I have finally reached my goal of becoming a second-tier POSI (Legendary Charisma) and while my other stats are awkwardly low, I think I would rather focus my goals on making cash money. Specifically, cash money through the lucky draw known as Fidgeting Writer.
But before I go for it, I want to prepare. You see, I like to gobble down my opportunities all at once, so I want to stockpile, immensely, what I need for as many runs as I can (potentially 1000 or so). How would I go about doing this? I vaguely know what I need; what is the most efficient way to get those things, and where did y’all go?
Okay, I’ll bite. I recently did a 1000 Tales run and I’ll share.
So, 1000 tales got me 732 Sense of Deja Vu, which was lucky. I then spent those senses and 732 visions of the surface to get 516 Glimpses of Something Larger, also wildly lucky. I spend 1032 correspondence plaques and the glimpses to get 356 Deals with a Devil. I spent 712 Brilliant Souls and the Deals to get 199 Room Numbers at the Royal Beth which was a terrible misfortune of luck and caused me no end of anxiety. I used those Numbers and 199 Identities Uncovered to get 107 Last Hopes of the Fidgeting Writer. I then used those Hopes with 107 Extordinary Implications to get 70! Lenses of Black Glass, which was a HUGE success. I smashed 50 of them immediately because I wanted to bank some profits, getting 7500 echoes or so (stopped keeping records at this point), and converted 20 into 11 Coruscating Souls, using 20 Mourning Candles on the way.
I got almost all the way to a goat, but was disproportionately lucky.
As for the items, I didn’t need to grind much, as I’m a hoarder. But I did need the Identities Uncovered. I ground those from Proscribed Materials that I got from the Life of the Mind storylet in the Shuttered Palace. Side benefit of all this was I gained a huge amount of making waves, going from 8 notability to 11 notability without even trying.
If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
I will say this on the oppotie end of the spectrum: I’ve NEVER got a Coruscating Soul from it. Ever. Furtest I’ve ever got was the Royal Bethleham, and it’s to the point where the last three times I failed the first check. THE FRIST CHECK. As in I lost three tales of terror with no gain at all. and it was in a row.
I now never touch it unless temptation gets to me. and I fail every time. edited by Kylestien on 4/6/2015
Was there a profitability analysis done which takes into account the need to gain the conversion materials (i.e. Visions of the Surface, Brilliant Souls, etc.).
I’ve seen several attempts of analysis which took into account the value of these items in echoes, not the number of actions needed to gain them all for a large-sample run.
Analysis of profit of Fidgeting Writer. While there might be horrible profit in doing it only four or five times, especially if trying to for a Coruscating Soul only, if one does it many, many, many times, the laws of statistics dictate that it becomes ridiculously profitable.
Obviously this is only viable when repeating many times.
But even in the spreadsheet you can see that the first listed batch of 4258 attempts (a significant amount, statistically) resulted in an average return of about 1.7 echoes per action when taking into account the need to get the materials. Not much better than the Affair of the Box.
Of course, other batches by other people were luckier. (the overall average of 20000 attempts is 1.99 echoes per action)
What’s the consensus of the most efficient ways to get the needed materials for conversion? After all, every little action counts when repeating something thousands of times.
Yeah, but the first one also had a noticeably lower (2% or so) success chance on a few of the luck checks. In the end, however, not quite sure which to trust. Also, though, unless you can 100% pass each Affair of the Box check (which I actually can’t yet), then this could be considered more profitable. In the end, though, I’m also kind of a gambling man :P
Also there’s the not super good but also pretty promising proof of the guy who managed to get Hesperidian Cider with 512 Coruscating Souls in about a year and a half, which is a surprisingly exceptional speed, no?
The Wiki suggests, for the best ways to obtain items:
Tales of Terror: Thefts of a Particular Character
Vision of the Surface: Convert Correspondence Plaques
Correspondence Plaque: Thefts of a Particular Character for Journals of Infamy, sideconvert
Brilliant Soul: Thefts of a Particular Character
Identity Uncovered: Vision of the Surface to Incendiary Gossip, upconvert
Extraordinary Implication: Tales of Terror upconvert
Mourning Candle: Boxful of Intrigue
This is a more promising way for a nonmaxed character to make a profit as the skill checks for Thefts of a Particular Character and preparing for them are much more forgiving than affair of the box for now. I also already have 800 or so Incendiary Gossip from Hunter’s Keep, which is really promising.
Extended stays at Hunter’s Keep tend to produce a decent amount of Memories of Distant Shores, which can be side-converted to Brilliant Souls.
Since Tales of Terror / Journal of Infamy -> Implications cost University Connection, consider grinding your connections at the University as well, as it gives 40 Clues per action, which can also be turned into the Mysteries item you need.
No mathematical analysis, but a thought: Anyone who’ve shelled out the Fate to unlock the ‘Trade in Souls’ storyline will find it easy to accumulate lots and lots of Mourning Candles, without needing to resort to the Boxful of Intrigues - the Capering Relicker provides a handful whenever he visits.
Well, sure. But this is an Infrequent Frequency card, and you only get it if you have enough “Someone is Coming” (which takes quite a few actions to raise playing multiple connection conflict cards).
YOu can also get mourning candles as a glassman, though I doubt it’ll cover all of them, it’s not like you’ll need a lot by that phase either.
[quote=Kylestien]I will say this on the oppotie end of the spectrum: I’ve NEVER got a Coruscating Soul from it. Ever. Furtest I’ve ever got was the Royal Bethleham, and it’s to the point where the last three times I failed the first check. THE FRIST CHECK. As in I lost three tales of terror with no gain at all. and it was in a row.
I now never touch it unless temptation gets to me. and I fail every time. edited by Kylestien on 4/6/2015[/quote]
Your problem is you’re not doing enough of them at once. Do 25 at a time and you’ve got a pretty good chance of getting a coruscating soul (last batch of 25 i did i got zero, but the batch before I got 3), do a hundred at a time and its pretty unlikely you won’t get one.
It’s technically equivalent, but it becomes much more intuitive how the probabilities end up working if you do a large batch at once instead of following a single thread to the end. Like, fail three times in a row you just shrug because there’s 97 more tries, and you can easily see how your averaging out when you’re done.
(And do 2000 at a time and you have to be unlucky to not have a overgoat XP)