Return of Casual

[saifors]

...honestly I didn't see any more hard mode crit chances than they were in the previous games.

The only ones that had decent crit chances were Gamble Barbarians.

And come on, you expect hard mode myrmidons to have that.

I think Lunatic gets too much crap when people say "it was designed around casual/grinding".

Even worse is when people complain about the design choice for Lunatic+'s random skill mechanic.

The very first enemy on the prologue in my first hard mode playthrough got a crit off on my MU, no big deal, right? Just a stroke of bad luck, heck if I use Chrom this time surel- ... twice... Enemies with crit chances on early game is not what I consider "difficulty" I consider it cheap and about as luck based as chance time in mario party.

Funnily enough, not a single enemy crit was from a myrmidon, it's from the ones that I least expected. Oh one of my units is in range of a pegasus, what could possibly go wrong? hint: everything.

Oh I didn't even get to a point where I'm capable of grinding, one bit of RNG-screwage in the prologue with level ups and your only hope in chapter 1 is having Frederic not get hit by the 56 hit chance barbarian wielding a Hammer, and all the many other units that none of your units can reliably take care of, and don't forget having to fall back on praying to Anna for Dual Strikes/Guards.

I could just restart from the very beginning, but that shows exactly a problem with the design, you shouldn't be able to get stuck in an impossible situation just because of luck. Take fe4 for an example, the RNG in that game isn't very reliable, however if you miss one hit it's not fatal, most of the time you still have access to a plan B or C, in Awakening however, the moment I see the "miss" text on screen I can pretty much just press L+R+Start

The way I see it: More Randomness/RNG/Luck = Less Strategy. It's the same reason I dislike Pair-up, we have enough RNG-based systems as is, adding more only takes away strategy in turn for luck.

If you like it, more power to you but I can't play it without the game feeling either too easy or too unfair (And the former's saying something, considering Fe8 is my second favourite, and used to be my favourite, even with it being considered the easiest game before Awakening).

[shadowofchaos]

The very first enemy on the prologue in my first hard mode playthrough got a crit off on my MU, no big deal, right? Just a stroke of bad luck, heck if I use Chrom this time surel- ... twice... Enemies with crit chances on early game is not what I consider "difficulty" I consider it cheap and about as luck based as chance time in mario party.

Funnily enough, not a single enemy crit was from a myrmidon, it's from the ones that I least expected. Oh one of my units is in range of a pegasus, what could possibly go wrong? hint: everything.

Oh I didn't even get to a point where I'm capable of grinding, one bit of RNG-screwage in the prologue with level ups and your only hope in chapter 1 is having Frederic not get hit by the 56 hit chance barbarian wielding a Hammer, and all the many other units that none of your units can reliably take care of, and don't forget having to fall back on praying to Anna for Dual Strikes/Guards.

I could just restart from the very beginning, but that shows exactly a problem with the design, you shouldn't be able to get stuck in an impossible situation just because of luck. Take fe4 for an example, the RNG in that game isn't very reliable, however if you miss one hit it's not fatal, most of the time you still have access to a plan B or C, in Awakening however, the moment I see the "miss" text on screen I can pretty much just press L+R+Start

The way I see it: More Randomness/RNG/Luck = Less Strategy. It's the same reason I dislike Pair-up, we have enough RNG-based systems as is, adding more only takes away strategy in turn for luck.

If you like it, more power to you but I can't play it without the game feeling either too easy or too unfair (And the former's saying something, considering Fe8 is my second favourite, and used to be my favourite, even with it being considered the easiest game before Awakening).

Honestly, while I might feel for you, it sounds like you're pointing the blame on the design based on your RNG screwage on that playthrough.

...like literally the same way some people I've heard blab about Lunatic and Lunatic+ being luck based.

It's not the best designed, but you're throwing crap at it without even considering that some of the things you do are the cause of it?

The hammer guy? Trade a bronze sword to Frederick?

I see KTT reading, I'll let them (and their more knowledgeable experience with Lunatic+) speak for me.

...you're also talking about Hard Mode. Your raging seems baseless since all of the things you said so far have... pretty simple solutions.

