Casual Mode: Should there be penalties to losing units?

[Nym]

you still need to provide evidence

as it is, the null hypothesis stands

Ok, I will try with this:

Less stats = less dmgs or less defs

Less dmgs: In a 1 vs 1 situation when your unit dies result as a Game over and this unit has less strengths or magics. He's low in hp and he attack the low hp enemy but because of the debuff, the ennemy doesnt die, the ennemy Attack, hit your unit and he dies, Game over

Less defs: Same situation but your unit need to endure the hit for being able to win but because of less defs or less res, the enemy unit attack, unable to endure the hit, your unit dies, Game over.

Of course there is no dodge or miss in this situation but you wanted evidences and remember in the early game, dodges and miss are rare.

The null hypothesis fall behind an answer.

[Lord Raven]

Fire Emblem would've survived without casual mode.

Really? Why? I know a *great* number of people who were turned off by permadeath and the fact that it's a game inherently dependent on randomness that has a permanent death. I know others who found it hard to pick up more than one game because of perma death. The fact is that it's not a nice game to newbies, and people look to video games for fun and not to necessarily be challenged. It's not like this is school work or some shit where tough love is necessary in most cases, this is just a game and it's something people have said "well I want to enjoy it, but I have other things to do."

The learning curve for this game varies heavily from person to person and if someone wants to play it at its easiest mode? So be it. Go ahead and let them, it's really not affecting your life in any meaningful way lol

The "feel" of losing units for a few turns is unimportant. What matters is whether casual mode makes players better. It does not. In fact, it makes them worse.

I want better players, not merely more players. Fire Emblem can become more accessible without instilling bad strategic habits.

How so? You've said this a few times but you didn't offer up any solutions.

Neither here nor there. Again, there are ways to make Fire Emblem more accessible without coddling players and rewarding bad play.

You're using a lot of extreme words to make your argument sound pretty disingenuous. "Coddling players"? FE is still pretty hard if you suck at resource management. Did you hate the world map too, because it "rewards" bad resource management by throwing more resources at you? If so, then you must hate FE8/9 because they throw EXP/BEXP and money at you like nobody's business, and sometimes just for finishing a map and nothing more (unless you look at FE9 HM). FE7? I think in normal mode most enemies tend to tink Hector and Marcus very quickly. FE4 gave you shit tons of legendary weapons in both generations, although it would be difficult if you have zero access to a guide or are playing blind.

Is Lunatic Casual not hard at all just because there's a Casual mode? Your viewpoints seem to be on Easy Mode Casual, and at that point FE13 is just a grid-based JRPG. There's nothing wrong with that, people like that kind of thing.

And you said it "rewards" bad strategy. It's not rewarding anything. It's just not punishing you. There's a huge difference.

You're also failing to address how FE12/13 were more difficult than any other FE game out there at their hardest modes. So why does it matter if there's a casual mode? Just don't play it; Nintendo probably doesn't make design decisions with Casual mode in mind anyway, not that there's any way to really do that.

Losing a character for an entire map is a somewhat steep punishment too if they die early; if they die late then it's just not frustrating. These people will have one less unit they can use for that map (which means the map actually gets tougher) and that unit misses out on a bunch of EXP/WEXP/etc. I'm not saying Casual mode is tougher, but I'm also not saying it doesn't completely lack difficulty.

Reaaaaaaallllly doubt FE would have been canceled without Casual Mode given it had little to no impact on FE12's sales in Japan compared to previous titles. If FE12 had come out in English with Casual Mode it wouldn't have done that much by itself either; Awakening's success is a result of combination of factors.

New Mystery sold badly because a) I think Japan wasn't too fond of FE11 as a whole and b) the generation of players who thought FE3 was the best FE probably didn't have a DS in like 2011.

You're right in that no casual mode doesn't mean FE would bomb, but I was also attempting to make a bit of an extreme claim in response to an extreme viewpoint. I mean, removing casual mode may not be the best idea either way, especially since I also know people who are starting to play Casual more than Classic on the grounds that they are busy as fuck and don't have time to reset an entire chapter over a character's death. Games are seen as a form of entertainment for most people, and Classic mode can make this game feel more like a chore to most people.

