RNGless Fire Emblem 7

[jgrand]

The goal of this hack is to minimize RNG as much as possible and revamp the gameplay so that it matches the stakes set by the narrative. I don't know about you, but I wasn't very scared fighting ragtag level 3 units at Lord Lundgren's doorstep. This hack doesn't attempt to change the story, events or maps of FE7, only the gameplay (due to the lovely traumatic experience I had trying to make my own purely custom hack years ago...). That basically means I've modified unit stats, item stats, enemies and their formation on each map.

RNGless methodology:
1. Hit rate is always 100%.
2. Crit rate is always 0%, unless you're using special weapons which give 100% crit.
3. Growth rates are 100% for HP, 0% for all other stats. Leveling up is the only way to increase HP. Promoting and using stat boosting items are the only ways of increasing the other stats.
4. Equipped weapons now give a certain amount of Def and Res in addition to standard properties (though all item's stats have been rebalanced).

This hack expects you to have a solid understanding of original mechanics, such as how your attack speed is affected by your weapon's weight and your constitution.

All the chapters are beatable without save states. Especially the prologue. If you ever get stuck, just think about what weapons you have, the bonuses they give you, the weapons the enemies have, the bonuses they give them, and how you can manipulate that to your advantage.

Then think about cheesecake.

v1.00 RNGless Fire Emblem 7
100% of Lyn's story modified. Plus the first chapter of Eliwood's Story because "why not?"
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p6xyj4019kn279s/v1.00%20RNGless%20Fire%20Emblem.ups?dl=0

I made this using Nightmare 2.0, so special thanks to all involved in that software's creation. This was only playtested by my brother and myself, so I'd appreciate any feedback and constructive criticism. I plan to modify all the gameplay of Eliwood's story if Lyn's story is received well. I also plan on reliving the joys of soul-crushing defeat by trying to make my own completely custom hack someday that uses this RNGless system.

[Klokinator]

Verrrrrry interesting! This reminds me of PwnageKirby's F.EXE ragefest hack!

[jgrand]

I haven't been involved in FE hacking very much and when I was, I was too busy trying to make my own thing. So I haven't actually played anyone's hacks at all. I posted this on MarkyJoe's forum first and asked him if anything like this has been done before and he brought up PwnageKirby's hack too. I looked into it feeling kinda dreadful since I thought I was all original and whatnot, but I think that hack is different enough from mine to warrant me posting this and continuing to work on it. I'll let you guys be the judges of that, though.

[Klokinator]

2. Crit rate is always 0%, unless you're using special weapons which give 100% crit.

Did you actually modify the SKL/LUK stats then? If SKL still gives crit points then you aren't actually at 0%.

[CT075]

there was a similar hack around that was "if it has a chance to happen, it will", applying to crits, levels, whatever. While that one ended up being pretty ridiculous (less than you'd think - enemies scaled about as hard as you did because they had 100% growths too but you gained levels faster so it wasn't impossible), I remember loving it. This one seems like it's a fair bit more thought out and balanced, which I appreciate. Good job!

Edited June 19, 2015 by CT075

[jgrand]

Why don't you try it and find out? :3 heh heh

Yeah, each weapon gives +90 luck to nullify crits from standard weapons. Kind of overkill, but it gets the job done. The only weapon that doesn't give luck is the Devil Axe. I made it so that it's the only RNG weapon (since my overall luck with RNG is so terrible I've begun to believe that RNG is satanic ), so it should have roughly 50% hit rate against most enemies but it has 40 Mt, making it a risky but kinda viable weapon in certain scenarios.

This one seems like it's a fair bit more thought out and balanced, which I appreciate. Good job!

Thanks! Hope you still feel that way as you play it.

Edited June 19, 2015 by jgrand

[Klokinator]

I was gonna say something about how +90 LUK means a shitton of AVO, but then I remembered everyone hits 100% of the time anyway so W/E!

[Baldrick]

I really like this hack, it punishes you a lot for making mistakes and it's really satisfying to clear the map. The weapon variety is subtle but creates some interesting strategies and dilemmas, and your units are well-balanced; none are really game-breaking and all of them have some niche.

Poison still does random damage btw

[jgrand]

I really like this hack, it punishes you a lot for making mistakes and it's really satisfying to clear the map. The weapon variety is subtle but creates some interesting strategies and dilemmas, and your units are well-balanced; none are really game-breaking and all of them have some niche.

Poison still does random damage btw

The sun is shining, I've got a steaming bowl of potato bacon soup and some more encouraging feedback; I wish my mornings started out like this more often haha glad you enjoyed the hack.

