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Maddening mode is out


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So having fiddled around a bit, I can say that NG Maddening is quite dumb, it just doesn't give much fun, most of the time you're not really thinking harder than on hard, you're just taking it a lot slower and grinding through a lot more resources for every enemy, that's it. There are some things done right (like the poison), but fighting against inflated stuff is not exactly an interesting challenge.

NG+ Maddening (maxed out, so max statues and 50'000 renown) is actually quite a fun gamemode, it's still a bit excessive, but since playing NG+ Hard is a joke I'll take this.

But yeah, all in all it's not a well made difficulty, it's just higher numbers. And if they're doing it like that there should be at least a step between Hard and Maddening, because the jump is actually stupid.

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14 hours ago, pekingduck said:

So, I started Maddening for as well, and having reset a ton of times to get to Chapter 4, which is causing me to get burned out again on FE:3H, honestly just don't find it very fun.
[...] Maddening just feels like a lazy difficulty boost. Enemies are still generally moving the same, no change in programming that I've been able to detect.


[...] Conquest normal was even still a fun challenge because regardless of stats, one had to really think about how to deal with enemy skills and coordination. There was pretty different enemy programming from map to map depending on what made sense.

 

12 hours ago, zuibangde said:

The difficulty right now solely relies on giving enemy inflated speed to the point that 8 out of 9 BE gets doubled by any enemy that doesn’t carry an axe (even with training weapons equipped). Yes it’s tough but it’s also brainless. There is little creativity when it comes to how to defeat the enemies because when I soft reset, I’m forced to do the same actions as before because it is literally the only way to not lose a unit. It’s also a chore to get through one map due to intense turtling and lacks things that made Conquest fun.

 

47 minutes ago, timon said:

So having fiddled around a bit, I can say that NG Maddening is quite dumb, it just doesn't give much fun, most of the time you're not really thinking harder than on hard, you're just taking it a lot slower and grinding through a lot more resources for every enemy, that's it. There are some things done right (like the poison), but fighting against inflated stuff is not exactly an interesting challenge.

 

Oh, crap!, the fears seem to become reality. Maddening is more stat-inflation than it is smarter corrections.
I need to make some core changes on my Switch before I install a newer firmware, thus I am following the threads about the new difficulty. So far, it does not sound promising. Sigh.

Edited by starburst
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Damn chapter 18 Blue Lions is tough.

Funny thing was the swordmasters with 47 speed and quick riposte. They REALLY didn't want you to double them. Got my felix to like 56 speed and he still couldn't double them, then I noticed the QR.

Is this the game's way of saying "don't even bother"?

Edited by Nobody
link broke so i removed the gif
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A few things that may be helpful:
- DK does not move in chapter 4 unless a unit is in range. At least in BE and up to turn 10. You can just go up the side (imo LHS for the spirit dust)
- I recommend making either Byleth or the lord an archer for chapter 5, since killing the archers from below and/or aggroing Miklan early simplifies the chapter a lot. I got Byleth and Edelgard to lvl 11 without grinding (only aux are the initial practice and merchant quest) tho I didn’t train others that much. I did Byleth archer and still got C+ professor level by that chapter. 
- train Annette or Raph+Ignatz authority (poach them if in BE). It’s way more of a turtlefest without that +4 str/+4 spd. Mission assistance Annette is quite useful in the interim but she’s not available for c7
- Cooking stacks, +4 spd cooking and +4 spd rally is +8 spd for example. Pretty massive early. Armor Knight 12 base + 4 def cooking + 2 shield + 4 battalion also can allow easy tanking of maps like c5. Save all the early bait for the early fistiful event (month 6?) and all the buyable bait for the second (month 12?). I personally only buy 4 and 5 star bait each month because I’ve not about to grind that much. <_<
- Crossrecruit or mission assistance can make c7 easier by replacing characters with generics. Just in case you don’t want to face 34 atk, 29 as (darting) short spear Ingrid or someone else. They are also decent filler if post c6 recruit since they get the enemy growth buff from intermediate.

But yeah it’s a lot of turtling and kiting rn. There’s the possibility of some cheesy fast(ish) strats early though c7 is potentially a major problem. Though lategame should be pretty doable with enough purple/paleblue seed gardening. (especially rocky burdock + brave arts like swift strike/point blank/etc)

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The Battle of the Eagle and Lion was ridiculously tough! Many of my units could not damage the enemy and if they could, it was only just. I need to plan more teatimes for those valuable Charm points since that's the only thing that hurts certain enemies. Thought for sure Ingrid would solo my entire team...I had to sack Lorenz, Linhardt, and Marianne. Thank goodness Lysithea hit the final Luna on Claude.

