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Metis

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Everything posted by Metis

  1. What's the name of the Sphinx adventure? My current character is on DLC16 (I have Synchronicity) but Library Knowledge 10 just gave me the normal Match Wits with the Emperor's Sphinx ability, and it worked as exactly as it did before as far as I could tell.
  2. Mind if I ask what would be so impossible to learn otherwise? A training modifier of 6 is over twice as hard as the hardest skill ingame to learn (which IIRC is Danger Sense).
  3. Other students will use Befriend to form cliques, and random tables being what they are sometimes they'll try to Befriend you. One bug/annoyance is that when a student fails to Befriend you the History will rapport that. If a student succeeds, though, it doesn't rapport that student succeeded, it only rapports that you now have that student's Clique ability.
  4. I recall once exploring and finding a location that had a location effect of +3% chance to save against poison. ...Now in the unlikely event that I remember where that is, I'll be glad to tell you.
  5. On question 1: No clue. On question 2: Yes. Rather embarrassing if you roll, say, +50 PA from her, but that's what happens when favours are completely random.
  6. On 1: Do items enchanted with Gates carry the same Chaos factor, or can they be used safely given a skilled user? (I imagine the answer is "no") On 2: Selective Focus really helps with learning Sync. To the point where I think the skill's training modifier or assigned attribute might be bugged. With 12 Insight Instinct/Serenity take 2 SS for SL1. With Selective Focus active it takes 0, which normally only happens to skills with a training modifier of 1. Read: Serenity and Instinct should be as easy to learn as Library Knowledge. If you go through An Outing... and get the Master's Mark you should become a recognised student, if not an outright "member", of Nhordum's family, so you won't face authorities alone. Mind, they're liable to harass you even more than the authorities are, given that the PC is learning faster than they're used to and at such a young age to boot, but you can be sure that what they'll do is in everyone's best interest, not just the PC's - Ethics is one of their main principles, after all. If you never go through An Outing... and learn both Sync and Mastery by yourself, well, there's a reason why the Master's Mark exists and why it does what it does. But should you learn both skills as well as Gates and Revision on top of that, than congratulations, you've become the Academagia equivalent of Tzimisce.
  7. A new familiar introduced in the recently released DLC 16.
  8. Eh, personally I'm not the biggest fan of the idea. If you want to increase relations with a professor just use Weasel Words, or failing that, Impression of Diligence. Your friends/enemies would feel very different about you skipping depending on who they were and what, at least as far as the game can determine, you're doing. And the penalties for skipping are bad enough as they are, especially with classes providing next to no reason not to skip, even actively encouraging it during the exam months (although I imagine that Y2 fixes that problem at least somewhat).
  9. I have returned! And no DLC16. I'd say I'm surprised but, eh, I'm kinda not . I never really go item hunting simply because I have no idea what I can get, where I can get it, what's necessary to open up that shop/catalogue, and than some. I do tend to get a decent Familiar and attend Zoology, though, so Improved Familiar Handling works wonders. And the Certificate may be obtainable by searching the Room of Decrees, the mod tools aren't exactly clear on that, but that takes Bureaucracy 10 to unlock and a Luck/Bureaucracy v13 (the wiki says Intelligence, the roll actually checks Luck in the mod tools) to have an, at most, 1/6 chance of getting the Certificate, if you can even get it from that area. And note that without the certificate the Room of Decrees has a 15 CoD, so you're risking detention as well every time you try. Incidentally, the Certificate's description claims that the PC got it from studying the Early Empire.
