Do I have to be a Math Major to be a good Fire Emblem Player?

[Nozomi Kasaki]

I must confess, I am not really good at Math. I can add, subtract, multiply and divide sure, but other than that, I'm just not that good. Since RPGs use statistics for characters, I cannot exactly measure how strong some characters are compared to others. The only thing I could measure is their health stat. Since I suck at that, I'm pretty scared to play a Fire Emblem game. I only know stuff about Fire Emblem by watching some playthroughs and such, but I really want to play Fire Emblem games so I can experience what it is like to play them.

So, do I really have to be good at Statistics or Calculus to play Fire Emblem more effectively? 

[eclipse]

Older FE games have math that's mostly addition and subtraction.  Newer FE games have slightly more complicated equations, but a basic understanding of algebra should be enough to play the game.  Stuff like statistics gets involved if you're trying to figure out how likely it is that your Eliwood didn't gain any speed over 10 levels or something (in other words, stuff that has nothing to do with actually playing the game).

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Let's be real, all of us "felt out" the strength of our units compared to the enemies and got by just fine on the normal difficulty setting. You don't need math to understand armor knights have a lot of defense, while mages are too frail to be left on the frontline. A working set of eyes will do. That's far more vital information to your success than growth rates, weapon weight, or skill activation rates. And really most of the relevant math is done for you thanks to the combat forecast. That is a feature included in every fire emblem game released in the last 25 years. And the aggro line forecast in Three Houses does even more of the math for you. Humans are pretty notoriously bad at understanding statistics- even when it's spelt out for them, but the 2RN system that's in most games definitely makes up for that weakness. Unlikely outcomes become even less likely while likely outcomes become more likely. It rewards you for making safe, straightforward decisions.

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

5 minutes ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

 

So, do I really have to be good at Statistics or Calculus to play Fire Emblem more effectively? 

Calculus isn't used in Fire Emblem at all, and while a tiny bit of statistics helps a little, you can get a 'feel' for it fairly easily. In fact most Fire Emblem games lie to you about the statistics part of it to make it closer to what people 'feel' is right. Most of what you need is addition and subtraction, and only really for what happens during the enemy phase, as the battle forecast does a good job of doing the math for you on player phase. In fact, there is a quote from the series creator Shouzo Kaga on the importance of math in the Fire Emblem series

 

—So Fire Emblem was made so that even children would be able to pick it right up?!

Kaga: Yeah, as much as possible, we tried to remove “stats” and numerical data. We tried to make it so that even without relying on stats, players could still get a sense of an enemy being really powerful by how much damage they dealt.

 

I don't know if he succeeded in that goal, but the math used in Fire Emblem is not all that hard, and just getting a feel for things is something I think a fair number of us do at times.

[Nozomi Kasaki]

8 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Calculus isn't used in Fire Emblem at all, and while a tiny bit of statistics helps a little, you can get a 'feel' for it fairly easily. In fact most Fire Emblem games lie to you about the statistics part of it to make it closer to what people 'feel' is right. Most of what you need is addition and subtraction, and only really for what happens during the enemy phase, as the battle forecast does a good job of doing the math for you on player phase. In fact, there is a quote from the series creator Shouzo Kaga on the importance of math in the Fire Emblem series

 

—So Fire Emblem was made so that even children would be able to pick it right up?!

Kaga: Yeah, as much as possible, we tried to remove “stats” and numerical data. We tried to make it so that even without relying on stats, players could still get a sense of an enemy being really powerful by how much damage they dealt.

 

I don't know if he succeeded in that goal, but the math used in Fire Emblem is not all that hard, and just getting a feel for things is something I think a fair number of us do at times.

I see. If the math used in Fire Emblem isn't really that hard, then I guess I don't have to worry about playing Fire Emblem games as long as I know what I am doing.

Thanks for the answer.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Nozomi Kasaki

[Shadow Mir]

Not really; I'm not the biggest math guy on the forums, but can still do well enough at playing these games. Most of the games from GBA onwards mostly do the math for you in the combat forecast. Though there is the matter of AS (attack speed) to consider, as that's generally not as straightforward.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[MadBoar]

2 hours ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

I must confess, I am not really good at Math. I can add, subtract, multiply and divide sure, but other than that, I'm just not that good. Since RPGs use statistics for characters, I cannot exactly measure how strong some characters are compared to others. The only thing I could measure is their health stat. Since I suck at that, I'm pretty scared to play a Fire Emblem game. I only know stuff about Fire Emblem by watching some playthroughs and such, but I really want to play Fire Emblem games so I can experience what it is like to play them.

So, do I really have to be good at Statistics or Calculus to play Fire Emblem more effectively? 

