Basically, I think of it as somewhat analogous to one of the Pokemon series’ changes; remember the “elegantly simple” old days, when the move’s type determined whether it drew from Atk or SPAtk (or Special, if you wanna get really OG). They added further distinctions to each move in Gen IV, and it made the game tons better.
Or you could do something like what Yeti proposes, scrapping Skill, Luck, and distributing things accordingly to new stats. I just don’t think mages really want more hit, so Strength seems still pretty useless and this was the best way I could think of to expand the scope of possibilities without making up entirely new mechanics to balance everything (which seems more complicated in and of itself than simply splitting the formulas).
This is a matter of contention. I don’t think the physical/special split made the game better at all.
It’s interesting that you bring up Pokemon, because it has the same problem of physical attack not doing anything for special attackers and special attack not doing anything for physical attackers, and because of the EV system, very few Pokemon can do a mixed moveset.
But I mean, this is one of those things where if you try to make str useful for magic users by conceding a tiny bonus, then it seems tacked on, and if you try to make str useful for magic users by making it actually matter, then it just doesn’t really make sense.
I would argue that it did make the game better; because you aren’t forced to run mixed sets/go without STAB on certain Pokemon (Feraligatr, for example) when their type doesn’t match their optimal attacking stat, which is an improvement generally speaking. You’re right about this, though: having two stats that do nothing but add attack value seems polarizing in this context too. Ideally, the physical/special split would have come with new mechanics to justify the stat’s use in builds of that prioritize the opposite attacking stat. That’s basically my approach here. It seems like there is too little to add for either Str/Mag, without splitting the formulas, to justify both stats for both types of units.
Hopefully this won’t be too lengthy of a digression.
From a main series gameplay point of view, sure, the physical/special split made sense, and it added some depth without adding too much complexity. From a competitive point of view, the physical/special split contributed greatly to power creep because not only did Pokemon have access to STAB moves of their better attacking stat (which is fine), but they also gained access to a bunch of coverage moves that also run off their better attacking stat.
It used to be that Pokemon were limited in what they could cover without going mixed. With the new mechanics, Pokemon no longer needed to go mixed to get better coverage than they could get before. It became harder to design teams that could prepare for all potential threats, and the remaining Pokemon that did have the luxury of going mixed while maintaining coverage in gen IV (Salamence, Garchomp) had to be banned.
I definitely understand what you’re talking about here; because Garchomp and Salamence defined the upper range of power, the series responded with power creep to make that relative power lesser than it was in Gen IV (instead of taking care to limit coverage options on the prioritize attack stat, or devise other benefits to raising the stats that improve the overall viability of mixed builds). Perhaps increasing the rarity of “prepared for anything” setups is ultimately for the better, but, as implemented, the change seems stark. It’s interesting, and I think there are lessons to be learned from these shortcomings.
That same sort of polarizing effect can be seen in Fire Emblem’s traditional implementation of the Str/Mag split. One response might be to buff weapons (i.e. offering the Forge for any weapon, or making weapons unbreakable/more powerful outright) so that the few hybrid classes get more power to compensate for their weaker stat’s performance to improve their viability. FE faces an opposite problem; hybrid classes aren’t utilized enough, but that’s also because they aren’t terribly viable naturally. Units spend T1 generally as either physical/magical, and then promote to a hybrid, thus having a deficiency in their other attacking stat that makes using their hybrid status extremely situational, and thus relatively useless.
When the attacking stats contribute nothing but power, they become too polarizing. This is the basic problem with Str/Mag split, and hybrid classes don’t justify its existence in the way that mixed setups in Pokemon once defined their meta-game. Another option could be simply to add more hybrid classes with higher base stats/promo gains, but that would only install a more equitable distribution to a flawed system (if Pokemon dedicated 7th gen to making a ton of really good mixed mons, it’d just be more power creep, and the balancing cycle would repeat to nerf the mixed builds, which now require a buff against plain builds, rinse, repeat, rinse again, and maybe they’d figure it out by Gen XIV, or maybe not–FE’s gone five games straight without addressing this at all).
I wanted to bring balance to the force, not leave it in ruin.
From the topic dedicated to sharing “more questionable design decisions”
Inflating the magic user distribution would mean you’d have to inflate Res scores to compensate for the increased commonness of magic (if it were reciprocated between the player and enemy, or if this applied to just the enemies, either way it requires a bump in Res growths/bases, and thus deflation in Res back to the same relative value you started with). Taking away the possibility of a temporary boost makes the stat more valuable though, but how often are those effects used? Maybe they could stand to be nerfed, but removing them doesn’t feel entirely constructive either.
