Was Pursuit a Good Idea?

[Jotari]

So for those of you who haven't played Holy War, in that game the ability to double was a skill. A fairly common skill but still a skill nonetheless which meant not everybody could do it. I'm guessing the reason for this was to make the inheritance system more complex but I'm not really sure. Anyway, what's your opinion on making the ability to double a skill, both in how it was implemented in FE4 and how you feel about the idea in general.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Jotari

[The Geek]

No. It made characters who should be good terrible and it was pretty much rendered useless by the time you got to Gen 2 as most characters in Gen 2 easily get it.

[X-Naut]

Double attacking is too central a mechanic to make into a skill, so no.

[Refa]

No. It made characters who should be good terrible and it was pretty much rendered useless by the time you got to Gen 2 as most characters in Gen 2 easily get it.

What character was terrible because of the lack of pursuit?

[Jotari]

What character was terrible because of the lack of pursuit?

Lex is the one that comes to mind to me. He kind of needs the Brave Axe to keep up since he doesn't have pursuit.

[MCProductions]

What character was terrible because of the lack of pursuit?

Lex, if you don't know about the Brave Axe secret and who could blame you he becomes shit despite otherwise being mounted Hector with paragon.

[Azure Sen]

No, pretty much for the same reason why The Geek mentioned. I'd even go so far as to say that, of all of the mechanics Genealogy introduced, Pursuit is the only one that I think should never be reintroduced into the series.

Lex is the one that comes to mind to me. He kind of needs the Brave Axe to keep up since he doesn't have pursuit.

Quan as a borderline case and Tailto also come to mind.

Edited December 20, 2016 by AzureSen

[Refa]

Cuan and Lex are both good though...I can see Tailto being better if she could double, though.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Refa

[MCProductions]

Quan and Lex are ONLY good tho IF you know the secrets to get their secret weapons. This isn't a big deal for Quan, as it's rather easy to figure out how to get the Gae Bolg, but good fucking luck getting the Brave Axe without a guide of some sort, because without it, Lex basically becomes one of the Chalphy cavs, but axe locked.

[Rezzy]

It's pretty much the opposite of Wary Fighter.

Double attacking is too central a mechanic to make into a skill, so no.

This and the insane inventory management system are the main things keeping me from getting past chapter 1 in FE4.

[Jotari]

Quan and Lex are ONLY good tho IF you know the secrets to get their secret weapons. This isn't a big deal for Quan, as it's rather easy to figure out how to get the Gae Bolg, but good fucking luck getting the Brave Axe without a guide of some sort, because without it, Lex basically becomes one of the Chalphy cavs, but axe locked.

I'm not sure if that's fair to Cuan. Don't you get the Gae Bolg in like the last five minutes before he quits? I know I certainly never had any cause to associate the weapon with him in terms of gameplay.

[Shadow Mir]

I say no - double attacking is a fundamental mechanic, and Pursuit arbitrarily enables (or in the case of units without it, takes away) that without any rhyme or reason, in addition to what The Geek said. And it doesn't help matters that FE4 is heavy on Guide Dang It.

[Flee Fleet!]

Nah, it was not really a good idea. Awesome characters like Lex can't double, meaning they can't ORKO, in this game. And it ends up limiting only some characters to double, which I guess is fine in FE4 since there are less characters but in the other entries, characters with no Pursuit will automatically be left out for not being able to ORKO anything or even steal kills easily.

Cuan and Lex are both good though...I can see Tailto being better if she could double, though.

Well, at least Tailto has Wrath to make her ORKO, although it doesn't always activate.

[OliKad]

I'd say yes and no. Sure many of us will see it as a step backwards because what was possible for everyone in past games (doubling) now needs a prerequisite to do the same. But, at the same time, it gives a little more strategy when it comes to pair your units (#Inheritance). I'd also argue that this (along with the Skill system in general) gives much more personnality to units than before, and that's something that wasn't really recreated until FE9, with the return of said Skill system.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Double attack is a classic mechanic everyone should be able to.

