What Makes a Good Easy/Normal mode?

Design
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Greeting FEU! I’m an aspiring ROM hack creator, and I’m currently trying to plan out difficulties in my ROM hack. Through my years of being a Fire Emblem fan, I’ve mostly stuck to the games’ hard/lunatic modes. I’ve only really played the normal modes when they’re required to beat in order to unlock the harder difficulties. As such, I have a pretty good idea of what I want my hard modes to look like, but I am less sure what makes a good normal mode.

Of the games I have completed, I have played FE6, FE7, and FE10 (and TLP if it counts) on normal mode, though FE10 North-American normal is the Japanese hard mode, so I’m not really sure it counts (it certainly feels like it should be more so compared to the series’ hard modes than its normal modes).

Of the non-FE10 normal modes, I think FE6 and TLP were my favourites. FE6 has ambush spawns which suck, and while the enemy quality definitely dips as the game goes on, it never got to a point where enemies were complete pushovers, and the way maps were structured always kept me on my toes. TLP has a similar enemy quality dip as the game went on (pre-difficulty spike at least), though I felt like the enemies overall kept up better. I also personally enjoyed some of the late game maps, though I did feel as though some of the time pressure was perhaps too lenient.

Meanwhile, I played FE7 as one of my last FE games, and the back half of Eliwood normal was not fun for me. Enemy quality was horrible (bad stats, bad weapons), enemy quantity was proportionally low, and it became such a handaxe stomp towards the end that had Nino not been there as a training project, I think I would have found the game overall quite boring. Didn’t help that the only threatening enemies in Victory or Death were the long range enemies, which were not fun to deal with due to their quantity. I will say I did quite enjoy the last two chapters (Light Parts 1 & 2) of FE7 though, mostly due to the return of actually challenging enemies, as well as interesting objectives on a time limit (of sorts).

So, from my limited experience of playing normal modes, I feel like they should keep enemies consistently threatening relative to player units, and still retain time-pressure elements or interesting map gimmicks, though just be more lenient with them time/difficulty wise.

Is there anything else that makes a good normal mode? Are there other normal modes in the series that deserve to be mentioned for being good case studies?

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This isn’t probably the answer you want but.
Your romhack doesn’t need other difficulties.
You can just have 1 difficulty even if it’s difficult it’s okay because now you only have to worry about one difficulty to balance and you can make sure it plays as good as possible while still being difficult.
A lot of romhacks don’t really make a normal/easy mode
Or they simply make the game in hard difficulty and remove some auto levels in the “normal mode” but the game is still intended to be played on hard.
So yeah long story short don’t feel pressured to add a normal/easy mode.

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I would say to make the easier difficulties easier than you think. Like you, I always play on the hardest difficulty, so I design the hardest difficulty first and then tone down from there. I have made the mistake of not reducing the difficulty enough on these lower difficulties. Just because I view it as easy due to my hard-centric viewpoint, does not mean that other players see it that way.

I am always hesitant to reduce the difficulty because when I playtest it on lower difficulties, I end up routing the map before reinforcements show up and completely ruining the flow of the map that I had designed on the highest difficulty. But I remind myself that the people playing on these lower difficulties will likely be playing at a slower pace. So just remember that even though it may seem boring or too easy for you, others prefer that slower, more casual playstyle.

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I would slip a ‘bug’ on that ‘Easy’ difficulty, such as a character whose event still plays but doesnt appear to be recruitable so you can discern between who is praising the balance of your game while playing on Easy, and who is by playing on Hard.

But in all honesty, don’t make difficulty toggles.

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I think the ideal normal mode is one where you can turn off your brain and just play it without putting too much thought into it, while still being FUN. And if the player looses a unit, it’s because they genuinely made a dumb mistake, and not because the game threw them something unexpected.

I agree that FE7 Normal mode is quite boring. And the same goes for FE8. On the other end, I think FE6’s normal mode is still a little too hard.

If you can find a middle point between those two, I think you’re good to go.

Personally, I belive Radiant Dawn and Fates have very decent Normal modes.

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A good easier mode involves just removing anything that is a ‘gotcha’. If its presence trips you up when you aren’t focusing super hard, it’s an excellent piece to get rid of.

Good examples of this are pretty all-over - from enemies having higher stats on hard, to how DSFE on middling difficulties has a few enemies with surprise high-rank weapons, GBAFE has the reaver weapons, Awakening and Fates play with unit abilities; for a few.

Overall, the thing to remember is that since you play these games and are therefore good at them, that your bar for what ‘reasonable’ should be for an easy difficulty is actually three or four steps too high for a ‘hard’ difficulty for most people.

I have watched people lose FE8 on Normal. It happens. You do the math wrong, don’t notice a possible movement, make a position error.

