Favorite/Least Favorite Mechanic?

[Shadow Mir]

Yeah I get what you mean, but in the beginning I mentioned Galeforce Galeforce is broken xD. Sure I can grind the 1st gen characters but without Galeforce they would attack only once in one turn, on the other hand, a pair of 2nd gen kids end up killing 3 enemies in one turn so yeah. In the end, Idk I consider em OP and stronger than the 1st gen characters by far.

But if I'm going out of my way to ensure they inherit Galeforce, odds are by then they won't even enter into the discussion as it'll be too late to try to shoehorn them into a team, unless you're okay with booting out someone who you've been training for a good deal of the game (and even then, "Can't Catch Up" rears its ugly head)... Granted, the children might be better when you're looking at shiny green numbers, but what about before that...?

Edited January 30, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[BeMine96]

But if I'm going out of my way to ensure they inherit Galeforce, odds are by then they won't even enter into the discussion as it'll be too late to try to shoehorn them into a team, unless you're okay with booting out someone who you've been training for a good deal of the game (and even then, "Can't Catch Up" rears its ugly head)... Granted, the children might be better when you're looking at shiny green numbers, but what about before that...?

I'm kinda confused. What does "shoehorn into a team" mean? Does it mean thrown into somewhere they don't fit(based on UD)? If so, I really don't mind it. Or if you mean supporting them, then the dlc map is good for supporting. Why would I boot out anyone though? I only train the kids I want to and they end up strong anyways. I didn't get the last part, I'm sorry xD

[Shadow Mir]

I'm kinda confused. What does "shoehorn into a team" mean? Does it mean thrown into somewhere they don't fit(based on UD)? If so, I really don't mind it. Or if you mean supporting them, then the dlc map is good for supporting. Why would I boot out anyone though? I only train the kids I want to and they end up strong anyways. I didn't get the last part, I'm sorry xD

Not exactly - I just felt like saying something else aside from "integrate into the team" (though it could also be talking about from a support perspective too). Anyways, the last part is more that while the children might be better when looking at caps, the practicality of the situation is that the parents are more than adequate to get you through the game, especially since the children require marrying off your units to get, to say nothing of only being relevant in the second half of the game.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[Cyas]

(and even then, "Can't Catch Up" rears its ugly head)

Not all children have that problem. I don't know about you but I can always get Morgan and Severa easily after chapter 13, even on L+ no grind. Morgan is about as strong as the Avatar after his/her Paralogue, Severa usually needs her Paralogue + 1 chapter in order to catch up. Same goes for Laurent, though he's usually recruited past chapter 14.

Also, I don't think that this is just personal experience since I'm pretty sure that Interceptor recruited Morgan/Laurent around the same time and made both of them useful within a short time span.

To not make this completely off-topic:

I completely forgot Pair-up, it makes things way too easy and there's never a reason not to use it. Of course, there's also Thracia's 1-99 Hit caps, which is just there to ruin the plans of the player.

[Shadow Mir]

Not all children have that problem. I don't know about you but I can always get Morgan and Severa easily after chapter 13, even on L+ no grind. Morgan is about as strong as the Avatar after his/her Paralogue, Severa usually needs her Paralogue + 1 chapter in order to catch up. Same goes for Laurent, though he's usually recruited past chapter 14.

Also, I don't think that this is just personal experience since I'm pretty sure that Interceptor recruited Morgan/Laurent around the same time and made both of them useful within a short time span.

To not make this completely off-topic:

I completely forgot Pair-up, it makes things way too easy and there's never a reason not to use it. Of course, there's also Thracia's 1-99 Hit caps, which is just there to ruin the plans of the player.

Two of those you mentioned are children whose parents join rather early, so... Also, I'm not sure why you mention Severa since by the time you get her, most, if not all, of the enemies save for the boss are already dead.

Anyways, I'm surprised no one mentioned this before, but I don't like status effects (though it might just be the way they're generally either never useful for the player, or way too situational).

