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For mystic shield, I could see it being nerfed to block say 5-10% of damage per 1 MP. This would prevent the 1 MP completely absorbs 500 dmg attack situation. But if mystic shield is getting nerfed, some other counters should also probably be reduced, Absorb Mana, Root and Teleport are in the same S+ tier.
As for princess, yes it is an issue, male casters are gimped in the long term and quite inferior to female casters because Double Cast II is game-bendingly good. Lord by comparison you can live without for female physical characters.
One of the difficulty settings in the game is based on the assumption that injuries exist as they already do. However, that one's come under fire in the past for having "AP Malus" as being part of the "Casual" preset, which has the unfortunate effect of making sure characters never make any progress and making it in some ways even harder than "Veteran". Maybe it's more reason to rethink Injury in general.
Mystic Shield is a real pain to beat and if you can't get two hits before their next action, you've absolutely lost the fight. However, when you're talking about substitutions, please think very carefully about how much MP a unit can generate before choosing a number or percentage for 1 MP to be worth. 10 is too much, 5-10% is far too much.
10 HP/MP is effectively getting an endless Renew for 100 HP every turn, with no requirement to do anything. At as little as 220 HP, 5% does even more than that and with 10% characters have to take their entire Max HP in one turn in damage just to lose any HP at all.
Further, you're risking turning Mana Font into a more powerful version of Life Font. You don't want Reavers with massive Desperate Blows bigger than anything your team can take while having comical amounts of temporary health to keep them safe. Let's not even go into the horrors of Mana Stone and Gadgeteers dumping even more MP onto those units.
If you're not careful, your solutions just create new problems and if you go too far in the other direction, you make Mystic Shield worthless.
It is interesting that Double Cast II is so powerful that it decides whether or not you even make someone a mage. A male character doesn't have the damage output but nothing stops them from double casting status effects that don't care about power and with a little positive thinking, Cleave is almost the same thing as Double Cast II.
I agree it is a bit annoying though. Virgil's the only male non-story character I have and he's a Vampire/Warmage so I don't even have anyone who even could realistically become a decent Lord.
Just to clarify, I said 5-10% of an attack's damage, not the % of HP. So 10-20 Mana is required to have a current-strength Mystic Shield, while less than that will result in a smaller shield. That is the only effective change I am suggesting.
10% of an attack's damage per 1 MP is also too much. On its own, it's the exact same thing. With any other mana generation in play, you're giving characters stacks of Mirage. Mana generation also makes 5% very problematic.
Mystic Shield works the way it does (using the original Final Fantasy Tactic's MP Switch mechanics) because MP is your most important resource. Giving up your unit's stockpiled MP isn't worth anything less than a full turn of economy. However, the HP to MP damage ratio is 1:1. You can use any basic attack to "break" a Mystic Shield and then follow up with your more potent damage option. This could include an effect such as the Poison Spell or one of Gunner's various abilities - Mystic Shield will absorb the damage but all the secondary effects still apply. Shove damage will also deplete it. Etc. This is on top of just catching the unit in an AOE alongside other enemy units. Yes, you can't just mindlessly burn your big attacks on a unit that has Mystic Shield, but Fell Seal offers very generous tools for dealing with it.
I agree with disliking that gender lock. I dislike it to the point I actually removed it via modding, at one point. I especially dislike it because, as has been stated previously, you're not even started with suitable generics to eventually utilize one of the classes, so if the player never recruits new generics, the Lord class is essentially unusable. Fell Seal doesn't otherwise acknowledge the unit's gender, so if raising a melee female or mage male, it's a bitter pill to be forced to swallow that your character just sucks / is inferior for a reason the game mechanics never hinted at.
Woo, quite some thoughts there, thanks for taking the time to share.
As I am not 6 Eyes, I can only offer some info / insight on things (so not "Answers" per se) but I hope it will help:
[Injuries]
Funny you mention some of these thoughts as they were discussed recently by a couple of Fell Seal veterans in this thread, I would recommend you check it out: https://steamcommunity.com/app/699170/discussions/0/3247565033767743862/
As you might see in the thread I linked above, there has been suggestion to that effect as well.
