Refa Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 Even though I never played Shadow Dragon that much, I don't really think its balance is that bad relative to, say, FE4, where mounts' innate advantage is magnified to a startling degree. I thought Shadow Dragon was relatively well balanced character wise, considering you could forge anyone a really good weapon and watch them go to town. Not great because large list of characters, but not awful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSND Alter Dragon Boner Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 I thought Shadow Dragon was relatively well balanced character wise, considering you could forge anyone a really good weapon and watch them go to town. Not great because large list of characters, but not awful. On the other hand you have broken as fuck Sheeda, Wolf, and Sedgar and thanks to Warpskip half the cast is liek ueslezz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Refa Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 On the other hand you have broken as fuck Sheeda, Wolf, and Sedgar and thanks to Warpskip half the cast is liek ueslezz Wolf and Sedgar aren't particularly good in Warpskip either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sasori Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 Sure, but thanks to arena (I'd say Elite Ring passing, but that requires...a lot more planning), it's easy to keep Ayra and Holyn up to speed. Besides Azel and Ardan who I agree are awful (but I think they'd be awful even if they weren't in FE4), I'm pretty sure every other unmounted unit is a utility unit of some sort (or can promote into a mount later on)... Or is Levin, who's a utility unit after promotion and has a Holy Weapon and has hax combat even without that. I don't think Azel would be that awful if he was in a game where movement was less of an issue. At the very least he is not on the same level of fail as Arden. When he joins his offense is second only to Sigurd and he keeps doing good damage on enemies throughout the entire game even when offensive monsters like Ayra come along. He has good magic, good speed and the tome weight isn't that much of a problem on anything except sword users because the enemies get some pretty heave speed penalties too. Later on he can easily switch to lighter tomes with thunder in chapter 2 and wind some time later. I would say there are worse gen 1 units like Diadora and Tiltyu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 10, followed by 13, and then 8. I can't see how RD is more imbalanced than FE9, which is essentially mount heaven (but not to the extent that FE4 was)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 and then 8. I'm going to assume you've only played FE10, 13, and 8 because otherwise I'm thoroughly confused. I mean, I totally accept other peoples' definitions of balance (i used between player units only, other people might not have) but I can't see a spectrum where FE8 even falls on the list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Espinosa Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 I guess there's a huge gap between Seth and Ewan, so I could see somebody making a case out of it. Even early on, Garcia and Ross are vastly different in immediate application. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 I considered that, but you can find pretty much analogous (and more extreme? i haven't thought hard about it) pairs in any* other FE if you're just comparing the topmost unit to the bottom, or two units who join together. * i reiterate i haven't actually put any thought into this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Espinosa Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 I considered that, but you can find pretty much analogous (and more extreme? i haven't thought hard about it) pairs in any* other FE if you're just comparing the topmost unit to the bottom, or two units who join together. * i reiterate i haven't actually put any thought into this Well, try to put units into "pairs" where they perform the same function and see where the gap is at its largest. Let's see, on the one hand in the FE8 camp we have: Seth vs Amelia (let's go ahead and agree we're making Amelia a Paladin; and we have one entering Prologue) Saleh vs Ewan (join same chapter) Garcia vs Ross (aside from waterwalk, average Ross has no major advantage over his dad, but overall they're a lot closer than the two above cases) And in the other games we have: Catria/Palla/Caeda vs Est Rutger vs Fir Bors vs Barth vs Wendy Alance vs Noah and Treck Astohl vs Cath Sofiya vs Niime Lugh vs Lilina Pent vs Nino Oswin vs Wallace Dagda vs Marty Eyvel vs Mareeta Where does the gap strike you as being the largest? I think the answer is clear. Actually, if you compare them like that, Path of Radiance will have the best balance because even units like Rolf and Brom have something going for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Cynthia- Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 FE9 sort of has good balance because it lacks "bad" units- enemy stats are low and extremely flawed units like Rolf can be "fixed" with BEXP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBigDipper Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 Even though I never played Shadow Dragon that much, I don't really think its balance is that bad relative to, say, FE4, where mounts' innate advantage is magnified to a startling degree. Meh, I haven't played much of FE4 (see my signature? yeah, read the first line) so I couldn't judge. Although, from my nine-turn time of FE4, while not knowing as much as the others, I can see that it's made the cavs get a huge advantage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Banzai Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 Shadow Dragon half the cast verges on unusable even in casual play at least in FE4 if you want to use Arden you can you can also make him your best unit, capable of wielding EVERY BRAVE WEAPON Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 Meh, I haven't played much of FE4 (see my signature? yeah, read the first line) so I couldn't judge. Although, from my nine-turn time of FE4, while not knowing as much as the others, I can see that it's made the cavs get a huge advantage. And that's not even the half of it - the holy weapons have a ludicrous Might value (30, in a game where most good weapons have something like 18 Might or less). Not to mention the weapon balance being virtually nonexistent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Tarrasque Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 (edited) Shadow Dragon half the cast verges on