Fire Emblem: The Lonely Mirror (Concept for FE8 ROM Hack)

[LeskLyfeld]

@Minnnt

a. I’ve only played through the game once on Maddening, almost a year ago, so it ain’t fresh in my mind. But for the record, I found the game overall difficult but fair.

Just play it again, if you do have the time for it. If you can’t or don’t want to, that is okay as well, 'cause you don’t have to play the game again, but as of now on Chapter 17x (my current progress) difficulty has stabilized, so that isn’t exactly any kind of issue that I have.

@Minnnt

b. More importantly, you missed the point of my post. I’m not trying to debate gameplay issues. The tone in how you present a criticism is often just as important as the criticism itself.

I drive my point across and make what my gripes are known instead of making a bullet list after buttering things up so any bug reports or comments made get drowned down or not acknowledged.

@Minnnt

Your comments have often, at least to me, come across as hostile, rude, and belittling. Considering I’m not the first person in this thread to discuss it with you

You’re the second, and when your comments come off as buttering someone up they are dismissed and never acknowledged, so it’s pretty much impossible to take them at face value.

[dancer_A]

@LeskLyfeld not a fan of your overall tone

@dancer_A

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

• Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.

You’re teetering on the offensive/abusive without going all the way there. Reel it back.

Continue

[LeskLyfeld]

@dancer_A

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

• Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.

Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

@dancer_A

@LeskLyfeld not a fan of your overall tone

Forgive me for being rough, but it would be appreciated to let me know on such teetering before-hand and in private.

[dancer_A]

It’s unnecessary, this isn’t even a warning.
It was also stated previously multiple times by other members in this topic. Had you complied at that point I never would have stepped in.
If you want to continue this conversation specifically, feel free to message the staff. Otherwise, back to the topic please.

[jackofblades1991]

I wouldn’t exactly say Faith’s DOA, funnily enough she’s what I call a “Slow Go” character. Some call them trainees some call them ninos (if I’m remembering right) just about every hack under the sun has a few units that are by rights a headache to use/train but almost all of them also end up being polarizing.

While that first map is a pain for faith I usually manage to get some levels under her belt she doesn’t fair too bad for a bit.

and to give you an idea of my cursed luck in my first go round miles didn’t gain a single point of speed for 6 levels and he couldn’t even consistently double on his join map.

Meanwhile Parvati became one of my most heavily snowballed units, and everything was just weird all around.

Now this is me more directly wanting to refer to your perceived tone in this whole debacle. Always pay attention to when the last post in a thread was made or when the Main Post was last edited.

Sometimes hacks can go dormant for a long time due largely to life being a massive pile of fetid meat left out for too long, and then just get a massive update out of left field.

as such there is a level of decorum that has to be upheld, and this is coming from someone who’s usually more blunt then I’d like to admit.

[LeskLyfeld]

@jackofblades1991

and to give you an idea of my cursed luck in my first go round miles didn’t gain a single point of speed for 6 levels and he couldn’t even consistently double on his join map.

While poor luck is a factor (and so is terribly good luck, as a second player I know has been playing this and had a Leah by level 6 that had about double the stats gained over mine), I do tend to consider too on a character’s jointime and their competition, I reckon, so that is why I tend to default to a unit’s competition in both that chapter and following ones as well, to their level averages as well.

While you could try to call Faith a Nino-ish character, considering both her overly difficult usage in the Prologue and how she supposedly gets a very late return, by that point if you wanted to run a Pegasus, you probably took on Helga, who not only has better maps, but also better Constitution, even if just slightly.

It doesn’t mean that units such as Caspian will be bad - just that they can potentially have enough of a lucky glow up for them to hold their ground for the following chapters.

In my case, seen by my first (unremoved) post, I was planning to bench Liang, and then he joined Chapter 11 (as I chose to take the bow instead of the tome). First off, Hunter’s Bow has been a great tool with taking care of mounted combatants, and combined with Liang’s speed, he has been able to keep up well enough that by when Chapter 15 arrived he has obtained a spot in the usual 12 units I field every map, alongside with Winifred.

