What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

True; the game really bent over backwards to make sure Alear could never have a dragon form. I really don't know what IS was thinking; making a game with a protagonist that everyone in the game insists is a dragon and then never actually having them be a dragon; instead just having them be yet another young-adult humanoid swordsman.

A slight issue with that scene in particular, if I recall, is that they wanted Alear to appear to be a full on Fell Dragon briefly, I think, and it's only a chapter or two later where they learn they're, like, an artificial half breed. So transforming to reveal it would probably need some kind of mixed blood form giving that away. Wait, no, actually I think Sigurd explains it all as soon as Griss leaves. Well, never mind all that. The dragon stone could have been used and then Alear would have a dragon form for Heroes, we could get gauntlets as a proper heroes weapon and all live in a better world.

[vanguard333]

32 minutes ago, Jotari said:

A slight issue with that scene in particular, if I recall, is that they wanted Alear to appear to be a full on Fell Dragon briefly, I think, and it's only a chapter or two later where they learn they're, like, an artificial half breed. So transforming to reveal it would probably need some kind of mixed blood form giving that away. Wait, no, actually I think Sigurd explains it all as soon as Griss leaves. Well, never mind all that. The dragon stone could have been used and then Alear would have a dragon form for Heroes, we could get gauntlets as a proper heroes weapon and all live in a better world.

You are right in that they wanted Alear to have a brief time of agonizing over finding out they're a fell dragon and thinking that they can't lead the army because of that before Sigurd tells them that they're really half-divine dragon because of Lumera's divine dragon essence the moment Griss leaves.

One thing I would suggest is that Alear's dragon form looking different from Sombron's would not immediately indicate that they're now a hybrid (at least, no more than the emblems Alear summons being blue and capable of speech does). They may be DLC, but Nel and Rafal both look notably different from Sombron in their fell dragon forms while still being fell dragons. I think if Alear's dragon from was overall like that of a fell dragon in shape and then had various divine dragon features in all the details (such as the shape and colouration of the scales, etc.), that would've enabled the game to use Alear's dragon form for the twist and still have the scene where Sigurd has to tell Alear that they're half-divine dragon.

Really, the problem is that, overall and with the sole exception of Sombron, Engage seemingly really wants to avoid having the dragon characters actually be dragons as much as possible. Even disregarding Alear, Veyle never uses her dragon form with the explanation being that she buried her dragonstone long ago, Lumera's dragon form only appears twice in cutscenes and never in gameplay (understandable when she's a zombie as it's an important plot point that dragonstones shatter when the dragon dies, but that excuse isn't there when she's alive), Zephia never uses her dragon form at all and no explanation is ever given for why she doesn't use it, etc. The only dragons who are allowed to shine as dragons are DLC characters and Sombron.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

I like my character to be characterized though. And the bigger the cast the harder it is to do that. Unless they just throw more money and more writers at it, but too many cooks can be an issue too. That being said, my mind just keeps going back to Archanea no matter how much of this series I plan. Despite Jugdral being my favourite narrative, I think Archanea and its cast of nobodies is my favourite setting.

*puts up fingerguns*

See? You don´t need characterization.

Reject Individualism, embrace Fodder, comrade.

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think more personal skills should be just plain regular skills. Like Vaike just gets really Strength. He just has it on his moveset at all times, meaning your free to build around that and make a rally build with an extra slot, or just ignore it and use it when it's useful. Rather than creating some kind of very niche skill just for the sake of being unique. Nobody is complaining that Lysethia has vanilla Discipline as he personal skill, because it's a decent enough skill that works on her.

I was fully prepared to drop a "Fates obviously has the best PS" but then I looked through Three Houses list and to my chargrin I think TH does have the most useful assortment of PS, only their effects don´t scale with the statflation of higher difficulties, so they kinda fall flat.

[lenticular]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think more personal skills should be just plain regular skills. Like Vaike just gets really Strength. He just has it on his moveset at all times, meaning your free to build around that and make a rally build with an extra slot, or just ignore it and use it when it's useful. Rather than creating some kind of very niche skill just for the sake of being unique. Nobody is complaining that Lysethia has vanilla Discipline as he personal skill, because it's a decent enough skill that works on her.

This is basically the Tellius approach. Fiona has Savior, Soren has Adept, Astrid has Paragon, and so on. They aren't called personal skills, but they surely feel that way, make different units feel distinct, and are a whole lot more useful than the modern fare of "Lck% chance to regain 2hp if you end your turn in a desert while adjacent to a mounted unit of the opposite gender". Bring back the Tellius skill system! (And yeah, I know that you know all this, but you may not have made the connection in your brain that these were basically personal skills that were good before actual personal skills existed.)