EDIT: dondon i like your idea, I'd randomize the stat lost though (so like -4 HP, -1 Str/mag/skl/spd/def/res, -4 Lck, something like that)

Edited August 26, 2015 by Lord Raven

[Radiant Dragon]

I would like for there to be an extremely minor benefit to playing on Classic mode, like an Afa's Drops-type item/skill or something, just so it's not strictly worse than Casual mode. Definitely nothing story-related, and Casual mode is fine as it is. Anything to add incentive for players to 'move up' to Classic mode (I don't like this term by the way, as it implies Casual mode, and by extension the people who prefer to play it, are inferior) should come from Classic mode itself.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Radiant Dragon

[Gradivus.]

That term isn't offensive, casual genuinely is much less strategic than classic, so getting themselves to play the latter would probably be a step up for people interested in strategy. I think there should be some mild penalty (like dondon suggested) that would encourage circumventing sacrafices, which would make some newcomers consider playing classic, since they would realize that permadeath isn't as restrictive as they assumed. I find encouraging the player to try multiple modes to be an important part of accessibility.

(side note, what I would count as offensive/ridiculous is calling classic "strictly worse", since many people consider it a much more fun way to play)

Edited August 26, 2015 by Gradivus.

[Lord Raven]

The term shouldn't be offensive, but the connotation is that Casual gamers are somehow "less" than classic gamers. How you perceive the word is not necessarily how most people perceive it.

[Baldrick]

How so? You've said this a few times but you didn't offer up any solutions.

If you want solutions, there's Irysa's rewind feature. There was some talk in the last casual mode thread about bringing back mid-chapter saves in some capacity.

It alleviates the frustration of having to reset, while still requiring the player to improve their strategy.

Of course, this is all hypothetical. Now that Casual Mode has been established, it can't really be removed.

[Sunwoo]

I think what bothers me about this thread is the attitude that there should be a penalty for losing units in casual mode. Look, there is no wrong way to play a video game as long as you enjoy it. Because video games are for enjoyment. And it shouldn't be anyone else's business how someone else plays the game.

If a hypothetical FE15 were to drop classic mode and only implement phoenix and casual, I can understand getting upset over that … I wouldn't like it either. But it feels like there are people who get upset at the mere existence of casual mode and want to force people who play on casual to go onto classic even if they may not be comfortable with it. That's not your business. Those players will move onto classic on their own if they want to, but it's not your business to say that they're playing on the "wrong mode" and say that they should have a limited experience because of it.

[Baldrick]

If a hypothetical FE15 were to drop classic mode and only implement phoenix and casual, I can understand getting upset over that … I wouldn't like it either.

Really? You can easily emulate Classic by benching any unit that dies if you don't reset. There's no reason to keep it in just for the benefit of pre-Awakening players.

My issue is not with Casual Mode itself, but backwards-accessibility. The series shouldn't forget its roots, because the more new players can enjoy the older games the more likely they are to stick around.

[Sunwoo]

Well, I'd be "upset" more as in wondering "why would you take out classic mode? It's presence wasn't hurting anything" and then get over it. But I couldn't simulate classic mode on casual mode, just because I know that for me personally if I'm playing on casual mode I am playing on casual mode so I don't have to restart entire chapter because of one stupid fuckup right when I was about to clear a map.

[eclipse]

What happens if the player doesn't have much in the way of gold? Or any gold for that matter?

Sell stuff.

Even if it's unit level x 5, I think you'll be able to sell off an extra Iron Sword and get the funds necessary to get them back. But that's assuming you've got zero gold (which happened with super-early-game GBA games, so I'd probably have those units come back with no gold penalty until the setup screen can be accessed). If it's straight-up unit level, then selling off extra healing items should be more than sufficient.

furthermore, I played a bit of casual (stopped at chapter 2 because it just felt wrong) and there's still the impact of not having that character there for the remainder of the chapter. You just also get less stressed out if you mess up one small thing towards the end of the map and have to restart because of a dead character, because they come back anyway.

IMO the best argument for Casual are that enemies with Galeforce become a huge problem - if they take out a unit, they're free to move and murder another one. Found this out the hard way when a certain bastard murdered my healer and Olivia on the same turn.

While this applies to Classic, someone playing Casual is less likely to reset on unit death.

