Difficulty.

[Dragrath]

"Micaiah"

Do remember, these are people who are playing FE for the first time. People who feel that Awakening Normal Casual IS HARD but doable.

This is the part where I mention that FE was a niche series because of its fans elitism and people die when they are killed it was notorious for.

Honestly Micaiah wasn't the real problem she at least turned into a potent glass canon and had great growths making her quite viable for much of the game especially w/ Thani (that trollish max speed for mages though just slow eough that you can't double...

The real issue for me was Edward... I leveled him to a swordmaster and never once did he gain a single point of defense HP or resistance excluding promotion bonuses... sure he could (sometimes) double, not a chance of doubling vs laguz, and hurt things with a decent chance of dogeing but if he got hit... he died... in one hit... from full HP... always... -_-

And then there is Meg and Fiona who are just awful hard to level barely gained any stats on level up... they rarely survive part 3... (weren't useful enough to make it through) cats one shotted them with a 100% chance and always doubled against meg...

Radiant Dawn honestly feels like a good scaling for normal maybe a bit more merciful start on normal to get new commers up to speed but the difficulty there was pretty good. Most of the flaws could be fixed by better scaling units that can't level and units that are tooo worthless to live... (I might have overused Ilyana thus starving them of exp but it was worth it in the endgame and she was far more useful than the the aformentioned two...)

I personally don't mind hax forges (too much) and exclusive skills so long as they're set. Y'know, something like Apotheosis? The set of skills featured by Apotheosis' enemies was like a puzzle that you could figure out, especially since they weren't super aggressive. However, I think the key to a top-tier difficulty mode lies in some sort of mix between giving the enemy an interesting set of skills as well as the smart AI and puzzle-like deployments you mentioned.

Basically, I wouldn't mind seeing an Apotheosis map again or even a mode similar to it. Maybe on the mode part. The focus should be on AI and smart enemy deployment.

Yeah I feel skills should work into the puzzle non of the RNG issues to get a good set up like was done in Awakening. Mix skills set weapons and interesting enemy placements /terrain obstcles(such as balista doors, balconies that alow ranged attacks from above and mixed up map tactics rather than only using defeat boss and route... (aka things like escape, arrive in X turns, defend)

Edited February 12, 2015 by Dragrath

[Knight Falchion]

Yeah I feel skills should work into the puzzle non of the RNG issues to get a good set up like was done in Awakening. Mix skills set weapons and interesting enemy placements /terrain obstcles(such as balista doors, balconies that alow ranged attacks from above and mixed up map tactics rather than only using defeat boss and route... (aka things like escape, arrive in X turns, defend)

If there was one thing I really, really liked about Radiant Dawn, it was that higher ground mechanic. It was just cool to me, and I would totally be up for having that come back.

As for the rest of your post: this is basically what I was getting at, yeah, and the mixed objectives along with specific enemy skill sets (like maybe a defend chapter against units with pass, lol) could make for some neat puzzles/strategies. I also actually prefer some of the Loony+ skills to RNG-based ones even if I don't like the randomization of said skills; you know what you're up against and where it is, so you can plan accordingly. That's cool. and now that i've said this i might actually give loony+ a shot before fe14 comes out, haha

Edited February 12, 2015 by The Legendary Falchion

[Dragrath]

If there was one thing I really, really liked about Radiant Dawn, it was that higher ground mechanic. It was just cool to me, and I would totally be up for having that come back.

As for the rest of your post: this is basically what I was getting at, yeah, and the mixed objectives along with specific enemy skill sets (like maybe a defend chapter against units with pass, lol) could make for some neat puzzles/strategies. I also actually prefer some of the Loony+ skills to RNG-based ones even if I don't like the randomization of said skills; you know what you're up against and where it is, so you can plan accordingly. That's cool. and now that i've said this i might actually give loony+ a shot before fe14 comes out, haha

Yeah RD had some weaker elements but the combat mechanics were not one of them. The senerio you came up with would actually be pretty amazing

also imagine a select enemy with vantage resolve and wrath or some other skill combo. They would alwasy be there so you would have to plan acordingly to take them out...

