Standards/Rules for a "fair" playthrough

[Natsu_T]

Fire Emblem is a difficult game to have a cohesive sense of community in, and I think the major culprit stems from the variety of micro-rules players might have towards what constitutes a fair, honest playthrough. Fire Emblem Fates has really brought this issue to the forefront for me, as the MyCastle content and other Wi-Fi materials are really over-the-top. When it comes to single player campaign games, I have always held a strong animosity towards using resources "outside the game" for help. This was much simpler back in the day. Everyone who plays through Pokemon Red/Blue is going to have very similar experiences, and the game itself can be broken down no more than which starter you choose, which serves as a difficulty buffer. Outside of that, any team you can build is entirely consistent from game to game (aside from different version exclusives). Even in the early days of Pokemon, I always felt like it was cheating, or a dishonest and unfair playthrough, to trade over pokemon to help you out via link cable. I always deemed it as post-game content that you could utilize for competitive battling, but that it can easily trivialize the game if done during the playthrough. While there was the level-gym badge cap for obeying, a level 100 Mewtwo is still going to solo the game even if it obeys once every 20 turns.

But it's not so clear cut in Fire Emblem Fates. It seems like the game expects you to visit other castles for ore that can be used for forging. This is an element that seems entirely fair, as you will gain access to only one type of ore in an offline playthrough, and otherwise have to pay a steep cost of converting, and then getting good arena victories to maximize them, as well as waiting for Forge sales. This is all entirely possible, but you're simply not going to see many +4 weapons no matter how resource efficient you are. The fairness of infinite-ore for forging almost seems to depend on the game version you play. In Conquest, you simply will not have the money to buy up a bunch of weapons for forging, whereas in Birthright the amount of ore + money can lead to very powerful weapons. Without going into too much depth, food supply also seems to be adequate for an offline playthrough, because characters will find different foods off the ground for you.

Perhaps one of the most asterisk-demanding rules that can be made is centered around the path bonuses. These are actually offline, but the rewards are obscene. A couple pairs of boots alone seems to suck a lot of the depth out of Conquest, for instance. Using the MyCastle reward weapons is one thing, but that can be written off as an online material. Speaking of MyCastle rewards, I think one of the major issues I have with them is that they break the immersion of which side you are supposed to be on. I really like the idea of Nohr only getting 1-range staffs, for instance. It's an aesthetic of the army as a whole which I think is a nice touch. One problem though is that nothing is stopping a player from visiting a Hoshido castle and buying up Blooms and Guard nagi's.

I'm not sure if random weapon/lottery pick-ups can contain foreign items, but I have never had an issue with the random pick-ups because they are a predictable quirk unique to each playthrough. There is, however, another catch to the unit pick-ups. In Awakening, it was predictable how many there would be: always two per risen fight. But in Fates, they occur whenever a certain amount of time passes in real life. Every time I boot the game up after a while, new exclamation marks appear. Hypothetically, you could grind up a super force by only checking statuses for months on end before a difficult chapter, selling weaker weapons for money, keeping the better ones, etc.

Basically, there's far too many minor tweaks in gameplay choices that we all could be making to have any sort of unity in our experiences. Conquest Hard to one person might be something completely and utterly different to another. Even Conquest Lunatic can be the easiest gaming experience of your life if you simply go online and grab powerful units and items. A strict offline-only principle causes certain elements of the game to flow very jaggedly, like the Forge system. So I want to here from you guys: Where do you draw the line on what can and cannot be used and why? Would you prefer most of this stuff to be locked until post-game?

Edited March 23, 2016 by Natsu_T

[Horuos]

Honestly, I'm fine with all the stuff, I personally love the ability to get new skills and units from other castles, mostly because Conquest is one heck-of-a game.

But hey, that's just my opinion

* Puts up Hate-Shield*

[joshcja]

Casual shitposting? Use whatever, fuck grind on nix mode if it's your thing. Nobodys going to judge you for having fun.

My personal restrictions/what I discuss when considering the difficulty of fates in-game or giving advise in general. Lunatic, nothing but shops, facelooking, statues, and recruitment construction.

Sure I can add things on if someone else wants to use em or if I just really want to try out dread/flyer that run and everything's fair game in postgame but the absolute minimum is a good base for discussion and already makes fates broken enough.

