It won’t feel like anything if I never go there again. :V
I’ve only ever visited there when I was doing sprints for favors for 40 renowns, maybe sometimes while grinding MW. I have no reason to do either anymore, but I am glad I did it before now.
5-6 actions, if you arrive fashionably late and argue with the Jovial Contrarian. And before the balance update, it used to gain you five cards. I did it mostly for the Making Waves and occasionally for the Personal Recommendation. In that respect it’s not much different. The Jovial Contrarian might not show up in time to let you save an action on dancing, but that’s just one more action.
It was a place that doubled your cards, so if you went with the correct number in your hand, you didn’t lose cards.
FB know very well which areas people use most. I’m sure they’ll notice any fall off and change things again if they’re bothered. The best example has to be Polythreme – they even offer a way to change your Ambition once you end up there, the gameplay is so unamusing.
Oh no! I was browsing the forum on mobile and my thumb accidentally hit the "report to moderator" button! Any mod that follows that up here, please disregard it!
(Incidentally, the fact that there’s not a confirmation dialogue when hitting that button, at least on mobile, is really troublesome…)
[quote=Jermaine Vendredi]It was a place that doubled your cards, so if you went with the correct number in your hand, you didn’t lose cards.
FB know very well which areas people use most. I’m sure they’ll notice any fall off and change things again if they’re bothered. The best example has to be Polythreme – they even offer a way to change your Ambition once you end up there, the gameplay is so unamusing.[/quote]
That was before the deck balance changes. The change at issue is going from a 5-card deck finite draw hand to a 3-card infinite draw hand. The latter makes the favor grind less reliable but saves you 5 opp cards.
Before this change the party was awful. A cost of five opp cards and 6-8 actions for a few favors, MW and items was a terrible deal. The opportunity (heh) cost of 5 cards is pretty huge.
You forgot the action to enter the party. Arriving late and arguing with August is 6 actions. Not doing either is 8. Arriving late also has a substantial opportunity cost since you miss out on the amazing value of the 2 favors from the Brass Ambassador.
Okay, the debate here motivated me to crunch the numbers for the party. I simulated 50000 parties and averaged the results. Keep in mind 4 Favors in high places are worth 60 Echoes.
The algorithm I used is the following:
-At Time Remaining 6, give contracts to the ambassador if you can (+2 Hell favours, -2 Echoes), else, arrive fashionably late (+4 TotT, save an action), I estimated the rare success which gives +1 extra TotT and only takes away 1 Time at 25% chance
-At TR 5, talk to the ambassador if you can (+3 TotT), else talk to the admiral if he’s available (+2TotT) just to get his card out, else just play a storylet (+2 TotT)
-At TR 4, if August is there, talk to him (+4 TotT, save an action), else play a storylet.
-At TR 3, if the Turkish Girl is there, talk to her (+3 TotT and gets rid of her card), else stick to something stately (+2 TotT and a rare chance of dock favors, estimated at 10%)
-At TR 2, if the Entrepreneur is there, talk to him (+1 Rubbery Favour, +0.5 Echoes), else talk to August (+1 Society Favour, +1 TotT), else talk to the admiral (+2 TotT, gets his card out), if all fails just play a storylet (+2 TotT)
-At TR 1, talk to the Entrepreneur in the off chance he’s there (+1 Society Favour), else just play a storylet. If you really like Hell Favors then you can talk to the Ambassador, but I don’t consider 0.7E for a favor to be a good deal.
The results are that, on average a single party takes 7.00 actions and gives 6.93 Echoes, 1.20 hell favors, 1.12 Society Favours, 0.77 Rubbery Favours and an absolutely marginal 0.003 Docks Favours.
In terms of items that yields 0.99 EPA. Depending on your value for Favours that’s gonna increase. Taking a Favour to be worth 2.5E, for instance, yields an EPA of 2.1
Before these changes, the usual strat was to draw once at the start, play Ambassador -> Whatever -> Contrarian -> Entrepreneur -> Whatever -> Leave, which yields an average of 2 Hell Favors, 1 Rubbery Favor, 0.89 Society Favors and 4.9 echoes. In terms of items that’s 0.7 EPA, valuing Favors at 2.5E gives 2.08 EPA (which is, shockingly enough, less money).
Of course, the value of a favor is more complicated and varies by faction, but this truly does seem to me like a minor buff that also makes the party more interesting and prevents it from costing so much in terms of cards.
[quote=Jermaine Vendredi]It was a place that doubled your cards, so if you went with the correct number in your hand, you didn’t lose cards.
