Hacking Theory

[Colfer]

When it comes to theory, I'm talking about when a player is to receive what units, at what level, of what class, with what bases, and how to properly counter balance that through the use of maps and enemies. To give an example of what I personally consider bad design, I'll point towards two hacks I've played recently: (disclaimer, I an very well aware of how easy it is to criticize as opposed to construct, and I realize I have no grounds beyond personal taste for the following statements)

Tactics universe: This hack was wonderful. I enjoyed playing through it, and it is well planned so that even a not so bright person such as I found the game challenging, but not enough to abuse save states simply to get through certain chapters. And then came the Bern battles. The first, an arduous zig-zag through a mountain pass full of wyvern riders, with the pass populated by trees, hills and many other roadblocks, leading to what I felt was just a damn slow chapter. Then second, an open field with pretty much no obstructing terrain or any visual flourish to it, populated by a lot of enemies, and allowing the player to deploy in only one corner of the map. I loved pretty much everything in this hack, and then suddenly, I get levels that aren't so much difficult as they are a frustrating grind.

Gorilla Gadek: Something I picked up on a whim, but was mildly surprised with mostly due to the portraits, which I found very artistically done. However, the units offered to me were bad, Within the first five chapters or so, I found myself with two mages, four horse mounted units (three cavaliers, one paladin), and two flyers. The latecomers to the equation, specifically the third cavalier and second mage, came underleveled and lacking amazing bases, so that I had no incentive to use them over the units I had already trained. Two quite useless additions to my team that felt like they had no reason to be involved in the project. Untop of which , having six characters with an impressive movement capability caused so early on, the rest of the army felt slow, and I couldn't even be bothered to bring the armor knight to the front lines to tank like its supposed to.

If the map makes one cringe, and a character has no use or attraction (even renault had compelling enough support conversations for me to glance at him), than I believe there's a problem. And I'd very much like to avoid that problem, while still keeping the fire emblem feel. After all, fire emblem has a series of traditional character types. The two contrasting cavaliers are probably the easiest example, followed by the useful-yet-exp-sucking paladin. The option for three pegasi, bandits and axe users being an overwhelmingly represented enemy class in earlier chapters, et cetera come to mind as well.

The question is how to keep the fire emblem feel, while still offering a refreshing and interesting experience for the player. More specifically for my purposes at the moment as I flesh out my plans for a hack, what do I give my player unit/class/usefulness wise? What units are a must early on? What units can be or need to be kept for later in the game? How many characters of one class should a player receive? How do I balance out the weapons triangle so I don't have too many x weapon users? Do I need to, and if so how often, give the player useless characters? If the lord is mounted on horse or pegasi, does that break the game? And lastly, what would you guys consider to be good minimum and maximum number of turns the first few opening maps should take?

Sorry in advance for the obscene amount of questions, but I feel like discussing these things with the community beforehand means that my future endeavors might actually be worthwhile to play.

Edited for grammar. Sorry if I missed anything.

[deranger]

14 chapters of TU and I still don't have an axe user In terms of making a hack, its quite hard to judge, as most hacks I've played do not have enough progress to find broken units. What'd I can be sure of is this: interesting characters make me want to play a hack. One advantage of a game being an event hack is that it is not a title in the series, and can take on personal tastes. For example, I liked Radiant dawn because you got a myrmidon and an archer instead of Christmas cavaliers. I'd say that go for your mounted lord, just to be different. As long as every character is usable, and the difficulty is in check, uniqueness is a good thing. As long as characters are balanced, characters and chapters should just be designed based on what you find fun in fire emblem.

[Ryrumeli]

I think you mentioned something important in your initial post, Colfer. You talked on Gorilla Gadek's case that you didn't feel like using some units, out of feeling they had no competitive advantages; To make a balanced team you should work on making it so there is at least a reason for deciding to remove a character you have used so far, and place a new incoming unit in your army. You just gotta think on that for every case if you ask me. I personally do not believe in useless units, I feel that if a unit took work to be made(It requires a mugshot, attributes, beta testing of growths, a backstory, a personality, supports, palettes...) at the very least it should be useful. Deciding on which unit to take to the battlefield should be a decision of the player, not of the game designer, so making units that are virtually useless is pretty much deciding what a rational player would be using at that instant, which I feel retracts from the Fire Emblem effect.

