Rate the Unit, Day 4: Jagen

[Colonel M]

Base level Hardin is better in almost everything. Also, Jeigan needs his Silver Lance to be better than most units after 2-4 levels, and that Silver Lance has only so many uses.

You realize Hardin is the closest unit, and Hardin can't fly either, right?

[OrangeCrush980]

characters do not exist in a vacuum, against the enemies you face the extra is just superfluous. why do i care that hardin does an extra 3 damage more than the enemy's health compared to jagen, the unit is still fucking dead. hardin's slight leads by endgame shouldn't even come close to what jagen can do in the beginning.

How convenient. Jeigan's slight leads in earlygame are a huge deal, but once Jeigan starts falling behind the leads that your other units have don't matter anymore, no matter how big (and when Jeigan is gripping against a chapter 5 unit that's a third the level and has twice the growths, its gonna get pretty big).

But whatever, I don't really care. Just go back to sucking the dick of every Jeigan and prepromote no matter how mediocre they are and how terrible their growths are because their bases are marginally better than the rest of the team.

[Integrity]

But whatever, I don't really care. Just go back to sucking the dick of every Jeigan and prepromote no matter how mediocre they are and how terrible their growths are because their bases are marginally better than the rest of the team.

Such hostility ill becomes you.

Anyway, please do remember that talking about a character getting obsoleted except for the purposes of bias application is pretty strictly against the rules. That's what the "not X" rule is there for.

"Jagen cannot fight reliably past C6" = good argument. "Jagen falls behind the rest of the team" (unless you're talking about MOV) = bad argument, and you should feel bad.

EDIT: Also, you pretty explicitly said "base Hardin is better in pretty much everything" yet when his base leads were proven to be just STR you ...kinda discarded it and changed your stance like you were pretending the opposition was wrong. Classy.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Integrity

[BrightBow]

I'm not sure if Jagen's first few chapters should give him such a good score.

From my memories, the whole of H2 was a cakewalk... until those 26 Spd dragons showed up. (I still wonder how they even did that with their 20 cap. They shouldn't get higher then 24.)

Getting through the last 2 maps was a whole different dimension of difficulty then anything previously in the mode.

So why should it matter that much that Jagen does good early one when the only notable opposition is faced in the last few chapters, long after he outlived his usefulness?

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[Colonel M]

So why should it matter that much that Jagen does good early one when the only notable opposition is faced in the last few chapters?

You can warp past that part. Pretty easily, may I add.

[BrightBow]

You can warp past that part. Pretty easily, may I add.

You might just as well stop playing halfway through if you do this. Probably earlier, with all those warp staff uses.

Getting past Medeus isn't easy either. His Spd is 29. Tiki, Marth combo might do the job but then somebody else will finish off Marth before he can move again since he doesn't reach 23 on average.

I also just checked, that Marth doesn't get really good hit against Medeus. My 14 skill Marth has 75 hit. That's coincidental his lv.30 average but mine is lower in terms of luck so he would get a few more points.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[I.M. Gei]

You might just as well stop playing halfway through if you do this. Probably earlier, with all those warp staff uses.

Getting past Medeus isn't easy either. His Spd is 30 or 29 as far as I remember. Tiki, Marth combo might do the job but then somebody else will finish off Marth before he can move again.

you know H5 Medeus can be killed in one turn by having Tiki suicide into him and then having Nagi finish him

[BrightBow]

you know H5 Medeus can be killed in one turn by having Tiki suicide into him and then having Nagi finish him

Tiki and Nagi shouldn't be in the same game. That's just a glitch. We might just as well make our scores dependent on the mine glitch or 255 crit swords.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[Thor Odinson]

Glitch

what the fuck are you talking about

Game gives you a fucking Alm staff

you're allowed to use the fucking Alm staff

no glitch involved

[I.M. Gei]

Tiki and Nagi shouldn't be in the same game. That's just a glitch. We might just as well make our scores dependent on the mine glitch or 255 crit swords.

how the hell is using the alm staff to exploit the loophole on the same level as exploting the mine glitch or 255 crit swords

Edited April 4, 2012 by Black★Rock Shooter

[BrightBow]

Glitch

what the fuck are you talking about

Game gives you a fucking Alm staff

you're allowed to use the fucking Alm staff

no glitch involved

So is the ability to control the enemy phase with mines and getting 255 critical swords by forging a weapon with less then zero critical.

