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


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10 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

What kind of frustration? The frustration of making mistakes,  or the frustration of being screwed over by the unfair rng of situations the game forced you into?

Because if it’s the latter, why are you grateful that the developers decided it was your job to compensate for their refusal to balance their own game? Why is “I like this mechanic because it allows me to manually weed out all of the times I feel I didn’t deserve to lose” anything but a damning indictment of the game’s balance, and why would such a feature be necessary in a better game?

I'm willing to admit that I'm not the best player. I don't even consider myself that good. So Mila's Turnwheel was a match made in heaven for someone like me.

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1 minute ago, Corrobin said:

I'm willing to admit that I'm not the best player. I don't even consider myself that good. So Mila's Turnwheel was a match made in heaven for someone like me.

But what can it do for someone like you that an easier mode couldn’t do even better without fundamentally changing for you how the game is played?

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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

But what can it do for someone like you that an easier mode couldn’t do even better without fundamentally changing for you how the game is played?

I don't mind the way the game is fundamentally changed.

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3 minutes ago, Corrobin said:

I don't mind the way the game is fundamentally changed.

But you’re not the sort of player fundamentally changing the game affects. And wouldn’t you rather have a mode that has a better chance of making you better at the game, without being any more frustrating?

Edited by Alastor15243
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Just now, Alastor15243 said:

But you’re not the sort of player fundamentally changing the game affects.

I like the ability to stop random bullshit, like Mathilda dying because of a 2% Crit or Python missing a 96% shot, or Saber getting hit by a 30% accuracy enemy attack or stuff like that. And before you say "a truly skilled player never has to face those things", tell that to random level ups and slightly randomized enemy stats and stuff. Missing high accuracy, getting hit by low accuracy, and 1-5% crits is ALWAYS going to happen when you have the Fire Emblem gameplay.

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11 minutes ago, Corrobin said:

I like the ability to stop random bullshit, like Mathilda dying because of a 2% Crit or Python missing a 96% shot, or Saber getting hit by a 30% accuracy enemy attack or stuff like that. And before you say "a truly skilled player never has to face those things", tell that to random level ups and slightly randomized enemy stats and stuff. Missing high accuracy, getting hit by low accuracy, and 1-5% crits is ALWAYS going to happen when you have the Fire Emblem gameplay.

I go back to my previous point: why are you grateful the developers decided to make it your job to compensate for their refusal to balance their game?

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30 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I go back to my previous point: why are you grateful the developers decided to make it your job to compensate for their refusal to balance their game?

Look me in the eye and tell me that missing a 99% chance to hit and getting hit by a 1% chance crit isn't straight up bullshit. 

that happens in ALL Fire emblem, not just SOV, so it's not a particularly problem of the games balance or lack there of in this case 

 

The turnwheel in this case is useful for that kind of thing, needless bullshit that quite frankly should not have happened. If you don't like how it's more or less infinite use just have the game throw I dunno 6 uses or something in the very beginning and you have only those six uses.

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2 hours ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

Look me in the eye and tell me that missing a 99% chance to hit and getting hit by a 1% chance crit isn't straight up bullshit. 

that happens in ALL Fire emblem, not just SOV, so it's not a particularly problem of the games balance or lack there of in this case 

 

The turnwheel in this case is useful for that kind of thing, needless bullshit that quite frankly should not have happened. If you don't like how it's more or less infinite use just have the game throw I dunno 6 uses or something in the very beginning and you have only those six uses.

If a system is designed such that that is legitimately the only option, then it is a bad system. Thankfully, it generally isn’t designed that way in Fire Emblem. You need to stop thinking about those 30% hits and 1% crits as things that will never happen and start thinking about them as things that will always happen. Once you do that, I guarantee that if multiple new ways to win without putting yourself in those situations don’t start to become apparent to you, you are not playing a well-designed Fire Emblem game. I managed to use Arthur effectively in an ironman run, and I am far from an expert at Fire Emblem. And that’s because Conquest is an actually well-designed Fire Emblem game that should be the golden standard the series should strive for.

Edited by Alastor15243
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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And that’s because Conquest is an actually well-designed Fire Emblem game that should be the golden standard the series should strive for.

While I agree that CQ is a huge step up in terms of mapdesign in comparison to Awakening, it should be mentioned that it's nowhere near to perfection.

