Why the Changes Made in FE7 and Onwards are Downgrades from FE6

[AnonymousSpeed]

An essay requested by @Jotari. INB4 banned.

Crits:

In FE6, Swordmasters and Berserkers get +30 crit. FE7 shrinks this down to +15. I'm sure most people agree with this decision, arguing that +30 crit is too high. They're wrong but for the right reason. An extra 30 crit is an actual bonus, something which adds consist value to a unit. Meanwhile, a bonus of 15 crit is too unreliable to actually be worth much. Let's run some numbers briefly:

• Assume a unit has 5 base crit against an enemy, we'll also assume they double because that's what swordmasters do.
• With +30 crit, they have a 35% chance to crit on any given hit. When doubling, that's about a 58% chance to crit at least once.
• With +15 crit, they have a 20% chance to crit on any given hit. When doubling, that's 36% chance to crit at least once, which is barely better than the above has on one hit.
• With a Killing Edge and +30 crit, they have a 65% chance to crit on any given hit. When doubling, that's about an 88% chance to crit at least once, which is something you could actually count on and not just be gambling.
• With a Killing Edge and +15 crit, they have a 50% chance to crit on any given hit. When doubling, that's 75% chance to crit at least once, which is alright I guess. I mean, it's not a big improvement on +30 crit using an iron weapon, but you're only 25% likely to not crit at all. That's not the highest, even if it's more than twice the chance an FE6 unit with +30 crit has to not score any criticals.

+30 is more than twice as good as +15 crit, which isn't reliable enough to be anything more than a fringe benefit. This is part of why Swordmasters are so much worse in FE7 and on than they are in FE6. Some of you will continue to argue that +30 crit is too much of a bonus, though, because of enemy promoted units. It makes swordmasters and berserkers too threatening, some will say. Well friend, I'd argue that you should have to face enemies that are actually intimidating. Needing to wary of a unit with non-0 chance to split someone in half is not a bad thing in a strategy game.

Hit Rates:

People don't complain about anything in FE6 as much as they complain about axe hit rates. Hit rates in general are lower in FE6 than future games, but again, this isn't bad. The game is balanced around these hit rates. People who make all these patches where axes get extra hit are forgetting that FE6 is built around you being able to dodge inaccurate axe users in the early game.

Y'all might recall that axes are my favorite weapon type. The reason is because axes are the clear best in most Fire Emblem games. They're too accurate. Lower accuracy is supposed to be their disadvantage, but it doesn't really feel like a problem. Thus, their high damage and that E Rank hand axe goodness feel like free rewards for no real drawback. FE6, by having enemies with higher avoid and axes with lower hit rates, makes that low accuracy an actual problem.

Eckidna can actually hit pretty reliably with axes due to her high skill. Garret can hit fairly reliably too. Neither is the best unit around, but they demonstrate that axes in FE6 are bad because axe users in general are bad. Ward has 3 base skill, Lot has pretty pitiful growth rates, etc. Gonzales is controversially considered good by some, because he's actually built around his poor skill. He has so much strength and speed that he really crushes people when he hits.

As mentioned, enemies have higher avoid in FE6 than in later Fire Emblem games. This is especially true (admittedly too true) for enemies on thrones. Lances also have lower hit than in other game, though it's not as prominent with axes. These mean that hit rates overall are lower. Combined with nerfing axes, this also buffs swords. In most Fire Emblem games, swords are garbage because they're weak and don't have 1-2 range. Relying on 1-2 range is a crappy idea in FE6 because you'll miss often (this also moves the game away from enemy phase facetanking). The fact that you struggle to hit things makes swords useful for once, because you have a tangible need for those higher hit rates. It helps that you get Rutger and other sword users who are actually good.

Effective Weaponry:

Archers are still pretty bad in FE6, but much like with axes the fault mostly lies with archers having bad stats. Shin, Klein and Igrene are actually pretty decent. I mention bows because effective weapons are pretty well implemented here. Flier effectiveness matters in a game which scary flying enemies i.e wyverns. Bow users are a lot better off for that, they have a real niche they can fulfill. Most games can't think of a way to make archers good without giving them 1 range, which is incredibly lame and uncreative and effectively removes the point of having a dedicated ranged weapon type, meanwhile FE6 actually constructs maps and enemy compositions which give archers something useful to do. This also applies to dragon effectiveness. Wyrmslayers and divine weapons are critical when facing manaketes, and the extreme power of the divine weapons enables a really interesting final chapter where you only face powerful manaketes. As observed by Dondon151, every enemy takes a lot of damage, but also deals a lot of damage to you. It gives the whole thing an accelerated pace.

Roy:

One of the other things people love to complain about when it comes to FE6 is that Roy is a bad unit. This is true, it's also by design, and not merely carelessness or bad design. Roy is a unit you have to escort to the throne- his low con and poor movement are there to incentivize you to rescue drop him forward. Dealing with his weakness is something you have to work into your strategy each chapter. If he was Ike or Sigurd and could just march forward, crushing everything in his path, it would go a long way towards trivializing the core objective.

Binding Blade is so good (the sword specifically but the game also), even Roy can contribute at the end game and there's no chance of him not being able to defeat Idunn, even if I will concede his promotion is a bit late. Still, the fact that Roy is bad is something the game is built around, you're never expected to have a Roy more powerful than you're given.

