[From hack to indie] Path of the Midnight Sun

[The Iron Rose]

Three tiers has never worked in the GBAFEs, and I'm not a fan of changing the formula overmuch.

FE8's system was really good, and having separate promotion items gives you better control over balancing.

[Robert Stewart]

Hmm yeah. But imo it also depends a lot on how gameplay and balance is managed.

For example, would it work to have the characters gain a lot of exp (by putting a lot of enemies, for instance) so that they can promote earlier, in your opinion?

I suppose, I guess....but I'm not sure I'd see the point in that.

I see. As I told to shinypichu though, three tiers might also work in an accurately balanced game, don't you think?

You seem to have me confused with someone else. :p

Also, what about promotion items, guys?

> Have many different ones for every kinds of classes (like in GBA FEs)

> Have an universal promotion item for every class (like in FE13 for instance)

> No obligatory need of promotion items (like in the Tellius games with autopromotion)

A combination of 2 and 3 would be my ideal. Though I think multiple item promotion could be interesting if it worked like in FE11-12.

Edited February 24, 2014 by shinpichu

[Fateborn]

What do you mean by "breaks the game", exactly?

And could you imagine a way to not "break the game" while having more than 2 promotion choices?

Let's see, as you may be aware, FE13 has class change however, this breaks the game because it never get fun mainly because you're stomping everything with higher stats due to you multi-changing.

Unless the AI is set to Brutal type with everything on enemy side more powerful than your own characters could ever get. (Perhaps with a mode)

Either that, or have a set restriction of how many time one can class change.

Just my thoughts.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Fateborn

[ghast]

really? I liked the item thing the gba's did. If i had no money I'd sell them for extra monies. Also I remember finally getting a fell contract for matty, good times ~. ~

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

Oh yeah.

FE9's Mounted Knights and Paladins were pretty cool with that thing of having one weapon and choosing another of the physical one upon promotion

aren't the Trainees technically three tier, though?

I see. As I told to shinypichu though, three tiers might also work in an accurately balanced game, don't you think?

Automatic promotions were really cool btw! But adding those would require some ASM, uh.

Also, what about promotion items, guys?

> No obligatory need of promotion items (like in the Tellius games with autopromotion)

It could work with some inflation on both EXP gain and enemies strength increase between chapters.

It would be more work, though

3. You can either promote by leveling beyond the level cap, or by using a universal promo item after level 10

[MP2E]

I'd like to see something close to Awakening's reclass system, but with much more limited second seals and reclassing ability(For instance, no melee -> magic transformations)

[The Iron Rose]

I'd like to see something close to Awakening's reclass system, but with much more limited second seals and reclassing ability(For instance, no melee -> magic transformations)

Which would be something you could see in FEXNA most likely, not via just romhacking and not easily.

AK, I encourage you to go for moderate change at most. Anything more will be incredibly difficult to implement and distracts from actually making the hack.

[Robert Stewart]

AK, I encourage you to go for moderate change at most. Anything more will be incredibly difficult to implement and distracts from actually making the hack.

Yes, I agree here. Don't try to feel pressured in to changing/introducing too much, otherwise you'll lose focus on the important stuff.

[eCut]

I like the GBA route of having several different promotion items as well as an auto-promotion. :)

[MP2E]

Which would be something you could see in FEXNA most likely, not via just romhacking and not easily.

AK, I encourage you to go for moderate change at most. Anything more will be incredibly difficult to implement and distracts from actually making the hack.

Agreed, I was just answering the question :P I don't see implementing a full reclassing system in the GBA engines as "practical". The amount of ARM ASM you'd have to write and patch in... >_>

[BwdYeti]

I prefer multiple separate promotion items, autopromote at 21 is a distant second

[X-Naut]

Promotions: Undecided between standard "one promotion per class" and FE8's two promotions.

Items: I prefer universal Master Seals and/or Level 21 promotion, although I can see the benefit behind multiple promotion items.

My ideal system would be mostly Level 21 promotions to a single class, but with a few Master Seals that allow for earlier promotion and allow you to choose between two classes.

