What IS learned prior to making 3H and what they still don't realize (gameplay and spoilers in video form)

[Life]

So, I just bought 3H for myself and yes, this game definitely sits up there as one of the best FE games that they've ever made. I have my criticisms but I really want to talk about the three main things that always defined a good/bad unit in the universe and see if IS learned their lesson.

I'm only halfway through Chapter 3 but I've seen enough gameplay to make an accurate assessment in my opinion.

 

1. The higher the Move, the more useful you are.

What makes a unit "bad"? Well, the first answer that comes to mind in this series is low Move. Paladins are always the best units in an FE game due to good stats and a horse. Meanwhile, Generals are generally bad simply because a Paladin can usually kill an enemy before the General gets there. Kinda makes certain units obsolete. Even for casual players, who really wants a 5 Move General to fall behind the rest of the army on the first turn?

Did IS solve this problem?

Well, I'm only on Chapter 3 and Stride is literally the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. You mean I can now have Dedue move 9 spaces into the middle of an army on Turn 1 and just sit and tank? Wow, now I can come up with new strategies instead of "give everyone a mount" and have them still be relatively efficient.

Yeah, I think IS finally realized that low Move units need some help. It's still going to make high Move units into gods (I can't wait to Stride Paladin Dimitri and see him move like... I'm guessing 14 tiles) but this is a lot more impactful for low Move units who can actually now do stuff and not be too punished for it.

 

2. The only stat that actually matters is Spd.

What is the best skill in FE4? If you didn't instinctively say "Pursuit", go and play FE4 again. The ability to double an enemy gives that unit 2x the offensive ability on the spot. It's really hard to undersell how important it is to hit an enemy twice instead of once.

Did IS solve this problem?

Well... I want to say yes but it might be too early to tell. I like the fact that weapons are really heavy and gimp your AS... while C Heavy Armour gives -3 Wt as a skill. I've seen Ashe double an Iron Sword Myrmidon while he has a Lance and this was in Chapter 2 (even took a picture because nobody else is doing that). That's pretty cool. We'll see as the game progresses but I really like this new formula that actually has me considering Wt seriously.

 

3. Flying utility is god.

Mekkah's old Top 30 Units of all time list has the "Chicks with Wings" sitting pretty simply because of flying ability (Karin/Thany/Florina/Vanessa). If you can fly over things, that makes you instantly more usable than a unit that cannot fly.

Did IS solve this problem?

Lol no.

 

All in all, really impressed so far by the gameplay. The story is pretty good aside from my main issue of being bogged down by Byleth's sheer existance. And like everyone else, I'm floored by the music score. Since I bought a Switch solely for this game, damn, I'm impressed.

 

Your thoughts?

[Boomhauer007]

To answer in terms of addressing the 3 points:

1. Stride still doesn't matter a ton for low move units because using it on high move units makes them even better. Why have 9 move when you can have 13 move? Especially when all those 8 move classes have hyper canto.

2. The speed penalties to armor classes are so ridiculous that you can have 0 weapon weight and it doesn't matter. And silver weapons are still pretty light for how strong they are. But I would speed is equally as important as it's always been, not any more or less than  before.

3. You'd have to really seriously gimp the combat capabilities of fliers to make them not dominate. Or gimp their move. Or be 3H and give wyvern Lord 8b move and some of the best stats lol.

[Life]

1 minute ago, Boomhauer007 said:

To answer in terms of addressing the 3 points:

1. Stride still doesn't matter a ton for low move units because using it on high move units makes them even better. Why have 9 move when you can have 13 move? Especially when all those 8 move classes have hyper canto.

2. The speed penalties to armor classes are so ridiculous that you can have 0 weapon weight and it doesn't matter. And silver weapons are still pretty light for how strong they are. But I would speed is equally as important as it's always been, not any more or less than  before.

3. You'd have to really seriously gimp the combat capabilities of fliers to make them not dominate. Or gimp their move. Or be 3H and give wyvern Lord 8b move and some of the best stats lol.

Fair enough. But you see what I mean, right? At least some thought went into some of these issues.

[Eltoshen]

Based on what people have said so far this game didn't solve any of those issues except make it so that you can make more Wyvern Lords instead of being forced to use a specific 1 or 2.

