(REMIXED) What is, in your opinion, the most/least balanced Fire Emblem game?

[OliKad]

OK, same question as before, only I separated all three version of FE14.

My point for FE7 still stands, though!

You can now also vote for the least balanced FE game. Enjoy!

[General Horace]

I don't know if i'm in the minority here, but I actually think Birthright might be the most balanced game in the series. Hayato, Setsuna, and Mozu are the only real total stinkers (even then Setsuna and Hayato are somewhat salvageable... probably I've not used Hayato) and everyone else is pretty competant. People often cite Ryoma as being super OP but in reality he just overkills everything your other strong units like Kaze/Saizo/Corrin/Jakob etc kill anyway, and have been around longer. Conquest has more bad units (Nyx, Benny, Charlotte, even Laslow, Odin and Peri aren't that fantastic) and Camilla is just totally ridiculous.

Voted FE4 for least balanced, I love the game and technically you can use everyone, but the game is so mount dominated it just leaves other units (even units that are good statistically like Jamka and Holyn) behind for most of the map, and most of the mounts in the game are strong enough to kill enemies anyway.

Edited July 4, 2016 by General Horace

[Azz]

I still stand with PoR being the most balanced.

IMO, RD is the least balanced. The Dawn Brigade for the most part are just useless once you get to Part 3 since they have such little screen time there and not enough time to grow in Part 1. Then there are the royal Laguz that make all the training you did obsolete since they need no training what so ever to be useful. Literally the only units you need to train are Ike, Miccy, Sothe (Maybe), Sanaki and your Heron of choice, then just throw royals Laguz at the chapter.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

My stance that Blazing Sword is the most balanced stands.

As for least balanced, I'd have to say Radiant Dawn because of how badly the Dawn brigade is balanced compared to the rest of the cast.

[Tangerine]

What is the definition of "balanced" for the purpose of this thread? Because if it's a mix of how usable the cast of characters are compared with the challenge the game provides, then FE7 is definitely not the most balanced, because it has several downright unusable units depending on the mode. PoR or Fates probably have the best balance between cast usability and challenge provided to the general player, and one of the SNES titles would have to be the least balanced regardless of how fun they might be in their imbalance.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Tangerine

[The Draco Knight]

I think that Conquest is the most balanced because, while there are bad units such as Nyx and Odin(he is a good Swordmaster tough), they aren't as much as the others titles and yes, there are powerful units like Xander, but they don't completely others units of the same class(except for Camilla maybe)

For the least balanced, I name Revelation: the thing is too many units joins with low stats that makes you not want to use them and rely only on those you have used from the beginning + some child + the royals.

[Shadow Mir]

Voted BR for most balanced and Genealogy for least balanced.

I still stand with PoR being the most balanced.

IMO, RD is the least balanced. The Dawn Brigade for the most part are just useless once you get to Part 3 since they have such little screen time there and not enough time to grow in Part 1. Then there are the royal Laguz that make all the training you did obsolete since they need no training what so ever to be useful. Literally the only units you need to train are Ike, Miccy, Sothe (Maybe), Sanaki and your Heron of choice, then just throw royals Laguz at the chapter.

My stance that Blazing Sword is the most balanced stands.

As for least balanced, I'd have to say Radiant Dawn because of how badly the Dawn brigade is balanced compared to the rest of the cast.

I can't see Radiant Dawn as less balanced than Genealogy when the latter has hugeass maps that blatantly favour mounts, and holy weapons practically trivialize the game. Sure, you might bring up the laguz royals, but other than Nailah, they're only available for part 4, which is pretty much all routs before endgame anyway.

But yeah, I'm going to need a definition for what the OP means by balanced.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Rezzy]

By balanced, do you mean the overall gameplay is balanced or the units are comparable?

Awakening seems to be the most easily broken with Nostanking and GaleForce.

I'd say the GBA games are the most balanced overall, so I think I'll go with FE7.

[Quintessence]

I'll echo part of what Jedi said in the original thread: none of them are balanced. I'd even say there's no 'balance' in any game since they naturally favor the player in order to beat the game. That said, even then, every FE game has an exploitable mechanic that can be abused and break the game. Let's see:

FE4 has mounted being the better options due to map size and terrain. It has Holy Weapons which trivializes the game, because Julia just gets OP with Narga.

GBA has Arena and Tower which can be abused as heck and makes you break the game.

FE6 has an accuracy issue with ranged weapons and axe users. Swordmasters get a huge crt buff and are the most accurate units, so there you go. There's also HM bonus for recruitable enemies.

FE7 has arenas as well, but I'd say it's the closest to being balanced. Sure, it has Marcus, Pent and whatnot, but those are archetype units that support the lord throughout the game. Even then at the hardest difficulties they aren't game breaking.

