Taking a look at FATE as a mechanic

In Fallen London, Fate is the currency that can only be obtained in reasonable amounts through purchase with real money.

Nowadays, many games have a premium currency which is purchased by players willing to invest the money. The existence of premium currency is in many cases justified and understandable. The execution, however, is often not.

Premium currency is well-executed as a mechanic when it opens the path to content that is complimental to the main game: additional content that serves to broaden or extend the game’s experience. Many games fail here when they make the premium content necessary for a full experience by either making it necessary to enjoy the core mechanics or to understand the story as a whole.
Fallen London mostly avoids this; exceptional stories through exceptional friendship are self-contained, and the story hooks are primarily shallow monthly storylets like the current &quotTormented Dreams&quot to let you know the story is out and it’s a thing that exists, they engage the player but don’t leave him stuck with a cliffhanger afterwards, like many more unscrupulously designed games do.

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Which leaves us with examples of premium currency being poorly executed.
The game Middle Earth: Shadow of War comes to mind: building on the critical acclaim of it’s predecessor, this game forces you to pay to get items and followers which can otherwise still be obtained through normal means, but without the effort.
Design choices like these show poor mentality in two distinct ways: first, you’re making players pay more money for a game they’ve already paid for: this is the thing I most disagree with since it’s seriously distorting the notion that when you buy a game, you buy the game. By selling &quotadditional content&quot you’re turning a finished product sold for a fixed price into an ever-steeping incline of payments, which is, in my opinion, a blatant show of pure greed. &quotOh, you’re having a hard time finding that legendary orc archer you so desperately need? Fear not, for an additional payment of 5 euro you can get the gameplay experience you were already promised for the initial up-front payment of 50/60 euro.&quot Note that there’s a difference between power-ups and DLC. DLC is self-contained or complimentary to the game, and paid for once, while power-ups or quick grabs are constantly bought in small but growing doses.

Secondly, by offering the player to cut time from playing by purchasing a legendary orc follower or whatever, the implication is made that the game is literally not worth playing, since you’re paying to cut time out of your gameplay experience to get ahead quicker. This is mostly unintentional, but can’t be ignored: if I have to pay to not play, why should I purchase the game in the first place?

The menace reductions in Fallen London are good examples of this leaking into a free game, and so are the options to expand your card deck and action pool to 10 and 40, respectively. Having a player pay to have the game experience be more convenient is never a good thing since it implies that the game is inconvenient to play in the first place. And this holds true; it is significantly harder to optimize your action usage if your action pool is only 20, since you have to check in twice as frequently to make sure your actions aren’t wasted.
The same holds true with the Fate menace reductions, ranging from unique items like Honeyed Laudanum to special batches of tincture of vigour, laudanum, etc. or giving diamonds to the Cheery Gentleman. Also skipping Zee-Voyages. All this, again, bears the implication that the State of Some Confusion/Mirror-Marches, The Slow-Boat, Venderbight, and New Newgate are all simply not worth exploring as content, and that you don’t have to bear the responsibility of managing your menaces -an advertised and highly regarded part of the game- as long as you’re willing to cough up enough money for the Fate.

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Some games try to get a player comitted and interested to a story but then cut them off and will only give the satisfaction of a conclusion for the price of premium currency. Fallen London mostly avoids this, but the few examples where it doesn’t are to be criticized.

The one example (though there are more) that comes to mind, and that I have personal hang-ups with, is the one close to the end of the Jack-of-Smiles case. In Polythreme, you get the option to either pursue Jack and put him down for good, or to find out who/what created Jack-of-Smiles. You can not do both. Well, you can, but only if you pay a sum of Fate. This, to me, is one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest example of a Fate purchase being forced upon the player. You’re far into the case, you’re at that point comitted and intrigued to find out the source of one of the most well-known characters in the game, but you can’t have a satisfactory ending unless you put forward a sum of real-world money. This is, as previously stated, cheap, because it denies any player the catharsis of having the good resolution to the story unless he pays up. The case could’ve still made for a good story in two different ways: either allow the &quotperfect&quot ending for a trade of in-game items; searing enigmas, elemental secrets, anything would be acceptable as long as a non-premium player would be able to pay for it. The other resolution, the one that I prefer, would be to remove the perfect ending completely: force the player to weigh a choice based on his opinions, and leave him to dwell on whether his choice was ultimately the better of the two. And optional restart for Fate would’ve been a lot more acceptable than what it is now.

There’s the thing with paying Fate to skip grinds for things like the Majestic Pleasure-Yacht or Zubmarine. This is simply Bribing Your Way To Victory. Negating the grinds for the Zubmarine, the Pleasure Yacht. These are late-game grinds that players commit to so they can show off their dedication and progress in the game, being able to pay up money to skip the difficult and lengthy progresses negates the entire point.

