Constable Reggie
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Posts posted by Constable Reggie
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Even if there is no gameplay importance to half a map I still think it can qualify for good level design.
You would think this invalidates it, though. Non-open world games should not include vasts amounts of nothing in their levels. If it's in the level, it should at least hold some kind of gameplay relevance. And unless the game has a strong mutual link between story and gameplay (ie Fe4), the story aspect of it should be considered after the gameplay aspect. And while 14x kinda does have a gameplay aspect to it, it's handled so damn poorly it might as well not exist.
If an FPS included a level with two paths; one that basically leads immediately to the next set piece, while the other is like 10x longer than the first with the same amount of enemies as the short path, would that be acceptable game design?
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You're really not helping your case as you're basically describing turtling. Looks like Baldrick was right. You do know there's speeds between a crawl and ltc? It may not work for tier listing, but it accurately describes the typical speed of the general Fe player.
As for details
it doesn't matter that in chapter 15, lalum needs to recruit perceval, who is in the opposite direction of the hammerne village.The hammerne village is moderately easy to reach without a dancer. Even disregarding that, Percival and co follow you, giving you no real reason to have the dancer go towards him, unless you need to get him immediately for ltc. Either way, the rest of the level is still garbage.
it doesn't matter that in chapters 17I through 19I, the ballista AI can be manipulated to attack certain decoys based on smart trading of the delphi shield. it doesn't matter that in chapters 20I, 22, and 23, enemy staff users target combat-ready units in reverse deployment order, a detail that is essential for developing reliable strategies.How the fuck is anyone supposed to figure this out normally and how does this equate to good level design?
it doesn't matter that in chapter 22, there's a neat trick involving merlinus where you can transport the warp staff from the right side of the map to the left side of the map.This equates to good level design how?
or that the chapter requires some of the most demanding rescue-drop sequences of any game in the franchise.Really? I had no problem beating that chapter without any rescue-drop. And for the record, I was neither turtling nor ltcing.
Well, at least you're citing actual evidence for your argument, as opposed to your feelings. It's a step up, I guess.
no, once you lower the bar, "tedious" simply becomes a word without meaning. of course the game is tedious if every map can be beaten with the same stale formula.The game's tedious because it severely draws out most conventional styles of play and doesn't offer incentive to do anything different. Fe7/8 have very tight, well built maps and different objectives (optional and mandatory) to keep new chapters feeling (for lack of a better term) fresh. Fe6 does not.
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i can already predict the response if i went over each of these maps and explained how they're fun: "they're only fun in LTC!" so i've spared myself the effort.
Way to strengthen your assertion that you're not only considering ltc play.
I don't care how you think they're fun, I care about your substantiated opinion as to how Fe6's level design is not bad/tedious. Since the only things you've countered with so far are "Fe7's is worse because its harder to ltc", "fe6 level design is better suited to my very niche style of play", and "fe6 is fun", I'm just gonna assume you concede the point.
if there exists a casual player who uses a flying unit (a lot of casual players use milady), that flying unit can inadvertently be played differently in chapter 19SInadvertently =/= enough to merit discussion. Flying over the wall in place of going through the gate or just for the hell of it does not count, as that barely constitutes playing differently. No typical player is going to send a lone flier or two over the wall straight into magic/bows.
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all of these maps are super fun except for 19S and the gaidens, and the gaidens are mostly tolerable.
This is like responding to filmic criticism of the Bayformers movies with "but they're fun"
do i need evidence to back up the claim that a change to the map will result in a change to how the map is played? this is almost a tautology.Quit generalizing and back up your claim against my specific claim. Allowing 1-2 units of a player's team to traverse over walls will not change a casual-pace player's style of play, at least not enough to merit discussion.
baldrick just committed the same fallacy that i asked him not to commit, so this is not some "witch hunt bs."Nu-uh, he also mentioned turtling.
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the real reason FE7's maps take longer to LTC is because FE7 has those terribly designed defense chapters on top of everything else.