You can also now inherit the only useful aspects of those other classes as skills without having to be that class in the long run.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Eltoshen

[Cysx]

1: I do agree that stride fixed low move being an instant death sentence for an unit. Move is still extremely polarizing however, especially with canto in the picture.

2: Well I'm not even sure I agree with the premise here, but in general, it's a mixed bag. This game allows such levels of Atk stacking that OHKOing enemies is accessible and reliable from fairly early on all the way into the endgame, especially for magic users. Gauntlets also exist, translating high strength into massive damage without the need for doubling. Brave combat arts are a thing too. And finally, classes having their own bases means your speed cannot be utterly catastrophic outside of armored classes, with some of them making it good no matter what. So overall, it is fair to say that this FE is the most friendly towards bad speed units since probably Thracia.
Still, the best classes in the game have access to neither gauntlets nor magic, and I'd argue weapon weight mattering makes speed all the more important. So it's still an extremely pivotal stat as well.

3: Mekkkah is a bit hasty in his judgements of this game I find, but he is completely correct that flying units are mind-numbingly stupid this time around. They actually took pretty potent steps in nerfing horses too, making flier dominance all the more out of place, and a pretty big reason why I have very little hope that Lunatic will make this game genuinely difficult.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Cysx

[Eltoshen]

Regarding lunatic difficulty, I feel like sprinkling effective weaponry throughout the map that targets cavalry and flying units is a good start like I saw somebody else mention.

Add bows and horse killers, balance from there.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Eltoshen

[Cysx]

1 minute ago, Eltoshen said:

Regarding lunatic difficulty, I feel like sprinkling effective weaponry throughout the map that targets cavalry and flying units is a good start like I saw somebody else mention.

Add bows and horse killers, balance from there.

Unfortunately dismounting is a free action, and fliers don't have to take a counter or compromise on their positioning in the first place. You'd need to be quite extreme with this kind of fixes for them to work, because the problem goes deeper this time around. And really, we already have a lot of enemy bow users, all with 3 range... and it doesn't make a difference.

Also, effectiveness negating accessories, while not accessible immediately, are also just genuinely good whether you actually have a weakness or not because they're the only shields that give defense and weigh nothing.

[Eltoshen]

Oh right I forgot about the dismounting without taking a turn. Youd figure theyd be able to potentially patch that for Lunatic mode in particular, though. That'd require IS to read discussions online, however, so I can see why there's cynicism.

And effectiveness negating accessories are limited so you cant just stack them on every flier or cavalry unit.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Eltoshen

[Boomhauer007]

15 minutes ago, Life said:

Fair enough. But you see what I mean, right? At least some thought went into some of these issues.

Having played 4 all routes, my best summary of balance was they tried stuff that sounded good and then put it in without testing it. Weight -3 in armor is actually a great example of that to me, a good skill but useless on the classes that get it since fort knights are lucky to hit 10 speed.

But yeah I don't think there's any way to balance the ridiculous move options in this game. You would have to do something ridiculous like just take out hyper canto or allow siege weapons to work on player phase, nothing exists in the game in it's current state to address it. Stride not being lol D rank would help but that's more of a bandaid than a fix.

[Hyper L]

Not only just Dismount is the fact fliers just have insane avoid for no freaking reason.

[Dark Holy Elf]

2 hours ago, Eltoshen said:

Oh right I forgot about the dismounting without taking a turn. Youd figure theyd be able to potentially patch that for Lunatic mode in particular, though. That'd require IS to read discussions online, however, so I can see why there's cynicism.

 

I have a hard time seeing Intsys make a change which directly nerfs a player tool, that seems like it'll annoy a segment of the fanbase who enjoys using that tool, and it's a safe bet that such a segment will be larger and more vocal than those who want greater class balance. If IntSys rebalances classes I think it's more likely they'll do so by improving weaker classes in some way. +1 move for lategame infantry classes? Better stat mods? Fixing such obvious headscratchers as Mortal Savant's negative speed growth? Dunno. I wouldn't expect major changes on the class balance front regardless.

 

Anyway, to chime in on the original points:

(1) I think giving high-move classes Canto definitely re-emphasised the advantage those classes have. High move is good, but Canto on top of that just makes the classes dominant. Are you an expert going for fast clear times? Canto lets you kill a foe and keep moving forwrad. Are you a casual player who likes to play defensively? Canto lets you kill a foe then retreat to safety. As we've seen in other games with Canto, it makes the units with it really, really dominant.

