The Trade off for not designing games around Perma Death is harder end games

[Jotari]

So much ado is made about how modern Fire Emblem games are steadily less and less designed around perma death, which I think is true. The games are no longer expecting you to lose units. However, since that shift gradually began to happen, I think I have to say that end games have gotten better balanced. Because, let's face it, the end game was always piss easy in old Fire Emblem games. Getting through the first half of the game was always much more difficult than the second half, because you either reset whenever an enemy died and thus build super units, or you're good enough at the game to play iron man and only let a few characters die, and thus build super powerful units. But now, as the developers have shifted to the idea that the player will be using all of the army all of the time with powerful units, the end games have gotten more tailored towards realistic player expectations (with the exception of a few isolated, particularly obnoxious chapters and Awakening's Lunatic+ which is just silly).

Or maybe I'm wrong and off my rocker. What do you think? Have the ending handful of chapters been more challenging than earlier games in the series?

Edited April 8, 2022 by Jotari

[AnonymousSpeed]

The endgames are more difficult on paper, but if you were actually ironmanning the game you'd have a weaker endgame team on average and a more challenging experience in practice. The endgame seems harder because it's designed for the power-level most players like us actually go in with. Maybe that's good. I don't personally like it much as a design focus.

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

 you either reset whenever an enemy died 

New Fire Emblem challenge run (literally impossible).

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The endgames are more difficult on paper, but if you were actually ironmanning the game you'd have a weaker endgame team on average and a more challenging experience in practice. The endgame seems harder because it's designed for the power-level most players like us actually go in with. Maybe that's good. I don't personally like it much as a design focus.

New Fire Emblem challenge run (literally impossible).

D'oh 0.o...You could give it a go in Thracia (though realistically speaking armoured 20con bosses can't be captured).

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

16 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

New Fire Emblem challenge run (literally impossible).

Radical Pacifist Mode unlocked.

33 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Or maybe I'm wrong and off my rocker. What do you think? Have the ending handful of chapters been more challenging than earlier games in the series?

Well there are three assumptions to this premise: 1) the games have gotten less oriented around permadeath; 2) the Endgame maps have been more challenging in recent games; and 3) more challenging means better design. I generally agree with #1, I'm unsure of #2, and #3 is too subjective to fairly assess. Also, how do remakes factor in to the premise? Echoes is certainly not intended to be played in permadeath style (given the Turnwheel), but its Endgame is (to the best of my knowledge) inherited from Gaiden. So I don't know how cleanly it would fit into any perceived trends.

[Jotari]

11 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Also, how do remakes factor in to the premise? Echoes is certainly not intended to be played in permadeath style (given the Turnwheel), but its Endgame is (to the best of my knowledge) inherited from Gaiden. So I don't know how cleanly it would fit into any perceived trends.

Well Gaiden is a bit of an odd duck in regards to early games (I actually was considering bringing this up, but didn't want to upset my flow) in that it's first half is genuinely piss easy and it's later half is markedly harder (though still pretty damn easy). So Gaiden already fit a modern type more so than a lot of later games (at least in my experience with it). Which makes me pretty curious to see how they'll handle Genealogy, as you're kind of purposefully designed to be OP by the end game there.

Harder Shadow Dragon modes are just plain weird though. On one hand the end game is harder (provided you don't warp skip) with better enemy formation and more pressured reinforcements. On the other hand, the early game involves you slowly trickling across the map against enemies that far out class you until you reach a boss who you simple stand no reasonable chance of killing until you break his weapon. In other words, Shadow Dragon goes from bullshit hard to actually good hard between it's early and end game.

11 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

3) more challenging means better design. I generally agree with #1, I'm unsure of #2, and #3 is too subjective to fairly assess.

Good point. Changed better to harder.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Jotari

[Shaky Jones]

I want to give a proper answer to this, but it's hard when I don't really like any endgame. Old endgames feel boring and underwhelming, and modern endgames just feel like they weren't thought out at all. I dont see FE13 or 3H's endgame as properly designed around strong units. It feels more like they're just strong enemies, and they assume you probably have some way of screwing them over, and you often do, because of how broken and overpowered the mechanics are, which can be fine for some people, bot I'm not exactly a fan, especially when Blue Lions faces you against enemies with so much crit. BR and Rev endgames just feel boring as well, but I guess they're designed around late game teams that haven't died off? Doesn't stop the maps from being crap. You're just surrounded by berserkers in BR and you can rush Garon in one turn. Rev's map feels too simple to praise. Conquest is TOO thought out, where it doesn't matter what your team is. You are screwed. Echoes is Gaiden, so it's really more like old FE. It is probably more balanced, since low growths prevent you from going too high to trivialize a challenge and therefore doesn't require the game to heavily buff enemies, but its Gaiden. The map itself sucks. Yes, I am just ranting about every endgame sucking. My bad. I feel like the one FE lategame I love is Radiant Dawn, since it dies feel designed around capped units, but doesn't necessarily mean you need to go all out on capping stats, and doing so isn't too hard and it doesn't require major luck to achieve. Through the way bonus xp and the way the gane is played around the limited caps, it feels pretty expected to reach them. I guess I could say the same for New Mystery in a way. Good growths, low caps. The gane isn't going to throw 40 stat enemies (although the actual endgame for FE12 is awful in lunatic so this point hardly matters). Point is, I feel that the issue isn't necessarily about designing things around perma death vs no perma death, bit more around capped stats or growth rates in general. Games like FE13 and FE3H are crazy with caps, and you just can't design an endgame around a presumed cap. There's too much of a statistical gap in possible stats depending on how they treated their team, and yeah, playing it ironman style will largely affect that. But no matter what, the enemies will be nearly impossible to balance for endgame. Design FE around losing units, and you might get boring endgame, which I definitely don't like. It hurts the impact of the villains if all it takes to trivialize them is to NOT have a horrible army. Both feel like a losing scenario. I feel like games where reaching cap stats are easy to do, but can't be abused and are handicapped help make endgame ve something you can design around. Sadly, there's very few good examples imo, since New Mystery chooses to have an unfairly strong final boss with ambush spawns, and fe5 is...fe5. I like old mystery's endgame though. Had a capped army, and it still gave me some trouble. Dragons cut through defense, so you always have to be careful. Then there's games where you have low growths, so losing units won't hurt you much, since others won't take long to catch up. Fe6, fe11, and fe2 come to mind. FE2 has revive shrines, but still doesn't feel too ironman friendly if you ask me, and as I mentioned, its endgame is super annoying. Far too reliant on spamming cantor enemies. Fe6's true endgame is infamous. They tried to make sure you don't get screwed over from a bad Roy or something, so the final boss dies instantly. I do think Zephiel's chapter is nice for the most part though. Fe11 is neat, but goes too far on h5 with forged braves that obliterate units who don't have good stats, and you won't have good stats, because the growths suck. Low caps or low growths do the job well enough. I guess I'm rooting for ironman friendly design here, although I still want endgames to be designed around your team being at top tier strength.

TL;DR: I think older FE had a better idea, with some games being designed around low growths or caps to prevent players from creating super units and having something they can design enemies around, but hardly any of them utilize that properly, or the map itself is just bad, like FE2. FE5 feels more like a check of if you have door keys and staves. I'm not qualified to speak for FE4, but FE3's endgame is fun, challenging, and well designed around whether you ironman'd or not imo. Groeth boosting shards help anybunit quickly catch up should you lose units, and dragons and mages basically cut through defense, so you can't grind that stat to trivialize it. Modern FE's not being ironman friendly do not feel like they've been helping the quality of the maps at all imo, but that could just be the map design being flawed rather than the enemies not being able to be designed around a good team. I'm more in favor of perma death friendly endgames, but I do want to see endgames designed around capped teams, and I think older FE's have done a better job of that.

[lenticular]

I think it's hard to analyse, because at the same time that the games have been accounting less for permadeath, they've also been growing more complex in what you can do with character builds, reclassing, skills, etc. This means that there's more of a gap between a well-optimised team and a poorly optimised team than there used to be, and at least normal mode seems to be designed to be beatable with little to no build optimisation. If your endgame map has to account for people who have decided they want to run Caspar as a Bishop or Orochi as a Blacksmith then it's probably not going to challenge people who are running builds that are actually good.

[Shadow Mir]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Harder Shadow Dragon modes are just plain weird though. On one hand the end game is harder (provided you don't warp skip) with better enemy formation and more pressured reinforcements. On the other hand, the early game involves you slowly trickling across the map against enemies that far out class you until you reach a boss who you simple stand no reasonable chance of killing until you break his weapon. In other words, Shadow Dragon goes from bullshit hard to actually good hard between it's early and end game.

Bold: Until you factor in manaketes, where the game lies to you outright, and the final boss, where it goes back to bullshit hard with a vengeance.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Bold: Until you factor in manaketes, where the game lies to you outright, and the final boss, where it goes back to bullshit hard with a vengeance.

Medeus isn't hard. You'll probably lose a unit, but taking him down isn't a century long task like taking down Gomer or Hymen. Ah what's even the point in saying that to you? You won't actually listen to my perspective.

[Soapbar]

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Medeus isn't hard. You'll probably lose a unit, but taking him down isn't a century long task like taking down Gomer or Hymen. Ah what's even the point in saying that to you? You won't actually listen to my perspective.

 

I can't even remember if this strat requires Nagi specifically or Tiki can do it too, but I always found it funny that the best way to beat H5 Med was to just suicide onto him and then do it again.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Soapbar

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

Medeus isn't hard. You'll probably lose a unit, but taking him down isn't a century long task like taking down Gomer or Hymen. Ah what's even the point in saying that to you? You won't actually listen to my perspective.

The fact that taking him out pretty much requires sacking a unit speaks for itself, far as I'm concerned. Case in point: the post right after yours. Anyway, he might not take aeons to bring down, yes, but the fact that he's so unfair that suicide attacks are THE way to kill him is still VERY telling. . .

Edited April 9, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The fact that taking him out pretty much requires sacking a unit speaks for itself, far as I'm concerned. Case in point: the post right after yours.

Okay, good job Mir. You made a really informative and well developed post that I didn't see coming at all. You fully understood what I was saying, gave it fair consideration and then argued against its meris using facts and logic that wasn't in any way completely predictable for you. You can pat yourself on the pack now.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The fact that taking him out pretty much requires sacking a unit speaks for itself, far as I'm concerned. Case in point: the post right after yours.

It's possible for a boss to be "threatening" without being "tedious". Medeus is threatening because he can double most of your units, but not tedious so long as you have the resources to beat him. Ashera is tedious, because you have to break her Auras one-by-one, but not quite as threatening, because she's far more limited in who she can double (RIP Gareth), and the player can use terrain to their advantage. 

[Shadow Mir]

 

26 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

It's possible for a boss to be "threatening" without being "tedious". Medeus is threatening because he can double most of your units, but not tedious so long as you have the resources to beat him. Ashera is tedious, because you have to break her Auras one-by-one, but not quite as threatening, because she's far more limited in who she can double (RIP Gareth), and the player can use terrain to their advantage. 

I agree with this, but there is such a thing as going too far on that account, which is why I am here. Medeus isn't tedious to the extent that Gomer and Hyman are, but him being as threatening as he is to the point that something that I would write off as taboo is encouraged means that the devs went way too far. I don't like it when the best, if not only, way to win requires sacrificing units. It's no better than forcing the player to break the boss's weapon to have a chance to kill them.

[GlitchWarrior]

frankly I blame some of this on IS not having that sweet spot of difficulty

either the enemies are overinflated to the point that there is no feasible way for your units to match up to their generics, let alone their bosses, or they're cannon fodder

I personally play primarily on Normal Mode (but Hard Mode 1 in DSFE), and some of the more recent endgames still feel like BS.

[MadBoar]

I believe that the reason why end game is so easy, is due to the fact that the developers designed it to where a player can beat it with horrible level ups. These games can be beaten with zero percent growths, and in some cases, ranked runs can be, realistically, completed with zero percent growths. 

[Alastor15243]

On 4/8/2022 at 4:41 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Well there are three assumptions to this premise: 1) the games have gotten less oriented around permadeath; 2) the Endgame maps have been more challenging in recent games; and 3) more challenging means better design. I generally agree with #1, I'm unsure of #2, and #3 is too subjective to fairly assess. Also, how do remakes factor in to the premise? Echoes is certainly not intended to be played in permadeath style (given the Turnwheel), but its Endgame is (to the best of my knowledge) inherited from Gaiden. So I don't know how cleanly it would fit into any perceived trends.

By contrast, I definitely agree with 3. It's 1 and 2 that I think are rather foggy. I hold pretty strong to the idea that when you have a truly hard game, it makes devs and playtesters more acutely aware of what deaths they did and didn't deserve. But the level of evidence that games were designed with permadeath in mind has been fluctuating. You've got Fates, the single most ironman-friendly set of games in the entire series, and before it you had New Mystery and its love affair with save tiles and tiny bite-size maps, and after it you had SoV and Three Houses with their irresponsibly unfettered mastery of space and time.

[henrymidfields]

Can we have endgames where defeating the final boss or bosses isn't the final, only, or even an objective?

What about endgames where you need to survive a certain amount of turns? Either the main army arrives and joins forces with you, or you need to guard the proverbial Tsar Bomba against the enemy while it is being activated.

Or you need to evacuate a la 776, or reach a certain point, because you activated the Tsar Bomba in the most 200% evulz dungeon?

Or endgames where you have several options to finish the chapter, but they create different endings (the more difficult the ending, the better)? Like, you can eradicate all of the opposing forces with the Javelins of Light - survive a few turns, then wait for the firestorm display, an easy task. But then not only do you lose any chance of reconciliation, but even your allies are now uncertain with you as they think you're a war criminal.

If you decide to surgically strike the genuine enemies, but keep casualties low with other factions, then it involves a lot of pre-planning, maybe some stat maximizing as enemies will clobber you left, right, and centre. But they'll eventually surrender, and join your side, and buy you some time, and some good units. You eventually make amends, and you'll end up getting a better ending because your new allies help you create a new golden age.

Edited April 18, 2022 by henrymidfields

[AnonymousSpeed]

Considering boss fights in Fire Emblem suck, I'd be okay with something like that.

[Bylift]

On 4/18/2022 at 12:37 AM, henrymidfields said:

Can we have endgames where defeating the final boss or bosses isn't the final, only, or even an objective?

What about endgames where you need to survive a certain amount of turns? Either the main army arrives and joins forces with you, or you need to guard the proverbial Tsar Bomba against the enemy while it is being activated.

I agree with this. I really appreciate games that have atypical features that emphasize the game's strengths. One example and I hope this is OK to mention, is Ori and the Blind Forest where boss "battles" are completely replaced with intense escape sequences that revolve around platforming. It was a nice change from the usual 'defeat boss and its multiple health bars' and I really respect the developers from going off-script in that genre.

Applying that to FE series, I could definitely see defense/hold out maps as a final chapter being fun. Or siege maps where you must capture a position that is heavily fortified, maybe by disabling reinforcement points or switching off some kind of invincibility mechanic first. I think I just described the final map of Verdant Wind 😄.

Taking it a step further, I could even see a "defend the boss" final map being a fun challenge. Imagine if on SS you were protecting Rhea instead of killing her, which I always found weird on that route anyway. Or as suggested, you had the *option* to kill or defend her. 

They could also make it so that there are multiple factions battling/competing a la Battle of Eagle and Lion which could result in viable strategies of letting the enemies weaken each other before you clean up. Lots of stuff they could do other than "push forward and kill boss."

[Jotari]

29 minutes ago, Bylift said:

I agree with this. I really appreciate games that have atypical features that emphasize the game's strengths. One example and I hope this is OK to mention, is Ori and the Blind Forest where boss "battles" are completely replaced with intense escape sequences that revolve around platforming. It was a nice change from the usual 'defeat boss and its multiple health bars' and I really respect the developers from going off-script in that genre.

Applying that to FE series, I could definitely see defense/hold out maps as a final chapter being fun. Or siege maps where you must capture a position that is heavily fortified, maybe by disabling reinforcement points or switching off some kind of invincibility mechanic first. I think I just described the final map of Verdant Wind 😄.

Taking it a step further, I could even see a "defend the boss" final map being a fun challenge. Imagine if on SS you were protecting Rhea instead of killing her, which I always found weird on that route anyway. Or as suggested, you had the *option* to kill or defend her. 

They could also make it so that there are multiple factions battling/competing a la Battle of Eagle and Lion which could result in viable strategies of letting the enemies weaken each other before you clean up. Lots of stuff they could do other than "push forward and kill boss."

