Any weapon reworks you want to see?

[ciphertul]

Either for the system as a whole or for specific weapons.

First for me would be Brave weapons, while making them unbreakable and no longer limited is a big bonus I feel that they got a be too nerfed in the trade off. Take Brave weapons in PoR they are stronger than steel and permanently have the brave effect, while in engage they are weaker than iron and only get the brave effect when attacking. I would like to see a mix of the two, say sub iron damage but always has brave effect or sub steel but brave only when attacker.

Second is I would like to see the Wind Edge line return in some fashion other than just having Levin Sword. Maybe buff their hit but a minor reduction to damage. Tempest Blade having more than Silver Blade level of damage was a bit much.

[Jotari]

Does the broad desire to just bring back crossbows in general count as wanting a rework? Well, to give a rework, they still don't use strength, but now they also ignore enemy defense, meaning they deal set damage like tomes in the first game. This is actually a lot more useful than it sounds.

[ciphertul]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Does the broad desire to just bring back crossbows in general count as wanting a rework? Well, to give a rework, they still don't use strength, but now they also ignore enemy defense, meaning they deal set damage like tomes in the first game. This is actually a lot more useful than it sounds.

Now this is just me but I think that would make them a bit too overtuned. I can only use the RD crossbow for reference, but the basic bowgun has 24 might (I think) so that would be an unmitigatable 48 damage if they could double and a whopping 72 true damage vs fliers. Unless the game was tuned for it only endgame Wyvern on lunatic/maddening would be able to take that. My take on the crossbow would be to have them all have some special effect. Not only 1-2 range but say a heavy crossbow that has armor effectiveness, a repeater crossbow that has the brave effect and say the Arblest that works like a mobile ballista.

[Jotari]

43 minutes ago, ciphertul said:

Now this is just me but I think that would make them a bit too overtuned. I can only use the RD crossbow for reference, but the basic bowgun has 24 might (I think) so that would be an unmitigatable 48 damage if they could double and a whopping 72 true damage vs fliers. Unless the game was tuned for it only endgame Wyvern on lunatic/maddening would be able to take that. My take on the crossbow would be to have them all have some special effect. Not only 1-2 range but say a heavy crossbow that has armor effectiveness, a repeater crossbow that has the brave effect and say the Arblest that works like a mobile ballista.

The answer to that is obviously don't make them as strong as 24 base might. Their might in Radiant Dawn is designed around the fact that they don't use strength but do use defense, of course they're going to be ridiculous if you arbitrarily take that strength line instead of designing around the game they're in. Bowgun only had 5 might in its first appearance because in that game it did use strength. A more comaprative stat line would be the tomes in the first game, where the strongest non prf tome dealt 13 damage with 26 on double (which Wendell is great at) for some very reliable but not hugely broken damage.

Edited August 29 by Jotari

[ciphertul]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

The answer to that is obviously don't make them as strong as 24 base might. Their might in Radiant Dawn is designed around the fact that they don't use strength but to use defense, of course they're going to be ridiculous if you arbitrarily take that strength line instead of designing around the game they're in. Bowgun only had 5 might in its first appearance because in that game it did use strength.

Then how much might would you give a weapon that doesn’t scale? Bows themselves are already great chip weapons so how would you make crossbows be better than bows but not broken?

Still makes me wish Shieldshooter would be a FE class.

[Jotari]

33 minutes ago, ciphertul said:

Then how much might would you give a weapon that doesn’t scale? Bows themselves are already great chip weapons so how would you make crossbows be better than bows but not broken?

Still makes me wish Shieldshooter would be a FE class.

I think a specific number is useless as it depends entirely on the stat inflation of the game in question. But if you want a specific number I already provided you with one from the first game in the series. 13 might with the ability to double is a powerful and reliable weapon that won't tear through armies in a lot of settings.

Edited August 29 by Jotari

[ciphertul]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think a specific number is useless as it depends entirely on the stat inflation of the game in question. But if you want a specific number I already provided you with one from the first game in the series. 13 might with the ability to double is a powerful and reliable weapon that won't tear through armies in a lot of settings.

