Can’t wait to have yet another "Renown" only obtaianble through unfun and worthless sacrifice of favors that are in turn only obtained from opportunity cards.
Hurray for immersion-breaking pointless grinding!
I like this system far better than the old Connected one, and I think anyone who starts the game with the system already in-place would too.
Guess my rookery password is now on the list of useless items that I can only use to waste precious favors in hopes of receving an underwhelming item a few years down the line.
This chage is certainly worthy of taking priority over silly thigns like
-Finishing the bloody ambitions that have been seemingly abandoned
-Any continuation to the stories that promised one(The Last Constable, Deviless and The Sprifier etc.)
-Any lead up to Destinies
-Dilmun club
Also I started ~3 months ago and despite caching in just about all my tomb-colonies favors for renown I barely have 10. What did I get? A +4 dangerous item. Wow. I managed to become a PoSI in that time and renown is looking nowhere near impressive.
I expressed my concerns in a far less antagonizing manner around 2 months back.
Seeing as they release another Renown transition with virtually all the same flaws that I pointed at back then it seems my concerns were ignored.
EDIT: Heh, I thought I saw you in that thread too. Here’s the link for anyone who might want to read
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic23590-thoughts-on-favors-and-connected-from-a-new-player.aspx
edited by SpellingSword on 1/18/2017
I really hope that after all the factions are converted to Favours and Renown, FBG goes back and adds Renown gains to stories like in the original concept. Renown would feel a lot less grindy if it was actually involved in general play, rather than slowly increasing one quality for a couple fancy items and minimal effect on everything else. If progress rewarded Renown and higher Renown opened new paths through stories, this whole system might actually feel like a part of the game.
[quote=SpellingSword]This chage is certainly worthy of taking priority over silly thigns like
-Finishing the bloody ambitions that have been seemingly abandoned
-Any continuation to the stories that promised one(The Last Constable, Deviless and The Sprifier etc.)
-Any lead up to Destinies
-Dilmun club [/quote]
To be fair, those are all quite different tasks than Renown conversions. The conversions are primarily mechanical changes and only need new writing for a handful of options. Writing a continuation for existing stories would require a lot of time spent on design, writing, mechanical implementation, and testing. For the Ambitions, only around a quarter of players will even have access to any new content, and many of those players may not be at the end of the existing content. Writing a bunch of new story only available to a subset of players (on a certain Ambition or far enough in the game) would eat up resources for unclear gain. It’s entirely understandable that FBG is focusing on more limited tasks first.
If not that favours/Renown distraction, my long way to the Cider could well be left out well ago. Now I at least have secondary targets, while moving on.
I’d additionally like to add that the renown 25 items are quite good, and most of the renown 40 items are best in slot. It’s entirely appropriate that you have to laboriously earn them.
What DOES make my brain itch is the fact that I can’t ever max out my renown for an already converted faction, even with best-in-slot gear, overcapping, and a mood.
edited by Wiwo on 1/18/2017
I’m mostly unhappy with how I previously had much higher qualities for… say, urchins, but then a mechanic was introduced that encouraged me to burn them before the favors system came out.
I have never so regretted having an orphanage.
[quote=Robin Alexander]I think they said the player average determines conversion rate, right? I’m wondering if maybe one player somewhere is an outlier . . . gaining SUCH a massive amount of urchins renown that it’s skewered it for the rest of us, meaning that it’s gone from 5/6 to 7. If so, I think the use of an ‘average’ for determining the ratio from connected to renown ought to be drastically rethought . . .
I spent a fair bit of money and time going over the free/non-seasonal cap with Masters . . . when it comes to them, if I don’t get the max renown (because some players are outliers and in the twenties) I may just stop playing, as it’ll be both an insult and waste of money.
I have no idea why this one is 7, so unexpectedly, but . . . dang . . . that was a harsh conversion 0_0[/quote]
I would imagine they’d factor in (or factor out, specifically) outliers for just that reason. As for Masters, there’s a high chance that never gets changed over due to how different and exceptional that Connected quality is; they’ve stated that not all factions will definitely be brought over, since they might not work in the new system.
[quote=MidnightVoyager]
I have never so regretted having an orphanage.[/quote]
Me too, mate. I got one for my alt, Jack, because it’s more in character for him than a salon. But boy, did it tank the urchins connection possibilities. Ouch!
[quote=Cthonius][quote=Robin Alexander]I think they said the player average determines conversion rate, right? I’m wondering if maybe one player somewhere is an outlier . . . gaining SUCH a massive amount of urchins renown that it’s skewered it for the rest of us, meaning that it’s gone from 5/6 to 7. If so, I think the use of an ‘average’ for determining the ratio from connected to renown ought to be drastically rethought . . .
