ZeManaphy
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Posts posted by ZeManaphy
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3 minutes ago, Jotari said:
Procedurally generated stuff isn't quite the same thing as ambushing the players. A procedurally generated Firem Emblem mapnwould be the skirmishes where enemy type, position and weaponry are randomly selected. For a pokemon variation of ambush spawning it wouldn't be random trainers, it'd be your opponent's pokemon getting a free attack on you before you have a chance to make a decision at all.
The point I am trying to say is not knowing what about happen does not make it bad game design. Actually, a proper variation of Ambush Spawns in Pokemon would be the option not to switch your Pokemon when you get knocked out. Its optional in Single Player, but mandatory in Battle Facilities and PvP. In case you didn't know, getting a free switch is a big deal in multiplayer esque settings because it grants you a free turn to take advantage of the fact that you got a Pokémon safely without any damage, especially in a 3v3 setting where a single switch can win you the game. Switching is such a powerful tool that hazards dominate singles because they are only way to punish it consistently.
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8 minutes ago, Ottservia said:
Because it just makes for bullshit, unbalanced, and unfair game design. The turnwheel only works when the game isn’t designed around it especially for newer players who find the idea of classic mode daunting. It’s a good way to ease them into the experience. The problem becomes when the turnwheel is used as a fundamental part of a map’s design. Take Petra’s paralogue for example. It’s a pretty simple map at first but once you cross a certain point not too far in, you are immediately swarmed by dozens of reinforcements with hardly any prior warning which forces you into an unfair situation where you could lose a unit not due to any fault of your own but rather something the game did which you could have never have had accounted for
That's subjective though. Never does game specifically provide an advantage for using Divine Pulse. Unlike Gambits, which the game encourages by having them hit multiple shields in order to inflict an armor break, there is nothing that provides a consistent advantage for using Divine Pulse other than mistakes.
2 minutes ago, NaotoUzumaki said:. The point of strategy is to create a plan about the information you have and make a success out of it.
So basically the criticism of ambush spawns is this: " Its unfair and not a real challenge because it comes out of nowhere and you have to be prepared for it despite being clueless about it ". Through that logic, anything that comes out as a surprise in a video game is unfairly balanced. Let's pull up a mode from the Pokémon series: Battle Tower Facilities!
I'm sure a lot of you have either or dabbled or heard of the likes of Battle Tower, or its clones like Battle Tree or Subway. This mode is essentially challenges the player to obtain the longest winning streak possible and requires players to have some knowledge of PvP to be successful.
Here's a bit of dialogue from a Smogon user on a guide for safe runs of the Battle Tower. For those that don't know, the higher the winning streak you have, the more difficult the battles, and if you lose one match, you have start from #1 all over again.
SpoilerBefore going into the details of how the AI chooses what to do, a little emphasis must be given to the biggest cause of frustration and "cheat impression" from Battle Tree: randomness. As it can be understood from the previous paragraph, a lot about what you will be facing will be randomly generated. Pokemon will have random sets, random abilities, and are also not 100% predictable. When facing a Pokemon, you should also be wary of what movesets and stat spread each specific Trainer can carry, as well as the possible items it can have and what abilities the Pokemon has access to if they are not revealed istantly by a screen message (like Intimidate or Pressure).
1) AI Pokemon IV, EV, Natures, and Abilities
In contrast with the random nature of the rest of the Pokemon generation, all sets have already fixed EVs and Nature. The IVs are also fixed, but they are based on the Trainer you are facing rather than tied to the specific set. It is important to note that this includes Pokemon designed around the usage of Trick Room (usually very slow with a nature that reduces Speed), which results in those Pokemon having Speed IVs higher than 0, so if you are running correct spreads your Pokemon of same speed tier will be always underspeeding them outside of the rare Iron Ball sets. The IVs for the AI will progressively increase as you progress through the facility. While it is not perfectly omogeneous, the enemy IVs will start at 19 in Super Battles, then will eventually hit 23, 27 and finally 31 IV once you reach the Trainers that appear only past battle 40. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Ability every Pokemon gets is random between the ones available, with 66% chance to have a normal ability and 33% to have its Hidden Ability. This also occasionally leads to weird bad sets where, for example, a Guts or Poison Heal Pokemon holding a Toxic Orb is generated without the needed ability, ending up only harming itself. To balance out situations like those, several sets that are based on a specific ability of the Pokemon also have a "Backup plan": for example, the sets that rely on a combination of Sturdy and Metal Burst or Endeavour will also often feature a Focus Sash as equipped item, and sets reliant on weather will often also have access to the related weather setting move.
2) Team generation
Every time a new Trainer is generated, the game picks one of the Trainers available for the number of battle you are at, then picks the required amount of Pokemon from its team one by one making sure that the Clauses are respected. Since those are all the conditions for creating the enemy team, the AI can generate with teams that do not synergize, or even Pokemon that harm each other in some cases, as well as have perfectly synergic compositions if the dice rolls are favorable. Some Trainers have dedicated teams who are guaranteed to synergize, often Weather or Trick Room based, while others have a very big roster of different Pokemon to pick from, resulting in very unpredictable compositions to face.