Edited March 23, 2016 by joshcja

[Karis]

I just don't use my castle for skill/resource gathering until I beat the game. Isn't that hard to ignore.

[FlameUser64]

Honestly if I was on Conquest I'd have absolutely no problem with abusing My Castle for all kinds of skills simply because the game itself hacks to try to kill you. (Poison Strike + Grisly Wound ninjas anybody?).

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Unless it's a targeted challenge run, I feel like whatever you need to win or have fun is fair game. Personally, when I do first runs for games, I'll use the bare minimum and then if I hit a wall, I'll ease up and start using additional features. Beyond that, it typically takes a challenge run to get me to replay a game and those all have their own rules.

[Shadow Knight]

*Grabs Sword and Shield. Puts on Helmet*

I actually prefer the mycastle system. It allows normally "useless" units to have a chance at getting some spotlight and considering how Conquest cheats already (Ninjas with Poison strike and grisly wound)

Even with all of the grinding I did I ended up dropping many units save for Xander and MU at the end.

[avengerfive]

Like everyone else says, do what you find fun. In all my runs so far, I tend to limit myself as much as possible.

Rules for my runs:

-No children paralogues (Paralogue 1 is fine)/Invasions/Scouts/Challenges

-Full Recruitment (All Gen 1, including the characters you get from upgrading MyCastle things)/No deaths

-No Path Bonuses

-No Visiting other people's My Castles

-No skill buying

-No DLC

-In MyCastle, I allow the Armory/Vendor, Forge, Prison, Mess Hall and Arena only. Edit: Oh and the mine/farm

Pretty much as limited as you can get. I guess you could ban MyCastle completely, but I don't think I would find that fun, so I haven't tried it yet.

Edited March 23, 2016 by avengerfive

[Maritisa]

Honestly I'm the type of person who enjoys everything the game gives me to break it over my knee. I'll spend time training my units up and then steamroll the rest of the game. I don't like my games to be hard. >.>;

[Dark Holy Elf]

But it's not so clear cut in Fire Emblem Fates. It seems like the game expects you to visit other castles for ore that can be used for forging. This is an element that seems entirely fair, as you will gain access to only one type of ore in an offline playthrough, and otherwise have to pay a steep cost of converting, and then getting good arena victories to maximize them, as well as waiting for Forge sales. This is all entirely possible, but you're simply not going to see many +4 weapons no matter how resource efficient you are. The fairness of infinite-ore for forging almost seems to depend on the game version you play. In Conquest, you simply will not have the money to buy up a bunch of weapons for forging, whereas in Birthright the amount of ore + money can lead to very powerful weapons. Without going into too much depth, food supply also seems to be adequate for an offline playthrough, because characters will find different foods off the ground for you.

For what it's worth, I would argue that you certain get enough ore using this process to forge the weapons you need (and I don't even wait for the forge "sale"). I do soft-reset if I lose the single copy of an ore I've bet, but that's about it.

I still don't get +4 weapons, but honestly, that has as much to do with the gold cost as ore supplies. Making a +4 iron weapon costs 16000 gold which is incredibly steep for a single weapon.

Anyway, my own "rules" for playthroughs of Fire Emblem games tend to look like:

-No online anything, which includes accessing the castles of others, DLC, etc.

-No bonuses which require replays (boots and dragon herbs and weird alternate classes as soon you start the game, etc. aren't really balanced at all IMO)

-No skirmishes or invasions or whatever else passes for plotless random encounters. Main story and paralogues only (and I usually only get a few paralogues).

-No abuse or farming... which pretty much means that if I can end a battle on the current turn, I will do so, rather than say spamming staves or dance or trying to abuse a boss, for all that I understand steps have been taken to make those less productive in this version of the game anyway.

-No low-manning, again not that it works as well in Fates as some previous games

Any/all of these rules may be relaxed if I'm doing a specific challenge.

This is just how I tend to play the game to maximize fun for myself and certainly not intended to be rules which I would apply to other players.

[Xaos Steel Wing]

This is how I play through the stories for the first time:

-Hard/Classic

-No grinding

-No online features

-No forging

-No mess hall/kitchen bonuses

-No DLC

-Paralogues are allowed

The goal is to have a Fire Emblem experience more akin to the more limited style of the older games which didn't allow you to do battles and acquire things between maps. I make use of all the additional features after I beat the game.

[Minternets]

Here's how I play:

-However I want, whenever I want.