Also skills would be a great way to run an escape map make them uterly terrifying foes so fighting becomes a really bad option...

[feplus]

Not gonna argue that once you gain access to bonus stuff you can easily break the game over your knee, but the problem that I (and I'm sure plenty of other people) have is being able to even get to the point where bonus stuff becomes available. Chapter 2 in particular is brutal.

Well, some people are arguing against it.

Yours is a fair point; the first handful of maps are tough. Two things:

1. The mode is designed for those knowledgeable about the game's mechanics. That includes knowledge about terrain movement, specifically the ability of lords and tacticians to walk on certain water tiles (like those seen in the prologue). I rarely see newcomers to Luna+ take advantage of "the water trick," but it trivializes the second part of the prologue and helps tremendously in the following maps.

2. Can something be said to be truly difficult if it requires luck? I refer to Ch.2; Interceptor has an exceptional earlygame Luna+ walkthrough I'm sure most of you are familiar with, and he points out that even with pristine planning, the map cannot be reliably completed. Resets are required.

In short: while the earlygame is tough, many players fail to take advantage of water movement and mistake chance for challenge. Take these two things into account and the first few maps, far and away the toughest, aren't so bad.

[Ownagepuffs]

1000 Renown.

Glass Sword - 50 (150g)

Second Seal - 100 (We're using this)

Orsin's Hatchet - 150 (240g)

Seed of Trust - 210 (250g)

Levin Sword - 270 (800g)

Energy Drop - 330 (Using this)

Beast Killer - 400 (825g)

Spirit Dust - 470 (Using this)

Celica's Gale - 550 (Using this)

Secret Book - 630 (Using this)

Longbow - 720 (1075g)

Ephraim's Lance - 810 (305g)

Goddess Icon - 900 (Using this)

Large Bullion - 1000 (10000g)

13645g altogether. What the fuck are you talking about. There's a difference between "worth" and what we're actually selling this for.

+5000 Starting gold leaves us with 18645g. Jamke costs 6900 to recruit because you're not soloing his team on Lunatic+. Leaving us with 11745g.

Jamke's bases stats are 14 Str, 21 Skl, 18 Spd, and 12 Defense. He's an archer that can't form supports. Waste.

Jaffar costs 16.5k to recruit, leaving us with 1745g. Better, but leaving him with any combination of counter, Luna+, and Hawkeye to deal with.

Lunatic mode can be beaten with relative ease thanks to Nosferatu, but Lunatic+ is a different story.

[feplus]

Your reading comprehension is poor.

I did not speak to Renown items' sale price. I did not speak to total value after certain items were used. I said, simply, that a modest 1,000 Renown nets a player roughly 45K in complimentary assets. That is true.

You further seem to be under the impression that I believe SpotPass units can clean up Luna+ on their own. That is false. Expensive units like Jaffar work wonders at mopping up large portions of early- and mid-game maps, making unit density manageable, while cheaper units like Jamka can clean up kills and weaken enemies for your core team. (Jamka, a more than competent archer, is especially effective at dealing with Counter units.) This is the correct application of such units.

As the game progresses, the player gets plenty of gold and sellable assets; more value means more forged weapons and more SpotPass units. (A player may even consider hiring Legion early on and enjoy a bullion buffet.) Jaffar and Jamka need not suffice for the entire campaign.

Edited February 12, 2015 by feplus

[Phoenix Wright]

i'd like as much variety as is needed. the standard mode, though, i want to be equivalent to fe5

[eclipse]

Unless you have real research data, spare me the hypothetical newbie player and his perceived difficulty argument.

I mean yeah Micaiah is fragile, but figuring that out is kind of the point of the prologue.

Yeah, I have a single data point. My mom. She had problems on Normal Causal of Awakening, and she just hit Chapter 2. Whether or not I can convince her to keep playing is another beast entirely!

I've played the series a lot, so I'm familiar with things like weapon triangle, enemy range, damage calculation, etc. Someone who's never touched the game before can be overwhelmed with the mechanics.

But it is.

