~ Suggestions & Improvement ~

[Schwarzbart]

I know we will see some in Mineta but that shouldn't mean that there are none near the homes of player with a heritage background or at places that we only can reach trough traveling.

 

Oh and make sure that in the Y2 engine the contrast between text and background is big enough, just saw a VN where the maker thought its great to have white text on nearly white background.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Haha! Contrast is key.

 

For the vacations, I am not sure about, actually. I'll ask.

[Schwarzbart]

RE Familiar 15 would I really want to help the Rock familiar in this? ... I think the Rock familiar should be excluded from most Familiar RE especial the one where the familiar grab the wand.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

That's an interesting point- I'll pass it along for 17's review.

[Schwarzbart]

Isn't the difficulty of Student Adventure Asmita Tidar 09 to high given that you have to go trough 2 other steps before without break and direct continue to a next step with rolls of 17-20 difficulty? (rolls of step 09 Charm + Composure vs 27 or Int + Concentration vs 28 or Int + Cooking vs 29)

This difficulty is even more off because the adventure not even give some special item or a relationship max increase.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

It's a tough one- I'll ask, though, as it does seem a bit disproportionate.

[Albert]

I liked the Asmita adventures and the fact that they were challenging doesn't hurt. You can also buff up with some magic

 

After all, the stuff you're doing should be pretty hard to pull off. The part about lacking rewards thoguh, that's a very good point. Didn't think much of it but yes, it should deffinately get you something or a few somethign along the way. Just look at other student adventures and their rewards.

[Svinik]

I liked the Asmita adventures and the fact that they were challenging doesn't hurt. You can also buff up with some magic

 

After all, the stuff you're doing should be pretty hard to pull off. The part about lacking rewards thoguh, that's a very good point. Didn't think much of it but yes, it should deffinately get you something or a few somethign along the way. Just look at other student adventures and their rewards.

 

The student adventures are quite inconsistent, most give an ability point, but not all, and a few give more than 1. Some, such as Cante's are quite long (his has 2 completely unecessary repeat steps) but without a greater payoff.

 

I would say however that the DCs do get ridiculously high, anything over 20 should be very unusual as most attributes should not be expected to be over 7 and skills top out generally at 10, making DCs over 17 quite tough. If you do a lot of adventures like my guys, buff your familiar, or start spending actions on spells and buffs you can go higher, but that makes adventurs cost a lot more actions.

[Metis]

I'd like to add that another thing to consider is that parent skills and subskills are in no way equal in terms of raising them - subskills can be temporary bumped up by 5 by no less than two spells (From Novice to Master and Intense Focus), parent skills are lucky if they can manage to get +2 in one time slot. Not to mention that getting a parent skill to 10 is three times as time-consuming as getting a subskill to the same level, at best.

 

Intelligence 10/Cooking 10 v29, BTW, would be a very red roll since you'd need at least 19 on 1d21, or a 1/7 chance. For a maxed out parent skill and an average late-endgame attribute score, that's nuts.

[Schwarzbart]

I absolut agree mit Metis main skill rolls past 20 (especial for far off side skills like cooking) should never happen in year 1 and if multiple steps are done in one go it should probably more like 15 as maximum.

But more important Asmita is considered the best cook but I doubt that having her in the clique would even good enough to get past a 29 in cooking if she make the roll for the player.

 

Sure focused player manage to have some magic main skills up to 20 at the end with a collection of items but that should't be the measurment for general roll difficultys as there is no good way to temporary increase a main skill.

 

In general without knowing the difficulty and the roll before go trough some Student and especial familiar adventures are impossible to do what rightful give this game a flag as very difficult game not suitable for the common player (like you find on steam).

(To put it blunt without having the mod tools I probably would never even try to do familiar adventures as they are plain nuts and probably also not try out new student adventures)

 

As Svinik pointed out the rewards of the student adventures are also to different some give you a boost similiar to 50% of a end year main skill trough a item while at last in the past there where even some who had not even a Relationship max or Attribute increase in the end.