I'm sorry, but Statistics and Calculus do not satisfy the pre requisites to play Fire Emblem more efficiently. To become just a somewhat competent Fire Emblemist, you will need a rigorous understanding of differential geometry, group theory, field theory, and partial differential equations. For example, on chapter 3 of Sacred Stones, you will need to solve the Klein-Gordon equation in curved spacetime to reach the chapter's boss. 

But seriously, rigorous probability and statistics  and calculus are used only to complete the most difficult challenge runs in Fire Emblem. But for normal play throughs, being able to do a quick calculation of the probability that your unit will survive the turn will be very helpful.  I'd say the most important skill set in fire Emblem is the visual-spatial ability to plan several moves ahead. Because Fire Emblem is RNG based, planning several moves ahead for several different possible outcomes will be helpful. You don't need to worry about this if you're just beginning to play Fire Emblem. Don't worry about all this math. Have fun! 

In fact, I actually learned basic math during my play throughs of Fire Emblem, where I learned multiplication, division, and basic probabilities just by playing the game, relaxing, and having fun. 

 Also, the displayed hit rate isn't actually the true hit rate. On this website, you can find a table converting the displayed hit rate to the actual hit rate. This is an important detail to be aware of. Here is the link. https://serenesforest.net/general/true-hit/

 

Edited October 6, 2022 by MadBoar

[Nozomi Kasaki]

17 minutes ago, MadBoar said:

I'm sorry, but Statistics and Calculus do not satisfy the pre requisites to play Fire Emblem more efficiently. To become just a somewhat competent Fire Emblemist, you will need a rigorous understanding of differential geometry, group theory, field theory, and partial differential equations. For example, on chapter 3 of Sacred Stones, you will need to solve the Klein-Gordon equation in curved spacetime to reach the chapter's boss. 

I see... So I need to have a higher IQ with higher understanding of math to be a Top Ace FE player. I'm not offended, I'm just not a genius in all of this.

23 minutes ago, MadBoar said:

But seriously, rigorous probability and statistics  and calculus are used only to complete the most difficult challenge runs in Fire Emblem. But for normal play throughs, being able to do a quick calculation of the probability that your unit will survive the turn will be very helpful.  I'd say the most important skill set in fire Emblem is the visual-spatial ability to plan several moves ahead. Because Fire Emblem is RNG based, planning several moves ahead for several different possible outcomes will be helpful. You don't need to worry about this if you're just beginning to play Fire Emblem. Don't worry about all this math. Have fun! 

In fact, I actually learned basic math during my play throughs of Fire Emblem, where I learned multiplication, division, and basic probabilities just by playing the game, relaxing, and having fun. 

But anyway, at least I now know that I don't need to be Albert Einstein just to play Fire Emblem. I only asked because I don't want FE fans to call me an idiotic loser who shouldn't be playing a game like Fire Emblem so just in case that if complicated Math is the main aspect of FE besides tactics and such, I wouldn't bother playing FE games at all and just stick with watching playthroughs.

But seeing as it is not necessary to have deeper knowledge of Math to play Fire Emblem decently, I guess I'll try it out. Thanks for your answer.

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

I see... So I need to have a higher IQ with higher understanding of math to be a Top Ace FE player. I'm not offended, I'm just not a genius in all of this

You know that you're being bullshitted, right?

 

1 hour ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

I only asked because I don't want FE fans to call me an idiotic loser who shouldn't be playing a game like Fire Emblem so just in case that if complicated Math is the main aspect of FE besides tactics and such, I wouldn't bother playing FE games at all and just stick with watching playthroughs

While the ability to understand algebra is important; it's not the only thing that breaks the game, considering how the combat forecast warns you of the odds of hitting someone and the amount of damage is being traded. Positioning is arguably more important because there are times where you need to hold off an enemy squad charging at you (or as much of an full-scale attack that the game then render) or trying to pull an few enemies out of the forest (yes, nonstandard terrain usually lowers your chances of landing an hit). Oh, and there's also the relationship between archers and flying units. That stuff is fun to deal with.

 

But ultimately, knowing how the various equations work in relation to your team's stats mainly leads to dividing your army into 2-4 teams; but it doesn't really free you from actually picking where and how you'll fight.

 

Of course, like the others said; the game runs and displays the calculation for you. But this also means that you'll usually be within range of the enemy and you'd better have an "Plan B."

[lenticular]

I agree with what everyone else has already said about how you don't really need any maths beyond basic addition and subtraction, but I want to add something else as well. Fire Emblem has something of a reputation for being a hardcore, punishing game series. And it can be that, but only if you want it to be. At least for modern Fire Emblem games (so, anything on the 3DS or Switch), if you choose to play on the easiest difficulty settings then it's a very forgiving series that is friendly to casual players. If you're feeling intimidated, then I would recommend starting off with the easier difficulty settings and see how you find it. That should be enough for you to get a feel for how the games play, see if they're for you, and so on.