FE8 has an easy difficulty and has Seth which solos it.

FE9 has Fixed Mode which makes the game easier. You don't rely on luck but rather on pure statistics, means and deviations: you're done. Titania carries you throughout early to mid game or even early late game (Ch 18 or so), but then she tends to be meh. However, you have awesome units like Boyd, Oscar, Marcia, Kieran and Jill that stomp the game as soon as they get trained. Heck, having a 20/1 Boyd by Ch 11 is quite a worrying issue of balance.

FE10 is the worst scenario imo. While Part 1 is challenging, hard mode is like an artificial difficulty. It disables weapon triangle and enemy range, what. Apart from it, the game favors GMs and CRKs so much over DBers, making you question if they really are worth a try other than for fun's or variety's sake. Also, Mastery skills are so OP they make crts unimportant, and top of that you get Haar and Royals.

FE3DS has DLC and a wide variety of skills and classes that break the game instantly.

FE13 has Robin, Nostanking and Galeforce.

FE14 has Ryoma on one hand, and CorrinMilla on the other one. CQ forces you to use Camilla, else GG. And if both versions are that way separated, I don't imagine how RV is.

Basically the player is the one that manipulates the difficulty of the game.

Oh right my answer, FE7 for most, FE10 for least.

[sirmola]

By balanced, do you mean the overall gameplay is balanced or the units are comparable?

This is a good point. I can easily think of two different definitions of ballence.

1. Balance means you cant break the game, or it is at least very hard. If strats exist that can trivialize everything, you need to be rreally clever to figure them out.

2. Balance Means that the game does not present rubbish choices. THere are no horrible characters and no useless classes.

The same game will be very balanced or unbalanced depending on the criteria. awakening, for example, is probably one of the better ballenced FE games using criteria 2, but one of the worst balanced ones using criteria 1.

[Avarice Shadow]

For me, the most balanced is Fates - Conquest.

And my least would be Revelations. The pacing and join time of some units is very odd.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Avarice_Shadow

[Troykv]

Hmmm... I have sometimes problem wondering how exactly define good Balancing...

But I will say that at least FE7 makes most of the worst options not so worse (outside of Karla)... Yeah, Sain and Marcus are the best characters in the game... But for the other characters isn't like we have the ultimate worthless option or the "must use if you want to live".

Talking about how easy or hard it's to break a game... Well in FE12 Lunatic you can't just throw your units against everything and win (like other games...), and you also lacks the Warp Staff that makes some character less useful (this specially noticeable in Tiki that loses the other Dragonstones)... I'm not completely sure about this, but at least doesn't sounds SO broken.

______

And about the worst... Well... There are many options

- The game that fills with pointless units, and pretty much only Corrin, the Royals and some early units (like Hayato) cares (Revelations).

- The game that makes Camilla the "must use if you don't want to a have great suffering" and makes the game incredible easier (Conquest).

- The game that has a extreme bias to the most popular Main Character Group in the franchise, and also has a lot of Gotohs (Radiant Dawn).

- The game that is very clear show us which units are good and which units are bad (Binding Blade).

- The game where unless you have Pursuit/a Horse/A Sacred Weapon (prefererly all of them like Sigurd/Seliph and Ares) or at least has a extremely powerful promotion that gives you at least one of them (Like Raquesis and Leif's promotion), you're worthless (Genealogy of the Holy War)

It's a hard decision xD

Edited July 4, 2016 by Troykv

[DeadLuckChris]

I agree with 7 being the most balanced. Least balance is a tie between awakening and revelation

[Magical Glace]

My stance stands on FE7. Compared to other games in the series, the "bad" units really aren't that bad. Except for, what, two?

I still give FE10 props for actually trying to properly balance weapons. It kinda flopped for unit balance, though.

For least, Shadow Dragon. The game gives you useless units like candy. HM to FE6 for blatant bias for Swordmasters thanks to their incredible Crit+30 and giving you a bunch of rather useless cavs while axes have such atrocious accuracy that they can't do anything, all while having the dubious honor of being the game with Wendy and Sophia.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

FE6 had awful weapon balance. It disqualified axe and lance users.

FE10 had awful characters' balance (availibility) and unbalanced difficulty (DB chapters are tough while the difficulty in the other two groups is rather easy).

I also found mastery skills totally OP.

However I liked that strength was the buffer for the weapon weight. It's fair for each class.

FE5 was balanced and unbalanced at the same time for me.

You can max out each stat of everyone theoretically with giving them scrolls.

But classes are generalized since everyone has the exact same caps.

FE4 was unbalanced in this way that non mounted units had a harder time to get levels since they tended to fall behind fast.

Adding Tellius weapon weight in FE11 was a huge mistake. Mages always lost speed because they gained no strength.

