Oooh, yes, it makes more sense now!
Yeah, I have to agree on the tedium of changing equipment.
I need all of my slots regularly and while the changing works for me on pc, I currently mostly play on my phone and that is so many clicks and wait times that I am not going to bother with it.
Which is a shame, because I do like the flavour of the event. The Terror Bird made me laugh quite a bit.
In general I have to say that I like the idea putting together outfits for mixed challenges, but doing so regularly is way too tedious. Given the very limited amount of outfit slots also makes it rather annoying.
And buying additional ones is a no go for me because I in general do not pay to remove tedium in a game as it feels to me like an attempt to force people into purchases that don’t really have an actual value to them. I am glad that FL has very few of these, but this is one that somewhat bothers me.
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I wonder what happens if you have a stack of crates when the event ends. Still available to turn in, keep them until next time?
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Is it really necessary to make the cards for the Great Crate Commotion require the advanced trait challenges e.g. Zeefaring, Monstrous Anatomy? And if you spend one action to only fail the card challenge, you get nothing and a menace increase?
How about: if you succeed in basic attribute check, you get a crate. If you also succeed the advanced trait check, you get another crate or some ‘rare success’ bonus.
If you want to balance things out, maybe slightly reduce the frequency these cards appear on the deck.
Seems like it’s more efficient to just farm many scrips and spend them for this event in future.
Maybe keep them since it’s a recurring event. You might want to put it up as a mantelpiece trophy.
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Not sure if this is technically possible with one-click action, though - AFAIK, when this is a multi-stat challenge, it’s “all success or full fail”, no matter which exact stat has failed. It could be done with two-step action, however - basic trait challenge on the card, which on success redirects you to advanced trait challenge for additional rewards.
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If I had to propose a solution for making Cards more appealing, I’d say make failures pay out “Planks of Wood” like the Terror Bird failure describes. What do “Planks of Wood” do? Completely irrelevant; half the fan base will go wild trying to collect a bunch of Planks of Wood just because it exists. Maybe you can cash them in en masse for something in the 2.50-12.50 range. Even if the actual “value” of a failure is pennies or “worthless junk”, it’s so much more entertaining than nothing. Heck, even a “Number of Crates you f__ed up” tracker quality would add some Spice to it.
Hmm, don’ t think I’ll be aiming for that “777”. I made it to 33 but now I’m nearly out of Hastily Scrawled Notes and Hard-Earned Lessons so it’d be a lot less satisfying going forward (…and impossible during a single week, I think? Certainly close to impossible). Also saving 7 Crates as a memento, of course, as mentioned upstream; hopefully they don’t turn back into pumpkins and mice after the event ends.
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Since I’m running low on scrips and I need to do other stuff (build the next railway station Hurlers, Mrs Chapman’s Boarding House etc), I will get just a little over 100 Crate Conveyor for that vanity trait then take my business elsewhere.
Good luck Criminals and Constables.
P.S: The cards for this event really need to be reworked. Wasted lots of actions on those. Great writing, terrible mechanics.
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This is a very fun and very neat idea, although it’s executed rather wonkily. The checks don’t balance out very well and while the story and writing is good, the seemingly limited vanity quality and the very limited functionality of just three or four cards really screws over what could have been a lot cooler. I would have LOVED to have full heist-style stories where you intercept dirigibles. After stealing one and battling in the stalactites in Light Fingers! I feel like that would just be utterly amazing to play.
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I’m annoyed by the equipment changes just like everyone else, but that won’t stop me from grinding crates for constables. As futile as that now seems.
Why the overwhelming preference for criminals? I happily (greedily?) work with both sides, but at the end of the day, crime is bad and justice is good.
Which is maybe a bit hypocritical of me to say, given how only week ago I leaned on the Masters to get me out of a prison sentence I had sleepily misclicked my way into.
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Tribute makes Criminal favors significantly more valuable
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Pragmatism could be a factor, as the winning side will receive a card that you can use to gain favor from that side.Some people want criminals to win so they can trade favors for tribute in Labyrinth.
Another factor is likely that Constables, at least in London, are extremely corrupt, making it difficult to argue that constables represent even order and adhere to laws that are enforced (albeit selectively).In addition, it’s nigh-impossible to play a character without breaking some laws (especially on the shadowy path), as many plots will involve you at least breaking in to some place, and some items can be obtained only via unlawful activities (or at least that was the case in the past). Mind you, constables have their own institution dedicated to censorship and cracking down on freedom of expression.
Naturally, criminals are a morally worse faction than constables when they are not corrupt and do not enforce some draconian laws. But I suspect those who support revolutionaries will lean toward criminals as well due to the ties of constables to masters.
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Possibly, setting aside issues of loot, it’s because supporting the criminals is consequence-free in the Neath? It’s nefarious let-your-hair down territory. An opportunity to do what you would never do in RL, because the rules just don’t apply.
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The quality’s 777 description is quite amazing! 
FleshHunter from Reddit reached it only 3 days after the event started!
Dirigible pilots unconsciously divert their flight paths around wherever you happen to be standing
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To ocnsider solely the pragmatic aspect to which you referred, criminal favors are, at least for me, far too commonplace for me to want more sources. I have three or four opportunity cars that give criminal favors and two that give constable favors. I could have one more criminal source if I wanted to foul my deck with that useless “The henchman and the accomplice” card.
In other words, there are already far more sources available for criminal favors than constable favors. Where is the pragmatism?
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Pragmatism is not based on the fact that there are fewer available sources of constable favors than criminals (though I’m not sure if that’s the case because I’d have to weigh in all the available sources by the time you reach the hinterlands). Pragmatism lies in what you can exchange those favors for, i.e., the utility of those favors. Criminal favors offer not only more options to spend on them (making them more versatile item-wise), but you can also exchange them for more valuable items than you can with constable favors. For an example, if you have 7 criminal favors, you can trade them for 23 points of tribute (which is a lot of tribute), and 20 points of tribute can be exchanged for one of three items of value 62.50 echoes each, or alternatively, for one that gives you five items of the same total echo value as one of those three (assuming you’ve unlocked at least one of the four companions that you can get only by exchanging tribute, which is an additional benefit of having a high source of tribute). Having an additional source of criminal favors improves your odds (at least in the hinterlands) of obtaining those favors over what you would already have. Now I don’t have all railway content unlocked so I’m not entirely sure if items that you can exchange favors with constables come in handy but so far I had no need for the highest value item that I got from their favors (I think). While items that you can get from tribute come in handy much more in particular enigmas (as those come in handy if you wish to speed up research in your laboratory).
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I’ll be completely honest. As someone who just caught up on the crate thing and has been off the usual grinds for a long time, I’m mainly motivated to open the crates myself because this is my railroad and I should take a cut of everything on it even if it results in objectively less monetary gain.
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Just made it to 77 Crate Conveyor! Sadly, the rating for Criminals has been steadily sinking since the weekend so it looks as though Constables will prevail.
Other way around - the criminals are winning, they’re the ones trying to get the quality to 0 whereas constables are trying to get it to 50000.
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