Hero Vs Warrior is one of the best dillema imo it’s one of the most balanced choices in fe 8
You get 0 Speed on promotion to Warrior and Bows are the inferior weapon type to Swords in FE8. Not to mention Hero still possesses good Strength and bulk. : P
The problem is that Hero is basically mandatory if you get speed screwed because of the +2 speed and even then free Killing Edges is a lot better than free Iron Bows
Imo the best one is hero vs ranger. Do you want better stats and a consistent enemy phase? Or do you want +1 movement and Canto?
I always felt baffled that IS didn’t give Snipers a huge critical boost, like Berserkers and Swordmasters. Single Weapon T2… why not make that one weapon much more potent? Maybe they were worried about random criticals from ballista breaking the game’s balance.
The balance of being way too easy, that is.
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I was thinking at some point about a gameplay idea that linked the lords split promotions with route splits and designing each route around the promotion that was chosen
Split promotions can’t be done well if your condition of well is having balance between the two picks.
Honestly just do single promotions and as someone said earlier you can always make exclusive classes for promotions and stuff. It’s not like split promotion adds into replayability anyway
I absolutely adore split promotions. It’s not always balanced, there will always be a better option, but I think that’s how it should be. Maybe when replaying you can pick a class that’s really bad and see how you do with it. It’s like replaying an old RPG or a Fallout game and intentionally investing into the bad skills to see how far you can get.
Controversial opinion, but I actually think Fates did branched promotions the best out of the whole series. Not all branches are balanced/good, but most of the time it gives you two distinct options with enough differences in stats and skills to make the choice feel significant. Particularly in the decisions where each class has significantly different utility, e.g. Adventurer vs. Bow Knight, Dark Knight vs. Sorcerer - and we haven’t even factored in reclassing.
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I agree with branch promotion
It gives player a choice (eg. Mage knight have more movs than sages)
For different areas
Like stats (promotion bonus and caps) or skill
Or stats or movs choice
As long as both are balanced
(Say no to 7 mov valkyrie)
I like it more the way it’s in FE8. Maybe more complex than that (haven’t played the 3DS games so idk).
Do Three houses count as branching promotions? Because i prefer sticking to a class rather than having that many options.
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As someone who’s been faced with the choice of promoting an excellent mage into either an even better mage or the same mage but with spears to compliment her base 3 strength and 35% growth… and went with the latter option for my first playthrough, I second this.
Go whack.
Make it fun.
Imagine if promo was. Cav vs Ignore terrain when moving. or Pegasus vs Dragon.or As a Lance user learning Swords or Getting a Horse (Covering your Triangle weakness and always at least neutral vs horse movement.) Or in a game where Power is not Split. Choosing between Tomes and Bows
Split promo is not the problem it’s how the main games and most hacks balance them hell my above examples are clearly imperfect and some depend on map design (horse is better unless lots of slowing terrain)
But the simplest way to balance the split is to simply provide competing options.
Half of the main games issue is the lack of enemy mountkiller or bow weapons deployed in places that can threaten your units which leads to easy pegasus and dragon dominance since they ignore terrain and are stupidly fast. allowing them to close with ballistas and deal with them
Aka they counter their only counter.
Overall split promos are fine the implementation is the majority of the problem
I think that split promotions opens the door to so much more options for the player to diversify their army composition, even if one class is obviously the better pick it’s still fun to go for the less optimal pick to see what happens, if anyone’s seen those three houses runs with stupid builds like fortress knight lysithea can agree.
I simply like the player option aspect of FE, that’s what truly differentiates it from Advance Wars and other tactics games like it IMO, that’s why I love conquest so much, it’s a game where you’re given all the freedom in the world to use as many units as you want and the game still provides a fair challenge throughout.
so basically I think that split promotions are just a given for any FE game, as long as the choices weren’t given little to no thought.
Honestly I like split promotions because of the variety they can bring. Personally I’ve been surprised that more hack makers haven’t wanted to toy around with the idea of 3 promotions. The two things I’ve wanted to see tried out that would honestly probably not be liked that much is almost everyone in your army starting off as one of 4 recruit classes Ending up with three choices at final promotion between a weapon lock with critboost, a multiweapon with a C rank in what weapons the gain and the 3rd being a mounted unit.