What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

43 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Once again, I advocate dsfe saves to everyone. I really want IS using them again. They're saves so maps aren't something to do in one go, but you only get 1 or 2 checkpoints, and their placement is strategy in itself, especially when you're wasting a unit's turn to use it. I don't want divine pulse being a staple, but I dont think thats an unpopular opinion so umm

They have ´em anyway in the form of bookmark - except ofc bookmarks get deleted, even when you pick a completely different file. sigh

55 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

I think Fuga's Wild Ride (Winds of Change) is one of the best designed maps in the series. It's my personal favorite, and I hear like 90% of people hate it, so I'm almost certain this is my most unpopular take.

Eh, I think it´s the gap between the foxes and that chapter - foxes are mediocre enemies at best and then bam, scary enemies, scary inventories, kinda surrounded, new DV mechanic and the twerp in the middle of it all with his staffs.

28 minutes ago, Father Shrimpas said:

snow shoveling map

how can one hate loot?!

[ping]

Glad to see I found an opinion that's actually unpopular I don't like quoting my way through several posts, so I'll try to give a general response. My apologies if I don't adress any particularly well thought-out responses.

• Ambush spawns is not synonymous with unforseeable spawns.

Maybe I should've used the less loaded term "start-of-EP reinforcements" instead, but "ambush spawns" is more catchy. As I said, it's been common practice to telegraph reinforcements through map features and cutscenes. A new game could even use some sort of "danger zone" indicator to make it even clearer (and to avoid the cliché boss gloating) - mark the general area on the map from which reinforcements will spawn two or three turns ahead of time with, for example, a red tint. That way, the game could still retain ambiguity about numbers and the general nature of the reinforcements while still giving the player a clear warning sign. Also, we'd only need one single conversation about the topic. Jeigan: "Milord, our scouts bring warning that enemy reinforcements are inbound! They will arrive shortly - I will mark the general area on your map." Boom, done.

But even without introducing that kind of feature, I retain that enemy reinforcements can - and should - be telegraphed to a sufficient degree. If I'm seeing stairs on the map, I'll assume that there's going to be something coming down those stairs sooner or later. But I'll admit that I'd also prefer if I could assume that I'll get some kind of indicator when those reinforcements will turn up.

• Ambush spawns, just in general, don't have to be bullshit.

I mean, come on. Of course, 20 wyvern lords popping right in the middle of the path between starting point and throne, all wielding killer axes and hammers and poleaxes, is not what I'm thinking of here. I would hope that the designers would have the foresight not to have cavs and pegasi spawn so close to the player's most likely path that they're impossible to block.

• Having to "reset" really isn't a big deal.

Seriously. It's made a bit more finicky because the "turnwheel" implementation makes you scroll through every single unit move - I think it would be more palatable if it would only work for individual actions for the current player phase (so you can undo misclicks), and then only for full turns when rewinding further back - but it nevertheless removes what makes resets annoying: That you have to reproduce an already given solution to the entire chapter up until the point of death.

And, relevant to this point of view, I guess: I used to have the attitude that "I hope games won't be designed around casual mode" (and i still think that the full-blown casual mode doesn't work very well with Fire Emblem's basic concept), but I've changed my mind about that - now I find that having a full-blown story-integrated (well, more or less) resets-as-a-limited-resource mechanism and then pretend that it doesn't exist is worse. Calculated risks have already been part of FE gameplay (I'm a shameless turn 1 killing edge crit fisher), and the turnwheel does change the maths. Since it's not nearly as punishing anymore if the player overextends on turn 13 of a map, I think it's fair to give the player more opportunity to overextend on turn 13.

Fake-edit: I'm also a shameless bracket overuser, but I'm also too lazy to redo that last paragraph.

• Ambush spawns are a good way to encourage the player to hurry up.

In direct response to @Florete, and only partly disingenuous . If the player doesn't know what the reinforcements will look like, it might be in their interest to prevent them from happening alltogether. This does tie in with the first part of this post, in that the player should have an idea if it's even feasible to push towards those two forts and block them before a hypothetical Bolting sage pops out. Still, "partly disingenuous" because the better phrasing would be "well-designed reinforcements are a good way etc.pp." Good ol' thief or brigand reinforcements on the other side of the map can always put a timer on the player, ambush or not.

However, I think that ambush spawns make it much easier to set up reinforcement spots as actual threats instead of XP piñatas, which I see as a positive.

---

Bit of a relativisation: Of course, I do think that a badly designed ambush spawn is worse than a well-designed end-of-EP spawn. Heck, a badly designed end-of-EP spawn is probably less awful than a bad ambush spawn. My previous post might be a little exaggerated to provoke a response. But I genuinely think that ambush spawns open up more options to make a map more difficult in interesting ways, simply because they can't be cheesed as easily and pose a bigger threat that you want to either avoid or prevent as a result. The fact that FE has moved in a direction that makes deaths (because the player didn't pick up on the hints / the danger wasn't sufficiently telegraphed) less punishing is an extra point in their favour.

[Shaky Jones]

20 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

Eh, I think it´s the gap between the foxes and that chapter - foxes are mediocre enemies at best and then bam, scary enemies, scary inventories, kinda surrounded, new DV mechanic and the twerp in the middle of it all with his staffs.

So you're saying people don't like a map because it's challenging, in a challenging game? Huh...

The mechanics probably do feel like a lot to take in at first, but I love that extra design in Conquest. It feels like you have to think outside the box. If inventories weren't scary, you could probably steamroll through it with Xander or Corrin. 

20 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

They have ´em anyway in the form of bookmark - except ofc bookmarks get deleted, even when you pick a completely different file. sigh

Why do I feel like you went through something tragic with statement?

52 minutes ago, Father Shrimpas said:

To jump on Fates unpopular take: Rev gimmicks aren't that bad tbh. They only become really boring starting Mikoto's map. Before that? It ranges from boring-ish to fun, but nothing "worst FE maps of all time boring", not even close.

I'm almost certain people say it as an overreaction, given how easy it is to hate on Rev. They do feel boring for the most part, but there are much worse maps in the series. Fates general gameplay often keep the map from being too awful, and only a handful of maps actually slow you down by a lot, like the elevator chapter and the snow one. I've had fun playing Rev. Not a lot, but I didnt hate the maps. 

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I do own Awakening... and my statement stands.

I wish I could understand how you went through all those ambushes fine. I've lost countless of times to those. I can only plug up reinforcements in time when look up when to go for them. That boat chapter? There is no way to stop them. And chapter 19 is just absurd. 

 

[Acacia Sgt]

4 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

I wish I could understand how you went through all those ambushes fine. I've lost countless of times to those. I can only plug up reinforcements in time when look up when to go for them. That boat chapter? There is no way to stop them. And chapter 19 is just absurd. 

Honestly, it's mostly a personal matter that I'm not sure I want to elaborate on, so I'll just say: I don't have the patience, effort, or want left to get upset over something in a video game, and thus the opposite of what a video game is meant to be.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

15 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

So you're saying people don't like a map because it's challenging, in a challenging game? Huh...

Yeah, I had that discussion with someone on this forum - not everyone plays FE to be challenged. Whether or not CQ is then the right game for you... shrugs.

19 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

The mechanics probably do feel like a lot to take in at first, but I love that extra design in Conquest. It feels like you have to think outside the box. If inventories weren't scary, you could probably steamroll through it with Xander or Corrin. 

Preachin´ to the choir my guy. CQ ruined FE for me - in a good but probably also kinda bad away.

20 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Why do I feel like you went through something tragic with statement?

I´d never accidentially delete a save. Never.

25 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

I wish I could understand how you went through all those ambushes fine. I've lost countless of times to those. I can only plug up reinforcements in time when look up when to go for them. That boat chapter? There is no way to stop them. And chapter 19 is just absurd. 

