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Should the magic triangle return?


Should the magic triangle return?  

57 members have voted

  1. 1. Should the magic triangle return?

    • Yes
      42
    • No
      15


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1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Wishful thinking, I must say. I doubt it'd make much difference...

Hey, even if it doesn't make the magic triangle worth it, it would still be nice to have those things regardless.

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The essential problem with the old magic triangle is that all mages are built as low HP+high res. With the physical units , we have more variety,  high def+low res, high hp+low def,  or even high resistance and low defense (eg peg knights,, dread fighters). 

The result of all magic units having nearly the same defensive build means that you want avoid ALL mage on mage combat(and in game's where enemy Ai is based off of potential damage, they'll also prefer to hit another unit neutrally rather than exploiting your mage's weakness to them) . You don't avoid it because it is dangerous- you simply avoid it because neither your mage nor the enemy mage will take significant damage. It's very much a waste of a turn. 

I've seen people recommend things such as "armor mages" with high physical defense and low resistance to mitigate this in the future and encourage using mages to counter enemy (dark/light tome users), but personally I'm not sold on the idea... For one thing it seems like it would drive FE back into the enemy phase focused stone age 

Also in most games the triangle impacts accuracy to a greater extent than damage- but fighting against dark tomes against disadvantage isn't really as bad as it should be in the "classic" games. If you were going to do almost no damage to them and they were barely going to do damage to you... then a higher chance of missing them or them having 10 more hit really doesn't matter. 90% of mage on mage battles only happen when  A: you are using the mage to body block or stall them with the intent of finishing them with your low res physical units later..  The other 10% happen when B: When the level/stat difference makes the weapon triangle irrelevant. 

Frankly, I think Heroes is the best impementation of magic. The fates version also appeals to me on paper, as it similarly creates actual tactical reasons for fighting or defending against common enemy types, but outside of royals I almost play them mage-less. Stuff like enemies exclusively getting the 1-2 version of the javelin/handaxe does reduce opportunities to use the trinagle proactively as the player a lot rarer than you can in Heroes for example.  The fates triangles does go a long way to make fighting enemy mages more strategic though. I think the Fates triangle in a game that used a different stat spread from fates could have worked excellently. 

Edited by Reality
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If they're going to bring back the magic triangle then diversifying the growth stats on mages/priests/druids is a must and characters themselves have to have inherently different stat growths like they do for the physical dmg characters.

Otherwise what I think they could do to mitigate some the defense flaws with stacking Magic res on these classes, would be to borrow a piece of the magic system from Dark Souls where certain types of tomes deal physical Dmg instead.

And in all honesty, type advantage stops being relevant towards late game anyways.  Your characters can only do so much damage, they are still squishy against a Killing Edge Swordmaster.  It turns into the same late game the Weapon triangle has, anyone remember Amelia, aka Sonic the General.  Even if an enemy could land a hit, they literally did 0 dmg like 2 times with their brave weapon.  Shit I happened to use Ike like 24/7 on PoR and leveled him up to 20 way before his forced promotion and he was a god for the rest of the play through.  There will still be broken characters no matter what, but that's what makes the game unique.

Edited by Gleiphnir
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20 hours ago, Slumber said:

Thunder was effective against Dragons and Wyvern riders in PoR/RD, IIRC.

The fire parallel would have been to be make fire effective against horsies, but that might have made fire magic OP, since those are way more prevalent than Wyverns and Peggies. It was effective against beast Laguz, though.

Thunder was effective against dragons in both but effective against Wyvern riders only in RD. Wind was effective against Wyvern riders in PoR. 

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On November 2, 2017 at 10:53 AM, Gleiphnir said:

If they're going to bring back the magic triangle then diversifying the growth stats on mages/priests/druids is a must and characters themselves have to have inherently different stat growths like they do for the physical dmg characters.

Otherwise what I think they could do to mitigate some the defense flaws with stacking Magic res on these classes, would be to borrow a piece of the magic system from Dark Souls where certain types of tomes deal physical Dmg instead.