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4 hours ago, timon said:

So having fiddled around a bit, I can say that NG Maddening is quite dumb, it just doesn't give much fun, most of the time you're not really thinking harder than on hard, you're just taking it a lot slower and grinding through a lot more resources for every enemy, that's it. There are some things done right (like the poison), but fighting against inflated stuff is not exactly an interesting challenge.

NG+ Maddening (maxed out, so max statues and 50'000 renown) is actually quite a fun gamemode, it's still a bit excessive, but since playing NG+ Hard is a joke I'll take this.

But yeah, all in all it's not a well made difficulty, it's just higher numbers. And if they're doing it like that there should be at least a step between Hard and Maddening, because the jump is actually stupid.

Oh, so even with the maxed experience boost from Statues it's still a decent challenge? Alright, that's something at least. 

If the Chapter 14 reinforcements for non-BEs can move on the same turn they appear, that's definitely going to require some clever thinking at the very least. 

Honestly, bosses having unlocked movement from the get-go is a nice change. 

Though, I'm curious as to what Conquest did that made its Lunatic mode so well-received. I guess they just focused on giving enemies access to some of the players' toys? 

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1 minute ago, Naoko_Akamori said:

Oh, so even with the maxed experience boost from Statues it's still a decent challenge? Alright, that's something at least. 

If the Chapter 14 reinforcements for non-BEs can move on the same turn they appear, that's definitely going to require some clever thinking at the very least. 

Honestly, bosses having unlocked movement from the get-go is a nice change. 

Though, I'm curious as to what Conquest did that made its Lunatic mode so well-received. I guess they just focused on giving enemies access to some of the players' toys? 

Conquest's enemies do not become (much) stronger as difficuly levels rise.
Stat-wise, they're balanced in a way that just about all of your units feel viable unlike 3H where most feel barely usable (if at all).

Instead, Conquest's enemies rely on tighter formations, greater numbers, and...creativity.
You know how in 3H every thief, every archer, every fighter you fight feels like the one you fought before just with more stats? How you feel like you're just sticking to a routine?
In Conquest, enemies and their skills are more curated, designed with the maps and their mechanics in mind.
If you thought you had everything including the kitchen sink thrown at you by Ch. 10 (to be fair, that might've been half the Hoshidan army), you'll find out that was really just the front door.
There are very few straightforward fights past that point; almost every chapter will force you to adapt to new mechanics, skills, and formations designed to kill you in ways you didn't die to before.
And in turn, you'll have to fight in ways you didn't before.

There are ways to break Conquest, but if you don't find the ways (or choose to ignore them), you'll be in for a crazy ride.

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2 minutes ago, Technoweirdo said:

Conquest's enemies do not become (much) stronger as difficuly levels rise.
Stat-wise, they're balanced in a way that just about all of your units feel viable unlike 3H where most feel barely usable (if at all).

Instead, Conquest's enemies rely on tighter formations, greater numbers, and...creativity.
You know how in 3H every thief, every archer, every fighter you fight feels like the one you fought before just with more stats? How you feel like you're just sticking to a routine?
In Conquest, enemies and their skills are more curated, designed with the maps and their mechanics in mind.
If you thought you had everything including the kitchen sink thrown at you by Ch. 10 (to be fair, that might've been half the Hoshidan army), you'll find out that was really just the front door.
There are very few straightforward fights past that point; almost every chapter will force you to adapt to new mechanics, skills, and formations designed to kill you in ways you didn't die to before.
And in turn, you'll have to fight in ways you didn't before.

There are ways to break Conquest, but if you don't find the ways (or choose to ignore them), you'll be in for a crazy ride.

Oh wow, that actually sounds like a lot of fun. 

 

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1 hour ago, Naoko_Akamori said:

Though, I'm curious as to what Conquest did that made its Lunatic mode so well-received. I guess they just focused on giving enemies access to some of the players' toys? 

For the most part, enemies in Lunatic Conquest aren't any stronger than in Hard. They do have more skills to be wary of, though. Anyway, for its part, Conquest Lunatic doesn't really get unfair until near the end, where you have to deal with stacking debuffs (normally, debuffs could not stack; ergo, normally a steel shuriken cuts your defenses by 4 and your strength by 3 on a hit. The Inevitable End skill allows stat reductions to be stacked, ergo, get hit by a steel shuriken and run into a Seal Defense enemy, and you're out 10 defense, as opposed to only 6), status staves being infinite use (admittedly, you have to deal with this even outside of Lunatic thanks to Iago, which fits his nature as he's a dirty coward, but in Lunatic the other staff users get it as well), and... let's just say endgame is really bad, to say the least.

