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

4249

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So it doesn't add a new campaign or anything? A few missions and then some new classes and mechanics and whatnot? Can't really say I'd be too intrigued.

Missions and Monsters is the first expansion

Huh.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

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Has anyone tried the DLC already? Will definitly buy eventually but I am unsure if now or later when it is discounted significantly for the first time.
I started a new game with it.
So far only new mechanics that I've encountered is mission system, where you can send excess party members earn some extra money/xp (I don't have big enough retinue for those yet) and guild upgrades, which gives you some bonuses.
 
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Thac0

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I'm very into cock and ball torture
Has anyone tried the DLC already? Will definitly buy eventually but I am unsure if now or later when it is discounted significantly for the first time.
I started a new game with it.
So far only new mechanics that I've encountered is mission system, where you can send excess party members earn some extra money/xp (I don't have big enough retinue for those yet) and guild upgrades, which gives you some bonuses.

Are those fun? Its what interests me the most, I care less about monster classes and hunting.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
Has anyone tried the DLC already? Will definitly buy eventually but I am unsure if now or later when it is discounted significantly for the first time.
I started a new game with it.
So far only new mechanics that I've encountered is mission system, where you can send excess party members earn some extra money/xp (I don't have big enough retinue for those yet) and guild upgrades, which gives you some bonuses.

Are those fun? Its what interests me the most, I care less about monster classes and hunting.
So far I've only been on single city where you can upgrade guild, those seem quite simple +%-type uppgrades.
 

Empary

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Dabbled in it a little. Monster share (some?) variants, You have timer missions you can send generics into to unlock or earn stuff, in every region is large (9 units for player) battle. Didnt get to hunts yet. New classes looked fun.
 

Empary

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Anyone have game-match portraits? I hate art-clashing in my games
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
Some stuff from their Reddit AMA.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/hfsi5p/6_eyes_studio_here_creators_of_fell_seal_missions/
I admit we don't have any other DLC plans at this point. With Missions and Monsters, we've added all that we wanted to add to Fell Seal. I'm not saying we won't ever think of anything else, but right now, the game feels fully complete to us and we're leaning towards moving to a new project (while continuing support for Fell Seal, of course).

We haven't made precise plans yet. We know we're going to work on a RPG next, most likely with strategy/tactical elements and probably turn-based. We'll see where that leads, but currently, my guess is that the next game won't be part of the Fell Seal universe, but something new instead.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

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I messed a bit around with guild missions on which you can send generic party members and those happen in real-time more fitting to a Facebook cow-clicker than a game like this.
Samurai-class seems to be one of the mission rewards and I'm not certain if it can be unlocked by any other way.
 

ebPD8PePfC

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It's a really good game if you enjoy challenging combat and don't care about the plot, which is the common thread in all three games you mentioned.
 

Suicidal

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I started this game a few days ago and so far it's quite good. Very similar to Final Fantasy Tactics, but I guess that was the idea.

Surprisingly, hard difficulty is actually hard and also very customizable, so you can make the game harder in various ways. I set everything except for "enemies have bonus stats" (which is the shittiest way to increase difficulty) to maximum and as a result most missions are quite challenging and force you to think and build your troops well. Also the AI is quite competent compared to the usual gaming standard of "use random ability on closest enemy".

My main issue with the game is the "building your troops well" part as it requires grinding. You can put some skills from any class on any character, but in order to unlock those skills you need to level those characters in that class. For example, in one mission I encountered a tanky enemy melee dude that had a skill that roots any character that attacks him in place. I thought it would be a good idea to put this on my knight character and then bait the enemies into attacking him so they would get immobilized and easily flanked/killed but it's not that simple. To get that skill you need to give your character a few levels in the sorcerer class, and to unlock the sorcerer class you first need several levels in druid, and to unlock druid you need some levels in wizard and alchemist and it goes on. So to get that one skill that has really good synergy with a melee class you need to level a bunch of shit he doesn't need. The enemies however are not bound by this restriction, so as a result you often encounter enemies with class/skill combinations that are very strong, but to get them yourself you'd need to grind your ass off.
 

pakoito

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The grind is somewhat shared across your characters, so at some point in lategame those classes are unlocked automatically for every new character. Still, you're better off buying a new character of the class that's hardest to unlock, and then grind the easier class.
 

Darth Canoli

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The grind is somewhat shared across your characters, so at some point in lategame those classes are unlocked automatically for every new character. Still, you're better off buying a new character of the class that's hardest to unlock, and then grind the easier class.

You unlock classes for characters you'd create.

And for your story characters, you still need to meet the requirements to be able to pick a class and you have to level it up to get to the abilities you want to use.

