Am I the only one who's really bothered by the Turnwheels' existence?

[Alastor15243]

So, is anyone else really bothered by the fact that the Turnwheels exist?

I don't mean the fact that they added in another safety net for casuals (though the fact that it can't be disabled, the fact that they treat it like a legitimate, non-game-breaking resource with things like cog upgrades, and the fact that it's allowed on all difficulties and there there isn't a single achievement in the entire game the Turnwheel disqualifies you from getting are all pretty annoying).

I mean the fact that the game just sort of casually -- in story, mind you -- hands both of the protagonists identical artifacts with which they can make time and space play dead.

I mean as great as the story of Echoes is compared to previous games, the fact remains that it only even slightly holds up to scrutiny when you willfully ignore the incontrovertible fact that these damned things exist.

Our protagonists, canonically, have the power to rewind time. How is this never factored in to either of their strategies or behavior in any way whatsoever? These are people who are determined to do everything in their power to win a war and rescue a goddess respectively. Why don't they use it to avoid enemy ambushes, or escape from nasty situations, or prevent any of the unavoidable plotline deaths, some of which the protagonists would clearly give anything to undo? When Celica finally figured out she was double-crossed, how on earth could she have not thought to rewind time to before she got herself alone and vulnerable?

Why would they go out of their way to give an in-story justification for the power to rewind time itself, and then not have the rest of the story be affected by this revelation in any way whatsoever?

Edited May 3, 2018 by Alastor15243

[Michelaar]

I'm pretty sure they just meant to introduce a new gameplay mechanic and not have it disturb the story, but also not have it completely come out of nowhere, to the point where it suddenly just appears.

[Funky Tim]

Nope, I absolutely do not mind. I can see where you're coming from when considering the story angle, but this is one instance of gameplay and story segregation that I'll happily accept seeing as how useful Mila's Turnwheel is. As for your argument about it lowering the difficulty of some achievements, especially the medals, I personally think that doesn't hold up. Video games are supposed to be fun, not a competition. If you want to get all those medals without using the turnwheel, you're free to do just that.

I believe that giving people options is a good thing. I've played the game twice so far, once on Normal Classic and once on Hard Classic, and I've used Mila's Turnwheel both times. I will admit that the ability to rewind time does kind of ruin one thing I like to do in Fire Emblem games: Ironman.

On my Hard Classic playthrough I had no permanent deaths despite not soft resetting a single time, because the one unavoidable death that was caused by a random enemy spawn I accidentally ran into on the overworld map could be fixed by one of the revival fountains in a later dungeon.

The good thing is that I can tweak my own rules to accommodate for that. I'm about to start my third playthrough, Hard Classic again, and while I will still use the turnwheel to fix mistakes, I won't rewind deaths. That should make it interesting enough - for me. I could even forgo using it completely if I wanted to to get a more classic Fire Emblem experience.

TLDR: From a story standpoint, I get where you're coming from, though I personally don't mind at all. From a gameplay perspective, you're free to not use it, so I don't see an issue here.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Funky Tim
Fixed poor wording

[Marty]

 From a story standpoint, I just assume they work solely as a special charm that allows them to change jobs or something at the shrines, nothing else. And I don't really mind, it's not like they always explain gameplay-related items like the seals.

 From the gameplay side of things, absolutely not. I love how accessible they make the game because it offers the perfect opportunity for a casual player to transition into classic mode, and to generally just enjoy the game on your own pace without being annoyed by all the artificial difficultys that come with classic mode.

 I wouldn't mind an achievment that can only be obtained by playing through the game without using it, but all in all I like that there isn't one because lately the FE fandom has been more about bragging rights than actually enjoying the games.

[omegaxis1]

I think you're VERY confused about how the Turnwheel functions story-wise. It does NOT rewind time. Instead, what it does is give glimpses of the future. In-game function, its rewinding time, but story-wise, its seeing further ahead into the future and thus allowing them to plan it out. 

