FE5 Hard Mode

[grandjackal]

Evening, ladies and gents.

In this topic we discuss FE5, and the changes you would implement into an FE5 Hard Mode. I mean something legitimate, no jacking up stats on every generic and calling it a day. Not that that wouldn't help, but lets get creative dammit. Examples...

- Lets make bosses hard rather than just juiced up generics. FE5's done this pretty well on a couple of them (Rinehardt, Cyrus and Gomez come to mind), but otherwise they just seem like...Bleh. Lets make 'em FEARSOME! Like Kempuf. He's a dick, and it was too easy to kill a guy who had somehow become a general. Let's give 'im Wrath and 3 PCR...Perhaps a leadership star, or Charisma. I know he's a shitty bastard of a leader, but he's a general regardless.

-FoW on some maps, as it severely can nerf warp staffing. Sety's chapter for instance, or that one with Miranda.

-Lets give armors Ambush.

-Joke: Chapter 21's gonna have this theme on it's enemy phase http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUZ3HxP8ARE...feature=related

Anything you guys think would spice up FE5? Just for shits and giggles.

Edited July 13, 2009 by Pretty Boi Wolf

[Rehab]

The original SNES version>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[cheetah7071]

Lower Saphy's staff rank.

Give bosses higher magic so that Tina+holy water can't pick them clean at base level.

Doors start open in the final chapter.

Fewer warp and rewarp staves. The number of rescue staves is fine.

Nobody in general should have high magioc and easily reach B rank staves except like Sety.

Cyas should keep his 10 authority stars, just as a reward for giving up Sety on this difficulty.

[dondon151]

- Lets make bosses hard rather than just juiced up generics.

There has to be a boundary between "let's make bosses hard" and "let's make bosses have random chances at killing you."

Like Kempuf. He's a dick, and it was too easy to kill a guy who had somehow become a general. Let's give 'im Wrath and 3 PCR...Perhaps a leadership star, or Charisma.

You'll need a combined 55 HP/mag to safely attack Kempf, so no.

-FoW on some maps, as it severely can nerf warp staffing. Sety's chapter for instance, or that one with Miranda.

FoW doesn't screw up any current warp strategies, so as soon as one person comes up with a strategy, FoW becomes pointless.

Preventing equipped items from being stolen would make this game more difficult.

[Icon of Sin]

Make most generics beefier in general.

Moving ballistae.

More Poleaxes/Horselayers in enemy invetories, fuck Hammers.

All Baron bosses should have long range healing staves, as well as a few of them should have status staves.

Beldo with an actual attack tome equipped ( I vote a Dark version of Holsety myself ).

Thieves/Dancers with Berserk Swords.

Actual PCCs on bosses.

More class skills.

Beefier bosses nearing the end of the game.

Enemies with movement stars. A few of them with high authority ( things like Bishops and Dark Bishops maybe ) with authority stars.

[grandjackal]

Lower Saphy's staff rank.

...What would this change exactly? If you wanna nerf her, make Repair have 3 uses rather than 5.

Give bosses higher magic so that Tina+holy water can't pick them clean at base level.

Fair enough, though hard mode boosts I think that would happen.

Doors start open in the final chapter.

Yeah, that was rather stupid to have the doors in. It didn't make the chapter hard, just tedious.

Fewer warp and rewarp staves. The number of rescue staves is fine.

I can agree there. Lolwarping through all of lategame is bleh.

Nobody in general should have high magioc and easily reach B rank staves except like Sety.

That's like the only reason Salem is even usable.

Cyas should keep his 10 authority stars, just as a reward for giving up Sety on this difficulty.

Then there was naught but those with leadership...Wait, that actually sounds like it would help some characters...Good thinking.

However, these are things like balancing, this is a hard mode discussion. Love the thinking, just seems that if this was implimented to a hard mode that it would be changes unfair to some characters.

There has to be a boundary between "let's make bosses hard" and "let's make bosses have random chances at killing you."

Doesn't he start equipped with a master sword?

You'll need a combined 55 HP/mag to safely attack Kempf, so no.

Unless Kempf got Ambush from out of nowhere, and the fact you got plenty of people with various weapons/PCR/skills that would just ruin him...

