Difficulty questions

[Wayward Alchemist]

For Hoshido, Nohr, and Invisible, how hard are they? Preferably compare them to Awakening or the GBA titles because those are the only ones I've played.

[MCProductions]

While I haven't played the games myself yet, I've heard Nohr referred to as the second coming of Thracia 776, which is by far the hardest FE game. If this is to be believed, Nohr is harder than HHM of FE7, which is the toughest time I've had on the GBA games.

Hoshido from what I've heard, is Awakening difficulty wise with Samurai swords.

Haven't heard anything about the third route, but it is supposedly in between in terms of difficulty

[Azz]

While I haven't played the games myself yet, I've heard Nohr referred to as the second coming of Thracia 776, which is by far the hardest FE game. If this is to be believed, Nohr is harder than HHM of FE7, which is the toughest time I've had on the GBA games.

Hoshido from what I've heard, is Awakening difficulty wise with Samurai swords.

Haven't heard anything about the third route, but it is supposedly in between in terms of difficulty

Well apparently with IK, it has the same difficulty as Nohr but it has grinding like Hoshido.

[MCProductions]

In that case, Nohr with DLC and IK are the same difficulty wise, since DLC adds grinding to Nohr.

2 Thracias and one Awakening, this gonna be good

Edited July 31, 2015 by MCProductions

[gayserbeam]

Hoshido is not super easy at all. It simply allows you to grind, but before the very late game you'll eventually reach a level where there are no skirmishes that offer more than 1 EXP, so you can't really grind more than five or so levels past where you should be for that chapter. Overall Hoshido Hard is at least more difficult than the fairly easy FE8, FE9, FE11, and FE13.

Hoshido's difficulty comes from strong enemies and because your team is made up of squishy glass cannons with no HP or defence. Nohr is just generally hard, with some maps having tight time limits, difficult gimmicks, seemingly endless reinforcements and some devious map layouts.

Nohr is also the more traditional Fire Emblem. You get an Oifey early on (Camilla), you have high defense units to guard checkpoints, you get two cavaliers at the beginning, etc. Meanwhile, in Hoshido you have no real Jeigan or Oifey after chapter 6, and units have generally low Move and defence aside from Pegasi, who are squishy and in a game full of archers. Nohr is still much harder, but Hoshido compensates for the advantages of grinding well.

[Water Mage]

Hoshido is not super easy at all. It simply allows you to grind, but before the very late game you'll eventually reach a level where there are no skirmishes that offer more than 1 EXP, so you can't really grind more than five or so levels past where you should be for that chapter. Overall Hoshido Hard is at least more difficult than the fairly easy FE8, FE9, FE11, and FE13.

Hoshido's difficulty comes from strong enemies and because your team is made up of squishy glass cannons with no HP or defence. Nohr is just generally hard, with some maps having tight time limits, difficult gimmicks, seemingly endless reinforcements and some devious map layouts.

Nohr is also the more traditional Fire Emblem. You get an Oifey early on (Camilla), you have high defense units to guard checkpoints, you get two cavaliers at the beginning, etc. Meanwhile, in Hoshido you have no real Jeigan or Oifey after chapter 6, and units have generally low Move and defence aside from Pegasi, who are squishy and in a game full of archers. Nohr is still much harder, but Hoshido compensates for the advantages of grinding well.

Couldn't Felicia/Jakob be considered the Oifey or Jeigan of Hoshido/Nohr? Or they aren't strong enough for the role?

[mimasho]

I had no problems with Hoshido normal mode;

I did very little grinding and did not go out of my way to pick up any skills.

I made all the children inherit whatever skill I last got -

it was very low key and pretty...normal lol

battles took about thirty minutes if I was being careful and didn't want to lose any units.

I only used characters that I liked and only used ones that weren't leveled too highly above the enemies

(for example, did not use characters like Yuugiri or Ryouma since they were much stronger than the enemies when they are first recruited).

For IK on hard mode, I also do very little grinding except when I'm trying to get funds;

even then, my units barely get any exp. Units that were really useful in my normal mode like Felicia tend to be a bit floppy.

Not going to lie, some maps have taken me 2+ hours recorded (that means not including the 10+ times I reset and replayed)

because I am super stubborn and want to keep everyone alive as well as bring in weaker units to support and leech exp and whatnot ; U ;

Hard's not bad though, it's a lot funner imo since you actually have to plan out a lot of things.

