What makes an adventure "worthwhile"?

[Rossa]

I am asking purely from a game mechanical perspective, as from a casual perspective, it is obvious that a worthwhile adventure is a good/fun/interesting one.  

A lot of people seem to agree that the quest line "requesting a meeting with your mentor" is quite worthwhile to pursue, but I'm a bit confused as to why.
The adventure has 13 stages, which means it's incredibly long, but the only meaningful rewards it provides is +1 to two attributes and arguable the Glow of Victory spell which may be useful for buffing during midterms for casual player.

On the flipside there are adventures like Just Another Day in Mineta, A Day in Frontino, Exploring for the sake of...um..... and so forth which take only 1 action and gives +1 to an attribute.

So at least on the surface it feels like there is a huge disparity in the rewards. Can someone more experienced elaborate or give their opinions?
Am I missing the point entirely?   

Edited April 1, 2022 by Rossa
Surface!=Service

[Metis]

Request a Meeting with your Mentor, being tied to the tutorial, is disproportionally easy and rewarding. It's a bit of a lengthy one in terms of stages, sure, but a lot of those can be completed one after the other if you've got the skills, and if you don't you're not likely to find an adventure that has any easier rolls besides. For those clever enough it's also a golden opportunity to cheese the system a bit, because regardless of your character's background, starting stats, college, class load, etc., you'll always have access to the tutorial adventure. For example, it's possible to intentionally fail the Insects investigation roll at no penalty, to become informed of the Insects skill. This, in turn, you can train to unlock Planning, and Planning 2 gives you +1 Insight and +1 Intelligence. Are there other ways to unlock Insects, or even Planning directly? Yes, but very few, if any, that literally any character will have access to after the first day guaranteed.

[Rossa]

That's something I hadn't thought about and is quite enlightening. Thanks for teaching me about this non-obvious mechanic@Metis.  

Do you have any other such tricks?

Regarding adventures, do you think the number of skill steps is important?  ?_?

Sometimes I have seen the wiki claim: "You can do a lot of skill steps in this adventure", but I'm always left wondering if doing a lot of random skill steps is worth it. Often it feels like you have to pick a skill you are already good at in order to not fail, which means a lot of reloading or increasing a skill you already have a high rank in. 😅

What is your take on the matter?

[Rhialto]

20 minutes ago, Rossa said:

That's something I hadn't thought about and is quite enlightening. Thanks for teaching me about this non-obvious mechanic@Metis.  

Do you have any other such tricks?

Emilia Picotti's adventure "Out of Charm" is a way (may be easy, depending upon your character's skills) to get 2 points in charm or 1 in charm and 1 in luck.

[Rossa]

20 minutes ago, Rhialto said:

Emilia Picotti's adventure "Out of Charm" is a way (may be easy, depending upon your character's skills) to get 2 points in charm or 1 in charm and 1 in luck.

I'm familiar with that adventure and it's definitely quite alright when seen in isolation.  

It's a turn to attribute ratio of 4, since the adventure is 8 stages long and provides 2 attributes.  Usually I find it a bit difficult though. I guess I need to prepare for it more in future runs. The only annoying part is having to raise the friendship stat to 6+ since I don't know a good way to do it. x_X

Increasing relationship by +1 is not that time effective. In that case if I had to start from 0 it becomes the equivalent of 14 stages long(8 stage adventure, 6 stage relationship raising) and therefore not nearly as good. 😮 

Also thanks for checking in Rhialto. Nice to meet you.

[Metis]

2 hours ago, Rossa said:

Do you have any other such tricks?

None that come to mind, it has been a while since I actually played a game of Academagia, but in general it's worth looking at what opportunities you have to learn skills - spells and Phemes are ways to become informed of skills, specific adventure steps can prove useful, the odd action/ability, keep an eye open for what options you have. Now is a skill level of 1 going to save you in a difficult adventure stage? No, but being informed of a skill means you can buff it, means you can directly train it, use tricks to make training easier, etc. It's not the most optimal solution, but given time it's an effective solution.

2 hours ago, Rossa said:

Regarding adventures, do you think the number of skill steps is important?  ?_?

Sometimes I have seen the wiki claim: "You can do a lot of skill steps in this adventure", but I'm always left wondering if doing a lot of random skill steps is worth it. Often it feels like you have to pick a skill you are already good at in order to not fail, which means a lot of reloading or increasing a skill you already have a high rank in. 😅

What is your take on the matter?

The problem you describe does definitely exists, and in part for that reason I don't value skill steps as much as attributes or other benefits. If I wanted skill steps I could match wits with the Emperor's Sphinx and be very likely to get at least two, if not three steps in one time slot (with caveats, admittedly) anyway. That said adventures do have their own benefits, so I prefer them over spamming training abilities - later adventures also tend to be easier and more often are multi-staged in one time slot compared to earlier adventures, as well, so that's something to keep in mind.

