How should I structure the class distribution in a hack?

[SSGhostShip]

Hey everyone! I’ve recently started cooking up my first hack, but I’m finding myself really struggling with how I want the player’s party to end up looking in the endgame. I want to make sure that the cast is overall balanced, but also I’ve noticed that I’m pretty biased towards certain classes (like pegasus knights) and I want to avoid making a cast that’s almost entirely one or two classes.

Therefore, I wanted to ask what kind of distribution of classes would be good if I’m making my own hack? Or at least, what’s the usual way that classes are distributed in games without insane reclassing like FE3H? For reference, I’m using FEBuilder so the restrictions of GBA FE apply. I can’t make too many new classes because I’m doing a hack vs. using Lex Talionis, but I am planning on making at least a few, and more if I feel like it’d make the hack more fun. Also, I am planning to have a split between Str/Mag instead of just making it Power so some classes will be a hybrid of physical/magical.

I recognize that the context of the hack as a whole is important for this kind of question, and every hack will be different, but I was hoping to get some insight on what the distribution normally looks like in FE titles before I start going too crazy. If it helps, I’m intending to have 40+ characters, and so far I have planned:

• A lance lord who promotes to be able to use dragonstones
• A cleric lord who promotes to be able to use light and anima
• A pegasus/wyvern rider christmas duo
• A wolfskin
• Another pegasus rider

And as a bit of a side question, are there any good ways to create unit individuality without relying on the skill system? I’m going to be using the Echoes spell system because I really like it, which will help with the casters, but I’m worried that the physical units are going to feel a bit too similar to each other. I don’t really want to use skills (at least not right now), but that’s usually how hacks set units of the same class apart from what I’ve seen.

[Hatsuru]

I don’t believe you need to neccesarily cater to vanilla archetypes, but it does have some merit introducing different unit types.

I would suggest that if there’s a new unit/class being introduced in a chapter, that you build around the unit. For example, if there’s a map with a ton of armors and chests; Introduce a mage/thief duo.

If you’re going to do mag/str split, it would be cool to see more specialized/well rounded classes for promotion classes, or even as their T1 form

Hope this helps, good luck on your hack!

[Yasako]

You want a healer by chapter 4-5 unless the game is designed around no healing and that’s pretty much the only non-negotiable rule of thumb I can think of.

As for differentiating a huge cast without skill system, while The Lonely Mirror has some really awkward map design in places, it does a pretty good job of that. Taking accessibility into account can change a unit’s identity, along with route splits changing accessibility and the available maps/items in general.

Edit: Also if you have too many fliers, especially early on, it’ll make map design pretty difficult to satisfyingly accomplish, since they can just fly over most terrain until you start hitting indoor maps.

You don’t need skillsys to make units feel really unique even outside of design considerations if you have Prf weapons for physical units, but coming up with Prf weapons that aren’t either boring or centralizing is tough.

As for unit distrubution, you want to lean the variety of classes at least somewhat to one side physically/magically, so the times you get the type of class that is strong in whatever damage type is rarer, that unit sticks out more.

[SSGhostShip]

@Hatsuru

If you’re going to do mag/str split, it would be cool to see more specialized/well rounded classes for promotion classes, or even as their T1 form

Would there be merit to potentially retooling class promotions to have a more specialized option and a more general one? Like either going all in on magic with, say, Sage, vs going Dark Knight to get swords or something.

@Yasako

Also if you have too many fliers, especially early on, it’ll make map design pretty difficult to satisfyingly accomplish, since they can just fly over most terrain until you start hitting indoor maps.

Any recommendations on how to handle that? I currently have 3 fliers and I kind of want all of them to be at least relatively early game. Might have to push back but I’d like to introduce them early if possible. Is putting a lot of archers around the map a decent solution or is the sheer number going to be too much? I plan on giving them a diverse set of stat spreads (One of the pegasi, for example, I plan to make bulkier rather than fast), but I’m not sure if it’s enough cuz I know fliers are super strong. Just sucks because I really like fliers so I want to have a fair amount of them but also they can break the game really easily so it’s hard to balance.

@Yasako

You don’t need skillsys to make units feel really unique even outside of design considerations if you have Prf weapons for physical units, but coming up with Prf weapons that aren’t either boring or centralizing is tough.

Also is there a way to avoid also using Prfs or should I just live with the fact that some units are going to play pretty similarly? I’m just not really sure how to make a ton of Prf weapons because I’m using FEBuilder and the only way I know how to make Prfs is a bit limited in terms of quantity. Maybe I’m just overthinking this and it’s okay to have units that are pretty similar.