People struggle with Luna+ because they limit themselves; no grinding, no SpotPass units, no SpotPass shops, no Renown items, etc. If a player uses everything the game gives him, Luna+ is straightforward.

Granted, challenge runs can be tough, but that's true of any FE game.

Sounds like you don't know what a complete and utter pain in the ass grinding is in Lunatic(+). For reference, I'm on Chapter 9 of Lunatic, and my lone Risen skirmish has enemies with stats in the mid-20 range, with Strength going much higher than that. Most of my units are unpromoted.

Yes, it's possible to do things like go into The Golden Gaffe until you've got enough gold to buy someone like Katarina (the Apotheosis one), but then you miss out on things like supports, which help to improve the stat bonuses of Pair-Up. Hell, my first Lunatic run was with grinding, and by Chapter 21, I had a Falcoknight with 40 Magic and Galeforce (Lissa BTW), and I STILL didn't think Lunatic was easy/trivial.

Speaking of The Golden Gaffe, have fun getting money in 1,000 and 3,000 increments.

In the words of someone who I have a lot of respect for:

If you're going to sit here and honestly call Lunatic+ a cakewalk then I'm going to say you're full of shit.

Depends on the game and the time it takes to grind.

For instance, a player can spend fifteen minutes grinding the Tower of Valni and trivialize Sacred Stones to the point of mindlessness. So why wouldn't you? Not employing such convenience is fine if you want to challenge yourself, but it'd be disingenuous to pretend grinding isn't an option.

Same applies to the plethora of options available in Awakening. Grinding is a small slice of the pie; SpotPass units and Renown items are more significant.

Here's the difference between Sacred Stones and Awakening on their highest difficulties: I don't need to grind to finish the former without too much hassle.

---

With that out of the way. . .I wouldn't mind something like Shadow Dragon, though with a bigger gap between all of the difficulties (especially Normal and H1). Throw in the Casual options for all modes, and that should be enough to satisfy just about everyone.

[Nobody]

The thing i want the most is a difficulty between hard and lunatic.

FE11 was awesome at this, it had basically a difficulty for everyone.

I also voted for FE7 and FE10 because of how much I like their hardest modes. HHM is imo the best difficulty in the series

[feplus]

Sounds like you don't know what a complete and utter pain in the ass grinding is in Lunatic(+).

Here's the difference between Sacred Stones and Awakening on their highest difficulties: I don't need to grind to finish the former without too much hassle.

1. On the contrary. Luna+ grinding is slow, but simple -- lean on weak SpotPass teams rather than random Risen encounters.

2. That's a difference, but not a relevant difference. Grinding is an option in both games; grinding makes both games easier; not grinding is a self-imposed restriction. This is the parallel I'm highlighting.

Curious that people have focused on my comment about grinding. I said previously that Renown rewards and SpotPass units were more significant.

[Irysa]

spotpass teams only give 1 exp and no wexp per battle on lunatic/lunatic + dude.

Edited February 13, 2015 by Irysa

[feplus]

spotpass teams only give 1 exp and no wexp per battle on lunatic/lunatic + dude.

That is correct. Slow, but simple.

I was hoping someone would ask the following: at what point does the length of time required for grinding outweigh the benefits? and how does this factor in to our assessment of a mode's difficulty? Both good questions. A half-hour grinding session in Sacred Stones neuters whatever challenge the game had previously; that appears a good trade-off. By comparison, even with Awakening's pause-skipping, grinding up levels on SpotPass teams takes significantly more time.

(It's worth noting that grinding SpotPass increases Renown pretty quickly, so there's additional benefit beyond the experience.)

So do you think we should consider grinding when evaluating the difficulty of Luna+? or Sacred Stones? If not, why not?

[The Protagonist]

RD was the game with the fairest way of creating difficulty, I think. FE5 forced you to play specific ways with its gimmicks and endless BS, FE6 pushed enemies to the stat caps that you just had to survive somehow, mostly by exploiting the best characters and supports every time, FE13 just made giga-units with unfair skills that also forced you to use specific tactics. I didn't try the DS games on higher difficulty, and I only recently tried playing FE12, but I heard that their HMs exemplified the "mostly hard in the first few chapters" problem of FE difficulty. At least RD gave you a stat cap edge and reaction time, and managed to balance out the difficulty a little. Early Part 1 was still evil, but resetting your team repeatedly extended that difficulty, too, to some extent.

