So again, this is probably a very obvious question with a very clear answer…
So far almost all of London’s Connected qualities have been converted to Renown. From Bohemians to Zailors. (…or technically Urchins, but never mind.) Checking out the Connections quality category, it doesn’t seem like there’s much left. There’s the Widow, Duchess, Universities, Masters, and the Glass and Shroud. Obviously the Glass and Shroud are only there because of the Bats and Cats storyline, and the Masters are very tough to curry favor with, so I can’t imagine they’re getting converted, so what about the Widow, Duchess, and Universities? After all, there already exists the Practical Primer and the Endowment of a Scholarship, although there’s no Silken Packet of Catnip or anything. Thoughts?
Postscript: I’m not really familiar with FBG’s announcements regarding the Renown conversions. Hence why this question’s probably obvious. edited by ReusedNPC on 8/15/2017
Official word on the matter from a while ago is that the nonstandard factions may or not be converted over and FBG will take a look at them once the other conversions are finished, aka now. Glass and Shroud will probably just have their names switched to Renown instead of Connected. Who knows about the others though; none of them have faction cards, but then again neither did the Rubbery Men until after their conversion.
[quote=Lucas Chandler]So again, this is probably a very obvious question with a very clear answer…
So far almost all of London’s Connected qualities have been converted to Renown. From Bohemians to Zailors. (…or technically Urchins, but never mind.) Checking out the Connections quality category, it doesn’t seem like there’s much left. There’s the Widow, Duchess, Universities, Masters, and the Glass and Shroud. Obviously the Glass and Shroud are only there because of the Bats and Cats storyline, and the Masters are very tough to curry favor with, so I can’t imagine they’re getting converted, so what about the Widow, Duchess, and Universities? After all, there already exists the Practical Primer and the Endowment of a Scholarship, although there’s no Silken Packet of Catnip or anything. Thoughts?
Postscript: I’m not really familiar with FBG’s announcements regarding the Renown conversions. Hence why this question’s probably obvious. edited by ReusedNPC on 8/15/2017[/quote]
They have said they are not doing any further conversions this year. This implies, however, that they will eventually convert the others, most probably next year some time.
The remaining factions are minor and relatively problematic to convert, which is no doubt why they waited until they got the others done and the kinks worked out before trying them. The Widow, the Duchess, Benthic, Summerset, and eventually the Masters will all probably be similar to what we already see, though in some (maybe all) cases more difficult to improve. I don’t think Failbetter wants to destroy the difficulty and exclusiveness of Connected: Masters, for example. Glass and Shroud are different, and I believe an official communication somewhere stated that they weren’t really considered Connected qualities the way the others are. So, it’s borderline possible there might one day be Favours: Glass and Renown: Shroud, but it’s more likely the current qualities will simply be rebranded. A third and different solution might arise. Only time and Failbetter will tell.
The Widow at least strikes me as very similar to the already converted factions. The only difference is that it ostensibly concerns a single person, but remember that’s only really because it needed a change of name some years ago. Were it still called the Orient it probably would have been converted to favours/renown.
I would like it if Masters had Renown, but it only went up to like 5 instead of 50. That would mirror the current mechanics, and also reflect the idea that while you can become known to them, they simply don’t care about us mere humans all that much.
Renown is never supposed to go down, so Glass and Shroud are unlikely to be converted directly to it. Same for the Masters, which could easily stay as Connected. Not everything aligns with the Favours/Renown setup, after all.[li]
I do expect Widow, Duchess, Summerset, and Benthic to get converted next year, though. They may not come up that often, but they’re still relatively normal in terms of mechanics when compared to the other holdouts. Sure, they don’t have faction cards, but neither did the pre-conversion Rubbery Men (which admittedly could use some more options for Cases and such).
Updated thoughts:
-The thing about Glass and Shroud is that they’re not really proper Connections; they’re solely for the purpose of the Bats and Cats storyline. They’re not even modifiable outside of that one story, and of course don’t have their own cards. Honestly the most likely change here is I think that they’re renamed and put in Story instead of Connections.
-I could imagine Masters being converted. But perhaps converting to Renown gives, say… one to three change points total instead of the 1, 2, or 4 per favor norm.
-The Widow doesn’t permeate London quite as well as even the Duchess, so it might be better for it to stay as Connected. There’s not even that many useful ways to spend her Connections. (The old Orient card seems to be useful for just Jack and stat-increasing, not even any methods of raising it. I could imagine it being revamped if the Widow was made to leave a bigger footprint in London.)