Reducing the number of enemies, the stats of enemies, and the complexity of their loadouts might sound like too much, but that is what people who want an actual easy difficulty are going to be looking for.

Yes.
This is correct. This is how it should feel.

Your ability to recognize Oh, handaxes are just the best thing, to have assembled units such that this is possible, and I’d assume not trying to use all the units; are all things that people may not observe as good. It happens regularly when you bump out of the tactic games fans.

Obviously, your audience, inherently, is going to be people who are hunting for more of these games instead of new blood, so there’s some oddities to be had there that makes scaling difficulties very hard - I’d argue that for a hack, as a result, you should be prioritizing making ‘more than hard’ difficulty instead of ‘easy’ and bump the difficulty names up to match, since that’s more likely to be what your audience would like to have.

In context, this is, in my opinion, about the worst thing imaginable to hear.

Both of these, really.

Changing the non-gameplay experience based on the difficulty is actually really frustrating and awful because the people who care the most about this are the people who are least inclined to play on the highest difficulty.

Denying accessibility when there are systems in place to make giving that accessibility pretty easy sounds incredibly stupid, to be blunt.

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My main jab on that answer (beyond the fact that a well-designed single difficulty mode should pretty much be able to get things done easily) is more towards players that laud games for balance and/or call others out on saying a game is hard while playing on the easier difficulties, while unknowingly (or knowingly) telling themselves on.

But from a personal stand-point, I kinda want to lean towards a Classic-Casual (defeated units returning) “difficulty” toggle instead of “I’ll just jack up/jack down stats” or removing chapter chunks, allowing casual players leniency and more forgiveness on their playstyle without needing to alter how enemies are meant to scale by chapter with the units and their presumed difficulty.

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This I HEAVILY disagree on. You can have a normal mode that is easy in difficulty, but still fun to play. If it’s not fun, then it’s not a good normal mode.

Let me elaborate:

I think how you can make a normal mode fun is just by designing the game to be fun overall. And what does make a fire emblem game fun, aside from difficulty? Of course, that varies from person to person. But for me, it’s having more options on how to play.

FE7 feels very linear. It’s boring. It doesn’t have a big cast, and the Gaiden requirements are bonkers. FE8 is marginally better, because it has split promotions and the world map. It feels a lot more free. But I feel as though it is still dragged back a bit because of its even smaller cast of units.

And then there’s FE6. Which I find is very fun in normal, because even though it doesn’t have split promotions, the cast is a lot bigger, so there are many ways you can build your team in a playthrough. And the Gaiden requirements aren’t as hard either. But again, FE6, even on Normal mode, is still on the harder side. If it was easier, then it would be a very good example of a good normal mode.

As I said earlier, I think Fates and Radiant Dawn are very good examples of good normal modes, and it’s for these same reasons: Having more options: Although Radiant Dawn is pretty linear, the skill capacity system is very involved, and can be fun to experiment with. And Fates, on top of having skills, also has the children mechanic.

I didn’t include Awakening, because I find Awakening can get a little TOO easy, and it just becomes a Robin+Chrom solo. And that’s bad. It’s boring to have a solo fest. Meanwhilehile the Fates pair-up system is a lot more balanced, and doesn’t allow for as much juggernauting as Awakning does.

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Personally, when I think of difficulty settings. I’d rather call Normal Easy, Hard as Normal, and then Maddening.

Okay, I know that sounds crazy but I agree with the JP Definitions of the difficulty because of how each level of difficulty should be tackled.

Normal for me refers to a playthrough where I am there to be introduced. Thus its called Normal: It is the intended norm for how the game should feel from a fresh perspective. The objectives I consider when I think of Normal are the following:

  • The playthrough is intended to introduce the game as intended to the players.

  • The playthrough is intended for casual players. Caviat being not including Casual and Phoenix modes. I am not gonna dive through that [BLEEP] cuz that for me is the true easy mode.

  • The playthrough’s goal is to ease in the player through the story of the game.

  • The playthrough feels less punishing for newer players who chose this difficulty, and gives more experienced players to mess around different strategies.

  • The fun in playing normal mode revolves around the experience of the game vs. the challenge. The challenge is not the main focus of what makes it fun; rather, it revolves around every other game aspect (i.e writing, visuals, music, etc.)

Hard and Maddening on the other hand is a replayability incentive for a game’s life span in my opinion. If I get hooked to a hack based around what I experienced in my first run, yeah… I’ll definitely see myself to finish the game at higher difficulty to push the extent of what I know about the game. The following are what I consider for higher difficulty play

  • Difficulty Spikes that are both varied compared to Normal, and that are fair and beatable.

  • Testing the depth of player knowledge based on first playthrough.

