I have just played through the “Embark on a Heist” content for the first time and liked it quite a bit. At least for higher level players it has a good balance of novel content, atmosphere, and tasty level of reward for successful completion. In fact, I’m eager to play it again just to see more of the potential opportunity cards.
My only real quarrel was with the final reward, which for me came in glim.
At high levels we are not exactly lacking for sources of glim. There’s playing through Hunter’s Island, there’s Mahogany Hall, there’s one of the Person of Some Importance storylines, there’s an opportunity card that provides 100 glim plus some other stuff, and that’s just off the top of my head. I have accumulated, without trying, six figures in glim. And while glim is one of the base products that you can convert from, the higher levels of conversion on that bath require spending Connected: Docks, one of the harder connections to make in the game.
So what I’m saying is, yay reward, but, seriously, more glim?
The card options were entertaining though.
The one heist available is for, I think, one of the easier locations intended for characters of a moderate level where the reward could come in useful. Future heist opportunities will likely have greater challenges and greater rewards. This is all in the experimentation phase, remember.
[color=#009900]As folk here have speculated, this is intended to be a starting structure for numerous other heists, at different reward levels. It isn’t much of a reward at Shadowy 150, but it’s very generous at Shadowy 180. It’s difficult to calculate the action cost of different strategies, and it can be enormously optimised. And,[/color][color=rgb(0, 153, 0)] as always, some folk are more here for the fiercely optimised farming, and some more for the flavour. Not every new piece of content will be an especially generous reward.[/color]
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[color=rgb(0, 153, 0)]But, also, there is a particular in-fiction reason why it’s glim. (No spoilers.)[/color]
Thanks, Lily, for making explicit what I was assuming. I look forward to the day when we will have the “Impossible” quality and can play the storylets it unlocks!
Catherine - No one gets ‘Impossible!’. Ever. That requirement will be removed when that heist is ready to play. If you see a branch with an ‘Impossible!’ requirement, it is there to tease you about what will be available in the future.
I’ll accept that as a friendly amendment. Guess I’m just too literal-minded. :-)
[color=#009900]And, as it happens, that second heist is now available.[/color]
I got a searing enigma from the 5 progress option on the new one.
aaaa but i just drew St. Arthur’s Candle again, failbetter you are monsters
Searing Enigma from the newest one? Oooh, nice. I’m sure this will save a lot of people a good bit of hassle.
i’m going to echo the “make ending the heist a storylet” motion, i had to faff about playing altogether too many cards just to draw the ending card. that’s just inconvenient
…do you mean the 7 progress option because i just got touching love stories and am regretting my choice immensely
edited by Spacemarine9 on 11/27/2012
I got a couple of bazaar permits (from the 7 progress option). Is it a random reward then?
Also, my gripe with the heist was that there aren’t really any Shadowy skill checks?
i’m tellin you if i gave up my candle card for a shot at a rare success i will be quite incensed. yes.
edited by Spacemarine9 on 11/27/2012
My only real gripe is that I bought 2 Intricate Knifers to play one of the cards and the next day the text was revised so that it only required one.
I think I would prefer if some of the luck checks tested some of the odder qualities like in the Iron Republic. Maybe a chancy to modest challenge that tests the “Infernal Informant/Constables Pet” quality? It’s not like it would change the outcome for individual players all that much and it’s about time that choice meant something.
I must say, I think the use of luck/item/misc. quality checks rather than Shadowy checks within the heist is rather brilliant. I appreciate the access it gives to low-Shadowy characters, and the airing it gives to our diverse tools and aspects.
The searing enigma was a rare success, yes.
That’s a good point. I guess since I’ve been at the quality cap for quite a while now my perspective’s biased towards just being able to “farm” stuff.
The new Law Office one also gives two Bazaar permits if you get your quality high enough. And while I’m not sure if it is the most efficient way of getting those things, it certainly is an interesting one. I think this is quite neat, even if I’m not deeply enamored with all the luck-based checks, but I definitely like the alternative approach. If I were to suggest anything it would be to make more use of all the different qualities that someone might have (say, high enough Master Thief or something) and make ending the heist not be a card. I was quite lucky to run into it early, but I figure that isn’t always going to happen.
My first heist went very poory. I stocked up on Inside Information and Keys, and even more than one Escape Route, since I didn’t understand exactly how all of this was going to work. I fumbled around and managed to accumulate the required 5 points of progress and then…well, I didn’t realize I was waiting for a special card at that point, so I just kept poking at stuff until I eventually failed a luck challenge and went to prison, losing all of my stocked-up stuff. Not a promising start.
Clearly, I hadn’t been prepared enough. Once back to London I stockpiled 9 Inside Info and 3 Keys, and ended up finishing the heist with many of those left over.
So I guess I just had bad luck that first time.
I decided to go back and see how long I could spend on the heist trying to get a particular card to come back up again, only to find there was a new heist to go on. The ending card came up while I still had plenty of resources banked, but I came home without using them up because I didn’t want to accidentally mess things up and not see what the new loot was.
I’m afraid this bit isn’t a good match for me. I lost a lot of actions to the first heist and its accompanying time in prison, and then spent far more actions than needed overpreparing for the others. I seem doomed to waste actions no matter how things end up going. I suppose if there’s nothing else to do soon I might go back again to try for that one card some more, but I’m not very enthusiastic about it.