Fire Emblem 6 balance patch ideas

[Vykan12]

Worth a shot. Here are some changes you could easily make in nightmare that would drastically balance FE6 IMO.

-All axes get +15 hit while the iron axe gets +10.

-All lances get +5 hit while the steel lance gets +10.

-Increase the hit of steel bows by 5.

-Increase Thany/Tate/Juno's con by 2.

-Reduce the weight of dark tomes to 1-9 wt instead of 5-13.

-Reduce the weight of longbows to 7, increase their might to 8-9, and add 10 hit. Longbows are more expensive than killer bows, so they should also be really good weapons.

-Get rid of the +5 bonus to warp/rescue range.

-Reduce effective mt to 2x instead of 3x.

-Reduce berserker and SM crit bonuses by 15.

-Reduce the amount of WEXP required to grow weapon levels to 35-40. If possible, also make it take longer to go from B-A rank than it does to go from E-D rank. Also maybe increase the base rank of a few characters.

-Only able to S rank in one weapon type, but give the 5 crit bonus when wielding a weapon of that type.

-Reduce throne avo bonus to 20. That may still be too high.

-Increase support speeds, mainly to eliminate a bunch of pointless 1+1 supports.

Those would be the most general points. More character specific:

-Increase the mt of rapier. It should be a better weapon than the armorslayer.

-Increase Wolt, Dorothy and Sue's bases significantly. If you're locked to 1 range, you should have Dieck-like player phase to compensate.

-Give knights E rank in swords. This would help Bors' earlygame unbelievably. He could also get an extra point of base speed since getting doubled by some prologue fighters is a bit unfair.

-Allow thieves to promote. Suddenly Chad and Astohl might be worth something in combat.

-Increase a lot of pre-promote bases. I'm serious here. Look at the discrepancy between Percival/Echidna and Marcus/Zealot to see what I'm getting at. This isn't so applicable to pre-promote staff users like Yodel though.

-Speaking of which, knock off HM bonuses for everyone except Fir.

-Recruit Zeiss earlier.

-Give Fa's dragonstone 50 uses instead of 30.

-It probably would be a good idea to increase the base speed of all knights in the game. Having poor durability due to get doubling kind of defeats the purpose of using a knight in the first place.

For enemy stats

-Slow down cavs and wyverns a bit. It's bad enough that they have high mobility, then they're also hard to kill without specialized weaponry.

-Give a huge buff to enemy mages and snipers.

A lot of these changes sounds as though they'd make the game quite a bit easier. Remember however, that some of these changes help enemies as well. In particular, increasing weapon hit directly increases enemy hit rates, and they tend to have high atk, so your team will have a harder time surviving.

[Icon of Sin]

First section:

For weapon accuracy I'd say decrease all swords by 10.

Lances could use less Wt too. Universal drop by 1 could be nice, especially for Peg Knights.

Shamans and Druids need to have their FE 7-8 Con, which is 7-8 rather than 5-6. Then I'd say you could lower Fenrir to 7 (and make it playable, give it to Niime) while Apocalypse gets 8.

Nice idea for long bows. If you consider making them stronger I'd also consider raising the D rank.

No problem on anything else in first section, but please add critical boost for Snipers.

Second section:

IMO, no, the rapier shouldn't be that strong. It already has effectiveness against Cavaliers AND Knights, though I do agree it could use it's FE 7-8 stats. Stronger than Armorslayer is just odd.

They could use help.

D ranks in swords for General I guess or keeping this to E rank? If you even feel like it I'd literally give Barth axes rather than lances.

Rogue would also be nice as enemies. Speaking of which, raise their class growths in strength.

Echidna's defenses aren't that impressive though. She's only helped a lot by Ice affinity. If anything her bases are mostly due to Hero's bases, since I don't think Bartre has higher bases relative to his class bases. Late joiners definitely could use a boost (I'm looking at you, Yuno).

Better yet, raise Fir's level and bases a bit.

Chapter 14 sounds like a nice idea, since he's actually there. Just erase that story event with Gale. If you can't make it, raise his level to 10 or so and give him a speed boost at least.

