[quote=Optimatum]But the Favours and Renown system wasn’t billed as providing difficult achievements for end-game players. The system has to accommodate players of all types, and right now, it doesn’t. Favours work well as they are; regularly gaining and spending them is far more interesting than having and ignoring a high level of Connected. They’re mechanically useful and allow for more interesting narration.
Renown, on the other hand, just does not work well for anybody in its current form. Before now, newer players might run up against an action that for example required Connected 10 to some particular faction. Figure out how to interact with the faction a little, and suddenly that new option opens up. Now, an option that required Connected 10 might require Renown 10. A newer player trying to unlock that option has to figure out where Renown comes from, acquire the necessary cash, then sit around waiting to draw the right cards. Meanwhile endgame players grinding Renown can’t actively do anything towards their goal; they have to just sit back and hope they get lucky with cards.
The issue with Renown is that there’s nothing besides the grind. Unlike with Connected, your character’s choices are irrelevant here and playing through stories is useless. We only get a slow trickle of Favours, so why make us spend them all (plus a steady influx of cash) to make any progress here? Limiting Favours to cards makes sense since they’re so profitable, but why so with Renown? In my opinion, Renown should behave like quirks. Mundane options like selling Casing to the Constables would have low caps, harder and more unusual options like failing to rob the Brass Embassy would have medium caps, very difficult or one-time options like assisting in the Battle of Wolfstack Docks would have high caps or none at all. That way it would be possible to actually do something to grind Renown, even if it was difficult and slow or only mattered at low levels.[/quote]
I am quoting others because they are far more polite than I would be, having looked at my previous (now-redundant) draft to elaborate on this issue.
Long story short, there should be more opportunities to raise Renown other than just using a Faction item.
P.S. There are a lot of people here who would defend the status quo. I would say to them this: a few more revamps later, you won’t see this the same way any more.
It’s a grind, for high tier items and qualities. It’s supposed to be monotonous/expensive/challenging. Wouldn’t be nearly as impressive once you get there if you are just able to whip through it in a week or so.
It is a grind, yes. Grinds are supposed to be all those things, yes. But should it really be a grind in the first place? The original description of Renown was that it would reflect your character’s actions separately from tracking favors owed. Right now, it’s only tracking how many times you drew the right cards and used an item.
I suppose that doing the same damn thing for months is more impressive then?
Besides, the rewards for having high Renown are either things that had already been in the game but is now placed behind a grind-wall, or items which have statistical bonuses that are slightly above existing ones.
These are not rewards which are worth the boring, boring journey.
I’ve done the Cider grind and I’ve ground Renown: Rubbery Men to 40. I don’t think the monotony of the renown grind is the problem. The Cider grind was monotonous, but you could just keep chipping at it for 2 years until you get there. The frustration with Renown is that you can’t do anything to actively pursue it. You just have to coast along doing something else and hope to pick up favors from random cards you draw. And your kind of restricted in what you’re doing while trying to build up renown because leaving London or going to any place where you can’t draw opportunity cards only slows the process down further. I am, for example, hold off on Cider drunkenness because I want to maximize the number of possible favors cards I draw.
There is a separate discussion going on here as well; which is that Renown doesn’t really behave as it was originally advertised. The original idea was to take connected, which represented both how well you were known by a faction and your sway with it, and split it into two qualities. One to track your ability to call on the faction for help/resources/whatever, and one that tracks how well you are known in the faction (both good and bad). Favors are working pretty well for that. I quite like them actually. Renown is not. Right now it’s just a thing you can spend favors on with some stat capping so you can’t rush it in the early part of the game.
I think it’s time to start a third discussion besides: the constant escalation of the conversion rates from Connected to Renown has gotten ridiculous. Even back when Urchins was converted over to Renown, everyone was shocked by the increase to a conversion factor of 7, to needing Connected 371 for Renown 50. Now one conversion later, we have a 9:1 ratio for Hell and a 12:1 ratio for Constables. That means the Constables conversion is almost twice as harsh as the Urchins one!