Lastly, there’s the times when you pay fate to garauntee succes on luck-rolls or to retroactively undo a decision. The best examples I can think of is the one with the Disgraced Rattus-Fabus Bandit Chief during the Big Rat storyline, and the exceptional Spirifage story.
As for the Big Rat: There’s an option to send the bandit chief in, with a high probability of him dying and being lost forever, and with a small chance of him returning with his honor restored. For anyone interested in the Bandit Chief’s story- where you personally disgrace him and he vows to serve you, you come to depend on him, and he finally wants to take a shot at redemption, it’s a kick in the shins that you can afterwards pay 10 fate to get him back.
The low-success, high-loss chance roll is there to make a point and to put a good conclusion to the story, it’s something that you have to weigh before taking because you really only get one chance… at least, that’s how it should be. There’s actually a prompt that you’ll be able to get your Chief back later anyways, which undermines the weight of the decision, but at least it’s a relief to players who don’t want to lose him. Except… you can’t get him back, you can buy him back. For Fate. The prompt implies that you can get him back through a free storylet, by not stating it’s a fate purchase you’re misleading the player, who’ll be understandably disappointed once they finish the Big Rat story and get the opportunity card.
As for the Spirifage storyline: Selling your soul is a decision players usually make early on in the game, and something most of them come to regret. Aside from some obscure and unreliable ways to grind your soul back (through opening many bundles of oddities), opting into the exceptional Spirifage story is the only way to get your soul back. This, I consider poor sportsmanship.

Imagine if the conclusion of the Nadir storyline just let you go back and choose a different ending for a bunch of Fate. Wouldn’t that be a huge anticlimax? Wouldn’t that just remove any of the weight and responsibility of choosing who to trust with the secret to this very powerful secret of the Neath? The Rattus Faber Bandit Chief isn’t as weighty as the Nadir, but it’s certainly the same concept.
Note that I do not consider paying fate to replay a story bad; players do this to disect the story and explore its intricacies and options. The second playthrough of a storylet serves more to explore the boundaries and enjoy it in a gameplay way, while the first playthrough almost always has the player focus on the story. I consider paying Fate to replay a story acceptable.

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The purpose of this thread was to highlight and discuss some of the less savory examples of Fate use in Fallen London. It’s a criticism of what I consider to be Failbetter’s worst design choices. Please, do not think I am biased against Fate- the exceptional stories are bonus content and I completely respect both Failbetter’s decision to sell them separately, and Failbetter’s need to make profit to keep the company and the game alive.

Infinity Simulacrum
edited by A Dimness on 8/17/2017

I think I disagree with your view on the Fate-locked menace wipes since it is completely up to the player when or whether to use them at all. I think that’s a perfectly fair offer, and it’s not [color=rgb(194, 194, 194)]bearing &quotthe implication that the [menace zones] are all simply not worth exploring as content&quot.[/color]

There are a number of reasons why a player might want to avoid being sent to a particular menace zone, in general or at a particular time. For example, some players avoid the Slow Boat for role-play reasons. Some avoid prison because it gives you A Criminal Record. Some avoid the Tomb-Colonies to protect their Austere and/or Hedonist quirks. Or it’s just that time of the week where you need another few levels of MW before TtH comes calling, and being sent away would be most inopportune.

I can see nothing wrong with providing players with options to get rid of a menace in one action for a small fee, so they can keep their character’s head-canon intact or just get on with what they were doing. And if some cash-heavy players use these options all the time to avoid the menace zones altogether - well, they win and FB wins. Fine with me. ;)

Concerning the Jack case and the Rat-Chief, I can certainly see your point there. I guess I would have been slightly miffed to miss out on the &quotperfect&quot conclusion for the Jack story if I hadn’t been able to pay the Fate. But you can ask for echoes of Fate-locked stuff here on the forums, so while your character might not get to play it without Fate, you, the player can still read it after all. Not a major gripe for me.

I never cared enough for the Rat-Chief to pay Fate to get him back, but always found it a bit weird for that option to exist at all. I think it’s the only one of its kind in the game and it kind of sets a bad example - after all, players might start asking for a &quotbuy-back-to-life&quot option for every deceased NPC, which would kind of defeat the point of the storytelling (I’m generally loath to reset anything - I’d rather buy an ES or Fate-story I liked again on another account than reset it on one that has already played it, even though resetting is cheaper. Resetting feels too much like cheating, but that’s only me, and I don’t mind that resetting stories is possible - after all, not everyone has multiple accounts.)

