Curious: How do other players feel about the DLC like Beach brawl with.... (spoilers)

[bookwormbabe29]

... fixed units?

I was wondering how other players felt about stages like Beach Brawl, Royal Royale, and the 'heirs of fate' series with fixed characters, stats, etc. Personally, I've mostly avoided them so far. I've looked them over, but I get fed up quickly and lose interest. The concept feels a little cheap to me, that it gives you an exact scenario, and if you don't do exactly the right thing, you're going to lose. It feels less like a 'strategy' game and more of 'puzzle' game, trying to figure out the one right way to solve the puzzle. It grates on me far more than I would have suspected (I did buy them, after all).

For example, part of me wants to beat the Royal Royale with each royal for the stat boosts and to say 'yea, I did it' to make buying it seem worthwhile. And then there's the part that wants to look up a guide to just get it over with it as it seems so pointless to me, that I have better things to do then driving myself nuts looking for the ONE perfect way to do this. That's my opinion, at least. Where do the rest of you stand?

[Light Strategist]

I like Heirs of Fate because it has a story, so it feels like you're working towards a goal, but the others feel pretty useless to me.

[Sentinel07]

I'm fine with Heirs of Fate and Beach Brawl having fixed units.

To me, the problem is simply that the ones that actually do allow you to use your own units are kind of stupid. Awakening had Champions of Yore, Lost Bloodlines, Smash Brethren, and Rogues and Redeemers which were alot of fun to replay over and over (be it for EXP, the special items, or just plain seeing convos between old and new characters).

Fates has nothing like that, just these one-off chapters for a few special classes and one new character (Anna).

[Mrguy_123]

The hidden truths were the one portion of dlc that I felt did that well. Not only did it make a bad map from awakening actually fun but it also was a puzzle that wasn't too hard nor too easy.

I wish this was done in the future past dlc in awakening as you could play as the children and fight your way out against the risen instead of rescuing them with our guys. It was still really good and the parent child conversations are heartwarming but it would have been the perfect story arc for fixed units.

[Anomalocaris]

I like the challenge they provide, but I ***HATE*** that they locked class-changing items and stuff behind them. They're a pain to farm; at least with Vanguard Dawn, Ballistician Blitz, and Witches' Trial I can just put my max-stat Corrin on the map and mash Auto until I have a fancy new item, but the others I have to manually solve every time. I'm actually tempted to just use convoy editing to give myself 99 of all those items, but I don't know how to edit my savefile or even get homebrew running. If anyone knows how to do that I'd appreciate help.

It also produces the unfortunate side effect that since all the hard DLC gives you fixed units, there's no real point to making my units any stronger. What am I gonna do with these hard-earned Dread Scrolls when there's no context to use them in any more? I guess we might get Apotheosis-style maps in the future, but until then there's nothing to do anymore.

[Ertrick36]

Well, here's the thing. On one hand, they're fun because they're challenging. When doing a standard run of Revelation with no rules, you might be inclined to grind a ton simply because you can, so that'll mean you get a ridiculously overpowered team that has pretty much no chance of dying. With Heirs of Fates and Royal Royale, you have to rely on a team that can be easily destroyed if you're not thinking strategically. You legitimately have to overcome odds, instead of just relying on an immortal death god (or an army of them).

However, on the other hand, they're pretty terrible for grinding. There's not much replay value, as the battles are almost always the same, so it isn't too fun playing the map for the 9th Strengthtaker or whatever. At some point, it just becomes an exercise in patience. So ultimately, I never play these maps twice.

[Blademaster_Aio]

I like them.

I do not like the fact they have class changing items locked behind them. I have to play owain inigo severa map to get my grandmaster seal. It's a pain, really.

But still I like them. I don't have to train anyone or pick any weapons and I make do with what I have.

[twistedxgrace]

I'm all right with it I guess. Heirs of Fate is more justifiable to me because it tells its own story with characters completely optional in the main campaign. I hate Beach Brawl. Maybe not necessarily because of the fixed units (though I disagree with some of the "canon" promotions it chose), but because the map to me just isn't very fun at all and not worth it to view CGs I can just look up online.

[Captain Karnage]

I like it, it allows me to play these maps asap and get those game breaking skills

[Experiment 626]

I hate them. The units they give you are far too prone to suffering from bad luck rather than a player misstep, and combined with the ludicrously wonky RNG this game has, they very, very quickly become 100% rage-inducing.

Trying to get just 1 ****ing Fell Brand for example on my current Conquest/Hard play through?

Nope, AI isn't going to let me go beyond turn 6 before 2/3 characters are corpses, all because they can't hit enemies with 80%+ hit rates, while the enemy never misses 40-45% or worse hit rates, while activating 2% crits like they're 90%!

Biggest misstep of the entire game IMHO.

[kcirrot]

I hate them. Conquest doesn't allow grinding (without DLC), but you can try different setups and item load outs. With the fixed units it's the same crap every time. It's boring and tedious. It's not hard in most cases. I have Hidden Truths down to a science now.

It also kills replay value as there's really nothing to build for like Rogues and Redeemers.