Sometimes, I want the hardest challenge I can give myself. Completed a megaman speed run, a level 11 Final Fantasy 1 game, and Hardcore Expert Terraria.

Other times, I enjoy the zen of grinding. Level 99, all classes mastered in chapter 1 of Final Fantasy Tactics is a thing I've done several times.

Other times, I like turning on IDDQD and steamrolling.

People are not one dimensional anime tropes like Miriel, Subaki, or fanfiction.net's opinion of how gay relationships work.

You like grisly wound on Camilla? That's cool. I don't. C'est la vie.

You wanna brag about beating Lunatic with only 50 hours spent in Boo Camp, Museum, and Ghostly Gold? That's cool. Remember, nobody liked it when you bragged about having a charizard in eighth grade, either. In this scenario, you're only giving people a handlebar to smack you with.

You think Lottery, Mess Hall, and random unit drops are cheating? That's fine. PETA also thinks eating any processed meat is tantamount to baby murder. Voicing a negative opinion of people who use those features will only cause them to ignore you like those westboro baptist people.

Remember the late great George Carlin's final commandment, and apply it here.

"Keep thy religion to thyself"

[Errorik]

I generally run three different challenges. One of them isn't really a "challenge" but could be considered so.

#1 Easier challenge

- No DLC

- No building more than what I could afford from not visiting other castles

- Yes to all buildings in my castle

- Yes to resources gained from other castles, but nothing else from other castles

- No grinding (including stalling on a map to get units that little extra exp. I never do LTC but I try to complete chapters at a "brisk" pace. I'm not going to spend 2 turns ferrying a crap unit to last hit a boss to give them xp)

- All paralogues (usually dont get many children with this challenge anyways) and invasions allowed

- No deaths

- Recruit everyone

- Open all chests and visit all villages

#2 Hard challenge

Doing/using nothing besides armory and staff shops....

#3

Follow everything from #1 but add in using DLC (no xp, gold, or weapon dlc)

I love replaying the game and picking different units to work with. Like ignoring Effie completely or actually using Odin/Nyx instead of someone else.

[Fircoal]

For myself I don't have any general rules. I try to limit myself in what I get though. Even though in myCastle you can recruit way OP characters if you get to them I won't because that's not very fun. That said I tend to change around some rules that I play by depending on the game or how I feel. Sometimes I don't use the stat boosters. I play in a way that no one should die, however I usually play on casual and save state spam. Save States are wonderful. That said I have one general rule I try to follow as much as possible because this to me is what makes me enjoy the game the most:

Use only units I like.

Ryoma and Xander may be OP but that doesn't means I'm going to use them unless I have to. If I have the options the characters I like should always go first even if they're weak. (As long as they're actually useable (And most are)). It gets tricky with the difficulty of Conquest as well as the issues when you train up someone and then realize you don't actually like them that much (Sorry Effie.), but in general I use the characters I like. That's what makes the game for me. To use only the best characters instead of the ones I like would be cheating. It's the same thing in Pokemon. I don't care if Exp.Share in Gen VI is really good. It helps me train all my weak unevolved Pokemon. I don't care if I have to grind if it allows me to beat the game with the team I want (in both FE and Pokemon). That is the rule I follow. Above all don't betray myself and the characters I like. :3

[Natsu_T]

Interesting mix of responses. Some people seem to think it is okay to use whatever they see fit because the "game" is already cheating against them. And in this case, ninjas with poison and grisly wound were brought up twice in this thread. I'm assuming this is referring to that segment on chapter 25 CQ where there are ninjas with 3-range blades that cannot be hit, and more ready to jump in to finish you as soon as your unit is hit by them. I actually don't view this as the enemy team "cheating" any more than them having more units than you is cheating. The enemy in FE is supposed to outnumber you and have more powerful units in general than you. The idea is that you can exploit their A.I. to beat the incredible odds. The ninja example doesn't really seem any different to me because I firmly believe the game on Conquest Lunatic is entirely beatable, and balanced around, not using anything online, DLC, or the path bonuses.

Multiple people have also mentioned a distaste for slowing a chapter down to get a weaker unit some kills, or have a certain character beat the boss. These people also seem to have similar standards to my own, but I differ drastically on this point. For instance, in the ninja den level of CQ, I enjoy putting 6 people in front of the allied Saizo so that he cannot move anywhere at all. This removes the incentive to not turtle (keeping Saizo alive for the speedwing), and thus I can spend as much of my time just grinding up the ninjas with my weaker units that need leveling. I've never found this to be antithetical to the integrity of the game, especially since CQ does not allow you to grind units elsewhere.

