I looked at the seraph robe and turns out, the HP value it gives, even though he changed
it to 5 hp, he may have forgotten to give it 5 hp.
Instead it gives nothing, that is why Gilliam there is bugged.
Boost items need a value otherwise they cause this.
I know, because I had this issue before.
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So regarding the previous bug, I just put gilliam aside since I got Gerald and Manse so all is good with that, now, Im in chapter 17, and I found, what I can say can be a game breaking bug, especially with how OP Natasha has become when holding staves. So, the church by the village gives out unlimited Physics, like seriously, I got like 50 Physics just from that church alone since I tried to see the limit of how many physics that priest can give out. Now no one is dying on my team since all of my units that can hold staves have physic with them especially Natasha that has a range that can cover 75% of the map. Also, the southern church event does not work, I already placed Natasha, L’Archel and heck even my lvl 5 Moulder and it does not give anything.
Also, Re-Move is broken on Ross, just saying. He can move 5-6 times per turn due to his luck being maxed out.
I forgot to give it a completion flag. It’s been fixed.
And I’ve nerf Colm’s luck growth to 25%.
Thanks for pointing that out. Idk how the item lost its stat boosts but its fixed now.
Quick notice, I tried using the energy ring (Named something else can’t remember) and even
though it has 2 STR set, it does not give the STR boost.
Alrighty, I just finished the storyline (not touching the post-game yet), and here are the things I discovered:
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already mentioned Gilliam’s bug
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Ross is overpowered, like soooo OP
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i dunno if this is a problem with L’Archel or the staff itself but Titania is unusable, it cant be put in the Supply and cannot be traded, it the bad thing is that its a Prf weapon for L’Archel so no one else can use it
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that event during the Rausten fight does not work either, I had Eirika (and Ephraim after resetting the chapter) talk to Galahad and tried to get two of my units approach him since he did say something about “have your men approach me during the duration of the fight and I will teach them something (prolly a skill)” but there is no talk option. I couldve finished the chapter in turn 5-6 using Ross and Colm but I used the whole 13 turns and still got nothing
-the 2nd to last chapter is an intense grind but with Ross’ stats, one shotting the reanimated generals was easy, except for Fado becuz jeezus that man’s stats are crazy
-also, I dont know if its a bug with that seige tome Storm but it drastically lowers the units move, my lute can only move 3 tiles when the tome was equipped
-is Devil Axe considered magic? During the darkling woods chapter, Ross cant use Devil Axe while inside the fog-like area created by Rieve (i know that was an area of silence since I cant use magic and staves too, thats why im asking). Also, any axe wielding unit can learn Axefaith? I only ever used Ross since Garcia and Dozla’s stat growth just dissapointed me so much
-Myrmidon Joshua’s crit chances are bugged I guess? I had him wield a Shamshir and used Gamble, his crit rate went up to 120-ish and he still did not crit and when he went up againts a unit with Hoplon Guard, he suddenly crits at 0 sooo theres that.
Overall, really nice hack with a lot of gimmicks. Really nice experience, cant wait to get Fado since his class and and skills are sick.
That’s really weird, idk what happened to the stat boosters, they’ve been working just fine until recenty. I’ll check it out.
Edit: I looked into it and they seem to be working just fine. What may be happening is that the items give passive bonuses equal to what they would give. So if a character with 12 STR holds the item they gain +2. Now on the use item screen this does not show the same. So instead of 12+2 it shows 14, and when you use it to get your STR to true 14 it just shows as nothing happening. But if you go back to the stat screen it now shows 14 instead of 12+2.
- The Gilliam bug should be fixed now.
- All the trainees are overpowered, but Ross is a tier above all for sure.
- I’ve changed some things around with L’Arachel to be tested later. The staff should work as intended now on a fresh playthrough.
- Like the cemetary event in Ch. 17, I’m not 100% sure what’s causing that. But I can test it later as well to figure it out.
- Yes lol, Fado is a pacifist by choice not by stature. As for the grind, yes it can be. Although the reason for the Galahad convo is to make it less so. So I’ll try to get that fixed ASAP.
- It’s not a bug, I did that to nerf enemy siege tome users, and player ones a little. But you can easily equip something else before moving.
