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

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

.Can we have a moment of consideration for the ethical issues of giving Professr the power to arbitrarily veto their entire class's one day off a week to send them on multiple mandatory cross-continental treks?

Or the fact that rest improves everyone's motivation by 50%, not just Professr's, implying that Professr doesn't let anyone spend the day relaxing unless she does, and when she wants to explore the Monastery, she enforces some sort of anti-curfew just to make sure she can talk to everyone?

Suddenly, Teach coming to rule Fódlan with a fierce iron fist on half the routes makes more sense.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, after some meals and faculty training, as usual, I went to exams, and happily, Seteth finally became a wyvern lord. Ingrid also managed to pass her valkyrie test. She's lost black tomefaire, unfortunately, though she does have higher range now. Hopefully I can get her uncanny blow quickly.

She'll only lose 1 point of power, relative to Dark Flier, since Valkyrie gets a +4 Magic mod. Also makes her support magic slightly more effective.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yes. The story scene about the “fog”. The fog that doesn't actually exist in the actual gameplay, and is only mentioned here as setup for the outrageously stupid excuse they're going to give for how this upcoming battle will go down.

Pretty wild that the game previously establishes the ability of certain Dark Mages to conjure fog (in the Lonato map)... and then proceeds to never use it again. Probably for the better gameplay-wise, though.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Seteth: The 10 Elites certainly possessed great power. But does that make them worthy of worship?

Isn't that... official Church doctrine, Seteth?

I don't believe they're worshipped, only revered. Worship would imply that they've been granted deity status.

Anyway, Seteth seems caught between enforcing church doctrine, and a personal thoughtfulness and intellectualism. He doesn't seem like a zealot, at least not post-skip.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I think there are some bad looks for Seteth in some of the main story stuff (mostly Silver Snow) as well as his paralogue, but support!Seteth is generally a decent, thoughtful guy.

And yeah Gronder 2 was so obviously intended to have fog. I'm of two minds about it: one, it's a good thing because 3H fog is an abomination*. Two, nah, they should have just implemented fog in a way that wasn't terrible (not having it be base sight range of 2 when every enemy archer has 3 range would be a good start) and made that map fog. It's really weird to me that fog implementation has if anything generally gotten worse as the series has gone on; Binding Blade had some maps where the base sight range was quite substantial AND gave thieves a minimum of 8 (letting you see all but the most mobile enemies), before considering torches, and it's generally gotten worse from there.

[Interdimensional Observer]

9 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Two, nah, they should have just implemented fog in a way that wasn't terrible (not having it be base sight range of 2 when every enemy archer has 3 range would be a good start)

Advance Wars did allow attack range to exceed sight on units. Artilleries and the like needed other units for them to see and attack anything. -But Advance Wars had a much lower unit loss cost, and increasingly forced enemies to play by the rules of fog of war as well. With Days of Ruin, fog had been improved so much it could actually be fun without irony sometimes.

 

13 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Binding Blade had some maps where the base sight range was quite substantial AND gave thieves a minimum of 8 (letting you see all but the most mobile enemies), before considering torches, and it's generally gotten worse from there.

First, fog starts with Thracia 776. All units, thieves included, had equal vision there IIRC. Torches debuted, as did the staff of the same name. The eight Thracian fog battles were... well I'm not sure exactly how to rate their implementation of the concept.

Second, IIRC, Torch staves in FE6 were just torches that were exclusive to staffers and gave EXP. The 7&8 change to "pick any tile within range to make the center of the fog clearance" made the Torch staff significantly better, and very good for revealing sections of the map before you even got there. So I'd say fog-busting peaked slightly later.

[Alastor15243]

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Second, IIRC, Torch staves in FE6 were just torches that were exclusive to staffers and gave EXP. The 7&8 change to "pick any tile within range to make the center of the fog clearance" made the Torch staff significantly better, and very good for revealing sections of the map before you even got there. So I'd say fog-busting peaked slightly later.

I do agree that the higher range of sight on some fog maps was a terrific idea though.

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think there are some bad looks for Seteth in some of the main story stuff (mostly Silver Snow) as well as his paralogue, but support!Seteth is generally a decent, thoughtful guy.