(2) Speed's still the best stat to have, point for point, although I agree that between brave weapons, combat arts, and Death Blow/Fiendish Blow, it's never been easier to also get OHKOs as well, which makes Strength more valuable than it normally is. Stats are still horrendously imbalanced, and in fact Skill/Dex may well be worse than ever, only offering +1 hit per point (usually it's +2 or +1.5).

(3) I'm of the opinion that fliers are basically always silly good in FE. IntSys is aware that some people are terrified of their bow weakness and makes them powerful to compensate; for a skilled player who can navigate these threats, fliers are always going to present immense tactical advantages unless they make a FE devoid of impassable terrain. But certainly this game plays to all the strengths for fliers: they have great stats (Wyvern Lord's are downright silly), Canto, and maps are terrain-heavy, plus Dismount is an option if you desperately want to benefit from terrain avo bonuses or need to avoid archers.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Dark Holy Elf

[alatartheblue42]

1) Rather than Stride, the better adaptation is the March Ring (+1 move while equipped) and Warp/Rescue being uses per battle rather than per item. Stride is good on everyone. March Ring is only particularly good for slow people, because mounts generally aren't going to get a huge boost from just one more move. Warp/Rescue are part of the new "use per battle" system, which makes them less valuable/more usable. I don't have to worry about saving my one or two Warp staves in the game for some emergency situation, I can just pop my armored god to the front lines and watch stuff die.

2) Speed is still crucial for units to have, especially flimsier ones. They haven't really solved this issue, its just that 3H is a pretty easy game overall even on Hard. If you know what you're doing, then you can work around your speed issues, but at the same time, may Naga have mercy on your soul if an enemy can double one of your mages or something.

3) Flying is still god tier. Its just again that the game isn't super challenging yet (so other units still seem good) and that even just Pegasus Knight is an Intermediate class (which means you probably won't have one on the third or fourth battle you fight in).

 

Golden Deer is easily the worst house overall, change my mind

[Eltoshen]

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I have a hard time seeing Intsys make a change which directly nerfs a player tool, that seems like it'll annoy a segment of the fanbase who enjoys using that tool, and it's a safe bet that such a segment will be larger and more vocal than those who want greater class balance. If IntSys rebalances classes I think it's more likely they'll do so by improving weaker classes in some way. +1 move for lategame infantry classes? Better stat mods? Fixing such obvious headscratchers as Mortal Savant's negative speed growth? Dunno. I wouldn't expect major changes on the class balance front regardless.

Sounds pretty silly to balance lunatic mode around casuals but I digress.

[Life]

Personally, I would love to see a Ranking system that's introduced in Lunatic like the SNES/GBA games that forces things like money and Exp management (like if you're going to ape FE4 pretty hard, might as well take that ranking system too) rather than just a straight buff to enemy stats and Vantage.

 

Ranks are the only reason why I still play FE7 at all.

 

But yeah, I find it funny that while I thought IS mitigated those issues, it turns out "nope, it's even more silly than previously because of Wyvern Riders".

[dragonlordsd]

@Life

I think you hit a few things on the head. 

First off, I don't know how new to the series you are, but the removal of weapon weight was probably the single biggest balance mistake IS ever made.

As you said, it turned speed into a stat that was far more important than it really had any right to be. Awakening was incredibly plagued with this, where a lot of classes were absolutely worthless based purely on speed.

Weapon weight allows you not just to use raw speed, or raw strength, but also the stats of the weapons themselves to manipulate the system. The result is more options for the player, more tactical decisions, and better trade offs for classes.

The bad news on the move front is the lack of stat caps.

Previous games counterbalanced movement by using stat caps to heavily restrict how good a unit could become. Three houses has... functionally no stat caps (Yes, I know they do exist, but they're mostly in the 70s-80s), so there's no real difference between a unit that started as a pegasus knight and reclassed to a general and a unit that started as a general and reclassed to a pegasus knight.

Edited August 29, 2019 by dragonlordsd

[Garlyle]

1. The higher the Move, the more useful you are.

This is probably not the best game to show a counterexample for this. Maps in Three houses are big, but at least it's easy to traverse through them. The 4 move was very low for maps like Chapter 5, where you had to spiral through the entire map. Some mounted units have it's double, 8 move, which is still very useful.