On the subject of Parvati, I consider both her struggling method of combat and how leveling is heavily tied to it, that by when I promoted Saoirse by the end of Chapter 16, she not only already had a tremendous headstart against Parvati, but she had the stats and the weapons to fight that off.

I do honestly consider Saoirse the better Rune user, and Scholar a hard class to use for both Tanya and Parvati due to the lack of a powerful motive to use runes other than finding and burning through the last one found.

@jackofblades1991

Now this is me more directly wanting to refer to your perceived tone in this whole debacle. Always pay attention to when the last post in a thread was made or when the Main Post was last edited.

Sometimes hacks can go dormant for a long time due largely to life being a massive pile of fetid meat left out for too long, and then just get a massive update out of left field.

What made me go back here was the fact that Lonely Mirror was on the front page once I revisited FEU after about a year or so - of course, the last edit had been about a bit less than a month and a half, but it was all a whole “huh?” moment that made see how the game held out.

@jackofblades1991

as such there is a level of decorum that has to be upheld, and this is coming from someone who’s usually more blunt then I’d like to admit.

Although, and I’ll say this, I’ll run through and be potentially as blunt or as rough with any hack that I see, unless I hit a point where a hack actually strikes me with awe (see: Chapter 17x).

Spoilers

Meanwhile me A-supporting Boone with Silvan:

Chapter 19

If it isn’t the consequences of (her bad level ups) my actions.

Now, on my defense.

You might think of these stats as “bad”, but considering her level (12, so 11 level ups), and her growths, let’s consider what are the stat averages.

Lv. 1 Lv. 12 My Leah
HP 18 26.25 27
Str 6 10.4 9
Skl 6 12.05 13
Spe 8 14.6 13
Lck 6 11.05 12
Def 3 5.2 4
Res 2 5.3 4

I have an average - even if slightly grazing the bottom - Leah, so this should be close to her expected performance.

Well, an interesting Chapter 19 awaits me.

[jackofblades1991]

@LeskLyfeld

Although, and I’ll say this, I’ll run through and be potentially as blunt or as rough with any hack that I see, unless I hit a point where a hack actually strikes me with awe (see: Chapter 17x).

No I totally understand that. There have been plenty of hacks where I just get flabbergasted at how completely shafted I feel due to a mixture of enemy quality, weaponry, and variety that when combined with the units I deployed suddenly struggle against.

I myself have made a few rage posts across the threads of a few of the 80-ish hacks I’ve played, as a side effect I’ve somewhat learned how to be both critical and blunt about my opinion on some facets of certain maps while not being so crass as to come off like a complete jerk.

But back on topic, I usually don’t have units that particularly cursed oddly enough.

[LeskLyfeld]

@jackofblades1991

But back on topic, I usually don’t have units that particularly cursed oddly enough.

Fun fact, that’s just near-average Leah

I don’t want to know about truly cursed ones.

For now we are simply struggling with Chapter 19 due to either the Axereaver Watchmen getting himself killed, or Leah herself getting shot to death. Fun times.

[jackofblades1991]

Yeah, It’s been a while since I’ve played this particular hack but due largely to how I deploy units and their exp gains go I just sorta roll with who shows potential. Like in my first go that fire mage with the like 60% magic growth kept wanting to get defense and speed.

It’s always just a laugh seeing how “not intended” some of my units become.

[caladrius]

I am seeing a lot of attention on Leah, Faith, and Parvati as units, and I wanted to add some thoughts to the discussion.

Thoughts on Parvati as a unit:
@LeskLyfeld, I have reflected and reviewed Parvati as a unit, and I am inclined to agree with you on many of your points. I feel like she is really challenging to level up as a combat unit unless you feed her kill EXP. It is tough to use her runes to weaken enemies and expect her to stay relevant after completing Ch10 in this game. I do think there are a couple maps midgame where she does do all right (Ch16, which was mentioned), but she does get outclassed by Saoirse or Alouette (if you recruit her). I do feel like if I had a skill system in Lonely Mirror, which I decided not to use by choice, I think Parvati could have had a personal ability to improve her rune usage in some way to set her apart. In any case, I will see if there is a way to improve her feel as a unit, so that she doesn’t have totally useless turns.

