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

[Punished Dayni]

6 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I wouldn't be so sure. What else could Garon and his many wives been doing?

The English way: In the dark, missionary, no emoting or talking.

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

The Sacred Shield gambit grants immunity to all ranged damage, while the Impregnable Wall gambit reduces all damage received (and dealt) to 1. Effects which expire when the next player phase start. I'd like to see battalions and gambits come back, but even if they don't, it'd be neat to see some support gambits parlayed into staves, spells, or skills. Miracle would become useful again, if they just made it like Blessing.

And it in some ways is an evolution from Genealogy Prayer, I can't really argue with that.

I'd like to see that come back in some form as well, much as Impregnable Wall was one of the gambits I used the most it's kinda unfairly strong imo despite the damage reduction.

[Jotari]

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

If a unit is untouchable every enemy phase... that sounds way too strong. Even if they're a melee unit, you could still make them a functionally-immortal roadblock. That said, a "Kitsune Leaf" consumable could be interesting. Eat it on player phase, and you're untouchable the subsequent enemy phase, only to return to normal the next player phase. Could allow for some neat walling strategies, or help keep your Lord alive against otherwise long odds.

The Impregnable Wall gambit in Three Houses kind of does that already, so I could see it being pretty useful.

EDIT: Okay, I see I'm late to party and this has already been brought up.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Jotari

[lenticular]

10 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

>you shouldn't derive useful benefits from paying attention to the game

huh?

Come on, man. Ridiculously paraphrasing what I said into a flimsy strawman argument for you to disagree with? Really?

2 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

And in regard to enemy quality... have you noticed that per map there are essentially 3-7 types of enemies? If Ninja of Lv.10 has x stats, then every other Ninja of LV 10 will have the same stats, the same goes for every class on the map, excluding PU enemies because they get a stat buff. There is no stat variance. There is no "if enemy x has y more in stat z, this strategy falls apart"situation. They only differ in: 1) skills and 2) weapons, the very thing the game tries to have you look at one final time before you press the finalizing A and for weapons it actively gives you a serious Hol´Up. 

As a point of comparison, I also play chess. In chess there are exactly 6 different pieces. There aren't any further modifiers on top of the pieces' baseline abilities. No stats, no weapons, no skills, nothing. Go is an even more extreme example, having only a single type of piece with no variations. Yet both chess and go manage to have astonishing amounts of tactical and strategic depth. That is the sort of thing I ideally want from any turn based tactics game: rules and systems that are simple and quick to learn and understand, but have great nuance and complexity in the emergent systems that derive from those simple rules.

You picked stats as one example of something that is the same for all units on a map. And I agree that this is a good thing. But since skills and weapons do still differ, they can still make a strategy fall apart. And while it's good to have a heads up on the details of the unit you're just about to attack, that isn't always helpful. Oftentimes, making the first move of your turn can be commital. Once you've moved one unit, you then need to make sure that you kill everything else in range before the start of enemy phase. This means that for that first attack, you need to be cognisant of the skills and weapons not just of the unit you're attacking, but of everyone in range. It is common to have to be mindful of more different variants of units in a single turn of a single chapter here than there are different pieces in the entirety of the game of chess.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

As a point of comparison, I also play chess. In chess there are exactly 6 different pieces. There aren't any further modifiers on top of the pieces' baseline abilities. No stats, no weapons, no skills, nothing. Go is an even more extreme example, having only a single type of piece with no variations. Yet both chess and go manage to have astonishing amounts of tactical and strategic depth. That is the sort of thing I ideally want from any turn based tactics game: rules and systems that are simple and quick to learn and understand, but have great nuance and complexity in the emergent systems that derive from those simple rules.

You picked stats as one example of something that is the same for all units on a map. And I agree that this is a good thing. But since skills and weapons do still differ, they can still make a strategy fall apart. And while it's good to have a heads up on the details of the unit you're just about to attack, that isn't always helpful. Oftentimes, making the first move of your turn can be commital. Once you've moved one unit, you then need to make sure that you kill everything else in range before the start of enemy phase. This means that for that first attack, you need to be cognisant of the skills and weapons not just of the unit you're attacking, but of everyone in range. It is common to have to be mindful of more different variants of units in a single turn of a single chapter here than there are different pieces in the entirety of the game of chess.

What would you pick up faster when playing: Fates, Chess, Go? No tutorial, no Fates map 1-6, no handbooks, noone explains anything. Just up and at it. And which game is easier to master in you opinion?

 

I really fail to understand the supposed great cognitive requirements of planning ahead. Planning your first turn starts in the Prep screen. It is here where you look at the enemy to see what is needed to defeat them. This screen is the beginning of your game, this is where you develop a rough idea on how to tackle the map. Here is, where you decide who goes, who needs what to get whichever job done and it´s the same in every FE whti varying degrees of influence the player has on his units.

I also don´t understand, how someone can praise the complexity of Chess and Go (though I know next to nothing about Go), but at the same time complain that Fates is too complex. In Chess, I assume, every piece that can move in a meaningful way, is a threat at every given time and you have to keep their presence in mind as well as their potential movement and said movements consequences on the state of the board and what other pieces it enables, disables, threatens or protects, as well as your own pieces position relative to the opponents, nvm the possibility of a Draw. Compare that to any FE where the majority of the enemy units are rarely a problem, barring long range enemies, until they are in front of you. A FE that doesn´t do that, not having it played myself but read about in this very thread, would be FE 12 NMotE, where Alastor, at several points mentions, that he has to be very carful about setting up because enemy ranges overlap so much. That is not something Fates does, on the contrary, I feel Fates often enough presents you with a formation and it´s up to you how to break it. 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Imuabicus

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

There is a solution to enemy AS and it´s called PU. If you are worried about your unit on EP then that´s the perfect solution for you. Saying PU is "not optimal"  seems like hardly a problem considering 1) you probably won´t put all of your units in enemy range all the time but a select few and 2) again it being exactly the solution to the mentioned problem. 

