I mean the ratio of mounted to unmounted movement. Hence why I said “relative”. Yes, the gap is still 2, but an 8 movement paladin would have 4/3 the movement as a 6 movement swordmaster in vanilla but a 9/7 movement ratio here. It’s about 1.33 in vanilla compared to 1.29 here. Not much, but it’s still an improvement.
Considering FE6’s map sizes, I’d say it’s for the best, but some maps could use some redesigning to fit the new movement (as Obsidian mentioned with chapter 8). Just moving the archer to the right a space could fix this particular issue.
I just got to the end of chapter 21 and it softlocked (updated: I sped up the game for a few seconds and it worked out, I managed to beat the hack!) so I’ll just dump all my thoughts into the changes, but before that just wanna say that despite the strangness of these changes, I had alot of fun (FE6 is my favorite FE game so seeing new stuff with it is always entertaining)
So going into each and every change
Pretty standard change, didn’t mind this at all, making FE6 easier is something alot of hacks do and while I don’t agree with it I can’t say it’s bad
I won’t say who the secret character is, but I will tell you that Thea is one of my absolute favorite Pegasus Knights so this change I hate with a passion, not to mention the secret character is hilariously overpowered for their joining time and I do believe you forgot to source the art for the portrait (do correct me if i’m wrong)
Didn’t notice them, can’t comment on them
This change mainly just made the game easier and again, it’s not exactly a bad change, but I don’t agree with it
Lilina instantly dies in her joining chapter
Game glitch, he doesn’t actually promote at this point, nor does he obtain the Binding Blade like the dialogue implies
Making Roy into discount Eliwood is one of the things I found most infuriating about FE6 hacks, slapping Roy onto a mount doesn’t make his promotion more interesting or fun, it just makes him into a less cool animated character which is really lame.
I love this, it’s silly and incredibly funny to watch.
Making FE6 easier, again, don’t agree with it but that’s just my opinion
Actually Roy starts with C rank in lances meaning he can use horseslayers at base or spam javelins which makes his sword rank useless
I won’t spoil the dialogue, but the two characters who chatted had very out of character reactions and conversations, not to mention the text glitched out a bit.
The map change to chapter 3 was a massive shock and I really liked it, unfortunately it became heavily glitched when Zephiel’s event started.
Removing the fog in Chapter 14 tho? That had me laughing so hard it wasn’t even funny, it’s again one of those things where it’s just making FE6 easier so you already know how I feel about this but this chapter specifically is one of my favorite chapters… ever, I could go on for a while on why changing chapter 14 is not good but I’ll leave it as tl;dr making FE6 easier is boring.
Level cap being 40 is WAY too high, my Roy capped out literally everything and my Merlinus was close to capping his luck at lvl 30 (Merlinus had accelerated exp gain it seems, he leveled up really quickly upon dodging so I abused that)
Secret character that replaced Thea unfortunately didn’t have a new palette or new dialogue so it just felt like Thea but you robbed me of her which made me profoundly sad (but that’s not your fault entirely, it’s mainly because I love Thea alot)
Speaking of Thea, the event where Klein and Thea show up is messed up because Klein’s group is split into 2, enemies and allies, rather than them choosing one, so my Klein just murdered 1 of his archers at the beginning of the turn and I had no input, same with Thea’s pegasus knights
Changing Roy’s base animations to be his Great Lord animations doesn’t make sense because now Roy is slashing with his Rapier, not to mention he’s attacking with the Binding Blade (a weapon he wouldn’t have until literally the last few chapters of the game)
Finally, Roy never promotes, the event for his promotion is glitched so the Binding Blade will never be given to you.
Overall: I had fun, and that’s honestly the most important part, it wasn’t an innovation masterpiece but I was able to enjoy myself.
I started the game up on normal mode, then I just gave up since I thought it was way too easy. I hacked the game in FEBuilder to add hard mode in by default (something I suggest for OP to do), and it’s definitely more fun to play for me. Not sure whether or not OP should work with normal or hard mode, honestly. My vote goes towards hard mode, personally. I’ve played up to chapter 4 at this point, anything past that is beyond me.
Most of the issues I have right now are that units are still unbalanced. Dieck got buffed (despite being quite strong in vanilla) to the point where he can almost consistently one-round most enemies he comes up against.