-The Duchess actually seems like quite a significant figure in London despite how… useless her actual stat is for spending. At this rate it seems like her connections might be better linked to some subquality of Society, or something. …I dunno, cut me some slack.
-The Universities are in a similar position to the Widow: Dubious quality in terms of use, easy to grind in one or two places, and closely limited to one area (the University, of course). I’m not certain it would be as easy to convert though, especially given the division between Benthic and Summerset.
Maybe they could be converted to Favours: Benthic and Favours: Summerset, but just Renown: The University? You can help one side or the other, but given how close the two groups are, being well-known to one would make you well-known to the other. The Renown-boosting options on the Endowment could even be written so that you’re assisting both sides, storywise.
I like the idea of merging the schools into just one renown, but I really like your idea of having favours separately from each other, as long as some things gave both.
Widow:
I’d love to see it changed back to “orient” with a little more material pulled out from sunless sea and moved forward into sunless sky. It would take more content to make it really work, thus it really needing more time. I’d actually be okay with letting it take all the time it needs.
Theater:
Glass, shroud, what if we gave them the same treatment I just proposed with university? Renown theater would count through the progress through the plot, the short steps that go forward and backward would be favours. When you turn in a set of 7, it progresses the story.
The Masters:
I’d love to see this cap much lower, 5 vs 50 sounds right. I’ve always said that even a single masters favour should require that you turn in at least 5 favours of every other single faction all at once. Even then it might just be a CHANCE of one.
There are 2 conflict cards with the Widow, for Urchins and Docks, but I haven’t seen them lately so who knows if they’re around.
The thread on FL Reworks about faction conversions is where they mention Glass and Shroud are seen as progress trackers for the story, easy enough to rename them to fit that.
The Duchess…just needs more is all. Give a faction card, faction item, and some conflict cards. She’s about as present as the Revolutionaries, and the more we see of her/the 2nd city in Exceptional Stories the more her as a faction appears a good fit.
The University factions would be difficult without changing the University plot line’s mechanics. It might have a faction item but the connected quality is pretty useless once you start the investigation, and iirc wholly useless afterwards. Or make them also story tracker qualities, but again the whole area would need some fixing to accommodate that. But then again the University itself could use some fine tuning.
Masters…yikes. There are some people who are angry at the thought of having just favors for them, and would quit the game over it. A faction card would make it too grindable, but including renown would practically necessitate a way to grind it (keep options like the Librarette for Pages as super expensive but grindable favor sources?) But then there’s the problem of people trying to get renown with that. To get renown 40 would be just plain not fun, and any items would either be not worth it, or so good as for many to feel it’s an eventually required grind and leave many bitter. Masters are just gonna be hellish to deal with as the devs.
But that question is, why would any of the remaining Connected qualities even need to become Favours/Renown in any way?
The other factions got converted because of two main reasons:
They were also used as "faction currency" (i.e. "calling in Favours") and FBG wanted a separate quality to track such use (i.e. "Favours").[/li][li]FBG felt (for whatever reason) that they wanted a quality to track how much you are known to a faction rather than how close you are to them (which can increase and drop with your actions).
I can see this with Benthic/Summerset (and I like the idea of separate Favours but a shared "Renown: University").
I can also see it being fitted for The Widow, with adjustments (e.g. adding a faction card, etc.).
But why for any of the others?
Glass/Shroud: Why even rename? This today tracks how close you are to each of these, and it increases/drops based on your actions. That’s the very definition of "Connected".[/li][li]Duchess: She’s very present, but has never behaved like the other factions before (no faction card, no faction item, no way to call in favours, etc.). Sure, if FBG want to write more Duchess content they can certainly add this. But if such content isn’t their priority, why even touch this quality to force it to superficially look like others it has no resemblance to?[/li][li]Masters: Some people have worked very hard, over years, to find the small opportunities to increase Connected: The Masters to rarely-reached levels. It will be extremely disappointing to delete this just to set an arbitrary limit of (for example) Renown 5. What would even be the point? What game aspect and/or narrative reason would this serve? Just to change it for change’s sake?
I’ve always said that Masters are ideally suited to remaining as Connected - or even having their Connected renamed to Renown and otherwise mostly unchanged.
Yes, a faction from a large city may never actually forget you if you get involved enough (hence Renown never dropping), but weird space creatures that are tens of thousands years old? Yeah, they would probably not bother too much with remembering you, a single mortal, regardless of what you do: after all, it’s highly unlikely anything you pull off will matter in a few centuries (millenia?) by the time the next city comes down, so why would they care about something so fleeting and insignificant?