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Hawkey
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Shouldn't Mastery be able to "call" free ghost or spirit to them like the golden light in the Pamela adventure that they then can us to be bound to a golem?

Also just think the crystal idea I used as end test in the Academy of Thei one step future shouldn't mastery be able to get the spirit from a living creature/human to get the necessary spirit/ghost for a intelligent golem? (Yes I know this is a very dark path of magic)

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I doubt it would be workable long term, because I doubt ghosts and spirits can possess things as effectively on their own ability. Especially a large heavy golem. I suppose you could juryrig some complicated set of enchantments to emulate the spirit being bound but it still wouldn't be perfect and that would *not* be easy or cost effective to do, You might also be extremely limited to only the most powerful poltergeists which would be able to move the golem, which runs several other problems like finding one, subduing it, etc, etc.

I think it's really safe to say that there's a reason only Gates is considered for this sort of thing.

 

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Notice I said absolutely nothing about morals at all. We're talking about Gates and Mastery. These things have ethical debates around them as it is, which really don't belong it a discussion on the theory of a particular art or skill between them.

Personally I think the act of monster creation and spirit binding to be fairly morally repulsive in and of itself. Summoning is somewhat less so, but I'd use Gates for my own travel and as an offensive weapon to literally rend foes primarily.

I was speaking merely from a pragmatic point of view. Mastery is extremely ill-suited for the task you want to use it for. You would have to go very far out of your way to use it in place of Gates, and you'd have a less useful product in the end. Only someone who couldn't use Gates, or someone who was so chaotic-evil they wouldn't care about all the effort required would even think about using Mastery for Golem creation, in my opinion.

(Honestly, just use Glamour. people, it's close enough and 100% morally safe )

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I suspected so, I just wanted to not be lumped in with that idea that I was bashing you on moral grounds or anything by my statements.

I disagree with you on that, but I think we'll find out eventually.

Legate, when's Y2 coming around, anyway? :)

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Something, that I've been meaning to post for a while, but in my opinion the "bullying" system doesn't seem well balanced in that the majority of hostile actions cost time slots and don't have particularly useful in-game results (with the possible exception of the ones that transfer items or money).

I think this could be improved upon by adding skill expansions to hostile actions, for example using the bully action should expand a random bully skill. It would seem to make sense that the more bulling a student does, the better he or she would get at it. 

There's a similar issue with casting spells. Spells that have only temporary effects are usually not an efficient use of time. If casting a spell gave expansions in relevant skills, that would certainly increase their usefulness. For example, something like casting an incantation spell giving a skill-step in Incantation methods. (Or even an Enspell skill. Heck if all spell casting incurred a Reference with a chance to raise a RND skill in the spell school and/or a RND Enspell/Palettes skill would probably be a great solution.)

It just seems strange that actually bullying doesn't help raise bulling skill, and actually casting spells doesn't improve casting skills. But studying in the library, sure no problem...

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I might be wrong but I think year 2 will have a system where many / most spell and items to use no longer need a normal time slot. Also there already some spell that increase 1 or 2 SS when you use them so I don't think there is a balancing needed for spells that just have year 1 in mind. For Hostile actions I think I agree because there probably better way to resist them in year 2, as we already have asked for this, they might might lose even more of their usefulness and so need some boost like Rydenius suggested.

(Also keep in mind there won't be any more balancing for year 1 as all BCS planed for year 1 now are bug fixes but no new content ... at last to my knowledge)

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1 hour ago, Legate of Mineta said:

It's definitely the case that many Items/Spells don't cost Slots any longer- you can cast them for 'free'.

Just so long as people don't expect to spam Cleanse & Remake 10 times a day, I think I can live with that.

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Interesting, Shwarzbart, Legate. Ah, yeah items too. I'd always though it a bit odd that using items and casting spells took up a whole time slot, though it's not unreasonable for rituals and spells that have significant prep time or require material gathering.

But, something to keep in mind is that in the current game time is the main penalty for balancing actions, so if the time-slot penalty is removed from spells there would still need to be a cost added to balance it. Stress, mana, fatigue, something. Or a casting limit per slot/day, effectively allowing a slot + spell, instead of just a slot or spell. Preventing spell-stacking could also be another way to balance "unlimited" spell casting. There's also the issue with challenge rolls -- if you can try over and over to cast a spell without penalty, that would defeat the point of having rolls required. That said, it's welcome news to hear changes are in the works to make the spell system more useful.

