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Aether Raids General Thread


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14 hours ago, Qilin said:

I think the difficulty is starting to become better adjusted as people are filtered into their appropriate tiers. I don't seem to be raiding completely overpowered teams anymore, and my defense is starting to be able to win. Right now the most challenging thing for me is to convert my team from a quickly suicide one to one that lasts. My Eirika always seems to overextend due to being on horseback.

Really? I've just kept being inundated with Cancer 2017 + Roni. Dancers make it much more bearable, but it's still a PITA having to not only deal a bunch of 5 range nukes and a shitload of random bullshit sitting in the way. It's amazing how fast this mode lost its charm.

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So, are people still saying Aether Raid is a good mode? I thought it was an enjoyable mode the first week but now all I see are enemy defense teams comprised of Reinhardt, B!Lyn, B!Veronica and a dancer unit (mostly Young Azura since she has been a bonus unit for quite some time now). Sometimes even Xander shows up with them. I don't know, I'm just tired of seeing the same three annoying units being used having to resort to using F!Robin or Cecilia with raven tomes to deal with them. Aether Raid has pretty much turned into Arena Hell for me except instead of highly merged armors and dragons units they got replaced with ranged cavalry units with refreshers and the rewards just are not as good as Arena

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Well, Aether Raids is pretty much what happens when you make scoring performance based. Defense teams that beat the best offense teams don't exist, so instead they prey on the people who either aren't focusing or aren't as good, and that means using units that punish mistakes the hardest.

Which is just another way of saying defense teams would end up as annoying to the average player as possible, while the best players don't really care either way. (And there's no good way for an 'average' player to become one of the best players, either, since most of the resources for getting better are... well... calling them misleading would be the polite way to put it.)

 

Beyond the simple 'git gud' problem, though, the issue with Aether Raids is that the PvP game modes aren't really fire emblem. Most fire emblem games you can just save restart when you make a mistake, and, more importantly, you do the exact same map when you save restart. PvP isn't like that, though, so everything's distorted.

 

Edit: That said, Aether Raids itself is a very good way of getting good, thanks to the replay function. Looking at teams that beat your defense team deathless would give a pretty good idea of how to build good units, and, more importantly, how to use good units.

Edited by DehNutCase
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@NSSKG151 Not that I'm aware of. I know everyone I've talked to is getting sick of all the bullshit defensive teams and absurd amount of crap you have to get through. I feel like if they toned down the competitive element it'd be more fun. Letting people play more than twice a day would be nice and some way of making defense wins less important, or completely unimportant, might make people more willing to experiment with theme maps than just falling back on the irritating ones. The game mode seems like it might be more fun as a sort of map maker mode where anyone can challenge your map at will and you don't suffer any repercussions for having your defense team lose. I think the one major takeaway from all the PvP-esque modes the series has tried—Shadow Dragon, Fates, Arena, Arena Assault, and AR—is that FE isn't especially well suited for PvP.

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10 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

I feel like if they toned down the competitive element it'd be more fun. Letting people play more than twice a day would be nice and some way of making defense wins less important, or completely unimportant, might make people more willing to experiment with theme maps than just falling back on the irritating ones.

I agree, I wish it didn't feel as high stakes as it currently does. This feels like one of the most fun modes we have on a good day, but it can be stressful trying to make sure you never make any mistakes or you cripple your progress both long and short-term. You also have to play every single day. It's not like arena and AA where you can just spend some dueling swords and clean up your run at the end of the week if you want. I don't mind some competitiveness and challenging pvp content, but it's feeling a bit heavy as-is for a more casual mobile game.

Maybe it's just me, but I even spend like 30+ minutes when I run into some cancer or whale maps just to make sure I do not screw up and lose any lift progress within my control. I feel like I'm forced to take the game a bit too seriously at the moment.