2. The only stat that actually matters is Spd.

Spd is a great stat, and in this game a few units still suffer for it. If you are slow, can't one hit enemies and you are squishy too, get ready for cleaning the bench nice and shiny. I found units that I didn't want to use for this reason, even when they had interesting skills to offer - it just doesn't worth it. A higher speed definitely could've saved them.

3. Flying utility is god.

Fliers can't do rescue drops in this game as they did in previous titles. Also none of them can use any sort of magic, not even healing ones. On the other hand, anyone can become a Wyvern Lord, fixes up your Spd and also gives it +10% growth. Also really good in Str and Def, what more do you need? Fliers are also very dodgy, thanks to Avo +10 and Alert Stance+. While archers are their supreme version in this game, they can struggle hunting down flying units in this game more than before.

[Life]

3 hours ago, dragonlordsd said:

@Life

I think you hit a few things on the head. 

First off, I don't know how new to the series you are, but the removal of weapon weight was probably the single biggest balance mistake IS ever made.

As you said, it turned speed into a stat that was far more important than it really had any right to be. Awakening was incredibly plagued with this, where a lot of classes were absolutely worthless based purely on speed.

Weapon weight allows you not just to use raw speed, or raw strength, but also the stats of the weapons themselves to manipulate the system. The result is more options for the player, more tactical decisions, and better trade offs for classes.

The bad news on the move front is the lack of stat caps.

Previous games counterbalanced movement by using stat caps to heavily restrict how good a unit could become. Three houses has... functionally no stat caps (Yes, I know they do exist, but they're mostly in the 70s-80s), so there's no real difference between a unit that started as a pegasus knight and reclassed to a general and a unit that started as a general and reclassed to a pegasus knight.

First game was FE7 about... 18 years ago, still own a hard copy of FE9 and favourite game is either FE4 or FE7. I'm actually not incredibly familiar with Awakening onwards but I grew up on GBA/NGC games.

 

Which reminds me, I should probably restart my S Rank runs of FE7 from 8 years ago.

 

The lack of stat caps does annoy me a bit since there is no reason to not go full Wyvern aside from "well, let's just try everything out and have some variety".

[Hyper L]

They need to amplify the power of the HP stat. As things are right now, even having 60 HP doesn't help tanking at all mid to end game, specially if you get doubled all the time..

Change the base stat name to Vitality (Vit) and make HP = Vit x 3. (Change the unit's base Vit to 1/3 of what they usually are to accommodate the change).

If that's too much, make the stat do something else like reducing damage taken by (HP/2)%.

Something like: Final Dmg = Dmg - (Dmg x HP/200).

Either way, currently HP is too unrewarding a stat and any unit with high growth in it is losing out.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Hyper L

[Burklight]

1 hour ago, Hyper L said:

They need to amplify the power of the HP stat. As things are right now, even having 60 HP doesn't help tanking at all mid to end game, specially if you get doubled all the time..

Change the base stat name to Vitality (Vit) and make HP = Vit x 3. (Change the unit's base Vit to 1/3 of what they usually are to accommodate the change).

If that's too much, make the stat do something else like reducing damage taken by (HP/2)%.

Something like: Final Dmg = Dmg - (Dmg x HP/200).

Either way, currently HP is too unrewarding a stat and any unit with high growth in it is losing out.

I think the reason HP seems underwhelming, at least compared to a lot of previous games, is that attack in general is a lot higher. The base stats at level 1 for attack for most units is close to double what it would have been in say....FE7. Then add in all the +5 class skills and battalions and suddenly, hp and defense is somewhat consistent with previous games, but attack is so much higher it's laughable.   

[freewaffles]

17 hours ago, Boomhauer007 said:

2. The speed penalties to armor classes are so ridiculous that you can have 0 weapon weight and it doesn't matter. And silver weapons are still pretty light for how strong they are. But I would speed is equally as important as it's always been, not any more or less than  before.

 

Strongly disagree with this because the Weight abilities stack. 

Compare Sylvain that goes Fighter/Brigand at level 30 using a Silver Axe (10 weight; Paladin will use Silver Lance for Lancefaire, so 9 weight)

Fortress Knight/Great Knight: 26 Str, 17 Speed, - 5 Weight from Strength, -5 Weight from Armor Skills = Attack Speed of 17.

