Every change we make or decision is based on do we think people will enjoy the game!

Who dis Simon guy, looks a lot like this Hades fella

Well done for the brave decisions!

I’m excited for the new direction, can’t wait to get to work!

TAKE THIS ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE FACE!!! As a fan of your channel and content, I'm looking foward to whatever you put out because I know and trust that you and your team are making a game with a gamer's heart. All of your hard work will pay off, no matter how many setbacks there are. Don't give up!!!

This is all about knowing your audience, details matter!! Hats off for doing what is best rather than what is quick or easy

I agree with the grid system being too complicated for the average player. That was one of my biggest knocks on Dragonheir. Average players don't have the time or resources to try hundreds of grid combinations to find the exact combo to beat a level/boss. It takes away some of the fun when every encounter requires a very specific setup that you have to copy from someone else. DH: Grave of Venom is a perfect example of this. I watched a YT video and was farming the top level. My wife was stuck on lvl 4-5 with better champs because she doesn't watch guides. She got really frustrated and wanted to quit because she couldn't beat it. I rearranged her team and she cleared the top level. Then at some point, she moved 1 champ, 1 square over and her team started failing again. Neither of us play it anymore.

Fateless crew, take all the time you need, i trust your judgment considering your reputation with game genres like this, and being a player yourself, you understand what players want. In closing, in exchange for my patience and understanding i will accept 1 legendary hero waiting for me in my inbox on launch day. 🎉

As Always, what a thrill to accompany Fateless on this journey. Sooooo Cool! Thanks for allowing us to follow along in this adventure. cheers mate

As a strategy game enjoyer It makes me sad seeing that this combat style won’t be implemented into the game but know your audience I guess. Would Fateless ever consider creating another game in the future that would be more strategy focused?

Thank you! Stopped playing Dragonheir because of that grind system, couldn't force myself to continue and stayed in raid because of the simplicity, but with the depth raid has you know.

Never liked to grid system honestly, that's why I only play Raid right now.

One thing that i find so cool is that SImon at some point was a wow player, hear him talk about M&M and WOW core RPG mechanics is a great sign for what is to come he has played so many games so he can cherry pick the best out of all the games instead of this non gamer Devs that dont even play the game they create.

When you are dedicated to creating the best product possible for your ideas and vision, hard decisions are inevitable necessary. Stay committed and keep working hard and you will achieve your goals!

The reason I love to play raid is because the combat almost feels the same as in the Old Pokémon games for gameboy. Easy turn base select your own skill, etc...

Im glad you moved away from that system - I understand the appeal but I think the Raid Shadow Legends style of characters is just the most enjoyable for a gacha. Ultimately there are a lot of us who like to collect the heroes - and when I play knowing “attacks all” or attacks one is easy to understand, plus using taunts/shields for tanking I think works well and is easy to understand

Thanks for sharing! The grid system sounds cool but I have to agree that it might be too much up front. Part of why I do t play tower defense or dragon heir style games is because I don’t want to deal with character placement like that. I love the strategy behind raid but there is much less tactical stuff to go along with it

Thanks so much for letting us all tag along for the ride as you develop the game! It will be amazing once its ready. I prefer a well made game over a rushed out mess anyway!

I'm with you, those sketches are worthy of hanging on the wall. And you're right, even the greatest minds in human history had to scrap their initial plans and find a different, better way. That you've done such a good job of organizing in the first place is why even a monumental change like this isn't a huge setback in terms of development. Kudos! I'm even more excited to see the finished game.

Interesting as always, thanks Simon. It is great to see that you are really listening to your testers and are able to see the game from the perspective of a new player.

As you were explaining the system, I was thinking "Wow, that sounds so cool!" but as you explained the problems with it and yoru excitement for the new system, you convinced me that a change was needed. Now I really really want to know about the new system. I feel like so much of this is overlooked by developers who aren't also gamers. It's really cool that you guys are really taking a deep look into these systems and that you're willing to change directions when it's needed. I cannot wait for this game!

