The Rat Market

Here is the Gazette message for this week:

Next weekend, the Rat Market will be buying:

  • Leaving after this week: Ratty Reliquaries.
  • Leaving after this week: Parabola-Linen and Ivory Organza.

Same goods, but we know they won’t be around the following week.

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Rat market potential bug warning:

Check your saturation before selling anything this weekend!

My saturation from last weekend has not been cleared yet. I just received around 60€ less than expected from my first organza sale of this weekend.

Bug report to FBG submitted…

Thank you lordbolo.

(“MR. SPIDER WANTS ANOTHER GUEST FOR DINNER. IT IS POLITE TO KNOCK.”)

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Saturation is now wiped when you become a rat for the weekend.

If you already are a rat, it’s doing… something. For me it’s setting to what it already was. Probably some tricks with hidden values. In any case, leave and re-enter and hopefully that works out.

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Interesting that you need to spend three actions to get into the Rat Market now.

At least you get some new flavour text.

The court of the Rat Market

Canvas hangs between chimney pots, framing the entrance to the court of the Rat Market. Bounded by brickwork and the sharp drop below, the Market runs across a row of roofs, dense and chattering. The stalls are crammed into every available nook and cranny, bristling with all manner of miniature commodities.

The currency of the Market is its shillings, larger than a rat’s paw and stamped with an icon of ratty origin. The Saint peers up at you from beneath her crown of knotted tails. Of course, only rats may use the shillings.

However, the Market is a place of commerce, and all customers must be catered for. There is a rite to perform in the broken spout of a battered chimney. You must kneel before it and accept the flow of the dirty water over your head. Two rats place a blindfold over your eyes, slit to allow in a modicum of light. A third whispers in your ear of indignities and cruelties, generations of ratty shames inflicted upon ratkind. When you rise, you rise a rat (honorary): the Rat Market is open to you.

I have bought a lot of things in the Rat Market over the years, including the seasonal Rat stuff and the rare items worth 15625 Rat Shillings e.g. Reported Location. Unless there are new or useful items available there, or there is a somewhat ‘profitable’ grind you can do there, something you can look forward to every weekend, I doubt I won’t be entering the Rat Market again anytime soon. :upside_down_face:

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Looks like I chose a lousy time to return to the game from hiatus, to find both the Rat and Bone Markets nerfed. Guess I didn’t need a Hellworm that badly.

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10 SPA is still a reasonable rate to work towards a hellworm. And we stand at the beginning of a new grand story. I would say it’s a great time to return.

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I understand the SPA ‘nerf’, I wasn’t really doing much SPA grinding e.g. Bone Market prior to the update anyway, and I myself want to get a Hellworm before next year’s Whitsun.

I also mean the psychology of anticipation in the old version of the Rat Market. Two new items were offered every week, and you never knew which ones those were.

At the very least, instead of expending three actions to get inside the Rat Market, you get a (random? seasonal?) reward by visiting it… maybe dependent on the number of previous visits you have made by expending those three actions per visit.

Mechanically, it will be similar to visiting Mrs Chapman’s Boarding House or a Cultural Exchange with the Starvies. But instead of having Time the Healer as the reset trigger, it happens every Friday when the Rat Market reopens.

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PSA: next weekend, the rat market will buy uncanny incunabula, cartographer’s hoards, captivating ballads and parabolan parables.

Worth stocking up on Ballads from the Tracklayers’ City.

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PSA: next weekend, the Rat Market will also buy Night Whispers and Storm Threnodies (in addition to the items bought this week).

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PSA: next weekend, the Rat Market will be buying:

  • Newly-available this week: Unlawful Devices and Corresponding Sounders.
  • Leaving after this week: Storm-Threnodies and Night-Whispers.
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Thank you Mr.j!

(…I’ll add a quote later)

Annoying thing is that we have no idea what could be bought. I am interested in Tears. But there in no indication whether they appear this weak, or ever. So I am forced to spend 3 actions to enter that stupid market, look around in disgust and leave until next week, ad nauseum. And best strategy is still to pre-grind all possible sellable items so I have something to exchange if/when Tears appear. How is it better than old design? Guess it’s not.

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A few points to note:

  1. As far as we know, the only buyable items retired from the Rat Market are Fabulous Diamonds. Vials of Tears are supposed to show up eventually.

  2. We have no way to predict when the first Tears season will be, but we can at least make a guess.

Until now, the rotation of buyable items has followed almost exactly the order in this outdated table:

https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/The_Rat_Market_(Guide)/Tables/Rat-Wind_%2B_Rat-Moon

The only exception so far was that the Reported Location of a One Time Prince of Hell was skipped.

It’s not a guaranteed prediction, but if the pattern were confirmed, the Tears of the Bazaar would show up for sale next weekend.

  1. In any case, by the end of July we will have the rotation of buyable items fully mapped, and then every future occurrence of Tears will be completely predictable.

  2. The selection of items sellable for shillings is random, but at least you will be able to know a couple of weeks in advance which items will or may be sellable during the next Tears season.

Edit: I forgot the most important point. With the old Rat Market, you only had 3.25 Tears weekends per year on average.
With the new Rat Market, you get 13 Tears weekends per year.

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I bought a few Reported Locations from the old Rat Market, it was mad grinding Rat Shillings to get them.

Tears are not that hard to get once you get to late game because of that card where you can upconvert Airags.

I still maintain that since the Fabulous Diamond is retired from the Rat Market, we need an opportunity card featuring a gem trader/collector who lets you upconvert diamonds or exchange a commodity for it.

This is conversion with negative EpA (437.5e of Airags into 312.5 of Tears). While ratket provided positive EpA. Consider that you need 140-200 Tears and you will see why difference matters.

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I think Fabulous Diamonds are still easily accessible in the late game through piracy or larceny (I see a pattern here). And given that the only uses for diamonds are late Balmoral and Hurlers content (unless I am missing something earlier) there is not real need to make them accessible earlier.

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PSA: Vials of Tears of the Bazaar up for sale at the Rat Market for this weekend and the next two weekends. If you’re planning for a Noman, it’s time to stock up!

The Rat Market is currently buying Corresponding Sounders, Unlawful Devices and Ratty Reliquaries.

Next weekend, the Rat Market will still buy Reliquaries, plus a chance to buy also Ivory Organza and Parabolan Linen (every other demand will still be in cooldown). We’ll know for sure on Monday.

After this round, we’ll have three more Tears weekends around the end of September, and then again right around Christmas.

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Ivory Organza and Parabolan Linen demand confirmed starting from next weekend.

For the next two weeks, in practice, you’ll be able to use Heart’s Game exploits indirectly to buy Tears of the Bazaar.

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Or Valorous Deeds, if you have those saved up and/or certain events recur.

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