Dunal

Uhh.. if you want to create a map where enemies have no weapons then... go for it? 'Breaking the game' is kinda redundant when you're the one making it. Unless you're talking about playing other people projects in which the answer is no. Unless Yeti is mad enough actually "program" this to be a thing. Otherwise you could probably just edit other people's games and 'break' them how you want.

Weird growths/bases for a weird character. Danved was one of the most boring units in the original game (bland middle ground between Neph/Aran with bad availability). So now, he has really distinct facets as a unit. He might not be as lategame capable as some other units (shaky hit rates and durability), but he's still pretty good. High HP/Magic makes him really good with Imbue and his offensive stats and avoid are solid. And in the midgame he absolutely dominates with a 'Heavy Spear' (more info on that soon).

Update: Unit data for part 1 and 2 are now listed in the OP. Full list of weapons/items will be listed soon as well. Yes -- that does mean there's going to be a release shortly. That said, part 2 is pretty much complete (aside from some minor tweaks pending for 2-3 and 2-F). So if you would like to test that before the actual release, then feel free to PM me.

Highest DEF growths go to 1) Pelleas and 2) Brom and 3) Ilyana & Makalov. Mage durability now varies as much as any other type of unit. They all had very same-y stats in the original overall. Barring in mind, DEF & RES mean less now since both damage values and HP are going way up. Even with really high DEF/RES you're unlikely to face single digit damage. Someone like a capped-DEF Brom is still facing ~10 damage from a lategame swordmaster (who will double him too). The difference is that he has a 100+ health pool as well. The benefit of that too though is that someone with abysmal DEF like Calill or Sigrun will have HP pools of their own around ~70. So they will never be one-shot. Even a silver bow on a lategame Sniper will fail to one-shot Sigrun. You could say that unit durability has less extremes this way. You're not going to tank pathetic 0-2 damage amounts anymore but neither will you be one-shot.

Gonna have to strongly disagree about Mechanics. Pairup attacks and guard were pure RNG in Awakening. You cannot form a strategy around them aside from the ridiculous pair-up bonuses. They just... happened. Pair up mechanics were great in Fates and enemy dual attacks or pair ups just needed to be better balanced around unit durability -- which wasn't as fine tuned as it should have been. But that's numbers more so than mechanics. No weapon durability is an interesting concept that succeeded in some areas but failed in others. If they fine tune it, it's a great mechanic. The EXP formula in awakening is busted. Fates makes it harder to over level units in comparison. Map design, enemy placement and skill mechanics etc... are far superior in fates. Most skills in awakening are fairly generic and not that many enemies utilize them to the point where you would really care. Personal skills are a nice addition to fates and make each unit feel more unique. The children mechanics are far better and make it so A) They aren't useless when joining and B) Aren't blatantly OP when trained. The changes to them from a gameplay standpoint are really good. It's all subjective I suppose but Fates is by far better mechanically IMO even if it's got room to improve. Even just the EXP formula in Awakening really brings it down.

Making a 0% mod should be really straight forward if that's something yet to be done. Although speaking of RD, would actually be quite easy due to the abundance of high base stat units -- definitely not impossible. In fact, after checking, Dondon has actually done it on HM. A 0% version of my own hack? Would be much much harder since enemies scale more and base stat units are typically less strong -- a huge amount in some cases (Sothe, Volug, Haar etc...). I could easily provide that if people are interested.

That is Ilyana's class yes. It has +1 movement and DEF as a core stat (Fun fact: Ilyana has the third highest DEF growth in the entire game). Barring in mind, thunder magic is mostly melee. Tormod has thunder and Calill has wind. Soren has fire and Pelleas has thunder. Magi is plural for mage or magus.

Part 2's main issue is just that it's too easy and units don't really gain EXP. That makes it feel unsatisfying. Map design itself is fine. 2-F is one of, if not the best map in FE10.

Magi classes are as followed: Seer (Fire/Light) > Sage (+Wind or Thunder) > Archsage (+Staves/Wind or Thunder) (SS Fire) (C Staves) Mage Fighter (Thunder) > Mage Knight > Thorbringer (+10% Crit) (SS Thunder) Ebon Mage (Wind/Dark) > Strategist (+Fire or Thunder) > Grandmaster (+Staves) (SS Wind (Soren) or Dark (Pelleas) or Thunder (Bastion)) (A Staves) Therefore, tier 1 magi cover all types of magic. Micaiah doesn't get Corona anymore (instead she gets a certain passive ability..). This is the case on all modes.

