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Boat Maps! Yay or nay?


indigoasis
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Boat Maps!  

26 members have voted

  1. 1. Yay or nay?

    • Yay!
      15
    • Nay!
      2
    • Indifferent/Other!
      9


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For as long as I've known about the existence of boat maps, I've had trouble understanding whether people actually liked boat maps or if they were just being sarcastic. I don't see boat maps often discussed, so just to clarify, I wanted to ask for a consensus on boat maps and figure out whether or not most people actually like them.

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It's the mechanics of the boat map that determines whether it's obnoxious or not.  I didn't mind FE7's one, but the one in Revelation makes my blood pressure shoot up.

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32 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Unironically yes. But like, improve upon it. Add cannons to the boats. Make it full on Pirate Emblem.

this. Think of all the fun and strategic gameplay options that would come of it

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Boat maps are a meme in Echoes, one that they lean into with their yar har ho pirates and I think Boey makes some kind of comment about how grateful he is to be on dry land again. But these maps are otherwise pretty fun and a nice change of scenery from the generic "Here's an open field, the enemy castle is over there". I think the only one I don't like is the one in Sacred Stones which is a fog of war map, and I only dislike it because fog of war and being raided by flying enemies is not a fun time. I love the FE7 map especially. It's a survive chapter with a low turn count so you won't be there for long. But there's valuable items to steal and since killing the boss isn't necessary, they made him this scary dude who doesn't move but can crit with his Luna tome, one shotting anybody in your army. If you do kill him though, the map ends early which is great for ranked runs. 

Edited by Glennstavos
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Let's see, a history of them:

Gaiden/SoV: Introduced the boat map, and used the same one over and over for much of Celica's first Act. Being Gaiden, they aren't good, but they're much more likable than Alm's endless open fields later on, being smaller and tighter. The Archanean Seaway battles SoV adds are sorta nice, and canonizes Dagons after FE3 almost had them, I like that.

Blazing Sword: I'm a little surprised it took this long before we got another boat map. It's a Survive- a glorified Rout with a time limit which gives you victory anyhow, or you can kill the boss. Fairly fun, physicals on the right, Shamans to the left, another boat shows up later on, some Pegasus to boot. And it's Fargus's ship. I like it!

Sacred Stones: Phantom Ship, my soul you rip! A mix of Mogalls and Gargoyles approaching from the north and south, a giant horde of undead meat that thinks to win via attrition, and L'Arachel reinforces. All of this is fine. But then add in Fog of War, and the moving Deathgoyle boss showing up a little too soon before you can safely get your squishy units off the starting boat for the safety of the central one, and this map lives in some degree of FE infamy.

Path of Radiance: Two boat maps back to back! The first is slow and very defensive, the enemies come to you and are of rather low quantity, but high quality. BEXP dump Marcia makes it easy- but let's ignore this mountain of pecorino romano. It's novel, but I can see people not liking it. The second map is a Defend, which can be a little tricky sometimes to succeed at on the first turn (or just keep Astrid alive), but otherwise it's another fairly fun map.

Awakening: Awakening doesn't have good map design, a basic and sad fact of the game. This battle, ending with a sometimes criticized lighthearted Red Cliffs finale, is for me just an inferior knockoff of Blazing's.

Fates Conquest: Like most Conquest maps, this one is well designed. It's Xander's joining fight, with a unique-ish objective before you can win, and you're encouraged to not take it slowly to maximize your payout. Starting in the center, the objective, and the need for speed means you do have to strategically divide your forces from the get go if you want the money.

Fates Birthright: Uses the same map as Conquest, but plays it very differently. It's just an all-airborne assault on your vessel, with Dragon Veins to hinder them, and you move simply from right to left. As long as you keep moving and terminating enemies, the map is easy. If you take it too slow, then it stands a chance of being overwhelming. Getting Takumi in the prior battle and Reina in this one provides you with two clutch Bow users for this early fight.

Fates Revelation: Uses a totally different map from the other two main campaign Fates battles. And this one is really bad. You're sitting ducks waiting for the enemy to come at you when you begin, like in PoR, although this time it's across multiple vessels with enemy variety. When the sluggish defending is done, then you can board the enemy for a change. However, the enemy vessel has Berserkers, and if you play on Classic, their visible Crit might make you toss your 3DS as you have redo the entire chapter.

Fates Paralogue: Shigure's Paralogue takes the idea of enemy vessels boarding your's mid-fight from Blazing and SS and makes it more dynamic with the two ships constantly alternating between which is connected to yours. It's a simple Rout, with no real side objectives. Good for an EXP feeding, but not really a good map.

 

Strangely, Archanea lacks boat maps, despite having waterways being much more central to its travel and commerce than other continents. Jugdral also lacks for boat maps, which makes sense. Genealogy has maps the size of countries- no boat could realistically be big enough for it. Leif's journey in Thracia is wholly landlocked. Binding doesn't have boats, even though it had instances where it could have happened, but the game has a tight enough time including fights in every country. Radiant Dawn never allowed for the possibility of a boat map in its narrative.

