I hate a trembling in the air

[WHAM]

Every time. Every mansus-forsaken time I try to study and merge some lore and need a fascination to clear the skill check, EVERY TIME this accursed event happens immediately after I slap the card into the study action, pulls it out, fails the study and I am left without my lore. I sit, sleepless, clawing at the warm, humming computer screen before me as the dreams slip away and decrepitude takes deeper hold, but my goals is no nearer this night than it was the last.

[The Queen Salis]

There are ways to resolve this without putting your own sanity on the line.

[ZaB]

The developers of these feces are incompetent, I have no other explanation. The constant grind and the framework of study completely discourage the desire to play. Deleted it.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by ZaB:

The developers of these feces are incompetent, I have no other explanation. The constant grind and the framework of study completely discourage the desire to play. Deleted it.

your account still owns the game. Either fully remove it from your account or shut your indignant mouth

[fnart]

Originally posted by ZaB:

The developers of these feces are incompetent, I have no other explanation. The constant grind and the framework of study completely discourage the desire to play. Deleted it.

I agree to an extent, after getting over the massive learning curve (and rolling back a 8ish hour save bc i didnt pay attention for a few min and got despair-spanmed) that if you dont know what youre doing you can get caught in an endless loop until you remember/randomly figure out how to progress, or resort to the wiki. But once you get the hang of things it’s just a balancing game. Rng can screw you only if you’re unprepared or unaware of all possible counters/progression, which can feel terrible when learning the game.

[fnart]

Originally posted by WHAM:

Every time. Every mansus-forsaken time I try to study and merge some lore and need a fascination to clear the skill check, EVERY TIME this accursed event happens immediately after I slap the card into the study action, pulls it out, fails the study and I am left without my lore. I sit, sleepless, clawing at the warm, humming computer screen before me as the dreams slip away and decrepitude takes deeper hold, but my goals is no nearer this night than it was the last.

Try reading over the requirements for the lore merges, they tell you the possible inputs to complete each step (i.e. you can use fascination, one of the max level skill trees (unsure if it was Study or Art skill), or have a library HQ, such as Morland’s. Also you can use lantern-related influence to expire, which spawns fascination, if you want to better time the event for study. Keep in mikd you can check the money-eating timer to see what the next negative event is, and whether it’s trembling in the air or not.

[WHAM]

Oh, THAT's how you can get a library HQ? I never thought to try and occupy Morland's so I've been assuming that's somewhere in the later expeditions and I'd just never come across it. I do know I can see the requirements beforehand, and that's why I usually find a way to get a fascination card just as I start converting lores, but that is when the air trembles, every time. Just my luck, or perhaps some foul trickery of the mansus.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by WHAM:

Oh, THAT's how you can get a library HQ? I never thought to try and occupy Morland's so I've been assuming that's somewhere in the later expeditions and I'd just never come across it. I do know I can see the requirements beforehand, and that's why I usually find a way to get a fascination card just as I start converting lores, but that is when the air trembles, every time. Just my luck, or perhaps some foul trickery of the mansus.

Baby. You are baby.
This is meant with no offence. Babies grow.

[WHAM]

I know, I know, So far I only have about 95 hours in the game, though I did finally get my first win just last night, after much hard work and grinding my way towards the door in the eye.

[fnart]

Originally posted by WHAM:

I know, I know, So far I only have about 95 hours in the game, though I did finally get my first win just last night, after much hard work and grinding my way towards the door in the eye.

Dont feel bad, i played for 12 hours or so and had no idea that you had to dream spam the doors to farm secret histories for new locations. I didnt dream much during my run and was wondering why since i emptied morlands and the auction house and ran out of books/expeditions. Eventually i checked where secret histories came from on the wiki and was pissed that i bottlenecked my run for so long

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by fnart:

Originally posted by WHAM:

I know, I know, So far I only have about 95 hours in the game, though I did finally get my first win just last night, after much hard work and grinding my way towards the door in the eye.

Dont feel bad, i played for 12 hours or so and had no idea that you had to dream spam the doors to farm secret histories for new locations. I didnt dream much during my run and was wondering why since i emptied morlands and the auction house and ran out of books/expeditions. Eventually i checked where secret histories came from on the wiki and was pissed that i bottlenecked my run for so long :Hearthian_Cry:

Next time you're struggling, reach out on the forums or join the discord and ask in the "help" channel. The wiki is ripe with spoilers you might not intend to learn that way.

