Maybe Crits should only deal two times damage

[Jotari]

So I was sort of thinking, Crits are awesome, but they're kind of slanted heavily in favour of the player instead of the enemy. Enemies have practically no luck in most games and if they do have a killer weapon the damage they'd deal with a crit basically makes them too dangerous to live (fates even helpfully highlights them for you for this exact reason). Some times bosses have very minor 1 or 2 crit rates but that doesn't really serve any purpose for strategy other than making you ridiculously careful. So what if, instead of dealing 3 times as much damage they were reduced to only dealing twice as much. Crits would still be dangerous but they wouldn't be nearly as game changing if every few enemies had a small crit chance. But Jotari I hear you crying. That would ruin how awesome and cool Swordmasters and Berserkers are with their crit based design. And I say fear not, we simply just do what Fates did with Killing Weapons and increase the damage crits do with those weapons. Or maybe even make a skill that increases the damage of crits. That way crit orientated units can still exist (for the player and the enemy) but the random crits that happen wouldn't be so needlessly dangerous (I swear, Homasa killed my Ike with a 6% crit on two consecutive attempts of Chapter 19, dealing exactly the same amount of damage as Ike's max HP both times).

Anyway, what do you think? Is this a change you could get behind.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Jotari

[bethany81707]

I think Pokemon made this same change at one point. They don't have 'crit builds' like FE does (in fact, the changes introduced with this made crit builds easier to make). That said, it made nightmarish sudden crits less nightmarish. Might make for a decent addition.

[Dylan Corona]

I think it worth a shot for one game, at least, see how it goes. It seems like FE always mixes things up and tries new thing to find the right fit, its kinda been a thing since the start..so why not. If it doesn't work out, the next game gives a new chance. It's not like changing crit chance would kill the game and drive sales down haha.

[Augestein]

Criticals do need to do less damage, but criticals do not favor the player more than the enemy. They favor the enemy more often on the account that getting hit by a critical is often times lethal, and can randomly annihilate a player unit. 

Edited March 21, 2017 by Augestein

[henrymidfields]

I wouldn't mind the decreased damage modifier - given just how harsh the penalty is for losing a unit. However, if that actually becomes the case in the next FE game, then I want a trade-off with an increase in class-based critical activation percentage rate bonuses back up to FE6 levels. Because, that was what really differentiated swordmasters from heroes. This way, it will still retain enough moments of "How and when should I avoid/engage those crit-happy units?" but with less of the "What if that random pipsqueak gets a (un)lucky crit on my Lord/waifu/hazubando?!!"

Edited March 21, 2017 by henrymidfields

[Jotari]

53 minutes ago, Augestein said:

Criticals do need to do less damage, but criticals do not favor the player more than the enemy. They favor the enemy more often on the account that getting hit by a critical is often times lethal, and can randomly annihilate a player unit. 

Crits do favour the player more because the player can actually use them due to access to Killer Weapons and having Luck Growths. Only a tiny portion of enemies actually have a crit chance against your units and those are the devastating ones but overall they are few and far between and very easily dealt with (by highly prioritizing killing them before they have a chance to attack). The fact that crits are so devastating is what stops them from being actually utilized by the enemy more than five or six times a game. So if crits dealt less damage they could be used by the enemy in the same way they are with the player.

[Extrasolar]

I'll agree with critical hits definitely working in the enemy's favor rather than the player's favor, even though enemy critical hits are far rarer than player critical hits (and thank God for that much...) Yup, it does suck getting nailed by those 1% crits from the enemy...

Enemy crits are by their nature far more meaningful than player crits, since the AI doesn't have to restart the chapter from scratch when one of its units dies, and unlike the player has an entire army of cannon fodder whose fates it couldn't give less of a thought to. In fact, the AI as a whole is free to throw caution to the wind and toss its units willy-nilly at the player in the hopes of wearing down any single unit enough for a kill. Seems like in the later games, the AI even got genre-savvy enough to realize that many players of FE instantly restart the chapter should one of their units die, and began focusing on ganging up on a unit rather than spreading out damage.

One problem I see with reducing crits to x2 is that the two majorly crit-based classes, the Swordmasters and Berserkers (and if we're speaking of Radiant Dawn, Snipers too) are built for the amazing damage while being counterbalanced by certain weaknesses, and nerfing it would hurt their viability in the long run imo. Two of the three - the former two - are Glass Cannons by design, and I think need their high crit modifier.