I agree that Pair-Up is generally a superior tactic defensively. But sometimes, on the turn before, you need everyone's offensive contributions to secure key kills. So setting up a Pair-Up may not be a practical option. Regardless, it just requires a different thinking paradigm than other games. Non-Fates, I see my unit is in range of just one enemy, and I can calc the damage they do to see if I survive. Come Fates, I also have to check enemy units who could move adjacent to the prospective attacker. I don't think of "enemy Attack Stance" as a bad thing, but it is an additional complication. 

5 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Counter, unless I´m misremembering it shows up... four times in the campaign (not clear on the paralogues rn)? And with exception of the chapter 26 Heroes Counter is on units who either can´t counterattack (11 Archers, 23 Snipers) or can counterattack but also take serious damage (11 Diviners, 20 Onmyojis). Also Azama I think? Where would it make more sense, except basically every enemy, to make the player´s life that much more miserable? And Magic Counter appears once on a boss with 21 DEF and 14 RES, also sounding like a somewhat solid design choice (well, outside of the 1-2 range club he has). There is logic and reason to be found in Fates enemy skills distribution and it´s to define how the player has to approach enemies.

I'm not saying Counter is overused, and it's definitely more reasonable in Fates than the garbage we say in Awakening. My issue is, there's no warning of it, aside from a singular skill icon. If Fates reflected the damage from Counter in the battle forecast - or at least provided a warning marker, as they do with effective weaponry - I wouldn't have an issue.

5 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

And in regard to enemy quality... have you noticed that per map there are essentially 3-7 types of enemies? If Ninja of Lv.10 has x stats, then every other Ninja of LV 10 will have the same stats, the same goes for every class on the map, excluding PU enemies because they get a stat buff. There is no stat variance. There is no "if enemy x has y more in stat z, this strategy falls apart"situation. They only differ in: 1) skills and 2) weapons, the very thing the game tries to have you look at one final time before you press the finalizing A and for weapons it actively gives you a serious Hol´Up. 

The removal of stat variance is a good thing Fates did, yes. But stat variances were already reflected in combat forecasts, or by checking a unit's displayed Attack. And it's funny you bring up Ninjas, as one additional complication Fates brought to the table was the debuff. Your unit's defense, res, and speed won't necessarily stay the same throughout enemy phase, so you need to factor in potential debuffs when figuring how many enemies a unit can take. Double-check those Shurikens to see how much they'll take from you! Check for Inevitable End, to see if they can stack! Again, I don't think debuffs are bad - I really like the Fates weapon system overall - but they are yet another thing to consider in "can my unit survive enemy phase?".

5 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

And in respect to the bolded, here´s a thing Fates does for you when you attack the enemy:  Regardless if  you have the map or the unit menu open and move a unit to attack the enemy, the game immediately jumps to the inventory screen, ACTIVELY showing you the enemies inventory and skills, also allowing you to check potential PU enemies stats and inventories. When using the simplified UI it´s even more in your face about it (though not showing stats) and shows you how much HP your unit and the enemy will be left with. It´s the least intrusive "Are you sure about that?", it could be. Lol, I just noticed the simplified UI also shows the units your selected unit has the highest support with.

It's nice that the game does this, but to be frank, I'm not checking the bottom screen for every battle - I'm checking the combat forecast. Maybe it's an oversight on my end, but I prefer a system where I don't have to double-check the skills of every enemy that could target me, or whom I'm targeting. In this regard, I honestly prefer how Three Houses Maddening does it - all enemies of a given class will have the extra skill, such as all Thieves having Pass, or all Warriors having Wrath. If all enemy Archers and Snipers had Counter, for instance, then that's something I can plan around without having to re-check the skill set every time.

[lenticular]

57 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

What would you pick up faster when playing: Fates, Chess, Go? No tutorial, no Fates map 1-6, no handbooks, noone explains anything. Just up and at it. And which game is easier to master in you opinion?

It depends exactly how you define your terms. First off, if you don't mind, I'm not going to talk about go since I just don't know the game well enough. I've played it a little bit but not enough to be able to have informed conversations or meaningful opinions about it. So I'll just keep the conversation to chess and Fates. Next, for picking the game up as a complete beginner, I'll assume that we're playing chess on a computer and not over the board, so that there is at least some feedback as to what moves are legal, etc. Obviously, if you just hand someone a chess board and a set of pieces, they aren't going to invent the game for themself if they don't already know the rules. Given a decent computer interface, I think that it's comparably easy to pick up the absolute beginner level basics of each game.

However, I also think that this isn't a particularly realistic situation. In reality, tutorials, guides and rulebooks all exist and people are going to use them. And if the question is reframed as "using all available resources, is it easier to learn all the rules of chess or all the rules of Fates?" then undoubtedly chess is easier to learn.

As for mastery, it depends again on exactly how you define mastery, but almost certainly I would say Fates is the easier game to master. For Fates, let's say that mastery is being able to routinely complete the game without ever resetting or losing a unit, and to be able to do so using different unit compositions. For chess, let's say that mastery is reaching the title of Candidate Master, the lowest open title awarded by FIDE (the international chess federation). By those definitions, Fates is easier to master and it isn't even close. Maybe that answer might change if you required a higher level of mastery for Fates or a lower level for chess, but I can't imagine a different answer for any reasonable definition of mastery.

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

I really fail to understand the supposed great cognitive requirements of planning ahead. Planning your first turn starts in the Prep screen. It is here where you look at the enemy to see what is needed to defeat them. This screen is the beginning of your game, this is where you develop a rough idea on how to tackle the map. Here is, where you decide who goes, who needs what to get whichever job done and it´s the same in every FE whti varying degrees of influence the player has on his units.

A summary of my position would be this: having to think ahead is good. Having to check, recheck and remember unit skills, weapons, etc. while thinking ahead is bad.

