No LTC playthroughs yet?

[SSJDennis]

Even though I need to wait like forever until this game to Europe... I haven't seen much interesting videos of this game on Youtube yet. All videos seem to take there time to beat a chapter, or are on lowish difficulty.

Do you think that anything fun to watch will come up anytime soon? Or any videos/playthrough(s) you would recommend?

Also, why isn't there a "child inheritance" chart on SE yet? I thought it was really useful for FE Awakening

[ruadath]

Lol, I've been thinking the same thing.

Even though I need to wait like forever until this game to Europe... I haven't seen much interesting videos of this game on Youtube yet. All videos seem to take there time to beat a chapter, or are on lowish difficulty.

But if you really think about it, there are no LTC videos of Awakening either, only playlogs. I'm sure this will probably change once Citra gets developed and video capture becomes easier.

[Thor Odinson]

Also most people outside Japan don't even have this game

[ruadath]

I'm really looking forward to a Lunatic LTC though, because fixed growths should make things a lot more interesting than the usual strategy of "build some uber units (preferrably fliers) and let them slaughter everything"

[lysander]

I don't know why people keep saying "fixed growths". Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it just FE7 style fixed RNs for each chapter? So you can't just exit out and do some dlc or something else to get different RNs.

The strategy for LTC is still going to be "build some uber mounts/fliers and win".

[Shephen]

I know Gwimpage is currently working on a Nohr Lunatic LTC and he is almost done I believe(last I heard he was on chapter 26 pushing for a 6 turn). I did a preliminary LTC of Hoshido Lunatic just get a feel for things and where rescue charges get put to best use. I do plan on going back fairly soon for the super legit attempt, just not really satisfied with how I do on the pre-Ryoma chapters..

[Thor Odinson]

It's iirc fixed rn string for each character's level ups, so you can still like, just reset the entire game early on to rig your MU's growths or something at least

I'm not sure if it's seeded/generated at recruitment or generated at game start, though

[Giga Man]

What does "LTC" stand for?

[lysander]

It's iirc fixed rn string for each character's level ups, so you can still like, just reset the entire game early on to rig your MU's growths or something at least

I'm not sure if it's seeded/generated at recruitment or generated at game start, though

Huh, interesting. I remember reading hearsay on that but didn't know somebody had already confirmed it in more detail. Instead of storing a fixed RN string I guess it'd be easy enough to just store a specific seed and the position within the RNs for that seed for each character. I imagine it'd be seeded at first level-up, but who knows. Could lead to hilarious results if people figure out the seeding mechanism (probably the date/time) and start recruiting characters at EXACTLY THIS DATE AND TIME.

Edited November 8, 2015 by lysander

[Shephen]

What does "LTC" stand for?

Low Turn Count. Pretty much just aiming to get the fastest clears possible for chapters.

It's iirc fixed rn string for each character's level ups, so you can still like, just reset the entire game early on to rig your MU's growths or something at least

I'm not sure if it's seeded/generated at recruitment or generated at game start, though

Its seeded on recruitment.

[Thor Odinson]

I wonder why don't they just implement a (optional) proper fixed mode, though

like this way is just, it's still RNG it's just weird RNG?

[nocturnal YL]

I wonder why don't they just implement a (optional) proper fixed mode, though

like this way is just, it's still RNG it's just weird RNG?

From what I've seen, while you can't reset the game or enter a different map and expect different growths, the growths themselves are not fixed. They're different across playthroughs.

But maybe I was wrong. Maybe the growths are determined at the time the MU creation is complete, like the resource generators in My Castle.

[Thor Odinson]

Yeah, that much I know, I'm wondering why didn't they just do fixed mode instead of just an alternate implementation of RNG

Like all it accomplishes is that the character in question may be blessed or screwed for the entire run and you have no way of knowing which is which, instead of doing it the normal way dynamically with everything else, which means screwed once on this string doesn't necessarily mean screwed again on the next, or a proper fixed mode that eliminates RNG completely from growths so you can focus on strats more.

tl;dr I don't really like it, would rather have a real fixed mode

[CocoaGalaxy]

TL;DR I would say, it's to prevent players from save scumming for better level ups

[lysander]

Yeah, that much I know, I'm wondering why didn't they just do fixed mode instead of just an alternate implementation of RNG

Like all it accomplishes is that the character in question may be blessed or screwed for the entire run and you have no way of knowing which is which, instead of doing it the normal way dynamically with everything else, which means screwed once on this string doesn't necessarily mean screwed again on the next, or a proper fixed mode that eliminates RNG completely from growths so you can focus on strats more.

tl;dr I don't really like it, would rather have a real fixed mode

To be fair, this still lets you focus on strats more--in higher level play most people are going to dump a character, no arguments, if they stop performing as a form of reactive strategy. A certain crowd would scum when they could, but most legit runs just sampled and shuffled when necessary since there are always solid characters to fall back on regardless of the given FE and you're usually hard-pressed to "waste" exp entirely on the games that included exp gains as part of their ranking system. That would seem to be the case with FE:F's unique exp curve as well.

