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

[Alastor15243]

19 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Thing is, Byleth hasn't realized they're there by force yet.

I don't see how she possibly couldn't realize that. She was never asked if she wanted to he a teacher. She was just told she was a teacher here, as a simple matter of fact.

21 minutes ago, Jotari said:

If I recall correctly that's one of the instances where they give you just one "choice". So you have to make Byleth say that. Which, as a teacher myself, had be sighing in exasperation. I can probably call it my least favorite2 line in the game, entirely for bias reasons of course.

It is indeed your only option. And to answer your similar mark yesterday, there was no option to turn down all three house leaders in that talk yesterday and stay silent. It was only the three choices.

[Samz707]

If only this game had a dialogue system that potentially allowed us to actually shape Byleth a bit, like complain about the situation to Jeralt or act in someway that implies we aren't on-board with this whole thing, If only.

Seriously it annoys me how we aren't even give any real chance to have Byleth be suspicious, the best we get is a few situations and it's more "I don't believe in the Goddess" rather than any actual distrust towards the Church. 

Also yeah, there should have been a "No to all of you" option with the house leaders in that one bit, we literally know nothing about them. (and I guess maybe word the other options to have it be so that it's more Byleth humoring them for instance so it makes more sense.)

Edited July 28, 2021 by Samz707

[Acacia Sgt]

Admittedly, it definitely looks like it's not an option because otherwise there'd be no game. Still, would be amusing at least if there actually was that.

Like in a game like Golden Sun, when asked to go save the world, you can actually say no and... Game Over. But the option is there and you can actually decline, so points for effort.

[Samz707]

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

Admittedly, it definitely looks like it's not an option because otherwise there'd be no game. Still, would be amusing at least if there actually was that.

Like in a game like Golden Sun, when asked to go save the world, you can actually say no and... Game Over. But the option is there and you can actually decline, so points for effort.

They could probably find a way, like Jeralt's Mercenary group is crippling low on funds or something and Byleth could have dialogue with their dad where it's clear that they're only doing it due to the money problem.

[Jotari]

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't see how she possibly couldn't realize that. She was never asked if she wanted to he a teacher. She was just told she was a teacher here, as a simple matter of fact.

And if they're find with that then they're not going to see it as something they don't have choice in. The old Koan, "if you think you are free, escape is impossible."

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It is indeed your only option. And to answer your similar mark yesterday, there was no option to turn down all three house leaders in that talk yesterday and stay silent. It was only the three choices.

Oh I didn't question whether you could turn them down, I said I'm pretty sure you could avoid all options by skipping the cutscene entirely.

41 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Admittedly, it definitely looks like it's not an option because otherwise there'd be no game. Still, would be amusing at least if there actually was that.

Like in a game like Golden Sun, when asked to go save the world, you can actually say no and... Game Over. But the option is there and you can actually decline, so points for effort.

I'm pretty sure they're talking about the scene right after the first chapter when you're talking to the lords. They prompt you to pledge loyalty to their house for support points. This is not the actual choice that puts you in charge of any of the houses.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Are you bored to tears of the fishing minigame and can't get yourself through it without listening to podcasts on the side? Better rev up those podcasts, or not only will you have a lower professor ranking, but you won't be able to cook any speed or defense meals!

I unironically enjoy the fishing minigame, and wish more button presses were added to stuff like Cooking and Choir Practice. But I recognize this as a minority position, and can see how "leaning into the 3H weirdness" might not appeal to you. As for Professor Level... yeah it feels like a flawed system overall, that I'm not sure of how to "fix".

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Man, getting into the dining hall and hearing the sound effects of a full and crowded room despite seeing the camera pan around showing off the completely empty-

...It's not completely empty, it just took a whopping fifteen seconds for the people other than Edelgard to physically load into the room.

Reception Hall, not the Dining Hall. You don't access the latter until the next Exploratorium. But yeah, the load-in is... bad. One of my favorite pastimes with the DLC is talking to Abysskeeper, who doesn't show up until he's almost done talking.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

She introduces herself with her full name, and I'm kinda disappointed they didn't bother trying to properly pronounce it. I'm assuming it's based on Hraesvelgr, and... that “ae” sound is not pronounced “eh”. From what I've heard (there's conflicting info on this), it's either pronounced “Hreesvelgr” or “Hraishvelgr”. And personally, I think “Edelgard von Hraishvelg” sounds a lot cooler than “von Hresvelg”. That pronunciation just feels... empty, void of the punch that it could have had.

