FE5 Balance Patch

[Shin]

After finishing the FE4 Shin Patch and getting stuck on my FE7 hack (Sorry Cam!), I was wondering what I should try next. Similar hacks for FE3 and FE5 came to mind, FE5 obviously being more interesting. There's growths/bases and the like to change, but the support system, skills, PCC and weapon ranks mean that a lot could be altered. Enemy army modules are surprisingly detailed, as is the class editor.

I'm opening it to anyone who's interested, any ideas are welcome!

With supports, Leaf has a stupid number so giving him Charisma would free up a good number, meaning teams of weaker units could be more potent. Another that comes to mind would be letting High Priests using other magic. Most changes probably would be buffs, I can toughen "easy chapters" and reduce the sage's ridiculous promotion gains but some chapters are hard enough.

Edited May 15, 2011 by Dokutayuu

[CT075]

getting stuck on my FE7 hack (Sorry Cam!)

huhwhat?

[Shin]

huhwhat?

I kept trying to force my raw code on you ^^.

[Desro]

I started something like this, almost finished it too....and then I somehow screwed up the Iron Sword's animation data and didn't have a backup copy. I'm pretty much back to square 1, with all my data sitting in an excel file waiting to just be put into the game via Nightmare modules. I could send you my excel file if your interested in seeing what I did to get some fresh ideas. The file is pretty detailed. I'd help you out if you'd like.

What I did was I applied the Max Stat 30 patch to the game and was adjusting stats/growths accordingly. Boss stats really needed to be revamped. I gave every recruitable character a personal skill. Removed the growth bonuses of the scrolls in favor of more solid growths on characters. Also modernized weapons, adjusting their weights, costs, might, hit etc.

I also know where to find the generic enemy growth rates patterns....offsets are at 40446-4048E.

[Ryan7556]

I too was actually making an FE5 balance patch with the 30 max stat patch applied. I actually was doing something similar to what Desro mentioned with the exception of removing growths from the scrolls. Though I wouldn't mind if someone else were to make one because I stopped working on it.

Doku, here are some suggestions:

-better enemy stats (i actually made a nightmare enemy growth module here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YW9W6B5L, I also included a palette switcher so you can switch character palettes around)

-perhaps letting mounted units move indoors(but with a movement cost)

-toning down the pugi's and graphcalibur's crit rates

-perhaps making graphcalibur and dimethunder (getting rid of 2x attack) C rank tomes instead of prf so they act as the middle ground magic tomes for wind and thunder

Edited May 10, 2011 by BerserkerBarst

[Shin]

And I thought I was being original!

The nightmare module would be great, it sounds like it'd be needed if we took the caps up to 30. Those are also some good ideas for balancing out the more broken units. Othin with his Pugi are pretty much 2 guaranteed critical hits on enemy phase. Bow users are going to be fun to sort out. Perhaps lowering their class power (letting them level up easier) and making bows generally more favourable. I'd like to keep the spirit of each character (I'm not giving Lara a build of 12) too.

I've been toying around with Selfina's brigade, turning Kein and Alba into social knights and giving them decent PCC's. Shanam's going to fun to fix, I want to keep him horribly lopsided, but still usable. The B-route need some winners!

[Archsage17]

Make sure the Ronan has SOME strength growth or change him respectively to a magic unit. I like using him and we always have to scroll abuse him. Also perhaps you could just scrap units we dont really use.

[Anouleth]

The nightmare module would be great, it sounds like it'd be needed if we took the caps up to 30. Those are also some good ideas for balancing out the more broken units. Othin with his Pugi are pretty much 2 guaranteed critical hits on enemy phase. Bow users are going to be fun to sort out. Perhaps lowering their class power (letting them level up easier) and making bows generally more favourable. I'd like to keep the spirit of each character (I'm not giving Lara a build of 12) too.

