Mechanics that you want

[Dark Sage]

First off... let me address efficiency. I, personally, struggle with the issue myself. I hate the concept of 'efficiency' thoroughly and entirely for multiple reasons. It feels demeaning and insulting, exclusive, petty, and limiting. To walk into a tier-topic and see characters you loved and played the game through with outright adoring, either because of character or because you used a strategy that played to their strengths, hurts. Especially when you start to look through posts and find out that the reason why they ended up so high or low was because of something you may not only disagree with, but seems irrelevant. Saying X is worse than Y because X can't fly and, as a result, can't bypass a certain piece of terrain on one map which costs a turn or two as a result both feels demeaning (So I used inferior characters?) and insulting (I thought a character was good because used a inferior strategy?). Not to mention it often relies on specific strategies, goals, and whatnot that tend to exclude many ways to play and enjoy the game. It's the difference between the newbie CoD player who uses the grenade launcher and, generally, just plays to have fun and the hardcore player who uses a more specialized weaponset, then berates the newbie for using a 'n00bie' team or what have you. It's one thing to admit that someone may be playing better than you, it is another to have to admit you did 'horribly', especially when it doesn't feel that way at all.

I found a really excellent post regarding your problem with efficiency lists:

Really you shouldn't be so sensitive that the tier list hurts your feelings. Let's say you see your favorite character on the bottom of a tier list. You can:

1. Try to argue them up. However, since this a tier list, you'll probably have to use numbers and logic and such.

2. Ignore it by thinking the creators are idiots.

3. Ignore it, because the tier list isn't actually telling you who to use, just the most efficient characters to use.

4. Cry or something?

Efficiency tier lists do not generate hostility all by themselves, some people become very hostile within a tier topic, but that's their problem, not the problem of efficiency tier lists.

Because really, while I can see how some people are insulting while arguing about a tier list, to find a tier list itself insulting is quite ridiculous. I used to hate Ranked tier lists, but I was never insulted by them existing.

Now, onto the balance issue. I know that, to tier players, there will never be such a thing as 'truly balanced'. The difference may be small, but eventually, either Falco or Serph knights will be proven superior for example. The idea, however, is to present a choice where, if you picked wrong, you aren't screwed and still get some form of advantage that can be played too. Do you value the extra flexability of additional heals, even though they won't ever be as good as your priests/mages? Or do you like the idea of making your unit capable of dominating almost anything that flies more? It is more than a statistical difference. It is something to think about and makes you think about your strategy. The Hali is great for breaking through chokepoints since it's heavy-armor bypass allows you to deal 3/6 extra damage to heavily armored units, but doing so means you will struggle against those units who don't have a lot of armor until the start of your next turn. The Pikeman is a great defensive interceptor since it gets bonuses against a high-movement enemy, but faulters on the offensive rush since it can't move as fast with its ability activated.

By the way, there is no such class as a Halibradier. There is a class called Halberdier though which looks similar. Also I think you mean Seraph Knights since I have no idea what a Serph is. Finally faulters isn't a word (if it was, it would be a noun). I think you mean falter.

Anyway moving on from being sarcastic about spelling errors. I think the problem is that the classes are arguably too specialized and there would be too many of them made if all promotions were like this. Contrary to what Othin believes, more classes is not necessarily a good thing. I can see the merit in having units focus and specialize in terms of tactics though. Perhaps instead of making extra classes, some player units can be in an existing class (like say, Halberdier), but they can have their growths and bases customized to fit the role of your idea for the Pikeman class. The unit could also have a skill aiding in that role.

[Thor Odinson]

Honestly, FE tier lists is a way to reflect the tiering in a certain playstyle. which are the reasons why there's ranked and efficiency tiers, warpskip and no warp tier lists, and Sethskip vs Sethless tiers. You favorite character ranked low in a tier list just means that they aren't the optimal usage in that certain kind of playthrough. Why should you care, unless you enjoy like debating efficiency tier lists, if you don't even play in that style? Nobody says you have to use the most efficiency-optimal characters, ever. But some people enjoy playing that way and some people like debating about it since it's like debating economy but with less boring crap and more FE characters, so why so much hate?

Or hell, make your own tier lists. I always rank females by arbitrary levels of badass and males by how hot they are.

Edited November 5, 2011 by Luminescent Blade

[Othin]

What the hell is your problem with efficiency and why must you insult the way other people play? Every time I see you post about efficiency, there's always an air of scorn about it.

Efficiency is great. It's a way of measuring how well you preform based on absolutely any factor you choose - you can be time-efficient, luck-efficient, money-efficient, rank-efficient, turn-efficient, or any combination of them and whatever others you can think of.

The way many people here have twisted the word "efficiency" to refer to only their preferred kind of efficiency, turn-efficiency, is not so great. Furthermore, when considering just how much content that particular kind of efficiency cuts out of the game, it in particular is far from representative of the game's overall content. If people want to play and analyze the game from a turn-efficiency perspective, that's all fine, but the games have much more to them than that. It is simply those other perspectives that we endeavor to draw attention to, seeing how underrepresented they are here.