As for the live and let live philosophy, I can understand that. But when it comes to video games, a great deal of enjoyment for me comes not just from the game itself. A broad sense of community that shares my values and plays the same game in the exact same spirit as I do is pretty much half as important as the game itself. I totally understand playing your own way and letting others do the same, but doesn't it get lonely seeing that literally no one else plays the game the same as you? Can you even say you or they are "Fire Emblem" fans? I get that feeling a lot. Anytime someone talks about Fire Emblem there is such a massive disconnect because of the differences in how they play. I actually prefer my games to have a directly imposed "This is the only way you are allowed to play" standard built into the game from the game designers themselves. I would prefer it if the designers took a stance and just said "This is the vision; this is how you must play." Because then I can either know if the game is for me or just not play it. They obviously don't do this because it's bad business. But back then when games used to actually do this stuff, I just felt like gaming was much more genuine. Now so many communities are so split. You have your core vs. hardcore players in shooting games, your various custom map choices in RTS games, and I've never played League but I'm sure there's some discrepancies there. At the end of the day, I hate having to modify my experience with nuzlockes in order to create my own vision that no one else will play. Parity of experience is extremely important to me.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Natsu_T

[eclipse]

As for the live and let live philosophy, I can understand that. But when it comes to video games, a great deal of enjoyment for me comes not just from the game itself. A broad sense of community that shares my values and plays the same game in the exact same spirit as I do is pretty much half as important as the game itself. I totally understand playing your own way and letting others do the same, but doesn't it get lonely seeing that literally no one else plays the game the same as you? Can you even say you or they are "Fire Emblem" fans? I get that feeling a lot. Anytime someone talks about Fire Emblem there is such a massive disconnect because of the differences in how they play. I actually prefer my games to have a directly imposed "This is the only way you are allowed to play" standard built into the game from the game designers themselves. I would prefer it if the designers took a stance and just said "This is the vision; this is how you must play." Because then I can either know if the game is for me or just not play it. They obviously don't do this because it's bad business. But back then when games used to actually do this stuff, I just felt like gaming was much more genuine. Now so many communities are so split. You have your core vs. hardcore players in shooting games, your various custom map choices in RTS games, and I've never played League but I'm sure there's some discrepancies there. At the end of the day, I hate having to modify my experience with nuzlockes in order to create my own vision that no one else will play. Parity of experience is extremely important to me.

No.

I don't need people who play Fire Emblem in a similar way as me to be happy. . .unless it's by agreement (also known as a draft). Part of the fun IMO is finding things that other people haven't, and experimenting. If people like my experiments, that's fine. If not, that's fine, too, because I'm doing this for myself.

Is it selfish? I don't think so, because I view my own happiness as my responsibility. Others can help to make me happy, and I welcome that~!

I also think it's your mindset that is partially responsible for that fracture - not because you're a bad person, but because some people start seeing their game, and how they play it, as their identity, and those that play like them as their community. Without a good sense of self, a differing opinion looks like a personal attack. In other words, feel free to find others that play like you, but remember that you are not the video game/your play style, and being the only one who does something isn't always a bad thing.

EDIT: Right, topic. Whatever amuses me, unless it's a draft. Then, I'll do what I can within the rules. . .even if it means breaking them in the name of finishing the draft.

Edited March 24, 2016 by eclipse

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I'm pretty sure it's been like that for most games once they got more complex than the NES era (and maybe even then). Everyone's got their own approach, so it's really hard to have any kind of serious blanket standard for the game in general. I feel like it's not really reasonable to expect that level of solidarity either, especially as games get even larger and contain more options.

I'd say the best way to find what you're looking for is in the challenge run community. Standards need to be set in stone here because it's necessary for that particular category of challenge run to exist. Good examples of where this happens are draft runs, LTC or speed runs in general.

