The RNG is a fickle beast. Trying to get my last item, I spent almost 20 actions sorting through the festivities. Also, you can go above the menace trigger while here without effect, but don’t go home without addressing it. (Unless you want to visit the Menace Zones.)
Going to the Wreckers Cove seems to be the most frustrating part of this. I did manage to get all the weapons but so many times, no matter what level of catch I had, the RNG dropped it so that I just missed what I was looking for. Even going in with strange catch 10 I got dropped to 6 and I thought that I had worked out that the maximum drop was 3 so that at least I would get a 7 :( So I’m still not sure of the exact mechanics but I am now avoiding the hooded lady and not taking my catches to the cove … too much of a gamble for me.
60+ actions trying to get the Hooded Lady and all she gives me is a few scraps of thirsty bombazine for my pedipalps? I think I’ll go back to London and spend a few days in bed. Not sure the Guineau-Pig is worth this much frustration.
Mordaine: I don’t know about Wounds, but going above the Nightmares trigger certainly has an effect - I lost three whole levels of both Watchful and Persuasive (and broke my teeth gnawing on a well-stone, if memory serves).
[quote=Brin]I find myself mildly frustrated by the event. I’ve read comments on how to increase the stats used in fishing, such as going to the Iron Republic for Fate …[/quote]You don’t need to do anything but Going Fishing to get those quirks up, though it can be tricky if you already have quirks at level 9-16 that you don’t want to lose, because then you’ll have to forego a few of the fishing options in order to not sacrifice those hard-to-obtain levels. I mean, I didn’t build up my Hedonist to 16 by enjoying the decadence at the Feast of the Exceptional Rose just to throw all those levels into the zee. So I can’t ever Remember the old fisherman’s stories, even though my Magnanimous would give me 100% chance of success. Due to the arbitrary pairings and lack of alternatives I’ve had to sacrifice high quirk levels anyway, and I can only speculate that a psychic zee-beast is lingering under my boat, siphoning quirks from my very soul.
But I’ve worked out a strategy that should work for anyone who’s not at all concerned with keeping certain quirks. It involves using items whenever possible, and using a few specific quirks whenever items can’t be used: Hedonist (1-20, lowers Melancholy), Map Scrap (15-25), Daring (21-40, lowers Ruthless), Heartless (41-42, lowers Magnanimous), Zee-Ztory (43-63), Forceful (64-75, lowers Steadfast), Partial Map (76-95). This leaves Sights at the Festival 96-100, where one would have to use Magnanimous (lowers Hedonist, but will probably not have been much lowered by Heartless, since the 41-42 window is so small), or Austere (lowers Forceful). Since the quirks are increased even on failures, it just takes a lot of fishing to ‘git gud’.
EDIT: Slight revision to the strategy above. Using Map Scraps when one has 100% chance of success with Hedonist or Daring would of course be a bit silly if Melancholy or Ruthless (respectively) is already at zero (or will be eventually). And if Hedonist or Daring does not yet give 100% chance of success, why not use them anyway to improve them? Well, maybe not when one is only 2 CPs away from a great catch.
edited by Gillsing on 9/3/2014
[quote=Calenturian]I haven’t seen the Lady for dozens of actions, and even if I were tempted to ask the Curate or the Chef for help, neither of them are making an appearance either. It’s all Drownies, revellers and invisible rats up in here.
Is this normal or does the RNG really have it in for me this week? Please tell me I’m not the only one.[/quote]
While I’m not counting actions exactly… I am guessing that either she, or the big feast (where you can reduce many menaces simultaneously btw) will occur by when Time Passing is about 9. I think they may sometimes appear a little earlier? (Edit: Yes, just now I see her at TP only 7.) But if you get the big feast, you may have to wait for her for another cycle of Spending Time. I can’t recall waiting more than two cycles for her. Though I can’t say it’s not possible, either.
Dozens of actions sounds a little high for my gut feeling. Or at least I don’t think it is what I would call many dozens? Maybe someone else is counting more precisely.
edited by Lavessa on 9/3/2014
The festival actions and time passing are completely different and I don’t think that one affects the other.
But the RNG for the festival actions can be extremely frustrating - when I have no or low menaces and want to give my catch to the well I keep getting the curate and the chef (or Drownies) and when I have menaces it can take a lot of actions to get anything other than the Drownies or the well. The right option does turn up eventually but more often than not I end up having to use the catch to reduce a menace. Fortunately I haven’t had my menaces get up to 8 … yet but if I do I will probably add in a normal Mutton Island carousel and use the Feast as my end choice as it doesn’t seem like a good idea to use the curate or chef if they get that high.
edited by reveurciel on 9/3/2014
Not knowing if there’s any use for the new weapons aside from delightful Sunless flavour, I decided to just get my characters one each. My choices were in no small part chance, but I think they fit all right. Sir Fred, collector of the curious and not even remotely like to start Seeking, got the Compass. Hubris, the regular tobacco user of the group, got the Snuff. Esther, ever the champion of the underdog and the art of sophisticated brutality, liberated the Guinea Pig. And Juniper, former urchin and quiet little bundle of mysteries, got the Mutersalt.
