Come up with a potentially controversial gameplay mechanic

[Lightcosmo]

10 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, something else I'd appreciate is just a way to keep units' stats from straying too far away from their averages. Like, if you get too lucky or unlucky in a stat, the next level up is predetermined to correct it. That would prevent RNG abuse and keep people from getting stat screwed, all without getting rid of the random element that keeps playthroughs from feeling too same-y.

Isnt this a thing in FE11/12?

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Isnt this a thing in FE11/12?

Soooort of. They buff your growth rates when you miss them, but it's still possible to get screwed. But yeah, I would appreciate if something at least like that was in every game.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, something else I'd appreciate is just a way to keep units' stats from straying too far away from their averages. Like, if you get too lucky or unlucky in a stat, the next level up is predetermined to correct it. That would prevent RNG abuse and keep people from getting stat screwed, all without getting rid of the random element that keeps playthroughs from feeling too same-y.

Ehh. Maybe it's just because I've never been ridiculously stat screwed, but I prefer just letting the random be the random. Letting stat blessings happen without stat screwage to balance it out seems cosmically unfair. And when it comes down to it bases are way more important and no matter how screwed you are you're probably going to be able to still be able to beat these games with the same level of ease or difficulty. People beat these games with 0% growths after all, which would actually be a nice challenge for the games to present themselves. Though with stat inflation of recent games it's probably more and more impossible with the current design philosophy.

[Lightcosmo]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Soooort of. They buff your growth rates when you miss them, but it's still possible to get screwed. But yeah, I would appreciate if something at least like that was in every game.

Right, its every few levels and the game forces 3+ stat gains, I think?

[Alastor15243]

24 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ehh. Maybe it's just because I've never been ridiculously stat screwed, but I prefer just letting the random be the random. Letting stat blessings happen without stat screwage to balance it out seems cosmically unfair.

Yeah, that's why I said it keeps you from getting too screwed or too blessed.

[Shrimpica]

You know, all that Stat exp talk makes me think of EVs in pokemon.

So why not just add that to FE

[Jotari]

48 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, that's why I said it keeps you from getting too screwed or too blessed.

I know. I'm saying there should be no safety net at all. Getting 0 stat gains for every level of every unit and all stat gains for every unit of every level should both be theoretically possible.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I know.

Wait, then what prompted this?

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Letting stat blessings happen without stat screwage to balance it out seems cosmically unfair.

 

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Wait, then what prompted this?

 

The Shadow Dragon safety net (which doesn't prevent stat blessings based on what I've heard of clock abuse).

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

The Shadow Dragon safety net (which doesn't prevent stat blessings based on what I've heard of clock abuse).

Anyway, agreed with that, but I strongly disagree that total stat failure should be possible. I think the purpose of the RNG stat leveling should be to keep things interesting by making stats different every time. That's the thing though: different. Not better or worse. It shouldn't go so far that there's an inescapable chance that anyone you put effort into could wind up pointlessly terrible. It doesn't often happen, but when it does it's such a horrible feeling, to the point that when it happened a ridiculous number of times to me in college it put me off the series for years until I went back in for Awakening. I'm over that obviously, but it's still not a pleasant feeling to think about, and continuous strings of terrible luck with growth rates can still really put me off of an attempt, especially if it happens early on. Ideally, ballparking it, I'd say the game shouldn't let a characters' stats be more than 3 points behind or ahead of what they should be for their level. Enough variation to keep things interesting, not so much that it gets ridiculous.

...Speaking of, though, the games really should start making it possible to learn what units' growth rates are in-game already. That's like the biggest thing the series still hides from the player when it really shouldn't.

[X-Naut]

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

You know, all that Stat exp talk makes me think of EVs in pokemon.

So why not just add that to FE

I've been thinking of a system like that, where class growths are separate from personal growths and give you flat returns; i.e. a 30% growth yields 30 stat EXP, or three points every ten levels. If the stat numbers aren't being scaled up then personal growths would be rolled for a shot at a flat 50 stat EXP.

[Benice]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, something else I'd appreciate is just a way to keep units' stats from straying too far away from their averages. Like, if you get too lucky or unlucky in a stat, the next level up is predetermined to correct it. That would prevent RNG abuse and keep people from getting stat screwed, all without getting rid of the random element that keeps playthroughs from feeling too same-y.

Berwick has this! Every stat can only stray a few points from its averages, (but Berwick's growths are very pathetic, so it allows a lot of variance.) It is something that would work well in FE in my opinion. Differebt units also have different braketing, (Brakrting is the name of the system) so some will have more or less the same stats and others will be radically different.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Benice said:

Berwick has this! Every stat can only stray a few points from its averages, (but Berwick's growths are very pathetic, so it allows a lot of variance.) It is something that would work well in FE in my opinion. Differebt units also have different braketing, (Brakrting is the name of the system) so some will have more or less the same stats and others will be radically different.

Christ, if it weren't for my desire to playlog my first playthrough, I'd probably be checking these games out now.

[Benice]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Christ, if it weren't for my desire to playlog my first playthrough, I'd probably be checking these games out now.

It's kinda funny how Berwick really did inspire later FEs- it is the first game to have skills such as armsthrift and vengeance, among many other things such as crossbows and shields.

I'd say that Berwick's flaw is the capture system, though. It's not terrible, but it can be frustrating. 

