Return of Casual

[Crysta]

I wonder what I am.

I play on Hard Mode but I've only really played FE7 and Awakening to the end. The others didn't interest me enough to stick with them.

Is there some kind of group between elitist, veteran, and casual?

[Tamanoir]

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 is your game.

Plays it as you want.

This reminds me of a video I saw where the guy said he found the Pokémon battles uninterresting, but played Pokémon games mainly for the exploration part.

Saying there is only a way to play a game is honnestly ridiculous.

As long as you don't pretend your way is the only way, don't worry about others opinions.

In FE7 I spent tons of time grinding Nino is 26x and having her kill the Boss.

It's absolutely inefficient, and needlessly long, but the result was really fulfilling.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Tamanoir

[kdports]

It shouldn't have been an option in the first place. Grinding can ruin the game.

Not if you don't grind. Grinding is completely a player's choice. The game does not MAKE you grind, and having an OPTION to grind is no reason to hate the game, or the grinding. If you think grinding ruins the game just don't grind.

[BrandedRogue]

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.

They had really little of that in awakening. IMO FE10 was the best at that, with the ledges.

[ckc22]

Not if you don't grind. Grinding is completely a player's choice. The game does not MAKE you grind, and having an OPTION to grind is no reason to hate the game, or the grinding. If you think grinding ruins the game just don't grind.

"But if I can't force everyone to play exactly the same way I do then I can't enjoy the series...."

[Gradivus.]

"but if I can't misrepresent opposite arguments my own arguments are poor"

Some reasons why some players don't approve of grinding is that broken options can be bad in terms of game design (a different instance for this is FE11 warp, it is wholly optional and doesn't make FE11 bad / trivial or something, but can be reasonably called a design mistake), and because it's mostly just money-making, not immediately to restrict others. I believe most players that argue that way never complained towards any other players just because they used DLC grinding. stop strawmanning.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Gradivus.

[Loki Laufeyson]

I wonder what I am.

I play on Hard Mode but I've only really played FE7 and Awakening to the end. The others didn't interest me enough to stick with them.

Is there some kind of group between elitist, veteran, and casual?

Heres a piece of advice. Dont worry about it. Like, who really cares anyway what kind of fan someone is?

[Crysta]

Heres a piece of advice. Dont worry about it. Like, who really cares anyway what kind of fan someone is?

I will now spend long nights worrying about it.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Not if you don't grind. Grinding is completely a player's choice. The game does not MAKE you grind, and having an OPTION to grind is no reason to hate the game, or the grinding. If you think grinding ruins the game just don't grind.

Well, there is one issue I do have with grinding, and it's more its effect on the mindset of the developers than what the player wants to do. I prefer games with level curves that require no extra grinding. I don't have an issue with the option to grind, otherwise.

[Thor Odinson]

On the higher difficulties it's very difficult to grind without DLC though, and well, if someone paid extra money for the DLC then well hey, money's worth.

Like grinding without DLC on Lunatic is an absolute nightmare. the skirmishes are actually stronger than your next chapter's enemies you're honestly better off just doing the next chapter instead. You get 1exp for spotpass battles, and trying your luck at sparkly tiles is more worth it than that.

Normal is kinda the introductory difficulty so, it makes sense that the newcomer-friendly mechanics are more accessible in that mode. Hard at least upped the price of reeking boxes so you no longer make a return on them (4800 cost, 2k back from each risen fight unless despoil or something), for what it's worth.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[goodperson707]

On the higher difficulties it's very difficult to grind without DLC though, and well, if someone paid extra money for the DLC then well hey, money's worth.

Like grinding without DLC on Lunatic is an absolute nightmare. the skirmishes are actually stronger than your next chapter's enemies you're honestly better off just doing the next chapter instead. You get 1exp for spotpass battles, and trying your luck at sparkly tiles is more worth it than that.

Normal is kinda the introductory difficulty so, it makes sense that the newcomer-friendly mechanics are more accessible in that mode. Hard at least upped the price of reeking boxes so you no longer make a return on them (4800 cost, 2k back from each risen fight unless despoil or something), for what it's worth.

glad to know it is a pain to grind on lunatic and i didn't it remember wrong, but don't the highest level maps give you four (or maybe three) bullions even on hard? im not sure if i got hard and normal mixed up. Edited May 4, 2015 by goodperson707

[Thor Odinson]

glad to know it is a pain to grind on lunatic and i didn't it remember wrong, but don't the highest level maps give you four (or maybe three) bullions even on hard? im not sure if i got hard and normal mixed up.

I haven't actually used skirmishes in hard so I was going by the number in normal, but that's interesting if they did up the number of bullions. It still doesn't entirely make up for the cost by itself but 800 is a lot less than 2800 for overall cost after bullions then there's free skirmishes too.

I think it was still 2 in L+ though. I did a few of them postgame to get them off my shopping points and I don't remember more drops than 2 but I could be wrong.

What do you mean by highest level maps, though? If you mean stuff like 24, 25, etc, then it's pretty pointless to grind then anyway since it's almost endgame.