[Rossa]

7 hours ago, Metis said:

None that come to mind, it has been a while since I actually played a game of Academagia, but in general it's worth looking at what opportunities you have to learn skills - spells and Phemes are ways to become informed of skills, specific adventure steps can prove useful, the odd action/ability, keep an eye open for what options you have. Now is a skill level of 1 going to save you in a difficult adventure stage? No, but being informed of a skill means you can buff it, means you can directly train it, use tricks to make training easier, etc. It's not the most optimal solution, but given time it's an effective solution.

Yes, using phemes is definitely not a very intuitive skill informing mechanic. 
I had not thought of using adventures as a skill discovery mechanism before, so that's some very good insight.
Thanks for providing me with your point of view Metis. I really appreciate it.  

7 hours ago, Metis said:

The problem you describe does definitely exists, and in part for that reason I don't value skill steps as much as attributes or other benefits. If I wanted skill steps I could match wits with the Emperor's Sphinx and be very likely to get at least two, if not three steps in one time slot (with caveats, admittedly) anyway. That said adventures do have their own benefits, so I prefer them over spamming training abilities - later adventures also tend to be easier and more often are multi-staged in one time slot compared to earlier adventures, as well, so that's something to keep in mind.

Ah, very well. So it's not just me being completely crazy haha. That's good to know.  
Can you elaborate on the "... adventures do have their own benefits..."? 
Are you thinking of like magical items and money or are there other none obvious benefits to adventures? 

[Schwarzbart]

 other none obvious benefits to adventures is I.e. relationship with students and instructors, there even some Relationship maximum increases in adventures.

Also adventures might have influence on other students then just your self especial their main adventures will change their path and statistics in Y2.

[Rossa]

I definitely expect that I will change some adventures and choices in year 1 based on the impact in year 2.  

Relationship points is not bad per say, but I don't value it that highly. Maybe I'm to inexperienced to appreciate them, but for the most part it just seems to keep people from harassing you. That is definitely nice though.   As for the maximum increases, I'm not sure they are that important, but it's noteworthy for sure. 
Of course relationship points also unlocks adventures once you get it high enough, but they are pretty hit and miss. Usually they are quite difficult and long and the rewards so-so, but there are exceptions. If you can get enough relationship score that you can unlock adventures for free while doing adventures that could definitely be useful though.

I know you can ask for favors from instructors, but I haven't experimented that much with it yet. I probably should give it a try in a run in the future. 😮 

[Schwarzbart]

Favor is beside Research one of the way to increase your skill maximum in Y1 but it need lot of reroll to get the result you want.

You need to increase Relationship max for finding your "love" (You need Relationship 11 or 12 for that if I remember right)

 

[Rossa]

Favor can increase the maximum? I didn't know, thanks for telling me. I have only glanced at the favor tables before so I didn't recall the specifics.  

That's a good point. I'm not sure if love really matters, but I hope it will have a larger impact when going into year 2. In that case it would definitely be something to look out for.  

[Rhialto]

4 hours ago, Schwarzbart said:

Favor is beside Research one of the way to increase your skill maximum in Y1 but it need lot of reroll to get the result you want.

You need to increase Relationship max for finding your "love" (You need Relationship 11 or 12 for that if I remember right)

 

Actually, you need relationship 13 to get love, which can only be reached naturally with Sheary Warrington - for those other students whose relationships can be elevated to that level, you need to save-scum with the Etiquette bonus at level 8. And even then, merely being of the right sex will not guarantee love with a relationship at 13 - some students have higher chances of giving love than others. Zoe Melis, for example, is very lonely in-story and accordingly has a low chance of not generating love, but Cinzia Ammacampani has a high chance of not generating love in order to match her dominant and controlling personality (I assume).

[Rossa]

Wow, well okay, 13 is quite high, no wonder I haven't run across it before. 😮  
Save scumming is second nature to anyone playing Academagia i pressume. There's too many chance based things. x_X 

But I guess I got the answer to what I was looking for in regards to adventures.
Good adventures give: attributes, inform of skills, give items or money. Occasionally the relationship points can also be a factor, especially if an adventure increases the max.
Additionally it's likely some adventures will have a larger impact in year 2.
 
Taking all of that into account then gives an idea of if the adventure is worthwhile or not. It of course have to be compared with the time.  

[Schwarzbart]

Now one have to be fair in Year 1 the students are still to young for love relationship so it is reasonable that a Relationship  of 13 only really start to show up in Y2 with some very rare exceptions in Y1 already.

[Metis]

You can technically apply Love to people through a Pheme, if you're persistent enough...though I make no promises as to how long that'll last come Y2 .