Having New Games focus so much on Growths, and "making a core team" has made fire emblem lose a part of the older games core design philosophy.

[SullyMcGully]

1 hour ago, This boi uses Nino said:

This really annoys me about 3H's... why.... WHY couldn't Jeralt be there with us in the battle of the red canyon? And in the map after that... would make playing the game much more fun in the first chapters instead of just doing nothing.

Ah yes, that way I could have a Jeigan to not use. I actually appreciated that in 3H all of your starting units are somewhat decent with room to grow, without the typical tradeoffs of "this one has great bases but terrible growths" or "this one's stuck using a weapon type that puts him at a disadvantage against virtually every enemy in the earlygame." Instead, all of the characters you get at the beginning grow consistently and remain useful throughout the game. 

Mounted classes are always OP. 3H is actually comparatively balanced in that regard - true, cavalry is still way better than infantry, but at least every character has the option to get a horse. In previous games great characters would get benched due to lack of mounted options. In 3H, if your best unit stats-wise is stuck on foot, you really only have yourself to blame. 

I certainly agree that the way mounted classes get all the love is annoying. I typically ignore their superiority and play using heroes and swordmasters and berserkers and the like because I enjoy unit variety, even at the cost of playing without OP classes. But the only real way to truly balance mounted units would be to either get rid of them or to give everyone a mount. That latter option actually sounds like the kind of thing IS might do in future games, accompanied by a petting zoo minigame which lets you bond with your animals and some crazy mount ideas like camels and elephants. 

Ultimately, being able to customize such a large amount of characters is a distinctively SRPG characteristic. The level of customization we got in 3H still pales in comparison to what you get in Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics, where you can pretty much custom order any unit you want for the right price. So while you might be right that Fire Emblem has lost some of what made it unique, I feel like that's mostly an appeal to accessibility, not a betrayal of SRPG standards. And FE is still plenty unique even with some of its older aspects gone. 

[Hanes]

7 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

Ah yes, that way I could have a Jeigan to not use. I actually appreciated that in 3H all of your starting units are somewhat decent with room to grow, without the typical tradeoffs of "this one has great bases but terrible growths" or "this one's stuck using a weapon type that puts him at a disadvantage against virtually every enemy in the earlygame." Instead, all of the characters you get at the beginning grow consistently and remain useful throughout the game. 

Well sucks to be you, I'm gonna abuse the hell out of Jeralt on Maddening 😄

Also at the start (In maddening anyways, hard is too easy) nobody is good and there's some units that will just always stay bad, like Ignatz, his only usefulness is rally speed which helps you survive early game but after a while you either double everything or you get doubled, rally speed isn't worth wasting a deployment slot after this point where it has extremely niche-ier situations. Caspar and Raphael are also pretty bad imo, they can be dancer fodder, I guess.

EDIT: Also, you don't have to use a unit the entire game the moment you drop a point of exp into them, I would definitely use Jeralt a bunch at the start even if his growths sucked and would bench him after a while. You just need a good tank early game, which only Dedue can somewhat do, and he isn't in BE or GD.

Edited May 20, 2020 by This boi uses Nino

[Shadow Mir]

30 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

Mounted classes are always OP. 3H is actually comparatively balanced in that regard - true, cavalry is still way better than infantry, but at least every character has the option to get a horse. In previous games great characters would get benched due to lack of mounted options. In 3H, if your best unit stats-wise is stuck on foot, you really only have yourself to blame. 

Honestly, I don't think having a horse is THAT good in 3H; aside from Bow Knight and Paladin, most of the cavalry classes are pretty lackluster. 

[eclipse]

42 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Also at the start (In maddening anyways, hard is too easy) nobody is good and there's some units that will just always stay bad, like Ignatz, his only usefulness is rally speed which helps you survive early game but after a while you either double everything or you get doubled, rally speed isn't worth wasting a deployment slot after this point where it has extremely niche-ier situations. Caspar and Raphael are also pretty bad imo, they can be dancer fodder, I guess.

If you're going dancer, Ignatz is a much better choice.  He gets a sword art (Haze Slice), and his innate Hit +20 helps his crit-heavy but mostly-inaccurate spell list.  He gets Physic to boot.

[Hanes]

2 minutes ago, eclipse said:

If you're going dancer, Ignatz is a much better choice.  He gets a sword art (Haze Slice), and his innate Hit +20 helps his crit-heavy but mostly-inaccurate spell list.  He gets Physic to boot.

Well I mean, part of the problem with that is that then every turn you have to choose between healing or dancing, which I find quite annoying so I tend to like dancer on someone who isn't healing. But that's also part of it, Ignatz is good until after you invest into him somewhat heavily, whereas other units start to shine much earlier, and in extreme cases, since the start like Felix.