Paladin/Paladin: 29 Str, 20 Speed, -5 Weight from Strength = Attack Speed of 16 (if you diverge to C-armor, it'll be 19).

Warrior/Great Knight: 28 Str, 18 Speed, -5 Weight from Strength, - 5 weight from Armor Skill = Attack Speed of 18.

Warrior/Warmaster: 31 Strength, 26 Speed, - 6 weight from Strength = Attack Speed of 22

Wyvern Rider/Lord: 30 Strength, 28 Speed, - 6 weight from Strength = 24 Attack Speed.

 

The Great Knight isn't fast by any means, but it negates the speed drop compared to Paladin, unless you diverge into Armor. The issue is movement.

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by freewaffles

[Hyper L]

Problem is there's no equivalent upside for having less movement, or downside to having more.

More movement is just plainly superior, no drawbacks.

[magnetic_cactus]

I disagree that IS really understands how powerful MOV is. If they did, you would not see units like Wyvern Lords be given not just high MOV but also high offensive and defense power. The bow weakness is inapplicable to all but the most casual of players because of the presence of divine pulse, the fact archers cannot fight back in melee, and the fact that all flying (and mounted) units have not just Canto to escape but free dismount. 

Late game classes should be based around 5 MOV. +1 MOV should provide major drawbacks - less damage, less survivability, less utility. -1 MOV should provide major benefits - higher damage, higher survivability, higher utility. Units like Fortress Knights, which are low damage (won't be doubling) and low MOV should be essentially unkillable, with skills like "cannot be doubled by enemies regardless of AS", and have high utility, with skills like "dealing damage to the enemy prevents them from moving for a turn". Units like Wyvern Lords, which are high damage (good bonus/growths on Str and Spd, axefaire) and high MOV should be super frail (Avo -10, not +10; what were they thinking?) and provide next to no utility beyond their MOV, while Falcon Knights can retain the avoid-tanking at the expense of damage.

Edited August 29, 2019 by magnetic_cactus

[Boomhauer007]

59 minutes ago, freewaffles said:

Compare Sylvain that goes Fighter/Brigand at level 30 using a Silver Axe (10 weight; Paladin will use Silver Lance for Lancefaire, so 9 weight)

Fortress Knight/Great Knight: 26 Str, 17 Speed, - 5 Weight from Strength, -5 Weight from Armor Skills = Attack Speed of 17.

Paladin/Paladin: 29 Str, 20 Speed, -5 Weight from Strength = Attack Speed of 16 (if you diverge to C-armor, it'll be 19).

Warrior/Great Knight: 28 Str, 18 Speed, -5 Weight from Strength, - 5 weight from Armor Skill = Attack Speed of 18.

Warrior/Warmaster: 31 Strength, 26 Speed, - 6 weight from Strength = Attack Speed of 22

Wyvern Rider/Lord: 30 Strength, 28 Speed, - 6 weight from Strength = 24 Attack Speed.

This analysis kind of proved what I was saying, even with all of those weight drops the great knight is still getting doubled by both the warmaster and the wyvern lord, and using a skill slot to do it. Sure it helps a paladin, but why is a character ending in paladin investing in heavy armor?

And I know not everybody likes to debate opportunity cost, but i see much more value in A+ riding for a great knight (or anything) for move +1 than A armor. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't think A+ axe / A armor / A+ riding is possible in a fresh run until it's too late to be of any practical use.

That being said having thought about it I agree with previous posts that speed is less important in this game simply because any physical class can deal comical amounts of burst damage through skills, and enemy phase isn't terribly important in 3H.

[CyberNinja]

What effect on balance would simply dropping 2 pts of move and canto off fliers have on the game?

[Hyper L]

21 minutes ago, CyberNinja said:

What effect on balance would simply dropping 2 pts of move and canto off fliers have on the game?

They would still have some top tier stats but at least they would be forced to make use of said stats at the same pace as other classes.

Whoever if you only apply that to fliers, calvary (specifically Bow knight) would become the new dominators, you gotta knock at point of move from them too.

Personally tho, I´m much more a fan of pumping every Advanced/Master Classes mov to 8. The infantry moving that fast could be explained with them having Naruto level running or some shit. Mortal Savant is pretty much a shinobi anyway, lol.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Hyper L