I dislike the temple(?) chapter with the long range enemies that you can´t reach the most. That was the single worst map of Awakening imo. 

[NaotoUzumaki]

Yeah I know don’t worry. Hell were all here because not what flaws fire emblem has we still enjoy it. Doesn’t meant we can’t criticize it flaws to try and help the series improve to become greater.

[Alastor15243]

Okay here's one I have on good authority is unpopular:

Three Houses' support system is hot garbage. It takes all the fun out of matchmaking and throws 6 hours of story filler at you instead. And gameplaywise, they could have replaced what determines the flanking bonuses with your professor rank and almost nobody would notice.

[AnonymousSpeed]

53 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay here's one I have on good authority is unpopular:

Yeah I agree.

One of the key rules of writing is to be brief, and this holds especially true for a video game. Three Houses doesn't really do brief.

[ZeManaphy]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Three Houses' support system is hot garbage. It takes all the fun out of matchmaking and throws 6 hours of story filler at you instead. And gameplaywise, they could have replaced what determines the flanking bonuses with your professor rank and almost nobody would notice.

I don't see how its filler. There are a lot of important story details like how in Hapi and Dimitri's A support in which she reveals that Cornelia manipulated Anselma in taking part of the Tragedy of Duscur, or how Dorothea and Ferdinand fix their past misunderstanding as children and forgive each other, with the two even expressing suttle romantic cues. Its seeing how these two grow from rivals to lovers is what makes me a huge fan of Dorothea x Ferdinand as a ship. And that not going to all the tiny details in scripts of supports like how, Hilda and Seteth makes mention of Ignatz if he his in your army, or how Ingrid and Sylvain's C-Support varies depending on whether you do it on part 1 or 2. You can really tell how much love and attention was put into the script as well as Three Houses's worldbuilding. And the voice acting! The voice acting for this game is just incredible. A big factor why I keep returning to Three Houses is because I love how much the Voice acting brings out the character’s personalities. Especially Rhea and Dimitri when they are angry. Real props to Cherami Leigh and Chris Hackney, I feel so scared when they express their anger out, especially Rhea in Crimson Flower. And not to mention that all the tiny details in the supports are also voiced as well, it must have taken hours of recording dialouge. Three Houses is among the best games when it comes to voice acting, with the only other contender on the top of my head being Kingdom Hearts 3. 

If you don't like watching all of them, you can just skip them immediately. If you were forced to see them, I could definitely see it being an issue, but its not- so I don't see what the problem is. 

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It is hearing fans say stuff like this that has me scared shitless about the future of the series. Talking about rewinds and save-scumming like it should be the standard way to play Fire Emblem games, and that it makes the implementation of unfair bullshit not only okay, but preferable.

And what is wrong with that? For a casual player, being able to rewind is godly for players who want to keep their units alive, especially since a huge factor of Fire Emblem is how each character is their own person, unlike most strategy RPGs. A big factor I play Fire Emblem are the characters and the relationships you can choose to form with them. Not a whole lot of RPGs allows this kind pairing up. Each character is super important to me. I don’t want to restart a map because I lost a unit because I missed a 98%. In addition, having a turnwheel makes it more significantly accessible to new players, so they don't quit after just one unlucky miss that cost them their unit. Bear Fire Emblem was almost cancelled, and a big factor was that these games were very difficult, permadeath and generally a high difficulty can make these games difficult for a new player.The new design choices are designed for making it easier for new players to get into the series. I perfectly fine with Rewind being a staple for the series because it makes it more accessible for new players. 

Ambush Spawns are annoying intially, but I never found them that detrimental on Maddening, because of the turnwheel. I ended up enjoying them on Maddening because they required me to rethink my strategy and how to place my units. I enjoy a game that makes me have to rethink my strategy. 

[Florete]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay here's one I have on good authority is unpopular:

Three Houses' support system is hot garbage. It takes all the fun out of matchmaking and throws 6 hours of story filler at you instead. And gameplaywise, they could have replaced what determines the flanking bonuses with your professor rank and almost nobody would notice.

Not that I don't agree, because I love dunking on Three Houses, but in what ways are the support systems in other games better/how could TH's be improved?

[Ottservia]

1 hour ago, ZeManaphy said:

And what is wrong with that? For a casual player, being able to rewind is godly for players who want to keep their units alive, especially since a huge factor of Fire Emblem is how each character is their own person, unlike most strategy RPGs. A big factor I play Fire Emblem are the characters and the relationships you can choose to form with them. Not a whole lot of RPGs allows this kind pairing up. Each character is super important to me. I don’t want to restart a map because I lost a unit because I missed a 98%. In addition, having a turnwheel makes it more significantly accessible to new players, so they don't quit after just one unlucky miss that cost them their unit. Bear Fire Emblem was almost cancelled, and a big factor was that these games were very difficult, permadeath and generally a high difficulty can make these games difficult for a new player.The new design choices are designed for making it easier for new players to get into the series. I perfectly fine with Rewind being a staple for the series because it makes it more accessible for new players. 

Because it just makes for bullshit, unbalanced, and unfair game design. The turnwheel only works when the game isn’t designed around it especially for newer players who find the idea of classic mode daunting. It’s a good way to ease them into the experience. The problem becomes when the turnwheel is used as a fundamental part of a map’s design. Take Petra’s paralogue for example. It’s a pretty simple map at first but once you cross a certain point not too far in, you are immediately swarmed by dozens of reinforcements with hardly any prior warning which forces you into an unfair situation where you could lose a unit not due to any fault of your own but rather something the game did which you could have never have had accounted for. Now of course divine pulse allows you to rewind and reposition your units accordingly now that you’ve seen the oncoming threat but it’s still fundamentally poor game design cause it essentially forces you to use divine pulse by intentionally putting the player into unfair situations they could not have planned for which kind of goes against the point of a tactics gameif you ask me. It doesn’t bother me as much as alastor but I do understand where he’s coming from

[Jotari]

16 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

 which kind of goes against the point of a tactics gameif you ask me. It doesn’t bother me as much as alastor but I do understand where he’s coming from

On the contrary it goes against the point of strategy. Forcing you to adapt by relying what you have is right in the realm of tactics.

[NaotoUzumaki]

This is so true. As someone who did a nuzlocke and ironman run recently I can say that I agree 100%. The point of strategy is to create a plan about the information you have and make a success out of it. Making the difficulty of a map rely on turn wheel is bs game design. If they had spot on the map like stairs or door to give a vague ideas that this could potentially happen I could accept that and say it’s my fault for not paying attention enough but when it doesn’t even gives you clue it just bs programming. If I wanted to not have all the info for my strategy I’d play dnd or any old rpg with random encounter to get f over

[ZeManaphy]

8 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Because it just makes for bullshit, unbalanced, and unfair game design. The turnwheel only works when the game isn’t designed around it especially for newer players who find the idea of classic mode daunting. It’s a good way to ease them into the experience. The problem becomes when the turnwheel is used as a fundamental part of a map’s design. Take Petra’s paralogue for example. It’s a pretty simple map at first but once you cross a certain point not too far in, you are immediately swarmed by dozens of reinforcements with hardly any prior warning which forces you into an unfair situation where you could lose a unit not due to any fault of your own but rather something the game did which you could have never have had accounted for

That's subjective though. Never does game specifically provide an advantage for using Divine Pulse. Unlike Gambits, which the game encourages by having them hit multiple shields  in order to inflict an armor break, there is nothing that provides a consistent advantage for using Divine Pulse other than mistakes. 

2 minutes ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

. The point of strategy is to create a plan about the information you have and make a success out of it.

So basically the criticism of ambush spawns is this: " Its unfair and not a real challenge because it comes out of nowhere and you have to be prepared for it despite being clueless about it ".  Through that logic, anything that comes out as a surprise in a video game is unfairly balanced.  Let's pull up a mode from the Pokémon series: Battle Tower Facilities!

