Banner: Sacred Memories

[Vaximillian]

A random Eirika alt instead of an actual new character is Ayra-sharing-banner-with-Eldigan-level of scummy. Now we are getting two new characters per banner (I was willing to suspend my disbelief with Zelgius even though HE IS THE SAME FUCKING BLACK KNIGHT EXCEPT WITH REDISTRIBUTED STATS AND NO HELMET) and this is a dangerous precedent. It has been a while since I have been this annoyed.

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, silveraura25 said:

It'd be fair if Falchion was the only weapon capable with it with a refinement option.

It'd be only somewhat fair only because Triangle Adept Nowi can one-hit kill every Falchion user that doesn't have Cancel Affinity. Cancel Affinity is the deal-breaker, though.

[Alkaid]

6 minutes ago, Nowi's Husband said:

You mean colored ones like red/blue/green dragon breaker, or just break all of them?  Cause that would be unfair to dragon emblem users if it broke all of them, it would be impossible to use the team if all your units got doubled and can't double back.  There's no horse/armor/flier/infantry breaker.

They're still infantry, but their breath weapons is what makes them dragons. I could see colored breath breakers being a thing as every weapon type but breaths have a breaker, though unlikely IS would really do it. Of course, there's so few dragons it'd be very specific to carry it when it works for only a few characters in the entire game, even fewer if divided by color. Blue breath breaker would literally only help beating Nowi (since who needs it for Ninian).

[redlight]

7 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

A random Eirika alt instead of an actual new character is Ayra-sharing-banner-with-Eldigan-level of scummy. Now we are getting two new characters per banner (I was willing to suspend my disbelief with Zelgius even though HE IS THE SAME FUCKING BLACK KNIGHT EXCEPT WITH REDISTRIBUTED STATS AND NO HELMET) and this is a dangerous precedent. It has been a while since I have been this annoyed.

At least they don't powercreep sword units this time with a new unit on a separate banner with old characters.

Look on the bright side. At least we didn't get Gheb. Though I'm a bit salty. Slightly saltier than Rhajat VG banner, but that was already meh in my opinion.

5 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

They're still infantry, but their breath weapons is what makes them dragons. I could see colored breath breakers being a thing as every weapon type but breaths have a breaker, though unlikely IS would really do it. Of course, there's so few dragons it'd be very specific to carry it when it works for only a few characters in the entire game, even fewer if divided by color. Blue breath breaker would literally only help beating Nowi (since who needs it for Ninian).

6 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It'd be only somewhat fair only because Triangle Adept Nowi can one-hit kill every Falchion user that doesn't have Cancel Affinity. Cancel Affinity is the deal-breaker, though.

Dragon slaying weapons and CA SS when?

Edited January 24, 2018 by silveraura25

[Vaximillian]

3 minutes ago, silveraura25 said:

Look on the bright side. At least we didn't get Gheb.

We aren’t safe anymore with the recent focus on overbeaten memes. Gheb will get Garm.

Edited January 24, 2018 by Vaximillian

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

A random Eirika alt instead of an actual new character is Ayra-sharing-banner-with-Eldigan-level of scummy. Now we are getting two new characters per banner (I was willing to suspend my disbelief with Zelgius even though HE IS THE SAME FUCKING BLACK KNIGHT EXCEPT WITH REDISTRIBUTED STATS AND NO HELMET) and this is a dangerous precedent. It has been a while since I have been this annoyed.

Ayra sharing a banner with Eldigan is the one reason I have as much respect for Eldigan as I do now. Otherwise, I'd still be sitting with only two copies of him gathering dust in the corner.

Also, I don't see why you're giving Zelgius special treatment because he is much less a different unit from the Black Knight as Gleipneirika is from Eirika.

 

I remember people screaming "dangerous precedent" back when Ayra and Sigurd got boosted stats, and nothing's come of it other than higher Arena scores and a bunch of grumbling. There have been no great shifts in the meta because of it (except at the very top of the Arena where scores determine the pool of characters you can expect to fight), and the player base hasn't really been up in flames over it after the first few times.

 

Just now, silveraura25 said:

Dragon slaying weapons and CA SS when?

As I said in the general discussion thread, after we get Halberd/Poleax and Firesweep Axe.

