Mechanics that you want

[Anouleth]

You could get the same result by reducing ally growth rates.

[RNG Princess]

I really hope they bring the summoner class back and the soliders. I really like Thracia's mechanic where enemy dancers exist and actually refresh enemy units, I think having some of those would be interesting ^^' and enemies being able to use the other staves like warp/rewarp would be interesting too. I want maps to depends on every type of character and not be dominated by typical jeigans. More ballistaes could help and tanking opportunities for knights.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Queen_Kittylincia

[CrashGordon94]

And elimating Jeigans so they can't dominate anything too.

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

You could get the same result by reducing ally growth rates.

Aren't bases strong enough already, though? Do we really want to screw over growth units when it's already difficult to cultivate them in a LTC run?

[Othin]

Making growth units based on actual stat growth rates never works anyway. The ones that work are ones like FE4's Master Knights, that don't just try to catch up, but instead have something of their own - attaining a unique, crazy powerful class, getting absurd promotion gains, learning ridiculous skills, etc.

[Anouleth]

Aren't bases strong enough already, though? Do we really want to screw over growth units when it's already difficult to cultivate them in a LTC run?

I didn't say the result was desirable.

[NinjaMonkey]

And elimating Jeigans so they can't dominate anything too.

Nobody is forcing you to use them. And they can be helpful in a pinch.

[CrashGordon94]

Nobody is forcing you to use them.

I freaking hate this argument, just because they're not forced doesn't mean it's good to have them be horribly broken!

And they can be helpful in a pinch.

So would a normal first tier unit with high bases, such a solution wouldn't be terribly hard to implement either as you could have an unpromoted pseudo-Jeigan like Ruka from FE2 or Fin from FE5, a powerful Lord character like Ike/Hector/Ephraim (Someone like Sigurd would be taking it too far though) or any other plain old ordinary unit with strong starting stats like many of the Ogma archetypes or the grand majority of "Christmas Knights".

An even better idea would be to just cut down on the difficulty of the earlier chapters so you don't need a crutch, earlygame is sometimes considered the hardest part (especially on higher difficulties) purely because you don't have anyone raised up yet so I think it would work well to counteract that.

Even if we keep Jeigans they should at least end up badly enough that they're balanced, like the J man himself! This wouldn't necessarily make them terribly unusuable if you're absolutely determined as these games generally have ways around poor stat growths and they'd still not be the worst units ever because they'd at least have SOMETHING (in this case, a good earlygame). Or make it so that their main use later on is utility like Sothe sans being forced in 4-E because that was a stupid idea or maybe a hypothetical Bishop Jeigan who could be a staffbot after their combat use runs out.

[luchinania]

An even better idea would be to just cut down on the difficulty of the earlier chapters so you don't need a crutch, earlygame is sometimes considered the hardest part (especially on higher difficulties) purely because you don't have anyone raised up yet so I think it would work well to counteract that.

That's one of the reasons why I wanted enemy units that changed level according to your own. When I was playing FE12, I couldn't advance in the higher difficulty but then it got too easy in the difficulties that I could manage. If they somehow manage to lower the difficulty a bit in the beginning and jack up the difficulty later on in the game then I wouldn't want the enemy changing level effect.

All that for an effect that would just reduce rewards for playing well and reduce penalties for playing poorly, intentionally or not? Hardly seems like a good idea. If you think grinding gives too little of a challenge, don't grind. Leave it as an easy option for those who want it. Rankings can work perfectly well for penalizing grinding for those who want to play at a more skillful level anyway.

I don't remember purposely grinding in FE12, and it still gets easier later on in the game. I only tried grinding a bit in the beginning to try and bring low level characters up to a useful level but then I just gave up.

I don't think a SMALLER team is needed. I think a team where you NEED to rely on EVERYONE is needed. According to you (I haven't been keeping up on the release info as I do not have a 3DS), skirmishes are back. This means you can level up everyone... So... Why not let us use everyone in the maps? Make maps with 20 deployment and such! If you're worried about power-levelers, stick on a level-cap. Or better yet, simply make it so that there is enough EXP to level everyone up and make it that leveling up a select group too high drastically cuts into the amount of EXP earned (like, enemies give only 5 EXP on death, but for every unit deployed, you get +1 EXP or something).

I thought that was industry standard... though I'm starting to lose the feeling that perma-death is needed. Yes, it's been around for a long time and it is hard to imagine FE without it, but when a character dies... do you sniffle and continue on despite their loss? Or reset the game? I think the perma-death needs to be made relevant again. Like, say, a 'hardcore' mode where you only get one save file, the game only auto-saves after you beat the chapter, and the file gets erased when you load it up (to prevent save scumming).