 

But I suspect that in the beginning when the game was released it was expected by the team that a difficulty of up to 30 should be no problem in the endgame of Y1 no matter the skill and we still have this in the game as to few people ever go trough the student adventures and then report the to high difficulty also the team never got around to check the adventure difficulty for consistency. Sure us long time player can go trough such difficulty at the endgame using a handful of not good spread spells. I.e. a player without Revision or Arithmetic often will find such difficulty impossible to do what runs direct opposite to the idea that a student at Academagia should focus on just 1 or 2 magic skills.

[Metis]

But more important Asmita is considered the best cook but I doubt that having her in the clique would even good enough to get past a 29 in cooking if she make the roll for the player.

For the record, every possible passive buff to the Cooking skill and subskills (except for the Familiar boost) along with every Intelligence boost in the game that I can think of (including having Girars in your Clique along with Asmita and waiting until after the latter's birthday) will total an Intelligence 6/Cooking 16 (11B, 16G, 16R), or 16-28 v29 roll. The only way that Asmita could pass that roll is to teach her Familiar at least Bond/Cooking 2, although I don't know if NPC students actually benefit from Familiar boosts, so I left that out. If she does and she'd somehow teach her Familiar Bond/Cooking 10 for a passive +5 that roll will change into an Intelligence 6/Cooking 21 v29 roll - roughly a 38% chance of success.

[Schwarzbart]

I hope some of the weak location / Actions / Ability we get at level 11 will get nice improvement in year 2.

 

Also I think if it would be great if we get the possibility of chose between a evil and a good path in the next years when learning Mastery or Gate magic.

[Svinik]

But I suspect that in the beginning when the game was released it was expected by the team that a difficulty of up to 30 should be no problem in the endgame of Y1 no matter the skill and we still have this in the game as to few people ever go trough the student adventures and then report the to high difficulty also the team never got around to check the adventure difficulty for consistency. Sure us long time player can go trough such difficulty at the endgame using a handful of not good spread spells. I.e. a player without Revision or Arithmetic often will find such difficulty impossible to do what runs direct opposite to the idea that a student at Academagia should focus on just 1 or 2 magic skills.

 

In fairness I should admit to having done over a hundred adventures in some games, but even with characters with over 100 ability points (excluding emotions, items, clique, etc) I find red choices in a number of adventures, so either my characters were below par (leaving me to wonder what the team thought an average or good player would look like) or the adventure DCs are OTT in some (many) places.

 

I tried a few familiar adventures but found them too tough, possibly because I don't really train my familiar in the rare games that I have one, it just took too long to do and I preferred to train my character to tankdom.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Many Abilities receive a new Ability, related to Y2 mechanics, which may or may not satisfy your criteria.

 

There are some good and evil paths, although I don't know that they are specifically related to Gates or Mastery.

[Albert]

If you pickup zoology as a class or a side interest then it's not that hard to train you familiar if you apply the right abilities, spells etz

 

In the end I almost find it faster and easier to max out my familiars skills than my main character... It does cost quite a few action points, but Formal invitation is very useful for getting Adventures done while training your familiar or your own skills.

 

Even before I used other students as minions I tended to get my character pretty much maxed out on everything and train my familiar somewhat. Now I can do that and finnish quit a few Adventures aswell.

 

While formal invitation does requier you to be good at your stuff there are items that will help you get past tough rolls beyond pure skills, ability stats points and spells. I tend to collect quite a few trinkets that boost me quite a bit and when I get the chance mid of the semester I hit a few shops that got a few very powerful items that boosts quite a few skills and attributes.

 

When the final exams hit's there is no need to buff up with spells to get crazy scores, the parent skills and skill tend to skyrocket long before the exams.

 

There is however a huge difference between later students and my first few playthroughs. My first student had a somewhat awkward school experience but probably didn't do worse than the average student of the school by comparison.. Just trying all the things out there.

 

I'm not even sure I found the Adventure ability on my first play through... I might have tried it but probably didn't realize that the choice was the start of a story adventure and thoguh it was jsut another of those random things Maybe it was the NPC students of the clique who went on a glitched recruitment and friendliness spree? :/

 

So, yes, there is a huge dissparity between what an average Academagia student is expected to do and accomplish their first year, and what the most focused and "epic" character might pull off.

