This is a collection of notes and thoughts I've jotted down during my time playing FE across several versions of beta 3, yes, it's pretty long, I apologize before hand.

Let me start out by saying that I'm not terribly thrilled that weapons gets these innate abilities (I would much prefer that it be handled through traits), but since this seems to be the course from here on out, I'm willing to put that aside and find a way to make the system interesting. As long as the end goal, to make the weapons feel different and unique, is achieved, I'm okay with it.

So let's start by taking a quick look at the weapons as they are, right now... (note that this is just the weapons that units get access to, and not accounting for all the rare & legendary equipments, as those are very hard to balance and beyond the scope of this thread)

  1. Maces:
    + Has the first weapon in the game (club), abeited a terrible one, still, it's doesn't get any easier to get started
    + Easy and quick access to Lightning Hammer, a powerful weapon for high level units, and a good choice to upgrade your early game militias into if you made any and managed to keep them alive
    - Initiative penalties makes the weapons simply too slow to use in most circumstances... mace wielders just don't get as many moves... severely crippling their offensive capability.
    - Late game Mauls are particularly horrible... 2-handed, and -8 initiative? You might as well sit on the sideline and watch the battle. (Note that I considered mauls as 2-handed maces rather than staffs)
    - High end armor has bonus to blunt (even Tarth can use champion gear), making it particularly less useful endgame unless you're using Lightning Hammers on high level troops.

  2. Swords:
    + Counter attack makes it a good defensive weapon in conjunction with bonus defense for defending (defend & counter)
    + Some swords has initiative bonuses, letting their wielders move more often
    + Has some decent magical weapon... the best being the powerful Boreal blades that all militia troops end up using (but has a tendency to make the player equip cold resist cloaks).
    + A good early game weapon to use, as only a few monster has negate counter
    - Terrible mid-game due to chain mail's bonus to cutting attacks
    - Not so great endgame due to overall lower attack versus higher armor values (and particularly terrible against Tarth)

  3. Spears:
    + One of the first weapon you get (aside from the basic club), so that makes it very easy to get & upgrade
    + Pierces armor, making it useful from the beginning (hunting armored monsters) all the way to the end game
    + Negates counter attack, making it the perfect counter for sword defenders
    + Has one of the best magical weapon (Lightning Pike) for elite troops, not only does it becomes more powerful per level, but there are also very few monsters that has lightning resist.
    - Two-handed seems to be the only downside... to which Krax laughs at.

  4. Axes:
    + Backswing has a somewhat limited use particularly on low accuracy unit (like broken spirited sovereigns or one-eyed heroes) or versus specific strategies (high evade or blindness casting players)
    - None of the magical axes screams useful...
    - Terrible mid-game due to chain mail's bonus to cutting attacks
    - Higher tiered axes are two-handed, with no good one-hand alternative

  5. Daggers:
    + Daggers get critical bonuses, works okay on very specific loaded assassin builds, but not too useful for anyone else
    - There's actually only 1 dagger for units, and it's virtually worthless... essentially a weak sword with a bit of critical
    
  6. Staffs:
    + Monk staff has an interesting avoid bonus per level and counter, but is essentially worthless as a weapon to do damage
    - Two-handed, no shield bonus
    - Only 2 staff in the game, one worthless, the other almost as worthless. (I don't count Mauls - those are 2-hand maces)
    - Lowers critical chance... really? Was it really THAT necessary to nerf this weapon even more?

  7. Bows:
    + Ranged, allowing you to get a hit or two in while melees are moving, can target often-times soft target in the back without needing to run up or chase them.
    - Pretty hard to get (too far down the warfare tree, and often completely skipped because early bows aren't amazingly useful - often times I'll just get the Ignis bow from magic instead)
    - Harsh initiative penalties, archers just don't move very often...
    - Low attack makes it almost useless against armor
    - Tarth's bows aren't so "feared" as much as they are the only really viable bows (aside from Ignis).
    - Archer militia doesn't seem to update their bows unlike melee militias

  8. Magical Staffs:
    + Ranged, allowing you to get a hit or two in while melees are moving, can target enemies in the back without needing to run up or chase them down.
    + Elemental, allowing you to hurt armored opponents, in exchange for being useless against a select few who has resists
    - Harsh initiative penalties, magi just don't move very often...
    - Costs quite a bit of crystal to field, so are not really viable until late game (early game magi are too weak anyways)

If everything stay the way it is (relatively), to balance weapons, you'd probably need to do something like, buff maces, slightly buff axes & bows while nerfing spears, and maybe give daggers & staffs an identity... but I don't think that would be enough. So let me explain my alternative...


