Hello everyone! This seems like the kind of question those of you with more experience might be able to answer so I don’t have to find out the hard way.
I need more Whispered Hints and am getting a little desperate to get more. All the menial tasks to earn them use up actions so quickly! I was thinking I could buy some from the Bazaar, especially since I just visited the Flit for the first time and got loads of rats on strings. However, even though the rate for them on Watchmaker’s Hill is really good, it turns in ALL your rats. Every once in a while they seem to come in handy, and I’m a bit nervous that I’ll give them all away then need them when I unlock more stuff.
What are your thoughts on this? Should I sell just a few at the Bazaar for at least some pence, or would I be ok giving away all the rats I’ve collected since joining (504) for a few Echoes? Thank you everyone!!
Keep them. 504 is too low. Also this is a game that require patience, you will need to wait for months to build a nest egg. Try to sell your week professional reward if you really need money. Use wiki to see the outcome of most cards and actions. Also try to use storylets to level your stats fast.
Rats aren’t that hard to come by. I’ve transmuted rats to gold more than once when I’ve been in need of cash. However, your best option depends on what you need all those Whispered Hints for. Are you going digging in the Forgotten Quarter? If so, the Docks favors will do you better than Hints. If it’s something else, there may also be alternative routes there.
If he’s far enough to get into the Flit, then the Forgotten Quarter is certainly possible. The only other real sustained need for Whispered Hints is saving up for some schmancy lodgings, and that takes a while by any standard.
However, it’s also worth looking at what you’re getting. Catching a white cat nets you 36 Whispered Hints per action. That’s about equal to the number of Rats you get from entertaining the Topsy King, plus you get extra silk from the King to boot. However, you also have extra steps: conversion into rostygold (1 action), then buying Hints at tuppence apiece. So, ten actions chasing cats nets you 360 Hints. Ten actions entertaining the King (really 9 plus one conversion action) nets you 173 Hints after it’s all done. Although the percentages get better the more rats you accumulate before cashing in, at a thousand successful actions it’s still only about 53% of what you would have gotten by just grinding Hints straight.
Things change dramatically if you can reliably get your weasel to perform. At 72 rats per performance, this is a much better rate of return. At 11 actions (10 successes + conversion, in the weasel’s case), both cat catching and weasel magic will have netted you 396 Hints, and the weasel just gets better from there. However, that path has the downside of losing your weasel if you fail, so it’s only worth it if you are very certain you can keep a weasel for a decent run. It’s not a low risk challenge until your Shadowy is 98, and it’s not failproof unless you’re up to 120 Shadowy. If you just got to the Flit, I doubt you have those numbers yet.
So, in short, cat chasing is still the most economical way to grind Hints with low- to medium-level Shadowy. However, as I said above, there may be more convenient routes to your goal, depending on what that goal happens to be. edited by Siankan on 2/22/2017
I like to keep about 500 of everything, but I’m a POSI with unmodified stats at 172, 128, 134, and 150, so you might need fewer. I only started hoarding items in these quantities a couple of months ago.
I personally like to sell things at the Bazaar, because it doesn’t spend the action points I need for more interesting storylines or grinding qualities (right now I’m working on Connected: Hell).
It really depends on how you like to play the game. If you really like to maximize your EPA (Echoes per Action), then Siankan and Tofan Bogdan have offered some quite good advice. I personally prefer to focus on the actions that are the most interesting to me, fit my character roleplaying the best, or simultaneously further some other goal. For example, I can grind both Connected: Society and Proscribed Materials (to build up Connected: the Masters) at the University with one action, and I feel confident that Professor Donaghy Logan would be spending lots of time at the University anyway!
That being said, if you’re not yet a POSI, I’d suggest dumping all the rats - they’re quite easy to get. If you’ve got pretty high stats, though, I’d suggest starting to collect them in greater quantities.
Professor Logan’s advice is good, and as she says a lot of it depends on how you like to play and what you’re doing in the game. My advice was based on the assumption that you are trying to reach your Whispered Hint goal in the shortest time possible; if that be not true, adjust accordingly.
I’ve had a policy almost since the beginning of keeping a reserve of 100 in every item, and selling or converting whatever excess I acquire over that. However, that policy has modified over time, as my needs have changed. Currently my horticultural interests lead me to keep unlimited quantities of rats, candles, and so forth, and I keep 1,000 glim and unlimited quantities of rostygold in reserve against various needs. That said, achieving a goal or locking and unlocking opportunity cards might change those numbers up or down at any point.
This is a good general rule - for one thing, it makes it easy to decide what to sell to the Bazaar and how much of it. For another, it’s rare to need more than 100 of any one of these per action pre-PoSI. "Every item" applies to the common currencies: rats, Glim, Rostygold, Nevercold Brass, Moon-Pearls, Foxfire candles, Deep Amber, etc. Jade Fragments and Whispered Hints also function as common currencies, but they can be upgraded, so it’s more useful to hang on to them.
When you need a lot of one type of common currency, it’s generally better to find the "best" (whether that’s the most efficient or the most fun) way to get it directly than to get other currencies, sell them at the Bazaar, and then buy other what you need. It’s probably not worth trying a more complicated method unless you need a whole lot.
[quote=Siankan]
I’ve had a policy almost since the beginning of keeping a reserve of 100 in every item, and selling or converting whatever excess I acquire over that. However, that policy has modified over time, as my needs have changed. [/quote]