Should Casual Return?

[Fry]

I'm conflicted.

I know WHY it's there and understand why people like it, but it just doesn't feel like Fire Emblem anymore if you choose to play it that way. I love the feeling that death could easily happen if you don't account for something. It's exciting.

Of course, Classic mode will always be there, which is great.

I just don't know how to say this without it seeming like I'm hating on newbies.

My answer is no.

[eclipse]

Individual stat points matter far less in a system where growths are higher and stats are inflated across the board. This is one of the things I found most compelling about earlier Fire Emblem games where the values were a lot lower, it made the small things matter. We haven't hit the point of like, an NIS or Banpresto SRPG where values are in the thousands, but I disagree with the upward shift.

Additionally, in the advent of games dependant on growths such as FE12 and 13, the game design is basically more growth centric, statistical benchmarks even for casual play end up being just a matter of fact, wheras earlier titles generally gave a great deal of weight towards statboosters, promotion gains, and bases. The fact that FE games 1 to 11 are all quite completable on 0% growths even on their highest difficulties is a testament to this.

Getting more stats in a level up might be more aesthetically pleasing but IMO there's greater value when you get great ones in games with lower growths too.

Figuring out stat benchmarks still matter, even in an "inflated" game. There's several runs of FE12 that explain their uses of the Rainbow Potion (all stats +2 for a single map), and why it was used - thus, even a minor boost has pretty big implications. Likewise, Awakening tonics are hailed as godsends, and those provide a +2 boost to one stat for a single map. Even if the numbers look larger, I think the heart of the issue is the same.

Now whether or not FE12 Lunatic is doable on 0% is another story - my gut says yes, but I have no idea whether or not I'm correct.

I'm conflicted.

I know WHY it's there and understand why people like it, but it just doesn't feel like Fire Emblem anymore if you choose to play it that way. I love the feeling that death could easily happen if you don't account for something. It's exciting.

Of course, Classic mode will always be there, which is great.

I just don't know how to say this without it seeming like I'm hating on newbies.

My answer is no.

If it helps, some people adore roller coasters, while others don't - just 'cause it's really fun/exciting for you doesn't mean it'll work out the same for everyone else!

Regardless, this is one of the better stances I've seen on this side of the issue~!

[Irysa]

Figuring out stat benchmarks still matter, even in an "inflated" game. There's several runs of FE12 that explain their uses of the Rainbow Potion (all stats +2 for a single map), and why it was used - thus, even a minor boost has pretty big implications. Likewise, Awakening tonics are hailed as godsends, and those provide a +2 boost to one stat for a single map. Even if the numbers look larger, I think the heart of the issue is the same.

I didn't say figuring them out didn't matter. I said by raising growths, stats get higher more consistently (duh) and it's easier for the devs to expect units to have X amount of a Stat by X time in the game. As a result, harder difficulties end up having these kinda obnoxious requirements even in casual play to have raised units enough to get to those statistical requirements, which makes the maps grindier. FE12's Lunatic mode clearly expects a bunch of your units to be capped on speed just to handle the mid to lategame maps, and FE13 pretty much necessitates that any important combat units should have been raised at least to 20 and promoted by Chapter 12 else they have to be used with a large amount of care. There are speed benchmarks too, like for Chapter 17 where you need about 30something speed to get by.

Now I'm not saying those are hard to hit, given all the tools the game gives to you, but I'm personally uncomfortable with the game being more reliant on growths and the RNG in general as a result. Each individual point DOES matter less when total stat inflation goes up because now the gap between like, 10 and 11 speed, is completely irrelevant, they're both shit. It's only when you get close to that benchmark that the individual points "matter" again, which is why Tonics and Rallies are good. Meanwhile, something like 10 or 11 speed in older games is actually pretty workable to lategame if you utilise weapons and strategy properly.

Now whether or not FE12 Lunatic is doable on 0% is another story - my gut says yes, but I have no idea whether or not I'm correct.

I've theoried it and talked to people better than me at the game about it, and the consensus is no, you can't really get past the midgame on 0% growths. You're flat out required to have multiple units with specific HP/Spd/Def requirements, and even if you take Loony Boosters and RP into account it's not happening.

In fact it was actually earlier in this topic. I may as well quote myself on it since I think I explained it better there.

