Czar_Yoshi

Considering as you have no opportunities for input during EP and there's nothing relevant that can occur there that you would be unable to determine from analysis of the map afterword, there is no way to fix this by changing AI alone (assuming it even needs fixing, which I don't think it does). You would have to fundamentally change the game mechanics so that something happens during EP that is both relevant and not detectable afterword, and at that point you've no longer got a FE game. I wasn't expecting perfection either but Sticker Star set my expectations so low I'm still hard pressed to see it as anything else. Awakening is flawed and I'm well versed in its flaws, but see if I ever stop defending it.

Curious, which ones do you consider to work well?

It certainly means getting screwed hurts more. If my Spd is 30% below average, I'd rather it be 14 instead of 20 than 28 instead of 40.

This is just a random thought but what if for Cht.3 you have Robin x Sully attack the Soldier with Thunder/Fire (double) and then have a Fred with whatever pairup will give him lower durability than Robin try to tank on the edge; basically flipping Robin/Fred from your current strat? If the thresholds line up it might be able to cleanly handle a Pavise+/Counter Soldier. Also I wonder how feasible a Robin/Miriel C support would be. It would increase the chance of a random DS on the Knight in Int's strat which could provide a little RNG insurance in allowing Robin to fight the Soldier instead of Kellam next.

You can use the 3ds playlog if you want to see how many hours you've actually put into the game. Anyway, it's difficult for me to properly recommend pairings when aesthetics are involved, but the two that you seem good with (Lon'qu!Severa and Gregor!Laurent) are excellent so definitely keep those. Virion!Severa performs just as well and has nice hair too, though, if you want to try her. Some of the pairings are going to be very problematic if you want the best of both worlds thanks to having either very poor availability (Kjelle likes all of one father (Gaius) gameplay-wise, and tolerates one other) or being a huge jerk to pretty much everyone (Nah). Stahl or Fred will work best for Owain staying in Myrmidon promotions. All the others will be really lackluster. You've got Cynthia on your child list but no Chrom or Henry on your parent list, which pretty much requires you to give her Avatar to be anything near optimal. Sumia's class is also pretty good on Morgan so you're fine there (though her hair is fairly boring). After that Nah likes Avatar most- I know you said you'd rather avoid their pairing but Ignis on Manaketes is good, and with a small build Avatar it's not that awkward- he's actually one of Nowi's tamest supports (no threats/cajoling, and not even a mention of her age). Alternately Fred!Nah will do well, and Gregor!Nah can pull her weight if you give Lon'qu to Laurent and then Virion to Severa. Finally Brady loves Ricken and will be good with either of Lon'qu and Virion if that's not an option. Final classes: usually 8 Mov on the female lead with enough Spd to do whatever you're doing well, and a lot of Atk/Skl on the support. Ingame/non-Apo postgame, I really like Dark Knight and Paladin as ending classes for leads. 2nd gen marriages are very important if you're playing the harder DLC maps (Challenge Pack, FP, Apo) due to giving +10 DS. Other than that, they make very little difference. Generally they're just looking for whoever compliments their stats best and/or who they can run the most good sets with: eg Virion!Severa x Gregor!Laurent has everything needed (+5 Spd on Severa and +Hit skills on Laurent with decent Str on both) to run Wyvern Lord x Berserker, but they've also got all the tools to run a good DF x Sage.

Durandal was in a Volcano, so the series does have a precedent for putting stuff there. Because it's the most recent entry. Until there's another game that does some things worse than Awakening, its good parts won't be ingrained in the argumentative side of the community's memory because there's no context for them. I can't really tell whether the rest of your complaints are based on gameplay or aesthetics, but... I'm going to completely disagree that you can't use pairup "better" than anyone else. On the surface level, different pairs give different stats and pairing up units with complementary boosts is a lot better than pairing up units without them. Going a step deeper is deliberately using short-term pairs to hit thresholds on the fly (such as Fred with a Virion support OHKOing non-forest Mercs in Lunatic(+) Cht.1), and going deeper than that is juggling your pairs while keeping track of exact support gains to get a lot of supports extremely quickly- and that's all without discussing inheritance. It's true that any two units can DS and DG and give eachother Hit and some stats, but that alone is not getting nearly as much out of pairup as possible. I'm also not entirely sure how it's the AI's fault that you want to skip EPs. I skip tons of stuff- PPs as well as EPs, map animations on, etc whenever I feel like it, not because of anything the AI is doing or not doing but because I'm focused on gameplay at the moment and not aesthetics. I also sometimes do aesthetics playthroughs where I pair whoever I like and don't skip anything- the AI has nothing to do with it. It could dance for all I care, it won't change when I watch it and when I don't.