Bow Fighters already have a relatively low class power:

1: Priest, Sister

2: Troubadour, Bow Fighter, Mountain Thief (2), Hunter, Pirate, Dancer, High Priest, Bishop, Thief, Soldier, Archer

3: Everything not listed

4: Duke Knight, Paladin (M), Bow Knight, Forrest Knight, Mage Knight (M), Great Knight, Pegasus Knight, Dragon Knight, Sniper, General, Warrior, Prince, Dark Bishop, Killer Arch, Mercenary

5: Swordmaster, Baron, Berserker, Sage, Iron Arch

Although Snipers and Bow Knights still have typical class power for a promoted class, and Arch Knight has typical class power for an unpromoted class.

Make sure the Ronan has SOME strength growth or change him respectively to a magic unit. I like using him and we always have to scroll abuse him. Also perhaps you could just scrap units we dont really use.

I think that's rather a lazy approach, to scrap bad characters instead of buffing them.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Black★Star

[Rodykitty]

FE5 is already one of the more balanced games. The only character that would need to be nerfed is Othin.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Highlander!Rody

[Psych]

Either give Marty some speed, or maybe make him promote to the Berserker type Pirate thing.

Maybe make the Axe Duo into Warriors?

Actually give Lara combat stats. >_>

[Rodykitty]

Marty isn't bad for what he is. He is fairly tanky early on while having more move than an armor until enemies start getting hammers (unless you manage to promote Marty).

Only Othin needs to be nerfed of the Axe duo.

Lara becomes a dancer, which qualifies her as not needing combat stats.

[Psych]

Marty isn't bad for what he is. He is fairly tanky early on while having more move than an armor until enemies start getting hammers (unless you manage to promote Marty).

Only Othin needs to be nerfed of the Axe duo.

Lara becomes a dancer, which qualifies her as not needing combat stats.

Well yeah, but she'll still get chopped to death/captured, and it's fully useless for her steal skill which she keep as a dancer.

[Rodykitty]

Lara is useful for forcing enemies to capture, though.

[Desro]

One interesting thing I did with Marty was give him the Steal skill...his speed growth was still terrible, but his Build was great, the opposite of all the thieves. I think other people might have done something similar with Marty before (I feel that it wasn't an original idea I came up with). I also gave Tina the Steal skill, but that was mostly as a joke.

Thieves (and everyone else) can have higher build growth if you globally raise weapon weights. There is a lot of potential playing with the Build stat/Weapon weights to vary the cast with drastically different build growths/bases. The current game seems like it doesn't really make much use of the Build stat, with only Marty having a build growth above 35% (and it being ridiculous at 75%), and a large portion of the cast having a growth between 10-25%....most of them all tend to gravitate towards having comparable build.

I also gave Lara steal as a personal skill so she could steal as a dancer. She would be like a trainee from FE8 if you gave her good growths (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

....and I also agree with nerfing the overpowered weapons. And you might want to just reduce Pursuit Critical Cooeficients across the board (except for Swordmaster/Sniper types). Characters with a 5 PCC really break the game. I think even a 4 PCC is too high.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Desro

[Psych]

I think she already has steal as a personal skill. When you promoted she can steal as a dancer.

[Desro]

Sorry about that, It's been awhile since I looked FE5 over, things are kind of blending together. Thanks for the correction; I now remember what I was trying to accomplish with Lara's skills. I was going to try and see if I could make it so she could dance as a Thief Fighter (giving the Female Thief Fighter the dance skill). I'm not sure if animations would allow for that though- don't believe I ever did get around to testing it.

I guess I never really considered someone promoting her from Thief to Thief Fighter directly though....that would make it look pretty stupid.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Desro

[dondon151]

You don't have to buff most things in this game; they're good enough already. Only terrible units need to be buffed, and really good units should be nerfed a bit.

[Anouleth]

You don't have to buff most things in this game; they're good enough already. Only terrible units need to be buffed, and really good units should be nerfed a bit.

Pretty much. And I certainly wouldn't put Lara into the former category.

[dondon151]

I also don't really see the point in putting stat caps past 20; all it does is inflate the numbers. If you wanted to individualize classes, consider even reducing some caps below 20 or raising some caps slightly past 20 (e.g., 22 or 24).

