What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

They actually have pulled back on fog of war a lot in later games. And while they haven't used the exact mechanic of Tellius Laguz (which to be fair does have problems in both incarnations), beat units of some form have become pretty standard in the series now. Pair up being virtually absent from Three Houses is the really storange one.

Yes, but the recent beastformers are Manakete-style in their implementation, and have little-to-no story relevance.

Also fog-of-war came back in 3H. With no ways to increase vision beyond a pitiful 2, aside from the Torch item.

52 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Are they, though? I think everyone agrees Laguz are pretty crappy as units. They're unique, they have a lot of lore or whatever (bad lore but still), yet nobody really likes to use them as far as I can tell.

Gameplay-wise, you may be right. They're either refreshers (Herons), "kill everything in sight" (Royals, RD Part I Muarim), or else mediocre melee units (everyone else).

13 hours ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

How is that a kaze from birthright?

Because a unit inexplicably dies if you don't have a high enough support rank with them.

[Jotari]

33 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Also fog-of-war came back in 3H. With no ways to increase vision beyond a pitiful 2, aside from the Torch item.

Barely. They have it for half of one story map and one paralogue and that's it. I think maybe it's in skirmishes too, but if it is the chances of it spawning are incredibly low.

[Lightcosmo]

FE could just take a page from Berwick and do FoW the right way. Xd

[Heir of Dragons and Beasts]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Yes, but the recent beastformers are Manakete-style in their implementation, and have little-to-no story relevance.

 

You can say that again, The Wolfskin and Kitsune played little to no part or had any relevance in both the lore and the story. Well not if you count that Kaden helped Olivia 2.0 which led up to the Azura thing in Birthright.

Edited June 8, 2022 by OutcastsofRelix

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/11/2022 at 1:02 AM, NaotoUzumaki said:

A year teaching someone isn’t enough for a teacher to care about the face of its students.

Counterpoint: Assassination Classroom. They do an excellent job showing the bond between Class 3-E and Koro-Sensei despite the fact that he looks like this (and the part where they have to kill him). And this, too, happens within a year.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Barely. They have it for half of one story map and one paralogue and that's it. I think maybe it's in skirmishes too, but if it is the chances of it spawning are incredibly low.

It's in three paralogues: the Asherine one, the Leonhardt one, and the Marianne one. Regardless, it's undeniable that IS brought Fog-of-War back from its vacation amidst the 3DS titles.

8 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

FE could just take a page from Berwick and do FoW the right way. Xd

How does Berwick Sage do it?

[Benice]

12 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

How does Berwick Sage do it?

Enemies and players alike are blind in the fog; the AI's quite good too, so it's not janky (Advance Wars had a similar thing where enemies are blinded by fog as well, but Berwick's AI is much more effective). There are some other features of the mechanic, such as lighthouses which shed great amounts of light for the faction that holds it, but it's not used that much. It makes fog maps really neat, since enemies also have to deal with the drawbacks, and you can set up ambushes and the like quite well. All the while, enemies can still make good use of it as well, since the AI seems to be linked by faction; if you're in one enemy's sights, all of 'em know where you are. If you leave their range of vision, they also poke around where they last saw you, which can also be a pretty chunky threat to deal with.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Benice

[Lightcosmo]

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

How does Berwick Sage do it?

Exactly as Benice said, it goes both ways, so the enemy can blind rush and die due to hitting a player unit. And they have to be able to see you to attack you, like you do them.

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 hours ago, Benice said:

(Advance Wars had a similar thing where enemies are blinded by fog as well, but Berwick's AI is much more effective)

To varying degrees to be precise.:

• AW1&2- the AI sees everything all the time not a land unit in Forest or naval unit in Reefs.
• AWDS did away with the cheating and made the AI play by vision ranges just as the player does. Although I think there might still be some kind of advantage wherein the AI kinda knows where you are. At the least however, if the you are not in the enemy's vision range, they are programmed not to attack you.
• AW DoR/DC completes the bringing down to earth of the FoW AI. I don't think it gets any advantages.
  • It also implemented this lovely feature of revealing every tile that a unit passes by while moving within their vision range, for the remainder of your current player phase.
    • So, move a Tank six spaces in a straight vertical line, and not only will you see a 3x3 diamond-shaped area revealed around the space where the tank stops moving, you'll also see three spaces to the left and right of that straight line. That's a lot!

With regards to terrain AW and FoW...