There are actually several Adventures where you can accomplish things that noone expects you to pull off, because most kids and students wouldn't be able to. But it's there, taunting you to excell.

 

It makes sense that most normal student adventures should be somewhat in line with what could be expected of a student, even if some might be going for far to difficult challenges and interests. Asmita challenging that Chef is pretty crazy. He's clearly skilled. In the cases where he looses it isn't due to his lack of cooking skill but rather coincidences. The monk choking for example and you winning because you saved his life doing a heimlich or whatever you did to save him and gain his favor. Or any of the other crazy paths.

 

I'm hoping there will be all kinds of Adventures and events. Some of which are mundane every day events and adventures most students could manage one way or another. And then some real bonecrackers Where you operate beyond the level expect by the Professors or your parrents(assuming you can pull it off).

 

Hopefully said adventures and events will give some hints on what you're getting yourself into. MY first student of a whimp would like to know when it gets dangerous so he can avoid getting sent to the infirmary due to another crazy random event and this crazy dangerous school!

 

My more epic students that pursue more Renaissance man ideals of being the best at everything, will likely rejoice at new opportunities to test themselves and learn more if possible. Massive explosions?!? Zombies?!? Dragons?!? YES! ANOTHER ADVENTURE!

 

Yet again, do not underestimate the power of some items you can find out there, some of them don't even show in the modtool and file I currently got.

 

Still havn't figured out how to recover items from the Professors though..... So, there still seems to be something left to learn if it's truly possible as rumored.

My latest character quickly got hijacked and dragged into a clique I wonder how cliques will work in year 2.... More advanced Clique management tools and skills? In my latest play thoughs I've atempted to create my own clicques but in the last one I kind of lost control and it looked like half the school wanted to join that one clique... I wasn't even trying to be that lovable

[Albert]

Maybe the NPC students of the Clique went on a friendliness and recruitment spree?

[Albert]

Also, it would be great to keep some kind of journal of completed or started adventures and some info on the outcome/choices.

 

It will be especialy nice to have when we have piled up a huge amount of characters and start loosing track of them all What did that one do? Have I done that yet?

[Legate of Mineta]

albert;

 

Y2 has such a record and maybe, just maybe, you'll see a bit of that functionality in the Steam release. I am not sure, though.

[Schwarzbart]

The text of Student Adventure Cordelia Troublepot 03 and 04 sound like they should be on the same day and not separate adventure calls. (04 start with "Proud of your hard work, you and Cordelia Troublepot rush out to look at the clock tower, in all of its functioning glory.")

Also 04 Exit 10 is a Persuasion roll vs 16 with a reward of Persuasion, I think a different reward should be given here (maybe a brew SS?).

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Thanks! Will review for Steam/17.

[Schwarzbart]

Student Adventure Cordelia Troublepot 06 shouldn't the Etiquette and Social Skills cost money as the Investigation suggest? I also think a Relationship boost with Cordelia should be added to this exit if they cost money.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

That seems reasonable...I will point it out.

[Albert]

Will there be any tutoring survices around in Year 2? I could easily imagine another classmate or upperclassmen in need of money who might offer some tutoring. All wizard students arn't rich so I'm sure there are a few of them that might be offering for some coin. Mentored tutoring should add a few extra skill steps and be especially useful for the harder skills to learn. At least for the first few levels where the tutor would find it easy to provide assistance, after that their own limitated knowledge might remove most of the benefit.

 

As a way of getting started in the enw year to hadnle new adventures and events faster, but at a cost. I recall at least two first year students with lore or an adventure where they provide tutoring services. Or perhaps one that will teach you some of their skill if you teach them or help them brew some potions. You brew them some potions and they help you with your homework and studies, because they probably arn't great at everything at once.

[Legate of Mineta]

albert;

 

Indeed yes.

[Schwarzbart]

I suspect there will be even tutoring services outside of Academagia if the money is right.

Not every finished Student will find a suitable job right after finished with the learning at Academagia and some might even have fun in educating the young but want to stay outside of Academagia for different reason.

(I had my own idea while back about a external tutoring service but never put it together but maybe the team have picked it up for a later year.)