Revolutionaries are in the next rotation of factions getting Renown conversion. This means that all of the current storylets and cards that give Revolutionaries connections CP are going to be changed to give favours, currency, or nothing at all. And one of the most notable Revolutionaries connection CP involves one of the most confounding items in the entire game; Leathery Human Hearts.
Leathery Human Hearts are only gained one way, by killing Clay-Man Jacks. After gaining five, you can turn them in at the University for six CP of Revolutionaries connections. This is an astronomical waste of time, for the vast majority of people, other than the tiny little bit of weirdness that the Revolutionary fellow has to say, implying that he’s going to put them into more claymen. None of this is ever referenced anywhere else, as far as I know. The only place I could even think it might be referenced is The Clay Man’s Arm, which I’ve yet to play. Regardless, this post isn’t for discussing lore, moreso this is to set up the absolute oddity that the hearts are, and how they’ve never been explained.
With the coming conversion, I’m intrigued what’s going to happen with this option in particular. I’ll explain each the options I list, a bit, and why I think each of them is reasonably possible. I will admit I listed them in order of which I think is most likely, mostly because that’s the order I thought of them in.
The standard cut-and-dry replacement for a hard-to-get connection gain.
Not unheard of, looking at the new version of turning in Casing to the Constables.
Advancing the Liberation gain is quite common among Revolutionary-based activities.
Personally my favourite, and not entirely outside the realm of possibility.
See above. The macabre nature of the activity would arise at least a bit of nightmares, I imagine. Beyond that, there were many other things that had high costs and were purely negative, even beyond seeking.
I can hope. Regardless, this isn’t entirely unprecedented, specifically looking at the new options on the velocipede and Sulky Bat cards.
The most unfortunate of possibilities, though not entirely unthinkable. The hearts themselves seem to be a loose plot thread that was abandoned and replaced with something else, and merely remain as a bit that no one had the time to clean up, yet.
Self-explanatory.
Do comment if you have any ideas, or know any references to these hearts I may have missed. And here’s hoping I’m still logged in when I press enter, and don’t have to re-write the entire post again.
You can lock yourself out of gaining hearts if you finish the jack storyline, right?
They always did seem to be a weird thing to me, too. I remember being excited that I’d get something cool from trading them in at the university, and then it all turned out to be for almost naught. If they do give a favor that’d be nice (except that I think I can’t do it anymore)
I would be quite surprised if it granted a Favor, since grindable sources of Favors aren’t very common. And of all the things to grant a Favor, why that one?
It’s a very odd piece of side-content. It almost sticks out for how disconnected it is. I would expect either outright removal or replacing the reward.
For some reason, I feel like the closest comparison from previous content revamps is actually A Consideration for Services Rendered. The amount of Connected and the materials involved just didn’t fit in with the scale of Favors… so they decided to just crank the rewards all the way up, in a way that fit with the existing text. Perhaps the new version will have a Renown unlock and give out decent material rewards but no Favors?
It is grindable, and it doesn’t need rare successes. Assuming minimum possible actions, which would be succeeding the 50% Running Battle success at 5 Running Battle, you’d need eight actions per heart. Considering you need five, plus one action to actually do the trade in, that would be 41 actions a favour.
[quote=Teaspoon]
(I will console myself with the recollection that I am an addict to the Nadir and overclocking my stats would be a useless thing to do.)[/quote]
Same here. Every time I go to the nadir I think "eh. Stats. Who needs those?" and max my irrigo
That doesn’t seem too extreme to me. Docks favors are easily grindable for less than that (not counting zailing) if I’m remembering correctly. I wouldn’t be surprised if this does stay in, although I’m saddened because I can’t use it anymore. edited by Pumpkinhead on 7/26/2017
That doesn’t seem too extreme to me. Docks favors are easily grindable for less than that (not counting zailing) if I’m remembering correctly. I wouldn’t be surprised if this does stay in, although I’m saddened because I can’t use it anymore. edited by Pumpkinhead on 7/26/2017[/quote]
Dock favours can be grinded with 5~ or so actions, at 96-100 airs. Also, yeah. I’m making the most I can out of Jack content, before I go through with finishing it. (I intend to do the fate option to destroy Jack and the factory, rather than choosing. I want my statue.) Presently, I’m working on grinding "An annoyance to Jack-of-Smiles" up to level seven, and that’s… That’s really slow going.
[quote=PSGarak]I would be quite surprised if it granted a Favor, since grindable sources of Favors aren’t very common. And of all the things to grant a Favor, why that one?
It’s a very odd piece of side-content. It almost sticks out for how disconnected it is. I would expect either outright removal or replacing the reward.
Favors?[/quote]
Whilst still at mid-level I assumed - because the leathery hearts themselves are branded ‘WOLFSTACK’ - that it was going to link up to the result for stowing away on a smuggler’s ship from the ‘Wolfstack in the Fog’ card:
So, someone is buying up London’s luckless vagrants in return for coal? Beneath the University? How odd.
Anticipating revelations, I defended the Clay Men from the Clay Jacks, collected Leathery Human Hearts, and carted them to the Doctor of Anatomy. The resulting boost to Revolutionaries intrigued me because it implied…that the Revolutionaries might be using very ruthless, ends-justify-the-means ways to harry Clay Men, that hated source of cheap labour? Maybe, maybe not. But it went nowhere.
As a plain grind for Favours it may be all right for those with high Dangerous, but disappointing to the mid-level players who first encounter it, because accumulating Running Battle will be a slower process for them. I’m pretty sure it was never intended to be one. It still feels like the abandoned stub of a significant storyline, and as such I think it will either be taken out, or (we can but hope) we will learn more.
It would be enough just to connect up the narrative, assuming there was intended to be a link.
Well, if the wiki is to be trusted, it seems the final conclusion is that the option now gives 100 cryptic clues. Using my previous math, that’s 41 actions to get 100 cryptic clues, giving us an EPA of around… 0.05. Looks like the hearts are going to dip into obscurity once more.