Fire Emblem Forever (status: dead?)

[Krad]

Now that is awesome. When's the next demo release?

I'm not sure. I was thinking of releasing it after I completed 6x, but I'll probably hold on until Chapter 9 is finished.

Chapter 1 was super annoying. Everyone moves super slowly through the desert and Delmud is completely useless. Recruiting Johan at the end of the map was also kind of difficult to do without Lakche dying, but I probably should have sent Celice with her instead of with Skasahar up to the north end of the map. If I were to suggest a change to this chapter, it would be to take FE3 DS desert maps as an example and intersperse patches of sand tiles among the desert tiles so that I wouldn't have to move at 2 tiles per turn.

Haha, Delmud's uselessness was a small side effect created by this map. It wasn't really my intention. Also, I'll probably do what you suggested about the sand tiles in the desert.

The biggest (and only) beef I have about this map is that Yuria 3HKOs the boss even with Thani, and there's realistically no other way to damage him. I would suggest reducing his max HP by 1 in order to make Thani a clean 2HKO.

Sure, will do.

Most of the characters I feel are fairly balanced. Oifaye is extremely good and almost unkillable, which may or may not be a bad thing, because I can imagine the game being just plain frustrating without him as good as he is now. Lakche and Skasahar have good offense but poor mobility, which I believe is a good thing. Conversely, Delmud's offense is significantly worse, but he has mobility to his advantage. So far, these characters appear balanced.

Oifey being overpowered was kind of a necessity. He does start to lose steam though, as in Chapter 3 he faces some considerable death chances (due to him having to run to save Johan), and in Chapter 4 he begins to not-double.

Celice is kind of weak, but also easy to feed EXP to considering that Lakche and Skasahar typically leave enemies in his KO range. I can imagine that he'll be significantly better later in the game. Lester is just kind of bad - he does poor damage, he usually only attacks once per turn, and his EXP gain is really low. You could try increasing his bases/level or reducing the class power of arch knights so that he gains more EXP from combat (which is what they did in FE5 with non-mounted bow units). Johalva is also pretty mediocre; he does a bunch of damage per hit, but his hit rates are generally not completely reliable and he doesn't particularly do anything well. I dunno, it's hard to balance infantry units that don't double.

Well, Celice gets a pony after promotion (which I think is going to be around Chapter 9 or so), so he'll be better. I'm surprised about Lester, for me he's usually one of my best units. Johalva, well, I don't really know what to do about him. Maybe raise his skill by a few points? So that he doesn't miss as much.

Anyway, good work. I don't usually play hacks released in this forum, but this one seemed particularly well done.

Thanks. Glad to know people are liking this.

Also, update.

I recently realized that I forgot to add this guy in Chapter 3, so now he appears in Chapter 4 looking for revenge or something silly like that.

And on a completely unrelated topic, am I the only one who can't access the ChinaFE site? It has been down for me for more than a week, yet DFEOJM says it's up. I'm asking this because I need to check the page with all the FE5 portraits.

Edited April 23, 2011 by Krad

[Darros]

Well, Celice gets a pony after promotion (which I think is going to be around Chapter 9 or so)

Chapter 9 in this hack or around the chapter 9 point in the vanilla game?

[Celice]

Schmidt? I only recall him as Slayder @_@

ChinaFE is up for me.

[Krad]

Chapter 9 in this hack or around the chapter 9 point in the vanilla game?

Of this hack. I already have the map ready for it.

Schmidt? I only recall him as Slayder @_@

A boss called Slayder appears with that same portrait in Chapter 5 of the original FE4, while Schmidt appears in Chapter 6.

ChinaFE is up for me.

Well, that's weird. For some reason my computer doesn't like that page anymore, which is weird since 2 weeks ago I could view it fine.

[dondon151]

Well, Celice gets a pony after promotion (which I think is going to be around Chapter 9 or so), so he'll be better. I'm surprised about Lester, for me he's usually one of my best units. Johalva, well, I don't really know what to do about him. Maybe raise his skill by a few points? So that he doesn't miss as much.

