I didn't like Conquest

[Jotari]

This is a thread I've been thinking of making for a while now. But I've been waiting to replay Conquest, just to give it a fair chance. But I've come to realize that I'll probably never replay it. It's just too daunting and there's so many games out there I'd just rather play. The bottom line is that Conquest just didn't do it for me. And I'm not talking about the poorly justified story. I'm talking about the gameplay. I hear a lot of people praising it as the best (or at least one of the better) in the series but for me it had some of the most artificial bullshit not seen since Thracia (and I like Thracia).

Okay, before I get ranting I'll just say what I did like about Conquest. That early game defense map at the port that's heavily praised, that deserves it. That's a really tightly constructed level that forces you to use everything you have. The late game level where you're assaulting the castle is also great as the enemy genuinely plays defensively which is something we rarely see in the series. And then the final map worked really well, probably proving once and for all that the last chapter in a Fire Emblem game should be designed more around the map itself rather than the final boss (hold on a tick, all the chapters I just listed were the Takumi chapters...huh, I honestly didn't notice that until now).

But when I think of Conquest, those three chapters aren't the things that stand out in my mind. I immediately think of much more numerous things that just come across as frustratingly unfair or just plain bland. The stand outs in in play order.

*Kotaro and his ridiculously high evade stat (the underlying issue I have with all of Conquest). His chapter itself is no walk in the park with ninjas nerfing you from every direction but then you come to this bastard who can attack from two squares away and dodge absolutely everything while healing. And he will double most of all your units and doesn't have a shabby defensive stat so actually making any profit on his HP loss is a complete gamble. You could get him to swap to his magic shuriken which reduces his avoid but he'll only use that if one of your units has less res than defense and good luck to a unit that can survive two hits against  that. Hope you have wary fighter by that point (because I didn't). Seriously as a stand alone unit he's possibly the most troublesome enemy I've come across in the entire series, final bosses included.

*The kitsune chapter where they inexplicably get the ability to become untouchable whenever they want. Plus they have pass which means you can't kill them and they can just traipse right through your front lines and kill your squishy units at the back. The strategy here is obvious, try to wall them off using every unit you have at the river and when they starts to fail, fall back and create a box with your more vulnerable units in the centre. But even when you know exactly what you have to do, success just plain isn't guaranteed because there's so many of them, most have life & death meaning they're dealing massive damage and worst of all, like everyone else, they have high evade rates. Since they're invincible every other turn you absolutely need to hit and need to kill on almost every attack. When I played this chapter I could literally see no alternative strategy or tactic to improve my odds. It was basically doing the exact same plan over and over again until eventually I succeeded.

*Coming right off the Kitsune chapter you have Fuuga's fun house. Winds blow you every which way meaning you have to be super careful where you put absolutely anyone. Potentially fun but in effect it just encouraged me to idle most of my army in the starting position and just carefully follow the narrow path with a single set of units that could take the enemies one at a time and avoid the winds. Didn't find it nearly as obnoxious when I replayed it on Revelations. Don't know if that's just because I was used to the gimmick or because it comes much earlier in that route where mistakes are less punishing. Oh yeah and like everything else in Conquest, the tile Fuuga fights you from gives him a massive evade boost. At least he's not ridiculously strong or fast so he's not particularly lethal but that just makes him a slog to kill as you miss every other hit.

*Skipping ahead to Ryoma's chapter. Are you meant to take on both those pathways at once? Because my army certainly wasn't strong enough to go in both directions (maybe I put too much exp into Corrin because she was able to kill Ryoma at will in this chapter). You have the corridor of death on the right side and something that's not as easily described but still majorly difficult on the left side. Ninjas are absolutely everywhere nerfing your units back to the stone age (and I hear on lunatic they also stack the debuff effects which sounds ridiculous). Seems the only option is to take things at a snails pace and wait doe the debuffs to wear off. But that's not what annoys me most. What annoys really pissess me off about this chapter, is that literally hours of trying to activate both gates at once and finally achieving my goal, the tiles in the center of the arena that were stopping Corrin and Ryoma from killing each other suddenly change to make both of them much more lethal. The game said nothing about this, it just gave me the impression that it would let the rest of my army into this area. But then Ryoma turns from a joke to something that can actually kill my 20/20 Corrin. I try to run away but immediately, on his first attack, he proc Astra and kills me. Reset and just kill Ryoma up front skipping the entirety of the chapter. Simpler, less risky but clearly not the way the chapter is intended to be played.

*Then, the worst chapter in the game comes. Iago sitting in the center of the map with his hacked skills and hacked class that lets him contentiously spam status staves. I tried going to left route first but found that the threat of long range weapons and Iago freezing or weakening my units made it just way too dangerous for the majority of my army. The right route was certainly more manageable but then in either case the army of berserkers just waiting at the bottom are an absolute nightmare to deal with. Trying to lore them outside of Iago's bullshit range is clearly the best method of dealing with them but even taking on two at a time in that corridor is challenging because these things hit like a freaking tank and suck up hits like one too with a non negligible crit rate. I think the designers genuinely expected you to lose units on this map since they give you a revival stave and there's only one other chapter left in the game (which as I've said, is actually designed well with enemies putting pressure on you from all directions, an area of affect attack that is dangerous but counterable). I don't think I had an S Ranked unit to use it though since I reclassed my healers to be more combat viable.

I love hard games. I really do. Zelda II is my favorite Zelda game and I'm a major fan of the company Trasure. I'm not even against low hit rates. The low hit rates of Sword of Seals and Gaiden are some of the best aspects of those games.  But they give you ways of dealing with the hit rates and skewing the in your favor if you play smart. Conquest just makes it so every unit in the game you have a 60% hit rate against and expects you to just deal with it by having high defense units (Effie was by far my MVP in Conquest, if I do happen to play it again I'm almost certainly going to use both her and Benny and a defense asset Knight Corrin). But then enemies crowd you and constantly make your units weaker and a load of them have crit rates (or >:( Astra procs). The difficulty just comes off as cheap and fake. Maybe I'm playing it wrong but all the strategies seem obvious but at the same time non viable. Many chapters just involve doing the same thing over and over again and this time just hoping you don't miss enough times to fail. I don't want to disparage anyone for liking Conquest but it's difficulty was just not for me. Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia is way more what I'm into. A lower enemy density but with more powerful enemies. A magic system that let's you actually get around pitfalls that wall off physical attacks. And yes, even the Canters are something I like as they put pressure on you to get to a certain place before being overwhelmed (and there is a counter to them in the form of Expel). Apotheosis, especially the secret path, is also a high difficulty that I like. A large battle field that gives you ample ways of dealing with the crowds of enemies and a set up that makes you very careful about which weapons you should be using and how to approach your enemies. I think it's a real shame Fates and Shadows of Valentia didn't provide any ultimate challenge like that (though given my gripes with Conquest, it might be fore the best).

