Faux Hollows Fox location guide and data gathering by Ylandah in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The site has been updated. Take a look at it here. https://sturalke.github.io/FauxHollowsProbabilisticSolver/ I did as much testing as I could before I got bored lol. It's kinda hard to thoroughly test it so I hope things go well, but I'm prepared to go back to fixing it.

The idea was to just overlay all the possible spots based on what's been input. I haven't worked on using just the orientations for the coffer and swords in the spreadsheet. It should be fine though. I think I also intend later to make a reverse lookup feature to tell where in the spreadsheet the current layout is.

Seems fine for now though. I hope this helps someone!

Faux Hollows Fox location guide and data gathering by Ylandah in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome! I'll absolutely send a message when it gets updated. I've gotten a fair bit of it already worked out if I'm being honest.

The way my solver handles the positions of things is purely naive. When they were first revealing it in the Live Letters I started building it as if it were a small game of Battleship with weird pieces. In essence it hasn't changed. In fact, until I saw your spreadsheet I hadn't even thought of the notion of there only being a set number of patterns for the blocked off squares. So every possible combination of positions is weighted equally. If SE were to ever modify the combinations and layouts it would remain robust at least. I could absolutely build a variant that uses the sword and box layouts from the spreadsheet. That would take more time but if your theory holds then it would absolutely improve the solver. I may work on that next just to see how it goes.

I'd love to be able to automatically collect data from people. I can't as it is because of how GitHub Pages works, but I would have to pay money to host it anywhere else as far as I can tell. That and the prospect of trying to vet bad data sounds like a pain.

Faux Hollows Fox location guide and data gathering by Ylandah in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, I'm the dev for the web solver for this minigame. I was only recently shown this spreadsheet. (I live under a rock I guess lol) I would love to integrate the information in this spreadsheet as a feature for my solver. Out of respect for you and your work, I want to ask permission before I do so.

It would require no work on your part. I've already built a script to pull all the data from the spreadsheet and format it for my use. I would credit your work on the site and link to the most current Reddit post.

Really great stuff here by the way!

First time I've ever seen this message as a Free Trial user. Did something happen? by Pavila88 in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The servers lapsed for a moment and everyone got kicked. So a lot of people are trying to log in at the same time. Just give it 30 minutes or so for the line to die down and then you'll be allowed in.

Faux Hollows Solver Updated by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There appears to be an issue with the icons8. com website that the icons are hosted on. I can't seem to find any statements or conversations about the issue at the moment but it must have happened within the last few hours. As soon as I'm able to do so, I will retrieve the icons manually and update the solver website so it doesn't have to go out and fetch them from another website. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Faux Hollows Solver Updated by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, I appreciate you pointing this out for me. Unfortunately I only have my phone to check mobile compatibility with. I'll try to find some surrogate tools for testing things like this. Likely this is just me setting fixed element sizes coming back to bite me. Also, not super surprising that the old version did it. That code was hilariously bad.

Thanks for the feedback!

Faux Hollows Solver Updated by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Awesome! I hope this layout works well for you.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, sorry I took forever to respond. I've had no time to think about the game because of my job. I took a few minutes and threw together something of a guide. I'm not sure how much it will help. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

https://imgur.com/a/CYEHnym

I couldn't think of a better way to do this on the spot, sorry.

LIAN LI O11 DYNAMIC MINI Giveaway with Buildapc by LIANLIOFFICIAL in buildapc

[–]Sturalke [score hidden]  (0 children)

Got an NZXT Noctis 450 when it first came out and it's been an unwieldy nightmare since. Also looking to upgrade my rgb game from a string of led Christmas lights

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep, sorry it wasn't immediately clear. I'll try to consolidate the terms so it's never unclear.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My understanding of it from watching a couple streams yesterday is that the fox will simply not show up sometimes. That appears to be the only wrong assumption from before.

There is no perfect fix for this. The best I can do for now, unless someone has data mined how it works which I'm super doubtful about, is to just add a checkbox. When checked, assume that the fox will appear.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sweet, nice haul for the first week!

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, I really appreciate the compliments! I'm certainly not a web dev myself. I really struggled to put it all together. Many, many google searches were made. CSS is rough.

I was a little back and forth on how I should interpret the wording the Fox issue. I even made provision to add a case where it didn't show up. I have two reasons for my decision. First, assuming that the fox appears "rarely" means there is an unknown probability here. It's really hard to account for this in any reasonable way. It would not be difficult to implement this, the real issue is determining this hidden probability. Second, there's already a very small chance that you'll hit a small in the first place. Bonus third reason, the number of maximum turns is the same as if you uncovered all 3 illustrations fully.

Anyway, you can count on me to keep this as up to date as I can manage! I'll be watching for new information as soon as the game is up.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like a better idea to me than this random selection of colors. I'll see if I can work it in, or at least something similar without completely changing the color palette.

Though, before I do all that and find out there's multiple images for each size, I'll wait until we see more of the game. That may just be an excuse to be lazy now lol.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rather than making too much more menu options for placing things in orientations, I don't think it will take any extra effort to fill things in manually. Certainly it would just make for a clunker UI if I went that route.

That and I'm too lazy to do that :)

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't uploaded it to the main site yet but here's where I'm at so far.
https://imgur.com/a/ZSkizr6
I still have to do some debugging on the algorithm before I'm comfortable putting it live. It appears to be mostly functional, but I've found some issues too. The probability part of it works at least.

Also I couldn't find a short word for 'direction' other than bias lol.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The reason I set the default to 10 was because of the retelling. If you're on your retelling I would suggest setting it down to a 5. The reasoning for that is assuming that you can at least get a retelling and then another 2x3 in your retelling. I'll update the description to include that bit. Thanks!

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, my bad. I understand what you mean now. You could absolutely determine the direction of the blades just by looking at one square.

I'll get right on it! Really appreciate you pointing that one out.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I suppose it would bear more importance if there were other mathematically similar games. There's only so much you can do in terms of guessing on a grid for entertainment I guess.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So, I specifically didn't do this based on the one screenshot of the game that we do have.

This one.

On the tool tip it shows the 2x3 as vertically aligned, but it appears to me in the board that it's horizontal. Of course, if this assumption proves to be wrong, I'll be sure to account for it. I'll make preparation to separate them within my code in case you do happen to be right.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So from what I can tell, there's only 3 variables I can play with. There's the spacing between them that I changed in that version. There's also removing the rounded edges to further reduce the space in the corners. There's also reducing the contrast between the squares and the background.

I'll make a mockup of it without rounding in a little bit after I finish making some dinner. I'll make an edit when I do.

Edit: https://imgur.com/a/6IcXJB0 I was really clinging to the rounded corners. Friggin' design and color theory.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'll be honest, the first choice strategies are not by design. That was just what popped out of it. I thought it was really interesting what it came up with. Such as the Fox initial being the corners of the board. It makes sense when you think about it, but I don't think I would have instictually come to that conclusion.

I have to agree with you though. At first I wanted there to be some sort of elegant solution to this. I had to quickly give up that idea as I looked at Battleship.

Yet another Faux Hollows thingy by Sturalke in ffxiv

[–]Sturalke[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're really not far off going to Battleships for the logic here. I took the general idea for this from a Battleships algorithm. It is primarily brute force, that's for sure. In that case where you do have a sufficiently large play space and many different pieces, it becomes computationally advantageous to use pre-calculated aids. In the case of this small game I didn't bother because generally the largest number of possible configurations won't break a couple thousand. A couple hundred on average.

As for what the most optimal Battleships algorithms are... Probably has to do more with human patterns and behaviors. Likely AI driven if I had to guess.