Mechanics that you want

[Dark Sage]

Hard modes are difficult to do like that. Ideally, hard modes would see a pick-up in status effects and better enemy formations with only minimal stat-increases. However, increasing stats is a guarenteed, but really non-challenging, way to make the game better. All you do is make it so that only a select team can win easily while any 'bad' units suddenly struggle a lot more.

Yeah go play FE12 Lunatic mode before you make a ridiculous assertion like that. I am not saying that a mode as balls hard as that doesn't require a good team in order to beat properly but it also requires a lot of strategy and knowledge. Having the best team doesn't mean at all you're going to win easily like you're claiming.

It's similar with FE11 H5 too, though there's more room for weaker units like Caesar to have their uses. I'm playing through H5 right now in fact. I'm on Chapter 10 and I really like it. I can either go west and kill all the Dracoknights, cavs, and pegs before destroying the boss with Sheeda, or I can take the time to recruit Maria so I can get Minerva so I can get Paola and Catria later (and I really want to use the former). To do the latter option requires a lot more strategy and I'm currently testing out the enemy AI and the like so I can see what works well and what doesn't work well.

Edited December 10, 2011 by Dark Sage

[Rewjeo]

I interpreted the point more as there is very little flexibility in what team you can reasonably use.

[dondon151]

The early chapters of H5 were mostly bullshit anyways. Hell, all of H5 was bullshit. It was the laziest excuse to create a "hard" mode I've ever seen. Just steroiding the stats and weapons without changing enemy formations or AI? Yeah, that will make it more difficult, but not in any way where beating a chapter feels rewarding.

I disagree. I thought the DS FE games presented a really elegant, simple solution to making enemies more difficult. Significantly increase their offensive parameters and HP, and leave everything else untouched.

The HP part is kind of dumb because it makes offensively weak units even weaker, but it's a smart way to increase durability without jacking up defenses. Compare this to earlygame FE9 MM where enemy def boosts rendered Ike virtually useless. At least if def is low while HP is high, you can still do damage.

Huge increases in enemy offenses also really change the way that you play. It's not just some token +2 str that exists in most HMs that hardly changes RKO numbers at all. It's +3 to +4 MT from better weaponry on top of maybe +2 to +4 str at the least. You can't just haphazardly bumrush through a chapter anymore, at least, until you get a really OP unit like an early promoted Barst that just doesn't care.

FE7 had the best hard mode; it not only gave increases to enemy stats but also changed enemy positions and added new enemies, oftentimes completely changing the strategy of the chapter.

A lot of the changes were really gimmicky and don't seem really well thought out. Populating every enemy possible in chapter 22 with a reaver weapon just makes it stupidly easy. Changing the starting positions in chapter 23 doesn't do anything (it probably makes the map easier, in fact). Changing every enemy in chapter 29 to a magic unit was pretty cool except for the part where they added 26+ mag staff using druids that are really just an unfun addition to any rout map.

FE12 H3 executes this better. They add select few units in only a few locations. Then when you realize how the AI works, you think, "wow, this was really well thought out."

[Lord Raven]

Seriously, though, once you know what to do, the difference in turn count between great luck and horrible luck is like 10 versus 17 turns. It's terrible. FEDS Chapter 1 turn count is more dependent on hit rates for turn count than any other chapter of any other FE game I can think of. Tbh, I don't even think it's turn count should be included in most drafts for that reason. >.>

I was looking around for someone to reply to this, but have you ever played FE6 let alone in hard mode?

[Snowy_One]

Yeah go play FE12 Lunatic mode before you make a ridiculous assertion like that. I am not saying that a mode as balls hard as that doesn't require a good team in order to beat properly but it also requires a lot of strategy and knowledge. Having the best team doesn't mean at all you're going to win easily like you're claiming.

It's similar with FE11 H5 too, though there's more room for weaker units like Caesar to have their uses. I'm playing through H5 right now in fact. I'm on Chapter 10 and I really like it. I can either go west and kill all the Dracoknights, cavs, and pegs before destroying the boss with Sheeda, or I can take the time to recruit Maria so I can get Minerva so I can get Paola and Catria later (and I really want to use the former). To do the latter option requires a lot more strategy and I'm currently testing out the enemy AI and the like so I can see what works well and what doesn't work well.

