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What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?


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1 hour ago, Florete said:

I mean, yeah, you're right that this forum is just a tiny part of the fanbase, but I've definitely seen heavy criticisms of it on other sites, especially Reddit. Like Metal Flash said, the honeymoon phase is over and people are just acknowledging the flaws now. Hell, most of those things you listed about it are negatives for me. If the next FE uses Three Houses as a base and refines it, I feel like people are going to look back and wonder how they ever loved TH so much to begin with.

I happen to quite like both Pokemon Black/White and Sun/Moon, and I've played the series since it began. Pokemon White is actually one of my favorite video games in general.

Looking through the different complaints, it does seem the majority of complaints are leaned towards the Monastery and Difficulty. A lot of people think the Monastery is a chore, but I disagree. Three Houses is attempting to do something that no other FE Title ( At least the ones I haven’t played ) by having the player really care about the history world and the people who live in it. This is the kind of game that encourages the player to get involved with the all the people they are interacting with and try to create a self-narrative. Instead of giving a set of units in a specific classes, every unit in the starting class is a blank slate. This is Three Houses telling the player, “ You are the one in charge “. Because is the player is the one deciding the classes for each unit, no two maps are played the same way. Who choose to recruit also affects the gameplay drastically as well as the fates of your units. Despite choosing a House to teach, the player can still interact with other characters, each having their own unique histories and personalities. Th game encourages the player to pay attention to character dialogue by paying attentions to things like support conversations, which are now fully voiced to help have people listen more carefully instead of skipping them. There are a tons of items like food, lost items, and list items in the ground that can be given to characters to increase support points. Each character has an affinity for certain items and can be increased greatly correctly by giving items that match their affinity. Tea Parties and Lost Items also are a test of the player’s understanding of allies as well, as the key to success is understanding the participants taste. The player is encouraged to this with their students thanks to motivation gauge, but if the player can also do it with other students as well. If the player chooses to interact with students from other houses and engage them with activities like Meal Cooking and Returning Lost Items to them, the player can increase support points and they can even want to join your class as a result. The player can try to grind the weapon rank required to recruit them, but they will find that there just isn’t enough time with the days passing. This all points to a playstyle that encourages patient, gradual progression instead of trying to speed run it in one go. There’s whole day of playing by just engaging in these minigames and trying to invest in the world of Fódlan. Why are you in a rush to do your mission? Fódlan is a land of peace. There’s no need to rush, let’s take our time and have a tea party. We’re all friends here and we should enjoy every last moment of it because anything can change. 
 

Speaking of days passing, there is a focus on the daily events like holidays, Rare Monsters, and quests to name a few. The player only has a limited amount of time to do these activities, and there just isn’t enough time for them. The world is always changing, and not just your students, everyone else in the Monastery is also changing. Yet, we’re all friends- until the dreaded war phase. Now those peaceful days at the academy are gone, and now everyone is fighting for their beliefs. When you face your former friends in battle, you should be heartbroken- these were our former allies, not some random in general we just met. No other FE game has made allies you interacted with your enemies- Fates tried to do something similar, but it doesn’t work because the Royals are the only ones Corrin knew about before the war and all the other enemies are people you meet for the first time even if they are playable in the same campaign. 
 

TLDR: Three Houses is a game that favors a play style that has gradual progression and rewards the player more for taking their time and engaging with all the world and the activities it has to offer in order to express its themes ( Specifically how “ Moments we take for granted can change so quickly and we should treasure the moments of peace “ )  and promote a self-driven story and gameplay; and frankly, that’s a good thing.  If one wants to just go from Battle to Battle, they are obviously not going to enjoy the game because that a poor method of playing the game. 

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56 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

  If one wants to just go from Battle to Battle, they are obviously not going to enjoy the game because that a poor method of playing the game. 

I enjoy going from battle to battle in TH because I get to skip out on the tedious, repetetive chores every month. Maybe don't project your opinion as the general perspective of the playerbase. Speedrunners and draft races already prove people like playing by skipping all the tedium, and there are plenty of players that don't like it. So maybe it's not a poor method of playing the game, maybe it's the game that hasn't struck a good balance which now turns people off of playing the monastery sections.
i'd much rather have the FE10 base, because the Tellius saga is just as, if not better in worldbuilding without all the tediousness of the monastery.

