Serenes Emblem Discussion Thread (CHARACTER ROSTER IS FINALIZED)

[Integrity]

i'm not a moderator tho

[Von Ithipathachai]

Just now, Integrity said:

i'm not a moderator tho

Crap, uh...  I guess you'd be an Administrator, then.

How many Moderators and Administrators are there?  And what kind of weapon would you want to wield?

[Integrity]

depends on how strictly you define moderator

 

for globals right now we only have specta and eclipse

we've got ghast and kirie for section mods

then we've got three discord chat mods: parrhesia, haru, and jank

 

the admin hierarchy is me and balcerzak on the forums side, vincent on the front end side, and jyosua lording over all

[Von Ithipathachai]

1 minute ago, Integrity said:

depends on how strictly you define moderator

 

for globals right now we only have specta and eclipse

we've got ghast and kirie for section mods

then we've got three discord chat mods: parrhesia, haru, and jank

 

the admin hierarchy is me and balcerzak on the forums side, vincent on the front end side, and jyosua lording over all

Thank you, I was thinking strictly of global moderators.  I've never seen or heard of Specta.  And I completely forgot about section and Discord moderators.

Balcerzak mainly seems to hang out in the Roleplay subforum, which I never go to.

...Hm.  Picking which of you will be Lords and which of you will be main villains seems like it'll be more difficult than anticipated, @Joshii.

[alatartheblue42]

5 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

The commonly cited issues with the Trinity of Magic are that the magical weapon types almost never have as much variety as the physical ones and that most magical classes tend to have high Res and low Def, reducing the incentive for magic user-on-magic user combat.

Sanctaea Chronicles tries to give the Trinity of Magic more impact by having it grant Attack ±3 in addition to Accuracy ±15.  More importantly, it gives Monks and Bishops high Res and low Def, gives Mages, Sages, and Mage Knights roughly equal Def and Res, and gives Shamans and Druids high Def and low Res.  But the latter measure is also flawed because not all magic-wielding classes gain equal benefits from it, i.e. Monks can tear Shamans to shreds, but Shamans struggle more to kill Mages unless they're wielding particularly powerful Dark tomes like Crush (Worm) or Malice (Fenrir).

So what I'm thinking of doing for SF Emblem is not only increasing the Trinity of Magic's Attack effect from ±3 to ±5, but also giving everybody extremely low Res with maybe a 5% growth rate in that stat.  Obviously either magic-wielding classes would need to have their Pow lowered or Tomes would need to have their Mt lowered accordingly.

Yeah, that's the general argument. Its definitely a good idea to try to increase the Trinity's impact, though I think that rather than just adjusting current classes, the only real way to make it equal to the standard weapon triangle would be to have similar amounts of class diversity (which is impractical and probably not generally desired, and even then, axes dark magic would still suck). Another route would be to make Light have low Def and Res, but considerably more speed to be like a myrmidon style, Anima be a well rounded Soldier type, and Dark be its usual tanky but slow. Its kinda what the old FE games did, but if taken to more extremes, it might work.

 

If everyone's Resistance is lowered and tome power is lowered by a similar amount, wouldn't that just be basically the same as before?

[Von Ithipathachai]

6 minutes ago, alatartheblue42 said:

If everyone's Resistance is lowered and tome power is lowered by a similar amount, wouldn't that just be basically the same as before?

What I meant is that literally everyone would start with like 0-1 Res (assuming Level 1 unpromoted) and that increases on Level Up would be extremely rare.  Like a 5% Res growth rate for everyone.

The difference here is that unlike in Sanctaea Chronicles, Monks, Mages, and Shamans (and their promotions) would all end up with roughly equal Res so that none of them is affected by the Trinity of Magic more than the other.  I came up with this idea for a Res-less Trinity of Magic after playing FE1.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Von Ithipathachai

[Sub Zero]

20 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

...Hm.  Picking which of you will be Lords and which of you will be main villains seems like it'll be more difficult than anticipated, @Joshii.

Indeed, I know that I want to be one of the protagonists, preferably being an enemy at first, at early game.

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Joshii

[Von Ithipathachai]

I've just made a poll for users to fill out regarding how they want classes and gameplay mechanics to be handled.  Please take the time to fill it out.  Thank you.

[Sub Zero]

Oh yeah, I've been wondering about how the portraits will be handled...who's gonna do them and how will it be executed? I know I shouldn't be worrying about this now but I want all bases covered by the time Von starts with the project. 

@Von Ithipathachai Oh yeah, will the game look similar to Sanctaea Chronicles? Or will it have the GBA engine? Not a super important question but it's something that I've been wondering about for a bit now. Sanctaea looks great btw! :3 

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Joshii

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 5/26/2019 at 9:10 AM, Von Ithipathachai said:

At first I didn't think it would be possible, but in fact I should be able to, assuming Tomes are kept merged into one weapon type.  So yeah, I should be able to implement Shadowgift to designate Dark Magic users (and by extension Lumina for Light Magic users).

