How should we handle a long-term Lunatic tier list?

[Chiki]

OK, how about this: I separately include in Required tier the Premonition incarnations of the Avatar and Chrom. The "present" Avatar and Chrom can then have their post-Premonition contributions tiered as is. If Red Fox of Fire can tier the 3-13 Archer in RD, I think this should be OK too. Although having never played RD, I cannot tell if the Archer was a serious inclusion or a joke one.

Yeah, it was a joke lol.

And I think that's okay.

The debate then is: is Frederick required? One could have Frederick get murdered, then put Lissa in a corner and have Chrom and the Avatar cover her? Maybe?

Complexity comes in play here too: Frederick's contributions would not be as important here as in other chapters.

[Interceptor]

I would disagree with the claim that the Premonition has no impact on the actual game since it is necessary to get past it to even see the Prologue.

Taking it to its ultimate absurdity, are you going to tier "pushing A on the continue screen"? There's no value in ranking something like this.

OK, how about this: I separately include in Required tier the Premonition incarnations of the Avatar and Chrom. The "present" Avatar and Chrom can then have their post-Premonition contributions tiered as is. If Red Fox of Fire can tier the 3-13 Archer in RD, I think this should be OK too. Although having never played RD, I cannot tell if the Archer was a serious inclusion or a joke one.

It was a joke. There's an Archer in 3-13 with AI that randomly is or is not helpful, jumping into a pit of laguz and being a tasty snack/decoy.

[Chiki]

Now that I think about it, I'm not too sure about putting the Premonition characters as required.

You need units to complete every chapter. The question is: which unit?

You can solo that chapter with Chrom or the Avatar, I believe. You don't need both and you have a choice.

The difference btw. Premonition and Prologue is that the Prologue really seems to require Frederick to actually complete in every possible context. But not Premonition. You can do it without Chrom, or the Avatar, but not with no one.

This is true for every chapter, but we don't put everyone as required because you have a choice.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Chiki

[XeKr]

Intuitively we both prefer the latter, but the criteria as written favor the former. I don't know what to do about that; I'm open to suggestions.

I understand your self-consistency concern, but we could try something like computing separate "best-case" and "worst-case" expected turns for a range. The former is derived as written, the latter is derived by something like the reasonable max of turns/%chance of not failure or death (obviously 6 turns with 1% chance or something demolishes this metric so we'll just handwave and say it's 5/0.64 = 7.81). For prologue, it's 4.53-7.81 with Lissa and 4.61-7.81 without her.

Else, once obtaining the expected turns with no death, simply divide by probability of not failure or death. 7.08 vs. 7.20. Note that failure in this context means not achieving a goal such as visiting a village in time or not killing a certain enemy in the way. Something that changes the strat completely that's like death, such that reseting is preferred.

Not as clean methods, but I think they can give reasonable values. The latter is particularly simple and I can't immediately think of an example that greatly strains intuition.

Else, if we do wish to be more rigorous, I would personally prefer a much higher cutoff, like 95% or even ~100% (as possible). Essentially, to the best of our ability, favoring higher order strats with contingency plans over binary success or failure. If we're ever focusing on minute differences between character roles in ~95% and ~100% strats, that's a good thing. 60% vs. 100% is a more significant matter.

In the end, I'm fine with tiering under these criteria as written, but the implications can theoretically lead to quite dissatisfying conclusions, which is never a good feeling. >_>. If there's no quick and easy compromise, I'll concede to the established criteria for this topic. There may not be cases in this game where this hypothetical significantly shifts rankings.

I like the Premonition!Chrom/Avatar idea, xd. Or we just consider the expected turns consistent with the criteria, it's probably just a turn or so which shouldn't shake up things too much.

[Redwall]

Taking it to its ultimate absurdity, are you going to tier "pushing A on the continue screen"? There's no value in ranking something like this.

Now that I think about it, I'm not too sure about putting the Premonition characters as required.

You need units to complete every chapter. The question is: which unit?

OK, I'll just keep things as is.

Else, if we do wish to be more rigorous, I would personally prefer a much higher cutoff, like 95% or even ~100% (as possible). Essentially, to the best of our ability, favoring higher order strats with contingency plans over binary success or failure. If we're ever focusing on minute differences between character roles in ~95% and ~100% strats, that's a good thing. 60% vs. 100% is a more significant matter.

In the end, I'm fine with tiering under these criteria as written, but the implications can theoretically lead to quite dissatisfying conclusions, which is never a good feeling. >_>.

100%-guaranteed character survival seems like the only thing that's theoretically satisfying, but I'm not sure if this is possible in every level. AFAIK, without a bit of turtling, no one will ever have a Grima clear with a 0% chance of death, not even after applying Rally Everything and weakening him with Hex and Anathema.

Initially I chose a 60% survival criterion just because, well, I have more fun playing that way. However, increasing this to 100% may have empirical benefits like having more characters rise up from C tier, since under a 100% survival criterion, the player will be playing at a slow enough pace to make other characters usable. What do people think?

Edited June 5, 2013 by Redwall

[Chiki]

Is Frederick required for Prologue?

[Interceptor]

Of course he's not. We clear Prologue with an Avatar/Chrom pairing that gets 30 consecutive Dual Guards.

[XeKr]

Re: Premonition. We can actually just consider it trivial by complexity, so turns saved there mean little. That's a fairly clean resolution.

