[ul][li]Acquired all PoSI gear (except the Gymnasium or Respectable Landau), and raised my R/D/B to 18[/li][li]Raised Notability to 8, and became a Correspondent[/li][li]Finished the Wolfstack Docks, University, Affair of the Box, Labyrinth of Tigers, Cave of Nadir, Jack of Smiles, and Ambition: Heart’s Desire storylines[/li][li]Grinded Affair of the Box for all Bazaar gear[/li][/ul]So now I’m again at a loss for what to do, exactly, again. I do have a couple things I know still need to be done, like…
[ul][li]Become an Extraordinary Mind[/li][li]Finally get kicked out of the Empress’ Court[/li][li]Grind for an Overgoat[/li][li]Visit the Iron Republic[/li][li]…something else?
[/li][/ul]Thus, my question to you fine folks is: what I should work towards next? I understand tastes will be relative to each, but what projects did you truly find satisfying? What storylines would you wish no one skipped? What are you doing now? I’d be more than happy to answer any questions about my progress on specifics. Otherwise, thanks for your input! :)
Seeing as you seem to be following the watchful path - Raise Scholar of the Correspondence as far as you can and get an Impossible Theorem, both under Shadowy Dealings at the University.
A good ongoing project is to obtain a salon (if you don’t have one already) and try to get all the guests you possibly can. Their visits are interesting from a lore perspective.
I currently have the result of inviting the Captivating Princess echoed to my journal if anyone is interested. Getting my engaged in a scheme: salon level up to 20 took months!
:) Mine is at 20 and has been for a while, because after getting to Notability 15 I figured I would just leave it there until needed. So I am looking forward to a future reason for inviting HRH! The pause in Salon grinding has also allowed my connections with Society and the Bohemians to restore themselves a little, which is pleasant.
[quote=Asami Sato]A good ongoing project is to obtain a salon (if you don’t have one already) and try to get all the guests you possibly can. Their visits are interesting from a lore perspective.
I currently have the result of inviting the Captivating Princess echoed to my journal if anyone is interested. Getting my engaged in a scheme: salon level up to 20 took months![/quote]
I actually chose the Orphanage. But I already grinded my way to a Laconic Prodigy, it’s technically plausible to switch. Would it be worth it?
[quote=Light Arrow][quote=Asami Sato]A good ongoing project is to obtain a salon (if you don’t have one already) and try to get all the guests you possibly can. Their visits are interesting from a lore perspective.
I currently have the result of inviting the Captivating Princess echoed to my journal if anyone is interested. Getting my engaged in a scheme: salon level up to 20 took months![/quote]
I actually chose the Orphanage. But I already grinded my way to a Laconic Prodigy, it’s technically plausible to switch. Would it be worth it?[/quote]
[li]
Having done exactly that, it is absolutely worth it. Grinding Society/Bohemians connections is much more tolerable than Urchins/Echoes.
[quote=Asami Sato]A good ongoing project is to obtain a salon (if you don’t have one already) and try to get all the guests you possibly can. Their visits are interesting from a lore perspective.
I currently have the result of inviting the Captivating Princess echoed to my journal if anyone is interested. Getting my engaged in a scheme: salon level up to 20 took months![/quote]
Thank you for echoing. I had planned to do this myself, but the accretion of scheming is painfully slow.
[quote=cheshster][quote=Light Arrow][quote=Asami Sato]A good ongoing project is to obtain a salon (if you don’t have one already) and try to get all the guests you possibly can. Their visits are interesting from a lore perspective.
I currently have the result of inviting the Captivating Princess echoed to my journal if anyone is interested. Getting my engaged in a scheme: salon level up to 20 took months![/quote]
I actually chose the Orphanage. But I already grinded my way to a Laconic Prodigy, it’s technically plausible to switch. Would it be worth it?[/quote]
[li]
Having done exactly that, it is absolutely worth it. Grinding Society/Bohemians connections is much more tolerable than Urchins/Echoes.[/quote]
Gaaah. You were supposed to lie to me and tell me it wasn’t. Well, my Society/Bohemians are at 90’s/60’s for connection level. Anything else I should consider? And the Orphanage just gave Making Waves and the Prodigy. What does the Salon offer other than MW?
I did that. I initially chose the Orphanage (or, as I prefer to call it, my ‘soul farm’) for character reasons, but after getting the Laconic Prodigy, and using scheme + graduation a few times to get 7+ notability to trade for prize tokens for a Waxwail knife, I swapped for the Salon, mostly to see the other options.
I tried doing the maths, but it rapidly started needing calculus & recursion & statistics and similar scary things because of all the possible random outcomes, and the fact that one of the item conversions (stolen kisses -> favours in high places) also generates variable making waves!
Ultimately I think it boils down to whether 500 CP of Society/Bohemian connection + 12~15ish echoes worth of items is a better deal than 200CP of Orphan connections (don’t forget the rookery password item) + 30 echoes. Which then depends on how many echoes you value a turn at, and we’re back to probability & maths again!
