Jump to content

Handling character building


BernieBearSimp
 Share

Recommended Posts

Can we maybe have a Lord that goes through negative character development? Maybe a Lord that is so set in his or her ways that struggles with societal changes and ends up being completely left out of touch even by his/her own people, and becomes a poster child for reactionism. And s/he gets dumped at the sometime after the war ends like Churchill's 1945 General Election. Even 3H is too sanitised with its endings, and I'd like to see a lord that doesn't leave a 100% positive legacy for once.

Edited by henrymidfields
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not a prediction, but in terms of my preference, I think I'd like to see character building be more about choosing what build you want to use and less about changing up the way you fight in order to reach said build. That is, in each map, I would largely prefer to focus on just beating the map and maybe picking up a secondary objective rather than having to worry about mastering a class to pick up a skill, having two units glued together to pick up a support, grinding weapon ranks, feeding kills to a weak units, etc. I want to keep all the interesting build flexibility of modern Fire Emblem but not hav to go through all the work to get to it. Too often, that sort of thing just feels like busywork and jumping through hoops rather than anything that's actually fun or challenging.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, BernieBearSimp said:

how the next FE game should handle building units class and stat-wise.

I like this question.

In terms of unit roster, I'd love something like New Mystery or Binding Blade. There are a lot of units and they're of very inconsistent quality, but this accommodates different playstyles. As much as we love to hate on the scrub squads, some people to enjoy training weak units, and getting solid "replacement" units throughout the game is important for ironman runs and general variety. If a character gets RNG screwed or just starts to bore you, an exciting new option to replace them could add a lot to your enjoyment of your team.

In terms of unit building, something like Conquest with a few extra Heart Seals. Limited reclassing, but still lots of options and the ability to increase those options further, although not to an unlimited degree. Different classes have different stats and growths, so you can do things like patch a character's defense or speed by giving them levels as a knight or thief.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, BernieBearSimp said:

I wanted peoples’ opinions as to how the next FE game should handle building units class and stat-wise. You think they’ll build off and polish 3H, go back to the style of older FE games, a compromise between, or something different?

Good question! I think it really depends on the game's setting and who the characters are. A remake or sequel/prequel may be limited in building units and their stats compared to a new setting or area. 

As for how it's handled...I think I like how SoV and Three Houses (and Fates and Awakening to lesser extents) handled classes and stats - give characters individual stats but allow players to pick their classes and build the builds they want. Sure, Marianne could go Holy Knight, but most conversations around her build (excluding DLC builds) end with her as a Falcon Knight, Gremory, or Dancer. But the options are there. 

SoV does a similar thing with the Villagers - you can have them all go the Dread Fighter route or the Archer route or the Mage route, or you can have differentiated units for variety or preference. 

I think this method is more fun overall, but it may not make sense if the characters come from different backgrounds, countries, and walks of life, as is the case in most Fire Emblem games. A Priest who hates Dark Magic choosing to wield Dark Magic wouldn't make much sense unless the character development leans in that sort of direction.

THAT BEING SAID, I'm also okay with characters having one or two classes individual classes, and then a set of special classes that any character can transform into i.e. Dread Fighter from Fates.

Edited by Use the Falchion
Link to comment
Share on other sites

should as in objectively? i dunno about that. but if the question include what i want they do... then my response: it should be different.

if we ignore the bloating aspect of 3H, class and stat seems polished enough for a very limited roster availability.  so i want to see modern take on big roster with limited but meaningful option rather than small roster with too many option (but still leaning into specific point for said characters ) . unless its a playthru focused on challenge and giggles, 3H normal playthru will end up with rather similar build despite the flexibility afaik. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Use the Falchion said:

I think this method is more fun overall, but it may not make sense if the characters come from different backgrounds, countries, and walks of life, as is the case in most Fire Emblem games. A Priest who hates Dark Magic choosing to wield Dark Magic wouldn't make much sense unless the character development leans in that sort of direction.

THAT BEING SAID, I'm also okay with characters having one or two classes individual classes, and then a set of special classes that any character can transform into i.e. Dread Fighter from Fates.

Didn’t the 3DS games give each unit three class trees they could reclass within or something?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, BernieBearSimp said:

Didn’t the 3DS games give each unit three class trees they could reclass within or something?

