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Fire Emblem 6 - The Rebalancing v1.0


Armads1091
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As most people know, Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi as many issues with it. You can ask anyone who has played. Most will tell you that the hit rates are atrocious, finding good units to use or at least units that are RNG blessed is a huge hassle, Roy SUCKS and first time players usually say: "What the hell? Why can't I promote my thief?"

So, over a year ago, I set out to fix these issues as best I can. I started out with ZERO hacking knowledge and relied on the community tools and guides provided by serenesforest. Suffice to say, I did less than adequate... But with FEE3 just around the corner I decided to start from scratch and give it another shot. And this time around, I think I've had much more success.

So without further ado, here are definitions of these issues I aim to fix:

1. Bad units :

Too many units go unused and, forgive me if this sounds corny, unloved. Most people call these units "Bad Units" because their growth rates are sub-par and people deem them "not worth their time."

2. Awful Hit Rates :

In most FE games, bad hit rates are linked to a unit's skill stats. However, this isn't always the case in FE6. Most people know this, so I'll keep this point brief. Even units with superb skill stat can miss in this game because the hit rates on most weapons SUCK.

3. Class limitations (thief, bard, etc...) :

A lot of possible good units are hindered in this game because they fit into a certain class. For example: thieves got the short end of the stick with 1st class stat caps and limited levels of growth.

4. Practical Use :

Many units go unused in the game because the time they are recruited makes their use impractical. A good example of this is Sofiya; whom comes so late in the game and at such a low level that using her is more of a liability than an asset. Another example is prepromoted units early in the game that drain exp from other units with little return, again, making them more a liability than an asset.

**NOTE - This does not apply to units such as Niime, Yodel or Karel who have just had their levels lowered to 15 to take advantage of their new growths (Karel needs no advantage, but is sure was fun to do! lol)

How I attempted to fix these issues: (Points below match points above)

1. Using units current growths as a percentage with their base stat total, I assign all units the same base stat total of 325 (so far, 325 seems to be the best middle ground; 350 just barely being too high and anything lower than 325 not making a significant impact on some units) in an attempt to make all units relatively the same as far as use, but keep their unique traits that makes them good (such as Barth and his HP).

2. To fix the awful hit rates, I simply modified all weapons in the game to have the hit rates of their counterparts in FE7. I also took the creative liberty to edit some weapons in ways I thought appropriate: such as uses and range (GET AT ME SHORT BOW HATERS!!!).

3. This was took a lot of work to fix for certain units. The thieves and bards/dancers were easy enough; calculate their 20/20 stats average stats (limitations from the first class included for realism) and then make their current growth rates match rates that would result in their 20/20 stats while still in their base class (I also increased the stat caps to FE8's Assassins). What was difficult was the prepremoted units.

It's somewhat complicated so for people interested, here's how I did it:

Reduce the level of the prepremote to its base class 1 using the unit's old growth rates as a guide to reduce their current stats by the average stats calculated by the level loss along with the promotion gains. Then, I adjusted the unit's level 1 stats; leaving stats that were more or equal to the class's base stats and raising the stat that were below the base stats of the class. Then using the unit's new growths, I used the method mentioned above for the thieves to calculate their growth rates base on the stats they would have when you recruited them in an unhacked version compared to the stats they should have with the base stat total growths. Those units then receive custom growths that would allow them to reach their new average stats from their current stats (I had to take some creative liberty with some units, but that's neither here nor there).

4. I used the above method on prepremoted to make it so the player would receive an adequate return, at least, for trying to level them up so much. Overly leveled units whom don't have their stats reflect their current level have had their levels reduced in order for growth rates to compensate. And finally, Sofiya has been leveled up so now she can be useful without "kill-feeding" her.

