~ Suggestions & Improvement ~

[Schwarzbart]

Metis to put it blunt when I got the key for Wasteland 2 Director Cut I decided to finally give it the first try because the new name addition was send to me the signal it should be now nearly bug free and all free expansions to the game are in also. I should mention I was backer of Wasteland 2 and despite that I got the game direct on release I never touched it till that point.

 

But what is it that make you worry about a name expansion that allow Academagia to send such a signal?

What do you think can be done wrong about give a older game a new name extension after a major update?

Do you think all the larger indie studio and big publisher make a mistake in give many of their game name extensions after some time like Game of The Year, Gold, Platinum, Enhanced Edition, Director Cut and so on?

 

I personal see that it is absolute important to generate more publicity for the Steam release and add such a new Name extension is a nearly free way to get this even if this alone probably isn't enough.

[Metis]

And if Academagia can't actually deliver on that idea of bugs having been fixed? DLC 17 is sure to be as littered with typos and possibly worse as DLC 16 was, and while the UI changes may have solved one engine limitation problem that's not the only problem that I'm sure was brought up in the past. Problems that the Team have known about for years now. And if people see the "enhanced edition" as confirmation that the Team either won't or can't fix issues with the engine or the game itself that's...a problem. Not that Academagia is unplayably broken, but far too many games have been recently and a still-bugged final release kinda sends the wrong message.

 

Gaming industry taught me two things. First, never attribute laziness or incompetence to something that can be explained by greed (which for indie studies still applies, if significantly less so than AAA names). Second, there are no saints on either side of any debate, though mere fools are saints no more than charlatans. Per usual that's also the attitude I'll also assume of others unless shown otherwise, in this case the Steam crowd, and so there's a number of ways that I can see the name change not going over well.

 

I agree that publicity is important, few other ways to stand out from the infinite shiny pile after all, but doing so with flair rather than substance can backfire. Well, the expected substance. I wouldn't call all the content packs just "flair", of course.

[Schwarzbart]

A other way to handle the delay by greenlight is to release DLC 17 before you get Greenlight and do a bug fixing release at Steam and GOG.

This way your other projects also don't get delayed that much.

[Metis]

It's practically a given that there'll have to be at least one more update after DLC 17 to fix the inevitable wave of typos and other bugs, so that is a valid option. And possibly having a tested DLC 17 will make a better impression, because Steam won't be stuck with a typo-riddled content pack for a few weeks because the Team simply can't fix every single typo that gets discovered every other day - they'd have to update the content.mdm to do it, and that'd mean people would need to make a new character every update. Naturally, that's not going to work too well.

 

Alternatively, and admittedly at the cost of maintaining the delay at bare minimum, the Team could make the fact that fan content submission is still possible a part of Greenlight. Though if the Team tries to lure people that way, please, for the love of Pamela, make it clear that there's rules, minimum quality standards and plain old Team's Whims involved. There's going to be someone who will either write a new or adapt the old My Immortal "fanfiction" to Academagia's setting, demand it be put in the game and then badmouth the Team when they don't because they consist (at least nominally) of sane people. It really isn't unreasonable to judge what does and doesn't have merit based on the Team's decisions, it's their game and setting, they ought to know best what does and doesn't fit, just...make it clear that's how they operate...

[Legate of Mineta]

Metis;

 

I think the Team has always been pretty good about reworking, when it must be reworked. They try to take as much as humanly possible, but some things have to be dialed back, and so on.

 

I don't know that they will be part of the Greenlight campaign, but I imagine they'll try to add content where they can!

[Albert]

It might seem a little weird that we can teach our familiars "Familiar Kinship", though, who knows, maybe greater understanding on their part could be beneficial.

 

I guess it might increase your familiar kinship with the familiar skill bonus? Or maybe it might be beneficial to the familiars ability to tap the powerful bond with the wizard more efficiently?(in the future)

[ShiningCity]

As far as suggestions for improvements. Please fix the classes so that there aren't worthless actions. I'd rather not run through a game just to find out which attend classes are worthless so I can skip all of those. In general any attend class action with nothing or with certain kinds of useless lore is an automatic skip.

