Quilted make this game worse

[ExMachina14]

I've been thinking for awhile, "Why does this game about creating a magic school... so utterly fail to even feel like a magic school?"

Staff members almost always outnumber the students. The students feel uninteresting, useless, and mostly irrelevant. Summon, complete trials, grind XP, see what relic pops out. Rinse, repeat, etc.

What IS a student? What role should a student fill at a (magic) school?

Students are learners, obviously, but they are also assistants. Students begin with the most basic and menial tasks, free up their mentors' time, develop their skills through practice, take on gradually more advanced tasks until they meet (or exceed) the abilities of the ones who trained them.

In the context of the Mind Over Magic School, I would expect students to begin with the most basic tasks: fetching items, cleaning, repairing, tending plants.

Oh. Wait. These are all the things the quilted do. And the quilted don't eat, they don't sleep, they don't take breaks, they don't spend time in class.

What are the students for again?

The students are relic loot boxes?

....

Yeah, so I don't understand why the game is this way, and maybe the quilted should all just be deleted. Give me more students instead plz k thx.

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EDIT:

Ideally, there would be a tier of tasks for each type of character:

- Tasks that only staff members can complete.
- Tasks that staff members and apprentices can complete.
- Tasks that staff members, apprentices, and initiates can complete.
- [If quilted exist], tasks that staff members, apprentices, initiates, and quilted can complete.

If quilted are going to be in the game, the devs need to add tasks to the game until all the different types of mages (staff members, apprentices, initiates of all seven elements) have something to do without the quilted getting in their way.

As it is now, quilted are more essential than students. Quilted are cheap. Students are expensive. Students serve mostly as relic loot boxes and occasionally as a staff new hire. Quilted are essential, students are extra.

I was drawn to this game because of its promise to "build and optimize your own magical academy."

Our "magical academy" has eight classroom types (the seven elements plus the generic classroom). If you manage to build all those classrooms, you should expect them to sit mostly empty with an occasional quilted showing up to sweep, repair, or carry an item through.

I don't way to play "Oxygen Not Included in a Magic Castle". I want a magic school with magic students in it.

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EDIT2: There are upcoming changes (in the current prerelease version) that will make it less cumbersome to summon more than a handful of students at a time (at least in the earlier game). These changes might help make the school/castle a BIT less empty.

I still consider it to be a fundamental design flaw that quilted are more essential than students. In fact, the new "Population Cap" mechanics will make it so that EVERY playthrough inevitably ends with filling up the "school" with staff members and no more spots leftover for students (because the "Staff Population Cap" adds up to the same number as the overall "Population Cap," if you max out your staff members, then you will not be able to have any students).

Why does this game advertise itself as "Build and optimize your own magical academy," but the game design pushes the player towards having a "school" filled with staff members, quilted, and eventually no students at all?

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EDIT3: Kudos to anyone that actually reads all the way through this post instead of knee-jerk nerd-raging in response to the thread title.

[ExMachina14]

İlk olarak Star Paladin tarafından gönderildi:

I really enjoy the Quilted when I got them. Let's my mages, eventually, focus on important things, while the "help" does the busywork.

What do your post-quilted students focus on during their "task" time?

[bast]

Some tasks quilted can't really do, like delivering/hauling resources that is only accessible through flying, repairing/building stuffs off the ground etc.

the biggest problem with the game for me rn is you darn near cant play the game without the Founder, he's the get out of jail free card. Built vacuum to facilitate room requirements and have things spawn in there? cant deal with it unless the founder flies over. Built a greenhouse or a structure that isnt connected to the ground (broom stations) ? Have the founder build it since none else can reach. Have a high ceiling for some shenanigans or just cuz you like the look? your earth mage cant repair so theres the founder.

My students usually just end up going to school then on their task time go clear dungeons together, since the staffs are quite finicky to work with late game and they break if they eat/recreate away from their best buddy. It's quite funny to me that a mage would go crazy and lose their control of mana cuz they didnt get to cuddle on separate bed with their mate because the mate is in the hospital

In general they are only able to do basic tasks, and the problem is there isn't enough "good" tasks for students/staffs to do. The tasks that are always needed like cooking cant be handle by a student, so you ending up with lack of manpower in some areas and some mages are just afk all day (dark mages).

edit : always has a cheap fire mage as a staff on tier 1 wand. Upgrading to tier 2 is a massive hassle you would be better off with a fire relic display. The need for victory is one of the most annoying thing to deal with, since it break their schedule and workflow, forcing you to farm boring fights every day to keep it up. Tier 1 wand can gets high enough fire to cook everything but isn't torn apart by that need.

[Gen]

Yeah no. Quilteds are the best thing in the game. Try playing the game when Quilted harvesters weren't added yet and all your staffs would do all day was harvesting. That was not a fun time. Now, I can focus more on building the school in a fun and relaxed way without constantly having to worry if my whole school would starve to death if I put a second off harvesting honeydrops.

Quilted op and goated.

[ExMachina14]

İlk olarak Gen tarafından gönderildi:

Quilteds are the best thing in the game.

This is a game that advertises itself as "Build and optimize your own magical academy," and you're saying "Quilteds are the best thing in the game"?

Wow, that's pretty sad.

[Ilthe]

Quilted taking over manual labor are the thing that allows the teachers to be actual teachers.
What king of mage spends most of their time on manual labor when you have more pressing and important things to do in a magic school, like life saving rituals or actual teaching magic in magic school?

Without the quilted the school wouldn't have been a proper school imo.

