That bit of advice is outdated. In the past you used to be able to play up to the reward storylet and use other sources to gain Dramatic Tension. Claiming the reward didn’t reset the Missing Woman qualities, so you could get the item without having to spend extra actions. Now claiming the reward resets the qualities, so that strategy isn’t effective anymore.
However, there is a way to get a point of Dramatic Tension in the Cave of the Nadir for only a single action. If you aren’t in a hurry it’s very efficient to play through the Missing Woman storyline up to the rewards, wait for Woods in Winter to turn up 3 times, and claim your reward. It drastically cuts down on the number of actions you need, but if you really need those items it’s quicker to play through the cycles.
Edit: specified the Cave of the Nadir card. edited by Sara Hysaro on 1/8/2015
Wait, I thought it is a rare success. So it isn’t?
[quote=Sara Hysaro]That bit of advice is outdated. In the past you used to be able to play up to the reward storylet and use other sources to gain Dramatic Tension. Claiming the reward didn’t reset the Missing Woman qualities, so you could get the item without having to spend extra actions. Now claiming the reward resets the qualities, so that strategy isn’t effective anymore.
However, there is a way to get a point of Dramatic Tension in the Cave of the Nadir for only a single action. If you aren’t in a hurry it’s very efficient to play through the Missing Woman storyline up to the rewards, wait for Woods in Winter to turn up 3 times, and claim your reward. It drastically cuts down on the number of actions you need, but if you really need those items it’s quicker to play through the cycles.
Edit: specified the Cave of the Nadir card. edited by Sara Hysaro on 1/8/2015[/quote]
The fate-locked option (1 fate, so yeah…) after dealing with lilac gives progress on every action, at least. There’s several actions that look identical, only differing in the unlock quality, so it’s hard to know if it’s the same action or not and such… The wiki might be outdated on this action.
It was either never true in the first place (you had to spend 11 actions upfront, but after that it was 11 actions per point of CP whether you went to lethal prominence or wilmot’s end’s tasks), or still is is (because lethal prominence requires less clicking per cycle, and has more stat-giving actions).
From effectivness point of view, the only thing that changed is that you need to spend 11 more actions in wilmot’s end every time you get a reward. The other 3 cycles are exactly the same as they always were.
There’s another fate-locked option on another card (locked by lost daughter story) that does that too.
[quote=NinjaComedian]
I think it’s a repeatable set of storylets and each time through it gives you 1 change point of Dramatic Tension. You need Tension at level 2 (so that’s 3 Change Points) to claim a reward.
So you’ll get your first point if you finish the set of storylets, and then you repeat it to get more points, and then repeat it to get your reward.[/quote]
Thank you for the advice. Apparently, that’s going to be a long way before I get what I need but at least I know where to head for.
It was either never true in the first place (you had to spend 11 actions upfront, but after that it was 11 actions per point of CP whether you went to lethal prominence or wilmot’s end’s tasks), or still is is (because lethal prominence requires less clicking per cycle, and has more stat-giving actions).
From effectivness point of view, the only thing that changed is that you need to spend 11 more actions in wilmot’s end every time you get a reward. The other 3 cycles are exactly the same as they always were.
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In the past it was more effective to play up to the reward storylet and use the other ways to get Dramatic Tension because if you just used the Missing Woman’s cycle you’ll eventually come to the point where you only need 1 more Whirring Contraption, but you’d still need to play through the cycle yet again to get it. So you’d have Dramatic Tension 2, but wouldn’t be able to do anything with it until you invested more actions. In the long term it was always the same number of actions, but it was more convenient to keep the Missing Woman reward storylet available and use other methods to gain Dramatic Tension.
Nowadays there isn’t any effective difference between using the Missing Woman cycle exclusively or playing only up to the reward storylet. I just stick with the Missing Woman so there’s no chance of me forgetting that I already have 2 Dramatic Tension.
Convenient for what (other than “less clicking”, which is still true for 75% of the necessary cycles)? The other option on that card used to give whopping 1 stong-backed labour.
You still got the contraption at the same point in the cycles, and still had to spend those 11 actions to get the next CP (whether you did it right away or as late as possible).
I mean, I still get as many points of drama as possible from the other source(s), because it’s still more convenient.
Convenient for what (other than "less clicking", which is still true for 75% of the necessary cycles)? [/quote]
For me The War of Assassins was a more convenient way because gathering urchin informants was a straightforward challenge all the time instead of chancy. Urchins are my friends!
It was convenient because you didn’t have to spend 10 additional actions to get back to the reward storylet for the item. You could get it as soon as you reached Dramatic Tension 2.
Edit: Also, the other cycle in Wilmot’s End has a chance of giving you Compromising Documents. That’s another reason why I preferred to leave the Missing Woman cycle alone after I got up to the end of it, with convenience just being a nice bonus.
Actually, it’s also convenient because it lets me re-grind all stats back to cap (after my weekly nadir), even those that don’t have grinds with decent ppa otherwise (what are the best ones for anything except shadowy?), with simple mindless clicking.
ETA: this is with the "she’s wearing pearls today", which doesn not reset the cycle - otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it either.
[quote=Sara Hysaro]It was convenient because you didn’t have to spend 10 additional actions to get back to the reward storylet for the item. You could get it as soon as you reached Dramatic Tension 2.
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But that’s still true … what changed is that you always have to spend at least one entire extra 10-action cycle in wilmot’s end, but that’s an extra cycle no matter where you got your dramatic tension …
(before: get 3 cp drama (elsewhere), cash in, repeat;
now: work wilmot’s cycle up, get 3 cp drama (elsewhere), cash in, repeat) edited by xKiv on 1/10/2015
The point was that 10 extra actions at the beginning felt like preparation for the Whirring Contraption grind. 10 extra actions at the end of that grind felt like an inconvenient hassle. I said it was convenient, not that it was fewer actions in the long term.
I understand that it’s the same number of actions. It’s a matter of mentality. Now that you always have to work your way back up the reward storylet it isn’t an issue anymore.