Balancing Pair Up for future titles?

[IkeandMia]

So let's say the Pair Up mechanic is brought back for future titles. Am I the only person who thinks its a little TOO good as is? It gives the player a huge advantage in most maps (and the post game stuff is balanced around relying on the mechanic). Do you think the system could use a bit of tweaking? Like, instead of nothing but bonuses, you can sometimes take like a Spd penalty in exchange for the Def/Str Pairing Up with a Knight brings? Thoughts?

[Silver Lightning]

That sounds like an interesting idea, but what I would like to see are enemies being able to pair up as well. That would definitely even the playing field without having to take penalties.

[shadykid]

That sounds like an interesting idea, but what I would like to see are enemies being able to pair up as well. That would definitely even the playing field without having to take penalties.

this would create a huge mess

imagine enemies with brave weapons pairing up and dual attacking, while blocking your hits

epic battle animations would be epic though

[Gone2Ground]

imagine enemies with brave weapons pairing up and dual attacking, while blocking your hits

I'm going to go over to that corner and cry in fear now...

[Kramy]

imagine enemies with brave weapons pairing up and dual attacking, while blocking your hits

Lunatic ++ XD

[Flying Shogi]

Implement Dual Guard++ FTW.

Of course, Parity from RD easily solves this problem.

[shadykid]

Of course, Parity from RD easily solves this problem.

if Parity existed, would it cancel out Limit Break and/or rallies

if it did hypothetically, then you could just set up 4 other non-combat skills with Parity (Galeforce/Acrobat/Lifetaker/some other skill)

[Lord Raven]

Lower mounted units' move by half their original move upon a pair up. Make enemy bow users way stronger on all modes (or make bow effectiveness better). Make flying units weaker.

Pick one and run with it.

[Liz]

i would remove the pair up mechanic completely, but i would leave the dual system because i like it.

but that's just me, i'm probably in the minority

[General Horace]

Make units who have paired up unable to switch positions on the same turn.

And probably reduce stats quite a bit too.

Edited March 4, 2013 by General Horace

[Airship Canon]

I'd say just let the enemy have it.

It'd create a few horrifying scenarios, but it -would- balance the thing.

What's making Pair Up so unbalanced right now, is that it's a huge boost to the player's units, and the enemy just doesn't get anything real to compensate.

If the enemy also had that ability to get that huge buff, it'd certainly balance the system.

[IkeandMia]

Lower mounted units' move by half their original move upon a pair up. Make enemy bow users way stronger on all modes (or make bow effectiveness better). Make flying units weaker.

Pick one and run with it.

Bows do a pretty good job of murderkng flying units pre Iote's Shield as is. If you wanna nerf fliers, make them unable to Pair Up. Exchange movement/utility for those stats.

[CrymsonSkye]

Hm... I really really like the Pair Up feature, but I wouldn't hate if they removed it for the next game, or tweaked it, because it really is ridiculously over-powered.

They'd have to hinder you a bit in exchange for the chance to have an attack blocked or for the partner to strike along side you.

[NeonZ]

I think they could just tweak the mechanics of the dual attacks, untying the pair up attacks from the number of attacks of the active character. The secondary character shouldn't possibly get four attacks just because the main one is using a brave weapon, unless he can double the enemy and has a brave weapon himself. Also, remove other weird advantages of pair up attacks, like going through some defensive skills. In addition, dual attacks should only be possible if the enemy is in range for both characters, rather than just the attacking one. They could make an exception for Archers though, just to make them more useful. Also, regarding blocking attacks, they could make the character defending take half the damage of the original attack (before subtracting from his defense), rather than nothing - although if the attack could kill him, then he just would never use the defense.

I'm not fond of the idea of giving it to enemies because it's too random chance based, and while that's fine as an extra help for the player, giving the enemy, say, a chance to block attacks that the player can do nothing about would be just unfair. It's why not even Lunatic + gives lethality to every enemy. Alternatively, they could eliminate the random chance part, switching to a system similar to the one in some Super Robot Wars' games, where each character has a number of posible dual attacks/ dual defense per turn, and they're always triggered by the player, even during the enemy phase. If they changed to a mechanic like that, then Pair up could easily be usable by the enemies too, since the player would be able to make strategies around it.

I just don't want to see pair up thrown out and removed, especially if they have nothing else new to replace it with and just go with nothing at all or the old rescue system.

Edited March 4, 2013 by NeonZ

[Goblinaro]

I'd say just let the enemy have it.

Strongest One's Name + Enemy Pairing up = cutting my wrists Death.

[Othin]

Needs no change. It grants a useful and reasonable advantage, and as long as the enemy stats are high enough, they can challenge it properly.

