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Mekkah

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Posts posted by Mekkah

    Am I a masochist for using two archer in Thracia776?

    in NES and SNES Era

    Posted

    I wouldn't worry about archers not being able to capture. Even if they could, their stats would make them bad at it. Leave the capturing to Finn and Dagdar, they're actually made for it with their brave weapons and high strength and durability.

    Tanya and Ronan are by no means "good units" but I call them High Effort instead of Bad for a reason. They need more care than other units. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with using them.

    Site Updates

    in Site Content

    Posted

    So again, disclaimer, this is all in good faith, not a dig at any of the involved staff members, but this topic was posted two months ago. Vincent kindly responded by appointing 3 new staff members to help address the issues, but I had a look around the site and nothing appears to be changed. I can see Vincent fixed the Bowbreaker problem himself, but other than that I haven't seen any updates.

    For example, someone posted an error in Balthus's magical learnset in February, and this hasn't been corrected since. And this isn't a common error: the FEwiki and fe3h.com don't have this error.

    https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/characters/learned-spells/

    https://fe3h.com/characters/balthus#learned-magic

    https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Balthus#Learnt_Magic

    So please, SF staff, whether you need to encourage existing staff or appoint more members, if you want the site to be correct and up to date, someone somewhere has to put in more effort. 

    FE4 Love Critical Bug

    in NES and SNES Era

    Posted

    I didn't catch that it was Binary. I believe that game lets anyone double attack unlike vanilla, so in that case Quan was probably just going to crit on his follow-up attack. The lover crit animation displays if a person is going to crit at all, it does not guarantee that the first hit is a crit.

    Site Updates

    in Site Content

    Posted · Edited by Mekkah
    more typos

    Hey, long-time user and fan of the Serenes Forest website here. I use the website almost every day to look up data, artwork and other things on Fire Emblem and I promote it to everyone at every opportunity. Everything I say in this post is an attempt at constructive criticism and an expression of my wish for the site to be as good as it could possibly be - none of it is meant to be a slight at the website or anyone maintaining it.

    With that out of the way, there are a lot of pages that could really use an update, especially the Three Houses page. Here are some things that are missing that are present for other games:

    - A list of chapters (of every route)

    - A list of paralogues and their requirements for obtaining them

    - Target ranges of Gambits (that page is still listed as a WIP)

    - Calculations page for things like hit rate and damage output

    - Support point requirements and the effects of activities and battle options on them

    - White magic ranges

    There are also several minor outdated things/mistakes on the site, such as the fact that Bowbreaker is listed as obtainable through hitting B Reason when it's gotten through Mastering Warlock, or the fact that Jeritza is listed as a DLC character when he's obtained through a patch update.

    That's just Three Houses, but there are other things that just kinda stand out. Pages for many of the older Japan-only games use very outdated names for the characters even though Heroes and other sources have given us official ones. For example, FE3 B1 calls the fighters Barts, Saji and Maji, and the first characters in Gaiden according to SF are called Arum, Ruka, Grey and Robin. It's not that it's impossible to decipher what these names mean, it just gives the website a very dated look.

    I understand if Vincent and other content managers I'm not aware of are very busy or have other reasons not to work on these things. But if that is the case, is there a possibility of giving the rights to edit the site to motivated people who have some free time to help out? I'm willing to help gather volunteers through my platform on YouTube if there's no one to be found on the forums here. 

    Again, please understand this is not a shot at anyone who is in charge of these things, I'm just trying to see if this website can be as up to date as it once was. It is in a lot of ways better than its alternatives since the data is in English and neatly sorted into categories, but the things named above hold it back from what it could be.

    SF Interviews 2.0 - Florete

    in Far from the Forest...

    Posted

    So sorry for not getting to these earlier, I had an alarm set but I somehow missed it. If you somehow have more questions, I have a discord server with a qna channel, you can always ask questions there. You can also just post questions on my vids and sometimes I'll be able to answer.

    Making these in a text document so sorry if I'm not tagging everyone!

    @Rezzy

    1: What are your first/current impressions of Rezzy? (or a better question might be if you know who I am at all.  I'm the same Rezzy from the Youtube comments section.)

    Just positive memories of said Rezzy, so chill person!

    2: Aspirations in life?

    Tough one. I don't know! I just want to be chill and have fun.

    3: Opinion on kids, and do you plan to have any?

    That's a bit more intimate than I'm willing to answer. But kids are funny.

