Nino

[irtikliwT]

We can leave off using promotion items, since Nino obviously isn't promoting at 10/0 in this context.

When was this particular line of conversation about Nino? What does Nino promoting have to do with anything in any case?

Gaining EXP is directly related to gaining levels, which is directly related to gaining stats. But what you're conveniently leaving off is that others have much higher stats to begin with. Putting it in abstract DBZ values, we have Nino with a powerlevel of 10, who gains 10 powerlevels for every level-up. However, I already have people running around with powerlevels of like 3000, and despite the fact that they may not even be gaining a whole powerlevel per level-up, they are being more efficient than Nino. They kill faster (tactics, lolcombat), survive better (survival), even have more mobility (except Oswin).

They're making more efficient use of time. They're not in and of themselves making more efficient use of their lives or of your armies total value. And they're making less efficient use of available EXP. Mobility is entirely unrelated to this you rascal you.

There is no refuting the fact that Nino isn't worth using as a main component of your army if your characters are already powerhouses and you don't have any non-gameplay reason to use her. But this is not relevant to the line at hand which is talking about the point behind rankings in general.

The EXP itself has no value, just like having a higher level in itself means little (as you've said yourself, if units joined at higher levels, the only advantage they have is being able to promote earlier, often offset by their lower EXP gains and their earlier capping).

EXP definitely has a value. It's 1/100th of a level. Your comparison is flawed beyond belief; units having gone up levels has no relation whatsoever to theoretical units joining at a higher level. I can't even follow your line of thought here.

A unit that gets me more money allows me to use more expensive weapons more often, allowing me to kill faster, regardless of the funds rank.

So. Which unit gets you the most money >_>

Units are on the whole consumers of money more than producers. A unit that costs you less money allows you to use more expensive weaponary more. But I'm not sure where you're going with this.

A unit that has higher Str and Spd allows me to kill enemies faster, which means I spend less time doing the same amount of killing, regardless of a tactics or combat rank (time taken matters imo - I can think of strategies that make trash units like Louise and Bartre complete the game with an S-rank, but it obviously takes less time to do it with Raven and Kent).

Selfevident. And not relevant as far as I can see.

Just because it is making the game harder does not make it a good ideal to strive for.

Which is exactly why a lot of people don't strive for it. Good for them, or something.

It's a _score_. Generally in noncompetetive games score is based on difficulty you've put yourself through. If you get to level 20 in Tetris getting only single lines you'll get less points than if you got to level 20 getting only tetrises, because tetrises are harder to make for numerous reasons (especially so in the higher levels). You get more points in Commander Keen for getting the items in/around deathtraps than for ignoring them. You are ranked in FE7 for beating the game in a style which took more skill to pull off than some other style.

Just because some people take offense because they think that a low rank is intended to mean that they played badly doesn't make it true.

Imagine if there was a rank that counted the amount of times you killed enemies using a unit with purple hair. It makes the game harder, but it also makes you play less efficiently. You have to change your strategies to feed kills to Canas/Legault when it would have made much more sense for other ranks to do it with Eliwood or Oswin or whoever.

JUST IMAGINE A RANK RITE THAT COUNTED THE AMOUNT OF DAMAGE YOU'D TAKEN RITE IN THE SENSE THAT YOU NEEDED TO HAVE TAKEN MORE TO GET THE HIGHER RANKS RITE

IT MAKES THE GAME HARDER RITE BUT IT ALSO MAKES YOU PLAY LESS EFFICIENTLY RITE

See, I too can build scarecrows. Oh what fun.

___How is 'amount of kills by purple haired people' a resource___

Not taking ranks into account, it is generally agreed upon that units who kill faster, have more movement and cost less are more efficient (better) than those who are worse at this.

If that was true, it would be wrong. But I don't believe it is. I think it's just agreed that they're better, or that they're more efficient in the sense of time at the very most.

Gaining more EXP in itself helps you with none of these goals.

