~ Suggestions & Improvement ~

[Legate of Mineta]

Freespace;

 

Those are ones that you buy, I think?

 

There are also a few that you come by via sources like Adventures and Events where, presumably, you learn about the Item during the course of your adventuring.

[Schwarzbart]

Jeremy;

 

We'd love to have it on tablets, too- hopefully, in the future, we'll have the resources to put it there.

 

Maybe with Win 8 you at last can make your future Games playable on Touchscreens (even if I'm not happy how Win 8 looks and so decided to enterly skip on this Win version)

 

@freespace Small Spoiler: you can get a item identified trough selling and rebuying what still cost you a time slot but you also can get rid of your rooting food and overflowing inventory. Also you can put a item on and look into a similiar to the item named gray Ability if the item have a passive effect.

 

Because of this weaknesses in the system the team apearently decided at some point that we will learn about many items directly.

[Legate of Mineta]

Exactly right, Schwarzbart.

[Aquillion]

One thing that bothers me about the game is that currently, the precious nature of actions tends to keep me from doing a lot of stuff that would be fun -- it's rarely worthwhile to take an action that doesn't provide some permanent bonus (or help you get a permanent bonus later.)

 

Something I think that would help with this would be to add the concept of "minor actions" -- a subcategory of actions and weaker spells which only take a few minutes of your time. Generally, they'd be actions that you can do at the same time as other stuff. Perhaps you could take a certain number of them per day, and maybe you could go beyond that limit at the cost of stress or vitality by overworking yourself. Minor actions would almost never provide a direct personal benefit.

 

Perhaps, if you explicitly take minor actions at the same time as your other ones, you'd have to take them in the same place? So, for instance, if you're studying in the kitchen, you could take a minor action to swipe some food. This would make location more important (currently it's just a matter of choosing the obvious optimal one most of the time).

 

Taking too many minor actions could also increase the chance that your main action for that period could fail.

 

(Basically, the idea is to make the game more interesting by providing players with choices to make even when their character is studying all the time -- even the most dedicated student in the world, who studies morning, afternoon, and night every day, can still find time to do other meaningful things.)

 

There's a lot of existing actions in the game that seem like they should fall into that category. For instance, chewing a caramel chew currently takes your entire morning, and its mechanical benefit just isn't really worth it; it seems a bit awkward conceptually to have to choose between spending the morning studying or chewing a single piece of candy.

 

Or is there some other solution for this in the works?

[Legate of Mineta]

Yglorba;

 

The Team looked at this carefully, and although there is the ability to do 'minor actions', they are fairly limited. It's a great idea, though- especially about swiping food in the Kitchen. I think we'd like to see that level of interplay between Actions and Locations...but probably not in Year 2.

[Aquillion]

Also, would it be possible to somehow indicate subskills you don't have when they're presented as options in an event or adventure? It's nice to know that you're being presented with the option to unlock them, and currently it can be a bit of a bother to check all your skills to see if that one is absent.

[Legate of Mineta]

Yglorba;

 

Not a bad thought at all. I don't think that's ever been suggested before, too!

 

I'll pass that one on to the Team!

[Albert]

Finding the many different skills has been part of the interesting journey for me.

 

I think it was said that weaving multiple spelldisiplinesand spells to achive one goal "Enspell" is a skill for year 2.

 

I managed to find 3 subskills for that skill and there for got the parrentskill maxed for year one.

That should give a nice start in year 2.

 

Maybe we could use our enspell skill ot cast more than one buffspell and use out enspell skill and enspell main stat to roll agaisnt it, perhaps the skills requierments of the individual spells aswell.

 

First a roll for clearing each individual spell then an Enspell roll for the dificulty level of combining the spells.

 

 

As for minor actions in areas, (I'll be able to study at the bank and perform a minor action to rob the vault for a million pims? )

 

This also makes me wonder, will the Study cap be raised aswell? from 10 like skills? I assume we will get new subjects to study if were adding 2 extra classes. How about a third class for studious students? Some of my students are studyholics! If you toped the scores on every class for example.. Top of the class in every course you took?

 

Or maybe that can be done if you pickup a secret Gates or mastery tutor, or both..

[Legate of Mineta]

The Study cap won't be raised, but you are correct in thinking there are all-new classes. You cannot take more Classes than normal, but...[redacted!]