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4 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

I enjoy going from battle to battle in TH because I get to skip out on the tedious, repetetive chores every month. Maybe don't project your opinion as the general perspective of the playerbase. Speedrunners and draft races already prove people like playing by skipping all the tedium, and there are plenty of players that don't like it. So maybe it's not a poor method of playing the game, maybe it's the game that hasn't struck a good balance which now turns people off of playing the monastery sections.
i'd much rather have the FE10 base, because the Tellius saga is just as, if not better in worldbuilding without all the tediousness of the monastery.

And that is why I called it an unpopular opinion ( Though I’m not sure among the entire fan base whether or not people enjoy the monastery ). I firmly believe that Monastery helps express Three Houses and the fact the minigames are also aid in that goal. I believe requiring you to working towards building your units instead of giving  battle-ready units on  a silver platter is a good thing because it builds towards the game’s theme and play style that prefers gradual progression instead of huge chunks immediately after one another. I used speed running as an example as a poor way to play this game because you’d be missing out on weekly events and rewards that you get for taking the time to perform that event. But if you want to speed run the game, that’s totally  fine. 
 

I won’t argue about POR and RD because I never played them and have no intention to due lack of a Wii and my anti-emulation stance in general, but I find the idea of racism between Laguz and Beorc iffy since they are clearly separate species and there is indeed a huge amount biological differences to the point that some points of prejudice  are valid. The whole premise seems akin Speciesim rather than Racism. 

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Yeah the story of Three Houses doesn't always hold up. Grondor and the Slitherers being key examples. 

But there's good to go along the bad so it helps balance each other out. Its not consistently good, but also not consistently bad or boring either. I'd say that the good parts ultimately make up for the bad parts. 

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I'm gonna be honest, a lot of your post just made me think, "Yeah, I've played the game, I know how it works." I'll hit some specific points:

6 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

Because is the player is the one deciding the classes for each unit, no two maps are played the same way.

This really isn't true. Almost anyone can fill whatever role you want them to and everyone can use almost any weapon; everyone starting as a blank slate in this game actually results in them being more samey than ever before. There's no Jagen, no Est, no Christmas cavaliers, etc. No matter who you choose to use, you're getting the same thing in the end.

When I played Blue Lions, in order to (attempt to) make things more interesting, I had everyone focus on only weaknesses. Mage Dimitri, Warrior Mercedes, that kind of thing. Characters largely performed their roles as well as I ever needed them to because promotion bonuses are strong. The developers likely did this to allow players to experiment however they want, but here's the issue: when everyone can be anything, the one thing they can't be is unique.

6 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

There are a tons of items like food, lost items, and list items in the ground that can be given to characters to increase support points. Each character has an affinity for certain items and can be increased greatly correctly by giving items that match their affinity. Tea Parties and Lost Items also are a test of the player’s understanding of allies as well, as the key to success is understanding the participants taste.

Except there are so many characters and the game doesn't make these processes entertaining enough for players to manage them on their own, leading many to just look up a guide.

6 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

When you face your former friends in battle, you should be heartbroken- these were our former allies, not some random in general we just met.

The issue here is that it's very unlikely you really knew any of these characters, because if you did, you recruited them. I really don't care much about characters who I interacted with maybe once a month and were never in my classes. Honestly, Fates did this better: it only gives you a couple chapters, but it focuses on a specific few characters in those chapters. I felt something when I killed Ryoma. I felt nothing when I killed Dimitri.

7 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

No other FE game has made allies you interacted with your enemies

This is wrong. (Spoilers, I guess) Orson in Sacred Stones is your playable ally for one chapter before turning traitor. Jill in Path of Radiance can turn on you if she talks to her father. Radiant Dawn does this a lot, in different ways. And, of course:

7 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

Fates tried to do something similar, but it doesn’t work because the Royals are the only ones Corrin knew about before the war and all the other enemies are people you meet for the first time even if they are playable in the same campaign. 

Fates definitely isn't great at it, but it's better than TH specifically because it gives deliberate focus to those few characters. Instead of having just a small familiarity with a bunch of characters and ultimately not caring about any of them, I care more about a specific few and don't care at all about the rest. That's better.

7 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

If one wants to just go from Battle to Battle, they are obviously not going to enjoy the game because that a poor method of playing the game. 

