Which FE weapon system do you think is best?

[ciphertul]

So which style do you think works the best or simply you prefer over the others? There is the “standard” Weight+Durability, SD’s Weightless+Durability, Engage’s Weight+No Durability and Fates’ Weightless+No Durability.

I personally prefer Engage’s style as I’m the type to never use limited gear. Like oh man I would love to use this legendary lance but it breaks in 20 uses so it will just collect dust in the convoy.

[LJ_Reflet]

I definitely agree with Engage's weapon system being my favorite (and I guess by extension Echoes ?).

Actually, for the most part, I don't mind durability, but I definitely enjoy it more when durability doesn't exist. It's nice not having to constantly buy new weapons (and in 3H's case, repair and buy or find ore) every other battle.

And yeah, I also agree that legendary weapons shouldn't have durability--which I found hurt the most in Awakening's case. It didn't really make sense that Sol, Astra, and Luna had 20 uses and to put salt on the cut, broken weapons in Awakening disappear.

Also, Fates had a durability-free weapon system, but I found the weapon debuffs were a little much. Like your STR gets halved for the next battle for using silver weapons, some weapons like the Beaststone+ had stacking debuffs on the user, etc etc etc. Like the lack of durability was great, but it was at the cost of incentive to use.

Durability does come and go within the series, so I do believe no-durability will come back but not for every game.

Edited April 27, 2023 by LJ_Reflet

[LJ_Reflet]

EDIT: Accidentally double posted the same post, sorry.

Edited April 27, 2023 by LJ_Reflet

[TheErazor]

 

18 minutes ago, LJ_Reflet said:

I definitely agree with Engage's weapon system being my favorite (and I guess by extension Echoes ?).

Actually, for the most part, I don't mind durability, but I definitely enjoy it more when durability doesn't exist. It's nice not having to constantly buy new weapons (and in 3H's case, repair and buy or find ore) every other battle.

And yeah, I also agree that legendary weapons shouldn't have durability--which I found hurt the most in Awakening's case. It didn't really make sense that Sol, Astra, and Luna had 20 uses and to put salt on the cut, broken weapons in Awakening disappear.

Also, Fates had a durability-free weapon system, but I found the weapon debuffs were a little much. Like your STR gets halved for the next battle for using silver weapons, some weapons like the Beaststone+ had stacking debuffs on the user, etc etc etc. Like the lack of durability was great, but it was at the cost of incentive to use.

Durability does come and go within the series, so I do believe no-durability will come back but not for every game.

a bit of a correction to the post above, Fates' Silver Weapons lower stats like the Beaststone+ mentioned, its the Brave Weapons that does what they describe, specifically the Crescent(Brave) Bow and Soldier's(Brave) Knife, other Brave weapons usually lowered your stats while equipped or functioned like a Silver weapon by debuffing the relevant attack stat (Str/Mag) and Skill

[ciphertul]

Just now, TheErazor said:

 

a bit of a correction to the post above, Fates' Silver Weapons lower stats like the Beaststone+ mentioned, its the Brave Weapons that does what they describe, specifically the Crescent(Brave) Bow and Soldier's(Brave) Knife, other Brave weapons usually lowered your stats while equipped or functioned like a Silver weapon by debuffing the relevant attack stat (Str/Mag) and Skill

It was the legendary melee weapons that half Str like Aurjelmir (however you spell it), Hagakure and Waterwheel.

[TheErazor]

oh, that's true, but the two physical ranged brave weapons does it too, this much i know

[Shadow Mir]

13 minutes ago, ciphertul said:

It was the legendary melee weapons that half Str like Aurjelmir (however you spell it), Hagakure and Waterwheel.

They weren't the only ones. Ginuungagap halved magic after use, and same for Snake Spirit, Crescent Bow and Soldier's Knife (except replace magic with strength in the latter two cases).

[ciphertul]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

They weren't the only ones. Ginuungagap halved magic after use, and same for Snake Spirit, Crescent Bow and Soldier's Knife (except replace magic with strength in the latter two cases).

All true and one of the reason I think Fates had the worst weapon system.

[Florete]

While not implemented quite to my liking, my favorite in concept would be how Three Houses did it: weight + repairable weapons. I think an economy of weapon usage is overall a good thing, and repairs are there so you don't have to worry about running out of a particular weapon that you want to keep.

[lenticular]

3 hours ago, Florete said:

While not implemented quite to my liking, my favorite in concept would be how Three Houses did it: weight + repairable weapons. I think an economy of weapon usage is overall a good thing, and repairs are there so you don't have to worry about running out of a particular weapon that you want to keep.

I pretty much agree with this. There are advantages and disadvantages to durability, so I like the idea of a system that tries to keep some of the advantages while mitigating some of the disadvantages. I also quite like how Radiant Dawn does things, with the limits of durability throughout most of the game but then the ability to give your weapons infinite durability and really go ham in the end game.

I'd also be interested to see a system which expanded the magic system from Three Houses to also cover weapons as well. That is, durability per map rather than overall. I think it could be a nice way to stop legendary weapons from being overpowered while still allowing them to be really strong but also actually usable.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Like many mechanics in Engage, I think its weapon system is sublime.

 

Also, I don't find that the weapon usage economy is really all that good or interesting. Even in games like Three Houses with repairs. All it does is add more tedium and micromanagement, and the economic scarcity factor could easily just be covered by making permanent weapons that are more expensive to obtain/upgrade.

[Keikyushi]

I used to like weapons with durability more, but being able to freely play around with all of my weapons in Engage has really changed my opinion.