Sure.

Add Ward, Garret and Bartre to that too.

Third section:

You might not want to forget the few Valkyries too.

I thought promoted axe units could use a few too. Berserkers have awful class growths in this game and definitely could use their FE 7-8 growths there.

If anything I could add a few, namely:

Switch the skill and speed caps of Warriors and Berserkers. Berserkers are crit machines that usually kill in a single hit, while Warriors could definitely use the speed boost since they feel so sluggish.

Increases the bases of a few classes: Look at Hero, Wyvern Lord and Swordmaster. Now look at Sniper, Berserker and Warrior. They could definitely use a buff in certain areas. Snipers definitely need a speed and skill raise by 3-4 points, while I'd see the axemen with 30ish HP and 12 Str or so at least, maybe a couple of points more in skill and speed. Magical units could also get a boost there since their bases are pretty awful, especially next to FE 5 Sages or something. Oh and Archers... Shit they used to have the same bases as Swordfighters in FE 4.

Nice ideas you got there.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Dio

[BBM]

Why would you take off HM bonuses for everyone but Fir? That's blatant favouritism, and she's actually a good unit anyways. If you're going to keep them on only specific units, keep them on ones which need them, like Gonzales, because his accuracy blows before promo already. Speaking of Gonzo's accuracy, aside from boosting the hit of axes, maybe give all the axe users a skill boost of one or two?

Don't reduce swords accuracy. >_> The only good thing about swords is their accuracy. Their might blows.

[Icon of Sin]

Don't reduce swords accuracy. >_> The only good thing about swords is their accuracy. Their might blows.

Well you could always switch prices between swords and axes. That wouldn't be a bad idea to buy a weaker weapon at a cheaper price.

[Vykan12]

Well you could always switch prices between swords and axes. That wouldn't be a bad idea to buy a weaker weapon at a cheaper price.

Well yeah. If each weapon type has approximately the same usefulness, they should also have the roughly the same price.

Forgot to mention: javelins and hand axes should both be 20 uses. Doesn't make sense for javs to be 15, they run out way too fast given you only have 5 item slots to work with per character.

Why would you take off HM bonuses for everyone but Fir? That's blatant favouritism, and she's actually a good unit anyways.

I'd do it mainly because almost a lot of the characters with HM bonuses are overpowered. Miledy, Percival and Rutger are top tier, Gonzales is in high, and Fir is in upper-mid, so her and Zeiss seem like the only ones who should keep them. I may have forgotten some people (Ray and Hugh?), they should get them too.

Edited November 24, 2009 by Corn on the cob

[Fei Mao]

I'm not sure if this is possible but make it that reinforcements appear at start of player phase.

Maybe give knights +1 or +2 movement?

Maybe reduce the movement penalty on the desert+sandstorm map?

[dondon151]

- While I agree that axes need more hit, +15 is too much. All of a sudden Steel Axes have just 5 less hit than Steel Swords.

- As long as you're improving axes, improve blades as well. Swords need anything they can get to stop sucking.

- Instead of reducing effective MT to 2x, you should just reduce their base MT instead, probably to something between 2x to 3x normal MT. I didn't like how in FE7 effective weapons did just slightly more damage than silver weapons with less hit and more WT. You can't do anything about bows raping fliers, however.

- I don't really understand the point of locking S rank to 1 weapon type. There should be +5 hit/crit bonus for S rank in multiple weapon types. And what if your magic user S ranks staves?

- Instead of recruiting Zeiss earlier, why don't you just give him 3 extra levels and a couple of points to his bases? You should probably avoid changes to storyline events.

- Giving PKs swords would help them deal with con issues. +2 con to Thany would still make her lose 3 AS to Silver Lance after promotion.

- Cavs and WKs don't need to be slowed down; they're some of the slower enemy types in the game (at least, cavs are). Maybe you're talking about their bases, since they're really damn tough in chapters 4 and 7, but the ones in chapter 13 are jokes.

