thracia 776 [FE5] Hard Mode Modification Hack

[MuteMousou]

I've always found it disappointing that FE5 doesn't present much challenge after a first playthrough other than self-imposed challenges, so I made this hack which aims to make the game more difficult and less trivialized by warp skipping.

(I plan to update this at some point, and there absolutely could be issues with the game currently, so please let me know if you have any technical issues or criticisms.)

Patch Download

 

Spreadsheet with all changes

General Changes:
* Enemies will have increased base stats and greatly increased growth rates.
* Enemies will often have stronger weapons.
* Enemy spawns may be different in some maps (i.e. promoted instead of non-promoted enemies).
* Generic enemies and bosses will have skills much more often than in the vanilla game, though there are not many skills added prior to Chapter 13
* Some maps have been changed in some ways to make them more difficult or to account for the other changes in the gameplay (this is mostly in removing ballista in some maps and replacing them with standard enemies)
* All scroll growth rates are now 0 for all stats (they still give crit immunity). However, player units have increased base stats and growth rates to compensate. (All player unit base stats and growths list in the document below).
* All warp staves before chapter 21x are either turned into Rewarp/Sleep or are removed entirely.
* Most maps will have a turn limit, either a hard turn limit caused by an immediate game over screen once you reach a certain turn, or by other means forcing you to finish the map more quickly. The turn limit for each is listed in the hack document provided below.
* S Drinks are no longer buyable (but they can still be attained in all the other ways they already were able to be in vanilla).

I realize that some of these changes may be controversial, but I think they're important to facilitate strategies that engage with the challenges the game presents to you rather than simply circumventing them entirely, like what S Drinks and warp allow you to do for much of the vanilla game.

The hack also includes many other changes in order to make the fit better with the general changes, though you could say some of these are just things I considered cool:

Classes:
* Warrior now has "Accost" as a class skill.
* Warrior can now move on cliffs, peaks, and rivers with a movement cost of 5.
* Armored units can now move on mountains with a movement cost of 6.
* Female Hero now has "Sol" as a class skill, and now gains D axes on promotion instead of E.
* Male Hero now gains C swords on promo instead of E.
* General has increased weapon ranks.
* Mage Knights (both Male and Female) now have +1 move indoors (now 6 instead of 5 in vanilla).
* Male Sniper now gains 1 move on promotion (8 instead of 7 in vanilla, and this includes enemies).
* Female Sniper now has "Adept" and "Luna" as class skills.
* Female Wyvern Knight now has "Miracle" and "Nihil" as class skills, and has reduced dismount penalties (and so does FWyvernRider).
* Prince (Leif's promotion) now gains an additional +1 to Strength, Speed, Magic, Skill, and Defense on promotion, gains A swords, and +1 move (now base 7 instead of 6).
* Sorcerer now gains +50 dark wexp on promotion.
* Male and Female Thief will be boosted to 10 con after promotion (however, Perne, Lara, and Lifis all have 0% con growths in this hack).
* High Priest and Priestess now attain C rank Fire on promotion, along with C rank Light.
* Some classes have their promotion gains changed, notable examples include FMageKnight, Sage, Sorcerer, but I can't remember all of them right now lol

 

Items:

* The Thunder Sword now gives +10 skill instead of +5
* Magic swords are now much more common.
* Increased hit and lower weight on most lances.
* The Brave lance is now a B rank lance instead of a Finn Prf.
* Killer Lance is now C rank.
* Added Shadow Spear, which provides nihil, is effective against armored  units, and provides a +5 defense buff.
* Vouge weight increased by 1, hit reduced by 10, now usable by Osian, Halvan, Macha, Ralph, and Galzus.
* Made good axes such as Silver Axe and Killer Axe far more common among enemies.        
* Made Bow hit a bit higher all around, and some bows have reduced weight.
* Killer Bow is now C rank.
* Added the "Quicksilver" which is a 25 might, 110 hit, A rank bow which also provides +10 speed.
* Rare tomes in vanilla, such as thoron, wind, elfire, tornado, are now much more common.
* Dire Thunder weight reduced to 8, and is now an A rank thunder tome instead of an Olwen Prf.
* Thoron weight reduced to 7 from 9, hit increased to 75 from 70, and crit reduced to 10 from 20.
* Tornado now has 10 might, 105 hit, is B rank wind, and provides a +5 speed bonus
* Bolganone (A rank fire) and Aura (A rank light, provides nihil and charm) are now usable.
* Added "Nightmare" (B rank) which is a low damage, low accuracy dark tome which sleeps on hit.
* Added dark Nosferatu (A rank), light nosferatu has been renamed "Resire" and has vanilla stats.
* Jormungand now has 14 might, 75 hit, 9 weight, and also provides a +5 defense buff.
* Wind changed to 95 hit, 4 might, 0 weight
* Grafcalibur is now a C rank wind tome
* Elfire is now 85 hit, 13 might
Many other changes that are covered in full in the document on this page

