I’m going to try to be polite as possible (though maybe crass in my language) with this post. I have a good few problems with this hack, even though I’ve only really started it. This is just to lay out early issues I can see to iron out the game. I will be using Chapter 1-2 as reference for some issues, and pointing out some problems with the chapter specifically.
For reference, the unit design seems to be geared towards this idea of balance. Take Gary for example.
Gary is a cav with pretty decent bases, even really good bases (save for his HP, maybe.) And then you get to his growths.
Now, these look genuinely bad. I will say you at least made a high bases, low growths character (which is by far better in my opinion, though that should likely be taken for a grain of salt.) But the problem with this is that he was likely not intended to be a low growths character. A lot of people look at Micaiah’s magic and resistance and say “that’s overpowered.” The thing is, growths at 45% are incredibly unreliable. You’ve given him growths that, at the most, procc less than half the time. When you have a unit that has high growths, they’re not overpowered if you can plan around the player getting consistent stats on level ups.
Take, for example, Roiel, from the hack “Souls of the Forest” (By Scraiza)
These growths may look ridiculous, but because they’re so high, you can easily plan around the player getting better level ups, making scaling of the enemy much easier (and honestly, more fair)
Speaking of Micaiah.
Why.
Another aspect is how the units are balanced around eacother. Take Andrew and Stanley, for example.
This is our boy Andrew.
And here’s our friend Stanley.
Have you noticed a problem? Stanley just completely outclasses Andrew. He has much higher move (a huge stat to have both offensively and defensively), much higher bases, and even generally better growths, missing out on 5% speed and 10% luck. Now, the luck may be a bit of a problem if it’s a 10% lead on Andrew’s part.
If it weren’t for the issue that luck as a stat is pathetic, barely giving any crit and giving like 1 critical avoid per 4 points. There’s no real reason to use Andrew- even the 5% speed is useless when you consider on average that lines up to a 1-2 point difference in speed and at base Stanley has 4 speed on Andrew.
Fucking
Why
Though?
Making physical 1-2 range terrible with low hit rates and then making magic better because of
ok hit rates followed by higher might is detrimental to the game’s design. When you make 1-2 range have low hit, you don’t make the game harder. You make it more tedious.
Moving on to map design, I’ll take into consideration 1-2.
This forest in the middle is detrimental to the map design. It’ll only make it take longer to get units to where you need them to be, and poor Andrew is shafted (again) because a knight having to traverse the forest is just a death sentence.
Focusing on the Pegasus, Tatyana, you can see that she’s unable to reach the thief turn one, and if she even tried, she’d be shot down. This is actually a very terrible way to set up a unit, because of a thing players have called the negativity bias.
If I get a unit, and they can’t perform well on their join map, I’m much more likely to drop them instead of using them when they very well may be excellent. Making Tatyana’s strengths impossible to use in this situation only makes it harder to justify using her. I would have the thief be closer, and the archer maybe take a turn to get close, being just out of reach, showing that Tatyana could be used for, say, a quick fly by attack. The problem is that even with her speed, she can’t actually kill the thief,
- Because she has a slim lance (WHYYYYYYYYYYYY)
- Because the thief’s stats look like this.
For reference, base Gary looks like this.
Meaning that unless you get a speed level (which you could very well miss due to the unreliability of a 45%) he actually gets doubled at base, and that 7 defense actually gets nullified by the weapon the thief has, making it a nasty encounter. Or it would be, were it not for the weapon being a meme.
Three effective might against armors. Three.
Getting back the thief himself, he can actually roll low on his stats, and have 11 speed, as is pictured here.
This means that a viable solution to the problem is legitimately just resetting until the lad can’t double Gary anymore (unless he rolls 13 speed), since Stanley is currently hampered by the big block of forests in the way. RNG abuse to victory should not be your solution to the problem.
And this is another problem. Tatyana, being problably the first to reach the thief, has 105 hit with a slim lance. This thief gives her a 61% hit chance (63% with that 11 speed), meaning the talisman could be gone very easily with some poor luck. I would recommend making the thief weaker, and giving him a vulnerary rather than a talisman. This means that you can still teach the fly by method I spoke of earlier, and not reward the player in a way you would feel to be too much.
Oh yeah, speaking of avoid.
Only villains do this.
That’s all I can really think of at the moment, I hope you found this constructive.