Looking for a game with two units suitable for an experiment

[Alastor15243]

I’ve recently gotten into the discussion of the merits and pitfalls of early promotion, and I’m looking to do an experiment to confirm or deny my suspicions about Mekkah’s take on early promotion. But I need some advice on the best test subjects for this.

Basically I want to play a Fire Emblem game and use two units of roughly equivalent join times, roles, classes and tiers, and I’m going to promote one at level 10 and the other at level 20 to see how they compare to each other in usefulness at various stages of the game after the early promoter promotes. If I can find multiple instances of such pairs of units in one game, all the better, so I have a larger sample size.

Any recommendations for the game and the units to use for this experiment?

Edited March 3, 2019 by Alastor15243

[The Roger The Paladin]

Cain and Abel archetypes, while tending to favor one over the other, tend to have similar class, be considered roughly similar, etc. However Shadow Dragon, with it's option of Frey to go with Abel (who is superior to Cain by virtue of Javelins at base) is probably the optimal set-up.

An alternative would be to use Bord/Cord archetypes due to their similar/identical join time, but the catch is they tend to have a superior Cord (due to the speed growth). Shadow Dragon and New Mystery do avoid this however by having Barst, who is slightly better rounded than his competitors.

As it stands these archetypes are probably your best bet... and the early game availability also helps the experiment run the entire time. For reasons mentioned above Shadow Dragon is a strong pick.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

FE6 is probably the only good one. To be exact the examples i had in mind are:

 

FE3 - Palla and Catria is way too strong to have meaningful difference

FE5 - Stats is too low for it to matter, so it doesn't need questioning

FE7 - the disparity point between two promotion is way too large

FE8 - Literally the only good example of such case in this game is Seth vs Ewan and any monkey knows whats the issue with that

so skipping Tellius because those don't exists

FE11 - On a more normal play this really isn't applicable because the first seal is going to Caeda, so if the second seal goes to character #1, and the third seal is used to someone else, the gap between that and fourth, chapter 16 is extensive enough to give huge lead to one or another

FE12 - Honestly this one is good, since Palla and Catria is the embodiment fo the entire argument between early promote and late promote. Honestly as a whole this game's promotion stuff only matters for Lunatic onwards

 

FE6 had Allance and the promotion item is separated by 5 chapters, starting at CH8 which is fairly early and exactly the point where early promo vs late promo is spaced short enough to not be lopsided, and long enough to probably matter.

Edited March 3, 2019 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[Alastor15243]

@JSND Alter Dragon Boner, Your comment about Seth and Ewan is a bit confusing and makes me think we’re not on the same page. I’m talking about testing comparable units, with as few differences between them as possible except for when I choose to promote them, so that I can track the impact of the initial stat boost versus the xp penalty and level cap drop.

 

@Mad-manakete That sounds good, if a bit easier than ideal due to Frey being locked to normal mode, meaning the advantages at various stages would probably be less prominent. But still certainly the best shot I seem to have based on your advice, going with Frey and Abel and Barst and Cord. Only question is, what’s the average party level by the time you get your first master seal? If it’s above 10 that complicates the experiment a tad, but as long as it isn’t too high I should be able to make it work.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Alastor15243

[AnonymousSpeed]

FE6 is what came to mind for me as well, specifically Wade and Lott, but I do wonder if they're actually too different, statistically. Alan and Lance have very similar growth rates but are different enough in bases that I could see if making a difference- really, any variable could. Perhaps you should boot up Nightmare and edit a pair of cavaliers to have identical growths/bases? That wouldn't account for the growths being random, but it's...something. You could probably use Nightmare to ensure they get "fixed" levels at the end up every chapter.

I mean, I know that's a lot of meticulous rom-hacking, but if you want to ensure as many variables as possible are equivalent.

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

FE6 is what came to mind for me as well, specifically Wade and Lott, but I do wonder if they're actually too different, statistically. Alan and Lance have very similar growth rates but are different enough in bases that I could see if making a difference- really, any variable could. Perhaps you should boot up Nightmare and edit a pair of cavaliers to have identical growths/bases? That wouldn't account for the growths being random, but it's...something. You could probably use Nightmare to ensure they get "fixed" levels at the end up every chapter.

I mean, I know that's a lot of meticulous rom-hacking, but if you want to ensure as many variables as possible are equivalent.

Unfortunately a big part of what I’m trying to test is the impact of the early promoter having experience penalties up to 10 levels ahead of their stats, so giving them free levels would compromise that. I think I’m gonna have to put up with RNG and just keep track of what their stats should be on average for context.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Alastor15243

[AnonymousSpeed]

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Unfortunately a big part of what I’m trying to test is the impact of the early promoter having experience penalties up to 10 levels ahead of their stats, so giving them free levels would compromise that. I think I’m gonna have to put up with RNG and just keep track of what their stats should be on average for context.

You wouldn't have to give them free levels, but rather adjust their stats for every level they get so, promotion benefits aside, they are perfectly consistent.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

You wouldn't have to give them free levels, but rather adjust their stats for every level they get so, promotion benefits aside, they are perfectly consistent.