Anyway rant over. That's just something I needed to get off my chest. I don't like the masterpiece of anti-casualisation that brought hope back to the series. Did you like Conquest? What did you like about Conquest? What did I do wrong when playing Conquest? And is anyone else out there in the same boat as me when it comes to Conquest?

[Bartozio]

I personally greatly enjoyed conquest. I only played it on hard mode, but it still provided me with a great challenge, and every map felt unique in its own way. It's been a while since I played it, but I don't remember having to actually take huge risks in order to kill a boss. I do remember hating ninjas with a passion though...

[Punished Dayni]

I'm conflicted on Conquest.

The story is terribly executed, the cast varies from alright to I NEVER WANT TO SEE THIS CHARACTER AGAIN, the writing as a whole is troubled and the world kind of tries but massively fails to be engaging.

The gameplay I think is in the correct direction with certain things. The way they changed Dual Guard/Strike was the right choice, the expansion of skills brought a lot of skills I do like into the game, there are some good ideas with the individual weapons and personal skills tend to be useful unless you're someone like Arthur. Then there's other things: I definitely think the weapon triangle should not be like this again, limiting weapon ranks by class is so stupid and I hope never to see it again, weapon durability is a double edged sword because the changes led to some dumb ideas imo, the magical castle can feel superfluous at times, the world map is just ghastly and unit balance is not as good as Fates would like to claim it is. Conquest also tries more with its maps so I am okay with them in comparison to, say, Revelation.

As for the maps, the maps with the Hoshidan Royals are all good imo (Yeah, the routes for Ryoma are kind of annoying, but it's nowhere near as bad as Treason), the maps before them are awful (I like none of the travelling to Hoshido maps: the moment The Black Pillar ends, it's six awful maps in a row.), the Rainbow Sage map sucks as usual, but aside from that I do like most of the other maps, either despite or because of their gimmicks. The overabundance of ninjas tends to frustrate maps quite often as they tend to get enough strength that they can actually do damage even in lower difficulties that it makes you wonder if Hoshido is supposed to be the weaker nation or not. The final two maps being stuck together is also frustrating, making the possibility of screwing it up more concerning.

It really does make using certain units undoable (I had to use Peri over Arthur or Nyx for example. Conquest is kind of cruel sometimes.) without justifying it too barring DLC, which is a shame. I do get having issues with it. Guess some of the appeal is that it's harsher, people seem to ignore Birthright for the reason that it is pretty generic with the gameplay. Considering Conquest the best route in Fates for gameplay isn't saying much.

[Armagon]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

*Kotaro and his ridiculously high evade stat (the underlying issue I have with all of Conquest). His chapter itself is no walk in the park with ninjas nerfing you from every direction but then you come to this bastard who can attack from two squares away and dodge absolutely everything while healing. And he will double most of all your units and doesn't have a shabby defensive stat so actually making any profit on his HP loss is a complete gamble. You could get him to swap to his magic shuriken which reduces his avoid but he'll only use that if one of your units has less res than defense and good luck to a unit that can survive two hits against  that. Hope you have wary fighter by that point (because I didn't). Seriously as a stand alone unit he's possibly the most troublesome enemy I've come across in the entire series, final bosses included.

*The kitsune chapter where they inexplicably get the ability to become untouchable whenever they want. Plus they have pass which means you can't kill them and they can just traipse right through your front lines and kill your squishy units at the back. The strategy here is obvious, try to wall them off using every unit you have at the river and when they starts to fail, fall back and create a box with your more vulnerable units in the centre. But even when you know exactly what you have to do, success just plain isn't guaranteed because there's so many of them, most have life & death meaning they're dealing massive damage and worst of all, like everyone else, they have high evade rates. Since they're invincible every other turn you absolutely need to hit and need to kill on almost every attack. When I played this chapter I could literally see no alternative strategy or tactic to improve my odds. It was basically doing the exact same plan over and over again until eventually I succeeded.

*Coming right off the Kitsune chapter you have Fuuga's fun house. Winds blow you every which way meaning you have to be super careful where you put absolutely anyone. Potentially fun but in effect it just encouraged me to idle most of my army in the starting position and just carefully follow the narrow path with a single set of units that could take the enemies one at a time and avoid the winds. Didn't find it nearly as obnoxious when I replayed it on Revelations. Don't know if that's just because I was used to the gimmick or because it comes much earlier in that route where mistakes are less punishing. Oh yeah and like everything else in Conquest, the tile Fuuga fights you from gives him a massive evade boost. At least he's not ridiculously strong or fast so he's not particularly lethal but that just makes him a slog to kill as you miss every other hit.

*Then, the worst chapter in the game comes. Iago sitting in the center of the map with his hacked skills and hacked class that lets him contentiously spam status staves. I tried going to left route first but found that the threat of long range weapons and Iago freezing or weakening my units made it just way too dangerous for the majority of my army. The right route was certainly more manageable but then in either case the army of berserkers just waiting at the bottom are an absolute nightmare to deal with. Trying to lore them outside of Iago's bullshit range is clearly the best method of dealing with them but even taking on two at a time in that corridor is challenging because these things hit like a freaking tank and suck up hits like one too with a non negligible crit rate. I think the designers genuinely expected you to lose units on this map since they give you a revival stave and there's only one other chapter left in the game (which as I've said, is actually designed well with enemies putting pressure on you from all directions, an area of affect attack that is dangerous but counterable). I don't think I had an S Ranked unit to use it though since I reclassed my healers to be more combat viable.

