How should the series become harder?

[The Void]

The problem is that, as of now, there are basically three classes of units. 'Units who utterly dominate and have no downsides', 'units who utterly dominate and have no downsides besides not being mounted', and 'units who have almost no upsides'. If I wanted to build a team of nothing but FE9 Nephenee (debatably the most 'average' unit in the game), I wouldn't end up with a lop-sided team, I'd end up with a super-strong army whose only weakness was their lack of high movement/flight. But if, in the same game, I tried to build a team out of nothing but Ilyana, I'd end up with a team that was frail and couldn't double reliably, making the game MUCH harder than it should be. We need a way to make it so one unit or unit type simply cannot dominate and the best way to do that is to try and promote diverse teams. While flexibility is wanted, nay the GOAL of this, we want it more along the lines of 'do I take two soldiers, a mage, and a healer? Or one knight, two archers, and a paladin' as opposed to 'do I use all four paladins, or all four peggies?'

I'm sure at least one of the issues here is that the playable characters aren't really distinct enough in practice from each other in a way that isn't too situational.

For example, Armor Knights/General haven't been all that good through the series. There are several things that can be tied to this, but one of them is how after early game (at best) the player gains access to characters who can tank while also being more mobile than Armor Knights/General. And other things.

Ilyana's another example. Soren joins earlier with higher growths, close enough bases, and adept. Calill's bases are high enough that Ilyana never outdoes her to a large extent while also being slower. And so on.

[Snowy_One]

I'm sure at least one of the issues here is that the playable characters aren't really distinct enough in practice from each other in a way that isn't too situational.

For example, Armor Knights/General haven't been all that good through the series. There are several things that can be tied to this, but one of them is how after early game (at best) the player gains access to characters who can tank while also being more mobile than Armor Knights/General. And other things.

Ilyana's another example. Soren joins earlier with higher growths, close enough bases, and adept. Calill's bases are high enough that Ilyana never outdoes her to a large extent while also being slower. And so on.

And, thusly, units who are 'average' in stats end up being utter dominators. Harping on how speed needs a nerf is nothing new though (maybe each unit gets only one attack with speed deciding the order, even in team-ups?). Anyways, options are crucial to making the game more difficult but the game does actually need to increase in difficulty. Spamming enemies/stats is always possible, but I think that the earlier suggestion of more requirements/objectives per map is a good one as well. Agree?

[The Void]

The enemy units and how they are compared to the playable characters should be the top for difficulty.

Things like map objectives, etc., come after that.

Edited July 19, 2013 by The Void

[Snowy_One]

The problem is that you can only make the enemies so hard before it becomes 'only use XYZ characters or you will lose'. That is not how a game should be hard. It should make you think and challenge your ability to plan, not punish you for not using one character constantly since map 3.

[The Void]

What units to use isn't part of planning?

[arvilino]

The problem is that you can only make the enemies so hard before it becomes 'only use XYZ characters or you will lose'. That is not how a game should be hard. It should make you think and challenge your ability to plan, not punish you for not using one character constantly since map 3.

There's no way to make it hard without making all characters very similar(Stat and function wise) if any and all combination of characters in any chapter can succeed.

Edited July 19, 2013 by arvilino

[Refa]

There should be a LLR mode. Those always make the series harder for me.

[Anouleth]

There's no way to make it hard without making all characters very similar(Stat and function wise) if any and all combination of characters in any chapter can succeed.

But it's already the case with some Fire Emblems that are hard. I'm sure that any combination of characters can beat most FEs, except like, Lunatic+ on FE13 or Lunatic on FE12 or whatever. If not "any and all", then certainly, the vast majority, and the only ones that fail are ones that specifically go out of the way to use the worst characters possible. And definitely, characters will need to be more similar; but that's probably a good thing in a case like say, Lex and Arden.

[Baldrick]

There are also many different degrees of capability; for example, in FE10, a team of frail units can beat 3-6, and a team of low mobility units can beat 3-11, but it's easier to use tanky/mobile units respectively.

What's important is that units have niches; both a reason to use that class (e.g. swordmasters and high crits) and a reason to use that unit over others of that class (e.g. str cavalier vs spd cavalier). What's definitely bad is a matchup like Seth v Gilliam or Sothe v Meg, where an all-round strong unit performs a function better than the unit designed for that function.

[Snowy_One]

There are also many different degrees of capability; for example, in FE10, a team of frail units can beat 3-6, and a team of low mobility units can beat 3-11, but it's easier to use tanky/mobile units respectively.

