The stat system feels like it falls apart around chapter 7. And please can we get a restart battle button.

[Flauvious]

Hi I've been enjoying the game so far, but it's getting tricky. I'm playing with random stat growth, what I believe is the intended way. So I'm on chapter 7... The previous chapter, it really felt like the stats system was starting to come apart. This chapter, it seems to have completely collapsed lol. The number values feel like they were balanced around the beginning of the game, with all the numbers being low, but by this point, there's so much random variation an unbalanced stat growth that combat has devolved into one shotting or getting one shot.

There's a few problems with this. One is that enemies in this game tend to stand there and wait for you to come into range... which means I need to first move within 4 spaces of them, so I can reach them on my next turn. But then they advance and get the first attack in. And when the guys with the 2h axe just two tap my tankiest character (since the "4" agility requirement doesn't change even as numbers grow, everyone gets double attacks vs your slow characters with low agi growth), I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to proceed here. Can't poke them because bows have range 3. Can't initiate first because everyone just has 4 movement. My only option is to advance a character into their strike range and wait a turn, but no character can survive doing that.

It's kind of odd that all stats are treated equal in terms of growth; Your health grows 1 point per rank, same as your defense and damage... even though 1 point of health isn't actually as valuable as 1 point of defense or damage. For example, if you begin the game with 20 hp and say 8 damage, then that 8 damage attack deals 40% of your 20 hp. But now a few chapters in, you increase both stats by 10 points. Now you have 30 hp, which is a 50% increase from your starting 20. But your damage, which is now at 18, received a 125% increase, and now your attacks deal 60% of a 30 health characters health, and now poeple die in 2 hits instead of 3. This just compounds as the game goes along. Theoretically you gain defense as you level to, but.. that's based on luck, and most characters are getting like 1 defense every 3 levels. Meanwhile, enemies are DEFINITELY gaining damage, because they're not relying on rng. Not to mention there's numerous ways to increase your damage, but 0 ways to increase your defense or health; there's weapon upgrades, but no armor upgrades or dodge upgrades.

There also aren't really any defensive abilities. Like if I could move my tank into range and use some kind of shield wall ability to boost his defense so he could actually survive a few hits, You'd at least have something to work with. But I can't. The only defensive ability my knight has is "gain 20% fortify if you only moved 2 or less spaces", which does absolutely nothing.

TLDR: Offense drastically outpaces defense, causing the balance to deteriorate over time, and rng stat growth just exacerbates the issue.

Oh, and since I'm having to reattempt this battle so many times, is there any chance you'll be adding a restart battle button? Because right now every time you need to restart, you have to exit to main menu and restart the chapter, going through all the dialogue over again (and there's a ton of it in chapter 7).

[Flauvious]

Hey so after a couple more attempts on this mission:

So I guess I'm done lol. There is absolutely no way beating this mission is possible. I have to move so slow and carefully because if anyone is left in range to be attacked by more than 1 enemy, that character is just dead. And with enemies endlessly re-spawning behind you, There's no way I'm making it to the other side of the map in 16 turns. Like it's not even close lol. Just counting the spaces from spawn to the zone, it would take a minimum of 11 turns for a character to reach the escape zone. That's if they're moving a full 4 spaces directly towards the zone every turn. Through hordes of enemies that kill you in 2 hits.

Still like the game, but I just don't have any way to continue lol.

[eturulja]

Great feedback @Flauvious!! Yeah chapter 7 is a big difficulty spike as it's the first map you're facing off against tier 1 promoted enemies, and not all of your units may be promoted. I tried to make it so the earlier chapters you can take at your own pace for the most part (besides some optional objectives), and enemies will do a bit more rushing as the game goes on.

One thing I will mention about the difficulty level is that two handed axes are meant to be a bit of a counter to slow, tanky units, as they ignore % defense, as well as all shields, which tanky units really rely on. However, they have extremely low hit chance, so they are much weaker to units with high AGL such as Illyana, Reyson (with his passive active), or Cassidy. Swords give 10 avoid by default, as well as the round shield giving another 10, so I'd try to lean on those a bit against any enemies that use an axe.