Come on, Mareeta needs a point in being trained.

FoW doesn't screw up any current warp strategies, so as soon as one person comes up with a strategy, FoW becomes pointless.

Er...wait, yeah. Major brainfart on my part, thought you couldn't use warp in fog. Silly me.

Preventing equipped items from being stolen would make this game more difficult.

Certainly makes Lifis nigh-useless.

[dondon151]

Unless Kempf got Ambush from out of nowhere, and the fact you got plenty of people with various weapons/PCR/skills that would just ruin him...

You can't kill Kempf, so you can't get rid of him before he gets a hit at you.

Certainly makes Lifis nigh-useless.

Lifis already has trouble stealing most shit; it's just that people try hard to abuse his build.

[cheetah7071]

Hitting staves with the nerfbat is hardmode, as well as balance.

Honestly the best thing I can think of for hardmode is removing all scrolls.

Lifis already has trouble stealing most shit; it's just that people try hard to abuse his build.

If you avoid levelling him up before you get the neir scroll, then hit hm with the elite manual/elite sword to ensure he levels up at a decent clip, his bld can get really high. 18 bld at 20/20 after a body ring isn't shabby.

Edited July 13, 2009 by cheetah7071

[grandjackal]

You can't kill Kempf, so you can't get rid of him before he gets a hit at you.

If this is before the Erios chapter, all hits he attacks you with will miss if it will be lethal. Last I recall anyways.

Lifis already has trouble stealing most shit; it's just that people try hard to abuse his build.

If they're gonna take the sheer amount of time it takes to abuse Lifis that far...

[Fei Mao]

Increased reinforcements numbers? and Faster Spawning of reinforcements? Remove Leaf's Light Brand from the start of the game?

[Renall]

More reinforcements/stronger reinforcements is a good plan. Since weapons can be stolen, maybe take enemies with stronger weapons (Steels etc.) and lower the weapon they're using (to Iron etc.) but raise their Strength and Speed so they hit as hard but don't get doubled as easily AND their weapons aren't as good stolen.

More effective weapons (someone said fewer hammers and more of the other types, that's a good idea), but nerf the number of uses effectives have so stealing them isn't as helpful. Some reinforcements should be promoted and/or switched out for mounted units. Better mix of weapon types among enemies. Throw in more Lance and Axe Knights. More Masters on late-game enemies, but make sure they have the Skill and CON to use them.

Remove promotion items from stores.

Give Cyas 20 authority stars as an enemy.

[Rei Rei]

Increase prices.

Make Fatigue work just like in Blume patch, and make 1 arena round count as 3.

[Celice]

More character to enemies, like skills, personal weapons. Different enemy positions, with far more ambushes than simple raids and charges (though these are epic too). I dunno; most of the stuff that would make a Fire Emblem game hard is already with Thracia, though whether it was implemented correctly is another matter.

[Renall]

Raise most bosses' CON to 20. I know capturing bosses is kind of part of the game, but this would be HARD mode. Some bosses are already uncapturable via CON, so they clearly thought of this.

Alternately, just raise everybody's CON. Marty for God Tier!

[Mekkah]

Make the Ch7 brigands move from the start.

Make Ch10 Olwen/Fred only leave if you manage to "kill" one of them or if they kill one of your people, like Ishtar/Julius.

Give ballistae some movement. Not much, just enough to be a huge pain (like 2-3 is enough)

Allow bosses to move off thrones and give all of them move-after-attacking, so they can attack your healer.

Give Berdo Loptous.

Give random enemies small amounts of leadership, like those Physic Priests. On such a note, give those enemies and/or bosses Charisma.

Give random enemies Pure Water and make them use it when they're near you.

Allow LRT enemies to move.

Put variation on enemy's movement stat as well (just like bld and other stats).

Stop Warp from working on tiles covered by Fog of War.

Put a cap on max amount of enemies captured per chapter.

Auto-unequip PCs that fatigue in a chapter (and thus wouldn't be able to participate in the next one).

[Celice]

Unequip fatigued characters? My storage is always full, I don't need my items getting trashed because of it, nor wading through a bunch of prompt boxes on what to trash and what to keep. Expanding the amount of storage would be in order, which includes messing around with where relative values are stored not only in the RAM but also the SRAM.