Oh I didn't even get to a point where I'm capable of grinding, one bit of RNG-screwage in the prologue with level ups and your only hope in chapter 1 is having Frederic not get hit by the 56 hit chance barbarian wielding a Hammer, and all the many other units that none of your units can reliably take care of, and don't forget having to fall back on praying to Anna for Dual Strikes/Guards.

I could just restart from the very beginning, but that shows exactly a problem with the design, you shouldn't be able to get stuck in an impossible situation just because of luck. Take fe4 for an example, the RNG in that game isn't very reliable, however if you miss one hit it's not fatal, most of the time you still have access to a plan B or C, in Awakening however, the moment I see the "miss" text on screen I can pretty much just press L+R+Start

...yeah, dude. It sounds exactly like what I've heard before.

Even on Lunatic+, I have never had to absolutely rely on Dual Guards for survival.

On hard mode, you literally pair up with Frederick and you can autopilot the prologue with the auto and skip function :/

Edited April 29, 2015 by shadowofchaos

[Refa]

I had to redo Prologue like 30 times using the most efficient strategy on Lunatic because I kept on getting unlucky. I shudder to think what that'd be like on Lunatic + haha. Don't think this means that it was designed for Casual though (although I would argue for grinding because you simply CANNOT use a full party otherwise, so you're either forced to grind or lowman the fuck out of it and the latter isn't really that appealing), just that it was poorly designed.

[Thor Odinson]

your only hope in chapter 1 is having Frederic not get hit by the 56 hit chance barbarian wielding a Hammer,

Okay but that can be dealt with by

-keep Frederick out of his range

-trade MU's bronze sword to Fred to reduce hitrates to like 20 something, especially with fort bonuses

-PAY ATTENTION

like if you die to that hammer guy that's 100% your fault and not the RNG's

Lunatic can be done with full deploy in no grind. I did both a regular run with ingame units full deploy and an all-avatar run (which gave me veteran on everyone but no supports). It's likely possible on L+ as well, though I personally just lowmanned that one.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[Jedi]

http://fireemblem.nintendo.com/developer-interview/

Interesting discussion with the developers about casual mode and this quote made me chuckle since its happening.

So I think it's good that we offer the choice between Casual and Classic... In online forums and such, you'll see veteran players and people who probably had their first Fire Emblem experience with Awakening still debating which is better.

[Pretty_Handsome]

The option should remain as it appeases most fans and there's no reason to remove the feature that's optional anyway.

[arvilino]

I had to redo Prologue like 30 times using the most efficient strategy on Lunatic because I kept on getting unlucky. I shudder to think what that'd be like on Lunatic + haha. Don't think this means that it was designed for Casual though (although I would argue for grinding because you simply CANNOT use a full party otherwise, so you're either forced to grind or lowman the fuck out of it and the latter isn't really that appealing), just that it was poorly designed.

Which strategy though? Because I've beaten Lunatic's first chapters including the prologue very reliably. It can be pretty very tempting call "poor design" when someone really means "I can't do it" because it's a lot less effort than admitting the latter and coming up with a new approach.

Just started a new game and replayed the Lunatic prologue twice in a row(and won both times with the exact same strategy), there's 4 enemies in the chapter who could force a reset in a strategy where you focus on using Frederick and try to beat the chapter quickly. The Myrmidons can't hurt Frederick and die on a counter attack, the Mages can be killed in one hit before they can attack(since the other enemies aren't dangerous enough) and the bosses critical hit is not enough to defeat Frederick which means you can't possible lose unless you play intentionally risky once it's down to him.

Either the first two barbarians and/or the last two barbarians would have to both spawn with Gamble and then two of them would have to land 6% criticals(or paired with Chrom, two 3% rate with even lower hit) in a row on Frederick wielding the Silver Lance during the exact same turn.

