~ Suggestions & Improvement ~

[Zaltys]

Some random thoughts...

 

Game interface:

I enjoy reading, but the interface could really use an overhaul. Too many actions and abilities, too many phemes.

Can't keep track of them all, definitely needs some search tools. Consider adding icons for skills: for example, if the action expands lyre then it could show a lyre icon at the top of the description. Maybe something like this: (Over 9000 hours in MSPaint, but you get the idea.)

Also, windowed mode would be useful.

 

 

Botany class: I know that insects are part of Zoology, but Botany should teach the basics. You cannot be a successful botanist if you know nothing about insects. At the very least you have to recognize which ones are beneficial to the plants (ladybugs/lacewings/spiders/etc) and which aren't. Hardly a big deal, but could use some adjustment. Yea, I know, spiders aren't insects. But there's no arachnids skill.

 

 

Cliques: In my latest game I concentrated on making as many friends as early as possible. By the end of the second month my clique had ten members.

Then I started studying. Checked my clique month later and found out that there were only three members left: rest had joined other cliques. With friends like those, who needs enemies...

Cliques break up too easily. Maybe each student should have an innate loyalty attribute, high loyalty should make them less likely to switch cliques etc.

 

 

Familiars: This too has been suggested before, but Raven (or crow or magpie) familiar would be a good addition.

[CremePudding]

JRandom;

 

Great suggestions! Both have been suggested before, and we plan some form of categorization for Adventures (although not necessarily along those lines.) For #2, this is something we are very interested in, and for exactly the reasons you note!

 

That said, both of these are likely to appear in Year 2, rather than Year 1.

 

Thanks again!

 

Still, if quest in year 2 are heavily dependent on year 1, we might still need some sort of categorizations, however small it is...

 

Speaking of pheme lists and action lists, perhaps we can have a search box?

It can be painful scrolling thorough huge lists

[Nyaa]

Botany class: I know that insects are part of Zoology, but Botany should teach the basics. You cannot be a successful botanist if you know nothing about insects.

I think a +1 ss to insect in one of the botany class and +1 ss to botany in one of the zoology class will do.

 

Cliques break up too easily.

They don't break up easily, you just brought in too much incomparable students. They are loyal to you, but are not to the other nine students and even hated some of them, so you will have to boost everyone loyalty friendships to each other to keep such a large cliques.

[Zaltys]

I think a +1 ss to insect in one of the botany class and +1 ss to botany in one of the zoology class will do.

 

That sounds good enough. Currently it's possible to max botany without learning anything about insects, which is bit silly.

 

Maybe maxing Botany should give a small bonus to insects/worms and vice versa.

 

They don't break up easily, you just brought in too much incomparable students. They are loyal to you, but are not to the other nine students and even hated some of them, so you will have to boost everyone loyalty friendships to each other to keep such a large cliques.

 

I did check with Gossip before I befriended them. There were few zero relations but no enemies. Oddly, all six students who left joined The Night Fliers, that clique now has ten members -- and it hasn't collapsed yet.

So they obviously get along well enough. I guess one of my three remaining clique members is to blame, but I've checked them all and they all have good relations. Six of my best friends suddenly give up and join an another clique? As I said, with friends like those...

 

EDIT: Actually, The Night Fliers have eleven members now. Either I miscounted earlier or they got an another member.

[Nyaa]

There were few zero relations but no enemies.

Zero is not enough, the require relation gets higher with more people.

[Schwarzbart]

Thats why I usualy keep small Cliques so I dont have to worry that the clique breaks.

[Legate of Mineta]

Zaltys;

 

Thanks for the suggestions! You are exactly correct about Botany and Insects- very good insight. We'll make Nyaa's suggested addition in DLC 8, I think.

 

The Interface suggestions have been suggested by other Academagians, and I think Year 2 will incorporate a more graphical representation of what things do (as well as allowing for user-defined methods of search and sort.)

 

For Cliques, the larger (and more incompatible) the Clique, the more difficult it is to keep together. While the individual members may remain friendly and loyal to you (represented by their Relationship), at some point, if they dislike your other Friends, they will excuse themselves. That said, this area really needs to have better feedback, so it's clearer what is happening. It's something we're looking at addressing for Year 1, if we can.

 

Thanks again!

[Schwarzbart]

Suggestion for year 2:

Flags that can be enabled and later disabled to be used in the Adventures/Events.

Or even Variables of at last typ bit.

[Mikka]

I agree with Schwarzbart. An idea that came to mind for an Adventure would be, for instance, to have a school play going on, and depending on choices made on adventures and how often you used abilities relating to it (with each choice adding +10 or -10 or whatever to the 'WillthePlaySuck' variable), you'd either end up ridiculously humiliated or putting on the best performance of all time.

 

(If you go back far enough, sort of like the Bard Stronghold quest in Baldur's Gate, though similar things have been used in countless games since (and some before).)

 

You can sort of still do it by just making it fully rely on an adventure chain and each choice leads to a different adventure so you track it that way, but then you'd have around 50 adventures in one chain even though the player would only see fifteen or so and most would just be the same thing. The memory system is nice, but isn't really as versatile as setting variables.

