Ok, so it's pretty common knowledge that characters in Fire Emblem (in general, not one game) are not balanced, or even close to being balanced. That's not the only issue however. Weapons aren't balanced, and some weapons are completely pointless (long range magic for one...) giving specific weapons advantages. Also, classes. Some classes are just more useful than others. My question is, how would one balance Fire Emblem? I for one think that the games would be much more enjoyable if you could use characters you want (as opposed to "good" characters) and not be at a disadvantage.
Firstly, characters. In general, a character's base stats should be comparable to the rest of your characters upon recruitment. If not, then those characters should have some advantage/disadvantage in terms of growths. All unpromoted characters (save Lords and other special case characters) should share an equal average. The same holds true for pre-promotes. Pre-promotes will likely be a bit stronger than your other characters, but for their level, their bases will be low. To compensate for that, they get better growths (and like unpromotes, share an average), yet lower high-level stats to compensate for their early game usefulness.
Now, for stats. What do you prefer, a character with good Res, or good Str/Mag? I think we all know the answer to that. How do we make every stat equally useful? Well one way to make Res useful: more magic users, or make magic stronger. That's an option. How do we make Skill and Luck useful? Make high-powered weapons inaccurate, meaning that fast characters will likely never get touched by them, and a good skill/luck stat is required to use them effectively. This could also balance Speed and Defense too. Usually, high Def means less average damage than high Spd, so, how do we fix that? For one, make weapons weaker. This means that low Def units won't have massive chunks of HP lost from attacks (and high Def units will take less, I know). But also decreasing Acc of weapons means that high Spd (usually low Def) units will barely ever be touched by the strongest weapons, which should bring average damage much closer.
Now for classes. Classes are so unbalanced it's ridiculous. Look at General caps, and in FE:SS, they can use the entire weapon triangle AND have a pretty good skill to boot. They also have ridiculously unbalanced stats. That 1 point Movement disadvantage to other ground units does not justify that. So, balance classes. Each class (save special classes) have the same cap average. If you can make all stats of (roughly) equal worth, than this should work out.
That's the start of what I have to say, but I still have some other ideas, and I'm sure there's a lot that I'm missing altogether. I could also be very wrong about every point I made, I don't know. Share your thoughts.
As one of the few balancers currently working on FETO, let me share what I've found.
I think the first question is, what are you balancing it for? Campaigns balance the stats completely different than PvP-type battles, as Campaigns have you facing many but weaker enemies, while PvP-type battles have you facing similar in number and similar in strength.
I'm going to assume the latter for convenience.
Now, what order do you want to balance them in? Here are my suggestions as to their order, and I describe each and give general guidelines below.
Step 1: Statistics
In regards to stats, you have to set where they are in relation to each other, and their effects. A good (but not always accurate) way to test this is to increase a stat by 1 and see how much it affects a unit.
If done properly via that method, you'll get something like this:
(FEGBA)
SPD >> CON > STR/MAG >> SKL > RES > LCK > DEF >>>> HP
(FEDuality)
STR >> SPD >>> SKL > MAG >> LCK > DEF = RES >>> HP >> CON
You have to then change the stats with little to or no relation to the others, unless necessary.
Fixing them is no easy chore. I finished two days ago how POW (FETO's combined STR/MAG stat) should be nerfed, and while SPD/LCK were determined two weeks before that, I'm finding that it's no easy task to balance HP.
Now, don't expect your stat chart to look like this once you're done:
HP = STR = MAG = SKL = DEF = RES = LCK = CON = MOV
Frankly, don't even try for this. It doesn't work unless you completely rework the game. In my supposedly dead RP, FE8x, I changed most of the mechanics as well as formulae for this to be even possible. Like, for example, to make DEF and RES equal, I changed up statuses to be Physical and Magical, and its respective stat also gave an increased chance to avoid their respective statuses. HP was buffed by doubling it whenever a chance for the unit to permanently die is in, and HP also increased avoid to both statuses (though in smaller amounts, of course).
A good goal is to get something like this:
STR/MAG > SKL = SPD > RES = LCK > DEF >> HP
It doesn't change too many things in terms of order but it sets the record straight.
I can promise you, about half of all the character-related balancing problems comes from the stats themselves, and you'd have saved yourself a lot of work by doing this step first.
Step 2: Classes
Now, you get to work on the classes. (As a sidenote, if you're working on characters instead of classes, you miss out on interactions between Player and Enemy, something really crucial to balance in Campaign mode.) Classes are just that: individual titles that determine a unit's growth, stats, and potential outcomes, as well as maximums.