And yeah Gronder 2 was so obviously intended to have fog. I'm of two minds about it: one, it's a good thing because 3H fog is an abomination*. Two, nah, they should have just implemented fog in a way that wasn't terrible (not having it be base sight range of 2 when every enemy archer has 3 range would be a good start) and made that map fog. It's really weird to me that fog implementation has if anything generally gotten worse as the series has gone on; Binding Blade had some maps where the base sight range was quite substantial AND gave thieves a minimum of 8 (letting you see all but the most mobile enemies), before considering torches, and it's generally gotten worse from there.

With regards to having fog in that, I'm glad they didn't. It'd really suck to deal with that while having to worry about TWO enemy armies...

[Jotari]

One idea I had (and implemented) for fog of war in my Fall of Thabes hack was fog that was variable by turn. On turn 1 all your units have just 1 range of vision. On enemy phase turn 1 that automatically increases to 2, on player phase it's 3 and so on and so on until it reaches a max of 7 or 8 for all of your units making almost the whole map visible, only for it to immediately drop back to 1 (I think it drops back at first on enemy phase to stagger when you have odd and even numbered vision range). The effect of this is that as the map goes on and you get deeper into more dangerous positions, you progressively get more vision and thus more capable of dealing with the map, until suddenly that generosity is taken away and you're left very limited. However, you still roughly no the position of the enemies from when you had that increased vision, so it becomes a sort of memory game where you have to visualize and calculate where the enemies you could previously see now are. So long as the beginning of the map is made relatively safe, the player should never feel like they're at fault for something going wrong, as most mistakes could be alleviated by waiting for vision to increase, at the same time, players will want to finish the map quickly, so pushing forward when you have reduced vision becomes a calculated risk, rather than standard fog of war where it's blindly stumbling about all the time.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

And yeah Gronder 2 was so obviously intended to have fog. I'm of two minds about it: one, it's a good thing because 3H fog is an abomination*. Two, nah, they should have just implemented fog in a way that wasn't terrible (not having it be base sight range of 2 when every enemy archer has 3 range would be a good start) and made that map fog. It's really weird to me that fog implementation has if anything generally gotten worse as the series has gone on; Binding Blade had some maps where the base sight range was quite substantial AND gave thieves a minimum of 8 (letting you see all but the most mobile enemies), before considering torches, and it's generally gotten worse from there.

I'm generally glad Second Gronder didn't have fog. On my latest (VW) playthrough, I managed a two-turn clear with surgical strikes against Edelgard and Dimitri. Even though the narrative doesn't consider which other-house students live or die, I do make it a personal goal to kill as few other students as possible.

Anyway, as for how I would change fog:

- Give units longer sight ranges in general. I think 4 is a good starting point.

- The outline of enemy units can be seen through the fog, so you know where they are. However, no additional details (class, weapon, skills) can be reviewed by the player.

- You can launch an attack against an unseen enemy (and get an accurate combat window), even if you can't review that unit.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

The effect of this is that as the map goes on and you get deeper into more dangerous positions, you progressively get more vision and thus more capable of dealing with the map, until suddenly that generosity is taken away and you're left very limited. However, you still roughly no the position of the enemies from when you had that increased vision, so it becomes a sort of memory game where you have to visualize and calculate where the enemies you could previously see now are.

Dropping from 7 or 8 back to 1, in a turn, seems like... well, a real dick move. Suddenly I can't attack any of the foes I'd previously seen since theynot in vision range. And if any reinforcements show up, my knowledge of the enemy distribution is compromised. That said, I can't know how exactly ot was done in your own game - it certainly sounds like a twist, at least.

[Jotari]

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

Dropping from 7 or 8 back to 1, in a turn, seems like... well, a real dick move. Suddenly I can't attack any of the foes I'd previously seen since theynot in vision range. And if any reinforcements show up, my knowledge of the enemy distribution is compromised. That said, I can't know how exactly ot was done in your own game - it certainly sounds like a twist, at least.

If you encounter an enemy when moving through fog of war, you have the opportunity to attack them. So if you remember where an enemy is, you can move "through" where the enemy is to attack them. There also aren't reinforcements, but enemies do move from the other side of the map, so things can jump out at you. Here's a video of what the chapter is like if you want to get a better sense of it

 

[Etrurian emperor]

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

Pretty wild that the game previously establishes the ability of certain Dark Mages to conjure fog (in the Lonato map)... and then proceeds to never use it again. Probably for the better gameplay-wise, though.

I think that's a common problem with dark magic. Lore wise its said to be able to achieve just about everything. The hexes Tharja and Henry could do just about anything, ranging from blowing stuff up to giving people the sniffles. Yet in gameplay all this versatility translated to giving you a bit more avoid. 

