Mechanics that you want

[Snowy_One]

What you want is to remove the choice from the player (specifically, the choice of what units to use). I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong with trying to emphasise the strategy over the RPG side of Fire Emblem, as FE10 did, but I think the majority of players are interesting in being able to pick what units they use.

You must be Wolverine's geek cousin whom he's ashamed to talk about in public because I SWEAR your skull is as thick as adamantium. How on EARTH does splitting teams up suddenly REDUCE the number of choices you have for unit deployment? You have at least two functioning teams! You will be playing units you probably would not have played if you had only one main team. That is NOT a reduction of choice. You don't want to use the units or think that they would be better off on the other team? Next time through, send them over to the other team(s) next time through. The only thing this does is make it so that, if you pick a small team of super-units, their awesomeness can't carry you through the game as easily. Sides, let's face it, your main gripe here is that, if this was implemented, you would have a harder time with Paladin curbstomps. If you actually cared about the player using the units that they wanted to use, you would want a style in which every unit has its niche and weakness so that all units can have a use.

Even if you only had one use, it would still be worthwhile. The actual attack is no less or more valuable whether you can do it 1 or 100 times. The only thing that goes down in value is the actual tome: but long-range tomes are already of respectable value with their 5 uses

Yes. Because a single-use tome that has a lot of range but not enough MT to be a guarenteed kill is suddenly something so worth-while as to be considered a definitive upside.

Chapters 5 and 13 of FE9 were /not/ challenging.

I disagree. I found them to be actually harder than the average chapter since I could sleepwalk through them with strong units instead of having some goal that needed protection/dealingwith/what have you.

No, pretty sure you could win them with a single overpowered unit. Hell, you could win them with a single above-average unit. Just leave Ike on the defend square with a stack of vulneraries. Hardly very interesting at all.

Defend chapters were the worst thing to ever happen to Fire Emblem. Give me FE6 and its endless Seizes any day.

Aaaaaannnnnnddddd it's gone people! All gone! Anouleth has lost all credibility on this topic! A home-run-no-cred shutout! Inability to consider concepts outside himself has just put his reply down from 'worth responding to' to 'idiot mad his playstyle is being attacked'. Why, even I haven't been this close-minded in LTC tiers!

I'd like to see a reactionary system in place for the enemy where they deploy units and weapons that counter your army. For example, say that you're deploying a lot of sword users, so more the enemy would deploy more lance users, or if you're deploying fliers, the enemy fields archers, Armors would result in Hammers, etc. This would be determined by the MVPs of your team, going by FE9 and FE10's method of determining MVPs.

Now I can hear the criticism already. "You're just trying to make it so that LTCs can't use mounted units." Congratulations, you just realized the whole point of this system, but are only looking at it through your own little viewpoint. The whole point of this system is that the game makes an attempt to counter your strategy no matter what strategy you're using.

I would like to see it to. Needs to be balanced carefully though. It's easy to make a system that ends up punishing rather than challenging the player, especially since some units, like fliers and paladins, get their advantages largely on terrain-types and such, which can't be altered. Plus you need to remember to include units that actually feel like a reward to fight for using your strat. Ex: if you use a lot of mages, don't just stick out high-RES units, remember to also stick out low RES/High DEF units for them to chew up and have fun with.

Please explain to me the functional difference between an enemy definitely having a Horseslayer and an enemy probably having a Horseslayer. Or rather, please explain to me why it is a worse idea for the weapon distribution to be static.

You may not be using horses. If we make it do that it is a 'definite' horseslayer, the enemy unit suffers if you don't rely a lot on mounted units one run as it can't use a iron/steel weapon instead.

And we like Hard Mode.

I mentioned this a while back but... the problem with hard mode is that it is not actually 'harder'. You fight enemies with harder stats, but that doesn't push you to be better, or at least not to the same degree as enemies using better tactics and making the player need to think more about his moves and such. It's like fighting a end-boss in a fighter. They're always OP'ed, have more health, some sort of mega-move, and so-on. They challenge the player, but far from as well as a end-boss that uses simpler moves well to constantly screw around with and combo the player. Why? OP'ed boss is simply a matter of finding the moves that work on him and praying you can keep him down long enough to beat him up. Skilled boss actually requires the player to figure out the weakpoints and how to exploit them. It's the difference between spamming one simple combo over and over and working to break your opponents combo and then use your own. Some of the hardest games I play don't have a unfairly OPed opponent. They're just as powerful as the normal in fact. Instead, they have a very, very skilled opponent to fight against.

