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

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Sunwoo said:

Alastor, you sure you're not just letting bias get in the way because you 1) like the gameplay of Conquest a lot, and 2) wanted to prove that Fates was good for ironman?

I'm positive. Games that can kick my ass without cheating are exactly what I want out of ironmanning, not games that don't kick my ass at all.

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, lemme put it this way:

How should deaths happen in an ironman, if not because of mistakes like this? The death by crit I agree is frustrating, and I feel that the very concept of a game-over lord is an annoying obstacle you have to make house rules around... but I cannot disagree more strongly with the idea that shit like this shouldn't happen in a good ironman game.

This was just me failing to analyze the possibilities of a situation and suffering the consequences. Dakota died because I made a mistake. That's the way units are supposed to die in an ironman. My ideal ironman fantasy isn't one where I beat it completely deathless, it's a one-of-a-kind adventure where what deaths do happen have survivable but tangible consequences that shape my run into a story in and of itself in ways I can never expect.

The fact that I've lost units in an ironman isn't a sign that the game is a bad game to ironman. I love the fact that this game is hard enough that in spite of all of the ways it's so much more fair than everything that came before it, I'm still experiencing the deaths and curve-balls that are half of what makes an ironman so compelling for me. Normally when I lose units in an ironman, it's because of dumb shit like fog of war. Here I'm losing them because I'm not good enough to do the game perfectly. That's not a mark against ironmannability, that's a mark in favor of its difficulty.

For me at least, I want deaths to be due to my failures in tactics or strategy, not my failures of observation. A few examples of deaths that I consider to be generally interesting, desirable, or fun:

1. Overextending myself going after a secondary objective and leaving myself too open to enemy attacks.
2. Needing to split my forces and misjudging how many units to send each way, leaving one flank with insufficient forces to deal with the enemy.
3. Being too passive at the start of a level and allowing the enemy to swarm me.
4. Not having enough class diversity and running into a chapter which heavily punishes the class I've over-invested in.
5. Relying too hard on a small number of units and letting everyone else fall behind.
6. Positioning myself in such a way that the enemy can take advantage of terrain and attack me from cover.
7. Etc.

I don't consider the most recent death in your run to be an failure in analysis but a failure in observation. Your analysis was correct based on the units that you believed were present. If the enemy units were what you thought they were, then you'd have been fine. Your mistake was just that you didn't notice that the maid was there. If you enjoy meticulously checking and double checking every single move just in case there's something you haven't noticed then fair play to you, but for me that is nothing but tedium. I don't play Fire Emblem (or anything else for that matter) to test my observation skills. I play Fire Emblem for the tacical gameplay and for the colourful characters. When I lose a unit due to a failure of observation, there's nothing that I can learn from it, no way to improve my skill as a player, no chance to try to change my approach next time I play the level. The only thing I have to do is remember that there's an entrap maid behind the "beware the leopard" sign.

[Ozarhok]

I'd just say let this death be a freebie and try Invasion 2 again. Invasion 2 & 3 are terribly designed chapters all around, the enemies possess scary staves and are very inconsistent & unpredictable with their actions.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, lemme put it this way:

How should deaths happen in an ironman, if not because of mistakes like this? The death by crit I agree is frustrating, and I feel that the very concept of a game-over lord is an annoying obstacle you have to make house rules around... but I cannot disagree more strongly with the idea that shit like this, the entrap staff death, shouldn't happen in a good ironman game.

This was just me failing to analyze the possibilities of a situation and suffering the consequences. Dakota died because I made a mistake. That's the way units are supposed to die in an ironman. My ideal ironman fantasy isn't one where I beat it completely deathless, it's a one-of-a-kind adventure where what deaths do happen have survivable but tangible consequences that shape my run into a story in and of itself in ways I can never expect.

The fact that I've lost units in an ironman isn't a sign that the game is a bad game to ironman. I love the fact that this game is hard enough that in spite of all of the ways it's so much more fair than everything that came before it, I'm still experiencing the deaths and curve-balls that are half of what makes an ironman so compelling for me. Normally when I lose units in an ironman, it's because of dumb shit like fog of war. Here I'm losing them because I'm not good enough to do the game perfectly. That's not a mark against ironmannability, that's a mark in favor of its difficulty.

