What do you think about the reclass feature?

[Slumber]

3 hours ago, Augestein said:

But it doesn't have to be necessarily though. That's the beauty of it. Sometimes people fancy themselves as trying different occupations. Look at it this way: let's take Effie. She has Troubadour and Knight. Knights are known for defending people and making sure that they are protected, and this fits her personality to a tee. Well then, what about Troubadour? How does that fit? Well, Troubadours heal people and save lives. They stop people from dying. A Troubadour can protect a person too, it can prevent them from dying. Not necessarily with their body, but through their efforts. So some people can still have their reclass option be based upon their base personality.

Effie's WHOLE gimmick is her body, though. Her supports always boil down to one or two things: How much she eats, and her extreme body building habit. It's very likely that they didn't give her a Troubadour as her second class because it's another way to protect, but they gave it to her purely because she's Elise's retainer, even though a Troubadour makes absolutely no sense as a class for Effie from a stat or story perspective. Troubadours are typically depicted as smart, but weak and frail, and usually stuck-up. Effie is the exact opposite of this, taking great pride in her strength, believing that any problem in her way can be solved with brute strength, and anything she can't solve is simply like that because she's not strong enough. She's basically a slightly smarter, but simpler female version of Bartre, who nobody in their right mind would say "Yeah, that guy totally makes sense as a Troubadour".

Yes, some secondary classes make sense, like the familial ones you went through. But a lot make very little sense either from a stat perspective(Arthur), a story perspective(Nyx, being a century/ies old witch who trapped herself in a child's body being an Outlaw) or both(Effie). Hell, there are some that seem completely backwards, like Charlotte, who seems like she's not trying very hard to come off as a dainty woman in need of a big, strong, rich man when she's running around with a giant axe that's wielded by the class with the highest strength cap in the game, while her secondary class IS a Troubadour, which would paint her as the dainty woman she pretends to be.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Slumber

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Just call me AL said:

That's actually one of the things I like the most about Fates' reclass system. It definitely opens up customization options that weren't possible in previous titles. Whether if its giving magic users a magic class they don't normally have access to. (Sakura definitely likes being a Strategist, for starters.) And same can be said for melee units that don't have much class options. (Effie likes not being a Knight/General, and wants either a mount or a higher Str cap.) And some of the results can be a bit fun. (Ryoma as a Paladin? Yes please.) And taking skills from other classes definitely helps your units become stronger. Camilla for one likes having the Sol and HP +5 skills to bolster her durability, and she can't get either without the Fighter class.

Again, Fire Emblem has never been about customization. The most customization we got up until this point were the children in Genealogy and the Scrolls in FE5. But since everyone was locked to their own class in FE5 and every stat capped at the same point, it's more of a way to keep you from getting RNG screwed and steamrolled in the latter half of the game.

There are series that have been built off of customization, and make very compelling gameplay out of it. Like Disgaea and Tactics, for games in a similar vein. Or Xcom. But the difference with Disgaea, Tactics and Xcom, is that those games aren't character driven SRPGs with a whole army of defined characters. These titles always have, and always will be more amorphous than Fire Emblem. In Disgaea and Tactics, you get a handful of defined characters, who almost always turn out to be complete garbage outside of their original classes, and in Xcom, I think there's been like, one defined playable character in the whole series. There's no character-breaking when a unit who's scared of Wyverns suddenly jumps on a Wyvern and starts tearing ass like nobody's business. This cannot be said of Fire Emblem. This also goes along with the general structure of FE games. Most classes fit a niche, and the characters are designed and introduced when that niche needs to be filed. When you have super flexible reclassing, this structure breaks completely, which has always been a very attractive aspect of Fire Emblem. You're given a rigid set of rules, and you have to find out how to make the best out of what you have. Reclassing/skill taking removes a large set of these rules.

Which brings me to another problem FE just can't get past with reclassing: The classes and skills are just far too imbalanced. In Disgaea, Xcom and Tactics, your enemies are far stronger compared to FE, and building up characters to break the game is much more difficult. For Fire Emblem, getting a few broken skills and changing to incredibly powerful classes that take advantage of those skills is not anywhere near as intensive. Your characters can and will steamroll if you have any idea of what you're doing(Bar a chunk of Conquest). The balance just isn't there for Fire Emblem to have this free-flowing class system where you can pick up skills from any class.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Slumber

[Zapp Branniglenn]

53 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Again, Fire Emblem has never been about customization. The most customization we got up until this point were the children in Genealogy and the Scrolls in FE5. But since everyone was locked to their own class in FE5 and every stat capped at the same point, it's more of a way to keep you from getting RNG screwed and steamrolled in the latter half of the game.

 

Well Sacred Stones let you customize upon promotion. The Super Trainee class was so cool that nobody noticed they were just average units late game - they were the best units! People hated when branched promotions didn't return in Tellius. Tellius meanwhile had skill customization, cavaliers could choose their secondary weapon, mages could get knives had no customization whatsoever. In Radiant Dawn you could strip these skills and put them on whoever for any reason. Astrid and Geoffrey roll up, say "I've got Paragon" and we say "ah, yeah I'll hold that for you, part 3 is coming up."

I feel like reclassing and later the My Unit were both natural progressions of customizing units.

[Slumber]

2 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Well Sacred Stones let you customize upon promotion. The Super Trainee class was so cool that nobody noticed they were just average units late game - they were the best units! People hated when branched promotions didn't return in Tellius. Tellius meanwhile had skill customization, cavaliers could choose their secondary weapon, mages could get knives had no customization whatsoever. In Radiant Dawn you could strip these skills and put them on whoever for any reason. Astrid and Geoffrey roll up, say "I've got Paragon" and we say "ah, yeah I'll hold that for you, part 3 is coming up."

I feel like reclassing and later the My Unit were both natural progressions of customizing units.

I meant purely over how your character grows in the case you quoted. Plus, and this is a key part of everything in that post that wasn't quoted, all of the branching promotions made sense, and there were a lot of limitations to how customization went down.

You couldn't give Makalov spears as a secondary weapon, then change your mind two chapters later and give him bows instead. And you couldn't make Garcia a Hero, then change your mind.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Slumber

[Zapp Branniglenn]

18 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I meant purely over how your character grows in the case you quoted. Plus, and this is a key part of everything in that post that wasn't quoted, all of the branching promotions made sense, and there were a lot of limitations to how customization went down.

You couldn't give Makalov spears as a secondary weapon, then change your mind two chapters later and give him bows instead. And you couldn't make Garcia a Hero, then change your mind.

But you could change your mind in the Tellius series with skills. My point is how the series progressed to this point with each entry. Radiant Dawn units didn't have skills that were all their own, much like Awakening/Fates.

[Slumber]

59 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

But you could change your mind in the Tellius series with skills. My point is how the series progressed to this point with each entry. Radiant Dawn units didn't have skills that were all their own, much like Awakening/Fates.

Units who had innate skills like Geoffrey's Paragon(Or Astrid's, or Soren's Adept, or any number of innate skills) got them at a reduced cost. If you took them off of a character and put them on another, you would likely not have any room for any other skills, and you now just crippled the unit who had it, and for the umpteenth time, this was incredibly limited. You couldn't just pull infinite Paragons off of Geoffrey or Astrid, and I think Paragon was 15 capacity. Most units got 20-25 at most. At most you could get maybe 2 alrightish skills on a unit, and no amazing ones, or you could just get one amazing one. The way PoR/RD handled skills was very different than the Awakening/Fates' "Yeah, just take whatever. Do whatever. Who gives a shit." attitude where you could take ANY 5 skills and stack them on a unit. 

Just because there was a starting point for this doesn't mean that the next step was justified or logical. There was some semblance of balance to FE9/10, way more than how skills were balanced in FE4/5, with honestly less flexibility than FE5 offered, where you could give one unit every skill book if you wanted. So the next logical progression would be to make them even more balanced, and keep it relatively restrained, right? But no, they broke the shit out of skills, and there was 0 restraint beyond them realizing that every unit getting Aether was a bad idea. Until Fates, where even Aether was up for grabs if you dished out the dough. 

Edited March 13, 2017 by Slumber

[Eleanore]

12 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

I mean, I'll always remember Soren for his horribad strength growth meaning that you stuck with the basic Wind tome with him through POR or else his AS went to shit, or Xander's pitiful resistance meaning that anytime a mage got the drop on him, he was screwed.

