Marcurious
Posts: 11
6/30/2015
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So, I've done much of what is possible in the game on my main character that I can see, so I have now knuckled down to saving up for a mug of that famous old spiced. After crunching the numbers, playing reasonably efficiently it will take me about three years  However I'm resigned to that but as a player with only somewhat extensive knowledge of the game I have a few questions for you delicious people.
1. I've heard that the affair of the box is one of the best grinds, but that spirifige might be better, is it worth considering?
2. I don't have that much knowledge of social actions, are any going to help me particularly?
3. Are there any fate-locked stories that are worth doing for their rewards?
4. Why has Failbetter done this to me? (Its totally their fault)
In essence, how do I make the grind quicker/more bearable.
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~777777.7% towards Ambition:Hesperidean Cider
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Nigel Overstreet
Posts: 1220
6/30/2015
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Marcurious wrote:
So, I've done much of what is possible in the game on my main character that I can see...In essence, how do I make the grind quicker/more bearable.
Don't do it. It's a years long grind. Don't do it. You will become bored of the game and quit.
It's a really fun game and there are lots of milestones to reach.
There a lots and lots of other things you still have yet to do, if indeed this is your mantelpiece.
Firstly: Overgoat! Get one. Then get two and turn it into an Übergoat.
Secondly: A Scholar of the Correspondence 10? Let's kick that sucker up to 21! You've got a Watchful Destiny, so all you need is a Übergoat.
Thirdly: Five card Lodgings. They're awesome and you deserve them.
There are tons and tons of little milestones you should try to get before even attempting Cider. See how far you can fare with those before you embark on a grind achieved by about 4 people.
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The Romantic Egotist: Most Hedonistic Man in All of Fallen London
Are you or someone you know Overgoated? Please, let me know!
Cider Club
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
6/30/2015
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1. I'm still running the numbers on Unfinished Business' soul option, so I don't know for sure if spirifage is a better grind than the Affair of the Box. It's looking promising, however - 392 actions in with an average of 61.48 souls per action.
2. Draw cards in your Lodgings to get the Neath's Mysteries. Play a strange sort of prank and both you and the player who accepts will obtain 200 Cryptic Clues.
3. Expeditions are apparently profitable, though I don't know how much. If you pick a certain ending in the Fate-locked Velocipede Squad story you'll get a card that provides 2.50 echoes of Jade for a single action, and the Nightmares/Suspicion you get is pretty minor.
4. Well, it does give you something to do between content updates.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Sara%20Hysaro
Please do not send SMEN, cat boxes, or Affluent Reporter requests. All other social actions are welcome.
Are you a Scarlet Saint? Send a message my way to be added to the list.
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Jeremy Avalon
Posts: 345
6/30/2015
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Opportunity cards are always the best source of cash, so I would say just buy Exceptional Friendship (for the extra 4 cards/day), obsessively optimize your deck for profitable cards (you want to draw Bandages and Dust: The Tomb-Colonies and the Potential of Premises at the Bazaar as often as possible), and start running the War of Assassins. Trading Collections of Curiosities on the Tomb-Colonies card is worth 1.785 EPA, and the Premises card pays out a solid 3.95 EPA if you have the 250 Persuasive to guarantee success, and only spend Scrap on tier-8 items. If you use those and spirifage, it will take you about two years of *nothing but grinding, every day, with Exceptional Friendship for the extra 20 actions/day*.
Supposedly, repeatedly shelling out to do the Gallery of Serpents expedition can be anywhere from 4 to 6 EPA if you buy supplies with Docks connections (and that connection with Glim and a Tankard), but I haven't checked that yet; and in the worst case, you're still looking at about $550 worth of Fate if you use that option exclusively, plus about nine months of solid grind.
EDIT: It's also possible to use alts to grind First City Coins to help, as gifting those is 7.5 EPA for the receiver, but we're kind of unclear on whether that's classed as exploitative behavior.
edited by Jeremy Avalon on 6/30/2015
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How we must glow; yes, I bet we look like snow.
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Estelle Knoht
Posts: 1751
7/1/2015
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Jeremy Avalon wrote:
EDIT: It's also possible to use alts to grind First City Coins to help, as gifting those is 7.5 EPA for the receiver, but we're kind of unclear on whether that's classed as exploitative behavior.
I can see FBG giving new players leeway for grinding a little coins for the Ambition, but "grinding coins on alt as your main source of income" is definitely not in good faith at all nor tolerable to other players.