Also, regarding which classes to give early on; The traditions of FE are pretty interesting if you ask me, I actually really like it when hacks make reference to the traditions. Such as making a duo of "Christmas Cavaliers" like Deranger mentioned. Even if the duo comes not at the same time, or a bit late like in FE8's example. To make things interesting all I think is that you shouldn't give to the player at the start many classes with very similar characteristics. Like giving say 3-4 mounted units, or just unmounted units. Diversity is the key if you ask me, units with different proposals makes the things interesting for the one making the decision, that is the player. I feel there should be a hint of how different classes can be from eachother already early on, with at least one example of long range, short range, different weapons, and all in the first chapters. And then a bit later start to provide the player units which work similar to others he owned already but with some sort of difference, so the player can pick which among them he will use. There is no specific formula to make it good or not, but picturing a game in which you get 6 cavaliers and paladins very early on isn't very fun to say the least.

Also, one thing that I do think is important, magic is something all FEs saved for a little on in the future; The average of the first chapter in most hacks of the presence of a magic-using unit is way earlier than the average of the actual games.(A handful of those hacks in fact have the magic-casting unit in chapter 1 already) I feel that thinking on the player one should give it some time for him to get used to a system, to introduce the other. Of course, this is more important for commercial games than it is to hacks which are made for a community which has already played FE games and thus is used with the system, but I think that is one detail of the feel of FE games moist hacks fail to catch early on. Much like with attributes, there should be a natural progression of gameplay elements. And as armies progressively get bigger and bigger, they also seem more resourceful to the fact they use more different gameplay elements for the player to take heed on.

As for the weapon triangle balance, I feel it will come naturally with you not abusing any class; My personal stand is to defend the player's right of choice, so I would say about 1-2 characters of unpromoted classes for each class is a good measure. Then a promoted version of some key classes, whichever you feel is important and that allows you to play with character concepts. An example is Pent in FE7; For a Sage to have a good staff level one needs to start to using exclusively staves as soon as you promote, however he starts out as a decent staff-user, so you get to give him a competitive edge with other magic-units by playing with the concept in a way units which promoted couldn't easily.

Oh, and having more Swordsmen, then Spearfighters, and having a minimum of Axefighters actually match the more modern notion of the strength of the 3 weapons being relative; Even then in the first 7-8 chapters I feel you should already have at least 2 axe-using units, so you can pick on using either, or none, or both. Many hacks have the mortal flaw of not having many axe-fighters, and while I can't really blame them for that, gives the player's army an unneeded weakpoint you might end up abusing even without knowing it. Making the player pick his army's weakpoint and not the game designer is a more modern view on game design indeed. :)

Also, for promoted units, I do recommend saving some slots for pre-promoted units for plot-related units. I feel players really like to use units they know affect the plot in some way, that have a visible importance. And I feel the spots for pre-promotes have the potential of bringing to the army more veteran-looking and wiser units than recruiting say "the daughter of the mayor of a village that hunts every now or then and thus know how to use a bow". Even if these characters aren't that bright in numbers, just allowing the player to use these already gives your game a different feeling, so I feel at least 1 or 2 spots for pre-promotes should come for units with such a profile.

The lord being on a Pegasi would be an issue if you ask me, due to the amount of weaknesses flying units have; Giving your lord character weaknesses which are hard to control such as bows and ballistae is more of a vector for flustration than a key element; However, I see nothing wrong with Horses, even though the lord gets a weakness to mount-slaying weapons, at least he gets a great move to boot. The only issue I see with actual flying is the exposed Achilles-heel of bows and wind magic(If any) and ballistae, which tend to hit you when you least expect. While there aren't that many horse-slaying weapons for it to become such a worry. But again different concepts for lords are very welcome, so I agree with Deranger in that it would be cool to see that being done. :)

As for length of starting chapters, I feel that something such as Lyn mode's prologue should be avoided; I think that 1 player unit vs 2 enemy units is not even a start to warm one up. I like something which gives you more units and a bit of a very controlled challenge, although a headstart such as FE6's would be a bit tough already, it is somewhat diverse.(Then again they have an excuse, they have a tutorial map). Maybe Lyn 2 would be a better example for the length of such a chapter?