Fire Emblem has this problem where it is very hard to balance different offense systems because ultimately you are playing against an AI and the enemies are generally worse than you. The strategic aspect isn’t the same as in Pokemon.
Suppose you have two units, physical unit and magical unit. They are pretty decent units, probably one is better than the other, because from what we’ve observed from Fire Emblem, either physical units dominate (most games) or magical units dominate (Awakening).
Next you introduce hybrid unit A. You think, in order to balance hybrid unit A, it’s going to exchange spd for the flexibility to attack either with a weapon or tome. Well, great, but hybrid unit A is worse than your existing units because it’s too slow.
Then you introduce hybrid unit B. Aha, hybrid unit B isn’t useless any more; I’ve given it more spd! Except now it’s better than your existing units because it can do the same thing as either of them. What’s more, either magic is going to dominate because it’s just intrinsically better, or weapons are going to dominate because the unit has a higher str stat.
So these are some very black-and-white scenarios that lack nuance, but the reason why hybrid units are less interesting than they seem on paper is because frequently they’ll be much better at attacking from one side than the other, at which point they’re basically like a non-hybrid unit except with a little trick.
Ooh, ooh, this is where I swoop in to answer these sorts of questions because I’m an amazing Fire Emblem player. Pure Water and Barrier are the only ways to prophylactically prevent status (besides, like, res rings), so they have a huge strategic role. Neither diminish the value of res; frequently you will need the use of such items on high-res units to reliably protect against status. Going from 2 to 9 res when your opponent has 18 mag isn’t going to help that much.
That’s basically my point, yes. As constructed, having two stats that only contribute offensive scores are too polarizing.
My “scrap Luck for Intellect stat” proposal seeks to address these issues. The root of the problem is that Strength and Magic, traditionally, contribute nothing to units who don’t use the stat for offense. Thus, hybrid functionality becomes nothing more than a neat trick.
One solution from IS was to use Str as a weight buffer in FE9/10; magic classes really want this, since their Constitution scores are typically lower. Mages would appreciate a low-growth weight buffer, but this consequently makes the stat too overpowered for physical units. Keeping Constitution as a constant for physical units, while splitting magic weight between Con and Str, allows us to have the best of both outcomes without the downside of either.
The way I’ve done it, splitting weight calculation into separate physical/magical formulas, gives added purpose to Str for only mages (physical units rely more on Str than mages do on Mag), and adding Dodge to Int gives that stat a multi-functional purpose. Unfortunately, the stats were seemed of relatively little value to classes prioritizing the opposite offensive stat.
Attack speed itself seemed too powerful; such that it either had to be an independent stat, or divided amongst two. Skill gets its necessary buff by splitting AS, while Speed gets a nerf. Two birds, one stone. However, that made Skill a little too good, relatively, so it seemed ideal to take away the x2 multiplier it gets in the accuracy calculation. With attack speed and avoid formulas already split into physical/magical, adding accuracy into the mix didn’t seem like too far of a stretch.
Spirit also factors into avoid in Luck’s place, which buffs the survivability of healers and mages to a lesser degree. It shouldn’t be a major change, since high Res classes typically got characters with high Luck growths, but consolidating that function helps make this stat more relevant for physical units (who, in most cases, would be better served trying to avoid magic attacks than tank them–Spirit helps them on both fronts).
This is, I suppose, the point where things get complicated. Mainly because I broke the “rule of two” (any component, ideally, should only be impacted by two stats at the most). Physical units get increased hit, crit evade, and magic weapon damage from the Intellect stat. Magical units get a 1 point of weight buffer for every 2 Strength, which in turn helps their avoid, and they get half of Str added to hit. Then, the opposite defensive stats for each factor into hit as well (part of good defense is consistent offense, after all); half of Spirit to physical hit, and half of Defense to magical hit.
Yes, I’ve broken the “rule,” but incorporating all four of Str/Int/Def/Spi, plus Skill, means that all of the main stats sans Speed are, at some point, factoring into hit. Perhaps this part is too complex; but if complications are necessary (which I think they are, in this case), asking a player to remember that their opposite offense/defense stats factor into hit is less cumbersome than many possible solutions.
However, I also understand that these would be significant changes in several respects. Part of the appeal to Fire Emblem’s handling of magic is that it functions exactly the same as any other weapon, and my proposal complicates things inherently by changing that fundamental fact. At the same time, there isn’t enough capacity with the system as constructed to make the Str/Mag split work, which necessitates an innovation like splitting formula into physical/magical variations.