Thoughts on Faith as a unit:
A couple thoughts here:

• Faith’s character was intentionally crafted to be a challenging character to train, primarily for narrative reasons. She embodies the concept of a character who has faced adversity head-on, challenging the hand she was dealt, and persevering through her struggles. Faith consistently rises to the occasion, whether it’s her role as Princess Leah’s protector or her duties as an ambassador for Celyste. Her journey is one of constantly having to prove herself against the odds. For example, if you read Faith’s support with Joseph, you’ll learn that Joseph thought of Faith as expendable and often sent her on very dangerous missions. Faith repeatedly manages to succeed against all odds, which leaves Joseph astounded by her resilience and capability.
• While it may be difficult to train Faith on Chapter 4, because of the many axe users, Faith can still have a role on the field in visiting the northern village and fending off a couple bandits with Parvati’s help. Faith is still helpful on Chapter 5 in visiting shops or picking off weaker enemies. There is 1 archer and 1 wind mage that she does have to watch out for though. Chapter 6 and some of the later chapters in part 1 are a lot kinder to Faith, and she can gain some levels. You can also use her to shortcut Chapter 8. She does return later in the game, but I still find that she can catch up pretty easily, especially if you use the wing spear on her return chapter.
• Flying units have dominated virtually all Fire Emblem games, and I also wanted to take a break from that narrative. Flying units are still incredibly great in Lonely Mirror, but I also like how Grant, a usually benched armor knight, can feel like your best unit for a lot of the beginning.

Thoughts on Leah:
I partially agree with a lot of your assessment. I do feel like there is a lot of variance on how Leah turns out as a unit. Sometimes she is amazing, and sometimes she is unusable, and it doesn’t feel great to have a lord who cannot do anything. I have had level 14 Leah’s on Chapter 19 still at base power, which was rough. I have since improved Leah’s bases a little though, so she starts a bit more capable; though, this is not in a version that is available.

[LewynCollins]

No. The Nino archetype (which was the Est archetyoe originally) is a character that appears once you’re past midgame or in the last stretch. It’s a very weak unity at first but also has the best stats growth in the entire game in multiple or all stats. Examples of this are Est in Marth games, Mareeta in Thracia or Nino in Blazing sword.

Faith has not excellent stat growth, being just your average pegasus unit. She dissapears for most of the game and only comes back in the last stretch, when she is not needed anymore and because she does not have excellent stats growth, you have no reason to give her some training like you did with Nino or Mareeta.

There are only 2 ways to make faith an interesting character to use, and I say this because I like Faith, and I want her to stop being useless:

Option 1: make her growth better and give her a preferent weapon when she rejoins.
Option 2: let her rejoin sooner. She could help the white lions escape from prison, for example.

[caladrius]

@LewynCollins

There are only 2 ways to make faith an interesting character to use, and I say this because I like Faith, and I want her to stop being useless:

Option 1: make her growth better and give her a preferent weapon when she rejoins.
Option 2: let her rejoin sooner. She could help the white lions escape from prison, for example.

I am going to go with Option 3 here and leave things be.

I don’t think Faith is useless. I think Faith’s stat distribution and growths actually lend herself to be one of the better fliers in the game. In my opinion, she is probably the second best after Wise for her contributions in part 1 and her potential for end game. I would personally rank the innate fliers like this: Wise > Faith > Helga > Kurtis > Shane; though, I think all of them are very usable.

I have also made the wing spear cheaper and more accessible for the end game, which has mostly only monsters. Faith is one of only three units who can use these (Kurtis only on promotion), and she has the highest power of all these units, which allows her to more consistently one-round monsters at the end of the game without needing Dorado. To me her biggest drawback is the late rejoin affecting her support options, but she is a great support partner for Joseph if you plan for it, and can work on flier heavy teams if you also use Helga and Kurtis.

