this looks freakin’ awesome!
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Not sure if this has already been reported, but Lakshmi’s Pierce just dealt damage to Trudy and the cavalier I was trying to kill behind her.
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Thanks for the report! Pierce being able to hit allies is somewhat intentional, but enough people have told me they’ve been caught off-guard by it that I’ll probably look into changing it to hit only enemies. It’s the only AoE combat art that can hit allies anyway, so it just makes sense to make it match with the others.
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Well it’s strange because the description says it only hits enemies, lol.
Oh. So it does. Just forget I said it was intentional and let’s file it under bugs. Thanks again for the report lol.
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This is a really great game. I played thru the prologue and I don’t think I got the holy dagger (I saw an earlier post about that). Which enemy should have dropped it?
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I’m glad you’re liking it so far! The Holy Dagger should have been dropped by one of the soldiers on the right side of the map (specifically the one that starts one tile above and to the left of the enemy fighter).
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I’m at chapter 2 playing in normal-fixed-classic mode, every level up 'till now gave me 1 point or less so I wonder if there’s something wrong with fixed mode since it’s supposed to produce the same units every playthrough not like other fixed modes that depend on the points accumulated by killing whatever unit, accumulating points and all that.
In my experience with fixed mode, a unit’s first level up typically gives 0-1 stat points. This is a consequence of how fixed mode works.
Fixed mode In Lex Talionis works similarly to fixed mode in Path of Radiance in that units accumulate growth points, except it only depends on a unit’s growth rates and not what weapon they have equipped, what unit they kill, etc. Specifically, Lex Talionis fixed mode works like so:
Each stat starts at 50 growth points. On level-up, adds growth rate to stat’s growth points. When over 100 growth points, remove 100 growth points and increase the stat once. - Lex Talionis Wiki
Since the majority of a unit’s growth rates in Absolution are less than 50%, very few stats reach that 100 growth point threshold on the first level up. You should hopefully see more bountiful level ups in the future! Since the formula for growth points only depends on a unit’s growth rates, they will turn out exactly the same every time, so there’s no need to worry about that.
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Yep it’s exactly as you say, at the end of chapter 2/start chapter 3 every unit gained another level and had a perfect lvl ups and a few with 4+ stats, so that’s how it works on LT, thanks for the info.
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O I forgot to mention. I had a weird bug in the prologue where the cursor kept scrolling up. Pressing A and saving cleared it for like a turn or 2 but then it would happen again. Only on the prologue tho.
Thanks for the report! That’s actually a known bug with Lex Talionis. The creator of the engine had been searching for the cause for some time but sadly never had much luck. If it ever happens again, I’ve found that just pressing up usually makes it go away. It only happens to me on rare occasions, so hopefully you won’t encounter it very often in the future!
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I know it’s not the right thread but since you look used to LT I have to ask, It is possible to implement a level cap in LT? Like in chapter 5 no ally unit can be higher than lvl 8 or something like that.
is it possible to play this on Android?
As Klokinator has already mentioned, it is not possible to play this game on Android for the time being.
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Something like this would not be possible by default in LT to my knowledge.
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Thanks for the info, you see I like newer FE better because grinding and base systems allows the player to use various units and methods to conquer a map, rather than the usual FE which forces you to use 12 chars out of 50, effectively cutting out more than half of the cast but I also understand how uncontrolled grinding makes FE boring so I though a soft or hard level cap could be a perfect compromise.Anyways thanks for taking the time to answer my question.
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You would probably have to go into the code itself and implement something. If your handy in python language.
Hi there! It’s me again, I posted a review a few months ago after playing the first release. I picked the game back up this past week starting from chapter 6, so I’m back with some more feedback today. Fair warning, it got kiiiinda long because I had a lot of thoughts about some of the newer chapters-namely 9x and 11-but I tried to break up into readable chunks.
I can’t stress it enough- I adore this game and this feedback comes from a genuine desire to help it succeed!
Summary
To preface: I adore the characters and the story of this game. This is genuine feedback and not out of bad faith. I’ve been playing fe games since I was around 12 years old (I’m 22 now) at varying levels of difficulty, so I feel like I have enough experience to give comments about fe gameplay.
After dropping the game at chapter 6, I decided to start taking notes to help me write better feedback later on. These notes include how long it took and how many attempts it took, as well as MVPs and turn counts (Gabriel is my hero lol). After playing through to chapter 11, which is the one I’m on now, I’ve noticed a few things.