I love the concept you described but I do understand what you were saying. Knowing you, I'm really exited to see what the new mechanics are

You have an incredible team. I have studied teams. It is extremely important to have critical listening skills. God gave us two ears and one mouth. He let us know what is more important. For solving complex questions with multiple answers, a great team is the best for this type of problem solving. It sounds like you are not letting ego get in the way of solving problems. Looking forward to see what you came up with.

This reminds of a mix of Enchanted arms ( grid system ) and Lost Odyssey ( Front line makes a Dmg reduction WALL based on HP to keep back row alive ) which forces you to take down the front row first to deal more damage to the back row.

The two row grid system would give some interesting strategy. Maybe a "Piercing" ability that attacks a front row and the champion directly behing the target.

I love the confidence and humility with which you present your considerations. Big decisions well made!

Super excited to see what the change is. The grid system was a great idea!! Maybe better used for a larger scale game rather than a mobile hero collector

Every gacha player is counting on you guys! It feels so obvious to me that you can make a much better gacha turn based rpg game than competitors. Keep up the good work!

Solid logic. I'm so happy you moved away from the grid idea. It's actually one of the reasons I quit playing Dragonheir to be honest.

Thanks for the game update. Love to see this journey and be along for the ride of a video game that may just be a favorite of mine.

OMG! Eye of the beholder. Absolutely loved the game. That little scene brought back some memories.

If all game developers were transparent like this, I believe it would make games turn out so much better. It allows for feedback and shows that the developers really care about their players and the game. Thank you for this.

I am glad you didn't do the grid thing. The game would not have been as popular. I know personally I wouldn't have liked it as much. Glad you changed it.

I hope all the hard work is also fun. Looking forward to the game!

I used to play games for hours on end and would love to explore and learn all I could about a game. Ive even recently downloaded games like Wuthering Waves, Diablo Immortal but uninstalled them just after a week. They're too involving, not many people want to play games that involve a lot of play time eapcially on mobile. I'm a dad and auto battle in games and progressing has been the way to go for me and I know its that way with a lot of people as well. We just simply dont have the time.

Good call on the pivot I'm not a fan of grid system

I'd really love that grid kind of complexity for a boss level, it would be an interesting challenge. For normal progression and grinding it would definitely be too much

Wow, the idea you pivoted from actually sounded unique and interesting. Let's hope it's not just a clone of Raid's battle system now...

I'm a huge fan of tactical combat (FF tactics being one of the best ever made), but totally agree in the change of direction. It would make it too tedious for the player to casually farm/grind. Macro automations and auto-battle would be crazy complex, etc. You can always keep "basic" positional attacks like splash dmg or whatever, but otherwise it needs to be brain dead simple. The complexity is in the team and hero builds. Good decision! Would be a great "spin off" game as a tactical variant in the future!

I love this type of grid-based as in Disciples 2, but I know i'm a very small minority and I can understand catering to a larger audience. Can't wait to see the new direction

The grid system did look fricken cool but I beleive you guys are right about the complexity of that system for newer players to learn. The learning curve would be a lot higher! So good on you guys for making the heart wrenching decision of scrapping and finding a different angle! Good job guys! Keep up the good work and ill be rooting for fateless on the sidelines!

10:03 Honestly, Smart Move ditching the grid. I really don’t like styles like say, watcher of realms, compared to Raid and Omniheroes…I def prefer being able to control each hero’s moves-like who they attack. But WoR is TOO involved and Omniheroes is a little too hands off. But I like a team of 5 or 6 approaching a similar size group of enemies.

Appreciate the transparency...good that you guys can make the tough decisions. Game will better off for it.

