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


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

With monster bosses, I think there's an interesting puzzle involved: how do I shatter their armor without endangering my own units? Do I go for the full break ASAP, or take advantage of the stun period to get in an attack that they could normally counter?

1) gambit for armor break 2) annihilation by crit. s´far as I´m concerned.

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

I don't think survivability skills are necessarily a bad thing. Being able to tear through a whole HP bar in one round of combat from a Killer Knuckles War Master feels... kinda cheap. I don't like "random activation" skills live FE4 Pavise, but the ones you can plan around just add to the challenge.

Yeah, but at the same time Brave-effect critting the boss monster is the best way to finish them if you don´t want to lose your units to a random crit, an issue made worse by the existence of Wrath on at least one of them. Especially if these skills are activated at 50% HP, but 50% is like 100HP and now the question is who can brave-crit for 101 so we avoid Miracle into reset/rewind. Yeah, it may be the final map, but no I didn´t drag their ass through x amount of chapters just to turn them into mince meat now. Sentimental? Perhaps. 

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

I don't like "random activation" skills live FE4 Pavise

A Lunatic+ enjoyer.

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3 Houses is technically more difficult than other games in the series on maddening, esp in end-game (even on hard mode). However, the game conveys so much information to you that easier entries did not, which I believe makes the game much easier overall in practice, esp combined with Divine Pulse.

I think Fates Conquest Hard mode is significantly harder than 3 Houses because you don't have as much leeway in error due to no divine pulse nor does the game explicitly tell you so much information, like how an enemy beserker targeting Corrin will deal 28 damage with a hit rate of 50% the same way 3 houses does. For me, playing Fates Conquest is so much harder because I have to manually calculate a lot of information, as well as manage a delicate balance between player and enemy phase combat, wheras in 3 Houses, its largely skewed towards the former. Additionally, you have to accounting for a lot of other factors like debuffs, skills , etc. which makes things more difficult.

At the same time, manually calculating this information, predicting the enemy movments and developing on the fly strategies does have its own charm. I do recall a point near the end of a long Revelation chapter, where I noticed that Hinoka would be KOed by an enemy Malig Knight. I was really scared of having to restart the charpter, but then I noticed that I could do some clever trade chaining  and heal Hinoka up so she wouldn't be KOed. There was another point where I was able to properly set up a Dual Guard, allowing me to go into a small squad of enemies and survive their attacks on enemy phase.

I do kind of wish Fates had a proper Divine Pulse mechanic similar to Three Houses since it would make it easier to shift one's tactics and learn from my mistakes. Playing on Casual Mode isn't my cup of tea since you are able to brute force a lot of maps and Battle Saves aren't my cup of tea.

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33 minutes ago, 5PointGordin said:

like how an enemy beserker targeting Corrin will deal 28 damage with a hit rate of 50% the same way 3 houses does.

This I do not understand? Like, do you place Byleth in enemy range, check the games predicition and then rewind if it´s bad? I would assume people do at least some math before moving a unit? Or am I missing something? Or do you mean Fates not telling you about the WT effects?

34 minutes ago, 5PointGordin said:

as well as manage a delicate balance between player and enemy phase combat, wheras in 3 Houses, its largely skewed towards the former.

This I disagree with entirely if it is meant to imply TH be a PP centric game - the communities insistence that dodgetanking is the easiest and at the same time best way to play on any difficulty implies to me a heavy focus on EP. Yeah, Swift Strikes and Hunter´s Volley and meme OHKOers exist and may hit higher performance spikes at specific points in the campaign due to weapon rank requirements, but none will ever live up to the performance of a unit with Alert Stance as established by a recent topic. Not to mention that the preference for Brave effect attacks over "regular" attacks may be read to mean that regular combat just isn´t viable as the punishment for failure is too high, outside of the fact that having a mage be ready to chip is better than having to heal.

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1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

This I do not understand? Like, do you place Byleth in enemy range, check the games predicition and then rewind if it´s bad? I would assume people do at least some math before moving a unit? Or am I missing something? Or do you mean Fates not telling you about the WT effects?