[Flaming Kirlia]

My ideal system would be mostly Level 21 promotions to a single class, but with a few Master Seals that allow for earlier promotion and allow you to choose between two classes.

This, also, reclass would be cool, if you could make it balanced

[Alfred Kamon]

Hmm, a lot of mixed opinions here... Interesting.

You seem to have me confused with someone else. :p

Oh sorry for that. derp

Let's see, as you may be aware, FE13 has class change however, this breaks the game because it never get fun mainly because you're stomping everything with higher stats due to you multi-changing.

Unless the AI is set to Brutal type with everything on enemy side more powerful than your own characters could ever get. (Perhaps with a mode)

Either that, or have a set restriction of how many time one can class change.

Just my thoughts.

I totally agree and I think the bolded part is quite significative. In FE13 there weren't particular restrictions because EXP was infinite from chapter 5 onward 'thanks' to the Outrealm Gate (and summonable skirmishes). Also, you could get Second Seals basically everywhere.

From this, it's about logical that all is needed to limit class changes consists in nerfing the exp source(s) and the available seals for reclassment.

Especially the latter. You can't reclass if you don't have the apposite seal, after all.

really? I liked the item thing the gba's did. If i had no money I'd sell them for extra monies. Also I remember finally getting a fell contract for matty, good times ~. ~

You could sell Master Seals anyway.

Ahah yeah I remember the Fell Contract. It kinda sucked you could promote only one Thief per run, though.

Oh yeah.

FE9's Mounted Knights and Paladins were pretty cool with that thing of having one weapon and choosing another of the physical one upon promotion

aren't the Trainees technically three tier, though?

It could work with some inflation on both EXP gain and enemies strength increase between chapters.

It would be more work, though

3. You can either promote by leveling beyond the level cap, or by using a universal promo item after level 10

I wouldn't consider the Trainees three-tiers. They start with subpar base stats and they only have 10 levels to get on par. They end being a little stronger than regular units if you invest some time and effort on them (and that's why I love trainees so much!) and if you don't get RNG screwed but definitely they can't be considered as strong as three-tier units.

@Bolded part: that was the plan~

I'd like to see something close to Awakening's reclass system, but with much more limited second seals and reclassing ability(For instance, no melee -> magic transformations)

Don't tell anybody, but it's what I'm trying to achieve!

Which would be something you could see in FEXNA most likely, not via just romhacking and not easily.

I beg to differ.

AK, I encourage you to go for moderate change at most. Anything more will be incredibly difficult to implement and distracts from actually making the hack.

Yes, I agree here. Don't try to feel pressured in to changing/introducing too much, otherwise you'll lose focus on the important stuff.

Agreed, I was just answering the question :P I don't see implementing a full reclassing system in the GBA engines as "practical". The amount of ARM ASM you'd have to write and patch in... >_>

I appreciate the concern, guys.

But don't worry.

I've been thinking about a new reclassing system for more than one year, and I already have 95% of it planned out. I wanted to hear what the community thought about promotions in general to see if I was going in the right direction, and it overall seems I am. In any case, as you can see I've been focusing on the chapters first. Now that the chapters for release 1 are done, once I finish working on the OST I'll probably have some months to work on the reclassing system and custom supports properly while waiting for my teammates to finish their work. I "just" have to make a ton of new battle animations, haha!

(On a side note, I consider promotions and classes an important part of gameplay, so I don't really see how the time I spend on those could be considered wasted at all. "Don't mind promotions; focus on hacking" doesn't have much sense to me since working on gameplay is a fundamental part of my job. Having some new material to work on would help me making the new chapters interesting and variegated~)

Anyway it's nothing big, really. It didn't even require any ASM hacking. I'll present it better later when I have some actual material to show...

I'll make a video about this when I finish the Soundtrack next week, probably.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Alfred Kamon

[BwdYeti]

I wouldn't consider the Trainees three-tiers. They start with subpar base stats and they only have 10 levels to get on par. They end being a little stronger than regular units if you invest some time and effort on them (and that's why I love trainees so much!) and if you don't get RNG screwed but definitely they can't be considered as strong as three-tier units.

Then make t0s go to level 20 and increase t1/t2 caps?

