link arena Fire Emblem Link Arena Discussion Topic

[Elieson]

Pffft then what fun are you.

Does Villager count then? The class itself shouldn't I guess but I haven't checked villager caps ever

[Espinosa]

Not really, but why would anyone bother with that class? I wouldn't touch the unpromoted meta for now really, considering we still have no idea how to produce a normal playable Awakening metagame yet.

[Elieson]

The main thing about villager meaning in Averages, Donnel ramcaps stats as Villager, and reclassing him makes him bearable but in a different way, y'know? Plus, if you allow Donnel then you allow Underdog which is neat and can theoretically be run

[Espinosa]

Sure, but if we talk about averages, then no reclassing should be permitted, as otherwise you can just reclass indefinitely and reach max stats. That's why characters in the averages meta have only 2 classes at their disposal at most. Donnel being able to reclass would make him not only usable but actually really good, but the same logic should still be followed.

And I think that a children meta, while extremely unbalanced and chaotic due to modifier-induced cap discrepancies and seemingly endless ranges of potential skill combos, would still have a certain merit due to all the mindgames involved, as you can never be too sure what each kid could be running. It'd be really hard to predict who runs what, though a player could find out who the kid's parent is the hard way (unless the host explicitly lists them as 'Chrom!Cynthia' or something) by deducing the parents arithmetically.

[Elieson]

we can still run theoretical children stats based on hardcalcs of parent modifiers and +10 levels worth of stats per child, including an inherited skill from each parent. I think that could merit something, creating two metagames:

Averages Gen1

Averages Gen2

• First Tier Only
• No Reclassing
• No Manakete/Taguel/Dancer (sry Panne/Yarne/Nowi/Nah/Olivia)
• Skill bans accordingly

• Parent modifiers + Child base stats @ lv20

It'd haev to be manually calculated out though (for kiddos), which for a while, might not be realistic, until we set up some growth calculation spreadsheet that does all the stupid math for you

[Espinosa]

That all still sounds terribly complicated though. I wouldn't recommend introducing children into any metagame other than maximum stats, without any reclassing limits (unless something really needs to be banned to maintain balance). Parents are free to battle teams of each other in averages+boosters, on the other hand.

[Elieson]

I'm working on a little project and have made some good progress, but I'm stumped on a few Arena-specific rules.

• How do we want to handle Indoor & Outdoor Fighter?
• What does Dual Support+ actually do?
• Can Pavise/Aegis and Miracle activate in the same turn?

[ZemZem]

Wow, it's been a long time since I've been here.

Glad this is still a thing~ An FE13 match would be cool to try out.

[General Horace]

after hosting this game, I kind of want to make a team as well. I'll play you ZM if we can get a host?

[Elieson]

i could host prettysoon :)

[General Horace]

i could host prettysoon :)

awesome. I'll probably need a day or so to make a team first.

ZM, want to do the same thing Espinosa and Elie did and just draft from the parents max stats, or do you have something else in mind?

I'm working on a little project and have made some good progress, but I'm stumped on a few Arena-specific rules.

• How do we want to handle Indoor & Outdoor Fighter?
• What does Dual Support+ actually do?
• Can Pavise/Aegis and Miracle activate in the same turn?

- i think we just ignore indoor/outdoor fighter

- nothing, because we're not using supports (right?)

- i'm fairly certain the answer is no, and Miracle>Pavise/Aegis

[Espinosa]

You two could venture into the children's meta if you like. Maybe I'll even go ahead and embed all the modifiers into the resource thread. Kids' stats

Shouldn't we discuss the rules for a bit though, maybe once Elie vs. me is over (because Horace says we might be missing something broken, though I do think my team is stacked full of broken things)? Counter definitely needs a ban, that's for sure, as does Aggressor, but I'm not really sure about Bond on an all-female team or Galeforce (good luck activating that).

[Elieson]

In a world where only Bows can avoid Counter, I can see why. At least in game, you can toss Hand Axes and Elfires at counter warriors.

I'm kinda glad we're sticking with banned Brave Forges and Aggressor. It gives reason to use other weapons.

There's also something pretty close to broken that would drive you up a wall if I had implemented it.

[Espinosa]

Can anyone with some memory of how to use Excel remind me how to keep part of an equation "fixed" so to say? e.g. I extrapolate one line but one part of the equation is one line down automatically while the other part of the equation remains static.

Must be awful wording, but perhaps I should explain that I'm trying to simplify the process of filling up a table of all possible variants of Robin asset/flaw for the LA resource thread. I've just combined the modifier tables for both parents and children, by the way, so a child meta should be fully playable.

