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

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

I mostly wrote that in jest, but no, I did chapter 13 with 5 of my heavy hitters (Catherine, Shamir, Hilda, Lysithea, Hapi) not even on the map and had no problem - other than discovering Gilberts situation and losing Ashe whomst I didn´t and still don´t care about, which was mostly due to my lack of knowledge on the enemy AI.

Chapter 13 seems very much overhyped in it´s difficulty.

Calling it a soft lock certainly seems extreme. What makes Chapter 13 hard is that it might force you to use units you haven't trained. And understandably a Fire Emblem player will be upset if their units are dying in a situation that isn't really their fault, but if all those units die, then they're not exactly reducing your ability to finish the game provided you can clear that chapter, which should be within your capability to do so with Byleth+lord (or Seteth) and some cannon fodder. It's certainly not good design, and even with an under levelled team failure is still not guaranteed (I wouldn't like to try it without divine pulse though), but it is perfectly beatable.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

I mostly wrote that in jest, but no, I did chapter 13 with 5 of my heavy hitters (Catherine, Shamir, Hilda, Lysithea, Hapi) not even on the map and had no problem - other than discovering Gilberts situation and losing Ashe whomst I didn´t and still don´t care about, which was mostly due to my lack of knowledge on the enemy AI.

Chapter 13 seems very much overhyped in it´s difficulty.

Gilbert - you know, the bulky fortress knight - loses more than half his HP from a single round with an enemy Sniper. Partially because they gave him a weak battalion at level 1, and no Shield. Also, no healing items. That's the biggest problem - you're not given a chance to prep your team members, some of whom you might not have trained. And there's something obnoxious about having to "prepare" your team what is, canonically, 5 years ahead of time.

The enemies are frustratingly overtuned for the constraints the chapter forces you into. An undertrained Lord, in particular, can be a death sentence. It sets up loss conditions that totally could've been avoided in previous chapters. And, in narrative? This battle isn't even a strictly necessary one. You're not fighting for control of Garreg Mach monastery, but for the town nearby it.

[Alastor15243]

Also, to be clear, that's not the main reason, even though it was the only one I listed. Guess I considered the main one too ingrained into me to remember to voice it. The main reason is that, from everything I've seen and heard, the only universe in which Maddening can even resemble being fair is one in which you are making liberal use of divine pulse, something I have no intention of doing, because playing without it makes it so much more obvious just how terrible the game's design philosophy is, and I need to show that off.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

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

Partially because they gave him a weak battalion at level 1,

I´d assume getting a free lvl 5 battalion for basically free was the consideration here. Not sure shields would help Gilberts case, as even the Silver Shield gives only +4Prot.

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

Also, no healing items.

Laughs in being KO´d on EP

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

An undertrained Lord, in particular, can be a death sentence.

Well, Seteth and Claude are fliers no? EZ Lizard Escape. And Dmitri... yeah, he does get a bush and his updated PS (I belive) but I think his battalion reduces AVO even at lv1? Byleth... yeah Byleth might be fucked -> see f!Byleths facial expression. She knows something up.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, to be clear, that's not the main reason, even though it was the only one I listed. Guess I considered the main one too ingrained into me to remember to voice it. The main reason is that, from everything I've seen and heard, the only universe in which Maddening can even resemble being fair is one in which you are making liberal use of divine pulse, something I have no intention of doing, because playing without it makes it so much more obvious just how terrible the game's design philosophy is, and I need to show that off.

Yeah but you´ll miss out on a ton of fun stuff - enemy only Breaker skills, Archers with Poison strike from chapter 2 onward etc. /s

 

I may have missed it, but what´s the verdict on DLC items? Mostly thinking about the Chalice here.

 

Oh and just in case: I may just tell this to people who already know, but here´s a site with some solid info and almost everything TH: https://fe3h.com/

Edited July 27, 2021 by Imuabicus

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

I may have missed it, but what´s the verdict on DLC items? Mostly thinking about the Chalice here.

Completely off limits. They're ridiculous, and I need to give hard mode some kind of chance to be engagingly challenging.

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

I´d assume getting a free lvl 5 battalion for basically free was the consideration here. Not sure shields would help Gilberts case, as even the Silver Shield gives only +4Prot.