I'm sure a lot of you have either or dabbled or heard of the likes of Battle Tower, or its clones like Battle Tree or Subway. This mode is essentially challenges the player to obtain the longest winning streak possible and requires players to have some knowledge of PvP to be successful.  

Here's a bit of dialogue from a Smogon user on a guide for safe runs of the Battle Tower. For those that don't know, the higher the winning streak you have, the more difficult the battles, and if you lose one match, you have start from #1 all over again. 

Spoiler

Before going into the details of how the AI chooses what to do, a little emphasis must be given to the biggest cause of frustration and "cheat impression" from Battle Tree: randomness. As it can be understood from the previous paragraph, a lot about what you will be facing will be randomly generated. Pokemon will have random sets, random abilities, and are also not 100% predictable. When facing a Pokemon, you should also be wary of what movesets and stat spread each specific Trainer can carry, as well as the possible items it can have and what abilities the Pokemon has access to if they are not revealed istantly by a screen message (like Intimidate or Pressure).

1) AI Pokemon IV, EV, Natures, and Abilities
In contrast with the random nature of the rest of the Pokemon generation, all sets have already fixed EVs and Nature. The IVs are also fixed, but they are based on the Trainer you are facing rather than tied to the specific set. It is important to note that this includes Pokemon designed around the usage of Trick Room (usually very slow with a nature that reduces Speed), which results in those Pokemon having Speed IVs higher than 0, so if you are running correct spreads your Pokemon of same speed tier will be always underspeeding them outside of the rare Iron Ball sets. The IVs for the AI will progressively increase as you progress through the facility. While it is not perfectly omogeneous, the enemy IVs will start at 19 in Super Battles, then will eventually hit 23, 27 and finally 31 IV once you reach the Trainers that appear only past battle 40. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Ability every Pokemon gets is random between the ones available, with 66% chance to have a normal ability and 33% to have its Hidden Ability. This also occasionally leads to weird bad sets where, for example, a Guts or Poison Heal Pokemon holding a Toxic Orb is generated without the needed ability, ending up only harming itself. To balance out situations like those, several sets that are based on a specific ability of the Pokemon also have a "Backup plan": for example, the sets that rely on a combination of Sturdy and Metal Burst or Endeavour will also often feature a Focus Sash as equipped item, and sets reliant on weather will often also have access to the related weather setting move.

2) Team generation
Every time a new Trainer is generated, the game picks one of the Trainers available for the number of battle you are at, then picks the required amount of Pokemon from its team one by one making sure that the Clauses are respected. Since those are all the conditions for creating the enemy team, the AI can generate with teams that do not synergize, or even Pokemon that harm each other in some cases, as well as have perfectly synergic compositions if the dice rolls are favorable. Some Trainers have dedicated teams who are guaranteed to synergize, often Weather or Trick Room based, while others have a very big roster of different Pokemon to pick from, resulting in very unpredictable compositions to face.

3) Apparently unpredictable AI behaviours
There are instances which will often create confusion or frustration for the player, with apparently inconsistent behavior by the AI. As your streak continues, you will inevitably witness odd actions such as consecutive uses of Protect, weird Pokemon swaps, using resisted or nullified moves while clearly superior alternatives exist, and so on. Typically, the AI prioritizes moves based on power and effect (accuracy is not a factor considered), but the move selection is based on a potentially weighted roll, so expecially in situations where there's no guaranteed OHKO, there's a significant chance for the AI to not select the highest damage attack. It's these instances you'll notice the AI selecting suboptimal moves which merely inflict any kind of damage or status, unlike the choices a person might make. In Doubles, they may not select the most obvious target for their attacks either. The AI may also switch one of its active Pokemon with one from its backline in order to resist the last attack that connected, to absorb it with an immunity, or to circumvent move-locking into a ineffective move. If a swap into a resistance is performed, the incoming Pokemon will also have a move that can hit your active Pokemon for supereffective damage.


AI BEHAVIOUR: ATTACK PRIORITY, RECOGNITION AND COMMON CHOICES

Even though the AI is generally never fully predictable, there are a few events that appear to have higher priority, which can allow you to have a general idea of what will happen. It's still important that even if such events have a higher chance to happen, , the AI can still do something else, so do not act blindly and always ponder your actions before clicking on the DS screen, expecially late in the streak where an error can easily turn in a loss and streak drop. Note that several of those behaviours are limited to Doubles/Multis since they are triggered by interaction of multiple Pokemon.

Part 1: AI move selection priority and common behaviours

- Setup moves
Most AI sets that are based on boosting moves tend to attempt to set up until a certain breakpoint before committing to attack. For moves that buff several stats like Quiver Dance and Dragon Dance, the breakpoint looks like either outspeeding your Pokemon or being able to OHKO them. Several Stockpile+Rest/Roost users will usually attempt to reach 2 stacks and then heal up if needed, occasionally going to 3 if not damaged. Other boosting moves aren't as consistent and cannot be predicted reliably.

- Weather and Terrains
If an AI set is running a Weather or Terrain setting move and the specific Weather or Terrain is not up, the AI generally priorizes setting it up if there's no option to OHKO an active enemy right away. This also occasionally leads to funny interactions of AI Pokemon in Doubles taking turns setting different Weathers, often Sandstorm and Rain since a lot of Trick Room specialists run both slow Rain setters and some Sand setters.
It's worth mentioning that most Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream and Snow Warning Pokemon also have the dedicated Weather setting move in their movesets to artificially balance out the chance of not having the necessary Ability, with the notable exception of Aurora Veil users who do not have direct access to Hail themselves aside from Alolan Ninetales' Hidden Ability.

- Speed control
Moves that affect Speed such as Tailwind and Icy Wind are very high in the priority list for the AI. Tailwind nearly always is set anytime is not up and Trick Room is not active, and Icy Wind is generally spammed by the Pokemon who have it, expecially in Doubles where the AI priorizes spread moves. Trick Room is also usually priorized if your active Pokemon are faster than both the AI's, and occasionally the AI might try to revert Trick room if it is active and your active Pokemon are slower than their. Note that in case the AI threatens a KO that turn, a Trick Room setter can still choose to go for the attack instead. It is important to note that if two Trick Room setters are active at same time for the AI, they will never try to Trick Room at same time, one will always use another move instead.

- Phazing
Moves that will force a swap (Roar, Whirlwind, Dragon Tail) have high priority for the AI if your Pokemon have boosts active. While they aren't particularly dangerous on their own outside of denying your boosts, it is important to keep track of phazing spam when the AI happens to have had the chance to setup the occasional entry hazard or you are relying on setup moves. Take advantage of the negative priority of those moves to use Taunt or take out the Pokemon before it can become a issue.

- Paralysis and Sleep
Status inducing moves are very high on the priority list for the AI, expecially Paralysis since it doubles as status and speed control. If a set runs those, you can be expecting it will be attempting to status you first unless your active Pokemon is immune to it. Most sets featuring Hypnosis also have Zoom Lens or Wide Lens as equipped item to patch up the low accuracy. Will-o-Wisp is usually priorized if your active Pokemon have high Attack, while Toxic does not look like having a particularly high priority instead.

- Damage over accuracy
While the AI appears to be able to calculate when it can OHKO your Pokemon, it does not factor in the accuracy of the moves. As result it often will go for a high damage supereffective Focus Blast, rather than secure a KO with a Psychic. While you can't realistically always plan ahead of the move selection, a 4x weakness is a nearly guaranteed move selection, and the AI ignoring the possibility of missing high damage moves can definitely cause some lucky misses for you.

