DLC Chapter 4

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Not sure why people are hyping up Chapter 4 so much. I found it practically easy. Chapter 3 was a lot more stressful with the hex reducing all my stats. Didn't even use a time pulse for chapter 4, but had to use 3 for chapter 3. Are people just ignoring the time limit and attempting to rout the enemy or something?

That's my opinion of Chapter 4 of Ashen Wolves or the Abyss or whatever the DLC is called. I'm quite surprised that my experience ran contrary to what basically everyone seems to think of it. I don't think it's because I'm just better at the game than other people, so I'm a bit mystified. Maybe it's a case of vocal minority or something. How did you find this chapter?

[Emerson]

Not particularly difficult, but stressful, at least before you know what you're doing. However I greatly enjoyed breaking it.

Since, if you hold the gates open for more turns, you can just waltz on up to the next gate and no reinforcements spawn, even if you activate the second lever. It's pretty amusing to just have your entire force surrounding the bandits the moment they spawn in. I personally find the third part the most annoying, mostly because there's so little room, and the more people you bring in to try and deal with the enemy, the more enemies spawn. It's not that bad once you know it's gonna happen, and especially not so if you just... throw Retribution Byleth at them, like pretty much everything else in this DLC ngl, but it's really annoying and generally not super player friendly for the first time through considering very little happened after clearing the first gate, just a golem that didn't even't move for like 4-5 turns.

The main issue is really the congestion of enemies, especially in the first area. It's hard to shove past them and keep your squishies safe while also moving forward, especially with Archers in the mix. Again, uh, Retribution really makes it a non issue at the end of the day tbh, but still. Especially when gambits are, generally, not well utilized by the majority of players.
EDIT: Should specify that I do mean taking the shortcut route. They can quickly have you on both sides since some go around the bottom while others come from the top. Pushing forward while also defending on two fronts can be difficult. Not to mention you can't stay and choke the point too long since the golem will catch up, and once you're out of it's range, the gap is now 4 tiles wide. It's not too overly difficult at the end of the day, especially when you use your turns wisely, but it can be annoying if you aren't prepared, or aware they would move.
There's also the fact that if you don't hit the second switch before you close the first gate, its pretty annoying to get to, given it has reinforcements for 2 turns in a row, and they cover both defensive stats. Plus the bandits then spawn, which is much more annoying to take the shortcut with them around while also pushing into the room before the second gate.

Then again I also found Chapter 3 like... really easy. Like you literally just, attack a golem twice, then Balthus, then Byleth and it dies. Even when there's two around, the things can't actually kill in one shot unless it's a squishy, and if you manage your aggro of other enemies you're almost always safe since the only enemies with a movement trigger are the VEEEERY tops ones who move once you attack the main boss at the bottom. The main issue is the stupid key thing, which is just a really dumb concept to begin honestly. But like, you can just DP out if you picked the wrong one. Honestly there needed to be some actual sign of which one was the correct one, and that you COULD pick a wrong one in the first place. At first I thought you might need to do all 3, but then the line after picking one made it seem like it is how it actually is, although still kinda vaguely tbh.

Honestly I didn't find any part of the DLC actively super challenging, it was pretty solid the entire way through. But honestly it started better than it ended. Ch 6 is just kinda dumb (not bad just, eh. It's difficult until you remember Retribution exists, then it flips around to being kinda easy and you end up having like 10 turns left easily.) and Ch 7 is tedious as hell and genuinely not very fun to play to me. I appreciate they tried a new concept for a boss but frankly it had a bit too much health to make the gimmick tolerable, although even then it probably wouldn't be that fun since its literally just a loop for like a solid like, 20-30 turns at minimum if you know what you're doing from the start unless you end up getting good placement rng.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Emerson

[iavasechui]

XD I always forget retribution exists.

[Cysx]

Sorry I didn't answer your post, didn't want to... derail the thread, I guess? Though if it generates more discussion here, that's fine with me too.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Are people just ignoring the time limit and attempting to rout the enemy or something?

Yes, that is what I did, 2nd Golem aside(now that could be pretty challenging). But in general considering Conquest ch10 is also considered as amazing, I think putting players under genuine pressure(and by that I don't mean giving them 20 turns to complete a chapters that really shouldn't take more than half of that, that's just artificial) works much better with the FE formula than the devs, or maybe even playerbase, seem to think. While the turn limit in ch 4 is still fairly generous, the end of it does ramp things up a bunch and I'd assume that's what people liked, the progressive reinforcements especially were a pretty nice touch. Also the golems I guess.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Cysx

[Sid Starkiller]

It's not that it was difficult, it was just so tedious. And the turn limit kept me so damn stressed out the whole time. Not to mention coming hot on the heels of the equally tedious and frustrating Chapter 3.

[LoneStar]

It wasn't so bad for me until the last room with all those constant spawns. I was really stressed at first because I didn't fully understand that it was 10 turns to get past the first gate. For some reason I thought the game legitimately expected you to complete the map in 10 turns lol.

[MicManGuy]

Chapter 4 was fun. I used Hapi, Linhardt, and Constance to kill the first golem by turn 2. And the second golem I just ran away from. The bandit reinforcements spent the whole battle fighting the second golem's troops.

So, the whole battle I had plenty of time to do whatever I wanted. It felt super rewarding to defeat the scenario like that.

Chapter 3 was way harder with the debuffs. Luckily Linhardt can easily tank those golems so it was not too hard to lure them into range of my units - or hold them off - 1 turn at a time

[Sid Starkiller]

5 hours ago, LoneStar said:

I was really stressed at first because I didn't fully understand that it was 10 turns to get past the first gate. For some reason I thought the game legitimately expected you to complete the map in 10 turns lol.

So much this.

At least for the last room, I quickly realized that one spawn appeared for every unit who crossed the final gate, so I knew roughly when they would show up.

[Timlugia]

I found chapter 3 was harder, as enemy would wear down your combat effectiveness over time, let alone the Kaga style trap lever that got my Claude the first time...

[paladin21]

I hadn't used many of the gambits by the time I reached that part, so it was easy to kill most of the reinforcements safely at the same time, since they were all of them clustering together.

[Crysta]

I dumbly thought I could stay behind and kill everything for the xps on my first try lol

When I finally figured out that it was a bad idea and I should stop trying to make it work, it's only challenging when you get to the last room... and I still had my best gambits when I finally made it there so that was trivialized rather soundly. I liked the concept, though.

Edited February 16, 2020 by Crysta

[zuibangde]

I think chapter 4 wasn't intended to be hard but to give you a sense of urgency and to make you feel stressed. In terms of integrating the chapter battle into the story, I think it was pretty good.

[Taho]

20 hours ago, zuibangde said:

I think chapter 4 wasn't intended to be hard but to give you a sense of urgency and to make you feel stressed. In terms of integrating the chapter battle into the story, I think it was pretty good.

Agreed. I felt it was one of the most exhilarating FE battle I've played. Reminded me of an old tactical-RPG on the PS1, Vandal Heart, the chapter where you must escape the Crimson guard. Enemies everywhere and a great sense of urgency! Maybe some of the oldies on that forum can relate to that 🙋