Zeedee
Posts: 276
1/26/2013
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There's new content in Spite for low level and high level players alike.  It's an option located in the Alleys of Spite.
Warning: Opportunity cards in your hand will be cleared once you choose to promenade.
It's been buckets of fun to people-watch the Crowds of Spite. The new card art is most scrumptious! There are new faces! We get our first(?) glimpse of a Special Constable. The appearance of the Silver Mustachioed Constable is delightful; I aspire to cultivate such dapper facial hair. That seemingly innocent Costmonger is adorable. As for everybody's behavior, the card descriptions and result text largely show amusing and lighthearted fare. I truly feel as if I'm strolling and discovering the people of Fallen London's streets. Oh, and you don't *have* to steal. The pickpocketing is a side matter, but don't forget that plumbing people's pockets is akin to delving the Neath's mysteries and all that stuff. I mean, just look at the Venge-Rat Corpse you obtain from a ratcatcher's pants:
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Andyrognous
I also hope that becomes a pet option -- a living one, of course.
I'm quite curious about the higher level rewards/text for handing in 30-50 Pickpocket Trophies. More than that, I'm itching to know what's perched atop the Special Constable's shoulders. I hope that becomes another pet option, possibly for a future Special Constable storyline and/or profession.
I haven't calculated PPA or such, but I liked the 20-trophy reward for my character (stats of 70's-80's). I really appreciated the sack of gems; I've been trying to stockpile more without using the shroom-hopping Fate option.
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Please do not send me monstrous invitations tinged with the inks of the undernight or Boxed Cats. (I rotate my Starveling list, so it might take me a while to reach your name. I haven't forgotten anyone!)
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
1/28/2013
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I've said it before but it bears repeating: I bloody love you folks (and that 'you' includes BlastFantastic and Tesuji, who I replied to a little mischievously above, as well as everyone else in this thread). The most negative and aggressive comments I've ever seen on this site are tea and cucumber sandwiches compared to the kind of things routinely expressed on any major MMO board. By and large the community is helpful, courteous and enthusiastic. This, of course, is the huge advantage of making your game one giant reading comprehension test.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
1/27/2013
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Blast_Fantastic wrote:
I hope they didn't tinker with the odds to eliminate the strategy element.
Funnily enough, I'd like to share an excerpt from my dev diary from last week:
Fri daytime: completed initial implementation of Crowds and final copy. Tested, tuned, reworked, rewrote, retested.
Fri evening: stealth-launched it to gather data over the weekend.
Saturday afternoon: suddenly realised to my horror that Pickpocket's Promenade had the potential to be fun. Immediately tinkered with all the odds to eliminate the strategy element. Also, strangled a kitten and doubled the cost of everything at the Bazaar.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
1/28/2013
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friendshipranger wrote:
does it ever frustrate you when content is boiled down to the most efficient method of resource gathering/grinding?
Oh, totally. It makes me want to replace all the content with a giant storylet with 200 150-difficulty 10-action-cost branches for gathering every resource in the game. But I do get why: (a) we can't attach an economic system to the game and lock content based on resource without expecting people to want to optimise for that, (b) of course capped players don't care whether content was designed to be playable by characters with stats of 30 or 70, they only care that their experience was suboptimal for them, right then. Which is understandable.
>Ostentatious Diamonds...Contraband
Yah, that was just an oversight - we'll be fixing it at some point.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
1/28/2013
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Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook wrote:
Does it make you laugh uproariously when people level wild accusations against you because the RNG turned against them or they simply didn't understand the content?
depends on my mood. sometimes I growl like an aggravated pug. I do have a polite c/p response about basic probability for people who actually email support and say 'your RNG is broken, I've failed five modest difficulty tests in a row.'
But, again, I understand where people are coming from. If you keep failing something, it's frustrating, whatever the larger picture. Sid Meier's 2010 GDC keynote had some good stuff on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY7aRJE-oOY (from 18:30). There's no obligation on players to understand randomness: the obligation is on the designer to provide an experience consistent with player expectations. (not necessarily a fun experience.)
So grumpy complaints about the apparent experience of unfairness, even if they're outliers, are useful feedback, because that person's still not happy, no matter how sound the invisible reasons for building the content that way may have been; and unless there's a strong creative reason why not, all else being equal we want players to be happy. Of course if an experience is beautifully tuned to be a challenge for 98% of players and savagely disappoints 2% of players, and the 2% complain, then that may not practically speaking be fixable.
