FE Sacred Stones Maniac Mode (Returning to the project)

[Quackra]

Hello everyone, Quackra here (I recently changed my username from Yur4 for those of you who may be thinking that this rom hack is being done by a new person)
It has been a while and I will offer an explanation to what all happened.

It has been years since my last post about this so I will start with the things in order:

I temporarily left the community for mental health reasons as the stuff going on in 2020 with both the Fire Emblem & Smash Communities had effected me in ways that I personally could have avoid in some capacity by not being too attached to creators in ways that were negative. This wasn't the whole thing with my mental health declining, as there were also family issues that I won't get into as I don't need people to feel sorry about these things as I am doing largely better than even before I started making this.

The next thing is while I can finish using the rom on here from when I initially started I don't want to use that one as there is a better way to set up the difficulty in my opinion than I was doing before. Now the first sentence sounds exactly how it is as the pc that had the original rom for maniac mode was on no longer works as the hard drive no longer works and so it is lost unfortunately.

Because of those two things happening so close together it led to a lack of motivation to complete the rom hack at the time, but I feel I can do it now.

I would also move a couple of times after all of this which would give me little time to work on it so it more or less lingered from there and now that I have had time to clear my thoughts of bad things from the past in some capacity I came back to this finally and have been working on a few concepts of how to tackle this project as if it is a new one.

Here are my current plans for the difficulty hack now:

I will be restarting from the beginning as I believe I can do better than what I did in the past. Though because I feel using this to further increase the difficulty I will be using Mekkah's Lunatic Mode rom to set up a more diverse strategy to playing maniac mode as the route split is done in a way that makes gameplay way more interesting.

Growth reductions will be cut outside of a select few cases on specific stats, I will post them later as a spoiler with the rom (This hasn't been done yet)

Enemy Growths will be further increased from Lunatic mode by 40% this will be multiplied into all stats instead of just defense (This hasn't been done yet)

Hard Mode bonuses have been increased to 5 across all chapters

All units start at a base class at level 1 with the exception of trainees who still start as trainess (They still keep their bases from when they are promoted)

All units that don't have promoted bases or aren't Myrrh will receive an overall increase to growths that being 400 points spread across all growths (This hasn't been done yet)

All units that have promoted bases will receive 325 Points with the same idea for spreading their growths (This hasn't been done yet) (Trainees may get this growth Point spread I will let you all know if this does happen)

Myrrh may keep her growths the exact same, but I may increase some if I find they are not good enough

All classes will have their caps modified to match a class from Awakening. Super Trainees will be more useful as well. (Mostly done already)

Equipment will be modified, but I won't ruin equipment if I see it is bad already or make it insanely broken if I buff something

I will mention other stuff later when I have a more concrete release for this.

[Quackra]

Just to mention this before it gets asked, bases of units have been changed already to match their best version or in the case of Tana have even higher bases than either version of FE8.

 

I will be changing bases further on a case by case basis, and if a unit averages out too good I may drop either their bases or growths from what they would be.

 

The reason I am balancing down than up is to try to make a more interesting set of strategies with each unit. Though caps will only be modified further after they are done if a unit or enemy ends up too strong.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Quackra
Adding important information

[Quackra]

Just to make a follow-up to the posts on here with some more info on exact changes I have done so far I will go into Chapter 1 including the characters themselves:

Eirika:

Bases (Subject to change)
16 HP
4 Str
8 Skl
9 Spd
5 Luk
3 Def
1 Res
5 Con
5 Mov

Growths (400 Points)
80 HP
45 Str
69 Skl
69 Spd
69 Luk
34 Def
34 Res

Bases are subject to change for her only because she my need extra help to be much more viable in Maniac mode with the increased stats including the increased caps which Eirika may not reach on any stats in general which may harm her too much. Her Growths likely will stay like this though as it keeps her in line with how she plays in FE8 normally and I don't think changing her use cases fits here honestly.

Stat Caps

Lord
60 HP
25 Str
26 Skl
28 Spd
45 Luk
25 Def
25 Res

Great Lord
80 HP
40 Str
42 Skl
44 Spd
45 Luk
40 Def
40 Res

Seth:

Bases

30 HP
14 Str
13 Skl
12 Spd
13 Luk
11 Def
8 Res
9 Con
7 Mov

Growths (325 Points)

90 HP
50 Str
45 Skl
45 Spd
25 Luk
40 Def
30 Res

Now you're probably wondering that these seem awfully familiar and that is because Seth is unchanged by his bases and growths outside of the con and move and that is because they are the exact same, Seth only has worse con and move because of being a Cavalier at base in Maniac Mode and therefore is overall going to stay good because of this. Though this does mean that Seth gets to benefit from more levels quicker to stay strong so this will help him be more relevant into the late game for Maniac Mode even if it is at the cost of a Knight Crest.

Stat Caps

Cavalier

60 HP
26 Str
25 Skl
25 Spd
45 Luk
26 Def
26 Res

Paladin

80 HP
42 Str
40 Skl
40 Spd
45 Luk
45 Def
42 Res

Great Knight

80 HP
48 Str
34 Skl
37 Spd
45 Luk
48 Def
30 Res

Now I will be updating promotion bonuses as well so that more class options are considered. I will be posting some later to let everyone put their thoughts out about each one. Great Knight will be getting increased move by 1 as a buff to the class itself as it is a net negative in a lot of ways in FE8 normally. Weapon Ranks may stay unchanged if I think the weapon ranks are fine between all of the classes.

Chapter 1
 
O'Neill

Now gets to work with a lot of extra level ups as he is now set to class dependent Auto Leveling in the unit placement, and all bosses will follow this.

Additional Enemies:
2 Lvl 2 Fighters with Iron Axes both are set to have class dependent Auto Levels unlike to initial 2 that will be unchanged.

O'Neill has been moved back, but otherwise his AI is unchanged and equipment is unchanged.