My top 10 maps make me frustrated

[drattakbowser]

Some map I was happy to clear but very frustrating if I make one error or more. This is my top 10 the maps make me annoyed.

 

- 10th : Fates - Conquest - Chapter 19

- 9th : Path of Radiance - Chapter 27 

- 8th : Radiant Dawn - Part 3 - Chapter 11

- 7th : Awakening - Tiki paralogue

- 6th : Gaiden/Echoes - Nuibaba's Abode

- 5th : Sacred Stones - Chapter 19

- 4th : Gaiden/Echoes - Grieth’s Citadel

- 3rd : Three Houses - Silver Snow/Azure Moon/Verdant Wind - Chapter 13

- 2nd : Radiant Dawn - Part 3 - Chapter 6

- 1st : Path of Radiance - Chapter 17

 

All of this 10 maps make me frustrated some time because one error and i am gone. But more maps are long and more I get panicked just like Path of Radiance Chapter 17.

 

Oh and one more I only played PAL games.

Edited March 15, 2022 by drattakbowser

[Armchair General]

4 hours ago, drattakbowser said:

7th : Awakening - Tiki paralogue

Just camp and bring plenty of archers and wind magic, man.

 

4 hours ago, drattakbowser said:

6th : Gaiden/Echoes - Nuibaba's Abode

Warp/Rescue kind of works with an good Dread Fighter.

 

4 hours ago, drattakbowser said:

4th : Gaiden/Echoes - Grieth’s Citadel

This is actually last map on Celica's route where Valbar is actually useful... Provided that Leon manages to kill off the mages.

 

4 hours ago, drattakbowser said:

3rd : Three Houses - Silver Snow/Azure Moon/Verdant Wind - Chapter 13

If this is what I think it is, you're essentially softlocked if Byleth and the relevant Lord enemy phases too many units. It was kind of difficult with Claude, but Dimitri turns the first phase into an cakewalk. 

 

But it doesn't change the fact that you have people coming from two or three different directions.

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/15/2022 at 12:56 PM, drattakbowser said:

- 1st : Path of Radiance - Chapter 17

Honestly, that map is more tedious than frustrating. About the only real issue is a Meteor mage in part 4.

On 3/15/2022 at 12:56 PM, drattakbowser said:

- 7th : Awakening - Tiki paralogue

Easy. Just surround Tiki so that enemies cannot get to her, then use wind magic and bows to take the enemies out.

On 3/15/2022 at 12:56 PM, drattakbowser said:

- 8th : Radiant Dawn - Part 3 - Chapter 11

That's not nearly as frustrating as the chapter right before. Of course, I have Tibarn and his hawks stay away from combat - and ESPECIALLY the boss, who can one-shot Tibarn.

 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I like the premise here! If I were to choose five frustrating maps, in no particular order...

1. Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Act IV: The Swamps of Duma. I'm currently stuck on this map, because I'm trying to kill Jedah. It's possible with Hunter's Volley and some Aura hits from Mae, but I need more than a few lucky crits, not to mention burning through Duma's "block the combat" phases. If I don't go for the kill, the map is basically "defeat the monsters until Jedah leaves." Easier, but arguably more tedious.
2. Binding Blade, Chapter 21: The Binding Blade. What can I say except "wyverns, wyverns everywhere". This map spawns a bunch of wyverns just about every turn, and as same-turn reinforcements, they can fly in and overwhelm you before you even have a chance to react. The 30-turn limit may seem generous, but if you're trying to burn through all the reinforcements so it's safe to proceed, you may find yourself running late.
3. Three Houses, Chapter 13: Hunting by Daybreak. This map is designed in a way that runs so counter to everything you've already experienced in the game, it's not even funny. Playable units spawning in other parts of the map, without the player having a chance to prepare them, simply does not happen. And yet it's what this map is built upon. Combine that with the fact that your crew can show up massively underleveled (assuming they even survived to the timeskip), and we've got a recipe for a softlock.
4. Radiant Dawn, Chapter II-1: Winds of Rebellion. In principle, I often enjoy smaller, more intimate maps like this one. But in practice, it's just a mess. You get BEXP for keeping the "Volunteer" units alive, but it seems random as anything whether they rush to suicide against Nephenee's lance. Heather can be tricky to reach, and can wind up stumbling into her own demise. And if you're trying to get to all the houses before the enemy Bandits, you've got your work cut out for you.
5. Thracia 776, Chapter 10: Noel Canyon. Fuckin' Thracia ballistae, man. The first time I played this map, it's where I lost Lifis. The second time, it's where I lost (a promoted) Karin. Thracia ballistae are frustratingly overtuned, functionally two-shotting the majority of your units, and the only way to deal with them safely is make them exhaust their charges. The houses are hard to reach before the Thieves, because your best "house-visiting" unit, Karin, is functionally zoned out from hitting them up safely. Also Olwen and Fred show up to scare the shit out of your units, before departing unceremoniously. A much lengthier slog than its small size would suggest.

[starburst]

• Lunatic Conquest’s Endgame is not challenging but plainly unfair.

• The maps with infinite zombies in Shadows of Valentia are unbearable.

• I am always afraid of Conquest’s Chapter 21.

[Shadow Mir]

You know what? I want in on this.

-Hunting by Daybreak is terrible all around. Especially if you ended up neglecting some of your in-house units, and odds are you did, because some of them are blatant duds *cough Lorenz cough Ashe hack*.

-Arcadia is one of the worst designed maps in the series. And given that the game it's from has a lot of poorly designed maps, that's saying something.

-Winds of Change has one of the most frustrating gimmicks in the series. Oh, and that same map is reused in Revelation, except odds are Corrin is your only remotely competent combat unit.

-The side chapters of Binding Blade in general have really aggravating gimmicks (except 8x, which instead has an unfair boss). Especially 16x, which has arrows of light that fire randomly.

-The Laws of Sacae and the Silver Wolf both suck - the former due to the nomad ambush when you get near the boss (in a game where reinforcements come in before enemy phase, mind you), and the latter due to having long-range menaces you generally can't do anything about.

-Winds of Rebellion is just a mess. In general, expecting units to work together to get something done is fine, and something I have no issue with... until something goes wrong and sets you back a turn or two, which tends to be the case here.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/21/2022 at 4:43 PM, Shadow Mir said:

-Winds of Rebellion is just a mess. In general, expecting units to work together to get something done is fine, and something I have no issue with... until something goes wrong and sets you back a turn or two, which tends to be the case here.

I just replayed this map, and you know what Heather did? She fled the map. Apparently, she runs away if you don't recruit her quickly enough. I've seen her die before, but I've never had her flee. Sincerely, fuck this map.

Also, the only way to definitely identify the "Volunteers" you're supposed to keep alive is by checking their second or third page in the status screen. They have the same "Rebel" label, but a different "Affiliation". Maybe they could've made it so that "Volunteers" don't move, only attacking foes who are within direct attack range of their starting position? That'd be interesting design, and would make keeping (some of them) alive much more feasible. Instead, it seems like the game flips a coin on whether these jokers decide to take action on any given turn.

Also, you have no good options for Yeardley. Nephenee gets two-shot, Brom's hit rates aren't reliable, and Heather does literally nothing to him. What's that, you thought you'd use the Spectre Card you got in the same map? Even with your highest-Mag unit (Heather), it's doing single-digit damage. He and the goons caddy-corner to him don't move... except when you make someone attack him, his AI changes and they start to move! He's not "overpowered" so much as "annoying", and hard to defeat in a manner that's either quick or consistent.

If they'd made some different design decisions, this could have been a fun and challenging map. I like needing to get to the houses before the Bandits do, for instance! As it stands, though, it's an RNG-based mud-wrestle with a feral hog.

[Shadow Mir]

12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I just replayed this map, and you know what Heather did? She fled the map. Apparently, she runs away if you don't recruit her quickly enough. I've seen her die before, but I've never had her flee. Sincerely, fuck this map.

Also, the only way to definitely identify the "Volunteers" you're supposed to keep alive is by checking their second or third page in the status screen. They have the same "Rebel" label, but a different "Affiliation". Maybe they could've made it so that "Volunteers" don't move, only attacking foes who are within direct attack range of their starting position? That'd be interesting design, and would make keeping (some of them) alive much more feasible. Instead, it seems like the game flips a coin on whether these jokers decide to take action on any given turn.

Also, you have no good options for Yeardley. Nephenee gets two-shot, Brom's hit rates aren't reliable, and Heather does literally nothing to him. What's that, you thought you'd use the Spectre Card you got in the same map? Even with your highest-Mag unit (Heather), it's doing single-digit damage. He and the goons caddy-corner to him don't move... except when you make someone attack him, his AI changes and they start to move! He's not "overpowered" so much as "annoying", and hard to defeat in a manner that's either quick or consistent.

If they'd made some different design decisions, this could have been a fun and challenging map. I like needing to get to the houses before the Bandits do, for instance! As it stands, though, it's an RNG-based mud-wrestle with a feral hog.

Oof. That is exactly what I hate about it - if something goes wrong, and odds are it will happen, it ain't unusual for it to eventually snowball into disaster. However, I think that Yeardley isn't that bad. I don't remember Brom having poor hit rates against him.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Benice]

Let's see, I may as well list a couple that annoy me:

Joint 5th goes to Binding Blade's chapter 8 and 20x (Ilia). I love Binding Blade, but both of these maps just suck the life out of me. Both are really long and have nothing particularly interesting about them, though the tense ending to 8 can be nice, I suppose.

4th goes to Blazing Blade's Battle Before Dawn, especially on HHM. While I've never had Nino perish before I can get there, Jaffar has very good chances of dying, as he is surrounded by plenty of Swordreavers with ~48% displayed hit. The powerful enemies who spontaneously appear from the fog, the bolting boss and the invisible pseudo-time limit to reach Zephiel all make this quite a pain to get through, though clearing the map does feel good. The same cannot be said for...

3rd: Radiant Dawn's Revelations, chapter 4-4. A route map with literally dozens of reinforcements, Green Units who can get killed by a reinforcement that uses a siege tome, major nerfs to mounted units and passive crit rates. Maybe I was just bad, but this map took me four or five tries to get through, and it took forever on each attempt. I image it'd be better on a second playthrough with the no animations setting, but being on original hardware, I unfortunately didn't have that liberty. Even the beautiful boss of this map cannot salvage it.

2nd goes to Three Houses paralogues, particularly on Maddening. Again, it's probably a skill issue given that I am the player of these, but I'd be rather surprised if some of these got playtested on Maddening. It'd take me too long to get into specifics or even to consider which one is my least favorite, for me, their one saving grace is the fact that many can be warpskipped, and they're all optional.

My 1st place goes to Maddening chapter 4 of Three Houses.

Yes. Don't laugh.

I am very sure that this one's on me. There's no way it's not-but literally the only strategy I've found yet to beat this map is to inch along the edges of the map, hope Gilbert dies, and then bait enemies one at a time-Otherwise, every enemy on the map aggros and charges at my units who aren't ready for 'em and there goes the attempt. I spent about nine hours on my first Maddening playthrough here, and there's no way that's the game's fault. It still angered me, though.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Benice said:

My 1st place goes to Maddening chapter 4 of Three Houses.

Yes. Don't laugh.

I am very sure that this one's on me. There's no way it's not-but literally the only strategy I've found yet to beat this map is to inch along the edges of the map, hope Gilbert dies, and then bait enemies one at a time-Otherwise, every enemy on the map aggros and charges at my units who aren't ready for 'em and there goes the attempt. I spent about nine hours on my first Maddening playthrough here, and there's no way that's the game's fault. It still angered me, though.

If it makes you feel any better, you aren't alone on that. Also, that's chapter 5 you have on the brain, as chapter 4 is where you first see the Death Knight.

4 hours ago, Benice said:

3rd: Radiant Dawn's Revelations, chapter 4-4. A route map with literally dozens of reinforcements, Green Units who can get killed by a reinforcement that uses a siege tome, major nerfs to mounted units and passive crit rates. Maybe I was just bad, but this map took me four or five tries to get through, and it took forever on each attempt. I image it'd be better on a second playthrough with the no animations setting, but being on original hardware, I unfortunately didn't have that liberty. Even the beautiful boss of this map cannot salvage it.

I actually had half a mind to mention this, because forcing the player to use units that had their last playable stint in goddamn part 1 and not even bothering to autolevel them up to a point where they can actually have a chance against the enemies is nothing but a big "screw you". The reinforcements are a pain in the ass, but that burns me up to no end.

Edited March 24, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Benice said:

My 1st place goes to Maddening chapter 4 of Three Houses.

Yes. Don't laugh.

I am very sure that this one's on me. There's no way it's not-but literally the only strategy I've found yet to beat this map is to inch along the edges of the map, hope Gilbert dies, and then bait enemies one at a time-Otherwise, every enemy on the map aggros and charges at my units who aren't ready for 'em and there goes the attempt. I spent about nine hours on my first Maddening playthrough here, and there's no way that's the game's fault. It still angered me, though.

Yeah, I'm not gonna laugh, this is very much a real risk and for very unintuitive reasons: that if you aggro an enemy, it can start moving, and just moving adjacent other enemies aggros them... so you really don't want to do this. Once you know this, the map's not so bad: just never get in range of the archers (which yes, slows an already slow map even more) and let Gilbert die (he will, very reliably, if you don't try to save him).

My own least favourite maps are a bit different from most people's, I think.

New Mystery Chapter 3: Especially with the requirement that only Marth can visit villages, this map takes forever. And there's typically more turns I spend walking than actually fighting enemies. No thanks.

Radiant Dawn 3-7: So we're trying to prevent the Daein Army from crossing the river. Cool defend map idea. Except the Daein Army barely moves? Aside from a couple of wyverns you can basically just hit End Turn over and over. So I'm left to amuse myself by trying to farm the map for exp. The Greil Mercs already have too many maps anyway, one of them feeling this pointless is just insulting.

There are probably some others (I definitely nodded along with a few maps mentioned here, and I'm also not a fan of the general map design of either SoV or FE4), but those are the first two that come to mind.

[5PointGordin]

Been a while since I played Maddening chapter 4 but I remember not completely hating it despite being a slog of a map. Memory might be tricking me though.

Grieth's citadel is ight. My only complaint is the boss was a bit cheap, but the unit placement and enemy density made it a rather refreshing challenge of a map in a game that's otherwise pretty easy. Nuibaba's abode definitely sucks though, mainly because the boss is cheap. If the range on death wasn't so absurd, I might feel differently on the matter, but alas, that isn't the case.

I'm not really a fan of the Forest's paralogue in Fates. Feels like there are way too many enemies swarming you at once, though admiringly my strategy for this map was not the greatest. I also didn't really like Ignatius's paralogue either, though again, this probably has more to do with my subpar strategy for this map than the map itself. The ninja cave map was pretty brutal for me. If Fates had divine pulse to undue mistakes without resetting the chapter, I probably would have liked this map a lot more. Alas, it does not, though battle saves kinda work like Divine Pulse and I have been using them liberally lately to try out some different strategies for different maps. If you aren't using battle saves though, I imagine it would be pretty tough.

[lenticular]

Some of mine:

The Heart of Crimea (Radiant Dawn, 3-10) -- really, this spot could be any of Radiant Dawn's maps that have playable units returning as either enemy or allied units, because of how they have no concept of resource management. Every time I play Radiant Dawn, I'll have a moment of panic as I see the AI eating up the durability of some expensive or irreplacable weapon or item. I know it's possible to avoid this by unequiping the items in advance but a. I don't like that sort of micromanagement, b. it feels too gamey for my tastes and c. I always forget. Choosing this chapter in particular because this is where ally Calill always uses up the Meteor tome that I've been diligently preserving. And since she's an ally, I can't even kill her to make her stop.

Father & Liege (Fates, P7) -- this is here for how awfully it scales into the late game. The system of leveling up child units with an offspring seal just doesn't work well for this chapter, since Shiro will just die if you don't rush to him and use a Rescue rod.

The Feral Frontier (Path of Radiance, ch15) -- I don't like sand maps at the best of times. It's made worse by PoR's UI being bad at displaying ranges for about-to-transform laguz, especially the bird laguz who are unaffected by the sand. I also don't like hidden treasure at the best of times. And that's made worse here by having a full character recruitment behind the mechanic, having it be ridiculously specific in its requirements, and one of the game's four occult scrolls being tied behind said character.

Winds of Change (Fates, Conquest, ch20) -- plenty has been said about this level's gimmick, but for me -- and I know this is something specific to me, not a universal problem -- the worst thing about it is that the graphical effect for the wind gives me a literal headache (even with the 3D slider turned off). Which is obviously bad. But even worse is that it makes me want to rush the level just to get away from it, and this is a level that will eat you for lunch if you try to rush it and are insufficiently careful.

Wolf Pack (Three Houses, Cindered Shadows, ch7) -- this is just a slog. Single enemy, never actually threatening, big old ball of hit points, takes forever. With his multiple health bars, his skill that makes him take half damage from all sources, and his monster barrier, you need to do over 1000 points of damage to drop him. I've only ever done this map once. At no point did I worry that I might fail. At multiple points, I worried that I would quit due to boredom.

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

Father & Liege (Fates, P7) -- this is here for how awfully it scales into the late game. The system of leveling up child units with an offspring seal just doesn't work well for this chapter, since Shiro will just die if you don't rush to him and use a Rescue rod.

Two Defenders would be worthy of dishonourable mention because it, too, is just very poorly designed for lategame. If you wain until enemies are promoted, odds are high that Ignatius will get defeated before you can do anything to prevent it (he starts getting attacked by ninjas with Poison Strike on turn 2), especially on Lunatic because you have another Freeze staff standing between you and him. He won't move to get himself killed, but that's small comfort knowing that you still need to pray he doesn't die before you get to him, especially as if he does, you've pretty much lost, as the village he's guarding is a defeat condition.

[Dark Holy Elf]

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

Every time I play Radiant Dawn, I'll have a moment of panic as I see the AI eating up the durability of some expensive or irreplacable weapon or item. I know it's possible to avoid this by unequiping the items in advance but a. I don't like that sort of micromanagement, b. it feels too gamey for my tastes and c. I always forget. Choosing this chapter in particular because this is where ally Calill always uses up the Meteor tome that I've been diligently preserving. And since she's an ally, I can't even kill her to make her stop.

Oh yeah, this is awful. The One Simple Trick that helps a lot is to trade away both Meteor and Brave Lance to units who can't use them at the end of 3-9 (Brave Lance to Calill and Meteor to anyone but Calill), but I agree with all your complaints.

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

The Heart of Crimea (Radiant Dawn, 3-10) -- really, this spot could be any of Radiant Dawn's maps that have playable units returning as either enemy or allied units, because of how they have no concept of resource management. Every time I play Radiant Dawn, I'll have a moment of panic as I see the AI eating up the durability of some expensive or irreplacable weapon or item. I know it's possible to avoid this by unequiping the items in advance but a. I don't like that sort of micromanagement, b. it feels too gamey for my tastes and c. I always forget. Choosing this chapter in particular because this is where ally Calill always uses up the Meteor tome that I've been diligently preserving. And since she's an ally, I can't even kill her to make her stop.

I can understand this, frankly. Anyways, I'd take all of Geoffrey's weapons before finishing 3-9; this may sound dumb, but if he doesn't have any weapons, the game gives him a free Brave Lance for that chapter. This being said, I find this chapter frustrating for another reason entirely, that being Elincia's stupidity. She has the tendency to move towards the boss area... where a bunch of archers are, including a crossbow sniper. This bullshit is why I oft find myself giving Haar a horseslayer and Celerity and letting him go to town on the boss area before those bozos can ruin everything.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Hmmm... lets see if I can reach 10 here. This list is in game and chapter order of chapters I think are frustrating.

Thracia 776 chapter 14x: Freedom - This chapter is very frustrating. It is all about protecting green civilians against randomly spawning Pegasi in Thracia fog, and those jerks can strait up jump out of the darkness, capture a civilian, and canto back into the darkness. Having a siege tome boss in fog at the end of it, as a timer for you to rush units ahead before the lemming come into range (and thus too far away to protect said lemmings from other threats) adds an extra basting of annoyance to it.

Binding Blade Chapter 18 (Sacae) HM: Law of Sacae - The random ambush spawn nomads around the boss are awful, and a lot of the reasons for it highlight the weaknesses of the game. If the boss were easier to hit (or throne gave less avoid), if you weren't required to seize with an unpromoted Roy that is no longer able to survive a round of combat this late into the game, if they weren't nomads one of the most difficult classes to deal with in this game, or even if they were not ambush spawns (like the first round of spawns in chapter 7) this would not be as miserable of a map to deal with.

Blazing Sword Chapter 22x HHM: Genesis - Masses of promoted siege mages, and status staves, a very limited deployment slot, an army split which isn't revealed until the chapter starts, with a force deployed unpromoted lord that is explicitly described as having issues with mages, and 5 turns (or less if you are foolish enough to attack the boss) to deal with as much of it as you can before the beasts are unleashed upon you.

Sacred Stones Chapter 14 (Ephraim): Father and Son - This one is kinda minor, but I have the worst luck with status staves, and this chapter has 4 of them, but most notably 2 Berserk staff Druids, that do move, but are in a locked room that you have to pass through their range to reach. I have learned the hard way that they are perfectly willing to berserk people that can only use staves if it means disabling every unit able to use a Restore staff.

Radiant Dawn 4-3: Distortions - A desert route map, with reinforcements, 30 range status staves, and a siege tome boss. To make things easier they have the BK show-up, but unlike all of his previous appearances he is a moronically controlled Green unit. To incentivize waiting out all the reinforcements (assuming you even have the means to finish the map before they all arrive) there is random treasure, and a location dependent recruitment scattered all over the map. Additionally, the way part 4 is designed you have to decide who could even be available on this map chapters ago, if you are playing blind you might lock yourself into the torture of having to suffer through this with no flyers, and with knowledge it warps how you play two-third of part 4 by so heavily incentivizing flyers on the route with this awful map. Honestly, this isn't the worst map on this list, but it has a lot of little things all arranged to annoy me.

Shadow Dragon Chapter 24: The Dragonkin Realm- This is the place where the way Dragon Stones work in this game become a problem to the point where you can't prepare for them without outside help. You cannot see the buffs from the stone, worse yet the stone unlocks some stat caps when in use, causing some of the dragonstone users on higher difficulties getting a bigger bonus than usual (as their stats increase with the cap change on top of the usual bonus). All of this meaning you basically have to look their stats up online, or calculate them using the derived values...

New Mystery Chapter 11: Anri's Way - 12 move flying enemies in a desert map. Your promoted fliers move 10. If you are dealing with Lunatic or Lunatic reverse you even have to deal with them getting 1-2 range. All versions of this map are made of misery.

New Mystery Chapter 22: The Dragon's Table - This is the pettiest one on this list, but I find it so pointless. It is an arbitrary filler map to just waste extra time in the endgame with a bunch of dragon, when the last map in the game is also mostly about dealing with a bunch of dragons. If this were in a worse game it probably wouldn't even be worth noting...

Echoes Shadows of Valentia 3-C3 HM: Attack on the Desert Stronghold: Desert surrounding a fortress full of Echoes' long range archers/snipers, with this mode making sure there are multiple of them with actual bows, in the event that you thought you could use your flyers to avoid the tedium of 1 move. To add insult to injury, the fort floor give a +20 avoid bonus, so its hard to kill the jerks even when you do slog your way into the fort.

