I’m not sure I completely understand the Hallowmas mechanics. I know that you have to send and receive confessions which you create and are able to receive through menaces, but I feel like I still don’t understand much of the betrayals/things you can do with confessions, differences between types of confessions, and things like trust or what strategy one should use, or why someone would not want specific kinds of confessions.
Would someone be willing to explain this to me?
Disclaimer: I have not actually done a proper Hallowmas. I had just started playing the game during last year’s Hallowmas and didn’t accomplish anything other than getting a destiny. That said, this is my understanding of the confession mechanic.
During the five days of Hallowmas, you’ll be able to send confession offers to people who have sufficiently high menaces. When the recipient accepts the offer to confess (which can happen after the five day window expires), they get a significant reduction to the associated menaces, along with 1 Spirit of Hallowmas and the Trust trait with the sender (preventing the sender from sending them another confession offer). The sender gets a Confession, which can be buried, flaunted, gossiped, or consigned, all of which grant the sender 1-4 Spirit based on the option chosen. Consigning or burying gives better spirit and allows you to take advantage of the old confessions next Hallowmas. Betraying someone by gossiping about their confessions gives less spirit (and no additional opportunities on future Hallowmas) but more material rewards.
The reason why people might prefer certain confessions is because you have to have a minimum level in certain menaces to accept the offer, and accepting an offer to confess will likely zero out those menaces. So in order to accept an offer to give a confession of pride, I have to have three Wounds and three Nightmares, which will be cured when I make the confession. In order to then give another confession of pride, I have to build my Wounds and Nightmares back up to three. A player who lacks a Starveling Cat, for instance, may have difficulty efficiently building those menaces back up, and so might prefer to make more confessions of Whimsy instead. Conversely, a player who does not want to end up with high Connected: Revolutionaries might want to avoid Confessions of Whimsy, as the most efficient way to get the Suspicion needed for those is through public lectures in the Forgotten Quarter.
From what I understand, the main strategy is to send out as many invitations to hear confessions as possible during the five day window and wait until after that window passes to start accepting invitations you have received in turn. You’ll have until roughly the end of November to grind out as many confessions as possible through the menace mill.
Could some Londoner be so kind as to tell me which confessions give which menace, and a guide that explains how to grind menaces most efficiently? I know it is a bit of a large request, but it would be really helpful for someone unaccustomed to Hallowmass, such as me.
I used a spoiler box because this is a long text post:
[spoiler] Confessions
A quality given to senders of the Hallowmas Social action once the social action is accepted. It allows the sender to decide whether or not to Trust or Betray. The receiver of the social action does not get this same choice as they do not gain cp Confessions from accepting the action like the sender does. Clarification: Confessions can be used on any Trust 1, its not locked to any specific player.
Trust
A quality given to both the sender and receiver of the Hallowmas social action upon acceptance by the receiver. Trust has three positive levels and one negative level which are as follows:
As for menace grinding I can’t remember if this is best or not, but it’s at least a halfway decent guide:
Scandal
At scandal 0, put on either a modish bonnet or scarlet stockings (but only one at a time!) on then take it off. You now have 1x scandal. Now put on both the modish bonnet and the scarlet stockings at the same time. Congrats, you now have scandal 3 for 0 actions. This means the non-PoSI confession of Impropriety (scandal 3) is literally free.
Suspicion
At suspicion 0, put on a pirate hat then take it off. You now have 1x Suspicion. Put the hat back on to get suspicion 2. A scholar of the correspondence can then give a public lecture in the Forgotten Quarter under the menu of Reaping the Academic Benefits. This gives +1 cp suspicion and +15 cp in Connected Bohemian, Soicety, and Revolutionaries on success and +2 cp suspicion on failure. The mahogany hall etiquette lessons are also decently hard luck challenges that can give suspicion but it’s not guaranteed to work. The non-PoSI confession of Guile is for suspicion and it’s probably the second easiest.