[Mekkah]

What I mean is unequipped like in FE9/FE10 where you still have the items in your inventoy, you just can't fight/heal/dance etc with them, and use them as walking storage boxes.

[dondon151]

If you avoid levelling him up before you get the neir scroll, then hit hm with the elite manual/elite sword to ensure he levels up at a decent clip, his bld can get really high. 18 bld at 20/20 after a body ring isn't shabby.

Right OK let's give Lifis Elite/Elite Sword, two resources that everyone wants, as well as a Body Ring and almost exclusive use of the Neir scrowll, and then declare that he's good at 20/20 when no one gets there.

If this is before the Erios chapter, all hits he attacks you with will miss if it will be lethal. Last I recall anyways.

All hits you attack him with will miss if it will be lethal. Other way around.

[cheetah7071]

Right OK let's give Lifis Elite/Elite Sword, two resources that everyone wants, as well as a Body Ring and almost exclusive use of the Neir scrowll, and then declare that he's good at 20/20 when no one gets there.

I was just pointing that RNG abuse isn't neccesary. Lifis' build is about as high as it can get on a thief before that thief starts getting stupid.

Honestly, on a ratio of resources put into him to resources gotten out, Lifis beats everybody else in the game hands down. Nobody puts the Neir scroll or Body ring to better use than the thieves anyways, and elite just makes levelling him easier. Plus everybody is allowed their fair share of dodging ballista bolts for free exp, and Lifis is among the crowd of those who can do it with the elite sword.

Edited July 14, 2009 by cheetah7071

[Maou]

I was just pointing that RNG abuse isn't neccesary. Lifis' build is about as high as it can get on a thief before that thief starts getting stupid.

Honestly, on a ratio of resources put into him to resources gotten out, Lifis beats everybody else in the game hands down. Nobody puts the Neir scroll or Body ring to better use than the thieves anyways, and elite just makes levelling him easier. Plus everybody is allowed their fair share of dodging ballista bolts for free exp, and Lifis is among the crowd of those who can do it with the elite sword.

What's the point? The game can be beaten easily enough without putting any of those resources to use on lifis. Just wait for the superior thief, parn. Lifis is overrated.

[cheetah7071]

What's the point? The game can be beaten easily enough without putting any of those resources to use on lifis. Just wait for the superior thief, parn. Lifis is overrated.

What, pray tell, makes Parn better? At thieving at any rate, it's not like you pick your thief for combat. Even without the Neir scroll, Lifis matches (exceeds, really) his bld at equal levels, and he'll be catching up fairly quickly. Even if you didn't avoid levelling him before you got the Neir scroll, Lifis has had it for 5 chapters by the time you get Parn, which is an easy +0.5 bld. When parn only starts two higher anyways, and doesn't get the +1 promo bonus due to being a prepromo, I'm not seeing the advantage.

[dondon151]

At thieving at any rate, it's not like you pick your thief for combat.

Pahn has higher base build. Lifis has to deal with his shitty combat and then take EXP to match Pahn's utility. Additionally, he has movement stars and is better at combat.

Even without the Neir scroll, Lifis matches (exceeds, really) his bld at equal levels, and he'll be catching up fairly quickly.

They'll never be at equal levels unless Lifis gets that Elite/Elite Sword that every other unit in the game wants.

Even if you didn't avoid levelling him before you got the Neir scroll, Lifis has had it for 5 chapters by the time you get Parn, which is an easy +0.5 bld. When parn only starts two higher anyways, and doesn't get the +1 promo bonus due to being a prepromo, I'm not seeing the advantage.

Lifis needs a Knight Proof to get the promo bonus and continue growing his build, and Knight Proofs are in as high demand as the Elite crap.

Here's what Lifis requires in order to be useful:

- Neir scroll. Every physically based unit wants +10% HP, strength, defense, and build.

- Elite/Elite Sword. Every combat unit wants Elite; every sword user and Leaf wants Elite Sword.

- Knight Proof. Every unit wants this.

- EXP. This is an advantage for Pahn, partly because he's better at combat than Lifis.

- Body Ring. Pahn can use this too, and it comes pretty late as well.

