Pavilion:Advanced Play

While Kemono Friends Pavilion is a very simple game, with the majority of gameplay simply consisting of opening the app and seeing what Friends have appeared, there are more complex rules that allow for players to quickly accomplish specific goals. Some of these rules are hidden in the game's code, while others are tricks to rig the game's elements of randomness in your favor. This page will document these strategies and tips.

It is highly recommended that before attempting any advanced play techniques that the player has at least two Areas (including the default Savanna), or even three, so that they will not be as limited in terms of options. It is also recommended that the player has acquired at least 50 total unique Playthings, though some strategies can be used as early as the first hour of the game, depending on the player's luck with the Sandstar Printer.

Increasing Appearance Rates
The majority of advanced strategy in Pavilion relies upon creating a Plaything setup that makes desired Friends more likely to appear. There are several terms that are used to refer to which Friends a Plaything is more likely to attract - "rate-up" and "liked/favorite toys/Playthings" being some of the most common - but the effect is the same in nearly all cases. Using nothing but a Friend's preferred Playthings, a player can rig the game to spawn said Friend more often than usual. This is used in many different aspects of advanced play, from grinding Materials to craft specific Playthings, to raising a Friend's Archive Level, to hunting KemoTalks, and more.

There are several important facts to keep in mind concerning rate-up:


 * Rate-up is most effective on a Plaything's effective Area.
 * Most Playthings have rate-up for three different Friends, though some have rate-up for four.
 * Rate-up is less effective if Playthings that do not have rate-up for the desired Friends are used.
 * The game itself does not inform players as to what Friends have rate-up on a specific Plaything, except for a brief period of roughly two weeks if the Plaything is mentioned in the game's news tab.
 * Playthings that have a Friend's Unique Behavior(s) always have rate-up on that specific Friend.

With this information, one can imagine that discovering a viable setup can be very hit-and-miss. However, once a working arrangement has been discovered, the player can use it to minmax their Pavilion to achieve the desired result. To begin creating a viable setup, there is a category one can reference which collects various subcategories, which themselves list Playthings that are confirmed or suspected to have rate-up for a specific Friend. The Plaything pages also contain information on effective Area, whether or not this Plaything can be crafted, and if that Plaything has the Unique Behavior for any Friends. This is an excellent starting point to building a viable setup.

Area Affinity
Area Affinity refers to the tendency of certain Friends to spawn more often when in certain Areas. Area Affinity is hard to nail down, as some Friends are simply rare overall, meaning that determining if the Area was a factor in spawn rate can be difficult. Not only that, but other factors like Playthings can make properly judging this attribute harder. Area Affinity is useful for manipulating rate-ups, but also for KemoTalk hunting. KemoTalks unrelated to the Friend Archive level can only be unlocked on the Area that the talk takes place in, and it may be hard to judge how difficult a certain talk can be to unlock if one is unaware of the affinity of a Friend is for a specific Area. While this may seem daunting, most KemoTalks appear to take Area affinity into account. An example is that while Friends like have many KemoTalks across all Areas, Friends like  mostly have KemoTalks that take place in the Mountain Area, where she is more likely to spawn. As such, KemoTalk hunting should proceed smoothly with the right setup.

A chart of our current understanding of Area Affinity is below. This chart is subject to change, due to the nature of the game itself along with the fact that research into the topic is still ongoing.

Quick Pikapika
WIP

Unlocking Specific KemoTalks
WIP

Leveling Friends
While there are many reasons to raise a Friend's Archive Level, the primary two reasons are PikaPika Crystrals and KemoTalks. All Friends give out 5 PikaPika Crystals upon level up, so quickly raising level is a good method to obtain fast PikaPika, especially for low-level Friends. Additionally, KemoTalks hand out 10 PikaPika Crystals upon unlock, and all Friends have Archive Talks which are unlocked by achieving a certain Archive Level. Whether the goal is to obtain PikaPika or to complete the KemoTalk library, increasing a Friend's level is beneficial to the player. Not only that, but all Friends have a "bragging rights reward" in the form of Bronze, Silver, and Gold Books which can be seen in the Friend Archive. These books are unlocked at levels 20, 50, and 99, respectively, and can serve as a show of devotion to the game, to your favorite Friend, or even be considered a completion goal. For some people, achieving as many Gold Books as possible may be the ultimate challenge in Kemono Friends Pavilion. The following techniques will allow players to quickly raise level, in pursuit of whatever goal they may have.

