Splitting Magic

[Corrobin]

Do you think magic should work like the GBA games (Anima, Light, Dark), like Judgral and Tellius (Fire, Lightning, Wind, Light, Dark) or like the 3DS games (Normal and "dark")?

[Dismissed]

GBA style. Awakening missed a chance to implement the Anima triangle, which would've given use to all three tome types. If we can't have GBA style, then I'd say the Jugdral/Tellius style.

[DisobeyedCargo]

GBA style. Gives more depth to magic and adds potential for more classes 

Edited April 23, 2018 by DisobeyedCargo

[Shrimpica]

Tellius style.

[Chconroy]

GBA and/or Tellius/Jugdral are both fine with me. It makes magic classes more varied, gives the player more units to work with, and an accompanying triangle adds more depth to gameplay.

[X-Naut]

My preference is (3)DS > GBA > Consoles

DS used to be in the back but my perspective has changed, and I now I prefer a less is more approach to ranks. I can count the number of Fire/Thunder/Wind (pick any one) tomes in a given game on my own two hands and in many cases I only need one. That's not enough to justify dividing them all into separate ranks. Anima can occupy the Tome rank, and Dark and Light can be class-locks that work off the Tome and Staff ranks respectively. The magic triangles can still exist in this setting.

Magics tend to be very samey and the spell pools are all thin. Unless this issue gets resolved I don't see the point in divvying up the magic types and Mages in general. Jugdral sort of gets a pass due to worldbuilding but you gotta admit the magic pools are still bare bones.

[NinjaMonkey]

Tellius style.

[Punished Dayni]

GBA, though a weird part of me wants to see the anima triangle also in there (I think Tellius did it at some point, couldn't say for sure).

[DisobeyedCargo]

3 minutes ago, Dayni said:

GBA, though a weird part of me wants to see the anima triangle also in there (I think Tellius did it at some point, couldn't say for sure).

I think they did, and light and dark were just neutral to all of the magics

 

[Slumber]

If they diversify the tomes a bit more, the Tellius/Jugdral way would by my preferred.

Fire hitting hard consistently, wind being light but noticeably weak, and thunder being the middleground having high accuracy and crit is something that they've done, but it's never been noticeable enough. It's almost always boiled down to "Oh, wind is so much lighter and not much weaker, why would I choose anything else?" with Thunder and Fire getting the shaft. So some balanced diversifying, with Light and Dark being rare, strong and having unique properties of their own, would be my preferred way of doing it. Tellius was moving in the right direction by giving Thunder effectiveness against Dragons, Wind effectiveness against Peggies, and Fire effectiveness against Beasts, so every magic had a use, but they fucked up the mage class balance so hard in FE10.

Alternatively, the Anima/Light/Dark simplification was fine with me. As much as I liked my Lightning/Fire/Wind mages, I agree that the clutter without any real balance made that style a bit more clunky than it should be. The GBA style did a much better job at making each magic feel unique and each mage class feel special, though Dark Magic was still too heavy in general. So if they just want to go back to a style that works and not try to fuck around with the Jugdral/Tellius approach and make it better, then the GBA way is fine.

I can't say I like the Fateswakening style. At all. Cramming every magic into a single rank is the polar opposite of what I want. Aside from Nosferatu and Aversa's Night, which only become remarkable for how stupidly broken they were in Awakening, none of the magic in these games felt special or unique. I couldn't even remember 3 magic tomes that weren't those fucking bizarre animal spirits from Fates. Like, I'm sure Fire and Thunder were there, because they're always there, but beyond that? Ehhhh? And I have no idea what made magical classes unique in these games. They all did the same thing, except Sorcerers could use the broken magics and Dark Knights had horses.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Slumber

[Dragoncat]

Combo of GBA and Tellius. I like that each anima element was super effective against a certain unit type in Tellius. I'd like to see GBA style with that added to it.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Dragoncat

[Ertrick36]

I say do the weapon ranks like the GBA games, but their attributes behave like they do in the console games.

22 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I can't say I like the Fateswakening style. At all. Cramming every magic into a single rank is the polar opposite of what I want. Aside from Nosferatu and Aversa's Night, which only become remarkable for how stupidly broken they were in Awakening, none of the magic in these games felt special or unique. I couldn't even remember 3 magic tomes that weren't those fucking bizarre animal spirits from Fates. Like, I'm sure Fire and Thunder were there, because they're always there, but beyond that? Ehhhh? And I have no idea what made magical classes unique in these games. They all did the same thing, except Sorcerers could use the broken magics.

