Why all the hate for SS?

[Geriba]

If anything, using the Tower is more out of the way than not using the Tower, since it is optional.

Technically, sure. But it offers itself to the player like a shiny new gem, begging you to take a visit your first time through.

Besides, you didn't respond to the main issue: the absence of difficulty. Whether or not using or ignoring the Tower is more "out of the way" for the player is pretty irrelevant.

FE8 easily wins in terms of optional content, though.

And let me go on record as agreeing with this. What's most important in my estimation, however, is the length of the actual campaign; Fire Emblem games tend to have subpar post-game content, and SS is no exception. Map design basically falls apart during Creature Campaign.

Edited August 10, 2011 by Doomguy

[grandjackal]

Of course it does. You have to go out of your way to make the game remotely difficult, i.e. purposefully not use Seth, not use the Tower, etc.

1. Seth not being used isn't that big a deal, since the game actually feels designed with the player not using Seth in mind. Seth feels like he's just there for new players to destroy the game with, since the most efficient way to clear the game is to basically have Seth solo it.

2. Let's not act like Marcus doesn't destroy his game any less, or his new partner in crime named Sain.

3. FE7 derives it's "difficult" portions from what many would like to call "bullshit factor", such as Genesis being at the whim of Kishuna's AI, the wonderful fun that is Battle Before Dawn's "hope Zephiel or Jaffar doesn't get destroyed by the RNG gods", or Cog of Destiny's "Hope your staffer avoids a Silence at the final stretch or else you gonna get blown up by your own berserked unit, since in a fast turn run this situation is unavoidable". FE8 doesn't stoop that low to make difficulty. It's a better design when you have to think rather than pray.

4. As stated, the tower is very out of the way.

[Florete]

1. Seth not being used isn't that big a deal, since the game actually feels designed with the player not using Seth in mind. Seth feels like he's just there for new players to destroy the game with, since the most efficient way to clear the game is to basically have Seth solo it.

So how is the game designed around not using Seth?

3. FE7 derives it's "difficult" portions from what many would like to call "bullshit factor", such as Genesis being at the whim of Kishuna's AI, the wonderful fun that is Battle Before Dawn's "hope Zephiel or Jaffar doesn't get destroyed by the RNG gods", or Cog of Destiny's "Hope your staffer avoids a Silence at the final stretch or else you gonna get blown up by your own berserked unit, since in a fast turn run this situation is unavoidable". FE8 doesn't stoop that low to make difficulty. It's a better design when you have to think rather than pray.

Genesis? I don't see the problem with that. Just the fact that Kishuna exists at all makes it so much less of a headache. This seems like your own personal problem.

Jaffar I can give you, but I am pretty sure it's possible to get to Zephiel before he even has a chance of dying. Either way, it's true that this is a pretty poorly designed map, especially in Hard modes.

Cog of Destiny just needs to be planned for in advance and may require some bait to draw certain enemies in but certainly is no "bullshit factor."

Edited August 10, 2011 by Red Fox of Fire

[Geriba]

1. Seth not being used isn't that big a deal, since the game actually feels designed with the player not using Seth in mind. Seth feels like he's just there for new players to destroy the game with, since the most efficient way to clear the game is to basically have Seth solo it.

Okie dokie. I could trust your "feeling" about how the game is designed, or I could point to the fact that Seth is the second unit you recruit and also the best. "Feels" like he was intended to be used, if you ask me!

Bottom line, saying "the game is better without using Seth" doesn't change the fact that not using Seth is a challenge run that shouldn't be considered when discussing the balance of a game as-is. It'd be like me trying to argue that FFT is balanced without Orlandu.

2. Let's not act like Marcus doesn't destroy his game any less, or his new partner in crime named Sain.

Please; don't compare the excellence of Marcus to the brokenness of Seth. If Marcus is Jesus, then Seth is the complete Trinity.

