Favorite/Least Favorite Mechanic?

[X-Naut]

Favorite: Rescue

Least Favorite: Thracia 776's deployment system

[Alastor15243]

While this sucks, this is how the action menu always worked until The Binding Blade. So Thracia isn't unique in that regard.

Granted, but it's even worse here, as wait takes priority over staves in this game, and the new exit command takes priority over EVERYTHING.

[Cyas]

Least favorite: FE11's Gaiden followed by Thracia's spawn point system.

Favorite: There are way too many to just pick one favorite. Capture in FE5 was a really interesting mechanic since attaining enemy weapons adds a lot more strategy to the game. Fatigue was interesting because you're forced to use more than just a few units. Most characters having personal weapons was also something I've always enjoyed. Weapon Triangle, terrain and the like are cool as well.

[Shadow Mir]

^How'd I forget about fatigue? It just feels stupid imo, and is a reason why I don't have any plans to play FE5.

[BeMine96]

Favorite: Does child system count as a mechanic? If so, I love it. They break the game that's for sure, but I like the 2nd gen characters.

Least favorite: Weight and con system as other users pointed. I really dislike it.

[Gradivus.]

^How'd I forget about fatigue? It just feels stupid imo, and is a reason why I don't have any plans to play FE5.

>judging games without playing them

Least favorite: marriage + children system.

Favorite: really many actually, but I'll go with reclassing because I like the kind of diversity it creates.

[Shadow Mir]

Favorite: Does child system count as a mechanic? If so, I love it. They break the game that's for sure, but I like the 2nd gen characters.

I dunno, but from what I read, the children aren't as good in Fates as they were in Awakening. At the least, I wouldn't say they break the game...

>judging games without playing them

Sorry, but I'm the type of person who can get turned away from a game if he sees a mechanic that's repulsive enough.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[The Envoy of the Beginning]

>judging games without playing them

He tends to do that lol

My least favorite mechanic is the GBA support system. It's impractical. Keeping your units right next to each other for many turns just doesn't work.

Dishonorable mentions to Avatars, Marriage/Children, FE5's deployment system, staff equipping, FE11's Gaiden chapter requirements, and Biorhythm.

My favorite mechanic is capturing, with honorable mentions to dismounting (although FE5 could have handled the weapon usability better), the support systems for FE9/FE10, rescuing, the GBA magic tome split, skills, and fatigue.

Edited January 28, 2016 by BLS

[Gradivus.]

Yeah that remark wasn't towards that single comment alone.

Sorry, but I'm the type of person who can get turned away from a game if he sees a mechanic that's repulsive enough.

Maybe you should still try it though? Going into various games I thought stuff like "what's the point of dismount" and "isn't PCC a bit too strong" and found them pretty good/decent in FE5, among other examples. I also thought "FE4 is probably really tedious" and got confirmed in it when trying to have fun with it. It's just that it's always better to try and see if your impression was accurate. Can always quit if you dislike it.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Gradivus.

[solrocknroll]

Favorite: Avatars and marriage because they're really great and excellent. I couldn't care less about the kids, just let the OTPs happen for my first generation and let me marry my Niles in peace

also I prefer Corrin to every lord except for Marth, Celica, and Chrom so yeah keep me some avatars yeah I love em

Least Favorite: most of the design choices from the GBA games but dishonourable mention to the uber slow support system. Also don't care for dismounting because it's so lol bad for Finn and some other characters

Surprisingly I actually enjoy fatigue. Reminds me of Persona 3's Tired system, and with scrolls, everyone gets to be a winner. The game pretty much wants you to be using like at least 20 people in the first place

[Shadow Mir]

Yeah that remark wasn't towards that single comment alone.

Maybe you should still try it though? Going into various games I thought stuff like "what's the point of dismount" and "isn't PCC a bit too strong" and found them pretty good/decent in FE5, among other examples. I also thought "FE4 is probably really tedious" and got confirmed in it when trying to have fun with it. It's just that it's always better to try and see if your impression was accurate. Can always quit if you dislike it.

