How Fire Emblem Engage Fixes the Weapon Triangle
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- The weapon triangle is a Fire Emblem staple, yet it's never been as important as its reputation supposes. The new Fire Emblem Engage changes up the triangle, and makes it better than it's ever been before!
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Armors being immune to WTA Break makes them really powerful, that was a pretty neat addition that enables Louis to be a magnificent physical wall. It's good that they try to come up with ways to keep armors relevant.
I gave my General Louis boots. He was a walking nightmare for the AI by the end of my hard run
It's also what makes Ike such a powerful opponent, even in easier difficulties (since Boss are only immune to break in Maddening).
Not being able to break such a powerful opponent makes him very hard to face
we don't talk about FEH armors though
Very nice breakdown, especially on how the system has changed over time!
I always thought I didn't really care for the weapon triangle, until I played games without it. Then I realized how much that little extra consideration really made me not only want to diversify the units I fielded, but also changed up how I used them in combat. I'm glad they brought it back for Engage with a great new spin!
You don't get avoid from Sword rank in Shadow Dragon, but you do negate an opponent's axe rank hit% bonus (15% at A) and get +3 might for your swords with A rank swords. I really wish FE games didn't have so much hidden information like growths and bonuses all of the time. They gotta sell those strategy guides and artbooks I guess
WT bonuses are technically not hidden, since they show up in the unit forecast under battle stats. However, you have to do the math to notice.
i never understood why character growth rates are hidden, to me it's such important information in FE games where i can choose what class to make each unit. Whatever reason there is for it, it comes with far too steep of a cost to player convenience as well as unit planning. Visible Growth rates is such a massive QoL feature that the series desperately needs. Sure you can just look it up but i think it's bad practice to make your players use 3rd party resources in order to learn information that's useful when playing the game.
I think part of what made the weapon triangle worth implementing in other FE games is how it draws attention to weapon choice. Some players might not initially pay too much attention to which weapons they're using, so long as things are going fine. But what that FE7 tutorial does, is it not only tells you about the weapon triangle, but it gives you the greater message that you should be paying attention to how your weapons affect your hit/damage, even if the difference doesn't seem big.
I think the simplicity of the weapon triangle is double-edged, because it teaches the first lesson VERY effectively. Swords > Axes > Lances > Swords. It does get the player to pay attention more, but it only teaches its second lesson about weapon choice more generally if the player rides off the attention they now have towards weapon choice to a greater extent. This can lead the player to evaluating weapon choices individually- comparing the raw numbers to one another- not just in the context of a rock paper scissors matchup. But it's also more easy for the player to slide into treating the triangle as the absolute rules of the game, and not just guidelines to give the player a leg up or a penalty in a few scenarios.
So Engage changing this by throwing hit/avo/dmg out the window and focusing on counterattacks is pretty genius, as it casts a spotlight on an important and defining feature of Fire Emblem: the attack > counterattack flow of combat. Now you can pull off cleaner kills on player phase without having to deal with hit rates that are hard to predict if you just break the enemy. it also means planning enemy phases is a bit more dedicated than putting out someone strong with a 1-2 range weapon and hitting wait, and the fact that break can only happen if you initiate combat is a huge part of it, too. There are interesting tradeoffs to this system, in the right circumstances. If you have a diverse group of enemies that contain all 3 of the triangle, you can either prioritize taking down an enemy fast with break and opening yourself up to being broken on enemy phase, or you can try to take out an enemy on player phase that would break you on enemy phase.
Great video professor! Another thing I really like about the Break mechanic is how they give the ability no ignore break to the General class. Giving them more utility later in the game, when most player armor classes tend to fall off at the end. When getting doubled is far worse than the benefit they get from higher defense. It still doesn’t make them like the best class or anything, but they are moving in the right direction in that way.
Although the reclass system as a whole I hope is one thing that gets tweaked for the next game
Bringing up how break makes bosses more interesting is something I fully agree with and also is why I completely disagree with the choice to make bosses unbreakable in maddening mode. It seems cheap to make it harder by removing a core game mechanic like this in harder encounters and I wish there could’ve been a better way to increase boss difficulty than this.