3. FE7 derives it's "difficult" portions from what many would like to call "bullshit factor", such as Genesis being at the whim of Kishuna's AI, the wonderful fun that is Battle Before Dawn's "hope Zephiel or Jaffar doesn't get destroyed by the RNG gods", or Cog of Destiny's "Hope your staffer avoids a Silence at the final stretch or else you gonna get blown up by your own berserked unit, since in a fast turn run this situation is unavoidable". FE8 doesn't stoop that low to make difficulty. It's a better design when you have to think rather than pray.

Battle before Dawn is the only chapter that can rightfully be considered a "bullshit" chapter, and that's only if you view Jaffar/28x as absolute necessities. A case could be made for Living Legend, too, but you didn't even bother to mention that one. All those others are within the player's control: they're difficult, but they're not unfair.

Besides, as I've mentioned before, HHM isn't the only comparable mode of difficulty to FE8HM. EHM stacks up quite well (and streamlines what you call the "bullshit factor"), as do any of the four ranked runs.

[grandjackal]

Okie dokie. I could trust your "feeling" about how the game is designed, or I could point to the fact that Seth is the second unit you recruit and also the best. "Feels" like he was intended to be used, if you ask me!

Bottom line, saying "the game is better without using Seth" doesn't change the fact that not using Seth is a challenge run that shouldn't be considered when discussing the balance of a game as-is. It'd be like me trying to argue that FFT is balanced without Orlandu.

Play FE8 without Seth, and you'll realize you're not really playing a "challenge run" untl the lategame where it actually feels hard at points, thus my entire point of "Seth doesn't feel like he was meant to be used". Try doing the same with Marcus. I'm willing to bet you'd say "Well that makes FE7 more difficult", but if we're both agreeing that we're using Seth and Marcus, then they're just as easy as one another. Earlygame is not the big factor here however.

Please; don't compare the excellence of Marcus to the brokenness of Seth. If Marcus is Jesus, then Seth is the complete Trinity.

Marcus+Sain kills midgame onward 10x more than Seth ever could to his entire game. Much as you say Seth destroys his game, you only get 1 of him. FE7 went out of it's way to give you 2.

Battle before Dawn is the only chapter that can rightfully be considered a "bullshit" chapter, and that's only if you view Jaffar/28x as absolute necessities. A case could be made for Living Legend, too, but you didn't even bother to mention that one. All those others are within the player's control: they're difficult, but they're not unfair.

I forgot entirely about Living Legend actually.

As for others being in the player's control, they're in your control if you're in the mindset of "turtling" rather than low turn counting. If we're fast turning, that situation of CoD is unavoidable as stated.

Besides, as I've mentioned before, HHM isn't the only comparable mode of difficulty to FE8HM. EHM stacks up quite well (and streamlines what you call the "bullshit factor"), as do any of the four ranked runs.

EHM isn't really a hard mode though...

[Florete]

Play FE8 without Seth, and you'll realize you're not really playing a "challenge run" untl the lategame where it actually feels hard at points, thus my entire point of "Seth doesn't feel like he was meant to be used". Try doing the same with Marcus. I'm willing to bet you'd say "Well that makes FE7 more difficult", but if we're both agreeing that we're using Seth and Marcus, then they're just as easy as one another. Earlygame is not the big factor here however.

Marcus+Sain kills midgame onward 10x more than Seth ever could to his entire game. Much as you say Seth destroys his game, you only get 1 of him. FE7 went out of it's way to give you 2.

Seth is easily better than Marcus. Marcus runs into legitimate Spd and durability issues that Seth never does. And FE7 did not go "out of its way" to give you 2, you only get the second if you level up a Cavalier enough in LHM and promote him, which wasn't really intended considering LNM forces you to use the Knight Crest on Wallace and Lyn mode can be skipped entirely after that. It's possible and should be considered, sure, but not in the way you put it.

Even then, Marcus + Sain being 10x better than Seth is more over-exaggerating. The nature of FE7 still requires other good units, fliers and staff units in particular, while most of FE8 can be so easily Seth-skipped.