[cheetah7071]

Pahn has higher base build. Lifis has to deal with his shitty combat and then take EXP to match Pahn's utility. Additionally, he has movement stars and is better at combat.

I'll grant combat, but I don't need another combat unit when the rest of my team can handle that quite nicely. I need a thief to be my main source of income.

They'll never be at equal levels unless Lifis gets that Elite/Elite Sword that every other unit in the game wants.

In my most recent playthrough, everybody on my team gained almost exactly 1.5 levels every chapter they were fielded that wasn't a joke (e.g. 12x). Allowing for two chapters where he's fatigued, Lifis should be level 18 or so by the time Parn joins. 6 of those levels should have had the Neir scroll (which, by the way, it's not like he's using up. He can just trade it away after he's done levelling). that means he'll have 8 bld when Parn joins. What was Parn's starting bld again? And remember they have equal growths and Lifis has a promotion to look forward to.

Lifis needs a Knight Proof to get the promo bonus and continue growing his build, and Knight Proofs are in as high demand as the Elite crap.

You get ten knight crests in a reasonable time frame (making the cutoff the ones obtained in the routesplit). You get an eleventh in chapter 19 for late joiners like Sara. Leaf doesn't use one, so that's a team of size 11 plus a late joiner. 12 if you use Linoan. How many people do you want to promote? Especially since people like Lara and Saphy get basically nothing from promoting (and Lara actually gets worse). A team of this size ensures the 1.5 levels/chapter figure I provided above, which ensures your team will be able to take on the endgame chapters with minimal difficulty. Plus, if you start going any larger, you'll have trouble fiedling filler units like Sleuf or Lara for when you need the extra utility for some convoluted warp strategy.

Here's what Lifis requires in order to be useful:

- Neir scroll. Every physically based unit wants +10% HP, strength, defense, and build.

- Elite/Elite Sword. Every combat unit wants Elite; every sword user and Leaf wants Elite Sword.

- Knight Proof. Every unit wants this.

- EXP. This is an advantage for Pahn, partly because he's better at combat than Lifis.

- Body Ring. Pahn can use this too, and it comes pretty late as well.

-Scrolls aren't in competition, especially for people who aren't tanks. Just trade them around.

-I only mentioned elite when I mentioned not levelling Lifis up until Neir comes along. If you don't do that, then he only really cares about elite when claiming his share of the free ballista exp, and then you can just trade him the elite sword.

-Everybody wants them, but you get plenty. See above.

-It's not hard to give people exp. I'll admit Lifis doesn't have a glorious enemy phase like say Halvan or Brighton have, but exp is not in a short supply. Even if we bring him down to one level per chapter instead of 1.5, he's still at 7.6 bld when Parn joins. Whoops.

-Parn and Lifis want this equally. If anything, Lifis wants it less since he gets a promo bonus.

This isn't even mentioning availability, since we're only considering who's the better thief while they're in competition.

Edited July 14, 2009 by cheetah7071

[dondon151]

I'll grant combat, but I don't need another combat unit when the rest of my team can handle that quite nicely. I need a thief to be my main source of income.

I need a thief that isn't a detriment if exposed to enemies and doesn't die.

In my most recent playthrough, everybody on my team gained almost exactly 1.5 levels every chapter they were fielded that wasn't a joke (e.g. 12x). Allowing for two chapters where he's fatigued, Lifis should be level 18 or so by the time Parn joins.

OK I don't even know how to respond to this vastly inflated claim other than "it ain't happening normally" so that's exactly what I'm going to do. If PE really matters then I'll counter that I didn't have units at level 18 until chapter 16.

6 of those levels should have had the Neir scroll (which, by the way, it's not like he's using up. He can just trade it away after he's done levelling). that means he'll have 8 bld when Parn joins. What was Parn's starting bld again? And remember they have equal growths and Lifis has a promotion to look forward to.

The problem is that Lifis is at a vastly inflated level and requires a Knight Proof to actually build a lead on Pahn, otherwise Pahn still wins.

By the way, thief utility is not unique; it is replicated by the capture command. Promoting a combat unit not only facilitates their capturing, but it also improves them offensively and defensively, whereas promoting Lifis makes him slightly less crappy and makes him able to steal magic swords and Iron Lances.

