Should the weapon weight return?

[NoNameAtAll]

Weight should definitely return. And it should use the Build system of Thracia.

I love Thracia as much as the next person, but Build was one of many factors that kept the divide between shit characters and good ones far too wide. Negligible growths on it meant most wouldn't be able to use good weapons without speed loss. Salem's hilariously awful with any dark magic due to it (And Jormungand would be fun to use on enemies. Never-ending poison hue hue hue.).

And those who /had/ great build either couldn't hit a brick wall (Marty) or had other big issues. Or in some cases like Asvel, had a personal weapon so disgustingly powerful that build meant nothing. Don't even bring up scrolls because those can make pretty much any character good.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Maybe it would be better, if the magic stat or the weapon level influences the AS of tomes.
For example a tome like Naglfar (18 weight) is usuable without speed penalty, if the unit has 18 magic.

Her average at 20/20 is 11 Str. Given that her Str growth is a measly 25% it's highly likely she might not even hit that.

Well, then I just was lucky.

However she probably can reach the strength to use thoron, blizzard and meteor.

Edited August 12, 2014 by TalesOf Hysteria

[Chocolate Kitty]

That's not quite true. There are still weapons with special effects (like effective damage against certain classes), and stronger weapons are usually limited in availability, be it because you can't buy them or because money is an issue.

For instance, if FE8 didn't have weapon weight, you still wouldn't be able to mindlessly spam silver weapons, as you only get very few free ones and can't buy them until near the end of the game.

Then there's also the weapon triangle. Its effects tend to become somewhat neglible later in the game, but it's nonetheless there.

everything in fe13 is basically steel weapon here, silver weapon there; and it's easy as hell to buy any weapons you so desire. Thus mitigating your point of mindlessly spamming silver weapons because you can.

idk why you're even bringing up fe8 when it's a non-issue.

[Superfan959]

It needs to return ASAP. Even if its past implementations were less than perfect, it was way better than the recent games that don't have it at all. Choosing a weapon requires literally zero consideration (beyond damage output) without the weight system. The heavy super-effective weapons (Armorslayer, etc.) actually required you to carefully evaluate threats, as your characters were very susceptible to being doubled. With the new games, when you have the option to use an Armorslayer, it's more like... "Why not?"

[Irysa]

Weight should return but AS needs to be a visible stat instead of having to calc AS via weight - speed. That is my only complaint about the weight system, and the only net positive I see from speed = AS, I can instantly look at an enemy's speed and know how fast they actually are.

As for how to implement it, I'm in favor of a new system from what we've seen so far. I haven't thought out all the specifics though, but an idea I was toying with a while ago went something along the lines of different stats corresponding to different AS penalties on different types of weapons; swords benefit from skill, axes benefit from strength, lances benefit from a mix of both. Specific weapons could exist within each class that change the benefits (Large Blade weapon AS penalty is Str, Hand Axes benefit from Skill, Halberds lean towards more Str than Skill etc) Obviously the main problem with this is that the formula is that it adds extra calculations that sort of clog up the system.

Tomes should simply not have weight, or should have enitrely negligble weight.

[NinjaMonkey]

Choosing a weapon requires literally zero consideration (beyond damage output) without the weight system.

The way you phrase it sounds as though having zero weapon weight is a good thing.

[Flying Shogi]

everything in fe13 is basically steel weapon here, silver weapon there; and it's easy as hell to buy any weapons you so desire. Thus mitigating your point of mindlessly spamming silver weapons because you can.

Personally speaking, I don't use anything higher than an Iron weapon, because I'm cheap despite having Golden Gaffe. The weight system that we had in the past discourages the usage of stronger weapons because it's just not worth using due to the speed penalty. FE13 gave us a system that allowed more choices without said penalty. You don't have to use it. I certainly don't unless they have Armsthrift. The way the FE13 handled it just made it a more conducive environment to use the Steels and the Silvers than that of the older games.