This has gotten me thinking about how they could handle this particular aspect of the game if they ever release an actual Iron Mode option (which would make me personally way more invested in playing Iron Man runs, it can be hard sometimes when will power is the only thing stopping a reset). For a long time now I've been thinking there'd need to be some kind of credit system where you can afford to lose your lord like five times or so before the file is bricked (or maybe just turns off iron man mode). But that could be abused for a reset. This idea, however, of needing to kill another unit in place of the lord, I like the idea of that being actually weaved into gameplay.

Has anyone ever played Shin Megami Tensei IV (not sure if it's the only game in that series that has this feature, I hope it isn't, but it's the only one I've played thus far)? In that game when  you die you get brought to Charon, the boat keeper of the underworld, and you have the chance to respawn at the cost of money, the price of which increases the number of times you die in the game. I think this is an absolutely fantastic approach to game over, as you need to weigh the time since your last save point against the resources you'd lose for reviving yourself (and also the future increase in the price for any future deaths you think you might have). So often games either have a game over mean you revert to your previous save point, which can just really, really suck when you've been playing a game for two hours and then suddenly die due to a surprise attack or oversight, or you just respawn with no cost making the only penalty being how long it takes you to get back to that point in the level/dungeon you died at. This system of Shin Megami Tensei manages to do both, a game over is not meaningless, but simultaneously doesn't just erase hours of your time if you fuck up due to negligence or underestimating some enemy (the game also always warns you when your about to enter a boss fight which is an appreciated feature).

So yeah, to take this back to Fire Emblem, imagine if in Iron Man mode (or hell maybe it could be featured in non iron man modes too), should your lord die, they are take to this nether realm where some god of death tells them they still have a purpose to play in the world, but they cannot just come back to life. Blood has to be paid with blood, and someone needs to die (or be too gravely injured to fight), so one of your active party members have to give up their life in the lord's place. I think this could be a pretty cool and freaky scenario. And it could be invoke some good emotions from the lord, as most lords in the series would be absolutely not okay with someone dying in their place (of course it wouldn't lead to any actual permanent change on the lord's part given this would be a somewhat hidden scenario that only turns up if you get the lord killed).

And then you'll get LTCers hilariously abusing this feature by having their lord charge solo the entire game without any fear of them actually dying due to bringing lot's of fodder to the level.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

And then you'll get LTCers hilariously abusing this feature by having their lord charge solo the entire game without any fear of them actually dying due to bringing lot's of fodder to the level.

Only if you're allowed to continue like nothing happened apart from the fodder's death.

Anyway... moment of truth time, and... holy shit, Elise won by a damned landslide. Seven votes, with... Niles as the runner up, 7 to 4. I have to assume those people were trying to be nice to me, given the shit I've been talking about him. But Elise won out. That is depressing as hell, because she was just getting really, really fun to use on the one attempt where I really gave her a chance as a combat unit, meaning this death actually makes this run more like my past runs instead of less. But alas... the people have spoken. I don't get to choose who dies. You do.

Well that is certainly gonna make Chapter 18 more painful. On the other hand... I did kinda totally forget that Leo exists when I was making my plans last time. We'll have to see. I'll come up with something.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Has anyone ever played Shin Megami Tensei IV (not sure if it's the only game in that series that has this feature, I hope it isn't, but it's the only one I've played thus far)? In that game when  you die you get brought to Charon, the boat keeper of the underworld, and you have the chance to respawn at the cost of money, the price of which increases the number of times you die in the game.

SMTIV: Apocalypse brings back the feature, since you're Dagda's pawn, except this time there is no monetary fee. Nonetheless, you're allowed to turn down his offer of resurrection and Game Over if you wish, for the sake of gamer pride or something. It undermines the point you're making about the goodness of the concept.

Prior to SMTIV, nope, this never existed. Didn't matter if the game had Silent MC death = game over, and two forms of instadeath and didn't give your protagonist natural immunity to either of them, it's all over (aka, SMTIII: Nocturne, not even the HD remaster fixed this).

 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

and you have the chance to respawn at the cost of money

Although I do recall the "6/10, much too short & simple" GameCube game known as Wario World. Run out of health, and shelling out money can save you from death, the cost going up with each subsequent world or stage therein. Not like money does you any other good other than buying garlic to heal you at vendors. As I said, mediocre and unpolished.