Which brings me to my next point: Lifis needs at least 12 build to be able to steal some of the game's most common and in demand weapons, such as the Longsword, Javelin, and Hand Axe. He needs to be like 20/10 with Neir on every level up to reach that threshold, so it's safe to say that he's never reaching it, ever. And to be honest, 12 WT is sort of on the low end of weapon weight in this game.

You get ten knight crests in a reasonable time frame (making the cutoff the ones obtained in the routesplit). You get an eleventh in chapter 19 for late joiners like Sara. Leaf doesn't use one, so that's a team of size 11 plus a late joiner. 12 if you use Linoan. How many people do you want to promote? Especially since people like Lara and Saphy get basically nothing from promoting (and Lara actually gets worse).

The fatigue system doesn't let you just have an army of 8 units like in FE11 and be done with it. Saphy wants a promotion so she doesn't lose all of her staves every time an enemy gets near her; same with Sleuf.

-Scrolls aren't in competition, especially for people who aren't tanks. Just trade them around.

"Just trade it around" is not a solution that gets around scroll demand, otherwise no one would be arguing about the Knight Ward in FE9.

-It's not hard to give people exp. I'll admit Lifis doesn't have a glorious enemy phase like say Halvan or Brighton have, but exp is not in a short supply. Even if we bring him down to one level per chapter instead of 1.5, he's still at 7.6 bld when Parn joins. Whoops.

Lifis's enemy phase sucks and his player phase is limited to 10 EXP per turn from stealing unless you want him to fight, but he can't do both at the same time.

-Parn and Lifis want this equally. If anything, Lifis wants it less since he gets a promo bonus.

What does 9 bld steal that 8 bld doesn't? And of those, what actually matter?

Here's a summary: Lifis has availability over Pahn. Once Pahn arrives, he's curbstomping Lifis. He wins offense (in the form of better weapon rank and 5 PCC) and durability (in the form of more avo) and didn't require EXP or any other resources that others could have used. He has 5 movement stars to Lifis's 2, which means he has a better chance of stealing twice or stealing + attacking or stealing + running away or just running away more in general. He supports 3 decent units to Lifis's 0. There is very little that Lifis can steal with 9 bld at 20/1 that Pahn cannot with 8 bld, and in fact Lifis needs quite a bit more bld to be able to steal anything else that's significant.

[cheetah7071]

I'm afraid our experiences with levelling are irreconcilable; I starting promoting my first units around chapter 14 and had them all promoted by chapter 16. I can't imagine we fielded different sized armies, because I used up every one of the knight proofs that come up to that point (though I missed the second one in 12x; that just would have meant I promoted saphy then instead of in chapter 20). Though admittedly I did sit through all ten attacks of every ballista and all 5 attacks of every siege tome I didn't intend to capture. Though I don't really see this as a problem unless we're playing for ranks, in which case who cares about thieves, we only need warp staves. This doesn't really cause fatigue problems, just choose to wear out the ballistae with the people who are almost fatigued anyways, or who won't be particularly relevant in the next chapter, or who you absolutely need to make sure are unfatigued two chapters from now. You aren't drowning in S drinks, but they aren't in short supply either if you make sure to get both in chapter 10 and as many as possible in 14x.

So, using my level numbers, Lifis will have 30 hp and 5 def when Parn joins assuming Neir scroll use since we got it in chapter 8x. That's a durability lead. Lifis loses avoid by 6 points, but that's what, one less hit every 16-17 attacks? You'll forgive me if I don't care. Parn can grab a +10 avoid from Lara, but that means you have Lara something resembling near the frontlines, which is never good. Even a 16 avoid lead is only one less hit every 6.25 attacks. I'm still not impressed. Parn has higher growths in every defensive stat but hp, but then Lifis promotes and gains a healthy bonus in speed and defense. Parn has Sol, but I'd honestly rather take the +6 hp because things that borderline kill Parn don't kill Lifis at all. I'm not seeing Parn winning defensively until his defense growth gets a chance to kick in, meaning nothing significant until the extreme lategame, by which point Lifis might have such a large hp lead it doesn't matter anyways.

