Mechanics that you want

[Colonel M]

In Lunatic Mode, Longbows were pretty nice to have against Glower Sorcerers, and they would be immensely helpful in Lunatic Reverse. 2-3 range adds a lot more flexibility to attacking and prevents counterattacks. It definitely has its creative uses, and it allows a class like Snipers to have up to 10 range (theoretically).

I honestly think it would be the best solution. FE2 sort of implemented it, it made Shinon pretty good in FE10 (his issue was the rout objectives worked against him since they were more Enemy Phase dependant), and it worked in FE12 aside from its really late join time.

[Snowy_One]

Bows would be more useful when: You have one significantly stronger enemy in a pack (Fairly common), you have units who can combine with a bow user 2RKO, and combined with a hand axe user 3RKO, you are trying to clear all enemies on PP, or you want to avoid a counter on a unit after you chip it. Oh and against bosses.

While I cannot speak for everyone, I usually bum-rush bosses with everyone to kill them in one phase. 'Chip damage' has little meaning when you have multiple people ganging up on you. TBH, all you need to remove the threat of bosses is just wait a turn or two to prepare and/or heal up.

Besides, you are depending on one specific type of enemy formation (one strong enemy in group of enemies weaker relative to him). Why should the developers have to limit themselves to that type of thing?

You're looking at this from the mindset that the enemies are terrible. You cannot always make that 1RKO, and even if you can, stronger chip helps avoid counters. If you want to look at this from the mindset that your units are all so great that they dominate the enemies the way you describe, go right ahead.

I'm looking at it from the mindset of 'I want to find a way to balance out what has, in the American FE's, been one of the most overpowered weapons as well as find a way to balance what has been one of the most underpowered weapons'. It just so happens that part of making things balanced involves both increasing the underpowered, and nerfing the OPed. However, the OP'ed weapon can't be trashed either. We can't just utterly remove throwing weapons from the game. They still have to be able to preform their job of 2-range attacks as well. This means we can't nerf their MT to the point of being worthless (since then melee weapons will basically be incapable of 2-range combat), but we still need to give a clear edge to any unit who may have the option of a bow and a melee weapon type. The problem is that, in any situation where there is a option between the bow and throwing weapon, so long as there is more than one or two enemies, the throwing weapon will almost always be superior as a choice simply because of its counters.

And if it has 40 HP, as tons of competent enemies do?

Then the throwing weapon is probably better. Hit them as they approach, counter for more damage, then finish off with a stronger melee weapon. There is only a 4 HP margin there where using the bow would be better and if there is even one enemy who can attack in physical combat come EP nearby the handaxe will almost certainly be better.

You saying that your point is correct, and telling me to face it isn't a way of making your point more valid.

In order to get 100 you need a 65 and a 35. Without one or the other you cannot reach 100. That does not mean that 65 is a larger number than 35 or that you can ignore the 35 because you have the 65. Yes, a nerf is needed for their MT, but that nerf alone isn't the solution to the balance. In your own words...

Yes, just like every one uses early bow users with bad ranks now. Ever used Rolf, Leonardo, Wolt, Dorothy, Neimi, Wil, or Rebecca? Do you understand how ridiculously terrible they are early game? So terrible that it's not worth raising them. A lot of those units actually have solid stats at end game, but nobody cares because it is so terrible raising archers without strong bows, and there's a perfectly viable replacement in hand axes/javelins, without the drawback of never having an enemy phase. No one would ever choose the archer, just as they don't now. Strong chip is useful, sucking ass for half the game to get strong chip isn't.

For the record, I really liked Neimi, but I can see why a tier-user would put her as low. You are right that bows need to be made stronger/handaxes weaker... and guess what I am suggesting? A nerf that removes the issue of other units gaining the edge since they can't use throwing weapons now without losing the advantage of their EP. However, making bows better than throwing weapons is only one side of the coin. Nerf them too hard and suddenly the weapon becomes useless. They need a niche, but that niche can't be one with too little MT (which removes the point to using them and punishes units who lack STR who are possibly the units you want attacking at 2-range anyways as they might be underleveled or you want a stronger character to finish off), it can't be one where the handaxe is blatantly superior to the bow even when using the strongest bows, and it can't be one where the game designers have to limit what they can do just to make bows viable.

God, you're not getting the point. So you would choose an archer with an iron bow over a fighter with a hand axe, even with the -1 MT? If so, I need to ask if you've played Fire Emblem, and understand that early game archers suck?

The margin where one may be superior to the other is only 2 points. That's a pretty slim HP margin where it matters. So yea, the MT edge is largely worthless, especially since later on the bow user can work his way up to far stronger weapons than the handaxe user. The real advantage to the handaxe is not its MT, but it's ability to counter at 1-range.