I currently have Lester at level 6 going into chapter 3. IIRC he starts at level 3? I don't know his growth rates, but he doesn't double and 3HKO at base, and bow wielding units are much more useful when they're weakening enemies for a KO than for actually finishing KOs. Add that to a lack of enemy phase, and it's really hard to level Lester up unless you're really trying to feed him every KO (which works for some players, I guess).

As for Johalva (I accidentally typed Johan in my previous post), raising his skl by a couple of points helps a little. I think he'd really also appreciate an HP and defense boost of a couple of points, because he's really not that much durable than, like, Skasahar (level 4 Skasahar had only 3 less HP). And Skasahar at least dodges axe enemies.

More to come when I play a little more.

Edited April 23, 2011 by dondon151

[ThatGuyDownTheStreet]

Have you tried using FEPlanet's sprite archive? I'm pretty sure they have FE5 portraits.

[Krad]

I currently have Lester at level 6 going into chapter 3. IIRC he starts at level 3? I don't know his growth rates, but he doesn't double and 3HKO at base, and bow wielding units are much more useful when they're weakening enemies for a KO than for actually finishing KOs. Add that to a lack of enemy phase, and it's really hard to level Lester up unless you're really trying to feed him every KO (which works for some players, I guess).

I just checked my chapter 3 save and I have Lester at lvl 8 with 13 SPD, which doesn't double anything, so yeah, I guess you're right. Still, I find him quite useful in both desert chapters due to being able to move at the same rate as the foot units rather than having Delmud's 1 move, and 2 range is very useful there.

As for Johalva (I accidentally typed Johan in my previous post), raising his skl by a couple of points helps a little. I think he'd really also appreciate an HP and defense boost of a couple of points, because he's really not that much durable than, like, Skasahar (level 4 Skasahar had only 3 less HP). And Skasahar at least dodges axe enemies.

Alright, will see what I can do with him. Probaly +2 HP, +2 SKL and +1/2 DEF.

Have you tried using FEPlanet's sprite archive? I'm pretty sure they have FE5 portraits.

They do, but not as many as the ChineFE page, which had even a few unused ones that I haven't found anywhere else.

[dondon151]

OK, so I finished playing up to after chapter 3x. More thoughts:

Chapter 3 is pretty nice. Lakche, Skasahar, Lana, and Johalva were pretty useless for a good bulk of this chapter because I needed Oifaye, Delmud, and Lester to carry Celice and Yuria and to save Johan. Not much I can suggest to remedy that, though. Enemy cavalier reinforcements from the starting point were a good touch, as they encourage the player to rush, but ultimately they didn't catch up to my group.

I thought that you were supposed to seize Johan's castle and the castle near Arthur and Fee's entrance point for whatever reason, but I guess you don't. I couldn't be bothered to see if there were any special events in this map, though. Dannan is an asshole of a boss, but Yuria cut away his HP and Oifaye supplemented just enough damage to KO in 3 turns. I can't speak for anyone else when I say that I don't really like bosses that have an obvious strategy but still take forever to KO, but you don't have to take this seriously.

Recruited Johan in 8 turns.

Seize in 16 turns.

I liked chapter 3x as well. I had to scout for a bit to figure out what was in the chests, and it doesn't seem like most of the items are worth getting (except for the 5000G, which I got). So I just bumrushed the throne while leaving Lifis to grab the 5000G on the last turn after drawing the archer away. Enemy reinforcements on the left side made the narrow corridor tough to punch through, but a few Brave Lance uses solved that problem. I couldn't figure out what the NPC civilians were there for, as no one could talk to them and they didn't seem to want to move from their starting locations. I was also thrown off a bit by the chapter ending after Gustav was defeated, because I thought I had to seize the throne like the FE5 equivalent.

Cleared Gustav in 11 turns.

More character comments:

Oifaye is still boss. He missed ORKOs on enemy brigands, but he also annihilated the enemy cavaliers in chapter 3. I think I had him at level 9 after chapter 3, which is roughly even with the other units in Celice's team. I don't know what his growths are though (are you planning on telling us them anytime soon?), so he could be blessed by a few crucial spd points, or something.

