Famitsu 14th May: Phoenix Mode and No More Weapon Uses

[Venterqua]

That's a hell of a lot of assumptions given a very limited amount of information. I think you'd be much better served if you changed your mindset from "this won't work and here's why" to "given this information, what kinds of in-game features could exist, assuming that the developers are sane".

This should be pinned imo.

I'm thankful that people are finally talking more about the possibilities of how losing weapon durability can potentially impact the game instead of just complaining about it. It really can add more layers of strategy if implemented correctly.

[NekoKnight]

When was this ever actually a factor? You essentially have unlimited weapons in the other FEs, you can stock up on them until the next shop rolls around or even forge more. The new system, if properly balanced, has the potential to be much more interesting as a resource management system. If Killer weapons are in limited supply, you can't just buy a bunch and have your whole army rolling extremely high crit setups as soon as a shop opens up, you have to choose who you want to be running the Killer weapon and potentially trade it should another unit need the crit boost. This goes for all weapons. If done right, it's even more balanced than what we had.

I don't know what you've been playing because in games without grinding and free access to shops, item management and conservation is important in most titles. You need to think about what gear you need at any given time and how much funds you have to spare. Will you buy that Killing Edge now and blow most of your cash, or with you need that money later? Even if one had enough cash to buy everything they needed, the uncertainty and planning for what your characters need is welcome.

How do we limit the use of unlimited weapons? Availability, you might say. So instead of having a limited use Killing Edge early on, I don't get a killing edge AT ALL until later game because it'd be too broken otherwise. When I have limited use weapons, I still have a reason to use weak weapons. Characters with unlimited weapons will get their Master Sword and never look back.

[Tangerine]

I don't know what you've been playing because in games without grinding and free access to shops, item management and conservation is important in most titles. You need to think about what gear you need at any given time and how much funds you have to spare. Will you buy that Killing Edge now and blow most of your cash, or with you need that money later? Even if one had enough cash to buy everything they needed, the uncertainty and planning for what your characters need is welcome.

How do we limit the use of unlimited weapons? Availability, you might say. So instead of having a limited use Killing Edge early on, I don't get a killing edge AT ALL until later game because it'd be too broken otherwise. When I have limited use weapons, I still have a reason to use weak weapons. Characters with unlimited weapons will get their Master Sword and never look back.

No, it really is not. You mentioned the GBA titles, there is absolutely no item management or conservation past the first handful of chapters. You get more than enough money in all of the games to get anything you want. You get a Silver Card and access to a Killer shop not even 10 main chapters into FE7 E/H. Funnily enough, FE8 is the most balanced in this regard because you don't get access to unlimited amounts of the stronger weapons until later in the game than usual. The ability to grind kind of ruins that though.

Item strategy in FEGBA game: buy a lot of strong weapons.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Tangerine

[NekoKnight]

No, it really is not. You mentioned the GBA titles, there is absolutely no item management or conservation past the first handful of chapters. You get more than enough money in all of the games to get anything you want. You get a Silver Card and access to a Killer shop not even 10 main chapters into FE7 E/H. Funnily enough, FE8 is the most balanced in this regard because you don't get access to unlimited amounts of the stronger weapons until later in the game than usual. The ability to grind kind of ruins that though.

Item strategy in FEGBA game: buy a lot of strong weapons.

And yet many of the people in support of the removal of weapon durability say so because they felt they couldn't use their good weapons for fear of them breaking. But that's not possible, according to you, there is no item management past the first handful of chapters, right?

Unless you are so familiar with the game to know where every item is sold (including the secret shops), know exactly how much of each item you'll need and when, and how much money you have to spend, you still feel the need to manage your items. Besides Awakening where you could buy any item you want at any time, I've never felt completely free to use all my weapons and that is a good thing.

You only addressed my first point. How will they balance powerful weapons early on besides just not giving you them?

[Florete]

Am I the only one thinking Phoenix mode seems pretty reasonable for at least the Nohr path?

Like we've got no clue just how hard Nohr will be. What if it's like lunatic+ turned up to eleven? What if there are other things that ramp up Nohr's difficulty? Quite a few people are getting Nohr, maybe the optional phoenix mode is a way to give the newbies at least a leg up in Nohr.

I'm pretty pleased with weapon durability leaving. One of the most frustrating things for me in Awakening was not being able to use Nowi and Panne as much in the early segments because there was no way to replenish their stones. Removing that makes life a lot easier when it comes to transforming units. I don't have to avoid using powerful units because their weapon's gonna break.

Plus, it's another form of mercy for Nohr. It's already been confirmed that Nohr has limited resources. Nohr would eventually become borderline impossible if your weapons broke without a way to repair them or get new ones.

