The more I think about it, the more I realised IS screwed up Donny

[Tables]

IS didn't "screw up" Donny. He is exactly how they wanted him.

Bad in casual play, worse in LTC play, and worthless postgame for everything except sleeping with un-ladylike females?

IS just didn't have LTC and efficient styles of play in mind when they made the game. Hence the ability to grind endlessly. And the fact that most maps are easily done in 1 turn.

Donny is like a Magikarp. Completely useless until his evolution and then never makes any unique contributions to make the time spent training him truly worth it.

I don't really get your argument here. I don't even see an argument here in fact. I only ever play the game casually, and I like using Donny because it's fun, even though he's terrible and not worth it. I was never even thinking about value for LTC, except choosing Wyvern Rider - he needs something to give him good value for that, and Wyvern would do it.

The thing I think IS screwed up on was giving Donny the Fighter class as opposed to Barbarian. 3 promoted classes is so depressing no matter how much grinding you do.

The issue there is, Barbarian makes no sense in terms of Donny's personality. Look at the other potential barbarians - Vaike grew up in the slums, and is pretty rough in general. Gregor just finished killed former employers. Henry loves blood and death. Basilio is literally a Barbarian. Donny ain't never done struck a pig before. Doesn't really fit. Fighter is a much better thematic fit. It's the same with the Knight/Cavalier lines - they tend to be people with some kind of nobility or professional training. I guess you could say that Wyvern Rider doesn't fit either, although I think it's a less obvious non-fit than the above.

[General Banzai]

A lot of these problems are the same for all Donnyesque characters in all FEs, especially the inverted difficulty curve remark in which earlygame is the hardest part of the game and lategame the easiest.

Bad in casual play, worse in LTC play, and worthless postgame for everything except sleeping with un-ladylike females?

It's not about his viability. It's about having a unit who the player can pour their hard work into and eventually feel like that hard work paid off. Even if he's awful by every measure, it's not about his viability. It's about making a unit that people will find fun to use based on a work/reward ethos.

Not everyone will find that ethos fun. Those people don't use Donny.

There's more to game design than just balance.

Edited August 26, 2013 by General Banzai

[The Fush]

Is it bad that I've never really had a problem training Donnel from step 1 in hard mode without dlc or too many risen maps?

[Vashiane]

Is it bad that I've never really had a problem training Donnel from step 1 in hard mode without dlc or too many risen maps?

No, that's actually amazing.

[Tables]

Is it bad that I've never really had a problem training Donnel from step 1 in hard mode without dlc or too many risen maps?

In my current no SS, no pair up, no grinding (DLC/risen), Donny is level 28 and still seeing combat (for reference, I'm using him for his child, I wasn't sure how tough lategame would be...). He's really not that hard to train up, it's just that it's an investment that doesn't pay enough for the effort. The game isn't hard, using Donny makes it harder, that's the problem.

It's not about his viability. It's about having a unit who the player can pour their hard work into and eventually feel like that hard work paid off. Even if he's awful by every measure, it's not about his viability. It's about making a unit that people will find fun to use based on a work/reward ethos.

Yeah, I can definitely agree with that. I do enjoy seeing Donny grow into a good character, even though it makes things harder on myself most of the time. It does help he has a very good personality and is generally interesting, and aptitude is very fitting as a skill on him considering his personality, not to mention Armsthrift is a generally fun skill to take advantage of.