Delmud and Lester got a lot more useful in chapter 3, but their combat was still kind of bad. Fair tradeoff. I'm wondering what Delmud's growths are, because he's been getting subpar level ups in general and I think he's slightly spd screwed.

Johan looks fairly decent. His stats are fairly comparable to Delmud's and he hits like a truck. If it's any indication that Johalva needs to be buffed, it's that Johan ties or wins every stat at base, but he's mounted and Johalva isn't.

Arthur and Fee appear decent too, I suppose. Arthur and Yuria kind of have that mage syndrome where they have poor mobility, durability, and not particularly great offense, but I'll have to know what the growths are to really conclude anything. Fee's combat isn't great, and her durability is actually really bad, but flying is a good tradeoff and she tends to do more damage per round of combat than Delmud because Delmud can't double.

Onto chapter 3x unit impressions:

I think Leaf is really versatile with Light Sword, which saves him from being bad. One thing I noticed, though, was that Light Sword attacks def at range instead of res. Was this intentional? I see that there is no S/M split, and Light Sword attacking at range with str = mag could be potentially broken, so I can see why you chose to make it that way.

Fin is awesome. I think his bases are close to Oifaye's, but he's unpromoted and many levels lower. I don't know if it is advisable or not to make him any worse; reducing his spd by 1 point makes him doubled by Gustav and reducing his def by even 2 points means that he's 2HKO'd with a combination of Silver Sword and Tomahawk (assuming Brave Lance equipped).

Asvel is the first mage that I've encountered with actually decent offense, but I didn't get to use him much because Fin was miles ahead of him. I can't really say much about Nanna considering she's a healer.

Eyvel is good, but some drawbacks make her sort of balanced. I don't particularly like SMs in general, because they tend to be bad enemy phase combat units. Othin and Halvan weren't really impressive, and I think this problem was compounded by the fact that the NPC troubadour doesn't like to heal my units very often. Both of them were 2RKOing most enemies (forgot to trade Hammer to Othin) and enemy fighters were generally 2HKOing Othin. I don't think it's a particularly bad thing because they pretty reliably combined for KOs on enemies.

Edited April 24, 2011 by dondon151

[Krad]

I thought that you were supposed to seize Johan's castle and the castle near Arthur and Fee's entrance point for whatever reason, but I guess you don't. I couldn't be bothered to see if there were any special events in this map, though. Dannan is an asshole of a boss, but Yuria cut away his HP and Oifaye supplemented just enough damage to KO in 3 turns. I can't speak for anyone else when I say that I don't really like bosses that have an obvious strategy but still take forever to KO, but you don't have to take this seriously.

Well, you can seize the castle where Arthur and Fee appear, but it's optional, since it is just too far away for me to make it a mandatory part of the chapter. You don't have to seize Johan's because it sides with you automatically, making it a bit redundant.

I'll probably change Dannan's Elixir for a Vulnerary.

I liked chapter 3x as well. I had to scout for a bit to figure out what was in the chests, and it doesn't seem like most of the items are worth getting (except for the 5000G, which I got).

Actually, I'm probably going to change that, and move the Brave Lance to one of the chests, since otherwise they don't serve much of a purpose.

I couldn't figure out what the NPC civilians were there for, as no one could talk to them and they didn't seem to want to move from their starting locations.

They don't have an effect in this chapter. Rather, if they don't die, you get something in Chapter 6.

I was also thrown off a bit by the chapter ending after Gustav was defeated, because I thought I had to seize the throne like the FE5 equivalent.

That's because even after trying a lot of things, Leaf didn't want to seize the throne, so I just changed it so the chapter would end with Gutstav's defeat.

Oifaye is still boss. He missed ORKOs on enemy brigands, but he also annihilated the enemy cavaliers in chapter 3. I think I had him at level 9 after chapter 3, which is roughly even with the other units in Celice's team. I don't know what his growths are though (are you planning on telling us them anytime soon?), so he could be blessed by a few crucial spd points, or something.

