Personal experiance should mean something

[Rodykitty]

Unrealistic =/= cheap.

I'm pretty sure FE games have always been balanced around this aspect of play.

[Renall]

Unrealistic =/= cheap.

I'm pretty sure FE games have always been balanced around this aspect of play.

The game is balanced around expecting your units to have a vague range of power that will enable them to defeat a certain number and quality of enemies on a map. To actually fight the enemies requires that the units you deploy be capable of matching the enemy quality for the given chapter.

To block a spawn point forever takes one lv1 Cavalier. Lara, who has no strength or BLD, can block a doorway in a prison from 20 guards who are trying to push through and capture her. This is silly.

[Rodykitty]

Silly =/= cheap.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

IS may not have directly stated that for the previous game but it's kinda obvious thanks to the fact that they tend to appear in fixed locations.

I concede this on a chapter like FE5 ch4 because there's an explanation. I can't understand the notion applying to reinforcements that appear on the edges of an outdoor map. How does that even make sense?

How does calling it a cheap tactic when it actually prevents farming the reinforcements for EXP make sense?

In outdoor maps the reinforcements usually come from behind trying to catch up to you. If you happen to be struggling with this, wouldn't it make sense to block the reinforcements? All this does is give you an easier time with that chapter alone while killing so many reinforcements will give you an easier time with even more chapters. It only makes sense since if what you're trying is not getting you anywhere, then you should look for alternatives. Arenas for example, were probably put in the game for those that actually lose a buttload of characters. As ridiculous as it may be, it is rare to find a mainstream review or opinion from a newbie about Fire Emblem games being "difficult because of permanent character death" so there's it's very possible that people lose leveled up characters and continue the game as opposed ot resetting. Arena would be a way out for people in those situations, it's mostly abused because it's used by people who absolutely have no need for it and are making their units far too powerful that it removes any possible difficulty the game may have. It's like having a Starman in a Mario game that lasts forever and removes all pits.

If they end up coming in front of you like in FESD's Chapter 22, then obviously you're either going to rush and beat the chapter before that happens or actually fight them if they're too strong to avoid casualties.

[Renall]

Silly =/= cheap.

You seem to have some magical definition of "cheap" that isn't anything meaningful, because apparently abuse isn't cheap, exploiting bad game design isn't cheap, and defying logic isn't cheap.

In outdoor maps the reinforcements usually come from behind trying to catch up to you. If you happen to be struggling with this, wouldn't it make sense to block the reinforcements? All this does is give you an easier time with that chapter alone while killing so many reinforcements will give you an easier time with even more chapters. It only makes sense since if what you're trying is not getting you anywhere, then you should look for alternatives.

The alternative makes so little sense though. Sure, "You guys hold them off so they can't catch up to us!" makes sense, but that's the same as putting them RIGHT NEXT TO the spawn and fighting the reinforcements. Except the units might die if you do that. So you park them ON the spawns and now the enemies chasing you just give up and don't try to pursue because OH NO, A LV3 SAIN.

Arena would be a way out for people in those situations, it's mostly abused because it's used by people who absolutely have no need for it and are making their units far too powerful that it removes any possible difficulty the game may have. It's like having a Starman in a Mario game that lasts forever and removes all pits.

But arenas exist, so using them for any purpose is okay, right? That's sort of the natural consequence of this. And I don't think that's what you mean to imply.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Renall

[Rodykitty]

Nothing is really cheap as far as efficient play and tier lists are concerned except maybe arena abuse, and even the arena is allowed as long as you are still playing efficiently.

But even in normal play blocking reinforcements isn't even close to the effectiveness of having an over leveled or over powered character.

Read Sirius' post.

But arenas exist, so using them for any purpose is okay, right?

There are a lot of normal players that don't care and will arena abuse anyway, though yes, arena abuse can be considered cheap because its effects break the game.

BUT...

You're thinking that reinforcement blocking is the same as arena abuse, but guess what? One of these two is actually balanced.

Oh yeah, FE9 + 10 replaced arena with BEXP as an attempt to allevate arena problems, and FEDS made the arena on H5 mode unusable as a way to balance the arena.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Rody

[Renall]

Nothing is really cheap as far as efficient play and tier lists are concerned except maybe arena abuse, and even the arena is allowed as long as you are still playing efficiently.

But even in normal play blocking reinforcements isn't even close to the effectiveness of having an over leveled or over powered character.

Read Sirius' post.

Farming reinforcements being more cheap doesn't make a strategy that magically prevents them from ever appearing at all not cheap.

If reinforcements appeared or didn't appear based on the RNG, would manipulating the RNG to make them not appear be cheap?

EDIT: But see we don't NEED to even disagree on this. BExp is great. It's a better execution than arenas because it's less abusable (so was FE4's arena I guess, although it was indirectly abusable). IS found a problem that wasn't abuse by itself and fixed it so it couldn't be as easily abused.

