Right, so, few things to say. Video is kinda unfocused, sorry, but its inconsistent with whats a "cavalier", where Jagens and Seth and even Midir end up thrown into the mix without much seeming focus, mostly cause they all have horses(?). From what I derived during the video: Of the Jagens you mentioned, I's say their issues are more Jagen-design centric more than anything, but w/e. Never really mentioned that Oscar is kinda good because Canto+, and Axes in 1-2 the game. He's basically one of the best units and the points you mentioned about his early game performance being weak dont necessarily hold water. More on that later. Liked what you were going for with Lyn Mode Sain being a touch too potent. Giving that early promotion to a less distinctly good classline would be interesting (like maybe an early Orions bolt) Fe1 jagen is not exactly the best example. Dude exists in FE1 in a game where master seals are limited and boosters are +5. Doesnt mean hes better than cain/abel/hardin, but uh he doesnt fall off. Book 1 Jagen would work better as an example, but again this is a Jagen conversation during a Cavalier discussion. I like the idea of advocating for more interesting placements of horse effective weaponry in maps, but what that means to me is that they should be placed so they cannot be applied to every situation, and instead be creatively dealt with elsewise. This doesnt mean every squad formation should have a reaver, a slayer and a 1-2, no. If placed awkwardly and they're not really dealt with by alternative means in the team, it can slow down the pace. I was shaving when you talked about Brighton and I nicked myself. Not really a complaint, just thought it was funny. Brighton isnt really all that fun outside of manster, or even inside of manster at times, and the claim that he uses the steel sword the best is uh, strange to be certain. I like what you said about Finn, earnestly. Good utility beyond that of routing. Doesnt apply to every game without capture, but hey, it ok Comments about Cecille are, funky. More on that later. Liking Treck because he's bad is an interesting take. Midir is out of place in this discussion. Kyle is uh, not really bad. He's certainly not Treck. FE10 Geoffery being listed is uh... More on that later. The reasons you listed for Cavliers being so good are solid, but the latter slide doesnt provide any clear cut solutions. Or at least, an effective solution. Also, like half the series doesn't have rescue. The way you describe enemy cavaliers, well, lord I hope you mean making the enemies more competent than they are Bulky. I guess i should prolly stop commenting and start responding. I fundamentally disagree with the notion that good Cavalier Design is relegating them to being purely mediocre or elsewise rounded units that they're "Balanced". A common theme i found throughout is that you do not want the cavaliers to be potent. At all. In fact, across several of your examples you stated "I like them because they're kinda bad", even if your claim wasn't always completely true. That's how we get units like Eagle, like Jeremy Corben, like Cavalier Kliff, who hit like wet noodles and quickly dart away. A cavalier can be potent without being overtly "Busted". There's nothing wrong with having a good unit in a good classline, its just more indicative of a game with design flaws when the subject unit/class is allowed to dominate. Like, perhaps it'd be good to just make the cavalier more unique when they show up a few chapters later, to make their specialty flourish. Maps should be designed with them in mind. You want to see what a strong, very potent Cavalier that isn't busted would be like? Look no further than Berwick Saga's Elbert. Elbert has great base stats, a great starting level for his join time, and Swords/Spears and Small (Medium on promo) Shields. He's strong, fast and bulky, but not domineering because he can't be the solution to every enemy, since enemies have appropriate formations and weaponry that he can't always tackle. The maps let mounts do fun things, with canto mind you, and they don't always like Mounted units for things like Cliffs, rough terrain and Indoor maps. He isn't going to promote ASAP and starting dominating the field because his promotion requirement in Spear Skill is 20 while he has a 30% growth in the area. It's a hurdle that does hold him back, despite being so good as is. Furthermore, Elbert is complimented by two great skills: Provoke, which is a command skill that aggravates an enemy to him for a few turns, And Arrowbane, which let's him have an additional Roll Chance (67%) if he fails to dodge a bow the first Roll. Bows can be pretty nasty, so him having this niche incentives his use in tandem with his Medium Shields to absolutely wallop Crossbow/Bow setups. This combines both of the things we appreciate. A horse unit thats very potent, joins early, has clear defined and manageable flaws, maps conducive for and against him, and Clear Utility complimented by his classline. I didn't want to seem inflammatory, and I hope it didn't come off that way. Just, I think you can absolutely identify the problems with Cavaliers, but the answer provided isn't the way to do it. Kudos, though.
