Using Engage's innate proficiencies to add more flexibility to classes in future titles.

[DefyingFates]

(Mods, if this makes more sense in General Fire Emblem or some other forum, please feel free to move it.)

I really liked how Three Houses had no restrictions on what weapons classes could use. Class skills incentivized some weapons of course, but you could still use - for example - a bow to add range to your otherwise 1-space locked units. I really wanted future titles to double down on that approach and maybe remove the idea of classes altogether (maybe mounts/ armor would be something you "equip"), but instead we went back to basics with Engage.

Now, I appreciate the added complexity that fixed weapons bring and I also like that Engage offers some flexibility itself with inheritable proficiencies and classes with variations for different weapon types, but it got me wondering about a way to combine the two approaches. The thing that stuck out to me was everyone having an innate weapon type.

So picture this: what if, regardless of class, a character would always be able to wield their innate weapons, but if they were in a class that already used it, they'd get to use a higher weapon rank instead (this part comes from Engage)? For example, Alear would be able to wield B/ C Rank swords (I don't know if B Rank would be too powerful) as a Halberdier but if you put them in say, Wyvern Knight, they'd upgrade that class' B Swords to A-tier. So you'd get some variety in how you build units, but you'd get rewarded for doubling down on what makes a unit good and all while ensuring that each unit remains unique even if you put a bunch of them in the same class (for example you could have two Wyvern Knights, one who can also use magic and the other all three basic weapons).

Granted, adding Arts animations to mounted classes may take some doing, but I've been mulling this over for a while and I quite like the idea if I say so myself. How about you? Thanks for reading!

Edited April 17, 2023 by DefyingFates

[Florete]

Personally, Three Houses letting everyone use everything is one of my biggest gripes with it, but this actually sounds like a neat idea.

I don't know what else to say about it.

18 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Granted, adding Arts animations to mounted classes may take some doing, but I've been mulling this over for a while and I quite like the idea if I say so myself.

I don't think this would happen, either by the game with this feature not having fist weapons, or by mounted classes still not having access to them and if a unit has proficiency in it...too bad.

[DefyingFates]

22 minutes ago, Florete said:

Personally, Three Houses letting everyone use everything is one of my biggest gripes with it, but this actually sounds like a neat idea.

I'm glad you like it!

22 minutes ago, Florete said:

I don't think this would happen, either by the game with this feature not having fist weapons, or by mounted classes still not having access to them and if a unit has proficiency in it...too bad

Horses can kick stuff, so maybe we'd get that for mounted Arts? Or the rider leaning over to clothesline someone. You can't tell me you wouldn't want to see that from a horse - or better yet pegasus/ wyver/ griffon - rider!

[lenticular]

Fundamentally, I don't think this is too far removed from a lot of branching class promotions. You start as a myrmidon, then you get the chance to either double down on swords and promote to swordmaster, or you get to branch out, promote to assassin instead and get some basic bow proficiency too. The difference with the system that you're proposing is that it's more flexible, since you could potentially change to sword/anything rather than just sword/bow. And in that sense, yeah, I think that I like it.

I do have a couple of issues, though probably not insurmountable ones. First, how would it interact with classes that have two weapons already? Let's imagine the Hero class, with swords and axes. If I had a natural lance user class change to Hero, would they then get access to the full triangle? And would a natural sword user in Hero still be worse at swords than if they were in Swordmaster? I suppose that if Hero were capped to B/B in swords/axes then the lance Hero would be B/B/C sword/axe/lance, the sword Hero would be A/B sword/axe, and the sword Swordmaster would be S sword? That seems fair.

But it does bring a second issue, which is that this only works if weapon balance is good. Engage mostly (if not entirely) failed at giving me S rank weapons that I actually wanted to use, and in some cases even A rank wasn't particularly appealing. This meant that I mostly didn't care about natural proficiencies. In your proposed system, if the top rank weapons were bad, then that would largely encourage classing against the character's natural type, which I don't like. Making sure that there are good weapon options at high tiers should be doable, though. And it would be a welcome change to have higher ranked weapons be actually objectively better than lower ranked ones, rather than just a slightly dubious sidegrade.

[DefyingFates]

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

I suppose that if Hero were capped to B/B in swords/axes then the lance Hero would be B/B/C sword/axe/lance, the sword Hero would be A/B sword/axe, and the sword Swordmaster would be S sword? That seems fair.

Yep, exactly!

