Does Fire Emblem require Hit Rates?

[Jotari]

Fire Emblem Heroes is a funny thing. It puts randomness in your wallet, but takes it entirely out of the gameplay. The game is entirely deterministic. If you do the same actions each time you get the same results. Even level ups are predetermined (and there are no crit rates). Which begs a question I'm surprised hasn't been discussed more since Heroes's release. Does Fire Emblem really need accuracy checks and dodges and misses and the whole shebang. Instead of hit vs true hit, maybe the conversation should be hit vs no hit (rate). Low hit rates really irritate players as a miss can be absolutely devastating in Fire Emblem. Meanwhile, dodge tank strategies, from a design perspective are almost too good a strategy if you can set them up as, unlike physical tanking, it makes your unit virtually invincible.

Now being deterministic works well for Heroes with its constant release of new content, but a completely deterministic mianline Fire Emblem game would run the risk of being boring if every time you play it you get the same results and there's an objectively effective strategy (though I think Holy War actually is exactly that, most people just won't notice it is because of how the rng is generated). But even if you drop hit rates, you still have randomixed level ups and crits and, potentially, randomized AI actions that would stop things happening in the exact same way. It seems like hit rates could be dropped without any significant issue in Fire Emblem.

Course that would still run into some issues. Namely the niches of weapons. Dropping hit rates will suddenly makes axes way more viable and swords way less. Though maybe that could be balanced off by bringing back weight so axes double less. Sowrdmasters and other classes that rely on dodging will also take a hit in useablility (and in a lot of games they're not considered great to begin with), though maybe it would make the much lamented armoured knights more viable if dodge tanking is completely done away with. The weapon triangle, which relies more on hit than damage to be benefical, would also require reworking to fit into a non hit environment (Heroes's approach is to significantly increase damage as a percentage with WTA).

Okay, so maybe there are actually quite a few issues with removing hit from Fire Emblem. But even if all of those issues just magically disappeared, I think I'd still make hit something that stays around (yes, despite making this thread, I'm actually in favor of keeping hit as it is, I just think it's a discussion worth having). It adds variety and spice to a game. And while dodge tanking can be too effective, it is fun to try and optimize your units to reach those dodge tanking thresholds (Binding Blade with its notoriously low hits is actually one of my favourite games precisely because you have to use those low hits in your favour to overcome the enemies).

But I still think hit could be reworked somewhat. One potential idea that might sound counter intuitive might be to make it so missing an attack doesn't actually deal 0 damage. What if a miss was instead like a reverse crit and you dealt a glancing blow for reduced damage? This would still makie it so units can rely on dodging to survive, while also making axes much better. Something to think about.

Anyway, do you have any opinions on hit rates and their place in the series?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I think the reason why removing hit rates in Fire Emblem can work as well as in Heroes is because the numbers are small. Mentally digestible rather than throwing 100s at you at level 1 and five digit numbers by the end. The player can calculate incoming damage down to the precise digit (whereas most tactics rpgs I can think of have the same damage variance you'll find in any JRPG). Fire Emblem games do the calculating for you on player phase, and the latest one even does it for you on enemy phase. Another reason I think Heroes chose to remove hit rates is simply to avoid players cheesing difficult maps with the sub optimal trash units. They have a game to sell and moving rng to the acquisition of units was no accident. And players would absolutely try brute forcing a difficult map with a team that improbably gets every dodge. Why wouldn't they if the only penalty for attempts was stamina? A resource they had almost entirely phased out by the time I stopped playing and was debatably never a concern even on release. 

Have you played tactics rpgs without hit rates? I can definitely feel what's missing when I do. Fire Emblem can be a math puzzle, but it can also be a game of managed risk. It's whichever the player wants to approach a map with. Betting that one of these incoming 60%s will miss you, padding out your crit rates with vantage/wrath setups. Relying on Crest procs. Just today I bet an intense upcoming enemy phase on whether Catherine's Nimble Combo would proc her crest on the first or second swing, that's exciting! If it didn't work out, then that's what Divine Pulse is for. The RNG for Fire Emblem adds so many valid, interesting modes of play that I would never want removed. It's also why I like stat growths rather than fixed level ups. I wouldn't mind if fixed level ups were thrown in as a bonus setting, but the RNG keeps things interesting for the experienced players. 

So the answer is no. Fire Emblem never needs hit rates. But I think we're losing a lot and gaining nothing by removing them. 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn

[ciphertul]

I was against the removal of hit rates in Heroes and I wouldn’t even play a mainline FE if they removed them. There would be a massive shift if it happened. Dex/Skill would be nerfed hard and Spd would become a dump stat. Some may argue now but I think it would be worse if hit rates are removed, but in that case you would only ever need enough Spd to double any extra points would be wasted. At least right now each point give some evasion. Weapons would need a massive rework too. Picture Fate’s Great Club or any siege weapon/tome with 100% accuracy and god forbid any ambush spawns.

Edited July 6, 2022 by ciphertul

[Armchair General]

12 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Have you played tactics rpgs without hit rates?

The only one that I had was an shitty tie-in game where I wound up spamming powerful moves solely because I could. It got boring after around 5 minutes after I unlocked them.