Consider the ramifications of making Faith join at the prison map to say Helga as a unit. It would be a huge slap in the face to recruit Helga, then be given a wyvern knight on the next chapter, and finally see Faith return on the next map with all the part 1 exp at her disposal. Faith would certainly outclass Helga and Wise here. Kurtis would join a two maps later. That is also a lot of fliers back to back, and as I mentioned in my previous post, I don’t want fliers to just take over.

[Yasako]

Pulling a TLP and letting Faith promote in Leah’s part would resolve most of her issues without making her OP like Inanna - by the time she rejoins, everyone else is already promoted. Thanks to recent adjustments, she’s not a liability in her rejoin map anymore, but it still doesn’t feel like she contributes without burning through (currently) valuable Wing Spear durability. I’m glad its availability is getting increased in the coming update, but for blind players, they won’t know that they get more than one Wing Spear. I guess you could signal that you do get more than one by providing one in an earlier map, but that would reduce the “Oh cool!” feeling of Faith rejoining with a Wing Spear. It’s hard to balance vibes and player retention…

But, that’s why this is more of a personal project. I’m glad that’s your decision.

Also, you can use skillsys but not give anyone skills except for Parvati, although doing the custom build to that end would be annoying lol

[LeskLyfeld]

@caladrius

Thoughts on Parvati as a unit:
@LeskLyfeld, I have reflected and reviewed Parvati as a unit, and I am inclined to agree with you on many of your points. I feel like she is really challenging to level up as a combat unit unless you feed her kill EXP. It is tough to use her runes to weaken enemies and expect her to stay relevant after completing Ch10 in this game. I do think there are a couple maps midgame where she does do all right (Ch16, which was mentioned), but she does get outclassed by Saoirse or Alouette (if you recruit her). I do feel like if I had a skill system in Lonely Mirror, which I decided not to use by choice, I think Parvati could have had a personal ability to improve her rune usage in some way to set her apart. In any case, I will see if there is a way to improve her feel as a unit, so that she doesn’t have totally useless turns.

By one side, let me just say that not adding the Skill System therein is perfectly good. Most people make it so it ends up being a bloated fest of skills, removing the tactical/rush of strategy games and simply making stat balls. It’s definitely based on how it is handled and whether or not that ends in a good way.

Skills - beyond some small changes that are seen in here such as Snipers getting the Swordsmaster crit, Rangers getting Sure Shot, and a Dark-Only class also getting Swordmaster crit is as good as is.

My thoughts on it - whether it is upon your ability to do so or not - is to allow Parvati to have a Blank Rune (or sort of) across the Prologue, as by when she rejoins back, if she has gained enough experience she’ll be able to promote to either class.

Thus, in that case, I do consider that a weaker, less breakable weapon might be the answer, as it would allow her to use other runes during the prologue as versatile tools, rather than her only option.

@caladrius

Thoughts on Faith as a unit:
A couple thoughts here:

• Faith’s character was intentionally crafted to be a challenging character to train, primarily for narrative reasons.

Seen across multiple dialogues, such as Prelude III Faith-Joseph, mentioned by Helga herself in her description, multiple chapters, the recruitment of Kurtis, etc.

Within narrative, that is understandable. It will probably have to fall on how she rejoins and the enemies she faces then as I still have to see her in the field, but for now we’ve managed to get through Chapter 19 without Leah getting eliminated.

@Yasako

Pulling a TLP and letting Faith promote in Leah’s part would resolve most of her issues without making her OP like Inanna

This suggestion here is one that could maybe be interesting, but I’m unsure on whether or not it could be carried out at full potential.

On that line, whether this is something you aprove of or not:

I have decided to preemptively send Leah’s Light Brand to the convoy at the start of the map to allow Myles to make usage of it.

I am not biased whatsoever.

At the current point of the game, honestly, it feels like a larger upgrade compared to the prologue, but at the same time it’s mainly due to the larger amount of units and Chapter 17x bias.

