Tips and tricks for Mirage Master

[Otonashi]

After playing the game for awhile, and seeing a lot of people having trouble with this, I've decided I'd share some things I've figured out about Mirage Master; both about the game itself, and the environment it is played in.

Tips For The Game Itself: Luck vs. Skill
For Mirage Master, having skill reduces the amount of luck you need, but it won't completely eliminate it. There are certain patterns you can follow when playing the game to make sure you get the best result possible, but keep in mind just a little stroke of bad luck can ruin your chances.

First off, look at the turn limit you are given when playing a game of Mirage Master. If the turn limit is less than about 75% of the number of cards there are to match, then luck is going to play a greater factor in your success. A great example of this is Beginner's Jr. Pro; there are 12 cards to match, and 6 turns to do it in. This means that in order to win, you need to match cards every turn, and it's pure luck since you don't know where the matches are. (Hint: The odds of completeing Jr. Pro is little less than 1:10,000)

Second, find a rhythm or pattern to your progress through the game. This is an obvious point, but worth mentioning, but it's best to work in columns or rows instead of picking random cards. Try to think of a way to mentally group cards together so that they're easier to find once you turn up its match.

Third, there are ways to tell whether you're going well or bad by the pairs you get when you turn over random cards. The best possible result, of course, is turning over a card you've never seen before on the 1st flip, and then turning over that cards match on the 2nd flip. Tied for second (IMO) is turning over two cards you've never seen before, and turning over one you've seen before first so you can match it with your second flip. The worst result is turning over one you've never seen first, then turning one that you have seen second. The reason for this is, you've used half a turn to reveal something you already knew about, and have to spend another turn to match it. If this happens a lot, you're on a losing track. From personal experience, the 2nd and 3rd scenarios let you 'break even' (As in, you haven't wasted any turns), while the 1st one puts you ahead and the 4th one pulls you back. Assuming only the 2nd and 3rd scenarios occur, you'll always win every game of Advanced (regardless of difficulty), you'll win every game of Intermediate up to 4*, and every game of Beginner up to 3*. The problem is, only luck can decide what will be under that card before you flip it. (And of course, there is the horrible 5th scenario I call 'Silly mistakes'; having flipped over a card you've seen before but failing to match it on the second flip)

There is also a time limit to worry about, but personally I think it's kind of a moot point. If you're able to work at a good pace then the issue never comes up, and even if you are a little slow there's nothing much you can do to manipulate the clock.

How To Avoid Losing Before The Game Has Even Started
As mentioned before, it's important to take into account how much luck will play a role in a game. You know there's a high chance you won't win Jr. Pro, so to reuse the phrase I put in the title, you've lost before you've even started.

But there are other factors to consider too, specifically concerning the nature of the client used to play Mirage Master. There are sometimes problems with lag slowing you down and causing the time limit to count down on you. This is because the card image needs to load first, and although the loading time may only be a fraction of a second, if you add up all of the cards you need to flip to win then that small amount of time can get to be quite a burden, and sometimes make it impossible to finish even the easiest modes of Mirage Master. There are certain ways around this.

The card images should only need to load on the first time you flip them; after that, the card should appear instantly. Not only the card you just flipped, but it's match somewhere else on the board too, and every instance of that card in every game you play until you close the Alteil game window. This is because the image is stored in a temporary file on your computer, so it doesn't need to re-load every time. A simple solution is to start a game on Advanced 1*, and flip every card so all of the images load. Do this a few times to make sure you get most, if not all, of the cards Mirage Master can throw at you (But don't actually complete the game if you're playing for Gran! You gotta save that win for your high-money game.)

"This doesn't work though, my game still needs to load them every time I flip it!". This has happened to me recently, and I wondered what the cause was. It was stopping me from getting my daily gran and was getting frustrating, but I think I figured it out. The place these card images are temporarily saved is called the Cache, and this cache has a size limit; if you need to re-load the cards every flip, then for some reason the Cache doesn't retain them, and this is *most likely* because the size limit has been reached. It is simple to fix this; just clear the Cache. I use the Firefox internet browser, and doing this is simple. Go to Tools > Clear Private Data, make sure only the Cache box is checked, and click Clear Private Data Now. It is possible to do this with any web browser, but I'm unsure how because I don't use any others.

There is also one last trick to keep in mind; sometimes the card lag can work in your favor. Clear your cache, and then start a new game of Mirage Master. As you're flipping cards, cards that take time to load are ones that you haven't flipped over previously, while cards that don't need to load are ones you must have flipped over before. This can help stop you from making mistakes, but you need to decide whether this small edge is worth the extra time it takes dealing with loading cards during the game.

I hope this has helped at least one person get a little better at Mirage Master. Even though the game isn't worth much Gran, the rewards between levels can differ quite a bit. The difference between Intermediate 3* and 4* may only be 5 gran, but doing 4* instead is still a 50% increase. (That's one extra Lottery pull every other day; it adds up!) and all you need to do is be 5 seconds and 2 turns faster.

[Xuande]

I prefer to look at the ratio of time spent to gran earned.

Beginner **** gets me 10 gran in an average of 2-3 minutes. That's $2.40 an hour, slightly less when we consider discounts at purchasing Gran with USD.

I would average under $1/hour on pretty much any other difficulty except Beginner ***, which pays half as much but can be done within a minute most of the time.

[Zanador]

Nice post Otonashi, this should be useful.

Xuande: ok, but you arent playing MM for a living. : ) For most people i think +5 gran does worth the +5 minutes.

[Peralisc2]

I wonder if i should do the highest level of MM. After a time of hard practice i am sure it will be just as hard as inter pro is right now ...

[Soiyeruda5]

Nice guide with some helpful points. I'd say maybe add in another sentence or two about strategies for remembering the cards. Rows and columns (Or for me, two columns at a time) can help, but there are a few strategies you can couple with that to make memorization easier. A common one is to give the cards simple names that don't have many syllables, but make enough sense based off the picture.

I prefer to look at the ratio of time spent to gran earned.

Beginner **** gets me 10 gran in an average of 2-3 minutes. That's $2.40 an hour, slightly less when we consider discounts at purchasing Gran with USD.

I would average under $1/hour on pretty much any other difficulty except Beginner ***, which pays half as much but can be done within a minute most of the time.

I feel like this goes more with FM, just because you can only get Gran once a day, while FM is obtainable all the time as long as you already got your Gran.

Oh, just random fun fact related to MM and FM: Assuming you gain, on average, 10 FM per minute, it'll take you about 4 Hours and 10 Minutes to gain 2500 FM (Aka, Point Card). I found that Beginner *** is best for this situation. It's more skill than luck (Usually), and if you're quick enough and have a good enough memory to remember the location of up to 6 cards, each game should only take around 12 - 18 seconds each (With the extra time from the Alteil stories, clicking return, and then clicking the play again button, I'd say add roughly 2-5 seconds to that. >.>). For the most part, I'd say with the fluctuating sense of luck you may have (Sometimes, you could be getting 15-20 FM a min, sometimes, you'll lose a few games in a row), it'll still average around 4 Hours-ish. So, if you're desperate enough, you could bomb 8 Hours a day on MM just so you could earn a 5* each month.

[etphonehome3]

Just as an update I did some research and you can no longer get fm using mirage master. I didn't know this was every the case as ive only been a member for a limited time Check out the following link from alteil:
http://www.alteil.com/index.php/article ... -fm-ending

[Otonashi]

>.> Topic is almost two years old now lol. I forgot I even made this :O