FE13: A Faustian Bargain?

[Wooster]

First, let me say, Camtech, I'm having a blast with this debate. Take a bow, you take opposite angles and logically argue them. I may not necessarily agree with the outcomes, but I totally respect the path that draws you to them.

Now back to the debate:

Regarding the stat ups, yeah, I totally see how that takes the strategy out of using them. On the other hand, the current system I think has problems akin to the Mega-Elixer in Final Fantasy. An all powerful item with a finite number of sources. I never end up using the Mega-Elixer because there 'might' be a tougher battle later on where I'll be sorry that I wasted it now. That tougher battle inevitably doesn't come as final bosses are a joke. Likewise, the consumable stat-ups I tend to save until the final chapters where I know the RNG goddess cannot screw me over and I'll know that every point was used to 100% efficiency. But, by that point you're already plowing through the enemies with a bulldozer being towed by land dwelling ninja-sharks. So those points at that point are as good as not having them. People who memorize stat growths will find the consumables practical, but I don't think Joe Consumer will. Which, by point of argument makes it mainstream.

Advantage: Home team.

I'm still not convinced this is an undesirable thing, but I will concede it as a change to mainstream.

Now, point 2, classes ≠ characters:

I'm err, not quite sure where we're at a disagreement. Support conversations are back, which means we'll be getting our Guys and our Ravens for the first time in 3-4 games is it now?. Likewise I expect we'll have our defectors, our loyalists, citizens, lovers, and friends all joining our ranks. But ever since such things have been added, they've been staples of the series. We've gotten no indication that they'll be stepping back in Awakening, so I assumed what you meant by unique was referring to combat, something that, as I established, is traditionally no-so-unique.

So I guess I default this part?

Part 3, skills.

Mmm... I see where you're coming from. But I'm not sure it's totally valid. No doubt, the percent of, lets call them combat skills, is lessened due to the introduction of stat skills. But does that effect the quantity of combat skills? Would the same argument apply if combat skills were equipped differently from stat skills? According to this site, 4 had 18 skills, 5 had 16. Sacred Stones had 7 (Weird duck that it is, not sure it should even count). Radiance had 41 combat skills (and 4 stat up skills), And Dawn had a mess at 52 NON-Mastery NON-Stat skills. (Stat up skills at 9, THANK-YOU CRIT+ YOU'VE BEEN MOST UNIQUE)

Right now, we've got 8 combat skills, and 4 stat skills. (With Dual Attack+ waiting to join either pile). If this is just the preview, then I think we're well on our way to trouncing 4 and 5. Thus, firmly middle ground.

Anouleth, yes, 9 had balancing issues with the masteries. But 10 I felt went the wrong way. I would've liked to see Stun, Sleep, or other effects of the masteries kick in. On the occasion I have seen it kick in, the target has had single digit HP left. Not worth the status effect. Much less each class having it's own mastery. Why not just call them all lethal?

[Anouleth]

Anouleth, yes, 9 had balancing issues with the masteries. But 10 I felt went the wrong way.

FE10 made the masteries more powerful. Are you saying that was the wrong way? Does this mean that the masteries should have been made weaker?

I would've liked to see Stun, Sleep, or other effects of the masteries kick in.

Those effects did exist in FE9, and they were useless. They put ME to sleep, they were so boring.

On the occasion I have seen it kick in, the target has had single digit HP left. Not worth the status effect. Much less each class having it's own mastery. Why not just call them all lethal?

Because it's cooler this way, DUH.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Anouleth

[General Banzai]

Berwick Saga had a good collection of skills. Instead of generic "% chance of more powerful attack" skills, there were a lot more skills which actually had an impact on gameplay. Inb4 Othin gives a better explanation

[Wooster]

How about a best of both worlds. For the most part masteries were over glorified criticals in Dawn, while underwhelming in Path. How about, as a rule of thumb, only doubling, instead of tripling damage?

[General Banzai]

How about a best of both worlds. For the most part masteries were over glorified criticals in Dawn, while underwhelming in Path. How about, as a rule of thumb, only doubling, instead of tripling damage?

Wait, what was wrong about Masteries in PoR?