You're not the only one, and honestly, this talk of "Oh Nohr is going to be sooo difficult" is a lot of wild reaching. I really doubt Nohr is going to be significantly different than, say, Radiant Dawn normal mode.

You get a Silver Card and access to a Killer shop not even 10 main chapters into FE7 E/H.

This is a bad example. The Silver Card is only available in the hard modes and the killer shop is in a remote corner of the map, unmarked, and requires an item acquired in that same chapter that might easily have been missed.

And after thinking about it, I'm really not sure how much I agree with the idea that conservation was never a problem in older FE titles. We can say it's easy in hindsight, but first time players don't know all the tricks. It can be easy to miss certain sellable items and good weapon drops, and then we also had Radiant Dawn with Aimee's Bargains where even skilled players would be strapped for cash if they wanted the goods. When you know a game well enough, pretty much anything can be made trivial, and I don't think weapon and money conservation was inherently so simple. Except maybe in Path of Radiance once they dump you with 70,000 for free...

And there's stuff like effective and Prf weapons that are available early but sometimes aren't ever buyable at all, and so the player must take caution as to when to make the best use of them.

I'm not opposed to unlimited weapon uses (yet), but I think it's wrong to say weapon durability was never really a factor.

[Tangerine]

And yet many of the people in support of the removal of weapon durability say so because they felt they couldn't use their good weapons for fear of them breaking. But that's not possible, according to you, there is no item management past the first handful of chapters, right?

Unless you are so familiar with the game to know where every item is sold (including the secret shops), know exactly how much of each item you'll need and when, and how much money you have to spend, you still feel the need to manage your items. Besides Awakening where you could buy any item you want at any time, I've never felt completely free to use all my weapons and that is a good thing.

You only addressed my first point. How will they balance powerful weapons early on besides just not giving you them?

There isn't. People not using their good weapons is a mental obstacle. They're people who 'save them in case they need them'. It's not the wrong mindset to have, I do this with some games as well, but FE doesn't support it and it's not necessary.

"Feeling the need" does not make it necessary. And SF exists to show you those things! It's perfect, this site is great. Anyway, you don't need to know "exactly how much of each item you'll need and when" unless you're playing a LTC game or something lol. Knowing where the secret shops are is nice because it gives you early access to good items, but it's not necessary either because those weapons aren't going to make or break you in a casual playthrough.

I didn't answer because I don't know. IS didn't balance durability very well, I can't claim they will balance no durability weapons well either. I know it has potential to be better than what we have because I am very experienced with the series. Whether or not they pull it off is another story, it's all speculation whether you are complaining about or open to it.

This is a bad example. The Silver Card is only available in the hard modes and the killer shop is in a remote corner of the map, unmarked, and requires an item acquired in that same chapter that might easily have been missed.

That was an extreme example regardless. The card isn't necessary, especially not in normal mode, but it's certainly a nail in the coffin. You have more than enough money for a supply of solid weapons, more than you'll ever need.

Edit: Oh and I'd like to point out that having a tight wallet (in the case of FE10, I don't agree that money is tight in the GBA games) is not a problem exclusive to durability weapons. If it is balanced properly, then infinite weapons will be much more expensive and you will have the exact same issues, except in one case you can buy one infinite weapon and in the other you can outfit a couple of units for a few chapters; in the long term you might get more use out of the infinite weapon, but in the short term you get MUCH more use of the durability weapons. We don't know what they'll do.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Tangerine

[arvilino]

That was an extreme example regardless. The card isn't necessary, especially not in normal mode, but it's certainly a nail in the coffin. You have more than enough money for a supply of solid weapons, more than you'll ever need.

Yeah the funds ranking in FE7 literally only works on the fact you can obtain a ludicrously excessive surpluss amount of funds even when using underlevelled characters and completing maps in short turn counts, in a regular non-ranked playthrough you're free to play with over 1 million gold worth of stuff and up to 822,000-922,000 gold value is off limits in a ranked.

The mindset you mentioned is really the only thing. A player might think they're strapped for cash at some point in the middle of game yet could probably get 50,000-100,000+ gold(or 100,000-200,000 gold worth w/ silver card) simply from selling the promotion items they won't use.(not to mention Secret Books and Goddess Icons).

Edited May 13, 2015 by arvilino

[Baldrick]

If it is balanced properly

If.

My guess is that the weapon purchasing system won't be too different from Awakening. If it was a change to something like FE2 or FE4 that would be relatively balanced, it would probably have been mentioned alongside the lack of weapon durability.

