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Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn ReDux (v0.8.72 CH 2-2)


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Well. That was a journey of conflicting emotions. I don't even know where to start. Um, I'll just summarize as best I can my opinions I guess.

This is interesting, though I feel in desperate need of polish. (I get that it's new, and hey way better than anything I could make, I'm damn impressed.) Again though, reading some of the changes made me both happy, and kinda... bleh. I'll use a few examples. Let's go with that Trueblade speed cap first, as an example point. Laura as a saint has a 44 speed cap. Trueblades have 42. I mean, in the main game I'm sure 42 speed is more than enough, but it's not just that. A lot of the growth changes and stat cap changes are very odd. Why in the hell would anyone use Nolan or Boyd? One is never gonna be able to hurt anything without Bexp, one is never gonna hit anything, unless you splurge all your money on a forged axe. It's odd. I like what you did with Fiona. She seems usable now, thank god. But Meg. What in the fuck did you do. She isn't gonna hit anything. Ever. Say what you like, her growths make her completely unusable, and a joke. She can tank. Kind of. Doesn't mean much when she can't hit anything. You even made her TIER 3 CAP 11. (In skill). That's completely ridiculous, and extremely gimmicky. The laguz seem terrible to me, though I might be wrong. Sure, they have room to grow, but their bases are so shit, what's the point? Poor Volug went from being a useful early game Jeigan, to fire magic bait, even more so than before, he'll be nigh useless now. (Unless you've changed Willdheart somehow.). Kyza is terribly shit. He doesn't have any strong points now. Lyre and Lethe are garbage. (Not that Lyre already wasn't but...) What's stopping me from just using Ranulf now? Better strike rank (I approve of this though he needs that), good growths, close to some caps. Like, he straight up outclasses them. He has what, 13 levels to grow? Bexp will cap him out, easy. Muarim is bleh. He went from tanky, strong tiger, to shitty, lots of health and that's it tiger. Again, room to grow, but with his, what 3 chapters in P1, then none till the friggen end of the game? Not even worth looking at. Same goes for Vika, I don't even need to explain it. Also, weird choices with the Herons. I kinda like it, but I'd have to see how it works out. Leanne gets attacked by one enemy, and it's like, "welp guess I'm gonna just untransform real quick." To be fair, if you have your herons in combat against anything that isn't a mage... well. Then there's Rafiel. He seems to enjoy combat apparently. But his res isn't good enough to justify throwing him at a mage to get more transform points. And if a physical attacker breaths on him, he'll crumple. Weird, and not exactly worth the risk. Now, Black Knight I cannot get a beat on, because of the warp powder thing. If I can say one thing, HIS FINAL PRODUCT SHOULD NOT HAVE 14 SPEED. He's supposed to move stupid fast in that armour, not be as slow as a base Gatrie, although he's slower than usual now too. Ok, there are other characters I can rant about (Mia, wtf def, Ike wtf Def and Res are not right, Makolov skill bby plzz, wtf is Danved Gimmicky af, etc etc,), but I'll say some character changes I'm fond of now, instead of tearing your hard work apart. (For characters at least, I have far more to say on the weapons, oh yes I do.) Titania looks well balanced, Very well balanced in fact. Geoffrey seems very well done, Astrid too. She works more like a utility unit with her staves, which I like. It gives her options to be viable still if her strength takes a dive. Elincia seems very good, Not OP, but at the same time very viable. Soren looks like he'll do his job very well. Nuke from afar, and do it well, or take to the front lines with that sweet dark magic. His skill seems a bit overkill, but it does add to his nukage aspect. (Because his speed does him no favours, oh god it hurts my heart.) 