The likes of Chapter 19, 20 and 24 are way more tedious than challening, which I personally don't consider good gamedesign.

The "Dueling Arena with Xander/Ryoma" had only story purposes and caused the actual map more trouble than favour.

The only time I felt Dragon Veins came in handy was in Chapter 21, for all other attempts it was more an indicator for questionable gimmicks (Revelations says hello).

CQ is a huge step in the right direction, but I don't see having it  the "perfect formular" for the franchise.

Nevertheless it's nice to see that IS is trying to come up with new ideas for better or worse (+ acknowledging it's flaws).

 

The turnwheel is as optional as Casual & Phoenix Mode, Grinding maps and the my-room-feature. If I don't like - I simply don't use it. The idea of how Fire Emblem should be played, has changed many times before. This trend started way back in time and it makes little sense to call out SoV for it when earlier titles did the same thing before.

 

 

Edited by fOrEiGn sOUl
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1 hour ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

The turnwheel is as optional as Casual & Phoenix Mode, Grinding maps and the my-room-feature. If I don't like - I simply don't use it. The idea of how Fire Emblem should be played, has changed many times before. This trend started way back in time and it makes little sense to call out SoV for it when earlier titles did the same before.

The thing is, the turnwheel specifically is only ever better for casuals than easy mode when the game is badly designed. Yes, it is TECHNICALLY optional, but it has mandatory unintended side effects. It doesn’t actually make the game better. It just desensitizes casual players to bad game design while forcing the hardcore players to put up with it.

And yes, I didn’t mean to imply Conquest was perfect, I do have complaints myself, but my point was if all the games at minimum had Conquest’s quality, the turnwheel would be pointless.

To reiterate and sum up my point: if you feel the turnwheel is necessary because sometimes the RNG screws you over, consider: there are only two possible reasons for why this is happening. One, you're not good at the game, or two, the game itself is what isn't good. If it's the former, what can the turnwheel do for you that an easier difficulty couldn't, and if it's the latter, why are you grateful that the developers decided to make it your job to stop their game from being bullshit?

Edited by Alastor15243
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1 hour ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

20 and 24

ch 20 and 24 were pretty good tho. Especially 24. The use of Dragon Veins in that map was pretty good.

1 hour ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

it should be mentioned that it's nowhere near to perfection.

It's the closest thing we got to perfection however. The best gameplay in the series imo

Edited by Shrimperor
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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

The thing is, the turnwheel specifically is only ever better for casuals than easy mode when the game is badly designed. Yes, it is TECHNICALLY optional, but it has mandatory unintended side effects. It doesn’t actually make the game better. It just desensitizes casuals to bad game design while forcing the hardcore to suck it up.

And yes, I didn’t mean to imply Conquest was perfect, I do have complaints myself, but my point was if all the games at minimum had Conquest’s quality, the turnwheel would be pointless.

To reiterate and sum up my point: if you feel the turnwheel is necessary because sometimes the RNG screws you over, consider: there are only two possible reasons for why this is happening. One, you're not good at the game, or two, the game itself is what isn't good. If it's the former, what can the turnwheel do for you that an easier difficulty couldn't, and if it's the latter, why are you grateful that the developer decided to make it your job to stop their game from being bullshit?

I feel what you're missing is that not everyone uses the turnwheel to "correct" bad RNG. I myself use it to correct things like misclicks, or bad decisions I catch on time. It's a convenience feature for me more than anything, and those are a plus in my book. I'd rather just rewind after placing Silque in a bad spot instead of having to restart a whole battle that I might have played perfectly up to that point. Heck, one of the main reasons I play Ironman is because I hate repeating stuff because of a single mistake.

I also fail to see how Conquest can't screw you over with RNG and Echoes can. Yes, most of the maps allow for more strategic plays that allow a smart player to reduce their chances of falling victim to bullshit RNG, but I don't think it's possible to completely negate the chance of a low-percentage critical hit killing one of your units at all times... except maaaybe if Mila's Turnwheel was actually in that game.

Echoes' map design is what it is. You may like it or not. I personally don't mind it because I feel the open maps are counterbalanced by the simpler gameplay mechanics, but that's just me. Nevertheless, Mila's Turnwheel makes the game better for me simply because of how convenient it is. I don't have to use it to break the game if I don't want to.