I still need to finish experiments regarding pair-up and unit death. One day.

my opponents have to provide evidence or rhetoric to substantiate the claim that my suggestion of a minor transient debuff to a non-random stat (because people will bitch about randomness) as a penalty for casual mode death would've killed the series

somehow, i'm not seeing it

Pretty sure it wouldn't kill the series. But I think it's counter-intuitive, if your goal is to get people to play the other games in the series. Unless there's something in Jugdral that gives out stat penalties (but someone jumping from the 3DS games to Thracia sort of deserves what they get).

The term shouldn't be offensive, but the connotation is that Casual gamers are somehow "less" than classic gamers. How you perceive the word is not necessarily how most people perceive it.

If it's not offensive, then why are there stat penalties being proposed for it? Why should anyone care about people playing on Casual?

Hell, read backwards through this topic. It's somewhat depressing, if I read it from the viewpoint of someone who's tangentially interested in Fire Emblem.

[Jedi]

I think in the end, casual mode has you know, its obvious purpose. Not everyone wants that stress of possible permanent unit loss. Not everyone is like how some of us are, its a new age of FE.

We should be more welcome to the possibilities of newcomers. Now looking at it more clearly, wonder why some try to gatekeep a single player series, trying to keep others from enjoying it like they do, FE has quite a number of options for a number of different people now and its a bit confusing to me why people want to turn people away.

Can't we just let people have fun if they want to?

[Shin]

I'm not sure, but I feel a lot of people would still reset to avoid taking the stat penalty for the next chapter. This essentially makes it akin to classic. I don't think it would ruin things, but I'm unsure if it would actually help people transition to playing other titles. From what I've seen about newcomers playing casual, a fair few have swapped to classic after completing casual.

[bookofholsety]

the only fair penalty is something like lowering the player's final ranking (should that theoretically be implemented again) or gaining less bonus experience at the end of the chapter (should that also theoretically be implemented again), but since neither seem to be coming back in the era of casual mode (even though they kind of really should) that isn't much of an option. the temporary slight-debuff-for-the-next-chapter idea isn't too bad, but permanent penalties absolutely defeat the point of casual mode and are out of the question

Edited August 26, 2015 by bookofholsety

[Lord Raven]

If it's not offensive, then why are there stat penalties being proposed for it? Why should anyone care about people playing on Casual?

Hell, read backwards through this topic. It's somewhat depressing, if I read it from the viewpoint of someone who's tangentially interested in Fire Emblem.

My point that it was offensive or at least carrying a negative connotation. It shouldn't be, though, but it is a very condescending term. You'll find that we agree on this!

[Refa]

There are a lot of people who won't move on to the older games after having played Casual. However, I don't think that's an audience that has been lost but rather an audience that never would have existed in the first place without it.

I think what bothers me about this thread is the attitude that there should be a penalty for losing units in casual mode. Look, there is no wrong way to play a video game as long as you enjoy it. Because video games are for enjoyment. And it shouldn't be anyone else's business how someone else plays the game.

I don't really see what's wrong with it. I can't think of any another strategy RPG that has no penalties for dying, so it makes sense that the general attitude would shift towards the genre standard. I think something like Shining Force where you pay minimal amounts of gold (10 * unit's level, although a lower amount might work better) to resurrect a defeated unit would provide for a more interesting experience w/o stressing newer players out (I know people who've enjoyed this model while hating the permadeath mechanic, so there is some proof that this works). Maybe this is just me being elitist, but purely from a game design perspective, it kind of irks me that there's no penalty for getting units killed. Honestly, if casual mode players played on a higher difficulty, it'd be very easy for them to get stuck later on in the game because there's no immediate negative reinforcement for doing things that will hurt you in the long run.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Refa

[Sunwoo]

Well, Refa, the thing is that casual mode as we know it has already been implemented. If IS wants to implement yet another mode where dead units don't die forever but you have to take some penalty to get them back or something, then that's a different game mode. But at this point replacing casual mode with this hypothetical new mode is more likely than not to annoy people who want to use casual mode.

Not to mention that FE is a single player game. players who don't like casual or think there should be consequences for a unit dying will probably play on classic. And that is their experience. Why does it affect them if some other player wants to play casual mode? Whatever happens to them on their game, why is it your business unless they want to make it your business?

[eclipse]

My point that it was offensive or at least carrying a negative connotation. It shouldn't be, though, but it is a very condescending term. You'll find that we agree on this!

I really wish it didn't, either. . .but unfortunately, it does, to some, and that's what's sad.

(gotcha~!)

