j1000
Posts: 1
3/13/2012
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So I've lost 7 room numbers so far with no successes. Has anyone made it past this stage?
Even better, has anyone figured out profitability for cashing out at different stages?
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Passionario
Posts: 777
3/14/2012
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Chris Gardiner wrote:
Whatever helps you sleep at night. 
Clean conscience is for people who can't afford a laudanum habit.
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Passionario: Profile, Story, Ending
Passion: Profile, Appearance
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+3
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MNess
Posts: 59
3/13/2012
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I finally made it through by converting about 100 Tales of Terror, then converting all of the next group, and the next group, and the next group, continuing to lose half of everything along the way. (Not all of the 100 Tales made it, either....) Clearly the storyline wasn't profitable in my case but I had the Tales of Terror to burn and I wanted to see the ending.
That said, the writing of this particular little storylet is beautifully done, and I think plot-wise the story is worth it. My main suggestion, since it's a chance storylet all the way through, is to change it all to at least "Pretty Good Odds," or, alternatively, offer an alternative where each step costs considerably more, but can be taken with no risk, with players choosing risk versus very expensive certainty
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Anna Carbonyl
Posts: 38
3/13/2012
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As much as I loved the story and writing, I was infuriated by the luck mechanic, though I guess that would be rather in-character. I was beginning to get creative in swearing at my computer screen after about the.... 20th try, I believe.
What actually bothered me the most was that I had to provide souls for one of the steps (which I had to do over and over, mind you), it always makes me feel... like a terrible person, even if this is a game.
Is that ever a problem for anyone else, or am I just crazy?
--
People are dumb, talk to rocks instead. Or Correspondence Stones. Whichever talks back first.
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Chris Gardiner
Administrator
Posts: 539
3/13/2012
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Anna Carbonyl wrote:
What actually bothered me the most was that I had to provide souls for one of the steps (which I had to do over and over, mind you), it always makes me feel... like a terrible person, even if this is a game.
Is that ever a problem for anyone else, or am I just crazy?
One of the experiments with Fidgeting Writer was to take a straightforward 'take the money or open the box' gambling mechanic, and lay over it a Fallen London narrative with mysteries, moral choice and escalation.
So at some points, the 'moral' thing to do is the 'take the money' option. Stop pursuing the story, cash out your progress, and go home. At other stages, the 'moral' thing to do is the 'open the box' option, and press forwards.
Lots of people will do anything, no matter how monstrous, if there's a sniff of further story for it.
But some don't. Some draw a line and say 'this I will not do.'
It's interesting to watch.
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Chris Gardiner
Administrator
Posts: 539
3/14/2012
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streetfelineblue wrote:
I suppose that killing somebody willingly engaging in a duel to the death isn't so morally criticizable as mere murder is...)
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
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Amalgamate
Posts: 435
3/21/2012
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Nigel Overstreet wrote:
It's not a luck based mechanic, it's a grinding mechanic!
Nope. In a grinding mechanic, you make PROGRESS. The more actions you spend on it, the closer you get to the end.
Here, that's not true. If you've spent 100 actions and failed on the last step, you are literally at the same point in progress as someone who never started the story at all. And I'm not using "literally" just for emphasis, but in its dictionary definition - once you've had a loss, the expected number of actions to finish the story is the same as for someone who hasn't started it yet.
Imagine, instead, that in order to get the end reward you had to spend 100 actions of mindless clicking, in much the same way one does when building up Investigating and the like, and had to spend 20 Echoes worth of stuff as one does in, say, the Mr Wines Revels' storylet, but there were no luck checks. Would you be equally frustrated despite the fact that the results are the same?
The end results are not the same. If I have to spend 50 actions in mindless clicking, then after that I'm halfway done, and have 50 more to go.
Here, with the Fidgeting Writer if I spend 50 actions clicking, after that I still have an average of 100 left to go. And if I spend 50 more, I still have 100 left to go. And so on and so forth.
When you sit down for the Fidgiting Writer storylet, you can't view it as something you will win in one go. You have to view it with statistical probability. You know you aren't going to win the first try. Or the second try. But, given enough tries, you will make it.
The very fact that it's probability makes that guarantee not true, unless you're rigging your random number generator. In a standard grind, it IS true. Given enough clicks, you will make it to the end; you can see the qualities increasing and not going down, you're collecting up the echoes you need, and so on and so forth. Here, there is no finite number of clicks that you can make to guarantee a success - or even to guarantee any progress at all TOWARDS a success.
stop viewing the grind as a slot machine.
Except for the part where, unlike other grinds in this game, this one actually IS a slot machine.
Just because both a grinding mechanic and a slot machine both take a lot of clicks for success doesn't make them equivalent.
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http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/amalgamate
Social invitations of all kinds welcome, especially games of chess and deadly sparring!
Also happy to help with nightmares, send sips of Cider, and plant battle.
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