Let's talk about stat inflation

[Jotari]

In the first game the universal stat cap for every stat was 20. In modern games stat caps hover around the mid thirties in dominant stats and late twenties even in non dominant stats. With that, growth rates have also steadily increased quite a bit. A growth isn't really considered good unless they're proccing 5/8 stats in most cases. What does this mean for gameplay? Well first off it means bases are less important in an inflated system. If characters have a reasonable chance of growing stronger, than how weak they are to start isn't quite as important, compared to a more static system where if you start off with bad bases, you're likely to stay that way. Higher stats also make skills like Luna and Aether much more powerful, as if the enemy has a higher defensive stat, ignoring half of it means you're dealing a lot more damage, as typically, despite the high stats, the amount of damage dealt to enemies remains pretty similar between all games. Boosting stats via stat boosters or skills also has less of an impact in a high inflation system. In the first game in particular stat boosters were basically broken, while in a modern game +2 to defense isn't quite as big a difference to a unit as it used to be. It's also probably why we've only recently seen rally and debuff skills as they've only recently become viable as gameplay elements thanks to stat inflation.

So, what do you think of the pros and cons of high vs low stat inflation, are there any elements I didn't mention or are there any reasons you like one over the other?

Edited August 7, 2018 by Jotari

[Slumber]

I'd argue bases are more important in games with heavy stat inflation. A unit with bad bases can become borderline unusable in very short time if the enemies are also subject to this. Once enemy stats start increasing, there's really not a safe way to get characters with bad bases up to speed.

Good bases become more negligible, but bad bases can become much more of an issue.

Regardless, I'm not a fan of the modern stat inflation. Every playable unit becomes just a blob of similar stats. Radiant Dawn arguably handles it the best, since that game is just sooooooo long that it generally matches the pace of the game. However, units like Fiona and Meg are poster units for units with bases that are so bad that there's essentially no hope for them.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Slumber

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Slumber said:

I'd argue bases are more important in games with heavy stat inflation. A unit with bad bases can become borderline unusable in very short time if the enemies are also subject to this. Once enemy stats start increasing, there's really not a safe way to get characters with bad bases up to speed.

Regardless, I'm not a fan of the modern stat inflation. Every playable unit becomes just a blob of similar stats. Radiant Dawn arguably handles it the best, since that game is just sooooooo long that it generally matches the pace of the game. However, units like Fiona and Meg are poster units for units with bases that are so bad that there's essentially no hope for them.

Well you obviously can get screwed with too bad bases, but on the whole, some Radiant Dawn examples aside, I feel like bases were more important in the SNES and GBA days. There is logic in what you say though, so maybe they've just tried to balance character bases better in the 3DS era (although Nyx still suffers heavily from bad bases as far as I've heard, not sure myself as I've never even attempted to use her).

[Slumber]

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well you obviously can get screwed with too bad bases, but on the whole, some Radiant Dawn examples aside, I feel like bases were more important in the SNES and GBA days. There is logic in what you say though, so maybe they've just tried to balance character bases better in the 3DS era (although Nyx still suffers heavily from bad bases as far as I've heard, not sure myself as I've never even attempted to use her).

I'm not sure bases were even all that important in the SNES days. Possibly for NM, but I don't think that game is quite as rough as the GBA games in that regard. But for FE4 and FE5? FE4 was mount central. As long as a unit had the possibility of that and Pursuit, they were instantly usable. Leif is probably one of the worst units in that game starting out, but he still ends up being possibly the best unit in that game. And enemy stats in FE5 were so low and EXP is so plentiful that growths(And modifying growths with Scrolls) take precedence, barring a few examples where units have insane skills or weapons.

GBA is bases central, though.

Rev Nyx is a big one, but I can recall it happening elsewhere. I don't know if I've ever used Ricken in runs where I don't grind, and of course there's Donnel, where the game essentially challenges you to use him. 

