I've always liked the idea of story based biorhythm. Each character has fixed biorhythm per chapter which is effected by how they actually feel in the story. For example when the lords father inevitably dies they have bad biorhythm in the next few chapters, or retaking a capital gives positive biorhythm next few chapters. This would involve giving side characters more input on the main story than just "hello I'm here and I like food" though.
I do enjoy the fact that It had it's honest ideas put into play; like when Jill fights against her old squad, she's upset, and with how biorhythm works, it's like "morale" i find, even though when you'd think about morale, winning fights you'd think could change it, but like how Mangs said, BR might have been just a hollow shell of what it could have been.
I feel like a fatigue based mechanic is the best version because it forces the player not to completely rely on a single uber unit to wipe hordes of enemies. Another thing I feel it could help balance is the disparity between mounted and foot units with foot units being able to fight longer while mounted units are more used for breakthrough and running down lone enemies.
I agree, but only if you can turn this mechanic off. This would not only beneficial for newer players, but also for these, who would like to do a solo challenge.
@@Borgdrohne13 yeah that should generally be a thing in every game with the more minor gimmicks like you shouldn’t be able to turn off emblem rings as the whole game is built around them but shit like well Biorythm should
I like this a lot. I tend to prefer soft restrictions/caps in games to hard caps. "Do I deploy my best unit fatigued or do I bench them so they're at full strength next chapter?" would be a cool choice for a player to make. Consumables, staffs and maybe dancers could remove fatigue as well. As long as the tools for removing fatigue are fairly limited - "break glass in case of emergency". That might work better if fatigue comes in levels (something like tired, fatigued, exhausted) and stuff that reduces fatigue only reduces it by one level.
Biorhythm makes me appreciate the fatigue system in Thracia. They actually had the balls to pull the trigger in forcing you to switch up your army and not relying on only a few units. The one thing I don't like about fatigue is that the maps are so varied in Thracia. The maps themselves actually do a better job at making you rotate your army depending on objectives and if it's an indoor and outdoor map. I understand why Biorhythm wasn't as extreme as fatigue, but the mechanic feels "half-baked"
I actually like Solution 2, particularly the Ashnard thing. I would also integrate it into the story more, whereby desperate maps (Ike's defence map after Greil dies, Micaiah's Caste Nox defence map) have your units' biorhythm start lower or deplete faster to reflect their emotional state. The Micaiah vs. Laguz Alliance maps would become really interesting mechanically, because both armies would be fighting with poor biorhythm (neither actually wants to fight). The strategy could become having your army mentally 'outlast' the enemy by managing your biorhythm while taking actions that decrease the enemy's (making use of the faster depletion rate due to low morale). It would also fit thematically because Ike and Micaiah are known to rally the spirits of their troops when they take command.
Here are some changes that I would to to biorythm: 1) Make it tied in some way to the story: For example, when in PoR you fight Jill's father have her biorhythm be low for the entire chapter, or in the chapter after Greil dies have the biorhythm of the entire army be low. 2)Make it tied to supports: For example, if a unit dies on the map, have the biorhythm of the units that unit supported with become low depending on the support level they shared. 3)Of course, make it matter more, who cares about the army's biorhythm being low for the entire chapter after Greil dies if all they get is -5 hit/avoid? Edit: Didn't notice that speedwinghere also proposed story based biorhythm, sorry about that.
I guess the overall trouble is figuring out how to make each character stand out with their biorhythm. Cause it's gonna be difficult to determine the biorhythm of a character like Mordecai or Astrid when you're knocking on the front gate to the Daein Keep.
Had a debate about biorhythm in my discord recently. One person mentioned an implementation i actually really liked: Keep biorhythm as it is, maybe with slightly stronger bonuses like in RD, BUT biorhythm is story and event dependent. For example, when Greil dies, Ike is obviously devastated, so that would naturally show itself in his biorhythm. Instead of going between bad and good over the course of the chapter, it would just stay a constant for the entire chapter, and then change depending on events. Expanding on this, you could even have it so that supports can get your biorhythm up a notch, or maybe you have relatively rare items which increase your biorhythm for a chapter or two, or maybe even a stat booster which increases your baseline biorhythm from normal to good. If you biorhythm has been positive for a while, it would eventually return to normal. Herons could maybe cast a Galdr that increases your biorhythm for a chapter, or a few turns, which may be limited by uses per chapter or cooldown. You could even integrate the buddy support system from Radiant Dawn into this. Whenever you have a battle support convo, it could increase your biorhythm based on the strength of your support (and maybe even existing relationships/bond supports) That aside: The fact biorhythm changes so quickly and give minor stat changes makes it tedious if you actually were to look at it. If you want to make it relevant, AND stay ever changing as it is now, you absolutely need to add a proper UI element to show that to the player at a moments glance. It'd be a in a similar spot as Skills on enemies. They're cool and all, but you don't wanna be checking for them on every single enemy, which is why 3DSFE added them to be easily viewable at a glance through the bottom screen. My suggestion for this would be to simply add a small arrow up and arrow down (maybe more than just once depending on strenght), next to the enemies shown HP frame when hovering over them. Alternatively you could also change how the frame looks itself, but the player ABSOLUTELY needs to know within a millisecond or two, if a unit has good or bad biorythm, without any additonal button presses or anything like that.
Whatever choice you make, I think the simplest way to improve biorhythm whould be to have it displayed on the battle map. Despite weapon triangle giving the same kind of advantages, it is way more fun simply because you can check at first sight who has which weapon and start building your strategy from there. Having to open a more detailed window to check biorhythm for each character is way too tedious and will only discourage players from engaging with the mecanic. That being said I like the chaos/order dichotomy and I think it would have a lot of subtle narrative potential. I like the idea of everyone falling progressively into chaos while the medallion is slowly charging at the end of part 3 in RD.
I really love your Chaos vs Order Idea. It's a good way of Minmaxing units on a map. I think with a few tweaks, that mechanic could be game-making for a SRPG like fire Emblem. I just think the Ashera fight idea is dumb though, but I do love the base.
The only time when Biorithym felt important were in the fight against Ashera. In RD each character has an specific biorithym for each chapter. In one of my fight against Ashera, I remember all my characters had bad biorithym and the felt worse to play than usual. But after i killed the things that protect Ashera, you receive a motivational speech and all my characters had good biorythim and felt that everyone fought better. Dont know if It was a desing choice or Just luck, but It was really cool
I actually like the idea to rework biorhythm into more like a morale system. Via story and actions your biorhythm can increase or decrease. Getting kills, being healed, or dodging attacks can improve it while taking damage, getting attacked multiple times in a round, or a bonded ally dying, etc could reduce it. Neutral actions like using an item or the wait command will push it towards the center. This would incentive players to take fights while morale is good while having the ability to recover should morale drop low. And I'm thinking about this as I type it. Rally skills could also boost as well.
A big problem with biorhythm is that it is hidden in a different menu. If you could see a small pop-up or arrow on the map, it would be a lot more usable and fun to play around.
When you hover over a character on the map there already is an arrow display that shows you what bio they're in. Big green arrow, small green, none, small red and big red.
Why didn't you also suggest not hiding the Biorythm behind menus?? The reason I never checked it is because I didn't want to open menus and try to map Biorythm to the right enemy. If it was present when hovering over a unit, during battle forecasts, and inside battles to see how Biorythm is affect by landing hits and being hit then players would know about it better. Especially if it showed plus and minus values next to the affected stat. The Chaos/Order paradigm was really hecking cool though!
You could tie it so that order-bound characters gain biorhythm for orderly actions (teamwork; formations, don't fall too low%hp, don't take losing weapon triangle answers) and chaotic characters gain biorhythm for chaotic actions (defeated enemies, high movement, low hp, getting hit/avoid/crit lucky). It shouldn't be giving you hit/avoid, but rather +/- 3 damage and defense. Minimum is take 3 more damage, deal 3 less; maximum is the inverse. This will always effect every unit class, other than maybe healers.
Make biorhythm affect RN. Good/Neutral/Bad use 3RN, while Best/Worst use 2RN. Enemies just get the flat numbers, with a little extra for Order vs. Chaos alignments or having certain pre-battle convos against characters.
One of the failings of biorythm is also that it can only be checked in the stats menu and is different on every character. So it is hard to know without checking and tedious to check (at least to check often). But, the Awakening and Fates takes on biorythm (through skills that only check if the turn is odd or even) was a good fix to this issue imo.. Your solutions still have it.