I'm not entirely sure what the overall benefit is though, other than maybe keeping the crowd that loved to scum to hard mode unless/until they figure out the exact date/time or whatever else to optimally recruit at. Entirely fixed growths are something most people would find boring, I think, since you'd always know what you're getting. With this you don't know what you're getting each run so you still have room for reactive strategy.

[Thor Odinson]

Which is why I was suggesting for a fixed optional mode instead of just one that's forced. Pure fixed mode allows me to know exactly what I'm dealing with if I want to both strategize and do it around characters I like, because I already know what I'm getting from that character anyway so it's already transparent. It allows better planning ahead. Do I want to allocate xyz statboosters if they're gonna get a really awesome rn string and end up not needing it anyway? Are they gonna get so badly screwed below their already shit average that basically nothing can save them? Like I feel like the only possible reaction to badness in this case IS to drop a character, and that's really inflexible. Honestly, fixed mode may have less variability, but if you know the character you want to use have xyz for averages you can plan around that and still use who you like without it being a scumfest.

0 growths play throughs are a thing anyway and they're like a more extreme version of fixed mode. There's a market for it.

[lysander]

I mean, I'm not entirely sure I get you here beyond you personally wanting another optional mode? If you were to play a prior FE game without ever reloading a bad level-up that is the experience you're getting here--most characters will still hit near the average and when they do not it will be the exact same as in prior games. The only thing this is changing is the ability to scum or reload individual chapters for different level-ups.

Booster allocation is exactly the same. Decisions to drop characters are exactly the same. From the game's perspective, random numbers all gained from one seed are the same as random numbers gained from multiple seeds over time--they're all psuedo-random. It sounds to me like your head is only hurting because of the idea of everything being pre-determined when in fact from a randomness perspective it's the same as any other non-scum playthrough. You don't know whether that booster was needed since you don't know whether or not every level from there on out will be full gains across the board or even 1 stat gains rendering the character too weak to continue using--you should allocate boosters as you currently need them in the now because of this. You should drop characters you cannot find a use for in the now.

A pure fixed mode is an option they could include though, yeah. It's also an option anybody could add to any previous FE they are 0% growth running though--you'd just need to write a script to detect when a level-up is called so after it did its thing you could overwrite stats with what they should be fixed at for any given level on a character. 0% growth runs are already tool heavy regardless.

[Thor Odinson]

I'm well aware of the mathematics behind it. Don't patronise me. I've fucking written entire random number generation systems you'd think I know how this shit works.

I'm saying that it's just really fucking pointless to do something like this, because if there's a character you want to use, on average maybe there's no difference, but in classic rng, if there's a character you really fucking hellbent want to get going, you can scum them a bit out of terrible screwage. This way doesn't really prevent screwage, but it also ends up with more waste since you just have no way of salvaging a character because you don't even know the future, and if they really wanted to do something that's both strategic and really prevents scumming, true fixed mode would've made far more sense.

My point is that this mode of RNG does not make sense to me at all. What's the fucking point? FE is a fairly character oriented game, people get attached to these characters, and who cares if people want to salvage their favorite characters? If your Lunatic mode is really balanced, some save scumming is not going to break the difficulty anyway. I'm not fan of an arbitrary RNG system changes for the sake of changing it, only so that it'll screw over characters and don't really provide any real strategic benefit since it's still fucking effectively random.

Whereas pure fixed mode, everything's on the table and you'll know what exactly to expect. It's also not something a player should be reliant on themselves to implement on the actual console. Most people don't play 3ds games on an emulator.

Urgh, I don't know what is it I'm saying that's hard to understand. Maybe it's just because English isn't even my first language, but idk

Edited November 8, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[SSJDennis]

I know Gwimpage is currently working on a Nohr Lunatic LTC and he is almost done I believe(last I heard he was on chapter 26 pushing for a 6 turn). I did a preliminary LTC of Hoshido Lunatic just get a feel for things and where rescue charges get put to best use. I do plan on going back fairly soon for the super legit attempt, just not really satisfied with how I do on the pre-Ryoma chapters..

Would love to see these attempts :) Even though I haven't played through it yet, I already think it is more interesting then FE:A.

Any videos you would advice me to take a look at?