I'll take this moment to speak on Hector. I'm not a big Hector fan, he's pretty strong but the main lord doesn't necessarily have to be a front line unit. I will say that I do conceptually like how swapping Eliwood (a Roy-like unit) with Hector can totally re-contextualize seize maps. Hector is slow and has a lot of con, which makes rescue dropping him much harder. The same challenge must be approached a different way.

Balance:

People say that FE6 is poorly balanced. It's a single player game, why do you care about balance?

Nothing breaks the game to the point of trivializing it, and the different levels of unit quality actually make the game better. You are rewarded for keeping the good units alive or managing to recruit them. Sometimes the game gives you a really powerful unit like Miledy because you might actually need a really strong unit in an Iron Man run or if your units got bad level ups. The weak units allow you to challenge yourself by using them and serve as a penalty for bad play (though you could argue this last point is actually bad game design, but it gives you Miledy for free so it balances out).

Later FE games make every unit viable for endgame, which usually has the result of your Jeigan being way too good. FE7 Marcus, Seth, Titania, I think Frederick? Gunter was an attempt to make a Jeigan that actually works as a Jeigan but his availability kinda ruins that. FE6 Marcus, meanwhile, actually fulfills the role of a Jeigan. He's a very powerful unit early game but he falls off hard as the game progresses, meaning you need to train your other units so they can come into their own by then. While powerful, Marcus doesn't just one round everything in FE6, leaving damaged units for your weaker units to kill for experience.

I once read this brilliant observation of how Marcus falls off around the time you get Zelot, and Zelot stops being useful shortly after the Western Isles. Not long after that, you get Percival, and Percival is useful throughout the game. In this way, FE6 makes sure you always have a strong Paladin to supplement the needs of your army.

Aside from the balance in FE6 being more-or-less fine (Lot and Ward could stand to be better, sure), it also has a huge cast to build your army from, and the frontloaded recruitment increases replay value. The units fill tons of different niches. Cecilia has A rank anima, something Clarine is unlikely to reach. Cath is there to give you an extra thief in case Chad or Astolfo die, she's a slight upgrade if you didn't train Chad but isn't a fantastic unit, because she's a thief and her job is to steal things. Niime is a fantastic staff bot right out of the gate, Jodel is too and he joins with the Saint Staff, both are competent mages specializing in tomes you're less likely to have a specialized user of. Eckidna is a female hero specialized in axes instead of swords. Gonzales is all about speed and power at the expense of accuracy. Noah has 10 Con and C swords, so he can use Steel Sword without attack speed loss and is overall a sword-specialized cavalier, while the rest of them focus on lances. 

Level Design > Surface Level Mechanics:

This is the main reason FE6 is so good but so underrated. The maps you take on are just really good, but it's harder to convey that than it is to say "the axes miss too much." They have lots of side objectives, it's fun to rescue drop your thieves to chests across the map, it rewards clever use of fliers. Chapter 11 Eckidna is the definitive example of a map which is filled to the brim with interesting side objectives. You have to run all around visiting villages and recruiting characters and keeping green units alive, and it's actually engaging. Later chapters have status staves you have to look out for. FE6 has far fewer maps that you can brute force enemy phase than a lot of other Fire Emblem games do.

Plot:

Even the plot in FE7 is worse. I'm not just talking about how it has more holes than a gaggle of humans. People can say FE7 has such a great cast and is a character driven story instead of a plot driven one, but it's still garbage even by those standards. The lords in FE7 are bland and annoying, so are the ice dragons, so are most of the villains. 75% of the dialogue in this game goes to annoying characters, at the bare minimum. The story and characters are so contrived and cliche that there is not a single genuine human moment in the entire game. It is very telling that FE7 has A) Jaffar, and B) A scene where the main character unknowingly kills his love interest and the villain taunts him for it. There are contenders for some of the most fanfiction-y moments in the series, which should not be possible given that Fates and Awakening are also Fire Emblem games. It's themes and messages are so shallow they might as well not be there.

Compare to FE6, the game which pits Zephiel and Roy against each other. Zephiel, as king of Bern, is the physical successor to Hartmut the Hero. Meanwhile, the Lycian Roy is able to wield the Binding Blade, the greater of Hartmut's swords, because his strength of character and compassion make him Hartmut's spiritual / ideological successor. It's very subtle, but the triumph of Hartmut's goodwill over the legacy of his strength caries some actual meaning.

Later Fire Emblem games have attempted to create more morally ambiguous plots and have often fallen flat. FE7, as established, fails its themes. FE9 does the same with its sloppy handling of a racism metaphor. Fates has already been well discussed, and I'm sure Three Houses will be picked apart just as thoroughly over the next five years. FE6 just does a competent plot with competent characters, not exceeding what it's actually capable of and not pretending to have more to say than it can actually deliver on.

It Wasn't Released in the US:

Players play FE7 with it's changes and assume they're standard, they become biased towards them out of familiarity, so they are naturally against the way things are in FE6. I think a lot of people are cautious of +30 crit because it's so much higher than the +15 crit they're used to.

