This game is way too easy

[mykle]

Does anyone else think this game requires no amount of optimization or strategy? I’m playing on hard and about half way through the second half of my first play through with golden deer. I’ve had everyone at the master class I want them at for a while now, I don’t care about getting any other certifications cause I’m just facerolling the game anyways. Shamir has like a 60% crit rate on most enemies and hilda one shots everyone... Raphael can eat magic attacks no problem (fortress), and I don’t remember the last time leonie didn’t double attack someone. Maxed out nearly every support, shops make resources infinite and weapon durability isn’t valuable anymore. I have way more gold than I know what to do with and absolutely no shortage on any items...

now all of a sudden I don’t care about motivation, I have way too many action points for as few options there are in the cathedral. I auto battle some of the auxiliary battles cause I can... honestly the only time I ever divine pulse is when I warp someone into the middle of the enemy ranks wondering if I can survive 6 attacks in one turn (Shamir effing did it, dodged 5/6 attacks and crit 4/6 of them back)

Anyways I still have about a quarter of the game left, but no motivation to finish it cause it’s kinda boring... anyone else feel the same? Gimme lunatic and lunatic+ please..

[Hunter Nightblood]

4 minutes ago, mykle said:

Raphael can eat magic attacks no problem (fortress)

Doesn't Raphael have some of the worst resistance growth in the game? And I don't think Fortress Knight gives resistance either.

 

[Tribute]

Some of this might have an ounce of merit if you just stepped out of a time machine and haven't played since path of radiance release when you were a kid.

 

It felt pretty standard to me for  a normal/"hard" run through. A few solid challenges here and there.

Also if you have all master classes at 75% you're way optimized on top of the fact that mid to late game is where you're always peak overpowered on your main units

Edited August 9, 2019 by Tribute

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I dunno I thought the start of the game was the right level. But this is an RPG, so the better you optimize your play the more it snowballs as the game continues. Definitely a bummer that there's no harder difficulty setting for those that already finished, but I definitely didn't find Hard/Classic all that easy. Certainly not to a degree that was offensively so. I found it just right as I was learning the mechanics and optimizations.

[Jayvee94]

Did you use Cyril?

[Vorena]

Honestly, many of the older fire emblem games gave you extra ways to ease the game's difficulty. Hell, FE5 had it with elite exp mode. You could abuse arenas. Newer games give you free maps to complete such as the Tower of Valani in FE8. I have to say its unfortunate that if you optimize your units in their strengths and simply do additional battles per month for completing paralogues and quest missions you will come out ahead on many resources including levels. Normal felt like an easy mode and hard felt like a pseudo standard FE experience. 

Honestly, the game is probably such that you could probably get away without doing any additional battles per month and just do a standard FE route and maybe just abuse exploration for motivation to build units in stuff they are not great in. I end up spending most of my extra activity points trying to train the prof in lance/flying since you only get 20/22 at best. 

I have to say if you are playing a NG+ on a second play-through of course its going to be easier because you carry over literally everything of worth unlocking such as previous profession levels. In general, the FE games are not played for difficulty it throws at you, but more what challenge you impose on yourself such as say LTC. Male only run. Things of this sort. 

A regular difficulty of FE I think would just be to play the game normally, but do a non-NG+ mode. Do no additional battles in a month except the ones that are forced even avoid quests. Play characters into roles they are not strong in at all. Make a cavalier Dedue. 

Edited August 9, 2019 by Vorena

[Humanoid]

You can snowball pretty hard here by unlocking extra battles early. Rushing C+ early on for the second auxiliary battle is a big early-game boost, and then you can abuse the Lots of Fish event to get A+ and the third battle relatively early too. The online features help a fair bit too, and can help you break the game's economy over your knee.

On the other hand, for someone who uses their activity points suboptimally, starts instruction sessions with no motivated students, gives their students learning advice that they dislike (1000xp a pop is ridiculous for a single decision), taking bad advice and using the rest function, accidentally skipping forward an entire month, etc, you can fall behind pretty badly I imagine.

[iavasechui]

Well they will be releasing a lunatic mode patch at some point as a free update I think it will coincide with the Halloween dlc wave

[thecrimsonflash]

yes, I admit that I find the game to be really fun though, but the generally easy nature of some of the maps is rather unfortunate, especially new game+, I look forward to lunatic mode because getting overleveled is much too easy in the late game, I think I got byleth to 50 in the blue lions endgame which was insane if you ask me, this was my first playthrough so I wasn't working with any insane resources either.

I am happy that I found a good way to cheese getting class levels without having to increase your level though.

Edited August 9, 2019 by thecrimsonflash

[Vince777]

Yeah, I thought some map designs and clever ideas were wasted on enemies that just weren't threats. Like this one paralogue map where I had to make sure that enemy units couldn't stay in the village for longer than 5 turns. None of the enemy units even ever made it close to enter the village.

Most of the maps, I could have just sent my units forward without any sort of planning for the clear. Only had to pay attention a little bit because I play classic mode. I'm not sure if I'd even manage to lose on purpose if I played on normal mode/casual. Send my lord in, alone and with no weapon? That's the only manner I can think of. 

 


 

Edited August 9, 2019 by Vince777

[timon]

Yes, the game's way too easy on hard, and yet I hope there will be middle ground between this and the tipical Lunatic bullshit. Wasn't there talk of 4 difficulties (without counting Lunatic)? I'm pretty sure I remember something along the lines of maddening/infernal from the data mine?

