Which weight system would you like in the next game?

[Zasplach]

Con doesn't grow except on promotion.

I always forget that part, I must mix it up with Thracia. I'd have to do hard math on it then. I still figure Fe4's has more relevance for all the characters throughout the whole game.

[Baldrick]

The problems with the system were because how it was implemented, not the system itself.

This cannot be understated.

I liked Gaiden's weight system specifically. Essentially, your default (Iron-tier) weapon had no weight so if you needed your full AS to secure a double you could.

[Sentacotus]

I voted for Tellius. Simple to understand and use and with some tweaking of stats and weapon weight could be pretty well balanced throughout the entire game.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

Con doesn't grow except on promotion.

Con is not a bad system. I mean, okay, I'm one of those supposed "veterans" in that I started with 7 and 8, but the con system was one thing about them I didn't like back then, and I only started to appreciate the system a few years ago when I realized the system itself is good, but the execution has typically been flawed. Adjust certain weapon weight and character con values and it's the best weight system FE has had to date.

And despite people always groaning that it screws over pegasus knights, pegasus knights are still among the best characters in those games.

pretty much this, its literally first world problems.

i still think the players units should atleast be near the average CON tho, there is no excuse for Guy and Lyn to both have 5 CON, not to mention Wil having the same amount of CON as Matthew

[arvilino]

Con doesn't grow except on promotion.

Con is not a bad system. I mean, okay, I'm one of those supposed "veterans" in that I started with 7 and 8, but the con system was one thing about them I didn't like back then, and I only started to appreciate the system a few years ago when I realized the system itself is good, but the execution has typically been flawed. Adjust certain weapon weight and character con values and it's the best weight system FE has had to date.

And despite people always groaning that it screws over pegasus knights, pegasus knights are still among the best characters in those games.

I still don't think that is true. What would be the overall ideal way a system like that would work?

People mentioned Pegasus Knights, but my problem is that both the characters at both the low end(low con, high speed, usually low attack) and higher end(high con with low speed) are also worse and a lot less flexible than those in the middle(Notably Cavaliers and Mercenaries/Heroes) who's above average Strength, Speed and Con gives them a ridiculous amount of flexibility that helps them double more often than Fighters and deal more damage whether they're doubling or not than Myrmidons.

For example Dorcas has a very high con that weapon weight is almost a non-factor to him, does he have a lot of flexibility? I don't believe he does, with 14/16 con with 6 speed and 0.2 growth he's slow whether he's wielding an Iron Axe or the Steel Axe. He rarely get penalized but unlike alternative Axe users(Paladin/Heroes) he doesn't have the larger bank of speed he can draw into through using a lighter weapon, The only time he shines is if his strength allow him to OHKO an enemy because even Isadora and Marcus will tend to have slightly more speed wielding a Steel Axe than he will.

I'm not too sure how you could fix an issue at both ends of the con-weight system unless you do something that wouldn't result in making the penalties more uniform(upping the con of of the lower end, decreasing the con of the upper end but with more speed) regardless.

Edited February 28, 2015 by arvilino

[The Geek]

As much as we gripe about weapon weight screwing us over, has anyone else noticed that it screws the enemy units up so much more? All those poor enemy myrmidons with their Lancereavers and Steel Swords.

[Refa]

And let's not forget poor Lyon. It's a good thing he can warp because I feel like that tome would reduce his move to 0.

[Irysa]

I'm not too sure how you could fix an issue at both ends of the con-weight system unless you do something that wouldn't result in making the penalties more uniform(upping the con of of the lower end, decreasing the con of the upper end but with more speed) regardless.

Simple; Enemy variety. Someone like Dorcas becomes markedly more useful even if he has low speed if there are enemies who are slow and bulky that he has nearly exclusive ability to ORKO. Conversely, very fast units would be more restricted in terms of who can engage them, requiring chip damage from ranged units or using a very fast but more fragile character to secure a double. FE's problem is that enemy unit stats are all a bit samey in many respects which is why high mov units just end up steamrolling once they break through statistical benchmarks.

As much as we gripe about weapon weight screwing us over, has anyone else noticed that it screws the enemy units up so much more? All those poor enemy myrmidons with their Lancereavers and Steel Swords.

This wouldn't be as big of a problem if enemy stats were more carefully implemented. If they actually had high speed to offset that weight they would still be fast.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Irysa

[powerserg]

Weight won't be back, calling it now but regardless I don't want it.

[ckc22]

I think people shying away from the con system are presuming the weight of characters will be 'realistic' based on class or gender. The game devs can give whatever values to characters they want. The problems with the system were because how it was implemented, not the system itself.

Isn't how it was implemented better evidence for how it would likely happen again rather than some idealized theoretical version?

I think a lot of this is just academic discussion really - I feel like we're going to get systems and calculations incredibly close to Awakening with only minor changes.

Edited February 28, 2015 by ckc22

[Gradivus.]

None.

