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User Guide/Manual, Walkthroughs, & Video Tutorials


Legate of Mineta
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With the game coming to Steam I think it'd be a good idea to update the available tutorials. The manual, while comprehensive, is four years out of date. And a transcription of the video tutorial, making both incorrect at several points (Insight ‐ Increase this to be wise and intuitive (important for Astrology as well as many Spells)? Astrology is based on Luck last I checked). Also, Orange options are not a thing. The biggest problem is that neither give newcomers anything to go on. When is the best time to study? You can make friends, but how to decide who to make friends with and when? How much preparation is needed before you Befriend someone, if any? How to check whether potential friends hate your current ones, how to fix it? And don't even get me started on picking and choosing adventures...

 

I think a complete written guide, including pointers on how to survive the early game and get into a position where you can do stuff without failing constantly, posted on either the forum or the wiki (if it'll be tolerable come January), would be an immense help for newcomers. And with Steam having so many other shinies to look at...it might be necessary. There's something to be said about telling people how they should play a game - especially a game like Academagia - but there's also something to be said about throwing people in the ocean with nothing but a single paddle.

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I wouldn't say Gera's letter is more important, but I'm not going to argue that it is important. The big issue is that to change Gera's letter the team would have to either include it in DLC 17 or issue a quick patch, and I don't think either will happen before (if) Academagia hits Steam.

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Gera's letter is being looked at, what next? At minimum I think that at least the manual should be updated (it's pretty useful and comprehensive as far as I can tell, just...really outdated), and if possible someone should put together a screenshot-and-text guide and post it on the forums or the wiki - preferably the former. The issue with that is where to upload the screenshots to than link them to the forum. I was thinking upload them to the wiki, both for easy access and in case anyone ever wants to copy that guide to the wiki, but I don't know.

 

As for the manual, here's a list of the lines I personally noticed as being off in whatever way I felt like at the time (I know, my quality assurance is second to none):

 

PAGE 2:

"If you want to make many friends, you will need a good Gossip Skill to raise Relationships, and a good Befriend Skill to get them to join your Clique."
-Gossip is hardly the only action that can increase relationships, but it is one of the few that can increase inter-student relationships and at very high skill levels it has the highest single relationship increase per action. Still, it sounds misleading.

"If you want all to admire your strength, perhaps Athletics."
-Sounds reasonable, but Athletics is keyed to Fitness, not Strength. Maybe Forge would be a better example?

"At the top of the list is “Do you start a new game?” – if you have a taste for adventure, good times, and all the finer things in life, the thing to do is to click on the small arrow immediately to the question’s left."
-The impression of a door-to-door salesman with an inferiority complex aside, a monkey stealing my clothes while I'm talking a bath and a tiger that makes sure I don't leave the bathroom while said monkey is going Gods knows what with my clothes is neither my idea of a good time or the finer things in life. Especially if that happens before I learn how to get out of that situation other than staying put and suffering hypothermia.

"The next screen shows if there are any mods available, and will invite you to click “Next” to create the world of the Academagia. Hit the small blue button at the bottom right of your screen labeled “10 Points Remaining”."
-It seems silly to have free DLC but not to mention it.

PAGE 3:

"Luck - Increase this if you have a natural lucky streak; this slightly increases the chance of having Random Events."
-I can neither confirm nor deny, but given the below statement this probably bears investigating.

"Insight - Increase this to be wise and intuitive (important for Astrology as well as many Spells)."
-Astrology is keyed to Luck. I suppose the Astrology Action rolls Insight/Astrology, but I don't think that's enough to say that Insight is important to the Astrology skillset as a whole - I'm sure there's more thing we can do with Astrology (*cough* Wrath of the Comet's Tail *cough*) than just the Astrology action.

PAGE 6:

"That said, they’re all fairly awesome, so we hope you won’t be tempted."
-A note that you can create and add your own portrait to the game would be useful.

PAGE 7:

"Stress can be used on some competitive actions to give you a boost – the more you use, the stronger the bonus. You can use an amount equal to your Fitness x 2 in extra Stress on your actions in a day, divided in any way you wish."
-Nothing every mentions how you do so, though, you just have to assume that it's the Stress Bonus tab (which one might say is obvious, but if you want to go there....).

