secondary Reset
There appears to be a secondary timer that determines the value of the treasure after it has been reset. Opening a treasure immediately upon reset will result in the character receiving only half the standard amount of gold, and a greatly increased chance of receiving a purple item instead of a gold one.
 * The secondary reset is longer than 45 days - Suzume checked at 45 and got worse money than Pedro did at 30, although she did get 2 gold items and a gem while he got all purples. Will check with Kookaburra and Scion at 60.

Speculation, Testing, and Results
The general speculation is that treasure spots reset for each character 30 days/1 month after the character last opened a treasure spot, whether the spot had previously been opened by that character (in other words, it was empty) or not. Some have mentioned other factors that may affect this, including: All of these are incorrect. Takashi and Pedro were both able to open the Domain of Pain chest 31-32 days after their last treasure hunt, and both received a purple item and about the same amount of gold. Takashi has 50% of my playtime, has numerous titles including ranks in Wisdom, and has opened the treasures multiple times before. Pedro has 15% of my playtime, very few titles, and has opened the treasures once.
 * how many times the treasures have already reset for a character
 * I doubt this is the case, as Takashi and Kookaburra have both made 3 runs through most of the treasures previously, and while Takashi got the short stick this time (possibly due to opening too many low-level treasures first), Kookaburra usually got above-average gold drops.
 * the character's /age (maybe as a factor of the account's /age)
 * Possible. 50% of my playtime has been on Takashi (800 hours), while of the rest, only Pedro and Kookaburra have over 100 hours.
 * the character's rank in the Wisdom and/or Treasure Hunter title tracks, or how many keys or gold items the character has found (but not necessarily used/identified by that character)
 * Possible. Takashi has Collector of Wisdom (2), while no one else has anything.  Also, based on playtime alone, it's obvious that he would have found the most golds/keys of all my characters.

To test the main theory, none of my characters except Kookaburra will so much as look at a treasure spot until 1 month + 1 day has passed for them. I will have Kookaburra re-open a treasure on May 20, then have him check again on June 16.
 * Bah, forgot about this until now: Kookaburra opened the Issnur Isles spot (empty) on June 3.
 * Kookaburra again checked the Issnur Isles spot, as well as the Mehtani Keys spot, on June 17, and both were empty. It is definitely a character-based reset of all treasure spots 30 days after the last time the character checked any treasure spot.  Kookaburra must now wait another month.

To test the sub-theories, Takashi will check the treasures on June 16. If he can open them, then it's definitely a 30-days-since-touching-any-treasure reset. If his drops continue to be lower than everyone else's, then at least one of the theories would seem to apply instead to the drop value.

I have opened all treasures with Takashi on June 17. He received only 2 gold items, 1 gem, and half the usual amount of gold. I opened the Domain of Pain chest with Pedro, and he had similarly disappointing results. It would appear that even though the treasures reset at 30 days, they do not return to their full value at that time. I will wait another 15 days before collecting the treasures with Pedro, Suzume, and Scion, to see if they have fully reset by that time.
 * If the treasures are fully reset at 45 days, then over a period of 3 months, waiting for the full reset will allow you to open the treasures twice, resulting in ~40,000. If you open immediately after the primary reset, you will open them three times in three months, resulting in ~30,000 (assuming the first time in the 3 months was also immediately upon reset).  It would be greatly advantageous to wait for the full reset if this is the case.
 * Not fully reset at 45. If fully reset at 60, then over 4 months you would get the same amount of gold whether you checked every month or every 2 months.  Waiting 2 months would give better items, though.