Generally the balancing goes defenders > soldiers (medium damage high accuracy) > skirmishers (low damage high speed) > fighters (high damage low accuracy). Defenders can be very strong against both soldiers and skirmishers, but fighters will definitely give them a tough time, especially against ones carrying a war-hammer, which does double damage against defenders.

One other thing is tower shields are a defenders best friend since they ignore shield weight, and they gain bonus DEF while the shield has block on it. If you have any ideas for more defensive items I'm all ears! I love implementing interesting abilities like that.

I think you're right balance-wise though. The offense definitely starts to sneak up on defense scaling wise. It's slightly by design as I wanted units to be more deadly as the game goes on, but it is something I'll try to keep an eye on as people are going throughout the game.

Again thank you for taking the time to leave such great feedback!

[Stan]

Restart battle seriously?

[eturulja]

Originally posted by Flauvious:

Hey so after a couple more attempts on this mission:

So I guess I'm done lol. There is absolutely no way beating this mission is possible. I have to move so slow and carefully because if anyone is left in range to be attacked by more than 1 enemy, that character is just dead. And with enemies endlessly re-spawning behind you, There's no way I'm making it to the other side of the map in 16 turns. Like it's not even close lol. Just counting the spaces from spawn to the zone, it would take a minimum of 11 turns for a character to reach the escape zone. That's if they're moving a full 4 spaces directly towards the zone every turn. Through hordes of enemies that kill you in 2 hits.

Still like the game, but I just don't have any way to continue lol.

:(

Makes me really sad to hear. It is meant to be a difficulty spike, but obviously I still want people to be able to beat it once they get a handle on it. And just one thing to point out, only one unit needs to hit the escape tile!! You just end your turn on it, and the chapter will complete! No need to move everyone. May I ask which difficulty you're playing on? Would love to unblock you on this chapter, whether it's through helping you update the difficulty, or even if you want to jump into the Discord you can stream the level and we can go through it together! Could be fun haha

Appreciate the kind words about the game, but I really want to try and find a solution for you here.

[eturulja]

Oh and also forgot to mention, you can skip all scenes with the 'ENTER' button when restarting a chapter.

I'm going to be looking into a way to restart them just from turn 1 so you don't have to go back to the main menu to restart. Have received a lot of feedback on wanting some kind of mid chapter save states as well so that might help ease some of these difficulty spikes as well.

[valenesence]

Yeah, i don't think i'm a bad player by any means, but the moment one of my chars die, it's instant defeat and have to restart the entire level. I started on default (Veteran), then went to normal. Just died again from an arrow. I'm 6 hours in, and it's not fun anymore. Pity.

[eturulja]

Originally posted by valenesence:

Yeah, i don't think i'm a bad player by any means, but the moment one of my chars die, it's instant defeat and have to restart the entire level. I started on default (Veteran), then went to normal. Just died again from an arrow. I'm 6 hours in, and it's not fun anymore. Pity.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm going to update the default difficulty to "Normal" as "Veteran" is meant to be quite difficult. If you'd like I can show you how to update the save to change the difficulty as well. Really sorry it's taking the fun out of the game for you. I'll also try to add a way to change difficulties on the fly.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by eturulja:

Great feedback @Flauvious!! Yeah chapter 7 is a big difficulty spike as it's the first map you're facing off against tier 1 promoted enemies, and not all of your units may be promoted. I tried to make it so the earlier chapters you can take at your own pace for the most part (besides some optional objectives), and enemies will do a bit more rushing as the game goes on.

One thing I will mention about the difficulty level is that two handed axes are meant to be a bit of a counter to slow, tanky units, as they ignore % defense, as well as all shields, which tanky units really rely on. However, they have extremely low hit chance, so they are much weaker to units with high AGL such as Illyana, Reyson (with his passive active), or Cassidy. Swords give 10 avoid by default, as well as the round shield giving another 10, so I'd try to lean on those a bit against any enemies that use an axe.

