[15 Discussion] Classes

[Slumber]

Just now, Anomalocaris said:

So everybody just gets their starting class? That'd be kinda boring and limit playthrough variety, no?

There's something I've learned about RPGs over the years: Giving everybody ALL of the options you can does more to limit playability than giving people certain parameters to work with(See: Fallout 4 vs any Fallout before it).

This was true for Awakening(And Fates to a lesser degree, which limited the reclassing, but still made the gameplay less interesting). At some point, using certain characters lost all meaning because everyone could become almost every class. At some point, the characters stop using their individuality, and ALL that matters is who had access to the best skills and the best class, and eventually, you'd just have a team with only Armsthrift Scorcerers and Nosferatu/Avesra's Night. The game doesn't try to limit you in any capacity, so why wouldn't you do this? And once you do this, that's it. The game's not fun anymore.

Compared to playing a Fire Emblem and finding ways to make certain team compositions work, which has always been a much more enjoyable experience to me.

I'll be fine with branching promotions, provided they make sense for the classes, but reclassing has been an absolutely awful experiment that I don't want to see anymore.

[Tolvir]

18 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Wouldn't the remake of Gaiden be FE15, making this FE16?

My post was before the direct, when there was no idea that we were getting 4 fire emblem games in 2 years.

[AlexArtsHere]

18 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Wouldn't the remake of Gaiden be FE15, making this FE16?

This is why I changed my topic headers to FE Switch. I consider FE Switch to be FE15, but I think it's the norm to consider the remakes as part of that numerical series.

Super excited for FE15 coming out Feb 2nd, btw. ;)

[Anomalocaris]

On 1/30/2017 at 9:12 PM, Slumber said:

There's something I've learned about RPGs over the years: Giving everybody ALL of the options you can does more to limit playability than giving people certain parameters to work with(See: Fallout 4 vs any Fallout before it).

This was true for Awakening(And Fates to a lesser degree, which limited the reclassing, but still made the gameplay less interesting). At some point, using certain characters lost all meaning because everyone could become almost every class. At some point, the characters stop using their individuality, and ALL that matters is who had access to the best skills and the best class, and eventually, you'd just have a team with only Armsthrift Scorcerers and Nosferatu/Avesra's Night. The game doesn't try to limit you in any capacity, so why wouldn't you do this? And once you do this, that's it. The game's not fun anymore.

Compared to playing a Fire Emblem and finding ways to make certain team compositions work, which has always been a much more enjoyable experience to me.

I'll be fine with branching promotions, provided they make sense for the classes, but reclassing has been an absolutely awful experiment that I don't want to see anymore.

That's mainly an issue with children units, where it's very much possible to amass an army consisting entirely of the best class in the game due to the way inheritance gives them all six or so classes to choose from, and Fates where Corrin can give anyone any class through marriage.

Reclassing itself doesn't cause that; there's nothing you can do to make Frederick or Gregor a Sorceror, for example.

And of course poor class balancing, but that's inevitable.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Anomalocaris

[Night Zap]

Things I would like to see:

• Bringing back light magic and bringing back all the disappeared dark spells. I also like the idea of light giving buffs while dark causes debuffs. But don't split up anima in three different elements.
• I like the concept of maid/butler: An offensive support class that focuses on debuffs and healing. But I find the notion of household servants on the battlefield a little ridiculous. They could reimagined as the Medic class, which also uses Daggers and Staves and does actually fit into a war.
• Spear Fighters should stay, and Soldiers should return. Similar to Myrmidons and Mercenaries, the former is a speedster while the latter is more balanced.
• Knights are seperated into Sword Knights, Lance Knights and Axe Knights. Generals get to choose one additional weapon upon promotion, Great Knights gain all three weapon types.
• Cavaliers are also seperated into weapon-based subclasses.
• The glorious return of Pirates/Brigands

 

Also, some ideas I had regarding the skill system and class changing, since this is being discussed here too:

• Class Skills are tied to their class and replaced upon class change. For example, if Billy the Outlaw switches to Mercenary, he looses Locktouch, but gains Strong Riposte.
• Personal Skills and skills learned from scrolls are not affected by class changes. A capacity meter like in the Tellius games determines how many skills a unit can have. If a unit has strong, expensive class skills, it might have to unequip one of them to use a scroll skill.
• Every class has one class skill, and a second one is gained upon promotion. Going back to our example, Billy promoted too Adventurer and now possesses Locktouch and Pass. If he switches to Hero, these skills will be changed to Strong Riposte and Sol.
• Branched promotions exist, but only one branch can be chosen. The other can not be reclassed into, except if it is a possible promotion for the units other class tree. Billy the Adventurer uses a Heart Seal and can now choose between Hero and Bow Knight. Had he directly promoted from Outlaw to Bow Knight, his only reclass choice would be Hero. However, overlapping promotions are only tied to one of the two original class trees. If Billy switches to Bow Knight now, Locktouch will be replaced by Strong Riposte, because the Bow Knight is now tied to his mercenary class.
• In total, every unit can have up to four skills: One Personal Skill, two Class Skills, and one skill learned through a scroll.
• Also, the main class and one alternate class are all a unit gets. No new classes through S/A+ supports, no inheritance (the latter because no f***ing second gen again goddammit)

[Slumber]

7 hours ago, Anomalocaris said:

That's mainly an issue with children units, where it's very much possible to amass an army consisting entirely of the best class in the game due to the way inheritance gives them all six or so classes to choose from, and Fates where Corrin can give anyone any class through marriage.