It was superfluous, and let's face it, weight would pretty much not help awakening's issues at all. what unit diversity is being talked about? I don't personally think that awakening's units are undiverse or anything, but even if they were, it's beyond me how any sort of weight would help. skl-based? Too high Skl midgame and later, and too low Skl earlygame. That aside, as overlooked for the poll, FE12 also had no weight and once again, I miss out on where it would have balanced anything. Besides, the most boss units tendentiously face the least weight issues from what I recall too.

Should weight by some chance return, just give it con, it's the least bad option.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Gradivus.

[Topazd]

I honestly always saw weapon weight as a means of diversifying weaponry, rather than units.

[weso12]

Unless the decide to nerf one of the most overpower mechanics in the series, doubling, (which they won't do because it makes the game way to slow) weight is either gonna only do one of three things

1. Punish units who have to use heavy weapons (probably to the point of being unusable)

2. Punish units who have a low con penalty they can not realistically recover from

3. Do nothing.

Why do you think they screw with weight system so much in Fire Emblem, they were trying to find a way to make it not horrible, I think around FE12 they realized it wasn't worth bothering.

[Gradivus.]

diversifying weapons would actually make more sense as a reason why they did it, but I think they diversified it enough; 3 sorts of the 1-2 Lances / Axes exist, all of which have different availability (or different cost from spotpass), different might and different weapon rank. Bronze, Iron, Steel / Killer and Silver weapons work similarly, and if that system happens to be imbalanced (not unrealistic), it can be changed by making those properties of the particular weapons different, and I'm pretty sure that such a change would be a better way of balancing weapons. Bronzes and Irons being good early on and outdated by a certain point works as such in approximately every FE game. Bronze forges help building up weapon ranks, to reach 1-2 weapons and effective weaponry which sit at D given the comparatively low arms scroll amount in awakening. I don't think weight would really change much about weapon diversity and tbh, balancing weapons is not necessary unless some particular weapon imbalances stuff by itself, like on DSFE where Shiida's wing spear has been balanced on FE12 by varying the enemy types more and making forges not as good at OHKOing stuff. I think if balancing or diversifying stuff is necessary, units should have first priority in that way. Weapons are sort of equally diverse if given weight or not. its user can be negatively affected if they have a bad weight-affecting stat, so I think that sort of falls under failed attempts of creating unit diversity and giving balanced drawbacks for usage of strong weapons.

[GrySun]

None.

It was superfluous, and let's face it, weight would pretty much not help awakening's issues at all. what unit diversity is being talked about? I don't personally think that awakening's units are undiverse or anything, but even if they were, it's beyond me how any sort of weight would help. skl-based? Too high Skl midgame and later, and too low Skl earlygame. That aside, as overlooked for the poll, FE12 also had no weight and once again, I miss out on where it would have balanced anything. Besides, the most boss units tendentiously face the least weight issues from what I recall too.

Should weight by some chance return, just give it con, it's the least bad option.

Well sorry, I did say I may have missed some. Never played FE12, it's Japanese only as far as I know right?

And yes that's why I support con too, no matter how high your stats get you will always get a reduction for high-end weapons. I do fear how females and tiny units can be handled though...

[Gradivus.]

doesn't matter much, as long as you play it eventually, it's a nice game just saying and yeah, it's only released in japanese.

The imbalance between the particular con stats is the issue I have with con, and I don't feel like the penalties given are necessary; if we'd add a skl basis for it, it would be affecting way too much early on and be too negligible mid and late, hence why it wouldn't add much value to the gameplay. I however don't think con adds much value to the gameplay either, despite not being overly restrictive, and not completely negligible. low-con units face high drawbacks from it, whereas high-con units face little to none. I sort of get that it's intended to make some weapons better and some less good in that regard, but I don't see where this is needed. As stated, some extremely good unit, say, Percival, often has high con too, and everything that isn't a Brave Lance against some pretty quick enemy can be used to double with him anyway; the penalty to units with lower con is larger, and you'll be spamming your very good units anyway. Weapon balance can be accomplished in various other ways, and unit balance is not amplified at all. I think FE12 and FE13 sort of handled the Brave Weapon issue well, and better than weight does, see wall of text:

Brave Sword: Marth or an SM / Horseman / Paladin can use it to OHKO Sorcs, thus not face those strong counters. Against Dragons, it can be used for ORKOes on an A swords str-capped SM or Horseman, but doesn't help more than a Wyrmslayer, or +1 forged Wyrmslayer especially. It comes very late (the first time it is used is C20x of 24 chapters), limiting its utility, although the Mercurius is sort of a Brave Sword replication with A rank requirement when it comes to killing bulky stuff. Cannot OHKO anything frail really (unless obtained early), but it's still a good offense on a non-Paladin sword user. Brave Sword is the 2nd most useful of the brave quad, but not a gamebreaker.

Brave Lance: Comes at the same time as the Brave Sword; Falcoknights, which have the highest Spd cap of Lance users in the game, cannot double anything besides one General once the Brave Lance is obtained. ORKOing Mage classes, SMs and a flying Dragon here and there. Otherwise, it helps vs Dragons and Berserkers, but needs chip damage for that. Forged Brave Lance is common and very useful in fact, but certainly not a gamebreaker given its availability and the fact it doesn't kill its main target, sorcerers, on EP.