For one thing, the idea that weapons modify the initiative of units directly somewhat bothers me (it's one thing to have a dagger of haste do it, it's another to have all daggers do it). The reason is pretty obvious, it's one of the reason people avoid maces like the plague, or why people equip their casters with basic daggers (or hunter's short sword). Initiative is just too important to toss on as a bonus/penalty, you're going to have a nightmare trying to balance it. So what you first need to do is set up a comprehensive encumbrance system to take care of that for you.

So here's my proposal for the encumbrance system: Instead of a 2 tier penalty like it is now (where you get -2 initiative above 40 and -4 above 80), extend it to a 3 tier penalty system. In this new system, you get -3 initiative when above 30 encumbrance (light), -6 when above 60 (medium), and -9 when above 90 encumbrance (heavy). To compensate for the harsher penalties, add 10 capacity for everyone. The idea is to design your unit with either minimal (30 or under) or light (60 or under) encumbrance, and a max of medium encumbrance (90 or under). This has the effect of reducing the overall strength of high end armor (unless you're willing to sacrifice a lot of initiative for it) and increasing the significance of traits like strength & muscle, Yithril's blood and items that raises carrying capacity. (You could even go further and just make it every 10% is -1 initiative, but you don't have to.)

After the encumbrance system is in play, rework the weapons' weight values to take advantage of it (this will be how you handle initiative bonus & penalties). Heck, don't even think of it as the weapon's weight (light, heavy, etc) anymore, but rather as an overall encumbrance value that reflects both the weight and the difficulty in wielding it (like a combat style associated with the weapon which needs a certain amount of encumbrance as well). With that, make Swords and Staffs easy to use (0-10 encumbrance), Daggers and Maces are average in difficulty (10-20 encumbrance), Spears, Axes, and Range weapons are difficult (20-30 encumbrance). I'll explain why I chose these values a bit later in their own section. This way, you could still have a fairly fast archer (magi/spears/axes users), but they would need strength, muscle, and other carrying capacity bonuses, and even then, they probably still wouldn't be able to wear heavy armor (the weapon weighs so much more), while naturally defensive weapons, like swords and staffs, lets you wear a lot more armor with fewer penalties (although staffs has its own mechanic). Put all of these decisions into the player's hands, and I think you'll end up making the unit design more important and interesting part of the game. It'll also make balancing weapons a lot easier (you just tweak attack and weight values).


With that out of the way, let's discuss the weapons themselves:

  1. Maces (blunt, medium damage, average difficulty/weight):
    a. New ability: Damage Armor. Every time you hit an opponent with a mace, their armor value gets reduced by 10%. Although it's not a straight penetration like spears, if you get into a prolonged fight with a mace user (or a group of them), you'll be in a tough spot. The damage is temporary (a debuff that stacks), and is repaired after battle. This allows mace users to wear down opponents, which is great early game to fight those tough defense monsters (making militias a bit more useful in tough fights instead of just being fodder). Factions with armoring bonuses might have their defense reduced by a couple of percent less per hit (8% reduction per hit instead of 10%), and those who specializes in hammers might do more per hit (12% reduction per hit instead of 10%).
    b. New ability: Clunk. Every time you successfully hit a well-armored enemy, instead of doing a "Clink" that does 1 damage, you instead do a "Clunk" that does 3. Basically, it's their minimum damage you do on hit. This is to make them able to scratch their opponent while the def is still up.
    c. Two handed maces are heavier, does more damage, and has a bigger clunk ... I mean higher min damage (5?)
    d. Maces skills (traits like apprentice swordsmen, but can be assigned to units as well): Improve blunt damage, improve minimum damage (clunk's damage). The idea is to have 2 of these for each weapon type (apprentice, and master - with master being a bit better but requires apprentice), so you have to choose between this versus something like strength to wear more armor, or fast for that bonus initiative, or toughness for HP, etc... basically, give more good trait choices to make you pull your hair out while designing your units.