Swordmasters generally have high speed, but middling to even low attack. Throw a Swordmaster against a high defense enemy like a General without their overpowering crits or an Armorslayer, and they start to struggle. The multiplier on a crit is the often the difference between your Swordmaster killing an enemy, or leaving it alive and leaving themselves open for punishment. Unless you want your Swordmasters always doing scratch damage and failing to kill... And sure, they usually have high avoid, but once they get hit a couple of times they're generally dead due to their low defense.

Berserkers, on the other hand, have astronomical attack, but usually glass defenses as well. They mostly depend on critically-hitting and one-shotting enemies, since they can't take much punishment in return. Snipers can't attack during the enemy phase unless the enemy also attacks them at range, and thus critically hitting is how they can reliably kill an enemy.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Extrasolar

[Jotari]

36 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

I'll agree with critical hits definitely working in the enemy's favor rather than the enemies' favor, even though enemy critical hits are far rarer than player critical hits (and thank God for that much...) Yup, it does suck getting nailed by those 1% crits from the enemy...

Enemy crits are by their nature far more meaningful than player crits, since the AI doesn't have to restart the chapter from scratch when one of its units dies, and unlike the player has an entire army of cannon fodder whose fates it couldn't give less of a thought to. In fact, the AI as a whole is free to throw caution to the wind and toss its units willy-nilly at the player in the hopes of wearing down any single unit enough for a kill. Seems like in the later games, the AI even got genre-savvy enough to realize that many players of FE instantly restart the chapter should one of their units die, and began focusing on ganging up on a unit rather than spreading out damage.

One problem I see with reducing crits to x2 is that the two majorly crit-based classes, the Swordmasters and Berserkers (and if we're speaking of Radiant Dawn, Snipers too) are built for the amazing damage while being counterbalanced by certain weaknesses, and nerfing it would hurt their viability in the long run imo. Two of the three - the former two - are Glass Cannons by design, and I think need their high crit modifier.

Swordmasters generally have high speed, but middling to even low attack. Throw a Swordmaster against a high defense enemy like a General without their overpowering crits or an Armorslayer, and they start to struggle. The multiplier on a crit is the often the difference between your Swordmaster killing an enemy, or leaving it alive and leaving themselves open for punishment. Unless you want your Swordmasters always doing scratch damage and failing to kill... And sure, they usually have high avoid, but once they get hit a couple of times they're generally dead due to their low defense.

Berserkers, on the other hand, have astronomical attack, but usually glass defenses as well. They mostly depend on critically-hitting and one-shotting enemies, since they can't take much punishment in return. Snipers can't attack during the enemy phase unless the enemy also attacks them at range, and thus critically hitting is how they can reliably kill an enemy.

That's why I suggest introducing a skill to increase crit damage or just keeping the increased damage Fate's introduced for Killer Weapons.

[Shadow Mir]

I'd be down with a critical hit nerf since as stated earlier, they tend to not be very potent in player hands, but are incredibly potent in enemy hands. I'd imagine that the likes of Arthur would actually be usable if crits were nerfed, too.

[Interdimensional Observer]

For the first five seconds upon reading this, I was thinking "no way". But you have a point. And as long as we throw in some critical multiplier enhancer for Killer weapons or crit-heavy classes, I'd be fine. All too often all it takes a is a slight crit chance against a unit of mine for me to be dissuaded from attacking an enemy. 

Just tossing this out there- Jugdral crits are 2x Atk (not damage- meaning a 21 atk unit against a 20 def armor deals 22 damage instead of 3) and Berwick's appear to add a random 10-20 damage to an attack.

I considered taking all these different ideas of criticals and labeling them Power Hits, Killer Hits, and Wonder Hits and then assigning to each class the ability to perform one of the three styles, but not the others (barring a weapon which expressly states it will only perform one type of critical). So basically Heroes do 2x Atk Power Hits and SMs 3x damage Killer hits, with Thieves dealing Wonder Hits. Then I concluded that was too convoluted.

[Dunal]

2x damage crits would be better balanced, that is true. It means you can then have the SKL stat provide more crit as well, and then provide extra SKL to certain classes like Swordmasters/Snipers.

