[Survey] Favourite fate-locked stories (Jan 2020)

[This is a cross-post from reddit.]

Every once in a while, we ask players which fate-locked stories they liked and which they didn’t like. We did the last survey one year ago and since then 13 new stories have been published. Hopefully, the results of this survey will provide a good guide which stories are worth purchasing and which stories you might want to avoid.

Here is the survey

A few things:

  • At first glance this might look overwhelming but answering all questions will not take all that long. You should be able to finish this in 10 minutes at most.[/li][li]Please only rate stories that you have actually played. I’ve added an &quotN/A&quot-option in case you misclicked and accidentally voted on a story you didn’t play. Voting &quotN/A&quot has the same effect as not voting at all.[/li][li]Don’t feel discouraged if you have only played one or two stories. I’m happy if you participate, voting for only these one or two stories and leave everything else blank.[/li][li]Feel free to skip anything you would prefer not to answer.[/li][li]You’re required to have a Google account to do this to ensure that everyone only votes once. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a problem.[/li][li]Voting is completely anonymous. I will only get your answers to the questions, nothing else.

The survey will be open until the end of January. You will be able to see the overall results once you have voted. We will also post the results over at reddit once the survey is closed (I’ll post a link here, too).

As always, if you have any ideas what to do better next time, please let me know.

If you want to take a look at the results, just click here.

I would like to thank phryne for originally coming up with the idea. Many thanks also to Tuxi, ellixer, idyl and Peridigital for doing some beta-testing as well as everyone else who offered suggestions or information for this survey.

Strange. The link sends me to a page that says its for 2019-2020, but the actual survey included 2017-17 stories. So I wasn’t able to participate.

The survey is for all Exceptional and Fate-locked stories. Every single one of them. And you can just skip those you haven’t played.

Sorry – like last year, I won’t be joining a Google set-up just to do this.

I’m so sorry. I not a fan either. I think I mentioned last time already that the only reason I’m doing this via Google is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be another adequate service out there that doesn’t require paying money.

If you like you could send me a PM and I’ll manually add your votes when the survey closes. Of course this means that your vote isn’t anonymous anymore (or rather, it means I know but Google doesn’t vs Google knows and I don’t, which is what happens if you do the regular survey).

(I just hope this offer doesn’t cause an avalanche of PMs from a silent majority of very private individuals of mysterious gender.)
edited by rahv7 on 1/7/2020

Is there any estimation for when we will be able to see the ranking result? I can’t remember how long it took in the previous years for that.

[quote=silurica]Is there any estimation for when we will be able to see the ranking result? I can’t remember how long it took in the previous years for that.[/quote]They are available already even if the polls aren’t closed yet.
edited by Skinnyman on 1/24/2020

[quote=Skinnyman][quote=silurica]Is there any estimation for when we will be able to see the ranking result? I can’t remember how long it took in the previous years for that.[/quote]They are available already even if the polls aren’t closed yet.
edited by Skinnyman on 1/24/2020[/quote]
Not that, I can read the first post, when I said ranking I mean ranking. You know, a list that can be quickly referenced to, with the most popular choices at the top and the least at the bottom. The survey result on google is usable to see how individual stories are received, but not the most digestible when it comes to comparing their popularity.

[quote=silurica][quote=Skinnyman][quote=silurica]Is there any estimation for when we will be able to see the ranking result? I can’t remember how long it took in the previous years for that.[/quote]They are available already even if the polls aren’t closed yet.
edited by Skinnyman on 1/24/2020[/quote]
Not that, I can read the first post, when I said ranking I mean ranking. You know, a list that can be quickly referenced to, with the most popular choices at the top and the least at the bottom. The survey result on google is usable to see how individual stories are received, but not the most digestible when it comes to comparing their popularity.[/quote]

Oki :)
Let’s wait for Rahv to extract the data, put it in a sheet, order it and have your thing ready.
edited by Skinnyman on 1/24/2020

I’ll close the survey on Thursday (30 Jan) noon GMT.
After that I’ll write a few words and prepare the Google Doc containing all the numbers (like last time). Depending how fast I get that done, I’d estimate that I’m going to publish the results sometime between Friday and Monday. I’ve got the evaluation pretty much automated by now, it’s just a matter when I get around to actually do it.

Cool, thanks! I’ll be looking forward to it.

The survey’s closed and I’ve written a post with the results over at reddit.

If you’re just interested in the winners, here are the top 7 stories:

  • Cricket Anyone? (average vote: 0.9)[/li][li]HOJOTOHO! (average: 0.75)[/li][li]The Gift (average: 0.74)[/li][li]My Kingdom for a Pig (average: 0.72)[/li][li]Lost in Reflections (average: 0.69)[/li][li]Por Una Cabeza (average: 0.67)[/li][li]Flint (average: 0.67)

Results are between 1 (really good) and -1 (really bad).
Please note how certain author seems to dominates this list. He seems to write some bl___y good stories.
Also note how the score for &quotCricket&quot is just completely out of this world. No story in any of our surveys has even come close to this.

I’ve also put everything into a spreadsheet again if you are interested in all the details.

Thanks for doing this! :)

Looking at your data, I was interested which Season might have the best overall score, so I added up the average votes of each Season’s three regular ES plus the conclusion bonus story:

1.55 - Bargains (Garden Embassy, My Kingdom for a Pig, The Shallows; Nervous Lawyer)
1.51 - Skies (Persona Engine, 12:15 from Moloch St, Century Exhibition; Lighthearted Polymath)
1.50 - Revolutions (Five Minutes to Midday, Chimney Pot Wars, Calendar Code; Museum of Injustice)
1.31 - Celebrations
1.27 - Ruins
1.15 - Adorations
1.02 - Wrecks
0.96 - Heart’s Blood
0.90 - Stones
0.86 - Hobbies
0.74 - Embers
0.52 - Sceptres
0.52 - Explorations
0.48 - Family Ties
0.00 - Silver (Steeped in Honey, Lamentation Lock, Factory of Favours; The Numismatrix’ Coins)

And I just realized Cricket is 1 year old! What happened with time?

-Rahv, your guide provided a great reference for my purchase story, thank you for your work. The great stories involved in your investigation, and &quotBuying stories based on rewards&quot I basically bought all of them, of course, none of them disappointed me
In addition, I also want to thank Skinnyman, sometimes I force myself to collect everything, last night , I woke up from my sleep and found myself 40 Actions,
I think, oh yes, I still have some fate, let me buy a story and go to sleep after watching it.
So, I bought &quotCricket Anyone?&quot According to the guide. When I was preparing to advance the story, I suddenly thought: &quotOh, there seems to be a guide, I should look at it, not like the last time, cider , Missed a lot of interesting plots.
So I checked your guide. I found out that &quotCricket Anyone?&quot Requires a lot of &quotendgame players&quot to meet the requirements to unlock some new stories, so I feel that the exploration of the story is suspended.
edited by chiche on 2/1/2020

You’re welcome! :)

Keep in mind that while &quotCricket&quot references a boatload of other stories/qualities/items, these are really all just flavour. You will enjoy the story just as much without any of them (in fact, you won’t even notice that you’re missing out on anything because the story hides the respective branches if you don’t fulfill the requirements). It’s really nice to get all these nudges to things you’ve previously done but don’t overestimate the effect they have.

True. You won’t miss out on anything. Just make sure you buy all kinds of bats from the bazaar, purely for the fun of it.