Not really related to the topic, but everyone always talks about how Ike got ripped between games, but Soren clearly trained with him because he went from having 4 str on average to like 22. No problem doubling with those siege tomes now! Too bad he apparently sacrificed that amazing speed for it though. But I suspect Gatrie was just collectively draining every mage of speed to raise his own growth from 25% to 60%.

On topic I really don't think Radiant Dawns skill sharing is comparable to reclassing though. Sure, a perk of reclassing was getting new skills, but the level of it is entirely different. If for some reason you want to put Vantage+Wrath on a mage, it doesn't suddenly make them less of a mage.

Same thing with the FE8 trainees, it's still a permanent choice and they are still kept within a certain type of class. You can't put Ross on a horse or make Amelia learn how to heal. Like I said before, I'm all for more open branches. If I can put my pegasus knight on a wyern there's no reason I shouldn't be able to put my wyern rider on a pegasus.

Same thing with child inheritance, the whole point is that they are taking after their parents and gaining their strengths and weaknesses. and it's still a permanent decision. 

[Augestein]

6 hours ago, Slumber said:

Effie's WHOLE gimmick is her body, though. Her supports always boil down to one or two things: How much she eats, and her extreme body building habit. It's very likely that they didn't give her a Troubadour as her second class because it's another way to protect, but they gave it to her purely because she's Elise's retainer, even though a Troubadour makes absolutely no sense as a class for Effie from a stat or story perspective. Troubadours are typically depicted as smart, but weak and frail, and usually stuck-up. Effie is the exact opposite of this, taking great pride in her strength, believing that any problem in her way can be solved with brute strength, and anything she can't solve is simply like that because she's not strong enough. She's basically a slightly smarter, but simpler female version of Bartre, who nobody in their right mind would say "Yeah, that guy totally makes sense as a Troubadour".

Yes, some secondary classes make sense, like the familial ones you went through. But a lot make very little sense either from a stat perspective(Arthur), a story perspective(Nyx, being a century/ies old witch who trapped herself in a child's body being an Outlaw) or both(Effie). Hell, there are some that seem completely backwards, like Charlotte, who seems like she's not trying very hard to come off as a dainty woman in need of a big, strong, rich man when she's running around with a giant axe that's wielded by the class with the highest strength cap in the game, while her secondary class IS a Troubadour, which would paint her as the dainty woman she pretends to be.

But Troubadour can also be a Maid/Butler. So she can still do that physically when she promotes. So it's not like her strength goes to complete waste here. I honestly think it was intentional, because it actually makes it to where Effie won't inherit anything from Elise if they A+ support. Sort of how the brothers Kaze and Saizo don't get anything from A supporting (because they've had the same training). Troubadours are depicted as anything in Fire Emblem. Sigurd's sister wasn't very smart as she's willing to bring a child on the battlefield, she's certainly not stuck up either. Prisilla wasn't stuck up, and La'Rachael wasn't stuck up either. Maribelle is the only troubadour that I can think of that fits your description. And Elise is certainly not stuck up nor smart.  Even then, what's wrong with characters being different? I think that's a good thing. Effie is the only general that can be a troubadour naturally. That's her thing. It's weird, but she can do it. 

I honestly agree with Gustavos on this. The skills were a natural progression.

3 hours ago, Slumber said:

Just because there was a starting point for this doesn't mean that the next step was justified or logical. There was some semblance of balance to FE9/10, way more than how skills were balanced in FE4/5, with honestly less flexibility than FE5 offered, where you could give one unit every skill book if you wanted. So the next logical progression would be to make them even more balanced, and keep it relatively restrained, right? But no, they broke the shit out of skills, and there was 0 restraint beyond them realizing that every unit getting Aether was a bad idea. Until Fates, where even Aether was up for grabs if you dished out the dough. 

That's not true at all though. There still is restraint to it. Friendship seals? You can only A+ people of the same gender, and can only inherit one per playthrough. So let's use say... Silas. If I support him with Jakob and A+ him with Jakob, he inherits Troubadour. He cannot turn around and A+ Kaze in the same playthrough and get ninja as well. As a matter of fact, the only way for him to get ninja is for him to support Peri and marry her at that point. My Castle might allow you to buy things for units that can learn skills hypothetically, but you have to fork over some gold for that-- which is still a permanent decision. It takes money away from you that you can't just get back without abusing DLC-- which is an entirely different beast here. 

FE9's skill system was horrible. There were barely any skills in the game, and there was no option for experimenting. Decisions were permanent, yes, but they didn't let you see how effective a character was with the skill from the description. Here's an example:  Teaches the skill: Parity . That's the description for Parity. What does that even mean for a unit? So you put it on, and suddenly terrain boosts no longer work and their supports are meaningless. Well let me take that off and "poof," the skill is gone. Awful, awful design. FE10 is better, but still obnoxious to a certain extent. What's that? You want to try Adept on Mia instead of having it on Soren? Well that was cool, but maybe I don't want Mia to have Adept. Oh, well now it cost 15 for Soren despite the fact that 2 seconds ago it was free. I'd honestly argue that this discourages experimenting outside of theory-crafting outside of the game. And that's no fun. Capacity is about the only thing that Tellius had right for skill handling. 

[Eleanore]

9 minutes ago, Augestein said:

That's not true at all though. There still is restraint to it. Friendship seals? You can only A+ people of the same gender, and can only inherit one per playthrough. So let's use say... Silas. If I support him with Jakob and A+ him with Jakob, he inherits Troubadour. He cannot turn around and A+ Kaze in the same playthrough and get ninja as well. As a matter of fact, the only way for him to get ninja is for him to support Peri and marry her at that point. My Castle might allow you to buy things for units that can learn skills hypothetically, but you have to fork over some gold for that-- which is still a permanent decision. It takes money away from you that you can't just get back without abusing DLC-- which is an entirely different beast here. 

The fact you can only A+ with the same gender is moot since marriage give the same reclass function and characters can marry practically anyone of the opposite gender. Sure it makes you choose which two classes you want to give to the characters from it, but you still pretty much have a choice among all classes about which two to choose. Also I will admit to abusing my castle pretty heftily in Conquest since I didn't want to reclass but still wanted skills, and money was never an issue. I played the money DLC a total once just to test it out too. I'm pretty sure Thracia is the only FE that makes you hurt for money. And again skill system =/= reclassing.

 

15 minutes ago, Augestein said:

FE9's skill system was horrible. There were barely any skills in the game, and there was no option for experimenting. Decisions were permanent, yes, but they didn't let you see how effective a character was with the skill from the description. Here's an example:  Teaches the skill: Parity . That's the description for Parity. What does that even mean for a unit? So you put it on, and suddenly terrain boosts no longer work and their supports are meaningless. Well let me take that off and "poof," the skill is gone. Awful, awful design. FE10 is better, but still obnoxious to a certain extent. What's that? You want to try Adept on Mia instead of having it on Soren? Well that was cool, but maybe I don't want Mia to have Adept. Oh, well now it cost 15 for Soren despite the fact that 2 seconds ago it was free. I'd honestly argue that this discourages experimenting outside of theory-crafting outside of the game. And that's no fun. Capacity is about the only thing that Tellius had right for skill handling. 

I don't think bad skill descriptions is a strike against the system itself. It sucks you have to look up a guide, but it also doesn't change how the system works in practice and would be a very minor thing to fix. And FE9s skill system is pretty much just the same as FE4s. Just replace inheritance with scrolls, they were meant to give characters flavour, not customization. I do agree that the fact that skills that were free for characters in FE10 should have been still free if you gave them the skill back though, that was just a bad decision gameplay wise. 

[Extrasolar]

7 hours ago, Eleanore said:

Not really related to the topic, but everyone always talks about how Ike got ripped between games, but Soren clearly trained with him because he went from having 4 str on average to like 22. No problem doubling with those siege tomes now! Too bad he apparently sacrificed that amazing speed for it though. But I suspect Gatrie was just collectively draining every mage of speed to raise his own growth from 25% to 60%.

Yeah, seriously. Soren didn't get buff or anything, but he's at least been doing some stamina exercises and small-scale weight lifting or something, to toughen up that much....and Rhys is much of the same. Must be harder for Soren to move all of that newfound mage toughness, so he's slower.

As for Gatrie, I don't know what the hell happened between games. By RD the guy could be an international track star, and the Gatrie in my current run of RD has more speed than Oscar, a guy on a horse. Lol.

6 hours ago, Augestein said:

FE9's skill system was horrible.  There were barely any skills in the game, and there was no option for experimenting. Decisions were permanent, yes, but they didn't let you see how effective a character was with the skill from the description.