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

I also don´t understand, how someone can praise the complexity of Chess and Go (though I know next to nothing about Go), but at the same time complain that Fates is too complex.

"Complex" was perhaps a poor choice of words on my part. Rather, let's say that I like the depth of chess and dislike the fiddliness of Fates. Chess is narrow but deep. It has few rules, but many ways to apply those rules. Comparitively, Fates is broad but shallow. There are more rules to learn and keep track of, but fewer consequences of those rules.

As an alternative, consider the game design maxim of making a game easy to learn but difficult to master. Even putting aside chess and just comparing within Fire Emblem, let's compare Fates to -- for instance -- Shadow Dragon (DS). I think that most people would probably agree that with all the extra mechanics that it brings to the table, Fates is both the harder game to learn and the harder game to master. Harder to master is generally considered a good thing whereas harder to learn is generally considered bad. The different weights applied to these two conflicting requirements are going to vary from person to person, in accordance with individual preference.

[Alastor15243]

Conquest Day 23: Chapter 20

...Oh shit! Horse spirit is D rank! Oh that is gonna be handy!

Now then, let's see what Chapter 20's looking like, and if facing it today is realistic. Considering we've lost two fliers now...

Jesus Christ, this storyline is absolutely bonkers. Dakota's gonna try to still do the “our way is a way of peace thing”... when she fully intends to conquer Hoshido as part of a freaky roundabout gambit to stop Garon.

Ah yes, of course, the winds out here, in the map where there's no wind gimmick, are definitely roaring too loudly to have a proper conversation, and it's totally gonna be easier to talk in Fuga's Motherfucking Wild Ride.

This is the dumbest excuse ever. Either Fuga's telling the truth and it's stupid for obvious reasons, or he's lying to get Dakota into the castle and it's stupid because it yet again makes Dakota a massive dumbass.

But yeah, the main reason he's willing to hear them out is because of the Yato. Weirdly he's a lot more open to hearing Dakota out because of the Yato here than in Revelation. Honestly, everyone's initial hatred of the avatar in Revelation just gets more ridiculous the more I remember of this route.

But yeah, Fuga still wants to test us the Feroxi Way, to beat the shit out of us to see if Dakota's worthy of the Yato.

Okay, so...

I have... extremely fond and nostalgic memories of this chapter. It was the single most intense Fire Emblem moment in my entire history as a fan. I uh... due to story events during Dakota's War Journal, I wound up changing the tone of this map astronomically, and even adding in...

...an extra challenge.

Some context: I had changed the plot from Dakota and Azura trying to get Garon to sit on the Hoshidan throne in order to expose Garon as a slime monster... to Dakota using pre-existing means I had already established to expose Garon as evil at the end of Chapter 17, and then all of the Nohrian siblings working together with Dakota and Azura to secretly win the war with as few casualties as possible so that they could use the massive light energy dragon vein beneath the Hoshidan throne to neutralize the nigh-indestructible armor that Garon was wearing and stop him once and for all.

However... Fuga, who didn't know about our secret measures to fake the deaths of the people we “killed”... had other plans to kill Garon. When the Nohrian royal family was invited to Reppu Castle to discuss a peace treaty that wound up going horribly wrong because Garon is Garon...

...Fuga blew up his own castle, burying Garon under a mountain of rubble...

...and then this happened.

  

On 5/4/2016 at 6:43 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Dakota: Fuga! What is the meaning of this!?

 

Fuga: So you are all still alive. I was not expecting that, but I suppose in the long run it makes no difference. Today shall still be Garon's death.

 

Dakota: If you honestly think that fall was enough to kill my father-

 

Fuga: That was merely to keep him from interfering. I am well aware of Garon's magic armor, Dakota. I know of its powers. And yet still... today he shall die.

 

Leo: And how do you plan to kill the unkillable?

 

Fuga: Ah, the clever young man who has all of the right answers but asks none of the right questions. Life and death are nothing like you envision them. The concept of killing is an illusion, child, for life is not something owned, to be defended or taken. Life is something borrowed, something given to you every moment of every day by the grace of the world around you. It is given to you through the food that you eat, it is given to you through the water that you drink...

 

 

 

Fuga: ...and it is given to you through the air that you breathe.

 

What the hell is this man on about...?

 

Fuga: Garon's armor may deflect every strike, every blow... his body may reject every poison and venom... but nothing, no one, no force on heaven or earth can save you when the air itself chooses to forsake you!

 

Dakota: ...No...

 

Fuga: GREAT SPIRITS OF THE WIND! YOUR CHOSEN VOICE CALLS TO YOU IN THIS DARKEST HOUR! YOUR MOST TERRIBLE AND FORBIDDEN POWER IS NEEDED! BRING FORTH THE INVISIBLE DEATH!

 

What the hell...

 

...I have no idea what the hell is happening, War Journal, but even a child could tell you it's bad news. The sky... it's swirling uncontrollably... no, not the sky... it's like the entire castle, or what's left of it, and all the land for miles around, is encased in a vast dome made out of the wind itself! The wind's blowing so hard that' it's...

 

Fuga: Is it getting hard to breathe, children of darkness? ...That is to be expected. That is the point.

 

Come on, Dakota, think...

 

Xander: What is this madness!?

 

THINK...

 

Fuga: The madness that will kill Mad King Garon once and for all, Xander! In a scant seven minutes, the breath of life that you have for so long taken for granted will be nowhere to be found for miles around! The whole of the wind tribe's territory will be lethal to every creature that crawls upon the land, including your father!

THINK...

 

Xander: You would sacrifice your own people to kill one man!?

 

THINK...

 

Fuga: My people do not fear death, Xander, though I would not expect an outsider to understand that! Suffice to say that for one of the wind tribe, death is but a minor setback!

 

THAT'S IT!

