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~ Suggestions & Improvement ~


Hawkey
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I've one suggestion that doesn't refer to the game as-it-is. It's something I liked about another text-heavy, options-heavy life sim, King of Dragon Pass. It had many mini-plots, and many of them didn't started with the player's tribe. They might start with another tribe, or an individual, or a traveling group. You might get caught up in one part of something bigger, or become considerably involved in it.

 

So for example, when Phillipe Marchand targets an especially mousy classmate with bullying--I forget her name just at the moment, but I'm sure recall it--you have options to resolve that one instance. But it might make sense, seeing that you tried to protect her, for this classmate to attempt to befriend you, and to involve you in other aspects of her own life. Similarly, other students who draw you into their circle. At the moment, there's one who offers an action to give hard-nosed criticism that adds stress, but might provide insights. That's good, but it would be nice if I got the sense through an event or two that he had a life, as well, and that my character was a peripheral player in it.

 

Am I making any sense, here? In other words, lengthen the events into a series centered around an instructor, a location, a classmate, and give you the occasional bit part that still includes significant choices. You don't save the day, but you do affect the progress of matters a bit.

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I see. It's strange how some skills require only one step--all my current character's Glamour skills, for example--while others require as many as 6. Must be due to the way I configured the character's background, which makes a lot of sense.

 

I think it's related to your attributes.

 

Glamour is governed by the Charm attribute, I had a Charm of 1 and needs 8 steps take a Glamour skill from 9 to 10. By comparison, I had a Luck of 5 and only need 1 step to increase an Astrology skill from 9 to 10. I also have a Strength of 3 and need 2 steps to increase a Forge skill from 9 to 10.

 

I also think that each skill has its own training cost, judging by how different skills with the same dominant attribute still require a different number of steps. There is also an action called “Selective Focus” that “reduces the train modifier on a skill of your choosing by 1 point for 5 days, and making it considerably easier to turn skill steps into levels. ” (Personally I think the effect is too weak to be much use, but I suppose if you could stack 3 of them onto one skill it would be worth it).

 

So, yeah, it's all relative. :)

 

And if there are different training modifiers to different skills, I really think it should be included in the skill's description.

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Woe, thanks for the response. That confirms attributes being a major source of the relative difficulty for learning skills.

 

Which makes getting study bonuses to attributes before doing any serious skill training a good idea.

 

Ha! Totally confirmed my theory. I just used Light of the Universe and Solid Demeanor to up my Charm from 1 to 4, the next day I trained Glamour Methods in The Champions Room once, and instantly jumped from 9 to 10!

 

Remember that without those spells the Glamour Methods needed 8 steps to train (and I had 0 of 8), with the spell buffing Charm up to 4, the skill description showed I needed 2 step to train it. The extra +2 from The Champions Room buffed Charm up to 6, which was enough to get from 9 to 10 in a single skill step.

 

Awesome! I feel like I opened the fridge and have seen the Light!

 

:(

 

Next question: if using attribute bonuses makes training easier, would using a skill bonus make training harder?

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Woe;

 

No, it does not- Training is always measured against your base Skill, regardless of what it is presently.

 

You know, I just spent half an hour writing out a full explanation of what I meant, with examples and test framework, only to find someone already answered the question.

 

My post-fu sucks. :(

 

Thanks. I think I'll stop derailing the thread now. :)

 

Edit: No, wait, one more thing:

 

I noticed that if I use a spell to increase a skill thats already maxed out (Study Habits at 10), I get Study Habits at 12 and the description says 1 of 2 skill-steps (Not saying Skill Maxed like it should). This implies I could further increase the skill past it's maximum, creating a possible exploit. Someone should look at that.

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Ah, so it's just a display bug. Shame, could have been fun.

 

Anyway, can I suggest some random events that have a longer game impact?

 

Like being told you have to share a dorm room with someone, which means a random person is forced into your clique.

 

Or being picked for the rimball club and having a time-slot automatically reserved for rimball practice (attend and maybe improve skills, skip it and lose relationship points with the team).

 

And can we have some more role-playing based events, like being given a nickname based on a distinctively high skill or attribute, or some gender or origin specific events?

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I'd like it if there was some way to tell if a skill or attribute is being modified in any way, when I select that skill//attribute. To elaborate, I'd like to see what the base skill/attribute is, what the individial modifiers are, and what is causing them. Also, I'd like to be able to tell the max level a skill can be trained to.

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Laclongguan;

It's possible that a fixed date could be implemented. That said, we enjoyed this: "It make me scrambling like mad, even drop a class to compete." ;)

 

Absolutely! It's much better this way!

 

Unlike knowing the exam dates, which is important and after all only reasonable, knowing this only encourages min-maxing, which I don't think is a good thing. This game is original and has a lot of scope within it, and I would really hate to see it pander too much to munchkinism.

 

Mods, that's another story. Make a Mega-Munchkin mod where you get Mega-Skillz for winning every possible bonus in the game, and the L33t can go and play that and leave the rest of us to enjoy a game that isn't based on Mega-Winning :lol:

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The problem is that the competion result follow no logic. If it's fixed dates, okay, I can do. if it's fixed grades (meaning who will get 1st to 100, then who get 1st to 200...) okay, I can do, and even if a bit strange, it's not like it cant happen.

 

2 merits in one day? No way. It's illogical. And people will bitch about it, not just me.

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Random thought -- the character's room is rather featurless place at the moment, with little reason to ever be there. Could be interesting if it was given its own inventory of sorts (adapted from current wardrobe maybe?) and the player could acquire items for that inventory, either from adventure, events, shops or whatever... with these items enhancing the room either with abilities similar to other locations and/or passive effects (the latter probably pretty limited or it could easily get out of hand) Could be just some cosmetic 'trophies' kinds of things, adding to room description and just being something to remember by past exploits and achievements and whatnot.

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Laclongguan;

 

2 Merits in one Day is excessive. We may have to look at a cap to prevent that from happening.

 

Thanks!

 

I do not think a cap is the right solution. The problem lies more in the strange levels where Merits are granted. I tried to chart it on my first playthrough, but gave up after 100 points and decided to make sure my college is always between 20 and 50 points ahead. Especially as it seems that you need to get 20 points, then suddenly 50 points and the next then follows 10 points later.

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I have one. Don't rename your adventures as you progress through them. It's difficult to tell which adventure you were doing if you return to that after taking a few days off to train or do something else. Keep to the names. If you want to, you can add Phase 2, 3, 4, etc., to them.

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