- Fake Out (and Fling flinches)
If a Pokemon has Fake Out, it will use it the first turn the Pokemon is out, unless something prevents it from happening (Ghost Immunity, Psychic Terrain, but the ability Inner Focus does not prevent the AI from trying). There are also a few Ambipom, Infernape and Weavile sets that have Fake Out and Fling with an item that causes Flinch, on top of U-Turn or Thief, resulting in one of your Pokemon essentially being forced to skip two turns (or more), while watching the enemy steal your item and get away with it.

- Priority on low HP
If one of your Pokemon is at very low HP, expecially due to a Focus Sash or Sturdy, and the AI has access to a priority move, it will generally use it the turn after. Consider using Protect, swapping, and if playing Doubles plan your other Pokemon's action in order to not give give a completely free KO.

- Stall sets
Some sets run a completely stall oriented moveset: usually a damage over time move (Toxic, Leech Seed, Sandstorm, Hail, Wrap) as well as a mix of Stockpile, Substitute, Protect, Double Team, Leftovers, Recover, and similar moves or items. There's a large number of AI Pokemon with this kind of moveset, with many variations, and their general behaviour is to alternate the damage over time move to Protect or Substitute, and setting up their defensive or evasion boosts every now and then, occasionally even chaining several Protect uses in a row.

- Sending in Pokemon with supereffective coverage
When you beat an enemy Pokemon or a swap is forced and the AI has still multiple Pokemon in the back, the AI will priorize sending in the Pokemon with the highest damage potential. When a new Pokemon is sent out you are usually facing 2 possibilities: it is the Pokemon with the highest damage potential against your current active Pokemon, or if it does not have any super effective attack, it means the AI has no other super effective to use.

Part 2: Moves and abilities the AI does and does not recognize

- Encore
If a AI Pokemon is Encored on a status, setting or move you are immune to, it will generally either switch the following turn, or use the move once, fail and switch out turn after if still possible. If a Pokemon is Encored in a setup move, however, it might keep using it up to 3 times and possibly swap out after 2 or 3 uses if Encore is still active.

- Taunt
The AI will generally not swap out if Taunted if the Pokemon has at least one usable move. Pokemon forced to Struggle because of Taunt will occasionally not swap out, and sometimes will just KO themselves.

- Substitute and status moves
While the AI will still try to status a Substitute every now and then, but it will usually stop after one failure, unless the specific set only carryes status moves.

- Misty Terrain
The AI does not properly recognize Misty Terrain. Moves that have both a damage and status component like Nuzzle, as well as occasionally Swagger and Flatter, do not trigger the immunity message and the AI can attempts to use them despite the immunity to the status provided by the terrain, giving you free turns and even free boosts. Fliers/Levitaters are often the ones not recognizing the presence of Misty Terrain and attempt to use status moves despite the immunity message, expecially most Rotom variants who carry one or two status moves. Note that this does not happen for Rest: the AI will never attempt to use Rest if affected by Misty Terrain (as well as by Electric Terrain).

- Lightning Rod, Storm Surge and Levitate
Differently from Misty Terrain, the AI does recognize those abilities, and will stop using moves that trigger them, or swap their Pokemon if they don't have any usable move left due to those abilities. In fact, it can use those against you by occasionally swapping their Pokemon with one of them that can absorb or redirect your last attack.

Part 3: Doubles and Multi Battle special interactions

- Spread moves
Differently from Singles, the AI loves to priorize spread moves in Doubles. If one of your Pokemon is weak to a spread move and single target ones will not pick a OHKO, generally the AI will go for the spread option. Occasionally not caring if this hits his own partner.

- Explosion
The AI use of Explosion is generally inconsistent, and while the AI will often commit to it first turn, sometimes it will wait or not use it at all. Being matched with a partner which will be immune to it, the Pokemon or its partner being low enough that it'll potentially die the same turn, and not having any super effective option to use usually trigger the usage. Do note that one Lickilicky set carries a Normalium-Z with Explosion, and the AI will always use it before Explosion.

- Earthquake, Sludge Wave, Discharge and Surf
The AI likes using Earthquake anytime the other active Pokemon is a Flying-type or Levitater. If this combination happens (in fact, several trainers have rosters that cause it to happen) the Earthquake sequence is nearly guaranteed. This is also somewhat applicable to Surf matched with Water Absorb, Storm Drain, and Discharge with Ground-type Pokemon or Lightning Rod and Volt Absorb, the rare Sludge Wave sets when matched with Steel-types, and Explosion while matched with a Ghost-type. The rare Telepathy Pokemon also contribute to activate this mechanic.

- Wide Guard
The AI is not coded to play around Wide Guard. It does not use it reactively if it is available (rather, often uses it even if you are not using any spread attack), and does not react to you using Wide Guard either. Combined the AI giving priority to spread moves in Doubles, and several AI sets only running spread moves, Wide Guard can completely deny certain sets if used correctly.

- Protect with Spread moves
Even though Protect usage is not consistent and generally not predictable, there's a few situations in Doubles where the AI decides to Protect, usually when matched with a spread attack user. If the situation is favorable to using a spread move, you can often expect the other Pokemon to Protect that turn, but it rarely attempts to double Protect in those situations. Despite this, there's an interesting interaction that causes the AI to Protect even if it's immune to the partner's spread move due to typing or ability.

 

Spoiler

n order to have a successful run in the Battle Tree, it is important to consider all the mechanics and AI sets and make sure you are not completely walled by common occurrences. Due to the volatile generation of teams, you might get lucky and never run into your counter, or eventually run into it and get your nice looking streak interrupted. It is obviously impossible to have an answer to everything considering there's hundreds of different sets and virtually infinite combinations, but there are a few general basis your team composition needs to cover in order to produce reliable post-legend streaks. Since Trainers after beating Red/Blue do not change anymore, once you are past battle 50 the game becomes a endurance challenge that puts a stress on what your team can answer to and what it cannot.

- Have a backup plan
This should always be the first thing to consider: do not have only one strategy. Your Rain based fast and high damage team might look strong, but it's a matter of time until you run into a slower Weather setter or a Pokemon with Cloud Nine and you get swept away because your fast Pokemon are now slower. Expecially for Doubles, you need to have a reliable answer in the event that your strategy is denied on the first turn or turned against you due to a combination of enemy abilities or movesets. A few examples would be having a Lightning Rod user for Rain teams in order to deny enemy Thunder users, Misty Terrain or Aromatheraphy access if your team is weak to status, a staller if your team is fast and need to answer a Trick Room going up, a Fire- or Ground-type to answer opposer Sunny teams, etc. Always consider that your plan can go wrong and you might need to buy time. Expecially when it comes to Weather or Trick Room, since there's AI Trainers focused on every Weather and both Trick Room specialists and high speed dedicated Trainers, which you will inevitably run into at some point.

- Stats matter
The AI has access to fully EVd Pokemon, which eventually will have 6x31 IV. Once you are past the first 20 battles the Trainers will start using actually competitive Pokemon, eventually including plenty of Legendary Pokemon and Mega Evolutions, as well as a number of both cheesy and brutal sets that require to be dealt with quickly. You will need to use actually strong Pokemon that are also properly trained, and unfortunately your story team will likely have to be replaced for this purpose. Put your time into engineering a proper composition, breed and train the Pokemon you want to use, and choose the right items, because else you will inevitably fall to the sheer higher power of the AI sets. If you plan of using a sub-optimal Pokemon, make sure your team composition actually benefits from its presence and is well equipped to deal with opposing threats.

- Check the AI Trainer data
Another important thing to consider is that the full data about the AI sets is available, and you should use it to your advantage. Going in blind, considering the amount of different sets plus the existance of several unexpected sets can quickly lead to a disaster. Some examples include a Speed invested Alolan Marowak, a evasion focused Zapdos set, OHKO move users, the list is very long and varied. When you start a new round, check the Trainer name, look for it on one of the many available resources, note which sets for each Pokemon it has available, and plan accordingly. If the Trainer can have several sets of a specific Pokemon, make sure to not exclude either when picking your moves until the set is revealed by a move or the equipped item activating.