Offensively, Parn has the nice PCC, so that's nice. I'll grant Parn the offensive win. Lifis will have 2 more strength and a promotion to look forward to in exchange for 5% lower growth, but the weapon levels make up for that. Lifis ties his weapon level (wins actually by being closer to A than Parn) after promotion, but 5 PCC still beats whatever str lead Lifis has.

Which brings me to my next point: Lifis needs at least 12 build to be able to steal some of the game's most common and in demand weapons, such as the Longsword, Javelin, and Hand Axe. He needs to be like 20/10 with Neir on every level up to reach that threshold, so it's safe to say that he's never reaching it, ever. And to be honest, 12 WT is sort of on the low end of weapon weight in this game.

If both use the Neir scroll, they have 20% growths. That means it's five levels for an increase. Lifis is stealing these things something like 3-4 chapters earlier than Parn, and that's assuming they gain exp at an equal rate. It's probaly closer to 5-6 chapters. That's something like 15-20% of the game.

The fatigue system doesn't let you just have an army of 8 units like in FE11 and be done with it. Saphy wants a promotion so she doesn't lose all of her staves every time an enemy gets near her; same with Sleuf.

I never really had issues with the fatigue system. I used every knight proof up through the routesplit (missing one that would have gone to Saphy) and still had the level numebrs I'm quoting above, while only having 2, maybe 3 people fatigued a chapter. That brings me down to 8-9 units, which is plenty for a chapter. Most chapters nobody was fatigued anyways. Maybe I got hp blessed or something, but it'd take some extreme deviations from the normal hp levels to make 11 units work for me and not work for you.

Saphy doesn't actually need her promotion. It's nice, mostly for the boost in mag, but her durability is so paperthin that she'd rather be captured than have to face a round of combat, because the enemy will kill her if she has a weapon, and that's far worse than being captured.

"Just trade it around" is not a solution that gets around scroll demand, otherwise no one would be arguing about the Knight Ward in FE9.

You're right, it is an issue...for people who have an enemy phase. Neither Lifis nor Parn would be caught dead tanking (or rather, would be caught dead if they tried to tank). Nothing I've said about Lifis' stats are significantly different if he only gets Neir 80% or even 70% of his levelups.

Lifis's enemy phase sucks and his player phase is limited to 10 EXP per turn from stealing unless you want him to fight, but he can't do both at the same time.

Lifis isn't doing significantly worse on the enemy phase than anybody but Brighton for pretty much the whole Manster arc. And since nobody is ORKOing around then without the one steel sword you have (which Lifis can also use to ORKO pretty much anything but armors), his player phase isn't significantly worse either. Better, in fact, because he can gain stealing exp in situations where you can't have everybody attack that turn and it's Lifis' turn to sit it out.

After Manster he starts lagging a bit. Chapter 10 gives him a boost since there's enough ballista bolts flying around to give everybody on your team a free 80 or so exp (doubled for the sword users like Lifis since you'd be insane not to give them the elite sword while they rake in their free exp) which puts him back on track for 1.5 levels a chapter. And by the time Parn shows up you have enough halfway decent swords running around that Lifis can scrounge up a kill sword or something and have a player phase again.

What does 9 bld steal that 8 bld doesn't? And of those, what actually matter?

The exact numbers aren't as relevant (though 9 bld does get you silver swords, which Parn probably won't be ready for in chapter 15 when you can grab like 4 of them). The point is that, even if they level up equally from then on (when in actuality Parn is levelling slightly slower), Lifis steals every single weapon 3-4 chapters earlier than Parn does. That's three extra chapters of free iron axes, three extra chapters of free javelins. I'd say that's pretty significant.

Of course you can capture too, but that's unsafe and, more importantly, unreliable. Stealing is neither of those; in fact, stealing a weapon reduces the incoming damage to your team, while capturing increases it.

So Lifis has availibility, defense, and stealing over Parn. Parn has movement stars (which is useful for stealing two things I guess, but no thief should ever be in a situation where you feel the need to use their movement stars to run away. If you put them into such a dangerous situation, that's your fault, not theirs), and PCC. Honestly I'd rather have the 3-4 extra chapters of every weapon that you ever reach sufficient build for (i.e., not hammer) than PCC.