• Always gave +3 Vision to Infantry/Mechs on mountain tiles, bringing them up to 5. It's a niche bonus.
• Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict also provided a 2x2 field of vision from all allied properties.
  • Prior AWs always lit the allied property tile itself, but no vision extending outwards from it.
  • Radars were added in DoR/DC as a special property type that provides 5x5 Vision for whoever owns it.
• Impassible Fire tiles are another DoR/DC invention. These things give both sides vision on all tiles within a 5x5 radius of the Fire tile. You can't get rid of them either.
• DoR/DC invented the Flare unit. This is basically a Torch staff in unit form, except with unlimited uses as as long as you keep an APC nearby or plop it on a city. And the flares Flare units pop can see into all terrain (for the duration of one player phase) within their 3x3 area of effect.
• As said in the second statement in this post, Forests for land units and Reefs for naval units provide the same thing as BS's Hide skill. Invisibility to all units of the other side except those adjacent to the Forest/Reef where the unit is hiding. Air units can never be hidden (barring the lol Stealth Fighter in DS).
  • DoR/DC granted hiding capabilities to neutral and allied properties as well. And it invented Ruin and Fog (-gy sea) terrain that provide additional hiding terrain that, unlike Forest & Reefs, doesn't slog down unit movement.

AW also has a lot more variability in unit vision ranges, from 1 Vision for something like a slow and strong Mid Tank, to the 5 Vision of the aptly-named Recon.

Overall, Fog could be fun in DoR. Always bad when you walk into the range of some enemy indirect fire, but then, the game really let you take advantage of it as well. I was able to get some strategic use out of in DS too, but not as much.

[SnowFire]

Probably not an unpopular opinion, but my random contribution is that I wish Radiant Dawn Act 3, Chapter 2 had made better use of the premise.  It's SUPPOSED to be the Greil Mercenaries doing a daring night raid.  It'd have been *great* if it had leaned into this premise - maybe extinguishing torches blinds opponents and causes them to skip their turn, enemies outside of light range have reduced vision and pass their turn (like described with Advance Wars above), and maybe there's some sort of race to stop messenger enemies from reaching alarm signals or the like and summoning reinforcements from the barracks.  Basically, strategically it'd have been a weird variant of the hatching eggs mission in Fire Emblem Sacred Stones: you're in a race to inflict as much damage as possible during the ambush phase before the enemy readies themselves (/hatches from eggs).

Instead, it's a fog of war mission, and it's the Benignon troops that are extinguishing their own fires.  Mechanically, this makes sense, the AI vision is unimpeded and turning off the torches impedes you, but the flavor is upside down and backwards!  This is supposed to be the bored night watch whose eyes are used to the lights, while Ike's crew are the raiders whose eyes were prepared in darkness.  "Oh no!  We're under attack!  Quick, extinguish our lights so we can't see anything!"  Yeah no.  Oh well.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

To varying degrees to be precise.:

• AW1&2- the AI sees everything all the time not a land unit in Forest or naval unit in Reefs.
• AWDS did away with the cheating and made the AI play by vision ranges just as the player does. Although I think there might still be some kind of advantage wherein the AI kinda knows where you are. At the least however, if the you are not in the enemy's vision range, they are programmed not to attack you.
• AW DoR/DC completes the bringing down to earth of the FoW AI. I don't think it gets any advantages.
  • It also implemented this lovely feature of revealing every tile that a unit passes by while moving within their vision range, for the remainder of your current player phase.
    • So, move a Tank six spaces in a straight vertical line, and not only will you see a 3x3 diamond-shaped area revealed around the space where the tank stops moving, you'll also see three spaces to the left and right of that straight line. That's a lot!

With regards to terrain AW and FoW...

• Always gave +3 Vision to Infantry/Mechs on mountain tiles, bringing them up to 5. It's a niche bonus.
• Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict also provided a 2x2 field of vision from all allied properties.
  • Prior AWs always lit the allied property tile itself, but no vision extending outwards from it.
  • Radars were added in DoR/DC as a special property type that provides 5x5 Vision for whoever owns it.
• Impassible Fire tiles are another DoR/DC invention. These things give both sides vision on all tiles within a 5x5 radius of the Fire tile. You can't get rid of them either.
• DoR/DC invented the Flare unit. This is basically a Torch staff in unit form, except with unlimited uses as as long as you keep an APC nearby or plop it on a city. And the flares Flare units pop can see into all terrain (for the duration of one player phase) within their 3x3 area of effect.
• As said in the second statement in this post, Forests for land units and Reefs for naval units provide the same thing as BS's Hide skill. Invisibility to all units of the other side except those adjacent to the Forest/Reef where the unit is hiding. Air units can never be hidden (barring the lol Stealth Fighter in DS).
  • DoR/DC granted hiding capabilities to neutral and allied properties as well. And it invented Ruin and Fog (-gy sea) terrain that provide additional hiding terrain that, unlike Forest & Reefs, doesn't slog down unit movement.

