FE5 Balance Patch

[Anouleth]

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.

The point is that the balance patch is intended to make the characters more similar. By giving them different caps, you are doing the opposite. I mean, that's not necessarily bad since you could use caps to buff weaker characters and nerf stronger characters, and you will probably change stats around a lot. But it's more that with the game as it is, different stat caps would just increase the difference between h4x units and cruddy units.

[Shin]

The point is that the balance patch is intended to make the characters more similar.

That's called homogenization, which was never my objective! The caps would allow more variety in characters, making options interesting for different reasons - whilst all of them being viable. I agree that without buffs/nerfs, the gap between good and bad units would increase. However, that's why I'm buffing the lame guys!

[dondon151]

The caps would allow more variety in characters, making options interesting for different reasons - whilst all of them being viable.

Not likely. The cast is huge, certain stats are better than others, and class bases (movement is a big one) and weapon access is another huge factor.

Stick to the 20s. There's no need to inflate the stats. In fact, there's a good reason to scale everything down - it's a lot harder to get RNG screwed that way.

[Celice]

I motion for increased stats for the sake of larger variety. Players can piss around and decide what they agree and disagree with from those changes. At the moment limitation is far stricter with the 20 caps, breaking many chances for units to feel individual.

[Shin]

It looks like it'll be 30. There are some seriously cool modules, especially the effectiveness modifier. Mageslayer anyone?

[Anouleth]

That's called homogenization, which was never my objective!

Of course it's your objective. You want to adjust the characters so that they have similar usefulness. Necessarily, they will need to be more similar in other respects. Take, for instance, one of the worst characters in the game, Alva. In order to make him better, you would want to make him more similar to a character who is actually decent, such as Brighton or Delmud or Glade. You could do this in many ways, but what is certain is that while there is currently a big difference between Hicks and Brighton, it would be reduced. Homogenization is not a bad thing necessarily. To make all characters useful without being broken is homogenization in one respect, even if you don't plan to make them identical in other respects.

The caps would allow more variety in characters, making options interesting for different reasons - whilst all of them being viable.

But the problem is that there is currently too much variety. You have characters like Othin or Asvel who are gods in combat, while you have people like Ronan who are terrible.

Not likely. The cast is huge, certain stats are better than others, and class bases (movement is a big one) and weapon access is another huge factor.

Stick to the 20s. There's no need to inflate the stats. In fact, there's a good reason to scale everything down - it's a lot harder to get RNG screwed that way.

Well, the problem with low stat caps relative to stats is that it removes the possibility of blessage (for example, even if someone like FE10 Gatrie was strength blessed, it would make no difference to him). But you could equally prevent that by lowering growths and base stats.

[Rodykitty]

*maxes stats using scrolls*

*complains about lack of variety*

[dondon151]

At the moment limitation is far stricter with the 20 caps, breaking many chances for units to feel individual.

Oh, that's bull. Every unit is individual up until they start capping stats, and that usually takes many levels. Even after that point, units are individual going by their supports, class, movement, weapon ranks, PCC, movement stars, leadership stars, and skills. Personal weapons, too, for some units.

You are partially insinuating that every unit is identical past some point in the game. As it stands, that's not even true unless you turtle through the game and stack 6 scrolls on every unit's level ups at every possibility. Furthermore, that problem isn't even remedied if you raise all of the stat caps by 50% - now you can just perform the same abuse to an even greater extent. What about if you raise the enemy stats? Now the units that are already crappy get shitrocked. What about if you raised the player unit stats? Great, now you just re-homogenized all of the player units, and the effects of the stat cap increase are nullified.

Edited May 12, 2011 by dondon151

[Shin]

Dondon, if playtesting shows 30 caps break the game, I'd switch it back to 20. However, we need to see how things go first. A fair number of people (including myself) would like 30, so that's how we're rolling initially.

Here are the character changes I'm proposing, I'm still toying with ideas so I'm open to suggestions.

Leaf

Gained Charisma

Othin

Dropped PCC to 2 (from 3) *boo* *hiss*

Evayl

PCC upped to 4 (from 1)

Strength and Defense growths upped to 30% (from 15% and 5%)

Dagda

20% Build growth (from 5%)

D rank bows (25)

Ralph

PCC upped to 3 (from 1)

Marty

50% strength growth (from 15%)

Ronan

5 movement stars (from 3)

30% strength (from 15%)

Miranda

Fire rank B (from C)

2 PCC (from 1)

30% strength growth (from 5%)

Bases boosted

Saphy

Anima bases upped (only affects promotion)

Lara

PCC upped to 4 (from 1)

Brighton

Base luck upped slightly

Felgus

Dropped PCC to 3 (from 5) (don't you hate me?)

