Using the maximizer "max" keyword effectively

I've struggled for a long time when using the maximizer's "max" keyword. I have the feeling I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something, and that the issue is on my end, not Mafia's. So I'm hoping someone can clear things up for me.

For instance: I'd like to cap 30% drops, with further +item% being worthless, and use other slots to maximize my mysticality.

Capping 30% drops takes 334% items. So I tried maximizing "item 334 max, myst". But Mafia suggests a set of items that universally raise my mysticality, leaving my +item% at 181%.

Presumably that's because, for each given slot, the item that's best at raising myst raises it further than the item that's best at raising +item%. So I need to weight things somehow? So I tried "10 item 334 max, myst". That produces a set of items including the Goggles of Loathing and Pocket Square of Loathing (and no other Cloathing pieces). That's a total of +2% items and +2% myst from those two items, combined, leaving my +item% at 247% (13% higher than I needed, which is OK). But I could raise my myst by 173 points by replacing the Goggles and Pocket Square with a feathered headdress and Wal-Mart nametag, and still leave my +item% at 245% (ie. exceeding my requirement), so why didn't Mafia suggest that instead?

With item weighted at 10 times normal, you only need 33.4 item to hit the max, which you likely have just from passives and such. I suspect that "10 item 3340 max, myst" will give results closer to what you want.

lostcalpolydude said:

With item weighted at 10 times normal, you only need 33.4 item to hit the max, which you likely have just from passives and such. I suspect that "10 item 3340 max, myst" will give results closer to what you want.

Click to expand...

"10 item 3340 max, myst" does result in meeting the +item%, at +252%, but equips only +item% equipment, and doesn't increase my mysticality at all. In fact, it suggests an outfit identical to maximizing just "item".

I realized that at least part of the reason that only 2 Cloathing items were suggested in my last post was that I didn't meet the (150 basestat) equip requirements for some of them. I now meet all the requirements. Swapping out Cloathing pieces for the feathered headdress and Wal-Mart nametag no longer increases mysticality, since I can wear the full outfit. So "10 item 334 max, myst" does appear to produce a fairly good result. But the 10x weighting of +item% means the Cloathing scores 640 points just on that feature, and better +myst options get ignored.

I think I've figured out that I need "item 334 max 334 min, myst". Item drop lower than 334% is unacceptable, but I don't care the tiniest bit about bonuses past that point, so I don't want to weight them positively. Once I hit 334% items, all I care about is maximizing mysticality. And I think this string does that. It didn't previously occur to me that you could use "min" and "max" in combination.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong?

That's not what "min" does. It simply flags it as a failure if you can't reach that limit. Sorry about the format.

Hmm. I see what you're saying, Crowther, but (1) no other approach seems to work well at all, and (2) the combo min+max approach not only succeeds, but beats any outfit I've come up with manually.

So I guess I'm back to the original question: is there a better way to do this? Or, alternatively, is this combination of requirements just a thing that the maximizer won't do with 100% accuracy? I find that a little hard to believe, because "Only accept outfits with +234% item. Then within that subset, maximize myst." seems like a conceptually straightforward thing to ask. But I have no idea how the maximizer works, internally, so it's entirely possible that my thinking doesn't match the programmatic landscape.

Here are details for my raw stats and three maximizations:

raw (no equipment)
Mys: 250, Item: +84.91
Hat: (none)
Weapon: (none)
Off-hand: (none)
Shirt: (none)
Pants: (none)
Acc. 1: (none)
Acc. 2: (none)
Acc. 3: (none)
Pet: Jumpsuited Hound Dog (30 lbs)
Item: (none)

Maximize "item 334 max, myst"
Results: Mys: 988, Item: +181.80 (Fails to meet +item.)
Hat: Mayor Ghost's toupee
Weapon: oil pan
Off-hand: Hodgman's imaginary hamster
Shirt: sea salt scrubs
Pants: Mer-kin scholar tailpiece
Container: little deuce cape
Acc. 1: Brimstone Brooch
Acc. 2: World's Best Adventurer sash
Acc. 3: Wal-Mart nametag
Pet: Jumpsuited Hound Dog (35 lbs)
Item: blue suede shoes