Quote

 

Seteth: The 10 Elites certainly possessed great power. But does that make them worthy of worship?

Isn't that... official Church doctrine, Seteth?

 

Most support seem to indicate that Seteth's more of an administrator than a true believer. He's probably only with the Church out of his personal friendship with Rhea. Though that has a darker side too in the sense that he upholds a system he seems to know is flawed just because his friend happens to lead it. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Etrurian emperor

[Alastor15243]

Three Houses Day 59: Chapter 17 Mission

I just promoted Cyril to wyvern rider, which means I have someone to adjutant onto Ingrid when she's a dark flier for a little better aim. Pity that didn't happen before I got the idea to get uncanny blow which will probably render accuracy issues meaningless.

Right. Time for the Second Battle of the Eagle and Lion, in which the big, good-natured three-way mock battle between the three houses of Garreg Mach has been horrifically distorted into a brutal all-out war between the three countries the houses once represented, our heroes forced to kill the people they once went to school with. Yes, the big emotional moment of the game that the writers clearly imagined from the outset... before realizing the final product of the story they created was no longer reconcilable with their vision in any remotely natural way... and then putting it in anyway.

I will explain my specific gripes with this story beat once the battle actually starts.

...My obsession with breaking the barriers on every monster I fight has apparently caused me to rack up 27 umbral steel. Guess I better start making use of that shit. Starting by repairing the Sword of the Creator.

Time for the cutscene mimicking the original Battle of the Eagle and Lion, in which Dimitri's infamously memetic “Kill every last one of them!” happens.

...And then we start.

Okay.

First, a point of praise.

“Between Heaven and Earth” is fucking awesome. Well, the rain version anyway. It's a great escalation of the already-excellent “Blue Skies and a Battle”. If the story actually succeeded in being compelling, I might have been moved to tears. Pity I'll never know.

Now, there are two core, fundamental problems with this particular scene.

The first is that, as I have mentioned far earlier in this playlog, the entire emotional weight of it is completely and totally undermined by the game's own damned recruitment system. This is supposed to be a heartbreaking moment where you're forced to fight and kill characters you've gotten emotionally attached to. The problem: the fact that you can take virtually any student from any house and recruit them into yours, and the fact that this process gets easier the more supports you've had with the student in question, means that your odds of being forced to fight a particular student are inversely proportional to how much you give a shit about them.

The second... is that the narrative has categorically failed to justify this particular three-way battle actually taking place. They didn't make this game revolve around a three-way war between three factions. They made it a war between one faction and everyone else. Which means that they have to come up with half-hearted bullshit reasons why the Kingdom and the Alliance haven't joined forces to fight on the same side. In Verdant Wind they justified it with Dimitri just being batshit insane and having nobody to reign him in.

In Azure Moon... if what I have heard about it is fucking correct...

...Let's hold off on that until I actually see them say it.

So, turn one stride, as normal. I can get everyone but Mercedes (the gambit user) and Shamir into it. Shamir hunter's volleys the knight blocking the bridge, and everyone rushes forward. With a little shove from Professr (who as it turns out can't kill anyone left after the bridge knight is gone anyway), Dimitri hand axes Bernie to death, Ingrid heals Dimitri, Flayn rescues Annette forward as far as she can and Annette heals the rest of Dimitri's damage.

And now enemy phase comes, and... oh right, shit, Petra. She's gonna be a pain with that alert stance boosting her already-high avoid.

Oh! Here it comes! Claude is advancing, and here is the master of fucking strategy's reason for why he's going to attack us, and why beating Edelgard isn't enough to win this battle, and why we have to beat him too.

Claude: Hmph. The Empire and Kingdom are mixed up in this battle. It's a struggle to target the right one. Such are the rules of melee. We'll just have to crush anyone who isn't an ally!

Wow, Claude.

...Yes, this is why they brought up that fog that doesn't actually manifest as fog of war. To facilitate this utterly idiotic justification for why Claude fights us. Look, Claude, I know there isn't nearly as much difference in the soldiers of each country as there probably should be, but if you can't tell the Kingdom and Empire soldiers apart from each other, how will your soldiers tell them apart from their own allies?

And secondly... if that is the only reason why you're targeting the Kingdom forces...

...then why did you instruct Hilda to lie in wait to perform an ambush in the direction you knew that only the Kingdom soldiers could possibly be coming from!?