[Sir Gerwald of Vallora]

A three tiered am or system with weapons that apply to it. It's what I'd personally prefer, but it would require a complete overhaul of the combat system. 

To explain it better, the way I formatted it was this. 

No armor: Damaged more by bladed weapons, small bows, ECT. 

Light armor: Even damage from all weapons. 

Heavy armor: Damaged more by blunt weapons, heavy bows (or crossbows), or weapons designed to impact armor. 

I've got plenty more overhaul style mechanics, but this is the core of the combat I came up with. Again, I think completely reworking the combat would definetly stir up controversy.

[Spara]

17 minutes ago, Benice said:

I'd say that Berwick's flaw is the capture system, though. It's not terrible, but it can be frustrating. 

Thracia's capturing system is still definitely the best. Berwick having means to mitigate some RNG on capturing is nice, but it's still obscured from the player. I started playing Holy Sword of Silvanister yesterday, and capturing in that game is really weird and inconsistent. You can only capture certain enemies with Zade exclusively, and the enemy has to be below 10 HP. If all 3 criteria are met, though, it happens automatically. You have to do that to recruit 3 specific enemies in Chapter 3, and I get the feeling it'll happen a lot more later. 

[Benice]

6 minutes ago, Spara said:

Thracia's capturing system is still definitely the best. Berwick having means to mitigate some RNG on capturing is nice, but it's still obscured from the player.

In my tiny experience with Fates, it also seems to have a decent catpure system.

I mostly have a vendetta against Berwick's capture system simply because everyone in my army was getting crippled so often-Czene was crippled nine times before chapter 11 started, including this:

Spoiler

And overall my units kept getting crippled if anything hit them. I'm the most salty about Elbert getting crippled while he still had 18 HP left. Still, this time I haven't had as much bad luck, (and I'm also much better so that helps) and I've actually liked the capture system to some extent-I'd prefer if it weren't luck-based though, even if there are ways to improve your chances.

[Eltosian Kadath]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Speaking of Path of Radiance fixed mode, what about an actual fixed rate mode? Basically drop all that weird bands and weapons giving growth points stuff and have units gain a predetermined number of stats upon every level that matches their averages in the also available standard mode. Taking the rng out of the system and having a more reliable playthrough is something I think a lot of players would gravitate towards.

I am fairly certain there are mods of the GBA games that implemented a fixed mode like the one described for FE6 and 7 at least. I ended up digging those patches a while back, and could link them if you are interested.

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Speaking of, though, the games really should start making it possible to learn what units' growth rates are in-game already. That's like the biggest thing the series still hides from the player when it really shouldn't.

Agreed completely. It's baffling that after all these years a massive feature of the game is something we're just not designed to know about.

[Alastor15243]

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am fairly certain there are mods of the GBA games that implemented a fixed mode like the one described for FE6 and 7 at least. I ended up digging those patches a while back, and could link them if you are interested.

Does the FE6 one have a translation built in, or is it at least compatible with a translation? If so, I'd love to know where it is.

[Eltosian Kadath]

52 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Does the FE6 one have a translation built in, or is it at least compatible with a translation? If so, I'd love to know where it is.

It has one of the older translations patched into it (where the game is called the Sword of Seal, which isn't that surprising given how long ago it was made)

I think I linked it in your big series ranking thread a while back, but here it is again

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zymc1h221nnxpm9/AADcATy8Ai8ucqhOnauHglg0a/Hextator's Doc/Media/Games/Console/NGBA/Fire Emblem/Game Doc/6 - Sword of Seals/Stats/Tony Mode?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1

 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

16 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

PoR'a fixed mode actually did that too, where the points you gained for each stat based on your experience were altered slightly by the enemy you killed to get said experience.

But really, that could only conceivably be fun in a really player-phase-heavy game, where you have more control over what specific enemies each of your units fights.

That is fair. I could see this leading to weird scenarios, like your Mages gaining lots of defense, because you use them to kill Armor Knights. But yeah, on an EP game, it's really just what comes at you. Sword users would probably enjoy getting Strength gains from taking on lots of Axefighters, at least.

[Shrimpica]

Support bonuses are replaced by support skills. Instead of just stat bonuses, characters support each other with skills that have a trigger condition.

Each unit can only be supported by one unit at once, and that can be changed mid map.

A healer supporting a unit will auto heal them once per turn after taking damage.

An Archer will do a follow up attack

Etc

Edited September 28, 2020 by Shrimperor

[Samz707]

Characters who REALLY hate each other and just barely work together.

We're talking "Refuse to trade" bad, you need another unit to be a middle-man if you want them to trade items, if one is capable of healing they refuse to heal the other and maybe depending on how psychotic they are, there is a chance they'll actually target each other if let alone next to each other at the end of a turn automatically if they haven't attacked that turn, so they can potentially murder the other if you're not careful.

Their supports would basically just be them insulting each other and their "Support bonus" only actually kicks in on the final A rank and until then they're actually debuffed next to each other.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Samz707

[whase]

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

Characters who REALLY hate each other and just barely work together.

I like that, and it gave me another idea.

Certain characters might decide they don't like their orders. If you tell them to trade away their last weapon, they will refuse. If allies start dying certain wimpy characters might turn into a green unit and start to flee the battlefield or even join the enemy. Or a healer might ignore orders and heal their support partners instead of characters they're less close with.