So true. Accommodation, too.
I am torn! The crazed menace grinding and social actioning of Hallowmases past was at once wonderful and frustrating … I miss it and I do not miss it. Much like Nitebrite’s party, this Hallowmas was chill … perhaps a touch too chill (Hallowmas was, not the party) … I would have liked the need/opportunity for a bit more social actions. Perhaps a larger number of confessions to collect and a larger number of confession required to upgrade companions? That is, reasons to make confession trading more common and necessary.
I did, however, very much appreciate the free companion … this was a special boon for my just-started alt who picked up a very expensive Alluring Accomplice! That brought me much happiness. And upgrading companions was delightful as well, some of them provide an impressive stat boost.
Finally, I very much support Parelle’s idea of being able to donate confessions to other players. I should like to see that, should this version of Hallowmas return next year.[li]
edited by Lady Sapho Byron on 11/6/2016
[quote=Lady Sapho Byron]Finally, I very much support Parelle’s idea of being able to donate confessions to other players. I should like to see that, should this version of Hallowmas return next year.[li]
edited by Lady Sapho Byron on 11/6/2016[/quote][/li]I actually liked the idea that confessions had to be traded, and not just given away. Maybe next year, though, confessions could be traded for other items - whispered hints, rostygold, etc. Maybe the trade might cause increases in menaces, or effect quirks in some way. The trades shouldn’t come cheap; they should hurt a bit.
So true. Accommodation, too.[/quote]
There’s a reason the game encourages one to acquire lots of London real estate…
[quote=phryne][quote=Vavakx Nonexus]Personally, I really like the much more lax nature of it all. A lot of people do. There are enough grinds as is, and being able to be less bogged down every season of the year is pretty pleasing in my opinion.[/quote]Totally agree with this. Might I remind some of the posters above that not every FL player spends each and every day using all their actions and whatnot - people complaining about not having enough to do are probably not very representative for the playerbase at large, and FB need to think about all of them.
I do think that the trading options should have been top of the page - having to search the four starting areas for them every day was kinda fun, but having to scroll down all the way is totally unnecessary - and contributed to some people missing them entirely, see above.
What I think would be great is if we could use the confessions for a few other things during the festival - not everyone’s interested in having dozens of cool but ultimately rather useless companions. Off the top of my head, you could…
a) write a special Hallowmas Exceptional Story that makes use of those confessions
b) give us the option to actually blackmail the NPCs themselves - or bury their secrets and win them as Acquaintances
c) maybe surprise us by making some actions give out confessions as rare successes during the festival
… and a heap of other things probably. I’d just like for the whole festival to feel more "tied in" with the game at large somehow.[/quote]
Phryne: Your idea about FBG maybe writing and Exceptional Story that uses Confessions gave me another idea; being able to use Confessions to write short stories with special attributes.
I also love your option b); there are some NPCs it would be great to have as companions (you did mean "Companions", right?)
So true. Accommodation, too.[/quote]
There’s a reason the game encourages one to acquire lots of London real estate…[/quote]
One day we will all become Soft-Hearted Widow. Emphasis on Soft-Hearted.
So I am going to be a bit of a base breaker here and say that I really enjoyed Hallowmas this season. Now I’d like you folks to hear me out before you bring out the pitchforks and torches.
Last year, Hallowmas came about 1 month after I started playing Fallen London. Perhaps 2 months. I played the game without bothering with social actions, mostly for the story and the joy of playing the game. I was not an active forum poster, and situations that required other players annoyed me because it was effectively locked content. During that Hallowmas I had lots of stuff to do, I had other content to manage I believe I was busy dueling Feducci, stealing items from the Flit, and avoiding the forgotten quarter due to its extravagant prices. Back then I was not an exceptional friend, so I only had 20 actions at a time. I believe that I checked Fallen London 2 times a day, once when I woke up and once before I went to bed. So I only had about 40 actions a day. In the end I chose a Destiny, gathered the NPC confessions, and got a very small Making Waves boost from One’s Public that I did not make use of for nearly three months.
This year, I was prepared for a massive social action extravaganza that would interrupt my daily flow but was instead pleasantly surprised. Despite the fact that my character is nearly at the content barrier, I still had things to do that Hallowmas would have interrupted. I have another 6800 echoes to grind for my first goat, I have a vial of Master’s Blood to grind out, I have scraps to gather, and etc. I was expecting all of my day to day activities being halted, instead I had a few pleasant actions devoted daily to the festival. I’d gather a new confession, either one from the Bazaar or showing up in a mask to gather it in person. Then I would look around for where to trade my confession in game if I needed something else; or go online to the forums if that failed. After a few days of that, I would be rewarded with some new development for one of my companions and repeat the process. The rest of my actions were spent on my own projects.
