[So what were your overall opinions about Engage?]

My wife just bought me this game as a birthday present. She's generally anti-video game but knows that I love them and figures that with the birth of our first child coming next week, I won't be able to sit for hours playing (she's not wrong).

 

Anyway, I'm midway through Chapter 4 and I have some early thoughts:

- The Engage stuff is really cool but isn't really explained well from a game mechanic standpoint. Having to wait until Chapter 4 Preparations in order to properly see the stats and stuff to understand what is truly going on isn't ideal.

- The animation design is certainly a choice. I'm personally not the biggest fan of pushing it more towards traditional JRPG looks but I always thought that the FE9 and FE10 designs looked the cleanest. I prefer the look of Three Houses as more realistic looking than pure fantasy as this has.

- Difficulty is excellent. Started the game on Hard and actually Game Over'd in Chapter 3 due to bad strategy. The chapters before that have also nearly had me at points. My first playthrough is an Ironman so that's made me start playing smarter.

- I love that movement has been decreased to 4 with cavalry getting 5 move before promotion. They still have 25% more move than everyone else but that along with no more Canto (unless your name is Sigurd) immediately nerfs any horseback units properly and makes armours more useful. This was a great decision.

- The design team for unit skills needs to be taken out back and shot for the monstrosity of a skill on Etie. The rest are mediocre but that one is egregiously bad.

- Camera is awful. Three Houses had a perfect in battle camera for both the map and combats.

That's my thoughts through 3.5 chapters. Overall, I'm impressed.

[What is your unpopular video game opinion?]

Oh boy, I've got some.

• FFVII is not a good game. There is far too much nostalgia surrounding it and when you play it, it becomes apparent. I'm not talking about the aging; the game came out 25 years ago and shouldn't be punished for that. The issue is that the vast majority of major characters lack a real personality and the game is simply boring at a lot of different points. It shouldn't even be ranked in Final Fantasy's top 5 games of the series.
• Baten Kaitos Origins is the best JRPG to exist on the Nintendo Gamecube.
• Assassin's Creed has gotten worse over the years.

[Favorite Zelda game?]

For me, I'm stuck between Link's Awakening DX (the original GameBoy version) and Breath of the Wild.

Link's Awakening was my first ever Zelda game at around age 10 and I remember sinking so many hours into that game trying to beat it. I still consider it to be the gold standard of Zelda back when you really had to figure shit out.

That being said, Breath of the Wild was just different. I remember the number of times where I would just stop and say to myself "Wait, I can do that?!". Like when I first figured out how to cook (I think it was like 10~15 hours into the game) or snowboarding. It was just pure fun.

[Soooooo what'cha playing?]

I'm really only playing 3 games right now (outside of anything FE related):

Super Mario Odyssey - It's a fun game to replay and try to get as many moons without any internet help. I think my current playthrough is in Seaside Kingdom right now. It helps that my Switch is hooked up to the bedroom television.

Sid Meier's Civilization VI (2180 hours)  - My favourite game of all time. However, I don't really get time to play it since my wife hates video games. I did get to play a bunch this weekend but I probably won't boot it up again for at least a month. I'm pretty much only on Diety difficulty (Immortal got too easy if you have a solid earlygame).

Assassin's Creed Odyssey (217 hours) - I bought this game in Feb 2019 and I'm still on my first playthrough. Just like Civ, this is a game that I never get to play and it's MASSIVE. Booting it up on Nightmare difficulty means that I've literally just gotten to the Olympic in Elia about 3 years later. Please no spoilers.

[Soooo, What'cha Watching?]

22 hours ago, helumeyers said:

Currently i am watching The Vampire Diaries with my friends. Conflicting vampire brothers Stefan and Damon compete for the attention of enthralling youngster Elena while trapped in adolescent bodies.

Vampire Diaries was fun. My wife basically twisted my arm into watching it and I'm glad she did.

[FE4 AAAA Ranking Run]

So after the arena in Chapter 7, my promoted Seliph is now literally a god. And this is still Turn 1.

I've also included a quick and dirty model that I just built to understand where his stats should be. HP, Strength, and Speed are all above at least 1 standard deviation while Magic, Luck, Defense, and Resistance are below 1. Offensively excellent, lacking a bit defensively.

God bless the Paragon Band.

EDIT: The model is based off of my FE7 stats model where you can accurately determine how good or bad a unit is. If you're interested, please take a look at it.

 

 

[FE4 AAAA Ranking Run]

55 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Damn, how did you get these values? I've never come close to level-capping any of these early-departing units.

Woah - I went with almost all of these pairings on my most recent playthrough! The only difference I can identify is, I paired Raquesis with Azelle, for funky magic sword shenanigans in Gen II. I was especially happy with Dew's Sword Twins (Bargain translates into Paragon with 20K gold) and Lex x Sylvia (20 exp from each dance gives me feelings of power).

Deirdre: B Staves is a godsend for her. Three Silence uses (twice on Sandima and third on Clement) gives you 3 levels. Three rounds of a full Warp Staff gives you another 18. After that, a little bit of combat and all three arenas to date should get you to 30. Deirdre can usually OHKO the early stuff in the arena and has access to Prayer for some shenanigans.

