Did Fire Emblem move in the wrong direction?

[dondon151]

Now, as for the topic. . .I think FE's moving in the right direction. The multiple difficulties mean that the series can be picked up by a wide range of people, and while Pair-Up can be tweaked, I think it's better than previous versions of Rescue. What I miss most is the Steal mechanic, followed by variable mission objectives (so something besides seize/rout/defeat commander). Stuff like weapon weight and canto can stay gone - the former becomes moot after a certain point (STR-based) or a constant thorn in the side for tiny units (CON-based), and the latter emphasized mounts even further than necessary (they already have good stats and better movement).

sacrilege

pair up is often compared to rescue but pair up doesn't allow for take/give. pair up decreases the strategy space whereas rescue increases the strategy space because of this distinction.

people like to maintain that pair up can be better executed, but i think this is easier said than done. the only drawback to using pair up is that it reduces the number of discrete units that are on the map. low-manning is innately a strong strategy in fire emblem, so pair up has a big mountain to climb when it comes to execution. there's no way intsys is going to make pair up incur stat penalties, which is what made rescuing an interesting decision in the first place (in addition to the fact that rescuing also decreases the number of discrete units on the map). pair up is also unrestricted whereas rescuing could only be performed under certain conditions.

i would contend that rescuing is a strong mechanic that's almost on the level of pair up in the hands of skilled players, but it's a mechanic that rewards skill and has a high skill ceiling. shouldn't games reward skill? isn't that, like, the point of a game?

the complaint about weapon weight always being a problem for units with low con makes no sense, it's like complaining that low speed is always a problem for units with low speed. i want my armor knights to be offensive juggernauts, does that mean that speed should be removed? yeah, it sucks that your favorite sword shota can't slaughter stuff with a steel blade; it's at least equally unfair that my favorite hunk of armor can't slaughter stuff with - well - anything.

EDIT: fuck me for not playing FE13

Edited January 18, 2015 by dondon151

[Refa]

pair up is often compared to rescue but pair up doesn't allow for take/give. pair up decreases the strategy space whereas rescue increases the strategy space because of this distinction.

fairly sure that it does allow you to take/give units.

[Gradivus.]

@tacoman valflame actually has 21 mt and mjölnir has 19.. and forseti has 15 but gives +5 spd instead of lolskill. book of naga has 16 mt and gives +5 on both defenses. plus you don't get thoron until 24 if unless you do spotpass shops, but those make everything buyable anyway. how are you forced to use thunder tomes instead of fire tomes or whatever other tomes and how would that be a big problem?

@dondon the thing is that sm's have high spd and want to maintain it. generals have very high def and are able to maintain it because there is no "anti-def-weight" (unless we count luna+ or counter). there are weapons that hit generals super-effectively but sm's have mediocre def and tend to get hit fairly hard anyway.

and pairup does allow to give and take, and actually trade carried units too,

Edited January 18, 2015 by Gradivus.

[Axie]

weapon weight is the best, weapon weight to return; it is supposed to slow SMs and PKs down so they won't outclass slower units completely. it should matter the entire game, but perhaps a bit less harshly as it was in fe7/8

also I think people want magic triangles back mostly for flavor and I want it back for this reason too

[Gradivus.]

SMs outclass other units because no weight? wasnt there that percival guy that dgaf about weight and doubles everything with every weapon that matters? also there are absolutely no str issues either for pegasus knights and bow weakness isn't a thing because bows do exactly zero damage after delphi shield due to how shit op falcoknights are. not like we would reclass shiida on fe12 to cavalier because her str and def are bad as a peg.

[Sentacotus]

@tacoman valflame actually has 21 mt and mjölnir has 19.. and forseti has 15 but gives +5 spd instead of lolskill. book of naga has 16 mt and gives +5 on both defenses. plus you don't get thoron until 24 if unless you do spotpass shops, but those make everything buyable anyway. how are you forced to use thunder tomes instead of fire tomes or whatever other tomes and how would that be a big problem?\,

I'm not saying that I'm forced too or anything I'm just saying there is hardley any incentive to use the other tome types without the magic triangle because they were all just lobbed into being one type of magic (aside from dark). Its like if they took out the weapon triangle and made it so that all units could use whatever weapon. You have no incentive to use different types because they offer no advatage over the others. If swords happen to be the strongest in the game you'd just equip everyone with that sword because it does the most damage without giving a crap that there are even lances or axes in the first place.