Fatigue is a big dealbreaker for me, yes (I'd get very grumpy if the game arbitrarily decided "Nope, you can't use this character for one map", as opposed to making them undeployable for story reasons), but I'd be lying if I didn't say there was more to it than that... Namely, very severe anti-Jugdral sentiment. Well, that, and the part where there's no guaranteed hits or misses.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[Alastor15243]

Fatigue is a big dealbreaker for me, yes (I'd get very grumpy if the game arbitrarily decided "Nope, you can't use this character for one map", as opposed to making them undeployable for story reasons), but I'd be lying if I didn't say there was more to it than that... Namely, very severe anti-Jugdral sentiment. Well, that, and the part where there's no guaranteed hits or misses.

Think of it this way: the existence of the fatigue mechanic means the game is specifically built around using a larger general party. You can use more of your favorite characters simultaneously in this game than almost any other game in the series. It really doesn't bother me too much, I just set up two general parties and occasionally migrate one to the other if I have to, I can usually get away with that unless I've really over-used a unit in the previous map. And in those cases you have stamina drinks!

[Nobody]

I'll be that guy and say that my least favorite is Awakening's pair up. I haven't played fates yet, but they seem to have greatly fixed it, so I'm not including it. Pair up simply destroys any difficulty Awakening could have and there's no reason to not use it. It's exactly what I don't want from a strategy game.

I also dislike proc Skills TBH. They add a random element to a game that already has plenty of them. Stuff like Paragon and improved hit rate/avoid, specially under conditions that the player can control are okay, though.

I can't choose my favorite. There's just so much stuff I love in Fire Emblem that it's really hard for me to think about a mechanic that is clearly above the rest. I guess if I had to choose one, it would be Rescue. It adds a lot of strategy to the game and is really fun to mess with. Noticing that a unit might die on Enemy phase and then realizing you can rescue it out of enemy range is a nice feeling, for example. It's probably the only thing I miss while playing Shadow Dragon

Edited January 29, 2016 by Perfect Nobody

[Shadow Mir]

Think of it this way: the existence of the fatigue mechanic means the game is specifically built around using a larger general party. You can use more of your favorite characters simultaneously in this game than almost any other game in the series. It really doesn't bother me too much, I just set up two general parties and occasionally migrate one to the other if I have to, I can usually get away with that unless I've really over-used a unit in the previous map. And in those cases you have stamina drinks!

That doesn't mean much if I don't like a huge majority of the cast... Also, if I want to use different characters, it should NOT be because the game forces my hand - that's exactly what I don't want to have to put up with in a strategy game.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[Alastor15243]

That doesn't mean much if I don't like a huge majority of the cast.

Well sure, but you don't know yet, do you? All I'm saying is that the fatigue mechanic doesn't have to be a bad thing, and that if you like enough of the characters, you might even come to appreciate it.

[Gradivus.]

I doubt you really ever actively rotated your team members in and out except in playthroughs that specifically impose it

The game also doesn't force anything to the effect of having 2 separate parties, you can buy a decent number of stamina bags throughout and can generally unfatigue units easily whenever you feel the need to and just pass up on them for a chapter whenever you don't find it worth it. If you have like 12-16 units total in use you'll be able to handle your combat/staff usage needs for most of the time. Fatigue is an attempt at balancing difficulty between low-manning and using a full team because the former tends to make FE games easier. It prevents throwing a juggernaut at the problem unimpededly, for example.

[Shadow Mir]

Well sure, but you don't know yet, do you? All I'm saying is that the fatigue mechanic doesn't have to be a bad thing, and that if you like enough of the characters, you might even come to appreciate it.

Maybe, but still, I find fatigue as crossing the line into "There's no way in the seven hells that you can convince me that this is anything other than a poorly thought-out mechanic".

I doubt you really ever actively rotated your team members in and out except in playthroughs that specifically impose it

The game also doesn't force anything to the effect of having 2 separate parties, you can buy a decent number of stamina bags throughout and can generally unfatigue units easily whenever you feel the need to and just pass up on them for a chapter whenever you don't find it worth it. If you have like 12-16 units total in use you'll be able to handle your combat/staff usage needs for most of the time. Fatigue is an attempt at balancing difficulty between low-manning and using a full team because the former tends to make FE games easier. It prevents throwing a juggernaut at the problem unimpededly, for example.

