~ Suggestions & Improvement ~

[Albert]

The element of surprise is only worth so much against an enemy that has a few thousand years worth of skills on you.

Element of surprise, a solid plan with strategies and tactics prepared, aswell as "Solid support", doing it alone would surely be a bad idea unless you got acces to something incredibly powerful to surprise the dragon with.

[Metis]

Leopold Rassent's student adventure could benefit from an explanation why Sync can't be used to fix his issues, since, eh, an Embrace would pretty much allow him to remember, in excruciating detail, everything he could possibly remember. Seeing how a PC would likely have knowledge of what an Embrace even is, as well as what it actually entails (especially because memory manipulation isn't as simple as thought redirection), I'm sure the team can think of a plausible reason why it wouldn't be used. It'd just be nice to hear the characters actually say it.

[Albert]

Leopold Rassent's student adventure could benefit from an explanation why Sync can't be used to fix his issues, since, eh, an Embrace would pretty much allow him to remember, in excruciating detail, everything he could possibly remember. Seeing how a PC would likely have knowledge of what an Embrace even is, as well as what it actually entails (especially because memory manipulation isn't as simple as thought redirection), I'm sure the team can think of a plausible reason why it wouldn't be used. It'd just be nice to hear the characters actually say it.

It probably shouldn't be used for trivial matters. When it's about saving a life it's something different all together.

[Metis]

Yeah, I don't know exactly how desperate Leopold is at the start of that adventure, but I don't think he'd be that desperate. Still, it would be nice if the game could acknowledge "Yes, this does exist and it would solve every problem right here and now, but this is why it's not worth resorting to". And considering Leopold would need to undergo a full Embrace (by Leene or Nhordum, seeing as how the PC can't do that him/herself in Y1) I don't think it'll be hard to come up with an acceptable reason.

[freespace2dotcom]

It probably shouldn't be used for trivial matters. When it's about saving a life it's something different all together.

 

I tend to agree. If sync became used more, and too commonly used, there would be people who might abuse it and cause it's already tenuous position to become endangered.

[Albert]

Yay! My character has been Drakesmark Certified! Diavisque, prepare to die if you rebell against me!

 

*Picks up a tiny bow with poisoned and enchanted arrows* "Certified dragon hunter!"

 

Now, I just have to figure out who pays for the dragonslaying stuff and I got a career!

 

Ok, it's a little crazy but it seems like it might do more damage and a greater threat to a dragon than the magic of a first year at least.

[Legate of Mineta]

No comment on Diavesque, obviously.

[Albert]

I have a feeling that He wouldn't be back to his old power and glory if you don't fuse all the parts back together. If all you do is change the characteristics of the book, then it won't have the same power as the ancient dragon once had.

 

The book is just a small piece of what he once was. The old dragon lady sounds like she's on the verge of getting old and senile and loosign her mind. That might affect her power a little.

[Schwarzbart]

Feed the Birds sounds like a much to weak ability for something given at Birds level 11.

First of all it cost money to use and then only give you the chance of either 1 SS increase or 1 increase in Relationship.

I personal would call this Reference Table 3 times and for this increase the price to 10 pims instead of the 5 so fare.

In the Reference Table I would add one extra Random Zoology, replace Birds with Random Zoology and replace Expand Relationship Hector Per Vittoria(2) with Animal Husbandry.

So you end up with a 60% chance for a Random Relationship increase, a 30% chance for a SS increase, a 5% chance to get informed of a character and a 5% chance for a Common item per call.

[Albert]

Those 5% common item, would be a grateful crow or something leaving you with a gift or trade? There was this program that showed how a Crow was interested in trading bread for cheese. It really liked cheese.

[Schwarzbart]

@albert this 5% for a random common item is already part of the original Reference Table. From the text "you may collect a Random Item one of the birds brought back to the school and discarded"

[Albert]

Ok, I've had the skill but I can't say I've been using it. I guess it's not the most powerful or useful skill.