 

Dakota: Everyone, the dragon veins! They'll interfere with the winds and send air towards the castle! They'll buy us time! And the one at the throne... If we can trigger that one, we can stop this completely! Everyone! MOVE!

 

Fuga: ...So you seek to stop this. Very well! Come! Face the bravest, mightiest, and last soldiers you will ever face! Selfishly scramble for your lives! Not one of us shall falter!

So for my first, blind ironman playthrough of this map, I house-ruled it so that in addition to the air current gimmick, I had a six turn time limit that I could only extend by using the dragon veins, limit one per turn. It was a hectic, terrifying experience that apparently judging by my comments on the chapter at the time drove me half-insane, but in hindsight I look back on fondly as my most apeshit, crazy awesome experience in Fire Emblem history. I was put in a nearly fatal situation every other turn, and I somehow managed to fight through every single obstacle my own storytelling-motivated hubris created for me.

Honestly, adding a time limit to this map was kinda perfect. It lined up really nicely with all of the enemies having debuff skills. It really felt like this was the skillset you'd give to a bunch of enemies who are just trying to stall you until the big wind apocalypse can do its work.

…Aaaaaaand yeah, uh, no. I can't do this map today. There's one really obvious thing I can do that will make this map so much more bearable. Half of my army can't double these enemies, and there's one thing I have a very good chance of doing in a single map that would allow everyone in my army to exactly hit doubling thresholds for these enemies.

Getting Laslow his three levels in falcon knight.

Hmm...What to do it in...

Okay, I'm looking at invasion more, and I'm even more embarrassed. It wasn't one of the new reinforcements that had the entrap staff, it was the one standing behind the fucking boss. She had been there the entire time, and I still somehow failed to look at her staves.

Maaaaaaaaaaan am I a dumbass. I totally deserved to lose Elise for that.

Man, this map still makes me nervous. I'm still not sure if I have a viable strategy to take out that maid.

...Okay, yeah. I think my best bet for now is to tackle Percy's paralogue.

...But hooooly shit is today not a good day for it. Sorry, I don't actually have that much time today. Quarantine has given me a ridiculous amount of free time for various reasons, but that's not the case as much lately as it used to be. Things are starting to pick up again, and it looks like I might have days where I don't have enough time to do a chapter. I'll have to work out a new system. But I'll be cutting it short here for today, my apologies.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

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

The removal of stat variance is a good thing Fates did, yes. But stat variances were already reflected in combat forecasts, or by checking a unit's displayed Attack. And it's funny you bring up Ninjas, as one additional complication Fates brought to the table was the debuff. Your unit's defense, res, and speed won't necessarily stay the same throughout enemy phase, so you need to factor in potential debuffs when figuring how many enemies a unit can take. Double-check those Shurikens to see how much they'll take from you! Check for Inevitable End, to see if they can stack! Again, I don't think debuffs are bad - I really like the Fates weapon system overall - but they are yet another thing to consider in "can my unit survive enemy phase?".

My point was, if Effie 1HKOs enemy x Effie will 1HKO all enemies of type x.

Yes and those debuffs tell you what? To devise a plan to deal with Ninjas, which, outside of chapter CQ25 and endgame is not difficult. You certainly can play CQ however you want, but a focus on PP solves most problems.

Inevitable end is a thing of 2 maps and when checking these maps for the first time, you´ll probably notice somethings up. I doubt someone looks at the murder corridor and doesn´t notice the completely new, never before seen skill. 

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

It's nice that the game does this, but to be frank, I'm not checking the bottom screen for every battle - I'm checking the combat forecast. Maybe it's an oversight on my end, but I prefer a system where I don't have to double-check the skills of every enemy that could target me, or whom I'm targeting. In this regard, I honestly prefer how Three Houses Maddening does it - all enemies of a given class will have the extra skill, such as all Thieves having Pass, or all Warriors having Wrath. If all enemy Archers and Snipers had Counter, for instance, then that's something I can plan around without having to re-check the skill set every time.

My main take-away from this is, you are to lazy to play the game? Not even a quick glance, to the screen 1cm below your combat forecast?

Yet Maddening also has those enemies that randomly have Breaker skills (furthest I gotten is chapter 7, take with grain of salt). I certainly don´t need every Archer to have a skill they shouldn´t have, especially when they outmove, outrange and outstat my goons. 

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

A summary of my position would be this: having to think ahead is good. Having to check, recheck and remember unit skills, weapons, etc. while thinking ahead is bad.

So which FE games fulfill that requirement? None of the ones I´ve played do, since that is basically the FE gameplay loop in a nutshell (SDatboL, SD, A, 3F, Echoes, TH).

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

"Complex" was perhaps a poor choice of words on my part. Rather, let's say that I like the depth of chess and dislike the fiddliness of Fates. Chess is narrow but deep. It has few rules, but many ways to apply those rules. Comparitively, Fates is broad but shallow. There are more rules to learn and keep track of, but fewer consequences of those rules.

As an alternative, consider the game design maxim of making a game easy to learn but difficult to master. Even putting aside chess and just comparing within Fire Emblem, let's compare Fates to -- for instance -- Shadow Dragon (DS). I think that most people would probably agree that with all the extra mechanics that it brings to the table, Fates is both the harder game to learn and the harder game to master. Harder to master is generally considered a good thing whereas harder to learn is generally considered bad. The different weights applied to these two conflicting requirements are going to vary from person to person, in accordance with individual preference.

Have you ever tried stacking damage with a unit? Have you ever planned and executed any unit builds? Planned for children beforehand? Tried to actively break the game? I´m not saying that FE>Chess in terms of complexity, but when you say Fates is shallow have you ever tried these things?

Additionally comparing "regular" Chess with Fates or FE in general seems, and I say that due to not having a better word, pretty weird. A comparison with a Chess Problem seems more appropriate, seeing as a FE map is a preset problem and not a clean slate.