Reinforcements are the same way. I totally support maps with cool objectives like "if we can take that guard tower, we can slow down their reinforcements or send an all-clear signal so they don't send any more!" But I want them to be more overt, more clearly tied to the game and objective mechanics, and have ways around them. If you block a mountain pass, the enemy reinforcements will try to find another route. They won't just not show up, but they will show up in a trickle from another location in a much more manageable area and timeframe. I would love this. I don't love abusing my previous experience with the game to know Dracos appear on a given square I can park Merlinus on. That doesn't feel like winning to me.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Renall

[Rodykitty]

I edited my post.

Farming reinforcements being more cheap doesn't make a strategy that magically prevents them from ever appearing at all not cheap.

You know what makes a strategy that magically prevents units from appearing from not being cheap?

The fact that it does nothing to break the game whatsoever, and actually has disadvantages in trade off for strategic advantage.

Reinforcements are the same way. I totally support maps with cool objectives like "if we can take that guard tower, we can slow down their reinforcements or send an all-clear signal so they don't send any more!" But I want them to be more overt, more clearly tied to the game and objective mechanics, and have ways around them. If you block a mountain pass, the enemy reinforcements will try to find another route. They won't just not show up, but they will show up in a trickle from another location in a much more manageable area and timeframe. I would love this. I don't love abusing my previous experience with the game to know Dracos appear on a given square I can park Merlinus on. That doesn't feel like winning to me.

Game presentation has nothing to do whether something is cheap or not. Edited August 7, 2009 by Rody

[Renall]

The burden is now on you to explain "cheap" because so far it's just been used to dismissively troll me.

[Rodykitty]

I just explained why it isn't cheap.

[Renall]

I just explained why it isn't cheap.

You have to explain what cheap is, not tell me everything I say isn't.

[Rodykitty]

You mean you didn't read "break the game"?

Edited August 7, 2009 by Rody

[Dr. Tarrasque]

In outdoor maps the reinforcements usually come from behind trying to catch up to you. If you happen to be struggling with this, wouldn't it make sense to block the reinforcements? All this does is give you an easier time with that chapter alone while killing so many reinforcements will give you an easier time with even more chapters. It only makes sense since if what you're trying is not getting you anywhere, then you should look for alternatives.

The alternative makes so little sense though. Sure, "You guys hold them off so they can't catch up to us!" makes sense, but that's the same as putting them RIGHT NEXT TO the spawn and fighting the reinforcements. Except the units might die if you do that. So you park them ON the spawns and now the enemies chasing you just give up and don't try to pursue because OH NO, A LV3 SAIN.

No, it's not exactly the same. If you're going to put your units near the reinforcement appearance location but not directly blocking them, then you're either doing it because you want to kill them for the EXP (abuse) or you're a freaking masochist who wants to see how long those you left behind can last or a masochist who gets orgasms with each death quote.

The point of blocking the reinforcements is to prevent them to appearing, it's not necessarily making the game so "WTF THIS IS TOO FUCKING EASY" and when doing so you're obviously not going to spend extra turns in order to reap more benefits to make the future chapters a snorefest when you do this. Reinforcement blocking is simply a tactic perhaps a cheap one to you because you may find that the "challenge" in fighting those reinforcements adds enough difficulty to compensate for the future chapters becoming easier. I say challenge in quotes because that's often not the cause, most reinforcements are so pathetically easy that they're more like candy from pinatas than they are threats. To stay and fight easy reinforcements for more turns than what you used to kill the boss is abuse. To block the reinforcements is just a tactic, cheap to some but it's not abuse, you don't reap any benefit from doing this in the future chapters.

Arena would be a way out for people in those situations, it's mostly abused because it's used by people who absolutely have no need for it and are making their units far too powerful that it removes any possible difficulty the game may have. It's like having a Starman in a Mario game that lasts forever and removes all pits.

But arenas exist, so using them for any purpose is okay, right? That's sort of the natural consequence of this. And I don't think that's what you mean to imply.

It's fine to use the arena but the thing is that it is abused when you spend too much time on it, kinda makes sense why IS would put a tactics rank on several games don't you think?

Edited August 7, 2009 by Sirius

[Renall]

You mean you didn't read "break the game"?

That's an empty expression. Some people would consider a character getting RNG blessed "breaking the game." But that's not cheap or abusive if it just happened completely at random, surely?

[Rodykitty]

Arena abuse will guarantee that you break the game.

Zagaro & Wolf will guarantee the game is broken given enough EXP, though we can't ban characters in tier list and efficient play (plus an efficient play would probably disadvantage those two anyway since it may take a bit longer to get the level ups they need), I just don't recommend them for a player's first H5 playthrough.

BEXP abuse to manipulate stat growth will guarantee you break the game.

You're not guaranteed to get an RNG blessed character that breaks the game.

But blocking reinforcements? Really? You honestly think this breaks the game?

Explain to me how blocking reinforcements breaks the game, without using real world logic.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Rody

[Renall]

Explain to me how blocking reinforcements breaks the game, without using real world logic.

