FE: Heart of Dawn ( Demo available )

[Augestein]

Can't say for Ashnard without actually having played the game tbh.

[Luchi]

Let's compare Endgame stats to Ashnard then. =)

I tend to work with final game stats then work my way backwards to get an idea of how to balance weapons, skills etc. Part of the fun of designing jRPGs is trying to create the most broken builds possible, but without ruining the challenge of the game. This is true if the final boss is extremely powerful and you need to exercise all the resources at your disposal to defeat it.

However, in traditional FE, a few broken units can completely trivialize the game and remove most of the strategic elements involved. This is why T.G Cid is the worse thing to happen to Final Fantasy Tactics. Same with RD!Ike, Haar, Titania and Seth for FE.

Vs. all forms of Ashnard. aka a three-part battle.

Elincia

Level 20 Crimean Queen ( nearly exactly the same as her T3 caps in vanilla RD )

HP: 61

Str: 30

Mag: 37

Def: 22

Spd: 36

Growths:

75% HP

65% Str

80% Mag

30% Def

70% Spd

22 base Def -> 46 Def with the right set-up

- +5 from her Ridell Gem, +6 from her armour ( armour bonus is equal to Con value in the vanilla games )

- +5 S-Support w/Lucia ( Earth supports grant DEF bonuses )

- +3 to all stats Rainbow Cry, +5 Def +10 Critical from Dual Support+

46 Defence Elincia can take two of Beast Ashnard's hits.

45 base ATK with Amiti -> 53 ATK with Rainbow Cry + Rally Strength scroll

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lucia

Level 20 Swordmaster

HP: 62

Str: 35

Mag: 18

Def: 25

Spd: 40

Growths:

80% HP

65% Str

35% Mag

65% Spd

40% Def

25 base DEF -> 45 DEF

- +7 DEF from the Defender sword ( 12 Mt, 80 Hit, -10 Spd )

- +5 S-Support w/Elincia ( Earth supports grant DEF bonuses )

- +3 to all stats Rainbow Cry, +5 Def +10 Critical from Dual Support+ ( Learned skill at level 15 )

47 base ATK w/Defender

50 base ATK w/Vague Katti ( 15 Mt, 90 Hit, +3 Def ) if Elincia's Mercy spell is in play. Otherwise, she can't take more than two hits from Beast!Ashnard.

S-Supports are a thing, yes. Gay options for Tellius. :D

I put a lot of thought into how some of Awakening's skills could work in a proper RPG, as well as factoring in class skills and whatnot. It's one of the reasons why I prefer to keep a small roster ( <20) of units to make balancing a lot easier.

[Augestein]

It shouldn't be too bad provided the enemy doesn't get happy and start targeting the same person over and over, but provided I can have someone to pull agro, that could plausibly work.

[Troykv]

True, 99% of all fan-games on this site are made with ROM hacks. It wouldn't work for Tellius, which in itself works very well as a jRPG once the enormous cast is cut in half and fleshed out properly. So I stuck to a engine ( which I've been working with for seven years ) which does a fine job at re-imagining FE9 as a traditional Japanese Role-Playing game.

The only downside is that these kind of games can become fairly large due to uncompressed audio, along with all the graphics that are included.

I don't think I included the base stats of the playable units so far. Skill Scrolls can be unequipped at any point. It allows the player to mix and match abilities.

Unit Stats

I don't intend on making Titania playable. Same with most mounts/fliers. Doesn't really work for the game's battle system.

Elincia

Princess Level 1

HP: 20

MP: 10

Str: 3

Mag: 7

Def: 3

Spd: 6

Uses: Light magic, Staves

Base Skill Scroll: Renewal ( recovers 10% of maxHP per turn of battle )

Lucia

Swordmaster Level 1

HP: 36

MP: 16

Str: 18

Mag: 12

Def: 13

Spd: 23

Uses: Swords

Base Skill Scroll: Vantage ( always allows the user to attack first, regardless of speed )

Ike

Mercenary Level 4

HP: 23

MP: 4

Str: 10

Mag: 5

Def: 8

Spd: 10

Uses: Swords

Base Skill Scroll: None

Soren

Mage Level 3

HP: 18

MP: 15

Str: 5

Mag: 15

Def: 4

Spd: 10

Uses: Wind magic

Base Skill Scroll: Adept ( allows two consecutive attacks )

Gatrie

Knight Level 9

HP: 32

MP: 9

Str: 14

Mag: 5

Def: 14

Spd: 8

Uses: Lances

Base Skill Scroll: None

Shinon

Sniper Level 1

HP: 38

MP: 11

Str: 18

Mag: 4

Def: 13

Spd: 15

Uses: Bows

Base Skill Scroll: Provoke ( enemies have a higher chance of targeting this unit )

Lucia and Shinon had to redeem themselves, after all... Those fantastic growths of theirs went to complete waste in vanilla FE9.

