I believe the shepherd card would be terribad if used to clean only one menace, but comes out ahead when cleaning high volumes (~ level 8) of three. The thing you cannot do with other “small cleaning” cards is that you can wait until you have it in hand, then wait for one of your menaces (nightmares, most likely) to raise naturally, then burst-raise suspicion/scandal to limit, and clean with just one action immediately after. With other cards you are limited to their trickle rate (which, IME, is too low).
The connections you get are worth something too (about 46 echoes for 9 cash-in-actions? - the spent souls and contracts were worth 40 echoes; altogether you are getiing that 46 echoes (and menace wipe) over 45(?) actions)
The surprise package from an Unsigned Message is moderately valuable. It’s something like ~5 echoes on average, and will cost you 2 actions. Not the most valuable card in your deck but worth playing. Even if you don’t need money it’s a wide variety of junk, some of which hard to come by.
I’ve been getting my notability up since I started regularly using polite invitations and can maintain it at no additional cost. edited by Kaijyuu on 5/3/2017[/quote]
Polite Invitations aren’t particularly profitable though. If the goal is profit, maintaining Notability 9 for a 100% chance of a surprise package is going to take a number of actions each week - whether through parties or other methods - and I doubt surprise packages will outweigh those losses.
[quote=Skinnyman]
You have extra connections which can be cashed it or just for bragging/achievements, Souls can be obtained at a great rate from expeditions and, to be honest, I really enjoy seeing those menace cards from time to time. It makes me feel alive, human and not anything similar to other games where, after reaching a point, few things can hurt you.[/quote]
Which is why the menace nuke is fairly pointless. If you’re at the point where menaces are such a trivial concern that you actually look forward to seeing their cards for variety, being able to nuke them isn’t a terribly useful ability to have.
Expeditions cost a pretty penny for supplies and use a ton of actions in and of themselves, for a reward that isn’t guaranteed. I don’t see how that’s a optimal way to grind for souls at all.
Connections are going to be nerfed once those factions get converted to the favor system, so whatever dubious value they give you will disappear.
Regardless, if you gave to be some master statistician to get any profit out of this card, while the other group gets an easy push-button grind, the card really sucks for all but a tiny minority of players.
I was going by this person’s math which my napkin math seemed to agree with (I didn’t bother to determine the value of a rubbery favor but I assumed it was over ~1 echo which was the turning point to have polite invitations be equal to my base grind). Since I draw the polite invitation multiple times a week I won’t be doing anything I wouldn’t be doing otherwise to maintain notability 9, meaning the cost of it is just the initial cost of playing 9 Amanuensis cards.
Hey, before you mislead too many people into buying that fate story just for that, that method doesn’t work. If you pick Mr Twitch, the rubbery is done for. The option to change your mind will make the game reveal to you that you’re too late and Mr Twitch is already hanged. The story ends there, and you get your 1000 ambers like any other endings.
I was going by this person’s math which my napkin math seemed to agree with (I didn’t bother to determine the value of a rubbery favor but I assumed it was over ~1 echo which was the turning point to have polite invitations be equal to my base grind). Since I draw the polite invitation multiple times a week I won’t be doing anything I wouldn’t be doing otherwise to maintain notability 9, meaning the cost of it is just the initial cost of playing 9 Amanuensis cards.[/quote]
Hm. I’ll have to check my own math, though I’m a little skeptical of the results. That conclusion assumes you actually draw the profitable card(s) needed at each step of the party.
The cards are guaranteed if you fill a 5 slot hand at the start. There are only 5 available cards then (the other 2 can only be drawn later at the party).
The profitability seems dubious if you’ve got a ~1.80 EPA base grind, but lower than that seems to be a net profit. Plus you get extra cards to draw overall (especially for exceptional friends). edited by Kaijyuu on 5/3/2017
[quote=xKiv][quote=Skinnyman]
Care to pop a PM with more details?
[/quote]
No. That’s it.[/quote]
Do you remember how big is the drop in Connected: The Constables? And what’s the menace increase?
Also, do I understand correctly that the option is indeed infinitely repeatable (assuming you succeed an easy challenge), but means not finishing the story? (i.e. finishing the story locks out the option)
[quote=dov][quote=xKiv][quote=Skinnyman]
Care to pop a PM with more details?