Why? You said I was the one in charge. I thought this was a game that let me choose my way to play. Why is this method a "poor" method?

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1 hour ago, Florete said:

This is wrong. (Spoilers, I guess) Orson in Sacred Stones is your playable ally for one chapter before turning traitor. Jill in Path of Radiance can turn on you if she talks to her father. Radiant Dawn does this a lot, in different ways. And, of course:

Mystery of the Emblem, especially Old Mystery of the Emblem, did this too.

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25 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Mystery of the Emblem, especially Old Mystery of the Emblem, did this too.

Oh man, I got to say, MotE had one heck of an opening chapter in regards to this. Using Lorenz was just brilliant.

"Oh, one of the enemies we recruited in the first game is an enemy again? Surely we'll just recruit him once more. Oh look, Marth can talk to him, everything will be fine now! Wait, why is he saying that... wait, nooooooo!"

Like, man...

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31 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Oh man, I got to say, MotE had one heck of an opening chapter in regards to this. Using Lorenz was just brilliant.

"Oh, one of the enemies we recruited in the first game is an enemy again? Surely we'll just recruit him once more. Oh look, Marth can talk to him, everything will be fine now! Wait, why is he saying that... wait, nooooooo!"

Like, man...

I quite liked how the Wolfguard(or ''coyote's men'' as Heroes insists on calling them) couldn't be recruited due to their loyalty to Hardin outweighing their ties to Marth. Of course the remake to New Mystery really bungled that part  

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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I quite liked how the Wolfguard(or ''coyote's men'' as Heroes insists on calling them) couldn't be recruited due to their loyalty to Hardin outweighing their ties to Marth. Of course the remake to New Mystery really bungled that part  

I liked that you could still get Roshea in the original, the youngest and most innocent of them. Though you just pick him up in a village rather than actually swaying his loyalties on the battlefield if I recall. I think I'd rather they capitalized on that rather him just kind of being dismissed by Hardin's forces (if that's how it goes down, can't quite remember the exact dialogue).

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3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I liked that you could still get Roshea in the original, the youngest and most innocent of them. Though you just pick him up in a village rather than actually swaying his loyalties on the battlefield if I recall. I think I'd rather they capitalized on that rather him just kind of being dismissed by Hardin's forces (if that's how it goes down, can't quite remember the exact dialogue).

Well, generally speaking the course of events is that, loyalty for Hardin and all, they still answer to the King of Aurelis. You can get the Wolfguard to retreat in Chapter 18 by visiting the village housing the King. I think the interpretation there is that after they were forced to retreat back north, Roshea snuck out and traveled over to Knorda on his own. The remake changed things out by having the Wolfguard retreat to the Millenium Court instead. Since in the original game they only showed up in Chapter 18 and that was it.

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10 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, generally speaking the course of events is that, loyalty for Hardin and all, they still answer to the King of Aurelis. You can get the Wolfguard to retreat in Chapter 18 by visiting the village housing the King. I think the interpretation there is that after they were forced to retreat back north, Roshea snuck out and traveled over to Knorda on his own. The remake changed things out by having the Wolfguard retreat to the Millenium Court instead. Since in the original game they only showed up in Chapter 18 and that was it.

Oh, you didn't fight them at the capital in the original? Huh, that kind of leaves them as a bit of a dropped plot thread since they (probably) retreat and live.

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5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Oh, you didn't fight them at the capital in the original? Huh, that kind of leaves them as a bit of a dropped plot thread since they (probably) retreat and live.

Mhm. The remake adding them to Chapter 19 was a good decision, I'd say. That said, even if they also made them potentially playable, at least the issue of having to fight against Hardin wasn't exactly swept under the rug. Specially with Wolf, who pretty much becomes a broken, and possibly suicidal, man according to his ending. Might've even been a mercy to have killed him on the battlefield in that case, yikes.

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4 minutes ago, Florete said:

This is wrong. (Spoilers, I guess) Orson in Sacred Stones is your playable ally for one chapter before turning traitor. Jill in Path of Radiance can turn on you if she talks to her father. Radiant Dawn does this a lot, in different ways. And, of course:

I see. I never played any other title than the 3DS and Switch Games. Thanks for the clarification. 