Keep in mind that as long as you try to keep difficulty on check, and that you make it interesting to use any sort of strategy and unit, you have plenty of space to maneuver. You can play with concepts and create different enemy waves with different characteristics, and the more you play the more unique it will feel. So above all, try to have fun in the game design part of your game, that it will show off in your finished product, for your target audience.

And above all, keep on having fun with hacking~! :D

[Celice]

The biggest problem is you have players making these edits, and they really don't have a clue what they're doing, in terms of gameplay. Many find that filling the bubble, so to say, is the main goal--cramming in as much useless junk, padding out the edit, so it looks like a real, deep edit, when in fact, it's just shallow frosting on the edges :E Or in an equally limited and biased manner, they make an edit which reflects only what they think is good or bad, like stupid humor, overpowered difficulties, and purposefully-erratic deployment of enemies.

There's been some good mods and edits I've seen over the years. Most of them aren't so great, because the fans... just don't know how to make a game. They get tools, and they jerk around, and something comes out. This isn't to say that the ejaculate is complete waste and pretty useless. It's only that the authors don't know how to pace the gameplay, or understand what "good" design is. Luckily, most people who play the mods aren't exactly concerned with quality in quite the same manner. Instead, how the edits are received is just as erratic as the initial edits themselves.

(this obviously steps beyond the scope of just Fire Emblem edits, but that's the issue itself--the creator, not the game, is at fault, if you could call it a fault)

[Ryrumeli]

It is indeed very common that hacks don't get near the level of quality of the actual games, and that is indeed a shame. And it is for a good reason, while professional games have people thinking 24/7 how to please the most publics as possible, a hacker or a hobbyist game designer have alike the fact that game design isn't their main focus in life, their main occupation. Also, unlike the game designers by profession, the unsuccess of the game isn't such an issue as well, there is nothing wrong then in just making a game which would appeal exclusively to yourself and people from your social cycle if you don't "lose" anything in case the game isn't appealing to all publics.

This is also the main issue a game designer has to face when he or she is at the start of a professional career in the field; Know that if they make the game something only them would play it is bound to not be successful, so they need to think in terms of providing something their target audience would enjoy to achieve success. I think that in order to make a game keep the feeling of the original, we need to think less with our personal bias, and keep on working on the project with the same target audience for our hacks as the original game; This is a way of avoiding the complex of "Making a game from me, for me" in my eyes.

But I agree, this is in no way a fault, accomplishing a hack alone is commendable, so you are more than free to just make the game enjoyable for yourself, period. But a bit of selflessness here would make your game stand out in a sea of hacks and fangames which fail to please the same public as the original game did.

[Swordsalmon]

The problem with a lot of Fire Emblem hacks, I think, is that they're meant to appeal to the creator, and not the customer. Very few people actually like the Fighter or Knight classes, for example, which is why there's so few of them. In contrast, look at how many Mercenaries and Myrmidons there are in most projects (Just look at Dream of Five!)

I remember back when Tactics Universe was a community project, we had this problem finding people that wanted to make characters in less desirable classes. Everyone wants their guy to be powerful and liked; there were a lot of submissions for sword-users, whereas Fighters, Knights, and Shaman (For some) were rarely made. That's why there's such a lack of axe-users in that project, because those traits were carried over when Tactics Universe became detached from the community.

Anyways, my point is that the project creators want a game to appeal to themselves. That's why I can't stand to play Dream of Five anymore; it seems WAY to invested in its creators, making it not appeal to me at all. :/ And Tactics Universe could really stand to have at least one early Fighter.

tl;dr: Why does everyone have five Mercenaries and nary a Fighter? :o

[Crimson Red]

@TU chapters 21 and 22 are supposed to be really annoying and tedious. So what you've said to me means "success". From my personal experience games tend to have long maps or dungeons that are annoying, time-consuming, and drain your spirit. I put some of that into certain chapters of TU. The Bern Saga itself is only 2 chapters long but covers a large time span and area and so to account for its shortness in number of chapters, I increased the length of the chapters. :P

As for axe users, I don't add in characters to add in characters, for the most part. I've never added an early-game axe user because it wouldn't fit into the plot and felt like I was just changing the story for purely gameplay reasons. I hate filler characters. Almost everyone in TU has a good story behind them, even if it comes after they join. This story is usually told within the chapter that they join, but sometimes after, but if I added in a new character I'd just be adding in a story and it'd feel fake and it'd make me despise my own hack. And I'd rather other people despise it than I despise it because I don't hack for free for other people, that's way too unselfish :P