Or lower growth rates overall so the existing t2 caps still work

You don't have to use t0s the same way FE8 did, and their base stats aren't 'subpar' if there are enemy t0s in the first several chapters for them to fight

[MP2E]

I appreciate the concern, guys.

But don't worry.

I've been thinking about a new reclassing system for more than one year, and I already have 95% of it planned out. I wanted to hear what the community thought about promotions in general to see if I was going in the right direction, and it overall seems I am. In any case, as you can see I've been focusing on the chapters first. Now that the chapters for release 1 are done, once I finish working on the OST I'll probably have some months to work on the reclassing system and custom supports properly while waiting for my teammates to finish their work. I "just" have to make a ton of new battle animations, haha!

(On a side note, I consider promotions and classes an important part of gameplay, so I don't really see how the time I spend on those could be considered wasted at all. "Don't mind promotions; focus on hacking" doesn't have much sense to me since working on gameplay is a fundamental part of my job. Having some new material to work on would help me making the new chapters interesting and variegated~)

Anyway it's nothing big, really. It didn't even require any ASM hacking. I'll present it better later when I have some actual material to show...

I'll make a video about this when I finish the Soundtrack next week, probably.

:D This is shaping up to become my favorite hack! A limited reclassing system is going to be brilliant in SS, it's like a dream come true

[Alfred Kamon]

Then make t0s go to level 20 and increase t1/t2 caps?

Or lower growth rates overall so the existing t2 caps still work

You don't have to use t0s the same way FE8 did, and their base stats aren't 'subpar' if there are enemy t0s in the first several chapters for them to fight

I think the main problem about Trainees in FE8 was that, apart from Ross, they weren't usable at all in regular chapters and they HAD to be trained in the Tower of Valni / Skirmishes to actually get on par. So I tried to get around that by making their base stats more reasonable (though not the same as t1 classes) and by changing their starting level so that they only need 4-3 levels to promote into a t1.

I don't like the idea of having t0 enemies honestly, because that would both make the trainees less unique and make the enemies way too easy to defeat for your t1 units. If somebody decided to not use any Trainees, he would find himself fighting a bunch of weak and unchallenging units. Also, story-wise, I can't see the honorable army of Hoikade sending children to the front lines, honestly.

Anyway monsters (and especially zombies) help the player train the units he/she left behind, eventually.

I've tested the chapters several times and I don't find difficult to train the Trainees, but I do admit that I still have to fix the stats a little bit. Thank you for your insight.

:D This is shaping up to become my favorite hack! A limited reclassing system is going to be brilliant in SS, it's like a dream come true

Ahah, thanks for the enthusiastic support! =)

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

I think Yeti means making t0 enemies and change the caps to turn it into a proper three tier system instead of a two tier one with a few "Tier Zero" units

[Tamanoir]

Yay ! News !

Nothing deep to say here.... I'm still really interrested in this hack ! It seems you put lot of thought onit, so I'm sure it'll be good.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Totally Radical Judge

[Alfred Kamon]

I think Yeti means making t0 enemies and change the caps to turn it into a proper three tier system instead of a two tier one with a few "Tier Zero" units

No, I think he was just suggesting some ways to make t0s more usable since FE8 didn't make a good job at that.

Yay ! News !

Nothing deep to say here.... I'm still really interrested in this hack ! It seems you put lot of thought onit, so I'm sure it'll be good.

Thanks for your constant support, it's really precious teddie~

[BwdYeti]

No I was suggesting a proper three tier system with t0s.

There's no real functional difference between tier 1 => 2 => 3 and tier 0 => 1 => 2. Units promote twice, and FE10 t2s even largely have one weapon type like GBA t1s already do

If you really want to do a three tier system that is by far the easier way to go about it: Rather than adding a ton of completely original and balanced tier 3 classes (not to mention giving them animations), it's much simpler to make 4-6 new t0s to cover the rest of the weapons and t1 classes, and then make them more common so they're not unique

[Lord Glenn]

Adding on to Yeti's comments, you should also consider the stat limitations of third tier classes. Even under the assumption that the regular FE8 highest-tier units have their caps reduced, you're still basically at the mercy of the engine's storage system for character stats (at least as of this writing, minus the one autopatch that FEditor has). And, really, what does reducing the Sage's caps to add a bigger, spiffier class past it accomplish? You'd basically be ending up with a class that had a similar stat cap distribution to the original Sage. And, really, it's my opinion that this is one of the big reasons why "third tiers" have never really worked well in the GBA setting.