Awakening did, most first gen units in Fates only had 2 at based but could gain 2 more sets thru friendship and marriage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Can we maybe have a Lord that goes through negative character development? Maybe a Lord that is so set in his or her ways that struggles with societal changes and ends up being completely left out of touch even by his/her own people, and becomes a poster child for reactionism. And s/he gets dumped at the sometime after the war ends like Churchill's 1945 General Election. Even 3H is too sanitised with its endings, and I'd like to see a lord that doesn't leave a 100% positive legacy for once.

I kind of liked Dimitri, but the way he snapped out of it felt kind of rushed, in a way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I'd love to see a game which doesn't have classes, just combinations of movement types and weapon types, Heroes style. And with a 3H-style training system in various weapon and movement types. So basically you can create any "class" you want. Flying archers, armored healers, mage cavalry, whatever. That would be fun as hell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally I'd like to see the emphasis on customization dialed back a bit in lieu of more functionally distinct characters. Bring back personal skill sets as in Jugdral/Tellius, throw in scrolls/manuals and being able to learn new skills by level for some progression. Push reclassing to the backburner, still there for players who want to but requiring more effort and commitment, and you aren't explicitly missing out for opting out. Also focus on quality over quantity in the skill pool, we have too many of them nowadays and many amount to pork.

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Personally, I'd love to see a game which doesn't have classes, just combinations of movement types and weapon types, Heroes style. And with a 3H-style training system in various weapon and movement types. So basically you can create any "class" you want. Flying archers, armored healers, mage cavalry, whatever. That would be fun as hell.

Three Houses might as well have been this. Classes felt more like they were there for enemy conformity, you could have generic enemies use classes while player characters and named characters get epithets.

Edited by X-Naut
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, X-Naut said:

Personally I'd like to see the emphasis on customization dialed back a bit in lieu of more functionally distinct characters. Bring back personal skill sets as in Jugdral/Tellius, throw in scrolls/manuals and being able to learn new skills by level for some progression. Push reclassing to the backburner, still there for players who want to but requiring more effort and commitment, and you aren't explicitly missing out for opting out. Also focus on quality over quantity in the skill pool, we have too many of them nowadays and many amount to pork.

I'd really like to see a return to Radiant Dawn's capacity management system. I just find it a lot more interesting to work with and it helps weaker units in your army if you can give them powerful skills without having to train them first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'd really like to see a return to Radiant Dawn's capacity management system. I just find it a lot more interesting to work with and it helps weaker units in your army if you can give them powerful skills without having to train them first.

What about skill rings?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/16/2021 at 8:47 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Personally, I'd love to see a game which doesn't have classes, just combinations of movement types and weapon types, Heroes style. And with a 3H-style training system in various weapon and movement types. So basically you can create any "class" you want. Flying archers, armored healers, mage cavalry, whatever. That would be fun as hell.

Here's an idea I had - every level 1 unit could have C in one weapon type, and one other trait (movement type or skill). Every 5 levels, you can choose to do one of four things: 1) bump up an existing weapon type by a rank (C -> B -> A -> S); 2) learn a new weapon type (C-rank); 3) change your movement type (or increment movement by one within a type); or 4) learn a new skill. Basically a series of player-directed "mini-promotions".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Here's an idea I had - every level 1 unit could have C in one weapon type, and one other trait (movement type or skill). Every 5 levels, you can choose to do one of four things: 1) bump up an existing weapon type by a rank (C -> B -> A -> S); 2) learn a new weapon type (C-rank); 3) change your movement type (or increment movement by one within a type); or 4) learn a new skill. Basically a series of player-directed "mini-promotions".

That could work!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Here's an idea I had - every level 1 unit could have C in one weapon type, and one other trait (movement type or skill). Every 5 levels, you can choose to do one of four things: 1) bump up an existing weapon type by a rank (C -> B -> A -> S); 2) learn a new weapon type (C-rank); 3) change your movement type (or increment movement by one within a type); or 4) learn a new skill. Basically a series of player-directed "mini-promotions".

Every five levels means you can do eight things in a typical fire emblem level curve. That means you could S rank two weapons and get one skill. Which for endgame would feel very limiting I think. So why restrict it to every five levels? Why not make it literally every level? That sounds like you'd get powerful too quickly,  but you could gate certain skills behind level requirements (or use a heroes style 1,2,3 variation of skills) like Three Houses does for classes. You could also throw stat increases into the system too. I'm sure such an idea could be made to work with choosing something every level.

