Gregg Johnson
Posts: 263
2/16/2015
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Have you actually done many of the larger stories yet? Most of them are very generous with rewards. If not, that's *exactly* why Sunlight needs to be nerfed, because people aren't playing the game, they're busy grinding echoes.
edited by Olorin on 2/16/2015
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Garthand
Posts: 17
2/16/2015
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Gregg Johnson wrote:
Have you actually done many of the larger stories yet? Most of them are very generous with rewards. If not, that's *exactly* why Sunlight needs to be nerfed, because people aren't playing the game, they're busy grinding echoes.
edited by Olorin on 2/16/2015
That's an interesting point. What if echoes and trading were to be eliminated entirely, forcing players to acquire fuel, supplies and possibly ships through stories? That would definitely place more focus on the stories, and would prevent players from playing on a map past the point where no stories remain.
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Gregg Johnson
Posts: 263
2/16/2015
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That doesn't make sense for a number of reasons, among them: echoes are the currency of the Bazaar, and central to the setting; keeping captains alive on exhausted maps to prep for new content is a valid strategy, albeit not the focus of the game; if you accidentally got rid of that one item you needed (traded it for something else, dumped it overboard to free space, etc.), having a convenient but expensive way of replacing it helps. Still, the game could perhaps be balanced more in that direction.
edited by Olorin on 2/16/2015
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NiteBrite
Posts: 1019
2/16/2015
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Garthand wrote:
That's an interesting point. What if echoes and trading were to be eliminated entirely, forcing players to acquire fuel, supplies and possibly ships through stories? That would definitely place more focus on the stories, and would prevent players from playing on a map past the point where no stories remain.
I would find that most upsetting. I've put in over 146 hours in this game and have nearly one hundred percented every storyline out there. This game has great story but its gameplay is great too to the point where the game can be incredibly fun even if there were no story at all or are 'past the point where no stories remain'. Seriously I entertained a group of 90 people for 4 solid hours on my launch day stream just sailing around in a steam launch and fighting monsters and such. I we read maybe 2 things that entire time, but that didn't make it terrible. Forcing Sunless Sea to be pure story by removing its wonderful gameplay mechanics would be a right shame in my opinion, and it'd really lose a lot of what makes it fun. There's nothing wrong with having fun on an aged/advanced map, especially since the amount of story out there isn't unlimited.
I think, what's nice about all these mechanics is you can take advantage of them or ignore them completely and the game is fully playable either way. It's your game and your captain. You get to decide how the game is played and what you want and how you will get it. There's no 'one and only path' through the content, and that's fantastic.
edited by NiteBrite on 2/16/2015
--
I AM currently accepting calling cards.
Stats loss counter: reset, irrigo equivalent: none
[00:34] <@ortab> NiteBrite's laugh is that of a condemned soul gazing into the abyss.
Merciless Modiste avatar by Paul Arendt (based on an original image by Joe England)
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/TheBriteModiste
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Shadow
Posts: 49
2/16/2015
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People want to accumulate echoes because they exist, they're hard to earn, and meaningful upgrades cost outlandish amounts. Also, some stories are often a significant expense until the final payout. That is, if you can reach it and aren't forced to put the quest on hold until you can procure some rare item otherwise barring the next stage.
The stories are great, I don't dispute that, but the actual gameplay needs more fleshing out, and balance honed. There's a lot of potential in there, but I wouldn't class it as "incredibly fun" once you've discovered almost all locations, done the more accessible quests, and need to make long, slogging journeys to make a profit (to get that Frigate you still can't afford after 20 hours) and/or do a single quest on the other side of the Unterzee.
I'm also strongly adverse to the idea of having to necessarily die and start over to be mechanically more productive on the next captain. Retracing hours of old content in slightly different circumstances is not my idea of replayability. It's an area where the underdeveloped dynamic gameplay becomes a real problem.
