What mechanics would you change from previous FEs if you could?

[Axie]

FE6/7: Armory & Shop before each chapter.

FE6 seels Iron weapons, Fire and Heal on Battle Preparations with higher prices than usual. A dick move, but it was enough for me. FE7 needed at least something like that.

Seth+Boots=easy Ch17 three turned. No need to worry about anything. He can get to a position where he'll just kill all the reinforcements up top, the bottom ones won't arrive before he KO's Lyon.

This is on my Sethsolo run, so I just left Eirika in the middle of the map while Seth had his manly powertrip. For me to pull a 3-turn on my Jehanna run where I didn't use Seth and had no 10-move 1-2 range characters, I had to pull a massive Warp-dance chain whereas Seth just clears the chapter with no effort and a few uses of the Short Spear and Audhulma.

The +2 move is still pretty important.

... maybe I should have asked "did they really think +2 Move would make up for it if Seth wasn't in the game?". The guy is a monster.

And I think FE5 did it best when they made Constitution a stat with growth. Strength as the AS loss determinant is better than a static Con stat, of course, but it feels like too much importance is put on Strength then - a character with low Str would cause less damage AND lose more AS to heavier weapons. I haven't played FE9/10 to truly know, though. Not to mention the GBA FEs don't have separate Strength and Magic stats - a spellcaster with Magic as the AS loss determinant would mean they almost never lose AS unless they made the spells even heavier.

[Narga_Rocks]

FE6 seels Iron weapons, Fire and Heal on Battle Preparations with higher prices than usual. A dick move, but it was enough for me. FE7 needed at least something like that.

Not on HM. fe6 HM was harsher than fe7. In FE7 HHM, you can at least sell stuff in the preparations. In fe6 HM you have to load up units with gems and other crap you want to sell and deploy them in the chapter. That part is a pain. When there's a chapter with lots of slots and nothing to threaten Merlinus and the shops are near the start of the chapter I sometimes just deploy him. He can load up his inventory with 5 things to sell and then sell them, and do it again next turn.

Speaking of, I like fe6 Merlinus a lot more than fe7 Merlinus. FE6 Merlinus can actually do stuff. Even after fe7 Merlinus promotes, he's not smart enough to figure out how to pull some items out of his wagon and hand them to another unit on his own. Instead you have to have other units run up to him and pull stuff out of his wagon. That can be annoying if you want that unit to attack with the shiny new weapon on the same turn (not possible unless Merlinus is next to the unit). Also, since fe6 Merlinus can remove after doing so it can be helpful if you want to resupply a unit's self-healing items where they are blocking enemies but don't want Merlinus to be a 2-range target.

Although I would rather have the Lord be a walking convoy (as little sense as it makes) for simplicity, if they were to decide to go with another wagon-type character I'd prefer fe6 Merlinus + the free deployment and level per map thing that fe7 has. FE6 Merlinus can actually do more than sit in one place or just move around.

... maybe I should have asked "did they really think +2 Move would make up for it if Seth wasn't in the game?". The guy is a monster.

I don't think it is just Seth. Some of the cavs would probably still be better to promote into Paladins to get the extra move. Boots can be spent on one guy that wants to be a Great Knight, though.

And I think FE5 did it best when they made Constitution a stat with growth. Strength as the AS loss determinant is better than a static Con stat, of course, but it feels like too much importance is put on Strength then - a character with low Str would cause less damage AND lose more AS to heavier weapons. I haven't played FE9/10 to truly know, though.

Well, fe10 doesn't really make much of a difference after part 1 for spd. Marcia and Neph lose AS from steel greatlance, but aside from them I don't think anybody ever loses AS again. fe9 it makes more of a difference.

Not to mention the GBA FEs don't have separate Strength and Magic stats - a spellcaster with Magic as the AS loss determinant would mean they almost never lose AS unless they made the spells even heavier.

Which would make them pretty much like fe10 mages, actually.

[Shin]

FE3/4:

- Add Constitution/Build as a stat, FE6 handled it quite nicely. Axe users would finally become useful. Having it passed down like growths in FE4 would be great (Arden would finally have something ^^).

- Longer RNG chains in FE4. Useless level ups are never funny.

FE5:

- More midrank tomes, having a Thunder as an E-rank and then the next one up Thoron at A wasn't too helpful. Wind as a D-rank made it impossible for anyone to level up in Wind before promotion; as most of them started with an E.