Escape missions ought to feel like, you know, you're actually escaping. Not like in FERD/PoR where it instead feels like you're just going somewhere casually.

That's pretty difficult to do. You need to establish that the player WILL lose and die if they don't hurry up and that they can't possibly hope to stand against the onslaught of enemies. Like, imagine some super-general at 20/20 while you're in chapter 5 being chased. You have a clear goal (the escape tile) and you have obstacles that need to be overcome (enemies in the path) and you have a ***** who will KILL you if you dally. One of the best escape sequences I've seen recently was in SCII when the party is escaping with Kerrigan hot on their tail. You're pushed, fighting desperately, using limited resources, and everything in the hope that it will buy you JUST a extra 2 seconds or such so you can escape. You probably know the level I'm talking about (IIRC, the secret mission), so go play it.

I know this is going to sound odd, but I definatly think people need to look outside of FE to find ways to improve FE. Concepts and ideas fill every game, and while some would not work in a FE game, some would and learning why they work and how they could be used is valuable. Bulwark Saga, SCII, FFTA, SRW, and everything can be useful. Even a FPS like Halo 3 can offer ideas on how to help (fighting duel-enemies who are very powerful, but have a attackable backside that need to be handled carefully for example), just know how to handle the situation.

[Thor Odinson]

It doesn't change the fact that I, and many others, enjoy HMs as it is. Could there be things to do to improve it? Absolutely. But to say that it doesn't make the game harder is absurd.

The increase in stats actually does do something. Now that the enemies are stronger, your units are more easily killed. Would you be able to use the same set of strategies if your units are now 2-3RKO'd instead of 4-5RKO'd? No.

And Sethsolo would actually be a challenge if FE8 had harder enemies. As it stands, it doesn't, so Seth basically calls rapeface to the entire game and not once giving a shit. He still'd the best unit in the game, but maybe he'd actually want something other than fliers getting him across terrain faster.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Luminescent Blade

[dondon151]

Aaaaaannnnnnddddd it's gone people! All gone! Anouleth has lost all credibility on this topic! A home-run-no-cred shutout! Inability to consider concepts outside himself has just put his reply down from 'worth responding to' to 'idiot mad his playstyle is being attacked'. Why, even I haven't been this close-minded in LTC tiers!

No, Anouleth's point is very valid, and it has nothing to do with turncounts at all, because defense maps (at least, the ones you mentioned) have fixed turncounts. Well, chapter 13 not so much, but if you employ Anouleth's strategy, you'll always wait it out.

What he says is also true in that defense maps in general can be trivialized by holding a chokepoint with an unarmed unit and not budging. Remember chapter 14 of FE5? I remember a user on FESS (by the name of General Delmud or something) made an image expressing his frustration with the map. I had honestly expected a challenge; when I played it on 0% growths, however, I realized that you could just choke 3 points on the map with unarmed mounted units and wait out all 10 turns with no chance at failure.

Now, perhaps most players would find the map challenging because they are falsely led to believe that the player must kill the enemies in order to achieve the objective. Whatever the case, I think this is a fault specific to how defense maps are designed.

You may not be using horses. If we make it do that it is a 'definite' horseslayer, the enemy unit suffers if you don't rely a lot on mounted units one run as it can't use a iron/steel weapon instead.

You must be clinically retarded. There is nothing preventing the enemy unit in question from having both a Horseslayer and a Silver Lance.

Edited November 17, 2011 by dondon151

[Zohda]

No, Anouleth's point is very valid, and it has nothing to do with turncounts at all, because defense maps (at least, the ones you mentioned) have fixed turncounts. Well, chapter 13 not so much, but if you employ Anouleth's strategy, you'll always wait it out.

What he says is also true in that defense maps in general can be trivialized by holding a chokepoint with an unarmed unit and not budging. Remember chapter 14 of FE5? I remember a user on FESS (by the name of General Delmud or something) made an image expressing his frustration with the map. I had honestly expected a challenge; when I played it on 0% growths, however, I realized that you could just choke 3 points on the map with unarmed mounted units and wait out all 10 turns with no chance at failure.

Now, perhaps most players would find the map challenging because they are falsely led to believe that the player must kill the enemies in order to achieve the objective. Whatever the case, I think this is a fault specific to how defense maps are designed.

