The Wry Functionary and the Admiralty

[quote=thedeadlymoose]Like, I had 10 subtlety, but then I went fishing.[/quote]Playing the game at Wilmot’s End brought my Subtle back to 9, but I’ve never managed to get it to 10. Skimming through the wiki I found a Fire Sermon dream card that I’m not sure I ever got, and also a card for people who have a Ruthless Henchman and an Alluring Accomplice. I have neither, but I suppose I could get both and see if splitting them up might raise Subtle above 9.

[quote=thedeadlymoose]

That aside: while I really enjoyed the one I’ve played so far, I was really unhappy to see options locked out based on quirk levels. The quirks required make total sense, mind you, but: We just got done playing through a festival event that basically required us to absolutely ravage our quirks. Most of my surviving quirks went down to level 6 and have only recovered a little since, despite the fact that I make use of almost every waking action (though I don’t grind quirks intentionally). Like, I had 10 subtlety, but then I went fishing.

So… by playing the Zee festival a lot, I am (seemingly) locked out of a significant number of story options… which seems a touch odd.

Plus, the way quirks worked for the zee festival (and the way they were necessarily destroyed) was pretty gamey & unreal, even though it was fun, but now we’re back to assuming that high levels reflect traits about your character? It’s confusing to switch between game logics quite so quickly. Though honestly, it would be fixed for me if the requirements were simply lower (6-7, rather than 10).

/quote]

These are my thoughts exactly. I had high quirks, was summarily stripped of them through a mechanic, and am now missing out on content because of my shortcomings. This is made doubly aggravating as there has been a request to not reproduce the content elsewhere. I went through about half of this new material today and have been locked out of the more interesting and character appropriate choices because of this quirk requirement. While I do not mean to come off as angry or peevish, I would have at least appreciated knowing upfront that I should rebuild my quirks before I enter this storyline.
edited by Salvation Denied on 10/2/2014

…I’m rather frustrated to see that I need to wait again to draw the right card. I had just gotten that first one, and had to leave the follow up storylet alone because I needed to leave the house. >.<

It’s entirely possible that I’m remembering this incorrectly! I didn’t exactly take notes. I wasn’t even a POSI (EDIT: Nor had Shadowy 110, which I think is the actual requirement) until post-Festival, so I’ve never been to Wilmot’s End. So I guess I should say I seem to recall having 10 Subtlety before I went fishing. Perhaps not.

Though if 10 Subtlety (and a 10 in other quirks in there) is that hard to get, it’s a bit weird as bars go; it would seem to limit a lot of choice to a very few players indeed, which is a little bit of a bummer. But I’m assuming FB has access to this particular data and would know better than I.
edited by thedeadlymoose on 10/2/2014

Was that note about Subtle being reliably increased by The Great Game faction card there for a while? I just noticed it.

Edit: Nevermind, it was just talking about existing (capped) options.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 10/3/2014

Being a member of the C.V.R. turned out to be a most fortuitous circumstance for my character, as I presently have Magnanimous capped at 16 and was able to pass one of the more daunting early steps.

Without spoiling anything, my ‘assisting an audit’ quality is now 9… nothing more seems to be happening, for now.

Talking about Professional Advancement has a lot of variability depending on the Airs of London. There was a subtle check which was almost impossible at subtle 6 on one of those, which I somehow passed - though the difference between failure & success seems to only be the resulting text. At one point I had Airs of London 0 as a result; not sure if this is unusual (&quotAt the city’s edge, zee-bats cry where black waves break on a black shore&quot.) - passing the subtle check set it to 100 (&quotAll shall be well&quot etc. etc&quot) and the available career option then set it to 0. Later I got 100 again, but it set it to a different value but still redirected to admiralty discussion.

Don’t want to risk the Love content just yet, with the odds it’s giving at the moment. (Anyone know of a way to increase melancholy past 6?)
[li]

I love this content a lot. Kudos to Emily Short.

Okay… I have the Acquainted-Past quality at 3 at the moment… and I cannot find any way to advance it. All the options loop back to the &quotMatters of the Heart&quot page without doing anything. Could I beg someone for a PM explaining what needs to be done to progress?

I would like to know this too. I have one character stuck at 3 from picking a different option than my main, and it’d be nice if she could get him to open up again.

I hope I didn’t mess it up by not knowing things beforehand. That would be unfortunate. I’m just flipping cards and hoping a card opens something up for Love.

The Iron Republic is a faster way to increase Subtle, for those who are impatient (and willing to spend Fate). I don’t know if there is a cap, but it took me to 10.

[quote=Sara Hysaro]Was that note about Subtle being reliably increased by The Great Game faction card there for a while? I just noticed it.

