Do you like the Pair up system?

[Sylphid]

Here's how I would do it:

-all unmounted get Shove

-all mounted get Canto

-Shelter for everyone but stats reduced ala classic Rescue until the pair-up is broken.

I know a lot of people cringe at a free Canto because "uhmuhguh Mounted Emblem" but I honestly like Shove so much that I consider them equal.

Pretty close to how I would do it, except I would make Canto a skill like I said earlier. I wouldn't cringe at free canto though since I'm indifferent to it.

(I just feel Canto doesn't feel as universal thing like Shoving or Rescuing)

Also, an alternative I've been thinking of is having regular Rescue and Shelter as a (Cavalier-locked?) skill that prevents or reduces the stat reductions from rescuing. So basically like Savior in PoR. (Similarly, Onis could have had Smite as a skill while shoving is usable by all unmounted units).

I don't recall him alluding to that. Just that he wanted rescue back. I actually like the differentiation of the classes and feel like things like that being skills actually makes sense. Bring back the capacity from PoR/RD for skills, and this could be much better because it denotes skills from the person that enables them to pick people up etc.

The bolded part definitely sounds like Shelter being a class-locked skill is a problem:

Doesn't halve stats, can't canto after it, have to learn it at level 10 as a Cavalier. Not good enough.

(I admit I added Shove on my own but I felt it was relevant enough for what Iwas going for)

Anyways, I also like differentation of classes via skills. I just don't like the idea of shove and rescue, things that logically anyone should be able to do (again, with certain, mainly mount-related, limitations). I would be okay with these being skills that aren't locked to single class, much like in Radiant Dawn. Though I wouldn't want a skill pretty much anyone can have count for skill capacity (shove and canto costing skill capacity was actually one of my least liked things in Tellius)

[Quintessence]

That's basically wanting RD skill system back, where both shove and canto were skills and occupied skill capacity. besides, the existence of canto doesn't automatically make fliers and mounteds the best. You can see how mounteds are one of the worst classes in RD and any foot unit is better for endgame.

[Augestein]

Discussion of/solutions to mounted unit balance is going to need to take a lot of factors into consideration. Personally, I'd rather a fun mechanic (like Canto) be tweaked rather than removed or have such poor distribution that few can make use of it (like Shove in Fates). I don't recall Canto ever being game breaking or dissuading me to use anything but mounted units. If they were to limit Canto to a class skill, I'd want it to be full Canto (ie it works even after attacking).

I actually don't mind the existence of canto. The problem is that Canto + Rescue is just straight up better than Rescue + Shove. That's why I was proposing the RD system to come back again, where it's a skill you can equip to allow for better distribution but isn't running around so rampantly on all of the mounted units. Imagine this if you will, your class gets free skills that you can learn, but you can also purchase skills to equip to a unit with them having a capacity for how much they can hold. Or even have a trainer that you can purchase that can teach moves to units every so often-- if they keep My Castle or anything like it, there's far more potential with stuff like that instead of just having pointless things like the hot springs for instance. Mounted units are already generally better if they can fight competently.

Anyways, I also like differentation of classes via skills. I just don't like the idea of shove and rescue, things that logically anyone should be able to do (again, with certain, mainly mount-related, limitations). I would be okay with these being skills that aren't locked to single class, much like in Radiant Dawn. Though I wouldn't want a skill pretty much anyone can have count for skill capacity (shove and canto costing skill capacity was actually one of my least liked things in Tellius)

Which is why I think it should be an actual bona-fide skill. Rescue isn't just "the ability to pick someone up." It's the ability to protect a person (possibly holding them), while still fighting. I don't feel like that should just be a free skill. Canto is the person being skilled enough to continue riding with their horse while performing another task-- truly using the fact that they are a skilled rider. With RDs skill system, you could even have something like :

Pegasus Knights get Galeforce, Wyvern's get Canto, and horses get Swiftness (which would be canto + move again, but no attack again like Pegasus Knights). This means that all of the mounted units get some form of "move again," without them being the same flavor of move again. Cavaliers can pick people up and rescue chain-- makes sense with them getting Shelter as well, Wyverns can also pick people up and move again, but they can't move again after an attack like the cavaliers can, and Pegasus Knights can't move again after performing any action but a successful kill on an enemy.

It's sort of like how I don't like how Fates implements capturing for instance. It's weird with it only being usable by 1 or 2 units depending on the route. Especially if you don't feel like using them.

That's basically wanting RD skill system back, where both shove and canto were skills and occupied skill capacity. besides, the existence of canto doesn't automatically make fliers and mounteds the best. You can see how mounteds are one of the worst classes in RD and any foot unit is better for endgame.

No, but unless your character is absolutely wretched, you're not bad either. Titania is one of the best units, Haar is the best unit, Jill is one of the best DB members, Oscar's no slouch either. The main people that are bad in RD that are mounted are bad because they have unfair times of appearing and not enough time to make up levels for their bases and growths-- Fiona being the prime example of this. Take someone like say... Marcia and switch her to be available as often as Nephenee for instance, and she's just straight up better than Neph.

[Quintessence]

Which is why I think it should be an actual bona-fide skill. Rescue isn't just "the ability to pick someone up." It's the ability to protect a person (possibly holding them), while still fighting. I don't feel like that should just be a free skill. Canto is the person being skilled enough to continue riding with their horse while performing another task-- truly using the fact that they are a skilled rider. With RDs skill system, you could even have something like :

Pegasus Knights get Galeforce, Wyvern's get Canto, and horses get Swiftness (which would be canto + move again, but no attack again like Pegasus Knights). This means that all of the mounted units get some form of "move again," without them being the same flavor of move again. Cavaliers can pick people up and rescue chain-- makes sense with them getting Shelter as well, Wyverns can also pick people up and move again, but they can't move again after an attack like the cavaliers can, and Pegasus Knights can't move again after performing any action but a successful kill on an enemy.

