Improved familiar handling?

[Adrian]

Just a late-night question, but is Improved Familiar Handling supposed to allow you to train your familiar in 4 skills? If so then I think something might have been overlooked, as it is only training in two skills, as far as I can see.

 

(This game is patch 11+ hotfix.)

Anywho, goodnight

[Legate of Mineta]

Adrian;

 

Assuming you succeed at the Roll, Improved Familiar Handling should Expand 4 Familiar Sub-Skills of your choice. Are you unable to choose 4?

 

Let me know, and good night.

[Adrian]

I am only able to choose 2 subskills to my familiar, but if no one else has this problem maybe I accidently applied an old patch? Is there a way to tell which patch you are playing?

[Schwarzbart]

Hit F12 when you play the game

[Adrian]

Thank you Schwarzbart, and that cleared up the problem as well. I used an old patch Sorry for the hassel.

[89157Z]

With Improved Familiar Handling, it appears that I have to train four different skills, and cannot train the same skill twice. If I set all four slots to the same thing, I will 'succeed' and it will raise that skill by one skill step. If I set two of the slots to one thing, and two of the slots to something else, it will train those two skills by one skill step each.

[Adrian]

I haven't had time to give it another go, but might it be due to the bond limitations?

[89157Z]

The first place I noticed this was in attempting to train the bond of stars, when its skill step jumped from 0 of 1 to 0 of 2. So bond limitations shouldn't have affected that. The first skill step wasn't going to raise the skill anyways.

[Legate of Mineta]

89157Z;

 

Thanks for the save- this definitely sounds like a bug.

 

Edit: I just checked in the save provided and found that in my tests it correctly Expanded the Skill Steps. I'll pm with more questions, thanks!

[ackron]

Sounds like bond limitations to me.

 

Remember your familiar's maximum level in any skill is equal to 1+its current bond level, that's even true for bond skills, you have to level them all up simultaneously.

[Adrian]

Well, there is something fishy about this ability (but the increase to 4 skill steps is GREAT) - either the ability or (perhaps more likely) the screen showing how much you need to increase a skill...

 

I've had all four SS increases posted in one skill or another an at times I got 2-3 skill increases, despite the skill still insisting to need only a single step, even at the end of the day. I'm fairly sure that my little familiar is just lying a bit about how smart she is, but gneh, it makes calculating when to start training your bond a bit tricky at times.

[Legate of Mineta]

Adrian;

 

Hmmm, we'll glance again at the reporting on Skill Steps for Familiars. To confirm, you are looking at the Skill Step requirements by looking first at your Familiar, and then clicking on their Skills?

 

Thanks!

[Adrian]

Yep I am clicking on the skills shown at the report card. You have trained [familiar]'s [skill].

I am afraid I've overwritten the saves where I was spending most of my days teaching the little fellow but if I come by it again I'll be sure to save it seperately (or take a screenshot)

[Legate of Mineta]

Adrian;

 

Save is better, if you can help it, but we'll test this as well.

 

Thanks!

[Adrian]

My consern with a save is that it is difficult to know/guess what the skill was prior to the day/training session isn't it?

 

I've found that I do have a save with it - it will be a bit back in time but I am not sure if that is important or not.

 

 

And while looking back I have noticed that it doesn't overly matter if you can know/guess what the skill was, as on the save I've been training a skill with at least two full Improved Familiar Handlings, yet if I look at the skill now (interrogation) it skill only requires 1 SS to improve, and I only got 6 in the skill itself.

[dustman]

I've also got problems with IFH. For example, training Persuasion twice, Bond of Silver and Star once, I get only SS increases in bonds and no increase in Persuasion, although it's reported as a success. Since both bonds were lvl 4 prior to training and Bond of Silver became 5 afterwards, raising Persuasion from 3 to 5 shouldn't be a problem.

 

Moreover, when I trained all Incantation SS in one go when bond was of lvl 0, they were reported as trained but stayed at 0.

 

There are more cases when it works in a strange way.

 

Patch 1.11 from Impulse.

 

As a side note, from game balancing side: Why bonds are so expensive? Training your familiar is far less beneficial than yourself to start with, even with IFH you get only two full SS to your main char at relevant bond level, which is not a lot comparing to many other training methods. Looks like familiars need as many SS to increase a skill as you do, even if their skill at much lower level. With problems described above familiars are rather useless, since casting a spell or two will confer more benefits than training familiar, both benefit- and turn/time-wise.

[Legate of Mineta]

Adrian and dustman;

 

Thanks for reporting this- we have not seen this behavior ourselves, but some of the reported cases are very suspicious indeed. If, during the course of gameplay you come across a situation in which it appears reliable to you to see a fault, please let me know (Adrian, please do send me your save). The only two points of concern are:

 

1) You cannot raise a Skill Level by more than 1 due to an Action.