Honestly, I would be leery about any non-intuitive pronunciation. "Blaiddyd" having a "th" sound in the middle already throws me for a loop. Maybe it's because I've played it multiple times, but "HRES-velg" conveys authority and self-assurance to me.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Weirdly, he has no visible weapons, despite presumably being a guard. I seem to remember some guards having visible weapons, namely the armor knights the game places in your way in this early part of the game to keep you from exploring the parts of the Monastery you haven't unlocked yet.

He uses the generic male soldier model (and portrait). Those don't carry lances in their monastery appearances. Also, love the Gatekeeper, and I really appreciate them bringing Kyle McCarley back, even for a bit part.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh god, Mercedes. Her voice is... so airy. It's the weirdest thing. My first impression was “she obviously had an “ara ara” voice in the Japanese version and this is the localization's terrible effort to copy it”. Probably doesn't help that she has a “dead anime mom” haircut. But yeah, it's... really grating. But she's part of our house, and we're gonna have to deal with her.

Yeah, the Minnie Mouse voice is weird. She's grown on me, but I still don't hear Mercedes' voice as at all "natural".

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Seteth: In a few days time, there will be a mock battle between the three houses, intended to gauge the current progress of the students.

...Can this game please make up its mind about how much time these students have had to study so far? “A few days” is hardly enough time to wait before assessing progress.

My interpretation is, they're trying to get a "baseline" for every student. "How do they perform on the field of battle, before they've been taught anything?" Those who have tasted battle, like Dimitri, will be arriving at a different place than, say, Ashe. That way, there's a clear standard against which to judge their performance at Gronder, or on any "final exams" that were almost certainly cancelled this year.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...And then we get a scene alone with the walking embodiment of that “for the most part” caveat I put in there: Hanneman. I considered Daniel Woren the weak link in the voice acting chain in Shadows of Valentia, and he isn't much improved here. His lines just... none of the emotion in any of his line readings ever feels even slightly genuine. But I don't mean to pick on a specific, non-vague human being called out by name, even though the chances he'll ever read this are slim to none, so I want to take this time to offer some genuine praise: he's clearly gotten better. As bad as his Hanneman performance still is, it's better than his Desaix performance by a good margin, and considering how much worse the voice direction on this project was compared to the one where he gave his Desaix performance, the fact that he managed to improve here is honestly pretty damned admirable and impressive.

That's a shame. I get how his lines feel forced, at times, but I honestly love how much of a ham he comes across as. You can accuse Hanneman of many things, but subtlety ain't one of them.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I recall correctly that's one of the instances where they give you just one "choice". So you have to make Byleth say that. Which, as a teacher myself, had be sighing in exasperation. I can probably call it my least favorite2 line in the game, entirely for bias reasons of course.

Glad to know that the students are on a "first-name basis" with the Professor. You know, the character who is never referred to by their name in canon? And whom their students regularly call "Professor" or "Teach"? Yeah, this scene us dumb.

[Acacia Sgt]

10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'm pretty sure they're talking about the scene right after the first chapter when you're talking to the lords. They prompt you to pledge loyalty to their house for support points. This is not the actual choice that puts you in charge of any of the houses.

You just quoted Alastor talking about the House choice. That was also what I was talking about. And Samz707 also mentioned just above my post.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Samz707]

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

 

Glad to know that the students are on a "first-name basis" with the Professor. You know, the character who is never referred to by their name in canon? And whom their students regularly call "Professor" or "Teach"? Yeah, this scene us dumb.

Seriously just make Byleth's name Byleth.

Changing it adds nothing, it's not like you find your "Real" name written down anywhere, just call them Byleth.

I always feel the actual personality of a character (Which 3H only lets you sway a little bit, which is still relatively ground-breaking compared to Robin.) is something that matters more in what I can shape.

I consider a game with actual dialogue choices that let me shape a character but only that, to be a better attempt at an Avatar/Insert/Customizable player character than "Here's a generic anime protagonist, you can make them look slightly different and change their name."

Edited July 28, 2021 by Samz707

[Jotari]

12 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

You just quoted Alastor talking about the House choice. That was also what I was talking about. And Samz707 also mentioned just above my post.

Aalstor was talking about the choices yesterday. He's just reached the actual house choices today. I assume Samz was following that and not suggesting there should be an option to never pick any lord at all (well, other than Silver Snow).