Huh, interesting. I remember reading hearsay on that but didn't know somebody had already confirmed it in more detail. Instead of storing a fixed RN string I guess it'd be easy enough to just store a specific seed and the position within the RNs for that seed for each character. I imagine it'd be seeded at first level-up, but who knows. Could lead to hilarious results if people figure out the seeding mechanism (probably the date/time) and start recruiting characters at EXACTLY THIS DATE AND TIME.

So what you say is, if I recruit a sucky character at the EXACT right time (s)he will become God, no matter when (s)he gains EXP, as long as (s)he levels up just all the time? This is kinda boring if you ask me... I love the thrill of getting a good level up, or the disappointment at a really bad one. It is part of FE. Hopefully this will be fixed for EU release.

[lysander]

Alright, it's more clear now. I didn't know you were saying you wanted to be able to stat reload. Like I said, the only reason I could see them doing it is to keep people who scum to hard mode. Dunno why they'd want to do that, but they did it. Maybe one of the devs was getting annoyed at the way another dev played the game on lunatic? You never know with those things.

More on point, as to how this would/should change things up with LTCs...it really won't or at least not that much. The hit and crit RNs are going to be king over the stat RNs on most LTCs anyway. Getting bad stats on some key characters could cost some turns here and there, sure, but at most that will just cut down on people who plan their LTCs around above average performance through scumming rather than average or with back-up plans for below average; the hit and crit RNs will be something everybody has to deal with and will decide turns on every map regardless if they're also determining seeds for each chapter on first entry.

A lot of the characters I see being useful for a LTC would be very hard to screw up entirely. Basically, it'll screw with the sort of "optimal LTC" runs that really want tools anyway to achieve the absolute "lowest possible" but will be about the same as always for the usual "reasonably likely LTC". People looking to achieve lowest possible will probably be the ones to figure out how to rig the seeds anyway, if IS left that trivially open as an option like they did for Shadow Dragon--there are ways they could seed it to make it more complex or unreasonable for a human to manipulate though at the same time I'm also sure it's nothing a save edit couldn't handle.

[Thor Odinson]

Random.org says it uses atmospheric noise data to seed its random number generators, which I could see as harder to manipulate than (i think it's still the standard in 3ds) system time-based seeds. The question is, would that be feasible for the handheld hardware or even worth implementing at all? Or is it too overkill for a video game?

IIRC 3ds hardware makes time changing itself more pain in the ass in that it stops pokemon time-based events for a few days, but I'm not if there's adverse effects to RN generation, either.

[Shephen]

Would love to see these attempts :) Even though I haven't played through it yet, I already think it is more interesting then FE:A.

Any videos you would advice me to take a look at?

Me and Gwimpage don't have any videos or anything up. Gwimpage has a google docs that has a google docs with his turn counts and item allocation. I have an old pastebin of when I did my preliminary run through and then another pastebin for combat records. My run through was pretty bad and I did of a lot of unnecessary things, had some poor exp distribution, and some times where I was just to lazy to redo a chapter for a lower turn count. When I go back I could probably save like 15 or 20 turns probably. I'll do a more detail log then when I go back. Should be pretty soon.

[lysander]

I like Ryoma's kill/battle ratio the most. Silas' is more surprising, though I guess I haven't looked closely at his stats--does he not usually have the ability to kill a lot on enemy phase? Or is it more that he was on the reinforcement kill squad after ch14 and the reinforcements had meatier durability?

As for more RN talk, I think it would still be clock based but if they wanted to get tricky they could do something like base it off of a difference between something else they pulled from their own servers every time you my castle or something similar. Besides complications like that that could require complete save wipes or perhaps even system reformats or "everybody has to figure out their own personal best time" it's also inherently more off-putting to figure out than shadow dragon since it's every level-up determined by that seed instead of just guess and test per level.

I'd bet on somebody save editing the seeds directly and testing things before somebody figuring out and stopwatching for a best time manually, even if they did go with KISS.

Edited November 8, 2015 by lysander

[Shephen]

I like Ryoma's kill/battle ratio the most. Silas' is more surprising, though I guess I haven't looked closely at his stats--does he not usually have the ability to kill a lot on enemy phase? Or is it more that he was on the reinforcement kill squad after ch14 and the reinforcements had meatier durability?

In an absolute perfect run Ryoma's kill/battle ratio should only be 1 apart since Asyura in 22 has a Longbow to ruin his record. Silas actually does pretty well. Most of those loses were from 1x where he needed to charge ahead and weaken everything for Kamui. There were some other times where he needed to rescue Azura or a staffer and he needed the Guard Naginata to survive the enemy phase and that has terrible mt. But Open Assault and Hana pair up handle just about everything Silas needs in terms of combat stats.

[Thor Odinson]

Rinka has 21/21 and did something I'm glad

#notthemostuseless