It's possible, very likely. Not necessary, however. Most critical hits would 1HKO if the unit's associated mastery skill would OHKO regardless. For what it's worth, 'Challenger/Classic mode' will not have mastery skills except Ike/Volke. As for an update, next release will be quite a bit different again from the previous demo. I've learned how to expand map data (not something anyone has done prior from what I've seen, so I may write up a guide on how to do this later on) so have made a serious effort in making each map as interesting as possible -- and generally more convenient from the player's end. For example, 1-P is no longer just a bandit-fest and mixes up the enemies you are fighting and where they are placed. There's even an enemy dark mage with a drop-able Worm tome. So Micaiah has more options from the very start. I've also implemented various QoL changes. For example, immobile enemies have duplicate weapons to show they do not move, and Sothe gets more opportunities to steal as a result. With the way the map design is now, it's really important to know whether an enemy moves or not (it's always good to have really challenging difficulty in the most fair way possible). So expect earlier maps in particular to be more challenging but have more clarity.

Mastery skills are largely the same. However, proc rates are still being adjusted. It does mean that the SKL stat is weighted more heavily against a unit's total worth. And masteries being as powerful as they are does help this. In the end, there are just a secondary crit. I think the issue in the original game was that there are just plenty of units who are really powerful outside of also having at least an above average SKL stat, which means that masteries do just feel superficial and overkill (and also makes otherwise average units with monstrous SKL also kinda pointless, like Leonardo). However, the way I've balanced units does make this a lot better. Someone like Makalov is fantastic all around aside from his abysmal SKL (shame that he's an alcoholic...) or Meg is another good example. Therefore their proc rates with skills are almost non-existent. However, someone like Ike or Leonardo, who are looking at ~20% proc rates on their masteries (which is the highest you can get at 50 SKL) have rather bad speed or other weaknesses. Typically, if you have good skill, you'll suffer in other important areas. It does depend on the class though. Flare/Corona are not super powerful relative to other skills, therefore SKL is weighted a bit differently for mages. Although HIT rates in general are still an important factor. Calill has amazing MAG and SPD but poor SKL/LCK for example. She's like a version of Nyx that isn't underleveled. Generally speaking, there isn't a unit that exists with good/great STR(or MAG)/SKL and SPD. Exceptions being Sothe, Lucia and Tormod? A unit will otherwise lack in at least one. Nihil I think is a necessary inclusion. Player side, it lets you deal with certain enemies that have the potential to proc a skill that could otherwise 1HKO you. This gives you an option against them. For enemy side, it lets me design certain enemies around being less RNG based to deal with. And also adds decision making when it comes to choosing your own units to deal with them. Enemies with Nihil may also have poor LCK in order to crit them more often, or are weaker in other factors. For the Black Knight fight -- I think Nihil is also necessary as a means to maintain the design of the map overall. The idea of the fight is that it should be prolonged in order to make the bottom half of the map forced to survive for a certain period of time. Not only that, but the map can easily be restarted if you get bad RNG. And you can just skip it altogether if you get early lucky procs.

Pretty much all units have been given some kind of change -- either for better balance or to emphasize strengths/weaknesses. Units with least change? Ranulf, Nolan, Oscar, Gatrie and Tier 3s come to mind. Or, if your question is who doesn't need to be 'balanced'... then I suppose it's Micaiah and Kurthnaga. They are legitimately 'overpowered' with the difficulty/balance being designed around that. Then you have Sothe and Ranulf who are the 'Oifeys' of their respective parts.

Sorry for the delay guys! I've been finalising a lot of the groundwork for the full hack in the past month or so. I felt I needed to do this since if I end up releasing anything before that, it could involve making moderate changes down the line to require restarts and I really want to release a definitive version of the hack before I do so. I've essentially drafted/tested the entire game to make sure heavy changes do not end up happening down the line. Good news is that it's getting fairly close to the point where I can push out releases very often since the entire game is planned out (such as testing all units in the game with variable levels and enemy matchups). Put it this way -- once the next release is out, expect further releases to be fairly quick. I'm also developing/testing a 'challenger' mode which is tuned to be balanced against the normal version (unit/weapon balance), so again, it's all about fine tuning things for a higher difficulty as well. Thanks for being patient.

People are being too harsh on Arthur in general IMO. I think he's a solid B because of his availability and solid stats, let alone pair up. His main problem is that he's often reliant on using a Bronze Axe especially early on (which isn't too bad since his base STR is okay). People just not giving him one or something? Forging one a bit is pretty good for him.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have it ready for today either. Been very busy lately with other things. I still need to do some further test runs to make sure nothing is broken (Like Danved). I could release it but not until everything is checked. Speaking of which: NOT DEVDAN Weird? Yup. Good? You bet. Being that Nephenee and Aran fit their archetypes well, I had to do something interesting with this guy to make him stand out, rather than just being the boring in-between of the former two. So... this is how it's ended up! Pretty much all of the Crimean knights are super interesting though, due to their lack of screen-time. The important thing is to just make them stand out and be useful in their own way. Granted, the amount of EXP you receive in 2-3 and 3-9 is going way up as well (Even Geoff gets 40+ per kill). So I'll have to keep my eye on them...

