Problem Statement
It is not 100% clear which MM6 progression order is ideal. You can use short excursions to test which locations are ripe for your party’s current strength. This trial and error exploration can be fun, but it is time consuming and eats up in-game time to travel around hunting for right next place. The in-game quest system is not super helpful either for understanding progression order since you can get quests that you are not ready to attempt.
Solution Purpose
The goal of this tool is not to define a 100% best progression order for everyone. The goal IS to provide a reasonable idea of a progression order using objective data points. Your own party makeup, your current spell book, and your current skill levels should also be considered.
How Does it Work?
In the game, any given location can be configured with 1, 2, or 3 foe groups. Each group has 1, 2 or 3 specific Foes. Take Misty Islands for example, Group 1 has Follower of Baa, Mystic of Baa, and Fanatic of Baa. Group 2 has Cutpurse, Bounty Hunter, Assassin. For Misty, there is no configured Group 3. Some locations have all 3 groups and some location also have a 4th group for unique foes.
In the spreadsheet, we have 2 sheets. The Foes sheet is simply a list of all the Foes with pertinent details included for each Foe. The Name serves as a Key value. The Map_Stats sheet allows for configuration of each location. In the Foe Groups configuration area (scroll to right) there are Drop Downs with a list of all the foes on the Foes sheet. [Note: The drop downs to not appear as drop downs in the Embed as it is ready only].
Sort on AVG Level
The averaging formula collects the Level for all Foes in all Foe Groups for a given Location and averages it, ignoring zeros. Zeros are ignored so as not to reduce the Location AVG when groups are purposefully not configured.
Sort on MAX Level
This alternate view is sorted by the single Foe with the Maximum Level per location. This method is less effected by the appearance of lower level foes at higher level locations. Afterall, a Dragon is not easier if it is accompanied by a few rats. This method creates a lot of ties in the sort but each player can break ties with subjective analysis. I have included Extra data points to help break ties, such as Conditions granted, Trap Level, and Resting encounter percentages. These other data points are not factored into the Sort.
Attribution
Thanks to Stormcat for the MM6 Viewer. Thanks to GreyFace for so many revelations about how the game works. These folks created tools allowing access to all the data points necessary to build this spreadsheet, MM6 Viewer can be found here.
Thank you to the Reddit community!