[Alastor15243]

With regards to the people who have no issue with the turnwheel being available for every challenge in the game:

It’s one thing to accommodate casual players. It’s another thing entirely to suggest there’s anything wrong with including a single challenge they can’t do. If there was a difficulty setting that was so difficult that the turnwheel was actually an entirely reasonable and balanced resource, I’d have no problem whatsoever with its omnipresence. But intentionally putting game-breaking elements in the hardest difficulties of what is supposed to be a hardcore permadeath strategy game just so there isn’t a single mode that alienates casuals and then making it the player’s job to invent house rules to make the game reasonably hard (for which the turnwheel is a minor example, and things like armor and food in BotW are a major one), instead of designing a mode where every asset at the player’s disposal is properly balanced, is like making a Mario with no bottomless pits and expecting the hardcore platformer fans to be satisfied playing “The Floor Is Lava”.

The turnwheel is a minor example of a bad design choice, but it’s an example of a bad design choice nonetheless. And if left uncriticized it could get uglier later. We’ve already seen examples of terribly balanced casual-accommodating features that are cool, but which I can’t use challengingly without obtuse house rules, like the dlc class promotion items in Fates.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Alastor15243

[omegaxis1]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

With regards to the people who have no issue with the turnwheel being available for every challenge in the game:

It’s one thing to accommodate casual players. It’s another thing entirely to suggest there’s anything wrong with including a single challenge they can’t do. If there was a difficulty setting that was so difficult that the turnwheel was actually an entirely reasonable and balanced resource, I’d have no problem whatsoever with its omnipresence. But intentionally putting game-breaking elements in the hardest difficulties of what is supposed to be a hardcore permadeath strategy game just so there isn’t a single mode that alienates casuals and then making it the player’s job to invent house rules to make the game reasonably hard (for which the turnwheel is a minor example, and things like armor and food in BotW are a major one) and then expecting it to be the player’s job to construct a nonexisant hard mode out of house rules, instead of designing a mode where every asset at the player’s disposal is properly balanced, is like making a Mario with no bottomless pits and expecting the hardcore platform we fans to be satisfied playing “The Floor Is Lava”.

The turnwheel is a minor example of a bad design choice, but it’s an example of a bad design choice nonetheless. And if left uncriticized it could get uglier later. We’ve already seen examples of terribly balance casual-accommodating features I hate that I can’t use challengingly without obtuse house rules, like the dlc class promotion items in Fates.

I do not doubt there are issues. However, this is something that is new. When new things are introduced, they either go over that it's absurdly broken, or they are underwhelming and can make the game very annoying. 

I want the Turnwheel function to return, to be a staple of the series. No issues whatsoever. 

However, they can serve to at least nerf the effects of the Turnwheel and not make it as broken. There are plenty of ways of doing that. I had an idea on how to nerf it, where the number of uses lowers by the number of turns you go back. Another says that you should only go back at least 1 turn. 

Another says this:
 

Quote

I agree about nerfing the turnwheel but I don't think having it vary depending on turn count would work personally. In my opinion the turnwheel should either limit the number of use per map to let at the VERY most five but an average of three, or all the player to earn extra cogs during the campaign, however once the cog is used up, it is gone forever and doesn't come back unless they restart the entire chapter much like a dead unit, which means players will have to VERY careful about which actions are worth rewinding.

 

[DisobeyedCargo]

20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

With regards to the people who have no issue with the turnwheel being available for every challenge in the game:

It’s one thing to accommodate casual players. It’s another thing entirely to suggest there’s anything wrong with including a single challenge they can’t do. If there was a difficulty setting that was so difficult that the turnwheel was actually an entirely reasonable and balanced resource, I’d have no problem whatsoever with its omnipresence. But intentionally putting game-breaking elements in the hardest difficulties of what is supposed to be a hardcore permadeath strategy game just so there isn’t a single mode that alienates casuals and then making it the player’s job to invent house rules to make the game reasonably hard (for which the turnwheel is a minor example, and things like armor and food in BotW are a major one) and then expecting it to be the player’s job to construct a nonexisant hard mode out of house rules, instead of designing a mode where every asset at the player’s disposal is properly balanced, is like making a Mario with no bottomless pits and expecting the hardcore platform we fans to be satisfied playing “The Floor Is Lava”.

The turnwheel is a minor example of a bad design choice, but it’s an example of a bad design choice nonetheless. And if left uncriticized it could get uglier later. We’ve already seen examples of terribly balance casual-accommodating features I hate that I can’t use challengingly without obtuse house rules, like the dlc class promotion items in Fates.