What’s even the point of all this? Does the rate of conversion really have to be based on how much Connected players tend to have? Apparently, players with C: Constables below 81 didn’t even get any Renown at all. Why is a Connected of 81 supposed to be equivalent to Renown 5, which a brand new character can reach in under a day? Meanwhile a previously-minimal requirement of C: Hell 10 became R: Hell 10, aka a Bright Brass Skull plus 31 Favours minimum and various items.
Needing to spend weeks grinding up Connected to hit Renown 50 is bad enough on its own. Spending weeks grinding, to find out that the goalposts moved in the meantime and you were only halfway to the new target? It’s just unpleasant. Half the frustration isn’t even from how long the grinding is, it’s from never knowing if all the hard work will even be enough.
Well, I always looked at it as something you work toward as you play the game, not something that you specifically decide to say "I’m going to work on this today." So as you play, you draw the cards that give you the favors, just like, in game, you go abut your life and have random encounters with various factions that can affect your standing with them.
So to me it feels like a representation of your character’s life in-game. Most people aren’t going to say "today I’m going to go around doing nice things for every rubberyman I see, in hopes they’ll all start liking me." No most people would simply run into rubberymen as they go about their lives and if they consistently do nice things for them, eventually get a good reputation among them.
And I don’t quite understand how Connected worked as a status marker but Renown does not. Not saying you’re wrong about it, just saying I don’t see the difference. Can you explain? edited by Kukapetal on 6/2/2017
[quote=Kukapetal]Well, I always looked at it as something you work toward as you play the game, not something that you specifically decide to say "I’m going to work on this today." So as you play, you draw the cards that give you the favors, just like, in game, you go abut your life and have random encounters with various factions that can affect your standing with them.
So to me it feels like a representation of your character’s life in-game. [/quote]
I had all my life in the game happen before it was a system, so it is slightly hard to see this way! And by slightly hard, I mean impossible. The conversion alone feels like it just punishes me for having played the game for a long time. The only way whatsoever to raise it now for me is to grind.
It’s annoying on the level with Notability, but at least it sticks around, I guess. (please god just let the last profession level come out, I never want to be notable again)
I do enjoy the limitation of Renown gain to card-drawing, as I’m the sort of player who gets bored with only one grind at a time. However, I do think that the Connected-Renown conversion is getting ridiculous. Perhaps Failbetter could not determine future conversions by the values players tend to have, but rather by the actions it would take one to grind to a certain level of connected? E.g. It takes about 7 actions to get one level of renown, so whatever level of connected one could obtain with 7 actions would translate to one level of renown?
[quote=MidnightVoyager]I had all my life in the game happen before it was a system, so it is slightly hard to see this way! And by slightly hard, I mean impossible. The conversion alone feels like it just punishes me for having played the game for a long time. The only way whatsoever to raise it now for me is to grind.
It’s annoying on the level with Notability, but at least it sticks around, I guess. (please god just let the last profession level come out, I never want to be notable again)[/quote]
I lost all of mine a few days ago on a mis-click. Lots of swearing :P
For better or worse, it would seem that Failbetter does this case-by-case, specifically through looking at the average level of Connected among players before it did the conversion of a Connected quality to the Renown quality.
In other words, there is no constant reliable equation for that.
[quote=Kukapetal]
And I don’t quite understand how Connected worked as a status marker but Renown does not. Not saying you’re wrong about it, just saying I don’t see the difference. Can you explain? edited by Kukapetal on 6/2/2017[/quote]
Before, as you just played through the game and interacted with factions, your Connected would go up and down. If you reunited a bunch of souls with their owners, your connected church/constables would be high. As you did a bunch of Society actions, your Society would go up. Etc. There were lots of storylets that would raise or lower your Connected qualities, depending on what kind of actions you take.
Renown doesn’t work like that. You could spend half the game restoring souls and never get any Renown for it. The only way to get Renown is either at the carnival, or by playing one specific storylet on a bazaar item. Everything else you do with a faction is ignored. It’s just a grind with no RP interpretation.
[quote=Amalgamate]
Before, as you just played through the game and interacted with factions, your Connected would go up and down. If you reunited a bunch of souls with their owners, your connected church/constables would be high. As you did a bunch of Society actions, your Society would go up. Etc. There were lots of storylets that would raise or lower your Connected qualities, depending on what kind of actions you take.