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

I unironically enjoy the fishing minigame, and wish more button presses were added to stuff like Cooking and Choir Practice. But I recognize this as a minority position, and can see how "leaning into the 3H weirdness" might not appeal to you. As for Professor Level... yeah it feels like a flawed system overall, that I'm not sure of how to "fix".

The answer, is new game+ 🙂

Edited July 28, 2021 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Aalstor was talking about the choices yesterday. He's just reached the actual house choices today.

Which prompted more talk today.

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Which prompted more talk today.

What do you even mean by that? Look, there are two occasions in the game where you're asked to choose between the three lords.

The first one is directly after the first chapter which Alastor played through yesterday. This choice is fluff as it does not lock you into any of the routes. It just nets you some support points.

The second is the real choice after you talk to each of the house leaders and can view all of the characters in each house. This is the one that matters. Alastor posted the play log of it today.

Alastor said to me that there is no way to refuse all of the lords in the conversation he did yesterday. You are required to pledge alliance to one of these three princes whom you've only just met (unless you skip the cutscene entirely which is what I pointed out is an option).

Samz said that it would have been nice if there was an option to refuse them all and to make the options to pledge allegiance to them as if Byleth is just humoring them.

You said the reason they didn't do that is because there would be no game. This is not true as Alastor, Samz and myself were talking about the first instance which can be skipped entirely. So having an option to turn them down there would not have changed the overall plot of the game at all.

That's really as clear as I can make the situation.

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

What do you even mean by that? Look, there are to occasions in the game where you're asked to choose between the three lords.

The first one is directly after the first chapter which Alastor played through yesterday. This choice is fluff as it does not lock you into any of the routes. It just nets you some support points.

The second is the real choice after you talk to each of the house leaders and can view all of the characters in each house. This is the one that matters. Alastor posted the play log of it today.

Alastor said to me that there is no way to refuse all of the lords in the conversation he did yesterday. You are required to pledge alliance to one of these three princes whom you've only just met (unless you skip the cutscene entirely which is what I suggested).

Samz said that it would have been nice if there was an option to refuse them all and to make the options to pledge allegiance to them as if Byleth is just humoring them.

You said the reason they didn't do that is because there would be no game. This is not true as Alastor, Samz and myself were talking about the first instance which can be skipped entirely. So having an option to turn them down there would not have changed the overall plot of the game at all.

That's really as clear as I can make the situation.

 

And I'm just referring to the House choice. Chill. And still, Samz707's reply to that post shows it wasn't an unwelcomed post.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

And I'm just referring to the House choice. Chill. And still, Samz707's reply to that post shows it wasn't an unwelcomed post.

I can assure you I am entirely chill (I always am). It just seemed like you were missing the through-line of the conversation. Samz response seems like it was still referring to the initial conversation by saying Byleth could come up with an excuse to turn them all down, rather than being about making a new fifth route (or an alternate lead in to Silver Snow) if you refused to pick any house to join entirely.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

The answer, is new game+ 🙂

Then I'm too powerful for my own good. Like, say I can tutor up to 7 students each weekend. That's basically my whole class. So, I need to re-motivate my whole class every possible weekend, thus obligating me to Explore (rather than, say, Battling). And sure, I can share meals with them all, but there's no guarantee I'll have enough ingredients to cover them all. Also re: Battling, doing three generic battles in a row is boring, while doing three Paralogues consecutively is overly taxing. I don't have to, sure, but then I'm not playing optimally! Finally, all the activities that previously gave me Professor Rank... don't. I lose out on the feeling of working towards something.

[Sunwoo]

When I picked up 3H again to get through all the other paths I hadn't played yet, I decided I had no patience for monastery stuff and bumped up supports and professor level so I didn't have to deal with it. And in my Silver Snow and Verdant Wind runs I've found that I just have little patience for the monastery past the first week. It's a pace-killer and a mood-killer, and just goes to show you why other FE games don't give you a month to run in circles in the downtime between making a plan and the actual fight.

There's probably still a way to have a monastery element to the game while not being such a pace-killer ... but it would definitely involve less monastery.

[lenticular]

So, I totally get why a lot of people don't like the Monastery. What I do not understand is why people don't like the Monastery but then do all the Monastery activities anyway. And what I doubly don't understand is why people don't like the Monastery, do it all anyway, and then complain that the game is too easy. The game is balanced to be beatable without any bonuses from the monastery. With the exception of the small number of mandatory activities in the early-game that serve as a tutorial, it's completely viable to just skip through every month doing nothing but resting and auto-tutoring and still get through the game (at least on Normal and Hard difficulties).

