Topic

Data Collection: Route Use

Suspicious mind that I have, I wonder about how "fair" route membership is.  It's my hypothesis that route visiting rates decrease exponentially the further from the head of the route you are.  (It's my untested suspicion, also, that the visit rate of a route increases somewhat with it's length.)

If I'm right, Route members closer to the head benefit much more than Route members closer to the end (and also: Route members closer to the head benefit more the more members there are in the Route).  In other words, the head of a Route benefits unfairly from the membership of the tail of the Route.

Am I right?  I don't know.  But there's a way to find out: if you're a member of a Route, on the next new day, go talk to your Rock and determine how much iMG you've gotten from activity on your Street.  Post the following information:

What Routes you're on.
Your position on the Route.
You level.
The iMG you just received.
Optionally: Rock iMG samples over the course of a few days.
Optionally: the length of the Routes you're on.

Posted 5 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Your intended observations might be affected by visits to home streets through Glitch Routes results in which people who are on one or more traditional routes may also be visited as a result of selection of resource quantity and at random. People may also be visiting based on most resources of some type, or not starting on the first signpost, or only visiting friends' streets, all of which do not follow a route from 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. positions.
    Posted 5 months ago by TomC Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Especially since the "Visit this route" feature on the new routes website specifically chooses a member at random to start you on. This was added to avoid the very problem you are looking for.
    Posted 5 months ago by Belle Z. Bub Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The hypothesis is probably correct, but you should've done this a month ago. Nowadays the results will be skewed, because the curators have already noticed this problem and have taken action to ensure the distribution is more fair.

    First, the new routes site directs visitors to a random person on the route for routes longer than 10 players long. Second, I've been changing the bottom signpost on my home street to point to a different player on the route every day, and using the fourth position for the start of the route now. Perhaps it'll be more interesting to know if these measures have had any effect on the distribution of iMG.
    Posted 5 months ago by Boom and Bust Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Boom-The measures have had their intended effect! 

    I'm #8 of 100+(meaning I'm 95 streets in if Boom just posted to the newest person) on Gas and most days get a little iMG above base from friends...and then some days...wow. A dozen visitors easily. I got the big iMG badge the day you had your sign pointed just a handful of streets before mine. 
    Posted 5 months ago by M<3tra, obviously Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Im about 40 something into the gas route..and have not one complaint about the amount of visitors/img I get daily. I do have quite a few "regulars" though. some people come just for the butterflies. Some come for the chickens. Some obviously come for the gas. 

    Some days are better than others, but even being that far into a huge route, Im not hurting any.
    Posted 5 months ago by SideBurns Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Anyone who joins a route just for the iMG is going to be disappointed. It's capped at 5X your base (ie what you get at 80% mood, not full mood) quoin value. You will always get 1 quoin's worth whether someone visits or not, so the most your Magic Rock will give you is 6Xs.  

    For a top level 60 that is 4575 extra iMG. As they earned 23,041,093 iMG (yes over 23 million) to get there that is pretty negligible.

    So if all you want is more iMG don't expect to get it from joining a route whatever position you are in

    Join a route to be community minded and to socialise and meet new people
    Posted 5 months ago by IrenicRhonda Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Irenic-ofc joining for iMG is disappointing...however! Getting the unexpected boost is nice :)

    And, really, before iMG and butlers I felt good about being on a route that people could use instead of the endless swamps with street after street of only 2-3 gas trees on it.  

    The day iMG was introduced I had 2-3 time the base...and then people swamped the route. At that point the iMG was a daily reminder that my participation was meaningless. I even considered dropping from routes because it seemed silly to tie up a signpost that was going unused. I may still drop out of the Gas route b/c at 100+ glitches my participation is meaningless. 
    Posted 5 months ago by M<3tra, obviously Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I was on the PB&J route only, and way down the route. Rarely got visitors. Helped that a little by adding an Imagination Route, but putting myself on CoffeeSnob's Chaos route has made a HUGE difference. Boom's mod to the routes may have made a change to my situation too, as it happened only a couple days after getting on the Chaos.
    Posted 5 months ago by Murri Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just curious, Murri, did the change coincide with the change made 4 days ago to which resources the visitors use give iMG?
    Posted 5 months ago by Boom and Bust Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The whole problem has become redundant once again with the introduction of towers. People come and visit your tower and while there almost always use one or more resources making it impossible to know why people visit. 
    I've had a huge increment in visitors in the last 2 days. 
    Posted 5 months ago by Zira Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Metra, I feel your pain. I'm the 28th person on the Serious Spice route, with 15 trees (I don't have a tower) and it seems like few people need spice anymore. However, I'm ging to hold out, and I'm glad some friends helped me get my last iMG badge. The closer you are towards the beginning of a route, the luckier you are at getting better iMG from the rock. I'm not exactly happy with my position, but I'll stick around and see what happens, behaps we'll see an increase in spice usuage for (hopefully) new recipes down the line.
    Posted 5 months ago by Ayasta Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The Egg Hunt this year should be interesting....
    Posted 5 months ago by Patricia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Boom and Bust, I seem to be having more visitors in the last few days. Than you for the changes. Hopefully i will be getting the visitor badge some time soon.
    Posted 5 months ago by Sherbert Subscriber! | Permalink