We do have two weeks at our disposal and it’s a nice change from the boring grinds; battle with RNG!
But, if after 10 days, you’ll have two or three items to acquire that will be very frustrating!
I’ve had my share of catch valuation reverses. I had to spend over 30 actions finding Miss Plenty at one point. Have had to spend considerable actions dealing with wounds and nightmares. And I’m still having fun.
It’s nice to see more of the Melancholy Curate and the M.I. Chef, the island is nicely atmospheric, the Drownies are interesting, and I really like the quirk mechanics and Sinning Jenny subplot. The fishing is relaxing if you take it in stride. It’s a nice gamble if you try for a very high catch (I tried for 10, failed). The RNG can be sharp, but at its most painful it’s merely a friendly neighborhood version of the Mr. Enten storyline (rather fitting, given the peculiarities of the local mystery cult).
My only complaint is that there isn’t more flavor text when we haul in our various strange catches. Like, the brief descriptions are great, but I want to know more about them. Like, what’s with that spider-fish? Does the Twinkle-Eyed Lobsterman know anything about them? Do they have an entry in a marine biology book? What do zailors say about them? I want to know!
But this is only the second festival, so there is no doubt more to come.
btw, just how much is new in this festival anyway?
edited by Anne Auclair on 8/18/2016
I’ve never had a problem with the RNG at the festival. I mean yeah, it took me all week last year to finish my collection of unique items, and I’ve only gotten two of them so far this year, but fishing is all about patience and enjoying the experience. Sit back, enjoy some rubbery lumps, dance with some drownies, throw fish at preachers to avoid being thrown out for insanity, and let what comes come. It would be an awfully boring celebration if you just burned the same hundred actions in the same order as every other player and went home.
(Also, in the past your Picking value has ranged from 1 to the value of your Catch, so if it’s only going as low as half your fish number this year, that’s awfully generous of them. I definitely turned a level 9 fish into a level 1 reward on multiple occasions).
After a couple of rounds and one very dramatic incident of going insane and finding myself back in London, I worked out that the optimal strategy for high-catch rewards was to do two low-catch runs to reduce both menaces to 0 and get a bunch of partial maps. Now you have low menaces to shuffle Airs, and 4-6 maps for high catch runs!
It’s also nice that the airs-shuffling options and the strange catch rewards even when you miss the right Cove value are decently profitable, so you never feel like you’re completely wasting actions (cough Winking Isle). I like that the menace-gain, menace-reduction, cartography-item-gain and cartography-item-expenditure are all in the same place - it’s pleasantly self-contained and I don’t have to worry about spending the actions to go back and forth from London.
My strategy has been successful enough that I’m now trying my best to get a VERY low-catch run to grab the knife. All strange catches I grab from now on are going into the menace reduction (I’m obviously alternating nightmares and wounds as I shuffle airs) or the hooded lady.
Dear lord, she’s Mrs. Plenty? I was planning on calling her out sometime soon, but I hadn’t wanted to waste my chance at turning in my strange catch…
I’m having fun at the festival! But yeah, it’s taking me a considerable number of actions to get to the lady - I’ve been starting to pick just the nightmare-inducing ones if I can, since I’ve got a goldfish of an exceedingly optimistic nature as my companion. It was a bit irritating at first, since the first few times I tried my hand at the Fruits of the Festival card, I had to give up and turn in my strange catch so I wouldn’t go insane or die, only for her to appear IMMEDIATELY after that. I was decidedly unthrilled.
[li]
Robin, what rewards do you mean in “punished over and over and over, without any rewards”?
Do you mean echo value? I haven’t done any calculations myself but I’d be surprised if the echo value is low. When fishing, even at the lowest levels you can get magnificent diamonds etc. When enjoying the sights, my hauls have tended to be in region of 1.7-2 echos, which is not bad at all. Sure you also get menaces but menace reduction options also give you resources and, mostly importantly, partial maps that you can use for better fishing.
Do you mean the unique items? If so, then I would say that this is a 2-week long festival with at most 6 unique rewards that do not require Fate. So it’s not very surprising that FBG have statistically allowed on average 2 days per reward. They need to make sure the content lasts. Sure it’s possible that you can get very lucky and get all your rewards quickly but that way frustration lies, indeed.
