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FE8 mod: archers are finally useful


mangasdeouf
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Hi,

Aside from classic changes like rebalancing stat caps to avoid heroes being so outclassed by warriors in nearly anything except for res, switching mage knights to actual dark knights (caps-wise) and giving real promotions gains to fit the class the unit goes in (depending on the units getting the classes themselves, like female wyvern knights giving more strength and speed while falco knights give more def and res because falco knights are more like anti-mage and balanced flying bruisers with little damage while wyvern knights are fast killers), I completely changed the way archers work. And bows in general. + kinghts and general have normal movement (5 and 6) and GK/MK 7 movement and Rangers 8 movement (Valkyrie and Troubadour also aligned on cavalier/paladin move).

Iron bow: 10 MT, 75 Acc, 2-7 range, 25 Wgt, +15 luck. weapon exp 10 (like every iron weapon, I'm not patient with weapon level grinding so you just put the iron weapon of your choice and rush S rank)

Steel bow: 13 MT, 65 Acc, 2-7 range, 25 Wgt, +15 luck.

Silver bow: 16 MT, 70 Acc, 2-7 range, 25 Wgt, +15 luck.

Poison bow: unchanged MT, unchanged Acc, 2-7 range, 25 Wgt, +15 luck.

Killer bow: 12 MT, 60 Acc, 2-5 range, 25 Wgt, +15 luck.

Hero bow: 6 MT, 60 Acc?, 2-5 range, 25 Wgt, +15 luck.

Short bow: 6 MT, unchanged Acc, 1 range, unchanged Wgt.

Long bow: unchanged MT, unchanged Acc, 3-10 range, 25 Wgt.

The goal is to force the player to be cautious with ennemy archers, while being able to do something with his/her own archers. So archers can't double anyone with normal bows, like real life archers can't shoot arrows in chain, but instead arrows hit harder and archers have realistic range. They can hardly ORKO but I changed the classes power value to minimum to maximize exp gain (Neimi at base level gains like 33 exp in her joining chapter for chipping one starting point fighter instead of 30-ish for killing an unit). Thieves, trainees and generals/knights also have the highest exp gain (like any non fighter/tank not getting to ORKO most of the time/bishop) because hey they don't usually kill stuff in one round.

Don't worry I've adjusted ennemies' growths to give them normal growths (be it promoted or not) so they actually have normal stats instead of lagging everywhere (even luck growth is normal). Yes it means axe wielders hit hard, have more def and luck, yes it means knights and generals will have a real def stat like in RD where even overlevelled rogues/spies hit for 10 damage max on inferior tier knights/generals with steel weapons and that flyers will have normal stats (25% def instead of 15% for pegasi, 45% instead of 30-ish for wyvern riders/lords, etc.). Your units, like in RD, are more likely to cap stats, and def/luck and even for some speed bases are higher because bows reach further and units need to be able to survive a bit more than they had to originally. Still Vanessa will probably be OS by early iron bow archers even at 7 base def (17 HP against 3 strength + 10 MT bows>33 damage).

Tana comes with bright lance 9 MT 80 Acc 10 Crit 0 Wgt +5 def unbreakable (like naginata guard) so you can train her from the get go and even pass down the lance to Amelia to get her to a decent level without dying instantly to a soldier. Yes Tana has BL in the cell in Ephraim's route (anyway if you don't want to screw the chapter you're more or less forced to let her in until your team can take care of the reinforcements and the killer sword myrmidon).

Innes comes with the beacon bow: 16 Mt, 2-7 range, 80 Acc?, 10 Crit, +15 luck, unbreakable.

Syrene comes with the Shadow killer (sword): 3 MT, 1 range, hero weapon, negates flying effectiveness (maybe 10 crit). Screw archers this girl is Frelia's pegasi captain or commander (and she needs it even with buffed bases).

Every late joining unit has increased bases and growths are closer to 50% (75% def for Gilliam, he's your only 100% knight and will tank waves for you since I'm gonna buff ennemies' weaponry to silver earlier in the game if I have the courage). Joshua has 9 def because he's joining before chapter 6 where there are a lot of ennemies and even reinforcements in hard (SPOILER:  cavaliers coming from behind the starting point). Marisa comes with class base HP +10, str def res +5 and good skl/spd/lck so she is still relevant. And she grows more res (40%) and more spd (75%) than Joshua who will still cap speed but slower.