Edited by Jotari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

One idea, similar but different to Shanty-Pete's, would involve making units' max level by 25 in a given class. Here, you'd have where you'd earn one of two skills at Lv5, and then one of two at Lv15, as well as one at Lv25, your mastery skill. Similar to with branching promotions in FE8 and the 3DS games, there are three possible skills a class can earn at Lv15 but the two you can pick from would depend on what you chose as your Lv5 skill. That way, you can have different runs where you use different skill builds each time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Every five levels means you can do eight things in a typical fire emblem level curve. That means you could S rank two weapons and get one skill. Which for endgame would feel very limiting I think. So why restrict it to every five levels? Why not make it literally every level? That sounds like you'd get powerful too quickly,  but you could gate certain skills behind level requirements (or use a heroes style 1,2,3 variation of skills) like Three Houses does for classes. You could also throw stat increases into the system too. I'm sure such an idea could be made to work with choosing something every level.

I mean, maybe. I don't think something like, say, S-rank in a weapon by level 6 should be a thing, but you did propose level-gating. As for "stat increases", a system where level-up stats are competing with these other boosts to be "selected" would be... an interesting one, to say the least. Kind of like that Chinese bootleg GBC FE game.

Your system offers more freedom, I will grant, but I think mine works better with the enemy class system. Take the "Thief" class. Enemies could have a standard progression, such as:

Lv. 1-5: C Swords, Lockpick, 4 move infantry

Lv. 6-10: add Steal

Lv. 11-15: 4 -> 5 move

Lv. 16-20: C -> B Swords

Lv. 21-25: add Pass

Lv. 26-30: 5 -> 6 move

Lv. 31-35: add C Bows

Lv. 36-40: B -> A Swords

Lv. 41+: add Lethality

To some player units, all of these progressions would be options, but not obligatory. For what it's worth, I honestly don't see "two S-rank weapons and one skill" as that big of a problem. It's rare that I'd want a unit to have more than one S-rank, honestly. If I were sticking to one weapon type, I could have S-rank, be on horseback, have incremented my movement once, and have three skills. Hm... thinking on it, my system might actually disincentivize training multiple weapon types. I'm not sure I'd want that aspect to stay around.

19 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'd really like to see a return to Radiant Dawn's capacity management system. I just find it a lot more interesting to work with and it helps weaker units in your army if you can give them powerful skills without having to train them first.

I think it'd need some fine-tuning, as the original system didn't seem great for building up weaker units. Wanna put Paragon on Fiona? Too bad - it requires 15 capacity, and Canto takes up 10/15. And you can't drop that, nor the 5 from Shove on infantry. Among first-tiers, I think only Micaiah can use Paragon, since she has 20 capacity (for whatever reason).

Also, what's the deal with Mastery skills? I promote my Swordmaster to Trueblade, and get 30 more capacity! And Astra, which costs... 30 capacity. And it's locked-on, so it's not like I can ever actually take advantage of the increased capacity.

Maybe the best system would be one that combines no-cost "locked" skills with the capacity-cost "floating" skills? And that increases the capacity with each tier, even in cases of the class getting a new locked skill. This way, you can look at the "capacity" value, and say "this is how many free skill blocks I have."

4 hours ago, BernieBearSimp said:

One idea, similar but different to Shanty-Pete's, would involve making units' max level by 25 in a given class. Here, you'd have where you'd earn one of two skills at Lv5, and then one of two at Lv15, as well as one at Lv25, your mastery skill. Similar to with branching promotions in FE8 and the 3DS games, there are three possible skills a class can earn at Lv15 but the two you can pick from would depend on what you chose as your Lv5 skill. That way, you can have different runs where you use different skill builds each time.

Interesting! So there's player agency in picking between skills at the activation level? I like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I mean, maybe. I don't think something like, say, S-rank in a weapon by level 6 should be a thing, but you did propose level-gating. As for "stat increases", a system where level-up stats are competing with these other boosts to be "selected" would be... an interesting one, to say the least. Kind of like that Chinese bootleg GBC FE game.