In your third solution regarding the Ashera boss fight what I'd do is since Ashera is all about order every judgement brings everyones biorhythm toward order if you hit maximum order you become petrified on the flip side during the final chapter or even during the army split where you separate into 3 armies Micaiah gets access to a form of Judgement (or whatever you wish to call it)through Yune, which makes all your units biorythm more chaotic and get progressively stronger every chapter leading up to Ashera as Yune gets more of her own power back from being unsealed, it adds a little more to Micaiah as a character and becomes an important mechanic in the end game
3 is the best one, given how thoroughly you've tied it into the themes of the duology. I like both 2 and 3, although 2 more as some ideas for a general Fatigue mechanic. Granted, I thought characters getting tired from consecutive deployments was fine in Thracia 776, and I can see how Fatigue being something you actively have to manage during a map rather than an element of your long-term planning across the entire game could become annoying. Still, select elements of 2, such as herons being biorhythm healers, could be integrated into the calculations for 3 and work very well.
Maybe another variant of the order vs chaos attunement could be that it impacts growth rates. Although that would likely be so subtle that it would run the risk of being even less noticeable that the existing version of biorhythm.
My idea would be to balance base hit rates to function like in Fire Emblem 6 and nerf hit stats across the board for playable characters as needed to achieve that goal. Then I'd propose a modified biorhythm system wherein the bad biorhythms result in the -5 hit and -5 avo penalties, but with an additional penalty towards crit avoid (if possible) when at "worst" so that there's a potentially meaningful difference made by it being there. Then I'd make the ceiling bonuses higher. Neutral would still be neutral, but good can be +10s and best can be +15. The goal should have it be relevant, but not infuriating. Having it brought up on the map via a toggle would be necessary to make the player able to tell where the unit is at on biorhythm at a glance.
My opinion on your solutions: 1: I feel like this idea fits more for three houses than tellius (with food, activities, etc. essentially turning it more into a morale meter) 2: I like this idea, but I feel like it won't fit in as well as it did in Thracia. Still, if it works, it works. 3: if they implemented it and people found out it was inspired by you, you're gonna get lynched (or at least the Twitter version of being lynched) for the final boss idea. 4: People will complain about it and want it back. The only way to win with that is to have a biorhythm and non-biorhythm mode
I kind of like the idea of integrating the Order Vs Chaos theming into a gameplay mechanic, giving the characters passive changes to show how/whether the chaos of the battlefield is affecting them. I always liked how Radiant Dawn in particular really captures the chaos of a battle with the large maps and unit counts, and in particular 3-E makes the body count a point, showing the situation deteriorating and the herons becoming ill as the chaotic energy builds. Even little things like Ranulf mentioning how his vision is starting to blur, or Kurthnaga having to focus on his breathing to keep himself in control.
Ok, now I get it, I feel like it kinda reminds me of echoes fatigue in some way. but also the thracia example works too. Lastly I think that this updated version of mangs biorhythm fixes might actually be fun for FE: radiant dawn but also much more tougher if it was implemented, oh boy...
I think another easy passive buff to give to biorhythm would be coordinated exp gains/growth rates, especially if corresponding items, staves, and earlier access to heron songs were introduced. Overall I like the fatigue angle and think it should tie into the laguz meter as well.
I've been playing a TON of the Tellius games lately (As they're my favorites) and having this video pop up for me when it's so fresh in my mind felt perfect. Excellent video and discussion, thank you based Mangs.
I think a modified version of option nr. 2 could work: making Biorhythm a less punishing Fatigue. Using a unit in combat will make them tired and lower their stats for future maps but it will not stop you altogether from deploying them. While fighting would lower a unit's Biorhythm, using items or waiting would slowly return it to normal. This way you would have greater control of it than you have on Thracia Fatigue. I don't like the idea of stats being lowered mid-chapter tho. It seems tedious to check every unit's stats after every turn.
I love the Order and Chaos idea, but the way you explained it, I can already see Order being way better than Chaos. I’d give Chaos a slight buff to attack speed as well, and maybe even a slight AS debuff to Order. But the idea is awesome, I love it. It should just be balanced very delicately because I don’t think you want this mechanic to completely dominate the gameplay. A scenario like in (for example) Fates, where skills absolutely dominated the gameplay, wouldn’t land very well imo. I really enjoy the thought you put into these kind of videos. Very well done
Why not give Chaos +2 movement to non-cavalry/flying units, and all ground units can ignore movement penalties from rough terrain and water spaces where applicable?
My personal favorite of the 3 is the sort of modified fatigue mechanic, while the order chaos one is a close second for sure. Chaos/order one is neat and I like idea definitely need to make sure the tradeoffs are equal especially to fit the theme of the story The pseudo fatigue version is also pretty cool. Can't have single unit super carries and if movement also lowers it, this disproportionately affects your wyvernlords and Paladins which is good to reign them in, (tho tbf Paladins in RD are fairly balanced imo) and allows for skills to interact in a unique way. Like what if generals had a skill where it actually increased bio rhythm a tiny bit every time they are attacked. Or reavers gain huge biorhythm increase everytime they crit or proc colossus stuff like that and that's only scratching the surface
What if the concept was linked into a 'combat flow' mechanic? You start off in the middle, modified by skills. As a character is 'successful' in the combat (using the weapon triangle effectively, targeting enemies with double damage weapons, and so on) based on their class they gain biorythm up to the max. Add in using skills as well, pushing allies out of the way so another character can get the final blow should be rewarded for everyone. As it builds up you get the boosts to numbers, skill activation, and similar. Basically encourage players to engage with the side systems and do more than send the current omnitank into combat. Conversely when things go wrong the rhythm decreases. Attempting low probability attacks that inevitably miss is not good for moral, dealing no damage, and similar. Ideally going down should be much harder than going up since you don't want to punish risky actions beyond the natural consequences so the numbers should be minor. Enough where you don't want to intentionally let it go down, but also not something that punishes you. The meter returns to neutral if nothing changes it in a turn, though actions can swing it within a turn. But like you said, just numbers is boring. So for each class set up a pair of unique skills to activate when at max or min within biorythm. At max it's an action that capitalizes on the classes ability and demonstrates that you managed to get them fully into the swing of combat. It could be a boring forced crit, but I'd rather the thief be able to yoink any weapon from an enemy, replacing it with an iron version, wind sages gain the ability to short range teleport a unit, paladins can overrun multiple units forcing everyone in their charge out of the way. A way to capitalize on the flow of battle, but at the cost of resetting their flow to neutral. At the bottom it should be introspective, snapping yourself out of a funk. The thief turns invisible and becomes untargettable until their next turn so they can set up the perfect steal, the wind mage boosts the evade of themselves and any adjacent allies with a defensive cloak, and the paladin gets a super canto if they take a non-attacking action with increased total movement to represent their focus on the team. Similarly to the max, after taking this recovery action reset to neutral. In the final fight set it up where characters can only damage Ashera while at true neutral. However by doing so and no matter the outcome based on the swing system you won't be able to just try again until it resets. Have the AoE each turn push characters towards the extreme state so depending on if each character is trending positively or negatively they need to either reset by taking an appropriate action or embrace the swing until they get the biorythm ability and can reset themselves to inner calm. Or. Yea. Making two abilities for each class and upgrade, doing any level of balancing, figuring out how to implement enemies into the system, and teaching the player how to use both sides of the system is a lot. So remove it as a failed mechanic and move on. Cool concept but too much to do for a non-core mechanic. Also this doesn't play well with Laguz since their part in the system is 'hit things' which players can only do so much with.
I feel its a ui problem at heart. If they made it part of the battle forecast or easly readable on the map screen i would not send in a low vs high bio unit.
Its definitely interesting to think how the mechanic could be changed, maybe the solution is not changing it at all though. Not every mechanic needs to necessarily have a depth to it that impacts the game on a large or noticeable scale. Having it just be something that gives slight +/- hit/avoid that slightly changes over each chapter may just be ok to have it as. Like biorhythm is essentially just leadership stars that every unit has but only affects that unit, but it can affect them negatively and isn't as impactful/noticeable compared to 1 unit having like 4-5 stars.