This also pertains to the story. Most western players, myself included, played FE7 before FE6. This made FE6 appear to have a much more complicated plot than it actually does. Because of how recklessly FE7 was written, it contradicts FE6 in numerous places. The Binding Blade has a simple, intuitive, easy to understand story. The lore is straight forward without being uninteresting. FE7 takes all that clarity and throws it out the window, which also makes FE6 look like a mess because we try to make sense of it while keeping FE7 in mind.

Edited February 29, 2020 by AnonymousSpeed

[Benice]

Zoinks. As soon as I'm done with genealogy, I'm heading for FE6

[Integrity]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

INB4 banned.

banned

 

but to be genuine, i will take your post for real and answer my thoughts

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Well friend, I'd argue that you should have to face enemies that are actually intimidating. Needing to wary of a unit with non-0 chance to split someone in half is not a bad thing in a strategy game.

facing threatening enemies in a strategy game is great; facing enemies that have a 5-25% chance to annihilate the irreplaceable unit they're facing and the remaining 95-75% chance to be essentially a non-issue is unbelievably shit design. the enemy doesn't play by the same rules or by the same degrees of fairness as the player. if you want to make an enemy unit threatening, you make them consistently threatening, like orc warriors in battle brothers, where they put out shitloads of raw dps and relatively little critical potential, so that the player can treat them as threats to be avoided, rather than non-threats a statistically significant amount of the time unless rng decides your man needs to die right now.

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Hit Rates:

all of this section is dancing around the issue that a 50-60% base hit rate is perfectly fine for a well-balanced srpg, which fe6 is not. it is a good system in a poor implementation. most, dare i say all, of the complaints are children or adult children who were raised on 2rn (such as fe6) who cannot internalize that the displayed chance is what it actually means, because 2rn is a system made of hot garbage set on fire.

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

People say that FE6 is poorly balanced. It's a single player game, why do you care about balance?

there is a strong difference between internal and external balance. an externally balanced system can have many different units of many different levels able to compete, even though some outclass others by medium to massive margins, like awakening. an internally balanced system can have every unit compete at a similar level, even though many or all might suck, like a game that's not a fire emblem game. both are differently admirable, and both are differently desirable for a single-player game. fe6 is neither of them. you attack the strawman that 'balance' means all your units are equally viable for endgame, and that's just a complete lie. a unit can be designed in a way for early game, and fall off hard later, like fe6 marcus is, and still be balanced. fe6 does not consistently follow this - mid- and endgame recruits just fucking suck, randomly, except when they don't. balance isn't the ultimate ideal for a singleplayer game, like you state; choice is. take fe12 lunatic as the ultimate example, it's as unbalanced as any other fire emblem, but a good two-thirds of the units are fucking unusable without insane effort - this isn't balance, which is fine, but it's a complete lack of choice, because if i want to use two of them fuck me i guess.

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Level Design > Surface Level Mechanics:

i agree and disagree with you here

people get massively turnt about the OBJECTIVES of maps in the original english, to the point where they ignore shit like how the great wall of takumi is a """"seize"""" map where you have to kill almost every single enemy to get to the seize objective to begin with

Quote

but at least it isn't another rout!!!!!!!

but, noting that, fe6's maps aren't any particular masterwork. there's a fair few good ones, but on aggregate they don't deviate from the fire emblem standard of 'put your big mans in a direction'. this has nothing to do with them being All Seize Maps at all.

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Even the plot in FE7 is worse.

agreed, but on account of fe7 tried things and they failed, as compared to fe6, which tried nothing and it couldn't possibly have failed because it was so nothing as to have no risk of failure.

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It Wasn't Released in the US:

literally nobody argues this as a downside of fe6, you're delusional here op

[AnonymousSpeed]

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

banned

oh geeze oh darn i better post this reply before the bureaucracy goes through with that

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

facing threatening enemies in a strategy game is great; facing enemies that have a 5-25% chance to annihilate the irreplaceable unit they're facing and the remaining 95-75% chance to be essentially a non-issue is unbelievably shit design. the enemy doesn't play by the same rules or by the same degrees of fairness as the player. if you want to make an enemy unit threatening, you make them consistently threatening, like orc warriors in battle brothers, where they put out shitloads of raw dps and relatively little critical potential, so that the player can treat them as threats to be avoided, rather than non-threats a statistically s

A 5% chance to annihilate a unit is an issue of the critical hit system rather than an issue of the +30 crit system. It's more a flaw of Short Bows than anything else.

As mentioned, +30% crit means that these high-crit enemies are fairly reliable at getting crits. Thus, putting a unit in range and assuming they won't get crit is more obviously flawed in FE6 than in other games. The game doesn't throw huge clusters of swordmasters at you either, which makes it so that you need to take the offensive against these enemies and defeat them before they attack, at which point they have a fairly solid chance of destroying you.

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

all of this section is dancing around the issue that a 50-60% base hit rate is perfectly fine for a well-balanced srpg, which fe6 is not. it is a good system in a poor implementation. most, dare i say all, of the complaints are children or adult children who were raised on 2rn (such as fe6) who cannot internalize that the displayed chance is what it actually means, because 2rn is a system made of hot garbage set on fire.

 

I kind of like 2 RN to be honest.

You have plenty of options for units with over 60% hit rate. Wendy has around 60-70% hit on enemies in her joining chapter, and she's Wendy.

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

you attack the strawman that 'balance' means all your units are equally viable for endgame, and that's just a complete lie.