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In Her Enduring Majesty's Service
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Garthand
Posts: 17
2/16/2015
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Shadow wrote:
People want to accumulate echoes because they exist, they're hard to earn, and meaningful upgrades cost outlandish amounts. Also, some stories are often a significant expense until the final payout. That is, if you can reach it and aren't forced to put the quest on hold until you can procure some rare item otherwise barring the next stage.
The stories are great, I don't dispute that, but the actual gameplay needs more fleshing out, and balance honed. There's a lot of potential in there, but I wouldn't class it as "incredibly fun" once you've discovered almost all locations, done the more accessible quests, and need to make long, slogging journeys to make a profit (to get that Frigate you still can't afford after 20 hours) and/or do a single quest on the other side of the Unterzee.
I'm also strongly adverse to the idea of having to necessarily die and start over to be mechanically more productive on the next captain. Retracing hours of old content in slightly different circumstances is not my idea of replayability. It's an area where the underdeveloped dynamic gameplay becomes a real problem.
That's a really good point. I did some digging through the forums and it looks like FB's official position on trade in general is to try to short-circuit any perceived "best" way to make money so that players don't feel forced to grind the same thing over and over. To your point though, I think that might sometimes fall too heavily on the nerfing side, to the point that it can sometimes be too hard to make enough money to get a better ship or complete a storyline. Like you said, a story can have the best rewards in the world and it won't matter if you can't afford the initial investment to get it going haha.
It would be nice to have more decent options for making echoes, but fewer ways to become outlandishly wealthy off the bat, especially if they were integrated into the stories.
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Shadow
Posts: 49
2/16/2015
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Garthand wrote:
It would be nice to have more decent options for making echoes, but fewer ways to become outlandishly wealthy off the bat, especially if they were integrated into the stories.
Pretty much.
Going with the "Renewable income source unrelated to finite stories? HERESY!" mentality is detrimental to the gameplay. A variety of good sources of echoes, each with their own challenges, is more beneficial and more coherent with the sumptuous pricetags of the equipment and ships players will want to procure. Stamping out those opportunities leads us closer to the exclusively story-focused game you hypothesized and people rightfully rejected.
By the way, practical example on stories being an expense up until the end (if that): I just blew 450 echoes worth of candles (15) trying to explore the Shattered Citadel in Godfall. Had to pull back after too many failed Mirrors "modest challenges" (stat is 35). Money down the drain. Last time I wasted 10 candles (300e) and nearly died. If I'm lucky, this story's profitability will break even with the accrued losses.
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In Her Enduring Majesty's Service
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Fretling
Posts: 529
2/16/2015
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20 hours is nothing, though. If you could afford a Frigate after a mere 20 hours without any exploitative behavior, that would be weird.
edited by Fretling on 2/16/2015
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Garthand
Posts: 17
2/16/2015
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Shadow wrote:
Garthand wrote:
It would be nice to have more decent options for making echoes, but fewer ways to become outlandishly wealthy off the bat, especially if they were integrated into the stories.
Pretty much.
Going with the "Renewable income source unrelated to finite stories? HERESY!" mentality is detrimental to the gameplay. A variety of good sources of echoes, each with their own challenges, is more beneficial and more coherent with the sumptuous pricetags of the equipment and ships players will want to procure. Stamping out those opportunities leads us closer to the exclusively story-focused game you hypothesized and people rightfully rejected.
By the way, practical example on stories being an expense up until the end (if that): I just blew 450 echoes worth of candles (15) trying to explore the Shattered Citadel in Godfall. Had to pull back after too many failed Mirrors "modest challenges" (stat is 35). Money down the drain. Last time I wasted 10 candles (300e) and nearly died. If I'm lucky, this story's profitability will break even with the accrued losses.
Ouch... I'll definitely keep that in mind if I try that story.
Fretling wrote:
20 hours is nothing, though. If you could afford a Frigate after a mere 20 hours without any exploitative behavior, that would be weird.