Generally the balancing goes defenders > soldiers (medium damage high accuracy) > skirmishers (low damage high speed) > fighters (high damage low accuracy). Defenders can be very strong against both soldiers and skirmishers, but fighters will definitely give them a tough time, especially against ones carrying a war-hammer, which does double damage against defenders.

One other thing is tower shields are a defenders best friend since they ignore shield weight, and they gain bonus DEF while the shield has block on it. If you have any ideas for more defensive items I'm all ears! I love implementing interesting abilities like that.

I think you're right balance-wise though. The offense definitely starts to sneak up on defense scaling wise. It's slightly by design as I wanted units to be more deadly as the game goes on, but it is something I'll try to keep an eye on as people are going throughout the game.

Again thank you for taking the time to leave such great feedback!

Jesus Christ. I've yet to see a more communicative and open-minded dev. I hope your game prospers, and that you have much success in your future development endeavors as well.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by eturulja:

I think you're right balance-wise though. The offense definitely starts to sneak up on defense scaling wise. It's slightly by design as I wanted units to be more deadly as the game goes on, but it is something I'll try to keep an eye on as people are going throughout the game.

By the way, I do think you need to pay particular attention to this though: One of the enduring appeals of tactical combat games of this nature is that you nurture a character from the beginning to the end, and nobody likes to lose characters on what appears to be arbitrary, chance roll that you absolutely cannot control. I don't mind games being hard - in fact, I thrive in them - but one-shot kills like the OP is describing his a problem, if true.

[Stan]

hey dev i like the difficulty as it is can we have the option to play default?

[eturulja]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Jesus Christ. I've yet to see a more communicative and open-minded dev. I hope your game prospers, and that you have much success in your future development endeavors as well.

Originally posted by Lampros:

Originally posted by eturulja:

I think you're right balance-wise though. The offense definitely starts to sneak up on defense scaling wise. It's slightly by design as I wanted units to be more deadly as the game goes on, but it is something I'll try to keep an eye on as people are going throughout the game.

By the way, I do think you need to pay particular attention to this though: One of the enduring appeals of tactical combat games of this nature is that you nurture a character from the beginning to the end, and nobody likes to lose characters on what appears to be arbitrary, chance roll that you absolutely cannot control. I don't mind games being hard - in fact, I thrive in them - but one-shot kills like the OP is describing his a problem, if true.

You're way too kind haha, just want to make sure people feel heard if they're taking time out of their day to play the game and leave feedback. Plus it helps me know what I should spend my time on.

Yeah there really aren't any enemies that can one round your units, or at least their shouldn't be. One of the exceptions is definitely two handed axes against defenders, as they're made to be a "hard counter" I'd say. Another is longbowman who have 3 range getting onto a backline unit that they can double. But yeah losing to two 20% hits is never a good experience, and why I think I'll need to get a mid battle save in sooner rather than later.

Originally posted by Stan:

hey dev i like the difficulty as it is can we have the option to play default?

Veteran will still be an option! Just on starting a new game, the default that the UI is set to will be "Normal" so people don't accidentally thing "Veteran" is the default mode. "Veteran" will definitely stay an option you can choose!

[Aksei]

Chapter 7 seems too difficult. While having no problem the entire game to this point, It took me 5 attempts to do it.(Play on Normal) The key is, to go slow first, care a lot on the range of enemies and level the chars on the way. But still luck is needed. So it feels out of balance and it will frustrate lots of players. Maybe lower the level of some enemies in the starting area

[eturulja]

Originally posted by Aksei:

Chapter 7 seems too difficult. While having no problem the entire game to this point, It took me 5 attempts to do it.(Play on Normal) The key is, to go slow first, care a lot on the range of enemies and level the chars on the way. But still luck is needed. So it feels out of balance and it will frustrate lots of players. Maybe lower the level of some enemies in the starting area

Originally posted by valenesence:

Yeah, i don't think i'm a bad player by any means, but the moment one of my chars die, it's instant defeat and have to restart the entire level. I started on default (Veteran), then went to normal. Just died again from an arrow. I'm 6 hours in, and it's not fun anymore. Pity.