And I disagree, if that is the strongest standard you can get then you’ll be getting that late in the game. It’s damage is to low.

[lenticular]

Per-battle uses.

You get (eg) 8 swings of your brave sword per battle, then it becomes useless for the rest of the battle, but then you automatically get it back to full in the next battle. Presumably it gets blunted by use and you're sharpening it between battles or something, but that's abstracted away so we don't need to care about it.

Basically, I want special weapons to be really good, with some limitation on how much you can use them, but without the problem of "too good to use" syndrome.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, ciphertul said:

And I disagree, if that is the strongest standard you can get then you’ll be getting that late in the game. It’s damage is to low.

I mean, again, that just goes back to what I said about that depending entirely on the game and how high the stats are or aren't.

[ciphertul]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I mean, again, that just goes back to what I said about that depending entirely on the game and how high the stats are or aren't.

I don’t know about you but while I don’t wanna see stats keep inflating, I also don’t wanna see them regress. I think Engage spread was solid (for most classes anyways)

Edited August 29 by ciphertul

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

I want Bronze > Iron > Steel > Silver to be strict upgrades, but somewhat balanced by the decreasing amount of weapon uses these weapons have.

Also, make a dedicated A-Tier weapon, the Sword/Lance/Axe/Bow- Masters Weapon or whatever you wanna call it, that can specifically ONLY be used by mono weapon classes with some manner of benefit to a secondary stat (i.e. one of +Hit/Avo/Crit/CritAvo) or increases the benefits of the WT if it exists and negates it if at disadvantage.

[Florete]

4 hours ago, ciphertul said:

And I disagree, if that is the strongest standard you can get then you’ll be getting that late in the game. It’s damage is to low.

Too low for what? Maybe for RD, but this isn't just about RD. You could always have multiple versions of crossbows that are acquirable throughout the game, like every other basic weapon type...and like crossbows themselves in RD. Early game 8 Mt, mid game 14 Mt, late game 20 Mt. Something like that. Change the numbers based on expected HP values.

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

Per-battle uses.

You get (eg) 8 swings of your brave sword per battle, then it becomes useless for the rest of the battle, but then you automatically get it back to full in the next battle. Presumably it gets blunted by use and you're sharpening it between battles or something, but that's abstracted away so we don't need to care about it.

Basically, I want special weapons to be really good, with some limitation on how much you can use them, but without the problem of "too good to use" syndrome.

I've thought for a while that this would be a good idea. It allows for limitations on how much you can use a weapon without removing it entirely from the player, so there's far less "I'm saving it in case I need it later" (only to never use it). Three Houses did this with spells, which is pretty cool, but it could be expanded to everything. I feel like it has (most of) the benefits of both the breaking weapons system and the unbreakable weapons system.

Edited August 29 by Florete

[ciphertul]

9 minutes ago, Florete said:

Too low for what? Maybe for RD, but this isn't just about RD. You could always have multiple versions of crossbows that are acquirable throughout the game, like every other basic weapon type...and like crossbows themselves in RD. Early game 8 Mt, mid game 14 Mt, late game 20 Mt. Something like that. Change the numbers based on expected HP values.

Jotari was using 13 as the high end. That is too low especially for late game unless we are talking like pushing 40 hp is endgame.

Edited August 29 by ciphertul

[Dark Holy Elf]

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

Per-battle uses.

You get (eg) 8 swings of your brave sword per battle, then it becomes useless for the rest of the battle, but then you automatically get it back to full in the next battle. Presumably it gets blunted by use and you're sharpening it between battles or something, but that's abstracted away so we don't need to care about it.

Basically, I want special weapons to be really good, with some limitation on how much you can use them, but without the problem of "too good to use" syndrome.

I like this. In addition to being a limiter on "powerful" weapons that doesn't just encourage you to hoard them, it can also be used as a limiter on certain types of common weapons, the biggest ones being the javelin and hand axe. One way to discourage people from just throwing a super-stat character at a swarm knowing that they'll be able to counter everything with 1-2 weaponry, you could make said 1-2 weaponry have a limit. Your super unit with a 1-2 weapon can probably still clear out one key enemy phase, but not all of them.