- Accuracy over power
It is a typical error coming from competitive Pokemon PvP to consider moves like Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Stone Edge, which are often taken due to them securing more OHKOs than their weaker but accurate counterparts, good as well for facilities. Unfortunately, it is not the case. When going for long runs, one must remember that misses do happen. Missing a move in wrong moment can turn in a loss, and once you start to accumulate battles, the rolls eventually will be unfavorable. While competitive formats are usually "best of X", and unlucky match generally won't matter seeing you still have the chance to fall back and try again, the Battle Tree like other facilities does not allow the rematch and you always have to start from 0 after a loss. Unless you really don't have another option, try to only run 100% accurate moves. Do not put yourself in situations where a miss equals Game Over, and consider that the AI has both evasion moves and the occasional Lax Incense / Bright Powder equipped, further punishing low accuracy.

- Dealing with stallers
One of the biggest threats if left unchecked on the Battle Tree are staller sets. They might not look particularly threatening at start, but once they have accumulated several evasion stacks and are dropping your Pokemon's HP with Toxic or Sandstorm while you cannot hit them other than with a lucky roll, it surely becomes a frustrating way to lose. There's several ways to deal with stallers, one of which being istantly targetting them down, but it's not reliable since several of them run Bright Powder or Lax Incense thus could get lucky misses, or there might be a more dangerous threat to deal with in Doubles, on top of most staller sets actually being on bulky Pokemon. It is recommended to include somewhere Taunt (in fact, several staller sets have no damage move and will just Struggle to death once Taunted), or status immunity/cure, run a Steel type which is both immune to Toxic and Sandstorm, having a perfect accuracy move to deal with Double Team spammers (Smart Strike, Aerial Ace are both TMs, Z-Moves can also work in a pinch but might not be available when you need them), Haze or Clear Smog to clear boosts, and similar alternatives where your movesets allow.

- PP UP your Pokemon
If you decide to run your own staller (very common in singles, and viable to have in doubles), absolutely PP UP it. The AI only has base PPs, and in the possibility of a stall war, you want to have the edge. In fact, PP-stalling the AI is a common strategy for dealing with some threats. While maximizing the PP of fragile sweepers is generally unnecessary as they rarely get to live more than 3 turns, it's recommended to still PP UP them, or at least important moves with 5 or 10 PPs that need to be used more than once per fight, in order to deal with the possibility of Pressure Pokemon adding up, which is likely to happen against post-legend Trainers as lot of Legendaries that will show up do have Pressure as possible or only ability.

As you can see here, we have to prepare for every possibility, including " uncompetitive " moves, items, and abilities, regardless of our personal feelings towards them. Now if you ask any facility player ( myself included ) does that make it a poor mode? Of course not! One of the things that makes Battle Tower so enjoyable is that they are trying to obtain a winning streak of highest proportion that requires curated team that can handle majority of sets, hypothetically speaking that is. Oh and there is no team preview as well, meaning that it is completely random until the player initiates the battle. In order to be successful in the Battle Facilities, one must be prepared to handle all kinds of scenarios including " unfair " or " unlucky " ones, and that's a part of the appeal of the Battle Tower: Trying to obtain the highest win streak despite the randomness. 

So anyway, the main point here is that its not necessarily a bad game design to have the player suddenly deal with new attacks out of the blue, instead it forces the player to adjust their strategy to handle it. If anything, Divine Pulse just makes the process easier. 

Also, if you hate the surprise factor of ambush spawns, you can always look up the positions online. 

[Jotari]

58 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

That's subjective though. Never does game specifically provide an advantage for using Divine Pulse. Unlike Gambits, which the game encourages by having them hit multiple shields  in order to inflict an armor break, there is nothing that provides a consistent advantage for using Divine Pulse other than mistakes. 

So basically the criticism of ambush spawns is this: " Its unfair and not a real challenge because it comes out of nowhere and you have to be prepared for it despite being clueless about it ".  Through that logic, anything that comes out as a surprise in a video game is unfairly balanced.  Let's pull up a mode from the Pokémon series: Battle Tower Facilities!

I'm sure a lot of you have either or dabbled or heard of the likes of Battle Tower, or its clones like Battle Tree or Subway. This mode is essentially challenges the player to obtain the longest winning streak possible and requires players to have some knowledge of PvP to be successful.  

Here's a bit of dialogue from a Smogon user on a guide for safe runs of the Battle Tower. For those that don't know, the higher the winning streak you have, the more difficult the battles, and if you lose one match, you have start from #1 all over again. 

  Hide contents

Before going into the details of how the AI chooses what to do, a little emphasis must be given to the biggest cause of frustration and "cheat impression" from Battle Tree: randomness. As it can be understood from the previous paragraph, a lot about what you will be facing will be randomly generated. Pokemon will have random sets, random abilities, and are also not 100% predictable. When facing a Pokemon, you should also be wary of what movesets and stat spread each specific Trainer can carry, as well as the possible items it can have and what abilities the Pokemon has access to if they are not revealed istantly by a screen message (like Intimidate or Pressure).

1) AI Pokemon IV, EV, Natures, and Abilities
In contrast with the random nature of the rest of the Pokemon generation, all sets have already fixed EVs and Nature. The IVs are also fixed, but they are based on the Trainer you are facing rather than tied to the specific set. It is important to note that this includes Pokemon designed around the usage of Trick Room (usually very slow with a nature that reduces Speed), which results in those Pokemon having Speed IVs higher than 0, so if you are running correct spreads your Pokemon of same speed tier will be always underspeeding them outside of the rare Iron Ball sets. The IVs for the AI will progressively increase as you progress through the facility. While it is not perfectly omogeneous, the enemy IVs will start at 19 in Super Battles, then will eventually hit 23, 27 and finally 31 IV once you reach the Trainers that appear only past battle 40. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Ability every Pokemon gets is random between the ones available, with 66% chance to have a normal ability and 33% to have its Hidden Ability. This also occasionally leads to weird bad sets where, for example, a Guts or Poison Heal Pokemon holding a Toxic Orb is generated without the needed ability, ending up only harming itself. To balance out situations like those, several sets that are based on a specific ability of the Pokemon also have a "Backup plan": for example, the sets that rely on a combination of Sturdy and Metal Burst or Endeavour will also often feature a Focus Sash as equipped item, and sets reliant on weather will often also have access to the related weather setting move.

2) Team generation
Every time a new Trainer is generated, the game picks one of the Trainers available for the number of battle you are at, then picks the required amount of Pokemon from its team one by one making sure that the Clauses are respected. Since those are all the conditions for creating the enemy team, the AI can generate with teams that do not synergize, or even Pokemon that harm each other in some cases, as well as have perfectly synergic compositions if the dice rolls are favorable. Some Trainers have dedicated teams who are guaranteed to synergize, often Weather or Trick Room based, while others have a very big roster of different Pokemon to pick from, resulting in very unpredictable compositions to face.

3) Apparently unpredictable AI behaviours
There are instances which will often create confusion or frustration for the player, with apparently inconsistent behavior by the AI. As your streak continues, you will inevitably witness odd actions such as consecutive uses of Protect, weird Pokemon swaps, using resisted or nullified moves while clearly superior alternatives exist, and so on. Typically, the AI prioritizes moves based on power and effect (accuracy is not a factor considered), but the move selection is based on a potentially weighted roll, so expecially in situations where there's no guaranteed OHKO, there's a significant chance for the AI to not select the highest damage attack. It's these instances you'll notice the AI selecting suboptimal moves which merely inflict any kind of damage or status, unlike the choices a person might make. In Doubles, they may not select the most obvious target for their attacks either. The AI may also switch one of its active Pokemon with one from its backline in order to resist the last attack that connected, to absorb it with an immunity, or to circumvent move-locking into a ineffective move. If a swap into a resistance is performed, the incoming Pokemon will also have a move that can hit your active Pokemon for supereffective damage.


