Reasoning behind certain skills placement

[Nyaa]

I been wondering for a while now but can't find the answer in the forum and since the team are starting year 2, I should ask it now.

 

As someone in other forum pointed out that there is some nonsensical placement of skills for example:

 

- Courage is a sub-skill of Forging instead of War/school survival.

 

- Patience and Puzzles in Malicious.

 

- Spy and Espionage is seperated

 

- Compete and Competition is seperated

 

- Endurance belong in Rimbal is fine...if it's a football like game, but won't it be better if both of them in athletic instead?

 

Why is something minor like Heraldry a superskill for something as significant as Diplomacy?

Why is Flawless Timing a Plot skill, when it is mostly used for Sleight of Hand-like feats in the game?

Why are there no actual Sleight-of-Hand subskills, in stead using stuff like Acrobatics for that?

Why does Music have a subskill Voice, when that subskill is never used for singing, or anything music-related (to my knowledge that uses Famous Songs). Voice is only ever used to scream for help really loudly, which doesn't exactly require musical training.

 

Anyway, everyone have different opinion.

[Schwarzbart]

Curage is absolut understandable because you direct have to work in front of a fire that melt metals. If this dont train your curage I dont know what will train it.

[Toxicologist]

I could use the same argument to justify Dedication going into any number of Skills... same goes for a huge array of Subskills with strange Parent Skill placements.

 

Something might fit, but the question is which fits better. Oh, and Pure Luck under Raid... I mean, yes, Pure Luck does factor into Raiding, but it also factors into everything else you do... and Raid, personally, would not be my first choice of placement.

[Nyaa]

Well, those question are not mine and I am not trying to challenge the intellectual decision of the game designer as long as everything is balanced to me, but it feels weird sometimes seeing them in action at such minor inappropriately. Maybe the best solution is to have a skill in multiple parent skill, but that would be harder to maintain the game balance with all the extra parent stat boost and such.

 

But, I am satisfy with you two's opinions.

[Toxicologist]

To be honest it really doesn't bother me that much. Sometimes it does feel a bit weird that solving Puzzles is apparently an act of malice, but the lore's deep enough for me to ignore these little things.

 

By the way, Patience being in Malice is explained by that "Patience" in Academagia refers to "biding your time", which often has a sinister meaning. Waiting for the right time to strike, if you will. The less malicious version of Patience in Academagia is Temperance (or whatever it is called).

[Schwarzbart]

I personal think there is a other biger problem then how the SS are sorted to the Skills.

In my opinion its more then strange if you can train all skills (Forbiden, Physical ect.) in the Librarys or from the Sphinx.

[Adrian]

I suppose the sphinx could train you in the forbidden arts, but I'll have to agree with you on the physcial side at least. (Of cause the sphinx might really like to play rimbal with you and thus giving you some exercise...)

 

I would agree with the main point in this thread though, that the skills are, in some cases, placed a bit oddly. That said I think part of it was needed for a balance, and part of them can be excused, I don't see much of a problem - but it is sometimes *very* difficult to remember where some skills belong...

[Iselwin]

In my opinion its more then strange if you can train all skills (Forbiden, Physical ect.) in the Librarys or from the Sphinx.

 

Hey, stop giving ideas to devs how they can make our life even more miserable :-P

[Gwenio]

This is simply a side effect of having a skill system like this. Having 'parent skills' and subskills will lead to strange placement regarding some subskills. Rather than assigning a parent skill, they should have 'skill groups' that would be associated with multiple skills and skills could belong to more than one group. Each group would measure your ability for a specific task based on your ability in related skills. In other words, instead of one (parent) to many (subskills) there would be many (groups) to many (skills).

[Andor]

I think the odd skill-subskill relationships is a facet of the absurd number of skills. When you have 7 different skills that all do the same thing you need to stick them all under different skills somehow.

 

For example having 'Brute Strength' under the 'Bully' skill set makes sense. Or it would if there wasn't already a Strength STAT which is oddly enough unrelated to the Brute Strength skill. Worse some of the skill checks use the skill when they should clearly use the stat. Unless for some reason athlete are worse at lifting heavy weights than skinny mean kids?

[89157Z]

Checks that use Brute Strength are actually using Brute Strength + Strength. Whenever you see Brute Strength, you're seeing a skill check where nothing matters except raw strength. Similarly, Pure Luck checks are almost always going to be Luck + Pure Luck. Any stat that can be used in 'pure' form must be duplicated as a skill.

[Nyaa]

Speaking of strength, this attribute cover like 4 parent skills only compare intelligence 16 parent skills. Is it because of some reasoning that wizard can't use strength well or cause duel melee attack use it or something?

 

Edit: Other than the possibility that later year will unlock powerful strength related skill.

 

Please have a magical skill base on strength.

[Toxicologist]

Indeed. So far I have not seen much use for the STR stat myself, while most of the other stats have widespread uses. The skills that do use STR don't seem that important either.

[89157Z]

I think that in fictional mages, musclebound brutes are the exception rather than the rule. This means that Strength may never have as much of a role as the other stats. Now, if the simulator were about Safaviore instead, Strength might govern more skills.

