Fire Emblem+ [planning stages]

[feplus]

It's helpful for taking less damage and dodging status staves. A player can also take advantage of enemy placement to make magic users attack from close range. And it makes swordmasters much better player phase options against dangerous mages.

Will barrier stack with weapon stat bonuses? If so, +12 res suddenly makes swordmasters (especially Karel with his base 12 res) super useful on CoD. 1-2 range might be overdoing it.

[General Horace]

honestly unless Karel has massively buffed stats, there's still very little inscentive to take him over Harken (even on normal mode). Perhaps give him pseudo hard mode bonuses to compensate? I dunno how many bonus levels Harken gets, it looks like 5 though.

But I like the previous suggestion of giving him a 1-2 range sword locked to SM's/Lyn like the Amatsu. Even if the +res sword is 1-2 range, they'll likely ignore Karel if other enemies are in range since his evade is good and he'll take very little damage anyway. The reality is Harken is still a fantastic unit in Cog anyway.

It might be nice to buff Wallace's axe rank or something, although if you do Lyn mode it might be problematic.

Edited February 22, 2015 by General Horace

[Irysa]

Make the Wo Dao have more uses if you're going to make it not a Karel Prf plz.

(i still don't think that having quintessence over aenir is such a terrible thing, though)

The thing is that the japanese script for quintessence is aegir. You can instantly see why this was mistranslated, but at the same time, that's kinda the beauty of it, the point was he got mixed up (like the translators, lol) and lost track because the two were actually very close to each other. Nergal's fanatical obcession with getting more quintessence to open the gate is in part, because he directly associates it with Aenir, the woman/dragon he loved.

EDIT: Obviously conveying this in english requires actually changing the word quintessence or Aenir to something else which is honestly kinda pointless considering the damage has been done as it is, so I wouldn't propose fixing that.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Irysa

[feplus]

Buffing Wo dao's durability is a good idea. Brave sword has 30 uses, so it makes sense that it should have 30 uses.

Updated the OP, pretty much finished now. Karel now gets a white gem and Harken gets a blue gem, so the choice is between a brave weapon and a better unit vs. a res-buffing killer edge and 10K extra value. Most will still choose Harken, but this makes the choice meaningful (especially on HHM / ranked) without overhauling balance too drastically.

Also included item location updates for the Double Dash items in the balance section, would appreciate opinions

[General Horace]

I don't really have much of an opinion on the emblem items (they're just irons with lots of uses anyway, and the emblem bow isn't even effective against fliers IIRC) or the other two weapons, but I noticed the buff to Bartre that pretty much makes him a better unit than Dorcas in every way. Even with a few Lyn mode levels (which are hard to get even when playing slower because Dorcas has awful spawnpoints in the chapters before the prep screen, Bartre surpasses Dorcas pretty much immediately.

This being said, I still think its fine for there to be good and bad units, it'd just be nice if Dorcas had some advantage other than an irrelevant axe rank.

[Irysa]

Can you give warriors +2 speed on promotion? Like seriously, they really need it.

[MacLovin]

You could buff Dorcas by having him Othin to Bartre's Halvan.

[Give him a good prf weapon.]

[feplus]

Wary of adding in new prf weapons. Remember this is FE+, not FE2.0.

I'm not big on the emblem items either, but they're unique weapons that would be neat to see in the game. I tried to space them out so you get them all fairly early, but don't get them all at once -- that way your earlygame weapon shortage issues are more or less preserved.

lv.6 Dorcas has +3HP, +3skill, and+1-2 speed over base Bartre. He's also got the best availability in the game (of any character, including lords). Bartre will be better with his speed bump, but Dorcas has availability and earlygame advantages which are worth something.

Edited February 22, 2015 by feplus

[MacLovin]

at least give dorcas a spd growth boost pls.

Like to 30%.

you could make LHM and earlygame main game filled with more lance users to make dorcas a sort of necessary character to deal with this shit. [Although this might make Guy/Lyn/Eliwood harder to raise.]

Just a thought, could you raise warrior bow ranks to base D or C?

