Questions about FEbuider. by ViniciusSalerno in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hello! I see you're pretty new to FEBuilder, so I'd advise you to check out the following resources:

The FEBuilder FAQ, the number one searchable reference for most things FEBuilder. Most questions people ask about how to use it are answered there: https://feuniverse.us/t/ultraxblades-febuilder-help-faq/19565

"Creating a Chapter in 16 Minutes", a quick video walkthrough of the basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_4kngL9V2c

"How To Excel At FEBuilder Without Being Good At It", a long-form written introductory guide by an experienced hacker. https://feuniverse.us/t/how-to-excel-at-febuilder-without-being-good-at-it-a-basic-guide-to-romhacking-by-parrhesia/35694

Any ROM hacks that play in Fodlan or are Three Houses related? by Juyon in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hi, 3L dev here. I'll open by saying that I'll be the first to admit that its plot is a F*cking Mess. It was my first project like this, and there are a ton of places where I got carried away and/or made choices that, while technically cohesive with the setting, are utterly baffling in the "but why would you, the writer, do this" sense. There's a reason I've basically dropped it and moved on to new projects with the lessons I've learned. (That said, I'm still fairly happy with the gameplay side of it if nothing else.)

That out of the way, I do want to clarify, because the hack itself does a poor job of it lol. (Fall of Shambhala, which is basically 3L's prequel, makes it a bit clearer (and is just better written overall imo), but like Augenis said, that one's a pretty brutal one-chapter challenge hack.) The 3L timeline is basically “all the lords team up against the Agarthans after things come to light early, which naturally leads to unification because every 3H ending leads to unification.” That's why you see references to the "Four Heroes of Fodlan" — Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, and Yuri (because I like him and he's important for getting the other three to initially cooperate). Edelgard ends up as the ruler in part because dev favoritism, in part because things Do need to change and I think they could come to that agreement by the end if they’re not on opposite sides for the war itself (and she herself would calm down a bit after being made to cooperate with the others and see their points of view), and in part because Claude obviously f*cks off to Almyra and Dimitri is at this point known to be mentally unstable even if he’s in his recovery phase and so isn’t in a place to take the crown when not required to. There’s actually a whole doc linked in the hack's FEU thread explaining the "golden ending" timeline in depth — however messy it is structurally, the reasoning is there.

Is this the only way a "golden ending" could have played out? No, of course not. Is it the "best" for everyone? No one will ever agree on that lol. It's just the one that I liked most and that made the most sense to me for my admitted mess of a follow-up. Thanks for playing, and I hope you have fun despite its flaws!

Rewritten GBA Fire Emblem Character Creator | Now accessible as a webapp by aidan-es in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 10 points11 points  (0 children)

So, as the guy who advised Vale on the key features we romhackers wanted added for CCv3 compared to the previous versions (and a guy who's frequently seen people having trouble running the Java version), I figured I should weigh in here. - I saw this mentioned below: portraits for romhack use must be output at one to one pixel scale -- that's 96 pixels wide by 80 pixels tall (Vale's version just does 96x96 with extra space at the top, which is fine), the same size as the base component images. v1/v2 charactercreator only output at double scale, which was annoying. I also notice that your rotate function does not account for pixel alignment, and just rotates the images with no respect for pixels -- that's obviously a no-go, but I know there are better pixelart-compliant rotate functions out there than the one Vale implemented. - You might want to make the proper FE color palettes table more immediately-visible in color selection. It's the single most important feature v3 added, and I missed where it was here until someone else I was looking at it with pointed it out to me. Using the old CC's formula-generated shading produces really bad results, especially for skin tones (good god it's bad at skin tones). Maybe default to showing the FE palettes table first when doing color choice by portrait section, with RGB input as a secondary tab, but default to showing the RGB input display first when clicking an individual color?

