Do You See IS Moving Forward With Fates's Weapon Triangle

[Captain Karnage]

In regards to the FE 16"leaks",and from what I see as too good to be true, I've been having a hard time believing that IS would drop their redesigned weapon triangle. This mainly has to do with daggers as I think they're best used on units that aren' fully combat focused, like thieves and butlers/maids. I'm not sure what the majority thinks but I think it's' for the better,  I think having all weapons under the same triangle made combat much more fun, it added more risk and reward gameplay, and in some ways it made it easier and harder at the same time to deal with a variey of units.

I don't see the triangle going away anytime soon.

any yes, someone is going to ask me. I know SoV is a thing, and I know it doesn't have the triangle as it's a special case being that it' a remake of a game that didn't even have playable axe units

 

[Jedi]

Not sure, Switch is a new console game, its usually when they experiment the hardest.

[Slumber]

I'd really rather not.

I REALLY didn't like the secondary triangle with HW/Magic/Bows.

[Magical Glace]

I'd prefer if they kept a Heroes like triangle, myself.  My main problem with the Fates Triangle is the primarily Res targeting weapons being locked to one spot was simply strange.  Heroes putting different types of magic in different spots was significantly better and I'd appreciate it if that was kept.

[BANRYU]

Nahh, not really. I'm sure this has been said a million and a half times, but I'd be happiest if we just went back to having the traditional weapon triangle and the Dark/Anima/Light magic triangle. Sweeten the deal by having the Anima triangle within that triangle and adding more interesting effects to all the magic (GBA-esque magic animations that really show the scale and scope of the magic's power would be the icing on the cake as well), and I'd have no complaints. 

[Shadow Mir]

5 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

Nahh, not really. I'm sure this has been said a million and a half times, but I'd be happiest if we just went back to having the traditional weapon triangle and the Dark/Anima/Light magic triangle. Sweeten the deal by having the Anima triangle within that triangle and adding more interesting effects to all the magic (GBA-esque magic animations that really show the scale and scope of the magic's power would be the icing on the cake as well), and I'd have no complaints. 

Hell naw. The magic triangle needs to stay gone. It didn't do jack back then, so what possesses you to think it deserves to be brought back, and worse yet, over-complicating things???

As to the thread, I doubt it.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[BANRYU]

17 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Hell naw. The magic triangle needs to stay gone. It didn't do jack back then, so what possesses you to think it deserves to be brought back, and worse yet, over-complicating things???

As to the thread, I doubt it.

Did it not? Do you have some counterpoint(s) to back this up? :0 Short of the anima triangle within the magic triangle (which admittedly is rather convoluted, but IT'S MAGIC it should probably be complicated okay), I don't really see how it over-complicated things, myself. I got no objections to being enlightened, but.... I just think we haven't seen the full potential of it yet. 

FE6, rather badly implemented since light magic is locked to promotion-only which kinda skews the distribution of its users, as well as messing with the dynamic of all three by extension. In FE7 it was at least decently implemented as I recall, with a reasonable variety of both allied and enemy mages of all three types (barring Canas being the only Dark-user but still. That made it more special in that game IMO). Because the player units are so strong compared to enemies it often didn't matter once you get into the late or even mid-game, but it was no worse off than the regular weapon triangle as I recall. In FE8 it was hella skewed because light magic was king 90% of the time since monster effectiveness, but in a campaign where monster and enemy encounters are more balanced out, I could see it working better. FE9 was basically the same but with a different coat of paint, and the effectivenesses of the different anima types made things way more interesting. FE10 was probably at its most convoluted, as mentioned earlier, but that game is kind of a poor example for the greater magic triangle considering there were no allied Dark users for most of the game and distribution of Dark/Light users was kind of weird and skewed IIRC. Awakening cut it down to its simplest and easily the most lackluster magic system IMO, while Fates adding it to the overall triangle was..... ....fine. But kind of a loss for exploring interesting uses/effects of magic IMO. In the context it's in, it's fine though. 

