Othin

Do you not understand what "explanation" means? Try again, using actual facts instead of words like "think", "sound", and their variations.

Problem is, those differing stats and weapon rank bonuses don't mix well. In FE11/12, a Silver Sword with an A rank bonus has 15 Mt and 100 Hit. A Silver Lance with an A rank bonus has 15 Mt and 95 Hit. A Silver Axe with an A rank bonus has 14 Mt and 95 Hit.

Indeed. Crash, please name specific weapons and elaborate on what you find "weird" or "silly" about their effects, compared to weapons you prefer in the other games.

I didn't say one gets a brave tome while others get nothing. What I mean is that the others can each get something other than a brave tome. Maybe it's better or worse than the brave tome; that's okay. Perfect balance isn't necessary as long as things each have their role, rather than wholly or largely outclassing each other. Awaiting an explanation for what issues you've encountered with Berwick Saga's system.

That, and those extra options swords got allowed them to match the abilities of the other weapons anyway. In FE4, the difference between a standard sword and a standard lance is 6 Mt and 9 Wt. That's a pretty big difference; even if the sword is usually better, the lance's Mt advantage is enough that it's useful regardless at its own times, and not by some tiny margin. However, blades can match that same Mt with just a drop in accuracy while remaining light; for the characters that can use them, they don't leave lances as much of a good option. So while the system wasn't too great in practice, it had its good points we can learn from.

That's not an explanation. Tiny Mt/Hit/Wt differences don't mean shit. Bigger differences can be good, like the ones in FE4, but that only goes so far on its own, and FE4 had its own obvious issues there. FE11 lacking Longswords and Heavy Spears wasn't that interesting on its own. FE6 and FE10 did better in that area, making each of the effective weapons unique to just one weapon type instead of two, but it's still just effective weapons. Weapon types can do so much more to differentiate themselves, to make the difference between them actually matter.

Please explain why you prefer less relevant choices and less possibilities to more.

I felt that way for a while. Eventually I realized that when most relevant things are parallel, it only serves to make a system of attributes as bland and unimportant as it could possibly be. Let's look at FE9/10's elemental magic triangle. Unless you're getting an effective bonus or getting weapon triangle control against an enemy mage, chances are, you're never going to give a shit whether you're using fire, thunder, or wind magic. The difference between the weapon types ceases to matter more than a sometimes-relevant game of rock-paper-scissors. RPGs, especially ones like Fire Emblem, can do so much more than that.

I've never heard of FE5 having class-specific weapon level caps, and it seems highly unlikely since there aren't even class-specific stat caps.

Great, make everything even more cookie-cutter and identical. A spell like that for one magic type is good. A spell like it for all (or most) magic types is not. The series needs less parallels between its weapon types and more wacky ideas unique to one or two of them.

What does it matter if some people might play FE and only ever like casual mode? It's only a problem if those people might have turned out to like FE with permadeath in effect, but who would have that potential permanently ruined because of starting with a game with Casual Mode as an option. And that hardly seems like it would be a high number of people for whom that might actually happen. And then let's compare to the number of people who would be initially put off by playing an FE game with forced permadeath, but would be able to ease into the series by starting with Casual Mode and after easing into it, appreciate the full series when they might not have before. This number seems like it would be higher.

Which is only an issue if Casual Mode can be applied to any difficulty level. FE12 may do that, but it doesn't mean any future game has to or should do the same.

Because everyone always clicks "Easy Mode" whenever starting a game and can never adjust to playing any higher difficulty level? That's all this is.

By making the non-permadeath in Casual Mode only, it establishes that version as not being the game's "real" story. It's not like the characters need to magically come back from the dead; they could just retreat in that mode.

Let's say you're playing Yoshi's Island. Yoshi falls into a pit and dies, so you have to restart the stage, or go back to the last checkpoint. In Fire Emblem, the way it's usually played, you're playing as all of the characters. If one of them dies, you restart the map or go back to the last checkpoint. It's the same deal. When you play Yoshi's Island, you need to complete the stage, but you also need to keep Yoshi alive while doing so. When you play Fire Emblem, you need to complete the stage, but you need to keep all your characters alive when doing so. This greatly impacts how you play FE. Now, FE doesn't force that upon us. It could, by making it so that losing any character would be an instant Game Over. But who wants that? Instead, we have it be treated as a Game Over if we want it to be, or we can continue and move on with the loss, impacting the gameplay in a rather special way. That is the effect of permadeath in FE. Its impact is a substantial and meaningful one, even though it is more often the threat of permadeath that affects how we play. Where's the problem?

Marty requires a couple of chapters of being a bit below average to become just as effective as most others. Let's compare to Sophia, who gets killed in half a round by literally everything and never becomes good without huge amounts of babying. There's a world of difference here, and it's the difference between a Bottom 30 character (Sophia) and an absolutely not Bottom 30 character (Marty). I realize this might not have been quite the idea I expressed, but it's the one I'm advocating and have been intending to advocate.

For a game without permanent death, that just sounds weird. I'm all in favor of ranks, but I think in this case, separate modes work better than dealing with ranks, especially since the permanent deaths can add another factor to consider for those who might continue despite them.

Seems to me all the FE5 characters can be effective without much trouble; Marty is certainly no exception.

Ronan has high Move and movement stars. He can contribute at a few points on an SSS run, more than many characters can do on such a run.

Permadeath makes "keep all your units alive" an important secondary objective that most people follow, greatly affecting how they play to preserve their entire team and to avoid resets. Casual Mode allows people who don't like it to remove that part; while I would never use it, Casual Mode is an excellent option that all future FE games should have. This all sounds good to me. Where's the issue? That's an unrelated issue with just the fact that the games don't do enough to keep up with the levels your characters should be at.

Making growth units based on actual stat growth rates never works anyway. The ones that work are ones like FE4's Master Knights, that don't just try to catch up, but instead have something of their own - attaining a unique, crazy powerful class, getting absurd promotion gains, learning ridiculous skills, etc.

All that for an effect that would just reduce rewards for playing well and reduce penalties for playing poorly, intentionally or not? Hardly seems like a good idea. If you think grinding gives too little of a challenge, don't grind. Leave it as an easy option for those who want it. Rankings can work perfectly well for penalizing grinding for those who want to play at a more skillful level anyway.

It sounds like he tried the first option and it wouldn't work.

Yes and yes. It gives 100 love points, and no conversations that give love points can happen if either character is in love with anyone. Based on the above post, it sounds like Shanan is in love with Nanna, which would explain it. The only question then is how that happened, and it sounds like cheats are likely the cause.

Salem has more availability than Linoan and Sara; he can reach A Staffs at right around the same time as Sara and a few important chapters before Linoan. He's better than Linoan without a doubt, at least as a staffbot; Sara is even better, but they're all really close. Seluf, as well, since he has A Staffs at base, before Linoan can promote and before Sara even joins. He can't fight, but he should still be right up there with the other three.