Re: Prologue: Expected turns without Frederick is stupidly high.

OK, I'll just keep things as is.


100%-guaranteed character survival seems like the only thing that's theoretically satisfying, but I'm not sure if this is possible in every level. AFAIK, without a bit of turtling, no one will ever have a Grima clear with a 0% chance of death, not even after applying Rally Everything and weakening him with Hex and Anathema.

Initially I chose a 60% survival criterion just because, well, I have more fun playing that way. However, increasing this to 100% may have empirical benefits like having more characters rise up from C tier, since under a 100% survival criterion, the player will be playing at a slow enough pace to make other characters usable. What do people think?

Part of the reason I suggested a higher threshold is to have a slower pace and make more characters viable (in theory).

We can consider it somewhat in terms of diminishing returns. The difference between 90-100% survival is less important than the difference between 55-65% survival. A threshold is fuzzy at best (i.e. strats that are 59% vs. 61% are not so different) so it also helps if we minimize that dropoff effect of that arbitrary cutoff.

Basically I'd prefer tending toward higher success if possible. 60% just seems low. Maybe that's just me. On the other hand, ~100% is indeed very strict, particularly when accounting for growths, so....

Probably just keep the current criteria until we observe a case that seriously tests it.

[Chiki]

If it's possible, then that's where complexity comes in.

It's exactly the reason why I even introduced complexity in the first place.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Chiki

[XeKr]

Earlygame chapters are not so trivial as to outweigh Frederick saving literally like 999 (probably underestimating) expected turns. >_>

[Chiki]

Prologue is pretty trivial, imo. I can beat that in 5 turns with an Avatar + Frederick pair up if I recall correctly.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Chiki

[PKL]

A Frederick pair up is still using Frederick.

[XeKr]

Aren’t you using Frederick then? Also, if you do mean Avatar as the main fighter, please show us your reliable 5 turn strat (have fun getting doubled by Myrms, etc).

Prologue is not trivial if people have trouble just beating it. Not to mention actually trying to get a reliable 4-6 turn. Just see how long and detailed those write-ups are from Redwall, Colonel M, Kngt of Titania.

Just how many lategame maps can be summarized by lolrescue, anyways? >_>

[Chiki]

Complexity is the number of calculations required to complete a chapter.

I don't know how the chapter can be cleared without Frederick, but if you need to put Lissa in a corner and have her heal Chrom and Avatar repeatedly, then that isn't "complex" at all. A monkey could do that.

What I meant by trivial here was not easy, but rather uncomplex.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Chiki

[XeKr]

Apparently no chapter is complex at all if we turtle, who knew? -_-

[PKL]

I can beat Lunatic Prologue in 4 turns with Frederick without much thought. Without Fred, a lot more thought would be placed and the chances of sucess would be diminished a lot. (Avatar might even require his growths to proc too)

Edited June 5, 2013 by Peekayell

[Interceptor]

Just how many lategame maps can be summarized by lolrescue, anyways? >_>

Could be worse: FE11 H5 with Caeda and Warp. At least Lunatic Awakening has some legitimately difficult earlygame chapters, plus some tricky Routs for the LTC'ers.

Apparently no chapter is complex at all if we turtle, who knew? -_-

Not even sure how reasonable this is, honestly. Avatar is going to get doubled by the Mercenaries, both Chrom and Avatar have two 1-range enemy facings in a corner, the mage can blast anyone for high damage at 2-range, etc. Like many of the things he says, Chiki probably didn't actually think this one through.

[Chiki]

I've said repeatedly that I don't know how the chapter is cleared without Frederick. How is it?

[XeKr]

Of course he's not. We clear Prologue with an Avatar/Chrom pairing that gets 30 consecutive Dual Guards.

[Chiki]

Sorry, he's on my ignore list.

Then yeah, I can see Frederick as being required.

[Interceptor]

I've said repeatedly that I don't know how the chapter is cleared without Frederick. How is it?

Of course he's not. We clear Prologue with an Avatar/Chrom pairing that gets 30 consecutive Dual Guards.

You need lots of magic crits, ninja dodges, and DG procs to survive Prologue without Frederick. The boss group is no problem, but there are too many units near the starting position that rush you, and too many lethal combinations of attacks.

[PKL]

Is Avatar on a fort in Chapter 1 instead of Chrom!fred a reliable strat? It it isn't, then Fred deserves full credit for that one too, because Chrom!Fred can clear it in like 3-4 turns. Chapter 2 is an obvious awesome chapter for Fred too. Heck, Chapter 3 is also a map where Fred does well, being one of the best units at clearing either side before the other side catches up ;/

[Chiki]

It seems Interceptor isn't a very deep thinker. I just cleared Prologue reliably by having Avatar and Chrom go into the water on turn 3, lol. Lissa and Frededick died.

[charlie_]

Yeah. That's really what we want: a dead healer.

If it wasn't already completely stupid, it makes the chance of death rule come into effect due to Fred/Lissa dying 100% of the time!

Edited June 5, 2013 by Essbee

[Chiki]

You don't need Lissa for an LTC run. Come on guys.

Anyway, I found a better clear in which I have Lissa pair up with the Avatar and have both Chrom and Avatar w/ Lissa go into the water. Only Frededick dies.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Chiki