Othin

Indeed. I believe we're assuming Super and Pursuit attacks to be mutually exclusive: some units have one, some have the other, but never both.

Regular double attack is (Str + Mt - enemy Def) x2 Dondon super attack is (Str x2) + Mt - enemy Def If weapon Mt is more than enemy Def, you'll do more damage with a double attack. If weapon Mt is less than enemy Def, you'll do more damage with a super attack.

Ah, and here we get into the other big change. In Berwick Saga, if a character is hit by an enemy attack and takes damage, they lose their standard counterattack or double attack. It's also worth noting that the standard double attack can apply against any slower enemy (from what I understand), but it only works if the character attacks first and the enemy counterattacks. So while there are up to three attacks possible in a round of combat, normally, it ends after the first one does damage; the standard double attack mainly exists to allow characters a second chance to hit rather than making the battle pointless. This has some odd and likely unintended implications. Weapons that grant additional attack turns are notable in that they bypass this whole matter entirely; their added attacks cannot be canceled, making them particularly useful on the enemy phase. In contrast, weapons that hit consecutively allow for more chances to do damage and cancel the enemy's counterattack when initiating combat, making them particularly useful on the player phase. It's worth noting that while fighter classes rely on their speed to dodge attacks (vital to counterattacks under this system), knights tend to have little or no innate evasion and rely instead on shields for defenses. Shields are used to block randomly with shield accuracy depending on the character's skill with that class of shield - weapons work the same way, in a system similar to FE11/12's weapon levels but with more specific variation. Shields may or may not allow a character to block an attack entirely and retaliate in spite of being hit; it largely depends on the class of shield, and not all knights can use the best shields.

Already addressed that this is nothing like the sort of integrated turn system Berwick Saga uses, and therefore the system I am proposing.

Indeed there are. I used one initially to play Berwick Saga before I found out that a PS2 could be modded relatively easily to play Japanese games, although the framerate was abysmal. Not sure whether it was the emulator or my computer being too old to handle it, though. Have you ever actually tried playing a game that way? It's not as difficult as it might sound.

It's $20 online, and while I prefer physical copies myself, it's not necessary. Language barrier doesn't take long to get used to, either.

There's nothing stopping you from playing it. It was a bit of an issue before detailed gameplay information was available online in English, but now it is.

Now that, I can agree with.

I'm well aware of all of those things when I say this. Honestly, that mindset is disgusting and only serves to undermine our government's status as a republic. That status is already being damaged by the top; it is the 99% who can and must fix it. The internet is a vital part of ensuring and enabling freedoms, and it has become recognized a vital part of our lives. People will protest if necessary to stop SOPA; people are already protesting lack of economic and political freedoms on Wall Street and everywhere else throughout the Western world, and this is another piece of that whole matter. I hardly think protests are necessary to stop SOPA, however. If it passes, it will be thrown away not long after the 2012 elections; just as there is bipartisian support for it in the government, there is bipartisian opposition to it both in the government and far stronger bipartisian opposition to it in the people. But if things change so drastically that violence is necessary in order to stop SOPA (again, I strongly doubt that this will become the case), then that violence will occur on whatever scale is necessary, and it will be justified. Free internet is the world's route to freedom, and if the United States does not protect that, neither will other countries. Edit: Relevant.

Personally, I would not agree that the simplicity of the rest of the FE series either benefits it or allows it to become notably difficult, but I can agree to disagree. I don't know much about Disgaea, but Berwick Saga's features, while more complex, are entirely manageable. And indeed you'll have to manage them to make it through the game; I've found myself having to think ahead up to the end of the current turn at most times, but no farther, so it's all reasonable. Enemies have all sorts of tricks, and while there are tricks that can be abused in Berwick Saga, there's nothing nearly as easy or effective to abuse as a character in the rest of the series with the defense to take a hit, the speed to double, and the power to 2HKO all while armed with a Javelin or Hand Axe. So yes, I would call Berwick Saga a difficult game. Indeed, this is the case.

Enemies seem to have a priority order for when to move their units, although I'm not sure it holds in all circumstances. That said, with that combined with knowing how many units the enemy will move and when, it's about as predictable as the standard FE turn system.

As I have been saying (and showed with a video), the system I am proposing is the Berwick Saga system, in which the player has full control over turn order on any given turn, which is where almost all of the strategy added by the feature comes from. Character stats don't have the slightest bit of relevance to how turns are decided.

I can see why people would object to that, but it's an entirely different system from the one Berwick Saga uses in terms of strategy. I'll borrow one of YayMarsha's videos of my favorite chapter so far to illustrate. Map starts about 5 minutes in. Edit: Watching the first few turns again, it looks like he normally just ignores the choice and goes with whatever unit the cursor moves to for some reason. So that's not quite so helpful, but whatever.

After how many people complained about Spirit Tracks? Seems like they're starting to have some sort of agenda against overworlds, which makes about as much sense as Metroid developers insisting on linearity. I've never seen anyone say they liked either change; are the developers really missing that much? That said, I've never played Spirit Tracks, and one giant dungeon sounds damn fun. So as odd as the choice seems, I'm not making any complaints at this stage.

