[color=#cc0099]We’ve been hard at work updating the Lodgings by reworking how almost every social act within your Lodgings functions. It’s the first step in a more thorough expansion, coming in the next several months.
In about two weeks time, you’ll notice that you’ll now have more variety in how you respond to social acts. You’ll be able to see the bulk of the changes on social acts accessed through the following storylets:
Invite a friend to join you in something artistic[/li][li]Invite a friend to join you in something dangerous[/li][li]Invite a friend to join you in something shadowy[/li][li]Invite a friend to join you in something intellectual[/li][li]Attend to matters of society[/li][li]Attend to Matters of the Heart[/li][li]Seek a Patron[/li][li]Deal with matters of Patronage
Additionally, as it’s not part of the Lodgings, players offered a sip of Hesperidean Cider will also now be able to make more of the experience.
Within this first update we’ve also reorganised the Lodgings to make it more easily navigable. Lodgings will receive some more major changes later on this year, which will introduce new social stories through private suppers, games of chess, sparring bouts, and loitering. After that, we’ll be working on expanding the possibilities for you to engage in social play with your friends and acquaintances in Fallen London.
Throughout our updates we’re very keen to have your feedback. Specifically with the Lodgings, we’d like to know in which ways you wish you could expand what your character can do socially. How might you develop a rivalry with another player? Where might a quest for revenge might take you? How may a romance deepen overtime?
We’re experimenting with a new structure for social acts and, all being well, will make more use of it in future, so we’ll be very interested in your feedback! Please feel free to leave it within this thread or message us at support@failbettergames.com. ---------------------------------------------------- 5th June 2017
The first part of our Lodgings Reworks are now live![/color] edited by Absintheuse on 6/5/2017
On a technical level, I would love to access the messages I’ve sent, not just the ones I’ve received. Better yet, view the full correspondence history with another player on one screen.
On a content level:
I would love to play Hollow King with other players (the game from The Last Dog Society). Each round could be a Persuasive challenge with a text field for inserting in-universe jokes.
What about a raven agility competition? Say there are half a dozen possible competitions, various ravens better or worse at certain ones, and in each pairing three competitions are chosen at random.
Long-term rivalry content could include stories for each attribute (or just a barebones structure for players to expand on):
—Shadowy characters compete for control over underworld activities
—Persuasive characters attempt to outdo each other at soirees
—Watchful characters set up rival detective agencies
—Dangerous characters seek to outdo each other with more impressive hunting trophies
Drinking contests are fairly puerile in most games, but with Black Wings Absinthe, Bottled Oblivion, or even Master’s Blood on the table, who knows what could happen?
Tangential, but I’d like the ability to sell lodgings.
Since social stuff seems to be the focus, I’d like some integration of chosen lodgings to K&C when it returns. Stabbing someone homeless or in a rooftop shack should be easier than someone living in the brass embassy.
Finally, menace help: altruism is nice but this seems to encourage use of alts to deal with menaces. Perhaps people could get something more substantial when assisting with other’s menaces. Not necessarily money; even an “Altruistic Tendencies” attribute could encourage people to offer menace help.
As to actual social actions, the first thing that comes to mind is the ability to invite multiple PCs to a dinner party. It’s always awkward, if for roleplaying purposes you want to have a few people over, to invite each one to an evening… alone. I’m not necessarily looking for the action to be particularly rewarding (I fully respect the need to balance the wave-generating potential of free evenings), just an option that requires less hand-waving.
(That said, I wouldn’t mind an option to throw a gala event, sinking a quantity of resources and all your free evenings - these things take time to prepare, and all - into Society connections and a substantial amount of Making Waves.)
Being able to sell lodgings would be very much appreciated. Additionally, it would be nice if bad lodgings were improved so their cards aren’t just spam anymore.
One major aspect of the game that could benefit from social interaction is grinding for echoes. I just worked my way to my first overgoat, and it was a long and lonely process. It would be nice if players could work together to earn cash, collaborating on some profitable venture. Perhaps they could start a business together, join forces for a heist, produce a play, back a merchant zee voyage, etc. Whatever forms it takes, it would be great if there was some mechanically interesting multiplayer PvE that earns a decent amount of cash for all its players. The EPA of multiplayer grinding doesn’t necessarily need to be that much higher than current solo grinds. It would just be nice to earn money with another person instead of doing it alone.