I don't know if I can share my file because .nmm files don't want to get transferred so if anyone can teach me I could share my project once I've tested it further (actually at chapter 5 not started yet after I restarted a game because I just added the archers new mechanics to my previous mod having less changes). Anyway I put some data on this post so you guys can do the same thing with your own game (it shouldn't take more than 5 hours to get everything done). Reginleif and Rapier are unbreakable and I think I'm gonna test the magic damage option for the rapier (but if it works normally then I'll suppress the effectiveness against armors and cavalry because MAGIC DAMAGE!).

I put it on the 1st post so people will see it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gf3rq3tmjhxr4d1/FE8 rebalanced and realistic bows.ips?dl=0

And now the mod but with Radiant Dawn-like base stats. Be careful, +5 to every base stat for almost any class (except move and cons):

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/y6gdp5sgdts3c82/FE8 rebalanced bows with Radiant Dawn-like base stats.ips?dl=0

For the last mod:

The Radiant Dawn-like base stats has some differences in gameplay:

1. You will be more likely to cap stats (not all of them for most units but a few of them) like in FE10. Units are quite specialized (except a few all-rounders like Forde but still he's the mage killer among cavaliers) and some are really performing better in certain classes than in others.

2. You will reach stat caps faster: it means you will be strong for a few chapters but then when the ennemies catch up you will have to wait for promotion to keep the advantage.

3. Archers are DANGEROUS, be careful of their position, their 7 range (or 5 with hero/killer bow) and their damage output (even with 16 def Gilliam took 3 damage from chapter 5 archer close to the middle-left house so I couldn't tell you less than being careful especially with your magic units who don't take physical hits very well).

4. Speed cap in tier 1 stays 20 for everyone. It means dodgetanks don't last forever so real tanks stay relevant.

5. I gave max exp to any class locked with 1 range weapons for a good part of the game.

6. When you'll promote some units you will feel powerful. But don't forget ennemy promoted units also have +5 in every stat and better growths than in vanilla. You won't have a 15 stat points lead on them at all I suppose (18 base def generals with 75% def growth will wait for you ;-P and already promoted units have 20 levels of growth rates applied to their stats if I understood correctly so level 1 generals should have...let's say 30 def cuz it's impossible to go higher ^^).

7. Look at your units stats. Most often they reflect their strengths and weak points at base (except pegasi but you can guess? Vanessa is the classic pegasus with better growths, Tana is the glass cannon and Syrene the physical tank if I recall correctly).

8. Bosses also benefit from class base stats increases. Some of them will be violent, don't rush too fast and look at their stats (for example Tirado HAHA this guy is gonna be a challenge for your units even recently promoted with huge promotion gains).

9. Arthur and Lute are quite similar, he is faster overall and more accurate while she's more powerful and tanks more physical hits. I'd suggest to promote Arthur with the 1st guiding ring since you want a well-trained foot bishop/sage for chapter 15, wherever you chose to go for the split. Lute's stats and growths would be well completed with a dark knight (sorry, mage knight) promotion because she's more fit for normal combat while Arthur is better as an occasional monster killer and healer (don't forget to give him S light before staff abusing or you'll be sad).

10. Dozla is perfectly usable, no need to train a Ross for berserker. Ross is certainly better as a hero. Same for Rennac he's good for his job so you can do whatever you want with Colm, or even let him untrained if you want only one thief in the long run. Just let him out of archers' range.

11. L'Arachel and Natasha are able to use light magic in their 1st class so their low level isn't too problematic but it's not needed to use them in combat (and they can't kill much stuff anyway, maybe chip some ennemies who can't counterattack) but Moulder the boulder doesn't need it since he's here from chapter 2 and healing staves cost really close to naught. Plus he can abuse torch in chapter 6.

12. Don't hesitate to give an early promotion if you need some immediate boost (promotion gains are huge) since growths will let most units cap what they should cap even with a level 10 promotion (just the secondary stats will be quite lower). And HP is the real deal for endgame I guess, since ennemies will be very powerful without their numbers changing (I think chapter 20 is gonna be torture hehehe...).

