I am brand new to this game having only been playing it about 2 weeks. I looked for a sub-forum suitable for newbie questions but could not find one so I am posting this here. My apology if this is not the correct place. I have a couple of questions which are very probably trivial for anyone skilled in this game.
There are various items needed to grant second chances at completing a task. Examples are "You need a hard-earned lesson to ensure a second chance." and "You need a Hastily Scrawled Warning Note to ensure a second chance." Are these items of any significant value for this purpose of granting second chances? It seems that if you fail a task, you can just repeat the task using another action and keep repeating it using actions until you succeed. Why go through the effort to get a second chance which might cost more actions than just trying the task again?
I have read the "Money" section of the beginner’s guide and the "Money Making" guide. The latter involves levels way higher than where I am at. The former and my own possessions lead to a few money related questions.
2a) Should you sell your low level stuff like Rostygold or save it to use in storylets?
2b) For things that can be used to make higher tier items, should you keep some of the lower ones and transmute the rest, transmute everything
as soon as you can, sell things, etc.?
2c) Are there categories of items that are not used to complete tasks/storylets? For example, the various diamonds in the "contraband"
category? If so, are these best used by just selling them?
Thanks for your patience with these newbie questions.
[quote=Vinish]I am brand new to this game having only been playing it about 2 weeks. I looked for a sub-forum suitable for newbie questions but could not find one so I am posting this here. My apology if this is not the correct place. I have a couple of questions which are very probably trivial for anyone skilled in this game.
There are various items needed to grant second chances at completing a task. Examples are "You need a hard-earned lesson to ensure a second chance." and "You need a Hastily Scrawled Warning Note to ensure a second chance." Are these items of any significant value for this purpose of granting second chances? It seems that if you fail a task, you can just repeat the task using another action and keep repeating it using actions until you succeed. Why go through the effort to get a second chance which might cost more actions than just trying the task again?
I have read the "Money" section of the beginner’s guide and the "Money Making" guide. The latter involves levels way higher than where I am at. The former and my own possessions lead to a few money related questions.
2a) Should you sell your low level stuff like Rostygold or save it to use in storylets?
2b) For things that can be used to make higher tier items, should you keep some of the lower ones and transmute the rest, transmute everything
as soon as you can, sell things, etc.?
2c) Are there categories of items that are not used to complete tasks/storylets? For example, the various diamonds in the "contraband"
category? If so, are these best used by just selling them?
Thanks for your patience with these newbie questions.[/quote]
Second chances are most useful when you know there’s a lot at stake, e.g. you’ll lose a lot of progress if you fail.
2a) Depends. If you have a lot of it and a solid source of them, you can sell some to buy gear from the bazaar.
b) It’s usually a good idea to keep a stack of the lower tier items (up to like 5k) so that you can upconvert when you need to. I like to have at least one of the upconverted items, to get a better idea of how to get new items. You can sell the surplus if necessary.
c) Mostly all items have some uses, but some items have much fewer uses than others. It’s very hard to measure this from someone else’s inventory, however.
Some general principles:
Items are almost always more useful than echoes. Sell items when you need to be able to afford better stuff.
You can get a long way with using only gear from access codes
There are quite a lot of sources of magnificent diamonds and flawed diamonds barely have any uses.
As a general rule I wouldn’t sell anything if I don’t need the money immediately, since I can always sell it later. But when you do need cash, don’t hesitate to sell anything if you know a way to get more.
There are almost no items that can’t be replaced after being sold. The content released within the last year has added new ways for late-game players to obtain many items that used to be very difficult to replace, so I believe that the developers are no longer in favor of “consumable” things being one-time-only.
Basically, at various times Failbetter will release links that you can click to receive in-game rewards, often in commemoration of some milestone like their 10-year anniversary or the release of a new game. Sometimes these links are time-limited, and sometimes they aren’t.
(My favorite example is https://advent.fallenlondon.com/ , where another element on the page becomes clickable on each of the first 25 days of December, and remains active for only a few days. But that’s not relevant to you now.)
You can find some very useful access codes on the FL Wiki. Some were released as part of the 10th anniversary of FL last year and apparently might still work. You can see them listed here: Fallen London 10th Anniversary - Fallen London Wiki
Some of them still should give you useful stuff, like Coffee.
As for the other questions, I’d say that the Second Chances can be more useful later in the game when more progress may hinge on passing a skill check, but early on, you probably don’t mind failing very much.
Just one word of warning: while most menace areas are pretty much harmless, you should take care not to get arrested repeatedly. Every time you are, your Criminal Record rises; this is very hard and expensive to decrease (even for advanced players) and if it rises too high, Absolution Solution stops working for you and the penalty for being arrested increases dramatically.
This is the only long-term consequence any of the Menaces have. Some people don’t like dying and going to the River for roleplaying reasons, but there is no mechanical cost associated with that.
Other than that, it’s perfectly cool to take your time, explore London as it comes to you and not care very much about stuff like costs or efficiency at this stage. All that you’ll need shall come to you naturally as you progress with the game :)
O hai! I was a newbie about 3 months ago. I had zero idea about the access codes until now so I am about to check them out.
My general principle was not to sell anything until I needed the echos, save a stock of 500 of the more currency like items (jade,glim,pearls,rostygold), and not to sell the last one of anything major (the 62.5 echo items). This proved useful to me when I had them on hand ready to go when I became a POSI and had a sudden lot of expenses.