The question is how to keep the fire emblem feel, while still offering a refreshing and interesting experience for the player. More specifically for my purposes at the moment as I flesh out my plans for a hack, what do I give my player unit/class/usefulness wise? What units are a must early on? What units can be or need to be kept for later in the game? How many characters of one class should a player receive? How do I balance out the weapons triangle so I don't have too many x weapon users? Do I need to, and if so how often, give the player useless characters? If the lord is mounted on horse or pegasi, does that break the game? And lastly, what would you guys consider to be good minimum and maximum number of turns the first few opening maps should take?

1) You need unique ideas. Niches. If you don't know ASM then use what is given to you and manipulate it, build upon it. EN is so successful because it does just that. Each tale is interesting and unique. Don't repeat common things people add to hacks like making a Short Bow 1-2 range or make the story about the Black Fang or Scouring.

2) I don't think there is any "must" for early on units. I plan my hacks story first, units later. If you're trying to make a game first, story after, then that's different, but I really couldn't tell you what to do given that their are so many "what ifs" and exceptions.

3) In general if you want to make most people happy you'll probably want a good variety of unit types and you'll want to always keep the player army at an advantage over the enemy army via the weapon triangle and trinity of magic. I don't believe in the good guys always being at the advantage and having fairy tale situations, which is demonstrated in the prologue of TU where you have primarily sword users against lance users (albeit they CAN use lances, just not nearly as well).

4) Some people believe in useless characters, others don't. I think that's a personal opinion thing that you should decide on your own. I think there shouldn't be any COMPLETELY useless characters but some characters will IMO be better than others, and some characters will have clear-cut replacements that are in almost every way superior (e.g. Eduardo and Nayr come at the same time and Nayr is better in almost every way, but Eduardo isn't still useless, and Eduardo still has his role as comic relief unit).

5) Just being a unit is mounted doesn't make them OP. It depends on the game. In the GBA games by default there's no canto so the bonus for being a mounted unit isn't even THAT great, IMO.

6) Length of the first few chapters should depend on how long the game as a whole is. If the game is only 8 chapters long then the first few chapters might be relatively long. On the contrary if your hack is over 20 chapters, like most Fire Emblem games, then long first chapters will bore the player and make it seem like the hack is going to take forever and progress slowly, which is de-motivational--or rather, motivational to drop the game and pick up another one.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

The problem with a lot of Fire Emblem hacks, I think, is that they're meant to appeal to the creator, and not the customer. Very few people actually like the Fighter or Knight classes, for example, which is why there's so few of them. In contrast, look at how many Mercenaries and Myrmidons there are in most projects (Just look at Dream of Five!)

I remember back when Tactics Universe was a community project, we had this problem finding people that wanted to make characters in less desirable classes. Everyone wants their guy to be powerful and liked; there were a lot of submissions for sword-users, whereas Fighters, Knights, and Shaman (For some) were rarely made. That's why there's such a lack of axe-users in that project, because those traits were carried over when Tactics Universe became detached from the community.

Anyways, my point is that the project creators want a game to appeal to themselves. That's why I can't stand to play Dream of Five anymore; it seems WAY to invested in its creators, making it not appeal to me at all. :/ And Tactics Universe could really stand to have at least one early Fighter.

tl;dr: Why does everyone have five Mercenaries and nary a Fighter? :o

hey you noticed that too.

though i think DoF does well avoiding this issue

[Colfer]

Thank all of you for giving your opinions. Especially you, Blazer, its always nice to hear from the creator of the criticized piece, though I'm going to respectfully disagree with you as to the success of the Bern chapters.

Now, admittedly, there's a lot of work to be done with hacking, especially for a person like me who is both working alone and has no experience, but I'm looking forward to this as a creative exercise and as a way to pay back a community that's given me hours hours of entertainment. Now I've just got to learn to event hack, to modify battle frames, change battle pallets, map, insert custom material.... I've got a lot of reading to do, though I'm very thankful for the extensive tutorials Arch and others have posted.

I'm planning an unrelated to previous games world, so there will be some pretty big differences, and I'd like to see what you guys think about them.