AI BEHAVIOUR: ATTACK PRIORITY, RECOGNITION AND COMMON CHOICES

Even though the AI is generally never fully predictable, there are a few events that appear to have higher priority, which can allow you to have a general idea of what will happen. It's still important that even if such events have a higher chance to happen, , the AI can still do something else, so do not act blindly and always ponder your actions before clicking on the DS screen, expecially late in the streak where an error can easily turn in a loss and streak drop. Note that several of those behaviours are limited to Doubles/Multis since they are triggered by interaction of multiple Pokemon.

Part 1: AI move selection priority and common behaviours

- Setup moves
Most AI sets that are based on boosting moves tend to attempt to set up until a certain breakpoint before committing to attack. For moves that buff several stats like Quiver Dance and Dragon Dance, the breakpoint looks like either outspeeding your Pokemon or being able to OHKO them. Several Stockpile+Rest/Roost users will usually attempt to reach 2 stacks and then heal up if needed, occasionally going to 3 if not damaged. Other boosting moves aren't as consistent and cannot be predicted reliably.

- Weather and Terrains
If an AI set is running a Weather or Terrain setting move and the specific Weather or Terrain is not up, the AI generally priorizes setting it up if there's no option to OHKO an active enemy right away. This also occasionally leads to funny interactions of AI Pokemon in Doubles taking turns setting different Weathers, often Sandstorm and Rain since a lot of Trick Room specialists run both slow Rain setters and some Sand setters.
It's worth mentioning that most Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream and Snow Warning Pokemon also have the dedicated Weather setting move in their movesets to artificially balance out the chance of not having the necessary Ability, with the notable exception of Aurora Veil users who do not have direct access to Hail themselves aside from Alolan Ninetales' Hidden Ability.

- Speed control
Moves that affect Speed such as Tailwind and Icy Wind are very high in the priority list for the AI. Tailwind nearly always is set anytime is not up and Trick Room is not active, and Icy Wind is generally spammed by the Pokemon who have it, expecially in Doubles where the AI priorizes spread moves. Trick Room is also usually priorized if your active Pokemon are faster than both the AI's, and occasionally the AI might try to revert Trick room if it is active and your active Pokemon are slower than their. Note that in case the AI threatens a KO that turn, a Trick Room setter can still choose to go for the attack instead. It is important to note that if two Trick Room setters are active at same time for the AI, they will never try to Trick Room at same time, one will always use another move instead.

- Phazing
Moves that will force a swap (Roar, Whirlwind, Dragon Tail) have high priority for the AI if your Pokemon have boosts active. While they aren't particularly dangerous on their own outside of denying your boosts, it is important to keep track of phazing spam when the AI happens to have had the chance to setup the occasional entry hazard or you are relying on setup moves. Take advantage of the negative priority of those moves to use Taunt or take out the Pokemon before it can become a issue.

- Paralysis and Sleep
Status inducing moves are very high on the priority list for the AI, expecially Paralysis since it doubles as status and speed control. If a set runs those, you can be expecting it will be attempting to status you first unless your active Pokemon is immune to it. Most sets featuring Hypnosis also have Zoom Lens or Wide Lens as equipped item to patch up the low accuracy. Will-o-Wisp is usually priorized if your active Pokemon have high Attack, while Toxic does not look like having a particularly high priority instead.

- Damage over accuracy
While the AI appears to be able to calculate when it can OHKO your Pokemon, it does not factor in the accuracy of the moves. As result it often will go for a high damage supereffective Focus Blast, rather than secure a KO with a Psychic. While you can't realistically always plan ahead of the move selection, a 4x weakness is a nearly guaranteed move selection, and the AI ignoring the possibility of missing high damage moves can definitely cause some lucky misses for you.

- Fake Out (and Fling flinches)
If a Pokemon has Fake Out, it will use it the first turn the Pokemon is out, unless something prevents it from happening (Ghost Immunity, Psychic Terrain, but the ability Inner Focus does not prevent the AI from trying). There are also a few Ambipom, Infernape and Weavile sets that have Fake Out and Fling with an item that causes Flinch, on top of U-Turn or Thief, resulting in one of your Pokemon essentially being forced to skip two turns (or more), while watching the enemy steal your item and get away with it.

- Priority on low HP
If one of your Pokemon is at very low HP, expecially due to a Focus Sash or Sturdy, and the AI has access to a priority move, it will generally use it the turn after. Consider using Protect, swapping, and if playing Doubles plan your other Pokemon's action in order to not give give a completely free KO.

- Stall sets
Some sets run a completely stall oriented moveset: usually a damage over time move (Toxic, Leech Seed, Sandstorm, Hail, Wrap) as well as a mix of Stockpile, Substitute, Protect, Double Team, Leftovers, Recover, and similar moves or items. There's a large number of AI Pokemon with this kind of moveset, with many variations, and their general behaviour is to alternate the damage over time move to Protect or Substitute, and setting up their defensive or evasion boosts every now and then, occasionally even chaining several Protect uses in a row.

- Sending in Pokemon with supereffective coverage
When you beat an enemy Pokemon or a swap is forced and the AI has still multiple Pokemon in the back, the AI will priorize sending in the Pokemon with the highest damage potential. When a new Pokemon is sent out you are usually facing 2 possibilities: it is the Pokemon with the highest damage potential against your current active Pokemon, or if it does not have any super effective attack, it means the AI has no other super effective to use.

Part 2: Moves and abilities the AI does and does not recognize

- Encore
If a AI Pokemon is Encored on a status, setting or move you are immune to, it will generally either switch the following turn, or use the move once, fail and switch out turn after if still possible. If a Pokemon is Encored in a setup move, however, it might keep using it up to 3 times and possibly swap out after 2 or 3 uses if Encore is still active.

- Taunt
The AI will generally not swap out if Taunted if the Pokemon has at least one usable move. Pokemon forced to Struggle because of Taunt will occasionally not swap out, and sometimes will just KO themselves.

- Substitute and status moves
While the AI will still try to status a Substitute every now and then, but it will usually stop after one failure, unless the specific set only carryes status moves.

- Misty Terrain
The AI does not properly recognize Misty Terrain. Moves that have both a damage and status component like Nuzzle, as well as occasionally Swagger and Flatter, do not trigger the immunity message and the AI can attempts to use them despite the immunity to the status provided by the terrain, giving you free turns and even free boosts. Fliers/Levitaters are often the ones not recognizing the presence of Misty Terrain and attempt to use status moves despite the immunity message, expecially most Rotom variants who carry one or two status moves. Note that this does not happen for Rest: the AI will never attempt to use Rest if affected by Misty Terrain (as well as by Electric Terrain).

- Lightning Rod, Storm Surge and Levitate
Differently from Misty Terrain, the AI does recognize those abilities, and will stop using moves that trigger them, or swap their Pokemon if they don't have any usable move left due to those abilities. In fact, it can use those against you by occasionally swapping their Pokemon with one of them that can absorb or redirect your last attack.

Part 3: Doubles and Multi Battle special interactions

- Spread moves
Differently from Singles, the AI loves to priorize spread moves in Doubles. If one of your Pokemon is weak to a spread move and single target ones will not pick a OHKO, generally the AI will go for the spread option. Occasionally not caring if this hits his own partner.

- Explosion
The AI use of Explosion is generally inconsistent, and while the AI will often commit to it first turn, sometimes it will wait or not use it at all. Being matched with a partner which will be immune to it, the Pokemon or its partner being low enough that it'll potentially die the same turn, and not having any super effective option to use usually trigger the usage. Do note that one Lickilicky set carries a Normalium-Z with Explosion, and the AI will always use it before Explosion.