The Order vs Chaos idea sounds cool as well but it also seems quite complicated. Hearing it inspired me to make a simpler version: Have Biorhythm work like it does now but instead of fluctuating between Good and Bad, have it fluctuate between Order and Chaos. Order increases Hit rates but lowers Crit rates. Chaos does the opposite. Having both options be potentially good depending of the situation would make Biorhythm be more interesting at the very least. The numbers can be tweaked further but I'm thinking of something like this: +2 Order: +14 Hit; -10 Crit +1 Order: +7 Hit; -5 Crit Neutral: - +1 Chaos: -7 Hit; +5 Crit +2 Chaos: -14 Hit; +10 Crit
Well a mecanic thats i wish if they do is a moral statut. The ways it would work is exemple Chrom and robin are at S support . But if Robin die during the chapter would affect the moral of Chrom even give an emotion ( fears thats would likely give a paralisys statut or anger give him attack and crit increase but sometime RNG gave him a auto turn ) but also the reverse scénario can give benefit when you crit give confident or inspire you're ally.
If I had to say how I'd think biorhythm should work, maybe make it based on a character's health. The higher or lower it is, the better or worse a character will perform in battle, like morale. This'd stress the importance of healing and incentivize caution, which'll help keep your units alive.
To be honest, it is very difficult to find a way to balance or rework the mechanics of the biorhythm. I don't think any of these ideas have convinced me. And the ideas I've had, unfortunately don't work because they either become too complex and that means they don't become fun, they have to pay a lot of attention to this mechanic, it has a very strong snowball for the player, or it only affects one side while the other side is not affected at all (player vs enemy). The idea has to be something like WTA (Weapon Triangle Advantage), the bonuses or penalties don't have to be big, but they don't have to be small either. Keeping the current mechanics would be the most acceptable from my point of view, but changing numbers and involving other stats in the biorhythm. For example: Best: +2 ATK + 5 Hit + 5 Critic Chance + 5 Critical Avoid Good: + 1 ATK + 5 Hit + 2 Critic Chance + 3 Critical Avoid Normal: +2.5 Hit + 1 Critical Avoid Bad: -1 DEF - 1 ATK - 5 Avoid - 2 Critical Chance Worst: -2 DEF - 2 ATK - 10 Avoid - 5 Critical Chance The reason why I have removed the Avoid in the best zones, and penalize in the worst zones, is to avoid the typical Dodge Tanking. Because they create a very strong Snow Ball effect in the game. And pay a little more attention to the biorhythm when it is in the worst zones, because if you don't pay attention it punishes you. I've been looking at other ideas from other tactical games, The Last Remnant, Nephilim Saga, among many others, and I can't find a good mechanic that can serve as a good reference. The problem with Last Remnant or Nephilim Saga is that it is based on morale mechanics. It would benefit the player a lot and create a very strong Snow ball, and that makes it a very easy game. And it would clearly be global for all units, and not independent of each other. Mangs' solution #2: Suppose everyone starts, in the best zone of the biorhythm including the enemy. -There will be many maps where the user can spend many turns without moving to recover his biorhythm or even bring his biorhythm to its best level, exploiting the player on this mechanic. -The bosses, will now be very easy to kill, if there are bosses that are very difficult to kill, either because of their defence, because they inflict a lot of damage or other factors, the player will be able to use a multitude of units for the purpose to lower the biorhytm and eventually make much more easy to kill the boss. I can write 3 pages more, but.... I don't wanna convert my comment into a book. I finish here. Let me know, if you want me to continue.
As much fun as it is to mess around with biorhythm, I think your post is the best/closest to reality. I haven't seen it discussed yet but an additional layer of buffs/debuffs already exists in the current game state with the tempest skill doubling biorhythm effects. This suggests that the developers were aware of biorhythm's nuances at least as well as us, so I'm not convinced that it's an untested/incomplete system. I think they experimented, saw the pitfalls, and achieved what they wanted. Its true that Fire Emblem design will hinge on a certain feature from gen to gen I.E. pair up, bloodlines, engage system, but that's not biorhythm's intent. My sense is that the discussion is aiming at something separate from a subtle buff/debuff feature which is all biorhythm should be. I think what biorhythm did do however was spark a need in players to know these characters more deeply. We say "If only biorhythm would show me what Soren is feeling when he is dealing with the fallout of discovering he's branded." I think there are many thoughts like this throughout the game, because the tellius games and characters are so special to us all.
Personally, I thought it was a fine mechanic. It wasn't gamebreaking, it was just there. Although I will say the negative effects were way more prevalent compared to the positive effects.
Personally, I'd rather have to deal with turn-based skills like Odd/Even Rhythm, that could be optionally given to specific characters, than I would with a mandatory biorhythm mechanic that would apply to every character on the field, both friend and foe.
My take on my Biorythm is. Instead of being bad or good by turn counts, the gauge should be affected by the units actions, if you use the command attack you start losing biorhytim if you use the command wait, you gain possitive biorhytim. Aside for the 20% boost in hit and avoid if is possitive, I would give that exact same 20% to skill activations, and maybe lowering 1 or 2 points of damage dealt and recieve depending if it is possitive or negative biorhytim. Iwould also make that bad/good biorhytim affects how much laguz gauge builts up and depletes. Also if the character reach certain HP threshold (in the game is coded to their animation, they would look tired if they are low hp) their Biorhytim inmediatly drops to worst but if they heal up with a staff it goes to best (this idea cames from the fact that if ashera doesn't have a Biorhytim I think is because she is a goddess alternatively she is not like "alive" as humans, so it would be really cool if they made the chosen ones enemies to not have biorhytim as if they are been controlled like puppets by ashera, only the boss having some kind of free will and always having Best Biorythm) They could also make items like olivi grass to reset your biorhytim to normal or herons whenever they sing to refresh your units resetting your biorhytim to normal and the song they had for biorhytim chainging it to make make your biorhytim to Best for 3 turns regardless of your actions
I think Biorhythm was supposed to impact the decision of what units to deploy in a map. Like if a unit you used a lot has low biorhythm you might not want to deploy them and instead use someone else that has high biorhythm that way it was supposed to allow you swap around units more often.
ah yes. biorythm. what to do with you? i remember in the game's story that certain characters feel either good or bad depending on the chaos on the battlefield. Herons feeling bad if too much choas for example. That influencing effecting their biorythm would be an interesting mechanic if done well.
I'm pro removal, biorhythm is just a minor complication but it doesn't really improve the game in any way. Even in the better options that suggested it as some sort of plot based morale system, those sorts of situations can be manufactured better in chapter design than some separate biorhythm gauge.
a variant of the order vs chaos system could involve the waves like it currently does a chaotic bio-rhythm would have more frequent peaks and troughs and laguz would have greater stat disparity between forms in exchange for the transformed stats being higher on the other hand orderly bio-rhythm would be more spread out maintaining the current level for longer with laguz having better stats un-transformed but the transformed stats also being worse
The fatigue one seems to be the best option in my opinion, although, you'll need to make Ike immune to it for obvious reasons... Although, I appreciate the idea of having either chaos or order and moving between it, but I feel it's way too easy to go toward chaos...after all, how do you end a map if you don't move or if you don't do damage ? Crits are also way too random sometimes, and what if side objectives requires you to move fast ? In my humble opinion, I feel it woud be better to have a character start in a "faction", most would be between Chaos and Order, but some rare case, like Mist for example, could go in Neutral, keep he different waves, and add to it different bonuses depending of the faction, and if you're mad enough, dependng of the character, as someone already said in the comments, gives some extra personnality to them. Also, while characters have a faction, it isn't set to stone, it could be story based, support based, or just like your base idea, getting a certain amount of chaos/order point, and you could change your faction !
any game mechanic that is completely out of the player's control like biorhythym and potentially has downsides seemingly for no reason should be scrapped. im on team solution 4.
if they remake the telius games the only changes i want are that POR and Radiant dawn connectivity content easier to players to obtain, and that Japan exclusive content is made available to NA players for the first time. Not saying they are perfect games but to keep the original artistic intent intact.
you really could tie the biorythm to both support and character deaths. So that even top tier units could have a harder time performing. And it could last for a few maps depending on the bonds the character had
I kinda agree with the last one honestly, while its cool to have mechanics that go hand-to-hand with the lore, we already have too much going on on FE, adding more risk vs. reward on a game that *is* risk vs. reward by nature
a fatigue system would add a sense of realism to a fire emblem game and force the player to utilize other units. your 3 point would make for a actualy good gimmick on the Final Part of the game
Did a hard ironman run of RD recently and biorhythm really is important! It can account for like a +/-20 to hit/avo which genuinely affects the viability of your units in many instances. Honestly made use of galdr bliss a lot just to help keep my units safe, though I did cheese each heron to max level in their join chapter except reyson.
