Fire emblem fan games need to stop doing this

If I see another fire emblem fangame that gives bows two three range I'm going to scream. I love fire emblem rom hacks and I am always trying to find the best fire emblem rom hacks out there, two three ranges bows is a fast way for me to drop your game

#fireemblem

[ThatJRPGWeirdo]

Hot Take: Sacred Echoes had a really good take on this, 1-2 range but archers at 1 range were treated as being at Weapon Triangle disadvantage

[KamelGuru]

Off the top of my head: Make them have thief sight in fog of war maps, as perception is a big part of the archer fantasy. Let them move across forest tiles at reduced cost. Give them niche utility that make them stand out more.

[jacewarbeck]

This is why Archers felt really good in Conquest, where archers were strong, had great skills, and fliers were devastating and required an answer (And archers often could kill in one blow.)

[princestarfy]

Nah Rebecca’s an amazing unit. All you have to do is feed her every stat boosting item you get.

[lostandfound]

2-3 range bows are actually a fantastic way to design archers. It keeps bows unique, gives archers something to do besides waiting for a flier to show up and maintains their weakness. If 2-3 range is too broken, the best way to balance it is to reduce the user's hit rate when attacking from 3 range like in Three Houses. Also, enemy archers exist too.

[xenofes]

While strength is definitely an issue with early game archers, I think a bigger problem is that the lack of 1 range makes them player-phase only, and most FE games have heavy "enemy phase design", where the best way to play is generally to have a few strong units deal with enemies by counterattacking on enemy phase, rather than having your entire army attack on player phase. This means that an easy way to make archers more relevant is to just make enemies have more strength, so attacking on player phase is more viable than enemy phase countering, and thus having a unit that can attack on player phase without being countered is a lot more valuable.

Another cool thing that I wish was done more often, was to design levels with archers in mind. In FE6, the western isles castle chapter has archers stuck in the walls that attack your units as you move through the hallways, and the easiest way to deal with them is to use your own archers (and mages), since they have much more reliable 2 range than hand axes and javelins. It's really a shame that we almost never get anything like that in the series, where 1 range units are at a serious disadvantage compared to 2 range, even for just one section of a map.

[FireEmbros]

Unironically I feel like Innes is a pretty good example of an archer done well. Good weapon rank, solid stats, not so fragile and has some good res to bait magical enemies.

[CLTurtle]

3:00 HOW THE HELL MADE THIS, ITS KILLING ME MORE THAN CECILIA

[tribble]

Stronger archer is still competing in the limited design space that every other unit sits in. Longer range archer opens up more ways to play the map and gives you a new interesting enemy. Limiting your design space because stationary enemies could be cheesed easier is backwards thinking.

[SaucyMullins]

I give my bows not 2-3 range, but exactly 3 range. This nerfs their target access quite a bit by reducing the total number of target squares around them from 20 to 12. Even from long range, Lining up a shot can sometimes be tricky, especially in tight quarters.

As for bosses, I gave certain terrain like thrones, gates, forts and thickets a special "cover" terrain feature which reduces damage by half from attack more than 2 tiles away. Players can still attack bosses with bows and have them contribute or even feed them the kill, but it simply isn't viable to cheese the boss as it's too inefficient with weapon durability, assuming they can even outpace the healing.

The cover terrain is also useful in making maps with ballistae and siege tomes that don't make the player feel utterly helpless. Reducing the damage of a bolting strike from 17 down to 8 by hopping from thicket to thicket each turn gives the player a sense that they can actual advance without having to wait out it's durability.

[andrewsrambles]

People don't seem to talk about it nowadays but I really like what Fates did with bows. Statwise they're effectively more accurate Axes and both the Outlaw and Archer families get some of the best skills in the game.

[e.sanghvi]

0:59 ...Did you forget you can also have bosses move? If you're romhacking to begin with you don't have make every map Seize.

[DunYappin]

As an Archer fan and a someone who has been playing fan games for a while, I will say I like the 1 -2 range for early game and unlocking more range as the archer improves. I think SoV and 3H did a good job.

In my demo I'm working on I'm giving the archers glass cannon stats with a bunch of speed. St least that's the vision.