 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Blood has to be paid with blood, and someone needs to die (or be too gravely injured to fight), so one of your active party members have to give up their life in the lord's place. I think this could be a pretty cool and freaky scenario. And it could be invoke some good emotions from the lord, as most lords in the series would be absolutely not okay with someone dying in their place (of course it wouldn't lead to any actual permanent change on the lord's part given this would be a somewhat hidden scenario that only turns up if you get the lord killed).

And then you'll get LTCers hilariously abusing this feature by having their lord charge solo the entire game without any fear of them actually dying due to bringing lot's of fodder to the level.

The prevention of abuse of the system could be done via Supports.

I've mentioned a so-so Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume game before, wherein the main character can use a cursed feather to give one character insane stats for one battle, after which, they die.

In practice, said Plume system was heavily restrained. You can't use it in the postgame Seraphic Gate dungeon. The cast of heroes is very limited. Use it too many times and Freya will come and force an unwinnable Game Over battle on you. And using it just twice (excluding the one mandatory pluming) forces you onto the bad ending route wherein the MC goes from misguided hero to a slight DC Comics Joker personality.

Back to what hypothetical construct you describe, you could not inject a character you just met with the power of Hel. To offer someone's soul to the goddess of death for a brief moment of murderous glory, you had to befriend the person first, win them wholeheartedly to your cause. Meaning you had to complete their chapter of the story first (more comparable in length to an SoV Act, not a standard FE Chapter). Once you did this, then you could sacrifice them, and I'm not even sure if they were even aware that you were the one doing that to them.

TL;DR A character can't take the place of the main hero's death unless they have a support of A or S with them, that would be a good countermeasure to your LTCer critique. -Not that having an A support means the character isn't a benchwarmer, unless supports were both really intensive to build up and bestowed really great benefits.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Jotari]

36 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

SMTIV: Apocalypse brings back the feature, since you're Dagda's pawn, except this time there is no monetary fee. Nonetheless, you're allowed to turn down his offer of resurrection and Game Over if you wish, for the sake of gamer pride or something. It undermines the point you're making about the goodness of the concept.

Yeah...that removes the entirety of what actually makes the idea an idea. That's basically just a regular respawn with the only sacrifice being the time it takes to walk back to where you were killed. Does it even come with a Shame Counter recording how many times you died (some games do that, Zelda games being the ones at the forefront of my mind)?

36 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Prior to SMTIV, nope, this never existed. Didn't matter if the game had Silent MC death = game over, and two forms of instadeath and didn't give your protagonist natural immunity to either of them, it's all over (aka, SMTIII: Nocturne, not even the HD remaster fixed this).

Of all series Shin Megami Tensei I think can pull this off more naturally than most given the whole pull from every mythos thing. I thought it downright cool that I got to meet Charon in a way that felt so authentic. Of course for such a concept you don't even need to make it diegetic, you could just have a menu popping up asking you to pay.

36 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Although I do recall the "6/10, much too short & simple" GameCube game known as Wario World. Run out of health, and shelling out money can save you from death, the cost going up with each subsequent world or stage therein. Not like money does you any other good other than buying garlic to heal you at vendors. As I said, mediocre and unpolished.

 

The prevention of abuse of the system could be done via Supports.

I've mentioned a so-so Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume game before, wherein the main character can use a cursed feather to give one character insane stats for one battle, after which, they die.

In practice, said Plume system was heavily restrained. You can't use it in the postgame Seraphic Gate dungeon. The cast of heroes is very limited. Use it too many times and Freya will come and force an unwinnable Game Over battle on you. And using it just twice (excluding the one mandatory pluming) forces you onto the bad ending route wherein the MC goes from misguided hero to a slight DC Comics Joker personality.

Back to what hypothetical construct you describe, you could not inject a character you just met with the power of Hel. To offer someone's soul to the goddess of death for a brief moment of murderous glory, you had to befriend the person first, win them wholeheartedly to your cause. Meaning you had to complete their chapter of the story first (more comparable in length to an SoV Act, not a standard FE Chapter). Once you did this, then you could sacrifice them, and I'm not even sure if they were even aware that you were the one doing that to them.

TL;DR A character can't take the place of the main hero's death unless they have a support of A or S with them, that would be a good countermeasure to your LTCer critique. -Not that having an A support means the character isn't a benchwarmer, unless supports were both really intensive to build up and bestowed really great benefits.