...and other games I can't comment on bc I didn't play. 

tl;dr I just think the magic triangle, even the regular one, hasn't had its potential fully tapped yet. There are still plenty of ways it could be implemented that, IMO, wouldn't be too complicated or unwieldy, unless high volume of weapon types bothers you I suppose? (which is understandable enough I guess to each their own)

Edited November 16, 2017 by BANRYU

[Captain Karnage]

55 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I'd really rather not.

I REALLY didn't like the secondary triangle with HW/Magic/Bows.

Could you explain why you didn't like it

27 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

I'd prefer if they kept a Heroes like triangle, myself.  My main problem with the Fates Triangle is the primarily Res targeting weapons being locked to one spot was simply strange.  Heroes putting different types of magic in different spots was significantly better and I'd appreciate it if that was kept.

Well most units in that family (daggers and lances) were pretty good at taking hits from mages, like pegasas knights, ninjas, and maids\butlers, with the exemption of armor knights,  it atleast gave them a little bit better chance of surviving.

10 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

As to the thread, I doubt it.

I don't know, I wouldn't think they'd change a mechanic that had been in the series for at least 20 years at that time for no reason.

[Jedi]

11 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

Did it not? Do you have some counterpoint(s) to back this up? :0 Short of the anima triangle within the magic triangle (which admittedly is rather convoluted, but IT'S MAGIC it should probably be complicated okay), I don't really see how it over-complicated things, myself. I got no objections to being enlightened, but.... I just think we haven't seen the full potential of it yet. 

FE6, rather badly implemented since light magic is locked to promotion-only which kinda skews the distribution of its users, as well as messing with the dynamic of all three by extension. In FE7 it was at least decently implemented as I recall, with a reasonable variety of both allied and enemy mages of all three types (barring Canas being the only Dark-user but still. That made it more special in that game IMO). Because the player units are so strong compared to enemies it often didn't matter once you get into the late or even mid-game, but it was no worse off than the regular weapon triangle as I recall. In FE8 it was hella skewed because light magic was king 90% of the time since monster effectiveness, but in a campaign where monster and enemy encounters are more balanced out, I could see it working better. FE9 was basically the same but with a different coat of paint, and the effectivenesses of the different anima types made things way more interesting. FE10 was probably at its most convoluted, as mentioned earlier, but that game is kind of a poor example for the greater magic triangle considering there were no allied Dark users for most of the game and distribution of Dark/Light users was kind of weird and skewed IIRC. Awakening cut it down to its simplest and easily the most lackluster magic system IMO, while Fates adding it to the overall triangle was..... ....fine. But kind of a loss for exploring interesting uses/effects of magic IMO. In the context it's in, it's fine though. 

...and other games I can't comment on bc I didn't play. 

tl;dr I just think the magic triangle, even the regular one, hasn't had its potential fully tapped yet. There are still plenty of ways it could be implemented that, IMO, wouldn't be too complicated or unwieldy, unless high volume of weapon types bothers you I suppose? (which is understandable enough I guess to each their own)

The magic triangle has been badly implemented in every game its existed in, I doubt they'll get it right anytime soon.

Jugdral Wind and Light magic were opaf. 

Elibe was when all 3 magics were ok but you're never going to send mages against each other if you're playing smart 

Magvel was when Dark Magic became terrible

Tellius was an era of magic being mostly bad besides Thunder and even those users of it were pretty meh 

Etc, its much simplier to just have a variety of magic in one category like Archanea or Echoes

Edited November 16, 2017 by Jedi

[Shadow Mir]

15 minutes ago, BANRYU said:

Did it not? Do you have some counterpoint(s) to back this up? :0 Short of the anima triangle within the magic triangle (which admittedly is rather convoluted, but IT'S MAGIC it should probably be complicated okay), I don't really see how it over-complicated things, myself. I got no objections to being enlightened, but.... I just think we haven't seen the full potential of it yet. 