Nah the bosses would be a joke on maddening if you could just use weapon triangle advantage to completely negate them from dealing any dmg whatsoever. The game is already player phase favored because of the emblem rings.
@@darkgrundi9543 and it would be ridiculous to say how you order who goes in to attack matters less. It just makes it harder than just break spamming.
Maddening makes you use your frailest units as finishing blows so they don't get countered. It also makes bosses like Roy!Marnie incredibly sweaty
They should make it so the bosses are broken every other attack
I think the way to balance it would have been, bosses still get broken, but recover immediately after combat.
It still rewards the player for using WT and let's players attack Maddening's bosses with a little safety, but still disallows a slow or frail nuker from getting risk-free damage just because they followed after a break.
5:09 "the 2DS games". Is that a subtle dig at no one caring about the 3D capabilities of the 3DS...
didnt play engage so i was intrigued on what made the game different and i have to say im amazed at this new "Break" mechanic
it's gonna be dope seeing how romhackers are gonna see how it could retroactively affect older games
Break is an interesting take, but it relies heavily on the fact that counterattacks are a core component of Fire Emblem's system, and the way that intertwines offense and defense. In traditional RPGs, such as Final Fantasy or Dungeons and Dragons, offense and defense are normally independent. Launching an attack at an enemy doesn't have any effect on your character's chance to survive the turn beyond the usual side effect of eliminating an enemy reducing the amount of incoming damage. In Fire Emblem, you typically have to eat a counterattack to do so, leaving your attacking character 1 hit closer to death on the enemy phase. Combine that with slimmer survival margins (Fire Emblem characters often die to 2-4 hits, while D&D and Final Fantasy could easily be 8 or more), and provoking that extra attack might be signing your character's death warrant.
With Engage's break mechanic, you get to break both the enemy and the offense/defense linkage. Breaking an enemy primarily means a defensive advantage, as the attackers don't eat any counterattacks. It also gives a subtle implicit offensive advantage, as squishier characters can contribute their damage without unacceptably risking their own death (either directly from a strong retaliation or indirectly from lowered HP on enemy phase).
S Tier video for the Brawl in the Family reference
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You didn't play on maddening what's breaking the boss what's weapon effectiveness
Yes, I know
Great video as always. I love how Engage and 3H handles the weapon triangle. Engage is my favorite iteration of it and I hope we will have something similar for future installments.
having yet to play engage watching this break at 7:55 was so oddly satisfiying
like GOD that looked like it hurt
That's an extra visual effect that appears when someone gets hit by an effective weapon! Makes using them very satisfying, especially when you get the break with them.
I think Break is an interesting mechanics which is brought into the Weapon Triangle. Of course it’s mainly a player phase tool and you have to avoid it during enemy phase. It can make feeding kills to certain units easier by not letting the enemy be able to counter attack and of course there’s the damage of trying to just break 1 unit but the surround units can break you and that can quickly spiral like with the chain attack which I am mixed on. Of course break gives better use for Knights and Generals since they are the only units to have the sub type of armored which lets them ignore the break mechanic and gives them more use for the most part.
I do want to see where they take the mechanic along with the underused smash mechanic which I never used to it’s effect to be able to break stuff which normally can’t be broken by slamming them. Also the unit types is interesting to bring in since of course it makes armored knights and generals have more of a use but also makes grounded units more busted with chain attacks and I wonder where the series will go from here if they will adopt it or just drop it so Engage feels unique to the other series which IS does like to do for each FE game
Finally getting to play Engage after catching up one some other backlog and I couldn’t agree more. I absolutely LOVE the break mechanic. It simultaneously fits like a glove that’s always been there while also feeling so fresh, and it’s a perfect evolution for this system - infinitely more satisfying than the “meh let’s just get rid of it” approach of something like 3H.
It was genuinely painful to see as Louis on a horse getting constantly broken when armored units are immune to break 💀
Yeah, Great Knights are unfortunately still able to be broken because they’re Armored Cavalry units unlike Generals who are actually Armored units
@@anju2592 You don't get broken if you don't take damage, but even with his high defense, that's not likely.