Reclassing itself doesn't cause that; there's nothing you can do to make Frederick or Gregor a Sorceror, for example.

And of course poor class balancing, but that's inevitable.

This is true, but I was mostly just using a Sorcerer as an example of an extremely broken class that everyone just abuses as much as possible.

Even without children, the way the series has handled it(And likely won't change for as long as the series keeps doing reclassing) has been tedious and counter-intuitive. In the FE games of yore, you had to find niches to make a lot of characters work, and this is usually where replayability came in. Trying to make characters work was a risk, but those characters would almost always have their role if you worked with them correctly.

Now a lot of character building involves finding out which reclassing options give the best skills and the best stat growths for the character. Using my more extreme choice of classes earlier as an example, it ends up feeling like in order to get the most out of the characters, I'm building almost every character in the exact same way to make sure everyone ends up with flawless stats. Yeah, by the end of the games, you end up with a bunch of amazing units, and more of them are arguably viable, but they all turn out the similarly, and I lose the variety I enjoyed in the old games. It stops feeling like a strategy game, and feels more like some kind of spreadsheet pet simulator.

I will say, though, if they were to tweak the New Mystery system, where far less of a character's growth rates being tied to classes, and you having not being able to use 15 of the same class type, they may finally have a system that doesn't cause me to get massively disinterested in character progression. But just going on systems they've tried in the past, I really don't care for reclassing.

Also, if reclassing continues DLC classes need to go, or be very limited. Maybe do make Dreadfighter missions more involved, and you can only get one Dreadfighter per playthrough. Stuff like that.

Also, I like @Night Zap's idea overlapping with branching promotions. Make people commit to their promotion choices. No reclassing into the other branch.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Slumber

[Jotari]

On 2/1/2017 at 3:47 AM, Tolvir said:

My post was before the direct, when there was no idea that we were getting 4 fire emblem games in 2 years.

You know you can edit the title of a thread right? Just edit your OP and the text box for the title should be there.

 

Anyway in my opinion I'd like to see basically any class from my class tree return

For more specific examples

*I'd actually love to see a return of Xane's Class Cameleon. I find it sort of Amazing that it was something they conceived in the first game and nobody has ever thought about giving us another character like that. There's just a lot of untapped potential there not only for gameplay but also for the plot as well. Just imagine all the fun you could have with spies and doppelgangers being employed by the enemy.

*Barons, or more specifically, Armoured Mages. Squishy mages are great and all and should stay but I'd love to see more mages that just decide to actually defend themselves.

*I'd like to see Griffon Knights and Knshi Knights stick around as there own distinct class line (maybe even joining the two with Bird Knight being the first tier (using Bows) and promoting to either Griffon (gaining axes) or Kinshi (gaining lances) on promotion.

*Hybrids in general I want to stay. There's nothing wrong with them conceptually. The games just need to learn to give mages strength and physical units magic.Oboro would not have been broken with a decent strength growth.

*Crossbow users. Both as an option for warriors, archers and as their own new class line. Because crossbows are reasonably cool.

*Give Dancers there own branched promotion. It's not like its a particularly limited idea. We've seen it evolve in past games why not bring them back with some choice. Like one promotion lets you refresh four units and another turns them into a viable combat unit or staff bot (or better yet my own idea, a singer that can refresh from two spaces away).

Edited February 2, 2017 by Jotari

[Nani]

I've definitely wondered if they'd make third tier classes return; it'd be really interesting.

I absolutely love Nephenee and Oboro's (Spear Master) classes, so that's probably what I'm mostly excited for.

Maybe a dancer or a bard who uses tomes for self defense wouldn't be too bad, considering I reclassed Azura as a witch. Not sure if anyone would be interested in that.

I mostly agree with what's already been said, including making Soldiers a class again,the magic trinity, and sword using fliers.

And just for the laughs, have healers fight back with a (weak) staff like in Radiant Dawn when attacked.

[Slumber]

19 hours ago, Jotari said:

You know you can edit the title of a thread right? Just edit your OP and the text box for the title should be there.

