Too minor of a penalty imo, especially for fliers, who also ignore ledges. If they had also lost Canto indoors, maybe the impact would be more substantial.
I remember when people used to recommend keeping Est dismounted for most of her levels because "just because she's capped a stat mounted doesn't mean she's capped it dismounted!"
There are some very precise situations in FE4 where dismounting allows Seliph to move an extra tile when traversing desert, mountain, or forest terrain with the Leg Ring (+3 Mov) equipped. 12 Mov mounted, 9 Mov unmounted, 3 Mov to cross difficult terrain mounted, 2 Mov unmounted… while mounted, he can cross 4 tiles of forest, mountain, or desert. While unmounted, he can cross 4 tiles of forest, mountain, or desert PLUS one plains tile. So… very specific case. But technically a mechanical reason to do it.
13:00 If you ask me, Seliph's combat and crit animations as an unpromoted lord are beautiful, so much better than the basic lord knight animations, so I did use the dismounting feature once or twice, purely at the end of a map to style on a boss.
Yeah when I learned about dismounting I so desperately wished it was in all fire emblem games. Movement is so good and this is such a great balancing tool to keep mounted units from dominating every FE game
I love forced dismounting. Especially in Berwick where horses being mortal forces you to make meaningful decision on whether you're willing to send a mounted unit into a combat heavy situation, where you also have to consider damage to equipment that can't be easily/cheaply healed or replaced. Also, units can wield all weapon types they're capable of using while mounted, except for lances, which are a subtype of spears with higher bonus damage for every hex moved. In addition, dismounted units and light infantry, such as myrms, fighters and mages have better movement types for difficult terrain than dismounted knight types, which with good map design makes certain outdoor parts better handled by infantry. If done right, such a system can open up a lot of interesting and meaningful tactical and strategic choices.
@@BigKlingy Yeah, Czene, the funny (and only) playable mounted thief. Off the top of my head Tico gives +5 Spd, +1 Atk, and has 8 mov, compared to the standard 7. Also heals 20 HP per chapter, tho its max HP is on the lower-average side.
@@TechnoFall42 I've always liked the idea of a mounted Thief and am surprised Fire Emblem's never done that yet. (Wolf Knight doesn't really count imo)
@@BigKlingy Same. She's one of my favourite thief in SRPGs, just because she has a horsie, plus the funny Mug and Mug+ procs. Kind of sucks at killing things, but there are some pretty funny knifes that allow her to do more by the time endgame comes. Also nice for chipping Armours or finishing ones left at low HP, since they pierce defence. Wish her knife skill capped at 60 for +10 hit and crit tho.
equippable mounts is something that would be nice to include. At worst it's just aesthetic variety that could lean into the occasional personal skill. It would also allow characters to actually refer to specific mounts by name in supports and the like and have it not be made weird by class changes, because then they could actually have that same mount in gameplay regardless of what kind of mounted class they are.
On 3H, I often found myself dismounting fliers to use terrain. Especialy since they come with dodge skills. Also using the fliers to traverse the swamp and dismount to not be killed by the balista in VW's last chapter was how I always tackled it.
@@ultimaterecoil1136 The class skill, i don't think. The one that give extra dodge if you wait, definitively not (yes, you could grind flyer rank to get them without ever promoting to a flyer but why would you?).
What I love about the dismounting in FE3, this is especially true when I'm outdoors, is that someone like Caeda gets rid of her bow weakness and that was something I love so much in FE3 Book 1.
I started playing Thracia a few days ago, and it's really fun working around the combination of fatigue and forced dismounting. It really incentivizes you to try out different combinations of units each map while considering later map deployment in mind.
I honestly love forced dismounting, it adds a little extra sense-make to what the gameplay is representing (military engagements between rival powers/plucky rebels and the state) Like, yeah, a formation of cavalry or wyvernry (and I think of individuals units in FE as standing in for a somewhat to substantially larger force) would struggle to be effectively maneuvered in a building -probably even in a quite large one.
Honestly I love the idea of forcing mounted units to dismount and/or have a penalty in indoor areas as a way to dent their near-ubiquity. There's design space to play around in there to balance it just right. At the end of the day, it's more of a map design requirement than a unit design one -- and tbh, well designed maps _should_ be encouraging using your entire arsenal array, not just bashing every nail down with seven horses.
I would make it not just indoors, but more specifically areas with low ceilings, that forced you to dismount. It doesn't make sense for you to not be able to use a horse in a big vaulted throne room.
The problem with nerfing mounted units is that all you're doing is slowing the pace of the game down. Mounted units already generally have more balanced stats than the specialized classes. The problem is that in many FE titles, as long as you're reaching the game specific benchmarks, you typically don't need that specialization from the other classes. Rather than throwing the mounted units under the bus, the infantry units need to be given other substantial bonuses that encourage you to want to use them. Nerfing mounted unit mov/forcing dismount is horrible idea as it takes away their main advantage while again forcing the player to slow down for no good reason. If the game wants to discourage people from using such units then it's gonna have to be creative with the map and enemy design.
One bonus to dismounting in 3 houses for non- magical mounted units they gain the ability to use gauntlets on dismount so early game cavs can keep a gauntlet in their back pocket for the occasional quad attack on player phase a little niche but cool nonetheless
And fliers get to use bows on top of that, though you probably aren't going to have much reason to even have a bow on hand when fliers can still use 1-2 range weapons. Terrain bonuses are potentially helpful, though.
I really wish it would come back, it does so much for balancing cavs and fliers. Just thought of this now, in games with reclassing it encourages mounts to have a side class.
Honestly I like dismounting because it can make some units feel stronger if you train them up to be good unmounted as well, I use karin unmounted a lot since magic swords are usually better than javalins, so having the sword rank for that is very nice, if a bit niche. The main benifit to training a mounted unit unmounted is so that they can do better indoors
I love dismount in fe3 and 5. It's one of the most missed opportunity post kaga era. Something I wish FE does more are maps that have both indoor and outdoor sections. It restricts which units you can bring and make the choice of using nerfed mounted units if you want. It's a big part of unit uniqueness.
Another alternative if they ever want to attempt the indoor/outdoor dichotomy again is just to make indoor tiles cost mounted units, including fliers more movement. Like set the indoor mounted movement cost to 2 and now a gba paladin would have unpromoted armor movement indoors.
FE3 does have a couple of maps that split between mounted and dismounted terrain, the chapter where you get Astram in Book 1, and by extension the Book 2 Sheena map, has the chest room and boss room as indoor tiles, and I think there might be some more, it's just an oddly rare feature.
There is a benefit to dismounting in Thracia I don't think you mentioned: Dismounting sort of changes your class and class is a big determining factor in how much experience a unit gets. In short: Dismounting basically always means you get more experience from combat.
I may be misremembering but I’m pretty sure in a Book 2, the map where you’re dealing with Fire dragons, there’s a part where you have to dismount to enter a building, similar to how Thracia does it.
