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What's your opinion on the map size of FE4?


Luninareph
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The map size of FE4  

100 members have voted

  1. 1. How do you feel about the giant-sized maps?

    • I love them. They're one of the reasons I play the game.
    • I've always liked the idea, but feel it could have been done better.
    • I'm pretty neutral on map size. It doesn't matter much to me.
    • I don't really like how enormous they are.
    • I can't enjoy FE4 BECAUSE the maps are so huge.
    • I haven't played FE4, but I think the map size was a great choice.
    • I haven't played FE4 because I dislike the giant maps so much.
    • Other
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holy shit a+++ poll options op that's a really well done selection

#2 fits me perfectly; i love the idea they went for but i think they botched the execution enough that it bogs the game down a little bit.

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I love a big, hard map.

But seriously.

I like them a lot.

Even though there are very few chapters in the game, it makes it feel like there are multiple chapters taking place in between each chapter.

And as someone else said, it has the scale of you conquering a country.

And yeah, they are a bit big for fe standards, but it wanted to try a different approach, and I can personally respect it.

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holy shit a+++ poll options op that's a really well done selection

#2 fits me perfectly; i love the idea they went for but i think they botched the execution enough that it bogs the game down a little bit.

Thank you!! :)

What would you say botched the execution? Is it as Klokinator said and that there's too many instances where you're just slogging with nothing interesting going on, or was there more to it than that?

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I haven't played FE4 because of the map size (among other reasons), and I VERY seriously doubt I ever will (barring a remake, natch). Long story short, Klok and Integ covered most of my thoughts.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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Thank you!! :)

What would you say botched the execution? Is it as Klokinator said and that there's too many instances where you're just slogging with nothing interesting going on, or was there more to it than that?

it was very much that but not entirely

one problem was the whole movement system involved - cavalry had too much of a movement advantage over infantry and the penalties for going through harsh (mountainous, forest) terrain were too steep. jesus, the forest in c1? the mountains in c4? seliph's exodus through the desert? plus because of this there were long bouts of just doing nothing but repositioning for another charge which is pretty neat in concept but in execution was just horrid. take c2 for instance because fuck c2:

mad dash to castle 1 (a really badly executed situation in itself imo but that's another story)

reform lines & allow any infantry to catch up

crash into next line, storm next castle

reform lines north, allow infantry to finish trekking

crash into beowulf's line, storm the castle

walk for-fucking-ever back to castle 1, reform lines

crash into next castle, probably using some bizarre form of tactics or something i dunno

reform lines to the north

crash into enemy lines by last castle

walk around that stupid mountain to finish and seize (infantry probably irrelevant by this point)

it's a neat idea for a game but part of the problem is it takes too long (eat shit if you want to use ardan lmao) and the other half of the problem is that the game is fire emblem. the game being fire emblem means a few things:

1: line infantry-type strategies (IMO what they were going for) are 100% unacceptable, because if any place in your line collapses you probably reset because that's a (practically) irreplaceable unit dead (and there's really no way to replace units in your line if they're heavily damaged because you don't have enough reinforcements [never thought i'd say that about fe4] so engagement means fight until one side is annihilated)

2: there's zero time pressure to reform your lines about 95% of the time, because the ai will sit perfectly still and wait for you to pull them like a good mmo creep

3: pouring resources into an invincible unit works better and unlike other fire emblems is 300% less annoying because your force that needs relocated can be reduced to just a handful of horse units, cutting a whole bunch of waiting and frustration. plus they have canto!

now the plus side is you can hypothetically do some light skirmishing with your ponies before the main battle is joined, which is really cool - except you don't have enough infantry to maintain a line clash if you don't put your ponies in, and your ponies will get damaged skirmishing, and if you don't commit enough skirmishers then you probably won't do enough damage to matter.

i sort of lost my train of thought there so i'm going to just stop arbitrarily.

EDIT: caveat i haven't actually played fe4 in a few years so i'm just going off memory here, it probably wasn't as bad as i remember but the execution certainly dragged the game down

Edited by Integrity
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The huge maps are INTIMIDATING. I've played Prologue and a third of Ch1 (like 4 years ago), but the shock of those huge maps scared me away. I WANT to play, but... I haven't managed to convinced myself each castle is equivalent to a "chapter".

The huge scale is interesting. "Conquering a country" indeed.

But. It takes too long to get anywhere. Poor non-horsy people.

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It's awful

Compare to a game like Thracia or FESS with nice map design

FE4's maps aren't only huge they're all generic and boring

Do you think they could have been done well while retaining the size? Or do you think the size pretty much destroyed any kind of good design they could have?

The huge maps are INTIMIDATING. I've played Prologue and a third of Ch1 (like 4 years ago), but the shock of those huge maps scared me away. I WANT to play, but... I haven't managed to convinced myself each castle is equivalent to a "chapter".

The huge scale is interesting. "Conquering a country" indeed.

But. It takes too long to get anywhere. Poor non-horsy people.

They certainly are intimidating. "Poor non-horsy people" indeed XD

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Multiple objectives - fine.

Making it so that half my army is stuck in back because horses move so damn far - not fine.

I don't like waiting around for my units to catch up.