See the thing about that is it would then only be a feature in mid and late game, where's typically early game is normally one of the hardest parts of Fire Emblem (something of an issue in itself, and actually something Fates does a great job of avoiding imo). And the idea here would be to make an Iron Man mode that you can't cheese by killing your lord and getting a game over to reset, while also still being possible to actually continue if your lord does happen to die. What's the alternative if you don't have someone with an A support? The file is just bricked entirely? Or your just forced out of Iron Man Mode. The latter is far more preferred, but it'd still sort of suck.

Of course another way to curb abuse of it is to similarly rise the price. A single character the first time you die, then two characters the next time, three characters the following time. You could only ever afford a handful of deaths before you suddenly run out of allied units to sacrifice.

[UNLEASH IT]

For me, as long as a game doesn't have stuff like ambush spawns or fog of war, it's perfectly ironmanable. 

Edited April 10, 2021 by UNLEASH IT

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And the idea here would be to make an Iron Man mode that you can't cheese by killing your lord and getting a game over to reset, while also still being possible to actually continue if your lord does happen to die. What's the alternative if you don't have someone with an A support? The file is just bricked entirely? Or your just forced out of Iron Man Mode. The latter is far more preferred, but it'd still sort of suck.

True, you could just no make supports then, if you wanted to kick yourself out of Ironman for some reason.

As for the earlygame, maybe endow the Jagen and several other early-joining characters as exceptions? Or something apart from the support system, like 3H Paralogues. You don't need to befriend Cyril to get his Paralogue, I have never once talked to the guy. But, if the Paralogue really is character-relevant, it should be enough to bond them to you to the point they'd be willing to die for you. Solution- some early easy Paralogues for some early characters.

 

For a slightly connected tangent, I was bumped into the concept of a comitatus today, referring  to a band of virtuous warriors who fight for the sake of their hero-liege. The book I found this in is a general history of Central Eurasia, and the book spent most of its prologue reciting ~10 different origin myths from the historical peoples of the region + Rome, Sassanid Persia, and Zhou China, all of which interacted with the steppes.

Until the rise of religions banning the practice, all who were members of these comitatus, which became things IRL based on the cherished tales, were to commit ritual suicide if their liege predeceased them, such was their loyalty. (Not like life was so-so for the comitatus, they were richly rewarded on a monthly basis by their kings while they lived.) Ritual suicide if the hero-lord dies, some IRL backing for your idea?

 

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Does it even come with a Shame Counter recording how many times you died (some games do that, Zelda games being the ones at the forefront of my mind)?

Nope, I don't think so. Sorry to throw cold water on your appreciation of an idea. 

And I remember the first Super Mario Galaxy had a death counter, it was the thing you unlocked for beating the game twice.

[Venger_06]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway... moment of truth time, and... holy shit, Elise won by a damned landslide. Seven votes, with... Niles as the runner up, 7 to 4. I have to assume those people were trying to be nice to me, given the shit I've been talking about him. But Elise won out. That is depressing as hell, because she was just getting really, really fun to use on the one attempt where I really gave her a chance as a combat unit, meaning this death actually makes this run more like my past runs instead of less. But alas... the people have spoken. I don't get to choose who dies. You do.

Now I'm sad because you're sad. Sorry for rallying votes in Elise's favor, bro.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Well that is certainly gonna make Chapter 18 more painful. On the other hand... I did kinda totally forget that Leo exists when I was making my plans last time. We'll have to see. I'll come up with something.

Dark Falcon Leo intensifies

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

16 hours ago, UNLEASH IT said:

For me, as long as a game doesn't have stuff like ambush spawns or fog of war, it's perfectly ironmanable. 

What about "next-turn reinforcements" that create a doomed scenario? Like, a bunch of Paladins who show up next to my frail, isolated Bishop. I have no way to get her out of their combat range, she can't survive fighting them all, and none of my other units are in range to block the enemy's path. Am I at fault for leaving my Bishop unprotected, even though the game gave me no reason to believe she would come into imminent peril? Just an interesting consideration. 

19 hours ago, Jotari said:

This has gotten me thinking about how they could handle this particular aspect of the game if they ever release an actual Iron Mode option (which would make me personally way more invested in playing Iron Man runs, it can be hard sometimes when will power is the only thing stopping a reset). For a long time now I've been thinking there'd need to be some kind of credit system where you can afford to lose your lord like five times or so before the file is bricked (or maybe just turns off iron man mode). But that could be abused for a reset. This idea, however, of needing to kill another unit in place of the lord, I like the idea of that being actually weaved into gameplay.