FE6, rather badly implemented since light magic is locked to promotion-only which kinda skews the distribution of its users, as well as messing with the dynamic of all three by extension. In FE7 it was at least decently implemented as I recall, with a reasonable variety of both allied and enemy mages of all three types (barring Canas being the only Dark-user but still. That made it more special in that game IMO). Because the player units are so strong compared to enemies it often didn't matter once you get into the late or even mid-game, but it was no worse off than the regular weapon triangle as I recall. In FE8 it was hella skewed because light magic was king 90% of the time since monster effectiveness, but in a campaign where monster and enemy encounters are more balanced out, I could see it working better. FE9 was basically the same but with a different coat of paint, and the effectivenesses of the different anima types made things way more interesting. FE10 was probably at its most convoluted, as mentioned earlier, but that game is kind of a poor example for the greater magic triangle considering there were no allied Dark users for most of the game and distribution of Dark/Light users was kind of weird and skewed IIRC. Awakening cut it down to its simplest and easily the most lackluster magic system IMO, while Fates adding it to the overall triangle was..... ....fine. But kind of a loss for exploring interesting uses/effects of magic IMO. In the context it's in, it's fine though. 

...and other games I can't comment on bc I didn't play. 

tl;dr I just think the magic triangle, even the regular one, hasn't had its potential fully tapped yet. There are still plenty of ways it could be implemented that, IMO, wouldn't be too complicated or unwieldy, unless high volume of weapon types bothers you I suppose? (which is understandable enough I guess to each their own)

Of course it did nothing - seriously, tell me when you had your mage need the magic triangle to come out on top. ...What was that? You can't? And you know the reason why that is? Because Mages in general tend to be too similar in stats for you to think differently about how to approach them. Anyways, the magic triangle was poorly done in literally every game that had it, and I seriously think they'll get it right... oh, when pigs fly. AKA, never. So long story short, there is no untapped potential for the magic triangle whatsoever.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Slumber]

22 minutes ago, Captain Karnage said:

Could you explain why you didn't like it

Multiple reasons.

1) Because it effectively made Hidden Weapons super powerful within that triangle. They dominated magic, and could attack bows easily without really having to worry about WT(The fact that every class that used HWs had insanely high skill and speed didn't really help matters).

The way stat buffs/debuffs worked with HW compounded the issue, since even if there was potentially a case where a HW WAS in danger of a Bow users(Unlikely), after one round, most of the threat would go away now that the Bow user is nerfed.

Even if the next game gets rid of the buff/debuff thing, putting two weapon types that are 1-2 range in a triangle with bows, which are almost always only 2 range is something that will continue, unless they change how bows work. I'd see them changing the weapon triangle again before seeing bows being reworked.

2) It continues to shove all magic types into one rank. That'd be 5 physical weapon types and 1 magic type, not counting staves. I've NEVER liked that Awakening went back to the FE1-3 style of just lumping all magic in together. Having a bajillion different random classes that can use all mixes of physical and magical weapons was never, ever a good justification for this in my mind. "Yeah, let's have this big, buff tribal axe class use magic at promotion. Why not."

3) This one's mostly a just a pet peeve, but it makes no sense. With the sword/lance/axe weapon types, you could at least come to some conclusion as to how this makes logical sense. Lances are long and can outreach swords, but are fragile and mostly made of wood, so they get chopped by axes, which in turn are top heavy and too slow to deal with the more balanced swords up close. And with any magic triangle, you could usually go "Well, it's magic."

What logic is there in "Magic beats bows, bows beat knives, knives beat magic"? I've been trying to wrap my head around this for nearly two years now.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Slumber

[Alastor15243]

Personally I wish they'd fix the damned colors.

Swords should be blue, axes should be red, and lances should be green. The colors don't match the general temperament of the weapons. Why does nobody else see this? They even missed the opportunity to make the starting trio have their weapons (mostly) match their hair!

[Shadow Mir]

4 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Multiple reasons.

1) Because it effectively made Hidden Weapons super powerful within that triangle. They dominated magic, and could attack bows easily without really having to worry about WT(The fact that every class that used HWs had insanely high skill and speed didn't really help matters).