- Having a separate Res stat. A good magic user could wipe out both melee and magic units.

- Limited range/time of effect on Staves. Being put to sleep or silenced for the rest of the chapter hurts.

FE6:

- Canto!

Axes weren't too bad in FE5, especially with decent axe users like Othin, Halvan and Hicks.

[Smiley Jim]

Well, fe10 doesn't really make much of a difference after part 1 for spd. Marcia and Neph lose AS from steel greatlance, but aside from them I don't think anybody ever loses AS again. fe9 it makes more of a difference.

If it means anything, base level Mist loses AS from Steel swords, blades, Wind edges, and Wyrmslayers(not that I would want Mist to use any of those weapons, or attack, period.) Also, base Astrid loses AS from longbows(iron long is 15 wt, Astrid's base str is 13. Steel long is even worse on Astrid as it weights 18.)

[Reikken]

dunno if this counts as mechanics, but

FE1-10: 58 billion difficulty modes like FE11 has

FE9: FE10's animations off

FE9/10 mostly: toggle for double/triple speed enemy phase map movement and unit turning and such

FEall: better/different AI for different chapters and difficulty modes. Like if the enemy is a trained mercenary group or something, they should behave differently than a bunch of bandits, for example. And better AI on harder modes might be cool.

[Narga_Rocks]

If it means anything, base level Mist loses AS from Steel swords, blades, Wind edges, and Wyrmslayers(not that I would want Mist to use any of those weapons, or attack, period.) Also, base Astrid loses AS from longbows(iron long is 15 wt, Astrid's base str is 13. Steel long is even worse on Astrid as it weights 18.)

Sorry, I should rephrase.

The only characters that lose AS from weapons that matter after part 1 ends are Marcia and Nephenee from steel greatlances.

Longbows are terrible at 3 range if you don't have height advantage and there is little point using them at 2 range instead of more accurate bows. Additionally, you'll almost never need to worry about facing a counter if you are using a longbow for its 3 range so the AS loss isn't relevant (Astrid won't double ever anyway, or at least by the time she has the spd to double she'll have the str to not lose AS).

Mist should obviously never use anything not "Florete", at least until you can forge Silver or buy Silver Blades (or if she can KO with something like iron to save uses). Well, or if you get a nice card from a coin on a steel forge. However, if you are making one for her you can cut the wt from 11 down to 8 anyway.

[dondon151]

So you'd rather have your units waste a turn shopping than using them to kill the enemy units/healing/whatever?

Okaaaaaay then...

Think about it for a second. It's a very good strategic element. It's one more objective that you need to complete safely on the map, and the player has to weigh whether he'll put in the resources to go shopping or to forego it altogether and attempt a more efficient clear (if it's possible). Then again, I guess no one actually cares about the strategic element in FE.

Take, for example, the northeast vendor in FE7 chapter 21 HHM. It's the only vendor in the game before chapter 31x that sells Pure Waters. You can easily clear the map in 3 turns, but between the armories, the 4 villages, and the other vendor, you really have to choose your deployment wisely and figure out what goals you can give up.

Or, the armory in FE7 chapter 26 HHM. You know, where Vaida covers that same area, yet it's the only armory (not including chapter 20 secret shop) to sell killer weapons before chapter 31x. You have to think of a way to safely avoid Vaida's range while shopping.

My last example is the FE7 chapter 22 HHM secret shop. This one isn't particularly difficult, but given that you can easily clear the map in 4 turns (maybe 3 turns if you had growths), and that you need to obtain the treasure in the southwest corner of the map, recruit Heath, and leave a diversion in the middle to keep Nils safe, you're spreading your units kind of thin. Yet that's one of two secret shops in the game before chapter 31x that sells Physics.

The only gripe I have about it (that many others seem to share) is that you can get screwed over if you forget to buy something at a certain point in the game. Like, you might run out of weapons if you're a novice. So do it like FE6 NM and implement a shop that sells the most basic weapons for an inflated price as a failsafe.

Edited November 18, 2010 by dondon151

[Anouleth]

Think about it for a second. It's a very good strategic element. It's one more objective that you need to complete safely on the map, and the player has to weigh whether he'll put in the resources to go shopping or to forego it altogether and attempt a more efficient clear (if it's possible). Then again, I guess no one actually cares about the strategic element in FE.

