Jump to content

How would you fix fog of war?


Alastor15243
 Share

Recommended Posts

well, there’s that one desert FoW map in FE7 where you can see the entire map during the battle prep screen but then when you actually start playing the fog begins

I probably wouldn’t want every FoW map to be like that but it IS one way to make it more fair, because instead of “literally anything could be over here” you’re  thinking like “I remember there was a sniper over here but maybe it moved, and I’m not sure exactly which tile it was on”

(Also, count me in as one of the people who doesn’t think that making it so the enemy couldn’t see you would actually be particularly fun or effective, but I would probably have to experience it to find out. I’m having trouble imagining how that would actually play out)

Another possible way to tweak the mechanics but keep the basic concept that you don’t have information about areas you can’t see: What if you could see that an enemy was present under the fog, but not what it actually was or its stats? There could be a generic shadowy sprite that just indicated like “a unit is here” and you’d have to proceed without knowing how much of a threat it is. I’m not sure how much this would actually make a difference, just a possible variant that popped into my head as a different way to do FoW.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I think it goes without further mention that the enemy needs to stop cheating on the player with its God mode vision, and future games with fog needs to fully adopt Advance Wars. If one really wants long distance Lightning tome or ballista ambushes like Chapter 20-Sacae or Chapter 19-Ilia in Binding Blade, then enemies need to properly locate the allied units first, and be fair about it.

Other than that, +1 to torches giving away positions to both allies and enemies, and an adoption of different levels of visibility. That would make fog of war more strategic than luck-based.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fog of War competes with reinforcements (not just ambush spawns, reinforcements in general) as my most hated mechanic in all of Fire Emblem, so I'm perfectly fine with it never appearing again.

My issue with it is simply that Fire Emblem is a game where you expend your movement, take an action, and then the units turn is over. This means that if you run into an enemy by accident, there's no way to backtrack into a safer location. And if you find out that your mercenary is in range of lance using horse units because another unit scouted ahead, well sucks to be you. Simply put is that the Fire Emblem system of combat doesn't work as is with fog of war. Making the enemy just as confused as the player wouldn't prevent these issues from occurring.

Other turn-based games I can think of that successfully use fog of war allow different units to move at different times, you can take actions with your units in a different order than you moved them, and there's a better way to compensate if a soldier is in a tough spot that they can't move out of (such as the lack of a weapon triangle or XCOM's overwatch). For Fire Emblem to implement Fog of War like this, then you would have to be able to move units one tile at a time without it ending their turn, and to be able to backtrack to a safer location if they spot an enemy unit. They also shouldn't be forced to end their turn after their movement is used up, so that you can change their weapon if the situation changes. It could work, but it would require changing how the mechanics work for a handful of chapters, which would require a lot more code on the programmers part, and it could confuse or seem odd to players to adjust to the sudden shift in how the base gameplay works. It wouldn't be like Fates gimmicks where the base mechanics remain the same, there's just a different map condition the player has to work around.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Hawkwing said:

Fog of War competes with reinforcements (not just ambush spawns, reinforcements in general) as my most hated mechanic in all of Fire Emblem, so I'm perfectly fine with it never appearing again.

My issue with it is simply that Fire Emblem is a game where you expend your movement, take an action, and then the units turn is over. This means that if you run into an enemy by accident, there's no way to backtrack into a safer location. And if you find out that your mercenary is in range of lance using horse units because another unit scouted ahead, well sucks to be you. Simply put is that the Fire Emblem system of combat doesn't work as is with fog of war. Making the enemy just as confused as the player wouldn't prevent these issues from occurring.

Other turn-based games I can think of that successfully use fog of war allow different units to move at different times, you can take actions with your units in a different order than you moved them, and there's a better way to compensate if a soldier is in a tough spot that they can't move out of (such as the lack of a weapon triangle or XCOM's overwatch). For Fire Emblem to implement Fog of War like this, then you would have to be able to move units one tile at a time without it ending their turn, and to be able to backtrack to a safer location if they spot an enemy unit. They also shouldn't be forced to end their turn after their movement is used up, so that you can change their weapon if the situation changes. It could work, but it would require changing how the mechanics work for a handful of chapters, which would require a lot more code on the programmers part, and it could confuse or seem odd to players to adjust to the sudden shift in how the base gameplay works. It wouldn't be like Fates gimmicks where the base mechanics remain the same, there's just a different map condition the player has to work around.

Or you could have it where position of enemies can be seen but not their class or stats like me and a few others suggested earlier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just want the option to attack or atleast get the chance to equip a more appropriate weapon whenever one of my guys run into a suprise enemy. 

 

Other than that. I think it would be really cool to have certain parts of a map be lit up by torches or something: a scenario where your team is in a dark dungeon with some scary looking baddies elsewhere on the map, being visible to the player at the start, but runs off in the darkness when the enemy phase starts. 

 

You wouldn't know where specifically they are, but you know that they are coming for your team. Oooh. The semi-thrill. 

Edited by Martin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/12/2019 at 4:13 PM, Martin said:

Other than that. I think it would be really cool to have certain parts of a map be lit up by torches or something: a scenario where your team is in a dark dungeon with some scary looking baddies elsewhere on the map, being visible to the player at the start, but runs off in the darkness when the enemy phase starts. 

I think Radiant Dawn did something similar to that in part 3 chapter 1, although the enemies could extinguish those torches, and you could relight them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...