[Geriba]

Play FE8 without Seth, and you'll realize you're not really playing a "challenge run" untl the lategame where it actually feels hard at points, thus my entire point of "Seth doesn't feel like he was meant to be used". Try doing the same with Marcus. I'm willing to bet you'd say "Well that makes FE7 more difficult", but if we're both agreeing that we're using Seth and Marcus, then they're just as easy as one another. Earlygame is not the big factor here however.

I have tried a Seth-less FE8 run, actually (though I never finished it; maybe I have the save somewhere...), and it was a pretty fun experience from what I played. Better than usual, certainly.

And I'm not trying to be rude, but you're being pretty obstinate. Seth and Marcus- and I never said otherwise- are not comparable in terms of difficulty reduction. Not even close. Marcus is a major boon during the early-game, helpful during the mid-game, and passable late-game. There are plenty of chapters, even early on, where he still needs help or is otherwise not around: for example, 11, 13x, and 15 come to mind. Not so with Seth: with the sole exception of a gaiden chapter and a desert chapter (and even then only on Eirika's route), he obliterates practically the entire game, and remains your best unit from start to finish.

Anyway, your main argument here is as follows: When I play FE8 without using Seth, the game feels actually challenging at points; therefore, the game "feels" designed without Seth in mind. That's just begging the question, and it still fails to address the original criticism about lack of difficulty.

Marcus+Sain kills midgame onward 10x more than Seth ever could to his entire game. Much as you say Seth destroys his game, you only get 1 of him. FE7 went out of it's way to give you 2.

This "+Sain" notion implies Lyn Mode abuse. If we're going to power-level Sain to promotion before a reasonable time, why can't we do the same with Franz?

As for others being in the player's control, they're in your control if you're in the mindset of "turtling" rather than low turn counting. If we're fast turning, that situation of CoD is unavoidable as stated.

Seeing as the game wasn't designed for crazy-blitz-efficiency, I can hardly see how it's fair to hold that against the map design. Ranking runs, on the other hand, are an endorsed way to play in-game, and none of the maps you listed (with the exception of BbD, but, again, only if you want Jaffar/28x without restarts) provide cheap difficulty in that regard.

EHM isn't really a hard mode though...

Unranked EHM is probably just about as hard as FE8HM; ranked, it's much harder.

Edited August 10, 2011 by Doomguy

[Lord Raven]

This "+Sain" notion implies Lyn Mode abuse

I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I think it was -Cynthia- who did a basic Lyn's HM run and ended up with a L13 Sain and a L7 Kent (I'm like 75% sure it was efficiency). Presumably, you could promote Sain then with Wallace's Knight Crest. Edited August 10, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[Anouleth]

Seth is easily better than Marcus. Marcus runs into legitimate Spd and durability issues that Seth never does. And FE7 did not go "out of its way" to give you 2, you only get the second if you level up a Cavalier enough in LHM and promote him, which wasn't really intended considering LNM forces you to use the Knight Crest on Wallace and Lyn mode can be skipped entirely after that. It's possible and should be considered, sure, but not in the way you put it.

Even then, Marcus + Sain being 10x better than Seth is more over-exaggerating. The nature of FE7 still requires other good units, fliers and staff units in particular, while most of FE8 can be so easily Seth-skipped.

Uh, really? At what point in FE7 do you "need" a flier or a staff unit? Obviously, you want one to deal with status staves, but the same could be said for FE8. Obviously, Marcus + Sain can't handle the last two or three chapters on their own. The same could be said for FE8 (Seth could do 20 but probably not Final). Although FE7 also has better prepromotes later on. Athos, Pent, Harken, Vaida, and Geitz all show up as Marcus is slowing down to pick up the slack.

[Geriba]

Uh, really? At what point in FE7 do you "need" a flier or a staff unit? Obviously, you want one to deal with status staves, but the same could be said for FE8. Obviously, Marcus + Sain can't handle the last two or three chapters on their own. The same could be said for FE8 (Seth could do 20 but probably not Final). Although FE7 also has better prepromotes later on. Athos, Pent, Harken, Vaida, and Geitz all show up as Marcus is slowing down to pick up the slack.