 

Anyway in my opinion I'd like to see basically any class from my class tree return

For more specific examples

*I'd actually love to see a return of Xane's Class Cameleon. I find it sort of Amazing that it was something they conceived in the first game and nobody has ever thought about giving us another character like that. There's just a lot of untapped potential there not only for gameplay but also for the plot as well. Just imagine all the fun you could have with spies and doppelgangers being employed by the enemy.

*Barons, or more specifically, Armoured Mages. Squishy mages are great and all and should stay but I'd love to see more mages that just decide to actually defend themselves.

*I'd like to see Griffon Knights and Knshi Knights stick around as there own distinct class line (maybe even joining the two with Bird Knight being the first tier (using Bows) and promoting to either Griffon (gaining axes) or Kinshi (gaining lances) on promotion.

*Hybrids in general I want to stay. There's nothing wrong with them conceptually. The games just need to learn to give mages strength and physical units magic.Oboro would not have been broken with a decent strength growth.

*Crossbow users. Both as an option for warriors, archers and as their own new class line. Because crossbows are reasonably cool.

*Give Dancers there own branched promotion. It's not like its a particularly limited idea. We've seen it evolve in past games why not bring them back with some choice. Like one promotion lets you refresh four units and another turns them into a viable combat unit or staff bot (or better yet my own idea, a singer that can refresh from two spaces away).

My main gripe with hybrid classes goes back to my earlier argument: It gives you too much to work with on a unit. It's fine if it's one character here or there, but making hybrid classes a regular thing really just removes a lot of specialty units can have. And making them viable to do both physical stuff and magic stuff? Why ever use anything other than hybrid units at that point? On the flip side, if you make hybrid units, but said units suck at either magic or physical, they ultimately just become redundant with non-hybrid units. One good magic unit+One good melee unit will be a lot more interesting to use than a bunch of mediocre hybrid classes or a bunch of disgustingly broken hybrid classes.

It worked in FE4 and FE5 because those units were rare. It was really just Barons, Master Knights and Troubadors/Valkyries. Barons were an enemy only thing, and you had to strategize how to beat them, and Master Knights were purposefully OP. It didn't work in Fates and Awakening, because the only way to implement those types of units frequently were to either break them completely(Awakening), or try to make it balanced and ultimately make hybrid units redundant, since only one or two units had good enough strength/magic growth to make good use out of both(Fates).

So either hybrid units should be incredibly rare so that the few units who could take advantage of it aren't the only units you'll ever use, or they should just be scrapped entirely.

And I really don't like the idea of bringing back Kinshi and Griffon riders, simply because of the visual clutter those classes brought to Fates. Four different flying mounts, with two of them being pretty indistinguishable(I guess Griffon riders were supposed to be the all-around types, as opposed to the Wyvern's hard-hitting tankyness and the fast but weak Pegasus riders?), just made the screen a mess to look at. And the idea of a mount changing into an entirely different animal upon promotion has never sat well with me. If you want to keep Griffons, but just reuse Kinshi as a bow-using Pegasus promotion, that'd probably be fine.

I agree with the rest, though.

Though, I feel like putting Chameleons prominently in the story would be a bad idea. I can only imagine how many fake-outs we'd get after beating a boss, only to learn that *gasp*! It wasn't really the boss that we thought we killed, but a Chameleon pretending to be him!

Edited February 3, 2017 by Slumber

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Slumber said:

My main gripe with hybrid classes goes back to my earlier argument: It gives you too much to work with on a unit. It's fine if it's one character here or there, but making hybrid classes a regular thing really just removes a lot of specialty units can have. And making them viable to do both physical stuff and magic stuff? Why ever use anything other than hybrid units at that point? On the flip side, if you make hybrid units, but said units suck at either magic or physical, they ultimately just become redundant with non-hybrid units. One good magic unit+One good melee unit will be a lot more interesting to use than a bunch of mediocre hybrid classes or a bunch of disgustingly broken hybrid classes.

It worked in FE4 and FE5 because those units were rare. It was really just Barons, Master Knights and Troubadors/Valkyries. Barons were an enemy only thing, and you had to strategize how to beat them, and Master Knights were purposefully OP. It didn't work in Fates and Awakening, because the only way to implement those types of units frequently were to either break them completely(Awakening), or try to make it balanced and ultimately make hybrid units redundant, since only one or two units had good enough strength/magic growth to make good use out of both(Fates).

So either hybrid units should be incredibly rare so that the few units who could take advantage of it aren't the only units you'll ever use, or they should just be scrapped entirely.

And I really don't like the idea of bringing back Kinshi and Griffon riders, simply because of the visual clutter those classes brought to Fates. Four different flying mounts, with two of them being pretty indistinguishable(I guess Griffon riders were supposed to be the all-around types, as opposed to the Wyvern's hard-hitting tankyness and the fast but weak Pegasus riders?), just made the screen a mess to look at. And the idea of a mount changing into an entirely different animal upon promotion has never sat well with me. If you want to keep Griffons, but just reuse Kinshi as a bow-using Pegasus promotion, that'd probably be fine.