That's all I have for now. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them and constructive criticism is always welcome. Something to keep in mind: While this hack does follow what I listed above, there are also small details throughout the hack that I thought would add to the gameplay experience; so, please keep this in mind if you suddenly receive an item you wouldn't normally be able to get. ; ]

Screenshots:

92Hgv.png92Hh3.png

Changes suggested by users:

Could you list you changes more throughly? That tends to be the norm for balancing hacks. I don't want to base my strategy on the wrong number of promotion items or something.

HAVE FUN!

DOWNLOAD IPS PATCH HERE

FE6 Rebalancing - Base Stats.txt

FE6 Rebalancing - Growth Rates.txt

FE6 Rebalancing - Weapons.txt

Edited by Armads1091
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Could you list you changes more throughly? That tends to be the norm for balancing hacks. I don't want to base my strategy on the wrong number of promotion items or something.

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Could you list you changes more throughly? That tends to be the norm for balancing hacks. I don't want to base my strategy on the wrong number of promotion items or something.

Can you elaborate? I made a lot of changes. If you mean items, I gave access to items that were previously unavailable (poison weapons, spear, etc...) throughout the game. Other than that, all items are the same.

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should i presume that your response was sarcastic?

FE6 really doesn't have enough problems to warrant fixing, and people who want to fix it generally end up fixing the wrong things. for example:

1. Bad units :

Too many units go unused and, forgive me if this sounds corny, unloved. Most people call these units "Bad Units" because their growth rates are sub-par and people deem them "not worth their time."

games with a huge cast are bound to have bad units, but hardly any of them are bad because their growth rates are subpar. in fact, growth rates matter very little and a 5% change is very insignificant.

2. Awful Hit Rates :

In most FE games, bad hit rates are linked to a unit's skill stats. However, this isn't always the case in FE6. Most people know this, so I'll keep this point brief. Even units with superb skill stat can miss in this game because the hit rates on most weapons SUCK.

the hit rates on some of the best weapons in the game are higher than their FE7 counterparts. some weapons, such as javelins and hand axes, legitimately have terrible accuracy, and they should have terrible accuracy. most of the hit rate problems are due to enemies having a luk stat, WTA being +10 instead of +15 hit, and thrones giving +30 avo instead of +20 avo.

3. Class limitations (thief, bard, etc...) :

A lot of possible good units are hindered in this game because they fit into a certain class. For example: thieves got the short end of the stick with 1st class stat caps and limited levels of growth.

have you considered that these classes are limited for a reason? there is no need for thieves to promote to assassins or to have amazing combat stats.

4. I used the above method on prepremoted to make it so the player would receive an adequate return, at least, for trying to level them up so much. Overly leveled units whom don't have their stats reflect their current level have had their levels reduced in order for growth rates to compensate. And finally, Sofiya has been leveled up so now she can be useful without "kill-feeding" her.

here's another mistake: people seem to think that FE6 has bad prepromotes. FE6 has some of the best prepromoted units in the series. someone tried to balance FE6 by giving niime better stats - that was pretty funny.

Edited by dondon151
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should i presume that your response was sarcastic?

FE6 really doesn't have enough problems to warrant fixing, and people who want to fix it generally end up fixing the wrong things. for example:

games with a huge cast are bound to have bad units, but hardly any of them are bad because their growth rates are subpar. in fact, growth rates matter very little and a 5% change is very insignificant.

The comment wasn't so much sarcasm as it was acknowledging your comment and dismissing it at the same time since you gave no real relevancy to the hack, just your opinion. But now that you've brought up some points, we can have a productive conversation.

A 5% change can make a huge difference but that's not the point I want to make. I didn't want to post growth rates because I wanted people to try out units and experiment; but, I'll show you one of them to make my point.

(HP/Str/Skl/Spd/Lck/Def/Res)

Noah's growth rates are 75/30/45/30/40/30/10, not that great...