[FlameUser64]

See, the thing that bothers me about Grisly Wound ninjas is that's not an ability their class naturally gets. Unless they're all just somehow kitsune, they shouldn't have that skill. I don't like when the game doesn't play by the same rules as the player. Do I care if they have an army of 30 units to my 12? Not overmuch. Do I care if the units they're spamming aren't legal? Yes. Yes I do. I don't like when the enemy shows up with nageyari or star axes or what have you. They can work with kodachi, wakizashi, and +2 parasols just like I have to. Fuga is the best boss so far in Birthright in my opinion, and I've completed chapter 22. He uses totally legal weapons, and his skill list and stats make him a threat that has to be played around.

[Thor Odinson]

For my own purposes, not imposed on anyone else, on a first run and not one where I do some outlandish build on my entire team and require the resources for 93048048206 heart seals:

I'll use my castle to get food and gems for forging because I get +mag in my own castle and I run like 1 mage and everyone else physical :x getting other food/gems are up to chance and visitations in this manner just makes it reliable, so w/e. I will not purchase skills for storyline map use, however.

Absolutely NO DLC maps/Challenges/Invasions. This is what I'm most adamant on. This is something I know if I did, there would be no way I wouldn't break the game too hard. Ryoma's already too broken? Imagine level 40 Ryouma. Because if I let myself grind, that's what will happen. I'll have to allow some leeway when I do all female Berserker run, though, between getting A/S supports fast so they can go zerker fast and paying for all those second seals into Berserker.

I'm not anal about not using path-bonuses--I got the SE, they were there, and I use them in extremely suboptimal ways anyway for shits and giggles. I mean my main uses of them are slapping both Dragon herbs on to Rinkah to fix her bases and turning Saizo into an easy-bake mage, so lmao

That being said I'm very big on use what you like and entertainment should be entertaining and fun and if you like skill buying I have a pretty big collection of skills on a specific subset of characters that I like that I let people get whenever, so

Edited March 24, 2016 by Thor Odinson

[Lanko]

You can try to play like past FEs with acceptance of new things, as each game will have something new and unique, like FE9-10 had Bonus EXP and since 11, Reclass.

- You can use the Mess Hall, the bonuses are helpful, but not game breaking.

- Visit other castles if you need gems for certain types of weapons. You will end up with points, but the statues, for example, only increase a single stat cap on a character. That assumes someone is gonna cap that particular stat. It's sad to not have a particular gem.

- Random items from Lottery or conversations. You can't control what you receive anyway.

- Invasions are very hard, specially in Conquest. There are only 3 there, and the last two are very, very hard. More than most of the maps, so I see no problem in doing them.

- Paralogues have difficulty scaling. So no problems in there. Although I only go for the children of characters I have in the main team.

- I don't use the Path Bonuses, Battle Points and Visit Point items, but to each their own, specially if you want a certain class that's exclusive.

- I don't buy skills or use DLC until after Endgame.

- No random battles on the map (don't exist in Conquest).

[DoesntKnowHowToPlay]

Depends on my mood

No skill buy outside of postgame ever though, that stuff is ridiculous and ruins the fun class system. Don't care much about enemies having "illegal" skills, enemy/player skill value differs wildly and eugenics exists.

[FoliFF]

I have always had the view if it's in the game then it's fair game. I simply see the mechanics the game has as tools to enchant my experience of the gameplay. In the end it depends on my mood if I want to break the game with the tools the game offers me or challenge myself, or both. That's what I like about Fates giving me options that you won't feel restricted and you can also live without them.

And no one can judge you how you play your game to have fun.

Edited March 24, 2016 by FoliFF

[elbell3618]

I personally like breaking the game over my knee. I'm in it for the story and optimizing characters, not for the challenge. My line rests around the idea that anything is fair game.

I certainly don't feel lonely in my play style when I can swarm/1 hit enemies ; )

[Tooru]

as you will gain access to only one type of ore in an offline playthrough

You will eventually get all kinds of them offline. (Or we can say half kinds of them for Birthright/Conquest.)

You may randomly get some in MC or from Keaton's personal. A reliable way is trading 5 ore for 1 in Smithy.

When you have 1, you can have more because of Arena.

[Emblem Blade]

You will eventually get all kinds of them offline. (Or we can say half kinds of them for Birthright/Conquest.)

You may randomly get some in MC or from Keaton's personal. A reliable way is trading 5 ore for 1 in Smithy.

When you have 1, you can have more because of Arena.

Of course, unless RNG curses you in the arena and blesses your enemies... I lost a lot of resources where I've seen my units miss at high hit rates.