Making my first forum post here. Wanted to add my voice to the ones dissatisfied with how the climax of the story functions. I understand the emotions it’s intended to evoke, but when it’s all decided on a dice roll, those emotions don’t fire for me. I don’t feel sad at the story, because I know there is a better ending. All I feel is annoyance at Failbetter, and it’s not the good kind of annoyance. I don’t feel pranked, I feel spat on.
So, to get the ‘theoretically best’ possible ending you should win luck cjallenge more than once, am I correct?
I had a question for Flyte regarding the consequences of tampering with the game. Fortunately, he answered it, so here you go, take a look (in case you missed it):
[quote=Flyte][color=rgb(194, 178, 128)]I’m going to give a somewhat indefinite answer to this, because I think a clearer one would distract from the ethical and human factors underlying the choice (and to some extent also because we don’t usually know what we’ll want to write a year or three years from now).[/color]
[color=rgb(194, 178, 128)]There are some actions you can’t take back or make amends for, and the game will always remember that you did this. That doesn’t mean, though, that it will colour all your subsequent interactions with them, or even foreclose any possibilities. [/color][/quote]
The team responsible for the project is mentioned in the original announcement thread, I think.
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic24245-fallen-london-reworks.aspx
It seems you are genuinely trying to have a proper discussion, so let me share some of my experiences with the story.
My original character — Big Scary Mouse — went North last August. It was a truly unforgettable journey, but I became exhausted by the end of it. I made a new character and played for a while before losing my enthusiasm completely. A short break was in order.
When I heard the news about a special Fallen London project aiming to finish some of the older content (including, most importantly, "Family and Law"), I was sold immediately. The Last Constable was one of my favourite characters from the very beginning. I will be the first to admit that there isn’t much to her from a more serious, literary point of view, but nonetheless I like the Constable quite a bit. Needless to say, I had high hopes for the continuation.
It finally arrived.
I still haven’t completed the story. The final choice is absolutely unappealing to me. I want to roll the dice and let the Constable settle her feud in an honest way, but I know that I will be furious if I lose. I am irrationally invested in the character, I won’t simply ‘let it go’. My reaction is immature and unreasonable — I am aware of that as well. Still, there is nothing I can do about it. I know for a fact that if the RNG doesn’t go my way, I will be bitter for months. This one choice will influence all of my subsequent interactions with Fallen London for a significant amount of time. Yes, there is a narrative point in such an ending, and perhaps it reflects some unpleasant aspects of our real lives. It may be a tragedy, but it also puts my enjoyment of the game itself in jeopardy.
edited by Wilhelm Klossner on 10/21/2017
I will be completly honest I think I see what they wanted to do with this story, a tragedy in wich the only way to ensure a result would completly damage your relation with the caracter you were the closest and if not you are just a bystander with no way to stop it but for me this story just left me with a sour taste after being done with it.
The whole 50/50 just makes it feel unfullfiling at the end, not a case of one of them getting better over the other, it just feels like one of the characters just has a hearth attack and that is all.
About the whole resseting with fate I think not allowing a reset doesn’t feel in line with the rest of the game, I know that the paint one doesn’t allow a reset but in this case I think a reset should be allowed, maybe put a warging before the reset or maybe just allow a single use of the reset for if someone decided that letting luck dictate the result wasn’t worth it so they can go back and rig the game or vise-versa
So, folks have been talking about being able to reset the story in Write Letters, but I see no such option there. Am I missing something, or do certain outcomes just not let you reset? (I rigged the competition)
The option to reset was there when the story was first released, but has since been removed.
There’s no longer a way to reset this story.
I’ll be honest, all I wanted from the continuation of this story was have the friendly Last Constable back and her card. So I’m disappointed about this story.
Can you still get the card if you haven’t finished it yet?
Currently, no. But apparently they do plan to add the card back in the coming days.
I very much liked the bits about a tomb of sunlight, because the concept ties into certain parts of the exceptional story All Things Must End. That sort of moment, where one story briefly touches a part of the world which is central to a different story, go a long way to cementing the stories as part of a larger, living world. They’re often very small things, like the electric lights in Web of the Motherlings, but they add a great deal to Fallen London as an experience.