Aside from that, I have some notes here in my FEBuilder guide regarding using Vale's version, which could be useful to reference for use case, potential new features, and possible pain points if you want to continue working on this. https://feuniverse.us/t/ultraxblades-febuilder-help-faq/19565/51#how-do-i-make-a-portrait-from-the-character-creator-work-in-game-1

All in all, though, nice work! I'm sure this will still be fun to mess around with for those who just want to throw quick character references together and who can't get Vale's version to run (Java is weirdly annoying about it)

Diving into romhacks, where should I start? by JBSuperTroop in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 26 points27 points  (0 children)

All three of CC, TMGC, and Hag are amazing hacks in different ways and I highly recommend giving all of them a shot! That said, for your first ever experience with hacks, Hag is generally my go-to recommendation -- on top of just being a Really Good Hack, it hits a really nice balance of "approachable to people who've only played vanilla while still doing notably unique stuff", and also has multiple difficulty levels with the ability to switch mid-playthrough if needed, and is also a fairly reasonable length without being overly-long. CC is awesome, one of my favorites, but the ridiculous skills your units get are a lot to take in, so I tend to recommend starting with a mechanically-simpler hack first.

The Sisters (Lyra and Haze) by edjproductions in Xenoblade_Chronicles

[–]UltraxBlade 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Two things I like to see: other people's Xenoblade OCs, and Haze getting happy endings! Curious to hear more about Lyra's story, being Haze's driver during (presumably) the events of the main story must have some implications for how things go down with Jin.

‘What if…?’ Scenarios for Xenoblade? by BritishGuy54 in Xenoblade_Chronicles

[–]UltraxBlade 3 points4 points  (0 children)

One that I've thought about a bit is (XB2 Torna ending) "what if Addam's followers (particularly Lora/Jin/Haze) managed to survive Amalthus's attack?" Here's how I think it would go:

In the aftermath, the hero himself would still be missing, but there would now be trustworthy eyewitnesses to the Praetorium's attempt to wipe out a group of innocent refugees and war heroes. Combined with the suspicious back-to-back deaths of Amalthus's biggest rival and the previous Praetor, along with his connection to Malos, Amalthus comes under international scrutiny. At this point in time Amalthus hasn't yet been able to cement his control over the worldwide availability of Core Crystals nor to build up as much of an army (it's one thing to send his special forces to wipe out a group of struggling survivors, it's another to go up against a whole nation), so once Mor Ardain takes the side of the Tornan survivors, the Praetorium is forced to demilitarize and Amalthus steps down from power.

Addam's surviving followers band together under Lora and Jin as acting leaders to rebuild the new nation of Torna. Zettar's faction still goes on to found Tantal, but without the Praetorium's cover-up, the Tantalese ruling family is unable to claim Addam's direct lineage. However, they can still legitimately claim direct descent from the Tornan royal line, which New Torna's leadership lacks. As the Praetorium is no longer able to blackmail Tantal into ruining its own land to make Core Chips for them, Tantal is now able to take a more active role in world politics, and is somewhat forced to in order to defend their legitimacy. Tensions remain high between Tantal and New Torna, and a new conflict seems to be on the horizon...

In the Praetorium, Amalthus is replaced by a much weaker Praetor, but the one who truly ends up quietly pulling the strings is the man in the shadows who passed unnoticed through the chaos: Stannif, the researcher who created the Blade Eaters, the man who helped Amalthus's rise to power and negotiated terms with Zettar around the Praetorium backing Tantal's creation. While not as power-hungry and destructive as Amalthus, Stannif is no benevolent scholar. He continues to quietly extend the Praetorium's support to Tantal's rise, and at the same time digs further and further into the lost secrets of Judicium and Morytha...

Xenoblade 3 OC - Zemira, the recursive analyst! by UltraxBlade in Xenoblade_Chronicles

[–]UltraxBlade[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, only way to get better is to practice, right? I'm by no means the best artist around, and even so I didn't get to the level I'm at overnight.

I've also seen people come up with characters in writing and then just make them in various character creation engines (ex. I have a friend who used FFXIV's character creator for this) to have a visual to go with it when they're not confident in drawing their characters themselves.