3) Apparently unpredictable AI behaviours
There are instances which will often create confusion or frustration for the player, with apparently inconsistent behavior by the AI. As your streak continues, you will inevitably witness odd actions such as consecutive uses of Protect, weird Pokemon swaps, using resisted or nullified moves while clearly superior alternatives exist, and so on. Typically, the AI prioritizes moves based on power and effect (accuracy is not a factor considered), but the move selection is based on a potentially weighted roll, so expecially in situations where there's no guaranteed OHKO, there's a significant chance for the AI to not select the highest damage attack. It's these instances you'll notice the AI selecting suboptimal moves which merely inflict any kind of damage or status, unlike the choices a person might make. In Doubles, they may not select the most obvious target for their attacks either. The AI may also switch one of its active Pokemon with one from its backline in order to resist the last attack that connected, to absorb it with an immunity, or to circumvent move-locking into a ineffective move. If a swap into a resistance is performed, the incoming Pokemon will also have a move that can hit your active Pokemon for supereffective damage.
AI BEHAVIOUR: ATTACK PRIORITY, RECOGNITION AND COMMON CHOICES
Even though the AI is generally never fully predictable, there are a few events that appear to have higher priority, which can allow you to have a general idea of what will happen. It's still important that even if such events have a higher chance to happen, , the AI can still do something else, so do not act blindly and always ponder your actions before clicking on the DS screen, expecially late in the streak where an error can easily turn in a loss and streak drop. Note that several of those behaviours are limited to Doubles/Multis since they are triggered by interaction of multiple Pokemon.
Part 1: AI move selection priority and common behaviours
- Setup moves
Most AI sets that are based on boosting moves tend to attempt to set up until a certain breakpoint before committing to attack. For moves that buff several stats like Quiver Dance and Dragon Dance, the breakpoint looks like either outspeeding your Pokemon or being able to OHKO them. Several Stockpile+Rest/Roost users will usually attempt to reach 2 stacks and then heal up if needed, occasionally going to 3 if not damaged. Other boosting moves aren't as consistent and cannot be predicted reliably.
- Weather and Terrains
If an AI set is running a Weather or Terrain setting move and the specific Weather or Terrain is not up, the AI generally priorizes setting it up if there's no option to OHKO an active enemy right away. This also occasionally leads to funny interactions of AI Pokemon in Doubles taking turns setting different Weathers, often Sandstorm and Rain since a lot of Trick Room specialists run both slow Rain setters and some Sand setters.
It's worth mentioning that most Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream and Snow Warning Pokemon also have the dedicated Weather setting move in their movesets to artificially balance out the chance of not having the necessary Ability, with the notable exception of Aurora Veil users who do not have direct access to Hail themselves aside from Alolan Ninetales' Hidden Ability.
- Speed control
Moves that affect Speed such as Tailwind and Icy Wind are very high in the priority list for the AI. Tailwind nearly always is set anytime is not up and Trick Room is not active, and Icy Wind is generally spammed by the Pokemon who have it, expecially in Doubles where the AI priorizes spread moves. Trick Room is also usually priorized if your active Pokemon are faster than both the AI's, and occasionally the AI might try to revert Trick room if it is active and your active Pokemon are slower than their. Note that in case the AI threatens a KO that turn, a Trick Room setter can still choose to go for the attack instead. It is important to note that if two Trick Room setters are active at same time for the AI, they will never try to Trick Room at same time, one will always use another move instead.
- Phazing
Moves that will force a swap (Roar, Whirlwind, Dragon Tail) have high priority for the AI if your Pokemon have boosts active. While they aren't particularly dangerous on their own outside of denying your boosts, it is important to keep track of phazing spam when the AI happens to have had the chance to setup the occasional entry hazard or you are relying on setup moves. Take advantage of the negative priority of those moves to use Taunt or take out the Pokemon before it can become a issue.
- Paralysis and Sleep
Status inducing moves are very high on the priority list for the AI, expecially Paralysis since it doubles as status and speed control. If a set runs those, you can be expecting it will be attempting to status you first unless your active Pokemon is immune to it. Most sets featuring Hypnosis also have Zoom Lens or Wide Lens as equipped item to patch up the low accuracy. Will-o-Wisp is usually priorized if your active Pokemon have high Attack, while Toxic does not look like having a particularly high priority instead.
- Damage over accuracy
While the AI appears to be able to calculate when it can OHKO your Pokemon, it does not factor in the accuracy of the moves. As result it often will go for a high damage supereffective Focus Blast, rather than secure a KO with a Psychic. While you can't realistically always plan ahead of the move selection, a 4x weakness is a nearly guaranteed move selection, and the AI ignoring the possibility of missing high damage moves can definitely cause some lucky misses for you.
- Fake Out (and Fling flinches)
If a Pokemon has Fake Out, it will use it the first turn the Pokemon is out, unless something prevents it from happening (Ghost Immunity, Psychic Terrain, but the ability Inner Focus does not prevent the AI from trying). There are also a few Ambipom, Infernape and Weavile sets that have Fake Out and Fling with an item that causes Flinch, on top of U-Turn or Thief, resulting in one of your Pokemon essentially being forced to skip two turns (or more), while watching the enemy steal your item and get away with it.
- Priority on low HP
If one of your Pokemon is at very low HP, expecially due to a Focus Sash or Sturdy, and the AI has access to a priority move, it will generally use it the turn after. Consider using Protect, swapping, and if playing Doubles plan your other Pokemon's action in order to not give give a completely free KO.