And although growth is good and drill ground exist I honestly don't like how growth dependant the game is in some regards on lunatic, esp lategame. I feel like prior to FE12, the series always had a fundamental baseline of being able to get through things even on the hardest difficulty with the right kind of planning even if stats didn't align due to resources given (you can 0% growths all the games up to 12 on highest difficulty basically) but FE12 H3 basically enforces that you have to train particular types of units, and Marth needs to cap speed (or at least get within range of capping with wings) or you just can't beat the game.

FE12 also started this whole shaky ground thing with DLC boosters or bonus statbooster on second playthrough stuff that was translated into reknown in FE13, which I also very much dislike.

Well to be honest I wasn't raising the Marth thing as an argument against 0% growths (thats plainly evident in mid to lategame), it was an example of how the game just EXPECTS you to actually have a particular stat requirement via growths or you're screwed. FE12 was the first to do this, and 13 followed up. Prior games have more leniancy and flexability due to bases, more utility options (staves) and just plain less strong enemies. I grew an immense amount of respect for this series design and difficulty settings when I was first introduced to the concept of 0% growths because it fundamentally changed how I thought about Fire Emblem. It really made it stick out to me that strategy was way more important than the RPG part, and although obviously FE12 is a strategically deep game, (in more ways than many of its predecessors) it moved away from that at the same time. I think that's a bad thing.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Irysa

[Vennobennu]

Now I'm not saying those are hard to hit, given all the tools the game gives to you, but I'm personally uncomfortable with the game being more reliant on growths and the RNG in general as a result. Each individual point DOES matter less when total stat inflation goes up because now the gap between like, 10 and 11 speed, is completely irrelevant, they're both shit. It's only when you get close to that benchmark that the individual points "matter" again, which is why Tonics and Rallies are good. Meanwhile, something like 10 or 11 speed in older games is actually pretty workable to lategame if you utilise weapons and strategy properly.

I agree with you on this, though part of the reason that FE12 is so dependent on getting decent levels is that almost all the good units are growth units. Arran, Palla, Sirius and Minerva are probably the most slanted to the bases side of things, and in addition to all being earlygame units, even those last three have great growths - and need them to stay competitive on Lunatic. The units you get in the mid-to-late game are pretty clearly balanced for Normal/Hard and just aren't worth it on Maniac/Lunatic. Darros and Belf/Leiden are probably the last usable combat units, and even then they're probably way behind your trained units on Lunatic.

If the mid/lategame prepromotes were more like Percival or Pent or Harken, and could reasonably handle Maniac/Lunatic enemies, getting good levels on your earlygame units wouldn't be so important, I think. Could always test it by making a hack that scales up later units' stats, though I suspect the result would be obvious.

Irysa what do you think about 0% growths on lower difficulties? Hard mode ought to be very possible, and I think Maniac would too if you had the RP and Lunatic boosters.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Vennobennu

[omega zero]

I get that higher growth rates make 0% runs harder/impossible, since the devs expect higher stats at later levels, causing a large gap between your units and enemies. But this I don't get:

I didn't say figuring them out didn't matter. I said by raising growths, stats get higher more consistently (duh) and it's easier for the devs to expect units to have X amount of a Stat by X time in the game.

We can just as easily project average stats after X levels for a rate of 20%, compared to a rate of 70%.

After 10 levels, a 20% growth rate will be 2 points higher on average. For 70%, 7 points higher on average.

They both seem 'easy to expect' if you just do the multiplication.

[Irysa]

not really, because growth rigging exists.

like, the entire way drill grounds works is basically designed to mess up your average stats, much like BEXP. the function literally exists so you can't screw yourself out of not having enough stats. fe13 has grinding so it doesn't require it, and also doesn't make tonics dlc unlike rainbow pot. <_<

plus there are rallies too, as mentioned. like a lot of this stuff basically becomes almost neccessary so a player can't get too screwed, but I think that's a faulty way to approach the issue, because you could just be making bases, weapons, and terrain more important rather than emphasising growths and ways to get more growths so you can hit the requirements. (which is what they did for the previous games)

Irysa what do you think about 0% growths on lower difficulties? Hard mode ought to be very possible, and I think Maniac would too if you had the RP and Lunatic boosters.

It must be doable because marth can solo H2. You also have Warp in H2 and below so you can avoid the biggest issues.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Irysa

[Vennobennu]

Oh yeah I didn't consider Warp. With 7 uses plus Hammerne you should be able to skip over most nasty spots.