Difficulty shouldn't feel cheap and it shouldn't feel limiting. Fire Emblem isn't a puzzle game genre; it shouldn't have forced solutions to each level.

[Irysa]

That is correct. Slow, but simple.

I was hoping someone would ask the following: at what point does the length of time required for grinding outweigh the benefits? and how does this factor in to our assessment of a mode's difficulty? Both good questions. A half-hour grinding session in Sacred Stones neuters whatever challenge the game had previously; that appears a good trade-off. By comparison, even with Awakening's pause-skipping, grinding up levels on SpotPass teams takes significantly more time.

(It's worth noting that grinding SpotPass increases Renown pretty quickly, so there's additional benefit beyond the experience.)

So do you think we should consider grinding when evaluating the difficulty of Luna+? or Sacred Stones? If not, why not?

that doesn't even constitute slow, that's more like agonising tedium. you may as well attempt to bruteforce lunatic+ chapters or skirmishes and hope you get lucky in terms of effort/time expended to actual reward.

your position is logically sound but hilariously out of touch with reality. I could hypothetically just beat lunatic+ by relying on proccing dual guard every single attack so I never stood any risk of dying! It's hypothetically possible, rather simple, and if we played enough you could very well cheese a chapter or two if they at least occur at opportune moments. the problem isn't considering grinding or not, its about considering feasible possibilities. in a discussion like this, hypotheticals have to have some relation to the actual world or else they don't hold enough relevance to sustain an argument with.

Edited February 13, 2015 by Irysa

[feplus]

At least we both find my position logically sound. Opening up some common ground!

There is a point where improving your odds of success involves such "agonizing tedium," as you say, that it's unequivocally not worth it. If I could get all units in Awakening to max stats but it took ten years of grinding, not grinding for a decade obviously wouldn't constitute a "challenge run."

That's the extreme case. Luna+ grinding doesn't take a decade, but it also doesn't take thirty minutes. Grinding out attempts in the hopes of statistically negligible success is also an extreme case; certainly much slower than feasting on lowly SpotPass teams.

So where do we draw the line? I think we'd agree not grinding in Sacred Stones is a challenge run, and that, when evaluating FE8's difficulty, grinding should be taken into consideration. I think we'd agree that refusing to grind for a decade is not a challenge run, and that, when evaluating that difficulty, grinding should not be taken into consideration.

Let's ballpark. Say sufficient Luna+ grinding takes five hours. Should we consider grinding when evaluating Luna+'s difficulty? No? Okay, what if the grinding took four hours? three? two? one?

This is a sorites paradox; the cutoff between short-enough grinding times and too-long grinding times is arbitrary. I'm comfortable saying that if thirty minutes of grinding is acceptable, one to two hours of grinding is acceptable, and this is enough time to render Luna+ straightforward.

(Though again, grinding is a small slice of the pie. One to two hours of grinding will, more importantly, net you lots of yummy Renown rewards.)

Edited February 13, 2015 by feplus

[Radiant head]

Yeah, I have a single data point. My mom. She had problems on Normal Causal of Awakening, and she just hit Chapter 2. Whether or not I can convince her to keep playing is another beast entirely!

I've played the series a lot, so I'm familiar with things like weapon triangle, enemy range, damage calculation, etc. Someone who's never touched the game before can be overwhelmed with the mechanics.

Yeah but that's one isolated case though, not some overriding trend of how casual people react to the game.

Awakening was my first FE game, but I didn't have much trouble with most of the game on Normal. Different people have different experiences, but there's no way to generalize newbies.

But I was talking about Radiant Dawn, where yeah it can be a challenge due to how fragile the units are, but once you realize that, it's just a matter of strategizing on how to protect them more so than being familiar with the intricacies of game mechanics. And in easy mode, they grow very fast out of that fragile state, so I don't think it's elitist to expect even a new player to try to figure it out. I mean FE is supposed to be about strategy.