This might be a preference based thing but I definitely could not keep myself preoccupied for much more than 20 hours on a single captain without being able to afford a better ship. For reference within 10-12 hours of my last playthrough, I had managed to explore the entire map and was partway through a few stories, but was running out of cash to finance them without resorting to sunlight. The admiralty reports generally covered most of my fuel, but factoring in supplies I broke even or worse, and that was without needing repairs and with me collecting port reports from everywhere on the way.
edited by Garthand on 2/16/2015
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NiteBrite
Posts: 1019
2/16/2015
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The game difficulty is balanced around the idea most players won't go past 50 hours across all captains. So 20 hours to the frigate probably isn't right. But realistically, it takes a lot longer to gain money by staying alive and clearing a map than it does to get a Scion, take double money legacies, and just pass the easy cash on down your lineage. Even without things like sunlight you are going to end up with way more cash than the game is intended to handle if you play for longer than that. It's just how the balance goes. There are tons of ways to make a lot of cash, everyone just focuses sunlight because its the most obvious. But it all basically comes down to time invested and how long you've spent investing in money making activities.
edited by NiteBrite on 2/16/2015
--
I AM currently accepting calling cards.
Stats loss counter: reset, irrigo equivalent: none
[00:34] <@ortab> NiteBrite's laugh is that of a condemned soul gazing into the abyss.
Merciless Modiste avatar by Paul Arendt (based on an original image by Joe England)
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/TheBriteModiste
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Fretling
Posts: 529
2/16/2015
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I'll grant that preference is a strong factor. Out of curiosity, do you remember where your Time, the healer was after 10-12 hours? (It's okay, I don't have high hopes -- I have no idea why anyone would remember something random like that. I didn't.)
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Garthand
Posts: 17
2/16/2015
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Fretling wrote:
I'll grant that preference is a strong factor. Out of curiosity, do you remember where your Time, the healer was after 10-12 hours? (It's okay, I don't have high hopes -- I have no idea why anyone would remember something random like that. I didn't.)
Unfortunately I have no idea. I can't say I really paid attention to its value either way, I kind of "let the game take its course" and only start paying attention to the values of specific qualities if I have a specific goal I'm trying to achieve.
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Shadow
Posts: 49
2/16/2015
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Fretling wrote:
20 hours is nothing, though. If you could afford a Frigate after a mere 20 hours without any exploitative behavior, that would be weird.
I'm baffled. Mind if I ask if you have a job? How can 20 hours be nothing?
The game was a blast during the first bunch of hours, when travelling was a goal unto itself thanks to all the places left to discover. But it certainly feels like content's growing thin at this stage (I struggle to believe the game has anywhere near 50 hours worth of content), when 90% of the time invested is uneventfully creeping through the expanse of the Unterzee to reach a destination and do a brief bit of reading before slogging back to deal with all the accumulated terror. Mandatorily picking up reports along the way to cover at least part of the journey's expenses, of course, which slows things down further.
And for the record, I have amassed about 18k echoes on this one, my second captain ("Time, the healer" counter is at 168), without doing anything that could be considered exploitative. Some stories (partial rewards from the First Curator's quest contributed a lot), port reports, occasional red honey and sphinxstone shipping, and Vital Intelligence extraction from my mature spy networks. No real "grinding" as I always try to do something different in most every journey. Haven't even touched mirrorboxes aside from the one involved in the Tireless Mechanic's quest. And I only inherited about 60% of the map from my first captain. I think the only places left to unveil are the Kingeater's Castle and the Empire of Hands.
My target sum's 20k, so I can provide my future Frigate with good equipment and still have some financial breathing room. But the act of zailing itself is becoming an increasingly tiresome chore, and I can only hope I'm not exhausted by the time I do get my new ship.
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In Her Enduring Majesty's Service
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FogChicken1
Posts: 29
2/16/2015
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Regarding sunlight and a possible nerf: if the devs wanted to do this they have had ample opportunity by now, so it may be intended. I was assuming that it was a way to remove Echoes as a constraint in the mid-game for people that chose to take advantage of it.