  • Additional challenge run incentives. (i.e making the difficulty intended for ironman plays, exclusive side objectives to spice up existing chapters, etc.)

I know this is not a Fire Emblem example but the best game I can think off the top of my head when it comes to difficulty spikes is Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising. The normal campaign shows how deep the strategy aspect of it and how familiarity with game aspects (such as CO familiarity and unit match ups) really matters to the puzzles and levels presented. On it’s hard difficulty, it showcases a different side of the campaign now that you are comfortable with the flow of the game thus changes up the levels and objectives to suit the player’s level of knowledge about the game.

Overall, I see difficulty not as the textbook definition, but rather as a guideline and philosophy to take into consideration how different players experience the game based on preferences and expectations.

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Honestly just change enemy positions and weapon load outs, that’s all you need to make an experience easier for a normal mode imo
If you want an easy mode just tone down enemy stats, buff prf weapons, or something of that nature. Most people playing easy modes aren’t playing to have a “fair” experience while those playing normal modes probably are so work around that.

I don’t understand why so many people are against other difficulty options, the difficulty of an FE game ain’t some sacred text that shouldn’t be touched or some shit, it’s something that should be malleable to allow players to have fun with it.
Honestly people who have some kind of vendetta against those who talk about these games on lower difficulty settings like it ruins discussions about the games or something are a big reason why we aren’t beating the elitist allegations.

Oh and absolutely never lock content behind higher difficulties, that’s how you get people to hate your guts and how you make people feel bad for not being good enough at a game, don’t do that.

Play games how you want, and I recommend crafting games so that can happen because people will go against your wishes regardless.

Tldr: adjust enemy stats and placements, don’t be a dick about difficulty settings

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Thank you for all of the suggestions!

I’ll be honest, I’m not usually a fan of difficulty sliders, particularly one that just buff/nerf player and enemy stats and call it a day (some of these sliders have downright ruined games for me). But I think why I don’t hate difficulty sliders in FE is that they lend themselves to much more interesting ways of creating difficulty, such as changing weapon loadout, reinforcement timings, experience gain and even AI. So I want to try to create these difficulty settings not only to widen the appeal of my ROM Hack, but also to experiment with the variety of difficulty tools Fire Emblem provides, because I find them interesting.

I’ll definitely do my best to make my Normal mode encourage experimentation, and attempt to avoid gachas with stuff like surprise reinforcements and strong weapons. I’ll also do my best to time side objectives with greater leniency than on my higher difficulties. I also like the idea of allowing greater customization with regards to difficulty: I originally intended to lock casual mode to the lowest difficulty, but I think it would be best to have that be a configurable setting that is independent of difficulty.

Thanks again for the help!

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I believe it’s better for solo developers to focus all their energy on their intended difficulty first, and for the harder and easier modes, put as little effort in as possible.

Lunatic is too hard for some people, but that’s what you designed first? Give every player character 5 autolevels for normal mode and 10 for easy mode! Better to do that than trying to balance harder modes with autolevels or growth changes.

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Not sure how possible this would be on GBA, but you could maybe make the objective slightly different depending on the difficulty.
Stuff like having a simple “Defend” map on easy could turn into a “Defend and Kill Boss by X Turns” on hard, for example. Honestly, it’d be nice to have more creative/diverse objectives in FE in general.

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From my experience, easy hacks are easy and hard hacks are hard. I think fulfilling these criteria are what make a difficulty really good. Like Orthodox and clemency mode in vestaria saga 1. ( I have only played Orthodox because I don’t play easy mode).

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Pretty much everyone has said it already: since most people instinctively pick Normal Mode for their first run through a game, I believe that Normal Mode should allow lots of space for player to understand the mechanics and norms of the game while still allowing leeway room for them to notice “cracks” that can be exploited. Hard Mode should be balanced around Normal Mode (unless you want to focus on Hard Mode first). I also believe that Hard Mode should be really more akin to an Arranged/Remix Mode that puts a spin on things in a way that keeps the player interested in a long-term game of “spot the difference.” When making an extra difficulty mode, remember that sometimes quantity is a quality all by itself; enemy formation and positioning can do a better job than simply inflating stats or giving better weapons. And here’s an unpopular opinion: sometimes it’s okay to have difficulty-exclusive content, but not in terms of crucial things like “you can only beat the TRUE final boss on Hard Mode.” Maybe some haphazard situation occurs and your team has to go into a detour to a different area before reuniting into the main route. This would make Hard Mode feel more like its own thing that would attract people who’ve already beaten Normal Mode, rather than simply “here’s the same game you know, but with beefed up enemies.”

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This! I belive Eligor’s Spear has different enemy layouts on different difficulties. And it wouldn’t be hard to have hard mode exclusive items. It can be easily done with events.

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