I see skills as another thing that are tied to the character for flavor, rather than a way to make them mechanically "better" or as a facet for experimentation. You can't just take off and slap on skills willy-nilly; I see the capacity as the unit taking the time/training to "learn" and practice the skill, instead of just, "here you go, you have Adept now. Enjoy."

Like, skills are another facet of character. What does Paragon say about Astrid? She's a quick learner, and has a lot of potential for growth. How about Vantage on Mia? She's got quick reflexes and/or is a very pragmatic person, enough to know that should she be injured, she should look to get the first hit on before her opponent swings at her again.

Celerity on Tormod? He grew up in the desert with laguz, and is used to running long distances/more fit and faster than your usual studious bookworm mage because of it.

A lot of people give POR Ike Wrath/Resolve for the fight with the Black Knight, just because of mechanics, but I always stick with Aether. Story reasons: It was his dad's big skill, and Ike having it/learning it just feels satisfying and logical.

Though yeah, disappearing skills is annoying and stupid. At least RD fixed that bit. But I agree on the skill costs for characters who learned the skill already or started with it is a little strange, unless it's mean to represent them 'forgetting' the skill and having to 'relearn' it before it can be used again.

16 hours ago, Augestein said:

But it doesn't have to be necessarily though. That's the beauty of it. Sometimes people fancy themselves as trying different occupations. Look at it this way: let's take Effie. She has Troubadour and Knight. Knights are known for defending people and making sure that they are protected, and this fits her personality to a tee. Well then, what about Troubadour? How does that fit? Well, Troubadours heal people and save lives. They stop people from dying. A Troubadour can protect a person too, it can prevent them from dying. Not necessarily with their body, but through their efforts. So some people can still have their reclass option be based upon their base personality.

[snip]

The point was is that they can be fun even when they are crazy. In terms of personality, I can see Soren being a thief as a reclass if he were to have one. Simply put because he's lived alone for so long and without help that I'd wager he would admittedly be able to pick locks. Someone like Sothe in RD I could see being able to become a swordmaster (since there's no mercenary class) since he'd want to emulate Ike. Little things like that.

Sure, some people may want to change their profession...but imo in the middle of a full-scale war is not a place to do it. In realistic terms, your spear-and-shield halberdier can't/won't toss away their well-practiced and well-worn spear and shield to say, "You know what? I'm going to become a myrmidon now! Even if the fighting style, training methods, and techniques are completely and totally different, and even if I have never picked up a sword in my entire life, putting me at a huge disadvantage as far as experience goes, and thus making me a liability on the battlefield, it'll help bolster my 20% speed growth and I want to do something else for once!"

I brought this up before, you can't just pick up a new weapon and make it work immediately (E rank or not). If it's your first time swinging a sword, you're going to suck. And when your enemy has been swinging a sword for who knows how many years, you're going to have a bad time. If the war is meant to be a full-scale effort with everyone giving their best at what they do, some jerk who decided he wants a career change in the middle of it is your worst nightmare. It makes the reclassed character look like an irresponsible jerk.

Doubly so if it's physical to magic: I mean, when Calill lectures Tormod, who's been a mage for at least a few years, about the dangers of using magic carelessly (i.e., blowing up your friends), how the hell can you trust a guy who's just picking up a tome for the first time in his life?

Sothe is a thief because that's all he ever had time to learn or know - considering he grew up in the slums of Nevassa and struggled to survive before he met Micaiah, him being a thief is intimately tied to his character and backstory. It's also one of the reasons he's cynical about nobles and people - because he's never had anything, and had to sneak around for his meals. Turning him into a myrmidon would lose that aspect of him, even if he does admire Ike to the point of worship at times. Plus, Micaiah would never let him live it down.

Though admittedly a myrmidon Sothe in a badass coat and scarf would be amazing, plus getting Astra for him might make him useful (goddamn Bane...especially when he activates it on the second hit...)

Sure, Soren's probably had to pick up some survival skills in his time before finding Ike again, but I don't think he has the agility or balance necessary for sneaking around. Thieves have to train just has hard as anyone else to be truly good at what they do.

He's got a high speed growth, but so does RD Gatrie (and that behemoth of a man is definitely not thief material), but other than every mage flipping in the Flare animation, shows no real thief-like agility. Plus, he's been taught from a young age about magic and he's all about books and studying, so him being a mage makes sense, and suddenly dropping the profession doesn't. But you can still give him flavor from his past hard life if you want; just give him locktouch instead. Not to mention, if we're talking about POR Soren, he's going to be doing jack all with knives since his strength is always horrible.

14 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

I don't use it often, and when I do it's generally for skill collection. Like you, I generally find that a character's identity is tied to their class. I'm more okay with it when the other classes share a weapon type (if only because dropping to E-rank weapons fucking sucks) such as reclassing Caeldori or Shirointo a Weapon Master. Sometimes it's fun to take advantage of, however, such as in the case of a unit whose growths would work better on other classes.

My final verdict is...keep it in. I won't use it a lot but options are nice. I would like it if a character's reclass options were better thought out though (giving pure magic classes to pure physical characters is a waste, for example).

You might want to reword your poll options. They sound like BIG YES, BIG NO and small no. The 3rd option should be more like "It's good and bad"

Not denying that from a gameplay and character growth perspective that it's useful, but...I feel like you're losing a lot of what made FE games difficult, or one big strategy aspect. When you could just say "screw it, I'm gonna turn this guy into x even though the game gives him to me as y," then it's almost tantamount to cheating in my eyes. The enemy can't suddenly change its units to better round itself out or to counter a certain unit/units or yours. You worked with what you got in old FE, as does the enemy.

That means if you got an armor knight with a 60% speed growth and a 20% defense growth, well, there was your inexplicably fast but fragile armor knight, no changes possible. You'd have to get creative to make them work if you really wanted to (or just benched them to focus on other units), rather than just saying, "oh, I'll just change them into a myrmidon instead and everything will be fine."

I do agree on the change from physical to magic being inexplicably in a lot of cases.

But you and someone else have brought up rewording the third option, so I'll do that.

14 hours ago, Just call me AL said:

That's actually one of the things I like the most about Fates' reclass system. It definitely opens up customization options that weren't possible in previous titles. Whether if its giving magic users a magic class they don't normally have access to. (Sakura definitely likes being a Strategist, for starters.) And same can be said for melee units that don't have much class options. (Effie likes not being a Knight/General, and wants either a mount or a higher Str cap.) And some of the results can be a bit fun. (Ryoma as a Paladin? Yes please.) And taking skills from other classes definitely helps your units become stronger. Camilla for one likes having the Sol and HP +5 skills to bolster her durability, and she can't get either without the Fighter class.

I'm gonna echo @Slumber here and say that Fire Emblem has never been about customization. Like all strategy games, it's been about resource management, working with what you got, and being creative in order to give yourself even small advantages over the enemy. You had units strong in some areas, and units weak in some areas, and you had to make them all work given the boundaries that you had. It was another layer of difficulty.

Reclass tends to break the game a lot of the time, simply because the games aren't balanced for x unit's weak points being ironed over completely with the reclass feature. Now I'm not going to deny that some units are going to be better than others without it, but that's been a thing since day one, and even units that are overall 'worse' than others tend to be strong in at least a few areas, or superior to the 'better' option depending on what you're talking about.

You can still make 'worse' units work with a little time and dedication and strategy, whereas reclass eliminates the difficulty of working around your options considerably. (Not trying to shame people who like easier games or strategies, since I'm one of those a lot of the times, but making a point of resource management being an important part of FE.)

17 hours ago, Gustavos said:

I feel like "I don't care about it at all" should be changed to "I don't mind either way" for question 3 since it sounds like another way of saying no to me.

I wasn't a fan of reclassing in FE11. I remember thinking to myself how cool it would be to play a Fire Emblem game with whatever units I like, but having limitations on how many of each class you can have in the army was too obtrusive. I don't care to know how well Gordon can perform as a cavalier if I must make Cain an archer in the process. And the one unit type I would want to reclass for most maps, thieves, can't be reclassed.

[snip]

Be like myself and most other players where you didn't understand how reclassing worked at first and beat the game with everybody's default classes.

That only makes it more evident that reclassing doesn't need to exist. The game can easily be beaten without reclassing at all, making it not a necessary addition. And see my above points about the game balance being hurt because of it (and sure, games have given players the tools to break the game given enough time and research before, but I still don't see it as a good thing, especially when the newer games are on a whole much easier than the older games to begin with).

