Moved to the Trackers

Fallen London
1

A number of opportunity cards have been moved to following the advancement trackers, and not being dependent on stats. I’ve noticed a least a handful just in the last day. I’m just wondering what the rationale was. Is it just to punish incentivize players who don’t rush through the tracker?

Example: http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/Lies_below_the_Palace
http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/Dealing_with_the_colonel
etc

PS Is there a strike-through function on these forums?
edited by MrBurnside on 2/3/2016

2

Why would it punish players? They’re not great but they don’t hurt you either.

3

Yeah I noticed those two cards, too. Yesterday, when playing my alt. They weren’t in her deck as far as I know. The unlocks said it was a tracker thing. I tried them to see the results and I didn’t like the results.

4

I’ve noticed the resurgence of some cards that my stats were formerly too high for now that they are on the Trackers. It’s been quite a while since I’ve drawn The Ways of [Place] on my main.

5

For the record: I formatted &quotpunish&quot like that because it’s very loaded and would have used a strikeout if I knew how to on this forum. It’s not the end of the world, but it does inconvenience players who haven’t finished the trackers. The low-stat aim of them just makes them useless to a higher stated player, and their number makes them unpleasantly omnipresent. It’s why I was asking what the intended affect was. I don’t doubt there is one and am curious what the design rationale was.

It occurred to me that FBG may have taken a look at the number of higher stat players who hadn’t reached the tracker advancement that they were balancing the trackers for. This may have led FB to think a gentle push was warranted. Again, expressing curiosity was the intent, not demagoguery. I apologize if that was unclear.

I, myself, have left the trackers alone for a while to focus on other things. Getting cards aimed at 75ish stats does, probably, qualify as an inconvenience and it sparked curiousity.
edited by MrBurnside on 2/3/2016

6

There are also cards for when you’ve completed the trackers, and they seem to be rather useless as well. But they are uncommon or something, I’ve only drawn one.
edited by suinicide on 2/3/2016

7

I wouldn’t call it &quotpunishing&quot them at all! I have an alt I don’t really play that often, who is in one of the training professions - and so any content requiring my Attributes to be below 70 is content I’m never going to see on that character (without equipping a certain chatty rodent.)

Personally I think this is a great way of making sure you encounter the appropriate-level content while you’re in that stage of Fallen London, narrative-wise. So long as the top-tier stuff is sufficiently rewarding to match the similar rewards for where you are in that point of the game, I see no problem with this. :-)
edited by Kittenpox on 2/3/2016

8

I was under the impression that everything stats based pre-posi was going to eventually be migrated to the tracker system so it’s possible the inconvenience wasn’t intentional incentivization but instead an unintended side effect of the early game being rebalanced. I don’t have any proof that that impression is accurate though so take it as you will.

Also, just out of curiosity, why didn’t you skip the tracker? I’d played through all of the stories included in the tracker before they were rolled out so I selected the highest tracker level across the board. Your comments seem to indicate that you’re far enough into the game to do the same & that you also don’t have much interest in the tracker content so it seems odd to me that you’d be in this situation in the first place. Perhaps I’m missing something?

9

[quote=annalibertas]I was under the impression that everything stats based pre-posi was going to eventually be migrated to the tracker system so it’s possible the inconvenience wasn’t intentional incentivization but instead an unintended side effect of the early game being rebalanced. I don’t have any proof that that impression is accurate though so take it as you will.

Also, just out of curiosity, why didn’t you skip the tracker? I’d played through all of the stories included in the tracker before they were rolled out so I selected the highest tracker level across the board. Your comments seem to indicate that you’re far enough into the game to do the same & that you also don’t have much interest in the tracker content so it seems odd to me that you’d be in this situation in the first place. Perhaps I’m missing something?[/quote]
Mostly for content reasons. My main certainly intended to finish the Court, but It’s kind of fun content. I’m really curious about Fluke Street, but enjoying the University. My Dangerous leaped far ahead of the tracker in the last couple months and I caught up with and am enjoying the Third Coil. In A Name Whispered in Darkness I kind of stalled, feeling that the information I’d need to make decisions was back-loaded past where those decisions are made (this was in Mahogany Hall).

Just to be clear: I know I can advance them at any time. If I tire of the cards: I will. I’m not suggesting that the choice was taken out of my hands or that this is a permanent blight on my character or anything of the sort. The pacing of the game (and all the fun seasonal content) just sort of led me here
edited by MrBurnside on 2/3/2016

10

I myself had already finished the University and Court so was forced to the end of those trackers, but for Dangerous and Shadowy I chose to restart from the beginning to experience the content changes and get the heaps of CP from progressing.

11

[quote=Kittenpox]I wouldn’t call it &quotpunishing&quot them at all! I have an alt I don’t really play that often, who is in one of the training professions - and so any content requiring my Attributes to be below 70 is content I’m never going to see on that character (without equipping a certain chatty rodent.)

