Yes
Yes it should.
It is the most expensive ambition(I was still grinding knives before the festival started), but it’s rewards are the most lackluster of all four, the the fewest maximum choices of items and the fewest potential ones as well. All of this makes the ambition fundamentally less rewarding, especially for newer players like myself who might enjoy the story but be turned off by the cost that is high even for a experienced veterans and bankrupting for any players who wish to enjoy the other new stuff added. To fix this I propose that there should be more rewards(such as making the bat we get back a special bat instead of what it was before it went on a month long voyage) so it is up to the other ambitions standards of higher(due to the somewhat higher cost of it).
Sorry if this post is weaker or of lower quality this is one of my first posts on the site.
I completed Nemesis. Although I thoroughly enjoyed it and it is great in terms of lore and story (and writing!) I have felt jealous since I’ve started seeing some of the items that players earned with the other Ambitions. But here’s the thing. Now a number of players (some of whom who have played FL for 10 years) have completed Nemesis, would it be fair to change the Ambition to upgrade it?
I am not sure what is considered “up to speed”. HD -> Power probably was the best if we talk about rewards. But since then two rewards from it were duplicated by free seasonal items (red science hat and red science clothing). Maybe eventually all ambitions rewards will be duplicated, so its not that important which ambition and ending you picked.
Why does that make a difference? Or do you mean that those who have already completed it might miss out on the changed rewards?
Revenge is its own reward.
… but yea. Some endings to the ambitions give more useful items than others. I would’ve been mad if I had chosen a weaker reward, regardless of the story. I read ahead specifically because of it.
This has been discussed quite a bit on the Discord and Failbetter has confirmed that Nemesis (and possibly other Ambitions) will get improved rewards. No timeframe though, what with all the other new content.
With the increasing availability of MAGCATS items, I do suspect any new items will feel less special than if they had been present all along. But that’s okay! Ambition rewards should be fancy, but unique benefits means pressure to make major story choices for mechanical reasons. Having items unlock story is much better.
Amusingly when I tried to pick Also Yes, the quiz itself crashed into a server error. Clearly even the software recognises only one Yes as appropriate.
…despite being relatively paltry and mostly lacking the unique stats of Heart’s Desire and Light Fingers, I’m actually pretty at peace with my Bag a Legend rewards simply because gaining the alleigance of one of the oldest and most influential players of the Great Game, devouring or binding a god to exploit it’s power and steal its supplicant’s priests or in my case leashing a Curator as a steed is a worthy reward far surpassing my expectations regardless of what the actual stats are. Of course I’d be happy to accept even better ones down the line! Maybe there’ll be options to expand the spy network to take over a sizeable part of the chessboard? Quest in dreams or in the Tomb Colonies for the secrets of the God-Eaters to expand your divine influence? EV train Curator Veils like a pokemon?
edited by Hattington on 8/19/2020
edited by Hattington on 8/19/2020
I also agree that the ambition rewards should be checked.
I know, HD is in the “best” state compared to the others, but if you take the morale ending the rewards are undewelming. Especially the Weapon you get, that’s just 1 point better than the T3 profession weapons for 1 stat, and shares +1 Glasswork with another (optional, but not that hard to get) weapon you can grap in the ambition shortly before.
About the price of the ambitions: has some1 really checked the prices in comparision?
I know about that 10k Echoes show stoper, which doesn’t occure at HD at least (I don’t know about the other Ambitions). But HD also has some smaller (Money) Gates that might sum up actionwise (e.g. my current gate: 720 scrap, starting from ~50, or the 5 card lodgings).
So it would be interesting for the future discussion if Nemesis is really much more expensive than the other Ambitions, or the costs at the others are just better distributed trough the finale.
I agree that the situation kind of makes me sour toward my entire Ambition. I instantly had a bad feeling when I learned that Nemesis would be the first to be finished, and my apprehension was proven right.
While actually rather few of the marginal rewards in BaL and LF ambitions overflow with the new stats, at the very least they are there. Within the whole Nemesis finale, you literally got one choice from two items - and while one of them is in fact quite useful, the other, though incredibly cool, is almost entirely overshadowed by prior gear (including the unlocked card, considering the echo inflation that has been creeping).
[quote=Judaspriester]I also agree that the ambition rewards should be checked.
I know, HD is in the "best" state compared to the others, but if you take the morale ending the rewards are undewhelming. Especially the Weapon you get, that’s just 1 point better than the T3 profession weapons for 1 stat, and shares +1 Glasswork with another (optional, but not that hard to get) weapon you can grap in the ambition shortly before.
[/quote]
Actually, in Nemesis, if you take the arguably "moral" ending, you get a companion that is 1 point over a Tiger Minister, which anyone can take. The Marvellous is marginally more useful for the players who aren’t Correspondents or Crooked-Crosses (I know it would be useful for me). With the monkey, the situation there is similar to the Countess of Thorns and the Nemesis companions if you have the chess-playing devil, so I get you there.
