I remember being overwhelmed by everything in the battle system the first time I played as I was trying to make good combos and focus on only the fei needed for my spells. Shooting up enemies at the same time was simply too much and I often got swarmed with shapes.
After getting used to the system however, I've come to really love the fast paced nature that turns the normally cozy connect three puzzle game into something that's packed with stress and action, decisionmaking is shifted from perfection to reaction and everything feels more like a fight. As soon as I got my mind away from "solving a puzzle" to "a battle with shapes and fei" it became immediately more fun.
I think people tend to expect a certain pace when they see connect three and have a hard time adapting to the much quicker one that's required. I really like that everything is centralized on the mouse and how some shapes chase the hand while others block where you want to move the hand. It's a neat system where everything fits together so nicely, even though it's a bit much sometimes.
My only complaint about the fighting system would be that I can't figure out some of the witches' attacking moves. At least not to a degree where fighting shapes is anywhere near easy. I like yoyo and orbit the best. There's a lot of control in the way those attack, while keeping some distance to the enemy. Starshooter and Boxing are good too but lack defense if that makes sense. It's not quite easy to deal with certain enemies or a big swarm. Mines are very defensive as the fei grid becomes a relatively save zone as long as you keep chaining feis around, though stationary enemies are very hard to deal with on the fly. Not impossible at all, but with everything going on especially in shapes battles this style becomes very unwieldy. And then there's the fly swatter attack... it feels hard to aim and just breaks if you want to attack faster. While it has great piercing (and area of attack I think?) I have to pay so much attention to where I move and turn to attack the enemy right before me. I can only barely fight other witches with it, but shapes battles seem to be almost impossible with this.
But overall I really like how natural the strengths and weaknesses of different attack types feels. Each attack has advantages against certain shapes and disadvantages agains others while not hardcoding those by saying "+20% damage against sharks" or something like that. It's something you can find out only by playing around with each style. And maybe someone else doesn't want to play with the yoyo, or super enjoys the flyswatter, and my perceived quality difference is just preference
decisionmaking is shifted from perfection to reaction and everything feels more like a fight. As soon as I got my mind away from "solving a puzzle" to "a battle with shapes and fei" it became immediately more fun.
That's a really good way to put it actually. This has always seemed obvious to me, so I never even considered that some might still see the fights as a puzzle where you need to figure out the perfect solution, which would cause frustration. Thank you, I might actually use that in a tuto page in the game!
Clarity during the fights has always been an issue, and yeah as you said being aware of what spell your enemy is going to cast next is currently one of the main problems with the fights I have to solve. Since a big announcement in the middle of the screen would get in the way, I've been thinking about adding an SFX that would change depending on the spell category (attack, heal, buff, debuff, special), which would trigger when the spell starts being cast and when it's close to being launched. Maybe change the board's background color could help too... That'll be among the changes I work on for the next version, along with a bunch of QoL more generally ^^
I'm glad you weren't afraid to experiment with the various Heartpowers as well! Each has strengths and weaknesses as you said. Most people have some trouble with the Yoyo and the Mines actually ^^
The Swatter though, that one got improved some time ago but I agree that it still needs more. Actually, just right now, I realized that making the Swatter and Fly follow the Heart might help a lot! It would be a lot easier to track their movement and trigger the splat at the right time if you know to do it when they reach the Heart, which you'll already be looking at, rather than having to keep an eye somewhere else on the screen. Definitely worth experimenting with! Thank ye :B