[Nowi's Husband]

I hope they never make a breaker that applies to all dragons regardless of color, I use Nowi/Fae/Young Tiki as my main arena team and if all three are rendered useless I would just quit the game. I've poured the bulk of my resources into them since I started the game and don't want them invalidated.  Dragon slaying weapons like Falchion and Naga are fair because I can still use WTA to beat them, and with Poison Dagger I can hit the lower defense stat of the dagger user and pump my speed high enough with multiple Drive Speeds and Rally Speed/Def to avoid being doubled.  But if someone like say Julia could double Young Tiki with a generic breaker and Young Tiki couldn't double back it would be just unfair. 

You don't even need a breaker to beat dragons when the AI controls them.  They get most of their power from SB and QR so if you bait them they are easy to beat since those only work on EP.  

Edited January 24, 2018 by Nowi's Husband

[Vaximillian]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Also, I don't see why you're giving Zelgius special treatment because he is much less a different unit from the Black Knight as Gleipneirika is from Eirika.

Because they technically are different characters, for one. Gleipnir Eirika is not a character. Gleipnir Eirika kills the chances of Selena and Knoll getting in.

[Mackc2]

12 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I remember people screaming "dangerous precedent" back when Ayra and Sigurd got boosted stats, and nothing's come of it other than higher Arena scores and a bunch of grumbling. There have been no great shifts in the meta because of it (except at the very top of the Arena where scores determine the pool of characters you can expect to fight), and the player base hasn't really been up in flames over it after the first few times.

The difference here is that the duplicate characters to most people affects the time they would have to wait to see the units they want to get in, people still grumble about 3 unit banners for the same reason, and this is effectively showing us we might start getting what is to them "two unit banners". Because lots of people care about the unpopular characters and this just kills their chance of seeing them 

I'm still pissed at the boosted BST because I found cases where units I like are completely outclassed by units I don't have, such as athena who is basically mia but with -1/2 in every stat and I am pissed that it makes a lot of older units noncompetitive 

Edited January 24, 2018 by Mackc2

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

Because they technically are different characters, for one. Gleipnir Eirika is not a character. Gleipnir Eirika kills the chances of Selena and Knoll getting in.

You mean like how Masked Marth and Lucina are different characters? Or Inigo and Laslow? Or Severa and Selena? Or Camus, Zeke, and Sirius?

Gleipneirika kills the chances of Knoll coming in with Gleipnir, but not Knoll in general, and doesn't touch Selena's chances at all.

I've personally always imagined Knoll to be the sort of character that would be added whenever they decide to finally either refresh the 3-star pool or start a new summon pool "season". And Selena is still most likely a Grand Hero Battle unit. And as much as they have been slow with Grand Hero Battles, that's what the feedback surveys are for.

[Mackc2]

I personally would have no problem with these alternates if they just went and dumped a lot of the unpopular characters in the 3-4* pool but they have shown no indication that they will ever do that 

[Vaximillian]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

You mean like how Masked Marth and Lucina are different characters? Or Inigo and Laslow? Or Severa and Selena? Or Camus, Zeke, and Sirius?

Gleipneirika kills the chances of Knoll coming in with Gleipnir, but not Knoll in general, and doesn't touch Selena's chances at all.

I've personally always imagined Knoll to be the sort of character that would be added whenever they decide to finally either refresh the 3-star pool or start a new summon pool "season". And Selena is still most likely a Grand Hero Battle unit. And as much as they have been slow with Grand Hero Battles, that's what the feedback surveys are for.

Yes, like all that you’ve mentioned. They all are technically different characters and don’t bother me.

Knoll isn’t coming because he isn’t a girl on whose popularity they can capitalise now that he lost the weapon he had the most sense to be added with. Eirika usurped Selena’s role as the Sacred Stones’ mage knight, and with Lyon GHB coming in a day, it is safe to assume her time won’t come any soon. I am very skeptical of them ever remembering 3-star summons are a thing. They are apparently even forgetting four-stars exist. How long until all units on the “new characters” banner are recycles of the existing ones? Sooner than I would have preferred, it seems.

[Cute Chao]

This banner somehow managed to kill any excitement I might have had. 

I'm so glad they managed to add all the worthy characters of sacred stones in - must have for Eirika to get in twice.

I think someone was so shocked they gave us a male weighted banner last time, they just desperately had to reverse it.

Sigh. At least I save my orbs.

And the longing for Cormag continues.

[Humanoid]

I guess I'm a lot less character-oriented than the average FEH player. Sure I have my likes and dislikes (mild dislikes but still) but I am overwhelmingly more interested in the *types* of unit in the banner. As a result I'm far more okay with horse Eirika than I am with Zelgius. A good red horse mage is a new addition to the game, doesn't matter if they're named Eirika, Selena, Miriel (who I thought would be a good option for the role) or Bob. A new DC red armour with small stat variations to an existing one adds nothing to the game to the average player. I do acknowledge his utility to whales who can now make a heavily merged non-Draug, but to me he's as ho-hum as they come (and of course I end up with one because desire sensor).

