Sitting here staring at my screen trying to decide on whether or not I want to use classic growths for my “project”, and I’m curious as to what everyone’s opinion is on Classic Growths versus Modern Growths.
Personally I like Modern Growths in games that use split promotions, as I think it allows from more party variation in multiple play-throughs, and classic growths for games with single promotion paths. Opinions?
Whats the difference betwen those Growths?
Classic Growths would be how growth rates are handled from FE1 to FE10, based soley on the character, and Modern Growths are from FE11 to FE16, where a units growth rates vary depending on modifiers granted by their class.
Oh, i didnt knew that, i thought Growths only depended on the character in al games xD
Welp, i guess moder growths are better if you want some personalisation on your characters classes, and that way a knight promoted to, halbeldier wouldnt be more effective thanks to the fixed growths.
Call me old fashioned, but I want me some classic growths. I actually like them even more if Reclassing is a thing, since you can pick a class that best fits the growths and build you want.
The only real benefit I can see to using the system of class growths + personal growths is if you’re having a character promote into a split class (mage -> mage knight, for example) or if you want promoted characters to get a little boost to their growths after promotion.
Either way, it doesn’t really feel like it makes too much of a difference either way, unless you’re going for a game with multiple tiers of promotions/insane amounts of variance between class growths, since if it’s just a small +/- 5-10% growth change then it’ll amount to maybe 1 or 2 point differences, on average.
I prefer classic growth. Modern growth makes everyone less unique if reclassing has no limit like in DSFE or 3H.
Honestly +/- 10% hardly makes a meaningful difference as we see with some of the vanilla changes. If you are going to bother with modern growths, make them majorly impactful so that the choices matter more.
I prefer classic since it’s easier to design around, but you could def make modern growths fun and interesting.
I think I prefer Classic Growths, but Modern Growths can lead to some funny units like FE11 Draug.
As a Knight, he has a 40% Speed Growth and 30% Defense Growth.
Reclass him to Dark Mage and he gets 60% Speed with 0% Defense.
As silly as the above example is, I will commend FE11 for having Class Growths that feel like they actually matter in the long run.
Modern Growths work best when there’s clearly a difference between promotions (ex. Mage going into Sage with Anima/Light/Staves, Mage Knight with Anima/Swords, and Warlock armored mage with every magic type + staves) where the growth rates actually matter a lot.
If you combine the two slightly (see: Great Knight having a reduced speed growth and the reduced SS movement, but in return getting sizable boosts in str and def) you might be able to get something interesting.
In practice uh
Kyle’s one of my favorite FE8 units, but considering the game already has the busted Seth and the way earlier access Franz for Paladins I like making him a Great Knight for Axe use.
Vanilla kyle looks like:
90 HP, 50 Str, 40 Skl, 40 Spd, 20 Lck, 25 Def, 20 Res
So if we give the Great Knight a modifier that gives shit like +10 Str, +15 Def then he’s already a beefy boye
You’d also probably do well to give every class a base 10% Speed and give every playable character -10% from their existing growth, so you can make slower promotions such as Great Knight actually have a speed drop. I don’t think you can assign negative values like that.
The SkillSystem has growth getters. All it should take is making them load signed values if they don’t already. That should allow you to have class & character growths that are in range [-127, 127]. You’d probably want to ensure the end result is >= 0, just to be safe.
Idk if it’s as simple in vanilla FE8U though.
I prefer Classic Growths, and I’m of mind that free reclassing is a horrible idea.
But if you do Split Promos then modern growths are better, but only if the class growths are between 10/-10. It should still depend on the person, but the class can alter it a bit so you don’t pull a Radiant Dawn Meg.
The thing with class-based growths aka modern growths is that they don’t really do anything if there’s no reclassing.
Sure branched promotions technically lets the varying growths have some effect, but how many levels will your unit get after promoting (assuming you don’t grind 20 levels) and how does those growths compare to the stats you’ve already gotten from pre-promotion level ups and the promotion gains?
That’s why there’s not really a point to using class-based growths in a vanilla-esque GBA games.
Also, while I’m not sure how it works in newer games, but reclassing in Shadow Dragon and New Mystery also changes the base stats, which again makes reclassing more impactful than just a few +/-% growth rates.