In terms of "info", I can only say that the (normal rules) injury system was created in a similar design philosophy to XCOM 2 (War of the Chosen) in that the "Fatigue" system there incentivized using a variety of units instead of just "the same 6 every time". Idea was: have some backup members to work with so you can bench a hero or two without issues. However, as you (and others, such as in that thread) have pointed out, you feel differently about "how that all works". So, we'll see what 6 Eyes thinks on this subject.
[Mana Shield] (AKA [Mystic Shield])
Apologies for a semi-longer explanation on this one, but I feel it's worth discussing.
It certainly comes up at times where people say "Well I don't get it, why does the [Mystic Shield] block all the damage on a single attack and not "bleed through" the remaining damage? Isn't how that mana shields tend to work?" I quite understand, as that is the norm in games, however, the answer lies with Fell Seal's mana system in general. Since the mana system is "Start at 0 mana each battle and get 10 / turn", you can't really treat [Mystic Shield] in the same way as other games.
Consider the following example: Let's assume it worked like a typical mana shield does. This would therefore translate [Mystic Shield] to "So it blocks 10 damage per turn, and can stack up to (whatever your max mana is) over X number of turns". One of the issues with this, of course, is that if you ever use any abilities which cost mana, that significantly reduces the effectiveness of the shield, to the point where it's a complete joke. Yes, in this form, you could theoretically use it on a hero who focuses on regular attacks / "anything which doesn't cost mana", but that limits its usefulness too much to be worth using prettymuch ever.
Now, I understand that the above was somewhat obvious, but I was bringing it up to build the story of why it's designed how it is.
Therefore, given the premises of "how the mana system works", 6 Eyes still wanted a defensive counter ability which would be good on (especially) mages, since their defensive capabilities can be a little lacking at times. They decided on (its current form) because this is how it tends to play out:
On the "average" round, [Mystic Shield] will block 1 full hit. Obviously there are circumstances where the damage they would've taken might not be enough to empty the target's mana pool, but those tend to be pretty infrequent, especially since (given the mana system) most casters won't oftentimes be sitting around with high mana reserves; even if they were, depending on where you are in the game, even having a "high mana reserve" won't make a difference, the damage will be enough to still drain it in one hit.
From a defensive aspect, let's look at this: (essentially) blocking 1 full hit per round. Is potent indeed, but not crazy in my opinion. When you compare it to the other strong defensive counters (such as [Evade Skill] and [Evade Magic]), those counters will prevent certain damage types (which will increase survivability) but only in specific ways / situations. The general tradeoff is this: [Mystic Shield] for a general "one shot per round" defense, or (one of the others) for a persistent bonus which can be easily avoided by merely using a different damage type. Not only this, but since [Mystic Shield] is generally going to be found on more mage-type units, their mana is usually quite precious to them. Therefore, the "cost" of potentially having your mana drained every round is quite a high price to pay for "only" an average of blocking one hit per round.
On the offensive aspect (as in, dealing with enemies who have this shield) it's not too crazy to deal with in my opinion, and has a few ways to circumvent it:
Obviously with the exception of [Flash Strike] those can't deal the final blow to an enemy, but still gives more options to work with.
I understand that you left it open for numbers (to find a good balance, like you said), but even this proposed system has some major issues with it.
- If static-number based, it would be incredibly tricky to get a good ratio of mana to damage. This would cause the shield to be too strong in some parts of the game then too weak in other parts of the game and would be a bit of a wonky design.
- If percentage-based, (as already discussed in this thread) again, it would be too tricky to get a decent balance between OP and UP because of how the mana system works in this game. If too low of a %, then it would be a joke and just suck up your mana for low value, if too high of a %, then it could function as "if I find a way to stack enough mana, I can be invulnerable".
So, we'll see what 6 Eyes thinks of your recommendation.[Princess / Lord]
Again, most of this is more "explanatory" in nature.
The reason why these two badge classes are limited in this fashion is for a few reasons:
[/list]
- The primary reason was character variety. In Fell Seal, to help prevent the problem of "All my heroes have precisely the same potential", they had to make some design decisions. Because (with Bzaro being the special exception) they didn't want to make multiple races (akin to Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced for example) and try to balance those, they needed a way to distinguish characters. This came in the form of "Story heroes have one unique class each and generic recruits have potential access to a pool of 6 special badge classes which story heroes don't". Again, to help make each unit feel more unique, this was also further limited by "Male and Female generic units have a one-class-difference between them"
- As you can tell by the one overlapping passive of [Equip All], they were made to be mutually exclusive, as 6 Eyes doesn't want a character to be able to get "duplicate passives".