Or, taking an idea from a fangame, make it so excess HIT over 100% be converted to crit. As an extension to the above. It means that having an abundance amount of SKL is not wasted either.

Might make the LCK stat more useful as well, since there would be a higher threshold in being immune to crits as a whole. But crits themselves would not be as deadly if you were to receive one. Also means that crits are no longer auto-kills on enemies, which makes it less easy to cheese the game.

I'm all for it, personally.

Edited March 21, 2017 by DLuna

[Dragrath]

hmm It is a tough call I can see the point for it but only if crit based weapons/classes maintain the heightened critical damage

If standard Crits became X2 but weapon locked specialists such as Swordmasters, Berserkers, Spearmasters/Halberdiers, Snipers, Killer and Thunder tomes etc. maintained the heightened (3X crit) then I'd be fine with it.

Actually it might give a worthwhile reason to bring back wrath say if health below x amount (or if unit is attacked) it would restore the standard crit modifier...

That said it also makes it easier for the player to survive as you wouldn't have to worry about your unit deciding to be a hero and kill an enemy that lets one to many foes take a wack at him on the enemy phase... RIP wanna be hero...

[Night Zap]

Nerfing crit damage sounds like a good idea. Maybe the damage multiplier could be based on the skill stat? That way, swordmasters and snipers could get high damage crits without a special skill.

[X-Naut]

I agree that crits need to be nerfed in some capacity but I'm more interested in having an item that can be equipped to a character and halves the damage from a critical hit one time.

[Extrasolar]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's why I suggest introducing a skill to increase crit damage or just keeping the increased damage Fate's introduced for Killer Weapons.

Eh... I guess it would be more accurate to say I personally like how crits are in the current time. I feel like nerfing the crits for everyone except for the specific crit-based classes would make them feel as a whole less epic or impactful, since triple damage on top of decent strength is more of less an automatic kill (I'm assuming that Swordmasters, Bersekers and maybe Snipers are the ones who would have the hypothetical crit damage increase skill). And while Killer Weapons increase the modifier to x4 based on how they work in Fates, they're rare enough that only a few characters can have them at any given time.

With only double damage...it may fall short of a kill, even for decent-strength characters, assuming we're going back to people having decent amounts of HP rather than Fates' low HP totals. Crits for non crit-based classes are already relatively rare, unless the character in question has a high skill modifier in the vein of Ophelia.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Extrasolar

[SpearOfLies]

I feel this will more favor the enemies far more than the player, specially to higher difficulty, where just x2 is enought to kill your characters. Give to the crit based class or crit weapon the normal crit is against of purpose of nerf it. You mostly receive crit from them. Unless they purpose made a fire emblem for critfest I see no point to nerf the damage multiple.

[Jotari]

32 minutes ago, SpearOfLies said:

I feel this will more favor the enemies far more than the player, specially to higher difficulty, where just x2 is enought to kill your characters. Give to the crit based class or crit weapon the normal crit is against of purpose of nerf it. You mostly receive crit from them. Unless they purpose made a fire emblem for critfest I see no point to nerf the damage multiple.

The only reason you normally receive crits from crit orientated enemies is because the game can't afford to give any other enemies any sort of crit chance. If regular crits were nerfed then they could be a natural part of the game rather than being something rare but monstrously annoying. You make the nerf sound pointless but I think it'd make a big difference. You must be using some pretty squishy units if all of them die in just two hits.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Jotari

[SpearOfLies]

27 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The only reason you normally receive crits from crit orientated enemies is because the game can't afford to give any other enemies any sort of crit chance. If regular crits were nerfed then they could be a natural part of the game rather than being something rare but monstrously annoying. You make the nerf sound pointless but I think it'd make a big difference. You must be using some pretty squishy units if all of them die in just two hits.

Then what the point of nerf damage then? Be more common but as well very annoying? I didn't mean the change is pointless or doesn't make any difference, but the reasons about it seems too stupid to me.

