Why are some units purposely made terrible?

[Truthblade]

For every several good units in the franchise, there is always a really terrible one. We all seen it. Those characters we try to use, but something is up with their stats or growths that holds them back. We have units who's growths and stats don't fit with their classes at all, and units who come in way to late to be of any use. My question is, why do the developer make units like this? What is the benefit in having next to useless characters? I can hardly imagine that they didn't know Roy's (apparently) bad stats, and Nino's low level upon joining would be a problem. 

[Azz]

Extra challenge I would presume.

I mean, yes Nino is horribly leveled for her join time, but it provides a good challenge in trying to get her to Sage and when you do, you feel accomplished (Well I do at least). Same with the likes of Meg and Fiona. They are considered the shittiest of the shit, yet I love using them and seeing them try to wreck face despite their reputation, even though it is a bit difficult in trying to get them to that point.

[Augestein]

14 minutes ago, Azz said:

Extra challenge I would presume.

I mean, yes Nino is horribly leveled for her join time, but it provides a good challenge in trying to get her to Sage and when you do, you feel accomplished (Well I do at least). Same with the likes of Meg and Fiona. They are considered the shittiest of the shit, yet I love using them and seeing them try to wreck face despite their reputation, even though it is a bit difficult in trying to get them to that point.

Nino I feel was added to help your EXP Rating for S ranking. I remember the first time I played, Nino was a godsend for leveling it up as she was super low in level, so any kill she got made helped the rank quite a bit. I'd honestly say if it weren't for her I might not have gotten the S rank. 

People like Fiona I honestly feel were a mistake on the account of how difficult it is to use her. Meg on the other hand? Actually isn't that bad and is just a "doesn't work as well as you'd think." RD just suffers from a lot of lack of playtesting, and it clearly shows. 

[Hawk King]

Nino isn't even a problem. She is recruited on a defense map and there is another defense map shortly after her recruitment which makes training her pretty easy. Plus she has 1-2 range weapons, and is definitely worth saving the Afa's drops for.

 

Characters like Meg, and Wendy are just hopeless. Low movement and bad stats with way too many units who are better than them.

 

Then there is Shadow Dragon, where almost half the cast falls into this category of being really bad or just being way inferior to unit who joined several chapters earlier.

 

Unfortunately, Nino, Meg, and Wendy are just young girls who are inexperienced in war so from a plot and story standpoint it makes sense for them to be really weak. Although Nino is lucky because she is pretty easily salvageable. Fiona being so bad is really dumb though because she is supposed to be somewhat special from a story standpoint, but her stats and base level are god awful.

[CappnRob]

Not every character is meant to be or even should be viable. Characters like Nino are meant to be Est-like in that they come late and low level but have good well rounded growth rates (though Nino is nowhere as OP as Est and is moreso just really well balanced). They sacrifice utility for performance. Characters like Wendy are in theory meant to be niche (a female, "fast" armor knight) but in practice are moreso for the self imposed challenge (Wendy comes weak, low level and is lance locked right before going to axeland). Other characters still are just meant to be bad and getting them is far more trouble than its worth, like Hannibal and Xavier, but people do it anyway because why not.

[Harvey]

I think the reason why some units aren't reliable unlike the ones who are is because to add the challenge of the game further. I mean, to train Geese rather than Gonzales is risky since its obvious that the later is better so those who wish to raise geese instead can do so.

But I feel that most of the time, this is done just to frustrate the player mostly. You get this unit that looks like he/she can do something but just can't seem to deliver that expectation making it all the more waste raising that unit.

Take my advice, the minute you find that a unit isn't what you think isn't doing well, leave it and use someone who can do it unless you are confident that you can handle one useless unit.

 

[PurpleKawaii]

In Shadow Dragon, Heroes of Light and Shadow, Dark Dragon and Blade of light and Mystery of the Emblem I'm pretty sure the reason that crappy characters exist is to replace the stronger units you get at the start. Thing that is ruined by people restarting when losing a unit, even the developers encourage you in these older games to not restart, cause a replacement comes later on. For example: If Lena dies, you use Maria, if Maria dies, you use Wrys, if Wrys dies, you use Frost. That, I think is the reason of crap units, to replace the good units.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Harvey said:

I think the reason why some units aren't reliable unlike the ones who are is because to add the challenge of the game further. I mean, to train Geese rather than Gonzales is risky since its obvious that the later is better so those who wish to raise geese instead can do so.

But I feel that most of the time, this is done just to frustrate the player mostly. You get this unit that looks like he/she can do something but just can't seem to deliver that expectation making it all the more waste raising that unit.

Take my advice, the minute you find that a unit isn't what you think isn't doing well, leave it and use someone who can do it unless you are confident that you can handle one useless unit.

 

IMO, the Geese/Gonzales example is a rather poor one since they both suck.

2 hours ago, Hawk King said:

Nino isn't even a problem. She is recruited on a defense map and there is another defense map shortly after her recruitment which makes training her pretty easy. Plus she has 1-2 range weapons, and is definitely worth saving the Afa's drops for.

