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Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.


Alastor15243
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2 hours ago, lenticular said:

The biggest loss is ore, and to a lesser extent food. If you play fast (I'm thinking taking about a week to ten days here, which is pretty quick, but not speedrun-quick or monomaniacal-obsession-quick) and don't do any online stuff, then you will be short of ore and you will be limited on how many forges you can do. The mine and the food gathering spot are restricted to once every four maps or once every real world day, which doesn't give you many harvests over the course of a quick play. And yeah, there's random drops from My Castle conversations, and there's the arena, but those are only going to take you so far. You also aren't going to have access to the Chef's Hat, Smithy Shield or Arena Shield, which is a further impediment.

Of course, you absolutely can play and complete the game without any of this stuff. You can beat the game without even building the smithy or the mess hall. And if it was just the mess hall, then I wouldn't think of it as that big a loss. But forging? Being limited on forging sucks. Both because it's been a core game mechanic in the series since Path of Radiance and because of how important forged weapons are in a game where most of the supposedly high-end weapons come with substantial drawbacks. It's not absolutely vital, but I'd definitely say that it is meaningful.

Ore has never been an issue for me. Save scumming the arena gets you plenty. It's money that you need to really forge effectively, in order to buy all the weapons you need for the forge.

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31 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ore has never been an issue for me. Save scumming the arena gets you plenty. It's money that you need to really forge effectively, in order to buy all the weapons you need for the forge.

Well, I never save scum for that sort of thing. Obviously it's not an option in ironman runs, but even if I'm resetting whenever someone dies, that sort of save scumming just isn't fun for me (for compariosn, I also don't savescum exam results in Three Houses, which I know a lot of people do). Nothing against you or anyone else who does save scum, but it isn't for me.

Obviously, there are a lot of factors that are going to influence how limiting a factor ore is going to be. How fast you play, how lucky you are with random My Castle drops, what type of resource you have natively, how well you manage to optimise what resources you have, etc. But I can say for certain that in both of my plays through Fates (one Birthright, one Conquest), my forging has been limited by my access to ore far more than it's been limited by money.

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13 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Well, I never save scum for that sort of thing. Obviously it's not an option in ironman runs, but even if I'm resetting whenever someone dies, that sort of save scumming just isn't fun for me (for compariosn, I also don't savescum exam results in Three Houses, which I know a lot of people do). Nothing against you or anyone else who does save scum, but it isn't for me.

Even when ironmanning, if you're smart about when you do and don't push your luck in the arena, you can get some pretty nice ore income. Certainly enough for some +3s.

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20 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

-5: Cannot be taken seriously in any way, and brings no joy except through mockery.

Birthright, Revelation, Dark Dragon, Gaiden.

YESSSSSSSS i wouldn't put gaiden here because it honestly tried to be something for a 1990 NES game but YESSSSSS drag fates writing to FILTH. so happy that birthright brought this realization. it's every bit as bad as conquest and revelation.

with that said, i think birthright is being a bit undersold on difficulty here. it seems appropriate to rank it with radiant dawn - a game that, in its hard mode, is harder than birthright when it's not GM chapters - but blazing blade is definitely easier when it's not doing fog of war or kishuna shenaningans for example. maybe +2 and -2 tiers for difficulty would be good if you want to value it more, even if you keep birthright at 0 - it seems 0 and -4 are a bit crowded right now.

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11 hours ago, Jotari said:

It's passive though. Using a staff or vulnerary takes up someone's turn. It also occurs every turn and can hit multiple units at once. It's not the best skill in the world, hell I wouldn't even say it's worth a level 15 skill. Air Superiority is probably better (though that particularly skill is actually better if you move off Kinshi Knight since Knishi Knights will probably be making short work of flying foes with or without the need for it). But it is useful. It's not like you're likely to have a healer for every unit on the map, so topping up allies health at the start of your turn helps.

In general, if a unit really needs healing, odds are they're missing much more than 20% of their health. It could be useful for topping off units, but unless your name is Subaki, that doesn't really give you any advantages.

18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

This is true, but it's all a bunch of minor and non-essential stuff. I've been doing visits way, way more than I truly need to just for completionist's sake in the hope of getting those dang seals. My Castle stuff still advances when you beat chapters, not just when real life time passes. And none of the wait-sensitive stuff is really all that important to the core experience in any meaningful way. Playing without waiting isn't going to be anywhere near what I'd call unfair, and I'd be happy to do a faster, Wifi-free run of Birthright on my own time to prove it sometime. Probably not right now though, I don't want to get Fates burnout.