 

Gilbert is just a really bad unit overall. They tried to make him somewhat good, but he's just in a bad class in a game that heavily penalizes late recruitment. Any stats he might have would need to reach map soloing levels before they can compensate from his lack of education. To that extent I think  the best solution would have been to make Wary Fighter his personal skill. This would have given him a nice niche as a tank who can actually tank. Plus it'd just suit his character thematically too. He is something of a Weary Fighter. Plus give him the Crest he should have. Using Crusher's combat art wouldn't exactly help him by any stretch, but he still should be able to do it.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Jotari

[lenticular]

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I have never felt more completely alone in a fandom than I did during those two weeks, feeling like the one Fire Emblem fan on earth who didn't like Three Houses. The only one who didn't like the potential direction this could be taking the franchise in. And after a while it became painfully apparent that, whether due to not being good enough at debating, or just having an audience completely unreceptive to any form of criticism of the new hotness... any attempt to discuss my experience playing it would not accomplish anything.

Yeah, this feeling is never a fun one, though it is completely inevitable. For any long-running media franchise, in any medium, there are two basic options: either they stay the same, stagnate, and alienate some fans who grow bored, or they try something new, change, and alienate some fans who don't like the direction of the change. There's no way to avoid it, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating when you're one of the fans being alienated. It's happened to me a few times in the past and is one of the reasons I'm wary of ever getting too emotionally invested in any media franchise these days.

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Briefly forgetting that I can't simply start a few file by clicking on an empty one, I go over to the “new game” option, and I'm immediately greeted by the offer to make this a new game plus file. I decline, because that adds a ton of incredibly broken nonsense to the game. And since I won't be playing on Maddening (given that the idea of playlogging a mode it's notoriously easy to softlock yourself on sounds absolutely insane), I need to give this game as fair of a chance to be hard as I can grant it.

That's a shame that you're not going to play on Maddening, if understandable. I think that saying that it's easy to softlock is a bit of an exaggeration, though it certainly is possible to softlock, which is not good for a playlog. The big gap in difficulty between Hard and Maddening is one of the thigns that irks me about Three Houses, but I do think that -- potential softlock excepted -- Maddening is probably closer to the sort of experience you'd be looking for.

13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I am then immediately asked a question, and I'm given branching response options. These come in three distinct flavors: opportunities to either pick the right option or be railroaded into it, opportunities to get some support points by kissing up to someone, or opportunities to make world-changing story decisions ages before you could possibly be well-informed enough to have any idea what you're even choosing between.

Yeah, OK, that made me laugh. You're not wrong.

13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Claude says they've been separated from their companions, and it occurs to me, only now, after having played this chapter at least three times, that each of the three house leaders wound up separated from the rest of their houses... together.

What, exactly, was this event that had all three of the houses traveling together with united purpose, and what exactly were the sleeping arrangements that when everyone got separated, all three house leaders wound up away from their houses and with each other?

I am generally of the school of thought that not everything has to be explained. Especially not when it's something that many people won't even notice. So long as something seems plausible and I can think of a potential explanation, then that's good enough for me. Giving explanations for all incidental story elements just comes across as needelessly dragging and pedantic to my particular tastes and sensibilities.

13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh god, and as I move these characters around, I'm reminded of that incredibly jarring and frustrating hint of input lag behind moving the cursor. It makes things so awkward when adjusting to the game after playing the more responsive and properly-optimized games for a while.

Personally, I'm happier with the Three House cursor movement than the 3DS cursor movement; I find it less twitchy and less prone to overshooting and having to compensate. Different strokes for different folks. That said, have you played with the settings for cursor movement in the options menu? I don't know if they'd help you, but they might be worth looking at if you haven't done so already.

13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

An interesting added game mechanic is that the game will use arcing red lines to mark the targets of enemies' next attacks, which is incredibly useful... and yet I'm not wholly sure I like it. That feels like it's making it too easy to abuse enemy targeting AI, and abusing enemy targeting AI is something I've never truly been a fan of. Still, it is more transparency in enemy behavior, and I guess I'd rather have too much info than not enough, as my playlogs of the earlier games demonstrated countless times.

I think that it's definitely worth asking whether or not enemy targeting AI ought to be deterministic or not but given that it is deterministic, I definitely prefer for it to be clearly communicated to the player through the UI. Difficulty through obscurity is one of my personal bugbears, so I am always going to celebrate making more information available to the player. The instant feedback on "exactly which units am I moving into range of here?" is very nice too, as is the combat preview for the damage the enemy will do on enemy phase. Overall, I love this particular UI innovation and very much hope for it to become a series staple. That said:

12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I like the aggro lines as quality-of-life features, but providing an on/off switch for them would've been nice for player freedom.

