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KickStarter Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - Final Fantasy Tactics-like RPG

Emmanuel2

Savant
Joined
Feb 19, 2016
Messages
364
Location
Pearl of the Orient Seas
Just finished the current content in Max All difficulty + Permadeath. I had 1 injury for characters and 2 injuries for 2 characters, I didn't abuse Kyrie's (main character) immunity to injury.

It's quite a good Tactics game, though I only considered the gameplay. Difficulty at Maxed All is pretty good, as in you won't go by just randomly inputting attack.

From the playthrough, I found that:
  • You can grind in the first 4 zones albeit you have to do a little screwing around to make it viable.
- There's a setting in the game that lets you scale up the entire map up to the level cap (99), but the 4 "tutorial" maps does not. They still scale in equipment though based on your story progression IIRC.​

  • Magic (and sorcery) is pretty much King. At Lategame in Max All difficulty, you basically NEVER want to melee due to high DEF/high Damage and a large risk of permadeath. And most of the time, you'd want to one-turn entire legions instead of CC"ing them one at a time as they will tend to overwhelm you all and that enemies will spam revivals along with high healing potions.
- In the Permadeath setting, injuries are permanent and they'll permanently reduce a random stat by 5% (there's no indication as to which stat though which is kind of annoying). At 5 injuries, the character permanently dies. So having a melee character tank all the hits that take up around 1/4 or 1/3rd of your health unless you have the Knight's Defend skill is pretty much hell.​
  • Monsters are a bitch in the early game, come late-game you'll be thankful that they're the opponent unless you like Melee/Physical attacks.
- Due to the +50% stats, monsters have a serious bump in their stats relative to your growth in the early game. It's not uncommon to see one monster taking half a unit's health.​
  • Gambler, Gunner, Sorcerer, and Princess are pretty much the best classes in the game due to Focus, Quicken, Economy, Initiative, and Princess' Double Cast II.
- Gunner has access to guns. long range status effects and Focus. Gambler's card abilities are 100% hit always and cannot be mitigated, they have Initiative which means they get a free turn at the start of combat AND Quicken which is basically quicken from FFT. Sorcerer is a mapwide nuker with Economy which if used with Gambler, you can cast quicken every turn. Princess is basically Quicken + Heal + Double Cast and the ability to equip Flash Daggers (+33 speed).​
  • Lich is a pretty good class too due to Blood Magic. The only issue with Lich is that they use Dark element spells which falls off in the late game due to most enemies/monsters having resistance to them.
- A lot of the enemies have dark resistance in the later parts and they're mostly the annoying ones. Holy on the other hand is very useful but a good amount of Bosses are better off being pelted with Elemental attacks.​
  • Some unique classes are cool in concept like the Vampire, Immortal, Demon Knight, etc. but they all feel lackluster compared to the non-secret classes except for Princess and Lich.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
https://www.fellseal.com/single-post/2019/02/22/Fell-Friday-80---Finishing-VFXSFX
Fell Friday #80 - Finishing VFX/SFX
February 22, 2019

|

Pierre Leclerc

We're not putting up a new build this week, but focusing on getting everything done. We have a big QA pass starting early this week, so we have to get just about everything done on time for it in terms of content. It's been a mad rush.



We got the credits section done and one of the 2 endings created. We have only 2 visual effects left to create and we finished creating Reiner's special class (which was the last class missing).
We also added another 2 dozen sounds effects (we're up to something like 400 SFX. That's pretty scary) and we're nearly done with those.



The final localization has also been done, which means 100% of the game is translated now.



Here's a new spell we got done this week:

d50ec1_3dc3a775a66042d484403ca1f5533eb5%7Emv2.gif
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
Just finished the current content in Max All difficulty + Permadeath. I had 1 injury for characters and 2 injuries for 2 characters, I didn't abuse Kyrie's (main character) immunity to injury.

It's quite a good Tactics game, though I only considered the gameplay. Difficulty at Maxed All is pretty good, as in you won't go by just randomly inputting attack.

