New difficulty levels

Fallen London
141

Now might be a good time to reflect upon the recent changes to the system in terms of stat gains. It’s not 1 cp at a time, but you can now gain a large chunk of a single stat multiple times a week between the delayed rewards offered by the qualities like “Recalling a Dream of Other Places” and “That Which Lives in Shadow”, not to mention the Training Professions. These may support some of the new vision of world of larger numbers (specifically mentioned as possible in the examples about equipment and destinies), but I’m not certain whether these were a special circumstance or perhaps a toe in the water. Alexis, am I on the right track that these mesh together philosophically?

I believe that examples of the benefits the new system provides is probably the best way to address these concerns, and I’m glad for the glimpses so far. I also believe that game design decisions (when monetization is not involved) is usually made because A: it’s more fun this way or B: it’s more fair/balanced (when there is a sense of players pitted against one another). The main complaint seems to be that at the high end, people prefer the 100% clicks, which Alexis said is not intentional. I pose that this means that the new design is (or rather will be) more fun. The reason is seems to not be that way now is because we’re in a “house with open rafters” and are still missing an integral part of the system.

Meaning, I don’t believe that forcing players to deal with menace more often (on its own) is more fun, but there’s an iteration in the pipeline that makes it worth it. (Insert better worded softball leading-question here.) The examples we’ve been given to hint that the new system will be more fun: upgrading equipment (ravens as a pilot), new character traits/builds that give advantages (professions as a pilot), higher tier rewards.

Taken to this next iteration without revisiting difficulty levels would quickly be a slide of all characters to all 100% clicks, which are not engaging.

In the analogy of a standard RPG: the challenge storylets are monsters. You beat those monsters for loot. All the monsters have now gotten stronger so that players can’t beat the monsters and gather loot non-stop, which feels bad, because players beat the monsters for the loot. After wailing and gnashing of teeth, the answer to the “why” is "we’re going to make new monsters, better loot, and new ways for you to differentiate your character to better handle some types of monsters because that system is more engaging than farming the currently mathematically optimal slime for his loot.

142

Edit: I basically agree with Theus’s last paragraph. Well put. I’m in the meh, it’s okay camp until something awful happens. Some user feedback:

The system seems to holding up well. I’d be concerned if every rare success (for masquing, particularly dancing in the pleasure garden) were this blood boilingly rare, but since casing is untouched, I’m pretty okay. Previous story arcs have used simple non-challenge options to present BIG choices, and stuff like dramatic tension or savage cobbles that you’d “cash in” to make some other choices. Waiting longer is not an issue, but if weird stuff like big narrative moments (permadeaths, involuntary spouse separation or death, allegiance decisions) start being broad, it will start feeling like my character is inexplicably being eaten by a grue at random intervals unfairly. Which is jarring, cause, I mean, Indiana Jones loses sometimes, but he doesn’t inexplicably find out in the second act he has terminal cancer.

Nerfs make me sad, but it’s part of being a gamer. We tighten our belts, and weep for lost optimal builds another day. I get the anger, but really, this just means grinding will shift to things like thefts or heists. It is unfortunate more legal avenues have grown riskier, but such is life. Worse case scenario, this lowers grinds to less than an echo an action. Sad, but fair provided narrative sanity is maintained. A level 150 character shouldn’t be struggling to find bandages, but I think its fair if he/sh/ze slips on a banana every once in a while. Menace is a concern, but given the penalties seem less painful than they used to be, maybe it’s not so bad. The honeyed laudanum cards seem to come up more often too. I wish the places of menaces were a little more like in Zero Summer, though. It would be cool to have more involved story threads take place there, as opposed to little snippets of lore (cool snippets, dont get me wrong, but still). More stuff like the Boatman chess games, I’m saying.
edited by friendshipranger on 2/18/2013

143

Excuse the random diversion, but are there actually any examples where big narrative moments hinge on a skill challenge? I was thinking about this the other day… and I can only remember one, which I’ve picked up from other threads might have changed in the several years since I played it.

(Spoiler, but safe to read if you’re a POSI: the one I remember is [color=#000000]the Silken Chapel, where I failed spectacularly, died, and was then locked out of the storyline when I came back again.[/color] I remember being shocked by that because it’s so rare.)

I can also think of one example where a Really Big Thing can happen due to luck, but there’s a massive warning attached and I think there’s a way to undo it.

Cheers
Richard

144

I’m not mourning a loss of Straightforward, although it stings a bit. I just miss gaining levels having the meaning they used to. If we can get that feeling of growth back I’m not much concerned how it happens, although cooler is better an Alexis seems to have cool ideas, so yay! Just going to be kind of awkward until we see the final version.