The way stat buffs/debuffs worked with HW compounded the issue, since even if there was potentially a case where a HW WAS in danger of a Bow users(Unlikely), after one round, most of the threat would go away now that the Bow user is nerfed.

Even if the next game gets rid of the buff/debuff thing, putting two weapon types that are 1-2 range in a triangle with bows, which are almost always only 2 range is something that will continue, unless they change how bows work. I'd see them changing the weapon triangle again before seeing bows being reworked.

2) It continues to shove all magic types into one rank. That'd be 5 physical weapon types and 1 magic type, not counting staves. I've NEVER liked that Awakening went back to the FE1-3 style of just lumping all magic in together. Having a bajillion different random classes that can use all mixes of physical and magical weapons was never, ever a good justification for this in my mind. "Yeah, let's have this big, buff tribal axe class use magic at promotion. Why not."

3) This one's mostly a just a pet peeve, but it makes no sense. With the sword/lance/axe weapon types, you could at least come to some conclusion as to how this makes logical sense. Lances are long and can outreach swords, but are fragile and mostly made of wood, so they get chopped by axes, which in turn are top heavy and too slow to deal with the more balanced swords up close. And with any magic triangle, you could usually go "Well, it's magic."

What logic is there in "Magic beats bows, bows beat knives, knives beat magic"?

Except all of the classes that got shurikens were also physically fragile, meaning that one shot hitting means they can kiss at least half their HP bye bye. And don't forget that evade was nerfed, AND that most bow classes have high Skill.

[Slumber]

1 minute ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Except all of the classes that got shurikens were also physically fragile, meaning that one shot hitting means they can kiss at least half their HP bye bye. And don't forget that evade was nerfed, AND that most bow classes have high Skill.

On enemy phases, but on player phases HW users had no reason to fear bows and go in for attacks.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Slumber

[Shadow Mir]

11 minutes ago, Slumber said:

On enemy phases, but on player phases HW users had no reason to fear bows and go in for attacks.

True, but at the same time I wouldn't expect them to accomplish much between the low Strength scores of most of the shuriken classes (as in, every one of them except Mechanist and Dread Fighter) and teh low Mt of the weapons themselves (the strongest shuriken that doesn't debuff you or do self-damage is only 7 Mt).

Edited November 16, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[familyplayer]

1 hour ago, Glaceon Mage said:

My main problem with the Fates Triangle is the primarily Res targeting weapons being locked to one spot was simply strange.

You know, I forget about this detail, but I do think it hurts mages quite a bit. It's especially weird to think that mages have a disadvantage against knights of all things.

[Slumber]

27 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

True, but at the same time I wouldn't expect them to accomplish much considering the low Strength scores of most of the shuriken classes (as in, every one of them except Mechanist and Dread Fighter).

I mean, the Maids/Butlers all are pretty eh with strength, but Saizo, Kaze and Kagera all have respectable growth rates(Kagero's is fucking insane). It doesn't help that they can give noticeable stat debuffs. Usually two stats at once, sometimes more. If they can't finish off a bow user(Who also don't have very remarkable strength growths and are also generally fragile) in one round, they can make it to where the weapon triangle doesn't really matter much by nerfing their damage output or their skill and hit rates.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Slumber

[LucarioGamer812]

So I honestly don't like Fates weapon triangle, but I can see a variation of it. So same thing for melee types, I do honestly prefer the magic and anima triangle, the way I think of it is "Fire prospers in wind, wind moves storms, and lightning is the source of fire". Anyways beyond that I can see them possibly including Echoes style of bows (which have 1-3 range base if I'm correct) and are higher damage then daggers, so dagger can be weaker but more accurate and maybe higher critical since the user often controls where it goes (ie go for arteries) and both of these can be neutral to the triangle, will bows probably be better, of course, but if they still keep the fact that most daggers are res-tanky and/or dodgy then it could serve as a niche weapon. Also it may be OP but say maybe have daggers have a built in armorslayer due to them being small enough to get in-between the plates. That would also give them more utility. IDK just some ideas. Also definitely staves and stones should be neutral.

