Geriba

bump (Edit for mods: this wasn't an empty bump or anything like that; I plan to edit out this post with some substantive discussion once I meander through the entire 37-page epic over the course of the day. As someone on warn alert, hope I didn't break any rules!)

Or maybe you're just taking this casual conversation a bit too seriously.

It couldn't hurt, and dondon's situation does seem a bit circumstantial. Still, this is neat!

Niime is awesome, what are you talking about And yeah, no real reason to remove characters when you can just make them better. For the armors, I might give them +2 move.

Yeah, there's no denying that the trainees are just awful (especially Ewan, who I really wanted to like). If only FE8 had rankings, then maybe the three of them would be useful.

Building off of what Fox said, let's distinguish between late-game quality and the work needed to get there. As I touched on before, SS units have much better bases and growths. Bartre, for example, turns out pretty good, but has atrocious bases; can't really say that about many SS characters.

Fire Emblem 7 units who do not end up superheroes: Dorcas Bartre Rebecca Wil Wallace Louise Renault Karla Fire Emblem 8 units who do not end up superheroes: Knoll? [i would say Neimi, but she has access to the Ranger class] I get what you're saying, and neither FE7 nor 8 is the best in the series at limiting player-unit dominance, but there's still a disparity between the two. It's also very important to remember that these are at end-game stats (20/10 or so) versus weak enemy units. In general, FE8 units have much better bases and growths, making them more immediately usable.

Thanks for clarifying a bit; I can definitely see where you're coming from. Still, if we're going to define "balance" as "most/all units are usable," then FE8 could easily be charged of going about this the wrong way. Again, compare FE7 to FE8: 7 has fantastic unit balance by your definition, as most all of them have some usefulness in just about any playthrough, but the game remains a serious challenge on Hard Modes and ranked runs. FE8 has "balance," but every unit you have ends up a superhero. Is that really such a good trade-off?

Wait, who gets better than Seth? And Marcus gets outclassed pretty quickly once the mid/late game picks up.

Yeah man, it's so much more exciting when everything follows the FE6 blueprint: some units are clearly better, some units are garbage.

I'd say that's all very relevant! No denying that IS, while great at general design, is pretty poor at balance, and it's not a stretch to say that the Fire Emblem community at large cares more about this than IS itself does. Still, "intention" is a tricky thing to define and impossible to verify. When talking about game balance, then, all we have to work with is what we're given.

This is all just baseless speculation. Here are the hard facts about Seth: -best availability of any unit -phenomenal bases -great growths If IS was hoping to "prevent" Seth-abuse, they would have altered one of these three characteristics. As it stands, Seth exists in FE8, and there's no way to deny his game-breaking brokenness without resorting to challenge runs.

Then how would you respond to the fact that even many early-game chapters cannot be soloed with Marcus alone? You're holding fast to your position here, so I'm tempted to do a chapter-by-chapter comparison.

I have tried a Seth-less FE8 run, actually (though I never finished it; maybe I have the save somewhere...), and it was a pretty fun experience from what I played. Better than usual, certainly. And I'm not trying to be rude, but you're being pretty obstinate. Seth and Marcus- and I never said otherwise- are not comparable in terms of difficulty reduction. Not even close. Marcus is a major boon during the early-game, helpful during the mid-game, and passable late-game. There are plenty of chapters, even early on, where he still needs help or is otherwise not around: for example, 11, 13x, and 15 come to mind. Not so with Seth: with the sole exception of a gaiden chapter and a desert chapter (and even then only on Eirika's route), he obliterates practically the entire game, and remains your best unit from start to finish. Anyway, your main argument here is as follows: When I play FE8 without using Seth, the game feels actually challenging at points; therefore, the game "feels" designed without Seth in mind. That's just begging the question, and it still fails to address the original criticism about lack of difficulty. This "+Sain" notion implies Lyn Mode abuse. If we're going to power-level Sain to promotion before a reasonable time, why can't we do the same with Franz? Seeing as the game wasn't designed for crazy-blitz-efficiency, I can hardly see how it's fair to hold that against the map design. Ranking runs, on the other hand, are an endorsed way to play in-game, and none of the maps you listed (with the exception of BbD, but, again, only if you want Jaffar/28x without restarts) provide cheap difficulty in that regard. Unranked EHM is probably just about as hard as FE8HM; ranked, it's much harder.