 

 

Also good? Another check-through of Oan's adventure to express that the game rolls for your clique-members instead of yourself for occasional Adventure rolls, and to cut out the part about familiars skills adding to the characters own skills when they don't.

 

 

And let me just repeat year two hopes: ability to decorate up our dorm-room and know who our roommates are (if not choose them), an ability to join school clubs, the ability to request permission from your Regent to gain Visitor's Rights to certain locations (such as libraries/walks on campus or shops where your character steadily works in the city), ability to maybe access the night or even morning slots (even if you'll want to choose 'Sleep' almost all the time to not take huge stress/vit hits, sneaking out is fun at times as could be cramming), useful familiars, the ability to choose a 'hang out' place for your clique and actually have to learn and use patrol to 'defend it', being able to declare someone your characters best friend (boyfriend/girlfriend, too, even if at that age all it means is your character gains a happy emotion when they spend time with the other as well as a devastated emotion if they see said boyfriend/girlfriend flirt with others), more attention paid to the UI (including the serious and confusing problem of not being able to know what a shop is/the description without shopping there or trying to find the day you got the shop unlocked and check the description from there, the ability to play windowed and change the size of the screen, autosaving and quicksaving, being able to check the backgrounds ones chosen once in the game, lores grouped more like skills so you can read, say, all the War lores in order, more obvious feedback when it comes to most things- changes in relationships, cliques breaking up, visitation rights (another one that really bugs me) and various other things others probably have brought up better), more classes as well as the ability to switch to some sort of extra credity program once you've finished all your work for the class, and, uh, so on.

 

I know a lot of these things are either already in the work for year two or are just simply unfeasiable, but as I haven't written anything in this post since like, page 12, I figured I'd throw out the things on my mind.

[Legate of Mineta]

Mikka and Schwarzbart;

 

Thanks! We are looking at variables for Adventures in Year 2 of that sort, but we'll see...

 

For Oan's Adventure, I am not quite sure what you mean: Familiar Skills do add to your own in Stories. Do you mean that this should be clarified?

 

For the remainder- these have indeed been requested, and I think you will enjoy how they are implemented.

[Mikka]

For Oan's Adventure, I am not quite sure what you mean: Familiar Skills do add to your own in Stories. Do you mean that this should be clarified?

 

Er. I misspoke: I meant the Bond skills rather then the regular skills: while the effects of 'familiar skills are gated behind your Bond rating', the speech Oan gives about, say, the Bond of Iron increasing physicality confused me the first few times I went through: straight out explaining what they do, as well some sort of "As a first year, your bond is too immature for it the effects to work. But come next year, you'll be glad you concentrated on it as it'll be one of the first things you'll want to do in your second year due to blah blah blah" except less of the starting the sentences with conjunctions like I do all the time and making more sense.

 

Though clarifying that the familiar skills add on only works in adventures so that's why you don't see the bonus when hovering over a skill may be good if there's a way to do in in-game terms. Hm.

 

 

...now I want to try and come up with something to request that no one ever has before, but my mind is completely blank. ._.;; Later! Maybe.

[Legate of Mineta]

Ah, now I understand.

 

I think the right way to solve that confusion is through the UI, as you suggest- we may be able to squeeze that into Year 1, but we'll see.

 

Thanks!

[Schwarzbart]

Suggestion for Catalog/Mercant add a number to each item it have. If this number is positiv the shop have this many of this item for sale if it is negative the shop will refill this item at each visit to this number.

(This game Mechanic is used in the Morrowind/Oblivion Editor if I remember right)

Curent the shop system only works for Rare/legendary items and maybe some uncommon items but for common items its broken because they are much to hard to get.

 

But even after this I think the shop system have the problem that it is to static at moment.

 

The shoping system as it is now is part of the reason why crafting is no real option in this game.

Because even when you got a recipe that is kind of usfull and then already know the shops you where you can get the items needed you still have to spend a loot of timelsots just for shoping.

Comparing this to getting the finished item from a shop in just on single time slot the price tag must be drastic different to be worth to try it once.

When then a recipe is wort to spend all the time shoping you only can try it once because you can't go back to the shops to get more materials.

Just looking trough your shops and look how many Parchment or Ink a player can get, I counted 3 or 4 of each bevore they become complet unaviable for the rest of year 1!

Also I think that we already have to many shops but most are to less stocked with different items.

I would suggest If you plan to add a new Shop to put at last 8 items to it bevor even consider it.

But overal I personal would even start to reduce the shops and replace the opened up Skill Slots form this with something different or to give the same shop out at different skills.

I.e is it realy necessary to use in a extrem chase 3 time slots just to order at Joy of Music or at Haejar Enthifal Cortath Catalog?

For Joy of Music I know that there is absolut nothing, except maybe a game limitation of max. number of items in a Shop, that speaks against replacing this 3 Shops with just one that get Unlocked at 3 places.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Shopping is reworked in Year 2, and you will find it much more dynamic- what's more, you will be able to go to multiple Shops in a single area. For Recipes, there are going to be a few ways to fulfill them. I can't say anything about that yet, though.