13. Even grinding probably won't help too much since I've finished the vanilla game a few times and the end game was still dangerous if I got RNG screwed on avoids, and in this game the ennemies will have more accuracy and damage (and def and res and HP). I didn't boost dragon zombies' stats except a bit of speed and a little def/res but hey, LEGENDARY WEAPONS have been rebalanced.

14. I highly suggest you raise as many units as possible from the beginning. Vanessa can be promoted early to deal with pirates on Eirika's route in chapter 9 since anyway she's the worst pegasus and sucks exp from better units (even if the exp curve is easier to deal with, not mentionning FE6's horrible exp gains). Archers don't need the exp from kills since they get enough from chip damage (and no speed is helping with not ORKOing stuff). Meanwhile mages with the same exp curve need as many kills as possible from the moment they join or the ennemies (especially their numbers) will quickly put them in danger if they're not high level enough. You should make them able to tank 3 physical hits as soon as possible (in chapter 5 the 2 archers in the left are very close from one another so if you make a mistake you can get 2HKOed).

15. Chapter 7 and 8 promotion items have beenreplaced with master seals (2 uses). You can pre-promote Vanessa, Moulder, any unit with medium growths (like Garcia) to deal with mid-game and then train your better growth units to promote them at 20/20.

16. I'm testing this mod in normal (my Natasha could tank the 2 bandits coming from Joshua's right with 1 HP left in normal mode, don't expect the same in HM). I'll test it later on hard but seeing how people can complete Awakening Lunatic + resetless I suppose the mod is absolutely doable on HM.

17. Don't get too happy of Seth's bases, my Franz overcame them before level 10 cavalier (during chapter 5). But he should be usable the same way old FE Jagens were, falling off mid-game without good growths.

Good luck (with RNG) and have fun!

Edited by mangasdeouf
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3 minutes ago, mangasdeouf said:

I'm using NUPS, I tried patching the file but in the UPS file I can't put either the .nmm file or the .gba file. I don't know what to do to convert the .nmm to UPS

You'll have to excuse all of the broken links.  That's how to create a UPS patch (it's in the middle of the first post somewhere).

Have you saved your changes in Nightmare?

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OK I did it, now I suppose I have to put it on Dropbox and link it.

Edit: here it is: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gf3rq3tmjhxr4d1/FE8 rebalanced and realistic bows.ips?dl=0

Have fun and don't hesitate to signal bugs or suggest improvements.

PS: the bows' range doesn't show correctly so you have to count tiles to know where it can reach (remember, 2-7 for normal bows and Beacon bow, 2-5 for killer and hero, 1 for short bow and 3-10 for longbow). Also light magic has low damage and high accuracy while anima has lower acc but higher damage and 5 crit rate. S weapons have 10 crit rate 0 Wgt and more logic damage (according to the iron weapons order of damage).

Edit 2: I forgot to specify that slim weapons are hero weapons, that's why they have 0 MT (you get them from the 1st shop so yeah if they had MT it would be OP even if it is already quite good especially slim lance on Gilliam LOL he can ORKO some stuff with it).

Edited by mangasdeouf
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If you want I can also post in other topics other mods I made (like unbreakable weapons with bonus stats per weapon type, or some characters have monster classes etc. but well monster classes are a problem since I can't make them promote with Nightmare mods so they work more like Manaketes and the monster weapons are like beast stones).

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After testing until chapter 7 included:

Ennemies are strong for base level player units, weak for overlevelled (but just the same way they were in the vanilla) and dodge is medium-level even for 20 speed 10 luck units (can't abuse some dodgers as much as in vanilla) even against level 7 ennemies (normal difficulty).

Gilliam and Franz tend to cap their main stats fast. Generals having normal foot units movement, I recommand to use Gilliam and promote him when he caps strength and def (mine is promoted after reaching level 14). Not reaching 20 before promotion is not deadly. At least before endgame. Level 14/1 Gilliam general has 24 str and def with 16 speed (he can double early game fighters and has the same speed as level 9 mercenaries in normal mode I'd say). With 19 res. So don't be afraid, early promotion is not a problem and you want as many high level promoted units as possible for the chapters where you have to face promoted ennemies. Especially Gilliam has to reach his speed cap before fighting against axe heroes and the like.

I'm looking forward to the next chapters and the arrival into mid-game.

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