I wouldn't consider it to be an honest Ironman Mode unless a "Game Over" condition is exactly that - game over. No way to progress, just start a New Game. Granted, I don't really see a need for "Ironman Mode", given that its procedures can be replicated by player choice. Although I wouldn't mind a sort of "Ironman Achievement", if you manage to complete a playthrough without any Game Overs or chapter resets.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

What about "next-turn reinforcements" that create a doomed scenario? Like, a bunch of Paladins who show up next to my frail, isolated Bishop. I have no way to get her out of their combat range, she can't survive fighting them all, and none of my other units are in range to block the enemy's path. Am I at fault for leaving my Bishop unprotected, even though the game gave me no reason to believe she would come into imminent peril? Just an interesting consideration. 

I mean even just knowing that the concept of reinforcements exists in this game would make that obviously a bad idea, so yes, you totally are at fault if this isn't the first time reinforcements have happened in the game. The reason ambush spawns are so much worse is because not having a turn to react causes the amount of reasonable precautions you can make to absolutely plummet into the center of the earth, not because the concept of surprises or curve-balls in a strategy game is an inherently terrible idea. What matters is that it's crucial you're given an opportunity to make something of the situation, so even if you get really unlucky, it's still on your terms, and the game isn't making you actively irrationally terrified of your own actions.

[Shadow Mir]

17 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway... moment of truth time, and... holy shit, Elise won by a damned landslide. Seven votes, with... Niles as the runner up, 7 to 4. I have to assume those people were trying to be nice to me, given the shit I've been talking about him. But Elise won out. That is depressing as hell, because she was just getting really, really fun to use on the one attempt where I really gave her a chance as a combat unit, meaning this death actually makes this run more like my past runs instead of less. But alas... the people have spoken. I don't get to choose who dies. You do.

Well that is certainly gonna make Chapter 18 more painful. On the other hand... I did kinda totally forget that Leo exists when I was making my plans last time. We'll have to see. I'll come up with something.

Yeah, I was one of those who hoped to have it be Niles because you didn't seem to be that enthused about him. Well, that, and I'm convinced he's an utterly lousy unit anyhow.

[Alastor15243]

Oh shit! Sorry, forgot to mention! No update tomorrow! Important business happening during my usual playtime!

[Punished Dayni]

So, considering we're about halfway through the last part of Conquest, I happened to think on something in relation to ironmans: Where do replacement units fit into the conversation? No, I don't mean child units and substitutes. (I apologise if it has been discussed previously. I picked now because the next two titles don't use them, leaving there no need to consider the what ifs of those games.)

Spoiler

I'm going to bring up all the types here. First off, DSFE has..... replacement units . They show up if you lose enough units from your army. They're remembered for one reason: They stink. But they act as a pretty interesting continuation of Kaga's design philosophy in SDatBoL, where you get units who aren't as good as the units you had to replace characters who died, only a tier below Matthis. And I can't help but say they're a cool concept in ironman runs, giving you an option for if you're stuck with few units as a potential option to salvage a playthrough. They obviously come up less in NMotE because of the number of units you get there, but it is nice they kept the idea in both games. That being said, it's still true that they are weak units who won't necessarily be the answer.

There were also loan units in SD, which actually sound interesting because they are units people can borrow from other playthroughs where for example someone has a high level Gordin and you can recruit them to help in a run which also have the condition of you can only borrow a loan of a unit you still have in your army, but they're not available as Wi-Fi connection is gone.

As for 3DSFE, we have a couple of types, none of which are straight up replacement units but require work to get. In Awakening we have Spotpass and Streetpass units, which act similarly. Streetpass units are gotten by passing people who have Awakening, while Spotpass have to be gotten from Ninty's servers and can be called upon once you do so. But they're recruited in one of two ways; paying in blood or money. And there's the big problem, how you're going to get these units in ironman runs with tight resource limits and where units can die in said battle. It's hard to argue in favour of this as a system that works for Ironman, but a run where you use lords from other games could be funny to some. Regardless, you get them at a specific point and if you somehow got a fully capped ally it could trivialise the game as well.