Simply by knowing where to find the necessary components for the sunlight trade, where to fill the boxes safely and where to sell them for the best profit, and having the capital to do so (as well as the cargo capacity necessary to do it in bulk) you mark yourself as a reasonably experienced player. If a player who meets that description covets something expensive like the dreadnought, does it really make sense to make them grind out the funds over 10-15 journeys? Let's face it, once you reach that point the game is not all that difficult. Why not just take it as read that they'd be able to do it if they invested the time, and give them a way to shortcut the process if they choose to use it? I can see an argument for leaving it the way it is.
If they chose to do something about it, one possible nerf might be to add a chance of crew loss when gathering sunlight on the surface. This would add a soft cap on the number of times you could do it, allow those with bigger ships/crews to profit more, and add some extra risk tradeoffs (do you stop while you still have a fully functional crew, or whittle them down to a sliver and either try to reach your trading destination with reduced crew or risk the customs in London to recruit more?)
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Fretling
Posts: 529
2/16/2015
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I've mentioned in multiple places that I play this game about an hour a day. So yes, it took weeks to get to 20 hours.
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NiteBrite
Posts: 1019
2/16/2015
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FogChicken1 wrote:
Regarding sunlight and a possible nerf: if the devs wanted to do this they have had ample opportunity by now, so it may be intended. I was assuming that it was a way to remove Echoes as a constraint in the mid-game for people that chose to take advantage of it.
[...]
It's been said in a few places that mirrorboxes are going to get nerfed for sure, for example: http://community.failbettergames.com/topic9917-mirrorcatch-observation-with-latest-patch.aspx#post80925
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
[...]The consequences of Mirrorcatch trade are far from complete.
Solacefruit is scheduled to allow doctors to heal you eventually.[...]
That was just last month and admittedly a little before launch, but I take that to mean there will ultimately be Story Consequences or detriments to the world that will occur should you fill it with an abundance of sunlight. The stuff is dangerous after all.
edited by NiteBrite on 2/16/2015
--
I AM currently accepting calling cards.
Stats loss counter: reset, irrigo equivalent: none
[00:34] <@ortab> NiteBrite's laugh is that of a condemned soul gazing into the abyss.
Merciless Modiste avatar by Paul Arendt (based on an original image by Joe England)
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/TheBriteModiste
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fortluna
Posts: 306
2/16/2015
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(HE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN T)
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Garthand
Posts: 17
2/17/2015
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NiteBrite wrote:
FogChicken1 wrote:
Regarding sunlight and a possible nerf: if the devs wanted to do this they have had ample opportunity by now, so it may be intended. I was assuming that it was a way to remove Echoes as a constraint in the mid-game for people that chose to take advantage of it.
[...]
It's been said in a few places that mirrorboxes are going to get nerfed for sure, for example: http://community.failbettergames.com/topic9917-mirrorcatch-observation-with-latest-patch.aspx#post80925
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
[...]The consequences of Mirrorcatch trade are far from complete.
Solacefruit is scheduled to allow doctors to heal you eventually.[...]
That was just last month and admittedly a little before launch, but I take that to mean there will ultimately be Story Consequences or detriments to the world that will occur should you fill it with an abundance of sunlight. The stuff is dangerous after all.
edited by NiteBrite on 2/16/2015
I would actually very much look forward to that kind of an update.Then it would bring the sunlight trade in line with some of the other legacy achievements (like the Boke of Sharps) in that they might make things easier for your Scion, but carry significant tradeoffs for your current adventure.
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SporksAreGoodForYou
Posts: 291
2/17/2015
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I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but I do tomb colonists on almost every trip into the zee, pick up shady sorts, clay men, etc.
The merchant guy in London is also extremely lucrative, as are fluke cores, so chilling in the Chelonate is good (plus, near kingeaters so terror is never an issue). I dump the endless supplies I seem to accrue in Gaiders, and extraordinary implications from the salt lions do a roaring trade.
I'm swimming (hur hur) in cash.
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Fretling
Posts: 529
2/17/2015
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Well, not everyone's Chelonate is near Kingeater's Castle, remember.
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