[Jedi]

Having essentially unlimited is not the same as unlimited, but that's a nitpick. Regardless, limited use weapons do break, and them breaking at bad times can be awkward to plan around. Having a large supply of really good weapons doesn't diminish the fact that you would have to load your inventories out differently to accomodate for weapons potentially breaking. Additionally, your access to these "essentially" unlimited killer weapons and the like only comes in at later points in the game typically, and earlygame you have a finite resource of these powerful weapons. Jeigan silver lances are a good example, as are earlygame Killer Edges from Navarre-archetype characters. We can't buy those until later in the game, but can be reasonably given them early on and have strategic considerations in their best use because of their use limits.

I was talking with Integ and we pretty much agreed that weapon durability was pretty lamely used from Fe6 onward, its a near pointless limitation with how poorly it was designed in most games. Also I did mention the breaking a weapon stratagem earlier. Which is kind of a nice choice yes, but.. how many times is one going to find themselves in that situation.

As much as I was going all durability is the only way, it makes me realize how pointless most of the old mechanics people want back are. The weapon triangle is barely relevant past the first few chapters of almost any fe etc.

Like the only old mechanics I'd really like back are like dismount and capture. As those were actually done well.

Bad staples are still bad staples. And should be revamped.

[Tangerine]

Yeah the funds ranking in FE7 literally only works on the fact you can obtain a ludicrously excessive surpluss amount of funds even when using underlevelled characters and completing maps in short turn counts, in a regular non-ranked playthrough you're free to play with over 1 million gold worth of stuff and up to 822,000-922,000 gold value is off limits in a ranked.

The mindset you mentioned is really the only thing. A player might think they're strapped for cash at some point in the middle of game yet could probably get 50,000-100,000+ gold(or 100,000-200,000 gold worth w/ silver card) simply from selling the promotion items they won't use.

Yup, FE7 throws money at you, just a bit more discreetly than FE9. The only way I could see someone not having much is if they're a packrat (I'm guilty of this at times!).

If.

My guess is that the weapon purchasing system won't be too different from Awakening. If it was a change to something like FE2 or FE4 that would be relatively balanced, it would probably have been mentioned alongside the lack of weapon durability.

I don't like to make assumptions honestly, I've made more detailed speculations than I'd care to already. If weapons are purchased in the same way as Awakening, I would expect them to be significantly more expensive and in limited quantity for the stronger ones (because if the weak ones aren't at least in unlimited supply, someone could drop all of their items and be screwed, as dumb as it is lol). If they don't rebalance weapon prices or availability then it'd have ultimately been pointless and would have a negative impact on balance.

[BrightBow]

Dealing with resources was definitely was a lot more rewarding in Tear Ring Saga since you basically got the same amount of money as usual but everything was several times as expensive. Like, a healing staff with 22 uses costs 2200.

The execution may have been lacking in the past but the system is not broken on a fundamental level.

Edited May 13, 2015 by BrightBow

[Irysa]

I was talking with Integ and we pretty much agreed that weapon durability was pretty lamely used from Fe6 onward, its a near pointless limitation with how poorly it was designed in most games. Also I did mention the breaking a weapon stratagem earlier. Which is kind of a nice choice yes, but.. how many times is one going to find themselves in that situation.

Dunno, I think it's done acceptably well in FE6. You recieve very strong weapons throughout the game that are tempting to use, but you can't overuse them lest you end up disadvantaged in the Finale (or heck, don't get to go there at all). Durandal trivialises the Chapter 12 boss for example, and weapons like Malte become very helpful to use vs the obscenely bulky Wyvern Lords in the mid to lategame. Marcus can't ORKO (or even 2HKO) enemies that aren't Soldiers without using a Silver Lance, which only has 20 uses early on. This all impacts the game pretty significantly.

If you mentioned it earlier, then I missed it, sorry. As for how often I find myself in that situation, actually not as infrequently as you'd imagine. I do tend to look for opportunities to do so though, compared to the majority of players who probably don't. Like I said, I keep a stock of 2 use Javelins around, and this is why I found Awakening's automerging quite annoying until I was told I could negate it via free NameForges.

The weapon triangle is barely relevant past the first few chapters of almost any fe etc.

Depends on the game, and the difficulty. It's definitely very relevant in the DSFE's on higher difficulty, even later in the game, because enemies are so strong.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Irysa

[Tangerine]

Dealing with resources was definitely was a lot more rewarding in Tear Ring Saga since you basically got the same amount of money as usual but everything was several times as expensive. Like, a healing staff with 22 uses costs 2200.

The execution may have been lacking in the past but the system is not broken on a fundamental level.