 

3 hours ago, ciphertul said:

And I disagree, if that is the strongest standard you can get then you’ll be getting that late in the game. It’s damage is to low.

Then make it a bit higher for whatever enemy numbers you're imagining. I thought @Jotari was pretty clear that the exact numbers to use would depend on the numbers in the game ltself. I think their idea for crossbows is solid, regardless.

The Light Brand in Binding Blade works similarly, thinking on it, at least when used at range. I thought that weapon worked pretty well, though it certainly falls off to "mostly a boss-killer" as time goes on... you could probably have e.g. a 15-damage version later in the game safely. You don't really want these weapons to be one-rounding enemies because otherwise they just completely eclipse other weapons, but they should do solid, reliable damage to everything.

[Original Alear]

11 hours ago, ciphertul said:

Second is I would like to see the Wind Edge line return in some fashion other than just having Levin Sword. Maybe buff their hit but a minor reduction to damage. Tempest Blade having more than Silver Blade level of damage was a bit much.

I'm not sure I agree...IIRC tempest blades, there were only 1-2 available for most of the game? While silver blades can be bought/forged in late part 3 and part 4.

Three Houses did this with spells, which is pretty cool, but it could be expanded to everything.

TBH, considering you can repair weapons in 3 Houses, even the rarest ones, they already seem to have provided that option to the extent they deemed necessary.

[SnowFire]

11 hours ago, ciphertul said:

Second is I would like to see the Wind Edge line return in some fashion other than just having Levin Sword. Maybe buff their hit but a minor reduction to damage. Tempest Blade having more than Silver Blade level of damage was a bit much.

I feel like this is something a player wants, but doesn't "really" want.  As a player, of course you want cool goodies & options.  But from a larger perspective, it's important for there to be defined strengths & weaknesses for units, classes, weapon types, etc. so that the "map" part of the tactical RPG matters, not just the individual fights.  The player should be thinking "Huh, a lot of {ENEMY TYPE A} over there, I need to send by {COUNTER UNIT B} to handle them."  Making swords range-1 helps define their niche.  It doesn't even have to be nerf; it can open up "power budget" to make swords even better at what they ARE good at.  If everyone has a cheap range 1-2 physical option, then there's not a lot of difference between weapon types. 

(Even in Fates, which DOES have a range 1-2 sword, it's rigged so that Dawn Armory weapons get a range 1-2 katana & club, while Dusk Armory gets the classic range 1-2 Javelin & Hand Axe.  i.e. in each route, the uniqueness is sort of preserved, just which weapon type draws the short end of the stick is different.  Or how Fates includes the Levin Sword & Bolt Axe for Nohr, and the Bolt Naginata for Hoshido.  Trying to still mix things up and have a "here's what this weapon type is good at.")

I think Engage already did a lot of the weapon rework ideas I'd have.  The biggest thing I'd change from Engage is maybe to nerf forging / engraving some...  I get that it's a long-term mechanic meant to give you something to grind for, but maybe lock upgrades more than +2 behind some sort of quest.  But as is, since you can focus forging so much, it has a similar issue to Fates where you pick your One Weapon and forge it super hard and almost never use anything else, except for when you need longer range poke.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Every game has a different system, so a change that works for one game might not be good for another. That said, as a general thrust going forward:

- Thunder spells can all be used at 3-range. Neat! But they make up for this with high Weight, low Hit rates, and inability to counter at melee.

- Surge tomes were a really neat idea, and I'd like to see more "superpowered 1-range tomes", maybe within the Dark category?

- Would be neat to see tomes that target defense - "Earth Magic", maybe? With names like "Tremor" and "Landslide".

- Effective weapons do "doubled attack", rather than "tripled might". Also, they're more accurate than before.

- Crits should work likewise, doubling attack. This can stack with effective damage, for quadruple attack... typically an instakill.

- Reaver weapons return with a vengeance (I forget if Engage even had them, 3H definitely didn't). Not even proposing any changes, just... they should exist. And I guess have a lower cost-per-use than in GBAFE.