The unit that I choose to use as tank should survive the damage regardless x2, x3 or x4. Other unit will survive most of case against normal enemy in 1vs1 scenario. But against boss? Do you expected they do less than half of averange unit's hp? I find extreme more annoying about gambit against boss than gambit one or two enemy on the maps because it didn't force me to retry the entire maps all time. And when they gangbang you? Should I fear any time that when 2 or more unit happen to have chance to attack one of my not tank unit and crit? Or my unit happen to crit and kill as counterattack and get one extra attack which may or not crit. Right now that kind of situation is rare and I prefer it be rare.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, SpearOfLies said:

I feel this will more favor the enemies far more than the player, specially to higher difficulty, where just x2 is enought to kill your characters. Give to the crit based class or crit weapon the normal crit is against of purpose of nerf it. You mostly receive crit from them. Unless they purpose made a fire emblem for critfest I see no point to nerf the damage multiple.

I'm afraid I need you to explain yourself, because as is, crits already favour the enemy.

 

[Junkhead]

I don't think so. It's hardly ever been an issue for me, and it feels awesome.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I wouldn't mind Critical hits having a luna effect or be like The Kaga era crits where Attack is doubled instead of Damage being tripled. To me, a critical hit implies you've found the weak point of your opponent's defenses and exploited it in a daring, all out attack. Hence why Skill is what increases your innate Crit rate, and how curved blades are the design of killing edges. It just seems kind of lame that a myrmidon dealing 2 damage would only deal 6 maximum in such a scenario.

But criticals feel largely unimportant compared to activation skills. A critical has a Skill/2 minus target's luck activation rate, which is a slimmer chance than even Aether and Astra, the strongest and most infrequent ones. Astra may be slightly less damage total than a crit, but if one of those five attacks is a critical, then it's a profit. Aether doesn't usually match 3x damage until late game, but the Sol effect is the ideal addition. If you want to avoid critical hits, get lots of luck. If you want to avoid skills, there's nothing you can do unless Nihil is in the game. I've had this idea where the activation skills could be "Critical modifiers" that characters earn via promotion or can equip like normal skills. The base critical hit can be 2x damage, but you can add a Luna effect, where it's 2x damage with half the enemy's defense dropped. A Sol effect to gain half damage dealt back as health, Astra for 3x damage. Then make up some new skill effects, like a 1.5x damage that activates twice as often as the normal critical hit. Or adding damage based on the user's other stats or nearby support partners, things like that.

[Tamanoir]

I'd like to return  to FE4-5 Crit, honnestly

I'm not gonna remake the calculations, but they have the same effects if User!Atk =  2*Ennemy!Def (i.e. 20 Atk/10 Def,) If User!Atk >  2*Ennemy!Def, the ACtual Crit is better. If User!Atk <  2*Ennemy!Def then, JugdralStyle Crit is beter

Damage x 3 favors high Pow)against Def(/Res).  In most of the case, it's kinda overkill (and units with high Crit also have generally high speed, s and uch often ends up doubling)

Atk x 2 - Def(Res) is better to me since it helps low Power units  against high defense units. It makes life harder on Armour,  and other Tank, but I find it more interresting.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Gustavos said:

I wouldn't mind Critical hits having a luna effect or be like The Kaga era crits where Attack is doubled instead of Damage being tripled. To me, a critical hit implies you've found the weak point of your opponent's defenses and exploited it in a daring, all out attack. Hence why Skill is what increases your innate Crit rate, and how curved blades are the design of killing edges. It just seems kind of lame that a myrmidon dealing 2 damage would only deal 6 maximum in such a scenario.

But criticals feel largely unimportant compared to activation skills. A critical has a Skill/2 minus target's luck activation rate, which is a slimmer chance than even Aether and Astra, the strongest and most infrequent ones. Astra may be slightly less damage total than a crit, but if one of those five attacks is a critical, then it's a profit. Aether doesn't usually match 3x damage until late game, but the Sol effect is the ideal addition. If you want to avoid critical hits, get lots of luck. If you want to avoid skills, there's nothing you can do unless Nihil is in the game. I've had this idea where the activation skills could be "Critical modifiers" that characters earn via promotion or can equip like normal skills. The base critical hit can be 2x damage, but you can add a Luna effect, where it's 2x damage with half the enemy's defense dropped. A Sol effect to gain half damage dealt back as health, Astra for 3x damage. Then make up some new skill effects, like a 1.5x damage that activates twice as often as the normal critical hit. Or adding damage based on the user's other stats or nearby support partners, things like that.

The rareness of crits is offset by the fact that you can use skills and weapons to boost the rate a great deal but the idea is still cool. If I understand it, you can basically equip one proc skill to a unit at a time and then the proc skill replaces the critical hit?