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So, apparently, 3H has some of the lower (lowest?) difficulty in all of the FE entries? Your opinions?


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Oh man, this is a very spicy topic.

Well it really depends on the community and the stance on newbies to the franchise. I think what is believed to be common sentiment(correct me if I am wrong) from the 'elitist' perspective that basically if you aren't restarting every chapter and crying over difficulty, that is is not fire emblem. I know that fire emblem is(perhaps was) known for permadeath gimmick, and sometimes difficulty of the games. Personally, I like new people entering the franchise and I generally do not like the 'elitist' vibe that you sometimes get out of some of the people here that think that they are hot stuff. All in all i will say that FE has become easier but honestly as long as they give us higher difficulties people should chill the heck out about FiRe EmBlEm Is ToO eAsY.

I mostly blame the turn-wheel mechanics for this exponential decrease in difficulty. With turn-wheel mechanics, difficulty basically becomes a non-problem because you just go back in time if you make a boneheaded mistake. It is a very nice QOL change however I do think that they should reign it in for future games.

 

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On 1/4/2021 at 1:35 PM, Benice said:

I personally found that, at least on hard, it barely mattered-The only people I had running battalions consistently were Ignatz and Lysithea, (for extra crit).as well as Claude with the immortal corps. Regardless, I know you get at least a few solid enough flying battalions on non-VW routes, (IIRC two seiros pegasus knights, Cichol wyvern co., Galatea pegasus corps, but that is off the top of my head, so there may be more or I may be mistaken) and also Golden Deer wyverns and Immortal Corps on VW. Either way, you can get your strongest physical units into WL quite easily.

Speaking of fliers, I feel like the absurd dismounting mechanic also helps serve to make the game easier. There's technically a drawback to dismouning, but it's really miniscule.

Even so, I feel that eventually opportunity cost rears its ugly head - would I be better off with another flier who has to use a low-end flying battalion or even no battalion than a grounded unit who can use one of the many high-end grounded battalions? I think not.

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On 1/4/2021 at 6:37 PM, Marienburg said:

I take it you haven't played the game yet? It's really not as bad as people make it out to be. There's maybe 4 relevant ambush spawns across the entire game and none of them force you to change your entire strategy, rather just revise unit placement. And it's not like the ambush spawns come out of nowhere, warp in the middle of your team, and one shot your healer. On the Miklan map you're warned ahead of time that there's enemies trying to get to you from the lower floors.

There are still other bullshit ambush spawns, though, such as on the Ingrid paralogue, or Foreign Land and Sky. If you're caught unaware, you totally have to re-strategize how you're going to finish the chapter. And they don't have to show up in the middle of my team - like, I shouldn't be expected to have to keep my healer 8 tiles away from any edge of the map because Wyvern Lords or Paladins might show up.

Anyway, yeah, Normal Mode of Three Houses is a cakewalk (I never once used Divine Pulse pre-skip, and the first time I used it on VW, it wasn't even over a death). Hard is only slightly tougher, although I remember the CF Endgame making me think a little bit. Maddening, though, takes a steep jump - even with NG+ features, it's a serious challenge. I like it, but I'd be game for a difficulty that keeps some Maddening aspects (reduced weekly skill gains, new skills on enemy classes) without others (dramatically reduced EXP, ambush spawns, enemies overleveled to hell and back again).

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

There are 15 huts around the boss area. Once you get into that circle, nomads and nomad troopers spawn from the huts nearby. The catch? You don't know which huts will spawn them. Even blocking them off isn't safe unless you block all of them, which is absurd.

As much as that map sucks, at least you used to be able to block reinforcements. Now they'll just show up in the tile next to where they were supposed to spawn, and kill your "guard" unit.

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Even so, I feel that eventually opportunity cost rears its ugly head - would I be better off with another flier who has to use a low-end flying battalion or even no battalion than a grounded unit who can use one of the many high-end grounded battalions? I think not.

