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

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

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.

Misses, of course. If you fail to kill him on turn 1 for whatever reason, you are probably losing someone come enemy phase. Also, I just checked the map, and to say he's in range of almost your entire army on turn 1 couldn't be further from the truth. Look at this map:

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/File:Cm_fe14b_endgame_l.png

He's far enough back that only the units in the northernmost starting positions can actually get to him then - and they will probably need to be in high movement classes and/or extra movement from somewhere to actually get to him. So basically, all I see is a reckless "strategy" that requires everything to go right for it to work - which, considering that you have to do the prior chapter all over again if it doesn't work, is unacceptable.

[MuteMousou]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

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.

Personally the status staff mechanic is kind of annoying to me in fates because the only way to gaurantee not getting hit is either dodge lmao or have knowledge on the game's ai and realize that status staff users prioritize attacking over using staves. Honestly it makes the status staves in thracia seem incredibly overblown when in fates you can never manually remove debuffs aside from just waiting and the hexing rod will always last until the map ends. It's not a big deal overall but I just prefer the games where status staves aren't always rng

[Imuabicus]

On 4/25/2022 at 7:41 PM, 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?? 

Are there no good or decent Archers in EP games? And consider: as of c-rank the only weakness Archers may have is to be found in their stats. And all the love for Bows I see on Maddening is Hunters Volley, because if you set up correctly and or get lucky you can get 1kill/action.  

15 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.

Yes, that is due to the nature of TH. I specifically state that there´s 2 classes that become naturally dodgy. 

If more can be gotten out of an EP build than with a PP build then to me that is a clear indicator that the game is EP focused.

Bolded: Citation needed. Who´s gonna get more done? Class X/Unit Y on EP or Class X/Unit Y on PP, iron weapons, no skills, no equipment, no food, no gambit, no masteries.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Bolded: Citation needed. Who´s gonna get more done? Class X/Unit Y on EP or Class X/Unit Y on PP, iron weapons, no skills, no equipment, no food, no gambit, no masteries.

Class X/Unit Y on PP, because you didn't specify "no combat arts".

I don't really get the point of this reductive exercise. Even assuming no "cooking together", the game gives you battalions (with gambits), better-than-Iron Weapons, non-weapon Equipment, and skills and combat arts that come through naturally raising one's ranks. That's like saying "FE8 isn't EP-focused, because if a unit just has Iron Weapons equipped, then they can't counter ranged enemies". The existence of alternative tools is part of the design - and how readily available they are weighs into the "EP vs. PP" debate.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Misses, of course. If you fail to kill him on turn 1 for whatever reason, you are probably losing someone come enemy phase. Also, I just checked the map, and to say he's in range of almost your entire army on turn 1 couldn't be further from the truth. Look at this map:

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/File:Cm_fe14b_endgame_l.png

He's far enough back that only the units in the northernmost starting positions can actually get to him then - and they will probably need to be in high movement classes and/or extra movement from somewhere to actually get to him. So basically, all I see is a reckless "strategy" that requires everything to go right for it to work - which, considering that you have to do the prior chapter all over again if it doesn't work, is unacceptable.

Yes, in a game with pair up and a guaranteed living dancer. look Mir I don't know what to tell you here. I've made jokes about you being bad at Fire Emblem in the past, but if you're struggling with Birthright Garon then you just need to reevaluate how you play. He's a very uncomplicated one and done job. If someone misses then you have a contingencyband you attack with someone else. Garon is a badly designed final boss in the sense that he never even gets an oppertunity to do his Dragon vein gimmick, but he's not a difficult boss.

Edited April 29 by Jotari

[LoneRecon400]

Garon actually doesn't attack on Enemy Phase even if he can kill someone, he just always spams the dragon viens next to him.

The fact that no one really knows about this really says a lot of how difficult he is to take down.

Edited April 29 by LoneRecon400

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Are there no good or decent Archers in EP games? And consider: as of c-rank the only weakness Archers may have is to be found in their stats. And all the love for Bows I see on Maddening is Hunters Volley, because if you set up correctly and or get lucky you can get 1kill/action.  

The thing is, archers don't stand out in EP games (like Blazing Blade) because enemies are too easy to kill; archers are, by their nature, a player phase class, and thus it's to be expected that they wouldn't do so well when enemies are weak to the point where most units with 1-2 access can easily drop waves of enemies on enemy phase (of course, that does NOT describe 3H Maddening at all, largely because javelins and hand axes are at their worst, and largely because enemies are really bulky). Also, that's more than I can expect a dodgetank to accomplish (and honestly, my dodgetank's main role is to lure enemies out of position for everyone else to team up on and kill on the next player phase; they probably won't be killing much of anything without luck and/or very specific setups). Hell, let me point you to that video I posted back in my other post. Most anything noteworthy the player did was on player phase.