Your system offers more freedom, I will grant, but I think mine works better with the enemy class system. Take the "Thief" class. Enemies could have a standard progression, such as:

Lv. 1-5: C Swords, Lockpick, 4 move infantry

Lv. 6-10: add Steal

Lv. 11-15: 4 -> 5 move

Lv. 16-20: C -> B Swords

Lv. 21-25: add Pass

Lv. 26-30: 5 -> 6 move

Lv. 31-35: add C Bows

Lv. 36-40: B -> A Swords

Lv. 41+: add Lethality

To some player units, all of these progressions would be options, but not obligatory. For what it's worth, I honestly don't see "two S-rank weapons and one skill" as that big of a problem. It's rare that I'd want a unit to have more than one S-rank, honestly. If I were sticking to one weapon type, I could have S-rank, be on horseback, have incremented my movement once, and have three skills. Hm... thinking on it, my system might actually disincentivize training multiple weapon types. I'm not sure I'd want that aspect to stay around.

I think it'd need some fine-tuning, as the original system didn't seem great for building up weaker units. Wanna put Paragon on Fiona? Too bad - it requires 15 capacity, and Canto takes up 10/15. And you can't drop that, nor the 5 from Shove on infantry. Among first-tiers, I think only Micaiah can use Paragon, since she has 20 capacity (for whatever reason).

Also, what's the deal with Mastery skills? I promote my Swordmaster to Trueblade, and get 30 more capacity! And Astra, which costs... 30 capacity. And it's locked-on, so it's not like I can ever actually take advantage of the increased capacity.

Maybe the best system would be one that combines no-cost "locked" skills with the capacity-cost "floating" skills? And that increases the capacity with each tier, even in cases of the class getting a new locked skill. This way, you can look at the "capacity" value, and say "this is how many free skill blocks I have."

Interesting! So there's player agency in picking between skills at the activation level? I like that.

Yes capacity limits were a bit too strict a lot of the time (though that did make using innate skills an interesting opportunity cost). I'm pretty sure Most even loses capacity on promotion due to canto. But I still find the idea of "you can equip a bunch of weak skills or one or two strong skills, also your skills are shared amongst your army so consider carefully who gets what" to be an interesting system. I'd also keep the idea of Radiant Dawn "personal skills", but make it so if you reequip said skill it doesn't now take capacity. I'd also make it so the "personal skill" isn't necessarily the skill they come with. Every unit in the game has one skill they resonate with that can be equipped for free and you need to experiment trading skills to find a unit's personal (or just look it up online).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Your system offers more freedom, I will grant, but I think mine works better with the enemy class system. Take the "Thief" class. Enemies could have a standard progression, such as:

Lv. 1-5: C Swords, Lockpick, 4 move infantry

Lv. 6-10: add Steal

Lv. 11-15: 4 -> 5 move

Lv. 16-20: C -> B Swords

Lv. 21-25: add Pass

Lv. 26-30: 5 -> 6 move

Lv. 31-35: add C Bows

Lv. 36-40: B -> A Swords

Lv. 41+: add Lethality

To some player units, all of these progressions would be options, but not obligatory. For what it's worth, I honestly don't see "two S-rank weapons and one skill" as that big of a problem. It's rare that I'd want a unit to have more than one S-rank, honestly. If I were sticking to one weapon type, I could have S-rank, be on horseback, have incremented my movement once, and have three skills. Hm... thinking on it, my system might actually disincentivize training multiple weapon types. I'm not sure I'd want that aspect to stay around.

I like the idea of this, but I worry that it would end up with a situation where there'd be a small number of optimised builds or skills that you use on everyone. "Have everyone learn Death Blow and then put them on a Wyvern" was one of the aspects of Three Houses that I found least enjoyable, so I wouldn't want to see that repeated. So I'm going to suggest something that combines this idea with the skill capcity system from Tellius and the weapon strengths and weaknesses system from three Houses.

First, instead of adding a new skill or ability as you level up, you instead add skill capacity as you level up. This could be 1 extra point of capacity every level, 5 poitns every 5 levels, or whatever other numbers work, but should be fairly regular. This capacity will be used not just for skills but also for weapon ranks, movement type, etc.

Each skill (etc.) will have a base capacity cost, but the actual cost for a given unit to equip it will vary from unit to unit based on their personal strengths and weaknesses. So, for instance, the Steal skill might use 5 capacity by default, but only use 3 capacity for units who have a proficiency in thief skills and 7 points for units with a weakness in thief skills. there could also be some characters with a double weakness who would have it use 10 capacity, or some could have it as a personal skill and have it not take any capacity.

