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How could maddening have been made difficult without relying on EXP nerfing and enemy stat buffing?


Mjolnir
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Would even be possible to make a game like this more difficult by NOT relying on EXP nerfing and enemy stat buffing?

I know that in maddening mode as it exists currently there are a few other things that have been done to make it harder such as:

  • In some circumstances, extra enemies / reinforcements were added
  • Some (all?) reinforcements can attack on the same turn
  • Enemies also have more varied skills (venin arrow, pass, etc.)

Those things are all good. The enemy stat buffs are fine. However, to me, the exp nerf is just not that much fun and felt a bit cheap. Like if you were to take that off, then the game would be very similar overall to how it played on hard.

But then I started wondering: how would it be done otherwise? It's been so long since I've played other FE games that aren't 776 I honestly don't recall how their harder difficulties were achieved. Has it always been like this? Or were there other methods employed to ramp up the difficulty without relying on exp nerfing? Or is there a way to design a game to be very difficult without reducing exp gains to a trickle?

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Exp nerf is required if you increase the enemy numbers, otherwise you will overlevel the content. 

This is why imo enemy numbers is another thing that should not really increase. Just giving them perfect skills, make them use arts and a better IA would make them a nigtmare. Have fun fighting bow knight that deadeye whit 200+ accuracy, darting blow a death blow, and then Canto away behind the quick riposte fortress knights.

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46 minutes ago, Etheus said:

The exp nerf/enemy buff isn't the biggest offender.

 

The ambush spawns (enemy reinforcements attacking on same turn) never should have been a thing.

I agree, this is the worst thing about Maddening (which I otherwise quite like).

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By making the battle of gronder field a fog of war map like it should've been~ 

The story even says that it's really foggy and that's part of the reason it's chaotic in 2 of the routes. WHY is this not a thing

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Less about maddening mode, but promoting the use of non mounted units without taking the fun away. I like that canto is a thing again, but I wish enemies had a lot more effective weaponry to make you have to be careful where you place your op mounts but then again, dismounting is an option so I'm at a loss.

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Nerf the exploitative nature of a lot of exploring facilities. 

The amount of money and professor EXP you can generate from fishing is absurd when you do it on fistful of fish.

The kitchen shouldn't let you stack stat buffs every week.

The garden and rigging specific stat boosters at a high chance should be looked at. 

Mass forging any weapon with smithing stones or black sand steel is trivial and cheap.

There are merchants that let you buy crap a ton of bait, seeds, and smithing stones once you do that quest. 

What makes maddening mode a lot more bearable late game is these facilities will rectify any stat deficiency your units have or buff the ones who's stats are already good.

I like the idea of nerfed skill EXP from goals. Do more things like that instead of stat buffing enemies heavily. Maddening mode should do more things like this instead of more stat buffs on enemies. 

I think a good nerf is reduce the amount of gold you get weekly in part 1 and/or possible increase the prices of items bought from the eastern/western merchants. 

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I'd say a hard cap of 4 recruits in part 1, could make the game harder, nerfing certain facilities ( Dine once per day, make fishing require points/ increase bait prices) don't restore gear after timeskip, one forge per week, buff enemy skills equipment (don't like all thieves having pass though, that's just a dick move Miklan chapter) 

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Hard Mode turned boring maps into boring and slow ones.

It takes deeper changes to make it engaging, and I do not think that such game play modifications can be implemented now. I guess that map design was simply not a priority during development.

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14 minutes ago, starburst said:

Hard Mode turned boring maps into boring and slow ones.

It takes deeper changes to make it engaging, and I do not think that such game play modifications can be implemented now. I guess that map design was simply not a priority during development.

There is some good map design in Three Houses. It's not Conquest but I didn't come in expecting CQ after Echoes. I was just pleased to have skills back haha.

Outside of combat arts and gambits, most of the map design in 3H takes its cues from earlier games like the SNES and GBA titles rather than opting for something totally different in that department like CQ did.

Anyway, you can play Maddening pretty quickly if you make good use of what's given to you.

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The issue I have with enemy combat arts is there's no easy way to quickly see which enemies have them (unlike skills in both this game and Fates), so scrolling through to see which enemies have 'em is a pain. Not to say they couldn't have improved the interface so this wouldn't be an issue.

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Give enemy heroes Keen intuition and defiant skills, make them something scary if you don't kill them in one round

Give Archer's Close Counter and Vantage+, so you can't just kill them with your flyer.

Make dismounting a move action, so you can move or mount/dismount but not both.