I think if you make it important you also need to make it easy to access, having to go through character menu and then go to the tab where biorythm is to be quite clunky. Instead you could display it under the hp when you hover on an unit ?
I would go to option 3. Turtling up to defend important points, or charge without care and deal a lot of damage to your enemy with the risk of dying yourself suonds like a good addition to me.
Biorhythm is alright I guess, but i prefer the different which is morality or characters’s moral. I know that echoes used the name but it just a better name than someone’s biorhythm in the battlefield:l
Solution 4 is the only one that doesn't sound like a chore, but only slightly less. Even then I'd straight up prefer the mechanic to be removed lol. If anything if The Ashera debugging change is great though. The game does, however, punish you regardless of what you do with a berserk, silence, or petrify/sleep so it's a lose-lose with no "right" way to play it. If anything, having a noticeable increase when you have a unit at their best with little to no penalties at their worst (magnified on the highest difficulties) would probably be the best way to do it if we have to have this mechanic at all. A good feel for a mechanic like this is "Oh hell yeah they're at good biorhythm right now," and no feeling for when they're bad since it's literally out of your control lol. It's just a bad mechanic through and through tbh
Weapon weight should factor in biorhythm. A 16 wt silver axe should fatigue a unit more than a 3 wt slim sword. The constitution mechanic resembles this somewhat, but a personal skill that allows for less drain on biorhythm when using specific weapon types or perhaps a biorhythm that does not deplete as long as the unit is at full hp.
idea three sounds pretty cool but it also sounds absolutely awful to play around considering how the game is structured right now. Idea 2 sounds better but Ideally I'd like it to just be a static thing where in each chapter, every character has a certain biorhythm to them depending on how they would feel in that chapter.
How about instead of biorythm affecting units on a turn by turn basis make it work on a map by map basis giving +-1 or 2 to all stats depending if the character is on a high or low biorythm. The differance between a characer experiancing a peek vs a low being a several level worth of stat differance would encourage the deployment of weaker units and the bentching of stronger ones. Or also interresting make it so it affect growths by 10 to 20 % on all stats
Liked the 2nd and 3rd options alot but i think in order for Turtleing to be not a really effective strategy mabye for the 3rd option have it so you get lower crit rates, just so it feels more like a trade off for certain characters where do you want to go for the high risk high reward play of chaos or play it safer but lose out on chances to get crits by going slow. Just thought that this change could make it so some characters will play differently depending on if you want them to get crits or not.
I’m playing Path of radiance right now and I think the problem is that you don’t see the stat changes (or I’m just really dumb and haven’t seen where they are)
its more or less invisible, you have to know what it does to really get a feel for it. A nice change would be to simply identify the changes made by biorythms appear next to their coresponding stat. So avoid is at +10? show it in green next to the number.
It's great that you're talking about biorhythm..It Can either help you or Screw you over.. Would you consider talking about Authority Stars....I Feel Micaiah After part one Should Have 1 Authority Star.. Characters that have the role of general should at least have it authority Stars.. Yes she's inexperienced and relies on Yune future vision but She At least deserves One Star and General.. Plus that slight Boost in Evasion and Accuracy would be Good help In a hypothetical remaster or remake. Micaiah Stars Should Upgrade in part 4 When Yune Class Change her to Lead the Sliver Army.. Being 2 Stars. Also When Ike Become Yune Divine General His Authority Stars Should Go From 3 To 4 Stars and Increase To 5 Stars When He Enters The Tower of Guidance because He Is Entrusted To Lead The Fight Against Ashera. It should be dependent based on a character's experience on the leadership lorewise Through Combination of Experience and Growth Trivia: Did Not Like That Soothe Has Bad Abilty and Luck Cap Goes Down Upon Promotion...His Promotion Unique ability should be a retcon and His Is strength cap Should be 30 or Higher...Not 28.Lol
Story biorythm with Radiant Dawn numbers should be the way to go. Sometimes in the story you really feel hopeless (next chapter after Ike dad's death) but their biorythm is normal, wth. Also, some other effects in battle moving it a little. It should be intrusive or reworked: just a bit more prevalent so you just dont ignore it completely but mot game changer you have to check it every single turn.
What if there were alternate styles of combat that characters could attack with (alternative weapon triangles and break conditions), and characters could only use them if their biorhythm was attuned to that style? Make break more of a chance instead of a guarantee. If your heart rate is too high, it could make it hard to use a style that requires you to be calm and calculating. Also if your support partner dies in front of you, your biorhythm goes into berserk rage mode and you can't control them anymore. Or if they are too depressed/afraid, you can't motivate them to move at all. Maybe have your team members go into green unit mode if you are a bad commander and they lose respect for you. You have to manage their morale and leadership styles that they respect. Make units actually resist taking orders that they consider to be leading to their demise.
I vote 4. IMO i don't think this feature benefits player that much from the beginning. Fire Emblem isn't XCOM that heavily relied on random missions. Maps are usually story-based and limited. So having a system player can't fully utilize and mess up gameplay time-to-time is big-no-no. Fatigue is possibly the way to go, still i think as long as maps are limited it hurts in the long run. If FE has XCOM like random maps i think it might work. Units need to take rest time-to-time. Random maps let players train the rookies, grind a little, or have some mechanism treating biorhythm so main team can have a upper hand progressing next story map.
i think making herons completely only heal biorhythm will either make me not use them at all, or will make the earlygame, where you dont have one yet, really really suck to play as for me, if biorhythm has to be kept, i'd rather have it only on player characters, and have it just give bigger positive bonuses with good biorhythm, and small penalties with no positive bonuses if you have bad biorhythm. just so people who care about it can exploit it, and people who dont care dont get terribly punished by it but still occasionally get that nice surprise that's comparable to a surprise as getting a crit
I liked the first 3, but I think if they increased the numbers it should be a scaling thing like, keep it how it is now for easy, up it for hard and make maniac mode miserable lol. But options 2 and 3 is my favourites, never had to worry about fatigue so gimme something more to manage
Why on earth did you use Mist as the example of a character more attuned to order??? She's literally the only living beorc who is perfectly balanced enough to hold the medallion. It's a nitpick, but very funny to me!
I've always liked the idea of story based biorhythm. Each character has fixed biorhythm per chapter which is effected by how they actually feel in the story. For example when the lords father inevitably dies they have bad biorhythm in the next few chapters, or retaking a capital gives positive biorhythm next few chapters. This would involve giving side characters more input on the main story than just "hello I'm here and I like food" though.
lol, my girl Ilyana getting called out. I love her, but also yes, that seems to be all she is and does.
Yep agree
When Ilyana started sucking on Mia's toes, I felt that
I do enjoy the fact that It had it's honest ideas put into play; like when Jill fights against her old squad, she's upset, and with how biorhythm works, it's like "morale" i find, even though when you'd think about morale, winning fights you'd think could change it, but like how Mangs said, BR might have been just a hollow shell of what it could have been.
oh i just noticed the comments too. whelp.
Growing up with Path of Radiance... I had no idea what biorythm did
First time I've beaten the game I didn't even know it existed. Same with skills.
But to be fair I was very young.
same.
I feel like a fatigue based mechanic is the best version because it forces the player not to completely rely on a single uber unit to wipe hordes of enemies. Another thing I feel it could help balance is the disparity between mounted and foot units with foot units being able to fight longer while mounted units are more used for breakthrough and running down lone enemies.
Yeah just make it a stat lower not a you can’t deploy because well obvious reasons
I agree, but only if you can turn this mechanic off. This would not only beneficial for newer players, but also for these, who would like to do a solo challenge.
@@Borgdrohne13 yeah that should generally be a thing in every game with the more minor gimmicks like you shouldn’t be able to turn off emblem rings as the whole game is built around them but shit like well Biorythm should
I like this a lot. I tend to prefer soft restrictions/caps in games to hard caps. "Do I deploy my best unit fatigued or do I bench them so they're at full strength next chapter?" would be a cool choice for a player to make.