If I have one gripe with FB’s handling of Fate in FL, it’s the way some opportunity cards are forced on you which are extremely frequent, mostly or totally worthless, and can only be gotten rid of by paying Fate - namely, the starting cards to Flute Street, USFiG, the Aunt, and the formula for Empyrean Redolence (I’m aware that the Glim-sculptor’s card can be avoided by leaving his storylet in Spite forever unfinished - however, someone who doesn’t check the wiki or the forums wouldn’t know that). While most of these stories are indeed well worth paying for, they do represent an instance where many players will sooner or later feel kind of forced to buy them only to get rid of the d___ed cards. This is especially annoying when you’re playing on multiple accounts and have already bought these stories once. I was happy to buy Flute Street and Empyrean Redolence a second time because they’re both profitable and enjoyable content, but I simply refuse to cave in and pay to get rid of the Aunt and USFiG on my two newer accounts, even though their cards are a constant annoyance. I think they could just as well make a &quotFate-locked Stories hub&quot visible everywhere in London, the way we already have the Exceptional Seasons hub - in fact, I’m going to put that suggestion in the Feedback thread right now.

Last but not least, dear A Dimness: a personal nitpick. It would be greatly appreciated - not just by me, surely - if you would consider the use of gender-neutral pronouns, so half of your readership doesn’t feel left out every time they have to read &quothe, the player&quot. :)
edited by phryne on 8/17/2017

Alternatively, they could make those cards Unusual and add storylets for them to the House of Chimes. They sort of have a system like that there already, but it is almost entirely unused.[li]

I think resetting is necessary to prevent people from worrying too much about decisions they don’t understand. Sunless Sea avoids this by allowing you to make a new character, but Fallen London isn’t really built with that in mind.

However, I think Fate is best reserved for buying new content, rather than skipping grinds or resetting stories. Imagine being able to reset a story with Favorable Circumstances, for instance.

In fact, I feel that almost all the non-story Fate options(coughExceptional Rosecough) would be improved by having an extremely difficult alternative option that can be taken without Fate. A lot of recent content takes this approach. For example, you can either change your PoSI specialization with Fate or spend 12 levels of Notability.

As for regaining your soul, I’d rather that wasn’t Fate-locked at all. The Bundle of Oddities option makes the whole thing tolerable, but only just. I get that it is supposed to prevent grinding the sale of your soul, but surely that could be accomplished in other ways. Add an item cost that makes any grind wildly unprofitable or difficult.

Regarding the Disgraced Bandit-Chief, that option leaves a bad taste in my mouth even without the buy-back option. You’re given an option that will almost certainly kill your rat, with ample warning. But if you get the rare success, you still lose him anyways! Your unique companion is gone and instead you get an ordinary Bandit-Chief, purchasable at the Bazaar. You get higher stats without having to spend 320 echoes but you lose your unique companion forever.

Unless of course you’re willing to spend the Fate to magically return him, since the option only requires that you not have a Bandit-Chief. Spend ten Fate and surprise, your Disgraced Bandit-Chief is alive! Except he never died and is hanging out elsewhere in your inventory, no longer Disgraced. (Or perhaps you never got him in the first place.)

[quote=phryne]
Last but not least, dear A Dimness: a personal nitpick. It would be greatly appreciated - not just by me, surely - if you would consider the use of gender-neutral pronouns, so half of your readership doesn’t feel left out every time they have to read &quothe, the player&quot. :)
edited by phryne on 8/17/2017[/quote]

This was written in a short time-span late in the night. I made a notional effort to change a few instances of 'he’to them. I’ll sift through it once I have the time.

In general, I like the use of fate-locked options in FL quite a lot. You can make your life easier by spending real money to skip grinds, buy actions or do inconsequential stuff like changing your face/name. If players want to do that I am totally fine with that. Despite having spent a lot of Fate on stories, I have never felt the need to spend Fate for such short cuts.

I especially like that fate-locked content doesn’t trivialise the game. Storylines like the Soul Trade, Theological Husbandry or fate-locked expeditions give you an edge but it’s not totally game-breaking (unless you invest hundreds or thousands of [qvd:125342(CurrencyFormal)]; )

Fate-locked stories are a great source of lore but if you don’t buy them the game is still huge and engaging and well worth playing. It would be nice if Theological Husbrandry or the Foreign Office would be more substantial without the Fate purchase, but it’s tolerable. I agree with the opp-card issue and would also like those options to appear elsewhere, like they do for the Soul Trade, Blemmigan Affair, etc. Ironically, the reset-option for the Aunt-storyline does appear in your lodgings so it’d be the easiest thing in the world to put the original option there, too. I also disagree about the fate-locked solution to the Jack case. I like that you have to make a decision. I also like that you can “cheat” to learn everything at once by paying Fate, but I didn’t mind at the time that I had to choose. Decisions like these are a great incentive to play a second character with completely different experiences.