  2. Swords (cutting, medium damage, easy to use/light):
    a. Sword gives bonus def (2-5) all the time, and either a bonus def while defending, or a multiplier to def while defending. The goal is to specialize swords as the ultimate defensive weapon, one that is capable of having a formidable defense even in the early game without strong armors. They basically walk up, tank hits with their def, and then give it back through counters. Sword should also have a slight multiplier to counter damage (they deal more damage doing counters than they do attacking normally) for this reason. It should feel dangerous to attack a swordsmen.
    b. Every sword should have 2 counter attacks instead of one (as this is how swords primarily do their damage). Altar's special swords should give either a larger bonus to attack, or a higher multiplier to counter attack damage, or both.
    c. Two handed swords are heavier, and does more damage.
    d. Sword skills (swordsmen skills, assignable to units): Improve cutting damage, improve counter attack damage

  3. Spears (piercing, medium damage, hard to use/heavy):
    a. I'm basically using spears as the baseline for the other weapons, so not a lot is changed aside from making them weight more. I thought about giving it a range of 2, or a piercing attack of 2 (to explain why they can't be countered), but that might make things too complicated.
    b. Spear skills (again, new traits that can be assigned to units): Improve piercing damage, reduce weapon encumbrance

  4. Axes (cutting, high damage, hard to use/heavy):
    a. Backswing works the same as it does currently, it's good for low accuracy unit or against high evade units, but axes gets a damage upgrade to compensate for being heavier. This makes axes simple, yet effective weapons.
    b. Two handed axes are even heavier and does even more damage... making it very difficult to use for most... (they become the maul's replacement) but also makes perfect sense for Yithril to specialize in due to their blood trait.
    c. Axe skills (do I need to explain again?): Improve cutting damage, reduce weapon encumbrance

  5. Dual Daggers (piercing & cutting, low damage, average difficulty/weight):
    a. Daggers becomes effectively two handed weapons, as you are essentially wielding a pair of daggers (hence "Dual Daggers"). They are meant as offensively focused weapons (to make them feel different from swords) so you can't wield them with a shield. This is why daggers are not easy to use (and also because it just seems weird for dagger users to load up on heavy armor). It would be great if the graphics could show dual wielding, even if it's just a fake mechanic.
    b. New ability: Double attack. When attacking, daggers hits twice, the first hit is a cutting attack, and the second hit a piercing one. So while daggers does low damage, they aren't as vulnerable to a particular damage type resistance (and able to inflict special effects twice). Daggers are able to somewhat pierce defenses (20-30% on the second hit), their primary way to do damage is still through critical strikes (which now effectively has a double chance of happening).   
    c. Daggers get 1 counter attacks per round, but only hits once (unlike when attacking), however dagger counters hits first (before the other attacks). This is to further reinforce the image that dagger users are fast and deadly. Unlike sword's counter that depends on actually tanking the hit first and returning it for more, dagger's counter tries to take the target out (or weaken them up) before they even attack.
    d. Add some more daggers to fill the mid & end game, and some special daggers (poison daggers, weakening daggers, etc) to make things interesting
    e. Dagger skills (...): Improve critical chance and multiplier

