Permadeath, QoL, and The Future

[Lightcosmo]

I'm on the side that actually likes being able to grind units up, so i can't say i understand why it's disliked so much.

But, either way, as stated before, it is a choice. Don't take that choice away from me simply because others want it "difficult". Maybe i don't want it to be "the most difficult FE game". I am playing for fun, not to stress every chapter.

[Clear World]

@Imuabicus I have a question. What exactly are you arguing for here? Because reading what you write appears that you are in agreement with the concept but you seem to disagree for some reason. You're writing that players should be able to play the game they want, while disagreeing with the concept of giving players the means to adjust it more closer to what works for them.

On 1/14/2021 at 7:22 AM, lightcosmo said:

I'm on the side that actually likes being able to grind units up, so i can't say i understand why it's disliked so much.

But, either way, as stated before, it is a choice. Don't take that choice away from me simply because others want it "difficult". Maybe i don't want it to be "the most difficult FE game". I am playing for fun, not to stress every chapter.

You and everyone who does shouldn't feel any shame for liking that. If you enjoy these features, there is no reason why you should feel obliged to removed them. People have difference preference and goals with what they want from the game.

Just how you like like grinding, other people like resource management. And those who likes the concept of resource management have some distaste for free skirmishes because it erases the need of resource manage and creates an easy way to overpowered your units.

On 1/13/2021 at 11:16 PM, joevar said:

the more we talk about this, the more permadeath become the root of problem. but i dont want to take it away too.. oh man

Permadeath has a lot of issues, so much that they even harms a lot of different features in the game, like unlocking supports & side chapters that require certain units. You can't unlock any of them if the character is already dead.

It's a mechanic that is a player must accept it or not, and if the game isn't design around it, it kind of isn't useful to have in the game at the point other than its a relic of the older games.

Edited January 17, 2021 by Clear World

[joevar]

10 minutes ago, Clear World said:

Permadeath has a lot of issues, so much that they even harms a lot of different features in the game, like unlocking supports & side chapters that require certain units. You can't unlock any of them if the character is already dead.

It's a mechanic that is a player must accept it or not, and if the game isn't design around it, it kind of isn't useful to have in the game at the point other than its a relic of the older games.

the issues mostly it conflict or limiting with other feature that is in the game or should be in the game. but i still dont think it should be removed.

so far we only see what should happen with everyone surviving, but only little (in 3H) to none (almost every other game) that dying member of troops affecting anything other than "we cant use that one again in next map" and "one less slideshow for ending credit"

something like changing narrative, changing feature, etc etc. in simpler terms, theres almost no merit to persist in permadeath other than prestige and satisfaction. hence why small cast worked in 3H because theres no point having larger cast like past titles if those small cast is all you need anyway

Edited January 17, 2021 by joevar

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

On 1/17/2021 at 2:17 AM, Clear World said:

What exactly are you arguing for here? Because reading what you write appears that you are in agreement with the concept but you seem to disagree for some reason. You're writing that players should be able to play the game they want, while disagreeing with the concept of giving players the means to adjust it more closer to what works for them.

 

Because what you suggest has exactly zero impact on having players play the game they want. No worries? Casual. Supposedly high stakes, adrenaline pumping decisions? Classic. What else is there? If someone fears permadeath - and let´s not forget that this is just a video game, not something that, in any case, should have life-altering consequences for the player - while being fully aware or the mechanics of the game, the solution to the problem isn´t easing them into them, it´s them having to stop being a bitch and start playing the game. The choice is already there.

What I´m arguing here is, being able to actively change up your game. Rather than giving the player an enhanced choice of an already existing choice - classic/casual - I would want players to be able to completely and utterly fuck around and find out in the game. No growth runs? Why not try no stat runs? Oh, you really like this character, but that one has serious problems unit wise? Well, why don´t you take this character editor and fix´em right up? That map isn´t difficult enough? You have a cool idea, making it better? DEW IT, in the map editor.

I want to be able to bend the game to my will, not bend the rules by which the game plays.

[Samz707]

I guess another idea for Quality of Life would be AI settings?

Easy: The AI will sometimes intentionally make dumb decisions, like attacking an armor knight instead of the cleric next to them, not often enough to remove strategy but enough that a single "Left my cleric exposed" mistake is less likely to result in death.

Normal: Normal FE AI, not really much to say.

Realistic/Alive: A bit of an odd one, basically gives AI a "Fear of Death" that's more realistic but would arguably make the game easier like in Echoes, they'll retreat for healing if possible and will do "risky" tactics that are bad from a "kill the player" POV but good in a player's/Real life soldier's perspective, if an armor knight can attack a cleric next to a swordmaster that won't kill them, they'll do it, if however a Killing Edge Swordmaster finds himself in that situation between a Cleric and another Unit that will kill him in the next turn (Like another Killing Edge Swordmaster that the player has) they'll go for that desperate crit against the other swordmaster since that'll leave them alive, basically an intentionally somewhat worse/smarter AI that tries to make it come across more like you're fighting human enemies who want to stay alive, this could maybe actually make fighting Morphs/any other sort of "Dumb" enemy more different, as they'd still have normal FE AI due to lacking self-worth and not caring if they die. (Since in some situations the AI falling back to heal is an opening while in others it actually makes the map more difficult depending on the game/map.)

