Hey there everyone, finally created an account and starting to share some ideas
General
I m new in the community and hope I can create a first small (or big) hack in the future, with the help and support from everyone here. Also please excuse the long text, I just like to write things.
Mainly got some ideas already on how I plan to do things, but they are very rough and I might change things at any time. Not to mention that I m a beginner in everything regarding this topic, I just started to learn the (very very) basics for FE-Builder and save sometimes after every little edit to check if I destroyed something or not (and yes, I did destroy it before)
My first steps would be to get to learn FE-Builder a bit more and also think of some kind of story, set of characters and world-lore in general. I m a hobby-writer for some years and this part of the hacking is what I enjoy more sometimes (be advised, I usually write stuff in German, so my English-stories might be limited in terms of creativity/vocabulary etc.)
Also as I m new, I want to say this beforehand - if you see that I use something (ressources) without giving credit to the owner/creator, please contact me so that I give credit and/or remove it from the project if it s not allowed to use. I mainly will take stuff from the big ultimate repository which from what I understood, is free-to-use if credits given, but still, I might forget something, I might get confused with the files, I might be not being aware of something, so please dont take things too harshly on me if I use something that I should not be using, I did not do it on purpose.
FE - The Soulless
What my ideas currently are (please give your opinion if you see some hurdles already regarding FE-Builder, also keep in mind, I do not know much of coding so I will only use what FE-Builder already delivers, and ofc if there are friendly people here to could help me out every now and then)
Also some ideas might be better suited for the 2nd bigger hack as the first one is some kind of small experimentation as well as pre-story lore of something bigger
Characters:
- Small Set of Characters (not too many because I want the ones that will be in to be unique, have their own personality/storyline/relations)
- They should be as realistic as possible in terms of personality, relations, motivations (I hope I dont shoot myself in the knee for this)
- Conversations and Supports in every direction → not everyone likes everyone, that s why there might be supports, that actually give you a negative effect. The higher the support, the bigger the hate which leads to the worst impact. Also there should be many conversations in general on maps between characters to give them more dept, but also here, not everything will be positive to keep things realistic (not sure if something like negative impact is even possible in the FE-Builder but would be nice)
- This would also make it harder to send in your two best units to the front, as they would impact each other in a negative way if they dont like each other, but a combo with a weaker unit + a stronger unit, who like each other, would likely to be more effective, this also gives you the risk of putting a weaker unit closer to the enemies though
Story
- Some world with obviously countries and kings etc., not sure if the main cast will be somehow related to a noble/royal family but they probably will, at least 1 of the 3-4 main-characters atm are in plans
- Some interesting story that is relate-able, realistic with a bit of drama but not too big for now (no war between countries, more like an adventure with a goal)
- There should be choices to be made and they should have different outcomes
- Story will get revealed more and more, the more the Player interacts with the characters
- Story should also contain darker scenes, not sure about the rating, but the world is not good everywhere or to everyone
Unit-Benching and Deployments
- If you deploy/bench a unit too often, they might get motivated to prove themselfs (temporary buff) or in the worst case, they will leave your team after warning you with a few negative conversations (maybe) - again all of this as everything else depends on how powerfull FE-Builder is)
- If you deploy/do not deploy specific units in specific chapters, it also might have an impact
- In some chapters there should be permadeath, in some there should be a retreat only if possible
- Game Over for more than just the “Lord” unit´s death as some are important for the story, you also get a Game Over if you for example did not use a specific unit often enough and they leave
- One of the goals should be that the Player tries to keep at least some units happy, and you cannot keep everyone happy
Leveling, Classes (also because I have no idea about balancing atm)
- There are no promotions available
- There is no leveling up available - Units are either strong, weak or specialised depening on their education, training, environment etc., for example a Royal Guard with 30 years will be an experienced and strong unit with consistency, however a young but talented Guard will be weak either way, but could have a break-through moment such as criticals to make up for the being talented part
- There is no leveling up because the duration of the story does not take years but more like weeks, and therefore I cannot imagine people getting so strong so fast or even promoting in that small period of time (for the next hack, which is planned to be bigger, there might be though)
- It is still possible that units get stronger with items, situations, conversations, for example if you talk to a unit who is willing to train you, you will increase one stat or something
Weapons and Items
- Mainly will use the default inventory
- Some Specific Units will have personal weapons/items
- Probably weapons will not break but also cannot be shared (at least some)
- There are no strong or weak weapons unless they are specifically unique (for example personal weapon of a Lord will do normal damage with a slight bonus to something to make it personal)
- Magic is not common, only the gifted or the experts can use magic, everyone else is limited to physical weapons, this would make some characters more unique (if I go with this idea though, is not certain yet)
Enemies
- Most enemies will use default weapon-inventory but they will be better equipped and prepared depending on the situation, for example a bandit group might only have iron weapons while a mercenary group will come after you with stronger weapons and healing items
- Mentioned enemy groups will act accordingly, bandits might position themselves poorly on the map, chase after you without thinking, while some high-tier mercenaries will hold a chokepoint, wait for your arrival, coordinate an attack to swarm you at the same time etc.
- Still thinking about reinforments that move the same turn they appear, while it will give a surprising effect just like in real life if you get ambushed or are not in a good position because you were not carefull enough, then you suffer, but it s still really annoying in terms of User Experience when it happens, it s just a game after all and Players should at least have a bit of fun
- Monsters should appear as enemies as well - also hints at the name of the title
Chapters
- No idea of the number of the chapters, but maybe not too many, I ll see on the way there
- There should be a main “safe-house” at some point where the group can rest, talk, do stuff OR
- There should be several “sleeping-places” before/after some chapters, where the group can rest, talk, do stuff, like after a long day, they rest and the group has some time to speak with each other etc. (can be optional though, but might give you more story, items, boosts etc.)
Difficulty
- Some chapters might be very easy, some might be very hard, this does not have to be related to the chapter progression, an early chapter might be harder than a chapter later on
- I plan on making things harder with better enemy positioning, their tactical actions (move, hold, attack etc.), the environment itself and managing the group
- While there will be some tougher enemies at times, there will not be huge differences, as also the Player Units will not really level up
Help/Support needed
Things where I for sure will need help and might ask here or in discord (btw, what is the official FEU discord channel, I couldn´t find it yet)
- FE-Builder Basics and Guides and specific things (there are some guides already, but sometimes not everything is covered as I already fail at the very simple tasks … I m looking at you, Prologue of FE8 Cutscene which destroyed the file at the removal somehow I think)
- Importing Ressources and using them (like color pallets, not good at it)
- Ressources in general, mugs, items etc. though I already found the ultimate repository as mentioned
- Music (I installed sappy, that s all I did)
- Map-Design (I realised I m the worst map-designer)
- Feedback on many things
- Questions about many things
If you managed to read the big wall of text, thanks for doing so and I hope to hear some opinions already : )
Take Care
Cec