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Dual guards offer no strategic value. You should never bank on a sub 20% chance to negate damage. It's so unreliable you might as well plan around actually taking the hit.

Dual strikes on the other hand are gr9mazing. At the beginning it is shaky but once your couples develop S rank it really becomes something you can bank on.

I fail to see the logic in nerfing pair up. Normal and Hard mode are derp regardless. Play Lunatic mode or higher so you can actually gain an appreciation for it.

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Maybe just nerf it on lower difficulties and have its effectiveness scaled up by difficulty level?

It felt like with Dual Strike, they were purposefully trying to turn the game into a lawnmower simulator

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the only people who complain about pair up are the people who take fire emblem too seriously and actually care about the quality of the game mechanics. you can identify these people because they post on fire emblem forums.

Thankfully, it doesn't appear that the game designers pay these people any heed, which is good for those who care about games being engaging and entertaining. The purists already have their titles.

Dual guards offer no strategic value. You should never bank on a sub 20% chance to negate damage. It's so unreliable you might as well plan around actually taking the hit.

Dual Guards offer plenty of strategic value. You may not be able to count on them for one particular movement, but overall they increase the success chance of maneuvers, and give you more tactical options (don't need to heal someone, or retreat, etc). Great if you're face-tanking lategame Lunatic+.

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giving enemies pair-up could work as a quick fix of sorts, as long as the enemy AI is smart enough to make proper use of it.

I can see the AI on harder difficulties totally abusing the Dual Guard mechanic, making every map frustrating as hell.

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Normal (and Hard with enough FE experience) are lawnmower simulator regardless anyway

I can still do chains similar to rescue chains that get people I want across the map really fast anyway even not counting rescue staff so whatever, if they nerf stat bonuses that's fine, if they don't that's also fine, I don't really care as long as there's still a L/L+ tier difficulty so I don't have to stay in hard when I want to play not lawnmower mode

I feel a lot of people crying over balance are forgetting that games are ultimately entertainment and should focus more on enjoyability than 100% balance, especially in singleplayer. Multiplayer is a different story since more stringent balance is necessary for players to have a fun experience, but in singleplayer it doesn't have to be.

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I'd really like to have the option to turn off Pair Up at the beginning of the game, and balancing enemy stats in accordance to the disadvantage you would otherwise be placing yourself in. And if you turn it on, the enemies are automatically a bit tougher. Pair up also needs a bit of a nerf. It made the game feel a lot easier than it should have been in my first playthrough. I wish I would have started my first playthrough on lunatic because even hard mode wasn't all that much trouble my first time around.

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Pair Up in general is nice mechanic though and one of the most significant added to the series, throwing away the mechanic that best fits with the support building system rather than rebalancing would be a mistake.

Certain improvements would be adjusting the statboosts provided. Perhaps the biggest red flag is that (Promoted or Unpromoted/Special) provide the same total stat points, but it's undeniable that these stats in general aren't all equivalent in practical use. A Wyvern Rider providing +3 Strength +3 Defense means much more in practice than a Villager giving +3 Skill +3 Luck. Same for C & A Support ranks bonus and the bonuses for 10,20,30 in each stat respectively. Strength/Defense/Magic/Resistance/Speed gained from pair up could do with being a lot smaller than the Skill and Luck(which could stay the same as Awakening).

Also I'd think more predictable dual guards could be an interesting approach a limit of once per turn(with 2 with Dual Guard+) with a higher base activation rate and growth potentially capping at 50% could be an approach to make it more reliable but less powerful(though giving bosses a skill that bypasses dual guard would be an idea).