I tend to think of the Monastery as being similar to skirmish grinding in Awakening, social stuff in My Castle in Fates, or sidequests in Shadows of Valentia. It's there for people who want it, is a part of "optimal" play and will definitely make the game easier, but it's fine to skip some or all of it if you don't want to engage with it.

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

Honestly, I would be leery about any non-intuitive pronunciation. "Blaiddyd" having a "th" sound in the middle already throws me for a loop. Maybe it's because I've played it multiple times, but "HRES-velg" conveys authority and self-assurance to me.

The other issue with trying for authentic pronunciation is that there's no way most of the voice actors are going to manage to nail all of the phonemes from languages other than English. If they tried for an authentic Old Norse pronunciation of Hræsvelgr then they might get something that sounds fairly similar to an Anglophone ear but it would probably still sound weird to any native speaker of any nordic language.

[Samz707]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

So, I totally get why a lot of people don't like the Monastery. What I do not understand is why people don't like the Monastery but then do all the Monastery activities anyway. And what I doubly don't understand is why people don't like the Monastery, do it all anyway, and then complain that the game is too easy. The game is balanced to be beatable without any bonuses from the monastery. With the exception of the small number of mandatory activities in the early-game that serve as a tutorial, it's completely viable to just skip through every month doing nothing but resting and auto-tutoring and still get through the game (at least on Normal and Hard difficulties).

I tend to think of the Monastery as being similar to skirmish grinding in Awakening, social stuff in My Castle in Fates, or sidequests in Shadows of Valentia. It's there for people who want it, is a part of "optimal" play and will definitely make the game easier, but it's fine to skip some or all of it if you don't want to engage with it.

The other issue with trying for authentic pronunciation is that there's no way most of the voice actors are going to manage to nail all of the phonemes from languages other than English. If they tried for an authentic Old Norse pronunciation of Hræsvelgr then they might get something that sounds fairly similar to an Anglophone ear but it would probably still sound weird to any native speaker of any nordic language.

Because at least on a first play through, you don't know how much the game is beatable without them, for all you know, you're heavily expected to use them. 

I also don't quite agree with comparing it to side-quests in Valentia:

Valentia side-quests can, for the most part, be done at any time at your own pace, almost all of them aren't time-sensitive, not to mention that you can grind in Dungeons at any time.

With 3H, you're at a deadline, you only have so long you can grind before the next plot-battle, you feel forced to do it now because you can't do it later.

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Samz707

[Sunwoo]

20 minutes ago, lenticular said:

So, I totally get why a lot of people don't like the Monastery. What I do not understand is why people don't like the Monastery but then do all the Monastery activities anyway. And what I doubly don't understand is why people don't like the Monastery, do it all anyway, and then complain that the game is too easy. The game is balanced to be beatable without any bonuses from the monastery. With the exception of the small number of mandatory activities in the early-game that serve as a tutorial, it's completely viable to just skip through every month doing nothing but resting and auto-tutoring and still get through the game (at least on Normal and Hard difficulties).

I can't speak for anyone else, but I still do a bit of monastery because it's still a reliable way of quickly getting support points between characters and, post-skip, weapon EXP for Byleth. And I don't mind going through monastery to listen to things characters have to say for the month or so, but since the dialogue doesn't change until a new month comes around you only really need one week for that.

[Alastor15243]

46 minutes ago, lenticular said:

So, I totally get why a lot of people don't like the Monastery. What I do not understand is why people don't like the Monastery but then do all the Monastery activities anyway. And what I doubly don't understand is why people don't like the Monastery, do it all anyway, and then complain that the game is too easy. The game is balanced to be beatable without any bonuses from the monastery. With the exception of the small number of mandatory activities in the early-game that serve as a tutorial, it's completely viable to just skip through every month doing nothing but resting and auto-tutoring and still get through the game (at least on Normal and Hard difficulties).

I tend to think of the Monastery as being similar to skirmish grinding in Awakening, social stuff in My Castle in Fates, or sidequests in Shadows of Valentia. It's there for people who want it, is a part of "optimal" play and will definitely make the game easier, but it's fine to skip some or all of it if you don't want to engage with it.

I won't be able to answer this for a while, so, question for the time being: Have you played like this, skipping every single free time you can for the entire run? And do you say from experience that this is a well-rounded experience without any balance issues due to having too little of something you can only get by doing this?

