Should Growth Rates be Shown?

[Zerosabers]

I never really understood why they kept this hidden. Its very useful information that we'll end up getting anyways.

Edited August 26, 2015 by zerosabers

[MCProductions]

Because then you remove part of the challenge of FE.

Say one plays RD blind, but it shows them character growths. I doubt anyone would ever attempt to use Meg or Fiona. That, and say you like a character, but that game straight up says they will likely be bad. It just wouldn't sit well with me honestly.

[Tragonight]

Basically the above, I couldn't have worded it better.

Part of the challenge in FE is not knowing a unit is bad until you've trained them a decent amount, and by then, you can't take it back.

[Zerosabers]

I really don't get how hiding something that important and screwing over somebody who uses the wrong unit is challenging.

[Tragonight]

If people knew growth rates, then they wouldn't use bad characters. It's as simple as that.

How is screwing over somebody that uses the wrong unit not challenging? You wasted experience on them.

[Zerosabers]

People would still use characters that they like even if they can see how bad their growths are. Favoritism can make almost anybody good in Fire Emblem.

And I don't count getting screwed over by something you couldn't possibly know about challenging. It'd be one thing if they told you when somebody might not have very good growths, but outside of Jagens they never mention someone's growths at all.

[Tragonight]

Not everybody would. I'm not among the people that use characters based on personality over stats, but I'm sure stats can influence them in some sort of way. And while favoritism can get you "good" characters, they won't be nearly as good as the actual "good" characters.

[Soapbar]

If people knew growth rates, then they wouldn't use bad characters. It's as simple as that.

How is screwing over somebody that uses the wrong unit not challenging? You wasted experience on them.

Uh. But you can't know that Unit will be shit until you get screwed over later. That's not challenge, that's punishing the player for making a commitment that might (and probably will) screw you over in the wrong run.

Imagine getting a quest in a RPG that required you to go all across the map and fight a ridiculously hard optional boss and your rewarded with a permanent, massive stat de-buff. You can still beat the game with that but it would've been much easier if you hadn't wasted a few hours. Would you find that fair?

[Tamarsamar]

I really don't get how hiding something that important and screwing over somebody who uses the wrong unit is challenging.

^ This. All it does is artificially increase the difficulty of the game.

Quite frankly, not only would I like growth rates to be visible, but ideally I would also like for them to be fixed as well.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Tamarsamar

[Azz]

TBH, I don't really care.I use my favorite units regardless of their growths.

[Lantairu]

Basically the above, I couldn't have worded it better.

Part of the challenge in FE is not knowing a unit is bad until you've trained them a decent amount, and by then, you can't take it back.

Not to mention it removes all the experimentation that makes Fire Emblem games so replayable. If I knew all the characters that would be good and all the ones that would be bad, I would only use those characters. For instance, even though I love Sumia's personality, she kind of sucks, so I don't use her. As much as I love a character, I'm going to use the characters better than them because my priority is winning with everyone alive, not barely getting a hit on someone with a unit that sucks, though their personality is great.

[Dandragon]

Using a unit that is classified as bad is challenging.

Not knowing that the unit is bad isn't challenging.

[Lantairu]

Using a unit that is classified as bad is challenging.

Not knowing that the unit is bad isn't challenging.

I don't think it's as much of a problem about removing challenge as it is with replay value. Marriage and kids is a similar point. In my first playthrough of FE13, I paired Anna and Robin. It was a decent pairing and I got a good assassin out of it. My next playthrough, I thought I would mix it up a bit and pair Lucina and Robin. What resulted was the single best unit on my team. Next, because I wanted a magic centric Morgan, so I paired Robin with Tharja. It wasn't bad, but it was noticeably worse than the last one. But this made my experience different each time. Now, I'll pair Robin with Lucina because that's the best pairing. This freedom and unknowingness of what you're going to get adds replay value. If I knew all the best pairings before, I wouldn't have experimented in different ways. Every playthrough would pretty much be the same.

[NinjaMonkey]

I doubt anyone would ever attempt to use Meg or Fiona.

Which is funny as Meg has a bunch of 60%+ growths (just not in Str or Def).