 

8 minutes ago, Florete said:

The issue here is that it's very unlikely you really knew any of these characters, because if you did, you recruited them. I really don't care much about characters who I interacted with maybe once a month and were never in my classes. Honestly, Fates did this better: it only gives you a couple chapters, but it focuses on a specific few characters in those chapters. I felt something when I killed Ryoma. I felt nothing when I killed Dimitri.

I suppose this results from different experiences. I always talk to everyone and make it my mission to return as many items as possible to people. And I always did Tea Parties whenever possible because I love interacting with my allies and trying to see how much I know and hand over 50 charm by endgame. As a result, I got to know these units so much better even if they weren’t part of my house. As a result, I really felt like a horrible person when I had to kill the likes of Ferdinand and Lysithea on my first playthrough, I had no idea that unrecruited students turned into enemies so I was devastated when they were killed by my units. 
 

In contrast, while I was playing through Birthright, I didn’t feel super bad for the killing the likes of Laslow and Peri, despite liking them as characters, because I never knew them allies. 
 

I was heartbroken when I killed Dimitri because I played Blue Lions first, and I felt terrible when Ryoma committed Seppku in Conquest. I felt more remorse for Dimitri because I saw him grow as a person recovering from his trauma. 
 

Lastly, the voice acting really helps bring out the emotion of the characters and makes me care about then even more. I remember when Dimitri went beserk at the  reveal at the Flame Emperor how terriefied I was. Or how Cherami Leigh makes Rhea feel motherly at times or frightening when she’s angry. I find it harder going back previous titles because the voice acting is so good and makes the characters feel more relatable.

4 hours ago, Florete said:

Why? You said I was the one in charge. I thought this was a game that let me choose my way to play. Why is this method a "poor" method?

You could always do that, nothing is stopping you. I just think it’s a poor idea because you are missing on activities and daily events that give you rewards for taking the time and participating in them. 
 

You always praise Fates for not requiring any of this, but really Fates also has a MyCastle, which the Monastery was also based on. There are a lot of similarities. A restaurant where you can gain stat boosts,  places where you can forge weapons, interacting with allies by giving gifts to gain support points, finding weapons on the ground, and shops to buy weapons, and Arena to name a few.  As a matter fact, unlike Three Houses which has a limit on how many activity you can do this for a day as well as a calendar that progresses once the day is over, there is no limit to how much grinding you can do and the facilities you can take advantage of. In fact, it’s very easy for a Fates playthrough to be longer than a Three Houses playthrough, I know for this fact because I have almost 207 hours in my Revelation save file which is more than two Three Houses runs, and by time I finish, it will be 250-270, which is roughly 3 Three Houses playthrough, and I’m currently on Chapter 19. All that time was dedicated to grinding all the resources to build optimal units. 

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10 hours ago, Florete said:

The issue here is that it's very unlikely you really knew any of these characters, because if you did, you recruited them. I really don't care much about characters who I interacted with maybe once a month and were never in my classes. Honestly, Fates did this better: it only gives you a couple chapters, but it focuses on a specific few characters in those chapters. I felt something when I killed Ryoma. I felt nothing when I killed Dimitri.

Actually facts though if I’m being perfectly honest. 

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4 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

I suppose this results from different experiences. I always talk to everyone and make it my mission to return as many items as possible to people. And I always did Tea Parties whenever possible because I love interacting with my allies and trying to see how much I know and hand over 50 charm by endgame. As a result, I got to know these units so much better even if they weren’t part of my house. As a result, I really felt like a horrible person when I had to kill the likes of Ferdinand and Lysithea on my first playthrough, I had no idea that unrecruited students turned into enemies so I was devastated when they were killed by my units. 

I mean, I did all of that, too. The characters I ended up caring about, I recruited. The rest were just other people: they weren't in my classes, they weren't in my battles, they didn't speak up before and after each chapter.

4 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

Lastly, the voice acting really helps bring out the emotion of the characters and makes me care about then even more. I remember when Dimitri went beserk at the  reveal at the Flame Emperor how terriefied I was. Or how Cherami Leigh makes Rhea feel motherly at times or frightening when she’s angry. I find it harder going back previous titles because the voice acting is so good and makes the characters feel more relatable.

The voice acting itself is good, yeah, but it's always coupled with the horribly put together cutscenes that use the same stock backgrounds and animations, which are really distracting.

