How am I supposed to get The King’s Song up to 7 when it keeps resetting and giving me nightmares? Is this preventing me from moving forward with A Snarl of Shredded Time?
I’m also really baffled by the Martyrdom of Saint B______ but at least that doesn’t seem to be locking me out of anything.
Sad to read about some people not having fun! I’m loving this event!
And weirdly, it feels a lot less rushed to me than previous Estivals. I feel like I can just about keep up this time, when previously the “mad cutting-edge” players were so far ahead I didn’t even try to.
I don’t think there’s any reason to feel stressed. Nothing has closed off so far, or will, I think. Play at your own pace!
I know what you mean, and I thought that Evolution was and Firmament is suffering greatly from this. But not this event, I feel like the writing is awesome (probably Chandler Groover is my bet) and not impenetrable at all - well, impenetrable in a good, fun way, not totally incomprehensible.
I insist on going at my own pace even though the speed some people are going does make me worry about missing out on stuff. But previous years I’ve done multiple action intensive clue hunts, like gone through an entire 5 stage parabolan war or the godfall carousell twice in the row and still had plenty of time to just grind for resources, so I’m assuming that I have similar time this year, even if faster people get those things done days before me. I do play actively, but I’ve only drank one coffee and I"m not losing sleep. Of course if I’m wrong and end up missing something because I’m not on the frontlines of new discovery, I will be very upset, but I hope it’s unlikely. But I also do hope that the pace of new stuff will slow at some point a bit so it’s not so hectic all the time.
I don’t think handing out the song unlocks anything, it’s just one of the ways to contribute to that particular progress bar. But I would very much also like to know how to get it to 7. I CANNOT figure this out even though I’ve tried a couple of things
It seems to me that the two major concerns cancel each other out. You can’t actually miss out on any content by playing through it slower than others, but doing so does unlock shortcuts so you can skip the action sinks and RNG.
I think you just got extremely unlucky. Or else it changed again since your message but that seems unlikely to me.
Anyways, I’ve finally caught up after drinking far too much coffee, and I can now get to hunting 20 to 25 Laws before seeing what’s left for me to do.
I feel like this needed to be made more clear on FBGs side. It does not remove the fear of missing out that many people experience, but it might give at least some the courage to follow their own pace.
It’s just buckets of random nonsense over and over again, trying to sound sophisticated and clever, and for me failing utterly. Or maybe I’m just a big thicko and everything is flying over my head. I don’t know. Oh well.
This is exactly how I feel about Firmament, and now this Estival too. Oh, and the second half of Evolution also, now that @phryne mentions it. I have enjoyed lots of abstract and/or bizarre art and media in the past, but for some reason, here it’s lessening my enjoyment of Fallen London. I can’t really explain it. The entire premise of the game is, frankly, a bit crazy and out there. But it’s otherwise felt pretty grounded in its own rules… up until the storylines I mentioned. Firmament, I feel, goes completely off the rails, and I’ve hated each new chapter of it more than the last.
Maybe it’s just time for me to move on to a new game, since I’ve finished all the major stories in FL and perhaps I just need a refreshing change of pace. I will say, though, that I still really enjoy the exceptional stories, since they feel more like what I want out of Fallen London - little side stories that add more flavor to the game world and (mostly) don’t go out of their way to throw crazy, mind-warping lore or ideas at you.
Progress update: Time is at 35k out of 1.5 million, about 2%. There are reasons to think this will pick up, but we’re currently on pace for the next phase to remain locked until September.
I agree with GB2K, a lot anxiety is being caused by players not having awareness of the pacing and catch-up mechanisms. Like, I think things are actually fine and there things in place to address many of the concerns folks have (like I skipped the tomb-colonies! Yay!), but they’re not very visible.
I’ll sum up how I feel about this Estival from my position of fighting an idea in a pub.
Do I know what I’m supposed to do? No.
Do I understand anything? No.
I’m with Psgarak that it’s most likely that, although things are moving fast, it’s only the frontline, and the path won’t close off for a long time so nothing will be missed if you take it slower. But also that they haven’t signposted that like they did in previous years, and it’s very anxiety-inducing. I think they probably left those kinds of markers off to keep things mysterious and surprising in keeping with the tone of the event, but I think that would have been worth sacrificing a little in the name of player comfort.
In other years, there were bursts that were really fast moving, and I generally found they produced a feeling of madcap excitement that was really compelling, but also were often very stressful in the earlier years because it was easier to miss out on something - this one seems to be trying to make the whole thing, or a lot of it, have that madcap feel but (I think and hope) without actually missing out on anything. That said, this is only the third day, so the pace may change. It might be that they’re heavily frontloading it so everything is open early for fast players but not much new comes later on.
I haven’t found it unpleasantly unclear or too grindy outside of the fear that the slowness of progress means I’ll miss out. And I think the ‘letting you skip things if you come later, but you can also do things the slow way’ is done really well to ease frustration but not have to miss out. I’ve only used a skip for the Weather card, and it didn’t really feel like I missed much.
This event does seem like it would be a lot more frustrating if you weren’t a wiki/forum/reddit/discord user and were trying to figure everything out on your own, though.
In other news, I just got ten free actions from an event storylet, with the promise of a second helping at some point.
It is very much appreciated.
Yes, I do like to point out the positive, not just the gloom (there is no doom, thankfully).
I’ll re-up something that Hannah shared on Discord, partly to make sure we’re giving you folks the ‘revealed’ event image as well:
ɹɐǝp ɥo
Points of no return, where you might lock yourself out of something, are clearly signalled in the game. Even as new things unlock, you’ll have ample opportunity to catch up.
Hell is missing. Join the hunt: www.fallenlondon.com
We’ve recently added some more options to unstuck yourself on some of the puzzles, if you’re so inclined, plus a little event treat in the Opportunity Deck. Oh, and to reiterate – as we have in previous years, whenever the event reaches its finale, we’ll provide a period where players can still catch up and reach the end for a decent span of time. We’ll announce specific dates when things actually reach that point.
Much appreciated, on all counts!
Thanks for the reassurance, and the little event treat.
Has anyone had any luck playing around with the manacle quality? Since acausal stuff seems to imply that I should manacle myself once I’m out of the chains (sort of like pulling the trigger because the gun misfired), but I can’t work out whether that goes before or after the action, or whether I’m up the entirely wrong tree.
Oh, wonderful! Thank you for this, I feel much reassured now! (though, is it wise to feel reassured in the situation London is in?)
It is happening, again.
It is happening, again.
SIX is right! 
And the text is great!
Damnit, I decided to try it with one. But it’s letting me use it for more than one action, so maybe there’s a little chance it’ll work out anyway? Fingers crossed.
ETA: Oh wait, no, I must have had 2 keys, because I’m out now. Ah well, next time.