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I think that if I didn't have the fast forward button fire emblem four would be one of my least favorite fire emblem games because the maps would get way too tedious. From a gameplay perspective, if you're experienced there are ways to work around the massive size like warp staffs, the rescue staff, and dancers, and there's almost always at least something for foot units to be doing (though cavalry are always off doing the most important things.)

Edited by MartyTheDemonSlayer
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Do you think they could have been done well while retaining the size? Or do you think the size pretty much destroyed any kind of good design they could have?

FE's best maps have always been the tight, claustrophobic ones. Every once and awhile a big map is nice but recently (and wisely) the designers have saved that card for the end. Many small maps also promotes more strategic diversity. Again, look at Thracia or FESS. In most maps, especially around mid-game, you're jumping around all sorts of different objectives and sub-objectives, with constantly shifting locales and this constantly shifting ways of moving your units.

Theoretically this could be done with a huge map, where you begin in fighting in an open field before moving into a castle and seizing it before having to defend the seized castle from another force assaulting it from the back. But the logistics of that would be difficult to pull off. Instead we get what FE4 gave us, which is a whole lot of the same fucking thing

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Do you think they could have been done well while retaining the size? Or do you think the size pretty much destroyed any kind of good design they could have?

They certainly are intimidating. "Poor non-horsy people" indeed XD

Personally, I think the maps being as big as they are in FE4 pretty much ruined any chance they had of being designed well. Once again, I present Exhibit A: Chapter 2.

[spoiler=HUGE]

Chapter_2.png

I think that if I didn't have the fast forward button fire emblem four would be one of my least favorite fire emblem games because the maps would get way too tedious. From a gameplay perspective, if you're experienced there are ways to work around the massive size like warp staffs, the rescue staff, and dancers, and there's almost always at least something for foot units to be doing (though cavalry are always off doing the most important things.)

Fast forward, schmast schmorward. I should NOT have to regularly use the fast forward function to make it even look remotely playable... As to that other point, the warp staff winds up in the hands of poor Adean, and thus probably won't see much use unless you're waiting for your footsoldiers to catch up (which I'm not very likely to be okay with in a game with no rescue command and ginormous maps). Ditto for the rescue staff, except for the part where you get it rather late in the first generation (and only if you've gotten her to fall in love with one of two characters)..

Edited by Levant Caprice
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the map sizes are nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be, every unit essentially has more movement than in most other FE games due to roads, but I think if there were actual side objectives it would have been a lot cooler.

the game really isn't any longer than any other FE game turn wise either.

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The theme for the Jugdral games could well be "interesting theory, horribly broken practice".

In FE4's case, the idea was clearly to have a more battle style with more ebb and flow (I don't know quite how to put it, but rather than a straight march to the throne like in most other games you'd need to time your charge carefully), but the enemy density was often too sparse, and they didn't put you under pressure or flank you enough.

Console canto is an ideal skill so that mounts can engage the enemy first, then fall back and be backed up by the infantry, but they (especially Sigurd/Seliph) were generally strong enough to rush the enemy by themselves. The timing for certain sub-objectives like saving the Bargain Ring also encouraged this.

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the map sizes are nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be, every unit essentially has more movement than in most other FE games due to roads, but I think if there were actual side objectives it would have been a lot cooler.

the game really isn't any longer than any other FE game turn wise either.

The problem with that, though, is that roads only really served to magnify the already disgusting advantage that mounts had in this game.

The theme for the Jugdral games could well be "interesting theory, horribly broken practice".

In FE4's case, the idea was clearly to have a more battle style with more ebb and flow (I don't know quite how to put it, but rather than a straight march to the throne like in most other games you'd need to time your charge carefully), but the enemy density was often too sparse, and they didn't put you under pressure or flank you enough.

Console canto is an ideal skill so that mounts can engage the enemy first, then fall back and be backed up by the infantry, but they (especially Sigurd/Seliph) were generally strong enough to rush the enemy by themselves. The timing for certain sub-objectives like saving the Bargain Ring also encouraged this.

And that's IF the infantry could reach, which was a big if unless you were going out of your way to have your footsoldiers catch up before engaging the enemy army.

Edited by Levant Caprice
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The theme for the Jugdral games could well be "interesting theory, horribly broken practice".

In FE4's case, the idea was clearly to have a more battle style with more ebb and flow (I don't know quite how to put it, but rather than a straight march to the throne like in most other games you'd need to time your charge carefully), but the enemy density was often too sparse, and they didn't put you under pressure or flank you enough.

Console canto is an ideal skill so that mounts can engage the enemy first, then fall back and be backed up by the infantry, but they (especially Sigurd/Seliph) were generally strong enough to rush the enemy by themselves. The timing for certain sub-objectives like saving the Bargain Ring also encouraged this.

Kaga said explicitly that the point of canto was to prevent a situation where a player unit is able to kill any unit that attacks it on enemy phase but still gettes killed due to the chip damage. (tell me that this has never happened to you in non-canto games) The implication was that he wanted more of a player phase focus. Canto certainly did that, but it was at the cost of massive imballence between player characters.

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I never really saw a problem with it except for the fact that I always had to leave Arden and Hannibal guard the home castle.

Nevermind, that's not really a problem.

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I never really saw a problem with it except for the fact that I always had to leave Arden and Hannibal guard the home castle.

Like i said, massive imbalance between player characters.

Edited by sirmola
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