Really, the last bit of the story I did before stopping was just odd. My daughter returned to the city and brought flowers to her mom’s grave on our anniversary, SHE MUST DIE. uh, ok? I didn’t feel like this was the inevitable end of their story, I felt like someone went “how do we force a conclusion?” And considering how fatal the end is, it feels even weirder.
The choice of competition in the end feels weird. Everyone’s motives and emotions feel muddled and weird. I can see what it was going for, I’m just really not feeling it.
Wait, is the “Confess your feelings” a new addition to the story? I don’t remember that option last time, or I definitely would have taken it.
(Fleshy did confess his feelings anyway but I had to pretend the Cheeryman didn’t hear him :P )
Thinking about this a bit more another reason why it left a bad taste in comparason with the secrets framed in gold with relation of how the story goes its that in that one like with seeking the north its completly your fault for the things that happen and you are warned multiple times of the risk of your curiosity, meanwhile in this story leaving and staying makes no difference so the only real choice in the whole affair is the decicion to cheat or to not.
Honestly if they are going to keep the whole you can’t redo this chance they should warn you when its the time to decide to cheat or not, considering that in nearly all other option there is the option to restart a warning that there are no second chances if you decide not to cheat would help at least a little.
I’m overall satisfied with the ending’s writing and the story up to that point, save for the inability to reset the story. I’m grateful that Failbetter has shown the concern up to this point to change their story at the requests of players and have taken the well-being of players into account, but like others have mentioned, I don’t think the restriction of the reset is necessary for the story in its current version. Were it still a choice between rigging the story for a moderate success rate or low chances for an honest route, I could see where they’re coming from. Now that we have the option to rig the game for a surefire success or risk the odds 50/50, the use of Fate feels more like a potential option rather than a requirement for success. We can now guarantee our success regardless, so I’m unsure why allowing players to take another shot at the fair method or simply to change the alignments of their character is a concern at this point. It doesn’t help that, considering Fallen London as a whole, this sort of Fate option isn’t the irregularity. Many stories allow players a second chance through their respective storyline, and gambling the odds for material in-game reward isn’t unheard of. Here’s to hoping that they consider reopening the option for anyone who wants to try something else with the story.
[quote=Robin Alexander]
I also think the ending works well narratively, but admit it’s probably done for practical reasons. FBG are severely over-worked, especially right now, and I think somewhere else in this thread they admit they can’t guarantee to touch upon this story again. They were doing us a favour by finishing off the unfinished stories, due to popular demand, as they could have just ignored our rightful complaints and said "tough luck". They wrapped it as best as they could, and endings like a compromise would have required a LOT more work, potentially more to the story, and even continuations. I was under the impression this had one writer working on it (along with the other unfinished works) while everyone else worked on Sunless Seas, Sunless Skies, promotions, holiday events, EF stories, etc. etc. - credit where it’s due, they did great for such a heavy workload and small time-frame![/quote]
I have to take issue with this logic. The idea that we’re being done a favor by content creators when they… create content… strikes me as wrongheaded. Fallen London isn’t a non-profit fan-work. Yes, it’s free to play, but it DOES take in money from players. Even if one isn’t an exceptional friend or guzzling Fate by the cartload, there’s probably still some monetary incentive for traffic? I don’t know about that though, there aren’t really ads, maybe that’s not a valid point. But still, playing Fallen London is on some level a product which players can opt to purchase. Don’t get me wrong, I have very very few gripes with the Failbetter team, this isn’t me lashing out due to pent up bitterness. It’s more of a complaint with consumerism at large. And as I type this I realize I’m taking a disgustingly capitalistic/free-market stance on this which is inexcusable but -and I say this with bile rising in my throat- we aren’t being done a favor by having half-finished narratives completed. That really ought to be the bare minimum for a narrative-based game. If the company is stretching itself thin by maintaining and producing the Sunless games, that’s a choice they’ve made and it has consequences. I’m happy we have those two games, but Fallen London’s quality shouldn’t be subject to reductions to make that happen. I’ve personally spent… wildly more on Fallen London than the sorta-companion games, so I’m biased. That being said I feel it is a poor choice to place the burden of keeping Fallen London up to snuff on a handful of overworked shoulders while resources are poured into potentially premature (by which I mean it’s premature to make spinoff games if resources are that scarce) franchising efforts.