And in all honesty, type advantage stops being relevant towards late game anyways.  Your characters can only do so much damage, they are still squishy against a Killing Edge Swordmaster.  It turns into the same late game the Weapon triangle has, anyone remember Amelia, aka Sonic the General.  Even if an enemy could land a hit, they literally did 0 dmg like 2 times with their brave weapon.  Shit I happened to use Ike like 24/7 on PoR and leveled him up to 20 way before his forced promotion and he was a god for the rest of the play through.  There will still be broken characters no matter what, but that's what makes the game unique.

Your example woulda gotten traction if it weren't for the fact you're using frigging Sacred Stones as your example - said game happens to be the easiest in the series, for one, and two, terrain is abundant and rather potent. I also never make Amelia a General because it just ain't worth it, but I digress.

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I definitely would like to see the magic triangle however I think for it too work something needs to be done about enemy mages. What I mean is in FE7 it doesn't matter if Lucius is at a disadvantage when attacking anima mages as he's fast with very high resistance so he's going to decimate even mages he's at a disadvantage with. This I think is largely due to the stats of enemy mages and the potency of the magic triangle. The magic triangle should be in the game but should also matter, with the weapon triangle you don't run into the triangle not mattering unless we're dealing with a well trained unit and even then it's usually specifically a mercenary or something. So yes, I want the magic triangle but I also want it too matter, what magic element is used against X mage.

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People seriously think the magic triangle added strategy to the GBA and Tellius games? 99% of the time, if not every single time, it was pointless and didn't change anything because all mage classes have stats too similar for you to think differently about how to approach them.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On November 4, 2017 at 6:37 AM, OakTree said:

People seriously think the magic triangle added strategy to the GBA and Tellius games? 99% of the time, if not every single time, it was pointless and didn't change anything because all mage classes have stats too similar for you to think differently about how to approach them.

On November 4, 2017 at 6:29 AM, SavageVolug said:

I definitely would like to see the magic triangle however I think for it too work something needs to be done about enemy mages. What I mean is in FE7 it doesn't matter if Lucius is at a disadvantage when attacking anima mages as he's fast with very high resistance so he's going to decimate even mages he's at a disadvantage with. This I think is largely due to the stats of enemy mages and the potency of the magic triangle. The magic triangle should be in the game but should also matter, with the weapon triangle you don't run into the triangle not mattering unless we're dealing with a well trained unit and even then it's usually specifically a mercenary or something. So yes, I want the magic triangle but I also want it too matter, what magic element is used against X mage.

Exactly - how the heck does the magic triangle make any difference when pretty much every time mages are fighting each other, you either have one side outclassed by a big enough margin that it does nothing, or you have a scenario where they're doing next to no damage to each other??? This is why I find the overwhelming hype and support the magic triangle gets to be unjustified.

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THe big issue with a sepearate magic triangle is that there are reletively few mages compared to physical units in all FE games. As such, any seperate magic triangle will have the issue that most of the units in the game ignore it. It is no accident that the few times a seperate triangle matters is when the unit ballence is skewed tward magic users (such as chapter 4 of fe4, where tiltyu is even less usable because 1/3rd of the units are wind mages, who she has wtd against.) This is why I like the heroes and fates triangles. In fact, heroes does the best job in the series of making magic users distinct by having them use a triangle that mattered, giving them notably different stat spreads and skills, and including a wide variety of distinct magical weapons (whereas other games in the series tend to have 4 or 5 progressively stronger tomes with no special effects, and a 3-10 range tome).

