Promotion Tree For Flying Units

[Jotari]

So with Fates finally accessible to me and it's myriad of new classes, it's encouraged me to start working on my Branching class tree again. One such new class was the Kinshi Knight, which I really like. I've wanted a mounted Bow User for a while. I already had a flying bow user with my Griffon Hunter class however so at first I decided I'd just make kinshi Knight a DLC class. But that was a little too easy a solution so with much thought I decided to try add the new class naturally into my own tree. Here's the result.

[spoiler=Old Idea]

If you're having trouble making out the weapon icons you can open the image in a new tap to zoom in.

[spoiler=New Idea]

So I'd like a bit of feedback if possible on which of the two of these is a better idea. My main reservation with the newer update is that there are now more swords than lances or axes which I don't particularly think are really suited all that much for flying units (talking aesthetically). I suppose I could swap the basic pegasus rider to be mono lance like they are in a lot of games but I had a nice thing going with three different base units each specialising in swords, lances and axes each. The updated version also might be more confusing to some people, especially when taken in context with the full class tree (for those who are actually confused right now, Griffon Rider, Pegasus Knight and Dragon Rider are the three tier 1 classes. Green lines denote tier 1 -> tier 2 promotion and red lines denote tier 2 -> tier 3 promotions, blue numbers indicate movement). A slightly sillier reservation that I have is that I prefer my Pegasus!Phoenix Knight sprite over my Bird!Phoenix Knight and don't particularly want to can it. Anyway I want to hear your opinion about the setups so tell me what you think. Along with any other ideas you might have regarding the future of aerial mounts in the series.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Ooh, this is quite cool! First off, I love the idea of having one flying class each using the sword, lance, and axe. As much as I am used to Pegasus Knights with lances, I think swords fit them quite well too. And, I am a fan of flyers having magic, and bows, and even shurikens (much as it is out of left field). Also, very cool sprites in general. Note that I'm making my judgements without seeing factors such as caps, or special skills, but here are my impressions:

- It's kind of weird that Pegasus Knights get a jump on movement, and Falcon and Kinshi Knights by extension. I feel like 7, 8, and 8 would be more natural for them, respectively.

- Griffon Master looks like a liability. Lower movement, and more weaknesses (to bird/beast/armor slayers), with access to only two weapon types? I feel like it should get either Swords, or a cool skill, or just great caps.

- Relatedly, Phoenix and Sky Knights seem crazy-good, having three weapon types, 9 movement, and only two weaknesses. Maybe consider dropping movement by 1, or giving them generally low stats.

- I like Griffon Archer better than Griffon Raider. Getting bows early on is pretty cool, and "Raider" and "Rider" are too close anyway.

- Chimera Knight is some kind of unholy abomination, and I love it.

- Seraph Knight, Dark Pegasus, and Wyvern Mage all have kickass sprites. The bird-riding units, not so much.

- The Pegasus units should all be able to fourth-tier promote into the "Maximillian Pegasus" class.

- Overall I think I prefer the second system, and I think you fairly successfully worked Kinshi knights into what you started with.

- Sidenote: I'm always a bit weirded out by units changing their mounts upon promotion. It's never made much sense to me, and while I'm okay with a character gaining a mount upon promotion, I feel like once they have one, they should keep it (after all, numerous characters feature their mounts in their dialogue and support. Isn't it weird that Cherche's Minervykins just turned into a Griffon, hah hah?).

[Jotari]

Ooh, this is quite cool! First off, I love the idea of having one flying class each using the sword, lance, and axe. As much as I am used to Pegasus Knights with lances, I think swords fit them quite well too. And, I am a fan of flyers having magic, and bows, and even shurikens (much as it is out of left field). Also, very cool sprites in general. Note that I'm making my judgements without seeing factors such as caps, or special skills, but here are my impressions:

- It's kind of weird that Pegasus Knights get a jump on movement, and Falcon and Kinshi Knights by extension. I feel like 7, 8, and 8 would be more natural for them, respectively.

- Griffon Master looks like a liability. Lower movement, and more weaknesses (to bird/beast/armor slayers), with access to only two weapon types? I feel like it should get either Swords, or a cool skill, or just great caps.

- Relatedly, Phoenix and Sky Knights seem crazy-good, having three weapon types, 9 movement, and only two weaknesses. Maybe consider dropping movement by 1, or giving them generally low stats.

- I like Griffon Archer better than Griffon Raider. Getting bows early on is pretty cool, and "Raider" and "Rider" are too close anyway.

- Chimera Knight is some kind of unholy abomination, and I love it.

- Seraph Knight, Dark Pegasus, and Wyvern Mage all have kickass sprites. The bird-riding units, not so much.

- The Pegasus units should all be able to fourth-tier promote into the "Maximillian Pegasus" class.