Yeah, I could live with bigger teams if all the characters they give you were relevant, but they give you(at least in the remakes) a lot of characters with low levels that were too similar for me to bother to level up. Skirmishes get old and annoying fast, so I don't if I want to depend on them too much.

I reset the game if I lose a character, except if it's in FE11. So yeah, I want a relevant permadeath.

[Anouleth]

That's one of the reasons why I wanted enemy units that changed level according to your own. When I was playing FE12, I couldn't advance in the higher difficulty but then it got too easy in the difficulties that I could manage. If they somehow manage to lower the difficulty a bit in the beginning and jack up the difficulty later on in the game then I wouldn't want the enemy changing level effect.

I think that FE in general does have an issue of the game getting easier as you go on, although it seems that recently, they've been getting better with FE9 MM, FE10, FE11, and FE12, which maintain a pretty adequate difficulty curve.

I reset the game if I lose a character, except if it's in FE11. So yeah, I want a relevant permadeath.

I don't understand what you mean. So if you lose the character, you have to restart the whole game? That's a terrible idea.

I think that Casual Mode is a great addition. Permadeath is a cute gimmick, but ultimately I don't think that the difficulty needs to be so punishing.

[Snowy_One]

And elimating Jeigans so they can't dominate anything too.

No... This was discussed earlier. Anyways, the problem isn't that there are Jeigans. The problem is that the Jeigans are units that start the game with very high movement and only end up a little bit weaker than normal. In a tier list, that is OMGWTF OP'ed. Look at FE9 Titania for example. At 20/20, she is noticably weaker than your other units. 21 STR at most, 23 SPD, and 19 DEF. That's not terribly good. However, even if your other units started to surpass her the moment they promoted, she would outright dominate the first half of the game and only slack off in the final third if only because her movement would surpass anyone at the beginning and only later would her stats cause her to slow down. Someone suggested making the Jeigan a archer or knight so that they would still be useful to new players, but tier players wouldn't find them as useful due to no counters/low movement respectivally.

Yeah, I could live with bigger teams if all the characters they give you were relevant, but they give you(at least in the remakes) a lot of characters with low levels that were too similar for me to bother to level up. Skirmishes get old and annoying fast, so I don't if I want to depend on them too much.

Fair enough. I'm just saying that they can be used as a mechanic to ensure everyone is about the same level.

I don't understand what you mean. So if you lose the character, you have to restart the whole game? That's a terrible idea.

I think that Casual Mode is a great addition. Permadeath is a cute gimmick, but ultimately I don't think that the difficulty needs to be so punishing.

The point I'm trying to push is 'if you have any character with the slightest bit of meaning die, you will likely reset the game and play the chapter over. So why even have it in the first place?' And it makes sense too. OH NO! I DIDN'T SACRIFICE TO THE RNG GODDESS TODAY AND MY DODGY SM GOT HIT BY A STRING OF 1% CHANCE HITS! RESET! The only 'punishment' is having to replay the chapter over, making 'permadeath' more of a self-imposed challenge than a actual game feature... so why even have it anymore?

[Anouleth]

The point I'm trying to push is 'if you have any character with the slightest bit of meaning die, you will likely reset the game and play the chapter over. So why even have it in the first place?'

You are an idiot, Snowy. It's always been in the back of my mind, in every except I've ever had with you, but times like this really hammer it home.

And it makes sense too. OH NO! I DIDN'T SACRIFICE TO THE RNG GODDESS TODAY AND MY DODGY SM GOT HIT BY A STRING OF 1% CHANCE HITS! RESET! The only 'punishment' is having to replay the chapter over, making 'permadeath' more of a self-imposed challenge than a actual game feature... so why even have it anymore?

Except that having to replay the chapter is a pretty damn big punishment. I can't think of another RPG that's 1/10th as punishing as to force you to reload a save every time someone dies. Some RPGs don't even force a reset if everyone dies.

I know many people who refuse to play Fire Emblem because of permadeath, or who have played it and stopped because they hated having to go through chapters again and again because they kept on making mistakes. It's NOT FUN. Having to restart the entire fucking game is even less fun. This is punishing gameplay. It's punishing because it's denying the player new content. Instead of getting to go to the next level, they have to play the same level again. Maybe you don't like getting to see new content or playing new chapters, in which case I can only assume that you are not an actual human being but some sort of reptilian alien who doesn't understand the concept of fun, but at least recognise that for NORMAL people, having to restart a chapter over again is a bad thing, and that getting to advance to a new chapter is a good thing.

In addition, your example is terrible. So you think that when players get randomly punished by the RNG and have to restart a chapter, that's not being punishing enough? Instead, they have to restart the whole game? Stuff like this makes me glad that you are not in charge of making computer games.