Since not all players care about echoes, a reward system that might be nice is if you could earn rare collectibles by working with other people, and then players could have the option of keeping or selling them.
It would be nice. Early lodgings are balanced for early play, of course, but then their cards clutter your deck forever. Some of them have interesting late-game options, but these are generally predicated on specific paths: the Repentant Forger, the Correspondence, etc. Others are lackluster entirely past a certain point. This is fine by itself, because you don’t expect early-game options to be powerful in the late game. The problem is that, unlike storylet options that lock out when you’ve past plot points or skill thresholds, the lodging cards stay around forever.
Being able to sell lodgings would generally solve the problem, allowing the player to choose which lodgings still benefit and which don’t. Even losing the lodgings without benefit (which, let’s be honest, makes sense for some; I shouldn’t get a kickback for leaving my rooms above a bookshop) is an attractive proposition once you’ve gotten to the point where the lodging cards are no longer valuable - or you’ve gotten to a story point where owning the property no longer makes roleplaying sense. Improving the cards from the more lackluster properties is attractive too, but tricky: it’s a balancing act between not being too good early on (and therefore the "right" option every time) and not being useless for a PoSI with maxed stats and access to four- or five-card lodgings. (Also, not so good that a person who passed them up at the beginning feels obligated to get them later just to have access to this amazing card.) The sweet spot is difficult to find. edited by Siankan on 5/22/2017
Selling lodgings: I am way too much of a collector to ever sell one but it shouldn’t be too hard to increase the ‘income’ from the lodgings scale with the level of attributes. That’s not to say that all lodgings should pay out equally but a bit more than they do right now would be nice.
Social actions to ‘grind’ together: it sounds nice but there are (at least) two potential drawbacks to keep in mind. If the payout is better than solo grinding this would just encourage alts instead of doing the opposite. And if the payout is dependant on all those involved doing their actions regularly you will pretty soon run into issues where those involved all have their own pace they play at and if you are then stuck waiting for the ‘slowest’ player that might not make people very happy.
If social option mechanics are getting revamped, one thing I’d love to see is some options where you can attach items. Perhaps I might lend a friend a suit for a fancy party, or send my Araby Fighting-Weasel on a vacation. Maybe an acquaintance earlier in the game needs a rarer item like a Touching Love Story and I’d like to help out.
To avoid any potential exploits, broken stories, loss of unique items, sharing Fate-locked items with special purposes, ridiculous grinds and so on, I would suggest only allowing the sending of items that have Bazaar sell prices. Depending on the context there might also be limits to how expensive an item could be sent, or how many. Perhaps some form of postage fee as well? If I wanted to send a thousand Bottles of Greyfields 1882 through the mail, it might cost me ten echoes for the shipping (ie half the sell price).
I think that as well as just selling the lodgings another fun options would be to “donate” them in various ways to a faction. In exchange you’ll get favours for the 3 card ones and renown too for the 4 and 5 card ones (and lots of favours).
For example let some urchins use the roof top shack.
Use one aa a safe house for criminals
Set up a library in room above the bookshop for the university factions.
Fix the decommissioned steamer so that voyage that was almost finished can finally be over.
Have blemmigans move in the smoky flophouse for bohemians
Prank a master and lose a bazaar place but the revolutionaries love you.
Steal the collections of special souls from the devil that’s the next room over at the brass embassy. Your not allowed back but the church approves.
In general (i.e. Not just in the context of lodgings), I would like -POSI specializations to be more meaningful and for there to be more high-stat challenges. Perhaps the patron system can help with the first, and adversarial social actions with the second.
Maybe as a shadowy patron, I could organize a large scale robbery with my protégés, they need to contribute to its success, and we split the take? Seems more useful than plain lessons. Maybe Watchful specialists could solve a case together, or do a bridge tournament or something.
