Thracia 776 Hypothetical Thracian Hard Mode

[Jedi]

Now as discussed in my previous topic, Thracia had a more unique sense of what difficulty was. I've been toying with the idea since then (thanks for the input btw).

About a FE5 Hard Mode patch of sorts. What elements would make the game more difficult without making it stupid and or making it like say.. Super Thracia? Like would a hard mode go against what made Thracia a good game in the first place?

All input is welcome!

[Integrity]

imo no shops/arenas, maybe captured weapons have 1/2 durability

what makes thracia difficult is/should be wearing you down, stuff like this would contribute to it

[Jedi]

imo no shops/arenas, maybe captured weapons have 1/2 durability

what makes thracia difficult is/should be wearing you down, stuff like this would contribute to it

That could work, although I'd have to figure out how to do the latter.

Do you think scrolls being less good would also contribute?

[Ishi]

No scrolls would really make the game harder. It's essentially limits how useful a unit is. Say goodbye to max strength speed and defense Leaf.

[Lantairu]

imo no shops/arenas, maybe captured weapons have 1/2 durability

what makes thracia difficult is/should be wearing you down, stuff like this would contribute to it

Instead of captured weapons having 1/2 durability, it would be cooler and make more sense if the enemies used up durability like player units.

Also, great idea. I like the ideas so far. Also, maybe make the RNG less messed up.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Lantairu

[Integrity]

obviously it would make it harder but i think massive nerf of scrolls (limiting it to 1 or 2 especially) would help ONLY IF you did a total rebalance of enemy stats to compensate; i don't know but i think the enemies might get a bit of an edge going on man-for-man without any scrolls, which is kind of counter to thracia's difficulty

Instead of captured weapons having 1/2 durability, it would be cooler and make more sense if the enemies used up durability like player units.

wouldn't work, most enemies would die with like 43/45 durability on their weapons. it would be cool and make more sense, but would have literally zero effect on the game.

MODEDIT: shit this isn't fftf

Edited August 16, 2015 by Integrity

[Lord Raven]

Removing Stamina Drinks would make things harder too

[Integrity]

Removing Stamina Drinks would make things harder too

limiting them, definitely, but there should still be a way to get around fatigue in emergencies. since hard modes are intended for experienced players, limiting their handout to certain points in the game (hell, maybe even story-mandated where they make sense, like when you meet seliph and when you sleep at glade's crib etc) would be better imo

Edited August 16, 2015 by Integrity

[Lantairu]

wouldn't work, most enemies would die with like 43/45 durability on their weapons. it would be cool and make more sense, but would have literally zero effect on the game.

True. Maybe raise enemy stats too?

[Integrity]

True. Maybe raise enemy stats too?

that's the most extreme example of fake difficulty, and should be avoided at all costs, lol

lowering weapon durability by a third across the board and making enemies use durability when they hit might help, but it would also accelerate the sort of ludicrous fire emblem durability problem - if i had an axe break after 25 uses, i'd sure as fuck take it back to TSC and get a goddamn refund lol

EDIT: my solution is more like far cry 2's solution, where you can loot weapons from enemies to keep yourself going but they're of middling to horrible quality, handicapping you, but when you grab fresh weapons from your stock they last a while

Edited August 16, 2015 by Integrity

[dondon151]

- enemies later in the game shouldn't be terribad

- lowering weapon durability is a dumb idea

- scrolls no longer give +growths or are like FE12 starshards where they give small +stats (they still negate crit)

- no movement stars

making enemies tougher isn't "fake" difficulty. it's not like making enemies tougher would make thracia harder if you already knew what you're doing, but it at least discourages super beefed up juggernauts from doing juggernaut things

Edited August 16, 2015 by dondon151

[Anouleth]

I'm not sure why you think that reducing weapon durability would matter that much. It would just make things more frustrating for the average player who plays "properly" (by engaging in lots of combat) and make no difference at all for experienced players who try to avoid combat anyway because it's a massive waste of time. Removing scrolls is a really bad idea because critical rate is so high in this game... if it weren't for scrolls, your units would be constantly getting crit by everything.

[Jedi]

- enemies later in the game shouldn't be terribad

- lowering weapon durability is a dumb idea

- scrolls no longer give +growths or are like FE12 starshards where they give small +stats (they still negate crit)

- no movement stars

making enemies tougher isn't "fake" difficulty. it's not like making enemies tougher would make thracia harder if you already knew what you're doing, but it at least discourages super beefed up juggernauts from doing juggernaut things

I'll also take this all into consideration. I like your scroll idea actually in particular.

Also another hypothetical, if I did mess with stats, would doing the GBA styled HM bonuses for enemy characters (if possible), be worth doing?