Yeah, I agree with this.Three Houses is generally pretty good about letting the player customise their experience, and this would be such an easy thing to provide.

14 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Oh, we'll talk about what this game did to supports.

"Improved them greatly", you mean? (I am well aware that is not what you mean.)

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

I like Sothis. She has this air of brattyness, but also mixed with like an elderly arrogance. Quite a distinct personality. The mystery angle to her also works despite the answer to the mystery being super basic and obvious. They still pull it off in atmosphere though. I also find her surprisingly unsexualized for a loli you can S support.

Yeah, I agree with this. I like how the combination of age and youth was handled. It gave her a slightly alien, not-quite-human feeling to her, which was appropriate both for the "I don't know who this is" part of the game and the "now I know who this is and it makes sense" part of the game.

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's actually not unlike how Three Houses does it's new game+. You don't get to decide what you're bringing over when you start it, instead you use a currency of renown to port over whatever you want or need during the playthrough. One could start New Game+ and not bring over anything at all.

Bringing over the bonuses from the Saint Statues is automatic, unfortunately. I'd prefer if it had been optional too. But otherwise, yeah, NG+ is mostly pretty good about letting you have as much or as little overpowered nonsense as you want.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

Yeah but you´ll miss out on a ton of fun stuff - enemy only Breaker skills, Archers with Poison strike from chapter 2 onward etc. /s

All this talk of maddening has more firmly put me in the "Do Azure Moon first and then do Crimson Flower (on Maddening)". The detraction from playing more than one route is that 70% of it is basically the exact same experience, but if played on Maddening then there's enough changes to the way enemies work that it wouldn't really be the exact same experience. Though by the time Alastor finishes Azure Moon it'd be absolutely understandable if he's in need of a long detox from play logs as a whole.

[Alastor15243]

17 minutes ago, Jotari said:

All this talk of maddening has more firmly put me in the "Do Azure Moon first and then do Crimson Flower (on Maddening)". The detraction from playing more than one route is that 70% of it is basically the exact same experience, but if played on Maddening then there's enough changes to the way enemies work that it wouldn't really be the exact same experience. Though by the time Alastor finishes Azure Moon it'd be absolutely understandable if he's in need of a long detox from play logs as a whole.

Another advantage is that CF doesn't have that annoying post-timeskip chapter.

But we'll see how I'm feeling when this is over. It's an interesting idea to be sure though.

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

I mostly wrote that in jest, but no, I did chapter 13 with 5 of my heavy hitters (Catherine, Shamir, Hilda, Lysithea, Hapi) not even on the map and had no problem - other than discovering Gilberts situation and losing Ashe whomst I didn´t and still don´t care about, which was mostly due to my lack of knowledge on the enemy AI.

Chapter 13 seems very much overhyped in it´s difficulty.

You really should've led with that being a joke. Anyway, why did you emphasize not losing Gilbert?

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

So yeah, you're once again complaining about something you've never tried. I am so shocked at this revelation.

Because by the time it's even doable, it's probably late enough that I'd deem it impractical to do so, especially since the game is structured such that most of the time I get to deploy everyone. Also, with Dread Fighters being what they are, I value what they bring to the table more than what the loop would help me do, at least as far as the main game goes; also, Brave Swords in that game are one hell of a drug.

Getting back to 3H, am I misremembering, or is 3H the first game to update enemy attack range after you move a unit but before you finalize your move?

[Jotari]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

You really should've led with that being a joke. Anyway, why did you emphasize not losing Gilbert?

Because by the time it's even doable, it's probably late enough that I'd deem it impractical to do so, especially since the game is structured such that most of the time I get to deploy everyone. Also, with Dread Fighters being what they are, I value what they bring to the table more than what the loop would help me do, at least as far as the main game goes; also, Brave Swords in that game are one hell of a drug.

Getting back to 3H, am I misremembering, or is 3H the first game to update enemy attack range after you move a unit but before you finalize your move?

You theorize you value it more, but like most things you say, you have no experience so you really don't know, despite the proof of a playthrough of someone doing it with ease.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

I´d assume getting a free lvl 5 battalion for basically free was the consideration here. Not sure shields would help Gilberts case, as even the Silver Shield gives only +4Prot.

