Chance of item drop for enemies?

It would make players feel bad or cheated on because most people when they see they can get something on a game they either want it or feel like they need it, there’s also people who feel obligated to get the best possible results when they play a game so imagine someone resetting every chapter of the game, multiple times, just because they feel they “Need” to get every random vulnerary, red gem, etc. that enemies have a chance to drop, i do think there’s value in %drop chance but not if the player is able to reset to exploit them, one solution could be having them seeded once you finish the previous chapter and save the game, having to go back two chapters can be enough of a hassle to discourage constant resetting, but even then it wouldn’t be enough.

that’s what makes it such a terrible idea, if you make an item have a very small chance to drop it’ll just frustrate players, what good can come out of making an item have a 5% chance to drop and not make a huge difference in gameplay (therefor not creating replayability in any way) vs just having the item drop 100% of the time? it just adds unnecessary frustration. On top of that giving players no way to circumvent the chance drop is just poor design, hit rates can be patched up with lighter weapons, more skill, and the occasional stat booster just as crits can be circumvented somewhat through luck stat boosters and later in the game, an item that circumvents critting entirely

let’s put it this way, if there’s a 5% chance that lv 20 paladins can just show up around the lord is that good game design? It is not and the same goes for this

people will reset for things no matter how tedious if they feel like they’re missing out on something so making the argument that replaying the chapter would be tedious is invalid and if anything only proves to further my point

  1. It’s just a bonus item or weapon that drops and can make things a lot easier on the players if the rng of level ups didn’t work for them.

  2. It makes playthoughs more different from each other.

  3. It allows players to have an additional option of becoming stronger if they aren’t strong enough.

I don’t see why a player would want to circumvent the drop as it’s a good thing.

And if player’s are constantly resetting for a Goddess Icon that’s their problem.

This isn’t the same thing because this is something that isn’t positive for the players and a can have permanent negative consequences.

uh huh and solving rng with more rng fixes this rather than something set in stone?

really? you truly believe that one stat booster will make a playthrough feel distinct? In a multihour game one single item will make the playthrough unique?

I’m saying you should have a way to make the rng 100% like through stealing, if the enemy with the item had low speed then if the player looked at the map beforehand they would bring a thief and be rewarded for their planning… IN A STRATEGY GAME

if someone wants to reset for something that the game only sometimes gives the player isn’t their problem it’s just poor game design, the same way that giving generic enemies a crit chance and generic fighters and brigands gamble are poor design choices

it’s the same fundamental level of bs just taken to the extreme, you agree that is unfair because it’s obvious how unfair it is, also the argument that something like a stat booster can’t have consequences is flimsy at best and flat out incorrect at worst, if you’re unit has two less luck then that’s more of a chance an enemy has to crit, if you have less defense that’s all the more likely your unit can be killed unexpectantly.

I was thinking that there would be a total of about 50 chance drop stat boosters or good weapons (like steel or silver weapons) throughout all the chapters of an FE game and each would have a 1 through 5% chance of dropping.

Maybe we could even have two chance drops for certain enemies.

Like a 3% chance for a steel sword drop and a 5% chance for a goddess icon.

that just makes things worse, by putting so many variables that can’t be accounted for in a strategy game not only makes it harder on the player to play with an actual strategy but it also will make it near impossible to design any stage that isn’t either too hard or too easy for the player, this also makes playtesting extremely variable even with the average chances in place. adding so many variables to a game designed around strategy just makes it frustrating, the player may feel like they should have more items then they do or that the game expects you to have a certain number of items which is why the game is too difficult for them.

They all would be accounted for.

It isn’t like enemies could drop a 40+ of all stats item that would break the game, like I said these drops won’t impact the game significantly.

that literally can not be accounted for, fifty 5% chances for bonuses can not be accounted for, little stat boosters may not seem like much but if you actually look at it you’ll find that teams will be drastically different even when using the same promotion items, before you say that this is a good thing when it comes to stats it most certainly is not, if the player wants a harder or easier experience then they’ll choose a different difficulty, and the player will most certainly be frustrated if they replay the game and it suddenly becomes so much harder because the enemy didn’t drop a dracoshield or a steel sword.

What if of those 50 drops there are only 3 speedwings and 2 dracoshields? And only really late in the game?

By the point that a steel sword is droppable a creator could make them common and a Dracoshield could be dropped around the last five chapters of the game or earlier depending on how the creator made them.

that essentially creates a safety net that only sometimes appears, why not just have a late game great knight like Duessal join who isn’t as good as a fully trained Franz, Kyle, and Forde but they’re still good enough to get you through chapters easier and is a guaranteed safety net

dropping really common items will make the droppable items redundant then, it won’t necessarily hurt or help the player in any major way nor make any sort of impact on the game whatsoever making the whole mechanic pointless

I like to add rng stuff like that to a fire emblem game, because it is a strategy game !!!

