The forgotten quarter’s not exactly hard to find, though, and Nemesis has red honey and Venderbight, with the dayroom, while bag a legend had bat dreams and the Sisterhood, and light fingers the entire orphanage. I always figured Heart’s Desire was going to be the ambition that was the most sketched out since the end goal is so individualized, but I didn’t expect it would be so quick to persuade the prince or the seventh player without hedging anything. It’s very efficient to use expeditions and zailing to stretch this part out - it puts greater weight on the several places with difficult choices, especially since the player has to know about lore and choose without further input from the ambition.
(…I didn’t have item difficulties besides the supplies, and the Very Thrilling secret. Maybe the generic player was meant to stop grinding.)[li][spoiler]There was an option with across the southern archipelago where you could briefly ‘stop’ at Corpsecage, for the single action you needed to take there.[/li][li]
edited by fortluna on 6/25/2015
I was a little taken aback when I had all the materials to blow up the [REDACTED] or acquire a [VERY, VERY REDACTED] casually strewn around my house, yeah. Those five actions constitute months of character time, though (echo timestamps notwithstanding).
On the one hand, the expeditions and zailing trips were already pretty grindy and I don’t want the ambition to be grindier without a good reason. On the other hand, all that padding made the single actions you need to take in some places stand out even more
I think part of the problem is that many of the other ambitions have unique places to grind in, but this latter part of A:HD has its content at the end of stuff we’ve all already done. Going through a whole expedition or zailing trip and then taking one action feels worse than spending those actions somewhere new, even if the grind:reward ratio is the same.
I don’t think anyone would be complaining, for example, if you needed to stow away on board one of Dr. Orthos’s ships to get to Corpsecage (your own ship would be too conspicuous), with a new sequence (should that be capitalized?) to play through instead of the standard Broad Unterzee.
Given the grinds we got, though, I would’ve liked longer conversations at the end. Even if the choices still end up in the same place and it’s just a few more short paragraphs and some 0 actions, Lilac style, I think that it would go a long way towards making it feel less padded.
This is, of course, a bit entitled. I’m basically saying, hey, why not whip up like a minimum of ten to twelve paragraphs of high quality content and then casually drop them into conversation trees that feel meaningful but always make sure you end up in the right place. Even if nothing changes, I really enjoyed the new content. I just wish each new piece wasn’t behind another loathful zailing trip.
(Problems exacerbated by the fact that I really, really, don’t like zailing. YMMV)
edited by Sackville on 6/25/2015
For those of you have returned the shard and moved on to the next player:
Is the option to get the location of a one time prince of hell one time use?
The cheap way to get the Reported Location is indeed a one time deal. If it wasn’t it’d become an obscenely good grind.
I thought about using it as a cheap and easy way of buying the 5-card Embassy Lodgings and then going back to buy a second one before moving on, but since buying the Location changes your Ambition quality, I assumed it wouldn’t let me buy it a second time. And THAT would be a long grind or the sale of a great secret I’d prefer to keep…
I thought as much, but I wan’t to make sure.
Oh god, six failures in a row on straightforward challenges, three rookery passwords gone, plus another searching socks. That did a number on my petty cash!
edited by KatarinaNavane on 6/26/2015
I thought as much, but I wan’t to make sure.[/quote]
[li]
I assume Lethean Tea-Leaves would get around that, but the EPA on repeating the entire Ambition up to this point is probably very low.
I see a lot of people opted to bargain with a particular thing…I opted to free said thing…here’s hoping it starts something epic down the line…
edited by Rudiger on 6/26/2015
The entire Ambition up to that point, including actions to get required items, appears to be around 700 actions (conservatively) so it’s a EPA of roughly 2.23 – not so great for 50 Fate.
Maybe worthwhile if you want a way to keep the item in question and didn’t want to use up your Nadir location on it, since otherwise the most action-efficient way to get it from a Relicker takes 740 actions and means waiting to draw "Call in Favours in the Flit" 160 times.
They have indeed.
Minor sixth player spoiler:
"Well. If she has everything she wants, you’re just going to have to take something away."
Wow, my character is a horrible person.
You can see some of my thoughts and coverage on the new content in my journal starting here. I wasn’t nice to the Knotted Sock even though I’m normally nice to the urchins, simply because, well, they stole it. They don’t get to keep what’s not theirs, especially since they don’t seem to be using it for anything. I also bargained with the prince, since releasing him seemed incredibly irresponsible.
I blew a lot of cash on Rookery Passwords, but I had a lot saved up so it wasn’t that big of an issue. There definitely was an awful lot of zailing but eh, I’m not sure if a less familiar grind would be much better.
edited by Little The on 6/28/2015
I have Austre 10, Magnanimous 11, and Steadfast 12. All "undesirable" traits and I succeeded on my first try, didn’t even need to use my second chance.
What I am however concerned about is in regards to the 7th player. Due to Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name being unplayable I am unable to travel North and for RP reasons my character would never dream of using the other two options to sway them.
I’m hoping something can be done about this soon.
edited by Blaine Davidson on 6/27/2015
Well, if it’s at all helpful, your character isn’t actually doing any of the three options, merely gaining leverage over the Seventh Player by the implication that you could.
Now knowing who the seventh player is, I find my original statements in this topic particularly ironic. They seem to be a pretty good sport about the whole thing, though, so no harm done. I don’t think Soran will ever take this Exceptional Hat off again (well, except when they need to, for, like… Stats). Also, I’m still super stoked over the fact that
Mr. Pages was in my house! My perfect, precious nerdy space bat-senpai actually came to visit me, I’m so happy! <3
Yes.
Mr. Pages is also my most favorite, most adorattractable master and his appresence made me giddily similar and/or vice versa.
edited by Sackville on 6/28/2015
I love everything about everything Mr Pages ever says. His dialogue is the best. I am deeply, deeply curious what happens if you tell him No. (Also, I love that he says he is giving you a book of his poetry and it’s a Tale of Terror.
[quote=Lady Taimi Felix]
Well, if it’s at all helpful, your character isn’t actually doing any of the three options, merely gaining leverage over the Seventh Player by the implication that you could.[/quote]
Even using the other methods as leverage is iffy, maybe acquiring a 6th city would be acceptable but I think she’d be most inclined to try the last option.
Looking around it doesn’t seem to be much info on what happens if you select the other two choices. Would anyone be kind enough to share what happens in either scenario?
I picked the second option and recorded it in my journal.
[quote=Blaine Davidson]
Looking around it doesn’t seem to be much info on what happens if you select the other two choices. Would anyone be kind enough to share what happens in either scenario?[/quote]
Yes. I picked the third option, because a reckoning will not- Oh, well you know all that by now, yes? This was the result:
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Lady~Taimi~Felix?fromEchoId=6012179