Player Professions



Every player is randomly assigned a profession when they start a new game.

The Professions are Magician, Merchant, Sage and Sleuth. Each profession comes with its own special ability related to the Friends aspect of the game.

About Professions
When you start a new game of the Secret Society: Hidden Mystery game you will be randomly assigned a profression from the four available in the game. You may not change the profession that has been assigned to you.

Each profession has a different special ability that comes into effect when a player visits another player's home desktop and charges a picture or a puzzle, or when you hire friend before investigating a picture or a puzzle.

You may not pick your profession and you may not change the profession that has been assigned to you. The only way to get a new profession is to start a new game.

List of Professions
There are 4 professions within the game:
 * 1) Magician (symbol - lightening bolt): Decreases energy points needed to investigate picture/puzzle
 * 2) Merchant (symbol - coin): Increases coins earned from successful investigation of a picture/puzzle
 * 3) Sage (symbol - star): Increases experience earned from successful investigation of a picture/puzzle
 * 4) Sleuth (symbol - camera):  Increases chances of finding items. Note: Sleuths increase your chances of recieving rewards for successful investigating a picture or a puzzle the same way that luck talismans help you. They do not help you find items within pictures during investigations.

Pictures and Puzzles Charged by Friends
When a picture or puzzle in your game has been charged by a visiting friend, you will see an icon in the top left corner of the picture or puzzle. This icon is a picture of the mystery man (default avatar) and a circle containing the symbol for the profression of the friend that has visited and charge the picture/puzzle.

In order to see which friend has charged the picture/puzzle open the research window for the charged picture/puzzle by pressing it and press the enlarged mystery man symbol in the top right corner of the research window. The name of the friend will be displayed along with the description of their profession's abilities.

The friends charge will take effect for the first play of that picture or puzzle, and only one friend may charge a picture at a time (new charges by players of the same or different professions will overwrite any previous charge).

Each profession adds a percentage increase to one of the rewards for successfully investigating a picture or a puzzle. So the exact amount of extra coins you receive for successfully investigating a picture or puzzle if a merchant charges them depends on the original amount you would have won, which is dependent on the level of mastery you have already achieved on the picture/puzzle.

Awards Charged by Friends
Professions have no influence when charging desktop awards, the extra rewards added when your desktop awards are charged are the same regardless of the chargers profession, game level and reputation level.

Hiring Friends
You can hire your current friends before investigating a picture or puzzle to take advantage of their profession's abilities. Hiring a friend lasts for one picture or puzzle investigation.

To hire a friend, open the Friends Section of the game. Go to your friends list (first tab, open by default) and scroll through your friends until you find one with the profession you need. The friends profession symbols are displayed in the top right hand corner of their avatar. Pressing a symbol will bring up the description of that profession and what it does. Press the green hire icon to hire a friend. The friends information box will then be highlighted.

When you return to your home desktop, a small version of your friends avatar with their profession symbol will be displayed on the right hand side of your home desktop in the same location as any active talismans and artefacts. Pressing this icon will bring up a description of the profession of the hired friend as well as the friends name.

When you play a picture or puzzle, the hired friends profession will take effect. You can see the percentage increase of coins (merchant) or experience points (sage) or the percentage decrease in energy points required to play (magician) by opening a research window of a picture or puzzle. The hired friend's effect will be added to the effect of currently activated talismans and artefacts and the effect of an already charged picture/puzzle.

When you start a game the number of friends you can hire for any one picture or puzzle investigation is restricted to 1. This number increases as you reputation level increases (the same as the number of charges you allowed for each friend per visit increases at set reputation level increments). The maximum amount of friends you can hire in a single day is the same number as your current reputation level. You can increase your reputation level by visiting your friends and charging their home desktops. Gifting does not increase your reputation.

Finding Out Your Profession
Players not being able to see their own professions within the game is a purposeful move on the game developers part. Previous loopholes in the game that allowed players to find their own professions have been removed in updates, again on purpose. It is also impossible to change your profession once a game has started.

Although this seems unfair, there is sound logic behind the move. There is a tendency to think of some game professions as better or more desireable than others. If players were able to see their randomly generated profession when they start a new game, they would be tempted to restart the game over and over until they get a 'preferred' profession. This would result in every player in the game being the same profession.

Currently, the only way to find out your own profession is to ask someone who is friends with you in the game to check your name on their friends list. This requires having a means of communication with a friend outside of the game.

See the information graveyard for ways it was possible to find your own profession within your own game that has since been removed from the game in updates.

Related

 * SS Home
 * Friends
 * Visiting Friends
 * Energy
 * Talismans
 * Updates
 * Information Graveyard