I personally like that the festival is not all-consuming, because the vast majority of the player base are probably in a similar boat. They have their own grinds and plans to take care of, and Hallowmas is just a fun activity. For newer players, they were given at least one free companion, the opportunity to upgrade them, a destiny, and the opportunity to advance their connections. For older players, we had the chance to gather companions like candy and have a nice Making Waves boost in store for us when Mr. Huffman arrives. Was this years Hallowmas done perfectly? No, but that is ok because it was still a much nicer experience than last year’s Hallowmas for less "serious" players.
Confession grinding with Notability was difficult for people without a large amount of BDR, for instance my character can grind from Notability 1 to Notability 3 without gathering any Making Waves. For other people however, I can imagine that this will be terribly difficult. Still, this was balanced around the idea that players with lower BDR (or even people who are not yet PoSI) also have less money to spend on companions and more things to do outside of the festival. This is not a perfect system, but I feel like there was a careful thought process behind its creation. Forcing trades for confessions was important because otherwise people with alternate accounts would have an even greater advantage than they already possess, and trust me even with 1 alternate account (who is not a PoSI, has no fate, and thus was limited in the number of confessions he could gather) it became much easier to get the companions I desired on my main. Heck, I even managed to get my alternate account some very solid companions out of the trades.
I think the lack of social aspects was more dearly felt than usual because London has been recently denied it’s favorite past time of murder-tag. If we had some kind of social game to play during the festival, the lack of festival specific game would not have been missed.
edited by ShroudedInLight on 11/7/2016
I just want to know who blew up the door this Hallowmas…
They do not call me Mr. Secrets for nothing, those confessions were rightfully mine!
Actually, I have no clue. Probably some crazy anarchist with Liberation of Night leanings.
With the caveat that I did not participate in the festival last year, I enjoyed this year’s version. However, I think my experience was not representative.
My character’s progression was right at the very narrow band where I spent 80-90% of my actions during the past two weeks on the Festival (mostly grinding Notability), and just barely managed to acquire all of the bonus companions (only possible due to the bonus confession this morning). So for me, this was a pretty consuming and high-stakes festival. Most players are outside of that band and would either not grind so much, or be able to complete everything ahead of time.
This was also the thing that finally made me start using Social Actions, which of course makes it memorable and worthwhile in its own right.
I also tapped myself out of a lot of stored-up resources in order to complete the Notability grind: all of my stored Nights on the Town, Connected: Society, Bohemian, and University, my banked Salon progress. I had already made some significant Echoes purchases recently, so purchasing the companions to be upgraded cut to the bone.
And I… kind of liked that, actually. For maybe the month or so preceding (basically, since I finished my Zub grind), the grinding-for-grinding’s-sake felt a bit pointless. But now, it seems like there’s a purpose. My previous resource build-up prepared me to succeed for this festival, and my future endeavors will be preparing me for the next time I need a new goldfish. Although it still stings when I remember that I donated ~450E worth of treasure for the sake of making waves (5 expeditions turned up 3x2 Night Whispers and a Bottle of 4th City Airag).
I would have liked it to be less grindy, though. Or at least new grinds. The 50-pence item conversion carousel is repetitive. If I have to grind something for the festival, it feels better if the grind itself is festival-related, instead of an existing grind for holiday purposes. I guess this echoes what other people have said before: The amount of strictly-festival-related actions is very small over the course of the festival. It just for me generated enough tangentially-festival-related actions that I was engaged.
I find it vexing that I can’t get all the companions or even half of the companions. Especially because of my new character goal to get one of every possible companion.
[quote=Catherine Raymond]I also love your option b); there are some NPCs it would be great to have as companions (you did mean "Companions", right?)[/quote]Actually, I did mean "Acquaintances" ;) There’s far too many companions in the game as is… I’d like to have more Acquaintances like the Wry Functionary, Regretful Soldier etc… I think one for each map location would be great, even the more obscure ones like Wilmot’s End.
My new character (stats in the 80s, no Notability yet) upgraded her Accomplice, Goldfish, Tigress, and Watchful Doll without spending Fate, through a mix of NPC and player trades. All my new Companions delight me, and I was glad of the lower-key nature of it–I found last Hallowmas not very much fun.
