How to screw up the plans of LTC players

[Shin]

Snowy, your crusade against LTC seems to be more an attempt at self justification than any substantial issues. Just because you don't do LTC doesn't mean that either you or LTCers have to be inferior. It also doesn't mean you need to try and dismiss a playstyle as unskilled in order to objectify your own views.

You also make the fatal mistake that LTC strategies, whilst often similar due to optimal methods, change and require a player's ability to create meaningful change. Most of my play is semi-efficient, but I can see that it takes a fair bit of thinking to carry out LTC. Drafting is a lot like LTC, although with a certain set of requirements, and that certainly takes some planning. Casual play's not inferior by any means, but it's not using the same metric. It's like trying to measure both length and weight in the same units.

In short, I'd recommend you sit down for a little bit and think about the opinions you've decided to share. I have a feeling I know where they're coming from, maybe you will too!

[dondon151]

Edit: The sort of play through I want to see a LTC player do is one where they utilize the worst characters with no pre-planned strategy yet still push their best to get as low a turn-count as possible. Since LTC plays require both great characters and pre-planned strategies it's an impossible achievement. Show me and I'll stop.

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=56675

i am playing 0% growths so i have to use bad characters in conjunction with good ones (and many good characters are now much worse), and none of these strategies were planned until i starting planning them about 3 months ago and which i am in fact still in the process of planning right now.

i was originally going to ask general horace for help on chapter 1 but ended up not doing so because i didn't have enough patience and i thought i could figure out an improvement to his 9-turn. the chapter 2 strategy is entirely novel and has never been characterized before.

come on, man, enough of this "pre-planned" bullshit; strategies don't just materialize out of the aether. someone has to start from nothing first.

EDIT:

I don't think anyone actually does that (i.e. complete the game in their heads). If you have some plan, no matter how vague or to the point, you will still watch it undergo some changes and variation, often significant ones.

i can actually do this with some chapters if they're not overly long or complex. i would contend that this requires a great deal of skill, contrary to snowy's contention.

Edited August 20, 2015 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

If they sat down, planned out their battles before even turning on the game, especially down to the move, and so-forth then it voids the point. Doing a 0% run where characters do not grow is also not utilizing the best units.

I don't think anyone actually does that (i.e. complete the game in their heads). If you have some plan, no matter how vague or to the point, you will still watch it undergo some changes and variation, often significant ones.

And it looks like there's no pleasing you. Using the best units in LTC bad, and not using the best units is also bad (though dondon can argue the units he's using are generally already some of the best the game offers aside from that one earlygame cav or peg).

A certain trainee would disagree with you.

General!Amelia? Don't be silly.

You're following a pre-set strategy down to the move with little room for variation. There is no skill.

There's plenty of room for variation (in terms of units you focus on and moreso execution) and plenty of room for improvement (though the best strategy still needs to be figured out, it doesn't just grow on a tree waiting to be harvested); otherwise, LTC runs wouldn't be re-done by different and often the same players bringing fresh ideas in.

I've seen it pop up tons of times, especially on Gamefaqs. Not to mention the general mentality that LTC is the ONLY way to play/measure skill/unit power.

There are barely any LTCers on GameFAQs (or anywhere else for that matter). If somebody there really is making asinine comments supposedly in support of LTC I have a fairly good idea who that might be, however, but yeah, that person will keep making an ass of himself all over the cyberspace.

"Measuring skill" seems irrelevant. Nobody is out measuring dick sizes in the LTC community (and if one is they won't find much of a response), and it would be a little a lot of wasted time to spend hours upon hours clearing chapters in LTC-style just to impress 2 people on the internet who are LTC players themselves.

I don't think LTC is used much as a tier list criterion; "reliably efficiency" and "casual efficiency" have been focal in this regard for an extremely long time (most tiering seems quite dead though). If you want to dethrone this tiering criterion, then good luck, but you haven't made anywhere near a decent case for any alternative yet.

Edit: The sort of play through I want to see a LTC player do is one where they utilize the worst characters with no pre-planned strategy yet still push their best to get as low a turn-count as possible. Since LTC plays require both great characters and pre-planned strategies it's an impossible achievement. Show me and I'll stop.

Why such unhealthy emphasis about the "pre-planned" aspect? Do you know people LTC games they have no prior acquaintance with at all on rare occasion?

Your claim as to what is "good" or defines proper skill or whatever is, as has been expected, entirely random and perplexing if one tries to make any sense of it. You might as well say "oh to have a REAL MAYUN'S LTC run you must use the worst unit in the game, only use axes, never heal, OH and every chapter you must let somebody die".

[Jotari]

Make the only mounted unit in the game an Est.