FB know very well which areas people use most. I’m sure they’ll notice any fall off and change things again if they’re bothered. The best example has to be Polythreme – they even offer a way to change your Ambition once you end up there, the gameplay is so unamusing.[/quote]
Is Polythreme generally considered to not be fun? I ask because despite having played FL for a fair few years, I have never been there. I really don’t know what it is about the place that put me off going, maybe it was idea of sentient cutlery. If it is not well-regarded then perhaps I shall never go there. I am having quite enough fun in my lab, Parabola and the hinterlands to be going on with for now anyway.
[quote=Plynkes]
Is Polythreme generally considered to not be fun? I ask because despite having played FL for a fair few years, I have never been there. I really don’t know what it is about the place that put me off going, maybe it was idea of sentient cutlery. If it is not well-regarded then perhaps I shall never go there. I am having quite enough fun in my lab, Parabola and the hinterlands to be going on with for now anyway.[/quote]
Polythreme is an awful RNG-fest. That’s all.
[quote=NotaWalrus]Okay, the debate here motivated me to crunch the numbers for the party. I simulated 50000 parties and averaged the results. Keep in mind 4 Favors in high places are worth 60 Echoes.
Before these changes, the usual strat was to draw once at the start, play Ambassador -> Whatever -> Contrarian -> Entrepreneur -> Whatever -> Leave, which yields an average of 2 Hell Favors, 1 Rubbery Favor, 0.89 Society Favors and 4.9 echoes. In terms of items that’s 0.7 EPA, valuing Favors at 2.5E gives 2.08 EPA (which is, shockingly enough, less money).
Of course, the value of a favor is more complicated and varies by faction, but this truly does seem to me like a minor buff that also makes the party more interesting and prevents it from costing so much in terms of cards.[/quote]
Math doesn’t really matter though if you’re doing the party because the specific thing you need is favors. It had a specific utility. If you are drawing cards for favors, it could previously be relied on for some certain ones and it now can’t, so it loses that utility. Anything else it can do, other things do better, so why wait for an opp card for those other purposes?
The only times I’ve done a party other than when they first came out were to find specific favors which I needed for specific purposes. Money didn’t come into the picture.
[quote=MidnightVoyager]
Math doesn’t really matter though if you’re doing the party because the specific thing you need is favors. It had a specific utility. If you are drawing cards for favors, it could previously be relied on for some certain ones and it now can’t, so it loses that utility. Anything else it can do, other things do better, so why wait for an opp card for those other purposes?
The only times I’ve done a party other than when they first came out were to find specific favors which I needed for specific purposes. Money didn’t come into the picture.[/quote]
You still get just over 3 favors on average, you can probably get a fourth and then some with the 5 extra opp cards you’re getting. Plus I wouldn’t negate the utility of the MW and the Favours in High Places.
[quote=NotaWalrus][quote=MidnightVoyager]
Math doesn’t really matter though if you’re doing the party because the specific thing you need is favors. It had a specific utility. If you are drawing cards for favors, it could previously be relied on for some certain ones and it now can’t, so it loses that utility. Anything else it can do, other things do better, so why wait for an opp card for those other purposes?
The only times I’ve done a party other than when they first came out were to find specific favors which I needed for specific purposes. Money didn’t come into the picture.[/quote]
You still get just over 3 favors on average, you can probably get a fourth and then some with the 5 extra opp cards you’re getting. Plus I wouldn’t negate the utility of the MW and the Favours in High Places.[/quote]
On average, maybe, but each individual instance is frustrating to play. E.g. I stumbled through a party - just before coming to the forum to see what happened! - in which I got 1 Society favor at the end, having been stuck with the whiskered admiral, the footman and the nibble tray cards from the beginning. In other words, if being stuck with boring company and the catering staff is what everyone thinks makes a party - no thanks, I’ll pass on that.
[quote=NotaWalrus][quote=MidnightVoyager]
Math doesn’t really matter though if you’re doing the party because the specific thing you need is favors. It had a specific utility. If you are drawing cards for favors, it could previously be relied on for some certain ones and it now can’t, so it loses that utility. Anything else it can do, other things do better, so why wait for an opp card for those other purposes?
The only times I’ve done a party other than when they first came out were to find specific favors which I needed for specific purposes. Money didn’t come into the picture.[/quote]
You still get just over 3 favors on average, you can probably get a fourth and then some with the 5 extra opp cards you’re getting. Plus I wouldn’t negate the utility of the MW and the Favours in High Places.[/quote]
You are thinking of favors as a commodity blob here when people generally need SPECIFIC favors if they’re fishing for them for non-money reasons. I remember not being able to get the specific favors I needed for days when I was flipping for renown. Someone is not likely to get the favor they want specifically with five extra cards, much less three of them per one party. There aren’t even enough opportunities to get the specific favors you need in one party three times.
