I am curious what peoples thoughts on these qualities are.
Personally, I’m in a bit of a bind. On the one hand, I get that they are supposed to be rare and profitable. On the other hand, some are really hard to get and that’s becoming more evident as we go on. Rubbery Men for example, have but one way of getting Favors as far as I’m aware and that is their card.
The idea of them is amazing but it could have been better, renown could work really well if it wasn’t just a trade favours for renown and you were able to get it with stories, that way it could be used in way more stories than it is now.
Favours are an amazing system in my opinion! I love how choosing certain sides allows you to get cards that give you more favours, I love how having a gang allows you to get them faster…just…this is only here for criminals, it will be here for some other connections but most of the connections will only have their faction card and then the connected pet card, we need new cards, new items, new stories, but people will get angry when they get new cards and Failbetter doesn’t want too many profitable cards too exist, and with the amount of connections in this game…
Pretty new here so I won’t have the biggest advantages of the conversion, but I’m trying. Otherwise, I find it very interesting both the part of Renown and the Favors. Hard to grind, takes a while, but, in my opinion, it should be this way.
RobinMask, I did the math regarding the amount of Favors required if one starts fresh from the Carnival which is level 5.
It will take 21 Favors to get to level 8, another 42 to get to level 15 and 238 (347) to get to level 40 and 147 more (217) to get to level 40 which is a total of 448 Favors. It is a lot, but we must take into account that people which ended up with Renown 50 invested a lot of work in it and probably some ended up loosing because 50 is max level. Here’s a good/insane example: Nathan Attford-Fenwick.
The fact that level 50 is almost impossible is due to the minimum level requirements to be able to convert Favors to Renown, but my guess is that those high level won’t be useful/required pretty soon. Probably will get a new skill level gap! :D
So I don’t find it fair if some got Renown level 50 and some got nothing. I just hope they won’t change all of the connections (Academic and Masters, for example) before they start polishing the ones already implemented. This way will offer people more chances to increase their Connection levels, but also offer a lovely experience to everyone.
I like the new system. I have Connected: The Church 92 and it means nothing because all of those gains were almost entirely incidental and I’m never going to need that much connection. Whereas any renown I get aside from conversions (and I may drop my Church connections down before they get changed) is there because I wanted it on my character.
I’m also split on this change. I think it makes a lot of sense in theory (and I looked forward to it when the idea was announced), but the implementation has problems.
The stated motivation was that the old Connected property served two purposes: as currency ("Call in Favours…") and fame within a certain faction. So why not separate these purposes to be tracked by separate properties? Makes sense.
For the "currency" aspect, I think that the new Favours work fine (though I’d like a few more ways to get some of those). It’s definitely more dynamic than before, since Favours are opportunity based and there’s a relatively low cap of 7, it encourages the player to actually use the Favours. You can’t hoard them, so you might as well use them. So Favours are constantly changing hands. This is good.
For the "fame" aspect, the Renown mechanic sadly does not deliver. There are no organic ways to increase Renown. Using the faction item to trade Favours to Renown feels very artificial and mechanical, and really takes me out of the game. It’s similar to the high level quirk polishers - it’s less a status of "I’ve interacted a lot with this faction - I’m a celebrity for them", and more a status of "I’ve spent actions and items and clicked this button here many many times". In short, while Favours feel like part of the FL world (i.e. relevant/useful to the character), Renown feels like a status in a game (i.e. relevant to the player).
But the biggest problem for me is that splitting old Connected property into two usages had a gap. We’ve lost something when we moved from the old Connected property, because it served a third purpose (besides currency and fame): role play choices. If a player had a particularly high Connected: Hell this used to reflect a very specific character. It didn’t just mean that the player can cash in on Hell Favours, and it didn’t just mean that they blindly clicked on some button. It meant that whenever there was the opportunity, the player chose to cultivate a relationship with Hell. It had meaning.
A big part of that meaning was that the Connection could drop. Again, this didn’t just mean that a player cashed in on some Favours. No - it meant that the player worked against Hell’s interested and so lost something. With the new system, this part of the gameplay – this 3rd (and important) aspect of the Connected property – was lost. Renown can’t drop, so there’s nothing to lose (from the narrative perspective). All that can drop is Favours, but those are meant now to be dynamic anyway - being collected and spent as currency. Where are the options to make a story choice which will damage your reputation? (I know, Renown represents both fame and notoriety, but that’s the point - there’s no indication of growing closer or moving away from a faction).
The change to the conflict cards increases this problem. Conflict cards used to have real meaning of an actual conflict. Do I help the Devil or the Urchin? Should I save the Rubbery Man or the Tomb-Colonist? Whatever my choice, the Connected properties shows how I got close to one of them, but lost the respect of the other. Nowadays, conflict cards are just Favour sinks. They destroy Favours with one faction while giving you monetary rewards from the other. Again, our character’s connection to a faction is reduced to currency only, with no gameplay meaning.
