[FE7] [Complete] Blaze and Thunder: a FE7 Unbalance patch

[Anarch16sync]

Hello Everyone, today I bring you a small patch for FE7 with some changes that have made the game more enjoyable for me and by sharing, maybe it does for you too.

This rebalance focuses on making FE7 more challenging and similar to FE6, while giving some more options to the player to make it more fun to deal with this new challenges.

Features:
The FE6 Goodness

• Changes that are carried from FE6, we have the weapon stats and WTA bonus, the powerful promotion bonuses, the 30% crit for Swordmasters and Berserkers, Higher level enemies and scaling Hard Mode Bonus for all modes and same turn reinforments.

The Chef’s touch

• Changes to Lyn, Eliwood and Hector story to make them feel more unique.
• Increased doubling threshold to make doubling harder for non speed focused units.
• Rings refresh on use, making them a direct improvement over simply dancing.
• Merlinus gets a buff on promotion that allows him to trade and rescue.
• Shops rebalanced to open more buy options early, this includes secret shops.
• Supports rebalance for easier unlock.

Quality of Life

• All Modes unlocked from the start
• Sound Room Unlocked
• Removed Lyn’s tutorial, Lyn Normal mode is now equivalent to the previous Lyn Hard, and Lyn Hard mode gets Hard mode bonuses to get an extra challenge.
• Check enemy ranges with Select
• Check Unit’s Growth rates with Select
• HP lines display on the map
• Stat display when skipping animations
• See the amount of Health recovered by wands
• Effective and Critical indicator on Enemies

You can see a more detailed bullet point list of changes in the spoiler:

Spoiler of changes

Based on FE 7+ J version by Mkol, if not stated otherwise, all his changes are still present.
(Yes, we have x3 effectiveness, and 3-30 gates and thrones, thanks for asking.)

Balance Changes
Doubling Threshold is now +6 AS istead of +4.
+/-10 HIT WAT
Dancer Ring’s refresh units (nice hack, makes rings fun to use)
Adjusted Enemy level scaling to get full level range in the game and fight Max Lv enemies on the final chapters.
Hard Mode Bonus for all Hard modes.
Adjusted Hard Mode bonuses to scale with map progression. (from +3 to +12)
Moving bosses for non-sieze maps.
*Not Ursula (making her move is making Zephiel a Bolting target D: )

Less annoying Fog:
Night maps have +2 base vision on FoW (Peddler Merlinus, New Resolve, Battle before dawn)
Foggy maps have +1 base vision on FoW (The Dread Island, A Glimpse in time, Four Fanged Offense (Lloyd version)) - *A Grim Reunion is unaffected.

Knights can now use Axes, and Generals gain Sword access. (Wallace and Oswin weapon ranks unaltered, they start with E axes.) Enemy Knights and Generals don’t have inventory changes yet.
Pirates can promote with Earth Seal
Sonia and Limstella now properly use their own Sage class in Hard Mode (Renamed to Sorcerer)

Shop Rebalance, you now get access to more weapons and tomes, Blades are no longer Secret Shop exclusive. And more surprises on Secret Shops.
Support Rebalance:
Support growth points increased x2 or to a minimun of +3 Growth per turn
Support growth range increased to 3 and max supports is now 6.

The FE6 goodness:
Weapons have their stats adjusted to FE6 values (why no one asks for this?)
In general terms Weapons have their HIT changed, Magic has it’s uses and weight changed.
*Mani Katti, Long Sword, Short Spear & Heavy Spear stats unchanged
*Sol Katti has Mulagir stats now. (I like the Lyn with Mulagir idea, but the Sol Katti animations are just too cool)
*Swordslayer, Wolfbeil & Luna nerfed with -10 Hit
*Excalibur, Shine, Aura, Luce, Luna, Eclipse, Gespenst & Ereshkigal have their Weight reduced to fit with the other FE6 tome versions. Eclipse keeps his 30 Hit because the effect is different from FE6.
FE6 Promotion bonuses (Lords, and Thief promotion adjusted)
Swordmasters and Berserkers Crit Bonus increased to 30%
*Knight Lord, Great Lord and Blade Lord get C level in their secondary weapon.
*Blade Lord gets 30% Crit bonus
*Great Lord and Knight Lord gets +1 MV
Reinforments are now Ambush Spawns