Edited July 28, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

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

Then I'm too powerful for my own good. Like, say I can tutor up to 7 students each weekend. That's basically my whole class. So, I need to re-motivate my whole class every possible weekend, thus obligating me to Explore (rather than, say, Battling). And sure, I can share meals with them all, but there's no guarantee I'll have enough ingredients to cover them all. Also re: Battling, doing three generic battles in a row is boring, while doing three Paralogues consecutively is overly taxing. I don't have to, sure, but then I'm not playing optimally! Finally, all the activities that previously gave me Professor Rank... don't. I lose out on the feeling of working towards something.

If I do that then I'm too powerful!

But if I don't do that, then I'm not play optimally!

Maybe I'm just a New Game+ slut, but that sounds like a bit of a contradiction. Playing optimally will make you  too powerful. Because the game isn't designed to be played 100% optimally, it's designed to be played in such a way that even a moderately skilled player can beat it on their first attempt.

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

Because at least on a first play through, you don't know how much the game is beatable without them, for all you know, you're heavily expected to use them. 

I also don't quite agree with comparing it to side-quests in Valentia:

Valentia side-quests can, for the most part, be done at any time at your own pace.

With 3H, you're at a deadline, you only have so long you can grind before the next plot-battle, you feel forced to do it now because you can't do it later.

 

That's fair. A lot of the grumbling I hear about Three Houses is how the monastery really doesn't stand up to replay, but for people who just hate it immediately, it's true that you don't have a sense of exactly what is and isn't needed. I also do have some sympathy to the "use it or lose it" dilemma of limited grinding. That can be a genuine problem. However, for the most part, I found it fairly easy to tell what monastery stuff was and wasn't needed, even in my first playthrough (and without guides, spoilers, etc.). For instance, I gave up on teatime very early on because I didn't enjoy it and correctly assumed that the little bits of Charm I could drag out of it weren't going to be worth it.

53 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I won't be able to answer this for a while, so, question for the time being: Have you played like this, skipping every single free time you can for the entire run? And do you personally consider this a well-rounded experience without any balance issue due to having too little of something you can only get by doing this?

I haven't, because I generally enjoy the monastery, but I am absolutely going to try doing so now and see how it turns out. I don't know how long it will take (though it will probably be considerably quicker than you are, due to a combination of skipping everything and not needing to playlog everything) but I will post back when I am done (and be willing to eat my words if it turns out that it sucks).

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I haven't, because I generally enjoy the monastery, but I am absolutely going to try doing so now and see how it turns out. I don't know how long it will take (though it will probably be considerably quicker than you are, due to a combination of skipping everything and not needing to playlog everything) but I will post back when I am done (and be willing to eat my words if it turns out that it sucks).

Yeah, see, the reason I ask is because my instincts tell me that's not remotely how they designed it, because the mechanics and equipment that are gated behind time-consuming tasks seem pretty dang arbitrary and noncohesive. Plus, like @Samz707 said, it is not even remotely reasonable or realistic to expect a first-time player to intuitively know how much of this stuff they're going to need in order to succeed later in the game. I sure as hell didn't. I found myself compelled to do every tedious little task to arm myself for all the random bullshit I began paranoidly expecting behind every corner (keep in mind I was ironmanning a game that I was slowly discovering wants ironmanners to die), and I deeply resented the fact that the game expected me to take this much of my time in order to get materials that literally every other game in the series would give to me in a far more natural and streamlined way.

Good luck on the experiment, and good on you for checking on your words to back them up.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

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

?

The only particularly good Relic that isn't a weapon is Thyrsus. The Aegis Shield has a lack of viable users, while the Rafail Gem barely does anything whatsoever (okay, it's decent on fliers). The Fetters are very good, sure, but they're DLC and I forgot about them until just now.

As for weapons - yeah Crusher ain't great, and I've never found much use for Blutgang. But the other weapons are all pretty solid. Thunderbrand and Vajra-Mushti are brave weapons with solid Might; Luin is quite accurate; Freikugel and the Lance of Ruin have punishingly high Mights; Areadbhar and Aymr both offer absurdly good combat arts; Failnaught is a souped-up Longbow; and, the Sword of the Creator is a physical sword with range.