Why do we even need Masteries anyways? It's not like the units are overpowered enough as is by endgame.

[BwdYeti]

Or non-activation Masteries, like a few of the ones in 9. Extra range with bows, increasing terrain bonuses, avoid bonus based on weapon level, bonuses against certain weapon or magic types, etc. Some of the generic skills could be repurposed as masteries too, like Daunt/the dragon buffs/Renewal. Or do something like the Berwick skills, as mentioned above

[Anouleth]

Wait, what was wrong about Masteries in PoR?

They were useless. Masteries were often eclipsed by regular skills such as Adept, Wrath, Vantage, and Resolve, and were usually not worth giving to certain units (because they took up practically all capacity). FE9 in general didn't have that many skills, but aside from Sol, most masteries were just filler that you'd give units in lieu of any else to fill the space with.

Why do we even need Masteries anyways? It's not like the units are overpowered enough as is by endgame.

Why do we need skills at all? Why do we need to put anything in the game? Why play computer games at all?

Obviously, because it's fun. As I've said, it feels good to see Tanith or Boyd tear apart enemies with masteries. By your logic, we should probably remove S Rank weapons too. After all, we don't "need" them, and our units are already powerful enough. All we'd get from putting that stuff in is fun, and who wants to waste time with that?

[Celice]

The only crappy Mastery in FE9 was Shooting Star. I always feel like I'm wasting three extra uses just to do 2.5 hits.

[Dark Sage]

Reclassing ruined unit individuality already, so this is nothing new

You keep saying this, but I don't see how this is true. I mean yeah, units can go into other people's classes, but units still have their own base weapon ranks, growths, and bases. This means that units still perform differently from each other, even in the same class and they're still different in how well they do in different classes.

Now then...

People have terrible comprehension skills, it seems. Find the place where I say "mainstream is inherently wrong," "casuals are ruining the world," etc. Here's a hint: you can't. It's just an analysis of the new direction taken with FE13. That's it.

The analogy of a Faustian bargain is quite appropriate. The question I have is: are we trading some soul for success? Will this move cause the downfall of Fire Emblem and consequently civilization?

Faus·ti·an

   /ˈfaʊstiən/ fou-stee-uhn

adjective

1.

of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Faust: a Faustian novel.

2.

sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain: a Faustian pact with the Devil.

3.

characterized by spiritual dissatisfaction or torment.

4.

possessed with a hunger for knowledge or mastery.

A Faustian pact is associated with the Devil for obvious reasons. How can you not get why people would read this as "the mainstream is inherently terrible"?

In addition, I don't get the whole idea that FE has its own style of artwork. The artwork is different from game to game. FE11's artwork is much different than the Tellius artwork, which is different from the Elibian artwork. And even among the Elibian artwork, there are differences between FE6's and FE7's art. The art for this one doesn't really appeal to me, but as long as they don't put an absurd amount of belts and zippers on the characters, I'm fine.

I also think the skill system seems interesting enough and don't have objections to skills like HP +5. The existence of such skills could help out characters with bad bases so that they're easier to use. I'm interested in how it affects character balance.

[Rewjeo]

If you take the second definition of Faustian there, I think it fits what he's trying to say. He's saying that FE is sacrificing some of itself for material gain. The question is: Is this a Faustian pact with the devil?

[General Banzai]

If you take the second definition of Faustian there, I think it fits what he's trying to say. He's saying that FE is sacrificing some of itself for material gain. The question is: Is this a Faustian pact with the devil?

Since Faust only ever made one pact, by definition it is >.>

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

so basicly Arch here used "bigger" words to make it sound like he wasn't being a negative hipster about the game?

i mean, that is what i'm getting from this, but i'm 50% wrong 50% of the time.

[General Banzai]

Well, he's alluding to the Faust story, where a scholar named Faustus, who has learned basically everything, makes a pact with the devil in order to gain omnipotent power and heavenly knowledge. He gets neither and instead uses his power to embark on a series of practical jokes and petty pranks. Ultimately when he comes to die he laments his fate but does not repent (which, by implication, would have saved him, as God can forgive any sin), and he's carried off to hell by demons.