[/quote]
No. That’s it.[/quote]
Do you remember how big is the drop in Connected: The Constables? And what’s the menace increase?
Also, do I understand correctly that the option is indeed infinitely repeatable (assuming you succeed an easy challenge), but means not finishing the story? (i.e. finishing the story locks out the option)[/quote]
[spoiler]It doesn’t at the moment. In principle you could play it with no connections.
I did some calculations on efficiency with a rubbery Spouse. 700 Loops (5 actions each) of rubbery murders need 20 Shepherd cash-ins (at 37.66 actions each) to recover lost Constables and heal scandal and 882 Rubbery Spouse cash-ins, each giving 12.5 echoes. Overall this gives 2.15 EPA, not even counting for other connections gained and menaces lost. Not bad. Obviously it relies on drawing shepherd and spouse cards.
ETA: corrected ETA from 2.5 to 2.15
[/spoiler] edited by genesis on 5/4/2017
[quote=genesis][spoiler]It doesn’t at the moment. In principle you could play it with no connections.
I did some calculations on efficiency with a rubbery Spouse. 700 Loops (5 actions each) of rubbery murders need 20 Shepherd cash-ins (at 37.66 actions each) to recover lost Constables and heal scandal and 882 Rubbery Spouse cash-ins, each giving 12.5 echoes. Overall this gives 2.5 EPA, not even counting for other connections gained and menaces lost. Not bad. Obviously it relies on drawing shepherd and slide cards.
[/spoiler][/quote]
Can you explain a bit more about these 5-action loops? xKiv has only mentioned 2 repeatable actions in their post.
Also, are you assuming Calling in Favours to get the Amber (one action per Favour), or as a gift via the Rubbery card (7 Favours at once)?
[quote=dov]
Can you explain a bit more about these 5-action loops? xKiv has only mentioned 2 repeatable actions in their post.
Also, are you assuming Calling in Favours to get the Amber (one action per Favour), or as a gift via the Rubbery card (7 Favours at once)?[/quote]
The same answer for both questions :) 2 actions for the loop itself plus 3 actions to cash in each favour with Calling in Favours. 700 loops then gives 7003420=882000 amber which you can exchange at 1000 a pop with your boneless consort
[quote=genesis][quote=dov]
Can you explain a bit more about these 5-action loops? xKiv has only mentioned 2 repeatable actions in their post.
Also, are you assuming Calling in Favours to get the Amber (one action per Favour), or as a gift via the Rubbery card (7 Favours at once)?[/quote]
The same answer for both questions :) 2 actions for the loop itself plus 3 actions to cash in each favour with Calling in Favours. 700 loops then gives 7003420=882000 amber which you can exchange at 1000 a pop with your boneless consort[/quote]
Hmmm…
I still don’t see the 2.5 EPA
Total echoes: 88212.5 = 11025
Total actions: 7005 + 882 + 20*37.66 = 5135.2
Total EPA: 11025 / 5135.2 = ~2.147 EPA (not taking into account other Connections gained)
Also: wouldn’t it be better to exchange the Favours for Amber via the Rubberies’ card using one action for 7 Favours? This way you’d spend only 2 actions per loop, and an additional action (via card) every 2.3333 loops.
Over those same 700 loops, you’ll only get 607500 Amber (7 Favours at a time, over 300 actions), but each loop will be 2 actions and not 5.
Total echoes: 607.512.5 = 7593.75
Total actions: 7002 + 300 + 607.5 + 20*37.66 = 3060.7
Total EPA: 7593.75 / 3060.7 = ~2.481 EPA (not taking into account other Connections gained)
EDIT: Fixed some really bad math and copy paste errors I’ve made in the above edited by dov on 5/4/2017
You are right. It is 2.15. That’s the number I first got but then must have mistyped and got 2.5 (was doing on my phone so was hard to double check)
And yes it would probably be more efficient to exchange all favours in one go. But 1) I was simply going off xKiv’s strategy and seeing what gain a Boneless Consort would add, and 2) it means that you can’t dedicate yourself to this grind. If you already have 7 favours and Slime and Amber is simply not coming up you have to pause this grind and potentially do something less profitable. Whereas with Boneless Consort you can accrue deep amber until it does come up