Content Changes
-Locked Support Viewer
-Removed Casual Mode
-Fixed Nergal’s Pallete
-Matthew and Legault get unique sprites when promoted to assassins.
-All Hector exclusive chapter availible on Eliwood Mode, with proper rankings.
-Four-fanged Offense and Pale flower of Darkeness versions are each locked to Hector and Eliwood mode.
-Wallace and Harken are Eliwood Mode Exclusive.
-Geitz, Karel and Karla are Hector Mode Exclusive.
-Playable Leila as a Lyn Mode Exclusive
-Bosses with pallete swaps portraits, now have custom portraits. (Beyard, Damian, Sealen & Pascal)
-Small rewrites to fit content changes and translation fixes.

Stuff from the FE-Repo:
Leila Chibi by JeyTheCount
Matthew and Legault Assassing Sprite by GreenTea
Axe Knight animation by TheBlindArcher

Screenshots

You can get the patch here

FE: Blaze and Thunder by Anarch16Sync

Just apply it an US version rom and all should be good.
Any comments or feedback is welcome, is not much but is an honest first hack. Cheers!

[blood]

@Anarch16sync

what if FE7 had FE6 weapons?

@Anarch16sync

so let’s add the FE6 WTA, now we only get +10/-10 HIT

Why are we still here? Just to suffer?

[Anarch16sync]

How is everyone doing? I bring a decent update to this.

The core of this update is to bring more FE6 goodness to FE7, a full scale enemy level and hard mode bonuses adjustments and some other small content changes.

Update 1:

Balance Changes:
FE6 Promotion bonuses (Lords, and Thief promotion adjusted too)
Swordmasters and Berserkers Crit Bonus increased to 30%
Knight Lord, Great Lord and Blade Lord get C level in their secondary weapon.
Blade Lord gets 30% Crit bonus
Great Lord and Knight Lord gets +1 MV
Night maps have +2 base vision on FoW (Peddler Merlinus, New Resolve, Battle before dawn)
Foggy maps have +1 base vision on FoW (The Dread Island, A Glimpse in time, Four Fanged Offense (Lloyd version)) - *A Grim Reunion is unaffected.
Adjusted Hard Mode bonuses to scale with map progression.
Adjusted Enemy level scaling to get full level range in the game and fight Max Lv enemies on the final chapters.
Bosses in non-sieze chapters will move
Added more items in the secret shops

Content
Ch 19x pt2 and 32x now accessible in Eliwood Story. Ch19xx Nils level requiment has been lowered to Lv 5.
Bosses with pallete swaps portraits, now have custom portraits. (Beyard, Damian, Sealen & Pascal)
Wire class changed to Cavalier, I just think it fits more with his portrait, his stats are the same as before.

Bugfixes:
Talons Align - Eliwood’s version reinforcements fixed for Normal and Hard Mode.

With all this changes, the whole game has became… , let’s say, more interesting, the bigger hard mode bonuses from middle to end game makes Hard mode incredible though.
On the other side the enemy level increases, while increasing the stats in normal and hard mode also increases the exp, so it kind of balance itself out.
The better promo bonuses also give a big buff to unit to get on par with the really good pre-promotes the game has… except maybe Harken, Geitz and Vaida, the hard mode bonus make them increible buff… but that only happens on Hard mode, also Geitz and Harken are mutually exclusive.

An example of the stats for enemies on Victory or Death

I also took the chance to update some bosses portraits, like Damian and Pascal, they are small splices, but at least they are no longer just pallete swaps of other minor bosses.