Question, could Lumina be bound to staff rank? As a curiosity. A lot of this balance can be sorted out later.

EDIT: Also, with regards to the physical / magical split, I don't think it's needed even with hybrid classes. A unified power stat never bothered me in Echoes, as rare as classes which used both physical weapons and magic were.

 

On 5/26/2019 at 2:23 PM, Nym said:

Also don't forget the story guys. Because I kind of fail to see the moderators class in a story for the moment.

I've got a rough outline which should work, considering my member title and apparent clearance for main villain duty.

 

On 5/26/2019 at 3:19 PM, Nym said:

A map where the player has to choose between two shapeshifters, each with their different base stats and growths?

If we're picking between two different Eevees, then it would be natural for the choice to be between an Espeon and Umbreon, correct?

 

On 5/26/2019 at 4:48 PM, Pengaius said:

Bow cav/nomad line sounds good, and if possible I'd like to be high def/hp/con low spd everything else average. A mounted bow tank, can act as a wall but because of the bows cannot counterattack very well, this way you can have a high mov enemy phase damage magnet, without them being a take no damage but kill everything on EP.

Consideration for the roll your character will fill in gameplay? Now that's some game design.

 

9 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Sanctaea Chronicles tries to give the Trinity of Magic more impact by having it grant Attack ±3 in addition to Accuracy ±15.  More importantly, it gives Monks and Bishops high Res and low Def, gives Mages, Sages, and Mage Knights roughly equal Def and Res, and gives Shamans and Druids high Def and low Res.  But the latter measure is also flawed because not all magic-wielding classes gain equal benefits from it, i.e. Monks can tear Shamans to shreds, but Shamans struggle more to kill Mages unless they're wielding particularly powerful Dark tomes like Crush (Worm) or Malice (Fenrir).

So what I'm thinking of doing for SF Emblem is not only increasing the Trinity of Magic's Attack effect from ±3 to ±5, but also giving everybody extremely low Res with maybe a 5% growth rate in that stat.  Obviously either magic-wielding classes would need to have their Pow lowered or Tomes would need to have their Mt lowered accordingly.

Though it's a separate field of discussion from this game, my suggestion would be to try and give them distinguishing stats besides their defense and resistance. Looking at lances as an example, the statistical differences between armors, cavaliers, and pegasus knights extend well beyond their defense and resistance values. Also, it's not inherently bad for units to not benefit evenly from the triangle, as long as they still fill their own niches. As an example, it's fine for monks to counter shamans if shamans can act as legitimate physical tanks but monks cannot. The shaman still serves a useful role in gameplay.

 

1 hour ago, Joshii said:

Oh yeah, I've been wondering about how the portraits will be handled...who's gonna do them and how will it be executed? I know I shouldn't be worrying about this now but I want all bases covered by the time Von starts with the project.

As a placeholder, I would just still users avatars for portraits. I would actually worry about that last, especially because I think the jankiness of screen names and forum avatars would add to the ideal tone of this game.

 

1 hour ago, Joshii said:

Oh yeah, will the game look similar to Sanctaea Chronicles? Or will it look different? Not a super important question but it's something that I've been wondering about for a bit now. Sanctaea looks great btw! :3 

Now that's some good positivity.

Edited May 27, 2019 by AnonymousSpeed

[Von Ithipathachai]

3 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Question, could Lumina be bound to staff rank? As a curiosity. A lot of this balance can be sorted out later.

No.  SRPG Studio handles Staves differently from weapon types used for combat.  It could, however, be bound to Tome rank, assuming again that Tomes are a single weapon type.

4 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Though it's a separate field of discussion from this game, my suggestion would be to try and give them distinguishing stats besides their defense and resistance.

They do, actually.  Besides their defensive properties, Monks have high Spd (probably another reason why they can kill Shamans so easily), Mages are balanced, and Shamans have high Pow.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 minute ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

No.  SRPG Studio handles Staves differently from weapon types used for combat.  It could, however, be bound to Tome rank, assuming again that Tomes are a single weapon type.

Interesting. That would make for an opportunity to add some kind of rebranding of Ewan's super pupil.

Also, since it was only mentioned in a recent edit to my previous post, my opinion on an Str / Mgc split is that a single Power stat works fine.

[Nym]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

If we're picking between two different Eevees, then it would be natural for the choice to be between an Espeon and Umbreon, correct?

Maybe like one physical and one magic oriented to represent each? Maybe.

[eclipse]

Wait, did someone call?

As for a Discord chat, I strongly suggest making it invite-only (in other words, give the link out via PM).  SF PM is great, but there's a hard limit of five people in a topic.

As for gameplay. . .surprise me.

[Von Ithipathachai]

6 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Wait, did someone call?