- Call it the "Ridersbane". Not the "Horseslayer". Not the "Knight Killer". The "Ridersbane". That is all.

 

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

You get (eg) 8 swings of your brave sword per battle, then it becomes useless for the rest of the battle, but then you automatically get it back to full in the next battle. Presumably it gets blunted by use and you're sharpening it between battles or something, but that's abstracted away so we don't need to care about it.

I think this would be the best way for legendary weapons to work, assuming we're not in a Genealogy-type repair system. The legendary weapon has incredible stats and effects... but only for a few uses per-map. After that, it's power is sealed, for the time being, rendering it much weaker.

It never made sense to me that divine weapons, supposedly the pinnacle of craftsmanship, would shatter after about 20 uses.

[ciphertul]

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

Reaver weapons return with a vengeance (I forget if Engage even had them, 3H definitely didn't). Not even proposing any changes, just... they should exist. And I guess have a lower cost-per-use than in GBAFE

Yeah, Engage had 2: Lancereaver and Dual Katana, both where engaged sword so didn’t help much.

Edited August 30 by ciphertul

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I like this. In addition to being a limiter on "powerful" weapons that doesn't just encourage you to hoard them, it can also be used as a limiter on certain types of common weapons, the biggest ones being the javelin and hand axe. One way to discourage people from just throwing a super-stat character at a swarm knowing that they'll be able to counter everything with 1-2 weaponry, you could make said 1-2 weaponry have a limit. Your super unit with a 1-2 weapon can probably still clear out one key enemy phase, but not all of them.

 

Then make it a bit higher for whatever enemy numbers you're imagining. I thought @Jotari was pretty clear that the exact numbers to use would depend on the numbers in the game ltself. I think their idea for crossbows is solid, regardless.

The Light Brand in Binding Blade works similarly, thinking on it, at least when used at range. I thought that weapon worked pretty well, though it certainly falls off to "mostly a boss-killer" as time goes on... you could probably have e.g. a 15-damage version later in the game safely. You don't really want these weapons to be one-rounding enemies because otherwise they just completely eclipse other weapons, but they should do solid, reliable damage to everything.

Coming to think of it the Levin Sword worked this way in Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia too at 15 damage and is a pretty great weapon for a very long time, though it's held back a bit by the fact that if you're using it it's you're only attack option.

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

 Reaver weapons return with a vengeance (I forget if Engage even had them, 3H definitely didn't). Not even proposing any changes, just... they should exist. And I guess have a lower cost-per-use than in GBAFE.

Agree, reaver weapons should come back. I also suggest the gem weapons from heroes, weapons that increase the effectiveness of the weapon triangle.

Earth magic targeting defense would be cool, but I don't reckon it would be all that useful since res tends to be lower than defense anyway so it's what you want to target 90% of the time. Though it would give mages an anti mage option.

Other idea from me, Training Weapons from Three Houses (and Path of Radiance briefly) where they are very weak but noticably grant a lot more weapon exp. No games weapon rank progression has been perfect in my eyes, either being too slow or too fast. But something like this would give the player control over how quickly their weapon ranks grow by making them a conscious choice to train (if this sounds familiar it's an idea I've suggested many times in the past and have been holding on to since even before Three Houses introduced Training Weapons).

Devil Weapons. In Three Houses they changed to dealing damage to the user after combat, which is fine as a weapon gimmick, but I like my OG Devil Weapons as well. I want them improved somewhat though with two small changes, 1)The backfire rate is visibly displayed on screen as a percentage (ie you can deal 20 damage to this boss but you know there's a 30% of failure in addition to the hit rate) and 2)The enemy still takes damage even if the Devil Weapon backfires, it's just that both user and enemy suffer the damage (this can lead to a simultaneous kill which the series has never dealt with and might have funky results). That way their reliability is increased as you can still depend on them to actually kill the enemy, you might just lose your own unit in the process (or, you know your unit will survive even if there's a backfire because they have enough HP to endure the backfire and will certainly kill the enemy before the enemy can counter attack).

There was another idea I had in mind but can't remember it now. Will probably post later.

Edited August 30 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, ciphertul said:

Yeah, Engage had 2: Lancereaver and Dual Katana, both where engaged sword so didn’t help much.

