Englightened One, good or bad design?

[Jotari]

I heard people critisizing the design for the Enlightened One class when Three Houses was new. Not sure if it was general new game bashing or if it's an actual unpopular design. I rather like it myself. It's not exactly the image one would immediately think of when imagining some kind of nirvana adjacent entity, but I think it has a certain gravitas to it that makes it work.

Edited July 7 by Jotari

[ciphertul]

I felt it was pretty lacking, they really only put a half coat on. It felt really weak looks wise when compared to the lords master classes.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

It's okay, nothing terribly good or bad. I like it well enough.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I think... that the class' aesthetic design makes perfect sense, within the context of Teach's pre-established fashion sensibilities. Make of that whatever you will.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

It kind of screams "this is war time so we don't have time for proper ceremony or fitting for appropriate proper garb, but you need something that identifies you as a commander to a soldier who's never seen you before when he's relaying a message" 

Then you remember you get this class when they're not at war time yet.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

It looks like they tried to mash a high political/church office, a warrior and a scholar/priest into one outfit and fucking failed in every aspect.

Rheas Archbishop/Saint embody the Heresy ending warrior much better, but alas, Byleth is theoretically more than a mommy issue fanatic.

[Jotari]

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

I think... that the class' aesthetic design makes perfect sense, within the context of Teach's pre-established fashion sensibilities. Make of that whatever you will.

You should run for office with an answer like that.

[Armchair General]

Felt like an lazy redesign of Rhea's outfit, tbh. In a way, that makes an lot of sense, but it's something that's just too far out there for me to appreciate

 

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's a bit of an odd design, I've never really come down on loving it or hating it.

Of course, in-universe the outfit is designed for a rather odd circumstance. As mentioned it's kinda like Rhea's "Seiros" outfit, but less warlike, which makes sense, since it's intended for Byleth to wear when s/he receives the revelation in the Holy Tomb, not for a war leader. I think the outfit fits that about as well as anything.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 7/7/2024 at 6:20 AM, Jotari said:

You should run for office with an answer like that.

Bold of you to assume I haven't already been elected Senator. Uwee hwee hwee.

19 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

since it's intended for Byleth to wear when s/he receives the revelation in the Holy Tomb

Wait, is that what it's for? I had always it was a side-effect of Byleth's glow-up in the preceding chapter. I guess both can be true, but I had never read it as "Rhea just gave you this new outfit to try on". Although, it would make more sense for that to be the case...

On 7/7/2024 at 12:13 AM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Then you remember you get this class when they're not at war time yet.

I wonder if the developers originally envisioned Teach gaining their signature class over the timeskip, just like the Lords? But then repositioned it for narrative and/or balancing reasons.

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

Wait, is that what it's for? I had always it was a side-effect of Byleth's glow-up in the preceding chapter. I guess both can be true, but I had never read it as "Rhea just gave you this new outfit to try on". Although, it would make more sense for that to be the case...

I'm reading between the lines I'll admit, but here's my thought process:

-Byleth (probably) doesn't magic those clothes into existence after their Chapter 10 transformation. Certainly they're not visible in the Chapter 10 Zaharas sequence itself. So, my assumption is they are indeed just physical clothes of some sort.

-The only person likely to give Byleth such clothes would be Rhea, mostly because she's the only one who has an inkling of what is going one and might act based on it. It would be a pretty out-of-character gift from the house leader or someone like Seteth.

I'll admit the purpose of the clothes is just a guess, but it makes sense to me.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm reading between the lines I'll admit, but here's my thought process:

-Byleth (probably) doesn't magic those clothes into existence after their Chapter 10 transformation. Certainly they're not visible in the Chapter 10 Zaharas sequence itself. So, my assumption is they are indeed just physical clothes of some sort.

-The only person likely to give Byleth such clothes would be Rhea, mostly because she's the only one who has an inkling of what is going one and might act based on it. It would be a pretty out-of-character gift from the house leader or someone like Seteth.

I'll admit the purpose of the clothes is just a guess, but it makes sense to me.

And specifically you don't get the actual class change untill after the chapter. Though I do kind of wish you got it mid chapter and they were magicked into existence, though not altering your avatars class mid chapter without consent probably is better for gameplay. On the other hand, Byleth also an Enlightened One promotion in Three Hopes where they have no connection to Rhea at all...but in that game Seteth can't even wield his signature weapon in his signature class. So perhaps we shouldn't look too deeply into it.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

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

I wonder if the developers originally envisioned Teach gaining their signature class over the timeskip, just like the Lords? But then repositioned it for narrative and/or balancing reasons.

lol. Imagining an earlier build where Byleth's class is yet another thing you can't control going into Chapter 13. No Wyvern or Grappler Byleth to make it easier.

