How could Laguz (and other strike units) work?

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, XRay said:

Just because the upfront cost is cheap and the barrier of entry is low does not mean it is cheap relative to profit. If a "cheap" game can be developed for $10.00 but it it only generated $10.01 while a traditional game that costs $100.00 to develop generated  $101.00, that "cheap" game is expensive as hell to invest in for a measly 0.1% return, while a traditional game is cheaper for being able to bring in a 1% return.

I don't think I ever suggested otherwise. Like I said, how much money Heroes actually makes depends on how many whales there are out there.

Edited September 6, 2018 by Jotari

[Tenzen12]

Any design that tie one color with one movement type is terrible and no "faithfulness of weakness" (that doesn't even work properly can justify that. 

Whats more we actually have every Laguz race already convenitly split into three factions. There is nothing more easy than having each tribe uphold one colour while each race having cross-inheriable weapons. 

Dragons already proven it's possible and work well. 

[Othin]

So, thinking more on this, I think a better place for the "laguz triangle" @Ice Dragon proposed would be in a game with a color triangle where, from the start, colors were set up less as mirror images of each other.

Fates offers a starting point, with its Swords/Tomes > Axes/Bows > Lances/Daggers > Swords/Tomes triangle. It doesn't differentiate between tome types and doesn't include shifters, but we can fix that, by turning it into something like this:

Red: Swords, Fire/Dark Tomes, Manaketes, Dragon Laguz

Blue: Lances, Thunder/Light Tomes, Daggers, Bird Laguz

Green: Axes, Wind/Ice Tomes, Bows, Beast Laguz

Grouping 3DS shifters with beast laguz but not grouping Manaketes with dragon laguz seems weird to me, but there are alternatives. To split both, bows could turn colorless so there's room for another green weapon. To group both, staffs could be added to red to fill the open spot left by having only one dragon type. Although that would make red lean much more heavily towards magic attacks than the other colors. We could even things out by rotating the "Fates" part of the triangle relative to the elemental/color part, and get something like this:

Blue: Swords, Thunder/Light Tomes, Staffs, Birds

Green: Lances, Wind/Ice Tomes, Daggers, Beasts

Red: Axes, Fire/Dark Tomes, Bows, Dragons

Or this:

Green: Swords, Wind/Ice Tomes, Staffs, Beasts

Red: Lances, Fire/Dark Tomes, Daggers, Dragons

Blue: Axes, Thunder/Light Tomes, Bows, Birds

I guess the light/dark/ice triangle could also be rotated, if desired? Pairing fire/ice would feel really weird, but you could get fire/light, wind/dark, and thunder/ice. Not sure how much that would accomplish.

[RexBolt]

1 hour ago, Tenzen12 said:

Any design that tie one color with one movement type is terrible and no "faithfulness of weakness" (that doesn't even work properly can justify that. 

Whats more we actually have every Laguz race already convenitly split into three factions. There is nothing more easy than having each tribe uphold one colour while each race having cross-inheriable weapons. 

Dragons already proven it's possible and work well. 

And the Wolves/Taguels/Kitsunes could be colorless.

Having the tribes neatly divided in three helps a lot, but it causes some problems in the birds, as Herons would be all dancers them it would focus dancers in that color. What is the color with the least dancers, Green?

[Ice Dragon]

41 minutes ago, Othin said:

Fates offers a starting point,

The Fates triangle can go die in a fire.

 

19 minutes ago, RexBolt said:

Having the tribes neatly divided in three helps a lot, but it causes some problems in the birds, as Herons would be all dancers them it would focus dancers in that color. What is the color with the least dancers, Green?

Including Sylvia, there are

• 5 Red, 4 in the standard pool: Lene, Olivia, Flying Olivia (flier), Festival Micaiah, Sylvia
• 5 Blue, 2 in the standard pool: Azura, Ninian, Bride Ninian (flier), Festival Ryoma, Performing Arts Shigure 
• 4 Green, 0 in the standard pool: Performing Arts Azura, New Year Azura (flier), Festival Elincia, Performing Arts Inigo
• 2 Colorless, 0 in the standard pool: Performing Arts Olivia, Festival Xander

Putting all Herons into colorless, which is the most common proposition due to their similarity with staves, isn't a problem as there are only 3 of them, Reyson, Leanne, and Rafiel, which would simply tie colorless with both red and blue for the most dancers and have the second largest number of dancers in the standard pool.

[Othin]

8 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The Fates triangle can go die in a fire.

Interesting. Why do you say that?

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, Othin said:

Interesting. Why do you say that?

The short answer is that I'm an old-school geezer yelling at the kids to get off my lawn.

 

The long answer is that I like the simplicity of the game mechanics of the FE3-FE10 era, with FE10 having what I consider to be the perfect balance of simplicity and complexity of mechanics as well as the best adaptation of the mechanics of previous games.

