useless skills

[dustman]

There are numerous topics about most useful skills, but what about useless?

 

While most skills can be used for a specific task, like making money or getting glory, quite few skills got only one SS, used once in a while, or almost never, in random events and adventures.

 

For me these are Grammar, Rhetoric and Calligraphy. Something like Passion is useful, but it's not even taught in Rhetoric classes!

[Schwarzbart]

Now usless Class depend complet on what goals your Character have! If you want to be Diplomat you need Grammar & Rhetoric.

Also dont forget that Calligraphy class teach you in Orthography a usefull skill for enchanting.

I suspect if you want to study Tattoo magic (Yes this is one of the known Magic skills in a later year) you will have to know Calligraphy first.

[dustman]

Even for Diplomats these skills are nice to have but not important. Bonuses to other skills are fine, but rather minor.

 

ATM, Calligraphy provides one of the best ways to earn money, but isn't used much in events.

[Mikka]

Heraldry, besides Diplomacy, really doesn't get many uses.

 

The newer the skill is, the less likely you are to see it in adventures and the like. Honor of Mallen Field, Speaking Quietly of Riddles, Wilderness Lore, Field Medicine... they're pretty rare to use.

 

Gates and Mastery barely appear in any events at all. In fact, I cannot recall a single event off hand that's allowed me to use Mastery. Maybe options are only unlocked if you have some Mastery skill? Hm.

 

Arithmetic gets some use with it's Theory, but not so much the other skills. Geometry doesn't see much use, either.

 

...I'm trying to fix some of these, by adding uses in events and adventures. Hm.

[dustman]

Heraldry, besides Diplomacy, really doesn't get many uses.

 

Etiquette is quite useful as well. And most on college skills just open adventure chains.

[89157Z]

Tightening up the skill system - especially for Year One - would have produced a more focused experience for the player. There are some skills that are defined and used inconsistently. There are other skills that probably should have been condensed into one skill. A shorter skill list might also make it easier to wrangle the AI behaviors into shape. Poorly behaved NPCs is one of the flaws of the game.

[StrayDogFreedom]

I love the huge skill list. It gives the feeling of never being done and picking through them to figure out which ones suit the character really helps immersing in the enviornment. true, it makes a whole lot more sense to devote time to say Observation as opposed to Riding but I think it still works well overall. I'm actually hoping the skill list will get even longer as the series progresses though that may be a given.

[Legate of Mineta]

It's a given, StrayDog.

[89157Z]

Arithmetic is very powerful. I use the Number Knack spell quite a bit.

 

I take Grammar on the majority of my playthroughs. I just can't imagine someone going through the Academagia and not learning to speak properly. Speaking of which, I sometimes think that there ought to be random Diction skill boosts from classes, especially from Rhetoric, Dialectic, and Grammar.

[Legate of Mineta]

That's reasonable enough as a suggestion- I'll put it in with the Team.

[Aquillion]

I agree that the large number of skills is vital for the game's flavor.

 

The problem, I think, is that the authors of adventures, events, and actions often tend to forget about some of the more obscure skills, leading to them not being available even when you'd logically expect them to be. I am not sure what can be done about this. Does the game have one centralized tool for the writers that indicates how many options each skill has for usages across the entire game? That might be useful, since it could be used to identify which skills aren't seeing enough use so they could have options inserted for them. Obviously some skills are always going to be more useful than others (in a magical school, Negation is flatly more valuable than Heraldry, and it would be silly to expect otherwise), but everyone likes the feeling of being able to use an obscure talent to succeed.

 

Perhaps also produce a list of adventure / event pages which currently have few options, so under-used skills could be matched with them.

[Schwarzbart]

Acording to what I heared year 2 will handle this bether but in year 1 we got a big list on new skills over the different DLCs that never get integrated into the previous adventures.

[Legate of Mineta]

Skills are handled a bit better in y2, but that's because there's more emphasis on the parent skills. As you will see.

[Schwarzbart]

So this means Revision of Skills becomes nearly useless in year 2?

[Legate of Mineta]

Oh no- in Events you have general and specific options. You'll see.

[Albert]

When you Revise something, is that permanent? or a temporary alteration?

 

Like turning sackcloth to silk?

 

Or a rock into a rimball? Which I know one of my characters did ingame.

 

My character was worried about the duration of glamour flower petals for whatever special religious event it was needed.

 

What about those stunberries I created? will they remain as stunberries or will the goblin find it self to be ripped off by bargaining with fake berries?

 

(In one game I searched for the real deal in the other I turned another type of berries into Stunberreis through Revision.

[Legate of Mineta]

Temporary, always temporary. The Duration depends on the Spell and your Skill.

[Albert]

Temporary, always temporary. The Duration depends on the Spell and your Skill.

 

 

In that case, poor goblin and other guys who got tricked by temporary stunberries

They won't remember that will they?

 

I do like that however since that adds more value to items of true worth, like handcrafted materials.

 

Even if reporarily revisioned items can be useful, like most magic.

 

Good enchantments do last though, don't they? like enchanted swords and such. Unless it's a really crappy one I guess.

[Schwarzbart]

Now if the duration of your revsion spell is longer then this berries need to rot then everything should be fine.

[Legate of Mineta]

Albert;

 

Enchantments are also temporary, but by their nature are generally long lasting.

 

And what Schwarzbart said is correct.