One week of the Festival remains, according to a tweet from approx. 16 hours ago…
Is it just me is is there not a whole lot to do there for someone pre-PoSI and <80 stat-wise? Also, I didn’t stick around long enough to see a lot of opportunity cards because I have play in bursts, not every hour. The 2 fishing trips reaped me a boatload of menace and subpar rewards considering the turns I need to alleviate them.
The only thing memorable I got was 2 fate-locked Destiny’s and that has no replay value.
In retrospect I regret spending the turns going there. Perhaps they should add a line to warn players it’s for high level players only.
Or am I doing sth horribly wrong?
edited by dharthoorn on 9/5/2014
[quote=dharthoorn]Is it just me is is there not a whole lot to do there for someone pre-PoSI and <80 stat-wise? Also, I didn’t stick around long enough to see a lot of opportunity cards because I have play in bursts, not every hour. The 2 fishing trips reaped me a boatload of menace and subpar rewards considering the turns I need to alleviate them.
The only thing memorable I got was 2 fate-locked Destiny’s and that has no replay value.
In retrospect I regret spending the turns going there. Perhaps they should add a line to warn players it’s for high level players only.
Or am I doing sth horribly wrong?
edited by dharthoorn on 9/5/2014[/quote]
Lowering menaces is fairly easy there - if you give you catch to the er … curate or the other one (I say, usefully)? I found it would drop enough that I could risk it getting as high as 7.5 before starting to panic, and still never actually got got. BUT - I am high ish stats, so it may be worse for lower levels. :-S
[quote=dharthoorn]Is it just me is is there not a whole lot to do there for someone pre-PoSI and <80 stat-wise?[/quote]It’s just you. With fishing being determined by quirks, items and luck, it’s a great way for low-level characters to get rich. Granted, low-level characters don’t get as many items from the festival, but the rewards for sacrificing a Strange Catch to the well or giving it to the Hooded Lady depend on the Strange Catch level, as well as luck. So try to spend as little time as possible at the festival itself, and as much time as possible fishing for zee-beasts.
As a PoSI however, I eventually chose to return to London. While my guesstimated ~145 ppa was decent, it was still lower than what I can get with the opportunity cards.
You are both a PoSI as well have stats around 150~200, right? So it’s a bit of a stretchy claim to make.
The only quirk I could use was Magnanimous, thanks to playing numerous "Nurse an acquaintance back to health" options from my lodgings. You seem to forget mid-level players also do not tend to have quirks ranging in the 10+ ranges. If they do, I would like to know which storylets I can grind for them at my level. As I remember you need at least level 5 in a quirk to use them at all in fishing and the menace stacks up rapidly on failing.
So no, my mileage definitely differs from yours. The vast majority of low and mid level cards are capped for quirks, most notably the past romance cards. Most of the others are straight-up tradeoffs between quirks.
This post is not a rage. I am calmly stating from direct experience there is very little to do there for me at my levels (both stat and quirk wise) and I would have liked to be warned.
edited by dharthoorn on 9/5/2014
Everybody’s quirks are capped, unless they have spent fate in a particular place. Fishing caps at 6 anyway so shouldn’t be too tied to how long someone has been playing.
What I did is build the ones I didn’t have by fishing, just pick certain quirks to raise (for example I have completely lost my heartless and forceful by playing the opposing options) but that way you get the other quirk up to 6 and probably a successful run at your fishing trip. If you have a 4 or 5 catch it might be worth giving them to the curate or chef to lower the relevant menace. This gives items that you can use on future fishing trips instead of quirks and get a higher catch to exchange with the hooded lady or give to the well for other rewards.
this is so random. i’ve been fishing with my main and alt characters for 3 days, and so far i only managed to exchange for the salts and the snuff. tried getting my fishing quality to 6 a couple of times to get the compass, but they keep getting reduced to 4 when exchanging it. getting it up to 7 seems to require at least 3 fishing trips unless i buy my way through with some zee items, and eveb then it requires luck to open up the buying option.
this is 10X more frustrating than polythreme!!!