Used on a large enough scale with abuse of foreknowledge of the spawn tiles, it reduces the amount of enemies IS assumed would generally exist on the map to present a threat and challenge to the player's units. This can be accomplished with units that, were they to actually fight said reinforcements, would die. The ability to use a lv1 character to prevent 8 lv20 cavaliers from appearing over the span of 8 turns breaks the game by removing 8 units the map designers assumed would enter the map using a character who otherwise could not have stopped even ONE of those units.

[Rodykitty]

If IS wanted the reinforcements to be guaranteed to come, they would have put them in spots where they are harder to block, or programmed them to come anyway.

But if you play FE1 or FE3, this reinforcement behavior is obviously intended.

[Renall]

If IS wanted the reinforcements to be guaranteed to come, they would have put them in spots where they are harder to block, or programmed them to come anyway.

But if you play FE1 or FE3, this reinforcement behavior is obviously intended.

Or, they assumed some spawn point blocking would be logical based on obvious cues, such as forts, but assumed players wouldn't have sites like Serenes Forest that show them when and where "surprise" reinforcements come from and that they would, generally speaking, not be likely to know ahead of time to purposely block those squares.

[Rodykitty]

Or, they assumed some spawn point blocking would be logical based on obvious cues, such as forts, but assumed players wouldn't have sites like Serenes Forest that show them when and where "surprise" reinforcements come from and that they would, generally speaking, not be likely to know ahead of time to purposely block those squares.

You know that red units coming from the hallways is an obvious cue, right?

[Dr. Tarrasque]

If IS wanted the reinforcements to be guaranteed to come, they would have put them in spots where they are harder to block, or programmed them to come anyway.

But if you play FE1 or FE3, this reinforcement behavior is obviously intended.

For example:

http://www.fireemblemwod.net/fe5/guia/map16a.png

Good luck blocking lots of these. IIRC, there's some reinforcements you can't block such as the Dark Mages in C14 FE5.

[Renall]

Or, they assumed some spawn point blocking would be logical based on obvious cues, such as forts, but assumed players wouldn't have sites like Serenes Forest that show them when and where "surprise" reinforcements come from and that they would, generally speaking, not be likely to know ahead of time to purposely block those squares.

You know that red units coming from the hallways is an obvious cue, right?

You know that other maps exist in the Fire Emblem series besides FE5 ch4, right? I know, it's hard to believe.

Good luck blocking lots of these. IIRC, there's some reinforcements you can't block such as the Dark Mages in C14 FE5.

Sure, but you can block SOME of them. And IS clearly didn't mean for you to block a few of these (like the ones they put on the mountains in the south), but they also didn't really do anything to stop you (other than not having nearly enough units to do it).

Edited August 7, 2009 by Renall

[Rodykitty]

Or, they assumed some spawn point blocking would be logical based on obvious cues, such as forts, but assumed players wouldn't have sites like Serenes Forest that show them when and where "surprise" reinforcements come from and that they would, generally speaking, not be likely to know ahead of time to purposely block those squares.

You know that red units coming from the hallways is an obvious cue, right?

You know that other maps exist in the Fire Emblem series besides FE5 ch4, right? I know, it's hard to believe.

Units suddenly appearing from the side of the map is an obvious cue, regardless of what map it is.

[Renall]

Units suddenly appearing from the side of the map is an obvious cue, regardless of what map it is.

I don't think the average player is going to assume that if they block the three squares out of 10 empty open map edge tiles that enemies will stop appearing altogether. They'd logically assume if they block those, the units will just appear from other tiles. That would be the common-sense rationalization, but it's wrong. Knowing it's wrong and exploiting it is what I would personally consider cheap.

Since you clearly have an agenda and won't stop trolling me until you've vindicated yourself, I'll just say it's clearly a question of opinion, and my opinion is that it is cheap in some circumstances and that there are better game design ways to accomplish the same thing without being cheap. This is my opinion, and if you can acknowledge that, I can acknowledge that you personally do not consider it cheap. If we can agree on that difference of opinion, I'd like to not shit up this thread with our bitching about it anymore.

[Rodykitty]

I don't think the average player is going to assume that if they block the three squares out of 10 empty open map edge tiles that enemies will stop appearing altogether. They'd logically assume if they block those, the units will just appear from other tiles. That would be the common-sense rationalization, but it's wrong. Knowing it's wrong and exploiting it is what I would personally consider cheap.

Nevermind that seven units are still going to appear to wail on the units attempting to feebly block a whole group of enemies, unless the unit you're blocking with is extremely powerful which you have no need to block that one tile with him anyway.

Since you clearly have an agenda and won't stop trolling me until you've vindicated yourself, I'll just say it's clearly a question of opinion, and my opinion is that it is cheap in some circumstances and that there are better game design ways to accomplish the same thing without being cheap. This is my opinion, and if you can acknowledge that, I can acknowledge that you personally do not consider it cheap. If we can agree on that difference of opinion, I'd like to not shit up this thread with our bitching about it anymore.

I'm simply preventing you from spreading misinformation.

[Renall]

I'm simply preventing you from spreading misinformation.

Alright, I'm not allowed to have an opinion, thanks for that.