He has the best growth total of the game so far, while also having the worst spread (aside from Eyvel). By level 9 he averages +1 STR, SPD and DEF compared to his bases, which isn't enough to double Dannan if that's what you meant.

Delmud and Lester got a lot more useful in chapter 3, but their combat was still kind of bad. Fair tradeoff. I'm wondering what Delmud's growths are, because he's been getting subpar level ups in general and I think he's slightly spd screwed.

I can't exactly remember what his growths were for the demo (since I have been changing quite a few growths lately), but right now he has 60% STR and 40% SPD. If he's level 9, he should have ~16 STR and ~12 SPD.

Johan looks fairly decent. His stats are fairly comparable to Delmud's and he hits like a truck. If it's any indication that Johalva needs to be buffed, it's that Johan ties or wins every stat at base, but he's mounted and Johalva isn't.

Alright, Johalva is getting a boost.

Arthur and Fee appear decent too, I suppose. Arthur and Yuria kind of have that mage syndrome where they have poor mobility, durability, and not particularly great offense, but I'll have to know what the growths are to really conclude anything.

Well, Yuria has a ridiculous magic growth, but her SPD is average (same as Delmud), while Arthur doesn't hit as hard as Yuria or with the Cavalier effectiveness, but is much faster. Both of them are paperthin, but Arthur does win slightly by higher HP base + growth, and a slightly higher DEF growth.

Fee's combat isn't great, and her durability is actually really bad, but flying is a good tradeoff and she tends to do more damage per round of combat than Delmud because Delmud can't double.

She was going to be slightly stronger (+1 to nearly all stats, which IIRC, allowed her to be 3HKO'd rather than 2), but people started to say that was overpowered, so I had to nerf her. Still, flying is just that useful, even more in C4 where everyone bar her and the mages moves incredibly slow. And also the next patch will include the FE9/10 canto system, which makes Fee and mounted units in general much more useful.

I think Leaf is really versatile with Light Sword, which saves him from being bad. One thing I noticed, though, was that Light Sword attacks def at range instead of res. Was this intentional? I see that there is no S/M split, and Light Sword attacking at range with str = mag could be potentially broken, so I can see why you chose to make it that way.

It was intentional. If I made it target RES, it would have been just too ridiculous, due to Leaf's high STR plus the enemies average RES. With most enemies having 10+ DEF by this point, it was a much safer option having it target defense rather than resistance.

Othin and Halvan weren't really impressive, and I think this problem was compounded by the fact that the NPC troubadour doesn't like to heal my units very often.

I tried a lot of things so that Troubadour would heal rather than suicide, but failed. The most I could do was to reposition it so that it wouldn't die on turn 1. Though I guess I could give it a Physic staff instead.

Anyway, thanks a lot for typing this up. I'll keep it in mind so I can improve it for the next release.

[Feaw]

I already have the map ready for it.

Question; how do we get from the middle room (throne/hall) to the side rooms with the chests, and vice versa?

[AstraLunaSol]

Question; how do we get from the middle room (throne/hall) to the side rooms with the chests, and vice versa?

It's built like FE5's Map, which I forget the name of, you have three split parties one in each compartment.

[Feaw]

Oh alright, yeah I figured it would be like that. Still kinda stupid, imo, but whatever.

[Celice]

It's built like FE5's Map, which I forget the name of, you have three split parties one in each compartment.

That map gave me such an Advance Wars vibe--it had that short constancy, but you still had to keep your wits about your teams. It wasn't too hard, but it could be.

[dondon151]

Well, you can seize the castle where Arthur and Fee appear, but it's optional, since it is just too far away for me to make it a mandatory part of the chapter. You don't have to seize Johan's because it sides with you automatically, making it a bit redundant.

Yeah, I just had FE4 on my mind and was expecting to have to seize every castle for some reason. My fault.

Actually, I'm probably going to change that, and move the Brave Lance to one of the chests, since otherwise they don't serve much of a purpose.