58 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Garon actually doesn't attack on Enemy Phase even if he can kill someone, he just always spams the dragon viens next to him.

The fact that no one really knows about this really says a lot of how difficult he is to take down.

Doesn't that only apply if a unit gets near him before he starts using them (which is on turn 4)? Because that's what the wiki says about it. Anyways, the main concern about Birthright's endgame is, as I stated earlier, the fact that you start out surrounded.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

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.

Oh yeah, I agree with RD making a ton of playable characters relevant to the story.

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

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).

One rationalization is, Basilio and Flavia weren't playable earlier because they were independent actors. Allies of Chrom and Robin, sure, but not under their direct command. Only toward the end of the game do they formally fold into the Ylissean Army, and accept Robin's commands (which is the implied state of all blue units).

Then again, they don't do this for Say'ri, do they? I believe she joins shortly after you meet her, and even if she does "die", she only retreats so that she retains a story presence. So in the particular cases of Flavia and Basilio, they may have just wanted them to function as late-joining units.

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

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.

That'd be an interesting way to do it. The "three chapters" aspect seems a bit arbitrary - what if instead, they just started their next map with some penalty (i.e. showing up with 1 HP and all stats debuffed)? That way you don't run into a "Tiki retreated on chapter 24, so now I can't bring her to fight Medeus!" dilemma.

I do like the idea of enemy units who don't die upon defeat having a skill that telegraphs as much. Either called "Retreat" or "Survive". That way, I could know whether or not killing an optional mini-boss means I can't recruit them later (cough Vaida cough). And it doesn't feel as cheap to see them "break the rules of the game" if they're at least carrying a "plot coupon".

[Jotari]

36 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The thing is, archers don't stand out in EP games (like Blazing Blade) because enemies are too easy to kill; archers are, by their nature, a player phase class, and thus it's to be expected that they wouldn't do so well when enemies are weak to the point where most units with 1-2 access can easily drop waves of enemies on enemy phase (of course, that does NOT describe 3H Maddening at all, largely because javelins and hand axes are at their worst, and largely because enemies are really bulky). Also, that's more than I can expect a dodgetank to accomplish (and honestly, my dodgetank's main role is to lure enemies out of position for everyone else to team up on and kill on the next player phase; they probably won't be killing much of anything without luck and/or very specific setups). Hell, let me point you to that video I posted back in my other post. Most anything noteworthy the player did was on player phase.

Doesn't that only apply if a unit gets near him before he starts using them (which is on turn 4)? Because that's what the wiki says about it. Anyways, the main concern about Birthright's endgame is, as I stated earlier, the fact that you start out surrounded.

Habe you just dk e that thing were you look at a picture online and then just prejudge it withojt actuallynplayi g it yohrself? Because being surrounded is completely irrelevant if you can one turn the map. But the fact that you can one turn the map is an issue in itself.

2 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Garon actually doesn't attack on Enemy Phase even if he can kill someone, he just always spams the dragon viens next to him.

The fact that no one really knows about this really says a lot of how difficult he is to take down.

I can confirm I did not know that. I think I have left him alive just to see what his blight does, but I can't really remember the results.

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

Oh yeah, I agree with RD making a ton of playable characters relevant to the story.

One rationalization is, Basilio and Flavia weren't playable earlier because they were independent actors. Allies of Chrom and Robin, sure, but not under their direct command. Only toward the end of the game do they formally fold into the Ylissean Army, and accept Robin's commands (which is the implied state of all blue units).

Then again, they don't do this for Say'ri, do they? I believe she joins shortly after you meet her, and even if she does "die", she only retreats so that she retains a story presence. So in the particular cases of Flavia and Basilio, they may have just wanted them to function as late-joining units.

That'd be an interesting way to do it. The "three chapters" aspect seems a bit arbitrary - what if instead, they just started their next map with some penalty (i.e. showing up with 1 HP and all stats debuffed)? That way you don't run into a "Tiki retreated on chapter 24, so now I can't bring her to fight Medeus!" dilemma.

I do like the idea of enemy units who don't die upon defeat having a skill that telegraphs as much. Either called "Retreat" or "Survive". That way, I could know whether or not killing an optional mini-boss means I can't recruit them later (cough Vaida cough). And it doesn't feel as cheap to see them "break the rules of the game" if they're at least carrying a "plot coupon".

Well it's probably a combination of them needing Basilio to actively fight Whalhart in the story, which isn't really believable is you've give  him a plot induced injury (...Though given Awakening is Awakening I could see them literally just  it caring about that) and also that they wanted Basilio to spawn mid map to reveal the Gules Gambit after you replayed the premonition scene. Him appearing mid map could be done as citscene only and just not spawned as reinforcements, but that'd be kind of lame. Radiant Dawn also shows an unwillingness to do such a thing with relatively minor characters like Nailah causing a game over if killed before a chapter where she spawns mid map (not that you can even feasibly get her killed until part 4, but still it's obvious as to why they were covering their bases there).

