Hey all! I took a few days off the project to settle in after my move, but I still wanted to show you my current progress on Skills and Trading. Make sure to read to the end to answer a gameplay question!

Skills

I’ve been keeping track of every personal skills and their respective owners in a spreadsheet for a while and wanted to add a few in the engine, so I added 9 of them in the current build. Here are the new skills and what they do.

Note that every value can (most probably will) be altered during testing, but the core functionality will remain the same.

Stealth : If this unit has less than 50% HP left, enemies will target this unit last.

This Skill was tested in multiple scenarios where the unit who has this skill, the early game pickpocket, would have died, but ended up surviving because of it. With enough planning, this could potentially allow for a frail pickpocket to venture further into the battlefield to loot without being surrounded and killed. Note that this does not protect from OHKO, so you still have to be careful with your placement.

Taunt : If this unit has more than 50% HP left, enemies will target this unit first.

Like Stealth, this Skill was tested in scenarios where healers and archers would have been in serious danger, but survived because of it. The HP limit is there to prevent attracting too many enemies. Note that this doesn’t become Stealth when under 50% HP, the bonus modifier to the enemy priority AI is removed, so you still have to be mindful of your surroundings.

Mentor : Grants 50% more experience to allies within 3 tiles (excluding himself).

This is Malcolm, the Mercenary’s Skill, who is a Jagen-like character. This Aura Skill allows him to remain useful throughout the game and help leveling up units with lower join levels. This bonus is taken into account for any experience gain (but not Weapon Experience), so Battling, Unlocking, Refreshing and Healing will all be affecting by this bonus.

Frenzy : Grants 20% hit rate when critical chance is over 50%.

This skill will likely only be triggered from melee range with a critical boosting weapon and either a class specific critical bonus or a support critical bonus making this unit an extreme glass cannon unit. Note that Critical Axe is just a placeholder.

Wrath : Grants 50% bonus critical chance when this unit has less than 50% HP left.

I had to rework the entire battle formula to allow for skills like this to work mid-battle, but I’m glad I did. This really makes it so you have to be very careful against enemies with this skill by using archers and ranged weapons before going in for the kill.

Confidence : Grants 15% bonus critical chance when hit rate is 100%.

This skill will be given to low Strength, high Skill units to boost their damage output. It also makes Critical based promotion choices for these characters very interesting. On enemies, it forces the player to use the Weapon Triangle Advantage to prevent this Skill from activating.

Optimism : Grants 25% bonus critical chance when hit rate is under 75%.

This is meant to be a high risk, high reward skill for less accurate axe users. This skill makes Neutral WTA scenarios worth it.

Quick Feet : Grants +1 movement.

Self explanatory, but it allows Gwen to become a more mobile General, or a foot unit with the same movement as a cavalry unit. This skill also works if she promotes to Knifht>Defender and gains a horse.

Cowardly : Grants +5 damage dealt when this unit’s HP is full. However, grants -5 damage dealt when this unit’s HP is under 50%.

After playing through a few different scenarios, I can see this skill being both a blessing and a curse, which is the entire role of a coward in an army, so it fits perfectly. I’ll leave it up to players to come up with creative ways to make this work!

Trading

Trading is now a WIP!

I’ve been thinking about trading in FE and how units auto-equip the highest weapon in their inventory that they can wield, which can both be good or bad.

That said, I have three scenarios to suggest. Could you help me decide which one would be the best in your opinion?

Don’t auto equip weapons on trade. So if you trade away your target’s equipped weapon, they will be unequipped unless they can still act themselves this turn. Note that if you trade your own equipped weapon, you’ll be able to equip it in the Items menu. Auto equip both unit’s highest weapon in their inventories. Only auto equip a weapon if it’s at the top slot in the inventory, so if you want to leave a unit unequipped, you can do it too.

Thanks a lot for your feedback. You can leave it either on Reddit or Facebook.

Character Teaser

Margo is being reworked right now, so I’ll showcase Linus, the Fighter, instead! I hope you like him!

Thanks for reading this update,

Coco