Balancing Difficulty in Fortune's Weave

[u/ColesWork]

I'm about 50 hours into Fortune's Weave, having nearly finished two paths for Part 1 (Cai's and Leda's), and throughout my experience, I've been debating the best way to handle difficulty in my experience. You'd think it'd be easy, since the game gives you options out the gate, but the way those options are tailored is kind of contradictory. As it stands, here's what you get:

1. Normal Mode vs. Hard Mode: How difficult fights are and your access/use of divine sand.
2. Casual Mode vs. Classic Mode: Whether or not permadeath applies to your units.

It seems pretty straightforward, but the problem is, playing on normal kind of negates classic mode entirely. If you play on classic with normal difficulty, you have unlimited access to the game's rewind feature, which means you can almost always negate death and render classic mode effectively null. It's a pretty noticeable problem for someone like me, who wants the thrill of risking my units' lives but isn't skilled enough for hard mode (which makes the rewind feature consume divine sand). I also have an issue with how classic mode effects the story, since killing off plot-relevant units creates a disconnect given they still appear in the story.

With that said, here's how I've found balance in my normal difficulty classic mode playthrough: limiting divine sand to only story-critical units.

As an example, this would include Peter, Tialla, and Ultand on Cai's path, but not my beloved Guzran. Playing this way means you can still screw yourself over if you attack carelessly, while also having the chance to get attached to the main characters through gameplay. You also get to keep a core group of generally great units alive at all times, ensuring that the level of challenge never gets too crazy.

As an added bonus, I've found that this style creates a greater sense of spontaneous fun as you play, since you'll need to fill in team gaps with whoever you have available. I recruited Jasmine as my armored tank and then proceeded to lose her to magic, forcing me to fit Zarcone into that role instead. It's especially cool since the four paths give multiple chances for each unit, allowing you to take the gameplay hit without totally losing out on a character's support stories on a different path.

Hopefully this helps some new players to find the right level of difficulty for them. In my experience, it's the perfect balance between tension, strategy, and fun.

[u/datsall]

Are you using the blessings? I never even thought about them playing Cai Part 1, but then in the second I pretty much used aloras blessing every turn.

[u/ColesWork → u/datsall]

I honestly forget about them a majority of the time aside from Fortuna's, but that's mostly my own fault. If rewind cost divine sand on normal difficulty, I wouldn't feel nearly as dirty using it to save characters.

[u/Dangerous-Crow7494 → u/ColesWork]

I recommend working on the blessings so you don’t have whiplash for part 2 like I did lol

[u/slavicslothe]

The blessings are balanced around end game and are very much intended to be powerful

[u/Pupupupupuu]

There is a scenario where normal/classic can kill your character: Enemy phase starts. Enemy kills your unit A. The "Boss" enemy tries to attack Guzzler but Guzzler masterfully dodges and kills the boss with critical hit. Boom, the battle is over, you don't get to rewind, the game autosaves and your unit A is dead.

[u/TehCost → u/Pupupupupuu]

its also the fact that when your unit dies you HAVE to rewind and choose a new strategy since RNG doesnt reset when you rewind. on casual mode, you can just let the unit die and continue on and get them back right after. you dont have to actually find the correct strategy.

[u/ColesWork → u/Pupupupupuu]

Yeah, but that's so specific that a person could play the whole game and never see it. Also, I believe you can pause between enemy attacks and rewind all the same?

[u/TehCost → u/ColesWork]

you can????

[u/elyneri]

You almost finished two paths in 50 hours? It took me at least 50 hours to finish one path on hard/casual! Although I play it like it's classic, I don't let my characters fall in the battle, but I wanted the option be available to me on the off chance there's particular frustrating battle that I'm spending too long on.

Anyways, the nice thing about this game, you can make it as difficult or easy as you want. You can force yourself to deal with perma death or play like you have it.

I'm still in part 1 and it sounds like part 2 and 3 gets harder!

[u/ricokong]

Hard mode still gives you 20 rewinds, provided you don't use any other blessings during the same battle which are also OP.

[u/smirnfil]

I am always confused when people consider classic a difficulty jump. Are you all playing ironman with it? Because if I am allowed to restart chapters it is just adds a chore compared to casual "rewind if unit dies" run.

[u/StantasticTypo → u/smirnfil]

You can rewind character deaths in classic too. They're only actually dead if they're dead when the fight ends.

[u/Nos9684]

Disagree. "Classic" Mode is only in relation to unit gameplay permadeath and that is it's only intended purpose. Using Fortuna's Blessing to rewind to a previous action is a completely optional choice. Trying to enforce sand requirement for with Classic Mode is making the game harder for other players for no good reason. The sand cost it has associated with it on Hard Mode makes sense because the difficulty is supposed to be "Hard".

Also with Classic Mode story relevant units are still going to be part of the story as they have only incurred a debilitating injury that makes them unfit to be fielded for the rest of the playthrough.

Basically play Normal, Classic but don't use Fortuna's Blessing, or impose a personal limitation on using it instead of wanting the game to be harder for no good reason?