And sure, it would be cool to choose your roster as you see fit...but you're missing that big resource management aspect. A lot of the time in strategy games, you can't just choose the tools that are handed to you.

But yeah, I'll change the wording on that since you, NekoKnight and a few others brought it up.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Extrasolar

[Dragrath]

A lot of the arguments here about reclassing I think address an underlying issue of whether to let the series evolve or stay stagnant mechanically. Overall I don't think the series has found the sweet spot for this mechanic and should continue to play around with it.

The issue is one I feel has both pros and cons

-The pros are more customization allowing you to more or less vary your army composition and play around with skills two things that I think have opened up new layers of strategy/fun such as a flier only army :D (I have to admit outside of some fun instances like that I mainly care about skills than I care  about reclassing in the newer ones)

-The cons are as mentioned some units can simply reclass into forms that make them unimaginably broken for the game in question   as enemies for the most part lack the same capacity.

The solution personally is there needs to be a middle ground skills should be available again through scrolls and units should have their reclass options built around their character better. In total I don't think any unit should have more than 3 class trees ever as large numbers of classes basically limits the characterization a unit can be given as they are forced to be more general and vague or have random classes that don't fit their character

As for mounts A though I'd like to bring forth is what about mounts being separate from the "class list"? The mount bond issue has been brought up multiple times and the series has already tried dismounting. The only step further would be making mounts a defined characterized unit/sub-unit perhaps with their own separate skills (i.e. Canto,Galeforce etc.)

 

I also think it would be worth experimenting with say subclasses where a secondary class is simultaneously "equipped" to tweak growths and grant access to skills and possibly weapon types regardless of class.

Irregardless I also feel (especially after playing conquest) that the modern FE games have kept far too much of the reclassing/skills features to the player. And not enough in the enemy hands. In particular Canto was excellent in enemy hands during the Tellius games(which I believe have had the best representation of this ability in the series in terms of giving the AI and player options)

Warp and Replicate are standout examples that were underutilized or not utilized at all in Fates which have huge potential 

Replicate could be used by the AI to keep a replica back behind enemy lines in range of enemy support units such rallier's or healers

And lets not forget pass Acrobat Shove,Smite, Switch, Lunge, Swap "Blow" skills, "seal" skills, "Rally" skills, as well as Counter skills all of which provide powerful tools which can be  well utilized by both the player and the enemy. I hope that these skills will return in the future as staples of both the player and the enemy to be honest.

 

[Slumber]

12 hours ago, Augestein said:

But Troubadour can also be a Maid/Butler. So she can still do that physically when she promotes. So it's not like her strength goes to complete waste here. I honestly think it was intentional, because it actually makes it to where Effie won't inherit anything from Elise if they A+ support. Sort of how the brothers Kaze and Saizo don't get anything from A supporting (because they've had the same training). Troubadours are depicted as anything in Fire Emblem. Sigurd's sister wasn't very smart as she's willing to bring a child on the battlefield, she's certainly not stuck up either. Prisilla wasn't stuck up, and La'Rachael wasn't stuck up either. Maribelle is the only troubadour that I can think of that fits your description. And Elise is certainly not stuck up nor smart.  Even then, what's wrong with characters being different? I think that's a good thing. Effie is the only general that can be a troubadour naturally. That's her thing. It's weird, but she can do it. 

I honestly agree with Gustavos on this. The skills were a natural progression.

I should have tossed "or"s in my description, but I was listing Troubadours as a whole. They tend to be built around 3(Actually 4, with "polite" being the usual when they're not stuck-up) majors personality traits.

Smart: Mist, Claire, Maribelle

Frail: Mist, Claire, L'Arachel, Maribelle, Priscilla, Forrest, Elise

Stuck up: Claire, Maribelle

Polite: Ethlin, Priscilla, Mist, Nanna, Forrest

Aside from Nanna, Ethlin and L'Arachel, every Troubadour in the series fits into at least two of these four descriptors, and even they can fit into one of the four at least. Effie fits into a fat 0. She's dumb, focused purely on her own physical strength, very brutish and confident, and not haughty at all. And why are you asking me "Why can't things be different now?". You were the one who brought up why it made sense for Effie from a personality stand point. Liking to help and protect people fits the description of damn near every playable unit in the franchise. Why isn't Stahl a Troubadour? Why isn't Arthur a Troubadour? Why wasn't Franz or Nephenee a Troubadour? Or Geese or Effie's long lost ancestor Bartre a Troubadour? Why was Maribelle a Troubadour, when she only really gives a shit about Lissa and hates common folk?

And the skills were absolutely not a logical progression, seeing as how Fates scaled back on a lot of how Awakening handled them. Awakening was about 8 leaps ahead of a "natural progression", and when the developers realized this, they took a step back with Fates. And we're still 7 leaps ahead of where RD left off. And even then, simply adding more skills and options doesn't always mean it was a "progression". Prior to PoR, the last time we saw skills were in Thracia, and you could give people pretty much any unit any skill you wanted with no practical limit. You couldn't take them off like you could in PoR/RD, but you weren't effectively tied to one good skill or two relatively unimpressive ones. In some ways, PoR/RD was a lot more limited than 776, yet most people would still call this a progression and a refinement. If you want to tell me with a straight face that the Awakening system is an appropriate next step in regards to refinement and balance, then I'm all ears. But just because they inherently expanded the system in the 3DS games, doesn't mean it was a "progression".

12 hours ago, Augestein said:

That's not true at all though. There still is restraint to it. Friendship seals? You can only A+ people of the same gender, and can only inherit one per playthrough. So let's use say... Silas. If I support him with Jakob and A+ him with Jakob, he inherits Troubadour. He cannot turn around and A+ Kaze in the same playthrough and get ninja as well. As a matter of fact, the only way for him to get ninja is for him to support Peri and marry her at that point. My Castle might allow you to buy things for units that can learn skills hypothetically, but you have to fork over some gold for that-- which is still a permanent decision. It takes money away from you that you can't just get back without abusing DLC-- which is an entirely different beast here. 

FE9's skill system was horrible. There were barely any skills in the game, and there was no option for experimenting. Decisions were permanent, yes, but they didn't let you see how effective a character was with the skill from the description. Here's an example:  Teaches the skill: Parity . That's the description for Parity. What does that even mean for a unit? So you put it on, and suddenly terrain boosts no longer work and their supports are meaningless. Well let me take that off and "poof," the skill is gone. Awful, awful design. FE10 is better, but still obnoxious to a certain extent. What's that? You want to try Adept on Mia instead of having it on Soren? Well that was cool, but maybe I don't want Mia to have Adept. Oh, well now it cost 15 for Soren despite the fact that 2 seconds ago it was free. I'd honestly argue that this discourages experimenting outside of theory-crafting outside of the game. And that's no fun. Capacity is about the only thing that Tellius had right for skill handling. 

 Yes, there are far more limits on reclassing in Fates compared to Awakening, but you're still effectively given free reign to pair whoever you want through marriage/friendship and ultimately pick an allotment of incredibly powerful skills, and you can equip FIVE of them. And this doesn't take much effort at all. Even without DLC, money's only sometimes an issue in early game Conquest. You can also abuse My Castle for free and acquire seals and gold there, alongside just buying skills with no real penalty.

Barely any skills=/=automatically worse. Who actually puts Salvage Bow to practical use? How often does Futuresight actually make a noticeable difference? Who in the world would ever put Golembane on a unit? Why ever bother with the Even/Odd or Lucky Seven skills when you could just equip -faire skills? See, not only are the a bunch of useless/redundant skills, but they're all treated equally. They're all competing for one of the five slots. In PoR/RD, yeah, sure, Gamble's rarely going to be useful, but Keiran has it by default, and he gets a bonus for having it innately, so you're probably never going to take it off of him, and you might actually get some good uses out of it that you'd never experience otherwise. And it showcases Keiran's hotheaded nature through gameplay, something the series has almost always done fairly well. If this were Fates/Awakening, you'd take it off, give him Axefaire, give him Warp, give him Aggressor, give him Galeforce, give him... I dunno, Lifetaker, forge him a really good Bronze/Iron Axe, and watch him do the exact same thing your other units do.