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[color=#009900]Yup, I’m addressing the many other people who’ve just told me it is![/color]

[color=#009900]I’m afraid, then, you’re out of luck, if by ‘means something’ you mean ‘increases your chance of success by at least 10%’. I’m not interested in maintaining that particular status quo because of the unacceptable demands it places on the rate of content production, and this is the last time I’m going to say that in this thread. The good news is that there will be other in-game-events that ‘mean something’. If you or any other posters want me to engage with you any further, take Broad as a given, because it’s a waste of both our time to keep arguing for something that isn’t going to change. Nuff said.[/color]
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>Destiny

[color=#009900]Pop culture references only go in when I’m writing at 2am.[/color]
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[color=#009900]Quick scan of other stuff, then I gotta do some work.[/color]
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>almost impossible challenges will either completely disappear
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[color=#009900]This is in fact a feature. Almost Impossible challenges for experienced characters are weird, as it stands. “My God, the difficulty is epic! Chess grandmaster that you are, you’ll never defeat him! …wait, play another ten dozen games and he’s a pushover.” Whereas now, the tasks which are still difficult when you’re that good are tasks which are fundamentally difficult and susceptible to uncertainty, and need ever bigger modifiers to move the dial. (But what if by learning those ten dozen games you found his Secret Weakness? well that’s probably best modelled with a Secret Weakness item that you can spend to unlock an easier branch.)[/color]

[color=#009900]Gear swapping! This is an issue and is worth discussing. As I’ve said in the past, this was another naive decision I made back at the start: I thought well, people can decide how much effort they want to put into optimising, can’t they? The answer of course is, no, it’s that ugliest of animals, an optimisation strategy that’s also trivial and degenerate (so people feel forced to do it) but also requires RL busywork (so they get very cross about having to do it). So to deal with each of these issues:[/color]
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color=#009900 reduce the busywork. When we move to the StoryNexus UI, you’ll be able to swap items in the sidebar, not the tab, and it’s a slicker experience.[/color]
color=#009900 reduce the [/color][color=rgb(0, 153, 0)]degeneracy[/color][color=#009900]. By requiring characters to commit to builds which have larger boosts, gear-swapping becomes a real decision with major effects, and the cost is a gently strategic one, not a matter of busywork.[/color]
color=#009900 provide a gradient between triviality and relevance. I think, especially as equipment continues to scale up (and, man, you should see the stats on this Corvid Pope companion) we’ll actually see a fall in busywork gear-swapping: because if a minor piece of equipment has a tiny effect on an inconsequential challenge, they’re less bothered. but they’ll still swap their Major Shadowy Widget for their Enormous Dangerous Widget when they’re about to fight a boss. (the same way that in Skyrim I don’t equip my Minor Ring of Sneaking every time I want to stalk and punch a spider, but I’ll certainly swap to my fire resistant shield if I’m fighting a dragon). I’ll have some data on this soon.[/color]

>Training Professions. … Alexis, am I on the right track that these mesh together philosophically?

[color=#009900]Very much so! It’s not a coincidence that you’re seeing the first Profession stuff pre the difficulty changes, i.e. big chunks of stat and cash increases outside the old grind which look strikingly generous by contrast. I’ll point out also that the current Professions are not what you’d call high-flying.[/color]
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>Nerfs make me sad, but it’s part of being a gamer

[color=#009900]Quite. To misquote Danny DeVito in Heist, everyone hates nerfs! That’s why they’re called nerfs. If I find a way to nerf without upsetting anyone, and especially a way to nerf without upsetting hardcore players, then there’s a party for all of you in the solid gold island which I will buy after I’ve sold the secret to Blizz[/color]ard.

>currently mathematically optimal slime

This is a phrase of vigour, resonance and merit.

> big narrative moments…[spoiler example]

[color=#009900]We do in fact generally avoid doing big narrative moments where the outcome is a single dice roll, and the [spoiler example] is the specific instance that had us introduce the gold colour to major storylets to say PAY ATTENTION DON’T JUST CLICK THROUGH! That one in particular is on my list to go back and change, but it’s a long goddamn list.[/color]
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[color=#009900]To finish on a more useful point that ties back to the change. If failure is just something to be avoided, my God what a missed opportunity. Failure and peril are the start of interesting stories. We have a primordial design decision left over from arcade games (the original pay-to-win) and baked into most video games that failure is the least optimal outcome from a gameplay experience pov. Obviously we can’t get away from that entirely, because people like to win, but I’ve always been interested in exploring fantasies of failure as well as fantasies of success. Mr Eaten is of course the parodically extreme example of this, but the fail states, for instance, are also stories in themselves. I appreciate that the Boatman is not quite as fun after you’ve played chess with him for the eleven millionth time… but that’s an issue I want to address. On a micro level, as Richard points out, if you never fail at an action then you will never see much of the text we’d written![/color]
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[color=#009900]There is a much larger question about whether we should, then, have made challenges a success/failure option in the first place… but this list isn’t getting any shorter.[/color]
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>Once you work your way up to Wounds 15, you can no longer play chess until you reduce your Wounds.


