I have noticed that this game, despite it’s great atmosphere and interesting stories has a really high amount of grinding.
Especially when you’re trying to hunt a beast, rob an establishment, solve a case, etc…
There are many times when I open the game, click for 2 minutes, going through 20 actions, and than close it.
I would like this thing to change, by either reducing the grinding (the amount of points you need to increase casing level, as an example) or by writing a new text for every casing/upward battle, bar that is filled!
What do you say?
I am trying really hard not to unleash my sarcasm mode full power here. But I will answer seriously: Writing new text takes time, and that is exactly the reason there is so much grind in the game. Some people ask for even more grind, because they have finished all content and have nothing to do.
Hear, hear, Mr Fhoenix. While grinding can, at times feel like a chore, one of the disadvantages of a text based browser game is that you read faster than they can type.
The other part of the game design is that when hunting a beast, robbing an establishment or solving a case, the game should feel difficult. It should feel like you have to put in a certain amount of time and effort to be successful in your endeavor. It’s the equivalent of making later level bosses harder. Sometimes this means opening the game, playing for two minutes and then closing it, but after you do, you’re far closer to your goal than when you began and next time you play you’re well on your way to conquering a much more difficult task than had you simply played 20 different storylets.
Asking for rewards to cost less actions is tantamount to just asking for free stuff. The actions taken vs. rewards given are calculated to character level and increasing over time.
We’d all like more Fallen London, but as it is the game has about as much text as the Bible, to simply ask for more storylets seems a bit out of place. There is new content being added every week and I doubt you’ve read everything the game has to offer. Part of the challenge and fun of the game is dispensing storylets over time. To have it all in one big go is less fun overall and antithetical to the tone of the game.
If it helps, don’t think of Casing as a useless stat you have to grind to get a reward, think of each point of Casing, or whatever progress you’re using, as a fraction of the larger reward you’re getting over time. Remember that the next cool Fallen London storylet is just over the horizon.
Not to mention how many freebies have been implemented since the game’s creation, and particularly in the past year or so. Between the weekly free skill boosts in the starting areas, and the new Professions, we’re rolling in grindless progress.
I wasn’t aware that writing some new text takes so much time, please forgive me.
[quote=Nigel Overstreet]Hear, hear, Mr Fhoenix. While grinding can, at times feel like a chore, one of the disadvantages of a text based browser game is that you read faster than they can type.
The other part of the game design is that when hunting a beast, robbing an establishment or solving a case, the game should feel difficult. It should feel like you have to put in a certain amount of time and effort to be successful in your endeavor. It’s the equivalent of making later level bosses harder. Sometimes this means opening the game, playing for two minutes and then closing it, but after you do, you’re far closer to your goal than when you began and next time you play you’re well on your way to conquering a much more difficult task than had you simply played 20 different storylets.
Asking for rewards to cost less actions is tantamount to just asking for free stuff. The actions taken vs. rewards given are calculated to character level and increasing over time.
We’d all like more Fallen London, but as it is the game has about as much text as the Bible, to simply ask for more storylets seems a bit out of place. There is new content being added every week and I doubt you’ve read everything the game has to offer. Part of the challenge and fun of the game is dispensing storylets over time. To have it all in one big go is less fun overall and antithetical to the tone of the game.
If it helps, don’t think of Casing as a useless stat you have to grind to get a reward, think of each point of Casing, or whatever progress you’re using, as a fraction of the larger reward you’re getting over time. Remember that the next cool Fallen London storylet is just over the horizon.[/quote]
Agreed. And new content is really being added all the time–though sometimes only in thimblefuls. :-)
I’m unsure of the sarcasm level of that comment, so I will take it at face-value. The text is not what takes time. I’m in process of writing a StoryNexus game so I have a little bit of a view behind the scenes. While it might seem like tapping out a the content of a storylet doesn’t take long - I mean…it’s the size of a forum post! - you have to understand that many of the parts you don’t see also need to be adjusted and balanced against the rest of the game. It’s easy to make a storylet that does nothing, but what’s the point? It burns an action and gives you some lore perhaps. But in most cases you want every card to affect something else…and figuring out what you want the card to actually do and how it fits into the rest of the story, can be a days or weeks-long process depending on how much content it actually affects.
Now my game is currently only at 300 cards. Fallen London is something like 4000+? Not only do they have to write the card, they’re also back-checking it against every bit of lore that’s come before so they don’t contradict the already-built part of the world. They also have to make sure the cool storylet they are writing doesn’t break anything else in the game quality-wise. And likely they aren’t just going to release one storylet at a time…they are creating groups of them that work together.
So for example…let’s say they want to add a minor 6-card story arc. First they have meetings to make sure it’s a worthy endeavor. Then writing text for six actual storylets on a good day might take the better part of an hour… but then they’ve got to hook the story into the existing framework, playtest to make sure it works correctly, other members of the team have to vet for content and playability… all this before it’s released for play. If I’m being kind, I would say something like that might at very minimum take a week from conception to release. Undoubtedly that wouldn’t be the only content they’re working on at any given time.
So they release a six-card story arc. Let’s say there’s no grinding and you have all the right qualities to burn through it immediately. It will take you no more than 20 minutes to read all six of those cards, throw down your fork and say “what’s next”? Grinding is what keeps that from happening.
I see, interesting post, Hanon.
I wasn’t sarcastic though, without actually doing a story myself, the only thing I have to come with is guessing about how it works, my brain searching for similar information in memory and filling up the gaps with imagination.
Though I must add, in situations like casing and “the hunt is on”, isn’t it easier to add text, because it would just add flavour and different text to luck at.
You have “setting up traps” So your characters starts setting traps over and over and over again. Why? Is he/she covering up a lot of ground? Are there different types of traps? It is this kind of text that could be add.
“You have covered an entire lenght of a field with traps, but somehow doesn’t seem enough. You have to be lucky to see the beast getting caught in them”. OR You’ve put a variety of bear traps on the beast’s trail, but you know it could just sidestep them if she feels where they are. Some holes covered with leaves or ropes attaches to trees with nooses at the other end could help be sure of succes".
Like that.
Casing:
-you stand in front of the mansion and observe the people flowing in and out of the house. A guard patrol goes by at every 2 hours. you go away before you start attracting attention.
-after posing as a servant/bribing a servant you have a general idea of the house’s interior. But it doesn’t seem enough. Better keep searching for more.
Hasn’t FBG started implementing things like that (at least a little bit) with “The Airs of London are Changeable” quality?
But basically, up until recently there hasn’t been a good technical framework for implementing variable results on an action (besides success/failure). So what they did was to create 5 or 6 different actions you could do to raise each type of progress quality (e.g. “The hunt is on”, “Casing”, “Fascinating…” etc) as a way to add some variety while grinding but working within the technical limitations of the system. (Also, not having to write a whole bunch of content that doesn’t particularly advance the story line.)