Edited August 7, 2018 by Slumber

[NobodiePichu]

prepromotes are the most hurt by stat inflation in my opinion, you can see it quite easily in fe11 actually where characters like astram get painfully overshadowed by alternatives who have more room to grow. to pick a more modern example, reina could have been a decent unit but thanks to stat inflation she quickly gets overshadowed by better alternatives (frankly not helped by her bad growths). or we go the opposite direction with the promoted fates royals or say'ri who, in order to maintain gameplay relevance, become overpowered by an almost disgusting degree.

frankly if reclassing was not a thing in awakening, and was not built the way it is, frederick would be one of the worst units in the series.

[Re: The weirdo.]

40 minutes ago, NobodiePichu said:

frankly if reclassing was not a thing in awakening, and was not built the way it is, frederick would be one of the worst units in the series.

i disagree. i believe he would remain an absolutely crucial unit in lunatic and L+, and he is definitely nice to have in hard, though not crucial. he would definitely be the worst oifey though. still fantastic, as you cant go wrong with great bases and a mount early on, even if you bench him later.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Yes, base is actually the king in stats inflation.

 

L Awakening's real problem is despite the high enemy stats environment the game dares to give you the shittiest garbage imaginable, a quick comparison between FE12 Draug to Stahl and Sully in their respective chapter 1(Draug at CH1 main chapter) shows this blatantly where the later is 90.000 hko 2rko'd, Draug got mutual 2HKO. Even not considering FE12 as the same game where a character who is 2HKO'd is ridiculously good, 3HKO'd godlike, 4HKO'd is broken the quality difference is worlds apart. If theres one thing to fix with Awakening before everything else, its to make anyone who isn't Chrom and Frederick actually competent in the early game.

The perspective is kinda like this:

 

"Stats inflation, enemy unadjusted" -> Irrelevant, high base unit have inflated growth and stomps anyway e.g. Sirius during FE12 HM where his stats is significantly worse than raised unpromotes, but its high enough to still stomp

"stats inflation, enemy adjusted" -> unit with good enough base to be competent and potentual to grows up to be stronger e.g. Robin and Frederick have the ease of getting competent area, and Awakening being Awakening, Frederick(if you did not touch the shitty class that is Wyvern Knight) and Robin solo with Chrom Pair Up is the easiest way to do Lunatic. FE12 Whitewings starts at the good area of getting 2HKO'd 100% of the time, so overtime they become a god who consistently died in 3 hits and it snowballs from there. Conversely while Arran is phenomenal against Chapter 1 as General, he can't really keep up.

 

It does says something that in Awakening HM Tier list, the list had decent variety of "basically same shit" with Sully and Stahl with some others decently high while on Lunatic its "Pegasus Knights, Mages, and the shitshow" for a reason. A list of "worst unit in the entire series" would basically have the meme units(tm) and a bunch of Awakening characters in it. At that point just pretend Awakening units doesn't exist because nobody want to really see 90 variations of "Gerome and Inigo is complete shit"

[Jerry Kuma]

Well no, even in a game with stat inflation, having good bases do matter. In a game like Awakening, despite everyone and their mother having good growths -- not everyone is created equally. Consider most of the characters that join in the prologue and the infamous chapter 2 on Lunatic... Only Fredrick, Avatar, and maybe Chrom are actually going to be useful. Since everyone else is only really good for doing chip damage considering that everyone else gets ORKO'd or even OHKO. So yeah.. bases >>> growths even when everyone has the potential to solo maps.

[Griffinlwgameplayer]

Unless you are playing on Lunatic, everyone and their mother, son, father, and daughter are completely viable, as long as you give them some training. Maybe it's because I'm a casual player, but even Donell, you know the weakest bases in Awakening, can work out perfectly fine if you get him past the early area where he has trouble. In fact because of the way awakening works unless you are playing on lunatic you can train any unit you want into becoming the destroyer of worlds with 100% accuracy and enough speed to dodge people with a weapon triangle advantage against them. That's because Awakening had the highest growth rates in FE in years. It doesn't matter where someone started as long as they could win a battle you just had to get them a few levels and chances are they would level out, since the lowest character growths in the game still exceed 300% growth rate total