I'm happy to see someone trying to do something different (whatever is the reason... just something different) :D

How many units do you think this game will have?

[Luchi]

The Provoke skill will divert attacks to just one unit, so enemies don't gang up on your hapless, low-def mages ( or Elincia ). So it's a great skill for a tank like Gatrie or Mordercai to have.

For a playable roster, maybe around 15-20 units at most. Permadeath is still a thing so I may expand the unit roster to around 25. Since I'm writing original Base Conversations and original Supports, I don't want to work with a large cast and I'd rather focus on quality over quantity while the rest of the cast will be delegated to NPCs.

But here's a rough list:

Permanently playable

Elincia

Lucia

Ike

Soren

Gatrie

I think his reasons for remaining with the group are pretty obvious...

Shinon

Stays for his own personal reasons. I need another ranged attack apart from Elincia/Soren, after all.

Mia

Expands on the 'white-robed?' rival that never came to anything in vanilla FE9/10.

Lethe

Plot important, establishes racial divide between beorc/laguz

Mordecai

Need another 'tank' and a playable laguz

Volke

Plot important, though it's more for investigating Izuka/Bertram than the whole Gawain/Greil scenario

Nephenee

Need a primary lance user

Kieran

Jill

Same reasons as Lethe

Janaff

Ulki

Tauroneo

Obviously not finalised.

Temporarily playable

Greil

Naesala

Tibarn

Giffca

Ena

Nasir

Important NPCs

Mist

Titania

Stefan

Tanith

Reyson

Bastian

I'm open to suggestion for about... 4 more permanently playable units? I know I need another mage, but I'm not too sure which one to take... Just no more sword users. Four is enough at the moment.

Support Pairs:

Some pairings may only go up to B-rank however and limited to three per unit. Most, if not all, are completely original now.

C - Aquaintance

B - Friend

A - Best Friend

S - Up to player interpretation

The brackets indicate maximum support level.

Elincia x Lucia (S)

Elincia x Kieran (B)

Elincia x Soren (B)

Lucia x Elincia (S)

Lucia x Mia (A)

Lucia x Volke (B)

Ike x Soren (S)

Ike x Lethe (B)

Ike x Mia (A)

Soren x Ike (S)

Soren x Elincia (B)

Soren x Mordercai (A)

Gatrie x Shinon (A)

Gatrie x Nephenee (S)

Gatrie x Lethe (B)

Shinon x Gatrie (A)

Shinon x Lethe (B)

Shinon x Janaff (B)

Mia x Lucia (A)

Mia x Ike (A)

Mia x Kieran (B)

Obviously not done, but I can tell I'm going to have a lot of fun writing these new scenes. Like Gatrie trying to woo Nephenee.

Or Lethe and Shinon's interactions with each other. It may seem like a lot of dialogue for just one person to write, but bare in mind that I've been writing video game dialogue for seven years, so character interaction comes naturally once I understand what makes a character tick.

[Augestein]

Honestly, I'd probably have Oscar instead of Nephenee on the account that Oscar is connected with the Crimean knights in the past while Nephenee doesn't really know anyone outside of Brom. I suppose it's a good way to get a militia perspective rather than a knight's perspective, but I just thought I should throw that out there.

As for 4 more units, you could expand upon the time spent in Begnion and have Muarim and Tormod become more important there. Maybe giving them a more fleshed out arc, and then having them permanently join the team for their cause. That would give you another mage and a tiger laguz. Although, you only have 1 primary axe user and that's Kieran. Unless Jill is going to use axes in this version? I mean she randomly had them in RD, so it's a thought.

For me, I'd say

Muarim

Tormod - You could even have Calill appear as a teacher for him like she does in her supports where Elincia hires Calill to teach soldiers to cast spells.

Mist - (I know you wanted her to be a NPC, but you only have one healer, and she's the most important not Elincia healer in the game, and having another one would allow Elincia to not be pigeonholed into being the healer).

Oscar - For the reasons I mentioned earlier.

[Luchi]

I was thinking of adding in Tormod and Muarim too. But I'll see how things go. May bench Nephenee for Oscar ( I'm not a fan of her and never liked the Soldier class ) Trying to balance out a roster of even 25 units is tricky.