I feel the way Tearring Saga handled dismounting is worth bringing up. This is a bit to unpack but please bear with me. *STATS* In terms of how dismounting effects units statistically, each mounted class has its own specific dismounted class asociated with it (even if labeled the same in name). This means each class when dismounted recieves differing effects tailored for that class. For example take the Paladin and Black Knight classes, which are possible promotions from the Rook Knight (ie cavalier) class. They have higher stat totals than the average foot unit while mounted, but lower while dismounted. This is contrasted with the Commando Knight class. Commando Knight is also a possible promotion from the Rook Knight (ie cavalier) class. Commando knights have lower stats than their counterparts, more in line with the stats of most foot units. The big difference however is that commando knights recieve no stat debuffs while dismounted asside from their movement, giving them a specific niche over the stronger classes. Another example is the Iron Knight class, a mounted armor class. This is a beafy class with decent stats around asside from their massive defense, but upon dismounting they lose those rounded stat and recieve a big mov drop turning them into a standard armored unit. *WEAPONS* Firstly, its important to establish how weapon level works in this game. In TRS, the FE3 weapon level stat makes a comeback. Units can equip various weapons in accordance to their designated weapon level stat (refered to as "mastery") regardless of the weapon type as long as the class can use it. However weapon RANKS still exist in the form of combining the weapon kills system from FE4 with the weapon rank system of FE5. The more kills a unit preforms with a given weapon type, the more skilled they are with the weapon. As such they recieve combat bonuses while equiped with something of that weapon type in accordance to the ammount of kills on any weapon type they can use. Specifically they recieve +1% to their hit and avoid for every 10 kills/weapon exp with the given weapon type. This might not sound like much, but combined with various other personalized systems for boosting hit and avoid (support bonuses, a kill count system also existing for class categories like infintry, and skills that give big boosts when in certain types of maps), as well as the large ammount of enemies youll likely encounter (especially monsters), the benefits are pretty noteworthy. Now as to how this applies to dismounting. While dismounting in this game locks (the vast majority of) units into swords like in FE3 and 5, all mounted units can still use swords mounted. This means no dead weight swords in the inventory, but more importantly it works in tandem with the weapon experience/kills system. You could have a unit fight with the objectively more powerful lances while mounted, but the kill bonuses they recieve will only ever help them while mounted. Invest in having them use swords more however, and they wont lose those significant combat bonuses from kills while dismounted. Another aspect of about this of note is the Dark Knight class. Dark Knight is an almost entirely enemy only class mounted class. They are a strong mounted class which use lances and axes, and notably are lance locked when dismounted instead of sword locked. Lances are incredibly powerful, and them being able to use them dismounted intentionally makes them beat out your own mounted units. Also probably worth noting that most mounted classes are unique in their ability to equip more than one weapon type (while mounted). Most classes cant do this. Its also of note that the weapon triangle does not exist in this game. *MAP IMPLEMENTATION* The way the game implements dismounting into its maps is a lot like FE3 Book 2. In FE3 book 2, there are just about (if at all) no maps in the entire runtime which contain both indoor and outdoor sections of the map. You dont need to dismount to walk into a building because there are no buildings to walk into on outdoor maps asside from the usual basic locations (houses, shops, castle sieze points). Its the same in Tearring Saga. Outdoor maps never have indoor sections, and indoor maps never have outdoor sections. So why would would you dismount in an outdoor map? Simple: terrain. FE3 book 2 attempts to incentivize dismounting outdoors by placing obstacles in the form of terrain in the way of your mounted units. Tearring Saga does the sake thing, but its not nearly as present nor obnoxious outside of Holmes' route. On that note, Holmes maps tend to be a lot like Celica maps from Gaiden. Lots of monsters and weird terrain. As such, any mounted units you send his way (asside from fliers) benefit greatly from dismounting on a number of maps as they wont be as hindered.
As a small note, I've beaten FE3Book2 recently and I can asure that at least chapter 14 works like in FE5. I used a mounted unit to chase the thief, and also a flyer to reach the secret shop (you can't do it without a flyer). Yet once I got rid of the thief I had to dismount to get inside the building where most of the chapter takes part. Why it isn't like that in Book1 is beyond me, hahaha.
An aspect of book 2 that is promoted in its map design is terrain which forces units to dismount. The easiest example of this is the very first map of the game has its pathway towards the boss blocked by some mountains, which your cavaliers can cross if they dismount. This instance in particular in intended to teach the player of this utility, but I digress. This sort of design leads to well...weirdness. In order for mounted units to dismount, they are required to spend a turn doing so and can not do it before moving. So after happening upon terrain or deciding to take a shortcut, must spend a turn having the unit dismount, and then have them cross the terrain on the following turn. The idea is there but because of this very simple aspect to the mechanic it become more of a nuisance and slows down the act of traversing the map in a game which punished slow play through large ambush reinforcements.
Should also added the New Mystery notably changed maps to exclude annoying terrain which was primarily included as part of promoting dismounting. Obviously dismounting does not exist in New Mystery and this played a roll in their removal, but it is notable regardless.
One thing I hope, but find very unlikely, is that in the inevitable Fe4 remake infantry units could have access to mounting so they can have a hope of keeping pace. Make it so you need a class skill to actually *fight* mounted (and make dismounting end turn), but let Azel or even Arden be able to ride on a horse until they get close to the next group of enemies.
The way horses are handled in Berwick Saga is one of the biggest strengths of that game, IMO. Essentially horses are equipment. They accumulate damage that can't be healed by staffs, and eventually die, forcing you to dismount. Voluntarily dismounting protects the horse from combat damage. Replacing horses is expensive*, so there's some tradeoff with reaching objectives faster vs not letting the horse see combat. You can't move and then dismount. Horse-compatable classes tend to have worse movement than their light-infantry alternatives without the horse. *except for the thin horse, which has such low base HP that it will often die in the middle of a map.
I'm interested in the idea of having a couple classes, or specific units with a skill that does this, who are mounted infantry rather than cavalry. Where they have a horse for mobility, but they lose a lot of stats while riding it, so you want to dismount them before they see combat.
I think I would have preferred if the normally mounted units could still use their main weapon type when dismounted, just so they don't feel so similar to each other. I do find it interesting how the forced dismounting gives infantry units a chance to shine, but my experience was that someone like Fergus could still put in a lot of work. He's a sword main to begin with so he doesn't lose his weapon type when dismounted, allowing him to still use higher ranked swords.
If dismounting is brought back, I would like to see it used in cool and unique ways to make it worth doing more frequently. One concept I had in mind was the ability to make dismounting a skill akin to weapon arts. For example, a technique unique to a flying class where they make an attack and dismount at the same time. Perhaps with some combat benefit to justify having to remount.
Promotion is stored in the horse is a very good line lol Btw I quite liked the system of dismounting in 3H, I used it to avoid movement penalties from stairs/forests and I think with some tweaking it could be made more significant again Maybe if they used engage's normalised movement ranges?