    4: What is a movie, video game, etc that you like that everyone else hates?

    I don't think there's any real game like that for me, actually. I guess there's these two flash games:
    https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/535732
    https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/553025

    They're really bad and glitchy now (and have always been) but I still think they're fun to play to unwind every now and then. 

    5: What is a movie, video game, etc that you hate that everyone else likes?

    Fates? nah too ez

    I watched the first Harry Potter sequel, I thought it was bad, everyone I watched it with thought it was good. I think it's because I'm less willing to suspend my disbelief when characters do things that make no sense.

    @Azura in a Roundabout

    1. What would you think is your favorite moment when collaborating with Mangs?

    50 Gold (PoR Maniac Mode)

    I'm having trouble coming up with any better moment than that because it was just our playthroughs in a nutshell. The Finale of Radiant Dawn was also really good. 

    2. Do you currently have any studies in college or something? If so, what?

    Not going to answer real life questions, sorry.

    3. How many Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have you watched (e.g. the Iron Man trilogy, Avengers movies, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.)? Or so you have any interest in general?

    Absolute zero. I tried watching an Iron Man movie on a plane once but the quality was awful so I stopped. It's not that they don't look interesting to me, I just don't watch movies much to begin with and I have a feeling that I can't just start in the middle.

    4. Whenever you play FE7 Lyn Hard, which if the cavaliers do you usually promote (just so you could have a second Marcus)?

    Sain. If you look at videos where I'm playing FE7 as background footage you'll often see a promoted Sain get things done.

    5. Who is your FE waifu? As in, how Louise is to Mangs?

    I think lusting after Fire Emblem characters and video game characters is stupid and a good reason to do a reality check. At the risk of sounding like an old man, back when I first got on the internet, people generally cringed at others lewding fictional characters. Now it's been normalized.

    @SullyMcGully

    1. What's your biggest worry about FE3H?

    Too much of a focus on academy, slice of life, romance (especially with students), minmaxing characters, too little on gameplay. 

    Also I hope they didn't balance the game around resetting through the time rewind. 

    2. What's your biggest hope about FE3H?

    If the gameplay is engaging and fun I'm fine with a bad story, but it needs to be mostly independent from class performances and brigand exams. 

    3. Is it true that you used to be a moderator and mafia player on Smogon?

    Yeah, I'm the same person as that Mekkah.

    4. What's a mechanic from older FEs you want to return in the future?

    Shove and rescue mostly. 

    5. What's a mechanic from older FEs you never want to see again?

    The level of skillspam of Fates and Awakening, if that's "old" enough. Randomized reinforcements, ambush reinforcements. 

    6. If you were an FE character what would be your class?
    7. If you were an FE character what would be your best stat?
    8. If you were an FE character what would be your worst stat?

    I mean, most people picture me as Danved, but he or his class don't really have any standout traits...so I really don't know!

    9. Ever play Harudoku's Discord-based FE game?

    I have not.

    10. Best advice for a wannabe FE fangame designer?

    Keep it simple. That's what I'd tell ROM hackers. Don't be overly ambitious, get something out first and then improve it. It'll never be the best game ever but just strive to make it nice and fun.

    @Reality

    1: What is the impact of franchise loyalty versus genre loyalty on the player for SRPGs: EG Playing only Fire Emblem, or every companies SRPGs (FFT, Disgaea, Sakura Wars, etc)

    2: What is the impact of franchise loyalty versus genre loyalty on the developer  for SRPGs. (eg building on own design vs free adoption of mechanics first used by other SRPGs)

    I really can't answer these questions because I don't know jack squat about any of these things, haha.

    3: Does Fire Emblem get too easy if you play too many games in the series?

    It gets a lot easier to the point that playing vanilla can seem boring, but since there's always ways to challenge yourself I don't think the games as a whole can be "too easy".

    4: Does Fire Emblem feel more like a different genre if you play too many games in the series... especialy something like puzzle game or "standard RPG without the S"

    It does. I played some "standard RPGs" and they're really fun but so unlike Fire Emblem.

    5: Are games like XCOM and Jagged Alliance 2  "SRPGs"
    6: Does the Western "SRPG" or the Eastern "TRPG" abbreviation describe Fire Emblem and its subgenre more precisely?

    See 1 and 2: I'm not that big of a gamer, just really into Fire Emblem.

    7: How many physical hits should a "frail" character  be able to take before death in a FE with your ideal balance? No heals in between.

    8: How many physical hits should a "tough" character be able to take before death in a FE with your ideal balance?