Am probably missing something obvious though, wouldn’t be the first time;)
I’ve got both, with different characters, personally I find the orphanage easier to maintain and getting a Laconic Prodigy is very useful but the lore from the salon is interesting. I expect it all depends on which path you prefer and, to be honest, I don’t use the schemes to maintain my Notability any more as there are other methods that are not card dependent and I have another character who is at Notability 9 without even having either an Orphanage or Salon. Though they do have a very high BDR including fate-locked items.
salon has more useful distribution of BDR (orphanage has the same 4R as god’s editors)
society and bohemian connections are all over the place, urchins are far less common (or restricted to lowlevel storylets)
society and bohemian connections are normally worth crap (0.75 p/cp, if you value actions at 150p), urchins are at least 10 p/cp (assuming you find enough ‘favours in flit’ cards to cash in everything you want to cash in)
I also use urchin connections in a widow-urchin-docks triangle for acacia+butterfly
salon can give (much) higher MW boost in one action
[quote=empirimancer]> - I also use urchin connections in a widow-urchin-docks triangle for acacia+butterfly
What’s the PPA on this? Compared to just straight cashing in the connections by calling in favors?[/quote]
I don’t think that’s directly comparable.
The thing I do with wud-ab is not super profitable (not even close to AotB, but it offers a different variety of items to back its ppa - and puts some variety to my grinds) - I think last time I calculated it to somewere between 120 and 130 ppa, assuming 50 p/cp[someone’s coming] and juggling cards so that urchin connection remains unchanged - but it can be done in any london zone without zone-hopping.
Cashing urchins doesn’t have direct ppa, it just puts value on cp of urchins (roughly 10 ppcp; the rewards are high enough that opportunity cost of an action doesn’t really matter) - but it can only be done in Flit, only on a card that observationally happens much less often than the cards needed for wud-ab, the card puts higher value on revolutionaries (24 ppcp) so you would want to grind that instead of urchins, and where do you even get urchin connections reliably?
Anyway, I think the biggest urchin-gains are the conflict cards ((un)surprisingly enough). 10 ppcp puts ~340 ppa on the urchin-widow card (plus nightmares reduction) and ~390 ppa on the urchin-docks card.
But, say, the revolutionaries-rubbery card is worth over 700 ppa by the same maths.
(this is assuming 150 ppa opportunity cost (most of the really good cards, rough estimate for AotB, …), which makes “someone’s coming” worth 50 ppcp and normal connections worth only 0.75 ppcp).
[quote=empirimancer]What’s the PPA on this? Compared to just straight cashing in the connections by calling in favors?[/quote]It also depends on if you’re siding with the dockers to save 50 Echoes on 4 x Strong-Backed Labour, or if you’ve already got all the Strong-Backed Labour you’re going to need, in which case they’re only worth 2.50 Echoes each. And then it also depends on if you need the Someone Is Coming +1 CP to get to level 4 to qualify for getting a gift from the Capering Relicker. The 24 x Vision of the Surface for a PoSI is 12 Echoes, and you need 10 CPs to qualify, and you lose 21 CPs when you accept the gift. After they changed the card from Very Infrequent to just Infrequent I managed to reduce my Someone Is Coming from 25+ to zero, so for me those CPs are actually worth 102 p now. Before the change they just kept building up. Though to be fair, I’ve also stopped clicking on a lot of faction conflict cards, so that reduced them further. Once I have Someone Is Coming level 4, I only side with the Revolutionaries on "Amber in the well" until the Capering Relicker has caught up to me. All other conflicts are saved for when I’ve received the gift that is rightfully mine.
Without needing either the Strong-Backed Labour or Someone Is Coming, I doubt that The Acacia and the Butterfly is worth all the actions it takes to build up one or both of the connections to qualify again. But compared to cashing in connections through the usual 240 ppa actions it’s quite good since you save actions by cashing in more connections in a single action. But which option is the best when cashing in those connections? Once again it depends. The widow offers 40 x Jade Fragment plus a Favour in High Places that might be worth more than the Echoes to someone with a salon. And sure, let’s go with 50 p for Someone Is Coming.
(40 p + 1250 p + 50 p - 150 ppa) / (500 CP - 30 CP) = 2.53 pence per connected CP
The dockers offer 4 x Strong-Backed Labour, plus a Bundle of Oddities (80, might be random now) which is worth less than the Widow’s 1290 p. But if you’re doing expeditions you can buy supplies with Strong-Backed Labour, and that saves quite a few actions. Let’s say that you can get 150 x Whispered Secret in a single action, and every third time you trade them for rumours of treasure you get an extra supply. That’s 4 actions to get 600 x Whispered Secret to use on 3 rumours of treasure, for a total of 7 actions for 4 supplies, or 14 actions to get 8 supplies. With Strong-Backed Labour you’d get two supplies every time, so the 4 x Strong-Backed Labour the dockers offer can save you 14 - 4 = 10 actions when buying 8 supplies. If you value your actions at 150 ppa, suddenly the dockers’ reward is worth (10 - 1) x 150 = 1350 p. And more still if your sources of Whispered Secrets give you less than 150 at a time. But this doesn’t account for all the actions spent qualifying for The Acacia and the Butterfly, so when I first considered this approach to expeditions I didn’t see it as better than going with the Whispered Secrets. But now things have changed on all fronts, so I may have to check again. (Though expeditions still look like less than 150 ppa, so I’m not in a hurry to go back to archaeology. The loss of starting with "A sign?" also removed some of the fun, since it took the ‘seeking curios’ out of the picture. Though with the Liberation of Night advanced by selling those eyeless skulls, perhaps that is for the best.)