Video Fire Emblem 4 0% Growths LTC

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

If you break the prayer sword, you can sell it in the pawn shop, have it be bought by a male unit, and if they repair it with no other weapons in their inventory, they will have it equipped, though they can only counterattack and the moment they equip anything else it becomes unusable until it is broken again. I use it at several points throughout my playthrough. One is the first castle of chapter 9, where since all my units are super weak defensively and can't really stand up to the hero lance using armors well I have Celice charge into them with the prayer sword equipped, is knocked down to two health by an archer, proceeds to dodge all the enemies because prayer is ridiculous, and then gets two hero sword crits on the boss to clear the castle in two turns, though now that I have the rescue staff in chapter 9 I may revise that strategy. It's mostly useful to let my pitifully weak 24 health Leif survive some of the toughest enemy phases in the game while Celice holds the prayer ring. It allows me to avoid using Shanan at several parts of the game, which is good because I want to avoid using infantry whenever possible.

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Since I've got the first generation pretty much all planned out, I'll start posting videos now. Here's the prologue, completed in 9 turns.

[eclipse]

My only comment right now is that the rushed music track is somewhat distracting, because I'm trying to listen to your explanations. Would it be possible to make the background music softer?

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Definitely. I'll be sure to do that next time. Thanks for the feedback.

[Mekkah]

You could always mute the original audio and replace it with some nice background music that has to do with FE4, perhaps even the original map theme. Make sure it's on a rather low volume.

[Refa]

Use the arranged soundtracks.

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

I think I'll take your advice and play some other track in the background, especially since once I start RNG abusing I'll be cutting large sections out and the in game songs jumping around from place to place would be jarring and distracting. I'm assuming it's fine if I cut out almost all RNG abuse and just tell you which strategies are more/less reliable and take more abuse?

[eclipse]

I don't mind, as long as you explain what needs to happen (for example, "I needed Sigurd to dodge the next three attacks or he gets run over").

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Will do. I've been working on the second generation a bit, and just managed to 21 turn chapter 7, which I'm quite happy about. I'm very near getting the optimal turn counts for the play through as a whole, and I'm guessing my overall turn count will be somewhere in the 180's.

Edited December 31, 2014 by MartyTheDemonSlayer

[Mekkah]

I think it would be most interesting if you didn't cut out anything and just used the time provided by the RNG abuse to commentate, but only if there's really things to say. When I commentated on dondon's FE6 run there was always more commentary we wanted to do than gameplay to show, so it was a bit of a rush to get everything in. I guess FE4 is obviously slower paced and you're on your own, so that might be harder for you.

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Yeah, even with speeding up the game play it still takes far longer than FE6, and RNG abuse takes much longer in FE4 as well. Maybe in some of the parts that are more complicated strategically I could take advantage of the extra time, but at some points it won't be necessary at all, like when I'm trying to rig two consecutive hero sword crits on Blume with a .26% chance of success. Strategies range from simple cavalry rushes to super intricate exploitation of prayer where every point of health matters, so sometimes I'll need the extra time and sometimes I won't. I guess I'll decide on a chapter by chapter basis.

[sirmola]

Yeah, even with speeding up the game play it still takes far longer than FE6, and RNG abuse takes much longer in FE4 as well. Maybe in some of the parts that are more complicated strategically I could take advantage of the extra time, but at some points it won't be necessary at all, like when I'm trying to rig two consecutive hero sword crits on Blume with a .26% chance of success. Strategies range from simple cavalry rushes to super intricate exploitation of prayer where every point of health matters, so sometimes I'll need the extra time and sometimes I won't. I guess I'll decide on a chapter by chapter basis.

Also, youtube allows you to add text bubbles that say things like "click here or go to 14:12 to skip rng abuse", and that skip to the relevant timestamp if clicked on, so you could do that for the insane stuff. (or just offer two uploads, one with abuse and one without.)

[dondon151]

i'd recommend against uploading two videos; not very many people are going to end up watching both.

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Tbh I'm kind of shocked that you guys are interested in watching Alec/Arden get pummeled countless times, but I don't mind keeping it for completion's sake if there's strong interest. I've already finished recording and am currently uploading Chapter 1 and didn't keep all the RNG abuse, but in the future I'm happy to put it in.. I won't be able to keep commentary up for the entirety of every video in that case though. Some parts of FE4 boil down to cavalry charges with no subtlety even on 0% growths, such as the first half of chapter 1, and my commentary for that is pretty uninspiring even without having to fill in more time.

Edited January 1, 2015 by MartyTheDemonSlayer

[dondon151]

we're not really interested, but it's much more legit to include everything.

[sirmola]

If you do include the rng abuse, at least tell us when to skip in the comments, at i would not like to watch it. (the only reason that i suggested including it was so that it would be "more legitimate")

Edited January 1, 2015 by sirmola

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Here are the videos for Chapter 1, separated by castle. The first portion of the chapter really isn't very interesting strategically and as such my commentary suffers a lot during the second video, so if you don't want to watch the whole thing skip the Marpha castle video. I didn't include the arena / some of the RNG abuse because I thought it would make things less interesting, but a lot of you are saying you want everything included for the sake of completeness, so I'll start doing that next chapter.

[spoiler=Videos]Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkhh3nR1jHw&list=PLcvuFX_7kixQMuuU0PDx-JcPNvkhDB40T&index=2

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwtufUxvAfk&index=3&list=PLcvuFX_7kixQMuuU0PDx-JcPNvkhDB40T

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzP-xtriAvI&index=4&list=PLcvuFX_7kixQMuuU0PDx-JcPNvkhDB40T

Edited January 1, 2015 by MartyTheDemonSlayer

[Mekkah]

I'm liking this series. I think it could improve some more, so I'm leaving some feedback here.