    There is no one correct answer here, a game can be good with almost any amount of hits...if you look at FE12's higher difficulties, the answer is generally 1 for frail characters and 2-3 for the somewhat durable ones, and it worked really well.

    But you can create a fun experience with more bulky characters. I like Radiant Dawn even though the player characters are really durable. But it's not balanced. For balance it's easiest to keep the number of hits they can take very low.

    9: Are there FE games where there will be still be more Enemy Phase combat than Player Phase combat even if you actively try to maximise PP only?

    Games with high enemy density and low enemy strength will always be like that. FE7-FE10, basically.

    10. Do you consider Fire Emblem game's to have enemy AI?

    They have AI, it's just not the smartest AI ever. But it improves almost every new game.

    @AnonymousSpeed

    1. If it's not an inappropriate question, which fellow Fire Emblem youtuber are you most friendly with?

    That's fine! I'm mostly chilling with Mangs nowadays for obvious reasons, but I also talk to Chaz every now and then. 

    2. Who are some bad units which you enjoy using?

    I made a vid on that! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibc68ms_bS8
    Aside from these, I enjoyed training up Karel in FE6RR when he was bad, and I still enjoy using Zeis in that same playthrough.

    3. How's Conquest going? I'm not watching that playthrough so I figured I'd just ask. I've just recently started the game myself and was wondering if you had any tips.

    I downgraded from Hard to Normal because while I enjoyed the challenge I found it hard to make interesting commentary from, and now it's a lot of fun. I really recommend you do your first playthrough on Normal, it's way less stressful and you can't do much wrong (but you can still die if you're stupid).

    4. Why three Ks?

    I use 3 K's when 2 is taken.

    5. In fact, if it hasn't been asked / answered already, why the name Mekkkah?

    I've answered this question a lot of times so I'm kinda tired of typing it out. I have an old Q&A I think for my 3000 sub special where I answer this if you're very curious.

    @BLSoldier

    1: What made you join the Serenes Forest message boards?

    FEF and FEP died and this is where everyone was at.

    2: One thing about the Fire Emblem franchise you dislike?

    Waifu Emblem and plots that insult my intelligence.

    3: What video game franchise would you want to try out one day?

    Dark Souls and Final Fantasy have me curious.

    @JSND Alter Dragon Boner (nice nicknames guys)

    1. favorite pokemon?

    Exeggutor.

    2. kinda curious are you still active in smogon, and on pokemon stuff? i remember you were pretty big on Pokemon TCG lol

    I'm not active on Smogon but I still lurk a bit. Play random battles on showdown, and play some Standard and mostly Legacy in Pokemon TCG. I don't play Pokemon TCG irl anymore though.

    Is Lowen "Good" experiment.

    in Fire Emblem

    Posted

    Here's a patch: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bik8v7wbryb7yb6/FE7 Tony Mode Patch.ups?dl=0

    It's fair enough to focus EXP into him early on since like you said the other early joiners aren't very good. But you're really testing something that's already been tested through the ages. Lowen's average stats have been compared to enemies time and time again. He is a tanky unit that has some doubling issues but overall is really solid just because his class is so good and FE7 enemies (even in HHM) are super slow. 

    Is Lowen "Good" experiment.

    in Fire Emblem

    Posted

    This really isn't a good way to check whether Lowen is good. First of all, Eliwood Mode (NM or HM doesn't matter) enemies are absolute trash. Any unit can be decent. 

    Second of all you're not using an average stat patch so you could get ridiculously screwed or blessed. To make it worse you're also resetting because the level-ups weren't to your liking, so it's even less of an experiment now. 

    third, it looks like you're prioritizing him for EXP (can't quite tell if it's a solo), in which case he'll outgrow enemies so fast that yes, he'll always be good.

    Fire Emblem Pitfalls Episode 5 - with dondon151

    in General Fire Emblem

    Posted · Edited by Mekkah

    5 hours ago, Florete said:

    That literally doesn't change anything.

    Sure does. My recommendation if you want to get better at Fire Emblem is to play on classic mode at all times. That's not the same as saying "play on classic mode, always". The tone is different and the reasoning is important.

    Quote

    That's a poor excuse. You shouldn't expect people to always remember (or even have known in the first place) everything you've said in every previous video, especially when some were so long ago. That's something you should preface every video with.

    Ultimately, while I agree with your conclusion here (playing classic will make you a better player than playing casual), you didn't get it across well in the video.