Brave Axe: Berserker is a very good class throughout the game, but its utility falls off right after the Brave Axe is obtained. Can circumvent counters vs Sorcs, but otherwise there's approximately nothing the Brave Axe is helpful for. Guess you can OHKO a Flying Dragon given that they have 50 HP 14 Def and a str-capped Brave!Berserker has 39 Atk. Though overall, Brave Axe, forged or not, arguably is a wasted Thief staff use.

Brave Bow: Horsemen have such a good lategame performance with Parthia, Silver Bow, Wyrmslayer and Bravesword at 30 Spd that the Brave Bow is probably nothing that improves them a lot. They have weapons to ORKO every lategame enemy that can be doubled even without the Brave Bow, and can avoid counters from Sorcerers anyway. Parthia is good enough to dismantle those decently bulky non-spd capped Berserkers, and Brave Bow fails against the spd-capped ones beyond chipping. Pretty much the only occasion I recall the Brave Bow for being particularly useful is killing Dragons on EP. Brave Bow is held back by the equal utility of other weapons.

I'm mainly referring to Lunatic mode/s by this, but I feel those are the main challenge that FE12 gameplay is balanced around.

FE13: Brave weapons only exist for postgame and the final chapter, or from the optional spotpass. They require A rank (aside from Celica's Gale / Eirika's Blade which are essentially weaker braves) which many of your units will not have when it comes to buying spotpass ones early on.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Gradivus.

[MajorMajora]

I like GBA. Making CON an intrinsic value of classes gives the developers another lever to balance the classes with.

Edited March 1, 2015 by MajorMajora

[ckc22]

Unless the decide to nerf one of the most overpower mechanics in the series, doubling, (which they won't do because it makes the game way to slow) weight is either gonna only do one of three things

1. Punish units who have to use heavy weapons (probably to the point of being unusable)

2. Punish units who have a low con penalty they can not realistically recover from

3. Do nothing.

Why do you think they screw with weight system so much in Fire Emblem, they were trying to find a way to make it not horrible, I think around FE12 they realized it wasn't worth bothering.

I'd rather them make the speed you need to double something more than 5>enemy spd or give attack speed a more complicated formula than add weight back in. 5 above is a pretty low threshold for getting to hit someone twice in the amount of time they hit you once anyway.

[Ownagepuffs]

Tellius weight is da bess. All they needed to do was reduce tome weight and the system would be perfect.

Con should only play a factor in rescuing/shoving.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[Robert Stewart]

I like weapon weight. makes you give more thought to what weapon you'll be using than just "pick the one that's strongest."

I prefer the GBA Con system. The Str system made it so that for everyone except mages, weight had basically no impact after a certain point in the game.

[Parrhesia]

I'm not gonna lie, I started to miss weight in FE12 after a while despite having supported it a lot in theory.

Strength system's the best - that way you can use whatever the fuck you want in endgame but it's an encouragement to only situationally use the best weapons early on.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Parrhesia

[Vorena]

I simply do not see any reason to return weight anymore. It works as an attempt at weapon balance, but you can have appropriate weapon balance in other ways. Within FE10 you have weapons later on which continue to offer higher damage for more cost and less accuracy. This to me was plenty of balance to have me invest in say a Silver Lance over the Silver Greatlance. Drop 3-4 base damage for 30% more reliability to me was perfect.

[Ownagepuffs]

I like weapon weight. makes you give more thought to what weapon you'll be using than just "pick the one that's strongest."

I prefer the GBA Con system. The Str system made it so that for everyone except mages, weight had basically no impact after a certain point in the game.

Parrhesia already nailed it. It became a non issue endgame in Tellius as long as your str surpassed the weight of the weapon but it was still a significant factor until that point.

[ckc22]

I like weapon weight. makes you give more thought to what weapon you'll be using than just "pick the one that's strongest."

I prefer the GBA Con system. The Str system made it so that for everyone except mages, weight had basically no impact after a certain point in the game.

Except for tome weight was way out of proportion to other weapons. Books being heavier than things like swords and axes was just illogical and punished mages and girls (who also tended to have lower Con).

I really don't understand the love of the Gba con system outside of nostalgia.

Edited March 1, 2015 by ckc22

[Robert Stewart]

Except for tome weight was way out of proportion to other weapons. Books being heavier than things like swords and axes was just illogical and punished mages and girls (who also tended to have lower Con).

This was an issue with the Str system too. They solved this by making tomes ridiculously light. which is something that could be done with the Con system as well.

I is a bit silly that girls tended to have lower con than male units in their same classes. Isadora with her 6 con was particularly egregious. However, that's an instance of a flaw of the implementation of the system and not the system itself.

I will also point out that many female units are handicapped because they belong to classes that are supposed to be handicapped by the system. Namely, Pegasus Knights.

I really don't understand the love of the Gba con system outside of nostalgia.

I like the GBA weight system because I want weight to have a consistent impact over the course of the game. The Str handicaps everyone at the start of the game, but becomes meaningless for everyone but mages after a certain point, which is unsatisfactory to me. Nostalgia has nothing to do with it: I hadn't played FE7 until like 3 years ago.