So, in effect, you make them worse than archers at the only thing archers can do? Because that would be, y'know, the point. Giving hand axes/javelins a new niche (Widespread, but weaker chip) is the entire point of this hypothetical. This leaves strong chip on a single enemy bow/magic users' role.

Yes. However, so long as they can counter at 1-range, they will dominate over bows since they won't end up lacking a EP. The simple fact is that, in order to make handaxes balanced, they need to lose that 1-range counter.

I would agree, if the start didn't suck so so terribly for bow users. But they are, so no one raises them. I literally cannot think of one example of an early game bow user who is considered good unless they're mounted. From FE4-FE10. Early game bow users suck, and with your change they would still suck.

Why bow-users struggle is different than why handaxes need to be nerfed. They are correlated, yes, but not the same thing. Just increasing what bow users can do (three range on promotion alone is a big thing. Increasing weapon MT as well is a huge one as well) will help them out there.

How does this purpose work out for bow users right now? Do people really like bow users with Iron/Steel compared to their hand axe/javelin counterparts? Is everybody who thinks Wolt/Dorothy/Wil/Rebecca/Neimi/Rolf/Leonardo suck wrong? Or do you think this hypothetical doesn't remotely solve the problem of units like them?

In your own words, bow users suck because of a lack of EP. By making it so that throwing weapons lack a EP as well, you make it so that anyone who wants to attack at 2-range needs to go without a EP. This isn't the sole part of the solution though, but it IS part of it. The only other way I can see to boost early-game bow users truly up is to give them 1-2 ranged bows. That would bring them up, except now we have the handaxe problem in reverse.

The simple fact is that, so long as 1-2 range counters exist, bows will almost always be shafted in favor of those. Can you think of one example in FE history where throwing weapons weren't horribly nerfed (20 weight), but yet were inferior to bows at the same time? Why was it like that? How could that be carried over into the new game?

[Aethereal]

Kay, so, I'm not gonna quote. I feel I'm either being completely misunderstood, or completely ignored. And you're quoting everything I'm saying then responding as if I say something else.

Here's my entire logic, and I'll stop after this, because we're not getting anywhere.

Early game archers bring 2 range damage. In order for that to be useful, they have to bring the best 2 range offense, and it has to be so much better as to offset the fact that fighters/soldiers/whatever can do significantly more. If you take away the 1 range from handaxes/javs, that obviously makes thrown weapons weaker. No argument. But it does not change the fact that fighters/soldiers/whatever will have 2 range AND melee range. Unless the archers do 2 range significantly better, there is no reason to bring them. Chip brought by other units, even if marginally worse, will make those units superior. If it is significantly worse, they may not be, or archers will at least have a role that is helpful. Whatever mechanic change is implemented needs to change the fact that units with thrown weapons do what archers can do, or at least close to it, and a ton of other stuff.

[bottlegnomes]

The margin where one may be superior to the other is only 2 points. That's a pretty slim HP margin where it matters. So yea, the MT edge is largely worthless, especially since later on the bow user can work his way up to far stronger weapons than the handaxe user. The real advantage to the handaxe is not its MT, but it's ability to counter at 1-range.

Yeah, and that's the point. To allow melee characters to be able to counter all enemies for some damage. The other option is being able to counter some, maybe most, but not all enemies, and actually KO them.

Yes. However, so long as they can counter at 1-range, they will dominate over bows since they won't end up lacking a EP. The simple fact is that, in order to make handaxes balanced, they need to lose that 1-range counter.

Please play FE12 and say that again.

In your own words, bow users suck because of a lack of EP. By making it so that throwing weapons lack a EP as well, you make it so that anyone who wants to attack at 2-range needs to go without a EP. This isn't the sole part of the solution though, but it IS part of it. The only other way I can see to boost early-game bow users truly up is to give them 1-2 ranged bows. That would bring them up, except now we have the handaxe problem in reverse.

No, bow users suck because they have no EP and mediocre, at best, PP and generally take way too much effort to get to that point. When they're like they should be, no EP and great PP, they are fine. Look at Klein, Shinon, Jamka, Faval, and Briggid. They aren't amazing, but they're all still decent, at worst.

The simple fact is that, so long as 1-2 range counters exist, bows will almost always be shafted in favor of those. Can you think of one example in FE history where throwing weapons weren't horribly nerfed (20 weight), but yet were inferior to bows at the same time? Why was it like that? How could that be carried over into the new game?

Yes. FE12. We've been through this. Bows were good because they could actually do reasonable damage at range, but 1-2 range weapons were still useful if you needed to do chip damage without a counter and your archer was off somewhere else, you wanted to counter a bunch of enemies, often a mix of 1 and 2 range, to finish them off on PP, or wanted to attack a unit outside your attack range and, again, your archer was somewhere else busy. Now in this situation, mages would have been OP because of good 1-2 combat, but they were very squishy, so they couldn't expose themselves too much on EP.

