Well, the justificande coins were also a draw. No more having to rely on dock favours to heist for them.
It’s already pretty damn slow, if you ask me. Thank god I have 40 for everything already… :/
Let’s just say that I’m glad I’m getting PP soon, because without the easy deck refresh it seems outright impossible.
Fallen London was never meant to be a game to be rushed through. Particularly for starting players.
Based on the amount of time it took me to grind to Renown 40 from zero in multiple factions when they instituted the Renown system (and I get favors relatively evenly across most faction except Society/Church/Coppers because Shepherd of Souls), it should only be like 6-12 months of casual side-grinding.
The game rewards patience and broadly optimized play over short, intense grinds to achieve a single goal.
I spent so many actions on the cards that I thought were worth playing that frankly there’s a part of me that’s relieved that there are going to be fewer of them.
I continue to be relieved entering the laboratory will not cost actions in the future, and intrigued at how much better my Vake-steed will be made.
As the balance changes patch has arrived, it’s time to resurrect this discussion. Patch notes can be found here:
I for one am very happy with most of the changes, particularly with the new and extremely welcome rewards for us Nemesis players. I shan’t spoil what they are, but they are quite meaningful and a nice reminder of some of the most trying and/or memorable parts of the Ambition.
Other than that, while Helicon House has been nerfed rather heavily, I think that overall it will lead to more nuanced gameplay possibilities when the rest of the content, new and old, won’t be overshadowed by one optimized money/scripmaking grind. Plus I share the opinion expressed by FBG that adding a new area unlocked by a fate-locked item (the Pendant) is much more memorable and worthwhile investment in a game like this than simply improving numbers of the selfsame grind. I can empathize with those who bought the Pendant for the sake of optimization, although I mostly do these purchases for the writing & to support the team.
I am less sure about the Ivory Humeri drop in worth, but I’ve mostly used them only for Bone Fragment grinding anyway and otherwise preferred quality-providing bones, so I probably won’t mind that much. I doubt that farming POAs for Ivory Humeri will be much worth it now, however.
The possibility of locking away the lodging cards; the option to buy additional Outfit slots; and the linear instead of exponential increase in station Development costs are all extremely welcome changes, and the last one should at least partly compensate for the nerfed Helicon grind.
Lastly, I’m very glad that FBG increased the Honey-Mazed Bear card frequency now that the card doubling has been removed. I’m still glad I finished the grinding before this change was implemented, but it should be at least manageable.
TL;DR: Thank you for all your hard work, Failbetter. I believe most of the implemented changes will indeed make for a more balanced and enjoyable game, especially in the long run. The post explaining the rationale was very well-written and candid, and shows that you approach the game design open-mindedly and thoughtfully, and that you continue to listen to us. We’re very grateful for that.
And I for one am far more than reasonably thrilled for my new Nemesis-relevant chiropteroid associates/friends, both Parabolan and Neathy. The wait was worth it. Thank you!
Am I missing something, or do I not seem to notice these new places for favors? Just went to Mahoganiy Hall to see if I could find them and nothing. Are they tied to the end of these old carosels? If so that is rather irritating, but still welcome.
Apparently so. On the plus side, this potentially gives us old warhorses new incentive to return to some content we haven’t been utilizing for years…
And they’ve never said that repeatable obtaining of Favours would be as efficient than the card-based sources, but at least now it’s possible for when you need it :)
edited by Sir Reginald Monteroy on 12/3/2020
The existing methods for grinding favours Docks and Rubbery involved long(er) carousels or repeated Zailing, so these new sources would be in broadly in line with the precedent for Favours-per-Action.
Previously, cost of reliably obtaining an action was like 20-25 actions. The new options, so far, seem roughly in line with that. For example, the option in Wilmot’s End to get a Great Game favour is at the end of one of the carousels and costs 1 Dramatic Tension (and also gives 8 stolen kisses). I think the criminal one is at the end of the Boxful of Intrigue carousel. Hell favour comes from the end of the Envoy Heist.
How can you re-hire April if you’ve already spent her note?
I believe you need to send in a ticket about that.
As a consequence of the changes, we got a humer(o)us storylet to reimburse the 53 players who invested too heavily in ivories. Don’t grind more in the hopes of getting this though; the unlocking quality was manually applied.
Hah, there were just 53 of us? Where does it say that?
Nice work, but… i have not only 13 humeries, but also 63 orapples, which in turn lost value too…
Overall this patch was like 3% of good things for me (free outfits), 7% of good things for others (lodgings loan, other ambitions buffs, building costs) and 90% of pure bullshit for everybody. I morn most Rev favours, which went from 7.5 to 2.5 EpA, dock favours, humeries (and boho favours), helicon, card doubling (not full refresh).
At least lab entrance now free and i can use my actions to grind Impossible Theorems. I guess this is what they nerf next.
edited by Waterpls on 12/4/2020
[quote=Waterpls]Nice work, but… i have not only 13 humeries, but also 63 orapples, which in turn lost value too…
Overall this patch was like 3% of good things for me (free outfits), 7% of good things for others (lodgings loan, other ambitions buffs, building costs) and 90% of pure bullshit for everybody. I morn most Rev favours, which went from 7.5 to 2.5 EpA, dock favours, humeries (and boho favours), helicon, card doubling (not full refresh).
At least lab entrance now free and i can use my actions to grind Impossible Theorems. I guess this is what they nerf next.
edited by Waterpls on 12/4/2020[/quote]
I think they watched 90’s and 2000’s commercials for Nerf toys a few times too many and took the old slogan "It’s Nerf, or nothing." to heart a bit too much.
They explicitly stated that they have a specific EpA threshold in mind for most grinds, so you should invest in some lotion now (or play while standing for a while).
Yeah, orange-apples were just ivory humeruses that I hadn’t bothered to convert yet. I only had eight of them, though.
Not exactly glad about Ivory nerf. Like it was said before, Humeri become quite less useful now. Can’t see it being exactly OP anyways - quite some work to do for not THAT much of result. It isn’t OP just because everyone doing it.
Also "Great Game" slot change - now my Morning outfit gives me only 69 Watchful instead of 70. Such a pain. Although, I got +3 in later gains, thanks to spoiler’s baby issues.
Love University change and unlimited deck in Heists. Haven’t tried second one yet.
Outfits. YES.
It will take some time to stop waiting for deck doubling, but I can live with that.
Helicon nerf is meh, was doing mostly quite easy cycle with 3Entrance+modeling. Nerfed it is, price change in building makes it easier overall. Strangely, some buildings I have in "Plans" have old (?) price. Maybe should revisit and replan.
Not sure why Labirinth should give Constables favours instead of Riding Savage Cobbles. Would make more sense.
What are exact numbers on Wilmot’s End change? It was quite boring, but Whirring Contraptions would be of use when I finally will go for Newspapers titles…
Is there some data on new favours in profession’s salary? Most interested in Correspondent’s one - wonder what would it bring…
Most of changes look quite good. Some are … debatable, but overall this is quite good patch.
edited by Alpha900i on 12/4/2020