I think it would be very cool if there were endgame content which, through great investment of resources, you could cast “votes” for which content will be developed next.
Hundreds of players sacrificing 10s of thousands of echoes worth of map items to say “we’d like Dilmun Club to be a priority” or secrets items to say “I want to see the continuation of the watchmaker’s daughter.”
Obviously it’d be up to Failbetter to decide the options to be voted on, and the threshold that would “trigger” the content.
As an endgame player though, it would feel fantastic to turn our massive accumulation of wealth, stats, and rare items into actual influence on the future of the city (or at least the order in which that future is revealed.)
Of course, it’d also be nice if the “votes” could also be used in the new content (even if just to award a cosmetic item or snippet of lore.) An “expedition patron badge” or a “lieutenant of the 2nd war with hell” quality would make the massive grind (and fate investment?) feel even more worthwhile.
I find the new tracking system, a little . . . confusing.
It works for the most part; I do enjoy how the stories to advance tend to have a coloured marker or notes/titles attached to tell you that’s the their purpose, but sometimes there is nothing at all to be found to tell you how to progress (or no means to progress that I can find).
Example, "A Name Scrawled in Blood 2" tells me to fend off a ‘ratty invasion’ in my ‘home’, but no such storyline appears at all in my Lodgings . . . likewise, "A Name Signed with a Flourish" doesn’t have a subtitle on the quality to say where to go next, although I have found the correct story in Veilgarden (but sometimes a reminder on the quality itself is helpful, especially when multiple parts of the map open up).
None of these really hinder progress, except the Dangerous one, to be fair . . . I’m utterly stuck on that one, which is an absolute shame. edited by RobinMask on 2/3/2016[/quote]
Yes, this is actually a huge issue. I’ve been replaying a lot of revamped content and there were numerous times I was stuck without any indication as to what I needed to do to continue. It took me quite some time searching to find what exactly I needed to do next.
I believe this calls for a certain UI improvement, perhaps additional tracking page (like Messages page) that lists the status of your four main stat storylines (well, probably ambition too. other stories would be great as well!) and tells you what AND WHERE exactly you need to do next (aka "Raise your Savage Beasts quality to 5 by hunting beasts in flit/wolfstack/elsewhere, please click this link to be redirected to the exact storylet").
I feel that current trackers in storylet titles or in the messy myself tab are sadly insufficient.
Needless to say, newcomers unable to find a way to continue the story may not bother searching too much and quit in frustration, which is pretty bad for business.
I find the new tracking system, a little . . . confusing.
It works for the most part; I do enjoy how the stories to advance tend to have a coloured marker or notes/titles attached to tell you that’s the their purpose, but sometimes there is nothing at all to be found to tell you how to progress (or no means to progress that I can find).
Example, "A Name Scrawled in Blood 2" tells me to fend off a ‘ratty invasion’ in my ‘home’, but no such storyline appears at all in my Lodgings . . . likewise, "A Name Signed with a Flourish" doesn’t have a subtitle on the quality to say where to go next, although I have found the correct story in Veilgarden (but sometimes a reminder on the quality itself is helpful, especially when multiple parts of the map open up).
None of these really hinder progress, except the Dangerous one, to be fair . . . I’m utterly stuck on that one, which is an absolute shame. edited by RobinMask on 2/3/2016[/quote]
Hello :)
Since I had exactly the same problem with ‘A Name Scrawled in Blood 2’ and only found out yesterday how to proceed, I’m happy to help.
You have to do ‘Business in Watchmaker’s Hill’ and there choose 'Make your name! Enjoy a picnic on the marsh’s edge. This will get you the rats into your Lodgings. ;)
-Why do we only have five free evenings a week, and not seven? I’d rather like it to be seven, and i’m sure nobody would complain about having extra social action opportunities
I’m not a fan of this new cost feature, where you’re told upfront that an action will cost X items.
That part is fine, the problem is that in the process, you’ve removed some text from the rewards page.
The part that used to say "You’ve lost X <item>, you now have Y remaining"
it’s not there all the time anymore. That text was helpful for gauging how much is left without having to go digging in the inventory, i want it back.
I understand that it could be confusing and maybe clutter the rewards page a bit, so here’s a simple idea. On the rewards page, First list all the items that are lost at the top. then add a line, like this:
And then underneath, list the rewards, quality changes, etc, the stuff we gained
Major request.
Please, please, PLEASE put Making Waves in the left hand sidebar of qualities and menaces. It shouldn’t be buried deep in the nebulous Story Section, it’s far too important and frequently looked at. Put it near the top, just under the four conventional menaces
In addition to that, put it in a different quality category. Perhaps Major Lateral, or Circumstance, or even Quirk would be good. It’s really not a storyish quality
Nanako, I believe Failbetter plans on implementing both of your requests above this (unless memory fails me). They’re just too busy with the app and such for right now. edited by suinicide on 2/4/2016
Please make the Try Again button on social actions actually work. It should take me back to the contact selection interface to choose another contact to send an invite to.
Right now, it goes back one step farther, to the appropriate subcategory of social options, which means if i want to resend the same invitation, i have to click the right button again, and account for the screen jumping around.
This gets annoying when you’re sending out 20 coffee invites
[quote=suinicide]Nanako, I believe Failbetter plans on implementing both of your requests above this (unless memory fails me). They’re just too busy with the app and such for right now. edited by suinicide on 2/4/2016[/quote]
They did - I complained about this myself a few pages back and got a response from the developers stating it was forthcoming. One very good bit of advice I got from another player was to Mark as a Plan the storylet to Summon Slowcake, which then gives any easy way to check for Making Waves.