Preserve it by switching between DS+ and normal DS when possible (just never at the cost of exp)- and you can buy more if you need to, since cash begins flooding in fairly soon. She's viable in Lunatic+, but nowhere near as good as she is in vanilla (and I'd say she really does need a DS+ to be good even in Vanilla anyway, without it getting her going takes a ton more effort). Giving her a Seraph Robe (or two) is also massively beneficial to getting her started.

Yeah, they've been there forever (and I'd hate to see them go). Awakening actually has a good deal fewer chests to loot than most FEs.

Is it just me or is Page 52's original scan extremely blurry?

The player also has no access to hackforges, no Hit+10/Dragonskin/RG, no 50 deployment slots, reinforcements, no penalty for losing mooks, no requirement that their whole army must be defeated to lose, no Throne for their Lord and crazy caps in Apo. Enemy and player sides serve different gameplay purposes and can't and shouldn't be equal (this is incidentally why multiplayer is a bad idea). The player also has a lot of things the enemy doesn't, so saying that something is bad just because only one side has it is silly. Again: the player side and enemy side are different. Lunatic+ skills do not always activate, they simply don't randomly activate. There is a difference. Take Vantage+: if you're fighting on Player Phase, it will activate and may or may not make a difference in the battlers' HP after the fight. If you're fighting on Enemy Phase, it will never activate; there will be no difference between Vantage+ foes and non-Vantage+ foes. This is not random. It's based entirely on how you approach them- you have complete control over when the skill activates. Notably, this is a lot better than skills with actual random activations or skills that simply increase the amount of RNG present: it's very difficult to tactically negate things like Gamble and Avo+10 in bulk. Those just give an RNG advantage and can only be properly taken care of through sheer statistical superiority. But they aren't unique to Lunatic+, are they? Having the normal versions of PavGis and Luna on enemies wouldn't change the proper strategy. They'd make it easier to just reset bomb your way through (not what you're supposed to do, so why would they make it easier for you?), but trying to deal with them tactically would be exactly the same (and possibly even more frustrating, since during bodyblocking situations you often want to miss KOes and PavGis can help with that). Bolt Axe B and Shockstick 1 range are indeed annoying. My theories on why they are the way they are are to stop Libra from instantly taking the Renown Bolt Axe and stomping without training first (but seriously, he doesn't need a combat nerf. Give him the instant Bolt Axe and nerf its uses if it's a concern) and the Shockstick is probably to stop Pegs from using it to mitigate their low Str while training to level easily (but given how random it is to obtain, this isn't important or needed). They both should be fixed. However, I do find Levins to be in the right place regarding rank and mt. There's not really a need for E-A versions of them, they're primarily gimmicks/alternate forms of attack, not all-out magical versions of the whole weapon tree. Game mechanics and formulas and whatnot: there's a line between ease of use (compare FE's formulas to Pokemon's. Which ones do you think most people could do in their heads?) and how closely they can model the behavior you want your game engine to exhibit. I personally would love to see an alternate version of Luna+ for Apo that multiplies the target's Def such that when their Def is at 0 or 100, 0 or 100 will be returned, when their Def is at the user's Skl then Def/2 would be returned, and the rest given by a curve generated to fit those points. It would essentially make Luna's damage more easily mitigatable through high Def and more punishing of low Def, which would in turn make Def actually change the number of hits you die in there. But such a skill would be completely impossible for the end user to figure out in their head, so you'd be gradually trading the ability to strategize on the spot for balance that it's likely people won't be able to notice as well since they can't see what's going on. As a consumer, I know I prefer the simpler formulas, especially since they still give a lot of room to do stuff.

Seriously go Merc -> Hero. It's really good for vanilla Lunatic and the pairup bonuses are ones everyone wants. After that you can switch to something like Paladin or Wyvern Lord and have great Mov as well. You can buy Dragonstone+ from Shadow Dragon -> Tiki's shop. It's highly recommended to get one for Nowi to use immediately if you want to train her.

Reasons, bro. Don't just say something's unfair and leave it at that. We've made our case, now make yours.