I found dismounting in Three Houses to be super useful on maddening during moment when I needed to avoid effective damage. Particularly on my peagasus knight that was already avoid tanking
I liked the mechanic in thracia, finn is so close to C rank swords so in the first maps i dismount him to access to killer edges quickly and dismounted units gain more Exp than when are mounted, and some maps with terrains like the ones in chapter 2x makes mounted units nearly impossible to move so a dismounted finn doesn't have that problem, i think that limiting all the dismounted units to swords was not very good idea since what is the point of having the classes lance knights and sword knights when cavaliers (social knights) get both swords and lances and keeps the sword rank when dismount
A shame you didn't get to talk about how dismounting effects FE3B2, because I feel like that's the part of the game where the mechanic feels a lot more considered. There is (if I remember correctly) a much more even spread of indoor vs outdoor maps, which means that unlike Book 1 where the relative lack of indoor maps means mounted units remain dominant for a much more significant portion of the game, Book 2 really expects you to have a good mixture of mounted and infantry units. Another major advantage infantry have is their base 7 movement compared to dismounted units with 6, and while that doesn't sound like a huge advantage 1 point of movement across a whole map does add up and the dismounted units can find themselves lagging behind. And in Book 2, mounted promo bonuses being tied to their mounts has the biggest effect on archers. While archers were strictly inferior to hunters/bow knights in Book 1 thanks to the outdoor map majority, the larger portion of indoor maps is more beneficial to archers who get more movement and retain better stats when indoors compared to hunters. That combined with the Parthia helping them 1 shot some of the scariest enemies such as wyvern knights and flying dragons, along with the Paragon bonus it gives and using Star Shards, lets archers/snipers especially Gordon and Jeorge really snowball their stats and become player phase delete buttons to later get rid of troublesome enemies like heroes.
An idea I personally would love for a future game to is to not only have dismounting but for players to be able to inflict a “forced dismount” affliction on foes. Where for 1 turn they would be unable to benefit from their mount and suffer an even harsher decrease in their dismounted stats, on top of still taking the bonus damage they would suffer if mounted. It’s like how in other games where you’d fight a mounted foe and when knocked off they become vulnerable for a bit.
Ah you should’ve discussed Radiant Dawn’s indoor mounted movement penalty, and how that mechanic just absolutely clowns on Fiona so hard, destroying any possible mounted utility she could have, as all but 2 maps she’s available for and the endgame are either indoors, a swamp, or a desert.
In 3 houses i would often dismount to avoid anything that does extra damage. Send a Pegasus Ingrid into a nest of archers, equip javelins and dismount allows her to "kill every last one of them"
Regarding FE5, there is a boon to fighting dismounted. Thracia uses a class power statistic in determining EXP gain. Most unpromoted infantry classes have a value of 3, while mounted units tend to have 4 or even 5 when promoted. However, dismounting lowers their class power to 2, giving them far more EXP compared to if they were mounted. In addition, Karin is really good at using magic swords, and Finn actually has enough sword rank at base that it’s not hard to get him to B swords for the later indoor maps. In addition, dismounting prevents effective damage, which can be really useful for fliers when there are ballistae around. Also worth noting is that you don’t lose stats when dismounting, you gain stats when mounted. This may seem like semantics, but it’s worth noting that since stat caps don’t change, you can still have have the maximum value for a stat even when dismounted, and the game will remember that if you remount and then dismount again.
I guess my view is, when I was less experienced with the series I used to hate dismounting. Now that I know how much mounts and fliers tend to dominate, I appreciate dismounting more and I agree with your view that it does what desert maps try to do. Like you, I'd like more variety in dismounted weapon types. Though it's interesting that in FE3, Generals are the only ones who can use Lances/the Gradivus indoors, which gives some incentive for training characters like Draug, Lorenz and Sheena. (Especially in Book 2, which has a gantlet of several indoor final maps) I really don't like dismounting in Three Houses though. In practice it only makes fliers EVEN MORE BROKEN, as they can dismount to avoid bows (I believe mounting back up is a free action, so they don't lose their next turn's move doing so?) and WHY did they try to nerf horses' speed but left fliers untouched?!
A niche benefit of dismounting in Three Houses is that you can't use Gauntlets while on a mount. Dismounting allows you to put units in mounted classes to learn their class skill while still using Gauntlets to either double on slower characters or use specific combat arts. Most notable of those is Raphael I think, who has access to Monster Breaker as his only Monster Slayer Art, so he could still break a barrier in one hit while being in Cavalier or Wyvern, without needing an offensive Gambit to do so. Not sure why you'd need to do that, but you can.
Dismounting for flyers in 3 houses is kind of busted at times. It allow flyers make use of terrain and often times terrain that your other units can't reach. Being able to just turn off your flying weakness when ever you want is also a nice perk.
I think Thracia could also benefit from more variation in unmourned weapon types. A lot of classes being forced into swords makes for interesting decisions, but like… Finn? Let the man be a lance user while foot locked
Honestly most annoying thing about forced indoor dismounting in fe3 is swapping around your mounted units' inventory. Got to the point I just stopped deploying my mounted units for indoor maps
It's kinda funny how one of the fe games where horses are at their strongest is surrounded on either side by this mechanic lol Oh also in 3 houses, dismounting doesnt take up a turn and you can do it before or after moving a unit which means you can use full movement to reach someone with an effective weapon or enemy range and switch unmounted just for an attack or a whole enemy phase without real downside
I found curious you dismissed dismount so quickly in 3 Houses. I dismount fliers quite often for defensive terrain. And with horses to avoid terrain movement penalties such as stairs or forest (which comes up a lot in some maps). It is not a very in depth system but at very least it seems to come up more often than non forced dismounting in Fe3.
Honestly something i want to see them try is how the paladin mount is handled in D&D game. The mount is a large creature, so it does not occupy 1 tile, it occupy a 2x2 square, kinda like monsters in 3H. You can use it anywhere but in practice there need to be the space for doing it(or play an halfling with a pony lol). I feel it can be a good way of balancing the superior mobility of mounted classes. They would become more cumbersome to use and hard to position effectively.
I love the mechanic and wish it would come back more. I wonder if it's something you can romhack into the GBA games... Then again, I love it for how it reduces the "Mojnted unit dominance" that the community has, and lets my beloved foot locked units shine more. I love Halbrediers, Swordmasters, Berserkers, Druids, and all kinds of foot-locked units, and it feels bad when I listen to or read someone dismiss them "Because X unit has a horse", often completely disregarding the stuff that makes the Foot unit unique. Armours I feel are hit especially bad by this stigma because they're really cool and nice to use when you get to, and GBA General has some of the SICKEST animations that it's a damn shame they're not popular. Especially with the absence of official Magic/Bow armours. Hell, I'd love to see a Shaman Armour! Shamans are already "the durable one" for the magic trio, so doubling down on that could be really awesome! Instead we got Malig Knight and invalidated the idea because now we gan give a mage a flying horse instead and the movement apparently completely invalidates the defensive bulk, nevermind the archer allergy...
You didn't bring this up, so I'm curious as to whether or not you even know about this: You can mount/dismount in Three Houses before moving your unit. Now, you can't do it twice per turn, so you can't mount, then move, then dismount again. But you can fly over to a forest, dismount and get the terrain advantage for Enemy Phase. Then on your next Player Phase, you can mount before moving and get your full movement range. It's kinda broken, since you get full flier mobility as though you never dismounted, but you still get to take advantage of terrain. Frankly, there is almost never a time where you WOULDN'T want to exploit this. It comes at no opportunity cost since you still retain full movement on every turn.
There's a horrible glitch in the JP FE4 that if promoted Seliph ever dismounts, he essentially doesn't move and you need to dance him to get him moving but even worse is that he later just disappears in the next map and basically end the entire game. Dismounting might as well be non-existent because you might accidentally dismount Seliph and end your game in it's entirety.
