How do enemy stats work?
When you place a unit in the Unit Placer, there’s a setting for autoleveling, with two options: Class Dependent and Do Not Grow. Generic enemies with generated stats should generally use Class Dependent, while player units/bosses/other units with fixed stats should use Do Not Grow and be loaded at the same level they’re listed to start at in the Character Editor.
Class dependent autoleveling means the unit is loaded with additional stats based on their Class Growths times their level*. Generic enemies usually start with nothing but their Class Bases, sometimes with small Personal Bases added on top, with most of their stats calculated from autoleveling. So, a level 10 enemy with 5 class base Strength, 2 personal base Strength, and a 50% class Strength growth would have, on average, 5+2+(0.5*(10-1))=7+(0.5*9)=11.5 Strength on average (assuming no difficulty modifier to their level). There’s some variance involved by default, so enemies can sometimes roll a point or two above or below average on any given stat.
*(There is a cutoff, by default 0x3F, at or below which units will use their Personal Growths instead of their Class Growths for autoleveling. This can be changed with a patch. It is meant to mark the divide between playable units and enemies, so playable units can gain personal growths-based autoleveling.)
Patch Name:Units after this Unit ID will Class Grow @FE8U
Author / Source:fe8 decomp project. Autolevel Function - #2 by HyperGammaSpaces
Promoted enemies gain additional autolevels for being promoted, based on the difficulty level. By default in FE8, they gain 9 extra levels on Easy and Normal, and 19 extra levels on Hard. These numbers can be changed from the patches list.
Patch Name:Change Lv bonus value to be given to the enemy’s promoted at normal difficulty @FE8U
Author / Source:7743
Patch Name:Change Lv bonus value to be given to the enemy’s promoted at hard-mode difficulty @FE8U
Author / Source:7743
Bosses, on the other hand, usually have fixed personal stats equal to their Class Bases plus their Personal Bases. Turning on autoleveling for a boss that’s not meant to have it means that boss, whose stats were already designed for a boss of their level, now gets that many extra levels on top of their personal stats. Ever wondered why that random Paladin miniboss in Battle Before Dawn, Maxime, is so ridiculously busted on HHM? They forgot to turn off autoleveling for him, so he gets like 30 extra levels worth of stats (because promoted).
What about enemy weapon ranks?
Enemies set to Class Dependent Autoleveling will also autolevel their weapon ranks to be able to use any weapons in their inventory that can be used by their class. Enemies set to Do Not Grow will not, but as those are generally units with fixed personal stats, you can give them personal weapon ranks as needed.
Of note: weapons with weapon locks or the “show prf” checkbox are ignored by weapon rank autoleveling by default, there is a patch to fix this:
Patch Name:Autoleveling Prf Weapons @FE8U
Author / Source:Datagne [FE8] PSA: Autoleveling Prf Weapons
How do Hard Mode Bonuses work?
Hard Mode Bonuses are a slightly different thing. All enemies, regardless of being set to Class Dependent or Do Not Grow, get a few additional invisible autolevels on hard mode, set from the Chapter Editor. There are actually also level adjustments for Easy and Normal, which in FE8 are both negative by default – FE8 easy and normal enemies have lower-leveled stats than their displayed level, though it can’t go below 0 autolevels. Generic enemies autolevel these bonuses based on their class growths as described above, while bosses autolevel these bonuses based on their personal growths.
There’s some catches to that when it comes to recruitable enemies:
- FE6 doesn’t give hard mode bonuses to recruitable units who start on the map, but does give them to those who spawn as reinforcements. Coincidentally, most enemy recruitables in FE6 appear as reinforcements, hence why it seems like a mostly-standardized thing instead of the glitch it originally was.
- FE7 I think gives them to all enemies, recruitable or no, reinforcement or no? But I’m not sure.
- FE8 doesn’t give hard mode bonuses to recruitable units by default. It’s based on a unit ID cutoff, default 0x3B. Units with IDs below the cutoff don’t get hard mode bonuses, units with IDs above the cutoff do get hard mode bonuses. You can enable hard mode bonuses on recruitables with a patch.
As stated above, promoted enemies gain additional autolevels for being promoted, based on the difficulty level. By default in FE8, they gain 9 extra levels on Easy and Normal, and 19 extra levels on Hard. These numbers can be changed from the patches list.
Patch Name:Change Lv bonus value to be given to the enemy’s promoted at normal difficulty @FE8U
Author / Source:7743
Patch Name:Change Lv bonus value to be given to the enemy’s promoted at hard-mode difficulty @FE8U
Author / Source:7743