Right then. Weapons. I'll get this out of the way, the swords need balancing. Badly. 50 Weight on a sword is way too fucking much. I like that the Wo dao and Killing edge have been balanced, before the killing edge was strictly better in almost any situation. Too many of the swords are way too fucking heavy, but that Claymore hurts me physically. Vauge Katti is probably balanced better yeah, 50 uses and 22 mgt was too much. Right then, I have a serious question though. Wtf did you do to Ragnell and Alondite? I'm overreacting, but hear me out. The Alondite now does... Magic... Damage. OK... that's fine... Oh wait. It has more hit, and might, and less weight? Wait, but the Ragnell gives Res, and the Alondite gives Def? I see what you're doing here. The blades contradict each other. Sure. But all you are doing is prolonging the BK fight. It's underwhelming af in the main game don't get me wrong, but this is not how you balance that out. This just makes it more tedious, and adds fake difficulty. The game is squaring them off to be shit at fighting each other. That's not good. Lances now... I'm pretty happy with them actually. (Notice-Heaviest lance is 35 weight. Sword is 50. No no no no no. Bad juju.) The axes also seemed very well done. (Heaviest axe-38. Boi. That sword is made for a fucking titan.) The bows seem... interesting. (Holy shit 40 weight bow. I get that it's 3-5 range but fuck my guy...). I'm having a hard time getting the full scope of bow usefulness. They seem pretty alright, but at the same time, I feel like some of the bows are just.. bleh. Astrid's gonna milk that bright bow though, ooh baby. Okay daggers knives... yikes. It needs work. Tell me why a dinky little knife weighs 28 please. That's too much. I know it probably won't make a difference by the time you get it, but it just seems off. 50 hit Stiletto, tell me why. Magics now eh... right. Fire seems the most balanced, which I am okay with. It's for sure the "safest" magic type, and I'm okay with this. (Holy shit Sanaki actually has a spirit bomb wtf 30 might someone stop her, Ashera is scared in a corner). Thunder is high risk, high reward. That one range, but that crit. It's definitly the worst magic type though. Mages need to be in the back. They are squishy. Thunder magic does not help their case. Wind looks very interesting. That range is spicy. But you better damn well make sure your mage is protected, cause they ain't countering shit while using that at close range. Light seems the least changed to me, other than Nosferatu/Resire being physical now. That 10 shine might is lit though. Now dark. Oh baby. Finally it's not utter shit. Like thunder, except instead of being high risk high reward it's... oh. Low damage, low reward, low risk... oh. It needs some tuning. It has tremendous might, yes, but doubling is a funny joke, archers are gonna eat them alive, and dat range. oh my. It's good for trade swapping if you have a mage exposed, but you best pray to god no archers are nearby or goodbye mage. NOW. STAVES. OH YES THEY HAVE MIGHT NOW AGHHHHHHH- Oh god the uses. Well. Staves look fun, we'll actually get access to the el-staves, which is cool. My soul can't handle those uses, but it makes sense. Throw a friggen heal staff on a max magic bishop, that's a clean 45 hp gain. Staves need to be conserved even more now. Ok Strike. I do not like some of this. Why the hell do Wolves lose hit? Why do cats have a static 75 Hit? Why do the Tigers get way more hit and might than the cats? Changes need to be made, the strike system is bleh. I'm conflicted on the Biorhythem. It was already an annoyance on hard mode, and you've made it even worse?! I do not agree. -25 avoid is wayyyyy too much. Leave it as is. Also, you said you "Changed peoples biorhythems to make them interesting." Sure, but you changed them for the better... right? Not arbitraily? (Boyd would have huge ups and terrible downs, Soren would be level headed at all times, etc), that kind of thing? I'm conflicted on the support thing. That's nice and all, but it makes them feel even more cheapened then they already do. Tone it back aa bit, how about 6 turns next to each other, not just 1. That seems extreme. Affinity changes... I got nothing. I never optimized my supports, I just chose what I liked. Go nuts with it. Bargains. I like it. Nothing else to say. Keep that going. 

Right then. that's my say exauhsted. My hands are cramping, and I'm tired after typing all this. But it was worth, because FE10 is both my first, and favourite FE. I want to see this hack come to fruition. Clean up the rough edges, don't get too liberal, and you'll have something great here.

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Just to be clear, the stat sheets you are analyzing in the main OP are nearly a year old, and there's definitely been some tweaks, if Izzy's stream is to be believed. Laguz do seem to get boosted EXP rates for example. And the first two thunder mages are either incredibly tanky (Ilyana) or quite dodgy (Tormod), so no, thunder magic actually really owns. And dark magic is honestly quite powerful in the beginning of the game when +7 Def is huge, and lots of enemies are weighed down by the weapons to the point that Micaiah can actually double them(!). You kinda have to place those elements in context.

