Nadir rewards [Spoiler]

Fallen London
1

I want to have a little discussion about the unique equipments that can be gained in the nadir. Specifically, these ones

Their stats are irrelevant, i’m not sure what their purpose is, besides making your inventory look pretty.

It always struck me as odd that the Parabola Linen Frock/Suit aren’t the best persuasive items for that slot. They seem so much more special and mystical than an ivory gown, or a sumptuous Dandy outfit, especially given that the cost difference between the two pairs of items is pretty negligible. And yet the more mundane of each pair has 2 higher persuasive, and the same BDR bonuses too. So what’s the point of parabola linen?

And then i found out about the nadir. Perhaps this is the point?
Nope. Being transformed in the Nadir does not make them more persuasive, all it does is slightly increase their Shadowy. Not by enough to make them worth using as shadowy items though. The stat increase is pointless.

Would it be so much to ask, that irrigo imbuement raises them to 10 persuasive, making them on par with the ivory/dandy items, and allowing you to wear one or the other as a matter of personal choice? I feel like this wouldn’t affect balance at all, but would be fun.

The neathglass goggles are less notable. They DO get a boost to the primary stat, watchful, but it only takes it from a subpar value (5) to a slightly less subpar value, of 6. This still doesn’t make them worth using at all.

There IS a large difference in price here, between the neathglass goggles and the Semiotic Monocle (the best purchaseable Watchful head item). Perhaps boosting them to 8 watchful would be too easy for the money saved, but the monocle IS also the best Dangerous hat, and it has some unique interaction with snow.

I’m not sure, right now these things aren’t useful at all, they don’t seem to serve any purpose… I wouldn’t want them to be stupidly powerful, but it’d be nice if they had at least some niche to fill.


By contrast, the Forgotten Spidersilk slippers are one point of shadowy higher than the best purchaseable thing, which gives them a clear material advantage. Does anyone feel they’re overpowered? would it be reasonable to want the same (or at least parity) for the other three?

Thoughts please

2

If you’re looking for every item in Fallen London to give a concrete material advantage, you will be sorely disappointed. The game is not built for min/maxers.

3

Maybe they make you look so goofy that no one takes you seriously and that’s why they don’t give good persuasive stats.

4

Please don’t misinterpret me. i wasn’t really looking for an advantage, only for parity. I’d like to be able to wear a parabola linen frock without losing out on something. changing the outfits as described would have literally no effect on game balance, and be purely thematic flavour

The goggles are more complex, it’s true. i don’t have much expectation of those

5

Well, the nadir is all about irrigo, so people are probably forgetting about whatever arguments you’re using to persuade them. To be honest I was kinda surprised the persuasive wasn’t lower than before.
Also, I believe the better shadowy outfits have conflict cards, so these are a nice way to avoid them while still getting a decent shadowy.
edited by suinicide on 1/25/2016

6

I advocate a suit of gant-stained clothing that is disastrously expensive, wrecks your stats and cannot be removed!

7

Nanako, a couple of thoughts. One directly related to your question and one somewhat more meta.

If you are interested in some of the design decisions made by FBG I found two resources very useful and insightful - the FBG blog (especially the older posts) and also going through the archive of Alexis’s posts here on the forums. I think, if you do you would broadly find that the kind of asymmetries/disbalances etc that you have been commenting recently on can be addressed by one of the following:

  1. FBG are not very interested in making symmetrical or balanced design decisions everywhere for various reasons. It’s different if an imbalance breaks the game in some way but as long as that doesn’t happen, FBG has been happy to leave many of these disbalances. Sometimes it’s for dramatic effect, sometimes it’s for texture, sometimes it’s to give players goals/decision that are not driven by game stats, and many other reasons. I do recommend that you explore what comments have already been made on these topics

  2. FBG try to “future-proof” the content. In other words many decisions do not necessarily make sense in the current setup but may make sense when future content is released. For example, it may be that some powerful branch is eventually unlocked by all of these Nadir items.

  3. It may be just down to work load in the sense that FBG may well agree with your assessment but it’s simply not made their way up their list of priorities.

The comments above are not exclusive to your questions about the Nadir items but I think they broadly address a number of your recent posts.