It has the physical weapon triangle that had become the norm throughout the series, the anima triangle of Jugdral due to having a full set of weapons for each element, the magic triangle of the GBA games due to the inclusion of a full set of light and dark weapons, and a combination of the skill sets of Jugdral and the GBA games (innate critical boost and Lethality) plus its own original skills.

While change is not inherently a bad thing, I think there is too much added to Awakening and Fates that feels unnecessary and adds complexity, such as dual-abilities, the new weapon triangle, and personal skills for every character.

What I think is one of the failures of the Fates triangle compared to the Heroes triangle is the fact that, while both add weapon types that have traditionally never been related to each other in a triangle, the one in Heroes was designed with simplicity and ease of memory in mind. You never actually have to remember which weapons are effective against which weapons ("bows are what to daggers?"); you only ever have to remember which colors are effective against which colors ("red swords are effective against green axes, so anything red regardless of type is effective against anything green regardless of type").

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Othin said:

Grouping 3DS shifters with beast laguz but not grouping Manaketes with dragon laguz seems weird to me, but there are alternatives.

I don't think it would be that weird if you consider it from the perspective of how they're attacking. Laguz units were known as Strike units in their games. Because they attack physically. Dragon Laguz fell into that category too, but it's clear they were attacking with their breath. Breath is already a weapon type in Heroes so it's not all that problematic to include them there (at least I don't find it all that strange or problematic. IS might disagree as they haven't added any dragon laguz yet). If we focus the other tribes and 3DS shifters as strike units, everything makes sense since they're attacking physically without a weapon. Having them work like this also provides the opportunity for even non transforming units to work as strike units, like as I suggested in the OP, Fomortiis and his Falcon Punch.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Jotari

[Mercakete]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't think it would be that weird if you consider it from the perspective of how they're attacking. Laguz units were known as Strike units in their games. Because they attack physically. Dragon Laguz fell into that category too, but it's clear they were attacking with their breath. Breath is already a weapon type in Heroes so it's not all that problematic to include them there (at least I don't find it all that strange or problematic. IS might disagree as they haven't added any dragon laguz yet). If we focus the other tribes and 3DS shifters as strike units, everything makes sense since they're attacking physically without a weapon. Having them work like this also provides the opportunity for even non transforming units to work as strike units, like as I suggested in the OP, Fomortiis and his Falcon Punch.

I think "strike" referred to using natural attacks, rather than ones augmented by manufactured weapons, but I don't know. Also, the breath weapons in Tellius aren't all magic-based, iirc. White was, but red was str-based, as I recall, so there's the dragon triangle to think about, too. (iirc, black > red > white > black, representing dark > anima > light > dark.)

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Mercakete said:

I think "strike" referred to using natural attacks, rather than ones augmented by manufactured weapons, but I don't know. Also, the breath weapons in Tellius aren't all magic-based, iirc. White was, but red was str-based, as I recall, so there's the dragon triangle to think about, too. (iirc, black > red > white > black, representing dark > anima > light > dark.)

Breath Weapons in Tellius aren't all magic based true, but, consider, when were breaths ever magic based before Heroes? We had mage dragons in Arkaneia and White Dragons in Tellius and that's about it. They always used strength and targeted defense in every other situation as far as I can recall (except in some cases where they ignored both defense and resistance entirely).

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Breath Weapons in Tellius aren't all magic based true, but, consider, when were breaths ever magic based before Heroes? We had mage dragons in Arkaneia and White Dragons in Tellius and that's about it. They always used strength and targeted defense in every other situation as far as I can recall (except in some cases where they ignored both defense and resistance entirely).

I think Dragonstones in Awakening and Fates uses Mag and targets Res.

Edited September 7, 2018 by XRay

[Vaximillian]

2 minutes ago, XRay said:

I think Dragonstones in Awakening and Fates uses Mag and targets Res.

In Fates, yes. In Awakening, no.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Vaximillian

[Jotari]

26 minutes ago, XRay said:

I think Dragonstones in Awakening and Fates uses Mag and targets Res.

Ah yes. They do in Fates. Which actually begs the question, how will they utilize Dragonstones going forward in the series? Because Fates+Heroes=A Trend. Breaths also ignored resistance entirely in Shadows of Valencia (I think). We might see Manaketes becoming magical units permanently much like Wyvren Knights became primarily Axe users after Radiant Dawn.

[MegaBlaziken721]

While initially I felt that laguz should be added to the game based on their elemental weaknesses (i.e. beasts are green since they're weak to fire, birds are blue since they're weak to wind and dragons are red due to their thunder weakness), I noticed something (particularly about the Beast tribe laguz) that may be worth noting. This could be a viable way to represent each laguz tribe with more than one colour.