[aeternalight11]

Help. I always got black screen after chapter 19 even after loading my save game

[caladrius]

Hey @aeternalight11, I am sorry that you are experiencing this. I have never had this happen to me before, and I am wondering if anyone else has had this issue.

This might be difficult to troubleshoot without understanding your save file either. It’s also possible this could be caused by the platform you are running Lonely Mirror on as there have been strange things

[aeternalight11]

do you want me to send you my save file in case you might fix it? I will gladly appreciate it. thank you!

[LewynCollins]

How are the supports going by the way? Are they the same as they were last time I checked (January)?

[Zakuzelo]

For the record, Boone, Caspian, Myles, and Travis are level 10, 7, 8, and 7 respectively. It’s not like I ignored them completely, but they’re still mostly half the level my actually good units in the first 10 chapters were. What level did you expect them to be for this point?

[LeskLyfeld]

Alright, I come here to talk about both Chapter 24 on Reizo’s side and Chapter 25 on Amanda’s side.

Yep, we have a problem.

Now, let’s begin with Chapter 24 - fun fact by the way, we’ve had no pre-promoted units, and Reizo’s Chapter 24 does not have an Armory.

Now, what are the problems within that chapter?

First off, it’s a Survive Chapter that you will lose in three turns.

Now, let’s talk about some issues of the chapter:

• Green Units die on turn 1:

Quite much literally, your green units designated to tank will, without fail, die on turn 1 due to the enemies straight up one-shotting them.

This includes the following green unit which - on retrospect, doesn’t look that bad, does it?

It spawns right next to a swordreaver and a warrior with a bow.

• Kid Protection Services

So let’s talk about what happens on this chapter by turn 1.

The soldier instakills the armor with a flame lance. The fighter slams a reaver on the peg, and then the warrior finishes. Reinforcement comes, and a fighter with a hammer spawns. On turns 2 and 3, it will break the breakable wall, and the Warrior will come in with their bow and oneshot a kid.

You need your full force to prevent them from killing the kids, but even then, you’re then led with the consequences of facing the stronger promoted units, whose massive bulk and evasion make it rather improbable you kill them through reliable means. And what happens when you do that?

• That Rogue - and Reizo

You can bet.

Reizo himself is no help either, with the 9 SPD turning his 40 HP into a cheese-grater, making him get himself killed the moment you don’t have him rescued, invalidating one of your units.

It’s as if the green units didn’t get any stat scaling when the game placed this on maddening mode.

• Lack of Salvageable Units on worst case scenario

You also do not get any prepromotes or “salvo” units that you can try to play around with to try and salvage your current situation, there is no armory in either this chapter or chapter 23, (and Chapter 22 and 23 will end early on killing the boss with objectives which have little to no reason to end by then, and do so without a warning or a notification of such.), while there is one by Chapter 24-A, and the units there are laughably more easier to take care of.

You’ve only acquired 10 Seals by now, limiting yourself to 10 promoted units, your unmounted, promoted lord, and a complete lack of units that can supply any needs for a fix.

If you’re screwed, you’re locked out of Reizo’s route.

• Chapter 25 (Amanda)

So now, let’s talk about Chapter 25, which splits all of your army around and throws capped / near-capped unpromoted units, and three or so promoted units all around the map.

This would only not be a problem were half your units up to the task of dealing with 5 different enemy times - shockers, they aren’t.

Let’s talk about the basic promoted enemy and your two pre-promotes that do join on this route.

• Differential between recruits/expected stats vs. your enemies

Yeah, that’s not going to really age well.

Your other pre-promote also suffers from extreme frailness, and considering the enemy power, this means that units will die in two attacks. You don’t really have more than one or two units that can hold their own alone, rather twelve.

At this point, both Chapter 24-Reizo and Chapter 25-Amanda have proven themselves to be rather atrocious to handle, with the best for Reizo’s being losing Yvette by turn 7 after lucking out on the Warrior and child defense, and then pursued by the multiple promoted units, while other runs end by Reizo throwing himself into premature death.

• Smaller notes:

Joseph loses A-Rank on Wind upon promoting to Dark Griffon.