Speaking of, how many battle and visit points do you have now?

 

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3 hours ago, Axie said:

with that said, i think birthright is being a bit undersold on difficulty here. it seems appropriate to rank it with radiant dawn - a game that, in its hard mode, is harder than birthright when it's not GM chapters - but blazing blade is definitely easier when it's not doing fog of war or kishuna shenaningans for example. maybe +2 and -2 tiers for difficulty would be good if you want to value it more, even if you keep birthright at 0 - it seems 0 and -4 are a bit crowded right now.

Another possibility is that I might be mis-remembering how difficult Binding Blade is with respect to games like Shadow Dragon and New Mystery, and it might actually be worthy of going up there too, which would leave me a whole tier free to make distinctions in that 0 jumble. I'll have to replay Binding Blade sometime to see though.

 

  

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

In general, if a unit really needs healing, odds are they're missing much more than 20% of their health. It could be useful for topping off units, but unless your name is Subaki, that doesn't really give you any advantages.

But if you have even just two of them, suddenly it's like everyone around the pair has renewal+. And then if you get three or four, like I had, the passive, action-free healing you can do with it would be nuts.

Edited by Alastor15243
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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But if you have even just two of them, suddenly it's like everyone around the pair has renewal+. And then if you get three or four, like I had, the passive, action-free healing you can do with it would be nuts.

Hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but I don't think that works...

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9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

How would it not?

Because having the same skill on multiple units doesn't make its effects stack.

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Ok I know I've never posted in this thread before, but in the interest of stopping more of Levant's constant stream of mis-information, the healing effect of Amaterasu will indeed stack if you have the skill on multiple units.

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2 minutes ago, Carmine Sword said:

Ok I know I've never posted in this thread before, but in the interest of stopping more of Levant's constant stream of mis-information, the healing effect of Amaterasu will indeed stack if you have the skill on multiple units.

Glad to hear from you, and thanks for the info! Hope you're enjoying yourself!

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54 minutes ago, Carmine Sword said:

Ok I know I've never posted in this thread before, but in the interest of stopping more of Levant's constant stream of mis-information, the healing effect of Amaterasu will indeed stack if you have the skill on multiple units.

That's news to me, because I was only inferring that based on the behavior of other skills that affect units within an area - most of which do not have their effects stack if you had multiple units with the same skill. If the effects of Demoiselle, etc. don't stack when you have a unit in range of multiple units with them, what reason would I have to assume Amaterasu is different?? ...And even then, it being a level 15 skill means that you'd only have a couple chapters at most to figure that out.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Sorry Birthright faded in the middle and parts of the end, I was expecting that. It isn't a bad game by many means, mostly an inoffensive one if you ask me. And yet again, your ranking system proves imperfect, to little surprise.😛

The minor discussion on the Amaterasu skill makes me think of how it can be neat when an RPG provides enough sources of little healing that it frees you from needing a dedicated healer. FE doesn't really do much with this concept.

 

I've also begun taking all-too-copious notes on the brief 43 page chapter on medieval universities from the library book I got. FYI, "learning how to ride wyverns and punch stuff" are not in the curriculum, nor is teatime! Tea didn't reach Europe until the 1600s; and the arts of war weren't for academic discussion yet, the oldest European military academies are from the early 1700s. Not to say books on weapons and fighting didn't exist, they did, you just didn't go to school to learn how to fight.

A monastery as a center of learning seems to be blurring the historical circumstances. Monasteries continued to teach as universities formed, and some universities began as monasteries like Oxford, but the heyday of monasteries as the light of knowledge in Europe precedes the rise of the university. You might be able to say that the torch was passed from one institution to another. Nonetheless, universities had some ecclesiastical flavor, though they were a mix of lay and clergy.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

In general, if a unit really needs healing, odds are they're missing much more than 20% of their health. It could be useful for topping off units, but unless your name is Subaki, that doesn't really give you any advantages.

Speaking of, how many battle and visit points do you have now?

 

Topping off units is what stops them really needing healing down the road.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Because having the same skill on multiple units doesn't make its effects stack.

It does stack. It also stacks with Azura's personal skill, though if you want Azura to be a dancer you don't have a massive window of opportunity to take advantage of that without using the logbook.