Edited February 22, 2015 by Howard the Duck

[Yojinbo]

I think it'd be better to just accept the fact that Bartre and Dorcas are bad units and leave it at that than to dabble around with their stats and potentially screw up. Same for Wallace.

[feplus]

You might be right, Yojinbo. I'll include modest statistical adjustments to start, but I'll probably tone them down depending on player feedback.

[Kysafen]

Wary of adding in new prf weapons. Remember this is FE+, not FE2.0.

I'm not big on the emblem items either, but they're unique weapons that would be neat to see in the game. I tried to space them out so you get them all fairly early, but don't get them all at once -- that way your earlygame weapon shortage issues are more or less preserved.

lv.6 Dorcas has +3HP, +3skill, and+1-2 speed over base Bartre. He's also got the best availability in the game (of any character, including lords). Bartre will be better with his speed bump, but Dorcas has availability and earlygame advantages which are worth something.

Plus, there's that in the nonexistent case you decide to play through Lyn mode and focus on Dorcas, he has Dagdar's capacity to wreck the earlygame enemies, even more so if you give him that Angelic Robe, and is less of an EXP-sucking machine as Marcus. Then again, anyone you decide to feed EXP to in Lyn mode has the capacity to become an Oifey to one degree or another.

[General Horace]

That's still not really true, which is a testement to how bad Dorcas really is. A level 10 Dorcas even with the Lyn Mode energy ring (lol) still only has 13 strength - the same as Oswin, and 7 speed, which doesn't double anything Oswin can't. He also has 5 defence, so even if he has 40 something HP with the angelic Robe, his defences still aren't very good. He might hit things hard enough for chumps like Eliwood to kill though, which might be nice.

So pretty much if you dump a ton of exp and resources into him you just get a shitty Oswin.

This being said, I agree with Yojimbo, it's ok for there to be bad units.

Edited February 28, 2015 by General Horace

[feplus]

Apologies for the tardy reply. Life commitments have kept me busy, but I've been mulling over the discussions in this thread and have a few more proposals to throw your way.

I do want to transition towards actually making the patch, so this will probably be the last round of proposal-debate. If you want a tl;dr on the changes I have in mind, scroll to the bottom of this post.

This being said, I agree with Yojimbo, it's ok for there to be bad units.

I don't mind some units being better than others, but I do have a problem with useless units. Dorcas is not useless: he has the best availability of any playable character, he has Lyn Mode potential (mediocre Oswin with +1 movement is hardly an insult), he's great at weakening enemies (particularly useful during ranked play), and you'll get a competent offensive option if you make him a part of your core team. That's fine.

Bartre's implementation is not fine. Even assuming Dorcas gets no Lyn Mode experience, Bartre doesn't pull away from his competition until around 20/5, and his crippling base speed neuters his earlygame utility. What's unique about Bartre is that using him is required to recruit Karla, but considering Karla is roughly equivalent to base Karel this isn't a significant point in his favor.

Speaking of Karla, her role is as a replacement unit of a replacement unit in a sword-locked class that comes three chapters before the end of the game. Getting this particular useless unit means leveling another useless unit up to a minimum of 10/5. She doesn't contribute to ranked runs, she doesn't contribute to LTC runs, and she doesn't contribute to casual runs. Inexcusably dreadful.

For emphasis: the only two characters that are outright useless in Blazing Sword are Bartre and Karla. Everyone else plays a role. Wallace is a serviceable tank with Lyn Mode potential; Nino is a boon to your experience rank; Farina and Dart are costly units with high potential; Wil and Rebecca can use ballistae, can damage-chip, and can be late-game experience rank contributors by attacking safely from afar; Renault is an emergency staffbot. All these units are outclassed by other units, but that's fine, since they fill a niche.

Bartre and Karla do not fill a niche. They're worthless. They need to be improved. But I want to improve them in subtle ways, ways that do not alter their design or erase their weaknesses.