Unit changes:
* Miranda and Misha now have the "Nihil" skill.
* Selphina now has the "Vantage" skill instead of "Accost."
* Sara no longer has the "Wrath" Skill.

New supports:
* Macha <- Brighton,10
* Halvan <- Leif,10
* Mareeta <- Leif,10
* Mareeta <- Saias,10
* Schroff <- Amalda,10
* Amalda <- Schroff,10
* Alba <- Kane,10
* Kane <- Alba,10
* Shannam <- Homer,10
* Homer <- Shannam,20
* Miranda <- Conomor,10
* Karin <- Misha,10
* (The already existing Misha <- Karin support has been boosted to being a 20 support)

Thanks to everyone in the fe5 hacking community who helped me with all of my annoying questions regarding hacking, especially Miacis and Zane Avernathy. Also, thank you all the people in fe5 hacking hel who provided feedback on some of my ideas. I had no experience in hacking prior to making this.

Edited March 25 by MuteMousou
updated patch (and changed it to a link so i don't have to keep editing both this site and FEU seperately lol)

[Jotari]

16 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

* Male and Female Thief will be boosted to 10 con after promotion (however, Perne, Lara, and Lifis all have 0% con growths in this hack).

Boo! Con growths are the best and the GBA games biggest sin was making it a static stat.

[JimmyBeans]

I will totally give this a try! I tend to like playing through Thracia without warpskipping (for the most part) so I think I'll enjoy some of the changes added.

By the way Mute, I've noticed the link for the changelog isn't working, just a heads up.

Edited January 5 by JimmyBeans

[MuteMousou]

1 hour ago, JimmyBeans said:

I will totally give this a try! I tend to like playing through Thracia without warpskipping (for the most part) so I think I'll enjoy some of the changes added.

By the way Mute, I've noticed the link for the changelog isn't working, just a heads up.

Whoops. It should be fixed now. Thanks for noticing that!

[MuteMousou]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Boo! Con growths are the best and the GBA games biggest sin was making it a static stat.

Eh I prefer being able to control what players are able to steal rather than them being able to steal basically anything if they either rig con levels or get lucky.

[Shaky Jones]

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

I've always found it disappointing that FE5 doesn't present much challenge after a first playthrough other than self-imposed challenges, so I made this hack which aims to make the game more difficult and less trivialized by warp skipping.

Ah friggen sweet. I've always wanted fandom accurate Thracia difficulty.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

please let me know if you have any technical issues or criticisms

I'll keep a watch on this for when I next wish to replay Thracia, but I do love to rant about things I don't agree with.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

Enemies will have increased base stats and greatly increased growth rates.

Greatly increased growth rates huh. Cool. Now I can feel justified abusing the scrolls to cap all my sta-

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

All scroll growth rates are now 0 for all stats (they still give crit immunity). However, player units have increased base stats and growth rates to compensate. (All player unit base stats and growths list in the document below).

Awww...

 

Wait a minute, this is just New Mystery.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

Generic enemies and bosses will have skills much more often than in the vanilla game, though there are not many skills added prior to Chapter 13

New Mystery with a taste of Fates. I can work with that.

Elitists punching the air rn (they hate strategy in their strategy game)

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* All warp staves before chapter 21x are either turned into Rewarp/Sleep or are removed entirely.

