Geriba
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Posts posted by Geriba
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That doesn't seem necessary if it's already clear that he won't attack fliers w/Delphi as long as there are fliers w/o Delphi.
It couldn't hurt, and dondon's situation does seem a bit circumstantial. Still, this is neat!
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Garret to me seems to have no real use.
though the female shaman and wendy are terribly bad as well
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It's quite clear IS does not try to make their games perfectly balanced. Look at FERD especially for this, where units who start higher leveled and with higher availability than some other units also have better growths and stats than those later-joining units.
They have, however, made it balanced in the fact that while some units may be gods, you CAN get through the game using anyone you want, with a couple of exceptions. Compare this to some of the earlier entries in the series, where many units were so bad to be unusable even with excessive babying.
So yeah, Seth may be god. But that isn't to say that other units like Franz/Vanessa/Lute/etc are unusable, and thus there is no balance. There's some balance, but it's not completely balanced. If the game were completely balanced, what would be the point of picking certain units over others? What would be the point of trying units out and seeing how they turn out? IS doesn't really expect most players to have access to growth rates/average stats of all the characters. IS doesn't expect most players to be like us and ramble inanely over unit merit for over four years.
So having complete balance is bad, but so is having complete lack of balance, so that you're basically forced to use the same team of ten units every game.
I think FE7, FESS, PoR, and Thracia did this well, while the other games in the series did not.
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?
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Wait, who gets better than Seth? And Marcus gets outclassed pretty quickly once the mid/late game picks up.
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Imagine how boring it would be if everything was balanced. Yawn.
Yeah man, it's so much more exciting when everything follows the FE6 blueprint: some units are clearly better, some units are garbage.
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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.
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However, I'm going to say that exploitation of the Jeigan was not what the developers intended when they made these games. I'm also gonna say that they probably didn't intend for playing the game efficiently. For instance, the best possible in-game rank you can get for FE7 HHM is some 200 turns slower than one of this community's standard "efficient" run. And in FESS the game encourages you even in HM to go visit the tower when it first becomes available. Traditionally the Jeigan has meant to be a unit you avoid; where reliance on them instead of your other units will screw you over in the long run. Since after the NES era people started to get sick of annoying deathtraps like that in games, the developers began to make the Jeigan better and better so that exploiting them will not necessarily make the game unbeatable. This comes with the double-edged cut that hardcore fans, who are quite excellent at this game, are able to exploit the Jeigan beyond his intended use, the same way the warp staff is exploited to completely skip chapters.
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.
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Uh, really? At what point in FE7 do you "need" a flier or a staff unit? Obviously, you want one to deal with status staves, but the same could be said for FE8. Obviously, Marcus + Sain can't handle the last two or three chapters on their own. The same could be said for FE8 (Seth could do 20 but probably not Final). Although FE7 also has better prepromotes later on. Athos, Pent, Harken, Vaida, and Geitz all show up as Marcus is slowing down to pick up the slack.
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.
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Play FE8 without Seth, and you'll realize you're not really playing a "challenge run" untl the lategame where it actually feels hard at points, thus my entire point of "Seth doesn't feel like he was meant to be used". Try doing the same with Marcus. I'm willing to bet you'd say "Well that makes FE7 more difficult", but if we're both agreeing that we're using Seth and Marcus, then they're just as easy as one another. Earlygame is not the big factor here however.
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.
Marcus+Sain kills midgame onward 10x more than Seth ever could to his entire game. Much as you say Seth destroys his game, you only get 1 of him. FE7 went out of it's way to give you 2.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?
As for others being in the player's control, they're in your control if you're in the mindset of "turtling" rather than low turn counting. If we're fast turning, that situation of CoD is unavoidable as stated.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.
EHM isn't really a hard mode though...Unranked EHM is probably just about as hard as FE8HM; ranked, it's much harder.
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1. Seth not being used isn't that big a deal, since the game actually feels designed with the player not using Seth in mind. Seth feels like he's just there for new players to destroy the game with, since the most efficient way to clear the game is to basically have Seth solo it.
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.
2. Let's not act like Marcus doesn't destroy his game any less, or his new partner in crime named Sain.Please; don't compare the excellence of Marcus to the brokenness of Seth. If Marcus is Jesus, then Seth is the complete Trinity.
3. FE7 derives it's "difficult" portions from what many would like to call "bullshit factor", such as Genesis being at the whim of Kishuna's AI, the wonderful fun that is Battle Before Dawn's "hope Zephiel or Jaffar doesn't get destroyed by the RNG gods", or Cog of Destiny's "Hope your staffer avoids a Silence at the final stretch or else you gonna get blown up by your own berserked unit, since in a fast turn run this situation is unavoidable". FE8 doesn't stoop that low to make difficulty. It's a better design when you have to think rather than pray.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.
