Advice on Seeking?

I’m a fairly new player to Fallen London, (I’ve been playing for around 3 months now, and absolutely loving it!) and a certain Name has caught my eye.

I know I will eventually become a Seeker, of that there is no doubt. BUT, I also realise I’m a VERY new player. I’m not even a POSI yet, and I know that Fallen London has so much to offer.

Seekers, I would like some advice. At what point should I Seek the Name? Does it matter? If I want to get the most out of Fallen London, should I wait for a while? Explore some more for a few months before I am ready to drive my character into madness? At what point did YOU Seek the Name?

Don’t.

Or at least don’t start Seeking until you have maxed your stats and played through most of the content. I started Seeking a few years ago, shortly before the hiatus, and continued when it came back. Seeking will destroy your character and it will be a marvellous experience, but there is still so much to do in the Neath. That’s why I stopped Seeking just now. Start Seeking when you have nothing else to do. I know I will resume Seeking some day, but with all the great Exceptional Stories, now is not the right time vor Victoria Astra Ludlow to perish.

[quote=ClockworkCheshire]I’m a fairly new player to Fallen London, (I’ve been playing for around 3 months now, and absolutely loving it!) and a certain Name has caught my eye.

I know I will eventually become a Seeker, of that there is no doubt. BUT, I also realise I’m a VERY new player. I’m not even a POSI yet, and I know that Fallen London has so much to offer.

Seekers, I would like some advice. At what point should I Seek the Name? Does it matter? If I want to get the most out of Fallen London, should I wait for a while? Explore some more for a few months before I am ready to drive my character into madness? At what point did YOU Seek the Name?[/quote]
I didn’t start until about two weeks ago. that said, my advise would be as follows:

A) Don’t seek the name, it will ruin your stats, bring pain, suffering and ultimately death.

B) if you must seek the name, start it slowly. Marsh-mired (well, the options locked with it) and unaccountably peckish cards can provide one level SMEN each week, which is far cheaper than most alternatives (but holds the price of being one level a week.) This will be a light penalty, if you go through it using those cards, every week, in exchange for cheap progress. this would also take 25 weeks to get you from lv.2 to lv. 27, where they stop functioning, which should be plenty of time to get set up.

C) Don’t sell your soul. This will save you much pain and suffering.

D) Expect to Destroy your character at the end. [this is not a euphemism, this is as gone as a killed character isn’t.] make an alt when it looks like you’re getting close- not now, so that the suffering is even worse- since you have to start over from scratch.

E) Gather lots of case notes from the detective case option this festival. as many as you can. this will save you much suffering in getting cerise’s candle. 100 is not overkill, though it is undeniably plenty.

F) try to get a ticket to winking isle as soon as you hit SMEN 21, and read a guide on it. this’ll be the best way to progress between candles- which really doesn’t say as much as you’d think.

G) Do not start the serious phase of seeking until you’ve played all content you are interested in. Don’t go north until you’ve seen the world and know what you are giving up.
edited by Grenem on 7/8/2016

Thankyou both for the advice - I was unsure how much Seeking would affect the other plotlines, but I suppose I will just have to smother my curiousity until I am absolutely ready - or, at least, as ready as I can be.

Seeking doesn’t affect other plotlines much, but other plotlines affect seeking. Winking isle is locked with any items on [long list of items]. Otherwise, only late-game seeking actually locks you out of anything besides selling your soul.

If you eventually intend to Seek, do not sell any of your Appalling Secrets or Cryptic Clues (for upconverting into Secrets) if you can avoid it. You will need them in huge numbers to raise the main SMEN quality. Before long you will also want Watchful 200 and the best Watchful gear available, up to and including pet goats.

I had sold most things, including nearly all my Secrets and Clues, to buy an Overgoat just a week before Seeking returned; this did not make for rapid progress…

I suppose it’s good I never sell my secrets. Eventually I’m sure to seek, sounds like they’ll come in handy then.

[quote=Cinnabar]If you eventually intend to Seek, do not sell any of your Appalling Secrets or Cryptic Clues (for upconverting into Secrets) if you can avoid it. You will need them in huge numbers to raise the main SMEN quality. Before long you will also want Watchful 200 and the best Watchful gear available, up to and including pet goats.

I had sold most things, including nearly all my Secrets and Clues, to buy an Overgoat just a week before Seeking returned; this did not make for rapid progress…[/quote]
you can actually cut through that by doing the weekly UP & Marsh-mired. sure, it’ll take ~25 weeks, but only ~25 weeks.

But Watchful 200 you’ll need regardless.

Do note also that you will, if you seek all the way to the bitter end, lose access to your character permanently. So it may be worthwhile to start cultivating an alt now if you want to play future content after you finish seeking.

Why, exactly? I don’t remember any stat-locked options, and the only important watchful check can be bypassed through marsh-mired, unless i’m missing something. (winking isle is chained luck checks, right?)

On Winking Isle, you definitely need 170 to progress. I’m not sure about the 200 requirement - but the above is needed during Meditation.

The final step of preparations requires Watchful 200, though it might be a modified check.

Not sure x.x I had to keep putting my head back on and off to make some of the checks. But there’s no way I could have Gawain’s Candle on and hit 200 Watchful o.0 side effect of Mistakes Made and halving it earlier on.

[quote=Optimatum]The final step of preparations requires Watchful 200, though it might be a modified check.[/quote]I’m not sure what would constitute a modified check–I hovered it and it said 200, and all the ones before that had consistently stepped up in 25-level increments. Next time I need to restart Preparations I’ll change my Watchful and see what it does.
edited by an_ocelot on 7/9/2016

I’m assuming it’s a modified watchful check, aka a regular one, so you don’t need 200 watchful base. The only ones I can think of that are checks for base stats are those for becoming a specialized PoSI, and that dynamically changes the required value based on your current modified stat.

Will dropping my Watchful with equipment affect this? I don’t know how this works, but I’d like to check so that I can update the wiki.

I 100% do not have 200 Watchful and completed SMEN. I have 140 raw, with another 60ish provided by items.

But that puts you over 200 Watchful, right?

OH! Does “modified check” mean “check what your modified-by-equipment” stat is? D’oh!

I didn’t mean UNMODIFIED 200, I’m sorry! But you still have to raise it a good deal to get to 200 even with items.

[quote=an_ocelot]But that puts you over 200 Watchful, right?

OH! Does &quotmodified check&quot mean &quotcheck what your modified-by-equipment&quot stat is? D’oh!

I didn’t mean UNMODIFIED 200, I’m sorry! But you still have to raise it a good deal to get to 200 even with items.[/quote]
Oh- well, modified 200 isn’t hard to get in 6 months (with no overgoat, no fate-locked items, and nothing seasonal, it’s still possible as low as level 149.)- and that’s only when you need modified 170, you’d then need to get another 48 levels from the isle & candles, IIRC