That's assuming that the chokepoints are one square wide. Move the unit just one square behind the chokepoint, and he's only being attacked by two units tops sans seige magic/ballistae or a lollongbow. With wider chokepoints, the difficulty of defense maps ramp up.

[dondon151]

That's assuming that the chokepoints are one square wide. Move the unit just one square behind the chokepoint, and he's only being attacked by two units tops sans seige magic/ballistae or a lollongbow. With wider chokepoints, the difficulty of defense maps ramp up.

Making wider chokepoints doesn't really solve the problem. If you widen chokepoints to width 2, still only 3 units can attack one defending unit at a time. Most of the time this doesn't even happen due to how much work is necessary to make the AI work. If you have a mix of melee and ranged units approaching a chokepoint, what usually happens is that all of the melee units engage the front line at the same time, and you end up with the same scenario as before except extended by a couple of tiles.

That's not to say that there aren't ways to make defense maps more difficult. Certainly, you can give all enemy units a strong 1-2 range option in order to make them more likely to gang up on one defending unit. You can reduce the number of defensible chokepoints and cover the remaining ones with long range options. You can make the defensible area larger than a single tile so you can't just park your lord there and call it a day.

The fact remains, however, that it's much easier for a player to exploit game mechanics to trivialize a map where he does not have to go from point A to point B, compared to a map where he does have to go from point A to point B. An AI (particularly the ones used in FE) is not smart enough to pursue an active strategy.

Edited November 17, 2011 by dondon151

[Othin]

You know what makes any strategy much more difficult and strategic to execute, and therefore greatly helps with issues with useful difficulty?

Integrated turn order.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Othin

[CrashGordon94]

Well thank you from descending from your pedestal to enlighten dirt-eating peasants such as myself with your glorious knowledge. Any more rare pearls of wisdom to share with us, Athena?

He is not vun voman!

Anyway, I'd really like to see FE10's Easy/Normal Mode Battle Save system return again. It's obviously highly exploitable but I say that if the abusers are THAT determined to make everything go perfect, let them. They didn't really cripple FE10 because Battle Save abusing was rare for much other than trying to force a good level up or take out a tricky enemy or something, I think at least, I'll admit I'm not completely familiar with what people will and won't normally do with it.

[Refa]

You know what makes any strategy much more difficult and strategic to execute, and therefore greatly helps with issues with useful difficulty?

Integrated turn order.

Like Shining Force?

Edited November 17, 2011 by Refa

[Othin]

Like Shining Force?

Don't know much about Shining Force, so maybe, maybe not. I'll just explain the system I'm talking about.

Say there are 5 allies on the field, and 20 enemies. At the start of a turn, the lineup is organized so you can move one ally, then four enemies move, then you move a different ally, then four other enemies move, etc. At the end of the turn, characters that have moved are refreshed and they can act again sometime during the next turn, in whatever order. There's definitely a random element involved, but I've never been able to figure out quite what it is. But that's the gist of the system based on what I've observed.

[Refa]

Don't know much about Shining Force, so maybe, maybe not. I'll just explain the system I'm talking about.

Say there are 5 allies on the field, and 20 enemies. At the start of a turn, the lineup is organized so you can move one ally, then four enemies move, then you move a different ally, then four other enemies move, etc. At the end of the turn, characters that have moved are refreshed and they can act again sometime during the next turn, in whatever order. There's definitely a random element involved, but I've never been able to figure out quite what it is. But that's the gist of the system based on what I've observed.

Can you see the turn order? Is it based off of a speed stat?

[Othin]

Can you see the turn order? Is it based off of a speed stat?

The upper-right hand corner displays icons for which side has the current action and each of the next four.

I don't know of any stat involvement. Enemies appear to move in a specific order, but player characters can be moved in any order, so you have to consider not just what to have each unit do but when.

[Anouleth]

You must be Wolverine's geek cousin whom he's ashamed to talk about in public because I SWEAR your skull is as thick as adamantium. How on EARTH does splitting teams up suddenly REDUCE the number of choices you have for unit deployment? You have at least two functioning teams! You will be playing units you probably would not have played if you had only one main team. That is NOT a reduction of choice. You don't want to use the units or think that they would be better off on the other team?

Oh, I see. I thought you were talking about a system like in FE10, where you'd switch between different armies, but it's more like FE10 Part 4 specifically where you split your army into multiple teams. But that still has the element of reducing player choice.

Next time through, send them over to the other team(s) next time through. The only thing this does is make it so that, if you pick a small team of super-units, their awesomeness can't carry you through the game as easily.