So having different mission objectives which, again, relieves the tedious nature of Fe6's one objective, results in more tedium than 6's levels because they're slower to ltc?
all of this is asserted without evidence, because - surprise, surprise - none of this is true.Do I seriously have to point out specific examples for you? Come on, show some initiative.
13: The majority of the map is straight, wide bridges.
14x: Already discussed in detail
15: stupidly long, wide trail to get to the throne.
16: long pathways to get to the throne. Lack of enemy density. Inclusion of Douglas somewhat mitigates this.
18I: Do I seriously have to explain why this is tedious
18S: Huge open map that is poorly utilized
19S: No explanation needed
20xI: lol one of the most uncreative levels ever. Literally nothing but corridors.
21: stupidly excessively large map. The overabundance of wyvern enemies negates significant strategic use of level layout
21x: stupidly excessively large map. The design in particular means excessive traversing without use of fliers
22: stupidly excessively large map. Nothing but straight corridors. Switches add even more pointless traversing
the fact that the meat of the map is permeable to player units within the first 12 turns is not going to change how players approach the map? lol, don't be ridiculous.I was mocking your lack of evidence to back your claim (which you are now hypocritically doing to me lol). And no, the ability for an average of 1-2 units being able to fly over walls will not significantly affect the typical style of play. The exception to this, of course, is for ltc/efficient/niche playthroughs, which I've already mentioned.
the allegation that i can only be talking about LTC is just a trick to discredit whatever points i bring up.Jesus dude quit the witch hunt bs you're pulling here. Your main counterpoints to the good/bad level design of Fe6 have been in the context of ltc play, and generally inapplicable to a more casual style.
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how are these maps tedious? you're simply declaring that they're tedious, even though FE6 HM can be completed in fewer turns than FE7 HHM.
If FE7's maps take longer to ltc because it's harder to move Florina w/Hector the straight 8 tiles per turn right up to the throne then I consider that a win for 7.
Before you complain that ltc is more than just this, keep in mind that this is an exaggeration built on the evidence in your own posts. Fe7 is harder to better ltc because of more significant obstacles to the go-to flier/rescuedrop/warp ltc strategy that Fe6 better accommodates.
6's levels are more tedious because the map design is dull, uninspired, and needlessly large, with several maps just being straight lines and large open areas, or otherwise similarly rudimentary layout. This, for just one example, results in less utilization of terrain/layout for one's advantage.
In other words, more tedious.
this guy went the long way in his LP: http://lparchive.org...eals/Update 30/
clearly, many casual players prefer to go the long way around because 1) the bolting sage is dangerous and 2) they like to rout maps.
A) one obscure LP is not indicative of the typical style of play
B) the player has already been punished due to his decision to turtle by stranding the majority of his units in the starting point. Forcing the rest of his units (which could have easily passed the short path had he not WAITED for the rest of his units to catch up) to take an even longer detour on top of that is tedium
a minor objective is tucked away in a corner of a map. what part of this constitutes "full utilization?" well, i shouldn't have to point out how ridiculous this statement is.
I'm sorry, could you point out to me where I said that the inclusion of chests was the ONLY thing that constituted completely utilization of the level?
This along with the other design choices of the level allow for multiple styles of play with differing rewards and outcomes. A chapter as robust as that is something I would consider full utilization of good level design.
of course it would.of course it wouldn't.
no, actually, i am allowed to do this, because i assume that the users here have some power of inference. RFoF implied that warpskipping in FE6 doesn't require one to "plan accordingly." my implication was that this was false.Whoa whoa whoa stop that inference because it makes no sense at all. Even if she was somehow inferring that it doesn't require planning for Fe6 ltc (which she didn't, as she straight up says "easier time ltcing" in response to your constant mentioning of 7's difficulty of ltc. As the benchmark for "easier" is, according to you, the very difficult Fe7, this in no way equates "easier" to "mindless"), her post was primarily focused on only 14x vs 28x. In response to this, you automatically assumed she was extending this to the whole of 7 vs 6 (which, although uncertain, leans toward she wasn't due to the quoted post and no indication of hers for otherwise) and hit back with a response that missed the point of her post entirely.