 

For Year 1, though, I don't think we will be able to make any changes, however.

[Schwarzbart]

That sounds great, maybe my adventure can reworked to a vew "ordinary" recipe in year 2.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

You guessed the reason why the content team was hesitant about the crafting Adventure.

[Trizz]

Ah, I'm delighted to hear the news about crafting / shopping. I was really curious about making things -- one character with high forge skills just rarin' to go!

 

Trizz

[JRandom]

@Schwarzbart

 

I agree with you that crafting & forging seem to be weak from a cost/benefit ratio based on my qualitative analysis(I apologize in advance, I'm a CPA) at the present time.

 

I plan in the next few weeks to develope some quantative statistical analysis for the various costs associated with the crafting skills. This isn't my area of expertise, but I am interested and figured it wouldn't hurt.

 

Can anyone assist me with a list of some various measurements we can use to make informed decisions?

 

The ones I am currently considering are as follows:

 

-Time Units

-Pims Cost

-Material Rarity

 

I will contrast this against the benefit received for purchasing similiarly priced items and the same factors of production.

[JRandom]

Improvement Suggestion - Adventure/Action Preparation Slots

 

The current system of adding stress to an action seems difficult for me to understand.

 

I think there is an alternate method that may assist with game flow and improve adventures without needing to reduce the inherent difficulty or improve the rewards.

 

Instead of adding a static 1+ stress, I would propose the following mechanical changes.

 

-Players can elect to incur up to a certain number of stress on any time-slot action. The exact number could be discussed later.

 

-Bonus actions would be recoded as "Minor, Major, or Greater" and each action would incur 1-3 stress.

 

-These actions would be the stat, skill, spell, and item activiation actions that are currently each taking up one time slot.

 

Example:

 

A first-year student sets out on an adventure that they know requires use of the running skill. Prior to beginning the action, they can prepare by using a minor action to "Massage Muscles" that would incur one point of stress. They could then use a major action to cast "Deep Breaths" further increasing their running skill and Fitness attribute at the cost of 2 stress.

 

Thus, a player would not need to spend 3 time slots for the adventure if they were willing to incur additional stress. It would also make better use out of a lot of the cool abilities and spells that are not used very often because the benefit is not worth spending so many of the limited time periods preparing for certain actions.

 

I also see this as assisting with power creep from actions like Cleanse and Remake in future school years. If a character can only choose a few preparation actions, you can have more control over how many benefits they will be able to use at once and thus have a more consistant level of difficulty.

 

This is a rough representation of the idea, but does it seem like something that:

 

A) Makes sense from a mechanical/coding perspective

Increases enjoyment from adventurers/actions rather than spending so much time preparing for one event that can still fail

C) Allows for a more controlled difficulty level in adventurers

D) Makes better use out of stress in future school years where many students never have to worry due to high fitness attributes.

E) Alleviate the need for additional time slots specifically tailored to use for adventures.

 

Sorry for the long post,

 

Thanks!

Jordan

[Legate of Mineta]

Jordan;

 

Firstly, for "Players can elect to incur up to a certain number of stress on any time-slot action", this is already in fact the case- you can expend Stress on a one for one basis to improve your Roll for any Action with a Roll.

 

Beyond that, however, the idea is a great one. We have something like this planned for Year 2, although your method offers some advantages that ours does not- we may see if we can incorporate your broader suggestion.

 

Thanks and keep your suggestions coming!

[JRandom]

I should have worded the first line better.

 

"-Players can elect to incur up to a certain number of stress on any time-slot action. The exact number could be discussed later."

 

I meant this more as, players could elect up to a maximum number of stress that would limit the number of minor, major, and greater actions that they could perform.

 

For example, first-year students may theoretically be able to elect up to three stress.

 

Minor actions = 1 Stress

Major actions = 2 Stress

Greater actions = 3 Stress

 

Thus, you could use any combination of preparation actions that are equal to or less than the amount of stress allowed with perhaps a hard-cap at 3 actions for sake of input space & time.

 

The suggestion would replace the current 1 stress = +1 bonus on rolls.

 

You could increase the maximum stress bonus as the years go by so that perhaps a fifth-year student could elect up to 9 stress, but no more than 3 preparation actions for simplicity's sake.

 

Hope that makes more sense than what I originally wrote!

[Legate of Mineta]

JRandom;

 

I understood what you meant- it's a neat idea that may tie in well with what we have planned. We'll see- but so far, so good!

[Schwarzbart]

This is already in fact the case- you can expend Stress on a one for one basis to improve your Roll for any Action with a Roll.

 

I read about this feature a vew times already but didnt use it so fare in any of my games because I usualy get close enough to a roll with Revision of Skills +2-3 pheme.

[Schwarzbart]

Just whanted to ask if there is already a plan with what DLC we get the direct pick of the Random Familiars for 2 points?

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

We discussed it internally, but how to present that to the Player in an efficient way is the problem. I can't say for certain yet what we will do for this issue.