[Metis]

I've run the numbers before, and on average every Attend Classes action gives out 0.9 to 1.2 skill steps depending on your class load. Also, "fixing" classes so that Longshade (or even Train!) doesn't completely obsolete them is...not feasible, and fixing the engine so that classes can actually teach anything during exam months is likewise not possible. The best way to "fix" the useless classes is to run the outdated patch that came with DLC 16, which hasn't fixed the afternoon class skipping bug, and literally just skip half your classes for the entire year. The difference it makes is...terrifying.

[ShiningCity]

What's the afternoon class skipping bug? Must have missed that. But yeah, I tend to skip a lot of classes. I have Longshade, Mantele, Mantle of the Stars, and Venalicium quite early even if I don't take the background to get libraries. I tend to average 2-3 skill steps per action. It'd be a bit higher but I also spend time on study levels.

 

I'll note that one of the major problems with the game is the power of attributes. There's simply no reason not to max out attributes early since they not only buff rolls but also increase skill training time. Plus if you do it right you are boosting them while doing things you needed to do anyways like boost study levels.

 

Another major problem the game has is its reliance on low percentage chances for actions. This massively encourages save scumming because a couple hits on low chance actions vs failures can create a huge difference between the outcome of your year as far as boosting attributes goes.

 

They also didn't really balance backgrounds at all. Attribute and chance of success bonuses are super important while location discoveries and relationship buffs are pointless. I always take the extra background points that result in relationship penalties because they are so meaningless. Having and extra or or two point relationship bonus at game start has no discernible effect on the befriend action for getting the best clique.

 

I'm also often tempted to take the 15% chance of failure on spells because spells seem kinda useless and actions that do the same thing as spells are also. Oh, a 2-3 point bonus to a single subskill that lasts only a day or a week? Much rather take an action that gives me a permanent buff even to just one subskill, and if you use the quality actions you almost never get such a weak gain. I mean I guess the goal of spells tends to be a buff above whatever your limit is to pass harder checks but I rarely need those even when I spend the second half of the year spamming adventures.

 

Mathematically backgrounds actions and spells aren't very balanced.

[Metis]

Basically, if you only skip afternoon classes the game won't increment your chance of detection for having skipped classes, so if you never skip morning classes you'll never get caught for skipping classes. I've played through one game where I skipped 8 months worth of afternoon classes straight, didn't get caught once. It's a bug that was introduced a while back, and fixed later, but DLC 16 shipped with an outdated patch that hasn't yet fixed it. DLC 15, for the record, does/did not have this bug. At least as far as I'm aware.

 

As for the lack of balance in the game, backgrounds like Bitter Hatred are going to have added effects in Y2 and beyond, but...well, suffice to say that that's not especially relevant now. Also suffice to say that the Team isn't going to make giant, sweeping changes at this stage of the development, which is a shame.

[ShiningCity]

Depending on the way character development goes, maxing out in year one and therefore being super powerful in year 2 is probably worth whatever downsides they add. Plus, worst case you drop bitter hatred and lose 1 attribute point or something. The bonuses from the other relationship backgrounds are still useless regardless.

 

I will have to try out the afternoon class thing. You do lose out on some lore for studying and on some phemes from class skipping but it probably doesn't matter. Gaining an extra action on days that fill out 2/3 of the calendar is a huge bonus to actions.

[Metis]

Indeed, backgrounds are not balanced from a purely mathematical perspective (of course their potential Y2 and beyond effects remains to be seen, but details), but that's where rollplay or, failing that, modding comes in. I really do wish I can both manage to actually make my intended changes work and somehow release it despite me having to mod the DLC 17 "mod" directly because I'm interested in seeing how people play with those changes.

 

The Lores, Phemes, spells and whatever else classes teach are just the normal unlocks from training those skills. There's 0 difference between someone that learned Astrology from Astrology Class compared to someone who learned it from the Library of the Mantle of Stars, with sole exception of what study levels unlock. Of course, studying is entirely separate from classes, as classes never hand out study levels. Oh, and naturally that's going to be a different story in Y2, so take the classes you want to continue studying, if only to make your life easier.