Consumables, staffs and maybe dancers could remove fatigue as well. As long as the tools for removing fatigue are fairly limited - "break glass in case of emergency". That might work better if fatigue comes in levels (something like tired, fatigued, exhausted) and stuff that reduces fatigue only reduces it by one level.
Biorhythm makes me appreciate the fatigue system in Thracia. They actually had the balls to pull the trigger in forcing you to switch up your army and not relying on only a few units. The one thing I don't like about fatigue is that the maps are so varied in Thracia. The maps themselves actually do a better job at making you rotate your army depending on objectives and if it's an indoor and outdoor map. I understand why Biorhythm wasn't as extreme as fatigue, but the mechanic feels "half-baked"
And then leif
I actually like Solution 2, particularly the Ashnard thing. I would also integrate it into the story more, whereby desperate maps (Ike's defence map after Greil dies, Micaiah's Caste Nox defence map) have your units' biorhythm start lower or deplete faster to reflect their emotional state.
The Micaiah vs. Laguz Alliance maps would become really interesting mechanically, because both armies would be fighting with poor biorhythm (neither actually wants to fight). The strategy could become having your army mentally 'outlast' the enemy by managing your biorhythm while taking actions that decrease the enemy's (making use of the faster depletion rate due to low morale). It would also fit thematically because Ike and Micaiah are known to rally the spirits of their troops when they take command.
Here are some changes that I would to to biorythm:
1) Make it tied in some way to the story: For example, when in PoR you fight Jill's father have her biorhythm be low for the entire chapter, or in the chapter after Greil dies have the biorhythm of the entire army be low.
2)Make it tied to supports: For example, if a unit dies on the map, have the biorhythm of the units that unit supported with become low depending on the support level they shared.
3)Of course, make it matter more, who cares about the army's biorhythm being low for the entire chapter after Greil dies if all they get is -5 hit/avoid?
Edit: Didn't notice that speedwinghere also proposed story based biorhythm, sorry about that.
Your examples were a lot better than mine lmao
@@Speedwinghere damn, didn't expect this, thanks for the appreciation!
I guess the overall trouble is figuring out how to make each character stand out with their biorhythm. Cause it's gonna be difficult to determine the biorhythm of a character like Mordecai or Astrid when you're knocking on the front gate to the Daein Keep.
Had a debate about biorhythm in my discord recently. One person mentioned an implementation i actually really liked:
Keep biorhythm as it is, maybe with slightly stronger bonuses like in RD, BUT biorhythm is story and event dependent.
For example, when Greil dies, Ike is obviously devastated, so that would naturally show itself in his biorhythm. Instead of going between bad and good over the course of the chapter, it would just stay a constant for the entire chapter, and then change depending on events.
Expanding on this, you could even have it so that supports can get your biorhythm up a notch, or maybe you have relatively rare items which increase your biorhythm for a chapter or two, or maybe even a stat booster which increases your baseline biorhythm from normal to good. If you biorhythm has been positive for a while, it would eventually return to normal. Herons could maybe cast a Galdr that increases your biorhythm for a chapter, or a few turns, which may be limited by uses per chapter or cooldown. You could even integrate the buddy support system from Radiant Dawn into this. Whenever you have a battle support convo, it could increase your biorhythm based on the strength of your support (and maybe even existing relationships/bond supports)
That aside:
The fact biorhythm changes so quickly and give minor stat changes makes it tedious if you actually were to look at it. If you want to make it relevant, AND stay ever changing as it is now, you absolutely need to add a proper UI element to show that to the player at a moments glance. It'd be a in a similar spot as Skills on enemies. They're cool and all, but you don't wanna be checking for them on every single enemy, which is why 3DSFE added them to be easily viewable at a glance through the bottom screen.
My suggestion for this would be to simply add a small arrow up and arrow down (maybe more than just once depending on strenght), next to the enemies shown HP frame when hovering over them. Alternatively you could also change how the frame looks itself, but the player ABSOLUTELY needs to know within a millisecond or two, if a unit has good or bad biorythm, without any additonal button presses or anything like that.
100% Agreed
Wait, wasn't in UI settings of RD a way to put arrow at unit's window preview?
@@Artemas_16iirc yes but it doesn't tell you whether it's good/best or bad/worst so you have to check the stats to see
@@kanyuphilmahar oh, okay. Well, it is at least something.
mangs has such good fire emblem ideas. he should really make his own fire emblem like game
Whatever choice you make, I think the simplest way to improve biorhythm whould be to have it displayed on the battle map. Despite weapon triangle giving the same kind of advantages, it is way more fun simply because you can check at first sight who has which weapon and start building your strategy from there. Having to open a more detailed window to check biorhythm for each character is way too tedious and will only discourage players from engaging with the mecanic.
That being said I like the chaos/order dichotomy and I think it would have a lot of subtle narrative potential. I like the idea of everyone falling progressively into chaos while the medallion is slowly charging at the end of part 3 in RD.
I really love your Chaos vs Order Idea. It's a good way of Minmaxing units on a map. I think with a few tweaks, that mechanic could be game-making for a SRPG like fire Emblem. I just think the Ashera fight idea is dumb though, but I do love the base.
The madman went from "I'm never going to check biorythm" to making an entire video about how to make it not trash :D God bless.
The only time when Biorithym felt important were in the fight against Ashera. In RD each character has an specific biorithym for each chapter.
In one of my fight against Ashera, I remember all my characters had bad biorithym and the felt worse to play than usual. But after i killed the things that protect Ashera, you receive a motivational speech and all my characters had good biorythim and felt that everyone fought better. Dont know if It was a desing choice or Just luck, but It was really cool
4) was really well stated your arguments were really sound and well compresed
I actually like the idea to rework biorhythm into more like a morale system. Via story and actions your biorhythm can increase or decrease. Getting kills, being healed, or dodging attacks can improve it while taking damage, getting attacked multiple times in a round, or a bonded ally dying, etc could reduce it. Neutral actions like using an item or the wait command will push it towards the center. This would incentive players to take fights while morale is good while having the ability to recover should morale drop low. And I'm thinking about this as I type it. Rally skills could also boost as well.
A big problem with biorhythm is that it is hidden in a different menu. If you could see a small pop-up or arrow on the map, it would be a lot more usable and fun to play around.
This.
When you hover over a character on the map there already is an arrow display that shows you what bio they're in. Big green arrow, small green, none, small red and big red.
I fell in love hearing your take on the Chaos and Order interpretation, that shit sounds so cool
nice to see videos on path of radiance/radiant dawn
I thought I was the only person alive who liked those games LOL
Why didn't you also suggest not hiding the Biorythm behind menus?? The reason I never checked it is because I didn't want to open menus and try to map Biorythm to the right enemy. If it was present when hovering over a unit, during battle forecasts, and inside battles to see how Biorythm is affect by landing hits and being hit then players would know about it better. Especially if it showed plus and minus values next to the affected stat.
The Chaos/Order paradigm was really hecking cool though!
Tbh I loved the fatigue in the Shadows of Valentia dungeons. Having food to restore it made it work
You could tie it so that order-bound characters gain biorhythm for orderly actions (teamwork; formations, don't fall too low%hp, don't take losing weapon triangle answers) and chaotic characters gain biorhythm for chaotic actions (defeated enemies, high movement, low hp, getting hit/avoid/crit lucky). It shouldn't be giving you hit/avoid, but rather +/- 3 damage and defense. Minimum is take 3 more damage, deal 3 less; maximum is the inverse. This will always effect every unit class, other than maybe healers.
Make biorhythm affect RN. Good/Neutral/Bad use 3RN, while Best/Worst use 2RN. Enemies just get the flat numbers, with a little extra for Order vs. Chaos alignments or having certain pre-battle convos against characters.
One of the failings of biorythm is also that it can only be checked in the stats menu and is different on every character. So it is hard to know without checking and tedious to check (at least to check often). But, the Awakening and Fates takes on biorythm (through skills that only check if the turn is odd or even) was a good fix to this issue imo..
Your solutions still have it.