I didn't say it would not make it harder, just that it is a really cheap and uninteresting way to do so. It also limits who you can use in the mode as growth characters get horribly shafted, late joiners get full-on pungi sticks, and units with good bases go from crutches to outright necessities. Ideally, you would want it so that units who had abilities that seemed useless/trivial suddenly become a lot more important and you would rethink how you used units. Like, say, using a dancer to allow a priest to remove bad status ailments twice a turn because you need those ailments gone to survive instead of having them refresh high-move/power units constantly.

And your example isn't really a difficulty increase. It's the game offering you a choice between a fast option which allows for lower turncount and a slower option that has greater rewards. It's only a challenge because you are trying for LTC. If you weren't, recruiting Maria would be the obvious choice and the loss of turn would be considered insignificant.

[Dark Sage]

I didn't say it would not make it harder, just that it is a really cheap and uninteresting way to do so. It also limits who you can use in the mode as growth characters get horribly shafted, late joiners get full-on pungi sticks, and units with good bases go from crutches to outright necessities. Ideally, you would want it so that units who had abilities that seemed useless/trivial suddenly become a lot more important and you would rethink how you used units. Like, say, using a dancer to allow a priest to remove bad status ailments twice a turn because you need those ailments gone to survive instead of having them refresh high-move/power units constantly.

That's exactly what you do in the HMs of FE games where status staves exist. Those have high hit rates and in some maps like CoD in FE7, not even two stave users can be enough to deal with them. You can still circumvent getting hit thanks to Barrier/Pure Water obviously but units still have a non-negligible chance of getting hit by them.

Plus adding a lot of status staves is hardly fun, it's just annoying.

And your example isn't really a difficulty increase. It's the game offering you a choice between a fast option which allows for lower turncount and a slower option that has greater rewards. It's only a challenge because you are trying for LTC. If you weren't, recruiting Maria would be the obvious choice and the loss of turn would be considered insignificant.

It's a challenging choice, which is the point. Not to mention that the enemies there aren't cakewalks to fight either. The Dracoknights and Pegs are perfectly capable of ORKOing much of my team thanks to Silvers/Forged Javelins and the cavaliers can kill one of my guys if I don't do something smart like make use of Forged Ridersbane/Wing Spear. Even then, the hit rate is imperfect and a miss can result in the death in a useful unit. It's not only the choice of LTC either. It's safety and I could use a very buff General to block a chokepoint while I go do my business on the inside of the building where Maria is. The enclosed spaces make it easier for me to kill the enemies there and has more reliability in terms of unit safety. I'm not even trying to LTC here btw. Perhaps this map wasn't a good example of what I'm talking about.

I like modes like H5 and Lunatic. They offer interesting challenges and require you to really think about using your units intelligently and to strategize. On occasion, Lunatic Mode can be bullshit, but for the most part, the maps are very well designed, the AI is good enough, and the enemies are strong enough to pose a great challenge. It also removes the Warp staff, but still keeps Rescue, which I find is a positive. It's a mode that doesn't screw around and while the difficulty could be lowered a little in a few places, I'd still love a mode like Lunatic, even if it does make some units unusable there.

[Anouleth]

I didn't say it would not make it harder, just that it is a really cheap and uninteresting way to do so.

It's not uninteresting at all: if it were uninteresting, nobody would play any of the Hard Modes except for FE7, since almost all of them only change stats.

[Dark Sage]

Well FE6, FE12, and I think FE10 and FE11 do add a few enemies here and there (though FE6 conceals the added enemies in the prep screen) in the harder modes. FE9 Maniac Mode added promoted enemies like Falcoknights to the mix as well as better stats too IIRC. They still were too retarded to use Forges though.

[General Banzai]

I disagree. I thought the DS FE games presented a really elegant, simple solution to making enemies more difficult. Significantly increase their offensive parameters and HP, and leave everything else untouched.

