Fire Emblem Unit Design
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- Everyone wants to ensure that they create a well-balanced cast in their hack. It is always stinky to know that one option is strictly superior to the next best in a specific role. Let's break down the different elements that make units worth using and how we can find ways to make units have meaningful advantages and disadvantages over their next best replacement across a number of dimensions.
This is how I generally think about units when I'm designed my cast and ensuring that there is a solid mix and balance of different unit types that are viable at different points in the game.
There's so much to say on this topic and it is highly subjective. You can pinpoint counter arguments for everything I've said, and also call out that my interpretation of balance is off - which is fair. There are merits to each of the game's design philosophies and it's up to you to figure out which one you want to embody in your game, as well as understand the drawbacks and challenges of these formats you'll want to address so they don't have the same issues as vanilla.
My primary goal of this video is to help folks looking to ensure they avoid some common issues with cast design and find ways to identify potential overlap or instances where units are outclassed, and learn more about the different tools they can use to change this. Thanks for watching and I hope you find this helpful.
And most important of all, have a generic soldier with solid growths
I think it’s sometimes a good idea to include a few characters that are outclassed or weaker then most your other units. For example there are people who really enjoy raising characters like Wendy, Rebecca and Amelia because they have a charming underdog feel to them. Having a balanced cast can be good but an imbalanced cast also has a lot of advantages.
I have to say these videos have been quite helpful in development of my own hack, i often go back to the DAGDAR map design video when i look at my maps.
You did my boy Mac n' Cheese dirty. Mac n' Cheese can be very nuanced: what cheese do I use, how do I season, do I add in a meat, do I want it gooey or drier, do I crisp the top. Unsubscribed
Do I add ketchup (the answer is yes)
Berwick Saga has a unique way of making its unit as each cast member always has a unique skill within them. For example, the two cavaliers Leon and Adel do have the same class but play a lot differently thanks to their different skills. For example, Leon has Deathmatch while Adel has vantage. In fact, in this game everyone single word has a use...yes even 150 himself who is a bit a meme, can be helpful due to his amazing bulk and believe me...you will need some bulk later on especially against the Lancers or Black Riders (Although Ward, Clifford or Reese could fill this role...but they need the right shield.). So yea, every unit is useful and is never completely useless as they have something within their role.
One relevant aspect of this topic I don't think was really touched on here is the matter of "how many units in a given role are you going to want to be using at once?" Units being redundant with each other hurts them LESS when they're both a type of unit that you inherently want multiple instances of in your team. I think Cavaliers are a fairly good example of this, where a lot of players like to use multiple Cavaliers (or Cavalier-adjacent classes) in their teams at once.
This does kind of tie back to how the class itself is balanced, but Cavaliers in a lot of installments are so inherently useful that a unit simply Being A Cavalier provides reason enough to at least consider using them, provided their stats are serviceable. You probably won't use EVERY Cavalier all at once, but, say, Hardin joins in FE1, and you're probably gonna consider slotting him into your team even though you already have Cain, Abel, and Jagen for solid Cavalier-line characters; maybe Frey as well or instead of one of those three if you're playing FE11. That's not to say that you shouldn't differentiate them anyway, but, depending on the game, different classes and roles have different thresholds for how many of them it takes for you to be like, "y'know, I think I'm good on bow-users", "I think I'm good on armor knights", etc.
Having characters distinguish themselves somehow within their class or role is something I feel becomes progressively more important the more units you have at their join time who will be able to fill that role. Humans are also inherently irrational, emotional creatures, however much some of us like to pretend we aren't (and end up among the LEAST in control of their emotions out of anybody as a result). Sentimental attachment to party members you've had and been using for some time is also something newer units need to compete with and incorporate into the case they make for themselves. You could give the player the least exceptional or interesting unit in the entire game in their starting party, and later characters of the same class may have a harder time catching the eyes of players just due to sheer force of sentimental attachment to the first character because they were first. It's a funny thing, really, but I don't think it's bad.