Although I do agree that so far, Nolan's main claims to fame were one-shotting birds with a crossbow (not exactly a high feat) and being the one axe user who can consistently hit things ... once, for low damage. And that's a bit sad. But that may have changed since I've yet to watch the second playthrough.

There are some things that do bother me about this hack's direction (on a more conceptual level of design), but I'll wait until I can give it a go. Seems a bit pointless to give criticism based someone else's run, and right before a new release anyways. (Although I will say the magic system has got me real hype.)

Edited by Miacis
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@Realhi87

Speed Caps: Laura gets weighed down by anything that isn't a light tome. And beyond ~38 SPD, any extra speed on top of that is merely +AVO, since you'd be in range to double foes regardless. 

Nolan: He's pretty awesome lategame where he has huge crit rates (Berserker has +20% CRIT) and is, along with Shinon, the best Crossbow user. Tarvos or Arbelest are his weapons of choice. Before then, he's a good tank and will continue to be. His base damage is low, but low STR is less of an issue in this hack since damage values are baseline much higher (higher weapon MT, lower DEF/RES). So the % damage difference is much more fair. From there however, he has a high chance to either crit or proc his mastery. Much like Ilyana, he's good at soaking hits with inconsistent damage. But the former attribute is highly valued. High SKL makes Killer/Brave Axe viable on him as well.

Meg: She was actually the most recent unit to be nerfed. Between high sustain with Imbue, access to Greatsword/Claymore for HIT rates (where she doesn't even care about being doubled at times) and one of the best HP/DEF/RES totals in the game... she's extremely good. She also has locked Beastfoe, which makes her one of the best units in 1-4/1-8/3-6 etc...  She also has Heaven affinity, so with a support, can easily get +30 free HIT depending on partner. Or some less hit for +3 DEF/RES through Leo/Fiona. Forges already exists. And enemies in bad/worst bio suffer huge avoid penalties, so her target selection might sometimes just needs to be more decisive. Same goes for someone like Boyd (who is outright one of the best units in the game with a +HIT support and a Polaxe).

Claymore: The purpose of this weapon is that you're meant to be doubled with it. What does Brom care? He gets doubled regardless. Meg? She's tanky enough to be sometimes doubled if she needs the HIT (assuming her biorhythm is bad occasionally). Still, it was reduced to 44 WT at some point, which lets Meg, Brom, Ike, Kieran etc... use it lategame without much loss. Which is useful for the HIT, of course.

You have to consider that some weapons have niches -- they aren't going to be globally/consistently good.

Laguz: All gain faster EXP even at higher levels. BEXP is rigged to give them favourable gains. Laguz Gauges are all improved (Lyre literally never de-transforms so long as she enters combat twice a turn). Laguz Gems also exist far earlier. Strike Rank increases much faster for all of them. Untransformed Laguz retain more stats. Some laguz have extra skills (Cats have canto for instance).

I think you'll find that Kyza does have a selling point though: the fact that he has super high sustain and good 2-range with cards. Granted he needs Fortune to not be in risk of crits, but that's a small price to pay. He was actually considered the most overpowered unit by play-testers about 6-9 months ago. All the small changes to Laguz make a huge difference. Consider that all Beorc get nerfed (mostly in part 3) as well.

Other "odd" stats on some units: All I can say, is that you need to play it in order to understand why they are balanced the way they are (and further criticism from there would be fine; assuming you've used the unit enough to know the context/objective). The important part is making each unit feel distinctive and different. Mia? She's a player phase unit who's meant to 1RKO almost anything. Her awful durability counterbalances that. But her avoid is high and she'll never be one-shot. She's amazing with Wind Swords as well. In practice, it works well. She's like a good version of Hana with strong ranged options. She often feels like a typical mage, if anything.

The units you've 'praised' are the all-around "balanced" but... while it's fine for some of those to exist -- if all units were that way, it would be incredibly homogenising. The idea is to have these extreme stat disparities with the right tuning. Whether some of those are over or underpowered, is a different matter. There have been countless balance tweaks over the past year, those not reflected in the OP. Context is needed for that however; Kyza actually had to be nerfed from the stats shown here; as much as it seems he wouldn't be good. Still, some unit archetypes/designs may not work out in the long run. We'll have to see. Meg was re-iterated about 5 times, until we found the best balance/spread for her in terms of enjoyment factor / power level (seemingly -- general consensus is that she's currently in a good spot). Originally, she was closer to the original Meg, just scaled up or made stronger... but it still didn't feel right in terms of her class/availability/niche.