Roy may have gotten buffed too much, his stats at level 4 or so are on par with a much higher level unit (around 7-8 or so) in vanilla. His rapier allows him to pretty much shred through any bosses he fights in earlygame since most of them are cavaliers and armor knights.
Elen got some buffs to her stats, yet her HP, magic, and defense remain pitifully low. She’s still a healer, so she doesn’t have it the worst, though.
Wolt’s the only character whose buffs I’m fine with. His stats are overall higher, which is nice. I would say his bow is too good, to be honest. The ballista bow pretty much hits from anywhere and almost invalidates the use of any other bow. I would suggest heavily reducing its range to 2-3 or so.
Pretty much every other character is vanilla (unless I forgot something).
The movement made enemies swarm you much more quickly, which becomes a problem in chapter 3, but I’m fine with a little increased challenge. I actually found Merlinus’s increased movement to be useful, especially since he can visit villages and block off some areas from enemies.
Once you’re done with the initial onslaught, you’re pretty much finished with the rest of the enemies. The rest are just bait and switch tactics until you get to the boss. My suggestion is to either add more enemies or have more “beginning assault when attacking with 2 turns” AI enemies as to reduce bait and switch.
Roy wielding lances is nice, but as Obsidian said, him having C rank is too much. He also has C rank in swords, which also seems a little high to me. D swords / E lances seems like the sensible option. I like that the rapier was buffed, that was a change I liked.
I’m surprised that weapon hit rates weren’t buffed. That would seem like one of the more obvious rebalances to make. About 15-20% buff to each weapon would probably work. I find that hit rates are quite low and RNG reliance is too common. Overall, weapon buffs seem to not have much of an effect on hard mode for me. It’s still pretty difficult. You could try buffing enemies further and adding more variations on the earlygame enemy types, perhaps?
Lugh isn’t recruitable… for some reason. Perhaps the house event was moved to create the new door? Either way, moving units onto the house does nothing and displays no commands. The throne is still messed up, though it can be seized with some clever movement of the cursor.
Zzzz
Yes, using a 0% runner as your reasoning is useless, it’s like using a nuzelocke to justify making a change in Pokemon; it’s irrelevant
I’ve made my points, and as more posts have come in, my initial questions on how any of this balances are still valid. They’re not balance changes, they’re just… Changes. They do not balance the game, if anything they appear to just make the game easier or are entirely lateral changes that did not take into account their actual impact overall (movement +1 is the obvious example).
Looking in builder, some of the growth changes are…weird.
Rutger of all people gets a bulk boost, with his defense growth going from 20% to 35% (on the level of armor knights), and his res went from 20% to 45%. He also got +20 to his luck growth because his dodgetanking wasn’t reliable enough?
Meanwhile, Wade remains entirely vanilla, even though pretty much any reasonable person would agree that he’d deserve a buff well before Rutger.
Yes, using a 0% runner as your reasoning is useless, it’s like using a nuzelocke to justify making a change in Pokemon; it’s irrelevant
ok so
other things that don’t count as legit FE6 gameplay (because dondon did it)
Using Percival and Niime because of their bases
Using a rescue staff on Juno to avoid opening up a safe zone that turns green units suicidal
Using status staves on enemies to help keep your army safe
Using mounted units to function as Roy’s car to the seize point
Using the arena to make some money
Using the pegasus knights for kills to avoid Sacae route
Using a staff user more often than you need to to have the rank for Warp before Ch14x
Using deployment slot orders to reduce the chances status staves hit your army
Using your memory of reinforcement zones in chapter 21 to avoid more reinforcements
Using boots from the secret shop on Chapter 21
Using swordmaster criticals
Using rescue chains
Using triple effectiveness weapons
Using turtling
Doing pretty much anything useful to advance your progress throughout the game
ok bro if you say so I can’t beat your masterful logic
but who goes outta there way to use merlinus
I use him in chapter 16x and chapter 20 of Sacae route to eat a bolting so no one else has to risk dying before we can reach close enough for the use of Silence or Sleep. Those places can be cramped as hell anyway, not a big deal to ditch someone else who probably won’t have the space to contribute well for him as bait.
Give me a reason to provide a better answer to someone who dismisses statements without an explanation and then claims no one has countered their point of “it’s just arbitrary” or “waste of slot.”
