FE Awakening, res is a myth, this game is a hack n'slash

[mangasdeouf]

On 9/18/2019 at 3:02 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Could you not put words in my mouth, please? I never said that Fates didn't require units being adjacent to one another for supports to build - only that nearly all those other games you mentioned did.

Not putting words in your mouth, just telling you what your statement implies, and I don't think it's what you wanted to tell. I just told that in every non SOV FE you need to have adjacent units interacting one way or another to raise supports.

On 9/18/2019 at 3:02 AM, Shadow Mir said:

I don't see how it's so efficient when you can only support one other unit and have to break up an existing support to start another one. It still suffers from the issues that made GBA supports troublesome to get, just not as much.

FE 3DS re-used RD support system, but worse since they don't have 3 tiles range. Support chains are impossible in FE 3DS except in a straight wall on units adjacent to each other, which is what we call turtling and doesn't even make it viable because you can't get support bonuses while being placed diagonally with your support partner in 3DS FE.

Relative to 1 support at a time, I'm ok with it since stat inflation gave your units plentiful stat advantages compared with older games, and 3rd tier is only for player units and tower bosses, which means you don't NEED to have several supports to beat the game. If you could have a 3 earth support chain it'd be instantly OP and trivialize the game, like Nolan/Volug/Zihark/Nolan.

On 9/18/2019 at 3:02 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Biorhythm wasn't refined in RD - instead it became a Scrappy Mechanic. Unless you think dealing with your best units arbitrarily being crippled is fun or interesting, which I don't. Also, shove, smite and canto returned in post-RD games (though personally, I'm not so happy to see Canto back, since it tends to make mounts in general overpowered). Laguz were also not fine-tuned - they were mostly made useless, owing to having even more problems than in Path of Radiance.

I didn't talk of biorythm because it's irrelevant. This mechanic is trash and shouldn't come back. Although there are still trash skills using biorythm: even/odd skills (the first ones, which give avoid on odd/even numbered turns) and why the f*** did they put such a mechanic on Dread Fighters? You literally PAID to get access to this class, their skills shouldn't be like "every second turn, you take less magic damage, the rest of the time, screw you" and "you only take less magic damage when the ennemy initiates the fight". For me, these skills look like biorythm bursts of stats, in between which...you're just using a regular unit and it's like they don't have a skill at all. You know, like what you think of Laguz in RD.

Canto made the flying Laguz worth something, which is already nice. Vika could go in and go out, not being forced to stay in range of further ennemies after attacking, same for Janaff and Ulki.Tibarn doesn't care so it's not really important for him. It also allowed you to use weaker mounted units, to attack with your falcos (finally they don't get dumped for being non fighting units like they used to be in earlier FEs, only useful for rescue chains).

I find Laguz were the closest experience of a tactical/strategy game in Fire Emblem from FE8 to 10, since they are the pre-3DS games I've played the most and can speak of. You actually had to manage your unit's fighting ability, and in RD you could play with the transformation gauge, while in PoR you had to watch the bar empty/replenish itself. Also in RD you could abuse untransformed Laguz exp gains to have units better than Beorcs. Don't forget Laguz don't cost money to deal damage, while silver lance costs money. Laguz also have weapons that never way them down, even at S+ rank (19 damage fang, 16-18 damage claw I don't remember, for free, unlimited uses, just by spamming, be it by boss abusing, or anything else) and still useful at S rank (14 damage fang, quite good, similar to silver weapons for free). You don't manage weapon uses, you manage unit uses. It's far more satisfying to pull a good use of Laguz than it is to spam T3 Ike with Ragnell or Haar (the guy who soloes most of the game just by existing and whose mobility forces you to make him solo half the maps). It's like taking Seth, giving him Duessel's stats and GR and making him a Wyvern lord: now just ROFLstomp the game by virtue of existing, having flight allowing him to skip even more things.

On 9/18/2019 at 3:02 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Unfortunately for you, most ballistae and catapults in the Tellius saga are aimed in your direction (and the latter tend to be rather useless anyhow unless they get a direct hit on a squishy unit). And even if you kill the operators before they run out of ammo, their being pointed in the  direction you came from means you probably won't get much, if any, use out of them. Also, I fail to see how Awakening "went back to FE6 for its gameplay bases" since the latter game had no skills, and was a mono-seize game. Fates does draw on Awakening for some of its mechanics, but it fine-tuned them. Also, most of the gimmicks Conquest had weren't that bad, especially compared to FE6, which has disappearing bridges over water, fog of war combined with desert, and light arrows that you cannot predict which are also capable of killing your units. And what mechanics that were good in RD and forgotten after were you talking about? The only mechanics intrinsic to RD I can think of are stuff I'm glad is gone (the aforementioned laguz and biorhythm).

Ballistae and catapults do what they're here for: defend a position. You're attacking more than you're defending, thus you don't get to use them as often as the ennemy. Still more use of ballistae than in FE8. And you have to fear ballistae with your non immortal units. Especially +30-ish hit rate ballistae (I don't know how much hit ground advantage gives, but it's huge and cumulative). Catapults could've been perfectionned in another game, but R.I.P Tellius inheritance, those are gonna be forgotten now that IS and Nintendo found their cash cow with highly fan-service otaku slice of life oriented FE games.