Maximize "10 item 3340 max, myst"
Results: Mys: 255, Item: +341.87% (Overshoots +item but barely increases myst)
Hat: bounty-hunting helmet
Weapon: bounty-hunting rifle
Off-hand: (none)
Shirt: BGE 'cuddly critter' shirt
Pants: bounty-hunting pants
Container: Camp Scout backpack
Acc. 1: Mayor Ghost's sash
Acc. 2: Belt of Loathing
Acc. 3: astral mask
Pet: Jumpsuited Hound Dog (45 lbs)
Item: blue suede shoes

Maximize "item 334 max 334 min, myst"
Results: Mys: 718, Item: +237.37% (Meets +item and seems to maximize myst. I can't find anything better.)
Hat: Mayor Ghost's toupee
Weapon: oil pan
Off-hand: Hodgman's imaginary hamster
Shirt: sea salt scrubs
Pants: Mer-kin scholar tailpiece
Container: little deuce cape
Acc. 1: Hodgman's bow tie
Acc. 2: Belt of Loathing
Acc. 3: Hodgman's lucky sock
Pet: Jumpsuited Hound Dog (45 lbs)
Item: blue suede shoes

Maximizer works by picking the best things against a set of requirements, adding in those where outfits and synergies may improve them, and then brute forcing it.

To do an ideal maximization of item drop up to a certain point, then mys, it'd have to consider every item that had item drop and mys, as well as all those with most item drop, and all those with most mys, and all those outfits/synergies that can help either. It'd then brute force them.

You might get the ideal result this year.

Edit - I think when you are saying max, it is saying to mafia that you don't want to go over 334, but saying min is not wanting to go under 334.

max says "any score above this will be treated as this value", e.g. "maximize mysticality 100 max, item" will only count the first 100 mysticality for the purposes of your objective to maximize.

min says "fail if the best score doesn't meet this minimum requirement". Thus the pair of these together will ignore any +items beyond your goal, but it's not guaranteed to actually succeed when possible, perhaps unintuitively (example: "maximize cold resistance 20 min, mysticality" will likely fail, since gear can contribute much more toward mysticality than cold resistance). Ideally the maximizer would treat "min" as a constraint on the maximization, but that's not how this works.

It used to work the way you wanted. As part of one of the maximizer refactorings several years ago, making 'min' actually work reliably was removed. To get your true best 'min' requirement check, you need to maximize twice. First, maximize only for what you want to restrict on. Then maximize again with your current equipment as well as your 'min' section set and a higher-valuation of what else you want. Unfortunately the more recent refactoring of the maximizer that removed checking your current equipment initially also made it doubly difficult to hit your requirements.

So to try to set items to 334 optimally, you'd do this:
maximize items
maximize items, 334 min, 334 max, 100 myst, +current

It should put 100% effort into items first, going as far beyond 334 as it can. Then it should recalculate for myst, considering the current equipment as valid and not something to be broken.

Alternatively you could go even stronger with your maximize set. It may or may not work.
maximize 100 items, 33400 max, myst

Thanks for the notes, all.

I understood that the Maximizer takes some shortcuts to reduce processing time. I guess I didn't realize that this was one of those areas. The quicker result is obviously preferable in most cases, but if and when someone ever refactors the Maximizer again, I think it'd be nice to have a keyword to say "don't take shortcuts." For now, even if the Maximizer doesn't work exactly the way I want it to, at least I understand better how it does work!

Theraze, your two-step approach worked, if not ideally, then at least better than my previous best. (Admittedly, there's some change due to basestat gain since my last maximization, but I was already stat-eligible for all equipment, so that shouldn't be a huge contributing factor.)

Maximize items, then maximize items, 334 min, 334 max, 100 myst, +current
Mys: 1077, Item: +234.40% (meets +item and beats all previous approaches in myst)
Hat: Mayor Ghost's toupee
Weapon: Hodgman's whackin' stick
Off-hand: Hodgman's imaginary hamster
Shirt: sea salt scrubs
Pants: Hodgman's lobsterskin pants
Container: Camp Scout backpack
Acc. 1: Brimstone Brooch
Acc. 2: Wal-Mart nametag
Acc. 3: Hodgman's lucky sock
Pet: Jumpsuited Hound Dog (35 lbs)
Item: blue suede shoes

One day maximizer MAY be confronted with an expert in the travelling salesman problem and other mathematical cleverness, and be able to run an optimization much faster than brute force. Until that time I doubt a 'consider everything potentially useful' option will be added, as I don't think many people would want to wait several orders of magnitude longer !

I wonder if this maximizing problem is a good fit for simulated annealing ...