Just for fun, and to maximize the absurdity, I'm going to try to route the entire Empire's army before I kill Claude.

Petra turned out to be incredibly easy to take out with a simple gambit from Dimitri, and then, ah yes. This must be why I've seen memes of Bernie joining the likes of Sigurd, Flora and Rinea. I'm guessing that if Bernie's still alive when you get too far into the hill, she's burnt alive? That must have been a really anticlimactic death though, given that it's just a fade to black and then when the view returns there's that cheap-ass fire effect on the hill.

And of course, I'm rattled by this player-phase activated event. Of course. Stay classy, game. Thank goodness I have Flayn.

...God fucking damn it.

...You know how the range highlighting graphic covers the floor beneath terrain, making it a bitch and a half to notice on impassible terrain like rocks and walls?

Between that and the fact that they tinted the wooden hill red to augment the very meagre flames...

...I apparently didn't notice when I was positioning Constance that I put her right in range of a red square on the rocks.

A square where Claude could hit with his Failnaught's combat art. Yeah, needless to say, she dead.

...You're shitting me. I put Flayn on one too!?

Yep, she's dead too, to Ignatz.

Rewinding.

Right, so that was pretty easily remedied. But it looks like Claude's army is going to be on us well before we're ready to take out Edelgard, so we need to deal with him first.

Turns out he can easily be one-shot with 100% accuracy with Sublime Heaven, and Claude has the gall to tell me that fighting him seems like a waste. I then rescue Professr out with Flayn, and get ready to deliver the final blow to Edelgard after taking out her remaining demonic beast.

I don't like that crit rate Edelgard has, so I elect to take her out with Felix, who can kill her before she can counter.

In the words of Tobin: “Aaaaaand... we're done!”

Curiously, everyone I fought, with the exception of Bernie, wound up retreating rather than dying. And something like half the enemy students weren't even there.

Oh yes! Rodrigue shows up right after the battle!

Is it time for another cavalry NPC ally to get stabbed in front of the woman who can make spacetime her bitch?

Yes! Yes it is!

Fleche just showed up, smirks evilly, and then... runs up to Dimitri on the map. Absolutely no physical actions take place, no sound effects play, but Rodrigue screams in concern, while Dimitri sounds injured...

...Cue save screen, and...

...So it's just a still image of Fleche about to stab Dimitri, accompanied by sad music. I saw this image and assumed it was part of a cutscene.

...it also... appears... to also take place within the Great Bridge of Myrddin, given the castle walls we're surrounded with.

Despite this taking place in the middle of Gronder Field.

Fleche: (Evil laughter) Have I caught you off-guard, your highness? Aww, does it hurt? I bet it hurts reaaaal bad, doesn't it? But it's nothing compared to what my brother felt!

...Uh... either she's... monologuing... about how she has the element of surprise... for way longer than it would take to lose it...

...or she's already stabbed Dimitri when this happens, and for some fucking reason they didn't actually do any sounds or visual effects for the attack, and made the CG be of Fleche about to stab him.

...I have to assume this is a picture of Dimitri having been wounded already, with Fleche about to go in for another killing blow. Which she somehow couldn't do the first time. When she had the element of surprise.

But then Rodrigue comes in to shield Dimitri with his own body, Professr kills Fleche, and apparently while the wound Fleche gave Dimitri with the benefit of backstabbing isn't lethal, the wound Fleche gave Rodrigue without even aiming for him... is instantly fatal.

And this whole time, may I remind you yet fucking again, Professr is here, blessed with the power to rewind time.

Also, Dimitri's face in the CG of Rodrigue dying looks like a kid who had a really sucky birthday, not someone bawling his eyes out because one of his dearest friends is dying right in front of him.

...On the plus side, we finally get to see Dimitri's father, King Lambert, via flashback.

Lambert's talking about the impending journey to Duscur... like Dimitri isn't going. They're talking as if the idea of Dimitri dying in the event that Lambert does is unthinkable, like he's going to be safe at home. When he was fucking there, and barely escaped with his life.

...But now Rodrigue is dead, the scene has changed, and we're talking to Dimitri in the rain.

...At the Great Bridge of Myrddin.

...And Dimitri's words about how final death is... seem to imply he doesn't think the ghosts haunting him are real. Like it's just a metaphor he's been using all this time, or he just changed his mind.

...Uh... he suddenly started smiling pleasantly during this conversation. While he's still furious with me judging by his tone.