For reference: I’m playing classic normal with rng levelups.
First, I noticed inconsistencies with chapter difficulty. Chapters 7-9 & 10 took me equal amounts of time and about 1-2 attempts each, and were generally enjoyable. Chapter 6 took me 3 hours and 7 attempts to beat. Chapter 9x took me about 5 hours (with a break for work) and 12 attempts to beat. For chapter 11, which I’m currently stuck on, I’m on attempt 8. I enjoyed the /concept/ of these maps, but found myself more aggravated at the gameplay than having fun with it.
Every time I failed, it didn’t feel like it was exactly /my/ fault, whether it be a mistake of unit placement or using the wrong weapon. It felt like it was the game punishing me. After 7 or 12 attempts I think it becomes clear that it’s less the fault of small mistakes and more of a bigger issue.
And that bigger issue is the sheer amount of reinforcements this game throws at you.
Reinforcements are fine! I don’t mind them in a game, especially since it’s not like they’re ambush spawns. But every single chapter has reinforcements, and strong ones. It’s honestly exhausting. It does work on some maps, like 7-9 & 10.
Specifically, I liked the ones in chapter 10. I liked that Warner’s reinforcements gave you an incentive to keep pushing forward, while the other reinforcements were limited to one per doorway or two per dock. It wasn’t overwhelming, since they were all spaced out and were simple enough to plan for and deal with.
Since I’m on chapter 11, I’m going to talk about that chapter a bit now. Like I said, I enjoy the concept of this map. The caravan constantly pushing forward, a recruitable unit being off to one branch of the map, and the troubadours/their hex/silence staves all give the player incentives to constantly push forward and take on enemies.
So then, why does it have to be made even more difficult with a constant onslaught of enemy reinforcements? The reinforcements begin showing up immediately, every single turn. The furthest I made it was turn 10, and they were still showing up.
From a story perspective, why does the local noble care so much about one caravan of pilgrims that they’re willing to send a large army’s worth of reinforcements to kill ~5 carriages worth of people? They don’t know that Valentina’s forces are with them and the assassin specifically says their goal is take out that caravan.
From a gameplay perspective, not even lunatic awakening is this ruthless with reinforcements. Comparing Absolution’s chapter 11 to Awakening’s chapter 11: lunatic mode reinforcements don’t start appearing until turn 3 and only last until turn 8. And this for a climactic battle versus King Gangrel.
If you’re insistent on having reinforcements on this map, why not do it so that every turn they come from one set of fortresses instead of multiple? That would cut down on the amount of enemies being thrown at you and cut down on the aggravation for the player. The furthest I’ve gotten on this map is to the section where the promoted Halberdier is, which happens to also be an area where two hex rod troubadours’ ranges intersect. This area would be hard enough by itself, but is made infinitely more so by a lot of reinforcements also converging in this area.
I also have some strong thoughts about chapter 9x. This chapter really made me feel like I’d never finish the map let alone the game. It was not fun. Super strong reinforcements, at least 3 or 4 at a time, spawning from turn 2-7 on a rout map was certainly a bold choice. I liked the gimmick of this chapter, though. Having 3 support units for debuffing and then 2 attackers to take them out with is a neat idea. I had fun for the first 3 turns, and it felt satisfying to have those tools and use them in their intended way. And then the reinforcements all converged on each other and I quickly stopped having fun. Even with Delilah’s freeze tome, which only has one use and thus discourages you from using it even if you really need it (since you might need it even more later on, in my reasoning, and since using it early on resulted in gameovers for me).
The reinforcements spawning and then moving towards you before you even dealt with the last wave felt more like a punishment than satisfying gameplay, especially since this is supposed to be ‘normal’ difficulty. The fact that all the enemies move towards you instead of being stationary makes this more difficult than easier, in my opinion. A way to fix it could be to lower the amount of reinforcements, or even to stagger them out so they appear every other turn and you have some breathing room to take out the ones already on the map.
Like I said, reinforcements can work. But when every single chapter is throwing them at you in large amounts, it gets exhausting as a player.
All that being said, I have another concern: the difficulty.