[quote=Bluestocking]O hai! I was a newbie about 3 months ago. I had zero idea about the access codes until now so I am about to check them out.
My general principle was not to sell anything until I needed the echos, save a stock of 500 of the more currency like items (jade,glim,pearls,rostygold), and not to sell the last one of anything major (the 62.5 echo items). This proved useful to me when I had them on hand ready to go when I became a POSI and had a sudden lot of expenses.[/quote]
A good approach, which you can nicely scale up as you get deeper and deeper into the endgame. After many years of playing, you do basically the same with all the numbers increased by an order of magnitude :)
Only things which I recommend not selling are ones without any repeatable source, which usually only means unique story rewards and seasonal items. Those are only rarely sellable, especially the Fate-locked ones.
Hope the codes work out for you; some of the equipment is quite useful, as is Darkdrop Coffee. And as PJ mentioned, look out for the yearly Advent access codes during winter. These are well announced in the game itself every year, though.
quote=Sir Reginald Monteroy
Hope the codes work out for you; some of the equipment is quite useful, as is Darkdrop Coffee. And as PJ mentioned, look out for the yearly Advent access codes during winter. These are well announced in the game itself every year, though.[/quote]
I think all the coffee ones are expired/used up. Advent in winter? Oh ho ho, you funny northerners! I was briefly confused. But then it is London, and so Christmas doesn’t involve white wine in the sun or beach cricket or a glut of fresh cherries :)
I was able to get all the ones on the reddit list for both main and alt, and am now looking into what they do. A persuasive home comfort is useful as I had none. Main has probably surpassed all weapons and clothes, but I don’t play the alt so much (she is not an exceptional friend and I made her to be a support and spouse, but she’s definitely taking on a life of her own now) so she will probably benefit more.
Hey Vinish, add your profile link and I’ll send you a calling card. You’ll want a few friends to help with menaces. I can’t be a patron yet, but a few people here are nice about offering their help.
I do not know anything about social interactions yet and have been using potions to keep my menaces at 0-1. A few times, some random storylet completion also reduced these. edited by Vinish on 8/10/2021
I do not know anything about social interactions yet and have been using potions to keep my menaces at 0-1. A few times, some random storylet completion also reduced these.[/quote]
Oh, there’s quite a lot that friends can do for you. And you for them. Menace reduction, skill improvement, notability (later). A lot of people like to roleplay somewhat with these. (I do.) Time the healer is Wednesday for me, so I can’t invite you to tea just yet. I’m out of action points too, for now but l’ll play again several hours later today and send you some things.
An alt is just another character. I have two. My main is the one I started with, and a month or so later I decided to create another. You need an alternative email address, FL doesn’t allow two on one email but they seem fine with people running multiple characters. I run them on different browsers so I don’t need to log in and out all the time. edited by Bluestocking on 8/10/2021
[quote=Vinish]I do not know anything about social interactions yet and have been using potions to keep my menaces at 0-1. A few times, some random storylet completion also reduced these.
edited by Vinish on 8/10/2021[/quote]
No need to be quite that cautious and spend all the echoes to keep them that low. All the regular menaces are harmless up to 4. You only start getting pesky cards at 5, and 8 is the level to avoid. There’s a good place in Spite to reduce suspicion (as someone upthread mentioned, don’t go to jail too often). And there are two different places where you can end up with Nightmares. To go to the preferable one, always have a Memory of Light on hand.
People sometimes have alternative characters to play all the four Ambitions. FailBetter has no issue with that, as long as they’re not used to gain an unfair advantage for the main character. As Bluestocking mentioned, alts have a way of becoming properly rounded people in their own right.
Enjoy! And check in on the Weekly Fallen London Questions – it’s where a lot of information is passed hither and thither.
There are some actions that, if failed, will have costly consequences ranging from loss of expensive supplies to death. With a second chance in hand, one can avoid these unpleasantries.
I’ve found it useful to have a large stockpile of all items. Once you become a POSI, there are many things you’ll want to do that have high (and sometimes specific) expenses. That said, spending for items you really need or want isn’t problematic.
You actually can’t get menace reduction from friends (wounds, nightmares) until they get up to 3. Sometimes you even WANT high nightmares (it will be a while for you, but catching somnolent hyenas needs 5)
Hey, no need to be quite so apologetic. BTW I can’t reply to your message right now because I’m at Zee,
Anyway, go to your social engagements on the map near your house, and have a look through what you can do. You can request assistance with scandal and suspicion, and offer it with wounds and nightmares. I like to send out a couple of helps a day. There are options to betray, which I would not normally use, but sometimes the making waves is handy. My policy is that if you want to betray me, then add a note why, and we’re good. I may or may not accept. Betrayals without warning are unfriendly, and I don’t want that in my acquaintance.
You can also trade second chances for stat improvements, spend time in bed, go to church, all sorts of things. These don’t require friends.
You want to use up your free evenings, and taking tea at Beatrice’s is a good option. I save one free evening for my patron (Lady Caroline is most generous.) As a non-POSI you might accept invites to Dante’s, which will cure some menaces at the expense of making waves (which you don’t need much of yet).
Am I correct that if I click the weekly credit of 10 actions AND if I have more than 10 actions currently available, it only takes my total to 20? I think I made the mistake today of clicking this weekly 10 action credit when I had 17 actions and it only gained me 3 :(