[LoneStar]

Stay away from the mobile game since you need to do math and read.

The games on lower difficulties shouldn't be that bad where you need to do intensive analysis to get through. It's more about paying attention as to what going on in the map and any objectives you're given.

Edited October 6, 2022 by LoneStar

[vanguard333]

No, you do not need math or stats knowledge at the university level to be able to effectively play Fire Emblem. As for whether or not such knowledge would be useful for playing Fire Emblem:

It's a common misconception that math majors are good at putting numbers into equations; that is not what we learn. What we learn amounts to proving mathematical properties and stuff like that. Such knowledge would be useless for playing Fire Emblem, unless anyone else here can see how being able to prove L'Hopital's Rule is an effective method for solving the limits of functions can be used to more effectively play Fire Emblem.

As for statistics knowledge, I could see that potentially being useful, but only in limited capacities. Suppose I was to try to create a statistical algorithm for creating an optimal FE team out of the given playable characters, I'd have to factor in a lot of different variables such as how many units I can use in each chapter, what chapter each character is recruited in, what level they're at when recruited, their base stats and growth rates, what weapons the unit can use and what their weapon levels are, etc. I'd have to then create the algorithm and run it, and it would only return a numerically optimized team; it would not create a strategically optimized team; it wouldn't factor in enemy units and stuff like that. Fire Emblem is not a statistics game; it is a strategy game, and in strategy, there are too many variables for reliable statistics with wide use.

Edited October 7, 2022 by vanguard333

[ping]

--

Real answer: The ability to add and substract in the two-digit, maybe three-digit number space is technically helpful, to anticipate if this group of enemy can kill that character.

But really, I think the most important skill in Fire Emblem is map awareness, the ability to keep track where big threats (like the one enemy with a Silver weapon, or a Horseslayer...) are. In my experience, if you manage this, it's fine to guesstimate your characters survivability. Most of the time, anyway.

[Florete]

Just ask Mizore to help you, I'm sure she'd love to.

Seriously, though, Fire Emblem asks for only very basic math, and possibly not even that much on lower difficulties.

[Capt. Fargus]

17 hours ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

I must confess, I am not really good at Math. I can add, subtract, multiply and divide sure, but other than that, I'm just not that good. Since RPGs use statistics for characters, I cannot exactly measure how strong some characters are compared to others. The only thing I could measure is their health stat. Since I suck at that, I'm pretty scared to play a Fire Emblem game. I only know stuff about Fire Emblem by watching some playthroughs and such, but I really want to play Fire Emblem games so I can experience what it is like to play them.

So, do I really have to be good at Statistics or Calculus to play Fire Emblem more effectively? 

Nah

Try Blazing Blade, or FE7 as some call it. It was my first and I thought it was easy to learn. Like @Zapp Branniglenn kinda alluded to, you’ll get a screen that pops up before you go to finalize an attack that shows ya how much HP you and the enemy has, and how much damage your attack and the enemy’s counter will do, percentage it’ll land vs miss, stuff like that. Nuthin to it 😀

Plus the first few chapters of Blazing Blade walk you through pretty much everything you need to know before it cuts ya loose

Give it a shot 

 

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

I wasn't even good at Fire Emblem when I was a math major.

[vanguard333]

48 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I wasn't even good at Fire Emblem when I was a math major.

Same; in my case, it was because I rarely found the time to actually play Fire Emblem when I was a math major.

[Nozomi Kasaki]

2 hours ago, Florete said:

Just ask Mizore to help you, I'm sure she'd love to.

Hmm... that's a good idea! Thanks buddy!

(Seriously though, I'm glad I'm not the only one in this forum who knows Hibike.)

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

21 hours ago, Nozomi Kasaki said:

Since RPGs use statistics for characters, I cannot exactly measure how strong some characters are compared to others.

You don't really need statistics when it comes to playing. Like, sure, if we're talking tierlists and saying "95% of level 20/10 Eliwoods have between 8 and 15 Resistance" (no idea if this is true), then sure, it can come into play. But actually playing the game isn't about what could be - it's about the numbers in front of you. Whether your Eliwood is gonna level up Strength or not doesn't affect which targets he can kill right now.

All you really need is basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Combined with knowing the general rules (i.e. multiplying weapon might by 3 for effective damage), you can figure out pretty much every scenario. 