...So yeah, Dimitri's just started opening up about his massive case of PTSD and survivor's guilt.

...Wow, with Dimitri's hair deflated by the rain in this CG... uh... his head looks weirdly narrow.

Cut to the start of next chapter, and we have the narrator boredly talk about what happened after what was supposed to be an emotional scene, and how Dimitri's thinking about the Kingdom he's been neglecting.

...Gilbert says “our victory at Gronder Field”, but didn't we have to run away because of enemy reinforcements?

...Yeah, it sounds like losing Rodrigue also lost us a lot of military support, which makes it sound like Dimitri's about to announce his intention to free the Kingdom, so why the fuck did they even narrate this in advance?

...Dimitri proceeds to apologize to everyone, and Felix seems bitter about his father's death... but not significantly more bitter than usual. Which... makes it feel like he's hardly broken up about it at all. And is just using it as an emotional bludgeon against Dimitri.

They almost repeat word for word an exchange Emmeryn had with Panne, talking about how words aren't enough to atone for wrongs done, but words are “all I have”.

Yep, Dimitri announces to triumphant music what the bored-as-shit narrator already spoiled for us, and what Professr tried, and somehow failed, to insist upon all along: we're taking back the Kingdom.

...Felix pauses before calling Dimitri by his name. ...Is this the first time he's done that? Has he always called him “boar prince” or some other nickname before now?

...And now we have a support with Dimitri. And he seems to be significantly calmer. His voice is still significantly different than the tone I remember him using pre-timeskip, but far more recognizable as it.

He describes the injury he got at the battle at Gronder Field from being stabbed by Fleche as a wound that “should have healed long ago”.

It's been two days, Dimitri. “Long ago” is hardly appropriate fucking phrasing to use.

He apparently says he also saw that her eyes were full of revenge, despite being stabbed in the back and never being shown to turn around until she died.

Dimitri says he isn't sure who Fleche was, but he has a theory. He was apparently attacked in the Monastery the other day, by “some of the youths we taught swordsmanship to, once upon a time”. Apparently they were “raised by a group of thieves who we put down five years ago”, taken in by the church because Rhea said the children had done nothing wrong.

His point is that he's killed so many people at this point, under so many different circumstances, that it's basically impossible to tell who specifically he killed to prompt Fleche's revenge.

...Okay, so... I actually like Dimitri having no fucking clue who precisely of his countless victims was the girl's big brother. It's always interesting when someone with an actual conscience experiences “But For Me It Was Tuesday” syndrome.

...But yeah, that's it for today. Tomorrow I guess I'll finish up with some pre-mission busywork.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Sunwoo]

This chapter was just really fucking underwhelming.

I wish the game had given an actual reason as to why Byleth never tried rewinding time after Rodrigue was stabbed, even if it was something as dumb as "Byleth is exhausted and can't rewind time anymore". Unless I'm remembering wrong though, that wasn't so much as implied in the actual scene.

Also, the three-way battle is just another way the game tries to manipulate the players' emotions by making them sad about having to fight the two remaining house leaders (and any students you didn't recruit), but the optics always looks nicer than what they had to do to justify it. Because it makes way more sense for Dimitri and Claude to be teaming up against Edelgard.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Sunwoo said:

Unless I'm remembering wrong though, that wasn't so much as implied in the actual scene.

You remember correctly. Professr was the one tasked with killing Fleche after Rodrigue blocked the blow. She's clearly healthy enough.

[Sunwoo]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

You remember correctly. Professr was the one tasked with killing Fleche after Rodrigue blocked the blow. She's clearly healthy enough.

Wow, uh. What the fuck, game.

Clearly Byleth was all "If I gotta lose my dad to stupid circumstances out of my control in this game, I'm not suffering this indignity alone! Sorry, Felix."

Edited November 11, 2021 by Sunwoo

[Jotari]

Claude the genius strategy encounters such unfavorable conditions for battle that he can't tell friend from foe and decides the best course of action would be to charge blindly forward. If he had half the aptitude we're told he does, then he'd be retreating to let everyone else fight each other. I don't think any military strategist would ever recommend you go into a battle where you don't have a clue whom you're actually fighting. And it's not like they even make Grondor that significant a location that just has to be taken. For all the hype the game gives it, this is a pretty standard step in the war.

Let us also note that it wasn't actually Dimitri that killed Fleche's brother. Dimitri wanted to keep Randolph alive! Byleth was the one who mercilessly executed a prisoner of war. There's some irony there, but the game seems completely unaware of it.