In your third solution regarding the Ashera boss fight what I'd do is since Ashera is all about order every judgement brings everyones biorhythm toward order if you hit maximum order you become petrified
on the flip side during the final chapter or even during the army split where you separate into 3 armies Micaiah gets access to a form of Judgement (or whatever you wish to call it)through Yune, which makes all your units biorythm more chaotic and get progressively stronger every chapter leading up to Ashera as Yune gets more of her own power back from being unsealed, it adds a little more to Micaiah as a character and becomes an important mechanic in the end game
That's a kickass idea.
#2 Sounds the most fair to play with.
3 is the best one, given how thoroughly you've tied it into the themes of the duology. I like both 2 and 3, although 2 more as some ideas for a general Fatigue mechanic. Granted, I thought characters getting tired from consecutive deployments was fine in Thracia 776, and I can see how Fatigue being something you actively have to manage during a map rather than an element of your long-term planning across the entire game could become annoying. Still, select elements of 2, such as herons being biorhythm healers, could be integrated into the calculations for 3 and work very well.
the Caos Vs order range one at the end is pretty cool.
Maybe another variant of the order vs chaos attunement could be that it impacts growth rates. Although that would likely be so subtle that it would run the risk of being even less noticeable that the existing version of biorhythm.
I'd definitely check biorhythm before attempting changing anything
My idea would be to balance base hit rates to function like in Fire Emblem 6 and nerf hit stats across the board for playable characters as needed to achieve that goal. Then I'd propose a modified biorhythm system wherein the bad biorhythms result in the -5 hit and -5 avo penalties, but with an additional penalty towards crit avoid (if possible) when at "worst" so that there's a potentially meaningful difference made by it being there. Then I'd make the ceiling bonuses higher. Neutral would still be neutral, but good can be +10s and best can be +15. The goal should have it be relevant, but not infuriating. Having it brought up on the map via a toggle would be necessary to make the player able to tell where the unit is at on biorhythm at a glance.
I think the order vs chaos idea is the most interesting tbh.
My opinion on your solutions:
1: I feel like this idea fits more for three houses than tellius (with food, activities, etc. essentially turning it more into a morale meter)
2: I like this idea, but I feel like it won't fit in as well as it did in Thracia. Still, if it works, it works.
3: if they implemented it and people found out it was inspired by you, you're gonna get lynched (or at least the Twitter version of being lynched) for the final boss idea.
4: People will complain about it and want it back. The only way to win with that is to have a biorhythm and non-biorhythm mode
I kind of like the idea of integrating the Order Vs Chaos theming into a gameplay mechanic, giving the characters passive changes to show how/whether the chaos of the battlefield is affecting them. I always liked how Radiant Dawn in particular really captures the chaos of a battle with the large maps and unit counts, and in particular 3-E makes the body count a point, showing the situation deteriorating and the herons becoming ill as the chaotic energy builds. Even little things like Ranulf mentioning how his vision is starting to blur, or Kurthnaga having to focus on his breathing to keep himself in control.
Ok, now I get it, I feel like it kinda reminds me of echoes fatigue in some way. but also the thracia example works too.
Lastly I think that this updated version of mangs biorhythm fixes might actually be fun for FE: radiant dawn but also much more tougher if it was implemented, oh boy...
I think another easy passive buff to give to biorhythm would be coordinated exp gains/growth rates, especially if corresponding items, staves, and earlier access to heron songs were introduced.
Overall I like the fatigue angle and think it should tie into the laguz meter as well.
That thumbnail is hilarious. Thanks for the good laugh !
Digging the Tellius content Mangs. They're my favorite
I've been playing a TON of the Tellius games lately (As they're my favorites) and having this video pop up for me when it's so fresh in my mind felt perfect. Excellent video and discussion, thank you based Mangs.
I think a modified version of option nr. 2 could work: making Biorhythm a less punishing Fatigue.
Using a unit in combat will make them tired and lower their stats for future maps but it will not stop you altogether from deploying them.
While fighting would lower a unit's Biorhythm, using items or waiting would slowly return it to normal. This way you would have greater control of it than you have on Thracia Fatigue.
I don't like the idea of stats being lowered mid-chapter tho. It seems tedious to check every unit's stats after every turn.
I love the Order and Chaos idea, but the way you explained it, I can already see Order being way better than Chaos. I’d give Chaos a slight buff to attack speed as well, and maybe even a slight AS debuff to Order. But the idea is awesome, I love it. It should just be balanced very delicately because I don’t think you want this mechanic to completely dominate the gameplay. A scenario like in (for example) Fates, where skills absolutely dominated the gameplay, wouldn’t land very well imo.
I really enjoy the thought you put into these kind of videos. Very well done
Why not give Chaos +2 movement to non-cavalry/flying units, and all ground units can ignore movement penalties from rough terrain and water spaces where applicable?
My personal favorite of the 3 is the sort of modified fatigue mechanic, while the order chaos one is a close second for sure.
Chaos/order one is neat and I like idea definitely need to make sure the tradeoffs are equal especially to fit the theme of the story
The pseudo fatigue version is also pretty cool. Can't have single unit super carries and if movement also lowers it, this disproportionately affects your wyvernlords and Paladins which is good to reign them in, (tho tbf Paladins in RD are fairly balanced imo) and allows for skills to interact in a unique way. Like what if generals had a skill where it actually increased bio rhythm a tiny bit every time they are attacked. Or reavers gain huge biorhythm increase everytime they crit or proc colossus stuff like that and that's only scratching the surface
What if the concept was linked into a 'combat flow' mechanic? You start off in the middle, modified by skills. As a character is 'successful' in the combat (using the weapon triangle effectively, targeting enemies with double damage weapons, and so on) based on their class they gain biorythm up to the max. Add in using skills as well, pushing allies out of the way so another character can get the final blow should be rewarded for everyone. As it builds up you get the boosts to numbers, skill activation, and similar. Basically encourage players to engage with the side systems and do more than send the current omnitank into combat.
Conversely when things go wrong the rhythm decreases. Attempting low probability attacks that inevitably miss is not good for moral, dealing no damage, and similar. Ideally going down should be much harder than going up since you don't want to punish risky actions beyond the natural consequences so the numbers should be minor. Enough where you don't want to intentionally let it go down, but also not something that punishes you. The meter returns to neutral if nothing changes it in a turn, though actions can swing it within a turn.
But like you said, just numbers is boring. So for each class set up a pair of unique skills to activate when at max or min within biorythm. At max it's an action that capitalizes on the classes ability and demonstrates that you managed to get them fully into the swing of combat. It could be a boring forced crit, but I'd rather the thief be able to yoink any weapon from an enemy, replacing it with an iron version, wind sages gain the ability to short range teleport a unit, paladins can overrun multiple units forcing everyone in their charge out of the way. A way to capitalize on the flow of battle, but at the cost of resetting their flow to neutral. At the bottom it should be introspective, snapping yourself out of a funk. The thief turns invisible and becomes untargettable until their next turn so they can set up the perfect steal, the wind mage boosts the evade of themselves and any adjacent allies with a defensive cloak, and the paladin gets a super canto if they take a non-attacking action with increased total movement to represent their focus on the team. Similarly to the max, after taking this recovery action reset to neutral.
In the final fight set it up where characters can only damage Ashera while at true neutral. However by doing so and no matter the outcome based on the swing system you won't be able to just try again until it resets. Have the AoE each turn push characters towards the extreme state so depending on if each character is trending positively or negatively they need to either reset by taking an appropriate action or embrace the swing until they get the biorythm ability and can reset themselves to inner calm.
Or. Yea. Making two abilities for each class and upgrade, doing any level of balancing, figuring out how to implement enemies into the system, and teaching the player how to use both sides of the system is a lot. So remove it as a failed mechanic and move on. Cool concept but too much to do for a non-core mechanic. Also this doesn't play well with Laguz since their part in the system is 'hit things' which players can only do so much with.
I'd make it 2 where it only effected skill activation rate, but to a much higher degree.
The problem with the second idea is that it would affect the players but not the enemy because player units fight more than enemy units
I feel its a ui problem at heart. If they made it part of the battle forecast or easly readable on the map screen i would not send in a low vs high bio unit.
Its definitely interesting to think how the mechanic could be changed, maybe the solution is not changing it at all though. Not every mechanic needs to necessarily have a depth to it that impacts the game on a large or noticeable scale. Having it just be something that gives slight +/- hit/avoid that slightly changes over each chapter may just be ok to have it as. Like biorhythm is essentially just leadership stars that every unit has but only affects that unit, but it can affect them negatively and isn't as impactful/noticeable compared to 1 unit having like 4-5 stars.