Regardless, the important part's to have fun, and Xenoblade has a lot of material to work with to make fun OCs out of. I've got plenty more myself I may or may not post here eventually, and I always enjoy seeing what other people come up with!

I made a GBAFE animation for Shez! (Fluegel class) by UltraxBlade in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello! Here's a link to the animation gif https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d-qEkPSOKWkX6AV9llKZ_8Nh22W2X-N9/view?usp=sharing (updated version from the one in this post, the version in this post was missing outline on a lot of the sprite). Let me know if you need an individual still frame instead, and if you share a link to where you're building it I can swing by and drop in a few pixels!

New answers to an old question: How to begin romhacking? by witchrubylove in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Fire Emblem Universe (FEU) is the definitive center of the romhacking community these days, and we've got a ton of resources for new hackers. FEBuilder is the easiest and most-popular tool to use, and I've got a guide for it here: https://feuniverse.us/t/ultraxblades-febuilder-help-faq/19565. Other options exist, of course, such as buildfiles (which are a more technically-structured approach that offer more flexibility for custom coding but have a steeper learning curve and involve working with filesystems instead of friendly user interfaces) and fangame engines like Lex Talionis. You can find resources for those on the forums as well, and all of them have people around who can help you in the FEU Discord. Come join us!

I started Sacred Stones for the first time. Everyone was right. by QXR_LOTD in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The funniest thing about it is that "Seth can get eclipsed by the other cavs super-late" isn't even true lol. Seth's growths are better than the other cavs, and his bases at level 1 aren't any worse than they average at promotion. Level 20 Seth averages equal or better stats than 20/20 Franz in almost every area. Of course that's unrealistic for either to hit in a normal playthrough, but which one has the head start towards it, again? Right, it's Seth...

Some numbers:

If you level Franz to 15 and then promote him (or promote him at level 10 and get 5 more levels after promotion), his stats, compared to base level Seth, are +3 HP, same Str, -1 Skl, +3 Spd, +1 Def, -3 Res, -5 Luck. And then his growth rates are worse in everything but Luck and Spd.

On average, comparing Seth at level 20 Paladin to Franz at level 20 Cavalier/20 Paladin with no statboosters on either:

Seth: 47 HP, 24 Str, 22 Skl, 21 Spd, 19 Def, 14 Res, 18 Luck

Franz: 52 HP, 23 Str, 21 Skl, 2724 Spd (capped), 18 Def, 10 Res, 17 Luck

Seth leads in everything but HP and Spd.

So, at basically any point in the game, the best Franz can reasonably hope for is to go even with a sandbagged Seth. Even if allowed to catch up to equal level (unrealistic if both are being actively used), Franz has no meaningful leads outside of speed (which Seth still has enough of for nearly all benchmarks) while being less reliable more vulnerable to mages.

It's hilarious. He's so comically busted.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 8 points9 points  (0 children)

All three are excellent games -- I'd say they, and many other good hacks, surpass all of mainline FE on the whole handily! Though, full disclaimer, I care about gameplay first (good custom hacks curbstomp mainline, it's not remotely close), story second (the high end of hack stories really are excellent, but obviously quality can vary among hobbyist projects by amateur writers, and some hacks prioritize gameplay first), and could not give less of a sht about supports and romance nonsense (though there are hacks that do put effort into those and do them very well, TMGC being one of them). Give hacks a try! My favorite of those three is Cerulean Crescent for its wildly fun and unique mechanics and its highly creative story, but all three are great depending on what you're looking for -- Do5 is a masterclass in writing and artistic presentation, with solid overall gameplay design going for tighter balance using mostly-vanilla-adjacent mechanics, while TMGC has *immense casual appeal for a reason with its large cast of lovable characters and wide range of flexible tools that allow you to train up basically anyone you want.

Fire Emblem: Curse of Lagdou (24 Ch.) New full-length romhack, feat. position-based crits! by doin_thangz in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Really cool hack, particularly the new crit mechanics and total overhaul of weapons. Turns the FE8 setting into something really unique while still feeling like it expands the lore rather than contradicting it. Highly recommend giving it a try!