Yes, FE´s are easy to learn and some may be hard to master. None of them are rocket science.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

35 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

My main take-away from this is, you are to lazy to play the game? Not even a quick glance, to the screen 1cm below your combat forecast?

Yeah, probably. I gave up on playing the FE1 localization, largely because they didn't give us a combat window. And I wasn't keen on checking my own unit's stats, and the enemy's stats, every single time. Similarly, I'd rather not have to check the skills for every single generic enemy. But hey, more power to the people who enjoy this type of game design. It's just not my bag.

39 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

Yet Maddening also has those enemies that randomly have Breaker skills (furthest I gotten is chapter 7, take with grain of salt). I certainly don´t need every Archer to have a skill they shouldn´t have, especially when they outmove, outrange and outstat my goons. 

I'm gonna keep my eyes open on my current playthrough - I'm pretty sure the Breaker skills are assigned on a class-by-class basis, rather than randomly. It's possible I'm mistaken, though.

And yeah, earlygame Archers (and Thieves) are a problem, but that's mainly because of the poor decision to add Intermediate-tier units in chapter 2 - at a point where most of your units will still be Noble/Commoner. The earlygame difficulty is just so poorly-tuned.

[lenticular]

24 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

So which FE games fulfill that requirement? None of the ones I´ve played do, since that is basically the FE gameplay loop in a nutshell (SDatboL, SD, A, 3F, Echoes, TH).

None manage it completely, but it's a sliding scale and not a simple pass/fail. Fates is one of the ones that is furthest away from what I want in this regard.

33 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

Have you ever tried stacking damage with a unit? Have you ever planned and executed any unit builds? Planned for children beforehand? Tried to actively break the game? I´m not saying that FE>Chess in terms of complexity, but when you say Fates is shallow have you ever tried these things?

Yes to some extent but never really committed to it, absolutely yes, not in Fates but yes in Awakening, arguably yes depending on exactly what you consider to be breaking the game. I consider all of these things to be examples of breadth, not depth. There's a lot of stuff that you can do but most of it is very shallow.

Regardless, this is getting further and further off-topic at this point, so I'm going to bow out. You have right of reply if you want it, of course, but I don't plan on replying about this any further.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Sorry, seems I fell quite a few posts behind

 

On 4/13/2021 at 8:48 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Christ. Honestly, I don't know what it is, if it's something that could be fixed if the game were different or if it's just a personal problem I need to get over, but something about this game, as I've said before, makes me love it when I'm playing it, but absolutely dread it when I'm not. The temptation to take days off is frankly alarming for what is, when I'm actually playing it, unequivocally my favorite game in the series. I just don't understand it, and I really, really, really hope I do by the time this is over.

I hate that type of anxiety, it always feels stupid when you just take the plunge, and everything is just fine.

 

On 4/13/2021 at 8:48 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

It works, but of course some sorcerer reinforcements show up. Only two, though? Did blocking one of the stairs keep it from being more? Works for me!

Normally it would be 2 sorcerers and 2 heroes, but you might have blocked some.

 

On 4/13/2021 at 8:48 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

But then later she ruins a heartwarming moment between Dakota and Sakura, and... I'm frankly shocked that their initial rivalry... never... ever came up in Revelation. They just became fast friends the moment they started supporting despite Elise clearly having an instinctive jealous hatred of Sakura at basically any other time.

Revelation doesn't even feel like the same world as the other two all the time...

 

On 4/14/2021 at 8:29 AM, Alastor15243 said:

For now though, we're getting him to level 5 so he can get rally skill and reclass to falcon knight. You might say “why bother getting rally skill, just go straight into falcon knight!”, but the thing is that won't get him fully ready any faster. Get rally skill at level 5, rally speed at level 8, rally strength at level 11, and then replicate just in time at level 15. In the long run all that reclassing early will get me is one fewer rally, and for all I know that +6% chance to hit might actually make a difference in this game somewhere.

...How is Laslow getting access to Falcon Knight? I thought Azura was dead, and I think her (or Corrin) is his only source of it.

 

On 4/14/2021 at 8:29 AM, Alastor15243 said:

 

Alright. Here's the trickiest part. This batch of kitsune is huge, and it's also mixed as to what phase of illusion they're in. This is going to involve some hit and run tactics, to be sure.

Okay, this asynchronous group I will agree is really annoying. There's nothing you can do but enemy-phase tank it over multiple turns, because the only ones you can player-phase are the ones that won't attack the subsequent enemy phase, meaning no matter what you do on player-phase, you'll be a sitting duck unless you just send in a tank to slowly take them out.

This is by far the hardest part of this map, and the one place where I see the illusion mechanic being a notable hindrance (instead of minor inconvenience, if not an outright boon to players...).

 

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So for my first, blind ironman playthrough of this map, I house-ruled it so that in addition to the air current gimmick, I had a six turn time limit that I could only extend by using the dragon veins, limit one per turn. It was a hectic, terrifying experience that apparently judging by my comments on the chapter at the time drove me half-insane, but in hindsight I look back on fondly as my most apeshit, crazy awesome experience in Fire Emblem history. I was put in a nearly fatal situation every other turn, and I somehow managed to fight through every single obstacle my own storytelling-motivated hubris created for me.

Six turns is very fitting, as I have seen a fairly basic starts listed out for how to use the winds to clear it with a fairly normal team in that time frame (although it suggested you keep going to grab the rest of the treasure, and levelup some key units. for those curious

Spoiler

T1: Send a pair to face the Lancers on the SE platform, and move everyone else into the east wind current to be moved north.
T2: Kill the Lancers, move everyone back into the wind closest to this platform, unpair and prepare to be moved to the CE platform.
T3: Kill the Lancers and Kinshis on the CE platform and let the wind move everyone north once again, right next to the eastern chest but below Fuga’s VIP terrace.
T4: Move a Ninja or an Adventurer to the bridge that is close to the chest, give it rallies, bonuses and auras and let it bait the magicians and fliers to the left. Unpair everyone else.
T5: Kill whatever is alive outside the Lunge range and let the wind move everyone north into Fuga’s Playboy penthouse (seriously, a naked old guy surrounded by young Maidens?)
T6: Kill the party Maidens, send a strong pair to block the bridge to the west on the Party Roof, and make a deal with Pimp Fuga (he is wielding a lance, so Calamity Gate/ Sniper/ Berserker.)
The mission could end here, but we want the treasures and, more importantly, we want to level-up the spell casters and Snipers/ Berserkers, so that they can one-round Stoneborns and Faceless.