[Toxicologist]

Which is why IMO, STR might be better served if it is merged with Fitness. If that makes Fitness too good, then make a few Fitness-based skills (especially the magical ones... Gates, Mastery, Negation) be based on other Attributes instead.

[Draigh]

IMHO Strength is something else than Fitness though.

IRL I would be having a good fitness-level myself, but due to circumstances I can barely brute-strength lift anything.

And Strength is usually only of limited use anyway, not just here in Academagia. The problem though is that in many games that limited use is considered very important (read: it damages your enemy and breaks things).

Besides... this is a game about mages, one should look to magic for answers as that is, after all, a mage's main tool.

[Toxicologist]

While Fitness and Strength may be different (though IMO the difference is basically along the lines of the difference between Patience and Temperance), the fact is they are the two attributes with the most similarity to each other, and STR (for now, perhaps this will change in later years) is simply not a particularly useful attribute.

 

Obviously STR and FIT will never be merged (and I'm not campaigning for such a merge or anything), it's just that I rarely find any reason to invest in it and don't seem to be much worse off for it.

[Nyaa]

Just notice wit is in...Finesse...

 

Maybe all the skill is listed as the brain part of the attribute instead of what it is?

[Legate of Mineta]

To note quickly for those who hadn't seen the older thread on a similar subject:

 

We do not intend to merge any Skill (or Attributes) in Year 2- everything will progress forward. As many have noted, Sub-Skills have some overlap which will be addressed by groupings of Skills that allow substitution in some cases- which Parent Skills they correspond to won't change for imported Characters in Year 2, but new Characters may find that Sub-Skills appear under different Parents, depending on *how* they acquire the Skill. It look pretty cool on paper, is what I can say about that.

 

For the Strength Attribute: there is no study of Magic which relies on Strength, although there are several ways to magically enhance it. As with many things at the Academagia, Strength has the importance that you, the Player, place on it. For most, Strength will be unimportant compared to other Attributes- but if you wish to role-play a strong Wizard...be our guest! As to what new options are available for a strong character...wait and see.

[Jazerus]

To note quickly for those who hadn't seen the older thread on a similar subject:

 

We do not intend to merge any Skill (or Attributes) in Year 2- everything will progress forward. As many have noted, Sub-Skills have some overlap which will be addressed by groupings of Skills that allow substitution in some cases- which Parent Skills they correspond to won't change for imported Characters in Year 2, but new Characters may find that Sub-Skills appear under different Parents, depending on *how* they acquire the Skill. It look pretty cool on paper, is what I can say about that.

 

For the Strength Attribute: there is no study of Magic which relies on Strength, although there are several ways to magically enhance it. As with many things at the Academagia, Strength has the importance that you, the Player, place on it. For most, Strength will be unimportant compared to other Attributes- but if you wish to role-play a strong Wizard...be our guest! As to what new options are available for a strong character...wait and see.

 

I'm curious. Why is Malice named Malice? While I understand how Patience can be malicious (sort of), and Gambling is typically seen as a vice, Puzzles are...pretty innocuous to be honest. The parent skill here could use a rename, I suspect, especially since you don't really gain any malicious actions from studying Malice skills, and the attribute is Luck anyway; Gaming, perhaps?

 

Also, some of the Skill-Attribute pairings are odd. Gates and Mastery are linked to Fitness? I have long suspected that that's a typo and that they should be linked to Finesse instead, unless the implication is that the forbidden arts are intrinsically draining and you need to be very fit to use them.

[Legate of Mineta]

Jazerus;

 

Although the Sub-Skills of Malice aren't necessarily malicious themselves, they can be used together to foment schemes and other malicious kinds of activities.

 

Gates and Mastery are indeed correctly linked to Fitness- both of these are very physically demanding to use this magic. More on this...I can't say yet.

[Nyaa]

I do recall an item that boost your gate or mastery by cutting some blood on your hand (-1 vit) for a few day boost, so it probably blood magic or something and since fitness boost vit...

[dustman]

Awareness, patience, observation, character study and danger sense are very similar in my opinion, with very slight differences. But how many attributes cover it? This is definitely strange.

 

Why Courage is related to strength? This is side of character or property of mind, not body. Same is true for Raid, where most skills got nothing to do with strength.

 

As for Spy and Espionage, they are different for sure... Real spies are rarely prowlers

[Toxicologist]

I assume you mean Perception, rather than Patience.

 

I expect the reason why Courage is related to Strength is because... well, first off, if we follow the "Courage is mental not physical" thing (which is true), then the Attribute that best fits it is Insight; which IMO isn't really that appropriate either considering what Insight usually controls in Academagia. The appropriate Attribute would be "Willpower", but that is a Skill rather than an Attribute in Academagia. The other reason is Strength doesn't have enough Skills it controls (that matters), so it needs more to it.

[dustman]

Sure, I meant Perception.

 

As for attributes.. There are three physical and three mental plus luck, making a nice system all in all. I'd say most skills fit where they are, but some are totally misplaced

 

Btw, Compete dependence on finesse is strange, very strange. This is like with courage.