I spent a fair bit of money and time going over the free/non-seasonal cap with Masters . . . when it comes to them, if I don’t get the max renown (because some players are outliers and in the twenties) I may just stop playing, as it’ll be both an insult and waste of money.
I have no idea why this one is 7, so unexpectedly, but . . . dang . . . that was a harsh conversion 0_0[/quote]
I would imagine they’d factor in (or factor out, specifically) outliers for just that reason. As for Masters, there’s a high chance that never gets changed over due to how different and exceptional that Connected quality is; they’ve stated that not all factions will definitely be brought over, since they might not work in the new system.[/quote]
Which other factions do you think will be left out of the conversion to favours/renown? Has anyone said, or is there any player speculation? I’m just curious.
The Duchess, Benthic, and Summerset all seem like other plausible candidates for nonconversion. The Gracious Widow is borderline.
edited to add: Glass and Shroud are also very minor connected qualities.
edited by Wiwo on 1/18/2017
Duchess and Widow are rather similar to pre-conversion Rubbery Men (no faction card, rarely used) so I expect they’ll be converted.
Glass and Shroud are essentially story trackers for the War of Illusions, so those will have to be treated uniquely.
edited by Optimatum on 1/18/2017
Urchins Georg has ruined it for everyone, again!!
[quote=Optimatum]Duchess and Widow are rather similar to pre-conversion Rubbery Men (no faction card, rarely used) so I expect they’ll be converted.
Glass and Shroud are essentially story trackers for the War of Illusions, so those will have to be treated uniquely.
edited by Optimatum on 1/18/2017[/quote]
Duchess, yes(though it seems like she was in an even worse position than the rubberies), but the widow only seems to be used in conflict cards, as a gain from some early game stories and in spite, there are literally no end game stories that seem to be involved with her other than the conflict cards, the storylet in spite is useless outside of raising the connection further to…use the conflict cards, I guess, she would need alot more than just reworking the stories she is currently in.
There did actually used to be a Widow connection card (back when it was called Connected: The Orient), so that could be brought back in. I do admit, it felt more like a standard connection then (this was 4+ years ago IIRC), including with the ream of Spite stories that were about interacting with the Widow’s smuggling operations.
I feel very conflicted about the favors and renown mechanics. As far as grinds go it’s not the least fun. But if you want those items you are heavily incentivized to not use favors for anything other than increasing renown, making you actually interact with the faction less and removing many interesting things from the game (e.g I haven’t used An Implausible Penance in weeks now, it’s become yet another trash card until I get the 40 Renown Criminals item). I feel like a better system would have been that every storylet that gives a favor also gives a CP of renown for the relevant faction. That would make a lot of sense and fix the previous problems with Connected, but that’s not going to happen.
The favor gain for renown is pure RNG, with a large cost of items to follow. Instead of it feeling like grinding connections, it’s me flipping card after card, gaining undiscardable conflicts due to the slowness of favor gain, and then spending a lot of resources just to improve that renown, sometimes not even by a whole point.
Unfortunately, it’s replaced one form of grind for another, but with much slower return, and much harsher penalties. Adding easier ways to gain favors might help with this, but the way things are set up just makes it frustrating to work with.
A lot has already been said (including by me) about the drawbacks of the new Renown system (I’m fine with the Favours).
The old Connected quality means how closely you’ve interacted with a faction, specifically in their favour. Having a very high Connected: The Church, for example, means you’ve often interacted with them and helped them.
The Renown quality has no gameplay/roleplay/story/character meaning. It doesn’t measure how close you are to a faction. Instead the only thing it measures is how many times you have clicked on the faction’s item in your inventory instead of doing something else.
I am going to be honest. The renown system has grown on me. I’m really hopeful for more ways to spend all the various favors other than conflict cards and that will really complete it for me. I’ve figured out why this is working now for me. Because basically the spending favors on the connected item is you doing something that should have incurred you more favours but going ahead and writing all that debt off. Just sitting there and saying Hey Rubbery friends I know you feel indebted to me for saving your tenement from that riot but seriously you guys are the best! You show me so much interesting junk down in flute street I’m just lucky to have you guys as friends. And those favours a very real and tangible currency in the neath well those markers are just gone as if they were called in. But the people whose debts you absolved, well they won’t ever stop singing your praise/or venom. They will love you and they will hate you and it’s just another one of the bazaars stories but they will always tell stories of the rights you wronged and the wrongs you righted.
But that’s just my personal headcanon explanation for Renown.