How to better balance FE4.

[God of Humility]

So, FE4 is probably my favourite FE ever but I noticed it lacked a lot of balance. Yes, any unit can be a killing machine, but some things, especially weapons are really too unbalanced. This is probably mybiggest gripe with the game.

Take for example the magic tomes. Fire, Thunder and Wind all have the exact same power and accuracy, but they differ in weight. This means that Wind, the lightest of the three is undeniably better than the other two and there is no real reason to give a ElFire tome to someone with the Elwind tome. Its sometimes better to just have a wind tome than a Volcanon just for the boost in speed and evade. The same thing is applicable to swords that are just plain better in nearly every field as well as axes being too heavy to be useful as well as being untransferable.

So, I plan to make a very simple patch with Nightmare of the rom to better balance the game and make every wepon/magic tome useful or at least to give some advantages to every weapon. I'd like suggestions from you people with so much more experience with the game. The patch will be for persolnal use but I could share it if you guys wanted.

These are some of the things I plan to change:

1. The magic tomes are a must-change. The wind tome presents no disadvantage to the other two. I thought that maybe it could benefit from FE10's system in which every magic had its high points. Wind was very accurate and light, Fire was stronger but heavier and less accurate, while Thunder had a higher critical rate. Obviously, critical rates don't work the same way but I'd like to keep the same spirit while balancing these. I'd need your suggestions on these.

2. Axes are really not useful compared to the other weapons. So, I thought that they should first be transferable to the second generation so they could keep the kill count and be available earlier (I think this should be possible if we give an Axe rank to a kid in the second gen. I assume axes share the animation with other weapons. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.) They should also probably be made less heavy and/or more accurate. Swords, on the other hand are so favorised with their special skills and light weight.

3. Giving skills/better growths to males who are generally not used as a father. Some, like Lex are almost always a father while others, like Ardan are nearly never fathers. Its inevitable that one is better thant the other, but I think it should be made more even so that most guys give a specific advantage to every children. I'll really need your advice for this one.

4. This is really minor, but it irks me that some Holy Weapons give more stat boosts than others (Narga excluded). For example, Tyrfing gives a total of 40 stat points and a skill while Ichieval gives 20 stat points total and a skill. But, as I said, its not really important.

5. Anything else you guys see useful for balancing purposes.

I know such a project has probably been done but I just felt like it would be a fun thing to experiment with as well as correcting what I think is FE4's biggest mistake.

[TheEnd]

You might like this, if you don't mind the Japanese.

[God of Humility]

I know about that patch, it looks really promising, but what I'm talking about would be much closer to the real FE4. I'd just like every weapon type to be useful as well as every character bringing something to the team and every father bringing something unique to their children.

[AstraLunaSol]

1. The magic tomes are a must-change. The wind tome presents no disadvantage to the other two. I thought that maybe it could benefit from FE10's system in which every magic had its high points. Wind was very accurate and light, Fire was stronger but heavier and less accurate, while Thunder had a higher critical rate. Obviously, critical rates don't work the same way but I'd like to keep the same spirit while balancing these. I'd need your suggestions on these.

2. Axes are really not useful compared to the other weapons. So, I thought that they should first be transferable to the second generation so they could keep the kill count and be available earlier (I think this should be possible if we give an Axe rank to a kid in the second gen. I assume axes share the animation with other weapons. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.) They should also probably be made less heavy and/or more accurate. Swords, on the other hand are so favorised with their special skills and light weight.

3. Giving skills/better growths to males who are generally not used as a father. Some, like Lex are almost always a father while others, like Ardan are nearly never fathers. Its inevitable that one is better thant the other, but I think it should be made more even so that most guys give a specific advantage to every children. I'll really need your advice for this one.

4. This is really minor, but it irks me that some Holy Weapons give more stat boosts than others (Narga excluded). For example, Tyrfing gives a total of 40 stat points and a skill while Ichieval gives 20 stat points total and a skill. But, as I said, its not really important.

Binary fixed that.

IIRC The Hero axe you get in Ch6 is from the first gen with it's kill counts and everything, also you can eventually buy everything back. Having them inherit would mean they'd need a class that can accept axes.

Binary

It's amazing how useful Arden is all of a sudden. Not top tier but still better

But look at Tyrfing's availability, also it's really only useful in the final chapter, where mages are everywhere.

[Parrhesia]

More stuff for Ichival (or even just reduce the weight from twelve), but I concur with Astra that Tyrfing's fine as is. I mean, he is The Lord, right?

Alec and Ardan need Steel Swords and Noish needs something that complements his stats. Like anything besides Crit and Charge, basically.