It's NOT by any means a positive connotation.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

as i thought, he's still being negative about it, but not openly negative...which is something i need to learn.

[Baldrick]

I think the main point of the OP is that Fire Emblem is becoming more like a generic RPG in order to appeal to a wider fanbase. He's not necessarily saying it's a bad thing; that all the uncultured masses will get their hands on it, and it would no longer be ironic to like Fire Emblem and therefore the series is ruined FOREVER. It might be the shot in the arm the series needs to boost sales, become more profitable so that they could hire more people to work on it, more games could be made and the series doesn't die out; but the changes could be a slippery slope and all the mechanics that make Fire Emblem unique are scrapped, to the point where FE15 and FFTA4 are virtually the same game.

For me, as long as those unique mechanics are intact (individual units with backstories and motivations, (mostly) permanent death, weapon triangle, specialized classes, finite weapons, etc.) it will still feel like a Fire Emblem game. It's not like the first 11 games in the series all feel the same.

[Lord Raven]

but the changes could be a slippery slope and all the mechanics that make Fire Emblem unique are scrapped, to the point where FE15 and FFTA4 are virtually the same game.

That's stretching it way far. I can tell you now that's definitely not going to happen.

[Baldrick]

That's stretching it way far. I can tell you now that's definitely not going to happen.

I was a bit melodramatic. I got on a roll... perhaps it would be more reasonable to say the series would become less experimental.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Baldrick

[Othin]

Ugh, I hate skills that have "costs"! You know, we already have a skill that lets you avoid counterattacks: it's called CANCEL.

Randomly. A random effect with a low activation rate and an effect not overly relevant has little to no tactical value. The skills that actually matter are, for the most part, the ones that are always in effect or allow you to get a bonus in exchange for something else.

There's an idea I've been having of grouping skills within games based on their tactical value to compare relevance. Let's try it with FE4:

High Tactical Value

Ambush

Bargain

Charisma

Dance

Elite

Pursuit

Wrath

Moderate Tactical Value

Charge

Continue

Critical

Meteor Sword

Prayer

Steal

Low Tactical Value

Awareness

Big Shield

Moonlight Sword

Sun Sword

Groups are ordered alphabetically. Life is excluded because it's not player-available. List is open to suggestions.

I think we'd get some rather interesting results trying to apply this same idea to, say, FE10. But first, let's find a standard to agree upon here, with less skills to work with.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Othin

[grandjackal]

Not sure this is the right topic to have a..Skill tier list of all silliness, but I feel FE4 is also a crappy place to start. Due to no skill manuels or ability to switch skills over to other characters, it's more just a character trait rather than something you can tier up.

If we wanna tier skills, FE10 would be the better place to start since it's then they are a resource rather than a trait, along with the fact that it will be relevant to FE13 since skill swap will be happening.

[Anouleth]

Randomly. A random effect with a low activation rate and an effect not overly relevant has little to no tactical value. The skills that actually matter are, for the most part, the ones that are always in effect or allow you to get a bonus in exchange for something else.

Not really. I can't think of any good skills that force trade-offs: there aren't many. Gamble, which is dire, Parity, which is usually dire and only useful because FE10 lategame bosses have a tendency to stand on FE5-style +10 DEF tiles (and also authority stars), Sacrifice (hohoho), Wildheart (lololol), and Blossom (which is only good because BEXP lets you avoid the negative while reaping the benefits). Some of these skills have niche value, but I would hardly call these the skills that "actually matter", and none of them are better than the likes of Adept, or Resolve, or Wrath, or so on.

You are right in a sense that you can't really control when Cancel activates, so it's not really something you can build a strategy around, but that should be fixed in a way other than assigning a tradeoff. Perhaps let the unit activate it every four turns, or something. Perhaps you could put in a "skill gauge" that depletes when the character uses skills to prevent overuse and would have to wait for it to increase back over time. You'd keep the random chance of activating though, but you'd be able to "force" it to activate at the cost of depleting your skill gauge, or something like that.

[CrashGordon94]

I like the tradeoff skills myself, actually.