Thanks for sharing that strategy. I did not know you could reduce menace efficiently like that. Perhaps I’ll have another go tomorrow with no menace and see if this fishing is profitable after all.
I’ve had my nightmares or wounds up to 6 plus change points and a 5 catch has completely cleared the one I chose.
[quote=dharthoorn]You are both a PoSI as well have stats around 150~200, right? So it’s a bit of a stretchy claim to make.[/quote]And yet I am 100% confident in that claim.
[quote=dharthoorn]The only quirk I could use was Magnanimous, thanks to playing numerous "Nurse an acquaintance back to health" options from my lodgings. You seem to forget mid-level players also do not tend to have quirks ranging in the 10+ ranges. If they do, I would like to know where I can grind them at my level. As I remember you need at least level 5 in a quirk to use them at all in fishing and the menace stacks up rapidly on failing.[/quote]I have no idea what ‘menace’ you’re talking about. I’m talking about fishing. You get a fantastic 40% chance of success with a quirk at level zero, and 100% at level 6, which is 21 CPs away. Succeed or fail you raise that quirk by 1 CP and lowers another quirk by 1 CP, unless it’s already at zero. You can grind those quirks while fishing, and even a low level Strange Catch gives a decent reward.
There are two ‘sets’ of quirks, so you can choose which ones to build up and which ones to sacrifice (let them go down to zero and don’t bother using them). It’s not quite as cut and dry as one might wish, since some quirks in each ‘set’ affect other quirks in the same ‘set’, but if you just have Magnanimous to maintain by not using Heartless, you should have an excellent opportunity to customise your quirks for maximum fishing prowess. Just use Zee-Ztories instead of Heartless, apart from Sights at the Festival 41-42 where you’d have to use Melancholy to avoid lowering Magnanimous.
Partial maps would be difficult for low-level characters to get hold of since the item rewards from the Custodial Chef and the Melancholy Curate are determined by stats. But a low-level character could amass Zee-Ztories from the well and go back to London to convert them to Partial Maps. A mid-level could just side-convert something else to Zee-Ztories and do that before even visiting Mutton Island. That’s what I did. And since items are worth much less to me that wasting tons of Actions on failed fishing trips, I used items as often as I could, unless I could tell that it would be a waste based on the number of fishing attempts I had left. Though using a Partial Map was never a waste since it always gives enough CPs to raise the level.
Here is a handy list for you when you want to learn which quirks to use and which to lose:
[spoiler]Sights and Quirks
1-20: Spoil yourself (Hedonist lowers Melancholy)
21-40: Venture further out (Daring lowers Ruthless)
41-60: Employ sinister bait (Heartless lowers Magnanimous)
61-80: Fire shots into the water (Forceful lowers Steadfast)
81-100: Remember the old fisherman’s stories (Magnanimous lowers Hedonist)
1-10: Be unmoving (Austere lowers Forceful)
11-30: Employ fishermen’s tricks (Subtle lowers Daring)
31-50: Sing a song the Drownies sing (Melancholy lowers Austere)
51-70: Be patient (Steadfast lowers Heartless)
71-90: Employ explosives (Ruthless lowers Subtle)
91-100: Be sparse (Austere lowers Forceful)
15-25: Find a quiet spot (Map Scrap gives +2 CP Running Battle…)
43-63: Recall the tall ztories of zailors (Zee-Ztory gives +5 CP Running Battle…)
76-95: Find an isolated cove (Partial Map gives +10 CP Running Battle…)
[/spoiler]
[quote=dharthoorn]
As I remember you need at least level 5 in a quirk to use them at all in fishing and the menace stacks up rapidly on failing.[/quote]
[color=#ff9900]I think there are some misapprehensions here.
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[color=#ff9900]Fishing has no minimum quirk requirement and doesn’t increase menaces. The tests are very low difficulty. Going fishing builds up one quirk while reducing another, so by managing your choices you can increase a selection of quirks to the point fishing successes are practically guaranteed.[/color]
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[color=#ff9900]Only one branch at the festival requires a stat check, I think, and it’s a fairly modest difficulty. The other branches give stat-dependant rewards. A basic threshold ensures that they’re particularly profitable for low level characters (while the rewards for trading Strange Catch for menaces help improve the rewards for high level characters).
