The Great LTC Debate Thread (Yay? Nay? Burn in Hell?)

[Thor Odinson]

I play fast enough that with only a handful of exceptions, most units get to ~15/10 at best. And then people are like "what are you doing dude's not 20 yet" but if they're never hitting 20/20 and I don't play for ranks so fuck exp, I want those goddamn bonuses. Hell, I promoted Lucius at 12 once since I hate Serra and Prissy sucks at desert, and I forgot to LHM, and he still turned out to be one of my bests. Staffspam like crazy fuck yeah.

We should just be tolerant of people's playstyles. I hate getting shit on because I play just a little faster than the average player.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Luminescent Blade

[Othin]

I don't play LTC, just faster than a normal casual player (casual efficient? Probably not even, I just rush the hell out of things because I'm impatient, haha)

I do the same. Speedy casual? Few people would actually ever want to take things as slow as they "could" on a casual run anyway.

[Thor Odinson]

Yeah. Speedy Casual works well for a description. I mountspam and everything since going slow rubs at my patience, but I am willing to slow down for characters I like and not religious care about exact turns. Just I find most growth units not really worth rubbing on my patience nor do they even appeal to me as characters, so some people think I play LTC when I take waaaay to long to be actually constituted as an LTC run and my standards are kinda similar to efficient runs due to, well, horses do get shit done faster.

But I have friends who like to turtle it out and that's totally fine. Whatever works for the player, really. A game should be fun, and if turtling everything out is fun for them, then more power to said person. Just preferences, really.

See, for tier lists, if one of my favourites are rated low, rather than cry "why do they think x sucks" I just think that x doesn't perform well in that set of standards that said tier list is adhereing to (Ayra on a FE4 efficiency tier list, for example) and it's all good.

And she'll still be top tier when I play, and that's all that really matters.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Luminescent Blade

[MacLovin]

Man.

if its playstyle, then I just go faster than average, but not LTC crazy fast.

I let Thany hit lvl 10 prior to ch 8 all the time.

And its inefficient as hell.

thing is, in IP chat, most of the time its draft talk, if a casual player walks in and complains about the draft talk, then be silent or just don't go on IP chat.

As for playstyles, I don't adhere to any particular kind.

the problem may come from the fact that some people tend to judge units by

"_____ cannot help X turn chapter Y", therefore _____ is useless".

Ok, that was a bit extreme, but seriously, LTC is just a way to play-like the folks who are stuck in pre 2008 with Jeigan hate, AA love, and etc, etc.

I don't think that casual play should be ostracized, but its the way we all started playing FE.

[Loki Laufeyson]

I play fast enough that with only a handful of exceptions, most units get to ~15/10 at best. And then people are like "what are you doing dude's not 20 yet" but if they're never hitting 20/20 and I don't play for ranks so fuck exp, I want those goddamn bonuses. Hell, I promoted Lucius at 12 once since I hate Serra and Prissy sucks at desert, and I forgot to LHM, and he still turned out to be one of my bests. Staffspam like crazy fuck yeah.

We should just be tolerant of people's playstyles. I hate getting shit on because I play just a little faster than the average player.

Yeah. If Lucius at level 12 promoting works for you, freakin why not? Play however you want!!

Yeah. Speedy Casual works well for a description. I mountspam and everything since going slow rubs at my patience, but I am willing to slow down for characters I like and religious care about exact turns. Just I find most growth units not really worth rubbing on my patience nor do they even appeal to me as characters, so some people think I play LTC when I take waaaay to long to be actually constituted as an LTC run and my standards are kinda similar to efficient runs due to, well, horses do get shit done faster.

But I have friends who like to turtle it out and that's totally fine. Whatever works for the player, really. A game should be fun, and if turtling everything out is fun for them, then more power to said person. Just preferences, really.

See, for tier lists, if one of my favourites are rated low, rather than cry "why do they think x sucks" I just think that x doesn't perform well in that set of standards that said tier list is adhereing to (Ayra on a FE4 efficiency tier list, for example) and it's all good.

And she'll still be top tier when I play, and that's all that really matters.

I mountspam too. I also have the habit of trying out really crappy units. Like ill try using Lyre just to see what happens and junk like that. So yeah a lot of the time i go slower than most.

When i see Soren (my second favorite character in the entire series) on low tier, i go "well...i guess he is kind of inefficient but ive used him regularly and every time! So like, i cant understand why people say he sucks on average." Cuz really...on average...he doesnt suck. Hes just tough to get there. But hell if ill argue it. Fuck that noise. :p Because like you said, hes top tier to me!