So why not bring back Binding Blade's warrior promotion bonuses? That would give Bartre (and Dorcas) +5HP, +2 strength, +1 skill, +2 speed, and -3 resistance compared to what he gets now. That's pretty nice! Suddenly, there might be some incentive to promote Bartre early or make him a part of your core team. Dorcas remains the better early-game fighter and Bartre remains the fighter with greater potential, as they were originally designed.

Improving Karla is trickier. Unlike Bartre, who at least had a semblance of purpose (poor-base, high-potential fighter), the philosophy behind Karla's design escapes me. She's not an Est, she's not a strong prepromote, she's not a good replacement unit. If we're going to improve Karla, we need to give her a purpose. I think the across-the-board stat buff that I had in mind originally works okay, but it seems to go against what the programmers had in mind: that Karla being stronger than her brother, at that point in the game, makes little sense. And okay, fair enough. So my new idea is to make Karla a growth unit. Sounds curious for a unit who comes three chapters before endgame, but hear me out:

1. Her base stats are unchanged, but her starting level goes from 20/5 to 20/1.

2. Her growth rates are improved; HP -> 100%, all other stats -> 50%.

3. She receives an experience buff; class power goes from 3 to 2, a la healers / thieves.

I like this. Karla now becomes valuable on both ranked runs (experience boon) and casual runs (great growths, an extra wo dao). Granted, this is a major change to her design, so I'm open to being persuaded that this idea is dreadful and should be scrapped immediately.

The other proposed changes in the OP remain: Marcus gets a slight strength nerf and Wallace / Wil / Rebecca get all-around buffs.

On to other business. I've been thinking about ways to better implement the warp staff. In vanilla Blazing Sword, warp is really only useful in Valorous Roland / The Berserker, Victory or Death, Value of Life, and Light. [if you're itching for more promotion items, warp is also useful on Sands of Time, but that's super situational.] That's three maps in Eliwood's campaign and maybe four maps in Hector's campaign. Warp is great for reaping experience on ranked runs, but I still feel it should see more use.

Here are two possible changes:

1. Switch the hammerne and warp staves. Blazing Sword hammerne is typically a late-use staff, so this switch doesn't affect its utility much. Warp, on the other hand, would prove very useful in Pale Flower of Darkness and Battle Before Dawn. The laborious weather of PFoD and the RNG-dependent survival of Jaffar and Nino are now seriously mitigated, and because warp has just five uses, players will still have to warp smartly and conservatively.

2. Add a second warp staff earlier in the game. I'm not too fond of this possibility, but I'll throw it out for consideration.

Like with the enigmatic location of some secret shops, a couple of desert items are cryptically placed. Refer to this map and note how the ocean seal and body ring are seemingly placed at random. To fix this, I'd like to add bones to the bottom-right tile of the ocean seal location and to the top-right tile of the body ring location.

Lastly, I'd like to dramatically shorten the support growth rates. This is an area where Sacred Stones improved upon its Elibean predecessors, and we can learn from its example: virtually no +1 supports, and late-game recruits have speedier support options. Here's what I have in mind:

1. All +1 support growth rates changed to +2.

2. All support growth rates for characters from Geitz to Vaida changed to +3.

3. All support growth rates for Karla and Renault changed to +10. [To account for this, Bartre / Karla base support points is changed to 10 and Karel / Karla base support points is changed to 20.]

Blazing Sword is a longer game with more campaign maps than Sacred Stones, so its supports don't need to be quite as fast. I think this is a reasonable set of revisions.

As a quick aside, I've been persuaded to make the wo dao 1-2 range, as dondon and others advised. This gives swordmasters and Lyndis, the only non-archer units without reliable 1-2 range, something to work with.

tl;dr New set of proposed changes:

1. Warriors receive Binding Blade's set of promotion bonuses.

2. Karla's level is reduced to 20/1, her growths are improved, and she receives an experience bonus.

3. The location of warp and hammerne are switched.

4. Support growth rates are raised across the board.

5. Wo dao, in addition to granting +5 resistance, is now 1-2 range and targets defense from afar.

Edited March 17, 2015 by feplus