Future Years

[Xandran]

So what exactly do they teach in Years 2 and later, anyways? If I already have mastery in 7 of the 8 magical skills, what else is there to teach? Do more skills go beyond 10 after Year 1?

 

And on an unrelated note, is there any benefit to making my familiar a master of Gates?

[Schwarzbart]

In year 1 Pets can't cast spells but I suspect this will be changed in the comming years.

We already know that Brew will be one of the posible class in year 2, Artifice will be one of the new Skills and there will be some kind of Familiar care Skill that allows Morvidus Chars to have multiply pets.

I am curent not awear how we can deepen the knowledge of Skills we already have at 10 or bether.

[Exfides]

I am curent not awear how we can deepen the knowledge of Skills we already have at 10 or bether.

 

There's no reason to suspect that 10 is the highest possible value of base skill level possible within the game engine . Especially considering it's already possible with certain bonus to permanently raise most skills to 11 and some even higher! Therefore skill maximums for any and all skills could arbitrarily vary by year (and the difficulty values rolled against have already been arbitrary at times ). An easy, though not necessarily likely example would be adding ten to the base skill maximums each year. Thus the sequence would be Year 1 would be base max of 10; Year 2, 20; Year 3, 30; Year 4, 40; and finally Year 5, 50.

[Gladi]

There's no reason to suspect that 10 is the highest possible value of base skill level possible within the game engine . Especially considering it's already possible with certain bonus to permanently raise most skills to 11 and some even higher! Therefore skill maximums for any and all skills could arbitrarily vary by year (and the difficulty values rolled against have already been arbitrary at times ). An easy, though not necessarily likely example would be adding ten to the base skill maximums each year. Thus the sequence would be Year 1 would be base max of 10; Year 2, 20; Year 3, 30; Year 4, 40; and finally Year 5, 50.

 

Bright day

Personally I do not see it like that.

 

Certainly maximums would increase, but let us not forget that a lot of people will in further years ahev to take classes they have not taken yet. And that further skillups will require more skillsteps. So in year 2 you might attend Advanced Theory of Glamour, Advanced Glamour Methods, Advanced Lute, Dialectics, Botanics and Calligraphy. So that by some advanced year you will have passed through all basic courses.

 

Of course, a lot depends and what do these skill values really mean. Is it possible for me to flunk out with final exam score of 50? Is 25 for midterm good score or the barest minimum?

[CremePudding]

I doubt 10 and around is the maximum for the next 4 years; if so, that mean we could probably outshine Orso Orsi by Year 2

[Legate of Mineta]

To shed some light on this subject, Exfides and Gladi are both somewhat correct. There are new Skills which represent more advanced knowledge, but you are also able to raise the Year 1 Skills further. The latter is fairly labor intensive, though, and it requires Tradecraft, Inspirations and Secrets. The new Maximums attainable will be around 20.

[Schwarzbart]

Wow skill level 20 if you focus on a vew Skill?!

Ok I already got up to 16 from items and Bonus from passive Abilitys in one SS but 20 without items makes even the more difficult year 1 adventures a cakewalk.

[Legate of Mineta]

Sure...but you won't be working on Year 1 Adventures...

[Adrian]

dun dun DUN!

 

Sounds great though. I am glad that you can't "just" skillup everything up to 20 right away. (oh haha, like you could even do that to 10 in first year )

[Exfides]

To shed some light on this subject, Exfides and Gladi are both somewhat correct. There are new Skills which represent more advanced knowledge, but you are also able to raise the Year 1 Skills further. The latter is fairly labor intensive, though, and it requires Tradecraft, Inspirations and Secrets. The new Maximums attainable will be around 20.

 

Thanks for the information Legate! It seems like it's going to be both interesting and somewhat challenging system to really max-out skills in Year 2.

[Exfides]

I doubt 10 and around is the maximum for the next 4 years; if so, that mean we could probably outshine Orso Orsi by Year 2

I would presume that with any form of increasing the skill maximum Orso Orsi and the rest of the faculty would have their skills increased appropriately so the students can't have higher skills than they do (at least not in their areas of specialization). Therefore while your character in later years could have better skills than Orso Orsi of Year 1, the Orso Orsi of the same year would still be better.

[CremePudding]

I would presume that with any form of increasing the skill maximum Orso Orsi and the rest of the faculty would have their skills increased appropriately so the students can't have higher skills than they do (at least not in their areas of specialization).