Then how would you respond to the fact that even many early-game chapters cannot be soloed with Marcus alone? You're holding fast to your position here, so I'm tempted to do a chapter-by-chapter comparison.

[Florete]

Uh, really? At what point in FE7 do you "need" a flier or a staff unit? Obviously, you want one to deal with status staves, but the same could be said for FE8. Obviously, Marcus + Sain can't handle the last two or three chapters on their own. The same could be said for FE8 (Seth could do 20 but probably not Final). Although FE7 also has better prepromotes later on. Athos, Pent, Harken, Vaida, and Geitz all show up as Marcus is slowing down to pick up the slack.

"Requires" may have been the wrong word, but Seth is going to remain your best unit and/or better in comparison to your other units in FE8 for much longer than Marcus or Sain will in FE7. That was really the point I meant to make.

[Hawk King]

Yeah sure, Seth is a bad-ass, but how many turns does he actually save? In the 9 chapters up to the split, he only saves 7-9 turns as opposed to playing without using him. Franz can easily promote by chapter 8, if Seth is not used, and then from the split onwards your turn counts wouldnt be any different than if Seth were used.

But yeah, he can be used from start to finish, and always be one of the top 3 units in every single chapter. Marcus however drops off after the other pallys catch up, and the other pre-promotes join.

[General Banzai]

Plenty of earlygame chapters in FE7 can be solo'd by Marcus alone. In fact, I've done a prepromote playthrough where until I got Isadora I could only use Marcus, and I'd actually say it was easier to solo with him than it was to play the game normally.

However, I'm going to say that exploitation of the Jeigan was not what the developers intended when they made these games. I'm also gonna say that they probably didn't intend for playing the game efficiently. For instance, the best possible in-game rank you can get for FE7 HHM is some 200 turns slower than one of this community's standard "efficient" run. And in FESS the game encourages you even in HM to go visit the tower when it first becomes available. Traditionally the Jeigan has meant to be a unit you avoid; where reliance on them instead of your other units will screw you over in the long run. Since after the NES era people started to get sick of annoying deathtraps like that in games, the developers began to make the Jeigan better and better so that exploiting them will not necessarily make the game unbeatable. This comes with the double-edged cut that hardcore fans, who are quite excellent at this game, are able to exploit the Jeigan beyond his intended use, the same way the warp staff is exploited to completely skip chapters.

[Lord Raven]

the best possible in-game rank you can get for FE7 HHM is some 200 turns slower than one of this community's standard "efficient" run.

200? dondon's was 120 turns less (190 something if i recall correctly?) for 0% growths, and I'm fairly sure that he could shave maybe 10 turns off with leveled units (probably more), but I don't quite thing it's 200. That actually means you need to get roughly something like 4-5 turns per chapter... given that you have chapters like Night of Farewells and Chapter 15H contributing their massive turncounts to this.

Sacred Stones is probably what you're thinking of, because FE7 HHM is 310 turns whereas Sacred Stones is 120 or something.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[-Cynthia-]

I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I think it was -Cynthia- who did a basic Lyn's HM run and ended up with a L13 Sain and a L7 Kent (I'm like 75% sure it was efficiency). Presumably, you could promote Sain then with Wallace's Knight Crest.

Yes, that was me, I certainly didn't boss abuse and I think my turncounts were relatively low. However, to get that levwel on Sain I had to feed him all the bosskills (which wasn't terribly inefficient as he soon became the best bosskiller anyway), which made the levels of units like Kent(7) and Florina(6) relatively low.

[Geriba]

However, I'm going to say that exploitation of the Jeigan was not what the developers intended when they made these games. I'm also gonna say that they probably didn't intend for playing the game efficiently. For instance, the best possible in-game rank you can get for FE7 HHM is some 200 turns slower than one of this community's standard "efficient" run. And in FESS the game encourages you even in HM to go visit the tower when it first becomes available. Traditionally the Jeigan has meant to be a unit you avoid; where reliance on them instead of your other units will screw you over in the long run. Since after the NES era people started to get sick of annoying deathtraps like that in games, the developers began to make the Jeigan better and better so that exploiting them will not necessarily make the game unbeatable. This comes with the double-edged cut that hardcore fans, who are quite excellent at this game, are able to exploit the Jeigan beyond his intended use, the same way the warp staff is exploited to completely skip chapters.

