# How the routes are made

> A simulator plays millions of complete 1-60 routes for every start and keeps the fastest; the guides are written from it.

Page: https://polestar.guide/docs/players/how-routes-are-made (Polestar docs > Players)

*(Diagram: How the routes are made, https://github.com/fitzforge/polestar/blob/next/docs/media/diagrams/players-how-routes-are-made.svg)*

1. **World model.** Every quest the faction can do, with its level,
   prerequisites, givers and enders, and the work its objectives take: kills
   at the mob's spawn clusters, item drops at their recorded rates, objects,
   escorts. Dungeon, raid, PvP and elite quests are filtered out, so a route
   is something one player can do alone.
2. **Search.** For each start (Orc, Tauren, Undead and Skyborne for the
   Horde; Human, Dwarf, Night Elf and Skyborne for the Alliance), randomised
   greedy construction, local search and simulated annealing evaluate
   millions of complete 1-60 routes, restarting until the best route stops
   improving or a cap on evaluated routes is reached.
3. **Route rules.** When routes are compared, grinding counts 2.5 times and
   every move into another zone counts 7.5 minutes, so a route takes a hub's
   quests, does them in one loop and moves on rather than chasing a few
   experience points across the map. Reported hours stay real.
4. **Consensus.** Each start keeps its own route to level 12 (the starting
   zone guides); from there one shared route per faction is searched, so the
   guides join into one chain.
5. **Guides.** The consensus route is exported as skeleton guides, one per
   zone visit, and the guides are written from them by hand. They drop side
   trips for one or two small quests behind a flight, boat, hearth or long
   ride; where that leaves the level short, a step names a camp to grind at
   (with an optional dungeon for the long ones). The finished guides are
   scored under the same model, next to the best route found.

## The numbers

Hours to 60, solo, under the model. The routes were searched four times,
independently: the first search is the one the guides were written from;
each later one used another random seed, more routes and newer data. Each
search is scored on its own world. The guides are scored on the world of the
data this release ships with (`5eef72140b61`), beside those of the first
release.

The guides are scored on what they require. Their optional extras (quests
started by rare drops such as the OOX beacons, the Green Hills of
Stranglethorn pages, profession and bag quests, rares) are left out, because
most players will not get them; the last column counts them as done, which is
how these hours were published before 0.2.4 (issue
[#30](https://github.com/fitzforge/polestar/issues/30)).

| Start | Search 1: best / consensus | Search 2 | Search 3 | Search 4 | Guides 0.2.4 (grinding) | Guides 0.1.0 (grinding) | Guides 0.2.4 with every optional extra |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| Orc | 119.4 / 120.5 | 120.7 / 117.8 | 117.7 / 116.8 | 119.6 / 117.3 | 131.1 (34.2) | 128.5 (29.7) | 122.8 |
| Tauren | 120.4 / 120.2 | 119.1 / 117.4 | 118.3 / 116.5 | 117.1 / 116.8 | 130.1 (34.2) | 127.8 (29.1) | 121.9 |
| Undead | 120.8 / 120.6 | 119.0 / 118.1 | 119.3 / 117.0 | 118.8 / 117.4 | 131.5 (33.8) | 128.9 (29.1) | 123.3 |
| Skyborne (Horde) | 120.2 / 120.1 | 117.3 / 117.3 | 116.3 / 116.3 | 116.8 / 116.8 | 130.1 (32.8) | 128.3 (28.2) | 122.3 |
| Human | 119.6 / 119.1 | 120.7 / 118.8 | 119.2 / 116.8 | 119.3 / 118.9 | 132.5 (37.0) | 132.1 (35.5) | 127.5 |
| Dwarf | 119.5 / 119.5 | 120.8 / 118.8 | 117.4 / 117.3 | 119.8 / 118.8 | 133.1 (36.9) | 132.6 (35.5) | 128.2 |
| Night Elf | 120.0 / 119.5 | 120.9 / 118.9 | 119.0 / 117.5 | 119.1 / 119.1 | 133.0 (37.1) | 132.6 (35.6) | 128.1 |
| Skyborne (Alliance) | 121.2 / 119.6 | 118.6 / 118.6 | 118.2 / 117.3 | 119.0 / 118.4 | 133.5 (36.2) | 132.5 (34.5) | 129.0 |

So a Horde character following the guides should expect about 130-132 h,
an Alliance one about 132-134 h; doing the optional extras as they come can
save up to about 8 h (Horde) and 5 h (Alliance). With every optional extra
counted, the guides of 0.2.4 and 0.1.0 are within 0.6 h (Horde) and the
Alliance guides of 0.2.4 are 0.8-1.6 h faster; counting only what each
requires, 0.1.0 comes out 1.8-2.6 h faster for the Horde because the later
guides marked more of their quests optional.

*(Image: Chart: hours to 60 and hours of grinding per start, for what the guides require. The guides of 0.2.4 reach 60 in about 130 to 132 hours for the Horde and 132 to 134 for the Alliance; those of 0.1.0 in about 128 to 129 and 132 to 133. The guides of 0.2.4 grind about 33 to 34 hours for the Horde and 36 to 37 for the Alliance.)*

*(Image: Chart: level against hours played for each faction, for what the guides require: the guides of 0.2.4 and those of 0.1.0 as curves, with a strip showing the hours the guides of 0.2.4 are ahead of (or behind) those of 0.1.0 at each level.)*

The charts show only the guides: the searches' best and consensus routes
were searched on earlier worlds, and a chart draws only numbers from one
world.

**How close to the best?** Nobody can prove a route is the best one
possible, so the claim is narrower and checked:

- **The searches land in the same place.** Four independent searches
  (3.5 to 30 million complete routes per start) find routes within
  116.3-121.2 h to 60, and their consensus routes within 116.3-120.6 h. The
  top of the search space is flat: many different routes finish within about
  2% of each other, and most searches were still finding small improvements
  when they reached their cap on routes, so later searches keep shaving
  minutes, not hours.
- **The winners hold up when the model is wrong.** Re-scored under 2000
  random draws of the model's parameters, the best route found stays within
  1% of each draw's best in 76-100% of draws (fourth search), and no route
  wins every draw: "best found" names one of several near-equal routes.
- **The guides trade hours for a smooth, safe run.** For what they require
  they take 13.3-14.1 h (Horde) and 13.6-15.1 h (Alliance) longer than the
  fourth search's consensus (scored on its own world). Almost all of that is
  grinding the guides choose: side trips for one or two small quests behind
  a flight, boat or hearth are left out, and quests that need a group, a
  rare drop or a level the route has not reached are optional or gone, so
  the guides grind about 33-34 h (Horde) and 36-37 h (Alliance) where the
  searched routes grind under 1 h and about 8 h. The Alliance mid-40s have
  few solo quests left once those trips are gone.
- **Dungeons do not beat questing solo** under the model: searched with
  dungeons allowed (Orc, Tauren, Undead), no dungeon route came out ahead.

> **Important:**
> The hours are **model estimates in /played hours**, not measurements. No
> recorded play exists yet, so time parameters such as kill time and travel
> detours keep their priors, and Forever's 30-60 content is not in the data.
> Comparisons between routes are what the numbers support; absolute hours
> are not. Recordings from the Recorder are what will calibrate kill time
> (`sim calibrate`); travel detours keep their priors even then.

The whole method, every parameter and its known limitations are in
[docs/SIMULATION.md](https://polestar.guide/docs/contributors/simulation).

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