I agree with the rest, though.

Though, I feel like putting Chameleons prominently in the story would be a bad idea. I can only imagine how many fake-outs we'd get after beating a boss, only to learn that *gasp*! It wasn't really the boss that we thought we killed, but a Chameleon pretending to be him!

Genealogy of Holy War also had mage fighters and mage knights.That's like half your viable mages right there on promotion. And given how malleable Holy War's system can be, it's more than possible to make use of them. Olwen from Thracia 776 is probably my favourite example of a mage knight since she gets a prf physical weapon and magic weapon that gives her great versatility (but she herself is pretty bad defenses balancing it out). And aside from the earlier games, we have seen hybrids that genuinely work in the newest games. The two avatars are a perfect example, particularly Nhor!Corrin. Yes, they're considered above average units but that's mainly due to their exp gain and skill access. The versatility is just an extra mark in their favour. Sumia also makes a capable Dark Flier and, as someone else mentioned, Sakura is a decent shrine maiden. The idea of a hybrid is that their overall stats will be worse than a unit that is exclusively physical or magical but in return they get more flexibility. Really it's not all that hard to do. You just need to throw a 30% growth on the stat that usually has 5%.

[Slumber]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Genealogy of Holy War also had mage fighters and mage knights.That's like half your viable mages right there on promotion. And given how malleable Holy War's system can be, it's more than possible to make use of them. Olwen from Thracia 776 is probably my favourite example of a mage knight since she gets a prf physical weapon and magic weapon that gives her great versatility (but she herself is pretty bad defenses balancing it out). And aside from the earlier games, we have seen hybrids that genuinely work in the newest games. The two avatars are a perfect example, particularly Nhor!Corrin. Yes, they're considered above average units but that's mainly due to their exp gain and skill access. The versatility is just an extra mark in their favour. Sumia also makes a capable Dark Flier and, as someone else mentioned, Sakura is a decent shrine maiden. The idea of a hybrid is that their overall stats will be worse than a unit that is exclusively physical or magical but in return they get more flexibility. Really it's not all that hard to do. You just need to throw a 30% growth on the stat that usually has 5%.

I honestly forgot about Mage Fighters, since Tailtyu isn't getting any use out of that "Fighter" part, and Tine isn't getting any use out of it, either, unless her father is someone like Lex. Same deal with Azel and Arthur.

While Olwen CAN be a usable hybrid unit that isn't Nanna, I'm hesitant to call her generally "usable", since it's questionable to use any unit in Thracia that struggles to cap a single stat, ESPECIALLY when using her as a melee unit will almost always get her killed, due to her awful HP and low Defense. Eyrios is actually pretty decent, but once again, using a combination of a good physical unit and a good magic unit will always be preferable. Miranda is the only other Mage Knight in Thracia, and she is a good Mage, but an awful hybrid unit.

I'm discounting Sumia because everyone in Awakening is potentially phenomenal as everything. Same deal with Nohrrin. Sakura is one of the the few usable hybrids I mentioned in Fates, and she mostly gets away with it because she's isn't trying to split damage between magic and physical. She's essentially a melee unit that can heal, which I don't really have much of an issue with.

We've had 6 games with hybrids(4, 5, 13, 14, also tossing in 9 and 10 because Sages CAN use physical weapons). And throughout all of those games, you can count the amount of properly balanced hybrid units on two hands, with at least two(Definitely Arthur and Tine, and some of the children in Fates) of them being highly conditional.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Slumber

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Slumber said:

I honestly forgot about Mage Fighters, since Tailtyu isn't getting any use out of that "Fighter" part, and Tine isn't getting any use out of it, either, unless her father is someone like Lex. Same deal with Azel and Arthur.

While Olwen CAN be a usable hybrid unit that isn't Nanna, I'm hesitant to call her generally "usable", since it's questionable to use any unit in Thracia that struggles to cap a single stat, ESPECIALLY when using her as a melee unit will almost always get her killed, due to her awful HP and low Defense. Eyrios is actually pretty decent, but once again, using a combination of a good physical unit and a good magic unit will always be preferable. Miranda is the only other Mage Knight in Thracia, and she is a good Mage, but an awful hybrid unit.

I'm discounting Sumia because everyone in Awakening is potentially phenomenal as everything. Same deal with Nohrrin. Sakura is one of the the few usable hybrids I mentioned in Fates, and she mostly gets away with it because she's isn't trying to split damage between magic and physical. She's essentially a melee unit that can heal, which I don't really have much of an issue with.

We've had 6 games with hybrids(4, 5, 13, 14, also tossing in 9 and 10 because Sages CAN use physical weapons). And throughout all of those games, you can count the amount of properly balanced hybrid units on two hands, with at least two(Definitely Arthur and Tine, and some of the children in Fates) of them being highly conditional.

