First game in about a year. How'd I do?

[Leon Cross]

Feedback on how my character stands? Haven't actually browsed the forum much outside of collecting tips and tricks, so I have no idea how far down the totem pole I am. I felt like I did a decent job managing my time and handling things, but there were some parts that felt a little rough, and maybe a few adventures that could have been fed to the sphinx. (Like Oan. Couldn't ditch her, because she's a bro.)

 

Aria Lament:

Stats:

Fitness: 14
Finesse: 10
Charm: 14
Strength: 8
Intelligence: 12
Insight: 21
Luck: 11

Stress Cap: 38
Vitality Cap: 35

Perfect Attendance.
Almost every non-classmate Adventure done.

 

Total Skills Category ranks: 403

Merit: 702

Glory: 6~

Test Scores:

Dialectic: 100 : 230
History: 110 : 310
Incantation: 130 : 310
Negation: 140 : 190
Revision: 130 : 263
Zoology: 100 : 650

 

[Metis]

You did that with perfect attendance? That's not a question of where you are on the totem pole, that's a question of whether you can still see it from all the way up in Mount Olympus!

[freespace2dotcom]

Yup. That's about right.

 

It's better than my best, though, we likely have differing skill priorities, and depending on that, that would probably make us about equal. Hard to say, but your attributes are generally better all round. (your charm is double mine, that's the greatest attribute advantage being your second best attribute and being my worst attribute) I bet it would be close if we compared characters though. I had to sacrifice a lot of time and potential attribute gains to get Gates and Mastery both in one sitting, but still I think that makes up for the relative statwise strength being a bit weaker.. The Legate has said that attributes lose their importance later too, so I generally stop trying to raise them past a certain level anyway.

 

Glad to see a fellow Perfect Attender, though. So many these days like being exceedingly truant. I suppose that the game sets it up in extremes.

[Leon Cross]

I didn't go out of my way to raise attributes. Just a consequence of doing metric xxx tons of quests. I also had a couple of lucky stat boosts because I dipped into the studio to learn dance.

 

I did master Gates, but only got 10/10/1 in Mastery. Thought I had an extra week. *Sweatdrop*. Didn't unlock Synconicity through random despite spending a ludicrous amount of time on Sphinx. Is it possible to get it through random unlocks?

 

I did "Cheat" a little bit with resets. Twice because the final step on Orsi's quests is an unreasonable skill check, twice because I wanted to see how high I could get my Zoology final (Think I had 140+ intelligence as a consequence). I didn't start adventures until after mid terms, and generally didn't do one I wasn't confident in passing. (Orsi's final aside, anyways.)

 

I'm starting a new game. Rushing Sphinx because I'd say over half my Sphinx actions last game tried to level already maxed skills. Want to minimize the amount of wasted actions. Likely not going out of my way to have "Perfect" mid terms this time around to avoid having those be maxed and thus being possible Sphinx sinks early on.

 

I'd be tempted to do a "perfect" game in which I west every time even one of the three sphinx actions was wasted just to see where the character winds up, but the save / load times in the later half of the game, and the crashes when loading more than 1/2 times in the final quarter, make that improbable.

[Metis]

You can definitely get Sync skills randomly. Heck, IIRC the Sphinx can hand out Research levels and Study levels randomly. The latter two are unique to the Sphinx, though.

[Schwarzbart]

Never had study level hand outs by the Sphinx oO

[Metis]

I'm pretty sure she tried to hand out +1 Astrology Study Level once, of course that kid wasn't in Astrology so...yeah.

[Leon Cross]

Round 2, now that I have some dust shaken off. I handled my timing of different things a little better. Rushing Sphinx paid off.

 

General strategy was:

 

1: Unlock Sphinx. Max Wit. Max Early Empire. Max test taking. Level up whatever it was that gives the +1 wit Emotion.

-Addendum: Need to find a more reliable way of getting the last +1 Wit for Sphinx. Lost a handful of actions to not succeeding.

2: Max out class / studies. (Non-optimal, but feels good. Will likely ditch when I do my optimized run because cast leveling for finals handles any issues there.) Grabbed Selective Focus at some point in here and used it as needed.

3: Consulted the wiki, start picking up pretty much every skill that gives a passive to the level that they give it for 2-3 months following mid terms.

4: Spamed adventures from most skill ranks to least skill ranks.

5: Leveled my must have categories: Duel, Enspell, Gates, War, History, Research, Law, Synchronicity, (3 months before finals, bit the bullet and did the quest. Sphinx only coughed up Serenity and Instinct).