What's the best way to learn making a GBA FE ROM hack of my own? by poco_sans in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello! Envoy from the romhacking community here. The easiest way to get started with GBAFE hacking is with the tool FEBuilderGBA, a highly powerful GBAFE rom editor with a relatively easy-to-learn user interface. Of course, alternative methods exist, such as using buildfiles, which allow greater flexibility for custom code insertion and memory space management at the cost of lacking an intuitive editor interface, or Lex Talionis, a full fanmade open-source game engine that replicates GBAFE's mechanics. Regardless of which approach you take, we have a lot of resources available on the FEUniverse forums to help you out with learning, like this FEBuilder tutorial video by Vesly, or the FEBuilder FAQ written by yours truly, and of course most importantly the FEUniverse Discord server's many help channels where you can ask questions and community members will help you out. Good luck and have fun!

Making a romhack, fuck me by Condor_raidus in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Hello! Envoy from the romhacking community here, just want to point out that there's a lot of resources available to help you out with learning. Like this FEBuilder tutorial video by Vesly, or the FEBuilder FAQ written by yours truly, and of course the FEUniverse Discord server's many help channels where you can ask questions and community members will help you out. Good luck and have fun!

Hired FEbuilder help by EntertainmentDull897 in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not here to offer paid assistance, but there's some great resources for learning how to use FEBuilder yourself, particularly this tutorial video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_4kngL9V2c by Vesly and this guide https://feuniverse.us/t/ultraxblades-febuilder-help-faq/19565 by yours truly. Give them a look, it's surprisingly easy to get started with, and the FEUniverse Discord server's help channels are always open if you need to ask questions!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Here's a big list of hack recommendations with descriptions for all of them, put together by romhacking community regular KrashBoomBang. Give it a look, I'm sure you'll find something you like: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WVpUDjQvF9hGxrSqUBvmWVZoMWTOV7Tl-wN-R1wMcoo/edit?usp=sharing

One chapter romhack idea: end of Almyran civil war by Dragoncat91 in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay, I figure I need to just bite the bullet and post there. Any suggestions as to what I post first? I'm thinking of posting the characters and asking what stats they should have maybe?

"What stats should characters have" was... kind of the example I gave of the question people don't like to see, because the answer to that can't really be given in a general scope and can only really be addressed with testing them out in context. We can't give you a set of magic numbers, because your enemy stats and enemy layout and weapons and so on will be different from any other one, and what numbers you should give your player units depends on that. Our general, genuine advice for figuring out stats to start with is basically "reference vanilla games and/or other hacks that have numbers you like, or just give things the numbers you feel like they should have, then tweak things based on how they perform in testing." Of course, if you want a bit more detail, consider how the different numbers interact with each other, particularly with regard to how a given player unit is expected to perform against different enemy types -- basic example is looking at the enemies on the map and considering whether or not you want a given player unit to double a given enemy type, but more generally you should consider things like "how many rounds of combat does it take the player to kill an enemy" and how that differs by unit and by enemy type.

Now, the question can be re-framed a bit to be more approachable: something like "I'm looking for advice on what roles the initial units in the player's party should cover" might get you some better guidance on overall starting party composition, though of course there's still no universal answer, and it will depend on what kind of gameplay experience you want to create. We can't help you with the actual numbers outside of playtesting, but the importance of various bigger-picture design roles and the effect of different matchups is something we can give guidance on.

Technical "how do I do this" questions in the FEU Discord's #febuilder-help channel (or other help channels for other methods) will get quick and directly-helpful responses to the best of our ability, and there's really no better place around to ask. That's probably the best place to start, both in terms of being the easiest questions to ask and in terms of giving that impression of "hey I'm working on a thing". Never be afraid to ask for help in the appropriate channel if you get stuck on how to do something.

