Do you like the new mechanics in "Fire Emblem Three Houses" ?

[Alastor15243]

Just now, eclipse said:

Yes.  Because the choice exists to use weapons outside of what the class wants you to.  This opens up far more possibilities than "you must use X weapon against Y weapon for best results".

How? The game didn't add any differences between weapons that we haven't seen in games with a weapon triangle before. It just took them away. So how does turning "you must use X weapon against Y weapon for best results unless you aren't trying to kill" into "you must use X weapon against ALL weapons for best results unless you aren't trying to kill" add "far more possibilities"?

[eclipse]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

How? The game didn't add any differences between weapons that we haven't seen in games with a weapon triangle before. It just took them away. So how does turning "you must use X weapon against Y weapon for best results unless you aren't trying to kill" into "you must use X weapon against ALL weapons for best results unless you aren't trying to kill" add "far more possibilities"?

Different MT, weight, hit rate, available combat arts, and skills locked to wielding a weapon aren't enough for you?  The first three were in every single FE game.

The point is that you can choose whether or not your once-swordlocked class will continue to be a swordlocked class.  Or perhaps pack a Javelin for a cheap ranged option.  Or maybe hack out a Mace because my Armorslayer is elsewhere.  In earlier classes, having a Myrmidon use an axe is an option to secure kills.  FE is still a numbers game, even if the numbers are a little bigger.

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Different MT, weight, hit rate, available combat arts, and skills locked to wielding a weapon aren't enough for you?  The first three were in every single FE game.

First, you say that like it wasn't exactly my point. The game didn't add anything, it just took pre-existing depth away.

Second, this is why I used swords for my example, because when you have swordfaire, axes and lances lose in mt, wt, and hit rate. You need to get lance or axefaire, which takes pretty much mastering it, in order to invent a situation where those weapons wouldn't lose that argument.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Alastor15243

[eclipse]

2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

First, you say that like it wasn't exactly my point. The game didn't add anything, it just took pre-existing depth away.

Second, this is why I used swords for my example, because when you have swordfaire, axes and lances lose in mt, wt, and hit rate. You need to get lance or axefaire, which takes pretty much mastering it, in order to invent a situation where those weapons wouldn't lose that argument.

What, using any weapon is less depth than being stuck to using weapons in specific situations for best results?

The "weapon level X" skills also add stats - maybe not the most useful thing, but I get more mileage out of them than the likes of Authority.  Lances/axes get cheap throwing options, swords can hit Res, axes/swords get armor effectiveness while lances get cavalry effectiveness. . .just like old FE games.  Except this time, I don't have to be a lancer to use a Horseslayer.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, eclipse said:

What, using any weapon is less depth than being stuck to using weapons in specific situations for best results?

The "weapon level X" skills also add stats - maybe not the most useful thing, but I get more mileage out of them than the likes of Authority.  Lances/axes get cheap throwing options, swords can hit Res, axes/swords get armor effectiveness while lances get cavalry effectiveness. . .just like old FE games.  Except this time, I don't have to be a lancer to use a Horseslayer.

We seem to be arguing completely different things here. Just to be clear, are you arguing that the new system is better, or that it's not bad enough to warrant criticism?

[Integrity]

the big thing is that the new weapon usage system among classes is completely incompatible with the weapon triangle, and the new system they came up with is better for tactical depth than the weapon triangle has been in literally any game besides heroes, where it's exaggerated to make a puzzle game - very successfully overall.

 

what eclipse is getting at is that, while the weapons may not have huge statistical differences on paper, by midgame you have to burn your limited skill slots to prime the skills to make a weapon great, and no user is going to do that for every weapon - combine that with the different arts for different weapons, and you end up actually specializing guys (bows aside) for different weapons organically, rather than the game saying THIS GARCIA. GARCIA AXE.

 

in my completely unhumble opinion, the feth system blows the weapon triangle and previous associated systems out of the water for replayability and thought - with the exception, as said, of feh, where it's actually a driving force to strategy and not an interest system that piddles into disuse by lategame

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Integrity said:

the big thing is that the new weapon usage system among classes is completely incompatible with the weapon triangle, and the new system they came up with is better for tactical depth than the weapon triangle has been in literally any game besides heroes, where it's exaggerated to make a puzzle game - very successfully overall.