    The point got across fine to most viewers I'm sure, since you're literally the first person to bring this up. It helps that it was literally the first thing mentioned in the first Pitfalls episode, where I explain exactly what the series is about. I'm not going to repeat that disclaimer in every episode.

    Quote

    I don't think [the fact that Hector is good] matters.

    Then you must've missed the part where I said something like: "if a unit is good and forced at some point, sure, train 'em". You don't think it makes a difference whether a unit is good or bad when recommending them to players looking to improve their strats?

    Quote

    I also take issue with the implication that Hector is significantly better than Lyn and Eliwood, but this isn't the place for that.

    Well, I explained exactly why I think Eliwood and Lyn are bad units in another episode and the community tier list placed Hector at #15 while Eliwood is #26 and Lyn at #30, out of 42 characters. That seems like a significant gap to me.

    Quote

    Micaiah I'll leave since she can be iffy due to her growths, but Sothe is definitely serviceable on easy and normal. Amazing? No. A liability? Also no.

    So what's he doing that's serviceable, that makes him worth not just training him in part 4 after his promotion and then deploying? I don't see why you would ever want to put Sothe in enemy range when I could make these enemies suicide into laguz royals or some other more powerful unit.

     

    edit:

    13 hours ago, Pixelman said:

    How would you discourage lowmanning anyway? As a guy who wants to delve into FE game design via ROM hacking, this problem has been annoying me for a while and I don't know how I would go about fixing it. (this isn't aimed at any particular person, btw)

    Anyways, thanks for making these videos Mekkah I think they actually made me improve as a Fire Emblem player

    If you're willing to go there, 0% growths. Or make all units that join, viable upon joining but make growth rates/promo bonuses low, while making enemy quality and density high enough to where you need to use a lot of people. Or take away the preps menu in a way gaiden did, so that a ton of units are forced onto every map in unpredictable locations.

    Fire Emblem Pitfalls Episode 5 - with dondon151

    in General Fire Emblem

    Posted

    14 hours ago, Florete said:

    I've been watching these so if you're posting them here I guess I'll start responding.

    Bigger things:

    "Play Classic at all times"

    If you're going to be quoting me I'd prefer you kept the context: "if you're a player who enjoys the series I'd recommend you play on Classic Mode at all times". I'd also like to refer you to the first episode of Pitfalls where I explain that Pitfalls is not about me telling people how to enjoy their single player game. However, if someone's looking to find a way to improve, then I'm gonna give some advice. And I believe playing classic over casual can make you a better player.

    14 hours ago, Florete said:

    While I don't completely disagree with the suggestion to not base your full-game team on endgame, I don't perceive it as a problem. People who do this likely know the game already and just use endgame as an easy benchmark to plan out who they want to use so they don't feel they ended up using too many or too few units. People who plan this way probably would admit that it's not the most optimal way to play, they just do it because they want to.

    Again, great for them that they "feel" like they wanna play this way. But for those who want to actually play well (and I know that's not everyone), I think it's fair advice. 

    14 hours ago, Florete said:

    Smaller nitpicks:

    You can't bring everyone to the final map in SoV. Alm, Celica, +18 more.

    Yeah, someone brought that up already. Regardless, trying to raise 9 units + the lord on each side is still more than you should.

    14 hours ago, Florete said:

    "Untrained Lyn and Eliwood can't go up against the strongest enemies." Untrained Hector, too. Just sayin'.

    Yeah, but Hector is good, so he wouldn't be a good example.

    14 hours ago, Florete said:

    Sothe and Micaiah won't be amazing, but when trained they won't exactly be liabilities, at least on normal/easy.

    Yes, they will be. Sothe promotes to third tier in part 4 while Micaiah promotes right before endgame. Unless you're giving them like Wrath/Resolve, they're just going to slow you down and/or provide risky situations.

    13 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

    Other than that, I feel the need to point out that low-manning isn't as effective in Fates as it was in prior titles thanks to an exp formula that's stricter on high level units.

    I haven't played Fates so I try not to use it as an example. Willing to bet low manning in some shape or form is still easier than raising like 12 units though.

    FE9 Tier list v3

    in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

    Posted

    On 2017-5-28 at 2:46 PM, Snowy_One said:

    So glad I swore off debating in future games as now I'm free to enjoy Felicia and Faye without worrying about tier rankings. 

    Nobody is telling you how to play or who to use. Why would you worry about tier rankings when playing a game?

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