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Hawkey
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Hi, I just finished the game a few hours ago, and I loved it! Much karma and kudos to the team! But I'm posting because I can't find this suggestion on the forum.

 

I think Adventures should be implemented differently. There's not much difference between Adventures and Random Events, and that subtracts both from their game-play significance and their dramatic tension. Adventures should be vast and epic, not short and intermittent.

 

So can I suggest you string all the Adventures in an Adventure-chain into one long marathon-like event?

 

What I mean is that instead of finishing one Adventure and exiting to the Calender; you instead finish the Adventure and go strait into the next Adventure in the chain, with no loss of time. You should only exit to the Calender when you fail an Adventure or finish the entire chain.

 

This creates a check-point system in combination with the current implementation; so if you fail half-way through a chain, you can pick up where you left off at another time.

 

As for balance, I think you already decrease a skill if you fail a skill check, if not then throw that in and your done.

 

Finally, is it possible to implement this in year one or do I have to wait for year two?

 

Kthxbye!

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Woe;

 

There's nothing technically which would prevent us from doing so- the reason we did not is so that you had time to adequately train, cast your spells, etc. so that there's a more reasonable explanation as to why you can pick the Adventure up again. We might experiment in creating a similar Adventure to what you describe in one of the DLC- and, once the Tools have been released, you can easily create (or adapt) adventures to suit your tastes.

 

We're glad to hear you enjoyed the game, and thank you!

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... the reason we did not is so that you had time to adequately train, cast your spells, etc. so that there's a more reasonable explanation as to why you can pick the Adventure up again...

 

Sorry, I might not be grokking this fully, so a few questions:

 

Don't we need to start an adventure to figure out which skill to train? (unless you give us clues as to what skills we need, maybe in a lore description?)

 

And if we can only adventure once a day, getting one skill up (assuming one pass), wouldn't the player be better off training?

 

And wouldn't starting and failing each adventure just to find which skills we need waste both actions and result in no net change in stats?

 

By the way, can you make adventures that take up all the actions in a day?

 

Kthxbye!

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Ok, just a few random questions and I'll call it a night. :)

 

I notice that there's no nested drop-down lists in the menus, is this an engine limitation?

 

Is the Emperor Sphinx action working properly? The lore says it should increase a skill I select, a random skill, and a skill I don't know, but I only get feedback for one random skill and I don't think my selected skill is increased at all.

 

Can Random Events be linked into a chain? And can different options create different branches of Events? Oh, and can Events be linked to actions?

 

When are the modding tools coming out?

 

Will we be able to modify the in-game music?

 

And pretty please can we have a volume control?

 

Thank-you so much for all your fast replies and patience.

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As it is right now (Patch 2) any place that gives 2 or more skillpoint training by visiting it is much stronger than actions/abilitys that gives 3 Skillpoint Training but forces you to 1 place because you can chose if you study, train or using a other action in the first.

Now I have 2 diverent Ideas how one can balance it

 

1) Actions/Abilitys like the liberarys that gives 3 Skills right now changes to visitng places that gives 2 Skillpoint training. Only Places that gives 2+X , is it Money a other skill, study ect., changes to a acction/ability with fixed place.

 

2) Places that gives more then 1 Skill with just visitng it need to be Harder to be found, have Activations Rolls, High risk of be Found and/or Money Costs

 

My personal tendency is toward the first because else the difficultys of many rolls especial toward the end of Adventures have to reduce.

 

I also have 2 things about for the End of the game. When the games sould be imported for year 2 then one sould be able to make a save after the last day or else the last 3 timeslots are wasted. Also I got a strange resoult in my last game my Int was Improved the most in this game so I sayed it but at the start it was at 1 so one cant say that this char was smart at the start but the text just did this ^^, perhaps linking the answaer to oans quest at the start with the end.

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Congratulations on putting out a detailed, fun life sim that is only like one other I've ever seen in its conceptual design and mechanics: King of Dragon Pass. I've just purchased Academagia, though I played it for a while, earlier today--because I discovered a relative of mine (who shall remain anonymous) downloaded it from a pirate site. We've had words about this. I then got interested, watched her for a couple of hours, left for a while, then came back and bought it. Not for her. (Her mother now knows what's happened.) For me.

 

Reading a few threads here, I observed that you're genuinely helpful, and seeking courteous input.