If you're dead set on having third tiers, I think that lower starting base stats + lower starting classes and "t0 caps" are really the only way to accomplish it. (And, honestly, isn't that really just what FE10 did?)

[CT075]

tbh lowering t0 caps (and growths in general!) is pretty much the only way to do it short of having super drastic weird growth curve stuff because you're suddenly adding an extra 20 potential stat gains without actually increasing the max amount of times a stat can increase (at the time of this writing, a stat can only go 31 points over it's initial value, including promotion bonuses and stat boosters)

Edited February 26, 2014 by CT075

[eclipse]

I'd just leave it at FE8's promotion system - the less work you have to do, the less daunting it'll be (for example, if you do three tiers, you'll also need to do the sprites for the tiers).

[Alfred Kamon]

No I was suggesting a proper three tier system with t0s.

There's no real functional difference between tier 1 => 2 => 3 and tier 0 => 1 => 2. Units promote twice, and FE10 t2s even largely have one weapon type like GBA t1s already do

If you really want to do a three tier system that is by far the easier way to go about it: Rather than adding a ton of completely original and balanced tier 3 classes (not to mention giving them animations), it's much simpler to make 4-6 new t0s to cover the rest of the weapons and t1 classes, and then make them more common so they're not unique

@bolded part: That's fundamentally true, admitting that you add some t0s as you said, while balancing gameplay to revolve around them. That's not what I'm going for, honestly, nor I intended to go for a three tiers system to begin with. I want trainees to be part of a two tiers system, and FE8 already did well in that, apart from stats balancing. As I said before, I like the idea of having unique and relatively weak units that reward the player if he/she invests enough time and effort in training them. I don't see the fact that they have subpar stats as something negative either (and they're just slightly subpar in my hack anyway). It's like protecting and giving your support to some children until they become strong enough to stand on their own feet. Making them fight against other children of their level just kills this feel completely.

So, making t0s functionally the same as t1s is not in my plans, nor is creating a three-tiers system. I never said that, and I don't know why you and Glenn are convinced I did.

Anyway, thank you for your suggestions and ideas, they're indeed useful and interesting (as expected from you!). I'm just going in a totally different direction. =)

Adding on to Yeti's comments, you should also consider the stat limitations of third tier classes. Even under the assumption that the regular FE8 highest-tier units have their caps reduced, you're still basically at the mercy of the engine's storage system for character stats (at least as of this writing, minus the one autopatch that FEditor has). And, really, what does reducing the Sage's caps to add a bigger, spiffier class past it accomplish? You'd basically be ending up with a class that had a similar stat cap distribution to the original Sage. And, really, it's my opinion that this is one of the big reasons why "third tiers" have never really worked well in the GBA setting.

If you're dead set on having third tiers, I think that lower starting base stats + lower starting classes and "t0 caps" are really the only way to accomplish it. (And, honestly, isn't that really just what FE10 did?)

They're all valid points, and that's why I never intended to go for a three-tiers system~

Especially considered that this hack will just be 20 chapters long!

tbh lowering t0 caps (and growths in general!) is pretty much the only way to do it short of having super drastic weird growth curve stuff because you're suddenly adding an extra 20 potential stat gains without actually increasing the max amount of times a stat can increase (at the time of this writing, a stat can only go 31 points over it's initial value, including promotion bonuses and stat boosters)

Yup, I agree.

I'd just leave it at FE8's promotion system - the less work you have to do, the less daunting it'll be (for example, if you do three tiers, you'll also need to do the sprites for the tiers).

I'm not afraid of work, eclipse, don't worry~ And I don't like to waste a lot of time either. If I invest a lot of time into something, it's because I seriously think it's worth it.

Sorry for the short answers, but I have class soon and I'm quite in a hurry, haha ^^"

Edited February 26, 2014 by Alfred Kamon