This game is going in the right direction... 👌

I'm curious how f2p friendly your game will be compared to the likes of other games from the genre, I know it is a business at the end of the day but raid for example is such a money hungry game that it's kind of put me off further games in the same genre

Another really insightful look at the creation of a game. It must have been so painful to have to reach the decion to stop, regroup and change direction. Tough call for you the investors & also for the developers, coders etc in the background. You never know though there might well be a future game in the work that you have done, From what you were showing, the combat really looked interesting. Onwards & Upwards 👍👍👍

Thanks for the inside scoop, really interesting stuff. Already doing a great job building the community

In a Roman faction, I would love to see a champion Called Jesus, A1 thou art with me, 25% heal on target Ally with a 15% shield based on max hp, A2, the Lord blessing, heals himself 100% of max hp and all Allies by 50% of surplus heal on a 4 turn cooldownl, A3, Rebuke of Sin, places a passive debuff on all enemies preventing them from attacking for one turn on a 4 turn cooldown, A4, passive skill, No harm shall come to thee, places a block damage buff on self for one turn on a 5 turn cooldown

Its interesting to see this because I’m building a gotcha game myself, in Unity, only as a hobby really but I do plan to release it. I also started off with a grid system with a frontline, midline, backline. I also realised that especially for mobile and the gotcha genre it was too complex and basically trimmed the system down to be more similar to other gotcha games like Summoners War and Raid, and most gotcha games tbh lol.

I really like what I have seen from Fateless so far. I just really hope the champ summoning system isn’t based on terrible gambling odds like in raid or a lot of other games. We all know what it’s like to save up a ton of shards like in Raid for example. And only wind up feeling disappointment. The feeling of seeing months of grinding and saving get completely wasted from bad odds. If you can avoid making the players feel those feelings and truly enjoy your game. You will have the best game out there.

Being a 30+ year veteran of games like Dungeon Master, EotB, NWN, WoW, etc, I was super impressed with what it was going to be, and I’m super excited to see what it will be!

the grid system that was scrapped could still be used for a different game, maybe not necessarily a live service hero collector but rather a nice indie single player game with some multiplayer elements.

all part of the discovery process, this is not just game design but any large project, need to trial stuff and see what works then decide what to run with, thanks for sharing its interesting to hear

I think this is the right choice. Cause as you point out its gonna be too complex. I would also dare say that making the grid system automatic is even harder? The thing i like about raid is getting the champion compositions to work together and "play eachother" better and i think doing way more "tactical" stuff by having to use the grid like that just wouldnt be for me. Looking forward to see what system you ended up doing :-)

That's such a great decision, and your transparency and how you are listening to the community is simply astonishing and to be commended. I played the Raid beta but there wasn't a sense of their actually listening to feedback. I notice that you have a turn order pane. Please keep that. It reminds me of FFX, which was a fantastic game; you could learn a lot from it!

The grid seemed interesting but I could definitely see the problems with it, either way I’m not a game developer so I’ll just put my trust in your team lol, you guys got this

I don't mind too much complexity, well as long as I can setup the run to be full auto afterwards. Look forward to what will actually be implemented

As many issues as I had with my 'Game and Simulation design 101' teacher (namely him 'losing' my work on certain projects) - there was one thing he was right about if you wanted to make the next big game like CoD, WoW, etc, and it may be something you heard before - Keep It Simple, Stupid. It can vary a bit depending on the game type, but generally speaking, while you can have 'depth' in terms of more advanced players able to dig in deeper and generate or find more complex things, part of why Raid works is that it can be played at a shallow level. Also two things I'm gonna note from what was said here. First - yeah, save involving other IP for some cross-over events and the like, such as Raid with Monster Hunter (though maybe better done so it was visible for people on a break and all), better to try and do your own thing. Second - and this is something to learn from raid - DO NOT make it a fixed thing where you HAVE to have x,y,z type of champion. One of the biggest issues in Raid is the RNG champ pulls that can hold you back in content either generally (the dungeons) or specifically (Faction Wars). I can not tell you how absolutely infuriating it is now more than 4 years in - and I've been as of yet unable to complete things like Orc's or Skinwalkers cause I don't have a healer, or a solid reviver, or someone to do certain debuffs or whatever else. If you want to have one, maybe 2 specific things - akin to Raid's clan boss or basically a 'challenge level' that is more extras or bragging rights than progression (hard mode dungeons), awesome, but the 'general' content that are more progression/farming - please, ffs, do not make it where if you don't have a certain champion type your bashing your head against the wall for 4 years till you finally get it or give up. Also - I very much doubt it'll be the last thing you out right scrap or massively modify. Least if your doing it right or get incredibly lucky, cause game design is a freaking job that can be hard AF. Why as much as I get annoyed at Plarium for the stupid stuff (Geomancer's passive being actually broken vs Clan Boss) when it comes to the stuff that is actually hard to foresee (certain interactions between champion combinations) and actual things that just take time and all to make, develop, or fix - I'm not in the group going 'why wasn't it done yesterday'.

