Dunal

That's not really what I meant. I understand what the ranks do, of course. But on hard mode I'd imagine they'd be tuned to be at least semi-challenging. Otherwise there isn't a point for them being there? I really like the changes to CH7 BTW. I enjoyed that map a lot. I'm very surprised that the abomination that is CH8 was left completely intact though. It's one of the worst maps in the entire series. I actually had to stop playing for the time being because it's that bad. =S Have you considered making some heavy changes to this map to make it flow a whole lot better? EDIT: I actually predicted Wendi would be a Zweihander. Are there any other units that could become one? I do really like that class. Echidna could suit one pretty well perhaps.

Those stat tweaks + a personal skill should be fine I suppose. Again, I don't think every unit needs to be super good or anything, just usable enough (especially since this game has rankings -- likely far more strict than the original game). It's nice to use whomever without being punished for it. More to do with the fact that it's essentially 14 against cavalry + 3 range. Just caught me off guard since nomads have enough advantages over archers, typically. Otherwise, the bow is light and also has crit.

Imagine that will be dealt with later on. It's a bit jarring I agree but likely not a priority so far.

I understand being against this sentiment for tankier units or those with utility and/or movement. But we're discussing archers here, who typically just attack on player phase and also lack movement. So... they kinda need damage. They don't offer much else. Dorothea seems okay from what I can see. Her bases make her more than usable, at least. Suu seems to kinda eclipse both of them on the virtue of how powerful Paragon is. And her base stats are the equivalent to a level 4-5 Wolt at level 1 -- and probably only gets even better from there due to actually having speed. And extra movement. And apparently a powerful 2-3 range bow that Nomads can use but not Archers. Hmm. Seems a bit similar to Rolf vs. Astrid from FE9. Not that I think Suu is OP or anything -- heck there's nothing wrong with certain units being slightly above the power curve. It just seems the contrast is a bit wide in this case. Might not be a bad idea to bump up her base level to 3-4 though. By the way, since Dorothea/Suu has a personal skill, couldn't Wolt use one? Something basic like "Encouragement: +10 Crit when adjacent to an ally" could work. As for Bors, what about something like "Confidence: gain X bonus when receiving no terrain bonuses." Means he is best used to charge ahead rather than turtling on tiles like forts. But I'm sure there's a lot of things you can experiment with.

TBH It's very likely due to the fact that I selected hard mode on reflex (and then read your notes, but then assumed you had just not implemented/made any changes to hard as opposed to it being buggy -- so carried on anyway. My bad!). Turns out that enemies are far weaker in normal. Chad can do some damage here I suppose (which isn't saying much since everyone else stomps). I would give him a couple points of SKL and EXP on lockpick use + stealing though. He's still hard to level and thieves still need to gain levels to raise their speed in order to steal, as well as promote in order to gain more movement (or is that still not a thing?). What might also be a nice skill for thieves to have is possibly double EXP on hits or debuffs, but not kills. This means they can be used to poke/debuff but not kill, and still gain decent EXP for it. Might be worth exploring -- As I agree that they are not primarily combat units who should be taking kills. Eh... The thing with Archers is that their only relevant stats are STR, SPD and to a lesser extend SKL (which to be fair, is more useful in XNA). Archers don't need anything else because they are player phase only units who shouldn't ever really be attacked. All other stats are superficial. That's why Wolt is bad. Having average STR and bad SPD just doesn't do any justice to an archer. I shouldn't really need to explain why. I'd say an archer needs two of STR/SPD/SKL to be good/great. Otherwise they'll be doomed to be mediocre at best. That's just how FE goes. For Wolt, I'd still rework him into a SPD focused archer to mirror Dorothy. Because to be honest, whomever has the better balance of STR+SPD will be flat out better, no matter how high you make their other stats. Archers are kinda one-dimensional like that. At least Magi can have enemy phase contribution which means stats like LCK or DEF can be valued. If you want a 'balanced' archer I think Klein would be a much better candidate, since you can give him solid enough base stats to make him useful for the mid-game, even if he's not stellar in any particular area. Doesn't work for Wolt though since a growth/long term unit needs substantial pay-off, especially as an archer. Also, I'd personally make either Wolt or Dorothea a Longbowman. Having both the non-promoted units being the same class seems less varied. Same for the pre-promotes (I'd make one a Sniper). Fair enough. I see that Roy's the same -- but doesn't seem to be particularly good outside of the Rapier. Still, with an earlier promotion I suppose he can't be that bad. I do just think fake difficulty should be avoided -- there are better ways to make a game more challenging. I'm back on CH5 again, so I'll provide my remaining feedback shortly.