My major gripe with fate-locked purchases are overpowered items. Things like the Boneless Consort, the Tanned Mask, Cantigaster Venom, etc. Fortunately this has become less of an issue with recent conversions to Favours/Renown and new items during the Election, but for BDR (and subsequently for becoming a Paramount Presence) those are still a pretty big advantage.

There definitely are some Fate-options here and there that I am also miffed about (and the Bandit-Chief is a good example) but compared to other games I think the use of in-game purchases in FL is exemplary.

[quote=rahv7]In general, I like the use of fate-locked options in FL quite a lot. You can make your life easier by spending real money to skip grinds, buy actions or do inconsequential stuff like changing your face/name. If players want to do that I am totally fine with that. Despite having spent a lot of Fate on stories, I have never felt the need to spend Fate for such short cuts.

I especially like that fate-locked content doesn’t trivialise the game. Storylines like the Soul Trade, Theological Husbandry or fate-locked expeditions give you an edge but it’s not totally game-breaking (unless you invest hundreds or thousands of [qvd:125342(CurrencyFormal)]; )

Fate-locked stories are a great source of lore but if you don’t buy them the game is still huge and engaging and well worth playing. It would be nice if Theological Husbrandry or the Foreign Office would be more substantial without the Fate purchase, but it’s tolerable. I agree with the opp-card issue and would also like those options to appear elsewhere, like they do for the Soul Trade, Blemmigan Affair, etc. Ironically, the reset-option for the Aunt-storyline does appear in your lodgings so it’d be the easiest thing in the world to put the original option there, too. I also disagree about the fate-locked solution to the Jack case. I like that you have to make a decision. I also like that you can &quotcheat&quot to learn everything at once by paying Fate, but I didn’t mind at the time that I had to choose. Decisions like these are a great incentive to play a second character with completely different experiences.

My major gripe with fate-locked purchases are overpowered items. Things like the Boneless Consort, the Tanned Mask, Cantigaster Venom, etc. Fortunately this has become less of an issue with recent conversions to Favours/Renown and new items during the Election, but for BDR (and subsequently for becoming a Paramount Presence) those are still a pretty big advantage.

There definitely are some Fate-options here and there that I am also miffed about (and the Bandit-Chief is a good example) but compared to other games I think the use of in-game purchases in FL is exemplary.[/quote]
I find fate a very good execution of premium currency, I didn’t mean to imply that I thought it wasn’t.
A bit of healthy criticism here and there is never bad though, and for as good as the Exceptional Stories are, it’s worth taking a look at cases like the Disgraced Bandit Chief to understand what Failbetter does right, and what they do wrong.

That aside, I agree with what you’ve said.

Being a collector, I wouldn’t want my disgraced bandit chief to be upgraded, since I can just buy a normal one if I want one. A disgraced one though, that’s hard to come by!

/end tangent
edited by Kaijyuu on 8/18/2017

I honestly don’t mind the Fate shortcuts for skipping various mechanical portions of the game. If someone really wants to pay to avoid going to a menace place, good for them - I’d consider that wasted money, Failbetter would consider that free money, if the player who spent it thinks it’s worth it good for them.

Regarding skipping major grinds (like for ships), because FL is not a PvP game I don’t think it’s such a major problem. These achievements are also not nearly rare enough to brag about, so other than the item then only thing you get from them is personal satisfaction - if a player is willing to skip on that using real money, again, good for them.
On the other hand, if you could purchase Goats, Ciders, etc. for Fate I’d definitely agree it would cheapen the entire thing. Right now EPA grinding is a major part of end-game grinding, and these achievements (especially Cider) are quite notable (compared to getting a ship, for instance). But then again, technically you can get them with Fate if you haven’t entered the Nadir yet, but the amount of money required for that is so obscene (about 3,500 or so Fate for an Ubergoat, and 70 or so actions) that it’s not really viable unless you’re a nigerian prince.
Similar reasoning applies to the Fate help for Paramount Presence: 15 Notability is significantly harder than 12, and there’s no straightforward way to Fate-pay yourself to that, so it’s still a significant grinding achievement. Changing your specialisation is also in the same vein as the various other choice-resetting options, so it makes sense.