- On the note of passives, as was mentioned in this thread, [Cleave] and [Doublecast II] are both very strong passives which they wanted to keep separate. To be fair, I don't vehemently think that it would be "crazy OP" to theoretically have a unit get access to those two passives in tandem, but it would be "really strong" for this to be a reality.
- In terms of availability, these are the last two badge classes you gain access to in the game and are granted pretty late in the story, so they're designed to be strong, and designed to where "not everyone is necessarily a Princess / Lord before the end of the game" (unless you get even further and get to a part where you can grind these materials, or just get lucky with random drop to obtain the badge(s))
- Lastly (my opinion here) specifically, Princess' [Double Cast II] is not SOOOO incredibly powerful that "If my caster doesn't have [Double Cast II] they're not worth using / might as well dismiss them". Consider that there are plenty of other strategies that DON'T involve doublecasting, such as utilizing Vessel's abilities (which CAN'T be double-casted), focusing on high mana spells such as Sorcerer hit-all abilities, making an "Arcane Archer / Eldrich Knight" type mage hero who will put spells onto a regular attack, or focusing on spells which aren't affected by the [Double Cast] penalty (such as straight up buff / debuff spells).
All that being said, on a personal level, I would not be "opposed to" changing this system should 6 Eyes deem it best.This of course still leads to an interesting thing principle that--Story heroes tend to get their special classes sooner in the game in comparison to generic units and their various badge classes. This therefore causes the story heroes to be more potent in the earlier parts of the campaign, with generic heroes gaining access to potent late-game badge classes, perhaps allowing them to "surpass" the story heroes in some fashion, but not to a level (in my opinion) which renders story heroes "underpowered". However, to help slightly curb this, two of the most potent badge classes (Princess and Lord) were made to be mutually exclusive.
So, I hope this wall of text was useful in some way, and I'm sure that 6 Eyes will read and contemplate your thoughts.
As far as the injury stuff goes.... you can set it to apply an AP penalty, which is definitely a penalty, or leave you with an injury that you need to clear a map to remove, or remove all penalties. I don't really see it as a problem- set it how you prefer it.
The gender-lock stuff? That's really irritating- as it can substantially gimp you based on choices you made having NO idea that it was coming.
In some ways FFT is worse since males have 25% higher physical attack and females have 25% higher magical attack built into their raw stats. Things are more restrictive than access to a few abilities if you're min/maxing.
That said, I don't think the gender restriction is strictly needed in Fell Seal since there are stat growths so each character ends up feeling different. Maybe they could have it where you only get to pick one of two abilities to avoid the problem of too many good passives in one class, but it also seems odd to make one class the exception that way.
I think 5% of the attack's damage per MP would be reasonable if the skill still removes 1 MP per point of damage negated:
Old 500 damage vs 1 mana = 0 damage dealt, mana reduced to 0 (Frustrating)
New 500 damage vs 1 mana = 475 damage dealt, mana reduced to 0
Old 500 damage vs 10 mana = 0 damage dealt, mana reduced to 0
New 500 damage vs 10 mana = 250 damage dealt, mana reduced to 0
Old 500 damage vs 20+ mana = 0 damage dealt, mana reduced to 0
New 500 damage vs 20+ mana = 0 damage dealt, mana reduced to 0 (Unchanged)
In other words, the skill would be reworded to: As long as the character has at least 20 MP when taking damage, the whole damage is negated. Less than 20 MP results in a proportionally lower damage reduction. Damage negated will lower current MP.
I agree with you, there is some ways to bypass a shield like that, my favorite being using Dual Wield to hit them. But not every unit will runs something like that.
Mid-late game nobody runs mercenary kit anymore (It isn't bad, it just isn't as good as his upgraded counterparts) and DoTs, for lack of a better word, suck.
This game heavily favors burst damage. DoTs don't kill, and often times enemies carry heavy/full potions with them (alongside phoenix down).
The faster you burst a target, the less chances you have for them to heal up or run to their healer. Especially when healing in this game is super-effective, almost healing full HP when a healer does so. I know weakness/reanimate negates some of these things, but hitting for 200 or choosing to hit for 100 with a CHANCE to inflict weakness, its a easy choice.