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If anything, using the Tower is more out of the way than not using the Tower, since it is optional.
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.
FE8 easily wins in terms of optional content, though.
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.
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Except that it doesn't have a complete lack of difficulty.
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.
20 Chapters+ Prologue
+ Both Final maps
+ 5x
8 Tower Maps
8 Ruins Maps
Apparently, 20+3+8+8 = 30.
Obviously, I was talking about the main campaign. People will differ on the importance of optional maps.
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Minor nitpick: EXP rank would be more accurately described as experience gained, rather than levels gained.
Nice catch; I probably had FE4 on my mind at the time. Corrected.
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3) Tier lists for efficiency runs do not apply to ranked runs because several of the the ranked categories contradict each other. That being said, how do I determine who is best to use for ranked runs?
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."
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^^^
Routs make sense, seizing does not. Seriously, if I saw the lord walk into the gate alone, I would think great let's ambush them from behind and sandwich them in between us and the rest of the army.
lol. This logic also applies to defend missions, so I guess the stupidity evens out!
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Honestly though, from a gameplay standpoint I don't think FESS and FE7 are much different, at least not in overall quality. FESS has less characters but still has variety with the class choices. FESS is shorter but makes up for it by having two completely different routes and the Tower/Ruins. And other than that they're pretty similar. It's all the same mechanics and weapons and such.
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.
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His combat is mediocre and the experience it takes for him to reach promotion would be better funneled toward a unit with better combat stats and gets kills easier. Like say Joshua...
Colm can still do things like steal, open doors/chests, and find desert objects unpromoted.
You might need the promotion gains earlier rather than later in order to complete some low turn strategies and it's not like Cormag gains a level every time he kills something.
I see. Thanks for the clarification.
Whether Artur or Lute gets prior is up to the player and what he/she wants or needs for his/her team. Monster chapters might just be tougher because they tend to route maps?Definitely a possibility.
Most of L'Arachel's experience is coming from staves anyway since her combat is really mediocre if promoted at level 10 and the boost isn't THAT high...That only makes the experience boost more important, since L'Arachel isn't so concerned with her magic type thanks to low offensive potential.
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If you're a player that isn't focused on getting low turncounts. I would be understandable if Great Knight had less weapon choice, worse stats, and worse movement than it's competition. But I think it's very arrogant of you to dismiss the advantages that Great Knight has just because they're not as useful in efficient play. Not everyone plays efficiently. Would you say that Nino shouldn't be in FE7 because she's not useful for efficient players, even though many players love using her?
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 won't Colm be promoting before then? In an efficient playthrough, Colm would never promote. As a result, we have to consider what an inefficient player might do... which is anything. And they might very well like the idea of not having to drag around a sub-standard combatant in order to steal stuff.Why isn't Colm promoting?
In an efficient playthrough, Cormag will never reach 20/0.Again, not an expert in FE8 runs. Why is this?
Tethys is OHKOed by basically every siege tome user in the game except for Eclipse tome users, and there are many regular enemies that also OHKO her. Most regular units are 2HKOed by Gorgons (who climb as high as 40 magic attack), and Dracozombies also do huge amounts of damage. Enemy AI is designed to always prioritise killing Summons even when another unit can be attacked.Is that true about the priority? Summoners would have way more use than I imagined if that's the case.
It's a good thing that I said that Bishops get C Staves, then. C Staves, crucially, gives access to Barrier which gives high WEXP and can be used at any time as long as another character is in range. They're also buyable in Secret Shops. C Staves is therefore vital to building B and A staff ranks which are needed for Warp and Rescue. C Staves also gives Restore access.Yeah, I acknowledged this slip-up. My mistake.
I promote Artur or Lute in Chapter 11, so I don't know what you're talking about. Moulder I promoted in Chapter 14. That leaves them with four and three monster-fighting chapters left in the game compared to ~7 human fighting ones. In addition human enemies are usually a lot harder to kill than monsters. And Chapter 18 is almost entirely filled with Eggs who Sages can kill just as well as Bishops.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.
I don't know. There are advantages both to the higher attack power that MK gives, and to the higher levelling that Valkyrie gives. I don't think that either path is clearly better.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?
Is being able to pick characters "just for the sake of flair"? How about picking pairings (for FE4) and supports? How about distributing stat boosters, or skills, or BEXP? I mean apparently we're just going to use the most efficient option anyway, so perhaps the game should just remove all this choice.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.