1) One of my plans is to increase Knight's movement range to five, and general's to six. If you are given specific training to use heavy armor, it shouldn't inhibit you to such a ridiculous extent. I always felt that decreased movement left the class in the dust in comparison to everyone else.

2) If I can manage (though chances are, I won't), I'd like to have a mounted Lord with a dismount option. The mount might be a flyer even, so in effect you could switch between dragon knight to soldier, because it makes no sense to fly a dragon inside a castle.

3) Usable fighters.

4) Make archers worthwhile, because the bow was perhaps the most deadly weapon before the introduction of guns. I don't think I'm going the short bow route, but rather increasing their capacity for damage, so that mages don't win over them in every category. Don't know about you guys, but I always stopped using archers because they just couldn't kill their targets on their own. This means, also, that the enemy archers will pack a significantly harder punch too.

5) The Christmas twins might get a class change. I'd like the two to really play off each other if possible, so perhaps I'll have to change that. I'd need two different classes that would naturally be kept together so they don't compete.Mercenary and fighter, maybe?

6) Mages will be pushed off towards later, thieves will start as self sufficient, and the lords will not require a baby sitter, but to offset this, the enemies might get meaner too.

7) Having pre-promotes that aren't paladins. I don't like Seth and Marcus because their movement range and general effectiveness means that they can almost always come to the rescue should things get really ugly. THe pre-premote will be closer to pent, with their own selling point or to act as slightly lower tier replacements for characters/niches in your army you as a player weren't compelled to train.

My plan for the opening chapter would hence be granting the player:

One mounted lord, which will start weak so that you can't simply run him to the throne/conquer zone and leave everyone else behind. He will, however, get useful unlike Eliwood, and in a timely manner, unlike Roy.

One archer that is actually worth using.

One pre-promoted hero, to act as the grizzled mentor.

One of the Christmas twins, with the other recruit-able very soon after.

Does that make seen like a solid starting team?

[CT075]

2) If I can manage (though chances are, I won't), I'd like to have a mounted Lord with a dismount option. The mount might be a flyer even, so in effect you could switch between dragon knight to soldier, because it makes no sense to fly a dragon inside a castle.

Good luck with that, that takes either heavy ASM or some heavy kerjiggering with the class-change system (and even then you'd need ASM to make 'dismount' an option on the menu).

[Parrhesia]

1) One of my plans is to increase Knight's movement range to five, and general's to six. If you are given specific training to use heavy armor, it shouldn't inhibit you to such a ridiculous extent. I always felt that decreased movement left the class in the dust in comparison to everyone else.

While I disagree with it on an aesthetic basis, your reason makes sense. And is kind of, you know, true. I do feel other ways could be used to improve the class, though, but eh. It's an easy fix.

2) If I can manage (though chances are, I won't), I'd like to have a mounted Lord with a dismount option. The mount might be a flyer even, so in effect you could switch between dragon knight to soldier, because it makes no sense to fly a dragon inside a castle.

Good luck coding it, which wasn't meant particularly sarcastically.

3) Usable fighters.

Hell yes.

4) Make archers worthwhile, because the bow was perhaps the most deadly weapon before the introduction of guns. I don't think I'm going the short bow route, but rather increasing their capacity for damage, so that mages don't win over them in every category. Don't know about you guys, but I always stopped using archers because they just couldn't kill their targets on their own. This means, also, that the enemy archers will pack a significantly harder punch too.

Yes.

Personally, I suggest almost universal 2-3 range, longbows become more powerful and Archers being A) focused towards strength and B) stop being growth units.

5) The Christmas twins might get a class change. I'd like the two to really play off each other if possible, so perhaps I'll have to change that. I'd need two different classes that would naturally be kept together so they don't compete.Mercenary and fighter, maybe?

Mercenary and fighter are two sides of the same coin, so I can see that working. If you want opposites, maybe myrm and fighter or healer and armour.

6) Mages will be pushed off towards later, thieves will start as self sufficient, and the lords will not require a baby sitter, but to offset this, the enemies might get meaner too.

This all makes sense, PARTICULARLY the lords.

[Crimson Red]

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you as to the success of the Bern chapters.