- Overall I think I prefer the second system, and I think you fairly successfully worked Kinshi knights into what you started with.

- Sidenote: I'm always a bit weirded out by units changing their mounts upon promotion. It's never made much sense to me, and while I'm okay with a character gaining a mount upon promotion, I feel like once they have one, they should keep it (after all, numerous characters feature their mounts in their dialogue and support. Isn't it weird that Cherche's Minervykins just turned into a Griffon, hah hah?).

-Movement is a bit of a holdover from the first version of the tree where I wanted something to make that version of Phoenix Knight a viable option compared to Dragon Lord. Since things are more balanced with weapons now (or at least since all classes are getting a scond weapon on promotion) I think I'll change it to 7,8,8 for all the classes like you suggest.

-If something looks like it's at a disadvantage (or has too much of an advantage) than caps and growth modifiers will generally be the balancing factor, though I haven't actually desgined any stats for any of the units. However when it comes to Armored units I've always felt there should be something to make the armored stat more useful since the other special classes all have something beyond stats that make it noteworty. Playing Fates I thought it might be cool if Armored units couldn't receive stat drains, should that be a thing that remains in the series. Then I thought they should probably be immune to knives/shurikens in general since what's a shuriken going to do against several inches of plate mail. And eventually that evolved into the idea of taking less damage from 1-2 physical weapons at range over all. TL;DR, I have some ideas to make armor more than liability. That being said I think I will give them swords too. Every other class has three weapons. It might make it a little too similar to Dragon Lord but it's better to have similar classes rather than one that is just plain inferior.

-As I said above I'll probably drop the pegasus line's movement. The bird classes would also would be quite flimsy as units even more so than Pegasus Knights despite being somewhat hardy in fates. As far as mounts go they look more majestic than powerful.

-Oh yeah and the Shurikens were thrown in there just for the sake of it. I had the entire class tree built long ago so they were implemented post the fact and as a result very few classes have Surikens. Then adding the Chimera into the tree, I needed something to distinquish it from the other classes and well literally every other wepaon was taken by something else in the tree with the exception of knives so I thought why the hell not, give em Shurikens. It's already a massive hodgepodge of everything, making it a ninja too would only add to the monstrosity.

-I find it a tonne easier to just recolour a sprite than make a completely new one (though I am rather proud with how Griffon and Chimera turned out). The Bird Knights shouldn't even have that many wings but adding in a couple more was easier than trying to modify a horse's body into a bird's.

-If you're curious about the rest of the system you can find the full tree here.

Edited June 13, 2016 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

-If you're curious about the rest of the system you can find the full tree here.

Cheese-and-crackers, that is rad. I don't think I've ever seen a three-tiered branching promotion system like this! I've occasionally tried to conceptualize two-tier branching systems, but I've never thought up something nearly this extensive (if I'm not careful, I think I could get lost in it!). Is this part of any game or project you are making, or just a work in its own right? Just curious.

Oh, and I like the idea of making a boon affiliated with the armor marking. Like, immunity to debuffs, or status, or to shurikens/knives in general, would be cool (although, then the Sting Shuriken would become a contradiction, hah hah).

Thanks for listening to my thoughts, and replying!

[Jotari]

It's just a work unto itself right now but maybe in the future if there's a Fire Emblem maker that's super streamlined I might put some time into fitting a game around it.

[NekoKnight]

Hm, I'm not really a fan of third tiers, to be honest. It reaches a point where each class does too many things and there is a lot of overlap with other classes. I'm also a bit put off by characters changing mounts after promoting (ex Wyvern Knight to Sky Knight). The (flying) mounted characters in Fire Emblem are usually close to their mounts, and even name them. It seems weird they would just ditch them for a new species.

For some positive feedback, I will say that the second chart is a bit more coherent than the first. Chimera is also an interesting mount idea that I haven't heard suggested elsewhere.

[Jotari]

Hm, I'm not really a fan of third tiers, to be honest. It reaches a point where each class does too many things and there is a lot of overlap with other classes. I'm also a bit put off by characters changing mounts after promoting (ex Wyvern Knight to Sky Knight). The (flying) mounted characters in Fire Emblem are usually close to their mounts, and even name them. It seems weird they would just ditch them for a new species.

For some positive feedback, I will say that the second chart is a bit more coherent than the first. Chimera is also an interesting mount idea that I haven't heard suggested elsewhere.

RE: Third tiers, are you talking about Gaiden? Because IMO, Radiant Dawn barely had third tiers. Except from the Dawn Brigade everyone was a prepromote, to the extent that you easily could have just changed the exp gain on the Dawn Brigade chapters and remove the first tier entirely. A bit of a missed oppertunity in Radiant Dawn in my opinion.

Edited June 17, 2016 by Jotari