Frustrating loss of Connected Masters

Sooooo using Connected Masters 5 to get out of going to jail removes the quality entirely???
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Wish I would have known that beforehand!

Ouch. How high did you have it?

In general, it’s best not to use Connected: The Masters for anything, unless you’re absolutely certain it’s worth weeks of grinding to re-obtain. I made the same mistake as you did some time in December or January, and I still haven’t recovered completely–though I haven’t exactly been focusing on it, either.

I think the relevant wiki entry should be updated to help other players. I’ll be linking this thread at the wiki as well.[li]

I only had it at 5, but that was still the culmination of many story decisions over months of playtime. Usually the game gives you a narrative cue that a particular decision will be very expensive.

Honestly, I really just did it out of curiosity because I wanted to see what the masters would do to the judge. Getting out of jail is quite easy and I figured there was no way it could cost that much.

Additionally, it just doesn’t make narrative sense in my opinion.

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It’s frustrating, yes, but it does make sense in the context of the game. It was inserted mostly as an extremely expensive way to keep your criminal record from rising, and since most of the prison cards are now impossible to discard, it also allows you to maintain your valuable, notability-boosted levels.

Narrative-wise: the Masters’ favour is a fleeting thing, and is almost always extremely difficult to earn. They aren’t loyal, and they aren’t particularly kind. They don’t pay one for the price of one, they pay one for the price of ten, especially if that ‘one’ is something you need and they don’t have any reason to give up. They don’t get anything by helping you get out of jail. In many cases, they lose something by helping you like that, since you’ve already broken laws–their laws, for the most part–to end up in this situation in the first place. And the fact that you need help suggests that you’re a less useful tool than maybe they thought.
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Yes, I suppose it can be justified. But the problem is, when choices are this expensive without much warning it just forces me to read spoilers before I take any new action and that makes the game a lot less fun.

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Snowskeeper is right about favour, in-game flavor and all that. A prudent player never plays anything that costs Masters, since it is never worth it, considering the price of even one CP.
But, well, even prudent players get bored and want to try new things sometimes. Outside of SMEN, taking more than one CP of Master for anything is maybe somewhat cruel and punishes player unnecessary.

Personally I always wished Connected Masters worked differently. Higher levels of Connected unlocked options, which did not cost CP of Connected itself, but maybe had other costs. Those options could be slightly more profitable then the more accessible ones, or could just give you something different. Say you maybe gained more money, when trading from your premises in the Bazaar, got access to some unusual item conversion, or could get out of jail with love stories.