That’s too much in the beginning, not enough in the middle, and way too easy at the top.
My ideal renown system would have something like this:
very few renown levels
many underlying tracking qualities (that would be tested when increasing renown); perhaps one akin to the old ‘connected’ which would track interactions with the faction, acquaintances with various (prominent) figures of that faction, perhaps certain missions (or "quests") completed for them, siding with them in CotD, having an aligned proffession, …
for increasing renown, some combination of the previously mentioned qualities and others would be required, each worth less or more "points" in the sum. Each renown level could require a certain sum plus some hard limiters (like minimum stats, minimum quirks, minimum wealth or items in aligned category … but I am specifically looking at "minimum ‘connectionalike’ gathered since last renown increase).
Different factions would have different themes here. Also, not every type of quality needs to be required by every faction (I am looking specifically at quirks here).
For example, hell could "require" heartless, watchful, enormous quantities of lower level souls owned, and for higher levels also higher level souls owned (for showcasing); and of course fate-payers could get "better" scores by having devil companions, and intimate with devils would count for something, and being a spirifier, …
Society could run on presuasive, making waves, notability, "land" ownership (multiple lodgings), complete BDR, PosI level.
Church on austere, magnanimous, being on good terms with the bishops, being wedded, respectable.
Revolutionaries - dangerous, LotN level, nadir access, dreaded, bringer of death?
Bohemians - works of art produced, bizarre, persuasive, hedonist, ???
Dockers - experienced zailor, dangerous, access to places on the underzee …
GG - subtle, progress with various london’s spies (cheesemonger, clathermont, foreign office), secrets gathered
constables - steadfast?, forceful?, progress in velocipede squad, siding with them in the various one-off raids, not being a turncoat, low suspicion/criminal record (yes, this means you could lock yourself out), ???
I now don’t have ideas for urchins, widow, masters, university, duchess
[quote=xKiv]
~60 echoes isn’t nearly close to "most expensive", they are not used up in the process, and can be resold for almost as much as they cost
And the renown-increasing options don’t start costing expensive stuff (beyond favours) until renown 15.[/quote]That’s true, but it’s still not exactly a trivial price either. And not all of them can be resold for close to their price.
I just find it somewhat unreasonable that a new player would choose sink 62.50 or more into increasing renown instead of the many, many other things they could be doing with their money. I know I didn’t when I started, and I started after some of the conversions happened. And I know my sister - who I introduced to the game recently - didn’t bother to start getting renown until after she was within striking distance of PoSI. And while of course, you can sell it back, that’s obviously not preferred, given you’ll need to buy it back every single time you want to increase your renown, costing you somewhere around 2.50 for the privilege. Small? Sure. But annoying, and a waste of money for unclear benefit.
This specifically strikes me as very inaccurate. FBG has heard some of these complaints for the last two years, sure. But some of these complaints began more recently, and the frequency of complaints and number of players voicing them has also increased recently. (At least in our tiny forum-snapshot of the playerbase at large.) That’s useful data for gauging player sentiment.
One thing to keep in mind is that Renown hasn’t been static over the last two years. The first four conversions used conversion rates of 5 and 6. Players speculated that rates might go as high as 7 or 8 for popular factions, or even as high as 10 for Society. Then in January, people were shocked when Urchins was converted with a rate of 7. Now Hell’s been converted with a rate of 9, Constables with 12, and the almost ungrindable Great Game still had 6. The rates are rising rapidly and we’re not even to the easily-ground factions yet.
Complaints aren’t inherently counterproductive as they help us identify flaws and areas to improve. There have certainly been unproductive complaints recently, but not many. I’ve done my fair share of griping of late, but I’ve tried to channel that frustration into discussing potential improvements, and from what I’ve seen others have too. This community does a great job of being productive even when emotions are high.
[quote=suinicide]Most favours have an option at the end of a carousel.
Tomb colonists are also given for entering the tomb colonies, not quite a usual grind, but it is possibly one to some players.[/quote]
Well, it is a grind, doesn’t consume many AP, but eats a lot of cards.
Depending on your possibilities to reduce scandal, make an average of AP that you would need, add the entry and exit AP. All these could be around 20 which is a 3 hour wait.
Now, empty half of your deck, have 4-5 AP ready and get yourself kicked. You’ll end up with full deck and to little action points, but you can start drawing the useful cards (candle, dog, favours) and discard the junk ones. If a card has a better Scandal/AP, use it. This way you can stay a very long time in the colonies until your candle/s fill up; it’s true that EF have a bonus due to the two candles.
When I got my 40 item, I went there with 3-4 favours, got the item and came back with 6-7 favours and almost 40 AP. Almost a full day, didn’t draw cards in Flit, but gained around 10-12 favours and had full deck when I came back. This also depends on the number of possible cards in the colonies (I’m only missing the artist so have almost all; this is bad) and your possibility to check the game every hour or so.
[quote=Toran]Great Game was "grindable" in the sense that it’s easy to boost Church and then transfer it to Game on the conflict card.