[Sunwoo]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Let us also note that it wasn't actually Dimitri that killed Fleche's brother. Dimitri wanted to keep Randolph alive! Byleth was the one who mercilessly executed a prisoner of war. There's some irony there, but the game seems completely unaware of it.

Don't you know, Jotari? Byleth-san-sama-chan-kun-senpai, the almighty savior of the world, must be immune to any sort of criticism or wrongdoing.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Right, so that was pretty easily remedied. But it looks like Claude's army is going to be on us well before we're ready to take out Edelgard, so we need to deal with him first.

Personally, I find it easier to just abandon the central hill, because there's no tactical advantage to taking Mt. Wicker Man (as coined by @Interdimensional Observer), and trying it only aggravates the yellow team into advancing with everything they got (the part where it's a trap doesn't help matters). Instead, I find it much easier to go after the Empire units from the left side, where Hubert is chilling.

Edited November 11, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Eltosian Kadath]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Oh! Here it comes! Claude is advancing, and here is the master of fucking strategy's reason for why he's going to attack us, and why beating Edelgard isn't enough to win this battle, and why we have to beat him too.

Claude: Hmph. The Empire and Kingdom are mixed up in this battle. It's a struggle to target the right one. Such are the rules of melee. We'll just have to crush anyone who isn't an ally!

Wow, Claude.

I wish Three Houses had the guts to have the "crafty" Claude reveal that his plan is to let the Empire and Kingdom get entangled, and then conveniently dispose of whichever of his rivals survived that clash...

 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Yes, this is why they brought up that fog that doesn't actually manifest as fog of war. To facilitate this utterly idiotic justification for why Claude fights us.

...or the guts to actually have fog of war, when it is explicitly mentioned in the plot.

 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...I have to assume this is a picture of Dimitri having been wounded already, with Fleche about to go in for another killing blow. Which she somehow couldn't do the first time. When she had the element of surprise.

But then Rodrigue comes in to shield Dimitri with his own body, Professr kills Fleche, and apparently while the wound Fleche gave Dimitri with the benefit of backstabbing isn't lethal, the wound Fleche gave Rodrigue without even aiming for him... is instantly fatal.

I kinda got the impression she was only trying to cause Dimitri pain with her surprise attack, adding to the irony of the situation by having her downfall be showing the kind of cruelty that Dimitri intended for her brother.

 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

 

Let us also note that it wasn't actually Dimitri that killed Fleche's brother. Dimitri wanted to keep Randolph alive! Byleth was the one who mercilessly executed a prisoner of war. There's some irony there, but the game seems completely unaware of it.

I thought they were pointing at the irony by having Dimitri not remember the man he never killed (personally at least).

[Dark Holy Elf]

5 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

I wish the game had given an actual reason as to why Byleth never tried rewinding time after Rodrigue was stabbed, even if it was something as dumb as "Byleth is exhausted and can't rewind time anymore". Unless I'm remembering wrong though, that wasn't so much as implied in the actual scene.

But that's the answer, isn't it? You figured it out, I figured it out.

We're told from the very start that Byleth's uses of divine pulse are limited. Bad things need to be able to happen in the plot. So, if something bad happens, you have, as far as I can see it, two choices: either assume that Byleth is a complete moron for forgetting their rewind powers, or that said powers are exhausted. You should choose the second interpretation because it makes an order of magnitude more sense.

I guess they could have added a line like "hey Byleth, you seem to be out of rewind powers!" but that would only clumsily foreshadow that something bad was about to happen, so I'm not convinced that would be a positive re-write.

[Alastor15243]

19 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

But that's the answer, isn't it? You figured it out, I figured it out.

We're told from the very start that Byleth's uses of divine pulse are limited. Bad things need to be able to happen in the plot. So, if something bad happens, you have, as far as I can see it, two choices: either assume that Byleth is a complete moron for forgetting their rewind powers, or that said powers are exhausted. You should choose the second interpretation because it makes an order of magnitude more sense.

I guess they could have added a line like "hey Byleth, you seem to be out of rewind powers!" but that would only clumsily foreshadow that something bad was about to happen, so I'm not convinced that would be a positive re-write.

But that's exactly why the story-integrated time control is such a terrible idea, because they have to awkwardly and without warning take it off the table and hope you don't notice before anything can go wrong for the hero. Literally the only effect divine pulse being canon has on the story is making the avatar look incompetent. It is never used to advance the plot in any meaningful way except saving the avatar from something any protag worth their salt could have survived at the start of the game.