- Stall sets
Some sets run a completely stall oriented moveset: usually a damage over time move (Toxic, Leech Seed, Sandstorm, Hail, Wrap) as well as a mix of Stockpile, Substitute, Protect, Double Team, Leftovers, Recover, and similar moves or items. There's a large number of AI Pokemon with this kind of moveset, with many variations, and their general behaviour is to alternate the damage over time move to Protect or Substitute, and setting up their defensive or evasion boosts every now and then, occasionally even chaining several Protect uses in a row.
- Sending in Pokemon with supereffective coverage
When you beat an enemy Pokemon or a swap is forced and the AI has still multiple Pokemon in the back, the AI will priorize sending in the Pokemon with the highest damage potential. When a new Pokemon is sent out you are usually facing 2 possibilities: it is the Pokemon with the highest damage potential against your current active Pokemon, or if it does not have any super effective attack, it means the AI has no other super effective to use.
Part 2: Moves and abilities the AI does and does not recognize
- Encore
If a AI Pokemon is Encored on a status, setting or move you are immune to, it will generally either switch the following turn, or use the move once, fail and switch out turn after if still possible. If a Pokemon is Encored in a setup move, however, it might keep using it up to 3 times and possibly swap out after 2 or 3 uses if Encore is still active.
- Taunt
The AI will generally not swap out if Taunted if the Pokemon has at least one usable move. Pokemon forced to Struggle because of Taunt will occasionally not swap out, and sometimes will just KO themselves.
- Substitute and status moves
While the AI will still try to status a Substitute every now and then, but it will usually stop after one failure, unless the specific set only carryes status moves.
- Misty Terrain
The AI does not properly recognize Misty Terrain. Moves that have both a damage and status component like Nuzzle, as well as occasionally Swagger and Flatter, do not trigger the immunity message and the AI can attempts to use them despite the immunity to the status provided by the terrain, giving you free turns and even free boosts. Fliers/Levitaters are often the ones not recognizing the presence of Misty Terrain and attempt to use status moves despite the immunity message, expecially most Rotom variants who carry one or two status moves. Note that this does not happen for Rest: the AI will never attempt to use Rest if affected by Misty Terrain (as well as by Electric Terrain).
- Lightning Rod, Storm Surge and Levitate
Differently from Misty Terrain, the AI does recognize those abilities, and will stop using moves that trigger them, or swap their Pokemon if they don't have any usable move left due to those abilities. In fact, it can use those against you by occasionally swapping their Pokemon with one of them that can absorb or redirect your last attack.
Part 3: Doubles and Multi Battle special interactions
- Spread moves
Differently from Singles, the AI loves to priorize spread moves in Doubles. If one of your Pokemon is weak to a spread move and single target ones will not pick a OHKO, generally the AI will go for the spread option. Occasionally not caring if this hits his own partner.
- Explosion
The AI use of Explosion is generally inconsistent, and while the AI will often commit to it first turn, sometimes it will wait or not use it at all. Being matched with a partner which will be immune to it, the Pokemon or its partner being low enough that it'll potentially die the same turn, and not having any super effective option to use usually trigger the usage. Do note that one Lickilicky set carries a Normalium-Z with Explosion, and the AI will always use it before Explosion.
- Earthquake, Sludge Wave, Discharge and Surf
The AI likes using Earthquake anytime the other active Pokemon is a Flying-type or Levitater. If this combination happens (in fact, several trainers have rosters that cause it to happen) the Earthquake sequence is nearly guaranteed. This is also somewhat applicable to Surf matched with Water Absorb, Storm Drain, and Discharge with Ground-type Pokemon or Lightning Rod and Volt Absorb, the rare Sludge Wave sets when matched with Steel-types, and Explosion while matched with a Ghost-type. The rare Telepathy Pokemon also contribute to activate this mechanic.
- Wide Guard
The AI is not coded to play around Wide Guard. It does not use it reactively if it is available (rather, often uses it even if you are not using any spread attack), and does not react to you using Wide Guard either. Combined the AI giving priority to spread moves in Doubles, and several AI sets only running spread moves, Wide Guard can completely deny certain sets if used correctly.
- Protect with Spread moves
Even though Protect usage is not consistent and generally not predictable, there's a few situations in Doubles where the AI decides to Protect, usually when matched with a spread attack user. If the situation is favorable to using a spread move, you can often expect the other Pokemon to Protect that turn, but it rarely attempts to double Protect in those situations. Despite this, there's an interesting interaction that causes the AI to Protect even if it's immune to the partner's spread move due to typing or ability.Spoilern order to have a successful run in the Battle Tree, it is important to consider all the mechanics and AI sets and make sure you are not completely walled by common occurrences. Due to the volatile generation of teams, you might get lucky and never run into your counter, or eventually run into it and get your nice looking streak interrupted. It is obviously impossible to have an answer to everything considering there's hundreds of different sets and virtually infinite combinations, but there are a few general basis your team composition needs to cover in order to produce reliable post-legend streaks. Since Trainers after beating Red/Blue do not change anymore, once you are past battle 50 the game becomes a endurance challenge that puts a stress on what your team can answer to and what it cannot.