In the current system, with the exception of Historical Tendencies, I usually try to avoid "wasting" time slots on spells. Even the vaunted Cleanse and Remake is a wasted slot unless a bunch of difficult adventures can be lined up over a holiday-weekend grouping. And then, it's likely to turn into reload-hell...

About hostile actions, considering the large number of hostile spells/abilities/actions, it certainly seems that there was more intended to be implemented to make that interesting and didn't make the final release. But from a min-max point of view, with the current system, even if you wanted to role-play "getting revenge" or being a not-so-nice character, there's no point. The only useful thing to do, is to just just make nice and raise the negative relationship student back to a positive relationship. So much for having a "rival". Now if the developers want to promote a "no good comes from revenge and spite" theme, I'm certainly okay with that, but it seems to go against the "gray" morality present in much of the lores, events, and adventures.

If a "gray" morality is assumed, when considering balance, it just seems that since hostile actions come with a built in penalty (retaliation, negative relationships) that there would need to be some kind of benefit to offset them to make them useful for more than role-playing, whether it's unlocking new abilities/actions/items/adventures that are only available to characters that have engaged in hostile actions or adding benefits (skill expansions, etc.) to the actions themselves, or something else. (Maybe add a memory the first time a hostile action sends another student to the infirmary -- vitality/stress <= 0 -- and use that to unlock something.)

The other issue would be the Dueling system. From what I've read on the forums, this will be seeing a significant overhaul for year 2. It's important to keep in mind though that even that should have a reward equivalent to the time-slots and money that need to be expended (including preparation time-slots). If it can be used as a vehicle to gain a chance for skill expansions and reputation changes during each round of combat, that could make dueling itself very rewarding, but this is another one to keep in mind where the penalties are already inherent in the action: vitality loss + time slot loss.

In any case, even though this post has probably become too long for most to want to bother reading, I do want to take a moment and thank the developers for making an incredible game with a ton of story and replayability. I don't want it to sound like I'm only complaining and posting bugs, rather I'm hoping that if the places where the game (series) is a bit rough are fixed, that it can become even more amazing (and hopefully financially successful). Personally, being a programmer myself, I thought it a bit nuts to have so much content, such a variety of character background choices, and and so many branching paths, since it's surely to become unmanageable as the series progresses, but the novel use of a system of "memories" (instead of actual branching paths) allowing the adventure/event authors to pick and choose what to tailor the writing to, is likely the reason for surprising success of this approach.

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A lot of Y1 spells and abilities are going to be less useful in Y2 simply because the higher abilities of the students means higher chances that they can negate them or otherwise render them useless.

That's not to say that they can't be used, but you'll need to be strategic about them, maybe requiring spells to take down the target's defenses first.

The Legate's said that the game mechanics are already planned all the way to Y5. That part is relatively easy compared to the programming and everything else. Now I just wish we could see the fruits of that labor... :(

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I feel like the reason what most abilities/action/spells are next to useless is because the game seems to have been hijacked by adventures.

The way the game is designed makes you feel like adventures were not supposed to be as important as they are right now. (as is most munchkin playthrough revolves around completing as much adventures as possible)

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How about allow the student that want to take a class in year 2 where the student is not qualified from the class in year 1 to lend / buy a book to study this subject the test will based on over the summer break.

The books could give 2 study level for this topic per use and the non relationship rewards of the year 1 study of this subject. 

Using a item for doing this will keep the normal year 2 study ability / action free of this extra burden and allow the student to use it on their travel and at home. Downside is natural each year 1 class that will be a requirement for a year 2 class need this item and a variable that can store numbers from 0-5 for each student who is allowed to take a test at the start of year 2.

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I think its a missed opportunity if during the selection of the class for year 2 if the students who performed bad in the core class of the college are not told "Either improve a lot this year or better start to look already where you continue your education after this year."

Especial such extrem circumstances I saw in my current game where i.e. Miya from Godina is the only one who failed Music or Carmine and Courtenay both Aranaz failed Calligraphy ... I doubt von Ruprecht will take this in good grace. 

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