Hey ya’ll. Design has been on my mind for a bit, and one of them is the Makakete units.
Something I’ve noticed in my years of playing through these games is that, I’ve never found a manakete that’s performed on a “subpar” level. I either found manaketes to be pretty bad due to poor base stats (Bantu), or unfortunate join times (Tiki FE3/12). Or, to be excellent for their raw power (Nagi), and having enough time to grow (Fae).
I find Myrrh to be a bit of an outlier, since she starts off with pretty terrible stats, especially in HP, but with a very small amount of babying, will become one of your best units statwise.
Can a subpar manakete be achived, is what I’m saying.
Edit: What I’m trying to say is, TLDR: how would I go about designing a subpar, or middling Makakete.
If you want a subpar manakete it would depend how you’re approaching your hack in the first place.
For example: If you have a hack with infinite durability, you can create dragonstones with durability to make manaketes selectively good. The best way is to offer multiple dragonstones that have different effects. You can make a 1-2 range Dragonstone that does more damage on Enemy Phase, but balanced around the manakete being a bit frail. A 1-Range Dragonstone that has gives high DEF and RES but has Fury so you take passive damage from every fight. Experiment with conditions that Dragonstones may have to see what works.
Another thing to consider is the Dragonstone in Fates. The Dragonstone is basically your Jagen in Fates, as after a while using a Dragonstone won’t be as effective as it would be in the early game. You could try to mimic some of the Mid-Lategame Fates Dragonstone to create a subpar manakete.
Subpar is a weird goal to have lol, if you want a balanced manakete I’d go for something like fates as well, having an alt weapon is a definite must, or at the very least different stones, the problem with dragon stones and really any other transforming unit is that the scaling isn’t there, so you need to have another weapon type to have contrast. Aside from that you can also make stones have debuffs like -spd so there’s a tradeoff there.
I would say the default setup (poor bases, late jointime and low movement) already puts them in sub-par. Myrrh’s a good starting point, so imagine her in a game where most enemies aren’t trivial for her to kill anyway.
Parr you literally made a subpar manakete. Catsidhe is like, the most alright unit ever
Edit: Augur from BoB is an interesting subpar manakete, she comes with a shitty 1-2 stone but you can get a better 1 range stone from a chest on her join map, she has 10 hp (with low growth) and 0 bases in a game with fatigue and her con sucks so she can’t capture anything really, but at least she can do decent chip damage and sometimes doesnt get OHKO’d at base
I wouldn’t exactly call it a “goal”, moreso an idea I could save for later.
Yeah, I’ve been tossing around that idea for a bit. Perhaps an FE12 style, with different stones granting different stat bonuses.
Good point. Although I’d agrue that if Myrrh was put in a game like FE11, she’d be less than subpar. Closer to Bantu, but with good growths. Of course, adjusting for movement differences too.
Honestly don’t know if the idea i had for my manakete man maybe was bad or nah, but my generally idea was 5 different stones that altered how he worked
Flamestone and magestone were the polar opposite to each other, granting +20 to to str & def or mag & res, while neutering the reverse stat, -20 to mag & res or str & def, so you could play him as a mage or a fighter
The wyvernstone was my idea instead of a utility stone, buffing his mov so he could move faster around maps, while also granting him acrobat so he could move unimpeded
The earthstone neutered any offesive stats he might have to instead go competely into defense
And then a infinite use stone with mid stats just so he isn’t useless lol
Also though of a devilstone, but maybe that would be too much of a hassle
A Manakete is a flying unit with excellent offensive and defensive stats and a 1-2 range weapon far stronger than any Javelin or Hand Axe. It’s inherently excellent, and foes with Dragonslayers can rarely reach her, or oneshot her if she can be hit.
Make Dragonstones 1-range, and now it’s a powerful class that can never use 1-2 range weapons. Worth it? Who knows without playtesting the game you’re making?
Give the DragonStone limited availability and durability, and using up a limited use of that incredible power becomes a meaningful decision, like using one of the Jagen’s Silver weapon’s uses but better. Is it worth keeping around a powerful unit you can only use a few times before she can never see combat again? Or is getting another Dragonstone or Dragonstone+ as easy as visiting a store and praying Anna visits too, or knowing what Spotpass unit always has one for sale?
Of course, this could be completely different in another game. But… Are you asking how to design a Manakete to be subpar? Why would you want to do that?
