MarkyJoe1990

Sir, perhaps you should consider learning event coding and mapping to enhance your versatility when handling a Fire Emblem ROM Hack. Not many people are interested in reskins anymore.

Y'know, after reading this, it's occurred to me that despite claiming I wanted to be unambitious with my own hack, Fire Mumblem (The new one with Lucy as the main character), my vision quickly inflated way past what was manageable, and it really shoved me into a corner. I had pretty much everything under control. The maps were on a steady rate of being completed, the portraits were getting done, and pretty much everything else was going fine... until the story came about. Now, those of you who have played my hack, The Corruption of Roy, KNOW that my story telling skills are really terrible (Unless you're one of the people who DIDN'T notice the five hundred plot holes it has), which is ironic since my mother is a published writer with a book that got decent reviews. But anyway, after reading this, and thinking about the whole "10 chapter" thing, it made me realize that I should probably stop trying to make my hack's story into something greater, with a deep plot and likable characters, and just focus on a VERY VERY basic plot, with funny scenes and likable characters. It sounds a lot more reasonable in my head. I still want the game to be at least 20 chapters, but I've been worrying way too about making a complex story when I don't have the talent and vision to make a complex and lengthy tale work. Thanks, Archibald.

Updated the playlists to have the latest episodes. Dream of Five revisited now goes up to chapter 5 currently.

I reworked the prologue map to make it less tall. I also repositioned the trees and changed the path to the village. Also made it guarded by a bandit so Feltyn isn't completely irrelevant for the map. For the rest of the chapter, I positioned the trees and enemies in a way so that Lucy can solo it while also always having enemies to deal with each turn. I can complete the chapter in 4 turns if Lucy's 77 hit on the boss doesn't miss. By the end of the chapter, Lucy should be level 3. Now I just need to make the dialogue for the chapter and then maybe I'll showcase it.

No. That's Poalski.

Finished Make A Decision ~ Everyday Brawls.

Funny you should mention that. We do in fact have a character who is just as psychotic as valter. Only one thing. He's on your side.

Holy cow. I'm actually making the first chapter!? GASP!! As you can plainly see from these screenshots, my ability to balance characters is complete garbage. That said, I'm thinking about moving that village higher up so that the player doesn't have to drag a unit so far away from the combat just to get a silly elixir. I want my chapters to be fast paced and quick to beat, so this will probably help. Anyways, here's the entire map for those curious. The boss (currently Batta) is at the top village, equipped with a hand axe and... ...questionably high stats. Yeah. Expect lots of self deprecation in these posts.

When I say "good design", I meant the gameplay, and only the gameplay. I'll change the topic title to suit this so there's no further confusion.

I think we can all agree that the value of story varies from game to game, and that for Fire Emblem, story isn't nearly as important as the gameplay. No need to draw out this debate out further. This topic is specifically about gameplay regarding Fire Emblem, and not the value of story in a game. EDIT: MOST of us can agree that story isn't nearly as important as gameplay for Fire Emblem, not all... Either way, I don't want to continue discussion about story, since it's irrelevant to the topic.

Alright. Interesting points. I may need to rethink my approach to level design. Though, there's one thing I know I don't agree with, and it's this. I can't really think of an endearing counterargument, but I feel that games should try to fulfill a specific niche audience and focus entirely on doing that niche as well as possible.

I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but if your post is entirely made to mock me without any contribution to discussion, then that's when I get upset. Please do not do it. That said, I wanted to discuss something else that I forgot to mention in my first post regarding level design Fairness - This is something the conventional Fire Emblem games have not done consistently well. When designing a level, you want the player's failures to entirely be their fault. Granted, Fire Emblem is a game where luck is oftentimes a factor due to inconsistent hit rates and criticals, among other RNG-based elements, but because the game gives the player reasonable control of these odds (Most of the time... I'm looking at you FE5), it doesn't induce frustration unless the player's control of the odds lacks significant impact. Fire Emblem's worst chapters are often the result of excessive luck. Remember Battle Before Dawn on Hector Mode? Unless you have a warp staff, Zephiel's survival is in the hands of the RNG until you arrive. Not to mention Jaffar will likely get killed by the numerous fighters equipped with swordslayers. Then we have the infamous ambush spawns, where enemies spawn between the end of player phase and at the start of enemy phase, allowing them to immediately attack once they appear. Now, while a lot of players hate this kind of thing, I do believe there are ways to make this mechanic fair, and what I'm about to say applies to a lot of different mechanics as well. When you introduce a mechanic such as ambush spawning, you should introduce it through the use of intuitive level design. Introduce the mechanic in a controlled environment with minimal consequences. This will allow the player to observe the mechanic and acknowledge it's existence and how it works. From then on, they'll take note of the "signs" that indicate that ambush spawns may appear (such as stairways or forts), and approach the situation accordingly. So long as there is a reasonable way for the player to anticipate it, it's fair. Ambush spawning is actually a good way to induce paranoia in the player. While FE6 approached the idea with mixed results, there were moments of genius, such as in Law of Sacae, where there was an entire circle of houses that could potentially ambush spawn you with high-movement reinforcements. The paranoia the houses induced made the chapter that much more scary to play, and when I beat it, I felt very relieved. The early-game is a perfect time to introduce most core mechanics to the player, since it's the point of the game where the consequences are fairly low.