Edited by arvilino
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This video might help seeing the mechanic from a different perspective (as a future game designer, I also have been thinking on many mechanics of games, and this is quite an issue, balancing them; sorry, forgot how to add a video from youtube in here lol been ages since I posted on the forums)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BkTruCmaBBZ8z6cP9KzPiX&index=32

Anyways, it is clear the mechanic was introduced to allow players new to the series to have a chance to adapt to what Fire Emblem offers itself: support system, offering occasional guards to avoid damage when you didn't see some movements coming, and extra power to defeat enemies that could be a problem to handle or could pose a challenge you were not really sure if you could handle when you're barely beginning (pretty much like the casual game mode was meant for newcomers to the series when introduced); including it again could be for many reasons, but I want to think it stays the same, attract new fans to Fire Emblem.

Sure, it needs balancing, but the thing is, that we're given the choice to use it or not when the option of pairing up is given; at first, it is very tempting to rely a lot on the Pair Up mechanic, it makes the first missions a bit easier, but as it is mentioned in the video, the game itself never says or suggests players 'Hey, there are other ways you can work around this map besides Pairing Up' because all we had to do was Route or Defeat the Commander, easiest way to do it? Pair Up, there was no need to actually try another road. I'm also supposing the mechanic was made to speed up the game a bit, since nowadays most games nowadays are multi, or have things to unlock. Still, it's just my opinion on this xD

Pair Up was nice, I admit I overused it and it also made the game very lineal in a fashion to a point I got bored of playing the maps, like most say in here, it could be fixed to be more versatile, but then again it would need more hours programming or re-designing it, and the choice will be made by IS, so let's see how it fares in the future.

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Keep Pair Up, but make the game's Hard level harder. Like Radiant Dawn Hard. Or even Radiant Dawn Normal. That seems like the best solution to me. I like the idea that fighting with our friends is what makes our team different. Together we ride, after all. I do think it would be cool if certain bosses and boss-like characters teamed up. That would make for a great challenge.

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I think a pairing system similar to the one used in super robot wars would work nicely in fire emblem.The player can choose to have an adjacent units take the hits for 1/3 of the original damage when defending, and the unit can also provide a small assist attack when attacking. Each adjacent unit would only be able to defend/assist the character once per turn/phase.

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I wonder if it's possible to send IS a message to maybe include an option to disable pair ups... I mean, being able to enable or disable pair ups can bring more people back who were disappointed with FE:A because of the pair up system.

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I wonder if it's possible to send IS a message to maybe include an option to disable pair ups... I mean, being able to enable or disable pair ups can bring more people back who were disappointed with FE:A because of the pair up system.

I've been thinking along those lines too. But I doubt it would have any effect.

If they were to make it optional, they would also have to adjust the difficulty as well. I found the harder difficulties to be too easy while paired up, but occassionally it would be too hard if not.

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I've been thinking along those lines too. But I doubt it would have any effect.

If they were to make it optional, they would also have to adjust the difficulty as well. I found the harder difficulties to be too easy while paired up, but occassionally it would be too hard if not.

Yeah, I guess...

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Maybe pair-up is only available under special conditions? They started the trailer by the sword girl fighting alone.

That's probably because prologue/early chapters normal mode with tutorials enabled. This way you might need to get to certain chapter for your avatar to "Figure" the use of the mechanic.

I like that is coming back btw.

Edited by LeaderR Elliot
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Could someone add a poll to this thread?

Something like this:

Do you want the pair up feature to remain in the upcoming game?

Yes

Yes, but less powerful

No (or make it an option before starting a new game)

If there is an overwhelmingly large support for the No-option, it wouldn't hurt to notify Intelligent Systems.

I avoided using the term "nerfed" since people at Intsys likely aren't familiar with the word, if they actually do decide to look at it in the first place.

Edited by Siskan
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Could someone add a poll to this thread?

Something like this:

Do you want the pair up feature to remain in the upcoming game?

Yes

Yes, but less powerful

No (or make it an option before starting a new game)

If there is an overwhelmingly large support for the No-option, it wouldn't hurt to notify Intelligent Systems.

I avoided using the term "nerfed" since people at Intsys likely aren't familiar with the word, if they actually do decide to look at it in the first place.