If you want to make the player’s choice to use this unit or someone else more interesting than “Who’s better?”, add interesting tradeoffs. Maybe she has multiple Dragonstones, one for every situation, and she starts out with something weak before finding better ones at locations significant to the main plot. Maybe her stats are incredible and she’s a 4-move flier even when promoted. Maybe she can’t promote. Maybe she’s a tanky magic damage dealer. Maybe anti-Dragon weapons (bows and lightning magic and Beastslayers/Dragonslayers?) are so common, fielding her is a risk you have to play around. Maybe she’s a defensive powerhouse and terrible attacker. Maybe she’s a glass cannon. Maybe Dragonstones can’t counterattack. Maybe she’s a specialist in destroying enemy fliers and wyverns and she sucks at everything else. Maybe using her Dragonstone harms her and killing heals her. Maybe her Dragonstone adds stacking debuffs or adds charges to her Personal Skill and at 10 charges she Berserks for the rest of the map. Maybe she’s the Lord and relying on her Dragonstone and the Personal Class that lets her use it keeps her from getting interesting Class Skills and passing them on to her kids. There’s a world of possibilities, really.
I think a way to look at this is probably not even a full on manakete, but rather Corrin’s dragonstone or things like how 3 and 12 handle dragonstones. Same general idea with the stat buffs but Corrin isn’t just one weapon and that’s it. They have options, and that in turn makes them easier to balance and make just like any other unit much easier.
I know this may not exactly be “subpar” but it’s certainly one way to ground a manakete unit so they can have the potential to be subpar but not end up like bantu
It’s really up to you on how you want to design a manakete though, there is a lot of factors to consider that far outscope what a topic like this can really provide without heavy context unfortunately
Really just inhibiting their ability to double would do it, so hard baking Wary Fighter into the stones themselves is your best bet, while also preventing them from critting.
Though as a trade off you can make the stones do increased damage against specific targets.
Like, usually the biggest downside to most Manaketes in FE is their stones having limited durability from the outset and in many cases there isn’t a way to get more, like Myrh only gets the one stone which puts her usability on a timer.
Really most manaketes are subpar due to that. However when you can restock them reliably then manaketes tend to be fairly good.
I think there are quite a few ways to make a Manakete subpar. In my hack, her stone was so heavy that she will never be able to double with it. On the topic of stones, Dragonstones and the such tend to give the Manaketes really good stat boosts (The Dragonstone in FE8 gives Myrrh +12 Str, +12 Skl, +15 Def, +20 Res). You could make these stat boosts smaller or you can get rid of them. That would punch quite a hole into their huge stat pools. Another option is to give them weak stones when you get them, and force the player to go out of their way with a Paralouge or Secret Shop in order to get the stronger stones. This way, they can get a really stronge Manakete, but will require a lot of work in order to so, and until then, have a subpar Manakete.
Eh, putting them in a secret shop would honestly be a step too far due to the nature of them being secret.
Cause you can’t tell me some of the makers here wouldn’t make your normally obtainable stones ok at best but put an OP one in a secret shop hidden on a strict turn limited defend map (I’m talking like 5 turns) that can only be reached by flier OR warp staff (with said staff either being easily missed or requiring a near capped magic staff to reach).
I feel like there would need to be more context, to figure out how to make this manakete subpar. It depends a lot on what kind of enemies the player faces and weapon availability… If there are a lot of enemies with high RES, that would probably make a manakete feel subpar on comparison. Or if they can attack well, but are slow and can’t double, and also have middling defenses… It’s a bit too vague to just say “subpar” by itself.
Man I still wish someone would make a Manakete who just ABSOLUTELY SUCKS and has two Dragonstones, both with limited durability, and the strong one increases her Corruption stacks until she dies and turns into a giant monster to fight for EXP, but if you feed her EXP and support her and do Support conversations a Class Skill she unlocks at a high level buffs all stats and gives her bad Dragonstone infinite uses.
A speedrunner/powergamer would use her up and throw her away. A hero would bring out the best in her no matter the cost.
Yeah, but it’s like that thing from Undertale and Deltarune where you can be evil and kill to get more power, or take the high road making things harder for yourself. Invisible difficulty selection. Narratively it tests the player’s principles and dedication to a better story and willingness to accept hardship for a better time. Mechanically it encourages the player to improve. It’s also better for UI/UX than starting the game asking you to select between Easy/Normal/Hard difficulty when you don’t even know how easy or hard the game is.