- The Devil ax targets RES, so in a way yes it is magic. Think of it as Riev nullifying demonic auras as well. And seeing your Ross, it’s probably for the best lol.
- And no, it used to be that berserkers could get axefaith but that made them ridiculously more insane than usual. Instead, in Ch. 19, Dozla and L’Arachel have a dialogue that gives Dozla Axefaith, which is a reason to use him.
- Idk what’s causing that, I’ve never encountered it. But I’ll try to find out what the problem is.
Ultimately I’m glad you had an enjoyable experience.
A note, before I begin: I made my FEU account to comment this. Take it as you will.
I do like this hack. The ideas and mechanics are very cool, and well-implimented and balanced as far as I’ve seen. I’ve been playing Easy just to see what’s different, and once I fully grasp all of it, I’ll be doing Normal. I’ve skimmed the documentation, which is the crux of my main agony with this hack. Because, given how well its crafted, I am desperate to like it. But as someone who also likes Eirika, and like… women in general, it’s biggest flaw is kind of hard to ignore.
Women are bad in this game. It seems almost crafted to be the case. The highest CON of any female character as of Chapter 5 (Not a large sample size, I will admit) is 5. I do not count Vanessa, as she’s on a Pegasus. I will talk about her CON later. The lowest male CON is 6, Artur’s CON. This is somehow lower than Ross, who is a young teenager or pre-teen, who’s CON is 11. 11, which is more than double Eirika, who fundamentally knows more and has done more battle than a preteen from a farming hamlet in the middle of nowhere. In the Details of this post, you mention that mounted women have (functionally due to Mounted Aid Calc) +30 to con, and mounted men have (functionally due to Mounted Aid Calc) +35. Which doesn’t make any sense, ESPECIALLY for cavaliers. The rider isn’t the one doing the carrying, their personal CON simply shouldn’t ever matter, because it’s the mount doing the actual, y’know. Carrying. I may understand Pegasi being able to carry less than Horses, but how you describe the CON difference isn’t between different specie of equine. It’s by gender. So, presumably if you had given Wyvern Riders the Mounted Aid Calc, if a Wyvern Rider is a woman, her Wyvern is also just less potent. Which is a slight against Jill, which should be illegal in all 50 states.
That’s just CON. Let’s talk about Eirika. I’ve been DYING to talk about Eirika. Every single one of Ephraim’s Prince skills dwarf Eirika’s Princess skills in every single imaginable way. Inspiration and Charisma, sure. Inspiration is more useful, given that other than axe users, most people don’t actively struggle to like… hit. And instead, damage would often be better. But then you put Canto+ on Ephraim, and Demoiselle on Eirika. The pure absurdity of comparing these skills, because ostensibly Eirika and Ephraim are meant to be compared, just shows how utterly outmatched Eirika is. Not to mention, Ephraim actually starts out with a real weapon in his Reginleif (which gives +2 to Str, Skl, and Def, three stats he already excells in by the way), while Eirika gets a rapier. Which is good against infantry, yay! And gives no stat bonuses in the least! Her growths sure are better, but not in ways that’ll make her comparable to Mr. Free +6 To His Stats. Ephie also has double Eirika’s Leadership stars, and even Eirika’s servant Seth has one more leadership star. I get that she’s young and generally inexperienced, but so were Roy, Eliwood, Hector and Marth (and pretty much every other young Lord of some suddenly Evil Empire-beset country), and yet they were sure dang great at leading. And so is Eirika, it’s in her blood and she learns VERY quickly how to command like the best of them. Grado and the revival of the dark dragon or whatever (every Fire Emblem GBA final boss is some kind of evil dragon) COULD NOT be defeated without her. She is necessary. Her route, also, isn’t any less important. It isn’t “easier”. It shouldn’t be MADE easy either (not that it functionally is given how absolutely horrendous Eirika is), it’s a NECESSARY journey for Eirika to take for the war to be won. For the world to be saved. Making her functionally worthless compared to her brother makes her route seem less necessary and important.
I could point out a few dozen things that I’ve seen in the documentation that entirely amounts to me citing numbers and going “you made women worse”, which is boring and a waste of everyones time. But know, I noticed how most female versions of classes shared between genders are just straight up worse.