To be fair those are DLC, as in not in the main game

people do the same thing with Pokémon, make up artificial rules to circumvent the games easy (no revives or heals in battle, nuzlockes, etc...). We set our own challenges in games all the time to circumvent how easy developers make games sometimes 

 

i do think the turnwheel does need to be balanced somewhat, but I'd love to see it return 

Edited May 3, 2018 by DisobeyedCargo

[Alastor15243]

18 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

To be fair those are DLC, as in not in the main game

Yes, but everywhere else in Conquest they recognized that restrictions needed to be put on how DLC could be utilized so the hardcore players the game was made for could buy and use it without cheapening their game (the fact that playing the maps gives no experience, for example). But then they add the dlc class items which were clearly not balanced with regards to the rest of the game when they easily could have been, by making them cost gold or at least making them something only promoted units could use. As it stands, if I want to use these fun and potentially fair classes on a challenge run, I have to do the developer’s job in deciding how much gold each one is worth and arbitrarily buying and selling junk until I waste that much money.

[Funky Tim]

35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

With regards to the people who have no issue with the turnwheel being available for every challenge in the game:

It’s one thing to accommodate casual players. It’s another thing entirely to suggest there’s anything wrong with including a single challenge they can’t do. If there was a difficulty setting that was so difficult that the turnwheel was actually an entirely reasonable and balanced resource, I’d have no problem whatsoever with its omnipresence. But intentionally putting game-breaking elements in the hardest difficulties of what is supposed to be a hardcore permadeath strategy game just so there isn’t a single mode that alienates casuals and then making it the player’s job to invent house rules to make the game reasonably hard (for which the turnwheel is a minor example, and things like armor and food in BotW are a major one) and then expecting it to be the player’s job to construct a nonexisant hard mode out of house rules, instead of designing a mode where every asset at the player’s disposal is properly balanced, is like making a Mario with no bottomless pits and expecting the hardcore platform we fans to be satisfied playing “The Floor Is Lava”.

The turnwheel is a minor example of a bad design choice, but it’s an example of a bad design choice nonetheless. And if left uncriticized it could get uglier later. We’ve already seen examples of terribly balanced casual-accommodating features that are cool, but which I can’t use challengingly without obtuse house rules, like the dlc class promotion items in Fates.

You're actually making a fair point here. I still think my argument from earlier holds up to some extent, but I'll admit I didn't consider things from this angle.

I personally don't mind having what you called "house rules" at all, I do that all the time. Since you brought up Breath of the Wild as an example, in that game I have a "realistic merchants" rule where shops and merchants will only buy things that would make sense for them to buy, effectively making rupees much harder to come by and gathering materials more worthwhile. Coming up with these kinds of rules and following them is fun for me. It allows me to tweak the difficulty of the game I'm playing to my liking. That said, I do sometimes wish it wasn't necessary to do that in the first place, so yes, I do somewhat agree with your reasoning despite overall having a different stance on things.

[Stroud]

I would actually find it interesting if you get a "bad ending" if you use the Turnwheel too much. Of course there should be a warning in this game storywise.
Like in Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plum. Which was also a turn based strategy game.
You had a plum which you could use to power up a unit 10x on all stats, which is pretty op. But you get punished for it. The protagonist gets more wicked and the character you use it on dies permanently after the battle. 

 

Edited May 3, 2018 by Stroud

[omegaxis1]

1 minute ago, Stroud said:

I would actually find it interesting if you get a "bad ending" if you use the Turnwheel too much. Of course there should be a warning in this game storywise.
Like in Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plum. Which was also a turn based strategy game.
You had a plum which you could use to power up a unit 10x on all stats, which is pretty op. But you get punished for it. The protagonist gets more wicked and the character you use it on dies permanently. 

 

For Fire Emblem, I feel we shouldn't be punished for that kind of thing. Just nerf how the Turnwheel works, simple as that.

I think we can trust IS for this kind of thing. After all, Awakening shows how broken supports and Pair Ups are as well as reclassing. So for Fates, they fixed both of these issues by making Pair Up using Attack and Guard Stance, and they made it so that you cannot reclass infinitely.

[Alastor15243]

6 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

For Fire Emblem, I feel we shouldn't be punished for that kind of thing. Just nerf how the Turnwheel works, simple as that.