I'll definitely give you that. Anyways, if they wanted to discourage lowmanning, I'm sure they could've come up with a better solution than fatigue (which I strongly feel has no place whatsoever in a strategy game).

Edited January 29, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[Axie]

favorite: right now it's branched promotions for all the replay value it generates; soon to be replaced by fe14 finally, gloriously balancing attack speed issues without weight

least favorite: infinite leveling and massive stat stacking in awakening. this is fire emblem, not final fantasy

Edited January 29, 2016 by Axie

[Quintessence]

Favorite: Weight and Con system. It does add strategic elements to the game, it just needs slight improvements.

Least Favorite: Marriage/Children System. It has been added for no rational reason, I guess FE4's is the only one that actually makes sense, but the BS FE13 brought is far from fantastic. Dishonourable mention to Pair Up mechanic, it does make sense and is an interesting one, but it needs to be fixed.

[Alastor15243]

Dishonourable mention to Pair Up mechanic, it does make sense and is an interesting one, but it needs to be fixed.

Moreso than Fates did?

[Shadow Mir]

Favorite: Weight and Con system. It does add strategic elements to the game, it just needs slight improvements.

Dishonourable mention to Pair Up mechanic, it does make sense and is an interesting one, but it needs to be fixed.

They did noif pair up in Fates, just so you know. Anyways, my big gripe with the con system is that females in general get the short straw, and they get nothing to make up for their lower con relative to males.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[Quintessence]

Moreso than Fates did?

I speak based on my FE13 experience, I don't have Fates yet and haven't watched some serious gameplay to emit a judgement about it.

They did noif pair up in Fates, just so you know. Anyways, my big gripe with the con system is that females in general get the short straw, and they get nothing to make up for their lower con relative to males.

It does need to be fixed, I agree. But when do you actually need to use heavy weapons for long periods? Pegs usually are ok with Iron Lances and Javelins and they won't have that of an issue due to their high speed. Lute needs to use Elfire or Fimbulvetr but 2heavy4her? Thunder or Fire is enough with her high Mag and Spd, it's true that we as players want to improve our chars weapons as a ways of evolving throughout the game but sometimes they are not necessary or vital.

[Shadow Mir]

It does need to be fixed, I agree. But when do you actually need to use heavy weapons for long periods? Pegs usually are ok with Iron Lances and Javelins and they won't have that of an issue due to their high speed. Lute needs to use Elfire or Fimbulvetr but 2heavy4her? Thunder or Fire is enough with her high Mag and Spd, it's true that we as players want to improve our chars weapons as a ways of evolving throughout the game but sometimes they are not necessary or vital.

Part of that last statement could be more because enemies sucked (in FE7 and FE8, at least), in addition to generally weighing themselves down. Either way, I find it to be too restrictive on strategy (steel is flat-out inferior to iron unless you're a heavyset unit, almost all of which are male, to say nothing of most tomes of C rank and higher in general being near unusable). Also, the lords' endgame personal weapons in FE7 - it's obvious something's royally fucked up when only one of them is remotely usable.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[Quintessence]

Lol yeah, Sol Katti and Durandal are just terrible.

[Thor Odinson]

The female con thing for me was more a matter of principle. Men get to be anything from like 4 (well okay Nils is a kid but) to 18 and women rarely go above 7 and maybe if I'm lucky there'll be maybe one 9 and one 12? Design more diversely-built women pls

But rescue got fucked up because if it since the default state of being for women is just "tiny" so they just docked 5 entire rescue points to "balance" like man, if you're gonna put them at an disadvantage over the con thing at least make their rescue good

I'm salty about Vaida's rescue stat forever

(although I'd argue Sol Katti's not really unusable since it does have reasonable crit and Lyn still doubles with it if you trained Lyn since her speed is just that high, it's not great but it can be made to work, Durandal @ Eliwood can never double unless you give him a body ring though)

Edited January 29, 2016 by Thor Odinson