[color=#009900]Trufact. We implemented this after one of our more dedicated players ground his way up to Watchful 110 almost exclusively though chess with the Boatman. And Wounds 70.[/color]

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Technically, you can gain them by burgling the Museum, but that does take some time…

[quote=Guy Scrum]
Another consequence which I just realized: ignoring menaces, all actions now have almost exactly the same echo expectation value. The expectation value is E = (reward value)(probability) = (reward value)(char level)/(challenge level) * 0.6. If the reward value is pretty much the same as the challenge level, then this reduces to E = (char level)*0.6. There are extra penalties for failing when including menaces, so the actual expectation value would be worse for the higher-level challenges. Therefore, as things currently stand, the most efficient action will always be the highest level straightforward challenge available. Maybe this is intentional, but it seems like you should actually get better rewards when you work your way up to accessing better storylets, rather than just having the chance of failure slowly go down on the low-level rewards you can already get.[/quote]
Except if you use second chances. Then the high-level actions will always be more valuable (if not taking in the cost of the chance itself.)

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That’s where I got the ten - I certainly didn’t save them from my New Newgate days! - but, as I recall, they come in multiples of five, so I’d have to lose four first - and if I did that, they’d be even again anyway and my bizarrely specific obsession would be satisfied! (Other players have their optimised grind… I have my ridiculous aesthetics. You might notice that my characters are dressed in outfits which suit them both in terms of fashionability and putting their stat boosts in the correct order.)

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>Another consequence which I just realized: ignoring menaces, all actions now have almost exactly the same echo expectation value. The expectation value is E = (reward value)(probability) = (reward value)(char level)/(challenge level) * 0.6. If the reward value is pretty much the same as…
>Except if you use second chances. Then the high-level actions will always be more valuable (if not taking in the cost of the chance itself.)

[color=#009900]Ah, I meant to address this too.[/color]
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[color=#009900]Yes: this is part of what I mean by ‘keeping content relevant’. I want Fallen London to feel like a city that you grow to know full of places that you return to, and under the old system only the most diehard non-optimising roleplayer would return to (e.g) Wolfstack Docks once they’re past the relevant Dangerous band. I want to make it supportable to go back there if you decide you prefer the header illo and the ambience, or you’re looking for the specific rewards you find there.[/color]
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[color=#009900]But, yes, use of second chances makes the option of higher-level activities more desirable (which is why optional second chances are right around the corner). Higher-level activities also give some items you may not be able to get at lower levels. So now there’s another currency implicated that you get in a different way.[/color]
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[color=#009900]The change also makes more sense of something we attempted early on and realised was a waste of time: alternate stat branches on primary content. Sure, you could try a Watchful 70 test instead of a Shadowy 70, but you’re in the middle of grinding your Shadowy, not your Watchful, so your Watchful is either far too low or so high that using it is a non-decision (unless you’re desperate for Shadowy CP). If there are more incremental differences between them, it becomes supportable (nb supportable, not optimal) to try out a different route if it makes more sense in RP or flavour-seeking terms.[/color]

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[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]

You might notice that my characters are dressed in outfits which suit them both in terms of fashionability and putting their stat boosts in the correct order.)[/quote]

That sounds somewhat familiar, although I prefer to balance them as much as I can, at the same time as keeping their usability high. Not now, though. Now I’m dancing.

150

Just to say, enjoying the new difficulty stuff. I’m up in the 130s and I’m actually caring what I’m wearing again.

151

All right, Alexis.
Your elaboration on your pragmatic, narrative and ludological motivations for this have convinced me. I trust you know what you are doing now. Thanks for the explanation. This information may have made a nice blog post.

A bell curve might still be a useful addition to the SN toolbox.

PS. Last fall it felt like you were neglecting FL for SN. It’ nice to see it begin to give back. I want to see this to the end.

152

Alexis,

You present some very good arguments.

We get riled up when something that we love changes for fear that we will no longer love it. Perhaps it is time to let it go and find some excitement in that which is new and mysterious.

I for one will wait and see what comes of this, and hope that it is something that I can enjoy. If that is not the case, I hope that others will still find something to love.