Duckboating
Duckboating is a form of advanced play that at first seems counter-intuitive, but in fact has achieved some of the most impressive results for raising a Friend's Archive Level yet. Duckboating is a technique in which a single instance of a specific Plaything is placed into its effective Area, without placing any additional Playthings whatsoever - including duplicates of the same Plaything. While only using one Plaything at once appears like foolishness, the technique works because of how the game handles spawn rates. When a Friend appears, it has a chance to replace an existing Friend that is already occupying a space, and will do this 100% of the time when all spaces are occupied. When doing this, it has the chance to replace the Friend already present on the space with the exact same Friend. By using Playthings with only one space with a high spawn rate for a specific Friend, the chances of the Friend replacing itself on every spawn is increased to its maximum potential. While the Plaything having one space is not necessarily a requirement, having even one more additional space greatly reduces the effectiveness of the setup, as the chances of the Friend you want being replaced are cut from 100% to 50%, or even 33%.

Some Playthings capable of Duckboating also have a second Friend that has a high spawn rate on the Plaything. While not to the level of the primary Friend, they can be grinded via Duckboating just the same.

Duckboating is named after the first observed instance of the technique, wherein it was discovered that had an absurdly high spawn rate on the Duck Boat, which was soon exploited. Using nothing but Duckboating, Gentoo Penguin achieved Archive Level 99 within the span of a single month. However, the biggest drawback to Duckboating is that it does not work on every Friend. While Duckboating can be used to level Friends at an absurdly high speed, so far, only a few Playthings have shown the capability to be exploited in such a manner. Another drawback is that the majority of Playthings capable of the technique can only be acquired from the Sandstar Printer, meaning players need to get lucky with gacha rolls before they can attempt it. Regardless, if the option is available, the technique has proven itself to be the absolute most effective method of raising a specific Friend's Archive Level.

For convenience, all known methods of Duckboating are listed here:

Maximizing Potential
Even without Duckboating, minmaxing a Friend is still fully possible. All Playthings with significant rate-ups can be used to manipulate the game. For the purpose of this explanation, we will be assuming that the Bookshelf Plaything is being used.

The Bookshelf is a Plaything known to attract and. It also has their Unique Behaviors, which means that they are more likely to spawn on this Plaything than any other, regardless of your setup. Using this Plaything is considered an effective method of obtaining both of these Friends and their Unique Behaviors. The two Friends are rare, but not so rare that they do not appear occasionally on other Playthings. If a player was to use the Bookshelf in the Savanna or the Waterfront, the likelihood of their appearance would be decent, enough to cause one of them to spawn at least once within a day or two. However, this is not using the Bookshelf to its maximum potential.

The rate-up capabilities of all Playthings will be increased when used in their effective Area. When the Bookshelf is used in its effective Area, the Mountain, the rate-up capabilities are greatly increased. This means that the appearance rate of both of the owls has increased even further, meaning that either appearance is likely to happen within the day, perhaps even multiple times. However, there is one last variable - of all of the Areas, the Mountain has the highest chance to spawn the owls. This means that every single possible variable - preferred Plaything, Unique Behavior, Area affinity, and effective Area - is perfectly aligned to cause the owls to spawn multiple times per day. Not only that, but by using similar strategies to Duckboating and leaving it as the only Plaything, the game is forced to draw from the Bookshelf's spawn rates, which heavily leans towards the owls. While Duckboating is much harder for the Bookshelf, as it has two spots for Friends and thus greatly reduces the effectiveness of the Friend replacement behavior, this is still a highly effective way to grind the two owls.

The same combinations exist for many other Friends. and the Game Machine on the Mountain, the Parasol with on the Savanna, the Log Bench with  on the Waterfront...many such combinations exist. And if you are willing to sacrifice the boost of the Friend's Area bonus, even more exist, such as the Mini Stage in the Waterfront, which attracts due to its other bonuses. The basic concept for all these things is the same: By stacking bonuses on top of each other, you can raise the Friend's spawn rate high enough to force them to appear much more often than usual. Experimenting with different setups may lead to new discoveries, so don't get too comfortable with just one method!