As for weight, I don't mind them, though I do like weightless weapons just a little bit more. Weight is there to balance some higher rank weapons, I get it, but in practice in make Iron weapons always viable, while Steel weapons suck. I like the sense of progress when seeing my army discarding their Iron weapons to upgrade to Steel, then Silver ones, like in Awakening. Though weightless, no durability Brave weapons might be a little to broken and dwarves most other weapons, but there are many ways to balance them (that does not involve stat debuffing like in Fates)

[Light magic is cool]

I miss weapon durability. I feel like it's part of the series identity.

[AnonymousSpeed]

I really enjoy Engage and Fates, games which have no weapon durability, but I still think of it as a semi-defining series mechanic and something worth re-exploring.

The series clearly hasn't given up on weapon durability entirely because they never got rid of it for staves. Having powerful resources which you can save or use creates an interesting balancing act of what you need now versus what you expect to need later. You can do that for Warp, so why not weapons? It makes weapon management a challenge for the whole campaign rather than limiting your considerations to the single chapter, which also happens to be how experience distribution works.

Three Houses and Gaiden give you spells which lack hard-use limits, but this also limits how powerful (and therefore unique) those effects can be- you can't use Bifrost once every map. Vaguely related, Fates and Engage don't give you early silvers.

Repairs are cool and I'd like to see them mixed with durability, since you can choose which tools to replenish over others. This is also why I support gold-based forging like in Shadow Dragon. Putting all your equipment on a single resource (gold) gives you a lot of flexibility but also a lot of considerations in how you distribute your resources.

EDIT:

One mechanic I actually like in Three Houses is how combat arts consume durability. Since stronger weapons generally have fewer uses, it's a trade-off to use them for stronger combat arts. It feels a lot better than using HP like in Echoes (which is mechanically too similar to spells).

Edited April 29, 2023 by AnonymousSpeed

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

If we can combine weapons then SD. I find SD´s way of forging - being able to choose which weapon stat you increase for hard coin - the most useful.

Durability on anything but consumables can go. All it amounts to is gathering dust on the good shit.

Weight would be interesting if it amounted to more than just "haha, you´re slow now" which cripples any low build unit into the obscure field of utility, sinve low build seems to be particularly associated with a fragile nature and a bad str stat.

12 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Three Houses and Gaiden give you spells which lack hard-use limits, but this also limits how powerful (and therefore unique) those effects can be- you can't use Bifrost once every map.

Vaguely related, Fates and Engage don't give you early silvers.

In TH alone we get Mire, Swarm Z, Banshee, Luna and Dark Spikes - I daresay these are plenty powerful spells. And they do have a limit per map.

Which may be more weapon rank related. The highest weapon ranks in CQ before kid shenanigans, would be Gunter chapter 15 with B lances and Xander chapter 16 with a B in swords (who most certainly doesn´t need a Silver Sword), everyone else is C and many more than that are D. And them weapon ranks take some time.

[lenticular]

59 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

In TH alone we get Mire, Swarm Z, Banshee, Luna and Dark Spikes - I daresay these are plenty powerful spells. And they do have a limit per map.

And Thoron, Bolting, Meteor, Warp, Rescue, and Fortify. Not to mention gambit effects like Stride, Retribution, Impregnable Wall, Ashes and Dust, and so on. And then you can look to Engage where we have all of the Engage Attacks which are basically just very powerful spells that you are limited in how many times you can use them per map.

I also don't think it would have been a problem if we could use Bifrost once per map in Fates. You get it close enough to the end of the game that once per map would still only be three times total, and with major restrictions on when you could use it and who you use it on.

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/27/2023 at 6:48 AM, ciphertul said:

All true and one of the reason I think Fates had the worst weapon system.

The real strike against Fates's weapon system imho is that some of the weapons had downsides that were too severe for what they offered. For example, Beruka's Axe has a massive -20 crit evade, and as if that wasn't bad enough, it's weak to follow-ups. Then we have the "Great" Club. Godawful accuracy, -5 cev, and it's weak on top of that. And all it has to show for those downsides is 55 crit, which is admittedly astounding, but still, that's not enough for me to overlook those.

[ciphertul]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The real strike against Fates's weapon system imho is that some of the weapons had downsides that were too severe for what they offered. For example, Beruka's Axe has a massive -20 crit evade, and as if that wasn't bad enough, it's weak to follow-ups. Then we have the "Great" Club. Godawful accuracy, -5 cev, and it's weak on top of that. And all it has to show for those downsides is 55 crit, which is admittedly astounding, but still, that's not enough for me to overlook those.

It gets 4x crit mod too in line with the killer weapons but it’s not worth that accuracy.

[Jotari]

On 4/30/2023 at 12:43 AM, Imuabicus said:

If we can combine weapons then SD. I find SD´s way of forging - being able to choose which weapon stat you increase for hard coin - the most useful.

What's really weird about that system (which persisted from Path of Radiance through to Awakening) is that you could also forge to reduce weapon stats...which was absolutely pointless...yet I still think is kind of cool? Only...reducing your might and hit and increasing the weight costs money. It seems to me the really obvious mechanic would have been to reduce the cost of forging by downgrading certain stats. So you can make that mad high crit weapon, but to mitigate the price somewhat you can give it a tonne (pun intended) of weight so it never doubles. I'm kind of surprised they had this useless negative weapon feature around for so long and never went with that.

[Samz707]

Weight and Durability, I like both systems.  (Though I consider durability the importanr one.)

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Samz707