[Axie]

SMs outclass other units because no weight? wasnt there that percival guy that dgaf about weight and doubles everything with every weapon that matters? also there are absolutely no str issues either for pegasus knights and bow weakness isn't a thing because bows do exactly zero damage after delphi shield due to how shit op falcoknights are. not like we would reclass shiida on fe12 to cavalier because her str and def are bad as a peg.

the point is that you'll always prefer a character that doubles over one that doesn't, and without weight, classes that formerly had low con double even more than usual while classes that formerly had high con get nothing

caeda often gets reclassed to cavalier and perceval demolishes fe6 because cavaliers/paladins are good at everything, and that is kind of an entirely different issue

Edited January 18, 2015 by Axie

[dondon151]

@dondon the thing is that sm's have high spd and want to maintain it.

why does this matter. or rather, why is it a point. all units want to maintain their spd. my cavalier doesn't want to lose AS when using a javelin, either, but he loses AS.

SMs outclass other units because no weight? wasnt there that percival guy that dgaf about weight and doubles everything with every weapon that matters?

convenient that you bring that up. first of all, perceval can't really use the brave axe and he loses AS from the brave lance, both of which he would really like to be able to 4x tough enemies with. so it's not actually like perceval doesn't care about weapon WT at all - as amazing as he is, weapon WT still prevents him from doing everything that he wants to. second of all, perceval's high con comes at a disadvantage, which is that milady can't rescue him and drop him wherever he wants, which ties into the point made earlier about how con and rescue add depth to the game.

[Topaz Light]

why does this matter. or rather, why is it a point. all units want to maintain their spd. my cavalier doesn't want to lose AS when using a javelin, either, but he loses AS.

I think the reason it was brought up is that, while it's true that Speed in general is a stat you want to keep as high as you can on your own units, Swordmasters, as a class, are more focused around it than other classes. Like, having high Speed and doubling, dodging, and critting (which admittedly is not reliant on Speed itself but doubling means more opportunities to proc critical hits) enemies is kind of their selling point as a class, whereas other units like Cavaliers can work with just dealing singular decisive blows and tanking hits, although it's not really optimal for them to do so.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Starlight36

[LeaderR Elliot]

am i the only person who thinks that weapon weight (with con) is a good mechanic

i mean instead of SMs spamming light weapons (not that heavy swords are good to begin with), now they spam shit like silver blades in FE10. removing weapon weight has solved one problem by introducing another, and some people don't seem to view this as a problem.

IMO weapon weight was intended as a balance mechanic for weapons as incentive to use light weapons as opossed to heavy but powerful a trade off that made sense.

However while it worked to give each weapon within each weapon category more differences besides MT, HIT, CRIT and special properties, the concept itself is flawed.

As it has been argued ad nauseum in these forums, It creates imbalance between units since not all of them are born with equal con/build (I am gonna disregard build level ups and con increasing items for sake of argument).

Unit con traditionally was given at units by 2 factors: gender and class... you might see were I am heading to male units are inherently better by their capacity of wielding heavier weapons and cavalry units are better because their combination of solid bases+con+move+rescue made them just too good to overlook killer stats in foot units...

For foot units weapons choice also had a thing here magic users had really low con they always have to offset by level ups, sword users always get low con. Lance and Axe users get an ok amount, they can work around more weapons than sword users.

Yeah I agree teh concept was great for its time FE1-FE4 for weapon weight substracting directly to your AS, FE5-8 for build/con that could be improved in FE5 case and the others where it was a set stat, FE9-11 when it was based on str stat. But now we have seen what can they do without weapon weight and I think is a good thing to adapt.

Also we have to force you to play new FE games for you to properly argue about them, watching arguments without you is not fun.

To stay on topic I voted, game mechanics are the most important part of game and then I voted FE13 but I would include FE12 in there... the fast paced gameplay in both of those games are the combination of many little elements in gameplay mechanics that make them feel like an enjoyable experience. Of course the only thing FE13 lacks and that FE14 will likely lack too is being able to use touch screen to comand units like DS FE games.

[Flying Shogi]

pair up is also unrestricted whereas rescuing could only be performed under certain conditions.

I wouldn't say Pair Up is unrestricted. The unit becoming the support unit needs to be able to stand on a tile next to the front unit so it's somewhat similar to Rescue in that regard.