I get that, but it's not like any other map, where I could say "oh Gilbert starts with a bad level 1 battalion, but I can give him an actually good battalion instead". The inability to mess around with starting setups magnifies the issue of having a shitty starting setup.

Also 4 Prt doesn't sound like much, but since he gets doubled by everything, that's effectively 8 damage per round. Now, instead of enemy Snipers dealing 30 damage (9 times 2, plus 12 via Poison Strike), they're only doing 22 total.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Gilbert is just a really bad unit overall. They tried to make him somewhat good, but he's just in a bad class in a game that heavily penalizes late recruitment. Any stats he might have would need to reach map soloing levels before they can compensate from his lack of education. To that extent I think  the best solution would have been to make Wary Fighter his personal skill. This would have given him a nice niche as a tank who can actually tank. Plus it'd just suit his character thematically too. He is something of a Weary Fighter. Plus give him the Crest he should have. Using Crusher's combat art wouldn't exactly help him by any stretch, but he still should be able to do it.

I think Gilbert is alright, at least for the time you have him. His Defense is high enough that he can viably Def-tank, in either Fortress or Great Knight, and this is aided by his personal skill. Once he's in a spot where he's taking 0 damage per hit from enemy Assassins and Grapplers, he's pretty much good to go. If that's not your cup of tea, he has a very tenable route into Wyvern classes. Glowing Ember, too, is a pretty good combat art with his high Defense. He's a man of fairly limited options, but he's good enough at his intended role (outside of his horrendous join chapter).

That said, a "Wary Fighter" skill would make him stronger, no doubt.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, to be clear, that's not the main reason, even though it was the only one I listed. Guess I considered the main one too ingrained into me to remember to voice it. The main reason is that, from everything I've seen and heard, the only universe in which Maddening can even resemble being fair is one in which you are making liberal use of divine pulse, something I have no intention of doing, because playing without it makes it so much more obvious just how terrible the game's design philosophy is, and I need to show that off.

This is anecdotal, but I've been replaying VW on NG Maddening, and I've found myself beating more than half of the maps pulse-free. Some have required it (like the awful Asherine paralogue*), but most haven't. Maybe I'm playing more cautiously because I'm using a Gamecube controller, which lacks the ZL Button.

*By the way, what are your paralogue plans? Doing as many as possible, no more than your route hands to you, or some amount in between?

[Alastor15243]

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

*By the way, what are your paralogue plans? Doing as many as possible, no more than your route hands to you, or some amount in between?

All the ones I naturally get from the units I want to recruit. I may recruit Petra and Bernie for a more natural excuse to talk about a certain chapter... but that's a stretch.

[Jotari]

14 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

All the ones I naturally get from the units I want to recruit. I may recruit Petra and Bernie for a more natural excuse to talk about a certain chapter... but that's a stretch.

I'd save that one for the hypothetical potential Crimson Flower playthrough, since they're both Crimson Flower characters.  Though that does kind of beg the question, what are your recruitment ambitions out of house? Personally I always recruit Bernie for Encloser, but if you haven't played Azure Moon before then just playing with them sounds reasonable enough. Also someone asked about DLC items before citing the Chalice and you said no, but what about DLC characters (namely the Ashen Wolves since Anna is useless and you've already expressed interest in Jeritza) and classes?

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

I get that, but it's not like any other map, where I could say "oh Gilbert starts with a bad level 1 battalion, but I can give him an actually good battalion instead". The inability to mess around with starting setups magnifies the issue of having a shitty starting setup.

Also 4 Prt doesn't sound like much, but since he gets doubled by everything, that's effectively 8 damage per round. Now, instead of enemy Snipers dealing 30 damage (9 times 2, plus 12 via Poison Strike), they're only doing 22 total.

I think Gilbert is alright, at least for the time you have him. His Defense is high enough that he can viably Def-tank, in either Fortress or Great Knight, and this is aided by his personal skill. Once he's in a spot where he's taking 0 damage per hit from enemy Assassins and Grapplers, he's pretty much good to go. If that's not your cup of tea, he has a very tenable route into Wyvern classes. Glowing Ember, too, is a pretty good combat art with his high Defense. He's a man of fairly limited options, but he's good enough at his intended role (outside of his horrendous join chapter).

That said, a "Wary Fighter" skill would make him stronger, no doubt.

This is anecdotal, but I've been replaying VW on NG Maddening, and I've found myself beating more than half of the maps pulse-free. Some have required it (like the awful Asherine paralogue*), but most haven't. Maybe I'm playing more cautiously because I'm using a Gamecube controller, which lacks the ZL Button.