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@bottlegnomes Personally I couldn't disagree more. Aether Raids works for me precisely because of its cutthroat nature. Nothing else in this game really has stakes. Because of the number of arena badges that get handed out for free, arena just requires waiting for the right matchups and is more about building high scoring units than actually playing well. Arena Assault (a mode I otherwise like because of how many units get involved) requires remarkably little thought as it has unlimited counter pick and no resource cost of any kind.

Aether Raids are currently the only game mode with non superfluous rewards that demands you both prepare and play at a high level. There is an element of counter pick, but it's limited to your 5 set raid teams. There's so much opportunity cost with how you spend your stones between offense and defense. You have to fight against unit builds optimized for performance and not just score.

That's not to say that the mode doesn't need work. Things like being able to play your friends for free and some balance tweaks are likely needed and will likely come. But ultimately for me the mode is a positive addition that does what a new game mode should, feel different dispite existing within the same framework.

Maybe the community will decide a hardcore mode in a decidedly casual game is a bad thing but I hope it doesn't come to that.

P.S. are people really running in to that many Rein-Lyn teams that are all the same? Im top 10k and still feel like the variety isn't any worse than the tier 19.5/20 arena I inhabit. Maybe I'm lucky.

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@bottlegnomes Pretty much in agreement with what you just said. I feel like Aether Raid could be more fun if it was just a fun side mode with no major rewards tied to it though currently it is the only source for Heroic Grails. But SRPG are just not a good medium for PvP at least from what I have seen anyways. I remember trying Fates rendition of PvP before and it was just as cancerous.

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11 minutes ago, colossus86 said:

P.S. are people really running in to that many Rein-Lyn teams that are all the same? Im top 10k and still feel like the variety isn't any worse than the tier 19.5/20 arena I inhabit. Maybe I'm lucky.

I'm in the top 700 and virtually every single team has some combination out of Rein/Veronica/B.Lyn/Cecilia. The exceptions are pretty much only whale teams with stuff like +10 Adrift Corrins or other +10 Cav healers rocking Atk/Spd Solo and Pain. A few instant special Ophelia teams get a mention as well.

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Personally I've seen quite a few meme teams out there. One guy I fought had V!Ike, Oscar, Soren, Titania. (It was a pretty decent team, mind, especially considering it was mostly +10 merges & the guy's fort had a level on me).

The main thing, though, is that, yeah, I can guess whether a team's meant to be meme or not based on its unit comp, but I can't tell it from the difficulty level. Everything is on the level of: 'If I'm trying it's a one sided stomp, if I'm playing casually (which is what I've been doing now that the first season is over), I lose units occasionally.' I'm sure there're people so good at the game that every team is a one sided stomp even when they're not trying, too, considering I'm working with mostly +0 units with a fort disadvantage, whereas they can probably get +10 units with fort parity or even fort advantage.

 

Mind that I'm ~2.2k right now, meaning I'll have to hand in my elitist jerk badge soon. (Don't really feel like investing too much effort into this mode.)

Edited by DehNutCase
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I already started off far behind, barely around 100k rank, due to forgetting to turn in all my battles the first season. Games are only fun when I'm winning, and I'm losing badly in this mode. Worse because I'm finding I can't just buy my way to victory like I did with Arena.

I really hope that next monthly bonus pack is Heroic Grails. At this rate, it'll take me two more years to +10 Arvis.

Maybe I should invest more into my defense team. Every kill they score, even if it's not victory, means I cost the foe lift.

Edited by Chrom-ulent
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35 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

considering I'm working with mostly +0 units with a fort disadvantage, whereas they can probably get +10 units with fort parity or even fort advantage.

I didn't buy the offensive healing building and so I'm used to enemies with +4-8 stat advantage at this point. Aside from the high stakes if I actually mess up against them, it's pretty fun running into +10 Adrift Corrins with 45-55 in every stat +buffs and still overcoming them.