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7 hours ago, sirmola said:

THe big issue with a sepearate magic triangle is that there are reletively few mages compared to physical units in all FE games. As such, any seperate magic triangle will have the issue that most of the units in the game ignore it. It is no accident that the few times a seperate triangle matters is when the unit ballence is skewed tward magic users (such as chapter 4 of fe4, where tiltyu is even less usable because 1/3rd of the units are wind mages, who she has wtd against.) This is why I like the heroes and fates triangles. In fact, heroes does the best job in the series of making magic users distinct by having them use a triangle that mattered, giving them notably different stat spreads and skills, and including a wide variety of distinct magical weapons (whereas other games in the series tend to have 4 or 5 progressively stronger tomes with no special effects, and a 3-10 range tome).

I actually wouldn't mind if we got something like Dark/Light/Anima(Or Fire/Wind/Lightning depending on what the director is feeling. Maybe Dark and Light being being something else outside of the traditional magic triangle like we saw in Jugdral and Tellius.) that essentially acted as magic Axes/Swords/Lances, basically adapting the Heroes triangle. Bows, knives and staves remain neutral.

Dark might have the WTA advantage over Lances, Light over axes, Anima over swords. At the very least it'd give you more to consider when tossing a physical unit to a magic boss.

Diversifying mage stats a bit more would help(Especially the defensive stats). Make Dark Mages physically tanky, but not so much with magic. Light Mages would be the opposite. Anima Mages would be in the middle. It seems like they were moving towards this, but Awakening threw things off by making magic one type. The dark mages were at least physically tanky.

Now that I think about it, I might like Fire/Wind/Lightning more now that I just talked shit about Fates' secondary triangle not making sense. Lightning strikes swords, which are mostly metal, fire burns lances, which are mostly wood, and the broad, unbalanced size of axes causes them to get thrown off by wind magic.

Obviously not a perfect or not fully thought out thing, but I think there's room to make the magic triangle work in tandem with the physical triangle.

Edited by Slumber
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The triangle isn't a necessity, but separating magic into different types gives them room to breath, and it allows for a wider variety of magic classes. It's more satisfying that way.

Though honestly, I don't see a reason not to add the triangle at that point. It works for melee, and it will still work for magic like it did in the GBA era.

Edited by TheSS
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11 hours ago, TheSS said:

Though honestly, I don't see a reason not to add the triangle at that point. It works for melee, and it will still work for magic like it did in the GBA era.

I don't see how it worked in the GBA era when two of the three games had weak enemies, and one of those had Luna, which in itself was another strike against the magic triangle thanks to being broken, with the last having accessibility issues with light magic thanks to it only being usable by a promoted class.

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So, the flaws here are that while the triangle can potencially focus and diversify different mage classes, mages are built too similarly across the board for a trinity system among mages to work.

So, either different mage jobs would need more variety in growths, or the triangle could operate in the same method as Heroes were in it's layered with the regular triangle.

I'd like a bit of both, but, as for the comment on why one would choose Miriel/Ricken/Laurent over Tharja/Henry, two words: staff access. But, Awakening gave Mage to Sage promotes a disadvantage over the others in that they, by default, lacked access to the Healtouch skill or a mount. (Try Sage Libra, though. Good stuff.)

But that's been the main deal with current magic units. They are just mages + something. Dark Mage, mage + nosferatu. Sage/Diviner, mage + staff. Dark Knight and Valkyrie being their horse versions. The only tome restriction being the very few limited to dark mages, bit mages can equip all tomes available otherwise.

So, what would the triangle add? Dark Mages can now ONLY equip Nosferatu and variants. Sages can only equip light magic tomes. Or would we color code it unit by unit? Like, Laura the valkyrie is red, so only anima, but Sarah the valkyrie is blue, so only light, but Sarah still gets a bonus on swords.

Plus, colorless units/outside triangle weapons could still be a thing in either scenario, but either would further diversify mage units a good bit.

Edited by Altrosa
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2 hours ago, Blade Lord Lyn said:

Yes easily and make Daggers and Bows as their own thing again daggers still debuff and bows the same as usual.

So would you think Bows would act as a sort on non-elemental alternative to mages or have the huge range seen in SoV?