 

If there is anything I find particularly notable about boat maps, it's the fairly narrow confines they have. Boats are usually only so big, made even smaller by the lack of terrain to slow movement, and the only way to cross from one to another is walking the planks, which make for good chokepoints for defenses. Yet unlike indoors maps and walls, fliers have freedom to move over the waters. Fates CQ and BR opt for one big ship over several smaller ones, and while it doesn't feel so nautical, it works quite well for the battles they do host.

I'd like seeing them again, and for them to be done creatively and executed well.

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3 hours ago, eclipse said:

It's the mechanics of the boat map that determines whether it's obnoxious or not.  I didn't mind FE7's one, but the one in Revelation makes my blood pressure shoot up.

This is pretty much my opinion.

Although then again, a lot of Revelation maps make my blood boil.  That entire path is frustratingly tedious right up until the last two chapters where you literally can just run up to the boss and wack him a couple times.  I hate Revelation's boat map so much that sometimes I would rather just rush the ship Flora's on with a bunch of fliers and defeat her right away.  The other Fates boat maps are nowhere near this bad.

Gaiden's/Echoes' suck sometimes because you're either fighting a bunch of enemies that retreat to a healing space or you fight a goddamn Cantor that summons, like, 5-6 zombies at a time.

Blazing Sword's doesn't pull any nonsense.  Just a simple wave rush of swordfighters, cavaliers, and archers on one side, shamen on the other, and the occasional wave of pegasus knights from the sea.  What I actually like about this one is you can choose between rushing for the Shaman boss to acquire his goods and maybe even defeating him early or riding out the storm of enemy forces until your boy Fargus helps ye out.  Awakening's is a poor man's version of this, but that just means it isn't horrendously tedious like the more gimmicky ones.

 

So overall, more like Blazing Sword's and even Conquest's, and less like Revelation's and the Cantor ships from hell.  Do that, and I'll welcome more boat maps.

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2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Strangely, Archanea lacks boat maps, despite having waterways being much more central to its travel and commerce than other continents. 

I was going to bring up Archanea since I'm playing through it. So many pirates, but no ships! Maybe with so much war across the continent you don't need a ship to be a profitable pirate gang. All the authorities that might stop you are busy fighting in the war.

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14 hours ago, indigocean said:

For as long as I've known about the existence of boat maps, I've had trouble understanding whether people actually liked boat maps or if they were just being sarcastic. I don't see boat maps often discussed, so just to clarify, I wanted to ask for a consensus on boat maps and figure out whether or not most people actually like them.

i think it depends mostly on three things: available tiles for placing units, obstacles, and flying enemy units.

if the boat/ship is too small and has few/no obstacles, then it may be hard to deal with enemy units in case flying ones are present in the map too, due to terrain limitations for the player's units, and the ability to attack from all sides for the enemy flying units.

on the other hand, a big ship with many tiles and obstacles could be played without many issues and provide different tactical advantages, as long as there's enough space for everything. and while there's been plenty of ballistas on ground in previous games, i don't remember seeing things like cannons or harpoons on ships being used to combat enemy units.

in any case, there always has to be a balance between map design and enemy units when it comes to boat maps, in order to give a decent and fair challenge to the players.

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Similar to a certain moderator's opinion I feel it comes down to the mechanics. In my honest opinion there's no such thing as an inherently bad setting for a map, just poor execution.

An example here, despite the fact desert maps on a whole are usually found to be irksome, obviously existing as a balancing mechanic to stop you from horse-Emblem-ing a whole game, the one in Shadow Dragon manages to be suprisingly tolerable because of the fact it's designed so there's an alternate, though longer path to send your mounted units on so they aren't just pointlessly trudging through one tile at a time or sitting out the chapter entirely.

An example going the other way, would be taking a look at a certain chapter in FE7... Battle Before Dawn. While castle maps tend towards being unoffensive, on the higher difficulties, this one goes about being an absolute troll. Right down to having it's treasure all be objects that you really, really could have used to get through the chapter safely.

I daresay, one could even come up with a way to make a swamp map into something that doesn't bog the game down if they thought of the right mechanics to build it upon. Though damned if I know how. The point is even an idea that seems bad can, through proper execution be fixed, just as a good idea can be dragged down by poor design.

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I agree with eclipse - the mechanics are what make or break the maps. That being said, the only boat map I actively dislike is the one in Sacred Stones, because fog of war sucks gigantic portions of ass, especially with the flying unit ambushes, and especially because the boss spawns too close to you for comfort.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Ship maps can be good or bad; it really depends on how much thought has been put into the level design and enemy placement. For example, the two ship maps in Path of Radiance are pretty good. The ship maps in Chapter 2 of SoV… not so much. 

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