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i ask you not to pillory me when i felt no need to parrot irysa's excellent points.
Sorry but when you start your post with "the short answer is" with the content being completely unrelated to above post, I'm going to take your post as its own separate opinion unrelated to the one above it.
ein is being intellectually dishonest by purposely misrepresenting what i said. you always have to worry about enemies successfully hitting allied units, but the hallmark of poor map design is forcing the player to go into coinflip situations. this is why, for example, FE12 map design is rated so highly, because it utilizes high quality enemies to reduce the incidence of these situations.I vehemently disagree. For me at least, the greatest indication of poor level design is tedium. This is why any level where you can easily get lost (either due to a confusing map or lack of information from the game), or have your time wasted with vasts amount of nothing for no reason is usually terrible. Fe6 (particularly past midgame) has long and boring straight corridor-like OR vastly open maps with no real sense of thought put behind them. 14x is tedious. 19S is tedious. 21x/22 is REALLY tedious.
i'm not sure how you can say this with a straight face. the entirety of FE6 chapter 14x is "necessary" because should the player fulfill the three requirements of turtling, not deploying a flier, and not deploying a berserker, he has to go the long way around. FE7 chapter 28x is more or less the exact same; the existence of 3 chests in the NE corner really has little bearing on "full utilization" of the map.Your rationalization of "necessary" doesn't really make sense. Players are already punished for turtling: the tiles disappear, which greatly encourages the player to rush ahead. A breakneak speed isn't required to reach the short path, IIRC it's pretty liberal in the time it gives you. The long way has little reason to exist other than for aesthetics. The necessity for very specific team composition should not factor into the thought process behind level design.
It absolutely and positively does have bearing on it. The inclusion of the chests signify an optional objective that requires more strategic input to reach. It doesn't take a game design major to understand how these things generally breakup monotonous gameplay.
in this respect, both are equally terrible - that is to say, i don't really care about that. if you don't go into each map with a full complement of fliers, that's your bad decision. the FE7 version has more variance in the accuracy of enemy LRT users and more staff users that cannot be easily dealt with, so it's worse.I'm terribly sorry the game developers didn't prioritize 0% ltc as their main target audience.
chapter 19S is a pretty shitty map, but it would be much better if you could fly over the outer walls.This wouldn't change anything except for a small niche style of play.
maybe you should try warpskipping FE6 and tell me that it's easy or that you don't have to plan accordingly.
This is deflection. You don't respond to a negative interpretation of your post with "well why don't YOU try it"
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The video mentioned "without any specifics of where they'd show up", so it's still right. A "reinforcements are arriving" message is not a good enough indicator for several falcoknight reinforcements (that can basically reach any point on the map) on ch16 for example.
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Irysa's post makes for a good argument/comparison between the two (thanks for the great response), whereas Dondon's answer is only really applicable to those who care about ltc. That's all good and well for ltc folk but level design needs to incorporate more than a somewhat niche style of play. A chapter like 14x shouldn't exist as it is. It may look pretty, but it does not equate to good gamplay. In comparison, 28x's map aesthetic is pretty ugly. But it fully utilizes the entire map; it doesn't waste any portion of it on completely extraneous water tiles. The long range enemies may be a bit excessive, but it also requires you carefully consider the path(s) you take. 14x is just straight lines to the throne. It's not hard or anything, it's just terribly tedious.
This is pretty consistent for several of Fe6's levels, particularly in the later game. Chapters like 19S, 21, 21x and 22 are some of the most egregious examples.
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Wow. Thanks. I guess I'm "pretty pathetic" and have "low skill."