A final note: I truly do not care that Eirika or women in general were worse in base, normal Fire Emblem 8: The Sacred Stones. It doesn’t matter. It’s an issue there too. (Also, don’t mention real life to me. I live in reality most days, fun fact. The world of Fire Emblem is a world wherein dragons ad magic are real. What bearing should gender play when theres an evil dragon who wants to eat god??) The fact of the matter is that this is a Redux, a re-do of the same game with changes to make it more appealing or to make gameplay different enough from canon to mske the game feel fresh. This hack does that, the gameplay is tight and balanced and SO fun and interesting. I like it so much, but I’m also a lady-adjacent who likes women. And women are just. Bad to use in this hack. You don’t have to remake it, you’re done and dusted, just. Keep that in mind for when/if you make another hack. People notice. People notice and WILL think less of you and your work.
Thanks,
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Hey! Thank you for your feedback. I love the thought that you put into your experience with my hack, and I’m happy that you were able to enjoy it despite your reservations. I’m not someone that takes offense to criticism or disagreements so no worries there, I see them as opportunities to improve and/or engage in good discourse.
Before I address your points, I would like to preface this with a few points. Firstly, it was not at all a focus to provide/consider political or social commentary in this hack. As an avid fan of gaming, while I do believe that there are games that have done political/social commentary well, I fall into the camp that it generally is not the place for it. I say this because as you’ve pointed out, these are problems with the vanilla game as well and it is a product of the culture in which the developers stem from, which I’ll address later. My goal was to provide an enhanced experience of the game, while maintaining its identity as a Fire Emblem game. Which I hope that I have. Secondly, I think all of the points you made have a lot of validity to them, however I disagree with the original premise to some extent. It is true that the female units in the game are physically weaker than the men, as they tended to be in vanilla, but they are superior in magic, which is one of the strongest mechanics in the hack. So, I don’t quite agree that the women are worse than the men, or at least not because they are women but rather because of who they are narratively.
The CON problem is something that is true to vanilla FE8, and I kept it within the same rules. Including the lower mounted CON for women. I agree that it does not make much sense since the horse is doing the carrying, but it is that way because the CON of the female units are lower in general and would allow them to rescue units that they shouldn’t be able to if they didn’t suffer the -5 Mounted CON penalty. Like their fellow mounted units, which I did not want. As for the low CON of women across the board, the way I decided that was again for realism, CON = weight. I looked at the battle sprites, original art, and wikis to determine the likely size of every unit, and what I saw was that all of the women were drawn as more petite compared to their male counterparts, which you can point out as an issue across Japanese culture and their portrayals of women in video games and fantasy. Regardless, I gave them less CON than the men because of that reason. I identified that as a potential problem, so I mitigated the issue by lowering the WT of weapons where it made sense, especially swords ala Eirika, and tomes. As for the other stats like HP, STR, and DEF it is also that way because the official art, but I counteracted that by giving the women higher MAG, SPD (arguably the best stat in the game) and RES across the board. Which has the effect of women being the excellent magic units, like Lute outclassing Arthur due to her damage output, and both Natasha and L’Arachel being better healers than Moulder for example.
As for Eirika, the reason she is so weak compared to her brother is because narratively she is. Story wise Eirika is described as kind, considerate, naive, and having a dislike of violence. Additionally, her wiki states that she had only started training with the sword 2-3 months prior to the start of the story. Comparatively, Ephraim is headstrong and impulsive, as well as a prodigal fighter and strategist, who very much prides himself on that skill. Thus, he will outclass Eirika combat wise. His skills are centered around combat while hers are centered around bettering her allies, not because of her gender, but because of her personality and backstory. Same with the leadership stars, which I translate to military leadership, of which Eirika has none, and Ephraim has not only ample training in, but practical experience in. Eirika, and much of the other playable women in the game do not have histories stemming from combat. 3 of the 12 playable women have combat origins, while 15 of the 21 men have combat origins. I did not go out of my way to change the backstory of any of the units, so the result is more combat oriented male characters.