It's really a point were previous knowledge of the game ends up biting you, uh?
general louis laughs at weapon triangle breaks
Why! Aren’t! You! Breaking?!
[Armored], son! It hardens in response to [axe] trauma!
-Louis, probably
I love playing around the little baby considerations and bonuses. It helps me feel much more like a pro fe player even though I kind of suck in reality
I love the Engage break mechanic. Most of the advantage you really got from the older games was hinged on RNG, but actually disarming an enemy unit makes it so much more satisfying to go for.
I liked that little smash clip that was neat
Another great video!
I very much agree with your view on how the weapon triangle improves boss fights, which leaves me all the more baffled as to why they removed it on Maddening. Cutting mechanics is one of the least interesting ways of increasing the difficulty as Radiant Dawn Hard Mode shows. At that point, I'd prefer if the bosses had some higher stats instead. At least that way, I would still think more critically about my attack lrder instead of just slappong my strongest characters against the boss and praying.
They have higher stats. Actually most of them maxed out in their defense stat. And forging and emblems still makes your units nuke them away.
@@darkgrundi9543 I should have been more clear. I know they have higher stats, but I'd rather they maintained the Break mechanic, even if they had to make their stats even higher to acommodate.
@@hansgretl1787 Especially since they already have special skills like Seal and stuff, right?
And you're already surrounded by them and enemies since they never stay in place, and you have to take care of the whole army (giving you the choice between trying to bring them down or taking care of other opponents first).
I'm only familiar with Hard, granted, but I'm not sure what exactly it brings to the table.
Having one Ike is an interesting change of pace, but I'm not sure I want everyone to be Ike. Makes that experience less unique.
A++++ video holy crap. Break mechanic is just so good and makes battle dynamics so fun. My fav thing is that I LOVE how the damage calc and avoid calc DOES NOT CHANGE depending on the triangle.
The deep dive into the history of the triangle was pretty cool. I didn’t know Thracia’s bonuses were that minor haha.
I agree that some people seem to think the weapon triangle is very important and defines the outcome of every battle and has lead people to think you absolutely bring at least one of three magic type and one of three side of the physical triangle when like, as anyone can see with any early game prepromote, raw stats (from both side) and the stats of the weapon itself (not the type of weapon) matter so much more.
I like the break mechanic overall although I don't know if I want it in every new FE and I wished they had try something with knives, bow and tome instead of making the three breakable by combat art, like bow could break everything that do not counter but is broken by anything they can't counter or something
I personally don't care at all about the weapon triangle and I like when they experiment with mechanics which is why I don't understand the kind of people that complain and cry about every new and older FEs not being copy paste gameplay wise of awakening , fe7 or whatever their first fe was when they could just replay that same fe if they want a copy paste. they aslo proved multiple times with both older and newer FE that they can experiment and make those experiment somewhat balanced
It matters in FE6 and RD because hit rates suck there
@@mysmallnoman I haven't played RD yet, but in fe6 sure it matters a little more (the physical one, because magic is pretty accurate) than in the average FE especially in the first few chapters but it still far from the big thing that dictate the outcome of every battle you face compared to raw stats or weapon accuracy, especially when it's just 10% with mostly inaccurate weapons to begin with
@@AinaFuyuko the fact that most weapons are inaccurate is what makes it even more important even if it's +10%
From my casual perspective, the weapon triangle helps me field weaker units since they can hopefully pick fights with triangle advantage.
Engage definitely feels like a good iteration of that, since these units almost get a free pass if they fight with advantage. Not only that, they can be meaningful parts of my battle strategy, rather than being deployed just to scrounge up catch-up experience.
Is it really the weapon triangle or just a new feature called the break system
I have done this all series in DS. Very good game. Final bos and story very2 good
Great video. While it's still possible to throw out a tank with a javelin and have them live, the amount of enemies remaining will be much higher than that same strategy with Marcus in FE7 which is a good thing.
Excellent video!
