Hello,
I am new to Fallen London ;)
Just bouth Trade Soul storyline, and I am stuck with the decision spirifer or saving souls.
What is better option? Due to the RP, I am mostly interested in Rubbery Man (Going to buy Flute Road) and Masters of the Bazaar.
Conflict between church and devils? I did not decided yet, so i think I’d like to choose the more interesting way.
Could you please tell me, what and why would you advice me?
Later on, being a spirifer is the most valuable grind in the game, and naturally gives connected: hell.
However, anti-spirifer gives large amounts of connections, and a menace wipe on the highest level. On the downside, its accessible through a card that shows up even if you don’t have anything.
It’s mostly a matter of personal preferences. Either path unlocks a handful of special options in the game. Going the path of Spirifer can be one of the most lucrative ways to earn echoes if done right, as far as I am aware. So technically spirifer is ‘the better choice’, at least in terms of tangible rewards.
If going exclusively by RP I would chose Shepard (saving souls) if you are supporting the Masters, as spirifage is technically illegal by law of the Masters. But you are never actually penalised for it in the game for doing so, so that is only if you value RP over in-game benefits.
Akernis, so what you say is that Shepard does not give any valuable in-game benefits? For example those which were mentioned by Suinicide? Are they really the shade of what spirifer can give?
How you decided what to do? Something helped you to make the decision?
[quote=thamiar]Akernis, so what you say is that Shepard does not give any valuable in-game benefits? For example those which were mentioned by Suinicide? Are they really the shade of what spirifer can give?
How you decided what to do? Something helped you to make the decision?[/quote]
Shepherd unlocks a pretty useful card that lets you exchange contracts and souls for a lot of connections in 3 different factions, raise magnanimous up to 15, and wipe out most menaces. After connections are connected to favors that card might provide 3 favors at once, which could be even more lucrative, since favors can generally be cashed in for nice rewards.
Spirifer lets you exchange souls for brass at a very profitable rate. So it isn’t that shepherds have no benefits, just that most players value cash over connection boosts. When you spend months or years grinding money for goats or cider, increasing the rate you earn echoes saves a lot of time.
I personally picked shepherd because my character was too ethical to steal thousands of souls from people and sell them to hell, but I’ll miss that extra cash.
As Harlocke said, there are benefits they just aren’t comparable in terms of monetary value.
As with most decisions in Fallen London I chose based on RP aspects of my character. She is pretty much indifferent to that particular subject so I chose Shepard just because she finds people with a soul more interesting and lively to be around.
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edited by Akernis on 11/27/2016
Not just yet, but once we’re converted over to Favours, the Shepard could turn into a very valuable grind.
Thank you all for the responses!
Nigel, what exactly do you mean? I could turn, or it turned?
edited by thamiar on 11/27/2016
He refers to have Connected Qualities are slowly shifting into Favors/Renown (see: the difference between measuring closeness with Hell and with Criminals) and how Favors are in general worth more than some Connected points. It itself will turn.
Well, but are those favors really profitable? The only use I can see is spending them if the proper opportunity card appears. Did I miss something?
Also, can I make this storylet again if I change my mind?
[quote=thamiar]Also, can I make this storylet again if I change my mind?[/quote]You can reset the Soul Trade from the Fate page, which (surprisingly) costs Fate.
edited by Reshemin on 11/28/2016
Favours are in general more profitable than Connections as it takes fewer actions to gather and cash them in. For example, Criminal favours give 2.5 EPA when cashed in five at a time through the Criminals/Constables conflict card.
There are some exceptions, though - for example the profitability of spirifage will probably drop when Hell is converted over to Favours. Right now every thousand souls traded in gives 30 CP of Connected: Hell, which can be traded in 15 CP at a time for 2.4 E. Trading in C: Hell thus brings the profit from spirifage from ~1.73 EPA to ~1.80 EPA. When converted to Favours, each batch of 1000 souls will presumably only give one Favour, halving the rate at which it can be cashed in. (This doesn’t count the potentially-better conflict cards after the conversion.)
Note that this changed two or three times in the past month(s?) so it may change again back to 120 CP required for trade.
I was going to pick Spirifer, but after the Devils tricked me to kill a mannequin thinking it was a devil, I decided I’ll go for Shepherd. Doing the math I realized that, in time, it can offer a nice EPA due to the full menace wipe, Society cash in (always try to keep 5+ Tomb Favours), Constable cash in (on hold now to get it to 300-400) and the Church to gain loads of candles.
These are all card based, but considering my other grinds there are a lot of time when I don’t use the expensive option from the Shepherd card because I didn’t manage to get back the required materials, but the cash ins are always played on draw.
If you happen to have a room at the royal beth, being a spirifer allows you to actually use the opportunity card profitably instead of discarding it.
Hmm, but is it the main problem, that opportunity cards may, or may not appear, while you can always sell souls?
And thanks for all those answers, I did not suspected that the community is so helpfull here! Thanks again! :)
[quote=thamiar]Hmm, but is it the main problem, that opportunity cards may, or may not appear, while you can always sell souls?
And thanks for all those answers, I did not suspected that the community is so helpfull here! Thanks again! :)[/quote]
Yes, that’s an issue indeed, but since I got the story only on two occasion I asked a friend to help with 4-5 Nightmare requests. All the other occasions I just switched my gear for reduction to avoid pesky menaces cards and never had problems.
I usually pile my menaces to 5+ before using the most expensive option to wipe the all of them otherwise I just use a cheaper option which requires less than 2 AP to gather the materials. The cheaper option gives 50 CP to 3 factions which is cheaper, but takes longer to reach a high level.
The lovely part is that Society, Church and Constable connections became abundant and I can use the regular and non-discardable conflict cards without needing to worry much. I think I used the Tomb-Soc card about 60 times and I still have 656 Society connections. Other bonus is that I can use the FQ’s Public Lecture (more connections, YES) when I have the card in hand. I just pile AP, wait for them to hit 40 and start gaining Revolutionary (Soc and Boh) connections. Using the Workman’s Clothes I can get my Suspicion to level 8 + 8 CP, use the card and back to regular gear.
Now another card based grind which is to cash in Revolutionary connections in the Flit; another card which I used about 140 times (LoN!!!). This got me a nice fortune, but means a lot of Connections wasted, but thanks to the public lecture I don’t have to worry.
I like my choice of the soul saving route, but I picked it solely based on RP reasons. I’m all for people making informed decisions to sell their souls if they want to, but having them stolen is quite another matter. I still get on quite well with Devils (they’re great fun at parties and just all around good company), even have my own inner sanctum at the Brass Embassy, which makes it all the easier to rob them blind after a few rounds of croquet and an evening at the opera.