Hey there,
Thanks for giving the hack a look! I appreciate all of the feedback.
Before I address any of your points, know that the hack is actually going through an extensive revamp right now. The story is being moved out of Magvel into an entirely new world, and most scenes are being edited extensively. While going doing this, I’ve also taken the opportunity to pretty heavily edit some of the maps, hoping to fix some of the density issues you mentioned.
As far as the difficulty, I do admit I like to use effectives/scary weaponry to encourage thought. However, I think part of my problem in design is I always know what’s coming; something like that can’t possibly surprise me. I’ll need to be more careful to think about how a blind player would think. I like creating matchups/situations where some units excel and others don’t, but I’ll have to evaluate if I’m too restrictive by that, and should give the player more options.
I’m really grateful to hear your feedback that a lot of the maps are too punishing/force you to play a certain way. This is something I’ve been wary of for quite a while, considering I haven’t had really any dedicated playtesters at all since quite early in development, and the game has evolved significantly since then. I generally enjoy harder games/difficulties in the series, and I do want the game to reflect that. But I’d also like it to be forgiving and certainly beatable by any FE fan who wants to give the game a try.
You’ll be happy to hear that Ch 4 (Andrew joins, with the Spider Islands and Mogalls) has largely been reworked to be made quicker and easier. Wayne’s chapter is also on the “needs a big rework” list. I can take a look at the Wade/Brandon and Joe chapters as well, I can definitely see how these are too stringent given the time limits and limited resources.
Thanks for playing as far as you have. If you’re game to keep playing, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subsequent chapters, as I’ve only received feedback from another other than myself on one of them. Knowing my tendencies, they likely fall into the same boat as the others, being largely too dense and punishing, but specific feedback would be much appreciated.
I’m glad you have (largely) enjoyed the characters, they’re the part of writing I enjoy the most. Arianna is planned to be expanded upon in the rewrite going on now, and I hope to show a lot of the character’s softer qualities.
Once again, appreciate the feedback, and am thankful you gave the game a shot.