Your Opinion on Bonus Exp

[Jedi]

The Tellius Era of Fire Emblem or the Radiance Saga as I like to call it, introduced the feature known as Bonus Experience which you could use on units to buff them more or help your weaker guys out. What is your view on it?

I liked it, since there were no arenas and in casual runs it helped the weaker guys out and just in general it felt rewarding to get more EXP for playing a chapter a certain way.

Edited January 27, 2013 by Jedi Of Connacht

[HeroMystic]

Are we talking PoR BEXP or RD BEXP?

[cyron]

presumable both i think that it was a bit unbalanced in terms of stat gains fe9 was to easily abusable and fe10 was to inefective for leveling low level units as it only gives 3 stats so it can be quite detrimental and is only useful at high levels. the fe12 base arena had a good level up system that would be good applied to bexp

[MacLovin]

Fe9 was kind of an insta-breaker if used right and the fe10 kinda was useful if the unit had high bases.

[Snowy_One]

I love it. Allowed us to train up weaker units without as much trouble as well as round out problems with non-combat units who needed EXP to promote (Rhys, Mist, Laura). IMO, the best way to solve the problem of dumping it all on certain OP'ed units is to give it different rates between classes. Like healers cost less Bexp than a cavalry of the same level.

[Topaz Light]

I like it. It helps solve the problems I encounter in using lower-leveled units without becoming game-breakingly abuseable like arenas. (Infinite EXP AND money? BEXP provides neither of those) Of course, you can go out of your way to break any game if you really try.

[The Magus]

BEXP was immensely useful, and I wish it were in other FE games. It would make it possible for Ests to become useful without going through pure insanity, and also made the training of Pegasus Knights much easier, as you don't have to risk their lives getting them to the point where they become unstoppable killing machines.

[luigi bros]

I really liked it.

I never abused the system in FE9, so I found it useful to catchup lower level units. It is highly abusable, but that's at the player's descretion, and shouldn't be held against the system.

It was nice in FE10, and while in the long run the 3 stat ups system helped cap more stats, in my first playthrough I destroyed characters' potential by leveling them exlusively via BEXP.

I guess you can't have it both ways, but I found FE9's system better.

[forte]

I use it on healers and those who were really close to leveling, such as in the 90s range. It definitely came in handy when it came to leveling Rhys and Mist far enough to where i could use my master seal, it was quicker than just standing in front of something and constantly healing the wounded unit.

I like it better in PoR because it gives more than 3 stats but it still came in handy in Rd on capping certain stats.

[sunshineYON]

Both could be broken and made no sense flavorwise. Good riddance. In FE9, it made me reset like an OCD maniac and in RD the unintended side-effect of raising unlikely stats-ups of certain classes was very unnatural.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Cucco Jump

[bottlegnomes]

I liked them, with a leaning towards 9's. It helped catch up characters more. 10's wasn't bad, just not my favored. 10's, however, was less potentially gamebreaking, not that I particularly care.

[Snowy_One]

I actually disagree BG. 10's was actually 'better' from a casual standpoint as units leveled up with BEXP would be weaker than those used to actually fight. The problem is that, since it guaranteed three stat-ups, it became abusable by tier players and people who realized the three-point guarantee. Maybe if there was some way to even it out, like say...

Every time you level up with BEXP, the 'active' (not capped) growth rates are totaled up and, for every 100%, you get 1 stat or something (no 1-point guarentee). Didn't actually tally up to see how well that would work, but at a glance it would at least stop the FE10 style BEXP abuse.

[bottlegnomes]

I actually disagree BG. 10's was actually 'better' from a casual standpoint as units leveled up with BEXP would be weaker than those used to actually fight. The problem is that, since it guaranteed three stat-ups, it became abusable by tier players and people who realized the three-point guarantee. Maybe if there was some way to even it out, like say...

Every time you level up with BEXP, the 'active' (not capped) growth rates are totaled up and, for every 100%, you get 1 stat or something (no 1-point guarentee). Didn't actually tally up to see how well that would work, but at a glance it would at least stop the FE10 style BEXP abuse.

What do you think I said?

[Elieson]

I hate it.

If the game needs to hand out EXP to make the units that you recruit usable, then there's something wrong with the fundamentals of the game.

Scrap Bonus EXP, and rebalance the units themselves.

[NinjaMonkey]

If the game needs to hand out EXP to make the units that you recruit usable, then there's something wrong with the fundamentals of the game.

I could say the same about using the arena in older FE games as well, and yet I don't see you wanting to scrap them...

[Fenrir]

It should be the basis for our tier lists!!

Bonus EXP is cool in RD because it sucks to have your characters skip the low levels using it, which more or less makes BEXP a little overkill.

In PoR it was fine as well in my opinion.

Don't see it as stupid. It makes the game a little easier, but whatever to me.

[riariadne]

I liked the idea, but I didn't like the implementation.

[Rehab]

I like the idea of units "putting in extra time in at the gym"/training extra hard etc, and for the most part I don't think the balance was such that you couldn't do without it, either, which was nice, but it did highlight that random growths have flaws, and it was indeed pretty easy to game. I think I prefer Valkyria Chronicles' setup, but then that doesn't have the same kind of randomness in levelups, so I might prefer something like spending an amount of experience inversely proportional to a unit's growth in a single stat to improve it. Or whatever else with a little more polish. or fe4 arenas already rabble rabble

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I like BEXP

[shadykid]

I hate it.

If the game needs to hand out EXP to make the units that you recruit usable, then there's something wrong with the fundamentals of the game.

Scrap Bonus EXP, and rebalance the units themselves.

I'm sure dondon already brought this up somewhere, but BEXP doesn't necessary make the characters more balanced

[Espinosa]

I'm sure dondon already brought this up somewhere, but BEXP doesn't necessary make the characters more balanced

It does open some options which are bound to impact the balance in the game (but not necessarily in a certain way). e.g. Janaff and Ulki are already really good. With BEXP, they're even better.

[Missile]

I really liked BEXP in FE10, especially when a unit has already capped his best stats, you can up his weaker stats without relying on luck.

[Steampunk]

Yeah, BEXP is great for bumping up any uncapped stats after a unit has developed. Don't recommend using it to level weaker characters too much since there's no guarantee the stats that increase are the ones you'll want. Then you'll end up wasting all that BEXP if the wrong stats increase.

[MacLovin]

Base Arena would have been a better idea considering the amount of money you end up with in both games.

[Espinosa]

Base Arena would have been a better idea considering the amount of money you end up with in both games.

I wouldn't mind more money in FE10 tbqh.