This. Is a valid thing to argue about. Except that it refers back to your particular ideal of efficiency. Alter it such that it refers to beating the game in general.

Am I to understand that Oswin is just as good in the Epilogue as he is when you first get him, considering the amount you talk about him above (twice >_>), and that giving him EXP apparently doesn't make him kill faster.

It just has you improve faster, but if you're worse to begin with, it's not helping you in any way other than lowering the amount of catch-up you have to play.

90% of units are worse to begin with. I can only assume that the only unit you use is Athos, somehow.

[Rodykitty]

This is an example of true efficient play.

With that out of the way, I'm pretty sure ranking the game is for the challenge, requiring players to not take the easy way out. If giving Nino EXP is a strategy to accomplish this goal, then it is player skill to pull it off without sacrificing other criteria.

[dondon151]

Word. I just finished a 5-star HHM run, and I would say she is _needed_ to five star EXP in the end. Just look at the ridiculous requirements.

http://www.serenesforest.net/fe7/rank2.html

You may think you're fine when you start VoD with five stars, but then you have a requirement of 6150 EXP for five stars slapped in your face. I did it with a pretty normal team (units ranging between 4 promoted and 12 promoted) and was presented by 2 stars in the next battle preparations, and felt forced to redo it by using base level Rath and Nino, raised them both to ~15, and I still only had four stars in Value of Life.

And my team wasn't small either. Hector, Eliwood, Guy, Canas, Pent, Kent, Sain, Florina, Erk, Fiora, Heath, Geitz all promoted and raised, and then some. Lowen was 17/0, Oswin 14/0, Lucius 19/0, Nils 20/0 (prolly 18 back then), Matthew and Legault levelcapped, Raven 20/0, and Serra was like 15/0.

This is why EXP rank is ghey. Way to force me to play inefficiently.

This is actually exactly what happened to me during my attempt to S-rank FE7 on HHM. I had 5 stars going into VoD, then I realized that I had dropped to 4 after that chapter. In addition, I had to complete VoF in 3 turns if I wanted to S-rank tactics (I arena abused for about 10 turns in Four-Fanged Offense, and I still came out with a turn surplus for that chapter), so I couldn't salvage the EXP rank. I think I would have ended up with 3 stars in EXP after the final chapter, since the requirements there are impossible as well.

My crucial mistake was not using Bartre and Dorcas early-game; I had literally 8 units capped at level 20 unpromoted and a few at around level 15 or so. S-ranking sucks because you can only promote like 6 non-lord/thief/pirate units (at least, I was under that impression) without risking your funds rank, and you're forced to use weak units for your EXP rank at the potential cost of your combat and tactics rank.

I agree with Mekkah in thinking that EXP is a superfluous, irritating rank that serves no purpose other than to annoy the player. As for Twilkitri's assertion that the game utilizes the EXP rank to measure how well a player uses that resource, I find it a bit odd that, even if every unpromoted character rammed level 20, you would still be short of the EXP requirement by a fair amount (I think), and you're only able to promote a limited amount of characters thanks to fund restrictions, essentially rendering most of that EXP... wasted. But it does serve its purpose, I suppose, in adding challenge to ranked runs and measuring efficiency of a certain resource.

[Mekkah]

I'd recommend not looking into surpluses per chapter, but at the total picture, and stick to only using the arena while other characters wrap up the map. It's how I did it.

My crucial mistake was not using Bartre and Dorcas early-game;

Yeah, that's one of these things that helps a lot: using everyone while you can. It gets a bit annoying in Ch15 because from there you get quite limited in unit slots. Dorcas in particular has proven very useful, since he has the power to weaken things so that even Eliwood/Rebecca can kill (as long as the enemy is not on terrain), the durability to take the counter, but the Speed to assure he does not double.

