Quirks Polishers

Fallen London
21

A couple more comments – the second of which is largely me being silly –

You don’t actually have to use the Society option and nuke your Notability. You can use the Bohemian option for the same effect. I assume the Society option has a much more drastic effect.

Also, re: Scarlet Saint – that never made any sense whatsoever, albeit in the best sort of way. It’s almost certainly best that it’s impossible to achieve via normal means, but… I think it would be entertaining to add a really punishing option that allows for it to be achieved.

[And now for the being silly part]

Looking at the flavor (which is really neat, btw) of these options, I could imagine a &quotweird dual quirk&quot set of options being added that all consume your Notability when used and up two quirks at once, some of which are opposed. Possibly also stat damage.
Melancholy + Hedonist comes to mind, along the lines of the Hedonist art pieces already mentioned (or alternatively, a mass-scale Bohemian temporary group romance that ends in tears For The Art?).
Hedonist + Austere is obvious (a splinter Church sect’s extremely structured and ritualistic massive indulgence in food and drink and self-flagellation as well as ‘pleasures of the flesh’ for religious purposes; and the Voiceless Dancer and her ‘complicated desires’ sounds like she could be a Scarlet Saint already, though I can’t actually read that text, so I couldn’t say for sure!).
Heartless + Magnanimous (you can already practically run Orphanages this way; it’s also perfectly easy to do something mass-scale awful and beneficial at the same time if you’re rich and powerful enough in the political sense).

There are of course many more sensible dual quirk combinations, but those are less fun to try to invent examples for.

22

[quote=Jeremy Avalon]
Is the long-term plan to just completely disable any means of accessing Scarlet Saint, out of curiosity?
edited by Jeremy Avalon on 7/18/2015[/quote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS117DcS9AI&feature=youtu.be&t=510

23

I imagine a fair number of the changes being made will impact lower leveled characters more than those of us who’ve completed most of the content. Their decisions will shape their characters, and if they’ve been especially austere or steadfast that will place their quirks at sufficiently high levels naturally.

Anything that’s repeatable needs to be balanced to avoid undermining their stated goal, so while I imagine there’ll be ways to break into high quirk values that are always available they’ll likely come with a catch. If the catch is unpleasant one can simply wait it out, since new one-off content will give us more character-shaping choices that raise the associated quirks up substantially.

edited by Sara Hysaro on 7/18/2015

24

[quote=Alexis Kennedy][quote=Jeremy Avalon]
Is the long-term plan to just completely disable any means of accessing Scarlet Saint, out of curiosity?
edited by Jeremy Avalon on 7/18/2015[/quote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS117DcS9AI&feature=youtu.be&t=510[/quote]

Sorry. Bad day at work. I’m going to shut up now.

[li]

25

It’s Alan I feel bad for. Poor little guy will get lonely.

26

[quote=Sara Hysaro]I imagine a fair number of the changes being made will impact lower leveled characters more than those of us who’ve completed most of the content. Their decisions will shape their characters, and if they’ve been especially austere or steadfast that will place their quirks at sufficiently high levels naturally.

Anything that’s repeatable needs to be balanced to avoid undermining their stated goal, so while I imagine there’ll be ways to break into high quirk values that are always available they’ll likely come with a catch. If the catch is unpleasant one can simply wait it out, since new one-off content will give us more character-shaping choices that raise the associated quirks up substantially.

edited by Sara Hysaro on 7/18/2015[/quote]

[color=#009900]Sara nails it.[/color]

27

[quote=Jeremy Avalon][quote=Alexis Kennedy][quote=Jeremy Avalon]
Is the long-term plan to just completely disable any means of accessing Scarlet Saint, out of curiosity?
edited by Jeremy Avalon on 7/18/2015[/quote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS117DcS9AI&feature=youtu.be&t=510[/quote]

Sorry. Bad day at work. I’m going to shut up now.

[/quote]

[color=#009900]:) it’s not the kind of thing you usually post, so I didn’t take offence.[/color]

28

All my quirks are either too high (Subtle), too low (Damn you, Direful Reflections grind), or I am missing some stats (6 points in persuasive…). So I can’t play any of the options myself. It would be nice if people who journaled the results mentioned it here. ^^ I am especially interested in the Amber one.

As my own contribution I went and made this master list of all the options so it’s easier to see what quirks are mutually exclusive.
Please correct me if there are any mistakes.

