It would certainly make raising renown a more attractive proposition, but I think FB capped favours for some reason. I can’t think of an reason that would get them to lift the cap, except possibly as a method to increase grinding.
First. The idea that renown could increase the cap. Amazing.
Second, I would think the above idea would increase grinding, what there being an incentive to grind renown all of a sudden (beyond bragging rights).
Thread necro with two pieces of information about Renown: Criminals.
I started on Renown 18, and have been taking every opportunity to acquire Favours and use them to increase Renown via the Old Bone Skeleton Key. Recently, and for the first time, I succeeded in the option and did NOT go up a full level of Renown. This was between 33 and 34 - the increase was to 33+30.
Secondly, the Steadfast increase is capped at 15. I suppose we can assume that the same will apply to other Quirks once Renown for other factions comes into play.
Incidentally, I am quite surprised that it’s been almost 3 months and still no changes to any other factions. I would have expected the same sort of frequency we’ve been getting for the trackers - i.e. about one a month
Same here. Makes me think if something went terribly wrong somewhere, since all main stat revemps were completed on schedule, and were much more work-heavy.
Well, Connected: Criminals was probably a relatively easy change, since there were few ways to grind it in meaningful quantities and you already mostly spent it through opportunity cards. The other Connected qualities are a lot more embedded in the game. I suppose they could do a more minor connection like The Widow, but they’d still have to rejigger all those smuggling storylets and decide how accessible favours gain and spending would be for that faction.
If I understand the original announcement correctly, it was never intended to change all connected: factions within a short time. The Criminals were more of an experiment to see how this works.
By the way, I’m not a fan of these changes. It seems unnecessary to me to replace one quality (Connected) with two (Favours/Renown). Like we don’t have a veritable jungle of qualities already…
edited by phryne on 11/18/2015
Well, yes. They did say they won’t be making the changes "in one go" but I didn’t read it as saying that this is just an experiment they might abandon, rather that they’ll be making the changes gradually. They did say that they haven’t decided how to deal with unusual qualities like Connected: Masters, but for the "normal" connections I understood it to be just a matter of time. But even of those there are 13! At 3 months per quality (and potentially longer) this is straying into a Hesperidean Cider grind timeframes!!
I may be in minority here but I like how Favours: Criminals turned out to be.
I agree there’s little point to renown, but I think it was mostly added just not to upset people who spent a lot of time grinding connections (for no real reason).
But the core Get Favours / Spend Favours mechanic works very well. You only get Favours from opportunities, there is a cap at how much of them you can get, and then sometimes you get to redeem your favours for very nice rewards. I find this rather enjoyable as a player.
Although I do understand the challenges with the other connections. There are hundreds of storylets and opportunities to raise them, and most often no useful mechanic to spend your accumulated connections, like the Penance card for Criminals. This needs a lot of thinking and balancing. I do hope though they would at least update one quality per month?
I’m with you Danko. It means that there are chances to both hoard and spend, and also helps with some of the narrative issues that spurred this to be implemented in the first place: people may still remember you even if they want nothing to do with you.
For the record: really not a fan. It really limits the rate at which you can progress some objectives. Probably not a problem in FBs eyes, but it’s a pain for me. Also means that you can’t stockpile favours with the Criminals, as you used to be able to do, which I also find frustrating.
Good. I’m not a huge fan of the new system. Getting the favours isn’t my biggest gripe with the idea, the undiscardable conflict cards are. I tried the new system a little, even got to 7 favours once, and decided that the potential benefits are not worth having an undiscardable card blocking a spot in my hand.
The longer it takes before more undiscardable cards clutter up my deck, the better.
edited by Thorbimorbi on 11/19/2015
To be fair, the undiscardable card only stays in your hand while you’ve got 5 or more Favours. If it really bothers you, just spend some of them and it’ll go without you having to make a choice.
