streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
2/26/2013
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So, now you have to check a box beforehand to use a Second Chance, and you lose it whether of not the check is successful. I had liked the idea to choose whether or not be able to use a Second Chance, but I thought it would have been a decision to take after the check... As it is, I don't like it much, especially because I am still in the last dancing rush of the Feast of the Exceptional Rose and getting used to the system could possibly cost me a Petpanion T.T
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Link to Ocelot's Enigma Ambition hint page; PM for clarification. No direct solutions provided.
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djcrashoverride
Posts: 67
2/28/2013
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Corran wrote:
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
Fhoenix: to be fair, the social actions to manage scandal are very old design. I'd have liked to tweak them pre-Feast, but other things got in the way.
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
memorysquid: what alternative phrasing would you suggest? This isn't a rhetorical question.
It's hard to come up with a really good phrasing for this, I must admit. The second chance is removed but not 'used' when you succeed but how to put this in a neutral way? "You succeeded! Your Confident Smile was helpful but you think you would have succeeded without it as well." This does not really indicate you lost one though.
Alexis, why not have spent second chances increase the chance of rare successes and change the text to something like "You succeeded. Although your _second chance_ was not necessary, it may have helped you in an unexpected way."?
This would solve the problem of clicking for nothing (in the case of success), and I'm sure there are a number of people frantically dancing the Feast of the Exceptional Rose away who would give an arm and a leg for something that would help them out in their quest to mask up. Essentially, you want people to be *happy* to use their second chances, not annoyed.
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An inescapable, sagacious, irresistible and magnificent gentleman:
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
2/27/2013
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And here....
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/a/warm_and_dark
is a little something to perk up those of you who'd lost actions to the bug. For the first 20,000 players: get it while it's hot.
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fareseries
Posts: 16
2/28/2013
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djcrashoverride wrote:
Corran wrote:
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
Fhoenix: to be fair, the social actions to manage scandal are very old design. I'd have liked to tweak them pre-Feast, but other things got in the way.
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
memorysquid: what alternative phrasing would you suggest? This isn't a rhetorical question.
It's hard to come up with a really good phrasing for this, I must admit. The second chance is removed but not 'used' when you succeed but how to put this in a neutral way? "You succeeded! Your Confident Smile was helpful but you think you would have succeeded without it as well." This does not really indicate you lost one though.
Alexis, why not have spent second chances increase the chance of rare successes and change the text to something like "You succeeded. Although your _second chance_ was not necessary, it may have helped you in an unexpected way."?
This would solve the problem of clicking for nothing (in the case of success), and I'm sure there are a number of people frantically dancing the Feast of the Exceptional Rose away who would give an arm and a leg for something that would help them out in their quest to mask up. Essentially, you want people to be *happy* to use their second chances, not annoyed.
I really, really like this idea too. A variant: if a second chance is used but isn't needed, you get 10-20 pence worth of random items on top of any other reward. (Maybe more items for rarer second chances like twin candles?)
Second chances are no longer worth the hassle to use constantly, but thinking about it it's wrong to say they're no longer worth using. Even if you're grinding, there are going to be checks which are unusually valuable (e.g. carousel-ending checks). If a test has a six echo payout, I'm inclined to see using a second chance as a reasonable hedge even under the new system. Ignoring the effect on the economy, the change reduces the amount of overhead needed for efficient play while not taking away options, which I'd consider a good thing.
With that in mind, it also makes sense that the default is not to use a second chance rather than to remember your previous choice - extremely valuable or important checks tend to be sparse, so it's rare you're going to want to use two second chances in a row. (It's going to be very annoying for people who have hundreds of second chances stockpiled, though, so it might be worth adding an option for using them by default or giving us a way to sell them.)
I think the real issue is that there's been an awful lot of stick and very little carrot in terms of economy changes recently - is this going to change in the near future?
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Guy Scrum
Posts: 197
3/1/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
memorysquid: what alternative phrasing would you suggest? This isn't a rhetorical question.
I don't think you even need to let us know whether or not the second chance was necessary. When we fail the first time, you can just automatically rerun the challenge. Whether we succeed on the first or second chance, the victory text can read something like "With the help of your sudden insight, you succeeded in a Watchful challenge!" Or, on failure: "Despite your sudden insight, Watchful 100 failed in a challenge!" That way, the player never feels like a second chance was thrown away for nothing (on success, anyways). It would also require one fewer clicks if the player fails the first check. The difficulty with this is figuring out how to effectively and succinctly communicate to the player how the second chance is working, but that shouldn't be too hard.
Using this method, increasing the chance of a rare success would be pretty easy: just run each challenge twice regardless of success on the first try, and then always pick the 'best' result out of the two. It would approximately double the chance for rare successes though, which might be more than you're willing to do.
edited by Guy Scrum on 3/1/2013
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Interactive fidgeting writer simulation
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
2/27/2013
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LukeMcMillan wrote:
Indeed the use of two actions for the second chance is a stinker.
It was, in fact, a bug, and is now fixed. Sorry about that!
AshGaidin wrote:
This seems to be taking a complaint that the users had and then just ignoring the actual complaint to do whatever the devs want.
We implemented a long-standing suggestion (literally years at the top of the feedback list); but we implemented it in the way that matched our creative agenda and fits with our long-term aims for the game economy. We listen to suggestions and I like players to be happy, but I don't want anyone mistaking this for a democracy. 
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REALJimBob
Posts: 20
2/26/2013
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I like the idea of selecting whether or not to use your second chance before you play the action. However, I'm not over the moon about losing the second chance regardless.