Originally posted by Flauvious:

Hey so after a couple more attempts on this mission:

So I guess I'm done lol. There is absolutely no way beating this mission is possible. I have to move so slow and carefully because if anyone is left in range to be attacked by more than 1 enemy, that character is just dead. And with enemies endlessly re-spawning behind you, There's no way I'm making it to the other side of the map in 16 turns. Like it's not even close lol. Just counting the spaces from spawn to the zone, it would take a minimum of 11 turns for a character to reach the escape zone. That's if they're moving a full 4 spaces directly towards the zone every turn. Through hordes of enemies that kill you in 2 hits.

Still like the game, but I just don't have any way to continue lol.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! It's pretty clear that I went a bit overboard with the spike in difficulty. All the enemies are getting promotion bonuses while all your units are probably still catching up so having them also be lvl 12 is probably too much.

Here are the changes I made so far and will be included in the next hotfix (just gonna copy and paste the bullet point that I'm gonna put in the announcement):
"- Balance: Chapter 7, while meant to be a difficulty spike, is proving a little more challenging than I planned. Reduced the average level of enemies by 1. Replaced the Steel Bows of Longbowman with Iron Bows. Also slight manual nerfs to particular enemies in difficulties other than veteran. Hope this makes the level feel a bit more fair. It's tough to straddle the line of challenging, but fun. I hope this change gets it a little closer to the middle. Please let me know what you think after trying out the changes! You will have to hit "Restart Chapter" to get the new changes."

Thank you all for your feedback, and I'd love to hear your thoughts if you're willing to give the re-balanced version a shot!

[Zhurtek]

I was able to do chapter 7 in the 16 term limit with permadeath off and sacrificing some characters, but I'm also running a heal ball with 3 crusaders. Part of the difficulty may be due to the ai targeting decision making, they will absolutely just gang attack a single character and kill them. Enemy packs also are very often mixed weapon/unit types, which means you can't just send in one character with the appropriate defense type to tank the initial volley like in a lot of SRPGs

[Demigod Dan]

Originally posted by eturulja:

Originally posted by valenesence:

Yeah, i don't think i'm a bad player by any means, but the moment one of my chars die, it's instant defeat and have to restart the entire level. I started on default (Veteran), then went to normal. Just died again from an arrow. I'm 6 hours in, and it's not fun anymore. Pity.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm going to update the default difficulty to "Normal" as "Veteran" is meant to be quite difficult. If you'd like I can show you how to update the save to change the difficulty as well. Really sorry it's taking the fun out of the game for you. I'll also try to add a way to change difficulties on the fly.

Please don't do the last part. I don't own the game yet but there's no need to cater to people's wishes who struggle with difficulty to the point that it's changeable at any moment.

The enjoyment should come from 1) learning how to play and 2) taking what you learned and save scum the RNG factor in stat lvling to your advantage in these FE-likes. Some full restarts (new game, from chapter 1) in case of being RNG bricked and after doing a 'see how far I can get' tutorial run are required as part of the eventual gratification (aka fun) you get from taking what you learned and optimizing that in order to beat the content.

By allowing people to change difficulty on the fly they're going to miss the above key part to what makes these types of games especially satisfying (gratification through trial & error / strategy testing) whereas it'd become instant gratification where people will just lower difficulty until they beat x chapter. After all, there'd be no need to invest excess time into the game when it can just be 'difficulty-scummed'. Furthermore, at the same time it also removes the challenge for everyone who isn't like these complaining strugglers and the challenge posed by the creator of the game + the experience of it will be devaluated by default just because of the existence to be able to do this.

When you give someone a gun in a sword fight, no one is going to keep using the sword to try and win the fight.

Edit: Oh look a clown award already, very likely from casual-gen FE enjoyers (post-NDS FE game releases) who either never played something like FE path of radiance highest difficulty (or were never able to get past the early chapters of that). Oh wellz, remember dev, plenty of difficulty complaint-pandering devs out there already whereas titles like FE PoR have a special place in the more die-hard fan of the genre's hearts :)