It’s easy to deal with a strawman when you have an actual argument to present, because then there’s one that has reason to have to refute. It’s not when the hole is so obviously there from a lack of it.
a strategy can be effective both in and outside of a certain playstyle
what was said is “dont use a specific niche playstyle as the reason something is effective”
not “nothing used by this specific niche playstyle is ever applicable anywhere else”
you responded to the latter argument, which is not the one that was made
the point was “if this thing is only effective within this one niche playstyle, it’s not broadly indicative of its effectiveness”
youre not even wrong your reasoning is just bad
the point was “if this thing is only effective within this one niche playstyle, it’s not broadly indicative of its effectiveness”
Merlinus being capable of being free bait is applicable for many casual purposes. This is not necessarily a point that was countered, as I stated that the secondary use of him (teleporting items across) was what was used several times in an LTC run, but the statement of their questions remaining valid remains after it was made because they felt no need to even consider it.
His teleporting function may happen to be more niche, but it is undeniably a real function that can have its purposes. It’s not along the lines of rigging RNG for getting crits you need for an LTC strat but wouldn’t count on for a more casual playthrough of a chapter, which people generally wouldn’t consider very legitimate play outside of the context of something like an LTC.
The main reason someone wouldn’t have to care about it is because the game simply allows you to carry things across a map via horse or whoever or move together as a single group that keeps everyone close together which slows down the game significantly. But slow play isn’t the only valid play, to the point it’s even insulted or discouraged in favor of efficiency. In this sense, if someone not trying to prove a point via LTC uses the teleport convoy function for a weapon they need to toss around, how is it irrelevant? It’s not like we’re talking about the contrast between an ironman (where you can’t reset for lives, even if it’s a completely viable function in-game) and a normal run (where you can.)
I don’t see how this has to do with the balance changes that were applied - actually, I feel like the balance changes overall make Merlinus even less desirable since, although he has 10 Mov, it’s also true that my fliers now have 8 and my promoted ones have 9 (and they don’t have to care about terrain) and so does my Marcus, who can now skip and run across the map to ferry items from villages like the Ch2 Armorslayer even quicker. Also, why have Merlinus bait when literally any unit can do that, but also retaliate in return? Because he can die and come back next chapter to die again? This is not even FE7 where you can’t send items to the convoy if the convoy isn’t present on the map, his slot on the team is just worthless in my opinion, considering it could go to practically any other unit that is far more valuable than an item teleport button, whether it be utility or combat wise.
Also, why have Merlinus bait when literally any unit can do that, but also retaliate in return? Because he can die and come back next chapter to die again?
Yes, that’s exactly what it’s for. I’ll put aside that whoever is attacking Merlinus is probably someone that I wouldn’t be able to retaliate to beyond the early game when I use him for this purpose.
actually, I feel like the balance changes overall make Merlinus even less desirable since, although he has 10 Mov, it’s also true that my fliers now have 8 and my promoted ones have 9 (and they don’t have to care about terrain) and so does my Marcus, who can now skip and run across the map to ferry items from villages like the Ch2 Armorslayer even quicker.
This is a reasonable argument. I do not think a 10 move non-combat unit has many advantages (in this respect) over a 9 move flier who can. 7743 has once mentioned they made a 15 move flier who has no combat stats that was still found useful enough because of rescue utility, but in this case the advantage is low beyond the free bait.
considering it could go to practically any other unit that is far more valuable than an item teleport button, whether it be utility and combat wise.
There are several maps where due to a relatively low amount of space, it will become difficult for people regardless of their combat viability to actually fight all that much in a meaningful way. Someone like a Physic healer or a dancer can take priority over this since they don’t have to reach the enemy to help, but those units themselves can be undesirable or lack availability at the time for another reason. (In maps with multiple siege tomes, I don’t like to field dancers. Physic healers can’t be physic healers if there’s not enough Physics or staff ranks to use it around.)
I don’t see how this has to do with the balance changes that were applied
I don’t have that much of a concern over how exactly the changes affected the game, beyond how I vaguely guessed that +1 movement’s flaw coming with the Lilina chapter. This is regarding how it was attacked with little more than “why” and “they’re just senseless changes” without much of anything to claim as a better alternative nor an acknowledgment of their potential purposes.