Antique Constable’s Badge
Needs: Dangerous
Steadfast+ Hedonist-

Entry in Slowcake’s Exceptionals
Needs: Notability 3, 20 Echoes
Hedonist+ Austere-

Copper Cipher Ring
Needs: Watchful
Subtle+ Forceful-

Red-Feathered Pin
Needs: Shadowy
Ruthless+ Magnanimous-

Tiny Jewelled Reliquary
Needs: Shadowy
Magnanimous+ Hedonist-

Engraved Pewter Tankard
Needs: Dangerous
Forceful+ Subtle-

Ornate Typewriter
Needs: Shadowy
Hedonist+ Austere-

Old Bone Skeleton Key
Needs: Dangerous
Forceful+ Subtle-

Endowment of a University Fellowship
Needs: Watchful
Austere+ Hedonist-

Bright Brass Skull
Needs: Persuasive
Heartless + Magnanimous-

Nodule of Pulsating Amber
Needs: Watchful
Austere+ Hedonist-

O’Boyle’s Practical Primer in the Various Languages of Nippon, Tartary, Cathay and the Princedoms of the Raj
No option (why this hate on the Widow?!)

Diary of the Dead
Needs: Watchful
Melancholy+ Daring-

Rookery Password
Needs: Shadowy
Daring+ Melancholy-

The problem with gaining super high quirks from story naturally is that there are a lot of places that drain quirks (and don’t mention it in the description of the action, so you don’t expect that quirk drain) and very few that increase them past a certain point. Unless you play in a very paranoid way and check all actions beforehand on wiki losing high level quirk seems almost inevitable. I’ve being active for the past week, trying out some cards I don’t play usually and I’ve lost a couple CP of Hedonist already. In my opinion FB would have to do something about this quirk entropy, or having high quirks would be less about role-playing and more about planning and research.

29

[quote=Alexis Kennedy][quote=Jeremy Avalon][quote=Alexis Kennedy][quote=Jeremy Avalon]
Is the long-term plan to just completely disable any means of accessing Scarlet Saint, out of curiosity?
edited by Jeremy Avalon on 7/18/2015[/quote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS117DcS9AI&feature=youtu.be&t=510[/quote]

Sorry. Bad day at work. I’m going to shut up now.

[/quote]

[color=#009900]:) it’s not the kind of thing you usually post, so I didn’t take offence.[/color][/quote]

[color=#e53e00] I love Blackadder. :-)
(So I’m delighted by this entire conversation.)

[/color]
edited by babelfishwars on 7/18/2015

30

Hmm, this is all quite interesting! I managed to get my Hedonist to 15 just before this all happened, and still have all the rest of my quirks at 10 or higher (although only a few above 12) – resulting in a feeling like I’ve got to tiptoe around (especially in new content) to keep all these pointless-but-rare pieces of ornamental china that I’ve collected from tipping off their precarious perches and crashing on the floor. I have to say there’s been a perverse amount of fun in running against the intended grain of this system while trying to balance multiple quirks, and remain maximally quirky. I had most of them from years ago, tanked some of my high levels before realizing that the quirk rebalance of last year had changed things, and the new difficulty in retaining and grinding quirks made it feel like one of the more deliciously difficult parts of FL.

I do get the design principle of quirks – I’d say they’re a (not-exactly-ethics-driven) &quotalignment&quot system, though more in the vein of Choice of Games than Bioware. They reward consistency of roleplayed choice, much as in many CoG games, which also support a diminishing-returns mechanic for gains and frequently use tests as to whether you’ve acted consistently enough to unlock a certain choice, and occasionally mix up that basic formula. I’ve always liked this kind of thing, and it’s even more interesting to see it in a non-replayable setting with a complex economy like FL… but there’s something about the mixture (and the various loopholes and crannies, like trading Steadfast for Heartless and Subtle for Steadfast at high levels of Suspicion, then regaining Subtle via a carefully-chosen astrological sign) that made inconsistency a bit too alluringly edge-casey, challenging, shiny, and hoardy. Personality traits with grindy arbitrage! Delicious. I suppose this was the &quotwhat?! oooh, hmmm…&quot appeal of Scarlet Saint all along.

After all, consistency is the refuge of the unimaginative, the hobgoblin of little minds, and a virtue for trains or only the provenance of the dead, depending on which famous author you quote. I think I’ll go with Fitzgerald… &quotthe sign of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas at the same time.&quot

Quirks forever! I’m pondering just curling up smauglike on top of my meager pile of 10+ quirks. I think Fhoenix is basically right about the difficulty of quirk entropy, even for a consistent roleplayer (&quotbut for my character, that IS the Austere thing to do!&quot) and it makes me quite draconian about Zee-feasts and new Parabolan content, etc. etc. Have to send alts to investigate first.

