I do love Shapeling Arts items, but we already have two Shapeling home comforts… Ah well, it will be good for people earlier in the game, and nightmares reduction has potential for use.
EDIT: not that more advanced skill items in one slot is a bad thing! I believe that having several viable options for any advanced skill in any slot is good, and should be encouraged, otherwise we will have things with really high challenges like Heart’s Game or piracy locked behind events, and making players wait a year to do a new activity that just released isn’t the best.
At the margins, this is one of the few Menace-reducing items that matches stats. I.e. it helps Nightmares and increases Watchful. Any other piece of Nightmare gear will drop my Watchful by at least 8 points, but this one only sets me back by 3.
I’m glad I got at least something from the Starved Men but mechanically the lasting impact of this event (both gear rewards and repeatable activity) are lower than the bars set by previous years. If FBG has decided that’s not sustainable I get it, but would have liked some forewarning.
Or, maybe, I need to scour the Neath for things unlocked by this now. Wish me luck.
I have three characters. I started playing the festival about a week late, starting with the youngest one. I accidentally locked myself out of whole branches of the event’s activity because I could not tell from the text what order they HAD to go in, having not seen all the events the text referred to yet. Now I’ve finished it with two of my characters. It is full of plot holes. For instance, if you played Light Fingers you know that there are Starved Men (and women) who are FROM the Fifth City. They joined them voluntarily! According to previous lore, the Starved Men are in many ways NOT what they appear to be in this summer’s plot. Additionally, while I was excited to get to fly my Vake in the battle on the roof, I guess I was not too surprised it was not there to fly me away from my crashing airship. After all it used to be a Master and we know how they are. But I was surprised there wasn’t a single reflective metal surface on the airship big enough to crawl through into Parabola while your ship was sinking, or a plan ahead of time to have such a surface on every airship. And zailing ship for that matter. Ok…Silverer abilities are a bit OP but I love that about them…
But my BIG question is, where is the pacifist path to finish this story? Sinning Jenny’s role and certain storylets demonstrated how vitally important non-combat activities were. But if your character isn’t the kind of person who is likely to take command of an airship and fly a suicide mission, they can sort of finish the story but they forgo three out of four major rewards, and it looks like they will not be able to attend the Peace Garden, or the Horticultural Society awards, or ever participate in the Starved Cultural exchange, if I’m reading the wiki right. The thing is, I’ve been playing this character for 3 years and she’s never met the Boatman. I know that’s not a big deal. But it’s kind of a point of pride for me as a player and my character’s fear of death is just about her last remaining weakness and I’m not ready to give it up. Any help appreciated, thx in advance.
Thank you for sharing that. It seems to indicate that all these yearly near-catastrophes really are pointing to something bigger. I do wonder what made Pages and Iron reconsider in the end.
This was my first year experiencing the summer event and I have no idea if it’s something this grandiose every year, but I have to say it was a pretty cool experience! The text was well written and really helped immerse me and by the end I was definitely invested in the outcome and my own ship the “Firm Retort”.
My only complaint with the event is that I felt that it was over way too quickly. It felt like I was constantly just catching up with events and like it was too easy, as if we were absolutely crushing them every step of the way. Maybe it would have more of an effect if each phase of an event such as this was designed to last for a week or so?
I guess for rp purposes, it would make sense for her to conscientiously object to the Roof fight and skip it. I think that means you’d miss the Peace Garden and the reprise of the Horticultural Society, but I think you’d still get the Starved Cultural exchange, which is supposed to be a permanent change (like the museum was last year).
I have noticed that a few things from the event are permanent. The Lab experiment is here to stay, and St. Stalactite’s new option where you eat breakfast with him is staying. I haven’t checked Helicon House, but it is entirely possible that the Admiralty Lackey companion and their cash-out option is still there.
Good eye! The lab experiment disappeared at some point due to event progress so I’m a bit surprised to see it back. But I’m glad there’s now a permanent Shapeling Focus experiment, even if it’s not one I’ll actually do. I wonder what else might have stuck around.