I think we can trust IS for this kind of thing. After all, Awakening shows how broken supports and Pair Ups are as well as reclassing. So for Fates, they fixed both of these issues by making Pair Up using Attack and Guard Stance, and they made it so that you cannot reclass infinitely.

Nah, I agree without Stroud. I don’t think it’s a good idea in principle to incorporate mulligans as a mainstay standard “it is totally part of balanced gameplay to use this” feature of a game that made a name for itself with permadeath gameplay that made every action you made have a consequence. It could work, and if it somehow did then I’d be okay with it, but it would be way harder to incorporate into a satisfyingly challenging game without making it not feel like Fire Emblem anymore. If the turnwheel is to come back, I think it should be treated as a cheat code with consequences and not as a legitimate player asset.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Alastor15243

[Shrimpica]

When a 10% hit 1% crit can ruin your whole day, or you want to redo an action on the same turn (due to missclicks for example)

 

Nope, Mila's Turnwheel should stay and be a series staple.

[RJWalker]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Our protagonists, canonically, have the power to rewind time. How is this never factored in to either of their strategies or behavior in any way whatsoever? These are people who are determined to do everything in their power to win a war and rescue a goddess respectively. Why don't they use it to avoid enemy ambushes, or escape from nasty situations, or prevent any of the unavoidable plotline deaths, some of which the protagonists would clearly give anything to undo? When Celica finally figured out she was double-crossed, how on earth could she have not thought to rewind time to before she got herself alone and vulnerable?

Why would they go out of their way to give an in-story justification for the power to rewind time itself, and then not have the rest of the story be affected by this revelation in any way whatsoever?

The Turnwheel isn't altering or rewiniding time, it just shows a vision of the future and you 'turning back' time is actually Alm or Celica seeing a vision of the future where something went wrong and taking steps to alter it.

Edited May 3, 2018 by RJWalker

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shrimperor said:

When a 10% hit 1% crit can ruin your whole day, or you want to redo an action on the same turn (due to missclicks for example)

 

Nope, Mila's Turnwheel should stay and be a series staple.

Except in the games that are actually properly balanced and not decades-old war crimes, you never actually have to put yourself in those situations if you know what you’re doing. Which means all Mila’s Turnwheel becoming a staple would do is become a crutch for bad game design, and make the series worse.

[SoulWeaver]

Something nobody's mentioned here is that the Turnwheels were also keys - Alm can't get into the final battle against Duma before going into the royal vault because the doors are locked and have two conspicuous holes with very familiar shapes. There is a stand in front of the doors that says something about Mila's twin relics or something like that, and once you get Celica back and return to the doors there's a small animation where you see the two Turnwheels be placed into the holes, allowing the doors to open. While this isn't much, it does still show that there was another in-story purpose for the Turnwheels.

[omegaxis1]

55 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nah, I agree without Stroud. I don’t think it’s a good idea in principle to incorporate mulligans as a mainstay standard “it is totally part of balanced gameplay to use this” feature of a game that made a name for itself with permadeath gameplay that made every action you made have a consequence. It could work, and if it somehow did then I’d be okay with it, but it would be way harder to incorporate into a satisfyingly challenging game without making it not feel like Fire Emblem anymore. If the turnwheel is to come back, I think it should be treated as a cheat code with consequences and not as a legitimate player asset.

Except that doesn't fit with how Fire Emblem works. Bad Endings in Fire Emblem has been a case of not reaching the true ending. Binding Blade, not getting all the Divine Weapons, or New Mystery, not getting all the Starsphere shards. Or even Awakening where you choose to kill or seal Grima. Those things. Getting a gameplay mechanic like that to determine a good and bad ending is something that I feel is stupid. It punishes you too hard. 

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Except in the games that are actually properly balanced and not decades-old war crimes, you never actually have to put yourself in those situations if you know what you’re doing. Which means all Mila’s Turnwheel becoming a staple would do is become a crutch for bad game design, and make the series worse.

In which case, nerf it. I don't get why you you seem to think that they aren't capable of nerfing or balancing out the Turnwheel. They did it with Awakening's Pair Up and reclassing, so they know how to adjust that. Turnwheel is a new mechanic in the franchise. So why are we saying that it's going to be exactly the same in every game? 