[Whitfield1999]

52 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

While I can agree that FE has been moving more in the direction of RPGs, that doesn't necessarily mean less strategy and specialization is required. In every FE game you will have certain units for certain tasks, regardless of stats; and certain characters will always have better stats and skills to handle a situation better than others would. For example, even if I grind my units in 3H to be crazy strong, I can't just run in and expect to dominate. I have to plan and place my units so I can have the most effective victory with as minimal casualties as possible. It's not less strategy as much as it is different strategy, in my opinion.

I'm not saying there isn't strategy in the newer games. I'm just saying there is a core design philosophy (being the consideration on who to bring in a given chapter with limited deployment slots) to from the older games that has unfortunately been malformed from pick the best units for the job in you army, to use whoever you've been using the most.

My fault for being kinda vague with my post up top, but I'm really not trying to knock newer games. I love every single fire emblem game. It's just the aspects I love from my favorite games seems to not be a core gameplay philosophy anymore, which I find incredibly sad, since it was an incredibly unique thing the series had going for it. Now with reclassing and the focus on growths, the game seems to be much use the characters with the better number more then use the characters that are the best for the job.

sorry if I came off as if i'm trying to knock the new games. wasn't my intention. I mostly made this thread to talk about an aspect of fire emblem I love that most people don't really talk about much.

[eclipse]

1 minute ago, Whitfield1999 said:

I'm not saying there isn't strategy in the newer games. I'm just saying there is a core design philosophy (being the consideration on who to bring in a given chapter with limited deployment slots) to from the older games that has unfortunately been malformed from pick the best units for the job in you army, to use whoever you've been using the most.

My fault for being kinda vague with my post up top, but I'm really not trying to knock newer games. I love every single fire emblem game. It's just the aspects I love from my favorite games seems to not be a core gameplay philosophy anymore, which I find incredibly sad, since it was an incredibly unique thing the series had going for it. Now with reclassing and the focus on growths, the game seems to be much use the characters with the better number more then use the characters that are the best for the job.

sorry if I came off as if i'm trying to knock the new games. wasn't my intention. I mostly made this thread to talk about an aspect of fire emblem I love that most people don't really talk about much.

It hasn't?

I mean, it's not like characters with lower numbers are completely unusable.

[Whitfield1999]

14 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

Well I mean, part of the problem with that is that then every turn you have to choose between healing or dancing, which I find quite annoying so I tend to like dancer on someone who isn't healing. But that's also part of it, Ignatz is good until after you invest into him somewhat heavily, whereas other units start to shine much earlier, and in extreme cases, since the start like Felix.

I feel like with hit +40 ignatz makes a pretty good sniper imo. that hit +40 really comes in handy in maddening mode with the big hit penalty to long range. but I agree with your sentiment. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Whitfield1999

[Whitfield1999]

8 minutes ago, eclipse said:

It hasn't?

I mean, it's not like characters with lower numbers are completely unusable.

I guess dancers and healers no matter what there stats are will be fine, but combat units for games like the ds fire emblems and three houses make it pretty hard to justify using characters outside of your main squad you've been using this entire time. especially in the higher difficulties.

Thracia and fe3 I feel like there are good reasons to use other classes besides the ol' paladin and wyvern knight even if they aren't as good stat wise.

Not to say you can't use lower stat units if you want to, but you'll be hurting yourself for it in the long run.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Whitfield1999

[Whitfield1999]

1 hour ago, Hong Nhi said:

just accept it, and find your own way to make it more fun. With me, I try to edit, use code to the game. 

FE:Awakening , change theirs classes, skills, growths, v....v.......

FE8: randomizer, add classes(currently Idk about this, currently i'm searching online), add more green and red unit in every maps, every map is a battlefield of blue+green vs red units. I find it really fun to play

      So I think you should find your own way to make your gameplay more interesting

yea u right. Just trying to shed some light on this aspect of FE that I like I think some people haven't come into contact with. 

btw, do you know of any Mystery of the emblem gameplay inspired gba hacks? I know how to patch gba games but I really haven't been into playing fan FE's but since i've played most of the games I think I can start looking for some to play 😁.

[Hanes]

Yo dude could you try to post less? Make a single big post replying to everyone instead. Since you can get warned for it.

Edited May 20, 2020 by This boi uses Nino

[eclipse]

7 minutes ago, Whitfield1999 said:

I guess dancers and healers no matter what there stats are will be fine, but combat units for games like the ds fire emblems and three houses make it pretty hard to justify using characters outside of your main squad you've been using this entire time. especially in the higher difficulties.

Thracia and fe3 I feel like there are good reasons to use other classes besides the ol' paladin and wyvern knight even if they aren't as good stat wise.