[ShiningCity]

Indeed, backgrounds are not balanced from a purely mathematical perspective (of course their potential Y2 and beyond effects remains to be seen, but details), but that's where rollplay or, failing that, modding comes in. I really do wish I can both manage to actually make my intended changes work and somehow release it despite me having to mod the DLC 17 "mod" directly because I'm interested in seeing how people play with those changes.

 

The Lores, Phemes, spells and whatever else classes teach are just the normal unlocks from training those skills. There's 0 difference between someone that learned Astrology from Astrology Class compared to someone who learned it from the Library of the Mantle of Stars, with sole exception of what study levels unlock. Of course, studying is entirely separate from classes, as classes never hand out study levels. Oh, and naturally that's going to be a different story in Y2, so take the classes you want to continue studying, if only to make your life easier.

Oh I wasn't aware of that. In that case classes are utterly worthless.

[Metis]

In Y1, they unfortunately are. Hence why the class skipping bug is probably DLC 16's best "feature", because it does a great job at mitigating the uselessness of classes. Especially during the exam months where classes physically cannot teach anything due to a random engine bug.

[Schwarzbart]

There appear to be a lot of negative critic to J.K. Rowling's new work maybe its interesting for the team to read the critics to not fall into similar pitfalls (even if it is mostly because her setting is in the real world).

http://io9.gizmodo.com/j-k-rowlings-history-of-magic-in-north-america-was-a-t-1764311530

[Svinik]

Oh I wasn't aware of that. In that case classes are utterly worthless.

 

I contest that sir, they do a great job of minimising hall sessions...

 

But yeah, as places to learn go, classes are virtually worthless, and need no qualifier during 2 months when exams are on and they teach absolutely nothing.

[ShiningCity]

There appear to be a lot of negative critic to J.K. Rowling's new work maybe its interesting for the team to read the critics to not fall into similar pitfalls (even if it is mostly because her setting is in the real world).

http://io9.gizmodo.com/j-k-rowlings-history-of-magic-in-north-america-was-a-t-1764311530

She was kinda offensive regarding native americans. I mean technically she was also massively garbling the irish and scotting lore regarding magic but no one cares if you make white people magic look stupid.

[ShiningCity]

Due to some ongoing discussion about both skill leveling and massively overcrowded lists of actions later on, I think a major focus of the content team is to go through and get rid of like the 50% of content that is mathematically awful and constitutes a massive newbie trap or alternatively boost that content to be more useful. Scrolling down through a list of actions that no sane player would ever use is extremely tedious with the current interface.

[Metis]

Unfortunately that's not feasible, especially considering the potential effects that things can have in future years, though Y2 does have filter options for actions/spells/what have you.

[Legate of Mineta]

I don't think there's any plan to scrub the content- some things are less valuable than others, for purposes of certain (desirable) outcomes.

 

There's a lot of interesting stuff that simply isn't needed for that kind of focus, and that's OK.

 

Metis is correct, though- many new filters for Y2.

[Schwarzbart]

2) Will year 2 have some way that two clique merge?

 

Hmmm. There's a kind of association you can make between Cliques, but not a formal merger.

Please consider merge especial for the small 2 person cliques at latest in year 3. It simply feel wrong to have so many 2 people "cliques" but it even feels more off to first have to break the friendship between 2 best friends just to have a chance to get one or both in your clique despite your actual good friends to both of them.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Hmmm, I'll point it out- it is a little clunky to have to break someone up, when we're all friends together.

[Schwarzbart]

It might be time to slowly reactivate your Twitter account in hindsight of the upcoming greenlight campaign?!

[Metis]

If you do, lock up the liquor cabinet. And put an automated turret with no IFF in front of it. Far too many people have destroyed entire careers by posting just one stupid thing on Twitter, and the last thing this Team needs is a #dealwithit binge...

[Schwarzbart]

Because Main Adventure Pirates 03 have 2 Carpentry exits with different rolls how about change the Exit 4 to build a spike fence into a Architecture roll? (I think we already reported this but better to be sure ^^)