I didn't mean "no skills", I meant "no game mechanics, ennemy turn moving reinforcements, straight forward chapter goals, very low goal diversity and no defend map past ch6" which implied it pretty badly IMO brought back things that were called out for being horrible in 10 YO games at that moment...Skill system is a downgrade from RD I think, because RD had a refined way of allowing units to use the best skills for them or simply do WTF skill builds. In Awakening, skills are just a reason to grind and abuse second seals.

On 9/18/2019 at 3:02 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Must you repeat a statement you cannot prove? It makes you look even worse than you already are looking.

Which one? The fact that cavaliers are dominant and got shelter as a rescue replacement while everyone else has to second seal/friendship/marriage seal in order to get it? The fact that Oni is underused so shove is not even a thing? The fact that a tank get a skill which would be best used to get him/her closer to the front instead of being used by him/her to do nothing relevant? The fact knights would be awesome if fighters had shove instead of Oni?

On 9/18/2019 at 3:02 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Using ALL CAPS doesn't make something true. Also, relative to Shadow Dragon and New Mystery, speed's effect on evade was buffed.

FE 11 and 12 were remakes just like FE 15. They don't count since they re-use old game systems, improving them a little. They're not following the series' gameplay evolution.

 

On 9/18/2019 at 3:02 AM, Shadow Mir said:

The only thing you got right was that Awakening has better growths and caps than in Radiant Dawn. I don't see giving favoritism to Donnel as good for anything other than making the game harder because his bases are godawful and his join time is pretty bad (unless you like the idea of having a liability on your team in a chapter where you can only use six units, which I do not, not to mention wyvern riders start showing up right after that chapter). Hell, I'd say he's more trouble to raise than he's worth on anything over normal mode. His potential as a father is also rather limited, thanks to him having a lot of negative modifiers, and the male-exclusive class skills are mostly nothing special. Giving three daughters (those being Kjelle, Noire, and Nah) pegasus access doesn't make up for this.

Donnel has a bad start, although investing in him is 5x more worthy than investing in anyone else actually, since at level 10 with a second seal, he's better than 100% of the cast and he will stay better for all the main game since his growths and bases don't get lower by reclassing (on the contrary) and his skill pool is quite good. His children benefit from good bases if he's raised because he'll have 5-10 points more in every stat than other physical units. Caps are completely irrelevant for main game.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, mangasdeouf said:

Not putting words in your mouth, just telling you what your statement implies, and I don't think it's what you wanted to tell. I just told that in every non SOV FE you need to have adjacent units interacting one way or another to raise supports.

That isn't exactly true - the support system as we know it didn't exist until Binding Blade, yes, but supports existed as early as Mystery of the Emblem.

1 hour ago, mangasdeouf said:

FE 3DS re-used RD support system, but worse since they don't have 3 tiles range. Support chains are impossible in FE 3DS except in a straight wall on units adjacent to each other, which is what we call turtling and doesn't even make it viable because you can't get support bonuses while being placed diagonally with your support partner in 3DS FE.

 Relative to 1 support at a time, I'm ok with it since stat inflation gave your units plentiful stat advantages compared with older games, and 3rd tier is only for player units and tower bosses, which means you don't NEED to have several supports to beat the game. If you could have a 3 earth support chain it'd be instantly OP and trivialize the game, like Nolan/Volug/Zihark/Nolan.

Support chains tend to be impractical anyhow - having everyone get the full benefit from them practically requires tethering your units together, which can be problematic when at least one partner is mounted.

2 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

I didn't talk of biorythm because it's irrelevant. This mechanic is trash and shouldn't come back. Although there are still trash skills using biorythm: even/odd skills (the first ones, which give avoid on odd/even numbered turns) and why the f*** did they put such a mechanic on Dread Fighters? You literally PAID to get access to this class, their skills shouldn't be like "every second turn, you take less magic damage, the rest of the time, screw you" and "you only take less magic damage when the ennemy initiates the fight". For me, these skills look like biorythm bursts of stats, in between which...you're just using a regular unit and it's like they don't have a skill at all. You know, like what you think of Laguz in RD.

They're still better than biorhythm itself was because they don't actively hinder you at worst.

2 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

 Canto made the flying Laguz worth something, which is already nice. Vika could go in and go out, not being forced to stay in range of further ennemies after attacking, same for Janaff and Ulki.Tibarn doesn't care so it's not really important for him. It also allowed you to use weaker mounted units, to attack with your falcos (finally they don't get dumped for being non fighting units like they used to be in earlier FEs, only useful for rescue chains).

Sure, it made Janaff and Ulki, who were actually usable, great, but it didn't help Vika that much, because she's still stuck with little availability, and still unusable in her last pre-endgame chapter.