[omega zero]

Bear with me, I still fail to see what it has to do with high vs low growth rates. It seems like the problem lies with rigging (grinding or drilling).

Suppose Grinding/Drill Grounds didn't exist.

Wouldn't "They both seem 'easy to expect' if you just do the multiplication." be true then?

I may very well be missing something, I've only played the GBA/DS/3DS FE games. I played them on various difficulties and I've never did any grinding during the story mode, as far as I can remember.

[Thor Odinson]

What about higher stats combined with less complexly implemented Fixed Mode, though? Since that'd take growths variations out of the equation as long as you plan for the exp. At least there'd be something still reliable.

[Topazd]

Additionally, higher growths/benchmarks tend to encourage low-manning, which you may interpret how you wish, but I don't think is a good thing. Though I personally consider FE12's benchmarks to be reasonable enough to advocate somewhat larger teams than in FE13, if a bit demanding still.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Topazd

[Thor Odinson]

I feel FE12's is probably the least lowmannable, honestly. FE12 L had enemies actually at the level of power of your own units, and avoid was simply not a thing unless you're a swordmaster against a berserker and I did actually feel like I needed a team, especially come endgame. FE13 L enemies technically do cap fast, but pair up gets around that. In games where enemies don't cap, sending one superunit who has much higher stats in still wrecks shit anyway.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[Florete]

Additionally, higher growths/benchmarks tend to encourage low-manning, which you may interpret how you wish, but I don't think is a good thing. Though I personally consider FE12's benchmarks to be reasonable enough to advocate somewhat larger teams than in FE13, if a bit demanding still.

The very nature of Fire Emblem typically encourages low-manning. Discouraging low-manning can be done through having multiple chapter objectives and cutting experience gain for higher-leveled units more than it currently does, not dropping average growths.

[Topazd]

True, I guess in most cases it's only discouraged in the earlygame. Perhaps I shouldn't have brought the low-manning argument up at all since it can really be executed regardless of the volume of the growths, my bad.

EDIT Yeah, a very impulsive post on my part. I hadn't really considered how much pair up might have to do with the issue.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Topazd

[Irysa]

Bear with me, I still fail to see what it has to do with high vs low growth rates. It seems like the problem lies with rigging (grinding or drilling).

Suppose Grinding/Drill Grounds didn't exist.

Wouldn't "They both seem 'easy to expect' if you just do the multiplication." be true then?

I may very well be missing something, I've only played the GBA/DS/3DS FE games. I played them on various difficulties and I've never did any grinding during the story mode, as far as I can remember.

You're kinda overfocusing on the whole average stats things. BEXP/Drill Grounds is designed to give you certified stat ups, and additionally, when growths are higher, it becomes a lot less unreasonable for a player to opt to rig a decent level up.

The point is that if player characters get stronger, enemies need to get stronger. However, because FE statgain is somewhat random, and growths were traditionally low to middle of the road, the enemy stat curve did not tend to rise at a really fast pace. When it did, the older games were nearly always designed around giving you the ability to utilise options or resources to deal with it. You get lots of utility tools like being able to Warp, Status staves, etc, or you get given out of the box powerful units to use, or get weapons or units that are tailored to dealing with those enemies. Traditionally, a lot of the games hand you a pretty competant endgame unit who can handle the final boss or w/e for you too. The point is, the older FE games don't design around growths much despite the fact characters would be getting stronger, they were considering the possibility of someone not having a lot of units or someone not having statistically competant units.

Growths being lower was tied to this because enemies can't grow too fast if the developers don't expect stats to go up frequently for the player. So things that were not RNG related could be levered by the player to stay ahead of the enemy, even if their stats did not rise that much, because the points made up by statboosters or a promo gain or better weapons were certified. You're never expected to grind or have trained X powerful units by a certain point just to get by. (FE8 final aside I guess but once again, you can grind so if you really can't handle demon king and lyon then you should be able to make up for it. Some of the rigging Duessel has to do to beat Demon King is kinda ridiculous lol)

if growths are higher, we can rely on them going up more consistently than if they're lower. So, if growths are higher, we have to increase the stats of enemies more because we expect player stats to be higher. However, because we increased enemy stats and growths are still random, and there is going to be a degree of variation (units do not often trend to being on average until a large amount of levels have occured), so now we have to think "how do we facilitate people beating these enemies if they got stat screwed/lost units/didn't train enough units". Things like Drill Grounds or grinding are basically there to do that, and even the existance of the rainbow potion and it's morphing into tonics in FE13 exists to help. When I said "easier to expect" that phrase may have been a bit malformed, more like "it's easier to assertively expect player stats to have increased a significant amount as opposed to low growths where one can't assume as such", but the point about having easy growth rigging and grinding on high growths is still true.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Irysa