With your solution, why not just give everyone E bows, but have all classes except bow-using classes be locked to E bows, and get rid of hand axes and javelins altogether?

And stop bringing up high strength units like they're gamebreaking. They're pretty uncommon; there's like 2-3 in any given FE. And they usually have other problems to help balance them out.

Edited December 27, 2011 by bottlegnomes

[NinjaMonkey]

Mechanics I DON'T want: Paid DLC

Owait

You do know that the Professor Layton games have free DLC, right? And I'm sure that the DLC in FE12 (the Rainbow Potion and all that jazz) was free... so I'd expect that if there were any DLC for this game, that it'd be free.

Edited December 27, 2011 by NinjaMonkey

[dondon151]

Let's say we have Mr. Hypothetical Fighter with a 2-range Hand Axe, and Mr. Hypothetical Archer with identical stats and an Iron Bow. The Hand Axe has +1 Mt, but the Iron Bow has like +25 Hit. So unless the +1 Mt makes the difference between killing and not killing (unlikely), I'm going with Mr. Hypothetical Archer.

I'd still have to give the win to Mr. Hypothetical Fighter here because he has the option to go 1-range with an Iron Axe.

[arvilino]

In your own words, bow users suck because of a lack of EP. By making it so that throwing weapons lack a EP as well, you make it so that anyone who wants to attack at 2-range needs to go without a EP. This isn't the sole part of the solution though, but it IS part of it. The only other way I can see to boost early-game bow users truly up is to give them 1-2 ranged bows. That would bring them up, except now we have the handaxe problem in reverse.

The simple fact is that, so long as 1-2 range counters exist, bows will almost always be shafted in favor of those. Can you think of one example in FE history where throwing weapons weren't horribly nerfed (20 weight), but yet were inferior to bows at the same time? Why was it like that? How could that be carried over into the new game?

FE12, throwing weapons were nerfed but not completley unusuably so. They were inferior to bows because weapons had no weight(the GBA unpromoted Archers have to stick to iron bows for so long because steel kills their attack speed) so Steels were usable.

Enemy strength was high but with a lower enemy density this made player phase kills extremely important you couldn't just send in Fighters, Cavaliers and Pegasus Knights attacking with Javelins and Hand Axes to finish off X number of foes on the EP as: they can't deal enough damage, even if they kill an enemy on the EP with a Javelin they'll be facing an extra attack they didn't need to in an environment where characters are mostly 2HKO'd, they aren't able to kill as many foes in the same turn leading in alot of chapters to getting overwhelmed by reinforcements or just the reinforcements in the first place. Whereas Snipers (and Horsemen) access to better 2 range comes in handy is invaluable because it allows you to do significant ranged damage on the player phase to accomplish things a throwing weapon(and in alot of cases 1 range) could not.

In the GBA games they suck because they have no EP and all the early game Archers have worse ranged combat than Axe users and Lance users. Which is why the only GBA Bow users that are considered good are generally pre-promotes who come with access to Silver Bows(Also note that characters like Klein are considered better than FE6 Bartre). 2-2 Hand Axes won't change that because Rebbeca, Wil, Neimi will still have worse ranged combat than Dorcas or Garcia until they reach A rank or when you get a Killer Bow. The difference between 2-2 and 1-2 range for throwing weapons has little to do with bows users being shafted, as there wouldn't be such a massive gap between the placement of Walt,Dorothy and Klein on the FE6 tier list in that was the case.

[General Banzai]

You do know that the Professor Layton games have free DLC, right? And I'm sure that the DLC in FE12 (the Rainbow Potion and all that jazz) was free... so I'd expect that if there were any DLC for this game, that it'd be free.

You do know that it's confirmed that Nintendo is starting a paid DLC program, right? And that FE3DS is the first game that will use the feature?

[bottlegnomes]

You do know that it's confirmed that Nintendo is starting a paid DLC program, right? And that FE3DS is the first game that will use the feature?

On the up side, that means they'll probably release it outside of Japan. As for the fact that you have to pay, if it's that great, I'll deal with paying. If it's that expensive or not that great, I'll live without it, like I do with the online shops in SD and NMotE.

[Thor Odinson]

Archers could really do with better bases as well. No enemy phase AND ass bases? Come on.

[NinjaMonkey]

You do know that it's confirmed that Nintendo is starting a paid DLC program, right? And that FE3DS is the first game that will use the feature?

I do now.

Edited December 28, 2011 by NinjaMonkey

[Momo]

Can't wait to see Nintendo fall flat on their face about this. Five bucks for multiplayer maps, guys!!!

On the up side, that means they'll probably release it outside of Japan. As for the fact that you have to pay, if it's that great, I'll deal with paying. If it's that expensive or not that great, I'll live without it, like I do with the online shops in SD and NMotE.