Of course the only thing FE13 lacks and that FE14 will likely lack too is being able to use touch screen to comand units like DS FE games.

Unfortunately, I agree that FE14 will likely not fix this. I enjoyed being able to use the stylus to perform an action in DS games in general.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Magician Lugh

[Ownagepuffs]

IMO weapon weight was intended as a balance mechanic for weapons as incentive to use light weapons as opossed to heavy but powerful a trade off that made sense.

However while it worked to give each weapon within each weapon category more differences besides MT, HIT, CRIT and special properties, the concept itself is flawed.

As it has been argued ad nauseum in these forums, It creates imbalance between units since not all of them are born with equal con/build (I am gonna disregard build level ups and con increasing items for sake of argument).

Unit con traditionally was given at units by 2 factors: gender and class... you might see were I am heading to male units are inherently better by their capacity of wielding heavier weapons and cavalry units are better because their combination of solid bases+con+move+rescue made them just too good to overlook killer stats in foot units...

For foot units weapons choice also had a thing here magic users had really low con they always have to offset by level ups, sword users always get low con. Lance and Axe users get an ok amount, they can work around more weapons than sword users.

Yeah I agree teh concept was great for its time FE1-FE4 for weapon weight substracting directly to your AS, FE5-8 for build/con that could be improved in FE5 case and the others where it was a set stat, FE9-11 when it was based on str stat. But now we have seen what can they do without weapon weight and I think is a good thing to adapt.

Also we have to force you to play new FE games for you to properly argue about them, watching arguments without you is not fun.

To stay on topic I voted, game mechanics are the most important part of game and then I voted FE13 but I would include FE12 in there... the fast paced gameplay in both of those games are the combination of many little elements in gameplay mechanics that make them feel like an enjoyable experience. Of course the only thing FE13 lacks and that FE14 will likely lack too is being able to use touch screen to comand units like DS FE games.

Lmao what the hell? Better at what exactly?

And with or without weapon weight, mounts beat infantry.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[LeaderR Elliot]

better as in have higher con as female units. should have clarified, that part of the post was where I was pointing the inequality of con.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Lmao what the hell? Better at what exactly?

And with or without weapon weight, mounts beat infantry.

He flat out write that Male usually get higher con which means weapon weight advantage.

Which resulted in Female being a better transport, which doesn't really plays off in reality. I mean, aside from cases such as Florina being able to ferry promoted Oswin or something, rescuing with mounts is never an issue

[Ownagepuffs]

He flat out write that Male usually get higher con which means weapon weight advantage.

Which resulted in Female being a better transport, which doesn't really plays off in reality. I mean, aside from cases such as Florina being able to ferry promoted Oswin or something, rescuing with mounts is never an issue

Thing is, higher con doesn't instantly mean better unit. Isadora's got 8 con but she is still doing more than shit units like Bartre.

How about the other side of the coin where higher con usually means lower Spd/Spd growth. This isn't a black and white issue. A lot of factors play into what makes a unit good.

[dondon151]

I think the reason it was brought up is that, while it's true that Speed in general is a stat you want to keep as high as you can on your own units, Swordmasters, as a class, are more focused around it than other classes. Like, having high Speed and doubling, dodging, and critting (which admittedly is not reliant on Speed itself but doubling means more opportunities to proc critical hits) enemies is kind of their selling point as a class, whereas other units like Cavaliers can work with just dealing singular decisive blows and tanking hits, although it's not really optimal for them to do so.

but that's a totally arbitrary construct. i could say this about an individual unit who happens to have a high spd base and/or growth. take FE10 jill, who's a dracoknight but has high speed. her character is focused around having high speed. jill has high speed and wants to maintain it, so it would be bad if she got weighed down. why does it make a difference that she's not a swordmaster?

IMO weapon weight was intended as a balance mechanic for weapons as incentive to use light weapons as opossed to heavy but powerful a trade off that made sense.

However while it worked to give each weapon within each weapon category more differences besides MT, HIT, CRIT and special properties, the concept itself is flawed.