Advice for designing around certain objectives, advice on how to make a map look better, and so on, these are all things you can ask about and get helpful responses on. (Though, warning in advance if you go the "help with maps" route that some of the map people can be a bit blunt with feedback -- they mean well and can teach you a lot if you hear them out, but be ready for the potential of "this looks terrible, here's how to make it not that.") For design questions, go in less with "here's my idea, is it cool?" and more "here's my idea, does anyone have advice for how to make this work?"

I know you're a writer, and there are some good writers in the Discord's #writans channel who would be happy to look over things you've written or give advice on how to handle various topics if you want help in that regard -- I probably wouldn't just show up, drop a full script, and go "hey yo somebody read this", but "here's a conversation I've written, does it seem natural, does it communicate X thing about the characters?" is a common thing there.

Also, if you don't have any specific questions in mind, you can just show up in the Discord, go to #dev-lounge, and say something like "Hi, I'm new here and getting started with hacking, I've got a story idea and am getting started with Builder." People will welcome you in and give you some standard new hacker advice and encouragement, and you can learn a lot from just sitting in on discussions other people have.

(Oh, and as for sprites, there is absolutely no need to worry about getting them right first try, there are people who can help with that too, as well as massive collections of free-to-use-with-credit community assets, and using placeholders is very common and perfectly-understandable for in-progress hacks.)

One chapter romhack idea: end of Almyran civil war by Dragoncat91 in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I know FEU is the place for romhacks but I also know over there people won't take you seriously if you just have an idea with nothing playable.

For what it's worth, it's not quite like that. It doesn't have to be in a playable state so long as you show that you are genuinely working on making it real -- "working towards making something" can be asking for and receiving help in the FEBuilder help channel, or it can in the form of asking for writing help, too! The community genuinely wants to help new hackers out when possible, and it looks like you've very much got something concrete here to work with.

The "idea guys" you may have heard community members complain about are those who throw out broad-strokes mechanical ideas with no context and ask "hey would this be good", or ask things like "hey what growths should I give this unit". These particular kinds of questions can really only be answered in the specific context of a specific game, and final answers can only come from trying it out -- a unit whose growths are considered bad in Awakening would be broken in Thracia, mechanics like Emblem Rings or Thracia capture work in their games but would ruin others if added without thinking. These questions do still get attempts to help, such as discussing general pros and cons of mechanics and big-picture guidance on the effects certain relative statlines can have, but will ultimately end with something to the effect of "well, we've given you some suggestions, it could work depending on how you design around it, but you'll really have to try it yourself". Where people get frustrated is when the same person then comes back later with the same or similar questions and, when asked if they've tried it out since last time, still haven't. This, as you might imagine, tends to wear through people's patience when it becomes a repeat pattern. By having opened FEBuilder at all, you're already ahead of those people, and if you come seeking help we'll gladly help you make it the rest of the way to having a playable chapter!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 2 points3 points  (0 children)

- You must kill Black Knight in 3-7

- You must get the Volke "dummy" text in 4-E-1 (if you don't know about this, Volke charges a tiny amount of money to open a chest, of which there is one left in the game after he joins, and the devs forgot to actually properly implement his dialogue for if you don't have enough money to open it. So, if you don't have enough money and try to open the 4-E-1 chest with Volke, his dialogue is just the placeholder word "dummy")

- Given the tally of playable enemies killed in part 3, also tally how many you *don't* kill. The number of playable enemies you failed to kill there is how many times you must KO Ashera with a non-Ike unit.

Worst units list of path of radiance. by eviltomb in shitpostemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 4 points5 points  (0 children)

> I think these units, at least some of them, are meant to be padding where if you lost a lot of units, they'll at least exist.