The second idea for some reason Made me imaginé the Herons as an APC from advance wars with the animations of NCH
The Order vs Chaos idea sounds cool as well but it also seems quite complicated. Hearing it inspired me to make a simpler version:
Have Biorhythm work like it does now but instead of fluctuating between Good and Bad, have it fluctuate between Order and Chaos. Order increases Hit rates but lowers Crit rates. Chaos does the opposite.
Having both options be potentially good depending of the situation would make Biorhythm be more interesting at the very least.
The numbers can be tweaked further but I'm thinking of something like this:
+2 Order: +14 Hit; -10 Crit
+1 Order: +7 Hit; -5 Crit
Neutral: -
+1 Chaos: -7 Hit; +5 Crit
+2 Chaos: -14 Hit; +10 Crit
Well a mecanic thats i wish if they do is a moral statut.
The ways it would work is exemple Chrom and robin are at S support .
But if Robin die during the chapter would affect the moral of Chrom even give an emotion ( fears thats would likely give a paralisys statut or anger give him attack and crit increase but sometime RNG gave him a auto turn ) but also the reverse scénario can give benefit when you crit give confident or inspire you're ally.
If I had to say how I'd think biorhythm should work, maybe make it based on a character's health. The higher or lower it is, the better or worse a character will perform in battle, like morale. This'd stress the importance of healing and incentivize caution, which'll help keep your units alive.
To be honest, it is very difficult to find a way to balance or rework the mechanics of the biorhythm.
I don't think any of these ideas have convinced me. And the ideas I've had, unfortunately don't work because they either become too complex and that means they don't become fun, they have to pay a lot of attention to this mechanic, it has a very strong snowball for the player, or it only affects one side while the other side is not affected at all (player vs enemy).
The idea has to be something like WTA (Weapon Triangle Advantage), the bonuses or penalties don't have to be big, but they don't have to be small either.
Keeping the current mechanics would be the most acceptable from my point of view, but changing numbers and involving other stats in the biorhythm.
For example:
Best: +2 ATK + 5 Hit + 5 Critic Chance + 5 Critical Avoid
Good: + 1 ATK + 5 Hit + 2 Critic Chance + 3 Critical Avoid
Normal: +2.5 Hit + 1 Critical Avoid
Bad: -1 DEF - 1 ATK - 5 Avoid - 2 Critical Chance
Worst: -2 DEF - 2 ATK - 10 Avoid - 5 Critical Chance
The reason why I have removed the Avoid in the best zones, and penalize in the worst zones, is to avoid the typical Dodge Tanking. Because they create a very strong Snow Ball effect in the game.
And pay a little more attention to the biorhythm when it is in the worst zones, because if you don't pay attention it punishes you.
I've been looking at other ideas from other tactical games, The Last Remnant, Nephilim Saga, among many others, and I can't find a good mechanic that can serve as a good reference.
The problem with Last Remnant or Nephilim Saga is that it is based on morale mechanics. It would benefit the player a lot and create a very strong Snow ball, and that makes it a very easy game. And it would clearly be global for all units, and not independent of each other.
Mangs' solution #2: Suppose everyone starts, in the best zone of the biorhythm including the enemy.
-There will be many maps where the user can spend many turns without moving to recover his biorhythm or even bring his biorhythm to its best level, exploiting the player on this mechanic.
-The bosses, will now be very easy to kill, if there are bosses that are very difficult to kill, either because of their defence, because they inflict a lot of damage or other factors, the player will be able to use a multitude of units for the purpose to lower the biorhytm and eventually make much more easy to kill the boss.
I can write 3 pages more, but.... I don't wanna convert my comment into a book. I finish here.
Let me know, if you want me to continue.
As much fun as it is to mess around with biorhythm, I think your post is the best/closest to reality. I haven't seen it discussed yet but an additional layer of buffs/debuffs already exists in the current game state with the tempest skill doubling biorhythm effects. This suggests that the developers were aware of biorhythm's nuances at least as well as us, so I'm not convinced that it's an untested/incomplete system. I think they experimented, saw the pitfalls, and achieved what they wanted. Its true that Fire Emblem design will hinge on a certain feature from gen to gen I.E. pair up, bloodlines, engage system, but that's not biorhythm's intent. My sense is that the discussion is aiming at something separate from a subtle buff/debuff feature which is all biorhythm should be. I think what biorhythm did do however was spark a need in players to know these characters more deeply. We say "If only biorhythm would show me what Soren is feeling when he is dealing with the fallout of discovering he's branded."
I think there are many thoughts like this throughout the game, because the tellius games and characters are so special to us all.
Personally, I thought it was a fine mechanic. It wasn't gamebreaking, it was just there. Although I will say the negative effects were way more prevalent compared to the positive effects.
Personally, I'd rather have to deal with turn-based skills like Odd/Even Rhythm, that could be optionally given to specific characters, than I would with a mandatory biorhythm mechanic that would apply to every character on the field, both friend and foe.
My take on my Biorythm is.
Instead of being bad or good by turn counts, the gauge should be affected by the units actions, if you use the command attack you start losing biorhytim if you use the command wait, you gain possitive biorhytim.
Aside for the 20% boost in hit and avoid if is possitive, I would give that exact same 20% to skill activations, and maybe lowering 1 or 2 points of damage dealt and recieve depending if it is possitive or negative biorhytim.
Iwould also make that bad/good biorhytim affects how much laguz gauge builts up and depletes.
Also if the character reach certain HP threshold (in the game is coded to their animation, they would look tired if they are low hp) their Biorhytim inmediatly drops to worst but if they heal up with a staff it goes to best (this idea cames from the fact that if ashera doesn't have a Biorhytim I think is because she is a goddess alternatively she is not like "alive" as humans, so it would be really cool if they made the chosen ones enemies to not have biorhytim as if they are been controlled like puppets by ashera, only the boss having some kind of free will and always having Best Biorythm)
They could also make items like olivi grass to reset your biorhytim to normal or herons whenever they sing to refresh your units resetting your biorhytim to normal and the song they had for biorhytim chainging it to make make your biorhytim to Best for 3 turns regardless of your actions
I think Biorhythm was supposed to impact the decision of what units to deploy in a map. Like if a unit you used a lot has low biorhythm you might not want to deploy them and instead use someone else that has high biorhythm that way it was supposed to allow you swap around units more often.
It changes every turn, so I don't think so
ah yes. biorythm. what to do with you? i remember in the game's story that certain characters feel either good or bad depending on the chaos on the battlefield. Herons feeling bad if too much choas for example. That influencing effecting their biorythm would be an interesting mechanic if done well.
I'm pro removal, biorhythm is just a minor complication but it doesn't really improve the game in any way. Even in the better options that suggested it as some sort of plot based morale system, those sorts of situations can be manufactured better in chapter design than some separate biorhythm gauge.
a variant of the order vs chaos system could involve the waves like it currently does
a chaotic bio-rhythm would have more frequent peaks and troughs and laguz would have greater stat disparity between forms in exchange for the transformed stats being higher
on the other hand orderly bio-rhythm would be more spread out maintaining the current level for longer with laguz having better stats un-transformed but the transformed stats also being worse
The fatigue one seems to be the best option in my opinion, although, you'll need to make Ike immune to it for obvious reasons...
Although, I appreciate the idea of having either chaos or order and moving between it, but I feel it's way too easy to go toward chaos...after all, how do you end a map if you don't move or if you don't do damage ? Crits are also way too random sometimes, and what if side objectives requires you to move fast ?
In my humble opinion, I feel it woud be better to have a character start in a "faction", most would be between Chaos and Order, but some rare case, like Mist for example, could go in Neutral, keep he different waves, and add to it different bonuses depending of the faction, and if you're mad enough, dependng of the character, as someone already said in the comments, gives some extra personnality to them.
Also, while characters have a faction, it isn't set to stone, it could be story based, support based, or just like your base idea, getting a certain amount of chaos/order point, and you could change your faction !
any game mechanic that is completely out of the player's control like biorhythym and potentially has downsides seemingly for no reason should be scrapped. im on team solution 4.