Or even better, you could just not put super-units in the game in the first place, instead of trying to prevent the player from deploying them. That seems like a totally bizarre solution to the problem.

Sides, let's face it, your main gripe here is that, if this was implemented, you would have a harder time with Paladin curbstomps. If you actually cared about the player using the units that they wanted to use, you would want a style in which every unit has its niche and weakness so that all units can have a use.

I have no objection to such a system. Paladins are typically much too powerful. FE10 handled Paladins quite well, and I hear that FE12 handles them quite well too by creating incentives to use foot classes such as Swordmasters and Snipers and Berserkers due to their good stats.

Why do you have to make everything about how butthurt you are that people play for LTC?

Yes. Because a single-use tome that has a lot of range but not enough MT to be a guarenteed kill is suddenly something so worth-while as to be considered a definitive upside.

It's still worth using. Obviously, the tome is not as valuable as a five use tome, but the actual attack is just as valuable. Just because five pounds are more valuable than one pound doesn't make a pound worthless.

I disagree. I found them to be actually harder than the average chapter since I could sleepwalk through them with strong units instead of having some goal that needed protection/dealingwith/what have you.

Whereas you can sleepwalk through defend chapters with average units.

Aaaaaannnnnnddddd it's gone people! All gone! Anouleth has lost all credibility on this topic! A home-run-no-cred shutout! Inability to consider concepts outside himself has just put his reply down from 'worth responding to' to 'idiot mad his playstyle is being attacked'. Why, even I haven't been this close-minded in LTC tiers!

But they are the worst thing that ever happened to Fire Emblem. Defend chapters do not reward strategy. At all. You really might as well just leave Ike on the defend square with vulneraries.

And while I appreciate that defend chapters can be made harder or easier, part of the beauty of Fire Emblem is that you can make the game harder on yourself by going faster and trying to make a better strategy. But you cannot go faster in a defend chapter. If you kill all the enemies, your reward is getting to twiddle your thumbs in a completely empty map. And I'm sure it happens to casual players as well where they Tower or Arena up a really cracking team and faceroll the chapter. The issue is that Defend chapters are too scripted. The idea is that it's the enemies that should be attacking and setting the pace of the chapter. But the player should be the one in control, not the AI!

From my perspective, Defend chapters are the result of way too much "creativity" from developers. Nobody wants to play a chapter at the developer's pace. Probably the same idiot that put all those yellow and green units in FE10. "Hey, you know what's more fun than playing Fire Emblem? Watching someone else play Fire Emblem!".

I mentioned this a while back but... the problem with hard mode is that it is not actually 'harder'. You fight enemies with harder stats, but that doesn't push you to be better, or at least not to the same degree as enemies using better tactics and making the player need to think more about his moves and such. It's like fighting a end-boss in a fighter. They're always OP'ed, have more health, some sort of mega-move, and so-on. They challenge the player, but far from as well as a end-boss that uses simpler moves well to constantly screw around with and combo the player. Why? OP'ed boss is simply a matter of finding the moves that work on him and praying you can keep him down long enough to beat him up. Skilled boss actually requires the player to figure out the weakpoints and how to exploit them. It's the difference between spamming one simple combo over and over and working to break your opponents combo and then use your own. Some of the hardest games I play don't have a unfairly OPed opponent. They're just as powerful as the normal in fact. Instead, they have a very, very skilled opponent to fight against.

Why don't you go play FE12 H3, and FE12 Normal Mode, and come back and you can tell me which one required more thought.

And there is no point in trying to create a "perfect" AI. Especially given that the best strategy for the enemy in Fire Emblem is always to hold back and defend in a huge lump of units until a unit you can kill enters your range, and then you all swarm him or her. If you've ever played FETO, you'll know what I'm talking about, and it's not "fun" at all.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Anouleth

[Momo]

Don't know much about Shining Force, so maybe, maybe not. I'll just explain the system I'm talking about.

Say there are 5 allies on the field, and 20 enemies. At the start of a turn, the lineup is organized so you can move one ally, then four enemies move, then you move a different ally, then four other enemies move, etc. At the end of the turn, characters that have moved are refreshed and they can act again sometime during the next turn, in whatever order. There's definitely a random element involved, but I've never been able to figure out quite what it is. But that's the gist of the system based on what I've observed.

The fact that FE doesn't have this is why it's my favorite SRPG series.

