Hello,
I’ve been tracking the Fidgeting Writer, and just hit this point int he story
http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/Visit_him_regularly_and_ask_the_Manager_about_his_stay
I was unlucky, losing my room number at the royal berth.
Does my trail of the fidgeting writer simply end here? Or is there a way to pick it backup? I’m still learning how the game works, but I’m hoping the RNG doesn’t simply block you out of storylines.
Cheers,
Amorphist
Just start over. It’s fine.
Thanks, Chum!
the fidgetting writer storyline is a long series of coin flips, and if any of them land tails, bad things happen, and you need to start over. as far as i am aware, there are few, if any, storylines in which you can lock yourself out of them permanantly on a failure. most of the time, you just lose progress on a failure.
edited by Grenem on 4/9/2015
The easiest way to get through the Fidgeting Writer storyline without getting frustrated with the losses is to stack a bunch of them. It’s easier to deal with a few losses when there are some successes to balance it out.
That’s what they said about the invasion of '68, you know. :(
(I just finished another FW run. Started with 100 Tales, ended with 0 Souls to show for it. Somehow it doesn’t feel less frustrating)
That’s what they said about the invasion of '68, you know. :(
(I just finished another FW run. Started with 100 Tales, ended with 0 Souls to show for it. Somehow it doesn’t feel less frustrating)[/quote]
That’s pretty unlucky though. You should be getting several per batch of 100 on average.
When I did it last for an Impossible Theorem I progressed in batches of 50. I wouldn’t move on from 1 stage until I had 50 of that stage. It took a while, definitely, but it kept me from noticing the bad runs of luck because every little success was getting me closer to my goal.
[quote=Sara Hysaro]When I did it last for an Impossible Theorem I progressed in batches of 50. I wouldn’t move on from 1 stage until I had 50 of that stage. It took a while, definitely, but it kept me from noticing the bad runs of luck because every little success was getting me closer to my goal.[/quote]That’s a very interesting approach, psychologically. I might try this.
Best of luck if you do! The approach worked well for me. Sure, I don’t know for sure how good or bad my luck has been with the Fidgeting Writer, but it keeps me from swearing off the story entirely.
I started with 1000 tales of terror and cashed in 60 or so lenses of black glass and rolled for 11 or so souls. If you’re going to do the fidgeting writer, you really need to go in large quantity. It’s too heartbreaking to do otherwise.
Statistically, 1,000 Tales of Terror will get you 700 Senses of Deja Vu.
700 Senses of Deja Vu will get you 490 Glimpses of Something Larger.
490 Glimpses of Something Larger will get you 343 Deals With a Devil.
343 Deals With a Devil will get you 206 Room Numbers at the Royal Beth.
206 Room Numbers at the Royal Beth will get you 103 Last Hopes of the Fidgeting Writer.
103 Last Hopes of the Fidgeting Writer will get you 52 Black Lenses.
52 Black Lenses will get you 26 Coruscating Souls.
Given that variance, starting with 100 Tales of Terror and getting no souls isn’t out of the ordinary.
It’s a decent grind for Echoes, I guess, but it can become incredibly frustrating if you let it.
And …
to get those 1000 tales, you probably spent over 400 actions, thieving particularly with your gang of hoodlums.
then you spent 1000 actions converting them to dejavu.
Then 700 actions and 700 visions of surfaces (let’s be generous and say 234 actions here) to glimpses.
Then 490 actions and 980 correspondence plaques (again, a generous guesstimate of 327 actions) to deals.
You dealt with 343 devils and spent 686 brilliant souls (probably over 277 actions) to get a room, you weirdo.
206 actions and 206 uncovered identities (let’s say 344 actions, at least) later, you can
hope 103 times with 103 extraordinary implications (172 actions) for
52 black lenses, which need 52 mourning candles (91 actions) to show you 26 souls.
You spent at least 4739 actions to get 8125 echoes.
Which is only 171 ppa (and I assumed 150 ppa effectivity for the visions, plaques, souls, identities and implications; those will actually be lower, so your final ppa will also be lower than 171). No way am I doing that for such a lowly payoff.
edited by xKiv on 4/10/2015
It’s a bit better if you start off with some of those materials from previous endeavors. I had about 15,000 of Journals of Infamy from Doubt Street before I began, for example.
But it’s not something I recommend, particularly for newer players. It’s not for everyone. The level of frustration that some people get out of it can put them off the game, which is the last thing anyone wants.
Other folks feel it’s a decent investment and good for extremely long grinds because it gives several short term milestones that break up the repetition that something like grinding in Spite doesn’t.
Some folks love it and others hate it.
Neither are wrong.
It’s a bit better if you start off with some of those materials from previous endeavors. I had about 15,000 of Journals of Infamy from Doubt Street before I began, for example.
But it’s not something I recommend, particularly for newer players. It’s not for everyone. The level of frustration that some people get out of it can put them off the game, which is the last thing anyone wants.
Other folks feel it’s a decent investment and good for extremely long grinds because it gives several short term milestones that break up the repetition that something like grinding in Spite doesn’t.
Some folks love it and others hate it.
Neither are wrong.[/quote]
I did it once- not as a serious grind, but as flipping 40-50 coins in hopes of seeing the good end, and, with average luck, every bad end to- i missed two, ‘sadly’. if you ever plan on buying a lottery ticket in hopes of a jackpot, go through this chain first to test your luck- if 3 tales give 3 souls, then- and only then- should you seriously consider buying a ticket. the odds of that are better than of winning the jackpot, but there are prizes that would still leave you turning a profit if you have luck that can manage 1 in 40^3.
I liked the tension of the storyline, and your powerlessness- you could do nothing but cross your fingers and scream at the winds of destiny for them to hear your plea. it felt different, somehow, from the rest of the stories i’ve seen.
edited by Grenem on 4/10/2015