- Have a backup plan
This should always be the first thing to consider: do not have only one strategy. Your Rain based fast and high damage team might look strong, but it's a matter of time until you run into a slower Weather setter or a Pokemon with Cloud Nine and you get swept away because your fast Pokemon are now slower. Expecially for Doubles, you need to have a reliable answer in the event that your strategy is denied on the first turn or turned against you due to a combination of enemy abilities or movesets. A few examples would be having a Lightning Rod user for Rain teams in order to deny enemy Thunder users, Misty Terrain or Aromatheraphy access if your team is weak to status, a staller if your team is fast and need to answer a Trick Room going up, a Fire- or Ground-type to answer opposer Sunny teams, etc. Always consider that your plan can go wrong and you might need to buy time. Expecially when it comes to Weather or Trick Room, since there's AI Trainers focused on every Weather and both Trick Room specialists and high speed dedicated Trainers, which you will inevitably run into at some point.
- Stats matter
The AI has access to fully EVd Pokemon, which eventually will have 6x31 IV. Once you are past the first 20 battles the Trainers will start using actually competitive Pokemon, eventually including plenty of Legendary Pokemon and Mega Evolutions, as well as a number of both cheesy and brutal sets that require to be dealt with quickly. You will need to use actually strong Pokemon that are also properly trained, and unfortunately your story team will likely have to be replaced for this purpose. Put your time into engineering a proper composition, breed and train the Pokemon you want to use, and choose the right items, because else you will inevitably fall to the sheer higher power of the AI sets. If you plan of using a sub-optimal Pokemon, make sure your team composition actually benefits from its presence and is well equipped to deal with opposing threats.
- Check the AI Trainer data
Another important thing to consider is that the full data about the AI sets is available, and you should use it to your advantage. Going in blind, considering the amount of different sets plus the existance of several unexpected sets can quickly lead to a disaster. Some examples include a Speed invested Alolan Marowak, a evasion focused Zapdos set, OHKO move users, the list is very long and varied. When you start a new round, check the Trainer name, look for it on one of the many available resources, note which sets for each Pokemon it has available, and plan accordingly. If the Trainer can have several sets of a specific Pokemon, make sure to not exclude either when picking your moves until the set is revealed by a move or the equipped item activating.
- Accuracy over power
It is a typical error coming from competitive Pokemon PvP to consider moves like Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Stone Edge, which are often taken due to them securing more OHKOs than their weaker but accurate counterparts, good as well for facilities. Unfortunately, it is not the case. When going for long runs, one must remember that misses do happen. Missing a move in wrong moment can turn in a loss, and once you start to accumulate battles, the rolls eventually will be unfavorable. While competitive formats are usually "best of X", and unlucky match generally won't matter seeing you still have the chance to fall back and try again, the Battle Tree like other facilities does not allow the rematch and you always have to start from 0 after a loss. Unless you really don't have another option, try to only run 100% accurate moves. Do not put yourself in situations where a miss equals Game Over, and consider that the AI has both evasion moves and the occasional Lax Incense / Bright Powder equipped, further punishing low accuracy.
- Dealing with stallers
One of the biggest threats if left unchecked on the Battle Tree are staller sets. They might not look particularly threatening at start, but once they have accumulated several evasion stacks and are dropping your Pokemon's HP with Toxic or Sandstorm while you cannot hit them other than with a lucky roll, it surely becomes a frustrating way to lose. There's several ways to deal with stallers, one of which being istantly targetting them down, but it's not reliable since several of them run Bright Powder or Lax Incense thus could get lucky misses, or there might be a more dangerous threat to deal with in Doubles, on top of most staller sets actually being on bulky Pokemon. It is recommended to include somewhere Taunt (in fact, several staller sets have no damage move and will just Struggle to death once Taunted), or status immunity/cure, run a Steel type which is both immune to Toxic and Sandstorm, having a perfect accuracy move to deal with Double Team spammers (Smart Strike, Aerial Ace are both TMs, Z-Moves can also work in a pinch but might not be available when you need them), Haze or Clear Smog to clear boosts, and similar alternatives where your movesets allow.
- PP UP your Pokemon
If you decide to run your own staller (very common in singles, and viable to have in doubles), absolutely PP UP it. The AI only has base PPs, and in the possibility of a stall war, you want to have the edge. In fact, PP-stalling the AI is a common strategy for dealing with some threats. While maximizing the PP of fragile sweepers is generally unnecessary as they rarely get to live more than 3 turns, it's recommended to still PP UP them, or at least important moves with 5 or 10 PPs that need to be used more than once per fight, in order to deal with the possibility of Pressure Pokemon adding up, which is likely to happen against post-legend Trainers as lot of Legendaries that will show up do have Pressure as possible or only ability.As you can see here, we have to prepare for every possibility, including " uncompetitive " moves, items, and abilities, regardless of our personal feelings towards them. Now if you ask any facility player ( myself included ) does that make it a poor mode? Of course not! One of the things that makes Battle Tower so enjoyable is that they are trying to obtain a winning streak of highest proportion that requires curated team that can handle majority of sets, hypothetically speaking that is. Oh and there is no team preview as well, meaning that it is completely random until the player initiates the battle. In order to be successful in the Battle Facilities, one must be prepared to handle all kinds of scenarios including " unfair " or " unlucky " ones, and that's a part of the appeal of the Battle Tower: Trying to obtain the highest win streak despite the randomness.
So anyway, the main point here is that its not necessarily a bad game design to have the player suddenly deal with new attacks out of the blue, instead it forces the player to adjust their strategy to handle it. If anything, Divine Pulse just makes the process easier.
Also, if you hate the surprise factor of ambush spawns, you can always look up the positions online.
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Hooray! Ignatz is finally in Heroes!
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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:
Three Houses' support system is hot garbage. It takes all the fun out of matchmaking and throws 6 hours of story filler at you instead. And gameplaywise, they could have replaced what determines the flanking bonuses with your professor rank and almost nobody would notice.