Fire Emblem has always been a very rigid franchise. You were supposed to work with the tools it provided you, not craft your own tools to work around problems. But the problems it gave you were always very focused, well thought-out(Well, not always, but mostly) and fair. This was the appeal of it versus franchises like Final Fantasy Tactics(/Tactics Ogre) or Disgaea, which from the ground up, which were always meant to be a lot more open. Even a step below that, but above Fire Emblem, you had stuff like Langrisser, which didn't have promotion branches, but had promotion trees, though basically everyone could end up in the same places. The only SRPG that I can think of that was ever remotely similar to how Fire Emblem structured its gameplay was Vandal Hearts. Point is, you're bashing the PoR/RD skill system for being something it was never meant to be. You can't buy a shovel, then get upset when it won't cut your grass. You bought a shovel.

I'll agree with you about the lack of descriptions and units re-equipping innate skills removing the bonus they got, but those are very tine mechanical problems that could be ironed out fairly quickly, not full blown gameplay mechanics that cannot just be fixed in an afternoon.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Slumber

[Augestein]

10 hours ago, Eleanore said:

The fact you can only A+ with the same gender is moot since marriage give the same reclass function and characters can marry practically anyone of the opposite gender. Sure it makes you choose which two classes you want to give to the characters from it, but you still pretty much have a choice among all classes about which two to choose. Also I will admit to abusing my castle pretty heftily in Conquest since I didn't want to reclass but still wanted skills, and money was never an issue. I played the money DLC a total once just to test it out too. I'm pretty sure Thracia is the only FE that makes you hurt for money. And again skill system =/= reclassing.

 

No. It's not moot. Because you can't do everything on one playthrough. Let's use Silas for instance. Let's say you're playing Conquest and you want him to be an Oni Savage. The only way to get that is by making him Marry Corrin that has Oni Savage as a skill. This is vital because it means that no one else can get a class outside of their marriages as well. And it means that who you marry matters because you can't say... Turn everyone into Butlers in a playthrough. Which I'm talking about permanent decisions with skills. Not the reclassing. Which is what you guys were bringing up. 

 

10 hours ago, Eleanore said:

I don't think bad skill descriptions is a strike against the system itself. It sucks you have to look up a guide, but it also doesn't change how the system works in practice and would be a very minor thing to fix. And FE9s skill system is pretty much just the same as FE4s. Just replace inheritance with scrolls, they were meant to give characters flavour, not customization. I do agree that the fact that skills that were free for characters in FE10 should have been still free if you gave them the skill back though, that was just a bad decision gameplay wise. 

Sure, except FE4's system is not like 9. Skills in FE4 are everything. There's nothing flavor filled about "this unit never doubles." I'd rather them matter more than less. As the less a skill matters, the less anyone is going to care about them as units. If we're talking about uniqueness at any rate. 

 

4 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

I see skills as another thing that are tied to the character for flavor, rather than a way to make them mechanically "better" or as a facet for experimentation. You can't just take off and slap on skills willy-nilly; I see the capacity as the unit taking the time/training to "learn" and practice the skill, instead of just, "here you go, you have Adept now. Enjoy."

But in the end of the day, they are. I'm fine with acquisition of skills, and I'm fine with units learning different skills. Take something like Bleach Third Phantom. It had Fire Emblem style elements, but each character had their own branches for skills that they could learn and acquire. Even with the customziation, it was still done within the realms of each character individually. I like being able to customize units and the like instead of the only "RPG" aspect of Fire Emblem being the "DUH DU DU DA DAH!" LEVEL UP!

 

4 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Like, skills are another facet of character. What does Paragon say about Astrid? She's a quick learner, and has a lot of potential for growth. How about Vantage on Mia? She's got quick reflexes and/or is a very pragmatic person, enough to know that should she be injured, she should look to get the first hit on before her opponent swings at her again.

And reclass has the same flavor to the characters as well. Sully doesn't use magic in Awakening. While someone like Miriel does. Kellam can be a thief because no one notices him. I mean, why do we have to only have skills? Why not classes too?  Chrom is the only one that can learn Aether in Awakening outside of his daughters. So I'm not seeing anything wrong with reclass here. 

 

4 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Sure, some people may want to change their profession...but imo in the middle of a full-scale war is not a place to do it. In realistic terms, your spear-and-shield halberdier can't/won't toss away their well-practiced and well-worn spear and shield to say, "You know what? I'm going to become a myrmidon now! Even if the fighting style, training methods, and techniques are completely and totally different, and even if I have never picked up a sword in my entire life, putting me at a huge disadvantage as far as experience goes, and thus making me a liability on the battlefield, it'll help bolster my 20% speed growth and I want to do something else for once!"

No. But people usually know how to do more than one thing. If I'm a coder of C#, and I'm given Python, I'm not like "Python what's that? I can't do this!" Most people that are trained fighters don't just train with one weapon they use multiple ones. Heck, Fates even kinda supports this by having Ryoma have a club as his "trademark weapon" despite the fact that he'd have to use a heart seal to use his own club!

 

4 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Sure, Soren's probably had to pick up some survival skills in his time before finding Ike again, but I don't think he has the agility or balance necessary for sneaking around. Thieves have to train just has hard as anyone else to be truly good at what they do.

And things like this we'll never know. Soren is actually pretty fast. Like one of the faster characters in the game. A base of 8 speed at level 1 is nuts. And his skill "Adept" is skill based which means that he's pretty good with his hands... So yeah. 

 

Quote

He's got a high speed growth, but so does RD Gatrie (and that behemoth of a man is definitely not thief material), but other than every mage flipping in the Flare animation, shows no real thief-like agility. Plus, he's been taught from a young age about magic and he's all about books and studying, so him being a mage makes sense, and suddenly dropping the profession doesn't. But you can still give him flavor from his past hard life if you want; just give him locktouch instead. Not to mention, if we're talking about POR Soren, he's going to be doing jack all with knives since his strength is always horrible.

But RD Gatire is loud and stomps around and is proud of the noise he makes. And consider Soren's backstory. He never could speak originally, and he was only a caster because someone confused his brand for a spirit charmer. That means that he had to be doing something before he was a mage. My point is that there are several things a person might have done. Heck, look at Titania, based on PoR and RD, we know that she can use the full weapon triangle. 

 

34 minutes ago, Slumber said:

 Yes, there are far more limits on reclassing in Fates compared to Awakening, but you're still effectively given free reign to pair whoever you want through marriage/friendship and ultimately pick an allotment of incredibly powerful skills, and you can equip FIVE of them. And this doesn't take much effort at all. Even without DLC, money's only sometimes an issue in early game Conquest. You can also abuse My Castle for free and acquire seals and gold there, alongside just buying skills with no real penalty.

 

More free reign, but not infinite. If I marry Elise with Odin, no one else can get Troubadour that's a male unless they marry Felicia or that naturally have it like Leo or Forrest. And why is it that grinding is somehow a problem? This was in FE8 and FE2 beforehand. 

 

35 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Barely any skills=/=automatically worse. Who actually puts Salvage Bow to practical use? How often does Futuresight actually make a noticeable difference? Who in the world would ever put Golembane on a unit? Why ever bother with the Even/Odd or Lucky Seven skills when you could just equip -faire skills? See, not only are the a bunch of useless/redundant skills, but they're all treated equally. They're all competing for one of the five slots. Very few people would keep Arthur's signature skill on when it is taking up a slot that could go to something way better, alongside 4 other equally awesome skills. This skill that is intrinsically tied to Arthur's character will be taken off for the sake of making a more broken unit. In PoR/RD, yeah, sure, Gamble's rarely going to be useful, but Keiran has it by default, and he gets a bonus for having it innately, so you're probably never going to take it off of him, and you might actually get some good uses out of it that you'd never experience otherwise. And it showcases Keiran's hotheaded nature through gameplay, something the series has almost always done fairly well. If this were Fates/Awakening, you'd take it off, give him Axefaire, give him Warp, give him Aggressor, give him Galeforce, give him... I dunno, Lifetaker, forge him a really good Bronze/Iron Axe, and watch him do the exact same thing your other units do.

 

I did. Savage Blow is actually really good when enemies are around you. Golembane is bad because there aren't enough Golems in the game. Even/Odd or Lucky Seven are actually pretty decent. I'd argue that the skill system needs work. Which I know I've proposed having RD's capacity skill system combine with Fates skills and you'd have a match made in heaven. You can have inferior skills stacked on each other for a lot of little useful effects or more powerful ones that you can use. Uh... You can't take off Arthur's personal skill. Just like if Kieran were in this game, he'd probably have something like "hotblooded" as a skill or "competitive rival" or something. There are personal skills in this game. Some I'm not really sure what you're saying here. 