[Gamer1234556]

Honestly, I find the weapon triangle as a whole (considering that I have never played Fates or any of the 3DS games) as a rather bad idea, considering how most of the implementations I have been through that haven't implemented the idea well.

You get the GBA games where swords and lances become so overused while your axe wielders lick the dust off the bench.

Then there are the DS games, which invert the idea and worsen it, as axes become insanely overpowered while swords end up generally sucking for most of the game.

Furthermore, the idea of a magic triangle is also pretty bad as well, but somebody else has covered that in this post.

[Armagon]

25 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Personally I wish they'd fix the damned colors.

Swords should be blue, axes should be red, and lances should be green. The colors don't match the general temperament of the weapons. Why does nobody else see this? They even missed the opportunity to make the starting trio have their weapons (mostly) match their hair!

Could you actually elaborate on this please? I don't really see why the colors are an issue. As far as i'm aware, the Weapon Triangle having colors was only a thing in Fates and in Heroes.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Could you actually elaborate on this please? I don't really see why the colors are an issue. As far as i'm aware, the Weapon Triangle having colors was only a thing in Fates and in Heroes.

Well yeah but that's the weapon triangle we're talking about. It's just a minor annoyance to me that they picked the color that typically symbolizes power and offense to represent the weakest physical weapon when shifting it over one degree so swords were blue and axes were red would make much more sense.

And then Alphonse would be a blue unit to match his hair and Anna would be a red unit to match hers.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Alastor15243

[Florete]

Will it come back? Hard to say. I could see a similar, reformatted version coming in.

 

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Hell naw. The magic triangle needs to stay gone. It didn't do jack back then, so what possesses you to think it deserves to be brought back, and worse yet, over-complicating things???

As to the thread, I doubt it.

This again? Haven't I told you before that just because it hasn't been perfect doesn't mean it can't be done well? If the physical weapon triangle can be relevant, in theory, so can the magical.

50 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Of course it did nothing - seriously, tell me when you had your mage need the magic triangle to come out on top. ...What was that? You can't? And you know the reason why that is? Because Mages in general tend to be too similar in stats for you to think differently about how to approach them. Anyways, the magic triangle was poorly done in literally every game that had it, and I seriously think they'll get it right... oh, when pigs fly. AKA, never. So long story short, there is no untapped potential for the magic triangle whatsoever.

Ugh. Why do I bother?

13 minutes ago, Gamer1234556 said:

You get the GBA games where swords and lances become so overused while your axe wielders lick the dust off the bench.

That's only 1/3 of the GBA games...and debatable even then.

[BANRYU]

1 hour ago, Jedi said:

The magic triangle has been badly implemented in every game its existed in, I doubt they'll get it right anytime soon.

Jugdral Wind and Light magic were opaf. 

Elibe was when all 3 magics were ok but you're never going to send mages against each other if you're playing smart 

Magvel was when Dark Magic became terrible

Tellius was an era of magic being mostly bad besides Thunder and even those users of it were pretty meh 

Etc, its much simplier to just have a variety of magic in one category like Archanea or Echoes

Simpler, sure-- and the way Echoes did it was certainly interesting I'll grant, for what that was I liked it too.

I guess Elibe-- FE7 specifically for the aforementioned reasons-- is probably my main model for thinking 'we can do it again... we can do it better.' (Also there are a few maps here and there with the various magers behind walls and corridors where countermagic sniping can be pretty applicable as I recall.)

I can't deny that it's basically been on a decline since then. But 'simpler' isn't always necessarily better (a lot of times it is, certainly, but not always). I'm not sure I really trust them to get it right either, admittedly, but one can hope, surely. 

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Of course it did nothing - seriously, tell me when you had your mage need the magic triangle to come out on top. ...What was that? You can't? And you know the reason why that is? Because Mages in general tend to be too similar in stats for you to think differently about how to approach them. Anyways, the magic triangle was poorly done in literally every game that had it, and I seriously think they'll get it right... oh, when pigs fly. AKA, never. So long story short, there is no untapped potential for the magic triangle whatsoever.