Eda

Gained Awareness

Asvel

Dropped PCC to 1 (from 3)

Dropped skill growth to 40% (from 55%)

Dropped speed growth to 45% (from 75%)

Machua

Axe rank upped to D (20) upon promotion

Strength growth upped to 45% (from 30%)

Hicks

Gained 40 sword xp

Selfina

Upped build by 2

Gained leadership star

Swapped Duel for Meteor Sword

Upped defense growth to 40% (from 15%)

Dashin

Upped weapon levels upon promotion

Upped move by 1

Carrion

Upped build by 2

Shiva

Dropped luck growth to 20% (from 65%)

Glade

Upped sword rank to C

Upped PCC to 3

Kein

Upped sword rank to D(20)

Changed class to Social Knight

Upped PCC to 3

Alva

Upped sword rank to C(10), Lance to D(10)

Changed class to Social Knight

Upped PCC to 2

Robert

Upped Bow rank to D(30)

Upped build by 2

Upped PCC to 4 (from 3)

Fred

Gained Leadership star

PCC upped to 3

Olwen

Bases upped slightly

Sety

Dropped PCC to 0 (from 3)

Shanam

PCC of 5 (from 0)

Upped sword rank to B(10)

Upped bases by a moderate amount

Gained movement star

Upped Strength and Speed growths to 60% (from 50%)

Trewd

Upped PCC to 3 (from 1)

Gained 1 movement

Upped Build growth to 40% (from 20%)

Tanya

Upped PCC to 4 (from 2)

Gained Prayer

Misha

Upped Defense, Luck and Build to 9 (from 6)

Salem

Upped bases slightly

Sleuf

Upped PCC to 1 (from 0)

Upped speed base

Mareeta

Dropped Skill and Speed bases to 50% (from 75% and 80%)

Tina

Gained Steal skill

Upped move by 2

Gained 2 movement stars (up to 7)

Conomore

Gained 3 leadership stars (now has 7)

Homer

Skill and Speed growths dropped to 45% (from 70%)

Sara

Skill and Speed growths dropped to 50% (from 80%)

Lost 2 movements stars (now has 3)

Lost Prayer

I'll also be changing the scrolls a little. 30% is a little much.

[Fia]

Eh, I'm just giving my two cents here...

Selfina

Swapped Duel for Meteor Sword

I think it's actually part of the story that only people with Odo blood can have Astra, so I'm against this change. Sol is one thing, but please no Astra.

Sety

Dropped PCC to 0 (from 3)

... Does it really have to be 0? Can't you make he has at least 1? D:

Shanam

PCC of 5 (from 0)

Upped sword rank to B(10)

Upped bases by a moderate amount

Gained movement star

Upped Strength and Speed growths to 60% (from 50%)

Sounds like Shanam might be a good unit now.

Tina

Gained Steal skill

... What for...?

...She already has Thief Staff?

Conomore

Gained 3 leadership stars (now has 7)

I sincerely hope you will upped Cyas's leadership stars to 15 then and make him keep those stars if he joins. /shot

[Anouleth]

Apparently Tina and Saphy were underpowered before.

[Shin]

Thanks for the response No.6. Whilst I know Astra has story connotations, there aren't many skills that replicate the multihitting of Duel. Luna could be interesting though. Sety's a walking death machine, 0 PCC doesn't hurt him too much. Any ideas for Tina would be great whilst Conomore gives more incentive for the B-route. I don't know why everyone hates him.

[Ryan7556]

Dashin/Dalsin should probably get a speed growth increase(maybe 35 now?) and defense growth increase (possibly 50 instead of 20)

Edited May 13, 2011 by BerserkerBarst

[Fia]

Whilst I know Astra has story connotations, there aren't many skills that replicate the multihitting of Duel. Luna could be interesting though.

Apparently Luna is also a parallel of Astra, only Odo people have it canonically, though the game allows you to get its manual unlike Astra.

Why don't you try giving her wrath and upped her PCC instead, maybe it would help?

Any ideas for Tina would be great whilst Conomore gives more incentive for the B-route. I don't know why everyone hates him.

