lenticular
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Posts posted by lenticular
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4 hours ago, Jotari said:
The ability to freely reassign tomes that recharge each chapter is actually a really cool idea. I wonder if I could implement that into a hack.
I can actually imagine something similar being used for all weapons. Would be a good way of balancing things like brave weapons without having to resort to Fates-style downside. The hand-wavey rationalisation would be that they lose their edge as you use them and have to be sharpened between battles to make them usable again. Which, honestly, makes more sense than weapons that just completely and irreparably break after thirty swings.
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I'd be surprised to see any rereleases or remasters of Switch games among the succesor console's launch titles. They're going to want to convince Switch owners to upgrade, and "hey, pay us again for this thing you already own" isn't going to cut it. If anything, I think that we're more likely to see backwards compatibility to let people take their Switch libraries onto the console so that's less of a pain point.
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Since I never did answer my own question:
Like others, I think skill scrolls are simply super. Though in my case, it's not so much that I really want to go back to the Tellius skill system as that I am getting tired of the current paradigm of "learn skill by leveling up in this class" and want to see something else. Anything else.
I'm surprised that nobody else has mentioned this, but I'm batty about bexp. The actual implementation in Tellius could still use some balance tweaks, but the general idea is sound. Being able to throw bexp at anyone who is falling behind and have them instantly catch back up is such a nice quality of life feature and makes it less of a chore to use a wide variety of units rather than just always the same strongest ones.
I'd also like to see a return to the magic system of Three Houses. Um, I'm throwing hands melodramatically for Three Houses magic? Yeah, OK, maybe not. Regardless, I think that per-map uses for spells was excellent to provide meaningful limits on how often you can use the most powerful magic but without encouraging the sort of hoarding of rare tomes and staves that traditional systems do. I did also like having each character have a unique learned spell list, since it helped differentiate them, but I'm not as tied to that as to the per-map uses part.
Finally, I'm a sucker for stealing. And general thief utility. Thieves in modern games pretty much just feel like just another generic combat class, which isn't very interesting. I want to be able to take a thief who has bad combat and still feel like it was a good use of the deployment slot.
On 5/8/2024 at 5:32 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:What else? Uh... I guess combat arts count, since I don't think Engage had them? Both Echoes and 3H had cool ways of handling them, and they made the game more player-phase focused. I'm keen on seeing more of them.
That was such a weird thing to be dropped in Engage. They felt so natural in both SoV and TH, and like they were poised to become a series staple. But then, suddenly, nope. Hopefully that's just because they would have watered down the uniqueness of Emblem attacks and we'll see them back next game.
On 5/8/2024 at 10:08 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:It's not an 'old' mechanic by any definition than the OP's
Yeah, "old" might not have been the best choice of words, but trying to come up with concise topic titles does lead to some compromises like that. I probably should have gone with "dropped", though.
On 5/8/2024 at 10:08 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:I'm not as Gung-ho about Gambits however. I think Fire Emblem battles being a 1v1 affair keeps the interactions predictable. AoE attacks just don't feel very Fire Emblem to me.
I would broadly agree with this, but I do think that some of the utility gambits could easily be repurposed into utility staves in future games. Something like a Stride staff or an Impregnable Wall staff could be fun.
On 5/8/2024 at 7:29 PM, Imuabicus der Fertige said:but Triangle Attack hasn´t been seen since SoV, no?
Three Houses did have Triangle Attack. As a combat art from mastering Pegasus Knight. It was pretty terrible though, and I don't recall anyone ever talking about seriously using it, so I can hardly blame you for forgetting about it.
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Have a craving for capture? Reminiscing about rescue? Longing for ledges?
What dropped features and mechanics from the history of the series would you like to see brought back in the next Fire Emblem game? The only rules are that it has to have been something that has been in a Fire Emblem game in the past and it can't have been in Engage.
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19 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:
Launch games? How about the system's name? I've been calling it the Super Switch for years. But at my most degenerate I'm envisioning the Nintendo Microsoft Switch X. Basically a portable Game Pass console with first party nintendo games that don't come to PC. In Any Case I think the 'Switch' Moniker is going to stay. Because I don't think any lessons were learned from the Wii U.
Yeah, I can easily imagine that the same Nintendo-brand logic will still be in place that thought that adding a 3 to the start or a U to the end of a console name was a good idea. I'm imaging it as the BeSwitch or the SwitchUp or something equally as cutesy-but-terrible.
20 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:So let's get to the fun bit - launch titles. Which of us will get the most right?
In theory, the success and longevity of the Switch should have given them plenty of time to make sure they have an absolutely killer set of titles for launch. Whether that will actually work out in practice, who knows? My predictions:
- A party game/minigame collection along the lines of 1-2-Switch or Wii Play that will get completely mediocre reviews but still end up selling in the millions.
- Mario Kart 9. Even if they do end up going with a bigger selection of characters from non-Mario games, I think they'll keep to the Mario Kart name becuase it has 3 decades of marketing and brand recognition behind it.
- New 3D mainline Super Mario game. I mean, this is pretty much the biggest gimme there is, right? The only real question is whether it comes actually at launch or shortly thereafter.
- Some completely new IP.
- An old IP that hasn't been relevant for years and makes everyone go "huh? really?" when it gets announced. Something like Punch Out, Pilotwings, or 1080°.
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14 hours ago, Alef Zero said:
Yes.
Do you think they are mutually exclusive? I don't. Of course it's born from my ideas how it should be, but not uploading it for community is just such a waste. Even if a single person used and enjoy it, it would be worth uploading, don't you think?
Feedback may have been a poor choice of word, think of it like an invitation to discussion.
This is going to get a little bit philosophical, so feel free to skip this bit if you don't want to hear my pontificating. I would probably not go so far as to say that they are mutually exclusive goals, but I do think that they are at crossed purposes. And I also don't think it's a waste to make something just for yourself. If you put effort into something, make a thing for yourself, and then you get joy from the thing that you've made, then I think that's a great use of your time.
I do think there's a world of difference between things made for oneself and things made for wider consumption. And I say that from the perspectives of both a creator and a consumer.