The Beast tribe laguz is split into four categories: the Cats, Tigers, Lions and Wolves. Each of these classes has stat spreads that are (somewhat) analogous to the statistics granted by the physical weapons (i.e. swords, lances and axes).

For example, in most FE games, swords tend to have the lowest might, but the highest hit rate of the weapons in the physical weapon triangle. The stat spread of the Cat laguz tends to focus more on speed, skill and evasion, while focusing less on raw offensive power. The similarity between the stats of the swords and the stats of the Cats makes me think that Cat laguz would work best as red units.

Likewise, lances tend to act as the middle ground between swords and axes; they are more powerful than swords, but more accurate than axes. Of the four types of Beast laguz, I feel that the Wolves are the most balanced of them all; they are slightly stronger, but slower, than cats. As such, I think the Wolves would best fit as blue (although this means that blue beast laguz would be the least populous group, with only two members).

Axes are the most powerful weapons in the physical weapon triangle, and Lions and Tigers are the most powerful of the Beast laguz in terms of raw strength. Being the only remaining colour left, I think that the Lions and Tigers should share green. 

For Bird tribe laguz, I'm not entirely sure how to efficiently categorize them. I think Herons should be colourless since they have no combat potential in the Tellius games, and shouldn't really have a place in the weapon triangle in my opinion. In terms of Hawks and Ravens, I'm not too certain. Perhaps Ravens should be green since Vortex is wind-elemental,  but aside from that I haven't yet figured out a way that really works in my eyes.

I feel that Dragon laguz can be mixed in with the other dragons in Heroes normally, since they still use Breath to attack like the Manaketes in Heroes do. I think that in terms of colour, Red Dragons should be red (since they breathe fire and thus could act as the Laguz equivalent of the Fire Dragons), White Dragons could be green (since their breath resembles light-infused flames, meaning they could pose as the Laguz equivalent to the Divine Dragons), and Black Dragons could be colourless (since they seem to be the Laguz equivalent to the Dark Dragons, which IMO should be colourless as well).

I think that the Strike weapon (barring Dragon strikes) should be uninheritable since they are a part of the user's body, but instead of having one singular Strike weapon type, perhaps we could have Claws, Fangs and Beaks for the different types of Laguz.

As for the Taguel, Kitsune and Wolfskin, I'm not totally sure yet.

[RexBolt]

@MegaBlaziken721 Dragon Laguz using breath weapons really is the best choice and i even say the laguz should be Armored Breath units (They always felt slow to move and attack to me, plus i never seen one of them double an enemy status-free, but are really great walls). But i don't think Black Dragon Laguz should be colorless. That one colorless Grime feels more like a gimmick than a true designation, as the other grima is already Green, where the other Divine Dragons are, plus the Black Dragons of Tellius have more in common with the Divine Manaketes story-wise that the White Dragons. While White Dragons, wich means just Nasir, look Divine-y, i feel they could be best placed together with the Ice/Water Dragons in Blue.

Also i'm baffled you would sugest to leave the dragon species with most named characters to be colorless while not even acknowledging them while dividing the Beast Laguz, who already come in 4 flavors.

And it's true, Bird are one hell of a problem to fit, but i would at least put the Ravens in Green because of Vortex. Using your logic, their stats even fit those of a Wind Tome translated to physical damage: speedy, accurate, but not very mighty.

[Tenzen12]

I think Hawks should be wind/green based. Ravens are shady and black schemed so red would fit them best. Herons would be probably best colourless as we already have plenty of blue dancers I agree with that, but then Blue would have no representative at all. Maybe only one of them could be blue dancer and other first blue healer instead

[RexBolt]

3 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

I think Hawks should be wind/green based. Ravens are shady and black schemed so red would fit them best. Herons would be probably best colourless as we already have plenty of blue dancers I agree with that, but then Blue would have no representative at all. Maybe only one of them could be blue dancer and other first blue healer instead

I still think Ravens are better served as Green and the Hawks could be Blue and the Herons Colorless. What about Red then? Well, it may feel unfair, but Red is already a color with the biggest rooster and the most Lords. And it's only 3 characters of each tribe anyway, so if there's a color that can stand losing the Birds is Red. 

[Tenzen12]

Would you associate Ravens with wind more than Hawks? Really?

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, RexBolt said:

I still think Ravens are better served as Green and the Hawks could be Blue and the Herons Colorless. What about Red then? Well, it may feel unfair, but Red is already a color with the biggest rooster and the most Lords. And it's only 3 characters of each tribe anyway, so if there's a color that can stand losing the Birds is Red. 

Well Red might be the most dominant colour over all, but among flying units it actually trails behind a bit and given how rare Sword flying units are in the main series these days, they're not likely to catch up anytime soon. The only other potential for flying units are a few of the less popular Pegasus Knights that haven't got in already and maybe a Malig Knight (really missed the mark making Narcian an axe unit).