4 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

You always praise Fates for not requiring any of this, but really Fates also has a MyCastle, which the Monastery was also based on.

My Castle is way simpler and easier to streamline. It's much more comparable to Tellius base sessions; a quick respite between battles where you can do some, all, or none of the available activities at your leisure.

4 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

As a matter fact, unlike Three Houses which has a limit on how many activity you can do this for a day as well as a calendar that progresses once the day is over, there is no limit to how much grinding you can do and the facilities you can take advantage of.

This is very misleading. For one, Three Houses pushes you into Monastery activities much more than Fates, as they have more impact on the battles and the monastery in general is just pushed as a major feature. Second, TH's limits actually make it more grindy, not less, because it makes players want to use all their resources out of fear of falling behind if they don't, as opposed to Fates where you can do whatever whenever so if you feel like going into battle, you can just do it without worrying. And it's obviously significantly faster to get from place to place in My Castle.

4 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

In fact, it’s very easy for a Fates playthrough to be longer than a Three Houses playthrough, I know for this fact because I have almost 207 hours in my Revelation save file which is more than two Three Houses runs, and by time I finish, it will be 250-270, which is roughly 3 Three Houses playthrough, and I’m currently on Chapter 19. All that time was dedicated to grinding all the resources to build optimal units. 

This sounds like a you problem. I finished all three of my first Fates runs in less than 200 hours.

But it's also really not about how much time was spent rather than how that time was spent. A lot of TH feels like time-wasting filler to me.

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10 minutes ago, Florete said:

This sounds like a you problem. I finished all three of my first Fates runs in less than 200 hours.

But it's also really not about how much time was spent rather than how that time was spent. A lot of TH feels like time-wasting filler to me.

Oh you misunderstood , I have no problem with that at all. What I meant to say something like this would not be possible in Three Houses due to the activity point meter and calendar which limits the amount of auxiliary battles and other activities, meaning that the player can't grind to their heart's content. All my Three Houses runs have been roughly 80 hours not counting NG+. 

It really isn't though. Tea Parties can increase unit's charm, cooking food for your allies increases your stats, Choir increases Faith skills, all of which are relevant to combat. I really enjoy all the minigames because I love spending time with my allies, and its a constant reminder that these are people who are my friends and have ambitions outside of war, and these minigames make me feel closer to them than ever. Though I suppose that is a subjective taste. 

30 minutes ago, Florete said:

The voice acting itself is good, yeah, but it's always coupled with the horribly put together cutscenes that use the same stock backgrounds and animations, which are really distracting.

I never found the backgrounds and animations distracting. Yes, there is a lot of improvement visually , but I find it much more engaging than no voices and just two portraits with people just changing expressions back forth. I have a hard time going back to previous installment's supports due to the lack of full voice acting. 

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37 minutes ago, Florete said:

This is very misleading. For one, Three Houses pushes you into Monastery activities much more than Fates, as they have more impact on the battles and the monastery in general is just pushed as a major feature. Second, TH's limits actually make it more grindy, not less, because it makes players want to use all their resources out of fear of falling behind if they don't, as opposed to Fates where you can do whatever whenever so if you feel like going into battle, you can just do it without worrying. And it's obviously significantly faster to get from place to place in My Castle.

I remember when Three Houses first came out, a lot of people immediately looked at the monastery and thought that it was going to age poorly and be really tedious when replaying the game. But, somewhat ironically, I think that replaying actually helps the game overcome some of its issues. If you know the game well, it's a lot easier to judge what monastery activities are required (very few) and which are easily skippable (most of them). This leads to a situation where a player can, more or less, take part in whatever side activities and grinding they personally find fun and skip all the rest.

I agree, though, that the "use it or lose it" approach to opportunities for grinding is a bad one and not one that I ever want to see brought back. Having to know the game well in order to know what can safely be skipped is not a good solution.

16 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

It really isn't though. Tea Parties can increase unit's charm, cooking food for your allies increases your stats, Choir increases Faith skills, all of which are relevant to combat. I really enjoy all the minigames because I love spending time with my allies, and its a constant reminder that these are people who are my friends and have ambitions outside of war, and these minigames make me feel closer to them than ever. Though I suppose that is a subjective taste. 