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It's funny, I used to think games were just for fun until I realized they were actually serious business; why does there even need to be a standard since an individual's criterion is based upon subjective personal preferences. Suppose people don't play for efficiency and may prefer a class for it's caps for post-game or prefer to promote a character in a way that would fit his/her personality.
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.
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It's Bishops that get C staves.
Can you tell I'm tired yet?
I think what he means is that, while one option may generally be superior, it's usually not such a blowout that one option is way better than the other and you can't really go wrong either way.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.
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Man, I haven't gotten into a good FE debate in a while. fun fun fun
Like I said, if you disregard that efficient play relies overwhelmingly on movement, many of these promotions are quite balanced. General gives better promotion bonuses than Great Knight, Great Knight gives better promotion bonuses than Paladin, and Knight gives better promotion bonuses than Cavalier (E Swords is also pretty crap).
Then what standard would you like to use? It's easy to say "this game would be balanced IF such and such"; give me some specifics.
E Bows are useless. Ross should be capable of ORKOing all flying enemies without need to recourse to a bow. If nothing else he can use the Dragon Axe. This also has the huge advantage of letting him fight on enemy phase. Berserker also gets +1 speed, which is really the most important thing.Bottom line, bows have the occasional use, such as wyverns and when you want a long-distance option that isn't a hand axe. Still, I think I can concede this one. (Especially given Foxy's point about walking over mountains/water, which I'd forgotten about.)
Rogues can also steal items and find desert items (which are abilities that cannot be replicated).Remember, the only unit making this choice is Colm. When you've got Rennac- and Colm won't be promoting before then- what are the benefits of another Rogue? Are there really that many stealable items? As far as the desert goes, you'll have completed that chapter before Colm promotes, and if not, you've still got Rennac by that point.
Wyvern Knight gets better promotion bonuses; specifically, Wyvern Knight F has three more CON than Falcoknight. That extra 3 speed while wielding anything heavier than an Iron Lance can come in handy: more often than being able to wield weak Iron Swords.Interesting. I might have to give you this one too.
It's not close at all. The SPD is far more desirable. As if Cormag would ever want to use a Steel Sword...Except that at 20/0, Cormag's got an average of 15 speed, far more than is necessary to double most every enemy at that point. That extra tankiness fits his strengths better.
Gorgons are the most threatening enemy type in the game. Stone is basically instant failure for any efficient strategy, and Gorgons have such absurdly high attack power that they typically 2HKO. Druids also hit quite hard. I don't think that's as good as the movement in an efficient run, but you're wrong to describe dark magic users as unthreatening.It's a rare enemy type only present in a handful of chapters, and can be dealt with in a number of ways without too much hassle. "Most threatening enemy type" in FE8 still isn't saying too much.
Really? Summons are one of the most important abilities, capable of distracting long range magic that in FE8 can be very powerful.I've never heard this before. Care to go into more detail?
Actually, the advantage of Bishop is that it gets C Staves. Sage can typically ORKO most unpromoted monsters on it's own. And there are far more human enemies in the game that need to be killed than monster enemies. An attack advantage against humans is much more useful.Sages get C Staves? Not according to this link:
http://serenesforest.net/fe8/class_base.htm
And the reason monster-slaying is so important is that, by the time promotion rolls around for Artur and (especially) Moulder, late-mid/late game has started, a time dominated by weak human units and monster units.
Valkyrie also gets much faster exp gain from combat, such that from killing an enemy, the Valkyrie will get 20 more experience than the Mage Knight. That translates into higher stats.Is that right? I didn't realize MK were without the experience gain. If that's the case, then the choice is still unbalanced, but tipped in favor of the Valkyrie. Thanks for the heads-up.
Clearly, that's not you, since you frequently made the wrong choice, and failed to appreciate the advantages of the alternative. For a player who doesn't play for efficiency, the choice is much more difficult, and there are many people who prefer the "less efficient" promotion anyway. Are you saying that their preference is invalid because they're not playing the game efficiently enough? Are you saying that there's no point in giving a player a choice if there's a right choice and a wrong choice?Again, if we're not talking efficiency, what are we talking? What's the standard? And I'm perfectly willing to admit that the class selection option is nice, but that in most cases, it's just for the sake of flair.
That's my point. I'm saying that it's stupid to say that just because one option is better than another, all we're ever gonna do is use that better option and thus it's a point against the game for having that worse option, which is what Doomguy seems to be saying with his claim that most of the branched promotions have one clear choice and that the other choice is pointless.
That's not quite what I'm getting at. The branched promotions feature was touted at the game's release as the defining gameplay addition over its predecessor; for it to contain few meaningful choices makes it a low-impact addition, and one of wasted potential.
Why all the hate for SS?
in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Posted
Or maybe you're just taking this casual conversation a bit too seriously.