Subjunctive KoL: ArenaMechanics

Here's what I've discovered about arena mechanics so far:

In the Scavenger Hunt, Obstacle Course, and Hide and Seek, your familiar's performance seems to be independent of your opponent's. (That is, your familiar doesn't get better or worse depending on the competition.) This may be the case in the Ultimate Cage Match too, and then the displayed result is just related to the difference of the independently-generated results, but I have no way to tell that. Note that ties go to you; the "20-round" cage match is probably also a tie, since it does not seem possible to lose a 20-round cage match.

Most familiars have one event in which they are absolutely terrible (the results text will mention something); generally, they will always lose to an opponent which is not terrible in that event regardless of level, and a match against another familiar terrible in that event is pretty much a tossup regardless of level. However, familiars also have strengths and weaknesses in the other three events, too, and taking advantage of these is important to winning. It appears that each familiar level is worth about 1 point in the competition (see table at bottom for full data).

The following indicates results for my testing. All testing is with 25-pound familiars (using either empathy or the 5-lb. equipment), and all cage matches are against a 25 lb. star starfish. In the cage match, "16L" indicates a loss in 16 rounds, and so forth. Results are based on 5 data points.

Experience: If you win by 5 or fewer seconds or items, you gain 5 experience, winning by 6 yields 4 experience, winning by 7 yields 3 experience, and winning by 8 or more yields 2 experience. Cage matches work the same way except they're measured as distance from 20 rounds (i.e. winning in 15 or more rounds gives 5 experience, 14 rounds is 4 experience, and so forth). If you're trying to maximize your experience, therefore, you should try to compete with a house familiar of similar or slightly higher level in a competition where they're weak and your familiar is strong; or, you can compete with a house familiar of lower level in a competition where they're strong and your familiar is weak. The best strategy will probably be determined by whatever house familiars are present on a given day.

Here are two tables with all of the familiar information that I have. The first table just gives a general qualitative description of the familiar's performance. The second has the total data. Note that being "terrible" is much, much worse than any familiar which isn't terrible; brackets in the second table indicate an event in which the familiar is terrible.

The Rye also has a nice chart of familiar arena performance here. And if you want something even more convenient, Xylpher has created a very useful page which will give you advice on how best to level up your familiar here.

familiar	cage	scavenger	obstacle	hide
mosquito	poor	poor	very good	terrible
leprechaun	very poor	very good	terrible	average
potato	terrible	poor	average	good
goat	very good	terrible	good	poor
lime	very good	terrible	average	poor
dice	good	good	average	average
skeleton	average	very good	very poor	terrible
barrrnacle	terrible	average	poor	very good
monkey	very poor	very good	average	terrible
stab bat	very good	average	very poor	terrible
grue	average	terrible	poor	very good
volleyball	terrible	poor	very good	good
ghuol	poor	average	terrible	very good
gravy fairy	terrible	very good	very poor	average
cocoabo	poor	very good	terrible	very poor
starfish	average	poor	good	terrible
sombrero	terrible	very good	average	very poor
pickle	very good	average	terrible	good
killer bee	good	poor	good	terrible
Jill-O-Lantern	very good	poor	average	very poor
hand turkey	very good	good	poor	poor
Crimbo elf	very poor	good	poor	very good
dreidl	good	poor	very good	very poor
baby yeti	very good	poor	poor	average
feather boa	poor	very good	very poor	poor
raincloud	average	poor	good	very poor
doppelshifter	very good	very good	very good	good

Here's the raw numbers:

familiar	cage	scavenger	obstacle	hide
mosquito	16L-18W	32-35	21-23	[29-31]
leprechaun	16L-20W	38-40	[49-51]	54-56
potato	[2L]	31-35	24-26	57-59
goat	15W-19W	[9-11]	23-26	52-54
lime	15W-19W	[11-13]	24-26	51-54
dice	19W-20W	35-38	25-27	53-56
skeleton	18L-19W	38-41	28-30	[30-31]
barrrnacle	[2L]	35-36	26-29	58-59
monkey	15L-18L	37-41	24-25	[30-32]
stab bat	16W-18W	34-36	26-30	[29-31]
grue	18L-18W	[9-12]	26-29	58-60
volleyball	[2L]	33-34	21-23	54-57
ghuol	16L-20W	34-38	[49-50]	58-60
gravy fairy	[2L]	37-40	26-30	54-56
cocoabo	18L-20W	38-40	[48-51]	50-52
starfish	19L-19W	31-35	22-23	[29-31]
sombrero	[2L]	38-40	24-26	50-54
pickle	14W-18W	34-35	[49-52]	54-57
killer bee	19L-17W	32-35	24-25	[29-31]
Jill-O-Lantern	15W-18W	32-34	24-27	50-53
hand turkey	14W-20W	36-37	27-28	51-54
Crimbo elf	15L-20W	35-38	27-29	57-60
dreidl	19L-17W	32-34	20-22	50-54
baby yeti	16W-17W	32-35	27-29	53-57
feather boa	16L-19W	38-41	27-30	51-54
raincloud	19L-18W	32-34	21-24	50-53
doppelshifter	(17W-19W)	38-41	20-24	56-59

Information on the coffee pixie, cheshire bat, and inflatable dodecapede will be coming shortly. Thanks to Derilkio for contributing the Doppelshifter data.

Note: The grue's performance seems to be pretty independent of the moon phase.

Here's some results of my testing of the effects of familiar levels, which seems to indicate that in general, a gain in level is worth about 1 point. All testing is done with a star starfish in the Scavenger Hunt event (with empathy in all cases except the first five).

level	items found
1	9.6
2	9.0
3	9.4
4	12.0
5	13.0
6	13.6
7	14.2
8	15.2
9	16.6
10	17.2
11	19.6
12	20.6
13	20.0
14	22.0
15	23.3
16	25.0
17	24.7
18	26.8
19	27.0
20	27.7
21	28.6
22	29.5
23	30.4
24	32.2
25	32.2
26	33.5
27	35.0
28	36.3
29	37.4
30	37.8

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