Should the weapon weight return?

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

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.

I would say only in FE9, because the tomes are very heavy in relation to the strength of the sages.

For example Rexbolt weighs only 1 point lower than the strength cap for sages of 15. It's very hard to reach it. Soren has very bad strength growth (5%). He even can't use thundertomes without AS penalty.

However in FE10 most magicusers are promoted already and have enough strength to use "arcmagic" at least.

First tier Ilyana has enough strength already to use (El-)Thunder without AS penalty.

Only long range tomes give you AS penalty for sages, because they weigh more than their strength cap of 15.

The only real problem is Sanaki, who joins late with ridiculous 2 base strength. Though she has her personal tome Cymbeline, which only weighs 5.

In FE11 mages are totally screwed, because they don't have any strength growth.

In general some tomes like Gespenst, Gleipnir and Naglfar or Judge weigh way too much. 20 weigh for Gleipnir is just insane and stupid and makes these tomes almost useless except for the final blow.

Edited August 13, 2014 by TalesOf Hysteria

[Professor Vasuda]

Strength affecting weapon weight I think was a bad idea, as it only mattered for the very first parts of the game, then it never comes into play as everything has strength to wield everything.

But isn't constitution and build generally the same thing, just different terms for different games? (nvm i see now)

That being said, the loss of weapon weight and rescue penalty was kinda disappointing.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Professor Vasuda

[Psych]

no, the weapon weight system seen in every fire emblem game that didn't lack a weapon weight system was pretty much crap and is best gone.

the fe4 system was maybe the closest to being a decent idea and it was still hilariously fucked up

the fe4 system is literally anything besides swords and wind sucks

maybe bows

I think the FE10 system was the best weapon weight, as it effected everyone but eventually you grew out of it which is how i feel it should be handled. GBA weight was okay, but it just shafted female units and mages too much considering they basically can never use anything above Iron ranks.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Psych

[The Geek]

Maybe could have the CON system, but have some way that characters could use heavier weapons without penalty later on. Either by giving CON a growth rate (ala Build in FE5) or having higher weapon proficiency allow a character to ignore a certain amount of weapon weight.

[Baldrick]

Having no barrier would probably be fairest if it did return, and leave constitution for rescuing/shoving if it returns. There should also be a fair trade-off (aka not FE4), e.g. the staple sword - lance - axe varieties have 3 might for 2 weight going left to right.

[Julius Nepos]

I would like to see weapon weight return because I consider it one of the strategic factors in choosing one weapon over the other. I don't its absence in FE12 or FE13, but I prefer its presence. It just requires you to give more thought to which weapons to use, and which weapons to use when.

However, if it were to return, it ought to be balanced.

I'll go over all the options (so prepare for a lengthy post).

Having no buffer would make weight too important of a factor. To take FE1 as an example, a fighter with capped speed (20) would still suffer a penalty of 7 from an Iron Axe. That's 35% of the speed cap. The Bishop with 15 SPD and Fire would double the Dragon Knight with 20 SPD and Iron Lance. Now later games did a better job at balancing speed and penalty, but the penalty is always there and it can be quite big.

I don't consider strength affecting the penalty very desirable. I mean, the people who want to use stronger weapons the most are exactly those people who have low strength in the first place (so it's actually counterproductive). It also makes weight irrelevant later into the game, except for mages, who are just stuck with bad strength all the way through.

So overall I think CON or build would be the best options to go. But that would require some balancing.

[BrightBow]

I am in favor of adding weapon weight. It can really add to the options of the player when used correctly. It just never happened yet. I'm sorry for just copying a quote of mine on the subject from two weeks ago. I deleted my post by accident by closing the wrong tab and I currently don't have the time to write everything new. Sorry for the trouble.

I think the oldest system was in theory the best one. It's just that they never put much thought into the weight of weapons. Axes lowering agility by 18 points and Swords only 3 is of course completely insane.

But Tear Ring Saga used the system a lot more effectively. Weight factors hugely into the advantages and disadvantages of a weapon.

Like Iron Bows are about as cheap and common as Crossbows but are usually better because of the massive weight difference between them. However, the increased accuracy and powers of Crossbows usually allows them to reliably take down certain fragile yet dodgy fliers in a single shot. Especially those annoying harpies. Naturally they would also be better if archers are so fast that they double attack anyway.