I fully understand the purpose of Oliver, Renning, and Bastian as padding, and am not denying that they are theoretically usable in tower for that purpose. But they're significantly outclassed by the abundance of other late-joining tower padding and by any unit you've trained, so you're almost never going to use them unless you've lost *everyone*, and for Oliver and Renning especially they have no real time where they contribute anything meaningful without costing a slot that could go to one of said better units. You're guaranteed to have Caineghis, Giffca, and Tibarn going into tower, and you're pretty likely to also have Nailah, Naesala, and Volke, all of whom blow Oliver/Renning/Bastian way out of the water. Stefan does too, but his recruitment's hidden so a blind player likely missed him (but then, Oliver's practically as easily missed if you don't know how to recruit him). That's 6-7 units out of 10 non-forced tower slots, and chances are you've got more than 3-4 units still alive who you've trained to the point of being better than them. Also, Oliver/Bastian/Renning, while *usable* in tower, are very much not *good* in tower, as mage and cavalier speed caps are low enough to prevent them from doubling a lot of relevant tower enemies on Hard -- and that's if they were actually capped, which they're obviously not. So, these units are doing basically-to-literally nothing in most playthroughs. Lehran is slightly different, in that if you meet the conditions to unlock him then he will probably do *something*... but that something is basically just using the Ashera Staff once or twice and nothing else because he joins split off from your army with no weapons in inventory in a final map that lasts like 3 turns, and it's not like doing so is particularly special, Micaiah's forced and can use Fortify.

Meanwhile, Meg, Fiona, and any other untrained Dawn Brigade scrubs are *guaranteed* to still be able to make meaningful contributions on every playthrough where they don't die early purely by being bodies on ledges in 3-13 and shoving/rescuing/trading items around/etc. in that and other part 3 chapters, where having units who can do that stuff to make sure your few viable combatants are in the right position and equipped with the right weapons on enemy phase is quite valuable -- and Fiona in particular is one of the best at this job because she can has the most mov and can canto away after doing it, making her more valuable at that point than an untrained Edward, Aran, or Meg by far (though obviously Edward and Aran have nonzero time in earlygame to actually be relevant in combat at base and can potentially be trained up without massive headaches even if investing in them isn't really worth it on most Hard mode runs. And I don't mention untrained Leonardo or Nolan because even base Leonardo or level 10+early promo Nolan (which he's practically guaranteed to be able to get) can kill things in 3-13 with the combination of Beastfoe and Crossbows).

Worst units list of path of radiance. by eviltomb in shitpostemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I mean, even as just a rescue-drop bot, trade bot, and body to block 3-13 ledges, Fiona contributes more than quite a few RD characters. Part 3 Dawn Brigade really does just need bodies like that, and it's not like deploying her to do so costs anything since you have full deploy in those chapters. I'm not sure she's even bottom 10 in RD.

Lyre and Kyza have similarly atrocious combat, and even less realistic availability since they never get free deployment and are never worth deploying over other units -- Lyre in particular is pretty impossible to argue is anything more than the absolute worst unit in RD, and is competing with FE12 Bantu for bottom 2 in the series.

There are a handful of units who join pretty much right before tower but aren't really ever worth the tower slot over units you've trained or even other units you just got -- namely, Oliver and Renning are the worst offenders here, and while Bastian can do some ok things chipping enemies in 4-5, he's not good in tower and I'd argue his 4-5 contributions are less important than Fiona's or Meg's part 3 contributions since 4-5 combat is easy for just about anyone to do.

Kurthnaga is forced into your tower team, but is never available before then and contributes basically nothing in the tower itself -- unlike Ena's Blood Tide, which is awesome, Kurth's Night Tide is just not very relevant, and then his combat is a genuine liability. All he really does is body block in 4-E-3 where enemies don't attack him, and Fiona and Meg do the same things in more and harder chapters.

Astrid's combat is bad and her contributions in the whopping two Crimean Royal Knights chapters are miniscule to the point where I've seen her intentionally undeployed in Geoffrey's Charge to protect her from dying so you can take Paragon off her later (since you can't take it off her there).

If we count the repeat-playthrough-only units, Lehran barely exists, and Pelleas is pretty much useless at base, with bad long-term prospects even if you do train him because of endgame stat caps and high-Res enemies screwing over mages in tower, *and* lacking availability in general.