To address your final point. The existence of magic and gods in a world does not mean that world gets to break the rules of reality. The draw of fantasy is that it provides an enhanced version of reality, that way we can still recognize it as a living world, but are still drawn to the enhancements provided like magic, mystical creatures, etc. The best fantasy worlds in my opinion do not ignore the rules, they bend them and add new rules. GOT is a fantastic example, a lot of its events are driven by its women. But it recognizes the superior physical make up of its men. Instead, it gives women qualities that allow them to compete in that world, Cersei’s, Margaery’s and her mother’s intellect, Dany’s dragons, Melisandre’s magic, Arya’s skill, speed and training. And then you’ll have your rare Briannes, which FE does have. The Vaidas, Echidnas, and in this case Syrene. Very few, if any fantasy worlds alter the physiology of its human races, and I do not think that they should, they simply highlight their women’s strengths in other ways.
I can understand your feelings toward the constitution of the female units in the game. But each have a positive attribute that allows them to be useful in comparison to their counterparts. That just may not be combat. I am not looking to change your mind on this issue, my main goal with this reply is to be consistent with how I have addressed feedback in the past, by addressing every point made. Whether or not that changes your view of me, and my work is not my priority. I started this hack with the knowledge that this will not be appealing to all audiences, and I am perfectly okay with that. But I do thank you for your input, it’s definitely different from other critiques, and I hope my explanation provided you with some understanding of why these things are as they are.
Thanks for playing!
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This…all of this…had to log in to reply on this bit. The best fantasy worlds are the ones where the contrast between the mundane and the fantastical are at their peak…by showing a gritty, grounded “realistic” world, you can then counter balance it by showing a fantastical, reality bending one. TBF Syrene is hardly comparable to Vaida or Echidna…the latter two are brutes who happen to be women, but are very masculine in their presentation (Vaida is a straight up Brienne with a more vicious persona), while Syrene is more of a classical beauty who enjoys and excels in things typically associated with a old-school portrail of women and also happens to be a pegasus knight, a type of fighter who is revolves more around speed, precision and grace. There’s nothing wrong with showcasing differences between things like gender and race, which exist, so long as you can ensure said differences are shown in a fair light and everyone gets their time in the spotlight.
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Definitely! And I agree about Syrene, personality wise, FE8 does not have any the masculine woman archetype. But I used Syrene as an example because she is an example of a woman that is comparable to the men in physical ability in this hack. She has a good class, Hugh STR and DEF for her class and good weapon ranks, and can be installed into your team with little issue. Like Vaida and Achidna.
Made an account to post this, lowering HP caps is not pog. For example, Marisa as a swordmaster only has 50 cap. Sorta related, when a unit caps a stat, the level ups still show plus 1 to the capped stat, still stays capped
I’m not sure what you mean by pog. As for the stats increasing even though it is capped, I think that’s just an issue with the game engine which I don’t know how to fix. But it sounds like it’s not affecting the game itself which is good, as long as your unit’s stats are not bugged because of it.
In this context, pog means good, so lowering HP caps isn’t good. Personally, enjoying the hack. From things as simple as ‘heal has 1-3 range, mend has 1-2’ to the Spur skills and Seth’s Mercy skill making him a perfect player-phase Oifey, it’s clear you put some Big Thinkin’ into this. Now, with that aside, some minor quibbles.
I agree that Eirika is pretty firmly the worse lord of the two between having a worse Prf weapon, worse stats, sword-locking and – putting Inspiration on both of them instead of the male-only variant on Eirika would go a long way in making her not feel like a bad choice. She still won’t have Canto+, but her passive heal (maybe if it’s bumped up to like 15% and Amaterasu to 25% to not outstrip it entirely) is nice utility.
I find all of the characters are pretty good, regardless of gender, barring maybe Natasha, who I only really ever level out of her being force-deployed on a map with both an arena and a healing stave shop. Maybe Neimi’s a bit bad, but that’s the curse of having Innes and his innate 1-2 range bonus ability for comparison, and once she’s on a horse, 2-4 range with Canto+ is good enough to compete. Really not sure about all of the uhhh biotruths blood and guts grimdark apologia posted above, though, lmao. It is a fantasy game.
I don’t think Tethys needs swords. Or even staves, if I’m being honest. At most, porting in the FE7 rings would be enough for me, Dance utility and the odd Rally Rainbow make her obligatory on every map once she’s on the roster.
