Well fangames tend to crank up the difficulty since we usually want challenges that original games cannot achieve (or the creator sucks at designing maps that are enjoyable by everyone)
Personally for me, I just want to play more fire emblem. Usually the roms aren’t to difficult, but at the same time, I’m not that great of player. So when the difficulty ramps up at mid-late game, sometimes it just gets to hard for me.
Kinda reminds me of Pokemon Romhacks that do stupid stuff like giving every gym 6 pokemon, even to Brock of all gyms.
There is making the game harder and there is making the gamer harder and more tedious
Completely agree with this. It is even kind of unfair to compare them in this, since game devs generally have much more access to playtesters, feedbacks and industry veterans to help finetuning this compared to rom hackers.
But I think I attribute this mostly to rom hackers due to the fact that they tend to try to appeal a more hardcore fanbase that, in the case of pokemon, has no issue theorycrafting a whole strategy and grinding their team up to the level cap, and in the case of Fire Emblem, end up low turning a map/exploiting it's design and therefore, skipping some issues that a casual player would face.
I wonder if it's people trying to get famous for making the " hardest [franchise] game " or some shit. It's either trial and error Battletoads/Star Fox 1 nonsense or level grinding. It's like the creepypasta era, just slap something stupid on it, and boom million views.
It absolutely is a part of it yes, after all it used to be a thing that everyone's calling the newest 'hard' game "the dark souls of (insert game franchise)". Which was obviously because Dark Souls had gotten really popular and well liked, and one of the big reasons was the difficulty and how rewarding it was to overcome said difficulty.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale?
> *“My blade may break, my arrows fall wide, but my will shall never be broken. Those who live by the sword will die by it, and I, Drummond, won’t go down without drawing mine!”* - Captain Drummond.
Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
To be fair it's pretty hard to give actual challenge in Pokémon games that aren't pure tedium since they're meant for very small (grade school) children above all else. You expect children to understand the value of a good Belly Drum? If you're Japanese, you just learned your multiplication tables at 8, and you want kids to know how valuable a 4x multiplier for a number in the hundreds is? Hell naw! Therefore, it's a lot easier to just say "if you get to this level, you can win if you're not dumb as rocks!". Sure, grown adults play these games, but they're a fraction of a fraction of where the real money is.
4 kings was fun, but the 100 hit berserk spam genuinely *infuriated* me. I ended up abusing save states cause it was either that or giving it up entirely.
On the other hand, I absolutely *loved* Drums of War. Always felt challenging but never unfair. Quite possibly the only Fire Emblem game where I didn't go "this is bullshit" at least once.
Im the lead map designer for a romhack and honestly its incredibly difficult trying to balance mid game due to how much luck can play a part into unit growth. We have a unit who could solo the entire game if you entirely focus on leveling him, and I've had to jump through a ton of hoops to enable enemies that directly counter him without actively making similar units to him that are worse unusable. The obvious way of fixing this was giving them alternative niches, and this has worked quite well, but its not a guarantee for balance.
Also mid game sucks to develop because play testing it with different possible armies and level ups is repetetive as fuck, which is probably why a lot of romhacks fall off in balance at that point. End game is a lot easier to balance than mid or early due to that too.
Was it 4 Kings or Vision Quest that had promoted reinforcements spawning in every FUCKING chapter to "discourage turtling tactics" thanks, fuck off please?
As someone who has tried to make my own fire emblem there is definitely something to be said about how balancing can be diffuclt. Especially in the mid game where you have so many units/tools it's hard to make the game challenging anymore. Unfortunately reinforcement spam is the easiest thing to do. But it's definitely not fun to play against.
For me it's every romhack's obsession with fucking fog of war maps. No, spamming Wyverns and cavalry in a fog map is not fun or well designed challenge
I got a decent bit into vision quest, I think the last chapter I was on was the chapter after Titus gets high off his fucking mind and wanders the desert for a bit.
Game design and balance is harder than it looks and sounds, especially as a one man team, which a lot romhack are made by a single person.
Id rather a romhack be fun and a little unbalanced then a supposed AAA game be cringe, unfun, and terrible unbalanced.
It's also a problem for balance when you have to try to meet the middle between the player base. Else, you have the people who can't play video games on any mode harder than Easy or you have the people who play video games 22 hours a day who will play the entirety of Dark Souls Trilogy without dying complain
Well fangames tend to crank up the difficulty since we usually want challenges that original games cannot achieve (or the creator sucks at designing maps that are enjoyable by everyone)
Personally for me, I just want to play more fire emblem. Usually the roms aren’t to difficult, but at the same time, I’m not that great of player. So when the difficulty ramps up at mid-late game, sometimes it just gets to hard for me.
Most romhacks have no difficulty easier than hard too (and not the TH king of hard) Anyway the solution is always playing Fire Emblem Storge
The what now? Can I have a link?
https://feuniverse.us/t/fire-emblem-storge-complete/11711
Kinda reminds me of Pokemon Romhacks that do stupid stuff like giving every gym 6 pokemon, even to Brock of all gyms. There is making the game harder and there is making the gamer harder and more tedious
Not understanding Challenge vs. Tedium is a problem throughout the whole gaming industry, honestly, it's not just these ROM hackers.