And, of course, some parts of FL are better-tuned than others, and none are perfectly tuned. We do go through and change stuff, but there's never enough time, and there's always a risk with tweaking individual parts of a big complex machine.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
1/28/2013
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I was being snarkier than I like to - I apologise to all present! We really do have a charming little community here, and outbursts are infrequent and of little consequence.
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
1/28/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
I've said it before but it bears repeating: I bloody love you folks (and that 'you' includes BlastFantastic and Tesuji, who I replied to a little mischievously above, as well as everyone else in this thread). The most negative and aggressive comments I've ever seen on this site are tea and cucumber sandwiches compared to the kind of things routinely expressed on any major MMO board. By and large the community is helpful, courteous and enthusiastic. This, of course, is the huge advantage of making your game one giant reading comprehension test.
I think even the occasional snark helps matters. Your posts here are a lot more personal than the official correspondence in a good number of MMO boards, and it's a lot harder to vent abuse at someone who, well, seems like a genuine real person. That said, I always look at your avatar and think of a tiger at the keyboard, so I likely don't know what I'm talking about.
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Looking for second chances to maximize your loot output from those troublesome storylets? Check out our handy gang of volunteers in this thread, or even volunteer yourself!
@Urthdigger on twitter
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friendshipranger
Posts: 274
1/28/2013
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Tesuji wrote:
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
But I do get why: (a) we can't attach an economic system to the game and lock content based on resource without expecting people to want to optimise for that, (b) of course capped players don't care whether content was designed to be playable by characters with stats of 30 or 70, they only care that their experience was suboptimal for them, right then. Which is understandable.
There's also the issue of 'traps for the unwary': storylines which are substantially less rewarding than their target audience would expect. Mutton Island, for example, is a Difficulty 110-115 storyline which yields ~0.80E/action, even before taking into account the trip it takes to get there (and the Rare Successes that give less than normal successes). A similar issue would be opportunity cards whose primary (or sole) purpose is to increase quirks, but don't actually do anything because of of caps which aren't ascertainable without playing.
I'd argue a great deal of the areas in the Zee aren't meant to be profitable, per se. This is off topic, but do you remember Mass Effect? For those unfamiliar, the game featured countless planets in addition to quest hub worlds, some with side quests, most with at least a token collectible. The point of those wasn't to reward exploration, but to make the world feel, well, BIG. Galaxies are big, and so is the Neath. Not all of it can be rewarding in a tangible economic way. And labeling it based on level and economy would ward people off expanding their vision of the overall scope of the setting. Besides, you wouldn't want Final Fantasy syndrome, where clearly the outlying islands in the middle of nowhere become endless grind zones. Besides, level 100-115 content is well after POSI. If you've stuck around past that, you're not casual anymore; you've earned your stripes. Plus, Mutton Island has some lore rewards for the Carnival.
edited by friendshipranger on 1/28/2013
edited by friendshipranger on 1/28/2013
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/J.L.%20Moriarty
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Fhoenix
Posts: 602
1/26/2013
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Tesuji wrote:
In FL, you're likely to end up sitting around with actions to take but with no opportunity cards to play (i.e., you're ready to play and could play the game, but have to waste actions while waiting for content, which seems like poor design).
Yeah, this seems to be a problem. For example I have just moved to the new area. I have some actions, but my deck is empty, so I have nothing to do. And if I go to sleep, I will end up with 20 actions and 6 cards in the morning.
I think the deck should be auto-refreshed, when you move into areas where cards are the only way to progress. And maybe the upper limit on the size of the deck should match your limit of actions. Otherwise it feels like the game is punishing you for not sitting at the monitor and waiting for cards.
On a side note, I am delighted, that my high level character can now catch cats again. That was my favourite thing to do in Spite and I missed it.
edited by Fhoenix on 1/26/2013
edited by Fhoenix on 1/26/2013
edited by Fhoenix on 1/26/2013
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My Character
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Endy
Posts: 278
1/26/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
Tesuji wrote:
I'm really not a fan of the new trend toward "trapped in a storyline-specific area with opportunity card-driven content" stories.
pity, because there are going to be quite a few more of them (partly for some of the reasons you guessed at). Different folks, different strokes: I'm pleased to see from the database that most people are playing it way more than a couple of times (as with the Heist content). It's never going to be the activity of choice for hardcore minimaxers, though.