Nightmares
At nightmares 0, put on a sporing bonnet then take it off. You now have 1x Nightmares. Put the hat back on to get nightmares 2. A non-PoSI can consume an entire tincture of vigor for +2 cp nightmares. Anyone can play with a starveling cat for +1 cp nightmares and wounds. The non-PoSI confession of Curiosity is for nightmares and it’s not too bad with appropriate specialty gear.
Wounds
Play with a giggling madrake, if you fail (and the odds are strongly against you) then it gives +2 CP of wounds making this one of the fastest easily repeatable wounds gains that doesn’t autokill you. The non-PoSI confession of Violence is for wounds. There is no wounds increasing gear meaning wounds gain is literally the worst.
PoSI confessions
Whimsy: Scandal and Suspicion
Follow the guide as above to get 1 level in both of these menaces using the hats. Then put on the modish bonnet and the scarlet stockings to get to scandal 3. You can’t wear both the pirate hat and the modish bonnet at the same time so you will need to grind out the remaining cp of suspicion to get from level 1 to 3 using the public lecture.
Pride: Wounds and Nightmares.
Play with the starveling cat while wearing a sporing bonnet until you hit your nightmares target of 3. Then play with the giggling mandrake until you have 3 wounds too.[/spoiler]
TL;DR: A confession of Impropriety will pretty much never get rejected and you are a saint to send it (and there is no reason not to if you are non-PoSI).
edited by NiteBrite on 10/20/2015
[quote=NiteBrite]
Trust
A quality given to both the sender and receiver of the Hallowmas social action upon acceptance by the receiver. Trust has three positive levels and one negative level which are as follows:
I have one further question regarding the step from Trust 1 to Trust 2: is this possible only during the same Feast as the confession was received, or also a year later? Because I still have a few people with Trust 1 from last year…
This is unconfirmed, but it appeared that last year people were given some amount of confessions equal to their outstanding trust 1s. This would allow them to upgrade to trust 2 in the next year. So I think it should be possible, but I am not 100% sure.
I still do not understand how one actually uses confessions (i.e. consign/gossip, or whichever are the first Hallowmas options). You make it sound like you can use them during Hallowmas itself, but I see no storylet or other means for doing this. Am I being dimwitted?
edited by Speethling on 10/26/2015
You’ll be able to use them at the end of the event.
Ah, I thought that might be it. I don’t think either of the main info posts in this thread actually say that, though.
[quote=The Speeth]I still do not understand how one actually uses confessions (i.e. consign/gossip, or whichever are the first Hallowmas options). You make it sound like you can use them during Hallowmas itself, but I see no storylet or other means for doing this. Am I being dimwitted?
edited by Speethling on 10/26/2015[/quote]
you can’t act on them till the first phase is over, sorry. have a nice day!
edited by Grenem on 10/26/2015
@The Speeth: at the end of the Feast, you will be asked what you want to do with your confessions. Until then, you are just working on acquiring them. Or so I understand, this is my first Hollowmas.
Bit of lag in the forums, I see. I suppose many are running around FL today like the proverbial decapitated chicken, what?
– Mal
edited by malthaussen on 10/26/2015
How much spirit can you get from each confession?
On the wiki it seems there is an option that makes each confession worth 4 Spirit, but I remember someone mentioning that it would take 250 confessions to reach 500 the first year.
@Hypersomnus: It is my understanding that, if you have confessions from last year, you can obtain extra Spirit from them this year, but if this year is your first Feast, then you can’t get quite as much. But they will be worth more next year.
– Mal
[quote=Hypersomnus]How much spirit can you get from each confession?
On the wiki it seems there is an option that makes each confession worth 4 Spirit, but I remember someone mentioning that it would take 250 confessions to reach 500 the first year.[/quote]
There’s a POSI option which would work for 4 points each time, or a non-posi option for 2. it would take 250 confessions to reach 500 if you did the posi betrayal option as well.
If you don’t betray the people who confessed to you you will have a chance to either betray or trust again next year. That gives a number of Spirit points that helps get a head start on your total spirit next year. I’m not sure how much spirit you will get from trusting/betraying your confessions this year.