 

41 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Fire Emblem has always been a very rigid franchise. You were supposed to work with the tools it provided you, not craft your own tools to work around problems. But the problems it gave you were always very focused, well thought-out(Well, not always, but mostly) and fair. This was the appeal of it versus franchises like Final Fantasy Tactics(/Tactics Ogre) or Disgaea, which from the ground up, which were always meant to be a lot more open. Even a step below that, but above Fire Emblem, you had stuff like Langrisser, which didn't have promotion branches, but had promotion trees, though basically everyone could end up in the same places. The only SRPG that I can think of that was ever remotely similar to how Fire Emblem structured its gameplay was Vandal Hearts. Point is, you're bashing the PoR/RD skill system for being something it was never meant to be. You can't buy a shovel, then get upset when it won't cut your grass. You bought a shovel.

 

Tell that to Fire Emblem 2 villagers which could become a large variety of classes (I swear, Gaiden is THAT game that seems to always throw a wrench in everyone's arguments, mine included). I didn't bash it. I'm saying that there's clear progression from the skill system used. Heck, one of the things I like about Fates a bit more is that there's far less proc skills running around. Moves like Vantage that they played around with in Tellius are balanced in a way in Awakening and Fates. It's a good thing. 

[Hoshino]

I love it & think it's amazing, quite frankly. It gives you the opportunity to change & customize your favorites' stats/appearance. Skill-fishing is fun too, since you can make some creative combinations with it. Characters that're mediocre in their base class are no longer doomed to failure. Want to make gimped characters like Odin better? Turn him into a Samurai! Want an archer in Conquest? Make Mozu into one! Want to experiment & see how a character would do in another class, or just how cool they'd look? You can!

 

It's fun, brings diversity to the game, & adds replayability, as others have said. Fates' iteration of the reclass system even gives marriage a purpose other than shipping, allowing you to put your favorite characters in classes better suited for their inherent stats. I think the "it takes away from their uniqueness" argument is absurd... They're still characters with a name, appearance, personality, & voice. Even then, you can just put them back into their "canon" classline after spending time in another class if it bothers you so much. Don't like the stat advantages of reclassing? Ok, then DON'T DO IT. Nobody's forcing you to play the game in a way you don't want to. You can choose for yourself. That's the best part about it, it's optional. Completely avoidable.

No need to take away a choice which others love just because a few don't like it.

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Augestein said:

More free reign, but not infinite. If I marry Elise with Odin, no one else can get Troubadour that's a male unless they marry Felicia or that naturally have it like Leo or Forrest. And why is it that grinding is somehow a problem? This was in FE8 and FE2 beforehand.

Point A is partly true, but through Friendship seals, a male(Silas/Takumi/Gunter) who gets an A+ with Jakob will obtain the Troubadour class, and he can still give the class to his lover. Just by existing, there is an extra five potential Troubadours through Jakob(A male friend, female lover, Dwyer, Dwyer's male friend, and Dwyer's lover). And Troubadour is one of the more difficult classes to spread around, due to it being weighed much more heavily towards the girls and Jakob's limited Friendship options, but it is still relatively easy to spread around as you like.

As for the grinding, I think even people who like Sacred Stones will admit grinding was a poor addition to that game. The game was already pretty easy-breezy without grinding, and grinding the Tower/Ruin didn't offer anything besides removing a layer of difficulty. I'll get to FE2 later.

1 hour ago, Augestein said:

I did. Savage Blow is actually really good when enemies are around you. Golembane is bad because there aren't enough Golems in the game. Even/Odd or Lucky Seven are actually pretty decent. I'd argue that the skill system needs work. Which I know I've proposed having RD's capacity skill system combine with Fates skills and you'd have a match made in heaven. You can have inferior skills stacked on each other for a lot of little useful effects or more powerful ones that you can use. Uh... You can't take off Arthur's personal skill. Just like if Kieran were in this game, he'd probably have something like "hotblooded" as a skill or "competitive rival" or something. There are personal skills in this game. Some I'm not really sure what you're saying here.

Salvage Blow, not Savage Blow(Yeah, I confused myself when I typed it up. It looked wrong to me, too). The skill where you randomly pick up iron weapons when you beat an enemy.

I completely forgot that those personal skills were permanent. For some reason, I remember taking off Arthur's Misfortune, but I must be remembering wrong. But that brings up a whole other problem that really doesn't need to be brought up now.

I agree that combining the capacity system with the wider array of skills from Fates/Awakening would be the best route to go, so long as not all skills were created equal, and you couldn't essentially get infinite of every skill. It'd certainly help balance the broken DLC skills in the main game. It'd also help rebalance reclassing, but I still have issues with it.

1 hour ago, Augestein said:

Tell that to Fire Emblem 2 villagers which could become a large variety of classes (I swear, Gaiden is THAT game that seems to always throw a wrench in everyone's arguments, mine included). I didn't bash it. I'm saying that there's clear progression from the skill system used. Heck, one of the things I like about Fates a bit more is that there's far less proc skills running around. Moves like Vantage that they played around with in Tellius are balanced in a way in Awakening and Fates. It's a good thing. 

Back to FE2. FE2 has been, and probably always will be the black sheep/odd duck of the family. There are many un-FE design choices in that game, that it's almost not worth mentioning when you're talking about the series as a whole. That's not to say it's bad, it just could have had a totally different name than "Fire Emblem", and I don't think anyone would have batted an eye. They even say in all of the promotional videos for Echoes that they plan on retaining all of the mechanics that made Gaiden unique, which is more or less them saying "Yeah, to all of you newcomers/Western titles only players, don't come into this title expecting what you typically see out of Fire Emblem". If you included it every time when talking about the series, I think "barring Gaiden" would be one of the most common phrases on this site.

Well. I think we've at least made some sort of agreement on how we want skills balanced in the future.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Slumber

[Augestein]

5 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Point A is partly true, but through Friendship seals, a male(Silas/Takumi/Gunter) who gets an A+ with Jakob will obtain the Troubadour class, and he can still give the class to his lover. Just by existing, there is an extra five potential Troubadours through Jakob(A male friend, female lover, Dwyer, Dwyer's male friend, and Dwyer's lover). And Troubadour is one of the more difficult classes to spread around, due to it being weighed much more heavily towards the girls and Jakob's limited Friendship options, but it is still relatively easy to spread around as you like.

As for the grinding, I think even people who like Sacred Stones will admit grinding was a poor addition to that game. I'll get to FE2 later.

True. Silas, Gunter and Takumi could get it. Which honest? Would help Gunter's game up a lot. And Tomebreaker Silas is pretty rockin' too. My point here is that it's a nice addition as it allows for some customization without sacrificing too much. 

Why? i don't think it's a bad addition. I just don't use it. 

5 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Salvage Blow, not Savage Blow(Yeah, I confused myself when I typed it up. It looked wrong to me, too). The skill where you randomly pick up iron weapons when you beat an enemy.

I completely forgot that those personal skills were permanent. For some reason, I remember taking off Arthur's Misfortune, but I must be remembering wrong. But that brings up a whole other problem that really doesn't need to be brought up now.

I agree that combining the capacity system with the wider array of skills from Fates/Awakening would be the best route to go, so long as not all skills were created equal, and you couldn't essentially get infinite of every skill. It'd certainly help balance the broken DLC skills in the main game. It'd also help rebalance reclassing, but I still have issues with it.

Okay. Fair enough. But here's the thing, in a game like Thracia? It *would* be useful. Can't capture an enemy? Well maybe you'll get lucky and you'll randomly pick up a weapon. It's extra gold or forging fuel. 

That's cool. We both went a bit insane on miscommunication here. 

Yeah. I'd hope that's their next step in terms of skill acquisition. Perhaps even having some skills ONLY be scrolls like Tellius while others are class specific. Combine that with capacity and we could have something beautiful. 

 

Agreed. But that's what makes me like Gaiden. It's unapologetic in its weirdness. :D

[Slumber]

12 minutes ago, Augestein said:

Why? i don't think it's a bad addition. I just don't use it.

Mostly because it added nothing to the game beyond very basic post-game content, and just made an already easy game even easier. It didn't necessarily make the game any shallower, but it did give people a really lazily implemented crutch to lean on.

