How to make Armor Knights more valuable?

[Sweet_Basil]

There is a way for them to get some experience for the outside (bigger) maps if there are any home castles they can guard them from enemy reinforcements, I think it works that way in FE4 if the reinforcements reach your castle it's game over. That could counter their low move because they won't have to move while your team is away seizing another castle.

[Paper Jam]

I want to say that making the specific Knights who join your party statistically better would also help matters, but perhaps it wouldn't do as much for them as I'm thinking it might.

I'm not sure if they're statistically better, but Oswin in FE7 and Gatrie in FE9 certainly start at higher levels than most of the other early-game characters. I don't think it makes much difference.

Then again, I don't really find them to be quite as much of a pain to level up to 20 and promote to General as, say, Bors from FE6 or Gilliam from FE8. That could be because they start at higher levels, or it could be because of the types of chapters that feature in those particular games. (Oswin in particular can participate in quite a few holdout missions where knights don't suck so badly, whereas there are absolutely no holdout missions in FE6.) Or maybe it's both.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Paper Jam

[Jotari]

Thracia made knights useful by making them the only units that can use lances in doors though that doesn't really seem like an idea worth revisiting.

[Robert Stewart]

Thracia made knights useful by making them the only units that can use lances in doors though that doesn't really seem like an idea worth revisiting.

I don't think that really made them all that useful in Thracia, considering the two potential Generals you get will both start with an E Rank in Lances.

[secondworld]

I thought of an idea, though I'm not sure if people would actually want to see it used, but anyway:

Give knights the same mov as other foot-units.

Have unified stat caps(20 or otherwise).

Keep the "stat+2" skills from FE13(maybe change the exact bonus if it would work better).

[NobodiePichu]

thought I might as well post here cause this is a discussion i could get behind. Now first we need to think, what is the knights traditional role? the knights traditional role is the physical wall, as such he has and needs specific pros and cons in order to specialize his role and give it more value, but at the same time come with it's own drawbacks to deter players from simply loading there team with knights, or any other good unit.

now the pros of the knight are high def, good str and constitution, a good hp build in most cases, and access to in most cases to lances which in theory provide moderate hit and mgt, a good middle of the road weapon. the cons of the knight however include low speed, mov, res, and usually skl as well, making them rather slow, low average at hitting targets, hard to move across maps, and weak to magic. now if we want to make the knight better what should we fix, or in this case what con should we get rid of.

speed and mov are right out as it ruins the purpose of the knight class, and that is a big defensive wall. they are not meant to kill things they are meant to slow them down or even halt them completely, most likely a reason there so popular as bosses in traditional fire emblem. res is also out as it also ruins there purpose as being the physical wall of the group, they are not meant to soak up all damage only physical. there fore by process of elimination skl makes the most sense to increase or rather buff, there is no reason not to give them high skl as there ability to hit is already hampered by speed, and being able to land more hits would make there overall danger increase considerably due to there pre existing str being already rather high.

however it is not just the knight itself that needs to be altered if you will, but the game design itself if you truly wish to make knights better. make def more of a rarity amongst other units, make mages less common on all sides, if skills are avalible, give them skills that best capitalize there existing stats and setup, and when considering enemy placement think of where you want the player to be when they run into the enemy and what you want the player to have to stratigize around. as far as increasing player knight versatility simply leave a pair of boot stat boosters in the game somewhere for the player to use at there discretion, after all why force them to use certain units when it's better to make multiple situations for multiple units, and simply leave strong knights in the game, that is give the player only high level knights or ones with amazing stat builds. however if preexisting tweaks are applied making player knights godly wont have to be done.

my advice on choice of implementation though is to make knights the only unit with good def (every other unit is subpar def or shitty, and stays that way) and increase the knights skill (there really is no reason for them to have low skill.) that and make mages a rarity in your game, and when they do show up make them actually count.

[Axie]

Mages bring a rarity only increases the problem of Resistance being kind of a useless stat, though. I actually think Knights could have slightly better Res than other physical units since they are supposed to be defensive anyway.

Still, I think only drastic changes to stats would make one less Mov worth it - if everyone except the Knight is 2HKOed or something. Giving them the same Mov as infantry is just easier, and it doesn't ruin the point of the class as they are still slow.

[Jotari]

If everyone but knights goes down in two hits then it would be a very frustrating game, provided you're going up against waves and waves of enemies. Perhaps the best solution is to have less, but stronger, enemies.

[Irysa]

What you just described is pretty much how FE12 lunatic works for half the game unless you're a Draco or a General haha.