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[color=#ff9900]The pre-existing Mutton Island content is certainly for higher level characters, but if its too nasty for you at the moment it’ll still be there once you get a ship.[/color]
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[color=#ff9900]One of the goals of the festival was to write content that catered to both high-level characters and newcomers. If you’re higher level it’s certainly easier to get a high Strange Catch, but clever use of the trade-in options at the festival puts the top levels of it within reach of less-experienced characters, too.[/color]
[color=#ff9900]The whole festival’s meant to be a bit of a puzzle, really. How to combine the different bits of it to get the best results. As ever, I was gobsmacked at how quickly people worked out optimal strategies. [/color]
I think I just "reported" something by accident. My deepest apologies, it was but a mis-click.
[quote=babelfishwars][quote=dharthoorn]Is it just me is is there not a whole lot to do there for someone pre-PoSI and <80 stat-wise? Also, I didn’t stick around long enough to see a lot of opportunity cards because I have play in bursts, not every hour. The 2 fishing trips reaped me a boatload of menace and subpar rewards considering the turns I need to alleviate them.
The only thing memorable I got was 2 fate-locked Destiny’s and that has no replay value.
In retrospect I regret spending the turns going there. Perhaps they should add a line to warn players it’s for high level players only.
Or am I doing sth horribly wrong?
edited by dharthoorn on 9/5/2014[/quote]
Lowering menaces is fairly easy there - if you give you catch to the er … curate or the other one (I say, usefully)? I found it would drop enough that I could risk it getting as high as 7.5 before starting to panic, and still never actually got got. BUT - I am high ish stats, so it may be worse for lower levels. :-S[/quote]
Happens all the time. No need to flag it. (Don’t worry.) It’s fairly easy to see which are done in error. :-)
@Gillsing
Thanks for all the advice, clarification and that nifty table. I guess I didn’t only do fishing if I raked up menace in the process of being there. As for the turns/reward ratio, perhaps I was just very unlucky because I didn’t get anything memorable from turning in 2 L5 catches so I concluded it was just a turns-sink and turned tail(coat).
@Chris
I can read from some of the other posts in this thread prize mileage seems to vary a great deal person to person. I did end up using only magnanimous but I just could not seem to build my catch level beyond 5 within reasonable turns.
So, yeah, it seems I was going about it wrong. For (a much better chance of) good stuff I need to use Cartography items to bump up my Catch level. I did not especially bring those first time 'round so I ran out very quickly much to my dismay.
Right now I can make about 0.70 echos each turn with 100% success rate. So I’ll head back there for 120 turns with as many Cartography Items as I can convert and do a turns/rewards calculation to see if it was worth the trip.
Thanks for all the input.
Thanks, RNG! I’ve seen the Hooded Lady thrice this morning and now have a Guinea-Pig reposing in my pocket.
(For the record, I went back to London, went mad, necked a few tonics, spent some time in bed, and decided to give the Festival another go. I’m glad I did, even if the Lady won’t fork over the Mutersalt, or the Clay Man for that matter. Much less frustrating this time around.)
What would you guys recommend I do for the remaining week?
I got the 5 weapons. I am not yet a person of importance. My lowest stats, Dangerous and Shadowy are at 98. I discovered how to grind Shadowy with “An Island with Secrets?”, which is what I’ve been working on. I decimated my quirks getting the weapons, but I haven’t advanced far enough where I needed/understood what the quirks are for.
I’m sure I need items too. I’ve rarely done things with maps before until now and ran out of Partial Maps until I figured out how to convert them. I’ve only seen Maniac’s Prayer’s, Identities Uncovered, Sworn Statements in single digits.