With all the support in Congress and lobbying (despite opposition in the population as a whole), it doesn't sound like it's going to be just dropped. More likely, it'll be implemented, then everything will go to hell until it gets removed sometime within the next year.

Well now you're really got me curious. Would you (or BewYeti) care to elaborate? It's the same number of total enemy actions as in any other FE game, except less clumped together, so I don't see the problem unless you're referring to a radically different system with Hoshigami, which I am not suggesting. In any case, enemy turns in Berwick Saga go quite quickly under this system, at least with map animations on, which is the default anyway for generic enemies. And I can't think of any reason why the turn skip feature wouldn't return in future games now that it's been implemented, anyway, so that doesn't seem like a concern for other games to adopt the system. To be sure, are you referring to games that actually allow you control over the order that characters move? Looking up a Final Fantasy Tactics video, I can't tell, and what you were saying about Hoshigami sounds like the sort of thing I would expect to see in a game with a fixed turn order, such as the combat sections of Heroes of Might and Magic, which while looking similar, are entirely different in terms of strategy.

http://serenesforest.net/fe3/location.html

The upper-right hand corner displays icons for which side has the current action and each of the next four. I don't know of any stat involvement. Enemies appear to move in a specific order, but player characters can be moved in any order, so you have to consider not just what to have each unit do but when.

Don't know much about Shining Force, so maybe, maybe not. I'll just explain the system I'm talking about. Say there are 5 allies on the field, and 20 enemies. At the start of a turn, the lineup is organized so you can move one ally, then four enemies move, then you move a different ally, then four other enemies move, etc. At the end of the turn, characters that have moved are refreshed and they can act again sometime during the next turn, in whatever order. There's definitely a random element involved, but I've never been able to figure out quite what it is. But that's the gist of the system based on what I've observed.

The pro-censorship people aren't too common, despite how much political power they hold. The 1%, if you will. Best way to pick a fight with them may be a petition. https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/stop-e-parasite-act/SWBYXX55 It's already gotten enough signatures, but more will only help keep it from being ignored. So will this one. https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/actually-take-these-petitions-seriously-instead-just-using-them-excuse-pretend-you-are-listening/grQ9mNkN

You know what makes any strategy much more difficult and strategic to execute, and therefore greatly helps with issues with useful difficulty? Integrated turn order.

New sites are the most vulnerable, since they don't have the money to challenge the madness of guilty until proven innocent that this allows for. There's no way they could be just replaced like that. And this stands to accomplish nothing in the first place. It's insanity and unconstitutional.

These are not ideas, but the facts of a game that has been around for six years. The stat changes merely allow for more change based on skills and equipment; indeed, with those, characters have the most variation of any FE game. Most characters have unique personal weapons, unique tactical skills, special events, or some combination of the three. Those changes are also what allow mages to become effective; most have obscenely powerful personal weapons, and the lack of AS loss from spells means they actually wind up faster than any knights in combat. That said, you're correct that in spite of what I was suggesting earlier, they would not even out on their own. As for terrain, it actually doesn't take maps that are overly terrain heavy to work. Crossing rivers makes a great example; most mounted units will take most of their movement to cross first the sand terrain on one side of the river, then the shallow water over the fordable part of the river, then the same terrain on the other side, over three separate turns - even if they dismount. Fighters, meanwhile, can cross the whole thing on one turn, because of a lack of any terrain penalties from that terrain that completely destroys mounted units' movement. So it's not necessarily the amount of terrain, but how dramatic of an impact it has. This is also used to balance some otherwise weaker mounted classes, such as Sherlock's Horseman class, which has notably less penalties in all terrain. Leon and Adel get the same decreased penalties, but only before promotion, when their Spear Knight class is otherwise entirely at a disadvantage compared to multiple Cavalier-like classes, having both swords and spears.

Skills and special weapons work brilliantly to differentiate characters and are certainly the most practical of those to bring up - and Berwick Saga makes too perfect an example of that to not bring up. But maybe now it's worth bringing up the interesting stat system that goes along with it. In terms of core stats, characters in Berwick Saga essentially configure themselves to one of three builds: Knight, Fighter, and Mage. Fighters have much more speed than Knights in exchange for a smaller amount of Defense, while Knights have shields to emphasize the Def increase, at the cost of more Spd due to the weight. Knights are also typically mounted, but have serious problems with terrain compared to Fighters both mounted and unmounted. Mages have even lower Spd, as well as lower HP, Str, and Def, in exchange for actually having a Mind stat, and using magic which doesn't reduce AS at all and tends to be crazy powerful. Within the three builds, differences generally aren't too notable, even if they don't even out, and the three builds overall aren't really any better than one another, but each fill important and different roles on a team. This seems like it's a much more viable way of implementing the suggestion Banzai was making.

Excellent points; I actually agree with all of them, although I don't know too much about your examples.