The mission is there for when you miss out on the Falchion and Tiki. I doubt it's intentional that you can keep the cake and eat it.

how the hell is using the alm staff to exploit the loophole on the same level as exploting the mine glitch or 255 crit swords

How is it different? It's a glitch. A programming error or oversight. Something that's not meant to be.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[Thor Odinson]

It's not a fucking glitch if the game clearly shows you the OPTION TO REVIVE IT ON THE MENU

instead of pressing a bunch of button for reset at the right time or some shit

You select use on Alm staff

Tiki is selectable forever as long as she's dead you don't need to press random buttons LR reset whatever

You're allowed to use that fucking thing on her

Edited April 4, 2012 by Luminescent Blade

[Integrity]

Tiki and Nagi shouldn't be in the same game. That's just a glitch. We might just as well make our scores dependent on the mine glitch or 255 crit swords.

1: the two things (Tiki+Nagi and mine glitch) are of VASTLY different magnitudes

2: in that case, let's just assumed a trained Marth and Warp Nagi + somebody else to die or Tiki + Marth. You can still Warp people to die and kill Medeus on Turn 1.

[Shin]

Now there's a real man. Not too shabby for a guy in his 70's or something. H2 isn't that bad, apart from the start and the end. Admittedly, he's not helping much at the end, but he's providing some much needed early game support! You could probably do it without him, but it's much better having him watch the kids.

Dragonball J's nice to have around too, he'll start to fade, but by then he's ready to pass the torch onto the others. With reliable bases and access to a good number of manly classes, Jeigan's early game contribution is not to be scoffed at!

7.5/10 - +0.5 added for being a cool old guy and not doing a shabby Marth cosplay.

[BrightBow]

It's not a fucking glitch if the game clearly shows you the OPTION TO REVIVE IT ON THE MENU

instead of pressing a bunch of button for reset at the right time or some shit

You select use on Alm staff

Tiki is selectable forever as long as she's dead you don't need to press random buttons LR reset whatever

You're allowed to use that fucking thing on her

A glitch is not defined by how difficult it is to perform... It's any sort of program behavior that wasn't intended.

Anyway, does that mean we assume nothing but warp-skipping chapters once enough staffs are available?

[Thor Odinson]

Well maybe if they wouldn't have put it in if it wasn't intended

It's not that hard to code out

if they really want it to be undoable could be something like if (C24x.get() = true) { (code checking that Tiki can't be revived); } And it'd take them 5 minutes tops

Glitches like the mine glitch and Balmung glitch are much harder to deal with since it deals with all those weird buttonpresses and those are truly unintended

[BrightBow]

It's an oversight. It could have been easily fixed. Just like the 255 crit bug in the japanese PoR. I probably don't need to explain how a bug like this can come to pass.

Or the easy mode glitch during Data Transfer in Radiant Dawn. I bet they just forgot that that mode in the international version existed.

The history of video games is full of glitches that could have been easily fixed but slipped through the testing and went unnoticed.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[Thor Odinson]

Look if it's something a shitty, beginner programmer like me can find a solution for

maybe they don't actually care if you have it or not

at all

And for fuck's sakes

oversights and glitches are NOT THE SAME THING

Edited April 4, 2012 by Luminescent Blade

[Integrity]

Anyway, does that mean we assume nothing but warp-skipping chapters once enough staffs are available?