My suggestions to at least partially fix the situation:
For Renown to make narrative sense, there needs to be an organic way for it to grow, by the player’s gameplay choices, not just by sacrificing actions/items.
There needs to be a way to trade Favours from one faction to another. The conflict cards can do that (as they used to do). Alternatively, Favours can be clickable inventory items, allowing to trade one type of Favour for another type, in some cycle (like the .50 echo items).
[quote=dov]
My suggestions to at least partially fix the situation:
For Renown to make narrative sense, there needs to be an organic way for it to grow, by the player’s gameplay choices, not just by sacrificing actions/items.
There needs to be a way to trade Favours from one faction to another. The conflict cards can do that (as they used to do). Alternatively, Favours can be clickable inventory items, allowing to trade one type of Favour for another type, in some cycle (like the .50 echo items).[/quote]
On conflict cards when you have favors with both groups, perhaps there could be a new option to spend all of the favors from both factions to increase renown with just one of them, and forgo any material rewards in the process. For example, if you have 5 rubbery and 5 tomb colonist favors, there could be a way to spend all 10 favors to increase rubbery renown.
I feel like some non-repeatable stories should give renown. Like, the Last Constable and Cheery man could give Constable or Criminal renown when you finish it.
And, more generally, we could use the SotC model here- lots of options to raise it exist, but they have caps, and it gets very hard to raise once the levels start getting up there.
As for trading favour between factions- that’s a thing I definitely wouldn’t object to, but it’s probably better if it waits until a larger number of factions have been converted. Maybe all of them.
I STRONGLY agree that Renown needs to increase organicly as you interact with the faction. Fame isn’t something you buy, generally, and calling in favors to make yourself well-known makes little sense.
[quote=PJ]I STRONGLY agree that Renown needs to increase organicly as you interact with the faction. Fame isn’t something you buy, generally, and calling in favors to make yourself well-known makes little sense.[/quote]That’s true, although I think agreeing to forget favours would make sense as a way to increase your fame. Unfortunately, that’s not how the renown actions are currently characterized.
I’m of two minds on the matter of "organic" renown increases. On the one hand, it would aid roleplay by giving the player more actions that they can point to to justify their renown score. On the other hand, it could easily lead to renown scores with certain factions being high for a player merely because they incidentally did things one faction liked. If my character dislikes and is critical of both the Church and Hell, I don’t want to have to explain away a Renown: The Church 20 score as "Apparently they liked X,Y, and Z things I did, and there’s no way to tell the hypocrites to sod off."
Renown doesn’t necessarily mean they like you- just that they’re keenly aware of you. Or that was what I understood to be the idea, anyway- the specific example given was ‘if you get caught trying to rob the Brass Embassy, the Devils aren’t going to forget about you’.
Overall, I like it. We just need more options to gain some of the rarer ones, like Rubbery.
What’s holding renown back is that it doesn’t really do much yet, besides act as a gateway on already existing actions. The rubbery items are the first new addition, and a definite step in the right direction, but there could be a lot more.
Eventually, I hope there will be lots of things that renown is useful for, beyond just getting a few prize items at the end of the rainbow. High renown could add useful opportunity cards to your deck, or unlock new storylets. Perhaps there could be stories where your renown in a faction is the relevant stat for an action, and favors can be used as second chances. I would especially like it if high renown unlocked new social actions specific to that faction, so you can roleplay your status in a group with other players. Perhaps high renown players could somehow grant favors to low renown players, as if you were taking a new recruit under your wing.
I think Dov’s idea sounds excellent as well. The idea of Renown growing from your actions like Connected did is grand, I’d favor removing it from the faction item as well.
I also like the idea of using conflict cards to trade favors between factions. Then faction cards could give you the actual payoff stories where you convert various levels of favors to varying rewards.
No idea what the items should be good for at that point though, so there’s still some stuff to figure out.
I tend to agree with dov. It was an early choice of mine to not grind connections or quirks unless needed, because when I first got to the game, I didn’t see them as numbers that you get up to brag, but markers of what you’ve done in the game. Something to reflect the history of your choices. Grinding them would make them meaningless, because it doesn’t reflect who you are or what you choose, but how much you decided to hit so or so button.
That said, I totally get that some players take it as a personal challenge to raise connections and quirks as high as they can. I can be challenged by the pettiest things, so I can relate it to people that want a big number for bragging rights. I just don’t care about doing this.
The thing is, I think it’s very challenging for Failbetter (I won’t say impossible, but very challenging) to implement a system that appeases the narrative funcion of connections and quirks (keep track of your choices, reflect the morals and sympathies of your characters) and the mechanical function (be a reasonably difficult thing to grind to offer a challenge to players). What we can see right now is that they are moving to a system that is more mechanical, as many players started to care about that aspect, particularly end-game players that do it as a way to have something to do until new content is released.