And it looks like we'll be banning:

- Counter

- Aggressor

- Lethality

Counter's ban makes sense considering it's a skill that does nothing for the player in most cases in-game and is meant to make approaching the enemy trickier. That, and it's way too OP - you can just charge into somebody and double your damage output, and bow users are the only enemies who can even target you without wasting their turn.

Aggressor's damage is too huge, especially with brave weaponry.

Lethality just seems spammable, though it's handy to dispatch recovery-reliant teams that run Renewal/Bond/Lifetaker/Dark Magic so that there are no endless games. Maybe one of the dubious skills, but it's the third skill to be banned IMHO. Lethality is also pretty broken on Lucina who has Chrom's Rightful King for potential 20%+ Lethalities, which is mad with brave weaponry and/or doubling. Without it, there's more motivation to use the other proc skills.

Iote's Shield doesn't deserve the ban at all, because fliers are so useless without it. They're not terribly useful because of their caps anyway, and the skill takes up one of the five precious slots. I'd let anyone use it whenever they please fwiw.

Dubious skills would be:

- Bond (one per team can't be bad)

- Galeforce

- Renewal

- Lifetaker, maybe

Does anyone think Walhart, Aversa and others should be added to the meta? Aversa being in implies non-Sorc Morgans with dark magic.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Espinosa

[Elieson]

Can anyone with some memory of how to use Excel remind me how to keep part of an equation "fixed" so to say? e.g. I extrapolate one line but one part of the equation is one line down automatically while the other part of the equation remains static.

Wouldn't a VLOOKUP(IF($A$1=X,"Value",FALSE) type of statement work? What are you going for here

---

@Espinosa; I want to send you a dropbox link tonight to my excel spreadsheet. It currently accounts for all but like 8 skills and provides a Forecast for battle (not the actual outcome yet).

I'm not sure how we're handling Hex/Anathema yet (I'm assuming that if an enemy H/A, that it's active only in battle, but Charm and Solidarity are active all the time? I need a bit of clarification on that. Other than those few aura skills, I have Weapon Triangle calcs, Forging, everything DLC related sans Shadowgift (even if we're ignoring it/banning it, it's still there just in case we want to test it in the meta in the future), effectiveness calcs, parents for all kids sans Morgan at the moment, and all character data for MAX STATS set in such a way that even children are accounted for, except currently Morgan (which I know how to set up, I just haven't done it yet). It gets a bit messy for kids but it's still pretty practically designed because at the moment, everything is populated into Data Validation Lists (drop down boxes) with the exception of Current Hit Points. Espi, if you've got a project in the works that's great but I'm like 85% done with a comprehensive FE:A LAMS and don't want you to burn time where it could be more optimally spent elsewhere ;)

All Weaponry, Forge accountability, Class Options and Skills based on Character and Class are already implemented, and I've even set up a display that checks for which skills activate in battle based on RN, and displays that skill and modifies Actual damage accordingly. Integrity actually chipped in and built a macro that performs a Max=100/Min=0 display for HIT/CRT/DMG in the Forecast. Saved me some time :D

I've also built in Gangrel, Aversa, Priam, etc.

I guess to say all that's left is:

1. Finishing up inclusion of Supports and Aura-type skills (after confirming their functionality in our simulated environment) After confirmation, I plan to have this done tonight
2. Accomodating for a few wildcard skills (Specifically: Vantage, Galeforce and Counter) I've got two ideas for handling Vantage and Galeforce but I have put that on the backburner as I want to finish the other things in this list first before I decide how I want to handle this. Counter, I'm really not sure on; basically considering building a "Post-Round Damage Taken: Attacker" panel for healing, and just have Counter provide negative values where Lifesteal from Nosferatu/Aversa's Night, Sol and Lifetaker provide positive values towards HP. Actually I like this idea more than my other, I'll work on this.
3. Creating a dropdown list for Turncount Will be done tonight
4. Building Morgan into the system Just time consuming but I plan to have this done tonight
5. Accounting for Healing in a way that looks practical (Notably; Relief, Lifetaker, Sol, Renewal and Lifesteal from Nosferatu/Aversa's Night) See #2, since Counter is effectively a Post-NonMiss update, just inverted