Edited by Jotari
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4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The minor discussion on the Amaterasu skill makes me think of how it can be neat when an RPG provides enough sources of little healing that it frees you from needing a dedicated healer. FE doesn't really do much with this concept.

What games do you have in mind? Because I am drawing a blank.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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On 3/12/2021 at 2:17 PM, Alastor15243 said:

-5: Cannot be taken seriously in any way, and brings no joy except through mockery.

Birthright, Revelation, Dark Dragon, Gaiden.

I think this description is misleading. I know that FE1 and 2 stories are barebones, but are they meme-tier and cringeworthy?

On 3/12/2021 at 2:18 PM, Alastor15243 said:

...Fasten your asses, everyone.

It's time.

It's FUCKING TIME.

Anyway, CONGRATS. I probably won't be here to see it, but at least I'll be back to find out your reaction to the lunatic-only skills.

Edited by Maof06
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8 hours ago, Maof06 said:

I think this description is misleading. I know that FE1 and 2 stories are barebones, are they meme-tier and cringeworthy?

Honestly, yeah. I spent a lot of my time with those games reacting to how awkward and rushed and distractingly limited the storytelling was. I was reminded of the video game equivalent of those cheesy old movies MST3K watched.

Edited by Alastor15243
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Conquest Day 1: Prologue to Chapter 2

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO, PEOPLE!

IT'S CONQUEST!

FUCKING CONQUEST!

MY FAVORITE GAME IN THE WHOLE DAMNED FRANCHISE!

God, I haven't played this fucking game in years. Probably not surprising, since I said that from the moment I started the marathon, on of the rules is that Three Houses would be the only game I'd be allowed to play until I get to it in the marathon. But even before this year-and-a-half long journey getting here, it had been quite some time since I'd played this. I can't quite remember why, but holy shit has this marathon multiplied my desire to play it again tenfold.

And with that, I feel the same sense of trepidation I felt when I played Order of Ecclesia again for the Igavania marathon I did, which was kind of a predecessor to this fucking mammoth of a project. Throughout that entire project, I kept comparing certain aspects of each game rather unfavorably to how I remembered Order of Ecclesia being, and that caused a sort of mounting tension as I kept asking myself whether or not Order of Ecclesia actually lived up to my memory of it.

Yeah, take that mounting fear and span it out over the course of a year and a half, and you have my trepidation now. I've been writing a lot of fucking checks with Conquest's name, and I haven't checked the damned bank balance in more than two years.

Now it's time to see if Conquest can cash them.

Alright, time to change my 3DS theme to the Conquest one, boot up Conquest, start up a new Lunatic file (since I don't want to be stuck with the same cursed avatar again)...

...and begin.

We're going female Dakota again, same parameters as last time, except I'm going back to quick/unlucky with a dragon talent. Here's hoping she's actually good this time, because the plan is to marry her to Jakob really early.

Okay, so I'm watching the opening cinematic again, and I have to ask... if Azura can sing underwater... does that mean she can breathe underwater?

But yeah, I'm skipping the story at this point. Also, I've very decidedly and conclusively learned my lesson at this point: I am doing the prologue to Chapter 2 and that is fucking it today. I am not going to, say, try and rush the whole pre-split segment of Fates at 3 in the morning like some kind of deranged, sleep-deprived ignoramus would do.

First level up: HP, strength, speed and luck. Encouraging!

But yes. Here we are at Chapter 2.

God this chapter always gets me nervous.

But I've learned my lesson this time: don't over-estimate Jakob's bulk just because he's better than Felicia. Do not enemy-phase with him.

Yet again I fail to properly bait the AI, and Kaze's troops wind up going in different directions. I wind up retreating and taking out the isolated Kaze rather than let myself get sandwiched. Gunter had to eat a shuriken to make that happen, but it's better than the alternative.

The samurai are trivially easy to take out, so I'm basically running around the pillar trying to keep my distance from Rinkah's troops before ultimately baiting them in with Gunter.

Dakota's second level up: magic, skill, speed, defense and resistance! I'm happy with this so far!

Jakob, on the other hand... gets lucksauce. Guess he's no longer sucking up Dakota's level ups, then. Pity, I have plans for him, and I'd love it if they lasted past the earlygame.

WHEW! SUCCESS! And with no casualties!

HP, magic, skill, speed and defense! Awesome! I've got plans to make Dakota a magic build, so these magic procs are very, very encouraging!