I'd say it is a problem when by the time she joins, your army can kill most enemies just by staring hard (and it doesn't help that Night of Farewells is irritating as all hell even without slowing down to train her). Hector Hard mode makes it even worse since Cog of Destiny is mages galore.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Florete]

Because variety keeps people playing. If all units were equally viable, the games would be boring because there would be little to no difference in using one unit over the other. Some people like to use strong characters, others like to use weaker characters. Plenty of people are fans of these weak characters, and that's why they exist: people want them.

4 hours ago, Augestein said:

RD just suffers from a lot of lack of playtesting, and it clearly shows. 

I don't see anything clear about that. It's not much different than any other FE.

[Jedi]

5 hours ago, Augestein said:

People like Fiona I honestly feel were a mistake on the account of how difficult it is to use her. Meg on the other hand? Actually isn't that bad and is just a "doesn't work as well as you'd think." RD just suffers from a lot of lack of playtesting, and it clearly shows. 

Radiant Dawn has better balance than some of the later games in the series though lol. Granted FE games have never been balanced nor will they ever be.

If thats your example, then no FE was ever playtested. 

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Augestein said:

People like Fiona I honestly feel were a mistake on the account of how difficult it is to use her. Meg on the other hand? Actually isn't that bad and is just a "doesn't work as well as you'd think." RD just suffers from a lot of lack of playtesting, and it clearly shows.

Aside from what Jedi said, I'd say Lyre's even worse off. And Meg ain't much better, given the Dawn Brigade's situation.

[Hawk King]

2 hours ago, Jedi said:

Radiant Dawn has better balance than some of the later games in the series though lol. Granted FE games have never been balanced nor will they ever be.

If thats your example, then no FE was ever playtested. 

Radiant Dawn's balance is terrible. Part 1 is especially bad. When you get Zihark and Tauroneo, Meg is made completely useless and Edward needs to have been fed way too many kills to be comparable to Zihark. Then characters are randomly available and unavailable for certain maps. And the BK and Nailah are literally invincible in the maps that they are available for.

Then when you get to the end of the game, you are given half a dozen god like units who are going to be better than anyone else you have trained all game long. I could get really in depth about it, but bottom line is that RD is just a mess.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Hawk King

[Slumber]

Generally, those bad characters are meant to be very circumstantial. Like bad axers in older games that only have strength and HP. Usually they exist to take out super tanky boss Knights/Generals.

There are just some worthless units, though, and I suppose they exist just for extra challenge, or to trick people into using them. These kinds of units have generally been phased out over the years. I can't think of any truly worthless units in the series(Skipping the remakes) since FE6, though.

[Refa]

Honestly, I'd say Radiant Dawn's balancing is the worst as well.  While the highest difficulties of both FE11 and FE12 have more unuseable characters (in FE12's case, it's a ridiculous amount), Radiant Dawn throws ridiculous units at you every few chapters and doesn't reward training up 90% of your units.  I can't think of another FE game that fucks that up so badly.  That said, I still enjoyed the balancing more than FE12 (but not FE11) because at least it was easier to use the worse units in Radiant Dawn.

[Shadow Mir]

26 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Generally, those bad characters are meant to be very circumstantial. Like bad axers in older games that only have strength and HP. Usually they exist to take out super tanky boss Knights/Generals.

There are just some worthless units, though, and I suppose they exist just for extra challenge, or to trick people into using them. These kinds of units have generally been phased out over the years. I can't think of any truly worthless units in the series(Skipping the remakes) since FE6, though.

Bold: Even Meg and Lyre don't register as truly worthless?

[Slumber]

Just now, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Bold: Even Meg and Lyre don't register as truly worthless?

Well, Meg CAN have worth, but it will come at the cost of sacrificing pretty much every DB member. Lyre's bad, but I wouldn't call her truly worthless. Kyza, however, is, and I completely forget about him every opportunity I can.

[General Banzai]

The thing a lot of people miss here is that sometimes units aren't designed to be GOOD per se, but fun. An Est archetype, for instance, is driven by the underlying satisfaction one receives from putting a lot of hard work into something and seeing it eventually pay off. Even if in the context of a serious run these units aren't useful, they still provide variety and entertainment. Additionally, if every unit was good, it wouldn't be fun playing through the game and finding the best units. It would actually diminish the gameplay if you could just toss out any combination of units and have the exact same experience. Part of the replayability is trying different units, and the developers probably don't develop with the idea that players have access to growth rates in mind.

[Augestein]

1 hour ago, Refa said:

Honestly, I'd say Radiant Dawn's balancing is the worst as well.  While the highest difficulties of both FE11 and FE12 have more unuseable characters (in FE12's case, it's a ridiculous amount), Radiant Dawn throws ridiculous units at you every few chapters and doesn't reward training up 90% of your units.  I can't think of another FE game that fucks that up so badly.  That said, I still enjoyed the balancing more than FE12 (but not FE11) because at least it was easier to use the worse units in Radiant Dawn.