[Jerry Kuma]

Just now, Griffinlwgameplayer said:

Unless you are playing on Lunatic, everyone and their mother, son, father, and daughter are completely viable, as long as you give them some training. Maybe it's because I'm a casual player, but even Donell, you know the weakest bases in Awakening, can work out perfectly fine if you get him past the early area where he has trouble. In fact because of the way awakening works unless you are playing on lunatic you can train any unit you want into becoming the destroyer of worlds with 100% accuracy and enough speed to dodge people with a weapon triangle advantage against them. That's because Awakening had the highest growth rates in FE in years. It doesn't matter where someone started as long as they could win a battle you just had to get them a few levels and chances are they would level out, since the lowest character growths in the game still exceed 300% growth rate total

At the same time, that doesn't take away from the fact that you have still have to go out your way to "train" them. Compared to a character who has good or even decent bases where they can grow just by you playing the game normally.

[Griffinlwgameplayer]

1 minute ago, Jerry Kuma said:

At the same time, that doesn't take away from the fact that you have still have to go out your way to "train" them. Compared to a character who has good or even decent bases where they can grow just by you playing the game normally

Well yeah but there is a whole character archetype based around the idea of a character being very bad at the start and then becoming better than most characters over time. It's called the Est Archetype, Donell is one of those, and I heard they were supposed to be fairly popular in the Fire Emblem community.

[Jerry Kuma]

35 minutes ago, Griffinlwgameplayer said:

Well yeah but there is a whole character archetype based around the idea of a character being very bad at the start and then becoming better than most characters over time. It's called the Est Archetype, Donell is one of those, and I heard they were supposed to be fairly popular in the Fire Emblem community.

Many would disagree... Mainly because the Est Archetype is usually used to refer to character who joins late with sub-par stats, but has high growth rates. Allowing them to theoretically "catch up" then surpass other units. Donnel really fits in to another archetype, the Kliff archetype. Which are characters who are usually in the villager or some civilian class but has potential to grow stronger as the game progresses (mainly from their ability to promote into other classes and due to them having higher EXP gain... usually).

Actually, some in the Fire Emblem community (admittedly these people are more hardcore fans) would say that Ests and Kliffs aren't good characters due to the amount of time you need to invest in order to make them grow. Potentially sacrificing the growth of another,  more better character. (even though personally I think that most Kliffs aren't as bad as most people say they are since they join so early in the game and usually have an higher EXP gain among other perks to make using them more rewarding/easier)

Edited August 7, 2018 by Jerry Kuma

[Shadow Mir]

38 minutes ago, Griffinlwgameplayer said:

Well yeah but there is a whole character archetype based around the idea of a character being very bad at the start and then becoming better than most characters over time. It's called the Est Archetype, Donell is one of those, and I heard they were supposed to be fairly popular in the Fire Emblem community.

You mean the supposed "archetype" that has all but vanished into the ether as far as recent memory goes (as have most archetypes)??? Also, you'd be wrong, since Est units generally join late.

[X-Naut]

The main issue with stat inflation is that it exacerbates the "rich get richer, poor get poorer" situation regarding character stats, but another problem is that Fire Emblem's leveling system isn't designed for the higher stat scales of later games. 20+20 levels isn't enough to bring stats starting in the single digits into the thirties without growth rates in excess of the 60s. The resulting "average" growth range of 50-55 is dangerous because it has the highest chance of going one way or the other. Win the dice rolls and you can snowball with sufficient EXP, but lose them and it's that much easier to fall behind. Radiant Dawn actually had a decent idea to control this with a third tier, but with BEXP and a lack of diminishing returns it was easy to game the system and snowball.

@JSND Alter Dragon Boner also highlighted another stat inflation problem, the volume of enemy stat scaling. While increasing enemy stats is an acceptable way to increase difficulty, sometimes the gap between the easiest and hardest is too high. This is at its worst early on, but it can also hurt late-joiners who were balanced around Normal or Hard if they even tried, as seen in FE12 and FE14!Rev. And while it's happened in games with narrower stat scales (FE12), it only gets worse when the stats get higher.