For now, I’ll laid back and enjoy a couple of playthroughs of this, and see if I see the need for some more adjustments like maybe adding some ambush spawns here and there. As always, comments and feedback is welcome

[JioCrestfall]

Might i suggest a luna adjustment:
Can’t crit and 5-10 mt

[Anarch16sync]

When reworking the items, i though about removing the crit from Luna… but without the crit bonus, Luna goes from a “Killing tome” for dark mages, to a “only works on Athos” weapon.

I haven’t got a Canas with high enough Mag to deal more damage with a simple Luna hit than with the other tomes in most cases.
And the same applies for enemies, most would do more damage with another tome that with a Luna hit.

Adding some Mt to it would make it a better offensive tome… but I think it takes away from the risk/reward of Luna too, Flux is already a pretty consistent tome for sure Dmg, so I just like Luna’s weirdness.

What I actually want to do, is to balance ALL crits, by having the Judgral Crit formula, but I haven’t found a patch for that and my tries with ASM have only gotten myself to break the rom.
When I get that working, I think Luna crits will balance themselves out with the other crits.

[Luigiofthegods]

Luna’s accuracy is what justifies it most of the time, so you could be a bit silly and give it 255 hit, Surge-style, to keep its spiciness without making 20+ Mag Luna druids a coinflip for literally everyone besides Louise

If you still want some sort of dark killer tome, you could give Fenrir the crit, since that’s a weapon that no one ever uses

[Aeroponce]

@Luigiofthegods

If you still want some sort of dark killer tome, you could give Fenrir the crit, since that’s a weapon that no one ever uses

That would actually make me want to sit through fenrir’s long ass animation (and don’t bring up the legendary tomes, those deserve to have long animations)

[adalvar]

Ok, so hard mode bonuses scale over chapters. What’s the progression on scaling? How much is the difference for units like Dorcas, Guy, Raven, Heath, Vaida, Geitz and Harken? I’m guessing that the earlier ones wont make too much of a difference outside of 2-3 HP and maybe 1-2 extra points in their core stats, but others like Harken, Vaida and Heath should be crazy strong right?

Also is Nino still as weak as the original?

[Anarch16sync]

I would have to say that it may be a bit too much progression, since I went for the +15 on the last 3 maps like in the binding blade, and scale down from there to the +3 on the first 3 maps like on Vanilla.

You’re correct on Dorcas, Guy and Raven, their stats have an slight increase. On the other hand, Heath, Harken, Geitz and Vaida get the bigger buffs. Harken for example has stats really similar to those of the Hero in my screenshot, with capped Str and around 3 point lower on everything else except luck. I think Heath is the big winner since he has the better growth of the 4 and can also benefit from the bigger promotion bonuses.

And yes, Nino is as weak as always, I don’t plan on touching character stats and growths. If someone wants to use her in Hard mode (that will be an interesting challenge) better save on some stat boosters for her.

In normal she should benefit from the extra experience of the higher level enemies, but she still needs people to set up the kills for her… that is also easier since doubling is a privilege now.

On the other hand, I will keep in mind the changes for Luna, if I find the enemies with it too frustating to handle, I will nerf it a bit more, but no to the levels of FE8 Luna.

[JioCrestfall]

so tried out eliwood hardmode (no lyn mode) run, i literally can’t get to lyn and the others fast enough as the mercs and the one myrmidon on the map relies too much on rng to hit for me to actually keep them safe

though i’m not against skill issue as my only issue here, i feel as though i need to rng my way to get to them

gonna try this again but i’m gonna start with lyn mode to be sure

[JioCrestfall]

Oh uh the chapter i was referring to here was the chapter to save lyn ch 15 i believe?

[Anarch16sync]

Yeah, Noble Lady of Caelin, that is where the enemy level scaling + hard mode bonus scaling starts to kick in.
I’ll pay attention to it see if I need to push the Hard mode bonus scaling a bit down, maybe even target something less than +15 by the final map.

I have been messing with some more aditions and corrections for a future update, but I’ll probably wait for the 12th to publish it.