However FE4 did it in a smart way to give pursuit mainly to faster classes and swordlocked classes.

[The Draco Knight]

Cuan and Lex are both good though...I can see Tailto being better if she could double, though.

I disagree: even if she had pursuit, she wouldn't be that better considering that she would still possess her other issues, which are far more..."important" imho

Quan and Lex are ONLY good tho IF you know the secrets to get their secret weapons. This isn't a big deal for Quan, as it's rather easy to figure out how to get the Gae Bolg, but good fucking luck getting the Brave Axe without a guide of some sort, because without it, Lex basically becomes one of the Chalphy cavs, but axe locked.

While I understand regarding Lex, I'm not so sure about Cuan: he is still an overall solid unit, with or without the Gae Bolg.

Anyway, I agree with those saying that It was a bad idea and I'm happy that It was never used again.

[André The kid]

Quan and Lex are ONLY good tho IF you know the secrets to get their secret weapons. This isn't a big deal for Quan, as it's rather easy to figure out how to get the Gae Bolg, but good fucking luck getting the Brave Axe without a guide of some sort, because without it, Lex basically becomes one of the Chalphy cavs, but axe locked.

What secret?

I went into Fe4 blind (first playthrough), and i do have a brave axe for Lex, is it that hard to get? did I stumble on anything i shouldn't?

Anyway, i do agree to with what has been previously said. Without Pursuit, Lex was severely limited, since he could deal really high damage.

And since the Brave Axe lowers accuracy, to make him double, he had to limit himself.

Again, I think it shouldn't. It's too fundamental of a mechanic to give said advantage to a selected few.

Note:

Am i the only one who missed the tyrfing? I'm seriously struggling to finish the final chapter because i let the bishop in the previous chapter die, and now i've missed the tyrfing.

Any tips on how to finish it without it?

[Shadow Mir]

^ The thing is, you're highly likely to miss the Brave Axe, etc. unless you either employed a guide or were tipped off by someone else since its in an out-of-the-way area you'd normally ignore altogether.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Augestein]

I'd be up for different skills that enable and disable doubling in other ways outside speed.

Like a skill that allows skill leads to allow doubling instead of speed. In general? No. That's just dumb.

[Punished Dayni]

The idea is implemented in a way that encourages the game's lack of balance with swords, and l do think that the idea of making it so that foot units had it as a class skill and mounted units didn't get it would have been a more interesting implementation.

[wheelsonfire]

I say no for many of the reasons others stated... Good units, like Cuan and Lex, are crippled because of lack of Pursuit. Second Gen inheritance all becomes a game of who can inherit Pursuit or not... (skill or otherwise)... It only adds to the game's balance problems... As someone on another board so amusingly mentioned "I have 30 speed and because I don't have Pursuit, I can't double an Armor Knight." The whole thing makes no sense...

[Irysa]

I like it because specialised units are more interesting than units that do everything.

[Jotari]

I'd be up for different skills that enable and disable doubling in other ways outside speed.

Like a skill that allows skill leads to allow doubling instead of speed. In general? No. That's just dumb.

Could be interesting as a status effect. Something like Sprain. Ie You can't double while under its effect for 3-4 turns. Though I suppose that would essentially just be a speed nerf which we kind of already have. Then again speed recovers 1 point at a time while a status effect gets removed completely after a certain amount of time. Hmm.

Also, I ask people to consider the potential for pursuit as a skill instead of just focusing on how it was implemented in Holy War. There's a reason I decided to create this in General Fire Emblem rather than the SNES and NES section.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Jotari

[Tetragrammaton]

You should ask people their opinion about Continue skill too, it allows double attacks with Skill stat.

[Jotari]

You should ask people their opinion about Continue skill too, it allows double attacks with Skill stat.

Isn't that basically just Adept?