Edited by Funky Tim
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10 minutes ago, Funky Tim said:

I feel what you're missing is that not everyone uses the turnwheel to "correct" bad RNG. I myself use it to correct things like misclicks, or bad decisions I catch on time.

And misclicks themselves are also an example of either bad design (see Thracia for an unspeakably evil misclick-prone interface) or reckless and hasty behavior on the part of the player. Neither of those issues actually call for an at-the-player's-discretion cheat code to fix. That's just putting a band-aid over an entirely different fundamental issue.

10 minutes ago, Funky Tim said:

I also fail to see how Conquest can't screw you over with RNG and Echoes can. Yes, most of the maps allow for more strategic plays that allow a smart player to reduce their chances of falling victim to bullshit RNG, but I don't think it's possible to completely negate the chance of a low-percentage critical hit killing one of your units at all times... except maaaybe if Mila's Turnwheel was actually in that game.

Except no. Not only are there plenty of ways in Conquest to bolster your crit resist to the point where you can regularly keep your whole army generally crit-immune, but even when you can't, you don't have to actually risk dying to take out high crit foes. You can kill them pre-emptively from range before they can attack using player-phase tactics, you can leave them to units with higher luck or higher defense to ensure the crit either won't happen or won't kill them respectively, or you can make one of your units like that by using the myriad of auras and rallies and tonics the game leaves at your disposal to fix the odds. I'll repeat: I have used Arthur in Conquest, on Ironman, and I did not once have to put him in a situation where even the absolute worst case scenario would have killed him. In fact I barely even cared about his nonexistant crit evade; what annoyed me most was his mediocre speed.

 

Edited by Alastor15243
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21 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And misclicks themselves are also an example of either bad design (see Thracia for an unspeakably evil misclick-prone interface) or reckless and hasty behavior on the part of the player. Neither of those issues actually call for an at-the-player's-discretion cheat code to fix. That's just putting a band-aid over an entirely different fundamental issue.

Except no. Not only are there plenty of ways in Conquest to bolster your crit resist to the point where you can regularly keep your whole army generally crit-immune, but even when you can't, you don't have to actually risk dying to take out high crit foes. You can kill them pre-emptively from range before they can attack using player-phase tactics, you can leave them to units with higher luck or higher defense to ensure the crit either won't happen or won't kill them respectively, or you can make one of your units like that by using the myriad of auras and rallies and tonics the game leaves at your disposal to fix the odds. I'll repeat: I have used Arthur in Conquest, on Ironman, and I did not once have to put him in a situation where even the absolute worst case scenario would have killed him. In fact I barely even cared about his nonexistant crit evade; what annoyed me most was his mediocre speed.

Misclicks will happen either way. I don't see a way of preventing those other than having every single command end with a "sure you want to do this?" question, which would be incredibly annoying. Smart placement of options certainly helps, but the issue will never completely go away because people are people and make mistakes.

Which brings me to my second point. You might not have caught that from what I wrote previously, but what you described in your second paragraph is actually how I play Fire Emblem in general. I know about these tactics and use them to my full disposal to avoid risks as much as possible. And yes, that includes Echoes where I have a "cheat device" at the ready. But even then, I'm not perfect. There will always be something that I missed, something I didn't account for, and that can spell doom for my plans. And having a completely optional and non-intrusive way out of sticky situations is something I appreciate.

Another thing I want to note is that not everyone has all the time in the world to plan out each turn perfectly. I like playing in the way you outlined above, meticulously planning out turns, placing units with AOE skills correctly, considering potential stat debuffs, critical hit chances, and all that. But it also takes me a lot of time to play that way. When Shadows of Valentia came out I had a 12 hour work day and household responsibilities, along with a girlfriend, a social circle and other hobbies. Having the turnwheel feature allowed me to play through the game in a relatively swift manner without resorting to Casual mode, which I personally dislike. It was still challenging enough for me, and yes, I had permanent deaths on that playthrough that I did neither rewind nor reset. If you can play on a high level without massive time commitments that's great, unfortunately I'm not nearly good enough for that, being relatively new to the franchise. And seeing as I play video games primarily to have fun, I don't aim to improve rapidly either. I'm perfectly okay with never beating Conquest on Lunatic.