Fates has even more varieties. Prisoners, Einherjar, Bond units and Guests. Prisoners are the sole option available if you completely ignore online, but to be fair I think it's a solid option on higher difficulties anyway, with some of the options being great units well worth taking with you in Conquest. Einherjar is honestly a pretty broad list, consisting of units from the Einherjar shop, the units you select at the end of a playthrough and units you get access to after fighting another castle over the internet. Bond units are made from repeat interactions with another person's My Castle, with the result eventually being a Corrin clone being birthed off of an internal list which can come with personal skills. I feel more confused by it than anything, but you can make some bizarre builds with them. Guest units are where I'm admittedly lost. I think it could be from the Plaza (aka the item I constantly remove from my castle), so I'll admit to needing clarification. Amiibo units also exist (And the one Cipher card unit), which I can't confirm anything about because I only have amiibos at all because of SoV's limited edition.

See thing is most of these also have a price. Buying Einherjars will be expensive if you're not buying low level ones from the shop, Bond units take time, prisoners also take time to recruit and have their own risks because of capture in Fates, Amiibo still have to be fought to recruit, it's all got tradeoffs.

It is arguable how useful any one of these is. But I think it's worth considering outside the context of a hard no to all these. With that I ask to open the floor to everyone.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 minutes ago, Dayni said:

So, considering we're about halfway through the last part of Conquest, I happened to think on something in relation to ironmans: Where do replacement units fit into the conversation? No, I don't mean child units and substitutes. (I apologise if it has been discussed previously. I picked now because the next two titles don't use them, leaving there no need to consider the what ifs of those games.)

I think replacement units are neat, and a definite feature when considering how easily a game can be Ironmanned. It's a shame they didn't come one game earlier - a heavily-battered Dawn Brigade getting generic replacements for those who perished in Part I could have made their Part III chapters more bearable.

In terms of Fates, I'm pretty sure the Einherjar shop is stocked with generics, regardless of whether you have Online access or not. Then again, recruiting a level 1 unit with no skills, who doesn't scale with your game progress... isn't the most attractive prospect beyond the earlygame. And no buyable Kitsunes or Wolfskins was a sorely missed opportunity. 

At the end of the day, I'm still not a fan of a rating that's just "this is how enjoyable this game is to Ironman". Different people appreciate different things from Ironmans, so it's too subjective to translate well to an audience. It's an interesting discussion to have, I grant, but the metric itself is loose enough to set people arguing past one another.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

At the end of the day, I'm still not a fan of a rating that's just "this is how enjoyable this game is to Ironman". Different people appreciate different things from Ironmans, so it's too subjective to translate well to an audience. It's an interesting discussion to have, I grant, but the metric itself is loose enough to set people arguing past one another.

The ironmannability rating is and always has been fundamentally a measure of two things: 1, how much breathing room you have to recover from losses, and 2: how much it's your fault when someone dies. That's what I judged all the others by, and it's the same metric I'm judging Conquest by.

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

In terms of Fates, I'm pretty sure the Einherjar shop is stocked with generics, regardless of whether you have Online access or not. Then again, recruiting a level 1 unit with no skills, who doesn't scale with your game progress... isn't the most attractive prospect beyond the earlygame.

Yes, I did mention them, though I could have been clearer about being unrelated to online and their limits.

I feel they're not too applicable in most contexts for 3DSFE personally, what with the conditions relating to acquiring them (e.g. Niles dying locks you out of Conquest captures), not to mention the inconsistency with how useful they can be.

Yeah, no buyable or capturable beastie boys did disappoint me for my planning. (I'm also still trying to find out how many units you can have and if permanent units dying frees up slots too)

[Samz707]

On 4/11/2021 at 5:05 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

What about "next-turn reinforcements" that create a doomed scenario? Like, a bunch of Paladins who show up next to my frail, isolated Bishop. I have no way to get her out of their combat range, she can't survive fighting them all, and none of my other units are in range to block the enemy's path. Am I at fault for leaving my Bishop unprotected, even though the game gave me no reason to believe she would come into imminent peril? Just an interesting consideration. 

FE6 in particular has Nomad ambush spawns, even with them not attacking on the same turn, you are in deep shit when they spawn, good luck defending your units from ranged cav movement

I really think FE should have some sort of warning for enemy spawns, sure there's dialogue but that's not always there. *Cough*MiklanDoors*Cough*

An old 1998 game, Commandos:Behind Enemy Lines had German Army flags flying outside "Barracks" (Buildings that spawned enemies when the alarm was raised and were otherwise indistinguisable from the buildings you could hide in/were set-dressing.), even something as simple as an enemy flag flying on a fort that enemies could spawn from would make things more fair IMO and maybe big enemy Banners with their flag next to stairs on in-door maps. 