Why does having paid DLC mean it'll come here?

[Celice]

Can't wait to see Nintendo fall flat on their face about this. Five bucks for multiplayer maps, guys!!!

It works guys!!!

And that FE3DS is the first game that will use the feature?

Where exactly was that confirmed at?

[Shadow Stalker X]

It works guys!!!

Where exactly was that confirmed at?

The Andriasang article where it was said paid DLC was coming said that Fire Emblem would be the first game to use the feature.

[Snowy_One]

Paid DLC isn't bad...

Paid DLC that is so important to game completion/enjoyment that you basically need it to enjoy the game fully is. For example, I didn't have a problem with DLC that only affects the game in a minor way, but can still be fun (Mothership Zeta comes to mind), but things that you almost need to enjoy the game by providing things like key levels or important power-ups (Broken Steel)? No. Just... no.

[Rewjeo]

Or paid DLC that really adds to the game and is worth the money. $10-$15 for a 10-15 chapter add-on that functions as a short sequel/prequel/etc? That sounds worthwhile to me.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Rewjeo

[Aethereal]

Or paid DLC that really adds to the game and is worth the money. $10-$15 for a 10-15 chapter add-on that functions as a short sequel/prequel/etc? That sounds worthwhile to me.

This would actually be fine, assuming the regular game is sufficient to understand and enjoy the plot, and we didn't get a short game because of it.

[Lord Glenn]

Lest we forget, Nintendo seems to love "excluding" content to "give" back to their customers at special, opportune times. Pokémon's done it since its inception with all of its exclusive Event Pokémon, dating back to Mew, Celebi, etc. The data's in the game, and they just force you to wait for what's tantamount to an unlock code to get it. Fire Emblem has previously experienced it as well. Remember the Bonus Disc that you got for pre-ordering Mario Kart: Double Dash!!? If you want the special items that are in FE7, you have to get that, buy or have a GCN-GBA Link Cable, and "copy" the items to FE7; items which, again, are already in the data and you're just being allowed to use by completing the procedure. Granted, Nintendo's obviously gotten better as they've progressed past those situations what with the fact that you can now just get on Wi-Fi (provided that you have access) and go about the stuff that way (instead of the roundabout or cost-dependent (e-Reader, much?) methods of the past).

My point is that these cases could present the scenario that none of us want; yes, the presented situations are entirely optional in their nature, but do we really want content being "left out" (if the stuff's in the data, it should be accessible in-game without a catch, IMHO) and sold to us for a cheap $0.99? I'm willing to go on a little bit of faith at the moment and hope that Nintendo isn't silly enough to go this route (though their shareholders may deem otherwise... :/) and will instead stick with actual new content that's being created post-launch, a la Grand Theft Auto IV's additional scenarios. (This "argument" is, of course, operating under the assumption that there isn't *any* free DLC; it is entirely likely that there will be a mix of paid and free add-ons though. My point is that Nintendo has a track record of stuff like this and with their adoption of paid DLC, we may need to be wary of a change in the winds.)

[General Banzai]

Nintendo's actually the last company to jump onto the "excluding content" bandwagon.

[dondon151]

I certainly wouldn't qualify the MK:DD bonus disc items as excluding content.

[Lord Glenn]

@Banzai - How so? They been doing it in America since at least 1998, with the Pokémon example from above.

@dondon - The data's already in the ROM for those weapons, though. Those items just sit there unused in-game unless you "transfer" them from the bonus disc. You could argue and say that "Oh, well, lots of stuff is unused in the game," and you'd be right. I don't have issues with content like that (such as how there are unused spell animations in FE7 that were copied over from FE6); it's the fact that the Wind Sword, etc. are *only* available legitimately from the bonus disc unlock that I have an issue with. Would it have been difficult to appropriate those items to village events or characters' inventories? No, of course it wouldn't. But, instead of doing that, we're forced to get them via a special means. I'd say that that qualifies as "excluding content" from the stand-alone experience of FE7.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Lord Glenn

[Book of Ereshkigal]

I'm not a fan of what they did with MK:DD. I'll never get to see those items legitimately :v

How does it not count as excluding content? It's inaccessible without buying something else.

[Othin]

The content is minor; the game is very much complete without it. And yet it wasn't something added because they came up with it later; they made it but hid it away unless you bought something else. That's precisely what "excluding content" is.

[General Banzai]

I'm referring to the process of creating a short/incomplete game, selling it as a full game, and then selling the rest of the game to you later as paid DLC.

[Othin]

I'm referring to the process of creating a short/incomplete game, selling it as a full game, and then selling the rest of the game to you later as paid DLC.

Indeed, that is the sense of excluding content that is far more concerning.

Paid DLC has the potential to either do that or to make an already complete game grow even more. We'll have to see which happens. More likely somewhere between the two.