Regards,
DBHolder

edited by DBHolder on 2/18/2013
edited by DBHolder on 2/18/2013

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I did not get, how are going to do this. Does that mean base rewards in locations will scale with you level? Because the new distribution did not change the fact that some actions/locations are more profitable at a certain level. It just made the expected rewards 0.6 of what they used to be. If an action gives less then char level*0.6 worth of goods, it’s still not profitable. The straightforward action with the maximum base reward available is still the most profitable choice.

154

[quote=Fhoenix]
I did not get, how are going to do this. Does that mean base rewards in locations will scale with you level? Because the new distribution did not change the fact that some actions/locations are more profitable at a certain level. It just made the expected rewards 0.6 of what they used to be. If an action gives less then char level*0.6 worth of goods, it’s still not profitable. The straightforward action with the maximum base reward available is still the most profitable choice.[/quote]

Let’s assume you’re level 100 in a stat.
Challenge 1 has a difficulty of 100, and gains you 1E. Since it’s at a 70% difficulty, you earn 70ppa
Challenge 2 has a difficulty of 90, and gains you 90p. It’s at ~77,8% difficulty and earns 70 ppa
Challenge 3 has a difficulty of 80, and earns you 80p. It’s at 87,5% difficulty and earns 70 ppa
Challenge 4 has a difficulty of 70, and earns you 70p. It’s at 100% difficulty and earns 70 ppa

Therefore you have a greater range of level appropriate storylets you can choose.

Of course, lowerlevelled challenges has lower ppa, since % is over 100. Higherlevelled have the same ppa.
Also, the higher challenges will also gain [color=rgb(255, 51, 51)]menaces[/color] in addition to letting you [color=rgb(51, 255, 51)]learn more[/color]

With second chances, the chance of failure is reduced and higher levelled challenges give higher ppa.

Challenge 1 has a difficulty of 100, and gains you 1E. Since it’s at a 91% 2ndchance difficulty, you earn 91ppa
Challenge 2 has a difficulty of 90, and gains you 90p. It’s at ~5% 2ndchance difficulty and earns ~85.5 ppa

Of course, the higher challenges will also gain [color=#ff3333]menaces[/color], let you [color=#33ff33]learn more[/color] and [color=#0066ff]waste 2ndchances[/color]
edited by Aximillio on 2/18/2013

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[quote=Aximillio][quote=Fhoenix]
I did not get, how are going to do this. Does that mean base rewards in locations will scale with you level? Because the new distribution did not change the fact that some actions/locations are more profitable at a certain level. It just made the expected rewards 0.6 of what they used to be. If an action gives less then char level*0.6 worth of goods, it’s still not profitable. The straightforward action with the maximum base reward available is still the most profitable choice.[/quote]

Let’s assume you’re level 100 in a stat.
Challenge 1 has a difficulty of 100, and gains you 1E. Since it’s at a 70% difficulty, you earn 70ppa
Challenge 2 has a difficulty of 90, and gains you 90p. It’s at ~77,8% difficulty and earns 70 ppa
Challenge 3 has a difficulty of 80, and earns you 80p. It’s at 87,5% difficulty and earns 70 ppa
Challenge 4 has a difficulty of 70, and earns you 70p. It’s at 100% difficulty and earns 70 ppa

Therefore you have a greater range of level appropriate storylets you can choose.

Of course, lowerlevelled challenges has lower ppa, since % is over 100. Higherlevelled have the same ppa.
Also, the higher challenges will also gain [color=rgb(255, 51, 51)]menaces[/color] in addition to letting you [color=rgb(51, 255, 51)]learn more[/color]

With second chances, the chance of failure is reduced and higher levelled challenges give higher ppa.

Challenge 1 has a difficulty of 100, and gains you 1E. Since it’s at a 91% 2ndchance difficulty, you earn 91ppa
Challenge 2 has a difficulty of 90, and gains you 90p. It’s at ~5% 2ndchance difficulty and earns ~85.5 ppa

Of course, the higher challenges will also gain [color=#ff3333]menaces[/color], let you [color=#33ff33]learn more[/color] and [color=#0066ff]waste 2ndchances[/color]
edited by Aximillio on 2/18/2013[/quote]

Everything but challenge 4 generates menace, menace costs action to reduce. Ergo Challenge 4 is most profitable. What’s more, unless you have an alt to exchange menaces with, reducing them is a situational thing. You either have to wait for cards/your partner or go to places of menaces. Both will distract you from your main action and cost you time/focus/mouse clicks/your deck (these things are arguably more important, than several pences of profit). So if you are having fun, of course you can do any challenge, but that you could do under the old system. If you are repeating one action several times for profit, not chosing challenge 4 will just hurt you.