  10. Eh, no deal. Background points are in limited supply and I need my starting attributes, besides which I tend not to play the kind of characters that would roll (I assume) Charm/Debate anyway. IMO having to go through an adventure just to unlock the chance to wrestle with Insight/Wits v15 and either CoD 15/Early Empire 8/1 Background Point is enough to justify a 4SS Sphinx. At 3SS that kind of effort is really only worth it because there's no alternatives, and even than only if you've gotten all the necessary skills and the Certificate beforehand to minimize time wasted on failing rolls. Thankfully there's always the Mantle of Stars, Manetele and Longshade to provide some worthwhile (if temporary) opportunities to train skills before the Sphinx opens up. Really wish the Mantle of Stars would give +1 SS to two Astrology skills rather than +2 SS to one, though. All those wasted points drive me nuts... Actually, hell, if I want an alternative so badly maybe I should just write one myself. No chance in hell that could be done in time for DLC 16, if ever, but eh, not like publishing and posting a mod is, you know, hard. How to make that balanced without being able to lock it behind an adventure (broken mod tools) I don't know, but eh, I'll maybe think of something.
  11. Ah, okay. I'm not a native English speaker so I always get tripped by exact definitions (at least when I bother to look them up, most the time I just smile and nod). Pity about the mod tools. I don't think I'm done with typing adventures yet but fixed mod tools would really help, if only help the team from having to piece things together themselves. My most recent dabbling definitely won't affect DLC 16, though, since for one I'm going on a week-long trip in, say, 5-ish hours, and for another I think I'll focus on Y2 adventures from now on. Y1 kinda has enough, if not too many already. Not sure if the Sphinx is back to 4 SS, but she(?) should. As is the 3SS/action isn't really impressive, it's just Library of Longshade Mark II for people that have maxed out Concentration with a ludicrously hard roll attached. You have no idea how consistently I fail that roll until I train my Familiar up to Bond/Wits 6. Having to go through an adventure only to then start the dice rolls really pushes 3SS/Action Sphinx into the "only worth it due to lack of competition" category. Incidentally, is the DLC going to add any more ways of getting the Certificate of Imperial Favor other than Early Empire 8? The Wits roll is hard enough, but with the Chance of Discovery the Sphinx is borderline unusable without save/load cheese.
  12. Asking here since it's more on topic, I got a question about the so-called Maelstrom: Is the maelstrom only shaped like a whirlpool, or does it actually suck things down into it towards the centre like I think a normal whirlpool does? If the latter, is this an educated guess, or has someone/something actually fallen into the Maelstrom and lived to tell the tale? EDIT: typos... EDIT 2: Also, remind me: We'll get a new mod base with DLC 16, but we won't get fixed mod tools until Y2, and a mod made with the current tools won't work with the fixed tools, right?
  13. It'd be hilarious if it turned out the surface was a sort of untamed paradise that, for whatever reason, prevented explorers from returning to the islands through Gates. More likely, it's a place filled with active volcanoes that prevented explorers from returning due to them suffering an acute case of horrible death.
  14. Even Gates couldn't get you past it?
  15. Who do you think taught you those invisibility spells? The professors command far more magic than a first-year does, and I suspect Badcrumble has Astrology rolls that can roll well into the triple digits. EDIT: What this game really needs is a fix for the mod tools and the engine. Hopefully this stuff becomes possible in Y2, at least, in case the Y2 classes prove to be on the lesser side of useful.
  16. Speaking of which, is it possible for classes to teach research levels and/or DLC-added skills or are either/both a case of "engine limitation"? I've been looking into how to buff classes to the point where they're not made redundant by Train, as they are currently, and doing so without either DLC skills or RL is...impractical, to put it nicely.
  17. From a coding standpoint, I can't see why it would. I'm pretty sure the only thing Y2 cares about is what classes you enrolled in, what you scored on the mid-term/exams, and your attendance record. What exact skills those classes teach and when shouldn't be relevant by themselves. Of course it wouldn't be the first random engine quirk, so we'll need to wait for the Legate to confirm that one.
  18. I'm more concerned about what it'd do to the other students. I'm pretty sure they attend all classes and get the skill steps for them, although unlike the player they don't do anything else with their time other than train those class skills and very few select others. I know that at least Eliana can score an 88 on the Botany mid-term, if Botany class were to get a buff (to the tune of +43 skill steps taught over the year)...yeah. I wonder what the finals scores might look like.