One trick that I've found for balancing classes is to make a role chart. Define what roles (yes, roles, if a unit plays 1 role, it's garbage) a unit can play first. That allows you to form the skeleton of a unit (more on that later). Once you've done that, type-match the roles to each other. The general rule is that Offensive beats Balanced beats Defensive beats Offensive (the Triangle of Styles [It's not really a triangle indepth, but it's an easy term that's FE-related]). Of course, there's the odd "reaver"-like role that reverses it.
Once you know how the roles match up, you now need to weight it in favor of the units that are weaker than the rest. And don't just count the number of wins in style vs. the other styles. Sometimes certain styles have more weight than the others. If rushing is a really common tool, then anything that wins against horses will be weighted more than anything that wins against armours.
From there, you can start to develop the skeleton of the class. Determine the amount of BST (Base Stats) that a unit should have, and go a bit below that; 6-8 is a good number range to start on. Also determine the growths the class will have, and once again, go a bit below that; 30-50% is a good area of growths to work with. Once you've completed the Skeleton, congratulations, you've just made an allied unit (Green). Increase the base slightly, and growths in certain areas (preferably either the base or the growths go over the amount you've set for that area), and now you've made an enemy unit (Red). Now set them up to match the amounts you set previously and you have your Blue unit.
The BST and Growths that I used for FE8x's starting players are as follows:
1st Tier (Trainee) - 35 BST, 250% Growths
2nd Tier (Standard) - 50 BST, 300% Growths
3rd Tier (Promoted) - 105 BST, 350% Growths
4th Tier (Mastered) - 170 BST, 400% Growths
For Enemy Units, I gave them this.
2nd Tier - 55 BST, 290% Growths
I then used the standard level up system and leveled them from there. (For obvious reasons, try NOT to put non-recruitable Trainee units into the opponent's side. Bad idea all around, especially if it's on a regular basis.)
For Allied Units, I gave them this.
2nd Tier - 48 BST, 295% Growths
This makes them weaker than the enemies, but not so much to the point they're like Ostia Knights...yeah.
Once you've figured this out, and done every single class in that order, repeating from the beginning of Step 2, check again. Maybe during the transition, some units have changed roles. You will want to fix those up before you continue.
Step 3: Items
Now, for the easiest section. Items. And yes, they are the easiest. Why? Weapons add MT, Hit, WT, Crit, and Range to your units. They are just an extension of the character's stats.
The biggest problem most people face when balancing these is following tradition by typically going the typical FE-route style of adding 1 MT and dropping 5 Hit (and possibly repeating that adding/dropping, even more than once) to the next weapon.
I think the question to be asked is not "how can this be fixed" but "why is it like that"? The answer is simple: your units need different options. The weapons are always set for Campaigns, and the reason for this is that with static stat bases and random growth level ups, there is no real variance in attacks outside of fluctuating MT and Hit (Adding your own input into stats, like in a PvP game, adds a whole other level I don't want to discuss in length here).
Once again, focus on the item's role, and how it is meant to be used. Focus on the higher-up weapons, and challenge yourself to think up different scenarios, and really discover for yourself if a double nerf (WT + Hit drop) is worth the MT increase. I think, finding that on your own will allow you to easily complete this section without any further guidance. But if you still need help, there's a few tips I'll give you.
- Don't be so hasty as to dismiss other ideas. Reavers do this when they reverse the cost structure, but that's a small effect.
- Hold a weapon class (such as Iron or Steel) as being the foundation of that weapon type, and keep that held weapon class the same throughout all the weapons (Staves not included, as they're another whole can of worms).
- Interact with classes to find out what works and what doesn't.
That leaves you with the non-weapons. Status healing, HP healing, Stat Boosters. They all start coming into play. And this is where I back up, because I don't believe that they should be in a PvP game (in Campaign and random growths, all are needed, though I'd easily get rid of any MOV+ stat bonuses and any CON+ stat bonuses, as you will find that you will spend about a month minimum per item just getting it to work on the classes, never mind the layers to come).
Once you're done that, we can move onto Step 4.
Step 4: Terrain
Yes, terrain. Flyers take advantage of mountainous region, and Horses enjoy the open plains. What's the unit's MOV really worth?
There's not a lot I can say here, because this is out of my realm, but I have to say one thing: Don't forget about the Desert tiles. They're not that common but Mages like that terrain.
Once you get past here, you would have spent a lot of time and effort into balancing. You may start to realize that it's not as easy as it sounds, as once you get past Step 4, we repeat Step 1, adding one new layer (in this case, effectual stats based on maps for Part 1) each time. Once you get past it again, add another layer, and so on, until all four steps have overlapped with each other.
Only then can you consider it theoretically balanced.
Yes, that means there needs to be actual testing involved as well, from start to finish, or from any point in-between (a la Eliwood mode w/o Lyn mode).
So yeah, that's what I have to help you with. Happy, uh, balancing.