It's sort of like how I don't like how Fates implements capturing for instance. It's weird with it only being usable by 1 or 2 units depending on the route. Especially if you don't feel like using them.

Imo mixing two different skill systems is a terrible idea, because both systems don't induce synergy, specially Tellius vs 3DS. 3DS system has a bunch of crappy skills that work due to the nature of the game, and the worst part is that half the skills you learn are thrown to the garbage because you'll always want the best skills possible, and that stimulates grinding, which I'm not in agreement with, because it derails you from the main focus of the game. I was fine with FE4, even 8, 9 and 10 because you get what you get and that's it, no more. On the other hand, on 3DS games I have a wide pool of skills that if I want to build stronger units I have to take hours and hours and even days and weeks of grinding to build the best unit possible, and that's boring and lame.

Now onto the matter, I think those skills are not a good idea, Galeforce is in itself broken, it is like having an inner dancer there and do whatever, same with Swiftness. I think Shove and Canto are fine as they are. Both have their utilities, one for advancing units on purpose or for some position shenanigans, and the other for kill and retreat, protect units with differential movement, rescue or whatever.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Quintessence

[solrocknroll]

I think that Canto, Rescue, and Shove are all bad.

Canto provides far too much leverage for mounted units. Rescue and Shove are basically get out of jail free cards. Rescue reduces stats, but you'd always rescue with someone who can survive being doubled anyway. Shove also allows you to make an error and then move someone out of the way by shoving them. I'm fine with Casual and Phoenix Mode, but those skills are just really boring.

[Augestein]

Now onto the matter, I think those skills are not a good idea, Galeforce is in itself broken, it is like having an inner dancer there and do whatever, same with Swiftness. I think Shove and Canto are fine as they are. Both have their utilities, one for advancing units on purpose or for some position shenanigans, and the other for kill and retreat, protect units with differential movement, rescue or whatever.

I honestly don't think Galeforce is broken. Having an entire team of people with Galeforce + Pair Up is broken (which is no longer possible in Fates version of Galeforce). The issue with Awakening Galeforce is that you could attack and kill, move and then switch, attack and kill, and then switch and then attack and kill again for 3 kills for a group of two units, and switch the glass cannon back into the backseat to prevent them from being attacked, provide dual strikes and dual guards as well. That was the problem with its original incarnation. Swiftness is literally move again after performing an action. IE, you can move but can't perform any actions again. No attack, no drop, no visits, nothing. Canto's (assuming it's the original version which I thought was being implied) was ridiculous. You could do ANYTHING after an attack so long as you weren't attacking again. This mean you could attack someone, and then kill move away and visit a town too. It's pretty strong as well. Even then, strong skills don't bother me, it's the abundance and commonness of them that's the main issue. Aether is strong no doubt, but the game doesn't have every character in the game able to get Aether-- or even a full team.

Imo mixing two different skill systems is a terrible idea, because both systems don't induce synergy, specially Tellius vs 3DS. 3DS system has a bunch of crappy skills that work due to the nature of the game, and the worst part is that half the skills you learn are thrown to the garbage because you'll always want the best skills possible, and that stimulates grinding, which I'm not in agreement with, because it derails you from the main focus of the game. I was fine with FE4, even 8, 9 and 10 because you get what you get and that's it, no more. On the other hand, on 3DS games I have a wide pool of skills that if I want to build stronger units I have to take hours and hours and even days and weeks of grinding to build the best unit possible, and that's boring and lame.

I don't think it's such a bad idea to be honest. Some of the problem with the 3DS skill system now is that the skills are considered crappy is because the game says "5 skills, that's it." There's no care with how good or bad they are in the 3DS. They aren't balanced but ALL take up the same space. Something like Renewal is much stronger than say... Camaraderie. With a Tellius system in place, even if a person somehow grinded to Renewal and Camaraderie, there's solace in the fact that Renewal is stronger but takes up more space while Camaraderie is a weaker skill that takes less space. The reason these skills are If a person only has say 2 - 4 classes that they can get skills, buying skills from a barter / trainer would make sense in capacity. The games already discourage grinding in Fates with skill acquisition by having it learn skills as a greater than or equal to class level, and we can already sort of buy skills with My Castle. Capacity seems like the best way to make the skills that are weaker still have worth.

I think that Canto, Rescue, and Shove are all bad.

Canto provides far too much leverage for mounted units. Rescue and Shove are basically get out of jail free cards. Rescue reduces stats, but you'd always rescue with someone who can survive being doubled anyway. Shove also allows you to make an error and then move someone out of the way by shoving them. I'm fine with Casual and Phoenix Mode, but those skills are just really boring.

That's not what people really use Shove and Rescue for though. Most people will do things like trade stuff with people rescued and move them with mounted units to be picked up by other mounted units resulting in all the walking unit and the mounted unit to be in similar positions. There's a net movement of items and unit spaces.

Shove provides you with the ability to shove someone a space more than they normally could move. It's not even the protection that's needed there.

I think that Canto, Rescue, and Shove are all bad.

Canto provides far too much leverage for mounted units. Rescue and Shove are basically get out of jail free cards. Rescue reduces stats, but you'd always rescue with someone who can survive being doubled anyway. Shove also allows you to make an error and then move someone out of the way by shoving them. I'm fine with Casual and Phoenix Mode, but those skills are just really boring.

That's not what people really use Shove and Rescue for though. Most people will do things like trade stuff with people rescued and move them with mounted units to be picked up by other mounted units resulting in all the walking unit and the mounted unit to be in similar positions. There's a net movement of items and unit spaces.

Shove provides you with the ability to shove someone a space more than they normally could move.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Augestein

[Cornguy]

I don't really like it, but its not the worst thing in the world. Its just me being an old man hating change. There are legitimate things I dislike about the new games, but if I'm being honest, I don't have a legit reason for disliking pairup. Well, Awakening pairup is broken, and its lame that enemies can't use it.

