Fixed weapon levels

[Agro]

So I've been tossing around the idea of trying for another hack in my head (I'll probably never start) and one of the things I thought of for 'balancing' was setting the weapon experience of every weapon to 0 so that every character would be stuck with a certain weapon level unless they promoted or used, say, a 'Training Sword' weapon with 1 use that had WEXP of 50 or whatever.

[For example, you could have Erk be the only character in FE7 who's capable of getting an S in Anima, and make Excalibur really awesome - do you, then, put up with raising Erk for that access to Excalibur? Or do you just skip that and use Pent?

In another example, we could give more weapon combinations to classes to rebalance them: since Great Knights and Generals can use the same weapon combo, but GKs have more movement, what would happen if GKs could only use up to B, and Generals had access to A weapons? Would you still class change into GK then, knowing that you wouldn't be able to use Silver weapons?

We could also give weapons to dancers/bards/clerics and not worry about them becoming powerhouses - sure, clerics can fight, but only with E light magic?]

Anyway, it got me to thinking: what did you all think of FE4's fixed weapon levels system versus Thracia 776's and beyond? Loved it, or hated it? And for the few of you who've played FE3, what about the weapon levels as a stat with growth rates? I for one thought that fixed levels it brought something new to the table: it gave you something else to have to consider, like "oh, if Holyn is Arthur's father, then he'll be able to use better swords", which is always nice.

edited for clarity. The square-bracketed section is what I added in.

[Shin]

Part of the reason Sigurd's so good is that he gets a Silver Sword right at the start. As much as I like FE4, I prefer the FE5+ system. Having people pass down Holy Blood only meant that Levin's son could use Holsety. Holyn's A rank swords only really affected Patty and Leen, Azel's Fire gave people access to the worst magic available and Lex's Neir didn't help anyone. With gaining ranks, you've got to work your way to the better weapons.

FE3's system was unusual. By about level 10, you could use most weapons, and most units had a decent growth in it. If you had a bad weapon level, like Julian, it would put you into a rut which was difficult to get out of.

[Anouleth]

I think it's an interesting idea. It gives characters something else to set them apart.

Part of the reason Sigurd's so good is that he gets a Silver Sword right at the start. As much as I like FE4, I prefer the FE5+ system. Having people pass down Holy Blood only meant that Levin's son could use Holsety. Holyn's A rank swords only really affected Patty and Leen, Azel's Fire gave people access to the worst magic available and Lex's Neir didn't help anyone. With gaining ranks, you've got to work your way to the better weapons.

I think that's more of an issue of FE4 having unbalaced weapons. Having an A Rank in a weapon type doesn't mean much when all the strongest weapons in the game are B Rank. And when every child in the game is either a magic user or a sword user.

[Othin]

Yeah, FE4's system was screwy, but the idea was nice in principle. I'd support this, just getting rid of the WExp gains from battle, so characters' weapon levels would be largely fixed at their base above that point unless they increased it by promoting or used an Arms Scroll. This would allow weapon levels to do much more to differentiate classes and characters.

[CrashGordon94]

I hate this idea, I like being able to grow peoples' ranks.

[Integrity]

by promoting or used an Arms Scroll.

Actually, I think that would be kinda interesting. Fixed weapon ranks for characters FE4-style with quite a few (not, like, three) Arms Scrolls scattered about as the only way to raise the rank.

On the other hand, that sorta limits to fewer ranks. I don't want FE11's E through A with fixed ranks, I'd rather have FE4's 3 except, you know, balanced. And with tiny niceties like trading.

[Othin]

Actually, I think that would be kinda interesting. Fixed weapon ranks for characters FE4-style with quite a few (not, like, three) Arms Scrolls scattered about as the only way to raise the rank.

On the other hand, that sorta limits to fewer ranks. I don't want FE11's E through A with fixed ranks, I'd rather have FE4's 3 except, you know, balanced. And with tiny niceties like trading.

FE4 was limited to 3 because of how limited it was by the class weapon levels, which couldn't vary much. It could vary more this wzy, so I see no reason not to do E through A. A would just be restricted to specialists, not unlike * in FE4.

[CrashGordon94]

All sounds terrible, you'd be very limited in what you could do and a screw up with an Arms Scroll would be terrible.

[Othin]

All sounds terrible, you'd be very limited in what you could do and a screw up with an Arms Scroll would be terrible.

