Here’s another lovely learning opportunity of mine to clutter the forums.
Steel and Sorcery is a total overhaul of FE8’s items and weapons. Im starting right after I post this, so bear with me. Every weapon type will have 3-4 subdivisions that are a triangle in themselves. If you like complex stuff like that, you’ll enjoy this.
Planned Changes
Physical:
Swords
First off, Swords will be split into Greatswords, Longswords, and Knives.
Greatswords->Knives->Longswords->Greatswords
Lances
Lances split into Javelins, Polearms, and the more literal Lances (Jousting)
Lances->Polearms->Javelins->Lances
Axes
Axes Split into Axes, Hammers, and Throwing Axes.
Hammer->Axes->Throwing->Hammer
Bows
Bows are a bit more interesting. Bows are not effective against other bow types, and are effective against most other weapon types.
Heavy->Medium->Light->Heavy
Magical:
Light
Light gets split into Light and Holy. Light magic uses things like sunlight, while Holy is obvious. They are not effective against each other. Both Tomes are unbreakable, and generally weaker than the others. Holy Magic is effective against Monsters.
Anima
Probably the most complex change. Anima is split into Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, And Lightning. Each is weak and strong against one other, and neutral to the other two.
Water is effective against Fire and weak to Lightning
Fire is effective against Wind and weak to Water
Wind is effective against Earth and weak to Fire
Earth is effective against Lightning and weak to Wind
Lightning is effective against Water and weak to Earth
Anima magic tomes have standard durability.
Dark
Dark is split into Necromancy and Dark. Dark is the literal use of darkness, and Necromancy uses monster or status effects. They are neutral to each other. Both types cost a small amount of HP to use.
Staves are already pretty good, so they will stay as-is.
This is a great idea! Although, maybe you could change it up for the physical weapons too? Instead of trying to re-create the triangle system for each weapon type, maybe create something a little more specific? Maybe you could create something that reflects the actual advantages and disadvantages of each weapon?
For example, let’s say you have halberds in your pole-arms group. What if you needed a high enough level of CON to use them, otherwise there are severe penalties? You could do the same thing for broadswords. This would be more logical.
It’s your project, which is awesome, but I just thought I’d share my thoughts too. I’m encouraging you either way. If you need help making spell animations, I might try to do some.
If you’d like someone to test things out a bit, I’d love to! I’m rather familiar with Erika route, at least, and I’m more than willing to play through a few times.
This is so chaotic but also extremely interesting, I love what you’re doing especially with the magic because I feel like it gives them all a nice niche. I’m curious about the physical weapons, like how will all the different weapon types be differentiated, different weights, might, ranges, buffs, etc.? Will every class who can use a weapon type have access to every weapon or will it be divided, like thieves can use knives and maybe longwords but not greatswords?
I really appreciate all the positivity and wonderful ideas. As to answer all the questions:
I really want to implement something like this, but I have no idea how to do this programming wise. Is there a patch that allows units to use weapons without enough CON?
By all means, someone to test balance would be great. Ill let you know ,(and anyone else who wants to), when first patch is out.
Yes.
Originally I wanted to tweak class base CON’s across the board and just have a weapon weight system, but then I realized you could simply just… body ring Assassin Colm enough to use greatswords. So, instead of Con being an increasable stat, all classes will have weight tiers, 1-4. Weapons will then be placed in minimum weight teirs. For example, Theives, Trainees, and Monks are all Tier 1, so they can use weapons with Tier 1 Weight. Mages, Mercenaries, and Pegasus are Tier 2, so they can use Tier 2 and below weight weapons.
Ill be removing body rings from the game entirely, replacing them with exclusive weapons, items, or other stat boosters instead.
This sounds like fun but my only question is why do greatswords beat knives instead of the other way around? It feels like the sword triangle would be more intuitive if it was reversed.
Anyways, knives will now be a separate sub-type, with rapiers taking there place. They will still be considered swords. Knives will have a very low mt, but always give +3 speed while equipped.
I really like your topic because I’ve spent hours, days, weeks and even a few months trying to develop a comprehensive weapon system. I have the experience and remember most of the documents I typed up, some 10 years ago.
Firstly, I distinguish ‘knives’ from ‘daggers’. The way I see it, knives are smaller than daggers, and most importantly, knives can be thrown. I would categorize them with throwing-stars and chakrams. Daggers are also small, but cannot be thrown. They would inflict piercing damage, have low Mt, but a higher crit-rate.
Secondly, ‘rapiers’ would be their own category. They would inflict piercing damage, but have higher Mt than daggers. Normally they are effective against heavy-armoured units and cavalry, but I don’t see the logic in that. Heavy-armoured units would logically be weak against bludgeoning weapons, such as maces or war-hammers. Cavalry would be weak against spears and lances, because their reach makes it the logical choice when trying to unhorse the rider.
I could go on with the other weapon types, but I’ll leave it at this for now.
I’m trying to avoid class-effectiveness for the most part, but there will be slayer/reaver varients exclusive to certain weapon types. (Lances with cavalry slayer). Also, I like you idea with the knives so I split that into Daggers and Kunai
I forgot about the kunai! Great idea. I also found a small entry on TV Tropes called “Anti-Cavalry”. You might want to check it out, and also search for other classes or weapon types. TV Tropes is an excellent website that draws information from various media, including video games.