I'm super glad about this I've never been a fan of a grid system, well done for making a difficult choice

I think you nailed it at 6:42 " Too much complexity for the average player ." I imagine you have surrounded yourself with people who are higher end of the IQ scale , as I would guess you yourself are , so it makes it hard to relate to what the " average player " is . All that said , what you all were coming up with had the potential to be very interesting . Raid is great , but quite mindless in most areas of the game . Would love to see some really cool strategy required for bosses and levels , rather than just " once you get " champ name here " you can beat " boss name here " , which is how Raid feels most of the time . Can't wait to see what you all come up with .

If you're going to still hold on to more complex abilities, even without your grid, the AI needs to be really smart, or even better, solid AI but do a better job of giving the players the ability to pick and choose what's used than Raid has. They've done a good job, but it could be way better. Also, scope changes are a thing. As long as you can manage the other two project resources, it's not the end of the world. Better to pivot a bit than dig in and push out something that just isn't working.

I know this is a lofty statement but I really hope this game takes at least a bite out of Plarium's lunch!

You could have a system like darkest dungeon with 4 heroes in a row (Behind one each over with skills that hit differend positions on the enemy side)

Thank you Simon for the update and keeping all of us so well informed of your journey. As a former WoW player myself I have to admit that grid based is not my favorite and that is due to WoW in my opinion. I unlike you have not such a wide variety of games played because I tend to focus hard on one primary game at a time that I enjoy. That being said I can say my introduction to online gaming was actually not a "video" game but a text based game. Not that it matters much I look forward to future news of your journey and even more so the release of what is likely to be an epic game.

i think it would be cool to have a dungeon like in the old games where you take a champ or a team and work your way down the levels with the maps and fight monsters along the way for rewards and then to the final boss for the prize. i used to love doing that!

Good call on moving away from that. It would have been an immediate uninstall if I saw that. Hope things are going well with the new system. These vids/updates are nice.

Really appreciate the unprecedented levels of transparency. I'd enjoy a mode where your teams stays in one place and you defend against waves of ever more difficult enemies, with the ability to tag in new heroes from your bench until you've exhausted your roster.

Props for making the tough decisions to try and get it right even if it delays release.

Having the courage to notice the weakness of the system being currently developped is not easy. Well done, im 100% sure you'll not regret the decision and the final game will be much better.

Love the direction this game is going keep up the good work also if I’d say one thing is that you heavily invested in character designs and character volume

I think that was a great decision. I agree with the reasoning behind the change. I'm one of the thousands of people anxiously awaiting this game and I love seeing these behind the scenes look at the process of creating it. Keep up the great work Fateless team!

Looking forward to playing this game. Hope it doesn't take too long because the anxiety is killing me! So far, it's Looking pretty sweet!

I'm a game dev too, Game designer as well, and it is easy to just add more and more mechanics and forget that original goal of keeping things Simple. I feel you Simon.

Thanks for these videos. Cool game development insights. Really enjoy these behind the curtain technical and business decisions processes.

Gotta agree with dropping the grid. I've played a number of designs that work that way, and they just don't hook me. It's like there's just too much decision cycle for something that I desire to be more casual. Sort of a compromise between a really detailed RPG and the collection games.

Personally I’m pleased you went in this direction. It’s tough though because your audience probably thinks they want another Raid but with less expensive packs… but you absolutely must be different and set yourselves apart somehow. It’s a tough gig. I really hope you guys keep some elements of Raid because it really is a good game fundamentally. Either way I’m sure it’ll be a success.