Just means you have to get by with Steel or something, and there would certainly still be characters starting with C, B, or A so you could use them instead. Don't get this idea that you need to do things perfectly to survive.

[CrashGordon94]

Not good enough. I don't want to be screwed out of good weapons later on because of this shitty system!

FE is already hard enough for some newbies without this crap fucking them over!

[Integrity]

Not good enough. I don't want to be screwed out of good weapons later on because of this shitty system!

FE is already hard enough for some newbies without this crap fucking them over!

Dude, seriously, kindly calm the fuck down if you want to actually make any kind of point.

EDIT: Calm down and pay attention, as it were. You wouldn't be "screwed" out of shit because there would be automatic As for some characters/weapons - just not everybody would start with it and you'd either have to choose to build them to it or not.

@Othin: Yeah, I cede the point. It would actually provide some really good distinction since your (taking an example) only Silver Lancer would be Jags until Cain/Abel promoted, or something similar. It wouldn't even eliminate ridiculous shenanigans like S-ing Swords with Neimi because hey, Arms Scrolls.

[Agro]

Not good enough. I don't want to be screwed out of good weapons later on because of this shitty system!

FE is already hard enough for some newbies without this crap fucking them over!

Shhh, calm down, baby

You wouldn't not be able to use A/S weapons. We could, for example, make it so that Joshua came with an A in swords, while Forde comes with a C in swords. So you'd still have that access to Silver Swords, just that Forde wouldn't be able to use them right off the bat, he'd have to use an Arms Scroll, or when you're deploying units you'd have to think "Hm, now do I want Joshua, who can use Silver Swords, but doesn't have 8 movement, versus Forde, who is statistically superior (he might not be, but we'll ignore that for now) but can only use up to a Killing Edge?" The point would be to give more differentiation between characters, and give some units and edge over others - what if Nino were the only character in FE7 who could get an S in magic, for example? Would people still dismiss her as a crappy growth unit? What if Excalibur was amazingly good?

It could also open up the possibility of giving some people "personal" weapons, from a technical standpoint in hacking - you could just make it so that only one character in the game could get an S rank, then make his personal weapon an S-rank weapon. Of course, you might not want to do that, but it's an idea nonetheless.

[Anouleth]

It could especially make a difference in a game like FE8 where you have branched promotions. What if Warrior gave S Axes and Hero gave only B? Would the choice be so easy for Garcia and Ross? What if Falcoknight had A/C and Wyvern Knight had S (while Syrene starts with C/A)? Giving different classes access to different weapons rather than just different weapon types could be a great way to help differentiate them.

You would probably want to talk to Camtech or someone about implementing an Arms Scroll-type item in the game. I don't think it would be very difficult since it's just a matter of adjusting one number.

[Colonel M]

I think if were doing E through A / S, maybe a character that starts with E can build up to a certain rank, like D or C, before they can't gain any more Wexp. I think the main reason I think of this is when you have a character like Cord having E Axes and being "okay", but being stuck with Iron Axes forever makes him always inferior to Barst in every way possible.

[CrashGordon94]

Dude, seriously, kindly calm the fuck down if you want to actually make any kind of point.

EDIT: Calm down and pay attention, as it were. You wouldn't be "screwed" out of shit because there would be automatic As for some characters/weapons - just not everybody would start with it and you'd either have to choose to build them to it or not.

Emphasis on "some", SOME! That won't fucking cut it lategame!

You wouldn't not be able to use A/S weapons. We could, for example, make it so that Joshua came with an A in swords, while Forde comes with a C in swords. So you'd still have that access to Silver Swords, just that Forde wouldn't be able to use them right off the bat, he'd have to use an Arms Scroll, or when you're deploying units you'd have to think "Hm, now do I want Joshua, who can use Silver Swords, but doesn't have 8 movement, versus Forde, who is statistically superior (he might not be, but we'll ignore that for now) but can only use up to a Killing Edge?" The point would be to give more differentiation between characters, and give some units and edge over others - what if Nino were the only character in FE7 who could get an S in magic, for example? Would people still dismiss her as a crappy growth unit? What if Excalibur was amazingly good?

That sounds crap, the way it is works much better.

[Colonel M]

Fire Emblem - the game that requires no skill, yet CrashGordon struggles on it...

...I think you're really overreacting this entire charade. Don't worry, Priscilla will still have a good staff rank and we'll even toss C Tomes for shits and giggles. We'll even give Mist A Swords and everyone else E to balance it out.