"Pretty pathetic" is a charged opinion (that I would disagree with), not truth, but if you're constantly using it, I guess it could be an indication of lack of skill (though who cares it's a single player strategy game LOL)
I sometimes allow myself one save state per chapter, since I really enjoyed 11/12's save system.
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Can anyone tell me what 6's level design has over 7's. Compare, say, 7's 28x to 6's 14x (since they are conceptually similar levels).
Particularly, 7's level design actually uses the whole map. It includes alternative objectives (the north chests), and encourages splitting up by having spread out long range users. Meanwhile, the disappearing tiles do not entirely remove control of units from the player by leaving several units stuck in water, like 6 does.
WTF does Fe6's 14x do right compared to this. It's a straight, boring line to the throne room that doesn't utilize like 50% of the map (no one would be slow enough to not get to the boss in time via short path unless they horribly sucked) and has ridiculously stupid disappearing tiles that pointlessly bottlenecks/strands your units.
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A bad optional feature is still bad. If a game has badly designed gaidens or terribly written dialogue, I can skip them. But I should still be able to take them into account when criticizing the game.
It depends on what it's being criticized for. Something like "is extremely unbalanced" or "wasn't well implemented" is a legitimate criticism for (optional) reclassing. Something like "it eliminates unit uniqueness" is not. Someone trying to argue that Luigi mode in NSMB "destroys any sense of challenge and trivializes the game" would be laughed out the room.
Fe13's reclassing on the other hand can be criticized for the latter, because it heavily pushes you, if not forces you, to reclass your units to different classes. No one complains of 13 "eliminatating unit uniqueness", though. Whereas in SD, a completely optional and ignorable feature somehow does this.
This is why I only quoted a specific part of your post.
I'm also faling to see the genius stuff behind both difficult modes. I know FE12's has different enemy AI, but for me this hardly impacts the game much. Care to elaborate?12 has the most meticulously placed enemy units out of any Fe (lunatic particularly). This probably doesn't mean much for most players (partially including me), but it probably makes 12 the most strategic of any Fe game. You really have to think about the right way to place units and such.
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This is slightly exeggerated, but I think the general point stands. Without the boundaries of a class, units are even less unique than before. When they already have little to no dialogue and you take away their class uniqueness, what's left of them? Think of some units like FE10 Ilyana: almost everyone agrees she's bad, but a big reason a lot of people still like to use her is because of the unique Thunder tomes she brings to the table.
Nothing forces you to use reclass. It's completely optional and only messes with "class uniqueness" if you want it to do so.
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Marty has limited utility in carrying people with his high build, but he's hardly great.
The problem with dismounting was that it unnecessarily punished guys like the Lenster squad, while making Fergus more of a god.
l mean why even have lance knights when Cavaliers can use both lances and swords?
Marty easily has the capability of becoming good due to scrolls and his promotion gains. Hell he does completely fine with the brave axe alone. Great was not the criteria btw, it was imbalance. Relative to the typical Fe5 unit, he holds his own.
So what? Are you saying Fe5 would have been MORE balanced without dismount? Where units like Brighton, Carrion, Fergus and Fin would have been
invincibleeven better? Dismount knocks them down a notch to the point where you can't solo the entire game with mounted units. The same can't be said for games like Fe9.The fact that one class is inferior to another does not negate the relatively (in relation to other fe games) balanced cast of Fe5.
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Marty and the Lenster squad are totally usable and sufficient. Ronan maybe not so much due to lack of Noba. Dismounting prevents mounted units from overshadowing everything else, a common imbalance found in many of the other Fe titles.
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From a strict gameplay-only point of view, you would be right.
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I'm pretty sure that Binding Blade's poor reputation has nothing to do with the translation and everything to do with it's gameplay.
I feel the poorly structured levels are what hurt it most (fe4's maps are far better in this regard no matter what anyone says). The translation is a close second, though, since that means there's no redemption for it story wise either though. My opinion may change when I play the retranslated patch, however.