Mystic shield, like you said, isn't even good on mage units. It is however spectacular on fast warrior/ranged units who don't really care for their mana. They replenish their mana fast every turn without fear. Few monsters carry tools to break it.
But yea, its pretty much a personal opinion, I dislike this current interaction of the "Mana Shield". It's frustrating to play around it on the battlefield and it's a cheap Mirage effect on warriors that don't use mana.
Double Cast II, when used in conjuction with Blood Magic and Lay Waste is a devastating effect. It's simply something the normal Double Cast couldn't achieve and something TOTALLY worth.
Let me give you my example, my (NOW FEMALE) damage caster, buffed with quicken/haste/mind up from my other princess/alchemystic (which also has access to Double Cast II), reliably casts 2 void/holy/darkstorms on their turns, FOR NO MANA COST AT ALL. And frequently too, the life lost on blood magic doesnt matter when the other princess will support it with regen and heals.
It damages ALL units for around 300 magic damage, it makes enemies trash to waste their potions, potentially killing 1/2 before even my warriors reach them.
Sure Dodge Magic kills this strategy, but it doesnt matter, by the time the Dodge Magic unit reaches me, he's alone, its THAT strong. But sure, different people use different strategies.
This also bothers me.
Marked, Demon Knight are variants for Templar and Reaver, Anatomist is a variant of Lich and Bounty Hunter is a buffed up Ranged/Assassin, but those are VARIANTS. You can reach the same effect with regular units using classes.
Spy Master and Bzaro FORCES you to use them. There's no equal spymaster as a class, the game forces you to play Reiner to have that playstyle.
And I don't understand why we can't enlist someone else from Bzaro race to act as our other Blue Mage.
It force us to use units we don't like. I could easily replicate the variants playstyle, but it's impossible to make another Spymaster and Blue Mage currently.
Honestly, I would disagree with this estimation. DoTs are very strong as they are % based damage based on the target's max HP. This is especially good on bosses, even if they have % damage reduction.
I also highly value the Mercenary's skillset given how versitile it is. Good debuffs, shoving move, stun (reduce initiative), and many of them being range = weapon; perfect to throw on a ranged unit.
To make sure people don't misunderstand, I was NOT saying that [Mystic Shield] is bad on casters. I was just saying it has a cost to use. If I happen to run [Mystic Shield] on a caster, I'll make sure not to use up all my mana and still have a couple leftover. Therefore, it will still block one hit.
In my estimation of things, the issue moreso lies with [Blood Magic] as opposed to [Double Cast II]. However, for something, check out this thread from the other day: https://steamcommunity.com/app/699170/discussions/0/3247565033762598337/
I can't really say much more on the specific classes themselves from what I originally posted, however, all I can say is "That was a specific design decision". 6 Eyes decided that they wanted differentiations between story heroes and generic heroes, which is something very akin to its source inspirations (FFT games etc).
Granted I understand what you mean about "forced", yet I would say "But you have a choice whether to use the unique hero or not". Not everything is available to everyone, and that's how 6 Eyes wants it. All the same, voicing your opinion on things is quite valid, and 6 Eyes can take things into consideration, but it is a somewhat key part of their design.
Simply put, the answer is "Game Balance". As other players will attest to, Bzaro is extremely strong not only with his many cool combo abilities available, but in the fact that he scales his stats based on what monster class he is currently. This therefore allows him a strong flexibility to me mage or martial based on what you equip him with (in terms of his main monster class). To allow more than one Bzil like that in your party would be craaaaazy strong, so, that's why Bzil are limited to a single unique hero.
Keep in mind that the difficulty of the game and the tasks required of you to win can vary wildly based on how high you crank those settings, so stuff that doesn't appear useful to you on your own playthrough can easily be a lot more useful in different contexts.
When I wrote those issues, I had just finished up the game on full default. I'm not a veteran in the case, and it seems most "broken" things (Like blood magic/double cast or the injury mechanic) are already known to others.
My problems with being locked up on classes/heroes is that, seeing that I can create and customize units to my liking (even created some customs avatars), I wished I could create my own ensemble of heroes without being locked out of certain classes just because story heroes were "important".
Perhaps later on with some mods I'll be able to, I hope.
Yeah, this game is pretty moddable, with a few people already having made some modded classes n such. If ya like, you should check out the modding subforum, and don't feel afraid to ask "how do I do XYZ" because people are around and can answer questions.