I'd almost just upgrade my defense fort again to hope I can help my defense chances more since that's the only place I've been losing lift, but at the same time I really don't feel like dealing with all the +10 Surtrs with +8 stats we'll see soon. I'm currently trashing them with Adrif Camilla, but when she's lost her bonus stats and they gain them they may be more of an issue.

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13 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

I didn't buy the offensive healing building and so I'm used to enemies with +4-8 stat advantage at this point.

Same here, actually. (It's why I'm getting out leveled, fort-wise, since healing fountain is a pretty popular defensive.)

13 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

I'd almost just upgrade my defense fort again to hope I can help my defense chances more since that's the only place I've been losing lift, but at the same time I really don't feel like dealing with all the +10 Surtrs with +8 stats we'll see soon. I'm currently trashing them with Adrif Camilla, but when she's lost her bonus stats and they gain them they may be more of an issue.

If you have 5 unit slots already I don't imagine Surtrs will ever be a problem, since they're hard-countered by having dancers. (I'll need to play the mode more to find out, but teams of 5 should be able to fit 2 dancers easily.)

 

Regarding defense forts, for pure scoring I'd argue that defense upgrades are more important than offense upgrades----being able to win 5 defense matches is 400 lift, which is a whole tier.* (My own defense fort is going to stay level 1 +0 until my offense fort is literally maxed out, but that's because I'm planning to play this mode extremely casually.)

*This will change if we get Aether Regen upgrades, though, since lift inflation would devalue the 'effective' lift you gain from having a good defense.

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3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

If you have 5 unit slots already I don't imagine Surtrs will ever be a problem, since they're hard-countered by having dancers. (I'll need to play the mode more to find out, but teams of 5 should be able to fit 2 dancers easily.)

 

Regarding defense forts, for pure scoring I'd argue that defense upgrades are more important than offense upgrades----being able to win 5 defense matches is 400 lift, which is a whole tier.* (My own defense fort is going to stay level 1 +0 until my offense fort is literally maxed out, but that's because I'm planning to play this mode extremely casually.)

*This will change if we get Aether Regen upgrades, though, since lift inflation would devalue the 'effective' lift you gain from having a good defense.

I do have 1 team with 2 dancers, but Adrift Camilla is the only red on it. She can probably still handle them either way, but better safe than sorrry. (usually I don't use 2 dancers since Loki takes the 5th slot to cripple like 80% of enemy teams)

Ideally it might be, though defense also involves a lot of luck. You could invest and still keep losing, or get wins with no investment at all. I've seen easy-looking teams get defenses while tougher ones get none. I haven't managed a single successful defense yet that actually counted as first of the day, so I need all the help I can get there. But at the same time, ensuring offense remains consistent is something more within my control.

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Looking at the score/Aether cost progression and Tier cutoffs, I'm noticing how little Defense matters at first but then ultimately determines whether or not you can even advance a tier-- for now, anyway, since we don't have enough Aether to even reach T21 no matter how well you do. Unlike Arena, actually breaching a higher tier will end up being harder than staying there (unless the Lift deduction for failure increases).

For myself, assuming I start next season at Tier 16 (6000 Lift, pretty likely at this point), I can afford to lose only 400 Lift from Defenses (out of a possible 560 if I'm hit every day) while playing perfectly (or near perfect) to go to Tier 18 (7200 Lift). Players who end this season at Tier 17 (highest possible based on the current high scores) will also only be able to reach Tier 18 next week, but with significantly more room for error, including Defense losses. Tier 16 is the highest you can start at where you can move up multiple tiers if you do well enough, every tier after can only go up by one more tier.

--------------------------------------

Final thought for the day: Tactics Room (O) should cover slightly wider area. In the meantime, placing it in the 2nd slot from the left continues to be the best choice for hitting common setups that use Reinhardt/Lyn/Veronica

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So what happened to the free run a day? I just lost my first fight against an arena cancer team, and it immediately deducted aether from me so I can't play anymore today. Guess I'll be waking up in the 70ks or worse tomorrow, since I am a human being who dares to make mistakes. This mode is garbage.