Pretty much everyone agrees that these are the worst chapters in Conquest. I don't know about Ch.25 but these chapters are pretty much hated in the community (from what i have seen). Of them, Ch.17 is definitely the worst offender. I hated that map so much. Took me like an hour to get to Kotaro because of all the Ninjas, only to have him crit me. I didn't touch the game for a week after that.

I enjoyed Conquest and i do think it has the best gameplay in the series. But it does have it's own bullshit maps. These maps rank up there with Thracia Ch.24x, Binding Blade Ch.21 and Blazing Blade (Eliwood mode) Ch.27 for the most bullshit maps in the series.

[Jotari]

12 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Pretty much everyone agrees that these are the worst chapters in Conquest. I don't know about Ch.25 but these chapters are pretty much hated in the community (from what i have seen). Of them, Ch.17 is definitely the worst offender. I hated that map so much. Took me like an hour to get to Kotaro because of all the Ninjas, only to have him crit me. I didn't touch the game for a week after that.

I enjoyed Conquest and i do think it has the best gameplay in the series. But it does have it's own bullshit maps. These maps rank up there with Thracia Ch.24x, Binding Blade Ch.21 and Blazing Blade (Eliwood mode) Ch.27 for the most bullshit maps in the series.

I admit that it might be a case of just remembering the worst and not appreciating the best, that's why I wanted to play it a second time before ranting. The thing is though, that aside from the three Takumi maps I mentioned, none of the other maps in Conquest were particularly engaging for me. They ranged from stupid cheap to just sort of bland. Even when they were trying to do something different. Like the poison vial Ryoma map near the start of the game. Break pots to gets buffs or poison. That was just sort of...nothing. I walked through that map just being careful of the enemies. It might have made me reset a few times but I was never like "wow, I am enjoying myself with this". Other maps are just like the Azura dance scene, same map as BIrthright except you play it in reverse against some nameless mooks. Even if the story isn't great in any of the routes, at least Birthright tried to increase the tension there by having Xander and Garon on the field (even if in essence you could just escape on like the second turn). For me, when Conquest isn't being annoying it's mostly just being there...

Edited November 20, 2017 by Jotari

[DragonFlames]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

This is a thread I've been thinking of making for a while now. But I've been waiting to replay Conquest, just to give it a fair chance. But I've come to realize that I'll probably never replay it. It's just too daunting and there's so many games out there I'd just rather play. The bottom line is that Conquest just didn't do it for me. And I'm not talking about the poorly justified story. I'm talking about the gameplay. I hear a lot of people praising it as the best (or at least one of the better) in the series but for me it had some of the most artificial bullshit not seen since Thracia (and I like Thracia).

Okay, before I get ranting I'll just say what I did like about Conquest. That early game defense map at the port that's heavily praised, that deserves it. That's a really tightly constructed level that forces you to use everything you have. The late game level where you're assaulting the castle is also great as the enemy genuinely plays defensively which is something we rarely see in the series. And then the final map worked really well, probably proving once and for all that the last chapter in a Fire Emblem game should be designed more around the map itself rather than the final boss (hold on a tick, all the chapters I just listed were the Takumi chapters...huh, I honestly didn't notice that until now).

But when I think of Conquest, those three chapters aren't the things that stand out in my mind. I immediately think of much more numerous things that just come across as frustratingly unfair or just plain bland. The stand outs in in play order.

*Kotaro and his ridiculously high evade stat (the underlying issue I have with all of Conquest). His chapter itself is no walk in the park with ninjas nerfing you from every direction but then you come to this bastard who can attack from two squares away and dodge absolutely everything while healing. And he will double most of all your units and doesn't have a shabby defensive stat so actually making any profit on his HP loss is a complete gamble. You could get him to swap to his magic shuriken which reduces his avoid but he'll only use that if one of your units has less res than defense and good luck to a unit that can survive two hits against  that. Hope you have wary fighter by that point (because I didn't). Seriously as a stand alone unit he's possibly the most troublesome enemy I've come across in the entire series, final bosses included.

*The kitsune chapter where they inexplicably get the ability to become untouchable whenever they want. Plus they have pass which means you can't kill them and they can just traipse right through your front lines and kill your squishy units at the back. The strategy here is obvious, try to wall them off using every unit you have at the river and when they starts to fail, fall back and create a box with your more vulnerable units in the centre. But even when you know exactly what you have to do, success just plain isn't guaranteed because there's so many of them, most have life & death meaning they're dealing massive damage and worst of all, like everyone else, they have high evade rates. Since they're invincible every other turn you absolutely need to hit and need to kill on almost every attack. When I played this chapter I could literally see no alternative strategy or tactic to improve my odds. It was basically doing the exact same plan over and over again until eventually I succeeded.

*Coming right off the Kitsune chapter you have Fuuga's fun house. Winds blow you every which way meaning you have to be super careful where you put absolutely anyone. Potentially fun but in effect it just encouraged me to idle most of my army in the starting position and just carefully follow the narrow path with a single set of units that could take the enemies one at a time and avoid the winds. Didn't find it nearly as obnoxious when I replayed it on Revelations. Don't know if that's just because I was used to the gimmick or because it comes much earlier in that route where mistakes are less punishing. Oh yeah and like everything else in Conquest, the tile Fuuga fights you from gives him a massive evade boost. At least he's not ridiculously strong or fast so he's not particularly lethal but that just makes him a slog to kill as you miss every other hit.

*Skipping ahead to Ryoma's chapter. Are you meant to take on both those pathways at once? Because my army certainly wasn't strong enough to go in both directions (maybe I put too much exp into Corrin because she was able to kill Ryoma at will in this chapter). You have the corridor of death on the right side and something that's not as easily described but still majorly difficult on the left side. Ninjas are absolutely everywhere nerfing your units back to the stone age (and I hear on lunatic they also stack the debuff effects which sounds ridiculous). Seems the only option is to take things at a snails pace and wait doe the debuffs to wear off. But that's not what annoys me most. What annoys really pissess me off about this chapter, is that literally hours of trying to activate both gates at once and finally achieving my goal, the tiles in the center of the arena that were stopping Corrin and Ryoma from killing each other suddenly change to make both of them much more lethal. The game said nothing about this, it just gave me the impression that it would let the rest of my army into this area. But then Ryoma turns from a joke to something that can actually kill my 20/20 Corrin. I try to run away but immediately, on his first attack, he proc Astra and kills me. Reset and just kill Ryoma up front skipping the entirety of the chapter. Simpler, less risky but clearly not the way the chapter is intended to be played.