Oh yeah, both very weird choices. When I see Roy, my first thought is hardly "Lancereaver". But hey, it's something interesting for him to do, I guess.

As for Corrin, it's a disappointment that all she gets is Swords - and specifically, katanas! It hardly represents her overall. Of course she gets the Yato, but I'd have loved to see her get a tome (say, Moonlight) and a rod (say, Sun Festal) as well, to reflect her canon promotions.

29 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Though it would give mages an anti mage option.

Yeah, that's the crux of it. Also the fact that a lot of games give weapon-users magical damage option, but Mages are rarely extended the inverse courtesy.

30 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Training Weapons from Three Houses (and Path of Radiance briefly) where they are very weak but noticably grant a lot more weapon exp.

I like this effect, but if they come back... they should suck. I mean, be really bad, outside of the WEXP effect (which is a great idea). Training Weapons were good in 3H due to their light weight, high use count, and high accuracy. That made them clear choices on... well, most units using weapons, honestly. They're not doing the most damage, but if they can help my units hit - and avoid getting doubled - they're worth a bring.

Heck, maybe make them sub-lethal? This would make the Training Weapons useful for "setting up kills". Could solve the alleged EXP thief Jagen "problem" once and for all.

5 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Making swords range-1 helps define their niche.

So I agree with this, but as a result, Lances and Axes end up... kinda samey. Same effects and tiers available, just swap Hit for Might and Weight. Like, they were already very similar, but Swords being different makes their similarities stand out more. And in a few games, Axes just outshine Lances, full-stop (outside of the express instance of getting WTA over Swordies).

I do wanna give RD credit - while they made Swords more "samey", by introducing the Wind Edge and its older sisters, they also better differentiated Lances and Axes, if only ever-so-slightly. In this game, Axes offer the only anti-Armor weapon (the Hammer), while Lances provide the only anti-cavalry weapon (the Horseslayer). The GBA games, and PoR, gave both weapon types both effectiveness options. For once, though, Lances have something to call their own. ...Even if they're still broadly "Axes, but worse".

[Jotari]

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

Oh yeah, both very weird choices. When I see Roy, my first thought is hardly "Lancereaver". But hey, it's something interesting for him to do, I guess.

As for Corrin, it's a disappointment that all she gets is Swords - and specifically, katanas! It hardly represents her overall. Of course she gets the Yato, but I'd have loved to see her get a tome (say, Moonlight) and a rod (say, Sun Festal) as well, to reflect her canon promotions.

The reason Roy got a lance reaver was almost certainly because he had access to only one weapon type. Giving him a lance reaver let him have more diverse weapon triangle access. Corrin had other options, magic, staffs and dragonstones, but I guess they wanted to have the katana weapons referenced. Still it was a bit of an odd choice for her compared to Roy where it makes as much sense as anything else.

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

I like this effect, but if they come back... they should suck. I mean, be really bad, outside of the WEXP effect (which is a great idea). Training Weapons were good in 3H due to their light weight, high use count, and high accuracy. That made them clear choices on... well, most units using weapons, honestly. They're not doing the most damage, but if they can help my units hit - and avoid getting doubled - they're worth a bring.

Oh yeah, training weapons were kind of ridiculous in Three Houses. In addition to everything you mentioned, their cost and durability made them the best weapons to spam combat arts with.

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

Heck, maybe make them sub-lethal? This would make the Training Weapons useful for "setting up kills". Could solve the alleged EXP thief Jagen "problem" once and for all.

I did consider that, though if they have the full mercy effect it feels like you could just boss abuse any enemy by surrounding them and just wailing on them with combat weapons until you hit S rank. Maybe a mercy effect of an enemy has over 1hp but they can kill an enemy at 1hp

[lenticular]

45 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I did consider that, though if they have the full mercy effect it feels like you could just boss abuse any enemy by surrounding them and just wailing on them with combat weapons until you hit S rank. Maybe a mercy effect of an enemy has over 1hp but they can kill an enemy at 1hp

Would that really be a problem, though? There are plenty of similar exploits in other FE games, like arena abuse or broken weapon abuse, and by and large the solution is "if you don't like them, don't do them". Nobody is going to accidentally stumble over this and accidentally break game balance without knowing what they're doing.