- Make reaver weapons buyable. And I suppose you can make Light Brand buyable in late game, where they suck anyway. Also make a Brave Sword available to you somewhere.

[Blademaster!]

Worth a shot. Here are some changes you could easily make in nightmare that would drastically balance FE6 IMO.

-Get rid of the +5 bonus to warp/rescue range.

-Reduce effective mt to 2x instead of 3x.

-Reduce the amount of WEXP required to grow weapon levels to 35-40. If possible, also make it take longer to go from B-A rank than it does to go from E-D rank. Also maybe increase the base rank of a few characters.

-Only able to S rank in one weapon type, but give the 5 crit bonus when wielding a weapon of that type.

Last I checked, you can't do the above with nightmare.

Also, you should make Gonzales be the same level in both routes.

And lower Karel's level so he can get more benefits from his godly growthes

[CT075]

I'd do it but I can't do several of those weapon or class changes because the game lacks animations for them. Otherwise, it all looks good.

And we should make Dayan/Juno better. Really.

[CT075]

Version 0.2, at your service.

I quoted everyone who posted a list of stuff, and so put it all in spoilers as to save space. I colored everything I did in red, my comments on it in bold, and other ramblings in blue.

Worth a shot. Here are some changes you could easily make in nightmare that would drastically balance FE6 IMO.

-All axes get +15 hit while the iron axe gets +10.

-All lances get +5 hit while the steel lance gets +10.

-Increase the hit of steel bows by 5.

-Increase Thany/Tate/Juno's con by 2.

-Reduce the weight of dark tomes to 1-9 wt instead of 5-13.

-Reduce the weight of longbows to 7, increase their might to 8-9, and add 10 hit. Longbows are more expensive than killer bows, so they should also be really good weapons.

-Get rid of the +5 bonus to warp/rescue range.

-Reduce effective mt to 2x instead of 3x.

-Reduce the amount of WEXP required to grow weapon levels to 35-40. If possible, also make it take longer to go from B-A rank than it does to go from E-D rank. Also maybe increase the base rank of a few characters.

-Only able to S rank in one weapon type, but give the 5 crit bonus when wielding a weapon of that type.

Sorry, I can't do those with Nightmare as far as I know.

-Reduce berserker and SM crit bonuses by 15.

I did something to crit bonus, don't know if I did it right.

-Reduce throne avo bonus to 20. That may still be too high.

-Increase support speeds, mainly to eliminate a bunch of pointless 1+1 supports.

Those would be the most general points. More character specific:

-Increase the mt of rapier. It should be a better weapon than the armorslayer.

-Increase Wolt, Dorothy and Sue's bases significantly. If you're locked to 1 range, you should have Dieck-like player phase to compensate.

-Give knights E rank in swords. This would help Bors' earlygame unbelievably. He could also get an extra point of base speed since getting doubled by some prologue fighters is a bit unfair.

-Allow thieves to promote. Suddenly Chad and Astohl might be worth something in combat.

I made them promote to SM with a Hero Crest. Hopefully it works.

-Increase a lot of pre-promote bases. I'm serious here. Look at the discrepancy between Percival/Echidna and Marcus/Zealot to see what I'm getting at. This isn't so applicable to pre-promote staff users like Yodel though.

I didn't increase their bases, which is what I know you were talking about, but instead I increased their growths so not to destroy the purpose of a Jagen.

-Speaking of which, knock off HM bonuses for everyone except Fir.

-Recruit Zeiss earlier.

I'd do them if I could...

-Give Fa's dragonstone 50 uses instead of 30. (Note: I gave it 60)

-It probably would be a good idea to increase the base speed of all knights in the game. Having poor durability due to get doubling kind of defeats the purpose of using a knight in the first place.

For enemy stats

-Slow down cavs and wyverns a bit. It's bad enough that they have high mobility, then they're also hard to kill without specialized weaponry.

-Give a huge buff to enemy mages and snipers.

A lot of these changes sounds as though they'd make the game quite a bit easier. Remember however, that some of these changes help enemies as well. In particular, increasing weapon hit directly increases enemy hit rates, and they tend to have high atk, so your team will have a harder time surviving.