The HP part is kind of dumb because it makes offensively weak units even weaker, but it's a smart way to increase durability without jacking up defenses. Compare this to earlygame FE9 MM where enemy def boosts rendered Ike virtually useless. At least if def is low while HP is high, you can still do damage.

Huge increases in enemy offenses also really change the way that you play. It's not just some token +2 str that exists in most HMs that hardly changes RKO numbers at all. It's +3 to +4 MT from better weaponry on top of maybe +2 to +4 str at the least. You can't just haphazardly bumrush through a chapter anymore, at least, until you get a really OP unit like an early promoted Barst that just doesn't care.

A lot of the changes were really gimmicky and don't seem really well thought out. Populating every enemy possible in chapter 22 with a reaver weapon just makes it stupidly easy. Changing the starting positions in chapter 23 doesn't do anything (it probably makes the map easier, in fact). Changing every enemy in chapter 29 to a magic unit was pretty cool except for the part where they added 26+ mag staff using druids that are really just an unfun addition to any rout map.

FE12 H3 executes this better. They add select few units in only a few locations. Then when you realize how the AI works, you think, "wow, this was really well thought out."

Reaver weapon change and Ch 23 unit position change were both Hector Mode changes, not Hard Mode changes. The HHM mode changes for Ch 23 were actually twofold: first, there was additional FoW which wasn't in the normal mode, and secondly, one of the bosses moved who didn't move before (Eubans in Ch 22 also does this in HM). Early in HHM the changes involve additional pegasus enemies which truly change the way you progress about the stage. Thieves enter the map earlier and more frequently in several levels involving you to increase your speed if you want to get items like the Knight Crest in Ch 17. Many valuable items like stat boosters and promotion items are now either removed or need to be stolen rather than simply dropped (Zoldam's Speedwing is gone; Elysians Whips must now be stolen from Pegasi enemies). Status staves become more common in the later levels (same with Luna Druids). The changes are multiple and manifold and increase difficulty in a number of ways rather than just difficulty of dispatching enemies.

The DS FE games presented a lazy, uninteresting way of making enemies more difficult and made literally no other changes to the gameplay. It's boring, unrewarding, and once you make the necessary strategic changes to beat Ch 9, you've made the necessary strategic changes to beat the entire game. As if the game was not like this already, H5 devolves into a mere "Pick the Correct Units" game rather than a "Pick the Correct Strategy" game for the second half. In fact, most of the "strategy" involves choosing the correct class changes and forging the correct items (as, to add insult to injury, most of FESD's enemies are susceptible to some sort of Horseslayer/Hammer type weapon, since enemy variety is lousy). Also, since H5 does nothing to mitigate the massive amount of Warp Staves the game throws at you, there's still nothing stopping you from Warpskipping most of the game. Unlike HHM, which makes useful items and weapons more difficult to acquire or removes them entirely, H5 gives you the exact same overdose of game-breaking items that Easy Mode does.

[Paperblade]

It sounds to me that your problem is that the game is poorly balanced rather than the difficulty is bad. The reason we can afford to use bad units in other games is because they honestly aren't that challenging. If I could use a unit like Matthis or Warren with ease in Lunatic, MU/Catria/Paola/Sirius would just run it over the way Seth runs over FE8 =/

In fact, I would go so far as to argue that removing the Warp Staff and Silver Card are the most significant changes between difficulty modes in any FE to date. Even if you disagree with LTC (I do), you can't disagree that Warpskipping is an incredibly easy way to finish chapters and cheese the game.

Edit: Note that there are terrible nearly useless units in other games too. Wendy, Fiona, Nino come to mind.

Double Edit: For example

Edited December 11, 2011 by Paperblade

[Anouleth]

Reaver weapon change and Ch 23 unit position change were both Hector Mode changes, not Hard Mode changes. The HHM mode changes for Ch 23 were actually twofold: first, there was additional FoW which wasn't in the normal mode, and secondly, one of the bosses moved who didn't move before (Eubans in Ch 22 also does this in HM).