Another bow, the extremely heavy Gatling Bow, which allows 4 shots in a row, pretty much turns anybody into a glass cannon since they can be double attacked by just about any weapon. But hey, 4 attacks before the enemy can counter.

Other times you may need heavy weapons simply to be able to penetrate the enemy's defence in the first place. Or very light weapons to maximize your avoid against devastatingly powerful but hilariously inaccurate siege weapons.

You never saw stuff like that in Fire Emblem games. At least I can't think of a situation where the games would ever offer you something as simple as increased accuracy in exchange for attack speed. Accuracy always seems to be somewhat proportional to weight. Well, I guess Brave weapons averted this in Thracia but just like the Gae Bolg they were more designed as Uber weapons anyway.

But I don't really see a benefit in adding Con. It just makes things unnecessary complicated. Maybe you could add a skill that reduces speed penalties or something.

Maybe you would like to take a look on the weapons from TRS yourself. At least for my part, I found the stats of the weapons of the game very interesting before I ever actually played that game. And they surpassed my most optimistic expectations once I got to put them against the varied obstacles of that game.

http://www.serenesforest.net/ts/

But these days, I think there is a lot more to say about Fire Emblem's weaponry then simply weight. Ever since FE6, weapon differences have become more and more insignificant. Like the difference between Javelins and Hand Axes is usually something like a -1 might +5-10 hit. Not much of a reason to choose one over the other.

And bows still can't do anything. They keep getting nothing but the basic weapon types plus the Longbow. How come a weapon category that offers nothing but offense has always inferior offense compared to anything else?

Something like a melee bows is not a solution because this would just make them like every other weapon category. Instead, they should have all kinds of crazy abilities that allows them to compensate for their weaknesses. Like the ability to deal ability damage or to silence mages for example. But they don't even get something as basic as effective damage weapons like any other weapon category does.

Weapon weight can be a beautiful tool to add diversity into a weapon selection but it won't matter if IS is content with leaving the differences between weapons to be mostly aesthetical.

Edited August 13, 2014 by BrightBow

[TFJ]

The biggest issue with removing weapon weight was that it made weapon progression more vertical and less horizontal. In recent games, most weapons are just straight upgrades of previous ones.

Weight was one way of allowing weaker weapons to have some advantage over late game weapons. The build system also contributed to further differentiate units, though IS always struggled to balance it.

While I think they should bring back the weight system, the idea here is to remove most of the vertical equipment progression and make all of them have strong/weak points.

Referecing Berwick Saga again, that game did some interesting things with weapons. For example, Sherpa (the guy in my avatar) had a exclusive greatsword that allowed him to attack 3 times in combat, always. That is huge in that game, because normally you only attack once. The drawback is that the weapon weights a ton and on top of that reduces avoid by 50%, which in practice makes avoid 0% all of the time. But it's clearly a good designed weapon, with strong and weak points.

[electricwolf]

I don't consider strength affecting the penalty very desirable. I mean, the people who want to use stronger weapons the most are exactly those people who have low strength in the first place (so it's actually counterproductive). It also makes weight irrelevant later into the game, except for mages, who are just stuck with bad strength all the way through.

The characters that have low STR are also usually the people who the developers decide to give a dismal CON stat to. If you care about realism then it makes some sense in that you'll never go to the Olympics and find a powerlifter half the size of the competitors but it still just means that apart from promo gains and stat boosters, you'll always be stuck losing Attack Speed on certain weapons. At least tying it to a stat that grows means there can be some kind of progression, even if it does place more value on that stat.

It might be better to just put it on a different stat completely: SKL comes to mind because it could make sense and it seems to be an undervalued stat in the later FE games anyway.

Like the difference between Javelins and Hand Axes is usually something like a -1 might +5-10 hit. Not much of a reason to choose one over the other.

In FE13 the only non-special classes that get the choice between those two weapons are Great Knights, Wyvern Lords and Generals. Unless you usually use more than one of each class, you're unlikely to have to make that choice on more than three units.

And the biggest influence on weapon choice is almost always the weapons the enemy uses and their relation the weapon triangle. You can bet your socks that if you're going into a staple pirate level then you could make a Hand Axe have considerably worse stats all round and it'd probably still be better to use than a javelin in the same situation.