[DrMeepy]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Originally posted by fnart:

Dont feel bad, i played for 12 hours or so and had no idea that you had to dream spam the doors to farm secret histories for new locations. I didnt dream much during my run and was wondering why since i emptied morlands and the auction house and ran out of books/expeditions. Eventually i checked where secret histories came from on the wiki and was pissed that i bottlenecked my run for so long :Hearthian_Cry:

Next time you're struggling, reach out on the forums or join the discord and ask in the "help" channel. The wiki is ripe with spoilers you might not intend to learn that way.

Any game that requires outside help isn't set up right. They need to work in some sort of organic event to teach players that spamming dreams for two hours is a major part of the game. Or maybe remove the dream grinding all together and just add more events like Morlands shop, the explore event has so much more room for more events, finding new places to raid should be a possibility.

[fnart]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Originally posted by fnart:

Dont feel bad, i played for 12 hours or so and had no idea that you had to dream spam the doors to farm secret histories for new locations. I didnt dream much during my run and was wondering why since i emptied morlands and the auction house and ran out of books/expeditions. Eventually i checked where secret histories came from on the wiki and was pissed that i bottlenecked my run for so long

Next time you're struggling, reach out on the forums or join the discord and ask in the "help" channel. The wiki is ripe with spoilers you might not intend to learn that way.

thanks for the tip but I'm gonna have to agree with DrMeepy on this one. I barely used the wiki besides most things related to the dream door drops and lore transmutation orders, because dream spamming to figure out if x amount of pathways has anything you actually need (i.e. fire tool and influence for my current forge run) is a HUGE waste of time imo. I'd rather just check the drop list and still farm it anyway, albeit less of a farm than it would be without the wiki.

the game just isn't set up that way. there's 2 learning curves imo: how to survive/not lose to health loss, despair, fascination, evidence, etc., and then how to progress. the curve for survival is fair, there's only a handful of ways things can go south and learning counters to events takes a bit but once you know the ins and outs of it, you only lose this way if you stop paying attention to the timer.

The second learning curve is god awful. Nothing is really explained and you have to infer so much for everything, even when the game gives you a bunch of options to choose from: transmutes even being a thing in the first place, influence usage (still not fully sure how to use them besides for ascension, or fascination lantern farm w/ specific hideout), hideout bonuses and uses, how to use non-essential timer cards (no clue how to use corpse, for example, or if the moonlit street is worth exploring at all past mid game), romance equations and benefits, dreaming in general, door drops, farming cards in general, rituals (until i peaked at the wiki i didn't know the ascenion card was optional in a rite, i just assumed each rite was a unique in-lore way to beat the game. nope! they're an essential part of the game i had no idea was possible without ascending), etc. A simple first-playthough log or quest/tip board would help so much in providing direction for progression or aspects of the game the player has not bothered to explore, since they're so preoccupied with trying not to die every 30 seconds.

I expect my second playthrough will be infinitely better than the first, but man does this game do a terrible job of giving you any direction.

[The Queen Salis]

I disagree with you both.
This is a *cryptic* game based around the joy of struggling information out of it.
It would NOT have such a dedicated fanbase if it handheld more.
It has a target audience and it catered to them deliciously.

It doesn't REQUIRE outside help. You CAN learn everything if you try everything long enough. This is the intended way to play the game. Asking others for help is for when you are truly stuck, by the creator's intents.

There is a "Cryptic Guide" in the Guides, I STRONGLY recommend it as an aid.
Also, read the pinned topic.

[The Queen Salis]

___

Orrrr, leave this game behind and go back to TotalWar.
If it's not for you, it's not for you. Not every single game has to be adjusted to your liking. People have taste.

[Jo Moéstar]

Originally posted by DrMeepy:

Any game that requires outside help isn't set up right.

I mean, it doesn't necessarily require it. The general idea is to puzzle things out through trial-and-error.

But that can be pretty tiresome, not gonna lie. It isn't everyone's cup of tea. At that point, though, your issue is with design philosophy, not design competency. That's significantly more subjective.

If the game is obtuse because it seeks to be obtuse, that's the opposite of incompetent design. It may not be design you like, and frankly that's quite valid. It's a niche with a pretty small audience.

...That isn't to say the game's design is at all perfect, because I'm sure it's not. But that's about the fine-tuning of balance and progression.