I think that FoW isn't really that great an addition anyway... I don't think that difficulty should be provided by withholding information from the player. Nice for farming Torch for WEXP though!

Early in HHM the changes involve additional pegasus enemies which truly change the way you progress about the stage.

Well, of course! They're a goldmine of easy exp for weaker units like Rebecca and Bartre in Ranked play!

Thieves enter the map earlier and more frequently in several levels involving you to increase your speed if you want to get items like the Knight Crest in Ch 17. Many valuable items like stat boosters and promotion items are now either removed or need to be stolen rather than simply dropped (Zoldam's Speedwing is gone; Elysians Whips must now be stolen from Pegasi enemies). Status staves become more common in the later levels (same with Luna Druids). The changes are multiple and manifold and increase difficulty in a number of ways rather than just difficulty of dispatching enemies.

Hooray. Status staves and Luna Druids. Surely the best part of playing Fire Emblem.

The DS FE games presented a lazy, uninteresting way of making enemies more difficult and made literally no other changes to the gameplay.

As I said earlier, I don't think that H3 on FE12 is uninteresting at all.

It's boring, unrewarding, and once you make the necessary strategic changes to beat Ch 9, you've made the necessary strategic changes to beat the entire game.

I don't think that H3 on FE12 is boring, either.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Anouleth

[eclipse]

Why do I get the feeling that General Banzai hasn't played H5 seriously?

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

I was looking around for someone to reply to this, but have you ever played FE6 let alone in hard mode?

Oh, I've played FE7 (all modes), FE8 Hard, FE9 Hard, FE10 Hard, middle of a FE11 H5 run, and doing a Archer!MU Lunatic LTC FE12 run as we speak.

But no, only a few chapters of FE6 normal (I need to unlock hard mode first). And yes, even from that limited play, I know that the hit rates suck complete balls. But my point is that the difference between Jaigan critting and missing twice on the boss on C1 FE11 is literally like 6-7 turns, all else being the same. FE6 is more "Holy crap my myrm somehow missed a brigand and died in the counter" rather than "I played perfectly and lost 6 turns in a LTC competition/run because I pulled a bad RN", which EARLY FE11 does in spades (Chapters 1-3 especially).

EDIT: Also, H3 on FE12 is literally the best FE I've ever played, bar none. Amazing AI, well designed challenges, and a large variety of characters are useful in one regard or another due to reclassing (although some are useless). FEDS hard modes suck? Bullshit.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Kngt_Of_Titania

[Snowy_One]

That's exactly what you do in the HMs of FE games where status staves exist. Those have high hit rates and in some maps like CoD in FE7, not even two stave users can be enough to deal with them. You can still circumvent getting hit thanks to Barrier/Pure Water obviously but units still have a non-negligible chance of getting hit by them.

Plus adding a lot of status staves is hardly fun, it's just annoying.

It depends on the status. However, and here in the key thing, it would force you to change how you played to compensate. That is what a hard mode should do; make the player try something he would not have otherwise done in order to mount a new obstacle. In SCII, you can beat the AI on lower difficulties with ease with practically any unit. The only thing you might need is to ensure that some units can hit ground and/or air, but that is about it. Turn the difficulty up and suddenly you are forced to use units in new and different ways. A unit that may have been dominating on easy may be near useless on hard while a unit that seemed worthless suddenly has a lot more value because it can do something that you REALLY need.

It's a challenging choice, which is the point.

It is only challenging if you play for low turn counts. I'm sure that a person just playing to beat the game without regard to turncounts won't find it anywhere near as difficult.

Not to mention that the enemies there aren't cakewalks to fight either. The Dracoknights and Pegs are perfectly capable of ORKOing much of my team thanks to Silvers/Forged Javelins and the cavaliers can kill one of my guys if I don't do something smart like make use of Forged Ridersbane/Wing Spear. Even then, the hit rate is imperfect and a miss can result in the death in a useful unit.

This is a actual difficulty increase here (as opposed to 'I want to recruit this unit, but doing so means a higher turncount). Even so, I can say I'm not a fan of it as it sounds like all it did was increase stats as opposed to making you actually play differently. I could be wrong though (I don't have the game).