The thing is, as an example, in Path of Radiance, Jill is considered to be better than Gatrie despite the latter being available for longer and having lower bases everywhere except for speed. Gatrie, however, is in a class that sucks whereas Jill is in an excellent class. Gatrie also has access to the Knight Ward to help his speed, while Jill needs speedwings or speed procs to make up for that.* Same thing with Marcia, although her problems are different than Jill's. The ability to have extremely high mobility is worth the tradeoff for some stats. In Three Houses, the same is true, only the fluidity of classes lets someone like Gatrie's stats also be fliers. Everyone has access to it, so even if a few stand out above the rest, the options that WL allows make it a great option for almost every physical unit.

Plus, pretty much every map (At least in VW) is Defeat Boss, so you only really need one or two fliers to get quick wins, if that's what you're looking for.

*I know that Gatrie is not a very good user for the knight ward, but that's not the point.

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1 hour ago, Benice said:

The thing is, as an example, in Path of Radiance, Jill is considered to be better than Gatrie despite the latter being available for longer and having lower bases everywhere except for speed. Gatrie, however, is in a class that sucks whereas Jill is in an excellent class. Gatrie also has access to the Knight Ward to help his speed, while Jill needs speedwings or speed procs to make up for that.* Same thing with Marcia, although her problems are different than Jill's. The ability to have extremely high mobility is worth the tradeoff for some stats. In Three Houses, the same is true, only the fluidity of classes lets someone like Gatrie's stats also be fliers. Everyone has access to it, so even if a few stand out above the rest, the options that WL allows make it a great option for almost every physical unit.

Plus, pretty much every map (At least in VW) is Defeat Boss, so you only really need one or two fliers to get quick wins, if that's what you're looking for.

*I know that Gatrie is not a very good user for the knight ward, but that's not the point.

This example is flawed as hell because PoR favoured mounted units in general. To get back to the topic, battalions are bonus stats, and I'd much rather have a grounded unit with Goneril Valkyries (+8 physical attack, among other bonuses) or something than another wyvern lord who has to use a Seiros Pegasus Co. So even if I could have a lot of wyverns, in practice, I won't because in doing so, I incur a huge opportunity cost that whatever perks it offers don't make up for imho.

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41 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

This example is flawed as hell because PoR favoured mounted units in general.

Yes, for a variety of reasons which TH shares-Super Canto, Wyverns having massive stats, etc. Three houses also heavily nerfs cavalry, making flyers far and away the best options for high movement when possible.

45 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

To get back to the topic, battalions are bonus stats, and I'd much rather have a grounded unit with Goneril Valkyries (+8 physical attack, among other bonuses) or something than another wyvern lord who has to use a Seiros Pegasus Co. 

Galatea Pegasus Co. grants +7 to physical attack, grants five def, six res and +8 to charm. The only major advantage the Valkyries have over the Pegasi is +20 hit to the Galtea's +5. Cichol wyvern Co. is nearly identical, only with more defense, hit and crit in exchange for less res. While they are slightly inferior to the infantry battalions, it is a miniscule difference that is made up by WL's large superiority in movement and power. Wyvern Lord provides +2 to strength, which is the uncontested second highest, only beaten out by War Master's +5. Plus, when mounted, WL provides +4, which is three ahead of alll non-WM master classes. It provides more speed than everything but Falcon Knight, so it's an extremely potent class.

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10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Are you talking about this page? Because I would consider that a YMMY topic - see: Ayra, for example. She was considered broken for quite a while, until people realized that her awesome combat would not see much use in practice, barring the arena, because her game very heavily favours mounted units. Or for another example, Gonzales from Binding Blade. Some people think he's good because he hits hard and is fast. Others don't, because he's extremely inaccurate.

Do you think nomads spawning from random huts around the boss area (chapter 18 Sacae) is fair? Because I don't.

Look at this map:

Chapter18B.png

There are 15 huts around the boss area. Once you get into that circle, nomads and nomad troopers spawn from the huts nearby. The catch? You don't know which huts will spawn them. Even blocking them off isn't safe unless you block all of them, which is absurd.

