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Sort of unrelated but on the topic of army customisation, I saw a post on reddit about a classless FE: instead there is a magic, mount and armour system. This is something I would like to see, whether it’s in FE or a different game.
play vandal hearts.
I agree that the mastery and effectiveness system holds back the game. Like you said, it makes it super hard to calculate damage, but it also simplifies the strategy in a bad way. The strategy basically turns into attack people where the arrow points up and avoid where the arrow points down. Basically it makes things that should be easy super complicated, and things that should be complicated super easy. The strategy turns into either look at the arrows, or put a unit with a lifesteal skill in the middle of the map and end turn
Dark Deity seems to have a thematic problem in regards in diversity of options versus diversity of play. With the Aspects system, 16 potential skill combinations per unit, and the weapon system, it seems like the game really wants you to build distinct units who serve their own niches. The problem is, a lot of these niches become "can solo the game." And these becoming the one niche is heavily supported by map design that (for the most part) would make Awakening blush in regards to most maps feeling very samey and homogenous. If maps required more units and/or had relevant side objectives, and opted for design that avoided feeling like just rooms where you kill enemies and do nothing else. So, yeah I think I see what you mean when it comes to the conflicting design.
I do agree that it's annoying to calculate the exact damage bonuses from type advantage. I wish they would show how much bonus damage is being given from the matchup, and also the exact damage formulas in game.
If it's so hard to calculate the outcomes when out of range, I'll just end up just making blind decisions because it's simply just faster to do that and then just restart if I make a mistake.
Dark Deity looks like a game that could use some sequels to find its way. The Creator clearly knows enough about these kinds of games to make something competent, but just is missing that special extra ingredient and "magic". I liked the beginning of the game, it just never progressed into something more after that. (That said, sometimes established games get it wrong as well – the gimmicks of Fates Revelations come to mind, and that studio was 14 games into the series)
It’s painfully obvious they were trying to capitalize on there being no Fire Emblem announcement in E3.
On not being able to predict enemy phase, after two full playthroughs I still don't know how the AI works or what kinds of actions it prioritizes lol. There were scenarios where the enemy AI could have potentially killed a unit but decided to use one of its units attacks to double hit a tank for 0 x 2 instead. Not saying it has to play perfectly, but the gameplay would feel a lot more … strategic if the AI's actions could be anticipated instead of it just hitting whatever it wants at random.
I wish the Bonds had more meaning in Dark Deity. Even if they didn't want to focus on the romance option behind it(which is perfectly fine), the fact Bonds were nothing more but the only way to get a look behind a character's personality felt like extremely poor execution. It'd take you multiple playthroughs(when this game doesn't have good replayability to begin with) to be able to properly see all the bonds and get a good grasp on the characters in the game. The army is supposed to come together and feel like one big family but it's hard to feel that when you get and see very little supports.
Bonds imo need to be easier to unlock. It's really sad to go an entire game not knowing anything about a character and they are just, there, simply because you had them benched.
maybe what im going to say it's not really fair, because i only played two chapters of the game, but i think that before trying to fix the game design, they should try to polish the gameplay feel first. the controls are super clunky and the ui feels weird and that made the game kinda unplayable to me. maybe we were spoilt with fire emblem because almost every game feels really snappy, even the older ones feel better to play than dark deity.
This is why I’m not typically a fan of indie jrpg/strategy games. They usually don’t have the depth of the systems or options that bigger games have. I’ll still pick this up if it comes to switch or ps4 and hope their next game is an improvement
I disagree with everything you say. I feel the game gives plenty of choice of different characters. I feel there are lots of unique maps unlike most fire emblem games. Each map to me felt very different from all the other maps which is really cool. I liked most of the gimmicks in revelations so I liked the map gimmicks in this game. If you want more customization there is a built in randomizer which has lots of sliders. I felt the game was difficult even on the easiest difficultly. (Then again, I think FE3 houses maddening is way too hard) I think the promotion system works just fine the way it is. The only fixes I would make would be the bug fixes where the game sometimes glitches. The only bad thing about the game is the plot, which was super predictable. But since I don't play games for the plot its fine. (I hope my husband is okay with me posting with his account, but we do share the same opinions. He currently is trying to figure out how the stats work. )
Looking at dark diety from the perspective of being a rom hacker, It all looks like someone cobbled together a project under a veeeeeery strict time limit. There's so many ideas flowing there, but clearly they didn't have the power to back it up in the way of their characters and actual gameplay. It's such a shame to see all these great ideas fall apart under the mediocre gameplay of it when it released.
The more I experience of Dark Deity, the more I'm starting to unfortunately consider it a scam. It's not only conceptually broken from a mechanical level, with a vague and confusing affinity matchup system, percentage based modifiers that have no easy way to compare against, confusing animations that make it look like an enemy is attacking multiple times (when they arent) and so on. But what makes it a scam is the fact it's dreadfully unfinished. The game has lacked basic polish on release which have been fixed by some decently commendable daily patches which seems to have stopped now. The menus feel extremely bad and hard to understand, but its a very vague point i cant really explain. Some of the maps are also horribly empty and unfinished, the later game maps have been floating around online but even earlier ones like the arena feel so cheaply made, like just somne barricades dumped on one side of an arena leaving the other side completely empty. This game is blatantly just not finished and without a doubt this should be in early access. I'd be more forgiving since this is an indie game made by people who are very much passionate about the genre, however the sheer amount of marketing prescence this game has had makes me a lot harsher. This is a public product for the masses, not a niche fan-made game for a small community (people I know who dont even play fire emblem know dark deity due to its e3 prescence and ads all over the internet.)