@ Plynkes re Polythreme
I went once and did the carousel fruitlessly several times. Read the instructions on the Wiki, went again, did the carousel fruitlessly several times. Decided never to go again. Then discovered my Ambition (which I’m not that interested in, frankly) dumped me in Polythreme. It can’t be continued unless you go through fruitfully. Spent two RL days on the carousels and still haven’t decided whether to just drink the Lethe and s*d the Ambition.
@ NotaWalrus. Indeed. The Party has been nerfed not once, but twice – first no more card doubling, now three cards only. I used to go there for 3 Society favours, 2 Hell favours and the option of a Docks favour (also now nerfed). With the option of taking one of the end rewards or not (I kept Talk of the Town at 20+ just in case.) I’m not the echoes per action or per cards kind of player, so that kind of “profit” isn’t of interest.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Polythreme, but it was much less painful with a five-card hand.
The gist of Polythreme is that you play a certain number of cards, and if you haven’t built up the relevant quality to the required level within that number of cards you have to start over. You have a much better chance if you can hold more of the less-useful cards in your hand.
If you have a five-card lodging and take the correct choices to maximize your chance of success, getting the level 12 successes in Polythreme (which is all you need for Heart’s Desire) is virtually guaranteed. Someone made a flowchart illustrating the optimal choices, which you might find useful:
Yeah, I remember doing polythreme in a no-luck way, don’t remember the details. If you just rely on card RNG to get you to 12 then yeah, that won’t work. But you can use items to get far, and you can farm the items you need in Polythreme, so you should be able to do it without much luck.
I haven’t had reason to go back, though. More of a thing to figure out and do a few times just to get all the options, and then move on.
[quote=theonie]
On average, maybe, but each individual instance is frustrating to play. E.g. I stumbled through a party - just before coming to the forum to see what happened! - in which I got 1 Society favor at the end, having been stuck with the whiskered admiral, the footman and the nibble tray cards from the beginning. In other words, if being stuck with boring company and the catering staff is what everyone thinks makes a party - no thanks, I’ll pass on that.[/quote]
That cannot happen, the Nibbles Tray and the Impertinent Footman only show up with Time Remaining 5 or less. And if you draw the admiral there are several opportunities to play him without opportunity cost so you can draw new cards.
[quote=NotaWalrus][quote=theonie] On average, maybe, but each individual instance is frustrating to play. E.g. I stumbled through a party - just before coming to the forum to see what happened! - in which I got 1 Society favor at the end, having been stuck with the whiskered admiral, the footman and the nibble tray cards from the beginning. In other words, if being stuck with boring company and the catering staff is what everyone thinks makes a party - no thanks, I’ll pass on that.[/quote] That cannot happen, the Nibbles Tray and the Impertinent Footman only show up with Time Remaining 5 or less. And if you draw the admiral there are several opportunities to play him without opportunity cost so you can draw new cards.[/quote] Well, that’s what I thought too - before the update, I always drew cards on arrival to get the other five "good" ones - but this time, both Nibbles and Footman card showed up for me right away. Possibly I messed up and selected Arrive Fashionably Late before drawing any cards? Anyway it was a rather dull affair overall. Otoh, I did play the party again and ended up with a better hand, which made it more fun. I suppose that variability does make it more like RL parties… not a selling point imho though…
Having recently needed a few Society favours in a pinch, drawing the Party Card seems useful to specifically get 2-3 Society Favours quickly (quicker than non-Card sources), with anything else treated as a nice bonus. Although admittedly, "Need Favours with few Actions and won’t wait for Cards" is a very specific problem; except for that one trip, I’ve discarded it every time since the Card-doubling vanished. I feel as if there should be a "Politely Decline" option that offers Menace relief, to represent how truly rejuvenating freeing up an evening can be.
[quote=NotaWalrus]-At TR 1, talk to the Entrepreneur in the off chance he’s there (+1 Society Favour), else just play a storylet. If you really like Hell Favors then you can talk to the Ambassador, but I don’t consider 0.7E for a favor to be a good deal.[/quote] It doesn’t dramatically change your conclusion, but the Ambassador’s TR-1 option requires 10 Contracts but only takes 1, so the end result is +0.10E and a favour so long as you have an excess of Infernal Contracts (as a Crooked Cross I was quite happy to end every pre-Patch party in the Ambassador’s company).