From the playthrough, I found that:
  • You can grind in the first 4 zones albeit you have to do a little screwing around to make it viable.
- There's a setting in the game that lets you scale up the entire map up to the level cap (99), but the 4 "tutorial" maps does not. They still scale in equipment though based on your story progression IIRC.​

  • Magic (and sorcery) is pretty much King. At Lategame in Max All difficulty, you basically NEVER want to melee due to high DEF/high Damage and a large risk of permadeath. And most of the time, you'd want to one-turn entire legions instead of CC"ing them one at a time as they will tend to overwhelm you all and that enemies will spam revivals along with high healing potions.
- In the Permadeath setting, injuries are permanent and they'll permanently reduce a random stat by 5% (there's no indication as to which stat though which is kind of annoying). At 5 injuries, the character permanently dies. So having a melee character tank all the hits that take up around 1/4 or 1/3rd of your health unless you have the Knight's Defend skill is pretty much hell.​
  • Monsters are a bitch in the early game, come late-game you'll be thankful that they're the opponent unless you like Melee/Physical attacks.
- Due to the +50% stats, monsters have a serious bump in their stats relative to your growth in the early game. It's not uncommon to see one monster taking half a unit's health.​
  • Gambler, Gunner, Sorcerer, and Princess are pretty much the best classes in the game due to Focus, Quicken, Economy, Initiative, and Princess' Double Cast II.
- Gunner has access to guns. long range status effects and Focus. Gambler's card abilities are 100% hit always and cannot be mitigated, they have Initiative which means they get a free turn at the start of combat AND Quicken which is basically quicken from FFT. Sorcerer is a mapwide nuker with Economy which if used with Gambler, you can cast quicken every turn. Princess is basically Quicken + Heal + Double Cast and the ability to equip Flash Daggers (+33 speed).​
  • Lich is a pretty good class too due to Blood Magic. The only issue with Lich is that they use Dark element spells which falls off in the late game due to most enemies/monsters having resistance to them.
- A lot of the enemies have dark resistance in the later parts and they're mostly the annoying ones. Holy on the other hand is very useful but a good amount of Bosses are better off being pelted with Elemental attacks.​
  • Some unique classes are cool in concept like the Vampire, Immortal, Demon Knight, etc. but they all feel lackluster compared to the non-secret classes except for Princess and Lich.

I didn't go that far but i played 3 more battles with the new build, didn't grind at all, first two on max difficulty, last one on custom difficulty (+25% stats / +33% level scaling )

They fixed the difficulty issue, you can make it challenging now but i think it's better to find your own custom difficulty settings and avoid grinding, it's probably making the game more challenging on the long run and you can always change the difficulty settings as you go (even if some fights are way tougher than others)

The fight in front of the first temple on custom difficulty and a level 5 party and just 6 party members and the guest was something and resurrection a real asset.

Overall, it's getting better and better, i really like the guest character, i hope he sticks around.

A kind of insect with some special dual-classes

Well, i didn't play the more advanced classes yet, saving it for the final version.
 

Emmanuel2

Savant
Joined
Feb 19, 2016
Messages
364
Location
Pearl of the Orient Seas
custom difficulty settings

I did mention that my custom settings were set at max since the hardest preset wasn't that hard at all; basically +50% stats, max level scaling, maxed gear (everyone had full accessory slots including monsters), permadeath, etc. It was a hard time, but setting down the difficulty would just be admitting defeat for me. At that time which was patch #78, I finished all the content including the main story so far.

As far as I've read from the recent patch notes, they haven't addressed a lot of the balance yet.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
I don't think grinding to achieve playing on the hardest difficulty is a victory but let's leave it at that.

Also, the AI isn't the best i've seen but it's probably better than its role models in that area.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,514
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.fellseal.com/single-post/2019/03/15/Fell-Friday-83---Biggest-content-update-yet
Fell Friday #83 - Biggest content update yet.
March 15, 2019
Pierre Leclerc

This week we're release our last "big content update" before release and it's the biggest yet. We're adding all the optional content for the game, so the latest build on Steam is nearly complete: it has everything save for the ending and our large secret dungeon.

That's not to say that there isn't a lot of work left to do before release though! We have pages and pages of notes about balance, UI improvements and various tweaks. But in terms of content, we're about done.

The detailed notes on the new build can be found right here.

Progress Report:

We've been focusing on polish, bug fixes and the final tuning for our new patrols and encounters this week. We'll be focusing on balance, polish and tuning for the most part until release, to make the game as good as it can be before release.

With release just around the corner, our schedule is going to stay really packed and intense for a while, but we should get all we want done in time!
 