There is one last thing to keep in mind, however. For certain Playthings, such as the aforementioned Parasol, other desirable Friends - and unwanted Friends - can appear with equal frequency due to other outside factors, such as a Friend's base spawn rate being so low that even with all of its bonuses stacked, it fails to surpass the spawn rate for the most common friends, such as. Additionally, the Plaything may even have a rate-up for a common Friend that stacks several bonuses, just like the desired Friend. In this case, it may be wiser to put out multiple of the same Plaything because of the same logic that makes putting out just one Plaything effective in Duckboating: To rig the spawn pool. Because there cannot be two of the same Friend on-screen at once, keeping two or more of the same Plaything will cause the game to attempt to prioritize occupying the new space, meaning that your chances of getting a desired Friend are much higher, as the Friend with the higher spawn rate is more likely to already be on-screen.

Once your desired Friend has appeared, quickly remove the Plaything the desired Friend is using or replace the Plaything with a different one. Once this is done, put the original Plaything back in the same spot. Doing this removes the Friend from the Plaything and returns it to the spawn pool, allowing it to spawn twice in a row without having to wait for the Friend to leave naturally or be replaced. This method requires considerably more attention, but is an effective way to overcome the barrier of other Friends being more likely to spawn. This strategy does not work when only using one Plaything, and will not make strategies such as Duckboating or the aforementioned Bookshelf example more effective - it only works as a way to counteract unfavorable RNG circumstances.

Crafting
Crafting Playthings is an excellent way to spice up your Pavilion and attract more Friends, and not only that, but it can help open up more options for advanced play, since some extremely useful Playthings, even Playthings usable in Duckboating, can be crafted using Materials. However, crafting Playthings is a long and arduous process due to the slow grind involved in obtaining Materials, especially Materials such as Rough Steel. However, there are ways to ease this by manipulating rate-ups to increase your chances of seeing Friends that give you a specific Material.

Material Grinding
Material Grinding is a much simpler technique than one may think. All it truly requires is a setup that manipulate Friend appearance rates to favor those which drop specific Materials more often. While all Friends can drop all Materials, several Friends have a hidden value - the "take_no" value - which determines the likeliest drop for a Friend. While the ability to directly view the take_no value while datamining was removed, data shows that the value did indeed match up with the expected Material. In addition, some Friends also have a value which gives them an approximately equal chance of dropping all four Materials - these Friends should not be used for Material grinding. They are listed below:

A list of Friends and their most common Material drop is below:

Rough Steel
Rough Steel can currently only be obtained by obtaining duplicate Playthings and breaking them down into this elusive Material. The first thing to keep in mind with Rough Steel is that you are unable to break down Playthings you only have one instance of - the game does not allow you to completely remove a Plaything from your inventory forever. However, if you plan to follow other strategies on this page, you may be hesitant to break down Playthings in the first place. The best way to determine if it's safe to scrap is by going off of the Plaything's effective Area.


 * For Playthings that have Waterfront as their Effective Area, you can guess based on Plaything type. For Playthings usable on the land, the Waterfront only has three Plaything spots for land Playthings. Therefore, if you have four of a Waterfront Plaything that doesn't go in the water, you can scrap as many as needed until you only have three.
 * The same thing applies to Playthings in the Savanna that go in the water. There's only one spot for Water Playthings in the Savanna, so for those Playthings, you can scrap all duplicates.

Furthermore, depending on your strategy, you may not want to have too many of one plaything in general:


 * For Playthings you want to keep around for Duckboating, you only need one to successfully Duckboat. For those Playthings, you can scrap all duplicates.
 * Certain strategies on this page are more effective the less of a specific Plaything you have put out in general. If that's the case, you can scrap as many as you'd like, at your own discretion.

Lastly, you can use Materials you've collected to grind for Rough Steel.


 * Crafting the Wooden Chair for 70 Sturdy Wood yields 1 Rough Steel  per duplicate. This is currently the easiest item to craft in the game, with the lowest cost, using the most abundant Material.
 * You may be tempted to instead craft the Wooden Table for 910 Sturdy Wood, because the yield is 10 Rough Steel per duplicate. Do not do this. While it may seem like it's easier, this is actually a loss of 3 Rough Steel, as 10 Wooden Chairs cost 700 Sturdy Wood - significantly less than 910 Sturdy Wood. It's faster, quicker, and leaves more leeway in case an update brings a new craftable item that requires Sturdy Wood, as you're spending less per duplicate and can afford to keep a stock of around 200 Sturdy Wood, unlike the Wooden Table.