[CT075]

As far as I know, there's no way to change the stat caps individually. They're all the same number in the data.

[dondon151]

Well, in that case, I don't see the need to change the stat caps. Characters with high growths in stats will be even better with the caps removed, and those characters are usually good already.

[Shin]

Well, in that case, I don't see the need to change the stat caps. Characters with high growths in stats will be even better with the caps removed, and those characters are usually good already.

Not necessarily. Imagine getting Dashin's speed to 20 with the use of the Sety scroll and a lot of babying. With the caps at 20, you'd have a super fast armour. With them at 30, you don't quite have that. Super growth rates like Asvel's speed will probably be toned down a little (75% is a lot).

Don't worry, I'm not intending to improve the killing machines we have now. It's characters like Ronan and Miranda that I'm more interested in. PCC's are likely to drop too, 4 and 5 will only be given out to characters who really do struggle. Let's talk supports! Are there any people think should be in? They don't have to be 10% (although 20% and above are silly). It's an alternative to ramping up stats, letting you use squads of less potent units together. There's also the matter of scrolls. Changing their bonuses could mean it's easier to salvage different characters at different stages.

[dondon151]

Imagine getting Dashin's speed to 20 with the use of the Sety scroll and a lot of babying.

Stop right there. You've already confirmed the premise: that Dalshin is a bad character. With higher stat caps, the fact that after that sort of investment, you still get a decidedly worse character than someone like Asvel should clearly indicate to you that higher stat caps is a terrible idea.

[Shin]

Stop right there. You've already confirmed the premise: that Dalshin is a bad character. With higher stat caps, the fact that after that sort of investment, you still get a decidedly worse character than someone like Asvel should clearly indicate to you that higher stat caps is a terrible idea.

Asvel's probably going to receive some nerfing ^^. The stat caps are for differentiation but don't worry, I'll do the maths and make sure that the disparity isn't as bad. I like Dashin anyway.

[Desro]

Dokutayuu I agree with you about the 30 stat caps. The original game just seemed lazy with everything capping at 20; it wasn't all that hard to have just about anyone reach max stats with scroll abuse and stat-up items. And yea, you will definitely need to tone back growths on characters like Asvel, Mareeta, and Sara.

I also tweaked with the supports some, but not to the extent your planning. I like your idea of giving Leaf Charisma to free up extra supports. In particular it made no sense that Leaf supported Hicks, Xavier, Ronan, Dalsin, Carrion, Olwen, and Tina as he just met all of them and the plot doesn't indicate that he forms any special bond with them.

Selphina and Glade I improved, so Glade supported Selphina back at 20% (it is currently only 10%). I felt that they should have the strongest support in the game (they seem to have one of the most function relationships in all of Fire Emblem, only surpassed by Pent/Louise and Cuan/Ethlin).

Galzus/Mareeta at 20% is too high.

Nanna/Marreta should have 2-way support. They also have no support connection to Evyle

Olwen/Fred could be 2-sided, as Fred does not support Olwen in the original game.

Saphy could also gain support from Lifis and Shiva, but the fact that she is a healer makes it unnecessary.

To a lesser extent a support could be placed between Shiva and Lifis.

Fin could support Nanna and Leaf (I don't know why he already doesn't). Nanna and Leaf already support him. Fin currently supports nobody, which should change.

Asvel could support Leaf (currently 1-sided).

Tania could support Dadga (currently 1-sided)

Brighton could support Makua.

Makua could support Lara.

Kein and Alba could have support between each other. Robert could gain support with them too. Actually none of Selphina's soldiers support her back either.

Selphina should support Carrion. He could support her back.

Any left over supports could be used to give Homer a one-sided support on any attractive female needing of a support.

Another cool idea I had regarding Evyle. I made her into a low level Swordmaster with her standard lackluster stats. I gave her Elite and super growths, so the effort of re-recruiting her late game and then using her was actually rewarded.

Edited May 11, 2011 by Desro