Edited April 29, 2015 by arvilino

[Refa]

Kill the first myrmidon with Fred, use him to weaken the two axe fighters nearby. Use Chrom to weaken the other myrm to the right, and then have him pair up with Fred the next turn to finish it off. Afterwards, Robin paired up with Lissa can finish the two axe fighters that Fred weakened. You can then have Robin and Lissa tank it out with the remaining mage, before river tricking the rest of the chapter and then finishing off the boss. Easy in theory and execution, also incredibly prone to failure because you basically need all of your hits to connect and god help you if one of the enemies has existent crit on a not Fred unit. Also Chrom is prone to missing with his ONLY RELEVANT DUTY (less so if the myrm doesn't have Avoid +10, then he has like 93% hit w/Rapier).

Edited April 29, 2015 by Refa

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I see KTT reading, I'll let them (and their more knowledgeable experience with Lunatic+) speak for me.

Hehe, thanks for calling me out. ;P

Lunatic+, especially the earliest chapters is because a game of intense optimization. Thanks to the stacking support system, pair-up bonuses being crucial to hitting certain thresholds, as well as Pair->Move->Separate shenanigans, even the scrub units are helpful resources. If one looks to my sig, I have guides for highly reliable strats for Prologue and C1 that don't rely on Dual Strikes or Guards at all (they're still helpful—just not required). I haven't posted the revised C2 strat, but those who have seen me stream it know that it generally doesn't require any Dual Strikes. C3 starts to lean on Dual Strikes a bit (depending on how much PavGis+ shows up), but that's also a point where getting one Dual Strike in a double attack is starting to get semi-reliable.

I'll admit that there is some luck factor involved—I mean, the series is built around having an RNG rolled against stat thresholds, so there's always room for something to go wrong if one is at a point in the game where the thresholds can't be pushed to cap. For instance, my Prologue strat has Fred go against a Myrmidon and Barb both with high-80s displayed hit. It's possible, though highly improbable (it approaches 97% true hit) to miss. I've had it happen a couple times out of dozens of attempts. The run might be over at that point, or I could also get some dodges or Dual Guards (which has happened too). So yes, in very fringe cases, sometimes plan B is to do damage control to give characters their next-best chance of survival and hope there's good RNG to offset the highly irregular poor RNG, but good play will keep these to fringe cases and eventually become non-cases when characters get high enough stats. Note that this is also something true to the series and not just Awakening.

The general plan for if my main frontliners end up with freak misses or whatever where I can't afford to just wait to the next player phase, I'll have the scrubs try to help pick up the pieces. These characters are going to have even worse hit and damage output than the characters with EXP invested into them. Therefore, any plan B or C can still fail, as well, if the RNG is being particularly mean. Note that playing Awakening also doesn't preclude me from having those back-up plans, so I have to question the assertion that missing is suddenly a reset.

Also, not to be that guy, Saifors, but you're taking a risk and essentially going all-in with your strategy there. I mean, the risk is pretty low, but you can see that the Barbarian has Gamble and, therefore, listed crit against Chrom or Robin. There is a real, if small risk, of that crit actually working out. However, you also have Fred who should be able to survive a crit and soften the Barb up so that Robin/Chrom can finish him off and not even chance a counterattack. It's always worth reconsidering one's approach when things go wrong.

Kill the first myrmidon with Fred, use him to weaken the two axe fighters nearby. Use Chrom to weaken the other myrm to the right, and then have him pair up with Fred the next turn to finish it off. Afterwards, Robin paired up with Lissa can finish the two axe fighters that Fred weakened. You can then have Robin and Lissa tank it out with the remaining mage, before river tricking the rest of the chapter and then finishing off the boss. Easy in theory and execution, also incredibly prone to failure because you basically need all of your hits to connect and god help you if one of the enemies has existent crit on a not Fred unit. Also Chrom is prone to missing with his ONLY RELEVANT DUTY (less so if the myrm doesn't have Avoid +10, then he has like 93% hit w/Rapier).

See my sig for a strat that places less pressure on Fred hitting (he only needs to injure one Barb instead of two and gets +11 Hit from a Chrom pair-up against both the Myrm and Barb).

[IceBrand]

http://fireemblem.nintendo.com/developer-interview/

Interesting discussion with the developers about casual mode and this quote made me chuckle since its happening.

