I think unit types were too formulaic

[Jotari]

So as we all know Engage introduced, in addition to classes themselves, a type for each class. This is a great idea, mounted and flying units have always had an edge over infantry and armoured units have been crying out for years to make their status mean something. But, I think the way they implemented types is somewhat lacking. Namely in how uniform they are. All infantry melee units are back up, all ranged infantry are covert, all infantry mages are mystic. What this effectively means is the class types kind of don't actually exist. It just means infantry units have an additional class skill, which is great for buffing infantry, but kind...why not just make them skills? If you're going to have some kind of secondary typing than want to see some more diversity among them. You could essentially have two or three variations of every class using types. It's a whole new element to the game that distinguishes classes where before we had just weapons, movement and skills. And that's cool...in theory. But in practice, unit types are boring. There's no backup mage or covert sword unit. The exclusive lord classes seem like a good opportunity to give us some mix up, but the only one of them that even half tried to be experiential was Celine who gets to be a mystic who can us swords. Why not make Timerra a Qi Adept or something (well probably because it would make her even worse, as aside from some Emblem bonuses, backup is kind of objectively the best unit types, I think).

The other thing to do would be to tie the unit types to the actual units. So Etie is a covert no matter what class she is in. Though that would get weird reclassing into cavalry or flying. Alternately skills that alter your type kind of like how Lucina can turn anyone into back up or Camilla anyone into a flier. It would probably never be worth a skill slot of it's overwriting a native type but it would be a fun feature to play around with.

Edit: Actually, making types a quality of the unit is actually something I really like. You could get around the messiness of reclassing into mounted and flying classes by just simply not having traditional mounted and flying classes. So Hortensia, for example, will always have a pegasus no matter what class you put her in. Or Vander is just a regular warrior with an axe rank but it's his typing that gives him a horse and makes him an axe paladin. This would allow for a lot more variety in what you could do with classes as stuff like getting that rare armoured mage would just be a matter of reclassing someone like Louis. It would do a lot to differentiate units beyond basic stat lines (and would actually be cool for characterization, as people have a small issue with characters just abandoning their mounts when reclassing or promoting, with this their mounts would be with them all the time as an integral part of the unit).

Edited May 8, 2023 by Jotari

[Seafarer]

What's the difference between what we got and having the class group effects being explicit skills?

It's good that infantry and armoured units finally have something to match up to the advantages that horses and fliers have had for ages, but I agree that they could have been more experimental with it, especially with personal classes. Ike'e Emblem class is an Armoured type without an armour weakness, for instance. Why can't Diamant have that instead of another generic Backup sword infantry? Or cut half the flying classes and replace them with a series of Coverts that use swords/lances/axes. Could've been a spellsword class that uses physical weapon types but was Mystical.

There's so much they could have experimented with, and I'm worried that class group is going to be one of the things that doesn't make it into future games. At least Engage is pretty accessible for modding.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I think class types are pretty cool and I'm fine with them not being super-experimental with them in the first game out. They serve their primary purpose well, which is to give infantry a niche besides "they're like mounted units, but can't move as far... and maybe their stats are marginally better".

Tying types to units instead of classes is an interesting idea but would be pretty radical, because there being an "armour class", "horse class", and "flying class" is just so core to the FE class list.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

backup is kind of objectively the best unit types, I think

I'd say it's flying still. But the fact that we can have this conversation is a good thing.

I definitely agree that the lord classes aren't nearly as interesting as they could be, aside from Ivy/Hortensia. The others are just slight modifications of an existing class (it's funny how you say Celine's is more interesting, I think of her swords as nearly irrelevant though I suppose there are some viable Sword Power builds you can do with her now that the well exists).

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I definitely agree that the lord classes aren't nearly as interesting as they could be, aside from Ivy/Hortensia. The others are just slight modifications of an existing class (it's funny how you say Celine's is more interesting, I think of her swords as nearly irrelevant though I suppose there are some viable Sword Power builds you can do with her now that the well exists).

I don't think Celine's is actually that interesting (nor that good either, I genuinely tried to use her as a unit and even fielded her at endgame, but she did not pull her weight), I just brought her up as she's the closest thing they got to actually deviating from the standard when it came to unit types, but even that was very minor. She is more a sage that can just happen to use levin swords than a sword user with the mystic type.

1 hour ago, Seafarer said:

What's the difference between what we got and having the class group effects being explicit skills?