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3 hours ago, Johann said:

For myself, assuming I start next season at Tier 16 (6000 Lift, pretty likely at this point), I can afford to lose only 400 Lift from Defenses (out of a possible 560 if I'm hit every day) while playing perfectly (or near perfect) to go to Tier 18 (7200 Lift). Players who end this season at Tier 17 (highest possible based on the current high scores) will also only be able to reach Tier 18 next week, but with significantly more room for error, including Defense losses. Tier 16 is the highest you can start at where you can move up multiple tiers if you do well enough, every tier after can only go up by one more tier.

Starting from tier 18, we'll only have enough Aether for 15 matches, so even with perfect offence you can't reach tier 19 if you lose more than 500 lift from defence.

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Lost my third match this week ...

I mean I was sloopy, didn't prepare the best offensive teams and my offensive structures aren't perfect. Don't have the fifth offense unit either. 

But going against Aversa, Lyn, Rein, Minizura and a random Wrazzle/Dazzle Cav all the time is no fun. Forgot (again) that Aversa would destroy my Buffs for Bladetomes.  

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I had a weird match that cost me a unit (technically lost two in the match, but the second was due to me being dumb, so that's entirely on me) because the AI got a little weird. I was trying to manipulate movement in a way that has worked hundreds of times for Arena, but I guess I missed something. It was a five-unit defense with two refreshers, Veronica, Myrrh and L!Ephraim. L!Ephraim and Myrrh could both rally Veronica, so the idea was to put TA!A!Tiki over near the edge of Ephraim's range to tempt him that direction, then TA!Nowi to soak Veronica and draw Myrrh her way. Instead, the AI did the opposite and had Ephraim prioritize rallying Veronica (despite being the one with the crappier rally, since he only had a Rally Spd and Myrrh had Spd/Def) to chase after Nowi. The only thing I can think of there is that basic rallies take priority over dual rallies, for whatever reason, since Ephraim would have otherwise seen himself doing over twice the damage per hit to Tiki that he would have done to Nowi.

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There fun, but the keeps are like My Castle from fates- They can be rigged to give your opponents team an unfair adavantage. The turn limit doesn’t do the defending team any favors. More like a nitpick, but no orbs is kind of disappointing compared to Area.

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1 hour ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

I had a weird match that cost me a unit (technically lost two in the match, but the second was due to me being dumb, so that's entirely on me) because the AI got a little weird. I was trying to manipulate movement in a way that has worked hundreds of times for Arena, but I guess I missed something. It was a five-unit defense with two refreshers, Veronica, Myrrh and L!Ephraim. L!Ephraim and Myrrh could both rally Veronica, so the idea was to put TA!A!Tiki over near the edge of Ephraim's range to tempt him that direction, then TA!Nowi to soak Veronica and draw Myrrh her way. Instead, the AI did the opposite and had Ephraim prioritize rallying Veronica (despite being the one with the crappier rally, since he only had a Rally Spd and Myrrh had Spd/Def) to chase after Nowi. The only thing I can think of there is that basic rallies take priority over dual rallies, for whatever reason, since Ephraim would have otherwise seen himself doing over twice the damage per hit to Tiki that he would have done to Nowi.

Actions with equal priority have their tie broken by the unit's slot position in the team. I'm guessing all rallies have the same priority, so it fell back to the tiebreaker.

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My Aether Raids experience today. I did beat them without losing an ally but it bores me a little bit when things look so similar. They really made this map far too good; I don't believe I've ever seen the desert or snow map (outside of my own Keep).

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Unless I can avoid being attacked on one of the remaining days and continue to play perfectly, I think I'm going to miss hitting tier 16 by a sliver thanks to the defense losses dragging me back down. (only avoided one day so far since luckily nobody attacked me)

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