Edited January 21, 2021 by Samz707

[Benice]

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

I guess another idea for Quality of Life would be AI settings?

Genealogy did this, actually; it didn't have difficulty settings, so it was a sort of stand-in. Still, not a bad idea at all, at least in my opinion.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, Samz707 said:

I guess another idea for Quality of Life would be AI settings?

Easy: The AI will sometimes intentionally make dumb decisions, like attacking an armor knight instead of the cleric next to them, not often enough to remove strategy but enough that a single "Left my cleric exposed" mistake is less likely to result in death.

Normal: Normal FE AI, not really much to say.

Realistic/Alive: A bit of an odd one, basically gives AI a "Fear of Death" that's more realistic but would arguably make the game easier like in Echoes, they'll retreat for healing if possible and will do "risky" tactics that are bad from a "kill the player" POV but good in a player's/Real life soldier's perspective, if an armor knight can attack a cleric next to a swordmaster that won't kill them, they'll do it, if however a Killing Edge Swordmaster finds himself in that situation between a Cleric and another Unit that will kill him in the next turn (Like another Killing Edge Swordmaster that the player has) they'll go for that desperate crit against the other swordmaster since that'll leave them alive, basically an intentionally somewhat worse/smarter AI that tries to make it come across more like you're fighting human enemies who want to stay alive, this could maybe actually make fighting Morphs/any other sort of "Dumb" enemy more different, as they'd still have normal FE AI due to lacking self-worth and not caring if they die. (Since in some situations the AI falling back to heal is an opening while in others it actually makes the map more difficult depending on the game/map.)

Selectable multiple AIs was a thing in some of the old Advance Wars -but only for Versus Mode, the War Room/Trial Maps and the Campaign didn't have this. You could pick Standard- a balanced AI, Defense, Attack, or Aggressive- a really ignorant of caution version of Attack. Super Famicom Wars their predecessor had several AI options in the form its different COs. Yuan Delta was Balanced, Rojenski was Balanced-Incompetent, Fon Rosso was Offense, Name & Face-Tweaked IRL Dictator was Defensive, and the three super-strong COs were all Balanced-Smart.

[NinjaMonkey]

5 hours ago, Samz707 said:

I guess another idea for Quality of Life would be AI settings?

Surely that's what the difficuly setting you choose at the beginning of the game is for?

[Clear World]

On 1/20/2021 at 12:39 PM, Imuabicus said:

Because what you suggest has exactly zero impact on having players play the game they want. No worries? Casual. Supposedly high stakes, adrenaline pumping decisions? Classic. What else is there? If someone fears permadeath - and let´s not forget that this is just a video game, not something that, in any case, should have life-altering consequences for the player - while being fully aware or the mechanics of the game, the solution to the problem isn´t easing them into them, it´s them having to stop being a bitch and start playing the game. The choice is already there.

What I´m arguing here is, being able to actively change up your game. Rather than giving the player an enhanced choice of an already existing choice - classic/casual - I would want players to be able to completely and utterly fuck around and find out in the game. No growth runs? Why not try no stat runs? Oh, you really like this character, but that one has serious problems unit wise? Well, why don´t you take this character editor and fix´em right up? That map isn´t difficult enough? You have a cool idea, making it better? DEW IT, in the map editor.

I want to be able to bend the game to my will, not bend the rules by which the game plays.

First, that is a very native and narrow view on different mechanics affects players. Second, that is the type of bull-crap I except to hear from gatekeeping elites, and if you're carrying this tone, you might as well just claim they should remove features like Divine Pulse & Skirmishes. Balance isn't the only thing, and I bring up many times that this isn't just for permadeath. They have created a few other options to lessen the risk/punishment of the game over it's creation and will probably come up with more in the future. Classic doesn't cover all of them, unless you just want an even large stark divide between the two options.

Lastly, I'm not against them going this direction if they choice to go full-on sandbox, but you do need to realize that is a completely different type of game they would be designing. If they want to, they can. If they don't want to, then they don't need to. But that is a base decision they would need to decide at the ground set as that most likely would require massive reprogramming of the code. 

19 hours ago, Samz707 said:

I guess another idea for Quality of Life would be AI settings?

Easy: The AI will sometimes intentionally make dumb decisions, like attacking an armor knight instead of the cleric next to them, not often enough to remove strategy but enough that a single "Left my cleric exposed" mistake is less likely to result in death.

Normal: Normal FE AI, not really much to say.