 

With that in mind, I've got a few suggestions of my own to offer. Just some first impressions, but I hope they'll contain one or two bits of advice that could count in handy.

 

First: $25 is simply too much to ask people to pay without a demo. $10? Even there, most casual sites allow limited play demos. $25 is not a lot of money to ask for a game--but for buying a game whose gameplay you've only seen on a few intstructional videos, I'd think it is. Ironically, I would never have bought Academagia if I didn't have an opportunity to see it closeup, first. If you can make and distribute a demo, I think you'd really up your sales, but that's just my take on it. It's entirely up to you, of course.

 

To other matters. I've noticed a few complaints about the interface appearance, but I find it stylish, and attractive. The only things that bother are:

 

Some lack of easy access to important information. When I'm casting a spell and can add phemes, I've no idea what most of them do. It would be nice if hovering the mouse over one, or clicking on a part of it, brought up a brief description. Similarly, when I'm choosing a location I'm aware of to perform an action because of its aura, it would be nice to know right away what benefits that location offers, as well as the likelihood of getting caught. Instead of having to bring up all my known locations under my character, first.

 

Which reminds me: could you put the different categories of info about each character under separate tabs for that person? Having to scroll through seemingly endless lists of every spell, action, etc that they know just to get one piece of information near the bottom can get a bit tedious.

 

The interface also sometimes lacks good. immediate feedback in a few instances. For example, when I raise a skill or sub-skill, I'm only told it's been raised; not what it's been raised from, and to. (I think I may have found a bug on this, but I'm not sure. I've noticed that the character being played earlier today had sub-skills in Incantation that wwere told had been raised, but looking at the character's skills on the left side of the screen showed they hadn't changed. She had to get that same sub-skill raised twice to make its number actually increment once. This process happened repeatedly.)

 

The small text font is a real issue on our 1600 x 900 widescreen resolution. It's tiny, and I hope this can be fixed. Lowering the overall Windows resolution didn't help--on the contrary, it made it impossible to select places to train, study, etc, as they move off the right side of the screen.

 

The graphics, in general, I really like. They convey the storybook "Once upon a tale" atmosphere well, and I could wish there were more of them to head up your events and rooms. The portrait graphics, though, seem a bit too stylized for their own good. Nearly everybody seems to have a familial resemblance to everybody else. There's little real...expressiveness to each face, if you follow me. And I don't mean evil stereotypes, but any means. But genuinely different seeming characters. The kinds of portraits that stay with you.

 

Gameplay is smooth. I liked the lore fluff: it really added atmosphere! Several skills do not appear active, however, such as bonding with familiars. It might be best to strip those from your code, or color them differently and make them unselectable. Nobody should have to discover that they've been wasting valuable sessions on things that don't work.

 

A thought: after the midterms (which is when I first observed the game), it might be nice to have a screen displaying how all your scores did relative to your college mates, if not to other colleges. With perhaps some small gifts, perhaps cash, to the top two winners in each skill category. Just to get a sense that the midterms actually meant something concrete. (Where do you track cash for your character, by the way?)

 

I'm confused about Explore. I'm seemingly allowed to choose where I want to go twice, when I choose it as an activity. One gives me all the action locations I know. The other gives me only five much larger, generic locations. Invariably, whatever I place in the first choice affects nothing. Only the second does, but it's still a bit confusing. And later: I'm told by my guide that I can compete to receive instructors' favor in classes, but I've never seen a point of favor awarded for this. If it's broken, that should probably be said up front. Otherwise, players are wasting useful classtime having their avatars compete, instead of actually learn.

 

Concerning your classmates: a great selection of characters, with good descriptions. I just wish I had a better sense why one would befriend a character when his sympatico level was 5, while another wouldn't do so with a level of 10. If there's a hidden mechanic, it needs to be stated up front, because this is pretty frustrating.

 

I really like the way your skills can make a difference in events, and how some of these differ in the different colleges. (You might want to add short info about each college to the lore, by the way.) Color coding is an excellent way of helping the player to realize they're best options during those events. The game flows smoothly, and has that appeal of a strong title: you always think there's time for one more round of gameplay.

 

I"m looking forward to your content patch, and your DLC. It's really nice to see such a distinctive title, and one that displays such a lot of imagination. Good job!

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Woe;

 

1) No, but it's not coded that way at the moment.