[CT075]

Regarding the stat ups, yeah, I totally see how that takes the strategy out of using them. On the other hand, the current system I think has problems akin to the Mega-Elixer in Final Fantasy. An all powerful item with a finite number of sources. I never end up using the Mega-Elixer because there 'might' be a tougher battle later on where I'll be sorry that I wasted it now. That tougher battle inevitably doesn't come as final bosses are a joke. Likewise, the consumable stat-ups I tend to save until the final chapters where I know the RNG goddess cannot screw me over and I'll know that every point was used to 100% efficiency. But, by that point you're already plowing through the enemies with a bulldozer being towed by land dwelling ninja-sharks. So those points at that point are as good as not having them. People who memorize stat growths will find the consumables practical, but I don't think Joe Consumer will. Which, by point of argument makes it mainstream.

Advantage: Home team.

I'm still not convinced this is an undesirable thing, but I will concede it as a change to mainstream.

I'm not going to cast judgement on whether or not "mainstream" (I hate that term so from here on out you can assume I mean the same thing by 'typical') is bad, but okay.

Now, point 2, classes ≠ characters:

I'm err, not quite sure where we're at a disagreement. Support conversations are back, which means we'll be getting our Guys and our Ravens for the first time in 3-4 games is it now?. Likewise I expect we'll have our defectors, our loyalists, citizens, lovers, and friends all joining our ranks. But ever since such things have been added, they've been staples of the series. We've gotten no indication that they'll be stepping back in Awakening, so I assumed what you meant by unique was referring to combat, something that, as I established, is traditionally no-so-unique.

So I guess I default this part?

I actually didn't know that Support Conversations are coming back, so I'll cede this to you.

Part 3, skills.

Mmm... I see where you're coming from. But I'm not sure it's totally valid. No doubt, the percent of, lets call them combat skills, is lessened due to the introduction of stat skills. But does that effect the quantity of combat skills? Would the same argument apply if combat skills were equipped differently from stat skills? According to this site, 4 had 18 skills, 5 had 16. Sacred Stones had 7 (Weird duck that it is, not sure it should even count). Radiance had 41 combat skills (and 4 stat up skills), And Dawn had a mess at 52 NON-Mastery NON-Stat skills. (Stat up skills at 9, THANK-YOU CRIT+ YOU'VE BEEN MOST UNIQUE)

Right now, we've got 8 combat skills, and 4 stat skills. (With Dual Attack+ waiting to join either pile). If this is just the preview, then I think we're well on our way to trouncing 4 and 5. Thus, firmly middle ground.

I wasn't pointing to the quantity of skills in 4 and 5, but the way they so drastically changed the way characters are ranked. FE9 had this as well, although less so. In FE4, anyone with Pursuit or critical becomes combat-worthy (almost) instantly. Astra, Continue, Wrath, character is now ten bajillion times better. FE5, Wrath makes you an instant enemy phase god. FE9, a unit's skills really don't make/break them. They're nice, for sure. Skills like Vantage, Wrath, Resolve, those are the exceptions. With FE10, that goes out of the window because if one unit has a skill that makes them awesome, you can take it off and use it to make a different unit awesome.

And either way, I'm not opposed to the idea of re-assignable skills. Like I said, I'm not going to cast judgement on whether or not 'typical' RPGs are unenjoyable (SRW is one of my favorite game series ever ever ever ever.)

The point is that it's NOT CONSUMABLE. You can put +2 SPD on Krom for one chapter and then switch it over to another character the next. If it was consumable, you couldn't do that; the stat bonus would be stuck on one person.

If you give people the option to shuffle stats like that between characters and then tune the game around intelligent use of such a feature, it will make it take more thought, yes. Without a doubt.

Having skills take their own slots takes away the only annoying feature of star shards...they hog the living crap out of your inventory at times.

That's the point.

If these stat boosts are removable, that's one less mistake I have to deal with if I made the wrong choice. You have nothing to weigh when considering who deserves this resource more, because if it turns out that unit X didn't need it, I can just take it off and give it to Unit Y.

I've beaten Reverse Lunatic, bro. I know how much the starshards can do. And I didn't like it, but that's irrelevant.