Using my method, his rates got increased to 94/38/56/38/50/38/13 a much better improvement. Admittedly not the best, but I think it gets his growths to a point where you don't have to pray to Anna that he'll at least turn out decent.

the hit rates on some of the best weapons in the game are higher than their FE7 counterparts. some weapons, such as javelins and hand axes, legitimately have terrible accuracy, and they should have terrible accuracy. most of the hit rate problems are due to enemies having a luk stat, WTA being +10 instead of +15 hit, and thrones giving +30 avo instead of +20 avo.

If you look at my attempted solutions, you'll see that I brought weapon hit rates up to their FE7 counterparts; that doesn't mean if a weapon had a worse hit rate, I would reduce it. And we seem to have different ideas oh what it means to have a good chance to hit; I'm not talking about boss fights or attacking with a disadvantage. My thought process is I should not have to rely on a 55% hit rate with a steel spear to get off a little extra damage.

have you considered that these classes are limited for a reason? there is no need for thieves to promote to assassins or to have amazing combat stats.

I did not want to have a thief late game that couldn't at least defend himself without having to send a unit to guard him and a healer keep an eye on him. Sure people may not like it; but I don't want a unit that is handicapped just because he can't promote (even though he does not receive any clear advantage by foregoing promotion; such as mamkutes).

here's another mistake: people seem to think that FE6 has bad prepromotes. FE6 has some of the best prepromoted units in the series. someone tried to balance FE6 by giving niime better stats - that was pretty funny.

That sounds hilarious! lol, XD

This point is not to benefit units like her. They're to benefit units such as Klien and Yunno who are sorely lacking. So no need to worry~

Edited by Armads1091
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A 5% change can make a huge difference but that's not the point I want to make.

no it doesn't. it amounts to 1 point of difference on average after 20 levels. most units will not even level up 20 times in a single playthrough.

Noah's growth rates are 75/30/45/30/40/30/10, not that great...

Using my method, his rates got increased to 94/38/56/38/50/38/13 a much better improvement. Admittedly not the best, but I think it gets his growths to a point where you don't have to pray to Anna that he'll at least turn out decent.

this is not much of an improvement at all aside from HP.

If you look at my attempted solutions, you'll see that I brought weapon hit rates up to their FE7 counterparts; that doesn't mean if a weapon had a worse hit rate, I would reduce it. And we seem to have different ideas oh what it means to have a good chance to hit; I'm not talking about boss fights or attacking with a disadvantage. My thought process is I should have to rely on a 55% hit rate with a steel spear to get off a little extra damage.

you missed my point entirely. FE6 does not have a hit rate problem largely because the weapons have low hit. the hit rate problem exists because of the three factors that i previously listed. you need to address those problems (if they can be addressed at all) or else the hit rate problem will still exist.

increasing weapon hit also benefits the enemy, which is not something that you necessarily want to do given that FE6 is one of those games that rely on enemy quantity rather than quality for difficulty.

I did not want to have a thief late game that couldn't at least defend himself without having to send a unit to guard him and a healer keep an eye on him. Sure people may not like it; but I don't want a unit that is handicapped just because he can't promote (even though he does not receive any clear advantage by foregoing promotion; such as mamkutes).

the point of game design is that some units can't have it all.

That sounds hilarious! lol, XD

This point is not to benefit units like her. They're to benefit units such as Klien and Yunno who are sorely lacking. So no need to worry~

klein is not "sorely lacking," and juno is still better than most of the really shitty units in the game because she can fly. again, the point of game design is that some units can't have it all.

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It looks like a lot of what you're arguing is personal conjecture, so all I can say to that is I agree to disagree.

However, that thing you mentioned about the luck stat might be worth looking in to. If a majority of people who have tried that hack come back and say that the hit rates are still awful, then that's something I may need to address.

Now I mean this, sincerely. Thanks for the input. :)

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What kind of playstyle do you have in mind when balancing? It affects the value of some units by quite a bit.

Small changes to bases are usually more effective than small changes to growths. The former is guaranteed to buffs/nerfs them immediately (assuming no bias, a character's immediate impact will decide whether they are used or benched) rather than possibly changing their stats depending on the RNG in several chapters' time. Growth changes should be dramatic, so that the player will see a large difference in the long-term.

