Billy Von Bubba

Thank you. The hotkey didn't work but I looked and realized the thing above the menu was what you were referring to.

I got a new (larger) monitor and am having difficulty playing the game the same way as before. Some of the text is smaller than before, some of it is the same size. That is a problem since I like reading text at a smaller font and having the main block of text at a relatively larger size makes it harder to organize the screen. Is there some way to modify the text sizes?

You too? The little irony of this is that the academic study of magic presented in this game is parallel to the study of things that might as well be magic to other people (History and Law). Spend too much time in real complex fields and you keep on looking for the structure and processes. Ignore them and the human characteristics are more visible but you run the danger of ignoring the predictability and constraints that are part of being human. The game does a good job at balancing between rules for its magic system and world and the focus on character elements.

I get the impression from the design of Y1 that the team is full of perfectionists. That can be good (300+ hours of play and I am still learning things) or bad (constant revisions can create paralysis or cause development to lag behind the pace of obsolescence or demand). I think just getting something out the door could cut down on the constantly increasing possibilities and focus development on perfection via DLCs.

I wonder if the issue is feature creep (common with complex projects) or having to re-invent the previous engine if major parts stopped being usable due to license or obsolescence issues. One of the major ways to cope with either situation is to just enforce a pared down version with enough hooks for major updates. Given the digital distribution system, that seems quite doable. Balancing is another possible issue and (given the previous removal of a planned class) sounds like a present concern. The thing is, trying too hard to balance a game can actually be wasted effort. The previous pattern of patches and DLCs make balancing by accretion a viable strategy. The inclusion of user-generated adventures and rewards is inherently going to change whatever balancing calculations are made at launch.A lot of that initial balancing can be achieved in a closed alpha or beta that allows the most obvious things to be mitigated. Later DLCs offer the ability to mitigate some of the later variance. The next biggest cause for delay that I can think of is writing all the little bits of lore and keeping them consistent. That is a real challenge and disclosing it would risk getting the fan base emotionally invested in features. That said, the seeming lack of continuity can be explained by ... magic. And storylines explaining why some seemingly significant feature of year one is not visible now. "But I saved the school from pirates five times! Why aren't you trusting me to go to the marketplace on my own?" "You say that, Prof. Ayentyre said that, but do you want special treatment and all the doubts that come with it or to allow even Phillipe to be allowed near the Magical Snakes vendor?" Change of faculty and bad record-keeping is another way to explain a seeming lack of respect for the adventures in year one.

I'd be glad to just have a screenshot even if stuff changes. I am more disappointed with the uncertainty than in the specifics. Additional tweaking can be done via DLC (see Stellaris). Academagia's text-based nature means that modifications should be far simpler than in a graphics heavy game. If classes are to be cut, why not have a "prep class" adventure chain for the class to be included in the next year.