Wednesday, August 8, 2012

How to Find a Pear

[UPDATED: April 5, 2014]

Every 6 hours (every new "game day") a new pear appears in the game. It's hidden somewhere in any one of the many, many harvestables found throughout the game.

Simple enough, right? Not exactly. If you plan to start pear hunting, you need to be prepared, and it can take weeks of attempts before you start getting the hang of it.

Everything you should know to get started in pear hunting is here. It's so based on luck that I have no qualms in providing this info.

Pear hunting can be a fun change of pace from the normal game grind, as you never know what map it's going to lead you to or where you'll be surprised to find it. It's essentially a treasure hunt that occurs every 6 hours.


Requirements for Pear Hunting

1) Ability to harvest every harvestable item in-game - The pear can be found in literally anything that can be harvested. Make sure you've read every harvesting book, have inorganic 6, and a stock of swords/gloms. Yes, the pear can be and has been found even in things like dvarium, wolfram, copper, and hydro.

Right, even in amber, which means your action points could limit you.

Now, the overwhelming majority of the time it will be in an inorganic 4 or less item, so you can still hunt at that level. You'll just miss out if it's in a 5 or 6 item.

2) Pear Finders - And lots of them. There's up to 100 maps that have harvestable items. As luck is involved, it could be the first or even the very last map you can possibly check. You should have a minimum of 100 pear finders available before starting a hunt.

How pear finders work: You use 1 for each map you go to. Click it, and it will tell you if the pear is on that map or not. It will not give you any idea *where* on the map, just if it's on that map.

Once a pear is found, the rest of that game day the pear finders are set so that if you click one, it'll tell you there's no pear available. You don't lose the finder if this occurs, so you lose nothing trying. This is a way you can tell if a pear has been found that day already or not.

3) Tools - While you won't carry gloms/swords with you, have the basic pickaxes/gloves/saw in inventory. You should have gloms and swords well-stocked though for each possible harvestable item in your storage.

4) Potion of Speed Hax - Those people (like me) that you see regularly finding pears are using this. It drastically cuts down the amount of time spent finding the right map, and on maps where harvestables are spread out, it can drastically cut time there as well.

How valuable is this? Consider that, when haxed and fully knowledged in maps so you have a pattern for checking them, it can still take up to 40 minutes to check every possible map. Speed hax doubles your moving speed, so that means it could take up to 80 minutes to check every possible map (fully knowledged and with a pattern) without it.

That's a huge difference.

5) Map Knowledge - Do you know every secret spot? (Yes, there's harvables in some secret areas and yes, the pear can show up there) Do you have a good idea of where harvestables are on maps, not just "closest to storage" that many learn?

Sites like EL-wiki cannot be relied on for this, as those pages don't cover even a small part of the actual harvables on most maps. For example, look at the Arius page on EL-wiki, then take a walk around Arius seeing all the harvs spread out there. Huge difference.

You also need to know which maps actually have harvestables. A map such as SKF insides (with the 4 houses) or even Hulda have nothing harvestable, therefore the pear obviously won't be there. Eliminate maps such as those.

6) Patience - You get to Idaloran. The pear is in that map. Where do you start? Do you even try? No try, no get. But as well, considering how incredibly long it would take to find it, is it worth spending the time chancing you'll find it early on? Despite its "rarity", it still has a limited value, and time is valuable. (More on cost below.)

7) Ability to accept the inevitable - Not every harvestable item can be reached. Most every map has a few or sometimes a lot of items that you cannot possibly check. Example: Outside of the Portland potion school cave there's quite a few blue quartz for design, intentionally not reachable for harvest.

The random pear location generator has no ability to take into account where players can actually walk or reach, thus it can be in one of those. The only way to know is to check every single item on the map you possibly can check, which in the end means both wasted time and pear finders.

You have to be able to accept that this is a fact of pear hunting life and it will happen sometimes. "Shit Happens." 

8) No Bad Perks - Harvester of Sorrow perk is obviously going to be a serious detriment to pear hunting as hunting is a constant harv-fest. As well, Hellspawn can seriously slow down your ability to find the map, as a huge amount of the maps to check are internal. If you have either of these perks, you've essentially taken yourself out of the competition (though with hellspawn, you may luck out and it'll be on a map you don't have to "change maps" to get to).


Cost

(Note: Prices are accurate as of the "UPDATE" date at the top of this article. Do not use this as a price check, but as an example. Price on my bot IWannaRock tends to be accurate.)

Pear Finders as of this writing are about 170gc each. Having 100 available and normally using most of them, that's up to 17,000gc per hunt. (Or 170gc, if you luck out and it's on the first map you check.)