21 minutes ago, Technoweirdo said:

Stat-wise, they're balanced in a way that just about all of your units feel viable unlike 3H where most feel barely usable (if at all).

But on the other hand, some of the units in Conquest are really terrible compared to everyone else - good luck trying to make Arthur, Nyx or Charlotte viable, because you WILL need it.

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1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

But on the other hand, some of the units in Conquest are really terrible compared to everyone else - good luck trying to make Arthur, Nyx or Charlotte viable, because you WILL need it.

Terrible compared to everyone else -- and still more viable than what you get in 3H because they don't have to deal with bulky 99 Spd enemies.

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6 minutes ago, Technoweirdo said:

Terrible compared to everyone else -- and still more viable than what you get in 3H because they don't have to deal with bulky 99 Spd enemies.

Okay then, tell me how you raise an insufferably inaccurate glass cannon in a game as unforgiving as Conquest, because that's what Nyx and Charlotte are (the latter even starts underleveled, as if she doesn't have it bad enough).

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6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Okay then, tell me how you raise an insufferably inaccurate glass cannon in a game as unforgiving as Conquest, because that's what Nyx and Charlotte are (the latter even starts underleveled, as if she doesn't have it bad enough).

With accurate weapons (See: The 'joke' weapons and Berserker Axe in particular), opting to not use Pair Up as Tag-Teams boost Hit...
Even if you were to ignore that, they do have the triangle to work with and don't have to deal with weapon proficiency giving enemies Avo.
They also don't have to deal with 99 Spd enemies.

Nyx is more durable and accurate in Lunatic Conquest than Lysithea in Maddening Three Houses.

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47 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Okay then, tell me how you raise an insufferably inaccurate glass cannon in a game as unforgiving as Conquest, because that's what Nyx and Charlotte are (the latter even starts underleveled, as if she doesn't have it bad enough).

Pretty easy with pair ups, tonics and the like. i've beaten conquest lunatic/classic well over 50 times by this point and used nyx and charlotte on plenty of runs, and no, it wasn't tough. They're obviously bad units but very much usable, and you don't want to use them on regular runs or so, but using them can be fun if you're an experienced player looking for some unusual fun stuff such as me. I've actually even done some crazy stuff like adventurer Nyx or Maid Charlotte.

THAT SAID, I'd say the same about three houses. I don't really see any unusable unit in here.

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Managed to somehow pass to timeskip on BE barely without sacrificing someone (rip Mercedes who was doing merc work for my house though) and I feel so burned out already.

While it's true that it may be artificial difficulty by relying only on inflating boss's stats, I've noticed that the AI behaves different.
 

Spoiler

Ex. Solon moves AWAY from you after the DK appears, though he may move back to attack your units if in range (you don't want this since his crit rate is high); Jeralt does absolutely nothing in this chapter. He doesn't move at all so you have to deal with the busted Armors guarding Solon.

The thieves from Sylvain's paralogue now try to escape after few turns have passed, probably the hardest paralogue pre-ts. Good thing they still won't attack and you can block the exit putting someone on the tile. The same happens with Manuela's paralogue (I missed the rapier due to this)

Seteth is out for blood and he will move after you, unprovoked. Barely dealt with him and the initial units? Here you go: an ambush of 8 pegasus knights with high AS, Silver lances, decent def and hp while Rhea's goons come towards you. HAVE FUN. Don't bother going after Flayn, the DK is useless on this mode.

I don't know what could possibly trigger this behavior but the reason Mercie "died" was because some armor knight used a combat art on her. Yes, just as you've read. Haven't seen this happen after though.

 

Edited by Maverickk
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51 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Okay then, tell me how you raise an insufferably inaccurate glass cannon in a game as unforgiving as Conquest, because that's what Nyx and Charlotte are (the latter even starts underleveled, as if she doesn't have it bad enough).

I mean, to be fair to Charlotte, the very next chapter after you recruit her, Chapter 14, is arguably one of the easiest chapters in Conquest.  It's pretty easy to get her a couple of levels there, and then you can even early promote her into Hero for extra bulk.  Or you can go Berserker and pair her with Xander (or Silas, or any Great Knight) and clean house.  Her defense may be low, but she's not likely to be doubled and she has enough HP to take at least 2 hits.  She's obviously not great, but she's not unusable.