This is something of an intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation thing. It's very different to want to do a tea party because you find the activity enjoyable and fulfiling in and of itself as opposed to wanting to do a tea party despite not enjoying because it makes your stats go up. The former is something that the player will look forward to ("ooh, yay, I get to have another tea party now!") whereas the latter is something that the player is likely to grow to resent ("ugh, I need to do another tea party to get my charm up").

For myself, I intrinsically enjoy most of the monastery activities, but there are a few that didn't work for me at all (tea parties and fishing especially) and I do them very rarely and very begrudgingly.

As for My Castle, I'll say that the two main things that I disliked about it are stuff that's gated behind the passage of real time and stuff that's gated behind the online/social aspect. Both of those things really soured the experience for me.

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9 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

You always praise Fates for not requiring any of this, but really Fates also has a MyCastle, which the Monastery was also based on.

4 hours ago, Florete said:

My Castle is way simpler and easier to streamline.

I think the main difference between MyCastle and Monastery that´s being glossed over here, is that the Monastery ties heavily into classes, class changing and getting skills. Sure, not using the monastery will only delay class changing, but then you also have the way TH skills are being learned. And that means, assuming let´s say you want Hit+20, you´ll have to stay in Archer for some time, in maps you may not want that character to be an Archer, but instead maybe a Pegasus Knight. And sure, you can reclass as needed to PK, but that will once again delay getting Hit+20 even further and the next map is probably not going to be easier.

9 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

In fact, it’s very easy for a Fates playthrough to be longer than a Three Houses playthrough, I know for this fact because I have almost 207 hours in my Revelation save file which is more than two Three Houses runs, and by time I finish, it will be 250-270, which is roughly 3 Three Houses playthrough, and I’m currently on Chapter 19. All that time was dedicated to grinding all the resources to build optimal units. 

I do have to ask, are you setting up ALL units or just the few that you are going to use, because when considering the way skills carry over to the skill log that´s going to be a major waste of time.

I do wonder how long would it take to recruit ALL TH units on any given path and build them as optimally as possible as opposed to the 10 one is going to use?

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

and stuff that's gated behind the online/social aspect.

This stuff is also seriously good/powerful (2x full stat boosters, 2x dragon herbs, 2x boots and the Seals on top of special weaponry) - while I don´t disagree that gating anything behind 9999 points of any kind is a bad idea, there should be some way the player may earn them instead *vaguely gestures to challenge maps*.

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49 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

This stuff is also seriously good/powerful (2x full stat boosters, 2x dragon herbs, 2x boots and the Seals on top of special weaponry) - while I don´t disagree that gating anything behind 9999 points of any kind is a bad idea, there should be some way the player may earn them instead *vaguely gestures to challenge maps*.

Not only those things, but also just access to basic resources, as well as significantly easier and earlier access to accessories like the chef's hat and arena shield. None of these are absolutely required, of course -- it's still perfectly possible to beat Fates without any of this -- but they do provide a pretty significant boost.

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I don't know. I feel like with how Conquest in particular is designed, the rewards for the social features are actually negative. They're very good, but that makes them a threat to the carefully constructed difficulty of the campaign. I always thought of the social features as more of a marketing gimmick slapped on top of things than something core or even beneficial to the experience.

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A few opinions to celebrate my return to this forum-

Fates isn't a bad game, but it's the worst FE game That I've played, IMO. Outside of Warriors. Still love it though.
Fates and 3H struggle from a lot of the same issues when it comes to large casts and multiple routes, but 3H pulls everything off much better.
Fates would have been better without Revelations, but I appreciate being able to have the entire cast in my army, and the cross-army supports are good.

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40 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I don't know. I feel like with how Conquest in particular is designed, the rewards for the social features are actually negative. They're very good, but that makes them a threat to the carefully constructed difficulty of the campaign. I always thought of the social features as more of a marketing gimmick slapped on top of things than something core or even beneficial to the experience.

I don't think that there really is a core experienced that's completely divorced from the social features, though. My Castle is just too heavily integrated into the game. Even if you choose never to visit anyone else, you're still left with a situation where the amount of resources that you get from your own castle is determined by how many chapters you play per day and the effectiveness of most buildings varies depending on who was RNG assigned to run them at the time. You could just never use My Castle -- or at the very least never use the most affected buildings like the smithy or the mess hall -- but then you're back with the same problem as Three Houses, in that you can't really know for sure to what extent they're needed until you already know the game inside and out.