You'd need to have something really good in that chest over on the right hand side. From a strict cost vs. benefit standpoint, there's really nothing that you can put in there that would be worth taking the detour to get. I don't have a comment on Fin losing his Brave Lance, as it means that the fastest way to kill Gustav is to have Eyvel rush him.

They don't have an effect in this chapter. Rather, if they don't die, you get something in Chapter 6.

How do they die? The starting enemies aren't aggressive, so I'm assuming it's a reinforcement.

That's because even after trying a lot of things, Leaf didn't want to seize the throne, so I just changed it so the chapter would end with Gutstav's defeat.

Gotcha. I would advise you to change the chapter objective wording to "Defeat Gustav" rather than "Liberate Lenster," as the latter sounds more fitting but is also more confusing.

Well, Yuria has a ridiculous magic growth, but her SPD is average (same as Delmud), while Arthur doesn't hit as hard as Yuria or with the Cavalier effectiveness, but is much faster. Both of them are paperthin, but Arthur does win slightly by higher HP base + growth, and a slightly higher DEF growth.

I'm assuming that Arthur's spd growth is high, because his spd base is not particularly high. If Yuria is supposed to be rather slow-ish, then she would have the same kind of problem as Johalva. I don't know if Narga or anything else would make up for this, though. I have to admit, I was slightly chagrined that she was usually 1-2 HP damage short of OHKOing cavaliers in chapter 3 with Thani. If she's supposed to be offensively inferior to Arthur after a couple of levels, she should at least claim that niche. Maybe it's a little too early to conclusively say anything; I'll wait until the next patch is released.

It was intentional. If I made it target RES, it would have been just too ridiculous, due to Leaf's high STR plus the enemies average RES. With most enemies having 10+ DEF by this point, it was a much safer option having it target defense rather than resistance.

Is there an option to let the sword target def at 1 range and then target res (with mag = str/2) at 2 range? I remember Nightmare allowed some flexibility in that, but I can't remember which combination of mechanics were allowed.

I tried a lot of things so that Troubadour would heal rather than suicide, but failed. The most I could do was to reposition it so that it wouldn't die on turn 1. Though I guess I could give it a Physic staff instead.

Physic is a good idea.

[Krad]

Question; how do we get from the middle room (throne/hall) to the side rooms with the chests, and vice versa?

Woops, forgot to answer this before. Astra is right, you have to split your army in 3 teams. I personally like maps that require you to split your army, so that's why I decided to keep it like it was in FE5.

You'd need to have something really good in that chest over on the right hand side. From a strict cost vs. benefit standpoint, there's really nothing that you can put in there that would be worth taking the detour to get. I don't have a comment on Fin losing his Brave Lance, as it means that the fastest way to kill Gustav is to have Eyvel rush him.

Fin's Brave Lance is probably going to be in the chest in the left side of the map. I'm not totally sure of what to put in the right side, but I think I have an idea that may work. Also, it's not like Lifis has much else to do in the map (since the guy guarding the door drops a Door Key).

How do they die? The starting enemies aren't aggressive, so I'm assuming it's a reinforcement.

Depending on how the NPC allies move, the southern reinforcements may move towards the civilians rather than towards your main party. That's really the only way for them to die, though.

Gotcha. I would advise you to change the chapter objective wording to "Defeat Gustav" rather than "Liberate Lenster," as the latter sounds more fitting but is also more confusing.

Sure, will do.

I'm assuming that Arthur's spd growth is high, because his spd base is not particularly high. If Yuria is supposed to be rather slow-ish, then she would have the same kind of problem as Johalva. I don't know if Narga or anything else would make up for this, though. I have to admit, I was slightly chagrined that she was usually 1-2 HP damage short of OHKOing cavaliers in chapter 3 with Thani. If she's supposed to be offensively inferior to Arthur after a couple of levels, she should at least claim that niche. Maybe it's a little too early to conclusively say anything; I'll wait until the next patch is released.

Arthur is supposed to be fast, just not fast enough for him to double at base level, since mages usually 2HKO enemies, having him double at base would be risky, even if his move sucks.

Yuria's supposed to be slow-ish, while hitting incredibly hard. She is the only unit who can use Thani for quite some time (until you promote Arthur/Asvel/Lana, or Sety joins), so that gives her a role at the very least.