I call Olwen more than useable with the Holy Sword. Brave Weapon with a crit chance , effectiveness against mounts and gives the prayer skill? That's fantastic. Only downside is that you get it so late (and mounts basically stop appearing after that point).

But that's neither here nor there. The mere fact that balanced units in that archetype exits means that the concept is not fundamentally flawed and thus shouldn't be shed away from.

[Slumber]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

I call Olwen more than useable with the Holy Sword. Brave Weapon with a crit chance , effectiveness against mounts and gives the prayer skill? That's fantastic. Only downside is that you get it so late (and mounts basically stop appearing after that point).

But that's neither here nor there. The mere fact that balanced units in that archetype exits means that the concept is not fundamentally flawed and thus shouldn't be shed away from.

I don't think hybrid units should completely go away. What I've mostly been saying is that they should be very rare, and only a few characters can become hybrid classes. Units that make sense to become hybrid classes. Units that CAN juggle magic and physical damage, without being overpowered or overabundant.

I'm mostly hesitant to flat out say that "hybrid units should stay", because historically, IS has bungled the concept hardcore. They're either ridiculously powerful and make the game boring(Awakening), or bad almost completely across the board(Tellius, Fates). The Jugdral games came closest to getting them right, and only a handful of units across both games were even capable of becoming hybrid units.

Plus, saying they should stay mostly just sounds like keeping them how they were in FE13 and 14. The Fates and Awakening style of "Fuck it, every axe/sword/lance/bow user should be able to use magic, and every magic user should be able to use axes/swords/lances/bows" has been absolutely a bad experiment, IMO. I'm a firm believer in the idea that "less is more" when it comes to this kind of thing. There should be enough variety to keep things interesting, but you shouldn't be adding variety at the detriment of balance and general gameplay cohesiveness.

Make hybrid units that make sense. A mage promotion that can use swords? Sure, Mage Knights(Though Mage Knights in FE are something completely different, you get the idea) have always been a thing in these kinds of high-fantasy settings. I don't think it should be an option for every mage unit, and I've always liked the Jugdral system where unit promotions were character based rather than class based, even if units of certain classes almost always promoted to the same classes. If you can mix these two things, and make hybrid units a rare thing that only certain characters can obtain, I'm 100% okay with it.

But I am not okay with how Awakening/Fates did it, where suddenly petite healers suddenly turn into beefy battle nuns with axes(I know I said I was fine with healers that could attack, but this has always bothered me). It's a fun concept and it became a meme in itself, but it looks goofy, makes no goddamn sense and didn't really work out well for anybody. Not every class needed to have a hybrid promotion.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Slumber

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Slumber said:

I don't think hybrid units should completely go away. What I've mostly been saying is that they should be very rare, and only a few characters can become hybrid classes. Units that make sense to become hybrid classes. Units that CAN juggle magic and physical damage, without being overpowered or overabundant.

I'm mostly hesitant to flat out say that "hybrid units should stay", because historically, IS has bungled the concept hardcore. They're either ridiculously powerful and make the game boring(Awakening), or bad almost completely across the board(Tellius, Fates). The Jugdral games came closest to getting them right, and only a handful of units across both games were even capable of becoming hybrid units.

Plus, saying they should stay mostly just sounds like keeping them how they were in FE13 and 14. The Fates and Awakening style of "Fuck it, every axe/sword/lance/bow user should be able to use magic, and every magic user should be able to use axes/swords/lances/bows" has been absolutely a bad experiment, IMO. I'm a firm believer in the idea that "less is more" when it comes to this kind of thing. There should be enough variety to keep things interesting, but you shouldn't be adding variety at the detriment of balance and general gameplay cohesiveness.

Make hybrid units that make sense. A mage promotion that can use swords? Sure, Mage Knights(Though Mage Knights in FE are something completely different, you get the idea) have always been a thing in these kinds of high-fantasy settings. I don't think it should be an option for every mage unit, and I've always liked the Jugdral system where unit promotions were character based rather than class based, even if units of certain classes almost always promoted to the same classes. If you can mix these two things, and make hybrid units a rare thing that only certain characters can obtain, I'm 100% okay with it.

But I am not okay with how Awakening/Fates did it, where suddenly petite healers suddenly turn into beefy battle nuns with axes(I know I said I was fine with healers that could attack, but this has always bothered me). It's a fun concept and it became a meme in itself, but it looks goofy, makes no goddamn sense and didn't really work out well for anybody. Not every class needed to have a hybrid promotion.

I don't think Hybrid classes are nearly as common as you're assuming. I've just counted them up (from this image). Ignoring the special and DLC classes, I see 9 hybrid units out of 28 promoted classes. Of those 9 classes, 5 are physical units with a stave (Adventurer, Maid/Butler, Falcon Knight, Great Master and Priestess) leaving 4 as hybrid attackers (Malig Knight, Dark Knight, Basara and Oni Chieftain, names provided on the off chance I've missed one).Or to put it another way, you have two options for Hybrid attacking classes per country. That's 14% of the total number of normal promoted classes in the game (and would be significantly less if you counted unpromoted and special classes). Out of the 19 (normal) unpromoted classes, 10 have the option to promote to a hybrid class and of those 10 only 4 have the option to promote to a hybrid attacking class.