I'm not sure why you think that reducing weapon durability would matter that much. It would just make things more frustrating for the average player who plays "properly" (by engaging in lots of combat) and make no difference at all for experienced players who try to avoid combat anyway because it's a massive waste of time. Removing scrolls is a really bad idea because critical rate is so high in this game... if it weren't for scrolls, your units would be constantly getting crit by everything.

Yeah I'm not removing scrolls lol. Also I think he's onto something with the weapon durability considering Thracia's general tone, its just a question of how to do it effectively and yet not gimp people in a strange way.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Jedi

[dondon151]

Also another hypothetical, if I did mess with stats, would doing the GBA styled HM bonuses for enemy characters (if possible), be worth doing?

scaling HM bonuses like in FE6, except maybe not to the same degree. leave the beginning of the game unchanged and start bonuses in chapter 8, then scale from 3 levels in chapter 8 to 12 levels in final or something like that.

[LB44]

Isn't the enemy using up weapon durability when they hit already a thing in vanilla Thracia? Basically what would contribute to a hard mode Thracia 776 for me would be limiting the amount of buyable stamina drinks, and different enemy positions and reinforcements. For example chapter 14, the defence mission, would be harder if the dark mages came by a turn or so earlier and from both sides. A handful of regular enemies with skills that have a slight impact such as vantage would also potentially have the player to approach the map in a different way.

[dondon151]

chapter 14 can be trivialized unless the dark mages came like turn 2, and even then it might still be trivialized the same way with just 3 unarmed mounted units blocking 3 chokepoints

[Mekkah]

How about limiting Warp/Rescue range? And in exchange maybe do something about Ch12 and Ch12x because they feel a little unfair without.

[Jedi]

How about limiting Warp/Rescue range? And in exchange maybe do something about Ch12 and Ch12x because they feel a little unfair without.

Will certainly look into this as well. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Gomez_Addams]

Unlimited reinforcements that start appearing on the 1st turn.

[Alazen]

The enemy stats should certainly be raised significantly. Enemy strength is always important for difficulty when it comes to a series like FE.

[Kiddo]

Terrible, horrible, sadistic ideas more suited for a Ragefest, that would nevertheless make a "hard" game:
1) Make heal staves have a 98% miss chance.
2) Every map has Fog of War.
3) Nerf capture. (Actual specifics? Make capture more difficult to successfully execute and/or restrict the benefits of capture to a single item or such.)
4) Every map starts with your team lacking weapons and needing to find them in chests. *cough*
5) Throw in Julius somewhere. Or everywhere. Every enemy is Julius.
6) Give the enemies Counter from FE:A and other broken-tier abilities. Who needs stats when you can just kill your enemy by taking a hit?
7) Make some item that is absolutely necessary to complete in the game - ah, I remembering hearing you needed some keys, right? Make the exact amount of keys necessary to complete the last level the absolute hardest item to get, probably requiring the capturing of three Julius's or something while standing at very specific tiles to trigger a critical event.
8) Force the player to pick n' choose between units even more, recruitment-wise. There's some scenarios in the game as it is where X character being recruited means Y is not avalable/leaves. Increase them. Also make all units in a map get completely fatigued so none of them can get in the next map.
9) Those capture tiles from that one map? Throw them everywhere.
10) Make it impossible to get a decent grade for a LTC run.

I predict absolutely none of these ideas will be followed (and for good reason. :P)
Just needed to get those out there.

[Gomez_Addams]

2) Every map has Fog of War.

9) Those capture tiles from that one map? Throw them everywhere.

10) Make it impossible to get a decent grade for a LTC run.

I think these are the best ideas of the bunch.

[Nintales]

I'd say a Hard Mode of Thracia would acknowledge the player knows all the bullshit in.

It mustn't have any bugs though. Super Thracia was trivialized because enemies can't attack for some reasons T3 Fliers, and therefore creating walls of meat to attack with canto (did it on my first run, I just wrecked the game once I realized the glitch)

Though it will be quite hard to be sadistic without being tedious. Mostly due to the 20 caps.

I don't really know how that would be doable. Thracia is a hard game blind, and is somewhat tedious when you know the tricks.

I don't really want a more tedious Thracia. Maybe the hard mode could remove all the tediousness to let the difficulty settle?

[Jave]

Saias is on every map as an enemy.

Boom.

Less joking, though, give a few extra Authority stars to every enemy boss.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Jave

[X-Naut]

-Less access to Warp, Rescue, and Rewarp; I'm thinking make Repair useless on them.

-Add a "minus range" component to the staff hit formula, an actual range cap, or both.

-Give enemies better yet more concrete stats. There are times where I feel like the FE5 level formula actually works like player leveling.

-Enemies get "forged" versions of weapons with higher Mt/Hit and better weapons in general; this works in both parties' favors.

-Scale up late-joining reinforcements to put the player under a time limit.