I think Tina is fine the way she is? Or you can upped Thief Staff's uses to 5 instead. :p

Or give her Elite for easier level up, but I'm not too sure if it's a good idea.

Conomore gives more incentive for the B-route. I don't know why everyone hates him.

Well A-route gives you staff users, I think that's why. Conomore is fine and all, but people tend to dislike raising Miranda so...

Do you have any plan for Cyas? I think it's really unfair when we have to choose between him and Sety. It's too obvious he is the inferior one.

Edited May 13, 2011 by No.6

[Psych]

You might want to think about giving Xavier something, if only for the incentive to actually recruit him.

[Icon of Sin]

You might want to think about giving Xavier something, if only for the incentive to actually recruit him.

Xavier's kinda fine the way he is. He doesn't need PCC much with Wrath and his weakness to Hammers can only be eliminated by having him switch classes.

[Psych]

Yes, but he's still an armour knight that's a hassle to recruit.

You could maybe give him another Leadership star or something or like a support and up his Lance rank since he's one of two indoor lance users. Plus for some reason he's got 50% speed growth, which is weird.

[Icon of Sin]

Yes, but he's still an armour knight that's a hassle to recruit.

You could maybe give him another Leadership star or something or like a support and up his Lance rank since he's one of two indoor lance users. Plus for some reason he's got 50% speed growth, which is weird.

Lance rank would be nice, but considering he has A axes it's almost not necessary. If you want to make him use lances I'd probably suggest to let him use the Hero Lance just like Fin.

He actually has the same growths as Olwen, Eyrios and Galzus.

Edited May 13, 2011 by Dio

[Esaka]

Give him an extra movement. 6 would be nice, plus another authority star would be nice, merely having them is a great reason to deploy him.

[Shin]

Too much to quote :p.

@ Black Star: Tina's may be a bit much, it does offer some risk/reward from her. Safy's actually lets her use Wind. For some odd reason if you have an E in Wind, you can't use it.

@ No.6 : Wrath on a bow user doesn't really work too well. She'd only be good against other archers, even then close range would work better. Cyas is getting access to Fire/Thunder/Wind magic, although he does need a little something. Holsety's going to lose some of those evil boosts. +20 is far too much (he's fast anyway).

@ Dio and Psych : Raising his Lance rank could be a good idea. He's already potent, but he is a pain to recruit. I'll see if I can reduce his knights' move to give the player a chance.

[Icon of Sin]

Do you have the patch that fixes the animations for the unused spells? If so, consider giving Cyas Falaflame.

[Anouleth]

@ Black Star: Tina's may be a bit much, it does offer some risk/reward from her. Safy's actually lets her use Wind. For some odd reason if you have an E in Wind, you can't use it.

The point is that Tina and Saphy are among the best characters in the game already since they use staves and have exclusive access to some quite useful staves. They do not need the ability to steal, or more movement, or more movement ★s, or better post-promotion combat.

Edited May 13, 2011 by Black★Star

[Desro]

Saphy has terrible stats growths that give her little survivability. She does reach an A in Staffs quicker than anyone else so she incredibly useful until you get others with to have an A in Staffs. She does have the Repair Staff, but once that is gone, she's low priority compared to other Staff users who have made it to A rank (granted it's quite a while until others will have that rank). She will still always be a good healer with high Mag/Skl, although her low Luck also hurts her staff double cast rate, not that that's really that important when she hits max Mag. She gets slightly lower HP than some of the other healers and will therefore fatigue easier. I don't see how this makes her one of the best characters in the game, she's easily outclassed by Sara and Linoan.

Tina joins halfway though the game with an E Staff rank (w/no extra weapon exp) and at level 1. I don't really see how she's even close to being one of the best characters in the game. Her staves are really fun to play with (after the effort is put into raising her), but it's all just to open 3 doors and steal 4 items (albeit it's a good way to get hold of items that are hard to obtain otherwise). Her Skill stat kills her, due to Heal Staff castings being able to miss in FE5. At least she maxes Spd/Luk so she will double cast staves often enough to make up for the fact that she's going to miss a lot. Again, she's far outclassed by others, and is only useful for her Special Staves.

In the long term, they are among the worst 2 healers in the game. They could definitely use a boost.

Edited May 13, 2011 by Desro

[Rodykitty]

Don't try to make Dalshien into a unit he's not. Improve his existing playstyle. Give him more support bonuses.

[CT075]

Didn't dondon prove that Safy and Tina at BASE STATS are still useful at the endgame of FE5?