As a creator, I am always conscious of who I'm making something for. If I'm making something only for myself, then I can be as self-indulgent as I want to be, I can tailor things specifically to my own tastes, and I can cut corners for things that aren't as important to me. But if I'm making for other people, then I figure there's something of a duty of care to the implied covenant between creator and consumer. It's on me to at least try to create something that other people will enjoy. If someone is giving me enough of their time to actually read/watch/play/use something that I have made, then I want to repay that trust and that time investment by actually giving that person something they'll enjoy. Part of this is just basic quality control (spellcheck my writing, comment my code, etc.) but part of it is being aware that my tastes are not universal. Now, obviously, you can't please all the people all the time, and it's folly to even try, but I think it's equally as foolish to never even try to please anyone.
Then as a consumer, I do tend to get frustrated by things that other people have made that feel self-indulgent or as if the creator didn't give any thought to the people who would be consuming their creation. And that ranges across the spectrum from things I've bought from big corporations down to things that the smallest indie creators gave away for free. If we look at video game mods in particular, then one of the problems is that there are so many mods out there -- many of which range from "terrible" to "extremely niche" -- that it makes it a slog to wade through them all to find the ones that I would actually be interested in. First I look through the titles and narrow things down, then for the ones that seem potentially interesting I have to go in and read all the descriptions to narrow down further, and then for the ones I have left I have to install them and play them to see which ones actually fit my tastes. And overall, it ends up being more trouble than it's worth for me, so I end up very rarely modding games (despite the fact that I mostly game on PC, which is pretty much the most mod-friendly platform out there). So, personally, I don't look at things in terms of "if one person enjoys it then it's worth it sharing" so much as "what is the balance between people who will enjoy this and people who won't enjoy this and will waste their time before they realise they won't enjoy this?"
Obviously, this is all just my perspective on things, and I don't want to bloviate too hard, but you did ask so I wanted to at least explain my way of looking at things. I'm not going to tell you not to go ahead and share your work, though. Partly because it would be pointless because why would you listen to me? But mostly just because it isn't my business. You do you, sincerely.
15 hours ago, Alef Zero said:How about the reverse - them working when above 50% HP? Although I suppose it would make them too strong.
I agree that that would be too strong, yes.
15 hours ago, Alef Zero said:I feel like her amount of boons is balanced by her weak stats, but I really think that 5 boons is too much. Need to think about it a little.
Base-game Ferdinand has 4 boons, 1 hiddent talent, and no banes, and I don't think that's excessive, nor is it something that is broadly considered to be a problem.
12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:TBH I do agree, in a rebalancing sense, that Edelgard doesn't need to be any stronger. She's already arguably the best unit in the game. That said, her strength and reputation certainly do not come from her personal classes, but rather, in spite of them.
Yeah. I think that in an ideal world Edelgard-as-Emperor should be considerably stronger than she is, and Edelgard-as-not-Emperor should be a little weaker than she is. Actually achieving that is pretty tough, though.
12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Honestly a fan of most of these. One potential point of disagreement is Hit +20, which I think is the best skill in the game. Literally every combat unit - physical, magical, player-phase, enemy-phase - enjoys it. I'd suggest pulling it back, if possible to Hit +10. Maybe Hit +15, so it's halfway to Uncanny Blow. If that's not possible, maybe instead do Bow Range +1 as an equippable skill? That'll be good on anyone still using Bows, and "stacks" somewhat with the Bow classes. But the lowered Hit rates at long-range will prevent it from being OP.
My personal experience (with all the usual YMMV caveats about play-style and the likes) is that Hit +20 is at least decent on everyone, but often not good enough for me to want to take the training time and/or the ability slot to equip it. I just find that most characters don't have a hard enough time with landing their hits for it to be worth it.
That said, if you do want to nerf it a little bit, one option would be to move Uncanny Blow from Valkyrie to Archer, reduce it from +30 hit to +20, and rename it to Precision Blow. That way, it's still just as good for player phase builds, but not as universally applicable. This does make thematic sense to me as well; I don't see that Archers would be particularly talented at counter-attacking accurately. The big downside here is that it would be a nerf to vantage/wrath builds, which really do need to be hitting very reliably for the build to work. I don't really run that sort of build often enough to have a good sense for just how big a deal that would be. Of course, this would leave Valkyrie without a mastery skill, and maybe it could get equippable Black/Dark Range +1?
11 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Besides, once you unlock swift strikes, you are never using any other art - even ruined sky for Sylvain is weaker than this one.
I don't think this is necessarily true. Yeah, once you have Swift Strikes, it is usually the best choice, but far from always. Against opponents with high def, one hit with high might can end up doing more damage than two hits with low might. And then when you also factor in effective damage (Ruined Sky, Knightkneeler, Monster Piercer), then that also promotes the use of other arts. If I've done the calculation right, Ruined Sky against a flying or dragon unit does 33 more damage than a single hit from Swift Strikes. Or to put it another way, they're equal when you're doing 66 damage, with Swift Strikes being better against lower def enemies and Ruined Sky against higher def enemies.
4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:I don't think this is totally fair. First of all, Sword/Lance Crit+ are pretty situational for most builds, and even the -breakers are often a battle-to-battle thing e.g. Axebreaker is only useful if you're planning to fight a bunch of axe-users. Having two prowess skills can be useful just to have an option to avoid enemy breakers (which are more potent than your own). I don't think sword+lance is great (except maybe on an evade-over-everything Ingrid), but I think some other combinations have definite uses. The classic one to me is Wyverns, who will run axes for immense power, but it's often nice to have another weapon type to more reliably hit mercs/swordmasters/heroes, or just give access to other combat arts. Which weapon may depend on whatever is convenient for the unit in question (lances for Ingrid, who can also use Burning Quake; bows for Cyril/Leonie, who have Point-Blank Volley, swords for Catherine, who starts at A rank and will likely wield Thunderbrand, etc.) I don't think it's necessary for the build, mind - one-weapon wyverns certainly work fine too, either axes or something else - but I think it's a valid choice, particularly for some units. The other nice thing about prowess skills is they're often quite low-cost to acquire; you don't need to master a class, you just need to train a skill some at some point in the game (and for later-joiners this training may even occur automatically). This is why I might favour a second prowess skill as a solution to weaponbreaker+ over say Hit +20, which is not only less effective at the same job (though more effective at other jobs) but actually requires a potentially significant detour.