As for how to implement it, I'm in favor of a new system from what we've seen so far.

I don't think they'll go out of their way to make it that complicated. Besides, I find it annoying enough to just do the simple math of Con-Speed

Edited August 12, 2014 by MagicLugh

[Chocolate Kitty]

Personally speaking, I don't use anything higher than an Iron weapon, because I'm cheap despite having Golden Gaffe. The weight system that we had in the past discourages the usage of stronger weapons because it's just not worth using due the speed penalty. FE13 gave us a system that allowed more choices without said penalty.

uhm

FE13 has everything without a penalty

which makes picking a weapon never a thought because it doesn't matter

thus making everything easier(which is why i think they removed it, maybe the fanbase is getting worse and worse at the games so we'll remove a mechanic that makes them think thus making it easier?)

i have no idea why you'd gimp yourself to iron weapons but whatever, it doesn't apply here; iron weapon don't typically ever give AS loss(outside of pegs).

Edited August 12, 2014 by Skitty of Time

[PKL]

It's probably never gonna return. Since the removal of weapon weight came along with Casual mode in FE12, I always thought it was part of the attempt to make FE easier to newcomers. I guess adding current AS somewhere like FE10 could help, but then it's also just an unnecesary weapon restriction. And come on, there's nothing strategic about weapon weight, it just limits steels needlessly and forces more Iron and Killer usage. Armorslayer requiring thought to use in FE8? Thats a new one. I spam the shit out of it.

Edited August 12, 2014 by PKgone

[Flying Shogi]

uhm

FE13 has everything without a penalty

which makes picking a weapon never a thought because it doesn't matter

thus making everything easier(which is why i think they removed it, maybe the fanbase is getting worse and worse at the games so we'll remove a mechanic that makes them think thus making it easier?)

I agree that FE13 did make things a lot easier but I don't think something like Speed penalty is enough to turn fans away. I think they would have addressed this in their promotion if it was a big issue. From what I can remember, the games didn't really tell the players about how Con worked other than the chapter Matthew appeared in Lyn mode.

i have no idea why you'd gimp yourself to iron weapons but whatever, it doesn't apply here; iron weapon don't typically ever give AS loss(outside of pegs).

Because Steels and anything higher than an Iron most of the time means AS loss in the older games. I just carried the same style of playing to FE13

[electricwolf]

The good thing about weapon weight was that it (to some degree) would influence what weapon you choose to attack with. Without it there's rarely a point where I'd rather use an iron sword than a silver sword except for the fact I'm a crustaceous cheapskate.

In my opinion it did add some variety to the game but I have to say that I'm not exactly sure the execution of the concept was perfect and I can see why it was taken out. It was obviously much easier to take out of FE than to dedicate resources into properly balancing a system with large gameplay consequences.


I really have a bone to pick with CON though. For the most part of the game it's practically a dud stat and only rears it's head to tell you that any female character or a non-jacked male character is going to lose speed for holding a heavier weapon or that some fatass character can't be rescued. It's easily the most dud-iest of dud stats.
I really liked the approach of FE10 moving most of the work to STR but that does leave a problem:
Mages need MAG to hit and STR to not lose AS.
Fighters need STR but MAG is pretty much useless to them.

I'm not sure whether it would be an easy fix exactly, but balancing the weights of some weapons might help. A lowering in general of tome weights would help in regards to STR-screwed mages not being awful and increasing the weights of higher quality weapons would keep STR-based weight negation relevant until endgame.
I definitely think that it should be more clear and visible when you are receiving a penalty due to weapon weight. Like the +5 STR you see when wielding Durandal in FE7, why not just put the penalty on the stat display screen? At least then instead of having to find the enemy CON/STR, weapon weight and do some maths for relevant enemies, it'd all be done for you.


