Balancing vs. Consistency

[Topazd]

The RPG community in general is a bit divided on this subject, so I was wondering what the general consensus on this topic is in regards to FE.

If it was up to you, which route would you take from a game designer's perspective; sticking with consistency while sacrificing some of the game's overall balance, or vice versa?

As an example, would you rather make enemies/bosses scale upward in a balanced manner regardless of their combat prowess in the actual story canon, or alternatively make their stats reflect their combat prowess according to the story canon while simultaneously sacrificing some of the game's balance?

I'm generally bad at explaining things, so in case my explanation wasn't clear, let's use Arran as an example. Some people claim that he should not be a Jeigan, since they genuinely want to use him throughout the game, but are unable to due to his low growth rates. Buffing up his growths a bit could make the character roster slightly more balanced, but would not make much sense from a consistency/story viewpoint, since he is slowly dying and has already reached the limits of his strength.

I identify myself as belonging to the consistency camp, although I don't think it's wise to abandon either consistency nor balancing entirely just for the sake of maintaining the other. What's your stance on the matter?

[Magical Glace]

I'd say balance here.

There are a few final bosses in the series who are... pushovers to say the least. *cough*Idoun*cough* It makes some sense for Idoun to be meh in terms of strength, since she didn't serve a purpose beyond creating war dragons, fighting wouldn't be her specialty. That said... she's the final boss, but is weaker than Jahn, doesn't have more than 1 range, and can be easily ORKO'd by a Roy that is trained some.

Then you have mooks who tend to be ORKO'd constantly lategame, even if they are in sturdier classes. They're mooks, so it makes sense for them to be weak, but the game becomes too easy like that.

[Knight]

I'm going to say balance. The gameplay should come before story IMO.

[Ownagepuffs]

Balance.

[Tables]

Primarily go for balance. It's okay if maybe some certain bosses throughout the game are a little above the curve, but they can't be too crazy or the player will be frustrated/bored.

[Xator Nova]

balance

if arran was useable the whole game, he would break it

I think it is healthy for the game that arran remains obsolete afterwards.

[Florete]

Consistency (as this topic is using the term) is better from an immersion and blind run perspective. Balance is good and should be made where applicable, but not where it sacrifices consistency.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Balancing is better, although on a VERY related note

WHY THE FUCK IS GOMEZ SO MUCH OF A FREAKING BADASS?

[Topazd]

if arran was useable the whole game, he would break it

I think it is healthy for the game that arran remains obsolete afterwards.

Agreed. I was just a bit desperate for examples and had to go with that one.

[IceBrand]

Why not a mix of both? In Path of Radiance the Black Knight is consistently strong whenever you see him both ingame and out. The game is also balanced enough so that by the time you finally meet him Ike is on par with him.

[Rewjeo]

Consistency. Gameplay is supposed to be part of the narrative, particularly in FE's case. Segregating the two isn't the best way to go about that.

[Snowy_One]

Balance. In both ways.

Gameplay and Story need to work together in order to make a game good. Making sure that the gameplay is balanced, that the story can reflect that balance, and that the gameplay can reflect what the story says is happening in a balanced manner are all very important.

[bottlegnomes]

Consistency. The story shouldn't force things that don't make sense for the sake of gameplay. For example, say a boss is supposed to be renowned for their combat prowess, they should have stats to reflect it, regardless of when they show up, but they shouldn't be showing up in a time/place to make the game frustratingly difficult.

[Refa]

Consistency. People have already talked enough about bosses, but this applies to characters as well. I've seen balance patches making like the FE8 trainees super strong (well relatively to their original selves), but that doesn't really make sense from a narrative perspective. Plus let's face it, FE would be super boring and uninteresting if it was perfectly balanced.

[Topazd]

Consistency. People have already talked enough about bosses, but this applies to characters as well. I've seen balance patches making like the FE8 trainees super strong (well relatively to their original selves), but that doesn't really make sense from a narrative perspective. Plus let's face it, FE would be super boring and uninteresting if it was perfectly balanced.

Oh yeah, the FE8 trainees would have been a good example. Additionally, over-extensively balancing characters' bases/growths would totally ruin characters like Boah whose charm is essentially his less-than-adequateness.

[BrightBow]

Definitely Consistency.

I can't get myself to care about the difference between having lv1 dudes fight lv1 dudes and having lv20 dudes fight lv20 dudes.

So as far as I am concerned, if a leveling system does not exist to support the simulation aspect of an RPG, it might as well not exist because getting rid of it would allow for way game design since the developers would have a way better grasp of what the player can do. In the case of Fire Emblem, this would mean that maps would be closer to the ones in Advance Wars or the awesome BS Fire Emblem maps.

Edited July 19, 2014 by BrightBow

[Snowy_One]

I'm curious. For all those people voting for consistency how, for lack of a better term, 'extreme' are you willing to go?

I mean, if we played on a world with a large amount of swamps Paladins would be near-useless even though it would be 'consistent' (and probably poorly balanced too, but that's besides the point now). It would be 'consistent' as well for many of the enemy soldiers to vastly outclass the normal rag-tag group if only because a farm girl who just picked up the bow likely isn't as geared (and probably not as well trained) as a professional archer wearing metal armor.

Even overlooking the 'realism' aspect, would you be fine with an army that, supposedly, has a large amount of heavy units that almost totally negates using non-magical attacks, even if it was reinforced in the story? What is the line?

[Topazd]

I'm curious. For all those people voting for consistency how, for lack of a better term, 'extreme' are you willing to go?

I mean, if we played on a world with a large amount of swamps Paladins would be near-useless even though it would be 'consistent' (and probably poorly balanced too, but that's besides the point now). It would be 'consistent' as well for many of the enemy soldiers to vastly outclass the normal rag-tag group if only because a farm girl who just picked up the bow likely isn't as geared (and probably not as well trained) as a professional archer wearing metal armor.

Even overlooking the 'realism' aspect, would you be fine with an army that, supposedly, has a large amount of heavy units that almost totally negates using non-magical attacks, even if it was reinforced in the story? What is the line?

I'm not certain whether or not the question presented in the post was meant to be taken as a rhetorical one, but I'll give my two cents anyway.

When FE is in question, there obviously need to be some limits that cannot be crossed when it comes to balancing the gameplay. Of course, having a setting where swamps are the nearly exclusive form of terrain would not be ideal for the gameplay. These examples are really just worst-case scenarios though; a certain amount of responsibility is assumed from the developers whilst crafting their settings. And this can also be turned the other way around: like a comment above already said, excessive balancing could make the game much more boring.

In the end, I don't think too much balancing should be sacrificed when it comes to FE; the games in the series are very linear and there is always the strategic aspect which needs to be largely prominent. Consistency just so happens to be a preference of mine. If this was something less linear, like The Elder Scrolls for example, I would sacrifice any amount of balancing for the sake of consistency without any second thoughts.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Topazd255

[Jotari]

Interesting topic but I don't really have to see why they need to be proportional to each other. Balance between Balance and Consistency is obviously best.