Anouleth

So, under what circumstances can Americans determine that intervention is necessary? Apparently, you do think that such circumstances do actually exist, because you support World War II and you support US intervention right now in North Korea and Africa, but you do not say what those circumstances are. It's not clear what you think on this issue, since after all, World War II was waged in response to the unjustified invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939, while the Korean War was waged in response to the unjustified invasion of South Korea by North Korea in 1950. What exactly was different between these two invasions that World War II was justified but the Korean was not unjustified? Also, from what you say, you should think that the Korean War was justified, since it was the result of Security Council Resolution 83.

So somehow, "we should intervene in North Korea" now, but apparently, it was not acceptable to intervene when North Korea actually invaded South Korea. Also, the view is fairly obvious, I think. Without US intervention, it seems highly likely that South Korea would have ended up as a totalitarian hellhole like it's neighbour. Instead, it is now an advanced, peaceful, wealthy, and democratic nation.

I think we should introduce a Charisma stat. Naturally, it will be completely useless and have no impact on gameplay.

Well, if they're doing what I think they're doing, Mega Gyarados, Mega Charizard, and Mega Ampharos will all be Dragon type so there can be a trio of dragons for each "element".

I think it would be pretty funny.

So, if you think that the Korean War was justified and the Vietnam War was not justified, what was the difference between the two wars? After all, part of the reason why the US got involved in Vietnam is because intervention in Korea had been successful. And of course, in retrospect, it seems obvious that the Vietnam War was bad and the Korean War good, but the difference might not have been so obvious in the early 1960s.

if defense isn't based on magic, then how do gates and forts and forests and the Power of Friendship give more defense? checkmate, atheists

Levelling is also a problem for Leona, she scales very well with levels but has few opportunities to gain exp in midgame and lategame.

if defense reflects how tough your body is, why doesn't volug have 100% defense growth to represent his chiseled abs? or something. I think how tough your body is is probably better reflected by HP... after all, warriors and berserkers (and volug) have amazing bodies (woof), but not a lot of armour, so we can better enjoy the view they have lots of HP but low defense.

And classic mode is casual mode where you can't units after they die. Anyone who wants to use units after they die won't use it and anyone who plays without using units who died once will probably not care since they'll just do what they've always done if it didn't exist. And if something stupid like a 1% crit or getting hit by 6 straight 20%s happens, that was not a flaw in your plan, it was you being unlucky. You should not have to deal with the consequences of being unlucky in a video game. There's nothing that Classic Mode does that couldn't be replicated in Casual Mode by just refusing to use characters after they've died once. But that doesn't mean that Classic Mode is unnecessary, does it? Please, tell me why Ironman Mode is unnecessary, but Classic Mode isn't, and please don't say "because we've always done it that way".

You shouldn't really be relying on avoid to keep yourself safe from horseslayers anyway. If that Horseslayer is going to deal 30 damage to your 40HP Paladin, then even if it's only a 40% chance to hit it's too high in my opinion... I think it depends as well on how high avoid in general is. You could just give mounted units worse stats to begin with. Nobody thinks that Noah and Treck are overpowered. Or, you could just give flying units worse stats to begin with. Obviously Thany is still a strong unit, but she's far from being overpowered, because her combat is so objectively terrible. No... it's hard enough to protect Thany/Natasha/Micaiah/whoever from being attacked without enemy archers having five range... I don't like the idea of 5-range enemies or 5-range allies, especially if they come with big conditions like that. I don't see why Archers have to have range penalties, are we trying to make archers balanced with themselves or something? I like this, but some people might not like the idea of certain characters only being available in certain difficulties, particularly if it's the easiest one. I think a better solution is just to have Jeigans join in midgame in higher difficulties rather than from the start of the game, so you still have the option to use them, they're just not around at the point where they're overpowering. I think that's an easy suspension of disbelief to make. It's no more ridiculous than swords that instantly disintegrate into dust after 30 uses exactly every time, and of course are just as accurate and sharp at 29 uses as they are brand new from the forge. Or being able to combine two swords with 10 uses left to get a sword with 20 uses left. Or 5 knives taking the same room in your inventory as 5 giant battleaxes.

Black Knight for most balanced unit in the game, 1-rounds every enemy and never dies, but only exists for three chapters and has horrible move.

So, why did you mention that Diablo II had blank slate characters, if that's not actually a bad thing? If I'm cracking down on resetters, it's because it's an unhealthy gameplay pattern that needs to be discouraged. That's a fair argument, but given all the resources they piss away on voice actors and artists to draw ten year old girls wearing bikinis and shitty writing, I would hope they could spare some resources to actually improve the game. This is Fire Emblem, balance doesn't exist. There is no way around the GBA auto-save feature, and it's done without any slowdown. While I'm no expert on the subject, I am pretty sure that this can be done again with more recent FEs. I'm fairly sure it is not possible to "game the system" either with XCOM. I don't see how that's necessary at all. I actually really dislike permadeath. It's a mechanic that has driven so many players away from FE, it's annoying and frustrating having to constantly reset whenever you make a mistake, yet people go on and on about how it's the Most Important Part of FE, or say that it should be kept in because Otherwise It Just Wouldn't Be FE. Casual Mode was the best thing to ever happen to Fire Emblem, the problem remains Classic Mode which does not really offer any kind of interesting experience, unless you think that resetting the game is an interesting experience. If permadeath is going to stick around, it should at least offer a real Hardcore mode, because otherwise there's no point. Untrue. I never had the autosave feature in GBAFE fail on me.