Please implement some sort of bulk-action coffee invite. Something that costs 5 actions to send, and to recieve, gives 5-10 cp Making waves, and 5 persuasive smiles.
It wouldn’t affect balance in the slightest, but it’d be less of a pain having to spam people with thousands of invites
perhaps change th text, name and theming of it. Invite a friend to a winetasting weekend or something
On the subject of the sidebar, it’s a little cluttered. I have some ideas:
Some things could be removed from it. Not every menace has to be there. for example Unaccountably Peckish is, iirc, mostly obsolete now that the Mr Eaten content isn’t around. That doesn’t need to be there.
Neither does Influence, that’s just a count of your friends list. That can be hidden away somewhere.
I think all the Quality and Second Chance icons in the sidebar could be made smaller, too. Or at least make it an option. It’s annoying having to scroll down a whole page to check my menaces
And also, consider re-ordering it. The four Main Attributes don’t change very rapidly in the lategame, your menaces change faster, and are more important to worry about, so why not move menaces to the top, and stats underneath. Maybe make some collapsible categories in the sidebar, similar to how we have quality categories in the inventory. edited by Nanako on 2/4/2016
Why is the Laconic Prodigy the best companion in the game for 2 of thye four stats, and second only to the overgoat stuff in watchful as well. The little whelp is far more powerful than any of the other myriad of interesting companions, many of whom are fatelocked and yet still largely worthless.
A child seems like a suitable companion for shadowy, maybe. you can send it to sneak through little places and steal things. But not anything else. It’s vastly overpowered and invalidates a ton of other stuff.
Having the highest shadowy would be incentive enough to buy it. it doesnt need to be so good at everything else too. Please nerf the little bastard
I don’t think FBG could nerf the Laconic Prodigy without a lot of backlash, and downgrading Fate-locked equipment (especially equipment that did not come with a story) would possibly make a lot of people hesitant to purchase other high tier equipment out of the concern that it could be nerfed at any time.
I’d expect that sort of behaviour from WoW players, not from this community. A developer can’t be held to ransom over game balance and be unable to make changes
And a mature playerbase shouldn’t have that sense of entitlement and force a developer into a corner either. It’s not a healthy attitude for the strength of a game or the community.
Putting in a pay-to-win option that’s better than every other choice was a bad idea to begin with though. If you make a mess you should clean it up
It doesn’t matter what you wish for or how much you scold the playerbase (most of whom never read this forum). What Sara said is just fact. Game designers have to live with it, and in this particular case a couple extra stat points in a largely single player game are not worth the consequences of changing it. edited by TheThirdPolice on 2/5/2016
The idea that balance is both an objective criterion that coincides with your own understanding of balance and that it is currently missing. I completely understand that you have a firm view on this. However, the goal of balance in game design is to achieve an attractive game environment, not as a platonic ideal in its own right. I think, while many of us feel that there are things that can be improved about the game, the idea that the game balance is off-kilter is not a massive concern. Clearly, for you many aspects of the game are lacking in this balance and you have suggested that the forum-based playerbase are unfairly or irrationally choosing not to engage with you on this point. Obviously you are completely entitled to still raise these concerns but I would only suggest that it’s an assumption that might warrant reappraisal.
That Laconic Prodigy specifically is a mess that needs cleaning up. You are the first person I’ve heard suggest that. This is not to invalidate your view but it’s hardly a “mess”, which suggests a large series of interdependent mishaps and problematic decisions. In fact, one of the recurring suggestions that you can see on the forums is not the nerfing of the Laconic Prodigy but rather an equivalent companion/option available for the Salon as well.
That Laconic Prodigy is pay-to-win. Firstly, it is not sufficient to pay Fate to get Laconic Prodigy. It requires a significant investment of time and game resources and RP decisions. The high stats are as much a recognition of that as the Fate cost. Secondly, that somehow you are required to have Laconic Prodigy to “win”. It is absolutely not required and in fact is quite a circuitous companion to get if you are taking a power gaming approach. Most players who go for the Laconic Prodigy do so either out of RP reasons or out of completionist tendencies.
That other interesting Fate-locked companions that are “largely worthless” should have Fate-commensurate stats. That would in fact result in pay-to-win.
That the Laconic Prodigy’s stats are not flavourful. I don’t know if you actually have managed to acquire a LP yourself but, personally, I was quite satisfied with the flavour explanation.
While we’re on the subject of cleaning up messes, any chance you could consolidate your searing insights and post your feedback a little less frequently?
Eight posts in this thread in the last 24 hours seems a touch excessive, and could give the untrained observer the impression that you were just vomiting forth ideas as they occur to you without giving them any real thought. edited by A B Nile on 2/5/2016
Eight posts in this thread in the last 24 hours seems a touch excessive, and could give the untrained observer the impression that you were just vomiting forth ideas as they occur to you without giving them any real thought. edited by A B Nile on 2/5/2016[/quote]
Perhaps an email would be better, especially given these seem to be mainly UI tweaks edited by Anstruther Barron on 2/5/2016
[quote=TheThirdPolice]It doesn’t matter what you wish for or how much you scold the playerbase (most of whom never read this forum). What Sara said is just fact. Game designers have to live with it, and in this particular case a couple extra stat points in a largely single player game are not worth the consequences of changing it. edited by TheThirdPolice on 2/5/2016[/quote] @Nanako And it’s certainly not like FBG has stated that they want to change this and yet are being held back by the players. This is a request that, really, only you have brought up. Neither FBG or the other players want this aspect changed.