Debate on Fire Emblem debating

[Florete]

I really hope I'm not the only one who didn't see that. I believe it was the Titania topic where I even said something just like that, only worded differently, and I don't think anyone responded.

Putting the probability in allows room for other opinions. Most likely doesn't exactly mean likely, after all. Example: one event has a 5% chance of happening. There are 95 other possible events that can happen, each with a 1% chance to occur. The 5% is technically the most likely one to happen, but there is still a 95% chance it won't happen.

Thus, not everyone must agree with what might be stated as the worst/best character in the game; anyone is still allowed to think otherwise. I hope this clears things up around here.

[Defeatist Elitist]

GODDAMNIT. I thought I posted somewhere that we normally mean the character with the highest probability of being best... I mean, pretending that characters can't be screwed is a bit silly, hey?

[sandmanccl]

The video can show a character's stats first, you know. Whether the strategy you are trying to show has blessed units or not, it doesn't change the fact you still arrange your units in some certain manner. If I'm trying to prove a point but I've got extremely good luck, then I'm not going to claim it as the best way to go because I realize that's just good luck. Actually, I'd like to get a few guys that often get stat screwed and show how to use them to benefit your team anyway just to show it can be done.

Example: There's a couple points in a few maps in FE9 where you have to cross bridges that are a single space wide that has a bunch of enemies on the other side of it. My strategy is to block the front with someone that's slow, powerful, with high defense. That's usually a general but it could be anyone as long as their stats align with what I've said. I park him there, park an archer directly behind him, park my healer directly behind HIM, and then load up with whatever units are remaining as long as they'll be able to move in to attack enemies after I clear them away.

Enemy attacks, knight doesn't take a whole lot of damage if at all, doesn't quite kill the enemy but because he's there, the AI bunches all the enemy soldiers nearby. Archer takes out guy initially damaged by the knight, someone that can one-round an enemy that I can now hit (which usually implies an enemy archer or sage, as the guys directly behind who attack you in melee are enemies with range, because that's just how the AI works), and that usually opens up room for my high movement units to cause havoc behind enemy lines, my other meatshields to get in position, my other ranged units to get in position, my whole force able to move up with minimal damage taken if any at all, and everything I could have potentially killed in that round is now dead.

I hope I did a good job explaining my strategy here, but it'd be a lot easier with video-in or whatever.

I might look into getting VBA. I mean, I own the cartridges so it's actually legal for me to own ROM images.

[Wist]

I see Wist's point, and it's a good one, however their are a couple things I should point out. One, and the most important, StarCraft is a Multi player game. If any of you did watch the video (I hope you did, it was amazing :P), much of the value of the Valkyrie's came from the opponent NOT KNOWING HOW TO COUNTER Valkyries. They had no idea what to do when faced with that. In a multiplayer game, things aren't static.

In Fire Emblem, everything's pretty predictable and static.

That is true, but it could make tactical discussions easier to discuss. The AI is predictable but the player and the RNG are not. I like to use Pegasus Knights much more than I like to use horse mounted units but I'm sure not everybody plays like that. I have no idea how many people prefer to tank their way across a map with a tank characters or two versus those who like to rescue units with Pegasus Knights and drop them further into the map versus those who love to focus on magic units. There could still be a variety of feasible strategic options to consider despite the rigidity of the AI.

You're absolutely right in that Valkyries were shown to be more useful than expected because most people don't know how best to fight them, but the discussion in the thread from which the video was intended for sort of addresses that. I chose the video because it demonstrated a person showing how a unit throught useless can be viable, focusing the argument on how best to use and counter them instead of on whether they're too risky to use at all. Maybe I should have shown a different video, but this one came to my mind first as a good illustration of this point.

My main problem with the recording of videos is that the player could have gained massively blessed characters, massively screwed characters, or has used the Tower or Arena to level characters or doesn't use optimal supports or doesn't use the optimal promotions. Those are all things that can change tactics completely.

For example, if I were to show that Archers are great, and I have a massively blessed one with HP, Strength, Speed, Skill and Defense capped, then it indeed isn't hard to show that an Archer is indeed awesome. However, that archer in that playthrough is not the only one that matters.

Let's imagine that there would be another Archer in that game with identical bases and growths who joins at the exact same time as the one mentioned above. You use him the same strategically (spelling?) as the above archer. He gets massively screwed and has all stats quite a bit below 15 with 26 HP. Now it's obvious that Archers actually suck...

So now you've proven why they're great, but also why they suck. In other words, it's impossible to prove a class and/or character good or bad with personal experience, even if you record it.

I had something else I wanted to reply to, but I forgot what it was...

I see your point, but I don't think it's bad that videos can't prove which characters are on average advantaged over other characters. People would be forced to discuss how a player plays with what he has available instead of which characters he would best be advised to use. This is potentially more useful because, as you implied, average statistics are no guarantee of how a character will turn out. Players will have to adapt if characters level up differently than anticipated and videos of concrete scenarios would create a rigid framework within which to discuss viable tactics (although whether or not points discussed from this would be useful for other chapters or characters is something I could not hope to predict). Averages are useful for projections but they are not always applicable to every playthrough. Videos won't show which characters are better than others, but they will show which strategies are best suited to each character the player wishes to use.

If my objective in a chapter is level up Sophia because I want to use her, then discussion is oriented towards how best to level up Sophia without her dying. Whether or not Sophia is a good character to use is removed from the discussion because the player outlines his choice to use Sophia and how he went about fighting with her in a chapter. If my objective is to use the characters I think are the best characters then discussion is focused on how best to use those characters. Naturally, the biggest problems with this idea would arise if people still prefer to talk which characters are best on average instead of tactics, but I think it might be worth giving it a shot.

An experiment should probably be conducted before I continue to promote this idea as a good alternative to the current focus of Fire Emblem debates. If I can find a microphone and some simple video editing tools then I might be able to make an example video (or sandmancci if he chooses to do so, I can't quite tell if he is implying that he wants to try this or not). I imagined such videos focusing on Fire Emblem 10 because a number of people seem to find the early chapters difficult and the characters available are very much limited, reducing the usefulness of considering which units to use and not use. Unfortunately I lack access to a Wii at the moment so the GBA Fire Emblems would be my best option until sometime around Thanksgiving (which is in late November for those not in the US).

Edit (2008.10.11):

I've made one video describing what I would consider a semi-passive run through of the first chapter in Hector's Hard mode of FE7. I'm going to make another video in which I pursue a different strategy (and hopefully the quality will be better, this is my first time commenting anything). Once that's done I'll message Vincent and/or Jyosua to ask if it is ok to being a thread in which the pros and cons of the two strategies used in the videos are discussed. It would only be an experiment to see if it's worth making a concerted effort in directing debates towards tactical decisions, we'll see what happens if the administrators give this experiment a green light (I've yet to contact them because I still have to make the second video). I have no idea if commentaries will be useful or not but so far it's been interesting trying to explain the rationales behind my decisions (I've done so after recording the video because I think that's easier).

I still think that the more complex Fire Emblem games, those with skills in particular, would allow for a greater depth to tactical discussion. Chapters involving more than two characters would help pull descriptions away from the obvious as well, but I don't have access to my consoles and I don't know how to record video from them.

Edit (2008.10.13):

As of late I've become much more busy, I have yet to produce an alternate video which I think would be useful for inspiring a debate on different tactical approaches. I may or not pursue this idea when I have more free time in which do so.

Edited October 13, 2008 by Wist

[Defeatist Elitist]

The (usual) point of Fire Emblem Debating is to find which characters most easily and efficiently can clear the most difficult mode possible (overall). However, debates could be held on other things as well. That is a possibility. It's just that they are usually about what I said earlier.

[DeSu]

Reading all this just makes me think debating individual characters in a game like FE is worthless. It's mostly about tactics and luck. That's not really something debateable. Even averages aren't exactly average. A person could easily go through 10 playthroughs using a character, Raven for example, and have him absolutely suck.

[Florete]

Reading all this just makes me think debating individual characters in a game like FE is worthless. It's mostly about tactics and luck. That's not really something debateable. Even averages aren't exactly average. A person could easily go through 10 playthroughs using a character, Raven for example, and have him absolutely suck.

Which was my point from the start.

[Tino]

Reading all this just makes me think debating individual characters in a game like FE is worthless. It's mostly about tactics and luck. That's not really something debateable. Even averages aren't exactly average. A person could easily go through 10 playthroughs using a character, Raven for example, and have him absolutely suck.

Of course averages are average. The calculated averages indicate what stats that character will most likely have at a certain level and are therefore assumed as the correct stats to use in debates.

[TLSothe]

What went wrong?

Well, people began flaming, debaters were heavily flamed, and non debaters were flamed in return.

Why did it go wrong?

We're human. We make mistakes, and we carry little things too far; for Christ's sakes, debating is fine, but I believe us debaters may've gone too far?

What do you think about the concept of FE debating?

It's pretty fun, a good hobby, and time consuming, so it doesn't just require "omg i loev knol" or something (No offense to anyone)

What do you think when you see FE debating?

Here? Run like hell before the war. Elsewhere? Excellent, let me join in.

What is Serenes Forest?

Serenes Forest--that should have it's own description in the Dictionary. We are a nation, we are a community, we are a fellowship, we have spammers, spam haters, flamers, the equivalent of hippies, grammar lovers, bad grammar people, debaters, debate haters, Fire Emblem fans, we have an insane memberbase, and an equally insane Staff--what is Serenes? Well--it takes toooo long to describe.

[Tino]

Copy/paste from the awesomeess that is Mekkah.

How to measure a unit's usefulness

A character's usefulness should be judged over the whole game, and not just their joining situation or their stats in the final chapter. A character can be helpful, a burden or something inbetween. Characters in the lower tiers are those that, overall, are a burden, while those in the upper tiers are helpful overall. Those in the exact middle are neither helpful nor a burden. In the positive is a number above zero, in the middle is zero, and in the negative is below zero.

Every chapter should be weighed, but not equally. FE8 Prologue has 3 enemies, whereas Ch20 has at least 80. Obviously chapters with lots of enemies have more weight than chapters with few enemies: it's better to be good against 80 enemies than to be good against 3.

Note that by "good", I mean relatively good. Say, we have a Brigand with 20 HP/5 Def/5 AS. If we have a unit with 12 Atk and 6 AS attacking it, he kills it in four rounds. How good is that? If he's your only unit, he's both the best and the worst...no real relative value. Add a unit with 12 Atk and 10 AS, and that unit takes only two rounds to kill it. He is now relatively good compared to the other. The other went from "only" to "worst", whereas the other is clearly the best. Add another unit with 15 Atk and 10 AS, who takes one round to kill this enemy, and the second unit went to the middle, the first one is the worst, and this new unit is the best. Were this trend to continue for the whole game (the units and enemies stay the same for the whole game, or improve equally as much), the first unit would be Low tier, the second Mid, and the third High. The first unit is in the negative, the second on zero, the third in the positive.

Being good against threatening, strong enemies has more weight than against weak enemies, all other variables equal. If there's 10 Swordmasters and 10 Priests, you're not impressing anyone by claiming you can one round the Priests without taking damage, but taking on the Swordmasters with a very low chance of dying and a very good chance of one rounding is much better.

Above assumptions allow us to compare characters even if they are not around at the same time: think units that don't join at the same time (Gilliam vs Tana, for example), or units that play in totally different parts for a while (Nephenee vs Aran).

So what do we have now?

Unit usefulness = Usefulness for Ch1 + Usefulness for Ch2 + Usefulness for Ch3...Usefulness for ChN

Usefulness for ChN = Usefulness against enemy 1 + Usefulness against enemy 2...Usefulness against enemy N

Usefulness against an enemy is relative, as explained above. If you are doing better than 50% of the team, the number is positive, whereas if you are doing worse than 50% of the team, the number is negative. How much you suck or rule makes the number go lower or higher.

Is that all of it? No, so far we only covered pure fighting against enemies. However, there are more factors. Movement, for example. In a chapter with 50 enemies, Gilliam's movement may restrict him to only facing 5, whereas Franz could face 10, and Vanessa has access to 30 if she wanted in the duration of the chapter. Say all of them have positive performance against those 50, Gilliam has to be twice as positive as Franz to make up for being able to face less enemies, and pretty much has no shot at Vanessa's six times as high access to enemies.

Also, there are factors that units bring to the table that make other units better. Think dancers (allow units to do something for another time, which allows you to add more positive), healers (makes others more durable, able to attack more, etc), but also bringing you a stat booster or gold by visiting a village. Of course, anyone can visit a village, but sometimes it's really hard for your units to reach it. Like in Ch13x of FE7, Marcus is one of the very few people who can make it to the 5000G village in time without having an extremely high death chance, and therefore he gets more credit for it than, say, Lowen (who has 1 less mov and less durability and offense), and way more than Eliwood (who has 3 less mov and even less durability).

If something is unique, it is better. This is a logical assumption that comes from the Priest/Swordmaster example. Anyone can one round Priests without taking damage, few can do the same to Swordmasters. There's many more examples to be found. Patty can only be saved from the Dark Mages in Ch7 of FE4 by Shannan. By the time anyone else reaches the Yied Shrine, she'd be toast if it weren't for him. So Shannan gets credit for improving your survival rank (which goes down if people such as Patty die). Matthew gets credit for everything he steals until Legault joins, and from there he gets half of the credit (slightly more if his higher stats and support levels allow him to do something that Legault cannot).

Of course, as objective as these methods and formulae are, assigning numbers to them is a lot harder. How do you measure a higher chance of visiting a village with an Energy Ring (+2 Str for anyone) against someone being quite positive for one chapter?

That is, of course, what debating is about, and how arguments can be skewed. But I believe this abstract method should be the basic one.

Just thought this would be worth posting here -_-