I'm sure as hell not. Are you assuming that if we don't Warpskip Jagen is completely useless? It sounds like he's a competent fighter until "the difficulty spike" near the end, so...?

Edited April 4, 2012 by Integrity

[BrightBow]

Look if it's something a shitty, beginner programmer like me can find a solution for

maybe they don't actually care if you have it or not

at all

And for fuck's sakes

oversights and glitches are NOT THE SAME THING

Yes, they are not the same thing. An oversight is a reason why a glitch exist, not the glitch itself.

Sure you could find a solution for a lot of glitches. So could I and I'm probably a lot worse. Most of time the difficult part is to find glitches.

Think of the bug in FE4 that allows you to have a unit move several times by rescuing it out of the castle because the menu option for "leaving the castle" doesn't disappear.

I could come up with a simple solution: When using the staff have the game check whether or not the unit is in the castle. If it is then remove the option from the menu the same way they do when having the unit leave normally.

There might not be the best solution but I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult either way. But they just didn't notice.

The Rescue staff is hard to get. Most testers probably didn't got it. Those who did probably never thought about using it on a unit in the castle and so the glitch went unnoticed. Or they were on a tight schedule and had no time.

Either way a simple easy to fix glitch found it's way into the final version.

I'm sure as hell not. Are you assuming that if we don't Warpskip Jagen is completely useless? It sounds like he's a competent fighter until "the difficulty spike" near the end, so...?

Yes, he can hold is own for the most part but I don't think it's anything outstanding that validates vote above average. Silver Lance is awesome, though. And if the difficulty spike turns out to be a brick wall, what good does Jeigan do me then. Other units are just are just as good at the beginning but later can still keep up with 26 spd dragons. (Man, I want to know how the code works for those. Maybe they had 22 spd all the time but the game can't display attributes that are higher then what's max for the class. The game probably doesn't force max states on enemy units, like with those above 60 Hp enemies in the gba games.)

H2 Jeigan also isn't quite like FE6 HM Marcus in that he is pretty much essential to get through.

I haven't given a score yet, but I probably would hand out a 5 or so. But even then, that's just because most units recruited later aren't fancy either. Otherwise I would put him visibly below average. But scores above 7 without bias?

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[Thor Odinson]

That's a terrible solution

One should be allowed to use the rescue staff on a guarding member not just outright ban it

Either way

oversight or not this is widely accepted and you should just accept the fact that it's accepted

I mean how game breaking can it get the game allows you to use a staff for what it's used for oh no

Fucking staff lets you revive any character besides the prologue sacrifice (because dude didn't even die)

It's used for what it should be used for, not some unintended side effect

Edited April 4, 2012 by Luminescent Blade

[CT075]

It's an oversight. It could have been easily fixed. Just like the 255 crit bug in the japanese PoR. I probably don't need to explain how a bug like this can come to pass.

Or the easy mode glitch during Data Transfer in Radiant Dawn. I bet they just forgot that that mode in the international version existed.

The history of video games is full of glitches that could have been easily fixed but slipped through the testing and went unnoticed.

i wasn't going to get involved but this is just retarded to anyone who actually knows how to code

It is not a glitch that Chiki is resurectable. By definition a glitch is when some code doesn't work out which leads to results that are outside the entirely reasonable bounds of "what the code says is supposed to happen".

Let me tell you exactly how the 255 crit bug works. In computing language, -1 is represented as 0xFF. Take my word for it, or go look up "one's/two's complement" for proof. The problem is, somebody forgot to make sure that 0 + 0xFF (which is equivalent to 0 - 1) is specially handled. Normally, it would be fine. Except that the PoR engine doesn't process crit in a signed context, therefore 0xFF (which is the result of 0-1) is not interpreted as -1, it's interpreted as 255 (0xFF in hex is equal to both -1 and 255, it's one of the first things you learn when you take higher-leveled coding). It's not a fault of the programmer, but rather an unexpected consequence of the way the engine is programmed.

Chiki being revive-able is an example of code working exactly the way it's intended to - Aum is supposed to resurrect a character, and it does. The sole reason that it is "unexpected" is because it goes (ever so slightly) against the story, which means jack shit to the game engine.

MAin difference: 255 crit is caused by a coding oversight when someone does something semi-unexpected. chiki getting revived is caused by someone using the aum staff for it's intended purpose - reviving people

Think of the bug in FE4 that allows you to have a unit move several times by rescuing it out of the castle because the menu option for "leaving the castle" doesn't disappear.

I could come up with a simple solution: When using the staff have the game check whether or not the unit is in the castle. If it is then remove the option from the menu the same way they do when having the unit leave normally.

There might not be the best solution but I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult either way. But they just didn't notice.

Wrong.

You don't code, so I'm not going to berate you for not knowing this, but the solution you propose is not as easy as you make it sound.

"Checking whether the unit is in the castle" as you say, actually takes a lot of work. First you need to determine which unit in memory to check for, then you need to actually find the variable that determines whether he's in the castle. Then you need to compare it to something, and only if it matches then you have to cancel the effect which is not exactly trivial.

A better solution would be to rewrite Rescue's code so that it resets the "position" status of the unit so that it will always go "out of" the castle when being REscue'd. The other thing about most glitches is that a lot of time you have to do something unexpected to trigger them - a lot of times devs will just throw it off as "they would never try that" because the deadline's approaching.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Camtech

[dondon151]

I don't see how the 255 crit forge glitch has any relevance because no one discusses the JP version of FE9 on this forum.

The Tiki + Nagi exploit is also definitely not a glitch. The only requirement for chapter 24x is that Tiki not be alive. There is no condition in the game that says "if Nagi is in party, than Tiki can't be revived." Therefore it's perfectly legitimate. Something that one would consider a mere "trick" (like the Nagi + Falchion trick) should not be put on the same level as a glitch that is an obvious programming oversight.

I don't see what the problem is with the 255 crit forge glitch either. It makes mages better, but they're still held back by most of the same disadvantages as before. Sword users and lance users improve slightly but the more important forges are Javelins and Hand Axes, neither of which benefit from the glitch.

[BrightBow]

That's a terrible solution

One should be allowed to use the rescue staff on a guarding member not just outright ban it

Either way

oversight or not this is widely accepted and you should just accept the fact that it's accepted

I mean how game breaking can it get the game allows you to use a staff for what it's used for oh no

Fucking staff lets you revive any character besides the prologue sacrifice (because dude didn't even die)

It's used for what it should be used for, not some unintended side effect

I must have expressed myself poorly. Not allowing the staff on a guarding member wasn't what I wanted to say.

But of course, it's besides the point.

My objection was probably more about the fact of making scores dependent on strategies that allow you to bypass essentially the whole game rather then that it is a glitch (Which it is. I still think that it only works like this because nobody thought about that scenario or because it was to much of a hassle to fix it.).

I'm sorry for the trouble I caused here.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BrightBow

[Thor Odinson]

Like Cam explained much more adequately than I could as he's been in this field longer than I have, it ain't a fucking glitch, for the last time for crying out loud. Possible storyline oversight but the staff does exactly what it's supposed to do without any unintended side effects.

I don't think warpskip should be disallowed, but it shouldn't be what everyone's forced to rate on and if mentioned, it shouldn't be the only criteria. Like any other rating threads, some people rate on casual, some rate based on ranked, and some rate on efficiency. As long as the pros and cons of each character are weighted adequately and reasonably (aka no "hey I spent 200 turns arena abusing Est and now she's all green, best character EVARS) within whatever standard one wants to use.

WRT Jeigan, as it has been addressed, he's good to adequate until C16 or so, and characters should be weighted on their own performances. It doesn't matter if somebody is all green and another isn't, if they're both ORKOing, they're effectively doing the same thing offensively.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Luminescent Blade