The sad part there is that DracoKnights can reach the 3HKO benchmark fairly easily and still get 10 mov and flying. RIP Generals.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Irysa

[dondon151]

even if you don't get to a 3HKO benchmark, good strategic thinking compensates for poor durability anyway, so generals are still useless. they're also doubled by everything, so their 15 base def is negated by that.

[NobodiePichu]

then lower a majority of the other class str stat as well, not only allowing the fighter or other str prime classes to capitalize on str, but make it harder for people to damage the high def class. Im personally not even that upset by vanilla fe knight stats but if your going to make knights more valuable it needs to be more then simply giving them more mov if you really want to still keep the distinction, the game stat spread in of itself needs to be reworked (aka make classes who specialize in certain stat areas have the general monopoly on those stat areas) otherwise everything becomes simple same or in other words "balanced", "balance" makes for bland game design, just as to much extremities does, what you want is a balance between everything beign the same and everything being different at least in strategy games.

for instance would the game be any fun if all units were stock uniform classes (an extreme case of "balance"), no because there would be no variety, but if everything were at extreme differences then there'd be too much going on to properly comprehend anything.

i understand that yes it would be nice to give knights more versatility but that will have to be at the expense of something else if you want to keep the game interesting.

as for draco knights there weak to bows right, then make bows more common, or limit the amount of draco knights.

as for player knights and in fact all player classes simply give them all weakness and strengths that can be covered by other units (after all archetypes are very popular for a reason)

but that's just my opinion and if you want your knights running as fast as the regular foot soldiers therfore ruining the knights purpose as a defensive unit and making it theoretically pointless to bring offensive unts in because hey knights are bulky fuckers, with good mov that carry's them to there target quick enough to stab a lancer into there face, why bring those other losers with low def, and in most cases only moderate str then that's your choice.

[Jedi]

Problem is, they don't even work AS a defensive class. Whats stopping me from using my bulky Paladins, Great Knights or Wyvern Riders to do their job AND move into a more suitable position?

As it stands, in casual play it doesn't matter, however in more effectiveness based runs they need SOMETHING.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Jedi

[NobodiePichu]

Problem is, they don't even work AS a defensive class. Whats stopping me from using my bulky Paladins, Great Knights or Wyvern Riders to do their job AND move into a more suitable position?

As it stands, in casual play it doesn't matter, however in more effectiveness based runs they need SOMETHING.

i suppose the best deterrent towards that is simply not to have bulky paladins.

as for wyvren knights and great knights. . . well i would say make the knights be the best of the three in def (lower great knight and wyvren knight def to always be lower then knight's) but really it's a simple manner of availability to the player, make dracos late game available only, needing to be babied in order to match existing units, make both classes really hard to recruit for the player, always other options then simply raising the knights stats. hell you could even make it so that knights though they have low mov can cross a variety of terrain with relative ease (can mov well under the snow, in the dessert etc. , and can cross small mountains and forest like no ones business) but that might require a bit of suspension of disbelief if your worried about the story, but if you only want game play then it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

but again if ya wanna have far moving knights i won't stop ya but i just wanna say that it doesn't make sense to me if they move far.

[Topaz Light]

The suggestion isn't necessarily to have knights move far, just to give them the same movement as all the other footsoldier classes.

It also occurs to me that it might help at least a little bit to do away with Generals (or have them as an enemy-only class or something) and make Great Knights the promotion of Knights. That way their low Movement is fixed a lot better upon promotion, and they still retain their trademark high durability and attack power, but lower speed.

On a less drastic note, how much do you all think it would help to bring back Knights being able to use multiple weapon types at base from all the way back in FE1? 'Cause that's something I was thinking about, as well, although I realize it still doesn't fix the movement issue.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Starlight36

[Axie]

I do not get the correlation between "defensive class" and "less Mov". Knights are defensive because of their high Def, will never replace frailer combat units because of their low Speed, and all the Mov penalty does is make them worse at their job.

I think more Mov is already enough as long as the low Speed isn't a death sentence... when compared to other foot units. Making Cavaliers/Wyvern Riders not completely better than Knights is also something that needs to be solved. Obviously less Def is the way to go, but how do we find the point where Defense is valued enough to make Knights useful but not so crucial that low Def units are garbage?

[NobodiePichu]

The suggestion isn't necessarily to have knights move far, just to give them the same movement as all the other footsoldier classes.

It also occurs to me that it might help at least a little bit to do away with Generals (or have them as an enemy-only class or something) and make Great Knights the promotion of Knights. That way their low Movement is fixed a lot better upon promotion, and they still retain their trademark high durability and attack power, but lower speed.