Go full on New Mystery and make them vulnerarys.

 

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

Most maps will have a turn limit, either a hard turn limit caused by an immediate game over screen once you reach a certain turn, or by other means forcing you to finish the map more quickly. The turn limit for each is listed in the hack document provided below.

This one seems a bit forced. I know some devs (like the 4 Kings hack guy) wants their players to be at least somewhat optimal to avoid grinding, boss abusing, turtle start spamming, etc, but I always felt that just spamming turn limits is somewhat lazy and forceful to how you can tackle the average map. Many want at least some maps to be the cooldown map where they can take their time to train units. Yeah I know you're downloading this for the purpose of difficulty, but I don't see the appeal of making nearly every map randomly end in failure. It also just feels odd for the narrative. Yeah I guess there could always be a large army chasing you, but I dunno. It just screams forced fast play without the well designed initiative to invoke fast play as an incentive through rewarding timings and tactics gained by outperforming the enemy's pace.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

S Drinks are no longer buyable (but they can still be attained in all the other ways they already were able to be in vanilla)

Fair enough. I don't like arena grinding for them anyways, and you're not really gonna have to worry about the somewhat unfair blind aspect of getting a unit locked out of recruiting someone else if this is your 2nd run or above, which it most likely is. 

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

Female Hero now has "Sol" as a class skill, and now gains D axes on promotion instead of E.

When I saw that Macha became a hero, you know I immediately went for that killer axe gaming. Now no one has an excuse.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* Male Sniper now gains 1 move on promotion (8 instead of 7 in vanilla, and this includes enemies).

For Ronan? You shouldn't have!

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* Sorcerer now gains +50 dark wexp on promotion.

Nice. Now they can use all 3 dark tomes that completely destroy their speed. That'll get them to stop being wind spamming staff bots.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* Male and Female Thief will be boosted to 10 con after promotion (however, Perne, Lara, and Lifis all have 0% con growths in this hack).

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Boo! Con growths are the best and the GBA games biggest sin was making it a static stat.

Ditto

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Eh I prefer being able to control what players are able to steal rather than them being able to steal basically anything if they either rig con levels or get lucky.

But that's the main fun of Thracia! I can forgive most of Kaga's wacky definition of balance because I'm allowed to steal back everything he dishes at me. So what if my 20 con Lithis stole the General's Master Lance? That is my decision as Lord of Lithis's to do, and it feels damn satisfying to break the game that way. Those procs are the biggest high you can get, just like with move growths and move star procs. Why do you think Thracia is a cult classic in the fandom? It's our nicotine. I'll take the harder stats and positioning, but let me still experience the drug addiction that is Thracia Steal Steal Berserk. The withdrawal symptoms are also a part of the Thracia experience.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

The Brave lance is now a B rank lance instead of a Finn Prf.

Damn. I always used the brave lance as a perfect example of why I love Thracia usage of personal belongings for storytelling far more than FE4's "you can't trade because fuck you". 

Well if I can give it to Dalsin, I suppose I won't complain.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* Vouge weight increased by 1, hit reduced by 10, now usable by Osian, Halvan, Macha, Ralph, and Galzus.

It's a grim day for Marty fans.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

Added the "Quicksilver" which is a 25 might, 110 hit, A rank bow which also provides +10 speed.

This just happens to exist alongside the holy weapons which in the stat equivalent of Thracia only have 20 might. Sure buddy.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* Dire Thunder weight reduced to 8, and is now an A rank thunder tome instead of an Olwen Prf.

Olwen hate

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* Added "Nightmare" (B rank) which is a low damage, low accuracy dark tome which sleeps on hit.

Great. Enemies will constantly sleep me while I fail to land with it once.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* Grafcalibur is now a C rank wind tome

Good. I hate Asbel.

On 1/4/2024 at 3:54 PM, MuteMousou said:

* Selphina now has the "Vantage" skill instead of "Accost."

Ballistaes weeping rn

 

I like how you gave Eyvel Sedgar growths, but that probably still won't do crap given her 2nd join time. Unlucky.