Okay, so I might have exaggerated, but still, I find it hard to justify using most of the relic weapons besides the Sword of the Creator. The combat arts attached to the relics are even harder to justify using, with Atrocity, Dust, and Ruined Sky standing out in that regard; Atrocity is pretty much always gratuitous overkill (what good is it seeing Dimitri doing something like 80 damage when most enemies have far, FAR less than that???), and being linked to the Crest of Blaiddyd means there's the potential chance of using double the durability (speaking of which, the Crest of Blaiddyd is the one crest where I'd say its activations hurt more than they help, ergo a case of Blessed with Suck). And this is on something that already rarely warrants use.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

35 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Okay, so I might have exaggerated, but still, I find it hard to justify using most of the relic weapons besides the Sword of the Creator. The combat arts attached to the relics are even harder to justify using, with Atrocity, Dust, and Ruined Sky standing out in that regard; Atrocity is pretty much always gratuitous overkill (what good is it seeing Dimitri doing something like 80 damage when most enemies have far, FAR less than that???), and being linked to the Crest of Blaiddyd means there's the potential chance of using double the durability (speaking of which, the Crest of Blaiddyd is the one crest where I'd say its activations hurt more than they help, ergo a case of Blessed with Suck). And this is on something that already rarely warrants use.

I don't see how arts like Ruined Sky or Atrocity are "overkill". Most enemies aren't going to be felled in a single hit by either the Lance of Ruin or Areadbhar. So combat arts that make this a possibility are definitely useful. Dimitri's Crest is a bad one, true, but at least Umbral Steel is a relatively plentiful. Dust can similarly help secure one-shots that a normal attack from Crusher couldn't deliver, but as I'm not particularly high on the Relic, neither am I too inclined to defend the art.

Also, what "difficulty to justify" is going on with the Relics? Take Thunderbrand, for instance. As an E-rank Sword, it's competing for space with... an Iron Sword. It's expensive to repair, sure, but the first 30 hits are free. If you have a Crested unit in a physical sword build, there's basically no downside to bringing along Thunderbrand. It's not some big "commitment" that must be justified. Same applies, to varying degrees, to most of the Relic weapons.

[LoneRecon400]

5 hours ago, lenticular said:

I do not understand is why people don't like the Monastery but then do all the Monastery activities anyway. And what I doubly don't understand is why people don't like the Monastery, do it all anyway, and then complain that the game is too easy. The game is balanced to be beatable without any bonuses from the monastery. With the exception of the small number of mandatory activities in the early-game that serve as a tutorial, it's completely viable to just skip through every month doing nothing but resting and auto-tutoring and still get through the game (at least on Normal and Hard difficulties).

I tend to think of the Monastery as being similar to skirmish grinding in Awakening, social stuff in My Castle in Fates, or sidequests in Shadows of Valentia. It's there for people who want it, is a part of "optimal" play and will definitely make the game easier, but it's fine to skip some or all of it if you don't want to engage with it.

The issue with the Monastery is just how much customization and optimization is locked behind doing repetitive busy work. If you don't utilize the Monastery, you're going to be stuck with units who can't go into other classes that they don't have a Boon in, will not be able to utilize high ranking battalions, and will miss out on some other pretty major benefits such as more Adjutant slots, cooking +Spd/Def meals, and being able to recruit other units.

Those things are never essential to beating the game sure, but that's where a lot of customization comes from.  For example, Desperation is very good on Dedue because of One Two punch, but you'd never be able to get him to certify into Cavalier and also have him get Deathblow without instructing him every week. Missing out on extra Adjutant slots also make more difficult for units who are only in classes for their mastery such as Wyvern Annette who want to be a Archer for Hit +20 pretty badly but can’t fight well in it. And not being able to recruit units not only locks out good battalions and other tools, it also means some potentially interesting units to mess around with are off they table if you don't feel like running around acting like a Florist. 

I've played the game without utilizing the Monastery that much on a SS Maddening run, and that was by far my least favorite play through of the game. It felt so artificially hamstinged since a lot of units had a very hard time promoting to Advanced Classes due to weapon ranks,  Interesting Gambits such as Retribution could only be used in the very late game due to the A Authority requirement, and was overall just very reliant on a select few units rather than having everyone equally pull their weight.

Utilizing the Monetary can be so much of a chore that it feels more time is spent doing monotonous busywork rather than actually playing the game. But by not utilizing it, the game becomes a lot more limiting to play and any customization that one might have a unit pretty much flies out the window. A player should not have to choose whether to have tedious playthrough or one that's not engaging.

Edited July 29, 2021 by LoneRecon400