I can't think of any another strategy RPG that has no penalties for dying, so it makes sense that the general attitude would shift towards the genre standard.

The FFTA series wants a word with you. Hell, FFT rewards you if you kill off your generics in a certain manner.

Agarest hates you for killing your own units, and will charge you to bring them back (and it's not a trivial amount).

[Refa]

Well, Refa, the thing is that casual mode as we know it has already been implemented. If IS wants to implement yet another mode where dead units don't die forever but you have to take some penalty to get them back or something, then that's a different game mode. But at this point replacing casual mode with this hypothetical new mode is more likely than not to annoy people who want to use casual mode.

Not to mention that FE is a single player game. players who don't like casual or think there should be consequences for a unit dying will probably play on classic. And that is their experience. Why does it affect them if some other player wants to play casual mode? Whatever happens to them on their game, why is it your business unless they want to make it your business?

We already kind of talked about this but clearly I need to reply for my fans (I'm not delusional, I swear). Actually, all I wanted to say to the first paragraph was fair enough whoops.

I dunno, I'm just throwing out ideas for what I think would make for a more interesting Casual mode experience rather than seriously expecting/wanting it to be changed at this point; the die has been cast and all that. Honestly, I couldn't care less about how other people play the actual games (my concerns are probably more for a development point of view over the user's), though.

The FFTA series wants a word with you. Hell, FFT rewards you if you kill off your generics in a certain manner.

Agarest hates you for killing your own units, and will charge you to bring them back (and it's not a trivial amount).

Man, I reset more in FFTA because if my dudes died, they couldn't get any of that sweet AP. FFT was pretty interesting in that regard, though!

How much does it charge you? If the amount isn't trivial enough, I feel like it'd end up being functionally similar to permadeath (in that you'd always reset).

EDIT Also I thought it was super cool how in Tactics Ogre, there was a spell called Snapdragon that let you turn your units into weapons. I really wish FE had a similar spell...

Edited August 26, 2015 by Refa

[eclipse]

Man, I reset more in FFTA because if my dudes died, they couldn't get any of that sweet AP. FFT was pretty interesting in that regard, though!

How much does it charge you? If the amount isn't trivial enough, I feel like it'd end up being functionally similar to permadeath (in that you'd always reset).

EDIT Also I thought it was super cool how in Tactics Ogre, there was a spell called Snapdragon that let you turn your units into weapons. I really wish FE had a similar spell...

FFTA had a couple of areas with perma-death (the Jagds), which were only useful if you were trying to kill a certain Moogle. I naturally avoided them, since it was easier IMO to deal with the laws.

The bigger problem with Agarest was that it was heavily team-reliant. The stronger abilities required multiple people to pull off, and if one of them died, you were kind of out of luck. In-field revival was expensive (in terms of raw monetary cost and AP, which is the limiter to how many actions you could do), and extremely short-ranged (3 range puts squishy things in danger). You had something like two turns to revive someone on the field, or they'd be gone for the rest of the map - once they hit that condition, you had to pay gold to revive them. IIRC, it was something like level x 100 (or maybe level x 1000). It doesn't sound like much, but shop items are EXTREMELY expensive early-on, and it's the most reliable method of revival for most units. The saving grace of this system was that you were allowed to go into debt to revive someone, but you had to re-earn all the money necessary before you could buy stuff again.

. . .the only catch with FE is that most of the older games take you from point A to point B with no optional opportunity to recover resources in-between. This would work with the newer games (Awakening, Fates Hoshido), but it would've been somewhat harder with the Elibe games (for example).

Edited August 26, 2015 by eclipse

[feplus]

How so? You've said this a few times but you didn't offer up any solutions.

Some ideas:

• Emphasis on battle saves.
• Lyn Mode-style temporary casual.
• Large range of difficulty options (all with permadeath).
• Return of Aum staff (available early and more uses on easier difficulties).
• Difficulty-specific grinding opportunities.

Edited August 26, 2015 by feplus

[Radiant Dragon]

Man, I reset more in FFTA because if my dudes died, they couldn't get any of that sweet AP. FFT was pretty interesting in that regard, though!

Huh? Pretty sure ko'd units get AP, also, unless you're talking about them getting arrested (or getting actually killed off for real, in which case they've got bigger problems than AP.)