Edited February 13, 2015 by Radiant head

[T-Bone]

You know what would solve all these stupid grinding discussions is having a difficulty mode where you couldn't grind/access arena etc. That would be beautiful.

[Irysa]

At least we both find my position logically sound. Opening up some common ground!

There is a point where improving your odds of success involves such "agonizing tedium," as you say, that it's unequivocally not worth it. If I could get all units in Awakening to max stats but it took ten years of grinding, not grinding for a decade obviously wouldn't constitute a "challenge run."

That's the extreme case. Luna+ grinding doesn't take a decade, but it also doesn't take thirty minutes. Grinding out attempts in the hopes of statistically negligible success is also an extreme case; certainly much slower than feasting on lowly SpotPass teams.

So where do we draw the line? I think we'd agree not grinding in Sacred Stones is a challenge run, and that, when evaluating FE8's difficulty, grinding should be taken into consideration. I think we'd agree that refusing to grind for a decade is not a challenge run, and that, when evaluating that difficulty, grinding should not be taken into consideration.

Let's ballpark. Say sufficient Luna+ grinding takes five hours. Should we consider grinding when evaluating Luna+'s difficulty? No? Okay, what if the grinding took four hours? three? two? one?

This is a sorites paradox; the cutoff between short-enough grinding times and too-long grinding times is arbitrary. I'm comfortable saying that if thirty minutes of grinding is acceptable, one to two hours of grinding is acceptable, and this is enough time to render Luna+ straightforward.

(Though again, grinding is a small slice of the pie. One to two hours of grinding will, more importantly, net you lots of yummy Renown rewards.)

If you agree that your standard for what constitutes as an acceptable amount of grinding is arbitary, then surely the entire premise of even accepting the notion of preforming menial repetitive tasks like grinding for even an hour can be considered to be arbitary? It's arbitary because the subjective interpretation of whats actually more "effort" is far too relative a value to really try to hold up. If you think that Luna+ is straightforward because you're happy to preform such tasks, why isn't it equally valid that someone proponents that that kind of tedium is impractical and not easy to subject themselves to?

[feplus]

Pointing out grinding exists and makes things easier is not arbitrary; cutting a line between too-much and just-enough grinding is arbitrary.

I'm saying an hour or two of grinding is a fine investment. Others disagree. I'm asking those others to explain where they draw the line -- if we should consider grinding in Sacred Stones when evaluating difficulty, why not consider grinding in Luna+? especially when the difference in time isn't all that big?

[eclipse]

1. On the contrary. Luna+ grinding is slow, but simple -- lean on weak SpotPass teams rather than random Risen encounters.

2. That's a difference, but not a relevant difference. Grinding is an option in both games; grinding makes both games easier; not grinding is a self-imposed restriction. This is the parallel I'm highlighting.

Curious that people have focused on my comment about grinding. I said previously that Renown rewards and SpotPass units were more significant.

The more you type, the more convinced I am that you've never, ever touched Lunatic, let alone Lunatic+ (this is why I have a huge issue with your stance). EVERYTHING gets inflated, and it's by a non-trivial amount. You're not going to hit the point where SpotPass grinding is realistic until mid-game, if you're lucky. Until then, you're stuck on EXPonential Growth/The Golden Gaffe.

You're making a lot of assertions, which are being called out quite a bit, and with good reason. So, either make a run with all the "grinding" you have in mind (the LP section exists, use it), back your statements up with numbers, or play the mode itself.

[feplus]

Better to respond to my claims than feign incredulity over my familiarity with Lunatic.

I don't see much "calling out"; I see civil disagreement over a complex topic. How we go about evaluating difficulty isn't simple, and reasonable people will differ about what extent we factor in optional grinding.

I'm arguing, from firsthand experience, that Renown items, SpotPass hires, and one or two hours of grinding make Luna+ a straightforward difficulty mode. This claim has been met in three ways:

1. I'm overestimating how effective Renown and SpotPass hires are. This was Ownage's point, grounded in faulty numbers and misreading.