I fail to see how Pure Water and Barrier don’t diminish the value of resistance. Both items cause you to take less damage from magical attacks. I think we can agree that if something temporarily gave you +7 defense that would be pretty powerful. Why doesn’t this logic extend to resistance?
If, on enemy phase, several magic users attack a unit, that unit could take quite a bit of damage, or they could make use of a resistance boosting item and take 7 less damage from each enemy. Less damage is less damage no matter how you slice it. And taking 7 less damage is rather significant in my book.
This seems like shaky logic to me. Just because there are more magic enemies does not automatically mean resistance bases/growths must go up. Beginning chapters typically have all physical units. Does that mean you must boost defense to match this? No. Some units just have terrible defense, and those with more defense are more valuable (assuming all other factors being equal).
Magic is innately more powerful than any of the individual weapon types with 1-2 range. Increasing the number of enemies with magic is more drastic than fights against only physical enemies (something the game is already balanced for). Imagine that early-game scenario with most (if not all) physical enemies; for every enemy that gets converted to a mage, you could compare the added stress to defense by reverting the unit and adding another exactly like it (since mages will prioritize inflicting damage without suffering a counter-attack, they will get more attack opportunities, so 2:1 should roughly approximate the disparity). Now play the same scenario with added enemies; if the party’s respective defensive stat were too low for the enemy’s damage output, you’d consider boosting defense, right? Or reducing the enemy count but let’s assume you want a high EXP model, or something that necessitates more enemies than standard FE is balanced with.
More magic enemies means higher, more varied damage output, which is your solution to making Resistance more valuable. But really, the game just increases a unit’s punishment for having a poor Res stat with more magical enemies to content with. Making units with low Res stats worse-off probably isn’t going to make the stat, as a whole, more valuable.
Well, so the short answer would be, because I say so, look, I have the videos to show it, just look on my YouTube channel.
The long answer would be, Pure Water and Barrier only diminish the value of res if any character who uses them no longer cares about taking damage. If you’ve designed your game such that even your least resistant character only takes ~8 HP damage from a magic-using enemy, then yes, these items diminish the value of res. If your least resistant character takes ~20 HP damage from a magic-using enemy, then that’s much different than if a more resistant character takes ~12 HP from a magic-using enemy. The former character takes 13+ HP damage per hit and the latter character takes 5+ HP damage per hit. This is a large difference and it results in the characters being able to do different things.
This video is the first that comes to mind of one that demonstrates what I mean (mute if you don’t want to hear me talking):
Turn 1 PP: Saul uses Barrier on Perceval (13 +7 res).
Turn 1 EP: Windam attempts to berserk Perceval (54 hit; would’ve been 96 hit without Pure Water)
Turn 2 EP: Milady (6 res) gets hit by a Purge and a Bolting and is brought down to 4 HP.
Perceval gets hit by a Bolting and a Divine but also dodges a ton of stuff over the course of the chapter, so his HP definitely could’ve been much lower than the 32 HP that he ended with.
If we were to switch Milady and Perceval’s roles in this situation, obviously it wouldn’t work. +7 res Milady faces 96 hit vs. Berserk, which is a huge difference compared to Perceval’s 54 hit. Milady would also have a much greater chance of dying, because keep in mind that Perceval took 19 HP damage after dodging a mage, a sage, and a knight (while carrying Roy, no less). So it seems clear that despite the usage of Barrier, Perceval’s res advantage over Milady was significant.
A res difference is still a res difference, regardless of Pure Water or Barrier availability. Unless your magical enemies are so bad that a Pure Water boost on anyone invalidates them, then a unit with a res advantage will be able to do more things in more circumstances with a greater chance of success. The only thing that you accomplish by removing Pure Water and Barrier is to increase the value of the guy who has 20 res, but no one worth using will usually have 20 res, so this seems like an odd thing to buff.
But that makes those with higher res more valuable. Which increases the value of res. Which was my original point.
Defense is so powerful because it’s used so often. There are many more physical enemies than magic based enemies. It’s kind of like supply and demand: The demand for def is higher, making def more valuable. The demand for res is not as high, making it less valuable.
But the original reason I even posted in this topic was to bring up ways of increasing the value of res. If removing the res boosting items increases the value of the stat, then that’s one possible solution. The stat advantage point is kind of moot. That’s a unit to unit comparison, not a stat to stat comparison (I’m explicitly comparing def to res).
Also, random side note: Text based debates are the pits. I keep generating thoughts, then overthinking those thoughts to the point where I forgot what I was originally thinking about. Then I have to figure what my first point was. This response took me forever to come up with…
I’ll stick with verbal debates instead.