Ethlyn: Similar story but you're working with Return instead of Warp. Ethlyn's advantage is that she's mounted, allowing her to keep up with your army. You can burn the staff fully in the first two chapters (with cause, I might add) and use the arena to help. Cool thing about Ethlyn's arena: She has A Swords and Critical, meaning that she can clear the arena with the Silver Sword if you play the RNG right.

Quan: He's the toughest to level quickly. My trick was to feed him the highest level enemies where possible. The Paragon Band comes in Chapter 2 so Quan should be picking that up and only doing the arena afterwards. Maximize the amount of time that he holds the Paragon Band and he should hit about 25 by the end of Chapter 3. Past that, experience given by enemies is just too low that it's not worth going for much more.

 

Honestly, the entire first generation is all about money management. I had to plan out weapon inheritances quite early since some are quite costly (Beowulf really comes to mind).

[FE4 AAAA Ranking Run]

So I've been working on a Ranked run of this game for a while, but I didn't want to post anything until I finished Gen 1. Since the RNG in this game is fixed, I have a VERY detailed log of every single move I've made so far and I might eventually record the run in its entirety so that people can see some cool strategies that I've come up with.

In the meantime, here's the results of Gen 1.

Pairings:

Aideen x Jamke - This is about as standard as you get. Lester gets full inheritance (Silver Bow, Brave Bow, Killer Bow) and all the multi-hit skills aside from Pursuit. He'll also have the Skill Ring to make up for the low Skill growth. Lana has about 5 different staves for easy experience early (Mend, Physic, Recover, Warp, Silence). Pairing was achieved in Chapter 3, Turn 12.

Ayra x Dew - This is easily the most offbeat pairing I've ever done but I have to say, I quite like its practical application when grinding for it. Dew and Ayra have the same move and it gives Dew a bodyguard while he swipes the cash from a lot of enemies. Once Dew promotes, Ulster gets full inheritance so I gave him a Steel Blade while Larcei gets the 50 Kill Silver Sword. Most importantly, both kids get Bargain, allowing them to basically ram level 30 in the arena without requiring a lot of cash. Pairing was achieved in Chapter 3, Turn 12.

Rachesis x Beowulf - All I care about is full inheritance for Dermott along with Pursuit. This pairing required a LOT of cash for Beowulf since his weapons cost a total of 23000G (Silver Blade, Slim Sword, Armorslayer, Wingslayer), along with a 40000G Renewal Band. Nanna's inheritance consists of the Earth Sword, Prayer Sword, Return and Restore (I would have loved to pass down Rachesis's Silver Axe but meh...). Pairing was achieved in Chapter 4, Turn 16.

Sylvia x Lex - I spent a lot of time thinking about this pairing but ultimately decided that Paragon is too important of a skill to let go to waste. In addition, for Sylvia to hit level 30, she needed all 6 villagers in Chapter 4, along with a Paragon Band run of the Arena in Chapter 5, on top of spending 40000G on the Knight Ring. As for Caipre, he'll inherit a Return Ring for an instant cash transaction when he arrives. Pairing was achieved in Chapter 4, Turn 27.

Taillte x Lewyn - Horsety and the Bargain Band to fund it. Plus, Tinny inherits Elwind in this transaction. Honestly, I'd rather have Forseti from midway in Chapter 6 than halfway in Chapter 8 on a unit who only has 16 more levels to gain and can do so via staff usage. Pairing was achieved in Chapter 5, Turn 12.

Fury x Claude - Making this pairing really had me sweating it out. Fury doesn't want to be chained to Claude for both Chapter 4 and 5 since she has some tasks that she'd like to do (village saving, siege mage killing...). However, by sending Fury out over the sea in Chapter 3 to help out Claude, Taillte, and Bridget, you can actually work in a bunch of turns to help out the love growth. Fee's inheritance is awesome (B Staves and full inheritance) with her getting the Brave Lance, Horseslayer, Thief Sword, and also the Wind Sword along with the Magic Ring for Magic Sword Fee. Ced's staves are Fortify, Sleep, and Valkyria. Pairing was achieved in Chapter 5, Turn 17.

Bridget x Holyn - The problem with pairing Dew with Ayra is that Bargain on your thief is invaluable for a run where money directly translates into experience. That being said, Holyn gives Patty something that Dew can't: the ability to get through the arena before promotion with B Swords and Luna. Bargain does also help Faval fund his Yewfelle use but Ayra won out in the end of the day. Patty also got the Power Ring and Barrier Ring for early help (and cash flows should someone else need them). Pairing was achieved in Chapter 5, Turn 21.

Celice/Lief/Altenna/Finn - Seliph gets the usual smattering of Speed Ring/Shield Ring/Leg Ring/Paragon Band along with the Brave Sword and Light Brand as his weapons. Lief gets the other Silver Sword, Thunder Sword and Pursuit Ring to facilitate his early damage issues with no Pursuit. Altena inherits the Gae Bolg, Silver Lance, Javelin and other Return Ring while Finn has the other Silver Lance and Javelin (he finished Chapter 3 at 20.04).