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

This meant that I mostly didn't care about natural proficiencies. In your proposed system, if the top rank weapons were bad, then that would largely encourage classing against the character's natural type, which I don't like.

That's a valid concern, and as you say this would be remedied by having good S rank weapons. Even without that though, I thought this system would be good for adding safeguards for some units (e.g. if Break returns, someone who can switch to a C rank axe wouldn't have to worry about tanking swords) or some clutch utility (e.g. giving a class that wouldn't normally have staves the opportunity to be used as an emergency medic). That's worth it too, right? That's the hope, at least!

[BloodRonin]

I like your suggestions overall, but also have some things I dislike about the idea. 

Firstly, Character balance overall would be heavily favored toward certain units. Assuming you take the classes for engage, any flyer with a bow would 100% be so much better. (It is part of the reason why I gave one of my wyverns lucina, for her bow). The same could be said for anyone with innate tomes and flying access as well. Or say staff access. Giving any unit innate staff access would be very powerful. (That being said, I do wish we had an archer emblem that gave anyone access to bows. With it being limited to only 1 unit, I think it could be balanced better)

I am more of a fan of bringing back the old weapon triangles hit/avoid stats.  I never understood why you suddenly drop your weapon in engage. If you have plenty of grip strength why would a sword make you drop your axe... and instead, make weapon breaks something you can choose do if you have weapon advantages, (but attack won't follow up). On that note, do the same for heavy weapons smash attacks, if you have weapon advantages, but can't do both. One or the other. (But smash attacks is a topic for another day)

I got off topic a little bit but back to innate weapons. I like the idea of making a class that specializes in your weapon type better. Currently, there is real no great reason to even have S rank weapon proficiency besides maybe polearm and nova for very late game weapons.  I find them more useful for classes like wyvern that can get to A rank axes for brave weapons for example. 

Sorry went on a small tangent >_<. I like your ideas, I just feel they would be a challenge to implement with the current design of engage combat. But could be a possibility for future games like you suggested.

Edit* I think C rank is thr max it should go to if your class can't normally use that weapon type.

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by BloodRonin

[Florete]

You don't need amazing S rank weapons (though they are certainly not a bad idea), you can make other advantages for higher weapon ranks. Multiple past FEs have had various bonuses for higher weapon ranks. Some ideas off the top of my head are stat boosts or lowered weight penalties. For the specific weapon type, of course.

[DefyingFates]

26 minutes ago, Florete said:

You don't need amazing S rank weapons (though they are certainly not a bad idea), you can make other advantages for higher weapon ranks. Multiple past FEs have had various bonuses for higher weapon ranks. Some ideas off the top of my head are stat boosts or lowered weight penalties. For the specific weapon type, of course.

I forgot about those bonuses! Yeah, maybe Lance Avo/ Lance Power and the rest could be tied to weapon ranks now, instead of an external source (heck, even Three Houses did that, though weapon ranks there were tied to units and not classes).

1 hour ago, BloodRonin said:

Sorry went on a small tangent >_<. I like your ideas, I just feel they would be a challenge to implement with the current design of engage combat. But could be a possibility for future games like you suggested.

Not at all, thank you so much for engaging with my write-up so deeply (no pun intended), I'm really glad you liked it! I'd love to hear any further suggestions if you have them - and that applies to everyone else reading this too, thank you all very much!

[Armchair General]

4 hours ago, BloodRonin said:

I never understood why you suddenly drop your weapon in engage. If you have plenty of grip strength why would a sword make you drop your axe

I think it's meant to symbolize some being staggered or stun by being struck against something that they couldn't react to. Nearly everything that the martial arts is effective against does makes an lot of sense, except for the knives.

 

As for the main weapon triangle, I can see working with the lances and axes. Idk, about the swords, though.

 

As for the innate proficiencies in Engage, it's something that I never really noticed. Because you had the rings easily giving you an means to work around it; 3H easily let you do whatever you wanted, but at an differing paces with some exclusive skills.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Three Houses giving everyone the ability to potentially do everything and get into almost any class whilst at the same time delivering the same units copied across the houses is among the worst desicions to be ever made in an FE and a bastardization of unit and class identity the likes of which must burn in fire.

ahem

8 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

So picture this: what if, regardless of class, a character would always be able to wield their innate weapons, but if they were in a class that already used it, they'd get to use a higher weapon rank instead (this part comes from Engage)? For example, Alear would be able to wield B/ C Rank swords (I don't know if B Rank would be too powerful) as a Halberdier but if you put them in say, Wyvern Knight, they'd upgrade that class' B Swords to A-tier. So you'd get some variety in how you build units, but you'd get rewarded for doubling down on what makes a unit good and all while ensuring that each unit remains unique even if you put a bunch of them in the same class (for example you could have two Wyvern Knights, one who can also use magic and the other all three basic weapons).