I like modes like H5 and Lunatic. They offer interesting challenges and require you to really think about using your units intelligently and to strategize. On occasion, Lunatic Mode can be bullshit, but for the most part, the maps are very well designed, the AI is good enough, and the enemies are strong enough to pose a great challenge. It also removes the Warp staff, but still keeps Rescue, which I find is a positive. It's a mode that doesn't screw around and while the difficulty could be lowered a little in a few places, I'd still love a mode like Lunatic, even if it does make some units unusable there.

When a hard mode makes you reconsider a unit deemed near worthless in easy/normal mode, then I think that is really 'hard'. Ex: 'Should I add that general? He has low move and won't double anything, but I REALLY need that DEF to take blows'.

[dondon151]

Reaver weapon change and Ch 23 unit position change were both Hector Mode changes, not Hard Mode changes. The HHM mode changes for Ch 23 were actually twofold: first, there was additional FoW which wasn't in the normal mode, and secondly, one of the bosses moved who didn't move before (Eubans in Ch 22 also does this in HM). Early in HHM the changes involve additional pegasus enemies which truly change the way you progress about the stage. Thieves enter the map earlier and more frequently in several levels involving you to increase your speed if you want to get items like the Knight Crest in Ch 17. Many valuable items like stat boosters and promotion items are now either removed or need to be stolen rather than simply dropped (Zoldam's Speedwing is gone; Elysians Whips must now be stolen from Pegasi enemies). Status staves become more common in the later levels (same with Luna Druids). The changes are multiple and manifold and increase difficulty in a number of ways rather than just difficulty of dispatching enemies.

I don't care about any of these things. Swapping a dropped Speedwings with a stealable Guiding Ring does not matter in the least. Bosses moving is a completely insignificant fact if they don't move unless you're in their range (if the objective is bosskill, this makes it easier). Your examples are not indicative of any difficulty increase whatsoever, or they're bad examples of fake difficulty.

The DS FE games presented a lazy, uninteresting way of making enemies more difficult and made literally no other changes to the gameplay.

That's fine. The important thing is that it changes the way how the player plays. FEDS executes this much better than other hard modes.

As if the game was not like this already, H5 devolves into a mere "Pick the Correct Units" game rather than a "Pick the Correct Strategy" game for the second half. In fact, most of the "strategy" involves choosing the correct class changes and forging the correct items (as, to add insult to injury, most of FESD's enemies are susceptible to some sort of Horseslayer/Hammer type weapon, since enemy variety is lousy).

Isn't this the point of a strategy game? I'm sorry, but if you think a map can both be difficult and bumrushed in 500 different ways, that's simply not possible.

This is a actual difficulty increase here (as opposed to 'I want to recruit this unit, but doing so means a higher turncount). Even so, I can say I'm not a fan of it as it sounds like all it did was increase stats as opposed to making you actually play differently. I could be wrong though (I don't have the game).

Are you people retarded

You have to play the game differently on H5 than you do on NM. You cannot get away with playing both the same way. I have said this over and over again but certain individuals seem to be incapable of reading.

When a hard mode makes you reconsider a unit deemed near worthless in easy/normal mode, then I think that is really 'hard'. Ex: 'Should I add that general? He has low move and won't double anything, but I REALLY need that DEF to take blows'.

Normal mode: "Should I use that general? He takes no damage and makes the game easy."

Edited December 11, 2011 by dondon151

[Dark Sage]

It depends on the status. However, and here in the key thing, it would force you to change how you played to compensate. That is what a hard mode should do; make the player try something he would not have otherwise done in order to mount a new obstacle. In SCII, you can beat the AI on lower difficulties with ease with practically any unit. The only thing you might need is to ensure that some units can hit ground and/or air, but that is about it. Turn the difficulty up and suddenly you are forced to use units in new and different ways. A unit that may have been dominating on easy may be near useless on hard while a unit that seemed worthless suddenly has a lot more value because it can do something that you REALLY need.

Yeah, Jeigans are pretty awesome I agree.