AW also has a lot more variability in unit vision ranges, from 1 Vision for something like a slow and strong Mid Tank, to the 5 Vision of the aptly-named Recon.

Overall, Fog could be fun in DoR. Always bad when you walk into the range of some enemy indirect fire, but then, the game really let you take advantage of it as well. I was able to get some strategic use out of in DS too, but not as much.

Advance Wars just strikes me better as a series that lends itself to fog of war. You move a unit into a fog of war ambush and you gain something, knowledge of where the enemy is, at the cost of how ever much it takes to produce that unit. You move a unit in Fire Emblem into a fog of war ambush and bam, you've just lost the unit you've been training for ten levels. Sure you know where the enemy is, but you're probably resetting the map now.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

21 hours ago, Benice said:

Enemies and players alike are blind in the fog; the AI's quite good too, so it's not janky (Advance Wars had a similar thing where enemies are blinded by fog as well, but Berwick's AI is much more effective). There are some other features of the mechanic, such as lighthouses which shed great amounts of light for the faction that holds it, but it's not used that much. It makes fog maps really neat, since enemies also have to deal with the drawbacks, and you can set up ambushes and the like quite well. All the while, enemies can still make good use of it as well, since the AI seems to be linked by faction; if you're in one enemy's sights, all of 'em know where you are. If you leave their range of vision, they also poke around where they last saw you, which can also be a pretty chunky threat to deal with.

 

13 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Exactly as Benice said, it goes both ways, so the enemy can blind rush and die due to hitting a player unit. And they have to be able to see you to attack you, like you do them.

Thanks for the info! I like the idea of the enemy being suject to similar limitations in fog. Even though it may become difficult to distinguish between "player vision" and "enemy vision". I need to play Berwick Saga someday.

9 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Basically, strategically it'd have been a weird variant of the hatching eggs mission in Fire Emblem Sacred Stones: you're in a race to inflict as much damage as possible during the ambush phase before the enemy readies themselves (/hatches from eggs).

I like this notion. Maybe make it a stealth mission of sorts? Where, if you fail to take an enemy out on player phase, they'll call for reinforcements once enemy phase begins.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Advance Wars just strikes me better as a series that lends itself to fog of war. You move a unit into a fog of war ambush and you gain something, knowledge of where the enemy is, at the cost of how ever much it takes to produce that unit. You move a unit in Fire Emblem into a fog of war ambush and bam, you've just lost the unit you've been training for ten levels. Sure you know where the enemy is, but you're probably resetting the map now.

True. I recognize that AW is inherently better for the concept. Even if you banished permadeath from FE, and played on Casual Mode with no use of action-undo, losing Lowen (to pick a unit whose class and stats makes them someone you'd feasibly send ahead to scout) on turn 2 would still be a serious setback. Assuming a 15 turn clear (reasonable and kinda "efficient" for many an FE map), that'd be a loss of 13 actions, which assuming a 12-unit deployment maximum, is an 7.3% loss in total actions over that timeframe.

 

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I need to play Berwick Saga someday.

It's interestingly different IMO; your opinions may vary. Although I haven't finished the game yet, a few of the maps got a little too hectic for me. And the main mission for Chapter 10 has what has to be the most impenetrable of initial enemy formations anywhere in all of FE-KagaSaga ever. It kinda broke me, and I haven't gone and finished the fight more than a month later (phase 2- "urban warfare" was also proving nasty).😅

-Not that this is the place to talk Berwick!😆

Edited June 10, 2022 by Interdimensional Observer

[Benice]

On 6/9/2022 at 7:20 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

And the main mission for Chapter 10 has what has to be the most impenetrable of initial enemy formations anywhere in all of FE-KagaSaga ever.

Screw Yalong, all my homies hate Yalong.