Could we perhaps have the ability to convert items while there?
Main issue I find is that I waste actions while waiting for the best cards to show up. One of my favorite pastimes while out to Zee.
I must say I am quite happy with my new Venge-Rat corpse. Newest piece in my cabinet of curiosities.
edited by Endy on 1/26/2013
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sonantem aeternum ad terram
Through the darker shadows.
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Nagato-01
Posts: 92
1/27/2013
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I've tried it twice, and gotten 20+ trophies each time. My luck has been terribly annoying, but the system is annoyingly fun.
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He can always be replaced.
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Nigel Overstreet
Posts: 1220
1/26/2013
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Fhoenix wrote:
For example I have just moved to the new area. I have some actions, but my deck is empty, so I have nothing to do. And if I go to sleep, I will end up with 20 actions and 6 cards in the morning.
This might call for a re-working of the Exceptional Friendship. In the beginning it doubled your actions, but now it means you don't have to log in as often to get a day's action; a godsend for some people and a minor addition to those who log in every hour.
With these new areas, and soon-to-be areas, there is no reward for Exceptional Friendship. You still need to log-in every hour to utilize every action. For some people that's not an option. For example, I can't access opportunity cards from my computer at work, which means I'm only going to use these areas sparingly. If the next major storylet is one of these areas, that means that I'm going to be playing it at half the speed I normally would. For others, it means they are limited to 6 actions, rather than 10, every time they log-in.
To offer to sell them a candle they can't use on new storylets for 20 Fate/Nex now seems a terrible deal.
It's still a bargain on SN stories, where your deck doesn't run out, but to port a mechanic from one system to another that clearly wasn't designed for it, for no other reason than you just like the new mechanic, creates problems.
Maybe offer a new type of thing like Exceptional Friendship, Delectable Affiliate or something like that, which doubles your deck size from 6 to 12?
Personally, I prefer the way Fallen London storylets work to Story Nexus, which is why I play it more. I think it's why most people play it more. Fallen London has won a slew of awards and praise for the way it works, so I'm not entirely sure why it's in need of changing. Then again, I still don't like the new interface, so what do I know?
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The Romantic Egotist: Most Hedonistic Man in All of Fallen London
Are you or someone you know Overgoated? Please, let me know!
Cider Club
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
1/28/2013
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Perhaps I was unkind there... but I certainly didn't have you in mind. Rather, I was thinking of past posts and Twitter rants and so on, which have alleged - far more vociferously than Blast does above - that various systems are rigged, that there's a cynical conspiracy to ruin everyone's fun, and so forth. Fallen London gets off lightly compared to most game communities in this regard, of course.
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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protonsinthedark
Posts: 106
1/28/2013
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On an only marginally related note, it amuses me that Diamonds are Contraband items, yet Ostentatious Diamonds (which you can get as part of the 'Jewels' reward) are categorized as regular Goods items in your inventory. You would think that if regular Diamonds are contraband, then Ostentatious Diamonds would be even more so...
(On an even less related note, I sort of feel that the 'new' Diamond artwork is more ostentatious looking than the artwork for the Ostentatious Diamond, which uses the 'old' Diamond artwork...but that's really a matter of preference and a very minor one at that. So don't mind me.)
--
Mio, a midnight, sinister, irresistible, and breathtaking lady of mysterious origins.
Calling cards, social actions, menace reduction requests, and newspaper interviews (Nemesis ambition) welcome. No boxed cats or Affluent Photographer requests please.
Other Characters:
tinyassassin, an orphan trained as an assassin, currently hunting the Vake.