Not to say you can't use lower stat units if you want to, but you'll be hurting yourself for it in the long run.

But that's just it - it's NOT a monumental task short of serious resource allocation mistakes on Maddening.  It means you'll have to think harder about to make it work, numerically.  Which its its own challenge.

Oh, and stop double-posting, because I'd rather not spend my time handing out warnings, please and thank you.

Just now, This boi uses Nino said:

Yo dude you could try to post less? Make a single big post replying to everyone instead. Since you can get warned for it.

And you can stop mini-modding, too.

[Whitfield1999]

Just now, This boi uses Nino said:

Yo dude you could try to post less? Make a single big post replying to everyone instead. Since you can get warned for it.

 

1 minute ago, eclipse said:

Oh, and stop double-posting, because I'd rather not spend my time handing out warnings, please and thank you.

oh ok, sry, not really used to forums and i'm kinda new. I'll try to make 1 big post instead of multiple from now on.

2 minutes ago, eclipse said:

But that's just it - it's NOT a monumental task short of serious resource allocation mistakes on Maddening.  It means you'll have to think harder about to make it work, numerically.  Which its its own challenge.

if there is no reason to make yourself think harder numerically then why would you? yes it's possible to use guys outside your main squad, but the game doesn't give you any reason to and that my problem with it really.

[eclipse]

Just now, Whitfield1999 said:

if there is no reason to make yourself think harder numerically then why would you? yes it's possible to use guys outside your main squad, but the game doesn't give you any reason to and that my problem with it really.

Because it's more productive than complaining that a video game no longer caters to my very specific tastes.  Yes you can have Felix run everything over, or you can do some silly positioning shenanigans with Ashe first (have him snipe something, then fly him elsewhere so he can pick a lock or something).  Every map has a victory/defeat condition, and it doesn't care how you get that victory, as long as the defeat condition isn't met.

[Whitfield1999]

11 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Because it's more productive than complaining that a video game no longer caters to my very specific tastes.  Yes you can have Felix run everything over, or you can do some silly positioning shenanigans with Ashe first (have him snipe something, then fly him elsewhere so he can pick a lock or something).  Every map has a victory/defeat condition, and it doesn't care how you get that victory, as long as the defeat condition isn't met.

i wasn't really complaining... I actually like three houses a lot and appreciate it for what it is. I just made the thread to share and discuss about an aspect of the game franchise that I think is interesting and unappreciated. basically i'm trying to hard sell fe3. 

To everyone reading right now, please play fe3 it's a 10/10 masterpiece.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Whitfield1999

[JubileePhoenix]

5 hours ago, Whitfield1999 said:

Yea I guess your right. I Just am not a fan of having the game centered around training 10 units for the entire game instead of there being a real decision on who to bring for the chapter ya know.

The example I gave could have easily been solved through reclassing as well so wasn't really well thought out on my end lol. 

Well, i see it more like "oh i got  10 units that i can make monsters!'  But has you said re classing dose not matter post time skip. The option is be a flyer or have a worse unit then the others.

[eclipse]

16 minutes ago, Whitfield1999 said:

i wasn't really complaining... I actually like three houses a lot and appreciate it for what it is. I just made the thread to share and discuss about an aspect of the game franchise that I think is interesting and unappreciated. basically i'm trying to hard sell fe3. 

To everyone reading right now, please play fe3 it's a 10/10 masterpiece.

FE3 lacks some characters I like, sadly, and THAT is enough reason for me to skip it.

[Eden Agleam]

18 minutes ago, Whitfield1999 said:

I wasn't really complaining... I actually like Three Houses a lot and appreciate it for what it is. I just made the thread to share and discuss about an aspect of the game franchise that I think is interesting and unappreciated. Basically i'm trying to hard sell FE3. 

To everyone reading right now, please play FE3; it's a 10/10 masterpiece.

While there is a genuine possibility I'd really enjoy FE3, there is also the unquestionable fact that I have a hard time playing older games. GBA is the farthest I can go back without pulling my hair out. It's the reason that I have never gotten past FE4 chapter 3 in any attempted run. 

[Lightcosmo]

The only issue I have with 3H's game design is that in part 2, almost all of the enemies carry silver weapons. To me, there isnt much to plan around when all you see are silver weapons 80% of the time. Other than that, I think they did a fairly solid job of making it pretty interesting. I'm not saying they should always have enemies with horse slaying weapons or anything, but some diversity would be nice.

[SoulWeaver]

Yo, Sully's still on here? Haven't seen him in a while, I must not be checking the right threads.

On-topic:

1 hour ago, Whitfield1999 said:

i wasn't really complaining... I actually like three houses a lot and appreciate it for what it is. I just made the thread to share and discuss about an aspect of the game franchise that I think is interesting and unappreciated. basically i'm trying to hard sell fe3. 