Some general gameplay notes/feedback: - Marcus's map sprite predominately shows an Axe despite it being his worse weapon rank. Is this intentional? I think it makes more sense for him to be a Paladin still to also be consistent with FE7. Although perhaps this is just to give him less movement. - I'd give Bors a few more base SKL and 2-3 less base LCK. He'd really value some more hit over some avoid and he's not going to need critical avoid with that personal skill he has. - The christmas cavs seems a little too good. I'd very slightly drop their bases a bit -- like a single point of STR or SPD - Wolt is.. pretty bad. 7 base STR due to WTA is a neat boost but not really enough. Due to being likely Rebecca's theoretical Son it makes sense for him to be speed based. Especially being the 'green' archer. I'd give him around 7-8 base SPD but 4-5 STR. Basically Rebecca but with better base speed. With Dorothy I'd make her the STR/SKL archer. In any case, Archers deserve to have good bases because they are player phase only and have infantry move unlike Nomads. Being stingy with their bases just makes them poor. - Chad has 5 ATK at base. Is the 'Knife' skill bugged or incorrect? By definition it should give him more damage based on his SKL but it's not doing that. Otherwise he would have 9 ATK, or am I wrong? (apparently he needs at least 5 SKL for this to kick in) Either way, he cannot kill enemies and therefore get much EXP. Even if he poisons someone (but does no damage) he also gains barely any EXP. At the very least, I'd give him some more SKL if that will boost his damage a little. As it stands I needed to feed him the Arm Scroll and give him the Fine Sword just to make him remotely usable. Perhaps stealing should give ~25 EXP or so as well? - Doesn't seem like much was done to fix CH3's main issue in terms of design -- having to detour and then go all the way back to recruit Lugh was/is always a pain. Perhaps add stairs specified below to help with this a bit? - Speaking of Lugh, I always thought his yellow attire would make him more suited for Thunder Magic. While Hugh = Wind and Lilina = Fire. But it seems wind is Lugh's main type? Not that there's a problem with that, just imagined it would make more sense. - Rutger's group in CH4... Ambush spawns can never be justified IMO. They are awful towards blind players no matter how some people may be familiar with their locations. - All base convos in CH4 crash the game except for two of them (one being where you get the Infantry Band). The game also crashes after the opening cutscenes in CH4. - Game crashes the turn after the fog appears (in CH5 when you end the turn). I'll see if this is consistent. EDIT: Seems like it is. If you would like to go further into gameplay balance discussion then feel free to give me a PM. What I've put above are fairly "brief" notes as far as I'm concerned (or at least the more prompting stuff). I could go in much more depth as what I would tweak balance in some cases to make units not only more balanced overall, but increasingly interesting/unique. But that's entirely up to you as to whether to feel any further help is necessary. I'm really liking the progress so far. I was actually going to undergo a project like this but since it's already been/being done I hadn't bothered. So I'm more than happy to contribute. I'll provide some more feedback as I play further.

17 dmg vs. Lucius' 11 dmg (with same join time). A 4 RES enemy means they do the same damage if Lucius is doubling. Canas much more if Lucius isn't (anything more than 6 AS). And for what it's worth, Canas is guaranteed to survive a hit. Erk has the worst start out of the three but he does have availability (at the cost of investment). Canas has low investment and can promote early for extra AS + staff utility for whatever that is worth. Granted, I'd probably put Canas below the other two overall but it's pretty close.

Erk, Canas and Lucius are all around the same in terms of usefulness overall. Canas has the best bases (upon joining) for the lowest payoff (Luna shenanigans aside). Mostly due to speed. Lucius is a bit weak on joining but has the highest payoff with an instant C in Staves. Erk has the most availability but middling payoff. That said, FE7's scaling and lategame isn't all that impressive, so pay off doesn't mean too much (hence why Nino's potential is pointless). But all of them are decent nonetheless.

You would need to re-download a patch since the data is within different patches. Essentially I'm 'randomising' the data through 100+ different patches. The format of which I'm undecided on. One direction I'm intrigued at is affinity bonuses. You choose a personal affinity like FE7 which grants minor bonuses to units and maps with the same affinity. This then also effects the randomisation of shops -- possibly slightly favouring units with said affinity. Also, here is an example of the randomisation possibilities in a couple maps: Barring in mind, the bargain options will affect drops in other maps or maybe even personal skills. Someone like Meg may come with another skill if Fortune is on sale.

When you download the patch it'll be randomised (on a per-chapter basis). This doesn't mean you'll have really inappropriate options, but reasonable variation based on the part of the game. I think it's a good addition since FE tends to be variable (RNG, leveling up etc..) so this compliments that. Some items like Master Seals will likely be fixed. But it just means the stat booster on sale may differ. Or you get the option of a Purge rather than Bolting on 1-5 for instance. Or maybe even an early Arcthunder etc... So it's not completely randomness -- semi-randomness I suppose. There's also some potential to add some randomness to other parts of the game as well, such as slight base stat variations for units. I'm planning to make growths visually in-game as well so that might work with this. But we'll see. Enemy AI and gimmicks/objectives to answer the last question. EDIT: Here is what I mean by growths being viewable in-game.