Heh, well, something would be weird if we DID agree, to say the least. I just cheated my way through chapter 20 and it still feels like it took a while. It's probably the, or at least one of the, longest (literally longest--like a 50+ tile width map I mean :P) chapter in a GBA Fire Emblem game, hack or not. XD But yeah my idea of success shouldn't appeal to most people, so whatev's. Hopefully that doesn't make you put down the hack though, since every game has its fun and not-so-fun parts, IMO. unless it just totally sucks... XD

I like points 1, 3, 4, and 7. 2 doesn't seem feasible, 5 I just don't like, as for 6 I think early mages are fun (I always feel like they come late anyway >_>), thieves shouldn't be self-sufficient because they're supposed to be thieves not gladiators waging war on the front lines--and IMO they should only be able to escape their enemies, not kick their asses (unless it's like an archer or a healer or some other defenseless unit--permission to kick ass granted, in those cases) or hold their own. Unless they are super badass, but not all thieves can be so badass. >_> And for Lords, well, I actually don't care if they need babysitting, I think powerful main characters are cool but FE DOES have several weak main characters so meh... doesn't really matter to me.

That's all the cents I got

[Thor Odinson]

hey you noticed that too.

though i think DoF does well avoiding this issue

Especially since I have personally said in our thread that we've fixed the early swordie issue more than once. :3

He's commenting on a piss-old patch that we've done several revamps to just so it's presentable for the V4 release.

Which...won't be for another while, but we've fixed a lot of issues in V3.

[Ryrumeli]

Good that you guys worked on that, because based on the version I did play of DoF it was an omnipresent issue, to a point I seriously don't blame his anger to the least. XD

Also, to be brief I will just comment on 2. To make a lord which would have a "Mode Shift" button to exchange from foot unit to flying unit actually wouldn't be that hard, honestly. Based on how the game works coding-wise, it could be way easier than many things I saw being done in FEs with ASM.

Let's make a deal, when your hack advances a good deal I will be more than happy to share with you my menu hacking notes; While the offsets in them work specifically for FE8, the general format and structure are the same ones as FE7, so these notes should enable you to make such a "skill" for your lord with relative ease. :) I don't know the specifics of that specific hack, but if your hack advances a good deal I will be more than happy to contribute to someone so worried to the game design aspect of your hack, to a point of asking the community their opinions, and basing your decisions on them. ;)

[Colfer]

So, further thoughts as I try and work through my planning stage:

With thieves, instead of making them easier to use by nature of the character, I might make them easier to use by the nature of the map instead. Treasure chests are fun, but they usually require a side tracking of both a baby-sitting unit for the thief and extra turns for the thief to access every chest on the map. I mights just set up guards for the treasure that that are lower leveled, meaning that a thief accompanied by someone who is underleveled could both benefit from the journey. You as the player are still sacrificing for the treasure, however, because you have to take the thief along with you on your team, which could have repercussions elsewhere on the map where an additional combat unit could have come in handy. Does that work as a compromise?

With the lord mounting and dismounting, I might go with the lord starting as a soldier base and then receiving a wyvern as a ride some chapters in, and reverting every once in a while by the use of story driven premotions if I fail miserably at mode shift.

Christmas twins update: I'll be keeping the traditional two-cavalier deal, but I've got a few twists for them in mind. However, I've done a pretty simple mock up of two literal Christmas colored twins, and my plan is to have one be a mercenary, the other a bandit for the following reasons: Firstly, they won't compete for hero crests, secondly, the two could bicker as to the morality of their chosen professions, supplying comic relief. Here's the rough draft for the two of 'em:

I've tried and failed to insert them into the game so far, so no progress there, but I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong sooner or later.

Then a thesis on the archer and fighter dilemmas:

For usable archers, range 2-3 is one of the things I'm going to do. I'd also like to add a weapon (perhaps a cross bow for differentiation's sake) that instead of dealing increased damage to flyers, would be shorter ranged (only 2), but would deal increased damage to everyone else.

I'm debating as to how to make fighters more usable. Should I simply pump up their speed, or should I include defense, resistance and skill in the bonuses department? Where is the "this character is broken" line?

As to the swordsmen galore issue that has come up in other hacks, I think I might tweak the characters rather than the classes. Part of the "certified badass" image that comes with the sword fighter exist because of Raven and Karel's personalities, so I feel I could keep the swordsmen good but not make them so angsty and larger and life to reach a happy medium of sword-glorification.