The game does show predictions of enemy targets and damage before you move your units. If the Berserker moved into range of Byleth on enemy phase then the perdiction will show before Byleth even moves. Of course if a Berserker is in range of Byleth (wait does Three Houses have Berserkers?) Byleth can likely run up and look at the combat forecast to check damage rates, though only if the units have comparable range. And even taking exact damage out of the equation, knowing which unit the enemy is targeting is pretty useful. The hit rates also help for staying on terrain (though that isn't the hardest thing to calculate yourself, then again Three Houses does have avoid boosting coming from a lot of different places at once).

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5 hours ago, Jotari said:

The game does show predictions of enemy targets and damage before you move your units. If the Berserker moved into range of Byleth on enemy phase then the perdiction will show before Byleth even moves. Of course if a Berserker is in range of Byleth (wait does Three Houses have Berserkers?) Byleth can likely run up and look at the combat forecast to check damage rates, though only if the units have comparable range. And even taking exact damage out of the equation, knowing which unit the enemy is targeting is pretty useful. The hit rates also help for staying on terrain (though that isn't the hardest thing to calculate yourself, then again Three Houses does have avoid boosting coming from a lot of different places at once).

3H Warriors are basically Berserkers, since they get a Crit boost and have no affinity for Bows.

Interestingly, the abundance of player-phase skills means that the 3H battle forecast can "lie" to you, in a sense. If the enemy has Darting Blow, then they might not double when you're initiating, but still double when they're initiating.

8 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

1) gambit for armor break 2) annihilation by crit. s´far as I´m concerned.

Ah, but if I devote multiple offensive gambits to deal with weaker monsters, then I'll have fewer available to me to freeze enemies or target the boss. So there are definitely cases where I'd prefer attacking normally, even in the "Armor break" process.

8 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Yeah, but at the same time Brave-effect critting the boss monster is the best way to finish them if you don´t want to lose your units to a random crit, an issue made worse by the existence of Wrath on at least one of them. Especially if these skills are activated at 50% HP, but 50% is like 100HP and now the question is who can brave-crit for 101 so we avoid Miracle into reset/rewind. Yeah, it may be the final map, but no I didn´t drag their ass through x amount of chapters just to turn them into mince meat now. Sentimental? Perhaps. 

That's a fair point, albeit one borne out more of particularly nasty skills granted to those final monster bosses, rather than anything inherent to how the monsters are designed. Even then, the Blessing gambit is an option to ensure survival.

8 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

A Lunatic+ enjoyer.

I haven't played Lunatic+, but unironically I think it's better game design to have the skills always activate. Because then the map needs to be balanced around "giving the player a way to win even when everything goes wrong", rather "giving the player a way to win unless the RNG really screws them over".

7 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

This I disagree with entirely if it is meant to imply TH be a PP centric game - the communities insistence that dodgetanking is the easiest and at the same time best way to play on any difficulty implies to me a heavy focus on EP. Yeah, Swift Strikes and Hunter´s Volley and meme OHKOers exist and may hit higher performance spikes at specific points in the campaign due to weapon rank requirements, but none will ever live up to the performance of a unit with Alert Stance as established by a recent topic. Not to mention that the preference for Brave effect attacks over "regular" attacks may be read to mean that regular combat just isn´t viable as the punishment for failure is too high, outside of the fact that having a mage be ready to chip is better than having to heal.

The EP builds in 3H are niche builds with seriously demanding setup. Dodgetanking can be effective, sure, but it demands A+ Flight and certain masteries (i.e. Defiant Avoid, Brawl Avoid +20). And a Vantage/Wrath build is difficult for everyone not named "Dimitri". Plus, there's basically no way to deal with monsters from full HP purely on EP (even if they miss and lose some armor, they'll just follow it up with a Staggering Blow that restores their armor). The abilities to do brave damage, to take advantage of the key "Blow" skills, and to use offensive gambits, are all locked to player phase.

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

3H Warriors are basically Berserkers, since they get a Crit boost and have no affinity for Bows.

There aren't any Fighters either. Instead Brigand is the low tier axe class. I've never noticed how bizarre that is. And then despite not using two of the classical axe classes, they make up a new one for the final tier (also ignoring Radiant Dawn's Reaver class). I'm not exactly complaining as War Master is a cool class name (and the brawling affinity might let it stick around alongside berserker and warrior if brawling continues to be a thing), it's just sort of weird they went that way. Especially using brigand instead of fighter. You'd expect Fighter->Warrior; or, Brigand->Berserker; not, Brigand->Warrior (who acts like a Berserker).