Edited August 26, 2015 by NinjaMonkey

[Garnef]

HERE'S MY OPINION:

It should be allowed to be checked by beating the game. Assuming a player's first playthrough is going to be on Normal Mode (Where mediocre units normally are not an issue.), it'd be good to know which units are good on Hard Mode without having to check the internet for growth rates because somebody had to figure it out with magic.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Garnef

[Jokoister]

They should definitely add them in. Fire emblem games have usually been good about providing the player with important information but I don't believe it ever tells the player about growth rates. It comes off as a beginner's trap to hide such information from the player. It's also incredibly annoying to have to resort to outside resources in order to get a list of growth rates.

[Baldrick]

I think growths should be at least partially disclosed, but not on the basis that using a unit with bad growths will screw you over. Growths are random so knowing them isn't a guarantee you won't get screwed, and if you don't bench a unit that's struggling you likely either don't care if their performance is mediocre, or can give them resources until they're good anyway.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Baldrick

[Radiant Dragon]

I would like for growth rates to be visible after beating the game once, as that gives the player a chance to experiment on their first playthrough without feeling like they should or shouldn't be using certain units due to their growths, although the fact that everyone's growths are so ridiculously high these days makes this less of an issue than it might have been in say, the GBA era for example.

Having growth rates visible on a second playthrough allows players to feel like they have more control over optimizing their teams for higher difficulties, and people who want to experiment with different units still can regardless since they'll have more knowledge of what's to come and be able to better prepare for it even if they're using 'worse' units.

[Intoner Two]

I liked what the official strategy guides for Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones did (if I'm remembering correctly, I haven't read mine in a while). They gave an indication of the characters' growth rates represented by letter rankings. The closer to A, the more often the chance the stat in question went up. I feel this is fair, it gives you some semblence of how the unit will turn out but is not promising you anything either by spoiling hard numbers (I expect the writer(s) of the English guides just compared files with friends and family who were playing their copies to gather an educated guesstimate). And by comparing those to base stats, one can decide if they truly want to invest in the character on a long-term basis. Or they can better choose how they want to allocate their resources. Another fair point is the one Dan made--it can be challenging and feel rewarding to use characters that may not seem as great statistically, and that's often much more feasible to a person than throwing themself onto a higher "difficulty" setting. (quotations as difficulty is entirely subjective)

[Knight]

No. It ruins the surprise on a first run, and it's not like anyone LTC's on their first playthrough anyway. The difficulty increase by accidentally using a bad unit is often negligible unless it's on something like Lunatic.

HERE'S MY OPINION:

It should be allowed to be checked by beating the game. Assuming a player's first playthrough is going to be on Normal Mode (Where mediocre units normally are not an issue.), it'd be good to know which units are good on Hard Mode without having to check the internet for growth rates because somebody had to figure it out with magic.

This seems like the best option.

[Draco]

Because then you remove part of the challenge of FE.

Say one plays RD blind, but it shows them character growths. I doubt anyone would ever attempt to use Meg or Fiona. That, and say you like a character, but that game straight up says they will likely be bad. It just wouldn't sit well with me honestly.

Good points, but iirc Fiona actually had good growths? Meg too.

I think no, but maybe after the first playthrough.

[The DanMan]

Count me in on the "after the first playthrough" group.

[Radiant Dragon]

Good points, but iirc Fiona actually had good growths? Meg too.

Their growths were decent, but a bit lackluster compared to many of the other Dawn Brigade members (Fiona's are too balanced across the board, and Meg is missing them where it matters). Still not the best examples, though. The Trainees in FE8 might be a better one, as people often assume that their growths are above average to make up for their terrible bases (where in reality they're actually below average to make up for the extra levels they can gain).

[Irysa]

I think showing a vague radar chart for a character's growths would be fine. They already show that for class growths in FE13 and previous games had those little IIII mark parameters on the class roll for those too. Changing them to work for player units wouldnt be a big deal.

[dondon151]

and previous games had those little IIII mark parameters on the class roll for those too.

minor nitpick: those are for base stats and they are actually exact values for base stats.

you could do bars to show "potential," but people will probably count pixels and figure out the growths.