Edited by Funky Tim
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7 minutes ago, Funky Tim said:

There will always be something that I missed, something I didn't account for, and that can spell doom for my plans. And having a completely optional and non-intrusive way out of sticky situations is something I appreciate.

But again: What can the turnwheel do for you that playing on an easier difficulty couldn't? If you're not skilled enough to be satisfied playing on a higher difficulty without an immunity to losing, why would you prefer a "harder" difficulty you can't lose on to an "easier" one that you can?

Do you see what I'm getting at? The Turnwheel is pointless. There's no convenience it provides to casual players that casual or phoenix mode wouldn't, but it's also a dangerously effective shield for bad game design that only protects casual players from suffering the consequences of it.

Edited by Alastor15243
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4 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But again: What can the turnwheel do for you that playing on an easier difficulty couldn't? If you're not skilled enough to be satisfied playing on a higher difficulty without an immunity to losing, why would you prefer a "harder" difficulty you can't lose on to an "easier" one that you can?

Do you see what I'm getting at? The Turnwheel is pointless. There's no convenience it provides to casual players that casual or phoenix mode wouldn't, but it's also a dangerously effective shield for bad game design.

I thought I already explained why it's of use to me when Casual is not, but I'll try to be more clear:

I do not use the turnwheel as an immunity to losing. As mentioned, I had permanent deaths on my first playthrough (which was on Normal Classic by the way) that I did not reset for. I accepted those as mistakes I made and moved on. And yet I was still able to correct misclicks, or bad moves that I noticed early enough. Those are options playing on Casual simply doesn't give me. I see it as an "inbetween" thing - something that's harder than Casual mode but not as punishing as Classic.

Edited by Funky Tim
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@Alastor15243 Look, this has been going on for a while now and you have been circling things back to back.

The point is, despite how you feel it ruins things, the Turnwheel is a mechanic that is great for undoing any bad decisions or taking back any risks that backfired for both new and experienced players. It's a way of helping players out when something unexpected, whether its based on the level design, the RNG, or something else. It's an effective tool to have to adjust to anything they didn't see coming.

Echoes had this be very new and made it rather broken, I admit. How do you fix this if it becomes a staple to the series?

Simple: nerf it.

That's it. Fates clearly shows us that IS is capable of fixing broken mechanics. Pair Up and Reclassing were broken as hell in Awakening, so they adjusted that, and its a very welcome change to the system. So I think in regards to the Turnwheel, they can adjust it to make it less broken and make players be much more mindful of using it.

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10 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

What can the turnwheel do for you that playing on an easier difficulty couldn't

Challenge. Easier difficulties are  cake walk. Turnwheel allows for challenge while making room for a mistake or two.

Just limit it to 1-2 uses per map

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31 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Simple: nerf it.

That's it. Fates clearly shows us that IS is capable of fixing broken mechanics. Pair Up and Reclassing were broken as hell in Awakening, so they adjusted that, and its a very welcome change to the system. So I think in regards to the Turnwheel, they can adjust it to make it less broken and make players be much more mindful of using it.

Mila's turnwheel is not like pair-up.

Pair-up was weird, but it did not fundamentally go against the core premise and appeal of the entire series. Mila's Turnwheel does. Mila's Turnwheel doesn't have to be nerfed. It has to be restricted or removed. To embrace it as a fundamental core aspect of the game, either as an ever-present cheatcode or as an omnipresent legitimate player action (which the game's approach to achievements paints it as), is to miss the point of Fire Emblem itself completely.

No Fire Emblem game should ever be balanced or designed as if something like Mila's Turnwheel exists. Ever. Under any circumstances. Fire Emblem is not a series about making tactical decisions lightly.

Mila's Turnwheel is not something that it should be assumed anyone is using, and if it is to exist at all, then games need to acknowledge that by making it a third "difficulty" dimension listed at the start of the game, along with difficulty and normal/casual/phoenix. It should not be normalized as a fundamental game mechanic.