 

 
 
 
 
38 minutes ago, Technoweirdo said:

Nyx is more durable and accurate in Lunatic Conquest than Lysithea in Maddening Three Houses.

I could be misremembering, but I thought Nyx got ORKO'ed even on her recruitment map.  I'd say she and Lysithea are equal on that front.

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2 hours ago, Naoko_Akamori said:

Though, I'm curious as to what Conquest did that made its Lunatic mode so well-received. I guess they just focused on giving enemies access to some of the players' toys?  

Technoweirdo already gave you a nice summary of Conquest. It is not about what Conquest did on Lunatic, but about how it was conceived from the very beginning.

The changes from Hard and Lunatic are actually small. The enemy statistics are the same (and if there were differences, I never noticed them in over a dozen campaigns) and you are not suddenly flood by waves of enemies. The main difference is the enemy skill set. And, trust me, you will die if you do not check enemy skills first. Some enemies will have an extra weapon, while others will be placed in different locations to make you come up with new approaches. And I only remember one map change (the location of a "door" that causes negative status effects when you cross it.) Lunatic is difficult but it is also fair and respects every principle that you learned to use on Hard (until you reach Endgame, which is just cheap. Ha!)

The core gameplay remains the same in Hard and Lunatic precisely because the game has a better design. The maps are already entertaining, the difficulty modes only make it more challenging.

 

2 minutes ago, Technoweirdo said:

Nyx is more durable and accurate in Lunatic Conquest than Lysithea in Maddening Three Houses.

You are wasting your time, mate. No matter what you say, he will just deny it and say another negative thing.

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12 minutes ago, starburst said:

Technoweirdo already gave you a nice summary of Conquest. It is not about what Conquest did on Lunatic, but about how it was conceived from the very beginning.

The changes from Hard and Lunatic are actually small. The enemy statistics are the same (and if there were differences, I never noticed them in over a dozen campaigns) and you are not suddenly flood by waves of enemies. The main difference is the enemy skill set. And, trust me, you will die if you do not check enemy skills first. Some enemies will have an extra weapon, while others will be placed in different locations to make you come up with new approaches. And I only remember one map change (the location of a "door" that causes negative status effects when you cross it.) Lunatic is difficult but it is also fair and respects every principle that you learned to use on Hard (until you reach Endgame, which is just cheap. Ha!)

The core gameplay remains the same in Hard and Lunatic precisely because the game has a better design. The maps are already entertaining, the difficulty modes only make it more challenging.

 

You are wasting your time, mate. No matter what you say, he will just deny it and say another negative thing.

First off, I love that the setup here clears pre-quoted text whenever I quote someone. Nice to not have to edit it myself. 

Second, yeah. I'm not sure if Blue Lions has any significantly different maps, but the fact that all of the maps so far have been rout-fests has really kind of gotten old. 

Story-wise, it's been great though. 

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36 minutes ago, starburst said:

And I only remember one map change (the location of a "door" that causes negative status effects when you cross it.)

When is this one? Because as far as I know, the one map change I remember in Lunatic is a moved Dragon Vein in one chapter. Unless that's what you're referring to.

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Been playing a maddening classic run (BE) off and on, but it is getting frustrating to the point that it isn't very fun; hyper turtling every map since letting more than two units be in attack distance of your army during enemy phase is asking for somebody to die is getting old.  Ch5 isn't helping matters since at this point I am having to let Gilbert die since if I save him, he inevitably wanders into the archers in the boss' room attack ranges and ends up causing them to not only start heading down, but aggro everything on else on the way causing a swarm of 20+ units to engage me.  Byleth and sometimes Petra are the only units who sometimes can avoid being doubled with iron weapons; Edelgard / Sylv / Ferd can MAYBE avoid a double with a training weapon, but the latter two end up doing barely any damage with it equipped.  Maybe it will get better with a mid game lull that happened in Fates and iirc Awakening, but so far I'm having much less fun than I did when I played Birthright / Revelation Lunatic.

