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


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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?

The fact that it doesn't disqualify you from getting achievements, the fact that it's something you're allowed to collect upgrades for as if it weren't already considered strong enough, and the fact that tons of people in this thread defended the feature by saying that without it the game would have repeatedly fucked them over with unreasonably unfair RNG results.

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I see the Turnwheel as more of a thing to avoid cheap deaths, like those 1% crits the enemy just so happens to get.

And I imagine the reason why it has so many uses in Echoes was to account for the dungeon mechanic since the uses don't recharge while you're in a dungeon. Chances are that, should the mechanic return in a game without dungeons, it'll likely be reworked. 

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I confess that seeing most people praise the turnwheel when things like casual and especially phoenix mode have been heavily criticized in the past confuses me a bit. It is a much more elegant feature, and honestly allows some different approaches to strategy which can be interesting, but... it's still an extremely glaring and potent safety net that robs the game of much of its difficulty and depth. It's the pinacle of the "options are good, always, because player enjoyment comes first" vs "it's fine for a game to provide a deliberate experience first and a playing field second" argument. Because frankly, it does correct a lot of smaller grievances most of us had with Fire Emblem at large. But it does it maybe too well, and we're left with something extremely streamlined that doesn't, and most importantly, cannot really pull back. Conquest Lunatic, Awakening L+, FE11 H5, FE12 Reverse Lunatic, all of these would be largely trivialized if they included the turnwheel as it is in Echoes, even with less uses. Not having to commit to choices is a huge deal, even just once or twice per map.

As far as I'm concerned, it is a very interesting feature that will be extremely difficult to balance and could probably use a complete reworking, but I wouldn't take it away entirely, because I do think it's something the FE formula can use to some extent. At heart, it wasn't a bad idea, imo. Sure, in almost any Fire Emblem you can make it so that the rng cannot affect you by playing a certain way, but the question is, is that a good thing? Isn't the very concept of "play this exact way or face the risk of ragequit-inducing occurences" flawed, or needlessly restrictive in some fashion?

Again, it's all a matter of balance at the end of the day. I think something like the turnwheel can provide balance, and in that sense I'm glad that they came up with it, but, yeah, if it's something I have to go out of my way to ignore if I want the high-stakes FE experience I've grown to love, I'm willing to say there's something wrong as well.

Edited by Cysx
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The turnwheel exists because the asshole developers wanted to keep the horrid hit rates from Gaiden.

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Also, it occurred to me about something else. There are always going to be those kinds of level designs, no matter how much they are complained about when they design a level that has something that just sucks. Whether they be respawning units that attack you immediately and may kill you, or some trap mechanic that damages you, or an enemy that has a skill like in Echoes where witches can warp literally anywhere and attack your weakest unit and kill you. 

The Turnwheel is a great function that allows you to experience the gameplay the first time, but instead of resetting it and then probably getting caught off guard by something else, you can just jump back a few turns and just be prepared to counteract it or rework your strategy. 

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