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I suppose this brings me back to my whole "imbalanced unit" argument of Shadow Dragon. My prime example is Wrys. In FE11, he's absolutely terrible, but in FE12, he's competent enough for actual use. Hell, in my first playthrough of FE12, Wrys even capped a few stats.
I didn't think anyone would bring up Fe12 as a positive example of balanced units. This is the only game that has/had a "free silvers" tier (which held like a third of all the units), for the record.
And if you're only talking about the lower difficulties, FE11's units are still more usable in normal-hard2 than FE12's in normal-hard1.
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For every example (one that isn't easy pickings like lolmariobros) of a supposed butchering there's a separate, good Hollywood adaptation. Anything made by Fincher for example is easily better than the source material.
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I didn't realize "his thread popped up sometime after some other guy's ltc run" was considered direct evidence [of plagiarism].
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There have probably been other times where he didn't agree with Gangrel's decisions but he stilled his tongue out of fear of the consequences.
Too bad we don't see any of this whatsoever (whereas practically every other FE game does this)
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I doubt you have evidence it's for a fetish, you're just overreacting.
I find amnesiacs with the mentality of a child to be very sexy.
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Fire Emblem Awakening doesn't have many worries, but it does have worriers.
Worrying about the worries makes the worriers look worried
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Predictability is the least of Awakening's worries
Is the hate on Shadow Dragon justified?
in General Fire Emblem
Posted · Edited by Constable Reggie
His statement was "a bad optional feature is still bad", and argued that an optional feature eliminates unit uniqueness.
There is no problem with his first statement. His argument is flawed, however, in what he's criticizing the feature for. The game doesn't require any sort of use of relcass in any way (unlike 13, which does). It doesn't push you to use it either. So when you discuss something like this, you take into consideration what it brings to the table, good or bad, rather than acting as if it's a required part of the game. No one complains that unit balance in 13 is fucked because dlc characters of every level can be easily obtainable practically whenever, because the dlc characters are completely optional and ignorable. The same thing goes for 11's reclass feature.
Story content is a wholly different issue and irrelevant to gameplay features.
Holy shit, it's pretty evident you enjoyed 6's chapters far more than I did. Just a few things I"m gonna bring up:
There's no reason whatsoever to go that route, though. Take something like 25Lloyd in Fe7. The level is designed that it's stupidly easy to go straight to Lloyd and kill him in two turns, but the devs put in an optional, longer path that includes A) the earth seal, B) Wallace, and C) another village that has something I forgot. Of course if you're ltcing you finish the map in 2 turns and basically 80% of the map is wasted, but there is incentive to go both paths for different reasons, whether it's for extra content or for quicker finishing. Fe6 doesn't really have this of any sort
No you don't; he follows you.
I agreed that this was one of the lesser awful maps thanks to things like Douglas in there, but it's still not terribly fun. The seemingly arbitrary corridors with not many enemies in is pretty boring to slog through, but once you get through the first part, it gets somewhat better.
Are you talking about the same chapter here? I'm talking about the one with about a million forest tiles on it.
19S and 21xS say hi.
I personally didn't know this, but I don't really consider warpskipping the map to mitigate the level's problems.
How the fuck do you beat this chapter in 5/6 turns casually?
I don't really consider 15 mov everything in my discussion of level design. Spamming boots should be the exception, not the expectation for the chapter. You shouldn't have to buy 50 pairs of boots to mitigate the level design in the first place. To have to acess a hidden shop and spend your entire fortune to make up for the 6's ridiculous levels is bad level design in the first place.
The throne room aspect is cool, but it takes about 50 million hours to get there in the first place.
I'd also like to take note that a quick glance at your playthrough shows 90% of your team being mounts/fliers (with the rest being healers and Dieck who I assume was used to mitigate earlygame difficulty), and also that you warpskipped 21x and 23 (which implies a pretty non-casual pace). Of course a team comp like that would allow for faster traversing through 6's maps.