A pear runs about 27kgc market value. Now, is that right when only a possible up to 17kgc in finders is involved? Yes, as there's other determining factors.

1) Only a maximum of 4 pears can get into the game each (real-life) day, making it a rare item. If a pear isn't found on a game day, it's gone. Which can mean less than 4 per real-life day. This can happen when nobody hunts it, or it ends up in an unreachable/unharvable item, or even if it ends up on a map like White Stone which "pro hunters" won't bother with because of the incredible amount of time that could be involved.

2) Pear hunting includes risks, like PK maps, the NRM red dragon cave, and so on. A true hunter has to take those risks.

3) Time is gc. A hunter has to expect and plan to possibly be searching for a couple hours if necessary, even if it is regularly found within an hour. Whether it's found in 5 minutes or 3 hours, every hunter has to be prepared to expect the longer time.

Which means putting aside anything else being worked on.

How much gc can you make in an hour doing something else? Say, harving iron and selling it? Is the pear value, minus the combined time and finder/food/essies/SRs cost making it worthwhile to hunt, or would you be better off spending that time harv/selling?

4) Important factor: Add to that all the pear finders and time wasted on those game days where the pear is determined to be unattainable. And those wasted on days where someone else finds it first. That time and those finders are wasted gc as well.

5) As well, cost of gloms and various swords used to check every individual piece of ore where those are needed. Including hunting on days where the pear ends up being in some random unreachable flower and those gloms/swords as well as pear finders are wasted. That "one area of seridium" could actually have 30 individual pieces to check, only to find it's not there.

6) And right... It's a rare item! So it should be worth something on top of all that.




Okay, Time to Hunt

I am not going to give away exactly how I go about this. I will, however, provide tips on ways you can improve your ability to hunt. These are the exact same "tips" I learned myself to get to my current hunting abilities.These tips can be used to create your own patterns and such. None of the current hunters use the same patterns.

1) Determine the Fastest Way to Check Maps - This takes some time, but eventually you can develop a pattern that gets you through maps quickly. Tele room, boats, walk to the next map... in every case, decide how you could streamline the way around to all maps, both external and internal. Is there more than one place to check an internal, and where would be the fastest way to check it? Those are the kind of questions to think of. Do you need an item to "use with" to get to a map?

And I can't stress enough for this part of the hunt in particular... speed hax.

In the end though, it's still luck who gets to the map first. With so many possible maps, the pattern you choose to use in finding the right map isn't the same as others, and those others may happen upon the map quickly whereas your pattern has it being one of the last you check.

2) Section off maps - Once you've found the actual map, in most cases harvs can be very randomly spread out. Mentally learn to section off each map, working one section at a time. Use things like trees or even your own map marks to keep track of where you've checked. Having walked through and studied/marked the map before you actually hunt on it can very much improve the time spent finding the pear.

Particularly in larger maps, luck continues to determine who gets it first. In North Redmoon for example, one hunter starts up north working down the west side of the map. Another starts at the South Redmoon exit and works on the southern area first. Who's gonna get it? There's no way to know where to start. Have I mentioned the word "luck"?

3) Check everything - Every single individual harvestable. And this is where map knowledge comes in to play very well. There's all kinds of things not normally noticed. Thelinor has some wood logs half-hidden under tents. Some maps have branches everywhere, some of which can be almost completely hidden in the ground. Palon Vertas has almost 400 individual branches alone throughout the map, particularly in the north desert area.

Ore/mineral areas are rampant with pieces that are "hidden" in the cave walls, only visible if you adjust the camera so you can see through the walls.

As well, when you see a large group of an item, keep in mind that there could be several blue star flowers there, not just one, for example. Know the size and shape of harvestable bushes/flowers. Every individual piece of ore or quartz or mineral is a separate harvestable, you have to check every single one. And in the end, it could very easily be in the lone wood branch in the corner of the map as it could be in a large garden of wheat or veggies.

4) Study maps - Study, study, study. Choose a map, learn where the harvs are. Mark them, especially ones that are "kinda hidden" and you might forget during a hunt. This is time spent outside of the actual hunt time.



FAQ

Not really frequent, but some of the things people have asked that don't fit in above.

* What is a pear used for?

(Note: Answer as of the date of this post, subject to change, check other sources if you're reading this late.)  Current use is for Potion of Action Points. One is also required for one of the Redeemer NPC achievement perks.

* Do they sell?

Yes, if you know who to sell to. Who can actually make use of them? It's not a "fast seller", but then they don't come in the game fast, either.