Like I said, maybe its just me, but I had no problems with this map the first time I encountered it. When you start the map you already know from the cutscene that there's going to be an ambush somewhere. At first I was guarding against reinforcements from the northwest where you spawn and from the north anxious that they would come in during the initial fight in the north. Then I realized it couldn't be the north because of the mountains, so as I reached south I guarded against the south and southwest. Still nothing happened so then I thought, what if it's the huts? I think what tipped me off was that moving onto one doesn't trigger any dialogue (whereas the ones in the north do?), so it got me thinking that they're forts not houses. So I parked a unit on every hut on the western half, put my mages on the 2 huts in the west and only then moved into the circle, at which point the circle spawned the ambush. Maybe I got lucky because Awakening taught me to never leave a building or staircase unblocked, but to be fair to the game there are 2-3 earlier chapters that teach you that enemies will come from forts, including the map immediately before this one. On the following map, Bulgar, first time there I thought that the red houses were going to be reinforcements and was relived when I found that they're actually villages.

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20 hours ago, Benice said:

Galatea Pegasus Co. grants +7 to physical attack, grants five def, six res and +8 to charm. The only major advantage the Valkyries have over the Pegasi is +20 hit to the Galtea's +5. Cichol wyvern Co. is nearly identical, only with more defense, hit and crit in exchange for less res. While they are slightly inferior to the infantry battalions, it is a miniscule difference that is made up by WL's large superiority in movement and power. Wyvern Lord provides +2 to strength, which is the uncontested second highest, only beaten out by War Master's +5. Plus, when mounted, WL provides +4, which is three ahead of alll non-WM master classes. It provides more speed than everything but Falcon Knight, so it's an extremely potent class.

You're missing the point, which is that good flying battalions are very limited compared to good grounded battalions. This disincentivizes having a lot of flying units. While Wyvern Lord is a good class, it's not good enough to justify having so many fliers that some have to use low-end flying battalions.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

You're missing the point, which is that good flying battalions are very limited compared to good grounded battalions. This disincentivizes having a lot of flying units. While Wyvern Lord is a good class, it's not good enough to justify having so many fliers that some have to use low-end flying battalions.

Not taking -Faire skills into account, a WL with a personal strength stat of 25 using the most basic flying battalion will be beaten out AT MOST by one point by any infantry physical class with the same personal strength, except for WM*, which will have a large advantage over WL.

* I was mistaken here, warrior can reach +3 over WL.

Meaning that using the low-end flying battalions lets other physical contenders hold only a minor advantage if they're using a battlion that grants +8 might.  Having more movement and mobility than the competition is worth meager amounts of damage. Unless I am mistaken, on VW there are six flying battalions to go around, and since most maps have nine deployment slots, so there's a lot of space for wyverns.

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11 minutes ago, Benice said:

Not taking -Faire skills into account, a WL with a personal strength stat of 25 using the most basic flying battalion will be beaten out AT MOST by one point by any infantry physical class with the same personal strength, except for WM*, which will have a large advantage over WL.

* I was mistaken here, warrior can reach +3 over WL.

Meaning that using the low-end flying battalions lets other physical contenders hold only a minor advantage if they're using a battlion that grants +8 might.  Having more movement and mobility than the competition is worth meager amounts of damage. Unless I am mistaken, on VW there are six flying battalions to go around, and since most maps have nine deployment slots, so there's a lot of space for wyverns.

I still think it's a major opportunity cost to incur when a lot of good battalions are grounded. Also, Verdant Wind is only one route. Contrast Azure Moon, which only has two good flying battalions - Galatea and Cichol.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Also, Verdant Wind is only one route.

The other routes all have five-Only lacking Immortal Corps. (Unless CF works differently.)

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I still think it's a major opportunity cost to incur when a lot of good battalions are grounded.

I can't tell you how you should play FE, but to me, 1-3 points of damage difference with the worst options compared to the best seems not very steep considering all the benefits of WL.

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4 minutes ago, Benice said:

The other routes all have five-Only lacking Immortal Corps. (Unless CF works differently.)

I can't tell you how you should play FE, but to me, 1-3 points of damage difference with the worst options compared to the best seems not very steep considering all the benefits of WL.

I ask again, how many of them are good? Because even with whatever benefits it offers, I'm not okay with settling for a wyvern lord that has to use a low-end flying battalion.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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13 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I ask again, how many of them are good? Because even with whatever benefits it offers, I'm not okay with settling for a wyvern lord that has to use a low-end flying battalion.

They're fine. Most of them grant at least +4 to Attack. Underwhelming Prt/Rsl boosts (but it's Maddening, so who cares, everyone's dying on one enemy phase attack anyway) and no accuracy boost, but that's easily fixed with Hit +20.

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5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I ask again, how many of them are good?

  • BE Pegasus, Cichol wyvern, Galatea Pegasus co. grant +7 physical attack amongst other gains
  • Empire elite wyvern co. and Immortal Corps grant +8 to physical attack
  • GD Wyvern co. +6
  • BE/BL wyvern co. grants +5
  • [House] pegasus co. and Seiros pegasi grant +4.

And possibly some others I missed.

Some are good, some are passable; however, again, using only the worst still only puts WL behind one point of most infantry classes with their best batallions.

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I'm surprised people consider 3H to be the easiest game in the series. Even on hard mode, I thought the game was reasonably challenging, especially post-timeskip. The game gives you less deployment slots than other games in the series like Fates and post-timeskip, most characters can't withstand more than 2-3 combats without getting KO'd since promoted enemies have Faire skills, so enemy phasing is more difficult than earlier entries.

What makes this game easier than other entries that are considered easy like Shadows of Valentia or Path of Radiance?

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On 1/5/2021 at 10:43 PM, Shadow Mir said:

This example is flawed as hell because PoR favoured mounted units in general. To get back to the topic, battalions are bonus stats, and I'd much rather have a grounded unit with Goneril Valkyries (+8 physical attack, among other bonuses) or something than another wyvern lord who has to use a Seiros Pegasus Co. So even if I could have a lot of wyverns, in practice, I won't because in doing so, I incur a huge opportunity cost that whatever perks it offers don't make up for imho.

Here's an exercise - try thinking about this in reverse. The ability to fly is bonus movement, letting your units get to places they wouldn't otherwise dream of. Particularly in combination with Canto, and support tools like Stride or Dancing, this can be vital to clearing certain chapters quickly. Hell, fliers are uniquely able to "reposition" grounded allies across otherwise-impassable terrain. Grounded batallions may give better stat boosts, and gambit options, than flying ones. But in most cases, giving up the power of flight is too great an opportunity cost, just for the sake of some stats.

For the record, I don't play with more than a few fliers, so this is me being a devil's avocado. But I think how convincing the "lack of batallions" anti-flier argument is, depends on how much (or little) value you place on flying mobility.

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Blind hard/classic was pretty straightforward, but Maddening - which I haven't played - just doesn't sound fun. Definitely sounds leagues harder than like, FE8 or 9 HM, so I don't think you can really say it's the easiest in the series.

I kind of wish there was a step between Hard and Maddening, but if I have to err in a particular direction I'd rather a breezy FE experience to a frustrating one.

Edited by Parrhesia
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My favorite FEs are the easiest ones. PoR, Sacred Stones, and, yes, 3H. As far as I'm concerned, arbitrary difficulty measures don't inherently make a game better. Especially when such difficulty is achieved through poor game design (caugh, Ambush spawns. Caugh, Fates poison-swap ninja teams.)

Edited by Fabulously Olivier
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On 1/6/2021 at 8:58 PM, FoxyGrandpa said:

I'm surprised people consider 3H to be the easiest game in the series. Even on hard mode, I thought the game was reasonably challenging, especially post-timeskip. The game gives you less deployment slots than other games in the series like Fates and post-timeskip, most characters can't withstand more than 2-3 combats without getting KO'd since promoted enemies have Faire skills, so enemy phasing is more difficult than earlier entries.

What makes this game easier than other entries that are considered easy like Shadows of Valentia or Path of Radiance?

I'm not sure many people actually think that (at least out of people who have played enough games in the series to judge), but it also depends on how you're judging it. Do you mean easiest of anything, or easiest of the hardest available options? If the former, 3H is probably only harder than Fates in Phoenix mode, because normal/casual has almost no fail state whatsoever and you have more options than other games to make your life easier. But if the latter, 3H maddening is definitely more difficult than some of the oft-cited easier FEs, like PoR and SS.

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3H on Normal and even Hard modes are indeed very easy and one of the easiest games in the series. I don’t know if it’s easier than POR though. POR is also very easy. I’ve never actually played 3H on Normal, I started on Hard and found that very easy. Maddening mode is a whole different story though. If we include Maddening then 3H is far from the easiest in the series. I haven’t played enough of the games in the series to say, but I’d think 3H Maddening would be at least in the middle in terms of difficulty, if not harder than most. Maddening is a huge step up from Hard.

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Whether or not this is a good thing is a much more complicated question and depends on a number of factors. Difficulty, balance, and fairness are all separate things but can all sometimes get a bit conflated. Sometimes they do go hand in hand. A game can be hard for unfair reasons, and to an extent that is the case in 3H Maddening. There are so many examples of unfair ambush spawns in Maddening mode. I think they’re among the worst in the series.

But that wasn’t really the question. Can it be a bad thing for a game to be too easy? Well, as long as it isn’t so easy that it’s practically impossible to lose, then in general, no. Newer or less skilled players could prefer easier games. It would be nice to have higher difficulties as an option though for people that prefer the challenge, especially in repeat playthroughs.

But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Low difficulty isn’t inherently a bad thing for the most part, just something that a lot if people wouldn’t prefer. But low difficulty can mess with a game’s balance and reduce variety. The weaker the enemies are, the less your stats matter, the less variety there is between units if they can all kill dozens of enemies. This makes mobility more important than combat power (and it already is most of the time even on higher difficulties). The easier the game is, the less exciting it is to grow stronger and get upgrades and new weapons etc. The game is already easy, you’re already killing enemies without problem. There’s no incentive to growing stronger and it doesn’t make much difference when you do. The difference between various upgrades of sorts becomes smaller. All of your decisions can matter less, what class path to progress your units through, what abilities you use etc. All of this variety can be reduced if a game is too easy.

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11 hours ago, Florete said:

I'm not sure many people actually think that (at least out of people who have played enough games in the series to judge), but it also depends on how you're judging it. Do you mean easiest of anything, or easiest of the hardest available options? If the former, 3H is probably only harder than Fates in Phoenix mode, because normal/casual has almost no fail state whatsoever and you have more options than other games to make your life easier. But if the latter, 3H maddening is definitely more difficult than some of the oft-cited easier FEs, like PoR and SS.

I'm basing it on a hard mode playthrough, not maddening and comparing it to other hard modes in the series on classic mode. I also define difficulty as the number of times a unit of mine dies due to poor planning (not just chapter restarts, since Divine Pulse throws a wrench into that).

I'm not going to say much more about POR or SS since its been a long time since I've played through them. However, I think 3 Houses on hard is at the very least more difficult that SoV on Hard. 

 

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So, maybe the real problem is lack of options between Hard and Maddening, and maybe lack of options from Maddening onwards. Now that I think about it, I'd probably be more critical about the lack of challenge if there weren't other things to offer. It can be various other gameplay contents that are just as fun, or a story worth watching and paying attention, or as just said, a proper challenge that is yet still manageable. Part of the reason why Awakening's lack of challenge bothered me more than Sacred Stones or Three Houses was due to its lack of other content compared to 3H, its uninspired story compared to both, and it's lack of a balanced difficulty setting between Hard and Lunatic compared to, say, Shadow Dragon.

Edited by henrymidfields
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On 1/4/2021 at 6:50 PM, SnowFire said:

Re other comments, I agree that a difficulty mode in-between Hard & Maddening would have been nice, as would toggle-able difficulty that lets you go back up as well as down.  That said, there's a large difference in how you approach Maddening that does let you customize the experience - Maddening NG Classic, Maddening NG Casual but trying to only abuse deaths occasionally, Maddening NG Casual letting units "die" left and right, Maddening NG+ that doesn't go crazy on the imports and keeps just statue level & batallions, Maddening NG+ where you unload a bunch of busted lategame skills early...  you have options.

Just gonna repeat myself here - for a good "Maddening lite" experience, do an NG+ but don't actually use any NG+ features other than importing statue level and a bunch of good battalions.  Also, now that the DLC landed, there's something similar as far as just grabbing the Chalice of Beginnings and a ton of Renown off the Cindered Shadows completion reward, which helps out the very unforgiving early game a good bit.  There definitely are ways to get a somewhere-south-of-Maddening, north of Hard experience.

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