Not inflammatory at all, and these are all good points. I agree w/ your thesis. Most games don't do enough to make horses less of a "win button" and less potent overall. Not advocating for them to be weak and lean completely on utility, but if you're new to designing and want to ensure that cavaliers don't totally dominate, I think this these are some good ideas to get started. Cavaliers are tricky to discuss across the series because they're so different in each game, and yet very powerful in almost all of them. Additionally, how you may design them in your own game would be different because there are many directions you can take with them. There are many different flavors of cavalier versus say, a myrmidon (if we think in context of vanilla). Good post and thanks for watching!
One thought that struck me here is giving Cavaliers generally unimpressive durability, similar-ish to how Pegasus Knights are usually physically-fragile, but less extreme. Essentially, make it a more general principle that Cavaliers are useful and can still do a lot with their high Movement, but overextending them is somewhat more dangerous than doing the same with infantry units. Alternatively, a durable Cavalier should be less potent offensively, so they’re good at baiting out enemies but not great at taking them out without support. A lot of vanilla Cavaliers end up being solid both offensively and defensively in addition to their huge mobility advantage and frequent weapon triangle control, which means they can just sorta wreck house pretty much as well as your less-mobile combat savants, can take the hits they need to not die doing so, AND they have the mobility to be the first through the door at any party, sometimes by a factor of multiple turns. High mobility on a unit with the stats to do stuff with it is cool and fun, but you gotta rein them in enough that you have to put thought into using them and other units still have crucial roles to play. That’s kinda how I feel about this, which I don’t think is really in conflict with what you said here. Just my own thoughts. (Also I would probably consider Arch Knights / Nomads / T1!Bow Knights to kinda be their own class separate from Cavaliers and the melee Weapon Knights, but that’s not too important here)
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, I agree - what makes discussing cavaliers challenging is that they've changed and been used differently over 30 years, more so than any other "Core" FE class. Since there are so many, it's hard to get a sense of the "generic" cavalier like it is for an archer, armor, myrm, etc. I agree that in vanilla, their combat is generally too good, or not bad enough, to offset the gains from their superior movement. Overextending pegs not only comes from their lack of bulk, but also the threat of 2x/3x effectiveness from arrows. The amount of horse-slaying weapons generally is way lower than bows, and so cavs get extra movement with minimal risk. I really like cavs as a generalist utility class more than a dominant combat class, but it really depends on your game and what sort of outcomes you're looking for.
On a more serious note, a common theme I see in most of this analysis is that a in a large number of these contexts, there are no intrinsic disadvantages of being on a horse vs. not. Cavs with equal, not even better, stats when compared to foot units will be preferred 100% of the time, due to increased movement and rescue utility (and perhaps another weapon type). Thus, that leaves us with the options of: 1. Making their combat not as good as foot units, by stat increases/ limiting them to one weapon/lackluster skill loadout, or 2. Creating a context where even cavaliers of equal combat in a vacuum are less than ideal for certain situations. Horse-killing weapons, dismount or another implementation of severe indoor penalties, or very specific terrain (part of the map may be desert, for example). This could also be accomplished on a unit-by-unit basis, especially in earlygame (e.g. the earlygame cav may often, but not always, be at WTD). I think 2, if you were to pull it off, is a lot more interesting. But also far, far harder to execute. 1 is likely a lot easier to execute, and I know you've leaned this route in VQ. I've leaned this way in 7 Siblings as well, although I have much smaller cast and don't use skill,m and can afford to balance on a more unit-by-unit basis. Even IS, between FE7 and 8, realized how busted cavalry was, and yanked paladin's axes. Mounts are still as busted as ever in 3 Houses, as is movement in general, so they still haven't seemed to figure it out. IMO Thracia, which definitely can still be a mess balance-wise, came closest to balancing horses with dismount in theory (in practice, Finn/Fergus can still snowball easily and do more than fine indoors). Would love to see some people try and implement ideas along the line of number 2 in the hacking community in the future. But for now, 1 is a decent way to do it.
You have to talk in specific context though, because it is the context that lets them dominate. Given that they have so many intrinsic and universally good qualities (generally solid bases in important stats, high move, etc.), finding situations to make them and only them suffer is difficult (Horseslaying weapons and terrain being two of the most obvious). I think a combination between 1/2 is necessary if we are talking strictly in the context of GBA, but as long as most maps are open and not all on a desert, horses are going to always have an edge imo. I look at it as - can I reduce that edge somewhat, so that I need to think more critically about when I use them?
