Fire Emblem - The Soulless (still learning)

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

3 Likes

these are all nice ideas, but if you actually want to implement them you’ll need coding.
As far as I know, there aren’t patches for negative supports (or individual support bonuses, for that matter), the benched units getting “fired up” mechanic or the thracia 776/ fe4 stat convos.
You should actually see what’s feasible before starting to plan way ahead of what you can actually do.

That said, good luck with your project.

2 Likes

You may wanna take a look at Lex Talionis, pretty sure it would make some of your ideas possible that wouldn’t be possible with FEBuilder. And its also just easier to work with imo

3 Likes

thanks everyone for the responses!

@Zolo2500
I feel your pain, my issue is that I want to create a quick map but end up just trying to understand, which parts actually fit which parts … gotta practice I guess

I did see the skill-system in some hacks and I really liked them, though I need to research about it as I have no idea how to “activate” and use it atm

hmm, if negative supports are not really possible (without coding) I need to rethink that part, and also the area about the benching, though soft-locking sounds inviting

safe-house/place for resting is one of the things I absolutely want to have

not sure if I understand your idea about the “swap after chapter” though, how exactly would that work out?

@Bwan
coding is what I wanted to try to avoid to be honest as I dont really have time to invest something in that regard
but I agree with you about checking what is first possible to do before setting everything, this big wall of text only was some huge brainstorming loudly, I know I cant get all of it

@Donlot
thanks for the hint with LT, I will make sure to check it out, if it s easier for me, that would certainly speed things up, I just thought FE-Builder is probably the most used/common Tool where I would have the biggest community (but I dont know much so)

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@Zolo2500
I just did it, installed the skill config and couldn´t believe how many of the skills are already there and ready to use! this certainly makes things more interesting now!

hmm, lowering supports does sound like an idea though, they could start the game with A-support

yeah, exactly, that would be my plan (if I ll manage)

ah, but with that, I could technically also do the negative stats thing, like character and character1, if a specific thing happens (bad convo, benching), then switch for character1 which decreases some stats
I know it won´t cover the original idea, but still something nice to have, so thanks for the hints, mate!

I see, guess I can try a few things and then see which are working, swap-method still sounds promising atm

yes, I want to make the cast small but I m not sure yet, if I can make it small enough, depends on the story etc. also

I already feel helped, I didnt expect so many responses from different people so quick! for sure I ll come here when I m stuck and need help, or share ideas, share knowledge maybe and yes, maybe one day some content hopefully

and yes, I dont wanna give up the mood/happy-ness thing too easily but sadly also only have limited time due to work/life and so on, thought maybe there was something ready-to-be used, maybe I can make use of some of the skills if there are some negative ones or some with drawbacks

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hmm, I see, this is already very detailed and also technical, too much for me already to be honest
only thing I can hope is, that I ll get to know the things with time and well enough to use em, of course would be really nice to create something unique or new in a GBA-hack, but only if it s feasible with not too much efford

nice idea with the area walking thing with the invisible character, thanks, not sure if that s what I want to in the smaller version, but maybe in the bigger hack where I can imagine more “investigation” for the players to do, just a thought

force deployments sound complicated already, the deploy/retreat method, I think for now, I ll try to focus on the easier parts, like planing and story/character and try to create some maps that do not look ugly

1 Like

you re right about that, maybe I m overthinking everything atm, and try to make things as perfect as possible, which won´t be the case, I ll try to take smaller steps, get to know things, maybe even upload some (beta/alpha) demo thing to get the opinion of the people here

and yes, learning goes by doing, so I got a long way infront of me, thanks for offering your help : )

already started of doing something like that, added a new character with also a battle animation, though I m not sure how the color palets look (might post them at some point to get opinons here but for now I m still playing around)

hmm, NPC is also one of the next steps, but the recruit stuff can wait for now, as I plan on making a small cast which will simply join, thanks for the mug btw! I did have a look at the big repository as well, already found some real nice ones : )

sure, basically I started with the Princess as one of the Lords
for that I took this cool battle sprite (by Melia):
image

but I need different colors, so I tried to change them with a new palette, I tried to experiment around and this is the best I came up before I gave it up, it s okay-ish I think, but still not super nice

image

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I used the FE-Builder, I basically took the whole finished battle sprite, added a new palette and recolored from there in the FE-Builder, it did recolor all the frames automatically I think

yes, I also liked it so far, it s just hard to arrange the colors so that it looks natural and so on, hope I dont need to do this for every unit I add

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hahah, yeah I can imagine that, I also read somewhere, before FE-Builder, LT and all the newer tools appeared, all the hacking was a real pain to do in general

edit: so you think it does not look strange? @Zolo2500

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hmm, already reading it makes me be thankfull to what we currently have available
glad to hear, it s not as bad as I thought, the palette : )

ah you created a new account? why do you wanna ditch this place though, sorry I dont really follow atm
but I would prefer to discuss here actually if that s fine

@Cec you can feel free to ignore that user

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hey @dancer_A
hmm I see, to be fair, that user did help me with the ideas and so on, but surely did not expect the last responses, as I came to this place with the hope and thought, that it s a nice community

that view of mine did not change : )

2 Likes