Abu Antar

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Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,514
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.fellseal.com/single-post/2019/03/22/Fell-Friday-84---Preparing-for-Release
Fell Friday #84 - Preparing for Release

March 22, 2019
Pierre Leclerc

We're slated to release near the end of April, so that doesn't leave us too much time to get everything fully finished. The coming month is sure to be exciting, but also chaotic and frantic!

Progress Report

We've been working non-stop to get everything ready for our upcoming release. Our prime focus has been balance tuning this week. Using all the feedback we've been gathering from the community, we've made a lot of changes to numerous classes and abilities in the latest build. We still have a lot more planned though!

We also worked on our special "end-game" optional dungeon, the Ancient Path, and it's now about 50% complete. It should be completed next week, which will make the game story complete AND optional content complete as well.

Finally, we've been working on some exciting UI updates this week as well, but those won't be ready until next week. Expect some cool things though!

We release another Early Access build today and the patch notes are pretty lengthy. You can get the full details right here.

We don't really have new cool images this week, so I'll just put one of our upcoming "town images" to remind everyone they're still coming to the game:

d50ec1_058348346f1a4da09934d52dc4fb8a72~mv2.png
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Messages
13,514
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


Fell Friday #85 - Brand new UI graphics

March 29, 2019
Pierre Leclerc

In continuing our preparations for our imminent release, we've released version 0.9.2 of the game this week, with a slew of balance tuning changes and some additions to the UI, including redoing all the UI graphics to give them a new and slicker look.

You can see all the details on our steam notes.

Here's what the new character info panel looks like:

d50ec1_c59bca381cd14d3bb4f8feabe13018fc~mv2.png




Progress Report

We've been quite busy this week, as usual. On top of the above changes, we've also been working on the Ancient Path dungeon and we have 1 more encounter left to create for it before it's all finished!

We also added "class masteries" to the game: once a unit masters a class, they will receive a small permanent bonus to various stats from then on. Switching to a different class will not remove the bonus: it's permanent and always there. Mastering all classes will stack up all those bonuses.

The bonuses can be viewed in the class selection screen:

d50ec1_ab4627135a9244bfa760f62101c72f35~mv2.png



Otherwise, lots of bug fixes, balance changes and some UI improvements. There's still a lot of balance tweaks we want to get in and a few more UI upgrades as well, so stay tuned!
 
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Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
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Joined
Apr 24, 2015
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
https://www.fellseal.com/single-post/2019/04/05/Fell-Friday-86---Huge-Balance-Update
Fell Friday #86 - Huge Balance Update
April 5, 2019

|

Pierre Leclerc

Progress Report

This week, we focused on balance primarily. We have about a 100 different balance changes to the game, including lots of passives, counters, skill trees and class growth updates.



We also updated our pathfinding to take into account any traps the player might have found, so they won't step on them during regular movements.



Finally, we took care of various things that could be considered exploits, such as infinite turns by abusing the Quicken spell and other things.



All in all, the game is looking better and better the closer we get to release!

We still have lots of balance updates in the works though, so keep an eye out for them!



The full notes can be found right here.



This is an example of the new pathfinding showing the real paths available to the player given what they know of the traps in the area:

d50ec1_9f9d1219cd924bcea58b619eaaf48cb8%7Emv2.webp


And this is a new ability we added (we recently found 4 abilities that still didn't have their visuals setup, so we've been wrapping those up).

d50ec1_4d51ce934d864e0fb6ee6f0926d58ece%7Emv2.gif


Otherwise, we've been fixing any bug we find and wrapping up our work on the Ancient Path optional dungeon. Now we only have a custom AI to setup for one of the maps and it should finally be done.



Thanks again for all the support!
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
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Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
First review seems to be up.
https://nichegamer.com/reviews/fell-seal-arbiters-mark-review/
The Verdict: 9.5
The Good

  • Refined “tactics” style gameplay with its own spin
  • Creating and raising your party how you want is made simple
  • Fantastic difficulty tailoring
  • Many ease-of-use mechanics in place
The Bad
  • Portraits, sprites, and maps feel like three different (attractive) art styles
  • Animations can be a little basic
  • Main characters gaining special classes can throw a wrench into your planned party & builds the first time around
It lists full release for current month.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Joined
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Messages
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.fellseal.com/single-post/2019/04/12/Fell-Friday-87---Achievements-Cloud-Saves
Fell Friday #87 - Achievements, Cloud Saves
April 13, 2019
Pierre Leclerc

Progress Report:

This week, we've been working on various odds and ends. We finished the Ancient Path dungeon, so our content is now finally complete for the game! We've been working on bug fixing and some small balance tweaks.