If we’re talking about making Merlinus viable here, I find his main flaw to be his low stats, lack of rescue, and lack of attacking option. Sure, giving him more movement does make him able to catch up with the army, but he can really only access the convoy, trade items, and activate chests/villages.
A paladin using the same slot would have combat capabilities (pretty good ones at that), much better overall stats allowing them to survive more handily, ability to rescue and drop units, and some inventory slots for item management. They would have 1 less movement (in this case) and no supply access, but that would be much less of a loss than the things they would gain.
To make Merlinus more viable, I’d say giving him an attacking option, usable bases/growths on par with a promoted unit, and maybe allowing his class to rescue/drop units would make him actually worth using. The only issue with that would be that he would add another Jagen-type character to the earlygame alongside Marcus, which may make earlygame easier. It would take some other rebalancing and different enemy placement to see the full potential of a true Merlinus rebalance.
Like any matter of rebalancing, you kinda need to manage both sides of the scale to ensure that the game is actually balanced. Some of these changes do seem like they’re motivated by balance, but also lack the “opposite reaction” that is required to make these changes work. Changing anything will have much more of an effect than the hacker initially realizes, and I feel OP hasn’t truly explored the effects of many changes on the game’s overall framework. My solution to this would be extensive playtesting, both solo and through others, so any further balance issues caused by the original changes (like the archer near Lilina’s cell) can be found and fixed. Not necessarily getting rid of the issues entirely or finding alternate solutions.
Like any matter of rebalancing, you kinda need to manage both sides of the scale to ensure that the game is actually balanced. Some of these changes do seem like they’re motivated by balance, but also lack the “opposite reaction” that is required to make these changes work.
Most FE6 rebalances I’ve ever seen all aim to make the game easier, I think the only exception is Project Ember Maniac Mode, and I don’t actually know if that one’s more difficult from personal experience.
No game I’ve heard of is actually balanced perfectly, (the closest I have heard of is Starcraft, which still wasn’t claimed to have perfected balance) so I’m not exactly sure what the concept of balance here is supposed to be. Everyone knows that in base FE6 the player’s armor knights suck really bad in the context of the game, but they exist as part of the game balance in FE6, even if it might only be as a flawed aspect of it. Even then, there could be an argument for how they are intentionally bad to tell new players not to rely on their kind of archetype, and promote high movement and more offensive characters instead.
“Balance” then ultimately is the result of a design that aims to achieve a specific purpose. A game like Three Houses screws itself over a lot on making actually interesting maps due to the extreme power and variability given to players making them too unpredictable to account for, but if we consider that the point of the game was to compromise on this for the sake of catering to people who want that customization and aiming to achieve OPness, then it was balanced as intended.
FE6 does have some aspects of its balancing that annoy the shit out of people, such as the sheer weakness of many of the player’s units, which leads to people wanting to make it easier with their rebalance. But this objective wouldn’t really be realized if they countered it with stronger opponents (in a hypothetical scenario, in playtesting the results may be unexpected.) I think it’s clear enough from the creator of this patch’s stated edits that making it easier was more or less the point for them.
Yeah, it all depends on what “balance” is. I think most people can agree that no FE games are 100% balanced (or even that balance is possible in the first place). I was more referring to character viability here, defining true balance as “every character in the game is as good as any other”. To me, a game can be 100% balanced and still be easy or hard. Difficulty is different from balance to me, though changing one can (and will 90% of the time) have effects on the other.
The tendency to make FE6 easier may come from the rebalance changes implemented, which I find are often focused on making “lower-tier” units more usable rather than nerfing units that are already strong. Instead of having some “good” and some “bad” units like vanilla FE6, you have mostly good and viable units. Since your units are overall stronger, it would follow that the game will overall be easier. Perhaps the issue is that balance patches focus too much on buffing weak characters?
Unrelated to the rebalance but I absolutely agree on this sentiment; I think no matter what unless you make everyone else comparatively unusable I feel some units will simply become worse than others by design. However, buffing bad units to make them as good as the best units doesn’t really fix the issue.
I’d much rather it if you had great units and if you had viable units, too. Sure, your Paladin prepromote, flier squad, etc. will usually become the best units in the game, but as long as you have room to fit a unit you like using without shooting yourself in the foot or an unreasonable amount of investment/time, I think it’s good anyways