*Then, the worst chapter in the game comes. Iago sitting in the center of the map with his hacked skills and hacked class that lets him contentiously spam status staves. I tried going to left route first but found that the threat of long range weapons and Iago freezing or weakening my units made it just way too dangerous for the majority of my army. The right route was certainly more manageable but then in either case the army of berserkers just waiting at the bottom are an absolute nightmare to deal with. Trying to lore them outside of Iago's bullshit range is clearly the best method of dealing with them but even taking on two at a time in that corridor is challenging because these things hit like a freaking tank and suck up hits like one too with a non negligible crit rate. I think the designers genuinely expected you to lose units on this map since they give you a revival stave and there's only one other chapter left in the game (which as I've said, is actually designed well with enemies putting pressure on you from all directions, an area of affect attack that is dangerous but counterable). I don't think I had an S Ranked unit to use it though since I reclassed my healers to be more combat viable.

I'm actually in the same boat as you. The parts of the quote I bolded are major reasons why I honestly can't understand why people praise this as having the best gameplay in the series. That honor goes to Path of Radiance, in my opinion. I would have said Radiant Dawn, but that game falls short because of a point I also hold against Conquest and the entirety of Fates in general, but we'll get to that.

Adding to the fact that enemies have hacked skill and insane avoid and Speed is the fact that Conquest's units aren't exactly great at hitting things. It's like for any class in Nohr, there's a hard counter for it in Hoshido, as is evident in Birthright. Examples include Kinshi Knight VS. any Wyvern, fast and dodgy Hoshidan anything VS everything else Nohrian. One of the only reasons Birthright is much easier than Conquest (aside from the enemies not having hacked skill combinations) is the fact that Birthright's classes and units are generally far superior to Conquest's (compare Takumi to Leo, for example).
Heroes are inferior to Swordmasters aside from a slightly higher Defence.
Adventurers get trashed by Master Ninja's.
Horses get doubled by pretty much anything that isn't an Oni Chieftain. And then there's the Kitsune hell that on its own makes any horse-mounted class basically unusable.
Kinshi Knights make every other flier obsolete, even when you use one of your own. Seriously, if you make Mozu, Selena and / or Shigure into Kinshi Knights, you can bench Camilla, Beruka and / or Percy without any second thought.
Sure, Nohrian classes are meant to be "tanky" instead of fast, but I'd argue that even that is quite the stretch, because if Conquest has taught me one thing, it's this: NOTHING is tanky. There are NO tanks in this route. NONE. The only ones you would think to be tanks (Xander, Effie and Benny) will be shut down by Master Ninja's and their Shuriken + Poison Strike shenanigans faster than you can say "shouldn't have brought the spineless crown prince".
Let me put it this way: When you have to use FOUR units to kill a single Spear Master and there's still three more Spear Masters, a Basara AND two Snipers right next to him, waiting to kill you, you KNOW you did something wrong in terms of class / unit balancing.

The other thing I want to add about Fates in general is a thing I have had problems with ever since my first playthrough of Birthright. The unit balance in this game is shit. I can't even call it anything else. It's the same reason why I don't think Radiant Dawn has the series' best gameplay.
The unit balance in this game is so bad, so utterly broken, that some units become completely non-viable on higher difficulties, unless you jump through some crazy loops, get crazy lucky with your level ups or abuse the DLC. Examples for this are Nyx, Odin, Arthur, any of the first gen Sky Knights, Peri, Hinata and probably more. (notice how most of these come from Conquest?)
"Any of these your favourite character? Well, jokes on you, because we are IntSys and we're telling you who to use and who to bench! And you WILL use our wank material the Royals, otherwise the game will become next to impossible to beat!" - probably a developer of this game quoted by a very salty fan of Nyx who thinks it's a crying shame they made Fates' deepest, most interesting character into one of the games' worst units.

While the above statement might be a slight exaggeration, I do think the devs fully intended to restrict the viability of certain units in favour of their wank material  the Royal scum. Gone are the days of everyone being somewhat viable from the word "go", hello developer favouritism!
And the worst part about this is that they didn't even try to hide it. If they did, they did a terrible job of doing so, honestly.

55 minutes ago, Jotari said:

 For me, when Conquest isn't being annoying it's mostly just being there...

I feel the same way. Some of the maps were just utter slogs, others were cheap and the ones who weren't riddled with some stupid, annoying gimmick that only exists to get in your way and otherwise adds nothing to the map or the strategy of it, were just plain boring. Though this is true for most of Fates, not just Conquest. 

Aaand then we get into the music... Oh, god, why? With the exception of "A Dark Fall" and "Justice RIP" (which is a Hoshidan theme), the Conquest map themes SUCK. Listening to these tracks for more than two minutes at a time is like nails on a chalkboard and considering how long you spend on some of these maps... ugh. Let's just say I'm happy you can turn the in-game music off and play your own stuff over it, otherwise I would have never even attempted to play Conquest a second time and beat it on Hard Mode.

Edited November 20, 2017 by DragonFlames

[joshcja]

90% of your complaints are resolved by a single charge of freeze/enfeeble/entrap. The rest are solved by good movement and stack.

Every map past 15 sans 22/18/25 runs on a turn based cycle, this includes Iago's stave-of-the-day. 22 and 18 run on tile triggers, 25 is a one turn skip if you don't want silence.

There are tanks in CQ, their names are VantageSorc!Odin and the Lonely hearts club, Sol!MN Silias/Soliel, and EverydamnTalisman!Xander.

17/20 are like the best maps in the game, you cray cray.

DragonFlames: BR is easier than CQ because it happens on flat featureless maps vs FE:8 stat enemies. Try the BRinCQ hack sometime if you think that the BR cast is remotely competitive. 

Edit: First rule of Lunatic Reverse is do not talk about Lunatic Reverse damnit.

Edited November 20, 2017 by joshcja

[Armagon]

20 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

I honestly can't understand why people praise this as having the best gameplay in the series. That honor goes to Path of Radiance, in my opinion.