And also, another reason for the death of CON: DEF. Apart from a few cases (Fighters and PegKns), CON pretty much follows DEF. Heavy armored characters typically have high CON and high DEF whereas characters with lower CON such as mages and thieves typically have lower DEF. It'd also make doing class stats, growths and caps by gender unnecessary. It'd also be fairly easy to just add a number onto your DEF value if you were a mounted unit for example to determine whether you can be rescued.

If you care about this tangent, here's the character data from FE7 (first number is CON,second is DEF):

5,2
9,6
9,5
4,4
6,5
14,3
4,2
5,2
8,7
7,3
3,5
6,1
13,15
7,5
10,7
11,10
5,3
14,3
13,4
14,13
4,2
7,3
5,5
8,5
6,1
7,5
10,6
5,6
9,8
4,5
6,8
9,10
7,8
16,14
13,11
5,10
8,11
6,9
9,13
11,15
3,4
8,15
12,21
7,11
9,15

9,20

I used http://www.alcula.com/calculators/statistics/linear-regression/ to plot the data and look at it.

Notable issues arise if you just take lategame characters because their DEF growths mean that DEF is much greater than CON.

[Shadow Mir]

While we're at it, was the effect of weapon weight EVER mentioned in the manuals for the games or the games themselves? Because I don't think that was the case.

[electricwolf]

While we're at it, was the effect of weapon weight EVER mentioned in the manuals for the games or the games themselves? Because I don't think that was the case.

Page 24 of the FE7 manual:

Item Data

WT (Weight): The weight of the weapon, magic tome or staff. If this exceeds the unit's constitution, then that unit's attack and dodge speeds are reduced.

This also appears in the FE8 manual and CON is also given a brief description. I'm not entirely sure if they were mentioned in-game for either of those games.

Reading the manual helps but rarely do I get a new game and not just jump into it. Reading the manual is usually reserved for when I get stuck on something.

Edited August 12, 2014 by electricwolf

[Robert Stewart]

Page 24 of the FE7 manual:

Item Data

WT (Weight): The weight of the weapon, magic tome or staff. If this exceeds the unit's constitution, then that unit's attack and dodge speeds are reduced.

Do staves even have weight?

[arvilino]

No it's a mechanic that deserves to be long gone and it has never been implemented well in every single title that's had it.

When it was based on build/con Typically characters with high con had low speed(Dorcas) and characters with high speed(Florina) had low build. Characters in the middle(Raven, Sain) however had a huge advantage as they were much more flexible, they could wield light or moderate weapons with close to full speed, or they could sacrafice some speed for higher attack with heavier weapons. Compare this to Dorcas who can wield much heavier weapons without penalty but his speed stays low whether he's wielding a Steel Axe or an iron Axe or Florina who can only wield the lightest weapons without getting a penalty. It's also notable in punishing female characters that have the same or similar stat spreads to males(e.g. Marisa compared to Joshua) for no reason other than they're female.

When it was based on strength(FE9,FE10 and FE11) all it did was early on punished units for being weaker and widened the gap in usefulness between stronger and weaker units. For example in FE11 Matthis starts slower and weaker than Abel while at the same starting level. Try and make it up with a Steel Lance and his speed is even lower while still doing less damage, use a lighter weapon to make up for the speed and his offense is now much lower. Later on in the game the strength based system becomes pointless as it's possible to have more strength than the heaviest weapons, the stronger a unit starts the sooner they don't have to worry about it.

A universal weight penalty would be better than the con based system or strength based system but the way it was implemented in early games was a bit questionable. Like in FE4 were weight was based on weapon type so the strongest regular sword is much lighter than the weakest lance or axe. TearRing Saga was odd in that Axes weighed a lot(and also kind of like FE4 there were much more powerful swords which weighed less than weak axes) but to counterbalance this Axe Fighters like Bartz and Samson had Swordfighter-like speed stats seemingly only to offset axes to have middling AS.

I think cost and accuracy are big enough factors to decide to use weapons. But if they were going to add any weight system I'd think it would be much better to have most of the weapons weigh 0 and only give speed penalties for certain weapons with special effects or higher characteristics for their type (such as 1-2 range or same rank but higher might) such as Hand Axes, Javelins, Nosferatu, Blades, Great Lances and Pole Axes.