 

[Alastor15243]

6 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...How is Laslow getting access to Falcon Knight? I thought Azura was dead, and I think her (or Corrin) is his only source of it.

Selena. Since he already has mercenary he gets sky knight instead.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Selena. Since he already has mercenary he gets falcon knight instead.

Ah, I see my confusion, since they both have the same primary class it transitions to her secondary. I was thinking about what happens if his secondary class was her primary, where it just gives you a second way to access the same class.

[Jotari]

Anyone knows what happens if you make Fighter Corrin's sub class and have them marry Keaton? Usually he passes on his sub class because no one else can be a wolfskin (aside from his children), but if Corrin already has fighter then how does that work? Do they both just get nothing from the marriage. Ditto for Keaton and whatever his sub class is.

[Alastor15243]

29 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Anyone knows what happens if you make Fighter Corrin's sub class and have them marry Keaton? Usually he passes on his sub class because no one else can be a wolfskin (aside from his children), but if Corrin already has fighter then how does that work? Do they both just get nothing from the marriage. Ditto for Keaton and whatever his sub class is.

I'm pretty sure the result is that Corrin gets nothing but another seal to get fighter with. If you make it so there's not 3 classes for a child to inherit, however, due to only having two unique classes between them or something, there's some system where you inherit alternate classes instead. I'm pretty sure Nyx!Nina gets diviner for example.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Eltosian Kadath]

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Anyone knows what happens if you make Fighter Corrin's sub class and have them marry Keaton? Usually he passes on his sub class because no one else can be a wolfskin (aside from his children), but if Corrin already has fighter then how does that work? Do they both just get nothing from the marriage. Ditto for Keaton and whatever his sub class is.

It would just be another way to access Fighter, as Fighter isn't Corrin's primary class

Now if someone with fighter as their primary class marries Keaton, you would instead get the paraellel class for Wolfskin, which is outlaw. (parallel class list can be found here: https://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/classes/parallel-classes/)

To take this technicality further, if someone with a restricted class that has no parallel class (so Corrin, or Kana...) marries someone with the same primary class as the secondary class they get the parallel class of that secondary class (so for a more specific example, lets say a Corrin with Fighter talent, marries Charlotte/Arthur, then Charlotte/Arthur gets access to Fighter's parallel class, Oni Savage, meanwhile Corrin gets another way to access Fighter)

In the unlikely event that this occurs when both the primary is restrict, has no parallel class, the partner has the same secondary class, and that secondary class also has no parallel class then they can't use the seal at all. See below:

 

My comment before really was a brain fart about the Awakening kids, as I know far more about this system than I should.

[Alastor15243]

Conquest Day 24: Paralogue 19

Alright. Let's do this.

As I said, I'm doing Paralogue 19, Percy's paralogue, because I absolutely need to get some training in on Laslow. It's beyond pivotal that Laslow gain rally speed today. Thankfully his internal level is significantly lower than everyone else's, so getting him to level 8 is like getting someone else to level 4. Which a good deal of my army is already at.

My one regret is that if I didn't need this chapter for exp, I'd be able to take advantage of it more for... well... you'll see.

Anyway, let's get started.

So yeah, Percy, Arthur's kid, is talking with his pet wyvern Ace, who apparently was named Michalis in Japanese but Treehouse didn't think the whole “naming mounts after riders of lore” thing deserved to be translated into English, and so we get “Avel” instead of “Abel” and “Ace” instead of “Michalis”. Honestly, why? Did they not get the memo that Awakening already did that!?

Oh well. Doesn't change my headcanon that Xander, Leo, Camilla and Elise's mounts are, respectively, Sigurd, Azel, Marzia and Mr. Fluffmuffin.

And yeah, Percy is one of the kids who actually resent their parents for abandoning them in hyperbolic daycare.

Seriously, you assholes have the resources to buy land and hire servants in alternate fucking dimensions, but you don't think you can keep your kids safe in your extradimensional time castle!?

And another fucking thing: I know I've said this before, but the worst fucking part of this is that they give siblings separate paralogues. That is beyond inexcusably cruel. How fucking difficult would it have been to have them just be part of Kana or Shigure's paralogue, with some variable dialogue like the usual fare with family supports? And then a line right as the battle starts where they show up on your side? I know this means we'd miss out on some paralogues, but, like, I mean come on, the idea that they don't even let these kids have the company of their own fucking siblings is just so stupid.

So yeah, now Percy flees his Deeprealm to some place in Hoshido... which has Nohrian mercenaries crawling around it. Somehow.

Arthur: Oh, sidekick, not yet old enough to kick at my side!

Okay, I love that line. It's corny and yet clever at the same time.

OH MY GOD.

PERCY JUST THREW DRAGON SHIT AT ARTHUR.

AS IF I NEEDED MORE REASON TO BELIEVE HE'S MOZU'S SON.

But yeah the mercenaries show up and think he's a notorious bandit named Gazak.

Uh... we see Gazak in another paralogue.

This is what he looks like.

Mercenary: I'd recognize that chin anywhere! It's got bandit written all over it!

Arthur: Oh, um, well... I assure you that my chin is not the graffiti wall of evil.

Man, I love the wordplay Arthur's using here!

But yeah, Percy decides to not correct their misconception and team up with the mercenaries to kick Arthur's ass.