Try to balance by giving units a more useful niche instead of taking away their flaws. For example, give archers better damage output instead of 1-2 range.

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I gave the hack a run for the first couple chapters, and it kind of missed the mark for me. The concept of a FE6 rebalance has been done to death, and while this is far from the worst attempt I've seen at it, this hack just does not do a whole lot aside from changing weapon stats (which basically all FE6 hacks do anyway.)

Your idea of rebalancing the units by this metric you made is interesting, but by attempting to quantify the usefulness of all of the units, you passed over what makes a unit useful to begin with. Growths are nice and all, and over the long run can make certain units powerhouses, but growth percentages and 20/20 stat totals are only a part of what makes a unit good. You also need to account for stat balance (Str and Spd are way better than Luck and Res), base stats (makes units immediately more useful and capable of gaining levels), class balance (cavaliers get all of the cool stuff, armor knights are front line units that are too slow to even make it to the front line) and even utility such as flight and staff use.

Anyway, the idea and intent for this hack are okay, but there is just not much demand for this type of hack. After all, changing some numbers in a nightmare module is not all that difficult to do. An updated version of your balance model might be interesting to see, though.

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Balance hacks are usually interesting, and FE6 unquestionably needs some help in a few more areas than the other GBA FEs, but I don't think the way you tried to fix things is really a very good way about it. For example, while giving everyone the same growth total is 'balanced', it's not as interesting, and in many cases means there's less balance between character viability. For example, it's interesting and fun that Marcus starts of amazing and then quickly becomes okay, then mediocre, then bad. And it's interesting that some characters join late, then have excellent growth rates to help them catch up (although I don't think there's one of those in FE6, and well we all know they're usually terrible anyway - but they're interesting).

On top of that, 325% total growth is really, really high for most units. The average in FE6 is, uh, somewhere around 280%ish? I'm not sure exactly but based on averaging characters from Allen to Thany (excluding Merlinus) that looks around right for unpromoted units. Increasing the growths by around ~45% per character on average is going to make things significantly easier.

I think Baldrick and SMC have covered other points well enough as well. In addition, are you aware there's a numbers patch that updates many hit rates and a few other things to make the game far less frustrating hit rates wise? I admire your enthusiasm, but I feel like you don't quite have enough knowledge to make a good balance hack. Even I would consider myself to not know enough on anything but FE8, and I've been FEing for close to a decade.

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Maybe you could add in additional promotion items at a reasonable point in the game and change roy's promotion timing(ther's a patch for it somewhere). Imo, the lack of well timed promotions is one of the bigger balance issues with this game.

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Can you elaborate? I made a lot of changes. If you mean items, I gave access to items that were previously unavailable (poison weapons, spear, etc...) throughout the game. Other than that, all items are the same.

As many as possible. THe ideal changelog lists all Changes. For example, i should be able to see if i can get fenrir, aura, ect. And if so where, wnad what sopia or fa's growths are, to give random examples.

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Even if you don't include a change log, it is a good idea to include a readme that comes with the download that explains what you did (so essentially the OP in .txt format, although additional detail is always okay) for convienence and to avoid confusion. If you want, the change log can be split into files with names like newitems.txt, growthchanges.txt, ect.

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I must ask. Have you seen DLuna's FE6 rebalance patch? I believe he did a fantastic job fixing FE6 up. What will you do differently?

On that note, why was that topic locked by eCut? I thought your criticism, while technically a necropost, was a perfectly valid post that had no reason to be locked. It's not like 90% of the other necros, which are just "hey is dis gaem out yet" or "i liked this game it was fun". I mean, a large post giving meaningful discussion to the post doesn't really seem like it deserves a lock.

Oh well, that was so 2013 eCut. She's better now. maybe

Edit: Oh wait that was february of this year :B

Edited by Klok
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I don't know if the demand is high and thsi was already done a lot, but you seems to have put lot of thoughts on it.