 

what eclipse is getting at is that, while the weapons may not have huge statistical differences on paper, by midgame you have to burn your limited skill slots to prime the skills to make a weapon great, and no user is going to do that for every weapon - combine that with the different arts for different weapons, and you end up actually specializing guys (bows aside) for different weapons organically, rather than the game saying THIS GARCIA. GARCIA AXE.

 

in my completely unhumble opinion, the feth system blows the weapon triangle and previous associated systems out of the water for replayability and thought - with the exception, as said, of feh, where it's actually a driving force to strategy and not an interest system that piddles into disuse by lategame

If there were big enough differences between the weapons to make the decision meaningful, I might be inclined to grudgingly agree. But like I said, there's almost no point to swords, axes and lances being different weapon types in this game at all because they didn't make them different enough from each other, especially compared to the other weapon types. If you're a sword user trying to choose whether to minor in bows, fists or axes, the last one doesn't hold a candle to the first two. It's a choice between giving yourself bows for accurate player-phase 2 range (or 1-2 range if you get a single early-game skill), fists for lightweight and high durability brave weapons with a brave combat art, or axes for... what exactly? Every axe will be worse in every way than its equivalent sword until you literally max it out and then you're using a skill slot for the ability to trade hit and maybe even AS for like 4 more damage than what you've been able to do with swords the entire time you've been in the class for free.

[Integrity]

and a sword user choosing what to minor in out of two things is already more choice than was afforded to many classes before feth, what's your point? i don't know how they could give much more than each weapon having arts that are effective versus certain move types without completely derailing the system, given as every unit can equip anything. any statement about sword balance can be reflected straight back on every game besides 11/12 (with free reclassing) except for that swords were locked to sword users and thus non-sword (or <weapon> insert depending on game) users just start at a basic disadvantage by accident of their birth. you're arguing the correct things, but these literally represent a step forward for fire emblem.

 

the lack of need to choose between all the effective weapon arts from sword/lance/axe is far more down to feth being generally easier than the previous games than the system being bad. in the easier games of the series - hell, to the extreme, take fe8 - having weapon triangle advantage is essentially meaningless except for fighting some bosses past about chapter 9, to ignore all the weapons that were added and added up through fates that just exist outside of the weapon triangle.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Integrity said:

and a sword user choosing what to minor in out of two things is already more choice than was afforded to many classes before feth, what's your point? i don't know how they could give much more than each weapon having arts that are effective versus certain move types without completely derailing the system, given as every unit can equip anything.

Simple: either a, get rid of the omnipresent class skill faires, or b, bring back the weapon triangle. Either one of these changes would suddenly create an instance where a sword master training in axes, or a lance class training in axes for that matter, isn't a massively inefficient waste of time. If they had the weapon triangle, there would be some enemies that axe rank comes in handy against, and if they didn't give every class faires, then axes would actually beat out swords in at least one area that would make them sometimes a wiser choice. But both of these design choices combined mean that training in more than one of the big three will almost never give you any benefit at all.

[Integrity]

you say it's simple like that means anything

 

i assume by the 'omnipresent class skill faires' you mean the intermediate class mastery skills, which arrive in midgame, to reward you for specializing in a weapon in a system where you can equip every weapon? i genuinely don't know what you're proposing here. is it good or bad to reward a unit for specializing in a weapon? how is this any worse than the previous system of not giving you a choice?

 

bringing back the weapon triangle would be completely irrelevant in the game unless you gave every enemy the ability to choose weapons, and then it just becomes rock-paper-scissors whack-a-mole. with the weapon triangle in the game against this pile of lance men, i can just drop felix, with his good stats and E axes, and a training axe, and let the weapon triangle win the fights for me - unless the weapon triangle isn't that impactful, in which case why would i bother dropping with axes?

 

 

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Integrity said:

i assume by the 'omnipresent class skill faires' you mean the intermediate class mastery skills, which arrive in midgame, to reward you for specializing in a weapon in a system where you can equip every weapon? i genuinely don't know what you're proposing here. is it good or bad to reward a unit for specializing in a weapon? how is this any worse than the previous system of not giving you a choice?