I respect your opinion but i disagree. Now, i haven't beaten Path of Radiance yet but so far, it's been pretty easy. It's not Sacred Stones but it hasn't really challenged me in anyway. Whereas, aside from a few chapters, Conquest was just the right mix between challenging and fair. 

 

24 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

The unit balance in this game is shit.

Only on Revelation tbh. The unit balance in Conquest is comparable to that of Binding Blade imo, except it's not filled with Est-types that i would still use. The unit balance in Birthright is the most fair.

26 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

The unit balance in this game is so bad, so utterly broken, that some units become completely non-viable on higher difficulties, unless you jump through some crazy loops, get crazy lucky with your level ups or abuse the DLC. Examples for this are Nyx, Odin, Arthur, any of the first gen Sky Knights, Peri, Hinata and probably more. (notice how most of these come from Conquest?)

This really only applies to Revelation though. I mean, yeah, Nyx and Odin suck, but magic classes in general got the short end of the stick in this game. Peri doesn't suck, but Silas is probably a Paladin by the time she joins and Xander outclasses both of them. 

 

28 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Horses get doubled by pretty much anything that isn't an Oni Chieftain.

This is news to me. My horse units were pretty fine when i played Conquest. 

 

28 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Adding to the fact that enemies have hacked skill and insane avoid and Speed

This is an exaggeration. If you want hacked stats, look at Awakening's Lunatic+.

30 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

There are NO tanks in this route. NONE. The only ones you would think to be tanks (Xander, Effie and Benny) will be shut down by Master Ninja's and their Shuriken + Poison Strike shenanigans faster than you can say "shouldn't have brought the spineless crown prince".

This is only an issue in Ch.17.

30 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Let me put it this way: When you have to use FOUR units to kill a single Spear Master and there's still three more Spear Masters, a Basara AND two Snipers right next to him, waiting to kill you, you KNOW you did something wrong in terms of class / unit balancing.

This has never happened to me.

Honestly, if this upsets you, then don't play the hardest difficulty in New Mystery of the Emblem. I hear that New Mystery's hardest difficulty is harder than anything Lunatic Conquest throws at you.

33 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Aaand then we get into the music... Oh, god, why? With the exception of "A Dark Fall" and "Justice RIP" (which is a Hoshidan theme), the Conquest map themes SUCK. Listening to these tracks for more than two minutes at a time is like nails on a chalkboard and considering how long you spend on some of these maps... ugh.

You really hate Fates, don't you? You're honestly the first person i've seen who has called the soundtrack in Conquest bad.

[NinjaMonkey]

44 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

The unit balance in this game is shit. I can't even call it anything else. It's the same reason why I don't think Radiant Dawn has the series' best gameplay.

You say that but say that PoR has the best gameplay, a game in which most, if not all, mounted units are OP compared to infantry units. How in the hell can you say that PoR has "good gameplay balance"?

[joshcja]

8 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

You say that but say that PoR has the best gameplay, a game in which most, if not all, mounted units are OP compared to infantry units. How in the hell can you say that PoR has "good gameplay balance"?

Ok, in all fairness. This arguement is FE in a shellnut.

Past that... PoR was the prettiest FE before Echies so it's got the best gameplay? Duh.

Edited November 20, 2017 by joshcja

[Sock]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

And is anyone else out there in the same boat as me when it comes to Conquest?

I recommend replaying it. Conquest did the same thing to me: those exact chapters scared me away for a month or two. Such bullshit, fucking hated it. But when I replayed it, naturally it was easier since I knew what to expect. Those bad maps weren't so bad, and the "stupid" gimmicks are refreshing and kinda fun.

[Aircalipoor]

I always disliked Conquest gameplay. It was too reliant on gimmicks and "puzzles" and they threw in too many changes in the gameplay. It didn't felt like I experienced a Fire Emblem game and more like a Fire Emblem Hack that wanted you to forget everything conventional.

I posted some of my critics one year ago and nothing had changed:

My issue with the gameplay in Fates is that it has too many factors you always have to consider at every moment. Next to strenght/magic, the weapons might and defense/resistence, you have to consider weapon rang bonus, skills (your own, your allies, you enemy, your enemies allies), stat reductions, terrain, double attacks. Since the enemies are usually in groups, you also have to know who moves first and how he behaves. Will the Ninja go for your tank? Will the unit attack or position themself for the attack stance? Will the unit attack and move, only move or retreat?

I know, this was always a thing in Fire Emblem, especially on the highest difficulty modes. But there were never that many factors to consider. I tend to spend minutes just calculating all the incoming attacks and I still get surprised in the enemy phase.

I have many other problems with Conquests gameplay (the exp gain is too strict; no creative side objections like recruitment or huge treasuries; getting gold and treasure chest is always the same and could have been skipped after all; no chapter specific shops, you can always buy everything at every time; too much reliance on the chapter specific gimmicks; My Castle allows support grinding; many children chapters are ridiculously easy and allow for grinding; E-and D weapon rangs make a large part of reclassing useless; children aren't a great improvement over the parents and lack supports; it isn't possible to capture and to support with Hoshido characters and plot relevant bosses; every weapon type is included in the weapon triangle with less room for weapon triangle neutrality.

Then there is the thing that the chapters and they objectives aren't really connected through plot, like you have no escape map at a critical point in the game, no big battle on the fields, followed with the conquest of the enemies castle. Instead each chapter is disconnected from the other. But this is not only a gameplay thing but also a plot thing. And I won't start talking about the plot, the setting and the characters.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Aircalipoor

[Alastor15243]

I heavily disagree with anything in Conquest being bullshit or unfair. They're extremely up-front with everything you have to deal with, and I think it really says something that I could have my first runthrough of the game be a hard mode ironman run and I didn't lose a single unit when I'm hardly what I'd call an "expert" fire emblem player.