[Shoblongoo]

"stat inflation" between games is less important than the enemies within a given game correctly scaling throughout the course of the game to the power level of your units, in such a way as to keep the game challenging but fair.

And this is true for both growths and bases.

Like [Lunatic] conquest is a mode of play where despite your units having absolutely monstrous base stats and growths compared to other games in the series, there's never really any point in the campaign where it feels like the enemy isn't keeping up with them.

Whereas in a game like sacred stones or shadows of valentia may be working with lower base stats and growths, but your units are going to feel more overpowered because the enemies are so shit. 

Stats and growths should be tailored for and make sense in their own stand-alone games. That's the key to good, balanced gameplay.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 hours ago, NobodiePichu said:

reina could have been a decent unit but thanks to stat inflation she quickly gets overshadowed by better alternatives (frankly not helped by her bad growths)

Gunter has it far far worse, even with his excellent skill access. Reina is with a little work able to ORKO from the beginning to the end, her Spd and Darting Blow are enough for this, she just needs some work on her Str and Skl to secure the kills. This said, she has no durability, at all.

 

I think Awakening had the right idea with Hard and Lunatic mode bonuses for characters who join later, even those who aren't enemies. (Said bonuses were found in FE7 intentionally, and FE6 unintentionally, but for some reason later games dropped them.)

The issue was that Libra's +2 HP, +1 Str/Mag/Spd/Lck/Def/Res was much less than what the enemies had gained on Lunatic. I understand the issue of balancing these buffs with enemy stat increases so as to not result in the mode being no harder than easier settings due to the stat buff on both sides. And how it'd be potentially unfair to those who join earlier and get no such bonuses, despite having to deal with stronger enemies from the start as well. Even so, this isn't a bad idea, it just needs careful balancing.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

"stat inflation" between games is less important than the enemies within a given game correctly scaling throughout the course of the game to the power level of your units, in such a way as to keep the game challenging but fair.

And this is true for both growths and bases.

Like [Lunatic] conquest is a mode of play where despite your units having absolutely monstrous base stats and growths compared to other games in the series, there's never really any point in the campaign where it feels like the enemy isn't keeping up with them.

Whereas in a game like sacred stones or shadows of valentia may be working with lower base stats and growths, but your units are going to feel more overpowered because the enemies are so shit. 

Stats and growths should be tailored for and make sense in their own stand-alone games. That's the key to good, balanced gameplay.

What? Doesn't Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia have some of the strongest enemy quality? Summoned monsters aside?

[Shoblongoo]

46 minutes ago, Jotari said:

What? Doesn't Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia have some of the strongest enemy quality? Summoned monsters aside?

Post-game crossing to Archanea and delving into Thabes labyrinth, shadows finally starts to feel like its scaling to the power level of the player's party.

Main game of Shadows from part 3 onward only ever felt like the enemies were scaled to challenge a leveled party on blitzkrieg runs.  
 

Edited August 7, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Griffinlwgameplayer said:

Unless you are playing on Lunatic, everyone and their mother, son, father, and daughter are completely viable, as long as you give them some training. Maybe it's because I'm a casual player, but even Donell, you know the weakest bases in Awakening, can work out perfectly fine if you get him past the early area where he has trouble. In fact because of the way awakening works unless you are playing on lunatic you can train any unit you want into becoming the destroyer of worlds with 100% accuracy and enough speed to dodge people with a weapon triangle advantage against them. That's because Awakening had the highest growth rates in FE in years. It doesn't matter where someone started as long as they could win a battle you just had to get them a few levels and chances are they would level out, since the lowest character growths in the game still exceed 300% growth rate total

The issue here is, good growths aren't much help when your bases are so bad. And Donnel's jointime screws him over pretty badly.

[NobodiePichu]

15 hours ago, (s)ad touch said:

i disagree. i believe he would remain an absolutely crucial unit in lunatic and L+, and he is definitely nice to have in hard, though not crucial. he would definitely be the worst oifey though. still fantastic, as you cant go wrong with great bases and a mount early on, even if you bench him later.