2. I'm a fraud who has never played Lunatic or Lunatic+. This appears to be your point and it probably doesn't merit much response.

3. While my claim is fair, it is not reasonable to consider an hour or two of grinding when assessing Luna+'s difficulty. This is Irysa's point, and it's a good one. I've asked in response for reasons why we draw the line at one or two hours versus, say, thirty minutes.

[Irysa]

Pointing out grinding exists and makes things easier is not arbitrary; cutting a line between too-much and just-enough grinding is arbitrary.

I'm saying an hour or two of grinding is a fine investment. Others disagree. I'm asking those others to explain where they draw the line -- if we should consider grinding in Sacred Stones when evaluating difficulty, why not consider grinding in Luna+? especially when the difference in time isn't all that big?

I'm simply making a clear distinction in the same way you've made one. "How much is okay?" - you say a few hours, I say none, beacuse its all tedious and boring. Thats where I've drawn the line, arbitarily mind you. If you seek a reason for as to why I've said that, then primarily it would be that strategising is mentally stimulating, and throwing a tanky unit at low cost spotpass enemies till their weapons break so you can have a unit slowly, 1 exp at a damn time chip their way to another level to be the opposite of that. It's enough to make me not want to play at all. Why should we be considering an option that is so antithetical to the aim of the game and even the purpose of the difficulty setting in the first place? You say it's because its the easiest way to win, but by what metric are we even measuring the sheer willpower you're going to need to subject yourself to something like that?

As for Sacred Stones, the game is easy even if you don't consider grinding so considering it in an evaluation of the game's challenge is pretty superfluous, and I don't understand why you keep bringing it up.

[T-Bone]

If you do any grinding whatsoever you're removing one of the main factors in FE which is that there is a limited amount of experience/gold/opportunities to build supports in the game. That's a key difference between Renown and the DLC you can grind forever, you get each Renown reward once, and aside from the max gold emblem none of them are really game breaking.

That does sort of bring up the question of "Is it ok to grind for Renown but not for DLC?" and idk a good way to answer that. My answer would probably be you can use Renown up to 500 or so on L+ (That's what you get for clearing Lunatic and nothing else, given that you can't access L+ until you beat lunatic you will have a min 500). Along with that you can use the items you unlock as you get sufficient Renown from L+ added to L.

Another answer would just be to not use Renown at all I suppose.

[feplus]

I bring up Sacred Stones because it's a great example of quick grinding with significant results (as opposed to Luna+ grinding, which is slow).

Grinding is boring, but boring doesn't seem relevant when assessing difficulty. Imagine a JRPG where a player can spend fifteen minutes traversing through a mindless, tedious dungeon in order to unlock Superunit. Without Superunit, the game is extremely difficult; with Superunit, the game is trivial.

When it comes time to make a judgment about how hard this JRPG is, what do we conclude? It's brutal without Superunit, but getting Superunit requires a brief fifteen minute detour; seems to me that the we should assume players get Superunit, so we'd conclude the game is very easy. Playing through the game without Superunit is a challenge run.

Analogously, I'm arguing that playing through Luna+ without grinding is a challenge run. The only difference between the cases is that the detour for grinded units is four-to-eight times longer than the detour for Superunit.

As for this...

If you do any grinding whatsoever you're removing one of the main factors in FE which is that there is a limited amount of experience/gold/opportunities to build supports in the game.

...while limited resources is a main factor in most Fire Emblem games, it isn't a main factor in Awakening, as grinding exists. Same with Gaiden and Sacred Stones.

[T-Bone]

If you do any grinding whatsoever you're removing one of the main factors in FE which is that there is a limited amount of experience/gold/opportunities to build supports in the game.

...while limited resources is a main factor in most Fire Emblem games, it isn't a main factor in Awakening, as grinding exists. Same with Gaiden and Sacred Stones.

Exactly, which is why the arbitrary number of how much grinding makes the game too easy is anything above zero. You are breaking the balance of the game by adding experience/supports/gold where they weren't supposed to be.