[Vorgus]

This is a great question! There’s lots of ways to think through this. I don’t think you can really go wrong so long as you make sure to inject some balance and variety into the team.

Something to keep in mind if the balance of weapon of access. You probably want to give the player access to an axe user, a lance user, and a sword user pretty early.

Same thing with cavalry and flying access. A bit of access to cavalry is good, same with one or two fliers, but not too much too quickly.

I found myself asking at each chapter - “What is the player missing?” And that answer would often inform the next class introduced. The first thief for for first castle map. A magic user to deal with armor. An axe cavalry because the player didn’t have one yet. Introduce lots of archetypes before repeating them.

And PRFs are a great way to make units unique. Give a magic user a PRF siege magic tome. Give the myrnidon a vampire blade that steals health. Give the bulky cav a lance that’s effective against other cavalry. Give the axe user an axe with incredible hit called “Old Reliable” - there’s so much room for creativity, here

[Hatsuru]

That would be neat. Vanilla archers come into mind for specialization. Mainly, you have the sniper, for superior skill/accuracy, and a ranger, for superior mobility and another weapon type.

I’m not sure how you would want to approach it in context to your hack, but you could also potentially add T3 promotions or have a copy of a class to allow them to go to a specific promotion branch. I tried a thing where A supports allowed some units for unique/specialized classes.

There are many ways you could approach this, but don’t be afraid to experiment with it!

[SSGhostShip]

@Vorgus

I found myself asking at each chapter - “What is the player missing?” And that answer would often inform the next class introduced.

This is a great way of looking at it, thanks for the advice! What would you say is too much too soon, though? I was initially planning on having the tried and true christmas color duo but I was thinking of having them both be fliers (one pegasus, one wyvern), but also planned on another early pegasus knight. Should I maybe delay the duo until the midgame? I’d rather have the solo pegasus be recruited early than the pair if it comes down to being one or the other.

@Hatsuru

I’m not sure how you would want to approach it in context to your hack, but you could also potentially add T3 promotions or have a copy of a class to allow them to go to a specific promotion branch. I tried a thing where A supports allowed some units for unique/specialized classes.

Oh these ideas are so cool! I’m not sure about T3 promotions but I like the idea of characters having unique promotion options. I’ll have to figure out where to draw the line though cuz I only have so much space for classes in FEBuilder but that sounds like a great way to keep units from feeling the same as each other. Like maybe the two pegasus knights can both promote into falcon knight but maybe one can alternatively become an arbalest (bow flier) and the other can become a dark flier (magic flier)? I think it might be nice if every class has a specific thing they can always promote into but each character can promote into a distinct secondary class. Might be feasible especially because prepromotes exist so I wouldn’t actually need to make a new class for each character. Will have to see how much space I have.

@Hatsuru

I tried a thing where A supports allowed some units for unique/specialized classes.

How’d you set this up btw? Was it in FEBuilder? That sounds super cool and I might want to steal that if that’s okay, haha.

[Hatsuru]

There’s a patch in FEbuilder called Support Events. You can set up events as supports to allow multiple things to happen

[SSGhostShip]

Sick! Will check that out. Also just found out that apparently the gaiden spell list patch for FEBuilder isn’t available anymore?? Guess I’ll just have to stick to regular old tomes. Man.

[2WB]

@SSGhostShip

Therefore, I wanted to ask what kind of distribution of classes would be good if I’m making my own hack? Or at least, what’s the usual way that classes are distributed in games

A rounded number of instances of each class. If you have the space, ideally, two or three members of every class with different slants on how they work.

You can also have different classes that function semi-similarly instead of multiple units of the same class.

But in essence, your cast list should accomplish two things:

–Nobody is “better X”. Each unit should have some reason to be used, each unit brings something unique to the table.
–Yet, each niche that you expect the player to have, you should give the player multiple copies of in case they die or the player dropped the unit; redundancy.

There’s lots of ways to do those things, which is why I say those so generically. If you have a Myrmidon, contrast them with, for example, a Mercenary as a “different sword”, and a fast Pirate as a “different speedy”. It’s okay that they skipped over “speedy sword” specifically as long as they have the expected tools in their final party.

A really excellent example of “reason to be used” is in FE7: Erk, Pent, and Nino.

If memory serves, Erk is, on average, basically going to be Pent with a few points moved.
However, you get Pent in Ch 24E/26H, but Erk in Ch 14E/H. That’s a lot of time where Pent just… isn’t; so even though objectively Erk isn’t actually contributing to end-game party strength, he’s doing something along the way.