This is all just baseless speculation. Here are the hard facts about Seth:

-best availability of any unit

-phenomenal bases

-great growths

If IS was hoping to "prevent" Seth-abuse, they would have altered one of these three characteristics. As it stands, Seth exists in FE8, and there's no way to deny his game-breaking brokenness without resorting to challenge runs.

[VincentASM]

There is a fair amount of truth in what Banzai said though.

In one of their FE9 Q and As, IS stated that Titania is an unit that you can use for the whole game. I also seem to recall them referring to Titania as a "Jeigan" character (if not her, it was definitely somebody recent, possibly Seth?).

In earlier games, they referred to Jeigan units as simply "helper" or "guardian" units (and I vaguely remember them recommending players not to rely on them), so their purpose has evolved slightly.

Similarly, IS stated that they are aware that the arena can be exploited, which is why it was removed from FE9. What this suggests to me is that IS isn't good at or doesn't feel like balancing certain aspects of the game. Applying this argument to Seth, I'm pretty sure IS know that it's possible to solo large portions of the game with Seth or Titania, but (like arena abuse), not many players will do that.

No clue if any of this is relevant : P

[Geriba]

I'd say that's all very relevant! No denying that IS, while great at general design, is pretty poor at balance, and it's not a stretch to say that the Fire Emblem community at large cares more about this than IS itself does. Still, "intention" is a tricky thing to define and impossible to verify. When talking about game balance, then, all we have to work with is what we're given.

[Paperblade]

I'm pretty sure IS is/was well aware the balance was poor, and that's why there are ranks other than Tactics.

[Raven]

Imagine how boring it would be if everything was balanced. Yawn.

[Geriba]

Imagine how boring it would be if everything was balanced. Yawn.

Yeah man, it's so much more exciting when everything follows the FE6 blueprint: some units are clearly better, some units are garbage.

[Anouleth]

"Requires" may have been the wrong word, but Seth is going to remain your best unit and/or better in comparison to your other units in FE8 for much longer than Marcus or Sain will in FE7. That was really the point I meant to make.

Seth is your best unit for about 20 chapters. From what I've heard, Marcus and Sain remain among your best units until like, Victory or Death. Which is more than 20 chapters.

[Geriba]

Wait, who gets better than Seth? And Marcus gets outclassed pretty quickly once the mid/late game picks up.

[Mekkah]

At several points in the game having a combat unit that can fly is better than Seth (Myrrh, Cormag, maybe Vanessa). Doesn't make Seth worthless, of course, but no longer the only piece of the puzzle.

[General Banzai]

It's quite clear IS does not try to make their games perfectly balanced. Look at FERD especially for this, where units who start higher leveled and with higher availability than some other units also have better growths and stats than those later-joining units.

They have, however, made it balanced in the fact that while some units may be gods, you CAN get through the game using anyone you want, with a couple of exceptions. Compare this to some of the earlier entries in the series, where many units were so bad to be unusable even with excessive babying.

So yeah, Seth may be god. But that isn't to say that other units like Franz/Vanessa/Lute/etc are unusable, and thus there is no balance. There's some balance, but it's not completely balanced. If the game were completely balanced, what would be the point of picking certain units over others? What would be the point of trying units out and seeing how they turn out? IS doesn't really expect most players to have access to growth rates/average stats of all the characters. IS doesn't expect most players to be like us and ramble inanely over unit merit for over four years.

So having complete balance is bad, but so is having complete lack of balance, so that you're basically forced to use the same team of ten units every game.

I think FE7, FESS, PoR, and Thracia did this well, while the other games in the series did not.