The four levels you mentioned as being bad design I would say aren't even bad, and 17 and 20 are among my favorites. 17 really forces you to think about how you set up your dual strikes and when you activate your dragon veins if you want to avoid getting debuffed by the ninjas, and 20 is an interesting exercise in thinking ahead and intelligent unit placement. To be fair, though, I did chapter 20 with an added rule that there was a time limit I had to trigger the dragon veins to extend, so I concede that what you say encouraging turtling rather than discouraging it might be true without be noticing, I'll have to give it further consideration. The kitsune one is really just an exercise in finding the best time, place and manner to strike, and then working out good strategies to bait out the remaining stationary groups without letting them swarm you. As for 26, it's a question of knowing who to send where and when you can afford to put your units in Iago's range, and I thought it was pretty fun.

Frankly, of all the ways a fire emblem game could be "unfairly difficult", I think Conquest's way of doing it is among the best ways the series has ever done. Not overwhelming you with statistics or sheer numbers, but by throwing in dangerous gimmicks or sets of skills and enemy formations that require clever thinking to solve. Conquest's bullshit makes you think, and it does it far far more than the bullshit of any other game in the entire series.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Alastor15243

[Interdimensional Observer]

I generally acknowledge CQ is good. However because of its difficulty, I do find it hard to run through multiple times- but on the other hand it's actually challenging for good reasons, unlike Birthright. Birthright is either too easy (hello Leo battle), or is hard because it throws just too many strong enemies at you on Lunatic (hello Shura, Camilla 2, Iago 2, and C27). CQ challenging, if gimmicky at times, but more chapters than not its the right kind of difficulty. Because it's so rigorous, it makes it a bit harder to do multiple runs though. Fortunately Awakening and Fates give plenty of ways to adjust the difficulty, and I'm not counting paid DLC.

The Fuga fight is plain awful (my Males only Hard run and my lone Lunatic run have stopped here), as is Kotaro's ninja den of doom. But otherwise it isn't too bad. The Kitsune battle is lazy though in being one type of enemies for the entire thing.

CQ on some of its annoying maps gives you a cheat- you don't need to go both ways in Ryoma 2, the Stairway can be done with a single paired unit, the Kitsune needs just a paired trained Effie, Benny, or reclassed Camilla or Xander with a Beast Killer and some healing items to handle. Iago is merciful enough to use his staffs on a cycle which lets you avoid the worse. Sure not all the craziness can be fixed, like the Hexing Rod, but a good deal is manageable.

I'll admit using some units is quite challenging, since enemy stats are high unlike Thracia, and that really we shouldn't have been given Nyx with her bases- her Mag and Spd needed to be blossoming off the bat. Trainees, although strategic in that you're sacrificing in the short term for gain in the long term, just aren't really suited to CQ and should have been largely done away with. Not to say everyone should have broken bases, but they should be at least somewhat competent at their role, Nyx isn't a competent magial class cannon off the bat.

CQ, in being challenging, forces you to use a bunch of units whether you like them or not, since if you could just use anyone, things wouldn't possibly be so challenging. Also, letting enemies use skills outside of their class or even in their class is just a leveling of a playing field. You can use skills from any classes, why not they? Inevitable End is broken, but that's about it.

 

3 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

Kinshi Knights make every other flier obsolete, even when you use one of your own. Seriously, if you make Mozu, Selena and / or Shigure into Kinshi Knights, you can bench Camilla, Beruka and / or Percy without any second thought.

What world do you live in? Kinshi Knights are awful compared to Wyvern Lords!

They have decent Speed, but dump the rest in Res, Skill, and Luck , which is awful. They're physically frail and weak. To serve as a true anti-air monstrosity, not only would they need really good Defense and HP, but they'd need Point Blank or the Mini Bow since enemy fliers typically come in groups and normally you won't have many Kinshi. And the whole point to Kinshi anti-air is the idea it can intercept and destroy enemy fliers before they get in range of your groundlings. One Kinshi can't do that.

What is good about them, Air Superiority? Like dodgetanking is viable in Fates outside of Ryoma most of the time? And Amaterasu doesn't exist for 95% of the game.

Camilla is has some of the highest growths in Fates, RNG screwing you aside, which it might have. Percy has low Strength, but the rest of his stats are solid. Beruka is crappy statwise, but the Wyvern Rider family is highly mobile and comes with nice skills like Savage Blow and Defense Rally. Scarlet on BR is Camilla lite.

3 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

The unit balance in this game is so bad, so utterly broken, that some units become completely non-viable on higher difficulties, unless you jump through some crazy loops, get crazy lucky with your level ups or abuse the DLC. Examples for this are Nyx, Odin, Arthur, any of the first gen Sky Knights, Peri, Hinata and probably more. (notice how most of these come from Conquest?)

I will let you besmirk the rest, but Hinoka is not bad in the least! Subaki has nonexistent Speed growth, so he is bad beyond being a ferrybot. But Hinoka has wickedly high growths, RNG screwage aside again. Sky Knight being a crappy class in Fates, it holds her back vs. a reclass to Spear Fighter, but even within it she has more or less comparable stats to Mozu, and requires a lot less effort to use. Not to mention she can be one of those Kinshi Knights you find so broken. 

 

3 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

NOTHING is tanky. There are NO tanks in this route. NONE. The only ones you would think to be tanks (Xander, Effie and Benny) will be shut down by Master Ninja's and their Shuriken + Poison Strike shenanigans faster than you can say "shouldn't have brought the spineless crown prince".

What do you want, tanks that are invincible? Xander has tanked Kotaro's fight plenty for me. All you have to do is get his (or Benny's, Effie's, or Percy's) defense so high that even when debuffed enemies can't scratch him outside of Poison Strike. Poison Strike can't kill by itself. Of course, having a Xander so tanky means the enemies will outright ignore him barring a Lunge into enemies that can hurt him. But that's a smart AI for you! It'd be stupid if they actually tried to attack him. 

Perhaps Poison Strike was too commonplace (and this too applies for certain Seal skills), but it does serve as a check, different from the one mages and effective weapons serve, on high Def units. Invincible tanking you can do endlessly without worry = nonstrategic tanking.

3 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

I would have said Radiant Dawn, but that game falls short because of a point I also hold against Conquest and the entirety of Fates in general, but we'll get to that.

The broken Laguz Royals and other units, the severely handicapped Vika and Fiona et al., and the Part system making availability a real issue and forcing you to use certain characters?

