Hello, I am a newcomer to this game. I have been playing it off and on for the last three days now, but my first attempts always ended with me deactivating my account due to feeling I messed up. After getting a character I am confident in, I still have many questions. I understand how basic mechanics work, but my questions are more complex that I have not been able to find straight answers for on the wikis, reedits, or this very forum. Stuff like: How do I make more echoes? Was there any story content that I missed out on? Should I really subscribe to get more actions and content? Is there a certain order I should do things or do I just go nuts? etc. I don’t even know if I am posting in the right place. If anyone can set me on the ight path and take the time to listen to any extended questions, I would be forever grateful.
Don’t worry about making Echoes until you’ve reached all four base stats around 100; until then you can sell what you have an excess off that you won’t truly use! (or what you can grind up again)
If you read everything carefully you probably did not miss out on any story so far!
Subscribing is in my eyes worth it, but I’m a long time player and have been captivated by fallen london’s stories since ever.
And go nuts, more content will unlock and everything will fall into place
And "The Bazaar" would be a better place to ask these things!
Cheers!
edited by Honeyaddict on 6/19/2018
Hi Guymanbot, and welcome!
At one point, you’ll have to choose an Ambition. There are four Ambitions, and each character only gets to choose one. So you’ll miss out a bit of content there; we all do. However, I loved Ambition: Nemesis, and I’ve heard the other three are great. But that’s the only place you’ll for sure miss out. (And you can always, if you’re a completist, start a second character just to do a different Ambition.)
Signing up for Exceptional Friend is a personal choice; I did it for six months, stopped for a month, and have started again. It was worth far more in entertainment value than $7/month, and I liked the ability to achieve my goals more quickly. But you may want to wait for a week or two (you can start at any time.) If you find you’re playing the game every day, want more actions and can afford it, go for it.
I really enjoyed the House of Chimes content and the monthly stories I’ve played so far, but it’s totally up to you & how much you end up playing, and your budget.
Enjoy!
GregM
Good evening Guymanbot,
For echoes selling stuff is the most practical option. Storylets were you actually get echoes as a reward are rare. I was surprised too, at first, that dead rats, secrets and gossip are apparently more common currencies than the official one. You’ll get used to it.
You will not easily miss a storylet, outside the Ambitions, like GregM said. With the ‘choose your own story’ setup of the game, you may however choose to be busy with multiple stories at once (for variation), and forget to continue some. So a tip: Record anything that you think is relevant or want to record in your journal. I regret not doing so from the beginning. And if you feel like you don’t know how to place a storylet in the bigger picture, don’t worry. Later snippets will help you complete that puzzle.
To provide you with a slightly different angle on Exceptional Friendship: I have not subscribed yet. I have been playing for over a year, and many content boundaries are still far away. And I really enjoyed myself. Fallen London may be a Freemium game, but it hardly ever ‘pay to win’ or ‘pay to complete the story’. So Failbetter Games is really nice to non-subscribed players without any Fate.
London may look intimidating due to the huge amount of words and story, but worry not. Everything falls into place. It is not an echo-grinding story, so don’t worry. By the time you really need echoes, you will have gotten the hang of it.
You cannot mess up things too much at the beginning, so don’t worry about that either. In the Bazaar, there is a weekly questions thread, if in doubt about something in particular, ask there too!
[li]How do I make more echoes?[/li]
If you’re trying to maximize income, play around a figure out what actions give you the most Echoes per action. That said, there’s only a few places in the game that require you to spend Echoes.
There are threads on the Forums that analyze the most profitable series of actions (described as Echoes per action, or EPA). But the best EPA grinds (at least the one’s that aren’t Fate locked) only fall into place once your stats are all pretty high.
I recommend a strong regime of saving rather than spending until you are a Person of Some Importance (POSI). When you are a POSI, you have access to very expensive things that you will probably want to acquire.
When selling items as a beginning player I recommend only selling Commonplace items (identified when you hover of an item on the Myself tab) … although perhaps keep Foxfire Candle Stubs, Fistfuls of Surface Currency, and Souls; these are a little harder to grind and needed in the game on occassion.
[li]Was there any story content that I missed out on?[/li]
As others have said, it is really hard to miss early-game content. Just read the text.
[li]Should I really subscribe to get more actions and content?[/li]
I’ve played FL for about four years and have never felt the need to subscribe for extra actions. From time to time I’ll pay Fate for extra content I’m especially interested in.
[li]Is there a certain order I should do things or do I just go nuts?[/li]
Just go nuts. In the early game especially there are loads and loads of paths you can follow. I found it a little overwhelming to keep track of what all my options where … but the order you do things is a choice of personal interests … I don’t think there’s a right or best way to do things in the early game.
edited by Lady Sapho Byron on 6/19/2018
Thank you everyone for the advice. I will take each one to heart.