I don't see how its filler. There are a lot of important story details like how in Hapi and Dimitri's A support in which she reveals that Cornelia manipulated Anselma in taking part of the Tragedy of Duscur, or how Dorothea and Ferdinand fix their past misunderstanding as children and forgive each other, with the two even expressing suttle romantic cues. Its seeing how these two grow from rivals to lovers is what makes me a huge fan of Dorothea x Ferdinand as a ship. And that not going to all the tiny details in scripts of supports like how, Hilda and Seteth makes mention of Ignatz if he his in your army, or how Ingrid and Sylvain's C-Support varies depending on whether you do it on part 1 or 2. You can really tell how much love and attention was put into the script as well as Three Houses's worldbuilding. And the voice acting! The voice acting for this game is just incredible. A big factor why I keep returning to Three Houses is because I love how much the Voice acting brings out the character’s personalities. Especially Rhea and Dimitri when they are angry. Real props to Cherami Leigh and Chris Hackney, I feel so scared when they express their anger out, especially Rhea in Crimson Flower. And not to mention that all the tiny details in the supports are also voiced as well, it must have taken hours of recording dialouge. Three Houses is among the best games when it comes to voice acting, with the only other contender on the top of my head being Kingdom Hearts 3.
If you don't like watching all of them, you can just skip them immediately. If you were forced to see them, I could definitely see it being an issue, but its not- so I don't see what the problem is.
12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:It is hearing fans say stuff like this that has me scared shitless about the future of the series. Talking about rewinds and save-scumming like it should be the standard way to play Fire Emblem games, and that it makes the implementation of unfair bullshit not only okay, but preferable.
And what is wrong with that? For a casual player, being able to rewind is godly for players who want to keep their units alive, especially since a huge factor of Fire Emblem is how each character is their own person, unlike most strategy RPGs. A big factor I play Fire Emblem are the characters and the relationships you can choose to form with them. Not a whole lot of RPGs allows this kind pairing up. Each character is super important to me. I don’t want to restart a map because I lost a unit because I missed a 98%. In addition, having a turnwheel makes it more significantly accessible to new players, so they don't quit after just one unlucky miss that cost them their unit. Bear Fire Emblem was almost cancelled, and a big factor was that these games were very difficult, permadeath and generally a high difficulty can make these games difficult for a new player.The new design choices are designed for making it easier for new players to get into the series. I perfectly fine with Rewind being a staple for the series because it makes it more accessible for new players.
Ambush Spawns are annoying intially, but I never found them that detrimental on Maddening, because of the turnwheel. I ended up enjoying them on Maddening because they required me to rethink my strategy and how to place my units. I enjoy a game that makes me have to rethink my strategy.
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48 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:
I don't know if this is entirely unpopular or not, but I think EVERYONE being able to have support conversations with almost EVERYONE else has been more of a detriment than an improvement. Don't get me wrong, having lots of options is usually a good thing, and it can definitely help really flesh out a character. But I feel that since Awakening started that trend, too many characters have seemed kind of...I dunno what single word to us. A lot of characters seem like they "reset" with every support, so a lot of them feel like slightly altered repeats, and whatever character development happened in one support is reset and lost in another. I know this probably isn't limited to newer games in the series, but it definitely seems far more prominent now, since there's so many dang supports.
I don’t find it a problem at all. Supports are one of my favorite things about Fire Emblem as well as the paired ending system, which is a strong selling point compared to other RPGs. I love how Three Houses had fully voiced and animated supports, and how certain dialogue would change depending on the setting or who was in your army. I can’t imagine how much time it took to record.
And besides, only the Avatar characters can support with strictly everyone.Thinking about it more, the lack of supports and paired endings are a big reason why I struggle to enjoy the older title. While it is true that Echoes had the first fully voiced supports, I was sorely disappointed how uneven the supports were overall. Silque only had one support, while Clair had three. And then there are no paired endings for characters. I still believe Alm deserved Clair over Celica.
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What exactly the point of this thread?
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26 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:
If the option exists, the devs should account for the player going for it. Why let me use faculty and out-of-class students if they're going to softlock me for it? That's just awful game design.
Not that I even did that, as I said above. I didn't use all of the Golden Deers, but I did use some of them. It made no difference, because you don't just need to use all the starting students - you also need to put them into the right classes and they need to level well.
Probably because you are part of a wouldn’t prioritize using students from your house over faculty and recruited students. The developers probably assumed that the majority of people would use their house members over faculty, which I’m pretty sure the majority of players did.
Or here’s an analogy that hopefully makes things clearer: Calling Three Houses a poor game just because one map requires they use their native units and a small minority of player decided not to use their starter Units in a favor for a niche faculty run is like calling Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon poor games just because Ultra Necrozma happened to have all the stats and moves to hit the majority of Pokémon super effectively and this ended their nuzlocke despite a nuzlocke in general being a niche style of play.
30 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:See, the problem with this is that the whole reason I was playing Maddening was that I didn't enjoy Hard at all. At first it was okay, but it didn't take long for every single unit to become completely overpowered. On Hard, the game is way too easy to be any fun for me. So, I went Maddening in hopes of it being better. When I got softlocked, I did consider going back and downgrading the difficulty, but what would've been the point? That would've just made the game into a snoozefest like my first run. So, I just quit instead and started a Shadow Dragon run.