So now we have to rout the enemy. But there are some interesting dragon veins here that I'd ordinarily be way too tempted to make use of, which allow you to basically perform a dragon vein parlor trick that spawns purple flowers everywhere.

What does that accomplish? In and of itself, nothing.

But any mercenaries who witness it will realize that means they just picked a fight not with bandits, but with fucking royalty, and they'll run away throwing money at your feet.

It's an awesome concept, gameplaywise and storywise. I love the idea of a dragon vein that doesn't actually do anything useful, but you can still make use of it.

My main complaint is that the dragon vein description is pretty inadequate. I never used them on my first playthrough because I just thought it made them disappear without giving you exp. It doesn't mention the whole “500 gold per mercenary you scare off” thing. Not even in a post-prep-screen hint! But yeah, while I'll be making use of it here and there if I can, my main priority is experience, not gold. Which is good, because if I tried to be a perfectionist about getting that gold it would probably be a pain in the ass to attempt it, due to all the post-battle skills enemies have making luring them in without killing them annoying.

Yeah, Christ, so I'm bringing Niles along in the hopes that I can get him to S rank with Effie this chapter so I can get that paralogue I really want to show off. But holy shit is he useless. Yes, he's unpromoted and a few levels lower than most of my party, but he's got a fucking strength surge. And with that strength surge, his strength score is a pathetic 16.

This is practically normal for him. According to the averages he's screwed by 2.4, but 14.4 would still be outrageously pathetic for a level 20 player phase exclusive unit.

This is why I don't “just use Rallyman”. Niles never, ever, ever works out for me long enough for that to be sane. He's far more of a painful investment than Laslow could ever be.

So yeah, with any luck, by the end of this we'll have Laslow at level 8, Effie and Niles at rank S, and another flier to use in Chapter 20 to compensate for the consecutive two that I've lost.

Let's do this.

...Damn it, a lot of enemies have javelins and seal skills or lunge, making dealing with them really tricky without a lot of player-phase units. I didn't put enough units on Laslow's flank, so I had to retreat rather than do a really cool player-phase move involving using the dragon vein to take out multiple enemies with one action, which I could have done if I just had one more unit, or if Laslow had a couple more points of attack.

...Okay, some weird discrepancies in enemy crit rates made me remember Arthur's -5 crit evade from being a berserker was a thing, and holy shit is that unfortunate. Between that and his personal, that completely negates his crit avoid from his trusty Snake Eyes axe, meaning he has to be next to Mozu to have much of any crit avoid at all. I'm starting to think I really oughta make him a sniper.

Alright, I've gotten Laslow his first falcon knight level of three, but I'm really nervous about the enemies. I'm not sure if they start charging on a timed basis or not, or if there'll be any reinforcements or just nasty linked AI charges.

Okay, yeah, nasty linked AI charges seem to be the name of the game here. I've aggo'd a ton of enemies at once, coming at me from both sides of, and over, the southeastern mountains.

Boss music is playing for some reason. Is this the leader of the mercenaries, even though he has no boss dialogue and no boss icon (Percy is the boss, incidentally)?

...No, it plays for both of the heroes in that little group there.

...And another who went around the other side of the mountains. Does it play for all heroes?

...Anyway, Laslow's gotten his second level. Just one more and he'll be able to boost ally speed by five.

Thankfully, I've finally started remembering that savage blow exists, and I'm using it with Camilla in order to soften up these nasty great knights. She got herself in position to hit all three of them and picked the one with lunge instead of seal strength to chip with thunder.

Effie has officially become better than Mozu. She's starting to get fast enough to double most enemies, and her attack power just leaves Mozu's in the dust. 36 vs 43.

Ah yes. And here comes the delightful part of the map where the remaining enemies all charge you at once when you cross a certain invisible line.

I tried to do a crazy gambit to take out a lot of the enemies at once with Dakota, but tragically I miscalculated, and the space I needed open to freeze the wyrmslayer hero... wasn't open. I had to use my second rescue staff use to save Dakota since I had already moved her and she almost assuredly would have been killed unless I'd been very lucky with dual strike placement. However, I realized soon afterward that what I can do to thin out the herd is place Effie at the limit of the range of both tomahawk-wielding wyvern lords that threatened the space Dwyer needed, allowing her to enemy-phase both of them even when they have armored blow. And due to her crazy defense, she can take the hits too!

And she gets everything but magic. YES PLEASE.

Now, incidentally, the only reason that was an issue in the first place was because I had already moved Xander without thinking, but I've learned my lesson from that, and now I have him free to shelter Dwyer this time after he fled to an inconvenient place to heal Dakota.

And Laslow just barely makes it to level 8 with chip damage on the last enemy, one I then dispatch with the dragon vein! Laslow has rally speed now, which means the battle on Monday will be much less of a nightmare.

And while we didn't get much gold, hey, 2k isn't nothing! It's enough to buy a +2 bronze forge, or a seal!

...Anyway... let's check supports.

Arthur and Mozu have supports with Percy, of course.

So yeah, apparently Arthur “found” Ace for Percy.

Yyyyyyep. Yep, Arthur x Mozu is canon for me. And not just because it has a special place in my heart because, as a joke, when I made Mozu a dread fighter in Dakota's War Journal, I turned her personality into a mix of Batman and a demon-possessed edgelord, and thus her relationship with Arthur in the actual journal itself had this weird “Superman x Rule 63 Batman” vibe to it that was weirdly endearing to me.

And now for Mozu and Percy.

It's a quick, bland but wholesome support of Percy enjoying a meal with mom. Next.

YES. THANK GOODNESS. NILES AND EFFIE ARE S RANK. I ONLY HAVE TO USE NILES ONE MORE GODDAMNED TIME.

Oh my god, Niles actually blatantly tells Effie he's been dying to see what she looks like naked.

...And then turns it around and tries to make it sound like she's the pervert for jumping to that conclusion, because when he said he wanted to see what was under her clothes, “[he] was talking about [her] heart.”