Furthermore, a few questions on personality:

How do you guys think one would properly handle females? In most writing, I end up hating the female characters because they are either sexist stereotypes, or desperately trying to escape the stereotype. My original plan was to have a female lord who in class mechanics and personality would be similar to Hector, but that might already be straying into "I'm not like them other dainty girls"-land.

What would you guys think makes for a good hero? Because Eliwood was bland as lukewarm cornmeal. I'd like a character hero whose got a sense of humor and kindness, but I get the feeling not many other people like their heroes that way....

What makes for a good bad guy? World domination and ultimate power are the two Fire Emblem staples, but should I really stick to them?

I realize it might be weird to ask you guys for so many answers, but ultimately I'd like to try and take the "customer is (for the most part) always right" attitude.

Edit:

Also, a new idea that just popped up, what about having a complex, evil yet understandable villain that you would get to control every once in a while. In the same way that Ephraim has his side quest in FE8, what about having optional side quests where you would play as the villain which would reveal his complexity and add back-ground to the setting and plot?

[deranger]

Is this now your project topic? I'd recommend starting a new one for your actual project, this topic seemed like a, well, "theory" topic.

[Thor Odinson]

Girls should have just as much variety as guys. Don't make them suit one archetype or the other, just go with the flow. Make it a spectrum, if you will. Have girly girls, and have the supertomboys. And then have everything in between. They don't need to be what society defines as feminine, but they can be. Make them varied like the types of women in real life.

I like women who make threats and will keep them. Like Ayra.

Relate-ability is also a good thing, not just with girls but with characters in general. Make. Obviously you can't do that with backgrounds in a FE setting, but just make the characters' personalities seem real and not one-dimensional is good. I personally relate to women like Ayra and Echidna and Malice personality-wise far more than I do with say, Prissy or Safy, but for others, it might be the opposite. I tend to dislike female characters who aren't either an utter badass or very intelligent and clever, but it doesn't mean they're badly-written characters, but rather just ones that doesn't suit my personal tastes. In the end it's all down to variety and believability. In real life, there's gonna be the super tough chicks, the super annoying ones, the doormats, and anything else you can think of. I'd honestly look past the fact that they're chicks and worry about characterising a female properly, and just treat them like any other character and characterise from there.

[Colfer]

@Deranger, you're right, I'm getting ahead of myself. This isn't going to be a project thread because my guess is that I won't have anything to show for a couple of weeks, so skip the last round of questions, they'll either resolve themselves or return once I've actually started.

One theory question though; Money and equipment. How easy or hard should it be to obtain? I'd like to have money and equipment harder to obtain than past games to make the fight feel more frantic and discourage boss abuse. I get the feeling that funds and equipment might be a trivial and stupid way to stick a thorn in the player's side though. On continuation of that theme, even if I don't space out shops and cash, if I didn't give the player a merchant would that add challenge or be plain stupid?

[deranger]

Not having a merchant is not a good idea, that adds the possibility of being forced to drop, which is pretty random, and especially harsh if shops, money, and items are few and far between. The whole not having items thing is kinda annoying too, and can really screw players over on a first play through. I'd go with turn limitations of sorts to stop boss abuse if possible. And even then, I think if the player wants to boss abuse, their loss.

As for the longer post a few ago that I ended up reading this time:

Spend time thinking about what motivates characters. It's part of making them real, which as Lumi pointed out, is important.

Everyone likes a badass main character. There are two ways to make said badass to fight for good. Circumstance or values. I prefer the second. Although a lot of plots like to take the protagonist from a badass to a badass who cares/ has a change of heart and suddenly develops values.

And I support bad guy chapters as long as your representation of the bad guy is good (again, will this story be about his/her loss of innocence/ journey to the dark side, or simply expanding on how f*cking evil he/she is?)

EDIT: Also, I like the idea of most bows having 2-3 range, but that seems like it takes what little challenge bosses present. So unless theirs a time limit, or all bosses can move, or all bosses can't be three ranged (which I would guess would be ASM), it'd be kinda broken.

[Ryrumeli]

EDIT: Also, I like the idea of most bows having 2-3 range, but that seems like it takes what little challenge bosses present. So unless theirs a time limit, or all bosses can move, or all bosses can't be three ranged (which I would guess would be ASM), it'd be kinda broken.