That's my problem with Three Houses's difficulties - there isn't a good difficulty. Hard is really easy and Maddening, while difficult, is poorly designed and disincentivices one of the game's supposed draws, unit customization, in favor of making everyone wyverns to survive Reunion at Dawn.
Well, you might find it easy, but others could find it difficult. This is something always annoyed me about the Pokémon community that also translates to Fire Emblem community. Just because one person finds the game easy doesn’t the mean the rest of the players will. Three Houses was my brother’s first game, and he found Three Houses, particularly chapters 17, 14, and 13 of VW difficult. Three Houses wasn’t my first game, but I still found it difficult at times, especially towards the later chapters of AM during my first run. I think the game’s difficulty is just right. And a lot of friends I’ve spoken find this game’s difficultly just fine, not too easy and not too hard. Point is, difficult is subjective, and I don’t think it’s right to claim the game is easy and/or bad for everyone.
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6 minutes ago, Father Shrimpas said:
was useless (as he didn't use any of GD main iirc), which lead to a softlock
Interesting. Why not use the Main members of the class though? And also, there are at least 21 save files in Three Houses. Couldn’t he just go back and readjust the difficulty if he disliked being in a soft lock?
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5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:
To be fair, Reunion at Dawn is so shit that even fans of Three Houses realize it's indefensible. Most agree it's bad, with a few handwaving it as not that bad in hard. Real defenders of Reunion at Dawn are rare, and the very few I've seen all resorted to an extremely dumb argument that went something along the lines of "hurr durr if you didn't train your starting class you deserve to lose because you failed your students as their teacher
On Normal and Hard, I never found it that hard to beat. I’ve successfully beat it on my first try for all three routes. On Maddening, yes I agree, the lack of a preparations screen is frustrating, but that’s probably the reason why people find it so frustrating- you can’t prepare for this map unlike others. Your preparations for this map comes from preparing it on the last map, getting the appropriate weapons, equipments and Gambits in your units inventory to ensure your adequately prepared. The map is still difficult, true, but I found it much more bearable in my current playthrough of Silver Snow because I prepared the right gambits, Weapons, and Equipment for this battle, specifically Cichol Wyvern Co. and School of Sorcery Soldiers were immense useful for stalling a turn of the thieves. Even on AM and VW, the game gives Dimitri and Claude two very powerful, two use gambits that has a huge area of range. Dimitri’s gambits we’re amazing essential during my Azure Moon Maddening playthrough for that map, so it’s not like the game gives you zero tools should you come unprepared.
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Surprised the Beast hasn’t been mentioned, he'd be a pretty unique fighter thanks to his enchanted status. BTW, DIsney also own the Kingdom Hearts Original Characters, so it would be surprising not seeing Sora, Roxas, RIku, Axel etc.
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16 hours ago, lenticular said:
Basically, dragon was the overpowered type that went on the overpowered pokémon (second highest base stat total in teh game behind only mewtwo) that you (probably) only saw while fighting one of the game's major bosses. And if you wanted to use it yourself, then it was possible but you'd absolutely have to earn it. It was never intended to be experienced by the player in the same way that they experienced water types or flying types, for instance.
Dragon only became overpowered in Gen 4 and 5, where Draco Meteor and Outrage were given high BPs, and combined with the fact that only Steel resisted it meant that you had really good STAB once Steel was out of the picture. In fact, a play style called “DragMag” became a thing, in which five Dragon types were paired up with Magnezone to remove Steel types so the remaining Dragons could spam Dragon STAB.
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3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:
This is a good starting point! And in this case, the developers had a wide pool of older Mons to pick from. If you were redesigning the Hoenn Dex, what changes would you make?
Considering so Hoenn has Lapras and Dewgong make good choices, though the latter is just a worse Walrein. Jynx, Delibird, Sneasel and Piloswine could offer types that aren’t part of water. An issue with Ice types in Gen 1 is that the majority are Water/Ice, in fact, Jynx and Articuno are the only Ice-types that aren’t Water, and Jynx is the only one that isn’t a Legendary.
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Its kind of annoying how people always bring up how bad the regional dex for Sinnoh is without attributing the other games as well. Kanto has too many Poison types, and all the Normal types are either Flying/Normal or pure Normal with the sole exception of the Wigglytuff line in LGPE. Next, there is only one Ghost and Dragon type line in the entire game, with the Gastly and Dratini, or two for LGPE with the Alolan forms. What's worse in FRLG, there are 0 Dark types, and the Magnemite line is the only option for Steel types. What's worse, FRLG's atrocious trade restrictions prevent you from obtaining any Pokemon that wasn't part of the original 151 until you catch 60 Pokemon and obtain the National Dex, which also includes the Gen 2 Evolutions. If they allowed the Gen 2 evolutions, we would have Scizor, Steelix, Kingdra and Umbreon has options for those types, especially for Umbreon since Dark has 0 types prior to the post game. At least Platinum had an expansion that fixed this problem, while BDSP lets you obtain those Pokémon through the Grand Underground even if they are not in a regional Dex, So much Kanto had changed, like the new evolutions and types, that trying to copy the system from the later the games it just does not work.