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1 minute ago, Jotari said:

There aren't any Fighters either. Instead Brigand is the low tier axe class. I've never noticed how bizarre that is. And then despite not using two of the classical axe classes, they make up a new one for the final tier (also ignoring Radiant Dawn's Reaver class). I'm not exactly complaining as War Master is a cool class name (and the brawling affinity might let it stick around alongside berserker and warrior if brawling continues to be a thing), it's just sort of weird they went that way. Especially using brigand instead of fighter.

Fighter still exists, but as a Beginner class. Curiously, Fighter has an affinity for Bows, but Warrior does not. We don't have "Bandits" or "Barbarians" either, but I've always viewed those classes as "Brigands by any other names". So the only "traditional" Axe class we're totally missing is Pirate.

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

Fighter still exists, but as a Beginner class. Curiously, Fighter has an affinity for Bows, but Warrior does not. We don't have "Bandits" or "Barbarians" either, but I've always viewed those classes as "Brigands by any other names". So the only "traditional" Axe class we're totally missing is Pirate.

Ah, yeah. You spend so little time in Beginner classes, it's kind of easy to forget they exist. They easily could have made Brigands Warriors and then made Warriors Berserkers. That would have made more sense.

Bandits, Barbarians and Brigands are all the same in my mind. But Pirates, yes, they are different. And Three Houses with its reuse of maps actually does have some terrain where a pirate would be useful, particularly Seteth's and Lorenz's paralogue. Bit of an issue with it having to be some kind of intermediate class though while these maps pop up all throughout the game (but hell, they gave Lava immunity to Enlightened One and Holy Knights even though that's virtually useless).

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2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ah, yeah. You spend so little time in Beginner classes, it's kind of easy to forget they exist. They easily could have made Brigands Warriors and then made Warriors Berserkers. That would have made more sense.

I dunno, making Warrior an Intermediate class - on par with Mercenary, Cavalier, and Archer - would've felt pretty jank. I have no issue with Brigand occupying that space. They could've just cut out the "Warrior" name altogether, like Fates did.

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Bandits, Barbarians and Brigands are all the same in my mind. But Pirates, yes, they are different. And Three Houses with its reuse of maps actually does have some terrain where a pirate would be useful, particularly Seteth's and Lorenz's paralogue. Bit of an issue with it having to be some kind of intermediate class though while these maps pop up all throughout the game (but hell, they gave Lava immunity to Enlightened One and Holy Knights even though that's virtually useless).

If a future game brings back 3H's "classroom" model, perhaps units could train in specific skills, too? Like, a couple weeks of tutoring to learn the "Sea Legs" skill, giving the unit in question Pirate-type movement on water tiles while in an infantry class. Maybe make the Thief skills, "Steal" and "Lockpick", something that can be specifically studied, too.

Or, each student can choose a "Class" to study in? Putting them in "Mage Class" would teach them new offensive spells and stuff like Spell Range +1, while "Cavalier Class" would let them unlock mount access while also building their Lance rank. Then each unit could combine attributes from the various "Classes" they've studied in - say, to become an Armored Mage, or a hybrid Healer-Thief.

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

Ah, but if I devote multiple offensive gambits to deal with weaker monsters, then I'll have fewer available to me to freeze enemies or target the boss. So there are definitely cases where I'd prefer attacking normally, even in the "Armor break" process.

Note that I was only refering to bosses such as Hegemon Edelgard - I would think it reasonable to preserve gambits for the final bosses. 

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

I haven't played Lunatic+, but unironically I think it's better game design to have the skills always activate. Because then the map needs to be balanced around "giving the player a way to win even when everything goes wrong", rather "giving the player a way to win unless the RNG really screws them over".

Awakening L+: About that.

it was only joke

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

The EP builds in 3H are niche builds with seriously demanding setup. Dodgetanking can be effective, sure, but it demands A+ Flight and certain masteries (i.e. Defiant Avoid, Brawl Avoid +20). And a Vantage/Wrath build is difficult for everyone not named "Dimitri". Plus, there's basically no way to deal with monsters from full HP purely on EP (even if they miss and lose some armor, they'll just follow it up with a Staggering Blow that restores their armor). The abilities to do brave damage, to take advantage of the key "Blow" skills, and to use offensive gambits, are all locked to player phase.

Note, I specifically refer to dodgetanking and not Vantage/Wrath stuff, that´s something I never even felt nessecary when dodgetanking was already achieved. 