Edit: Nevermind, it was just talking about existing (capped) options.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 10/3/2014[/quote]

Yes… I’m not sure &quotYou need Subtle 10 (you have x). You can reliably increase this with the card The Great Game&quot is entirely a helpful mouseover when that card has a subtle increase cap of 5. It still does; I just tried it, with Subtle 8. Oh well.

Uh. Has the lodgings content already moved to an opportunity card? squints Cause I don’t see it in my lodgings any more.

I’m afraid 3 is a dead end and this story is over for you. I had this for one of my characters, too [color=#C2B280][edited for spoilers][/color] (caveat: there might be an opportunity card that I haven’t seen yet)
edited by Flyte on 10/3/2014

[color=#C2B280]Thanks for the feedback. In our opinion, every way in which the story of the Functionary’s past can be prematurely curtailed is fair, and we want to preserve a sense of consequence – but we also don’t want players to be frustrated, so we’ve added a way for those affected to reset it for a small sum of Nex.

We’ve also moved The Long Conversation storylet from player lodgings to the A Visit card. (This was always where we planned to put it, but we wanted to make it more accessible for a bit.)[/color]

I hope other people are having a better experience with this story than I did; it locked at 3 for me, I have no idea why, and given that, I’m not likely to spend 7 Nex to reset it when I have no idea what choices might have led to finding out the rest of the story. I’ll just move on and do other things, but I do have to say that this is frustrating – it’s so rare for Fallen London content to permanently lock based on your choices that I think most players feel they can experiment with different story branches, and that branches that will end the story completely are usually pretty strongly signposted. If there were any signposts here, I didn’t see them, which made it a pretty frustrating “guess what questions you’re supposed to ask and not ask, or you don’t get to play” experience.

with how many locked them self out without knowing… wouldn’t it make seance for the first reset to be a freebie rather then fate due to how this was done? lots of people missed out…
edited by Skathes on 10/4/2014

[quote=Flyte][color=#C2B280]Thanks for the feedback. In our opinion, every way in which the story of the Functionary’s past can be prematurely curtailed is fair, and we want to preserve a sense of consequence – but we also don’t want players to be frustrated, so we’ve added a way for those affected to reset it for a small sum of Nex.

We’ve also moved The Long Conversation storylet from player lodgings to the A Visit card. (This was always where we planned to put it, but we wanted to make it more accessible for a bit.)[/color][/quote]

I have difficulty understanding a game-design mindset which says, basically, &quotIf the player does the wrong thing, a section of the game is turned off forever.&quot In the venue of computer games, I’m hard pressed to think of a single example that is well-executed. One might argue that narrative video games will offer players choices that affect the narrative &quotpermanently,&quot but these games typically have save-restore modes; if not, they’re broken. Some games try to preserve the &quotconsequence&quot notion by making the save-restore artificially difficult-- infrequent save points, or turning off the save facility 5 or 10 minutes before the decision, or mandating lengthy cut-scenes just before or after critical moments. Those are broken, too.

I’m all for consequences, but &quotYou cannot experience this branch of the game ever/without exceedingly high investment cost,&quot is perhaps a tool best taken out of the ludological toolbox and buried somewhere far distant.

introduce new content, lots get barred from it right off without knowing whats going on, and now conveniently a way to spend money to undo it and see story hoping to not make the same error… right i think im being a bit to paranoid… will probably delete this when thinking more clearly
edited by Skathes on 10/4/2014

I just got the email announcing this new content, and I was super excited, because NEW CONTENT! :D Also I’ve always wanted to now more about the Wry Functionary :heart:

But after skimming this thread (since the email said it was experimental, and I wanted to check it out re:requirements etc before I started) I find I’m now wary of beginning it at all in case I lock myself out.

It sounds like it might be a bit twitchy/ have high requirements, and I would be pretty upset to find I didn’t get to play through it because I chose the wrong branch. :/ I do want to PLAY the content, rather than read it somewhere out of game, and I don’t doubt that there is excellent content on ALL of the branches, but it does sound like the branches are terribly uneven. I don’t mind consequences from a choice, in fact I rather enjoy that sort of thing, but I’d rather they weren’t consequences that meant less story.

deep breath Right, I’m gonna go and risk it, because eee! New content! :D And I am SUPER curious about the Admiralty, given the ties to Sunless Sea. Arg bites nails wish me luck! :p

Edit: Also, yeah, kind of sad that the card apparently appeared and then vanished from lodgings (and into opportunities) before the email was even sent out. flip, flip, flip…wait…sigh
And the cynic in me dislikes the &quotyou can unlock it for (actually not a very small amount of) fate if you screw up&quot thing, too. An in-game cost would make more sense, maybe a &quotgift&quot to the relevant character to make them talk again?
(Yes, I’m aware that I’m being That Person who comments before actually playing the thing, but the threat of being locked out very early really is offputting in the extreme.)
edited by Inky Petrel on 10/4/2014