Many people here, says that because it’s a strategy game, there should not be RNG at all, but it’s the completly opposite. If you remove rng like growth, hit, critical, etc, fe become a puzzle game, not a strategical game, where you adapt to the current situation and not something you plan from the start, because it’s always the same things. If you beat a game once, that’s not mean you will beat it a second time with the same pattern, replay the game it’s not just a matter of execution, but be smart, know to adapt to the current situation and be able to find a winning strategy in “real time”.

You drop a wind sword by chance in chapter 10, and you succeed to win a really hard map, just with it in your first run. Too bad, this second time, you don’t have it, the puzzle change, you must be smart again and resolve the new puzzle to win it. You need to be good in blind playtrhough, and not just replay it until you play always the same move, because you slowly remember a winning pattern. It’s like when you got lucky lvl on your flyer and she kill everything during one run, and for another run, her strenght is totally garbage, so you don’t succeed to save all the village this time. Fe is not poorly design for strategy because of that.

The main issue with that, it’s for the level design, that make it really hard for him to be able to propose challenging map most of the time but not unfair one. That’s it’s so much easier if you remove all rng in the game, included fixed growth, fix hit rate, etc…
But you know, their never a rng issue that make a fire emblem unbeattable, even with the worst rng possible, you could win the game on iron man setting, because you can beat it in 0% growth. So blaming the rng it’s just a bad player sign, that’s all. You can win just because you’re lucky, but will never loose because you’re unlucky, and it’s not a random speedwin you never got, and should not expect to got if it’s random, the reason why you lose.

If player reset and got a “bad experience” it’s the player fault. it’s like people who reset the game to have only perfect lvl up, and complain after that it’s so tiring to do so, and the game is super easy. Personnally, I play all the fe only ironman, even in the first playthrought and I would like fe to be more random smartly, to be able to be good enought at fire emblem to win it like that, and not just know the map, the unit to train, the item you get in advance, so I can plan everything like I will know the future. But if because of that, I feel it really annoying to play it, it will be only my fault, not the developper’s fault

In conclusion, it’s just a matter of personnal preference about how you like to play the game. But objectively, this mechannic of random drop, tend to make the game more “adaptation skilled” than “puzzlish game”, that’s it, and also more hard for the level design to proposed an average fair and difficult challenge.

Fire emblem has always been a series that adopts adaptability in the face of randomness, i agree on that, I’m mainly cautious about adding randomized drops when the game does not tell you about them, In my ideal scenario when you start a new save file all chapters get a chance for some randomized item and you can check enemy inventories to see them, Because i value giving information to the player, Another solution, lets say on a sacred stones romhack, is having a customized guide menu that lists the chapters and tells the player about the drop chances.

I.e: Chapter 1: Soldiers have a 3% chance to drop an iron lance, Brigands have a 5% chance to drop a torch, the boss has a 10% chance to drop a Hero crest.

It could be a fun addition to the series, a good comparison point could be movement growths in thracia776, where they are generally too small for resetting to be a worthwhile time investment, and while they have a decent effect on the player’s approach to maps, they aren’t completely game changing when you get them.

Your point to give all the data to the player, it’s for the type of player who want to control everything from the start, like for example know all the growth of all the character, know what character you would got at the end, to plan everything in advance, before you even play the game.

But is it really necessary ? or just a way to play for the player who hate to adapt to a “new game” like those who don’t do a blind playthrough, but need a solution guide that explain everything in advance ?

Take for example character growth. Many player like to know the growth of the unit, so they can directly bench from the start which one they considered like suboptimal, like fire emblem is a game where the main point is to be optimal, min max everything.
But there also player, who just want to don’t know that to make the game harder, need to lvl many character and with the reel data you know from the present, select the character who seems to be good, without knowing everything. Like a general in a battle, take decision without knowing everything.

In your first playthrought, you start the chapter 5 map and see that this one guy drop a killing edge. You think, cool it will be very usefull, and beat the game with it. During your second run, you constate that the same dude don’t drop anything, and there you understand that it’s not a drop fix. Did this change anything of your experience of your first playthrough ? No, it’s exactly the same than first blind run of every fe game, you play, without cheat, soluce, or anything like that, and just discover the information in “real time”, no premonition cheatcode, and adapt to it.

That’s why your main preoccupation is specific for player who want to know everything, before take a battle, just an total unrealistic strategic situation, but you could have in video game. Plan a real battle during the 1st great war was not “no strategy brain” because the commander doesn’t know everything about the ennemy force, on contrary, it was because you don’t know and need to plan an strategy without it, and after than adapt your tactic when you see the reality, than make this position really skill-based and hard to do. But many player want the game to be way less hard, so that why they doesn’t like shitty hit rate, don’t know the grow, or don’t know in advance that your first unit that will carry the run must be a mercenary, because of an early heroes crest this time, combine with a wind sword.