Edited January 30, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[Cyas]

Two of those you mentioned are children whose parents join rather early, so... Also, I'm not sure why you mention Severa since by the time you get her, most, if not all, of the enemies save for the boss are already dead.

So, where is the problem? Parents having an early join-time only makes it easier for them to achieve an S-rank in time.

In that example, Severa is the daughter of MU so she has Veteran. Additionally, she starts at level 10 unpromoted and is up against promoted enemies. As a result, every time she kills, she levels up. A bunch of enemies on that map do not move unless you get in their range meaning that Severa can gain a few levels in that chapter.

By the way, if you want to respond to this post, please do it via PM. I don't want to derail this thread/be forced to add stuff to my post in order to make it on-topic.

Let's see, someone mentioned that they dislike Awakening's stat inflation. I'll have to agree with that since it devalues base stats. Also, I don't want everybody to be a growth unit and neither do I wish to have a +20 stat lead over most enemies in mid-game.

[NoNameAtAll]

I don't know about a favorite mechanic, but fuck Thracia's dismounting and fatigue systems. Dismounting only worked in FE3 because of the fact that there were no weapon levels as they are now (If you can use a Silver Lance, you can use a Silver Sword). On top of that, units like Dean become pieces of shit in indoor maps due to the stupid stat penalties and he'd be locked to swords, which won't be anywhere near as leveled as lances.

And stamina's just dumb. It's not going to get a person to use even the worst units.

[Thor Odinson]

Nitpick bc Dean's actually A/A in both ranks, could've used a better example than him

I like dismounting, but I do think it could be better implemented.

[NoNameAtAll]

Nitpick bc Dean's actually A/A in both ranks, could've used a better example than him

I like dismounting, but I do think it could be better implemented.

My bad. But I /do/ know Wyvern Lord or whatever the class was gets harsh penalties.

But yeah, better examples would probably be most people who aren't Fergus or Carrion.

[BeMine96]

Not exactly - I just felt like saying something else aside from "integrate into the team" (though it could also be talking about from a support perspective too). Anyways, the last part is more that while the children might be better when looking at caps, the practicality of the situation is that the parents are more than adequate to get you through the game, especially since the children require marrying off your units to get, to say nothing of only being relevant in the second half of the game.

Ohhh I think I get it. I actually manage to get the kids I want by chapter 13 or 14 -because of my DLC map of course and the parents joining time- and I don't mind them staying irrelevant to the story. It's not like I'm saying the parents aren't strong, what I'm trying to say is just that the kids, in general, tend to be really strong and OP themselves since you get to optimize them unlike the 1st gen.

[NekoKnight]

The problem is that the current support system wouldn't work with platonic endings, because you're now no longer limited in the number of supports you can make so there's nothing stopping you from having multiple strong friendships. And frankly I like the new support system (though I did enjoy the old support bonuses, and I slightly dislike how support benefits are now purely tied to adjacent and paired up units now) too much to want to give that up for platonic supports again.

S supports could be used to mark paired endings, regardless of the nature of the relationship. A character could have many friendships but still have one friend they hold higher than any other. There is a huge range of human relationships, and it's limiting on characterization that romance/marriage is considered the most significant bond two people can share. Family bonds are just one example of a relationship that can be equal or even greater than romance, but is still considered inferior by the current support system.

[Alastor15243]

S supports could be used to mark paired endings, regardless of the nature of the relationship. A character could have many friendships but still have one friend they hold higher than any other. There is a huge range of human relationships, and it's limiting on characterization that romance/marriage is considered the most significant bond two people can share. Family bonds are just one example of a relationship that can be equal or even greater than romance, but is still considered inferior by the current support system.