* With certain people always finding the pears, should I even bother trying?

Don't expect to start finding them immediately on your first attempts, though the possibility is always there as luck is a huge factor. As you try more, you improve your speed/skill in getting around to finding the right map and harvestable, and your chances improve greatly.

My first two weeks, I wasted many a pear finder and only found it once in all that time. And that time likely only because I was the only one hunting it. I didn't start regularly finding it until after I improved my speed in finding the correct map, and spent some time studying maps I didn't have as much knowledge of. I can't stress enough how knowledge of where harvestables are is an important factor. Right, and spending days constantly speed haxed so I could get used to traveling and food-eating while it was in use.

Those "certain people" who "always" find it, like myself for example, have no special abilities over you. Just practice. Like a fighter can't kick an arctic chim until they've trained enough to get to that point, a pear hunter cannot expect to find a pear before others until they've "trained" by learning a good map checking pattern, and studied the maps to have a good idea of all available harvestables on it. The only difference between the two is that the skill required for a pear hunt doesn't give experience.

* Do you get upset when someone else finds it while you're looking?

No. It's part of what is expected. If you're a sore loser, hunting's not for you. You'll never see me bragging when I get it, or complaining/whining if someone else does before me. It's just a game, and I'm not that childish.

Once the pear is found, by me or someone else, I'm done with it, and already moving to go back to whatever I was doing pre-hunt.

* What if everything on a map is checked and the pear still isn't found?

There's several possibilities here:

1- You missed something. Some harvs are kinda hidden. Once you feel you've checked an entire map, walk through it again, looking closer and in more detail everywhere. Even I have found something I missed by doing this. Did you really check everything? Is that group of lilacs one bush or multiple and you only checked one? That stack of wood logs, did you check every individual log? And such.

2- If you did check "everything", then you should also know if you've found certain harvables that you couldn't reach. There's a very good chance it's in those.

3- Some maps also have "you can't harvest here!" type harvestables. Though the pear doesn't seem to hit maps where nothing is harvestable (like maps full of just rooms), it can end up in these harvables if they're on a normally harvestable map. An example of these is in Palon Vertas... the center house that storage is behind. If you go around to the side of the house that has the entrance, the flowers around the door can't be harved, shut off because they're too close to storage.

4- Something's hidden. Due to map construction, pieces of ores and minerals can be so far in a cave wall (for example) that they can only be seen if you angle/rotate the view just right so you're looking from inside the wall. A spot with 15 visible pieces of coal for example could actually have 20 with 5 hidden from normal view. The maps weren't exactly designed with pear hunts in mind.

Assuming it's not in a missed item, you just have to accept that it can't be gotten that day. A bad prospect, but it happens, regularly.

* Does knowing where the pear has been found before help in finding it?

No. The pear is truly random in its location. There's nothing to say "it'll be on c1 next time since it was on c2 the previous time", or that it won't even be on the same map. Remember programming code doesn't see "maps", it only sees a list of available harvestables and what maps have harvestable items on them, and one is randomly chosen from those.

There is absolutely nothing of this kind of nature that will help predict where the pear will be next time.

* Is hunting for it in groups a good idea?

I've never done this, but I've known it to be done before. Obviously this could help speed up the process. Splitting up and checking certain groups of maps to find the map faster. Splitting a map into sections with each person checking a section. I can, however, think of a few negatives to this. I can't give you a proper yes/no to this question. Whether these negatives are worth it is up to you.

- When the pear is found, you split the value of it among the group. The more people, the less you get. Long-term, this may be found to not be worth it.
- You're reliant on other players knowing the maps well, not just yourself. Someone claims to have finished their section, but missed a bunch of harvs. How are you to know?

I personally prefer doing this solo, mostly because I enjoy the hunt and finally having a good use for my map knowledge. But I can't speak for others in the case of this question. It's up to you.

4 comments:

  1. I think you and malameo are doing some secret hax :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hussam is right. There's no way anyone could find even a single pear without serious hax. I accuse you of using bzzz client. You just press the pear button, I'm sure of it. Surely the whole post is a trap to slow down your competition. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hmm, where did I move that "Instadeath Elveron" button to... Hmmm....

    ReplyDelete
  4. hi, just read this, wish i knew u had made this post earlier ;)

    i'm just not getting good at finding pears, but i can say on my first 20 hunts i got nothing, and on my 21st i got it only because no one else was looking.

    up to 14 pears now so i think im finally making profit now. it really is not as easy as it seems and i think the idea of a cd is ridiculous.

    most unique place i have found pear so far is in ida, in the scarecrows nose at wheat field.

    ReplyDelete

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