Elements of Fire Emblem: Triangularity

[sithys]

Welcome to Elements of Fire Emblem, a series of topics about Fire Emblem from a critical perspective. In this first topic I want to talk about triangularity, a concept described in Jesse Schell's book on game design.

Triangularity is a word that Schell uses to describe "balanced asymmetric risk" in his chapter on game balance. The player is one point of the triangle, a low-risk low-reward choice is the second point, and a high-risk high-reward choice makes up the third point of the triangle. To quote Schell: "One of the most exciting and interesting choices for a player to make is whether to play it safe and go for a small reward or take a big risk to try for a big reward." He also says that monotonous games "can quickly become exciting and rewarding when you add a dash of triangularity."

Enemy thieves and brigands provide a source of triangularity in many Fire Emblem games. The player is presented with a choice, play it safe or take a risk. The guarantee that everyone will survive the chapter is the small reward, the contents of the chest or village constitute the big reward. Only when the player risks being caught out of position is he or she able to chase down a thief or brigand before they make off with the treasure or destroy the village. Even if the player theorizes a good strategy the risk still ends up being higher than playing it safe, if only slightly.

I also want to talk about a specific chapter from Radiant Dawn, the Part 1 Endgame.

In this chapter you are given a very fast and powerful unit, the Wolf Queen. A thief spawns at the top of the steps and very quickly makes way for the treasures at the top of the map. The Wolf Queen can be used to reliably and safely chase down the thief and kill him before he has a chance to steal anything. This is the low risk option, but how is the reward lower? Simply put, the Wolf Queen is so strong that she will one-shot everything that aggros on to her, which costs your party a great deal of experience. In this case the player's high-risk option is to try to use standard units with an aggressive strategy to kill the thief early in the chapter. If they succeed, they will be rewarded not only with the contents of the chest but also with the experience needed to level up those standard units.

Consider these two questions:

1. What other aspects of Fire Emblem embody the quality of triangularity?
2. What mechanics would you add to Fire Emblem to specifically create the quality of triangularity?

I will update this first post with people's responses to the first question and I will try to reply with an analysis of your answer to the second question. But feel free to comment however you like!

[DragonFlames]

The thing is: the aggressive approach with standard units in the Part 1 Endgame of Radiant Dawn doesn't work... because they all suck (mostly, but one to three characters can't beat the map on their own, not even Zihark or Volug... which are the strongest standard units the Dawn Brigade gets) (or I just suck, because I can't manage to do that...).

So the game basically forces you to use Nailah/the Black Knight to plow through the enemies and kill the thief, since, with the alternative, the thief will escape with the treasure or you lose one to two units (which is suicidal with the Dawn Brigade, considering part 3).

But on topic: I think a good example for triangularity is to choose not to use arena abusing (in Blazing Sword or Sword of Seals) or just playing through the game normally and pretend like you cannot grind (in Sacred Stones and Awakening).

If you don't arena abuse, you will provide yourself with a challenge of having weaker units and if you manage to beat the game that way, you will have a big reward. But that involves higher risks, since you have to plan out more carefully who you train and when to use them. Same with the grinding. If you do arena abuse/grind, you can beat the came a little easier with a lot less risk involved, but the reward will be smaller.

For the second question... well... I could think of a Fire Emblem game where attacking someone with a Weapon Triangle advantage (i.e. attack someone who has an axe with a lance) yields 1.5x more experience points and attacking someone with a Weapon Triangle disadvantage (i.e. attack someone who has a sword with a lance) yields 0.5x experience points.

Or attacking with magic/Javelin/throwing axe from a distance does less damage than attacking with magic/Javelin/throwing axe from a close range if the enemy wields a close range weapon like a sword and reversed if the enemy wields a long-range weapon like a bow (neutral damage for enemies with weapons for both purposes, like Javelins or Magic)

I hope I got the theory right...

