Proper use of tower, arena, etc.

[Paper Jam]

I have read quite a bit about "abuse" of the tower, arena, etc. Abuse, of course, means improper use, as opposed to proper use.

So what would constitute proper use of the arena, tower, and ruins?

[dondon151]

Proper use indicates no use of the tower or ruins (as neither is compulsory towards finishing the game) and enough use of the arena such that it will not hamper your turncount on a certain map.

[FalconVegeta1986]

Proper use of those mechanics would be:

*If one of your units dies, you can raise another unit of the same class, or another unit in general.

*Going for ranks. Having one or two units use the arena while you complete the chapter gets you extra money and exp.

*If you know that a future chapter has a shop with things like killer weapons, or a secret shop.

*If, for some reason, you need weapons in general, since the arena provides you with a weapon to use.

*To make sure that your units stay on par with your enemies, if one or two happen to fall behind for some reason.

That's just a few of the things I can think of right now.

[Rewjeo]

Proper according to who? According to the game, there is no way to "abuse" it. But I think you're reading to deeply into the terminology the fanbase uses...

[Tables]

As Dondon suggested, most SF players don't use the tower or ruins, because they're unneccessary and make an already easy game even easier, and so using them is generally considered a waste of time and turns. I do wonder, though, just how low a turn count you could get by tower abusing everyone up to sufficiently high stats at the end of chapter 8, then rushing the game (ignoring the turn counts in the tower, of course). The sad thing is, I doubt that'd even get you many turns saved at all - the FE8 TAS clocks in at 93 turns, I believe, so I'd say the best you'd do would probably not be less than 90.

Tangents aside, arena abuse is generally considered to be using the arena such that you lose turns on the current map. So sending a weaker character in from the start to get money wouldn't be abuse if you still finish promptly, while giving everyone one round of combat in there would be.

[Othin]

For the tower and ruins, what's considered abuse is typically playing part of all of it over and over again for unlimited Exp. With that in mind, a reasonable alternative would be to make no more than one visit to each of the two areas, perhaps clearing the entire area in that visit. A similar alternative for the arena could be to send each character in for a maximum of one battle in each chapter where the arena appears, or something similarly reasonable, as opposed to 100 battles, as somewhere between the two is likely what the developers were expecting.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Othin

[nflchamp]

Generally, "abuse" is taking time you don't need to take in order to forcibly raise your stats higher. That ends up including things like waiting for reinforcements to get more EXP rather than attempting to clear the chapter (think FE10 4-5 with its ~100 high EXP reinforcements).

[General Horace]

the FE8 TAS clocks in at 93 turns, I believe, so I'd say the best you'd do would probably not be less than 90.

Are you sure the TAS is 93 turns? I completed it in 93 without TAS. The tower would save turns in chapter 9, 10, 12, 14 (maybe), and 15 (maybe). The rest is warpskipped, so it shouldn't matter anyhow.

[Tables]

Just checked, and yes, it is exactly 93 turns on hard, but it aims for lowest frame count rather than lowest turn count. So I guess a few turns were sacrificed for faster play.