Okie dokie. I could trust your "feeling" about how the game is designed, or I could point to the fact that Seth is the second unit you recruit and also the best. "Feels" like he was intended to be used, if you ask me! Bottom line, saying "the game is better without using Seth" doesn't change the fact that not using Seth is a challenge run that shouldn't be considered when discussing the balance of a game as-is. It'd be like me trying to argue that FFT is balanced without Orlandu. Please; don't compare the excellence of Marcus to the brokenness of Seth. If Marcus is Jesus, then Seth is the complete Trinity. Battle before Dawn is the only chapter that can rightfully be considered a "bullshit" chapter, and that's only if you view Jaffar/28x as absolute necessities. A case could be made for Living Legend, too, but you didn't even bother to mention that one. All those others are within the player's control: they're difficult, but they're not unfair. Besides, as I've mentioned before, HHM isn't the only comparable mode of difficulty to FE8HM. EHM stacks up quite well (and streamlines what you call the "bullshit factor"), as do any of the four ranked runs.

Technically, sure. But it offers itself to the player like a shiny new gem, begging you to take a visit your first time through. Besides, you didn't respond to the main issue: the absence of difficulty. Whether or not using or ignoring the Tower is more "out of the way" for the player is pretty irrelevant. And let me go on record as agreeing with this. What's most important in my estimation, however, is the length of the actual campaign; Fire Emblem games tend to have subpar post-game content, and SS is no exception. Map design basically falls apart during Creature Campaign.

Of course it does. You have to go out of your way to make the game remotely difficult, i.e. purposefully not use Seth, not use the Tower, etc. Obviously, I was talking about the main campaign. People will differ on the importance of optional maps.

Nice catch; I probably had FE4 on my mind at the time. Corrected.

It's a bit more complicated than that. The relevant categories of Fire Emblem 7's ranking system are Tactics (turns consumed), Funds (net worth accrued by endgame), and Experience (total experience points acquired). While it's true that these three categories overlap, "contradict" isn't the right word; rather, they compete for player interest, and, depending on the point in a given playthrough, one may take temporary priority over another. Though it might be tempting to label Efficiency runs as "cleaner" than Ranked runs thanks to the lack of overlap, it's worth mentioning that Efficiency tiering runs into its own share of problems, most notably that it doesn't measure true efficiency, but rather approximate efficiency- which sounds counterintuitive, to say the least. Let me explain. One can imagine a hypothetical "optimal run" wherein the lowest number of turns conceivably needed to complete the game is achieved. In evaluating such a run, tiers are unnecessary: each character divides into "Used" and "Not Used," any any distinctions within these tiers becomes pretty arbitrary. Consequently, Efficiency tiering doesn't deal with "fastest possible," but rather "very fast." As you can imagine, drawing the line gets tricky. This is one of the reasons why I personally prefer Ranked tiering discussion: it establishes parameters that can be reached with a number of play styles and rosters, whereas Efficiency tiering approaches an "optimal singularity."

lol. This logic also applies to defend missions, so I guess the stupidity evens out!

The complete lack of difficulty and absence of a proper rating system really hurt FE8 compared to its predecessor. And regarding chapters, even when you exclude Lyn's Mode, 7 has 36 unique maps compared to 8's 30.

I see. Thanks for the clarification. Definitely a possibility. That only makes the experience boost more important, since L'Arachel isn't so concerned with her magic type thanks to low offensive potential.

Nino certainly has use in ranked runs (experience rank). And no, I wouldn't dismiss GK off-hand simply for not being useful in efficiency plays; however, for the branched class choice to have substance beyond "flair" and "variety," you'd need to give me an agreed-upon standard. Why isn't Colm promoting? Again, not an expert in FE8 runs. Why is this? Is that true about the priority? Summoners would have way more use than I imagined if that's the case. Yeah, I acknowledged this slip-up. My mistake. Chapter 14 sounds about right for Moulder; Chapter 11 sounds early for Artur, especially since Lute will be getting the priority. I haven't looked at the enemy stats in a while, but from what I remember, the monster chapters were much more problematic than the human ones. But I'll take your word for it. Sorry, but I just can't see this happening. Experience boosts are very important, as additional levels are more important than modest advantages in magic type. For example, who would you take all other things being equal: a 20/5 MK, or a 20/10 Valkyrie? Look, there's a difference between encouraging new ways to play, and variety simply for the sake of variety. Still, you've done a good job defending FE8's promotion choices on the whole, and it's clear that I wasn't giving the game enough credit. Still a couple of wonky branches in the bunch, but pretty balanced on the whole.

Without a standard, it's impossible to determine unit quality- which, in turn, makes it impossible to determine how well-made or "balanced" an sRPG truly is. If you want to play a game for fun, variety, personality, etc., no one should tell you otherwise; we're just trying to analyze strategy games from a more objective position.

Can you tell I'm tired yet? Sure, but this is more because every unit in the game is a superhero. If you threw FE8's class system into, say, Thracia 776, the differences in class quality would become more apparent.