Part of the fun of Fire Emblem is having the option to build your party based on which characters you subjectively like the most or find the most interesting rather than who's necessarily the "best" at any given role, after all. In a way, I think it's almost more important to give each character something about them, be it how they're designed in gameplay, what their role is in the story, their design, the time the player has to get attached to them, etc. that's fun and interesting and gives them a "hook" with which to catch a player's eye. Like, Ests, for example, are OBJECTIVELY bad units in basically every Fire Emblem game. You have to sorta go out of your way to really use Ross in FE8, and you need to go REALLY out of your way to use Amelia or Ewan, and Amelia is incredibly redundant with a bunch of characters you already have! But despite being bad units, they have appeal in the novelty of them, in how customizable they are, and how the process required to use them inherently lends itself to getting attached to them.
I guess all I'm saying is that it's okay to include a few characters in your roster who aren't necessarily "Good Units", but who have some other type of appeal to them that could motivate a player to use them anyway. In a weird sort of way, it's a bit like how people always complain about object-based Pokemon, but the overall roster of Pokemon in the series would be noticeably less interesting and diverse if you just cut all of them out. Variety is important, along many axes!
You made Vision Quest? Dude, that ROM is a ton of fun. Good work!
I was looking for something completely different but found this. You've inspired me to at least flesh out my FE Romhack idea I came up with several years ago. I've forgotten parts of it, but this will be fun.
Best of luck with your endeavors.
What I'm planning on doing (more in terms of character than stats) is taking the main Fire Emblem Archetypes, and expand around them. For example, I can take the Cain and Abel archetype, but they're not just comrades or friends; maybe they're siblings who have a bad relationship; or they could be comrades, but they don't get along, and they develop a relationship through supports.
Dang it, mate, now you’re giving me flashbacks to FE6 chapter eight where my already beastly Lugh still took almost twenty turns to chew through that armor boss’s nauseatingly high resistance and evade. It was my first FE game, and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, so I had completely missed Rutger a few chapters before. In all seriousness, though, I was downright shocked by just how high-quality this video is, and how it only has 750 views. Yes, ROM hacking is extremely niche, but still. We can do better than this, community. Let’s get it up to 1000, and work from there.
Road to 2000 views!
Is Est type Character spicy food? because you need to feel the pain before tasting it's goodness
Me, who has no sense of taste and has never been to a french restaurant, trying to understand these metaphors:
20:20 > Puzzle Piece design or "When I put this one unit here, I win."
This also manifests in what Marky Joe calls "Bait and Switch"
Where the answer to every combat problem is, "Put X unit here to force out an action, then attack with Y unit to win."
From playing FE4 I’ve come to realize that a big theme in the casts of FE is inequality. Obviously part of it is just the game isn’t balanced well but the inequality through horses, holy blood, magic type, and skills makes me think some of it was intentional. I don’t really know what to do with this information other than the idea that maybe units don’t have to be equal provided they are viable and stand out and all the good stuff you mentioned. While I agree that joke units are kinda dumb I have noticed how fans come to appreciate the bad units of the franchise like Sophia, Arden, Wendy, Marty, etc. I’m not advocating for complete disregard for balance, but the conclusion here is that fun trumps all.
Yeah, and "fun" is really in the eyes of the player. I think striving for good balance is worthwhile, but also recognizing that there will always be some units that are better than others. Sometimes I see hack makers get really caught up in the class balance theorycrafting stage, and it often never pans out in practice - some traits are flat out better than others and enemy and map design ultimately determine what traits will have a niche or not. Additionally, class design =/= player unit design.
My main point is that we should avoid creating units for the sake of being bad, being a joke, or generally being unusable. It's okay if some units are worse than others, but they should have some sort of niche/utility that gives someone who uses them an advantage, even in the smallest possible sense.
A combat-dancer? Essentially a myrmidon that can dance, but E or D rank swords at best.