Learning is hard to quantify, but you hit level cap withing the first months anyway.
Unless you can reliably generate Second chances at a rate of several per action, challenge 4 is still the best choice by far. Though I suppose, people who amassed a lot of second chances can alternate and do Challenge 1 for a while.

So my statement stands: The straightforward action with the maximum base reward available is still the most profitable choice. Yes, lower level actions are slightly more attractive now (as in you lose less then before, but still lose by choosing them), but that’s at the expence of making higher level actions more sucky and reducing all income by a third.

156

[quote=Fhoenix]
Everything but challenge 4 generates menace, menace costs action to reduce. Ergo Challenge 4 is most profitable. What’s more, unless you have an alt to exchange menaces with, reducing them is a situational thing. You either have to wait for cards/your partner or go to places of menaces. Both will distract you from your main action and cost you time/focus/mouse clicks/your deck (these things are arguably more important, than several pences of profit). So if you are having fun, of course you can do any challenge, but that you could do under the old system. If you are repeating one action several times for profit, not chosing challenge 4 will just hurt you.

Learning is hard to quantify, but you hit level cap withing the first months anyway.
Unless you can reliably generate Second chances at a rate of several per action, challenge 4 is still the best choice by far. Though I suppose, people who amassed a lot of second chances can alternate and do Challenge 1 for a while.

So my statement stands: The straightforward action with the maximum base reward available is still the most profitable choice. Yes, lower level actions are slightly more attractive now (as in you lose less then before, but still lose by choosing them), but that’s at the expence of making higher level actions more sucky and reducing all income by a third.[/quote]

Not all failures produce menace, not every good has the same usability and if you’re repeating actions several times for echoes, you’re better off doing the case of the fidgeting writer or that currency option at your lodgings or somesuch, either way. If you, for whatever reason want to stay in the flit or at the docks, despite it not being the ultimately best option, there’s less stopping you, which is exactly what AK said. Some people might prefer this or that option because they like hanging out there. Now they can w/o being penalized as much. At least not at once.

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[quote=Aximillio]
Not all failures produce menace, not every good has the same usability and if you’re repeating actions several times for echoes, you’re better off doing the case of the fidgeting writer or that currency option at your lodgings or somesuch, either way. If you, for whatever reason want to stay in the flit or at the docks, despite it not being the ultimately best option, there’s less stopping you, which is exactly what AK said. Some people might prefer this or that option because they like hanging out there. Now they can w/o being penalized as much. At least not at once.[/quote]
Well echo is the most versatile good. If you are looking for something specific, that just limits your choice of locations even more.
Yes, less is stopping you from hanging out at the Docks. I just… you know, the principle has not changed at all, I find it hard to imagine this would move any significant number of people to the lower level locations. Maybe I am wrong.

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You know I have this gigantic thread full of people offering both second chances AND menace reduction ya? The extra turns involved in these is a valid point, but there’s no excuse for letting menaces get out of hand.

Also, if menaces are really that big an issue, just say the word and I’ll throw all the newspaper interviews I can find your way, they lower scandal and suspicion.
edited by Urthdigger on 2/18/2013

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Thanks for the replies Alexis.

Fair enough, considering the apex of my gag cravings happen at 3AM.

Good to know. I know you’re waiting to roll this data out, but in broad terms about the new system:
1.) Relevant question: will this result in stat-changes to existing items? I think it’s probably unlikely you’d take out pets and toys- role-players (and me) would pitch a fit, but will certain items gain/lose out on new qualities in line with this system to better balance builds? And will these qualities be added to the Bazaar market UI?

2). I think in the future we’ll need more clarification on “committing” to builds, because for now I don’t understand the language. Is this in terms of expense, or bonuses based time since the item/equipment was equipped a la The World Ends With You, or, like, I have to go the place of infinite thingy-hood to equip the sword of don’t put that there, and if I remove it in town I have to go back to the place of infinite thingy-hood to get the same bonus? Or is it closer to Skyrim where the stats are so varied yet granular that a generalized build is probably best unless you’re doing something specifically difficult in one area?

  1. Will the expanded pet/item crafting/upgrading re: Messrs Devious, Unscrupulous, and Wary Raven be part of this system, or was that a one time thing?

EDIT: Fixed a typo.
edited by friendshipranger on 2/18/2013

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I kinda assumed committing to a build implied that there will be future pieces of equipment you have to choose between, like the Profession items. You can have any of them, and you can change your mind later, but you can only have one at a time. There also may be one time storylets in which you choose between a few different rewards, though they’d probably be less common than items you can freely turn in.