I like dismounting but I hate that being mounted sometimes restricts your weapon use. There is no reason for example for Finn to be unable to use Swords while mounted in FE5 -- except that in FE4 he can't. If they had a cap on their weapon rank so that they're restricted from using the best swords if they're mounted, that's fine with me, but if the man can swing a sword off his sword he can swing a sword on it. Losing lances while dismounted though makes sense.
Dismounting would be fine if people just kept their weapon types, like making infantry cooler but making mounted units boring on indoor maps kind of sucks, also they need to have infantry lance units if they bring it back, both mystery and thracia had issues of almost no indoor lance units (both possible indoor lance units in thracia started at E and Dalsin required a master seal)
Your description of Desert Maps in Fire Emblem not emphasizing having more varied movement types I think is touching on a core issue of the growths vs bases/utility argument that's been around forever. Dismounting and indoor maps incentivising building units in advance for them actually feels like the kind of prep-work you'd want to do in an FE game but in most games feels unecessary because your best units will probably never fall off even if the game doesn't recommend them. (Paladins in FE6/7, Bow Knights in Gaiden/Echoes, etc) But I like the idea of forcing mounted units to live in the shoes of infantry because it doesn't feel inherently punishing to the mounted units. I think stuff like this is why Engage and Three Houses were so focused on giving your units weapons and abilities and things to do because if everyone has the option to be multi-faceted then no one has be afraid of wasting time on "Growth" units, but I still think giving the Indoor Map/Dismounting mechanics another try in the series might end up being the better option. The FE developers are so much smarter now. I think they can easily make it work.
Man, Seliph is so hot, thank god I can dismount him to get a better view of those Baldur balls and Thrud thunder thighs I don't like dismounting much, in Thracia in particular. It nerfs mounts, but it does so by making them more similar to each other and other units. I would rather have units feel unbalanced than feel samey.
I think a good video idea would be discussing the evolution of the aesthetic and themes of fire emblem over time. E.g the ealier games having a more grounded aesthtic, focused on politics and war, having more grounded dialogue and personalities, and people speaking in an archaic medieval-esque way while later games are focused on mass appeal gacha- esque characters, higher fantasy, flashy anime animations and aesthetics, and more J-rpg esque stories. Also the fact that earlier games are focused mainly on the protagonist while the later games focus heavily on inter-character relationships(this is the primary area where I think the later games are superior, i generally prefer tge earlier games on other metrics. Im gacha-aethetic's biggest hater) The biggest split for this is obviously awakening, with Engage being the extreme example of a complete lack of grounding and no connection to historical ideas, axe wielding goth maids as your units. Geneology is probably the most extreme example of the former style with its heavy politics focus and sometimes extreme devotion to gameplay matching story.
Horses and pegusi shouldn't be able to move through forests and mountains. They could fly over them, but not be able to attack a unit beneath them. Wyverns could be slowed but not required to dismount.
Desert maps should not even cause a pen to movement for horses. It makes no sense horses (or anything else with 4 legs and hooves) should be better on sand. They should lose movement in forests that would also enable the devs to make more diverse flanking maps, where your horses go around a forest while the infantry goes through the forest (they should not have a penalty on those tiels) that would actually impact gameplay in a significant degree and not make fliers the number one answere as those should not outpace everything at all times.
Getting rid of the mount for a mounted unit feels like giving armor knights more movement: good for gameplay but it also gets rid of some uniqueness. Maybe it feels better in gameplay but I haven't gotten to these games yet.
I don't really like how forced dismounting changed the weapons you could use. That was something that really annoyed me in Thracia 776, especially in the last few chapters. I'd rather see them do what they did in Radiant Dawn with the Move penalty for mounted units on indoor maps. Maybe Move -2 wasn't enough, but I think Move -3 might balance things out a bit better. Cutting the Move of a mounted unit in half on an indoor map might be too much, but reducing it by 3 seems fair to me. On the other hand, what if foot units gained extra Move when indoors, as opposed to mounted units losing move? That could be an interesting twist as well. Move +1 or maybe +2 for everyone not on a horse, pegagus, wyvern, etc. when inside is a different way to approach this concept which could make for a unique experience.
Honestly dismounting is something that I feel SOUNDS better than it is. FE3 and it's remake is the only game I haven't played in the series(well it and the original 2) so I won't comment on it, but for FE5 it's mostly just a minor annoyance you learn to avoid dealing with and in 3H I don't think 90% of players even know you CAN dismount it's so unimportant. I think, to simplify it, willfully nerfing a character just FEELS bad. Regardless of how interesting it may be from a gameplay sense, it just feels bad to look at a character and choose to make them 'weaker'. I honestly think something like indoor tiles cutting mounted movement by half, a third for wyverns, would be a better replacement. Same idea normally, but just avoids the feels bad.
It's kinda a bad mechanic and useless tbh The movement penalty isn't a big deal when most indoors maps aren't that big, not being able to fly doesn't matter because there's nothing to fly over in a castle the stats penalty doesn't matter when FE3/5 enemy are super weak base Arran in FE3 B2 can orko the endgame dragons with a wyrmslayer lol Being only able to use swords isn't a big deal when lances and axes suck You mentions units not having enough sword rank in FE5 but that's only true for the scrubs like Kain, alva, Carrion and Hicks, and also Glade tho he's not a scrub Dean has A rank, Fred has A rank, Olwen has C rank, Conomore has A rank, Amalda has A rank, Delmud has A rank, Nanna has C rank, Fergus has C rank, Misha has A rank
it may have been worth discussing Tellius dropping Mov by 2 points for mounted units on indoor maps imo
I was thinking the same exact thing
Too minor of a penalty imo, especially for fliers, who also ignore ledges.
If they had also lost Canto indoors, maybe the impact would be more substantial.
Yea its very minor
I legit only learned when reading a wiki entry
Pinning because that would have been good to include lol
It is not a minor penalty, it's one of the reasons Fiona is absolute trash, for one thing
"Cavalier promotion gains are stored in the horse" - words to live by.
The real Jagen was the horse all along.
I remember when people used to recommend keeping Est dismounted for most of her levels because "just because she's capped a stat mounted doesn't mean she's capped it dismounted!"
Game: the world is in danger
Horses:(eating grass outside) not our problem
Horses: The cleaning lady is way scarier.
Promotion bonuses are stored in the horse had me ROLLING
I really like jokes that pull in multiple ideas. “Cavalier promo gains are stored in the horse.” Is a damn near perfect joke.
Wait! You guys DON'T dismount your units because they're more handsome without the horse?
Yeah get those ugly ass humans off that pretty ass horse. They are obstructing the view
Chad spotted
I felt so called out, as woman whose army is usually mostly footlocked, for the _aesthetic_
Get off UA-cam, Kaga
There are some very precise situations in FE4 where dismounting allows Seliph to move an extra tile when traversing desert, mountain, or forest terrain with the Leg Ring (+3 Mov) equipped.
12 Mov mounted, 9 Mov unmounted, 3 Mov to cross difficult terrain mounted, 2 Mov unmounted… while mounted, he can cross 4 tiles of forest, mountain, or desert. While unmounted, he can cross 4 tiles of forest, mountain, or desert PLUS one plains tile.