[dondon151]

I think that permadeath is definitely a mechanism that should be retained in Fire Emblem games because of how it forces players to adapt to the game. I can imagine that there are so many things that would work in the absence of permadeath that Fire Emblem would actually play differently altogether.

See some of beamcrash's FE6 ultra LTC videos, for instance. Granted, he abuses the fact that units get to moved again when their rescuer dies, but imagine if there were no permanent loss from doing so - you could really do some ridiculous stuff in that game.

If you want to make the game more playable in the eyes of casuals, the mode inclusion solution works fine. Everyone is happy, and even the hardcore players who just want to laugh and steamroll their way through the game might like the option.

Edited January 9, 2012 by dondon151

[arvilino]

The point I'm trying to push is 'if you have any character with the slightest bit of meaning die, you will likely reset the game and play the chapter over. So why even have it in the first place?' And it makes sense too. OH NO! I DIDN'T SACRIFICE TO THE RNG GODDESS TODAY AND MY DODGY SM GOT HIT BY A STRING OF 1% CHANCE HITS! RESET! The only 'punishment' is having to replay the chapter over, making 'permadeath' more of a self-imposed challenge than a actual game feature... so why even have it anymore?

Because if it wasn't there you aren't really punished at all for reckless game play. Like Dondon said the game would be completley different, if you added no permadeath you could trivialise every non-route chapters of the majority of Fire Emblem games by doing stuff like sacraficing units to lure enemies away, suiciding units against bosses until the bosses are dead.

[Snowy_One]

Except that having to replay the chapter is a pretty damn big punishment. I can't think of another RPG that's 1/10th as punishing as to force you to reload a save every time someone dies. Some RPGs don't even force a reset if everyone dies.

I know many people who refuse to play Fire Emblem because of permadeath, or who have played it and stopped because they hated having to go through chapters again and again because they kept on making mistakes. It's NOT FUN. Having to restart the entire fucking game is even less fun. This is punishing gameplay. It's punishing because it's denying the player new content. Instead of getting to go to the next level, they have to play the same level again. Maybe you don't like getting to see new content or playing new chapters, in which case I can only assume that you are not an actual human being but some sort of reptilian alien who doesn't understand the concept of fun, but at least recognise that for NORMAL people, having to restart a chapter over again is a bad thing, and that getting to advance to a new chapter is a good thing.

In addition, your example is terrible. So you think that when players get randomly punished by the RNG and have to restart a chapter, that's not being punishing enough? Instead, they have to restart the whole game? Stuff like this makes me glad that you are not in charge of making computer games.

You yourself said it right here. You know people who refuse to play the game simply because of the perma-death feature. I'm not saying that perma-death or being forced to replay a chapter should be removed, I'm just questioning the purpose. Remember Anny, you are part of a group of people who is of the dedicated fanbase. You are not the average player, for better or worse. Nuzlocke runs are self-imposed and, while I'm sure they can be fun, I am sure that your average person will not play the game for the Nuzlocke challenges, or if they do, they won't spend all their time playing that exclusively. To the average person, someone dies, he resets the chapter. 'Worst' case, it's someone he doesn't like or care about anyways and he continues on, not really caring.

I'm not saying perma-death should be removed, just that it needs to have real meaning again beyond 'oh no. my healer died again. time to restart the chapter'. If it is going to be like that, you might as well just have a 'revive station' where you shell out gold and have a unit drop down to 0 EXP for that level. Longtime players will hate it, but casual players will enjoy not having to restart constantly.

Once again, TAKE NOTE, I am not saying perma-death needs to be removed. I am saying that it lacks meaning as of now and is more of an annoyance than a actual feature.

[Othin]

Permadeath makes "keep all your units alive" an important secondary objective that most people follow, greatly affecting how they play to preserve their entire team and to avoid resets. Casual Mode allows people who don't like it to remove that part; while I would never use it, Casual Mode is an excellent option that all future FE games should have.

This all sounds good to me. Where's the issue?

I don't remember purposely grinding in FE12, and it still gets easier later on in the game. I only tried grinding a bit in the beginning to try and bring low level characters up to a useful level but then I just gave up.

That's an unrelated issue with just the fact that the games don't do enough to keep up with the levels your characters should be at.

[arvilino]

You yourself said it right here. You know people who refuse to play the game simply because of the perma-death feature. I'm not saying that perma-death or being forced to replay a chapter should be removed, I'm just questioning the purpose. Remember Anny, you are part of a group of people who is of the dedicated fanbase. You are not the average player, for better or worse. Nuzlocke runs are self-imposed and, while I'm sure they can be fun, I am sure that your average person will not play the game for the Nuzlocke challenges, or if they do, they won't spend all their time playing that exclusively. To the average person, someone dies, he resets the chapter. 'Worst' case, it's someone he doesn't like or care about anyways and he continues on, not really caring.