Yeah, magic in Fates just always felt so lame to me.  The spirits were the only thing that really spiced it up, and that's only because they had the gimmick of adding stat modifiers like the beaststones did.  And the only thing that set different magical classes apart were the skills and the Dark Mage/Sorcerer being able to use higher ranking magic and a supremely nerfed Nosferatu (btw, that was the only dark magic spell in Fates, and it basically worked like a magical version of a javelin with health-leeching properties).

The pool may never have been very deep, but at least the GBA and console games actually did more to make magic stand out.  Magic wasn't just this general weapon type that dealt a different type of damage than other weapons in those games.  As convoluted as it might be, I'd like to see both magic triangles (light > dark > anima | fire > wind > thunder) show up, as I like this sort of hierarchy of the elements (good luck to whoever would have to write the script that's supposed to teach new players about this, though).

Maybe if they made more than five spells per element, they could even justify having element-exclusive mages.  Though that might be going a step too far in making magic its own class of weapon.

[Von Ithipathachai]

I don't want it to be like in the 3DS games because I like seeing Light Magic.

I would prefer Jugdral's magic system, except that Light and Dark Magic should not have any unidirectional advantage against Anima Magic.

Tellius's magic system just looks needlessly complicated.

[Chocolate Kitty]

if there was more variance between each anima type as a result classes were more varied, i would say FE4/5/9/10 style

as it is though, gba all day

[Shadow Mir]

The (3)DS games win out for me. Magic felt best handled with a "less is more" approach imo. Tellius just straight up loses, and Jugdral is no better. (Rank clutter for the lose!) The GBA games were only slightly better.

2 hours ago, Purple Mage said:

GBA style. Awakening missed a chance to implement the Anima triangle, which would've given use to all three tome types. If we can't have GBA style, then I'd say the Jugdral/Tellius style.

And to that, I say, what would be the point of having a magic triangle when (1) it only affects a minority of units, (2) the units it does affect tend to have high resistance, and (3) enemies would just skirt around mages to pick on magically weak units instead??? As things are, mage vs mage combat accomplishes nothing but wasting time, turns, and weapon uses. Unless you drastically overpower the enemy.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[OakTree]

Unless the magic types and the classes that wield them actually feel different, no.

Usually, in most FEs, the magic types barely feel distinct, a Mage, a Dark Mage and a Light Mage are usually identical in their actual gameplay roles. There is almost zero variation, and if IS does not intend to change that i would rather have normal Anima Mages be the only mages in the game.

[Von Ithipathachai]

21 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

The (3)DS games win out for me. Magic felt best handled with a "less is more" approach imo. Tellius just straight up loses, and Jugdral is no better. (Rank clutter for the lose!) The GBA games were only slightly better.

And to that, I say, what would be the point of having a magic triangle when (1) it only affects a minority of units, (2) the units it does affect tend to have high resistance, and (3) enemies would just skirt around mages to pick on magically weak units instead??? As things are, mage vs mage combat accomplishes nothing but wasting time, turns, and weapon uses. Unless you drastically overpower the enemy.

With this in mind, the 3DS magic system is probably the most practical.  But it's also incredibly boring to look at.

The other magic systems people are talking about here at least add more flavor if they don't accomplish much else.

[Eden Agleam]

I believe that the GBA system is the best both for its simplicity, but also its capability for depth. The problem with the GBA system was that magic wasn't differentiated enough to justify using a variety of mages. Most mages have high resistance, the same ranges, access to staves, and similar stats, so tome differentiation was non-existent. The simplest way to legitimize the magic triangle is to drastically differentiate both mage classes and tomes themselves. Why do all mage classes need high resistance? Not all physical classes have high defense. Furthermore, give each tome style interesting concepts or niches.

Dark magic could be similar to Gaiden/SOV magic, with a health cost in exchange for a variety of effects. Anima magic could still have the three elemental tome types with different ranges and mights. And I'm not talking a 1-3 might difference. Give the different tome types drastically differing roles. Let fire be melee magic, with close range and normal mights. Give wind 1-3 range, but super low might. Give Thunder a boatload of might, but lock it to 4-range with a steep speed penalty. And finally, let light magic be the normal magic type.

The magic triangle doesn’t work because mages all have the same ranges with similar stat lines. If they aren’t differentiated totally, then the DS system is superior.

[Corrobin]

Wait, how did magic work in 1 and 3?

[Von Ithipathachai]

4 minutes ago, Shimmerfang said:

The magic triangle doesn’t work because mages all have the same ranges with similar stat lines. If they aren’t differentiated totally, then the DS system is superior.

