Which is more balanced: a player phase or enemy phase focused Fire Emblem?

[Boomhauer007]

I feel like this is a simple question with not a simple answer. Idk that "both" or "a mix" really counts; to me every game devolves into one or the other eventually. Of the ones I've played, here's how they broke down for me:

PP focus: Genealogy, Shadow Dragon, Echoes, 3 houses

EP focus: Binding Blade, Blazing Sword, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, Fates

Listing it out is almost weirder. Genealogy and SS are probably the two easiest but in separate categories. Shadow Dragon and Fates (conquest) are probably the hardest but also separate. Of course, difficulty doesn't mean balance, but I thought it was interesting to note. 

I personally find PP games to be better in balance regard, as EP games tend to be "throw your best unit out there and watch them solo half a map". Yet as I say that, genealogy is probably the second least balanced game (nothing tops awakening), and 3 of the 4 PP games are largely assisted by their super strong warp staves. 

 I'm not sure where I'm going anymore but this is why I posted, someone will have an answer better than my rambling thoughts. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

You can argue the games typically have design catering to both phases at once. For instance, Pre-Echoes archers were always very player phase oriented units. They would take out one guy, then be helpless in enemy phase. And not only do they suffer attacks at melee range, their less frequent earning of experience makes them lag behind other classes and become weaker as the game goes on. Very poor design, I'm glad modern archers are what they are.

Meanwhile, Three Houses may be the king of player phase decision making, and some skills that ought to work on enemy phase don't despite what their descriptions say, but Quick Riposte is by far the strongest equippable skill in the game and happens to be enemy phase only. Making use of Retribution and Blessing buffs from gambits, and guard adjutants are also mechanics the player plans around mostly for enemy phase. They're all extremely powerful boons, certainly on the same level as Canto.

While I do like to think about which games are more focused on either phase, I don't think there's a clear link to game balance. And some players will no doubt prefer one style over the other. I think I'd prefer a player phase focused FE game in theory, but Shadow Dragon is a game I detest, and GBA era is why I'm here in the first place.. More pertinent links between balanced and unbalanced games would be 

• how is reclassing handled? If reclassing exists, then you must consider how to balance those classes and the skills they provide
• Is grinding allowed, and is the player inhibited from doing too much of it?
• Is there Canto? How dominant is it?
  • If there isn't Canto, do high movement classes still dominate regardless?
• What is the variety of objectives? Is it all route maps? Are there ever turn limits, or is the player encouraged to play quickly for chests or side objectives?

[Ertrick36]

Well, I think Fates and Blazing Sword are the best balanced games, and they're more focused on how well you deal with the enemy phase.  So I would think, generally speaking, enemy phase-oriented games are better balanced.

Of course, that doesn't mean every game that focuses on enemy phase is well-balanced.  For example, Awakening on Lunatic/Lunatic+ basically boils down to "let Frederick tank everything until your units are OP enough to slaughter enemies with relative ease".  But I think there's generally more thought put into a game that makes you think about what to do to prepare for the times you won't be in control of your characters, and of those games that are poorly balanced I think it's more just incidental that they're enemy phase focused.

The way I think about it is: which deliberate design choice is better?  Which deliberate attempt to make a fun, challenging experience is better?  Because the only real attempts to make a fun, challenging player phase experience are Shadow Dragon and Three Houses, and their philosophies basically boil down to a combination of "let's make the enemy stats bigger" and "let's make enemy reinforcements more bullshit".  Meanwhile, the attempts with Blazing Sword and Fates were a lot more intricate than whatever hamfisted difficulty system Shadow Dragon could muster.  Not to say they're perfectly balanced, nor is it to say they're entirely enemy phase or enemy phase is why they're better - but there's a recurring trend.

[Shrimpica]

6 hours ago, Boomhauer007 said:

PP focus: Genealogy

What?

FE4 is the most EP focused game in the series, due it's super weak Enemy spam. The only thing player phase focused about it is moving your units in the Empte space to reach the enemy. I just put a unit somewhere and watch it kills quadzillion units in EP.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Shrimperor

[Reality]

I think that crazy enemy stats in Shadow Dragon and New Mystery is the most interesting implementation of a player phase oriented SRPG in the FE franchise. Unless we count FEH on it's chain challenge and Infernal difficulty battles

Echoes and Three Houses are "player phase" oriented mostly more due to Arts/gambits being unavailable on enemy phase than because of good design. 

My take on Awakening;s Lunatic difficulty is that it's more like Heroes of Might and Magic, on single scenario mode against the 180% AI …. Frederick is the Barbarian/Archer unit sayou use to crawl out of earlygame, Robin/Lucina/Morgan are your Black Dragons / Titans -and despite all their power, you STILL need to let them get up to 2-3 to cope, extending Barbarian use before the game enters "single stack" territory.  It's not really a creative or tactical/positioning bassed challenge, but it does scratch some kind of itch, as despite needing to railroad your choices to get out of an earlygame, it's still a fun experience to budget for effiencny and stretch resources to the limit while under that earlygame pressure. 