[General Banzai]

That's pretty difficult to do. You need to establish that the player WILL lose and die if they don't hurry up and that they can't possibly hope to stand against the onslaught of enemies. Like, imagine some super-general at 20/20 while you're in chapter 5 being chased. You have a clear goal (the escape tile) and you have obstacles that need to be overcome (enemies in the path) and you have a ***** who will KILL you if you dally. One of the best escape sequences I've seen recently was in SCII when the party is escaping with Kerrigan hot on their tail. You're pushed, fighting desperately, using limited resources, and everything in the hope that it will buy you JUST a extra 2 seconds or such so you can escape. You probably know the level I'm talking about (IIRC, the secret mission), so go play it.

I know this is going to sound odd, but I definatly think people need to look outside of FE to find ways to improve FE. Concepts and ideas fill every game, and while some would not work in a FE game, some would and learning why they work and how they could be used is valuable. Bulwark Saga, SCII, FFTA, SRW, and everything can be useful. Even a FPS like Halo 3 can offer ideas on how to help (fighting duel-enemies who are very powerful, but have a attackable backside that need to be handled carefully for example), just know how to handle the situation.

Thracia does it well sometimes. In one of the early chapters you start getting chased by Galzus, who is ridiculous as fuck, if you don't hurry up. (Granted there's a way to kill/capture him and make him a joke, but... for the most part it's effective).

[arvilino]

Don't know much about Shining Force, so maybe, maybe not. I'll just explain the system I'm talking about.

Say there are 5 allies on the field, and 20 enemies. At the start of a turn, the lineup is organized so you can move one ally, then four enemies move, then you move a different ally, then four other enemies move, etc. At the end of the turn, characters that have moved are refreshed and they can act again sometime during the next turn, in whatever order. There's definitely a random element involved, but I've never been able to figure out quite what it is. But that's the gist of the system based on what I've observed.

I think Shining Force, Final Fantasy Tactics and Hoshigami all have that method. It's quite good in Final Fantasy Tactics and Shining Force. But in Hoshigami's case it atleast at times gets a bit boring watching enemies take their turns before being able to move a unit(they have a system that also re-determines a characters next turn based on the number of actions so idle enemies waste time and get their next turn more often). I'd definitely want a skip enemies turn feature like FE11 and FE12 have if that system was introduced.

Edited November 17, 2011 by arvilino

[eclipse]

If this is the turn method I'm thinking of, add Tactics Ogre and Luminous Arc to the mix. . .though I object to the latter, because whatever formula they used was questionable.

[BwdYeti]

And while I appreciate that defend chapters can be made harder or easier, part of the beauty of Fire Emblem is that you can make the game harder on yourself by going faster and trying to make a better strategy. But you cannot go faster in a defend chapter. If you kill all the enemies, your reward is getting to twiddle your thumbs in a completely empty map. And I'm sure it happens to casual players as well where they Tower or Arena up a really cracking team and faceroll the chapter. The issue is that Defend chapters are too scripted. The idea is that it's the enemies that should be attacking and setting the pace of the chapter. But the player should be the one in control, not the AI!

Really all defend maps should be set up so if you kill everything the chapter ends. Or if the creators don't want that to happen, then the enemies need to actually be strong enough that that's impossible. That's the biggest problem I have with defend maps, that if the enemy is weak enough that the player can beat them in a straight up fight, why is the player on the defensive?

The fact that FE doesn't have this is why it's my favorite SRPG series.

This so much

[Othin]

The fact that FE doesn't have this is why it's my favorite SRPG series.

Well now you're really got me curious. Would you (or BewYeti) care to elaborate?

I think Shining Force, Final Fantasy Tactics and Hoshigami all have that method. It's quite good in Final Fantasy Tactics and Shining Force. But in Hoshigami's case it atleast at times gets a bit boring watching enemies take their turns before being able to move a unit(they have a system that also re-determines a characters next turn based on the number of actions so idle enemies waste time and get their next turn more often). I'd definitely want a skip enemies turn feature like FE11 and FE12 have if that system was introduced.

It's the same number of total enemy actions as in any other FE game, except less clumped together, so I don't see the problem unless you're referring to a radically different system with Hoshigami, which I am not suggesting. In any case, enemy turns in Berwick Saga go quite quickly under this system, at least with map animations on, which is the default anyway for generic enemies. And I can't think of any reason why the turn skip feature wouldn't return in future games now that it's been implemented, anyway, so that doesn't seem like a concern for other games to adopt the system.