 

Oh, but I meant it in-story, not game-play wise, like how 10 is the maximum for an average child while Orso Orsi and these adults who have plenty of practice would have reached something around 70 (instead of also being stuck at 10), because if 10 already marks you as a pinnacle of magic, everyone would be a Professor by Year 3.

 

I doubt a year 5 student would be better than a year 1 Orso Orsi, it takes too little time xD

(Remember, Orso Orsi is......40? 50? 7060 years old? xD)

[Draigh]

Firstly most player-students are fanatics on studying certain things ;-)

Compare them with the other students in scores and you'll see the difference.

 

Secondly, I think Orso Orsi would most likely have 20 to 30 in the base skills, with a lot of specialistic skills afterwards (which we don't even start to see untill later years). Besides... you might have a mastery of a skill, but without knowledge of phemes and spells, you cannot do much with it, right?

After all... did any one here discover that Puppet Master spell yet?

[alurianknight]

20-30 being ultimate mastery of a base skill sounds about right to me. Having it just keep going up by ten each year doesn't make sense, that would be like a school that only teaches you algebra and just teaches you increasingly difficult algebra year after year. Whose ever heard of a school like that, real schools teach you algebra then they send you on to calculus why should the academagia be any different. If you assume that Academagia classes are like real classes then that means they are trying teaching you everything you should need to know on a subject in the class and the passing bar is the average persons(or in this case mages) level of skill in said subject and since skill 10 isn't required to pass that means you've already surpassed the average person and continuing to increase your skill in said subject isn't keeping up with the curve but rather leaving it farther behind

[Schwarzbart]

I agree that probably 20 sould be the max we sould be able to reach at year 5 without any efford in increasing the skillmax and maybe 5-10 points more if we spend the time to increase the max.

As mentioned from someone other I think its bether to have speciality skills.

Especial if I think about what the player already could do with just the 10 SS max in Adventures and Abilitys would put up some question like:

"Oh last year it was this easy to do this and now I can't handle the same thing any more with my char of year 1?"

[Adrian]

I am content to see what comes, but I'd agree I think, we can't just keep upping the cap for the next years (though 20 is quite alright!)

[Moanerette]

Thoughts for senior years - researching new spells and items, more involvement in politicking (including in the outside world, not merely the college) and more involvement in general with the outside world as students get closer to graduation and having to (horrors!) find a job...

[Exfides]

Thoughts for senior years - researching new spells and items, more involvement in politicking (including in the outside world, not merely the college) and more involvement in general with the outside world as students get closer to graduation and having to (horrors!) find a job...

 

Those are great ideas for new things to do in Year 5 or even before. However, on your last point (finding a job) it shouldn't be very difficult for a graduate of Academagia to find some sort of gainful employment. Specific careers or prestigious employers will probably be a different matter (and might even depend on what adventures are completed across the entire 5 years), but even in your first year your character can hire themselves out as a short-term bodyguard (via a location whose name escapes me right now, but it's the tavern that's a preferred hang-out of Incantors). Of course if your character (greatly) impresses the right people, they could be offered a position as an assistant professor or other minor faculty member at Academagia.

[retired_deer]

Out of curiosity, and I realize this is eons away, but is anything planned for release after graduation? Maybe a new game series that can still be connected to the original.

[Legate of Mineta]

R_D;

 

No, no plans for another game after graduation; but we do intend to have a pretty interesting end game.

[retired_deer]

Considering how amazing the game is right now, I definitely look forward to it. Doesn't have anything to do with dragons, does it?

[Adrian]

Would you really wanna know?

[Legate of Mineta]

No comment and thus no spoilers.

[retired_deer]

Hey Legate,

 

I am a little curious as to how character creation is going to work in year two. Year 1 starts off very basic with just a few skills based on your background choices. However, throughout the year you gain aptitude in a wide variety of skills. Though these would transfer for Year 2, how would such progress be simulated for a new character in the second year? Would they start out with as few skills as a 1st year, or would there be some degree of random distribution or "class" archetypes to determine skill levels?

[Legate of Mineta]

Retired_Deer;

 

Although it's not set in stone, it looks like there is going to be three ways for a new player to enter the game:

 

1) You can choose one of 2-4 pregenerated Characters.

2) You can build a character using broad packages of Skills and a Abilities, similar to (but larger in scope than) the Backgrounds.

3) We *may* specify an arbitrary amount of points to spend, which you could then use to purchase what you want in a very detailed (and long!) process.

 

1 & 2 will definitely be done, #3...if time allows.