To everyone reading right now, please play fe3 it's a 10/10 masterpiece.

You mentioned the bench being bad, and honestly I agree with the older games, FE6 got annoying really fast with how quickly it felt like Units I didn't constantly use fell behind. Sacred Stones kind of fixed it with the Tower of Valni being free catchup for anyone you like, but only kind of. Haven't played 3H and probably never will, so I can't comment there, but as someone who played all the 3DS games I think you could honestly get away with dropping like half your party for four or five+ maps so long as you know what you're doing - I had a Fates run where I randomly decided mid-playthrough I was done using Elise, captured a generic Shrine Maiden and proceeded to use her for almost the entire rest of the game. I'm one of those players who likes to grind everyone up to max level before clearing the last map(currently in the midst of Overclassing EVERYONE in an SoV file), so I'm not much of a stranger to tedious small map spam when required, and especially with Awakening's overworld map it doesn't usually take very long to pick up bench-produced slack if you have time to kill, assuming you need it.

I'm planning on looking into the reboot once I finally get myself to go back and clear Shadow Dragon, I do hear mostly good things about Mystery.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/19/2020 at 8:10 PM, Whitfield1999 said:

Thracia and fe3 I feel like there are good reasons to use other classes besides the ol' paladin and wyvern knight even if they aren't as good stat wise.

Well, the matter's forced in Thracia, which I have a major grievance with.

To the OP, using a core team was always the best way to play Fire Emblem due to the series' unstable equilibrium - the units that start ahead tend to have an easy time staying ahead, but on the other hand, the units that start out behind the curve tend to require a lot of babysitting to get anywhere (see: Nino, Wendy - heck, I could name just about any underleveled unit and the point is valid). Only a few exceptions exist to the latter.

[Dinar87]

I've always enjoyed fire emblem more for the RPG elements personally, than the strategy elements which I'm not so good at. But I get that it does suck to see a major gameplay element gone from the series you love that's really unique.

In terms of having specific units for specific situations, what if they did a best of both worlds situation? Where they let you customize everyone like in three houses BUT there are heavy penalties for trying to level up weapon ranks (there'd be more red arrows) and it's clear that certain skills, and therefore classes, would be suited to specific characters more than others now. In addition, each character could only become certain classes now, unless they used a second seal...but because of the other classes needing different weapon ranks (remember how I said there'd be more red arrows with training units ranks), players would be less likely to imo.

Combined with that, what if each map had mini objectives where you could catch thieves, defeat certain enemies before time runs out, etc...? And often you'd need a variety of units to do these things. 

I think if the next game had those two design philosophies, you could actually keep the depth of customization of three houses if you needed to AND have a variety of classes and units that don't blend together. Any thoughts?

Edited May 21, 2020 by Dinar87

[Whitfield1999]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Well, the matter's forced in Thracia, which I have a major grievance with.

To the OP, using a core team was always the best way to play Fire Emblem due to the series' unstable equilibrium - the units that start ahead tend to have an easy time staying ahead, but on the other hand, the units that start out behind the curve tend to require a lot of babysitting to get anywhere (see: Nino, Wendy - heck, I could name just about any underleveled unit and the point is valid). Only a few exceptions exist to the latter.

I agree with you for most games, but In thracia and FE3 stat caps are locked in at 20 (units can't get much farther ahead then the rest of your army) and the fact that mounts can't be indoors and movement penalties are a big concern means that sticking with the same people for every map is a less then optimal strategy. So for those games at least, having a core team of guys you fall to every chapter tends to be less then an optimal strategy.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Whitfield1999

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Whitfield1999 said:

I agree with you for most games, but In thracia and FE3 stat caps are locked in at 20 (units can't get much farther ahead then the rest of your army) and the fact that mounts can't be indoors and movement penalties are a big concern means that sticking with the same people for every map is a less then optimal strategy. So for those games at least, having a core team of guys you fall to every chapter tends to be less then an optimal strategy.

Maybe in Thracia (because it's forced), but I don't see it as so good an idea in Mystery, even if you could feasibly get away with it. Also, I'm not sold on this notion that being forced to dismount indoors cripples cavaliers and pegasus knights in Mystery...  Also, I think Thracia having stat caps at a universal 20 was a step backwards, considering Genealogy first did away with that (disregarding Gaiden due to the second game in the series tending to be radically different back then), not to mention it imo makes lategame units lose some of their appeal.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Nintenzero]

This is a bit off topic, but for those who like how the older games do things I recommend playing the kaga saga. With the partial exception of Berwick Saga, they basically pickup where the snes era left off.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Nintenzero