I should hope that's not an unpopular opinion. There is no way any of the other FEs have even close to the smoothness and polish of Awakening's menus. Lunatic+ isn't cheap, it's just so hard that most people can't even comprehend it. If resetting endlessly for favorable skills was the only way to beat it, then it would be but as-is there are far better ways that can be found with a very large amount of patience and skill. Normal is supposed to be the way it is. You intentionally are given as much leeway as possible there so you can experiment freely with the game's mechanics without being punished, which is a very important feature for a complex SRPG designed to draw in large amounts of new fans. It's not intended for people who already know what they're doing (unless they want a lawnmower simulator). Pairup only causes troubles on Hard if you use it to get someone ahead of the exp curve faster. If you're keeping a full team trained and at a relatively consistent level, the boosts from pairup will be turning normal units into good units, not making one excellent unit fully invincible. The game could stand to do more to promote this by adjusting the exp formula so exp falls off faster for overleveled units or adding a ranking/condition for the true end that would reward you for training more units, but as-is Pairup only makes things that are already broken in Hard more broken, not to break anything itself. Also, please keep in mind that strong =/= overpowered. Pairup in Lunatic is very strong, as is evident by how much harder a no Pairup run is than a run with Pairup. But it's not overpowered, because the enemy is strong enough to take it and more. AI has nothing to do with this. The fact is that the skills force you to go out of your way to handle them, but can be handled nonetheless. Reinforcements appearing means it takes more turns to get rid of all the enemies, which is a problem if you want the lowest turn count possible.

FE13 is too wholesome for that. No way is Vaike doing anything but settling down in a loyal and perfect marriage.

Recruit everyone as in all the children too?

That'll work but you'll have to drop something nice on Severa to make up for Skl+2...

Cynthia: 48(base) +5(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +8(pairup) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =85 Gerome: 48(base) +0(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(Skl+2) +2(tonic) =74

I'd hardly call Cht.7 an open field... I'm not sure passively telling the player what kind of map they're on is comparable in obnoxiousness to being halted in your tracks to be reminded of a goal you received five minutes ago, but Awakening's maps do indeed have the full set of varied objectives present.

Nowi should never be leaving Manakete. Having a (minor) skill to pass down is not worth losing 10+ Def and dealing with E Tomes. +Def is what she needs early on, but +Spd will become very important later (as soon as she gets on her feet defensively, which will be around Cht.10). Don't plan on staying in DM for very long if you want to be supporting her. Cht.3: I never try to choke the top section. It's generally more restrictive in exp feeding opportunities (unless I'm training Miriel and have a bunch of Tomes remaining) and prevents me from engaging the Knight on my own terms, and at most all I'll get out of it is a spare Door Key to sell/do whatever with.

To my knowledge Marth had no such special markings, nor is he even directly descended from Anri (only Anri's brother).

Cervantes, boss of Cht.16.

My GF family is Chrom x Sumia + Robin x Cordelia. It requires a lot slower of a pace than most people would consider efficiency and Severa's paralogue can sometimes cause trouble but it's well worth it for 6 GF units. If you just want to watch KTT is streaming it around every other day right now (resetless run testing).

While lack of varied objectives is a legitimate complaint, isn't that blowing it a little out of proportion? I'm sure there are more than 0 Kill Boss chapters in the game. I guess it depends then on your idea of what the game's supposed to be played like. Since it rewards you aesthetically for using a large team, I assume the Devs intended for that to happen, though anyone who's played Lunatic and above knows that smaller = easier in most cases. Hard with full deployment keeps the ratio of unit power between you and the enemy relatively consistent with even leveling, but it breaks down if you go outside of that- exp doesn't fall off fast enough going up to prevent even a non-Veteran (though Veteran sure makes it easier) unit from easily stepping far enough above the stat curve to obsolete a full team, and particularly on Lunatic exp doesn't increase fast enough to keep your whole team relevant if you try to feed them all- you'll get overran the moment Promotes start showing up. What we got does work (especially in Lunatic(+)), but I don't think it works in the way it was supposed to. Of course this is entirely subjective so feel free to disagree, this is just my stance on the matter.

Masked Lord-F is specifically enemy Lord-F, iirc (not a separate unit/class) so you might have a harder time than normal doing that.

If there were more of them I'd agree, but as-is the forum would be almost completely empty. Same goes for prizes: they should be in a different category if there are enough, but that's not so at the moment. I do feel like this would be a cool idea but preventing the same long-term projects from steamrolling everything would have to be a concern.