So far, none of the IK maps have taken me less than one hour to complete ~

Haven't officially started Nohr (still pre-chapter six on my cartridge),

but I'm doing normal on that one and I'll have all the DLCs available, so not too sure about how more more different it will be from my Hoshido run ~

[gayserbeam]

Couldn't Felicia/Jakob be considered the Oifey or Jeigan of Hoshido/Nohr? Or they aren't strong enough for the role?

They are technically prepromotes, but their base stats and EXP gain are on par with your other units. Felicia especially is definitely not a Jeigan, an Joker, while powerful, is just as squishy as the rest of the team unless reclassed.

[Aquaze]

Having played all 3 paths i'd say from most difficult to least its Nohr>IK>Hoshido

Nohr: Was REALLY difficult. I played all 3 paths on hard. Honestly my issue with Nohr wasn't so much the difficulty but the fact that you can't grind. Heres why.

In past Fire emblems where you couldn't grind usually when you got a new unit the chapter you got them on and maybe a few chapters after there were plenty of easy enemies to funnel exp into the unit you just got.

Nohr doesn't do that. To give you an example, in the chapter where you get charlotte and Benoit Charlotte comes at level 10 when most of your units are 15+ and enemies are destroying your 15+ units. There is almost no way to actually feed a massively underleveled axe unit kills if you actually want to use them. Thats my problem with Nohr, each chapter is so hard that you can pretty much never choose who you actually want to use. Its pretty much just "Who can survive this chapter? Okay they get all the exp" I think the only late joining units I got that could hold their own were Leon and marx, everyone else was just fodder.

IK: Some chapters are annoying and hard like chapter 9 due to hazards and strong enemies and the boss is a pain in the ass with super high avoid. Others can be simple, but I love this route the most, its as hard as you make it and you get so many units and you can choose to use whoever you want.

Hoshido: Easiest but still pretty tough lategame since most of your units can't take a hit and most enemies use lances to shit on your swords and are tanky as hell.

I feel like most people who are hyping up Nohr and haven't played it yet are going to be disappointed if they care at all about who they want to use. If you just want to beat the story thats fine but I would say it has the least replayability out of all the routes because certain chapters basically force you to use certain characters and feed all the exp into them.

Another example is the chapter where Odin and Zero join. Odin is weak as hell on this chapter and Zero destroys most of the enemies. I wanted to use Odin and not zero so it made actually beating the chapter much much harder.

[Othin]

Invisible Kingdom is not as hard as Nohr, grinding or no grinding. All three have very distinct difficulty levels. Hell, I did more grinding on Nohr than on Invisible Kingdom.

I've been able to use Mozume just fine on Hoshido Lunatic, so I really don't think character selection is an issue. Dual Attacks make weak characters a lot more effective and easier to train by calling in strong ones to do the real damage.

Edited July 31, 2015 by Othin

[Cinnamon Bun]

I'm sure it'll be frustrating at times but I'm relieved to hear that the Nohr route is hard. Awakening was so mind numbingly easy, even on hard mode, but I could never get passed like chapter 5 on Lunatic mode?? -__-

[MCProductions]

TBF, grinding does exist in Nohr, but you have to cross a pay wall to reach it, so there's a way to increase Nohrian replayability

The fact that it's hard both hypes me, and scares me to the point I may do my first run on Casual.

[Othin]

Nohr puts up a good fight at times but I'm sure anyone familiar with FE could at least handle it on Normal Classic. It's harder than the other routes but not fundamentally scarier than past FE games.

[MCProductions]

Oh, good then.

I was planning my first run to either be on Normal Classic, or Hard Casual.

[Dark Sage]

Nohr on Normal sounds like its somewhere between FE6 Normal and FE6 Hard in difficulty, and its hard mode is on par with FE6 Hard and the Dawn Brigade maps in FE10 HM, with Camilla basically serving the same role Sothe and Volug do.

At least, that's from what I've heard. To someone who's played it, how accurate is my analysis?