Personally I think this is a great way of making sure you encounter the appropriate-level content while you’re in that stage of Fallen London, narrative-wise. So long as the top-tier stuff is sufficiently rewarding to match the similar rewards for where you are in that point of the game, I see no problem with this. :-)
edited by Kittenpox on 2/3/2016[/quote]

The flip side is that there are significant incentives to never leaving Court or advancing the University due to permanent content lockout with no in-kind or better replacements, such as:

[ul][li]Creating any works in Court, such as gaining copies of novels and such. (unique items are independent of character ‘tiers’)
[/li][li]Easier/most profitable way to grind Scholar of the Correspondence to 10 (the tier that most long-term characters will want to aim for, and often don’t start grinding towards til they’re near end-game).[/li][/ul]But these are temporary things, irrelevant with sufficient planning! Well, here are some more, that aren’t temporary:

[ul][li]Court: Most reliable Making Waves grind; side-conversions in general, and Tale of Terror up-conversions (thank you Optimatum) work on a different system based on grinding/converting items for a later payout, which averages out to be better, but you can get unlucky in a pinch. Also, 1-to-1 Making Waves per action (plus bonus profit) is always useful. (relevant for entire character lifespan)[/li][li]First University tier: Only reliable (non-card-based) way to get Greyfields First Sporing and Black Wings Absinthe. (relevant for entire character lifespan; these aren’t super important items and there are currently few reasons to stockpile, barring future content)
[/li][li]Court & first University tier: As far as I know, the only repeatable albeit difficult ways to get Hedonist to 12, one of which is a fun, repeatable romance storyline. (with regards to quirks, relevant for entire character lifespan – extremely relevant if you’ve gone through all the making your name stuff, because you’re truly all out of other options! Only applies to Hedonists and Scarlet Saints, of course.)[/li][li]For the second University tier: Best source of Investigating. (granted, this reason is a little powergamey, and could be better rephrased as &quota good profit grind, better than others currently available for various reasons&quot)[/li][/ul]Not that you shouldn’t finish these, of course. For example, I’m not sure I’m leaving Court anytime soon, but the Fate content was enough for me to finish the University on my main account, certainly, long ago. But you constantly hear people kicking themselves for advancing University and Court when situations come up where access to those places might have come in handy.

There’s nothing wrong with this, just a long-winded way of saying that the ‘appropriate content’ argument here won’t really make sense until months or years in the future when new content does come to negate the things I said above!

In this case, it could be seen as a way to push players like me to advance beyond those stages, even if we don’t want to give up those advantages or conveniences, not by adding more benefit, but by adding more detriments. I think that’s where the word ‘punish’ came from?

But now that I’ve typed all this, I still have no idea what exactly my opinion is! Clearly, I am a genius. I am beyond even my own understanding.

EDIT: Noticing that for the Persuasive tracker at least, looking at Cards with the Civil Service, it looks like it will go away if you do the Court romance, which I believe doesn’t lock out any content. Maybe that will hold true for other Persuasive cards, at least. (Of course, for all I know currently, that may unlock other cards!)
EDIT: Clarifications!
edited by thedeadlymoose on 2/3/2016

12

[quote=thedeadlymoose]

[ul][li]Court: Only good Making Waves grind that isn’t side-converting. (relevant for entire character lifespan)[/li][li]First University tier: Only reliable way to get Greyfields First Sporing and Black Wings Absinthe. (relevant for entire character lifespan, though these aren’t emergency level items)[/quote][/li][/ul]These two aren’t quite accurate. Stealing Tales of Terror!! in the Flit and upconverting is a pretty effective MW grind, which has the advantages of storing up potential MW like Salons and Orphanages (plus is a great way to grind for an Impossible Theorem). The two wines are easily gotten from the Mr Wines sale card, though not in great numbers, but there’s no specific reason to need them in large quantities.

13

As someone who regretfully closed the Court off this week after holding off, certainly the Foreign Office is nothing to write home about. It’s the first place I feel that I’m seriously losing out for not paying fate to add content because there’s nothing much there right now. [Let me clarify: I was hoping the first cycle was a setup for a Glass/Shroud conflict and the fact it’s the same each round is disappointing. There aren’t even the branching paths you get in regular Wilmot’s End.] Coming from the Court, it’s disappointing. Even though I only pursued the Romances once, I’m glad I had the works to make my way through - I found the completion texts for each of them interesting and amusing. So I’m glad I wait until the Governorship was available to get Exiled.

But I’m going to miss those and other stories in the Court and University as they provided more narrative - surely something encouraged by the Powers that Be. Making Waves by item conversion is certainly efficient but it’s mind numbingly boring. Yes, clicking the same storylet isn’t a lot better, but there’s a rare success and some item gain as well. But, having the Making Waves carousel of doom, it is so much more efficient and controllable than most other Making Waves methods that I’d hate it for it to be taken away.
edited by Parelle on 2/3/2016

14

[quote=Optimatum][quote=thedeadlymoose]

  • Court: Only good Making Waves grind that isn’t side-converting. (relevant for entire character lifespan)[/li][li]First University tier: Only reliable way to get Greyfields First Sporing and Black Wings Absinthe. (relevant for entire character lifespan, though these aren’t emergency level items)[/quote]

The first one completely slipped my mind! It would be fairer to say the Court grind is the reliable grind, since on a luck-based failure for upconverting 50 ToT, you gain less than one MW per action. (It likely evens out to be higher, though, which means my characterization of &quotgood&quot was inaccurate. I’ll edit, and thank you!)

As for the second one – that’s card-based, not reliable. Still, I should have clarified.