Edited November 20, 2010 by Furetchen

[Narga_Rocks]

More stuff for Ichival (or even just reduce the weight from twelve), but I concur with Astra that Tyrfing's fine as is. I mean, he is The Lord, right?

Alec and Ardan need Steel Swords and Noish needs something that complements his stats. Like anything besides Crit and Charge, basically.

Actually, Ardan seemed to have better luck fighting through parts of arenas with a slim sword rather than a steel sword. As for Alec and a steel sword, you can do that yourself pretty easily to start chapter 1. It's just the prologue where it would be nice I guess.

And Ichival is a -3 AS bow (+10 spd but 13 wt), similar to the Killer Bow. Frankly that's good enough. There aren't even very many swords that weigh less than 3 (slim and thief. maybe more but I don't feel like checking). Better to raise its hit from 70. I'd be more concerned about the 15 wt lance that is supposed to be Altenna's best weapon but often is very much not. When she can OHKO stuff with it, sure, it's the best for player phase (and you can swap out to a different weapon for enemy phase) but otherwise she's better with a Hero weapon or after promotion simply something that she'll have a prayer of doubling with. Gaeborg is alright in that it is a 40 mt weapon with 90 hit and gives +10 def, but it's still kinda bad as far as holy weapons go.

As for Noish, if you want a skill that complements his stats you'll need to find something that activates based off strength somehow. Like, create one. Most stuff in this game somehow involves skill or spd, and he's got bad stats for both.

[Parrhesia]

Actually, Ardan seemed to have better luck fighting through parts of arenas with a slim sword rather than a steel sword. As for Alec and a steel sword, you can do that yourself pretty easily to start chapter 1. It's just the prologue where it would be nice I guess.

And Ichival is a -3 AS bow (+10 spd but 13 wt), similar to the Killer Bow. Frankly that's good enough. There aren't even very many swords that weigh less than 3 (slim and thief. maybe more but I don't feel like checking). Better to raise its hit from 70. I'd be more concerned about the 15 wt lance that is supposed to be Altenna's best weapon but often is very much not. When she can OHKO stuff with it, sure, it's the best for player phase (and you can swap out to a different weapon for enemy phase) but otherwise she's better with a Hero weapon or after promotion simply something that she'll have a prayer of doubling with. Gaeborg is alright in that it is a 40 mt weapon with 90 hit and gives +10 def, but it's still kinda bad as far as holy weapons go.

As for Noish, if you want a skill that complements his stats you'll need to find something that activates based off strength somehow. Like, create one. Most stuff in this game somehow involves skill or spd, and he's got bad stats for both.

You have me there. As for Alec, I missed out on the Sword of Efficient Slaughter in the Prologue, and Alec only got the Sword of Manliness after Steels became very, very obsolete indeed...so, Alec being one of my favourite characters in FE, I'm probably somewhat biased in favour of giving him free things.

Great Shield?...Maybe raise his skill and keep Critical, replace Charge with Ambush or something. Does Ambush work all the time (when at low health) in FE4?

Edited November 20, 2010 by Furetchen

[Narga_Rocks]

You have me there. As for Alec, I missed out on the Sword of Efficient Slaughter in the Prologue, and Alec only got the Sword of Manliness after Steels became very, very obsolete indeed...so, Alec being one of my favourite characters in FE, I'm probably somewhat biased in favour of giving him free things.

Yeah, fe4 really isn't big on giving hints for how to do stuff that doesn't involve internal chats. That's pretty much all they give info on. You are supposed to guess the rest. Some things come with hints though, like Sigurd is told to get Levin to go to that castle in chapter 4 and you better do what you are told there. I don't know how you are supposed to guess that you can talk to that NPC running towards Sigurd.

Great Shield?...Maybe raise his skill and keep Critical, replace Charge with Ambush or something. Does Ambush work all the time (when at low health) in FE4?

Ambush works whenever you are at half or less health. If you really want to favour him, you could perhaps give him Ambush and arrange for Patty's sleep sword to actually exist in gen1. That would at least help him clear out all the arenas. And he has the strength such that it isn't ridiculously expensive to do so like it is with a Patty that can't Moonlight or Crit.

[Icon of Sin]

Does Ambush work all the time (when at low health) in FE4?

It does, unless someone else activates his own Ambush. AFAIK Awareness only blocks Criticals and sword skills.

Anyway according to God of Humility's wishes :

1. I guess they could make fire stronger and wind weaker much like axes and swords. As for the tome weights, obviously I'd lower fire, thunder, Aura and maybe dark tomes overall, but I'd also put more weight on stronger tomes. Tornado doesn't deserve to have the same weight as Wind for instance.

2. Axes mostly need lower weight and better classes to use them. The sword skills shouldn't be affected to a type of weapon, though if it should've been, IMO melee 1 range only would've been perfect.