First 8 minutes of the game

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Aww... too bad I can't watch it in my country.

Is there a way to fix it to make it possible that everyone can watch?

Edited September 25, 2016 by Ayama Wirdo

[Augestein]

I like it, but that text sound is honestly annoying. It's too aggressive to play constantly like that. It's honestly distracting.

[Luchi]

The beeping sound effects can be disabled easily enough with a simple script call. I admit, I wanted to emulate classical FE, but the letter effects do sound odd without the animated portraits ( which I can do as well, but the amount of portraits in the 'Faces' folder would be HUGE, not to mention the amount of work involved ).

I just want to know general thoughts on the battle system. While still in it's infant stages, it is a lot different from the typical grid-based combat of traditional FE, making it pretty jarring for a fan of the series. But just because the battles are turn-based like Final Fantasy does not mean you can just mash the attack button/use your strongest skills and hope for victory ( which is one of the first tell-tale signs of those who are new to creating games with RPGMaker ). jRPGs by default, can match the meanest FE game in terms of difficulty ( see the SMT games ).

Enemies are naturally weak in the beginning but grow in power over the course of the game, with each class having a specific set of skills much like your own units. One thing I found grossly unfair in the Tellius games was that you could throw a plethora of skills onto your own units, but enemies rarely had abilities of their own, rendering skills like Parity and Nihil useless. Unless the enemy was a Boss, that is (who were lame by themselves in any case). So, combat is quite fair if you train your units well.

A few examples:

--------------------

Knights/Generals - Buff the party's overall Defence and Attack stats.

Myrmidons/Swordmasters - Raise party speed and deal critical hits.

Cavs/Paladins - Healing buffs and debuffing ( because fielding Healers would make them sitting ducks, unless they have surprisingly high DEF/SPD ).

Mages/Sages - AoE magic that can inflict various statuses. Fire sages may wield Light magic ( since Priests/Bishops won't be fielded )

With regards to plot, Ike and his Mercs bugger off when they escort Elincia to Gallia. Greil bluntly stipulates to Elincia that they were asked to escort her to the land of the laguz, which they did. This leaves room for not only a more original plot ( like Ashnard pursues Elincia, only to be scared off by Caineghis ) but it also enables me to add the beast-laguz as playable units ( Lethe, Mordecai and Ranulf ), who would then accompany the group to Begnoin so Sanaki can recognise Elincia as Crimea's rightful heir... (none of that Ike bullshit, though I would have loved to see him get sent to the gallows then Mist takes over as Merc leader #NeedMoreFemaleLeads)

So that's a rough plan.

[blah the Prussian]

So if Ike buggers off, does that mean that there isn't going to be a Black Knight? Please say yes.

[Luchi]

There is a 99.9999% chance that yes, I will kick Burger King out of my game. He has no connection to the protagonist, after all, and Ashnard is superior to him in every way. I will spare myself the rant of how the Black Knight/Ike relationship screws over FE9 in every possible way...

[ghast]

Wow, this sure is neat!

Best of luck with this project, I'd love to try it out.

Keep up the very snazzy and unique work

[Augestein]

The beeping sound effects can be disabled easily enough with a simple script call. I admit, I wanted to emulate classical FE, but the letter effects do sound odd without the animated portraits ( which I can do as well, but the amount of portraits in the 'Faces' folder would be HUGE, not to mention the amount of work involved ).

I just want to know general thoughts on the battle system. While still in it's infant stages, it is a lot different from the typical grid-based combat of traditional FE, making it pretty jarring for a fan of the series. But just because the battles are turn-based like Final Fantasy does not mean you can just mash the attack button/use your strongest skills and hope for victory ( which is one of the first tell-tale signs of those who are new to creating games with RPGMaker ). jRPGs by default, can match the meanest FE game in terms of difficulty ( see the SMT games ).

Enemies are naturally weak in the beginning but grow in power over the course of the game, with each class having a specific set of skills much like your own units. One thing I found grossly unfair in the Tellius games was that you could throw a plethora of skills onto your own units, but enemies rarely had abilities of their own, rendering skills like Parity and Nihil useless. Unless the enemy was a Boss, that is (who were lame by themselves in any case). So, combat is quite fair if you train your units well.

A few examples:

--------------------

Knights/Generals - Buff the party's overall Defence and Attack stats.

Myrmidons/Swordmasters - Raise party speed and deal critical hits.

Cavs/Paladins - Healing buffs and debuffing ( because fielding Healers would make them sitting ducks, unless they have surprisingly high DEF/SPD ).