I like this playthrough! Pro Prayer strats and accurate planning.

You mentioned in the video that you would be repeating yourself and I think you could do with improving that. I skipped a lot of part 2 so this is mostly from part 1 and 3:

- "This chapter isn't very interesting" is something you could probably leave off entirely or change to "I personally don't find..." etc. And then explain why you don't find it very interesting.

- "Cavalry rush" has been said a lot.

- "RNG abuse is necessary"

I know the pains of repeating oneself all too well. Some ways to make it more interesting if repeating is unavoidable is to change the wording ("abusing high move units", "advancing mounted units as far as possible", these can all go in place of just "it's a cavalry rush"). Alternatively you can just leave it out if it's been said before.

You said you had trouble thinking of things to say during the chapter. I've had this issue sometimes with recording but the amazing thing with Fire Emblem is there's always something to say. There's always something happening. It doesn't always have to be advanced strategy. It can be flavor (Ethlin is being a good wife and healing Cuan to full HP), it can be joking around (nobody told Ayra what to do after being conscripted into Sigurd's army, so she's just going to stand there), it can just be a funny way of phrasing something (Ardan is in an abusive relationship with this arena fighter which you'll catch a glimpse of throughout the chapter).

This kind of gibberish might not be your style, though, but in that case I still think you could elaborate on some things. Some things that went through my head when I was watching:

- Dew was in danger in this map because he was not only facing axe users, but also bow users that can attack him from afar with far more hit. You mentioned that you were RNG abusing to have people survive but you could've talked about how much hit Dew was facing or something.

- Aideen wasn't healing/warping to get EXP. Would it not be worth it to get her promoted so she could fight in an arena and get some money back? Probably not, but it could've been mentioned.

- Why is the map poorly designed in your opinion? Lots of forests, Cuan and Sigurd only have 3 mov, Ethlin has 2, enemies come through a narrow passage and can't get past each other, creating a traffic jam, Jamka could possibly get behind one of them and start attacking Cuan or Sigurd from afar, etc.

- I'd forgotten all about Deirdre's Silence staff, so perhaps it could have been mentioned.

You seem to be aiming your commentary at players who have played FE4 with growths before, but perhaps it would be nice to make it a little more accessible by mentioning some details for people who haven't really played FE4. dondon and I explain FE6 in somewhat excruciating detail during the commentary to the point where we explain exactly what a Sleep staff does. You don't have to go that far, but something like "Sandima would be a really dangerous boss with his 3-10 range Fenrir that almost OHKOs almost anyone, but Deirdre comes with a Silence staff which completely shuts him down" or "Dew needs to talk to Aideen for her to obtain the Warp Staff, which can teleport an adjacent unit into any conquered castle including the base, this is useful for such and such reason" goes a long way.

It might be helpful to write down the things you want to mention and find the right timing for them. Commentary is at its best when it's about things currently happening. The part where you made Deirdre spawn further upwards by having a bunch of brigands on her usual starting position was brilliant, capturing those moments highlights the parts you should be proud of. It will also help you find things to say since you can have a list of things that don't need to be mentioned at specific times to fill up what would otherwise be a gap.

tl;dr commentary is hard but here's a bunch of ways to make it easier. Looking forward to Ch2, Ch1 was actually really good.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Mekkah

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Thanks for the feedback. I've mostly been improvising my commentary so far, and after watching my video and comparing it to your and Dondon's commentary, I realize that mine comes across as a lot more improvised. I think that explaining the simpler things that come second nature to a very experienced FE4 players would be a good idea, because not every viewer would likely be that experienced, and it would fill time during the large amounts of empty space in the chapter. I was planning on keeping my commentary purely to strategy but now I'm realizing that FE4 can be quite slow paced and have a lot to say, so I might add that in. I'll see how incorporating your suggestions into the next chapter works out.

[dondon151]

mekkah and i improvise the shit out of the commentary, but we always do more than one take, and after the first take we hone in on talking points that we thought were good or that we had missed entirely.

a word of caution on using numbers and arithmetic: long numbers and multi-step arithmetic will make the listener tune out immediately. on very early FE6 takes, i described the likelihood of bosskill strategies, and those were best described as confusing sequences of numbers and decimals.

[Mekkah]

Numbers are best left to the description or annotations, yeah. Or you can just slow down the video/show the combat menu/turn animations on when executing a boss kill so people can just see the numbers from the game. Might wanna mention at some point that in FE4, disp hit = true hit.

[General Horace]

I like how you were about to move Ardan out in chapter 1 then were like "NOPE JUST KIDDING"

Really enjoying this so far, I think the background music is better than sped up music from the game too, glad you did that.

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

Yeah, I realized my mistake as soon as I made it. At least Arden gets some exercise in Chapter 2. After that he doesn't even RNG abuse because with ambush 2 RNs are burned at a time, making it so much less flexible than with other units. I kind of feel like putting him out of his misery in some heroic way to slightly increase the reliability of some strategy because I feel sorry for the poor guy and there are already a few deliberate deaths in the second generation (substitute characters make indispensable meat shields and Shanan dies, comes back from the dead, and then dies again, shaving a turn the first time and the second time because it's unavoidable and in the final chapter anyways.) I just want Arden's existence to finally have meaning.

[Mekkah]

omg spoilers

sacrifice him to Elthsan imo

[MartyTheDemonSlayer]

I don't think he has the movement to reach his attack range on time, I'm clearing Madino Castle in 4 turns and then talking to Eltshan the next turn. Maybe I'll just warp Arden to Phinora in chapter 5 to meatshield for the meteor mages or draw Thracia away from Sigurd. Give him something useful to do for once.