I think I'd like to see losing that second chance as more of a risk. Obviously if you fail the action, you use the second chance and have another crack. But if you succeed in the action maybe you shouldn't always lose the second chance. Maybe another roll at the same odds as the original action, so if you had a 76% chance of success in the action, and you did succeed, you have a 76% chance of keeping the second chance (on the second roll).
So you could succeed in your action, but lose the second chance. But the more likely you were to succeed in the action anyway, the more likely you are to keep your second chance.
edited by REALJimBob on 2/26/2013
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@REALJimBob, a terrifying, lethal, inescapable and sagacious gentleman.
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djcrashoverride
Posts: 67
2/26/2013
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The UI for using second chances on mobile is slightly annoying. Lots of tapping in small places. I'm not sure if there's a good solution to that at this stage.
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An inescapable, sagacious, irresistible and magnificent gentleman:
http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/DJCrashoverride
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Tesuji
Posts: 161
2/28/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
We implemented a long-standing suggestion (literally years at the top of the feedback list); but we implemented it in the way that matched our creative agenda and fits with our long-term aims for the game economy.
That's almost just a side effect. The primary change is that second chances were changed from being insurance that kicked in on a failure, to something that has to be spent ahead of time for each and every action (whether or not they're actually needed).
The fact that you can now hold them in reserve for those crucial one-off checks is just the flip-side of essentially destroying their utility for anything else. No player has ever requested this, so it's a bit disingenuous to play it off as simply implementing a player suggestion.
My perception is that you believe that the game is less fun than it could be because players succeed too much. Second chances worked as insurance against failure, being most useful in situations where the chances for failure were relatively low, so to the extent that they gave players a way to plan ahead and avoid random failures, they just didn't fit with Fallen London's philosophy any longer.
I don't really understand the idea that increasing the chance of random unavoidable failure in a game like this makes it more fun, but hey, not my game. I would prefer, however, that you be upfront about why you're making these changes.
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Tesuji.
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Fhoenix
Posts: 602
2/28/2013
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Theus wrote:
There is a noticeable shift away from thoughtless gameplay. Even the "optimal and grindy" way to the shiny new carrot/companions forced you to manage your Scandal.
That's true. Problem is, it just wasn't that fun. It wasn't a "I will make several big decisions that will impact my character, so I need to think about them", but a "I need to send two hundred scandal reducing messages to another character, so shouldn't forget to click all those buttons one thousand times at the right time (to send one message you need to do five clicks at the very least. more if you are not sending in bulk)".
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the Feast as a whole was a bad event. I am happy we had it, the gifts were very cleverly thought out, the text as delightful as ever. But I was one the few people who did the "optimal and grindy" thing all the way to 100, and take my word for it: It wasn't a shift to anywhere, it was the same usual grind, only bigger. Most of the people did not bother with it and just used their money, if you they needed a high Masquing pet. Which I suspect was just as planned.
Theus wrote:
Choice is now rewarded.
That's also true. Problem is, at the moment the reward is less, then it was before, when you did not need to make choices. I mean, take the game as a whole now. Actions return less on average, the value of second chances has decreased, and Connected quality is getting harder and harder to increase (or keep high) with the new Connection card rebalances. Maybe something awesome will happen very soon thanks to all these changes, but right now there is not very much to be happy about. The game is objectively harder and grindier than it was before the Feast.
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My Character
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Endy
Posts: 278
2/28/2013
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I wish they just enabled them as a clickable button. One click and they lock, click again and they are used upon failure.
If I'm trying to stockpile I can stockpile, if I don't care(99.99% of the time) they work as expected.
I'm mainly waiting for the new story furthering content. Working with the Honey Addled Detective, Iron Republic Woman, Ladybones Pickpocketing, More about Lilac, etc.
Need some kind of light at the end of this tunnel. Hopefully not something with a candle.
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sonantem aeternum ad terram
Through the darker shadows.
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Corran
Posts: 401
2/28/2013
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Unlike the new difficulty changes (I still think the curve is too wide but with more changes coming I'll be happy to wait and see), I am fine with the change to second chances.
The interface for them is not great though but also not something that would be easy *and* visually pleasing to implement. All I can think of is to show the checkbox (but not the text) at the end of the collapsed difficulty box so you won't have to wait for it to expand. This is hardly pleasing to the eye though.
Some people suggested making the game remember if you want to use second chances or not. This is great if I'm grinding and doing 20 times the same action but when I'm playing my cards or just all kinds of different things this would bite me in the posterior cause I would definitely forget my setting and 'waste' second chances on actions where I want them to be set to off. You could put an on/off checkbox on the four abilities on the left navigation column but that one is so tall that on most screens it won't be visible unless you scroll down. (BTW, it still shows TROUBLED WATERS 0, ORTHOS IS COMING! 0, etc.; I hope those are still on the list to be removed when equal to 0. I created a user style to decrease the column height a bit but I would love a shorter page.)
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
memorysquid: what alternative phrasing would you suggest? This isn't a rhetorical question.
It's hard to come up with a really good phrasing for this, I must admit. The second chance is removed but not 'used' when you succeed but how to put this in a neutral way? "You succeeded! Your Confident Smile was helpful but you think you would have succeeded without it as well." This does not really indicate you lost one though.
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
Fhoenix: to be fair, the social actions to manage scandal are very old design. I'd have liked to tweak them pre-Feast, but other things got in the way.
You could perhaps replace the current dropdown box with checkbox list of friends and have the players check all those they want to invite so that they could send off all invites with one submit action. Potential problems are of course the amount of actions needed (would it push them into negative actions) and perhaps spammy behaviour by some people.
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My Fallen London profile
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