[Quintessence]

I honestly don't think Galeforce is broken. Having an entire team of people with Galeforce + Pair Up is broken (which is no longer possible in Fates version of Galeforce). The issue with Awakening Galeforce is that you could attack and kill, move and then switch, attack and kill, and then switch and then attack and kill again for 3 kills for a group of two units, and switch the glass cannon back into the backseat to prevent them from being attacked, provide dual strikes and dual guards as well. That was the problem with its original incarnation. Swiftness is literally move again after performing an action. IE, you can move but can't perform any actions again. No attack, no drop, no visits, nothing. Canto's (assuming it's the original version which I thought was being implied) was ridiculous. You could do ANYTHING after an attack so long as you weren't attacking again. This mean you could attack someone, and then kill move away and visit a town too. It's pretty strong as well. Even then, strong skills don't bother me, it's the abundance and commonness of them that's the main issue. Aether is strong no doubt, but the game doesn't have every character in the game able to get Aether-- or even a full team.

Yes, Galeforce is broken because you literally can skip a map with a killer Galeforce unit + some other utility unit. Let's consider the following objectives:

• Rout: Galeforce is so OP that you can kill and move again, positioning is what is most important here. Whether you have Pair Up or not, chances are your Galeforce unit is already strong enough to not need the stat bonus.
• Defend: Positioning
• Seize: Break the spot free and seize the spot with the same unit.
• Defeat the Boss: most important usage of Galeforce is here. Have a rescue unit or 2, drag your Galeforce unit, dance rescuer, rescue again, reach boss and kill. How many turns? 1 turn clear. GG

Galeforce is broken even in Fates, the problem is not only Pair Up in Awakening. Your example is Galeforce in its maximum expression. Also, I've always referred to 9 and 10 Canto, not FE4 because that Canto is ridiculous.

I don't think it's such a bad idea to be honest. Some of the problem with the 3DS skill system now is that the skills are considered crappy is because the game says "5 skills, that's it." There's no care with how good or bad they are in the 3DS. They aren't balanced but ALL take up the same space. Something like Renewal is much stronger than say... Camaraderie. With a Tellius system in place, even if a person somehow grinded to Renewal and Camaraderie, there's solace in the fact that Renewal is stronger but takes up more space while Camaraderie is a weaker skill that takes less space. The reason these skills are If a person only has say 2 - 4 classes that they can get skills, buying skills from a barter / trainer would make sense in capacity. The games already discourage grinding in Fates with skill acquisition by having it learn skills as a greater than or equal to class level, and we can already sort of buy skills with My Castle. Capacity seems like the best way to make the skills that are weaker still have worth.

This system stimulates the same grinding and is more troublesome because players will try to optimize their skill set with the given capacity. The problem I have is that the reclass and skill systems together promote grinding to levels beyond needed. Fates stimulates it more than Awakening because you have infinite resources and pretty much no limit with Eternal Seals, so you'll jump from one class to another in a vicious cycle until building your best unit possible skill wise. It was better than Second Seals, yes, but presents the same problem. Players will likely stop their current progress and wander around challenges, DLC maps or whatever and take more time building skills. This interrupts the fun of the game to focus on added features. Whether people find it fun to grind and spend more time in character customization than playing the main game that's another thing, but I as a player expect to play fluently the game without unnecessary stops.

Edit: a different thing would be if every character has a side quest or something where upon completion they gain a unique skill to that character.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Quintessence

[Augestein]

Yes, Galeforce is broken because you literally can skip a map with a killer Galeforce unit + some other utility unit. Let's consider the following objectives:

• Rout: Galeforce is so OP that you can kill and move again, positioning is what is most important here. Whether you have Pair Up or not, chances are your Galeforce unit is already strong enough to not need the stat bonus.
• Defend: Positioning
• Seize: Break the spot free and seize the spot with the same unit.
• Defeat the Boss: most important usage of Galeforce is here. Have a rescue unit or 2, drag your Galeforce unit, dance rescuer, rescue again, reach boss and kill. How many turns? 1 turn clear. GG

Galeforce is broken even in Fates, the problem is not only Pair Up in Awakening. Your example is Galeforce in its maximum expression. Also, I've always referred to 9 and 10 Canto, not FE4 because that Canto is ridiculous.

• Rout: Which as you've stated positioning is key here. So how is Galeforce somehow broken when Canto let's you move as well? The only difference is that Canto doesn't grant full movement. But a dancer allows you to attack again anyways-- something that's easier to do with canto than without. It's still better than shove in this regard as well. Fates doesn't let you get support at all. It means that you can't even be next to a unit as well.
• Which in a world with canto, I'm not seeing how Galeforce is doing much more. Because when are earth are you going to run all the way back for full movement from the enemies? By the time I have Galeforce, I have Rescue staves and Physics.
• Which was what FE4 Canto could do. If we're going with FE9 / FE 10, it really doesn't matter here either. You know why? Because all you'd have to do is warp / rescue staff someone else.
• This doesn't even need Galeforce. That's literally the exact thing you do to beat the chapter before the last in Revelations in 1 turn. Skills like Pass enable this as well. Nothing you said here even required Galeforce.

All forms of canto are strong. So I really don't see the point of getting hung up on the "free action" of FE4. It allows you to kill a unit and move again whether forward or backward. The only difference with Galeforce is that you can go again. Galeforce in and of itself is only really powerful when every unit can do it. Vengeance / Vantage is a powerful combo and it barely even got scratched for proc rate. The issue with Galeforce was that it was everywhere. Vengeance / Vantage is far more powerful than Galeforce as with Rally Skills and tonics, you can realistically push a unit to have enough skill to pretty much always proc. Honestly I feel like skills like Wary Fighter are stronger than Galeforce. Wary Fighter basically gives the speed stat a huge middle finger and allows the unit to function perfectly fine even if it had a speed of 0. Sure, it won't dodge, but it's not ever being doubled. Your examples assume that the person literally doesn't play the game until they grind. In Awakening, on a normal playthrough without gunning for skills, I might have like 1-2 units that have Galeforce. And without things like procing abilities, dual strikes, ... You know, the actual death of the enemies, Galeforce is worthless.