As someone that would love to use her list of quirks and connections as a way to tell a story (“see, my character got like that because of her personality - she has magnanimous, but some ruthless because of that one difficult choice, she is connected to church and has nothing of hell because she hates hell and sides with church every time those factions clash”), I think it’s a little sad that I have to buy an item and spend favours to get renown, because it dettaches for the narrative and feels a little meh. My connections are relatively low because I don’t grind them (I get them when the opportunity arises, or when a storylet gives you some rise on them), and each faction that turns to the renown system is a new faction that disappears from my connected tab. And even them, I can’t muster the energy to go and grind them, because, again, what the point?
To solve this, I think that it would be reasonable to get some renown at the end of making your name (and other special) stories, just like your quirks get a boost from them, and then letting more renown being farmable for people that wants to get out of the way to get it. This way, people that don’t like to grind qualities won’t be completely barred from even having them.
Personally, I don’t mind having no more than 5 renown from each faction, as long as I get them in the flow of the story instead of artificially raising it. You can’t imagine the size of my grin when my steadfast, raised without grinding, was enough to give me a little boon in the Pentecost Predicament. It made all my choices that raised steadfast (costing me financial rewards, in many cases) worth it. That’s everything I ask from quirks and renown: being markers that make your choices matter, instead of a cookie-clicker game. If this is happening, I don’t really care if you use “connected”, “renown” or whatever mechanics.
Count me with the professor on this.
Those two do already happen, though not enough to be particularly interesting. Having Renown: Criminals 20 unlocks an infrequent but profitable card on which to spend Criminal Favours, and Renown: Docks 15 unlocks the previously-existing (and definitely not profitable) option to sponsor a zee-voyage. They aren’t particularly interesting implementations, but it’s precedent.
Those other ideas you mentioned sound pretty cool though.
[quote=dov]I’m also split on this change. I think it makes a lot of sense in theory (and I looked forward to it when the idea was announced), but the implementation has problems.
The stated motivation was that the old Connected property served two purposes: as currency ("Call in Favours…") and fame within a certain faction. So why not separate these purposes to be tracked by separate properties? Makes sense.
For the "currency" aspect, I think that the new Favours work fine (though I’d like a few more ways to get some of those). It’s definitely more dynamic than before, since Favours are opportunity based and there’s a relatively low cap of 7, it encourages the player to actually use the Favours. You can’t hoard them, so you might as well use them. So Favours are constantly changing hands. This is good.
For the "fame" aspect, the Renown mechanic sadly does not deliver. There are no organic ways to increase Renown. Using the faction item to trade Favours to Renown feels very artificial and mechanical, and really takes me out of the game. It’s similar to the high level quirk polishers - it’s less a status of "I’ve interacted a lot with this faction - I’m a celebrity for them", and more a status of "I’ve spent actions and items and clicked this button here many many times". In short, while Favours feel like part of the FL world (i.e. relevant/useful to the character), Renown feels like a status in a game (i.e. relevant to the player).
~snip~
.[/quote]
Renown- from the text, for me, feels like being part of their society. not just known, not just a freind, but "one of us", or close. Each level of renown’s text is a more advanced version of the previous. Holding a "funeral" for a captain builds up, as does making freinds amoung the criminals- first partaking in their races, then brokering peace treaties, then rescuing them from prison. low renown is "interested and interesting", high renown is "Well known, not only as an ally, but as a true member of our kind, and one who aids without thought of personal gain.". More ways to gain renown are nice, but superfluous- the story makes sense as it is.
[quote=Kylestien]I am curious what peoples thoughts on these qualities are.
Personally, I’m in a bit of a bind. On the one hand, I get that they are supposed to be rare and profitable. On the other hand, some are really hard to get and that’s becoming more evident as we go on. Rubbery Men for example, have but one way of getting Favors as far as I’m aware and that is their card.[/quote]
If you have access to Flute Street, you can get one Rubbery Favour for each time you go through the Rubbery actions carousel down there. It’s more reliable than the card though you need lots of actions to get to it.
Actually, if it’s based in part upon the old "Connected" stat I think a high Renown does mean that they like you–or at least that they trust you quite a bit.
Those two do already happen, though not enough to be particularly interesting. Having Renown: Criminals 20 unlocks an infrequent but profitable card on which to spend Criminal Favours, and Renown: Docks 15 unlocks the previously-existing (and definitely not profitable) option to sponsor a zee-voyage. They aren’t particularly interesting implementations, but it’s precedent.
Those other ideas you mentioned sound pretty cool though.[/quote]
Ah, that’s neat. I didn’t know about those. What I hope though, is for more involved storylines beyond just a new way of getting some profit. The real reward in Fallen London is story, not wealth. It would be nice if reaching Criminal Renown 20 let you experience a meaty story about your rise in the underworld, meet new characters, learn interesting lore, make choices with permanent consequences, not just press a button and get some diamonds.