The allergies were true, not just a rumor!
I enjoyed the story, even though my meal was a disaster. If success and failure were based on stats, then nobody level capped would fail, but nobody new would succeed.
Anyone know what the choices were that would maximize the chance of the good meal endings?
I very much enjoyed this story, despite it being highly frustrating at times. As others have said, from an out-of-character perspective, watching such a complete trainwreck was very amusing and quite novel for Fallen London. The writing was excellent and the characters intriguing. Few stories focus on the cuisine, so this was a new experience there as well. And comparing with others’ journals, I’m very impressed by how many details in te text change with your choices!
However, the way in which the RNG was implemented was, as said, extremely frustrating. There were a number of ways to influence the probabilities, but as far as I can tell, the effects were relatively minor. This was especially egregious for the most difficult dishes—the most textually intriguing options were almost guaranteed to fail, even if you spent the entire story working towards just one! So while I appreciate the range of possible outcomes, it stings that—even with all the "right" choices—failure was still almost certain.
Still, the writing was engaging and held my interest throughout. Were this story (much) cheaper, I’d play through a couple more times, trying to figure out the ideal path and pull off those improbable dishes. But as it is, success is too unlikely to bother and I don’t seem to have even received a reward.
Edit: I think an ideal path would involve:
Give the line cooks more power. Ask the sous chef about the spice rack, try to calm his nerves, and leave him alone with the diners. Get the other cut of meat, and try to do the almost impossible dish—it’s the only combination I’ve seen that leads to that part of the review being positive.
edited by Optimatum on 12/30/2019
Ah! Well nice to know I did at least one thing right.
I must say this story left me woefully despondent. I tried hard and managed to succeed at several of my dishes, yet I failed… I failed. I have left the Illustrious Chef without a cockade, without a restaurant, and without a living. I seemed to have chosen poorly at every turn! What could I have done right?
Perhaps I’m disposed to like this story because I was fortunate enough to have done quite well, but… I did think the RNG dependency was thematically appropriate. We might be superhuman adventurers, but running a restaurant kitchen is one area where no-one’s talents mean a jot, and disaster is always a hair’s breadth away.
I mean depends on the concept. Caroline is a hedonistic aristocrat carrying dark secrets. If she fails, no big deal to me. I can easily believe she never learned to cook. But I can almost guarantee someone is playing a chef or former housewife or something down here who would be rightfully upset.
edited by Lady Karnstein on 1/1/2020
To add to this, in case someone decides they want to replay it:
[spoiler]
Give the line cooks more power. Ask the sous chef about the spice rack, try to calm his nerves, and leave him alone with the diners. Get the other cut of meat, and try to do the almost impossible dish—it’s the only combination I’ve seen that leads to that part of the review being positive.
If the dinner is a mess, and you blame the chef –> you lose all stars. (worst outcome)
If the dinner is a mess, and you blame yourself –> stars remain the same. (medium outcome)
If the dinner is good and you attribute it to yourself –> I don’t know what happens
If the dinner is good and you attribute it to the chef –> I assume this is the best outcome.[/spoiler]
This is one of those situations where I really feel like it shouldn’t be so costly to replay a story. There could be an in-game cost (costing echoes or items, etc.) maybe if you’re determined to get a better result, but if it was like 5-10 fate for me to replay, then I would consider it, but seems not worth it at 25 fate.
edited by jennnjennjen on 1/1/2020
In the beginning I was intrigued by the premise, but very quickly I was left perplexed. There is no real explanation who the characters are and what they want, nor did have much clue at any point what I should do to improve the outcome.
Several times I was asked ‘which side do you choose?’. No idea mate, I’m not sure who these people are or what’s the difference in that choice.
Most of the story felt like a cut-scene in which I don’t know the characters, I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t really have any effect on the outcome nor am I invested in it one way or another.
All in all I feel it was a waste of an exceptional story and the actions I used on it.
I’ve been slowly reading playthrough recorded in journals and I can’t help but be fascinated by the amount of layers in this ES. So many bits and pieces that vary throughout the ES depending on your choices and success/failure, it’s truly a delight. It really makes me wish that this story was made in a format that’s more easily repeatable to discover all the variations and results. (Yes, we can reset stories with Fate, but that’s a tad expensive, and even more so if we keep resetting it over and over.)
I also have to give praise to the characters. The Maitre D’ is a dear and my favorite, but everyone got their endearing moments too, and with each new snippet I read I’m charmed again. And of course, it was also a delight to read about the cuisine of the Neath. Definitely one of my favorite ES from 2019.
I do wish we could get access to the Closed Market as an area once we finished the ES.