Three Houses Chapter 13 MM: Hunting by Daybreak - The way this map warps how you must play Three Houses really annoys me. It greatly limits my ability to play challenge runs of this game, by forces me to prepare specific builds on specific units. That all of your prep work must be done an entire chapter (and 5 years) ahead, or risk soft-locking makes it even more egregious.

 

Special mention goes to Awakening for being too forgettable for me to think of any map worth mentioning (in general), and Birthright, as the issues with its maps are so consistent that no individual map excels at crapulance enough to be worth mentioning.

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/24/2022 at 2:09 AM, lenticular said:

Winds of Change (Fates, Conquest, ch20) -- plenty has been said about this level's gimmick, but for me -- and I know this is something specific to me, not a universal problem -- the worst thing about it is that the graphical effect for the wind gives me a literal headache (even with the 3D slider turned off). Which is obviously bad. But even worse is that it makes me want to rush the level just to get away from it, and this is a level that will eat you for lunch if you try to rush it and are insufficiently careful.

I already mentioned the chapter itself, but I forgot to mention this little tidbit that makes it much worse: Hayato gets a Hexing Rod on Lunatic.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/24/2022 at 3:09 AM, lenticular said:

Some of mine:

The Heart of Crimea (Radiant Dawn, 3-10) -- really, this spot could be any of Radiant Dawn's maps that have playable units returning as either enemy or allied units, because of how they have no concept of resource management. Every time I play Radiant Dawn, I'll have a moment of panic as I see the AI eating up the durability of some expensive or irreplacable weapon or item. I know it's possible to avoid this by unequiping the items in advance but a. I don't like that sort of micromanagement, b. it feels too gamey for my tastes and c. I always forget. Choosing this chapter in particular because this is where ally Calill always uses up the Meteor tome that I've been diligently preserving. And since she's an ally, I can't even kill her to make her stop.

I wonder if this map would be any better if the player's responsibility were reversed? Control Elincia, plus the Crimean Royal Knight and a few yellow units, while a handful of the Greil Mercs/Laguz Alliance troops show up as Green units. With laguz units like Ranulf or Janaff, weapon durability is a nonissue (although they could wind up wasting Olivi Grass or Laguz Stones...), and as for Ike, even if he burns through Ettard, he gets Ragnell next map, so who cares? Plus, this way, you'd get more EXP to the CRKs (who are needier, IMO, than the GMs), while also letting Elincia actually use Amiti instead of expecting her NPCs to die on her behalf. Of course, depending on which GMs show up and how they're equipped, you could still have issues ("they're burning through my precious forges!").

On 3/24/2022 at 3:09 AM, lenticular said:

The Feral Frontier (Path of Radiance, ch15) -- I don't like sand maps at the best of times. It's made worse by PoR's UI being bad at displaying ranges for about-to-transform laguz, especially the bird laguz who are unaffected by the sand. I also don't like hidden treasure at the best of times. And that's made worse here by having a full character recruitment behind the mechanic, having it be ridiculously specific in its requirements, and one of the game's four occult scrolls being tied behind said character.

I wonder if PoR laguz would work better if they shifted and reverted after their phase, rather than before? That way, if I see an unshifted enemy laguz, I know it won't be a threat to me on the next EP. And if it's a shifted laguz, I don't need to check its gauge to recognize it as a threat. On the other hand, I wouldn't be able to fight right away with a "full gauge" Lethe, but I know that she'll transform before any enemies get a go at her.

On 3/26/2022 at 9:26 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Echoes Shadows of Valentia 3-C3 HM: Attack on the Desert Stronghold: Desert surrounding a fortress full of Echoes' long range archers/snipers, with this mode making sure there are multiple of them with actual bows, in the event that you thought you could use your flyers to avoid the tedium of 1 move. To add insult to injury, the fort floor give a +20 avoid bonus, so its hard to kill the jerks even when you do slog your way into the fort.

20-Avoid floor tiles are perhaps my least favorite aspect of Echoes. Especially in maps like Duma's Gate, or Dungeons such as the Duma Tower, where they're near-ubiquitous.