Oh, I see! Is Nightmare Mac compatible? My assumption is no.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Oh, I see! Is Nightmare Mac compatible? My assumption is no.

...

No, so, uh, maybe try a virtual machine or outsourcing?

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

...

No, so, uh, maybe try a virtual machine or outsourcing?

Honestly, I’ve been debating replacing my PoS laptop for a while, so this might be an option to consider later.

[indigoasis]

I was wondering if using the same unit on two separate playthroughs would work? Promote at level 10 on one playthrough, and then promote at level 20 on another playthrough. It would be the same unit, so you wouldn't have to worry about any differences between two separate units and it would probably give you more accurate results or something scientific like that.

If that isn't an option, Cain and Abel archetypes should work fine, so Shadow Dragon (Cain and Abel, duh), Genealogy (Alec and Naoise), Binding Blade (Alan and Lance), Blazing Sword (Sain and Kent), etc. would be good games and characters to start your experiment with. 

[Alastor15243]

2 hours ago, indigocean said:

I was wondering if using the same unit on two separate playthroughs would work? Promote at level 10 on one playthrough, and then promote at level 20 on another playthrough. It would be the same unit, so you wouldn't have to worry about any differences between two separate units and it would probably give you more accurate results or something scientific like that.

The idea is more I want to get a more objective feeling of which one is more useful, and how much more useful, at each stage of the game. Being able to directly compare them in a perpetual question of “do I have this one do it, or this one?” should help with that a lot.

Edited March 4, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Alright, so after some thought, I've decided to make this a let's play for posterity. I'm going to be playing Shadow Dragon, for two reasons:

1: It's got the best selection of same-join archetypes, as @Mad-manakete said

2: Its freeform no-strings-attached class change system means I can probably make even more than two pairs of units so I can have a whole party of duos to compare.

I'm using a mod that lets you play the prologue in hard mode so I can get Frey to use alongside Abel. I'm currently testing it out to see if it works, and if it does, I should start the LP soon. Since Frey's the only thing I want the prologue for and I suspect it still amounts to free experience I'd like to avoid, I'll have Cain and Jeigan solo the prologue as much as possible and then sacrifice Cain. And to counter my own bias regarding my beliefs and suspicions about which promotion stage is better, I'll be trying to counteract any potential favoritism towards the late promoters (who I hypothesize will come out of this looking way better) by making sure that my favorite units are the ones who promote early. So Frey and Barst will be the early promoters, while Abel and Cord will be the late promoters. Yes, I like the color blue.

Given that now we're talking about using class changing, I'm going to compare growth rates and bases for class changing to see if there are any more pairs I can add to this experiment. If anyone has any further suggestions in that respect, let me know!

 

Edit: Sorry for the double-post! I completely forgot I was the last one to post on this thread!

Edited March 4, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Emperor Hardin]

Keep in mind for the experiment, different games handle promotion and EXP gain differently. 

EDIT: Shadow Dragon sounds good.

Edited March 4, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[Vicious Sal]

If you are going to do this, What Hard mode were you thinking of doing? Since you wanted to test the premise Mekkkah made, Hard 1 wouldn't seems a good option. Since another of his viewpoints, which I agree with, is that it is better to rate units on the hardest modes, since the disparity becomes more clear between good and bad units. The early boost from the promo bonuses will show themselves in H5 a lot better than H1, where a Lvl 10 Cav Abel and a lvl 10/1 Frey will probably still ORKO most enemies. 

 

Good luck with your test!

[Alastor15243]

1 hour ago, Vicious Sal said:

If you are going to do this, What Hard mode were you thinking of doing? Since you wanted to test the premise Mekkkah made, Hard 1 wouldn't seems a good option. Since another of his viewpoints, which I agree with, is that it is better to rate units on the hardest modes, since the disparity becomes more clear between good and bad units. The early boost from the promo bonuses will show themselves in H5 a lot better than H1, where a Lvl 10 Cav Abel and a lvl 10/1 Frey will probably still ORKO most enemies. 

 

Good luck with your test!

Yes, but keep in mind that H5 is also nightmarishly difficult and I intend to text-and-screenshot LP this, which isn’t particularly friendly to resets. So I figure instead of the highest difficulty of a game I haven’t played much, I’ll do H1 Ironman, which is a more LP-friendly difficulty increase. Either that or take the time consuming nature of it to be the punishment in and of itself when I reset, and document my failures along with my successes. But I don’t think anyone wants to see an LP of me doing H5.

And thanks!

Edited March 5, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Vicious Sal]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yes, but keep in mind that H5 is also nightmarishly difficult and I intend to text-and-screenshot LP this, which isn’t particularly friendly to resets. So I figure instead of the highest difficulty of a game I haven’t played much, I’ll do H1 Ironman, which is a more LP-friendly difficulty increase. Either that or take the time consuming nature of it to be the punishment in and of itself when I reset, and document my failures along with my successes. But I don’t think anyone wants to see an LP of me doing H5.

And thanks!

Well, there's more than H1 and H5 of course. =p Maybe, since you're limiting the amount of units you are using to comparable sets, you could look at what the usual difficulty is for drafts?