To be sure, are you referring to games that actually allow you control over the order that characters move? Looking up a Final Fantasy Tactics video, I can't tell, and what you were saying about Hoshigami sounds like the sort of thing I would expect to see in a game with a fixed turn order, such as the combat sections of Heroes of Might and Magic, which while looking similar, are entirely different in terms of strategy.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Othin

[YayMarsha]

You know what makes any strategy much more difficult and strategic to execute, and therefore greatly helps with issues with useful difficulty?

Integrated turn order.

Oh, heck no. I know why you suggested it and I know we all have our opinions, but this would be a fantastic first step toward driving the series into the ground. Every time I think about this kind of thing, I always think about Langrisser. It's a dead horse that I keep bringing up, but I do so because it's a mistake I really hope Intelligent Systems never makes. I understand the system can lead to some interesting planning challenges, but for the most part, it just makes things tedious and overly complicated.

Anyway, about the defense chapters, I must be a terrible person for liking them. I agree that they need some sort of tweak for future games though. I'd just go with one or more of a few things:

- No freaking secondary goal. Seriously, it's the dumbest idea to include those because it completely defeats the purpose.

- Wider defend area (like 3-13) or just make it where your units can't stand on that particular tile.

- Some really strong reinforcements? Like strong enough that you can't throw a blue-haired sword user at them and come away with easy experience.

- Enemies with Pass?

- Some sort of siege weapon with ungodly amounts of HP. Let the game warn you it's coming from X side so that you can actually prepare for it ahead of time.

- More Thracia-style wall breaking. Let the enemy just make holes all over the place, but make sure the enemies are dangerous enough that the correct counter doesn't just turn into "kill them before they get in."

- Regular ballista barrages from off-screen (think Valkyria Chronicles with arrows instead). Make it actually do real damage, so that your unarmed meatwall is threatened.

I'm sure these suggestions will get torn to shreds by various people (and some already have), but whatever. Let the fun begin?

[Rothene]

- Some really strong reinforcements? Like strong enough that you can't throw a blue-haired sword user at them and come away with easy experience.

I don't think Marth is that good unless you're blessed or arm him with stat boosters...

For defend missions, what about have breakable walls around your defending location...with some of them more or less already wounded so that overtime, enemies can break through all of them and swarm your units. Although Siege weaponry should be a great boon to use for Defend missions on the player side to help weaken enemy units before they come in...although 5 uses and low Hitrates and durability being used on a miss means you should averagely only take away 1/3 hp of a loldier with a blast while the other 4 uses miss miserably.

[Refa]

To be sure, are you referring to games that actually allow you control over the order that characters move? Looking up a Final Fantasy Tactics video, I can't tell, and what you were saying about Hoshigami sounds like the sort of thing I would expect to see in a game with a fixed turn order, such as the combat sections of Heroes of Might and Magic, which while looking similar, are entirely different in terms of strategy.

In FFT, you can influence the stats which ultimately determine the move order, but it's fixed otherwise. Spells and some special abilities have wait timers, so they don't go off for a certain amount of 'clockticks', the unit of time in that game.

- Regular ballista barrages from off-screen (think Valkyria Chronicles with arrows instead). Make it actually do real damage, so that your unarmed meatwall is threatened.

I'm sure these suggestions will get torn to shreds by various people (and some already have), but whatever. Let the fun begin?

I don't remember seeing that in Valkyria Chronicles. Where was that?

Edited November 18, 2011 by Refa

[Thor Odinson]

@Rothene: That reminds of that one chapter in FE5. I could see that kind of chapter making a return, definitely. Provided it works with the plot, I'd like that to happen.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Luminescent Blade

[Othin]

In FFT, you can influence the stats which ultimately determine the move order, but it's fixed otherwise. Spells and some special abilities have wait timers, so they don't go off for a certain amount of 'clockticks', the unit of time in that game.

I can see why people would object to that, but it's an entirely different system from the one Berwick Saga uses in terms of strategy. I'll borrow one of YayMarsha's videos of my favorite chapter so far to illustrate.

Map starts about 5 minutes in.

Edit: Watching the first few turns again, it looks like he normally just ignores the choice and goes with whatever unit the cursor moves to for some reason. So that's not quite so helpful, but whatever.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Othin

[Paperblade]

I think we should also remove the grid system and make the map work like Phantom Brave while we're at it.

[Snowy_One]

I'm against intergrated orders, especially if SPD is the stat used. I mean, it's already used to determine doubles and gives 2 AVO for each point, and now it's determining turn order too?