@@nadnap Oh, I agree in GBA it's very difficult, hence my admission at the end. The combination of the 2 is probably what should be strived for over the course of a game. I don't know what that high penalty context looks like, or whether it's viable over the course of an entire game. But I would like to think there's some creative idea out there, whether it be dismount or fatigue-related, or locking them to a certain subset of weapons. Vanilla context does not even come close to hampering them to account for their disadvantages. But vanilla was really only inventive in trying to do this once. In the context of vanilla, you're 100% spot on. I'd like to think there are viable ideas out there somewhere though
Maybe I'm overly optimistic haha. But I've been thinking a good deal lately about how Scraiza has essentially turned GBA FE on its head in SotF, and I dare to dream of inventive things
@@warpath2273 Is it really bad if some classes or units are better tjan other. Like if you recruit a legendary paladin that was built up heavely through the story and his stats are worse than those of a generic enemy right next to him and he doesn't have any personal weapons or good skills to make him stand out, wouldn't that be dissapointing? Of course one unit shouldn't dominate the game and an archer shouldn't be worse than a pegasus knight just because of their class. But still I think there should be characters that are better than others if for story reasons only.
I like what they did to them in Three house (the horses not the flyers) -10% growth in SPD and a bit less spd too make them a bit weaker in the spd area whene really useally they are just as fast as the other one. (it not a big deal but it something)
Peg Knights and by extension wyverns would be kinda similar - make bows good, put them in places where fliers want to go. For wyverns, keep their res low and magic user magic or tome MT high. For pegs, make hit rates better so dodging is less reliable. At least that's my 30 second take on it.
Right, so, few things to say.
Video is kinda unfocused, sorry, but its inconsistent with whats a "cavalier", where Jagens and Seth and even Midir end up thrown into the mix without much seeming focus, mostly cause they all have horses(?).
From what I derived during the video:
Of the Jagens you mentioned, I's say their issues are more Jagen-design centric more than anything, but w/e.
Never really mentioned that Oscar is kinda good because Canto+, and Axes in 1-2 the game. He's basically one of the best units and the points you mentioned about his early game performance being weak dont necessarily hold water. More on that later.
Liked what you were going for with Lyn Mode Sain being a touch too potent. Giving that early promotion to a less distinctly good classline would be interesting (like maybe an early Orions bolt)
Fe1 jagen is not exactly the best example. Dude exists in FE1 in a game where master seals are limited and boosters are +5. Doesnt mean hes better than cain/abel/hardin, but uh he doesnt fall off. Book 1 Jagen would work better as an example, but again this is a Jagen conversation during a Cavalier discussion.
I like the idea of advocating for more interesting placements of horse effective weaponry in maps, but what that means to me is that they should be placed so they cannot be applied to every situation, and instead be creatively dealt with elsewise. This doesnt mean every squad formation should have a reaver, a slayer and a 1-2, no. If placed awkwardly and they're not really dealt with by alternative means in the team, it can slow down the pace.
I was shaving when you talked about Brighton and I nicked myself. Not really a complaint, just thought it was funny.
Brighton isnt really all that fun outside of manster, or even inside of manster at times, and the claim that he uses the steel sword the best is uh, strange to be certain.
I like what you said about Finn, earnestly. Good utility beyond that of routing. Doesnt apply to every game without capture, but hey, it ok
Comments about Cecille are, funky. More on that later.
Liking Treck because he's bad is an interesting take.
Midir is out of place in this discussion.
Kyle is uh, not really bad. He's certainly not Treck.
FE10 Geoffery being listed is uh... More on that later.
The reasons you listed for Cavliers being so good are solid, but the latter slide doesnt provide any clear cut solutions. Or at least, an effective solution. Also, like half the series doesn't have rescue.
The way you describe enemy cavaliers, well, lord I hope you mean making the enemies more competent than they are Bulky.
I guess i should prolly stop commenting and start responding.
I fundamentally disagree with the notion that good Cavalier Design is relegating them to being purely mediocre or elsewise rounded units that they're "Balanced".
A common theme i found throughout is that you do not want the cavaliers to be potent. At all.