My approach has been as follows. Do several rounds of sight seeing, plowing in resources and accumulating menaces. Intermittently, fish using quirks only and do not waste resources. Dump the catch to reduce menaces and get partial maps. Do this several times until you have a good stock of partial maps (you should also be up on resources/echoes generally). Then start fishing more seriously: do one round with quirks only or possibly a couple of minor resources aiming to finish at RB 6. Dump and restart from 3. Do this again now using resources more liberally but probably not using more than 1 partial map. Your aim is to go to 8 and then dump to 4. Now go all out, using any and all resources and quirk top ups, aiming for 10. Obviously, even this is not guaranteed to get you your desired items but you will still be getting valuable resources from the cove and, as I mentioned above, your overall resource pile gets larger as you do this again and again.
Does this seem like it takes a long time? Sure. But I believe it is both meant to take this long and the coincidental resource accumulation makes it worthwhile.
[quote=genesis]
Do several rounds of sight seeing, plowing in resources and accumulating menaces. Intermittently, fish using quirks only and do not waste resources. Dump the catch to reduce menaces and get partial maps. Do this several times until you have a good stock of partial maps (you should also be up on resources/echoes generally). Then start fishing more seriously: do one round with quirks only or possibly a couple of minor resources aiming to finish at RB 6. Dump and restart from 3. Do this again now using resources more liberally but probably not using more than 1 partial map. Your aim is to go to 8 and then dump to 4. Now go all out, using any and all resources and quirk top ups, aiming for 10. [/quote]
[li]
That sounds remarkably more efficient than what I’ve been doing. I’ve been fishing using as many resources as I possibly can, then spamming the Fruits of the Festival card in the hope I get zee ztories and a chance at the lady, with the occasional break to clear my menaces. I suppose it’s been working, but it’s not particularly good to my cartography items, no.[/li][li]
edited by Lizhly on 8/18/2016
As long as you have enough items to burn through, I found that getting to 9 (10, if I’m particularly lucky) requires only two rounds of fishing; as far as I can see, unless you have terrible luck, by choosing as often as you can the item fueled options and the last quirk altering sprint, getting to 8 in a single round isn’t unusual at all; if you throw back your catch, do one more bout starting at 4, and hope to get at least one Partial Map option (which to me happens more often than not, but I might have been lucky so far), getting to 9, or to 10 if more than one appears, isn’t particularly unusual.
Curse you, RNG! I can’t seem to get the boots or the knife, though not for lack of trying. Even my lower level character can’t seem to fail the quirk challenges, even the “tough” ones.
On menace reductions - the catch level seems to matter. I had a catch level 1 (I’m very new, and was trying to increase the quirks), and giving it to Curate got my nightmares from 5 to 2. Later, on catch 6 it wiped Nightmares from level 7+. So at extreme low values of catch it matters. Probably just maxes at something reasonably low, so any decent catch wipes it and higher level players never notice :)
[li]
Okay, yeah, that seems to be the case. I had been assuming that any catch would wipe it out. But I turned in my catch at either 4 or 5 and it knocked nightmares down from 8+ to 4+.
[quote=Robin Alexander]
Exactly!
If I wanted to play a punishing and painful storyline, I would have chosen the Mr Eaten storyline ;)
edited by Robin Alexander on 8/18/2016[/quote]
Well, no one forced you to come to Mutton Island. It’s just as much a choice.
Fishing is Not a choice. It is a way of life.
;)
edited by absimiliard on 8/18/2016
I’ve done pretty well myself. My alt has already acquired the cloak, the submerged rector, and Jenny’s lost wimple, and my main has the cloak, boots, and wimple. Despair not, Robin, I suspect the RNG will relent for you soon. In the meantime, consider doing the storylets on the Island that don’t involve fishing (one gains Whispered Hints for example) or turning Extraordinary Implications into Uncanny Incunabula through the Custodian Chef.
After a lot of catches and much frustration (my Catches with 9 value turning all into 6 and, in one infuriating case, 5) I FINALLY got the Submerged Rector in BOTH accounts, almost at the same time (of course I will rp that both the Professor and Derek met him together). My main have the Rector, the Cape and the Boots, my alt have the Rector, the Cape, the Boots and the Drownie Effluvia (ew).
Now, let me see if I can get the wimple and the lesser items.
What level of SC do I need for Wrecking Boots? It’s the only item I have left.
I’m pretty sure that the boots are 5
edited by th8827 on 8/18/2016
A minimum of 5 Strange Catch and just hope that it doesn’t get reduced when you visit the Cove - as that is the Cove value you need for the Boots. Good luck.
A minimum of 5 Strange Catch and just hope that it doesn’t get reduced when you visit the Cove - as that is the Cove value you need for the Boots. Good luck.[/quote]
GOT 'EM! Thanks!
I now have all unique items from this year’s Festival!
I really haven’t had many rng issues. A few long waits to cash in at the festival, but as far as fishing goes I find my strange catch is pretty consistently equal to or just one level less than my running battle.