Tactics:

Prologue: 13

Chapter 1: 35

Chapter 2: 39

Chapter 3: 29

Chapter 4: 34

Chapter 5: 33

Total: 183 out of 399

Experience:

Gen 1: 583 levels out of a possible 606

Deirdre - 30.00

Quan - 27.10

Ethlyn - 30.00

Finn - 20.04

[Soooo, What'cha Watching?]

My wife and I have been doing marathons of TV shows over the last few years:

• Friends
• Modern Family
• Fringe
• The Vampire Diaries
• The Originals
• Jane The Virgin
• Wednesday
• Teen Wolf (ongoing)

If I had to recommend one, Jane The Virgin was really fun to watch.

[How screwed is my unit? (Excel model inside)]

On 11/23/2022 at 4:08 AM, MadBoar said:

On my S ranked run of HHM, I made sure to complete every side chapter. The rankings page does record the number of chapters you completed. To reach 19xx, I had to go through Lyn mode. I decided to solo Lyn mode with Sain. (I did not use any other units because I needed them at low levels for my experience rank in HHM). I promoted Sain at level 20.  Lyn's chapters are very short, so I decided to reset for Sain's level ups. I made sure he maxed out strength, and also gained as much skill as reasonable. I needed him to gain these stats to defeat Kishuna in chapter 19x.

Time is a very valuable resource to fire Emblem players. On any given Lyn mode chapter, find the expectation value (of time), for Sain to gain both strength and skill. Which strategies minimize the expectation value of time? 

This statistics problem would be most relevant to Thracia, because of the movement growths and movement stars. For example, a 2 turn or 3 turn clear of Thracia's chapter 1. 

Well, the first thing that you need to realize is to reach 19xx, you have to spend 69 turns in Lyn Mode from the start of Chapter 7.

Next, enemy density/exp gains makes this a really difficult problem to parse out.

Honestly, I don't know where I would even start here.

[How screwed is my unit? (Excel model inside)]

Yeah, Excel really makes everything easier.

While I can do all of the calculations by hand, the =BINOM.DIST.RANGE formula calculates P(X>=k) for me. Sigma is manually calculated (=SQRT(n*p*q)) and =BINOM.INV is set to 0.5 so that I can replicate a normal distribution using CLT and determine what a unit's projected stats at any given level should be.

What makes this model unique is that I focused on being able to account for an early promotion. Got a 10/5 Sain and want to know where he sits? You got it!

[How screwed is my unit? (Excel model inside)]

So, one of my passions is creating models. And while playing FE7 (one of my favourite games due to the ranking system), I decided to create a model to determine how good (or bad) my unit's stats are.

Before I go into the model itself, here's a little statistics lesson for anyone who's interested:

Quote

On this page, SF has FE7's average growths using the "growth rate * level" method to determine a unit's average stats. While easy to use, this method is mathematically incorrect.

Let's say you flip a coin and it lands on heads. A coin has two sides and (assuming that it is a fair coin) a 50% chance of landing on either one. Therefore, the next flip should come up tails, correct?

Well, you flip the coin and... heads again! How is that possible?

Each individual flip of the coin has a 50% chance of landing on heads and 50% chance of landing on tails. But flipping a coin any amount of even times will not necessarily end up with an equal number of heads and tails results! A coin flip is random and each result is randomized. It just happens that each individual flip has a 50% chance of either outcome.

In statistics, we refer to a set of coin flips (or any other test with a TRUE/FALSE result) as a binomial distribution. Given the number of trials and the percentage outcome of what we choose to be a success/fail, we can determine the probability of X or more successes. This is defined as Bin~X(n,p) where n is the number of trials and p is the probability of success in each individual trial.

Now that the statistics lesson is out of the way, here's how it applies to FE7 and the model below.

When a unit levels up, they either gain a point in a stat or they don't, therefore creating a binomial distribution. Since I can accurately determine the percentage success of any stat up for any unit, I can then also determine what contributes as a good, great or terrible unit for a given stat. Your Hector gained Spd 10 levels in a row? Well, now you can see just how good he is.

To use it, simply choose your unit, enter their level and promotion level (leave promotion level blank for unpromoted units) and choose Hard Mode if you want to see HHM bonuses. After that, just enter each individual stat and you'll get your results back.

Here's what the model accounts for:

• Early promotion
• Stat caps before and after promotion
• Hector Hard Mode bonuses

I haven't added anything for stat boosters yet but outside of that, it should be good to go. I'm looking for serious feedback and problems in the model so please play around with it.

Note: The model itself is protected and has hidden cells. If you want to unprotect and unhide them, go ahead but be warned that without a serious background in both Excel and statistics, you may break the model itself.

Note #2: A stat within 1 st.dev of its projected value is considered "normal", 2 st.devs is "blessed/screwed" and anything above 2 st.devs is "epic/fail".

Have fun, guys.

Stats - Testing.xlsx