In traditional JRPGS/RPGs, I'm cool with grinding. I'll sit in that final dungeon for hours fighting pink rats until I get a Rat Tail. But no strategy games benefit from grinding. Most implement anti-grinding features to discourage you. You can grind, but games like FFT and Xcom will make sure you have a bad day for doing so. Disgaea uses grinding more excessively than any other game I can think of, and even that amounts to finding a good map to break game mechanics on, followed by hours of doing the exact same things until you're level 9999 and literally doing a trillion damage, rather than just making level scaling feel appropriate. FE just kind of puts it in with little attempt to make it fit. Phrasing.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Slumber

[De Geso]

I like reclassing in the sense that it can be fun to toy with in the games that it's balanced correctly in.

I don't like it in the sense that it seems to be a point in a unit's favor (ie whether that unit is good or not) when talking about/comparing units. 

For example, without reclassing Odin is not a very good unit (short of having a daughter who IS one) but with reclassing he becomes very respectable (and also makes his daughter the best unit in Fates). People tend to say "Odin's a good/respectable unit" rather than "if you reclass him for good skills, he's a good unit." 

I think there should be a distinction between "this unit is viable" and "this unit is viable if you use reclass." 

Regarding statements in the OP: I get what you mean about characters' personalities coming from their base class, but, in Fates at least, a lot of reclass sets come from a character's background or story. Selena having Sky Knight, Odin having Myrmidon, Elise having Wyvern Rider, etc. are all examples of ways that characters arguably become more interesting and unique when considering what their reclass options are. 

[Beelzebub]

It's pretty video game-y. Maybe I'm oldschool, but I see flitting in and out of professions to gain abilities with disregard to a character's story to be munchkin-y. If your units were an amorphous blob of stats, against an enemies blob of stats, sure, min-max the shit out of them. But the fact that they are unique characters with their own experiences and backstories makes reclassing difficult to pull off without hurting your immersion in the story.

Maybe they could do something like dual-classing in old AD&D, where changing your class is permanent, and has strict requirements. A mage could only become a fighter only if they have high strength, and a fighter could become a thief only if they had high dex (or speed). This character would eventually have the abilities of both classes, but might not be as effective as if they had just stuck with their first class. This would increase player choice while still being faithful to a characters stats.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to where your sensibilities lie in an RPG. On one end you have a game like Diablo, and on the other you have a game like Planescape: Torment. One focuses entirely on numbers crunching, the other focuses entirely on story and immersion.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Beelzebub

[Augestein]

19 hours ago, Beelzebub said:

It's pretty video game-y. Maybe I'm oldschool, but I see flitting in and out of professions to gain abilities with disregard to a character's story to be munchkin-y. If your units were an amorphous blob of stats, against an enemies blob of stats, sure, min-max the shit out of them. But the fact that they are unique characters with their own experiences and backstories makes reclassing difficult to pull off without hurting your immersion in the story.

Maybe they could do something like dual-classing in old AD&D, where changing your class is permanent, and has strict requirements. A mage could only become a fighter only if they have high strength, and a fighter could become a thief only if they had high dex (or speed). This character would eventually have the abilities of both classes, but might not be as effective as if they had just stuck with their first class. This would increase player choice while still being faithful to a characters stats.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to where your sensibilities lie in an RPG. On one end you have a game like Diablo, and on the other you have a game like Planescape: Torment. One focuses entirely on numbers crunching, the other focuses entirely on story and immersion.

I don't. I see it as a group of people that are in a small army and have to wear multiple hats. It's not uncommon in startup companies for instance to actually do multiple jobs, and the bigger the company becomes the more specialized you become. 

[Extrasolar]

23 hours ago, YouSquiddinMe said:

'I don't like it in the sense that it seems to be a point in a unit's favor (ie whether that unit is good or not) when talking about/comparing units. 

For example, without reclassing Odin is not a very good unit (short of having a daughter who IS one) but with reclassing he becomes very respectable (and also makes his daughter the best unit in Fates). People tend to say "Odin's a good/respectable unit" rather than "if you reclass him for good skills, he's a good unit." 

I think there should be a distinction between "this unit is viable" and "this unit is viable if you use reclass." 

Agreed on this point. One of my pet peeves regarding units comparisons/rankings for the later games. And then units that are amazing in their base classes and with their base stats are called "bad" because they don't have "good" reclass options or whatever. It's just...frustrating as hell.

23 hours ago, YouSquiddinMe said:

Regarding statements in the OP: I get what you mean about characters' personalities coming from their base class, but, in Fates at least, a lot of reclass sets come from a character's background or story. Selena having Sky Knight, Odin having Myrmidon, Elise having Wyvern Rider, etc. are all examples of ways that characters arguably become more interesting and unique when considering what their reclass options are. 

Yeah, I'm okay with and even like stuff like this, because it ties into a unit's story. But you can't do this with most units, or else it becomes unbelievable.

On 3/13/2017 at 3:58 PM, Augestein said:

No. But people usually know how to do more than one thing. If I'm a coder of C#, and I'm given Python, I'm not like "Python what's that? I can't do this!" Most people that are trained fighters don't just train with one weapon they use multiple ones. Heck, Fates even kinda supports this by having Ryoma have a club as his "trademark weapon" despite the fact that he'd have to use a heart seal to use his own club!

You have a point in that warriors often did train in multiple weapons, but that's already reflected outside of reclass for a lot of units: Cavaliers are flavored in-story as having the most experience as warriors, being trained as army units in their respective countries' militaries, and they most often have their choice of any within the weapon triangle. Granted, while some games will restrict certain cavaliers to one or two weapons, they're just as often given a choice of what weapon to gain upon promotion.

Not to mention, people only have a certain amount of time to dedicate to becoming proficient in a given weapon; each person having "practiced" enough to be competent on the battlefield in multiple weapons stretches credibility, unless we're talking someone of Gunter or FE6 Marcus age. If you try to become a generalist, at the end of the day you'll just end up mediocre at everything. And in an army where you're fighting for the future of your homeland, friends, and even world, being mediocre instead of long-practiced and skilled is a problem.

I see the FE units as having trained to mastery or near-mastery in their weapon of choice, which is reflected in their class. It's much, much better simply in usefulness terms to specialize in a single thing and be a badass at that, rather than being a myrmidon who suddenly decides he wants to pick up a bow.

Now, I'm fine with cases like Takumi, Owain, etc., because they actually have experience and practice in their reclassed classes. Granted, it's still a little inconvenient because they'd be rusty at their job, but it's far better than them just picking up the weapon for the first time in the middle of a heated war and trying to make it work. Now, I'm fine with units  mentioning they're learning/practicing different weapon skills or something on the side, but without that, it's a little too incongruous and strange for me to swallow.

On 3/13/2017 at 3:58 PM, Augestein said:

But RD Gatire is loud and stomps around and is proud of the noise he makes. And consider Soren's backstory. He never could speak originally, and he was only a caster because someone confused his brand for a spirit charmer. That means that he had to be doing something before he was a mage. My point is that there are several things a person might have done. Heck, look at Titania, based on PoR and RD, we know that she can use the full weapon triangle. 

Well pre being taken in by the elderly sage at roughly four years old, Soren was being cared for by an unnamed woman. She fed him, clothed him and gave him a roof over his head while cursing him all the while (Soren mentions she probably took care of him out of some weird sense of duty), so he wouldn't necessarily have had any experiences before being a mage other than being an (abused) child.

Titania is a better case, considering she was a Crimean knight for an unknown amount of years and exchange troop to Gallia, and in her time with the Greil Mercenaries learned to wield all of the weapons to a high standard. But she's also trained and specialized in horseback combat, and considering POR/RD lacks the dismount feature, she doesn't have much experience in foot combat. She's even a pre-promote, meaning she's got far more experience and time to learn these things than most other units in the game. Now, had they allowed someone like Ike or Boyd (both newbies to the mercenary business with no formal training otherwise) reclass into something that could use, say, lances or magic, then it would not make any sense.

And the majority of units we get in FE are teenagers (the majority), early/mid 20-somethings, or very early 30-somethings. Most don't have the experience or time necessary to become masters in multiple disciplines.

23 hours ago, Beelzebub said:

It's pretty video game-y. Maybe I'm oldschool, but I see flitting in and out of professions to gain abilities with disregard to a character's story to be munchkin-y. If your units were an amorphous blob of stats, against an enemies blob of stats, sure, min-max the shit out of them. But the fact that they are unique characters with their own experiences and backstories makes reclassing difficult to pull off without hurting your immersion in the story.

I definitely agree with you here! Maybe it's also because I have a background in tabletop games (Pathfinder, more specifically), but I see a character class as almost sacred - an investment of time, energy, and training. Maybe it's Pathfinder drilling in the fact that it's far better/more useful in a combat context to specialize and be amazing at something than trying to generalize and being mediocre at something.