Regarding Fate-locked items, I’m quite torn. Honestly, however, I think that it’s not such a big deal - again, since the game is not PvP, these items are only actually useful to players who know they will play the game for long enough to actually make good use of these items in their end-game grinding: the stereotypical kid who buys all the best gear with daddy’s credit card, trashes all the experienced f2p players around him 2 hours after installing the game, then gets bored and leaves, will have absolutely no use for these expensive items. In this sense, it’s the best example of technically pure “pay to win” item-purchasing I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s still p2w, though, and I do understand the criticisms against it.

All that being said, I very much agree with your assessment of Fate being used, not to reset choices, but to outright skip choices and avoid the narrative consequences of making a choice. I think if these instances were reworked the game would be definitely improved. That being said, since many players will have already paid real money for these, changing them might be a touchy subject.

And I definitely agree about the Fate-nagging cards - even if they aren’t removed completely, I would definitely welcome an option to permanently get rid of them while unlocking a fixed storylet - a kind of “I know, don’t tell me again” option.

Fallen London has had PvP content, specifically K&C, but that used mechanics entirely separate from the normal gameplay we can influence with Fate. The only way you could ever use Fate to influence K&C was purchasing Cut with Moonlight for access to Mirrorcatch Boxes. And since you could steal Mirrorcatch Boxes, a thriving trade sprung up after Cut with Moonlight’s release so f2p players could get them anyways.

Once again, I am reminded of the grim reality that is the current state of Knife-and-Candle: cruelly snatched away by the vagaries of the app, perhaps never to be seen again!

One day, that Waxwail Knife shall be mine. But today is not that day, and the world is a little darker.

[quote=JimmyTMalice]Once again, I am reminded of the grim reality that is the current state of Knife-and-Candle: cruelly snatched away by the vagaries of the app, perhaps never to be seen again!

One day, that Waxwail Knife shall be mine. But today is not that day, and the world is a little darker.[/quote]
i weep with you, fellow knifer-candler. Even more so that I once had a waxwail knife and lost it to an elusive opponent, now with no hope of regaining it. well, better to have loved and lost…-

Your point about menace reductions is odd, because you seem to be acting as though menaces and menace reductions aren’t supposed to be inconvenient, which is the entire point. They’re the negative consequences of risks; avoiding them is ideal. Giving Fate options to avoid them only makes sense. Particularly because of the problem with the alternative: if they didn’t provide Fate options to deal with things like that, they would have to provide Fate options that require more resources, more playtesting, more writing, than simply wiping your menaces. This would lead to less time for expanding free content. Because, here’s the thing–monetizing the game is not optional; without money, they’d have to close up shop. More ways for Failbetter to make money that require less effort are good for everyone, because it frees up their resources to focus on actual content without having to worry about maximizing profit.

In that light, the Jack case you mention is a particularly elegant solution: it doesn’t require more writing effort, but it still allows the player to pay for an extra amount of storyline satisfaction if they wish.

In general, you seem to wish that the game has fewer options, which is puzzling. They’re not overly intrusive and they can be completely ignored if needed, because Failbetter has done such a good job of designing the game that people will want to use Fate to advance without having it be any more intrusive than a separate tab, the mentions that opportunity cards and candles can be refilled, and the shiny extra colorful text boxes.

With the exception of fate locked items, I do think that fate has been implemented decently; although I feel it can still be done better.

Oh god, I forgot about that option. That is almost certainly the worst Fate option in the game, depending on your criteria. I know the point is that it isn’t understandable, but they really shouldn’t trick people into actually spending Fate like that. There’s a reason that the only Fate option in SMEN explicitly tells you it isn’t worth doing.[li]

Here’s an idea for a change: in the spirit of the Iron Republic, don’t actually remove Fate when someone plays that.

Actually, I’m surprised nobody’s brought up the second case for Mr Pages alongside the Jack case ending. It’s pretty much the exact same scenario. You can return the book to Mr Pages, get a unique item instead and have to write a replacement, or just pay some Fate for the rewards and text of both sides.

Aren’t there two Fate options in SMEN? There’s ABOVE THE NEATH but there’s also the option to give up Fate for Beau instead of lodgings or Renown. (Though to be fair that option does says it’s not worth doing as well. Pretty much every major SMEN option does, to my knowledge.)

That would be amazing, though the result would need game instructions saying that the Fate wasn’t consumed to ward off complaints. Although that would diminish the experience somewhat.

why would anyone complain about not having their fate consumed when they expected it would be? the opposite; having fate consumed without warning, would cause a huge storm, but this way? Just a nice surprise.

I meant that the result text would need an explicit message saying that don’t worry, your Fate wasn’t actually consumed. Otherwise a lot of people wouldn’t notice it was a joke and get angry.