[RNGSOMEONE]

Some feedback.

Ch23: Living Legend
Pent can die T1 on Hard if you don’t interfere. He also refuses to use his Elixir even when low on HP. All and all, a very luck-based map.

Ch24: Four-Fanged Offense (Lloyd)
Lloyd is stupidly strong for this point in the game, especially since he moves. 24 STR, 27 SKL, 27 SPD? Seriously? There is almost nothing except a massively overleveled unit that can realistically bring him down in a reasonable amount of time, especially due to his massive crit rate up close. Imagine Kel, but he moves. That’s what Lloyd is.

Ch25: Crazed Beast
Farina’s AI gets weird if Hector isn’t deployed. She just moves next to enemies and refuses to attack. She refuses to initiate her own recruitment conversation and becomes unrecruitable as a result.

[JioCrestfall]

idk if this is a feature so for those that don’t want to know

SPOILER

finally got to uhai then got a fcking reset cause he moved up for some reason, when i checked in febuilder his ai is set to “do not move”

(yeah in the previous chapter when zoldam moved up i probably should’ve anticipated whether uhai would move or not)

then again the description of the mod IS a fresh experience for “unbalanced” fe7

[dorime]

This looks badass, will update this post with my thoughts as I play through.

[Anarch16sync]

@RNGSOMEONE

Some feedback.

Ch23: Living Legend
Pent can die T1 on Hard if you don’t interfere. He also refuses to use his Elixir even when low on HP. All and all, a very luck-based map.

Ch24: Four-Fanged Offense (Lloyd)
Lloyd is stupidly strong for this point in the game, especially since he moves. 24 STR, 27 SKL, 27 SPD? Seriously? There is almost nothing except a massively overleveled unit that can realistically bring him down in a reasonable amount of time, especially due to his massive crit rate up close. Imagine Kel, but he moves. That’s what Lloyd is.

Ch25: Crazed Beast
Farina’s AI gets weird if Hector isn’t deployed. She just moves next to enemies and refuses to attack. She refuses to initiate her own recruitment conversation and becomes unrecruitable as a result.

Thanks for the feedback, I will take a look at fixing Farina’s recruiting in Eliwood mode in case Hector isn’t deployed.

Also I finally understood why hard mode bonuses get so crazy after the dragon’s gate… the value was in Hex… so when I put 10, I was actually making the bonus +16, sorry about that lol.
So the next update will fix that too.

[RNGSOMEONE]

Ch26: Unfulfilled Heart
It’s fine. Not too terrible. Pent is way worse comparatively than what he used to be, but he at least can fight wyverns without dying. Louise can’t OHKO even with 3x effectiveness Silver Bow, but she can still dodgetank them for a while.

Ch27: Pale Flower (Kenneth)
Not hard, but you need to spend a lot of time on it. Otherwise the design of the map makes it easy to pull enemies one at a time and fight them. The Silver Sword Swordmaster is super scary, but he is vulnerable to being hit by a status staff.

Ch28: Battle Before Dawn
Uhh… Where do I start? There are so, so many ways to fail this map. If an RNG roll goes wrong, you will probably fail something.

Jaffar is losing a third of his health to each mage or archer that hits him, and they have about a 50% chance to do that. He’s not even doubling Mercenaries, and his matchup against the Silver Sword Hero (if he runs up) is downright terrible, not to mention cracked Maxime. Unlike vanilla HHM, where he usually cleans house but has a minor-medium chance of dying, here, he just flat out dies unless you intervene. How do you intervene? You NEED a Warp staff from Ch22’s Secret Shop, and a good enough caster. I had to warp in a cracked unit with near-capped stats and have them kill Maxime and Ursula with crits and enemy phase the truckload of reinforcements from the bottom left just to keep Jaffar alive. If you don’t kill Ursula quickly, then the reinforcement spam WILL overwhelm you, especially once the prepromotes start showing up.