  19. To clarify - Trigonometry has a train modifier of 1. It's as easy to learn as Birds. Or Fish, actually. Speaking of the Zoology professor, read Random Event - Zoology Field Trip. I'd like to add that most Zoology random events are some variation of "Today the professor shows off animal X but it has escaped/gone mad/something and is about to eat you. Now what?". One thing I'd like to ask is whether people think classes should be buffed, how much if at all, and why. Personally I'd like to see it buffed to the point where you actually learn something more often than not, they're really not up to standard for what I'd expect from a school like the Academagia.
  20. How much freedom to the teachers have in terms of, well, teaching? Is there a strict(-ish) quota the teachers must fill, are they just assigned a classroom and told to have fun, does no one care so long as students don't fluff exams?
  21. If that stuff is available, and if not from another source. The Zoology professor clearly isn't too busy, and whatever allows a PC to learn Fish from, say, the Mantle of Stars is clearly in possession of the Academagia. It shouldn't take Gates to conjure a fish, Mineta being a floating island or not. That said, I just checked the skill description for Fish and it contains this little gem: "Those who study the Skill of Fish are true believers in Zoology, for only those who truly wish to understand each and every type of animal would bother to study that which seems to have little-to-no value for men.". Clearly Zoology needs to teach it - it has a reputation of uselessness to uphold.
  22. Actual fish may be rare, that doesn't mean people can't learn what they are from records and illustrations. How many people that know what lions are have met one personally? Also, question: If two skill step variances of a single class roll the right numbers so that they fall on the same day, will the class teach both steps on that one day? I assume so, but I thought I'd check to make sure.
  23. Yeah, a lack of calculators would hurt, but than again, magic. Surely there's an "input numbers and do stuff" spell? Also, Trigonometry only has a training modifier of 1. It's not a difficult skill to learn, as least as far as the game is concerned. As for class upgrades, I'd throw on top that Zoology should teach Amphibians, Fish, and Worms. That's a good +30-36 steps right there, and really all classes should teach more steps than they do now. And for those wondering - my obsession with Worms is that it looks incredibly silly to have 10 Zoology, 0 Amphibians, 10 Birds, 0 Fish, 10 Insects, 10 Mammals, 0 Worms.
  24. That's not the most random engine limitation I remember hearing about, no offence to the coding team. That is, however, mystery #1 solved. Now hopefully my rusty math skills can finish the rest. Heck I'll just ask: One game year consists of 900 actions - 500 free actions, 12 exams, and 388 classes, correct? EDIT: I'll just assume I'm right. For science! Anyway. Here's some Academagia class science (or, more accurately put, an exercise in "how consistently can I tap the down arrow while counting" and "how well do I remember basic arithmetic"): Specifically, here's a list of how many skill steps a given class will teach over the course of the entire year, given that the PC never skips/misses a class where a skill step is taught and that I counted correctly. The first thing you might notice is that Professor Monetario isn't very good at his job. The second thing you might notice is that he's not the only one. This means that, in terms of skill steps, the worst set of classes is a student in Avila enrolled in Astronomy/Dialectic/Enchant/Geometry/Music/Zoology for a total of 366 skill steps taught over a single year. The highest, by contrast, is an Aranaz student with Athletics/Botany/Calligraphy/Grammar/History/Negation for a total of 466 skill steps. This means that you get about 0.9 to 1.2 skill steps per "attend classes" action. Per individual class you get a third of that, since one action consists of attending three classes. Even with the best teachers in the Academagia an individual class will still teach you nothing more than half the time. Unless I did math wrong and school taught me nothing more than half the time (spoiler: it did).
  25. That explains part of why I, at least, don't give classes much respect. Because I did not know that. Why, exactly, do classes not rapport on individual skill steps when literally everything else in the game, at least that I've found, does?
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