Is there a particular reason you gave Dagdar +2 to his growths? Did you feel a twinge of guilt removing his FCM?

I only skimmed through growths, but it seems to mainly be +1 to most bases and 5 to 10 to most non HP growths with some exceptions. I appreciate that it's not a complete attempt to "rebalance" Thracia and make everyone equal, as that's just not in the spirit of many old FE games (I will take the moderate Xavier buff though, the player deserves a busted based beard general man for the hell they gotta go through), and while the removal of certain prfs might hurt certain characters from what's meant to make them memorable or story relevant, it does suck feeling obligated to use Olwen every run for her good tome or especially Asbel for grafcalibur. Overall, this seems like it would be pretty fun to play (my only genuine complaint is no con growths), and as someone who hates warp skipping, I'd love to see the average Thracia player cry about half the game being unplayable. My plate is rather busy, but I'll totally give this a try when next I play Thracia. Yeah, I do really, really love growth scrolls, but I can just pretend this is like playing the FE12 remake of Thracia (I'd be a hypocrite to say the game is ruined), only with the exact same graphics. IS is on a budget since Engage didn't do as well as 3 Blouses. 

[MuteMousou]

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

This one seems a bit forced. I know some devs (like the 4 Kings hack guy) wants their players to be at least somewhat optimal to avoid grinding, boss abusing, turtle start spamming, etc, but I always felt that just spamming turn limits is somewhat lazy and forceful to how you can tackle the average map. Many want at least some maps to be the cooldown map where they can take their time to train units. Yeah I know you're downloading this for the purpose of difficulty, but I don't see the appeal of making nearly every map randomly end in failure. It also just feels odd for the narrative. Yeah I guess there could always be a large army chasing you, but I dunno. It just screams forced fast play without the well designed initiative to invoke fast play as an incentive through rewarding timings and tactics gained by outperforming the enemy's pace.
 

Thank you for making such a detailed and thoughtful post! 🙂 It's cool hearing what people think, and I hope you have fun with the hack whenever you play it.

-Most of the "turn limits" are not actual game over screens. You can probably imagine what that might entail. There are also some maps without turn limits.

-For Dagdar I gave him 0 FCM because in playtesting he often doubled and accosted a lot of enemies which caused him to kill them all the time on his own. I considered reducing his speed, but that feels a bit much since he's not going to be very good after chapter 3 anyway, so 0 FCM should lower his kill power by a little, though it probably doesn't change much.

-Imo getting a +4 con boost on promo is pretty big already, and you'll still be able to get the body ring that increases con by 3, in chapter 18. 10 con is already enough to steal most tomes in the game. Idk, as a player I just don't like getting random huge advantages from rigging stat ups or being lucky, this is just a thing I don't like about fe5 and later FE games limit your abilities to do things like this such as with class-specific caps and class-specific weapon rank caps. I can see why you like the mechanic but I just disagree unfortunately.

-Olwen is most likely going to be significantly better in this hack compared to vanilla because of now being supported by Fred and her tome advantage over other mages being more meaningful.
 

[MuteMousou]

2024/03/24 Massive Update!
-many difficulty tweaks. There are now two difficulties, determined by the patch you use. The previous only difficulty setting is now called “maddening” and a new mode has been added called “hard” (I know this might be confusing, sorry).

-The lower difficulty (hard mode) has significantly lowered enemy stats and the enemies won’t have as many crazy weapons. Warp is now more common, but there are less warps compared to the normal game, but also they all only have 2 uses.

-Maddening difficulty (previously called “hard”) is generally the same as it was before, but the early game should be a bit easier, and the final few maps should present more of a challenge than they did previously.

-Many unit and item changes to both difficulties, there are significant buffs to Tanya and Misha, and Ronan has been nerfed slightly in his combat stats, but also he now has 4 vigor instead of 3.

-Objective screen now tells you the turn limit.

-Galzus now appears on turn 8 on chapter 6

-Asbel has miracle+ in chapter 4x

-Many other changes that I’m too lazy to list all of, mainly in item changes, unit changes, and map changes. (The notes doc has updated unit stats)

Please let me know what you think about any of these changes and thanks for playing!