[goodperson707]

^ yeah i mean late game maps yes, i do sometimes forget that not everyone grinded, or got every single one of their characters to max, limitbroken stats for no real reason. Well nearly max, some characters like Chrom and vaike don't have max magic I'm not THAT crazy. Anyway you tend to remember the amount of bullions you get.

[Tamanoir]

On the higher difficulties it's very difficult to grind without DLC though, and well, if someone paid extra money for the DLC then well hey, money's worth.

Like grinding without DLC on Lunatic is an absolute nightmare. the skirmishes are actually stronger than your next chapter's enemies you're honestly better off just doing the next chapter instead. You get 1exp for spotpass battles, and trying your luck at sparkly tiles is more worth it than that.

Normal is kinda the introductory difficulty so, it makes sense that the newcomer-friendly mechanics are more accessible in that mode. Hard at least upped the price of reeking boxes so you no longer make a return on them (4800 cost, 2k back from each risen fight unless despoil or something), for what it's worth.

I still thnk that higher risk should gives higher rewards (in Awakening's case higher EXP Gain (Main reason I think Difficulty in Persona's game is badly done btw), and higher internal level.)

But Lunatic clearly wasn't designed for me anyway.

but in my case, it's not the main reason I play a game.

Things like Story/Ambiance, Gameplay (...) are far more important.

[Thor Odinson]

tbh I think the whole reason Lunatic exists is just for people like me who (sometimes occasionally, sometimes always) like modes that present a real level of threat that Hard can no longer provide, and the whole reward is the difficulty level itself, I ask no else from it

[3Comrades]

Thanks guys, this seems to be the coolest forum about fire emblem on the internet, really was doubting if I should play.

As far as grinding, I will say, part of the reason I started was a problem I had since pokemon. I have to keep my characters equal, at around the same level, but some units are just, well, it is like they are designed to not be played with. Why add characters that are actually detriments? I almost felt I needed them to shine and get them up to par. It would help if every unit was at least somewhat comparable to the others.

Edited May 5, 2015 by 3Comrades

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Awakening has gotten quite a bit better than that compared to some of the older games. I mean, sure, you've still got Ricken and Virion, who excel more at contributing early chip damage and being throwaway dads than long-term use units, or Kellam, whose job doesn't go anywhere beyond support bot (which he is at least excellent at, because +5 Def pair bonus), but at least they've got a purpose. For comparison, look not further than Fiona, Astrid and Lyre of Radiant Dawn. Their stats are so bad that they can't contribute in a meaningful way for 80% of the game (at least, without dumping a bunch of BEXP on them, which kinda defeats the purpose of Fiona's and Astrid's high-ish growths, since BEXP level ups are restricted to 3 stat gains; Lyre can get away with that, but has to deal with being the worst laguz class in the game because of its terrible transformation gauge rates, nevermind being 1-range-locked), then by the time they catch up, most of the other units have been equal or stronger for at least half the game before that.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

Awakening has gotten quite a bit better than that compared to some of the older games. I mean, sure, you've still got Ricken and Virion, who excel more at contributing early chip damage and being throwaway dads than long-term use units, or Kellam, whose job doesn't go anywhere beyond support bot (which he is at least excellent at, because +5 Def pair bonus), but at least they've got a purpose. For comparison, look not further than Fiona, Astrid and Lyre of Radiant Dawn. Their stats are so bad that they can't contribute in a meaningful way for 80% of the game (at least, without dumping a bunch of BEXP on them, which kinda defeats the purpose of Fiona's and Astrid's high-ish growths, since BEXP level ups are restricted to 3 stat gains; Lyre can get away with that, but has to deal with being the worst laguz class in the game because of its terrible transformation gauge rates, nevermind being 1-range-locked), then by the time they catch up, most of the other units have been equal or stronger for at least half the game before that.

i'd still say that FE6 contains some of the worst units in the series, but those three are hilariously awful, hell Astrid's nearly unusable without transfers, and even without thoses she still needs to get lucky on her levels.

so yeah, awakening has units that i would atleast use for abit during my 2 playtho's

Edited May 4, 2015 by HF Makalov Fanboy Kai

[Thor Odinson]

FE traditionally wasn't really designed for all 40-50 or so of its cast to all be trained at the same level, so some difficulties to do so in nogrind could arise from that. There are a bunch of characters who are, yes, very subpar, but it's still possible to get them up to speed without grinding if you do a focused team instead. I do think the character usability levels still isn't perfect because some characters are very difficult and require a lot of effort and don't even give you good returns, but I mean, if you're trying to get everyone on the entire roster to be the same level in nogrind, that's not likely to happen no matter how good or easy to train are unless you're playing FE4, deployment slots and all.

but hey, if you like to have equal levels across team and the game gives you the option to do so via grinding, that's a pretty good opportunity to take it to do so.

[shadowofchaos]

Edit: Sorry, wrong thread.

Edited May 12, 2015 by shadowofchaos

[Respite&Nepenthe]

I don't see the point of this thread now that Casual has been confirmed.

[ENS]

PHOENIX

GG no re

[Roflolxp54]

Me: bah, who needs Casual when you can have either Phoenix or Classic mode?