On a less drastic note, how much do you all think it would help to bring back Knights being able to use multiple weapon types at base from all the way back in FE1? 'Cause that's something I was thinking about, as well, although I realize it still doesn't fix the movement issue.

mah it could work fine if ya wanna do that, but really i guess i just feel that doing that makes the knight class more of an offensive class then a defensive class, which i don't feel they should be but again mah we all have our own solutions i guess.

I do not get the correlation between "defensive class" and "less Mov". Knights are defensive because of their high Def, will never replace frailer combat units because of their low Speed, and all the Mov penalty does is make them worse at their job.

I think more Mov is already enough as long as the low Speed isn't a death sentence... when compared to other foot units. Making Cavaliers/Wyvern Riders not completely better than Knights is also something that needs to be solved. Obviously less Def is the way to go, but how do we find the point where Defense is valued enough to make Knights useful but not so crucial that low Def units are garbage?

hm good point i guess, but that's what experimentation is for right. still look at fe11, knights had the lowest mov but were one behind archers who were one behind normal units, which was detrimental to knights in some way, but increased the value of having them in front of the group in order to make sure they couldn't get towards low def units used for support (which usually had the same mov as knights) if your thinking in terms of low turn runs then i guess knights are useless, so if your making a hack for people who like to make low turn runs then go ahead and raise there mov to the same as normal units, but if your making knights better in terms of there traditional sense then there low mov is almost iconic. so i guess what i wanna say is that why not alter all mov values not just knights in order to increase varity.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Umbichueon

[Topaz Light]

Knights and Archers actually had the same movement in FEDS IIRC (5), but I guess what people are saying is that, however good Knights may be at their job, they're not going to be able to do that job if another unit gets into the position first and it's mostly over by the time the Knight reaches it.

It wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea to rebalance movement distribution in general, since Movement is actually a very valuable and important stat (and I do think it'd be neat to have slightly more variety).

I realize that this discussion is mostly in regards to efficient and LTC-type runs, where lower movement is a much bigger issue than in other playing styles.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Starlight36

[NobodiePichu]

Knights and Archers actually had the same movement in FEDS IIRC (5), but I guess what people are saying is that, however good Knights may be at their job, they're not going to be able to do that job if another unit gets into the position first and it's mostly over by the time the Knight reaches it.

It wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea to rebalance movement distribution in general, since Movement is actually a very valuable and important stat (and I do think it'd be neat to have slightly more variety).

i concur dear sir. (i didn't check the mov values in feds i just recited what i remembered from the top of my head.)

Edited December 5, 2014 by Umbichueon

[Axie]

Variety in movement immediately makes me think of chess. If units moved differently rather than everyond simply going anywhere within Mov radius, variety would increase a lot; mounts could be effectively be balanced by having a more restrictive (if higher) movement type, for example. Of course I would not want it to be exactly like chess, but it's something to think about.

[Baldrick]

The more I read this topic the more I think def should be made a class-based static stat. A good rule of thumb for assigning these values would be that for class lacking non-combat utility, the more def you have the less move you get. Light infantry would be a jack in this situation; being able to reach the enemy quicker than knights and can take more hits than mounts.

[Topaz Light]

Variety in movement immediately makes me think of chess. If units moved differently rather than everyond simply going anywhere within Mov radius, variety would increase a lot; mounts could be effectively be balanced by having a more restrictive (if higher) movement type, for example. Of course I would not want it to be exactly like chess, but it's something to think about.

Not 100% sure how I feel about chess-style movement restrictions, but I think it might be interesting to look into more of an inverse relationship between a unit's overall movement and their ability to cross non-plains/floor tiles. ...Or something to that effect.

[Jotari]

If movement was an actual growth like it was in Thracia then Knights could get the same base movement of the other classes but have marginally worse movement growth to keep in line with their style.

[Sweet_Basil]

Alternatively there could be more enemies that use horseslayers to tone down the broken Cavaliers/paladins.

[Elieson]

Alternatively there could be more enemies that use horseslayers to tone down the broken Cavaliers/paladins.

And

Horseslaying weapons could be buffed so that they're actually threatening.

[Flamy]

Making Armorknights more valuable... A difficult question to answer.

Well, let's deal with the Mounts>Armors. Decreasing the growths of Cavaliers/Wyvern Riders so that they are more of an all-around unit instead of a mobile tank could help. Giving Cavaliers/Wyvern Riders a -1 or -2 Con penalty, and Armors a +1 or +2 Con bonus might also decrease the overpoweredness of mounts. As for terrain... why the hell is my Draug getting a terrain movement penalty? They walk around in freaking ARMOR. They shouldn't be batting an eye at this stuff. But the horses should.