What if we rebalanced the levels of player units to be proportionate to join time?

[Katie]

What I mean is this: in Fire Emblem games, the level a character joins you at is not always proportionate to how far you are in the game. Sometimes you'll get an overleveled unit really early on in the game(often with poor growths to "balance" them), with Jagens being the most notable examples, or a really underleveled unit late in the game(often with good growths to "make up" for it), with Ests being the most extreme examples. But what if we changed that around, so that each successive unit that joins you is the same level or higher than the last, meaning you start the game with low-level unpromoted units and by end game even the Est will be promoted. Like in a RR hack, characters would have their level changed and stats adjusted based on growths, but unlike a RR hack, they still join you in the same order they normally would. Let's take FE11 as an example, though for simplicity's sake we'll ignore characters who don't promote, but they'd be accounted for in an actual hack. Now, in FE11, here's the order you get your characters in, along with the level they join you at(a P after their level means they join you promoted) in the regular game, followed by the level they'd join you at in the theoretical hack:

Frey 1 1

Abel 1 1

Cain 1 1

Jagen 1P 1

Gordin 1 1

Draug 1 1

Norne 1 1

Caeda 1 1

Wrys 1 1

Bord 2 1

Cord 2 1

Barst 3 1

Ogma 4 2

Castor 3 2

Darros 3 2

Lena 3 3

Navarre 3 3

Merric 1 3

Matthis 2 3

Vyland 1 3

Roshea 3 3

Hardin 6 3

Sedgar 1P 3

Wolf 3P 3

Wendell 1P 3

Athena 10 4

Radd 1 4

Caesar 3 5

Roger 5 5

Jeorge 1P 6

Maria 3 8

Minerva 1P 8

Linde 1 10

Macellan 3 10

Dolph 4 1P

Tomas 8 1P

Boah 1P 1P

Midia 1P 1P

Horace 3P 1P

Astram 1P 1P

Catria 5 1P

Palla 8 1P

Arran 10P 3P

Samson 10P 3P

Etzel 6P 5P

Est 3 6P

Lorenz 5P 10P

Ymir 10P 10P

Elice 10 10P

Gotoh 18P 18P

As you can see, FE11 has way too many units join you at level 1 the level distribution would leave most units at an appropriate level for their join time, and while it may seem like a while of nothing but level 1 units, keep in mind that the last 3 of those level 1 units join you in merely the second chapter, as FE11 hands you a lot of units at the beginning(and in general), unlike most FEs where you'll start with only like 4 characters.

What do you guys think of the concept? Would you try out a hack like this? Would you want to make one yourself? Have any other thoughts, comments, etc. on this?

[Shin]

The only units really affected are the early prepromotes and the late unpromoted units. I'm pretty sure Midia's squad would still all be losers. I suppose the pegasus sisters would be pretty impressive, but that's also losing Minerva, the pope and Jeorge.

Honestly, it doesn't really affect the game that much, most of the viable units are still viable, it's just a little easier to work with the pegasus sisters, who do pretty well anyway.

[Ansem]

FE6 says hi

[Katie]

The only units really affected are the early prepromotes and the late unpromoted units. I'm pretty sure Midia's squad would still all be losers. I suppose the pegasus sisters would be pretty impressive, but that's also losing Minerva, the pope and Jeorge.

Honestly, it doesn't really affect the game that much, most of the viable units are still viable, it's just a little easier to work with the pegasus sisters, who do pretty well anyway.

True, but keep in mind not every game would be affected the same way, and that FE11 was just an example, and I'd probably actually do the GBA games first if I were to implement this into a game.

EDIT: also keep in mind some characters need more than a level adjustment to not suck, which is beyond the scope of this concept.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Matthewtheman

[sirmola]

I think that variance of join level relative to expected party level is one of the things that makes characters unique. Think about it. If est was at the "expected" level, people would probably not use her because she is the 5th member of the peg knight tree that you get, making her totally redundant. As it is, she has a unique niche in that game. Granted, she is useless for efficency players, but a certain kind of gamer really likes grinding people up to get a complete beast. Similar argument are true of jaigens, oyfays, and the smattering of other archtypes that depend on level differences to work. If everyone joined at the expected level, chearcter ballence would be less interesting.

Edited April 25, 2016 by sirmola

[Agro]

it makes it boring when everyone is equally usable but they don't provide any new layers of strategy

[Tetragrammaton]

Play Super Robot Wars, and get what you want.

Crap characters are still crappy.

[X-Naut]

Why do you skip from Level 10 to Level 1 promoted? Not everyone promotes at 10 and that creates an awfully big gap, which could result in some midgame characters being too good.