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3 hours ago, Blade Lord Lyn said:

Yes easily and make Daggers and Bows as their own thing again daggers still debuff and bows the same as usual.

I dunno about you, but whilst I see bows going back to being neutral, I'm not willing to assume daggers are here to stay just yet... And I've said this before, but I don't see why the magic triangle gets so much support when it just feels tacked on...

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12 hours ago, Altrosa said:

So would you think Bows would act as a sort on non-elemental alternative to mages or have the huge range seen in SoV?

I like them to be non-elemental as they usually are pre Fates as for range I'd give more on their promotion while keeping them still 2 range unless there's a special Bow that can attack close range.

11 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I dunno about you, but whilst I see bows going back to being neutral, I'm not willing to assume daggers are here to stay just yet... And I've said this before, but I don't see why the magic triangle gets so much support when it just feels tacked on...

Im assuming daggers will stay due to Heroes using them alot although not as varied to other weapons but if they don't return nothing really lost. I feel the magic triangle gets support because it gives something neat for magic units since the weapon triangle is always prevelant in the series and just feels like an added bonus for them against the opposing disadvantage unit I wouldn't be upset if its still not returning I just want Light magic coming back and staying.

Edited by Blade Lord Lyn
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1 hour ago, Blade Lord Lyn said:

I like them to be non-elemental as they usually are pre Fates as for range I'd give more on their promotion while keeping them still 2 range unless there's a special Bow that can attack close range.

Im assuming daggers will stay due to Heroes using them alot although not as varied to other weapons but if they don't return nothing really lost. I feel the magic triangle gets support because it gives something neat for magic units since the weapon triangle is always prevelant in the series and just feels like an added bonus for them against the opposing disadvantage unit I wouldn't be upset if its still not returning I just want Light magic coming back and staying.

Fates did have bows that could attack up close, but one of them (Skadi) was enemy only, another one was weak and limited to 1 range, yet another was even weaker, and the last was a magic weapon, and thus very limited in terms of who could use it proficiently.

Well, I'm extremely hesitant to think that they're here to stay just because Heroes used them... Only 5 classes in Fates actually got daggers, with 3 of them being in the same class line, and the other two were a DLC class and a class that was tied to a healing class. Anyways, I have trouble thinking that the magic triangle does anything when it's often easy to get away with ignoring (it's really saying something that the one game where it could be argued to be noticeable was also the one where it was broken [thanks to wind magic being broken]; it doesn't help that situations where the enemy forces have a notable portion of them being mages are virtually nonexistent). Compare to the weapon triangle, where there is more variety among unit types in terms of stats. Basically, it's obvious I'm in trouble if a knight gets the drop on my myrmidon, but I don't feel that way if a Mage attacks my monk.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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Depends though. Daggers as they are used now were new to Fates, weren't they? 

The skill Point Blank was a huge boon to bows, and so desired for powerful bow users like Takumi, but I still hope they take the SoV route with bows, perhaps accuracy getting a hit the farther the range. But, I guess it's generally agreed bow users aren't "bad," but any bonuses bows carry aren't enough to overshadow mage jobs.

I, personally, have yet to play a game with the magic triangle, but it reads to me like the games with the mechanic didn't develop around it well. 

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48 minutes ago, Altrosa said:

Depends though. Daggers as they are used now were new to Fates, weren't they? 

The skill Point Blank was a huge boon to bows, and so desired for powerful bow users like Takumi, but I still hope they take the SoV route with bows, perhaps accuracy getting a hit the farther the range. But, I guess it's generally agreed bow users aren't "bad," but any bonuses bows carry aren't enough to overshadow mage jobs.

I, personally, have yet to play a game with the magic triangle, but it reads to me like the games with the mechanic didn't develop around it well. 

That would be true. 

The problem with Point Blank is that (1) it's locked behind a paywall, (2) the DLC that rewards it is tedious (not to mention that getting it requires everyone to survive), and (3) almost none of the bow users in the game are durable enough that they'd want to be on the front lines.

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