[henrymidfields]

On 3/19/2022 at 1:21 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Binding Blade, Chapter 21: The Binding Blade. What can I say except "wyverns, wyverns everywhere". This map spawns a bunch of wyverns just about every turn, and as same-turn reinforcements, they can fly in and overwhelm you before you even have a chance to react. The 30-turn limit may seem generous, but if you're trying to burn through all the reinforcements so it's safe to proceed, you may find yourself running late.

Last time I played I've ferried units using the proverbial airlifters to bypass a few spawn areas, including one on the route right after the starting area. Still wasn't as better as I hoped though, due to deceptively small areas ground units can access, but it did its job of keeping the turn count under 30. (Ground units can't access Deep Forest tiles and there are a lot in this chapter.) 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/29/2022 at 3:32 AM, henrymidfields said:

Last time I played I've ferried units using the proverbial airlifters to bypass a few spawn areas, including one on the route right after the starting area. Still wasn't as better as I hoped though, due to deceptively small areas ground units can access, but it did its job of keeping the turn count under 30. (Ground units can't access Deep Forest tiles and there are a lot in this chapter.) 

"Thicket" or "Deep Forest" tiles bug me, because they're often tricky to distinguish from plain "Forest" tiles. Especially in Thracia 776, where they're neatly identical.

I dunno, I just generally hate Same-Turn Reinforcements appearing in the middle of the map. Especially with a non-obvious zonal trigger. Replaying Radiant Dawn has made me appreciate that the game only uses Next-Turn Reinforcements, and they only show up in places that make sense (i.e. edges of the map, near doorways or open areas). At least until Part IV, where Ashera seems to get her kicks warping them into the most inconvenient of places.

[henrymidfields]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

"Thicket" or "Deep Forest" tiles bug me, because they're often tricky to distinguish from plain "Forest" tiles. Especially in Thracia 776, where they're neatly identical.

It's also not the most logical to rope out infantries from said tiles, when infantries camping out in forests like guerillas are actually a thing. Or passing through the Ardennes.

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I dunno, I just generally hate Same-Turn Reinforcements appearing in the middle of the map. Especially with a non-obvious zonal trigger.

It also doesn't help when even online guides don't make them clear where these zones start and end. I was kind of lucky with Binding Blade, as the Japanese paper-based guides are generally great at showing where exactly those zones are on the map (and thus helping me plan to how I can bypass them). FE Wiki and Kawaki-Chatei don't do the same thing.

Edited April 5, 2022 by henrymidfields

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 4/4/2022 at 10:43 PM, henrymidfields said:

It also doesn't help when even online guides don't make them clear where these zones start and end. I was kind of lucky with Binding Blade, as the Japanese paper-based guides are generally great at showing where exactly those zones are on the map (and thus helping me plan to how I can bypass them). FE Wiki and Kawaki-Chatei don't do the same thing.

Fire Emblem WOD is fairly good at that sorta thing, although it is predominantly in Spanish, with only some pages with English translations.

For example: https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/ENG_cap21.htm

[Quell]

I'm glad this hasn't devolved into yet another "this map sucks" topic (not that it's a bad one, just a bit overdone).

Well, I have a personal bone to pick with chapter 9 of Genealogy "For Whose Sake". The chapter in itself is not so bad, just a bit of a slog but that can be said about most of the chapters of FE4, the problem I have with this one is a game mechanic's one: in Genealogy the enemies' ai is programmed in a way so that they'll ignore you (read "run away") if they can't hurt any of your units, which sounds reasonable even if a bit annoying. And it usually isn't that annoying if it wasn't for a few troubling facts:

1) Most enemies in this chapter are flyers, wyvern knights in particular, so it's quite easy for them to successfully run away

2) This map was created with flyers in mind, with for example a huge patch of untraversable terrain smacked right in the middle

3) The progression is partially tied to some of these wyvern riders

So it's easy to get "softlocked" because the ai decided to not engage any of your units.

So yeah, this chapter frustrates me.