[Shrouded In Myth]

Snowy, let me be honest with you; you really don't know what you're talking about. Nobody was really calling you a scrub, but if I may be a tad brusque, you are a textbook example of a scrub by David Sirlin's definition. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

That article is more geared to competitive games, but a lot of it applies to Fire Emblem as well, so I hope the sentiment doesn't get lost with you, especially since you play competitive games like LOL and HS.

"The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning"

You seem to think that doing this, by let's say selecting top-tiers, means you're unskilled.

"Many scrubs have strong ties to “innovation.” They say, “That guy didn’t do anything new, so he is no good.” Or “person X invented that technique and person Y just stole it.” Well, person Y might be one hundred times better than person X, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the scrub. When person Y wins the tournament and person X is a forgotten footnote, what will the scrub say? That person Y has “no skill” of course."

This is quite literally what you're doing, not only in regards to Fire Emblem but also Hearthstone and League of Legends. I'm not very familiar with the latter two, but if "unskilled players" use cookie-cutter builds and actually win, well they actually do understand their character/deck, because if they didn't they wouldn't win.

[Lord Raven]

so tl;dr the best way to ruin an LTC player's plans is to make the maps randomly generated so players can't pre-plan

[Shrouded In Myth]

so tl;dr the best way to ruin an LTC player's plans is to make the maps randomly generated so players can't pre-plan

Obviously the only video game genre that require skill are rogue-likes, real ones like Net Hack and not baby's first rouge-likes such as Rogue Legacy.

(I'm mostly joking)

[Espinosa]

Actually, I'd be happy to play something like that. I think dondon and I sorta did something of the sort when LTCing TRS though? Some of the mandatory non-storyline maps are largely randomised.

[Jotari]

Actually randomized bases within a certain degree of variety could be interesting. Though I'm sure LTCs would find someway to get good ones.

[Shrouded In Myth]

I wouldn't mind if they experimented with Lunatic+ some more, and ironed out the flaws. It would be pretty cool to play.

[Nobody]

I see just the opposite with LTC players sitting down and finding the one or two 'best' strategies to beating a level then sticking through it. They're about as skilled as following a step-by-step strategy guide that they didn't even make. Yet they take this mentality and insist it's the ONLY way to play and rank units and anything that DARES oppose it is bad for the game!

Show me a LTC player doing a LTC run who can do well while using the worst units in the game WITHOUT min-maxing or using a pre-planned strategy and I'll admit that they have true skill. But since all LTC players rely on pre-planned and idealized strategies utilizing the best units possible in the game I will have to admit nothing.

Except most often than not they come up with their own strategies.

Just follow any draft in which a LTC player has played and got like 4th or 5th pick lol

[Anouleth]

Actually randomized bases within a certain degree of variety could be interesting. Though I'm sure LTCs would find someway to get good ones.

Supposedly, Fates Lunatic mode "pre-rolls" all level ups at the start of the game, making it impossible to reset for better level ups. If the game says that Kamui's seventeenth level will be HP/MAG/SKL/LUK, that's all it will ever be (unless you reclass or whatever).

[dondon151]

TRS encounters had some random elements and FE5 enemies had huge stat variations

both of them kind of sucked because randomness screws up potential strategies. like i said previously, randomness is the way to fuck up LTC.

[Jotari]

TRS encounters had some random elements and FE5 enemies had huge stat variations

both of them kind of sucked because randomness screws up potential strategies. like i said previously, randomness is the way to fuck up LTC.

But would LTC players not like that? It would encourage finding better strategies to overcome the random element and overall make a bigger variety in the turn count records. Your favorite game is Thracia according to your profile, is it for things like that or unrelated LTC reasons?

[Florete]

However it is possible to change it so that turn counts no longer become a good metric.

If things have to change so that turn counts are no longer a good metric, that means you finally believe that turn counts currently are a good metric.

I'm proud of you, Snowy.

[Dunal]

You basically just need to emphasise growth rates over base stats for most units to some degree and make it so enemies scale hard into the lategame.

That's the best way to make LTCing extremely difficult. And if you -are- LTCing, you'll need to balance EXP and turn counts which I feel could be achieve by the best of players.

Let's be honest, FE never scales hard enough and the early maps are nearly always the more difficult ones. And most FEs tend to have enough base stat oriented units to accomplish ridiculous efficiency.

Edited August 20, 2015 by DLuna

[Irysa]

You basically just need to emphasise growth rates over base stats for most units to some degree and make it so enemies scale hard into the lategame.

FE12 Lunatic already does that though, and the importance of growth is not really what makes that game "hard".

