Who’s going for the Noman tattoo this year? I’ll once again be tracking the melt rate to see how it’s changed from previous years. When Time the Healer visits, feel free to comment with a date/time and how much Noman’s Friend was lost. Thanks!
A longer post (mainly with basic Noman Info) can be found on the subreddit here, if you’re interested.
Around 6am Sunday (MST), TtH hit and I lost 25 Noman’s Friend.
edited by Kaunisenkeli on 1/11/2021
(3 days ago)
Memory fades…You’ve lost 40 x Noman’s Friend (new total 60 - A little time remains to the Noman).
On Friday jan 8th I lost 21 NF.
Not going for a tattoo, I got one last year, so I’m just keeping track for a few weeks during the initial phase.
I was thinking about a norman tattoo, but after I got the information that you need alot of preperation for that, I discarded the plan.
Btw, if someone got a guide for a noman tattoo or at least a good reference what you should have in preperation, I would be interested in it for next year.
On Wednesday (January 6th) afternoon (GMT) Amenneb lost 30 NF. Amenneb also discovered with some surprise that a lucky seeker can betray two Nomen in one year! (Amenneb will not be contributing further data points.)
Last Friday the 8th, I lost 45 NF, which seems unfair…
[quote=Judaspriester]Btw, if someone got a guide for a noman tattoo or at least a good reference what you should have in preperation, I would be interested in it for next year.[/quote]I linked to one in the original post. If you missed it, here: Noman Info.
Huh. I guess I was lucky with "only" losing 41 NF on Friday the 8th.
My alt lost 39 NF on 8th or 9th January.
Yep, I somehow missed that information. But it seems like I got a goal for next year.
Since It seems like I would finish my current goals (PP & Heptagoat) until march, its good to have something else to work onto.
From my alt:
(7 hours ago)
Memory fades…You’ve lost 31 x Noman’s Friend (new total 36 - The Noman is almost gone)
(after losing 33 last week, apparently)
Just under an hour ago:
“You’ve lost 53 x Noman’s Friend (new total 0)”
Which is absurd. From over half health to just gone, without any kind of warning or recovery option? As an endgame player, the loss of the resources (mostly actions and quirks) pumped into boosting it (Noman’s Progress 14 at time of death) is irritating rather than anything more, but it definitely feels unreasonably punishing.
Jan 08th, ~1500 UTC: You’ve lost 22 x Noman’s Friend (new total 78)
Jan 15th, ~1500 UTC: You’ve lost 36 x Noman’s Friend (new total 42)
Lost 45 today, Jan 15
First week:
Second week, 3 hours ago: "You’ve lost 55 x Noman’s Friend (new total 0)."
Well that was bloody fast…
Now wondering whether Tintinnabulum and I have some hidden factor in common that’s lead to us both losing our Nomen so fast. But I suspect it’s just randomness being random, in which case the RNG needs supply something more substantial next year if it wants back on my Christmas Card list :)
I imagine (or at least hope) it was random. I did realize that with the loss of most (all?) of the deck refresh options, increasing Noman Knows is a lot harder than it used to be, at least without constantly checking every ten minutes for a new card.
I’d gotten the Noman more for something to do in Penstock’s Wicket than anything, so I’m not too broken up by it disappearing so quickly.
I set a timer for an hour and a half throughout the day. That’s equal to nine new cards, hence no cards are wasted and you don’t have to check in every ten minutes, which would be impossible to maintain. Plus, 90 minutes is a good interval to remind oneself to get up from the desk, stretch or take a walk, and give one’s eyes a break.
Just got my noman, after deliberately waiting until after TtH and then getting distracted by other stuff for a day or two. I had two Tears of the Bazaar already, so I used those right away; the first one got 4 Noman’s Friend (sad trombone noise) and the second one got 17, bringing me to 121 Noman’s Friend. (Looking at the subreddit post, apparently the science in this field has advanced and this was a bad idea! Oh well.)
edited by CameoAppearance on 1/17/2021
For the record, on 15th January, I’ve lost 38 NF and 37 NF with my alt and my main, respectively.
[quote=Tintinnabulum]I imagine (or at least hope) it was random. I did realize that with the loss of most (all?) of the deck refresh options, increasing Noman Knows is a lot harder than it used to be, at least without constantly checking every ten minutes for a new card.
[/quote]
This is, in fact, the only part of the Winter Balance patch which I am unhappy with. The removal of basically all possibilities of Fate-free deck reset makes all time-limited, solely card draw dependent endeavours risky and potentially highly frustrating. Particularly when you are required to invest a large amount of time, card draws and resources (e.g. quirks).
The yearly Noman Knows grind is a perfect case in point. I’ve been lucky enough that my Noman survived through 2 TtH hits (both for my alt and for my main). I have been drawing cards only in London, every 10 minutes possible, with a daily allowance of ±8 hours for sleep and other off-time, and still after almost 3 weeks, I need to draw 7-10 cards for the entire grind to matter AT ALL.
This change will be frustrating but bearable with the events such as the Feast of the Rose, when the relevant cards become pinned towards the very end. With the Noman, an all-or-nothing weeks long grind, missing the target by 1-2 cards would be quite heartbreaking.
I posit that with the removal of deck-refresh options, some form of a remake of this sort of grind would be warranted - either lowering of the Noman Knows requirement (perhaps to 12 or 13?), increasing the card frequency to Ubiquitous to help the odds and mitigate RNG-caused distress, or ideally adding some repeatable, card-independent, perhaps expensive option for those of us who have invested large amounts of quirks and even more precious time + card draws to grinding Noman Knows, and simply need to push the last few points within a few days.
I mean, the Noman has even been introduced into Helicon. It is sad that there is no practical way for its invitation to matter. Even such a little, inefficient thing as the Noman getting a single point of Noman Knows as one of the end choices, instead of the normal material rewards, would be enough to solve this problem for the advanced players; it would also be a flavourful representation of the experiences the Noman could gain in the highly stimulating environment of Helicon. Of course, a less endgame-dependent option would be even more useful for the sake of less advanced players. What if we were able to take our Noman to the Mahogany Hall, or carousing into the SInging Mandrake? If it cost enough resources and quirks so that covering the entire grind this way would cost (much) more than you obtain (i.e. the Elemental Secret), it would hardly be a game-breaking option, and it would go a long way towards limiting potentially gross disappointment.
With things as they are, I probably won’t bother with the Noman next year at all. Definitely not if RNG hates me enough that I don’t make it in the 3,5 days my Noman has left…
What do you think?