Nino joins 26E/28H and is an active liability due to enemy strength when she joins. This is because her use case is for the player that wants to watch numbers go up and to create a pointed challenge for ranked play’s EXP and Level requirements. She’s clearly not intended to be “good unit” the way Oswin is or to serve as a power-counterpart to Erk’s speed.

So even though all three of them are kind of the same unit (a well rounded but offensive-oriented anima wielder), they have a very distinct audience.

I personally think that this isn’t a very good “reason to be used” - in that it I believe it would be much more beneficial if Nino was actually more functionally different - but at the end of the day you, also, have to just decide what you want your units to be doing.

@SSGhostShip

Also is there a way to avoid also using Prfs or should I just live with the fact that some units are going to play pretty similarly?

At the end of the day a Cavalier is a Cavalier, yes. You can distinguish them lots of ways (weapon type, support partners, bases and growths); but any two competent units of similar classes will always end up feeling at least a bit same-y.

@SSGhostShip

I think it might be nice if every class has a specific thing they can always promote into but each character can promote into a distinct secondary class.

This is a very elegant solution to letting two units just be the same class but have widely different potentials.

[SSGhostShip]

@2WB

–Nobody is “better X”. Each unit should have some reason to be used, each unit brings something unique to the table.
–Yet, each niche that you expect the player to have, you should give the player multiple copies of in case they die or the player dropped the unit; redundancy.

This really opened my eyes a lot to how this should probably work, thanks! So like, a bulky pegasus knight and a wyvern knight would both fulfill similar roles while still being distinct from each other? This really helps me set a clear goal for how my units should function, though.

Ultimately, I think instead of necessarily “uniqueness,” I want characters to feel distinct enough for someone to go “I want to use X unit instead of Y even though they’re the same class” purely from a gameplay perspective. Obviously, I want to make memorable characters in terms of personality as well, but I want each unit to be distinct enough that someone playing with solely gameplay in mind has a specific reason to pick one unit over the other even when they fill similar niches, if that makes sense?

@2WB

This is a very elegant solution to letting two units just be the same class but have widely different potentials.

Glad to know I’m cooking thanks to everyone else in the thread! Hopefully this ends up being feasible because I did just check FEBuilder to see how much space I had and there’s… not that much space for additional classes to make the required copies + new classes, since I think I need to designate promotions for classes in FEBuilder, and not for individual characters. Will have to fiddle around and see if I can add some more class slots but if push comes to shove I might just start figuring out how to use Lex Talionis instead because from what I understand LT has a lot more freedom when it comes to space and I haven’t committed super hard to FEBuilder yet.

My one concern (aside from space) is how this is communicated to the player. I don’t want a situation where someone promotes a fighter into, say, a berserker but then gets screwed over when they realize their other fighter promotes into something else. Maybe this isn’t that big a deal and I’m overthinking it, and maybe just putting it into the hack description is enough. Maybe I could give hints in the class descriptions, since they’re going to functionally be “different” classes anyway? Like in the flier example I stated earlier, the one that has the option to go into a magical class has some reference to the arcane, and the one that can gain bows has some reference to sharp aim? Or something? This probably isn’t even that big of a deal and I’m just massively overthinking things lol

[Donlot]

I don’t think you should worry too much about what the exact class of someone is. What tends to be more important is what role they fufil in your army. A tanks unit role could be fufilled by a highly defensive armor knight, or a bulky yet slow fighter.
That doesn’t really mean that classes are irrelevant, but just think about what roles are fufilled in your arms at any given moment, and go from there.
Best example would be the already mentioned case of wanting a healer within the first 4 to 5 chapters. Whether it’s a Cleric, Troubadour, or prepromoted druid, is not extremely relevant as long as if fufills the role.

[FuriousHaunter]

My advice is what I always give.
Do whatever you want, and don’t care about balance, things should be fun first, you can do that as you develop, making the early army mostly fliers just means you’ll need to design around it.

Another way to make a unit unique is stat caps in a personal class.

@SSGhostShip

FEBuilder to see how much space I had and there’s… not that much space for additional classes to make the required copies + new classes

Ignoring gendered stat cap and base differences, which are insignificant anyway, you can cut gendered classes.