[lenticular]

3 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

lol. Imagining an earlier build where Byleth's class is yet another thing you can't control going into Chapter 13. No Wyvern or Grappler Byleth to make it easier.

Earlier builds wouldn't have had Maddening difficulty and Chapter 13 is fine on Normal and Hard. So they could have easily left it in as being perfectly balanced, only for it to be even worse when they finally added Maddening.

As for the actual main question of the thread: forgettable. I find it to be entirely forgettable design. My first thought when I saw this thread was to think in terms of game design, class balance and the likes. After I realised that we were talking about the visual design, my next response was "wait, what does Enlightened One even look like again?" I have played Three Houses more than most people but the design just didn't stick in my head. Which is weird, because it is genuinely a distinctive look. For whatever reason, though, it's not one that stuck with me in either a negative or a positive light.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

13 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

-Byleth (probably) doesn't magic those clothes into existence after their Chapter 10 transformation. Certainly they're not visible in the Chapter 10 Zaharas sequence itself. So, my assumption is they are indeed just physical clothes of some sort.

I always assumed not getting the class immediately with the "glow-up" was a case of "3H can't handle mid-map class changes". Actually, this game and Valentia are the only such cases, I believe.

13 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The only person likely to give Byleth such clothes would be Rhea, mostly because she's the only one who has an inkling of what is going one and might act based on it. It would be a pretty out-of-character gift from the house leader or someone like Seteth.

Doesn't Seteth start suspecting Rhea of shady business around this part of the game? Plus, it would be a funny "I have something to ask of you" from him. But yeah, the clothes themselves being Rhea's idea... makes sense.

5 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

lol. Imagining an earlier build where Byleth's class is yet another thing you can't control going into Chapter 13. No Wyvern or Grappler Byleth to make it easier.

Or Assassin Byleth, so you get Stealth.

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

Earlier builds wouldn't have had Maddening difficulty and Chapter 13 is fine on Normal and Hard. So they could have easily left it in as being perfectly balanced, only for it to be even worse when they finally added Maddening

I was gonna say "actually C13 is a relatively high point of difficulty on Hard as well", until I realized... I've never played it on Hard! The only Hard Mode run I've done was on CF.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

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

I was gonna say "actually C13 is a relatively high point of difficulty on Hard as well", until I realized... I've never played it on Hard! The only Hard Mode run I've done was on CF.

My first playthrough was Hard mode Golden Deer and it certainly stood out as the only map in the game that forces specific characters into the party with no battle prep screen to try and optimize them. I've heard (but never personally witnessed) that your students get auto-leveled to 20 for the timeskip. But only on Normal and Hard modes. For how few changes to the game mechanics they make specific to Maddening mode, this is one of them, and it would definitely impact Chapter 13's difficulty more than any other map on account of those forced deployments.

[SnowFire]

Male Byleth's EO outfit is fine.  As others have said, it's got some sort of gussied-up academic chancellor vibe, like the kind of stuff snooty New England colleges make their professors dress up on for graduation day, which is fine. 

Female Byleth EO is...  not for me, but then I didn't like her base outfit either.  There is a time and place for sexy open midriff designs showing off hourglass figures but the result is kind of ludicrous when paired with the slightly more formal, master-teacherly vibe I think the outfit intended.  This kind of style clash usually resolves in favor of the less serious side (i.e. if you make a "sexy cop" uniform, the result will be treated as fully a Halloween costume, not half imposing / authoritative and half silly.)  But I suppose the counterargument is no, it's intentional, we wanted to make F!Byleth that way?  Who knows, Byleth's personality is vague enough that you could certainly write a personal headcanon Byleth for which the outfit made sense.

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

My first playthrough was Hard mode Golden Deer and it certainly stood out as the only map in the game that forces specific characters into the party with no battle prep screen to try and optimize them. I've heard (but never personally witnessed) that your students get auto-leveled to 20 for the timeskip. But only on Normal and Hard modes. For how few changes to the game mechanics they make specific to Maddening mode, this is one of them, and it would definitely impact Chapter 13's difficulty more than any other map on account of those forced deployments.

Yes and no.  Hard mode Reunion at Dawn enemies can still mess PCs up just fine and a neglected character without much in the way of skills will only be useful for distracting a single enemy once to run over and kill them, even auto-leveled to L20.  I think the auto-levelling is more impactful for if a player has some genuine change of heart and wants to build the character after all, in which case the auto-levelling is useful to speed the catch-up process up, but it won't really help you for clearing THIS level.

Edited July 10 by SnowFire