I can't really give suggestion here, but Good Luck.

Oh, just a question : Are you using Gringe's translation as the basis of your hack ?

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What kind of playstyle do you have in mind when balancing? It affects the value of some units by quite a bit.

Small changes to bases are usually more effective than small changes to growths. The former is guaranteed to buffs/nerfs them immediately (assuming no bias, a character's immediate impact will decide whether they are used or benched) rather than possibly changing their stats depending on the RNG in several chapters' time. Growth changes should be dramatic, so that the player will see a large difference in the long-term.

Try to balance by giving units a more useful niche instead of taking away their flaws. For example, give archers better damage output instead of 1-2 range.

No real playstyle, just wanted to make all units viable. And I see your point, I've started another playthough to determine possible changes for later game recruitment. Those flaws haven't completely disappeared, it's just now they're more of a hindrance rather than a crutch; and only the shortbow got 1-2 range 'cause I felt like it, and even then, I decreased the accuracy quite a bit to balance it XD

I gave the hack a run for the first couple chapters, and it kind of missed the mark for me. The concept of a FE6 rebalance has been done to death, and while this is far from the worst attempt I've seen at it, this hack just does not do a whole lot aside from changing weapon stats (which basically all FE6 hacks do anyway.)

Your idea of rebalancing the units by this metric you made is interesting, but by attempting to quantify the usefulness of all of the units, you passed over what makes a unit useful to begin with. Growths are nice and all, and over the long run can make certain units powerhouses, but growth percentages and 20/20 stat totals are only a part of what makes a unit good. You also need to account for stat balance (Str and Spd are way better than Luck and Res), base stats (makes units immediately more useful and capable of gaining levels), class balance (cavaliers get all of the cool stuff, armor knights are front line units that are too slow to even make it to the front line) and even utility such as flight and staff use.

Anyway, the idea and intent for this hack are okay, but there is just not much demand for this type of hack. After all, changing some numbers in a nightmare module is not all that difficult to do. An updated version of your balance model might be interesting to see, though.

Well, most of the changes are most obvious with units recruited later in the game such as Noah and Hugh (just examples, not saying they're awful units). The metric I use increases overall growths but aims to keep units specialized in stats they specialized before (example: fighters get a boost in their other stats, but still maintain HP and STR as their best stats). I'm not sure how I would balance classes from a class editing standpoint; but this has crossed my mind before. An idea I came up with to balance cavaliers was to give effective weapons to random enemy units throughout the game, what do you think? For a veteran hacker? Of course it's easy. But for a beginner such as myself? It was extremely hard trying to teach myself to do this! lol, XD

Balance hacks are usually interesting, and FE6 unquestionably needs some help in a few more areas than the other GBA FEs, but I don't think the way you tried to fix things is really a very good way about it. For example, while giving everyone the same growth total is 'balanced', it's not as interesting, and in many cases means there's less balance between character viability. For example, it's interesting and fun that Marcus starts of amazing and then quickly becomes okay, then mediocre, then bad. And it's interesting that some characters join late, then have excellent growth rates to help them catch up (although I don't think there's one of those in FE6, and well we all know they're usually terrible anyway - but they're interesting).

On top of that, 325% total growth is really, really high for most units. The average in FE6 is, uh, somewhere around 280%ish? I'm not sure exactly but based on averaging characters from Allen to Thany (excluding Merlinus) that looks around right for unpromoted units. Increasing the growths by around ~45% per character on average is going to make things significantly easier.

I think Baldrick and SMC have covered other points well enough as well. In addition, are you aware there's a numbers patch that updates many hit rates and a few other things to make the game far less frustrating hit rates wise? I admire your enthusiasm, but I feel like you don't quite have enough knowledge to make a good balance hack. Even I would consider myself to not know enough on anything but FE8, and I've been FEing for close to a decade.