You slightly increase the value of the stat in exchange for discarding the strategic depth afforded by Pure Water and Barrier use. That seems like a negative exchange to me.
What are you talking about? The only way in which we know that a particular stat is “important” is by looking at how often it makes a difference for one unit to have more of it than another unit. We know that def is a more important stat than res because it more often makes a difference for one unit to have more of it than another unit. If you compare 2 units that have different luk stats and the difference between them is barely noticeable, that means that luk is not an “important” stat.
Removing Pure Water and Barrier isn’t going to make res more of an important stat (aside from the edge case where the one guy with 20 res is happy) because the differences between two units’ unboosted res stats always matter as long as they are taking damage. What will make res more of an important stat is creating more situations in which res is challenged. FE6 did this a lot with its giant status staves and meaty long range magic; it turns out that people don’t like that very much because it’s hard.
On the other hand, adding more magic units increases the value of RES-heavy units, while removing the biased pure water/etc makes every point of RES that much more useful. Why does RES get an EZ +7 stat boost? Why not DEF or SPD or some other stat? Heck, SKL/LUK seem to be the stats that could use such a significant boost to me.
Maybe Pure Water is bullshit and should never have existed in the first place when better class balancing for player and enemy is what we really needed?
Why not? It works. Various other installments in and outside of the series have attempted ways to boost stats; FE7 had rings that were kind of too good for a turn and TRS had the Power, Defense, and Magic staves; the first gave +10 atk for an entire chapter (so good), the second cut received damage in half for an entire chapter (probably good, I never got it), and the third is like the M Up staff in FE5 because TRS used res = 0.5*mag.
FE4 also has rings that boosted stats; did those rings invalidate the importance of those stats? FE12 has shards and tonics and RP that boosted stats; did those items invalidate the importance of those stats? (The answer is no.)
Yes, but in the GBA games, the only major stat booster aside from +2 permanent items is the pure water/barrier staff. Why is this the case? Because RES-heavy units are rare. In fact, aside from staff/magic users, nobody is really RES heavy. There’s some units that may get in the upper teens towards 20/20 if they’re blessed, but all the good RES units are magical. The pure water is an artificial way of protecting yourself from berserk/sleep/etc staves and other magic users. It’s there because the physical units are terrible against the (incredibly rare) magic users.
But then again, putting more enemy magic users in even the early chapters, including a playable mage or two, means the player has to fight them more often, making RES more useful. All the pure water does is make RES boost faster in standard GBA FE7/8 (haven’t played 6) which makes the few magic enemies you face completely trivial. Just trade that pure water around and you’ve got an army immune to status staves, or at least mostly immune.
So removing it seems to be the sound choice. I mean, I say this because I actually did this and it worked well in my own game. I may still have had a pure water or two, but adding in lots of enemy magic users and playable magic users in the early chapters made whatever pure waters that might still exist pretty unnecessary. I think I removed all but one or two of them though, but I can’t remember. All I know is I never had to use them.
It doesn’t work that way. Even Pent isn’t immune to Cog of Destiny druids on HHM with a full Pure Water boost. He faces like 42 hit.
Yes, one never has to use a Pure Water in just about any circumstance; I don’t have to use Pure Waters in FE6. That doesn’t mean that FE6 would be better if Pure Waters were gone. Your claim that you “did this and it worked well” is a comparison against a hypothetical scenario that doesn’t exist and was never tested, so it’s not like any of us know for sure that not having Pure Waters > having Pure Waters. Whereas in the case of FE6, it’s pretty easy to compare the quality of the game with Pure Water to the quality of the game without Pure Water; just don’t use Pure Water and see how much dumber the game is.
And for what it’s worth, I think that FE7 HHM Genesis and Cog of Destiny would be unbearable without ways to temporarily increase res.
I went back and revised a few parts of my proposal after hearing everyone’s responses.
My basic takeaway (especially after seeing Yeti’s Ultimax proposal, which is as close to perfect as anyone’s gonna get) is that things need to be split up more than IS does in order to properly balance the stats. Especially when introducing an Atk stat split, because you’re creating something inherently useless to swaths of classes.
Since splitting apart all the formulas didn’t go over well, I’ve decided to scrap separating PHit and MHit.
While it is more balanced in this regard, I still don’t like the polarizing nature of the FE-style Str/Mag split. Basically, that problem is solved by dissecting things between more stats (while still adhering to the “rule of two”). For example, the Yetiman got his standard deviation about as close to 0 as possible by splitting up Atk/Def calculations between two stats each, and a variety of other things. Yet within the confines of Fire Emblem, this is about as best as I’ve been able to do.
EDIT: Some final tweaks after Yeti updated the component values.