Because the bonus is so massive that the choice is an illusion. All the game is giving you in this respect is an exciting buffet of objectively terrible ideas. When you make the differences between swords, axes and lances as subtle as they are in this game, giving a boost of 5 attack power to any single one of them is so massive that it blows the choice out of the water. And comparing faired swords to unfaired axes only makes this glaringly obvious because in that case swords beat axes in literally everything.

Now, if they made it so that swords were lighter, axes were stronger and lances had better accuracy, and then made swordfaire boost sword AS, axefaire boost axe mt, and then had lancefaire boost lance accuracy, then we might have something fun here, because the others still win out in their specific areas and still have their uses, even if overall the specialty one is better most of the time.

[Integrity]

yes, if you take a guy down the singular path to faire swords, they are best using swords, this is bad because

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, Integrity said:

yes, if you take a guy down the singular path to faire swords, they are best using swords, this is bad because

Because by halfway through the game at the latest, every single class has at least one of these inherently. Which means basically nothing has changed, at least when it comes to the big three. The way the game is balanced, the fact that you can use lances as a sword master, or axes as a falcon knight, means nothing. The game makes the class's specialties such vastly better options that the choice might as well not exist. So there's no benefit or extra freedom to the current system at all, the other weapons have just been "upgraded" from "hard bans" to "objectively worse but you can use them if you want I guess, ya weirdo".

Edited August 17, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Integrity]

so at the worst you can make any of your guys any traditional fire emblem class, if you don't think about the implications or considering any more difficult options, and this is less desirable than the previous system where all of your weapons were chosen for you because

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Integrity said:

so at the worst you can make any of your guys any traditional fire emblem class, if you don't think about the implications or considering any more difficult options, and this is less desirable than the previous system where all of your weapons were chosen for you because

Because of the strategic depth they removed in its place.

Let me put it this way: if Fates let you wield any weapon type in the game, regardless of class, but just applied a -5 might penalty to the ones outside of your class's traditional repertoire, then unlike here, there would still be an actual reason for a sword master to use an axe sometimes, because the differences between them weren't small enough for that to be a dealbreaker.

[Parrhesia]

Why are you classing into 'sword' 'master', master of swords, if you don't want to get better at using swords, sweetheart?

[Integrity]

and yet you're just talking shit because of the weapon triangle - if the weapon triangle is there, does the penalty outweigh the triangle or not? if the penalty outweighs the triangle, it's still worthless and nothing changes by letting people use nonclass weapons - if the penalty does not outweigh the triangle, then it's completely pointless and you just equip the weapon that counters your enemy, much like that complicated children's game, "rock paper scissors but your enemy throws before you do"

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Integrity said:

and yet you're just talking shit because of the weapon triangle - if the weapon triangle is there, does the penalty outweigh the triangle or not? if the penalty outweighs the triangle, it's still worthless and nothing changes by letting people use nonclass weapons - if the penalty does not outweigh the triangle, then it's completely pointless and you just equip the weapon that counters your enemy, much like that complicated children's game, "rock paper scissors but your enemy throws before you do"

I don't even get what you're arguing anymore. Do you or do you not agree that Three Houses would be a better game if the ability to use exotic weapons had actual practical gameplay effects because there was a big enough difference between the weapons in some way or another that a +5 mt boost to one didn't render the others pointless?

[Integrity]

all i'm doing is pointing out how all the shit you're talking is meaningless platitudes, feth is great and imperfect as-is and the differences between weapons are exaggerated more by the game being easy than the system being bad

 

EDIT: and i'll put this out there - heroes is genuinely my favorite fire emblem. heroes is genuinely the fire emblem that pushes the weapon triangle the hardest. i love the weapon triangle. the weapon triangle has failed to prove itself in every game before to some degree or another, except on the higher difficulties, and adding it to feth would be pointless.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Integrity

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Integrity said:

all i'm doing is pointing out how all the shit you're talking is meaningless platitudes, feth is great and imperfect as-is and the differences between weapons are exaggerated more by the game being easy than the system being bad

Okay, can you at least start punctuating and capitalizing your sentences if we're going to continue this discussion?

[Integrity]

no