I don't think those statistics are at all unreasonable, especially if your fine with throwing a staff on a physical unit like Adventures and Falcon Knights. All they needed to was buff units like Orochi's growth on their non primary stat. She's still be a more magical orientated Basara than the likes of Oboro but making the physical aspect of the promotion not useless is trivially easy.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Jotari

[Slumber]

35 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't think Hybrid classes are nearly as common as you're assuming. I've just counted them up (from this image). Ignoring the special and DLC classes, I see 8 hybrid units out of 28 promoted classes. Of those 9 classes, 5 are physical units with a stave (Adventurer, Maid/Butler, Falcon Knight, Great Master and Priestess) leaving 4 as hybrid attackers (Malig Knight, Dark Knight, Basara and Oni Chieftain, names provided on the off chance I've missed one).Or to put it another way, you have two options for Hybrid attacking classes per country. That's 14% of the total number of normal promoted classes in the game (and would be significantly less if you counted unpromoted and special classes). Out of the 19 (normal) unpromoted classes, 10 have the option to promote to a hybrid class and of those 10 only 4 have the option to promote to a hybrid attacking class.

I don't think those statistics are at all unreasonable, especially if your fine with throwing a staff on a physical unit like Adventures and Falcon Knights. All they needed to was buff units like Orochi's growth on their non primary stat. She's still be a more magical orientated Basara than the likes of Oboro but making the physical aspect of the promotion not useless is trivially easy.

You missed a big chunk of my argument. Yes, hybrid classes only make roughly 1/3 of the total class roster(Which is still way more than any prior game in the franchise), but only NINE characters in the entire game can't become hybrid units by default. There are 68 playable characters in Fates, and only Silas, Kaze, Mozu, Setsuna, Saizo, Arthur, Laslow, Benny and Keaton are incapable of being a hybrid class without any of the seals that allow them to cross into somebody else's class set. More than 85%(I'm including children here because of how there are only two female units in the whole game who don't get magic or a staff, you have to work to have kids who aren't hybrid units) of the characters in Fates are effectively hybrid characters. There are 0 units who are locked to magic only.

If you want to take out the characters that only have a staff to their name as a hybrid unit, then the list expands, but even then, you have to realize that around half of your units are capable of healing in some capacity, and there's still a huuuuuuuge pool of units who can still use magic AND physical weapons.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Slumber

[Jotari]

41 minutes ago, Slumber said:

You missed a big chunk of my argument. Yes, hybrid classes only make roughly 1/3 of the total class roster(Which is still way more than any prior game in the franchise), but only NINE characters in the entire game can't become hybrid units by default. There are 68 playable characters in Fates, and only Silas, Kaze, Mozu, Setsuna, Saizo, Arthur, Laslow, Benny and Keaton are incapable of being a hybrid class without any of the seals that allow them to cross into somebody else's class set. More than 85%(I'm including children here because of how there are only two female units in the whole game who don't get magic or a staff, you have to work to have kids who aren't hybrid units) of the characters in Fates are effectively hybrid characters. There are 0 units who are locked to magic only.

If you want to take out the characters that only have a staff to their name as a hybrid unit, then the list expands, but even then, you have to realize that around half of your units are capable of healing in some capacity, and there's still a huuuuuuuge pool of units who can still use magic AND physical weapons.

That's due to the nature of the reclassing system more so than the existence of hybrids. If you want to say that level of characters shouldn't have access to that many classes then I agree with you (at least I think it shouldn't be a standard for the series going forward).But taking the basic class spread in Fates, I don't think the commonness of hybrid classes is an issue.

[ositias]

Just as most here say : the triangle of Anima, Light and Dark returning. For Light you can get Bishops. I wouldn't mind Dark Knight being kicked out of the Dark Mage promotion and having Summoner again. The stats of Summoner are meh, but I found it to be fun in FE8. 
Another class I really want to return is Soldier class! Spear Masters also would do it, but I guess that class basically equals Soldier when applied to European aesthetics.
Axe/Lance/Sword/Bow Knight split would be nice too, with the promotion gaining another secondary weapon and only being able to wield legendary weapons of their native weapon. It would make the units themselves even more unique. For Bow Knights, they could use Normads as a base class.
This is about classes, but : I personally would like the stealing mechanic and Canto to return. Hit-and-runs are fun.

