Geek

Two years out and the Awakening storm hasn't blown over. I understand wanting people to be excited, but you really can't make others like something if initial impressions don't seem like something they would want to play.

That isn't defensive. This is defensive.

I explained this already like two pages ago. So yes, IS balanced the game around Pair Up. It's why enemies have massively inflated stats. I'm not saying it's a good thing or that IS did a good job balancing the game or the Pair Up system, but they did make changes to the game based on having Pair Up as a feature, just like how they made changes based on how you could grind. Oh by the way I'm really sorry for this massive derail. I didn't think I would cause such a shitstorm.

Pair Up was actually the first feature I listed as being balanced around. People just got really defensive about grinding, since apparently pointing out how IS designed Awakening with grinding in mind means I'm trying to invalidate peoples' no grind runs.

Because a developer just throws a bunch of numbers at the wall until they stick with no thought put into how the game should be played whatsoever. The context that I've used the term balance in has been, from the very beginning, been the idea that the developers design and tune the challenge of the game, either to make the game beatable under the right conditions or to make the difficulty appropriate for the individual modes. I'm not saying every play style or unit should be on an even playing field, that's another use of the word balance. Again, THE GAME IS BEATABLE WITHOUT GRINDING. Does this have ANYTHING to do with the intentions of IS and how they designed the game? My point was that IS obviously designed Awakening with grinding in mind, just like how the designed the game with Pair Up in mind. The reason we're talking about grinding is because that's what everyone jumped on. Grinding, pair up, stat boosters, it doesn't matter. What I'm worried about is whether or not the challenges presented to the player will be designed under the notion that the player is fully utilizing the castle. If it is and Lunatic is prohibitively difficult, then the people who don't want to play Rune Factory Tactics will be forced to play a base management game instead of a strategy game.

Which is a pointless argument of semantics. No one judges a game's difficulty on its easy mode. If My Castle is mandatory to complete Lunatic mode, that's a problem since the game is balanced around a minigame and that renders the "IT'S OPTIONAL" argument invalid. The point about Pair Up and grinding in Awakening was illustrative of this point. People obviously disagree with me that the game was balanced with grinding in mind, but I've made my case. In short, I really hope My Castle will be as optional as people are claiming.

It being beatable says nothing about whether or not it's balanced. Sure you can beat it if you get lucky or break the game by abusing the Avatar and Frederick, but if you played normally you would get wrecked since your bundles of stats are significantly weaker than the opponent's bundles of stats, and no amount of strategy (which is coincidentally the amount of strategy included in Awakening) is going to get you through Lunatic and Lunatic+ without losing units. Other games in the series will obviously punish you for playing unprepared, but not to the extent that Awakening does. Plus there was a financial incentive for IS to balance the game around grinding since they were churning out DLC that was only good for grinding, but I don't think it's anything as sinister as that. The changes to the support system incentivized doing side missions since it was a case of gotta catch em all, and IS probably balanced the difficulty to account for players doing extra maps.

Actually, the main money genre in Japan right now is smartphone games. It's why you see time wasting mechanics creeping into so many recent RPGs like Bravely Default's Norende and the time-gated bonuses in FE12 and Awakening. It's also why you're seeing more pay to skip additions in traditional games since people have gotten impatient and want gratification now. A base building game is a perfect addition to make your game appeal to causal players, especially if it's time gated which it probably will be.

I disagree. There are certain points where the game's difficulty spikes upwards so drastically that if the game isn't balanced around grinding, it's not balanced at all. Chapter 5 Lunatic is a good example of this. Even if you do Donnel's paralogue to get the Rescue staff and have proper pairings and use chokepoints properly you'll still be overpowered if you're unlucky or didn't abuse Frederick in earlier chapters.

You know the game is going to be balanced around My Castle, Red Fox of Fire. Just like how Awakening was balanced upwards because of Pair Up and the ability to grind. The problem is that some people might want to play a Fire Emblem and not Rune Factory 5: Tactics Edition and will be punished for it in the main game since stats in any amount will give you an edge, especially since IS seems to think tactics means bigger numbers and nothing else. This is veering into my own opinion and I'm not going to try speaking for anyone else, but my main problem with My Castle is similar to my problems with Awakening's base and menu management: it's neither tactics gameplay nor is it contributing to an interesting narrative. Tactics and story are the first bullet points on my list of reasons I play Fire Emblem. Even when the base got a little bloated in FE9/10, it was still streamlined and focused enough to not feel like filler. Bonus EXP? You get that for doing well and can spend it immediately. Forging? Once per chapter, make something and get back to the main game. Supports? In FE9 they helped flesh out characters which in turn fleshed out the world since the tone was more in line with the main game than PIES PIES PIES. They were also only gathered through playing chapters. Base convos? Similar to supports but more story related and in some cases were almost sidequest-esque, especially in FE10. They knew the base stuff was the boring part that players wanted to skip through to get to the real gameplay. Even if none of the stuff in the FE9/10 bases felt optional, they were quick, well designed, and unobtrusive. Some people want to play Fire Factory 14 and that's perfectly fine, but I don't. To me it's an ever-growing tumor that keeps me from doing interesting things. I've said for years that the best thing about Fire Emblem is its pacing, and Awakening added a ton of filler and If is adding even more.

Because features can take inspiration from multiple sources to appeal to certain demographics, and somehow I'm more inclined to think the game that has sparkly confession scenes and fanservice while selling merch like statues and figmas might not be gunning for the Nintendogs crowd.

I completely respect you and what other translators are doing. However, don't expect everyone to be chipper and happy about features that don't sit well with them. I'm not blaming YOU for what IS is doing to their IP. And this is pretty fucking close to being otaku pandering. It's a feature that clearly draws inspiration from the dating sims that use the DS/3DS's bottom screen to get touchy feely with your waifu. Those games sold like hotcakes so this is just IS getting in on that action since the stupid changes to the support system worked so well for them in Awakening. That doesn't make it anything but insipid and jarring for a series that used to be fairly serious with little pandering.

Pokemon is a game about training virtual pets. Who wouldn't want to pet a Fennekin? Tomodachi Life is a game that plays like a Japanese sitcom and includes Miis having rap battles and news stories about giant fishcakes being spotted over a meadow. Conception II is a terrible Persona (3&4) knock off with none of the charm or subtlety of the games it's trying to be. I don't see how this makes it okay for Fire Emblem, a series about war that has generally been pretty serious up until the abortion that was Awakening, to make you as a player rub the faces of your soldiers to give them stat boosts. It's impossible to defend as anything other than pandering to the demographic that is known to lap up anything that lets them touch their beloved waifus: the lonely otakus that have more money than sense.

So is everyone discussing how to prevent incest between holy blood carriers? This thread...confuses me.

I wouldn't suggest using so many Cavs in FE3. Cain, Abel, and Hardin get the job done well enough, and Roshe isn't worth training. For heroes, Oguma and Navarre are all you need. Raddy has good growths, but it takes a long time to catch him up to your other Mercs. For FE5, almost all of the Swordfighters are worth using. Machua is unique, because she promotes into a Mercenary, and that helps her edge out Shiva and Trewd, imo. Mareeta is a goddess, use her and enjoy the easy wins. Fin is a great unit to keep around for most of the game, because he will stay above your other units for most of the game. All of the staff users are worth using, and keeping a thief around is a great idea. Salem isn't worth using without scroll abuse. Carrion is an amazing unit, but remember to get his Elite Sword from Selphina. Othin is a solid axe user, he is like Oguma with axes. His Pugi axe is an amazing weapon, which makes him even better. Use Asvel and Homeros, too.