What's important is that units have niches; both a reason to use that class (e.g. swordmasters and high crits) and a reason to use that unit over others of that class (e.g. str cavalier vs spd cavalier). What's definitely bad is a matchup like Seth v Gilliam or Sothe v Meg, where an all-round strong unit performs a function better than the unit designed for that function.

Exactly. Units need a specific function and role to play in combat and the difficulty, and overcoming of that difficulty, should be a matter of learning the uses of every unit and how to apply them, not in being forced to pick *just* one unit or unit type because all the others suck/can't be used.

[bottlegnomes]

Again, that's true of like 4 modes of all the FEs at most. Any of the other games can be reasonably beaten with any set of units. The bigger issue is the OP units. For example, Radiant Dawn had enemies with rather high stats comparatively to player characters, but the abundance of (borderline) gamebreaking units, 3rd tier, and the overall absurd growths made the high enemy stats relatively meaningless. If RD had something more along the line of PoR's growths and fewer gamebreaking characters, the game still would have been manageable with any cast, but not trivialized so easily.

[The Void]

Next FE should have everybody with Bantu growths outside of what they specialize in.

Except for the Est character.

[eclipse]

Next FE should have everybody with Bantu growths outside of what they specialize in.

Except for the Est character.

They kind of already did that (FE11), and it's still not that hard to stomp the game.

[The Void]

Part of that involves reclassing.

[Aizenberg]

make fire emblem 5

[X-Naut]

Most of what I would have suggested has been covered (better stats, better weaponry, better hit rates) has already been covered, but I do have one suggestion: on higher difficulties, tweak the AI so that enemies will always go for a kill if you give them the opportunity. Yes, that includes bosses guarding thrones.

[dondon151]

that can be really badly abused...

[Snowy_One]

The AI pretty much already does that though. Plus all that would really do it put a major tilt against any unit without strong defenses/high HP. Squishy healers would become non-existent, and part of making it 'legit harder' is making it so that people use more than just paladin-tanks.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

make fire emblem 5

So we get a game where every enemy is basically Wendy

Yay

[Nicolas]

Why this games is easy?

1. AI send enemy on guys, who ORKO or even OHKO they.
2. Jagen exist and they broke early game. OK, OK Jagen isn't bad overall, but Jagen!Palladin is just too good. Even most broken unit in series( Seth) is not broking game as for example Sniper( or SM).
3. Many versatile character without weak points. Every character just must has one or more weakness like low res, low bases, low move, etc...
4. Paladins are too overpower.
5. Enemy General with with only Lance. WTF?
6. Enemy stats is joke. Especially magicans.
7. Enemy don't have support and other things like that.
8. Enemy don't have healers and elixirs.

[Djeets]

make every chapter had one enemy unit of with capped Def that uses the Latona/Saint/Ashera's staff with limitless Use (and maybe Aum staff on certain chapter where some roaming miniboss exists,(imagine someone revived Reinhardt back on Chapter 22 x__x)

I think Thracia already fulfilled most of everyone's criteria here..

Edited August 2, 2013 by Pukuriripo

[Jotari]

I think the battle save system in Radiant Dawn (and Genaology of the Holy War but I only found out about that one after I finished it) could be abused too much. I'd rather they gave you the option to save after a certain number of chapters. Something likfe 3 or 5 on easy and then 7 or 10 on hard and have no battle save on lunatic. Course the number of turns it takes to finish maps in the game would effect those numbers hugely.

[PKL]

I liked the DS map saves a lot.

[Snowy_One]

I feel that, if simply being able to save screws the difficulty up, it's not 'real' difficulty. It's memorization.

[Jotari]

That's why I was objecting to battle saves, something suggested by someone at the very start of the topic. It just becomes trial and error so long as you save at the start of your turn when everyone is alive. However playing the game for an hour straight only to get killed by a 6% Crit can be extremely annoying and having somewhere to fall back on can be a real ease to the frustration. And in games where the turncount per level is much higher than saving at some point is pretty much vital. Genealogy of Holy War would be a nightmare if there was no save system at all since each map takes at the very least two hours to get through (for me anyway, I've only played it once). If the player has little control over when they save then it stops being memorization and starts being working from a certain point, provided the turncount between saves is large enough. DS Map Saves were a good idea too but the fact that they're actually on the map and take up a turn to use just seem really weird to me.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Jotari