Alexandre and Adriana, a pair of hedonistic twins betting their souls on the Marvellous...if they don't lose them to the devils first.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
1/28/2013
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Tesuji wrote:
Mutton Island, for example, is a Difficulty 110-115 storyline which yields ~0.80E/action ... not so much an optimization issue as a player expectation issue, the degree to which players can simply play the game and trust that the rewards will be more-or-less commensurate with difficulty
This is very much my point. Even knowing the echo-equivalent output of this (assuming the numbers are correct - off the top of my head I wouldn't know) is the mark of quite a small minority of minimaxing players. For the majority, worrying about 25% difference over a few days of play is optimisation. I guarantee there are plenty of players who'll read this having played Mutton Island and go 'oh were the rewards poor then?' and others who'll think 'eh, so what?' ... as well as a few who'll be thinking, 0.8E! well sod that for a game of soldiers, I'll update my planning spreadsheet.
edit: previous post, case in point.
edited by Alexis on 1/28/2013
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
1/28/2013
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Seberin wrote:
I'm not sure if this is the proper venue for suggestions, but would it be possible to place Unseen and Approaching Your Destination on the left sidebarl.
There's a patch coming that addresses this and more, but StoryNexus games will get it first, alas.
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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
1/29/2013
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I thought a little on the nature of "Efficient stuff versus inefficient stuff", and what personally grinds my gears. Despite making a thread devoted to the subject (Which I probably should update, except that another thread kinda proved the fidgeting writer blows all those out of the water), it actually doesn't bug me TOO much when something is suboptimal. A lot of the various things have other reasons you might want to do them, such as how I'm grinding the newspaper because it can also give me unique qualities. There are, however, two occasions where it seriously bugs me: When an option is worth less than a direct predecessor, and when it is woefully, WOEFULLY inefficient compared to other options.
The first example can be seen most clearly when doing the Pygmalion activities at Mahogany Hall. From a gameplay perspective, there is literally no reason to play the Pygmalion branches: Not only are they more difficult, unless you literally just hit the stat requirement to unlock Pygmalion in the first place or have already ground up enough of the quality that you're nearly finished, they also give less rewards both in terms of profit AND Pygmalion progress. They're directly unlocked by the stat challenge branches, and are more difficult, yet are all around worse in terms of reward. And that just kinda grinds my gears.
As for the second example, I don't really mean when something is, say, .8 E per action. Or even .5. I'm talking cases like obtaining licenses at Mahogany Hall, which actually COSTS you an echo each time you play it. Yes, you make back less than you spend. Or spending your research at zee on making collated research, which is a mere fifth of the value you'd get spending it 500 at a time for goods, or just simply grabbing treasure on the islands instead. I understand the unique item you get alongside it is priceless in a way, but there's definitely something wrong when I could literally pick the other option on a storylet, then BUY the base item from the bazaar and convert up to what the inefficient storyline would give me, and it would be more efficient.
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Looking for second chances to maximize your loot output from those troublesome storylets? Check out our handy gang of volunteers in this thread, or even volunteer yourself!
@Urthdigger on twitter
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KatarinaNavane
Posts: 462
1/29/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
I've said it before but it bears repeating: I bloody love you folks (and that 'you' includes BlastFantastic and Tesuji, who I replied to a little mischievously above, as well as everyone else in this thread). The most negative and aggressive comments I've ever seen on this site are tea and cucumber sandwiches compared to the kind of things routinely expressed on any major MMO board. By and large the community is helpful, courteous and enthusiastic. This, of course, is the huge advantage of making your game one giant reading comprehension test.
This is as much because of you as it is because of us. I've never played a game were there was so much direct communication from the people making it. It's easy to be rude when you feel like you're shouting into a void, and easy to be polite when someone with the power to change things will almost certainly actually read what you have to say.
With that being said, I'm looking forward to the more level-appropriate veilgarten pickpocketing route!
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Storynexus sn Katarina Navane.
My art page (much of which is dark, Victorian, and/or full of tentacles): http://www.facebook.com/demonkittydesigns
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Catherine Raymond
Posts: 2518
1/29/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
I've said it before but it bears repeating: I bloody love you folks (and that 'you' includes BlastFantastic and Tesuji, who I replied to a little mischievously above, as well as everyone else in this thread). The most negative and aggressive comments I've ever seen on this site are tea and cucumber sandwiches compared to the kind of things routinely expressed on any major MMO board. By and large the community is helpful, courteous and enthusiastic. This, of course, is the huge advantage of making your game one giant reading comprehension test.
Of course, the fact that we're all hooked on FL and are mad to see what comes of various developments, has a lot to do with our helpfulness, enthusiasm, and courtesy. :-)
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Cathy Raymond
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/cathyr19355
Catherine Raymond aka Mrs. Rykar Malkus http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/Catherine%20Raymond (Gone NORTH)
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