Since the only thing that determines gender is the Female flag, and it is only used in skillsys or for mounted aid calc, some classes that share animations like Knight and General can be made unisex or genderless as they do not need the mounted aid count, and even then great knight can be made unisex by either making mounted aid calc the same between gender or ticking the female flag in the character’s data screen as vanilla does it anyway…

Monsters can also be used if you do not use them in the game.

You can also remove one gender of a class if no characters use it.

You can also remove unneeded cutscene only and unused classes [like zephiel’s prince class from fe7]

FE8 also had like 3 copies of the trainee classes [one is regular, one is tier one, the last is super you can kill tier one and super, if you don’t want to use super trainee system and replace all outright if you don’t want to use the trainee system at all]

If you make gender nonconforming characters such as Forrest from fates or Rosado from engage then you can have them use the animations that match better, e.g. a feminine man using female sage animations, or a masculine woman using male hero animations.
Allowing you to cut even heavily gendered classes if needed.

I used these tricks to add 12 new classes 14 if you count blank space with currently up to 2 extra spaces available for classes while keeping all vanilla classes in FE6 which has much less class space and much fewer potential to cut classes.

Do keep in mind some classes like gorgon eggs and demon king have special hard coding so do not use those they will not work properly for a standard class, here is a thread that details the ones to not use.

[SSGhostShip]

@Donlot

That doesn’t really mean that classes are irrelevant, but just think about what roles are fufilled in your arms at any given moment, and go from there.

Probably the best way of looking at it. I think I got a little to caught up in making sure classes were represented without thinking very hard about why we have class diversity in the first place. Very helpful way to think about it, thanks!

@FuriousHaunter

You can also remove unneeded cutscene only and unused classes [like zephiel’s prince class from fe7]

Did not realize this was unused! That’ll help free up a lot of space! Also I’m not a huge fan of trainee units as I don’t like grinding being a requirement to make a unit good, so those can also go. If I were to have a trainee unit they’d have to join very early and even then I don’t think I’m a fan, to be honest. For the record, I don’t hate grinding, I just think having a character that REQUIRES you to funnel all your resources into them for them to even be usable isn’t very fun. 12-14 might be enough to get me the space I need because prepromotes also exist (who won’t need to be put into duplicate classes), but I’ll have to try it out first then figure something out if it doesn’t work. Does the 12-14 include monsters? Because I’m thinking about including them and/or having monstrous allies (like having a centaur or two or smth).

[VelvetKitsune]

If you didn’t know you can double the class count from 127 to 254 with the ‘Data Expansion’ button. I think you need to enable it though in ‘Settings > Options > Function 2’.

[SSGhostShip]

Oh wait really? Okay that changes a lot, lmao. Are there any limits I need to keep in mind for how much I can expand the data across all the stuff in the hack (like if I expand the number of classes to much, am I not able to expand the number of characters)? If I can just do that, though, then there shouldn’t be any issues at all and this’ll work great as a way to give characters interesting niches when it comes to their future potential.

[VelvetKitsune]

You can expand most everything, although the limit for all is 254/255, so you can never expand character count since that’s already the maximum amount.

[SSGhostShip]

Good to know! Thanks! That makes things a lot easier, haha.

[FuriousHaunter]

@SSGhostShip

Does the 12-14 include monsters

No
the example I used was from my FE6 project [Mina’s adventure]
Not FE8
I used it because it exemplifies just how many classes you can add if you can compress them to that extreme.
You would have many many more classes to replace.
FE6 basically uses every class slot without replacement you have 6 class spots at most

[2WB]

@SSGhostShip

a bulky pegasus knight and a wyvern knight would both fulfill similar roles while still being distinct from each other?

Yeah. It depends on their stats and the enemies around them; of course.

@SSGhostShip

Ultimately, I think instead of necessarily “uniqueness,” I want characters to feel distinct enough for someone to go “I want to use X unit instead of Y even though they’re the same class” purely from a gameplay perspective.

That they are functionally different even if superficially very similar is exactly what I mean with uniqueness.

@SSGhostShip

My one concern (aside from space) is how this is communicated to the player. I don’t want a situation where someone promotes a fighter into, say, a berserker but then gets screwed over when they realize their other fighter promotes into something else.

This is what a readme is for. It is also what the Guide is great at being: A bunch of information that the player doesn’t need but could potentially randomly want.

@SSGhostShip

Maybe I could give hints in the class descriptions, since they’re going to functionally be “different” classes anyway?

My experience with talking to developers and playing games with ‘hints’ is that people take away such dramatically different things from a given word or two that you should just write “Promotions: Falcoknight, Dark Flier” if you actually want people to know in advance what their options are.