The ONLY thing I can commend about the game is the pixel art and animations, which are very nice to see.
Im about 11 chapters in. I think I agree with a lot of your critiques, but there are some things that I think have a TON of potential imo.
1) I really like the older school system of job progression being tied to characters. I dont like how in Fire Emblems latest entries, anyone can be anything. It just feels wrong. I'd like to see a more polished version of the Dark Deity system in the future where there are character specific job trees that make sense with the character, but the archetype system I like more than current FE "anyone can be anything" ideas.
2) The armor system, albeit convoluted, seems like a really cool idea. It adds variables to the classic weapon triangle that I think can make for interesting combinations. Like in this game you can have a sturdy fighter or a battlemage with the same weakness armor wise, but doing completely opposite damage types.
3) More clarity in job growths. I think having clarity of growth rates is SO nice to have in a game. We all know them and have researched them, but having them right there in front of you was such a nice QoL thing.
Its not a fair comparison, but the first dark deity game was, at least to me, more enjoyable than the first fire emblem game
commenting for the algorithm
i would add terrain and change the weapons so there is some way to not be stuck in bad type effectiveness
I love how the game is at a point that even the youtubers that were defending the game with their life are giving in to how poorly designed this was
I feel the need to say this is just my opinion. Dark Deity just didn't scratch that strategy itch that I hoped it would. It is a big accomplishment on the part of the dev team to create and release a video game! And they are actively working on it. It has been cleaned up immensely since launch with frequent patches, so I hope that it continues to get better.
Also, just because I am not having as much fun with it as I had hoped doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. Don't let other people ruin your fun!
Fell like your bigest problem whit the system is the enemie phase form what I understand (AKA not knowing how effective x enemie will be) and to that I think it really depend on what your looking for in the game perso I kinda like it (in war you kinda don't know what the enemie will do or how much they will hurt you. You can asume a bit for sure exemple if the enemie is plate armor and got a sword I can asume If I put my Plate armored unite whit a hammer it will likely win the fight because Crush win vs Plate armor and sword lose vs plate armor)
Perso I think it really personal because I think the gameplay overall it better than most fire emblem game
(tho may be you prf the enemie phase calculation perso I prf looking at the player phase placeing my unite where am pretty sure they will do go for the enemie phase whitout haveing to calculate the enemie phase) Exemple in this game placeing a Paladin (aka horse whit hammer) in front of a bunch of sword armored. or placeing a Chalenger (pierce/ chainmail) in front of a bunch of (Sword / chainmail.) IT just fun for me to know what unite will do really well against what unite and once you understand real life and how it somewhat work you kinda get a understanding of how the game work.
Crush > Plate
Crush < Leather
Slashing > Leather
Slashing < Plate
Peirceing > chainmail
ETC.
Overall it preaty easy to understand tho I will say the rune dress or what ever is call kinda make it more complex than it should be.
Still really overall once you understand the bassic it pretty simple Crush > plate, Pierce > chainmail, Slashing > leather, Axe > rune. You don't really need to know the other one really onless you calculate it whit like your hp geting to 1 hp in your calculation… Than ok you need to know it perfectly because yes you need to know the second best match up else you may take 20% more damage.
Perso I don't think it want to be something but doesn'T do it
I think it a frist game for sure and it show in the bug and some of the idea that doesn't work as well as they could. But overall I think it worth 100% the 20$ they ask for and more. (I wouldn't say it doesn't worth 30 $)
Tho I do agreed about the promotion I think this is the parth that fell the most rush (like I think the classe animation are fantastic and most of the classe are interesting too. Tho I do think a promotion at lvl 20 would have been a great help for the game for sure so the branching promotion can be even more effective at what it try to do and somewhat fail because after 20 lvl in one classe you kinda don'T want to change your classe because you got stats that go well whit the classe…)
OVERALL I think you sond a bit too negative for the game but may be you just really didn'T like it your totally right to not have like it. I just think the sad music and the tone make it sond like it super bad and worse than it actually is. Even if I do agreed that the midle parth is the moment where you start to want for a promotion but it not there until like 5 or 10 more chapter depending on how soon you get bored of the classe your in.
SORRY FOR THE BAD ENGLISH
Can’t believe I gave 70$ for the Kickstarter.
If you want an actually excellent Fire Emblem clone on Steam for 20$, pick up Vestaria Saga.
Dark deity is literally just Alden solo, it’s fun the first time through but you can really only pseudo nos tank so many times before it gets old
I know what the name of this youtube channel is, but have you considered branching out into other tactics games? I held off on Troubleshooter for a long time, just recently picked it up. This game has a lot going on. Perhaps so much that if I put it down for a week or two, I'll forget how these mastery or rep mechanics work. The game is more Xcom than it is FFT, which itself is obviously a hike from FE, but who knows, maybe your audience here would actually really enjoy your takes on Fell Seal Arbiter, Wildermyth, Troubleshooter, or Valkyria Chronicles.
I still need to at least try Dark Deity because my game backlog got too big over this last year