As it has been argued ad nauseum in these forums, It creates imbalance between units since not all of them are born with equal con/build (I am gonna disregard build level ups and con increasing items for sake of argument).

this is a contention that is often brought up, but i think it's overstated.

the main factors that determine whether one unit is better than largely don't include con. fir is not worse than rutger because she has less con, it's because she joins later at a lower level and has slightly worse growths overall. milady is not worse than zeiss because she has less con. lyn is not worse than guy (though is she? i'm not sure any more) because she has less con. i actually can't even think of proper comparisons to use as examples.

if fir and rutger's join situations were switched, fir would be better despite having less con because availability is just that important. con is one of those things that people liked to use as a pro or con back in a 2009-era debate.

[CT075]

i don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that we're losing mechanics

i'd argue that fe12 reverse lunatic is only strategically challenging because of the lost mechanics - you can't use old style rescue to blitz past problematic enemies, you can't warp yourself over them (rescue staves are close but not quite), etc, so you have to actually watch your moves (admittedly you would need to for old-style rescue as well, but that's just it - you can make a game require just as much planning with less mechanics)

the thing about adding more mechanics means there's more ways to potentially break things. you can argue that this is intentional and that having a sufficiently high skill cap should be rewarded, but it's not just a straight "less mechanics >> omg series sucks"

for that matter, can anyone actually give me a concrete moment in the series where the magic triangle really made a strategic difference? ever?

[Ownagepuffs]

i don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that we're losing mechanics

i'd argue that fe12 reverse lunatic is only strategically challenging because of the lost mechanics - you can't use old style rescue to blitz past problematic enemies, you can't warp yourself over them (rescue staves are close but not quite), etc, so you have to actually watch your moves (admittedly you would need to for old-style rescue as well, but that's just it - you can make a game require just as much planning with less mechanics)

the thing about adding more mechanics means there's more ways to potentially break things. you can argue that this is intentional and that having a sufficiently high skill cap should be rewarded, but it's not just a straight "less mechanics >> omg series sucks"

for that matter, can anyone actually give me a concrete moment in the series where the magic triangle really made a strategic difference? ever?

You're right for the most part. Hell I think FE13 suffered from having too many mechanics that were hard to make the most out of.

As for magic triangle, it's pretty cool if you have Levin!Sety (fuck you Levin!Arthur you're not canon) try to kill Ishtar in C10. The +Hit from Wind > Thunder helps to offset some of Ishtar's massive avo especially if Julius is in range.

... Or you could just say "fuck it" and throw Shanan at the problem like basically everything in gen 2 >_>.

Oh and it made it sorta iffy to Holsety nuke Arvis while Seliph was off getting Tyrfing since Fire > Wind.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[Missile]

A resounding YES.

Fire Emblem is slowly becoming another run of the mill srpg, where there's barely any strategy and depth and the focus is on fan-service, rpg elements, bigger numbers, broken gameplay, 'waifu' elements and 'flashier' stuff. Unfortunately, that's an easier product to sell on today's market. And since money talks...

Agreed, What makes Fire Emblem great is that the RPG part is there without being dominant, you actually give a shit about stats and calc are easy to do in order to make strategic decision. I don't care about these waifu, grinding, casual mode or fanservice, they can do whatever they want as long as there is great map designed paired with deep enough mechanics and I don't think it will really makes the game less appealing for wider audience.

Also, yes, there are difficulty choice, FE12 was great in that regard because it had the greatest challenge in the whole series but Awakening was just bad at this. Even on Lunatic mode, it was easy to break the game and I don't even mention Lunatic + where the developers thought throwing random skills at enemy will make a fair and good challenge.

I for the series future because pair up seems hard to balance and also hard play without it in harder modes.

[CT075]

i love how nobody happens to remember that you can make the game as arbitrarily difficult as you like by just playing differently

the game getting easier is not a bad thing

Edited January 18, 2015 by CT075

[dondon151]

i love how nobody happens to remember that you can make the game as arbitrarily difficult as you like by just playing differently

the game getting easier is not a bad thing

the intended difficulty is not a trivial aspect of a game. suppose i designed a game where the objective is to move from point A to point B. man, that's a damn easy game. is it not a bad thing because you can arbitrarily imagine obstacles that make it harder to get from point A to point B?

i mean, any person is going to complain that dondon's game is too easy. imagine if for project dondon i took all the enemies out; well, you could make the game difficult by imposing arbitrary restrictions on yourself, but the game would still be terrible.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

About weapon weight:

I'm not a big fan about the con-rule in the GBA-games. It disadvantages female characters and some classes.