That's a fair point. I was probably a little too harsh on builds that use two weapons. They definitely do have some uses, like this. But I still think that they're pretty situational. At the very least, I don't think that they're a good paradigm to base an entire tier of classes around. Having one or two classes that specialise in weapon swapping might be an interesting option, though.
Personally, my solution to enemy sword units with Axebreaker is just to attack them with a different unit instead. But there are definitely the usual sorts of trade-offs involved there that you get in specialist vs generalist situations.
One other advantage that single-weapon units have is dealing with inventory. Inventory slots are also a limited resource, and if I'm having my axe unit carry a lance, then that's one inventory slot that they aren't using for an alternate axe, an alternate accessory, a healing item, a bow, or anything else that they might want to be carrying.
4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:Yeah I definitely agree with this, I think Manuela is a unit who can be safely buffed in a few ways. I kinda like what they're going for with her: a hybrid character who can do well in both physical, magical, or hybrid builds, but without the raw strength/magic to dominate at at one of them. The biggest problem though, is that starting at E reason, E authority, E axes is a hard hole to climb out of. Honestly, I would probably swap her Reason bane for a boon (she's Dorothea's mentor, I kinda like Dorothea inheriting her own boons from Manuela) and getting easier access to Mage and Fiendish Blow alone would do wonders for her. She already has quite a different stat build from Dorothea (and Hanneman for that matter), so I wouldn't worry about her feeling too similar.
Reason boon would definitely help her out a lot. And I thinkit would also fit her personality just fine. Yes, she's a drunkard and a hot-head, but she's also a doctor and a teacher and generally an intelligent woman. Having easier access to all sorts of magic classes would be a game-changer for her. Though also, just the proposed change to give magic access to Flacon Knights would also help her out a lot. Falcon Knight is already one of her better classes, IMO, and letting her throw out an occasional Warp (and even more occasional Heal, Ward, and Silence) as well would be a pretty big buff.
1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Then we're definitely moving beyond "rebalance" patch territory. Which, if that's what you wanna do, then fine I guess. It's just not what you originally advertised.
Yeah, I think this ties back into what I was trying to say at the top of this post, except that you're much more succinct than I am.
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I'm not entirely sure what your overall purpose is here. Is this supposed to be something that you're releasing for the community, or just something that you're making for your own use? If it's just for your own use, then I'm not really sure what you need our feedback for? But if it's something for the community at large, then you seem to be leaning into your own personal preferences a whole lot.
I'm also not really sure what your motivations are for some of the changes here. Like, changing Shamir from a lance proficiency to a sword proficiency just seems completely random. I guess it makes it slightly harder for her to go into Falcon Knight? But it's hard to say whether I think this is a good change or a bad change without knowing why you're doing it in the first place.
Anyway, with that said, let's look at some of the specifics. I'm sure I'll miss a few bits that I have thoughts on given that it's a long list.
16 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Unit talents:
You aren't mentioning here what you're doing with unit-specific combat arts. The current system is that unit skill proficiencies exactly correspond with the weapons that the unit gets extra combat arts in, and I definitely think that that should be kept. So for any extra weapon proficiency that you're adding, it'd be nice to know what combat arts are going along with it.
16 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Ingrid gets a hidden talent in authority (which fits her and her personal) but weakness in axes (could be something else, not feeling strong on this)
This one makes me a little sad. Ingris has always been one of my favourite units to build, in part because she doesn't have any weaknesses, which makes her a good fit for pretty much any class. I don't think it's over-powered, but it does make her fun to use.
16 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Catherine gets a boon in armor (no reason really, just wanted her to have it)
Personally, I'd like to see Catherine with a boon in Faith. Partly because I think it's a good fit in terms of lore/character, and partly to give her a slightly smoother path into War Cleric to make use of her Brawling boon. Giving her Seraphim at B Faith could also be fun, though not particularly impactful given her low Magic stat.
16 hours ago, Alef Zero said:-changed byleth's white magic learnt - Aura learnt on faith B. On faith A M!Byleth gets abraxas, F!Byleth gets seraphim
Having Seraphim come after Aura for female Byleth feels really weird, given that Seraphim is the lower damage of the two, and that everyone else who gets Seraphim gets it at either C (Lysithes) or B (everyone else) in Faith. Getting it at A, after having already learned Aura, seems backwards.
16 hours ago, Alef Zero said:-removed swift strkes from relevant units (changed to different skills: Sylvain - frozen lance, Seteth - shatter lance, Ferdinand von Aegir - lance jab)
This seems like a pretty big nerf to these characters. Seteth especially seems like her would be hit quite hard, given that you don't really have as much time to build him as you want, and to some extent just have to take him as he comes.
16 hours ago, Alef Zero said:- -changed Ingrid's magic attack arts rank from A to C+
- -changed flayn's frozen lance from A to C+
I'm a big fan of these. This would make them much more relevant.
16 hours ago, Alef Zero said:increased accuracy and crit rate of astra to +20, reduced cost to 5
This is a move in the right direction, but feels to me like it doesn't go far enough. 5 x 30% is only 150% of a regular attack, and while there are some other benefits like increasing the reliability of crit builds, it still pales in compariosn to the likes of Swift Strikes and Hunter's Volley. Especially given that Hunter's Volley can be done from range 3 and Swift Strikes can be delivered from a high movement class with Canto. Maybe make it 5 hits at 50% damage, while keeping the increased hit and crit and the reduced cost?
16 hours ago, Alef Zero said:swift strikes repurposed into paladin exclusive master art
I agree with what's already been said about this not being necessary. I think that Paladin is in a pretty good place in the base game, honestly. It's a solid option for some characters and builds, but not so strong that it dominates the meta or that you try to force characters into it even when it doesn't really fit them. Aegis is a pretty underwhelming mastery, but with high move and canto, it's strong enough as is that it doesn't need a mastery to rvial Hunter's Volley or Fierce Iron Fist.