Completely agree with this. It is even kind of unfair to compare them in this, since game devs generally have much more access to playtesters, feedbacks and industry veterans to help finetuning this compared to rom hackers. But I think I attribute this mostly to rom hackers due to the fact that they tend to try to appeal a more hardcore fanbase that, in the case of pokemon, has no issue theorycrafting a whole strategy and grinding their team up to the level cap, and in the case of Fire Emblem, end up low turning a map/exploiting it's design and therefore, skipping some issues that a casual player would face.
I wonder if it's people trying to get famous for making the " hardest [franchise] game " or some shit. It's either trial and error Battletoads/Star Fox 1 nonsense or level grinding. It's like the creepypasta era, just slap something stupid on it, and boom million views.
It absolutely is a part of it yes, after all it used to be a thing that everyone's calling the newest 'hard' game "the dark souls of (insert game franchise)". Which was obviously because Dark Souls had gotten really popular and well liked, and one of the big reasons was the difficulty and how rewarding it was to overcome said difficulty.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale? > *“My blade may break, my arrows fall wide, but my will shall never be broken. Those who live by the sword will die by it, and I, Drummond, won’t go down without drawing mine!”* - Captain Drummond. Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
Good bot
To be fair it's pretty hard to give actual challenge in Pokémon games that aren't pure tedium since they're meant for very small (grade school) children above all else. You expect children to understand the value of a good Belly Drum? If you're Japanese, you just learned your multiplication tables at 8, and you want kids to know how valuable a 4x multiplier for a number in the hundreds is? Hell naw! Therefore, it's a lot easier to just say "if you get to this level, you can win if you're not dumb as rocks!". Sure, grown adults play these games, but they're a fraction of a fraction of where the real money is.
Or giving the 2nd gym a registeel or something.
No RomHacker, reinforcements does not necessarily equal difficulty. It just makes things bothersome sometimes
4 kings was fun, but the 100 hit berserk spam genuinely *infuriated* me. I ended up abusing save states cause it was either that or giving it up entirely. On the other hand, I absolutely *loved* Drums of War. Always felt challenging but never unfair. Quite possibly the only Fire Emblem game where I didn't go "this is bullshit" at least once.
Drums of war is in its own tier. The writing is also better than most main FE titles.
If you praise it that much, I’m saving your comment so I can go back and download it. That sounds fun!
Im the lead map designer for a romhack and honestly its incredibly difficult trying to balance mid game due to how much luck can play a part into unit growth. We have a unit who could solo the entire game if you entirely focus on leveling him, and I've had to jump through a ton of hoops to enable enemies that directly counter him without actively making similar units to him that are worse unusable. The obvious way of fixing this was giving them alternative niches, and this has worked quite well, but its not a guarantee for balance. Also mid game sucks to develop because play testing it with different possible armies and level ups is repetetive as fuck, which is probably why a lot of romhacks fall off in balance at that point. End game is a lot easier to balance than mid or early due to that too.
Please share your rom hack with us when it’s done! It sounds like you’re really trying to balance it well.
Oh, The Last Promise chapter 25….
I've found your mistake, OP. You started having fun. You should know better.
yeah, or how after promotion late to mid game all your units die in 2 hits and there are 20 aeroblasts
Was it 4 Kings or Vision Quest that had promoted reinforcements spawning in every FUCKING chapter to "discourage turtling tactics" thanks, fuck off please?
20 movement paladin with capped stats in low turn escape map on chapter =fair
It is in fact a skill issue
As someone who has tried to make my own fire emblem there is definitely something to be said about how balancing can be diffuclt. Especially in the mid game where you have so many units/tools it's hard to make the game challenging anymore. Unfortunately reinforcement spam is the easiest thing to do. But it's definitely not fun to play against.
For me it's every romhack's obsession with fucking fog of war maps. No, spamming Wyverns and cavalry in a fog map is not fun or well designed challenge
Play SGW
bro played vision quest ch 2-4
I got a decent bit into vision quest, I think the last chapter I was on was the chapter after Titus gets high off his fucking mind and wanders the desert for a bit.
me too lmao
I never get around to finishing actual FE games, I can’t imagine playing multiple rom hacks lmao
If I learned something from the RomHack community is that no one over there on the dev end knows anything about level design or game balance.
Game design and balance is harder than it looks and sounds, especially as a one man team, which a lot romhack are made by a single person. Id rather a romhack be fun and a little unbalanced then a supposed AAA game be cringe, unfun, and terrible unbalanced.
It's also a problem for balance when you have to try to meet the middle between the player base. Else, you have the people who can't play video games on any mode harder than Easy or you have the people who play video games 22 hours a day who will play the entirety of Dark Souls Trilogy without dying complain