Basically, how do I make it where I don’t have any Seths or similar characters? If this has already been asked and I couldn’t find it then sorry.
My advice is always to not care.
I think things should be fun first and foremost.
The quality of Units will be determined by the enemy quality, map design, weapons, availability of weapons, etc., as such makng units good or bad is very nebulous without the game’s context.
You can always nerf or buff units arcordingly as you develop, adjusting number all throughout development is normal and standard.
Remember moving item acquisition to later is also a kind of nerf.
However you can just let the game be imbalanced, that’s part of why us fe6 fanatics like it.
People like using absolute garbage, it’s fun to see them be useful.
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Hmm, I hadn’t thought about it like that. Thank you
If this is the particular problem you’re worried about – that is, making sure one unit doesn’t invalidate all the others without any investment – then it’s about how the bases of the unit line up with the enemies and the equipment loadouts.
Numerically, Seth at base handles most of FE8. This is not true for FE6 Marcus or FE7 Oswin, as the former has both not superb bases and no growths, while the latter just joins at a high level, instead of pre-promoted.
This has other solutions, too - as FuriousHaunter said more concisely, the items you and opponents have access to dictate what sort of classes will be effective. If the game has multiple horse-killing enemies early on, a starting paladin has an important vulnerability whereas any foot units would not. Of course, that would in turn also directly make any base cavalry you have likely invalid.
The thing to focus on is making sure each unit can do something that isn’t “X unit but worse/better” - look at the famously repeated red-and-green cavaliers across all the games, how there’s usually a third or fourth gradation that isn’t the same as either of them - and that makes a difference in how you use that unit and how much you want to use other units that are in the roster.
ex. If I’m using Lowen (high def) I’m less likely to use Oswin (high def) but I’m more likely to use Dorcas (high str) and Guy (high speed) since that covers things that Lowen isn’t good at covering.
Some units, though, don’t have an actual niche in this way, like Nino; but that’s because Nino’s appeal is the idea of raising her to be destroyer of worlds. She’s not really better than Pent or Erk and requires much more work to get her to that point, but people like watching numbers go up and that’s her ‘purpose’ in the roster and in joining so late – See:
Giving units differentiation is what matters more than if they’re actually all equally competitive to one another. Units that aren’t strictly balanced lends more individuality to choice and can make players feel good about what they chose because it suits them as opposed to because it’s obviously optimal, and leave them feeling like they could do something totally different next time. Of course, it can also make players feel bad because a given unit is too weak, but that’s something you can fix later after more testing.
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I agree with FuriousHaunter. The only other thing I could add would be to make sure you have at least 1 character for each T1 class, with branching promotions. (This is only if you’re doing the bare minimum).
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