1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:Thunder losing its (5) crit is virtually irrelevant, this is now the best D rank spell by a mile.
It is, and I'm in two minds about whether I think that's a problem or not. Overall, I think probably not? Characters who learn Thunder generally aren't overpowered (at least, not as mages) so giving them a boost doesn't seem like the worst thing. That said, if Thunder does get 3 range, it probably shouldn't have anything else going for it. If it was both the weakest of the D rank spells and the least accurate, then the extra range would still be enough to make it the best of the bunch, but not by as big a margin.
I would maybe go something like:
- Wind: Mt 3, Hit 100, Crit 10, Rng 1-2, Wt 2
- Fire: Mt 4, Hit 90, Crit 0, Rng 1-2, Wt 3
- Thunder: Mt 2, Hit 70, Crit 0, Rng 1-3, Wt 4
- Blizzard: Mt 5, Hit 70, Crit 20, Rng 1-2, Wt 3
17 hours ago, Alef Zero said:- nosferatu weight reduced to 4
- abraxas is now range 2-4 power 18, cannot double
- aura's crit reduced to 0, hit increased to 100
Offensive White Magic definitely needs buffing, for sure. The reduced weight for Nosferatu seems good, though honestly I might go even further and take it down to 2 or 3, and maybe even give the spell a little extra might. The limited uses inherent in the way that Three Houses' magic system works means that it's never going to be the menace that it is in Awakening, so I think it would be fine to tune it aggressively. Turning Abraxas into a high-range spell is a fun idea. Though at that point, I might just go the whole way and make it 3-10 range to make it a Faith equivalent of Meteor and Bolting. (And at that point, I'd probably just rename it to Purge for series consistency.) For Aura, I think that it would probably be fine to raise its hit and keep the crit. It still wouldn't compare favourably to the best Black Magic of comparable level (especially your buffed versions).
17 hours ago, Alef Zero said:defiant skills activate below 50% HP, stat boosts increased from 8 to 9, defiant avo reduced from 30 to 25, crit reduced from 50 to 25
I'm not sure what to make of these. My first impression is "they were bad before and they're still bad now", but I know that I'm just fundamentally not a fan of low HP builds, so that might just be my biases talking. It also might just be that they usually come online so late that I ignore them, and improving availability might save them. I really don't know. One thing I wish is that the effect could scale based on how much health the unit is missing. If it was "gain 1 [stat] for every 10% health below maximum" then I think I would probably like them better, but I don't know how difficult that owuld be to add in a balance patch.
But I think that the biggest problem that I have with Defiant skills is that they just aren't very interesting. Having so many late game classes have a Defiant skill as a mastery just makes me tune them out, honestly. Maybe keep around some of the better ones (like crit and avoid), combine others (eg, Defiant Def and Defiant Res combined into a single skill) and then create some new skills in place of the more uninspiring ones?
17 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Lore Accuracy changes:
- -doubled activation rate of all crest effects (save for those that cancel counter attacks, those increased by 50%)
- -buffed all hero relics and sacred weapons
- -vastly upgraded all hero relics' exclusive weapon arts
[Reliance on crest is a vital point of many characters' backstories, it's detrimental to have them so weak in the game]
This is one of those areas where it makes a big difference whether you're building this for yourself or for everyone. Because I just fundamentally disagree with this motivation. Units with crests already feel as if they have a pretty big advantage over those without, if only for their ability to safely wield Heroes' Relics, and I wouldn't want the game to feel that all the commoners were just the objectively worst characters.
I wouldn't mind seeing some of the weaker Relics (eg Aegis Shield, Blutgang, Crusher) buffed a little bit to see them brought in line with the stronger ones, but the likes of Thyrsus, Thunderbrand, Lance of Ruin, and the Lord-exclusive weapons feel plenty strong already.
Of course, if you're just doing all this for your own use, then you should prioritise whatever would be most fun for you.
17 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Vast changes to majority of classes:
One thing I notice here is that you've mostly left the Intermediate level classes untouched, whereas to me, they're one of the biggest problem points in the game. There's such a heavy incentive to pick up Death Blow or Fiendish Blow, Darting Blow if female, and maybe Hit +20, and the other mastery skills here don't compete at all except for some occasional builds that want Vantage. This leads to this tier of play feeling very stale and repetitive a lot of the time.
My first attempt at a rebalance of the Intermediate tier masteries:
- Death Blow and Fiendish Blow reduced from +6 down to +4.
- Darting Blow also reduced from +6 to +4, and moved from Pegasus Knight to Thief. This would allow male characters to pick up the skill, and remove one of the strongest masteries from the strongest Intermediate class. If you use a Pegasus Knight, your reward is having a Pegasus Knight.
- Thief still gets to keep Steal as well, since that's largely a flavour thing that gives very minimal increased power.
- To compensate Pegasus Knight, buff Triangle Attack to provide a guaranteed crit. I still don't think this is good, due to the positioning requirement, but it's something.
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Unarmed combat is thematically cool but very weak
unless you're doing a challenge run where you aren't allowed to use any items, but who would do that?so it needs a buff. I don't know what can and can't be added to something like this, but my first thought is that fighting unarmed should grant something like +4 AS and +10 avoid, to compensate for the loss of might. - Instead of Miracle, Priest gets White Magic Heal +5 as a mastery as well as a class skill. Or as an alternative, move Renewal from Bishop to Priest, and give Bishop either Heal +5 or Heal +10 as its mastery. Being able to have an equippable skill that gives a healing bonus would be very welcome for classes like Holy Knight and Gremory.
- Instead of Armored Blow, Armor Knights now get Wrath. Armored Blow is just not good. Wrath makes thematic and mechanical sense for a class that is all about being able to take hits. This would also allow vantage/wrath builds to come online a good while earlier than they currently can, which I don't think would be too OP, given that they still face numerous threats even once they're set up. Taking Wrath away from Warrior also fits in with the reassignment of War Master's strike to there.