Oh nice, hard mode! I'll definitely be giving this a run shortly, and offer any further feedback from there.

A lot of availability has changed. Tauroneo is deployable in every map after 1-6. There will be dialogue changes to reflect that. Obviously, he's balanced accordingly -- his base stats are pretty low for his level (level 4 general) but growths are great. Jill and Fiona are usable in 1-8. Also helps that Fiona can actually move in the marsh now too (5 movement cost which means Fiona can actually move through 2 tiles at the time). Lyre/Lethe from 3-1 onwards. The tigers usable in 3-5. The cats are still absent. All crimeans usable in 3-10. Amongst a few other changes. Increased deployment slots to accommodate all of this. Tried something like this but there are issues with it. Magic weapons are fairly common. 2/5 enemies target RES overall. And that's certainly a buff to units with good RES. As a heads up, release will likely not be tomorrow (I am ill and won't be finishing it up tomorrow). I would expect next weekend.

Ilyana gains +5 DEF on promotion. She has the highest defense in the entire game aside from Brom. That should tell how you how she functions. Her offence is shaky though and she's reliant on crits. I do like Wrath on her. Her main worry is avoiding magic weapons. Both dark weapons and wind swords have WTA on her and she's especially at risk of boing doubled by anyone using the latter. But, she also has free Shade, which means enemies will often not target her even with that. As for Druids? I've never gave them a staff so idk. That said, I've found that the game can crash fairly often if any class is given an animation they're not supposed to have (outside of magic types). So for units like Astrid she has no animation with them as it stands -- it's not worth it. Which is fine since it's staves. It would only matter if you counter attack with it.

Do note that a forged thunder tome would still give them an okay 2 range option. Otherwise they're just locked out of magic triangle control, which isn't too detrimental. High DEF / bad RES just means they have better things to do than fight other magi. Giving them access to other types takes away their distinctness. I'd have to weaken their strengths to balance for that which may end up not making them much different from other mages. Thaumaturgy are miracle workers by definition, so I'd thought it would fit fairly well. Same with Shaman in some different context (more relevance than GBA shaman for instance).

@Ace Pelleas: I don't think you realize how extensive the changes are in this hack. Herons are getting a complete rework. Heck, all stat values in the game are being made from the ground up. This is mostly because enemy stats are very different, as well as weapons and well... pretty much everything. So minor balance tweaks to many characters would not cut it. Laguz in particular are completely different. Ranulf is pretty much the GM's Jeigan (It was going to be Titania, but now she's scaled down along with the rest of the bunch -- She's currently testing as level 10?). His growths are kinda bad and EXP gain is still terrible but like Sothe his bases outshine everyone in part 3. He's the clutch unit but falls off later. Lyre is now level 1 and gains about 80 EXP a kill upon joining in 3-1, and her growths are solid. She also has the best laguz gauge of any Laguz in the entire game. So long as she enters combat twice every turn, she won't untransform. She still has weaknesses when trained (bad skill and defense) but is very strong overall. There is however a lot more that's possible than people would expect. Triggering events and knowing how to create them is the solution to a lot of barriers.

Both I suppose? Destroying an aura affects her AI -- for the most part, in a way that makes her less threatening by herself. ... Unless you forget to clear the spirits. Since what she does after destroying an aura is more dangerous when there are spirits around. Their AI and patterns change too. Therefore, the player needs to balance their attention on Auras or Spirits, because ignoring one them has a consequence to it. Spirits aren't exactly easy to kill either (where only Yune Micaiah can negate that somewhat) and Ashera can heal them. I mean, the message here being, is that map design can on the serface, be great. But a lack of well designed enemy placements / AI / power can negate that, making the map design appear to be "bad" even if the structure or concept of the map is good. There are many of these maps in the series. 4-E-5 is a great concept/idea as far as FE final bosses typically go. Just the execution could have been better. But then it depends on your definition of map design and whether enemy placement / AI actually is a part of that or not. Because that's definitely debatable.

Grandia is the first thing that comes to mind. But honestly, some developer just needs to outright copy its battle system, because it's arguably the best a JRPG has ever seen. It's a perfect counterpoint to "Old School turn based is outdated and bad by today's standards". Not when it's Grandia... That style of turn based would work in any modern RPG, especially if it was fully real-time (which was usually exclusive to basic attacks in those games).

