I would like to start by saying thanking everyone who has taken the time to leave feedback or even just play the game.
As far as criticisms of the character portraits, I’ll admit that I’m not really a graphic artist, but I hope that each was still able to convey something about the character.
I appreciate the various compliments about the story. It probably won’t surprise anyone to know that it is the area that I was most passionate about and confident in. Other areas of the game, such as the magic system and even the general build of each character were approached as integrating the story and gameplay. That being said, I don’t have any plans to abridge the story. I was upfront that the amount of text was the reason the game was split into two patches. If you’re the type of player who likes to get straight to gameplay and doesn’t need much story pushing you along, then this probably isn’t the game for you, and that’s fine. It would be kind of pointless for me to heap compliments on my own story and try to say why you should enjoy it.
As for me, I’m the type of player who is annoyed that Nintendo only put the abridged version of Radiant Dawn in the English version. And as much as I love the Jugdral Saga, I have to admit that really appreciating the story requires a lot of outside reading. Most of what is on screen in FE4 is just Sigurd talking to Oifey or Seliph talking to Lewin. The game only does a bare bones job of actually presenting what is happening to the characters. And so, for Deity Device, I wanted to fully articulate the trials that the characters endure. Many more characters than just the main “Lords” have their own story arc going on, and I don’t intend to change that.
I’d like to take the time here to address what was brought up in regards to Orville (mild spoilers):
Summary
As far as him wearing pink, I decided on his color scheme of pink and black in order to blend the color schemes that Eldigan and Raquesis are typically depicted with. If you understand the references in his starting inventory and have perused his supports in Builder, then it should be fairly obvious why. I would also say that he makes a more sober first impression than a character like Radiant Dawn’s Heather, whose personality doesn’t go beyond “is a lesbian.” And he doesn’t come across as flamboyant as the Echoes incarnation of Leon. I’m not trying to say that Heather and Leon are low bars where any character who passes them is fine (I don’t really have a problem with either of them, and I quite like Leon). I am saying that Orville was not designed as an offensive stereotype, and if you stick with the hack, you will come to see how little bearing Orville’s attraction to men has on his place in the story.
I would like to start off my response to the feedback about gameplay with a few general comments. I will never claim that I designed Deity Device in such a way as to be satisfying for a hard core LTC player. In fact, there are conscious design choices that may be punishing for common strategies employed by efficiency players such as low-manning (more on this when I talk about the now infamous Chapter 8). Please don’t take this like I’m stubbornly claiming my game is perfect and the gameplay couldn’t possibly be tightened, but at the same time, there are some pretty significant changes from vanilla gameplay. Therefore, it should not be expected that the game will play like vanilla. For example, it was said that there are too many 1-2 range enemies. That is because Arachne would be unbeatable in the early game if only a handful of enemies could attack at range. It is best to think about how your units can be used together (Helen can one round enemies in the Prologue at base when boosted by Calista’s Mana Radiance skill). Beyond that, pretty much everyone has some form 1-2 range attack, so I don’t really see it as all that oppressive.
I am open to reimagining some maps as smaller, but that will take a long time, so I would not expect a change in the immediate future.
For some criticisms, I’m honestly not sure what a solution would look like. For example, simultaneously complaining that a chapter is mindless and that the side objectives were too much bother. But I also love FE4 (seriously, I own a boxed copy of it).
It is possible to prevent the reinforcements in Chapter 3 by advancing far enough before they arrive. The reinforcements will be intimidated and refuse to come out when called on.
Chapter 5 is a rout map because the player army is not waiting for some other force to arrive and bail them out. They are on their own and under siege.
As far as criticisms of enemy quality, I’m not sure what a fix would look like beyond raising enemy growths. Enemies are already much closer to expected levels of player units than they would be in vanilla GBA FE games. It is also fairly common for the player army to have a Leadership advantage in Part 1, but it becomes much more rare in Part 2.
Talk events go one way because the character who wanted to talk to another initiates the conversation…that’s it. If it really dampens the experience, I can think about changing it, but I just set it up the way that makes logical sense.
From what I’m seeing, Chapter’s 7 and 8 seem to be the biggest points of contention so far, so I’d like to talk about them. For Chapter 7, I’ve seen a mix of both “the fliers are overwhelming” and “the fliers posed no challenge,” so I don’t think there would be a solution that pleases everyone. For those that find them overwhelming, every time that I’ve played this chapter, I’ve just sent physical units to deal with the pegasi and magic units to deal with the wyverns. One thing that no one has brought up is Bertram’s effectiveness against the pegasi. He deals effective damage with his Wind Sword, and if he takes a hit or two, he will enter Vantage range and likely one shot any pegasi who attack him. Arachne and Gregory handle the wyverns pretty easily. I actually find the current incarnation of Chapter 7 much easier than it once was because Glenn used to be much weaker and keeping him safe was a pain. As for the northern reinforcements, the chapter opening has the enemy commander spell out his plan to surround Calista’s army on all sides. I would be open to delaying it or adding an event where someone hears horses approaching before the reinforcements arrive, but I don’t agree that they come out of nowhere.
As for Chapter 8, the pain that is the boss’s sleep spell is the way that the chapter was designed (believe it or not, I did endeavor to give each chapter an identity). The revenants aren’t really very threatening, and the boss has pitiful combat once you get to him. But the enemies slow down progress through the hallway south of the boss’s room. And yes, this chapter can be troublesome if the player has been overly reliant on tanking with Vamp. It’s not too unusual for a game to have a level that takes away strategies that the player may have come to rely on and force them to try something else. If complaints persist that Chapter 8 is a huge roadblock, I will consider lowering the boss’s magic, but I don’t really think that the overall design of the chapter needs to be changed.
And again, Deity Device is not meant to deliver an extremely difficult experience where any misstep spells death. The only other person to have played it before I released it here had only ever played FE 7, 8, & 9 on normal mode. So yes, it is something of a more casual experience driven by its story. Thank you for reading if you made it through all of this.