Mages/Sages - AoE magic that can inflict various statuses. Fire sages may wield Light magic ( since Priests/Bishops won't be fielded )

With regards to plot, Ike and his Mercs bugger off when they escort Elincia to Gallia. Greil bluntly stipulates to Elincia that they were asked to escort her to the land of the laguz, which they did. This leaves room for not only a more original plot ( like Ashnard pursues Elincia, only to be scared off by Caineghis ) but it also enables me to add the beast-laguz as playable units ( Lethe, Mordecai and Ranulf ), who would then accompany the group to Begnoin so Sanaki can recognise Elincia as Crimea's rightful heir... (none of that Ike bullshit, though I would have loved to see him get sent to the gallows then Mist takes over as Merc leader #NeedMoreFemaleLeads)

So that's a rough plan.

I'm liking the basis for the battle system, but I'd like to see a full party before I say much. It doesn't seem too bad, and seems pretty strategical in the sense that you can see what you're up against without having to waste time or turns.

The plot seems more interesting than PoR, that's for sure.

[かベリー]

I've only read an LP of PoR ages ago (Didn't understand any of the plot tbh), I'm happy to hear that someone is making not only an FE RPG, but also one that's about Tellius and is available for me to play. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this thread.

[Luchi]

Can I pose a question?

The game can support animated side-view battlers much like the GBA games ( with animated enemies too ) but the sheer amount of sprite work involved would be too much for one person to handle. I'm wondering if there are any talented spriters out there who could help me with this? I'd like to involve the community, after all. =)

As for the plot:

... I'm thinking of a way to let Elincia be in the possession of the medallion instead of Mist, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to pull it off without doing an ass-pull ( the fact that the holder of the medallion needs to have an excessive amount of order not to go ballistic strikes me as pretty Sue-ish tbqh. Unless you're a Heron, of course ) or doing something that doesn't tie in with Tellius lore.

And I definitely do not want to write Elincia as a pure-hearted, innocent angel who can hold the medallion without going crazy.

Though I always did wonder why the Daien army was pursuing her in FE9. Was it because they wanted her dead, or was it because she was originally slated to be the actual carrier of Lehran's Medallion in an earlier draft...? The latter would have made a lot more sense. Because then Ashnard would have had a personal connection with Elincia, and we wouldn't have ended up with that ridiculous anti-climax at the beginning of Ch.29/Endgame.

But Ike's far less interesting little sister gets to carry it because of lol #family coincidence (see below). Ashnard will probably have every reason to pursue Elincia if she had the medallion.

http://www.tor.com/2009/01/16/coincidence-or-contrivance

Even Harry Potter is not safe from contrived coincidences...

Think of how many coincidences allows the plot of FE9/10 to develop and sets Ike up to be such a 'great' hero. Definitely more than 3.

His mother just happened to befriend a Heron princess, who had the Fire Emblem. Elena also just happened to have so much order in her that she hold the medallion without going berserk. She also just happened to marry a man (who not only trained Zelgius, but also happens to be stronger than a Branded swordsman which in itself is highly improbable). Zelgius just happens to be not only Ashnard's right hand man, but Sephiran's as well. Ike just happens to stumble across a Branded swordsman in the middle of a desert who just happens to teach him a technique that will enable him to defeat BK.... Seriously.

The list goes on and on and on. That is bad writing. All examples of plot contrivance. Think of how different the game would have been without it. Just removing the Black Knight from the picture changes everything. Greil can still be that 'cool old guy', Ike can still be a regular, blunt mercenary who is doing his job and Elincia would still become Queen in the end. BK just exists to make Ike look wtfawesome(not) in RD.

#rant over

Anyway, now you know why I'm rewriting the game that everyone and their mother thinks has the best plot in the series. :/

Oh, the game can be played with a mouse, keyboard or gamepad. I'll try to get another video up sometime during next week.

[NJ7009]

If you want Elincia to have the Fire Emblem, you could just have her keep it in a bunch of cloth and carry it in a bag. There are tons of ways to get around her having the Emblem but not touching it - and if you do it that way, then it stops Elincia seeming Sueish :) it even fits in with Tellian lore as Petrine, Nasir and Ena hold onto it in the core game without going ballistic due to this method.

This project looks really interesting so far :) I'm eager to play it when it's done.

[Augestein]

I honestly don't mind coincidences and conveniences when they don't stretch the limit on plausibility. IE, if they occur too rapidly or are simply put, outlandish. For instance, in a story I have, I keep having a woman find a man despite them being in several different places. Even though the dialogue has her saying things like "what a coincidence" and the like, that is not the case. The woman isn't being honest. She's not coincidentally bumping into him, she's tracking him. She's actively following him. Outside of their first coincidentally meeting (where she even gets the idea of using him), the rest of them aren't random chance. But the main character(s) don't realize this because so many things are happening to them that they don't really feel the need to comment on it.