You’ve said this game will eventually have 32 numbered chapters in its finished form. I believe this update ends at chapter 14? The halfway point would be chapter 16. According to the in-game timer, I’m only at chapter 11 and at over 11 hours invested into the game, not counting the amount of time the harder chapter attempts took. I would roughly be a third into the finished game, and already facing chapters that are hard enough to make me want to stop playing. The early chapters should be some of the easiest (not easy, but easier), which kind of makes me nervous about the mid-to-late game chapters ahead.
I feel Absolution is comparable to another high quality, and difficult, fe romhack called VisionQuest. VQ also has roughly 32 numbered chapters, plus several gaidens. I also played VQ on normal/classic and beat the game in roughly 50 hours. While VQ chapters also took some attempts to complete, I feel like it has an important edge over Absolution: the fact that the VBA emulator allows for the use of save states for casual players.
I recognize the usage of save-states might be controversial. But, for people who want to experience the game as it’s meant to be played while also not wanting to start 1 hour+ maps over from the very beginning, it’s pretty nice to have. Absolution doesn’t have that option, making it extremely frustrating to have to start over long maps from the very beginning while you really just want to progress in the story.
Since you’re using a different engine for this game, maybe it’d be possible to implement mid-battle saves like the ones in fe11/12? Like checkpoints; so that once you reach a certain point in a map, you don’t have to start all over from the start if a unit dies/you get a gameover.
Those are the biggest concerns I have right now, and the things I really felt the need to bring up after spending a few hours today trying to progress through the game. I really do enjoy a lot of this game! It’s refreshing to see a fe fangame with so many characters of color and roughly equal gender ratio (and the ladies aren’t all stuck as support classes like some fe hacks.)
I’d like to end with discussing some aspects that I really enjoy! Gabriel’s personal skill has been very fun to play with, and he’s been the MVP of every single map since I recruited him. I also gave him Focus and Heavy Blade for even more buffs. Weaken an enemy with another unit -> kill with Gabriel -> dance Gabriel and move him into range of more enemies to draw them out -> profit. The skill system in general is very fun to play with, and I like the base mechanic overall.
Overall I really do love this game, and I recognize it’s still in development. I genuinely hope some of this feedback helps, and I wish you luck on future progress!
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Heyo! Thanks for giving the game another go.
I completely agree with your criticism that in some chapters, I throw way too many reinforcements at the player. Not too long ago I watched someone play through the game in its entirety, and they encountered much the same roadblocks and aggravating turns you did. When I was making the newer chapters, I had a really bad habit of throwing in reinforcements whenever I found myself without anything to do on a given turn. This works great if you play the game in the exact same manner that I do, but it makes the maps really frustrating for literally everyone else.
Chapters 6 and 11 in particular were the ones I felt were especially egregious with reinforcements, so I’m not surprised these were the ones you had to attempt several times. I’ve heavily adjusted the pacing of these chapters, and they should be much more manageable in the next update. 9x has its own problems, but in general I think it just expects way too much of a blind player. I’ve buffed the stats of each of your units, slightly reduced the number of enemies, and delayed the boss moving in by a turn. Hopefully this will keep the whole chapter in that sweetspot you experienced during the first three turns.
As far as the difficulty curve goes, I understand your concern. I don’t expect the difficulty to climb much higher though, if at all. As the game goes on, the player has access to more and more resources like promotion items, stat boosters, skills, etc. However, just because the player has access to them doesn’t necessarily mean that they will able to use them. With that in mind, I always playtest without using any promoted units, skills, food, statboosters, etc., and that’s what the difficulty ends up being balanced around. This means that for players who do obtain and use these items, the mid/late game can become relatively easy. I expect future chapters will adhere to this principle.
I think the difficulty curve can be improved a lot by making the early game less punishing, which hopefully the reinforcement changes I’ve made will do. That way it will be a more smooth experience throughout. I’ve also learned my lesson about adding in too many reinforcements, and any maps I design in the future will not subscribe to that very flawed philosophy. I think your great suggestion of having DSFE style checkpoints would be a perfect fit for the game, and they should be relatively straightforward to add in!
I really want to thank you for your in-depth thoughts and feedback, I really appreciate it! The game definitely has a significant amount of room for improvement, and with every post like this I hopefully can get closer to making the game consistently fun, engaging, and enjoyable for everyone. I’m sorry your time with the game has been marred with some frustrating experiences, but thank you for trying to power through it! Hopefully next time you’ll find those rough sections more approachable.
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