[Vascela]

It should be worth noting, that while 0% is impossible for 12/13, the random% run through is extremely easier than a random% run through 1-11. Because you grow much, much faster than the enemy in the situation you do grow.

Whether that is good thing or a bad thing, I don't think anyone is qualified to answer that.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Vascela

[eclipse]

Quoting doesn't carry over quotes in the original post, so have a link instead. As long as your stats keep up with the enemy's ones, stuff like tonics/rallies still have the "I need X of this stat to do Y" feel. Honestly, it should've been one or the other, and the rallies shouldn't have stacked (so Spectrum/Heart/other stats doesn't cause a giant boost on top of pair-up, and that's not counting faires).

I tend to use the rallies/tonics as catch-up, but that's because my ability to get constantly-screwed Sumias on Lunatic knows no bounds. While 0% growths is pretty extreme in terms of "how badly stat-screwed do I need to be before the game is impossible?", I don't think that FE12/FE13 is outright impossible if, say, half your stats are below average on several of the top-tier characters (otherwise, drafts would be impossible). But different strokes for different folks - that's just my take on it.

It should be worth noting, that while 0% is impossible for 12/13, the random% run through is extremely easier than a random% run through 1-11. Because you grow much, much faster than the enemy in the situation you do grow.

Whether that is good thing or a bad thing, I don't think anyone is qualified to answer that.

Who cares if this is good or bad, this is a cool observation!

[feplus]

Lowmanning is an intriguing design problem. Hardly exclusive to Fire Emblem (cf. Pokemon), but it does undermine the series' strategical component a bit. Challenge runs only go so far to mitigate the problem.

Rankings in 4 and 7 worked beautifully at marginalizing lowmanning, so why not apply that principle in other ways? For example, have a gaiden map or two be locked unless your team has reached some gross experience criteria; less skilled players can still get through the main campaign, but better players able to get through maps with weaker units are rewarded with additional content.

[Vascela]

If anything, "less skilled" players are more likely to use more units (too many, and they end up all being underleveled). It's a very typical problem that might force beginners to restart regardless if that gaiden existed or not.

[NinjaMonkey]

Assuming the ability to infinitely grind returns, there's really no excuse for being under-levelled, except if you are doing a no-grind challenge run.

[Vascela]

While grinding was in FE:A, it's extremely limited on hard and up. Unless you are talking about making a second purchase to DLC content, but I think that's an unfair assumption to DLCless players.

[noiku]

Okay, My Opinion:

Maybe, I voted no

The Reason Im Saying Maybe Is Because, When I Played Awakening, I TRIED Out Classic but lost everyone before chap 3

So, i had to use casual.

When im posting this im doing a classic playthrough, coincidence? I THINK NOT

[The Protagonist]

The very nature of Fire Emblem typically encourages low-manning. Discouraging low-manning can be done through having multiple chapter objectives and cutting experience gain for higher-leveled units more than it currently does, not dropping average growths.

I think that good chapter design to discourage low-manning is an integral piece of a good FE game.

[omega zero]

I think that good chapter design to discourage low-manning is an integral piece of a good FE game.

Also, harder difficulties should have an easier early game, so you can train a variety of units instead of having to rely on a few characters with really high growths/bases. The difficulty can ramp up as the game goes on, at which point you will have enough characters/tools to come up with unique solutions.

[Irysa]

nah, the whole point of the game starting out harder is to separate the wheat from the chaff. it's also the point in the game where the developers have the best idea of what stats you're going to have, so the design becomes far more intricate/difficult to break over your knee.

[Jedi]

While grinding was in FE:A, it's extremely limited on hard and up. Unless you are talking about making a second purchase to DLC content, but I think that's an unfair assumption to DLCless players.

I'm DLCless and hard/Lunatic aren't too bad to deal with. Said grinding may be limited, but its still very manageable.