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12 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

It really isn't though. Tea Parties can increase unit's charm, cooking food for your allies increases your stats, Choir increases Faith skills, all of which are relevant to combat. I really enjoy all the minigames because I love spending time with my allies, and its a constant reminder that these are people who are my friends and have ambitions outside of war, and these minigames make me feel closer to them than ever. Though I suppose that is a subjective taste. 

I know what they do. lenticular made a good response to this. People end up doing these things not because they want to, but because they feel the need to. It's filler.

2 hours ago, FRZNHeir said:

Fates and 3H struggle from a lot of the same issues when it comes to large casts and multiple routes, but 3H pulls everything off much better.

I wish this was an unpopular opinion.

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3 hours ago, FRZNHeir said:

Fates and 3H struggle from a lot of the same issues when it comes to large casts and multiple routes, but 3H pulls everything off much better.

3H pulls off its large cast more by simply just not having a large cast. In fact it has one of the smallest casts in the series, 41 playable characters, which is more than only Sacred Stones and Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia. If we factor in non playable characters than even those two games probably exceed it, as Three House's villains cast is made up primarily of playable characters (of course this is small by Fire Emblem standards, but by the standards of most stories it's pretty small). For contrast, Fates has over 70 playable characters.

As for the route split, I can't help but feel like Fates, while individually each of them having a weaker story (except Birthright, that's probably on par with Silver Snow as a story), still pulled off its route split much better than Three Houses. At least each route of Fates feels like a complete narrative, while also providing overarching material for a grand finale in Revelation. None of the Three Houses stories feel like they can stand up as a narrative on their own and even when stacked together there is no overarching story that playing all of them resolves or provides additional context to. It's just 3ish slightly different incomplete stories. And White Clouds is just atrociously designed with the idea of a route split in mind. As you decide which path you're following, and then experience identical content no matter what for 70% of the game before you're decision actually matters. This just makes it tedious to play and very negatively affects the main lords, as they're completely interchangeable up until the end of part 1 and don't actually do anything. Really I can't see anything Three Houses did right in how it handled its multiple routes.

Edited by Jotari
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9 hours ago, FRZNHeir said:

Fates and 3H struggle from a lot of the same issues when it comes to large casts and multiple routes, but 3H pulls everything off much better.

At the time Three Houses was praised as a return to form after Fates as far as the story is concerned. In some areas such as worldbuilding and morality that's still true. But in many areas the two games are more alike than fans of Three Houses want to admit. 

Its especially how the two games handle their villains and antagonists that are eerily similar. With Fates its very obvious that its the siblings in who you're supposed to get invested in, and that team Garon are just plot devices to get the plot moving. All drama and nuance in the antagonist is focused on the siblings while the members of team Garon are bland and devoid of any real traits aside from being cartoonishly evil. Team Garon lacks any nuance because they're not designed to have any. Its not their role to be engaging antagonists. Simultaneously team Garon is also supposed to be so cartoonishly evil that they soak up any evil act that Xander or Ryoma might have done which allows their hands to remain clean.

And with the Slitherers its the same. Its obvious that its the house leaders in who you should get invested in and that the Slitherers are just plot devices. Its the house leaders who get personality, nuance and actual motivations while the slitherers are just cartoonishly evil and were never designed to be anything else. And while making Edelgard a ruthless antagonist was a bold move its somewhat undercut by the fact that like team Garon before them the slitherers are always around to ensure Edelgard's hands can't get too dirty. 

Both games have the same philosophy. The playable antagonists get all the nuance and the non playable villains get all the villain traits. The playable antagonists are the engaging antagonists while the non playable ones are as charismatic as a paper bag. And when a puppy needs to be kicked its always the non playable villains who do it over the objections of the playable antagonists. 

I really hope they stop dividing their villains like this. Because the best villains can be both very engaging and very evil. And just because you're incredibly evil doesn't mean you can't have personality traits beyond that. 

Its also a common trend in Fates that the writers have a very specific moment in their mind and that they're gleefully willing to abandon any logic, nuance or story quality to get to that moment. But Three Houses has this problem too. Its really clear that the writers wanted all Three House leaders to fight each other at Grondor but that they really didn't know of any good reasons as to why they should all fight each other like this. So now the whole battle is kind of a big mess. 

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