unusable even in casual play at least in FE4 if you want to use Arden you can you can also make him your best unit, capable of wielding EVERY BRAVE WEAPON This is true in H5 and perhaps some other H#s. In normal mode however, enemies are so pitiful and very often types that are weak to certain weapons that the existence of reclass and forges can make lots enemy kills stat independent. My vote goes to FE4 as its easy enemies and large maps give ample opportunity for mounted units to reach fights without stopping to pass turns. Holy Weapons further strengthen a select few and for the most part, create yet another gap of how useful units are relative to each other. Edited October 16, 2013 by Sirius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Banzai Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Eyvel vs Mareeta which of these is supposed to be the better one again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Void Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 (edited) So is there a FE where a chunk of the playable units aren't mediocre (at best) or redundant? Edited October 17, 2013 by The Void Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaMonkey Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 In normal mode however, enemies are so pitiful Too bad you can't take advantage of this, due to the PC's having very shitty growths/bases/both... Oh, and I wouldn't label the boss of Chapter 3 "pitiful". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Tarrasque Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 (edited) Too bad you can't take advantage of this, due to the PC's having very shitty growths/bases/both... Oh, and I wouldn't label the boss of Chapter 3 "pitiful". You can in normal mode. It's obviously not going to be a less efficient playthrough the more you use bad units but you can certainly take advantage of enemy weaknesses to use them and use stat boosters to give them what they need. I'm not talking about a full-blown team of bottom tier units, I'm saying that normal mode's enemies are weak enough that you CAN use crappy units with the right resources. If you've got units with C ranks, you can use the effective weapons to feed them kills, make them grow and promote them, granting them C ranks with some other classes. No, he isn't. However his existence has no relevance to terrible units that are recruited past his chapter. Did I really need to add "generally speaking" to that part of the statement? Edited October 17, 2013 by Sirius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dondon151 Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Sofiya vs Niime oh, look, you spelled her name correctly for once! but i don't think that this is a good metric. the more characters that a game has, the more "pairs" it will have. and you can arbitrarily pair any two units. you can pair sofiya with percival because they're both primarily combat units. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaMonkey Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 You can in normal mode. It's obviously not going to be a less efficient playthrough the more you use bad units but you can certainly take advantage of enemy weaknesses to use them and use stat boosters to give them what they need. I'm not talking about a full-blown team of bottom tier units, I'm saying that normal mode's enemies are weak enough that you CAN use crappy units with the right resources. If you've got units with C ranks, you can use the effective weapons to feed them kills, make them grow and promote them, granting them C ranks with some other classes. No, he isn't. However his existence has no relevance to terrible units that are recruited past his chapter. Did I really need to add "generally speaking" to that part of the statement? Based on my experience with the game, I have a hard time believing you, I'm afraid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 If Shin can use like, the "weakest" FE11 units on H3 I don't see your troubles with NM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJWalker Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 I don't see how anyone is unusable in casual play. Sorry, but that's just false. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Refa Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 at least in FE4 if you want to use Arden you can you can also make him your best unit, capable of wielding EVERY BRAVE WEAPON ARDAN THE MAN, IF HE CAN'T DO IT NOONE CAN If Shin can use like, the "weakest" FE11 units on H3 I don't see your troubles with NM I think the H2 SOYO drafts are better metrics for using chumps. I mean, noone can be worse than Myrm!Gordin (to be fair, noone has successfully used hi-shutup). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightBow Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 (edited) It's probably Shadow Dragon. Let's just take the game exactly as it was 20 years ago and introduce a bunch of newer mechanics with absolutely zero consideration on how this would affect the rest of it. Like having the weapon triangle in a game where every enemy uses lances. Genius! Edited October 17, 2013 by BrightBow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamanoir Posted October 17, 2013 Share Posted October 17, 2013 Sofiya vs Niime Pent vs Nino I would say Sofiya VS Lughis a better comparison. Niime's A Rank in Staff is the only reason she's better than Sofiya. Sofiya comes at a worst level, far later, and is in average, worse than him, except in Res, and maybe Mag. I would also prefer Nino VS Erk,or Pent VS Erk. Nino have awesome base stats for her level, and awesome stast, but join far too late, whereas Erk have more occasion to be usefull, but have a lot of posssibility to fail completely. Pent is the most reliable units, having an A Staff Rank (Which Erk could have too, I guess, but It'll takes a lot more time...°, and in Average better stats everywhere, except Spd. About FE4, there is another pint that haven't been talked about yet : Pursuit. Some times ago, I played Tables' Random Reclass, in which Arden had Pursuit, and I realized how much better it made him. It actually allowed him to kill ennemies once he reached them. Honnestly, outside of LTC, Movement is the least unbalanced aspect of FE4. Levin and Shanan don't need to be mounted to be absolutely amazing. And Aloishe are not really groundbreakingly awesome. It's first Holy Weapons, then Pursuit which decides a unit's value. Though, despite being horribly unbalanced, everyone is actually perfectly usable, due to how easy this game is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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