I doubt IS cares about the opinions of what is, let's be honest, a very small subset of the current Fire Emblem fanbase.

Even if you somehow got every SF member ever to vote, I doubt that would be a significant enough number of people for IS to care.

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I think we are all shitting on pairing up as if it's exactly the same as pairing up from previous games when there's a chance it may have been nerfed. Granted, I don't believe IS is that great with balancing things, but FE9 was known to be stupid broken with BEXP before FE10 came out. IS then "nerfed" BEXP to give only 3 stat gains that ends up being biased towards their stronger stats, so it was still decent but not earth shattering.

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My idea would be to have the enemy choose which paired up unit they want to target, and to potentially remove dual guard. Change it into a mechanic where it's essentially just two units sharing a space to get a bonus.

Oh this is an interesting idea. In exchange for more power on your turn you have less control over the enemy's response, and it makes who is paired with who more meaningful
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I wouldn't completly despise to see the pair-up system back.

However it has to be improved.

It was just stupid that in FE13 the classic 1vs.1 battle didn't exist on lunatic (+), because you didn't have a chance with only one unit because of the overpowered stats and skills of the enemies. Speaking of luna skills: Hell NO! No return!

The pair up has to be nerfed and enemies can use it too. A 2vs.2 battle (like in other RPGs) would be interesting and viable. You command your two units, which of the enemies they shall attack. Same goes for the enemies.

It musn't replace the classic rescue, take and drop.

Edited by The Taninator
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Anyways, it is clear the mechanic was introduced to allow players new to the series to have a chance to adapt to what Fire Emblem offers itself: support system, offering occasional guards to avoid damage when you didn't see some movements coming, and extra power to defeat enemies that could be a problem to handle or could pose a challenge you were not really sure if you could handle when you're barely beginning (pretty much like the casual game mode was meant for newcomers to the series when introduced); including it again could be for many reasons, but I want to think it stays the same, attract new fans to Fire Emblem.

Sure, it needs balancing, but the thing is, that we're given the choice to use it or not when the option of pairing up is given; at first, it is very tempting to rely a lot on the Pair Up mechanic, it makes the first missions a bit easier, but as it is mentioned in the video, the game itself never says or suggests players 'Hey, there are other ways you can work around this map besides Pairing Up' because all we had to do was Route or Defeat the Commander, easiest way to do it? Pair Up, there was no need to actually try another road. I'm also supposing the mechanic was made to speed up the game a bit, since nowadays most games nowadays are multi, or have things to unlock. Still, it's just my opinion on this xD

Pair Up was nice, I admit I overused it and it also made the game very lineal in a fashion to a point I got bored of playing the maps, like most say in here, it could be fixed to be more versatile, but then again it would need more hours programming or re-designing it, and the choice will be made by IS, so let's see how it fares in the future.

The thing is, pair up is always the optimal strategy, there is no reason not to, you get one more powerful unit, and chance for dual guard and dual strike, the one map I can think of the you want to a few more units on the map, is Tikis paralogue, and this game needed more of that to discourage it in that cache.

And it's easy to really on pair up, since it never get obsolete.

(I think I'm agreeing with you ?)

This video might help seeing the mechanic from a different perspective (as a future game designer, I also have been thinking on many mechanics of games, and this is quite an issue, balancing them; sorry, forgot how to add a video from youtube in here lol been ages since I posted on the forums)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BkTruCmaBBZ8z6cP9KzPiX&index=32

Yeah, not a big fan of extra credits to be honest, and I too hope to get into game design. Because they often time tell the obvious, and come across as preachy and pretensions, and have shown they wont admit when they are wrong (example, the episode with science and religion). I know one of them is doing something in game design, but I have seen so much I just question, that I would take everything with a grain of salt.

Then again I study to become a game designer and will probably continue to the next school after finishing this one.

Also, there are a lot of books on game design like this:http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965, and in the "people who bought this has also bought", you'll find even more.

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