It was better implemented in FE5 as well, to a lesser extent.

[iavasechui]

soon IS will include an Auto-Play mode that literally plays the game for you

It does? Awakening already had an auto combat mode that no one used because it tends to get you killed.

[Tangerine]

A lot of strategy games have that feature, actually. FFT might be the best example, considering it's the most popular SRPG lol.

[goodperson707]

It was better implemented in FE5 as well, to a lesser extent.

I still don't think any game has a reasonable chance of running out of weapons though, also thracia had had a good selection of strong 60 use prf (unique and hero as well) weapons and technically if the enemy had a weapon and wasn't mounted you could get that weapon too, so if you were capture crazy you actually had quite a selection of weapons.

Edited May 13, 2015 by goodperson707

[Tangerine]

Yeah, Thracia just made the weapons in the shop extremely expensive, so it was impossible to just stock up on something and destroy stuff, you had to try to capture enemies to get theirs. Plus there was strong incentive to spend your money elsewhere because of the fatigue system (but I'd also argue this trivialized the fatigue system at a point, lol).

Edited May 13, 2015 by Tangerine

[Missile]

Actually I didn't have the time to pay attention on this topic... and tbh it would be better, if I never read this.

FE is on the best way to ruin all the strategical elements.

I summarize all the removes in the latest games:

• staves like sleep and silence
• magic weapon triangle and light magic
• ballistas
• weapon weight
• long range magic for anima mages
• limit of weapon uses

If this will be way of Intelligent Systems, I have lost completly the interest in FE!

You forgot thieves that cannot steal anymore.

[Blue Sun]

I am calling it right now. These features are going to be lifesavers on the harder difficulties (especially Lunatic Mode Nohr and doubly especially Lunatic+ Mode Nohr if that abomination ever comes back). Aside of easier accessibility, why else would they exist?

[TKHikaru13]

I am calling it right now. These features are going to be lifesavers on the harder difficulties (especially Lunatic Mode Nohr and doubly especially Lunatic+ Mode Nohr if that abomination ever comes back). Aside of easier accessibility, why else would they exist?

This is exactly my point. If I remember correctly, Phoenix mode is going to be a Nohr only feature as a way of not alienating the newbie players who want to play Nohr as well.

[IceBrand]

A lot of strategy games have that feature, actually. FFT might be the best example, considering it's the most popular SRPG lol.

Reading this made think we would need to buy armor and cloths for our units.

[Tamanoir]

Dunno, I think it's done acceptably well in FE6. You recieve very strong weapons throughout the game that are tempting to use, but you can't overuse them lest you end up disadvantaged in the Finale (or heck, don't get to go there at all). Durandal trivialises the Chapter 12 boss for example, and weapons like Malte become very helpful to use vs the obscenely bulky Wyvern Lords in the mid to lategame. Marcus can't ORKO (or even 2HKO) enemies that aren't Soldiers without using a Silver Lance, which only has 20 uses early on. This all impacts the game pretty significantly.

If you mentioned it earlier, then I missed it, sorry. As for how often I find myself in that situation, actually not as infrequently as you'd imagine. I do tend to look for opportunities to do so though, compared to the majority of players who probably don't. Like I said, I keep a stock of 2 use Javelins around, and this is why I found Awakening's automerging quite annoying until I was told I could negate it via free NameForges.

Depends on the game, and the difficulty. It's definitely very relevant in the DSFE's on higher difficulty, even later in the game, because enemies are so strong.

Weapon ranks still exists. They even added it to Dragonstones.

Few people could use Silver Lance, and even less could use the legendary weapons before quite a while. (unless you Arena Abused, but I doubt you did, and anyway it made you strong enough not to need strong weapons.)

I actually went from slightly disappointed to accepting to actually pretty excited about those news (including Phoenix Mode.)

All the new possibility it gives you are pretty interresting.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

You forgot thieves that cannot steal anymore.

After posting, I noticed at once that I forgot this.

Also forgot the remove of permadeath.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Mister IceTeaPeach

[BrandedRogue]

I'm just worried that with phoenix mode they invite too many non-strategy people (people who don't want to play strategy games) and that in a few releases the modes will be casual>phoenix>baby

And is it true that people complained about RD being too hard? I started with that one XD

[MCProductions]

I'm just worried that with phoenix mode they invite too many non-strategy people (people who don't want to play strategy games) and that in a few releases the modes will be casual>phoenix>baby

And is it true that people complained about RD being too hard? I started with that one XD

Clasic is there to stay, and yes they did, holy crap, they did.

Big reviewers in perticuler complained about RD's difficulty.