[Momentai~]

I think on lower difficulties it trivializes the game (aren't the easier modes supposed to be easy though?) but on lunatic mode it's the only way most of the characters are going to be killing stuff in a reasonable amount of time and/or surviving more than one battle for quite a while, lol. Like Othin said, it's definitely possible for the enemies to challenge and beat your characters statistically even while paired up. I suppose they could give the option to adjust the boost pair up gives on lower difficulties and reserve the maximum boost for the higher difficulties or some other customization like that.

Also, no one is forcing you to pair up (iirc on easy mode, the option isn't even available to the player initially unless slide guides is off). If you feel it breaks the game then simply don't do it.

[Sublime Manic]

I agree with Othin. I definitely think its value is as intended and the difficulty of the game is as intended. Further, isn't there always some feature or tool or other that the player can take advantage of that enemies can't in just about any Fire Emblem game?

[Bearemy]

I think that enemies should have the Pair Up mechanic, but only make the AI do the Pair Up chains and other weird stuff players can do on higher difficulties ( a difficulty spike on Hard mid-game, always present in Lunatic and above ). And since enemies don't have supports, the Dual Attacks and Blocks will be scarce early game, and then when stats rise as players progress, they will provide a challenge.

[Tormod]

I agree with Othin. I definitely think its value is as intended and the difficulty of the game is as intended. Further, isn't there always some feature or tool or other that the player can take advantage of that enemies can't in just about any Fire Emblem game?

Well yes, the game's difficulty is definitely designed expecting players to take advantage of it, but FE13 is a pretty large exception out of the norm for character power levels.

Someone suggested still allowing Dual (as in Strike and Guard) but not the actual pair up command, and I think that'd be great in other titles. I can tell you right now it's a very different experience since I've been playing through hard with no grinding, no pair up, and a few other restrictions.

[XeKr]

The main issue with the stat curve in this game is the huge stat point swings (up to 10) that occur. It can be the difference of getting doubled to doubling. It can be getting 4hko'd, say 15 damage to 60 hp, to 12hko, like 5 damage to 60 hp. Or alternatively, doing that much damage on offense. Also Dual Attacks can roughly double or triple (12x vs. 4x for Braves) your damage output and is fairly reliable at S rank, again a huge swing.

This causes lots of complaining about enemy stat inflation if you're not using more optimal Pair Ups.

I really like the mechanic, as well as it being restricted to your own units. Very thematic for FE. However, it would be easier to balance if the bonuses were much lower. Or even near 0.

[HeroMystic]

In No-Grind runs, the Pairing System as it is, is very reasonable. Believe it or not the game can actually handle Pair-ups, and sometimes it is even better to keep units separated to guarantee an extra attack from your partner character during player phase. On Enemy phase, being paired up is almost always better, but for obvious reasons that has always existed.

No, the problem isn't the Pairing system. It's the insanely easy methods to grind in this game. You get rid of the grinding and suddenly things look a lot more balanced.

Edited March 4, 2013 by HeroMystic

[Quick]

In No-Grind runs, the Pairing System as it is, is very reasonable. Believe it or not the game can actually handle Pair-ups, and sometimes it is even better to keep units separated to guarantee an extra attack from your partner character during player phase. On Enemy phase, being paired up is almost always better, but for obvious reasons that has always existed.

No, the problem isn't the Pairing system. It's the insanely easy methods to grind in this game. You get rid of the grinding and suddenly things look a lot more balanced.

The double system is extremely broken and it is certainly unlikable. The stats increase are extremely beneficial and the only way to survive in Lunatic, and it makes Rescue infinitely better since you can just beat chapters in like 3 turns. Honestly it needs to be nerfed and if it gets nerfed so should enemies stats so the game itself is more balanced. I could explain more but I really don't want to sound like I'm only a complainer. I like the concept (somewhat) but it needs to not be dominant for survival.

[Quick]

Damn it phone, accidental double post.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Quick

[MoloMowChow]

We could just accept the Pair Up system as a new staple feature of the new generation of fire Emblem...?

I think it's the rest of the game that needed to change to accommodate this new feature better, although I'm, not saying that the Pair Up system is fine as it is. At first I thought I was doing it wrong by using pair up all the time, but it ended up being the best way to clear battles. The Dual Strike and Dual Guard add much more luck/RNG based combat then before. Personally, I like that but i can also see how it can be frustrating. But i treat it as a bonus that could happen, like a 1% crit and don't ever rely on it (unless it's a high chance, like with Chrom's Dual Strike+).

Besides, the bigger elephants in the room were things like Galeforce or Nosferatu that made taking advantage of Pair Up much more prominent.