- Earthquake, Sludge Wave, Discharge and Surf
The AI likes using Earthquake anytime the other active Pokemon is a Flying-type or Levitater. If this combination happens (in fact, several trainers have rosters that cause it to happen) the Earthquake sequence is nearly guaranteed. This is also somewhat applicable to Surf matched with Water Absorb, Storm Drain, and Discharge with Ground-type Pokemon or Lightning Rod and Volt Absorb, the rare Sludge Wave sets when matched with Steel-types, and Explosion while matched with a Ghost-type. The rare Telepathy Pokemon also contribute to activate this mechanic.

- Wide Guard
The AI is not coded to play around Wide Guard. It does not use it reactively if it is available (rather, often uses it even if you are not using any spread attack), and does not react to you using Wide Guard either. Combined the AI giving priority to spread moves in Doubles, and several AI sets only running spread moves, Wide Guard can completely deny certain sets if used correctly.

- Protect with Spread moves
Even though Protect usage is not consistent and generally not predictable, there's a few situations in Doubles where the AI decides to Protect, usually when matched with a spread attack user. If the situation is favorable to using a spread move, you can often expect the other Pokemon to Protect that turn, but it rarely attempts to double Protect in those situations. Despite this, there's an interesting interaction that causes the AI to Protect even if it's immune to the partner's spread move due to typing or ability.

 

  Hide contents

n order to have a successful run in the Battle Tree, it is important to consider all the mechanics and AI sets and make sure you are not completely walled by common occurrences. Due to the volatile generation of teams, you might get lucky and never run into your counter, or eventually run into it and get your nice looking streak interrupted. It is obviously impossible to have an answer to everything considering there's hundreds of different sets and virtually infinite combinations, but there are a few general basis your team composition needs to cover in order to produce reliable post-legend streaks. Since Trainers after beating Red/Blue do not change anymore, once you are past battle 50 the game becomes a endurance challenge that puts a stress on what your team can answer to and what it cannot.

- Have a backup plan
This should always be the first thing to consider: do not have only one strategy. Your Rain based fast and high damage team might look strong, but it's a matter of time until you run into a slower Weather setter or a Pokemon with Cloud Nine and you get swept away because your fast Pokemon are now slower. Expecially for Doubles, you need to have a reliable answer in the event that your strategy is denied on the first turn or turned against you due to a combination of enemy abilities or movesets. A few examples would be having a Lightning Rod user for Rain teams in order to deny enemy Thunder users, Misty Terrain or Aromatheraphy access if your team is weak to status, a staller if your team is fast and need to answer a Trick Room going up, a Fire- or Ground-type to answer opposer Sunny teams, etc. Always consider that your plan can go wrong and you might need to buy time. Expecially when it comes to Weather or Trick Room, since there's AI Trainers focused on every Weather and both Trick Room specialists and high speed dedicated Trainers, which you will inevitably run into at some point.

- Stats matter
The AI has access to fully EVd Pokemon, which eventually will have 6x31 IV. Once you are past the first 20 battles the Trainers will start using actually competitive Pokemon, eventually including plenty of Legendary Pokemon and Mega Evolutions, as well as a number of both cheesy and brutal sets that require to be dealt with quickly. You will need to use actually strong Pokemon that are also properly trained, and unfortunately your story team will likely have to be replaced for this purpose. Put your time into engineering a proper composition, breed and train the Pokemon you want to use, and choose the right items, because else you will inevitably fall to the sheer higher power of the AI sets. If you plan of using a sub-optimal Pokemon, make sure your team composition actually benefits from its presence and is well equipped to deal with opposing threats.

- Check the AI Trainer data
Another important thing to consider is that the full data about the AI sets is available, and you should use it to your advantage. Going in blind, considering the amount of different sets plus the existance of several unexpected sets can quickly lead to a disaster. Some examples include a Speed invested Alolan Marowak, a evasion focused Zapdos set, OHKO move users, the list is very long and varied. When you start a new round, check the Trainer name, look for it on one of the many available resources, note which sets for each Pokemon it has available, and plan accordingly. If the Trainer can have several sets of a specific Pokemon, make sure to not exclude either when picking your moves until the set is revealed by a move or the equipped item activating.

- Accuracy over power
It is a typical error coming from competitive Pokemon PvP to consider moves like Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Stone Edge, which are often taken due to them securing more OHKOs than their weaker but accurate counterparts, good as well for facilities. Unfortunately, it is not the case. When going for long runs, one must remember that misses do happen. Missing a move in wrong moment can turn in a loss, and once you start to accumulate battles, the rolls eventually will be unfavorable. While competitive formats are usually "best of X", and unlucky match generally won't matter seeing you still have the chance to fall back and try again, the Battle Tree like other facilities does not allow the rematch and you always have to start from 0 after a loss. Unless you really don't have another option, try to only run 100% accurate moves. Do not put yourself in situations where a miss equals Game Over, and consider that the AI has both evasion moves and the occasional Lax Incense / Bright Powder equipped, further punishing low accuracy.

- Dealing with stallers
One of the biggest threats if left unchecked on the Battle Tree are staller sets. They might not look particularly threatening at start, but once they have accumulated several evasion stacks and are dropping your Pokemon's HP with Toxic or Sandstorm while you cannot hit them other than with a lucky roll, it surely becomes a frustrating way to lose. There's several ways to deal with stallers, one of which being istantly targetting them down, but it's not reliable since several of them run Bright Powder or Lax Incense thus could get lucky misses, or there might be a more dangerous threat to deal with in Doubles, on top of most staller sets actually being on bulky Pokemon. It is recommended to include somewhere Taunt (in fact, several staller sets have no damage move and will just Struggle to death once Taunted), or status immunity/cure, run a Steel type which is both immune to Toxic and Sandstorm, having a perfect accuracy move to deal with Double Team spammers (Smart Strike, Aerial Ace are both TMs, Z-Moves can also work in a pinch but might not be available when you need them), Haze or Clear Smog to clear boosts, and similar alternatives where your movesets allow.

- PP UP your Pokemon
If you decide to run your own staller (very common in singles, and viable to have in doubles), absolutely PP UP it. The AI only has base PPs, and in the possibility of a stall war, you want to have the edge. In fact, PP-stalling the AI is a common strategy for dealing with some threats. While maximizing the PP of fragile sweepers is generally unnecessary as they rarely get to live more than 3 turns, it's recommended to still PP UP them, or at least important moves with 5 or 10 PPs that need to be used more than once per fight, in order to deal with the possibility of Pressure Pokemon adding up, which is likely to happen against post-legend Trainers as lot of Legendaries that will show up do have Pressure as possible or only ability.

As you can see here, we have to prepare for every possibility, including " uncompetitive " moves, items, and abilities, regardless of our personal feelings towards them. Now if you ask any facility player ( myself included ) does that make it a poor mode? Of course not! One of the things that makes Battle Tower so enjoyable is that they are trying to obtain a winning streak of highest proportion that requires curated team that can handle majority of sets, hypothetically speaking that is. Oh and there is no team preview as well, meaning that it is completely random until the player initiates the battle. In order to be successful in the Battle Facilities, one must be prepared to handle all kinds of scenarios including " unfair " or " unlucky " ones, and that's a part of the appeal of the Battle Tower: Trying to obtain the highest win streak despite the randomness. 

So anyway, the main point here is that its not necessarily a bad game design to have the player suddenly deal with new attacks out of the blue, instead it forces the player to adjust their strategy to handle it. If anything, Divine Pulse just makes the process easier. 

Also, if you hate the surprise factor of ambush spawns, you can always look up the positions online. 