Also I know this isn't what everyone wants, but IMO if the player "captures" a fort, that should prevent enemies spawning on them, it's really silly to me how a frail Priest is safe on a fort...but the instance he's one-tile off it hordes of enemies spawn in from that same fort.

Or go mad lad and have Forts being "mini" maps inside chapters, where you can enter them and it transports you to a small 3D fort environment and if you kill everyone inside then there's no reinforcements from the Fort later because you cleared it out.  (So basically turn them into enterable buildings.) Just add smaller maps ontop of the "regular" chapter map for different floors (which I think some FE game already did?) and Forts, instead of enemies magically appearing, they're actually inside these small maps and merely change maps when their trigger happens.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The ironmannability rating is and always has been fundamentally a measure of two things: 1, how much breathing room you have to recover from losses

But doesn't this depend on the unit lost, and player practice, more than anything else? Losing a high-powered pre-promote is going to be a bigger issue than losing a "growth unit" you just picked up, almost all the time. And plenty of player strategies rely on a single unit surviving - should they die, say to a single-digit crit, then the rest of your units can fall like a house of cards.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

and 2: how much it's your fault when someone dies

So then the question is - what's my fault, and what's the game being a dick? Ambush spawns are fairly universally considered to be the latter, but there are some next-turn reinforcements that nonetheless create an "inevitable death" scenario - like @Samz707. Fog-of-war is considered unfair opacity - but if my unit dies, when bringing a torch might have saved them, isn't that at least somewhat my fault? For this latter standard, I still think that a measure such as "Transparency" would be less opaque.

3 hours ago, Dayni said:

I feel they're not too applicable in most contexts for 3DSFE personally, what with the conditions relating to acquiring them (e.g. Niles dying locks you out of Conquest captures), not to mention the inconsistency with how useful they can be.

The Prison is unrelated to the Einherjar shop, though. You don't need Niles or Oboro to get the Einherjar.

2 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Or go mad lad and have Forts being "mini" maps inside chapters, where you can enter them and it transports you to a small 3D fort environment and if you kill everyone inside then there's no reinforcements from the Fort later because you cleared it out.  (So basically turn them into enterable buildings.) Just add smaller maps ontop of the "regular" chapter map for different floors (which I think some FE game already did?) and Forts, instead of enemies magically appearing, they're actually inside these small maps and merely change maps when their trigger happens.

I think it could be cool if the inevitable Genealogy remake treats Castles like this. Make them mini-maps, that you can bring a handful of units into. Everyone's dismounted, and there's more close-combat involved (think the tutorial and paralogues in New Mystery). The struggle would be to avoid breaking up the action of the overworld too much.

[Interdimensional Observer]

59 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I think it could be cool if the inevitable Genealogy remake treats Castles like this. Make them mini-maps, that you can bring a handful of units into. Everyone's dismounted, and there's more close-combat involved (think the tutorial and paralogues in New Mystery). The struggle would be to avoid breaking up the action of the overworld too much.

I do like this idea for Genealogy. It could make infantry better -were it not for the issue of the big map outside meaning it takes too long for them to get there in the first place.

Also, what happens outside while you're doing this?

• Will Ayra surrender as soon as I take the gates of Genoa Castle, or do I have to keep baiting her around and hoping she doesn't kill anyone because I haven't officially rescued Shannan yet, which demands I take the throne of Genoa?
• Are enemies going to start moving out from Marpha and plot stuff happen when I take the gates, or will everyone I have outside be left doing nothing until the throne is mine?
• What about the boss of Genoa? Do I fight him at the gates, or does a new enemy get invented to sit there and the old boss is relocated to the throne?

The number of factors in need of consideration make inclusion of this into FE4 Remake too difficult to do I'd think. For a brand-new FE however, wherein plot-gameplay events on an FE4-sized or even a normal FE medium-large map, can be written with castle gates or castle throne conquest in mind and don't have to be retroactively changed, the chances of making this work rise exponentially.

 

3 hours ago, Samz707 said:

An old 1998 game, Commandos:Behind Enemy Lines had German Army flags flying outside "Barracks" (Buildings that spawned enemies when the alarm was raised and were otherwise indistinguisable from the buildings you could hide in/were set-dressing.), even something as simple as an enemy flag flying on a fort that enemies could spawn from would make things more fair IMO and maybe big enemy Banners with their flag next to stairs on in-door maps. 