I do look forward to more horribly expensive, catch-laden, high-level way to deal with spinning multiple quirk-plates, if that’s not totally out of the question. I’d happy trash thousands of CPs of Connections, or gain hundreds of points of Menaces in exchange for high quirks: I guess that shows how irrationally the tendrils of this odd little system have wound their way into my brain. And hey, the game could always use more potlatchy orgies of resource-destruction while SMEN is on hiatus!

Speaking of expensive and quirks, can anyone who’s done the Hardened and Softened fate options in the Iron Republic PM me and tell me how much they raise one set of traits and lower the other? Now I’m quite curious.
edited by metasynthie on 7/18/2015

31

There are mechanisms in the game already that prevent a quality from being lowered if it’s above a certain amount. High quirk levels might be protected from a lot of minor drains once everything is properly in place. Probably not all of them, but possibly enough to not constantly worry about dropping down from the high tier.

32

I echoed Bright Brass Skull result if anyone is interested.
Heartless 13 -> 14
Magnanimous 5+0cp -> 1

And i will regret all these fishing trips forever now.
edited by Antur on 7/18/2015

33

Phew, that’s 13 or 14 points lost from Magnanimous. But seems like it might be roughly the same added to Heartless? Hard to say.

Good point – there was one of these in the unlocked opening of Lost in Reflections earlier this month, and I thought it worked quite well story-wise too.

34

Darn. I have Steadfast at 10 and Daring at 11 and I was hoping I could polish them up this way, but 12?

35

I did two.
This is the Oranate Typewriter:
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/8?fromEchoId=6178076
Increase of 15 (exactly), decrease of 15 (exactly).

The next one down is a Diary of the Dead.
Increase of 15 (exactly), decrease of 11~29.

I can give the exact change points on the typewriter when I get the cards I’m waiting for. A more specific daring range will have to wait until I go to Hunter’s Keep, and even then it’ll still be a range, there aren’t any proper repeatable ways to decrease Daring or increase it past 10, so I was a bit stuck there.

EDIT1: updated austere decrease
EDIT2: updated hedonist gain
edited by Cecil on 7/19/2015

36

With regard to making quirks harder to lose massive quantities of:

It’s hard to know what will allow one to get closer to the new mark of 12. The range of 9 > x > 12 currently appears to be a sort of dead zone, where only a very finite set of quirk-raising actions will get you to that point, and doing them any earlier than when one is in said zone runs the risk of wasting the opportunity entirely (e.g. my ruthless was 10, once, but after last year’s Fruits of the Zee Festival I could never get it back above 6). The only quirk I can seem to actually get to the required range is Magnanimous via the C.V.R. which feels a bit weird.

Speaking of Ruthless and Magnanimous, perhaps now would be a time to alter the Great Game options for Direful Reflections so that they savagely devour something other than quirks?

37

Thanks for those entries, Cecil. Oh and dare I say, you have a most impressive Starveling Cat collection.

38

You are most welcome, and many thanks, I may’ve keeled over and died a few times as a result of them. I’m also feeling rather peckish because of them. Got to add peckish caps everywhere on the wiki as a result.

[quote=Antur]I echoed Bright Brass Skull result if anyone is interested.
Heartless 13 -> 14
Magnanimous 5+0cp -> 1
[/quote]

Are you quite sure that you had 5+0cp magnanimous? Because that’s a change of 14cp, and I’ve gotten exactly 15 from three of my quirk changes.
Well, regardless of that, thank you for the text! I’ve added it to the wiki.

39

[quote=Hannah Flynn][color=#0066ff]Are you a late-game player with a strong idea of your character’s personality? Have you made an impulsive decision that’s reduced a key Quirk? All is well! [/color]
[color=#0066ff]
[/color]
[color=#0066ff]We have provided costly but intriguing options that allow you to act potently in-character, adjusting high-level quirks… while glimpsing fragments of a larger narrative. Find them on the Connected items that can be purchased at the Bazaar.

These are only available to very late-game players (250+ in a stat).[/color][/quote]

Hannah: Is that 250+ naturally (by using Notablitity to raise stats) or 250+ with equipment?

40

It has to be with equipment as the cap for stats is 200 and you can only add another 15 to one via Notability and specialization.
edited by reveurciel on 7/19/2015