[Schwarzbart]

Huh? Redacted for something that is already confirmed?

At last from what I know it was already confirmed that when a char perform realy great in all exams in year 1 (s)he can have 1 extra class.

[freespace2dotcom]

*ehem*

 

Posted 09 September 2010 - 12:08 AM by Legate of Mineta

 

laclongguan;

 

We probably won't have an Adventure mechanic to select a new Class (although the possibilities there are endless!), but there will be a way for you to take on more...depending on Year 1 and [surprise!]

[Legate of Mineta]

Damn! Did I already let that slip?

 

Oh well, then, yes, there is a way to get an extra Class. It may even be two, but I don't think you want to spend the Action Slots necessary to do that.

 

...well, maybe if you are a studyholic.

[Schwarzbart]

Please don't waste so much of the gamespace with a simple static picture in year 2 as you have done in Scheherazade.

Forcing the player to click trough text (especial at start) feels bad for me. I'm personal not sure if the demo of Scheherazade is a good choise because of this longwinding start where one just click trough like neverending text.

When I bought the game first I'm more resitent to such things but when I just whant to see how the game goes in a demo then be forced to read, click, read click and do nothing other for a semingly endless time just turn me off from the game.

So even if you do a Introduction in year 2 make them optional as in year 1 and try to keep the next page clicks to a minimum at the start of the game.

[Legate of Mineta]

Schwarzbart;

 

Well, Scheherazade is more of a visual novel game, and Academagia is more of a simulation. It's a different style.

[Schwarzbart]

Sure it is a different type of game but other VN games also don't start with such longwinding texts (At last the vew I actual played ^^)

[Albert]

The introduction could be spread out across a few days so it isn't too much at once, It depends on what it is I guess

 

I usualy prefer to go looking for stuff in game and try things out by experimenting, and if there is a good codex and help section that should help. Prefereable one with both clicky and search options.

 

But, yeah... Some of my students are extreme studyholics! They actualy make Zoe Mellis look like a fake version of a studyholic!

 

I have actualy put together ways to maximize the amount of studdy and skills absorbed to try and make the craziest studyholics in all of Academagias history! Dropping into the instructors Lounge, or was it the professors lounge, impress with graphs, and several other actions that speed up things and ofcourse, Selective focus to speed up skill training

 

And then I got a few students that are mostly causing trouble... OR running around doing crazy things... or spending all their time with their familiars.. And maybe one or two slightly more socialy adapted students that attempt to make most parts of their social and school activities to work out well enough.

[Legate of Mineta]

Oh, I mostly meant the way text will be provided will be similar to Year 1; so you can scroll or page through all at once, rather than clicking to read.

[Albert]

Anyway it's a little bit like reading an interactive book with a built in activity simulator I like it

 

And since it isn't as gfx heavy as some other games it's probably easier to craft any story you like, pretty much anyway, and allows for several different outcomes and paths

[Albert]

I even made a few "very short" adventures on my own

 

Fairly short and not that remarkable but still interesting to try and create something yourself

[Albert]

Unfortunately I pretty much always know what will happen in my own creations

[Albert]

I also remember reading about those farmlands that have been misstreted by their farmers to the point where nothing grows there... Could buy one of those and use magic and Agriculture and botanical skills to fix it... And make some money out of it.. or just keep it for added status... Perhaps rent it out to a poor family, they get land to work and feed their family and you get pims.. good setup.

[Legate of Mineta]

Haha, albert, the real estate mogul.

[Adrian]

Oh! Albert! If you want to make a story but not know what happens in it then I got an old adventure idea that I never finished you are welcome to write on /add to. Look here

 

I may/intend/hope to finish it some day I find a fountain of inspiration (and my internet connection is severely flaky )

 

So slightly depending, I'll alter/modify what you come up with into the story as it goes. (or leave it, if you so prefer). Which might leave a few surprising elements.

[Albert]

Haha, albert, the real estate mogul.

 

I should name a Student, Albert Trumph... or something... Then write a realestate adventure questline

 

Then a professor commes running wondering why im not in class... I'll come to class once i've closed this 400 million pim realestate deal...

[Schwarzbart]

Because it was just mentioned that we get a Favorit list for spells in year 2. I ask now if we maybe can get a import function for this Favorits from a other save.