It would be considered inferior by the support system no matter what in any game that has children in it. These ideas would work fine if they didn't use children in the next game, but as long as they do, platonic endings would be at best an interesting feature that amounts to tactical leg-shooting (sadly like gay marriage in Fates, which I think is total nonsense, I haven't played the game so I may be wrong, but it seems to me like they could've easily come up with a story justification for why Corrin's child exists even if they have a same sex partner).

[NekoKnight]

It would be considered inferior by the support system no matter what in any game that has children in it. These ideas would work fine if they didn't use children in the next game, but as long as they do, platonic endings would be at best an interesting feature that amounts to tactical leg-shooting (sadly like gay marriage in Fates, which I think is total nonsense, I haven't played the game so I may be wrong, but it seems to me like they could've easily come up with a story justification for why Corrin's child exists even if they have a same sex partner).

Which would bring me to my next point, the focus on marriage and children (especially for a game like Fates where children are completely nonsensical) is also bad for characterization. It's not just that people can't have significant platonic relationships, they NEED to have romantic ones or you lose out on characters and paralogues.

[Topaz Light]

Favorite Mechanic: This might be a weird answer, but my absolute favorite mechanic is probably the rigidity of the series' damage calculations. You know that every time you damage an enemy, you will either do the forecast amount of damage, or three times that much. Even when attack-modifying Skills proc, they way they modify the damage dealt (if they do) is fixed and rigid as well. It gets rid of the inconvenience of attacking an enemy who the game forecasts that you'll just be able to kill if you hit them, but oops looks like you hit in the lower end of your damage range guess that's a bust.

Honorable Mention: Jugdral- and Tellius-style Skills. They're a great way to differentiate characters of the same class from one another, and making Skills more of a sort of special thing rather than something that every single character has in abundance makes it a lot cooler to get Skill Scrolls, or to get a new character with an awesome skill.

Least Favorite Mechanic: Healing staves being able to miss. I haven't even played Thracia 776 and just the concept of that is absolutely abominable to me. FE5 is literally the only RPG of any type that I am aware of wherein your healing spells can miss.

[ruadath]

Least Favorite Mechanic: Healing staves being able to miss. I haven't even played Thracia 776 and just the concept of that is absolutely abominable to me. FE5 is literally the only RPG of any type that I am aware of wherein your healing spells can miss.

I understand what you mean, but this isn't entirely true. A fair amount of RPGs have some luck-based healing skills, although I do agree that healing staves missing seems kind of egregious. Some examples would be Rosa's Pray in FF4 (although I guess that doesn't use any MP so you might claim it doesn't count), which only has a certain chance of restoring HP to your party. IIRC, there is something similar that Pixie can use on maps in the Devil Survivor subseries of Persona, but I don't remember the details too well (I believe this one does cost MP).

[Topaz Light]

I understand what you mean, but this isn't entirely true. A fair amount of RPGs have some luck-based healing skills, although I do agree that healing staves missing seems kind of egregious. Some examples would be Rosa's Pray in FF4 (although I guess that doesn't use any MP so you might claim it doesn't count), which only has a certain chance of restoring HP to your party. IIRC, there is something similar that Pixie can use on maps in the Devil Survivor subseries of Persona, but I don't remember the details too well (I believe this one does cost MP).

I did make a point to say it was the only instance of it that I personally was aware of. And I guess I meant more specifically that your standard healing spells being able to miss bugs me. Rosa's Pray command is a fair enough point, but she also has the Cure spell line, which cannot miss the intended target short of casting it on a target with Reflect status, in which case either they weren't actually the intended target for the spell or it's really on you for being inattentive.

[Aggro Incarnate]

(deleted)

Edited February 17, 2020 by Aggro Incarnate

[Tolvir]

Least favorite: Ambushes. Especially same turn ambushes. They just cause a restart or character death most of the time because it is hard to react to them especially when there are no warnings. My favorite would be the leveling system. I like the lower amount of levels because it makes it feel more grounded compared to getting to level 100 in other games. It also feels similar to Dungeons and Dragons so it makes it a little funny for me. I also like the idea of dismounting, just wish it was better implemented. It feels more realistic than having a wyvern flying around inside of a small palace or a cavalier running around in the narrow corridors of a castle.

[Blanche Jacquestopus]

Has no one mentioned fog of war or am I somehow missing it? Definitely my least favorite along with same turn reinforcements. There's nothing more frustrating than losing a unit to an enemy you couldn't see or anticipate. I feel like they take all the strategy out and replace it with memorization and trial and error, not to mention they pretty much never bother to explain why you can't see anything through the fog but the enemy can see you just fine. I think 12 was the only one that bothered to try.

Favorite is probably reclassing. It might have gone a little far in the DS games but it adds a lot of replayability for me and I like having that kind of customization over my team. Honorable mention to those crusader scrolls/starsphere shards in FE 5 and 3. They're a little abusable and it's annoying that you have to look them up to get any use out of them, but I like being able to patch a particular flaw or specialize a unit further.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Blanche Jacquestopus

[Alastor15243]

Has no one mentioned fog of war or am I somehow missing it? Definitely my least favorite along with same turn reinforcements. There's nothing more frustrating than losing a unit to an enemy you couldn't see or anticipate. Having both in the same chapter is just a nightmare. I feel like they take all the strategy out and replace it with memorization and trial and error. Not to mention they pretty much never bother to explain why you can't see anything through the fog but the enemy can see you just fine. I think 12 was the only one that bothered to try.

Favorite is probably reclassing. It might have gone a little far in the DS games but it adds a lot of replayability for me and I like having that kind of customization over my team. Honorable mention to those crusader scrolls/starsphere shards in FE 5 and 3. They're a little abusable and it's annoying that you have to look them up to get any use out of them, but I like being able to patch a particular flaw or specialize a unit further.

I like fog of war, honestly, at least in the sense that it makes for good atmosphere and tension, and provides a change of pace in strategy. What annoys me about it is that it kind of only works until you memorize it, because unlike advance wars, there's a pre-set group of units the enemy has deployed.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Alastor15243

[Magical Glace]

Has no one mentioned fog of war or am I somehow missing it? Definitely my least favorite along with same turn reinforcements. There's nothing more frustrating than losing a unit to an enemy you couldn't see or anticipate. Having both in the same chapter is just a nightmare. I feel like they take all the strategy out and replace it with memorization and trial and error. Not to mention they pretty much never bother to explain why you can't see anything through the fog but the enemy can see you just fine. I think 12 was the only one that bothered to try.

Only time I don't like Fog of War is when it happens to be in a desert. With a time limit.

Oh hello FE6 Chapter 14: Arcadia.

Besides that I never found it much of an issue. Then again I tend to play on the defense more often than not anyway so.

[Blanche Jacquestopus]

Huh, I always thought it was less popular than that. Maybe it's just fresh on my mind since I actually just did FE6 chapter 14 on hard mode earlier today, but I can't say I've ever enjoyed any of those maps. I've had too many pegasus knights get sniped by guys I couldn't see.

Maybe If the enemy had to bumble through it the same as the player it'd be more tolerable. On principle at least, that might just be even more obnoxious in practice.

[Camus The Dark Knight]

Least favorite: Random growths, I know it's a series staple but I loved the fixed growth mode on FE9 and was sad to see it not return.

Favorite: Skills, sucks they are an off and on kind of thing.

[Alastor15243]

Least favorite: Random growths, I know it's a series staple but I loved the fixed growth mode on FE9 and was sad to see it not return.

Favorite: Skills, sucks they are an off and on kind of thing.

Ha! Same answer as me!

*holds out low five*

[henrymidfields]

Least favourite: Cheating in fog of war: Why did they make the enemy able to see my movements in Fire Emblem when both the enemy and I could have done the guessing game, like in Advanced Wars?

Most favourite: Rescue command. That saved my bottom so many time in Binding Blade. Especially rescuing civilians.