[Florete]

I don't know if Smash/Paperblade/etc. are still around to read this, but the draft thing is a good point. Apparently, we don't like people doing things differently than we already do, yet drafts boomed, complete with tier lists and rating topics that didn't get trolled. And it was brought over from GameFAQs of all places.

[Paperblade]

The overlap between the tier community and drafters is tiny. It's basically just you and RD, plus SDS/Sage/Anouleth if you count the combined 6 or so times they've actually participated.

Edit: Drafts are also almost always LTC (the only exceptions I can think of are the Tactician Star draft and that EXP one going on atm), so I don't know how that contradicts the point of "People look at things through the lens of LTC"

Edited February 16, 2012 by Paperblade

[Florete]

The overlap between the tier community and drafters is tiny. It's basically just you and RD, plus SDS/Sage/Anouleth if you count the combined 6 or so times they've actually participated.

If anything this helps my point since the efficiency tier community doesn't have to care about something for it to get popular.

Edit: Drafts are also almost always LTC (the only exceptions I can think of are the Tactician Star draft and that EXP one going on atm), so I don't know how that contradicts the point of "People look at things through the lens of LTC"

Yes, but it is still a different set of rules for playing and tiering, usually in no way efficient.

And when are people going to stop saying LTC? Our tier lists are not LTC.

[Paperblade]

I don't think I ever said things wouldn't get popular without the help of the tiering community. What I said was that the tiering community has a mentality that if you aren't playing for turns you are somehow less serious.

Also, afaik efficiency is just LTC but with some reliability thrown in in the form of leeway in turncounts although depending on who you ask it's not even that.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Paperblade

[dondon151]

I don't think I ever said things wouldn't get popular without the help of the tiering community. What I said was that the tiering community has a mentality that if you aren't playing for turns you are somehow less serious.

But isn't it? Logic is less rigorous the more lax turncount assumptions become.

If you're not playing a fighting game to win, then you're not playing it seriously. If you don't push an RPG to its limits, then you're not playing it seriously.

[eclipse]

But isn't it? Logic is less rigorous the more lax turncount assumptions become.

If you're not playing a fighting game to win, then you're not playing it seriously. If you don't push an RPG to its limits, then you're not playing it seriously.

. . .and there's the crux of the problem, I think. Your units are a means to finish a chapter. If I decided that I want to use a different criteria for getting to the end of the chapter that isn't turns, but still requires thought, do you think I'm any less serious?

[Paperblade]

But isn't it? Logic is less rigorous the more lax turncount assumptions become.

If you're not playing a fighting game to win, then you're not playing it seriously. If you don't push an RPG to its limits, then you're not playing it seriously.

Congratulations on not actually responding to my post.

In Fire Emblem, there are many potential resources to argue: Unit Survival, Gold, EXP, Turns, Real Time are good examples

Why are Turns the only resource so precious that we should only measure units on their ability to reduce our consumption of Turns, and that discussion of any other is considered "not serious?"

I have asked this several times itt and haven't even received an attempt to explain why.

[dondon151]

Congratulations on not actually responding to my post.

OK, activate pedant mode.

You said:

What I said was that the tiering community has a mentality that if you aren't playing for turns you are somehow less serious.

My response:

But isn't it? ... If you don't push an RPG to its limits, then you're not playing it seriously.

Oh look, what is that? That's a response to your post. You made some sort of statement and I expressed my disagreement with that statement using some form of rhetoric. Here, let's consult an official resource:

Dictionary.com says:

response - an answer or reply, as in words or in some action.

So please, tell me: how did I not respond to your post? Or can you just not be bothered to come up with an actual response and are just brushing it off by implying that I am at a logical fault?

In Fire Emblem, there are many potential resources to argue: Unit Survival, Gold, EXP, Turns, Real Time are good examples

Why are Turns the only resource so precious that we should only measure units on their ability to reduce our consumption of Turns, and that discussion of any other is considered "not serious?"

You don't win the game by having gold or by having gained a certain amount of EXP. You win the game by taking x amount of turns to complete it in y time. Now, I don't disagree with the notion of a real time tier list, but turncount already correlates strongly with real time, and proponents of a real time tier list seem to think that it is necessary to define how long it takes for a player to come up with a strategy and factor it into game completion. Now, I don't know about you, but that seems like a massive arbitrary factor that can be twisted in numerous ways (in addition to promoting further imbalance in the tier list because it completely discourages any unit from being used unless he has immediate utility).

Edited February 17, 2012 by dondon151

[eclipse]

Uhh. . .no, you win by completing an objective. Doesn't matter HOW you do it, either.

[dondon151]

Uhh. . .no, you win by completing an objective. Doesn't matter HOW you do it, either.

You take x turns and y time to complete an objective, and you complete z objectives to finish the game. That's what I meant.