[CocoaGalaxy]

My own thoughts on the difficulty

Hoshido Normal: Awakening Hard +25/50%

Hoshido Hard: Awakening Hard +50/75%

Hoshido Lunatic: Awakening Lunatic

Nohr Normal: Awakening Hard +75%

Nohr Hard: Awakening Hard + 85%

Nohr Lunatic: Sorry I honestly don't know

Invisible Kingdom Normal: Awakening Hard +60%

Invisible Kingdom Hard: Dunno

Invisible Kingdom Lunatic: Awakening Lunatic

Hoshido Lunatic seems comparable to Awakening Lunatic, or so I would say anyway

Invisible Kingdom Lunatic is more difficult than Hoshido Lunatic, presumably just in a different way, but it is more difficult. I don't think it's as hard as Lunatic Plus though...

Like, I find FE12 Lunatic Reverse and FE13 Lunatic Plus to be more difficult. The Lunatics are difficult, but still fair. The Normals are "easier", but not necessarily "Easy"

I've heard a lot of people talking about how easy/difficult the game was though, I dunno what's up with that.

Edited August 2, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[lysander]

I've heard a lot of people talking about how easy/difficult the game was though, I dunno what's up with that.

It's probably because difficulty was awakening's weakest point, whatever other complaints exist for it. Normal was way too easy, Hard was still too easy most of the time, even without using pair-up, and Lunatic had a weird curve to it where it was really hard but then kind of easy even without abuses of which there are many. Lunatic+ is challenging throughout, but also kind of RNG hell and really unfair at times--most people prefer lunatic with other restrictions applied to try to keep it hard later on.

RD maniac was problems due to removing some strategy/ease of use features and even on hard with no tower FE8 was spotty too, but I'd say no game did difficulty levels/curve worse than awakening. It's been nice seeing/hearing that Fates difficulty levels don't seem to "skip" a step or become meaningless as you progress.

The biggest thing I've seen, in terms of complaints/stuff they could've done better, is that some units probably could've used a more aggressive increase to their base stats or starting level for lunatic in fates.

Edited August 2, 2015 by lysander

[..-. --.-]

How is Lunatic on this game? I rly don t want to do a Frederick emlem (in this case Kamui emblem) run again.

I liked when I had grinded everything on my Lunatic run that still people could do damage to me.

[Supercredit]

Hoshido is not easy. It's average comparatively. Nohr is harder (motherf*cking chapter 10...) but the maps are generally more fun.

I'm still finishing Nohr so I haven't moved on to IK yet. I'm excited for it though

[Water Mage]

From what seeing, it seems that the reason Hoshido is easier is mostly because of the victory conditions, as they are simpler and the fact that you can grind.

For those who have played the game, is my guess right? Or are there other reasons for why Hoshido is easier?

Do you think that if the Hoshido maps had similar victory conditions as Nohr, and didn't allow for grinding, would the Hoshido path be as hard as Nohr?

Edited August 2, 2015 by Water Mage

[Othin]

From what seeing, it seems that the reason Hoshido is easier is mostly because of the victory conditions, as they are simpler and the fact that you can grind.

For those who have played the game, is my guess right? Or are there other reasons for why Hoshido is easier?

Do you think that if the Hoshido maps had similar victory conditions as Nohr, and didn't allow for grinding, would the Hoshido path be as hard as Nohr?

No. Nohr has a lot more to its maps than just the victory conditions, giving enemies cool tricks like specifically tailored skills and tricky Dragon Vein effects.

[Water Mage]

No. Nohr has a lot more to its maps than just the victory conditions, giving enemies cool tricks like specifically tailored skills and tricky Dragon Vein effects.

I see, is Dragon Vein more common and more chaotic on the Nohr route? Also is there something the Nohr units lack in regards to weapons, classes and stats? You know, similar to how pretty much everyone in Hoshido lacks defense.

[Othin]

I see, is Dragon Vein more common and more chaotic on the Nohr route? Also is there something the Nohr units lack in regards to weapons, classes and stats? You know, similar to how pretty much everyone in Hoshido lacks defense.

I wouldn't say more chaotic, but I definitely noticed both player and enemy Dragon Vein effects having more of a presence in shaping map-specific strategy in Nohr compared to Hoshido. Haven't noticed any stat patterns in any route.

[Water Mage]

I wouldn't say more chaotic, but I definitely noticed both player and enemy Dragon Vein effects having more of a presence in shaping map-specific strategy in Nohr compared to Hoshido. Haven't noticed any stat patterns in any route.

Really? I've heard a lot of people saying that a lot of Hoshido units lack defense.

[Othin]

Really? I've heard a lot of people saying that a lot of Hoshido units lack defense.

I can believe it; it's just not something I've personally noticed.