And people say IS doesn't keep up with the Internet.

[ckc22]

Options are always good. Not wanting casual mode to return is plainly selfish and nonsensical. I don't understand the impetus to try and make everyone else behave like you do.

This is like people who can't stand the fact that women can get birth control or gay people can get married. It doesn't affect you - move the eff on.

Edited April 30, 2015 by ckc22

[astrophys]

Yes. I've never played Casual mode, but I would never dream of wanting it removed either. I know that there are many others to enjoy it and it doesn't harm me and my fun by being there.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I might add that Casual is helpful for those of us veterans trying to break/dissect the game. Testing a half-dozen variations on movements on turn 4 is a lot less annoying when I can load a save from that exact moment instead of having to play the rest of the chapter back to that point (even if Action Skip is a thing, it's still extra repetitive effort). >.>

[Tamanoir]

Casual and Lunatic are both going to return, no doubt about this.
They're the opposite side of the same coin after all (the fact they can combined is probably one of the funniest thing about that.)

No one will force you to try one or the other (I'm never gonna play Lunatic, because it's just not the way I enjoy playing a game.

That won't mean I will hope it'll be removed or says it's the worst thing to ever happens to FE.)

However, there's one thing I'm firmly against, even as a user of Casual (it rhymes with practical).

It's the ability to toggle betwen the two.

Because then the difference between the two will lost all meaning. And then it will definitely be the end of Classic.

But until now, it's just an option among others, and iit won't ruin your game in any way.

[Purse Owner]

I'm fine if Causal mode returns, I may not play it a lot, but it'd be nice if it returned.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I might add that Casual is helpful for those of us veterans trying to break/dissect the game. Testing a half-dozen variations on movements on turn 4 is a lot less annoying when I can load a save from that exact moment instead of having to play the rest of the chapter back to that point (even if Action Skip is a thing, it's still extra repetitive effort). >.>

Honestly, I'd like if battle saves returned in Classic, too (or at least the map variety seen in FE11-12). While I enjoy the tension of classic a good deal, some battles have the potential to go on for very long (at least in some FEs; Awakening generally didn't favour marathon maps) and redoing a whole battle can get a bit excessive. I'm sure some people will disagree with me and say that redoing a 2 hour battle if your lord bites is completely okay, and I respect that you can do that; I would probably have agreed with you a decade ago. But these days I do appreciate the choice.

[eclipse]

Honestly, I'd like if battle saves returned in Classic, too (or at least the map variety seen in FE11-12). While I enjoy the tension of classic a good deal, some battles have the potential to go on for very long (at least in some FEs; Awakening generally didn't favour marathon maps) and redoing a whole battle can get a bit excessive. I'm sure some people will disagree with me and say that redoing a 2 hour battle if your lord bites is completely okay, and I respect that you can do that; I would probably have agreed with you a decade ago. But these days I do appreciate the choice.

I'm all for FE11/FE12 map saves, on Classic. It functions as a checkpoint, but it's limited. It also reset the RNG.

Casual can keep the Battle Save option.

[MoonlitSonata]

I'm just curious, why did they remove the autosave feature that was in FE 7/8? That was one of the biggest things that attracted me to the series at first and it would be freaking awesome if it returned as a toggleable feature. Granted, back in GBA days you couldn't necessarily flip your system shut and resume from that point in time in the game which may be why it was included. But I will always remember the convenience it was to just turn my GBA off at the end of a band bus ride without needing to worry about saving quickly before turning it off.

[Vascela]

Because it technically made the suspend feature obsolete. Now you can soft reset and instantly go to chapter start instead of resume and scroll down. As petty as that seems, it makes a lot more sense (since suspend + battle save are much more reasonable saves to continue than just turning off the game).

[3Comrades]

I mean, I am one of those players who came in for the matchmaking and reclassing, I don't mind some tactical games, and have even really enjoyed other games, but finding the perfect way you want your characters to be and grinding them, and hearing their support logs is why I play the game. I love the game, nearly filled the support logs completely and can name, at the top of the hat, each characters reclass options and possible skills. I don't minimax for spotpass since I nearly always keep it off (except to get the spotpass characters), and while I fully realize this is not how the game is meant to be played, I have to admit I adore it. Classic mode to me would mean not playing due to the fact that I can't let characters die, since to me that is the game, and restarting over and over loses its appeal when added to the grinding, which I do more than the main game because I want to marvel at what I can create.

I admit this makes the game super easy, which is a bit of a delight to me, since I built them up so well. I refuse to even let the lesser characters take a back seat, and if I want to crush a whole map with Lissa, it is a source of giddy pride. I even play on harder difficulties to test my builds and stretch grinding to the limit so I can make supreme characters. I have been glancing at various places and found a bit of a shocker that my play style was not only considered unorthodox, but something to prevent. Personally I would love better maps and more quest objectives than we have had, but I can't quite understand why abusing grinding is wrong if you are willing to put in the time, or why making it easy by grinding can't be a goal in and of itself for some players. In fact thats how i play most leveling up games, get as much exp as possible, so I don't have to worry about dying and then enjoy game confidant that i have combat handled. I realize this is incorrect, but is it wrong?

[eclipse]

I mean, I am one of those players who came in for the matchmaking and reclassing, I don't mind some tactical games, and have even really enjoyed other games, but finding the perfect way you want your characters to be and grinding them, and hearing their support logs is why I play the game. I love the game, nearly filled the support logs completely and can name, at the top of the hat, each characters reclass options and possible skills. I don't minimax for spotpass since I nearly always keep it off (except to get the spotpass characters), and while I fully realize this is not how the game is meant to be played, I have to admit I adore it. Classic mode to me would mean not playing due to the fact that I can't let characters die, since to me that is the game, and restarting over and over loses its appeal when added to the grinding, which I do more than the main game because I want to marvel at what I can create.

I admit this makes the game super easy, which is a bit of a delight to me, since I built them up so well. I refuse to even let the lesser characters take a back seat, and if I want to crush a whole map with Lissa, it is a source of giddy pride. I even play on harder difficulties to test my builds and stretch grinding to the limit so I can make supreme characters. I have been glancing at various places and found a bit of a shocker that my play style was not only considered unorthodox, but something to prevent. Personally I would love better maps and more quest objectives than we have had, but I can't quite understand why abusing grinding is wrong if you are willing to put in the time, or why making it easy by grinding can't be a goal in and of itself for some players. In fact thats how i play most leveling up games, get as much exp as possible, so I don't have to worry about dying and then enjoy game confidant that i have combat handled. I realize this is incorrect, but is it wrong?

This. . .depends.

If you're doing it because you like seeing a bunch of green numbers, more power to you. However, having a giant stat lead because you put in a bunch of extra time into everyone doesn't necessarily mean much in terms of strategy - once you hit a certain point, it's "throw these people in that general vicinity, and enemies die with minimal risk". Knowing what risks to take is part of strategy, which is why stuff like efficiency/no-grind is done. So while not "wrong", it does cut down on the strategy necessary to get through the game.

If you're going to claim the game is easy because you grind. . .that would be an issue. But that doesn't seem to be your stance.

EDIT: Giant stat leads tend to make the game easier, but it's a lot more challenging on no-grind. The essence of getting past Lunatic revolves around maintaining a stat lead against the generic enemies.

Edited May 2, 2015 by eclipse

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm just curious, why did they remove the autosave feature that was in FE 7/8? That was one of the biggest things that attracted me to the series at first and it would be freaking awesome if it returned as a toggleable feature. Granted, back in GBA days you couldn't necessarily flip your system shut and resume from that point in time in the game which may be why it was included. But I will always remember the convenience it was to just turn my GBA off at the end of a band bus ride without needing to worry about saving quickly before turning it off.

I assume it has to do with the speed of saving on different hardware, and/or how well the hardware handles something which makes saves every few seconds. On the GBA the game saved after every action (so that if you turned it off, you'd be right back where you left off), but the GBA saving was very fast and didn't damage the save file to save repeatedly. For whatever reason, saving to the GameCube save file was obviously far slower (you can tell when you choose to save your game), so they the constant saving wasn't practical. And since then they've gotten out of the habit; I dunno if the auto-saving would be more practical on the 3DS.

