[quote=a Nice Friend]Eating my entry in Slowcake’s Exceptionals and freeing myself from notability was honestly one of the most satisfying gaming experiences of all time. Good riddance.
And I probably traumatized the little toady-man too, what a bonus![/quote]
I look forward to this scene. Screw Slowcake’s Exceptionals, Hell, and the Amanuensis too. Soooooo grindy
so i guess this is what i will do next.
I accidentally got Gawain before I got to 77. I assume there is no way to travel Southwards now and Winking Island is the way to gain the last few levels?
Near the end of the Heart’s Desire ambition is an option to basically frighten Mr. Pages into joining the game by threatening to go North, so I think I’m going to do that just because it fits with my character. Seven SMEN and seven nightmares it is.
I did that too, but keep in mind that you can get a Long-Box through one of the other options, which may or may not be worth it depending on whether you have Sunless Sea, are a collector, have already bought most Penstock’s Wicket rewards or not yet, and/or will be travelling to Winking Isle later.
Interesting, but I am trying to stay in character. :)
Got Fasting & Meditating to 60,000. Realized you can’t pick Insight at 71 SMEN or higher.
I already hated you, Winking Isle. Why are you doing this?
. . . it’s amazing how tempting ‘Blacken Your Mind’ becomes after a while. Fucking call of the void.
[quote=a Nice Friend]Got Fasting & Meditating to 60,000. Realized you can’t pick Insight at 71 SMEN or higher.
I already hated you, Winking Isle. Why are you doing this?[/quote] Thanks for the reminder, mate!
Specially at first levels, specially if you accidentally increased Watchful over cap, specially if you have +85+ from gear, specially if you have a mood card in hand! :D
edited by Skinnyman on 5/4/2018
A Nice Friend went North. And then East.
I’ve now seen the Hate and Who is Salt? Endings, but there’s no way I’m going back to Grieve.
Sometime next week I will be visiting Mrs. Plenty’s Carnival to seek a certain candle. I know I will have an option of tossing away my Hesperidean Cider. I was wondering though… according to the wiki, there is “no message” when you sell Cider back to the Bazaar. Are we sure about this? Has this been attempted? Has someone actually purchased immortality from the Bazaar and then… asked for a refund?
Much as I would like to be scorched, I would be willing to sell the Cider if it would expand our collective knowledge…
NiteBrite sold the Hesperidean Cider for the sake of discovering the Heptagoat a couple years ago. I don’t believe anyone has done so since.
And I don’t recall where in the Nightmare Carnival that Cider can be sacrificed? It’s lodgings, connections, or Fate, I believe.
In the old Seeking you could sacrifice cider on Winking Isle, but no one managed to do so before it was pulled. New Seeking does not have any interactions with the cider.
Ah, well, I’m sure NiteBrite would have recorded any sell-text if there had been any.
I might be misremembering things (too many Nadir visits over the years…), but as far as I recall NiteBrite did that on a live stream, and I specifically looked for a sell message on the Cider (and there was none).
edited by dov on 5/7/2018
I don’t remember any option in old Seeking to sacrifice the Cider on Winking Isle (just the high tier relicker items).
Here is Alexander Feld’s first hand account of the experience. NiteBrite has also written a detailed account of old Winking Isle, but I can’t find a link.
Javelin4201, gone North and knocked, grieving.
I don’t remember any option in old Seeking to sacrifice the Cider on Winking Isle (just the high tier relicker items).
Here is Alexander Feld’s first hand account of the experience. NiteBrite has also written a detailed account of old Winking Isle, but I can’t find a link.[/quote]
It seems I misremembered. What a shame.
In theory, one could finish SMEN without ever going to Winking Isle, right? Has anyone done the maths on how many Apalling Secrets on average that would cost? A quick back-of-the-envelope check seems to turn up around 77,000 pessimistically*, which is just over 11,500 echoes or the equivalent of 550,000 cryptic clues. That’s oddly achievable, and even seems optimal for an end-game character with a lot of rare items if you intend to turn back. Another very dirty calculation gives about 11k actions**, with about 130 actions/day of dedicated grinding that’s under three months - in comparison, grinding out a single Master’s Blood will take five weeks just grinding Notability for the Presumption Opportunity, longer if you have to grind the Cellars or wait for it to show up randomly, and that’s just one single item out of the multitude that need to be sold off.
Am I missing something? Or is it that almost nobody actually intends to turn back, so nobody cares?
[i]*According to the wiki, Watchful challenge is SMEN * 20. At SMEN 76, that’s 1520, giving about 12% success chance with Watchful 305, 10% at 260. Each attempt costs 77 Secrets. Let’s butcher statistics and say that on average you’ll need 10 tries to succeed at a 10% challenge, that gives 770 secrets per SMEN. Let’s round up to cover up our mathematical ineptitude to 1000 secrets. Then just assume every level is the same difficulty to account for (very) bad luck (and not just because I’m lazy) and multiply by 77 levels (again rounding towards pessimism by ignoring levels gained through black cards, candles, etc.).
**Using Unfinished Business for Clues (and ignoring any starting stock - I personally would start with over 130k ready to go - or the possibility of grinding at the University if not locked out, and the several Clue-generous Opportunity Cards) gives about 9.2k actions on average to get 550k, then a bit over 1k to upconvert to Secrets. Again since we’re rounding for pessimism let’s assume bad luck and round up to 11k.[/i]
edited by Dudebro Pyro on 5/10/2018
I was curious so I updated the spreadsheet; at Watchful 305 I estimate 1,368,059 Appalling Secrets needed to go from Seeking 4 to 77. (Forgot to change the sum formula, which gives a very different result!)
You’re missing that each attempt is not 77 Secrets, it’s 77 times your original level of SMEN, I think?
(You’ll need to make a copy and change the Watchful value in the resulting copy; I leave it at 200 just because it seems like a useful number.)
edited by Kade Carrion (an_ocelot) on 5/10/2018
edited by Kade Carrion (an_ocelot) on 5/10/2018