Joshii pinged you by accident.  I wonder if it had something to do with the ongoing maintenance here.

[Sub Zero]

I had an idea involving her, but I changed my mind.

I tried to remove it but it wouldn't let me.

Yeah I fixed it now, we're good!

Edited May 28, 2019 by Joshii

[shanni20]

if there's still more room for characters, i'd like to be a mercenary with long brown hair and be and archer/sniper. basically, shinon with brown hair.

[Von Ithipathachai]

1 minute ago, fiver said:

if there's still more room for characters, i'd like to be a mercenary with long brown hair and be and archer/sniper. basically, shinon with brown hair.

When you said "mercenary" I was like "Oh, good grief, not another Sword infantry", but then I saw "Archer/Sniper" and breathed a sigh of relief.

Okay, that just leaves a Pegasus Rider, a Dragon Rider, and some type of refresher unit that we need.

That said, I've noticed almost the entire playable cast so far is male.  Right now eclipse and Anacybele are the only two female characters in the playable cast alongside AzuraxCorrin(M)4Life's stand-in.  A little disappointing, but on the upside that means a wider variety of custom animations I'll be able to use since many of the better ones are male-only for some inexplicable reason.

In addition, so far I've got 9 responses from my poll and 5 (over half) prefer third-tier promotions, which is upsetting because I personally hate three-tier class systems and much prefer branching promotions.  Of the remaining 4, 2 prefer traditional promotions and 2 prefer branching promotions.

Other results so far:

• 5 of 9 people polled prefer Tellius games' class system.  Of the remaining 4, 2 prefer the GBA class system and 2 don't care.
• 4 of 9 people polled prefer having a Str/Mag split, 3 prefer not having a Str/Mag split, and 2 don't care.
• 7 of 9 people polled prefer the Jugdral/Tellius Skill system.  Of the remaining 2, 1 prefers not having Skills at all and 1 doesn't care.
• 5 of 9 people polled prefer having Slim/Heavy variants of Swords, Lances, and Axes, 3 prefer not having those, and 2 don't care.
• 4 of 9 people polled prefer having Radiant Dawn-style Daggers, 4 prefer having Fates-style Daggers, and 1 prefers not having Daggers at all.  But of the people who prefer Radiant Dawn-style Daggers, 1 prefers only having the 1-2-Range Knives.
• 3 of 9 people polled prefer having the GBA-style Trinity of Magic, 3 prefer having the Radiant Dawn-style one, 2 prefer having the Jugdral-style one, and 1 prefers not having one at all.

Personally I'm hoping more people will respond in favor of a promotion system other than three-tier because I'm actually fine with the other results.

[shanni20]

uh, give me a sister who's a peg knight then. Name her Leia. short brown hair. Kinda looks like tanith. Kinda. she's serious about her job. Also doesn't have a shit con, give her 6 or 7 con. she don't need no man.

 

 

i like the jugdral skill system and magic trinity system, and a str/mag split would be nice if there's a magical bow like in fates, the fe4 anima swords, stuff like that, also I hope there is a mage fighter class because those are really cool, even if only enemies get it

[AnonymousSpeed]

12 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

In addition, so far I've got 9 responses from my poll and 5 (over half) prefer third-tier promotions, which is upsetting because I personally hate three-tier class systems and much prefer branching promotions.  Of the remaining 4, 2 prefer traditional promotions and 2 prefer branching promotions.

Well, all because it's the will of the people doesn't mean you have to do it.

[shanni20]

I don't like three tier. Branching / traditional is much better, I like Branching a little more tho. Either that, or jugdral like promos that depend on the character and not the class, but that could be pretty hard to set up so I'll jsut put my vote in for branching

[Von Ithipathachai]

3 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Well, all because it's the will of the people doesn't mean you have to do it.

Perhaps, but because this game is meant primarily for the users of this forum I want the closest picture I can get of what the majority of people like.

[Acacia Sgt]

I would agree on the notion that third classes may be going overboard. Works fine otherwise if it was for a long game or something.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Acacia Sgt

[Von Ithipathachai]

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I would agree on the notion that third classes may be going overboard. Works fine if it was for a long game or something.

My idea so far is to make third-tier promotions exclusive to the physical infantry classes, i.e. Mercenaries, Soldiers, Fighters, Archers, and Thieves.

By the way, @fiver and @Acacia Sgt, please make sure to record what you prefer in the poll if you haven't done so already.  I'll repost the link to it in that case.

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Von Ithipathachai

[shanni20]

third classes are overcomplication. Plus I think traditional fire emblem games are better in terms of stats being lower instead of ballooned like fates/wakening, smaller stat caps and less growths (not snes level but gba level growths) are better for game balancing imo

 

did the poll. also if anyone needs help with story i'd like some involvement. i'm great at having ideas that i have nothing to do with since i'm not talented enough to make a romhack on my own.

Edited May 28, 2019 by fiver