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Detention for skipping classes is a bad mechanic.


Vesper

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The central mechanic of the game is that you get 3 actions a day, adding up to 21 a week. Having 10 of these as classes that you get punished for skipping drags the game down. Classes only sometimes give benefits, and very rarely are better than studying on your own in that timeslot. It adds nothing to the game because all it does is force the player to essentially sit on their hands. The only justification for it is that it adds verisimilitude, but you could easily give an in universe justification like "orso doesn't care as long as you pass the tests", "the timeslots represent time outside of class", or whatever fluffy reason you want.

Yes, you can skip classes without always getting detention, but detention shouldn't be a threat in the first place. Academagia is a game, and a game shouldn't stop the player from playing it half the time. It's like if a mario game limited how often the player could jump.

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Why are you attending a school of magic if you not plan to go into class at last now and then?

Also in real school could you just stay away from class even if the very day its just talk about what you did during the holidays or watch a movie? 

 

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I don't think anyone plays the game to attend classes. They're a badly balanced/implemented means to an end, and I didn't have a problem justifying the old class skipping bug as being present for the morning roll call being all that really mattered. Fixing them in Y1 isn't possible, not without a massive rebalance, but I do hope the old class skipping bug comes back. Still the best feature that came with DLC 16, even if it broke the game's balance over it's knee.

Depends on the school. One I went to I'd have been expelled within a week, another took a week to notice that I suddenly stopped attending classes altogether. Academagia would be the former by all counts, though.

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I don't expect the dev team to put in the effort to rebalance classes to be integral to the experience since that would be a pretty big overhaul. Just making them optional though would be extremely easy and make the game much better.

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I personal prefer to go the other way around and improve what the Professor teach in the class but did only go so far and made class at last even with train in my mod. When we get the year 2 mod tool I might improve what is thought once again with a mod because without the skills add in the DLC its to difficult for some class. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would like there to be challenges associated with the classes, or sometimes tutoring, with a mixture of results. Perhaps some experimentation depending on what the Professor had planned for the day. Where you can earn academic points in lab/demo sessions, friendship points in others, or learn something new on another subject, perhaps get an idea for out of class research or adventures.

Perhaps allow you to use your skills in class to "accomplish" or fail whatever your goal is.

It would probably take a lot of work to make classes more interesting and interactive. Perhaps choose how your character spends the time, excel, study, sneak about, bully, prank, make friends etz...

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It'd indeed take far too much work. Basically a complete overhaul of how classes work, just to start. Rest assured that many ideas have been put forth to make the Y1 classes less detrimental to the player's ability to enjoy the game, but none of them can really be put into practice.

Minus the class skipping bug, if the Team would be so kind as to introduce a morning roll call :rolleyes:...

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On 30/05/2017 at 10:31 PM, Schwarzbart said:

I personal prefer to go the other way around and improve what the Professor teach in the class but did only go so far and made class at last even with train in my mod. When we get the year 2 mod tool I might improve what is thought once again with a mod because without the skills add in the DLC its to difficult for some class. 

 

Same and I would also give some additional penalties for not attending classes. Like not getting classes related random events if you abstain that day. (which in year 1 would be a quite the loss)

A simple way for exemple to make classes very important in year 2 is having classes actually improving your maximum skill step of the classes you attend (up to say... 20) when you get the skill increase.


So for exemple if I have Negation Methods 11 and I attend class I get a +1 increase to Negation Methods skill and maximum skill step of 1 so now I have Negation Methods 12.

Or I could spend time Researching to get that increase eventually... . 

Also I would make sure that you always gain something for attending a class to avoid those days where you waste 2 slots. (which shouldn't be too difficult if raising a skil involve 3+ step as I expect 10+ to be).

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What about having class as a location availible at certain times and you can engage in certain actions there without getting in trouble?

Example:

Astrology

Actions- Befriend, compete, office hours, etc.

You get the benefit from the actions AND the benefit from the class. It also makes more sense for a few actions since the normal arena of academic competition in a school is in class.

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On 6/7/2017 at 5:17 PM, Metis said:

It'd indeed take far too much work. Basically a complete overhaul of how classes work, just to start. Rest assured that many ideas have been put forth to make the Y1 classes less detrimental to the player's ability to enjoy the game, but none of them can really be put into practice.

Minus the class skipping bug, if the Team would be so kind as to introduce a morning roll call :rolleyes:...

Reintroducing the afternoon skipping bug as an optional mechanic set at character creation (maybe as a background?) seems like the easiest way to make the classes a more flexible mechanic.

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  • 1 month later...

I kind of always liked that skipping to do stuff and focus on skills was more rewarding than attending. Seems close to real life, in my experience, where one can learn subjects quite a bit faster than school teaches them if one really put their nose down and ground, but normally kids don't skip school to pick the brain of an all knowing Sphinx (I never found the Sphinx in RL sadly), but rather to waste time with friends. I definitely learned a ton more chemistry (biology and US government as well) by starting to just study for those rather than attend classes - granted I got permission so wasn't going to get in trouble unless I got caught sneaking off campus for lunch, which was a perk I definitely indulged in but I really did work hard, and ended up way ahead of my peers in those subjects. I like that trying to really excel at something means skirting some rules that are meant to keep most kids on the "path". 

I also think as a game play mechanic it make a lot more sense for class attendance to be in Stark tension with other options, where the "best" path is to push right up to a discipline, but not to cross over. I tend to think year 1 is a bit too lax on attendance overall (my chars have all been skippers), though I'd also agree that the balance I enjoy would hardly be destroyed if classes got a little nudge so that you get about 1 ss per time slot, assuming 2 slots for clases like year 1. Then you'd never skip to just use train - but who uses train :) - but to do other things it'd still be better.

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  • 4 months later...

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