There is nothing, at present, to take as an insult, so there's no need to be hurling around such accusations.

[I.M. Gei]

If you don't like it, Othin, why don't you, y'know, just ignore it instead of BAAAAWing all over the damn forums? Nobody's forcing their play style or their definition of efficiency on you; you choose to lampoon the way tier players play at multiple turns.

Edited November 5, 2011 by Black★Rock Shooter

[Othin]

I choose to emphasize alternatives. But of course, how dare I speak the slightest words of praise for a playstyle other than the one Black*Rock Shooter chooses to use?

Also, I like how you continue to insist on parading turn-efficiency tier players as the only "tier players". It is to statements like this that I simply advocate awareness of a broader reality.

I should mention that I have nothing against LTC; I've enjoyed my brief experiences with it. What I object to is simply the apparent unwillingness to look at much else.

Edited November 5, 2011 by Othin

[Celice]

The best idea of course is to put you all in a grinder and let it smoulder.

[Othin]

The best idea of course is to put you all in a grinder and let it smoulder.

Well, that just sounds painful.

[Dark Sage]

Also, I like how you continue to insist on parading turn-efficiency tier players as the only "tier players". It is to statements like this that I simply advocate awareness of a broader reality.

So why aren't there any tier lists based on efficiency that aren't turn-efficiency then? Perhaps you should become aware of the reality that so far, the only other tier lists presented here are based on ranked and efficient play.

[Othin]

So why aren't there any tier lists based on efficiency that aren't turn-efficiency then? Perhaps you should become aware of the reality that so far, the only other tier lists presented here are based on ranked and efficient play.

Because people here are too obsessed with turn-efficiency to look at anything else. That's precisely the problem I'm trying to help you escape.

[Florete]

Enough of the efficiency discussion in here. Get back on topic.

[Dark Sage]

Sure.

I hope that if there is a difficulty as difficult as FE12's Lunatic Mode, there are more usable characters there.

Edited November 5, 2011 by Dark Sage

[Aethereal]

Edit: Just saw RFoF's post, deleting what I said.

Edited November 5, 2011 by Aethereal

[eclipse]

With the dual-attacks that were already shown, I hope they bring back the GBA affinities and supports. That could make for some insane combos.

[Snowy_One]

I think the problem is that the classes are arguably too specialized and there would be too many of them made if all promotions were like this. Contrary to what Othin believes, more classes is not necessarily a good thing. I can see the merit in having units focus and specialize in terms of tactics though. Perhaps instead of making extra classes, some player units can be in an existing class (like say, Halberdier), but they can have their growths and bases customized to fit the role of your idea for the Pikeman class. The unit could also have a skill aiding in that role.

The real problem with 'customizable growths' is that it would take a idiot to not find some way to horribly abuse them. Is the game clogged with melee units, but few magic units? Pile on the DEF and ignore RES. In a class that utterly cannot use MAG or STR? Drop them entirely and pour it all into whatever else you want! Have a unit that typically has high SPD and LCK, but low STR? Drop the luck and put it into STR!

Hmmm... Now that I think of it... Why not switch the AVO bonuses of SPD and LCK? SPD gives you 1 AS and AVO per point while Lck gives 1 evade and 2 AVO. Would help to balance it out.

[General Banzai]

I really liked the customizable growths aspect of Thracia. It's the real reason why I consider Thracia a balanced game as even weak units such as Marty, Tania, Miranda, etc can become excellent and no matter who you use (one or two exceptions exempted) your team will be full of powerhouses by the end of the game, thus allowing you to look back on your investment on individual characters and say "that was worth it!"

I would hope to see something similar to the scroll growth system in FE3DS although with the skirmish system it would be far too easily abusable.

[CrashGordon94]

I had some thoughts about what a future Jeigan character could be like myself. Obviously, it most likely couldn't be in this game because they already have Frederik's design sorted but eh.

One (that I mentioned in chat) would be to make the Jeigan a General. Then they would still be very able to fulfill their intended role as a crutch for new players/people playing on a harder difficulty/people with a limited team at the start of the game so they can reasonably get through the earlier chapters but they wouldn't be overused and abused by serious LTC people because Generals suck for their purposes and they would use the character earlier on if needed but then dispose of them later on, like how such characters are normally intended to be used. Some other classes could be good for this purpose too (in the chat, Alouleth suggested Sniper), of course.

A different idea would be to make a pseudo-Jeigan who actually wasn't a prepromote but merely started out better than and ended up worse than your other available first-tier units, like Ruka from FE2 or an earlier joining version of Athena from FE11. What could be done is to give such a character better bases and weapon ranks (perhaps even a high enough weapon rank to wield a Silver earlygame like a "full-on" Jeigan!) but worse growths and a higher level. Then, even if they were more useful for efficiency and stuff, they wouldn't be as broken for those purposes as a strong "full-on" Jeigan would be and that's really what I'm wanting them to avoid: overpowered Jeigans.