As a more meta point, I know you are inviting discussion but a number of your comments generally stray into the realm of feedback/dissatisfaction with the status quo. It is generally accepted on the forums that those kinds of comments are best addressed either in the Feedback thread on the main forum or via email to feedback@failbettergames.com Discussing here on The Bazaar subforum is typically more about the topic that we, the players, can actually meaningfully contribute to.

8

No disrespect, but genesis is right. Please, please post your feedback in the feedback thread (or threads already relevant to the topic you’re going to bring up). There can be discussion there. Right now you’re adding hundreds of new threads that make it exceptionally hard to search for what we are actually looking for considering that search results only bring up the top five results. I guarantee that your questions/opinions will be heard in pre-made threads (the forum displays latest threads/topics), but it’s getting a bit disorienting having to wade through tons of new threads to find an older one with the information I’m looking for.

9

Here’s something else which might interest you: community.failbettergames.com/topic6252-the-first-rule-of-ambition-enigma.aspx

10

I want to go on record as saying i’ve never had a problem with asymmetry. Asymmetrical choices where one choice is sometimes best, and the other is sometimes best, are a very good and interesting thing. The problem comes when one choice is always best, and one choice always isn’t. Balance in singleplayer content is all about keeping choices interesting and meaningful, and it certainly has a place.

I’ve read every comment posted in every thread i’ve made, and i’ve seen some interesting discussion, but i’ve also seen a lot of hostile resistance to any change at all, and some rather amazing logical cartwheels to place the status quo as always being the best option.

I’m also seeing a lot of people taking my words out of context, misinterpreting them, and making judgements about my character. like the first response to this thread. this, and the frequent pileup of red thumbs is becoming disconcerting. i may take a little break from this forum, i hear Venderbight is nice this time of year

I was not aware of this, i had been labouring under the impression that the bazaar was for all things gameplay (implying balance and feedback included), and i had no idea there even was a &quotmain forum&quot. Looking at it now, it seems to be very small, owing probably to the inability of users to create threads there.

i will try my luck in the feedback thread and see how things go
edited by Nanako on 1/25/2016

11

i have an opinion on these items, the googles are good, they are the equivalent of the exceptional hat and i have i theory on why they increase shadowy, maybe it’s because being irradiated with irrigo makes people don’t remember you in short memory, some kind of Silence for the one who watch doctor who

12

Some potentially relevant bit of history: the +10 Persuasive outfits have been in the game for a long long time, longer than I’ve been playing at the very least. The +8 Frock/Suit were introduced into the game much later, I think sometime after the game shifted from Narrow Difficulty to Broad Difficulty.

13

Just because the Forgotten Spidersilk Slippers are best-in-slot doesn’t mean all Nadir items should be best-in-slot; the Nadir isn’t a &quottier&quot of equipment that you might find in other RPGs – so parity might not be the design goal as much as theme.

The Strange-Shore clothing is currently the best clothing for double Persuasive+Shadowy challenges, which is notable because Persuasive and Shadowy are often opposed to each other on equipment stats, making it hard to gear for both. The un-irrigo’d Parabola-Linen clothing is almost as good – all of these clothes have more cumulative stat bonuses than any other clothes (besides the Far Khanate Armor, which is almost as expensive). Wait, you say – why do cumulative stat bonuses matter? Surely it’s only having the HIGHEST stat that makes a difference in this system?

Not entirely – it’s worth thinking a little more expansively. Single highest stat might be predominant currently, but &quotcurrently&quot isn’t necessarily how items are balanced and costed, as genesis points out. These items would be extremely valuable if a new Persuasive+Shadowy area or activity were rolled out. And you never know what kinds of storylets might require these particular items – you can’t simply think of Fallen London equipment as &quotgear&quot since any quality (including a piece of clothing) can serve as something like a key, a quest item, a cost.