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Then, the worst chapter in the game comes. Iago sitting in the center of the map with his hacked skills and hacked class that lets him contentiously spam status staves. I tried going to left route first but found that the threat of long range weapons and Iago freezing or weakening my units made it just way too dangerous for the majority of my army. The right route was certainly more manageable but then in either case the army of berserkers just waiting at the bottom are an absolute nightmare to deal with. Trying to lore them outside of Iago's bullshit range is clearly the best method of dealing with them but even taking on two at a time in that corridor is challenging because these things hit like a freaking tank and suck up hits like one too with a non negligible crit rate. I think the designers genuinely expected you to lose units on this map since they give you a revival stave and there's only one other chapter left in the game (which as I've said, is actually designed well with enemies putting pressure on you from all directions, an area of affect attack that is dangerous but counterable). I don't think I had an S Ranked unit to use it though since I reclassed my healers to be more combat viable.

 

 

Lol funny you mention this

 

This is EASILLY the best chapter in all of Conquest. Probably Top 10 of all chapter in the entire series even. If theres any reason to play over Conquest, its this chapter, being on the same level as Ch20 of New Mystery imo

 

@Interdimensional Observer The real thing about tank in Conquest is that if you don't one shot/round your enemies at the same time they simply are not tanking.  Poison Blow doesn't activate if the enemy is dead, so that really leaves you with ninja's 4 stats debuff which isn't enough to actually soften them up

Edited November 20, 2017 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[Jotari]

46 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I generally acknowledge CQ is good. However because of its difficulty, I do find it hard to run through multiple times- but on the other hand it's actually challenging for good reasons, unlike Birthright. Birthright is either too easy (hello Leo battle), or is hard because it throws just too many strong enemies at you on Lunatic (hello Shura, Camilla 2, Iago 2, and C27). CQ challenging, if gimmicky at times, but more chapters than not its the right kind of difficulty. Because it's so rigorous, it makes it a bit harder to do multiple runs though. Fortunately Awakening and Fates give plenty of ways to adjust the difficulty, and I'm not counting paid DLC.

The Fuga fight is plain awful (my Males only Hard run and my lone Lunatic run have stopped here), as is Kotaro's ninja den of doom. But otherwise it isn't too bad. The Kitsune battle is lazy though in being one type of enemies for the entire thing.

CQ on some of its annoying maps gives you a cheat- you don't need to go both ways in Ryoma 2, the Stairway can be done with a single paired unit, the Kitsune needs just a paired trained Effie, Benny, or reclassed Camilla or Xander with a Beast Killer and some healing items to handle. Iago is merciful enough to use his staffs on a cycle which lets you avoid the worse. Sure not all the craziness can be fixed, like the Hexing Rod, but a good deal is manageable.

I'll admit using some units is quite challenging, since enemy stats are high unlike Thracia, and that really we shouldn't have been given Nyx with her bases- her Mag and Spd needed to be blossoming off the bat. Trainees, although strategic in that you're sacrificing in the short term for gain in the long term, just aren't really suited to CQ and should have been largely done away with. Not to say everyone should have broken bases, but they should be at least somewhat competent at their role, Nyx isn't a competent magial class cannon off the bat.

CQ, in being challenging, forces you to use a bunch of units whether you like them or not, since if you could just use anyone, things wouldn't possibly be so challenging. Also, letting enemies use skills outside of their class or even in their class is just a leveling of a playing field. You can use skills from any classes, why not they? Inevitable End is broken, but that's about it.

 

What world do you live in? Kinshi Knights are awful compared to Wyvern Lords!

They have decent Speed, but dump the rest in Res, Skill, and Luck , which is awful. They're physically frail and weak. To serve as a true anti-air monstrosity, not only would they need really good Defense and HP, but they'd need Point Blank or the Mini Bow since enemy fliers typically come in groups and normally you won't have many Kinshi. And the whole point to Kinshi anti-air is the idea it can intercept and destroy enemy fliers before they get in range of your groundlings. One Kinshi can't do that.

What is good about them, Air Superiority? Like dodgetanking is viable in Fates outside of Ryoma most of the time? And Amaterasu doesn't exist for 95% of the game.

Camilla is has some of the highest growths in Fates, RNG screwing you aside, which it might have. Percy has low Strength, but the rest of his stats are solid. Beruka is crappy statwise, but the Wyvern Rider family is highly mobile and comes with nice skills like Savage Blow and Defense Rally. Scarlet on BR is Camilla lite.

I will let you besmirk the rest, but Hinoka is not bad in the least! Subaki has nonexistent Speed growth, so he is bad beyond being a ferrybot. But Hinoka has wickedly high growths, RNG screwage aside again. Sky Knight being a crappy class in Fates, it holds her back vs. a reclass to Spear Fighter, but even within it she has more or less comparable stats to Mozu, and requires a lot less effort to use. Not to mention she can be one of those Kinshi Knights you find so broken. 

 

What do you want, tanks that are invincible? Xander has tanked Kotaro's fight plenty for me. All you have to do is get his (or Benny's, Effie's, or Percy's) defense so high that even when debuffed enemies can't scratch him outside of Poison Strike. Poison Strike can't kill by itself. Of course, having a Xander so tanky means the enemies will outright ignore him barring a Lunge into enemies that can hurt him. But that's a smart AI for you! It'd be stupid if they actually tried to attack him. 

Perhaps Poison Strike was too commonplace (and this too applies for certain Seal skills), but it does serve as a check, different from the one mages and effective weapons serve, on high Def units. Invincible tanking you can do endlessly without worry = nonstrategic tanking.

The broken Laguz Royals and other units, the severely handicapped Vika and Fiona et al., and the Part system making availability a real issue and forcing you to use certain characters?

Poison strike can't kill you by itself. But being at 1 hp kind of sets you up for basically any other enemy to kill.

4 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

 

Lol funny you mention this

 

This is EASILLY the best chapter in all of Conquest. Probably Top 10 of all chapter in the entire series even. If theres any reason to play over Conquest, its this chapter, being on the same level as Ch20 of New Mystery imo

What do you like about it?

Edited November 20, 2017 by Jotari

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

27 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Poison strike can't kill you by itself. But being at 1 hp kind of sets you up for basically any other enemy to kill.

What do you like about it?