Realistic/Alive: A bit of an odd one, basically gives AI a "Fear of Death" that's more realistic but would arguably make the game easier like in Echoes, they'll retreat for healing if possible and will do "risky" tactics that are bad from a "kill the player" POV but good in a player's/Real life soldier's perspective, if an armor knight can attack a cleric next to a swordmaster that won't kill them, they'll do it, if however a Killing Edge Swordmaster finds himself in that situation between a Cleric and another Unit that will kill him in the next turn (Like another Killing Edge Swordmaster that the player has) they'll go for that desperate crit against the other swordmaster since that'll leave them alive, basically an intentionally somewhat worse/smarter AI that tries to make it come across more like you're fighting human enemies who want to stay alive, this could maybe actually make fighting Morphs/any other sort of "Dumb" enemy more different, as they'd still have normal FE AI due to lacking self-worth and not caring if they die. (Since in some situations the AI falling back to heal is an opening while in others it actually makes the map more difficult depending on the game/map.)

I guess I was rather vague with the term QoL, since I would consider that affecting the game balance directly.

Though on another note, I think the 'Easy' option you wrote would probably be more annoying than making it easy. Even though the AI could be making the worst of many options, it being inconstant also make it harder to gauge how they would act. If you want the player to feel 'tactical', than I would suspect the creators would want the AI to be predictable so players can make plans, so when a player loses something, it doesn't feel cheap. Actually, this might also apply to the 'Realistic/Alive' AI version as well, depending on how reliable you can gauge how the AI will make its choice.

I can see something like this being focused on, if they wanted to make some kind of versus mode or trial maps in which you want to conserve on different maps, but make the player experience be more varied, but in a more story driven style of play where I think its reasonable to believe the average player may only play a map once or twice, it seems to me not a likely feature. In other words, I don't think it would be reasonable unless they intent to put a lot of emphasis on including some kind of gameplay that doesn't reside in the main campaign. 

Though I still wouldn't mind if they used more varied AI logic throughout their game.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

On 1/21/2021 at 11:41 PM, Clear World said:

First, that is a very native and narrow view on different mechanics affects players.

deliciously vague

On 1/21/2021 at 11:41 PM, Clear World said:

Second, that is the type of bull-crap I except to hear from gatekeeping elites, and if you're carrying this tone, you might as well just claim they should remove features like Divine Pulse & Skirmishes.

sure, my attitude of "play the game however you want" is elitist gatekeeping

On 1/21/2021 at 11:41 PM, Clear World said:

Balance isn't the only thing, and I bring up many times that this isn't just for permadeath. They have created a few other options to lessen the risk/punishment of the game over it's creation and will probably come up with more in the future. Classic doesn't cover all of them, unless you just want an even large stark divide between the two options.

Everything that is left up to the players desicion is balanced. The only thing required, for the game not to become a broken mess, is the player being capable of ever so slightly restraining themself. The only worry would be something being severly underpowered, but hey, we already covered that with the whole grind out units argument. But I don´t see what allowing the player to de-/activate permadeath/skirmishes/rewind mid campaign (as per your OP list) would do, to make the game more approachable for ye who fear classic.

On 1/21/2021 at 11:41 PM, Clear World said:

Lastly, I'm not against them going this direction if they choice to go full-on sandbox, but you do need to realize that is a completely different type of game they would be designing. If they want to, they can. If they don't want to, then they don't need to. But that is a base decision they would need to decide at the ground set as that most likely would require massive reprogramming of the code. 

FE with a sandbox is still FE, except with a sandbox.

[ZeManaphy]

On 1/14/2021 at 5:22 AM, lightcosmo said:

I'm on the side that actually likes being able to grind units up, so i can't say i understand why it's disliked so much.

But, either way, as stated before, it is a choice. Don't take that choice away from me simply because others want it "difficult". Maybe i don't want it to be "the most difficult FE game". I am playing for fun, not to stress every chapter.

This is means so much. I feel like everyone here criticizes the new games just because they have gotten more " casual" and things like support conversations and map designs makes the games lot easier. I also enjoy grinding and building my skills for my skills at my own pace ( In fact, on my Revelation Playthrough I have over 200 hrs thanks to all the grinding I have done. ) since I tend to find chapter claim are " easy " difficult. Like BR chapters 10, 25, and 13 to name a few. On a similar note, I like the MyCastle and Monastery as well as the mini games like Tea Parties and Mess Hall and I want them to stay. A lot of people call out Three Houses to be far too easy, but just because we find it easy. Three Houses was my brother's first game, and he found a lot of the chapters difficult.  I enjoy a good balance of easy and hard chapters. I know people love Cuphead because its so difficult, but I find it way too difficult to the point that its unplayable for me. I don't want FE going that direction. 

This goes back to Permadeath. Let's keep it optional to ensure that difficulty does not become a barrier to the entry to the series. 

Edited January 26, 2021 by ZeManaphy