How do you make a starting Lord’s stats likeable but not making him to the point of overpowered, since you know, you’re going to be spending a lot of time with him/her and you mar or may not stand how he fights with some horrible stats. I’ve seen some people dislike a lord (more on lyn) or characters for their starting stats. Asking for ya’lls opinions once again :3
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Stats in the grand scheme of things, don’t tend to matter unless you’re going for a specific class system, in which you have to make numbers that are fair and make for good progression. Which is not an easy nor simple task.
But for the more simple application of one unit, it really comes down to what are there thresholds going to be against enemies, ie, are they a chip master, are they supposed to go from week, to doubling constantly, to one rounding alot.
It depends on what kind of character you wish to go for. The primary reason for this is a character like lyn is scrutinized because she doesn’t mix well with fe7’s enemies, which tend to have 1-2 range alot and also she has a rather bad start if you don’t play her mode first.
So in this instance, you have the luxury of tuning the enemies to suit what kind I’ve player units your gonna have and how the maps are gonna flow, and for the most part when you make chapters, the flow of them (how smooth they play, regardless of how much time it takes) is determined by your player units stats, the enemy stats & and the enemy placement among other things like weapons and map design.
But as far as a more concrete conclusion to my rambles of advice, go for a specific idea, tune it to the point where its somewhat nice to play, and then have some playtesters give their own opinions on that matter, and from there you can take their advice or not.
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Stats are always relative, honestly. 9 base Speed is great when enemies around that point have around 4 or 5, but pretty bad if they have 13 or 14, for example. Looking at how official games do it as a frame of reference is helpful, but at the end of the day, stat balancing is always something you’re gonna have to playtest and tweak and workshop to get just right.
I think the Lords people tend to gravitate to as “good” are frequently those who join with both solid bulk and solid offense; generally capable of 2RKOing most enemies and being able to take a good hit or two.
This is obviously not the only way to make a Lord “good”, but Lords with these qualities are often considered good, if that makes sense.
Lyn in particular, I think, is disliked because she’s fragile and has lowish attack power, despite having strengths like high speed.
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This might sound a bit weird, although I think that others touched on it, is that you should design the enemies before the player units. That way, you know what stats a unit needs to have in order to hit those necessary thresholds. For example, if you are designing a Myrmidon (or any fast unit, really), you’d want to know what the AS thresholds against the enemies are.
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I think the biggest issue with many lords, especially marth, is that they need to be in specific places, at specific times (recruiting, villages, seizing). Marth in Shadow Dragon is actually pretty good from early till midgame statwise, but he just struggles to keep up with levels due to wanting to move at max speed at all times.
That being said, you have to keep 3 numbers in mind for SD Hard 5. 7 spd is the early game speed threshold you need to not get doubled by most enemies, 10 for midgame, 14 for lategame. Marth starts at 7 spd, and can easily hit all of these if trained, his stats are not the issue. So I would agree with topaz idea of designing the generic enemy stats first, and maybe even keeping thresholds for getting doubled in mind while doing so.
That being said, i think an interesting way to make a Lord not suck due to him needing to be everywhere, is giving him marth-like stats, but maybe giving him a level, or EXP whenever he visits villages (if lord only), recruits, or seizes (i haven’t tested this, its a hypothesis). This would also hammer down the fact that he’s more of a commander than a fighter, which is very much true for the likes of Marth or Roy.
If you want a more combat based Lord make them slightly stronger than marth, or give them a niche that they are useful in. Rapier effect is the easiest way to do so, but i feel just a few more points of might on it than its regular appearance would help it immensely. A Charisma like skill would be a nice inbetween a Combat and Commander. If your lord is mounted, a charge weapon/skill would be super cool.
If your Lord managed to fufill a role nobody else can, that already makes him feel different from regular units. Say, if you don’t get any armor knights, or tanky units in general, but have a relatively tanky lord, that makes you wanna use him. Micaiah from FE10 kinda sucks stat wise because she is incredibly slow and squishy, however she has the Thani (rapier effect), sacrifice skill, and is always a good staff user for later on, and definitely feels different from most other FE lords.
I’m not saying you gotta do all of this, or that it would be perfectly balanced in every instance with these particular skills, because that honestly depends on enemy strength, placement, class, player characters, and so many other factors. But i think you get my point.
Also regarding Lyn, I think all she honestly needs is to start with maybe one or two more levels, and having 3x effective damage instead of 2x, as that would make her much better at grabbing kills, gives her a niche (Hector hits hard but slow, and is tanky, Eliwood is the jack of all trades, and Lyn is fast yet squishy), and make her much less of a chore to train up and use up one of your highly contested Unit slots.
TLDR: Commander/Combat lords work a bit differently, special weapon, skill, or stat niche can make your lord feel unique, and lastly, maybe give your lord exp for visiting/recruiting/seizing, to keep up their level if you notice them falling off hard.
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the best thing you can do to have a lord that can be considered good is to give them something unique, I point to Ephraim from FE8 to demonstrate this point.
Ephraim is a lance-locked foot unit, already giving him something unique rather than just a myrmidon with a coat of paint, lances are also a very good weapon type, being able to counter most of the dangerous enemies easily with weapon triangle such as paladins and swordmasters.
Ephraim also has the Reginleaf, which is essentially just a rapier lance, making him able to completely wipe the floor with cavalry and armored units.
Ephraim is the shining example of how to make a lord good, while also stopping them from dominating, being held back by their late promotion and their 5 move until promotion. If you want to play fast you’ll have to leave Ephraim to either pursue the throne, or have him be carried to the throne.
Essentially give your lord decent stats and a niche to fill while also holding them back in some way if you choose to give them bonkers stats or a really good niche.
Also I recommend against having your lord start as a mounted class, as seen with Sigurd, a lord who has both good stats and a mount can steamroll their game with no trouble at all.
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theghostcreator’s post above is pretty accurate, and to add on to it…
Ephraim is better over Eirika for many reasons, having BULK is amazing for a lord, especially because they will always take hits and have to be deployed. (hence 1 reason why Micaiah is horrid). But weapon triangle also matters ALOT. Since Axes generally have low accuracy, and most common axe classes have bad skill regardless, it doesn’t matter as much for Sword Lords to hit weapon triangle, but Ephraim going even with lances, and beating faster swords matters alot more.
Also Unique Weapons / Skills help alot as well. 1-2rng PRF sword that has another effect is good. Like making it Magical, or having Rapiers effect. Also in my Hacks game, the Main Lord has a skill called “First Impact”, so when an enemy attacks with Full HP regardless of phase, the MC gets Str+2 and Def/Res+4. So he get’s immensely tankier without it having to do with his base stats in particular.
So yes, stats matter, but MC weapon type, enemy weapon type, your enemies Skl stat also matters alot if not more. Cause Roy/Marth also suffer alot because of all the lance/cavalry users in their games.
EDIT: To jump onto bad MC’s Micaiah from Radiant Dawn is bottom 3 with Shadow Dragon Marth, and FE6 Roy. Reasons why: Although she’s a mage with Rapier. her HP/Spd/Def growths are abyssmal so any hit oneshots her, or gets her close. It’s very rare for her to survive two hits from any unit. Not to mention her game revolves around 3rd tier promotions later and ALOT of enemy units, being super frail makes her an easy target. So much that in the FINAL areas of the game, one or two maps all Generic Enemies CANT TARGET HER. She literally can’t be hit on enemy phase excluding bosses to help her out, that’s how frail and bad she was.
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