Right right, because all the mage types having samey stats isn't something that can be modified or changed in future installments, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sorry, but you are saying that there is no possibility for improvement, nothing that can be built or improved upon (despite ironically pointing out something that could be changed to IMPROVE on the problem), and I just don't agree with that. If what you're suggesting is that they may be too incompetent to actually ACT on the possibility to improve, I'll grant that's certainly possible, but developer incompetence or unwillingness to expand or improve on something does not mean that the potential for expansion or improvement is nonexistent. 

EDIT: silly @Florete, don't you know that the fact (which is definite and indisputable) that it's never been done well means it never CAN be done well?? You goof. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by BANRYU

[Interdimensional Observer]

29 minutes ago, Florete said:

That's only 1/3 of the GBA games...and debatable even then.

True, I haven't played FE6, but I can tell it's bad for axes from the hit rates alone. Albeit they're only about as bad as Lances, since the Hit rate difference between the two is 5, tiny compared to the gulf between an Iron Lance's 70 hit and a Iron Sword's 85. It helps axers that lance users (Pegs, Wyverns, Armors,) are typically not-dodgy, Cavs are the most evasive they confront. Lances on the other hand typically fight Mercs and Myrms- dodgy classes, and sometimes Cavs and the rare Nomad Trooper/Wyvern Lord/Falcoknight. Hence, given a user with decent Skill (Lott, Dieck, Echidna), Axes shouldn't be terrible.

From experience I know axes aren't the worst in Blazing and Sacred. Swords are the worst. Why? Because besides enemies not dodging a lot and axes getting a Hit buff, enemies are terribly weak. Hence 1-2 range, even if it means a weaker equipped weapon, is good. Thus Hand Axes and Javelins reign in FE7 and 8, while swords are shafted by their lack of 1-2 range. This isn't to say swords are useless, they still have uses in the beginning, but once you get your units up and running as murder machines, swords will fall to the wayside barring dodging axes in some circumstances. Raven and Gerik rarely touch a sword once promoted in my experience.

 

As for the Weapon Triangle. A big NO vote to the Fates version- keep magic out of it! It did help bows admittedly, since Takumi has a anti-Ninja niche, but I thought tomes were nerfed by being included. An "okay, I'm fine with it" for SD-Awakening WT style, which is a progression of the GBA-Tellius style. And lastly, I'd be okay with FE abolishing the Weapon Triangle entirely in a future game- why does this little Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic matter so much? It's tradition, but is it really that strategic?

On the magic triangle- well like dismounting, it might not have been executed well in the past. But I'm naive and optimistic enough to believe nothing is beyond good reform, pure abandonment isn't necessary.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Captain Karnage said:

I don't know, I wouldn't think they'd change a mechanic that had been in the series for at least 20 years at that time for no reason.

Perhaps, but at the same time I'm not really convinced that daggers and shuriken are here to stay...

Quote

I mean, the Maids/Butlers all are pretty eh with strength, but Saizo, Kaze and Kagera all have respectable growth rates(Kagero's is fucking insane). It doesn't help that they can give noticeable stat debuffs. Usually two stats at once, sometimes more. If they can't finish off a bow user(Who also don't have very remarkable strength growths and are also generally fragile) in one round, they can make it to where the weapon triangle doesn't really matter much by nerfing their damage output or their skill and hit rates.

Kagero is strong, yes, but at the same time, this comes at the expense of being able to hit as reliably as the other two. Kaze has a -2 Strength modifier, and ninjas have some of the worst strength caps, meaning he struggles to do damage to anything that isn't brittle. Also, only two weapons debuff Skill (to an extent that might be called noticeable, that is), and both of those are randomly obtained; also, one debuffs you, and the other is piss weak. And did I mention that bows actually have high Mt in this game (a Steel Bow has 1 less Mt than a Steel Axe)? So to really take the bite out of them, you'd need Steal Strength (the best you get otherwise is -4... which is on weapons that require either DLC or luck to obtain; there is the Chakram, but it's only usable by one class, and it's gotten extremely late in the relevant routes).

Edited November 16, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia