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1 hour ago, NegativeExponents- said:

Bad from a financial standpoint? Nah. Although I don't really think going for a more balanced approach or even going the complete opposite way and focusing on males instead are exactly "wrong" either. Especially for an established IP with an already existing fanbase and being backed by Nintendo which attracts even more of an audience.

Bad from any standpoint you like. Specifically, if anyone thinks “They shouldn’t have done it that way”, as opposed to “I’d rather they had done it another way”.

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4 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

Also, who are these female duds besides Mist who came with Ike, most popular lord in the series, and how many are them are from a banner where the non-dud was male instead of female? I seriously fail to see any 2017 banner where that is the case besides Mist and maybe Olwen, but Olwen came at a time when skill inheritance didn't exist yet and probably didn't expect Reinhardt to become the monster he did. I guess maybe Fay but she at least came with Firesweep Bow which still made her desirable as fodder even if she wasn't that great of a unit herself.

There were plenty of female duds. Back in 2017 and 2018, Athena and Marisa were not exactly better than Tobin and Gray. I remember how awful most units were with their default skill kits and you have to overhaul everyone's build and slap on Blade tome or Brave Weapons. It honestly did not matter whether you were male or female, most exclusive Weapons were crap; if you want an easy time and/or be competitive, you run Blade tomes and Brave Weapons.

I am going to pick on Celica a bit because she is relatively popular but she still turned out awful during her debuts. All versions of Celica were duds or were very unimpressive units: Ragnarok was shit but it did not matter because Celica can use Rauðrblade; Celica: Imprisoned Soul needed to swap in Brave Sword when her fellow Focus Heroes can stick with their default Weapons; Celica: Warrior Priestess was crap too and her kit was awful, and she was only better than Hector: Brave Warrior and Ephraim: Sacred Twin Lord by virtue of not being an armor unit, not because she was any good. And that is just Celica. I can go on and on about how most melee units were pretty much crap back then.

There was female bias in terms of representation, but there was not much female bias in terms of performance.

The only clear cut case where females overwhelmingly out number and maybe outperform males is in the support role. For player phase teams, Azura: Vallite Songstress is the best Dancer/Singer in my opinion, rivalled only by the likes of Dorothea: Twilit Harmony and Peony: Álfar Dream Duo; the only male Dancer/Singer with any sort of relevance would be Reyson for Røkkr Sieges. For enemy phase teams, M!Corrin and Kaden are the only two males that come to mind; Lucina: Brave Princess, Flayn. Hilda: Deer's Two-Piece, and Velouria: Renewed Wolfpup are all girls; Tannenbaton is also really good, but any healer with high HP and/or Res can use it well regardless of gender.

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14 minutes ago, XRay said:

There were plenty of female duds. Back in 2017 and 2018, Athena and Marisa were not exactly better than Tobin and Gray. I remember how awful most units were with their default skill kits and you have to overhaul everyone's build and slap on Blade tome or Brave Weapons. It honestly did not matter whether you were male or female, most exclusive Weapons were crap; if you want an easy time and/or be competitive, you run Blade tomes and Brave Weapons.

Duds in this case was applied exclusively to 5* at least that's how I was using it and I believe GrandeRampel was too judging by the examples given. 3-4* may not be great but they weren't pity breakers that one dreaded. Also, again, even if Celica was a dud (she may not have been outstanding but I don't think she was particularly bad but that's just an opinion) the none dud was still Genny so that's still only leaves Ike and Mist as the 2017 banner exception of a male 5* being the good one and the female 5* being the dud.

I also think a lot of those early duds were probably unfortunate accidents. I really doubt early on they wanted character like Olwen, Celica, Ephraim, Alm, etc. to be unremarkable and like you say, most kits in general weren't all that impressive by then, but my argument isn't that there wasn't unremarkable units across the board, only that a lot of the "happy accidents" seems to have landed on female characters and the not-so-accidental unique combinations also ended up landing on the female side.

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7 hours ago, Baldrick said:

I meant, has anyone said it’s wrong to be unhappy with those choices.

On that note, does anyone think IS made a bad choice? Personally, I think if you’re going to make a cashgrab gacha, it makes sense to play it safe and go with what works, rather than trying to branch out.

Sure but the things that are financially safe are also very rarely rewarding in an artistic sense. 

Its very easy to see that female characters both outnumber and outperform male unit by a large degree in most banners because the marketing department demands this rather than because its the best direction to take for the roster itself. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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30 minutes ago, SSbardock84 said:

I didn't even notice lol. Plus I thought there was one guy on this banner. Maybe he's a 4 star focus.

Benny was added to the 3-4* pool as of this banner, but he isn't a focus unit. He's in the Forging Bonds, though. Pretty much the same as what they did with units like Tatiana, Knoll, Emmeryn, and Tanya.

Edited by Othin
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13 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Sure but the things that are financially safe are also very rarely rewarding in an artistic sense. 

Por que no les dos?

I think there are some units in FEH of great beauty. The balance between artistic and financially safe units may be off, but the way they monetised FEH in the start is counter-intuitive if they don’t provide some of the latter.

In any case, the main complaint of the thread seems to be that male characters tend to be less strong in gameplay terms. IMO, that has nothing to do with art or the direction the roster should take.

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19 hours ago, Florete said:

What about Duo Sigurd?

With Wings of Mercy, you do not need cavalry movement to reach whoever you need to reach. He is useful at the start of the map when Wings of Mercy is not ready yet and you got cavalry nukes running about, but once Wings of Mercy is up, other Dancers/Singers provide more oomph.

18 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

Duds in this case was applied exclusively to 5* at least that's how I was using it and I believe GrandeRampel was too judging by the examples given. 3-4* may not be great but they weren't pity breakers that one dreaded. Also, again, even if Celica was a dud (she may not have been outstanding but I don't think she was particularly bad but that's just an opinion) the none dud was still Genny so that's still only leaves Ike and Mist as the 2017 banner exception of a male 5* being the good one and the female 5* being the dud.

I also think a lot of those early duds were probably unfortunate accidents. I really doubt early on they wanted character like Olwen, Celica, Ephraim, Alm, etc. to be unremarkable and like you say, most kits in general weren't all that impressive by then, but my argument isn't that there wasn't unremarkable units across the board, only that a lot of the "happy accidents" seems to have landed on female characters and the not-so-accidental unique combinations also ended up landing on the female side.

There were a lot of happy accidents on the male side. Reinhardt oppressed the meta in 2017 and still heavily dominated 2018. Reinhardt: Thunder's Sword may be sharing the spotlight with Olwen: Righteous Knight, but he sets himself apart as a Counter-Vantage unit compared to all other sword units. Ares was the star of the show as another Counter-Vantage unit; Ishtar was not really relevant until Special Spiral was introduced by Lewyn. Inigo: Indigo Dancer and Shigure: Dark Sky Singer were the first Dancers/Singers with a strong offensive presence since they had access to Blade tomes, and the girls did not join then until Ninian: Bright-Eyed Bride was introduced half a year later. Dorcas was the first axe unit with a Distant Counter Weapon.

In fact, Distant Counter, dual phase guaranteed follow-up, and Meister Weapons are still mostly found on dudes.

So no, dudes are not any less powerful than females for combat roles, whether it was back in the beginning, right now, or any time period in between.

Edited by XRay
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35 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Por que no les dos?

I think there are some units in FEH of great beauty. The balance between artistic and financially safe units may be off, but the way they monetised FEH in the start is counter-intuitive if they don’t provide some of the latter.

In any case, the main complaint of the thread seems to be that male characters tend to be less strong in gameplay terms. IMO, that has nothing to do with art or the direction the roster should take.

I think "artistic sense" meant more like general creativity and not strictly a characters art. Which could encompass anything from the story writing to how units function. Also, not necessarily art direction but the characters they choose to include could count as that too as someone like Gonzalez or Meg would visually stand out among other characters in the cast no matter who the artist is compared to like Ayra who looks a lot like a black haired Eirika or a lot like her daughter or shares a lot visual similarities with Karla.

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40 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I think "artistic sense" meant more like general creativity and not strictly a characters art. Which could encompass anything from the story writing to how units function.

One thing I don’t think it encompasses is the gender distribution of units on banners and in the meta game in general. It could be the basis for an interesting discussion, but I don’t think it has any relation to the topic of the thread, or the question I asked.

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1 hour ago, XRay said:

There were a lot of happy accidents on the male side. Reinhardt oppressed the meta in 2017 and still heavily dominated 2018. Reinhardt: Thunder's Sword may be sharing the spotlight with Olwen: Righteous Knight, but he sets himself apart as a Counter-Vantage unit compared to all other sword units. Ares was the star of the show as another Counter-Vantage unit; Ishtar was not really relevant until Special Spiral was introduced by Lewyn. Inigo: Indigo Dancer and Shigure: Dark Sky Singer were the first Dancers/Singers with a strong offensive presence since they had access to Blade tomes, and the girls did not join then until Ninian: Bright-Eyed Bride was introduced half a year later. Dorcas was the first axe unit with a Distant Counter Weapon.

In fact, Distant Counter, dual phase guaranteed follow-up, and Meister Weapons are still mostly found on dudes.

So no, dudes are not any less powerful than females for combat roles, whether it was back in the beginning, right now, or any time period in between.

Reinhardt likely wasn't selling the banner he debuted on though since it wasn't until after his debut when skill inheritance was introduced that he became good and considering he was 3-4* he likely wasn't making any big impacts in future ones either. A lot of the accidents I'm referring to where good on release when they could actually make money from their banner. I think a better character might be Halloween Jakob honestly who wasn't really good on release either but with the introduction of Bold Fighter he became a monster and, even though his banner had already, he wasn't easily attainable being a 5* seasonal locked unit so IS could actually have made some money with him through his reruns.

Ares was also the demote compared to Lene and Ishtar. And also, Ishtar was/is popular and came with the first killer tome which, while maybe not all that special in practice, was still a novelty so between her popularity, shiny new toy, and remaining 5* locked, I find it hard to believe she didn't at least perform as well, if not better than Ares, and possibly more importantly, continue doing well in future banners compared to Ares who was demoted.

I'm surprised you don't think Olwen's prf Blade tome without a cool down penalty isn't better than Meisterschwert considering how highly you talk about them but OK, I'll concede on that even though I don't think Green Olwen was any worse than him.

Distant Counter means nothing when DC alone couldn't save these units and it was considered optimal to start replacing those weapons with refined slaying ones. Also, Dorcas was fairly basic meanwhile Mia introduced Flashing Blade which became widely sought after. On the other hand, Dorcas's had nothing but Fierce Stance which did not get the same sort of demand with Breaths being way better.

Also, I really think you're missing the point it's not that I think there isn't any powerful dudes. But that even when they exist they usually either come with a better female, one that could be considered equally powerful but usually with some sort of novelty which pushes up their demand in comparison, or the guy gets demoted which kills future sales potential.

And I'm focusing on the sales aspects of this because my argument has been IS created this negative feedback loop in which men end up unfortunately being ignored, likely due to low sales numbers, due to choices they themselves made, regardless of whether those choices where intentional or not.

35 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

One thing I don’t think it encompasses is the gender distribution of units on banners and in the meta game in general. It could be the basis for an interesting discussion, but I don’t think it has any relation to the topic of the thread, or the question I asked.

I'm just saying that I think you misunderstood what @Etrurian emperor said. Not saying it was actually relevant.

But I do think there is some merit to it in this gendered discussion as female characters tend be exclusively designed as conventionally attractive, with the only exceptions coming to mind being Meg, Niime, and Dorothy, meanwhile more guys tend to get varied designs with all sorts of body types and ages such as Gonzales, Basilio, Garret, Fargus, Athos, Brom, Dozla, etc.

Edited by NegativeExponents-
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49 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

 

Also, I really think you're missing the point it's not that I think there isn't any powerful dudes. But that even when they exist they either come with a better female, one that could be considered equally powerful but usually with some sort of novelty which pushes up their demand in comparison, or the guy gets demoted which kills future sales potential.

If powerful male units are still being made, who cares if they sell well or not? As a player, your experience in using the unit in gameplay depends on their stats and skills, not their sales data. Even if a negative feedback loop exists, it doesn’t seem to be preventing powerful male units being made.

In fact, their gender doesn’t really matter either. It’s not like they have reproductive organs.
 

For example, if Nifl was male, what would be the implications apart from “this banner is no longer entirely comprised of females”?

 

Quote

 

But I do think there is some merit to it in this gendered discussion as female characters tend be exclusively designed as conventionally attractive, with the only exceptions coming to mind being Meg, Niime, and Dorothy, meanwhile more guys tend to get varied designs with all sorts of body types and ages such as Gonzales, Basilio, Garret, Fargus, Athos, Brom, Dozla, etc.

I’m not sure what the point is. If you’re saying female characters have less variety in physical appearance, even the same character can look very different when drawn by a different artist. And as you say, a character’s physical appearance is only one aspect of their overall design.

Edited by Baldrick
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@NegativeExponents- I never said that we have to settle for subpar units. In that part of my post I was adressing one specifinc point, which was the first case of a new hero banner having a 3:1 ratio with the Celica banner. Which upset the balance of representation for Valentia. Only Boey on the banner meant we had to get two guys to keep the balance 50-50, and we received them with Tobin and Clive. And the next banners had three women (Sonya, Delthea, Mathilda) and three men (Leon, Gray, Saber), with one man demoting and one woman demoting (which added to our previous demotes, Lukas, Clair, Mae and Boey). And of course Berkut which means the guys were actually slightly winning in quantity, but not in quality because of Genny stealing a 5* slot from them. 

And also, I would not be so quick to consider freebies worthless. For your playerbase to remain happy you can't always ask them to pay and grind. Giving something they like for free is important too if you want them to stay. The waifu-collectors got Ursula, Clarisse, Masked Marth, Female Robin (which I initially forgot) and if we want to deep a little into 2018, Marisa. The husbando collectors got way more with Narcian, Zephiel, Michalis, Camus, Xander, Navarre, Lloyd, Legion, Berkut, Clive, Tobin, Valter, Arden, Arvis, Black Knight, Joshua, Oliver, and dipping a little in 2018, NY!Corrin, Lyon and V!Eliwood. And if being a freebie means getting screwed over, it sure is weird for a company with such a heavy female-bias to screw over Ursula, Clarisse, Robin and Marisa like that. They were all pretty girls that could certainly sell.

You complain about Masked Marth being so good because she is a girl, like only the girl freebies get treated well, but you strangely didn't say a word about Ursula and Clarisse, who I mentioned in the same breath as her. Why is that? Is it because Clarisse and F!Robin were utter shit, like many male freebies and so aknowledging them didn't help your argument? And it's not like Marisa and Ursula were amazing, they were merely okay. So 1/5 of the free girls girls were actually great. But we also got Black Night, Camus, Xander, Arvis, Arden and V!Eliwood who were pretty good, arguably on the same level as MM. So about 2/5 of male freebies were good too.

But we could keep talking in circles forever here. I don't refute that the game treats female characters better NOW, because it's self evident. I'm mainly debating with you about WHEN exactly they started going "ok, let's treat our female characters well, because they are females. The male characters? Screw them!".

In your opinion this bias started in 2017, while in my opinion it started in 2018. Some of the examples in year 1 of female-bias can be explained in other ways (like Camilla being one of the few canonical mage fliers, with other options like Aversa also being female) and with Ninian it wasn't female bias, but popularity bias. Ninian was the most popular of the two, so she was picked, and they made sure to keep her banner a 50-50 gender split. We didn't get Nils soon after not because they hated males, but because they didn't want to give us another banner from Blazing Blade so soon, considering it was also part of the starting roster. Nils was still notable enough to be on the third Blazing banner ever made.

If you call what was going on in year one female-bias, back when we received more males than females, when many girls ended up as bad units to okay units, when seasonals were split evenly (the bride banner is a serious outlier) and male received unique tools... then what do you call the current situation, with more female than males, seasonals being very uneven, entire types of units being female only or almost (Mythics and Harmonics), men don't get unique stuff anymore and women almost never ending up as bad units?

Ask anyone and they will tell you that FEH FELT like a balanced game at the beginning, everyone praised it for giving eye-candy to men and women players equally, compared to other gachas, many OP units were men (Reinhardt, Black Knight, Sigurd, Xander, Camus, Hector, Takumi, Brave Ike, Zelgius, Grima, Hardin) and many other were women (Nowi, Ayra, Lucina, Brave Lyn, Brave Lucina, F!Celica, Masked Marth). The change in approach happened later, not one month in.

 

Edited by GrandeRampel
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1 hour ago, NegativeExponents- said:

A lot of the accidents I'm referring to where good on release when they could actually make money from their banner. I think a better character might be Halloween Jakob honestly who wasn't really good on release either but with the introduction of Bold Fighter he became a monster and, even though his banner had already, he wasn't easily attainable being a 5* seasonal locked unit so IS could actually have made some money with him through his reruns.

I am not sure what you are talking about, but Jakob: Devoted Monster is one of the best Firesweepers AT RELEASE. Firesweep Bow, Death Blow, Bold Fighter, and Armored Boots were all available when he debuted. Unlike most Firesweepers who got damage output issues, Jakob: Devoted Monster can actually rip tanks apart with Moonbow triggers while denying their counter attacks.

1 hour ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I'm surprised you don't think Olwen's prf Blade tome without a cool down penalty isn't better than Meisterschwert considering how highly you talk about them but OK, I'll concede on that even though I don't think Green Olwen was any worse than him.

Blade mages are a dime a dozen. Counter-Vantage that does not rely on Blade tomes and is also effective is much harder to pull off.

1 hour ago, NegativeExponents- said:

Distant Counter means nothing when DC alone couldn't save these units and it was considered optimal to start replacing those weapons with refined slaying ones. Also, Dorcas was fairly basic meanwhile Mia introduced Flashing Blade which became widely sought after. On the other hand, Dorcas's had nothing but Fierce Stance which did not get the same sort of demand with Breaths being way better.

There is no point in replacing them with Slaying Weapons since there are better units for player phase. If you do want to use them as player phase units, then you would want to use Brave Weapons, not Slaying Weapons.

1 hour ago, NegativeExponents- said:

Also, I really think you're missing the point it's not that I think there isn't any powerful dudes. But that even when they exist they either come with a better female, one that could be considered equally powerful but usually with some sort of novelty which pushes up their demand in comparison, or the guy gets demoted which kills future sales potential.

You are either cherry picking data or are not paying attention to the meta. I am not going to cover every role, but I will cover super tanks, Save super tanks, Blazing nukes, and ranged Galeforcers since those are the four most relevant combat roles.

Ike: Brave Mercenary is the best super tank right now. Dimitri: Savior King and Corrin: Child of Dusk are close seconds.

The best Save tanks have about the same number of males and females:

Spoiler

Edelgard: Adrestian Emperor
Faye: Drawn Heartstring
Idunn: Dragonkin Duo
- - -
Arden
Gustav: Majestic Love
Hector: Brave Warrior
Robin: Fell Reincarnation

Blazing nukes have about the same numbers too:

Spoiler

Alfonse: Askran Duo
Asbel
Byleth: The Fódlan Star
Innes: Frelian Moonlight
Jorge
Leon
Merric: Changing Winds
Odin
Shinon
Sothe
- - -
Igrene
Ishtar
Flora
Lilina: Firelight Leader
Lysithea
Nino
Ophelia
Shamir
Tharja

These units have low Atk, but they do have exclusive Slaying Weapons, so I figure I should mention them just in case.
Merric
Niles
Nina
Rebecca

There are two Galeforcing ranged units in the game: Leif: Unifier of Thracia and Lyn: Ninja-Friend Duo.

Edited by XRay
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3 hours ago, Baldrick said:

If powerful male units are still being made, who cares if they sell well or not? As a player, your experience in using the unit in gameplay depends on their stats and skills, not their sales data. Even if a negative feedback loop exists, it doesn’t seem to be preventing powerful male units being made.

In fact, their gender doesn’t really matter either. It’s not like they have reproductive organs.
 

For example, if Nifl was male, what would be the implications apart from “this banner is no longer entirely comprised of females”?

Because they're usually not as powerful as their female counterparts, take more investment, it's usually the same male units getting these powerful alts, and less males means more delay for units that people have been waiting for even longer?

I mean look at the examples provided for almost every powerful male here. They're mostly lords or Reinhardt over and over again. There's very little diversity outside of those picks. Many people like playing with their favorites, for a lot of players those favorites might be males who aren't lords, and many male secondary characters are either getting ignored or making it in but not even getting as good of a treatment as a dead female npc like Leila. And when this issue is brought and the reason given is "males don't sale" of course people are gonna bring up stuff like "is it really true?" "have the developers tried hard enough to make enticing male units?" "is this is a self made problem?" Also, don't even try to twist that Leila comment into the tired old "You saying npcs shouldn't exist or get good stuff?!"

But it's cute that you're trying to diminish this into a "lol it's just jpegs bro. They don't even show genitals"

And I guess the implication for Nifl would be nothing other than providing more diversity among their OCs which would be nice. I mean it's not that deep but some people just like seeing more diversity.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

I am not sure what you are talking about, but Jakob: Devoted Monster is one of the best Firesweepers AT RELEASE. Firesweep Bow, Death Blow, Bold Fighter, and Armored Boots were all available when he debuted. Unlike most Firesweepers who got damage output issues, Jakob: Devoted Monster can actually rip tanks apart with Moonbow triggers while denying their follow ups.

You might want to fact check that because that's blatantly false. Bold Fighter didn't release until almost 2 months after H!Jakob's debut and Armored Boots was like 4 months after his debut with the Elibe Valentines Tempest Trial.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

There is no point in replacing them with Slaying Weapons since there are better units for player phase. If you do want to use them as player phase units, then you would want to use Brave Weapons, not Slaying Weapons.

But DC was being kept. Just as an A slot and not as part of the weapon.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

You are either cherry picking data or are not paying attention to the meta. I am not going to cover every role, but I will cover super tanks, Save super tanks, Blazing nukes, and ranged Galeforcers since those are the four most relevant combat roles.

OK, only because someone can run a meta build doesn't make the unit itself meta. Not many are gonna be replacing Ophelia, L!lilina, Shamir, Innes, Shinnon and the like for units like Odin or Leon who will do subpar at the job compared to others. I really think you're over-bloating those lists with unlikely candidates. Like, sure, you could pick those units over others but that doesn't make them the meta pick.

@GrandeRampel I see but I don't understand how saying they won in quantity but not quality is relevant.

I ignored Ursula and Clarisse only because of the 6 units you provided as examples, all 3 of the boys were mediocre meanwhile only 2 girls were mediocre with MM being good which again showed a bias for females. Also there were ONLY 4 female grail units at the time. 1 out of 4 being good is a lot better than 1 or 2 out of 17. Also, 3 of those 4 female units have at least one alt that is way better than their current version meanwhile for a good portion of those males that one mediocre version is all they have. And while all these males where being shoved aside as unwanted GHB and TT units more females were being added onto banners with better kits and access to traits and merges.

Fair enough about the Ninian stuff. I failed to consider that there wasn't that many Elibe banners to begin with. But even if it was popularity it doesn't change that early on it was one of the most unique and helpful combinations in Heroes that I believe contributes as to part of the reason why it became such a female-biased game.

I agree that maybe it wasn't until 2018 that the game started going full force with the female-bias. Especially since that's also the year where they started introducing alts in New Heroes banners too which only made things more lopsided. But I do believe that that started only because of choices made in 2017, most of which were likely unintentional, that attracted the demographic which they then naturally shifted all efforts to pander to.

Edited by NegativeExponents-
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3 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

Because they're usually not as powerful as their female counterparts, take more investment, it's usually the same male units getting these powerful alts, and less males means more delay for units that people have been waiting for even longer?

I mean look at the examples provided for almost every powerful male here. They're mostly lords or Reinhardt over and over again. There's very little diversity outside of those picks.

1.    Sigurd
2.    Hector/Valentine Hector
3.    Fallen Dimitri
4.    Ike/Brave Ike
5.    Corrin/Fallen Corrin
6.    Valentine Eliwood
7.    Legendary Leif
8.    Valentine Alfonse
9.    Legendary Byleth
10.    Fallen Robin
11.    Reinhardt/Sword Reinhardt

12.    Takumi        
13.    Zelgius/BK    
14.    Shiro        
15.    Dorcas        
16.    Reyson        
17.    Dancer Inigo/Laslow    
18.    Dancer Shigure    
19.    Halloween Jacob                
20.    Zeke/Camus    
21.    Dedue        
22.    Lex
23.    Asbel
24.    Shinon
25.    Gatrie
26.    Valentine Gustav
27.    Summer? Raphael
28.    Summer Freyr
29.    Legendary Ryoma
30.    Sothe
31.    Arden
32.    Arvis
33.    Saias
34.    Kaden
35.    Ares
36.    Xander
37.    Fallen Hardin
38.    Young Innes
39.    Jorge
40.    Young Merric

Quote

Many people like playing with their favorites, for a lot of players those favorites might be males who aren't lords, and many male secondary characters are either getting ignored or making it in but not even getting as good of a treatment as a dead female npc like Leila.

It doesn't seem to bother you when Reinhardt does it...

Quote

And I guess the implication for Nifl would be nothing other than providing more diversity among their OCs which would be nice. I mean it's not that deep but some people just like seeing more diversity.

Most other games in the series skew male, so who really likes diversity?

 

Edited by Baldrick
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6 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

You might want to fact check that because that's blatantly false. Bold Fighter didn't release until almost 2 months after H!Jakob's debut and Armored Boots was like 4 months after his debut with the Elibe Valentines Tempest Trial.

That is my fault. I misremembered when he was released, thought he was in 2018.

6 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

OK, only because someone can run a meta build doesn't make the unit itself meta. Not many are gonna be replacing Ophelia, L!lilina, Shamir, Innes, Shinnon and the like for units like Odin or Leon who will do subpar at the job compared to others. I really think you're over-bloating those lists with unlikely candidates. Like, sure, you could pick those units over others but that doesn't make them the meta pick.

Odin is a Blade mage that can reach sky high Atk, at 82 or 85 comparative Atk depending on whether you want Heavy Blade or Life and Death on A, and he can easily reach the mid to high 80s once he gets his Resplendent. His Blazing trigger is not going to hit as hard as others, but his in combat hit still hits like a truck. Nino and Tharja can do this better, but that does not mean Odin is not capable of doing it.

Leon got protection in the form of Impact in case something goes wrong.

These units are cheap to merge and got decent effects backing them up. Just because they are old and cheap does not mean they are not good.

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@Baldrick Fates royals are indeed lords no matter how much you avert your eyes and you've definitely excluded a few alts for Sigurd, Hector, Dimitri, Ike, Alfonse, Byleth, Eliwood (why did you specifically mention his worse version?), missing a Reinhardt, neglected to bring up any version of Alm, Seliph, Roy, Claude, or Ephraim.

Unless you think those alts aren't powerful enough to be mentioned, but when the floor is Shiro with a prf that's been powercreeped by inheritable weapons long ago, I'm not really sure who doesn't qualify anymore.

I think the biggest issue here, besides your bundling of alts to make it seem like it isn't indeed the same suspects getting these good versions over and over again, is that we may have different thresholds on what we consider powerful.

12 hours ago, Baldrick said:

It doesn't seem to bother you when Reinhardt does it...

Weird that you would assume that I care for Reinhardt to any extent. I honestly don't know what made you think that after singling him out the way I did.

11 hours ago, Baldrick said:

Most other games in the series skew male, so who really likes diversity?

I wasn't in charge of any games in the series, especially considering I wasn't even born until at least 4 of them were out, and probably no one else here was in position to dictate what sort of characters get made for the games either, so I don't see how that implies that anyone here doesn’t like diversity because of decisions that were out of our control.

@XRay fair enough but does simply being good make a unit meta? It is my understanding that meta isn't just about being good at the job but also being one of the best options among the competition that leads to certain units being picked by the majority of competitive players. I can't say I've ever seen many of the units you mentioned in comparison to Ophelias, Sigurds, Duo Lif, Edelgards, Brave Hectors, Shinnons, etc. be it in Arena or Aether Raids but then again I only hover between ranks 18-19 in Arena and I'm nowhere near close to reaching the highest ranks of Aether so I'll just take your word for it.

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1 hour ago, NegativeExponents- said:

@Baldrick Fates royals are indeed lords no matter how much you avert your eyes

Legendary Ryoma is widely used as an example of a non-lord legendary. You’re welcome to your opinion, but please don’t claim it as fact and belittle other peoples’ opinion.

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and you've definitely excluded a few alts for Sigurd, Hector, Dimitri, Ike, Alfonse, Byleth, Eliwood (why did you specifically mention his worse version?), missing a Reinhardt, neglected to bring up any version of Alm, Seliph, Roy, Claude, or Ephraim.

You said: “I mean look at the examples provided for almost every powerful male here.”

Kindly point out where I’ve missed any of those units being mentioned in the thread.

Even if we count alts separately, I make it 18 lords/Reinhardt/Fates royals and 29 other male units. 

By the way, the context of Shiro is that he was as good as Rhajat. Just because a unit is power crept, it does not mean they were not powerful when they were released.

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Weird that you would assume that I care for Reinhardt to any extent. I honestly don't know what made you think that after singling him out the way I did.

You seem to be outraged about a female NPC being a powerful unit, but not outraged about a male NPC being a powerful unit.

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I wasn't in charge of any games in the series, especially considering I wasn't even born until at least 4 of them were out, and probably no one else here was in position to dictate what sort of characters get made for the games either, so I don't see how that implies that anyone here doesn’t like diversity because of decisions that were out of our control.

All I was doing was using your rhetoric against you.

I mean it's not that deep but some people just like seeing more diversity.”

That’s clearly implying I don’t like diversity, so perhaps you need to choose your words more carefully.

Edited by Baldrick
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@Baldrick you know, fair enough. I consider them lords, you don't. I think the fact that Ryoma got a legendary shows that Heroes also considers the Royals as lords but you view it as an exception, fine. In that case I'll just specify that I indeed meant to include Fates royals when I mentioned "lords" my mistake for forgetting that not everyone views them that way.

Outraged is a strong word when I don't really mind if she's good as much as I mind that she's good and not the other more popular males in the series. There is no male npc in Heroes that is just background and then dies without ever becoming an ally or being fought against like Leila that I am aware of. She is seriously one of the biggest nobodies in the series. Closest thing that comes to mind is Greil and he didn't exactly get the same treatment as Leila and he at least was a prominent figure with a reputation for being powerful. I don't know enough about Reinhardt but I do know he's at least fought to some capacity and he likely wasn't meant to be powerful in his OG version meanwhile his alts are due to his newfound and enduring popularity in the Heroes community.

That was seriously just the answer to the question you yourself asked. "What would change if Nifl was male?" nothing other than provide more diversity. But on the topic of it, you're clearly not as bothered by the lack of it like some others are as you proceeded to make snide comments about characters "reproductive organs" and representation not mattering when you had asked what would change had Nifl been male instead. Which is fine. You don't have to be. But if you don't care, why even come here and make those sorts of comments to someone that does? You certainly came off as rather unpleasant the moment you made those comments to say the least.

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19 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I think the fact that Ryoma got a legendary shows that Heroes also considers the Royals as lords but you view it as an exception, fine.

Receiving a Legendary Hero version does not make a character a lord. Tiki, Julia, and Lilina are most definitely not lords.

 

34 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I don't know enough about Reinhardt but I do know he's at least fought to some capacity and he likely wasn't meant to be powerful in his OG version meanwhile his alts are due to his newfound and enduring popularity in the Heroes community.

It's my understanding that in his source game, Reinhardt was an absolute terror to deal with.

While it is generally believed that Reinhardt was not intended to be as strong as he ended up being in Heroes (based on the fact that he was demoted instead of Olwen and likely due to the developers either underestimating how powerful a strong, but slow, ranged Brave cavalry would be or overestimating the strength of fast Brave units with low Atk), his reign of terror in Heroes is still true to form.

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56 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I don't know enough about Reinhardt but I do know he's at least fought to some capacity and he likely wasn't meant to be powerful in his OG version meanwhile his alts are due to his newfound and enduring popularity in the Heroes community.

Reinhardt in Tharcia looked like this. Keep in mind, every main stat except HP caps at 20 in this game and Magic also doubles as Resistance:

HP 48, Str 13, Mag 20, Skl 15, Spd 14, Lck 18, Def 12, Build 15, Mov 9, Leadership Stars 5, Movement Stars 5
Weapons: Dire Thunder, Meisterschwert
Skills: Adept, Vantage, Charge, Pavise

The chapter he's fought in (22 out of 25) is also probably the hardest map in the game if you don't cheese it with Warp.

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1 hour ago, NegativeExponents- said:

@XRay fair enough but does simply being good make a unit meta? It is my understanding that meta isn't just about being good at the job but also being one of the best options among the competition that leads to certain units being picked by the majority of competitive players. I can't say I've ever seen many of the units you mentioned in comparison to Ophelias, Sigurds, Duo Lif, Edelgards, Brave Hectors, Shinnons, etc. be it in Arena or Aether Raids but then again I only hover between ranks 18-19 in Arena and I'm nowhere near close to reaching the highest ranks of Aether so I'll just take your word for it.

Blazing nukes are not common in Arena since they do not score well in higher tiers, and players in lower tiers generally cannot afford that set up (and cavalry defense teams are both cheaper and more effective at lower tiers). The only common one would be Lilina: Firelight Leader since she does not need R Duel Cavalry and she has an exclusive Special.

Blazing nukes used to be pretty common on Infantry Pulse defense teams in Aether Raids at the highest tiers, but they have slowly been less common as Spurn became more affordable and common among super tanks, and cavalry defense teams are more in favor now due to having better overlapping coverage with the release of Nött. Ophelia was and still is the most common one on defense because it is easy to Pulse down her Special. Other Blazing nukes are not common on defense due to requiring heavy, specialized set up, i.e.: Infantry Pulse.

On offense, Blazing nukes are really good, but it is an expensive option, and the cost does not really justify the benefit for a lot of players. Blade tome-Desperation can already deal with 90% of threats that Blazing nukes can handle, and whatever they cannot handle can be dealt with using Firesweepers and other raw damage nukes.

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37 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

It's my understanding that in his source game, Reinhardt was an absolute terror to deal with.

I wouldn't say absolute terror. But he isn't what you'd call a pushover either.

  • Range 1-2 35x2 Atk targeting Mag (which doubles as Res) in a game where most non-tome/staff units have single-digit Mag and don't hit even 50 HP is pretty deadly.
  • 27x2 from GermanSword ain't bad either, albeit targeting Def and it leaves him vulnerable to ranged attacks. Yet, unlike -12 AS Dire Thunder, his 14 Spd is left untouched by using the blade.
  • Pavise means there is a slight chance he'll outright negate a hit you deal. Adept and Charge/Confront/Accost (there is no official English translation for this yet) give him more RNG chances of hitting. And Vantage is pretty deadly when he starts the map with Dire Thunder equipped.
  • A Vulnerary, which has the potency of Elixirs in T776, is there if for some reason you don't kill him in one phase.

But, Reinhardt is only one enemy, and Thracia 776 is not a game where high stats assure victory.

  • Thanks to the Mag-Res merging, infinite staff range, unending status ailments, and perfect status staff accuracy you can use a Pure Water on a 14+ Mag staffbot and cripple him.
    • Sleep is the best, as will knocks him off his horse and reduces almost all his stats to 0 for the entire map. Capture him and throw Olwen the tome if you wish.
    • As weaker alternative, you can use the Thief Staff and steal either weapon, without the ability to target Def & Res, someone with a high stat in one of those can tank him off.
    • Silence will kiss goodbye to Dire Thunder
    • A Berserk Staff is good fun! If Conen doesn't knock him to sleep to with a hit from Blizzard, Reinhardt ought to solo his entire squadron dead as they try to kill their insane liege. Maybe Coen Blizzards him afterwards, or all the Ballista combine their fire and shoot him down, or maybe Reinhardt kills Coen and clears out yet more of the map for you.
  • Since he starts with Dire Thunder and the Mag-Res merging, using tome users with capped Mag, like Asbel, you could endure his attacks and try killing him with some spells of your own.
  • Olwen's Blessed Sword is effective on cavalry, provides +10 Mag, and has the Brave effect with good Mt. Just what she needs to kill her brother with greatest ease. The only problem is she has to talk to him to get it, and talking ends your turn, leaving her very liable to be murdered on the subsequent enemy phase if Lara isn't around to dance for her (but she'll die to a Ballista).

Reinhardt also exists on a rather bothersome map. 

  • The enemy reinforcements are plentiful and quality by FE5's lowish standards.
  • Ballista are present, plentiful in ammo, and very deadly in Thracia. Coen as said is there with siege magic too.
  • Once you cross the bridge that makes Reinhardt and his full squad of Thoron Cavs come at you, the bridge is lifted so you can't retreat to safety.
  • And, Reinhardt, Coen, and Saias provide a maddening combined 54 Hit/Evade to all enemies simply by existing, including themselves.

All in all, the map is not fun. Fortunately, the game has a village with a Warp staff in this very chapter, and being a seize, you can warp a Coen killer, you Warp Leif and win. Viola, no need to fight Reinhardt at all.

Although, if you still wanted to kill him with a little less cruelty for yourself, then Warp someone to kill Coen, and Rescue them out. Saias then runs away on the enemy phase as a result, and the enemy Hit/Evade bonus will shrink to 12.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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