In the GBA-games I never give first tier units steel lances and / or axes because of the speed and evasion loss.
In FE7 and 8 the tomes are way too heavy. Lute as mage can use no single tome without speed penalty thanks to her ridiculous low con. And Lyon has 5 AS!
Brave weapons are ridiculous heavy and ruin the brave-effect (of attacking four times) for the most classes.

The weight of each single weapon has to be fixed. The weigh difference between slim and steel weapons has to reduced radically.

I'd prefer the strength- or build-rule. However it has to be fixed mainly for magic users.

I think it would the fairest solution, if the skill stat buffers the weapon weight, because it wouldn't disadvantage any classes.


About difficulty:

I agree with this statement:

Also, yes, there are difficulty choice, FE12 was great in that regard because it had the greatest challenge in the whole series but Awakening was just bad at this. Even on Lunatic mode, it was easy to break the game and I don't even mention Lunatic + where the developers thought throwing random skills at enemy will make a fair and good challenge.

About staves:

I'm surprised that lots of people don't want to see them back. As I said in the topic "Staves", they're a good alternative way too "hurt" your enemies. There are some good situations you can use them very well (FE4 berserk against Ishtar or in FE6 sleep against Douglas). The silence stave is absolute welcome against all long magic range users.

About A.I.:

In most games the A.I. works that the enemies always attack the weakest unit (worst defense / resistance) regardless whether the enemy can oppose. That means the enemies take the risk to kill theirselves. It doesn't make that much sense to me.

In FE10 an enemy with a 2 range weapon never would attack and enemy with a melee weapon, except it can do a fatal hit to a 2 range enemy or the enemy has provoke. Another thing is that wounded enemies run back to their healers or they trade and use healing items. It's more realistic in my eyes.

I didn't even mention mechanics like FE5 capturing or ledges, because they appeared each in only one FE game.

Edited January 18, 2015 by The Taninator

[Baldrick]

I don't even mention Lunatic + where the developers thought throwing random skills at enemy will make a fair and good challenge.

Yes, the random selection from a pool of thoughtfully chosen, non-RNG skills breathes new life into the gameplay and provides a fair challenge to a prepared veteran without becoming outright luck-based *insert usual disclaimer about the first few chapters*

By giving you a slightly different structure each time, the ability to create a plan, assess risk and improvise when things go wrong is more likely to be tested. As long as the "arms race" between the devs and the players continues, with anything too gamebreaking in favour of, or against the player removed, the other difficulty levels can cater to the majority of the fanbase.

[eclipse]

Quote link. Pair-up stuff has been addressed - I think it'll help a lot if you have a chance to play around with it, just so that you can form your own opinion on what's right and wrong with it. There's a lot of other "random" things that happen in a single battle in FE13 (Dual Strikes, Dual Guards, skills), and I'm not sure how this would affect your strategies.

Regarding CON and weapon weight - this puts a serious dent in some units who really don't need it (why should Serra have to take a hit to Speed when wielding anything not named Lighting, when Lucius shows up six or seven chapters later and outdoes everything she's got, short of staff rank and Luck, and don't get me started on Erk/Pent). It would be great if there wasn't an alternative that completely eclipses the smaller unit, but that's not the case.

[CT075]

the intended difficulty is not a trivial aspect of a game. suppose i designed a game where the objective is to move from point A to point B. man, that's a damn easy game. is it not a bad thing because you can arbitrarily imagine obstacles that make it harder to get from point A to point B?

i mean, any person is going to complain that dondon's game is too easy. imagine if for project dondon i took all the enemies out; well, you could make the game difficult by imposing arbitrary restrictions on yourself, but the game would still be terrible.

well there's definitely a slippery slope to be avoided here; i probably should have elaborated more

the main complaint i hear about fe13's difficulty (even on lunatic) is that it's "too easily trivialized by [Avatar/Nosferatu/Galeforce]". In this case, there are immediately three very obvious ways to "arbitrarily" make the game more difficult - don't use use those things, or at least not to an extent to which the game is trivialized! for the most part, any challenge run involves limiting your options by artificially removing certain thigns from play. LTC is the only real constraint I can see that doesn't fall neatly into this definition, but i'll get to that. i'd also argue that the only one out of those four that you have to go significantly out of your way to avoid would be Avatar, so it's not like you're jumping through massive hoops just to get a semblance of challenge anyway