Valkyria Chronicles is coming to mind. Although in that case, enemy camps are usually occupied by baddies and can be captured by your units, allowing you to retreat and summon your crew at them.

[Alastor15243]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

For this latter standard, I still think that a measure such as "Transparency" would be less opaque.

I did originally call it "honor" extremely early into the playlog, but I changed it to "Ironmannability" after it was pointed out that the ability to recover from mistakes is another important part that would be important to measure in that ranking.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I did originally call it "honor" extremely early into the playlog, but I changed it to "Ironmannability" after it was pointed out that the ability to recover from mistakes is another important part that would be important to measure in that ranking.

Okay, I didn't realize that. So it's kind of a hybrid ranking, then, that looks at a couple things. I guess I see where "the ability to recover from mistakes" comes in. It makes sense to ding a game that could pseudo-softlock you from mistakes that didn't seem too big earlier on. Like letting most of the Dawn Brigade die, and then the surviving units all leave you before Part III.

Then again, nasty surprises like units abandoning you, or missing out on important items/recruits due to an untimely death, could be considered black marks against "Honor" or "Transparency". And an "Ironmannability" ranking implies that Game Over conditions will be treated as "Game Over" (ergo, the fewer such conditions, or the easier they can avoid being triggered, the more "Ironmannable" a game is). Absent this consideration, I'm not sure "Ironmannability" is the most intuitive term for what your category considers.

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The ironmannability rating is and always has been fundamentally a measure of two things: 1, how much breathing room you have to recover from losses

That is very heavily dependent on the unit lost, as well as the point in the game you're at, in my view. Losing a prepromo is pretty much always going to be harder to recover from than losing a growth unit that you recently picked up. In the same vein, it's harder to recover from losing your best unit late in the game.

[Eltosian Kadath]

There was a lot of talk about ironmanability standards, and I know I am in the minority in thinking that blindplay shouldn't be considered in how ironmanable a game is (I do recognize the irony of doing a blind ironman LP of Berwick Saga while saying this, but that is more to spice up the LP than something I would generally do on a blind run otherwise...), and as such ambush spawns have less of an impact, what I find more important to ironmanability is: How well the game gives you the units, and resource to recover from losses; How manageable the gameover conditions are; and Wide amounts of viable counter-play to enemy options.

To elaborate with a few examples, I will note that I combined unit and resources into the same category, as they can often be interchanged, loss your early Jagen isn't as big of a deal if you have an early promotion item to make another one, and losing a thief can suddenly cripple your resources irrevocably (FE7 is particularly bad in this regard thanks to how many promotion items it ties to having a thief, and how difficult it is to get the replacement thief without the first thief, I think Benice's FE7 HHM completed soft ironman with a 6% survival is an illustrative example of this kind of issue). The gameover conditions can also really hamper the ironamanability of some games, like with the multiple NPC dependent game over conditions of FE7, or the strict gameover conditions of Radiant Dawn as some good examples of what not to do. As for counter-play, people might point to this when talking about ambush spawns, but knowing when and where they could show up due to looking it up, or remember the reinforcements gives you options for dealing with them, from spawn blocking, to leaving specifically units that can deal with them, or just outrunning them. Now there are games that don't let you spawn block, of don't give you the means or rooms to maneuver around them, which would have ambush spawns be part of a negative mark, but not all on their own. As for some other examples lets look at crits, where better ironmable games give you more options for dealing with them, like the crusader scrolls and set supports in Thracia from the start to increase crit avoid, or like the Fates games where you have options to temperarily increase luck, items in all weapon types that increase crit avoid by a lot, the +5 extra crit avoid from all guard stance pairups, not to mention how support bonuses effect attack stance...

 

On 4/10/2021 at 11:28 AM, lenticular said:

When I lose a unit due to a failure of observation, there's nothing that I can learn from it, no way to improve my skill as a player, no chance to try to change my approach next time I play the level. The only thing I have to do is remember that there's an entrap maid behind the "beware the leopard" sign.

I think you are overlooking that efficient observation is a skill valuable to ironmans, and that you did learn something beyond a chapter specific feature, its that dangerous staffs/weapons CAN hide behind enemies, so in the future take a quick look at the equipment of paired units as well. I find this to be very similar to learning that you have to keep an eye out for effective weapons, and high crit weapons when looking over a map.