Someone who actually knows about hardware specifics could probably weigh in further; I'm certainly no expert on the subject.

[3Comrades]

This. . .depends.

If you're doing it because you like seeing a bunch of green numbers, more power to you. However, having a giant stat lead because you put in a bunch of extra time into everyone doesn't necessarily mean much in terms of strategy - once you hit a certain point, it's "throw these people in that general vicinity, and enemies die with minimal risk". Knowing what risks to take is part of strategy, which is why stuff like efficiency/no-grind is done. So while not "wrong", it does cut down on the strategy necessary to get through the game.

If you're going to claim the game is easy because you grind. . .that would be an issue. But that doesn't seem to be your stance.

EDIT: Giant stat leads tend to make the game easier, but it's a lot more challenging on no-grind. The essence of getting past Lunatic revolves around maintaining a stat lead against the generic enemies.

I guess that was my point, strategy comes last in my enjoyment of awakening, partly due to lack of strategical decisions, so I find it boring to play it for the strategy. I guess I mean, what if the game only becomes enjoyable to a very few people, like me, who find more enjoyment making it easy on themselves then hard combat. I enjoy grinding more than strategic play, because leveling and reclassing my characters is fun and makes me not have to worry over the strategic part, because without bottle points and far more units at a time, and goal objectives strategy bores me to tears. Also disposable units make it more fun, and to me these characters are too fun in supports and conversations to lose.

I guess I am saying the strategy aspects of the game, while I like strategy in other games, bores me, difficult strategy even more so, its like grinding with less reward and more pain in the neck since all the fun elements of strategy (plan of attack, sacrifices for goal, tricking opponent, securing both the battle and the objective, using the landscape to your benefit) are either missing or jepordized by another method of play for me. I just want to get through the strategy part as fast as possible, and I found a love of making units for the very purpose of making it as quick and painless as possible. And also marvel at what I can create.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

in other words you're a massive casual.

now if this is a bad thing or not is up to you and everyone, personally its a single player game so i couldn't care less

as long as your not DSP of course, lol

Edited May 3, 2015 by HF Makalov Fanboy Kai

[eclipse]

I guess that was my point, strategy comes last in my enjoyment of awakening, partly due to lack of strategical decisions, so I find it boring to play it for the strategy. I guess I mean, what if the game only becomes enjoyable to a very few people, like me, who find more enjoyment making it easy on themselves then hard combat. I enjoy grinding more than strategic play, because leveling and reclassing my characters is fun and makes me not have to worry over the strategic part, because without bottle points and far more units at a time, and goal objectives strategy bores me to tears. Also disposable units make it more fun, and to me these characters are too fun in supports and conversations to lose.

I guess I am saying the strategy aspects of the game, while I like strategy in other games, bores me, difficult strategy even more so, its like grinding with less reward and more pain in the neck since all the fun elements of strategy (plan of attack, sacrifices for goal, tricking opponent, securing both the battle and the objective, using the landscape to your benefit) are either missing or jepordized by another method of play for me. I just want to get through the strategy part as fast as possible, and I found a love of making units for the very purpose of making it as quick and painless as possible. And also marvel at what I can create.

Again, if that's your idea of fun, more power to you! As long as you realize that we're not going to find the same thing "fun", since I got bored of maxing out my units after the fifth run through LB3. My idea of fun is throwing a bunch of random units together while having some other people yank units away from me and whipping through the game as fast as possible, which is otherwise known as "drafting".

Now, if I said drafting was the only way to play the game correctly, I'd (rightfully) get people mad at me. In the end, you're the one that chooses your path through the game. Don't let me (or anyone else) tell you how to enjoy the journey. Likewise, your journey is your own, so there will be people who disagree with you.

EDIT:

in other words you're a massive casual.

now if this is a bad thing or not is up to you and everyone, personally its a single player game so i couldn't care less

as long as your not DSP of course, lol

Right, just what we need. . .labels. . .

Edited May 3, 2015 by eclipse