This. It's not like other games for the balance issues. I'm on my phone so I can't reply as much but it's not just about the amount of unusable characters or I'd talk about fe1. But rd has some strange balance. Moreso than others.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Well, Meg CAN have worth, but it will come at the cost of sacrificing pretty much every DB member. Lyre's bad, but I wouldn't call her truly worthless. Kyza, however, is, and I completely forget about him every opportunity I can.

I have to wonder what Lyre has going for her to not be totally worthless, because I got nothing - after all, she has Mist-tier offense to start out, and she's a freaking combat unit. That alone is just embarrassing. Her case ain't helped by being the worst laguz class (and probably the worst class in RD period).

Edited February 5, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Slumber]

4 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I have to wonder what Lyre has going for her to not be totally worthless, because I got nothing - after all, she has Mist-tier offense to start out, and she's a freaking combat unit. That alone is just embarrassing. Her case ain't helped by being the worst laguz class (and probably the worst class in RD period).

Her growths are decent, and her stats are comparable to any of the myrmidons, but she's generally a lot tankier on top of having really good avoid. Stats and availability-wise, she's almost identical to Mia, but with better HP and res. Mia will cap strength and defense faster, but Lyre will cap skill and speed faster, while steadily outpacing Mia in HP and res all the way through, making he a better choice for BEXP, if you feel inclined to waste BEXP on a speedy unit.

Again, not saying she's a good unit, but she's not completely worthless like... Wendell or Boah or Bantu or Hannibal or Juno or Zealot. She's at least a tier or two above those types of characters.

[Shadow Mir]

31 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Her growths are decent, and her stats are comparable to any of the myrmidons, but she's generally a lot tankier on top of having really good avoid. Stats and availability-wise, she's almost identical to Mia, but with better HP and res. Mia will cap strength and defense faster, but Lyre will cap skill and speed faster, while steadily outpacing Mia in HP and res all the way through, making he a better choice for BEXP, if you feel inclined to waste BEXP on a speedy unit.

Again, not saying she's a good unit, but she's not completely worthless like... Wendell or Boah or Bantu or Hannibal or Juno or Zealot. She's at least a tier or two above those types of characters.

I don't know about that - she's a laguz, with the arsenal of disadvantages that comes with being one, and worse yet, she's a cat, which has the worst gauge problems of all laguz. On top of that, her bad bases and gauge problems make it hard to feed her kills, and even if you do, she's treated as being double her level, so she improves slowly. As a result, she eventually (by which I mean after 4 levels) winds up with the leveling speed of a third tier beorc... with stats that can barely hold their own on the battlefield. I'd handily take Wendell or Boah's utility or even Bantu over... the fat lot of nothing Lyre's accomplishing.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Slumber]

Just now, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I don't know about that - she's a laguz, with the arsenal of disadvantages that comes with being one, and worse yet, she's a cat, which has the worst gauge problems of all laguz. On top of that, her bad bases and gauge problems make it hard to feed her kills, and even if you do, she's treated as being double her level, so she improves slowly. As a result, she eventually (by which I mean after 4 levels) winds up with the leveling speed of a third tier beorc... with stats that can barely hold their own on the battlefield.

Again, she CAN end up as a usable unit. That's what makes her not worthless. Is it a pain in the ass? Yes. Does it gimp other units? Yes. But it's not impossible. It's impractical to have her end up as a usable unit, but not impossible. So there is some worth in her.

Certainly moreso than the other units I mentioned, who are only worth it if you just need a character to die to stall some enemy units.

[General Banzai]

35 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Again, not saying she's a good unit, but she's not completely worthless like... Wendell or Boah or Bantu or Hannibal or Juno or Zealot. She's at least a tier or two above those types of characters.

Wendell and Zealot are high or top tier units last I checked though.

[Slumber]

4 minutes ago, General Banzai said:

Wendell and Zealot are high or top tier units last I checked though.

I'm new here, so I'm not privy to this site's tier listings, so I'd love to see the reasoning behind this.

Actually, Wendell I can see(Especially in FE1), but not Zealot.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Slumber

[Refa]

Literally all of the units that you cited are better than Lyre.  Wendell has the highest speed base in the game, so he can double forever with Excalibur (not to mention being able to double in other classes, although he'll benefit greatly from having a forge).  Boah is kind of like Wendell but worse (although he does have a higher magic and staff base).  Both of them are good warpers.  Bantu doesn't have long term potential but he's a decent filler unit who can hit hard and not die in one hit.  Hannibal is the worst unit in FE4 but it's a lot easier to get him to do something useful than it is to get Lyre.  Juno is fairly bad but she has all of the perks that being a flier offers; namely, rescuing units with a high movement base.  Zealot is one of the better units in the game.  When you get him, he either severely weakens units (leaving them for your weaker units to get kills off of) or straight up ORKOes them.  It's really nice to have him and Marcus leading your army, at least up until the end of the Western Isles where you'll probably be benching them.  Still, being your best (or one of your best, since Marcus is better IMO) units for a prolonged period of time is no small feat.

While you could make a case for Hannibal and Juno to be worse than Lyre (although at that point, it's really nitpicking), but everyone else is so much better than her that it's not even funny.