If you do manage to make it past Yalong and his lads, though, Elbert or Marcel can come up really clutch; Elbert can deal with the crossbow guys pretty well and has Med. Shields, and Marcel just has a lot of defense from his Lshields. Having Pallas Leia or Pallas Riana realy helps a lot as well- Divine Brace + Pallas Riana does a ton of damage to everything, especially if you have Focus Chant ready. If you've promoted Faye, you can pop a Levin Sword, Colichamerde or another sword that ignores shields and use Astra on the initial enemies.

...Alternatively, you can just be me and hope that the green units clear the mission by themselves; they did that for me, at least.

On 6/9/2022 at 5:59 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Maybe make it a stealth mission of sorts? Where, if you fail to take an enemy out on player phase, they'll call for reinforcements once enemy phase begins

I'm open to seeing FE try to do stealth missions again; they didn't work out very well in PoR, but potentially in the next time around they could pull it off.

[Jotari]

41 minutes ago, Benice said:

Screw Yalong, all my homies hate Yalong.

If you do manage to make it past Yalong and his lads, though, Elbert or Marcel can come up really clutch; Elbert can deal with the crossbow guys pretty well and has Med. Shields, and Marcel just has a lot of defense from his Lshields. Having Pallas Leia or Pallas Riana realy helps a lot as well- Divine Brace + Pallas Riana does a ton of damage to everything, especially if you have Focus Chant ready. If you've promoted Faye, you can pop a Levin Sword, Colichamerde or another sword that ignores shields and use Astra on the initial enemies.

...Alternatively, you can just be me and hope that the green units clear the mission by themselves; they did that for me, at least.

I'm open to seeing FE try to do stealth missions again; they didn't work out very well in PoR, but potentially in the next time around they could pull it off.

The next time round was in Revelation wherein it wasn't exactly hailed as Metal Gear Emblem.

[Benice]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

The next time round was in Revelation wherein it wasn't exactly hailed as Metal Gear Emblem.

Huh, didn't know that. Guess I really do need to play the 3DSFE at some point...

Well, perhaps third time could be the charm.

[SnowFire]

5 minutes ago, Benice said:

Huh, didn't know that. Guess I really do need to play the 3DSFE at some point...

Well, perhaps third time could be the charm.

Spoilers, but Revelation's version is substantially worse than PoR's stealth mission. 

Okay, I guess in fairness, if you play Fates in Casual mode you can save every turn, unlike PoR, and that might make things MILDLY more tolerable.  But let me warn you that the Revelation stealth mission is 100% troll if you tried to stealth it on an initial playthrough without spoiling yourself with a guide in your lap.  Notably, you still have to defeat an extremely dangerous boss & their friends even if you stealth it up, so if you stealthed with a team of just 2 characters, you probably just wasted all the time unless they can survive the final confrontation.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Spoilers, but Revelation's version is substantially worse than PoR's stealth mission. 

Okay, I guess in fairness, if you play Fates in Casual mode you can save every turn, unlike PoR, and that might make things MILDLY more tolerable.  But let me warn you that the Revelation stealth mission is 100% troll if you tried to stealth it on an initial playthrough without spoiling yourself with a guide in your lap.  Notably, you still have to defeat an extremely dangerous boss & their friends even if you stealth it up, so if you stealthed with a team of just 2 characters, you probably just wasted all the time unless they can survive the final confrontation.

Yep. Plus the Soldiers' ability to see you is based on their attack range AFTER moving (not before), so you can't set your units up safely. Unlike in PoR, where it's an elegant (if tedious) dance trying to Order the yellow units to the Escape point.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Spoilers, but Revelation's version is substantially worse than PoR's stealth mission. 

Okay, I guess in fairness, if you play Fates in Casual mode you can save every turn, unlike PoR, and that might make things MILDLY more tolerable.  But let me warn you that the Revelation stealth mission is 100% troll if you tried to stealth it on an initial playthrough without spoiling yourself with a guide in your lap.  Notably, you still have to defeat an extremely dangerous boss & their friends even if you stealth it up, so if you stealthed with a team of just 2 characters, you probably just wasted all the time unless they can survive the final confrontation.

