Vesper

It's definitely a good ability since pure luck 10 doesn't give anything, but it's unfortunate that you have to be in Aranaz to unlock the skill unless you get lucky with a random boost. It's worth getting every CoS ability you can (the bonus from Instinct, Malacresta, CC bonuses, Cheer, Mallen Field) since you can get up to a ridiculous +10 CoS. It's definitely the hardest adventure in the game - I always sacrifice a clique member on the last check because it's ridiculously high - but by the time I can complete it my stress max is usually in the 20s so a point from training isn't a big deal for me. I also don't use any buffs other than Cheer after resting, since I don't find them necessary. The Dialectic check means that I typically don't use it unless I'm in Durand, though. Logic and Sleuthing are useful, but the other two skills not so much. Garibaldi's is definitely great, I just didn't think to put it since you get informed about it during the tutorial. Haejar's seems ok since it has an attribute boosting item. Most of the other stores don't really seem worthwhile due to the (frankly terrible) way shops work, where you have to dedicate a timeslot to going to one store. For example the bamboozler shop has a +1 wits book, which is pointless when you could spend that time training wits up by 1 yourself and get other skill bonuses too (or if wits is maxed, use improved familiar handling to get a permanent +2 boost from your familiar). Most of the time getting a +1 boost to one or two skills isn't worth the opportunity cost of going to to a shop vs training up the skill yourself or on your familiar, especially when you consider that training gives various bonuses and unlocks, and that you can only have one or two items per item type equipped (excepting rings). Parent skill boosts aren't great either since the majority of skill checks are for subskills. There are a few ways I wish shops were different. Having the items you can buy have heftier bonuses to make it worthwhile, or letting you browse among all the shops you've unlocked at once with the "shop" action, or not having to spend a timeslot to access them. The current system is just bad.

Hey metis, thanks for the feedback. I did end up checking the forum to see if anyone had any since I figured they were more likely to do it here. I fixed the typos and inaccurate info (I seriously have no idea why I put down that insects was unlocked by botany, I assume I wrote that thinking of some adventure skill check? Who knows). Out of curiosity did some poking with cheat engine and here's what I can tell about how detention works: there's a number that determines how likely you are to get a reprimand when skipping class. It starts at 0 and goes up 1 every time you skip. Once you get a reprimand and go to detention it goes back to 0. It might also go down if you attend a bunch of classes but I didn't verify that. My hypothesis is that the number is what % chance (out of 100) you are to get reprimanded for skipping in that timeslot. So if you skip 2 classes you have a 2% chance to get caught the next timeslot, and if you succeed it goes up to 3%, etc etc. This is conjecture but if I was programming it that seems like a reasonable way to do it. There might be other factors (like how many reprimands for skipping you've gotten in the last 2 weeks) but it seems like a reasonable baseline. The bit I had about composure was some old tidbit from the forum which is almost certainly no longer true. Any idea how many reprimands it takes roughly? It's never happened to me so I have no idea myself. 2 percent doesn't sound like a lot but it applies to every roll in the game. Plus, there are relatively few ways to permanently raise your universal CoS compared to raising your attributes. If you don't savescum that will save you on a least half dozen checks you'd otherwise fail per game, and if you do savescum that helps when you do something with a low probability. Well, the thing about stress is that it's very common to gain a point from various activities, adventures, or random events (sometimes even if you succeed) so savescumming enough to avoid picking up more than 3 points would be pretty annoying. Confidence making you immune I hadn't known, but spending 4 turns training it up to get rid of the downsides still seems like it's not really worth taking it as a perk over a straight point. Also I'm pretty on the far end of the "savescummer vs roleplayer" curve, so I doubt most people would find starting with 1 fitness viable, I just wanted to note that it was possible if you play the game like me. The perilous friendship of Mr Pebbles By reloading being effective I was referring to the fact that if you reload you can prevent them from successfully befriending/being befriended into a clique, since befriend tends to fail fairly often. It's also always possible to Befriend students with the Great Hall's bonus even if their current relationship level is at 0 and you already have half a dozen clique members, though I wouldn't recommend trying this even if you do savescum (testing this was extremely tedious). Yeah, but when your stress is in the high teens it's still faster to Rest and reapply your buffs. Once fitness gets to 5 and over you turn into a tank that can go months between Rests. That was the ratio I came to after failing repeatedly with a check of 27-ish (10 wit, +5 familiar bonus, 12 insight). It might be better if you don't do it multiple times on one day? I know that I seem to never succeed at more than one "Exclusively Consult" per day.

I suggest that Y1's engine be made open source, because currently the player is unable to modify the weakest parts of the game, for example: character creation, the UI, the way classes work. Clearly the dev team is supportive of modding, why not release the engine and have the $25 pay for downloading the game assets? Especially since the year 1 engine isn't even going to be used for the next game. Also, the dev team should consider making a blog about Y2 progress. I'm not saying they should have someone be a full time blogger, but even a monthly post talking about the general progress they're making would be far preferable to just saying "wait and see" to everything, especially since that's been the line used for years now. It would be far less frustrating to wait if the dev team could actually give some indication that progress is being made.