*By the way, what are your paralogue plans? Doing as many as possible, no more than your route hands to you, or some amount in between?

Not only would Wary Fighter making him much better at this niche, but it'd also make him feel more special as a unit. What motivation do I really have to use Gilbert when I can use Dedue, who I've trained more and will probably have better natural defenses? Granted Dedue isn't around for a few chapters when Gilbert is, but that just further questions the point of Gilbert as a unit. If he's just going to be replacement Dedue then at least pull a Nils and Ninian and let me carry over Dedue's stats so I can keep training him when he's gone. Wary Fighter would change that by giving Gilbert something specific that he can do that Dedue, or any other of the game's tanks, can't. It wouldn't just make him better (while also not making him too good so as to make other units obsolete), it's make him more distinct as a unit. Which I'd actually rate as being somewhat more important than being a good unit.

Another option would be to have him magically inclined like Annette, but still being a fortress knight by base. In other words, hike up his magic stat a bunch and make him a dedicated magic weapon user (including Crusher) who can also tank. Give him a forged magic weapon in his debut and viola, suddenly he can counter those pesky snipers people are complaining about (plus free magic weapon, preferably the lance because that's arbitrarily made a plot relevant weapon exclusive to one route despite not actually being important to the plot). Edelgard kind of has this going for her already too as far as niches go, but Edelgard isn't playable at the same time as him.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'd save that one for the hypothetical potential Crimson Flower playthrough, since they're both Crimson Flower characters.  Though that does kind of beg the question, what are your recruitment ambitions out of house?

Leonie definitely. My understanding is that auto-leveled characters have better stats than they normally would to compensate for having less class and skill training, and the results made Leonie amazing in my first CF run. Major MVP, best enemy-phase combatant by far.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Leonie definitely. My understanding is that auto-leveled characters have better stats than they normally would to compensate for having less class and skill training, and the results made Leonie amazing in my first CF run. Major MVP, best enemy-phase combatant by far.

While she's never managed to shine as one of my MVPs, I believe that the consensus is that Leonie is a pretty stellar unit in general. I think, and someone can correct me if I'm overblowing her, she might even be considered the best non lord character.

[Samz707]

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, to be clear, that's not the main reason, even though it was the only one I listed. Guess I considered the main one too ingrained into me to remember to voice it. The main reason is that, from everything I've seen and heard, the only universe in which Maddening can even resemble being fair is one in which you are making liberal use of divine pulse, something I have no intention of doing, because playing without it makes it so much more obvious just how terrible the game's design philosophy is, and I need to show that off.

Boy it'd suck if we had random out-of-nowhere enemy spawns from locations that aren't even stairs/forts that can easily force you to divine pulse.

(Seriously why does this series try to establish reinforcements come from those where when it's frequently broken?)

Edited July 27, 2021 by Samz707

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

While she's never managed to shine as one of my MVPs, I believe that the consensus is that Leonie is a pretty stellar unit in general. I think, and someone can correct me if I'm overblowing her, she might even be considered the best non lord character.

In the community tier list, Leonie walked away with a very stellar 8.2 out of 10 (I gave her an 8). Which was tied with Jeritza, and lower than the three Lords, Teach, Felix, Lysithea, and Petra. So, a high-tier, albeit not quite top-tier, unit. Granted, the grade was based on her VW performance - out-of-house Leonie has to deal with typical out-of-house problems (low movement ranks, E Authority at join, and no prior class masteries).

Incidentally, Gilbert got a 2.27, leaving him rated lower than all other units, save for Anna. Even as I'm defending him, I only gave him a 3.

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Not only would Wary Fighter making him much better at this niche, but it'd also make him feel more special as a unit. What motivation do I really have to use Gilbert when I can use Dedue, who I've trained more and will probably have better natural defenses? Granted Dedue isn't around for a few chapters when Gilbert is, but that just further questions the point of Gilbert as a unit. If he's just going to be replacement Dedue then at least pull a Nils and Ninian and let me carry over Dedue's stats so I can keep training him when he's gone. Wary Fighter would change that by giving Gilbert something specific that he can do that Dedue, or any other of the game's tanks, can't. It wouldn't just make him better (while also not making him too good so as to make other units obsolete), it's make him more distinct as a unit. Which I'd actually rate as being somewhat more important than being a good unit.