My lord essentially once she reaches 12, as part of her Lord class.
Skills are learned at:
*Lvl5 and Lvl12 at base(+Canto/Steal where applicable)
*Upon promotion as class skill, then learn one last skill at Lv5.
Noah being able to use Killing Edge at base is pretty cool. Doesn't Boey promote earlier?
Regarding your question on the FE6 cavaliers:
Noah:
I would make a Brave Sword available from the Ch9 village instead of a Silver Sword. Noah, by using the Knight's Crest would likely be the only paladin with access to this during the axe-heavy Western isles arc. I think this is enough to give him his own niche, as the 8 move brave sword user. The other cavs/paladins will need a good deal of investment to use this, and they all lose some speed from it - Noah's 12 con is perfect for it however. Also, there is no Brave Sword in FE6 for the player, so while ch9 is really early for such a strong weapon it's not even there to begin with. Not a prf of course but his unique weapon rank niche is strengthened by this. this would make Rutger even stronger, but admittedly Dieck would probably benefit more form this, adding some weight to having Dieck as your first hero's crest user. but they only have 6 move.
Treck:
This is tough. I like how PE made him the growth great knight, but FE6 is not PE.
Taking more subtle changes that keep the concept of FE6 the same, maybe just a boost to his defense base. He still remains a growth unit, and 30% in defense is good but not consistent. Maybe give him 10 base defense at level 4?
Taking less subtle changes, keep his stat spread the same, but alter him and only him to be allowed to rescue units without any penalties to speed nor skill. He would have high move and defense, and he can't hit much anyways with his lackluster skill normally, but he could make use of his defense and mediocre speed to ferry units around and rescue units while getting doubled less than others. Something about his oblivious nature leads me to believe this would fit too. However, this is such a big exception to make with admittedly unforeseen consequences on my part. But it would be interesting and give him a very unique role.
I know this is an old video, and its mainly meant for romhack design, but I wonder where Engage would fit into the unit design philosophies. I wanna say it's somewhere between FE7 and Awakening, but I'm not sure
How about one unit has terrible stats but has all S-ranks (even if they could not normally use it in their class), but the other has godlike stats but one terrible weapon rank.
All depends on context.
@@nadnap as in this creates tension like sylvan and miklan but they are on the same side due to one being a jeagan and the other being an early joining est.
I one hundred percent agree
Left is cord, right is bord, btw
I honestly dislike the utter dominance that mounted units possess. I think worse stats, growths, and weapon ranks are usually good balance for said units
And this is why in my hack, mounted T2 classes have worse caps, growths and bases than their infantry counterpart. Mounted classes may even miss new weapon types the infantry class gets.
"Except for BSFE since I never played it."
:(
finally got around to the BSFE GBA hack by Sme. I am an official BSFE fan now.
@@nadnap Does that still use a Frosty the Snowman pic for Frost?
Feeling forced to promote Rutger in FE6 HM 8x is the worst part of the game
you would do it anways as there is zero reason to withhold his promotion once he caps speed, which he does rather quickly.
25:40 Well, here's a list:
Great Knight. A lot of people don't consider losing the movement worth it, but GK is better than Paladin in almost every other metric. It gives them axes, greater promotion bonuses, a higher defense cap, greater con (Which is kinda bittersweet for cavalry, but GK Franz with an Iron Blade just wreaks havoc), GK is just a better class than paladin.
The ability to level them up as base classes before promoting. I don't like grinding too much, but a skirmish and a floor or two of the tower between every few chapters can round them out with some pretty decent stats that put them on par (If not slightly over) Seth's bases. Or maybe I've just gotten good level ups every playthrough, it's possible.
Plus, hard mode mages bring Seth down unfortunately quickly. This necessitates two things: replacement (Which isn't really anything about how they play in comparison to Seth), and rescue dropping. Having more than one cavalry unit allows both for them to rescue each other and for several unique tactics like rescue-move/move-take-dropping, which is really useful in my experience.