NEW BOPPER VIDEO!! lets fucking goo
I don't think I've ever really cared about weapon triangle in any fire emblem game outside of like, reaver weapons, until this game, because growing up as a 3 year old babu who didn't get the mechanic, I learned that I could literally ignore it and be just fine and then I learned how the mechanic worked and was like "oh, that's neat... maybe some day I'll take advantage of that if I need to" **never needs to** so it's neat to have it actually matter in this game, it's unfortunate that in maddening it is so limited, because typically I attack from range with a non triangle (magic, bow, knife) unit and then finish them off, or the unit I'm facing is either armored, a boss, or not part of the weapon triangle so you're left with fairly limited use, but at least it's still more helpful than in the previous games
Honestly, I feel like since WTA is almost always in the player's favor, breaking happens so often on the player's end and not too often on the enemy's end unless you just send out units to enemy phase tank while also deliberately choosing the wrong weapon type. It's definitely the most relevant it's ever been, but I feel like it swung too hard in the side of it being too strong of an advantage. I wouldn't mind seeing them try something similar to what FEH does with a 20% buff/debuff to damage and hit/avoid as well. Also the choice to take out breaking in maddening is so weaksauce and shows that they knew how overpowered break was as a mechanic.
On Maddening, the weapon triangle and break mechanic are still incredibly effective and important. I would argue it's at least as important as it is on Normal/Hard because the logic that is applied to bosses on Normal/Hard extends to many non-boss enemies on Maddening. Attack order on bosses still matters in Maddening because bosses can't counter when they hit 0 HP even if it would just use up a revival stone. I don't get the argument in the comments that the points in your video are invalid just because of Veteran+
I'd argue it still is pretty telling that the way the devs made the bosses harder is to make them exempt from a core mechanic they game wants you to use and punishes you from using wrong.
True, the Break system makes bosses a lot more interesting than they would be otherwise...unless you play Maddening, in which *no* boss in the game can be broken, in which case all of that gets thrown out the window. Those bosses in Chapter 13? Now almost impossible without stacking poison, in my experience. And maybe getting lucky with a crit or two with Killer weapons.
I know they had to find some way to make these bosses more of a challenge that didn't exclusively involve raising stats, but I would have done almost anything else personally
Personally I think they went a step too far. If they allowed breaking on them but the caveat is there is a cooldown period of a turn that they can't be broken again, I think that would work just fine. Makes you have to think about the timing of the break.
Not being able to break bosses in only Maddening is a good thing to add fear, but also creativeness. The tools they give the player are really powerful. I would have preferred that bosses didn't take extra damage from effective weapons on hard and also wish normal had been "normal" instead of easy.
Fun fact, the final boss on maddening can be broken.
I don't see a problem with this. They are bosses for a reason and being able to break them so easily on lower difficulties really...breaks the challenge you could say.
You have to get much more creative and make use of various strategies to defeat the harder bosses on Maddening, which I think is a good thing personally.
@@lanceareadbhar There is zero creativity to bosses in Maddening. The *only* strat is to surround them with your strongest units, as in the only ones that don't get one shot, and have them whittle away at the boss while repeatedly healing them. And it works almost every time. Where's the strategy in that?
Peak Gameplay. General is much more useful now!!!!!!
i did a dodge tank alear with either marth or lyn as a ring with the pair up and dodge ring skills
how much icing did you put on that biscuit????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To me, the weapon triangle will always be as important to Fire Emblem as the elemental type advantages in Pokemon. Yeah no shit it isn't always 100% accurate when taking other stats into account, but it just gives combat an extra bit of texture and dynamism and feels pretty flat without it. Imagine if the next Pokemon game made fire, leaf, and water types have no inherent advantages over each other, but oh if you level up your Charizard enough he might get the Leaf Breaker ability. Yeah you technically could make a pokemon game like that but then it becomes sooo much less interesting, when all it is is just grinding your units to get better instead of having a cool puzzle mechanic to make you use your assets more resourcefully.
Idk, I guess that's just my take on it though. Feel free to call me an elitist or a fake fan in the comments.