Disagree with the "Ninian/Nils" business, as it wouldn't make narrative sense. Why should an undertrained, or even "left-for-dead" (i.e. by not playing his paralogue) Dedue result in a sucky Gilbert?

Anyway, I'll grant that you have a lot of interesting ideas on how to change him. I kind of want him to get a Crest - not for Crusher, but for the Aegis shield. Basically, all other "defensive tank" type units (Alois, Raphael, Dedue) are Crestless, with Balthus as the sole exception. Being a high-Defense unit, who can wield the Aegis Shield without penalty, would be a nice distinguishing trait.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

All the ones I naturally get from the units I want to recruit. I may recruit Petra and Bernie for a more natural excuse to talk about a certain chapter... but that's a stretch.

Sounds good. Are the planned recruits a surprise? I missed whether you've brought them up already.

And yeah, the Petradetta paralogue is pretty frustrating and moronic. Although, I do somewhat like its CF incarnation, for letting Catherine function as a boss in her own right.

[Jotari]

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

In the community tier list, Leonie walked away with a very stellar 8.2 out of 10 (I gave her an 8). Which was tied with Jeritza, and lower than the three Lords, Teach, Felix, Lysithea, and Petra. So, a high-tier, albeit not quite top-tier, unit. Granted, the grade was based on her VW performance - out-of-house Leonie has to deal with typical out-of-house problems (low movement ranks, E Authority at join, and no prior class masteries).

That sounds about right, Felix, Lysithea and Petra are also clearly very capable units.

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

Incidentally, Gilbert got a 2.27, leaving him rated lower than all other units, save for Anna. Even as I'm defending him, I only gave him a 3.

Disagree with the "Ninian/Nils" business, as it wouldn't make narrative sense. Why should an undertrained, or even "left-for-dead" (i.e. by not playing his paralogue) Dedue result in a sucky Gilbert?

Anyway, I'll grant that you have a lot of interesting ideas on how to change him. I kind of want him to get a Crest - not for Crusher, but for the Aegis shield. Basically, all other "defensive tank" type units (Alois, Raphael, Dedue) are Crestless, with Balthus as the sole exception. Being a high-Defense unit, who can wield the Aegis Shield without penalty, would be a nice distinguishing trait.

Oh I wasn't seriously suggesting a Ninian/Nils situation as you're right, it wouldn't have much narrative justification. I was just proposing a look at him from purely gameplay lenses in which he does function like that, only instead of vanishing he just continues to exist while (probably) being worse than Dedue. In other words, I was using it as a method to highlight his issues. By far my preferred solution were the two ideas I put forth for actually making him more interesting and useful as unit. Good note on the Aegis Shield.

[Sunwoo]

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

And yeah, the Petradetta paralogue is pretty frustrating and moronic. Although, I do somewhat like its CF incarnation, for letting Catherine function as a boss in her own right.

I hate this paralogue so much.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Sunwoo said:

I hate this paralogue so much.

I will have words about it.

[Sunwoo]

By the way, correct me if I'm wrong (because I can't remember despite playing 3H yesterday) but doesn't this game do the whole "give you a clear objective at the beginning of the map, then change it halfway through" shit in several chapters? I really fucking hate that.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Sunwoo said:

By the way, correct me if I'm wrong (because I can't remember despite playing 3H yesterday) but doesn't this game do the whole "give you a clear objective at the beginning of the map, then change it halfway through" shit in several chapters? I really fucking hate that.

None to my knowledge where the original objective is an outright lie like in Foreign Land and Sky, but yes, the objectives do frequently get modified mid-map to add new conditions of failure.

[Sunwoo]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

None to my knowledge where the original objective is an outright lie like in Foreign Land and Sky, but yes, the objectives do frequently get modified mid-map to add new conditions of failure.

Ah right, so that's what I was remembering when I had to chase Death Knight before he escaped yesterday. I still hate that.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

2 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Boy it'd suck if we had [...] enemy spawns from locations that are [...] stairs/forts that can easily force you to divine pulse due to having siege magic and because you can´t block these specific reinforecements but regular ones you can.

FTFY

 

Granted, I´m feeling we are getting a bit much into the TH hate here - it´s not even month 2, week 1.

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

None to my knowledge where the original objective is an outright lie like in Foreign Land and Sky, but yes, the objectives do frequently get modified mid-map to add new conditions of failure.

Isn´t there something about Dorothea/Ingrid paralogue?