I think the Shepherd card really skewed the Church/Constables/Society translation. edited by Toran on 6/11/2017[/quote]
It certainly does. My main gained obscene amounts of Connected Constables and Church as a result of it. Because of Making Waves, she no longer has truly large amounts of Connected: Society, though.
So far I’ve seen people use three different definitions of ‘grind’ to talk about grinding Favours and Renown.
The general sense of the word, performing a repetitive task for an extended period of time[/li][li]The FL sense, only counting sources not reliant on the RNG of cards[/li][li]The realistic sense, only counting non-card sources that would actually be faster than relying on the luck of the draw
It’s certainly possible to gain most types of Favours without drawing cards. But aside from the finishing school, every single method is outside of London, and you have to travel there and back every seven Favours. I’ll certainly take my chances with the couple cards giving Docks Favours than spend two zee voyages plus 161 actions per use of their faction item.
with conflict cards costing less now, and it looks like there’s a set of ways to avoid the conflicts (3 turns, requires quirk) I don’t mind them as much now.
I’d love if they cost 1 more favor and granted a favor of the opposite type.
I much preferred the previous conflict card system since it made favors reasonably profitable. The latest set of faction’s cards risk being discard fodder. edited by Kaijyuu on 6/12/2017
Siding with The Church for second chances or Scandal-reduction after getting Scandal from gaining Favours: Hell still seem profitable enough, and I can see how people might want to do that more often, which becomes possible when those cards only consume some of the Favours rather than all of them. "Crime or Punishment?" seems to be the only conflict card that’s bad no matter what choice is made: Either A Turncoat, or too much Suspicion and too low rewards to be worth it. Not to mention the quirk-reduction for anyone who might want to be both Steadfast and Austere. That’s like someone wanting to be both Heartless and Ruthless, isn’t it? A real menace card for players. Well done. I got rid of it by calling in Favours: Constables at the Shuttered Palace until they were lower than 5.
Does this still give Turncoat? It’s not recorded in the wiki anymore (following the recent updates).
Putting quirks aside, both options on this card seems to give 6 Echoes worth of items for 2 Favours. Not a terrible deal (though also not extraordinary).
Oh, my mistake. I must have confused it with the Turncoat on one of the Implausible Penance options. Possibly because I considered the Steadfast reduction to be equally out of the question.
But 6 Echoes for 2 Favours: Constables is only 2 Echoes per Action, and I can get that at the Shuttered Palace, without the Suspicion. And "An Implausible Penance" has the option to smuggle brandy, which gives 2.25 Echoes per Action, and includes a steady supply for extra profits from "A presumptuous little opportunity". But I suppose that siding with the Constables vs the Criminals might be still worth it for people plagued by Suspicion.
I’m having issues finding Constable Favours outside of their card and the Shepherd card, which is making this the slowest faction to increase for me so far. Better once I get my Devils to 10 so I can grind souls again, but surely there’s a second non-Fate Constable Favour source I’m missing.
There’s an option on the Velocipede card that lets you buy a favour for Maniac’s Prayers. You could also exchange your connected pet for a Maverick Bloodhound.
I seem to be experiencing the opposite problem. I’m accumulating the things almost as fast as I can spend them, thanks to the Shepherd card. I’m glad I found that option to cash them it at the palace, otherwise they’d be going to waste.
[quote=Toran]Ah, the Velocipede card is what I was missing - I knew there must be something. Thank you!
I don’t have Devils to 10 yet, so I’m having issues grinding souls for the next few days. Then, I’m sure I’ll be swimming in favourable constables.[/quote]
What ho, they’ve made the velocipede card not a horrid thing? Wondrous news!
I picture a Zee not with water, but crammed with constables for thee then!
Really need to change those few that they changed from connected required, to favours required, to either convert way more at a time, include way better items, or change over to requiring renoun.
I am getting peeved at not being able to continue towards “Footstep” by not having enough urchin favours to convert up to screams.
[quote=Artful][quote=Ben ]quick but important question.
If this was your first time, starting from scratch, how long would it take you to grind 40 renoun?[/quote]
As a stat-capped POSI, it took me about 3 months to grind Rubbery 40 from 0. I only used the rubbery faction card and the Rubbery Entrepreneur from the Polite Invitation party.
Was it "worth it"? Nearly impossible to say.[/quote]
It only took about a month for me to get Docks to 40 using:
Faction Card
Connected Pet Card
Mayor Card
A Fate-locked Card
The Chandleress at Watchmaker’s Hill
(Did not use finishing school.)
[quote=Artful]Faction Card
Connected Pet Card
Mayor Card
A Fate-locked Card
The Chandleress at Watchmaker’s Hill
(Did not use finishing school.)[/quote]
I must say that getting 3 factions from 0 to 40 was a nice challenge specially that i was doing them all at the same time!
Artful, thing is, grinding favours/renown is strictly tied to the number of cards a player can draw per day. If you’re somehow able to draw about 100 of them per day (even w/o the Fate one), it’s not really hard to reach high levels. But for someone who probably draws 30-40 per day, well, it takes 2-3 times more.
Still, can’t wait to see how all the actions and cards will end up after the conversions are done! I wonder if FBG will end up converting the last 5 ones (the two academic, Widow, Duchess and the Masters)… :D