Recently I saw a post ranting on Skills being broken, and how terrible FE8 Skills are, I checked the Fire Emblem Wiki on the Class Skills, and rolled with the skills listed out on the Wiki, and I’m trying to build the Final Boss as a proper Final Boss than a pushover like Fomortiis, but I’m removing Arenas entirely because what’s the point in using them other than grinding for experience and money? And no I’m not removing weapon durability because it will make the Rom Hack a breeze, do you have any advice on how I can balance out skills? And yes I’m limiting the Skills by 2 each class, with the exception of the Final Boss with a full skill set.
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If you are asking a question or looking for advice please make it clearer
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Skills add individuality, individuality adds balance issues. I don’t know what to tell you besides “Do a lot of play tests” - and even then there will always be people complaining about the game’s balance.
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there will probably never be a hack that satisfies most players. We just have a lot of difference in difficulty for FE. I personally like “fun” easy hack where I don’t have to sweat to much about my units dying every turn. But some people really like Brutal hacks that punishes less than optimal engagements and placements. From a recent poll I created the most popular difficulty is medium difficulty followed by “fun” easy. The least liked is “brain dead” easy and puzzle hard. Then again interpretations of what these difficulty tiers are often very subjective and varied because of the Rng elements of individual playthroughs.
Skill balance is not a simple topic, you need to take into account other factors: what are the game’s calculations like? For example, how easily can you make a dodge tank that renders conventional physical and magic tanks obsolete?
Also, not all skill are created equally and certain archetypes benefit more than others from the same skill and some combinations will have exponential yields of effectiveness. For example, a glass cannon isn’t going to care much for a skill that adds to their enemy phase bulk but rather the ability to get in and out while dealing as much damage as possible, so a combination like canto and a blow skill is what they synergize with. On the other hand, a tank isn’t going to care as much about dealing damage cause their main role is to be a wall and survive as many hits as possible, so a combination like a stance skill and Wary fighter (if their Spd is low) is what they’ll synergize with.
Then there’s the matter of enemy AI not being as smart with their usage of skills then players and how you can try and actively add to the difficulty simply through enemy placements, AI modes, etc.
Do it like me and make multiple versions of your hack. One with skills and other without. Let each player decide what they want.
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