So I believe that for “modern” growths to matter the units should be able to reclass before promotion, or there should at least be branched promotions with tier 3 classes, or well anything that means that the units will get a lot of opportunities to level up so the growths have an impact.
IMO it depends on how you’re balancing your game as a whole.
For example, if you’re going to make a game like DSFE where attacks almost never miss I’d recommend using modern growths, but if you’re gonna balance it like the older games where no strat is 100% reliable I’d say to stick with the classic growths.
There’s also other variables to take into consideration, like some people mentioned before, split promotions go well with modern, or if you want to make every unit feel somewhat distinct it would be better to go with classic.
I definitely struggled with which to use for my hack.
With modern, I could more easily balance the promotions and make them more varied. I could make people choose between promoting to a Swordmaster or a General, with base growths mattering squat. No Amelia General built like a Swordmaster, or so. It makes the promotions more varied and distinct.
I ultimately went with classic growths because it’s easier, but it’s frankly far more boring.
The future is now, young Ike.
dont like class growths unless reclassing is involved. they work well when you can freely reclass, but for a one time promo its unnecessary.
For my mod I opted for modern growths.
In fact, I didn’t even know that there was a distinction between these two.
To create a good balance you have to take into account many factors.
Class, Weapons, Terrain Bonus, Triangle of weapons, Level Up, Max Stats, Base Stats, Enemies.
For classes I have increased the difference between their base stats, giving all base characters the same bonuses + the class bonus which is more different for each.
Weapons are more different
Iron Sword HIT 90 POW 5 WGT 4
Iron Ax HIT 80 POW 9 WGT 10
Character: HP\LCK+5 STR\DEF\RES\SPD\SKL+ 2
For the Terrain Bonus I reduced the EVADE bonus.
EVD+10 DEF+1 RES+ 1(Forest)
For Triangle of Weapons, I reduced the dodge bonus and increased the damage and defense bonus
EVD\HIT+ 10% POW\DEF+ 2
Enemies: You must not forget about the enemies that have an important role in the game, you cannot give a General 20 DEF AND 0 RES Because his role is that of Tank, otherwise the game would become too simple, you just need to use a wizard to destroy him.
For the Level up I made it identical for each character, modifying the bonus you get with a promotion.
Character: HP\LCK+60% STR\DEF\RES+30% SPD\SKILL+40%
Myrmidon\Swordmaster HP+ 3 STR\DEF\RES+ 1 SPD\SKILL+ 3
Fighter\Warrior HP+ 5 STR\DEF\SPD+ 2 RES\SKILL+ 1
For Max Stats( the game use level up random) I have set maximum peaks that a character using a certain class can reach.
Swordmaster HP 45 STR\DEF\RES 21 SPD\SKILL 27
Warrior HP 55 STR\DEF\SPD 24 RES\SKILL 21
For Base Stats I have significantly differentiated the bonus you get by setting a class for a character
Myrmidon HP+15 STR\DEF\RES+ 3 SPD\SKILL+ 9
Fighter HP+ 21 STR\DEF\RES+ 6 RES\SKILL+ 3.
This way each class will have advantages over some things:
Myrmidon: Always double hit, high evade and hit but low damage and resistance to enemies attack he depend a lot from Triangle of Weapons and Terrain Bonus and their weapons end very fast
Fighter: Very high damage and good resistance to attacks, it can survive even without using Terrain Bonus but it depends a lot on Triangle of weapons to have more accuracy that would otherwise be too low.
What I mean is that it depends on the style of play and the balance you want to create, you have to take into account a lot of factors.
In this way, even if your characters will not have unique level ups, they will all be different and you will have to use them in the right situations, rewarding your strategy in battle.
The myrmidon will only have to be sent to attack if he has a protection of terrain bonus or a weapon advantage.
The fighter instead will be more comfortable having more resistance to enemy attacks but you will have a lower chance of hitting the enemy and inflicting serious damage.
Ah I’m talking for my FE 6\7 mods for FE 8 I will think about it in the future.
That game adds skills, I hate skills in fire emblem, it will be a mess to balance that if I decide to work with it in the future.
I think classic growths makes every character unique
while modern growths ensures any unit can be ‘good’
tough choice, I’m gonna have to go with classic growths because I love me some good unit feel