Is there an option to let the sword target def at 1 range and then target res (with mag = str/2) at 2 range? I remember Nightmare allowed some flexibility in that, but I can't remember which combination of mechanics were allowed.

Actually, there is, so I'll change it.

And some other stuff.

Hurlbat custom icon coming sometime. Can't really work on Chapter 5 right now since the map isn't finished yet (it is a huge map, bigger than Chapter 3).

[Regal Bryant]

So, can I point out how horribly small the FE4/5 mugs are in comparison to the FE7 ones?

Well you know what "she" says, "Size doesn't matter" Immature Comment Warning

Edited May 3, 2011 by The Gift Wrapper

[CT075]

So, "The Good Guy", why don't you make some mugs that are even better?

[Anouleth]

Arthur is supposed to be fast, just not fast enough for him to double at base level, since mages usually 2HKO enemies, having him double at base would be risky, even if his move sucks.

The problem is that often with mages, an inability to double means that they only have average offense, which would be fine on many units, but not on units that already have issues with low durability and movement. That's what dondon was talking about with 'mage syndrome', characters who just kinda suck at everything.

[Krad]

Well you know what "she" says, "Size doesn't matter" Immature Comment Warning

The problem is that often with mages, an inability to double means that they only have average offense, which would be fine on many units, but not on units that already have issues with low durability and movement. That's what dondon was talking about with 'mage syndrome', characters who just kinda suck at everything.

Well, the next chapter is a desert, so he does have that chapter to get his offense up to par. However, I'll also raise his base SPD a bit so that he can get good offense in a shorter time.

Also, I've been working on some changes to the previous chapters, and started Chapter 5. Here are some:

EDIT: Can someone who reads this take a screencap of this page and send it to me? For some reason none of my computers can acces the China FE site (nor can I get there using Google Cache or the Wayback machine), even though I could a month ago.

Edited May 8, 2011 by Krad

[Book of Ereshkigal]

You imported the long haired mage sprite :D

of course you did, you said you would on one of your videos

[dondon151]

EDIT: Can someone who reads this take a screencap of this page and send it to me? For some reason none of my computers can acces the China FE site (nor can I get there using Google Cache or the Wayback machine), even though I could a month ago.

I don't think it's just your problem. I can't access it normally, and the images are broken when I attempt to view from cache. When I go there using the Wayback machine, the only images that load on the page are Fin's and Gomez's.

The only thing that I've found to work is to access the images individually using the Wayback machine, using the URL <http://liveweb.web.archive.org/http://www.fireemblem.net/fe/fe5/fe5-image/###.gif> and replacing the ### with a 3 digit number from 414 (Leaf's mug) to 562 (I believe this is Anna's mug). I'm not sure this is entirely helpful for you, as you'd have to guess which numbers correspond to which mugs if you want to look for a certain one =/

EDIT: Try this page: http://www.tgbus.com/htm/home/fire/776/data/20051714742-1.html

Edited May 8, 2011 by dondon151

[Celice]

Try to access the ChinaFE site with google translator. Just set it to English or French or something, and you might be able to access the original site. It helps me sometimes at least when a site decides to block me out.

[Krad]

Try this page: http://www.tgbus.com/htm/home/fire/776/data/20051714742-1.html

Thanks a lot, that one really helped.

Try to access the ChinaFE site with google translator. Just set it to English or French or something, and you might be able to access the original site. It helps me sometimes at least when a site decides to block me out.

I tried using Google Translator, but couldn't access it either. However, as the link dondon posted works just as well as the ChinaFE page, then it doesn't mattter anymore.

Also, tease tease tease tease

Just going to say that Barat isn't in the same class he was in FE5.

Edited May 8, 2011 by Krad

[Ansem]

Do I spy a Carrion?

[dondon151]

That's not Carrion's mug. It looks similar, but I'm fairly sure it's a mug that belongs to one of the Lenster armors in FE5 chapter 18.

Judging from Barat's caps, it looks like he's a hero.