Why Harken and Karel are a balanced unit choice

[Hello72207]

Harken and Karel are two prepromoted units you must choose between in FE7. To choose between them, depending on the version of the chapter you are playing, you must either kill at least 3 promoted units or open at least 3 doors by turn 9 to get Karel, and any less by turn 9 gives you Harken. Harken is considered the better of the two, due to having insane base stats. However, in terms of recruitment and what they do for the player, these two are balanced, in a blind run at least. Notice a few things about their recruitment. First of all, it is very unclear how they are split, and a blind player could not find out ahead of time how to get one or another, and not know which is the broken one. Second of all, once Harken appears, it is made clear ways to recruit him. Talk to him with a person from Ostia or Pherae. Karel is not as clear as to how to recruit him, and less people can. The final thing is that their recruitment is based on speed. Playing the chapter quickly gives you Karel. Playing slower gives you Harken.

 So we have made it clear that it is not possible to know how to get one or the other of them, It is clear to recruit Harken, but not Karel, and their recruitment is based on speed. The reason their recruitment is this way is for a very clear reason. Remember Kaga's philosophy on fire emblem? How most deaths shouldn't be reset for? This fits in with that. If you are a good player, and your good units are alive still, you will most likely play the chapter quickly and fulfill Karel's requirements, gaining a unit that you do not need but have the option to use if he interests you. If you are a bad player, many of your good units will be dead and you will be struggling to play quickly and fail the Karel requirements, and you will get a powerful unit to assist you. Therefore, Karel and Harken are balanced in terms of how much the player needs them.

[Punished Dayni]

>Intentionally plays the chapter slower to get Harken

>Sonic music stops

I mean, I get it. I would also argue Karel can do better with bosses than Harken, which is another way that can tie in to your point: Are you a bad enough dude to warpskip a map? Karel can do it better with his access to higher crit. Harken is overall a better unit, but Karel has ways he can still be useful which can affect the player's choice.

[Hello72207]

22 minutes ago, Dayni said:

>Intentionally plays the chapter slower to get Harken

>Sonic music stops

I mean, I get it. I would also argue Karel can do better with bosses than Harken, which is another way that can tie in to your point: Are you a bad enough dude to warpskip a map? Karel can do it better with his access to higher crit. Harken is overall a better unit, but Karel has ways he can still be useful which can affect the player's choice.

I said it was for a blind run, and Warpskipping is not really that big of a thing in FE7 as compared to FE6 and 8, also FE7 bosses are not very scary.

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Hello72207 said:

I said it was for a blind run, and Warpskipping is not really that big of a thing in FE7 as compared to FE6 and 8, also FE7 bosses are not very scary.

Hence why I should probably preface that with an asterisk, but I feel like people forget what the lategame bosses are like at times.

And yes wrapskipping is limited, to be fair because the earliest you can do it is Cog of Destiny.

[Dark Holy Elf]

4 hours ago, Dayni said:

I mean, I get it. I would also argue Karel can do better with bosses than Harken, which is another way that can tie in to your point: Are you a bad enough dude to warpskip a map? Karel can do it better with his access to higher crit. Harken is overall a better unit, but Karel has ways he can still be useful which can affect the player's choice.

Surely the Brave Sword is more useful for boss-killing than +15 crit. This is extra true against bosses who have high defences, which create a much bigger problem for Karel than Harken, due to the latter having +5 str (not including HHM bonuses).

Anyway I think @Hello72207's argument makes sense and that is probably why Harken is better than Karel, if indeed the devs thought about it at all. I don't really think it's good game design, but I can see the logic behind it.

[RomanFlour]

Harken I think would be more useful than Karel since Harken gets access to Axes, and thus 1-2 range and weapon triangle against most of the games' enemies; while Karel is swordlocked.

[Jotari]

You see this does make sense, but I still question the good design aspect. If we're to accept that Karel is for good players who can finish the map quickly, then that also means we need to assume said good player also has good units already, or at least units they know how to use well. Karel being rather underwhelming means his fate in the eyes of a good player is to have his Wo Dao stripped from him (probably to go on Lyn, though really anyone who's sword locked in this game is fighting an uphill battle) and left to wallow in the undeployed section of the army. It's better than not providing anything to fast players at all (because otherwise it feels like you're being punished for playing well if you're losing out on a unit completely, though most player who care enough would wait around for Harken), but if your booby prize is someone quite a bit worse than everyone you already have, well then what's the point mechanically speaking? If anything for this perspective to work Karel should have been a staffer that comes with warp to reward fast play with the ability to play faster (or at least make him a marginally useful cavalry unit).

[Whisky]

I agree with Dark Holy Elf about the Brave Sword being better than +15 Crit.

 

It’s possible that your theory is right. It might have actually worked better if it was the other way around though. That way, you would get rewarded for playing well with a good unit (Harken) and since in your hypothetical situation the slower player has lost units and has an overall weaker team, that player would benefit more from getting the consolation prize (Karel). Karel isn’t terrible, he can definitely benefit someone if they’ve had a lot of deaths and don’t have many good characters but he likely won’t help a player that is already able to play quickly.

 

And if your theory is correct, then the developers didn’t think it through for multiple playthroughs because knowledgeable players will purposely slow down to get the clearly superior character.

[Florete]

The primary issue I see with this is that Harken comes as an enemy while Karel comes as an NPC, the latter of which is much more likely to be recruitable and can actually help a player clear the map even before being recruited. I remember back when my brother was first playing the game he was having a ton of trouble getting past Harken because he had no idea he could recruit the guy. You say it's clear how to recruit him, but that only matters if the player considers that an option in the first place, and the less-experienced players who are theoretically more likely to get Harken to appear are less likely to realize that at all. And, of course, merely recruiting him is harder than recruiting Karel, whom you can just safely waltz up to.

My theory is that there wasn't nearly this much thought put into it. They probably considered the two to be relatively even. They come at the same level, one has better Str and durability, the other better Spd and high crit. The developers don't have the same idea of unit balance as we do.

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

on a side note: there's also people that rather than using always the same units on every single map, they tend to switch them around depending on the terrain and the enemies weaknesses, in order to make things a bit easier.

then, there's also people that temporarily bench units already capped at lv20 before getting any promotion items(usually the lords, if they get exp boosted from early game).

that way they can play and level more units through the game, eventually increasing the potential of backup units in case someone else dies.

 

as for Karel/Harken's recruitment: in terms of rewarding good players, i think it might have made more sense if they were actually swapped the other way around instead, but that's just me.

in the end, it's all about points of view. there's really no wrong or right choice.

Edited August 10, 2020 by 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