I'll address Twilkitrii's stuff later if I feel like it, though I got to note it seems we have a different definition of efficiency going. From my view, being more efficient strictly means providing more milage (killing faster, completing chapters faster) with less resources (money, turns, enemy phase protection, player phase kill favouritsm, stat boosters, etc). Tactics, Combat, Survival and Funds all fit in there, while EXP goes against all of them.

I think you're being overparanoid about funds though - HHM funds is extremely flexible thanks to its low requirement and the availability of the Silver Card. I just bought what was essential, used the arena whenever I could (rescue chains in Battle Preparations help), and with the huge amount of money I had in-game (I sold all I didn't need, like Orion's Bolts and gems), I bought Fell Contracts and Earth Seals with Silver Card in the VoD Secret Shop (had my pegasus duo fly ahead).

Edited December 5, 2008 by Mekkah

[dondon151]

I'd recommend not looking into surpluses per chapter, but at the total picture, and stick to only using the arena while other characters wrap up the map. It's how I did it.

Yup, I had wrongly assumed that I could make up turns later on. I also didn't pay attention to the 0 requirement chapters in Vincent's tables >.>

I think you're being overparanoid about funds though - HHM funds is extremely flexible thanks to its low requirement and the availability of the Silver Card. I just bought what was essential, used the arena whenever I could (rescue chains in Battle Preparations help), and with the huge amount of money I had in-game (I sold all I didn't need, like Orion's Bolts and gems), I bought Fell Contracts and Earth Seals with Silver Card in the VoD Secret Shop (had my pegasus duo fly ahead).

I actually wasn't sure how much funds I would have been able to make up in the end. Particularly around chapter 25, where I had Sain, Kent, Florina and Fiora ready to promote, promoting all four of them dropped the funds rank, and I was a bit scared to go past that.

I also missed the Member's Card, but I did max out on Elixirs in chapter 31x to get the most out of the Silver Card.

[Mekkah]

I considered doing Elixirs, but I was kind of running out of inventory space (I hog some things too much, I could have sold stat boosters), and I figured I didn't mind losing a bit of time in VoD to visit the SS.

Ch25 is zero requirement though, so it should actually have been positive on your funds rank. And there's a couple more ones ahead. Did you end up S-ranking anyway?

[dondon151]

No >.> I couldn't have made up that EXP with the hole that I dug myself into in tactics.

That, and the save file that I downloaded (so that I didn't have to play through other modes first) had like absurd info on the Battle History page. Since the game only shows the best... yeah. So I don't know, but I'm 100% certain that I didn't.

Ch 25 is Crazed Beast isn't it? I meant to say Battle Before Dawn.

Edited December 6, 2008 by dondon151

[irtikliwT]

From my view, being more efficient strictly means providing more milage (killing faster, completing chapters faster) with less resources (money, turns, enemy phase protection, player phase kill favouritsm, stat boosters, etc). Tactics, Combat, Survival and Funds all fit in there, while EXP goes against all of them.

Funds relies on you stealing everything expensive/getting all expensive chests as well. It seems that this would go against your definition, especially in situations where you need to go out of your way to do so.

I don't see how Combat can be considered a resource whatsoever and I don't really see it being listed in your list of less resources, so currently I don't understand how you look at it. Can you expand on this.

I think the key point might be that you look at 'less resources' somewhat narrowly. The point isn't to use the least resources, the point is to maximise the amount of resources you have in total. Using as little as possible of what you have is one way of aiming at this, but you also want to get as much as possible of what you don't have.

Doing everything with low overhead but producing very little in exchange can't be called efficient by any sense of the word.

It's easily debatable that EXP is not worthwhile produce. But can you think of anything to replace it with which would have ranking still retain its current meaning?

[torifae]

I don't like training last minute unit. It's a real pain...:(

[dondon151]

It's easily debatable that EXP is not worthwhile produce. But can you think of anything to replace it with which would have ranking still retain its current meaning?

The EXP rank would be bearable if it didn't ask for 61 and a half levels in the 2nd/3rd to last chapter -_-