After a short series of , I've been considering creating a few videos expressing my philosophies on various gameplay aspects in Fire Emblem. Particularly, level design and character balancing.With this in mind, I don't want to go into this without at least getting opinions from people. Some people may have good ideas on design that I never thought about, or maybe people can point out flaws in my own ideas and help me improve. So... I'll get started. To me, a Fire Emblem chapter needs the following to be good: Incentive - Naturally, all chapters have some form of goal to them, whether it be to defeat the boss, defend, etc. But most of the time, these can be handled with the simplistic but slow tactics of turtling (staying in a single spot and waiting for the enemies to come to you), or bait and switch. The thing is, you probably don't want the player to use these tactics on your chapter and win. Even in defense missions, you'll want the player to try something besides defending, so you have to find a way to make the player not see turtling as a desirable option. There's a lot of ways you can accomplish this. The most common being the "Race to the prize" design. This is when you place a village, chest, or some other prize that is only obtainable within a short amount of time, and if the player takes too long, the prize is lost forever, whether it be by a bandit destroying the village, a thief stealing the chest and escaping, a recruitable character being killed, etc. This is in my opinion one of the best ways to make the player WANT to play the chapter in a more fast-paced and risky way, creating a more exciting experience, and it shows. As far as I'm concerned, a large portion of Fire Emblem players are perfectionists, and I think this kind of mind set is reinforced by the "race to the prize" design. They WANT that delicious Knight's Crest within that chest, and when they do, not only do they get to promote their danky cavalier into a heroic paladin, but they also get a feeling of accomplishment because of the challenge they conquered in order to obtain it. Let's look at Chapter 14 of Fire Emblem 7. I love this chapter. It has two villages, and a recruitable character (Erk) who is almost immediately in danger of being killed. If there weren't those two villages and that recruitable character, the player would probably just sit in the beginning and turtle the chapter away or just bait 'n switch the enemies unless they're an LTC player. However, both strategies are boring and easy to execute, so there's very little sense of accomplishment as a result. Of course, there are ways you can force the player to not turtle, such as making an NPC unit placed on the other side of the map that is mandatory to keep alive, or by throwing in a large legion of enemy units chasing the player from behind, like FE5 did with one of it's late-game chapters. Whatever the case is, so long as you give the player a solid reason to pick up the pace, you're off to a good start. There are some exceptions to this rule. For one, if your chapter is VERY early in the game, you probably don't want to immediately burden the player with the stress of getting some valuable item so early in the game. The point of the early game is to get the player acquainted with the game, which means you should put them in a controlled environment where they can experiment and learn the ropes. Additionally, if it's really late in the game, there's probably no reason for the player to really want whatever you're offering unless it's either a major boon, or NEEDED in order to complete the game, such as Xavier in FE5 and Falchion in FE11 respectively (The former is debatable, but it's the best example I can think of currently). Pacing - An ideal chapter is one that keeps you interested and focused throughout it's entirety. Every turn should be meaningful. This means doing things such as throwing enemies at the player often, and making them dangerous enough to make the player concerned. Timing is key here. Think about what the player would normally do if they played your chapter, and tailor the chapter's unit positioning, AI, and reinforcements around that so that it will always have something for them to do. Want the player to fight some fighters one turn 7? Make them spawn at the end of turn 6 in a spot that the player would typically be at that point. Variety - Fire Emblem has classes designed for specific purposes. This means you should apply specific designs that favor certain classes. Let's say you made a chapter with two paths, but want the player to use different units for each one. One of my personal favorite ways to do this is by taking advantage of the weapon triangle. Toss a lot of fighters in one path and mercenaries in another and. Then tada! You're now encouraging the player to use their cavaliers and knights for one path and myrmidons for another. You'll want the player to use a variety of units. Don't make a chapter so centralizing to a specific class, nor making it so general that any class is viable. Both extremes display a lack of focus. Also, you have plenty of chapters to work with, so even if you favor a certain set of classes for one chapter, you can always compensate by making another chapter that favors a different set, encouraging the player to use more of their units in the long term. Exploits - One of the worst things that can happen to your carefully constructed chapter is the existence of an exploit that trivializes the chapter's challenge, which is why you should factor various player strategies, and design the chapter so that the player uses the approach you intended them to. Want to prevent the player from using their pegasus rider to fly over your mountain and saving a village, bypassing the careful placement of myrmidons you placed in their way? Put an archer and a ballista with sufficient attack power to kill the pegasus rider. Turtling is especially something you must account for, since it's the easiest and most boring strategy, but so long as you dangle a worthwhile prize in front of the player, as explained in the incentive section, they'll usually take the bait. However, if you don't have a prize and want to prevent the player from turtling, there's a few ways to do it. Maps that lack walls or rivers are hard to turtle in, but if that doesn't float your boat, there's nothing quite like bitch slapping the player with dangerous reinforcements appearing in their favorite turtling spot, timed just at the right time a flock of enemies close in. Other things - A great way to see what to improve in your chapter is to watch people play it. By observing typical player actions, you can learn about exploits, pacing issues, and anything else you might want to fix to make the chapter fun. I'll tackle character balancing at some other point. For now, I'm a little tired of writing. I wanna hear what y'all think.