6: Grabbed the odd and end skills I consider must have but don't consider the category to be. Some useful, some flavor (Dance, Voice, Dating and Flirting, etc.)

6a: Cashed in favors / earned favors for all of the passive prof abilities.

7: Hit up the longer, less rewarding adventures I wanted to do (Oan, College Adventures, Main Quest).

8: Hit some of the one time abilities. Block Puzzle, That Fucking Warehouse.

9: Cast Spells for 200-250 in each final.

10: Odd and end wrap ups.

 

I'd say this run was (Not counting a save scumming run) around 80% optimal. There's still some efficiency to squeeze out of it, but I think any runs I do without thoroughly planning it out before hand will be only very small increases over this run.

 

 

Stats:

Fitness: 15
Finesse: 13
Charm: 17
Strength: 12
Intelligence: 18
Insight: 21
Luck: 12

Stress Cap: 42
Vitality Cap: 39

Perfect Attendance.
Almost every non-classmate Adventure done.

Total Skills Category ranks: 426

Merit: 714

Glory: 6~

Test Scores:

Arithmetic: 140 : 200
Astrology: 130 : 210
Calligraphy: 110 : 200
Enchantment: 120 : 233
Incantation: 110 : 213
Negation: 150 : 250

Highest Categories (15+):

Research: 18
Revision: 16
Negation: 15
Arithmetic: 15

Highest Skills (13+):

Confidence: 16
Danger Sense: 15
Theory of Negation: 15
Composure: 15
Negation Methods: 14
Concentrate: 14
Perception: 14
Flirting: 13
Wit: 13
Negotiate: 13
Forge: 13
Incantation Spells: 13
Theory of Incantation: 13
Tactics: 13
Theory of Revision: 13
Artisan: 13

 

All pillars of magic at 10+, except Mastery. Mastery at 5. Synchronicity at 11.

[Lilette]

I'm really envious of your stats. Almost makes me want to change my play style/goals I have for my fav student.

[Schwarzbart]

Do you level up your familiar also?

[Leon Cross]

Not this run. Working on maxing out personal achievement and from there I can see how many actions I want to spend on the familiar.

 

Assuming I have a familiar I want. Carnivorous plant this time around. Wasn't particularly enthused about it.

[Adrian]

As the others have mentioned, this is bloody amazing!

 

I actually have the day off today, and really should get some reading done.... but I failed my dedication roll, so instead I might give Academagia a run and see if I can get even close to this

[Schwarzbart]

I can't compare my games with this as I exploit the class skipping bug to much but despite that my chars are not that much different in the end as you can see here:

last Char or older char

[Leon Cross]

*Whistles* I'm impressed with your Negation scores.

 

I may have to do the class skipping bug and see how my end game winds up. I expect it to be rather stupid, however.

 

My end goal for personal achievement is a perfect attendance run with 500 levels in categories. Following that, I start making decisions regarding what I actually want my Y2 import to look like.

 

Where's the class skipping bug detailed?

[Schwarzbart]

 

without any extra fix to the last DLC you can skip the afternoon class all days without any problems

 

For Negation score its mostly based on a item you get from a Student adventure and using the Negation wand from the wand crafting adventure.

[Metis]

Commentated quote fest 2016: The Re-commentated quotefesting!

1: Unlock Sphinx. Max Wit. Max Early Empire. Max test taking. Level up whatever it was that gives the +1 wit Emotion.

Bon Vivant, Playfulness 8+. Which is a pain if you have low Luck.

 

7: Hit up the longer, less rewarding adventures I wanted to do (Oan, College Adventures, Main Quest).

Oan's adventure is actually fairly quick and rewarding if you do it right, especially on skill unlocks. Playfulness and Insects? Yes please. There's also a few main adventures that reward more attribute points than one would think, if you know which rolls to pass.

 

Where's the class skipping bug detailed?

It's literally just "afternoon classes skipped don't increment the CoD for skipping classes properly". I've had a character skip 8 months of afternoon classes with that bug. It's glorious.

[Leon Cross]

Outside of the bug, what's the mechanics for getting in trouble for skipping class? There's a handful of lower CoD effects in the game. Stacking those might be worthwhile if they can pay themselves off in number of extra classes you can safely skip.

[Schwarzbart]

Class skipping is not affected by CoD according to a answer we got a while ago from the Legate.

But there where some changes in how class skipping chance for detention work over the DLC and CP so it might no longer be true.

[freespace2dotcom]

You guys are getting me fired up. I might try another game myself soon, but here's more details about my last major save from the "I did it" thread.