Planning to release something very soon. Recently been experimenting with the idea of randomized shops (particularly bargains) as well as various changes to map design in some cases. Otherwise, it's more or less complete.

Conquest, then FE7 or FE9. FE9's (and FE7's to a lesser extent) balancing issue is more to do with the fact that since enemies are so pathetic, you might as well just use mounted units to speed through. But in terms of unit design, it's not like the mounted units are statically superior or anything (for the most part). If the game were much harder, you'd be forced to play a lot more differently to the point where mobility would be a convenience and not much further. Conquest is a good example of that. Of course, they have rather bland balancing -- causing a lot of units to be very same-y (Soren vs. Ilyana, Gatrie vs. Brom etc...). With conquest you have pretty much everyone being viable (without too much effort) while also having really good diversity and niches. So it's very well pulled off overall. Addition of Tonics can fix less than ideal bases in some cases as well.

Yes, definitely. Primary reason is because it means they can design challenging enemies/maps without forcing inflated stats (FE11/12) or stupid enemy density (FE9!M?). Without skills, you need to replace said difficulty with another element -- and unless a new one is made, it's going to be the above two. Granted, 'enemy density' depends on map design as well. CH10 Conquest had huge numbers but the map design works well for it.

I should be able to do the first, I suppose -- it's based around how the units are loaded but I can change that. The second seems like an interesting idea worth looking into. However, since it's not support based it may be a bit too powerful. However, I was actually think about putting the skill as a hidden one on a couple units, but I've yet to experiment. Much the same kind of changes as FE10. Difficulty way up -- not as much enemy density as JP Maniac but enemies will be stronger overall. Armors will certainly have lower terrain costs. Not only are knives stronger, but mages have more STR and some enemy classes having a lot more RES. Largo... is actually more or less fine power-wise. His issue is more that other units are too strong, not that he's weak. Although, changing up his stats to make him more focused (as with any other unit) would be good. I'd give him stats more in-line with Nolan in order to separate him from Boyd. Giving him huge RES for instance. Most skills are fine. Immobilising skills like Deadeye or Stun are definitely better when enemies are stronger. You could argue that their effects are great, because you're essentially killing that unit while being able to give the EXP freely to anyone of the team. So they're essentially lethality with benefits (the enemy still occupies a tile as well, which also leaves less freedom for the enemy to attack you further). In fact, mastery skills in the game are very well balanced by default and have different niches. Roar is very powerful as a 'taunt' skill, even if it isn't a conventional mastery by any means.

Well, FE10 ReDux is balanced around 'Normal' (JP Hard) while FE9 ReDux will be balanced around 'Hard'. So basically the actual 'middle' difficulty for both games. FE9 ReDux will be redesigned to be harder than JP Maniac anyway, albeit in a different manner. Similar difficulty across both games overall. As for Soren... well obviously he himself is rebalanced anyway regardless of bands. He isn't meant to double and instead, has a lot more MAG now at 3 range. Adding growth descriptions for bands will be good though. Mage Archetypes

Problem with Largo is: 1) Would need an extensive rewrite in story/dialogue. 2) Largo would need custom supports/epilogue amongst other things. 3) Expanding data is extremely time consuming. 4) Hard to 'fit in' from a gameplay standpoint. I'd make him a Berserker at base as some kind of lategame unit I suppose. But statwise possibly too much overlap with with either Nolan (defensive) or Boyd (offensive). Natural fit to join would be 4-2 which would be going through the effort of adding a new unit for a very small part of the game. On another note, I will be doing an FE9 ReDux. Haven't quite decided on the scope of it compared to this yet -- probably less overall. What's good though is that I can pretty much transition all balancing from this hack to that one. So Ike for instance would be re-balanced to be a tier 1 version of his FE10 self (More STR/SKL, less SPD) or someone like Ilyana/Jill can literally have the exact same bases/growths or close to that. Granted, some units may need buffs/nerfs based on join time. Someone like Rolf may need to be even better, and someone like Marcia/Kieran to be less good. So it really just comes down to map design and difficulty -- while everything else is essentially 'ported'.