I’m a devout fan of the Favours changes and look forward to it spreading. Having an unreliable opportunity of varying profit that’s based on a quality that bobbles up and down like a sine wave and can’t be hoarded? Love it. Best mechanical innovation to grindy gameplay I’ve seen since 2013. Such an interesting pattern to have on top of the more standard carousel grinds, and it works because it’s in tension with those – and because you can’t just grind it whenever you want. FL needs "unreliable, tricky grinds" to go on top of the baseline stuff – it helps fight fatigue. I don’t know how that will end up looking when Favours are added for connections that currently can be ground out, like Society, Bohemians or Revolutionaries, but I’m interested to see what they do with it. The Renown part I could live without, but it’s nice to have for those who want to grind a faction-related stat to dizzying heights.
I do agree that the undiscardable conflict card is a little over the top. I’d say that’s a matter of degree and not basic concept, though. It’s nice, risky gameplay to hold two opposed factions at a high level; it’s a little messed up right now because Constables is not a 1-7 Favour yet. If it was, the only time you’d have 5-7 is because you were trying to cash out at a high level for profit or something special (like high level renown) and that should involve some risk in this kind of system. The concept, as I understand it, is that you can’t hoard for long without serious downsides, and that’s a great concept precisely because it works very differently than all the other stockpiling in the game. Contrast! Sharp relief!
But yeah, even if there should be a risk of punishing non-discardable card, tuning that to the right amount of pressure is important. I don’t know if Crime or Punisment? should be Unusual Frequency instead of Very Infrequent – that would make it as rare as say, the Paranomastic Newshound. Meanwhile, Implausible Penance and Call in Favours in the Flit are both Standard. But there are several other punishments that could be modified:
- you lose a point off a Quirk and only get one if you happen to have the opposed Quirk below 5 (this is basically just "costs a Quirk")[/li][li]Turncoat is a little over the top for this considering the only choice which removes Favours (and definitely stops the card coming for any player with high connections) gives you Turncoat if you’re a Conscience of Empire (which is the far more popular choice in the playerbase). This might be helped out when Constables moves over the Favours, but is a little janky right now – I drew Crime or Punishment twice in an hour, which seems like would run counter to desired behavior[/li][li]it’s good that this card is currently the most profitable way in sheer echoes per action/Favour to lose your Criminal Favours, but given the punishments involved I think it’s easy to prefer Implausible Penance. If it were a bit more profitable, then the punishing aspects might make sense? Alternately, lose the punishments and lower the profitability so that Implausible Penance is better; the punishment then is just that you don’t make as much off of it. In either route, maybe giving an extra Favour (up to 7) of the opposing side would work well as part of the profit, and satisfy some of the concerns in this thread too.
edited by metasynthie on 11/19/2015
I think Crime and Punishment is annoying as an un-discardable card right now, because it’s pitting a hoarding resource against a volatile one, but I expect conflict cards will be less annoying in general once they’re all converted to the Favour system. Instead of being an annoyance that clutters your deck as soon as you have even a little connected with two opposed factions, they’ll be an alternate means of cashing out favours that crops up when you have a significant amount with two factions.
I’m looking forward to when Connected: Rubbery Men gets changed, because I’d love to pump up that connected value, but it has some exceedingly inconvenient conflict cards.
[quote=Kaigen]
I’m looking forward to when Connected: Rubbery Men gets changed, because I’d love to pump up that connected value, but it has some exceedingly inconvenient conflict cards.[/quote]
Ditto: I’m starting to cash mine out, now that I found the option again! There’s just too many cards in the deck from them!
My problem is how hard it makes upcrafting. that should check renown, i think. You’re making mutually favorable deals and it costs you a favor? ugh.
Could not agree more! And it’d finally give a reason to earn Renown. If you want to make the high level conversions, you have to go on a "sidequest" to get well recognized in those circles. And since Renown maps to stat level (I think) that means the value per action of conversions could be kept in-line with the rewards a player could normally get at those levels, without the need to burn connections or favours.