[Mackc2]

Are we playing the same game, post timeskip in Blue Lions (Hard) the difficulty took a massive jump and the enemies actually started being a threat, by endgame most of my units even my fastest weren't consistently doubling and often got doubled and enemy brawlers could rip apart anyone except my great knight on initiation

[Garlyle]

There are a lot of stuff where the game doesn't feel hard even on hard mode.

However paralogue maps and the final 1/3 of the game gives some extra challenge to the player on hard mode.

[Mjolnir]

14 minutes ago, timon said:

I'm pretty sure I remember something along the lines of maddening/infernal from the data mine? 

I seem to recall that too so it's probably the case.

[De Geso]

Just played the first post timeskip Black Eagles map and it was pretty tricky for me, but my units are far from optimized so the advanced class enemies are pretty threatening (especially Grapplers and Wyverns). The minibosses have also put up decent fights.

I will have to see if the game remains at this (imo engaging) level of difficulty or if it falls into lategame awakening "throw units into piles of six million enemies" tier of easiness.

I'm also looking forward to Lunatic and the other potentially higher difficulties coming out so I can push myself a bit more - everything FE related feels pretty easy after LCQ and FE12...

[Lightcosmo]

On one hand, I agree with this, on the other, I think it's fine the way it is. I mean, it really depends on how badly you get stat screwed, and during my Blue Lions run, I got horribly stat screwed and could barely compete, so I think considering that the game could not be so nice, it's fine the way it is. Ingrid with 9 strength as a level 22 Pegasus Knight is horrible.

[Humanoid]

That, and how ruthless you are with dropping underperforming units even if they are your favourites. I dropped my four worst units as soon as I had replacements join with no regrets, but I can imagine how much harder the game would be currently if I had Lorenz and Ignatz instead of Ingrid and Petra, who literally have double or better in some key stats. I'm also using Catherine and Shamir who are "I win" buttons at this stage of the game. It's unfortunate that I can't drop Claude, because frankly mine sucks.

[redlight]

3 hours ago, Mackc2 said:

Are we playing the same game, post timeskip in Blue Lions (Hard) the difficulty took a massive jump and the enemies actually started being a threat, by endgame most of my units even my fastest weren't consistently doubling and often got doubled and enemy brawlers could rip apart anyone except my great knight on initiation

There were definitely moments where I used divine pulse (I had to use all charges in the three way battle because of Claude's Fallen Star granting guaranteed avoids), but otherwise rather easy since my units are beasts. Canto on half of my units makes life easy. Doesn't help Dimitri can't get hit with his personal and lance prowess active. Dude is dodging everything. I haven't even mentioned his offensive stats. Motherfucker just ignores weapon weight with his strength and that goddamn speed is skyhigh.

Now that I have a better grasp of the game my next playthrough seems like it'll be a cakewalk unless they'll add Lunatic which I want to try out.

[Etrurian emperor]

Yeah the game is a bit on the easy side. 

I haven't finished but there is only one chapter I can say was hard without a reliance on artificial difficulty. 

[SSbardock84]

Yes, it's not a very hard game. I'm guilty of playing on Casual however, so that of course makes it easier. Divine Pulse is also pretty overpowered. I do like it though for when I accidentally make a mistake like wait instead of attack or attack with the wrong weapon.

[daisy jane]

I personally feel the game is just enough difficult for me. i take time to think what i want to do and then sometimes i have to compensate if something happens. 

[~Flavius~]

I think saying the game is way too easy is pushing it, but I definitely agree it's not really hard at all. I think as the game progresses and your characters become more optimized, the game becomes considerably easier. New game+ really does make the game a lot easier as leveling your characters/ranks/abilities become even further optimized.

I must admit though, Crimson Flower (Siding with Edelgard post timeskip) felt more challenging than Verdant Wind (Claude's route). There are less chapters to be really high leveled and the map layout seemed more set for a challenge. Still, I wouldn't say this path was very hard.

Honestly, I'm really excited for lunatic to see if it offers up the challenge this game needs. The game is fun and these maps have potential imo, they just need that extra boost in difficulty. I really hope they don't do it by inflating enemies stats to absurd levels or giving them ridiculous skills like Awakening. We shall see I suppose.

[Slashandz]

I didn't care for exploring, so I actually used rest/skip between missions.  As a result, the game had a solid challenge throughout.  By the end of the game, most of my units were still advanced class, not master.  Also the playtime was far more reasonable (about 30 hours).

[LordFrigid]

I found it pretty easy to break, even on my blind first run (Black Eagles -> Empire). That said, I kinda like finding fun ways to break things, so I didn’t really mind. I do think they give you too many tools for it, though; the silly stuff like:

Spoiler

Stride, Canto, Thyrsus*, Stride, Alert Stance(+)**, Shamir (I hear the other instructors are good too)...and, let’s see, did I already mention Stride?

* Any more range on this thing and Lysithea would be able to nuke stuff from the Monastery, while eating cake.

** At the end of my latest run, Ingrid was virtually unhittable after waiting. Didn’t even need Defiant Avo.

I would absolutely love to see higher difficulty levels.

[Garlyle]

Now that raises me the question: how would you make the game challenging, besides the obvious.

Obvious means Hard/Classic Ironman run, No Divine Pulse - Exploration, Paralogue and Story Battles only.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Garlyle