I think this would heavily depend on the weapons available at different ranks and existent to begin with and the skills associated with the classes. If a character has Axefaire why bother with Swords, all the more if weapons like Dual Clubs etc may. Inventory space remains limited and having +5 over a weapon type seems significant enough.

Weapon Rank A might see the addition of upgrades to Rank C effective weaponry as well as magic weapons. I also want to see Master Weapons at A rank, that are a significant upgrade to Silver weapons but can only be used by Mono weapon classes. Maybe at B we put some weapons to increase skill procc rate? Maybe with the Lifetaker effect, or something like the good ole Berserker Axe from Fates?

Other than that, maybe increase the bonuses of the Weapon Rank system significantly to make the choice appear significant, with different weapons focusing different stats . Axes - Crit, Lances - Hit, Sword - Avoid or something like that. 

Other than that, go crazy with personal or almost-personal weapons. I will always love Vestaria Sagas Doyenne.

[lenticular]

5 hours ago, Florete said:

You don't need amazing S rank weapons (though they are certainly not a bad idea), you can make other advantages for higher weapon ranks. Multiple past FEs have had various bonuses for higher weapon ranks. Some ideas off the top of my head are stat boosts or lowered weight penalties. For the specific weapon type, of course.

Fair point. I don't really like most examples of bonuses for high weapon ranks in existing games, but that's mainly because the interface for them has always sucked. Which is to say, mostly it's been non-existant and you just have to either know that the bonus is there or get screwed by not knowing it's there and having an enemy doing more damage to you than you expect. But that isn't inherent to the idea, and there's no reason why they couldn't give bonuses to high weapon ranks and decide to actually tell us about them.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

So, innate "proficiencies" or preferences for certain weapon types. Sounds like Three Houses again except you're back to restricting weapon selection on each class. What problem are you trying to solve with this change? And doesn't Engage let you use any weapon type through the Rings? That's more of a free for all than classic fire emblem.

[DefyingFates]

12 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

So, innate "proficiencies" or preferences for certain weapon types. Sounds like Three Houses again except you're back to restricting weapon selection on each class. What problem are you trying to solve with this change? And doesn't Engage let you use any weapon type through the Rings? That's more of a free for all than classic fire emblem.

I was trying to do more with the innate proficiencies while trying to find a middle ground between Three Houses' flexibility and classic FE having fixed classes. This way you'd only have at most 3 different weapons equippable at any one time right, instead of all of them like the former?

Also, this would let you hold onto "canon" weapons, e.g. if this were in Engage Alear would be able to keep Liberation for coverage and theming even as a Sage or Warrior.

[BloodRonin]

I like the system engage has for the innate skill, but wish it also gave you bonus hit and or avoid for having a higher rank in a weapon type. 

Though I do think it would be Really cool if you could customize a class. For example, say you had innate sword. What if that character wanted to be a warrior? What if they could instead get rid of axes completely and replace with the sword instead? (Note this option could only be done for classes with 2 weapon types or more.) I suppose I miss the customization some of the other games gave you in a way. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

On 4/17/2023 at 6:39 AM, DefyingFates said:

Yep, exactly!

That's a valid concern, and as you say this would be remedied by having good S rank weapons. Even without that though, I thought this system would be good for adding safeguards for some units (e.g. if Break returns, someone who can switch to a C rank axe wouldn't have to worry about tanking swords) or some clutch utility (e.g. giving a class that wouldn't normally have staves the opportunity to be used as an emergency medic). That's worth it too, right? That's the hope, at least!

I think the solution to weapon rank balance is not only to ensure that S rank weapons are desirable, but also to have weapon ranks boost the performance of lower rank weapons. IE: each surplus rank of Swords could add 5 hit/1 mt to a given sword. 

[BloodRonin]

35 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

IE: each surplus rank of Swords could add 5 hit/1 mt to a given sword. 

I like this a lot. 

[UNLEASH IT]

The weapon locked classes (Paladin and General aside) should have learnt Faire skills at level 5 instead of what they currently got. Since Engage encourages early promotion, units could've obtained them fairly early in the game. The question is if players would be okay with having to fight a bunch of generics that deal 5 extra damage starting from chapter 17 or so.