Respect, I think this is one of the most important things to have right on the game

Interesting topic, well presented and a big picture lesson to boot. I'd watch "Fateless Indie Game Development" if it were a reality TV show.

Thanks (as always) for sharing the journey. The devil really is in the details, so to speak.

Tbh, that grid system is my main gameplay problem with Dragonheir. That's on top of me absolutely hating the way their summons are. The grid system there is pretty vague and just promotes trial and error. It doesn't show you exactly the path your champ will take to engage an enemy which is beyond annoying. "Oh, I will place this champ here and they will take a straight line path to this enemy". Champ: proceeds to move like it's on a checker board and gets stopped by a tank.

I love how your videos always radiate positivity. It's like a virtual hug!

Right decisions in the development is cheaper than cancelling the project after deployed, like Harry Potter Wizards Unite, the Pokemon Go based system, they made energy non rechargeable, if the player lived in a country place, after a few minutes you would run out of energy without a way to recharge. This issue was right at your face and they carried on with it anyway 🤦🏻‍♂️

I would suggest talking to high level chess players when dabbing in grid like systems, they should have an immense mind for what is a good grid strategy in terms of how complex the actual grid system is paired with the interaction of various units on the grid. In most cases the grid should be very simple and the units to unit interactions should be what makes the game complex imo.

I've been incredibly excited for this game since the announcement, and I have to say I'm glad you all decided not to go this direction. I think it's a great idea and adds a skill ceiling and complexity to a pretty simple genre, but I feel like the abilities of the heroes could've gotten very convoluted very quickly. Hero X heals people on the same row, hero Y heals but only heroes in the row in front of them so on so on. Same abilities but the only difference is the squares it effects just wouldn't make me excited to pull another champ that does the same thing. Still incredibly excited and this only makes me trust the Fateless team heading forward even more with big decisions.

In the nicest way possible, so glad you ditched the grid. But I’m very keen to see how the game shapes over time with the team on it

I know it’s frustrating to rework things that resources have been committed to, but that’s a major part of the development process. It’s so important (and difficult) to not fall into the sunk cost fallacy and stay agile. And an important lesson to share. It’s like writing. You might have an amazing scene that has to be cut from the story because it doesn’t fit into the narrative or the style of that story, but it might be able to be used in another work. At the very worst, you learnt from it.

Don't get rid of this system. Keep it to bring in as an end game system, that doesn't directly impact on the main gameplay but can challenge players when they get bored of the normal content.

Final Fantasy definitely was a turn based rpg because the story & characters are significant. The story in these are generally not significant enough that I'd call this a roll playing game. Maybe make an actual mode where you have to use story rpg characters & have them make real decisions.

As a prod self proclaimed stratagem 😅 Make both games Simon!

I trust your judgement looking foward to playing it in the future

Thank you for not using a grid system. I have played several of these types of games, and raid is the only game I still play.

I stopped playing raid a year ago, still have 30 Sacreds sitting on there and 100+ Voids, been waiting for your game since, and I'll remain patient knowing you guys are doing your utmost to make a great game.

Thank you so much for scaping that...Grid system is a very rigid one...Congratulations on your big decision... totally with you guys...one request: Do not make this game Region locked...make this game available for all players over the globe...

That system looks awesome, would be great to see a game with it in for more complex gamers in the future maybe?

I love that you call yourself Simon at the start, then go back to hell hades mid video!

I actually think later into the games life coming back to this idea and using something similar to this for end game content would be great for a new challenge to get long time players thinking hard even if they have all the best champs and gear.

While full grid seems too complex, then how about bit simplifier system like Darkest Dungeon? Or keep the grid invisible as each hero is locked at certain distance (front, middle, back) and have their attacks covers certain ranges.

Its like, Heroes of Might and Magic. Love that game.

Really good video. I do some indie game design/development and find trying to balance complexity and ease of play to be one of the most difficult things. Players need to be able to easily jump into the game and just play. However, without some level of complexity the game can lack depth and get old quick.

Hi Simon, why not implement a gradual increase of skills for your character,so players wont be overwhelmed....and also the skills character can differ.