This system stimulates the same grinding and is more troublesome because players will try to optimize their skill set with the given capacity. The problem I have is that the reclass and skill systems together promote grinding to levels beyond needed. Fates stimulates it more than Awakening because you have infinite resources and pretty much no limit with Eternal Seals, so you'll jump from one class to another in a vicious cycle until building your best unit possible skill wise. It was better than Second Seals, yes, but presents the same problem. Players will likely stop their current progress and wander around challenges, DLC maps or whatever and take more time building skills. This interrupts the fun of the game to focus on added features. Whether people find it fun to grind and spend more time in character customization than playing the main game that's another thing, but I as a player expect to play fluently the game without unnecessary stops.

But that doesn't suggest anything that has to do with me talking about capacity and skill systems for classes with units getting different things instead of everyone having Rescue / Shove / Canto based on if they are mounted or on-foot. Nor is it addressing the fact that I said the reason that skills are so lackluster is because of the mediocre at best skill system that's currently present in 3DS Fire Emblems. Reclass systems don't cause this to happen. The skill acquisition system is what causes this. It's honestly bad in Fates. It's not worse than Awakening, but it's still bad. I think it's stupid to be tied to level. If it were up to me, I'd go back to FE11 and FE12 where you could reclass into any of your classes that you had without having to funnel out money for it. Hence why I said I'd rather the skills be tied to a capacity and based off of the unit itself. Eternal Seals only exist, because the idea of being locked out of skills is even more idiotic than being able to keep increasing your level. And grinding in Fire Emblem with DLCs and the like is an entirely different problem altogether.

[NekoKnight]

So, for the people who like pair-up (in Fates), do you think it needs to be tweaked at all? Personally I like the implementation a lot, but I've heard a nūmber of people insist that it's still too strong, or that Guard Stance is always better than Attack Stance. Any thoughts on what should be improved?

I don't think it's such a bad idea to be honest. Some of the problem with the 3DS skill system now is that the skills are considered crappy is because the game says "5 skills, that's it." There's no care with how good or bad they are in the 3DS. They aren't balanced but ALL take up the same space. Something like Renewal is much stronger than say... Camaraderie. With a Tellius system in place, even if a person somehow grinded to Renewal and Camaraderie, there's solace in the fact that Renewal is stronger but takes up more space while Camaraderie is a weaker skill that takes less space. The reason these skills are If a person only has say 2 - 4 classes that they can get skills, buying skills from a barter / trainer would make sense in capacity. The games already discourage grinding in Fates with skill acquisition by having it learn skills as a greater than or equal to class level, and we can already sort of buy skills with My Castle. Capacity seems like the best way to make the skills that are weaker still have worth.

"Bad" skills aren't really an issue in Fates. A lot of skills acquired early on still have application even in later game, and even for the not so great skills, they are a boost appropriate for lower level characters. It's the nature of RPGs to upgrade and replace your abilities as time goes on so it's not a game flaw that Camaraderie is worse than Renewal. You get Camaraderie 15 levels earlier.

There are definitely skills I'd improve or replace but I don't think everything needs to be end-game viable.

I didn't really like Capacity because it limited what skills could go together on a single character. In Tellius you typically had a max of 2-3 skills on a character and there was often leftover wasted capacity. With predetermined slots, you don't have any leftovers.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Rescue, take, drop, shove + the support system from GBA or Tellius were the best for me.

It'd be great if FE10 skill system returned because everyone could learn skills like shove or pass.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Ayama Wirdo

[The Draco Knight]

So, for the people who like pair-up (in Fates), do you think it needs to be tweaked at all? Personally I like the implementation a lot, but I've heard a nūmber of people insist that it's still too strong, or that Guard Stance is always better than Attack Stance. Any thoughts on what should be improved?

Personally, the reason why I find the guard stance better than the attack stance is because the guard stance protect you from dual strike, which is extremely useful, especially because the enemy knows to do dual strike. So, I would remove that and perhaps even make that, when the secondary unit protect the lead unit, the secondary unit takes half the damage the lead unit was supposed to take: It would make it more realistic, in my opinion, but I'm aware It would bring the player to use only tanky units as secondary units most of the time.

[solrocknroll]

This system stimulates the same grinding and is more troublesome because players will try to optimize their skill set with the given capacity. The problem I have is that the reclass and skill systems together promote grinding to levels beyond needed. Fates stimulates it more than Awakening because you have infinite resources and pretty much no limit with Eternal Seals, so you'll jump from one class to another in a vicious cycle until building your best unit possible skill wise. It was better than Second Seals, yes, but presents the same problem. Players will likely stop their current progress and wander around challenges, DLC maps or whatever and take more time building skills. This interrupts the fun of the game to focus on added features. Whether people find it fun to grind and spend more time in character customization than playing the main game that's another thing, but I as a player expect to play fluently the game without unnecessary stops.

Edit: a different thing would be if every character has a side quest or something where upon completion they gain a unique skill to that character.

That's not a problem with the skill system. That's a problem with self control if you want to play the game throughout but feel enticed to grind. I never felt like getting better skills was necessary in the main game at all. The "skill grind" is why the post game exists. You hopefully will not need Astra or whatever to make it through the game. The only skill I ever felt like I needed was the Sniper +40 Accuracy skill for Setsuna, because her hit rate wasn't working for me.

And it's absolutely a thing that a lot of players prefer to take time away from the story to grind. Going through the story with no breaks is fatiguing and it's great that the option exists for those who want to do that.