This would allow for a few different benefits. Characters would mostly be encouraged to keep within their strengths (since they'll get more skills that way), but there's still plenty of space to take a quick dip into other skills when they have strong synnergy with what you're otherwise doing. It would also allow for units to still feel very different from each other by giving them a different set of strengths and weaknesses.

Finally, while most skills could be freely learned by anybody, there could also be powerful skills that are tied to limited resources. So, you can only teach people the wyvern movement type if you have a spare wyvern, you can only teach them the meteor spell if you have a meteor tome, only teach them Aether if you have an occult scroll. And so on and so forth.

Any thoughts? The overall idea here is to keep a lot of flexibility in how you build characters while also ensuring that units keep their personal identities and to allow for powerful abilities or combinations to exist without having them obligatory for every unit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Controversial take, I know, but going back to fixed classes, without skills would be refreshing to me. Not to say that I wouldn't mind some minor skill system, like the old item based method of acquiring it, or having personal skills, or a restricted class change system, like Fates/Awakening (ignoring Robin and their spawn), but the wider open these options are, the less I tend to enjoy them. I like it when units can differentiate themselves in combat, and the more control is passed on to the player, the more they lose what makes that character unique; plus having too many options makes character building more exhausting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yes capacity limits were a bit too strict a lot of the time (though that did make using innate skills an interesting opportunity cost). I'm pretty sure Most even loses capacity on promotion due to canto. But I still find the idea of "you can equip a bunch of weak skills or one or two strong skills, also your skills are shared amongst your army so consider carefully who gets what" to be an interesting system. I'd also keep the idea of Radiant Dawn "personal skills", but make it so if you reequip said skill it doesn't now take capacity. I'd also make it so the "personal skill" isn't necessarily the skill they come with. Every unit in the game has one skill they resonate with that can be equipped for free and you need to experiment trading skills to find a unit's personal (or just look it up online).

That would be cool. Maybe the "personal skill", on units who don't start with it, could be acquired through base conversations or map events involving those characters?

18 hours ago, lenticular said:

I like the idea of this, but I worry that it would end up with a situation where there'd be a small number of optimised builds or skills that you use on everyone. "Have everyone learn Death Blow and then put them on a Wyvern" was one of the aspects of Three Houses that I found least enjoyable, so I wouldn't want to see that repeated. So I'm going to suggest something that combines this idea with the skill capcity system from Tellius and the weapon strengths and weaknesses system from three Houses.

First, instead of adding a new skill or ability as you level up, you instead add skill capacity as you level up. This could be 1 extra point of capacity every level, 5 poitns every 5 levels, or whatever other numbers work, but should be fairly regular. This capacity will be used not just for skills but also for weapon ranks, movement type, etc.

Each skill (etc.) will have a base capacity cost, but the actual cost for a given unit to equip it will vary from unit to unit based on their personal strengths and weaknesses. So, for instance, the Steal skill might use 5 capacity by default, but only use 3 capacity for units who have a proficiency in thief skills and 7 points for units with a weakness in thief skills. there could also be some characters with a double weakness who would have it use 10 capacity, or some could have it as a personal skill and have it not take any capacity.

This would allow for a few different benefits. Characters would mostly be encouraged to keep within their strengths (since they'll get more skills that way), but there's still plenty of space to take a quick dip into other skills when they have strong synnergy with what you're otherwise doing. It would also allow for units to still feel very different from each other by giving them a different set of strengths and weaknesses.

Finally, while most skills could be freely learned by anybody, there could also be powerful skills that are tied to limited resources. So, you can only teach people the wyvern movement type if you have a spare wyvern, you can only teach them the meteor spell if you have a meteor tome, only teach them Aether if you have an occult scroll. And so on and so forth.

Any thoughts? The overall idea here is to keep a lot of flexibility in how you build characters while also ensuring that units keep their personal identities and to allow for powerful abilities or combinations to exist without having them obligatory for every unit.

I like this system! Seems a great way to combine the bane/boons of Three Houses with a Tellius-style skill capacity system. Conceivably, every skill could be associated with a scroll, or tome, or item, but some would just be rarer or more expensive to acquire than others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...