Can Fire Emblem games with the Turnwheel still be challenging?

[Alastor15243]

53 minutes ago, starburst said:

It clearly is not. That is why almost everyone glues a low-level Berserker Charlotte to Xander. The whole "backpack" concept derives from an easy exploitation of a Guard Stance mechanic (unrestricted bonuses.) It was the main reason why I decided to try 10-Units campaigns in Conquest. And it was fun that Eltosian Kadath decided to give it a try and chronicle his run.

It may not be perfect, but it's a mechanic you can make use of without it feeling like you're playing easy mode or cheating yourself out of an engaging challenge, because the game did a great job of making sure that there are still significant downsides to using it and punishing you for not having enough attack stance units available, because this is not a game where enemy phase attacking can get you out of every situation unless you learn an insane amount about how to exploit its systems like those Ophelia strategies I've heard about.

Basically my point was that it's not the fault of the game if not using one of its core mechanics, which it put a lot of thought into, turns the game into a luck-based mess. I saw a video of someone beating the entirety of one of the Pokemon games using nothing but a single Wobbuffet, and it was a psychotically boring and luck-based grindfest, but that isn't the fault of the game, because those aren't the rules the game was designed around, and playing the game normally is still fun.

By contrast, I think it is fair to judge Three Houses for how it plays without the divine pulse because playing with it is obscenely easy and the things they put in to encourage its use aren't nearly as interesting or skill based as the things Conquest put in to make the player decide how much they should rely on guard stance and how much of their army they should leave available for dual strikes.

[Eltosian Kadath]

35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Given that guard stance is a fundamental and, crucially, well-balanced aspect to the game's strategy, is it really fair to hold it against a game if (and this is if, I haven't done it for myself) beating the game without it is a tedious and luck-based slog?

Once you have found a solution to a section that is reliable even under those restrictions, repeating said section under the same conditions is simply rote, and nothing is gained by repeating it. That is what I am holding against it, not the higher opportunities for failure, and why I stipulated that my challenge run has given me a different perspective.

26 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

If I have four rewinds, what incentive do I have to think about any move I make until I'm down to 1 of them? Surely it would be faster to just do whatever and wait until that isn't good enough before I actually have to start thinking about my actions? What about if I had eight? Ten? Twelve? Then that moment where I actually have to start taking the game seriously will get later and later and later into the level, and I wind up coasting through a larger and larger percentage of it without any thinking but the barest of hunches and instincts about what seems like a good matchup.

The incentive for thinking about your moves is that you play better, and experience less failure. Each of those turn wheel uses is a failure, and one that was entirely within your power to avoid, and you know it. If you don't care about failure or better play, and just want a more casual experience than go ahead and play as you described; there have always and will always be mechanics people can use to tailor their difficult, from obvious things like casual or easy mode, to trivially restricted ones like forging and skill buy, to what many consider exploits like arena abuse and boss abuse. If you use the turn wheel/divine pulse like its a more convenient reset it shouldn't fundamentally change the difficulty, just the resulting tedium. If you abuse it than it will, although you could have always accomplish the same results through sufficient resets if you cared enough to do so before. You are on your honor, and nobody else's should sway you.

29 minutes ago, starburst said:

 

Both Infinite Omnipresent Save Points and the Turn Wheel contradict the notion of uncertainty that is at the core of Fire Emblem. Without uncertainty, this game would play in a radically different way. Since the odds of every encounter would either be 1 or 0, you units would never die unless you explicitly wanted to, and you would inevitably face impossible situations that would force you to grind for levels or better equipment (until the odds of winning are 1.)

I think you are getting a bit hyperbolic, to get to the kind of control where you can narrow down the odds to 0 or 1 for every encounter would require far more turn wheel/pulse uses than fire emblem has ever given. If you see a miss, that doesn't mean a 1% higher accuracy attack will miss, and if you change the units involved in the battle, the number of RNs being used in that battle could change as well if they have more or less procable abilities, manage to double, or use a weapon with a brave effect. Assuming you have some means of getting every possible accuracy and crit rate somehow you could try to perform a binary search, which would take about 6-7 uses per RN; with even  the most generous turn wheel / divine pulse uses you could maybe narrow down 2 attacks to that mythical 0 or 1 probability point, assuming nobody has any procable abilities like crests, or sufficiently different speed, or brave effect weapons to change the number of RNs being rolled. People may complain that the number of turn wheel or pulse uses is too many, but its still restrictive enough to keep players from determining the exact RNs and having full control over probability.

[Alastor15243]

Before proceeding with the rest of your argument...

7 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Once you have found a solution to a section that is reliable even under those restrictions, repeating said section under the same conditions is simply rote, and nothing is gained by repeating it. That is what I am holding against it, not the higher opportunities for failure, and why I stipulated that my challenge run has given me a different perspective.