Failbetter doesn’t adhere to notions of &quotbalanced aysmmetry&quot where no option is strictly, strategically dominated, either. The asymmetrical style is much more sweeping, and drastically unlike a strategy game or a simulation-oriented RPG. If you read their older blog posts, in particular, you’ll start noticing that Fallen London is rife with &quotreflective choices&quot that have no &quotstrategic bearing&quot whatsoever – or semi-reflective ones that are a quirky rather than strictly profitable choice. You could even say that the feel of the game emerges from the variable tension between these things. Why does the Bazaar buy and sell so much in pursuit of love stories?
edited by metasynthie on 1/25/2016

14

I would add to the above that from a balance perspective the Parabola-Linen and by extension Strange-Shore clothing is a tradeoff - a lesser Persuasive bonus, but a boost to a second stat and no penalties. Some players may prefer optimizing their gear for every challenge while others have one or two all-purpose outfits for general play.

15

Not everything has to have a clear advantage. Sometimes, things exist for RP reasons, or exist to exist. For example, in the empress’ court, there are 6 works that you can make. One makes getting a certain piece of POSI equipment easier to get, and the other 5 make a different piece of POSI equipment easier to get. You need 2 maximum to get the full advantage from it, but is it stopping some people from getting all 6? I, for one, plan on getting all of them even though there is no further advantage in it for me.

Also, keep in mind that, until recently, you only had one outfit slot, so people who did not want to swap outfits for every challenge may want outfits with the highest average stat, or items with dual stats, even if one stat was lower than the other.

16

Challenge accepted!

Gant Stained Fourth City Rags
Price: Two Heptagoats

  • 50 to all stats
  • 3 A Turncoat (stays even after removal)
    Flavour Text: Because you deserve only the very best. Ask the Starvelling cat!
    Special Function: Cursed (cannot be removed from clothing slot unless using Opp. card. Can be found in ALL four clothing slots)

Opp. card: You look lovely in Gant!
Frequency: Super Mega Ultra Rare RNG hates your guts
Challenge name: But you disagree…
Challenge: The odds are strongly against you here
Success: Lose 50 CP all stats; + 7 CP all menaces; + 3 CP A Turncoat
Flavour text: You finally removed that beautiful urine smelling garment. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!

Failure: - 1 CP Nightmares
Flavour text: You talk yourself out of removing the clothing. YOU LOOK LOVELY IN GANT!

17

Would definitely grind for!

18

Challenge accepted!

Gant Stained Fourth City Rags
Price: Two Heptagoats

  • 50 to all stats
  • 3 A Turncoat (stays even after removal)
    Flavour Text: Because you deserve only the very best. Ask the Starvelling cat!
    Special Function: Cursed (cannot be removed from clothing slot unless using Opp. card. Can be found in ALL four clothing slots)

Opp. card: You look lovely in Gant!
Frequency: Super Mega Ultra Rare RNG hates your guts
Challenge name: But you disagree…
Challenge: The odds are strongly against you here
Success: Lose 50 CP all stats; + 7 CP all menaces; + 3 CP A Turncoat
Flavour text: You finally removed that beautiful urine smelling garment. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!

Failure: - 1 CP Nightmares
Flavour text: You talk yourself out of removing the clothing. YOU LOOK LOVELY IN GANT![/quote]

I think http://www.gant.com/mens-sweaters/blue-stretch-cable-zip-cardigan/2980 could do with another colour option, besides ‘dark blue’ and ‘military blue’.

19

GLORIOUS

20

This is a pretty minor quibble and I don’t want you to think it’s some kind of huge thing, but, if you want a benefit, for less cost, that is a question of balance by definition. Many players, myself included, like the idea of having silly purple outfits. Not for any mechanical reason. Just because. But that desire feeds into how the game is balanced because players have to prioritize their time. That effects how/when they get other stuff. The time/money that is invested into silly purple outfits cannot be invested into other pursuits. And that’s OK. If I want a +10 Persuasive item and a silly purple outfit that’s totally outclassed by other stuff, then FBGs has decided it should cost X. Saying it should cost Y or Z is unavoidably a balance question. If what you mean is: it would improve the game balance, then that’s totally a different statement. A totally legit statement. A totally fair statement. But also a totally legit, totally fair, opinion.

Edit:

Lots and lots of this game has no meaningful purpose beyond flavor. This includes about all of the text. It’s just sort of the nature of a heavily narrative game with no end goals and lots of collectibles.
edited by MrBurnside on 1/26/2016
edited by MrBurnside on 1/26/2016