  6. Staffs (blunt, low damage, easy to use/light):
    a. Staffs gives an avoid bonus depending on your total encumbrance level (10 for none, 6 for light, 2 for medium, and none for heavy). Staffs also adds avoid when defending (the high avoid bonuses is to compensate for not being able to wield a shield). It's basically the weapon of choice for an agile, evasive type unit that the game seems to lack, and fills a necessary role for Axes to naturally counter (like Spears to counter Swords/Daggers). It's light weight, and gains bonuses for not wearing a lot of heavy armor, thus you don't need all those strength traits and allowing you to put your traits slot to other uses... but has a low base damage in return. It's mainly good for weak specialized or support units who isn't really meant to do tons of damage (like scouts, or perhaps... healers).
    b. Staffs get 1 counter attacks per round, and staffs counter can't be negated (due to the length of the staff). This is meant mainly to keep spear users honest about their armor selection.
    c. Add a couple of new staffs to fill out the mid & end game. Maybe a magical staff that allows the use of burning hands, and one that allows the unit to heal... (okay, I'm going too far into the monk thing now.)
    d. Staff skills: Improve blunt damage, improve evasion.

  7. Bows (piercing, low damage, hard to use/heavy):
    a. Bows now has a very small armor penetration (10-20%) to make it useful late game against armored opponents.
    b. Bows get an accuracy bonus (5-10), archers are suppose to be good at hitting stuff after all. This is primarily to counter staff wielders' dodging like the slight armor penetration is to def.
    b. Tarth bows are lighter, and does a bit more damage and more penetration. They should also get 2 magical bows that does extra poison damage and inflicts poison ailments. One for each tier of magic weapon research.
    c. Bow skills: Improve piercing damage, improve accuracy.

  8. Rods (formerly magical staffs, elemental, low damage, hard to use/heavy):
    a. Rods are now one handed, magical weapons. You can now wield a shield along with a rod (although you might not WANT to due to encumbrance penalties). Make the early rods cost a bit less crystals.
    b. Added: Foci (Focuses?)... crystals/books/bracelets/or whatever else you come up with that is held in the offhand (a type of shield? It should weigh quite a bit, maybe 10-20? Again, a reflection of it's hard to use nature... because you have to focus your power through it). Foci adds a percentage bonus to certain elemental damage (IE: a Frost Focus would add 50% Ice damage). So while the rods themselves don't do a lot of damage, if you equip a Foci of the matching element, you'd be able to do some serious elemental damage in exchange for being a lot slower (due to encumbrance of both rod and foci). Do you want faster magi, or stronger ones? Do note that while this is primarily a magi' offhand, you could use it with one handed elemental weapon and bring out the fury with your melee units as well (Lightning Foci + Lightning Hammer... aw yeah... I'm officially dubbing it the "Thor build".).
    c. All faction should get all 4 types of elemental rods (not just fire and ice, but lightning and poison as well)... unless a certain faction don't like magic for some reason. All faction should also get all 4 types of elemental cloaks and rings to counter these.
    d. Pariden's rods should just weight less, and does a bit more damage (instead of being the only one to do lightning and no one can resist). They should also cost a bit less to allow them to field more of them earlier as well.
    e. Rod skills: Improve elemental damage, reduce weapon weight.

As you can see, all the weapon types are fleshed out. Swords are tanks, who excels in defending and counters. Spears like to poke from relative safety. Daggers are fast, but unpredictable and dangerous. Maces likes to break your shiny armors. Staffs are nimble and frustrates you. Axes quickly puts a stop to that. Bows are a bit of everything. Rods can be what they want... until someone counters them useless. All of them feels unique and different, and yet seems viable under certain builds (thanks mainly to pulling initiative out of the picture) and gives you plenty of things to make factions feel different (heck, if each faction focus on 1 type of weapon, you'd have 8 right there). You'd also have to change how weapons are selected on the unit design screen to make upgrading them make a bit more sense (no more upgrading staff into mauls or dagger into axe then into sword), but that should be done regardless.

To be honest, I'm was planning to mod a lot of this in as a sort of "Weapon and Armor balancing mod" if we ever get to a stable version, but I thought that I'd just share the idea now, and perhaps some of the better concepts might get adopted (would certainly be nice if the maces and dagger changes go through at least, even better if the encumbrance system changes), or if nothing else, at least get some feedback on what people think about it.

So, what do you guys think? Too far fetched?