The chapter legitimately have no gimmick, its just a room after room with different enemy composition, forcing you to figure out the exact unit combination to deal with them. Iago controlling Areas of a map in a predictable pattern serving as an active deterent is a change of pace from the usually useless boss. The enemy composition isn't bullshit the way Endgame was.

The larger picture of the map is an intense Stave Wars, something that the series did not have since Thracia

Like my last playthrough of the map was me checking the enemy ranges one by one, then i just say Freeze there, Entrap there, Silence that, enfeeble this etc, which is a tons of fun. The dev probably designed this chapter as the one spot where you unload those staves acquired throughout the game and it shows

Edited November 20, 2017 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

The chapter legitimately have no gimmick, its just a room after room with different enemy composition, forcing you to figure out the exact unit combination to deal with them. Iago controlling Areas of a map in a predictable pattern serving as an active deterent is a change of pace from the usually useless boss. The enemy composition isn't bullshit the way Endgame was.

The larger picture of the map is an intense Stave Wars, something that the series did not have since Thracia

Like my last playthrough of the map was me checking the enemy ranges one by one, then i just say Freeze there, Entrap there, Silence that, enfeeble this etc, which is a tons of fun. The dev probably designed this chapter as the one spot where you unload those staves acquired throughout the game and it shows

So you didn't like the Endgame? That's funny, I thought the end game was great in how it let you bait enemies in certain configurations and utilized the terrain for blocking, while still keeping the pressure on with reinforcements from the sides (could have done without the hex rod Maid though, that just encourages me to skip over the last section and just kill Takumi). I haven't replayed Conquest but I have replayed the end game more than once. I find that the enemies in Iago's chapter basically just bum rush you in a featureless corridor. The stave wars idea might work in theory but in practice you have no idea they're going to throw a map like that at you at the end of the game (unlike Thracia where it's an element of the game and never suddenly becomes overbearing) so you have no reason to hoard all your staves until the second last chapter. Though if I ever do replay Conquest I'll be pretty sure to keep quite a few for that chapter.

[Armagon]

On the subject of Conquest's Endgame, i actually think it's one the worst Endgames in the series. The Endgame is challenging for sure, but that challenge is made artificial due to the fact that, if you reset/Corrin dies, you're forced to go back to Ch.27, which is a challenging chapter itself. Birthright and Revelation do the same as well, but they aren't as remotely challenging as Conquest's Endgame.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

On the subject of Conquest's Endgame, i actually think it's one the worst Endgames in the series. The Endgame is challenging for sure, but that challenge is made artificial due to the fact that, if you reset/Corrin dies, you're forced to go back to Ch.27, which is a challenging chapter itself. Birthright and Revelation do the same as well, but they aren't as remotely challenging as Conquest's Endgame.

They pulled the same trick in the Game Boy Advance games too I'm pretty sure. Only, much like Birthright, the last map is just a straight up fight with the final boss. It's more egregious with Fates as they actually give the final map a separate chapter title and give you the preparation menu. I agree that it's an unnecessary feature that just wastes time. At least chapter 27 isn't too hard to cheese by just pairing Corrin with a general and soloing the map.

[Armagon]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

They pulled the same trick in the Game Boy Advance games too I'm pretty sure.

Only Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones did this. However, the former was still just one chapter. The latter did the same as well......but it's Sacred Stones.

Binding Blade didn't do this but it even if it did, it wouldn't have mattered, because Binding Blade's Endgame is hilariously easy.

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It's more egregious with Fates as they actually give the final map a separate chapter title and give you the preparation menu.

Fates does give you the preparation menu, but in the case of the GBA games, you didn't really need it.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

Only Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones did this. However, the former was still just one chapter. The latter did the same as well......but it's Sacred Stones.

Binding Blade didn't do this but it even if it did, it wouldn't have mattered, because Binding Blade's Endgame is hilariously easy.

Fates does give you the preparation menu, but in the case of the GBA games, you didn't really need it.

All of the GBA final bosses are laughably easy.

[FoxyGrandpa]

I thought Conquest was p. good, though not as good as games like Shadow Dragon and FE7. I liked most of the maps, thought the story was decent if flawed, liked most of the charcters, and loved the soundtrack. Biggest issue I have with the game (on hard, haven't played normal in ages) is skills. Enemy skillsets are ridiculous and skew the game too much into their favor. I think Dual Strike is a bit overpowered in its current state as well since it essentially lets the enemy double you everytime. 

Lack of Save-states / Mila's turnwheel also makes the game more frustrating to play than other games, but that's just a nitpick.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Armagon said:

On the subject of Conquest's Endgame, i actually think it's one the worst Endgames in the series. The Endgame is challenging for sure, but that challenge is made artificial due to the fact that, if you reset/Corrin dies, you're forced to go back to Ch.27, which is a challenging chapter itself. Birthright and Revelation do the same as well, but they aren't as remotely challenging as Conquest's Endgame.

That was bad. I get why they don't let you save between, to keep up the drama and narrative flow. But what they should've done is let you save during the prep screen in the Battle Save slots. That way you can't force yourself into an unwinnable position by being kept from saving over your pre-27 standard file.

[starburst]

It is interesting how different are the gameplay experiences among users.

I understand your feelings to some extent, yet various chapters and bosses that you mentioned are not the reason why I would complain about Conquest. And not because I am a Fire Emblem expert ('Conquest' was my first game in the series), but because I experienced them in a completely different way.

For example, on my first campaign, playing Conquest Normal, Chapter 17 was not particularly painful, most likely because Saizo had a triumphant march annihilating Master Ninjas and somehow (and unexpectedly) killed Kotaro. Thus I never had a bad memory of the chapter.

On the following campaigns, playing Conquest Hard Classic, I already had a better idea of the characters and the gameplay, and my approach to Chapter 17 succeeded. And I have kept repeating it every time. Nothing fancy, mind you, mostly turtling, forgetting about Saizo and cleaning the room starting from the south-east up to the north-west, and then coming  back for the boss. And while I have defeated Kotaro with multiple characters, Sniper Mozu never fails and Bow Knight Nina [daughter of Effie] is also quite effective.

All in all, I really liked reading your comments. They were a glimpse into the game through different eyes.

Edited November 21, 2017 by starburst