Edited February 17, 2012 by dondon151

[Anouleth]

You take x turns and y time to complete an objective, and you complete z objectives to finish the game. That's what I meant.

And in the process, you will inevitably have w amount of gold and v amount of gained experience. And u deaths and t ratio of wins to battles (unless you beat the game with no battles at all).

[eclipse]

I don't think the game really cares if you beat the final boss using Marcus, Athos, or Nino in FE7. The same can be said of the rest of Elibe, Magvel, and Archanea.

[Paperblade]

You don't win the game by having gold or by having gained a certain amount of EXP. You win the game by taking x amount of turns to complete it in y time. Now, I don't disagree with the notion of a real time tier list, but turncount correlates strongly with real time, and proponents of a real time tier list seem to think that it is necessary to define how long it takes for a player to come up with a strategy and factor it into game completion. Now, I don't know about you, but that seems like a massive arbitrary factor that can be twisted in numerous ways.

You are repeating yourself. Why is completing the game in a low amount of turns considered winning as compared to completing the game with all units at high levels or completing the game or completing the game with the most gold?

There are no bonus points in any PvP game for winning in less time (even if it is impressive)

The game does not care if I take 5 turns or 500 except in the cases of Rankings and achieving Sidequests. Neither of these are requirements for completing the game, but are either developer-defined challenges or bonus gameplay. To complete the game, the only thing you have to do is fulfill the objectives of each map. In some maps this is to spend under some amount of turns, but in a vast vast majority of them the game does not give a shit.

As Anouleth pointed out, beating the game can be defined as

You have s resets, t wins to battle ratio, u deaths, v experience, w gold, x turns, and y time to complete an objective, and you complete z objectives to finish the game.

Why are turns the only resource worth considering?

And do not say "Well if I want to spend the least gold I would never finish the first chapter!!!" You have already admitted that Turns are separate from completing the game and I could easily respond with "Well if I wanted to spend the least turns I would just never play again after the first turn!!!"

[Florete]

I don't think the game really cares if you beat the final boss using Marcus, Athos, or Nino in FE7. The same can be said of the rest of Elibe, Magvel, and Archanea.

I don't think the game cares what I do with it since I already paid money for it (or not, you pirates). It does, however, scroll through my turn counts when I beat it.

Now there's nothing (that I've heard) to say you can't do a Gold efficiency list, or experience (though that would require some other rule so that you can't farm reinforcements), or whatever you want, it just needs to have enough concrete standards to logically work out without giving people the ability to endlessly argue things like how much Seth is used that could drastically change unit positions.

If you can think of it, you can do it. For now, though, turns is what has been accepted as the norm.

[eclipse]

Still, if I were to beat the game using a bunch of mid/low/trash tier units, does that make me any less serious than someone who uses turns?

[Lord Raven]

And in the process, you will inevitably have w amount of gold and v amount of gained experience. And u deaths and t ratio of wins to battles (unless you beat the game with no battles at all).

Don't we factor in the fact that some characters dont need as much gold, can kill more, get killed less, and need no EXP gain to get fewer turns in less time? Or was I mistaken? Turns seems to be the simplified metric we've labeled it as, but efficiency still does stem from the others quite a lot if you think about it.

Both sides exaggerate this argument; one side says it should be almost entirely turns, the other side say that it is entirely turns and... well, I don't think either are correct. At any rate, I'd like to see a nice, well-defined metric if you guys really want to change anything, not saying we have one now but...

Edited February 17, 2012 by Mercenary Raven

[Florete]

Still, if I were to beat the game using a bunch of mid/low/trash tier units, does that make me any less serious than someone who uses turns?

If you're trying to determine which units are good (the whole point of a tier list)? Well, yeah. I mean, you just called them "mid/low/trash tier units." By what standard are they such?

[Othin]

Seems to me that in past tier lists, the low tiers served the purpose of suggesting characters for serious players to use to get more of a challenge. In current tier lists, that seems less applicable.

[eclipse]

I should word that better. I'll use FE7.

Let's say my endgame team is Nino, Rath, Legault, Wallace, Erk, Serra, and Bartre (who was mysteriously Speed-blessed), and I beat the game using that. Does this kind of team make me less serious than someone who beat the game via LTC?

[Florete]

I should word that better. I'll use FE7.

Let's say my endgame team is Nino, Rath, Legault, Wallace, Erk, Serra, and Bartre (who was mysteriously Speed-blessed), and I beat the game using that. Does this kind of team make me less serious than someone who beat the game via LTC?

You can beat the game with whatever team you want and be serious about it, but if you're only playing for fun, how can you call that "serious?" You need a specific goal in mind, a way to play that will test characters on how well they perform.