Edited July 17, 2015 by DragonFlames

[sithys]

The thing is: the aggressive approach with standard units in the Part 1 Endgame of Radiant Dawn doesn't work... because they all suck (mostly, but one to three characters can't beat the map on their own, not even Zihark or Volug... which are the strongest standard units the Dawn Brigade gets) (or I just suck, because I can't manage to do that...).

So the game basically forces you to use Nailah/the Black Knight to plow through the enemies and kill the thief, since, with the alternative, the thief will escape with the treasure or you lose one to two units (which is suicidal with the Dawn Brigade, considering part 3).

But on topic: I think a good example for triangularity is to choose not to use arena abusing (in Blazing Sword or Sword of Seals) or just playing through the game normally and pretend like you cannot grind (in Sacred Stones and Awakening).

If you don't arena abuse, you will provide yourself with a challenge of having weaker units and if you manage to beat the game that way, you will have a big reward. But that involves higher risks, since you have to plan out more carefully who you train and when to use them. Same with the grinding. If you do arena abuse/grind, you can beat the came a little easier with a lot less risk involved, but the reward will be smaller.

For the second question... well... I could think of a Fire Emblem game where attacking someone with a Weapon Triangle advantage (i.e. attack someone who has an axe with a lance) yields 1.5x more experience points and attacking someone with a Weapon Triangle disadvantage (i.e. attack someone who has a sword with a lance) yields 0.5x experience points.

Or attacking with magic/Javelin/throwing axe from a distance does less damage than attacking with magic/Javelin/throwing axe from a close range if the enemy wields a close range weapon like a sword and reversed if the enemy wields a long-range weapon like a bow (neutral damage for enemies with weapons for both purposes, like Javelins or Magic)

I hope I got the theory right...

Thanks for replying DragonFlames. I appreciate the participation! I was afraid that this thread would fall off the page without any replies.

I don't remember having many issues with the Dawn Brigade chapters in Radiant Dawn, but I do remember that that endgame chapter basically required using Nailah to kill the thief if you didn't want to restart the chapter 20 times waiting for the stars to align. Maybe it wasn't the best example of balanced triangularity, but it is a good example of very imbalanced triangularity. It is important that the expected value of the various outcomes be the same. In this case the XP reward of using your weaker units is not nearly enough to justify the effort.

I don't think the challenge of playing through the game with weaker units can be considered a reward. The fact that arenas are nearly risk-free is a critical oversight by the designers. The arenas should give less XP and have a higher chance of killing a unit. The risk of using the arena would create the difficult decision scenario that designers seek to create. As a player you would want to use the arena when a unit is about to level up and you can just do a match or two, which carries less risk than grinding. I believe that a fair challenge should be part of the game by design and the player should not have to adhere to arbitrary self-imposed rules to create a good experience for themselves.

Also, I think the reward for disadvantageously attacking a unit is in some cases balanced and in other cases you have no other choice. I find myself doing it in situations where it is the optimal move. Doing so often opens up a safer position for your units. Yes, you are getting the theory right, but in this case I think this suggestion might create perverse incentives for the player.

Also to respond to your comments about the magic/javelin/throwing axe, those weapons are not in the slightest bit balanced. The hit-rate for ranged melee weapons should be much lower so that there is more risk in using them. Mages should have a lower chance to dodge. They should be glass cannons, not super units. Just a few numbers tweaked here or there would suffice in most cases. At the same time it is important to remember that the enemy placement and stats are designed under the assumption that the player has a certain power level. The enemy usually has lots of units. If you equip a javelin to attack one with range, then get attacked 4 times by melee units that are using standard weapons, then you are at a significant disadvantage while defending against those 4 attacks. So there is some risk even in the base game, but I will admit it could be improved.

I noticed other areas where the designers of FE7 use triangularity. On the pirate ship level in Eliwood's story the entire right half of the map is covered in mercenaries, perfect for farming XP with Florina. However, there is a single archer in the pack and one mercenary with a lancereaver. So the player must manage the risk imposed by those two elements while farming. The player is incentivized to stop and plan out a strategy for mitigating the risk, whereas without those risks the level would be significantly more monotonous.

Edited July 22, 2015 by sithys