Recommended self-imposed challenges for a true / balanced "Hard" difficulty in Three Houses?

[Xen0nex]

I'm a Fire Emblem Veteran who finally got Three Houses on sale, and have been hearing a bit about the generally low challenge on this game at all difficulty levels, despite the rest of the game being otherwise pretty great.  I've heard a few examples of different "challenge runs" people have done in Three Houses, but I'm not really looking for a white-knuckled reload-fest where there only a select few choices / strategies are viable.  

I guess I'm looking for something in the ballpark of Fates: Conquest (Hard) or Blazing Blade: Hector's tale (Normal)? Ideally I would play Three Houses on Hard with some self-imposed challenges to make it feel "Hard," then afterwards could do the same with Maddening for a second playthrough.

For context, when a game like this is too easy I try to find a way to bump up the general difficulty, without making it feel too restrictive where I can't make use of half the game features, etc.  For example, in XCOM 2: WOTC getting mods to make the aliens increasingly more powerful as the game goes on to try to prevent the lack of challenge in the end-game, or in Breath of the Wild having self-imposed rules of only eating a single meal/elixir per combat, only upgrading armor to rank 2, only teleporting between settlements, etc.  That way I can still experiment and take advantage of all of the game's features, without feeling too overpowered too quickly.

Here are some ideas I've come across, but haven't played the game yet so I don't have a great grasp on what things would work well together:

• Don't do auxiliary battles, since they give too much XP
• Don't equip Prowess skills or Battalions (I would prefer not to cut out entire game mechanics if I can find another way to increase challenge)

Does anybody have an idea of a self-imposed rule or several rules used together that might give something close to this kind of "true Hard mode" experience I'm looking for in Three Houses?

Edited November 15, 2020 by Xen0nex

[Dark Holy Elf]

For what it's worth, I think Maddening does manage to provide some challenge - it's unquestionably more difficult than Hector Normal Mode, for instance. (I'd put it above Hector Hard Mode, but I can see debating that one.... depends a lot how you feel about rewind when discussing a game's challenge.)

If you're looking to get more teeth out of Hard, it's always a matter of how many of the game mechanics you're willing to give up. For example, if you do a lot of Resting (as opposed to Explore, Battle, or even Seminar), it'll slow your gain of skills, making the game harder. But you'll be missing out on the monastery mechanics, if those are interesting to you. You mentioned battalions; I personally wouldn't give those up because gambits are interesting tactical options, but of course you could.

Some easy ways to make the game a bit tougher which don't reduce player options:

-Don't lowman: distribute training roughly equally amongst your entire team. You can up challenge even further if you use, train, and rotate more units than are necessary (like 13-15, even though deployment never goes past 12).

-Don't use stat boosters, and especially don't farm them via gardening; they're overkill for Hard for sure.

-Don't grind, i.e. doing optional auxilary fights or extraneous arena/fishing.

[LoneStar]

Not having stuff like Stride will probably make the game slower than it needs to be, maybe just avoid using offensive gambits. It’s good to be aware of the game’s mechanics otherwise, Maddening will be really rough. No prowess means no Axes haha. 

No grinding or Monastery abuse sounds good. Maybe just rest and auto tutor often.

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

Limiting the amount of times you use Divine Pulse can be something, maybe paired with one or two of the above challenges already mentioned.

The way I would do it is that you have a set amount of divine pulse per month based on the number of divine pulses you would normally have during a battle. For example, if you would have 5 divine pulses per battle at one point in the game, the month that battle takes place would have 5 divine pulses you would have to use wisely throughout the month. Once you run out of uses, you cannot use Divine Pulse anymore for the rest of the month. There are exceptions where your number of Divine Pulses can be refreshed or added, or even restricted. For example:

-Adding to your Divine Pulse count at the beginning of the month (and only the beginning, not the week after) through Saint Statues can add to your count before you do any battles.

-Finishing the Sothis Paralogue refreshes your Divine Pulses for the month.

-You are restricted to using one less Divine Pulse than normal during Ethereal Moon to account for story events.

-Obtaining your Divine form in chapter 10’s main end-of-chapter battle refreshes your Divine Pulse count for the rest of the battle.