Alright. Okay. So. Finally, we have Keaton and Laslow, which means that we just need one more support, probably two more chapters, to get Keaton and Laslow to A+. But I have to avoid giving Laslow any levels in that time, so it's probably gonna be with Keaton in front, and just to be sure I'll probably be using my free heart seal to reclass Laslow to mechanist just to he can get a 3 level buffer to make sure he gets replicate by level 15. On to the actual conversation though...

...Oh my god. A scene where people decide to do something somewhere else... and the conversation doesn't fucking end. It fades to black and we actually see the fucking aftermath.

It's about what you'd expect from Keaton wanting to go out hitting on women with Laslow. They both fail catastrophically, because apparently in Fateslandia, there's no such thing as shallow women or the furry fandom. In fairness, he was waving this bug he found around, but in real life I know for a fact that there are plenty of women and men that that would not even come close to stopping.

Okay, so, Percy's looking pretty good after the offspring seal. With a meal and a rally, he'll be able to double enemies in Chapter 20 no sweat, just like everyone else. Oh, and true to my word, I made Arthur a sniper. He's... objectively inferior in plenty of stats and equal in everything else but HP... where he has a fucking monstrous lead on Mozu. He'll be good enough to be useful, especially now that we have a third free +2 bronze forge for him. Snake Eyes is going to Percy now.

Anyway, that's it for today, and for this week. I might do a weekend update to put us back to multiples of five again and make up for yesterday, but if not, see you on Monday!

Stay safe, everyone!

[Punished Dayni]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, why? Did they not get the memo that Awakening already did that!?

Considering 8-4 localised Awakening I'd suspect not.

4 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So yeah, now Percy flees his Deeprealm to some place in Hoshido... which has Nohrian mercenaries crawling around it. Somehow.

I mean, you're playing Conquest, for all we know they were hired for the invasion.

20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's about what you'd expect from Keaton wanting to go out hitting on women with Laslow. They both fail catastrophically, because apparently in Fateslandia, there's no such thing as shallow women or the furry fandom.

There's apparently less thirst there than in reality?

How bizarre.

[Jotari]

Not that one would actually expect plot points to derive from the capture mechanic, but it is amusing that you can bring the actual Gazak to this battle if you'd previously captured him.

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 4/15/2021 at 6:55 AM, lenticular said:

Come on, man. Ridiculously paraphrasing what I said into a flimsy strawman argument for you to disagree with? Really?

Huh, didn't get a notification for this. Sorry.

Anyway, I would say it was actually a pretty good paraphrasing. You may have had a good point but it wasn't phrased very well.

On 4/15/2021 at 6:55 AM, lenticular said:

As a point of comparison, I also play chess. In chess there are exactly 6 different pieces. There aren't any further modifiers on top of the pieces' baseline abilities.

What about the En Passant Rule, Castling, and all the other moves which directly change how the pieces move normally?

11 hours ago, Dayni said:

There's apparently less thirst there than in reality?

How bizarre.

See, this reflects Victorian sexual attitudes which also have visible manifestations in the social sciences. Plenty of species are obligate adulterers but there was a time when it was assumed only males in a species were promiscuous. I mean, if you can call animals promiscuous. They're sort of below morality, really.

[Eltosian Kadath]

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

OH MY GOD.

PERCY JUST THREW DRAGON SHIT AT ARTHUR.

AS IF I NEEDED MORE REASON TO BELIEVE HE'S MOZU'S SON.

I was thinking about this moment the entire time you were going through the ending of that support...

 

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

My main complaint is that the dragon vein description is pretty inadequate. I never used them on my first playthrough because I just thought it made them disappear without giving you exp. It doesn't mention the whole “500 gold per mercenary you scare off” thing. Not even in a post-prep-screen hint! But yeah, while I'll be making use of it here and there if I can, my main priority is experience, not gold. Which is good, because if I tried to be a perfectionist about getting that gold it would probably be a pain in the ass to attempt it, due to all the post-battle skills enemies have making luring them in without killing them annoying.

I find that getting greedy with the dragon veins is one of the most dangerous things you can do on this map...

 

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Okay, some weird discrepancies in enemy crit rates made me remember Arthur's -5 crit evade from being a berserker was a thing, and holy shit is that unfortunate. Between that and his personal, that completely negates his crit avoid from his trusty Snake Eyes axe, meaning he has to be next to Mozu to have much of any crit avoid at all. I'm starting to think I really oughta make him a sniper.

Percy's personal giving +15 crit avoid to allies within 2 really helps alleviate that issue...

 

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I tried to do a crazy gambit to take out a lot of the enemies at once with Dakota, but tragically I miscalculated, and the space I needed open to freeze the wyrmslayer hero... wasn't open. I had to use my second rescue staff use to save Dakota since I had already moved her and she almost assuredly would have been killed unless I'd been very lucky with dual strike placement.

Oof, first rescue staff fully depleted...

[Alastor15243]

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Percy's personal giving +15 crit avoid to allies within 2 really helps alleviate that issue...

Ah yes, that'll be a big help from here on out. I'm also excited to give him rally defense, I'm not used to lacking it at this stage in the game.

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oof, first rescue staff fully depleted...

Yep. Thankfully the second one is next map. Still, it's definitely a blow.

 

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oof, first rescue staff fully depleted...

 

13 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yep. Thankfully the second one is next map. Still, it's definitely a blow.

Speaking of, what are your plans for the endgame? Because I've read that the endgame is all kinds of nasty on Lunatic.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

Speaking of, what are your plans for the endgame? Because I've read that the endgame is all kinds of nasty on Lunatic.

I have one, but I don't think it would be as fun to say what it is right now.

[Shadow Mir]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

I have one, but I don't think it would be as fun to say what it is right now.

Fair enough. Though losing Azura is definitely a massive blow to whatever this plan is...