2 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

 I find Laguz were the closest experience of a tactical/strategy game in Fire Emblem from FE8 to 10, since they are the pre-3DS games I've played the most and can speak of. You actually had to manage your unit's fighting ability, and in RD you could play with the transformation gauge, while in PoR you had to watch the bar empty/replenish itself. Also in RD you could abuse untransformed Laguz exp gains to have units better than Beorcs. Don't forget Laguz don't cost money to deal damage, while silver lance costs money. Laguz also have weapons that never way them down, even at S+ rank (19 damage fang, 16-18 damage claw I don't remember, for free, unlimited uses, just by spamming, be it by boss abusing, or anything else) and still useful at S rank (14 damage fang, quite good, similar to silver weapons for free). You don't manage weapon uses, you manage unit uses. It's far more satisfying to pull a good use of Laguz than it is to spam T3 Ike with Ragnell or Haar (the guy who soloes most of the game just by existing and whose mobility forces you to make him solo half the maps). It's like taking Seth, giving him Duessel's stats and GR and making him a Wyvern lord: now just ROFLstomp the game by virtue of existing, having flight allowing him to skip even more things.

The trouble is, their downsides far outweigh the good points - first, restoring their transform gauge cost them their player phase, when their enemy phase is already hindered by being range locked. Second, having them fight untransformed is a high-risk, low-reward proposition because most laguz tend to have poor growths in most non-HP/Luck stats. Third, strike rank is really slow to rise - I can't bring myself to care about how strong laguz weapons are at SS rank when odds are they're never gonna get there by the time the game is over.

2 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Ballistae and catapults do what they're here for: defend a position. You're attacking more than you're defending, thus you don't get to use them as often as the ennemy. Still more use of ballistae than in FE8. And you have to fear ballistae with your non immortal units. Especially +30-ish hit rate ballistae (I don't know how much hit ground advantage gives, but it's huge and cumulative). Catapults could've been perfectionned in another game, but R.I.P Tellius inheritance, those are gonna be forgotten now that IS and Nintendo found their cash cow with highly fan-service otaku slice of life oriented FE games.

Unfortunately, Tellius ballistae are pretty bad - they only really threaten low defense and flying units. Anything else probably won't care. Also, as far as I know, they don't benefit from height advantage. 

2 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

 I didn't mean "no skills", I meant "no game mechanics, ennemy turn moving reinforcements, straight forward chapter goals, very low goal diversity and no defend map past ch6" which implied it pretty badly IMO brought back things that were called out for being horrible in 10 YO games at that moment...Skill system is a downgrade from RD I think, because RD had a refined way of allowing units to use the best skills for them or simply do WTF skill builds. In Awakening, skills are just a reason to grind and abuse second seals.

I fail to see how the skill system in RD was better when you only had 20-25 capacity to play around with for most units, and most skills took up 10 or 15 capacity (some even take up 20 or 25 capacity). That's really limiting.

2 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Which one? The fact that cavaliers are dominant and got shelter as a rescue replacement while everyone else has to second seal/friendship/marriage seal in order to get it? The fact that Oni is underused so shove is not even a thing? The fact that a tank get a skill which would be best used to get him/her closer to the front instead of being used by him/her to do nothing relevant? The fact knights would be awesome if fighters had shove instead of Oni?

You bringing up FE6, a game that is on a completely different console from Awakening, of course.

2 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

FE 11 and 12 were remakes just like FE 15. They don't count since they re-use old game systems, improving them a little. They're not following the series' gameplay evolution.

Remakes that still added new features (reclassing for Shadow Dragon, combat arts for Shadows of Valentia).

2 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Donnel has a bad start, although investing in him is 5x more worthy than investing in anyone else actually, since at level 10 with a second seal, he's better than 100% of the cast and he will stay better for all the main game since his growths and bases don't get lower by reclassing (on the contrary) and his skill pool is quite good. His children benefit from good bases if he's raised because he'll have 5-10 points more in every stat than other physical units. Caps are completely irrelevant for main game.

The fact that Donnel has a bad start is exactly why I wouldn't bother with him - I ask again, are you really going to field him in a chapter where you only have six unit slots??? Or try to grind with Risen knowing that on anything other than normal mode, Reeking Boxes are expensive, and they tend to have powerful weapons even in the early locations?? Neither of those sound like good ideas to me. Also, his skill selection is nothing to write home about - HP +5 is the only skill of note he can pass down (Underdog requires him being lower level than his opponent [and 5 more levels in Villager], Zeal is only 5 crit, which is useless, Rally Strength can be helpful, but it's not something I'd want to pass down, and Counter is useless, not to mention a level 15 skill).

[NinjaMonkey]

10 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Or try to grind with Risen knowing that on anything other than normal mode, Reeking Boxes are expensive, and they tend to have powerful weapons even in the early locations?

Exponential Growth has Risen you can grind on.

Also, how is anything that goes on in Radiant Dawn relevant to Awakening?

Edited September 24, 2019 by NinjaMonkey

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

 Exponential Growth has Risen you can grind on.

And it's DLC, which not every player is going to have. Besides, if Donnel can take advantage of it, so can anyone else.