I'm still not seeing what's going on here. So you found reliable strategies for getting past the beginning of the map, but you couldn't figure out how to get past later areas without learning which ways wouldn't work by dying? Shouldn't the fact that you haven't come up with a reliable strategy be something you can play out in your head by looking at the information you have? If you've been discovering reliable strategies to beat more and more of the map, why do you have to die to figure out what the next reliable strategy is going to be? Are you doing the entire thing by trial and error?

Edited September 1, 2019 by Alastor15243

[starburst]

46 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Basically my point was that it's not the fault of the game if not using one of its core mechanics, which it put a lot of thought into, turns the game into a luck-based mess.

Oh!, but I do use Guard Stance. It was Eltosian Kadath who decided to try a run and ban Guard Stance for extra spice. He, he.
The original "rules" were ten units only, no royals, no backpacks, no path bonuses, no grinding. Since having only ten units forces you to use Attack Stance in most cases, specially in the later chapters, I can guarantee you that such a run is far from a "luck-based mess."
Visit the thread. You might like the challenge.

 

30 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm still not seeing what's going on here. So you found reliable strategies for getting past the beginning of the map, but you couldn't figure out how to get past later areas without learning which ways wouldn't work by dying? Shouldn't the fact that you haven't come up with a reliable strategy be something you can play out in your head by looking at the information you have? If you've been discovering reliable strategies to beat more and more of the map, why do you have to die to figure out what the next reliable strategy is going to be? Are you doing the entire thing by trial and error?

With only ten units, and specially in the case of No Guard Stance, there are way more errors which can be fatal. This demands more calculations and, understandably, leaves more room for mistakes. It is not that you advance until you die, but that you are required to evaluate far more death-scenarios and formulate more resctricted success-scenarios than with a bigger party. And you still want to advance as fast as possible, instead of taking fifty turns and two hours per map.

 

38 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think you are getting a bit hyperbolic, to get to the kind of control where you can narrow down the odds to 0 or 1 for every encounter would require far more turn wheel/pulse uses than fire emblem has ever given.

I am sorry that my statement was confusing. I criticised the use of Infinite-Omnipresent Save Points and the use of the Turn Wheel on the basis that they contradicted the notion of uncertainty present in Fire Emblem. Then I mentioned a Fire Emblem scenario without uncertainty at all, which would demand, obviously and as you mentioned, more than those two mechanics. In my mind, these two parts of my paragraph were not cause and effect.

And just in case, the probabilities of 0 and 1 mean 0 % and 100 %, respectively. Hit or miss. Certainty.
You got it, but I rather mention this before someone misinterprets it.

Edited September 1, 2019 by starburst

[Eltosian Kadath]

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Shouldn't the fact that you haven't come up with a reliable strategy be something you can play out in your head by looking at the information you have?

As it turns out AI behavior varies between enemies groups in Conquest and cannot be read straight off the map, the pathfinding and unit targeting algorithm contain some probabilistic elements, and have aspects to them that are poorly documented making it impossible to perfectly predict them from a glance (as an example how many enemies can target a unit has some small impact on the targeting behavior of the enfeeble staff users of endgame, and I have never seen that mentioned or documented anywhere, plus some movement behavior is either determined randomly when two equally distanced paths are available to take to reach enemies), some enemies do not reveal their stats or location until they appear as reinforcements (and such information is rarely well documented), whether those reinforcements are blockable or not blockable (and how the reinforcements you try to block are displacement have some strange properties as well, especially when they are part of a group), and what exactly triggers them to appear is information that is not always readily available (or down right inaccurately documented), and that is before getting to the heavy RNG question of procable skills, and high crit rates that tend to be features of bosses, plus they don't even let you look at endgame before you slog your way through chapter 27. If Conquest revealed all of its information to the player reliable strats can be determined, but a lot of that information has to be discovered the hard way.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

As it turns out AI behavior varies between enemies groups in Conquest and cannot be read straight off the map, the pathfinding and unit targeting algorithm contain some probabilistic elements, and have aspects to them that are poorly documented making it impossible to perfectly predict them from a glance (as an example how many enemies can target a unit has some small impact on the targeting behavior of the enfeeble staff users of endgame, and I have never seen that mentioned or documented anywhere, plus some movement behavior is either determined randomly when two equally distanced paths are available to take to reach enemies), some enemies do not reveal their stats or location until they appear as reinforcements (and such information is rarely well documented), whether those reinforcements are blockable or not blockable (and how the reinforcements you try to block are displacement have some strange properties as well, especially when they are part of a group), and what exactly triggers them to appear is information that is not always readily available (or down right inaccurately documented), and that is before getting to the heavy RNG question of procable skills, and high crit rates that tend to be features of bosses, plus they don't even let you look at endgame before you slog your way through chapter 27. If Conquest revealed all of its information to the player reliable strats can be determined, but a lot of that information has to be discovered the hard way.