2) Yes, it is working correctly- you only raise your Choice of Skill if you succeed at the Wit Roll.

3) Random Events cannot be linked in a chain, only Adventures.

4) We aren't sure you- end of September or early October, I would guess.

5) Yes, once you have the Tools.

6) It's a good suggestion, we'll see what we can do.

 

And thanks! :)

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Monteverdi;

 

Thanks for the comments. The vast majority of these have been suggested by other Academagians, and we will implement as many of them as possible. Unfortunately, the UI uses a single layout, but it may be possible (eventually) to change the DPI.

 

I am not quite sure what you mean about Bonding- those Skills do work. Can you clarify in what context you mean?

 

For Explore, the first Location you are setting is your Preparation Location, and consists of all the Locations you know about (have previously Explored). The Explore Action allows you to select a larger area of Campus to Explore, and thereby gain new Locations.

 

Compete gains you Merit Points, which, if your College totals high enough, will get you various Rewards. Your Instructor's Relationships are (mostly) separate from this.

 

Thanks again!

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And I really think Study level should have XP/Step add to it like normal subject. let that info appear in the info window of that subject.

 

Click on Revision [study level] actual level

The context window show

Revision level

study level 7, 2 out of 3

 

So that make Study harder. As it is there's no way to stop the mad rush of Study/Study/Study. We can only slow the progress a bit. As it is STudy is way too easy/overpowered.

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Probably already suggested, but here goes nothing;

 

Can we have a forwards/backwards button added? That you can go to the next subject with the click of a button, instead go back to the main group and then select the topic you want.

 

It would be very useful in magic spells/actions/ability's/ but especially lore.

 

I don't think there even needs to be a new button. I believe we already have a backwards/forwards set of buttons that are frankly not really important as they are hardly used. (by me, I don't speak for others in this case.)

 

Aside from all the other improvements you are making it would help alot. Going back to the mainpage and then selecting the new topic is always alot of unnescecarry work in my opinion and such a button would allow you to systematically search the list till you find something you like.

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I am not quite sure what you mean about Bonding- those Skills do work. Can you clarify in what context you mean?

 

Thanks for the quick response! I've had no luck finding any way of building a bond with Pamela, for example. The only interaction I seem to possess is training up a skill. Beyond that, there's nothing. Granted, I didn't choose a familiar, so I shouldn't expect to bond with one; but since one was provided, there should be some way of establishing a bond that shows up prominently as "0" on its screen. Or am I missing something? That's always possible.

 

For Explore, the first Location you are setting is your Preparation Location, and consists of all the Locations you know about (have previously Explored). The Explore Action allows you to select a larger area of Campus to Explore, and thereby gain new Locations.

 

I see. Thanks. So the Preparation Location is just one that adjusts starting conditions for the second.

 

Compete gains you Merit Points, which, if your College totals high enough, will get you various Rewards. Your Instructor's Relationships are (mostly) separate from this.

 

Then I don't see how what my mentor said made sense. She said I could build relationship points with various instructors by competing. One entire mentoring session focused on that. (By the way, the writing and tutorial for the mentor is really, really, good. And don't let anybody tell you a strong game can't be built on text!) Yet I've never seen that happen, and what points I've received with instructors--just one or two, total--came from events. Which makes it very difficult to have any effect on those relationships. In sum, she's telling me Compete allows me to build those relationship points with instructors, but it seems she's wrong.

 

By the way, was I right about a bug when I'm told a skill has been raised, but it really hasn't--and requires two improvements to get raised? Or is this a case of advanced skills that have to be incremented in several steps to level up once?

 

Another point, this time, about the music. I enjoy the classics a good deal, but--and please don't take this wrong!--these are all over the place. That's to say, taken together, they're too different in all respects to establish a unifying feeling for the game. It's as though I were to put together a CD just of things I knew, without reference to the game they were meant to be played under. As I suspect you've already paid for the rights on these performances, that's it, but if you do offer a second year of the college, consider focusing the music selections more. Maybe a single group of instruments, or a time period, or a composer. For example, all guitar music by the Renaissance Spaniard, Gaspar Sanz. Or the harpsichord composer, Domenico Scarlatti. Or all Renaissance dances. Or all chamber works by Boccherini.

 

Thanks again!

 

Thank *you* for seeking responses by players, and for dealing with us in a timely and courteous fashion.