Otherwise, we've been working on Steam integration and Gog galaxy integration. We have Steam Cloud saves as well as Achievements ready and those are live right now in today's build.

We've also been working on integrating Gog Galaxy, and that should be finished as well, allowing for Gog achievements.


Programming Notes:

For anyone interested on some programming stuff: we ended up using the Steamworks free plugin for Unity, as per the recommendation of other indie devs we know. On the plus side, it's free and covers all the features of the Steam API. On the minus side, the documentation seems a little sparse and it's a little cumbersome to use, with the very poor way callbacks are implemented in it. We also add to find a way to make it work with Unity's IL2CPP, because the callback system wasn't designed to work correctly with it either. But we got it all done in about a day, so it ultimately wasn't that bad.

We also added support for Gog Galaxy, which we found was modeled after the unity Steamworks plugin (we actually started with this one, so it helped with Steamworks rather than the other way around), although with a better callback system (if still overall not exactly well designed). That also took about a day, so it wasn't that bad at all.

On a related fun note about Unity: unless I'm missing something, Unity allows one to flag specific plugins as "not part of a specific build", even with #defines support, which is nice. But while it won't "load a plugin that's not supposed to be included", it'll still include it in the final build, adding random unrelated clutter to the game. That's an interesting setup... We solved this by creating some post-build scripts that go in the build folder and erase the plugins that shouldn't have been copied in the first place because they're flagged as "not used", but I admit I feel like flagging a plugin as "not included" should probably not include it from the files, as well as "not loading it in game" or something.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
https://www.fellseal.com/single-post/2019/04/19/Fell-Friday-88---Release-date-announced
Fell Friday #88 - Release date announced!
April 19, 2019

|

Pierre Leclerc

The release date for Fell Seal has finally been made official! Keep your eyes out for it on Gog, Steam, Xbox One and Ps4, on April 30th. Most of the above options have pre-orders available as well if that's your thing.



Progress Report

In terms of progress, we're pretty much done with everything at this point, and the current build should be a very close match to the Release build, once we enable the endings and optional end-game dungeon.

This week was spent fixing bugs, adding polish and going through all the list of TODOs and "would-be-nice" we've been accumulating for a year now. We've added a ton of new things this week and the game is now feature-complete! You can see the exact and lengthy notes for it right here.



We still have a small list of features that we want to focus on after release and a bigger list of features that we think "could be nice at some point, maybe", so we'll see how that goes.



With our Release in about a week from now, we're planning to spend the time left focusing on bugs, polish and some some PC-centric features, like modding, etc.



I think we somehow forgot to mention it, but our Release Trailer is finally ready and live as well! You can see it right here: https://youtu.be/GT8R-R26da0



We're almost at the finish line now and it's very exciting!



As always, big thanks to everyone that's been supporting us all along!
 

Jinn

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
4,930
Same here, waiting for the final release to restart, seems really promising. :bounce:

Sounds like you're good to start playing now, as long as you're not planning on reaching the end of the game in 9 days of playing. Getting pretty tempted to grab this one now. Seems like it's a well done FFT/Tactics Ogre homage.

EDIT: Went ahead a got this today, and boy am I glad I did. Took about 30-45 minutes of playing before it hooked me, but I'm kind of addicted now. Didn't want to stop playing after 4 hours to go to bed. Really enjoy how they've handled the job system in this. Building up characters and specializations is a lot of fun.

Some pretty well-designed wilderness maps so far too. Story is definitely much simpler than the likes of FFT and Tactics Ogre, but it has me interested. The characters are likeable and the world is pretty neat.

Characterer portraits and maps are beautiful, but the humanoid character models take some getting used to. Still not sure about them, particularly some of the goofy randomization of enemy models. Wish there was just a "standard" option in the settings for that. I like the Kyrie sprite used on the world map and kind of wish they had used a similar style on the battlefield. A mild complaint though, in the face of the rest of the nice stuff going on here. Game seems quite good.
 
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