Oooh edited informative content
if they remake the telius games the only changes i want are that POR and Radiant dawn connectivity content easier to players to obtain, and that Japan exclusive content is made available to NA players for the first time. Not saying they are perfect games but to keep the original artistic intent intact.
you really could tie the biorythm to both support and character deaths. So that even top tier units could have a harder time performing. And it could last for a few maps depending on the bonds the character had
Not gonna lie, when I saw the notification I thought it was gonna be a shitpost.
Tbh, biorhythm is hard to fix because most people dont want to manage or be bothered by a small mechanic like this in any shape or form
I kinda agree with the last one honestly, while its cool to have mechanics that go hand-to-hand with the lore, we already have too much going on on FE, adding more risk vs. reward on a game that *is* risk vs. reward by nature
a fatigue system would add a sense of realism to a fire emblem game and force the player to utilize other units. your 3 point would make for a actualy good gimmick on the Final Part of the game
It’s sad that I never understood the mechanic until this video
Did a hard ironman run of RD recently and biorhythm really is important! It can account for like a +/-20 to hit/avo which genuinely affects the viability of your units in many instances. Honestly made use of galdr bliss a lot just to help keep my units safe, though I did cheese each heron to max level in their join chapter except reyson.
I think if you make it important you also need to make it easy to access, having to go through character menu and then go to the tab where biorythm is to be quite clunky. Instead you could display it under the hp when you hover on an unit ?
yeah thats definitely part of the clunkiness of PoR @@Gensolink
Giving the player a tutorial and explanation on what it is would probably also help. I legit don’t Think it’s mentioned even once in POR.
I would go to option 3. Turtling up to defend important points, or charge without care and deal a lot of damage to your enemy with the risk of dying yourself suonds like a good addition to me.
Seeing this video, I just wish we would get a new Fire Emblem with the Tellius artstyle.
Biorhythm is alright I guess, but i prefer the different which is morality or characters’s moral. I know that echoes used the name but it just a better name than someone’s biorhythm in the battlefield:l
Solution 4 is the only one that doesn't sound like a chore, but only slightly less. Even then I'd straight up prefer the mechanic to be removed lol. If anything if
The Ashera debugging change is great though. The game does, however, punish you regardless of what you do with a berserk, silence, or petrify/sleep so it's a lose-lose with no "right" way to play it.
If anything, having a noticeable increase when you have a unit at their best with little to no penalties at their worst (magnified on the highest difficulties) would probably be the best way to do it if we have to have this mechanic at all. A good feel for a mechanic like this is "Oh hell yeah they're at good biorhythm right now," and no feeling for when they're bad since it's literally out of your control lol. It's just a bad mechanic through and through tbh
Looking at the title I thought this would be a later April Fools video
Weapon weight should factor in biorhythm. A 16 wt silver axe should fatigue a unit more than a 3 wt slim sword. The constitution mechanic resembles this somewhat, but a personal skill that allows for less drain on biorhythm when using specific weapon types or perhaps a biorhythm that does not deplete as long as the unit is at full hp.
Ah yes, Top 5 ideas from Mangs about how to fix biorhytm
BIORYTHM
HEROES
I didn't even know this was a thing.
idea three sounds pretty cool but it also sounds absolutely awful to play around considering how the game is structured right now. Idea 2 sounds better but Ideally I'd like it to just be a static thing where in each chapter, every character has a certain biorhythm to them depending on how they would feel in that chapter.
How about instead of biorythm affecting units on a turn by turn basis make it work on a map by map basis giving +-1 or 2 to all stats depending if the character is on a high or low biorythm. The differance between a characer experiancing a peek vs a low being a several level worth of stat differance would encourage the deployment of weaker units and the bentching of stronger ones. Or also interresting make it so it affect growths by 10 to 20 % on all stats
I think Mango really wants to fix Biorhythm
I like biorhythms but i wish they mattered more.
Liked the 2nd and 3rd options alot but i think in order for Turtleing to be not a really effective strategy mabye for the 3rd option have it so you get lower crit rates, just so it feels more like a trade off for certain characters where do you want to go for the high risk high reward play of chaos or play it safer but lose out on chances to get crits by going slow. Just thought that this change could make it so some characters will play differently depending on if you want them to get crits or not.
typo in the title btw, it's biorhythm. love the vids!
I’m playing Path of radiance right now and I think the problem is that you don’t see the stat changes (or I’m just really dumb and haven’t seen where they are)
Chances are, you've had characters snowball to the point that a +/- 10 in hit/avoid is almost invisible to you.
its more or less invisible, you have to know what it does to really get a feel for it. A nice change would be to simply identify the changes made by biorythms appear next to their coresponding stat. So avoid is at +10? show it in green next to the number.
It's great that you're talking about biorhythm..It Can either help you or Screw you over.. Would you consider talking about Authority Stars....I Feel Micaiah After part one Should Have 1 Authority Star.. Characters that have the role of general should at least have it authority Stars.. Yes she's inexperienced and relies on Yune future vision but She At least deserves One Star and General.. Plus that slight Boost in Evasion and Accuracy would be Good help In a hypothetical remaster or remake.
Micaiah Stars Should Upgrade in part 4 When Yune Class Change her to Lead the Sliver Army.. Being 2 Stars.
Also When Ike Become Yune Divine General His Authority Stars Should Go From 3 To 4 Stars and Increase To 5 Stars When He Enters The Tower of Guidance because He Is Entrusted To Lead The Fight Against Ashera.
It should be dependent based on a character's experience on the leadership lorewise Through Combination of Experience and Growth
Trivia: Did Not Like That Soothe Has Bad Abilty and Luck Cap Goes Down Upon Promotion...His Promotion Unique ability should be a retcon and His Is strength cap Should be 30 or Higher...Not 28.Lol
Story biorythm with Radiant Dawn numbers should be the way to go. Sometimes in the story you really feel hopeless (next chapter after Ike dad's death) but their biorythm is normal, wth. Also, some other effects in battle moving it a little. It should be intrusive or reworked: just a bit more prevalent so you just dont ignore it completely but mot game changer you have to check it every single turn.
First time I’ve heard of biorhythm for FE lol.
It pretty much is a non-mechanic through and through except for RD hard/maniac, the concept is really neat though
Modders you know what to do.
What if there were alternate styles of combat that characters could attack with (alternative weapon triangles and break conditions), and characters could only use them if their biorhythm was attuned to that style? Make break more of a chance instead of a guarantee. If your heart rate is too high, it could make it hard to use a style that requires you to be calm and calculating. Also if your support partner dies in front of you, your biorhythm goes into berserk rage mode and you can't control them anymore. Or if they are too depressed/afraid, you can't motivate them to move at all. Maybe have your team members go into green unit mode if you are a bad commander and they lose respect for you. You have to manage their morale and leadership styles that they respect. Make units actually resist taking orders that they consider to be leading to their demise.
I vote 4. IMO i don't think this feature benefits player that much from the beginning. Fire Emblem isn't XCOM that heavily relied on random missions. Maps are usually story-based and limited. So having a system player can't fully utilize and mess up gameplay time-to-time is big-no-no. Fatigue is possibly the way to go, still i think as long as maps are limited it hurts in the long run.
If FE has XCOM like random maps i think it might work. Units need to take rest time-to-time. Random maps let players train the rookies, grind a little, or have some mechanism treating biorhythm so main team can have a upper hand progressing next story map.
i think making herons completely only heal biorhythm will either make me not use them at all, or will make the earlygame, where you dont have one yet, really really suck to play
as for me, if biorhythm has to be kept, i'd rather have it only on player characters, and have it just give bigger positive bonuses with good biorhythm, and small penalties with no positive bonuses if you have bad biorhythm. just so people who care about it can exploit it, and people who dont care dont get terribly punished by it but still occasionally get that nice surprise that's comparable to a surprise as getting a crit
I liked the first 3, but I think if they increased the numbers it should be a scaling thing like, keep it how it is now for easy, up it for hard and make maniac mode miserable lol. But options 2 and 3 is my favourites, never had to worry about fatigue so gimme something more to manage
put biorythym in andaron saga 2, or make it a new characters personal skill and make it just ridiculous
I played Path of radiance and Raident Dawn and have no idea what is Biorhythm
Why on earth did you use Mist as the example of a character more attuned to order??? She's literally the only living beorc who is perfectly balanced enough to hold the medallion. It's a nitpick, but very funny to me!
Solution 2 sounds alot like Fatigue lol
Check biorhytm
Mangs can’t decide which thumbnail to use lol