[Captain Karnage]

I mean I used to slip my math teachers a couple of $20s to pass my class and I do ok at playing FE

most of the math is done for you, so it's not super intense, unless you're playing anything from FE5 and back

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

While I agree that statistics isn't that important for FE (and calculus isn't at all), I do think a good ability at arithmetic is helpful for playing the game (not essential, but helpful).

For instance, I want my mage to bait 3 physical enemies. The mage has 6 defence and 30 HP; the enemies have 18, 15, and 13 attack. Can the mage survive all three attacks? That's a useful question for being able to answer. And the question can get more complicated: what about enemies with weapon triangle advantage/disadvantage (these particularly complicate things in the DS/3DS games)? What about weakness hits which double/triple the might of the enemy's weapon? And so on. Being able to answer them correctly will help you make better plays, and I would consider this skill quite important for playing most FEs on their higher difficulties.

[Benice]

I think it depends on what you mean by "good". For stuff like LTCs, IIRC it's mostly about planning and routing, since luck should play a relatively small role. For competitive draft races or speedruns, while mathematical ability certainly helps, game knowledge is also really important; knowing stat benchmarks characters need to hit and how to plan for a character potentially getting screwed over by the RNG and the like. I've not done any of that myself, but if you're using community knowledge to try to push forwards on stuff like that, there should be routes to help you through it.

As for playin' casually... Well, I'm terrible at math and FE alike, and I do occasionally lose characters to something like me thinking that 27*2=44. That being said, I think the biggest thing is having a plan or an approach for a few turns ahead- Knowing where you'll want certain characters to be and all that kinda stuff. Attentiveness also pays in general, such as scouting out dangerous enemies or effective weapons ahead of time. If you're just trying to scrape by as you clear levels, using prepromotes and playing slowly should get you through the easier FE games fairly well.

As a small kernel of wisdom from a veteran of being terrible at strategy games, I'd say that there's absolutely nothing wrong with being bad at the game so long as you're enjoying it. I was really damn bad when I started Sacred Stones as my first FE game, and that didn't hamper my enjoyment of the game at all. And now, even after beating some of the harder FE games and playing through most of Berwick Saga... Well, I still suck. I had a bit of a jump in skill after I started my second FE (which was way, way harder than my first one...), as well as the fact that I think my brain just kinda started to be able to plan better as I grew up- After all, I started FE when I was 13, and good lord were my executive functions bad (Er, not that I'm exactly a prodigy these days).

Finally, if you're doing a bit of

Save states are your friends if you're getting frustrated. I would say that there is certainly something nice about having to rely on your own ability to grow, but... Well, Berwick Saga is one of my very favorite games ever made, and I'd have not finished even half of it were it not for save states.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Benice

[MadBoar]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

While I agree that statistics isn't that important for FE (and calculus isn't at all), I do think a good ability at arithmetic is helpful for playing the game (not essential, but helpful).

 For the most extreme runs, far beyond anyone in the FE community has ever done, higher level math will be required. What I mean is runs that are theoretically perfect, however perfect may be defined. You will need some very, very advanced mathematics. You could get a Fields medal for perfectly solving a Fire Emblem game. 

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

All you really need is basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Combined with knowing the general rules (i.e. multiplying weapon might by 3 for effective damage), you can figure out pretty much every scenario. 

For the easier games, such as Scared Stones, you can get through without any previous knowledge of multiplication and division. You could learn those during your play through! Sacred Stones was my first FE game ever. I only struggled with Chapter 14 of Ephraim's route and Chapter 15.

[Samz707]

Im pretty bad at Math but most FR combat is simple "attack minus defense" for combat.

The only games with obnoxious RNG in my experience is Awakening and (if I got that far) Fates due to having alot of RNG Skills that effect combat without a visible chance.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Samz707

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

On 10/6/2022 at 9:36 AM, Nozomi Kasaki said:

I only asked because I don't want FE fans to call me an idiotic loser who shouldn't be playing a game like Fire Emblem

You okay?

Anyway, people are gonna call you out on less than "can´t do math" - oh you enjoy Amelia? That´s not optimal. What´s optimal... erm... um...

Or would, the fandom has appeared rather civil, even with criticism in all of the... 2 years I been part of it.

As for good play, I sincerely doubt LTCers math it all out - it looks a lot more like they just rinse and repeat a map until that 3% crit hits just right. I would be very curious to see how many resets a LTC run actually takes.

If it can be of any reassurance, most if not all of these games have been beaten without units gaining stats; in order for FE to test more than your patience, you need to limit your playstyle, with one exception.

3 hours ago, Samz707 said:

The only games with obnoxious RNG in my experience is Awakening and (if I got that far) Fates due to having alot of RNG Skills that effect combat without a visible chance.

The only RNG skills in Fates are the procc skills?