Both are key elements of the series, but elemental advantage in Pokemon is much more impactful than the weapon triangle in FE. Imagine if swords got double damage vs axes!
@@LazurBeemz Yeah maybe not a 1:1 but again I think it just adds a nice dimension to combat, and it feels far less interesting to me without it.
Its more like "whoa-doww", not "wuuu-daoww" :)
So i guess the whole points on bosses in engage is discarded for the giga chads who only play maddening?
Cant send your bulkest unit? Armored units cant be broken so you can
Counter point, chain attacks
@@JlBUNROCK counter counter point pair up
@@djmack6474 Oh right I forgot about that skill
Mario
Luigi
Weapon triangle is simultaneously a feacher that has had the most impact on the series and the least impact on the series
I'm really not a fan of the break mechanic. It's more annoying than anything else most of the time from my experience. I actually really liked the fates version of the weapon triangle. It felt impactful enough most of the time without breaking the consistently annoying threshold for me. I honestly don't mind the weapon triangle not even being a factor either. Echoes being a game, i enjoy quite a bit with its worst quality being map design more so than lacking a weapon triangle. If the break mechanic were to continue on into every FE after Engage that would be a serious turn-off for me.
I would like the Break mechanic way more if it wasn't applied by every single weapon, but instead be the gimmick of the Smash weapons instead of the really underwhelming Smash mechanic.
That way, you would have the Blade wielding Cav break the enemy fighter so your Sword wielding Myrmidon goes for the kill. Making it so every sword breaks axes basically just turns the Break mechanic into the Weapon Triangle giving you 100% avoid
This was my issue with the mechanic. In theory, it's not a bad idea, but in practice it ends up becoming an overcentralizing and ultimately trivializing mechanic. It feels like an over correction of the weapon triangle being underwhelming. Personally, I never really had an issue with it being a consideration / option the player can utilize rather than a core mechanic that's extremely punishing to ignore, so I guess I'm biased there.
I had a similar thought very early on too. That would definitely make Smash more interesting.
The most glaring issue i could foresee with this though is that the AI is pretty terrible with Smash weapons, so this would probably greatly skew the Break mechanic in the player's favor. Tbf tho Smash probably needs a pretty drastic overhaul to be a more usable/useful mechanic.
Tying it to higher weapon ranks would make it more of a late game thing, which i guess could work but i'm not sure if that would be optimal either. It could also potentially be the special ability of a certain class type if they keep that system in the future. Maybe it could even be a combination thing where S rank opens up the ability for other class types.
There should definitely be some tweaks to the system if they keep it.
If only it stopped juggernauting, stupid dodge tanks
Yeah, exactly my experience. I think I ended up being broken so rarely it caught me by surprise when it happened.
Dodge Tanking is pretty unreliable until it's on Zelkov or Yunaka, and they will never be broken in the first place anyway.
Nah with forges, terrain, supports, and skills you can totally get high avoid on other characters too. I've had Alear hit 200 avoid once.
weapon triangle didn't matter at all for the GILLIAMEISTER, LORD OF THE BLA- oh and he's dead
Personally I'm not a fan of how Engage changes the weapon triangle and everything I've heard makes me more disinterested with Engage. Many of the mechanics I find unappealing and would rather play Jugdrael or Tellius games. However I found your thoughts and opinions on the matter interesting, this video was well done and articulated. I may not agree with you as of now but the videos of yours I've seen are well done videos keep it up.
The only problem I have with breaking in Engage is that on Maddening I cannot get it to consistently work across all enemies and I don't know why. I think it has something to do with the damage you deal but I don't know for sure and the game doesn't really tell you afaik?
Most bosses have a skill that makes them immune but yeah you have to do damage to break. The game does denote it bc "break!" only shows up in the combat forecast if you do damage.
so, there are three reasons as to why an advantageous hit won't break. if the attack did zero damage, it won't break. if the hit unit is an armor knight/general, it will not break them. and if the unit is a map boss has veteran or veteran+, a skill that prevents breakage and effective damage, they will not break.
edit: also note that break as a status only lasts a single battle after it is inflicted, and the break status will not retain into the next phase.