I haaaaaate how stairs take extra movement. I guess they do it in 3House too, but in that game I can at least dismount and take them by normal speed next turn. I think that penalty could be reduced or ignored entirely without a big loss.
Minor bug report: Joshua’s event on 14-Eirika doesn’t trigger. Playing on Hard.
That’s all I can think of. Namaste.
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To quote Family Guy (which is perhaps the only time i will in a discussion/conversation of any kind)
You Know What Really Grinds My Gears:
^
This. All of this. I’ll try and not get too ranty. Here’s the thing, say it loud and say it proud: Fantasy settings are not a writing carte blanche. This is the absolute definition of a default excuse that is used any time any criticism of any kind is levied against a fantasy show/game. Not only is it flawed at it’s core, it’s demeaning to the genre since it implies that it doesn’t need to be held to any higher standards such as writing and design consistency. Some of the best fantasy works are ones which have a very tight set of rules to the world they present. These rules can either be based on real life ones (which includes basic knowledge and application of things such as human biology) or they can be made from scratch. Avatar, Berserk, the Kingkiller Chronicles, the Mistborn Series to name some of the better ones are as good as they are because they stick to a tight set of base rules for the worlds they portray. Hell, even more mainstream productions such as Pokemon tend to produce their higher quality content when they actually bother to adhere to the system of rules they designed. That was the higher point that i was trying to make with my example.
And actually i would agree that the older base Fire Emblem games do tend to screw their female characters. FE6 Sophia and Gwendolyn were jokes. Same in FE7 with Rebecca, Louise, Nino and even Lyn. Same in FE8 with Neimi, Marisa in the Japanese version, Selena in Creature Campaign. Because they failed to counter-balance the weaknesses presented by gender diferences with a proper set of strengths to create actual niches for said characters…which pretty much most of the Redux/Reskinned/Reworked versions in this site actually did.
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Oh, right: Bastadus lacks a portrait when playable (it’s the default question-mark unlike Klimt, etc), is listed as a Marauder (despite being a Centaur, maybe?) and can’t use any of the weapons he starts with. Not sure if this is intended. I have seen several units with Longbows who cannot use them (i.e. Orson, c16 Ruled By Madness). The cutscene that introduces the assassin Crispin prior to Preparations in C16 hardlocks the game (skipping this scene with Start gets around it).
Some of the script you’ve added (with Castellan, Lute and Artur in Renvall, etc) has spelling errors. If you send me the raw text, I’d be more than happy to pick through it for you.
Aight so I made another playthrough this time going Ephraim’s route and I found something interesting… In the final chapter, if you let Joshua face Ismaire, Ismaire does absolutely no damage to him, but it will take a long wait before the turn finishes since Ismaire triggers Astra on almost every attack, it took me a solid 5-6 minutes on 2x speed just waiting for Ismaire to finish attacking XD
Ah okay, I can def see why lowered HP would be annoying on some characters/classes. Though I think it’s balanced well enough where those classes wouldn’t need higher HP to do the jobs that they are meant to do lol.
She’s meant to feel like the worst combat lord of the two canonically. But I can tell from the feedback that the gap is too large. I’ve made a few minor tweaks to aid in that, like swapping their personal skills and giving the rapier a buff in MT. Hopefully that helps her a little in the liability department.
Funnily enough I’ve been getting mixed signals about Natasha. Some people think she’s quite good with her magic growth and the abbess class having a better toolkit than the bishop class, and slayer + Mercy makes her good at helping other units tower grind. But I’m with you where I don’t personally use her because I obsessively heal every turn to where my Moulder is over leveled by Ch. 6.
I 1000% agree about Tethis. It’s one of those early decisions that made when I was giddy about what I could do with the mod, and I wanted to use all the pretty animations lol. But I just left it in there. And I never put a weapon on her, just a heal for emergencies and other staves for my other healers to trade off her. I actually wouldn’t recommend anyone to arm her as she’s dodgy enough alone, and doesn’t need the risk of suffering WT disadvantage from the wrong lance unit.
I lessened the annoyance of stairs for the “light infrantry” units. Kept it on cavs (to nerf them a tad) and knights (cause they can’t have nice things lol).
And I fixed that bug. I had it crossing with another event flag.
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Huh? I’ll take a look at that. Not sure what the problem could be.