If that’s what’s actually happening, of course; I’m basing that critique on your assessment. I dunno. My point is that it’s rarely productive to respond to criticism of a product by suggesting we should be grateful to have anything at all. Fallen London is amazing, it’s unparalleled in its blending of genres, playstyles, et cetera, and at the core of that exceptionalism is the way narratives of consistently superior quality resonate with a dedicated player base. Feedback is and has always been a major part of the process.
If anything, this story is an example of Failbetter’s success at integrating player feedback promptly. It was out for barely any time before it got quarantined and adjusted to reflect common concerns. That’s good, very good, it doesn’t give me the impression of a strained staff at the end of its rope. Just had to express distaste at the "doing us a favour" idea.
[quote=Robin Alexander]
I think the RNG works here, because it is essentially a game of Russian Roulette, and you DO have the choice to rig the game to your chosen side if you wish (which also gives you the option of personal agency and choice, if you rather do that) . . . I rigged the game, which was my choice, while others chose to use the RNG, which was their choice.[/quote]
Here we’re in agreement. For people put off by the possibility of leaving the fate of characters entirely to chance, there’s an explicit option to take that chance out of the equation. It wouldn’t be all that sensible within this particular narrative to give the player the option to make the outcome certain and also avoid stepping on any toes. By deciding the outcome in advance in a way that the characters don’t appear to want, you are going over their heads, you are disregarding their agency and imposing yours. You may have reasons for this and they may be very good reasons, but they are your reasons. Other characters aren’t obliged to immediately accept you as a savior. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. It just… is what it is, yeah.
I’d like to chime in and agree that while the story had really nice aspects (esp. the bit about the tomb of sunlight calling back to a ES), and I expected a sad story from the two characters, from a gameplay standpoint the ending felt botched.
If you want to use RNG, make the endings more ambiguous and less "here’s a good ending, a sad one and a bad one and they’re all behind a dice roll" and if you want near-objectively better and worse endings then don’t use RNG, but for Salt’s sake don’t mix the two because mechanically, that’s more unsatisfying than going NORTH, only to see Mr Iron walk out of the gates at Avid Horizon, drop a Correspondence Plaque saying "his name was keith lol" and then slamming the doors in your face (/s, the ending wasn’t that bad lol).
edited by The Stranger Man on 10/21/2017
edited by The Stranger Man on 10/22/2017
Hells. Just finished the story. The Last Constable died. She was my friend. Gutted.
I’m quite happy to take pot luck.
I am, however, somewhat put out that I can’t figure out how to move on with the story without fixing the tankards. Game’s already eaten 9 Sworn Statements in this attempt.
[quote=Kukapetal]Wait, is the "Confess your feelings" a new addition to the story? I don’t remember that option last time, or I definitely would have taken it.
(Fleshy did confess his feelings anyway but I had to pretend the Cheeryman didn’t hear him :P )[/quote]
I don’t remember it either, so you aren’t alone! I’ve sent an email to support in the hopes of checking that out.
Oh damn it all, the option to reset the story with fate was removed with the adjustments? When I first joined the game ages back and wasn’t especially invested yet I joined the Cheery Man but had been hoping for a way to restart the story and side with the Constable as she seemed interesting.
Then when the conclusion was released I found out that you could reset the story after it wrapped up, so I figured, okay, I’ll see out the conclusion with the Cheery Man first as if I’m going to reset it anyway, I might as well finish it from his perspective first before I get my teeth sunk into the Last Constable’s side of things and now that option has been pulled out from under me?
I was fine with the uncertainty of the finale and I was fine with potential lost companions being replaced by a lasting memento if they perished. Hell, I’d planned to hopefully aim long term for getting a memento of the Cheery Man and obtaining the Last Constable as a companion. But to be unable to use fate to reset the story and play it through again at all, after initially being presented with it as an option? I’m a bit upset.
[quote=Teaspoon]I’m quite happy to take pot luck.
I am, however, somewhat put out that I can’t figure out how to move on with the story without fixing the tankards. Game’s already eaten 9 Sworn Statements in this attempt.[/quote]
Return to the Constable or the Cheery Man and let them know preparations are complete. That’s what made me misclick the first time - the "devil the tankards" option appeared immediately after arranging the room, so I assumed it was what I had to click on next to proceed with the story.