The goal of the hack is to make all units playable throughout the game, even Marcus lol. But I see what you mean about the class balancing; I'm not sure how I would solve that from the class's viewpoint, but I have thought of giving some random horseslayers and halberds to enemies throughout the game. What do you think? I came up with the total 325 after trial and error; I think it's enough to make all units useable without making them ridiculously overpowered. I had no idea there was a numbers patch. I'm working completely from scratch. :/

Be careful when balancing FE6- it's very easy to make it too balanced or too easy, especially since vanilla FE6 becomes easier as the game goes on.

I plan on doing another playthrough to determine possibilities in stat changes for mid to late game recruitment. I'll take that opportunity to see if enemy units need to be buffed during the game.

Looks cool, keep at the hard work. =)

Thanks! I intend to~ :)

As many as possible. THe ideal changelog lists all Changes. For example, i should be able to see if i can get fenrir, aura, ect. And if so where, wnad what sopia or fa's growths are, to give random examples.

They're coming along :)

I'm going to be honest and say that while I can't imagine that your growth calculations would spice things up much, it's at least a pretty unique way of trying to balance FE6 and I think that uniqueness should be commended.

Thanks, I think? lol

Even if you don't include a change log, it is a good idea to include a readme that comes with the download that explains what you did (so essentially the OP in .txt format, although additional detail is always okay) for convienence and to avoid confusion. If you want, the change log can be split into files with names like newitems.txt, growthchanges.txt, ect.

I think I'll stat keeping track of a change log and I'll go ahead and start upload differences in items and such throughout the game.

I must ask. Have you seen DLuna's FE6 rebalance patch? I believe he did a fantastic job fixing FE6 up. What will you do differently?

I have not. Should I? I can see the merits in observing and learning from the work already done by others; but at the same time, I don't want to be tempted in stealing something from someone else's work. So I think I'll wait until a point where I'm at my whit's end and then look at other people's work to get ideas (idk if that's a good idea, but that's the plan for now).

I don't know if the demand is high and thsi was already done a lot, but you seems to have put lot of thoughts on it.

I can't really give suggestion here, but Good Luck.

Oh, just a question : Are you using Gringe's translation as the basis of your hack ?

Thanks! And I don't know; as far as edits go, I'm using a clean rom with nightmare.

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I have not. Should I? I can see the merits in observing and learning from the work already done by others; but at the same time, I don't want to be tempted in stealing something from someone else's work. So I think I'll wait until a point where I'm at my whit's end and then look at other people's work to get ideas (idk if that's a good idea, but that's the plan for now).

You're afraid to steal ideas? Armads, lemme tell you something. A great man once said "Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal". I believe what he meant by that is not that you should steal something that isn't yours, but to take influence and inspiration from other works to make something new and unique. This is just my opinion, but I found a lot of the hack's ideas appealing, and I think you could benefit from it's insights.

Conversely though, I already feel like DLuna's balance patch is great, and as such, you have strong competition for best balance patch. Maybe if you play it, you might instead realize that there is no need for another balance patch.

Edited by MarkyJoe1990
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You're afraid to steal ideas? Armads, lemme tell you something. A great man once said "Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal". I believe what he meant by that is not that you should steal something that isn't yours, but to take influence and inspiration from other works to make something new and unique. This is just my opinion, but I found a lot of the hack's ideas appealing, and I think you could benefit from it's insights.

Conversely though, I already feel like DLuna's balance patch is great, and as such, you have strong competition for best balance patch. Maybe if you play it, you might instead realize that there is no need for another balance patch.

To be fair, there's no need for any hack. This is the first hacking project I have ever done and I wanted to do it blind (using tutorials and stuff, but not looking at other people work). But I'll give that other guy's hack a try. And I agree, for a newbie like me, the competition will be that much harder, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up on my idea. :)

EDIT: Btw, saw a bunch of your reviews on youtube, big fan <3

Edited by Armads1091
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