Talk:Shelder Mouse

Bait Preference

Is there a bait preference for this? I saw someone with 6 Shelders and 8 Bottled Mice, but the overall numbers for Shelder are much much lower in comparison to Bottled (I have 9 Bottled and 0 Shelder). So was this one guy just insanely lucky, is there some special strategy to catching Shelders, or was the chance of catching a Shelder significantly higher when SSH2 was first released? I'm guessing the former, but if it is the middle option, I'd love to know the strategy. --Dreamwalker 15:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you ask the person directly? At the very least, a link to the hunter profile would be nice. -- B.Rossow ^talk_contr 16:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I had to do something in the real world and didn't think to bookmark the page or anything at the time. But I asked in the forums, and it appears it is just luck... not the stat, but the actual thing. =P Oh well. I could hope. --Dreamwalker 00:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Just checking for opinions on this, results to our survey have shown a higher population of Shelders with Gouda, we're at 97.68% confidence compared to Brie on this since we started the database in September, and 98.32% confidence if I include the results we received before that, do people think this is good enough for a bait preference to be added? -- Twentypence 12:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The developers did mention that there was a hidden use to Gouda. However it was mentioned as a mainland use, so it is a little hard to say either ways, but if you're confident of the data then why not. Do update the Gouda row in Cheese#Gouda if you do add it in as a preferred cheese for Shelder to keep things consistent. -- Grexx 17:34, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I've added it now to the Shelder, and the Mermaid (which has a much higher confidence), I've added a line in Cheese#Gouda, but please feel free to edit for grammatical consistency. -- Twentypence 08:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

See this link in the Forum Post 13 which suggests that SB+ works better than Gouda. -- Ralphminer 20:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Confidence way too low on that to say for certain, if there is now a preference for SB+ its very recent, overall results (which include tens of thousands of hunts rather than seven hundred odd used for SB+ in the post) still show Gouda is better. -- Twentypence 05:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

If this is the conclusion, I think there is no need for a lengthy explanation why Gouda is not preferred. Simply remove the preference indication and leave that discussion here on the Talk page for anyone who wants to investigate further. --Hyperchao 17:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

[followup] Ah. For some reason I assumed today's update was a direct result of this thread. I'll let those with catch rate numbers resolve this one. --Hyperchao 18:34, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

To have a base to start off with, it is clear that majority of players at SSH2 will be using Brie to hunt since that's what available to them. Gouda is not the expected bait of choice, since only returning hunters will have that option open to them, while SB+ is always the better option (in general) in any location that uses Brie. So the question now is, is SB+ better than Gouda in hunting the Shelder? I'm inclined to think so, but as mentioned earlier by Twentypence, the data shows otherwise.

So before anyone jumps in again and edits the preference, please substantiate with hard data showing the attraction rate for SB+ versus the Shelder. There's no need to validate for Brie or Gouda in this case. And if Gouda clearly attracts more Shelders than Brie, then it should remain as a bait preference since Brie is the benchmark for this location. Hopefully that will clarify things a little more. Of course the easiest solution is to ask Dave V. directly, but I'll leave it to the rest to resolve this :) -- Grexx 18:53, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

An updated version of the forum post mentioned above (which was mine):

Looking in the MH Analytics database, Shelder's attraction rate is 0.47% of successful attractions using SB (5 attractions out of 1071 hunts and 1056 successful attractions); 0.41% of successful attractions using Gouda (23 attractions out of 7324 hunts with 5632 successful attractions); 0.24% of successful attractions using Brie (8 attractions out of 4402 hunts and 3306 successful attractions); and 0.09% of successful attractions using Gnarled (1 attraction out of 1417 hunts and 1171 successful attractions). The number of SB hunts is relatively small, but I don't think it'll change a huge amount up or down with more hunts.

In terms of time and cheese cost (using a market price of 2400 pp for SB), on average it will take around 215 hunts and 516,000 gold with SB, 319 hunts and 191,400 gold with Gouda, 551 hunts and 110,200 gold with Brie, and 1417 hunts with Gnarled. Income/stales/pillaging will vary depending on trap setup. Note that SB is the best option, followed by Gouda, which has the same overall attraction rate as Brie (75%) but 70% more Shelders within successful attractions. Even so, the percentage of Shelders in all cases is VERY small.

So what cheese you should use depends on your priorities: you can trade money for time, so pick the cheese with the appropriate cost/time trade-off for you.

In short, Gouda is not the secret since SB works even better. Patience and long-suffering are required no matter what path you choose.

Here's my data with the raw numbers being pulled from the MH Analytics database as of last week:

Cheese	Cheese cost	Shelders	Hunts	Attractions	Overall attraction %	Shelder / attractions %	Shelder / hunt %	Hunts for 1 shelder	Cost
SB	2400	5	1071	1056	98.60	0.47	0.47	215	516000
Gouda	600	23	7324	5632	76.90	0.41	0.31	319	191400
Brie	200	8	4402	3306	75.10	0.24	0.18	551	110200
Gnarled	Depends	1	1417	1171	82.64	0.09	0.07	1417	Depends

The number of SB hunts is relatively small here. But the claim that Gouda is better at attracting Shelder than SB is at least uncertain, if not wrong, and the Wiki should not claim that it is better. Moreover, even if Gouda has a higher percentage of Shelders per successful attraction, SB could still have a shorter average time to catch because it has a higher overall attraction rate, which would make a stated "bait pref" misleading since many hunters (especially Gouda users who are coming back for Shelder) care more about time spent than cost incurred.

In short, I think we should at least delete the claimed bait pref. --Metal 15:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Can we add something like "Shelder Mice are found to be especially attracted to SUPER|brie+ and Gouda cheese." This is what we did with the Christmas Tree Mouse. I think it would be bad if we didn't point out that there are cheese that work significantly better than Brie. -- Ralphminer 22:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

From the figures, there is a preference by Shelder mice for both SB+ and Gouda as compared to Brie, the standard cheese used in this location. What the writeup needs is clarity, and not removal of the preferences. It was never claimed that Gouda is better than SB+, just that the data available then showed a clear preference for Gouda. We also cannot presume to know what all hunters want to do in a location, since everyone has different priorities. Thus the aim should be to present whatever facts we have available to users and let them decide how they wish to use the data.

I think Ralphminer's suggestion is good, as it avoids using hard figures, which have a tendency to move up and down over time. The writeup could use with a little more detail though, like how SB+ is somewhat better than Gouda, possibly with an explanation of how Brie is used as the benchmark here. -- Grexx 09:19, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I took another stab at it. Feel free to edit. --Metal 13:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Well things may have changed again since this discussion took place. The Horntracker numbers show that Brie and Gouda work about the same, so only SB+ gives an advantage. (and obviously Gnarled no longer works at all.) -- camomiletea 01:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)