And on a character level, I wholeheartedly agree. Like, for a cleric devotes him or herself wholly to the worship and practice of magic granted by their deity, that's part of their identity. The same with a mage that expends energy in order to learn to commune and invoke with the spirits of the natural world. That cleric's not going to suddenly say, "Praise be to the goddess Ashera! I am a cleric of her faith...oh, and I also pick locks as a rogue on the side." Ugh.

For people who don't care at all about story or character, reclass is probably a dream come true. You can turn all your units into mechanical badasses and eliminate any of their weaknesses? Awesome! ...But yeah, for someone who cares about story, resource management as an important part of FE and character, it's pretty bad.

23 hours ago, Beelzebub said:

Maybe they could do something like dual-classing in old AD&D, where changing your class is permanent, and has strict requirements. A mage could only become a fighter only if they have high strength, and a fighter could become a thief only if they had high dex (or speed). This character would eventually have the abilities of both classes, but might not be as effective as if they had just stuck with their first class. This would increase player choice while still being faithful to a characters stats.

I actually like this idea if we wanted to have more customization in FE. I mean, a guy who's spent years being a myrmidon isn't suddenly gonna forget how to wield his sword or any of the skills that he picked up while using it if he reclasses into a thief. He'll just gain the ability to use daggers and unlock chests as well. I'd say do it like Pathfinder - if you want to take leels in another class, you're starting at that class's equivalent of level 1, and you still have a level cap of 20 before you have to promote with a Second Seal. And if you miss out on the skills unlocked at certain classes, you just miss out on them.

Like, a Myrmidon 10/Thief 10 wouldn't get Lethality, but they'd have both the myrmidon skills up till level 10 and the thief skills till level 10.

3 hours ago, Augestein said:

I don't. I see it as a group of people that are in a small army and have to wear multiple hats. It's not uncommon in startup companies for instance to actually do multiple jobs, and the bigger the company becomes the more specialized you become. 

I think it's implied that the playable character armies are far larger than they appear to be. We often see generic, faceless soldiers on the good guys' side when there's an absence of blue-controlled units to fill the map, so I think we can chalk that up to Gameplay and Story Segregation. So I think the armies are as well-rounded as they need to be; and besides, forcing people to try and play multiple roles on a battlefield is the quickest way to having an army of mediocrity rather than an army of skilled specialists.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Extrasolar

[Jave]

On 14-03-2017 at 9:54 PM, Extrasolar said:

For people who don't care at all about story or character, reclass is probably a dream come true. You can turn all your units into mechanical badasses and eliminate any of their weaknesses? Awesome! ...But yeah, for someone who cares about story, resource management as an important part of FE and character, it's pretty bad.

Well, I care about story and resource management, but I also like the reclass feature and I hope it stays for future entries. I don't believe they are mutually exclusive.

I think it really depends on how much you're willing to suspend your disbelief when it comes to these things. If you're of the opinion of "I can't take this seriously so I don't like it", I think it's perfectly fine. But when several people are willing to accept something for what it is, it's when you have to ask yourself if it's worth keeping. For example, I didn't like reclass much in Shadow Dragon because of how ridiculously unlimited it was and it didn't really feel right, but I liked it on concept, so I was really glad they fixed it in Awakening and refined it even more in Fates. There's probably still room to make it better, but I'm okay with how it is now. I agree that in the DS games, it was too immersion-breaking and I couldn't "accept" it.

On a more general argument, I feel a lot of time the devs are aware of how certain things don't make much sense in games (like how people feel about reclass in FE), but they choose to include them anyway because it's not worth getting rid of something most people might enjoy anyway. The Ace Attorney, Professor Layton, and Zero Escape games are filled with stuff like this, but if you're willing to put up with that, you end up enjoying the games in a grander scale. One of the games in one of those series particular has a plot twist that is quite possibly the dumbest plot twist ever, because the amount of suspension of disbelief required for it to work is off the charts, and the plot of the whole game only works if that plot twist exists, which is why it's there in the first place.

And then you have games like Bravely Default, a game with not only infinite reclassing, but also a game with a plot that only works if you accept the main cast is a bunch of morons.

[Extrasolar]

20 hours ago, Jave said:

Well, I care about story and resource management, but I also like the reclass feature and I hope it stays for future entries. I don't believe they are mutually exclusive.

True, I know there are people that care about story and character and like reclass. I shouldn't have spoken so generally.

20 hours ago, Jave said:

I think it really depends on how much you're willing to suspend your disbelief when it comes to these things. If you're of the opinion of "I can't take this seriously so I don't like it", I think it's perfectly fine. But when several people are willing to accept something for what it is, it's when you have to ask yourself if it's worth keeping.

The suspension of disbelief and inconsistencies in character or backstory is my main problem with it, but also I acknowledge that FE in general requires a lot of suspension disbelief (not only in combat). My thing is that I just feel like emphasizing reclass breaks the game(s) in too many ways, as you can easily trivalize certain things (an exaggeration; I know that you have to use Seals and gain all those levels manually) just by reclassing a character and eliminating their weaknesses, while it also makes discussing/ranking units a much bigger headache than it was before.

By default I'm locked out of the loop or behind the times because I talk about units the way the game presents them to you originally; I say, for example, "Odin is a mediocre unit," only for someone to say "Lol you don't know anything, all you have to do is reclass him into x, give him y support bonuses, give him y items..."

Complexity does equal longevity, though, so I can definitely see that point. Reclass does encourage repeated playthroughs, but we already had self-imposed challenges in previous games without reclass - for example, going through the game with all female characters, or something like that. Not to mention, playthroughs where you just use different characters than before. Current FE games have gone out of their way to make themselves for accessible to other players, with Casual and Phoenix mode, but I argue that reclass adds layers of needless and at times confusing complexity on that.

20 hours ago, Jave said:

And then you have games like Bravely Default, a game with not only infinite reclassing, but also a game with a plot that only works if you accept the main cast is a bunch of morons.

Yeah. Bravely Default in general I'm more willing to accept because your characters start in a generalist all-around class, and the game itself is pretty much a "play around with all the possibilities to build your team" free-for-all, whereas earlier FE games were "you get so many of each thing, and you have to make it work." If FE had reclass from day one and/or your units started off as a generalist "customize me into something specialized" class, I would be way more willing to accept it and be at peace with it.

Adding it in did add more complexity to the battle/unit system, but that's not necessarily a good thing. And it broke narrative consistency in a lot of cases.

Edited March 16, 2017 by Extrasolar

[Sasori]

To me it depends. I did't like the way shadow dragon did reclassing. I thought it made the characters as a whole less unique.
 

I thought the Awakening first gens had the right idea with reclassing. It was limited to only two other classes and they mostly designed those with personality in mind. Chrom fanboy Ricken gets the same options as Chrom, Henry gets the morally ambigous classes and Cherche's healing classes get explained in her backstory.

[Topaz Light]

Personally, my feelings on reclassing are... a little complex.

I'd really like to see it work like Shadow Dragon and New Mystery again in terms of the method by which characters are reclassed, but keep the Awakening- and Fates-style character-based class sets, rather than a couple generic reclass sets based on starting class. For me, the most fun thing about reclassing is trying out characters in other classes and just playing around with that, while Awakening and especially Fates are set up in a way that discourages experimentation by placing limits and financial/resource requirements on when and how characters can be reclassed, while carrying over skills from other classes can end up reducing certain classes to nothing but skill providers that aren't really worth actually using on their own merits. One idea I tossed around was, instead of having character-based reclass options, having certain options to change characters' classes to a specific other class, like, say, there's someone who could teach a character magic, allowing a character of your choice to become a Mage, but you could only use that for one character.

I say this, but I honestly am not super invested in newer games keeping reclass. If they do, that's alright, and if they don't, that's fine, too. I'd honestly kinda prefer them not to, frankly, but I don't think reclassing is necessarily a net negative or anything. I'm interested in seeing where they take it, at any rate.

Branching promotions, on the other hand, I am a fan of. I feel they're a great way to add a little bit of character customization without running into the out-of-character class assignment issue, since by nature, promotion represents a character moving forward with their chosen vocation, rather than sideways, as reclassing represents. To me, it absolutely makes sense that there would be multiple ways to move forward from any given base class in Fire Emblem, so representing that in gameplay and giving the player a little bit of freedom is something I'm very much a fan of.