[Jotari]

52 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Would that really be a problem, though? There are plenty of similar exploits in other FE games, like arena abuse or broken weapon abuse, and by and large the solution is "if you don't like them, don't do them". Nobody is going to accidentally stumble over this and accidentally break game balance without knowing what they're doing.

I think, to a certain extent, from a game design perspective, yes. The platonic ideal of weapon ranks is that they should be something that matters but can be compensated for. A unit with low stats but a good initial weapon rank should have niche advantages versus a unit with good base stats but low weapon ranks. If there's an easy exploit that eliminates that disparity then it's going to effect balance. It's also not going to be a very active or fun way to play the game, even people who choose to do it won't be enjoying it in the moment.  Case and point, all the monastery stiff in Three Houses. A lot of people find it boring and repetitive, but they're free to skip it yet choose not because it seems to be the most efficient way to play the game.

Edited August 30 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

I did consider that, though if they have the full mercy effect it feels like you could just boss abuse any enemy by surrounding them and just wailing on them with combat weapons until you hit S rank. Maybe a mercy effect of an enemy has over 1hp but they can kill an enemy at 1hp

Just make it so that, after a certain turn, you're only gaining EXP and WEXP for kills. That would discourage boss abuse, as well as staffspam and the whole "gotta Dance every turn even if no one is using it!" mindset.

Alternatively, cap the amount of EXP or WEXP that a unit can gain in a given map. This could be done via a "Fatigue" system - once they've reached their limit, they can still fight, but they're not growing from it.

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Corrin had other options, magic, staffs and dragonstones, but I guess they wanted to have the katana weapons referenced.

It's nice to see katanas appear, sure (although the Mani Katti is basically a Katana already, but whatever). But it's frustrating when essentially every Lord is getting Swords. And when they have the option to give another weapon type, when it would make all the sense in the world, they double down on the Swords. Go figure!

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Oh yeah, training weapons were kind of ridiculous in Three Houses. In addition to everything you mentioned, their cost and durability made them the best weapons to spam combat arts with.

Depends on the art and target, in my expperience. Like, if Swift Strikes on a Training Lance is killing, then of course I'm going for it. But if it's falling short, I would choose a higher-Mt weapon, like the Steel Lance or Crescent Sickle, instead.

[samthedigital]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

I did consider that, though if they have the full mercy effect it feels like you could just boss abuse any enemy by surrounding them and just wailing on them with combat weapons until you hit S rank. Maybe a mercy effect of an enemy has over 1hp but they can kill an enemy at 1hp

This can also be solved by capping the amount of weapon exp an enemy can provide; Awakening and Fates for example do this.

14 hours ago, SnowFire said:

I feel like this is something a player wants, but doesn't "really" want.  As a player, of course you want cool goodies & options.  But from a larger perspective, it's important for there to be defined strengths & weaknesses for units, classes, weapon types, etc. so that the "map" part of the tactical RPG matters, not just the individual fights.  The player should be thinking "Huh, a lot of {ENEMY TYPE A} over there, I need to send by {COUNTER UNIT B} to handle them."  Making swords range-1 helps define their niche.  It doesn't even have to be nerf; it can open up "power budget" to make swords even better at what they ARE good at.  If everyone has a cheap range 1-2 physical option, then there's not a lot of difference between weapon types. 

I would personally really like to see a return of a 1-2 range physical sword without drawbacks like the Wind Edge. It would be out of place in a game like Conquest where the weapons and 1-2 range options are relatively (it's not that simple, but for the sake of this topic I'll pretend that it is) tightly balanced while feeling unique, but not all games need to strive for that specific design.

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Case and point, all the monastery stiff in Three Houses. A lot of people find it boring and repetitive, but they're free to skip it yet choose not because it seems to be the most efficient way to play the game.

To me the Monastery activities feel distinctly different from things like boss abuse. I'll save my thoughts on the matter for a topic dedicated to grinding if that comes up again though.