Some other things are just better for design. Supports being incredibly fast? It's for the best considering unit availability in this game. I was almost tempted to just make C supports free (they could be gained immediately upon recruitment) but a minimalist approach is fine.

Biorhythm is meant to make low HIT values situationally good as a way to counterbalance strong weapons (Killer/Brave) and to also nerf dodge tanking (the best way to cheese the game when possible). It also adds an emphasis to giving units timeouts to also prevent low-manning and switching unit priority. Granted, some units like Aran aren't affected at all, but that's just a unique trait of theirs. Consider it a personal skill. 

Again, other things need context to explain. 28 WT dagger? Just means its good on Sothe but not on Heather. Stiletto's 50 HIT? Amazing assassination tool against low Biorhythm targets or those using it with amazing SKL (Sothe/Volke have good hit rates with it later on).

Granted, there is bound to be elements that need a bit more re-iterating and/or re-balanced if feedback calls for it. I'm merely explaining the context for certain changes here. "Why do Tigers have higher MT/HIT on their weapons than cats"? Because they usually do not double while cats do. (Unless you're Kyza early/mid game). Although cats gain a lot of crit on ranking up (and are balanced around other things like Laguz Gauges or enemy threat).

Any other concerns, feel free to mention and I'll do my best to respond/explain.

On 04/12/2017 at 10:00 PM, IPFailz said:

It would be nice to see class caps, growths, and bases.

Not until the final release, most likely. Considering the constant changes they tend to have (more-so than units themselves) would require a lot of updating past the next release.

You'll be able to gain a general idea of what they are just by playing though, based on how enemies scale. A lot of class caps are also shown in the unit data.

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8 hours ago, Kujoe_Dirte said:

Forgive me if this is already posted somewhere, but when is the next update planned to release? The FEE3 video caught my interest and I would very much like to try this out.

A bit more play-testing is required but once that is complete, the next release will happen. Should hopefully be sometime this week.

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Hey, you know what I just thought of that would be both really funny, and a cool implementation of stort/gameplay integration?


Give the horses (the riderless, Other-army horses) in 3-whatever Daunt. Now them galloping around the place does have an effect relevant to your objective of causing chaos around the enemy camp.

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Can't wait for this to be released! I really like all the changes you've made, It will make for an interesting, new experience. I'm especially excited about the changes to laguz, ive never found them worth using because of their gimmicky nature but I think you've fixed that. 

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8 hours ago, CrippledSponge said:

Any new updates as to when the next update may be finished? I've been dying to play it all week! :)

Thought I'd delay a little longer to release on a particular day, same as the last release.

Otherwise, currently doing an overall pass on gold amounts / pricing. It's a difficulty valve that feels best at this stage.

Part 2 will be included. First couple of maps of part 3 are almost 100% complete as well, so those may or may not make it in.

3 hours ago, OmegaX128 said:

Where is Ike balance-wise at the moment? With all of the stuff you've got going on with the other characters and their skills, I'm curious to see how Ike's been changing over the course of development.

Ike's more growth reliant than before; notably being reduced to level 5 with only having 15 base SPD. However, he's gone from having one of the lowest total growth % to amongst the highest. He's also still strong/sturdy at base, but along with all the other GMs, has a fair few weaknesses and the difficulty of the maps are much higher than before.

I suppose that as far as the GMs go, Rolf is the least changed unit in terms of power/potential, with all other units being brought much closer to his level (but in ways that makes each unit feel very distinctive -- Titania is still a soft-Jeigan, but the difficulty is high enough where it's not like she can outright solo or anything).

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9 hours ago, Dunal said:

Ike's more growth reliant than before; notably being reduced to level 5 with only having 15 base SPD. However, he's gone from having one of the lowest total growth % to amongst the highest. He's also still strong/sturdy at base, but along with all the other GMs, has a fair few weaknesses and the difficulty of the maps are much higher than before.

Very happy to hear this one in particular. I like Ike.

Tangentially related, any story/writing changes you're going to be making to Ike as a character? Or are you just not going to touch that?