[Dark Sage]

I think the problem is that the classes are arguably too specialized and there would be too many of them made if all promotions were like this. Contrary to what Othin believes, more classes is not necessarily a good thing. I can see the merit in having units focus and specialize in terms of tactics though. Perhaps instead of making extra classes, some player units can be in an existing class (like say, Halberdier), but they can have their growths and bases customized to fit the role of your idea for the Pikeman class. The unit could also have a skill aiding in that role.

The real problem with 'customizable growths' is that it would take a idiot to not find some way to horribly abuse them. Is the game clogged with melee units, but few magic units? Pile on the DEF and ignore RES. In a class that utterly cannot use MAG or STR? Drop them entirely and pour it all into whatever else you want! Have a unit that typically has high SPD and LCK, but low STR? Drop the luck and put it into STR!

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I didn't mean the player should customize growths directly. I meant that the character's growths should be made to fit with their role (for example, the role of your idea of the Pikeman class).

[Mirron]

Eh, personally, I prefer the growths being different as opposed to ideal for their class, assuming that's what you mean. Could be wrong on what you mean, but it'd cut out a lot of the individuality, which is one of the really nice things about FE.

Oh. Con as a stat with growth, I want that. I don't know why they needed to introduce Strength as the stat for weight management, except I suppose to make it easier to do magic/weapon users, but it's really unfair for mages. It's not like more strength is ever a bad thing for a character (unless they're capped in the stat), but mages typically have low strength. Base it on Magic for Mages (or for fighters, if you want to hinder both) or something if not a new Con stat.

[CrashGordon94]

Well, I think giving Mages a reason to want Strength is actually kinda cool, the Tomes just need to be lighter. Perhaps like FE11 tome weight with FE9/10 Strength growth for most Mages.

My only real problem with the STR AS system is that it puts low STR physical units into a catch-22 situation. I guess that could be fixed by making the low STR fighters really fast so they worry less about the AS loss but I think it might work a little better to have physical weapons run off Build/CON and have toems run off STR, but I already suggested that.

[Othin]

The entire point of Weight is to make it so that units will get AS loss much of the time, so that Weight actually matters. Using FE11 Wt would utterly fail that goal. It worked great in FE5 with weapon Wt running off of Bld (with a growth) and in FE9 with magic Wt running off of Str (with low but existing growths, as opposed to FE10/11 growths), so I agree that a system combining the two for the different weapon groups would work best.

However, like in most discussions, I feel it is worth it to bring up the Berwick Saga system for consideration. For physical weapons, Str/2 is used to determine slowdown. It is typically less than the weapon's Wt, so slowdown typically exists and weapon Wt indeed matters, but weapon Wt is adjusted as well, so Str/2 is not so much less that units will often be crippled by the Wt of a weapon not meant to be absurdly heavy. It also means that adding a point of Str does not simply outclass adding a point of Spd. Shields also factor into the equation, having their Wt added on top of the weapon's Wt and almost always resulting in a substantial cost in AS in exchange for the defensive bonus. I think this is a particularly good alternative system to a Bld stat; I wouldn't call either one necessarily better than the other.

Magic, strangely enough, has no Wt at all, but mages have lower Spd to compensate. I'm not sure this is a particularly good system, but it does make sense and represents mages' lesser physical ability in another way. I don't like the loss of the factor to differentiate different spells, but mages only have access to a few different spells anyway and they're all quite distinct from each other. It would certainly help to make Fire magic less overpowered, but other factors, particularly the low availability of any given spell, help to balance that out.

Edited November 6, 2011 by Othin

[Rewjeo]

I don't think mages need to have lower speed to compensate. Remember how well that went in FE10? They either need to have decent defenses or actually have better offense than your other units. That doesn't happen very often and it makes mages not really worth using objectively.

[Othin]

I don't think mages need to have lower speed to compensate. Remember how well that went in FE10? They either need to have decent defenses or actually have better offense than your other units. That doesn't happen very often and it makes mages not really worth using objectively.

In FE10, other units don't get slowed down by just about anything they choose to equip. In Berwick Saga, Mages still have more AS than most other units.

As for offense, the spells they have access to make that not so much of an issue. And not having to compete so much with throwing weapons also helps.

Edited November 6, 2011 by Othin

[Rewjeo]

Having not played Berwick Saga, that sounds like it works well. But that isn't something I've seen IS do, besides certain notable exceptions (Holsety!Anyone, Pent, etc.) so I would be worried if they gave mages lower SPD again.

[Dark Sage]

I find that FE6's system regarding weapon weight worked rather well for the most part. It didn't make tomes so heavy that it crippled mages and it made AS loss mostly guaranteed on physical units when they tried to use a heavier weapon (basically only Gonzales and Barth could use really heavy weapons without AS loss). There was a way to fix poorer Con (Body Ring) but sometimes, due to the Aid stat, it wasn't a good idea to use the Body Ring on certain characters.

FE5 giving a growth to Con (or Build, it doesn't matter what it's called really) wasn't a bad idea, though often the growth was so low it might as well have not have existed.

[General Banzai]

I liked the Bld growth mostly in regards to thieves, where you could steal any enemy item as long as your bld was high enough (and most of the time it wasn't).