And the reason there isn't much difference between the two weapons you've specified is because they're the same rank and perform the same function, just in a different weapon group. If you take any weapon, say for example the Silver Lance, the difference between it and its Axe and Sword brethren is +/- 2 MT and +/- 10 HIT. The problem is that if you start making the gaps between weapons much wider then they'll no doubt be frustration when your axe users (typically low Skill) couldn't hit planet Earth while skydiving and when your sword users (typically low STR) are so weak they're crushed under the force of their own weight.

[That Person's Name]

As always, realism clashes with gameplay a lot on this subject so the first problem is how much realism we want to sacrifice for gameplay. As much as I like the weight mechanic for its potential to add both, in its GBA state it's a superfluous mechanic that forces a choice between the two. Realistically, as said before, women and characters with an aesthetically small build should have a low constitution. Gameplay-wise, a mechanic that gimps certain characters without giving anything back in return based solely on aesthetics is horrible for strategy and decision making. GBAFE opts for realism, which puts certain female characters in those games at an inherent disadvantage to their male counterparts to the point of being outclassed if there weren't other reasons to pick them over the males.

Everyone has different tastes when it comes to balancing the two, some people want to pick pretty characters and wield whatever weapons they think are cool and succeed, while others want a system they have to adapt to and make crucial and optimal choices. I personally like both however forcing a choice between the two is less desirable than finding a happy medium where they can both succeed.

That said, I think weight should return, but with different mechanics to make it realistic yet not gimping certain characters for no meaningful gameplay reason. The first thing that came to my mind would be like others have said before, make it so that SKL/SPD/WR play a part, possibly in combination with STR and have an effect other than lowering speed, without being too complicated of course. I'm not going to put a whole lot of thought into the details because I know little about balancing an entire FE game compared to IS's balancing team, but my main point is that it should be made so that it adds depth to the game, yet is perfectly fair for all characters in the game by being balanced against other stats so that females don't get shafted just because they hella weak SwiftRage tend to not have as much STR but are compensated with more SPD. CON gives no compensation and that is sad

[arvilino]

no, the weapon weight system seen in every fire emblem game that didn't lack a weapon weight system was pretty much crap and is best gone.

the fe4 system was maybe the closest to being a decent idea and it was still hilariously fucked up

That one was tragic though. The avoid penalty for just wielding Fire Magic (24 avoid) is larger than the WTD Penalty Wind magic(just 20 accuracy) wind magic users have against it, because wind magic only weighed 2 against the Fire Magic's 12 using Fire against Wind was no different than a neutral match up of Wind vs. Wind.

[dondon151]

wait how does anyone justify the FE4 weapon weight system while dismissing the GBAFE one

this just doesn't make any sense. you can't excuse FE4's weapon weight system as being "executed poorly" because it's fundamentally designed to either be terribly imbalanced or not have any real effect at all.

for those of you who want the ability to increase con, there could exist a system where con increases after every x number of weapon uses of a weapon that's heavier than unit con. please no random growths, though, FE doesn't need any more of that.

Edited August 13, 2014 by dondon151

[Florete]

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, because it adds a nice strategic element. The problem was never in the system itself (well, some of the weight systems have been bad), but in the execution of it. CON/Build is a good system, it just needs to be used more properly than it has been. Removing weapon weight, alongside removing weapon experience per weapon, was just a dumbing down and makes money the sole reason to not use stronger weapons - a factor that is often meaningless.

[Shadow Mir]

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, because it adds a nice strategic element. The problem was never in the system itself (well, some of the weight systems have been bad), but in the execution of it. CON/Build is a good system, it just needs to be used more properly than it has been. Removing weapon weight, alongside removing weapon experience per weapon, was just a dumbing down and makes money the sole reason to not use stronger weapons - a factor that is often meaningless.

That's not really true - accuracy is also a good reason to not use a weapon. Also, another issue with the con-based system was that enemies often favored steel weapons, lowering their AS (while bad stats are the root of the problem, in all likelihood, it's not like the con system did any favors to them - again, I present Exhibit A: Lyon.). I also hated how females were shafted big time by it (it just sounds wrong when a female who'd otherwise be equal or even better than a male winds up outclassed just because the male has higher Con).