[Xen0nex]

Thanks for the advice!  I actually tend to automatically avoid lowmanning in FE games, since I like a big unit variety as options, so hopefully that will help a bit too.  No stat boosters is also a good idea.  And limiting Divine Pulses sounds like a good idea too.  Yeah, I think I'd like to keep Prowess and Battalions in since they sound interesting to fiddle with.

[lenticular]

A couple of minor self-imposed rules that I typically run for myself:

No dismounting. Flying units are already extremely powerful and I don't like being able to easily negate their biggest weakness.

Everyone I use must end up in a different class. Obviously, it isn't possible to have everyone in the same class right from the start, since there aren't many beginner classes, but there are more than enough advanced/master classes to go around. This is to stop myself from leaning too heavily on the most powerful classes, and force myself to try to make the most of some of the weaker ones. This is especially the case since I always train up at least 15 people (12 deployments and three adjutants).

[Gordin]

No divine pulse

[L3xandr3]

For Hard Mode? No Pulse, no Auxiliary Battles, use only the people starting in your House. That's what I'd recommend. Of course, Hard is a cakewalk, even then.

Maddening is overrated in terms of difficulty. It's front loaded as all hell, but if you can get through first 4-5 fights, it gets much easier. There's a difficulty spike when Advanced Class enemies show up. Then it gets easier again until ~1-2 Chapters before endgame.

[DragonFlames]

No recruiting, no/minimal grinding.
That's what I did on my first few playthroughs and it was decently challenging, even on Normal.
So much so that I stuck with that playstyle when I eventually "upgraded" to Hard, and it's my personal favorite way to play the game.

Edited November 15, 2020 by DragonFlames

[Pengaius]

Some rules I can think of would be

• No reclassing. Once a unit promotes into a new class, they stay as that class until they next promote. 
• 0 1 flier. You may only train 1 unit in flying, this unit must be decided at the start of the game
• No Crest Gang + Faculty. Use only Crestless students, or church faculty when possible
• Attack and Heal adjutants only, guard too OP pls nerf
• No Tutoring, units may only gain Ranks through Study and battles. 
• 1 Quest/Paralogue per Month
• Locked to 3 Divine Pulse and only pulse 1 phase at a time. (If you wanna undo an EP, pulse twice.) 

That's pretty much all the restrictions I'd recommend. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I think you could just make a few restrictions:

- Only one Explore session per month;

- Only one Battle per "Battle" weekend;

- No using Renown to restore the statues.

The first two, I think, could help to cut down tedium, while also restricting your ability to restore motivation and get EXP. The last one has little effect at first, but later means you don't get faster EXP, skill levels, or more divine pulses.

[Agro]

Honestly, just play the game blind from Hard and enjoy the experience - don't use any recruitment guides, etc. Don't look up who gets Warp and who doesn't, and so on. There will still be some level of challenge and you won't be constantly trying to reach certain stat/class benchmarks for future maps. You'll actually miss quite a lot of content this way on your first playthrough - worry about that on your second. With so many new mechanics you'll spend quite a bit of time making suboptimal choices which will make the game naturally more challenging. Hopefully no one has spoiled the story for you - the first run-through is actually a really nice experience.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

My first playthrough of Three Houses was Hard Classic with no restrictions, and I remember thinking the game had enough "bite". From what I recall, one of my units was doubled and killed by swordies in chapter 2 and I was surprised and delighted at the game punishing me for putting a squishy mage on the frontline right at the moment we unlock divine pulse. That level of difficulty doesn't hold (because Fire Emblem as a series has scaling issues, even on their hardest difficulties, in order to accommodate the possibility of permanently losing your strongest units), but I think you can just enjoy the game on its own terms for your first playthrough. Learn its systems, get an impression on everything, and then you'll know how to approach later playthroughs or challenge runs. For me, Maddening was the only satisfying experience with this game, because all its systems and grindy elements finally mattered. But going into Maddening blind sounds like a miserable experience. Especially when one chapter in particular might softlock your whole playthrough if you weren't prepping for it.

 

[GarEEE]

For a first run, I'd say that hard is a decent difficulty, albeit still quite on the easy side. Like others mentioned, I also wouldn't recommend Maddening for a first run.

 

I have some self-imposed challenges that keep the game entertaining for me, while neither being too hard or too easy.

• Maddening, NG+, DLC activated
• no battle grinding
• choosing classes regardless of how good they are
• only recruiting characters I actually plan on using
• no warp-cheese-strategies
• no stat boosters