[LucarioGamer812]

Well classes I definitely want in it (and most likely will be)

Lord- Great Lord

Cleric-Sage/Bishop or Valkyrie

Cavalier- Paladin

Archer- Sniper

Knight- General

Thief- Assassin

Mage- Sage

Dark Mage- Sorcerer

Pegasus Knight- Falcon Knight (please give them swords again)

Wyvern Rider - Wyvern Lord

Fighter- Berserkor

Mercenary - Hero

Myrmidon- Swordmaster

Manakete

Soldier- Sentinal

I think I covered all of the base classes and added soldier

 

[Gima]

At minimum, I would like these roles filled:

Sword user

Lance user

Axe user

Bow user

Knife user

Tome user

Staff user

Armored Unit

Horseback Unit

Flying Unit

Character with the Pick/Locktouch and/or Steal skills

Character with the Dance/Play/Sing Skill

I'm basically fine with them doing anything, as long as we still see units of these types. Everything else is practically unnecessary.

Edit: ...Actually, nah on some of these. Here's a slight edit.

Edit 2: ...Nah, again. Why take steps back?

Edit 3: As for my personal desires, bring Light and Dark magic back. And if the system overall is not going to be kind of similar to Heroes generic enemy units (i.e. classes and weapon types are separate: a Fighter could wield a Sword, Lance, or Axe, and so could a Flyer), then my personal desire would be that Soldiers and Barbarians are player classes, complete with characters that are that class by default.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Gima

[Slumber]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's due to the nature of the reclassing system more so than the existence of hybrids. If you want to say that level of characters shouldn't have access to that many classes then I agree with you (at least I think it shouldn't be a standard for the series going forward).But taking the basic class spread in Fates, I don't think the commonness of hybrid classes is an issue.

I guess I don't necessarily disagree at that point, then. I still think 1/3 of the unit classes being hybrids is too much. That's way too many classes with access to staves, and it just starts getting redundant. I think there should be three at most.

And half of the split physical/magical damage units, I think, are just poorly designed. Malig Knight makes no sense, since you're taking the flying classes that've always been averse to magic, and making them magical. The logic in replacing Dark Fliers with Malig Knights makes little sense to me. The Oni Chieftain just makes 0 sense, and a unit that could ever make proper use out of axes AND magic would have to split their growths so much that most of their other states would have to suffer, like how Oni Chieftain Rinkah ends up.

For the most part, I don't think there should be any axe/magic hybrids unless they're enemy only units like Barons. The Basara I actually liked, and I think swords make the most sense to accompany magic, since they're light enough that low con/strength hybrid units can actually use them(Or use magic swords). If they could come up with hybrid units that make sense, then 3-4 classes that use magic and physical weapons would be fine with me.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Slumber

[Jotari]

48 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I guess I don't necessarily disagree at that point, then. I still think 1/3 of the unit classes being hybrids is too much. That's way too many classes with access to staves, and it just starts getting redundant. I think there should be three at most.

And half of the split physical/magical damage units, I think, are just poorly designed. Malig Knight makes no sense, since you're taking the flying classes that've always been averse to magic, and making them magical. The logic in replacing Dark Fliers with Malig Knights makes little sense to me. The Oni Chieftain just makes 0 sense, and a unit that could ever make proper use out of axes AND magic would have to split their growths so much that most of their other states would have to suffer, like how Oni Chieftain Rinkah ends up.

For the most part, I don't think there should be any axe/magic hybrids unless they're enemy only units like Barons. The Basara I actually liked, and I think swords make the most sense to accompany magic, since they're light enough that low con/strength hybrid units can actually use them(Or use magic swords). If they could come up with hybrid units that make sense, then 3-4 classes that use magic and physical weapons would be fine with me.

Yeah, it is sort of strange that they went with axes for two of their dual classes (though in defence of Malig Knights I think the idea of a mage wielding class with untypical low resistance is a good idea, though I'd rather see an armoured mage ala baron return). Malik Knights replacing Dark Pegasusi was probably more down to the country split than anything else since they wanted to put Knish knight on pegasus to fit the whole Japanese theme. I think for axes to work as a hybrid it would gel best with Dark Magic. That way you're still exemplifying the low hit, high reward stat spread on both weapons. But for that to be a thing Dark Magic needs to come back :/

[Slumber]

47 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, it is sort of strange that they went with axes for two of their dual classes (though in defence of Malig Knights I think the idea of a mage wielding class with untypical low resistance is a good idea, though I'd rather see an armoured mage ala baron return). Malik Knights replacing Dark Pegasusi was probably more down to the country split than anything else since they wanted to put Knish knight on pegasus to fit the whole Japanese theme. I think for axes to work as a hybrid it would gel best with Dark Magic. That way you're still exemplifying the low hit, high reward stat spread on both weapons. But for that to be a thing Dark Magic needs to come back :/

I could get down with a axe/dark magic unit, but they'd have to be very glasscannon-y, and it'd have to be built for a specific character.