First section:

For weapon accuracy I'd say decrease all swords by 10.

Lances could use less Wt too. Universal drop by 1 could be nice, especially for Peg Knights.

Shamans and Druids need to have their FE 7-8 Con, which is 7-8 rather than 5-6. Then I'd say you could lower Fenrir to 7 (and make it playable, give it to Niime) while Apocalypse gets 8.

Nice idea for long bows. If you consider making them stronger I'd also consider raising the D rank.

No problem on anything else in first section, but please add critical boost for Snipers.

Second section:

IMO, no, the rapier shouldn't be that strong. It already has effectiveness against Cavaliers AND Knights, though I do agree it could use it's FE 7-8 stats. Stronger than Armorslayer is just odd.

They could use help.

D ranks in swords for General I guess or keeping this to E rank? If you even feel like it I'd literally give Barth axes rather than lances.

Rogue would also be nice as enemies. Speaking of which, raise their class growths in strength.

Echidna's defenses aren't that impressive though. She's only helped a lot by Ice affinity. If anything her bases are mostly due to Hero's bases, since I don't think Bartre has higher bases relative to his class bases. Late joiners definitely could use a boost (I'm looking at you, Yuno).

Better yet, raise Fir's level and bases a bit.

Chapter 14 sounds like a nice idea, since he's actually there. Just erase that story event with Gale. If you can't make it, raise his level to 10 or so and give him a speed boost at least.

Sure.

Add Ward, Garret and Bartre to that too.

Third section:

You might not want to forget the few Valkyries too.

I thought promoted axe units could use a few too. Berserkers have awful class growths in this game and definitely could use their FE 7-8 growths there.

If anything I could add a few, namely:

Switch the skill and speed caps of Warriors and Berserkers. Berserkers are crit machines that usually kill in a single hit, while Warriors could definitely use the speed boost since they feel so sluggish.

Increases the bases of a few classes: Look at Hero, Wyvern Lord and Swordmaster. Now look at Sniper, Berserker and Warrior. They could definitely use a buff in certain areas. Snipers definitely need a speed and skill raise by 3-4 points, while I'd see the axemen with 30ish HP and 12 Str or so at least, maybe a couple of points more in skill and speed. Magical units could also get a boost there since their bases are pretty awful, especially next to FE 5 Sages or something. Oh and Archers... Shit they used to have the same bases as Swordfighters in FE 4.

Nice ideas you got there.

- While I agree that axes need more hit, +15 is too much. All of a sudden Steel Axes have just 5 less hit than Steel Swords.

- As long as you're improving axes, improve blades as well. Swords need anything they can get to stop sucking.

- Instead of reducing effective MT to 2x, you should just reduce their base MT instead, probably to something between 2x to 3x normal MT. I didn't like how in FE7 effective weapons did just slightly more damage than silver weapons with less hit and more WT. You can't do anything about bows raping fliers, however.

- I don't really understand the point of locking S rank to 1 weapon type. There should be +5 hit/crit bonus for S rank in multiple weapon types. And what if your magic user S ranks staves?

- Instead of recruiting Zeiss earlier, why don't you just give him 3 extra levels and a couple of points to his bases? You should probably avoid changes to storyline events.

- Giving PKs swords would help them deal with con issues. +2 con to Thany would still make her lose 3 AS to Silver Lance after promotion.

- Cavs and WKs don't need to be slowed down; they're some of the slower enemy types in the game (at least, cavs are). Maybe you're talking about their bases, since they're really damn tough in chapters 4 and 7, but the ones in chapter 13 are jokes.

- Make reaver weapons buyable. And I suppose you can make Light Brand buyable in late game, where they suck anyway. Also make a Brave Sword available to you somewhere.

Besides those, I also gave Longbows 5 crit, and I don't think that armors or any of the pegs have battle animations when using swords. Forewarning for you ;)

EDIT: The thieves can't promote. Yet. I'll work on it when I have more free time and release a new patch later.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Celice of Chalphy

[grandjackal]

I suppose swords would help Wendy too...sorta.

