Keeping your previous captain’s chart is just a terrible option. It completely gimps your ability to gain fragments, which you need in order to improve your character. I had expected it to work differently - so that you could still get fragments for rediscovering things you already knew the location of - rather than the way it did. As it stands now, I can’t see ever picking this legacy, which is frustrating.
You’re completely right that the inability to gain fragments from exploration is a major hurdle which to me (and possibly others), devalues this choice.
That said, I have chosen this option on my last two playthroughs, but only because I kept half of the 500k fortune I made off of echoes to go buy secrets at Irem. Without using sunlight trading or other means to amass a huge amount of secrets and go buy echoes, I can’t really see keeping your map being a viable choice, since it will seriously gimp your character unless you try to farm secrets at Visage or fragments at Naples.
Farming fragments at Visage was nerfed before release. The option that used to give 3x100 fragments now gives Intriguing Gossip.
There are still a few options that give 100, but they kick you off the island and are no longer available if Expertise in Parts is greater than 0.
edited by Olorin on 2/23/2015
Funny that I avoid the same legacy for the opposite reason: I find the boon of having the same chart again to be too much, being able to handpick ports right off the bat. It’s like removing the random order you obtain things, making more ideal routes and use of resources.
It’s exactly because there are alternatives for gaining fragments and secrets that the fragments in exploration don’t seem to feel as important. I don’t mean by being abusively grindish either.
I just stumbled across this "problem" myself, selecting the map as legacy and as a result being on an extremely low diet of secrets.
However, I acknowledge keeping the map is a huge adantage that justifies a little counterweight.
The real issue is: how in hell (guess you can say that on the Unterzee :-)) do you get secrets?!
Suggestions?
Tin
Yeah, in theory, the advantage of having a constant map to aid in navigation should be a big boon for a player, but the subsequent removal of the discovery mechanic when used completely ruins it. Especially since theoretically choosing this option could be a way to successfully raise a character to greater starting pages scores as a sort of "breeding" a pages master after you get higher counts on prior captains, but again, the lack of discovery on the lands gimps the character’s development. So unless the player has discovered a bunch of legacy items already, picking it is a terrible choice.
It also makes no sense, context wise. It’s still the next sea Captain’s first time discovering these locations. They were just a Correspondent of the prior Captain who gets a map, without knowing what it’s like to actually go to these lands. The idea of the fragment gain is for the personal knowledge of going to these places and knowing where they are, what they actually look like et cetera. It’s not like the captain is gaining secrets passed down from a London cartographer. They’re gaining personal knowledge from exploring and figuring out minor relevations of the self.
Either it needs to be reworked the the player who picks the correspondent legacy and gets the Captain’s map can again discover locations while using the map to know where they are and keep the world static. Or they should get all of the discovery fragments and subsequent secrets for all places discovered on the map at the very start of the game after character creation. That way there is no gimping of a character.
I think it’s a useful tool for captains playing their first few maps. While you’re still trying to work out how to survive, stats are less important than just getting the hang of exploring, and remembering which islands do what. Having their location constant is a benefit.
However, they should definitely warn you that you won’t be getting fragments.
The map isn’t actually that randomized, once you know the general patterns you can pretty quickly rediscover them.
I’d also think with a newer player randomizing the map would be useful, because it prevents complacency, which appears to be the number one killer of new players.
Absolutely true. I’ve gotten to the point that I can pretty quickly find whatever I need after about a dozen games, none of which resulted in a win.