Give Knight line the Vengeance combat art, occasionally give them Quick riposte so you have to properly counterplay them.

Every enemy gets their weapon equivalent of the breaker skill, they did this fairly well.

Place a few "unique" units in throughout, like a war master/grappler with a high magic stat and aura gauntlets instead of a standard one.

Enemy Flyers get pass, all of them, same with enemy assassins/thieves.

Throw in some more siege mages in the mid to late game.

Give some enemy swordmasters windsweep sometimes.

Sprinkle some effective weaponry around, give the melee fighters more magic weapons

Increase the number of mages in general.

Give enemy warriors/grapplers heartseeker

Poisonstrike archers was pretty good since they're not much a threat otherwise

Give speedy enemies desperation+

start sprinkling debuffs like the seal skills among the enemies, so if you send out a guy solo they'll strip them of their stats then kill them.

Encloser for enemy snipers, hunter's volley too, occasionally.

Give the Death Knight Lamine's relic until Mercedes' paralogue is complete.

Give more enemies Hilda's immovable NPC ability.

Give enemies forged weapons.

Give naturally high luck enemies Miracle occasionally.

Sometimes give enemy generals (generic) minor crests according to the region/faction they are from. Very rarely give them a major.

Give enemies their class mastery skills.

 

Some ideas, the ratio of the above can change depending on the level of predictability you'd prefer in your fire emblem game.

Edited by CyberNinja
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Just now, Dark Holy Elf said:

The issue I have with enemy combat arts is there's no easy way to quickly see which enemies have them (unlike skills in both this game and Fates), so scrolling through to see which enemies have 'em is a pain. Not to say they couldn't have improved the interface so this wouldn't be an issue.

This is true. For Battalions you couldn't identify the exact gambits, but since they're rather samey, the green triforce was all you needed, as you only needed to know an enemy had a gambit at all.

Would an additional icon just to point out a Combat Art's presence be enough? You could fathom an idea of what an enemy would have via their weapon, if requiring a look at the particular unit to narrow it down.

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1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

This is true. For Battalions you couldn't identify the exact gambits, but since they're rather samey, the green triforce was all you needed, as you only needed to know an enemy had a gambit at all.

Would an additional icon just to point out a Combat Art's presence be enough? You could fathom an idea of what an enemy would have via their weapon, if requiring a look at the particular unit to narrow it down.

Yep, I think that'd be fine! I'm just expressing some concern with the way the game currently is.

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3 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

This is true. For Battalions you couldn't identify the exact gambits, but since they're rather samey, the green triforce was all you needed, as you only needed to know an enemy had a gambit at all.

Would an additional icon just to point out a Combat Art's presence be enough? You could fathom an idea of what an enemy would have via their weapon, if requiring a look at the particular unit to narrow it down.

Best way is to create a sort of expectation for the player, if they know that spear wielding infantry tend to have cav-effective combat arts; players will learn to kill those units quickly or keep their cavalry out of range.

 

Actually it would be rather interesting if the gambit/ability/arts set up of generic enemies followed a theme if they were Kingdom, Alliance, Empire, or Church.

Edited by CyberNinja
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Just now, CyberNinja said:

Best way is to create a sort of expectation for the player, if they know that spear wielding infantry tend to have cav-effective combat arts; players will learn to kill those units quickly or keep their cavalry out of range.

Considering there is already an icon for "enemy with effective weapon", one of my bigger concerns- Grounder, Knightkneeler, and Helm Splitter- wouldn't be an issue. If the effective exclamation point applied to enemies with effective Combat Arts, then I think just a vague "has Combat Arts" icon would work.

If you don't see exclamation with the CA icon then, you know for Sword/Lance/Axe, that the enemy can't be running those CAs. And assuming only one CA per enemy (should any of them have more?), then exclamation + CA icon means you aren't fighting a Smash Axer or Tempest Lancer.

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7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Considering there is already an icon for "enemy with effective weapon", one of my bigger concerns- Grounder, Knightkneeler, and Helm Splitter- wouldn't be an issue. If the effective exclamation point applied to enemies with effective Combat Arts, then I think just a vague "has Combat Arts" icon would work.

If you don't see exclamation with the CA icon then, you know for Sword/Lance/Axe, that the enemy can't be running those CAs. And assuming only one CA per enemy (should any of them have more?), then exclamation + CA icon means you aren't fighting a Smash Axer or Tempest Lancer.

Regardless, I think in future games they should focus less on "cookie cutter" generically leveled enemies and start forming archetypes that inform the player to adapt their playstyle for certain maps or favor certain strategies over another.

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