3. Arden had the added utility of being able to pass many different kinds of weapons, but since no one promoted him and since Lex had the same skill + Elite, that didn't help his case. Otherwise I feel most fathers are fine as it is. Even Noish, who is not quite a top tier unit, is a great father for females giving birth to children with Pursuit.

4. ASL hit the nail nicely on this one.

[Parrhesia]

I don't know how you are supposed to guess that you can talk to that NPC running towards Sigurd.

Eh. I thought of Alvis as more of a time limit to kill the fleshy XP bags than anything, and was too busy hacking things apart. That summarises FE4, really...stuff like the Holy Weapons're pretty blatantly obvious (I'm almost certain that Aideen outright says that she carries Ichiaval, the Bow of Ulir, because she's searching directly for someone with Major Ulir, who looks identically like her, and is called Briggid. That was...less than subtle, there. And, of course, Palmark and Byron, even though I couldn't be arsed to save the former) down to the stuff in villages that goeth completely unexpected (woo speedring who'd i give it to oh Fin damn).

[Narga_Rocks]

Eh. I thought of Alvis as more of a time limit to kill the fleshy XP bags than anything, and was too busy hacking things apart. That summarises FE4, really...stuff like the Holy Weapons're pretty blatantly obvious (I'm almost certain that Aideen outright says that she carries Ichiaval, the Bow of Ulir, because she's searching directly for someone with Major Ulir, who looks identically like her, and is called Briggid. That was...less than subtle, there. And, of course, Palmark and Byron, even though I couldn't be arsed to save the former) down to the stuff in villages that goeth completely unexpected (woo speedring who'd i give it to oh Fin damn).

Um, actually Fin is a great character for the speedring. Just give him Cuan's Steel Lance and now he can actually kill stuff (Cuan 2HKOs whether he uses iron or steel anyway). It makes the difference between doubling and not on a ton of enemies. Who else are you going to give it to? Alec? He uses swords. Azel? Maybe, but he can't reach enemies before your mounts kill them.

As for Aideen talking to Briggid, there's also the fact that the unit list tells you they can talk. Similarly with Ethlin and Cuan.

And why not save Palmark? +20 res is amazing. Especially with the magic rich chapter coming up after it. Even if your Celice was under-trained, that's a +10 skill weapon and makes him faster than he can be with slim. +3 AS instead of -1, or -3 with silver.

Edited November 20, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Parrhesia]

Um, actually Fin is a great character for the speedring. Just give him Cuan's Steel Lance and now he can actually kill stuff (Cuan 2HKOs whether he uses iron or steel anyway). It makes the difference between doubling and not on a ton of enemies. Who else are you going to give it to? Alec? He uses swords. Azel? Maybe, but he can't reach enemies before your mounts kill them.

As for Aideen talking to Briggid, there's also the fact that the unit list tells you they can talk. Similarly with Ethlin and Cuan.

And why not save Palmark? +20 res is amazing. Especially with the magic rich chapter coming up after it. Even if your Celice was under-trained, that's a +10 skill weapon and makes him faster than he can be with slim. +3 AS instead of -1, or -3 with silver.

Oh, he did great with it. Then he left the party with one of my most sought-after items.

There is also that.

Underlevelled, hilariously stat-screwed in everything that isn't skill, had no knowledge of exactly how many goddamn sleep-stavers there'd be in the next level...

[Narga_Rocks]

Oh, he did great with it. Then he left the party with one of my most sought-after items.

Well, obviously since I know he lives I sell it before then. Though couldn't you just re-load after he leaves and sell it?

Underlevelled, hilariously stat-screwed in everything that isn't skill, had no knowledge of exactly how many goddamn sleep-stavers there'd be in the next level...

Still, it's an amazing weapon and as a "just in case" it's never a good idea to pass up something with +20 res.

Too bad you didn't get him the elite ring to start gen 2, though. Even stat screwed, a promoted Celice is definitely worth having around. Also his promotion gives him 5 more str.

Of course, missing the silver sword of destruction is a problem. Mine had like 55 kills after gen 1 and is at 70 or something for chapter 9. My Celice seems to enjoy getting spd-screwed and yet he's still among my most useful characters in every playthrough. Just having 9 move and +20 hit/avo to everyone nearby is already fantastic.

[Parrhesia]

You fail to account for how stubborn I am.

Yeah, there was a point at which Celice was asleep for three turns on the Seize point. And I'd thought "It's cool we got time to spare before we attack and I can just keep Libroing from safety." (Restore was broken). ...Then Mayngbleg appeared and it became literally impossible to keep Celice alive. ...Last save was when I was marching on Edda.

Moral of the story; Pretty much every problem I've encountered would've been fixed by a trained Fee. I mean, if I had trained her I'd've been more likely to GET the damn sword.