Edited November 11, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

If you encounter an enemy when moving through fog of war, you have the opportunity to attack them. So if you remember where an enemy is, you can move "through" where the enemy is to attack them. There also aren't reinforcements, but enemies do move from the other side of the map, so things can jump out at you. Here's a video of what the chapter is like if you want to get a better sense of it

Ooh, we get the Jotari Audio/Visual experience! Your game actually looks really cool; if I had the time, I'd definitely give it a try! Anyway, I can see that a chapter could be balanced around doing fog-of-war that way, but I was considering how it would work if applied to, say, a 3H Maddening chapter (not great).

10 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

If you encounter an enemy when moving through fog of war, you have the opportunity to attack them. So if you remember where an enemy is, you can move "through" where the enemy is to attack them. There also aren't reinforcements, but enemies do move from the other side of the map, so things can jump out at you. Here's a video of what the chapter is like if you want to get a better sense of it

Not to mention, powerful dark mages tend to have the ability to warp themselves at will... that mysteriously disappears when they show up as an actual enemy.

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...My obsession with breaking the barriers on every monster I fight has apparently caused me to rack up 27 umbral steel. Guess I better start making use of that shit. Starting by repairing the Sword of the Creator.

Kill a monster without breaking all of its shields

OR

Draw 25 Umbral Steel

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The second... is that the narrative has categorically failed to justify this particular three-way battle actually taking place. They didn't make this game revolve around a three-way war between three factions. They made it a war between one faction and everyone else. Which means that they have to come up with half-hearted bullshit reasons why the Kingdom and the Alliance haven't joined forces to fight on the same side. In Verdant Wind they justified it with Dimitri just being batshit insane and having nobody to reign him in.

In Azure Moon... if what I have heard about it is fucking correct...

Gronder II doesn't work on Azure Moon, because it requires Claude acting out of character to even get involved in the fight. And it doesn't work on Verdant Wind, because it makes defeating Dimitri a victory condition, when you want to just beat up Edelgard and dip.

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Petra turned out to be incredibly easy to take out with a simple gambit from Dimitri, and then, ah yes. This must be why I've seen memes of Bernie joining the likes of Sigurd, Flora and Rinea. I'm guessing that if Bernie's still alive when you get too far into the hill, she's burnt alive? That must have been a really anticlimactic death though, given that it's just a fade to black and then when the view returns there's that cheap-ass fire effect on the hill.

Interestingly, the Ballista tile itself isn't set on fire, only the rest of the hill. So Bernie isn't set on fire herself, she's just surrounded by flames on all sides.

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Okay, so... I actually like Dimitri having no fucking clue who precisely of his countless victims was the girl's big brother. It's always interesting when someone with an actual conscience experiences “But For Me It Was Tuesday” syndrome.

Fleche: "You took everything from me!"

Dimitri: "I don't even know who you are."

[Acacia Sgt]

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

Gronder II doesn't work on Azure Moon, because it requires Claude acting out of character to even get involved in the fight. And it doesn't work on Verdant Wind, because it makes defeating Dimitri a victory condition, when you want to just beat up Edelgard and dip.

It's even worse since beforehand you're told how the Kingdom forces constantly avoided the Alliance's, to the point they even didn't find the need of warning shots, and having to reach Gronder crossing into Adrestia from Ordelia instead of asking for permission to cross through Myrddid like in AM and SS. So Dimitri is clearly not wanting to pick a fight with Claude... but you still must beat him up upon Gronder itself? Uh huh.

Edited November 12, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It's even worse since beforehand you're told how the Kingdom forces constantly avoided the Alliance's, to the point they even didn't find the need of warning shots, and having to reach Gronder crossing into Adrestia from Ordelia instead of asking for permission to cross through Myrddid like in AM and SS. So Dimitri is clearly not wanting to pick a fight with Claude... but you still must beat him up upon Gronder itself? Uh huh.

Hilariously, defeating Dimitri on VW doesn't even do anything. He canonically survives on the field of battle, only to be killed on Imperial spears in pursuit of Edelgard. Which he would have done regardless of whether he faced any Alliance troops or not. I guess it forces Kingdom troops to fall back... but Alliance troops do the same, only to come back en route to Fort Merceus one month later.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Trying to not read too much of the above story chatter in the rare and increasingly unlikely chance I have it in my heart to reexamine 3H. But in general, it's sounding like that despite any influence Koei Tecmo brought in from Dynasty Warriors, they proved incapable of giving the player a good 3H equivalent of the Battle of Chibi/Red Cliffs.