Well it would make the interface a bit messier,

Edited May 8, 2023 by Jotari

[Florete]

On 5/7/2023 at 5:34 PM, Jotari said:

What this effectively means is the class types kind of don't actually exist. It just means infantry units have an additional class skill, which is great for buffing infantry, but kind...why not just make them skills?

I don't get this criticism. Yeah, I guess they function like skills, but if you're gonna get picky, any attribute a unit has could be a skill. Emblem Micaiah even has a skill that straight up gives units a new weapon type. And later you suggest having unit types be tied to the units themselves, which is much closer to skills as that would function exactly like personal skills do. Like shared personal skills.

I think making them uniform was the whole point and there's no issue with that. They're meant as class attributes. Fliers fly, cavalry have a horse; these have always been part of FE. Now the other unit types, which previously were basically just "not flying/cavalry," have something similar that makes them what they are. And they didn't even settle for just one "infantry" unit type, we got five separate ones, and armor actually gets a true, distinct advantage out of being armored. I guess we could have seen something like a Covert with swords or a Qi Adept that doesn't use arts, but the formula is good as-is imo. 

Tying unit types to the characters like you suggest is not something I'm necessarily against, but at that point I don't think it would even be "unit types" anymore.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Florete

[Jotari]

19 minutes ago, Florete said:

I don't get this criticism. Yeah, I guess they function like skills, but if you're gonna get picky, any attribute a unit has could be a skill. Emblem Micaiah even has a skill that straight up gives units a new weapon type. And later you suggest having unit types be tied to the units themselves, which is much closer to skills as that would function exactly like personal skills do. Like shared personal skills.

Well sure, anything could be rendered as a skill visually, but my point was that this mechanic was entirely tied to a set of classes and could have just been a trait of those classes instead of being presented as something distinct from the classes when it kind of just isn't.

And to be clear, I'm not saying unit types are bad. I think they're great, I'm glad we have them and I hope they stay (even if we don't necessairly get stuff like back up and qi adept's version of guard again), I just think they could have been a lot more creative with them since they have gone and made them a distinct thing.

19 minutes ago, Florete said:

Tying unit types to the character's like you suggest is not something I'm necessarily against, but at that point I don't think it would even be "unit types" anymore.

Tying them to the units themselves seems like it'd be a lot more "unit types" than what we have. I actually had to do a double take when I discovered that's the actual lingo, as I think the games themselves just call them types without any adjective. Why are they called unit types when they're not actually tied to the unit? They should be called class types.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Jotari

[Florete]

17 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well sure, anything could be rendered as a skill visually, but my point was that this mechanic was entirely tied to a set of classes and could have just been a trait of those classes instead of being presented as something distinct from the classes when it kind of just isn't.

It is a trait of those classes, at least that's how I see it. Every Hero is a backup, every Archer is a covert.

19 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Tying them to the units themselves seems like it'd be a lot more "unit types" than what we have. I actually had to do a double take when I discovered that's the actual lingo, as I think the games themselves just call them types without any adjective. Why are they called unit types when they're not actually tied to the unit? They should be called class types.

This I agree with. "Unit type" has been used since before reclassing was a thing, so it effectively was tied to the unit, and it stuck even when it no longer made as much sense.

[Armchair General]

Yeah, one of the things that I noticed about Engage is that they've padded out the classes by giving three or two variations of them with different weaponry instead of actually getting creative with those slots. You could have easily had an sword/knife assassin listed under "Covert," or at least few more sub-types of magicians with different class types.

But I think that would probably be overkill in the grand scheme of things. Kind of depends if you're doing an "No Emblem" run.

 

[BloodRonin]

I enjoyed engages class system, but feel like it takes away from some characters. If the tag of covert for example was tied to the unit, meaning they can only reclass into other covert classes, it would make some characters more viable, (and some even less viable in my opinion). I would like to see them expand upon this system in another game, but not sure what the best way to go about it would be. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

I actually like the unit types a lot. I think they really add something to the game. Like a broad strokes level of strategy that players can pick out at a glance, much like the weapon triangle. 

 

Only critique I actually have is that classes with multiple types (Alear as anything, Great Knights, Wyverns, etc.) should get every applicable type bonus. Hybridization is a cool distinguishing factor that could come with a stat tradeoff.

[DefyingFates]

3 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Only critique I actually have is that classes with multiple types (Alear as anything, Great Knights, Wyverns, etc.) should get every applicable type bonus. Hybridization is a cool distinguishing factor that could come with a stat tradeoff.

It would certainly make it more fun to experiment with Alear if they kept their Dragon type in all classes... at the cost of possibly breaking the game if you gave Dragon!Byleth or Corrin to a flier or something...