While I honestly agree with you that giving all bows with no exclusion at all 2-3 range is pretty game changing to say the least, keep in mind there is already the figure of the long bow in the game, so if we want we CAN already use a 2-3 range bow at will in our game. So this sort of Boss-abusing potential existed all along, considering the Long Bow is, while weakened if compared to other bows, still a pretty decent bow to be used to abuse the bosses without such an amazing defensive capacity.

Of course, with 2-3 range bows I suspect there will be no power boost to bows to boot, maybe even a weakening of bows could take place. So the potential of the range 3-3 being abused isn't too grand unless either bowmen aren't really strong(Like currently happens, excluding our beloved promoted Warriors which in turn compensate with poorer aim). What is the good of an attack which can hit a boss in his range's weakspot if the basic regeneration a throne gives already cleans it off completely? A waste of weapon uses I tell you.

It will only be an issue of course if there is a power boost for bowmen. If all bows are 2-3, and all bowmen get numeric boosts, and thus it is really easy to get a 2-3 weapon with good numbers in a good unit, and replace it, then the possibility of "main boss owning machines" does exist for bowmen.

Oh, and as for character, I will be honest in saying the main character has to be likeable, starting out badass or not isn't exactly the greatest need. He needs to be surely slightly badass, as in outstanding in some way, but the evolution of a character is pretty interesting. FEs tend to have protagonists which don't really evolve much over time, or what I could call "Ephraim complex", so I do like to see, even if slight, a hint of a growth in a protagonist, the situation changing the man, and the built up experiences which the gamer shared with the characters touching them deeply.

[deranger]

What if the hack you have has 2 of the first 4 characters classed to bow users?

I guess you could give bosses 1-3 range weapons created almost exclusively for them. Because I think bow users stats should vary as any other class's stats do, and a numerically superior bow user should not be any more broken than any other numerically superior unit.

Also, about the protagonist, FE has made them bland in order for them to slightly appeal to everyone. In accordance with this being a hack and not a series title, you can take some liberties in your protagonists character, and make them not so damn cookie cutter. Ryrumeli's point adds to this, as you can always change your protagonist into someone people will like (something IS has been much too afraid to do).

[Parrhesia]

Or bosses could, you know, move. Seize is just an unnecessary complication of kill boss or rout. And yes, bowmen are already fucked over as it is, they could do with stats equivalent to others. Keep in mind that they are literally helpless in melee.

[deranger]

Or bosses could, you know, move. Seize is just an unnecessary complication of kill boss or rout. And yes, bowmen are already fucked over as it is, they could do with stats equivalent to others. Keep in mind that they are literally helpless in melee.

... unless theirs a time limit, or all bosses can move, or all bosses can't be three ranged (which I would guess would be ASM), [2-3 range bows]'d be kinda broken.

And about bowmen being helpless in melee, their targets during the allied phase, especailly with 2-3 range bows, are often helpless. I realize this is a shitty trade off when enemies outnumber allies, but with a bit of tactics, which the AI doesn't have, it can still work to the player's advantage. Also, I'm not opposed to 1-2 range bows as an alternative option.

[Thor Odinson]

I am. With the exception of crossbows. It's just illogical to have someone shoot from melee range, since in the time of pulling the bowstring one would be cutdown. 2-3 range on footbound bowmen would probably be ideal for me. And I wouldn't call it OP'd, per se, if the bosses are competent enough. It could just be more 2-3 range options than lolLongbow, either just some of them locked to Archer/Sniper branch while the weaker ones open to the mounted bowmen as well, or all 2-3 range bows locked to footbows since honestly, mounted bowmen are pretty good if they got the stats for it.

Speaking of which, another big issue of archers are their base stats. in FE12, even on the lower difficulties, Sniper is a good class (not so much Archer since their stats still blow, but Hunter is nice). Javelins and Handaxes are made much weaker, and Levin Swords are Mag based, something most physical units have very little of. Bows thus have the best ranged outside of magic, and Magi has bad durability anyway. Couple with the amount of enemies behind walls in FE12, the Sniper class was actually quite excellent there.

[deranger]

I am. With the exception of crossbows. It's just illogical to have someone shoot from melee range, since in the time of pulling the bowstring one would be cutdown.

If we're speaking logistics, you'd think so, but animation times dictate otherwise. And would casting a spell really be that much quicker? All bowmen should be Legolas.