Procedurally generated stuff isn't quite the same thing as ambushing the players. A procedurally generated Firem Emblem mapnwould be the skirmishes where enemy type, position and weaponry are randomly selected. For a pokemon variation of ambush spawning it wouldn't be random trainers, it'd be your opponent's pokemon getting a free attack on you before you have a chance to make a decision at all.

[ZeManaphy]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Procedurally generated stuff isn't quite the same thing as ambushing the players. A procedurally generated Firem Emblem mapnwould be the skirmishes where enemy type, position and weaponry are randomly selected. For a pokemon variation of ambush spawning it wouldn't be random trainers, it'd be your opponent's pokemon getting a free attack on you before you have a chance to make a decision at all.

The point I am trying to say is not knowing what about happen does not make it bad game design. Actually, a proper variation of Ambush Spawns  in Pokemon would be the option not  to switch your Pokemon when you get knocked out. Its optional in Single Player, but mandatory in Battle Facilities and PvP. In case you didn't know, getting a free switch is a big deal in multiplayer esque settings because it grants you a free turn to take advantage of the fact that you got a Pokémon safely without any damage, especially in a 3v3 setting where a single switch can win you the game. Switching is such a powerful tool that hazards dominate singles because they are only way to punish it consistently. 

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

The point I am trying to say is not knowing what about happen does not make it bad game design. Actually, a proper variation of Ambush Spawns  in Pokemon would be the option not  to switch your Pokemon when you get knocked out. Its optional in Single Player, but mandatory in Battle Facilities and PvP. In case you didn't know, getting a free switch is a big deal in multiplayer esque settings because it grants you a free turn to take advantage of the fact that you got a Pokémon safely without any damage, especially in a 3v3 setting where a single switch can win you the game. Switching is such a powerful tool that hazards dominate singles because they are only way to punish it consistently. 

Even then that's not a good example as when a pokemon dies it's still something you have influence over. You know if a pokemon will die or not. That's something within your control. Ambush Spawns are something that happens with out your control or foreknowledge. Pokemon and Fire Emblem are also just fundamentally different games. I get your argument, that some randomness is good and encourages adaptation, but the situations are completely different. Fire Emblem has such randomness in its hit and crit rates that make you adapt and force you to think of back up plans, but ambush spawns are just punishing you for not being psychic, not for lacking a back up plan. Everything you say can be applied to regular reinforcements too. The difference is that ambush reinforcements don't give you time to adapt, as they can kill you before you even have a chance to fight them.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

5 hours ago, Florete said:

Not that I don't agree, because I love dunking on Three Houses, but in what ways are the support systems in other games better/how could TH's be improved?

My main objections gameplaywise are that 3H's support system has really bland support bonuses and that your own decisions as to building these supports are largely irrelevant. No matter what you do, chances are you'll have your whole army approaching max rank with everyone else they can support with. Not only is this just way, way more support conversations than any other game has expected you to watch in one playthrough, but it also means you haven't actually chosen which relationships you want to encourage and have nowhere near as much personal investment in any specific pair.

Personally I think SoV had the best system for gaining support points, but the GBA-Tellius games had the most fun results. People shit a lot on the GBA system's support gaining method, and rightly so, but the affinity system is a lot of fun once you actually have said supports.

[joevar]

IS should stop making FE game, and just make something else. just to apply all that 3 decade of knowledge. since asking to remove permanent death is clearly a futile effort. anyone already said that here?

 

2 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

The point I am trying to say is not knowing what about happen does not make it bad game design. Actually, a proper variation of Ambush Spawns  in Pokemon would be the option not  to switch your Pokemon when you get knocked out. Its optional in Single Player, but mandatory in Battle Facilities and PvP. In case you didn't know, getting a free switch is a big deal in multiplayer esque settings because it grants you a free turn to take advantage of the fact that you got a Pokémon safely without any damage, especially in a 3v3 setting where a single switch can win you the game. Switching is such a powerful tool that hazards dominate singles because they are only way to punish it consistently. 

well.. a pokemon dying is not actually dying.. just visit the "hospital" (yes, i forgot the name) and voila its ready to take another beating. Fire emblem misstep punish you permanently in case of classic. thats why people salty about ambush spawn afaik.

other SRPG has ambush spawn. but never heard people complaint so strongly about that

Edited December 14, 2021 by joevar

[Theghostcreator]

Fire Emblem Fates is the best Fire Emblem game, all three of them. I will not elaborate.

[AnonymousSpeed]

6 minutes ago, Theghostcreator said:

Fire Emblem Fates is the best Fire Emblem game, all three of them. I will not elaborate.

[Shrimpica]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

bjections gameplaywise are that 3H's support system has really bland support bonuses

...so not any different than the support bonuses in the whole series?

All of them are bland and are just extra stats. 

The only game that even tried to do something interesting with the support system was Fates (well and to a much lesser degree awakening, but that was an unbalanced mess). And while i love Fates' Dual Attack/Guard, it is quite divisive in the fanbase.

Personally i would love a support skill system to replace the current system, but that won't be happening since the system introduced in FE6 is veeeeeeeery popular and set the tone for the whole series.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Father Shrimpas said:

...so not any different than the support bonuses in the whole series?

All of them are bland and are just extra stats. 

Even if your standard for interesting bonuses makes every game miss the mark, 3H still adds the least interesting bonuses of them all. Even the DS games added crit and dodge.

[ZeManaphy]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Even then that's not a good example as when a pokemon dies it's still something you have influence over. You know if a pokemon will die or not. That's something within your control. Ambush Spawns are something that happens with out your control or foreknowledge. Pokemon and Fire Emblem are also just fundamentally different games. I get your argument, that some randomness is good and encourages adaptation, but the situations are completely different. Fire Emblem has such randomness in its hit and crit rates that make you adapt and force you to think of back up plans, but ambush spawns are just punishing you for not being psychic, not for lacking a back up plan. Everything you say can be applied to regular reinforcements too. The difference is that ambush reinforcements don't give you time to adapt, as they can kill you before you even have a chance to fight them.

Well, Pokémon also has hit and critical hit rates as well as secondary effects that you must take in consideration when building  for a facility like the Battle Tower. Granted, it may not be as notable first glance since Pokémon’s Single player campaign usually allows the player to use items whenever they want, and are usually lopsided in the Player’s favor, but when you go into the Single Player PvP mode, it becomes quite unpredictable. Let’s pull up a hypothetical: it’s a 3v1 and I have an Alakazam against a Haxorus that was just sent out. Alakazam uses Psychic and Haxorus sets us Dragon Dance. Haxorus is now faster and OHKOes Alakazam. Then you send in Sylveon, who has the type advantage, only Sylveon is OHKOed by an Iron Tail. And lastly, you send in Heatran, which gets one shot by Earthquake. It’s game over and your streak is ruined. Is this game mode “bad” because I had no idea that a Haxorus with the following moves that can OHKO the majority of Pokémon I trained if it sets up? Or is it unfair because it denies the chance me the chance to switch out like the main campaign and if I switch, Sylveon would have been able to take an unboosted Iron Tail? 

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

My main objections gameplaywise are that 3H's support system has really bland support bonuses and that your own decisions as to building these supports are largely irrelevant. No matter what you do, chances are you'll have your whole army approaching max rank with everyone else they can support with. Not only is this just way, way more support conversations than any other game has expected you to watch in one playthrough, but it also means you haven't actually chosen which relationships you want to encourage and have nowhere near as much personal investment in any specific pair.

Again, you can just skip your support conversations with the + button. You still get bonuses, I don’t understand what your problem is. Also Gambits exist, and they benefit from support boosts and levels.

Edited December 14, 2021 by ZeManaphy

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

Again, you can just skip your support conversations with the + button. You still get bonuses, I don’t understand what your problem is.

Which of my points is this in response to?