So… very specific case. But technically a mechanical reason to do it.
Such a useless info
13:00 If you ask me, Seliph's combat and crit animations as an unpromoted lord are beautiful, so much better than the basic lord knight animations, so I did use the dismounting feature once or twice, purely at the end of a map to style on a boss.
"Promotion gains are stored in the horse"
Amazing
Was literally playing FE3Hopes, holy knight Ferdinand, and learned he could dismount from this video. So... thanks.
Yeah when I learned about dismounting I so desperately wished it was in all fire emblem games.
Movement is so good and this is such a great balancing tool to keep mounted units from dominating every FE game
I love forced dismounting.
Especially in Berwick where horses being mortal forces you to make meaningful decision on whether you're willing to send a mounted unit into a combat heavy situation, where you also have to consider damage to equipment that can't be easily/cheaply healed or replaced.
Also, units can wield all weapon types they're capable of using while mounted, except for lances, which are a subtype of spears with higher bonus damage for every hex moved.
In addition, dismounted units and light infantry, such as myrms, fighters and mages have better movement types for difficult terrain than dismounted knight types, which with good map design makes certain outdoor parts better handled by infantry.
If done right, such a system can open up a lot of interesting and meaningful tactical and strategic choices.
Apparently someone has a Prf Horse in Berwick. That sounds amazing.
@@BigKlingy Yeah, Czene, the funny (and only) playable mounted thief.
Off the top of my head Tico gives +5 Spd, +1 Atk, and has 8 mov, compared to the standard 7. Also heals 20 HP per chapter, tho its max HP is on the lower-average side.
@@TechnoFall42 I've always liked the idea of a mounted Thief and am surprised Fire Emblem's never done that yet. (Wolf Knight doesn't really count imo)
@@BigKlingy Same. She's one of my favourite thief in SRPGs, just because she has a horsie, plus the funny Mug and Mug+ procs.
Kind of sucks at killing things, but there are some pretty funny knifes that allow her to do more by the time endgame comes. Also nice for chipping Armours or finishing ones left at low HP, since they pierce defence. Wish her knife skill capped at 60 for +10 hit and crit tho.
equippable mounts is something that would be nice to include. At worst it's just aesthetic variety that could lean into the occasional personal skill. It would also allow characters to actually refer to specific mounts by name in supports and the like and have it not be made weird by class changes, because then they could actually have that same mount in gameplay regardless of what kind of mounted class they are.
On 3H, I often found myself dismounting fliers to use terrain. Especialy since they come with dodge skills.
Also using the fliers to traverse the swamp and dismount to not be killed by the balista in VW's last chapter was how I always tackled it.
Isn’t the dodge skill tied to being mounted though
@@ultimaterecoil1136 The class skill, i don't think. The one that give extra dodge if you wait, definitively not (yes, you could grind flyer rank to get them without ever promoting to a flyer but why would you?).
What I love about the dismounting in FE3, this is especially true when I'm outdoors, is that someone like Caeda gets rid of her bow weakness and that was something I love so much in FE3 Book 1.
I started playing Thracia a few days ago, and it's really fun working around the combination of fatigue and forced dismounting. It really incentivizes you to try out different combinations of units each map while considering later map deployment in mind.
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I honestly love forced dismounting, it adds a little extra sense-make to what the gameplay is representing (military engagements between rival powers/plucky rebels and the state)
Like, yeah, a formation of cavalry or wyvernry (and I think of individuals units in FE as standing in for a somewhat to substantially larger force) would struggle to be effectively maneuvered in a building -probably even in a quite large one.
Honestly I love the idea of forcing mounted units to dismount and/or have a penalty in indoor areas as a way to dent their near-ubiquity. There's design space to play around in there to balance it just right. At the end of the day, it's more of a map design requirement than a unit design one -- and tbh, well designed maps _should_ be encouraging using your entire arsenal array, not just bashing every nail down with seven horses.
I would make it not just indoors, but more specifically areas with low ceilings, that forced you to dismount. It doesn't make sense for you to not be able to use a horse in a big vaulted throne room.
The problem with nerfing mounted units is that all you're doing is slowing the pace of the game down. Mounted units already generally have more balanced stats than the specialized classes. The problem is that in many FE titles, as long as you're reaching the game specific benchmarks, you typically don't need that specialization from the other classes. Rather than throwing the mounted units under the bus, the infantry units need to be given other substantial bonuses that encourage you to want to use them.
Nerfing mounted unit mov/forcing dismount is horrible idea as it takes away their main advantage while again forcing the player to slow down for no good reason. If the game wants to discourage people from using such units then it's gonna have to be creative with the map and enemy design.
One bonus to dismounting in 3 houses for non- magical mounted units they gain the ability to use gauntlets on dismount so early game cavs can keep a gauntlet in their back pocket for the occasional quad attack on player phase a little niche but cool nonetheless
And fliers get to use bows on top of that, though you probably aren't going to have much reason to even have a bow on hand when fliers can still use 1-2 range weapons. Terrain bonuses are potentially helpful, though.
Easy solution. Pair up indoors is the mc riding a calvier unit like a horsey. Problem solved
I really wish it would come back, it does so much for balancing cavs and fliers.
Just thought of this now, in games with reclassing it encourages mounts to have a side class.
Honestly I like dismounting because it can make some units feel stronger if you train them up to be good unmounted as well, I use karin unmounted a lot since magic swords are usually better than javalins, so having the sword rank for that is very nice, if a bit niche. The main benifit to training a mounted unit unmounted is so that they can do better indoors
I love dismount in fe3 and 5. It's one of the most missed opportunity post kaga era.
Something I wish FE does more are maps that have both indoor and outdoor sections. It restricts which units you can bring and make the choice of using nerfed mounted units if you want. It's a big part of unit uniqueness.
Another alternative if they ever want to attempt the indoor/outdoor dichotomy again is just to make indoor tiles cost mounted units, including fliers more movement. Like set the indoor mounted movement cost to 2 and now a gba paladin would have unpromoted armor movement indoors.
ActualLizard, This video is fantastic! I liked it a lot!
FE3 does have a couple of maps that split between mounted and dismounted terrain, the chapter where you get Astram in Book 1, and by extension the Book 2 Sheena map, has the chest room and boss room as indoor tiles, and I think there might be some more, it's just an oddly rare feature.
There is a benefit to dismounting in Thracia I don't think you mentioned: Dismounting sort of changes your class and class is a big determining factor in how much experience a unit gets.
In short: Dismounting basically always means you get more experience from combat.
I love ALL ActualLizard videos!!!! ❤
I may be misremembering but I’m pretty sure in a Book 2, the map where you’re dealing with Fire dragons, there’s a part where you have to dismount to enter a building, similar to how Thracia does it.
I feel the way Tearring Saga handled dismounting is worth bringing up. This is a bit to unpack but please bear with me.
*STATS*
In terms of how dismounting effects units statistically, each mounted class has its own specific dismounted class asociated with it (even if labeled the same in name). This means each class when dismounted recieves differing effects tailored for that class.