There will likely be enough Arms Scrolls and good weapon rank units lategame to make the decision mostly trivial anyway, at least for casuals.

[CrashGordon94]

There will likely be enough Arms Scrolls and good weapon rank units lategame to make the decision mostly trivial anyway, at least for casuals.

Nope. I scoff at the suggestion that there would be enough ASs, if there were enough to stop it being worrying shit then there'd likely also be enough to trivialise it anyway.

And guess what? Not everyone like lategame prepromotes! The casuals hate them the most!

[arvilino]

Emphasis on "some", SOME! That won't fucking cut it lategame!

Usually you have more units with S-ranks or even A than you can provide weapons for. What Fire Emblem game would screws you over late game even on Hard mode even if weapon ranks were fixed?

[CrashGordon94]

Usually you have more units with S-ranks or even A than you can provide weapons for.

If so, is this some horrible terrible problem that must urgently be fixed by buggering over several units? Didn't think so.

And even so, that's not a guarantee.

What Fire Emblem game would screws you over late game even on Hard mode even if weapon ranks were fixed?

Plenty of them, since some newbies have had problems.

[Anouleth]

Usually you have more units with S-ranks or even A than you can provide weapons for. What Fire Emblem game would screws you over late game even on Hard mode even if weapon ranks were fixed?

Probably FE8 most of all. It's practically impossible to kill Fomortiis without Sacred Twins... btu then again, you'll always have Siegmund and Sieglinde and you'll pick up at least one or two of the others. I can't really think of any others. The best weapons are usually PRF weapons (such as Royal Strikes, Siegminde and Sieglund, Ragnell, Falchion, Divinestones, Beo Sword and Mareeta Sword). I find that I don't really "worry" about having to get weapon ranks up: and if anything, this change removes having to worry since the game can be balanced with everyone being at base weapon ranks in mind. You won't have to go out of your way to get say, Soren to an SS Rank since he'll presumably get it automatically.

After all, in FE4, virtually all units ended up with an A Rank in at least one weapon type. The only exceptions are, I think, Hawk, Alec, Noish, and Sety if he doesn't have a magic user for a father.

Nope. I scoff at the suggestion that there would be enough ASs, if there were enough to stop it being worrying shit then there'd likely also be enough to trivialise it anyway.

And guess what? Not everyone like lategame prepromotes! The casuals hate them the most!

So basically, you will be only happy when it's possible for every character to reach max rank in every weapon type, but it has to be time-consuming and tedious rather than in the form of statboosters?

[CrashGordon94]

So basically, you will be only happy when it's possible for every character to reach max rank in every weapon type, but it has to be time-consuming and tedious rather than in the form of statboosters?

So, it'd be possible to max out everyone's ranks under this system? See, trivial!

And I think balancing rank gains with effort, works well, actually. Only some of the values involved could use adjusting.

[Thor Odinson]

Nope. I scoff at the suggestion that there would be enough ASs, if there were enough to stop it being worrying shit then there'd likely also be enough to trivialise it anyway.

And guess what? Not everyone like lategame prepromotes! The casuals hate them the most!

With the exception of DoF aka not even an official FE (which I playtest regularly and pretty much set the tactics rank for), You don't see me playing for turncounts do you? Don't generalise all casuals. Maybe just you and a few others but I appreciate my lategame prepromotes.

Please stop yelling. It's just making you look worse.

Anyway it's a pretty interesting idea. Definitely would give incentive to actually think about unit selections other than a storyline basis, as it'd give unit A, who may be inferior by X standard, an edge over things in this system. I do agree with Colonel M about E ranks being able to move up slightly though. Perma E does suck, but C, while not sufficient for silvers and shit, is pretty good anyway since it allows access to Killers and just in case not enough Arms Scrolls the person would still be okay.

[CrashGordon94]

And you're not the only ones either, plus "the most" can be taken to mean "the largest portion of" or something liek that, like in this context.

And don't you remember the prepromote hate from various non-SF places?

[dondon151]

Good job, Crash derailed this thread from serious discussion. Now shoo, go away.

[Thor Odinson]

Well maybe you should specify. If you say casuals, you are generalising the entire portion of casuals. Specifying "many casuals" rather than just "casuals alone" would have been a much clearer statement. I do not want to be lumped in with people who hate prepromotes, because I certainly don't.