Forgive me if I was unclear. It is not that making all units viable for endgame equates to balance. Rather, having all units be endgame viable is often mistaken for balance, and these leads to more egregious issues than a game having the inconsistent unit quality FE6 does. It is a part of the problem with balancing in later games, rather than the whole, and it leads to other issues like I discussed with Jeigans.

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

fe6 does not consistently follow this - mid- and endgame recruits just fucking suck, randomly, except when they don't. balance isn't the ultimate ideal for a singleplayer game, like you state; choice is. take fe12 lunatic as the ultimate example, it's as unbalanced as any other fire emblem, but a good two-thirds of the units are fucking unusable without insane effort - this isn't balance, which is fine, but it's a complete lack of choice, because if i want to use two of them fuck me i guess.

Well, that's not entirely wrong. Some units are just bad, but it's not bad to have bad units.

I can't speak for FE12 lunatic since I haven't played it, but I suppose that's to be expected for one of the hardest in four separate hard modes. Not every unit in FE6 hard mode is practically viable, and that can admittedly be more of an issue when your game only has one hard mode. Wendy and Sophia are pretty bad to be sure. I'll concede that it's frustrating to not use Rutger.

That said, I still think you have plenty of choice. Even Oujay can get levels on the Western Isles and eventually contribute. It might be more trouble than it's worth to use a team of bad units, but I feel that's a fair consequence for using a team of bad units in hard mode. You can still have a functional team with bad units you like mixed with good units who can pick up the slack- FE6 has enough good units that you aren't compelled to use the same ones over and over.

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

but, noting that, fe6's maps aren't any particular masterwork. there's a fair few good ones, but on aggregate they don't deviate from the fire emblem standard of 'put your big mans in a direction'.

True, but again, the number of side objectives require you to proceed with more haste, but you must also be more cautious because your big mans can't wipe everything out as effectively as in other games. Weak 1-2 range options and high enemy power mean you have to clear out formations without leaving yourself exposed.

Not that they're all good, of course. Chapter 8 is a classic example of a bad FE6, as is just about every gaiden chapter. I still think it's above average overall though.

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

agreed, but on account of fe7 tried things and they failed, as compared to fe6, which tried nothing and it couldn't possibly have failed because it was so nothing as to have no risk of failure.

Yeah, but video games aren't a legitimate narrative medium, so FE7 gets no points for trying.

4 minutes ago, Integrity said:

literally nobody argues this as a downside of fe6, you're delusional here op

The point isn't that people criticize Binding Blade for being Japan only, but rather than people having played it after FE7 (as a result of it being Japan only) has influenced how the perceive FE6 and the differences between the two games.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The lords in FE7 are bland and annoying, so are the ice dragons, so are most of the villains. 75% of the dialogue in this game goes to annoying characters, at the bare minimum.

Acknowledge Hector as a matter of like-dislike personal preference, and exclude Nils, he is fine. I'll let you toss Ninian in the trash, but I don't get whats at all wrong with Eliwood, he is his son's father, there is hardly any difference between the two. Lyn more or less exists a tutorial bot who tags along for the rest, but in that she is merely inoffensive.

Roy is bland, always in the right, always mild to the point of lacking emotion, not at all good for the main character, to me. Eliwood through Hector at least has contrast and someone fun to interact with. And Eliwood's Helena outburst gives him more color than Roy ever has. Roy, and Seliph, are perfect young and moral lords played straight, so straight, that they have no true depth, sadly. Even if Roy is said to hide an inner perfectionism struggle, the mask is no fun if we never get an intimate peek at what lay beneath. A little snappiness once or twice would help, a loss of manners followed by an apology, not a bad idea if you ask me.

And note, I am not defending the overall plot of FE7 here. Yes, Nergal and his army of assassins is utterly irrational, and FE7's E&H opening narrative (LM being a mere tutorial) is rather slow and dull, while FE6 in this regard begins fast and dramatic, a positive for it. (And, yes Tellius's racism is unbalanced, I see that too.)

Yet, FE6's plot peaks early, Chapter 8x to be precise. Once Lycia is saved, the narrative becomes a tour of the world collecting divine weapons without much depth in what happens. Zephiel's Cecilia OHKO adds some zest, as does Narcian's last stand, but chapters 9-20 feature rather heavily the schemes and failure of corrupt nobles more hollow than Denning. Whilst you can't escape Nergal's insanity, FE7 is actually the inverse of FE6- the moment the first part- the search for Elbert- reaches its conclusion, the story picks up. The Dragon's Gate is a dramatic mid-story climax and the stuff that follows has enough life to it.

Roy never personally meets Zephiel prior to Chapter 22 either, the same criticism as that of Ike and Ashnard- no pre-final fight in-the-flesh interactions. Roy the First, aka Marth, actually met Zephiel the First, aka Dark Emperor Hardin, once long before the final fight. And that one meeting gave Marth more personality than Roy ever shows, and that is to ignore every other instance in FE3 Book 2 (Book 1 is as dead as Roy) where Marth, still the mild, regal perfect hero, shows actual emotion. 