As I've said before, the famed historical Battle of Red Cliffs involved Cao Cao's Wei (Edelgard, loosely speaking) vs. Sun Quan's Wu ("Claude") and Liu Bei's Shu ("Dimitri"). This was the only major battle where all three of the titular Three Kingdoms fought, most of the other inter-kingdom clashes involved only two. 

Estimates might be around 200k soldiers for Wei, 30k for Wu and 20k for Shu, so pretty lopsided. And yet, through working together, Wu and Shu's 50k total managed to force back the juggernaut Wei. Wei was far from defeated, and decades later win the whole Three Kingdoms period after a regime change from within. But, the battle was still momentous and awesome.

The only other somewhat comparable instance from the Three Kingdoms period would be the Battle of Fan Castle. Where, 11 years after Red Cliff, Shu attacked Wei alone, forcing Wei into a difficult situation, but ultimately losing the battle. Immediately afterwards, Wu betrayed its alliance with Shu, and invaded Shu to take advantage of Shu's moment of weakness. Wu's betrayal stole some territory from Shu, and resulted in the death of Shu's legendary general Guan Yu, whose head was then given to Wei as a gift. Creating a rift between the two lesser kingdoms that could never fully heal.

Getting back to Fire Emblem, Radiant Dawn showed IS has been capable of "good" set-piece battles, like 3-P and 3-F. Situations where allied NPCs can make a battle a little more interesting, if not necessarily hard nor fast.

 

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

Not to mention, powerful dark mages tend to have the ability to warp themselves at will... that mysteriously disappears when they show up as an actual enemy.

Do you want SoV Witches and Thracian Rewarp-toting Loptian Mages back? Although at least using rewarp wastes the Loptians' turn. Leading you the player to decide how to kill this slow, fragile, but high single-hit damage + poison enemy unit on your own turn.

[Acacia Sgt]

32 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Trying to not read too much of the above story chatter in the rare and increasingly unlikely chance I have it in my heart to reexamine 3H. But in general, it's sounding like that despite any influence Koei Tecmo brought in from Dynasty Warriors, they proved incapable of giving the player a good 3H equivalent of the Battle of Chibi/Red Cliffs.

As I've said before, the famed historical Battle of Red Cliffs involved Cao Cao's Wei (Edelgard, loosely speaking) vs. Sun Quan's Wu ("Claude") and Liu Bei's Shu ("Dimitri"). This was the only major battle where all three of the titular Three Kingdoms fought, most of the other inter-kingdom clashes involved only two. 

Estimates might be around 200k soldiers for Wei, 30k for Wu and 20k for Shu, so pretty lopsided. And yet, through working together, Wu and Shu's 50k total managed to force back the juggernaut Wei. Wei was far from defeated, and decades later win the whole Three Kingdoms period after a regime change from within. But, the battle was still momentous and awesome.

The only other somewhat comparable instance from the Three Kingdoms period would be the Battle of Fan Castle. Where, 11 years after Red Cliff, Shu attacked Wei alone, forcing Wei into a difficult situation, but ultimately losing the battle. Immediately afterwards, Wu betrayed its alliance with Shu, and invaded Shu to take advantage of Shu's moment of weakness. Wu's betrayal stole some territory from Shu, and resulted in the death of Shu's legendary general Guan Yu, whose head was then given to Wei as a gift. Creating a rift between the two lesser kingdoms that could never fully heal.

It's probably more Sekigahara than Chibi. The fog we don't see in the gameplay, one side not exactly being cohesive and end up fighting against each other (rather than betrayals).

[Dark Holy Elf]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But that's exactly why the story-integrated time control is such a terrible idea, because they have to awkwardly and without warning take it off the table and hope you don't notice before anything can go wrong for the hero. Literally the only effect divine pulse being canon has on the story is making the avatar look incompetent. It is never used to advance the plot in any meaningful way except saving the avatar from something any protag worth their salt could have survived at the start of the game.

I liked the use of it in the chapter 9 cutscene, but yeah, otherwise, agreed that it doesn't serve much purpose in the main narrative except to make Byleth feel very special, which I think is the real goal of it being in the plot and not just a pure gameplay tool.