While I understand that FBG has a lot on its plate (and consistently does great job at addressing the community’s concerns, which I greatly appreciate), I find it a little bit sad that it was another Ambition which got retroactively a unique and cool reward added, with the Jaguar Blade reforging. I mean, since it’s possible for other ambition, so why can’t we Nemesis players ask the Esurient Smith to reforge our Blooded Knife into something to commemorate the revenge we took (or forsook)? Or another possibility: Strange-Shore clothing recently got Glasswork added, and we Nemesis players have been walking around with a ring of keys that are explicitly said to "open a hundred mysterious doors". Would it be too strange if the keys provided A Player of Chess (with the keys you can easily spy on or surprise the other players, or even Glasswork (considering the vast potential such a symbol can hold in Parabola?)
[quote=Optimatum]This has been discussed quite a bit on the Discord and Failbetter has confirmed that Nemesis (and possibly other Ambitions) will get improved rewards. No timeframe though, what with all the other new content.
With the increasing availability of MAGCATS items, I do suspect any new items will feel less special than if they had been present all along. But that’s okay! Ambition rewards should be fancy, but unique benefits means pressure to make major story choices for mechanical reasons. Having items unlock story is much better.[/quote]
I agree that the rewards should be more fanciful and shiny rather than mechanically superb. Then again, I hope they’re not completely useless/redundant at the time of release. That I got a Kataleptic Toxicology companion which I already had at the moment smarted, even if it was my own fault for not finishing the ambition earlier and/or spoiling it for myself. If we’re retroactively granted solely rewards which duplicate mechanical benefits of stuff I paid Fate to obtain would be much more disappointing.
As for items unlocking story, I agree completely. I also appreciate that the Ambition is rather nicely reflected for instance in the Efficient Commissioner’s nightmare, that’s a great direction to take. I feel that more could and should be done, though, including commemorative "minor rewards". E.g. - the aforementioned Myriad Keys would be perfect for this sort of thing, to allow you to enter random doors represented by cards/one-use or even repeatable storylets to reach a minor material reward and a few sentences of novel lore.
At the end of the day I’ll prefer that they take time for the solutions to be well-implemented rather than slapdash. Nevertheless, I think that Nemesis should probably be the first ambition to be improved reward-wise (unlike the case with Jaguar Blade), and also that improving Nemesis rewards (with BaL and LF following) would be a better way to take than devaluating HD rewards by making them redundant.
edited by Aardvark on 8/19/2020
Erm, considering what happens historically when the Masters and Bazaar bring people back to life, I think taking that ending is insanely foolish.
Personally, I like the non-living Nemesis reward, but then seeing how many special reward items the other Ambitions got I was a bit surprised. I can’t say that it upset me, though.
However, that 10k moneygate was definitely tough stuff and I do have a bit of Vake-Head envy.
To players that have ready completed it I could see them getting the rewards as well, such as making a storylet that all currently finished Nemesis players could get assess to. It would give them the rewards that they otherwise would have achived within the story and it would be avalible to all those how missed out on the univoidable rewards.
edited by stormblessed61373 on 8/19/2020
[quote=Judaspriester]I also agree that the ambition rewards should be checked.
I know, HD is in the "best" state compared to the others, but if you take the morale ending the rewards are undewelming. Especially the Weapon you get, that’s just 1 point better than the T3 profession weapons for 1 stat, and shares +1 Glasswork with another (optional, but not that hard to get) weapon you can grap in the ambition shortly before.
About the price of the ambitions: has some1 really checked the prices in comparision?
I know about that 10k Echoes show stoper, which doesn’t occure at HD at least (I don’t know about the other Ambitions). But HD also has some smaller (Money) Gates that might sum up actionwise (e.g. my current gate: 720 scrap, starting from ~50, or the 5 card lodgings).
So it would be interesting for the future discussion if Nemesis is really much more expensive than the other Ambitions, or the costs at the others are just better distributed trough the finale.[/quote]
I have to ask, is it really the moral ending? The STEADFAST ending certainly in the sense you kept faith with a man turned monkey with a lot riding on his bid to end it for good but…honestly, looking over the story who went into the Marvellous feeling COERCED? Yes, the ending correlates with the Monkey’s assertion that the Marvellous was ultimately the equivalent of the games in Rome for the Masters and yes most of the victors ended up unfulfilled-but is that a statement about the Marvellous itself, or the tendency for intense desire to destroy individuals? Remember, nobody went into the games coerced any more than any ordinary game of chance. They all agreed on the stakes, the game and to cheat like bastards within those parameters.
