How do you think magic use should be approached in gameplay?

[Samz707]

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

 

The other problem I have is that per-game limits restrict the possibilities for map design. Every map in Fire Emblem has to be designed under the assumption that the player won't have access to meteor, warp, fortify, etc. because many players won't. If they created a system where the player was guaranteed to have exactly one use of warp in a given map then that opens up all sorts of interesting new possibilities that they could design around. This is more wishful thinking on my part than anything else, since I don't think this is something that IS have ever really done, but it is a road I'd like to see them take in the future.

Then you have the problem of what if you didn't recruit a mage with the spell/your mage with that particular spell died and now you no longer have access to it.

Or even just not levelling them up enough to get that spell.

I wouldn't mind maps built to use certain spells but then you'd need to either A:make it optional, B:Give you a unit already capable of it or C:Give you a one-off leaves after generic unit who can use the spell if no one in your team can or D : Make sure it's still easily bearable without the spell.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Samz707

[Axie]

38 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Personally, I find that mixed classes don't work in FE because very few characters, if any, have the stats to support mixed builds. For example, is there any good reason to have Camilla stay in Malig Knight when her strength is far, far above her magic, both in terms of base and growth?

yes, as i mentioned, fates is pretty good at not giving physical people a magic stat. which is weird for a game that introduced three new weapon/tome classes, kept one more from awakening, and also made one of the promoted lord classes that........

still, every time a mixed unit kind of worked for me, other than celica, was always when a physical unit promoted to a mixed class with a magic stat serviceable enough that the convenience of tomes was undeniable. lachesis and leif in genealogy, dark fliers in awakening - it's never spellcasters obtaining weapons because other than gaiden/echoes (and 3H? haven't played yet), there is no incentive. most of the time, weapons offer no tangible advantage. even tellius and its shitty tomes couldn't make a spellcaster pick a weapon, not that THAT counts as an actual attempt to make a mixed class happen (or that they even tried to make spellcasters happen in RD at all tbh).

[joevar]

creating a map with warp in mind not only open up possibilities, but also introduce more headaches when designing how to balance it,, or preventing people from cheesing it since theres always warp. and when its easy to cheese complaints and bad reviews follows...

its doing more harm than good

Edited December 12, 2020 by joevar

[Shrimperor]

32 minutes ago, joevar said:

creating a map with warp in mind not only open up possibilities, but also introduce more headaches when designing how to balance it,, or preventing people from cheesing it since theres always warp. and when its easy to cheese complaints and bad reviews follows...

its doing more harm than good

Then might as well remove warp from the game/Series

Edited December 12, 2020 by Father Shrimpas

[Sir Gerwald of Vallora]

My thoughts have always been this. Spells are learned, and not by leveling, but instead by gaining a consumable single use tome. Then, Normal Spells drain some attribute, Anima, Magica, or something else, or have a set number of uses. Dark Spells on the other hand would drain Health. This is looking at Gameplay through a story lense, but it's my Crackpot idea nonetheless. 

[Samz707]

7 hours ago, Father Shrimpas said:

Then might as well remove warp from the game/Series

Or just have warp be a limited staff.

[joevar]

7 hours ago, Father Shrimpas said:

Then might as well remove warp from the game/Series

nah, the classic approach of very limited use is fine, its there for an option, not to cheese whole game or become a burden for player when a map  need you to teleport across the map just to beat it because of closed space puzzle or something (an example if a map end up designed with warp in mind)

if anyone have played Divinity:OS 1 or dos2, will have known how it feels to play a map designed with unlimited warp/teleport in mind

spoiler: its equal bothersome and awesome depending on your IQ and boredom

Edited December 12, 2020 by joevar

[Florete]

17 hours ago, Axie said:

yes, as i mentioned, fates is pretty good at not giving physical people a magic stat. which is weird for a game that introduced three new weapon/tome classes, kept one more from awakening, and also made one of the promoted lord classes that........

Fates has more units with the potential to use strength and/or magic than the games that came before it.

[Axie]

4 hours ago, Florete said:

Fates has more units with the potential to use strength and/or magic than the games that came before it.

i definitely felt like awakening had more of such units, but also my experience with fates is more recent and i didn't do much post-game in it, so i don't doubt you might be right. looking at the growth rates for both games, awakening doesn't actually seem to have many more opportunities of mixed units than fates, so it might be just the former having more opportunities of leveling up than the latter. either way, it's a bit weird how fates added the mixed classes, but didn't really give most people the stats to fully explore them in main story play. i agree the other games don't have the same potential, but really only jugdral games actually attempted it anyway (and i still got some mixed unit action out of genealogy).

[Shadow Mir]

22 hours ago, Axie said:

yes, as i mentioned, fates is pretty good at not giving physical people a magic stat. which is weird for a game that introduced three new weapon/tome classes, kept one more from awakening, and also made one of the promoted lord classes that........

still, every time a mixed unit kind of worked for me, other than celica, was always when a physical unit promoted to a mixed class with a magic stat serviceable enough that the convenience of tomes was undeniable. lachesis and leif in genealogy, dark fliers in awakening - it's never spellcasters obtaining weapons because other than gaiden/echoes (and 3H? haven't played yet), there is no incentive. most of the time, weapons offer no tangible advantage. even tellius and its shitty tomes couldn't make a spellcaster pick a weapon, not that THAT counts as an actual attempt to make a mixed class happen (or that they even tried to make spellcasters happen in RD at all tbh).

Yeah, simply put, I think Oni Chieftain, Basara, and Malig Knight are just bad. No one with access to them can feasibly pull off a mixed set (which isn't helped by the fact that to actually excel as a mixed attacker, your strength and magic stats need to both be comparable and high, which, needless to say, tends to be the case pretty much never). It doesn't help much that the former and the latter use axes in addition to tomes, as axes are the strongest weapon type. Long story short, far more often than not, units are better off ignoring the mixed option for the other class.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Stones]

What if spells worked like skills in Radiant Dawn, where learnt spells (based on Weapon Rank) don't take up capacity, but you can move them onto other units were they do take up capacity? For example, I could train Bernadetta in Faith to get Rescue and then move it onto Marianne, who's a Dark Flier, but since Rescue is so good, it would cost a lot of capacity and she'd only have room for something weak like Wind or Torch. There could also be scrolls like the ones that appear in PoR and RD, but for magic instead of skills obviously.

The one thing I'm unsure about is how different magic types should work. Anima users shouldn't have access to Dark or Light spells, or Staves unless their class allows them to. This wouldn't work in 3H's system but it would in most other games.

Also, slightly off-topic but I think Weight on spells should be replaced with Difficulty and should use Skill instead of Strength or Constitution to reduce AS loss.

[whase]

This thread is a goldmine of ideas for my own game. I've been really addicted to Divinity 2 lately, so I'm ashamed I had not thought of using cooldown for spells myself. Using HP cost for dark magic only sounds very thematic and worth it.

I actually like the way weight on spells is negated by strength, it makes strength a useful stat for mages, it just doesn't seem to make sense if it's not an actual tome. So I was thinking maybe tomes should have effects they add on learned spells? I've been thinking they should make most skills have a magic prerequisite to make magic useful for non-mages.