Calling Roy the second Marth, and Zephiel the second Hardin, implies FE6 is cliche, the same criticism you toss with excrement at FE7. FE6 is much a retelling of FE3, Guinevere is Nyna, Merlinus is Malladus, Fae and Idunn are both Tiki. The Western Isles is the Grust-Macedon Expedition. Of course, Nergal and Athos are just Gharnef and Gotoh. The game you hate and the game you love share the same game as inspiration.😛 

Roy is from the last game where the narrative belongs almost exclusively to the lord in terms of appearances that last for more than 1-3 chapters, which defined every prior FE. Sure, Merlinus, Guinevere, and Elffin show up every so often, but they're there merely to inform Roy with exposition, their interactions with Roy have no interesting dynamics. Starting with FE7, most games try to establish a fun and constant supporting cast for every lord, which is de facto, sometimes bumpy, progress, according the Hegelian model. Once, in a dark era, only one had main-narrative development, but then the light began to dawn and others began to carve out some main-narrative development. Although, FE6 did go in the right direction for non-main narrative character development with the introduction of support conversations, and for that it gets baked tarts.

As for subtlety of sword light vs. dark fencing, if it's so subtle that few pick up on it, was it really intended to exist by the writers? (But, spinning you own interpretation that the writers weren't thinking of is absolutely valid.) As is, Exaccus feels like filler, to give Zephiel a special weapon and make the Binding Blade more special too, not that I mind it being extra special. I'd say Zephiel should dual-wield as in the manga and have Roy wrest both weapons from the king corpse, to use them both himself. That is more interesting swordplay.

 

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Because of how recklessly FE7 was written, it contradicts FE6 in numerous places.

Not really. Inevitably, there are some unplanned story-pre/sequel contradictions, but we aren't looking at very many. Keeping the villain limited to a shadowy assassin group, and therefore not something many know about, and which is destroyed by the end of Cog of Destiny, and opting for this overall smaller scope made that easier.

Do list for me every contradiction you find, because I can see some minor ones, but none of these amount to major flaw:

• Hector being surprised dragons exist in FE6.
• Bramimond's seals on the Divine Weapons are a bit of an oddity.
• Ninian dying if she stays too long in Elibe, when Sophia is perfectly fine.
• Lord Orun The Never Actually Seen not ever being mentioned in FE7.

 

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Dealing with his weakness is something you have to work into your strategy each chapter. If he was Ike or Sigurd and could just march forward, crushing everything in his path, it would go a long way towards trivializing the core objective.

Except, this in itself means little. If Melady can just march forward, crushing everything in her path, with Roy watching atop Shanna's shoulders as she rides her Pegasus juuuuuuust out of range of all the deadly things Melady will draw to her destroy, then how different are things really? 

Roy is not constantly marching forward against your own will, this is not escorting an NPC who has no concern for self-preservation. And turn counts aren't something that are forced on you very often, Roy can chill wherever and seize whenever everyone else has killed everything in the way of the throne. Unless you're drafting/LTCing, a seize is 95% of the time no different from a rout, since most players will massacre everything before seizing anyway.

 

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

but, noting that, fe6's maps aren't any particular masterwork. there's a fair few good ones, but on aggregate they don't deviate from the fire emblem standard of 'put your big mans in a direction'. this has nothing to do with them being All Seize Maps at all.

Agreed. All seize, all rout, all attract 300 spectators to your outdoor punk rock concert, or a variegated mix, nothing is inherently good. 

And as for overall map design, my philosophy is simple, dissect any FE chapter-by-chapter, and you realize how few truly "good" or "great" maps actually exist. Not that I mind inoffensive averageness/mediocrity.

 

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

agreed, but on account of fe7 tried things and they failed, as compared to fe6, which tried nothing and it couldn't possibly have failed because it was so nothing as to have no risk of failure.

So you're throwing FE7 into the great big bucket of overambitious narratively FEs? Geez, it's already getting full with 4, 10, 14, 16.

 

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

facing threatening enemies in a strategy game is great; facing enemies that have a 5-25% chance to annihilate the irreplaceable unit they're facing and the remaining 95-75% chance to be essentially a non-issue is unbelievably shit design. the enemy doesn't play by the same rules or by the same degrees of fairness as the player.

Agreed, permadeath and 30 Crit with 3x damage is too much. Nerf Critical damage, maybe with a mostly player-only skill to raise the damage crits deal, and then I'd say 30 Crit class bonus is fine.

 

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

all of this section is dancing around the issue that a 50-60% base hit rate is perfectly fine for a well-balanced srpg, which fe6 is not.

You seem to have some knowledge of such instances here, do tell, what are they? And do they demand overall greater unit durability compared to what average FE durability is?

 

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

because 2rn is a system made of hot garbage set on fire.

Ah yes, but because the burning trash in an oil drum emits warmth and light, people are drawn to it, even if the plastic waste inside is releasing carcinogens that will prove to be detrimental to their health.🔥🙂

Edited February 29, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Integrity]

hi!

20 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

A 5% chance to annihilate a unit is an issue of the critical hit system rather than an issue of the +30 crit system. It's more a flaw of Short Bows than anything else.

As mentioned, +30% crit means that these high-crit enemies are fairly reliable at getting crits. Thus, putting a unit in range and assuming they won't get crit is more obviously flawed in FE6 than in other games. The game doesn't throw huge clusters of swordmasters at you either, which makes it so that you need to take the offensive against these enemies and defeat them before they attack, at which point they have a fairly solid chance of destroying you.

this is complete shit. crit enemies are poorly designed irregardless of how many there are in a place. i never insinuated that there were huge clusters of them or anything like that. if you go for an actually well-designed threatening enemy, who does consistent strong dps, then the strategy of 'i gotta neutralize this fast' works just the same, except that there's no random bullshit 'hey i'll either not really hurt you or kill you'. this is an issue of the crit system, as you said, and it's completely achievable without crits, and fe6 does not.