- For Dark Mages, I like your idea of Vicious Blow.
- Archer and Mercenary stay as they are with Hit +20 and Vantage respectively. Both are already decent choices that some characters want and others don't, which I think is the sweet spot.
- Cavalier also remains unchanged. Desperation isn't particularly good, but Cavalier is in a similar place to Pegasus Knight: it's just a good class. The trade off here is "power now" versus "power later".
20 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Enlightened one - added white tomefaire
I like this. It doesn't offer all that much in teh way of extra power, but it's a good flavour win, and it might come in handy from time to time.
4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:-Mortal Savant is incredible for infantry now. 10 speed on player phase, super evade on enemy phase, magic access, decent stats otherwise? Yikes. Now even non-sword mages would strongly consider getting to C+ish sword just to get into this instead of Gremory (which has more spell uses but worse everything else).
Seconding this. I know that Mortal Savant has a bit of a bad reputation, but I think it's mostly fine as is, as a choice for characters with good magic sword arts. Maybe it could do with a bit of a boost to its speed, but this seems like overkill.
20 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Holy Knight:
Stats: +3 +3 +2 +2 +1 0 +3 +4 +4 +1
Skills: canto, swordfaire, white tomefaire
Mastery: defiant res
Req: sword B faith B riding AThere are lots of different potential ways you could take Holy Knight. Personally, I'd consider giving it Canto, White Tomefaire, and White Magic Uses x2, but pretty much anything is an improvement over Terrain Resistance. I'd probably give it a new mastery as well, since Defiant Res is terrible.
4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:-It's not a big deal, but I'd keep Hero as requiring axe instead of authority. There's a very strong tradition of Hero being an axe+sword class (GBA, DS, Awakening/Fates). Also, C authority is basically trivial by Level 20. Hero still feels weak, too (unless Sol is tuned very strong, I suppose). Maybe trade out the mostly useless Defensive Tactics for Axefaire?
Maybe replace Sol with Aether? Although that might be harder to add.
20 hours ago, Alef Zero said:falcon knight - changed req sword C to faith C, can now use magic, lowered mov to 7
This is an interesting idea, but possibly too powerful? Falcon Knight is already very strong, and with the nerfs you're proposing for Wyverns, I think there's a good argument that it's already the strongest class in the game. Maybe give it magic at half uses, just to pull things back slightly?
20 hours ago, Alef Zero said:emperor - can use magic
This is definitely welcome, but I think the Emperor class needs more than this. Maybe getting rid of the Armored Lord class entirely, and just having Edelgard start Part 2 as an Emperor, sicne Crimson Flower is shorter than the other routes? I also want to tie Raging Storm to the Emperor class, somehow, though I'm not sure what the best approach would be. But doing so would be a big buff to the underpowered Emperor class, and a nerf to Edelgard overall, since beign able to have Raging Storm on a high movement class is just busted. Maybe this:
- Edelgard starts Part 2 as Emperor
- Emperor can use magic
- Emperor class skills are Charm and Axefaire
- Emperor mastery gives Pomp & Circumstance and Raging Storm
- Raging Storm is no longer tied to Aymr, but now consumes all durability on the attacking weapon
- Aymr now allows the use of the Flickering Flower combat art
- Flickering Flower is buffed so that as well as applying the freeze effect, it now also prevents the opponent from counter-attacking (the Windsweep effect).
I have probably made this too powerful, but in fairness, vanilla Edelgard is already too powerful and I'd rather have her be too powerful in her unique class than too powerful on a wyvern.
21 hours ago, Alef Zero said:On tedium and grinding:
- class mastery exp required is halved (save for commoner but not noble)
- all faculty members join with all their acquired classes already mastered
I like the second part of this but not the first. I always thought that class masteries came in at about the right rate. Especially for Noble/Commoner, Beginner, and Intermediate classes. Maybe make Advanced classes a little bit faster but not so much as halving. Master classes do seem like they could do with beign faster, though.
9 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:Maybe reduce the requirements a smidge: say, from 20/60/100/150/200 (vanilla), to 20/50/80/120/150 (proposed).
Yeah, I'd support something along these lines.
I do like giving faculty members the masteries for their lower-tier classes, though. Not only would this get rid of some busywork, it also gives a bit of a buff to these characters, which I feel is generally needed.
21 hours ago, Alef Zero said:Meanwhile, master classes are all hybrid classes with dual faire skills and higher stats, but also higher requrements. This is meant to give a choice - a low-effort class with a unique skills after mastery, or a premium class with higher requirements.
Dual faire skills mostly just aren't very useful, IMO. There just aren't very many reasons to switch between different weapons, so it's usually better to just stick with a single specialisation. That way, you get to higher weapon rank, don't need to equip two Prowess skills, and so on. Adding magic to a class is generally good (since it gives access to the healing and utility of white magic), as is adding a mount for extra mobility. But I don't think that adding a second weapon type is ever going to be worth the cost.
21 hours ago, Alef Zero said:A random thought - do you think game would gain if all faire skills were removed from classes and replaced with other skills? There is no limit on how many requirements and proficiency bonuses classes can give (even though in the base game these are capped at 3 and 4 respectively).
Interesting question. I think that -faire skills generally do a decent job of keeping classes associated with their weapons, which does a decent job of encouraging class diversity. In the vanilla game, this gives choices like "do I put my lance user in paladin for maximum damage, or on a wyvern for extra flight?" and encourages me to have at least one sword class (typically Assassin) because I want someone to wield Thunderbrand. That sort of thing. And without that, there'd be generally clearer "best " classes, and the only question would be whether you could reasonable certify for them (which would only encourage savescumming certifications at low success chance). I mean, think how bad wyvern hegemony is, and imagine how much worse it would be if other classes didn't have advantages at using lances, swords, and bows. But that said, if you can keep class identities through other means (like with unique combat arts), then that might be enough to mitigate that concern. I think that the game would feel quite different without -faire skills, and my immediate reaction is that it would probably be a change for the worse, but I'm not confident of that.
Oh, but one thing that I will say is that if -faire skills were removed, that would make Catherine and Shamir a good bit weaker when they're initially recruited and have them lose a lot of their niche as pre-promotes. Not the end of the world, but it would be a loss.
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8 minutes ago, ARMADS!!! said:
The calculations are as complex and annoying to make as nowadays Fire Emblem Heroes with a bunch of damage reduction, extra damage and reduction of damage reduction stacked. You have no battle forecast to help you with it.
There is a battle forecast, and it's actually well-made and helpful. However, it's actually explained in-universe that the main character is a master tactician because they can see potential futures, which is an ability that they only have because of a specific magical macguffin. Said macguffin gets stolen by the enemies after chapter 3 and you don't get it back until halfway through the final map of the game, so you're playing through almost all of the game without it.
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13 minutes ago, Jotari said:
The traditional gift for 35th anniversaries is...Coral...huh...well, give me Pirate Emblem then!
Pfft. Pirate Emblem? Nah. Give me Mermaid Emblem! There's a lot you could do with a fully underwater setting.
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10 hours ago, Integrity said:
I think this is the first time I'm posting about a game after someone else in this thread did.
I think that I also did We Love Katamari before you, didn't I? But our opinions were pretty different on that one (I liked it more than you did). Regardless, I'm glad that you played this and glad you had a similar sort of experience with it to what I did. I've been spending the last decade on and off recommending it to people and having nobody listen to me, so it's good to actually see someone else playing it for once. I did see the sequel announced recently, which I was not expecting at all. Will definitely be interesting to see what they do with it.
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All enemy attacks have a floor of 1% chance to crit, that the player cannot mitigate in any way.
There's a PvP mode, and it's mandatory. Partway through the game, you get shunted into PvP and you have to get some obnoxiously large number of wins before you're allowed to continue back to the main story. You have to repeat this every time you play. And yes, of course there are pay to win microtransactions.
All your units are laguz who start the map with transform gauge at 0.
All enemy mages have at least one of: Meteor, Berserk, Sleep, Entrap, Hexing Rod.
There's a hub area. It is large and sprawling, but also completely empty and lifeless. There is no fast travel, and loading times suck. There are lots of situations where you have to go back and forth between rooms multiple times to hit as many loading times as possible. Every time you want to do anything, you have to talk to someone, and then sit through a long, poorly-acted, unskippable voice line while they reply. These are completely generic and don't change at all over the course of the game. The whole place is full of button-mashing minigames which will destroy both your controller and your hands. There is face-petting. Everything advances on a real-time basis. And literally all of this is strictly required to get even the most basic resources that you need to get through the game.
Supports exist, but they have no mechanical effect, and the support conversations are Radiant Dawn style.
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Hopefully, nothing.
This isn't to say that I hope that there won't be any new Fire Emblem in 2025, but I hope that whatever there is will be part of the natural release cycle that'll we'll get because it's ready and not specifically part of a marketing-led anniversary event. Anniversary events generally end up with either dubious quality tat, limited-edition false-scarcity FOMO nonsense, or deliberately slowed down releases to coincide with the event. I'd much rather they just make games, take the time they need to make them good, and release them when they're ready.
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This isn't an entirely new class, as such, but I'd like to see them continuing to develop the idea of unarmed combatants that they had in Three Houses and Engage. My thinking is that we could see two different class lines using brawling/arts/whatever they decide to call it, and give them distinct abilities and stats so they feel distinct from each other. First, have the Brawler class line as the strong but slow version. High strength, high def, low speed. Maybe a skill along the lines of Wary Fighter (but still allowing the unarmed brave effect). Then have the Martial Monk line be the fast and agile version, with great speed and dex but low def. And a class skill that gives them more/better crits.
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5 hours ago, Magenta Fantasies said:
As far as fan art, fan fiction, general observations in the fandom/just generally being talked about, etc. Gaius is definitely more popular than Lon’qu or Donnell, although those aren’t perfect metrics, either.
For fan fiction in particular, it's pretty simple to gauge popularity just by looking at tags on AO3. This is an imperfect metric for multiple reasons, of course, but it does give us some actual numbers to compare rather than just general hand-wavey personal experience. Looking at the counts for the different character tags, I see:
And to add a few extra data points just for comparison:
(Full disclosure: I see slightly different numbers when logged in compared to logged out, presumably due to some configuration setting that I have while logged in. The numbers I've shown are the logged out ones, though the logged in ones are not substantially different enough to change any overall conclusions.)
Pretty clearly, we see Gaius, Henry and Lon'qu at very comparable levels of popularity, with all of them being quite clearly ahead of the likes of Donnel and Basilio, but quite clearly behind Frederick. Again, this is a single metric and an imperfect one at that, and it's unwise to try to extrapolate it too far, but my limited conclusion here would be that there is no evidence from this dataset that Gaius is notably more popular among fan fiction writers than other male Awakening characters.
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1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:
* Reduce score to 8/10 on initial release of game with day 1 Prothean dlc, and war assets locked behind multiplayer.
I have some seriously mixed feelings about Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. On the one hand, it was actually a lot of fun and I have some really fond memories of playing it and the people I played it with. On the other hand, it also had pay-to-win lootboxes, and is one of the big reasons why I don't let myself touch anything with microtransactions these days. Which is probably why the war assets were locked behind it, to funnel as many people into this exact scenario.
1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:- Controversial ending (personally, I think the hate is way overblown)
I agree with this, though. I really didn't have a problem with even the original version of the ending. And while there were some completely valid criticisms of it, so much of the hate was just Whiny Gamer Tears (TM).
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I never found Team Rocket to be particularly compelling or effective. In theory, sure, an organised crime boss should be more grounded and compelling than some of the super villains that followed, but I never felt that this really meshed well with everything else the game was doing. Because ultimately, there are two unescapable facts about Team Rocket: in gameplay, they're all a bunch of incompetent mooks who you will breeze past without breakign a sweat; in story, their entire crime syndicate gets taken down by a ten year old. I find it impossible to take them seriously, so I prefer the more over-the-top teams that lean into the fact that they are jokes.
(Though my favourite team are Team Yell, because I think there's some interesting commentary about class dynamics hidden under their goofy exterior, but this probably isn't the right topic to go too deep into that.)
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On 4/26/2024 at 7:48 PM, Revier said:
I think a finer version of that point would simply be, "Not every scene/dialogue in a story needs to have deep meaning or purpose."
Agreed, and I'll add to this that not every part of a work has to have the same purpose. It's perfectly fine for a single piece of media to have one part that is deep meaningful commentary about the futility of war, another part that is a fluffy romance story, and another part that is just fart jokes. In fact, I'd say it's generally better if not everything about a story is a part of a single unified focus. For anything longer than a short story, if you don't have these tangents, then the work as a whole will tend to get very tedious and repetitive. A good story should be able to make multiple points or evoke multiple emotions.
On 4/26/2024 at 5:54 AM, Jotari said:To defend our taste in fictional universes, Fire Emblem is much less a franchise than most franchise. Since it entirely changes it setting and cast every five years. Sure we have fifty something versions of ghost cameo Marth, but by and large each new Fire Emblem entry (or every second entry) is a new story and not a sequel or a reboot. It is a franchise in the technical sense, but compared to other franchises Fire Emblem functions more of a brand name than a real franchise.
Yes and no. While the settings and casts do change, a lot of the other baggage stays the same. The game mechanics mostly just see minor tweaks and refinements, and a lot of tropes and themes get reused time and again. Nobody is going to be surprised if the next Fire Emblem game has a setting that feels vaguely like medieval Europe except with magic, has dragons that lose their minds as they get old, and has a protagonist whose dad dies. As fans, we can easily point out the differences, but I imagine that's true for fans of pretty much any other franchise. A fan could probably tell me why Big Brother 24 was actually totally different from Big Brother 23 (they have a completely different cast, after all!) but as someone who isn't a fan, the differences are meaningless to me. All I see is yet another series of a show that I don't care about.
On 4/26/2024 at 5:54 AM, Jotari said:Not sure I explained that well, so I'll just post a Simpsons clip that encapsulates what I'm talking about.
I am absolutely that person, with the exception that what I was with was never it to begin with.
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On 4/26/2024 at 4:56 AM, Hrothgar777 said:
Unrelated to the poll (which I did answer), remaking these games would be an amazing opportunity to let you play the villains for once. Team Plasma was about the only team that had an actual, coherent, morally relevant point and they weren't bat$#!+ crazy.
Personally, I'm a big fan of Team Yell (despite not liking SwSh overall) and think that they also meet those criteria.
Anyway, thinking about this further, I'm going to posit an unpopular opinion: Gen V (and subsequent generations) shouldn't be remade at all. We all expect that they will be, because remakes are just a thing that Pokémon does at this point, but really, what purpose does a remake even serve at this point? Yeah, the remakes would be more accessible than the originals, but that can be solved easily enough by sticking the originals up on Swith Online or the equivalent. And OK, there's some issues with translating the dual screens to systems that don't have them, but that only really needs a fairly basic port rather than a full remake. I feel there are a bunch of more interesting games that could be made with the resources rather than just another remake of somethign that already exists.
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I can't see this working very well for Gen X
or any other generational cohortbut it could make for an interesting spin-off game. For the main series, I think there have just been too many things that have been added over the years, and while most people would probably agree that only a few of those things are core to the series, they probably wouldn't agree on exactly which things. What are we keeping and what are we cutting? Breeding? Shinies? A large pokédex? Abilities? Held items? Natures? Double battles? A battle facility? A post-game? Character customisation? Move deleter? Move relearner? The physical/special split? And many more. I know there are some of those things that I wouldn't want to do away with and others that I could happily do without. You probably have your list as well and they are probably not the same list. So it seems like it would be a big risk for them to do this with their flagpole release and risk alienating a bunch of people.But for a spin-off? Yeah, absolutely. Go with 2D pixel graphics, have a limited pokédex of only 151 pokémon, very simplified story, minimal extraneous features, and maybe a $30 price tag? That sounds like a lot of fun to me, and probably more likely to get me personally back into Pokémon than actual Gen X (still funny) will. And since it would be a lower effort and lower stakes game than the main series, it would probably be more reasonable for them to put something like that out into the world and just see how successful it would be and what sort of appetite there is for it. I doubt that they actually will do something like this, but I would like to see it.
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Games that are just straight-up clones of other games are pretty rare when it comes to major publishers and full-priced games. Presumably because if you're copying another game so closely, you have built-in competition right from the beginning, and that competition is much more established than you are. If someone else put out a game that was Fire Emblem in everything but name, then who's the market for it? People who didn't want to play Fire Emblem probably arne't going to want to play your new game either, and for the people who were playing Fire Emblem, a lot of them will be thinking "yeah, but I already play Fire Emblem so why do I need this too?" And sure, there'll be some die-hard fans who will just be hungryfor any new content they can get, but for a clone to do better than the game it's copying, it would pretty much have to be phenomenally good. And this is fine if you're a small indie studio and have relatively much lower standards for success. And this is fine if the game that you're copying is CoD or WoW or something else that is just printing money. But otherwise? Probably not.
I mean, thinking about it, there are a lot of very popular games that have few or no direct clones. How many games can you think of that you'd describe as Animal Crossing clones, or Legend of Zelda clones, for instance. I can think of a few, but not many, and most of the ones that do come to mind for me are smaller indie titles. That isn't to say that there aren't other life sims or other action adventure games, of course, same as there are absolutely a lot of other TRPGs. But direct clones are pretty rare. Games like Triangle Strategy or Unicorn Overlord do things that Fire Emblem don't do, which means they can potentially attract people who don't want to play FE, for whatever reason.
On 4/26/2024 at 5:00 AM, Revier said:By letting the player build friendships and romances between their characters, the games let them write "their" fanfiction and watch it play out, in a sense. Of course, the exact lines, outcomes and events are still predetermined, but there's certainly an element of player creation/choice in the whole system, which some people frown at. I personally don't have too much trouble with the idea behind it, I just wish they were implemented more organically.