We got a new submission. Unfortunately, it's not good.

The problem with reskins isn't necessarily that they are bad. It's that they don't deviate enough from the source material to make them worth playing.

That's just a crappy reskin hack that changes some classes to stupid stuff, like making Lute a supply depot. Not worth showcasing. If you wanna send me a troll hack, make one with custom events and maps. That's a challenge.

Update time~ Since I decided to upload the song to youtube, I'll make it available here as well. Unlifted Spirit ~ Requiem of Heroes I'm quite proud of this song. I made it nearly a year ago though I think.

What would be the point?

Hiya everyone! MarkyJoe1990 here! A long time ago, before I started the Ragefest contest, I had a different series where I would playthrough people's Fire Emblem ROM Hacks, with commentary. In these videos, I would act goofy and state my opinions of the hacks. This was started back when Fire Emblem Universe/Shrine of Seals Forums still existed. I never brought the series over to Serenes Forest before, probably because I was extremely loyal to FEU/SOS, and wanted to help keep it alive as much as I could, but seeing how the forums no longer exist in a way that is accessible, and since I've become a little more active on Serenes, I should bring it here. The earlier videos in the series are more review-focused than the later ones, which are more about me acting silly and putting on a show. A lot of these reviews still aren't complete, but regardless, a lot of people seemed to like them (They have pretty high view counts compared to most of my other stuff). It was this series that convinced me that my commentary style is more suited to Fire Emblem games, and as a result, I started a playthrough of Fire Emblem 5: Thracia 776, and started Ragefest, so it's like a prelude. Kinda... I dunno, I'm tired of writing. FAQ: Q: Can I send you a hack to review? A: Yes, under a few conditions. - It must be yours. I refuse to play through something if the author doesn't give me permission to. That just seems disrespectful, y'know? - It must have custom maps and events. If you know me, I despite reskins. Occasionally I'll make an exception however. Q: Why's your voice so low quality in the earlier videos? A: I had a mediocre microphone at the time. Personally, I think it's adequate. Q: These don't really seem like reviews... A: Yeah. I guess they're more like commentary playthroughs where I occasionally speak my opinion, but I do like to believe I provide some useful insight here and there. Also, that wasn't a question. NEXT. Q: Will you continue GhebSaga and GhebFE? A: I really despise the Gheb series, mainly because they're designed so sloppily and, unless I'm mistaken, the creator hasn't done much to improve them. Unless they get cleaned up a bit, reviewing them some more seems redundant. Q: What about the other series? A: If I get in the mood, I'll continue them. I don't like leaving playthroughs finished... Q: God, your voice. So horrid. A: Send hate mail here: markyjoe1990@gmail.com Anyways, here are the playlists. - By Blazer (OUTDATED) - Archibald - Blazer - BwdYeti - MarkyJoe1990 - AitosSaibankan - Nintenlord Saga (OUTDATED) - AstraLunaSol - MarkyJoe1990 - TheDeathSpectrum (Revisited) - AstraLunaSolProjectZ - The Emblem Brigade (Compilation) Bonus Playlists: