Mechanics that you want

[Snowy_One]

Not really. Take FE9. To have 100 crit, you'd need to be a Swordmaster and have 185 more hit than your opponent has avoid. Even with a max hit forged Iron Sword, capped skill and capped luck, you'd only have 205 hit against lategame enemies without about ~45 avoid, giving you a +60 bonus instead of a +15 bonus. Which is a big difference, sure, but it seems like skill and luck do need to be made better, and this accomplishes that pretty well. It also buffs the traditionally high-skill Snipers/

SM base crit boost: 15%

Wrath Boost: 50%

VK crit boost: 35%

Total crit boost (not factoring SM's natural skill): 100%

Granted, this requires them to be wrathed which means 50% health, but the risk can be lowered with vantage. Doesn't help against the 2-rangers though.

Edit: IMO, the big problem with the SM is that the WTA punishes them too harshly. They overkill hit with their high SKL, then get weapons with high hit, have low STR, and have weapons with low MT, and then get stuck with a WTD on top of it. IMO, the base-line weapons should be more standardized to try and combat that.

Edited December 5, 2011 by Snowy_One

[Rothene]

I thought overkill Hit means WTD doesn't hurt them too much in terms of accuracy?

[Thor Odinson]

Well I guess he meant that Swordsmen are generally high in skill, and coupled with the high hit rates of swords, making their hit completely overkill while lacking in other areas. Which, doesn't really have much to do with the weapon triangle, though I guess it's the one thing they got going for them---at least they can hit lancemen, while good luck getting an axeman to hit sword guys consistently. Still, this alone doesn't make up for all of swords' shortcomings ever after FE6.

[Rothene]

Hmm...Swords could have been better if Lances were noticeably heavier in FEGBA. Apart form gimped Female/Male Con difference and ridiculous tome weight(Dark in particular), I liked the Con system. I found it annoying when Paladins were almost never weighed down by lances, making the lightness of swords obsolete.

Weapon weight should have been a good way to balance the weapons. You can have the usually doubling accurate sword users who's damage output drops drastically with enemy Def, not so double happy, but balances accuracy and damage lances, while Axes are always a gamble to use.

After FE8, I found it...peculiar to see my swordies take Axe-to-face-on-the-forest almost all the time, even in early game when it's supposed to be their time to shine.

[Snowy_One]

Yea. That's the problem with swords. Most sword-users are naturally accurate in FE9, so the higher hit doesn't help them out too much, but they have low STR, so having weapons with the low MT and then, on top of that, being stuck at a WTD (meaning less damage) really hurts. To make it worse, axe users, who normally have low ACC in comparison, get a constant WTA meaning extra hit to help ease any hit problems that they may be having. As if that didn't suck enough, there are only two 1-2 range swords in FE9 (Ragnell aside unless you're Ike) and only Mia and Mist can even viably use them and one doesn't even come until 27.

FE9 really screwed sword-users over hard.

Edit: The reason I suggested standardizing the weapons is simple. Even if the mixture of enemies in regards to weapon usage was to become even, you're going to have the problem of accuracy vs. power. When accuracy is common, having more of it becomes redundant thusly making power more valuable. However, if accuracy is not common enough, then people will opt for the chance to hit over the increased damage. WoW found this out the hard way when they introduced the hit stat. Instead of providing a chance for people to choose between hitting a foe more reliably or possibly dealing more damage, people jumped right onto the hit boat maxing it out ASAP because even the slight chance of missing was too big a detraction to raids to account for. The only real reason it stayed around was because in PvP you didn't have to deal with misses, so it caused a gear-rift between PvE and PvP players where PvP players would miss in PvE raids and PvE players would have loads of a useless PvP stat (this was likely their goal though, to help differentiate between PvP and PvE).

Edited December 5, 2011 by Snowy_One

[Anouleth]

Yea. That's the problem with swords. Most sword-users are naturally accurate in FE9, so the higher hit doesn't help them out too much, but they have low STR, so having weapons with the low MT and then, on top of that, being stuck at a WTD (meaning less damage) really hurts. To make it worse, axe users, who normally have low ACC in comparison, get a constant WTA meaning extra hit to help ease any hit problems that they may be having. As if that didn't suck enough, there are only two 1-2 range swords in FE9 (Ragnell aside unless you're Ike) and only Mia and Mist can even viably use them and one doesn't even come until 27.

You say that only Mia and Mist can viably use them, but Tanith is only a point behind Mia in magic even if Mia continuously uses the Mage band and has a 5% higher growth, while Lucia is actually slightly ahead in magic. Ike is only about a point behind in magic.

And of course, Elincia slaughters every sword user except Mist in terms of magic with her amazing 80% magic growth.

Another problem is that effective weaponry is much stronger in the hands of Axe users. The Laguz Axe has an effective 26MT, while the Laguzslayer has only 18MT. Certainly, the low hit rate of the Laguz Axe is annoying since it's a rare weapon that can't be forged, but it's nothing in comparison to an 8ATK difference. The Laguz Lance is even better, having 24MT, but the same hit rate as the Laguzslayer.

[Aethereal]

Yea. That's the problem with swords. Most sword-users are naturally accurate in FE9, so the higher hit doesn't help them out too much, but they have low STR, so having weapons with the low MT and then, on top of that, being stuck at a WTD (meaning less damage) really hurts. To make it worse, axe users, who normally have low ACC in comparison, get a constant WTA meaning extra hit to help ease any hit problems that they may be having. As if that didn't suck enough, there are only two 1-2 range swords in FE9 (Ragnell aside unless you're Ike) and only Mia and Mist can even viably use them and one doesn't even come until 27.

FE9 really screwed sword-users over hard.

Edit: The reason I suggested standardizing the weapons is simple. Even if the mixture of enemies in regards to weapon usage was to become even, you're going to have the problem of accuracy vs. power.

The problem here is that skill (generally) isn't a good enough stat for sword users, and they generally get less str and more skill than other classes. It's not that the weapons need to be standardized, it's that the stat skill needs to be brought up. Under Anouleth's suggestion it is brought up some, and it gives sword users a different niche than axe or lance users. If it was balanced well, you would have low damage-high crit machines, in sword users. Lance users would do moderate damage with a small crit boost, or at least solid accuracy. Lastly, axe users would be the powerhouses they are with mediocre hit. As long as they all had enemies they were better against (Sword users being better against sages, and axe users better against armors, for example) and had a fair share of those enemies, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine that sword users being well balanced. Another method of making skill better is having numbers like in FE6, where sword users were generally pretty good. However, that usually means really crappy hit rates for axe users, which is no fun.

When accuracy is common, having more of it becomes redundant thusly making power more valuable. However, if accuracy is not common enough, then people will opt for the chance to hit over the increased damage. WoW found this out the hard way when they introduced the hit stat. Instead of providing a chance for people to choose between hitting a foe more reliably or possibly dealing more damage, people jumped right onto the hit boat maxing it out ASAP because even the slight chance of missing was too big a detraction to raids to account for. The only real reason it stayed around was because in PvP you didn't have to deal with misses, so it caused a gear-rift between PvE and PvP players where PvP players would miss in PvE raids and PvE players would have loads of a useless PvP stat (this was likely their goal though, to help differentiate between PvP and PvE).

I doubt the bolded is true, or at least completely true. I'm not a WoW player myself, but my roommate is so I have some limited knowledge of the game. While I don't follow the specifics, my understanding of the game is that people just go for what will average out to the most damage. I would guess that the hit stat is just better than the damage stats just because of the coefficients. At least before you get as much as helps-Is there a way to get 100% hit? Or a point where it starts providing less of a difference, like in FE where you're given the average of two rolls for hits? Either way, my point is, if most units had 0 base hit, but skill provided 5 or 10 hit per stat, it would probably be much better than STR/Mag until you were at like, 90 hit. It's not just about the concept, it's about the other numbers involved. I hope that makes sense, and I honestly don't mean to sound condescending about it. I could very well be wrong after all, I don't play.

[Cysx]

I had an interesting thought on buffing skill: adjust critical so that each point of hit you have over 100 is turned into crit (replacing the normal Skill/2 bonus). Potentially, you could get 2 crit for each additional point of skill, making it quite potent in the hands of a sword user.

I guess it would weaken units that are supposed to be inaccurate and critty, like Berserkers.

That's interesting indeed. I can't see any major drawback with this idea, if it's balanced right(or rather, if everything is balanced right around it). That could buff quite a few unit types in need besides SMs, like light magic users, archers and assassins. And it'd buff luck, too. Seems pretty good to me.

Edit: The reason I suggested standardizing the weapons is simple. Even if the mixture of enemies in regards to weapon usage was to become even, you're going to have the problem of accuracy vs. power. When accuracy is common, having more of it becomes redundant thusly making power more valuable. However, if accuracy is not common enough, then people will opt for the chance to hit over the increased damage.

My problem here is that you are asking for more balance(which is good), but at the detriment of variety(which is not).

WoW found this out the hard way when they introduced the hit stat. Instead of providing a chance for people to choose between hitting a foe more reliably or possibly dealing more damage, people jumped right onto the hit boat maxing it out ASAP because even the slight chance of missing was too big a detraction to raids to account for. The only real reason it stayed around was because in PvP you didn't have to deal with misses, so it caused a gear-rift between PvE and PvP players where PvP players would miss in PvE raids and PvE players would have loads of a useless PvP stat (this was likely their goal though, to help differentiate between PvP and PvE).

Once again, your example's a bit off, because iirc, the choice in WoW wasn't like "hit chance or damage" to begin with. It was more like "hit chance vs crit chance vs casting/attack speed". Because no equipment had all three at once, but every single of them had damage. Then again, that's when I left the game years ago, so maybe they changed it by now. But at the time hit chance was introduced, that's how it worked.

[Othin]

Anouleth's idea could be a good one, but it seems like it's just a symptom of accuracy being too high to matter otherwise most of the time.

[Aethereal]

Anouleth's idea could be a good one, but it seems like it's just a symptom of accuracy being too high to matter otherwise most of the time.

If you lower hit all around to make accuracy matter more, you end up with percentages like in FE6, where axe users ran around with 50-60 hit all the time. Generally low hit percentages aren't well enjoyed, because it makes a lot of chapters too luck dependent, and that seems to be a pretty recurring complaint about FE6's gameplay.

[Thor Odinson]

In which case, extra accuracy turn into crit even makes logical sense. When someone has over 100% chance to hit his/her opponent, the harder-to-hit areas like vitals become easier targets since it's just /that easy/ to hit them.

Has my support either way.

[dondon151]

I very rarely see 100 hit nowadays =(

[Othin]

If you lower hit all around to make accuracy matter more, you end up with percentages like in FE6, where axe users ran around with 50-60 hit all the time. Generally low hit percentages aren't well enjoyed, because it makes a lot of chapters too luck dependent, and that seems to be a pretty recurring complaint about FE6's gameplay.

I haven't played much of FE6, but that's just another way to balance out axes' power.

As long as characters can get a reasonable Hit like 60+%, which is perfectly feasible with an adjusted system, there shouldn't be any issues. Where there is luck, there is luck management, and that takes much more strategy than simply setting up enough damage.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Othin

[Anouleth]

Yeah, I think that FE6-style low hit is not really a great solution. Missing is just not fun.

And it's not even that hit becomes worthless once you reach 100, because I know that I don't see 100 hit that often, usually only with WTA or with Myrmidons. It's more that hit becomes worth very little once you reach about 80 since you can lean on the 2RN system. 80 display hit is the same as about 92.2% true hit, so even if hit scaled normally, you'd only be getting about 0.4% true hit for each point of display hit. In other words, the marginal value of Skill becomes very low. Maybe that makes this a flaw with the 2RN system, in that the marginal value of skill can vary wildly from character to character (for example, Skill has an high marginal value for FE6 Axe users, or anyone who uses a Javelin for anything), but I think the 2RN system is overall a good addition.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Anouleth

[CrashGordon94]

I had thought of an idea for an item, for now I will call it the "Specialty Card". It would be an piece of equipment that allows the holder to use a Prf weapon that isn't "compatible" with them as long as they have the highest rank possible in that weapon type. For some examples, if Mia had SS Swords and this item she could use Ragnell, Ettard, Caladbolg or Florete, if Hardin had A Lances and this item he could use the Wing Spear and if Rath had S Bows and this item he could use a Longbow.

Of course, I think it's a nifty idea but I'm not sure it's a very good one. If it was implemented wrongly it could really devalue the characters who has personal weapons. If it were to be used it'd have to be in a lategame Gaiden or something.

[Ϲharlie]

Rath CAN use a longbow. He even comes with one.

That aside, I guess it's not a terrible idea, although I'm not too keen on certain weapons being potentially usable by everyone. There are story reasons why certain weapons are locked into one character (Marth and the Falchion for example).

[dondon151]

And it's not even that hit becomes worthless once you reach 100, because I know that I don't see 100 hit that often, usually only with WTA or with Myrmidons. It's more that hit becomes worth very little once you reach about 80 since you can lean on the 2RN system. 80 display hit is the same as about 92.2% true hit, so even if hit scaled normally, you'd only be getting about 0.4% true hit for each point of display hit.

Perhaps it's because we're accustomed to a style of Fire Emblem gameplay where we casually reset for misses, but I personally find that even marginal increases in hit at 80 displayed are useful. Any strategy that relies on long strings of 80 hit will invariably screw up at some point. Once hit reaches 90 displayed, though, I stop worrying about missing.

It's probably mostly because of 0% growths, and partly due to 1 skl = 1 hit, but even with weapon hit as high as it was in FEDS, I still hardly get 100 displayed, and lance users generally hang around 75-85 displayed. Which is good, but I vividly recall having to reset numerous times because Jagen missed his Javelin toss, or something.

Edited December 7, 2011 by dondon151

[Snowy_One]

I had thought of an idea for an item, for now I will call it the "Specialty Card". It would be an piece of equipment that allows the holder to use a Prf weapon that isn't "compatible" with them as long as they have the highest rank possible in that weapon type. For some examples, if Mia had SS Swords and this item she could use Ragnell, Ettard, Caladbolg or Florete, if Hardin had A Lances and this item he could use the Wing Spear and if Rath had S Bows and this item he could use a Longbow.

Of course, I think it's a nifty idea but I'm not sure it's a very good one. If it was implemented wrongly it could really devalue the characters who has personal weapons. If it were to be used it'd have to be in a lategame Gaiden or something.

Gameplay wise, it isn't a 'bad' idea. It gives meaning and value to the higher weapon ranks and such, but I'm not sold on the storyline implications. For example, FE9 Mia wielding Ragnell despite it being Ike's unique sword that is supposed to be special to him. It could work in a game with no plot-important character specific weapons though (I don't have a problem with her wielding any of the weapons you mentioned except for Ragnell for example).

[Ether]

Gameplay wise, it isn't a 'bad' idea. It gives meaning and value to the higher weapon ranks and such, but I'm not sold on the storyline implications. For example, FE9 Mia wielding Ragnell despite it being Ike's unique sword that is supposed to be special to him. It could work in a game with no plot-important character specific weapons though (I don't have a problem with her wielding any of the weapons you mentioned except for Ragnell for example).

Well, you could pull an FE10 and lock and specific weapons you don't want transferable at all. Like how Elincia can't remove Amiti from her inventory under any circumstance.

[Lord Glenn]

Rath CAN use a longbow. He even comes with one.

That aside, I guess it's not a terrible idea, although I'm not too keen on certain weapons being potentially usable by everyone. There are story reasons why certain weapons are locked into one character (Marth and the Falchion for example).

I believe that he's referring to the fact that, barring FE10, post-FE8 games have had the Longbow locked to Archers/Snipers (something that kinda makes sense, actually). And, since FE13 is post-FE8, he's operating under the possibility that Longbows would continue to be locked to these units (and using a hypothetical situation of a known character to illustrate his point, as we know very little about the new characters).

Personally, as for the idea, while it might allow certain characters to be more useful, I honestly think that special weapons are granted to the characters that they are for a reason. While I don't agree with some decisions (Such as Amiti being locked to Elincia; Renning should be fair game for it also, given his royal status. This is even a trait which might give him some more usefulness...), I feel that plot should be the only thing that dictates who can use what. So, if a Horseman wants to use a Longbow, throw in some lore that backs up why he's the only Horseman that can do it. Though, if it were something unlockable (New Game+ or something), that might be a better scenario. This way, you'd be slightly less bound to using certain units, since you could toss their personal weapons to another unit. It'd promote some replayability, giving the player even more freedom to truly select who they want to use. (I mean, yes, one can do that already, but if you could give Pugi to Halvan because you really liked him, wouldn't you want to?)

For that matter, if we're talking New Game+ scenarios, I'd be down for allowing forced units to be removed (barring the *main* forced units). I personally have a gripe against FE10 for forcing seven units into your endgame party. Realistically, most of them could just be background units who pop up in the dialogue. Of the seven, the only one that really matters is Ike (for 4-E-2 and 4-E-5); the rest could just stand outside the battle areas and move in once they were clear. In subsequent playthroughs, it would make me a lot happier to use more of the units that I like and have subsequently trained in the final 16-unit roster (plus the heron) instead of only being able to pick a total of 9 from the long list of units that have been prepared.

[Anouleth]

I believe that he's referring to the fact that, barring FE10, post-FE8 games have had the Longbow locked to Archers/Snipers (something that kinda makes sense, actually). And, since FE13 is post-FE8, he's operating under the possibility that Longbows would continue to be locked to these units (and using a hypothetical situation of a known character to illustrate his point, as we know very little about the new characters).

Personally, as for the idea, while it might allow certain characters to be more useful, I honestly think that special weapons are granted to the characters that they are for a reason. While I don't agree with some decisions (Such as Amiti being locked to Elincia; Renning should be fair game for it also, given his royal status. This is even a trait which might give him some more usefulness...), I feel that plot should be the only thing that dictates who can use what. So, if a Horseman wants to use a Longbow, throw in some lore that backs up why he's the only Horseman that can do it. Though, if it were something unlockable (New Game+ or something), that might be a better scenario. This way, you'd be slightly less bound to using certain units, since you could toss their personal weapons to another unit. It'd promote some replayability, giving the player even more freedom to truly select who they want to use. (I mean, yes, one can do that already, but if you could give Pugi to Halvan because you really liked him, wouldn't you want to?)

For that matter, if we're talking New Game+ scenarios, I'd be down for allowing forced units to be removed (barring the *main* forced units). I personally have a gripe against FE10 for forcing seven units into your endgame party. Realistically, most of them could just be background units who pop up in the dialogue. Of the seven, the only one that really matters is Ike (for 4-E-2 and 4-E-5); the rest could just stand outside the battle areas and move in once they were clear. In subsequent playthroughs, it would make me a lot happier to use more of the units that I like and have subsequently trained in the final 16-unit roster (plus the heron) instead of only being able to pick a total of 9 from the long list of units that have been prepared.

You mean 10. There are 10 endgame slots that you can put anyone in.

And I don't really see why FE10 is especially guilty of this. FE6 lets you bring only 8 units, FE8 lets you bring 10, and FE7 lets you bring only a paltry six!

[Lord Glenn]

You mean 10. There are 10 endgame slots that you can put anyone in.

And I don't really see why FE10 is especially guilty of this. FE6 lets you bring only 8 units, FE8 lets you bring 10, and FE7 lets you bring only a paltry six!

Urp, you're right. The point still is that you're forced to bring 5 units whose importance is questionable and it'd be quite nice to fill those five slots with units of your own choosing. FE6's is arguably fine, since the ratio is 2/8 (forced/selectable), though one could say that it'd be nice to fill Fa's spot with another unit. FE7's is a little worse, since the ratio is 5/7; again, you could argue that the four other than the non-main lord don't mean much to the gameplay of the chapter. Aureola isn't locked to Athos and you don't even need to use Armads/Durandal/Sol Katti to defeat the Dragon, so beyond plot importance they don't necessarily need to be there. As with FE6, FE8 isn't bad, since you're only forced to bring the siblings, which isn't terrible. Even FE9 is fine, since it's 2/12.

So, FE10 isn't guilty of this alone, though it was the first to come to my memory as I finished it more recently. This, coupled with the fact that I was moreso annoyed with getting stuck with Sanaki, Ena, and Sothe, none of whom I wanted to use; at least in FE7, I had no issue in deploying Lyn, Eliwood, and Nils (and Athos is just a staffbot for me.

I understand why they're mandatory, as they're all relevant to the final resolutions of each individual game; after you've beaten the game 5+ times, you just get kind of sick of being forced to use those units every single time. Why can't we use a team entirely of our own making in subsequent playthroughs, just like in almost every other normal chapter?

Edited December 7, 2011 by Lord Glenn

[Othin]

Yeah, I think that FE6-style low hit is not really a great solution. Missing is just not fun.

And it's not even that hit becomes worthless once you reach 100, because I know that I don't see 100 hit that often, usually only with WTA or with Myrmidons. It's more that hit becomes worth very little once you reach about 80 since you can lean on the 2RN system. 80 display hit is the same as about 92.2% true hit, so even if hit scaled normally, you'd only be getting about 0.4% true hit for each point of display hit. In other words, the marginal value of Skill becomes very low. Maybe that makes this a flaw with the 2RN system, in that the marginal value of skill can vary wildly from character to character (for example, Skill has an high marginal value for FE6 Axe users, or anyone who uses a Javelin for anything), but I think the 2RN system is overall a good addition.

Missing is an obstacle to overcome to seize victory with strategy. For that matter, having characters die is much the same way. It's not fun when it happens, but the threat of it is what forces us to improve our strategies, making victory more satisfying than it would be if it's little or no threat. Whether through the weapons, the formulas, or the number of RNs used, the threat is an important part of managing strategy and risk management.

And if Hit doesn't often go above 100, calculating Crit based on that instead of based on Skl/2 only serves to devalue Skl.

I had thought of an idea for an item, for now I will call it the "Specialty Card". It would be an piece of equipment that allows the holder to use a Prf weapon that isn't "compatible" with them as long as they have the highest rank possible in that weapon type. For some examples, if Mia had SS Swords and this item she could use Ragnell, Ettard, Caladbolg or Florete, if Hardin had A Lances and this item he could use the Wing Spear and if Rath had S Bows and this item he could use a Longbow.

Of course, I think it's a nifty idea but I'm not sure it's a very good one. If it was implemented wrongly it could really devalue the characters who has personal weapons. If it were to be used it'd have to be in a lategame Gaiden or something.

Could be made much more feasible with multiple classes of personal weapons, so that only some would be involved, while specifically story-based weapons would remain restricted. So, say, Mia would be able to use Ettard, Caladbolg, and Florete, but not Ragnell.

Although making it an item that could be used by any character seems a bit odd, rather than just having it be dependent on the character's own merits. Using the FE11/12 system for Aura/Excalibur could be enough: making such weapons considered particularly high rank for other characters (more so than B, perhaps), but a lower rank for the characters that have them as personal weapons.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Othin

[Thor Odinson]

We can always just change the formulas... I just went through a FE4 Gen 1 draft run, and Ayra had 100 hit on pretty much all of the enemies she faced. Granted, that wasn't a lot since draft means Sigurdrush through most of it, but it really just depends on the formula used as well.

Or it can be skl/2 before hit goes over 100 and then additional hitrates over 100 gets turned into additional crit. Hell, that's how I interpreted it the first time.

I think missing is alright to a certain extent. If half or more of your team is running around with 50-60s or even less consistently on most of the enemies (unless you're stupid and send in all axemen with no swordslayers on a chapter full of myrmidons in which case gg it's your fault), there's an issue. It becomes too luck based at that point. Around 70-80 as the average and 90-100s at the higher end, that's okay, since missing is still bound to happen as a risk, but it's no longer so luck-based.

Also, agreed on certain weapons due to story should not be allowed to be used by anyone but the intended wielder, but others could be free within certain conditions.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Luminescent Blade

[Aethereal]

As long as characters can get a reasonable Hit like 60+%, which is perfectly feasible with an adjusted system, there shouldn't be any issues. Where there is luck, there is luck management, and that takes much more strategy than simply setting up enough damage.

There are quite a few chapters where "luck management" is really just hoping not to get screwed. The problem arises in the scenario that you have to, reliably, be able to clear or survive a certain amount of enemies/an enemy that is particularly strong. However, when those enemies/that enemy and you have a 400%-60%~ chance to kill each other, wether or not you die is largely out of your hands. The chapters where you have no problems with hit that will severely affect(effect? I hate these two words.) the outcome have little luck management involved. In these scenarios, you as a player have a lot more control over the outcome, in that if you play better you will have a significantly better chance of winning. The outcome isn't determined by an RN, but rather what you do. It's these chapters that are more fun, at least in my opinion, though I suspect in many people's as well.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Aethereal