Not discounting anyone's grievances of course, and I too would take the new character if it was a direct one-for-one option - same stats, same movement type, same weapon. Unfortunately I doubt they would put Knoll on a horse, and so if it's a choice between horse mage Eirika and infantry mage Knoll, I would take Eirika ten out of ten times. Zelgius has no such excuse for taking someone else's role.

[Ice Dragon]

31 minutes ago, Mackc2 said:

The difference here is that the duplicate characters to most people affects the time they would have to wait to see the units they want to get in, people still grumble about 3 unit banners for the same reason, and this is effectively showing us we might start getting what is to them "two unit banners". 

That doesn't explain why Zelgius's case should be handled any differently than Eirika's case, which is what Vaximillian is doing.

As for getting 3-character banners instead of 4-character banners, there are two things that need to be balanced:

1. The rate of content creation. Don't hurry your artists and voice actors. They're probably busy enough as it is.
2. Pull rates. Reducing the number of characters on a banner increases the chances of a focus character being pulled. This is good for whales and F2Pers alike because whales have an easier time getting enough copies of a character and F2Pers have a higher chance of getting a copy of a character they want. Adding new characters to the game that players want is pointless if the players don't have a good enough chance of actually getting that character from the banner.

 

31 minutes ago, Mackc2 said:

I'm still pissed at the boosted BST because I found cases where units I like are completely outclassed by units I don't have, such as athena who is basically mia but with -1/2 in every stat and I am pissed that it makes a lot of older units noncompetitive 

Every unit in the game is competitively viable unless your focus is strictly points and that 3.5 points over the course of 7 matches is actually making the difference between going up or down an Arena Tier. "Inferior" units that still get the job done still get the job done.

 

26 minutes ago, Mackc2 said:

I personally would have no problem with these alternates if they just went and dumped a lot of the unpopular characters in the 3-4* pool but they have shown no indication that they will ever do that 

22 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

Yes, like all that you’ve mentioned. They all are technically different characters and don’t bother me.

Knoll isn’t coming because he isn’t a girl on whose popularity they can capitalise now that he lost the weapon he had the most sense to be added with. Eirika usurped Selena’s role as the Sacred Stones’ mage knight, and with Lyon GHB coming in a day, it is safe to assume her time won’t come any soon. I am very skeptical of them ever remembering 3-star summons are a thing. They are apparently even forgetting four-stars exist. How long until all units on the “new characters” banner are recycles of the existing ones? Sooner than I would have preferred, it seems.

They're going to have to do something about their 3-star pool eventually. At some point, that's all the feedback they're going to get, and if they don't listen, they're going to be in for a hard time.

I, at least, am pretty sure they have something planned but are simply being absurdly slow about it.

 

Considering just about every anime about working-class office folks in Japan (with the exception of New Game and maybe Shirobako) is about how shitty being a working-class office folk in Japan is (and how much better their life is when they stop being a working-class office folk in Japan), I wouldn't be surprised if they're just dragging some really heavy feet.

 

22 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

Knoll isn’t coming because he isn’t a girl on whose popularity they can capitalise now that he lost the weapon he had the most sense to be added with.

I don't remember Knoll having been all that popular to begin with.

Gleipnir was the only reason he had for ever being implemented as a 5-star, but that doesn't remove his chances of being implemented at lower rarities whenever they get around to doing so.

 

22 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

and with Lyon GHB coming in a day, it is safe to assume her time won’t come any soon.

It was safe to assume Selena wasn't coming anytime soon the moment Lyon was announced as the next Grand Hero Battle. This banner didn't change that because the chances of her being on a banner were slim to none to begin with.

Edited January 24, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Magical Glace]

As an Eirika fan I'm excited, but also extremely confused as to why she is randomly getting a horse mage alt with a dark tome from Grado.

It's just

huh.

[Vaximillian]

8 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

As for getting 3-character banners instead of 4-character banners, there are two things that need to be balanced:

Then one-character banners are the best from both perspectives. Zero-character banners are the cheapest though.

I’m willing to give them the benefit of doubt. Maybe they are saving the actual shuffles for a big event. …One of these is the anniversary.

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, Vaximillian said:

Then one-character banners are the best from both perspectives. Zero-character banners are the cheapest though.