I think the better perspective on PP vs EP is looking at non FE SRPGs and Turn Based Strategy games - I think by far the most interesting implementation is something like Front Mission, where you can link units to counterattack and still need to save partial AP for the enemy phase -Then there is the more nuanced system of something like D&D type  Attacks of opportunity which have built in counterplay in the forms of 5 foot steps(as shown in Temple of Elemental Evil or Knights of the Chalice) And then there is XCOM type  "overwatch" which even though I'm not a fan of, is still a lot better than FE counterattacking, because Overwatching …. assumes a frailer team is interrupting the enemy's action as opposed to letting the enemy do their full murderous action and then counter attacking - the takeaway is that in most FE games... you could make a "no counterattack" romhack because the current system assumes the enemies are non lethal to begin with.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Reality

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Quote

FE4 is the most EP focused game in the series

There are some weaklings who can be easily tanked in EP (like all axe using enemies with a sword unit), but there are also enemies like Eldigan's squad or the pegasus siblings who better should be eliminated in one turn. In general the EP is to bait out one enemy of a large group, then to finish it off in next PP. 

[Flere210]

The spam of hordes of weak enemies is the source of 90% of Fe problems in term of character balance and map design,  and it' s an EP issue, so i prefer games to be PP focussed, or EP focussed in a different way.

[Alastor15243]

3 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

Well, I think Fates and Blazing Sword are the best balanced games, and they're more focused on how well you deal with the enemy phase.  So I would think, generally speaking, enemy phase-oriented games are better balanced.

Honestly I'd argue Fates strikes a good balance. Enemy phasing is important, but Fates makes a lot of effort to throw problems at you that are better handled on player phase. Ninjas, for example, require some heavy player-phase tactics to deal with without your army's strength taking a hit. The generally low player HP also goes a long way in trying to minimize the dominance of enemy phase tanking as a way to solve all of your problems. As does the difficulty in getting tanky 1-2 range from anyone whose name isn't Corrin, Leo or Xander.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

What?

FE4 is the most EP focused game in the series, due it's super weak Enemy spam. The only thing player phase focused about it is moving your units in the Empte space to reach the enemy. I just put a unit somewhere and watch it kills quadzillion units in EP.

I'd say this depends, if your units are too weak to sweep the enemy phase, then it's player phase. Me on my first run of FE4 felt the 1st Gen was mostly player phase, with some eroding of the edges of the enemy hordes first, before I could like an amoeba devour them whole or at least leave them unable to kill anyone after one big player phase.

Gen 2? Yeah, this became much more enemy phase oriented, because the game makes it easier to hit the power point needed to be invincible and sweep the enemy forces.

 

 

Ideally, both player and enemy phase should matter. But outside of the ideals?

Well making a more player-phase game means some combination of:

• More PP-exclusive stuff- Combat Arts, Death Blow.
• Lower enemy density.
• Higher enemy stats (relative to the player).
• The inability to counter and deal "sufficient" damage to all/most enemies on the enemy phase (SoV Bows, Fates Javelins and Hand Axes).

A more enemy-phase game means some combination of:

• Little or no PP-exclusive stuff.
• Higher enemy density.
• Lower enemy stats (relative to the player).
• The ability to counter and deal sufficient damage to all/most enemies on the enemy phase.

 

I'd say that as with FE4, a game being player or enemy phase sometimes boils down to player skill.

Turtling, the newbie surefire technique for victory in many cases is inherently PP-oriented. But, for an FE genius fully understanding everything, what might be so hard a newbie has to PP it, the genius, due to precise calculations and distribution of resources for Unit W to hit X Spd, Y Durability, and Z Offense without it being detrimental later on, can EP that same challenge no sweat.

 

And, in theory, even some PP games, like SoV can be made into EP games, via one stacked Bow Knight. Flawless EPing can be proof you've broken a game. A game only becomes PP-oriented if EP-orientation is intentionally stopped. -Or so I think.

But then again, New Mystery on Maniac/Lunatic sounds waaaay too evil for me, so maybe I prefer EP? Not too sure.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Eltosian Kadath]

Player Phase and Enemy Phase focus are closely tied to game difficulty. Enemy Phasing is almost always the fastest way of dealing with things, but when it is too difficult to Enemy Phase you have to focus on Player Phase tactics. You can focus on Player Phase tactics in what is considered an Enemy Phase focused games, but it takes more turns, and decisions to accomplish the same task, which keeps it from being the focus for most peoples. In the other extreme with sufficiently tedious RNG manipulations, intricate AI manipulations, the breaking of skill systems, and/or over leveling, you can make Enemy Phase tactics your focus in what most players consider a Player Phased focused game due to the tedium or blatantly exploits required to get there. Whether a game is easy enough to be Enemy Phase focused or difficult enough to be Player Phase focused doesn't play a major part in whether I consider a Fire Emblem game balanced, how it reached that status has a lot more to do with how balanced it is. Personally I am a fan of Player Phase tactics, with Enemy Phase tactic, if you have someone with high enough numbers its trivial, have no one with high enough numbers and you are just digging for RNs, meanwhile with Player Phase tactics a single high stat character can't carry a map alone, and even lower stat troops can still find ways to contribute.