OK, so a few comments here.
First, I'm still confused by why you brought up slash fiction. If I'm wrong here, then please correct me, but are you using "slash fiction" as synonymous with "fan fiction"? Because that's not what the term generally means. The exact definition is somewhat difficult to pin down, as you'd expect for a neologism that's only been around for about half a century, but slash fiction almost universally refers to fanfiction with same-sex romantic or sexual pairings (sources: Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary, Fanlore) so if you're using it more generically then you're likely to generate a lot of confusion. and if you aren't using it generically, then I'm very confused, because Fire Emblem has only a handful of queer characters across its 30+ year history.
Beyond that, I still don't think that I agree with your overall point. While support conversations are a pretty well established part of Fire Emblem's identity these days, I don't think that explicitly romantic support conversations really are. Unless I'm forgetting something, they've only been particularly prominent in Awakening and Fates, and are much less important in other games. (I have not played it, but my understanding is that Genealogy also has prominent romance, but not through a supports system.) So while I would agree that there are some people who don't care for Fire Emblem's support conversations, I don't think that it's the romance elements that are turning them away.
And finally, I think that the association of character-based storytelling with fanfiction is a strange one. I don't doubt that it's an association that some people have, because if the Internet has taught me anything, it's that no idea is too weird for someone somewhere to genuinely hold it. But I still think this is a weird one. Plenty of stories across all media put much more focus on characters and their relationships than Fire Emblem ever has. The two main complaints that I see from people who don't care for FE's support systems are that they think they're poorly written (subjective, but fair enough) or that they personally want games with more emphasis on tactical combat and less on storytelling (again, entirely fair to have that preference). The fanfic connection is just bizarre to me.
So, in short: I am still pretty confused by your comment, but I am trying to understand.
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On 4/20/2024 at 2:43 PM, vanguard333 said:
Even the director of Three Houses: Toshiyuki Kusakihara, had that mindset; saying in an interview about Three Houses' development that, "I don't think there's much value to a story you can easily predict."
I'm entirely in agreement with everyone else saying that twists for the sake of twists are terrible and that there are no truly original stories. So I have to wonder if something was lost in translation here. Because, honestly, this kind of just makes him come across as a bit of a bozo. It just makes me assume that there is some sort of context or nuance that isn't coming across.
On 4/19/2024 at 1:24 AM, Jotari said:My point wasn't that it's impossible to ignore such stuff, in fact it's rather the opposite, it's all there and easily accessible. My point is that the vast majority of people simply won't.
I was thinking about this some more, and realised that there is a pretty notable exception to this general trend: music. Sure, the absolute most basic and milquetoast taste in music is just to listen to whatever happens to be in the charts at that the time, but listening to decades old music is pretty common and unremarkable. If someone is really into 60s music or 80s music then that's not likely to raise eyebrows in the same way as someone who's really into 60s movies or 80s novels.
I wonder if this is just because of the relative time commitments. Watching a movie takes about 2 hours. Reading a novel takes maybe 5-10 hours. Listening to a song takes about 3 minutes. This means that most of us are going to be listening to a whole lot more songs than we are watching movies or reading novels, so maybe that's what encourages us to be a bit more diverse in our consumption?
Back to the main topic, I've also thought of another trend that I am weary of: endless sequels, prequels, midquels, remakes, demakes, remasters, reimaginings, spin-offs, adaptations, extended universes, cinematic universes, alternate universes, and so on. Which isn't to say that media franchises are inherently a bad thing. I mean, we're sitting here having this discussion on a fan site for a game series that has seen somewhere between 14 and 25 games, depending on how you count. Any individual new game or movie that's part of a bigger franchise isn't really the problem. Rather, the problem is the absence -- or at least the paucity -- of original stand-alone titles.
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On 4/25/2024 at 1:37 AM, Revier said:
b. Romance/Support systems. While a decent portion of the Fire Emblem fanbase likes them, many outside it think that they are a bit cringeworthy, as they basically validate slash fiction. Also, it is rather absurd to have people fall in love on a battlefield, so having these systems at all can make a game look more ridiculous.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by the bolded part here? Because, honestly, this just seems like such a completely nonsensical statement to me that I figure we must be coming from a radically different understanding of things, and I'm really curious to know what you mean here.
On the main topic: yeah, it all depends on exactly how similar to FE we're talking about. If you're willing to accept anything that's even vaguely similar if you squint enough, then there are a ton. If you're only looking for games that are basically Fire Emblem with the serial numbers filed off, then there aren't many. A more fruitful question might be to ask about games that share more specific qualities with Fire Emblem. So, "TRPGs with clearly divided player phase and enemy phase" or "TRPGs with simple enough combat mechanics that you can do all the arithmetic in your head" or so on.
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8 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:
Frankly, Gen 4 is also bottom tier Pokemon, salvaged only by Platinum fixing some of its issues. So the lack of quality in BDSP wasn't even surprising.
Honestly, Gen 4 is the generation that I personally had the most fun with. Admitedly, a big part of that was the people that I played it with, but I also didn't really have any of the problems with it that people often talk about these days.
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When you pick your units for the tower, you must pick your 10 lowest level units.
The intent here being to turn it into a "use everyone" sort of run, since if your lowest level units are completely untrained, then they aren't going to help in the Tower. But at the same time, having only the single point where the rule is enforced allows you more flexibility in how you approach things, and exactly when, where and how you decide to train everyone up.
(And yes, there are obvious cheese strats that you could do here, either by deliberately getting a bunch of bad units killed or by low-manning 4-E with the handful of compulsory units, but I think we all know better than to play self-imposed challenges in ways that remove both the challenge and the fun.)
Idea: Pokemon Team Rocket Version
in Pokémon
Posted
I'm now imagining a table with three pokéballs on it, and you're told to pick your starter from the three pokémon that are offered. You look in the first ball and it's a zubat. Well, that's not a great start, but let's see which pokémon are in the other two. You look in the second and it's also a zubat. The third: another zubat. Welcome to Team Rocket.