Edited August 13, 2014 by Levant Caprice

[Florete]

That's not really true - accuracy is also a good reason to not use a weapon. Also, another issue with the con-based system was that enemies often favored steel weapons, lowering their AS (while bad stats are the root of the problem, in all likelihood, it's not like the con system did any favors to them - again, I present Exhibit A: Lyon.). I also hated how females were shafted big time by it (it just sounds wrong when a female who'd otherwise be equal or even better than a male winds up outclassed just because the male has higher Con).

None of this is a problem with the system, but the execution. As I stated.

[dondon151]

That's not really true - accuracy is also a good reason to not use a weapon.

no, not particularly.

[arvilino]

no, not particularly.

It would if you have 100% hit rates with one weapon and sub 100% with the other. A scenario would be(using Awakenings system where hit rate is Iron>Steel>Silver) where if a single hit from a Silver weapon could remove all the remaining health of an enemy in one hit but with a sub 100% hit rate, or if Iron weapons had 100% hit against the same enemy but required you to use two characters to defeat the enemy.

A choice where you can reliably defeat an enemy with two units wielding weaker, more accurate weapons or defeat the enemy in one hit with a more powerful weapon only using one character but it's not certain if it will hit.

Edited August 13, 2014 by arvilino

[Jotari]

I want to vote constitution like in Thracia where it has a growth rate.

Oh wait, is that what the Build one is meant to imply?

Reading through the topic (which I honestly should have done first) shows that it is. Still it's not very clear with the poll.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Jotari

[dondon151]

It would if you have 100% hit rates with one weapon and sub 100% with the other.

certainty is an arbitrary threshold. i could just as well justify this if i replaced 100% with 90%.

your example is very contrived, and in any case i wouldn't agree with it, because i would pick silver over iron in a heartbeat. iron is in no way the obvious choice because there's a huge cost to using it - another unit has to pitch in his player phase action. for the example of FE13 in particular, a unit with 100 hit @iron has at least 90 hit @silver, which corresponds to a miniscule 1.9% chance of missing.

Edited August 13, 2014 by dondon151

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Changing accuracy could be done to replace weight and add incentive to using different weapons, but no fire emblem game has utilized that to a huge extent. I think weight is a much better system to be honest, since low hit rates on player attacks is frustrating and makes strategies so much more unreliable. Another problem I see with removing weight is that it makes 1-2 range that much stronger, as there are no drawbacks to using it and anything you could double normally you would also double at range. I think the con system of the gba games has potential to start balancing classes if it's played around with a bit. For instance, you could nerf mounted units' con to deny them super effective javelin/hand axe usage, while giving foot soldiers high con so that they have at least some advantages. Of course, it's doubtful anything like that would be implemented, and to be fair with careful balancing almost any system could theoretically work.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i like weapon weight because it balances out stuff.

its one of the reasons why dark magic is overpowered in FE13 and not in the other games(you could make the argument for FE7's Luna though)

[Jotari]

Another thing no one seems to have mentioned, having weight does wonders for balancing Brave Weapons. They give a guaranteed extra attack which is a big deal, four attacks if you manage to outspeed the enemy, few non boss units can take four hits from a player's character but with weight thrown into the mix they don't allow you those four hits nearly as often and in some cases both you and your enemy can get two hits on each other. Brave Weapons have a cool effect but they need something to nerf them and weight is a pretty good way of going about it.

[Shadow Mir]

i like weapon weight because it balances out stuff.

its one of the reasons why dark magic is overpowered in FE13 and not in the other games(you could make the argument for FE7's Luna though)

Forgot about FE6, did we? Because I'd consider Nosferatu OP when it's pretty light (FE6 Nosferatu is only 6 weight relative to FE7 and FE8's 14).

Edited August 13, 2014 by Levant Caprice

[dondon151]

FE6 nosferatu is not really OP.

to clarify: out of context, it looks even better than FE13 nosferatu, which everyone agrees is OP. in the context of FE6, nosferatu is not terribly strong, otherwise we'd see dark magic users higher on the tier list.

Edited August 13, 2014 by dondon151

[CT075]

is that a function of the magic itself not being broken or the fact that none of the potential users are good?

i mean, there are other reasons that dark magic users don't rank highly on the list that aren't "because their tomes suck"