one of the ways that are available to the player to defend their potential kingdom from the sun is to get a Parabox from Irem. The requirements for that are, among other things, the halving of all stats. Which would be costly, but reasonable. it also demands that each of their values will equal or exceed 100. Again, a hefty but understandbale price - except when it comes to Pages, a stat that only one background dependent officer rises, and even that only up to 50. Beyond that, 100 in this stat is nigh unobtainable. And so, I wonder if this will be addressed, either by giving the players access to a way to reliably raise Pages or by decreasing the requirements of the Parabox. edited by IHNIWTR on 2/21/2015
It’s a fair question. Beyond grinding the random “your past as a poet” SAY, there aren’t a lot of options.
That being said, the Grand Geode also provides the same thing for a more reasonable echo price, right? But I guess that’s not really what you’re asking. I can only hope that there are plans for such officers.
Start with a legacy bonus and be a poet, then get the yacht from the tomb colonies and equip every officer that upgrades pages you can get ahold of and do the chess portion of the Principles story. That should get you a surplus.
Yacht + Guinea page (+2) + Disillusioned Doctor (+6) + Bandaged Chef Paramount (+5) + Urbane Magician (+3) + Carnelian Exile (+3) is +29 pages.
Of course getting your OTHER stats to 100 isn’t exactly simple either edited by WormApotheote on 2/21/2015
I mean “bringing along the officers with the most applicable skillset” and “upgrading your officers” and “have equipment that fits what you’re trying to do” is a pretty straightforward narratively.
Even if you don’t seek out every last point of pages you can use ‘your past, a poet’ to get there.
But I’m pretty sure the intended approach is to get it from somewhere else :P
As I pointed out to Worm in that same conversation:
in fact, with the moth instead, you don’t need the ship:
Carnelian Exile (+3) Bandaged Chef-Paramount (+5) Urbane Magician (+3) Keeper-Moth (+3) Disillusioned Doctor (+6)
gives exactly +20 pages, on top of the starting 75 from base + horizon codex + poet, and +5 from the corals.
And there ARE other ways to increase it - anyone, even without the legacy bonus or being a poet, can grind up pages via View From a Summit, and technically Iron Republic Port Reports. Not GOOD ways, mind - you’d have to be ludicrously lucky to actually net a positive return on the latter, and both are horrendously grindy.
I don’t see how ‘working very determinedly to get yr stats maxed, in order to get yr stats maxed’ is ‘gaming’ anything, but then, I guess we’re not all cut out to be god-queens! edited by Impish Axile on 2/21/2015
Well if you start as a poet with the legacy item you only need a view from the summit a few times and some unupgraded officers which isn’t too difficult to do.
I’m not sure how that option would be viable if you’re NOT a poet, though.
that’s what I’m saying - I have no problem with playing in a specific way in order to achieve a goal, but in a game which is all about letting the players create their own story, locking one of the story choices behind an incredibly specific background and playstyle seems off.
There are alternative options for doing this. Doing things that way is…well, not the good way. Irem is generally the expensive and hard way of doing anything. edited by lusername on 2/22/2015
They will be able to change this if they ever add another option for getting pages besides having your past as a poet and grinding specific SAY bordering on abusing it.
Right now, they might as well put the requirements as “your past, a poet” instead of 100 pages since it’s basically the same thing, besides the SAY grind required.
Reminds of the Page requirement for a certain Doctor’s story… 175 Pages.
[quote=lusername]There are alternative options for doing this. Doing things that way is…well, not the good way. Irem is generally the expensive and hard way of doing anything. edited by lusername on 2/22/2015[/quote]
There better be! I spent an entire day getting that damn zeppelin in the air. The idea of halving that stat makes me twitch.
There is. I’m just not telling you because some people have this peculiar belief in spoilers. Suffice it to say it’s out there, and it’s not exactly hard to guess where it is.
And you still can get +29 pages from gear and +25 from the legacy item regardless of background, another +5 from the principles, and cash in Salt’s attention for pages (which is only 8 times at this point, minus however many you got from a pages legacy).
Getting enough secrets to raise all your OTHER stats to 100 is not exactly a trivial matter either. To the point that I can only assume you’re not supposed to do this option.
Similarly, there is a vastly simpler way to do exactly the same thing. (…altho not QUITE as ridiculous a difference, but still.) edited by WormApotheote on 2/22/2015
As I may have mentioned in previous threads – this has been an issue since the early days and while I’m still not sure they’ve got it quite right, the ability to grind fragments and buy secrets has significantly reduced the negative aspects of the pages legacy. If you’ve got a really good setup – certain trade routes that are close together, conveniently located islands, or just a map you’ve gotten used to – you may decide the convenience of keeping your chart outweighs the fragments you’ll have to gain from sources other than exploration. Just think: instead of rediscovering the whole map for a handful of secrets, you could just save the map, continue with the storyline, and buy a few extra secrets from Irem – what’s a few thousand echoes if you’re already rich from those routes? Also, the pages stat reduces how many fragments you need to obtain in order to gain new secrets, so it can be even further worthwhile.
Even so, I don’t think the pages stat is treated fairly yet. There was a time when having too many secrets could have been game-breaking and a stat that raised experience may have seemed unbalanced – as a result, there was only one officer who raised pages and the stat was by far the hardest to raise, hands down. Now that secrets can be infinitely acquired regardless of the pages stat, thanks to Irem and quests that can grind out fragments, this should no longer be a concern.
I’d like to see easier ways to raise the pages stat in future updates because it is a useful stat that is no longer overpowered and should be more easy to raise than it currently is.
That seems more geared towards raising any stat above 150, not just pages. The issue still remains that pages can only reliably be raised up to 50, and only then if you’ve played a captain with a specific background or predecessor with that background.
Now that secrets are so much easier to obtain, Pages should no longer be over-balanced – there should be more reliable ways to increase pages other than one-time events, random SAY-based events, or gambles at the Iron Republic.
The patch notes imply that the new items can be used to raise stats … somehow.
But buying one means that you cannot get another one, also they all take up hold space (as they are equip-able items). I can’t see any way to use them apart from as an auxiliary item or as part of creating the Zong of the Zea
I haven’t been to every port since acquiring most of them but have spotted one place that will buy one of them and I haven’t looked to see if you can jettison them, so I don’t know if it will be possible to use/sell and then replace them to keep raising stats. edited by reveurciel on 2/23/2015
I don’t understand why anyone would get the Parabox unless it has another use. Dawn’s Law does require a Dread Surmise but I’d rather grind for that (and I did, and I made it harder on myself by waiting for the Iron Republic to sell me one for two more Searing Enigmas) instead of losing the Scholar. Stats, especially pages are just too valuable.