"(Note that Rest (we’ll get to it in a bit) resets both Stress and Vitality. You can go for days at a time without Rest, but you probably won’t want to.)"
-The need to rest isn't at all based on time, which this seems to imply.

"Concealment refers to… well, basically, the number describes how likely it is that a teacher will notice an item in your inventory, get annoyed, and punish you for it."
-Could use a mention of dress code, but eh, semantics.

PAGE 8:

"Unless there are magical effects in place, your skill level will be equal to that of the lowest of the top three sub-skills."
-Abilities of the non-magical veriaty can affect skills just as well.

"You’ll see it has five sub-skills: Schoolyard Education, Social Skills, Study Habits, Curiosity, and Familiar Bonding."
-Field Medicine. Test Taking. Familiar Kinship.

"If your level at Schoolyard Education is 3, your level at Social Skills is 2, your level at Study Habits is 5, your levels at Curiosity and Familiar Bonding are 0, then your overall skill at School Survival is 2 – your skill at Social Skills."
-Continued error of Familiar Kinship aside, that really shouldn't take so many words.

"The only thing that Study Level tells you is how well you’ll do on a class test, a mid-term or a final exam, in that subject."
-Class tests aren't a thing mechanically, and study levels unlock stuff just like skills.

"The line between them can be a fine one, but generally speaking an Action is something you can do in a short period of time – jump rope, punch Philippe – while an Ability represents a posture or a more sustained effect."
-Study in the Venalicium Library is a posture or a sustained effect? As far as I can tell Actions and Abilities have about three possible distinctions, and they're all used pretty much randomly.

PAGE 9:

"Items in the Knapsack are carried with you during the day, and you can use any Abilities that they may have."
-Pretty sure most items have to be equipped to use their abilities (read: Certificate of Imperial Favor), but things like foodstuffs don't have to be.

"However, any Size or Concealability are added to you, and may cause an unfriendly Instructor to issue a reprimand for unseemly appearance."
-A student of a wizard school wearing a beemask, griffon feather, sword, shield, Marat deck, flower, gemstone and high heels won't get in trouble for "unseemly appearance" unless s/he adds a bag of cement mix to his/her knapsack and thereby excees her Endurance/Concealment scores? WHAT?

PAGE 10:

"You’ve probably figured it out already, but that means that there are four small pages of text waiting to be read."
-For me the intro is only four pages, but I guess that depends on resolution/font size.

"Clicking “Next Page” will take you forward, clicking “Previous Page” will take you back."
-The scroll wheel can do that as well, much more conveniently.

"In this case, there are two options available (though you should always scroll over them to make sure there aren’t more below waiting to be read), and they’re both listed in green, but that’s not always going to be the case."
-Scrolling over options does nothing. The scroll top/bottom buttons are better indicators of there being more options than are listed anyway.

"Other colors scale between them."
-Good time to mention them now as opposed to eight pages later.

"(Note that, depending on the situation, different modifiers may be acting behind the scenes.)"
-That line is talking about the attribute part of the Attribute/Skill rolling system, so it's not true that there "may" be things acting behind the scenes, there "are".

PAGE 11:

"If you want to set fires, screw up at Incantation when you can."
-If that's the best advice you have...

"Be warned: the last is automatic; you won’t be asked if you really, really want to overwrite."
-There's now a toggle option to ask for confirmation.

"As for the calendar itself: you see a week at a time (sometimes, a week will consist of more than seven days – in Elumian culture, major festivals and holidays generally fall outside the Sunday to Saturday progression, and have names of their own)"
-It seems weird to call it a "Sunday to Saturday" progression when every week goes from Monday to Sunday.

"Now, the people who run the school gave your character that calendar, and so the default choices reflect establishment preferences."
-So the professors don't want me to do anything - including studying for classes - beyond attending classes and resting?

PAGE 12:

"There are lots of things you can do instead of Resting, and… heck, as long as you don’t cut class too often, you can have some reasonably exciting days without official reprimand as well!"
-"without official reprimand" seems to be missing an "an" as far as I can tell, but...maybe not.