The issue with Ike here, is that he's not important. You could make him Zihark for all I care and it wouldn't change anything except the BK subplot-- which doesn't have any importance at all. And the game keeps going out of its way to have other characters that Ike runs into do things to continuously shove him into the limelight. I mean seriously, what you pointed out doesn't even begin to touch the tip of the iceberg. I can name some more:

1) The first in command for the GMs die, and rather than the second in command taking over (like a good second in command should do), she hands over leadership to not just a less senior member, but their newest member. If anyone else besides Titania should have been leader, it should have been : Titania, Shinon/Soren, Gatrie, Oscar... Hell, even Boyd would have made more sense. Ike is the worst possible choice you could have here outside of Mist and Rolf.

2) In addition to this happening, most of the people that are in the group don't just scatter to the four winds -- which is already stretching plausibility.

3) Daein doesn't give the GMs the opportunity to hand Elinicia over and just flat out paying them thus forcing Ike to fight for his life rather than necessarily to save Elincia before it actually becomes his job. If their goal is to kill / capture Elincia, why do they keep insisting on fighting the group that's traveling with her? Just parley with them and take the girl. You don't HAVE to fight them.

4) The laguz make up nonsense that Begnion would fight Gallia for aiding Elincia because of "lol racism" when realistically considering that Crimea and Gallia had an alliance, the expected response would be that they should have expected Gallia to respond by fighting Daein. Begnion would have no reason to join the war outside of wanting to claim more land, which is definitely possible, but you'd think they would help destroy Daein as that would be fighting one country rather than two. Not to mention that Daein was the aggressor and attacked without provocation, which is definitely something an empire would not want sitting right next to them.

And bear in mind that this is literally like... Not even the first half of the chapters of the game. The backstory with Elena at least gives

Ike's family a reason to have the medallion. All the events that transpire like Greil killing Elena are direct ramifications of having the medallion. Greil dying only happens because one of the scouts (The BK in this case), recognizes Greil and kills him.

None of that actually particularly bothers me. But the issue is that all of these things that happen are a subplot at best. It's a driving force to Ike, but it has nothing to do with Elincia, nor does it have anything to do with actually stopping Ashnard. In the end of the day, all Ashnard cares about in this situation is the medallion. He doesn't even care about Ike himself. in the end of the day, the story is about how a woman reclaimed her kingdom. Not how a guy stumbled around and got paraded around as a hero.

As for the perspective, I don't really care about the perspective of the battle system. When I was younger I used to care about seeing the characters, now that I'm older and know how much effort it takes, it's not a make or break sort of ordeal for me.

[かベリー]

I personally think the front view system works well as it is, sideview takes a lot of effort and resources and I just don't think it'll fit the atmosphere of the game as much.

[MrNight48]

this is so impressive, I will be brutally honest.

-The sprites in the world seem a little bit too big but other than that this kind of feels like a chrono trigger x FE crossover and that is awesome.

- as someone who is a huge fan of the black knight and the whole Ike vs BK plot, I definitely approve of you taking it out of your story because it does make sense that elincia doesn't deal with that. hell you could even say she hired him for that reason and he deals with the black knight offscreen and that would be the end of it because that would fit in her perspective. That is one of the things that makes this interesting, in Ike's eyes he saw a fawning princess who needs help but from her perspective, he is just a hired sword and she deals with a lot of battles he doesn't know about.

so yeah, good luck and godspeed because this concept/game you got here is looking pretty damn good.

[Luchi]

I remember in the original game that Elincia only ever used her happy sprite when talking to Lucia <3

Base conversations + Main Menu added.

I prefer the front-view battles as well. Seeing chibi sprites darting to and fro really kills any sort of game immersion for me, tbqh. I mean, I've been using the front-view perspective for all the video games I've developed thus far.

[blah the Prussian]

Some advice from a design perspective: it might help to have a clearer indicator of where everything is on the base screen. It isn't necessary by any means, but it would help.

[Augestein]

Some advice from a design perspective: it might help to have a clearer indicator of where everything is on the base screen. It isn't necessary by any means, but it would help.

Agreed. There's nothing really to indicate where to click. It's one of those things you'd get used to, but I feel you shouldn't have to if you catch my drift...

[Luchi]

That should probably solve it.

[Augestein]

Perfect.