[Dinar87]

That's not a problem with the skill system. That's a problem with self control if you want to play the game throughout but feel enticed to grind. I never felt like getting better skills was necessary in the main game at all. The "skill grind" is why the post game exists. You hopefully will not need Astra or whatever to make it through the game. The only skill I ever felt like I needed was the Sniper +40 Accuracy skill for Setsuna, because her hit rate wasn't working for me.

And it's absolutely a thing that a lot of players prefer to take time away from the story to grind. Going through the story with no breaks is fatiguing and it's great that the option exists for those who want to do that.

What about, when you start a new save file, you can choose whether or not to have grinding available? This would help those with no self control like me have a more classic FE experience whilst allowing those who like to grind the ability to do so.

[DarkDestr0yer61]

Ehhhhhhh. I am on the fence. I like how it is in Fates, but I don't want it to return.

I rather have a rescue system in which only foot soldiers could be rescued.

[SSbardock84]

The main reason that I like it so much is that it makes it easier for units to get their supports up.

[Augestein]

"Bad" skills aren't really an issue in Fates. A lot of skills acquired early on still have application even in later game, and even for the not so great skills, they are a boost appropriate for lower level characters. It's the nature of RPGs to upgrade and replace your abilities as time goes on so it's not a game flaw that Camaraderie is worse than Renewal. You get Camaraderie 15 levels earlier.

There are definitely skills I'd improve or replace but I don't think everything needs to be end-game viable.

I didn't really like Capacity because it limited what skills could go together on a single character. In Tellius you typically had a max of 2-3 skills on a character and there was often leftover wasted capacity. With predetermined slots, you don't have any leftovers.

Yeah, they do. But I think you kind of missed my point here. Let's take something like say, Vantage. Vantage is a level 10 Samurai / Myrmidon skill. It's better than say, again Camraderie ( I know I keep picking on it, but it's just the easiest example to make my point), and both are level 10 skills with their classes. As a matter of fact, Vantage is good enough to be used as an endgame skill. We aren't talking about something like Elbow Room versus Strong Riposte, where ER is forced to not be in terrain (which is generally good), and SR is able to be used anywhere so long as there's an enemy that can attack you and your character can counter attack so they are about equal. We're talking about lopsided skills like these ones. I guess you could make skills like Vantage obtainable later, but it's honestly a problem for skills in this game. Most RPGs have skills directly upgrade, they don't just get thrown away on the account of being worse. Having skills that become useless is the staple of a poorly designed game, not a good one.

And with capacity, they aren't necessarily. It's just that with capacity, it enables someone to have a ton of little passive skills and goodies, or have more powerful skill combos but less skills. It's an honest decision that could be made. Fire Emblem 3DS does have some sort of capacity system. The limit is exactly 5 skills. The issue with why some skills are even bad is because it just says "5 skills." So naturally, you're going to put on the absolute best. There's no reason to ever consider anything less than the best in such a system.

Which was a problem with the numbers chosen for the skills themselves for capacity, not the capacity system itself. It's sort of like a problem in RD, is that there weren't enough skills to actually buy and equip without removing several character's personal skills (and thus forever removing the free skill that initially start with). I liked the system in RD, it just needed a bit more refinement IMHO. 2-3 skills per character? Yeah, and this was a problem of the stupid Mastery skills because the stupid things were locked on characters and then ended up costing an absurd 30 capacity (although like two of them costs 25 IIRC). Add Shove to that, and you ended up with 30-35 capacity taken up from nothing but locked skills that the player couldn't remove. That's more than half the capacity applied to the player for a standard Beorc unit, and for a Laguz, it's half of it. This is especially stupid when you see units like Micaiah that get Sacrifice for free, but then get useless moves like Shove that she'll never really be able to make use of. That's not the fault of the capacity system itself, but rather the idiocy of having forced skills cost something. We can both see why that's stupid. However, if you were able to take off these "powerful" mastery skills and put on other things, the system would have been great. Much better than what we have here. You could either go for a bunch of smaller skills to stack up on a unit to give them a niche instead or go for your standard type of unit with a proc, and then weaponfaire, breakers etc.

When discussing mechanics, we have to be careful to not fall into the trap of counting poor decisions made with systems as actual attributes of the system itself. Like Rescue, I don't think it's a bad system in and of itself, but I don't see much of a point of it if Pair Up exists and believe that Pair Up is overall superior to Rescue. I'm really not seeing much benefits to Rescue over Pair Up. Because without something like canto on mounted units, I'm pretty much never going to use it.

Personally, the reason why I find the guard stance better than the attack stance is because the guard stance protect you from dual strike, which is extremely useful, especially because the enemy knows to do dual strike. So, I would remove that and perhaps even make that, when the secondary unit protect the lead unit, the secondary unit takes half the damage the lead unit was supposed to take: It would make it more realistic, in my opinion, but I'm aware It would bring the player to use only tanky units as secondary units most of the time.

That's honestly what I remember from another SRPG that had pair up options. The defender could either try to parry and risk taking full damage, or just block and take reduced damage in general. That's probably all it really needs to make it a bit more balanced. But this might be more of a problem with the clustered designs of some FE maps tbh. Doing things like having lunge ninjas jammed on one side of the map is terrible design IMO which is more why we have problems with just using dual guard so you don't get destroyed by things like that.

[Quintessence]

• Rout: Which as you've stated positioning is key here. So how is Galeforce somehow broken when Canto let's you move as well? The only difference is that Canto doesn't grant full movement. But a dancer allows you to attack again anyways-- something that's easier to do with canto than without. It's still better than shove in this regard as well. Fates doesn't let you get support at all. It means that you can't even be next to a unit as well.
• Which in a world with canto, I'm not seeing how Galeforce is doing much more. Because when are earth are you going to run all the way back for full movement from the enemies? By the time I have Galeforce, I have Rescue staves and Physics.
• Which was what FE4 Canto could do. If we're going with FE9 / FE 10, it really doesn't matter here either. You know why? Because all you'd have to do is warp / rescue staff someone else.
• This doesn't even need Galeforce. That's literally the exact thing you do to beat the chapter before the last in Revelations in 1 turn. Skills like Pass enable this as well. Nothing you said here even required Galeforce.