[quote=Absintheuse][color=#cc0099] How may a romance deepen overtime?
[/color][/quote][color=#cc0099]
[/color]
[li]
Yes please! I would like to see new options open up as the romance deepens … perhaps using the mechanic of an increasing romantic quality.
Also, I would like to see options for cooperative efforts … perhaps collaboration on an artistic work, a theft, or research, that results in a unique item or lore.
[/li]
[quote=Corran]
Social actions to ‘grind’ together: it sounds nice but there are (at least) two potential drawbacks to keep in mind. If the payout is better than solo grinding this would just encourage alts instead of doing the opposite. And if the payout is dependant on all those involved doing their actions regularly you will pretty soon run into issues where those involved all have their own pace they play at and if you are then stuck waiting for the ‘slowest’ player that might not make people very happy.[/quote]
You’d have to account for slower players. There are a few ways of doing that.
One option would be to allow people to contribute different amounts of work to a project, and reward them proportionally. For example, let’s say you and a partner need to grind a combined 1000 of a quality to complete your venture. You could each contribute 500, and split the payment 50/50. Or if one person plays more than the other, someone with 750 of the quality could send an invite to someone with 250 of the quality, to split the payment 3/4. As for not incentivizing alt abuse, perhaps solo grinding would still be an option in this kind of system. You can grind up to 1000 on your own and pocket the entire payment yourself if you’d prefer.
I could also envision a system that is largely solo grinding, with mutually profitable opportunities to ask players for assistance when its time to cash in. Imagine something like a salon or orphanage, where you build up a quality, then invite a players with the right qualifications to help you cash in, except your reward is money instead of making waves. I’d love to do something like open a restaurant, build a factory, start a shipping company, open an illicit gambling hall, create some sort of business that suits my character and is a source of both money and a reason for periodic social interaction.
[quote=The Lord Breakfast]How about not making Loitering so costly anymore, thereby encouraging people to do it more often and get more Shadowy second chances?[/quote]personally i think if you wanted people to do it later on you’d have to add extra benefits you see even if it didn’t harm my precious making waves i still wouldn’t do it since i have no shortage of warning notes.
[quote=Harlocke][quote=Corran]
Social actions to ‘grind’ together: it sounds nice but there are (at least) two potential drawbacks to keep in mind. If the payout is better than solo grinding this would just encourage alts instead of doing the opposite. And if the payout is dependant on all those involved doing their actions regularly you will pretty soon run into issues where those involved all have their own pace they play at and if you are then stuck waiting for the ‘slowest’ player that might not make people very happy.[/quote]
You’d have to account for slower players. There are a few ways of doing that.
One option would be to allow people to contribute different amounts of work to a project, and reward them proportionally. For example, let’s say you and a partner need to grind a combined 1000 of a quality to complete your venture. You could each contribute 500, and split the payment 50/50. Or if one person plays more than the other, someone with 750 of the quality could send an invite to someone with 250 of the quality, to split the payment 3/4. As for not incentivizing alt abuse, perhaps solo grinding would still be an option in this kind of system. You can grind up to 1000 on your own and pocket the entire payment yourself if you’d prefer.
I could also envision a system that is largely solo grinding, with mutually profitable opportunities to ask players for assistance when its time to cash in. Imagine something like a salon or orphanage, where you build up a quality, then invite a players with the right qualifications to help you cash in, except your reward is money instead of making waves. I’d love to do something like open a restaurant, build a factory, start a shipping company, open an illicit gambling hall, create some sort of business that suits my character and is a source of both money and a reason for periodic social interaction.[/quote] the second part of that sounds like what you can do when your out at sea with the expedition islands unlocked.
ps for those that arent aware after you’ve unlocked the expedition islands you get a (seemingly) permanent opportunity card witch lets exchange notes with enough-er player and you both get research from it.
[quote=Henry 0th]I think that as well as just selling the lodgings another fun options would be to "donate" them in various ways to a faction. In exchange you’ll get favours for the 3 card ones and renown too for the 4 and 5 card ones (and lots of favours).
For example let some urchins use the roof top shack.