The addition of Divine Pulse could make Stealth Emblem significantly more viable as a map design element. Really I think for such a map to work you need to make it early game with a very specific cast of small characters. Like in Thracia when escaping Munster (which isn't designed around stealth to any great extent, but that's the kind of plot scenario that would best lend you the tools for it). Give the player just three to five units all with their own key abilities for the map. Killing or capturing enemies before they can alert other units also should be an element. Otherwise you're just tediously moving your units along. Gauging whether you have enough units free to secure a guaranteed kill or whether it's better to wait until next turn should in theory lead itself to a fun map.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Luck should be X% chance to pick up gold, weapons (used) and items (tonics, vulneraries, etc.)

One unit gets a PS enabling it to pick up stats boosts, silvers, etc. when LCK is maxed.

If a unit has a full inventory, discard that stuff.

Is it abuseable? Absolutely, but make LCK interesting just for once. 

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 6/17/2022 at 2:18 PM, Imuabicus said:

Luck should be X% chance to pick up gold, weapons (used) and items (tonics, vulneraries, etc.)

One unit gets a PS enabling it to pick up stats boosts, silvers, etc. when LCK is maxed.

If a unit has a full inventory, discard that stuff.

Is it abuseable? Absolutely, but make LCK interesting just for once. 

Isn't this kind of like Keaton's personal in Fates? I think Blacksmith and Merchant had skills kind of like that, too.

[Use the Falchion]

28 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Isn't this kind of like Keaton's personal in Fates? I think Blacksmith and Merchant had skills kind of like that, too.

Yup, and you can abuse it with the right set-up for Midori as well. Have an Elise!Midori or Mozu!Midori that has Salvage Blow from Blacksmith, Profiteer from Merchant, and Witch's Brew from Witch. Max out her Luck, pair her with someone who can boost her Luck just a bit more, and for those first seven turns you're bound to pick up at least something. 

[Shadow Mir]

On 6/13/2022 at 6:29 PM, SnowFire said:

Spoilers, but Revelation's version is substantially worse than PoR's stealth mission. 

Okay, I guess in fairness, if you play Fates in Casual mode you can save every turn, unlike PoR, and that might make things MILDLY more tolerable.  But let me warn you that the Revelation stealth mission is 100% troll if you tried to stealth it on an initial playthrough without spoiling yourself with a guide in your lap.  Notably, you still have to defeat an extremely dangerous boss & their friends even if you stealth it up, so if you stealthed with a team of just 2 characters, you probably just wasted all the time unless they can survive the final confrontation.

I would disagree - I've actually been able to stealth Mikoto's chapter. The moment Mikoto is revealed, the guards are a non-factor. Also, if you're really paranoid about your ability to survive Mikoto and the other Vallites' attacks (which is probably going to be the case on Lunatic, because the Master Ninjas have Poison Strike), you can always have someone else come with Rescue (which can reach from the second room); none of them charge after you. Trying to stealth chapter 10 in Path of Radiance, on the other hand, is too much trouble for too little profit.

On 6/17/2022 at 1:18 PM, Imuabicus said:

Luck should be X% chance to pick up gold, weapons (used) and items (tonics, vulneraries, etc.)

One unit gets a PS enabling it to pick up stats boosts, silvers, etc. when LCK is maxed.

If a unit has a full inventory, discard that stuff.

Is it abuseable? Absolutely, but make LCK interesting just for once. 

Fates did have several skills like that, but most of them were limited by a 7 turn duration. Salvage Blow was the only exception (it instead has a chance to trigger after defeating an enemy when initiating combat; it gives you a Hoshidan weapon of the same type as the weapon the defeated enemy used, but it's tied to a rare class tree). On that note, Awakening had such a skill too, but you wouldn't get to use it without reclassing, because it's tied to the Barbarian class, which no one you get starts in (also, one random weapon you could pick up had that same ability). Much like Salvage Blow, it has a chance to activate after defeating an enemy unit (again, provided you initiated combat), though it gives you small bullions instead.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Fates did have several skills like that, but most of them were limited by a 7 turn duration.

To be fair, I'd argue that the turn limit is a good, even necessary, part of those skills' design. Otherwise you could just sit there hitting End Turn on any safely controlled map and pile up a huge number of resources.

[Shadow Mir]

33 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

To be fair, I'd argue that the turn limit is a good, even necessary, part of those skills' design. Otherwise you could just sit there hitting End Turn on any safely controlled map and pile up a huge number of resources.

I guess, but it just kneecaps them imho. It might be necessary if the amount of resources you got if it triggered was actually sizable enough to warrant the turn limit, but it seems more like they were so tentative about it, they overdid it with balancing factors and made them useless instead.