For example take the Paladin and Black Knight classes, which are possible promotions from the Rook Knight (ie cavalier) class. They have higher stat totals than the average foot unit while mounted, but lower while dismounted. This is contrasted with the Commando Knight class. Commando Knight is also a possible promotion from the Rook Knight (ie cavalier) class. Commando knights have lower stats than their counterparts, more in line with the stats of most foot units. The big difference however is that commando knights recieve no stat debuffs while dismounted asside from their movement, giving them a specific niche over the stronger classes. Another example is the Iron Knight class, a mounted armor class. This is a beafy class with decent stats around asside from their massive defense, but upon dismounting they lose those rounded stat and recieve a big mov drop turning them into a standard armored unit.
*WEAPONS*
Firstly, its important to establish how weapon level works in this game. In TRS, the FE3 weapon level stat makes a comeback. Units can equip various weapons in accordance to their designated weapon level stat (refered to as "mastery") regardless of the weapon type as long as the class can use it. However weapon RANKS still exist in the form of combining the weapon kills system from FE4 with the weapon rank system of FE5. The more kills a unit preforms with a given weapon type, the more skilled they are with the weapon. As such they recieve combat bonuses while equiped with something of that weapon type in accordance to the ammount of kills on any weapon type they can use. Specifically they recieve +1% to their hit and avoid for every 10 kills/weapon exp with the given weapon type. This might not sound like much, but combined with various other personalized systems for boosting hit and avoid (support bonuses, a kill count system also existing for class categories like infintry, and skills that give big boosts when in certain types of maps), as well as the large ammount of enemies youll likely encounter (especially monsters), the benefits are pretty noteworthy.
Now as to how this applies to dismounting. While dismounting in this game locks (the vast majority of) units into swords like in FE3 and 5, all mounted units can still use swords mounted. This means no dead weight swords in the inventory, but more importantly it works in tandem with the weapon experience/kills system. You could have a unit fight with the objectively more powerful lances while mounted, but the kill bonuses they recieve will only ever help them while mounted. Invest in having them use swords more however, and they wont lose those significant combat bonuses from kills while dismounted.
Another aspect of about this of note is the Dark Knight class. Dark Knight is an almost entirely enemy only class mounted class. They are a strong mounted class which use lances and axes, and notably are lance locked when dismounted instead of sword locked. Lances are incredibly powerful, and them being able to use them dismounted intentionally makes them beat out your own mounted units.
Also probably worth noting that most mounted classes are unique in their ability to equip more than one weapon type (while mounted). Most classes cant do this. Its also of note that the weapon triangle does not exist in this game.
*MAP IMPLEMENTATION*
The way the game implements dismounting into its maps is a lot like FE3 Book 2. In FE3 book 2, there are just about (if at all) no maps in the entire runtime which contain both indoor and outdoor sections of the map. You dont need to dismount to walk into a building because there are no buildings to walk into on outdoor maps asside from the usual basic locations (houses, shops, castle sieze points). Its the same in Tearring Saga. Outdoor maps never have indoor sections, and indoor maps never have outdoor sections. So why would would you dismount in an outdoor map? Simple: terrain. FE3 book 2 attempts to incentivize dismounting outdoors by placing obstacles in the form of terrain in the way of your mounted units. Tearring Saga does the sake thing, but its not nearly as present nor obnoxious outside of Holmes' route. On that note, Holmes maps tend to be a lot like Celica maps from Gaiden. Lots of monsters and weird terrain. As such, any mounted units you send his way (asside from fliers) benefit greatly from dismounting on a number of maps as they wont be as hindered.
As a small note, I've beaten FE3Book2 recently and I can asure that at least chapter 14 works like in FE5. I used a mounted unit to chase the thief, and also a flyer to reach the secret shop (you can't do it without a flyer). Yet once I got rid of the thief I had to dismount to get inside the building where most of the chapter takes part. Why it isn't like that in Book1 is beyond me, hahaha.
ActualLizard, This is so fun! I'm happy I found your channel!
An aspect of book 2 that is promoted in its map design is terrain which forces units to dismount.
The easiest example of this is the very first map of the game has its pathway towards the boss blocked by some mountains, which your cavaliers can cross if they dismount. This instance in particular in intended to teach the player of this utility, but I digress.
This sort of design leads to well...weirdness. In order for mounted units to dismount, they are required to spend a turn doing so and can not do it before moving. So after happening upon terrain or deciding to take a shortcut, must spend a turn having the unit dismount, and then have them cross the terrain on the following turn. The idea is there but because of this very simple aspect to the mechanic it become more of a nuisance and slows down the act of traversing the map in a game which punished slow play through large ambush reinforcements.
Should also added the New Mystery notably changed maps to exclude annoying terrain which was primarily included as part of promoting dismounting. Obviously dismounting does not exist in New Mystery and this played a roll in their removal, but it is notable regardless.
Tl:dr it's a bad mechanic that's just a nuisance
@@mysmallnoman It can be done well but in practice its never really been great. Way TRS did it was cool though.
@@CatManThree fair
One thing I hope, but find very unlikely, is that in the inevitable Fe4 remake infantry units could have access to mounting so they can have a hope of keeping pace. Make it so you need a class skill to actually *fight* mounted (and make dismounting end turn), but let Azel or even Arden be able to ride on a horse until they get close to the next group of enemies.
The way horses are handled in Berwick Saga is one of the biggest strengths of that game, IMO.
Essentially horses are equipment. They accumulate damage that can't be healed by staffs, and eventually die, forcing you to dismount. Voluntarily dismounting protects the horse from combat damage. Replacing horses is expensive*, so there's some tradeoff with reaching objectives faster vs not letting the horse see combat. You can't move and then dismount. Horse-compatable classes tend to have worse movement than their light-infantry alternatives without the horse.
*except for the thin horse, which has such low base HP that it will often die in the middle of a map.
I'm interested in the idea of having a couple classes, or specific units with a skill that does this, who are mounted infantry rather than cavalry. Where they have a horse for mobility, but they lose a lot of stats while riding it, so you want to dismount them before they see combat.
I also like how fliers gain access to terrain benefits in 3h, which probably adds to their vast versatility.
I think I would have preferred if the normally mounted units could still use their main weapon type when dismounted, just so they don't feel so similar to each other.
I do find it interesting how the forced dismounting gives infantry units a chance to shine, but my experience was that someone like Fergus could still put in a lot of work. He's a sword main to begin with so he doesn't lose his weapon type when dismounted, allowing him to still use higher ranked swords.
If dismounting is brought back, I would like to see it used in cool and unique ways to make it worth doing more frequently. One concept I had in mind was the ability to make dismounting a skill akin to weapon arts. For example, a technique unique to a flying class where they make an attack and dismount at the same time. Perhaps with some combat benefit to justify having to remount.
Promotion is stored in the horse is a very good line lol
Btw I quite liked the system of dismounting in 3H, I used it to avoid movement penalties from stairs/forests and I think with some tweaking it could be made more significant again
Maybe if they used engage's normalised movement ranges?
