What if there were "Second Wave" options akin to XCOM?

[Runty]

In XCOM and XCOM 2, you could select some extra options at the start of a campaign that would alter the experience. One could give all your troops a bonus to their accuracy, while another could change how income works, or another could cause your soldiers' stats to go down as they took damage. These things would force players to alter their tactics, or could make things easier for less-skilled players.

One I really liked was from XCOM 2 called Beta Strike, which gave all units (including yours and your enemies) doubled health, while also increasing mission timers. This made firefights last longer since you couldn't kill things as quickly, but gave you more room for error since your soldiers wouldn't be as fragile. IMO, this setting could work really well in a Fire Emblem game, since bosses usually don't last very long due to crits. By giving everyone double (or even triple) health, things could feel more like an RPG where you need to have multiple people gang up on a unit if you want to bring it down swiftly.

Other Second Wave options would also be neat to add, letting players take on some interesting challenges. Of course, to unlock them you would need to beat the game on regular settings first, but it'd be a nice way to spice up the gameplay.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Runty

[TomLeggosaurus]

Interesting idea but remember the differences in AI. FE can often be exploited via baiting individual units to take down a scary group, XCOM has enemies behaving somewhat unpredictably (between attacking, support actions, fleeing, etc). If the change you discussed about increasing HP would be considered, it just extends the amount of time each baited unit would need to be dogpiled upon. Same for bosses. 

There's obviously some maps where either time is a factor, or reinforcements force the players hand in moving faster. These situations often require great move economy to pick off as many units as possible to prevent casualties. Assuming 2xHP you take out half as many, and the enemy AI will proceed to dogpile your most vulnerable units (as per their AI).

These are just my immediate thoughts on the matter. AI can greatly influence the balancing of the game, which balance can be thrown off completely depending on what changes are made. Maybe I'm overreacting and the changes could work well, but as I'm currently working on a romhack I'm very familiar with the delicate nature of balancing haha.

Some changes do sound cool, perhaps imitating the will and panic features would be quite interesting for "added realism". Or having units become wounded after battles would definitely up difficulty! FE and XCOM are two of my favourite series so finding ways to improve each other is real cool! Thanks for sharing your ideas!

[Runty]

Yeah, the will/panic mechanics would also be kinda neat to see in Fire Emblem, but you sorta get this in Three Houses with Gambits causing the Rattled status. It would be really cool if certain Combat Arts could cause Rattled, Poison, etc.

And yes, while a doubled health option would simply make things take longer, that can sorta be the point. It often feels like I take out bosses too quickly even on Lunatic/Maddening, but giving them higher Defense or Resistance can lead to a lot of 0-damage scenarios. Additionally, any sort of "halves incoming damage" mechanic just feels bad to play against. Doubled health allows for your mistakes to be more forgiving, while also allowing for less instant-wipe plays.

[PPPPPPP270]

One option I liked in Xcom is red fog as it rewarded players for keeping your units HP to be full while not getting screwed by missing a low HP kill on an enemy. As that low HP enemy's stats are too low to be a problem. Though I'm not sure if that would work in a Fire Emblem game. Having reduced movement in bad situations is life threatening if you can't fall back.