 

20 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I kind of like 2 RN to be honest.

You have plenty of options for units with over 60% hit rate. Wendy has around 60-70% hit on enemies in her joining chapter, and she's Wendy.

there is no conversation to be had among us. 2rn is complete fucking garbage. we may as well let it lie.

 

20 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Forgive me if I was unclear. It is not that making all units viable for endgame equates to balance. Rather, having all units be endgame viable is often mistaken for balance, and these leads to more egregious issues than a game having the inconsistent unit quality FE6 does. It is a part of the problem with balancing in later games, rather than the whole, and it leads to other issues like I discussed with Jeigans.

this is fair and i concede it

20 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Well, that's not entirely wrong. Some units are just bad, but it's not bad to have bad units.

I can't speak for FE12 lunatic since I haven't played it, but I suppose that's to be expected for one of the hardest in four separate hard modes. Not every unit in FE6 hard mode is practically viable, and that can admittedly be more of an issue when your game only has one hard mode. Wendy and Sophia are pretty bad to be sure. I'll concede that it's frustrating to not use Rutger.

That said, I still think you have plenty of choice. Even Oujay can get levels on the Western Isles and eventually contribute. It might be more trouble than it's worth to use a team of bad units, but I feel that's a fair consequence for using a team of bad units in hard mode. You can still have a functional team with bad units you like mixed with good units who can pick up the slack- FE6 has enough good units that you aren't compelled to use the same ones over and over.

the problem is you're disagreeing with me without attacking the crux of my point. you knock at ogier in the western isles, but he's straight privileged there - attacking axes as a sword. in several fire emblems, the bad units just take unreasonable effort to make even feasible, to the point where choice is removed from the player. fe6 isn't as bad about it as most, but it's still there - level ogier, you can, but dieck or roy or the cavaliers can eat those same kills for the same effort and better gains. it's not bad to have bad units, but its bad to have units who are completely outclassed even if you choose to take the experience unto them.

 

20 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

True, but again, the number of side objectives require you to proceed with more haste, but you must also be more cautious because your big mans can't wipe everything out as effectively as in other games. Weak 1-2 range options and high enemy power mean you have to clear out formations without leaving yourself exposed.

Not that they're all good, of course. Chapter 8 is a classic example of a bad FE6, as is just about every gaiden chapter. I still think it's above average overall though.

so i think this is a really common misconception in the fire emblem community, that the need to go fast is somehow a virtue - we already extol it as a virtue. a map where your big mans cannot do the move, but you're trying to move fast with an ensemble of three to five dudes, isn't all that different from the general fire emblem experience. fe4 subverts this to the strongest level, fe6 basically does not at all. you say 'clearing formations without leaving yourself exposed', but the formations are always in one direction, and the formations to be cleared can always be approached by max two units.

 

20 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, but video games aren't a legitimate narrative medium, so FE7 gets no points for trying.

this is a tired meme, so please fuck off.

 

20 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The point isn't that people criticize Binding Blade for being Japan only, but rather than people having played it after FE7 (as a result of it being Japan only) has influenced how the perceive FE6 and the differences between the two games.

like five people in my entire ten years on this website have ever done this. i have never heard it from someone who wasn't an awkward fe6 stan trying to justify it.

 

EDIT: to the guy who posted above me, i misread your shit and aggroed off course

Edited February 29, 2020 by Integrity

[Integrity]

15 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Agreed. All seize, all rout, all attract 300 spectators to your outdoor punk rock concert, or a variegated mix, nothing is inherently good. 

And as for overall map design, my philosophy is simple, dissect any FE chapter-by-chapter, and you realize how few truly "good" or "great" maps actually exist. Not that I mind inoffensive averageness/mediocrity.

this is part of the point i'm making. running a good game through okay maps is perfectly fine and is most of the fire emblem experience. fe6 is completely a good formula through forgettably designed maps. many fire emblems are mostly just maps that are remembered for story reasons, not anything to do with how they were approached.

 

21 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

So you're throwing FE7 into the great big bucket of overambitious narratively FEs? Geez, it's already getting full with 4, 10, 14, 16.

that isn't fair. 4 did a lot of things right, despite my massive shitpost denouncing it. 10 was a mixture of massively good and massively bad ideas. 14 was just bad like 7, good call. 16 i assume was three houses? and doesn't belong in the same sentence as fe7. three houses was ambitious and realized most, but not all of its goals, unlike fe7 which just floundered accomplishing nothing.

 

26 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Agreed, permadeath and 30 Crit with 3x damage is too much. Nerf Critical damage, maybe with a mostly player-only skill to raise the damage crits deal, and then I'd say 30 Crit class bonus is fine.

this is a really stupid post. crits as a concept are massively overdone in general rpg, but the problem is that when players have them we ignore how insane they are. like the sniper class skills in fe10 that 'puts enemies to sleep' but also does triple damage, killing them instantly. player crits shouldn't be an oh, lol, i rolled the number so i win; enemy crits shouldn't be an oh your man is disappeared haha lmao thing.