Zero-character banners bring in no revenue, which is something that should have been assumed to be a factor, but apparently wasn't obvious enough and so I apologize for not being obvious enough. It's way past my bedtime give me a break here.

 

Either way, I'm trying to see things from as many perspectives as I possibly can. Companies need to balance keeping their customers happy enough (so that they get money), keeping their employees and contractors happy enough (so that they can continue making things), and keeping their bottom line and stakeholders happy enough (so that the project doesn't get cut), and sometimes customers forget that their goods and services don't just come out of a fully automated factory with a built-in sustainable supply line.

[Vaximillian]

27 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I don't remember Knoll having been all that popular to begin with.

Gleipnir was the only reason he had for ever being implemented as a 5-star, but that doesn't remove his chances of being implemented at lower rarities whenever they get around to doing so.

It was safe to assume Selena wasn't coming anytime soon the moment Lyon was announced as the next Grand Hero Battle. This banner didn't change that because the chances of her being on a banner were slim to none to begin with.

Then why have this all-series crossover if all we get is populars and nothing else? I didn’t know Reinhardt was popular. Or Bartre was.

If they get around to doing lower rarities, not when. At this point it is more probable to expect six-stars rather than expansion of three- and four-stars.

It was safe to assume Selena wasn’t coming ever because her name has already been taken, assuming she doesn’t become Celina. And also because who the hell gives a damn about Selena. Then again, Reinhardt got on a banner. Selena’s chances were existent. Were.

5 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Zero-character banners bring in no revenue, which is something that should have been assumed to be a factor, but apparently wasn't obvious enough and so I apologize for not being obvious enough. It's way past my bedtime give me a break here.

Do I need to spell it out literally whenever I make a joke?

[Magical Glace]

2 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

It was safe to assume Selena wasn’t coming ever because her name has already been taken, assuming she doesn’t become Celina. And also because who the hell gives a damn about Selena. Then again, Reinhardt got on a banner. Selena’s chances were existent. Were.

That's the localization's fault though.  Fates Selena's named Luna in Japan.

[Mackc2]

41 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

That doesn't explain why Zelgius's case should be handled any differently than Eirika's case, which is what Vaximillian is doing.

This might not be Vax's reason but I personally didn't care as much about Zelgius because it wasn't as blatant,  I am going to use the boosted BST as an example, when the CYL heroes got boosted BST it didn't bother me because it seemed like a special case, it didn't seem like something that was going to become permanent but then Sigurd and his merry women roll in and it became clear that it would become the norm. 

I'd argue the same case for Zelgius, with him it just seemed like a special case, the black knight was a tempest reward and Zelgius and the Black Knight where treated as separate characters through Tellius until the reveal but now Erika has rolled around, someone who has nothing to suggest they would ever get an alternate form and the reality that this is the new precedent sinks in. 

I don't hate Erika getting another form for no reason, I hate the reality that they are giving characters an alt for no reason 

Edited January 24, 2018 by Mackc2

[Vaximillian]

1 minute ago, Glaceon Mage said:

That's the localization's fault though.  Fates Selena's named Luna in Japan.

I’m pissed at NoA for greenlighting Selena and Arthur for Fates without consulting the names list from the earlier games.
They also haven’t bothered to check Heroes for a year, and so Thea is back to being Thite in the CYL2 poll.

[Magical Glace]

1 minute ago, Vaximillian said:

I’m pissed at NoA for greenlighting Selena and Arthur for Fates without consulting the names list from the earlier games.
They also haven’t bothered to check Heroes for a year, and so Thea is back to being Thite in the CYL2 poll.

We should petition them to change Thite back to Thea.  Thea's such a pretty name.  

Or just add Thea/Thite/Tate/whatever to the game and settle this once and for all.

[Dengres]

I like Eirika but her inclusion leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Like on one hand this opens the door for more alternative versions but on the other there are still characters from FE8 that should have gotten in before a second Eirika and her weilding a legendary dark tome also bugs me.
Also imo Marth should have been the first to get this special treatment considereing how they treated him so far in Heroes.
Ah well at least Eirika's art is really beautiful. This just makes me want a game with Asatani Tomoyo as the artist even more.

Myrrh and L'Arachel I'm very happy with though. My Orbs are not ready but I hope I can at least pull one. Not sure whether to focus L'Arachel or Myrrh though.

[Vaximillian]

12 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

We should petition them to change Thite back to Thea.  Thea's such a pretty name.  

Or just add Thea/Thite/Tate/whatever to the game and settle this once and for all.

It’s not like she is changed back into Thite. It’s more like they left the names unchanged.