Hmm. Maybe it’s the randomness and me, then. I watched for her at every step of the count after returning with a catch once, I think twice and that was when she showed up for me. And I have kept seeming to meet her when the time count is high. Though I suppose, that could be because I just gave up looking at earlier stages so much.
Tsk! I hope you didn’t forget our good friend Taupe-Wainscot.
An excellent point! The Eolith is left over for him. I really must continue the Doctor’s nautical adventures - I’d planned for him to sail directly to the Tomb-Colonies, but there’s no reason he couldn’t be blown off-course, take part in the festival, and, like the great Charlie Brown, get a rock.
Tsk! I hope you didn’t forget our good friend Taupe-Wainscot.[/quote]
It would be wonderful to hear about the good doctor’s adventures at the festival.
I wanted to leave my thanks to everyone who assisted me. That was the push I needed to complete the event!
I got Strange Catch (SC) up to 7 and the Hooded Lady gave me a Picking Through the Wreckers’ Cove (PTtWC) of 6.
So I thought, ok, random… just push it up a little bit
SC 8 gave me PTtWC 6 again. I had to leave the Island to heal and return.
SC 9 was hard to accomplish but guess what, it gave me PTtWC 6 again. The rewards are definitly not worth it.
Then I left again, healed up and traded all my items for the last push.
SC 10 was accomplished… and gave me PTtWC 6! Again!
Now I’m broke and wounded in flesh and soul but still without the guineau-pig!
Am I really that unlucky or is here something rigged?
How high do you have to push Strange Catch to have a chance?
If there are other things I didn’t consider, can someone please enlighten me?
If it’s just random I completly despise this system! I like putting effort into my rewards. But if you just need to get lucky it may drive me away from Fallen London.
I’m afraid it’s really just that random. That’s some exceptionally poor luck, however.
I must apologize for our good friend RNG. He’s just broken up with his long-time on-again off-again girlfriend, the Lady Luck, and appears to be taking it out on you.
There’s no trick to it, though the odds of getting Wrecker’s Cove 7 improve as your Strange Catch increases past 7. Given that the Cavy has no UPPER limit on Wrecker’s Cove, you can get him with WC 7-(potentially?)10. Just keep plugging at it. Use up a couple low-level Strange Catches to lower Nightmares and Wounds with the Chef and Curate, and you’ll get some helpful items to raise Running Battle more quickly. Good luck.
P.S.- You never know, RNG and the Lady could already be getting back together as we speak, and planning a party for all crap they’ve been putting you through…
Pickings are infuriatingly random, as is this whole festival. I managed to make a very expensive natural 10 pickings on one of my alts in an attempt to get the cavy, and the lady nerfed it down to a 6.
I appreciate that FBG need to make money, and stochastic systems are more addictive than deterministic ones, but the whole cascade of luck rolls required to get something shiny, with the alternate rewards having pretty much trivial value in comparison to the effort to get them (I paid about 9 echoes worth of gear over 8 actions to get less than 15 echoes’ worth of reward) is enough to make me just give up with this game.
You are right that I had wounds overflow, not nightmares. Sounds like I was rather fortunate in that.
Hehe. And how could one go wrong following the footsteps of the great Charlie Brown! Besides, they are very pretty rocks. Perhaps not quite so sharp as another object on offer, but it may be rather easier to get the flint. And these rocks are very pretty — and pretty sharp of themselves, too.
I just spent two whole Time Passing cycles waiting for the hooded lady. I didn’t check in Fruits of the Zee on every single action, but I looked on most. So sometimes she can just be absent, it seems.
[quote=Lavessa]I just spent two whole Time Passing cycles waiting for the hooded lady. I didn’t check in Fruits of the Zee on every single action, but I looked on most. So sometimes she can just be absent, it seems.[/quote]But Time Passing in the Southern Archipelago doesn’t change Sights at the Festival, which is the quality that determines if the Hooded Lady is available or not. You can spend a week going through the regular Mutton Island cycle and never see anything different at the festival. The only ways to change the Sights at the Festival is to partake in the festivities or go fishing. Or leaving for London and then returning, but that costs 10 Actions.
Cheesy trick: Partake in the festival activities until Sights at the Festival changes to 76-95 and you should be able start a fishing trip with finding an isolated cove (using up a Partial Map). I never bothered, because it didn’t occur to me when I was still fishing for the new items, but it should help anyone who wants to land Strange Catches 7+ on a regular basis. (Rerolling Sights at the Festival when hiring the fishing boat would completely ruin this cheesy trick. Same would’ve applied to starting expeditions in the Forgotten Quarter, but apparently they chose a different way to prevent people from starting with Airs 96-100. Or so I’ve heard…)
EDIT: Cheesy trick has now been properly foiled. And I feel noticed. ;)
edited by Gillsing on 9/4/2014