In fact, across several of your examples you stated "I like them because they're kinda bad", even if your claim wasn't always completely true.
That's how we get units like Eagle, like Jeremy Corben, like Cavalier Kliff, who hit like wet noodles and quickly dart away.
A cavalier can be potent without being overtly "Busted". There's nothing wrong with having a good unit in a good classline, its just more indicative of a game with design flaws when the subject unit/class is allowed to dominate.
Like, perhaps it'd be good to just make the cavalier more unique when they show up a few chapters later, to make their specialty flourish. Maps should be designed with them in mind.
You want to see what a strong, very potent Cavalier that isn't busted would be like? Look no further than Berwick Saga's Elbert.
Elbert has great base stats, a great starting level for his join time, and Swords/Spears and Small (Medium on promo) Shields. He's strong, fast and bulky, but not domineering because he can't be the solution to every enemy, since enemies have appropriate formations and weaponry that he can't always tackle. The maps let mounts do fun things, with canto mind you, and they don't always like Mounted units for things like Cliffs, rough terrain and Indoor maps. He isn't going to promote ASAP and starting dominating the field because his promotion requirement in Spear Skill is 20 while he has a 30% growth in the area. It's a hurdle that does hold him back, despite being so good as is.
Furthermore, Elbert is complimented by two great skills:
Provoke, which is a command skill that aggravates an enemy to him for a few turns,
And Arrowbane, which let's him have an additional Roll Chance (67%) if he fails to dodge a bow the first Roll.
Bows can be pretty nasty, so him having this niche incentives his use in tandem with his Medium Shields to absolutely wallop Crossbow/Bow setups.
This combines both of the things we appreciate. A horse unit thats very potent, joins early, has clear defined and manageable flaws, maps conducive for and against him, and Clear Utility complimented by his classline.
I didn't want to seem inflammatory, and I hope it didn't come off that way. Just, I think you can absolutely identify the problems with Cavaliers, but the answer provided isn't the way to do it. Kudos, though.
Not inflammatory at all, and these are all good points. I agree w/ your thesis. Most games don't do enough to make horses less of a "win button" and less potent overall. Not advocating for them to be weak and lean completely on utility, but if you're new to designing and want to ensure that cavaliers don't totally dominate, I think this these are some good ideas to get started.
Cavaliers are tricky to discuss across the series because they're so different in each game, and yet very powerful in almost all of them. Additionally, how you may design them in your own game would be different because there are many directions you can take with them. There are many different flavors of cavalier versus say, a myrmidon (if we think in context of vanilla).
Good post and thanks for watching!
Bro really tore down the oppressive establishment board by board
Bro cavaliers are a real thing it means a soldier and a horse
GBA Jagens get stronger as you go from one game to the next, and the enemies get weaker. I don't know what they were thinking there.
One thought that struck me here is giving Cavaliers generally unimpressive durability, similar-ish to how Pegasus Knights are usually physically-fragile, but less extreme. Essentially, make it a more general principle that Cavaliers are useful and can still do a lot with their high Movement, but overextending them is somewhat more dangerous than doing the same with infantry units.
Alternatively, a durable Cavalier should be less potent offensively, so they’re good at baiting out enemies but not great at taking them out without support.
A lot of vanilla Cavaliers end up being solid both offensively and defensively in addition to their huge mobility advantage and frequent weapon triangle control, which means they can just sorta wreck house pretty much as well as your less-mobile combat savants, can take the hits they need to not die doing so, AND they have the mobility to be the first through the door at any party, sometimes by a factor of multiple turns. High mobility on a unit with the stats to do stuff with it is cool and fun, but you gotta rein them in enough that you have to put thought into using them and other units still have crucial roles to play.
That’s kinda how I feel about this, which I don’t think is really in conflict with what you said here. Just my own thoughts.
(Also I would probably consider Arch Knights / Nomads / T1!Bow Knights to kinda be their own class separate from Cavaliers and the melee Weapon Knights, but that’s not too important here)
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, I agree - what makes discussing cavaliers challenging is that they've changed and been used differently over 30 years, more so than any other "Core" FE class. Since there are so many, it's hard to get a sense of the "generic" cavalier like it is for an archer, armor, myrm, etc.