However, some characters seem built to be terrible, or suck unfairly. Check Geese for example. Notice his bases, then notice he only gets 1 speed after promotion. Basically, he will go through the entire game never doubling. Do something about that, if you would. I'd say increase his promotion gain in speed significantly, while reducing his power and defensive bonuses from promotion. In a way, basically make Gonzales the tough hard hitter, while Geese is the weaker yet faster one. Gonzales has more viable supports to make up for not doubling as often, now that his HM bonuses are kaput, so he'd be benefitting a better team to make up for not doubling as often.

Give Lillina a personal spell, otherwise she's just Lou without the doubling. Maybe a Thani-like spell, make her like Michaya?

Speaking of promoting the thieves, perhaps Chad could become a Rogue, Ashtor an Assassin (remove his ability to pick locks after promotion instead of stealing), and what's her face...not sure? Maybe just make Cath able to pick locks without a lockpick already, just make her a prepromote Rogue?

I suppose Juno's getting some serious boosts?

What of Sophia? We could boost her bases, but perhaps we could do something different with her and give her mamkute-like growths?

[CT075]

I suppose swords would help Wendy too...sorta.

However, some characters seem built to be terrible, or suck unfairly. Check Geese for example. Notice his bases, then notice he only gets 1 speed after promotion. Basically, he will go through the entire game never doubling. Do something about that, if you would. I'd say increase his promotion gain in speed significantly, while reducing his power and defensive bonuses from promotion. In a way, basically make Gonzales the tough hard hitter, while Geese is the weaker yet faster one. Gonzales has more viable supports to make up for not doubling as often, now that his HM bonuses are kaput, so he'd be benefitting a better team to make up for not doubling as often.

Give Lillina a personal spell, otherwise she's just Lou without the doubling. Maybe a Thani-like spell, make her like Michaya?

Speaking of promoting the thieves, perhaps Chad could become a Rogue, Ashtor an Assassin (remove his ability to pick locks after promotion instead of stealing), and what's her face...not sure? Maybe just make Cath able to pick locks without a lockpick already, just make her a prepromote Rogue?

I suppose Juno's getting some serious boosts?

What of Sophia? We could boost her bases, but perhaps we could do something different with her and give her mamkute-like growths?

I'll change Geese/Gonzales when I have more time one my hands. As for Lilina, so far I haven't adjusted the absolute bases for your mages, so Lugh and Lilina (And Hugh, once I think about it) should have higher stats than usual (I'll fix that at a later date, too.)

I'd do that, but I have zero experience adding animations, and so I'll just leave it as is for now.

Yes. More generally, all the pegs get +1 con IIRC, and Yuno gets +15% or so to all her growths.

Maybe I could boost her bases just enough so she isn't getting insta-blicked immediately, and then add 10-15% to all her growths...

Edited November 26, 2009 by Fang

[Blademaster!]

Geese has trouble doubling? Weird. Never noticed that before.

I have experience with adding animations. Just tell me what needs to be done and I'll do it (NOTE: I'm not making anything from scratch. If you want to use an existing FE animation, I'll do that, but anything else would just be annoying.) I'd take me like, half an hour at most? Plus I'd take the liberty of adding the classes in too, since you don't have experience with inserting animations.

Thieves would promote using the Hero crest I'd imagine then correct?

I don't think I'd be able to get Rouge's to have unlimited lock picking though. Same would go for assassin's having Lethality.

[CT075]

Geese has trouble doubling? Weird. Never noticed that before.

I have experience with adding animations. Just tell me what needs to be done and I'll do it (NOTE: I'm not making anything from scratch. If you want to use an existing FE animation, I'll do that, but anything else would just be annoying.) I'd take me like, half an hour at most? Plus I'd take the liberty of adding the classes in too, since you don't have experience with inserting animations.

Thieves would promote using the Hero crest I'd imagine then correct?

I don't think I'd be able to get Rouge's to have unlimited lock picking though. Same would go for assassin's having Lethality.