All forms of canto are strong. So I really don't see the point of getting hung up on the "free action" of FE4. It allows you to kill a unit and move again whether forward or backward. The only difference with Galeforce is that you can go again. Galeforce in and of itself is only really powerful when every unit can do it. Vengeance / Vantage is a powerful combo and it barely even got scratched for proc rate. The issue with Galeforce was that it was everywhere. Vengeance / Vantage is far more powerful than Galeforce as with Rally Skills and tonics, you can realistically push a unit to have enough skill to pretty much always proc. Honestly I feel like skills like Wary Fighter are stronger than Galeforce. Wary Fighter basically gives the speed stat a huge middle finger and allows the unit to function perfectly fine even if it had a speed of 0. Sure, it won't dodge, but it's not ever being doubled. Your examples assume that the person literally doesn't play the game until they grind. In Awakening, on a normal playthrough without gunning for skills, I might have like 1-2 units that have Galeforce. And without things like procing abilities, dual strikes, ... You know, the actual death of the enemies, Galeforce is worthless.

• Rout: Full move <> Differential move. If you need a dancer with Canto, with Galeforce you won't need it at all. Galeforce is broken, Canto is not.
• Seize: Galeforce takes 1 turn less to clear the chapter, which is probably vital to save your units from being KO by next phase.
• You're missing the point. I'm not bringing up how Galeforce is need to achieve these objectives, but rather exposing its brokenness in front of each objective.

I'm not going to mess up on skill sets and whatnot, just showing that Canto is a useful and good skill and not broken at all, while Galeforce is (even if 1 or a million unit have it and Pair Up exists or not).

But that doesn't suggest anything that has to do with me talking about capacity and skill systems for classes with units getting different things instead of everyone having Rescue / Shove / Canto based on if they are mounted or on-foot. Nor is it addressing the fact that I said the reason that skills are so lackluster is because of the mediocre at best skill system that's currently present in 3DS Fire Emblems. Reclass systems don't cause this to happen. The skill acquisition system is what causes this.

Yes I did address these points. And it is the optimization issue. Having a wide pool of skills to pick causes this. Which is why I prefer that the skill system work without reclassing. If there's no reclass you have no other option for skill acquisition, if there's reclass then it induces the player to jump from one class to another. I'm even fine with branched promotions, having only 1 option for reclassing, but not a set of them.

I'd be ok with skills been upgraded or having sidequests to acquire or level them up.

That's not a problem with the skill system. That's a problem with self control if you want to play the game throughout but feel enticed to grind. I never felt like getting better skills was necessary in the main game at all. The "skill grind" is why the post game exists. You hopefully will not need Astra or whatever to make it through the game. The only skill I ever felt like I needed was the Sniper +40 Accuracy skill for Setsuna, because her hit rate wasn't working for me.

And it's absolutely a thing that a lot of players prefer to take time away from the story to grind. Going through the story with no breaks is fatiguing and it's great that the option exists for those who want to do that.

Sure, self control is the root cause here, but in my eyes going from one skill to another is not worth the time and effort because:

1. As a player you'd want these skills to be applicable in the main game and 'enjoy' the fruits of your efforts
2. Post game in FE3DS sucks
3. There's no New Game+ (derived from point 2)

I think RD system did it well with assignable and removable skills, and locked masteries. It's just that Mastery skills are OP as fuck, and honestly you won't need any other skills with them (or at least in RD's context).

Edited July 7, 2016 by Quintessence

[Dinar87]

• Rout: Full move <> Differential move. If you need a dancer with Canto, with Galeforce you won't need it at all. Galeforce is broken, Canto is not.
• Seize: Galeforce takes 1 turn less to clear the chapter, which is probably vital to save your units from being KO by next phase.
• You're missing the point. I'm not bringing up how Galeforce is need to achieve these objectives, but rather exposing its brokenness in front of each objective.

I'm not going to mess up on skill sets and whatnot, just showing that Canto is a useful and good skill and not broken at all, while Galeforce is (even if 1 or a million unit have it and Pair Up exists or not).

Yes I did address these points. And it is the optimization issue. Having a wide pool of skills to pick causes this. Which is why I prefer that the skill system work without reclassing. If there's no reclass you have no other option for skill acquisition, if there's reclass then it induces the player to jump from one class to another. I'm even fine with branched promotions, having only 1 option for reclassing, but not a set of them.

I'd be ok with skills been upgraded or having sidequests to acquire or level them up.

Sure, self control is the root cause here, but in my eyes going from one skill to another is not worth the time and effort because:

1. As a player you'd want these skills to be applicable in the main game and 'enjoy' the fruits of your efforts
2. Post game in FE3DS sucks
3. There's no New Game+ (derived from point 2)

I think RD system did it well with assignable and removable skills, and locked masteries. It's just that Mastery skills are OP as fuck, and honestly you won't need any other skills with them (or at least in RD's context).

Then again, the mastery skills being OP as fuck is what makes them fun to use in the first place. Other than that I pretty much agree with your points here.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Dinar87

[Augestein]

• Rout: Full move <> Differential move. If you need a dancer with Canto, with Galeforce you won't need it at all. Galeforce is broken, Canto is not.
• Seize: Galeforce takes 1 turn less to clear the chapter, which is probably vital to save your units from being KO by next phase.
• You're missing the point. I'm not bringing up how Galeforce is need to achieve these objectives, but rather exposing its brokenness in front of each objective.

I'm not going to mess up on skill sets and whatnot, just showing that Canto is a useful and good skill and not broken at all, while Galeforce is (even if 1 or a million unit have it and Pair Up exists or not).

