Fallen London complaining
I'm not totally sure if things being Fate locked or seasonal is more annoying (having to spend real money I can hardly afford vs having to wait for a narrow window of an entire year), but there's a clear most annoying category: Fate locked and seasonal items.
Really sucks because it feels like there's a lot more of them coming up with the new stats, and ofc maxing them is generally useful in one way or another
That or they're from the ambition endings, and don't even get me started (gigantic echo/action dumps, unbalanced feeling items from the different ambitions, etc).
Fallen London complaining
For example: If I want my Artisan of the Red Science at 10, my options are... finish either Heart's Desire or Light Fingers with a certain ending, or get an Election item, which will be available again in, like, 11 months, and to some degree effectively cost Fate, because you only get one of the many Election items for free each year... and I'm very "behind" (though it would be impossible to have them all w/o paying).
Or, like, look at Kataleptic Toxicology items. All of them are either Ambition (mainly ending items), Fate, Seasonal (one is Seasonal Fate and the other is Election which is practically Fate imo as above), or T3 profession.
And I could go on with the rest of the stats, but it's more of the same. Ambition items, which are mainly the endings (except for Heart's Desire, the mentioned precieved better rewards), which you only get one of, Fate, seasonal, and especially a bunch that are seasonal Fate or near enough.
Fallen London complaining
And sure, I guess, like, you can raise most of the new stats to 7 (except Shapeling Arts, still), and they are adding these boosting items, and you can argue that, yes, they need to make money to keep going... but it stings and is frustrating.
Fallen London complaining
Especially the Ambition situation. Pretty sure they promised to rework the rewards, which kinda makes me want to hold off on doing an ambition to see what it ends with... but then that just makes this more annoying. Especially cause rn if I want the most Value I probably want to do HD, but I'm torn between HD and LF roleplay-wise for my char.