Another idea would be to grant access to the restaurant to Paramount Presences, perhaps as a social action (invite someone to…). As it stands now, Paramount doesn’t change anything in terms of gameplay, so perhaps that would be a nice little extra to signal your achievement - narratively grand, but not game-breaking.
I successfully prepared every dish, but still got an awful review, so I’m really not sure what happened there.
Huh, I had the reverse: I failed two courses, but still got a good review. I am still a bit baffled how that came to be.
I had one failure three successes. I think the difficulty of the dishes mattered too though. Along with how well you handled the crowd. And the allergies. And everything else, of course.
Apparently it’s possible to get a good review for the meal, but given our relative lack of opportunity to influence the outcome, the bar seems to be set unreasonably high. I had a failure on the first course, followed by successes, each time on the second most difficult options, for the remaining three. All things considered, I thought that was rather good. And yet, the diners were apparently displeased, and we got hammered in the press. Hardly seems right.
Huh, I had the reverse: I failed two courses, but still got a good review. I am still a bit baffled how that came to be.[/quote]
Perhaps you were able to appeal to the tiger critic somehow?
I loved this story, even though I thoroughly botched the dinner (although my character had the decency to take responsability and save the Chef’s reputation). In my opinion, the problem with the story wasn’t the reliance on RNG, but rather its, let’s say, lack of clarity. I had the luck of succeeding at the challenges on all four courses, I went with some moderately difficult dishes, yet at the end I am told that nobody touched their plates. And so I am sitting here and asking myself "What did I do wrong?". Was it the fact that I bought that secret meat from the Poissonnier? Or that I let the Sous-Chef show me the Sorbet Maker?
I kind of understand what this story was going for: at various times, you were asked to make certain decisions, and you’d get to see the consequences of those choices at the end. This is a very fine idea, but it was poorly executed, because
a) you are not always given all the information you need. One example is when you go to the Bandaged Boucher and have to decide whether to believe him about the Tiger’s allergies.
b) all the decisions seem to have a decidedly "good" and "bad" option, and the one you’ll pick counts towards a positive or negative outcome overall.
Now, both of these things can be fun by themselves (or made to be fun…), but it’s their combination that leaves me with this sour taste in my mouth. And with that jarring sensation you get when you are constantly told that things are going well, your meals are a success, only to discover in the end that it was all, in fact, a culinary disaster. (No, seriously, was it the Sorbet Maker? How could that possibly affect the Tiger’s review?)
It all felt, well, like a recipe - these are all the steps that you need to follow in order to make a good dish. Mess something up, and the quality of the food will suffer, only that, instead of food, it was the outcome of the story. If this was the writer’s intention, then I congratulate them for making the story reflect that, but I think they forgot that tastes do vary.
Despite all that, I still love the story: it had great writing, fun and memorable characters, it was accesible to players of all levels, and, at the end of the day, it was fun to see my high-stats character get dragged into this importunate adventure, without any sort of high-stakes or mysterious implications. (Not to mention that it was an accurate portrayal of what would happen if I was ever left alone in a kitchen, especially the kitchen of a prestigious restaurant)
edited by Jean Gulberg on 1/6/2020
I feel like this story will end up working if the other stories in the season are more of direct sequels (This is my first exceptional story, so I don’t know how interconnected they normally are). If the next stories involve us more in our element, assisting the same characters, perhaps in figuring out who poisoned the Head Chief, then it would work as a comedic opening act.
@AbsolxGuardian: Exceptional Stories are normally not interconnected in any way. They’re all standalone.
[quote=Catherine Raymond]
snip
Perhaps you were able to appeal to the tiger critic somehow?[/quote]
Huh, maybe. I mean, I had a pleasant, if scary, talk with them. However, I did accidentally poison them, too. (I’d rather cause a single allergic reaction than serve human flesh.
I would really like to see which choices contributed to a positive and which to a negative review and how the combination of keeping the kitchen in order, getting the right ingredients and making the meals affected it.
edited by Desirée on 1/8/2020
I think one of the most jarring points is that the final review seems so disconnected from what actually happened and sense you have of how well things are going at the time. I passed the first two dicey dishes, which were apparently well received. Failed the second two challenging dishes. Seemed to make all the right choices otherwise, but the review acts like it was total disaster start to finish. I went with “alternative” meat (just botching the chert apple to go with it) and the assess damge bit towards the end mentioned everyone licking that plate clean, but the review mentions an unforgivably bad cut of meat, the taste of which he had to wash out with whiskey. When addressing the crowd, they seemed to go from dissatisfied to thinking it was excellent, but the review goes back to calling awful.
The feedback is just all over the place and disjointed from your actual performance. It’d be one thing if I failed big, but there’s no reflection of a moderate “meh” performance. We got multiple pages of the review, could they not be adjusted to reflect individual choices so it feels like anything we did mattered?