• When a move can effectively be duplicated, I fail to see how it's broken. It's not as though you don't have roughly 10- 12 units you can use.
• Which is absolutely pathetic for even considering that broken. 1 turn? 1 turn is what we're counting as a broken skill?
• By showing that it's a powerful skill, but it's certainly not gamebreaking. Things like Rafiel's Chant and Dances that hit all surrounding units are closer to broken than this because it just plain makes an effect that isn't able to be duplicated, and unlike GaleForce, it doesn't require that your first move always be "kill an enemy."

Canto is almost the same thing-- worse in some aspects. You said it was all about the positioning, and that's essentially what Canto allows. Especially when you attack an enemy phase enemy and kill it that's right in your face. You get full movement. And even worse, is that with RD canto, you don't even have to kill it, you can just move no matter what state the enemy is in. This is why enemy cavaliers with javelins are like the most annoying thing ever. Like 4 of them can attack you and just scoot off after a successful attack. That's stronger than Galeforce. Whiff an attack and the enemy criticals you? No problem, just canto away. Have a powerful enemy that you want more people to attack? No problem. Just have the people with canto attack first and then move away and allow another set to attack. If GF is broken, then Canto is most definitely falling in the same realm of broken. I don't think Canto is broken, but I DO think it's an unfair advantage that mounted units have over non-mounted units. GF has a stipulation behind it, Canto does not. In that regard, Canto is most definitely stronger than Galeforce. Even without being able to kill two enemies in one turn.

Yes I did address these points. And it is the optimization issue. Having a wide pool of skills to pick causes this. Which is why I prefer that the skill system work without reclassing. If there's no reclass you have no other option for skill acquisition, if there's reclass then it induces the player to jump from one class to another. I'm even fine with branched promotions, having only 1 option for reclassing, but not a set of them.

I'd be ok with skills been upgraded or having sidequests to acquire or level them up.

Reclassing isn't the issue. It's the way we get skills now. It's lackluster. Having them tied to your level and the current class is just dreadful. Reclassing existed in FE11 and FE12, and there were no skills, and it was fine. The reason it's stupid is because the game basically says "you must reclass to get a full set of skills." Minimum. That's dumb.

This is a fine idea IMO, but at this point, I feel reclassing should stay in. It's fixed itself over time and has made each set of reclasses personalized enough for each character that it's actually interesting in my opinion. If they were free like they were in FE11 and FE12, it'd be even better. What needs to be fixed is their skill acquiring system. It's bad.

Sure, self control is the root cause here, but in my eyes going from one skill to another is not worth the time and effort because:

1. As a player you'd want these skills to be applicable in the main game and 'enjoy' the fruits of your efforts
2. Post game in FE3DS sucks
3. There's no New Game+ (derived from point 2)

I think RD system did it well with assignable and removable skills, and locked masteries. It's just that Mastery skills are OP as fuck, and honestly you won't need any other skills with them (or at least in RD's context).

Which is why they need a more accessible skill system. It doesn't even make sense that the final skill of the class is obtained at level 15 of a promoted class. That's preposterous. Not all units even REACH those levels in a standard game. RDs mastery skills are just kind of bad mainly because they were all "you killed the enemy." Style moves. Even worse, is that in our current system, you must class change at least once to obtain a full set of skills. You start with your base class 1, and then get another skill, and then promote. At level 5 you get 1, and then at 15, the 2nd one. That's bad, and while you'll gain your secondary skills, if you marry or A rank, you can't get all of the skills without an Eternal Seal. Bad, bad, design here.

And yeah, I agree the postgames suck. New Game+ in Fire Emblem would be interesting. That's where they should bring in Lunatic+ IMO.

[NekoKnight]

Yeah, they do. But I think you kind of missed my point here. Let's take something like say, Vantage. Vantage is a level 10 Samurai / Myrmidon skill. It's better than say, again Camraderie ( I know I keep picking on it, but it's just the easiest example to make my point), and both are level 10 skills with their classes. As a matter of fact, Vantage is good enough to be used as an endgame skill. We aren't talking about something like Elbow Room versus Strong Riposte, where ER is forced to not be in terrain (which is generally good), and SR is able to be used anywhere so long as there's an enemy that can attack you and your character can counter attack so they are about equal. We're talking about lopsided skills like these ones. I guess you could make skills like Vantage obtainable later, but it's honestly a problem for skills in this game. Most RPGs have skills directly upgrade, they don't just get thrown away on the account of being worse. Having skills that become useless is the staple of a poorly designed game, not a good one.

I'm not sure why you are insistent on this line of thinking. Skills or equipment being retired after better alternatives are unlocked is a stable of many game series and doesn't necessarily reflect bad game design. "Useless" isn't even a good way to describe lesser skills. "Sub-optimal" maybe, but not useless. Aggressor might be better than Quick Draw but that didn't make Quick Draw a useless skill. It just means that if you made it all the way to level 35 and used your class seals, you earned a skill upgrade. You need to think about strength progression, not just what the finished character will have equipped.

Even with your proposed system, inevitably there are going to be superior skill combinations. Vantage + Wrath will probably always be better than any combination of weaker skills so no system will avoid certain skills being objectively worse than others.

When discussing mechanics, we have to be careful to not fall into the trap of counting poor decisions made with systems as actual attributes of the system itself.

True. I have no doubt that with considerable care and attention, a capacity system could work quite well. But that goes for the 5 skill system as well; with proper skill balancing, it can work just as well.

[Augestein]

I'm not sure why you are insistent on this line of thinking. Skills or equipment being retired after better alternatives are unlocked is a stable of many game series and doesn't necessarily reflect bad game design. "Useless" isn't even a good way to describe lesser skills. "Sub-optimal" maybe, but not useless. Aggressor might be better than Quick Draw but that didn't make Quick Draw a useless skill. It just means that if you made it all the way to level 35 and used your class seals, you earned a skill upgrade. You need to think about strength progression, not just what the finished character will have equipped.