 

30 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

You seem to have some knowledge of such instances here, do tell, what are they? And do they demand overall greater unit durability compared to what average FE durability is?

fire emblem durability is, to a fault, one fight. except for a boss on a throne, when was the last time you attacked someone with multiple dudes? this isn't the norm in tactical games like the xcoms, like battle brothers, like battletech, take your pick my dude, i've played a fuckload of them, and the overall case is that 'one-rounding is generally infeasible but not impossible' is the rule, unlike fire emblem where farming down enemies like chattel is the expectation

[Integrity]

i will not warn myself for doubleposting

[eclipse]

I'm going to bastard mod this and say that it would probably break the forum software anyway.  😛

Because that was a pretty impressive quote wall.

Now, for the topic. . .please argue the merits of FE6 thrones in terms of difficulty.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

oh geeze oh darn i better post this reply before the bureaucracy goes through with that

A 5% chance to annihilate a unit is an issue of the critical hit system rather than an issue of the +30 crit system. It's more a flaw of Short Bows than anything else.

As mentioned, +30% crit means that these high-crit enemies are fairly reliable at getting crits. Thus, putting a unit in range and assuming they won't get crit is more obviously flawed in FE6 than in other games. The game doesn't throw huge clusters of swordmasters at you either, which makes it so that you need to take the offensive against these enemies and defeat them before they attack, at which point they have a fairly solid chance of destroying you.

 

I kind of like 2 RN to be honest.

You have plenty of options for units with over 60% hit rate. Wendy has around 60-70% hit on enemies in her joining chapter, and she's Wendy.

Forgive me if I was unclear. It is not that making all units viable for endgame equates to balance. Rather, having all units be endgame viable is often mistaken for balance, and these leads to more egregious issues than a game having the inconsistent unit quality FE6 does. It is a part of the problem with balancing in later games, rather than the whole, and it leads to other issues like I discussed with Jeigans.

Well, that's not entirely wrong. Some units are just bad, but it's not bad to have bad units.

I can't speak for FE12 lunatic since I haven't played it, but I suppose that's to be expected for one of the hardest in four separate hard modes. Not every unit in FE6 hard mode is practically viable, and that can admittedly be more of an issue when your game only has one hard mode. Wendy and Sophia are pretty bad to be sure. I'll concede that it's frustrating to not use Rutger.

That said, I still think you have plenty of choice. Even Oujay can get levels on the Western Isles and eventually contribute. It might be more trouble than it's worth to use a team of bad units, but I feel that's a fair consequence for using a team of bad units in hard mode. You can still have a functional team with bad units you like mixed with good units who can pick up the slack- FE6 has enough good units that you aren't compelled to use the same ones over and over.

True, but again, the number of side objectives require you to proceed with more haste, but you must also be more cautious because your big mans can't wipe everything out as effectively as in other games. Weak 1-2 range options and high enemy power mean you have to clear out formations without leaving yourself exposed.

Not that they're all good, of course. Chapter 8 is a classic example of a bad FE6, as is just about every gaiden chapter. I still think it's above average overall though.

Yeah, but video games aren't a legitimate narrative medium, so FE7 gets no points for trying.

The point isn't that people criticize Binding Blade for being Japan only, but rather than people having played it after FE7 (as a result of it being Japan only) has influenced how the perceive FE6 and the differences between the two games.

Swordmasters also lack 1-2 range meaning you can relatively safely dispatch an enemy swordmaster on player phase. A unit that has scary offense that you have to avoid being able to launch attack isn't particularly a bad thing. Although I do think crit power should reduced to twice damage instead of thrice (with some dedicated builds dealing the standard three times like how the killing edge did four times in Fates). Mainly for the damn 5% criticals that just suck to get hit by once in a blue moon.

4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Compare to FE6, the game which pits Zephiel and Roy against each other. Zephiel, as king of Bern, is the physical successor to Hartmut the Hero. Meanwhile, the Lycian Roy is able to wield the Binding Blade, the greater of Hartmut's swords, because his strength of character and compassion make him Hartmut's spiritual / ideological successor. It's very subtle, but the triumph of Hartmut's goodwill over the legacy of his strength caries some actual meaning.

You know, I don't think I can say I ever consciously picked up on that theming. But in my FE6 hack where I gave Zephiel and Roy combat dialogue they say almost exactly this, so it must have wormed its way into my subconscious.

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Jotari

[Flere210]

Threatening enemies are a good thing. Enemies that have a 25% chance to kill you are only good if the game want to encourage avoiding fights altogheter(some tabletop RPG that are more about talking than fighting for example).

I would give swordmaster PCC, which imo work better than 30 crit. Engage them either with people that won't get doubled, or whit unit that you know can eat the crit. Random critical chance has only the second counterplay, and in fe6 not even that because fe6 armors are more shit than usual.

Accuracy would be fine in a game whit more drawn out fight so that a bad dice is not an instant lose. 

In fire emblem one or two bad rolls means someone dies, wich makes game that emphasize the dicerolls worse.

[Ackron64]

The general vibe that I'm getting from the original post is that FE6 still works as a game in spite of some of the 'flaws' that people claim that the game has. 

So far so good.