[quote=squiggle]I decimated my quirks getting the weapons, but I haven’t advanced far enough where I needed/understood what the quirks are for.[/quote]Quirks are mostly inconsequential, but in a few places they’re needed for certain attractive options, such as Subtle 1+ for Quite a moral afternoon. Let’s make sure it’s appreciated. on the Scandal reduction card. You’d think that quirks would be a way to express/track a character’s personality, but that doesn’t really work in my opinion. I think Going Fishing is the first time I’ve ever seen quirks being really important, and then it kind of turns out the other way, that Going Fishing has a much bigger impact on the quirks than the other way around. Going fishing changes people. Like war does.
As for appropriate activities for the rest of the week, I didn’t even pay attention to the possibility of menace-free stat-grinds. Looks quite attractive if the rewards for Going Fishing aren’t significantly higher than the Echoes per Action you’d get back in London. And higher stats equals more money in too, since you can succeed with more difficult challenges. But personally I always figured that money is the longer grind, and that my stats would max out eventually anyway. Which is what did happen to me.
Hmm, looking closer at the regular Mutton Island cycle, it does contain plenty of Whispered Secrets after the first part, and with Nightmares being easy to reduce at the festival it looks like low-level characters who’ve found all the items they want should probably just start a cycle of island secrets, listening to children’s song and then get stuck at the wind that chills the heart until they succeed. Or investigate a crashed steamer. Wow. This Fruits of the Zee festival is even better for low-level characters than I thought it was. And I already thought it was unbelievably good. Also quite fun and with cool prizes, but such things are of course subjective. (I like the compass a lot.)
Both of my characters are hunting for the unique fishing rewards now. I must say that getting the Hooded Lady to appear can be a real turns-sink: spending 20+ turns is entirely possible QED. The punishment for such persistence is menace, which can be reduced efficiently by starting over again ie. turn in your catch.
Well, you CAN reduce menace via the Messages system also for the regular -3CP, which could be handy if you also have an alt.
Also, I have had a personal "Sudden Insight". I am beginning to realize that this game is much more fun if you can allow it to be. Since I have been getting all OCD on "gains per turn" and frantic "result-oriented" playing, my overall enjoyment of it has been drastically reduced. In fact, on occasion, it has started to feel more like a chore than a game I should enjoy.
Hopefully I can mend my ways, otherwise it’s time to throw in the towel.
.
.
edited by dharthoorn on 9/6/2014
[quote=dharthoorn]Both of my characters are hunting for the unique fishing rewards now. I must say that getting the Hooded Lady to appear can be a real turns-sink: spending 20+ turns is entirely possible QED. The punishment for such persistence is menace, which can be reduced efficiently by starting over again ie. turn in your catch.[/quote]Yeah, that can happen. Though you can amass quite a lot of Nightmares if you have a Cheerful Goldfish and a Bejewelled Cane, since that’s -2 levels, which allows you to get to level 9 and 9 CPs before you get the immediate menace-reaction from the game. And level 9 + 9 CPs is 54 CPs. Not so for Wounds since they changed the Horsehead Amulet. So when those get even close to 8, I get worried, because Sights at the Festival 51-66 offers only Wounds or sacrificing my Strange Catch to the well. And chances are that a catch worthy of such persistence is too good to be sacrificed to the well.
[quote=dharthoorn]Well, you CAN reduce menace via the Messages system also for the regular -3CP, which could be handy if you also have an alt.[/quote]I don’t think you can accept messages on Mutton Island. I think you need to be in London to do that. And I’ve also been led to believe that we are not supposed to use alts to gain game-mechanical advantages.
[quote=dharthoorn]Also, I have had a personal "Sudden Insight". I am beginning to realize that this game is much more fun if you can allow it to be. Since I have been getting all OCD on "gains per turn" and frantic "result-oriented" playing, my overall enjoyment of it has been drastically reduced. In fact, on occasion, it has started to feel more like a chore than a game I should enjoy.[/quote]Focusing on gains per turn is what I do when I don’t particularly feel like playing the game. That way I’m likely to have what I need when I do feel like playing. Though my primary objective is to keep my mind in a world that I find more interesting than the real one. So even if I’m just grinding away it still serves a purpose beyond the fictional wealth I accumulate. "Gains per turn" is also an objective way to measure the worth of an activity. But we should definitely let our subjective opinions determine what to do in the game.