Great vid as always. I know its been a minute since i commented. 😊😊😊

[soijinruiz]

Honestly, I think the best way to buff archers, and mages to some extent, is to dial back and nerf the 1-2 range that's in the game. Javelins and handsxes are extremely good, 1-2 range, pretty common and cheap and most of the time comparable to iron and steel bows. They should be more limited, eithe by price, availability or by making them weaker. I feel that would make archers better, making them the premier range option

[Jotari]

Your bosses should always be moving anyway. Even with the ability to counter, a boss who is stationary is going to be cheesed if it just stays there letting you engage at your leisure. Unless there's a turn limit or infinite reinforcements.

[MyrmidonRadd]

I disagree with the idea that an Archer's only real role in an army is "walking flier bane". If you ask me, they have value as a 'cleaner' of sorts; if someone else's attacks fall short of taking out an enemy, or an unlucky miss means a threat is still standing, then often times an Archer can be exactly the tool you need to take them out. Bows are very rarely ever inaccurate, and Archers tend to have naturally high skill, so they'll almost always land the shot, and unless they have so little STR that they should have frankly been benched 5 chapters ago, they'll get the kill, all without needing to get into melee range; which is perfect for this role since chances are, melee range is already clogged up by the other guy who didn't do their job right and needs bailing out.

[Abundy]

I do like the Andaron/Rebellion bow cavs/rangers always having Canto+ while other mounts generally don't get it, but in general the biggest issue with GBA archers, as you mentioned, are just their crappy stats. Archers are maybe the only class that should easily be able to double most enemies while having high strength, when other classes can do it with 1-2 range and better mobility it usually becomes an enemy phase fest.

[silversunset]

You don't need to do anything especially special to make an archer usable if enemy quality isn't extremely low. That's what kills the archer, when the hand axe guy isn't meaningfully threatened by enemy phasing an entire formation.

[VanguardCommanderAC]

1:30 Sir FE is a turn based fantasy RPG game how does this ruin the power fantasy? Having skills like Close combat or weapons like the minibow makes the archers more fun to play as it does not restricted them on a field. Increasing a archers strength is not gonna fix the problem when classes like the warriors exist. if there's any stat that needs fixing is the bow's MT and the archers CON, or BUILD. Archer's are for three things: one shot or crippling fliers, do chip damage from a safe distance if need and doubling on knights or slower than usual units.

[MormonDude]

(Disclaimer: I’m speaking in broad strokes here. I know the game gets more complex with effective weapons and items and having good stats and such.)

I think the problem, in my opinion, is a bit more fundamental than just not having enough str. Archers are a specialized class that basically have specialized far too much into their niche.

Think about another class like mages. What is a mage’s specialty? As a class they’re knight-killers, or anything with high defense really. But they don’t specialize too far in that niche. They still perform very well against other Magic users, regular units, and more. They still have enough more general utility that even when there isn’t enough knights (or more accurately: when all the knights are dead) they don’t immediately become a liability you need to babysit.

Or another class: Mounted units. They have a lot of general utility because of rescue and high move but I’d argue they still have a niche of killing infantry. Same thing with fliers except they kill magic-users.

This is also why dancer units are so good. They’re technically a specialist class because all they can do is dance, but their use-case is pretty much always applicable because going a second time is always a good thing. Thus in that sense they are a generalist class. Nevermind that they can also do stuff like dodge tank.

All of these classes have stuff they *specialize* in, but they still have enough *general* utility that even when their special use case isn’t there they aren’t a liability.

Archers basically just don’t have that. They specialize so freaking hard into their niche that once there are no fliers on the map it becomes a lot more difficult to justify bringing them. and even when there are it is very possible you can deal with the flier with your other units. Units that won’t effectively become useless when the fliers are gone.

This is why I kind of feel like warriors are a great class because they fulfill the anti-flier niche without specializing too hard into it. They counter lances, can bait enemies into attacking them since they cannot counter when holding a bow, and can be surprisingly tanky, shielding your other units, and their bows free up the hand axes for your other axe users. (Bonus points for having some of the best crit animations as well).