I found dismounting in Three Houses to be super useful on maddening during moment when I needed to avoid effective damage. Particularly on my peagasus knight that was already avoid tanking
I liked the mechanic in thracia, finn is so close to C rank swords so in the first maps i dismount him to access to killer edges quickly and dismounted units gain more Exp than when are mounted, and some maps with terrains like the ones in chapter 2x makes mounted units nearly impossible to move so a dismounted finn doesn't have that problem, i think that limiting all the dismounted units to swords was not very good idea since what is the point of having the classes lance knights and sword knights when cavaliers (social knights) get both swords and lances and keeps the sword rank when dismount
A shame you didn't get to talk about how dismounting effects FE3B2, because I feel like that's the part of the game where the mechanic feels a lot more considered.
There is (if I remember correctly) a much more even spread of indoor vs outdoor maps, which means that unlike Book 1 where the relative lack of indoor maps means mounted units remain dominant for a much more significant portion of the game, Book 2 really expects you to have a good mixture of mounted and infantry units.
Another major advantage infantry have is their base 7 movement compared to dismounted units with 6, and while that doesn't sound like a huge advantage 1 point of movement across a whole map does add up and the dismounted units can find themselves lagging behind.
And in Book 2, mounted promo bonuses being tied to their mounts has the biggest effect on archers. While archers were strictly inferior to hunters/bow knights in Book 1 thanks to the outdoor map majority, the larger portion of indoor maps is more beneficial to archers who get more movement and retain better stats when indoors compared to hunters. That combined with the Parthia helping them 1 shot some of the scariest enemies such as wyvern knights and flying dragons, along with the Paragon bonus it gives and using Star Shards, lets archers/snipers especially Gordon and Jeorge really snowball their stats and become player phase delete buttons to later get rid of troublesome enemies like heroes.
You can dismount in 3 Hopes?? I'm in my second playthrough and I was completely unaware of that! This changes so much
An idea I personally would love for a future game to is to not only have dismounting but for players to be able to inflict a “forced dismount” affliction on foes. Where for 1 turn they would be unable to benefit from their mount and suffer an even harsher decrease in their dismounted stats, on top of still taking the bonus damage they would suffer if mounted. It’s like how in other games where you’d fight a mounted foe and when knocked off they become vulnerable for a bit.
Ah you should’ve discussed Radiant Dawn’s indoor mounted movement penalty, and how that mechanic just absolutely clowns on Fiona so hard, destroying any possible mounted utility she could have, as all but 2 maps she’s available for and the endgame are either indoors, a swamp, or a desert.
In 3 houses i would often dismount to avoid anything that does extra damage. Send a Pegasus Ingrid into a nest of archers, equip javelins and dismount allows her to "kill every last one of them"
Regarding FE5, there is a boon to fighting dismounted. Thracia uses a class power statistic in determining EXP gain. Most unpromoted infantry classes have a value of 3, while mounted units tend to have 4 or even 5 when promoted. However, dismounting lowers their class power to 2, giving them far more EXP compared to if they were mounted. In addition, Karin is really good at using magic swords, and Finn actually has enough sword rank at base that it’s not hard to get him to B swords for the later indoor maps. In addition, dismounting prevents effective damage, which can be really useful for fliers when there are ballistae around.
Also worth noting is that you don’t lose stats when dismounting, you gain stats when mounted. This may seem like semantics, but it’s worth noting that since stat caps don’t change, you can still have have the maximum value for a stat even when dismounted, and the game will remember that if you remount and then dismount again.
I guess my view is, when I was less experienced with the series I used to hate dismounting. Now that I know how much mounts and fliers tend to dominate, I appreciate dismounting more and I agree with your view that it does what desert maps try to do. Like you, I'd like more variety in dismounted weapon types. Though it's interesting that in FE3, Generals are the only ones who can use Lances/the Gradivus indoors, which gives some incentive for training characters like Draug, Lorenz and Sheena. (Especially in Book 2, which has a gantlet of several indoor final maps)
I really don't like dismounting in Three Houses though. In practice it only makes fliers EVEN MORE BROKEN, as they can dismount to avoid bows (I believe mounting back up is a free action, so they don't lose their next turn's move doing so?) and WHY did they try to nerf horses' speed but left fliers untouched?!
A niche benefit of dismounting in Three Houses is that you can't use Gauntlets while on a mount. Dismounting allows you to put units in mounted classes to learn their class skill while still using Gauntlets to either double on slower characters or use specific combat arts. Most notable of those is Raphael I think, who has access to Monster Breaker as his only Monster Slayer Art, so he could still break a barrier in one hit while being in Cavalier or Wyvern, without needing an offensive Gambit to do so. Not sure why you'd need to do that, but you can.
Playing through UO again, and it makes me wish Alain can dismount and go back to being infantry once promoted
I like the dismounting mechanic because it balance out your units in fe3.
Shame that Ogma and Nabarl died very early on my Ironman run on book 1.
as a woman, i LOVE it when men aren't on horses 😍 thanks intsys for thinking of the ladies
Dismounting for flyers in 3 houses is kind of busted at times. It allow flyers make use of terrain and often times terrain that your other units can't reach. Being able to just turn off your flying weakness when ever you want is also a nice perk.
I think Thracia could also benefit from more variation in unmourned weapon types. A lot of classes being forced into swords makes for interesting decisions, but like… Finn? Let the man be a lance user while foot locked
Honestly most annoying thing about forced indoor dismounting in fe3 is swapping around your mounted units' inventory. Got to the point I just stopped deploying my mounted units for indoor maps
Man, FE5 had some ideas.
In 3houses you can get off your high horse to punch a guy since you cant use gauntlets on a mount, and i just think thats neat
It's kinda funny how one of the fe games where horses are at their strongest is surrounded on either side by this mechanic lol
Oh also in 3 houses, dismounting doesnt take up a turn and you can do it before or after moving a unit which means you can use full movement to reach someone with an effective weapon or enemy range and switch unmounted just for an attack or a whole enemy phase without real downside
I found curious you dismissed dismount so quickly in 3 Houses. I dismount fliers quite often for defensive terrain. And with horses to avoid terrain movement penalties such as stairs or forest (which comes up a lot in some maps). It is not a very in depth system but at very least it seems to come up more often than non forced dismounting in Fe3.
3 Houses bars mounted units from using fist weapons. Who know why this function exists, but its sorta neat i suppose.
Honestly something i want to see them try is how the paladin mount is handled in D&D game.
The mount is a large creature, so it does not occupy 1 tile, it occupy a 2x2 square, kinda like monsters in 3H. You can use it anywhere but in practice there need to be the space for doing it(or play an halfling with a pony lol).
I feel it can be a good way of balancing the superior mobility of mounted classes. They would become more cumbersome to use and hard to position effectively.
Why be a halfling on a pony when you can ride a mastiff?
I love the mechanic and wish it would come back more. I wonder if it's something you can romhack into the GBA games...
Then again, I love it for how it reduces the "Mojnted unit dominance" that the community has, and lets my beloved foot locked units shine more. I love Halbrediers, Swordmasters, Berserkers, Druids, and all kinds of foot-locked units, and it feels bad when I listen to or read someone dismiss them "Because X unit has a horse", often completely disregarding the stuff that makes the Foot unit unique. Armours I feel are hit especially bad by this stigma because they're really cool and nice to use when you get to, and GBA General has some of the SICKEST animations that it's a damn shame they're not popular. Especially with the absence of official Magic/Bow armours. Hell, I'd love to see a Shaman Armour! Shamans are already "the durable one" for the magic trio, so doubling down on that could be really awesome!