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Alright, after having played the game for a little while, I think I'm ready to suggest a couple of changes. I think that the single biggest flaw in the game is the interface, and it seems that most people agree, judging from this thread and a few other forums, as well as that RPS article the other day.

 

Anyway, the first 3 or 4 pages of this thread had a lot of good suggestions (that's how far I read, before giving up and deciding to just post <_<), but I have a few more, although some of them may have been mentioned already:

 

1) When you have selected what to do for the day, in the calender, and are selecting locations/people/skills to use and interact with, you can't interact with the rest of the screen, specifically the skill tree on the left. Since that's the case, why not have that part of the game take place on a seperate screen? That way there would be room to give the player at-a-glance info about the skills/locations/and people he's able to choose from, instead of having to go back and find the skill in the skill tree, the location in the lore section and so on.

 

2) Tabs. This has already been mentioned, I know, but it's really important, in my opinion. Locations need tabs for lore/effects/abilities, people need tabs for background info/classes/skills/clique info, and so on. As it is, there's too much scrolling going on to find the needed piece of information.

 

3) I really think that locations need to be somehow linked to the skills that you can enhance at that location. Personally I'd like a seperate tab for skills, where I could see which locations I have discovered that could enhance that skill. As it is, I don't use locations at all, except for the Garden for social activities, and the locations that are tied to certain abilities, such as the libraries. It's too much work having to read through all of them, each time I take an action.

 

4) The report at the end of the day needs to be cleaned up. Someone suggested a separate tab for what your acquantances do, which is a good idea. I'd also like to be able to tick off the ones I don't care about, so their activities won't show up at all.

 

5) Also, when you gain something from a class, or from studying/training, it's sometimes hard to see at a glance if it's lore, or a pheme, or a spell, or an action and so on. It would be nice if that was made (much) more clear in the report, as well as in the description.

 

6) Someone said earlier that there are far too many skills. While I like the many skills, and think that the game would become far too easy if a significant number of them were removed, there are some that don't make too much sense, imo. There's an espionage parent skill, but there's also a spy parent skill, for instance. Another example is the competition subskill in the athletics tree, and the compete parent skill. I think some could be merged, or possibly renamed or replaced.

 

7) This has already been mention, but I'd like it if the random events made a bit more sense. I don't mind that I'm suddenly in the woods (maybe my character decided to take a 20 minute break, or something), but having class-related events on weekends is a bit too much, I think, and does break the immersion a little bit. I'm sure there are differences of opinion, regarding how dependent on other factors events should be, since it limits the amount of events a player is likely to see, and thus increases the chance of repeat events. Still, there should be some dependence, in my opinion.

 

I guess that's it. Once again, I really think that the interface needs to be cleaned up. I've seen a bunch of people, elsewhere on the internet, saying that the game looks like something they would buy, only to be put off by reports of the interface. Personally, I only put up with it because the rest of the game is so awesome, but I'd really like to see it improved.

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Merit/College Competition

 

The rate that college's points are judged is too uneven. I thought that follow a fixed schedule but it's not so. I got 2 awards right then and there (500+ point). It make me scrambling like mad, even drop a class to compete. I really prefer a monthly tally with the fixed date of 15th.

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Vegejor;

 

A forward/back button within a group would be useful, we'll have to consider it, but we would not replace the current functionality of the buttons. These would require new ones.

 

Monteverdi;

 

Bond Level with your Familiar can be raised by expanding its Sub-Skills in the normal way (Bond of Iron, etc.) The main importance of Bond with a Familiar is that it determines how high you can level the Familiar's other Skills. You can raise Pamela's level, too.

 

We'll review the Mentor Text there- it sounds like some exaggeration crept in. :)

 

Regarding the Skill raising issue- can you clarify what Action/Ability you are using to raise the Skill, and which Skill it is? There are no bugs that we are aware of related to this system, but I suspect the issue is that you are reaching a new Level in the Skill. When this happens, if the Skill requires only 1 Skill Step to advance, and you gain 2, the excess is lost. You can see how many Skill Steps you need to reach the new Level by clicking on the Skill and looking at the top of its Description.

 

As for music, the range of options open to us was relatively small. :)

 

Laclongguan;

 

In the Mod Tools, yes, you can.