PAGE 13:

"Once the day actually begins, at the appropriate time, you’ll begin an Event – as described above – and each Event successfully completed unlocks the next Adventure in a given storyline. Each failure, conversely, either allows you to repeat the Adventure later, or pushes you into a parallel storyline."
-That's not always true, even during main quest adventures.

"Just making one friend can require investing a lot of time in Relationship-building, and after that… well, you don’t just have to make would-be friends like you."
-The truth isn't quite as dramatic as this makes it sound, especially because your first friend isn't that difficult to get.

PAGE 14:

"So, with a score of 50, you’ll get 50 pims (the local currency) every two weeks without needing to work for it."
-Beyond the work put into increasing PA.

"Exploring, basically, sends your character out to try to discover a hidden location in one of five regions: the Academagia, the Academagia Grounds, the nearby City of Mineta, the Imperial Reserve, and elsewhere on the Island of Elumia."
-Also known as Elumia Proper.

"The downside is that, as a lowly student, you can get into trouble for being just about anywhere but in class, in your dorm room, or in a library."
-"A" library is technically correct, though few would guess that that refers to a specific library.

"When it works, it can improve the Relationship between any two students on campus – either yourself and another person, or two other people."
-Specify students consistently as Gossip does nothing to professors.

"If you plan to Befriend an army, Gossip is how you start."
-You'd probably start with training the Gossip skill first - without a high Gossip skill the Gossip action isn't worth much.

PAGE 15:

"That said, there is an exception."
-Two exceptions - Stress Bonus stress is also added at the end of the day.

"STUDY"
-With the Venalicium library open at the start the Study action is no longer important.

"TRAIN"
-And in turn, neither is Train.

"TRAIN FAMILIAR"
-Familiars are painful enough to train without pointing out that there exists better things than Train Familiar.

"This is important because 1/2 of your Familiar's Skills are added to yours whenever you make a Roll in an Adventure or a Random Event."
-Up to a max of 1/2 the Familiar's Bond skill, also missing clarifications on whether either divisions rounds up or down.

PAGE 17:

"usually using the Train Action."
-Really? No mention that there's better things, just assurance that you'll be using Train a lot?

"Most everything in the game, from Actions to the paths you take in Stories, requires a Roll."
-Factual statement, but aren't they usually called "Adventures"?

"When you choose an Action or Story path, the appropriate Skill is compared to a difficulty number (usually hidden from you)."
-Same, and the numbers are always hidden.

PAGE 18:

"Orange - Low chance at success"
-Orange doesn't exist as part of the color-coding scheme.

 

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  • 2 years later...

So, 'bout two years and some change later, with the Steam release finally on the horizon, and...the best guide people can recommend is still over half a decade old? Also, about the Gamezebo guide:

 

Skills you acquire while playing the game will ultimately increase these attributes. However, you will need to gain quite a few skills to gain a level in one of these attributes, so you might as well use your points now.

If your Stress level gets higher than [fitness level + best class skill], you will get ill and will have to go to the hospital wing for a day.

Your maximum Vitality is related to your Fitness attribute – so to increase your Vitality you can train skills relating to Fitness.

Was this guide based on an early beta version or what?

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Forgive me if I'm not convinced that a years-old guide that mistakes attributes for parent skills is the best place to send newcomers who aren't sure how to play the game. If BT's LP is, at least by your opinion, the best source for learning about the game, why not send people there?

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An "excellent walkthrough" that makes me wonder whether it's based on a beta version of the game, a copy of the game's actual manual that was actually changed for the DLC 17 Beta, and a series of ancient Youtube videos that, at best, have ceased being especially relevant half a decade back? No, I don't think that's better than nothing, personally.

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Outright misinformation is not the best place to start, though. I'd say just remove the outdated stuff. They've served their purpose, but an orange color-coding just doesn't exist in the actual game, let stand all the information that, at best, isn't that simple.

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As I recall he mostly quotes from (the old version of?) the manual, which is very much an outdated source, and with the new UI and everything most everything video related is likewise outdated. If nothing else he himself should be considered outdated if who's homework he mostly copied is, itself, outdated. I mean sure, BT's LP was run on DLC 14 at latest and obviously the old UI, hardly cutting-edge stuff, but as I recall it doesn't make any really problematic errors. At least none that can't be explained with "that error has been fixed since then".

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