[Solvaij]

You're not the only one, I don't really like it either. On the other hand, I feel like the turnwheel was IS's way of adjusting for the bad map design, so hopefully it won't come back. As far its story relevance, it's weird, but I guess it doesn't bother me since stuff like that isn't totally uncommon in games. I think sometimes you just accept story-gameplay segregation for the sake of gameplay...

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, RJWalker said:

The Turnwheel isn't altering or rewiniding time, it just shows a vision of the future and you 'turning back' time is actually Alm or Celica seeing a vision of the future where something went wrong and taking steps to alter it.

Where are you getting that from? The game explicitly tells you when you first activate the turnwheel that it “has the power to turn back time”, and it even has Alm and Celica notice the turnwheel glowing right before it uses this magic. And besides, even if it were “just” a future predictor, it’s functionally the same thing in terms of it making no sense that the heroes don’t exploit having it.

[omegaxis1]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Where are you getting that from? The game explicitly tells you when you first activate the turnwheel that it “has the power to turn back time”, and it even has Alm and Celica notice the turnwheel glowing right before it uses this magic. And besides, even if it were “just” a future predictor, it’s functionally the same thing in terms of it making no sense that the heroes don’t exploit having it.

I said the same thing to you in the very beginning. 

As for the story details, Silque mentions right in the beginning:
 

Quote

Silque: It’s called Mila’s Turnwheel. It’s a relic that contains some of the Earth Mother’s power. I believe it will be of great use to you.

Alm: Are you sure? You were supposed to give this to my grandfather, right?

Silque: No. This is definitely for you. Now that you have left your village and embarked upon an auspicious journey, the Turnwheel will become a vital tool during the trials ahead.

Alm: Okay… Well, thank you. I promise to take good care of it. By the way, how do you use it?

Silque: You don’t use it. It uses you. When the time is right, the Turnwheel will give you a sign.

Alm: O…kay? I’m not sure I understand, but I’ll take your wor—

(The turnwheel starts glowing)

Silque: Ah! It appears that Mother Mila already wishes to show you something.

Alm: The Turnwheel… It’s glowing… What’s happening?!

(Vision of Zofia Castle)

Alm: Where am I…? That’s Zofia Castle! This is our kingdom? What happened here? Is the Deliverance too late?!

Alm: AAAAAH!

Silque: Sir Alm, what did you see?

Alm: It was… It was so clear! Silque, it was horrible!

Silque: Be calm. What you saw in the vision is not the present. The Mother is either telling you what could be…or what once was. Her power is sight.

Alm: So the vision is something that’s going to happen?

Silque: Something that COULD happen. If the vision was ill-boding, perhaps it was a sign— a sign that the Mother wishes for you to take action in order to prevent it.

Basically, the glow of the Turnwheel is basically when it activates on its own and tries to show Alm and Celica a vision of the future. The player activates it and uses it, but when its, its ultimately just Alm and Celica learning of what's to come in the near future and thus Alm and Celica work to avoid that outcome.

[omegaxis1]

Not sure why it double posted. Stupid wifi.

Edited May 3, 2018 by omegaxis1

[Shrimpica]

14 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Except in the games that are actually properly balanced and not decades-old war crimes, you never actually have to put yourself in those situations if you know what you’re doing. Which means all Mila’s Turnwheel becoming a staple would do is become a crutch for bad game design, and make the series worse.

missclicks happen alot and have nothing to do with balance. Do you think it's fair to restart a whole map because of a missclick?

Also, Crits is more of a rng thing, if your luck stat is screwed, hello 1% crits at the very end of the map

[SoulWeaver]

Echoing Shrimperor - I ran into issues with accidentally hitting Wait when I was trying to check my Items quite a bit in Awakening and it was always infuriating, and RNG screwage is most definitely a thing. I will admit the 1% Crit issue is much smaller in other games that don't run Single RNG for those things, though, that's more of a thing that came about because Gaiden Remake.

[SullyMcGully]

I don't know. Without all of it's various innovations, Echoes wouldn't be very fun from a gameplay standpoint. At least compared to other FEs. I get what you're saying about the story, but... why can hand axes go through walls? It's just one of those things that falls into the gameplay category and doesn't really mess with the story for me.