[Rezzy]

FE10 had awful characters' balance (availibility) and unbalanced difficulty (DB chapters are tough while the difficulty in the other two groups is rather easy).

I also found mastery skills totally OP.

However I liked that strength was the buffer for the weapon weight. It's fair for each class.

I simultaneously like and dislike Strength being the basis for weapon weight speed. It makes Strength even better than it already is for physical units, and hurts mage units, but it lets units improve their weapon speed as they level up, rather than Con, which was static for the most part.

[Shadow Mir]

I simultaneously like and dislike Strength being the basis for weapon weight speed. It makes Strength even better than it already is for physical units, and hurts mage units, but it lets units improve their weapon speed as they level up, rather than Con, which was static for the most part.

For what it's worth, mages other than Sanaki didn't have it too bad on the Strength front in RD.

[NinjaMonkey]

The Dawn Brigade for the most part are just useless once you get to Part 3 since they have such little screen time there and not enough time to grow in Part 1.

Eleven chapters counts as "not enough time to grow"?

[UNLEASH IT]

Full Canto alone made PoR extremely biased towards mounted units, even though everyone was still usable.

FE4 had a similar problem, but much worse.

Awakening and Revelations were a mess

I would say FE12 is the most balanced, but the unit balance in that game is so poor that it makes even Revelations look good.

I'll stick with FE7 as the most balanced.

[Quintessence]

I simultaneously like and dislike Strength being the basis for weapon weight speed. It makes Strength even better than it already is for physical units, and hurts mage units, but it lets units improve their weapon speed as they level up, rather than Con, which was static for the most part.

Imo Strength based Weight system is the best I've seen so far, because Con, while true to reality, favors bulky and heavy units over light weights, which brings up less balance. The system was done really well in PoR because the system and Str were important throughout all the game, or at least, most part of it including early late game. Every unit in the beginning suffered from it: Ike from iron sword, Titania from steel axe, Soren from wind or any tome, Boyd from iron axe and so on. And once they get str and sp you get a better experience with them as they double or avoid consistently. Fixed Mode alleviates things for mages because due to the mode itself, you're assured that mages will get at least +1 Str after 20 levels if they have 5% like Soren if no deviations occur. However, you have bands, other weapons, classes, starting growth points and bexp manipulation to overcome it and take advantage of it. So it has no problems there. Even the enemies suffer from the system, and much more than the player: even units by past Ch 20 get AS penalty.

On the other hand, RD did it terribly because the player suffered more from it than the enemy did. Edward, Leonardo, Nolan, Jill, Meg and Fiona all get hurt by it, while the enemies barely have a difference between carrying an iron or a steel weapon. Difference is that enemies in RD are far stronger then in PoR. Heck, look at Micaiah, she has pretty much Soren's bases in PoR but does terribly due to the enemies being strong, and needs resources to be competent.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Actually Nephenee is the most screwed unit in FE10 by the weapon weight system (if she hasn't FE9 boosts). 2-1 is a nightmare for her. She has hit and avoid issues and can't double anyone except for the fighters.

Ed and Leo have base weapons which don't reduce their speed.

Nolan has issues with his steel axe but thankfully you can buy weapons at the right time before enemies could double him.

As for Jill you can forge an iron axe for her (I always recommend to do).

[Quintessence]

Nephenee has some issues mostly because of Stl Greatlance stats, not because of her AS loss though. I find it better to have a heavy strong weapon for her that can one shot enemies with Wrath rather than crt chip enemies with Javelin or something.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I find it better to have a heavy strong weapon for her that can one shot enemies with Wrath rather than crt chip enemies with Javelin or something.

But with a steel or iron great lance she could double most enemies.

Base Nephenee needs only one speed point to double Yeardley.

Neph with the steel great lance has 80-85% accuracy at best if she has best (=good) and the opponent worst biorhythm. Wrath doesn't really help her all that much.

Edited July 5, 2016 by Ayama Wirdo

[Magical Glace]

Eleven chapters counts as "not enough time to grow"?

The issue is the DB has more chapters as tier 1's and growing through that, while lacking many tier 2 focused chapters in Part III compared to the G Mercs. This makes them fall behind, as in pure numbers they have more chapters, but in practice the focus of their chapters is on earlier levels than the Mercs.

[Troykv]

The issue is the DB has more chapters as tier 1's and growing through that, while lacking many tier 2 focused chapters in Part III compared to the G Mercs. This makes them fall behind, as in pure numbers they have more chapters, but in practice the focus of their chapters is on earlier levels than the Mercs.

Yeah, in the actual practice the DB only has like 4 Chapters in Tier 2 before the Part 4 compared with the GM that they have like 10 Chapters in Tier 2 from the Part 3 (and even worse... Some Character from Early Part 3 in the GM arrives extremely overleveled like Shinon and Titania)

Edited July 7, 2016 by Troykv