 

i think thats more a case of lunatics bad design choices, but fair point regardless. however, id like to point out that frederick may visually be an oifey but statistically he actually ends up being more of a jeigan if you dont reclass him (final average stat total including hp for frederick: about 160, final average stat total for stahl as a great knight: about 210) and that can probably be tied back to the high stat caps (and encouraged grinding) because his growths definitely fall in the oifey category.

so I guess... worst oifey best jeigan?

 

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Gunter has it far far worse, even with his excellent skill access. Reina is with a little work able to ORKO from the beginning to the end, her Spd and Darting Blow are enough for this, she just needs some work on her Str and Skl to secure the kills. This said, she has no durability, at all.

 

I think Awakening had the right idea with Hard and Lunatic mode bonuses for characters who join later, even those who aren't enemies. (Said bonuses were found in FE7 intentionally, and FE6 unintentionally, but for some reason later games dropped them.)

The issue was that Libra's +2 HP, +1 Str/Mag/Spd/Lck/Def/Res was much less than what the enemies had gained on Lunatic. I understand the issue of balancing these buffs with enemy stat increases so as to not result in the mode being no harder than easier settings due to the stat buff on both sides. And how it'd be potentially unfair to those who join earlier and get no such bonuses, despite having to deal with stronger enemies from the start as well. Even so, this isn't a bad idea, it just needs careful balancing.

 

i feel ya give reina to much credit but then ive never really used her myself, regardless Its not that she unviabe its more so that shes far less viable thanks to the higher stat caps which means that by the time you get her you often have units who already outpace her or are close to outpacing her, and have more room to grow naturally with less need for coddling just to keep up (and even then after grinding her to level 20 alongside a bunch of other units on my rev file she ended up being way far behind). Gunter is hurt more by this though but i just felt like using reina as an example at the time.

 

well awakening wasnt particularly consistent with who got the bonuses on what difficulty, i do agree that its one of the things i did like about it. as you said though, they didnt really seem to have any idea how to balance it properly (though tbf lunatic awakening is a good example of poor difficulty decisions in general)

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Post-game crossing to Archanea and delving into Thabes labyrinth, shadows finally starts to feel like its scaling to the power level of the player's party.

Main game of Shadows from part 3 onward only ever felt like the enemies were scaled to challenge a leveled party on blitzkrieg runs.  
 

Well I guess that depends on how much you grind, but the design philosophy of Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia does very much seem to be powerful enemies in low numbers. This is the game where you even out number the enemy party in a lot of maps.

[*Roderick*]

With Echoes, it's not surprising that the enemy strength is as mediocre as it is.
In the original Gaiden, enemies barely grew at all (if they even did), and even most bosses were pitifully lackluster.
You can polish a turd as much as you like, but it's still going to end up as a turd (though in fairness, Echoes is an absolutely magnificent mess).

While in the case of Lunatic Awakening...
Well I'm surprised people even argue about that mode, considering how the developers clearly couldn't be bothered enough to balance it correctly, what with the only really viable units being Frederick early game, and Robin, with very slight exceptions in between.

In terms of actual good use of stat inflation, I'd say that's a pretty complex question.
When looking at Fates, considering the majority of units have both good bases AND growths (I am NOT talking about you Odin, or YOU Subaki), most of the time, the inflation works pretty well to keep the player units and the enemy units on an even playing field... 
For unpromoted units.
In the case of promoted units (not counting Jacob/Felicia), unless you're name is Camilla, Xander, or Ryoma, or Rev Shura of all things, you're going to be severally outclassed by the unpromoted units, simply due to the fact that they've got better growths and availability...

Though whether that's actually a bad thing for the series, that's another issue entirely.

Regardless, I feel the games where Stat Inflation was done the best, were Radiant Dawn, Conquest, and even Birthright, since the games were clearly designed around the high bases, growths, and stat caps in mind.
 

Edited August 8, 2018 by *Roderick*
I didn't quite get the first try right lol