 

As with an FE that didn't revolve around accuracy, there's Lost Eidolons, which is essentially an upcoming SRPG where you'll have to kill off the enemy before they kill you. Granted, this kind of gameplay will certainly speed up the fights; but it kind of ruins the viability of enemy-phasing an entire wave if you don't have an tank. It all depends on exactly how strong the opposition is and how many heals that you have, since you're playing with higher stakes against someone who outnumbers you.

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Armchair General

[lenticular]

(I'm not really familiar with Heroes, so read all this in that light.)

I don't think that it's necessarily important to have hit rates per se, but I do think it's important to have some degree of randomness and some chance for things to go wrong. @Zapp Branniglenn mentioned the importance of risk management, and I'll add to that by also mentioning contingency planning. I like having to plan for what I will do in case something goes wrong. "OK, so I'll attack that unit there, and that's a 90% chance to get the kill and if it works then it will allow me to do this. But I need to do make the attack before using my other units because if it doesn't work then I still have the chance to bail out." That sort of thing. Making the game entirely deterministic wouldn't necessarily make for a bad game but it would make for an extremely different game which would appeal to different people.

I'll also note that getting rid of hit rates wouldn't just be for player units but for enemy units too. I don't think that a world in which enemies always hit sounds particularly appealing. It would have a lot of implications for the way that the FE turn structure works (that is, full player phase followed by full enemey phase, as opposed to any interleaving of actions). I haven't fully thought through all the implications of that, but my gut instinct is that it wouldn't do anything good for the game. (And the implications would be different from in Heroes, due to there being so many more units involved.)

[AnonymousSpeed]

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

though I think Holy War actually is exactly that, most people just won't notice it is because of how the rng is generated

Man, screw Holy War! All my bonies hate Holy War.

12 hours ago, ciphertul said:

Picture Fate’s Great Club or any siege weapon/tome with 100% accuracy and god forbid any ambush spawns.

Now this brings up an interesting point, though maybe not the one Cipher intended. A weapon like the Great Club or a skill like Heart Seeker only really work when you have accuracy. It's been mentioned earlier in the thread how Fire Emblem is partly about risk management, in addition to resource management and PNGs of cleavage and all those other things.

I like Binding Blade a lot, but I actually prefer how Conquest handles RNG, where it's more about risk mitigation. You can stack the proper skills to turn something unreliable into something reliable- like Death Blow and Certain Blow on a unit with the Great Club (though this isn't actually an option in Conquest). Does Nyx have shaky accuracy? Well, you have Heartseeker for that, but it also makes it more likely that she'll take a counter-attack. This functionally means trading one risk for another, or trading your position for reliability, or something else of that sort. You can set up a dual strike to finish off an enemy, even if you miss.

I prefer this sort of thing to planning around whether an 89 misses- that seems like a lukewarm position between Binding Blade (where many hits are unreliable) and Conquest (where you can make your moves very reliable with planning and set-up).

That's just talking about hit rates in particular, not any of the other random stuff, since that's kind of separate.

I guess the TL;DR is that hit rates are another factor for your strategy to work around, which adds tactical depth to the game. The most common and obvious example is a Hero picking between an Iron Sword and Steel Axe, which both have several obvious advantages and disadvantages, among which hit rate is merely one concern.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Obviously, FEH proves that Fire Emblem doesn't "need" hit rates. I agree, though, that hit rates do add risk management and keep playthroughs from feeling too much the same each time (along with random stat growths), which are overall both positive things.
 

On 7/5/2022 at 8:44 PM, Jotari said:

Course that would still run into some issues. Namely the niches of weapons. Dropping hit rates will suddenly makes axes way more viable and swords way less. Though maybe that could be balanced off by bringing back weight so axes double less. Sowrdmasters and other classes that rely on dodging will also take a hit in useablility (and in a lot of games they're not considered great to begin with), though maybe it would make the much lamented armoured knights more viable if dodge tanking is completely done away with. The weapon triangle, which relies more on hit than damage to be benefical, would also require reworking to fit into a non hit environment (Heroes's approach is to significantly increase damage as a percentage with WTA).

 

For the swords vs. axes thing, it's worth noting that in some games, hit rate already isn't much of a difference between 'em. In Radiant Dawn, for instance, axes are only slightly less accurate than swords at base, and the relationship actually reverses for ranged weapons and the SS-rank weapons... so yeah axes are largely better than swords in that game. And in Three Houses, the difference is largely patched by Axe Prowess adding more hit than Sword Prowess, and by Smash adding more hit than Wrath Strike. As you mentioned, weight can be a good balancer.

And yeah, some classes are currently somewhat based on dodging as is (varies by game, but Swordmaster, Pegasus Knight, and Ninja), so you'd need to re-balance them.

I think losing hit does make classes feel more samey. You'll notice Heroes definitely suffers from this; aside from being different colours, swords/lances/axes all feel the same in that game. Because they are! The Silver Sword/Lance/Axe all have exactly the same stats IIRC. In most FE, I consider it rather cool that swords are accurate and dodgy (so can dodge axes), while lance-users tend towards tankishness (so make swords not do much damage), and axes hit hard but suffer vs. high avoid. This reinforces the weapon triangle (although pegasus knights kinda mess with it).