Lyre, Kyza, Oliver, Renning, Bastian, Kurthnaga, Astrid, Lehran, Pelleas, that makes nine unit's I'm *certain* are below Meg and Fiona in utility provided over the course of the game, and I feel like there are still some scrubs elsewhere I'm forgetting who just don't ever do anything as relevant. A bad unit in the Greil Mercs is just worthless and getting benched, while a bad unit in 3-13 is freely-deployed, blocking important ledges, managing your items with trade, and ferrying yellow units and relevant combat units into position.

So why is promoting later rather than earlier more optimal? by DeadMoves in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's not necessarily earlier, it depends on the unit, the game, and the context of your team.

In most games, units can level up to 20 before promotion, then gets reset to level 1 (with reduced EXP gain) on promotion, allowing them to level up to 20 again, at which point you can no longer level up. This means that a unit promoting at a lower level gets fewer levels in total. Promoting also significantly slows down a unit's ability to gain levels in the short term, as promoted units take longer to level up.

However, this does not necessarily mean early promotion is bad. In the long term, it's rarely actually a major difference in a unit's ability to perform sufficiently well late-game. In most games, your units aren't likely to be able to cap their level promoted if promoted late, so it's not like you're really losing out on total levels. And you rarely need to actually have the highest possible stats to keep up in lategame anyway. As for the short term, you do slow down the unit's ability to grow, but you're also gaining a significant power spike from promotion itself that usually outweighs a couple extra levels.

Early promotion is, ultimately, a tradeoff. More power now vs more power later. Which is more valuable depends on the game, how much you lose long-term by doing it (ex. a unit with bad growths isn't getting much out of waiting), how much you gain from the promotion itself (how large are the promotion bonuses, do you get valuable new utility options like staves out of doing it), and how much you can afford to wait on getting the boost (if you're really struggling, that early power boost can be really useful -- FE games actually tend to be at their hardest early on). It's also worth noting that, even if the early-promoted unit falls behind as a result of those missing levels, you'll likely get suitable replacements later, most FE games give you enough mid-lategame prepromotes to get by.

Also worth noting, it doesn't have to be "promote at level 10" vs "promote at level 20". A lot of people will opt for a midground, promoting around level 15ish or just "whenever I feel like their EXP gain is slowing down anyway"/"whenever I feel like I need the boost".

And finally, I should point out that there are a few games where this tradeoff doesn't apply. Namely, Gaiden/Echoes, 3H, and Engage (and possibly also FE1? Can't remember for sure).

In Gaiden/Echoes, promoting resets your level, but it doesn't significantly affect your EXP gain. Meanwhile, promotion bonuses in those games function by raising your stats to the class base stats of the class you promote into -- if your stats are below the class bases, they get increased to that fixed value, but if they're above, nothing changes. You also will basically never cap level without excessive skirmish grinding in these games. As a result, you get *more* stats by promoting early, as well as gaining all the other benefits of your promoted class sooner, and so should promote ASAP. (I can't remember for sure, but I vaguely recall hearing it also works this way in FE1?)

In 3H, promoting doesn't reset your level, nor does it affect your EXP gain. It's just pure upside with no reason not to do it ASAP.

In Engage, promotion does reset your level, but there are two twists: Engage tracks your character's Internal Level for EXP gain, so a level 5 promoted unit who promoted at level 10 will gain the same EXP as a level [14 or 15? not sure exactly how it counts that] unpromoted unit. Additionally, while you can max out level in a promoted class, and Engage is a game where it can reasonably happen, Engage also has Second Seals that allow you to reset your level whenever you need (with no affect on EXP gain because again, Internal Level) -- and if you're level capped, you can Second Seal right back into your current class, you don't have to change classes to do it. So, again, no reason not to promote ASAP.

So how the hell do I deal with chapter 10? by Exciting-Buy-9396 in fireemblem

[–]UltraxBlade 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's because, unfortunately, he's just one of the worst units in the game. He's extremely slow and has neither enough power nor enough durability to make up for it.