That’s certainly one way of doing it lmao.
Though also for real, yeah, I believe every unit should have their own set of skills that can synergize with their growths and whatnot. Although chance based skills like Pavise are pure cancer- I wouldn’t dare give those to an enemy; especially not on maps where there’s an incentive to move quickly.
Arguably I could make Chance skills as like a gimmick for player units, but otherwise, yeah, I agree- FE combat is already pretty RNG based as it is.
I personally believe in a mix of Personal and Class-based skills; much like Conquest, everyone gets one unique personal skill and a set of Class skills that are meant to work with them. Generics with stuff like Lunge are also something I’ve considered (and seen usage of) to use to great effect.
That said though, it’s important that enemies like that aren’t made to be too annoying- I want the player to have a good time dealing with these enemies in a ‘tough, but fair’ way.
I agree- skills should be consistent, and not broken.
Your comparison with Paragon and Astra is also spot-on: Indeed, Paragon is arguably more valuable than Astra since you will (pretty much) always need more exp than the kind of firepower Astra can potentially provide.
Though I will say that your idea for Adept, while it does sound cool, it’s potentially too convenient- even as a Player-exclusive Personal Skill, what I think it would do is encourage low-manning/snow-balling since everyone would want to use that unit (and give them Speedwings) since they could have potentially the kind of firepower at their disposal that would let them absolutely clear house.
Also, giving said unit a Brave Weapon would pmuch always let them proc the skill at best, and potentially, at worse, give them an outright free Astra without the damage reduction on it (which would absolutely tear apart anything that you would likely intentionally throw them at). Even if I make Brave Weapons super rare (or don’t use them at all), they would still be either broken regardless for the reasons above, or else likely considered at best mediocre since I would have to nerf them to a likely high degree to keep them from breaking the game in two.
If I had to turn it into something more manageable, I would say that (if I had the means to do it) I could retool Adept so that it uses your Skill stat instead of your Speed stat when calculating your Attack Speed (so if you have more than +4 Skill than your opponent, you can double).
Giving this to an earlygame glass-cannon type mage like Soren (alongside a Skill growth of, say, 50% or so) gives the player an incentive to use this unit, as with a decent skill growth and base, they can become reliable while still not being too broken (as being a Glass cannon in this case means that he can’t take physical hits, requiring the player to be somewhat careful with him).
… though that’s just what I think; feel free to take it as you will.
It’s a good take, I like it.
And using Skill does sound like a good way of balancing out Adept.
Now note that this additional attack only happens once. In other words, you do not get a full round or a complete brave effect, just a singular regular one.
That being said, Adept could also work as a personal skill on characters with low strength/magic.
Hence why I brought Soren as an example.
He reliably doubles if you train him but it always feels like he needs a small push in order to reliably do significant damage or one round enemies with his Wind Magic.
Adept in this case would ensure that the player can stick to his Wind Magic specialization since its tomes are very light. All the while still making the heavier but power-hitting Thunder Magic Soren a viable option.
my take on Adept is like this: Negates Wary fighter. If you have 6AS more than enemy, first attack becomes consecutive, if you have 8AS more, second attack also becomes consecutive.
See, I do agree with that to an extent- but it has to be done carefully, and I would outright say no to using Great Shield; especially in a GBA hack using Skill Systems.
This is because (if I’m interpreting your post correctly), the only tactic that wouldn’t result in Great Shield proccing (especially since preventing a counter-attack would be impossible since the boss would likely have 1-2 range to prevent cheesing) would be to use Nihil on it- which not only negates proc skills in Skill Systems, but also other skills like -Stance, -Blow (even Savage Blow if they’re the target of it), and possibly even Drive and Spur skills on not just the enemy, but YOU as well.
At that point, it would become a pure numbers game, and since I would likely have to make the player kill that boss at some point, I would likely have to make a unit join that same chapter who can reliably kill the boss so that the map can have some consistency.
At which point, you have a potential problem of said unit being so strong, that the other generic enemies on the chapter simply can’t compete with them- and that invites problems of its own.
The other proc skills (especially Offensive ones) require a balancing act of their own, but for the defensive ones, I’m going to say that Pavise and Aegis are much easier to manage than, say, Great Shield. (Though if you want, I’m more than happy to elaborate if you want me to).
I totally believe this. This… this is honestly what I wish random proc skills were like- though being real here, while you can work around Fog of War and ambush spawns, well… like I said earlier- offensive proc skills are their own can of worms that I’d prefer to use a separate post to respond to.
That makes sense; though I still do think that can be abused to a ridiculous extent… I think this only occurs in Three Houses with Gauntlet Combat Arts (to my knowledge) for that exact reason, actually… (since an extra attack like that will be useful more often than not).
See, I get the logic behind that- but arguably, that doesn’t resolve the underlying problem insomuch as shift the need for the small push from speed to Mag./Str.
While this might be fine in the earlygame, where enemies don’t have much in the way of the defensive stats, this can become a problem in the midgame, and definitely be a thing in the lategame depending on how their level-ups come out.
On an unrelated side note, I feel like this is part of the reason why people don’t like using Est-type units as well: their offensive stats are so bad for when they join that even with the promise of a good payoff, it’s simply way too difficult to train them up at that point since they can’t reliably do damage on their own to kill even a weakened enemy.
That being said, however, earlygame flier utility units (Shanna from Fe6 and Karin from Fe5 being good examples here) get to get away with this even in the lategame because even if their offensive stats suck, the potential utility they provide at the time (and in Karin’s case, potenitally throughout the entire game) makes it a fair trade-off.
Negating Wary Fighter sounds nice, but the bit on consecutive attacks is… honestly, I can see that becoming a potential nightmare balance-wise (even if it doesn’t stack with Brave Weapons, which, if it did, is an automatic ‘oh FUCK no’).
Actually, if I retooled it, this would make a great Bold Fighter skill: It negates enemy defensive procs skills and skills that prevent follow-up attacks, but only if you have 6 more AS than your opponent.
By that same token, I could retool Wary Fighter to be where it negates enemy offensive proc skills, and enemy skills that would let them make follow-up attacks (such as Astra, Double Lion, etc), but only if you have 4 more Skill than your opponent.
Again, though, this is just my opinion- take it as you will.
It can be, but it can be hilariously fun. Like i just finished vestaria a few days ago, and some of the units you get have a 100% Adept chance…
Which means they do get 8 Attacks with Brave weapons haha. However they are balanced by their kinda weak str, which means while they are effective against squishy units, it’s not that good against tanky ones.
However Vestaria has 100% Adept and Chance% Adept…
It can be, sure- and you do raise a good point about the strength stat- however, I think it then becomes important to really measure how the enemy stats scale at that point to what the average stats of said unit are.
From a balance perspective, you potentially have to then juggle between them having enough defense so that they don’t become a complete joke to kill, or else them having enough to where it no longer becomes safe for said unit to be sent against them (as in being potentially killed on counter-attack from the mage, because usually units like that tend to be really squishy to balance out that kind of damage output), at which point, there’s likely going to be better options to choose from (and, barring a particularly stupid player or design choice, there should be).
Unless there’s reclassing and skills from previous classes carry over there’s not really any point of “balancing” skills, because the skills are just part of the character/class they come with. If you want “balanced” units then skills are only a part of the whole.
Instead, rather than “balance”, you should be looking for how well a skill fits the character/class and whether it adds anything interesting to the gameplay or not.
If you count Promoting, then I suppose it should be balanced- and skills I believe are part of the whole.
Just because it might fit a character/class doesn’t mean it’s a good idea either- FE Inheritance is a good example of this…