Oh, thanks for bringing up the poison, I forgot about that (even though it's the Black Fang's signature freaking weapon type ). While I was developing this hack, there were a few RNG related things that I couldn't fix with Nightmare. Poison's the first one (I'd probably make a static 3 damage per turn, or 5- or 12! Eat that, Lyn! Bwahaha!) and another is enemy HP. When I autolevel enemies, it gives them +/-1 or 2 HP and I don't know how to change that. I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but there's bound to be situations where a strategy would succeed on one run, but fail on another because an enemy might barely survive a hit that he normally wouldn't, and I think that's bad. This will probably be more of an issue in larger maps later in the game. I'll be posting on the Questions board soon to start addressing this. This hack as it stands is about 90% RNGless and I decided to round up and just call it "RNGless" haha

[CT075]

http://feuniverse.us/t/variable-poison-damage/41

(quick, get into the habit of searching FEU before asking questions now!)

[jgrand]

Alright guys, I've been on the fence about continuing this project after finding out that Nightmare gets absurdly disorganized as the game goes on, actually becoming a nightmare to work with. I thought the creators were just going for an edgy name, but no, they named it accurately I think. I fell off that fence onto the side of the quitters, which I'm sure is a supreme shock to all of you since that never happens (haha. ha... aww...). Seriously now, I know I could bite the bullet and spend a month or two on this and finish it, but that doesn't seem to be in my best interest. I keep trying to work with tools that don't require programming knowledge like RPG Maker, Nightmare, or whatever and I keep hitting arbitrary walls that would be as insignificant as a untied shoelace if I just understood a programming language. So, if I sat here and spent months completing this, then I wouldn't be any better off. Working with these tools is basically exercising patience and my skill at navigating dropdown menus. Well, to be fair, it does take a good amount of problem solving to make progress within these constraints, but still, I decided to bite the biggest and most daunting bullet by trying to learn a programming language. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that sounds like the most obvious thing to any of you lucky bastards who quickly understand programming, but I'm not so lucky. The only real option (after a very large amount of consideration) seems to be to push through my disadvantage.

Anyway, I want to apologize to anyone who was interested in this project, however few that may be. I can provide the spreadsheets I created to keep track of the unit's and item's statistics if anyone wants to use the RNGless system in their hack. Just ask and I'll post them here along with some notes explaining what my thought processes were, any problems with stats that I didn't solve yet, untested ideas I have for solving those problems, etc. I don't care about receiving credit for anything either, I just hope you succeed where I didn't.

[Baldrick]

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm just wondering, is it just a problem with later chapters in the Chapter Unit Editor being a pain to organise? If you just wanted to make changes to enemies' class/level/equipment/AI it'd be relatively painless to use the Event Assembler for that purpose. At least, it's within my limited skillset.

[jgrand]

That's a very large part of it, but there are still a lot of constraints. Even if I learned how to make chapters with event assembler, the majority of the default maps basically boil down to choke points, so it doesn't really matter how interesting I make the enemy's inventory, the dominant strategy would be to sit at those choke points and watch the enemies throw themselves on your sword one at a time. It gets more boring for every extra enemy on the map. Plus, the default maps actually look kinda terrible too, if you look at any of the rivers in the game. So I'd want to learn Mappy or a similar tool to to make more strategic maps. I wouldn't have to mess around with portraits or text editing, thankfully- well, maybe I can go edit the Augury text and make it relevant to the new maps and enemy strategies, but I digress.

Let's say I learned all those tools and spent however long it would take to edit and test every chapter to make them interesting and compelling to play. Where I would I be then? The skills I would learn from using these fan made tools isn't applicable to anything practical. I can't get a job anywhere because I'm super savvy with Nightmare's dropdown menus. Learning these things give me the ability to make Fire Emblem hacks and have no other potential. If I were to, for instance, learn C#, then I could use Unity to build my own games from scratch professionally or as a hobby (and don't worry, I have no illusions of how very long it's gonna take to reach that point in my programming skills), or work in a technical field- I'll just have more practical options. I'm in a very comfortable position where I can focus on learning without many constraints on time and energy, but I've wasted a lot of time and I'll inevitably find myself at the end of the rope with no applicable skills to find a non entry-level job or create a game exactly how I'd would want to if I continue like this.

Just to be clear, I'm not calling FE hacking a waste of time. I wasted a lot of my time through many small bad habits that end up contributing to me being a very unproductive person. I consider my recent venture into hacking a valuable and eye-opening failure, but I think FE hacking is a perfectly viable way to express yourselves and produce a work of art. You guys have a solid and beneficial community that seems worth being a part of. So while FE hacking may be a great tool for any of you, I've realized it isn't viable for me and my particular set of circumstances and desires.