[Schwarzbart]

That's why I suggested the drastically increase in this post.

 

Beside the Worms skill give at level 11 only a +1 to Agriculture perhaps this is a oversight and should be +1 Agriculture Maximum.

[Albert]

Maybe, it's the normal reward most skills gives, either an atrribute increase or skill maximum.

 

I like the design that one skill can give an increase a skill maximum. Given that extensive knowledge in one area would have synergyeffects and grant insight that can be crossreferenced onto another skill.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Thanks again for the notes- we'll review in 17.

[Schwarzbart]

I think Neshcha need more Insight instead of Charm.

The reason for this is that Ambush and Spy, two of the 3 core skills for a spy, are Insight and her description sound like that's her focus.

(Luck is the other but there she have 3)

[freespace2dotcom]

I dunno... At least half of actual spying is social engineering.. Lying and maybe even flirting! I think charm is important for that or at least it should be.

[Schwarzbart]

You know its a chameleon we talk about that try to use its natural ability in hiding for spy and not social skills.

[Albert]

People arn't always optimaly equiped for their goals or dreams.

[isadorbg]

i guess this cameleon is more a james bond type of spy...

[Schwarzbart]

Shrug if you think so then good luck with anyone else who want to do the Insight Skill + Insight Attribute (for the Familiar Adventure) rolls vs 10 with this familiar when Insight keep at 1 and no way to raise it via Bound adventure also.

[Metis]

Insight is actually stupidly easy to raise for a Familiar - Learn From Mistakes, Understanding Strategy and Goose Bumps all increase Insight by 1, as does maxing the Bond of Silver which itself is keyed to Intelligence.

 

That said the Blackmail, Espionage and Spy skills are kinda a mess, and I don't just mean the location (so a Spy can break into places and hide in plain sight, but they can't actually infiltrate? They can lie, but they can't act or deceive?). How, for instance, is Observation keyed to Charm? And don't say "it's the social engineering type of observation", because that is Awareness and Perception. Observation is the "oh hey there's a brick flying at me I wonder if I can see if it's going to hit me" kind of Observation.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

I'll pass the suggestion along, although it may well be that there isn't a change there.

 

Metis;

 

I'll ask the Team, although it isn't too likely that they would make a change there now- but you never know!

[isadorbg]

you could say the same about the convincing skills. Say i have max up persuasion, diplomacy and the befriend skills. Surely my character is very convincing right? but nope take that oratory gate in you're face, all those skills are now useless . I hope in year 2, they will be some sort of bonuses to linked skills of that sort...

[hdghg]

This is perhaps an issue tied to the episodic style of the academagia games. Certainly, if I was giving my opinions for a stand-alone "Academagia 2" then I would say to axe about a fifth or so of the skills. Get rid of the ones that are too similar to each other, the ones that are too trivial, and separate or re-define the ones whose use in-game doesn't match their description and parent skill. That would make it a lot clearer what a particular character is good at without running into "So my character is the best liar in their class, but they apparently don't know how to deceive someone?".

 

Unfortunately it isn't likely to be reasonable to remove skills once they've been added for an episodic series like this one. After all, there will be people waiting to transfer characters to Y2 who spent a lot of effort into leveling those skills.

This does mean that once something goes in, we are probably stuck with it through to year 5.

 

Because of that, I'd probably prefer to see fewer new skills added in Y2 patches. It seems that not a single Y1 patch was added without new skills coming in. In some cases, these seem very superfluous like a lot of the college-specific ones. If this keeps happening all the way through, how many skills would there be in year 5?

My opinion is that there would be too many. There are already an awful lot of skills to keep track of and the more skills there are the more complexity events and adventures should have. This isn't great because you end up with either writing & testing taking much longer because there end up being lots of exits for each step or you end up with loads of immersion-breaking situations where it would make sense to use skill X to get past event Y but the exit isn't there because the writer missed that one from the hundreds of sub-skills.