Gallery of Serpent can be gratifying when you keep getting Elemental Secrets.... less so when you keep getting Eyeless Skulls consecutively (like me).
edited by Estelle Knoht on 7/1/2015
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Estelle Knoht, a juvenile, unreliable and respectable lady.
I currently do not accept any catbox, cider, suppers, calling cards or proteges.
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Blaine Davidson
Posts: 388
7/1/2015
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I know a lot of people aren't fond of it but I'm very partial to trying my luck with the Fidgting Writer. I'm not so much concerned with the most "efficient" method but rather the "fastest" method. I have more than enough resources to constantly spend so I don't mind taking the losses that come with this path.
I could be biased with how "fast" I perceive the number of Echoes I'm making, but I was Übergoated in April. By the end of May I have more than enough Echoes to purchase another Overgoat.
Note that I became an Exceptional Friend in May so the extra actions likely contributed quite a bit to my grinding.
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Blaine Davidson, a reserved and sensible woman with a fondness of collecting rarities.
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Andrew Astherson
Posts: 118
7/1/2015
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"Nothing, Lucius, is ours, except time" ~ Seneca / Ad Lucilium epistulae morales.
Are you sure that you invest your time wisely ? Do you realy need that tiny piece of content badly enough to turn the blind eye on the rest of the possible options ? And are you sure that achieving it will bring you any joy ?
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> Currently open for RP:
Andrew Astherson - heavy-tempered, rapacious but reliable menace of slavonic-tatar origin.
Clement "don't you call me Clem!" Mustela - merry and licentious to a stupid degree Irishman-detective
> My lads appearances ; Astherson's short backstory
> Seeking for RP partner(s), are you ? This thread might be the right place.
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agewisdom
Posts: 15
7/1/2015
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What does the Cider do anyways? I mean apart from the Vanity effect?
Noob here... 
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
7/1/2015
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It can give you a quality that unlocks a number of cards when you drink it, you can share sips with other people, and I think it unlocks an option that allows you to come back from death in a single action.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Sara%20Hysaro
Please do not send SMEN, cat boxes, or Affluent Reporter requests. All other social actions are welcome.
Are you a Scarlet Saint? Send a message my way to be added to the list.
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agewisdom
Posts: 15
7/1/2015
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Sara Hysaro wrote:
It can give you a quality that unlocks a number of cards when you drink it, you can share sips with other people, and I think it unlocks an option that allows you to come back from death in a single action.
Ah... I see... So that's what my Patron was talking about... 
Thanks!
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deadcrystal
Posts: 125
7/1/2015
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Congrats to you on joining me on the H E L L G R I N D.
There is no hope for respite or ease, but that's not why we do this! There is no reason. There is only unrelenting suffering.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Alice~Darkmoor
A determined Dolphin - Alexis
Great Grind Empress, and Knife and Candle Queen
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Marcurious
Posts: 11
7/1/2015
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Thanks everyone for the input. Your help should definitely speed up the work, and is very much appreciated. Any further ideas would also be nice, if only for the sake of variety in the grind.
Also to Address this issue:
Nigel Overstreet wrote:
Don't do it. It's a years long grind. Don't do it. You will become bored of the game and quit.
It's a really fun game and there are lots of milestones to reach.
There a lots and lots of other things you still have yet to do, if indeed this is your mantelpiece..
I'll agree, theres a lot of things that I could do, I'm still waiting on stormy-eyed (grumbleRNGgrumble), but I'm pretty sure I've got all the story there is in the game at this point and while the other little(r) milestones like huge Scholar of the Correspondence are cool, to me the Cider just has that kind of allure that's above and beyond those other things. In my head it would be that all the time I've spent grinding other stuff could have gone into the Cider. I can get my five card lodgings at Christmas pretty easily I think, and goating just seems to pale in comparison to the Cider to me at least. Why grind a little(?) when you can grind a lot and get something more prestigious at the end? I guess its my own brand of seeking madness.
I'm not trying to put you down, just explaining my motivation, to myself if no-one else, though I appreciate the sentiment.
Sara Hysaro wrote:
1. I'm still running the numbers on Unfinished Business' soul option, so I don't know for sure if spirifage is a better grind than the Affair of the Box. It's looking promising, however - 392 actions in with an average of 61.48 souls per action.
Is there a better place for off loading the souls than the bazzar then? I don't have the soul trade so if theres a better option that does look pretty good.
Jeremy Avalon wrote:
the Premises card pays out a solid 3.95 EPA if you have the 250 Persuasive to guarantee success
Will this still work if I upgrade the premises come Christmas?