Only reason it could be considered unintuitive/repetitive IMO is because aside from Ashera herself there is no real threat to be aware of, so slowly taking down the auras doesn't feel very rewarding and there's little urgency in doing so. But the actual Aura mechanic itself is fine. I've tried making the spirits that spawn a large threat + plus hard to kill but removed their ridiculous movement. As well as Ashera's actions/threat being affected by aura count. So there's a big sense of urgency in progressing the battle because otherwise you'll likely lose. With that fixed, it's a good map. So it's not a matter of map design in a literal sense. In fact, the huge terrain bonuses on RD's endgame maps are really cool after some tuning. But then, this is an execution vs. concept debate depending on what you're referring to.

To add to this, I suppose it's a matter of making sure that if there is a 'winner beats all' weapon/strategy, either re-balance to change that or simply make it expensive or can't be used too often. That seems like obvious advice for a balancing hack, but sometimes changes can often not work out the way you want them to and others won't have a cognitive bias as the way you've balanced things (Even if killers have lower MT, criticals are still FE standard x 3 damage and the weapon will obviously go off of base STR as well). So even if on paper, there is a downside to that strategy, it won't be enough to stop it being the best. Personally, I would just make Killer weapons have awful hit but great MT. In a lot of cases a crit is instant death anyway and tag 'killer' would indicate it's great at doing just that. Giving it bad hit may make the weapon more gimmicky/RNG but keep in mind that enemy avoid rates will vary. It would mean that against an enemy with low avoid (like a general), the weapon is extremely good. Otherwise it's a gamble shot. That's pretty good design since against tankier but slower enemies it's better (who are typically better at surviving crits in the first place) where against faster enemies it's not as good and chances are you won't even need to crit them to do a lot of damage to them anyway. This gives a clear distinction of when and when not to use it. And the statement in bold is a good direction to go towards when balancing anything. The only "objectively best" weapon type I could see existing is silver weapons (with the downside being extremely expensive and pretty much a luxury in moderation -- so basically the fail-safe weapon). But even with Silvers I would make them give a 5-10 LCK penalty or something. Offer scenarios where you would not want to use them. Heck, you could easily just do this with Killer weapons. Just make them grant a -10 LCK penalty or a -4 DEF/RES penalty. Anything similar to that. I wouldn't just make weapons better than each-other based on their weapon rank. But I also think weapons shouldn't overlap too much in what they should be used for. Some types like 'Slim' don't really have an identity to separate them from Iron aside from slight stat changes. You could make them provide an actual speed boost (+2 or +3) so that some units can resort to slim weapons if they are struggling to double or would appreciate the slight avoid boost. Of course, you're probably not interested in remaking the entire weapon system or anything to that extent. But it's something to think about possibly if you go a big update in the future. I will certainly check out this hack since it seems a lot of thought went into it, with positive design philosophies behind it. Aside from apparently being encouraged to grind. I personally don't feel that's welcome in a FE game, even if exists in other RPGs. On the topic of stat boosters, I'd also be a bit concerned with that since if enemies and/or player units were adjusted to not overly require them then they shouldn't be needed in bulk. Otherwise it just feels like a band-aid to stat inflation (and honestly it would appear that's exactly what it is, even if you haven't realized it yourself). I love rewarding stat boosts for fulfilling certain requirements or playing effectively (like a X turn defend map where you need to steal or kill a hard to reach enemy). But when they are hand out like candy it takes away the satisfaction of receiving or using them. Plus, the design flaw with stat boosters is that it's way too ideal in FE to just pile them up on one unit and let them be a one-man army. Fire Emblem mechanics tend to lend to that pretty easily and stat boosters do not help to rectify that. It's also why high growth rates across the board are controversial. Units should be merited on base stats more than growth as a means of having a healthier game, simply because it encourages more units to be used.

Pretty much any game before FE10 (with the exception of FE4). Stats/growths being lower just typically makes balance even tighter by making it so overleveled or underleveled units are closer in power. As well as prepromotes (or higher leveled units) being able to have lower base stats due to the growth of lesser tier or levelled units also being lower. And in much the same way, enemies also grow more slowly so that lower leveled units (or stat screwed units) can stay relevant. In FE, a few points in stats can make a huge difference. Higher growths are fun, but they make a unit spike in power quite quickly or make that growth too reliant in order to stay relevant. For a challenge mode, making base stats more important than growths is a good direction for a few reasons. Having lower variance in power level is the biggest one. EDIT: Fun fact! When balancing stats for this mode, Fiona's stats actually came to be almost the exact same as her original FE10 stats (Literally just 2 points of skill and speed more). She's the only to actually be "buffed" in this mode. It really makes me wonder if stats in FE10 were originally meant to be more in line with PoR. And they just completely forgot to change Fiona when they scaled everything up. Here are Oscar's stats from PoR as a level 9 unit: Level HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res 9 29 9 2 9 10 7 10 2 Overall a bit better than Fiona's but extremely similar. It's funny to think that IS completely forgot Fiona existed late in development when they might have done this.