But then you're taking it a step further and saying that just because FE7 and FE8 don't carry over a lot of the same mechanics as FE6, they are inherently worse. This is where you lose me.

Out of all the Fire Emblem games I've played, I can't really look at any of them and think "Yeah, this game would definitely be better if the main lord was nerfed". Change isn't always bad. In fact, Change is quite necessary in order to keep the series interesting. If the series continuously built itself around the same exact mechanics and game play for every entry, it wouldn't be fun at all. And to basically rephrase my point, Marcus going from having bad growths in FE6 to okay growths in FE7 is neither an upgrade or a downgrade. Nothing between the two does anything to distinguish itself as being inherently better than the other. 

And one final note, a lot of the points you're making really just come down to personal preference, but you're kind of stating it as fact. From an objective standpoint, it's impossible to say whether or not the reduced crit rate of certain units is better or worse because it only affected two classes. If anything, it made crits feel more meaningful, because in FE6 I could basically just throw Rutger at the boss every time and rely on him getting a crit. It's in the very nature of critical hits to be a nice little surprise when playing the game rather than the expectation.

[Wishblade]

The reason why I like FE6 is not any of these aspects, but the overall integrity.

Crit +30 can be a bad thing. Low hit rates can be a bad thing. Large and long maps can be a bad thing. Add all these together and the mechanics is suddenly good. These aspects don’t fix each others, but they are trying to tell you something - make full use of your large army and prepare backup plans, use swordmasters to kill bosses on thrones, make sacrifices if necessary, etc. Its hard mode can make me willingly go on after losing units (heck, I lost Rutger in my recent playthrough), and I find the integrity of these mechanics very respectable. The plot isn’t a masterpiece, but it isn’t bad either, so it does no harm.

If I am to complain about something other than Roy’s late promotion. It would be the overly large cast that uses lance with almost no good axe units. I guess it can be solved by having the wyvern riders use axe instead of lance, which is the modern trend.

Just because the other games don’t use the same mechanics don’t mean they are bad. Still, I have some (heavy) personal bias here because I am a big fan of the swordmaster/trueblade class (along with sentinel but it’s only in FE10, though I consider great lord Dimitri a sentinel). This makes me love FE6 and FE10. The fact that Three Houses reduces Astra into a shit skill almost makes me hate it.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Wishblade

[AnonymousSpeed]

14 hours ago, Wishblade said:

The reason why I like FE6 is not any of these aspects, but the overall integrity.

That is well put.

On 3/13/2020 at 2:12 AM, Ackron64 said:

The general vibe that I'm getting from the original post is that FE6 still works as a game in spite of some of the 'flaws' that people claim that the game has. 

So far so good.

But then you're taking it a step further and saying that just because FE7 and FE8 don't carry over a lot of the same mechanics as FE6, they are inherently worse. This is where you lose me.

I will concede, to go with what Wishblade said, that the context of the rest of the game is important. I still think FE7 and FE8 took lesser approaches to their overall design though, and that these changes are reflective of that. I enjoyed FE6 and its difficulty and how useful range-locked units were more than the other GBA games, so while low hit rates and weak lords might not be inherently better, I will say that the game they built around low hit rates and a weak lord was more enjoyable to me.

On 3/13/2020 at 2:12 AM, Ackron64 said:

And one final note, a lot of the points you're making really just come down to personal preference, but you're kind of stating it as fact. From an objective standpoint, it's impossible to say whether or not the reduced crit rate of certain units is better or worse because it only affected two classes. If anything, it made crits feel more meaningful, because in FE6 I could basically just throw Rutger at the boss every time and rely on him getting a crit. It's in the very nature of critical hits to be a nice little surprise when playing the game rather than the expectation.

I figured it would be assumed that the points where mostly my opinion.

Now, personally, even if an individual critical hit feels more meaningful, I don't think it makes the bonus more meaningful. +30 critical is a better balanced, more useful ability and swordmasters just aren't very good without it. Since the critical bonus is perpetual but a single instance of a crit is just a single instance, I value the former feeling meaningful over the latter.

[Flere210]

And i repeat that PCC is a superior mechanic than +30crit in any conceivable way. 

>instead of randomness, there is a clear condition, to do a follow-up attack, meaning you both have clear condition to set it up and to avoid it.

>the crit will happen on the second hit, meaning you will usually hit a counter, wich limit the power of such a move. 

>it give more values to the intended good stats of myrmidons, skill and speed

>similarly to the previous point, it gives more value to crit boosting weapons.

>you can guve certain enemies very high speed or wary fighter in case you don't want them to ne defeated that easily.

Also, most sword infranty in Thracia are good or great, partly because PCC allow them to circumvent their low base damage. But not even Shiva is as centralizing as Rutger, despite him having some excellent features. 

They should give a PCC of 2 to mirms, wich became 3 on swordmasters. 

[samthedigital]

Quote

People say that FE6 is poorly balanced. It's a single player game, why do you care about balance?

I didn't read through most of the topic, but this is something that caught my eye. I am not sure exactly why people bring up balance when talking about FE6 in particular. Most Fire Emblem games are not balanced, and it's not as if the game fails in every respect or is 'less balanced' than other Fire Emblem games. There are a good amount of important unit archetypes and weapon variety at the very least. The game is difficult enough for this sort of thing to matter too.