4 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

Would you associate Ravens with wind more than Hawks? Really?

Well considering the only Raven with a real chance of getting in has Wind Powers, I personally would.

Edited September 9, 2018 by Jotari

[RexBolt]

1 hour ago, Tenzen12 said:

Would you associate Ravens with wind more than Hawks? Really?

The Ravens Mastery Skill is literally  a 1-2 range wind elemental attack called Vortex. They are the only non-dragon laguz with clear link to a color, outside weakness, and the only non-magic class in the game with an elemental skill.  

59 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well Red might be the most dominant colour over all, but among flying units it actually trails behind a bit and given how rare Sword flying units are in the main series these days, they're not likely to catch up anytime soon. The only other potential for flying units are a few of the less popular Pegasus Knights that haven't got in already and maybe a Malig Knight (really missed the mark making Narcian an axe unit).

With this in mind the Hawks may be Red as well. I didn't stop to think how many Pegasus Knights there are, plus i know of at least 3 Wyvern Knights that would not be the same not being lances: Jill, Vaida and Altena.

Edited September 9, 2018 by RexBolt

[Vaximillian]

34 minutes ago, RexBolt said:

Altina

Altena. Altina was the beorc hero swordswoman who dual-wielded Ragnell and Alondite.

[RexBolt]

18 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

Altena. Altina was the beorc hero swordswoman who dual-wielded Ragnell and Alondite.

Edited. 

But is that the official translation? 

[Vaximillian]

2 minutes ago, RexBolt said:

Edited. 

But is that the official translation? 

Both CYL polls list Leif’s sister as Altena. CYL is the most “official” source for the characters not yet included in Heroes or otherwise localised.

[Silverly]

I’ll admit firsthand that I don’t know a whole lot about laguz, but I’m familiar enough with the lore and such to make an opinion about it.

I’m against Ice Dragon’s method (ie splitting up the beasts/birds/dragons by three colors based on some Tellius stuff), and instead have beasts/birds divided by races and color while throwing dragons to the rest of the breaths.

First off, there is no reason to give dragon laguz their own subcategory when they behave very much like other dragons and there’s only 5 of them. It’s unnecessary and unwarranted. Just lump them with the other breaths. Done.

Second, I feel a lot of people are ignoring the fact that the Taguel/Kitsune/Wolfskin exist. They’re not laguz, why should they follow a system that wasn’t in their games? They’re shapeshifters, and that’s what I think it should be based off, rather than Laguz. Instead of basing something off a limited system that only existed in one game, just have all the beasts/birds be collectively coined as “shapeshifters”. Obviously the Laguz are stilled referred to as Laguz, but their weapon category would not be their own. Kinda like how we refer to breath users as “dragons” instead of “manaketes”.

Plus I don’t think Laguz are even worthy of being in their own category. I think it’s more of a case of characters being popular that happen to be Laguz rather than the Laguz themselves being popular. Only Ranulf, Lethe, and Tibarn did exceptionally well in CYL, the rest ranged from average to miserable. In fact, they were beaten by the 3DS shapeshifters! So yeah, just put the beast/bird Laguz as shapeshifters.

For colors, Red shapeshifters can be Lion Laguz, Wolf Laguz, and Taguel. Blue shapeshifters can be Cat Laguz and Kitsune. Green shapeshifters can be Tiger Laguz and Wolfskin.

The bird tribes are trickier to implement. I think it could work in one of two scenarios. 1) Makes them colorless. This can bridge the gap of lacking melee physical colorless units and potentially giving us permanent colorless dancers in the Herons. The only issues this faces is that the weapons... err, attacks would have to be given pretty broad and generic names to cover both beasts and birds since we can’t be sloppy and potentially call a birds attack “_______ Claws” when they’re called talons or something along those lines. 2) Give them their own class and colors, which I’d put red for Raven Laguz, green for Hawks, and blue for Herons. However, that leaves it without colorless, which would be somewhat awkward, but certainly doable.

[Venmi]

11 minutes ago, SilvertheShadow said:

Plus I don’t think Laguz are even worthy of being in their own category. I think it’s more of a case of characters being popular that happen to be Laguz rather than the Laguz themselves being popular. Only Ranulf, Lethe, and Tibarn did exceptionally well in CYL, the rest ranged from average to miserable. In fact, they were beaten by the 3DS shapeshifters! So yeah, just put the beast/bird Laguz as shapeshifters.

The Laguz votes are actually split, so just looking at one count is an inaccurate picture.  When you add their totals...

• Selkie: 8855
• Tibarn: 6611
• Ranulf: 6312
• Keaton: 5989

So Tibarn and Ranulf are actually in the top four most wanted shapeshifters.  Only Selkie beat all of the laguz, so only one 3DS shapeshifter is more popular than all of them, according to CYL2 :)