Please note: that was the only complaint I made about it before people started defending it from a gameplay standpoint when responding to my OP despite that being a miniscule portion of what I took issue with and not even what this thread was supposed to be about. All I complained about gameplaywise was that the game never acknowledged how broken it was and acted like it should be treated as a perfectly natural aspect to gameplay even for people trying to challenge themselves. Which the game does. There's no denying it. Once you gain the ability to "upgrade" an in-game ability, and once you make it a legitimate method to gain achievements, it ceases to be a cheat code and becomes something the player is expected to make full use of, and as that it utterly fails on principle in a Fire Emblem game. Just as 3 pages of food items shouldn't have been a full-on core feature in BotW, the Turnwheel should not be a full-on core feature of Fire Emblem. No implementation of it could possibly be incorporated into the full, core Fire Emblem experience without fundamentally changing Fire Emblem for the worse. And as I know that's not what most of you are suggesting should happen, I would like to reiterate that the only complaint I made about it, before all this started and I started seeing all the other ways in which the turnwheel was messed up, was that the game refused to acknowledge it wasn't a feature every player would be pleased about having access to, and refused to make any way to play the game without having access to it, which again, is an example of "making the player play the floor is lava". It's a minor example of it, but no less inexcusable due to how utterly trivial it would have been to fix, and the fact that they didn't is pretty unsettling.

Edited by Alastor15243
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Again, you can just, you know, not use it? Your never forced and it's perfectly doable to go through the game with no turnwheel 

here how about this:

limited uses thorought the story, AND if a unit dies, it cannot be used. I feel like that would be fair. It allows you to go back on a critica flaw you didn't realize untill too late or go back on a misclick (which will happen cause everyone will make a mistake no matter how well designed a menu is or how many tools the game throws at you). But if a unit dies and you failed to see that, no redo, that ones On you. That seems pretty fair and balanced to me.

IS is clearly capable of balancing broken mechanics in their games, so this seems reasonable. 

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7 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

Again, you can just, you know, not use it? Your never forced and it's perfectly doable to go through the game with no turnwheel 

here how about this:

limited uses thorought the story, AND if a unit dies, it cannot be used. I feel like that would be fair. It allows you to go back on a critica flaw you didn't realize untill too late or go back on a misclick (which will happen cause everyone will make a mistake no matter how well designed a menu is or how many tools the game throws at you). But if a unit dies and you failed to see that, no redo, that ones On you. That seems pretty fair and balanced to me.

IS is clearly capable of balancing broken mechanics in their games, so this seems reasonable. 

Again: It's the principle of the thing. They could have acknowledged in some way that the vast majority of major challenge-seeking players do not consider it a legitimate mechanic. It would have been trivial to do so. But instead they just left it in the game to be picked around. And that's not something you want to, on principle, do as a game designer. If there is an element of play that breaks the game's difficulty, you do not want to make it something a player who wants a challenge has to allow to exist on their file.

It is a minor instance of a major game design faux-pas made disturbing by how trivial it would have been to fix.

Edited by Alastor15243
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4 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

limited uses thorought the story, AND if a unit dies, it cannot be used. I feel like that would be fair. It allows you to go back on a critica flaw you didn't realize untill too late or go back on a misclick (which will happen cause everyone will make a mistake no matter how well designed a menu is or how many tools the game throws at you). But if a unit dies and you failed to see that, no redo, that ones On you. That seems pretty fair and balanced to me.

 

i like this one as well. Aslong as it doesn't reveal new information too (like in FoW) for example. It will allow for misclicks to go away forever.

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I'm pretty sure Echoes is balanced around the Turnwheel not existing to be honest. I'd buy that argument if Mila's Turnwheel was in Awakening with its ambush spawns and ridiculous Lunatic + mode. But Echoes seems perfectly playable without it, so what makes you think the game is balanced around it?

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3 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

i like this one as well. Aslong as it doesn't reveal new information too (like in FoW) for example. It will allow for misclicks to go away forever.

Presumably it wouldn't show you anymore that what you have seen before if that's what your asking 

 

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1 minute ago, Funky Tim said:

I'm pretty sure Echoes is balanced around the Turnwheel not existing to be honest. I'd buy that argument if Mila's Turnwheel was in Awakening with its ambush spawns and ridiculous Lunatic + mode. But Echoes seems perfectly playable without it, so what makes you think the game is balanced around it?

And I might add that pretty much the only time the turnwheel is "required" is to open the door to the final boss

otherwise, everything including the cogs are optional, even the memory prisms 

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