Stats

Nino’s case is even worse. Not only does the Monk dueling her 2HKO her, meaning she dies on turn 6 if you don’t reach her (assuming she doesn’t get crit and die even earlier). Furthermore, if she decides to run down or away when drinking her Elixir, she is dead. The map is filled with Mages with 20 MAG, and these will not only double Nino and one-round her, they also one-SHOT her too. I had to warp in Harken and Heath (both of which got cracked HMBs) into the right treasure room and give them a door key so they could take positions outside the room (if not, then a thief will block them in and slow them down too much), and then warp in Eliwood to talk to Nino. The only way I got that many warps off is because I deployed Ninian; otherwise, a single Warp caster can’t warp them in fast enough!

Ch28x: Night of Farewells
Haven’t finished the map yet, but I will say that Sonia is still erroneously using the generic F!Sage. For context, Sonia is correctly assigned the Limstella Sage in vanilla on all difficulties except EHM. On EHM, she uses the generic F!Sage. I personally would like this to be fixed (despite changing from vanilla), and probably Limstella too. It would make the map harder.

[Anarch16sync]

I have to say, you have certainly risen to the (unintented) challenge of this super buffed hard mode, glad you liked early warp staves.

I didn’t knew nor did I notice that bug on EHM with Sonia. But now that you mention it, you have given me a solution to another thing I wanted to implement for bosses, so I’ll fix it too.

Also Ch28x… That Luna Druid, oh man, that one is evil.

[RNGSOMEONE]

Luna Druid isn’t a problem, all he has is Luna and Phsyic; he has 30 displayed hit on Florina and no crit. I just send in Florina to intercept all the fliers and hole up in the starting area so I can feed kills to Nino. I’m actually training Nino because the enemy quality is so high that most of the prepromotes just don’t match up well, and having actually high statlines is important.

[RNGSOMEONE]

Alright, I “beat” the hack.

Ch28x: Night of Farewells
Standard Nino grind, not too hard.

Ch29: Cog of Destiny
Eliwood CoD is much better than Hector CoD. Not too difficult as I have hard carry units to wipe out entire enemy groups.

Ch30: Valorous Roland
Actually quite tough if you go in without fliers. Furthermore, the boss becomes super scary when he has capped STR and +30% crit. Bring the Iron Rune, you need it.

Ch31: Sands of Time
This is where EHM adding in the extra Sleep user rears its ugly head. You pretty much need hard carry units to not only kill the status users quickly, but also fight off huge swarms of enemies. Fortunately, Steel and Poison bows suck, so enemy phasing isn’t hard if you can get on a pillar.

Ch31x: Battle Preps
I didn’t train up Bartre, so I didn’t get Karla. IDK how she would’ve done, but judging by the next chapter’s enemy stats, she would’ve still sucked.

Ch32: Victory or Death
Good chapter. Enemies are strong, but also give out huge amounts of EXP. Limstella, like vanilla, is erroneously using the generic F!Sage and not the Limstella Sage, so their lowered CON makes them easier to deal with. Clearing in 20 turns isn’t too hard if you push aggressively.

Ch32x: The Value of Life
Bring your Iron Rune, there’s a ton of Berserker reinforcements. However, they’re not all that strong if you negate their crit rate, so it’s actually a good time to train up the underleveled Lords.

Endgame
First part is… weird. Two doors open at once, but only every other turn (if you’re trying to make it like the JP version, it’s 2 doors every turn, such that all 6 doors open by turn 3). Athos also sucks, since he is slow and gets doubled by a lot of stuff. At least you can cheese Uhai’s room with Warp.

Second part isn’t clearable. The Dragon’s HP is so high it has overflown the limit of 127, and as such glitches out the moment you do damage to it, and consequently traps you in the battle screen, preventing it from being killed. Even then, 3x effectiveness on the Lord PRFs means it will still die on 2 turns tops anyways, and Filla’s Might being 5 turns means you can just surround the Dragon and start boosting up.