 

Nikolaj;

 

It's a known problem that the Confirmation Window won't let you interact with menus while you are in it. One possible solution is to move the Confirmation window to the middle panel, but we are still considering this.

 

Tabs are a very welcome idea- if we can implement them, we will.

 

We are considering a few ways to enable the Player to sort on Locations (and other things). We'll see what we can do.

 

For the Report, we are likely to start first by allowing the categories to collapse, and then possibly proceed to tabs.

 

For the end of the Day Feedback, it's possible at some point we will color-code the various Benefits given to you. We're not sure yet.

 

While no changes to Skills can be done in Year 1, there will be increasing synergies in Year 2.

 

Increased filtering on Random Events is a very good thing, although there are significant limits to what can be accomplished in Year 1.

 

Laclongguan;

 

It's possible that a fixed date could be implemented. That said, we enjoyed this: "It make me scrambling like mad, even drop a class to compete." ;)

 

Thanks everyone for the excellent suggestions, and keep them coming!

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Regarding the Skill raising issue- can you clarify what Action/Ability you are using to raise the Skill, and which Skill it is? There are no bugs that we are aware of related to this system, but I suspect the issue is that you are reaching a new Level in the Skill. When this happens, if the Skill requires only 1 Skill Step to advance, and you gain 2, the excess is lost. You can see how many Skill Steps you need to reach the new Level by clicking on the Skill and looking at the top of its Description.

 

This has happened repeatedly with Incantation subskills. For instance, my Incantation Phemes is at 6, and I want to raise it to 7. I just trained it now, and have been told "You succeeded at Train. You increased your Incantation Phemes Skill Step by 1." But on the left, under Skills and Research/Incantation, my Incantation Phemes is still at 6. I know that if I raise it a second time, I will get the same message and this time, it will truly go up--because this has happened several times, before.

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Monteverdi;

 

Ah, I understand now- Skills need a certain amount of experience (Skill Steps) in order to increase to the next Level. If you click on Incantation Phemes and look at the Description, you will see the number you need to advance to the next Level. It's dependent on your Attributes and other factors, such as Train Modifier.

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Monteverdi;

 

Ah, I understand now- Skills need a certain amount of experience (Skill Steps) in order to increase to the next Level. If you click on Incantation Phemes and look at the Description, you will see the number you need to advance to the next Level. It's dependent on your Attributes and other factors, such as Train Modifier.

 

I'm still a bit confused. I looked at at Incantation Phemes, and it states, "Needed for next level: 0 of 6." Presumably this means I can raise it the next time I train it, but that in fact doesn't happen. If I train it, it stays at the same level. I have to train it a second time for it to rise.

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I'm still a bit confused. I looked at at Incantation Phemes, and it states, "Needed for next level: 0 of 6." Presumably this means I can raise it the next time I train it, but that in fact doesn't happen. If I train it, it stays at the same level. I have to train it a second time for it to rise.

 

Actually, that means you have to raise it 6 skill steps, in order to raise the skill itself by 1. If you just use the train action, you'll have to use it 6 times.

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Monteverdi;

 

If it says that you need 0 of 6 for the next Level, then you will need to gain 6 Skill Steps. What you can do to monitor this is to look at the Skill Steps needed for the Skill you are interested in (Incantation Phemes). If you use just the basic Train Action to gain the Skill Steps, the next Day you will see: 1 of 6. Likewise, if you had used 3 Train Actions, you would see: 3 of 6.

 

Are you seeing that behavior in game?

 

Thanks!

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Monteverdi;

 

If it says that you need 0 of 6 for the next Level, then you will need to gain 6 Skill Steps. What you can do to monitor this is to look at the Skill Steps needed for the Skill you are interested in (Incantation Phemes). If you use just the basic Train Action to gain the Skill Steps, the next Day you will see: 1 of 6. Likewise, if you had used 3 Train Actions, you would see: 3 of 6.

 

Are you seeing that behavior in game?

 

Thanks!

 

I see. It's strange how some skills require only one step--all my current character's Glamour skills, for example--while others require as many as 6. Must be due to the way I configured the character's background, which makes a lot of sense.

 

So when it states, ""Needed for next level: 0 of 6," it really means, "Progress to next level: 0 of 6." You may want to consider changing the phrasing of that just for clarity's sake. I assumed the needed part meant I'd reached the 6 already, since I only needed zero more to make that level.

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