JRPG always come up with the worst and most grindy character development systems, FFT clones are no stranger to this.

Besides that and if you pay no mind to the story (which is decent, nothing special, could have been worse, really), this is a good little T-RPG distraction.
 

Endemic

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JRPG always come up with the worst and most grindy character development systems, FFT clones are no stranger to this.

Doesn't have to be that way, though. Langrisser has branching classes without the need for excessive grind, for example. Appropriate experience scaling would fix some of the FFT system's problems, but maybe that's already in Fell Seal? I'm not sure.
 

Hyperion

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You can mod the amount of AP awarded per battle, and the percentage of AP non-combatants are awarded as well.

Increase it as much as you like to reduce the grind. Makes the game far more bearable, since random fights are actually more boring than FFT's.
 

Suicidal

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The skill point sharing system does alleviate the problem a bit, but still I'd wish they make it something like "once you master a class on any character you then have access to all that classes' skills".

Other than that, I love how much freedom the game gives you to make different weird party comps. I made a team of sorcerers with the engineer passive that increases damage when then character is at full HP and a peddler with AoE + doubled item effects, so as soon as the combat starts I can give my sorcerers an AoE mana stone and then when they get their turns just instantly wipe the entire map.

What's even cooler is even though this feels like an incredibly cheesy strat, it doesn't always work, for example it's bad on small maps where your team immediately starts within attacking range of the enemies.
 

pakoito

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The skill point sharing system does alleviate the problem a bit, but still I'd wish they make it something like "once you master a class on any character you then have access to all that classes' skills".

Other than that, I love how much freedom the game gives you to make different weird party comps. I made a team of sorcerers with the engineer passive that increases damage when then character is at full HP and a peddler with AoE + doubled item effects, so as soon as the combat starts I can give my sorcerers an AoE mana stone and then when they get their turns just instantly wipe the entire map.

What's even cooler is even though this feels like an incredibly cheesy strat, it doesn't always work, for example it's bad on small maps where your team immediately starts within attacking range of the enemies.
It rings a bell haha

Turns out the laziest build is just 4x Sorcerer with Dual Casting and Mana Expert, and a Gadgeteer/Alchemystic with Initiative to give them Haste and Mind+. I'm blasting through supposedly long dragged-out fights.
 

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/699170/view/5156014950385760216

2 Years since we launched our EA (and some updates)!

25cca27db4806cf2a7fd2603eaa35e57e368e115.png

2 Years!
It's been 2 years now since we launched the Early Access for Fell Seal.
Once again, we want to thank everyone for the incredible support and engagement we've received!

You guys have been truly awesome and we're very grateful!

To celebrate, we're releasing a little pack of goodies that will be placed in a "Goodies" folder under the game's files. It contains some character art, portraits and other fun knick-knacks. Give it a look!


DLC Update:
We're still wrapping up testing, but we have a big update to Missions and Monsters lined up. It'll include, amongst other things, 2 brand new monsters, some new missions and various tweaks and updates.
2116f62ac11bdbea5b472ec01b73d870f67b2ac0.gif

273c2550a7351c1e2fccdef7162de77af90c1ea9.gif


We might also have a few more surprises in the works, but we can't quite announce those yet.
Stay tuned! :)
 

Andhaira

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Looking to finally get the main game, but I was wondering: Is the expansion worth getting? The only thing that calls to me in it is the Samurai job, otherwise the monsters and the larger roster and the missions seems like a waste of time honestly. I would much rather focus on the main campaign and its side quests.

Also given the new, 9 person battles in the expansion won't you end up over-leveled by the end?
 

Darth Canoli

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Also given the new, 9 person battles in the expansion won't you end up over-leveled by the end?

It's not much of a problem since you can tune the difficulty settings up. but if you feel like the DLC isn't worth your time, you should probably play without it.

I like it, it adds some variety but i also get why someone would prefer to play without it.
 

Empary

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Looking to finally get the main game, but I was wondering: Is the expansion worth getting? The only thing that calls to me in it is the Samurai job, otherwise the monsters and the larger roster and the missions seems like a waste of time honestly. I would much rather focus on the main campaign and its side quests.

Also given the new, 9 person battles in the expansion won't you end up over-leveled by the end?

Monsters have some crazy/fun abilities combination (quickened scarab decimated things in my playthrough). Some hunts are engaging, some are boring. New gear is mixed bag. Missions are good for grinding purposes
 

Blaine

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Yeah, the backer portraits are the pits. Developers really need to stop that shit. While it's realistic for modern city-dwelling dweebazoids to appear flabby and homely, I don't want to see "real" people in my fantasy games. I want to see fantastic people.