Yeah. Holsety going to the bitchy kid priest was bad enough. The kid priest holding the Elite Ring and Holsety flipping me off because I killed Hannibal for being in my way ("Eh, he's probably just a General. And I'm sure FE4 expects me to just run the bastard through. I mean, hey, cheap sympathy shot, right?")...that was a low blow.

Yeah...fortunately, the moment the Sword of Manliness stops two-rounding reliably the other Silver Sword becomes buyable.

[Shin]

*shameless self-advertising*

Alvis seemed fairly important, it made sense for Sigurd to talk to him. The Defense sword wasn't obvious though. Furetchen, that looks like a horrible chain of bad luck ^^.

[God of Humility]

Few questions for you guys. How exactly does Holy Blood work from a storyline standpoint. It seems that a child will inherit from all minor blood (and major blood may go minor) and has a chance to inherit his parent's major Holy Blood. A parent may pass down major Holy Blood to only one of his offsprings chosen at random. When two parent's with minor Holy Blood have offsprings, all offsrpings will have the major Holy Blood. Is this right? If so, why is it that Celice and Yuria did not inherit at least minor Loptusou Blood? Also, why didn't Yurius inherit minor Narga Blood? Is there any other incidence where a parent did not pass down Holy Blood?

Just trying to see if I should also modify which character has which Holy Blood for plot reasons. If someone also knows how to alter Holy blood for Celice, it would be appreciated since I can't seem to find how to change it. Even if Diadora has Loptous Holy Blood, he won't inherit it. Is there a limit of how many Holy Bloods a character can have?

Edited November 21, 2010 by God of Humility

[AstraLunaSol]

The creator of FE4, I would think kept it simple and only allowed 1 major 1 minor or 2 minors are max. To stop people from being broken.

They probably stopped Yuria and Celice from inheriting Lopt because it wouldn't be nice to see the main protags with the antagonists blood type. Also for Yuria, spoilers.

[God of Humility]

The creator of FE4, I would think kept it simple and only allowed 1 major 1 minor or 2 minors are max. To stop people from being broken.

They probably stopped Yuria and Celice from inheriting Lopt because it wouldn't be nice to see the main protags with the antagonists blood type. Also for Yuria, spoilers.

Thanks, I guees I can't put Loptous Blood on Celice and Yuria.

Do you guys think it's be a good idea to improve the movement of non-mounted unit like in FE9 (most promoted on-foot unit have 7 move)? It would help to bridge the gap between horseback units and on-foot units.

[Ryan7556]

Yes it would be a good idea, every non mounted unit should get +1 movement upon promotion. Because of the large maps, maybe mages and priests should start with 6 movement(instead of 5) and promote to 7. Just a suggestion.

Edited November 21, 2010 by Axefighter Barst

[Shin]

Thanks, I guees I can't put Loptous Blood on Celice and Yuria.

You could actually put Loptous on Julia (or whatever we call her, Norman?), since she's considered a static character - who you could actually give as much holy blood as you like. Celice is a pickle though, his holy blood seems fixed.

Upping the movement range of foot units, especially Armours, would help a lot. One problem with Azel and Arden is that they just can't keep up.

[Narga_Rocks]

Upping the movement range of foot units, especially Armours, would help a lot. One problem with Azel and Arden is that they just can't keep up.

Or adding Rescue could help, though that basically requires them to enemy phase and Azel is 2HKOd forever at unreasonable hit rates. Even once he gets Wind in chapter whatever it is available (either 3 or 4 i think).

It would at least help out the priest units (Aideen, Claude, Lana, Corple)

[Excellen Browning]

Improved move would also be very useful to azel. Front liner or no, he's still an offensive character. An offensive character that can't reach enemies, that is.

Arden should also get some enhanced growths, IMO. I mean look at him, skl 10%, spd 20% at atrocious bases of 5 and 4. I'll acknowledge that Lex isn't looking at skl and spd growths that are much prettier, but at least he has more than two times arden's bases(and he has holy blood and an awesome weapon). Arden sucks as a father AND as a unit.

[dondon151]

You can probably balance the game better by removing Pursuit from all mounted units and giving Pursuit to all foot units.

[Narga_Rocks]

You can probably balance the game better by removing Pursuit from all mounted units and giving Pursuit to all foot units.

And make it a soldier skill. As a citizen skill you can still stick Pursuit on various mounted children.

And possibly make holy weapons override pursuit and never double.

However it wouldn't be fe4 any other way, so "better balance fe4" is a misnomer. It's more like "make a better balanced game loosely based on the fe4 mechanics".

[Tetragrammaton]

Try this save file if you want a minor Loptous Celice

FE4.zip