On Android at least (haven’t tested it in the browser, and don’t own any iOS products), when a mood "wears off," it disappears from my inventory, and also from my current equipment but not from any outfits that I am not currently wearing (although it appears that app crashes may at least in some cases remove it). I have confirmed that it does indeed provide a stat increase in this state. I intend to soon test whether or not a mood previously acquired and kept in this fashion will be lost if equipped when a different mood’s timer runs out; I expect that it will. (If so, one might be able to keep three moods semi-permanently, but would not be able to keep four; if I do not hear word from the developers or moderators forbidding further experimentation prior to having the opportunity, I intend to test that explicitly.)
So far, this is just information, but I also have a question: How do the developers regard this phenomenon?
[ul][li]Working as intended (I doubt it, but who knows?), and therefore fine to use.
[/li][li]Unintended, but amusing; will likely be left alone.[/li][li]Unintended and will be fixed at some point, but sure, go for it until then.[/li][li]Unintended, and quite cheesy to use, but not actually forbidden.[/li][li]A TOS-violating bug exploit, punishable if done intentionally. (Hopefully excluding my current testing for the purpose of establishing the details in order to report them here?)[/li][/ul]That last parenthetical actually raises a broader question: Is deliberate exploitation of a newly discovered bug in order to discover and report its limits acceptable in general, provided that it does not harm other players or generate otherwise impossible-to-obtain spoilers, and provided that the results are reported promptly and honestly once obtained? (Potentially including an honest disclosure of the magnitude of benefits gained, so they can be removed if the developers deem them excessive for the amount of information obtained.)
From what I know, that’s accurate. Intentions are definitely important but responsibility is key - never publicly mention any major positive bug until fixed*. IMO this bug doesn’t fall into that category, since it doesn’t change much and you can reach these levels of stat boosts without bugs, but it’s usually better to stay on the safe side and report things directly. A few examples of past bugs being handled:
Quite a while ago, NiteBrite encountered a bug with buying Fate giving far more Fate than intended. NiteBrite reported this issue and had the excess Fate removed. Highly exploitable but wasn’t used for personal gain or publicized, so all is well.[/li][li]When the Exceptional Story The Twelve-Fifteen From Moloch Street was released, a bug at the end could set stats above the level cap based on equipment bonuses. To verify this, I intentionally changed my equipment to set all my stats as high as possible, but because I reported this and asked for my stats to be fixed it wasn’t an issue.[/li][li]One time last year all the lock requirements for cards stopped working for a few hours. This was publicly discussed as it wasn’t really exploitable and was pretty visible.
*Especially for app bugs, because FBG can’t patch them immediately as they can for website issues. Abusing app issues is one of the major breaches of TOS for a reason.
Okay, cool. So far my only benefits have been getting a couple (I think 2, maybe 3) opportunities each to raise Renown: Criminals and Renown: Constables (above 40 but below 50, working my way towards that branch of London’s Marrow) now instead of later. Which should in theory have no net effect past the point when I would have raised them anyway, since it means that I’ll cash in favours for goods later instead of now. Well, except that I might end up discarding Moods then that I would have otherwise played. So maybe a net savings of 4 actions. If the devs feel the need to dock me 4 actions, I’m not gonna complain (or, in all likelihood, notice).
And yeah, I would have been more cautious about posting this publicly if it were something like "This one weird trick turns your Overgoat into a Heptagoat for only 973 echoes!" as opposed to "You can advance a bit sooner at the cost of making some cash a bit later, maybe saving a single-digit number of actions in the process."
Also, update (which I will also send to the email address): Crashes don’t sometimes remove kept moods, they do something way stranger: A crash while equipped with a kept Cool as Ice, as part of a currently-worn Incognito outfit, will result in my starting up again apparently equipped with a Fecund Amber Tiara (NB: I do in fact own a Fecund Amber Tiara, and it is normally the hat for my Morning outfit), as part of a currently-worn Incognito outfit. It will indicate the stats that would be expected based on wearing a Fecund Amber Tiara, and even lock me out of actions that require the added shadowy from the Cool as Ice. However, if I then switch to another outfit (without removing the apparent Tiara), and then switch back to Incognito, then my equipped hat will once again be Cool as Ice. edited by osberend on 10/19/2017
Update: I noticed that my cell phone was about to die, so I changed my Morning hat from the Fecund Amber Tiara to the Blemmigan Hat, switched to Hard-Wearing (which has a kept Fired with Ferocity equipped as hat), and synced. After the phone died, I plugged it in, and I restarted Fallen London, I observed the same results as above: I was using my Hard-Wearing outfit, and the hat appeared to be the Fecund Amber Tiara (not the Blemmigan Hat), but switching to another outfit and back to Hard-Wearing restored the Fired with Ferocity.
Update: Have confirmed that a currently equipped kept mood will be lost from equipment when a more recently obtained mood’s timer expires. Moods that are part of outfits other than the currently-equipped one will still be kept. So far, have only confirmed this with different moods; will have to test whether this is true if they are the same mood, equipped on two different outfits. I suspect it will be.
Update: It’s not actually just crashes; any sync will cause the image and stats of a currently-equipped kept mood to be replaced by the image of stats of some other hat (if Gloam Foam is the hat for the Evening outfit, and all other outfits have kept moods, than Gloam Foam will be the "replacement" hat; I’m still not sure why the Blemmigan Hat behaved differently), but if I switch to a different outfit and switch back, the kept mood is restored. This probably explains why this bug hasn’t been reported before (I noticed something that in retrospect was probably it several months ago (but thought it was a one time hiccup), which suggests that it has been a while): Even if a mood is kept, the next time the user syncs while the relevant outfit is equipped, they will see what appears to be a different hat equipped, usually one inappropriate for the stat that that outfit is maximizing. So they’ll replace it with that outfit’s normal hat, thereby ending the kept mood. You have to be paying close attention to realize what’s actually going on. edited by osberend on 10/27/2017