[electricwolf]

you still need to provide evidence

as it is, the null hypothesis stands

What is the null hypothesis here, who decided it and are we doing this for everything now?

We should assume that there is no relationship between casual mode and bad playstyle habits.

It might seem obvious that the former may lead to the latter, but perceived obviousness isn't evidence.

We should assume that there is no relationship between increasing penalties for unit loss in casual mode and a need to improve.

There has been no solid evidence that the outcome of penalties for unit loss is a need to improve over frustration or vice versa.

We should assume that there is no relationship between the presence of casual mode and the gameplay experience of 'better' players.

I'll accept a representative poll of the average buyers of the game (on whether their experience was significantly diminished enough because of the inclusion of casual mode to reduce their chances of buying future titles) as sufficient evidence to prove this null hypothesis wrong.

We should assume that there is no relationship between the use of casual mode and future usage of other gameplay options.

There has been no solid evidence presented thus far to suggest that using casual mode increases or decreases the proportion of players on classic mode. As with most of the rest of these, I'll be expecting numbers as evidence, not what you expect or think as evidence.

We should assume that there is no relationship between the quantity of players and the overall quality of players.

There is no current evidence that new accessibility measures and overall 'quality' of players (however that my be defined) are related.

We should assume that there is no relationship between any single aspect of FE13 and the fact that it sold enough to keep the series running.

If you can somehow find a way to separate the effects of various marketing campaigns, the effect of video game review scores, pricing structures and the like, I'll be honest, you don't need to be replying to a randomer on the internet, you could probably get a job in marketing where they literally throw money at you.

I'll be expecting either evidence or the admission that the null hypothesis argument is pretty much BS.

[dondon151]

We should assume that there is no relationship between casual mode and bad playstyle habits.

It might seem obvious that the former may lead to the latter, but perceived obviousness isn't evidence.

lol just look on /r/fireemblem at the occasional thread where someone says "help this non-FE13 game is so hard i thought i was decent at fire emblem because i played FE13 on casual"

We should assume that there is no relationship between increasing penalties for unit loss in casual mode and a need to improve.

There has been no solid evidence that the outcome of penalties for unit loss is a need to improve over frustration or vice versa.

if a player resets after unit death to fix a strategy such that the unit no longer dies, that's improvement

We should assume that there is no relationship between the presence of casual mode and the gameplay experience of 'better' players.

I'll accept a representative poll of the average buyers of the game (on whether their experience was significantly diminished enough because of the inclusion of casual mode to reduce their chances of buying future titles) as sufficient evidence to prove this null hypothesis wrong.

pffft this is totally irrelevant and the existence of casual mode doesn't affect the gameplay experience of better (not sure why you put that in quotation marks, probably because you believe that player quality doesn't exist) players at all

We should assume that there is no relationship between the quantity of players and the overall quality of players.

There is no current evidence that new accessibility measures and overall 'quality' of players (however that my be defined) are related.

it's really easy to show statistically that larger sample sizes tend to converge towards the mean

I'll be expecting either evidence or the admission that the null hypothesis argument is pretty much BS.

hahaha nooope

look i will probably not compile scientific-publication-quality evidence to dispute your straw-grasping, but there merely exists evidence or rhetoric to dispute them

Edited August 26, 2015 by dondon151

[feplus]

What is the null hypothesis here, who decided it and are we doing this for everything now?

Null hypothesis is that "a minor transient debuff to a non-random stat as a penalty for casual mode death would not have killed the series."

[Radiant Dragon]

Null hypothesis is that "a minor transient debuff to a non-random stat as a penalty for casual mode death would not have killed the series."

It might not have then, but what about now? Actually IS would have to mess up pretty badly at this point to kill the series, but hear me out. Penalizing Casual mode at this point (after it's been free for three games) would only somewhat benefit a very minor group of players - those that want to try Classic mode but need a small push to get there. It doesn't benefit the majority of players who enjoy Casual mode for what it is (that is... casual), and it certainly doesn't benefit the players who play Classic mode, since it wouldn't affect them anyway. It could, however, potentially kill the game for some people who just want to play without having to worry about making it through a map without losing anyone.

Perhaps if there had been penalties from the start, things would be different. At this point, however, it would only serve to alienate some players - Sales certainly wouldn't increase because of it. Besides, it's not like IS really gets anything out of inspiring players to try the older games (unless they get some of the money from Virtual Console sales, I guess).