2) Bond Sub-Skills are capped by Bond.

 

...dustman's example is one of reporting, but it is also is somewhat limited by the engine.

 

As to why Bonds are expensive, it's because they are a means for you to perfect the base statistics of your Character. In Year 2, Bonds are easier to acquire and more meaningful overall to certain parts of gameplay, however.

[Nyaa]

As a side note, from game balancing side: Why bonds are so expensive?

It add their learned skill to your skill (half only I think), so it's like training 2 on him and 1 on you, and it unlock their familiar ability. Some of those are quite...powerful.

 

Edit: Also boost

attributes

 

[dustman]

to Legate: yes, although I'm not happy with such limitations on actions Skills are too many anyway to rise them all and do anything else beside studying. First couple of months you fail in almost everything anyway.

 

to Nyaa: from both gameplay and roleplay side of view, your familiar help you where you are weak or just need this small assistance. Since only half of the skill are applied to main char, increasing all four skills at once is simply two SS to your main char. Not bad but far from spectacular. I can name dozens of Abilities doing more than that. Plus in most cases skill level of 10 is an overkill anyway, so why bother? Unless you want to be a super archer or artisan or musician, aiming at great feats, like creating artifacts or performing epically. From normal powerplay it's useless, and from roleplay view is OK but whatever limitations make it so hard. Dunno what you think, but for me most hostile actions are like wasting precious time anyway, unless they have added benefits.

[Nyaa]

Edit: Sorry, didn't notice this is the support thread.

[Toxicologist]

On a somewhat related subject... I've been toying with the Mod Tools to create more backgrounds, and one of the new backgrounds I created involved giving your familiar 1 level in each of the three Bond subskills.

 

The problem is, it doesn't seem to do anything at all. When I begin a game with this background chosen, my familiar's Bond subskills are all resolutely 0, except for the odd 1 point to a random subskill if I also chose 'Town and Familiar'. It appears to me that choosing to expand a specific Bond subskill on a Familiar doesn't work, but expanding a random Bond subskill does (to some extent at least).

[Legate of Mineta]

Toxicologist;

 

One factor here that may be causing the issue is *where* you have the Background. If you have it selectable prior to Familiar selection, then you are actually raising Pamela's statistics, which are then replace by the new Familiar you are selecting.

[Adrian]

First off, I am sorry I missed what was written by you Legate, and didn't really think on it since then.

 

I am not sure I fully understand your conserns though;

 

1) You cannot raise a Skill Level by more than 1 due to an Action.

2) Bond Sub-Skills are capped by Bond.

 

 

1) You can't (in a single Improved Familiar Handling (IFH)) raise the skill level by more than one? - that *might* be what I had difficulty with back then. Sadly it is a time ago so I can't remember it correctly. I wish I had written the month down...

 

2) Bond sub-skills I got the hang of quickly. They have to be raised all neat like - but isn't every skill subject to the same bond cap?

 

 

Anywho, the reason why I dug this thread up once again is due to a new game and I attempted to train my ferret (the little sneak!) in observation. I did so twice in one week but only training it by 1 SS in observation each time, (takes 4 SS to level) to my surprise when I inspected my Ferret after the latest training session I still only see the one SS I had trained a few days prior. I'll PM you with a link for the two most resent saves, and try to find the save I spoke of in the previous post.

 

 

I am curious though, is there a roll for each individual part of IFH or is it all done in a single roll. (i.e. Do I cast my dice once and hope to get 4 SSs or do I cast them 4 times each for one SS?)

[Legate of Mineta]

Adrian;

 

I'm not quite clear on what you are saying- to clarify:

 

You Trained your Ferret's Observation twice in one week, expecting to see 2 Skill Steps in Observation, but when you looked, you saw only 1, correct? Out of curiosity, if you Train it twice more, does it gain a Skill Level? It may be an issue with reporting, although we'll see.

 

Improved Familiar Handling gives its benefits all in one Roll.

 

Thanks!

[Adrian]

Sorry if I am a bit unclear, but you understood it prefectly.

 

Your question is a curious one though, but as it happens something along the lines struck me as odd. I actually trained it 3 times that week. 1 SS each time. I didn't look at the first day but to make sense I guess I got a full skill level that time. At the middle of the week (after the second training) I see one full skill level and 1 SS. At the end of the week I see the exact same thing. It just seems odd, since observation usually takes 2 SSs to get even with the best of stats...

 

Also I found the save and the month, I am uploading as quickly as they let me