[Jotari]

I think another thing that limits Hybrids in Fates (and a lot of non Hybrid class too) are weapon ranks. If I've just changed to a new class using a weapon type that's in my non dominant stat, then I'm going to be doing puny damage with it for several dozen attacks before getting access to decent weapons. I'd fix this issue (which as I mentioned, plagues a lot of non hybrid units too, Master of Arms in particular suffers since they have to try and level up two new weapons on promotion) by changing the weapon exp formula. To my knowledge it's remained incredibly simple since it's introduction, basically being just the  weapons bonus or weapon bonus * 2 if you have discipline. I'd make it be

(Weapon Bonus (anywhere from 1-5)

+1 if you hit

+ 2 if you have weapon triangle advantage (and you hit)

-1 if you have weapon triangle disadvantage (and you hit)

+1 if kill the enemy

everything * 2 if you have discipline

= wexp)

Discipline should be a very common skill viable to almost every unit in the game (this would have to work in a skill system outside of the 3DS class based skills, unless they're willing to throw skill scrolls on top of that system). Another addition would be special training weapons. E Rank Weapons that deal basically no damage and have poor hit rates but give a full 5 wexp as there bonus. Using this method gaining weapon ranks becomes a matter of changing your priority rather than being too easy or too hard as it's commonly been up until this point. If you're just using the unit normally you're likely only to be getting 3 or 4 wexp per attack. But if you intentionally try to train up a weapon rank you can get up to a maximum of 18 wexp on a single attack. This should allow a unit to get up ranks much faster but due to the poor stats of training weapons and the fact that discipline takes up skill slot, it will hinder their combat ability somewhat as they're training.

I also think splitting Arms Scroll into two versions, one that increases the rank of all weapons (as it currently does) and a less valuable (but more common) version that increases the rank of a single weapon (as it used to do) would help matters.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Jotari

[Anomalocaris]

On 2/5/2017 at 1:52 AM, Jotari said:

I think another thing that limits Hybrids in Fates (and a lot of non Hybrid class too) are weapon ranks. If I've just changed to a new class using a weapon type that's in my non dominant stat, then I'm going to be doing puny damage with it for several dozen attacks before getting access to decent weapons. I'd fix this issue (which as I mentioned, plagues a lot of non hybrid units too, Master of Arms in particular suffers since they have to try and level up two new weapons on promotion) by changing the weapon exp formula. To my knowledge it's remained incredibly simple since it's introduction, basically being just the  weapons bonus or weapon bonus * 2 if you have discipline. I'd make it be

(Weapon Bonus (anywhere from 1-5)

+1 if you hit

+ 2 if you have weapon triangle advantage (and you hit)

-1 if you have weapon triangle disadvantage (and you hit)

+1 if kill the enemy

everything * 2 if you have discipline

= wexp)

Discipline should be a very common skill viable to almost every unit in the game (this would have to work in a skill system outside of the 3DS class based skills, unless they're willing to throw skill scrolls on top of that system). Another addition would be special training weapons. E Rank Weapons that deal basically no damage and have poor hit rates but give a full 5 wexp as there bonus. Using this method gaining weapon ranks becomes a matter of changing your priority rather than being too easy or too hard as it's commonly been up until this point. If you're just using the unit normally you're likely only to be getting 3 or 4 wexp per attack. But if you intentionally try to train up a weapon rank you can get up to a maximum of 18 wexp on a single attack. This should allow a unit to get up ranks much faster but due to the poor stats of training weapons and the fact that discipline takes up skill slot, it will hinder their combat ability somewhat as they're training.

I also think splitting Arms Scroll into two versions, one that increases the rank of all weapons (as it currently does) and a less valuable (but more common) version that increases the rank of a single weapon (as it used to do) would help matters.

I think that would work best. Make Discipline available only as a scroll skill, with about the same rarity and obtainment methods as stat boosters and Arms Scrolls. Maybe a little rarer. Increased wexp gain is not nearly as broken as increased exp gain, so they don't have to throttle its availability like they do with Paragon scrolls.

For "training weapons" my idea was an E-rank weapon that never deals more than 1 damage per attack, cannot double attack, never procs skills, and does not apply debuffs or post-combat skills like Savage Blow, but has an inherent double wexp gain rate and is automatically a 1-2 range weapon.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Anomalocaris

[Jotari]

13 hours ago, Anomalocaris said:

I think that would work best. Make Discipline available only as a scroll skill, with about the same rarity and obtainment methods as stat boosters and Arms Scrolls. Maybe a little rarer. Increased wexp gain is not nearly as broken as increased exp gain, so they don't have to throttle its availability like they do with Paragon scrolls.

For "training weapons" my idea was an E-rank weapon that never deals more than 1 damage per attack, cannot double attack, never procs skills, and does not apply debuffs or post-combat skills like Savage Blow, but has an inherent double wexp gain rate and is automatically a 1-2 range weapon.

I reckon dealing 1 damage would be a bit too abusable. It would basically encourage trapping an opponent and wailing on them with the one unit until they're dead.