When a hard mode makes you reconsider a unit deemed near worthless in easy/normal mode, then I think that is really 'hard'. Ex: 'Should I add that general? He has low move and won't double anything, but I REALLY need that DEF to take blows'.

That's exactly what the DS FEs do with regards to classes like Generals.

[Aethereal]

It is only challenging if you play for low turn counts. I'm sure that a person just playing to beat the game without regard to turncounts won't find it anywhere near as difficult.

When a hard mode makes you reconsider a unit deemed near worthless in easy/normal mode, then I think that is really 'hard'. Ex: 'Should I add that general? He has low move and won't double anything, but I REALLY need that DEF to take blows'.

The above two quotes are contradictory. The only reason a general<other units would probably be a desire to clear the game in lower turns. If generals' durability is sufficient in H5, they are probably tinked on easy. How could that be considered near worthless in easy/normal if you don't care about turns?

[arvilino]

When a hard mode makes you reconsider a unit deemed near worthless in easy/normal mode, then I think that is really 'hard'. Ex: 'Should I add that general? He has low move and won't double anything, but I REALLY need that DEF to take blows'.

You mean alot like Archer/Hunter/Sniper/Horsemen in FE11 and FE12? On Normal mode they aren't good because they don't get counter attacks and other units can easily handle units like Dracoknights, Flying Dragons or Pegasus Knights, but on H5 and FE12 H3 the effective bonus they get towards them allows them OHKO's or huge damage against enemies that generally have the stats to kill alot of characters on your team.

Case in point, Jeorge in FE12 H3. Despite not being a great character, he's one of the few characters who can OHKO Flying Dragons(who have high speed and 1-2 range and can ORKO most characters) in chapter 11,12 and 13.

[Thor Odinson]

@ people who say DS FE HM doesn't make you play differently

I dunno about you guys, but I couldn't solo the game with Dracoknight Abel on H5. Forces me to use people like, Shiida, who's a wonderful unit but I couldn't give two shits about as a character.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Luminescent Blade

[Colonel M]

When a hard mode makes you reconsider a unit deemed near worthless in easy/normal mode, then I think that is really 'hard'. Ex: 'Should I add that general? He has low move and won't double anything, but I REALLY need that DEF to take blows'.

You realize any unit that has competent Defense can "take blows" from enemies in Normal Mode, right?

Hell, the biggest challenge in Normal Mode of FE11 and FE12? Killing your units. Because oh my God enemies are piss weak.

[CrashGordon94]

I don't think he was saying you need people to take hits in NM.

EDIT: And you don't need to kill people in FE12.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Kirby

[Anouleth]

I don't think he was saying you need people to take hits in NM.

EDIT: And you don't need to kill people in FE12.

But what if I want to

[I.M. Gei]

But what if I want to

I know, I missed having units named "Auffle" or "Wymp" on my team!

[General Banzai]

Well since most of the complaints against my post seem to boil down to "You're wrong because I think so" and "Have you even played H5?", I'll respond to the latter point and say that I have, and that I beat it, and not only did I beat it but I beat it without letting a single unit die or warpskipping a single chapter. I used Wolf (class changed to General), Sedgar (class changed to General), Caeda (class changed to Sniper), Cain, Abel, Beck, Lena, Merric, Maria, Catria, and Palla. Hell, I even beat Gharnef and got Falchion. After the first five or six chapters the difficult dropped off entirely as Wolf and Sedgar could pretty much absorb most damage and weaken enemies with counterattacks so my other units could pick them off for easy kills. I did not experience another bump in difficult in Ch 9 with the switch to Silver weapons or in Ch 20 with the switch to Brave weapons. I recruited every recruitable character except for the Gaidan ones, also.

[riariadne]

This doesn't have much to do with anything, but I would like to see Boots locked to foot units. First of all it would make a great deal more sense, and second of all it would help balance things a bit gameplay wise instead of making things as easy as 11 move shit that solos chapters.

edit: expounded

x2 edit combo: fixed redundancy

Edited December 11, 2011 by Dave Strider