They've messed up every time due to doing "realistic" or "making sense" where they make Steel weapons both heavier(seemingly only because they're steel weapons) and less powerful than Silver and Killer Weapons for example. If they want to balance certain weapons with a speed penalty I feel they should just keep it to those weapons rather than trying to make a system that applies to every weapon in the game.

Edited August 12, 2014 by arvilino

[Irysa]

I don't think they'll go out of their way to make it that complicated. Besides, I find it annoying enough to just do the simple math of Con-Speed

Sure, but that doesn't mean some manner of proper implementation can't be devised. I was just postulating, I don't seriously WANT them to do something akin to my suggestion, mostly because it's too convoluted.

[Shadow Mir]

Page 24 of the FE7 manual:

Item Data

WT (Weight): The weight of the weapon, magic tome or staff. If this exceeds the unit's constitution, then that unit's attack and dodge speeds are reduced.

This also appears in the FE8 manual and CON is also given a brief description. I'm not entirely sure if they were mentioned in-game for either of those games.

Reading the manual helps but rarely do I get a new game and not just jump into it. Reading the manual is usually reserved for when I get stuck on something.

Huh. I seriously doubt that they were ever mentioned in the games themselves, though.

[Scarlet]

everything in fe13 is basically steel weapon here, silver weapon there; and it's easy as hell to buy any weapons you so desire. Thus mitigating your point of mindlessly spamming silver weapons because you can.

idk why you're even bringing up fe8 when it's a non-issue.

That's an issue with the game (more-or-less infinite money), not with the system.

FE12 likewise gave you more silver weapons for free than you could ever use.

The idea of bringing back weapon weight just to stop the player from using strong weapons the game gives them for free is, frankly, dumb. Why not make money/availability more of an issue instead?

That's why I brought up FE8, for instance. In that game, even if it didn't have a weight system, you'd still not want to mindlessly spam silver weapons - simply because you don't have that many.

Or let's go a step further and take FE5 as an example. Weapons in that game are fairly difficult to aquire, as you usually have to defeat whomever was holding them with greatly lowered stats on your own unit. And even when you do aquire a strong weapon, most of them have very little uses. So why add a weight system on top of that to stop the player from using strong weapons with very limited availability they actively worked for? That's just excessive.

Now, I'm not saying that a weight system couldn't work if it was done well. I'm simply saying that it's not needed to make weapon choice relevant (as there are plenty of other factors the game could make you consider), and so far every iteration of it was deeply flawed.

[Icon of Sin]

I was ok with it when it was based on Strength but not having it around isn't too bad.

[CT075]

As much as I prefer having weapon weight around (any system works tbh) I don't think it's coming back

[Ishi]

I think it should definitely come back it just makes no sense without it, someone like Feena shouldn't be able to double swordmasters with a iron blade. as for what type of weight balancing my vote goes for thracian build i just like the idea of a build growth more than having to use constitution rings or units strength (mages get really screwed).

[PKL]

Making sense in a game with dragons, magic, etc...

[Roivann]

Making sense in a game with dragons, magic, etc...

Because suspension of disbelief isn't a thing that exists.

[Magical Glace]

I don't mind it returning, so long as mages aren't completely screwed. That was my one big problem with weight, especially in Tellius.

Besides, a book really shouldn't weigh as much as some tomes do.

(Gespenst weighs more than all axes? Wth?)

So I agree with the line about exempting mages... Though alternately, they could levitate it with their magic stats. As in, they use Magic instead of Strength to calculate weight loss.

[lazydoggamer]

Nope needs to stay gone. There's no strategy involved with weapon weight as it just favors units who have high con over those with low con and iron is almost always better than steel since you don't lose AS.The only weight system I could tolerate was the Tellius games and that was because almost everyone grew out of losing AS.