And your last point makes no sense. Are you telling me that yet another tactical dis/advantage is being removed?

[Anouleth]

I wasn't pointing to the quantity of skills in 4 and 5, but the way they so drastically changed the way characters are ranked. FE9 had this as well, although less so. In FE4, anyone with Pursuit or critical becomes combat-worthy (almost) instantly. Astra, Continue, Wrath, character is now ten bajillion times better. FE5, Wrath makes you an instant enemy phase god. FE9, a unit's skills really don't make/break them. They're nice, for sure. Skills like Vantage, Wrath, Resolve, those are the exceptions. With FE10, that goes out of the window because if one unit has a skill that makes them awesome, you can take it off and use it to make a different unit awesome.

Fortunately, there are no such skills. Skills are rather used to enhance existing awesomeness. Such as Celerity and Saviour being given to Haar to enhance his great movement.

And either way, I'm not opposed to the idea of re-assignable skills. Like I said, I'm not going to cast judgement on whether or not 'typical' RPGs are unenjoyable (SRW is one of my favorite game series ever ever ever ever.)

Judging by the millions of people who play and enjoy them, typical RPGs are definitely enjoyable.

That's the point.

If these stat boosts are removable, that's one less mistake I have to deal with if I made the wrong choice. You have nothing to weigh when considering who deserves this resource more, because if it turns out that unit X didn't need it, I can just take it off and give it to Unit Y.

Of course there's something to weigh. When you play through FE12, you still have to think about who to give the shard in each individual chapter. Instead of making one decision that applies for the whole game, you make many smaller decisions on a chapter by chapter basis. There's still a "wrong" way to do it, but the game is less punishing about mistakes, and gives you more choices. You apparently seem to see that as a bad thing.

And personally, I dislike having to make permanent decisions like that. I find it really really difficult to try and plan ahead over the course of many chapters, I would much rather take the game on a chapter by chapter basis. And I get the impression that many other players do the same thing, which is why you see behaviour such as hoarding valuable weapons or stat boosters, or frantically trying to collect up as much exp as possible because they're scared of getting burned later on in the game. It's not a fun way to play.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Anouleth

[Arch]

so basicly Arch here used "bigger" words to make it sound like he wasn't being a negative hipster about the game?

How many times? How many times do I have to say "it's just an analytic piece, the negative connotations were not meant to be implied." And would you quit going around calling me a "hipster?" I want you to find where I say "the mainstream is bad," "casuals are ruining the world," etc. Oh wait! You can't. Your comprehension of my words is astoundingly poor. I've said already: I was going for the concept of the trade-off, selling soul for material gain. One person had it exactly right: one of the questions is, is this really a true Faustian bargain (a pact with the devil)? And that's for you to discuss and decide for yourself, since, for the 10,000th time, it's just an analytic piece and not meant to be me going against the mainstream, hating on the new direction, or anything of the sort. I used an allusion that apparently backfired, my bad, people make communication mistakes and I've said before that the negative connotations were not meant to be implied. When are you people going to get this through your thick heads?

Nevertheless, all references to the Faustus legend have now been removed. Heck, a disclaimer is even there, just to make sure there's no mistakes from here onwards. Now, can we please get to the actual point of the writing? Not for me to hate on casuals or the mainstream, but for everyone to just talk about the actual concepts in the writing (not the fake concepts that people keep parsing my words to get).

Edited January 6, 2012 by Arch

[Celice]

Arch, your replying is what's bringing it back on topic. If you don't want it being discussed, be proactive, and don't discuss the naming of the thread or your finger in the discussion. Instead, bring it back on topic, not back on you, right? The thread isn't about you, so don't contribute to it being so.

I like the tradeoff skills myself, actually.

I'm more interested in how we're going to be getting some of the tradeable skills. Is it going to be like the DS FF4 remake, where there's special skills you can give to whoever you want, which you have to get on your own--but there are still unique skills chained directly to specific characters? I think it might be more interesting this way, making all the smaller, augmentational skills a lot more side-questy and reward-based than just stealing it from existing characters :E

Edited January 6, 2012 by Celice