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8 minutes ago, Dargon said:

Been playing a maddening classic run (BE) off and on, but it is getting frustrating to the point that it isn't very fun; hyper turtling every map since letting more than two units be in attack distance of your army during enemy phase is asking for somebody to die is getting old.  Ch5 isn't helping matters since at this point I am having to let Gilbert die since if I save him, he inevitably wanders into the archers in the boss' room attack ranges and ends up causing them to not only start heading down, but aggro everything on else on the way causing a swarm of 20+ units to engage me.  Byleth and sometimes Petra are the only units who sometimes can avoid being doubled with iron weapons; Edelgard / Sylv / Ferd can MAYBE avoid a double with a training weapon, but the latter two end up doing barely any damage with it equipped.  Maybe it will get better with a mid game lull that happened in Fates and iirc Awakening, but so far I'm having much less fun than I did when I played Birthright / Revelation Lunatic.

Well, at least you can let Gilbert die on Chapter 5 and not lose anything, as far as I know. Which is good, because he'll happily wander into the final boss's murder radius after the cutscene. 

Though... honestly, I'm getting a lot of practice in turtling with my Silver Snow Speed Screwed Squad. Sylvain getting doubled by Pegasus Knights who can do 44 damage per round is no bueno. I can only imagine what that's like on Maddening. 

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25 minutes ago, Dargon said:

Been playing a maddening classic run (BE) off and on, but it is getting frustrating to the point that it isn't very fun; hyper turtling every map since letting more than two units be in attack distance of your army during enemy phase is asking for somebody to die is getting old.  Ch5 isn't helping matters since at this point I am having to let Gilbert die since if I save him, he inevitably wanders into the archers in the boss' room attack ranges and ends up causing them to not only start heading down, but aggro everything on else on the way causing a swarm of 20+ units to engage me.  Byleth and sometimes Petra are the only units who sometimes can avoid being doubled with iron weapons; Edelgard / Sylv / Ferd can MAYBE avoid a double with a training weapon, but the latter two end up doing barely any damage with it equipped.  Maybe it will get better with a mid game lull that happened in Fates and iirc Awakening, but so far I'm having much less fun than I did when I played Birthright / Revelation Lunatic.

The midgame is much more manageable, at least in BL. The big problem in the early game is the scarcity of experience along with very fast enemies. Once you can start clearing Paralogues and get a few Statue experience bonuses, you rapidly catch up in XP and gold. I also recommend growing Speed Carrots as early as possible in the early game to avoid being doubled by enemies. I'm now at Chapter 15, and most of the game has felt fair after the annoying early chapters. Also, it doesn't matter if Gilbert dies on Chapter 5, so I usually just ditch him. 

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For people that have reached the timeskip, what has been the most difficult paralogue?

I’m almost at the timeskip but I don’t think I’ll get any new paralogues and my vote goes for Shamir/Alois paralogue.

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The most difficult paralogue before the time skip is the first paralogue you do. Because as the game progresses on, your characters get must stronger at a faster rate than the enemy, even with the reduced EXP. I still think the Ashe/Catherine one is the hardest if you do not stick Rhea into a corner (I just want boots...). The Felix one is also frustrating if you do not have the right tools to negate the enemies attacks. I haven't done the post time skip ones yet so I can't comment on those.

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Felix's was one of the most difficult for me if you count saving all the villagers as a part of the requirement. Rodrigue having Aura equipped really makes the first turn difficult because you need to take out at least 2 of the sword units near him to avoid a one turn loss. On Hard, you only had to deal with protecting the villagers, but Rodrigue is basically one more on Maddening. The exit point also causes the villagers to move towards that big clump of enemies in the bottom right which makes the green units guarding them mostly useless. You need high Move units to head to the top left to kill the boss quickly because otherwise, the villager near there will die whenever he decides to run for the exit. The one in the bottom right seems to die quickly as well. The ones in the middle are the biggest problem though since they're so close to many of the enemies. If you don't have a few high Movement units, I'm not sure how you succeed here, even with Stride. 

The most annoying paralogue I've experienced so far though is Annette's right after the timeskip. The map mostly plays out as it did before, but you have to move quickly because some of  the enemy Swordmasters will head toward where Annette and Gilbert are. Once you free them and clear out most of the enemies, a metric ton of reinforcements spawn all over the bottom side of the map in 2 waves. There had to be at least 20 enemy units that just come out of nowhere. Here's the catch, though; they only attack Annette. So while you're clearing out all of these reinforcements, you have to play keepaway and just keep sending Annette wherever they aren't. It wasn't difficult at all, but it was extremely tedious, especially because half of them are Quick Riposte Swordmasters. I'm not looking forward to playing that Paralogue ever again. 

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Sounds like Maddening is just "more stats" now that more people have formed opinions on it...

I see that Rallies are more useful now, what about positioning based Skills like Sylvain and Seteth's Personals and Sacred Power? Are they more useful now as well?

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