I see, that explains what's going on a bit more, but I don't consider any of that to be the game's fault. If a challenge run is so strict that you need to rely on luck and extremely in-depth pathing manipulation, that's no more the game's fault than the fact that this challenge run looks like the most nightmarishly tedious shit ever:

 

They didn't design or balance your challenge run after all. They have no obligation to make every conceivable challenge run well-balanced and fun as long as the core gameplay they've set up is still challenging and fun.

[Eltosian Kadath]

19 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't consider any of that to be the game's fault. If a challenge run is so strict that you need to rely on luck and extremely in-depth pathing manipulation, that's no more the game's fault than the fact that this challenge run looks like the most nightmarishly tedious shit ever:

Again I don't begrudge the game for the challenge, or think of that challenge as the games fault, I just begrudge the tedium of getting back to fun and engaging part of the run, especially when the time wheel/ divine pulse mechanic makes it clear that the tedium didn't have to be there, and that tedium not being there would not have detracted from the challenge.

 

Side note have you ever checked out Pikasprey's content? His claim to fame is the single ditto challenge which is fairly similar in concept to the Wobbuffet only challenge, and he has done a couple other similar ones, although the full run of the six Smeargle challenge he has on his gameplay channel is far more interesting

[starburst]

43 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I see, that explains what's going on a bit more, but I don't consider any of that to be the game's fault. If a challenge run is so strict that you need to rely on luck and extremely in-depth pathing manipulation, that's no more the game's fault than the fact that this challenge run looks like the most nightmarishly tedious shit ever

You still do not get it: the AI algorithm is always there, but its implications are simply not as "mortal" against a bigger party. Because the AI behaviour changes in separate instances of the exact same scenario, it cannot be inferred. Therefore you can only make contingency plans and hope for the best. He already formulated a successful plan, it is the game who reacts randomly. That is why he would rather have a Turn Wheel mechanic and continue his run.

Again, such a run is not luck reliant nor "the most nightmarishly tedious shit ever." His main argument is that there are specific circumstances where a single Turn Wheel rewind could save him over an hour of "repeated gameplay." With very limited resources, each section behaves a lot like a puzzle, and your party and tactical abilities would lead you to repeat all previous turns anyway.

Edited September 1, 2019 by starburst

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Again I don't begrudge the game for the challenge, or think of that challenge as the games fault, I just begrudge the tedium of getting back to fun and engaging part of the run, especially when the time wheel/ divine pulse mechanic makes it clear that the tedium didn't have to be there, and that tedium not being there would not have detracted from the challenge.

Yes, but remember why this topic was even brought up. I said that in a well-designed Fire Emblem game, getting back to where you lost shouldn't be boring, and if it is, that's probably indicative of bad game design, and not that it's an inevitable consequence of the genre. And to counter this point, you said you found Conquest to be incredibly tedious to retry on your challenge run. I submit that your experience with your challenge run doesn't prove that that it's natural for retrying Fire Emblem maps to be skill-free, tedious, and better off being skipped.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Interdimensional Observer]

32 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

If a challenge run is so strict that you need to rely on luck and extremely in-depth pathing manipulation, that's no more the game's fault than the fact that this challenge run looks like the most nightmarishly tedious shit ever:

There is some grounds for this. Developers can make games with multiple playstyles in mind, but fans can go beyond what developers thought their playstyle pool would consist of. To use Final Fantasy X, whilst the developers thought that fans would experiment with Sphere Grid progression on their characters, they likely couldn't have imagined or thought much of No Sphere Grid challenges. And certainly, they could not have accounted for No Sphere Grid No Summons No Overdrive challenges.

But, that FFX case is an extreme. FE Fates is far trickier to figure out. IS included so many gameplay mechanics to use or not use, within what ranges did they predict people would use or not use each and every one of those little mechanics? I haven't a clue.

 

 

I'm feeling too intimidated to wade into the greater discussion at hand this point. Just wanted to make that one comment.

[eclipse]

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

There is some grounds for this. Developers can make games with multiple playstyles in mind, but fans can go beyond what developers thought their playstyle pool would consist of. To use Final Fantasy X, whilst the developers thought that fans would experiment with Sphere Grid progression on their characters, they likely couldn't have imagined or thought much of No Sphere Grid challenges. And certainly, they could not have accounted for No Sphere Grid No Summons No Overdrive challenges.

But, that FFX case is an extreme. FE Fates is far trickier to figure out. IS included so many gameplay mechanics to use or not use, within what ranges did they predict people would use or not use each and every one of those little mechanics? I haven't a clue.

 

 

I'm feeling too intimidated to wade into the greater discussion at hand this point. Just wanted to make that one comment.

I raise you the FF6 Steps challenge.

A game is balanced around certain assumptions, such as "we've provided X to the player for them to overcome this challenge."  However, it's the player's decision to use those tools.  Whether someone uses something or not is a yes/no decision.  In this case, it's a matter of what the player's willing to go without. . .like draft challenges.