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57 minutes ago, ShamelessIan said:

*patiently waiting*

Just wanted to check in and see if there's any update on when this will be released and if you decided to push it back any longer? I've been itching to play this for weeks!

Apologies. I can confirm that a release will be on new year's. Regular releases will then begin from there.

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Greetings! I'm an extremely irregular user of this board and even this site, and I'm logging on just to tell you I'm so excited for every single thing this project entails. Even the small updates, whether through patches or bits of info.

One of my favorite things about this project is how different units of even the same class vary so widely now. For example, I love how Leonardo's original identity of "whatever" Strength, but very good Skill and Luck are being compounded on to turn him into a very accurate longbowman and utility unit. Meanwhile, Shinon is lacking in Str, but his passable HP and decent Def make him a very good candidate for crossbows, enough even to fight units in melee range like a makeshift swordmaster. His Str won't even matter then and he's totally the king of crits too. Rolf's high Str makes him look like the best traditional archer.

My only concern is the armor knights.

The way I see it, Meg is the game's most purely defensive tank who likes to dive deep and distract enemies. Tauroneo is balanced around Resolve, liking to dive equally as deep into enemy lines and leave a huge dent in enemies. That's really cool. But I don't see why one should consider Brom or Gatrie over them. Especially Gatrie. Meg's defense and Tauroneo's offense seem to make them statistically redundant. Their hit rates are more reliable than Meg's, but besides that I just see them as middle of the road, generic armors. I see that you're trying to avoid that middle-of-the-road approach with Danved between Neph and Aran. Am I missing something or is there more to come?

Edited by Carreau Diamond
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Meg doesn’t remotely look like a pur defensive tank to me; she’s the one with the most speed and res of the four. Might be an HP tank too or not, I’d have to see Brom and Gatrie’s growths nad caps to tell, but one of those two is probably the most def one.

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17 hours ago, Carreau Diamond said:

Greetings! I'm an extremely irregular user of this board and even this site, and I'm logging on just to tell you I'm so excited for every single thing this project entails. Even the small updates, whether through patches or bits of info.

One of my favorite things about this project is how different units of even the same class vary so widely now. For example, I love how Leonardo's original identity of "whatever" Strength, but very good Skill and Luck are being compounded on to turn him into a very accurate longbowman and utility unit. Meanwhile, Shinon is lacking in Str, but his passable HP and decent Def make him a very good candidate for crossbows, enough even to fight units in melee range like a makeshift swordmaster. His Str won't even matter then and he's totally the king of crits too. Rolf's high Str makes him look like the best traditional archer.

My only concern is the armor knights.

The way I see it, Meg is the game's most purely defensive tank who likes to dive deep and distract enemies. Tauroneo is balanced around Resolve, liking to dive equally as deep into enemy lines and leave a huge dent in enemies. That's really cool. But I don't see why one should consider Brom or Gatrie over them. Especially Gatrie. Meg's defense and Tauroneo's offense seem to make them statistically redundant. Their hit rates are more reliable than Meg's, but besides that I just see them as middle of the road, generic armors. I see that you're trying to avoid that middle-of-the-road approach with Danved between Neph and Aran. Am I missing something or is there more to come?

Your analysis is pretty accurate. Especially with the archers.

Keep in mind that Gatrie/Brom have more availability and will have a level lead in part 4. Brom also has the highest DEF/HP (and innate vigilance) and Gatrie is decent all-around with really good RES. Meanwhile Meg cannot proc skills due to her awful skill stat and Tauroneo doesn't have great stats for his availability -- with Resolve being the saving grace. If anything he's the most likely candidate for a buff if anyone (he's conservatively tuned for 1-6).

2 hours ago, flare9 said:

Damn we still have to wait till next year for next release :(

(In case it wasn't in humor) By "new year's" I mean... tomorrow! For now it'll only be up to 2-2 though. Each map will be released separately from there.

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Watching shadow’s stream roght now; even jf he doesn’t have their absurd HP, I think Tornadier deserves to be called an Elite too, in lieu of wielding a freakin’ S-rank tome by that point, and in such a strategic position (compouned when the Elwind reinforcement hsows up, and they cna both hit the same square 2 spaces away from the ledge).

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