The injury system is also entirely stupid. It might have sounded good on paper, but generally results in melee rogues (Gambler, etc.) losing a lot of AP and XP over time because they can't really do their jobs from the back line and therefore get primaried and obliterated fairly often. Reviving them doesn't remove the injury, either. Ultimately, the player is just encouraged to spam low-level patrols to remove injuries.

The anti-grinding measures also go a bit too far. Grinding XP doesn't help you in this game anyway unless you do a lot of it, since enemies and equipment scale to your level. Nerfed patrol AP (JP) coupled with forced linear ability progression (so that you can't cherry-pick the skills you want) makes it a huge chore to get newer recruits caught up or to get a few useful abilities after changing a character to a brand-new job. This can actually be tweaked in the game's config files so that patrols award the same AP as story missions, but there's nothing you can do about the linear progression or the level-scaling. This actually caused me to put the game down. I'm not one to do a lot of grinding, but there's a place for some extra training here and there and that's been made fairly tedious.

I've given this game a second chance, and I'm enjoying it this time around, due in part to the Missions and Monsters DLC.

Criticisms that still stand: The game remains full of in-your-face backer portraits featuring ugly, flabby dweebs. I don't want to see "real people" in a high fantasy TJRPG, thanks. On the one hand, most of the totally unavoidable dweebs are shopkeepers, which at least is more fitting than if they were warriors; on the other hand, many of the unique portraits available to choose from when customizing your warriors also feature ugly, flabby dweebs. This too can be mitigated by finding and formatting your own custom portraits, although that takes time and effort.

Fell Seal offers a lot of visual customization options for your generic units, but there are too damn few of them in most categories. How onerous would it have been to add more than a dozen color palette presets, for example? Someone who knows spriting (or even just Photoshop tinkering) could crank out a dozen in an afternoon. There are also a grand total of three types of eyes (anime, normal, and closed) and four mouth expressions (squiggle, huge grin, smile, neutral). Again, someone who knows what they're doing could add several types of eyes and mouths in a single day of work. That said, if you search for a portrait that the game's customization features are capable of at least vaguely matching, and work hard within the substantial restrictions, you can concoct unique-looking generic units—something few if any other TJRPGs can offer.

The default injury system is still just as retarded as before. There are alternatives in the game difficulty options—including turning injuries off entirely, which is crap (and renders certain injury-preventing abilities useless), and (a better option) permanent injuries that confer -5% to a randomly-chosen stat, with five total injuries resulting in permadeath. My problem isn't the way in which injuries hamper the player, but rather that the one and only way to remove them is to bench the injured unit. Give me the option to pay a substantial fee and receive reduced AP/XP during the next battle due to a hospital stay during which the team gets rusty... something. Anything other than "quickly speedrun a low-level random battle" being the ONLY workaround.

HOWEVER!
Missions and Monsters adds a bit (a tiny bit) of base management; visually customizable, multi-class-able monsters; and most importantly, it addresses one of my biggest earlier concerns with the game: New recruits being terrible for battle after battle until they accrue enough AP to do more than one or two things. With the DLC, you can leave those fuckers benched and just send them on repeatable training missions, even when you're not playing the game. In fact, I'm training three of my newbies as I type this. Nothing too powerful; we're talking at most half a story battle's worth of AP for half a story battle's worth of units, and no other reward. Said trainees also receive vicarious and bench AP from active battles. So, you can keep them perpetually in a training mission while the rest of your units fight story battles and patrols, then a while later—PRESTO! a serviceable unit.

The difficulty is pretty spicy. I play with custom settings to achieve my own variant of Hard (substantially harder than default Veteran difficulty): enemies will always attempt to drown your units; enemies have a large stock of items, and use them liberally; they'll raise their dead pals liberally; and they're always fully equipped, no empty slots or subpar equipment. The AI is pretty clever, as well. It knows how to retreat and turtle, it knows how to focus-fire your healer or other immediately threatening unit, it knows how to stymie your freedom to position yourself to best use your powerful/AoE abilities, it knows how to bottleneck you, etc. It can actually be pretty obnoxious at times when a bunch of randomly-generated patrol enemies drag the battle out by constantly healing and reviving themselves, or when one last enemy is doing its damnedest to hold out for one or two more turns, but that's all right, because it's tactically correct.

One last note: "Don't take any injuries" is an impossibility in this game. You will lose a unit within the first few hours unless you're playing on lower difficulty settings, or if you turtle very, very deliberately and already know what to expect (i.e. have played the game before). I didn't lose a single unit during the first boss fight, nor the second, but I lose one here and there when a bunch of standard enemies are utterly determined to gang-bang one of my units.
 

the mole

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it's a shame that a dlc for this is 12 dollars
 

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