Master Polarimini
Posts: 310
1/4/2013
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...have become much more oversensitive than they used to be? I have the impression that many related cards now make the connected Criminals decrease significantly, while before they didn't have this effect.
Is it a false memory or mine or they changed something - but for Criminals only?
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Seberin
Posts: 113
1/4/2013
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Lady Red wrote:
For the criminals, I see it less as connections (although that's the word for it) but favours owed... so if you ask for a favour, then your connected score drops. But you're right, Urthdigger, it doesn't quite make sense how it's currently phrased.
Re the topic - I would be quite happy to get a big drop if it was easier to grind connections back up. I haven't done the maths, but it's really time consuming grinding criminals up in the flit.
You piqued my curiosity, so I ran the maths on grinding for the Pugilism & Politics card.
As best as I can tell, the most efficient way to grind Connected: Criminals now is to visit the Sardonic Music-Hall Singer, who gives 3CP per action. Credit to Blast_Fantastic for reporting this - previously, I had done this by grinding Casing with my Gang of Hoodlums, and then selling information to Criminals. That approach is a bit less efficient, at 2.647 Connected per action.
To reach Connected: Criminals 30, you'll need 465 CP. At 3CP/action, it will take 155 actions of grinding. Along the way (assuming you're visiting the Singer), you'll earn 1550 pence of whispered secrets, and 775 CP of Connected: Bohemian. If we assume that non-Criminals connections are still worth approximately 2 pence per CP, then that's about 1550 worth of Connected: Bohemian.
The direct value of beating the minister is 2600 pence of goods. Over 156 actions, we've earned a total of 5700 pence. The average pence per action? 36.5. The results are more dire with the Gang of Hoodlums: set your gang to work 26 times, for a total of 130 actions; plus another 47 actions to convert your Casing to Connected: Criminals; plus 1 action for Pugilism. In this scenario you're only earning the 2600 pence from Pugilism, so your 177 actions are returning 14.689 pence per action.
From a straight monetary perspective, absolutely not worth it. It's some consolation that you walk away with a unique item, though. Also, since most other Connected: Criminals cards only require a level 10 to cash in, that only costs 55 CP or 19 actions, so the pence-per-action may work out to be more lucrative on those even if the individual payout is smaller.
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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
1/4/2013
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In a way this makes sense, but there is one thing that bugs me. Namely, a lot of the new card changes that lower your criminals connections are cases where you're HELPING them. That... doesn't really make much sense IMO.
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Lady Red
Posts: 517
1/4/2013
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For the criminals, I see it less as connections (although that's the word for it) but favours owed... so if you ask for a favour, then your connected score drops. But you're right, Urthdigger, it doesn't quite make sense how it's currently phrased.
Re the topic - I would be quite happy to get a big drop if it was easier to grind connections back up. I haven't done the maths, but it's really time consuming grinding criminals up in the flit.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Lady~Red
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Blast_Fantastic
Posts: 63
1/4/2013
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The main problem with the card changes is that they take the fun out of playing them. That's the bottom line.
The rewards aren't that great relative to what's lost, so that balance hasn't been achieved. And from a storytelling perspective, they make no sense. There never was balance in cashing in connections; it always was a terrible deal by design. I never understood that. The one card that attempts to make up for that is the Politics and Pugilism card that gives an unusual reward you can't get any other way. That's a good incentive to take a badly balanced deal without feeling cheated and would be a good strategy to use with the others.
I think these changes could have worked if they didn't eliminate the best way to recoup the resultant losses of Connected: Criminals. That would at least make the choice more tempting, even if it wasn't a great deal. As it is, they've created yet more cards that a player would have to be daft to ever use. So what's the point?
The caveat is that high levels of connected don't currently mean much from an in-game technical standpoint. The only cards they unlock are better left unplayed (unfortunately). So these changes are more about harming the player's moral than disrupting their game play, which in a way is worse. And it must be twice as demoralizing for newer players.
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Master Polarimini
Posts: 310
1/5/2013
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Urthdigger wrote:
In a way this makes sense, but there is one thing that bugs me. Namely, a lot of the new card changes that lower your criminals connections are cases where you're HELPING them. That... doesn't really make much sense IMO.
I also had interpreted the decrease as Lady Red did - you use your connection somehow thus it decreases, but because connections decrease also when you do something bad with them, it's a bit strained. I think the connection cards should work in a subtler way (some options of the same card increasing and other decreasing the related connection, or using the combination "one connection increases, another decreases" in normal cards and not just in the dedicated ones), for now the result is that I don't use a connection criminal card anymore because it's simply not worth it.
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Devices workshop opening soon...
Follow my story at http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Master~Polarimini
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