Preparing for Running Battles/etc is Dull

Fallen London
1

Well, not always dull, but often enough that I think it’s a problem.

By &quotrunning battles/etc&quot I mean a number of the various sequences where the player engages in core-quality challenges to raise a progress quality, and then uses that progress quality in a challenge to complete the story. Dueling the Black Ribbon, Hunting Dangerous Prey, Preparing for a Big Score, and so forth.

When I say they are dull, what I mean is that many of those sequences are almost entirely monotonous. Multiple options for increasing the progress quality are presented, but most of the time they’re functionally identical beyond slight differences in difficulty. If I’m choosing between a 57% chance to increase Casing and a 60% chance to increase Casing, I don’t feel like I’m making a choice - I just feel like I’m paying an action tax.

Not all progress-quality sequences are like this. I realized how dull some of them are when I recently started Engaging in Courtly Romance. I was surprised and delighted to see that the different options to increase Fascinating were providing results which varied beyond just slightly different amounts of Fascinating change points. Performing artistically gives me booze! Writing letters gives me stolen correspondence! I’d fallen into a rut of mindlessly pouring actions into heist or duel preparation without actually making any meaningful decisions, so it was nice to feel like I was actually being affected by my choice of preparation methods.

Offending sequences which come to mind:

  1. Dueling the Black Ribbon. &quotSparring with ring fighters&quot, &quotFind out more about the Black Ribbon duelists&quot, &quotScout a battlefield&quot, and &quotExercise for rough health&quot all have difficulties between 74 and 82, only increase Running Battle on a success, and only increase Wounds on a failure. Why is this four different options? Why is their availability based on Airs of London? &quotArrange a duel outside the Black Ribbon&quot and &quotStudy the fighting styles of other duelists&quot increase Running Battle and provide minuscule side benefits (20 rostygold or 5 cryptic clues) on a success, and on failure they both increase wounds and decrease Running Battle; the progress they provide isn’t any better than the other options, so you’re risking having to spend more actions to make up lost Running Battle in exchange for a chance at pitiful rewards.

  2. Hunting Dangerous Prey. Among the six options, the only possible rewards outside of The Hunt Is On progress are slight changes to forceful and subtle. On a failure, they all increase wounds and two of them also decrease THIO. Once again, their availability is Airs-dependent, despite having even less variety than duel preparations.

  3. Preparing for a Big Score. Six options, four of them only increase Casing on a success and increase Suspicion on a failure. One can give 30 whispered hints and another gives a bundle of oddities, but those two options also decrease Casing on a failure so once more you’re paying for those rewards by spending more actions. They all cost three actions, so at least it’s less of a time-sink than grinding Running Battle or THIO. Also the Bundle of Oddities option (&quotThe Decoy&quot) spits you back out in the main menu without presenting a &quottry again&quot option, which is annoying.

There may be others, but those are the ones I’ve run into so far.

As for what could be done to improve those sequences, I have a few ideas.

  1. Faster progress for varied preparations. Succeeding on a preparation method could give more change points if the last successful preparation was of a different sort, or if that particular preparation method hadn’t yet been used since the last time the relevant progress quality was reset (e.g. scouting a battlefield for the first time after winning a duel).

  2. Different secondary benefits for different preparations. There doesn’t always need to be a material reward alongside an increase to the progress quality, but adding a chance to get something different out of each option would make the options meaningfully different. Small handfuls of common currencies (e.g. rats, glim, jade, candle stubs, silk scraps), rare successes for semi-common items (e.g. map fragments, intriguing snippets, first-city coins, fourth-city relics) or second chances, that sort of thing. Engaging in Courtly Romance does this nicely.

  3. Get rid of progress losses on failures. If a success gives 3 progress, then every failure is an effective loss of 3 progress. Menace increases make sense, but tacking on an extra progress penalty is unnecessarily punishing. Failures resulting in not only the loss of the action spent on them but also the loss of another action’s worth of progress is anti-fun - a success moves you one step forward, a failure puts you two steps back.

2

While I agree they are dull, the harder challenges almost always give More running battle or whichever quality you are raising.

And I’m afraid the decoy suffers from a bug, as do many of the non-card options that give a bundle of oddities, where you can end up not actually getting the reward if you click &quotperhaps not&quot so they removed that option.

(Beyond that I would like to see more variety or something, running battle and the court were easily my least favorite parts of the game)
edited by suinicide on 4/27/2017
edited by suinicide on 4/27/2017

3

Quite simply, it’s four different options for story purposes. Four options with identical results of the PC taking different actions, each giving different text descriptions of what happens, is mechanically identical to one option but still a lot more interesting when playing them for the first time. (No idea why they’re Airs-dependent though.)

As cool a mechanic as that would be, I don’t think the code would actually allow it without a lot of revamping of each story.

4

I think they could add a little variety to Preparing for Battle by adding a menace card. Well, not really a menace card per say, but it would give you some interesting options to prepare and allow for more a leisurely preparation/play style.

5

After my first time playing through to the end of these particular stories (especially the Black Ribbon) I have taken to only returning to them when I need to cycle my Airs, which isn’t every day but comes up periodically. That way I will build the quality up slowly over time, and when it gets high enough I cash it in for a reward that feels much more satisfying than the other options. I did find them fairly monotonous, even on my first go-around, but I appreciate how difficult it would probably be to change them too much. Even so I still appreciate having them there to make cycling Airs more… Well, not exciting per se, but you know :)
edited by Alysian on 5/1/2017

6

[quote=Alysian]After my first time playing through to the end of these particular stories (especially the Black Ribbon) I have taken to only returning to them when I need to cycle my Airs, which isn’t every day but comes up periodically. That way I will build the quality up slowly over time, and when it gets high enough I cash it in for a reward that feels much more satisfying than the other options. I did find them fairly monotonous, even on my first go-around, but I appreciate how difficult it would probably be to change them too much. Even so I still appreciate having them there to make cycling Airs more… Well, not exciting per se, but you know :)
edited by Alysian on 5/1/2017[/quote]
Hehe, that’s a way to do it, but I remember when I was at that stage I used every spare AP to advance! Now, when I’m in need of Rostygold, I use the option that gives 3 RB and 20 Rosty up to level 20 (or 15 with amulet). When reaching, I challenge Feducci for 4k Rosty, but also to advance my achievement of reaching level 50. Probably this will happen after getting the Cider because 20 levels+cash in offers enough Rosty for 108 Dock favours. :D

So I suggest that people should go for RP as well! I have loads of unfinished stories because of RP/grinds/achievements; probably I’ll have stories to finish even after getting the Cider! :)