All these are fine ideas, but I don't specific see much need for them to be the final chapter of the game. Defense and escape chapters are great and Fire Emblem does indeed use them. But the advantage of a final boss is a narrative conclusion to the story that merges with gameplay. You have some specific enemy to defeat or overcome that brings the narrative to a close. Ending on a defense chapter would kind of end with a bunch of enemies not being defeated and them just kind of cutting their losses and giving up. It'd be a bit weak. Ending on an escape chapter in particular would be kind of bad for an endgame as escapes are where you're desperate. They're essentially the chapters in which the enemy wins the battle, so it'd be something of a downer ending. Unless it's a Metroid esque escape a collapsing base thing and you're fighting some kind of ghost enemies (like the Durban and Roland chapters of Blazing Blade), but even that leaves something of a lowering rather than rising denouement. There could be narrative reasons to have a non final boss endgame, but I don't think it's the thing you should intentionally make and then write around, as it'll probably result in weaker writing. It's better to be something that arises naturally from the story and then taken as an option for gameplay. Like I could maybe see a rout chapter being the end game if you're fighting a whole squad of final bosses like the first Aversa chapter in Awakening. Or just Thracia in general which manages to achieve the narrative function of defeating an enemy (though Veld is a weak character) while maintaining the gameplay diversity of not fighting one big powerful boss by way of making Veld himself a bit of a weakling compared to a lot of other enemies.

[Absurd Turk]

Let me think, by comparing the end game of the FE games I've played:

Thracia 776: not as hard as balls as much of the game, but the end game is still challenging, I rememer.

Binding Blade: yeah, insultingly easy.

Blazing Sword: slightly harder than Binding Blade, I think.

Awakening: it's been a long time since I played Awakening. Hard mode at the time for me was hard as balls, but when I played hard mode later after playing the other FE games, hard mode was just kinda normal mode. But back to endgame: I'm not sure if it was...yeah it was kinda easy, the endgame: the map designs were terrible as well.

Fates Conquest: nah, endgame was pretty freaking hard, I remember.

What about endgames AFTER the time-rewinding mechanic was introduced?

Echoes: without the time wheel, Echoes' endgame would be way harder. It was still hard even with the time wheel.

3 Houses: well, I've only played Edelgard's route and Dimitri's route, and I remember Edelgard's route was really hard endgame. Dimitri's, fairly challenging end game.

To answer the main question:

Kinda? I mean I feel it depends on the game, how hard the end game is.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

All these are fine ideas, but I don't specific see much need for them to be the final chapter of the game. Defense and escape chapters are great and Fire Emblem does indeed use them. But the advantage of a final boss is a narrative conclusion to the story that merges with gameplay. You have some specific enemy to defeat or overcome that brings the narrative to a close. Ending on a defense chapter would kind of end with a bunch of enemies not being defeated and them just kind of cutting their losses and giving up. It'd be a bit weak. Ending on an escape chapter in particular would be kind of bad for an endgame as escapes are where you're desperate. They're essentially the chapters in which the enemy wins the battle, so it'd be something of a downer ending. Unless it's a Metroid esque escape a collapsing base thing and you're fighting some kind of ghost enemies (like the Durban and Roland chapters of Blazing Blade), but even that leaves something of a lowering rather than rising denouement. There could be narrative reasons to have a non final boss endgame, but I don't think it's the thing you should intentionally make and then write around, as it'll probably result in weaker writing. It's better to be something that arises naturally from the story and then taken as an option for gameplay. Like I could maybe see a rout chapter being the end game if you're fighting a whole squad of final bosses like the first Aversa chapter in Awakening. Or just Thracia in general which manages to achieve the narrative function of defeating an enemy (though Veld is a weak character) while maintaining the gameplay diversity of not fighting one big powerful boss by way of making Veld himself a bit of a weakling compared to a lot of other enemies.

What if the only way to defeat the final boss is for the main Lord, or a Very Important NPC, to execute a "10-turn spell"? None of your other attacks can damage the final boss (although you can still hurt their underlings), so you have to protect the Lord/NPC from the onslaught for 10 turns. Hence triggering the final cutscene, wherein the boss is defeated by a big-ass laser.

[Bylift]

17 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

What if the only way to defeat the final boss is for the main Lord, or a Very Important NPC, to execute a "10-turn spell"? None of your other attacks can damage the final boss (although you can still hurt their underlings), so you have to protect the Lord/NPC from the onslaught for 10 turns. Hence triggering the final cutscene, wherein the boss is defeated by a big-ass laser.

I love it. Your move, IS!

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

What if the only way to defeat the final boss is for the main Lord, or a Very Important NPC, to execute a "10-turn spell"? None of your other attacks can damage the final boss (although you can still hurt their underlings), so you have to protect the Lord/NPC from the onslaught for 10 turns. Hence triggering the final cutscene, wherein the boss is defeated by a big-ass laser.

No. Just no. I don't like the aspect of cheapening the climactic experience with an escort mission.