...Okay, seeing this cutscene again for the laughs, I'm actually kinda pissed off that they just arbitrarily gave Garon fire magic here when he can't use it in gameplay and actually has a rather shitty magic stat. Why couldn't they have just given Bölverk fire powers in gameplay!?

But god, this cutscene is still hilarious. Everything about the attack animations feels wrong, especially that ridiculously long pause between the second magic blast and Dakota diving in to block it, which I can only fucking assume was some bizarre attempt at dramatic timing, and if it was, it fell flat on its ass so hard that whatever surface they landed on looks like it's made of memory foam.

The music choice for this scene is pretty dumb too, considering Dakota and Xander are now fighting, and the music is just “vaguely ominous”.

I'm sorry I can't get over this, but it's just so funny! This is the cheesiest shit I've ever seen! And Conquest has plenty of other amazingly dumb moments to laugh at too, so we'll have that to look forward to for sure.

For now, though... I know this entry is short...

...but I intend to ironman this game, and I intend to ironman it properly.

If you've got any questions for me today, I'd be happy to answer them.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited by Alastor15243
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10 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Who are you planning on using?

Dakota, Jakob at least temporarily, the royal family are an obvious must, and then there'll be Mozu, Effie, and whoever I marry Mozu to, preferably someone early and with a male child so I can make the kid a kinshi knight too, though early aptitude Percy would be nice, even though Arthur as a kinshi knight has me concerned...

I'll also be taking Laslow and trying insta-promoting him so he can get his levels early and become a rally botting replicating badass way earlier than I'm used to from him, and Keaton is gonna be a big part in my army, but also Silas as a master ninja will be seeing action again, this time hopefully with shurikenbreaker too...

...of course, which of these candidates I wind up continuing to use will depend greatly on who survives though.

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

If you've got any questions for me today, I'd be happy to answer them.

Do you intend to use DLC classes?

28 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Dakota, Jakob at least temporarily, the royal family are an obvious must, and then there'll be Mozu, Effie, and whoever I marry Mozu to, preferably someone early and with a male child so I can make the kid a kinshi knight too, though early aptitude Percy would be nice, even though Arthur as a kinshi knight has me concerned...

I'll also be taking Laslow and trying insta-promoting him so he can get his levels early and become a rally botting replicating badass way earlier than I'm used to from him, and Keaton is gonna be a big part in my army, but also Silas as a master ninja will be seeing action again, this time hopefully with shurikenbreaker too...

...of course, which of these candidates I wind up continuing to use will depend greatly on who survives though.

Use Odin so you can get Ophelia.

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4 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

Use Odin so you can get Ophelia.

Ah yes, totally forgot about that! I totally plan on using Odin and Niles because I've never done their paralogues! I've always failed to use them, but I think this time's the time!

 

4 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

Do you intend to use DLC classes?

My one real concern is that witch and ballistician might ruin some parts of Conquest's design, but other than that, I would be open to the idea of using DLC classes on anyone I've already promoted.

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5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yes, totally forgot about that! I totally plan on using Odin and Niles because I've never done their paralogues! I've always failed to use them, but I think this time's the time!

Remember: Elise is best mom.

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

My one real concern is that witch and ballistician might ruin some parts of Conquest's design, but other than that, I would be open to the idea of using DLC classes on anyone I've already promoted.

Do you think a Dread Fighter avatar would break the game?

Btw, did my daily visit and gave you a Chef's hat, but I don't know if you will receive it because the castle I visited was still from your BR save.

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8 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

Btw, did my daily visit and gave you a Chef's hat, but I don't know if you will receive it because the castle I visited was still from your BR save.

That doesn't matter, I don't get them until I collect them on my new file I'm 99% sure.

9 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

Remember: Elise is best mom.

I will actually be doing that pairing. I can't get away with leaving Elise unpaired if I'm making her a combat unit. And I have to see for myself how bad her S supports are.

 

12 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

Do you think a Dread Fighter avatar would break the game?

Probably no more than master ninja would, disregarding early class changes.

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35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I will actually be doing that pairing. I can't get away with leaving Elise unpaired if I'm making her a combat unit. And I have to see for myself how bad her S supports are.

Are you going to reclass her to Wyvern?  Her S-supports aren't even that bad (at least compared to Fates standard). Also, it is perfectly possible for Elise to be of legal age according to the information contained in the supports and in the Artbook, but you are not prepared for this conversation.

35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Probably no more than master ninja would, disregarding early class changes.

I can only hope that the loss of the use of dragonstones will balance an early promotion.

Edited by Maof06
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