Johto also has pretty terrible type distrubution as well, Umbreon is the only option for a Dark the entire game. There is only two Dragon and Ghost Lines in the entire game, and Fire types are abysmal as well. Houndour and Slugma are post game only, Cyndaquil is a starter that you can miss, Entei is a roaming Pokemon who is incredibly difficult to catch, and Ho-oh can only be caught before the E4 in Gold only. The fire stone is unavalible, meaning that So if you didn't choose Cyndaquil as your starter and can't catch the roaming Entei or aren't playing Gold, that makes Magmar the only fully evolved Fire type that you can consistently catch in the wild.
Hoenn has the same problem for Ice types the same way Sinnoh has for Fire types. Only 3, two if you did not couldn’t figure out the puzzle/failed to catch Regice.
TLDR: People disliking DP for poor type distribution is misplaced criticism if they don't attribute it to other games in the series as well.
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28 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:
we said fair representation, and I even gave some examples to show that you wouldn't need that many characters to give the Tellius games and the rest fair representation. Having the 3DS games, Shadow Dragon, and Three Houses marketed the most does make sense; we're just saying that they shouldn't get 100% of the marketing.
Alright, I get it. Fair and equal are not treated same thing. No need to get so frustrated.
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1 minute ago, Jotari said:
But that's not really what I said.
I get what you mean too.
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1 hour ago, Jotari said:
One approach to this question could be, "how would you feel if the game catered only to your favourite three continuties", and while I think most would probably say they're of the opinion that things should be represented fairly and unbiasedly, I at least am willing to admit I'd be massively stoked if the game inexplicably gave us noting but Jugdral, Valentia and Tellius. Sure it's not the most fair, but if the fanservice is catering towards me specifically then I wouldn't be complaining (well at least on the roster front). Favouritism works that way.
Alright, fine I understand the picture. You guys want every game to have an equal representation, I'm just not saying that its not realistic for every game to have equal amount of representation considering that the 3DS era and the era after that are the ones that helped Fire Emblem gained international appeal, hence why it makes most sense to have to games characters marketed the most.
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5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:
Also the one talking there, Derrick actually has done streams where he revisits the older Fire Emblem and he seems to regard them quite well after doing so. He also seems to specifically point towards the games that ''haven't come over'' which at this point is really only Jugdral and Binding Blade.
True, but he did mention that when he was stating his Radiant Dawn playthrough that he never finished it because he thought it was too difficult and later attributes it to the mislabeling of the difficulties. Which was a big criticism of Radiant Dawn from critics, and probably a big factor why it didn’t sell super well alongside fact releasing besides Galaxy. On the topic unreleased games however, that just proves my point on why those games get less representation: There’s less of a market, especially in the west for those characters from the unreleased game.
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23 hours ago, Yexin said:
i don't mean any offense, but honsetly i don't really get why you felt the need to give me your thesis on how marketing and capitalizing work, they kinda feel like age-old shopworn arguments, and it also feels like you felt personally attacked (which i didn't mean to) and felt like you needed to justify your tastes (which you didn't need to), so if that's the case, i'm sorry
anyway, i can't see how any of the dev team's statements on the "roster" matter could be described as any less than "controversial", or at the very least least "hypocritical" ("We chose only 3 games to pick characters from because otherwise the game would've been full of only sword-wielding lords" -> *proceeds to add 15 lords (counting Fates's siblings and FEW's playable characters as lords) and 13 sword-wielding characters*)
but
I didn’t mean to sound attacked because I wasn’t, but really does feel like the majority of people here don’t understand that the reason Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses gets the most reps because they are the games that sold the most, especially for the international audiences, since the first 6 were never released and the ones were just not very popular games until the launch of Awakening. The people here on Reddit and on these forums are a very small minority compared to FE fan base worldwide. Our opinion doesn’t really mean much compared to worldwide fan base. If you don’t believe me in that the majority of fanbase outside of these forums and Reddit struggle to like characters that weren’t Awakening, Three Houses, and Fates, watch this video and skip to 22:17 where someone will explain how they couldn’t stay invested in Heroes because of the fact they got characters that came from games that weren’t launched internationally or just not a popular game.
17 hours ago, vanguard333 said:One problem that I can see is that, like with Warriors and Tokyo Mirage Sessions, they'd pull the roster from 2-3 games at most rather than use characters from across FE. As someone whose introduction to FE was the Tellius games, I can easily say that it's really annoying when every spin-off completely ignores them despite Ike being one of the most popular FE characters in existence. Even if it doesn't stick with just 2-3 games, issues of representation are frankly inevitable in fighting games, and this would be particularly true for an FE fighting game.
The problem is outside of Ike, the cast of POR and RD is quite unrecognizable for the majority of the newer players brought through the 3DS games. I only really got exposed through them through Heroes and this site, and even then, I can’t say I care about the cast that much, including Ike. I don’t even know the entirety of the cast what kinds of units they are, what’s personality, what is their best class, etc. In contrast, I’m sure I could write an essay all about the Three Houses cast, like who they are, what’s their histories, what’s their best classes, what are their supports about etc. Your’re probably in a very small minority who would prefer RD over Three Houses, and if you won’t pay for the games due to the lack of POR and RD, that’s ok, there is already a huge fanbase who’d prefer representation from Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses over POR and RD any day of the week.
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There’s already one. It’s called Fire Emblem Warriors. 😂 Seriously, back on topic, yeah I agree with the sentiment that the majority of the characters would be from Three Houses, Fates, and Awakening because these are the games with the most international recognition bar a few exceptions like Marth and Lyn. But I’m fine with that since the games I’ve only played are the 3DS ones and Three Houses.