[_Kotik]

İlk olarak ExMachina14 tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak bast tarafından gönderildi:

ngl my first thought after I graduate my first student was like dang so these people just summon these poor chaps to this horrid place, force them to do what they want to power their relics, then just dematerialize you for loot afterward, even taking care to make sure your "quality" is good.

It really does not feel like a school, the theme is misleading of the actual gameplay. You play like a buncha cultists that has the ability to imbue people with magic and then harvest it.

edit : and if you played rimworld enough, you'd have several graves from dead useless student you send to die yourself to get a ghost. The students feels like a task that gets assigned to you and you just plow through it then hit claim reward, there's nothing scholarly about it. This is esp noticeable if you play on harder difficulty, it's more a tower defense with some mediocre jrpg combat than a sim.

Yeah, I pretty much agree.

There are so many things I like about this game.

Harvesting resources to build and customize my own magic castle? Top notch.

Being able to put stuff underground as a sort of safe haven, even being able to create fully functional rooms within the Underschool? Quite good.

Having multiple magical elements having roles in-combat and out-of-combat? At least a good start, even if I wish fire mages had something more cool than cooking food.

"Build and optimize your own magical academy," the core concept advertised on the store page? Ehhhh, it's not quite there yet.

And this isn't a trivial matter. It's the CORE CONCEPT of the game.

I also don't see anything on the developer roadmap aimed at improving this core game concept.

A Dragon in the Underschool? Quests and feats of magic power? These are the highest priorities right now? Really?

Ember Dragon is actually a really good thing in terms of the game balance. It fixed a lot of problems I had with the game. It doesn't seem like you know what are you talking about when you mentioned it.

[Gen]

İlk olarak ExMachina14 tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Gen tarafından gönderildi:

Quilteds are the best thing in the game.

This is a game that advertises itself as "Build and optimize your own magical academy," and you're saying "Quilteds are the best thing in the game"?

Wow, that's pretty sad.

It is because for the very reason this game advertises itself as a "Build and optimize your own magical academy" keyword, MAGICAL. Is why it makes sense for the manual tasks to be taken care of by MAGICAL minions. If I wanted to play a manual task simulator, I would be playing Stardew or smth. What is sad is the flaw that you've failed to see in your statement.

[P Bag]

Turn off quilting then, lmao. I for one welcome using materials and magic to take care of tasks I don't want left for hours on end. Immersion is as immersion do, you are in total control of your own canon.

[Tyrax]

I think quilted are fine. Once you have large greenhouses, no amount of students will be able to keep up - so I just make a few fertiliser and harvester drones. But it would've been nice to have conjuration variations, like elementals. Why are undead drones the only option?

[Kylorian]

İlk olarak ExMachina14 tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Star Paladin tarafından gönderildi:

I really enjoy the Quilted when I got them. Let's my mages, eventually, focus on important things, while the "help" does the busywork.

What do your post-quilted students focus on during their "task" time?

Magic beast care mostly. But they dont have much task time in the first place. They are mostly in class, sleeping, doing rec, attuning relics for shards or working on some of their trials. You know the magical school stuff.... not tending the gardens unless thats a trial. Working on becoming apprentices to get high level relics or become staff if they have the right grades. Way to miss the mark my guy.

[Kylorian]

You know students come in and learn for a few years then leave while the staff stay around sometimes for life right? While i would like a higher number of students over all its fine the way it is. Most of the higher trials have you paying enough attention to each student as is, while staff keep things going and improving. You are constantly pressured to move forward as well with the escalating need for higher level staff, events, and needs.

[ExMachina14]

İlk olarak _Kotik tarafından gönderildi:

Ember Dragon is actually a really good thing in terms of the game balance. It fixed a lot of problems I had with the game.

Can you go into more detail? What were the problems you had with the game, and what solutions came from the Ember Dragon?

[ExMachina14]

İlk olarak Kylorian tarafından gönderildi:

You know students come in and learn for a few years then leave

I assume you're talking about something else outside of this game. My students are usually ready to graduate within 1-3 days of arriving. I would appreciate if there were good reasons for them to stick around longer and become more memorable.

Man, this game would be sooo much better if the students attended the school for something even remotely resembling a school year....

[ExMachina14]

İlk olarak Ilthe tarafından gönderildi:

Quilted taking over manual labor are the thing that allows the teachers to be actual teachers.

What do the teachers teach? Oh, they teach the students how to do manual labor... and JRPG combat... and that's pretty much it.

I would LOVE if there was more to do at the school besides manual labor. In fact, this would be my preferred solution: add tasks to the game until there was cool stuff to do at every level (for staff members, for apprentices, for initiates, and for quilted if they exist). This would allow the trials to be much more interesting instead of micro-managing the students to do lame tasks that the quilted already take care of.

[Kylorian]

İlk olarak ExMachina14 tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Kylorian tarafından gönderildi:

You know students come in and learn for a few years then leave

I assume you're talking about something else outside of this game. My students are usually ready to graduate within 1-3 days of arriving. I would appreciate if there were good reasons for them to stick around longer and become more memorable.

Man, this game would be sooo much better if the students attended the school for something even remotely resembling a school year....

No im talking about this game. Its a far faster paced game in terms of time. You can almost view a day as what a year would be in other games. Ill agree with you to a point that i wish there were more things to do. Like an expanded version of this game where it was more about each element is its own class pre apprentice amd then expands even further past that. But thats fundamentally not what this game is. And thats my main problem with your arguments here. You seem to be looking for a different game and demand that this game be it. Even your argument of "I was drawn to this game because of its promise to "build and optimize your own magical academy."" falls flat because this game DOES give that just not how you subjectively want it to be. I hope someone does make that game your looking for it sounds fun, but this aint it brother.