The monkey argues the victors are unfulfilled, but looking back-would they have been any more fulfilled if they didn’t get what they won from the table? October wanted to imprison a Master in it’s own failures, and both Nemesis and Bag a Legend have exhibited how hard it is for a normal Londoner to do hunt one with conventional means. October clearly prizes the cause over her freedom, and without this opportunity would have always had one more Master looming over her thoughts. His Lordship saved his "damn fool friend" from the Seeking Road and seems to regret his choice even less than October. He doesn’t strike me as a man wanting for material luxury, so that friendship must have been well worth the risk to him. The Boatman seems the unhappiest because his replacement has yet to show up. And yet judging from the others there’s far more reason to believe he is simply weary and anxious for retirement than that the Masters have welshed on him. The point being-many times the Marvellous has granted things otherwise nigh-impossible.
You can buy yourself (and perhaps your loved ones, pets and sundry others) a respite from the Neath on the surface. You can buy all of London a stay of execution. Even becoming a Master may, from a certain point of view, be a source of comfort for those seeking greater power to enfranchise the poor, the downtrodden and the unfortunate under the mantle of Mr. Cards’ inhuman prowess. And the alternative is simply to end that window of opportunity for everyone desperate, ambitious or hopeful enough to chase it. To close off the whole possibility for the sake of making a point hardly anyone will acknowledge given how secret the game is.
(I’m not going to defend Glory, though. That’s just a completely vain and pompous use of the win for which the only true value I can see is snubbing the Captivating Princess)
Well, for me it would be the morale choice to let the monkey win, because I somewhat agree with him that the game is a Poisoned Chalice. Some of the winners doesn’t really seem to be happy and some of the others staked much more than they should (e.g. the Topsy King).
I agree with you that they all know, or at least should have known, what they risk by playing the game. Still the temptation of the game might be to big.
Sadly I have to admit, that I’m somewhat feeling the temptation myself. I agree with the monkey that this “madness” should stop. But on the other hand, the rewards for winning the game yourself seem to be so much better than letting the monkey win.
The flaw is humanity’s, not the game’s.
I don’t suppose anything Nemesis-relevant has been added with the Magistracy of Evenlode being opened, unlike yet more rewards and options for some BaL and HD endings?
At this point I kind of wish we’d still be able to restart and reselect our Ambition after finishing it.
I mean, heck, even in a thread directly dedicated to Nemesis, it’s more interesting for people to discuss the other ambitions.
It was mentioned on Discord that Nemesis should get additional rewards, but the devs are currently busy elsewhere.
As to Beechwood: well, being very good at cards doesn’t mean you cannot be bloody stupid at everything else. Now, confronted with consequences of its stupidity and pride over and over again, especially in comparison with everyone else, it’s clearly butthurt and tries to shift as much of a blame as it can on everyone and everything else other than itself.
Yes, there are some good points to its position, but it’s still no excuse for being a monkey in actions even before acquiring appropriate form.
[quote=Aro Saren]It was mentioned on Discord that Nemesis should get additional rewards, but the devs are currently busy elsewhere.
[/quote]
I understand that a balanced, comprehensive revision of Nemesis’ rewards takes time and work, and will hopefully come in its own time. I by no means wish the devs to rush this sort of deliberation.
What I wish is basically more recognition that those who pursued Nemesis storyline to the bitter end are as much a part of top echelons of Neath’s shakers and movers as those who pursued the "cooler" Ambitions.
I’ll leave the rest of my rant in spoiler tags for those uninterested (it does contain a spoiler of the major choice you make in the Ambition finale, plus minor other spoilers).
My gripe is that apparently, since Nemesis players have much fewer endgame ambition-related qualities and items, we’re continually getting the short end of the stick even regarding the little flavourful lore snippets and ambition-related unique, alternative or discounted options. That sort of thing wouldn’t take too much effort to implement, and occasionally is, like various options to use your Vake-steed or some other Ambition-related achievements. It could be as easy to introduce an option for those who have released what remained from Mr. Mirrors into the Is-Not to negotiate their assistance in our Base-Camp as it is for those who have the Vake-Steed. It could be as easily possible to encounter your revived loved-one on a field trip into Hinterlands and get a relevant one-line description as it is to be recognized by card-playing Urchins as Mr. Cards.
But even in this sort of thing, Nemesis rarely gets any mention. It seems like the devs don’t have a clear idea what to do with us, while the other Ambitions are more at the forefront of their minds. (That would in fact be understandable, if disheartening).
Oh, and I do notice and appreciate greatly when we do get this sort of recognition, such as in the Efficient Commissioner’s nightmare. The more the merrier!
I guess I’m less-than-reasonably dismayed, since I found out on wiki that on top of that, my monthly Ambition reward is the only one of them all that actually provides only two Second Chances, rather than four. The sole one out of all thirteen, go check it. That’s like symbolically rubbing salt into the proverbial wound.
Eh. Whatever, I guess. They say that when you’re hell bent on revenge, you should dig one grave for your enemy and another for yourself…
Nemesis was extremely expensive to complete, which was fine. It really added to the intensity and difficulty. I had no problem even buying all of those stupid knives, but the reward was "meh." I wish we could start a second ambition rather than now being "ambitionless." No longer having ambition feels like my character is just sort of going through the motions now.
You can always Seek a certain Name…