On 11/17/2021 at 6:55 AM, Yexin said:which is also why they'll most likely never make one, given how controversial this topic has been for FEW and how hypocritical and inconsistent they've been with their justifications about it
I don’t recall ever Warriors having controversy on its development. As much as“ disappointing “ the character selection was, it perfectly understandable and makes complete sense from a buisness point of view. Awakening and Fates were the most successful games in the series, and are the most familiar with the international audiences. As someone who started with Fates and has only played the 3DS games and Three Houses, I know for fact that had featured any games that had more characters compared to Fates and Awakening, my interest would have been a lot more diminished. It’s the same reason why I won’t spend a penny on any character that isn’t Awakening, Fates, or Three Houses in Heroes. You have keep in mind that the first 6 games were never released internationally, so they are not going to gain much revenue from an international audience bar a few hardcore fans, while the ones that did come to the west just did not perform very well in terms of sales. Representation = Sales, so the more the games sell, the more reps they will get. Granted Shadow Dragon did get rep, but that was because Marth is considered the “ Pikachu “ of Fire Emblem. Lyn was chosen because she was the west’s first Fire Emblem, while Celica was added to promote Echoes. The choices make perfect sense from a business point and examine it closely.
Who’s Yubello, Matthis, and the Cord?
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The rest of the Scooby Doo gang, Lola Bunny, and Robin for starters.
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7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:
That's...
...Please try harder to read what people say before arguing about it. That isn't even remotely the subject.
...Whenever you do the monastery chores, like working at the stables, pulling weeds and patrolling the skies, you are rewarded with money and ore by the church. My question is why on earth this would still generate income after part 1 when the only people in a position to pay us for doing these chores... is us.
I don’t recall ever receiving money or Ore when I played Part 2 doing those activities. That being said, it’s been a while since I played Three Houses so it might be blanking my head. I know you get resources after you do Auxiliary battles, and in that case it can be speculated to be a prize from a villager or a gratuitous Noble. In that same case, perhaps the prizes for those activities come from donations from wealthy nobles who want to see the Empire foiled. And on a last note, is it really worth arguing about? It’s an incredibly minor detail that I never paid attention nor have I heard anyone else complain about until you brought it up. Not to sound rude, but between this and the whole fishing debate, I do echo some other people here saying are you just playing this game overusing the activities just to complain about it.
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I am not going to dive into the debate about fishing and limits because I can’t tell what @Alastor15243 is trying to argue, but:
On 11/12/2021 at 3:27 PM, Alastor15243 said:We're talking about in-universe. The story reason. Remember when you accused me of not even reading the dialogue earlier?
Well, there’s no dialogue, but the activities do provide stat boosts and can be seen as training, like Tea Parties, Choir Practice, Share a Meal, Sauna to name a few are all tied to the aforementioned stat boosts. So your definitely helping the army grow. And besides, all these activities happen on the weekend where everyone is taking a break. It’s deductible that people use these activities to relax, even in the midst of a war.
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14 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:
Doesn't the Conquest campaign end with Corrin and the royals speculating as to exactly what corrupted Takumi and Garon? Because that is in my book implying that the answer to that question lies elsewhere. Also of note, Birthright ends with Garon stating that at some point he changed and he lost his old self. This is more subtle than Conquest, but it still hints that someone - or something - else is behind the scenes. What's more, I would say the big reason why Revelation is encouraged to be played last is because its story spoils details of both Birthright and Conquest; with a name like "Revelation", that's to be expected.
True, but it’s not like a sequel in the sense that there playing Birthright or Revelation is going to continue directly off from the ending of Conquest. It’s more like a third version akin to how Platinum is to Diamond and Pearl, with the latter have some foreshadows to Platinum despite not being a sequel. And also in Three Houses there are moments where characters allude to the other routes, Edelgard’s final words in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind wishes she and Byleth could have been allies as a reference to Crismson Flower, Seteth proposes that Dimitri’s message was a wish that Byleth guided him, a reference to Azure Moon, and on Azure Moon Chaptrer 19, Claude ponders briefly what would happen Byleth taught the Golden Deer should Byleth speak to him, a reference to Verdant Wind.
What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?
in General Fire Emblem
Posted · Edited by ZeManaphy
Well, Pokémon also has hit and critical hit rates as well as secondary effects that you must take in consideration when building for a facility like the Battle Tower. Granted, it may not be as notable first glance since Pokémon’s Single player campaign usually allows the player to use items whenever they want, and are usually lopsided in the Player’s favor, but when you go into the Single Player PvP mode, it becomes quite unpredictable. Let’s pull up a hypothetical: it’s a 3v1 and I have an Alakazam against a Haxorus that was just sent out. Alakazam uses Psychic and Haxorus sets us Dragon Dance. Haxorus is now faster and OHKOes Alakazam. Then you send in Sylveon, who has the type advantage, only Sylveon is OHKOed by an Iron Tail. And lastly, you send in Heatran, which gets one shot by Earthquake. It’s game over and your streak is ruined. Is this game mode “bad” because I had no idea that a Haxorus with the following moves that can OHKO the majority of Pokémon I trained if it sets up? Or is it unfair because it denies the chance me the chance to switch out like the main campaign and if I switch, Sylveon would have been able to take an unboosted Iron Tail?
Again, you can just skip your support conversations with the + button. You still get bonuses, I don’t understand what your problem is. Also Gambits exist, and they benefit from support boosts and levels.