Also, does all this quoting work the way I think it does?
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~777777.7% towards Ambition:Hesperidean Cider
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Marcurious
Posts: 11
7/1/2015
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deadcrystal wrote:
Congrats to you on joining me on the H E L L G R I N D.
There is no hope for respite or ease, but that's not why we do this! There is no reason. There is only unrelenting suffering.
A toasting shall not be postponed indefinitely!
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~777777.7% towards Ambition:Hesperidean Cider
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genesis
Posts: 924
7/1/2015
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Marcurious wrote:
Why grind a little(?) when you can grind a lot and get something more prestigious at the end?
It bears mentioning that the Heptagoat is comparable in terms of required resources to the Cider and has the advantage of having intermediate milestones. Also, while 4-5 people have the Cider, only one person so far has the Heptagoat.
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http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/mikey_thinkin
Keeping track of incomplete content and loose ends in Fallen London
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Marcurious
Posts: 11
7/1/2015
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genesis wrote:
It bears mentioning that the Heptagoat is comparable in terms of required resources to the Cider and has the advantage of having intermediate milestones. Also, while 4-5 people have the Cider, only one person so far has the Heptagoat.
Gah! My own logic used against me! This is an excellent point, that I can only say that I guess its a matter of my own personal taste. The cider is just more appealing to me.
Plus, I can share cider, and no one knows what the Heptagoat does really yet do they?
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~777777.7% towards Ambition:Hesperidean Cider
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Nigel Overstreet
Posts: 1220
7/1/2015
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Marcurious wrote:
Why grind a little(?) when you can grind a lot and get something more prestigious at the end?
Because these forums are littered with the abandoned accounts of those before you who have tried just that. There are dozens of threads from people who claimed they would embark on a Cider grind. None of them still play. Most gave up after less than a year.
It's a grind that will take longer than you've put into the game thus far; indeed, longer than most people have put into any game, much less a browser game.
It gets repetitive, you get bored and then you quit.
It's only really possible(without automation) if you've become so addicted to the game that it's part of your daily routine. I've been playing for 4 and a half years and I'm not slated to get Cider until December.
Littler grinds keep you engaged in your character and the story and give you a sense of satisfaction which comes from accomplishing a goal.
It's your call, but I feel you deserved fair warning.
Good luck.
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The Romantic Egotist: Most Hedonistic Man in All of Fallen London
Are you or someone you know Overgoated? Please, let me know!
Cider Club
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lady ciel
Posts: 2548
7/1/2015
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Money comes as you play the game. Yes there are things that are more profitable to do but I don't like feeling that I am grinding. So I just do what I want to do, it's how I got my Ubergoat, so know that some day (year) I will have the Cider.
edited by reveurciel on 7/1/2015
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ciel
Sorry RL means I am not a very active player at the moment. No social actions unless you are prepared to wait and definitely no sparring or other mult-action things.
No Calling Cards or boxed cats please. Will take dupes on the affluent photographers. Other social invitations welcome. Parabolan Kittens usually available, send me an in-game social action saying you want one and I will get one to you as soon as possible.
storynexus name - reveurciel
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metasynthie
Posts: 645
7/1/2015
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As with super-long-distance running, planning an efficient route for a very long grind is only part of the qualities you need to succeed. The hardest part is managing your own endurance: how do you set a reasonable pace where you won't burn out, how do you keep it interesting for yourself, etc. I'd bet on "slow and steady wins the race" (eventually) over "I'm GOING FOR IT NOW" anyday in a long challenge like this.
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Positively antique
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/metasynthie
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Catherine Raymond
Posts: 2518
7/1/2015
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Long ago, I bought an Overgoat. Recently, obtained an Ubergoat. Now I'm working on obtaining another Overgoat, so I'll have an Overgoat and an Ubergoat.
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Cathy Raymond
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/cathyr19355
Catherine Raymond aka Mrs. Rykar Malkus http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/Catherine%20Raymond (Gone NORTH)
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Marcurious
Posts: 11
7/1/2015
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I suppose I should clarify that I'm not just grinding for the Cider, mostly just doing it in between content updates, (the current exceptional story is fantastic btw) but I suppose we'll see how my endurance holds out in the end. I do appreciate the sentiments though, this is certainly not something I would consider for almost any other game, but this one I am very sure about my resolve for, for now at least.
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~777777.7% towards Ambition:Hesperidean Cider
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