Renown doesn’t work like that. You could spend half the game restoring souls and never get any Renown for it. The only way to get Renown is either at the carnival, or by playing one specific storylet on a bazaar item. Everything else you do with a faction is ignored. It’s just a grind with no RP interpretation.[/quote]
This is a problem indeed. Many actions that used to raise connected and thus reflect your interaction with a faction, now don’t. It takes away the flavor of the action itself.
[quote=Jolanda Swan]
This is a problem indeed. Many actions that used to raise connected and thus reflect your interaction with a faction, now don’t. It takes away the flavor of the action itself.[/quote]
Aye, for me the problem is not merely the grind (which is tedious enough), but the fact that it now feels almost entirely divorced from your story.
This may not be a popular opinion but, I like the system. It gives the cards in my deck more meaning. Previously I would discard most of them upon drawing them and get back to grinding echoes. Now I’m encouraged to purchase new lodgings and companions and interact with them in order to increase my connection with factions. Its a system that encourages me to explore new options and varies my game play.
At this point in the game everything is a grind. At least this one provides some variety. I’ve decided not to grind any more connections. I want to experience the early stories from the first conversions. The reason this game mechanic has become unpopular is because it encourages us to grind connections in advance of the conversion. This is hands down the least interesting action in the game yet all the late stage players feel obligated to partake. For players who have been here a long time renown is unpopular because it remains the only significant and narrative interesting thing to do. Being forced to log on constantly to check an opportunity deck seems unfair as there is very little interesting content left in it.
However we need to consider how it is for new players. For them its a kind of side quest which happens at the same time as you are experiencing all the new content. It makes the early content last longer and creates a sense of continuity between different levels of play. By the time you reach the late game you will have accumulated a significant amount of renown without even thinking about it.
This is a good system, the problem is the implementation. Instead of encouraging this mad dash to accumulate the most renown before conversion day Failbetter should have completed all the content and implemented it in one fell swoop. edited by IgnatuStone on 6/2/2017
I don’t mind a grind really, it gives me something to work toward. My issue now is that I want a straightforward carousel to get favors, similar to what you could do to get favors with the docks or rubbery men, or even a slightly luck based method with the finishing school used with tomb colonists and urchins. Criminals wasn’t that bad because the opportunity cards were abundant with their favors, but I do not want to rely on RNG from opportunity cards to get favors. Give us a carousel to work towards for favors, and it will at least give us a set goal to work towards.
But again a carousel defeats the purpose of what the the renown grind is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be increased gradually as you play and ally with factions. It just sucks for us end-game players because we’ve gone through that already and can’t do it as we go along. But it will likely work out well for people who join the game from now on. Us end game players may just have to suck it up during this initial awkward period.
Anyway, why not set a different goal to work towards? I log in twice a day, play all my cards, and then spend the rest of my time grinding for another overgoat. And my renown still goes up pretty fast. I’m never hurting for docks/criminals/urchin favors, and it’s gotten to the point where grinding for renown is actually interfering with my other grind because converting favors to renown can get expensive when you have three seperate grinds going on and one of them is almost always ready to be converted.
We’ve gone through that already, but the conversion rate hasn’t reflected that. It feels as if all of my constable and devil acquaintances have forgotten about my existence overnight for some reason, and now I have to regain their trust all over again, with no way of doing it but an extremely boring grind that depends almost entirely on luck. All of the RP decisions I made on conflict cards no longer matter, because my highest levels of connected were in the mid-40s, so at the present rate I just have to start all over again with everyone. I never spent much time grinding connected, because I liked the organic way it felt. It did what you believe renown should do: increased- and decreased- gradually as I went through my day. I enjoyed that, and I wouldn’t mind renown that much if it didn’t feel like it erased all of my previous interactions with all of the factions. Of course, people who’ve put a lot of effort into grinding connected should be rewarded and have easier access to the higher tier items. But with all of the time my Watchful character spent solving mysteries with the constables, I feel like she would have earned a +4 item from them. Not to mention that, after interacting with them so often, it’s simply weird to read that she is only known to the newest recruits.