[quote=Robin Alexander]
Edit: The NPC confessions felt wasted, too, as Huffman didn’t seem to even care about them . . . plus, I think they were the same as last year? They didn’t seem to serve much purpose (in the sense of our choice to betray/confide having any impact on role-playing or mechanics or anything, aside from a few material rewards).[/quote]
These are mostly the ties-in for Sunless Sea from before - they are probably left in because there are new players from Sunless Sea with Zubmariner released.
I do agree with Lisbella that I am curious about the explosion - perhaps having a central mystery to solve could plug the gap between "grind Notability" and "get confessions".
The ending did feel anticlimactic. A resolution to the mystery of the explosion would have been welcome.
The ending did feel anticlimactic. A resolution to the mystery of the explosion would have been welcome.
My opinions
Pros
- Technologically a very sound update to the holiday with some interesting new mechanics.
- Much more accommodating mechanics for the casual player.
- Trading is a very solid way to expand contact lists, though not necessarily a good way to improve social interaction on the long term.
Cons
- The Spirit of Hallowmas wasn’t removed just as a mechanic or quality, it was removed in spirit as well. Hallowmas was unique among all other FL stories in that it was the one time, the only time, when keeping a trust and upholding your integrity actually paid off for once. Moral choice as reward is a big theme in FL, often skewed so you have to pay dearly to act in a conscientious manner. So it was actually really boosting to see that sometimes, even if on rare occasion, virtue has its rewards and merit. There was no option to keep or protect the trusts and confessions received. You physically were not permitted at any point to act in a way that would have advanced The Spirit of Hallowmas, and that’s a huge strike in flavor and lore imo.
- Heavy gachaphon emphasis to the exclusion of everything else. The lore added was weak or repetitive of facts we already knew. The main attraction of this Hallowmas was the gachas, which is fair gacha is a clear money maker and you deserve the dollars. It’s just a bit shallow in terms of content. It would have better served as a side activity rather than the main event. The sunless sea npc confessions make for a better main focus, but there was nothing new there and as others said the use of the old masks without context felt bizarre. It was disconnected, a left over that didn’t fit but lingered anyways.
- No other activities were available outside of the gacha. Even the feast of the rose, which is an even bigger catch em all had party locations, special event cards, and just more actual celebration going on throughout the city. It felt like people, nice outside of the player base were also taking part in FoTER where as in this holiday, it felt so isolated, so disconnected from the rest of London. You have this confession you must betray, but also you and only you are doing this and you have to look really really hard to find someone who will participate as an npc. That just feels empty, like, is this really a regularly scheduled holiday or a random occurance of opportunism and loot? It was odd to say the least.
- Is someone going to blow up the Bazaar every year? How will this even work as a repeat story. Is Hallowmas now ‘official blow up a bit of the bazaar’ day? I can’t really see it working in a repeat sense as a coherent narrative.
- Notability feels too heavily sowed to use as the main grind. Even among the echo rich, end game, active, and real cash dollar paying customer base, notability is crazy tough to grind and it’s a system riddled with its own issues TBH. This made the event feel unduly exclusitory. I’m not saying make fate alternatives cheap or easy, or even to extend their reach (ex foyer masquing limits only go so far), just that perhaps something less problematic and with a less biased past could be used instead.
- I never saw the stuttering urchinshow up even once. This was his biggest time of activity in the past! He had a strong interest in confessions even paying a small fortune for them in the past, but now he’s totally uninterested??? What has happened to my precious son has he met an I’ll fate D:
Overall I think the mechanics were sound as was the game play. I just didn’t feel the lore or the Spirit shine through here and that is a bit disappointing. Also key figures like the masters and the stuttering urchin were erased entirely as was mask lore. Removal of mask events and general atmosphere really harmed how the event connects to the broader world of fallen London. But I guess at least I got my collect em alls so it wasn’t completely wasted :v
I for one wish to echo Note bite and for a chance to investigate that door. However, I’m going to continue looking forward for next year - maybe it will be more developed when it’s not so close to the zubmariner release
I would like to mention that my opinion of this season has soured somewhat by only being allowed to have ONE of my companions interviewed unless I got all of them. It rather upsets me because I went to quite some lengths to gather companions only for the majority of them to be ignored.
I like the new companions! They are very cute and I am happy that I don’t have to send things to many people xDD
The Whispered Hints are very useful too! Something special to do will be very cool but I am ok with playing the game normally with some gifts!