[quote=Tsar Koschei][quote=Judaspriester]Stats fo the crown?[/quote]Apparently it’s
[ul][li]Watchful +4 [/li][li]Dreaded +1 [/li][li]Artisan of the Red Science +1
[/li][/ul]
So to anyone with A Dream of Truth-Strangling, this thing is useless.[/quote]
thanks for the info. sounds like I wasted a full week in the forgotten quater for nothing. -.-
I’ve still got the Cinder, because I’m stil lacking the necessary scrap in order to continue. Still this feels a little like a bad joke, since both items cover the same slot.
Hmm… would it be an option to change the slot for one of these?
Indeed it’s a proper snub for everyone who did that ambition. There was also the red science cloak from the election, but at least that was an optional pick with good alternatives, and anyway only affected a subset of Heart’s Desire players. This one short-changes all of us in relation to the other ambitions.
The Dream of Truth-Strangling is a cool item in its own right- it’s also the only non-Fate locked +2 Bizarre hat- it’s also optional- it also comes with lore!
And besides, if you want to talk about short-changing, go talk to Nemesis players.
The idea of having an improvement for one of the new skill stats locked behind choice-based Ambition items forever is really weird to me, personally.
You have a point about Nemesis, but that doesn’t change the fact that this item erodes the gains of Heart’s Desire players relative to the rest. Perhaps we’ll see more of these in the future, e.g. a new red science home comfort for those of us with no giant diamonds, but so far I think this is the first, and who knows when the next will come along. And the Dream is optional, yes, but it’s available to everyone doing the ambition and not mutually exclusive with anything, so it’s basically for everyone.
The rewards for Heart’s Desire are far-and-away better than the rewards for the other Ambitions, and eroding those gains is expected. I would have expected (and preferred) that other Ambitions receive rewards rather than freely-available replacements appear, but even with your rewards being brought down a peg they’re still superior to the other Ambitions.
And it’s not quite the first. One option for the final rewards for Light Fingers was +1 Shapeling Arts in the Companion slot. That same bonus was then available on a Fate-locked Whitsun companion. And, by the way, that bonus was the only one I received to the new stats, while HD players can get up to 5 items that improve those stats.
I also think the fact that it affects all HD players instead of a subset is a good thing, rather than a bad thing as you seem to suggest. I would be much more annoyed if I made a decision for the ending of the story and that choice was nerfed, while the alternative was left untouched.
Yes, I think I played through the same branch of Light Fingers and also effectively got no items that increased any of the new attributes given I already had the alternative Whitsun companion. In fact, including the ES offerings, I have overlapping companions for toxicology, anatomy, glasswork (overlap in both companions and clothing, in fact), shapeling arts as mentioned, and mithridacy, so it isn’t like there has been any systematic effort to dedupe these. I definitely appreciate access to equivalent alternatives from other ambitions.
It’s not losing the exclusivity of that particular red science slot that bothers me, though. It’s the fact that where everyone else in this festival gets a nice new buff from the crown, it gives us nothing, and we get nothing in its place. As for the other examples you two mention, a rather major distinction is that they’re all Fate-locked. edited by Tsar Koschei on 8/17/2020
Fair enough, agreed it would be nice for something new for everyone in every event. And truthfully, every time anyone brings up Heart’s Desire and "rewards" in any context I’m irrationally triggered. While I’m glad I stuck to my guns and took story over min-maxing for two other possible items with useful buffs on new qualities if I’d gone the alternate route in LF, it is hard to not feel like you miss out on things when you get nada stuffs for a story path or new event like this one. It actually seems strange to me from a balancing perspective that all ambitions didn’t have equivalent rewards, just to avoid this sort of issue at downstream events. edited by Shaerys on 8/17/2020
Yeah, certainly it seems like it would have been more fair and better design to always have something to make up for unique rewards lost by choosing one path or another.
Anyway, at least the crown isn’t the only new item on offer, so that softens the blow some, but not getting the red science boost still smarts.
Also, seeing the stats on the viscount’s collar, I’m suddenly VERY happy I didn’t buy that mithridacy slug from Mr Chimes’ lost and found.
For those wondering, if you choose to set the Viscount and the Viscountess back together, you can swap collars at the Cove. At least that is what the Discord confirmed, I still have yet to reach that part.
[quote=Tsar Koschei]It’s not losing the exclusivity of that particular red science slot that bothers me, though. It’s the fact that where everyone else in this festival gets a nice new buff from the crown, it gives us nothing, and we get nothing in its place. As for the other examples you two mention, a rather major distinction is that they’re all Fate-locked. edited by Tsar Koschei on 8/17/2020[/quote]
Well, I must say that I had been a bit negative about the crown as well… but mostly because A Dream of the Truth-Strangling was incredibly hard to get, taking a lot of Echo and two weeks of ridiculous fighting with RNG. Also, when people talk about the HD Rewards being significantly better than the one from the other Ambitions, they usually look at the 4 ‘typical’ endings, not at the path which I’ve taken (the morally correct one, albeit with almost useless rewards mechanics-wise). Nevertheless, it is what it is and new content will always unavoidably dilute the uniqueness and the value of the old one.
Also, I’ve got the Gloves, and I’m quite happy about that - those are a real treat. edited by Wojciech on 8/17/2020
Yeah, right. ( heavy spoilers for Nemesis ambition ending follow in my rant, so players who consider playing this ambition, beware).
As a Nemesis player who
chose to revive my loved one instead of basically sacrificing them for the sake of revenge (the path I coincidentally also consider the ‘morally correct’ one), my sole material reward was a companion who increased Persuasive by 1 over the non-Fate available BIS. He also gives 1 point of Kataleptic Toxicology, and is the only non-fate companion who does so. What a pity they went on to introduce two fate-locked companions with the same or better bonus. AND I was silly enough to wait before finishing the Ambition and not want to spoil things for myself, so I actually paid for the Countess of Thorns before I got my loved one back.
Feel free to say more about how unfair it is that one of multiple mutually compatible cool HD items with actually useful and unique bonuses has also been made available to players of other ambitions while not compensating HD players for this loss of exclusivity.
Just for my info, how many Echoes it cost? Around 10 000 Echoes, like this option in Nemesis you absolutely had to take just to continue the Ambition, without as much as a commemorative status to keep?
But yeah, serves us right for being the first Ambition to be finished. Sorry I feel salty about that. edited by Aardvark on 8/17/2020
The stats are different for both collars. One is dangerous with glasswork, and the other is persuasive with Mithridacy. edited by Winthropx on 8/17/2020
Watchful +4 [/li][li]
Dreaded +1 [/li][li]
Artisan of the Red Science +1