Dodgetanking is neither a niche nor a demanding setup, both Falcon Knight and Wyvern lord, mayhaps the best all around classes ingame, are naturally inclined to be evasive, with FK qualified people getting an extra step in PK. Yeah, it´s not an instant win-game button, by virtue of game progress being nessecary, but the same goes for PP setups too, which "only" require a combination of C-Bow, C-Axe, C-Reason, C-Lance/D-Flying and mastering these classes on top of whatever you want to do with your unit and in one case you just also need to master a class (Sniper). Hell, setting Dmitris goals to Lance and Flying with switching to Authorithy as needed is probably the least investment for a dodgy boy possible. 

And yeah, monsters are the one argument against EP, but a good amount of them fail due to no Stair Prowess 1.

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19 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

This I do not understand? Like, do you place Byleth in enemy range, check the games predicition and then rewind if it´s bad? I would assume people do at least some math before moving a unit? Or am I missing something? Or do you mean Fates not telling you about the WT effects?

This I disagree with entirely if it is meant to imply TH be a PP centric game - the communities insistence that dodgetanking is the easiest and at the same time best way to play on any difficulty implies to me a heavy focus on EP. Yeah, Swift Strikes and Hunter´s Volley and meme OHKOers exist and may hit higher performance spikes at specific points in the campaign due to weapon rank requirements, but none will ever live up to the performance of a unit with Alert Stance as established by a recent topic. Not to mention that the preference for Brave effect attacks over "regular" attacks may be read to mean that regular combat just isn´t viable as the punishment for failure is too high, outside of the fact that having a mage be ready to chip is better than having to heal.

I mention that Fates explicitly does not explicitly tell you said information, such as how the AI will be acting the next turn. Understanding what the AI will do makes three houses much easier.

Three Houses is a largely player phase centric game. I have tried strategies such as dodge tanking, as well as Dimitri's Battalion Wrath + Vantage and these are effective strategies, but player phasing is overall much stronger in this game since you have a lot of options that you don't during enemy phase, like combat arts, gambits, ability to use blow skills, etc.

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13 hours ago, 5PointGordin said:

I mention that Fates explicitly does not explicitly tell you said information, such as how the AI will be acting the next turn. Understanding what the AI will do makes three houses much easier.

No FE other than TH does that. Would that make them automatically make them more difficult?

And then there´s the added layer of, as others have pointed out, the UI just plain not taking skills into account - as well as not updating on PP (I distinctly remember someone complaining about Assassin Petra suddenly becoming active) and the potential for target changing due to clustering around the original target.

As for the rest, I stand by my exchange with Shanty Pete - TH is EP focused, PP is only cleanup of what survived the dodgetank(s). 

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On 4/24/2022 at 4:57 AM, Jotari said:

The game does show predictions of enemy targets and damage before you move your units. If the Berserker moved into range of Byleth on enemy phase then the perdiction will show before Byleth even moves. Of course if a Berserker is in range of Byleth (wait does Three Houses have Berserkers?) Byleth can likely run up and look at the combat forecast to check damage rates, though only if the units have comparable range. And even taking exact damage out of the equation, knowing which unit the enemy is targeting is pretty useful. The hit rates also help for staying on terrain (though that isn't the hardest thing to calculate yourself, then again Three Houses does have avoid boosting coming from a lot of different places at once).

The only real issue I'd have with that is the off-chance the game is lying to me. Like the aggro lines say they'll attack one unit, but come enemy phase, they end up attacking someone else for whatever reason. 

On 4/24/2022 at 3:07 AM, Imuabicus said:

This I disagree with entirely if it is meant to imply TH be a PP centric game - the communities insistence that dodgetanking is the easiest and at the same time best way to play on any difficulty implies to me a heavy focus on EP. Yeah, Swift Strikes and Hunter´s Volley and meme OHKOers exist and may hit higher performance spikes at specific points in the campaign due to weapon rank requirements, but none will ever live up to the performance of a unit with Alert Stance as established by a recent topic. Not to mention that the preference for Brave effect attacks over "regular" attacks may be read to mean that regular combat just isn´t viable as the punishment for failure is too high, outside of the fact that having a mage be ready to chip is better than having to heal.

That... is something I find hard to agree with, to say the least - if 3H really is EP focused, then wouldn't archers be habitually mocked as tends to be the case when talking about games that really are EP focused?? 

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48 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The only real issue I'd have with that is the off-chance the game is lying to me. Like the aggro lines say they'll attack one unit, but come enemy phase, they end up attacking someone else for whatever reason. 

Yeah, it's annoying when that happens, but it's kind of unavoidable with a game with dynamic gameplay. If the unit the enemy is targeting gets killed with a random crit then it's going to find another unit. That's an extreme case, but when the AI does something different it's usually a result of that. To my knowledge it doesn't just randomly decide to have a unit do something else. The unit just does something else because circumstances have changed by the time it's that units turn to act. The only way about that would be to have deterministic rng, and that would probably be weirder as it would show enemies doing bizarre actions that don't make sense because they've already predicted exactly what will hit/miss, which could be easily abused.

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4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That... is something I find hard to agree with, to say the least - if 3H really is EP focused, then wouldn't archers be habitually mocked as tends to be the case when talking about games that really are EP focused?? 

I don't know if that could be equated since 3H archers have the ability to counter at 1 range which is a mechanic of only 2 other FE games. But either way, I don't know if I would say the game is enemy or player phase focused.

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51 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

I don't know if that could be equated since 3H archers have the ability to counter at 1 range which is a mechanic of only 2 other FE games. But either way, I don't know if I would say the game is enemy or player phase focused.

I'm not sure what your two other games are. Does the existence of the Double Bow count as a mechanical existence of 1 range counter? And do Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia count as seperate games? And does DLC skill for Fates count?

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1 hour ago, MuteMousou said:

I don't know if that could be equated since 3H archers have the ability to counter at 1 range which is a mechanic of only 2 other FE games. But either way, I don't know if I would say the game is enemy or player phase focused.

I would say it's more player phase focused, especially on Maddening. Most every Maddening video I've seen has had enemy phase pretty much be for bringing enemy units into range to beat the crap out of them on the next player phase. About the only exception to this is Dimitri, thanks to Battalion Vantage/Battalion Wrath. Of course, he's only one character, and he's only playable on one route.

To illustrate my point, here ya go:

 

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To be honest, I've been questioning the value of perma-death as a whole nowadays. I don't think it works with Intsys' idea of modern FE anymore. Back then, it was tailor made for permadeath but now? Not only has Intsys put increasing story value and involvement on characters that are supposed to be "fodder" but even the time mechanics have began nullifying any and all consequence. Both ideas have received overwhelmingly positive reception. Permadeath seems like something that shouldn't be a factor in the story, maybe a bonus thing I dunno. 

FE has gotten way more character focused. For example, fans find it jarring that some of the side cast (something that was always meant to replaceable) didn't have more bearing on Dimitri's arc and character, declaring it lame that close friends were "disconnected". 

Edited by Seazas
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On 4/25/2022 at 6:28 PM, Jotari said:

I'm not sure what your two other games are. Does the existence of the Double Bow count as a mechanical existence of 1 range counter? And do Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia count as seperate games? And does DLC skill for Fates count?

There's only 4 FE games where 1 range bow counter exists as a mechanic that isn't specific to certain weapons, I didn't count fates because i wasn't even aware that was an obtainable player skill (point blank is mostly a "the enemy is allowed to break the rules of the game" skill anyway). Of course Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia count as separate games because they were released as separate games.

  

3 hours ago, Seazas said:

To be honest, I've been questioning the value of perma-death as a whole nowadays. I don't think it works with Intsys' idea of modern FE anymore. Back then, it was tailor made for permadeath but now? Not only has Intsys put increasing story value and involvement on characters that are supposed to be "fodder" but even the time mechanics have began nullifying any and all consequence. Both ideas have received overwhelmingly positive reception. Permadeath seems like something that shouldn't be a factor in the story, maybe a bonus thing I dunno. 

FE has gotten way more character focused. For example, fans find it jarring that some of the side cast (something that was always meant to replaceable) didn't have more bearing on Dimitri's arc and character, declaring it lame that close friends were "disconnected". 

I think to an extent, permadeath is a product of the time that the original FE games were made. At that point, people didn't really bother hyper optimizing games or feel the need to try to find every single thing in the video game, partially because they had to figure it out mostly or entirely alone. Now that gaming culture in general has changed, largely due to the internet, people more often will know how to get through things and will see more things in the game since they know they're there. As a result, people just view losing a unit as a failstate since really it's far past what you would want to continue without in most games. (Though I know XCOM manages to do permadeath but I'm not sure how it compares to FE).

I just don't think something like permadeath does as well today as it does then because the way people play games has fundamentally changed, people don't want to feel like they've lost something if they know they don't have to feel that way. I think the nature of FE games also adds to this, as the characters are actual people with personalities unlike xcom where I believe all your units are just generic mooks. 

However, I still think that casual mode is only a bandaid solution to this and the game needs to fundamentally change rather than just give you the option to remove the mechanic that the games aren't designed around as much anymore but also are still balanced around.

I feel like, to an extent, sometimes the fandom may want too much out of nobody characters. I don't think every single character needs to have a deep personality or something or as if having more characters do more things means the writing is objectively better. Overall I also think the supports in newer FE games feel like busywork and there should be more to get you involved with a character rather than simply "A and B are sitting in a room with no actual aim to anything." Berwick Saga manages to actually have all the side characters do things without relegating them to conversations that are completely irrelevant to anything actually happening in the story or gameplay in order for them to be developed. 

Edited by MuteMousou
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6 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

There's only 4 FE games where 1 range bow counter exists as a mechanic that isn't specific to certain weapons, I didn't count fates because i wasn't even aware that was an obtainable player skill (point blank is mostly a "the enemy is allowed to break the rules of the game" skill anyway). Of course Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia count as separate games because they were released as separate games.

  

I think to an extent, permadeath is a product of the time that the original FE games were made. At that point, people didn't really bother hyper optimizing games or feel the need to try to find every single thing in the video game, partially because they had to figure it out mostly or entirely alone. Now that gaming culture in general has changed, largely due to the internet, people more often will know how to get through things and will see more things in the game since they know they're there. As a result, people just view losing a unit as a failstate since really it's far past what you would want to continue without in most games. (Though I know XCOM manages to do permadeath but I'm not sure how it compares to FE).

I just don't think something like permadeath does as well today as it does then because the way people play games has fundamentally changed, people don't want to feel like they've lost something if they know they don't have to feel that way. I think the nature of FE games also adds to this, as the characters are actual people with personalities unlike xcom where I believe all your units are just generic mooks. 

However, I still think that casual mode is only a bandaid solution to this and the game needs to fundamentally change rather than just give you the option to remove the mechanic that the games aren't designed around as much anymore but also are still balanced around.

I feel like, to an extent, sometimes the fandom may want too much out of nobody characters. I don't think every single character needs to have a deep personality or something or as if having more characters do more things means the writing is objectively better. Overall I also think the supports in newer FE games feel like busywork and there should be more to get you involved with a character rather than simply "A and B are sitting in a room with no actual aim to anything." Berwick Saga manages to actually have all the side characters do things without relegating them to conversations that are completely irrelevant to anything actually happening in the story or gameplay in order for them to be developed. 

I think Radiant Dawn managed to strike a remarkably good balance between having relevant story characters while still adhering tomorrow death.

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On 4/25/2022 at 12:36 PM, Imuabicus said:

As for the rest, I stand by my exchange with Shanty Pete - TH is EP focused, PP is only cleanup of what survived the dodgetank(s). 

But then it's only EP focused if you actually construct a dodgetank (or Vantage/Wrath build). In other games that are called EP-oriented (i.e. FE7, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance), you don't need to make a dodgetank build. You can simply out-stat the opponents, and respond with reliable 1-2 range. Even if you don't have a dodgetank, you're able to do more on EP than on PP, on the basis of the game's mechanics. Whereas in 3H, it's only if you have an EP-specific build that you can accomplish more on EP than on PP.

 

44 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think Radiant Dawn managed to strike a remarkably good balance between having relevant story characters while still adhering tomorrow death.

I assume you meant "to permadeath"?

See, RD was actually the moment that story-gameplay disintegration struck me the hardest. It was only my second game after Shadow Dragon - you know, the one where the main Lord's fiancee can die in the very first chapter. So in RD, I let Reyson die at one point. But he only retreated - that's good! I don't need to reset, I'll get to use him later! Fast forward - every chapter where I'm supposed to get the chance to use him, he eludes me. We make it all the way to the tower. Finally, I get to choose whichever heron I want to bring - Reyson's back, baby! Of course, by "whichever Heron", they meant "Rafiel or Leanne". Reyson was there, he was alive, but I wasn't able to use him - for reasons the game fails to explain to me. He never departed the army, his role in the plot never changed... he just ceased existing as a gameplay entity. And despite Reyson's story role, his ending bizarrely didn't talk about all the stuff he must have done after the war - it just said when he retreated from battle, with all the finality of a death sentence.

So I guess my "cold on the inside, hot on the outside" take is this - if characters are story-important, and you want them to be playable, then either A) their defeat in battle should be a Game Over condition, or B) the reasoning for them to "retreat permanently" should be narratively satisfactory and consistent.

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On 4/8/2022 at 12:56 PM, Jotari said:

Because, let's face it, the end game was always piss easy in old Fire Emblem games.

Is this really true? I can't speak to the first 5 games because I either don't remember or didn't play them, but looking at the next 5 from the perspective of someone who's not a seasoned player and comparing them to the rest of the game, I don't think this holds up well.

Binding Blade - While maybe not the hardest in the game, Zephiel's map is harder than a lot of the maps that come before it. Idunn's map not so much, but Zephiel's is the real climax of the conflict, anyway.
Blazing Blade - Counting both maps together, this is easily one of the hardest chapters in the game, if not the hardest. This was my first FE and I remember thinking this chapter was literally impossible when I first tried it.
Sacred Stones - Not especially hard compared to other endgames, but still harder than many of the game's other chapters. Fomortiis can definitely catch players off guard.
Path of Radiance - This one is pretty basic. Even on hard where Ashnard moves, it's not like you're losing much to try again. Still not sure "piss easy" is a good description, though.
Radiant Dawn - Definitely one of the hardest maps in the game when you're here for the first time, don't know all the details, and might not be well-prepared with skills like Nihil.

I'd actually say Awakening has one of the easiest endgames in the series, despite it being a newer game (relative to the series, considering it's ten years old). Three Houses' endgames didn't feel any harder for me than older endgames, though it's comparable to Sacred Stones in that most of the game wasn't that hard to begin with.

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Here are my thoughts on the end games:

Mystery of the Emblem:  You have so many over powered staffs that it is too easy. And use nosferatu tank Linde.

Binding Blade: On my first play through, I made sure to stock up on restore staffs, barriers, and pure waters. I was expecting the final map to be filled with status staves and siege tomes. I wanted, and I predicted something as exciting as this, but unfortunately, we got a walking simulator. 

Blazing Sword: Beat it on my first attempt. 

Sacred Stones: My first ever fire emblem game. I did have one restart when Seth got killed by a draco zombie, becuase I didn't know they ignored defences. 

Path of radiance: I chose Naesala as my royal, because i like his personality.. I beat it on my first attempt. Its too easy on all of the difficulties. 

Radiant Dawn: Too easy, and never had to restart on any of the parts. You have so many over powered units. 

Shadow Dragon: Tiki did most of the work. She is so over powered.  I don't remember the sphere's name, but it prevents all weapons, including her dragon stone, from being used up. I did this without warp on hard 5, and it was still too easy. I also did not use the save tiles. This would be more interesting if the enemies were stronger offensively. Beat it on my first attempt.

New Mystery:  Due to the same turn reinforcements, I recused chained this on my Lunatic reverse ranked run, so I could recruit the healers and keep them alive. The earth dragons are as strong as hard 5 medeus. It only took 2 turns. 

Awakening. Just bum rush the boss. On lunatic plus, just nosferatu tank, and hope to activate your offensive skills against the boss. If you don't activate those skills, restart. 

Conquest: This chapter is one of Fire Emblem's greatest!  I carefully worked my way through the map to safely escort Corrin to the boss, to defeat him. I moved quickly, but with caution. The status effects against me were fun. I strategically used my staves. The dragon vains were also fun. This is how end games should be. It would be perfection if there were siege tomes, which unfortunately, Fates does not have. 

Birth right: short and quick bum rush.

Revelation: boring, easy, and tedious

Azure moon: This was a great level., and one of Fire Emblem's greatest! I loved the story, and the siege tomes. 

Crimson flower: Almost as good as Azure moon.

Verdant wind:  I defeated the boss (maddening mode stats) without taking out any of the 10 elites. I warped a sacrifice to the boss, to trigger the boss's movement. Lysithia did most of the damage with luna, while hilda, claude, and byleth helped with initial blows ,and weaker damaging blows to the boss. 