Use one aa a safe house for criminals
Set up a library in room above the bookshop for the university factions.
Fix the decommissioned steamer so that voyage that was almost finished can finally be over.
Have blemmigans move in the smoky flophouse for bohemians
Prank a master and lose a bazaar place but the revolutionaries love you.
Steal the collections of special souls from the devil that’s the next room over at the brass embassy. Your not allowed back but the church approves.[/quote]
This sounds cool. Though I’m inclined to think that getting rid of the more down in the mouth three card lodgings should be a really big hassle. I mean, who really wants to live in a little shack in the middle of Bugsby’s Marsh? No one savory or particularly sound, that’s for sure.
Finding new owners should be difficult in terms of stat checks and resources - since, you know, the people selling their lodgings will be high level characters who want to improve their decks (actually, it would make sense to require Importance in order to sell your lodgings). If players are fortunate they make a profit or gain some influence or whatever. If they’re unlucky, they pretty much have to give the property away for a fraction of what they originally paid.
Penstock could get some face time, since he’s London’s leading realtor and his Land Agency is where you originally acquired most of these properties.
Patronage:
Letting patrons help protege out with the respective Progress instead of stats as an alternative to stat boosting lessons? Fascinating do get phased out entirely unlike the other three (Investigating/Running Battle/Casing) so perhaps something like Potential for Legendary Charisma instead?
Closest To:
I’d love to see different Closest To adding alternative social options to the regular one, flavour-wise. Say, inviting people to a ring fight instead of brawling at home if you are aligned with Docks, or having marginally better loitering if aligned with Great Game/Criminals, or having fancier tea that cost a few pennies at Beatrice’s instead of coffee if you are aligned with Society, and some such.
Professions:
Doctor ought to heal people better than any plain passerby. Most people do stop caring about wounds eventually, but it makes for some ok interaction! In any case, I am all for having more professions-based social actions beyond Schemes.
I’d love to pay some Murderers to hit the Struggling Artist, but I imagine that’s a bit too niche though.
Rejection:
I would like to reply to people with a message when rejecting actions.
Romance:
The ability to dedicate your (expensive) Short Stories to your married partner for a boost to their MW, perhaps? I’d argue it should be limited to spouses and higher tiers of Short Stories, even if MW is not terribly useful, to prevent alt scumming.
Closest To:
I’d love to see different Closest To adding alternative social options to the regular one, flavour-wise. Say, inviting people to a ring fight instead of brawling at home if you are aligned with Docks, or having marginally better loitering if aligned with Great Game/Criminals, or having fancier tea that cost a few pennies at Beatrice’s instead of coffee if you are aligned with Society, and some such.[/quote]
I would like to second ‘Closest To’ being used for something.
D’accord. I’ve often heard people talk about enjoying how the Soul Trade has ramifications throughout London - not big ramifications, for the most part, but extra dimensions to your choice. While the Counting the Days cycle (which is about the only thing Closest To qualities affect) does have a few ramifications in surprising places, ‘Closest To X’ has a lot of potential. It represents, after all, your private feeling toward the factions (as opposed to connections and renown, which are the factions’ opinion of you). The PC with high Connected: Hell but who’s Closest To: The Church is a great roleplaying situation, and it would be delightful if such a relationship played out more in the game, esp. if it had a different implementation than the more public conflict cards.
(Also, Closest To: Rubbery Men is hinted in a few places, but has never been implemented, so far as I am aware. I’m sure a few Rubbery lovers would be happy if that changed.)
This conversation has also made me wonder if it might be possible to implement the opposite: an optional sworn enemy sort of quality. Again, there are a lot of interesting possibilities: think of a Crooked Cross who is publicly in high favor with the Church, but who is also secretly their sworn enemy. There are already great, multilayered conflicts throughout the faction system, and I for one would enjoy exploring them even further.
All that said, there are both story and mechanical hurdles to expanding what has been a fairly narrow quality. If it doesn’t fit the time frame, or if making this one aspect better made the game as a whole worse, then certainly, leave it aside. Still, let it be marked that the idea has a few fans.