I believe that untransformed Laguz are locked out of the 'Attack' command altogether, so you'd need to resolve that first. BTW, I've been delving into FE9 hacking as of late, which on the surface would seem the same, but it kinda isn't... Proven to be quite a bit more tricky actually. Looking on previous FE9 related stuff in the past on this forum, it seems most people have issues replacing data successfully through un-compression/re-compression (which is much more of a pain with this game, to be fair). Solution to that is to use GCRebuilder and rather than replacing the compressed files individually (which won't work with bigger files) you'll need to instead extract the 'root' of the ISO and replace files outside of the application. Then you rebuild the ISO with Root > Open > Save where the ISO will go > Rebuild. Then open the ISO in Dolphin and voila. To note, army data is different than FE10. The arrangement of data is different for units (Unit Name > Class > Weapons/Items > AI > Coordinates/Level?) and the pointers are really off for the most part, and it can vary per map. CH4 pointers are minus 6A0 in hex for instance. I'll likely make some nightmare related stuff for it eventually -- Will likely help a lot of people who are interested in hacking FE9. There really isn't much out there for it. The above two things seem to be the main barriers people have with the game though.

FE9 did a pretty good job in this too, don't forget. At least in its early game (CH1-CH9 or so). Of course, once you have a certain amount of units, it becomes difficult to keep it up. But at least FE9/10 had base convos.

Except, that's just arguing potential > efficiency. "Better" is subjective depending on which one of those two you value most. To answer the question: only if the 'inferior' unit is at least interesting or has some kind of niche/strength when used/trained. Someone like Matthis is just flat out bad. But units like Meg/FE7!Bartre/Ray/Makalov etc... are at least interesting/unique enough to use and there's some satisfaction to be found in using them effectively.

It's units up until 3-4. Otherwise Reyson would be on there as well. Yes, Warriors/Zerkers can still use crossbows. In fact a promoted Nolan in time for 1-6 is a godsend against all the pegasi you're against (you can buy a bowgun here). Nah. You can steal a scroll in 1-7 for whatever it's worth, though.

Warriors now promote to Berserkers who have +20% crit. Granted, Boyd's SKL is terrible so his crit % won't be super high still, but it certainly helps his offense even more. Cymbeline is extremely powerful, yes. However, Sanaki cannot really double reliably while also not have the range of Soren or the bulk of Ilyana/Pelleas. Nor any staff utility. Therefore she has the highest raw damage of any mage in the game in a single attack (also has a magic cap of 48).

Well, Kurth and Ena are both a lot stronger at base, so that's less of an issue. Tormod's decent as well. 15/1 (with or without BEXP) makes him good enough for 4-4. Sanaki now wants to use Cymbeline over Rexflame (the +SPD doesn't really do anything for her and Cymbeline has ridiculous MT) so using both is of no consequence.

Not sure yet. But either way, they'll be chapter-by-chapter releases after the next update. So there won't be too much wait for part 3 action. The forced units will be the same but they'll likely be some room to bring more units. The idea will be that you can deploy quite a bit more in 4-F-1 (around 22-24). But the unit slots will be lower in 4-F-2 and beyond (~15). So you can drop the 'forced' units if you want. Aside from Ike and Micaiah. This creates the potential to 'swap' units between the endgame maps too. You can for example; bring Ilyana to 4-F-1 and then only deploy her on 4-F-3. This can make your endgame roster quite varied. And if a unit dies on a map, then you can substitute them if need be. And based on the difficulty that these maps will have... yeah, don't be surprised to have a few sacrifices along the way (but does make the difficulty a lot more appropriate when you're not as punished for not resetting). The Laguz royals play quite well into this as well. While they're quite a bit weaker than before (no formshift) they're good substitutes. I mean, Caineghis is no Lyre (lol) but still plenty strong. Imbue-Adept-A/Soren-DragonFang!Heather is truly a spectacle to behold, I'll give you that... She works really well with Stillness as well. But she gets mostly 2-shot by any physical damage. So there's that, I suppose.

You only change Odin to a Myrmidon for the speed boost he gives on pair up. If you actually want to use him as a unit, then that's a different story altogether. But this is about utilizing Nyx the best. And I probably wouldn't actively use both Nyx and Odin in any given PT. Nyx's problems isn't mid/late game since her role of killing any thing she targets on player phase is fine, especially when given a lightning tome. Her durability isn't an issue because if you're playing properly she isn't getting hit. She isn't an enemy phase unit. Her main issue is performing said role early when her speed isn't good enough to double. The +4 she can get from Odin will solve that, and you get a good child.

Just don't let her take damage. Or at the very least -- giving her a HP tonic should be enough to survive an archer or something. Her only real issues for the role she performs are her early game offence and her accuracy. Her early game is kinda bad because her magic isn't high enough to deal good amounts of damage to make up for the fact she cannot double. However, what I did in my last run was class change Odin to a Myrmidon, and then just made him pair up with her almost permanently. 16 base SPD is enough to double most things at her join time. And you get a really good Ophelia to boot. See if you can forge her a +2 Fire tome as well to help with accuracy (that doesn't hamper her damage). But +1 is fine and easy enough to achieve. This is one the most effective ways to use her in Lunatic efficiently IMO (should you want to use her).