I agree that in vanilla, their combat is generally too good, or not bad enough, to offset the gains from their superior movement. Overextending pegs not only comes from their lack of bulk, but also the threat of 2x/3x effectiveness from arrows. The amount of horse-slaying weapons generally is way lower than bows, and so cavs get extra movement with minimal risk.
I really like cavs as a generalist utility class more than a dominant combat class, but it really depends on your game and what sort of outcomes you're looking for.
Flagged for saying Sain wouldn't be dominant as a pirate
On a more serious note, a common theme I see in most of this analysis is that a in a large number of these contexts, there are no intrinsic disadvantages of being on a horse vs. not. Cavs with equal, not even better, stats when compared to foot units will be preferred 100% of the time, due to increased movement and rescue utility (and perhaps another weapon type).
Thus, that leaves us with the options of:
1. Making their combat not as good as foot units, by stat increases/ limiting them to one weapon/lackluster skill loadout, or
2. Creating a context where even cavaliers of equal combat in a vacuum are less than ideal for certain situations. Horse-killing weapons, dismount or another implementation of severe indoor penalties, or very specific terrain (part of the map may be desert, for example).
This could also be accomplished on a unit-by-unit basis, especially in earlygame (e.g. the earlygame cav may often, but not always, be at WTD).
I think 2, if you were to pull it off, is a lot more interesting. But also far, far harder to execute. 1 is likely a lot easier to execute, and I know you've leaned this route in VQ. I've leaned this way in 7 Siblings as well, although I have much smaller cast and don't use skill,m and can afford to balance on a more unit-by-unit basis.
Even IS, between FE7 and 8, realized how busted cavalry was, and yanked paladin's axes. Mounts are still as busted as ever in 3 Houses, as is movement in general, so they still haven't seemed to figure it out. IMO Thracia, which definitely can still be a mess balance-wise, came closest to balancing horses with dismount in theory (in practice, Finn/Fergus can still snowball easily and do more than fine indoors).
Would love to see some people try and implement ideas along the line of number 2 in the hacking community in the future. But for now, 1 is a decent way to do it.
You have to talk in specific context though, because it is the context that lets them dominate. Given that they have so many intrinsic and universally good qualities (generally solid bases in important stats, high move, etc.), finding situations to make them and only them suffer is difficult (Horseslaying weapons and terrain being two of the most obvious). I think a combination between 1/2 is necessary if we are talking strictly in the context of GBA, but as long as most maps are open and not all on a desert, horses are going to always have an edge imo. I look at it as - can I reduce that edge somewhat, so that I need to think more critically about when I use them?
@@nadnap Oh, I agree in GBA it's very difficult, hence my admission at the end. The combination of the 2 is probably what should be strived for over the course of a game. I don't know what that high penalty context looks like, or whether it's viable over the course of an entire game. But I would like to think there's some creative idea out there, whether it be dismount or fatigue-related, or locking them to a certain subset of weapons.
Vanilla context does not even come close to hampering them to account for their disadvantages. But vanilla was really only inventive in trying to do this once. In the context of vanilla, you're 100% spot on. I'd like to think there are viable ideas out there somewhere though
Maybe I'm overly optimistic haha. But I've been thinking a good deal lately about how Scraiza has essentially turned GBA FE on its head in SotF, and I dare to dream of inventive things
@@warpath2273 Is it really bad if some classes or units are better tjan other. Like if you recruit a legendary paladin that was built up heavely through the story and his stats are worse than those of a generic enemy right next to him and he doesn't have any personal weapons or good skills to make him stand out, wouldn't that be dissapointing? Of course one unit shouldn't dominate the game and an archer shouldn't be worse than a pegasus knight just because of their class. But still I think there should be characters that are better than others if for story reasons only.
Heck yeah been looking forward to this!
Yeah, Marcus getting 2 points of speed and being fine...until he takes on Maxime in BBD and gets one-rounded.
I like what they did to them in Three house (the horses not the flyers)
-10% growth in SPD and a bit less spd too make them a bit weaker in the spd area whene really useally they are just as fast as the other one. (it not a big deal but it something)
Pls do peg knights since it seems even IS can't make them balanced
Peg Knights and by extension wyverns would be kinda similar - make bows good, put them in places where fliers want to go. For wyverns, keep their res low and magic user magic or tome MT high. For pegs, make hit rates better so dodging is less reliable. At least that's my 30 second take on it.
@@nadnap Just give bow users close counter, that's it