I'm insistent on it because an updated old skill is a much better system than having a move just needing to be thrown away. Take something like say Dragon Age Inquisition. One of the good things about it is that it actually removes a ton of garbage moves that appeared in the earlier installments that were either filler moves or not a good enough concept to last usefulness for more than a couple of moments. Filler moves don't add depth. They add an annoyance factor and are overwhelming for people that may not be particularly good at the game. Equips aren't in the same boat as skills because equips are meant to be disposable. They are akin to items. You use them and then you're done. The skills on the other hand are supposed to be abilities from the class. It doesn't really make much sense for a skill to just be rendered obsolete like that. We aren't talking an archer that upgrades to a sniper. We're talking about a skill that can be accessed by other people so it's pointless once you reach the level outside of stacking for 11 battle damage on a user initiated battle. And quite literally, this problem is only in existence because of the skills system that the 3DS uses. The way the 3DS version works of saying "5 skills no more" forces each skill to be on a system where each skill has the same weight. In no world where I have aggressor would I have Quick Draw. That's not good, because it means that the majority of skills are dump skills. That's the only reason there are even "bad" skills in the first place.

Good balance of skills are things like Duelist Blow versus Air Superiority. AS is stronger against flying opponents, but only if you're against fliers, but worthless against everything else, while Duelist Blow works on everything. And even then, what you're saying still doesn't address things like the Samurai class having straight up good skills the whole way through. Aggressor versus Quick Draw could be balanced simply by having QD work always and Aggressor require 1 range only. If you keep reclassing, skills need more balance between them instead of just having "lame skills that you only have one until you inevitably get good ones."

Skills being better than others isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself. For instance, in a world with no reclass? This could be a great way to balance units , characters, and classes. But in a world with reclass? It causes some noticeable problems.

Even with your proposed system, inevitably there are going to be superior skill combinations. Vantage + Wrath will probably always be better than any combination of weaker skills so no system will avoid certain skills being objectively worse than others.

They could make like Fates and simply not have Wrath in the game. And yes they can, Vantage + Wrath requires you to be at low health, while a skill like Quick Draw for instance works every single time you attack. Elbow Room + Quick Draw is + 7 damage and works every time you attack and gives + 3 on counter attacks as well. Even if some combos might be better, it's better that there's some here or there that happen to be better rather than skills where it's clear there isn't even an attempt.

[solrocknroll]

The RD skill system was bad because the Capacity system was busted.

You have an almost sub-zero amount of choice for most units. Mastery Skills + Shove/Canto tend to take up to a max of 2/3 of a character's gauge. These Mastery skills are also typically normal skills like Astra, Sol, or Luna. Instead, the capacity means that you're stuck with bad options for a lot of the endgame. The skill grind is preferable to Radiant Dawn's late-game skill selection. There are at least 30 optional skills in Fates that all work. In Radiant Dawn, it's limited to giving everyone Wrath, Vantage, Nihil, Parity, and Resolve. Those are the only non-Mastery skills that matter in the end. Paragon and Blossom might also be useful for Kurthnaga or Ena, but that's about it.

[Quintessence]

@Augestein: Galeforce trivializes a game, Canto doesn't. You seem to ignore the importance of a turn, because in it you might get a Game Over, Galefore ensures you won't need to take the risk with another turn or phase, Canto doesn't allow this. Galeforce is in a realm of brokenness, but Canto is far below it. Being a powerful skill doesn't make a mechanic automatically broken: for instance, Shove is good not broken, Dancing is good not broken. Imagine Fates Pegs getting Galeforce, it will trivialize the game as Awakening, just in a lesser degree.

The RD skill system was bad because the Capacity system was busted.

You have an almost sub-zero amount of choice for most units. Mastery Skills + Shove/Canto tend to take up to a max of 2/3 of a character's gauge. These Mastery skills are also typically normal skills like Astra, Sol, or Luna. Instead, the capacity means that you're stuck with bad options for a lot of the endgame. The skill grind is preferable to Radiant Dawn's late-game skill selection. There are at least 30 optional skills in Fates that all work. In Radiant Dawn, it's limited to giving everyone Wrath, Vantage, Nihil, Parity, and Resolve. Those are the only non-Mastery skills that matter in the end. Paragon and Blossom might also be useful for Kurthnaga or Ena, but that's about it.

Tbh the only skills worth for Endgame are Nihil, Parity, Adept and Mastery. Most of the other skills just help throughout the game like Resolve, Vantage, ParaBlossom, Discipline, Smite, Renewal/Imbue among others.

[Sylphid]

Which is why they need a more accessible skill system. It doesn't even make sense that the final skill of the class is obtained at level 15 of a promoted class. That's preposterous. Not all units even REACH those levels in a standard game. RDs mastery skills are just kind of bad mainly because they were all "you killed the enemy." Style moves. Even worse, is that in our current system, you must class change at least once to obtain a full set of skills. You start with your base class 1, and then get another skill, and then promote. At level 5 you get 1, and then at 15, the 2nd one. That's bad, and while you'll gain your secondary skills, if you marry or A rank, you can't get all of the skills without an Eternal Seal. Bad, bad, design here.

I don't really see the problem with having to reach level 15 to get the last skill in a promoted class. Sure, not everyone is going to reach that in a regular playthrough, but with limited amount of unit slots for each map, it's not like you're using everyone anyways. Unless you're making using everyone the point of your playthrough, at which point it's not really the skill system's fault anymore. Based on my experience (which really isn't much yet, I admit), a core group of units can easily reach level 15-20 on standard play in Conquest.

As far as "full skill set" or "getting all skills you can have", neither of those are really necessary if you ask me. But if you want to go for them, the first one is really easy via reclass. I agree the latter one takes some crazy reclass shenanigans though (but you can get pretty far without eternal seal).

Now, I do agree that the skill system could be better. But calling it "preposterous" feels like an overreaction to me.

(Also, while not all the skills are optimal and so on, most of the early skills you get are certainly fine enough for standard play)