If you don't think that Diablo II is one of the greatest RPGs ever created, I have nothing to say to you since you are so completely disconnected from what people actually want from video games. FE7 onwards are still good games, though, but they could be better. I don't expect most, or a significant number at all, to play Hardcore mode. Hardcore mode is not for everyone. I never played Hardcore Mode in Diablo II. The game is too hard for me to try that. But I did play Ironman Mode in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, because I was reasonably sure I could still beat the game that way (although it was close in the end!), and I'm sure I had more fun because of it. I was talking in terms of plot and character development. There are many things that have been added to the series since then that should be kept, and entirely new things that should be introduced. Yes, it's far more tempting to reset than it is to deploy Seth. There are more players who refuse to let the units they're using die than there are players who refuse to use units they think are strong, even though the costs of resetting (time) are higher than the costs of using Seth (nothing). But, like I said, that wasn't what the good old days were like. The "good old days" didn't have real permadeath, any more than the games now do. "Dickish" is certainly a good word for it. However, I don't see how such a mode is really qualitatively different from something like Lunatic+ or Lunatic Reverse or Merciless or Maniac Mode, modes that are meant to be unfair and punishing and aggressively difficult. And to be honest, even a no-reset mode would in my opinion be kinder than something like Lunatic+, which is somewhat luck based. If IS are looking for a way to add modes or difficulty levels that offer an extreme challenge, I would much rather they followed my suggestion than have another Lunatic+ mode.

Evolving? Sounds to me like games are devolving. Modern games are trying more and more to be movies. Fire Emblem Awakening is trying to be an anime. Change is occurring, alright, but it's in the wrong direction.

Diablo II, not well received? Are you fucking with me? Fire Emblem didn't use to focus on character development either, back during the glory days of FE3-6. I would gladly like to see a return to such a time. You don't have to be a mind-reader. Anyone who has ever played Fire Emblem understands instinctively how horrible it feels to lose a unit and suffer that kind of major, permanent setback. Doesn't matter. People reset, they do it a lot. Sure. It's perfectly natural behavior for people to reset the game when a unit dies. But that doesn't mean the behavior is healthy, or fun, or interesting enough to preserve. Why, specifically, do we want people to reset the game when their units die? To prove how much they care about a particular unit? Why do we want to force the player into an unpleasant decision? Ironically, I find that I care about my units more when I know I can't reset. I was far more protective my soulless generics in XCOM and my adorable Nuzlocke run Jellicent far more than say, Jill, who I was happy to throw into the middle of huge hordes of enemies, in the knowledge that well, if she dies, I can just reset. Whereas I would never take such a risk in XCOM. I remember the last level of XCOM was particularly epic, because by the end, I was struggling through with just two wounded soldiers left of my initial six. Except, that a player could get the exact same experience by simply choosing to use a variety of units in non-optimal set-ups. The exact same argument applies to both my "Nuzlocke" mode and this hypothetical game mode of yours, that they don't impose any restrictions on the player that they can't impose upon themselves. Yes, it is clear. Sorry that Alan and Samson didn't get a thirty page monologue each where we could Explore their Feelings and we could get some Character Development, like you would have preferred.

If an Est has high base staff rank or the highest base move or one of the best skills in the game at base, then they don't really have low bases, do they? The whole point of an Est is that when they first join, they're very weak and not useful. That's what makes them all so awful. Even Tormod, the closest to being good Ests have ever gotten, is not really a true Est because with BEXP he doesn't have a period of being very weak. He's just a unit that is expensive in terms of resources rather than a unit that is initially weak. By that definition, even FE10 Jill could be interpreted as an Est since she requires a massive stat dump to be useful.

Doesn't Jagen also have like, a 2% chance of being critted or something...

Actually, there's also Bastian and Elincia who are both serviceable staffbots. And if you didn't train Micaiah, then she won't be able to use Rexaura anyway.

If it's so unlikely that they'll actually win any kind of election, then surely it doesn't matter if we rig the election so they can't win? Of course I think they have the legal right to run. That's why my compromise solution is so good. They can run for any office they like! They're just not allowed to win. Great! So you have no problem with rigging the election so they can't win, because you don't think it's possible anyway. Glad to see I have someone on my side.

I'm not being defensive. I'm being extremely aggressive, in fact.

No, I don't. But I do think that you shouldn't elect any Nazis to public office. if that means that I hate America, then so be it.

Ests are by definition bad, so no.

my guess is that renair and co get fed up of the main continent being such a shitheap and go to svanhild to make their own country and it will be called Assholevania and renair will be crowned Queen of the Assholes

The problem with FE10 was just that the exp gain wasn't adjusted. If EXP gain was more like in FE13, it would have been more reasonable (you can easily get more than 40 levels for multiple characters in one playthrough).