@@mori2037OKAY I always noticed it on armor knights so that's why, thank you!
Eh, breaking stops being meaningful after you get Ivy. Magic is just much better to do damage in enemy phase and you don't really need to worry for getting broken since you have Lucina and the weapons that break tomes are always on passive units.
Also, Breaking does nothing to get the unit killed faster, unless you use a warrior. I feel the +50% damage should be universal or making a broken unit go "stoned" in thier phase if left broken, so you can freely maneuver around it if you don't need the kill.
Breaking stops being meaningful because you get 1 unit? What? Sure that's nice for Ivy, but you have a whole rest of your army, too!
Ivy is pretty mid, though. She's fine, don't get me wrong, but she's nothing extraordinary.
The Thieves would be a better example since they laugh at breaking and destroy anything in retaliation.
@@LazurBeemzafter getting Ivy, the earlygame mages start ramping up and immediately after, you get pandreo, another great mage with relatively good bulk, who can be immediately used as a mini Ivy.
Tomes don't fear getting broken, therefore, WT is useless.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 the issue with thieves (and wolves) is they're too weak. Low str growth and cap. Worst of all, their highest Might weapon comes at endgame. And just to stop any silly thoughts, most enemies have high defense, so they would need to be even stronger to beat most units. In the end, they're just good for picking on mages and wolves get a niche locking down Wyrms, thanks to their class ability.
Meanwhile, sage, mage knights and ivy's class have massive mag growths and caps and their best weapon, the bolganone, is a forge, by focusing on forging it, it's possible to get it before Solm and even having Elfire as a sidearm.
Tome users have the possibility of doubling and 1rko'ing all units but endgame priests, pegs (use Excalibur) and the final boss.
After that, is just a matter of patching up thier survivability. Tonics and blue skies is more than enough to take on sizeable clumps of enemies, and there's always bond shield shenanigans if all else fails.
@@marcoasturias8520 The thing with Thieves is that they're way better the earlier the difficulty. They're certainly terrible in Maddening, since their high Avoid is an hindrance.
In hard, they're still good
This video feels pretty misleading comparing engage bosses on non-maddening to other bosses in the series on their hard modes, since break literally doesn't affect bosses on maddening because every single one has the unbreakable skill, and also is pretty misleading as you can absolutely throw your bulkiest unit out into the fray if you made them a general instead of a great knight lol. That's whole point of the armored class type is being immune to the triangle.
Good points about the history of the triangle in the series but I really think it's also pretty irrelevant for engage too.
There’s never going to be a perfect 1:1 comparison, but I’d also say it’s not misleading in the slightest because A.) Hard Mode Engage is harder than the hardest modes in all FE games except for Awakening, FE12, Conquest, and 3H which I didn’t directly compare against, and besides, there’s never going to be two games that can be properly compared since they’re all so different.
Also, general is a shitty class and the bulk vanishes for them late game. Allied defense >>>>> swap/no break. It would only be misleading if generals were actually your bulkiest units
@@ProfessorBopper all it takes for either of the canon armor units to keep up with bulk is a simple resolve skill inherit, and it's well worth it, especially since you're only denied the sigurd ring for about 6 chapters, and a sigurd general unit can easily charge into a pack of enemies, kill a mage, and then tank the rest on enemy phase while chipping each in retaliation (exception of a couple lategame maps which have packs of hero enemies, where you would also need pairup to not die to backups). It's actually quite a powerful class, but even if it wasn't it's still weird you dont mention it just because you dont like it, since there are also lots of enemy armored units who are similarly unbreakable meaning you dont get free hits on them.
I'm glad that casuals are enjoying the game, but I'm getting really tired of engage content based on non-maddening experiences
This is the most try hard shit I’ve read
What a ridiculous comment
You're saying this as if Maddening Casual wasn't a thing.
I'm glad the elitests are enjoying the game, but I'm getting teally tired of engage comments whom act like the hardest difficulty is the only valid one.
Nah, Engage kinda ruined it imo.