 

 

 

Fitness 9

Finesse 9

Charm 7

Strength 8

Intelligence 12

Insight 13

Luck 9

 

Perfect attendance

Parent Approval 105

Merit 720

 

Most critical adventures were done. I don't have a list, but These include, the main story, college adventures (minus the cold room) Class adventures I had access to, Familiar (pam), tutorial (Oan is awesome) and many many auxiliary story adventures, like meeting the lady of the lake (and Stryker), stormy dreams, Cold Forge, and many others I can't recall off hand (But no diavesque) No student adventures though.

 

 

Calligraphy 41/131

History 60/130

Negation 90/170

Incantation 71/131

Glamour 60/140

Revision 50/173

 

(mid terms don't really matter much so I didn't bother with them outside study 10, see my gradebook thread.)

 

 

Major Parent skills:

Astrology 14

Calligraphy 11

Enchant 10 (Palettes skill needs work)

Enspell 10

Gates 10

Glamour 11

History 11

Incantation 11

Mastery 10

Negation 14

Plot 10 (needs a bit of polish but easy to raise to 11)

Research 15

Revision 14

Society 10 (Willpower/persuasion/Awareness. Can raise to 12 if I can get rid of temptation of Gates emotion)

 

Minor Parent skills

Botany 5

Compete 7

Forge 6

Language 5

Rhetoric 6

School Survival 5

Sleight of hand 7

 

0 research.

 

 

 

[Leon Cross]

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say Research is likely to be the biggest wild car of Y1 to Y2 optimization. IE, when Y2 drops, Y1 research might go from near worthless to super useful.

 

At which point I'd have to re-evaluate it. As is I've probably got around 30-40 points (none higher than 3) just from Sphinx.

 

I'm wondering if priority might wind up being Class skills > "Priority Skills" (Skills that show up a xxx ton in quests like Perception, observe, etc) > Roleplay Skills (Skills you want your character to have regardless of mechanical worth) > Research > "Filling out" skills.

 

I'm currently debating the value of Research Vs. Favor trade ins, but Elegant Service makes Favor not actually that bad of a slot sink (If a huge save scum sink) while the only "efficient" research option is random sphinx rewards.

 

Probably one of those things there won't be a clear answer til Y2 drops, though.

[Metis]

Getting Dialectic fully researched in Y1 costs 50 turns, which may or may not pay dividends (?) in Y2. Getting Dialectic to 20 skill max outright through mass favor spam would cost 200 turns...and, without mods, 'bout a week or two worth of save/loading. If you're lucky.

[Leon Cross]

Key bumps to legit 11s would likely be my goal (Baring Y2 re balancing of Y1 priorities) because that's where the bonuses stop for the vast majority of skills / parent skills.

[freespace2dotcom]

For me, (In Y1 anyway) class skills are my roleplay skills. Or at least some of them. I won't be surprised if crafting is just as important in Y2 as research. If we really know how to create and/or enchant an item, that could net us a bonus of several points to a particularly hard to raise skill.

 

I really didn't spend much interest in what-ifs though. I focused on the core magic skills, with only a handful of skills being useful for Y1 adventure exits (observation/awareness and other investigations being the most important of those)

 

As for my plans in Y2, I actually have some notes written detailing some skills to go for. (primarily math skills and some that will raise up a few parent skills easily) but apart from that I leave it as open as I can, because since there is a lot of info that we still don't know, there may be a skill that I'd want to focus on that I won't be able to if I plan too much for summer break.

 

Favor is something that I accumulate for the sake of perhaps getting off the hook if caught messing in certain places. It's actually kind of hard to raise favor outside of adventures and a few random and set increases so I don't plan to actually use the favor action, preferring to try to stave off the relationship decay and use the secondary uses of favor like the supposed reduction in chance of detection it gives you.

 

As for research, there will be time enough for it in Y2, with many more potential action slots available,. I am not too worried, and there really is enough to do in Y1 so as to not bother with it. We will see exactly how important it is, and then I will factor it into my Y2 plans.

 

 

Edit: Leon, you know that the legate has said that there will be new bonuses for skills in Y2 at least up to 21, and that we will get those bonuses retroactively when we get Y2 if our skills are already over 11.

[Leon Cross]

Ah, that's good to know. I might include a play through of popping Elegant Service every time it's off cooldown. Should give me a handful of 11+ skills.

 

I think I only wound up with...2 "trained" 13s, 2-3 12s, and low 10s 11s in my last play.

[Schwarzbart]

I personal try to avoid to already unlock skills past 11 in year 1 but still have sometimes some at 12.