• I guess building in Shadowgift for Morgan & Aversa but this is really low priority
• Creating the Forecast Outcome (which will display the actual damage taken per round, after weighing RN vs Calc'd values)
• Updating the Copy/Paste Forecast Outcome into a format that looks nicer when pulling straight from Excel and pasting here into SF's post boxes
• Handling HP after a battle has "occurred" (I think that this is something that should just be done manually since if you're running simulations to check for various outcomes, you can see what the damage/outcome would be but actually having it happen should be based on you, the user)

After finishing these all out, this can be translated into a GoogleSheets document, and while the dropdown menus won't work (since apparently Data Validation doesn't perform the same on GoogleSheets), all the data will be accountable for in a List type format where you can just type shit in and everything autopopulates where it needs to, such as stat values, etc

Creating an Averages version of this wouldn't be too difficult, I just need to create a new table for Avg Stats and replace that over the Max Class Stats table that i've already got built for this scenario

I think that when I'm done with this, it can be condensed heavily for a FE4/5 calculator (removing erroneous skills, units, forging and class variety selection). Removing Skills, sans Lethality, would pretty much give you a FE6/7 simulator, and leaving in some skills for the FE8 skills would have it function perfectly for an FE8 simulator. Those'll be my next projects.

*Edit*

If Anybody has a Skype and would like to have me give them a brief showing of the progress made already, let me know either here or PM my inbox and I'll give you a visual demonstration. I'm not quite ready to release it to the public as I want to finish 1-5 on my list before pushing this out

**Edit 2**

In what order does Aether proc? Luna, then Sol? I just had a hilarious idea of Aether procc'ing 8 times

Edited June 6, 2015 by Elieson

[General Horace]

Aether is Sol then Luna.

How are we handling average stats? Just 20/20 in base class? Or theoretical 20/20 in all possible classes?

[Elieson]

Averages should be Base class, as for all possible classes would alternatively be Base Class (up to Lv10)->Reclassed 20/20. That would be the only other alternative I could think of, though it nerfs Prepromotes since they have a tighter selection of skills.

An alternative scenario might be Avg Stats if reclassed once at 20/20 or XX/20 (if prepromoted), but that still gives a pretty unique set of variables idk

Edited June 6, 2015 by Elieson

[Espinosa]

Aye, PM me the Googledoc anytime so that I can have a look and test things out.

[Elieson]

I'll zip it to you tonight;

It's basically, a complete retooling of your FE10 Link Arena Mod Sheet from back in the day. It functions a billion times more effectively in Excel (since Dropdown menus actually appear there). Any chance you could run it in Excel to test things?

Also I have a Macro built into it that Sheets won't recognize, for the Forecast

[Espinosa]

Yeah, I do have Excel so I could run the doc with that (not sure how you view yourself; I'm assuming online).

So any thoughts about potentially bannable skills? I guess Lifetaker can stay for sure.

[General Horace]

I think any skill like lifetaker and galeforce is totally fine. you waste a skill slot on something that only works on your turn, and from the looks of things, stuff that augments hit/avoid are probably stronger.

[Espinosa]

Any thoughts whether boosts to stats from skills should be visible in the stats box before the match? For example, if a Warrior with Bowfaire has a bow equipped at the start of a match, +5 atk will be visible when the fight begins (he'll lose it when switching to an axe however).

At the same time, if this is allowed (Horace opted against that in the game he's currently hosting), this raises the question why the boost should be visible during the start of the fight only, because no updates will be ever made as the battle progresses, in spite of the character in question possibly swapping through many different weapon types in its duration.

Then there are the skills like Speed+2 and Defence+2, which never cease being active...

[Elieson]

IMO those skills displaying is...a bit funky, since it confirms a stat boost altering stats, and it confirms one skill immediately at game start. Manakete/Taguel stones makes sense since there's only one realistic option for both classes.

+7 str pretty much indicates Axefaire and Str+2, and if we build AllStats+2 into the meta,then that also makes it evident. IMO it should remain hidden

[General Horace]

I opted against it for the purpose of hiding skills. I mean, like elie said, it's not hard to figure out once they've attacked.

We haven't been true to the FE6/7/8 link arena either, because you can view everything there (stats, weapons, weapon ranks, and presumably skills as well if they existed) so its more of what we want to do and not what the actual link arena does at this point.

Edited June 6, 2015 by General Horace

[Elieson]

Yeah, I do have Excel so I could run the doc with that (not sure how you view yourself; I'm assuming online).

So any thoughts about potentially bannable skills? I guess Lifetaker can stay for sure.

Not sure what you mean about the first part. I do my work straight in Excel, not online. I'd shoot you over the .xlsm