Take, for example, the northeast vendor in FE7 chapter 21 HHM. It's the only vendor in the game before chapter 31x that sells Pure Waters. You can easily clear the map in 3 turns, but between the armories, the 4 villages, and the other vendor, you really have to choose your deployment wisely and figure out what goals you can give up.

Or, the armory in FE7 chapter 26 HHM. You know, where Vaida covers that same area, yet it's the only armory (not including chapter 20 secret shop) to sell killer weapons before chapter 31x. You have to think of a way to safely avoid Vaida's range while shopping.

My last example is the FE7 chapter 22 HHM secret shop. This one isn't particularly difficult, but given that you can easily clear the map in 4 turns (maybe 3 turns if you had growths), and that you need to obtain the treasure in the southwest corner of the map, recruit Heath, and leave a diversion in the middle to keep Nils safe, you're spreading your units kind of thin. Yet that's one of two secret shops in the game before chapter 31x that sells Physics.

The only gripe I have about it (that many others seem to share) is that you can get screwed over if you forget to buy something at a certain point in the game. Like, you might run out of weapons if you're a novice. So do it like FE6 NM and implement a shop that sells the most basic weapons for an inflated price as a failsafe.

I think that the shop should sell basic weapons at a regular price. I mean, they're Iron weapons, it's not like it would be making it too easy or something.

[Strawman]

For all of them that I have played (7-12) I would improve Dark Magic, put in more light magic enemies, provide good Dark Magic users(SHAMANS, not lame-o dark mages) and have more than 1 or 2 shamans.

[NinjaMonkey]

Think about it for a second. It's a very good strategic element. It's one more objective that you need to complete safely on the map, and the player has to weigh whether he'll put in the resources to go shopping or to forego it altogether and attempt a more efficient clear (if it's possible).

I'd rather buy my weapons before a chapter starts and then focus on whatever objective the chapter has.

[CT075]

I'd rather buy my weapons before a chapter starts and then focus on whatever objective the chapter has.

I don't have anything against that opinion, but that's Narga's Dondon's whole point.

Yes, you can choose to go straight for the objective, which may be much easier. However, if you want the best equipment, you instead have to go out of your way to get the shops while still maintaining efficiency. Like Narga said, it's an interesting tactical feature. Yet another objective you need to juggle.

Of course, if you're like me and like to just bumrush through chapters anyway while screwing efficiency, then the strategic element is kinda lost since it's pretty easy to reach the shops during a bumrush.

Maybe just include the base shop in Normal Mode?

Edited November 19, 2010 by Camtech086

[Anouleth]

I don't have anything against that opinion, but that's Narga's whole point.

Apparently Narga = dondon now.

Edited November 19, 2010 by Mr. Know-it-all-Anouleth

[CT075]

Apparently Narga = dondon now.

*headdesk*

[Ken Zomg]

For all of them that I have played (7-12) I would improve Dark Magic, put in more light magic enemies, provide good Dark Magic users(SHAMANS, not lame-o dark mages) and have more than 1 or 2 shamans.

Did you mean this?

FE11/12: For crap's sake, divide the magic into three groups. Sorcerer using Starlight = lmao

[Axie]

Yeah, FE11's magic system is so primitive it failed to keep me interested, and it's one of the things I look forward to in a FE. Sad, really. : [

[Anouleth]

I don't think the weapon triangle matters so much for magic users. It like, almost never came up in the GBA FEs or in FE9/10. But maybe some of the magic classes should have gotten exclusive spells - so like how female mages got Resire and Aura, male mages got Excalibur, dark mages should have gotten something too.

[Axie]

Oh, the magic triangle rarely makes a difference indeed. It's more about variety. It's fun to have a magic type to be lighter and weaker, another to be stronger and heavier, and a third in the middle, like what happens with weapons.

Edited November 19, 2010 by Axie

[Byte2222]

I agree with this completely, as information about FE12 was surfacing I was watching intently in the (vain) hope that it'd have 3 types of magic and am quite cross it didn't. Magic diversity was one of my favourite parts of RD, well magic types at least, the actual units (ally and enemy), class caps and tomes (mainly thunder) were a bit of a letdown, but to have 5 types (and staves) you could use and take into the final was a great feature. It made me feel appreciated as a Mage enthusiast.