[eclipse]

PP makes more interesting tier lists, IMO.  EP means "find the best 1-2 range weapon and have your strongest unit sit somewhere and mow down everything".

[Boomhauer007]

I was half asleep last night and almost forgot I posted this lol. I know looking at only phased based stuff is a limited viewpoint, it's just what I was thinking about.

Anyway, I actually find Conquest fascinating from a design standpoint (I could write an essay on it), specifically here because I think OP EP was something it gave such an interesting shake at figuring out through skills. Certain blow eliminates dodge tanking (in case the weird formula it used didn't enough), lunge prevents you from aggroing single parts of a group, poison strike and grisly wound guarantee damage, the bunches of shurikens are constantly dropping stats, and of course inevitable end and staff savant exist. Not to say it's perfect, but that game did so many interesting things, really wish more entries took attempts like that. 

Btw, I played genealogy as aggro group by standing on the edge of range, wipe on player phase. Got halfway through Tharcia and then heard I was on a rough old translation patch (those menus oh god) and am now basically holding out for a 4/5 remake, I played that as heavy PP since I was constantly capturing enemies.

[Alastor15243]

53 minutes ago, Boomhauer007 said:

Btw, I played genealogy as aggro group by standing on the edge of range, wipe on player phase. Got halfway through Tharcia and then heard I was on a rough old translation patch (those menus oh god) and am now basically holding out for a 4/5 remake, I played that as heavy PP since I was constantly capturing enemies.

There's a new translation out actually! It's pretty good!

[Shrimpica]

6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

if your units are too weak to sweep the enemy phase, then it's player phase. Me on my first run of FE4 felt the 1st Gen was mostly player phase

In 1st gen you have the likes of Sigurd (who can solo any map in Gen 1 except Mage Bosses until he get's his holy weapon) and Lewyn. You can't really Player Phase when the enemies outnumber you 10 to 1 and move in swarms across the maps.

The only thing you need to PP are the bosses, and it's usually ''bait their group and kill'' which isn't really PP. Everything else will get EP'd. Mob enemies have too low of a hit rate or deal no damage. 

7 hours ago, Flere210 said:

The spam of hordes of weak enemies is the source of 90% of Fe problems in term of character balance and map design,  and it' s an EP issue, so i prefer games to be PP focussed, or EP focussed in a different way.

This i agree with. Weak Enemy spam meaks for a pretty boring FE. It's my problem with the older games, and even my current fav (The Tellius games) have maps that are just weak enemy horde spam, which are the most annoying maps in the game.

Generally high Atk and low def (for both enemies and allies) will focus the game more towards PP, as will do things like combat arts and Blow Skills. The New Evasion formula (AS (+1/2 LCK depending on game) instead of 2*AS + LCK like in the old games) makes evasion tanking also much harder (even if it still can be done). 

I am playing FE16 Hard/Classic (no grinding/no aux battles) atm, and my units except 2 or so getting 2 shot by everything the enemy has makes me play much much more PP focused, and i am having much more fun than alot of other FE thanks to that. I don't want to give the enemy the chance to attack because this 50 Attack unit will kill any injured unit i might have if they hit, and the 72 ATK boss will one shot even my tankiest 25 Prt unit.

4 hours ago, Boomhauer007 said:

Anyway, I actually find Conquest fascinating from a design standpoint (I could write an essay on it), specifically here because I think OP EP was something it gave such an interesting shake at figuring out through skills. Certain blow eliminates dodge tanking (in case the weird formula it used didn't enough), lunge prevents you from aggroing single parts of a group, poison strike and grisly wound guarantee damage, the bunches of shurikens are constantly dropping stats, and of course inevitable end and staff savant exist. Not to say it's perfect, but that game did so many interesting things, really wish more entries took attempts like that. 

Yup Yup. Conquest gameplay is king. Especially on higher difficulties i found myself PP'ing much more because everytime i tried to EP i get rekt by said skills. Trying to take out as many enemies as possible and not getting hit by more then 2 enemies or sneaky lunge skills usually took a while to figure out.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Shrimperor

[Fabulously Olivier]

I find that phasing is more a matter of map design than anything, and I would much prefer to have more Defense oriented maps, personally. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

There's likely an argument for reversing Shadow Dragon's and Fates's placements, and it comes in the form of the Javelin. Strong 1-2 range weapons are key for good EP performance, and Javelins (and Hand Axes) are quite strong in Shadow Dragon, but at their weakest in Fates. The only decent 1-2 range options in Fates are magical weapons, tomes/spirits, and shurikens. Magic is pretty balanced in Fates, whereas Shurikens are absurdly good, but access to them is limited. Plus, the amount of enemies with Shurikens you face (especially on Conquest), combined with the debuffs and skills they can have (Poison Strike, Lunge, Inevitable End) really lead you to favor offing them on Player Phase.

Anyway, I think gameplay tends to be more interesting and challenging on PP-heavy games. Just setting up a unit in a forest to juggernaut everyone gets... boring. I suppose any game can be cheesed with enough effort and creativity, but I'd prefer a tougher, more diversified enemy base, that presents a real threat on EP.