That'd be great. All that really needs to be done is adding Rogue and/or Assassin and making Thieves promote to them. (With the Hero Crest, I suppose...) And I don't care about unlimited Picking, or Lethality, but some of the others might.

Anyway, the patch is up, just PM me the modified version when you're done, kthx.

[Blademaster!]

What type of patch do you want though? IPS or UPS?

EDIT: I'm going away today so I'll post the patch when I get back since I won't have internet.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Blademaster!

[dondon151]

Juno wants more base speed so she can double things.

We seriously don't need more Hero Crest competition in this game. Make them use like... a Bridge Key or something. And I'm not sure it's so easy to insert either a rogue or assassin class in this game, since you have to add abilities not previously in FE6. You could just try giving them something insane like +6 HP/+6 res for a promo boost.

Edited November 26, 2009 by dondon151

[CT075]

Maybe they could use a Knights Crest...

[dondon151]

Knight Crest competition is pretty stiff, too. The programmers left in unused items like a Bridge Key, hence why I suggested using that...

[Hash Jar]

Why not just add more hero crest's in the story. Make it so that a mini-boss like character carries it.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Rafael

[CT075]

I think I'll just add in more promo items. Maybe Erik could hold a droppable Knights' Crest, or something?

[Icon of Sin]

I think I'll just add in more promo items. Maybe Erik could hold a droppable Knights' Crest, or something?

That's a bit early. Maybe someone around Grero (12x). An additionnal Knight Crest could be held by Flaer in 13.

[grandjackal]

Geese has trouble doubling? Weird. Never noticed that before.

I can't tell if this is being sarcastic, or serious, but I suppose I'll explain anyways in detail as to why Geese has problems.

9 base speed, 10 con with a heavy weapon type, +1 speed on promotion, only 10 levels to be had beforehand with a 40% growth, which would equal 12 before promotion (40%=2 points every 5 levels). By the time he hits promotion, 13 speed is not enough to double pegasi in Ilia, which is about as bad as you can get (I'll put it this way, you could train and promote Geese, Garret would STILL be doing better).

I mean, why does Geese have the worse start and worse promotion gains? You would have absolutely no reason to not use Gonzo over this guy.

Speaking of berserkers, bandits and pirates though, waterwalk sucks. Lately in newer FEs, waterwalk has been 1 space for 2 move, while in the GBA games it ust reduces you to 1 move. Fix that, so waterwalk isn't utterly useless. Mountain walk is fine, because a mountain is an utterly powerful terrain type.

[Blademaster!]

Geese has trouble doubling? Weird. Never noticed that before.

I can't tell if this is being sarcastic, or serious, but I suppose I'll explain anyways in detail as to why Geese has problems.

9 base speed, 10 con with a heavy weapon type, +1 speed on promotion, only 10 levels to be had beforehand with a 40% growth, which would equal 12 before promotion (40%=2 points every 5 levels). By the time he hits promotion, 13 speed is not enough to double pegasi in Ilia, which is about as bad as you can get (I'll put it this way, you could train and promote Geese, Garret would STILL be doing better).

I mean, why does Geese have the worse start and worse promotion gains? You would have absolutely no reason to not use Gonzo over this guy.

Speaking of berserkers, bandits and pirates though, waterwalk sucks. Lately in newer FEs, waterwalk has been 1 space for 2 move, while in the GBA games it ust reduces you to 1 move. Fix that, so waterwalk isn't utterly useless. Mountain walk is fine, because a mountain is an utterly powerful terrain type.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I've honestly never had any problems with Geese before as a unit. Personally, I think he's one of the best characters in the game. And I generally use both him and Gonzales since they seem to be the only axe users worth using besides Bartre and Dieck.

Also, I was able to get the Rogue animation in, but the Assassin animation doesn't seem to want to work in FE6 and I don't want to bother trying to figure out what's wrong. Just tell me what type of patch you need and I'll send it.

[CT075]

I don't care. Preferably UPS, though.

[Blademaster!]

Done.