I'm not saying perma-death should be removed, just that it needs to have real meaning again beyond 'oh no. my healer died again. time to restart the chapter'. If it is going to be like that, you might as well just have a 'revive station' where you shell out gold and have a unit drop down to 0 EXP for that level. Longtime players will hate it, but casual players will enjoy not having to restart constantly.

Once again, TAKE NOTE, I am not saying perma-death needs to be removed. I am saying that it lacks meaning as of now and is more of an annoyance than a actual feature.

I disagree though. It's not like character death is out of the blue, the game gives you all the numbers so that beyond enemy phase moving reinforcements in a couple of the games there's absolutely no way you can have a player character die that couldn't be predicted(either by hit rates, criticals etc.) beforehand.

I also disagree with your claim about the "average person". Years ago On my first playthrough of Fire Emblem 7 I didn't play very well had characters dying left, right and centre yet I still continued playing and the game was still possible, it didn't exactly punish the player that much. It wasn't even until I started getting better at it that I reset when a character died, which is more self imposed and actually made the game more challenging.

[Balcerzak]

And even beyond the resource and manpower limitations, having split paths cheapens the experience of either path. Everything you do in one path is nullified by the constant thought that it could have easily turned out differently if you just clicked a menu screen. The story no longer has any power, because you're being given the freedom to mould the story to your whims. As I pointed out before, you're not as good a storyteller as IS is. Why not let them do their job, come out with a strong story like the one in PoR, and not try to sacrifice all that for the sake of some gimmicky gameplay elements?

No. While your arguements about watering down are legitimate, there is absolutely nothing legitimate about this one. There is a thriving industry of multipath games in Japan, and I would certainly argue that in Fate/Stay Night the Heaven's Feel path is not "cheapened" by the existence of the Unlimited Blade Works path. Similarly in Saya no Uta the Kouji path is not "cheapened" by the existence of the Saya path.

Sure it takes a lot of effort on the part of the scenario designer to make it work, but there is nothing inherently better about single-route over multi-route.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Balcerzak

[luchinania]

That's what casual mode is for, and since they seem to be trying to make FE more mainstream then it will probably be included.

I like having to restart a chapter when a characters dies because it forces me to rethink my strategy, but then that probably makes me a masochist. I agreed that permadeath should be more relevant because I don't want rewards or consolation prizes when a character dies; I don't want to feel like I'm missing something because I choose to keep all characters.

[dondon151]

Once again, TAKE NOTE, I am not saying perma-death needs to be removed. I am saying that it lacks meaning as of now and is more of an annoyance than a actual feature.

Have you seen beamcrash's videos.

Just saying. Even if most good FE players reset in the event of a character's death, that doesn't mean that the mechanic "lacks meaning;" each and every one of us have to craft a strategy that prevents unit death, that that's a severe (and in my opinion, necessary) limitation.

[Lord Raven]

I'm not sure why you feel the need to enforce your playing style on everyone else, Snowy.

[RNG Princess]

Taking perma-death away is taking part of Fire Emblem's charm, how else will I be forced to care for my frail characters like healers if I can get them the next chapter? They should keep it but add Casual mode for the newbies. I hope they implement many of the previously used features like forges, trading skills. I think it would be fun to choose a character tale like FE7

Edited January 10, 2012 by Queen_Kittylincia

[General Banzai]

Has anyone here played Shining Force, or any other SRPG with no permadeath? They suck.

[Anouleth]

Has anyone here played Shining Force, or any other SRPG with no permadeath? They suck.

I dunno, I played FFTA and FFTA2, and while they weren't transcendent life changing experiences or anything, they were good games and highly enjoyable. If they had flaws, they wouldn't be fixed by adding permadeath, that's for sure!

Permadeath makes "keep all your units alive" an important secondary objective that most people follow, greatly affecting how they play to preserve their entire team and to avoid resets.

Or you could just have a Survival style ranking.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Anouleth

[bottlegnomes]

Has anyone here played Shining Force, or any other SRPG with no permadeath? They suck.

The problem with SF has very little to do with lack of permanent death and much more to do with being forced to use characters in a certain order, which takes a lot of the control out of the player's hands.

Anyway, I'm all for casual and classic modes.

As for the jeigans, we already sort of covered this, but whatever. IMO the best is just give them piss awful growths and have bases that are only slightly better than the rest of the characters, kinda like FE3. Of course, that's only if you want them to stay paladins. Making them generals or snipers, as said, is also a pretty good idea. Hell, sniper would make it even easier for new players to use them, since, as is, they pretty much use them to bait enemies. That way, they could have them have a PP and use them to bait without having to worry about killing on counters.