This.  All of this.  The Trinity of Magic is a good idea, but the problem with it is simply that IS doesn't know how to properly design classes/units around it to make it less redundant.  (Actually, I think this applies to Constitution as well, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms.)

Here's what I would do if the Trinity of Magic was to come back:

• Give Light Mages worse Defense than the other two and the best Resistance
• Give Anima Mages roughly equal Defense and Resistance, with slight preference towards Resistance, of course
• Give Dark Mages better Defense than the other two and the worst Resistance

[Jedi]

56 minutes ago, Corrobin said:

Wait, how did magic work in 1 and 3?

It was just magic, alot of PRF tomes but no triangle at all, but then again 1&3 had no weapon triangle to begin with.

Linde was a Light Mage simply for having the Prf's of Nosferatu and Aura for instance but for all intents and purposes she was just a mage, anyone with a high enough weapon level stat could use Starlight, Merric exclusively had Excalibur etc.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Jedi

[Azz]

Personally I like Heroes system. Fire/Dark=Red, Thunder/Light=Blue and Wind/Ice/Water=Green.

And if you want to add a Magic Triangle, have it on top of the Sword<Axe<Lance triangle, so it actually has a use since it can be effective unlike every other iteration.

[Hawkwing]

I'd prefer the GBA triangle, but I would like for them to differentiate the classes more. If multiple promotions return (and to a lesser degree, third tier units), I could see things like choosing between having your dark mage focus on summoning magic or on delivering raw damage, or having to decide between making your light mage more of a support unit or giving them exclusive combat bonuses, etc. with a third tier deciding whether to balance between these two aspects or to continue on with their established role. Just do something to make the classes themselves feel different enough to justify having a magic triangle.

Speaking of magic, I was thinking of adding more variety to the weapons themselves. Alongside tomes, I would add runes, which would have very high might, but could only attack at melee range, and staffs, which would have a 2-3 range, but have pitiful hit rates to ensure they don't replace archers again. I'd also like to see the magic system from Gaiden/SoV return, with it working alongside the weapon system, so you have to decide between sacrificing a use of a weapon (if durability returns) or some HP to attack.

Also, add more unique utility spells, and be creative about them! Something like "web," which would lock a unit in place and greatly reduce their speed/avoidance, but it would also increase their defense a little, and thus could be used on both your enemies and allies (and with a skilled mage, the defense bonus would be greater when used on an ally, while the speed penalty would be worse on an enemy). Or "Magic Amour," which would temporarily increase a units defense/resistance, or "Flaming Weapons," which would do the same for strength. Have a polymorph spell that could turn your allies into ferocious beasts, or your enemies into helpless animals. Have something beyond the normal sleep, berserk, poison, etc. staffs, and give these spells a wide variety of creative uses.

[SoulWeaver]

4 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

And the only thing that set different magical classes apart were the skills and the Dark Mage/Sorcerer being able to use higher ranking magic and a supremely nerfed Nosferatu (btw, that was the only dark magic spell in Fates, and it basically worked like a magical version of a javelin with health-leeching properties)

I could have sworn Goetia was in there somewhere, you guys are making me doubt myself.

On-Topic, having learned about the Chinese Elements last week thanks to Rex Glacies and the Interview Thread, I want to see it implemented instead of a Rock-Paper-Scissors style because I like things complicated. Make the regular Weapon Triangle fit into Metal's slot, with all melee weaponry considered Metal, and utilize Magics for the other four sections, Earth, Water, Fire, and Wood. This would be interesting to see as you could theoretically fit Stones into Earth or Wood, and it would also remove Thunder and Wind Magic, and who knows how that could go. In addition, you could integrate the 'generating interactions' through Pair Up - if one of you has a weapon element the other's weapon element 'generates' then the one whose weapon element is generated by their partner gains a damage boost.

Is this too complicated? Probably, but I still want to see it for the originality.

[Cornguy]

Jugs/Tellius for sure. I like the fire>wind>thunder setup, dark and light on the outside. But balance the magic for once. Give thunder a crit rate that matters, give fire damage that matters, wind should have hit and low weight.

I'd be okay with anima sharing a weapon level, and just giving specialized mages some sort of bonus for using their specialty. Could be class based or skill based. If it were skill based, it'd also be pretty cool for when you recruit a Pent-like character, that they might have multiple tome specialization skills. Class-based would just be as simple as wind mage gains +2 speed when using a wind tome, thunder could get +15 crit if they want to just make thunder tomes +5 crit, and fire could get +1 atk and +10 hit.

I like magic being pretty involved, it doesn't have to be too complicated though.