Silver Snow: My first play through of three houses. I used Byleth's windsweep to avoid taking damage, so I wouldn't get an unlucky critical against me. The boss was very tedious, and took awhile. I was unaware of the blessing gambit, so I played very safely. 

Cindered Shadows: It was easy, but I found it fun. 

Edited by MadBoar
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4 hours ago, MadBoar said:

Birth right: short and quick bum rush.

And if stuff goes wrong? You gotta start the prior chapter all over again. Also, I hate starting out surrounded (which you do here). It's pretty much the absolute worst tactical position you can possibly start in, largely because there's no guarantee I can keep units I don't want to get attacked out of the line of fire.

4 hours ago, MadBoar said:

Conquest: This chapter is one of Fire Emblem's greatest!  I carefully worked my way through the map to safely escort Corrin to the boss, to defeat him. I moved quickly, but with caution. The status effects against me were fun. I strategically used my staves. The dragon vains were also fun. This is how end games should be. It would be perfection if there were siege tomes, which unfortunately, Fates does not have. 

You're REALLY starting to sound like a masochist...Honestly, that chapter, and all of Fates, really, could've done without the Hexing Rod. It exemplifies everything I despise about status staves.

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

But then it's only EP focused if you actually construct a dodgetank (or Vantage/Wrath build). In other games that are called EP-oriented (i.e. FE7, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance), you don't need to make a dodgetank build. You can simply out-stat the opponents, and respond with reliable 1-2 range. Even if you don't have a dodgetank, you're able to do more on EP than on PP, on the basis of the game's mechanics. Whereas in 3H, it's only if you have an EP-specific build that you can accomplish more on EP than on PP.

 

I assume you meant "to permadeath"?

See, RD was actually the moment that story-gameplay disintegration struck me the hardest. It was only my second game after Shadow Dragon - you know, the one where the main Lord's fiancee can die in the very first chapter. So in RD, I let Reyson die at one point. But he only retreated - that's good! I don't need to reset, I'll get to use him later! Fast forward - every chapter where I'm supposed to get the chance to use him, he eludes me. We make it all the way to the tower. Finally, I get to choose whichever heron I want to bring - Reyson's back, baby! Of course, by "whichever Heron", they meant "Rafiel or Leanne". Reyson was there, he was alive, but I wasn't able to use him - for reasons the game fails to explain to me. He never departed the army, his role in the plot never changed... he just ceased existing as a gameplay entity. And despite Reyson's story role, his ending bizarrely didn't talk about all the stuff he must have done after the war - it just said when he retreated from battle, with all the finality of a death sentence.

So I guess my "cold on the inside, hot on the outside" take is this - if characters are story-important, and you want them to be playable, then either A) their defeat in battle should be a Game Over condition, or B) the reasoning for them to "retreat permanently" should be narratively satisfactory and consistent.

To be fair that exact scenario also happened to me with Mist on my first playthrough. But just in general I think it goes far beyond any other game in terms of integrating it's larger cast into the plot in a meaningful way.

One solution to retreating plot important characters is to just not make them playable until their plot relevancy is over. Which is done a bit with the like of Skirmr. But then you get scenarios like Flavia and Bassillo in Awakening were narratively they should be part of your army but just arent. To the extent that when they do become playable it's almost a flag informing you they're now no longer relevant (though for those two specifically there's not my j game left but in general avoiding deployment has that issue).

My alternative suggestion would be a dedicated retreat skill. If a unit is killed in battle they instead retreat and are unusable for three chapters. This skill would be locked to certain story characters until such a time as they're not important when you can then unequip it and give it to whomever you like, best used in a skill system with capacity so there's a trade off.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

And if stuff goes wrong? You gotta start the prior chapter all over again. Also, I hate starting out surrounded (which you do here). It's pretty much the absolute worst tactical position you can possibly start in, largely because there's no guarantee I can keep units I don't want to get attacked out of the line of fire.

What could go wrong with Birthright's final chapter? You just walk up and kill Garon. He's in range of almost your entire army on turn 1 and he's not that difficult to kill.

A lot of people seem to be focusing specifically on the final map of each game when I really meant the final sections. Yeah, Birthright's final chapter is a walk in the park, but the chapters preceding it are a bit of a jump I  difficulty in my experience.

Edited by Jotari
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