Ah, thanks. Yes, that makes sense, and usually I do it as well, but for these purposes I was being conservative.
[quote=Nigel Overstreet]
Cider is a near impossible grind. It takes years. I’ve been playing for 4 and a half years and I’m still months away from it.[/quote]
Nigel if you don’t mind me asking what’s taking you so long to grind for the cider?
I’ve started grinding approximately when I first added my name to your list of goat owners and calculated that it would take me around three years based on the amount of echoes I was earning.
Is it due to your dislike of the Fidgeting Writer? Or is there some other quest you’re after on the side.
For most of my time in the Neath, I was doing other stuff. I got all my Newspaper Accomplishments up to 10. I maxed out all my Connections to their descriptor limit. I got my Hedonism up just a little bit.
I didn’t start grinding for Cider until February 1891/2013, a year after I got my Overgoat, and I should be done next month. That’s less than 3 years. Significantly less when you consider that I’ve also done plenty of other stories in the last 2 1/2 years. I’d reckon somewhere between 27 & 30 months of legit grinding.
I feel it’s vitally important that one not start a years long grind until you’ve done absolutely everything else you could possibly want to do and to take breaks when you can. I like the Fidgeting Writer because, even if it’s not the best EPA, it gives clear and demonstrable goals & milestones to keep you motivated through the grind.
Fallen London is littered with the abandoned accounts of people who promised they would get Cider in just a few short years.
Grinding is boring and repetitive. You will get bored and then you will quit.
And you should not quit. Because Fallen London is amazing.
[quote=Nigel Overstreet]
Grinding is boring and repetitive.[/quote]
Is it really all that bad? I find it more akin to a minigame of resource management; constantly ensuring that I have enough Brilliant Souls and Correspondence Plaques to complete another round of the Fidgeting Writer is not easy. I’ve found that worrying if you have enough Memories of a Distant Shore for conversion substantially helps with my concerns of boredom.
Plus, with the monthly Exceptional Stories and the seasonal events to function as a break it makes me wonder if the rates of burnout are decreasing.
[quote=Blaine Davidson][quote=Nigel Overstreet]
Grinding is boring and repetitive.[/quote]
Is it really all that bad? I find it more akin to a minigame of resource management; constantly ensuring that I have enough Brilliant Souls and Correspondence Plaques to complete another round of the Fidgeting Writer is not easy. I’ve found that worrying if you have enough Memories of a Distant Shore for conversion substantially helps with my concerns of boredom.
Plus, with the monthly Exceptional Stories and the seasonal events to function as a break it makes me wonder if the rates of burnout are decreasing.[/quote]
Well, yeah, but that requires you actually take them. Grinding is more fun when you have nothing better to do, and still want to be here. Doing nothing but grinding would steal your soul long before the hesperian cider was viable. You’d either give up the grind or give up on the game first. That’s why i only have 7, and not more, tears for my personal hoard.
edited by Grenem on 11/13/2015
Of course no-one should grind if they don’t want to!
Because I play FL in the margins, sometimes I enjoy grinding precisely because it’s mindless: I can fire off whatever actions accrued while I was asleep while eating breakfast and telling the kids to eat theirs, without worrying that I’m missing savory prose. And there are enough different grinds that it doesn’t feel too monotonous to me (I mostly did War of Assassins and Affair of the Box, sometimes Heists if I had a big bank of actions and little time, but I also felt free to try my luck at Expeditions and went on a giant Iron Republic loop because it amused me greatly). I admit I got anxious when I realized I was starting to get close, but I still took out time to play new content and do seasonal events. It doesn’t have to be an all-consuming prospect (indeed, it took me a little over five years, and that’s with an Ubergoat along the way).
The proof is in the pudding. Dozens of people I know and likely thousands of people total have quit the game because grinding Echoes wasn’t engaging.
Some grinding is fine, such as when the little one wakes ocelot up in the dead of night. Some of us are so engaged in the game, we don’t mind it at all.
But you just got your Overgoat earlier this year. Grinding Echoes for 3 years is probably twice as long as you’ve played the game thus far.
It wears you down, over time, if you can’t find a way to make it engaging.
Things like RP, fan fiction and personal engagement in a character really help, but the game needs to be a habit before a years long grind is begun.
Is there some sort of "standardized" way of grinding FW? I never got into it because I find it too frustrating, and I always thought it was just a matter of throwing everything you have at it, then go and get more, without much of a system other than trying to maximize the collection of resources…
Some people like to do the FW in big batches, to cushion the disappointment of bad runs, but yeah, maximize your resources and then go, that’s all you can do.
[quote=Rinsik]
Is there some sort of "standardized" way of grinding FW?[/quote]
There should be plenty of guides on how to go about doing the Fidgeting Writer. But if you like I can go into detail about my method including replenishment.
This is me most of the time :-). Did you find running through in search of an enigma to be the best return? [I tend to hit the 5-action Unfinished Business options when I just want to get through a stack of actions, but I’m sure that it’s much lower ROI.]
I imagine one reason so many long-time players have multiple alts is because grinding is so tedious. There has to be a reason it’s called “grinding.”
– Mal
Ewan, I relied on other people’s numbers, which said the Baseborn & Fowlingpiece heist & the 5-progress option. This was easier because it required less attention to the deck.