Instead we got Malig Knight and invalidated the idea because now we gan give a mage a flying horse instead and the movement apparently completely invalidates the defensive bulk, nevermind the archer allergy...
Didn't the Telius games penalize movement of mounted units in indoor maps?
Yeah I think it was -2 movement indoors specifically in Radiant Dawn. I don't think Path of Radiance had the penalty.
You didn't bring this up, so I'm curious as to whether or not you even know about this:
You can mount/dismount in Three Houses before moving your unit. Now, you can't do it twice per turn, so you can't mount, then move, then dismount again. But you can fly over to a forest, dismount and get the terrain advantage for Enemy Phase. Then on your next Player Phase, you can mount before moving and get your full movement range. It's kinda broken, since you get full flier mobility as though you never dismounted, but you still get to take advantage of terrain.
Frankly, there is almost never a time where you WOULDN'T want to exploit this. It comes at no opportunity cost since you still retain full movement on every turn.
There's a horrible glitch in the JP FE4 that if promoted Seliph ever dismounts, he essentially doesn't move and you need to dance him to get him moving but even worse is that he later just disappears in the next map and basically end the entire game. Dismounting might as well be non-existent because you might accidentally dismount Seliph and end your game in it's entirety.
I forgot dismounting was IN three houses honestly. I have like over 600 hours in the game and I've maybe done it like 4 or 5 times.
I like dismounting but I hate that being mounted sometimes restricts your weapon use. There is no reason for example for Finn to be unable to use Swords while mounted in FE5 -- except that in FE4 he can't. If they had a cap on their weapon rank so that they're restricted from using the best swords if they're mounted, that's fine with me, but if the man can swing a sword off his sword he can swing a sword on it.
Losing lances while dismounted though makes sense.
Dismounting would be fine if people just kept their weapon types, like making infantry cooler but making mounted units boring on indoor maps kind of sucks, also they need to have infantry lance units if they bring it back, both mystery and thracia had issues of almost no indoor lance units (both possible indoor lance units in thracia started at E and Dalsin required a master seal)
Hi Lizard!
Your description of Desert Maps in Fire Emblem not emphasizing having more varied movement types I think is touching on a core issue of the growths vs bases/utility argument that's been around forever.
Dismounting and indoor maps incentivising building units in advance for them actually feels like the kind of prep-work you'd want to do in an FE game but in most games feels unecessary because your best units will probably never fall off even if the game doesn't recommend them. (Paladins in FE6/7, Bow Knights in Gaiden/Echoes, etc) But I like the idea of forcing mounted units to live in the shoes of infantry because it doesn't feel inherently punishing to the mounted units.
I think stuff like this is why Engage and Three Houses were so focused on giving your units weapons and abilities and things to do because if everyone has the option to be multi-faceted then no one has be afraid of wasting time on "Growth" units, but I still think giving the Indoor Map/Dismounting mechanics another try in the series might end up being the better option.
The FE developers are so much smarter now. I think they can easily make it work.
did Intsys not know about Horse Girls and their enjoyment of caring for horses?
Man, Seliph is so hot, thank god I can dismount him to get a better view of those Baldur balls and Thrud thunder thighs
I don't like dismounting much, in Thracia in particular. It nerfs mounts, but it does so by making them more similar to each other and other units. I would rather have units feel unbalanced than feel samey.
I think a good video idea would be discussing the evolution of the aesthetic and themes of fire emblem over time. E.g the ealier games having a more grounded aesthtic, focused on politics and war, having more grounded dialogue and personalities, and people speaking in an archaic medieval-esque way while later games are focused on mass appeal gacha- esque characters, higher fantasy, flashy anime animations and aesthetics, and more J-rpg esque stories. Also the fact that earlier games are focused mainly on the protagonist while the later games focus heavily on inter-character relationships(this is the primary area where I think the later games are superior, i generally prefer tge earlier games on other metrics. Im gacha-aethetic's biggest hater)
The biggest split for this is obviously awakening, with Engage being the extreme example of a complete lack of grounding and no connection to historical ideas, axe wielding goth maids as your units. Geneology is probably the most extreme example of the former style with its heavy politics focus and sometimes extreme devotion to gameplay matching story.
You forgot the most important reason to dismount. Gauntlets are unusable on a mount so you need to get off a horse to punch a dude in the face
🦎
Horses and pegusi shouldn't be able to move through forests and mountains. They could fly over them, but not be able to attack a unit beneath them. Wyverns could be slowed but not required to dismount.
It's a shame Radiant Dawn didn't have dismounting. Would have worked well with that games ledge system.
Desert maps should not even cause a pen to movement for horses. It makes no sense horses (or anything else with 4 legs and hooves) should be better on sand. They should lose movement in forests that would also enable the devs to make more diverse flanking maps, where your horses go around a forest while the infantry goes through the forest (they should not have a penalty on those tiels) that would actually impact gameplay in a significant degree and not make fliers the number one answere as those should not outpace everything at all times.
Getting rid of the mount for a mounted unit feels like giving armor knights more movement: good for gameplay but it also gets rid of some uniqueness. Maybe it feels better in gameplay but I haven't gotten to these games yet.
I don't really like how forced dismounting changed the weapons you could use. That was something that really annoyed me in Thracia 776, especially in the last few chapters.
I'd rather see them do what they did in Radiant Dawn with the Move penalty for mounted units on indoor maps. Maybe Move -2 wasn't enough, but I think Move -3 might balance things out a bit better. Cutting the Move of a mounted unit in half on an indoor map might be too much, but reducing it by 3 seems fair to me.
On the other hand, what if foot units gained extra Move when indoors, as opposed to mounted units losing move? That could be an interesting twist as well. Move +1 or maybe +2 for everyone not on a horse, pegagus, wyvern, etc. when inside is a different way to approach this concept which could make for a unique experience.
Honestly dismounting is something that I feel SOUNDS better than it is. FE3 and it's remake is the only game I haven't played in the series(well it and the original 2) so I won't comment on it, but for FE5 it's mostly just a minor annoyance you learn to avoid dealing with and in 3H I don't think 90% of players even know you CAN dismount it's so unimportant.
I think, to simplify it, willfully nerfing a character just FEELS bad. Regardless of how interesting it may be from a gameplay sense, it just feels bad to look at a character and choose to make them 'weaker'. I honestly think something like indoor tiles cutting mounted movement by half, a third for wyverns, would be a better replacement. Same idea normally, but just avoids the feels bad.
hi
It's kinda a bad mechanic and useless tbh
The movement penalty isn't a big deal when most indoors maps aren't that big, not being able to fly doesn't matter because there's nothing to fly over in a castle
the stats penalty doesn't matter when FE3/5 enemy are super weak base Arran in FE3 B2 can orko the endgame dragons with a wyrmslayer lol
Being only able to use swords isn't a big deal when lances and axes suck
You mentions units not having enough sword rank in FE5 but that's only true for the scrubs like Kain, alva, Carrion and Hicks, and also Glade tho he's not a scrub
Dean has A rank, Fred has A rank, Olwen has C rank, Conomore has A rank, Amalda has A rank, Delmud has A rank, Nanna has C rank, Fergus has C rank, Misha has A rank