Edited August 20, 2015 by Irysa

[dondon151]

But would LTC players not like that? It would encourage finding better strategies to overcome the random element and overall make a bigger variety in the turn count records. Your favorite game is Thracia according to your profile, is it for things like that or unrelated LTC reasons?

i just think that FE5 is an innovative game that presents interesting scenarios. as far as quality of life aspects go, it's terrible. it's single-RN hit, the enemy stats have huge variance, and there are so many tiny luck-based things in that game such as movement stars, movement growth, build growth, and staff accuracy.

the lowest of LTC strategies involve rigging leif's 3% movement growth and 5% movement star over and over again. you can't match those turncounts unless you rig that. the lowest turncounts for certain maps involve specific enemies being within certain stat ranges, and it's basically impossible to have a contingency for when the variance gets absurd. for example, in FE11 you can have an enemy that can vary by 1 point in def and a contingency for defeating that enemy would be simply to always assume that that enemy gets +1 def. but if the enemy can vary 3 points in def and you can only feasibly cover 1 point of variance, then your only available contingency would be to either take an extra turn or to reset.

in any case we've totally exposed snowy for being a fool so can we stop responding to him please

Edited August 20, 2015 by dondon151

[Dunal]

FE12 Lunatic already does that though, and the importance of growth is not really what makes that game "hard".

I haven't really looked up "efficiently" runs of that game and all I can only predict is that only Palla, MU and Sirius (base stats) are the main reason why you can remotely afford to speed through the early maps.

I do think to a degree that a game can't be too growth reliant because there is far too much variance in how any particular unit can turn out -- so they can't be too high by themselves. But if the latter maps are tuned around possibly low stat caps that your units can feasibly reach -- and balance enemies according, you can tune things to a point where EXP is important and said later maps can't be stomped.

Obviously, map design and player tools (like warping/dancing) contribute a lot to things but this is the main aspect.

Edited August 21, 2015 by DLuna

[Snowy_One]

Snowy, your crusade against LTC seems to be more an attempt at self justification than any substantial issues.

My crusade against them is that I've seen far too many people use tiers and turn-counts to justify their status as 'superior' and degrade others. I realize tiers are, more or less, a real thing and decently valid but people who insist that the only way to be skilled is LTC or follow the tier lists ruled by LTC, like smash back on Gamefaqs, more than made me resent the notion. Especially since they'd turn it around so that it wasn't a tier list so much as a justification for their dislike of certain characters.

You also make the fatal mistake that LTC strategies, whilst often similar due to optimal methods, change and require a player's ability to create meaningful change. Most of my play is semi-efficient, but I can see that it takes a fair bit of thinking to carry out LTC.

​If you're running LTC you're following a pre-set strategy of smites, rescue-drops, dances, and what-have-you to cut time down as much as possible. You cannot be flexible in LTC. Otherwise what you are doing is not LTC.

And it looks like there's no pleasing you. Using the best units in LTC bad, and not using the best units is also bad (though dondon can argue the units he's using are generally already some of the best the game offers aside from that one earlygame cav or peg).

Because it's an impossibility to make an LTC with inferior units. You use the best in the idealized strategy and ignore anything that does not fit.

There's plenty of room for variation (in terms of units you focus on and moreso execution) and plenty of room for improvement (though the best strategy still needs to be figured out, it doesn't just grow on a tree waiting to be harvested); otherwise, LTC runs wouldn't be re-done by different and often the same players bringing fresh ideas in.

And then, once the fresh ideas come in, if they reduce turn-counts they become part of the pre-set strategy or are discarded.

"Measuring skill" seems irrelevant. Nobody is out measuring dick sizes in the LTC community (and if one is they won't find much of a response), and it would be a little a lot of wasted time to spend hours upon hours clearing chapters in LTC-style just to impress 2 people on the internet who are LTC players themselves.

If people didn't care they wouldn't even be reading this topic or, at least, not replying to my dislike of the metric. After all there is no need to defend 2 people and a discussion can always bring new ideas that might change the game for the better.

I don't think LTC is used much as a tier list criterion; "reliably efficiency" and "casual efficiency" have been focal in this regard for an extremely long time (most tiering seems quite dead though). If you want to dethrone this tiering criterion, then good luck, but you haven't made anywhere near a decent case for any alternative yet.

Because no one is willing to talk about it without reverting to turn-count measurements. Maybe a unit that completes a map faster is better than another unit but to assume that is a constant that applies to all units or even a play style outside of the only one relative to the list is foolish.

Why such unhealthy emphasis about the "pre-planned" aspect? Do you know people LTC games they have no prior acquaintance with at all on rare occasion?

And fail to get the lowest turn-count due to sub-optimal strategy. At which point they will go look up the current meta and follow the builds and plans should they try an LTC again.

I'm not very familiar with the latter two, but if "unskilled players" use cookie-cutter builds and actually win, well they actually do understand their character/deck, because if they didn't they wouldn't win.

All the strategy in the world won't save you from a Deathwing breathing down your throat when the best cards in your entire deck are the mere starting cards. You might be able to poly-kill one legendary, maybe even two or more (cards can be duplicated. Had a six Deathwing showdown in Tavern Brawl. Hectic to say the least) but when your opponent is simply in a different card weight class...

Likewise in LoL even if you sat down and studied the best characters and builds you could be easily curbed by a poor champion who actually knows and understands the game. The character means nothing, skill is everything. When I was a healer back in WoW I sat down and did my homework to find the best builds and practiced them. But I saw plenty of people in 'horrible' classes/builds do amazingly well while people in 'ideal' builds flaunted their set-ups and the like despite doing horrible on DPS/heals/tanking. I chose Holy Priest and stuck to it because it was what worked with me. Even when it was considered the 'worst' healing build. All the people who flaunted their pre-made set-ups, their online decks, their item builds, most of them made stupid mistakes like standing in the fire, not bothering to even attempt to co-ordinate with their support, or forfeited matches the moment they realized that their opponent could mess up their big plan with a basic, common, spell and had no fallback because all they knew was the one set-up. All before turning around and insulting the 'scrub' who 'lost' the team battle despite said 'scrub' being the unquestioned best on the team. It didn't matter if Poppy just took on three opponents to save them and took down two of them while they fled in a panic. Poppy is 'low tier' and died so her player sucks!

I'm sick of that sort of thing and LTC is FE's equivalent. Even if it was a true measure of skill, the ONLY measure of skill, if people use it to insult and degrade others accomplishments I WILL oppose them!

Oh god.

Oh god.

I'm such a fucking hypocrite.

You work hard to get these strategies and have fun with them but then I come along and insult you and claim you're unskilled. Even if I mean well and didn't intend to stroke my e-peen I'm doing the SAME FUCKING THING as them!

*sigh*

I'm sorry. I need to calm down and think for a bit.

[Irysa]

I haven't really looked up "efficiently" runs of that game and all I can only predict is that only Palla, MU and Sirius (base stats) are the main reason why you can remotely afford to speed through the early maps.

I do think to a degree that a game can't be too growth reliant because there is far too much variance in how any particular unit can turn out -- so they can't be too high by themselves. But if the latter maps are tuned around possibly low stat caps that your units can feasibly reach -- and balance enemies according, you can tune things to a point where EXP is important and said later maps can't be stomped.

Obviously, map design and player tools (like warping/dancing) contribute a lot to things but this is the main aspect.

Well, strong earlygame units carry earlygame, but MU is a growth unit. MU base stats are good but good turn counts involve rigging growth in Prologue. Efficient clears for later maps rely a lot on Catria, Luke (or some other Horseman) and to a lesser extent, Linde hitting or getting near their speed caps, and it's also very important to train Marth an adequate amount or the final boss is close to impossible. MU, Arran, Sirius and Palla carry weaker teammates as they grow and become relatively self sufficient, then those weaker units can gorge on EXP in the Dragon chapters with effective weaponry to become strong enough to deal with the late-midgame and lategame enemies. FE12's caps arent Thracia low, but lategame Lunatic is most certainly designed around your main units reaching them. Many enemies are only just barely doubleable by capped stats and are much harder to deal with otherwise. Swordmaster's class base speed is something of a safety net, but it's not ideal; one would much rather have a high speed Falcoknight and a Horseman.

EXP management is important but the real challenge in that game is the map design...I don't think emphasising growth makes LTC much "harder" at all, just potentially more tedious. FE13 is also growth centric, but the enemies dont really keep up with the potential stat inflation the player can achieve due to absurdly high caps.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Irysa

[dondon151]

no snowy, if you can LTC without growths, then you can LTC with bad characters or whatever silly restriction you want. 0% LTC is like the equivalent of low tier battles in competitive games.

Edited August 21, 2015 by dondon151

[Florete]

The amount of stuff Snowy claims LTCers do that they don't is rather astounding. At least around these parts.

Then again, did Snowy just have an epiphany? What may come of this?

[NinjaMonkey]

Can someone please tell me why we need to screw up the plans of LTC players in the first place?

[Mekkah]

Apparently the best way to screw up an LTCer's plans is to have Snowy make posts in this thread, cause they all feel so inclined to keep replying to him that they're not going to get anything else done. : ')