Edited April 29 by Jotari

[Imuabicus]

On 4/29/2022 at 4:27 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Class X/Unit Y on PP, because you didn't specify "no combat arts".

Ah yes the one thing I forgot.

Wrong regardless, as the second 2 or more enemies can be fought on EP and I can think of few units who can´t, either more damage will be dealt or chip thresholds be lowered for the following phase.

On 4/29/2022 at 4:27 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I don't really get the point of this reductive exercise. Even assuming no "cooking together", the game gives you battalions (with gambits), better-than-Iron Weapons, non-weapon Equipment, and skills and combat arts that come through naturally raising one's ranks. That's like saying "FE8 isn't EP-focused, because if a unit just has Iron Weapons equipped, then they can't counter ranged enemies". The existence of alternative tools is part of the design - and how readily available they are weighs into the "EP vs. PP" debate.

With every bit of investment, EP units will pull further ahead. 

And this reductive exercise was made in response to your argument of only dedicated EP is better than PP; a chance to showcase such player phase superiority, but alas.

How readily available tools are has nothing to do with EP v PP - how effective they are does.

On 4/29/2022 at 9:53 PM, Shadow Mir said:

The thing is, archers don't stand out in EP games (like Blazing Blade) because enemies are too easy to kill; archers are, by their nature, a player phase class, and thus it's to be expected that they wouldn't do so well when enemies are weak to the point where most units with 1-2 access can easily drop waves of enemies on enemy phase (of course, that does NOT describe 3H Maddening at all, largely because javelins and hand axes are at their worst, and largely because enemies are really bulky). Also, that's more than I can expect a dodgetank to accomplish (and honestly, my dodgetank's main role is to lure enemies out of position for everyone else to team up on and kill on the next player phase; they probably won't be killing much of anything without luck and/or very specific setups). Hell, let me point you to that video I posted back in my other post. Most anything noteworthy the player did was on player phase.

Archers in TH have what 1-3/4(?) range - again their only weakness is the players decision on who becomes an Archer. Archer Felix is a completely different beast than Archer Ignatz. Handaxes and javelin are unnecessary since enemies have basically no 1-2 range barring mages and those are a different story altogether and 1-2 range doesn´t counter Archers.

What allowed that map to play out that way, was having a unit be able to withstand DK on EP - I imagine it might be possible to stride Dark Spikes Lysithea or a Lance of Ruin Knightkneeler towards DK, but if I saw that correctly DK is sitting on an +40% Avoid tile. You can also see, where no effective EP is possible enemies have to be lure into separate groups as it takes multiple hits from the player per enemy to defeat them, and some enemies have to be pulled carefully as pulling the entire group, or the entire group in one single large blob makes for easy resets. 

There´s a fair number of units who can EP on Maddening without having to dodge, it does require some player attention tough. 

Equipping a unit with a crit weapon, if weight allows, has a good chance of either clearing or heavily damaging enemies for easy scoops. A budget build for sure, effective nonetheless, personal preferences aside. 

[Shadow Mir]

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

What allowed that map to play out that way, was having a unit be able to withstand DK on EP - I imagine it might be possible to stride Dark Spikes Lysithea or a Lance of Ruin Knightkneeler towards DK, but if I saw that correctly DK is sitting on an +40% Avoid tile. You can also see, where no effective EP is possible enemies have to be lure into separate groups as it takes multiple hits from the player per enemy to defeat them, and some enemies have to be pulled carefully as pulling the entire group, or the entire group in one single large blob makes for easy resets. 

Which helps my point about 3H being more player phase focused (with enemy phase pretty much being devoted to pulling enemies to beat up on the next player phase), no?

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

There´s a fair number of units who can EP on Maddening without having to dodge, it does require some player attention tough. 

Like who, Dimitri? He's the only one I can think of, because BV/BW is broke as fuck. 

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Archers in TH have what 1-3/4(?) range - again their only weakness is the players decision on who becomes an Archer. Archer Felix is a completely different beast than Archer Ignatz. Handaxes and javelin are unnecessary since enemies have basically no 1-2 range barring mages and those are a different story altogether and 1-2 range doesn´t counter Archers.

Bold: And the need to use an ability slot(or a specific weapon) for them to counterattack at close range.

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Equipping a unit with a crit weapon, if weight allows, has a good chance of either clearing or heavily damaging enemies for easy scoops. A budget build for sure, effective nonetheless, personal preferences aside. 

If you're lucky. And that's the problem. If you're relying on critical hits to see you through enemy phase, what do you think is gonna happen the moment you do not get your crit, or if the enemy survives for whatever reason? If you guessed "you're dead", you win the grand prize!

Edited May 2 by Shadow Mir