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

15 hours ago, lenticular said:

This is basically the Tellius approach. Fiona has Savior, Soren has Adept, Astrid has Paragon, and so on.

Love how IS gave Fiona Imbue and Savior, thinking that would make people use her. And then forgot to give her base stats, availability, or any map that would work for mounted units.

Anyway, in Tellius, they're sorta-personal, sorta-not. Since you can remove the skills, and put them on another unit (in RD) - at cost. So skills like Astrid's Paragon, while in theory helping her, in practice tend to find their way to a better unit. In PoR, they were more strictly personal (as removed skills can't be reassigned), but of course, this design limited player freedom. So it's debatable which way of doing things is better.

17 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

I was fully prepared to drop a "Fates obviously has the best PS" but then I looked through Three Houses list and to my chargrin I think TH does have the most useful assortment of PS, only their effects don´t scale with the statflation of higher difficulties, so they kinda fall flat.

Hm... I think they're actually pretty competitive with each other. Each game has really good skills (the Retainers and Princesses in Fates; the Lords, Teach, and Ignatz in 3H), but also some stinkers (Selena vs Raphael, who's got it worse?). Plus, a Villager who's stuck with Aptitude, even though they could've just folded it into their base growth rates, grumble grumble...

 

On 1/18/2024 at 7:31 PM, Jotari said:

A slight issue with that scene in particular, if I recall, is that they wanted Alear to appear to be a full on Fell Dragon briefly, I think, and it's only a chapter or two later where they learn they're, like, an artificial half breed. So transforming to reveal it would probably need some kind of mixed blood form giving that away. Wait, no, actually I think Sigurd explains it all as soon as Griss leaves. Well, never mind all that. The dragon stone could have been used and then Alear would have a dragon form for Heroes, we could get gauntlets as a proper heroes weapon and all live in a better world.

Obviously, they were fulfilling a quota. See, Corrin was a dragon in gameplay, but not in story. So they needed Alear to be a dragon in story, but not in gameplay. It all balances out!

[lenticular]

11 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Love how IS gave Fiona Imbue and Savior, thinking that would make people use her. And then forgot to give her base stats, availability, or any map that would work for mounted units.

So you missed my unpopular opinion from a couple of weeks back about how Fiona is actually a decent unit, huh? 😄

I stand by it. She starts off pretty dreadful, so obviously takes favouritism to raise, but if you do choose to raise her (which isn't that difficult) then I think that the combination of Savior, Imbue, and Earth affinity are enough payoff to feel worthwhile.

11 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Anyway, in Tellius, they're sorta-personal, sorta-not. Since you can remove the skills, and put them on another unit (in RD) - at cost. So skills like Astrid's Paragon, while in theory helping her, in practice tend to find their way to a better unit. In PoR, they were more strictly personal (as removed skills can't be reassigned), but of course, this design limited player freedom. So it's debatable which way of doing things is better.

I partially agree here, partially not. Because while you can remove the "personal" skills and put them on other units, I think that it's often not worth doing so, due to capacity concerns. There are definitely some skills that are strong enough or important enough to really be worth the capacity cost on whoever you give them to. Stuff like Paragon or Nihil, for instance. But then there are other skills which typically aren't worth the capacity cost so are largely only usable by characters who get them as personal skills. For instance, I'm not typically in any rush to take Fortune away from Meg or Imbue away from Fiona, because they don't generally feel worth it on other units, but that doesn't mean that they aren't nice to have and genuine perks of using those units.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

So you missed my unpopular opinion from a couple of weeks back about how Fiona is actually a decent unit, huh? 😄

I stand by it. She starts off pretty dreadful, so obviously takes favouritism to raise, but if you do choose to raise her (which isn't that difficult) then I think that the combination of Savior, Imbue, and Earth affinity are enough payoff to feel worthwhile.

Oh boy, I missed it. It must've gotten lost amidst the "Ludveck discourse".

Anyway, I would agree that Fiona has the potential to be good, certainly. Moreso than the likes of Meg and Lyre. But I don't agree when it comes to getting her there. You say "it's easy to catch lower leveled units up in RD", but I have to disagree. BEXP exists, but it's better used on already-strong units, or on "investment units" who've capped a couple stats already. And on Hard Mode, you get less of it, and it's less effective. As for Paragon, you can't even apply it until a unit is in second-tier (excepting Micaiah). You could early-promote Fiona with a Master Seal, sure. But then you're missing out on a bunch of levels, and kneecapping her EXP gain, even with Paragon. Finally, most of the chapters you can deploy her in are ledge- or swamp-heavy, undermining her mobility advantage.

Now, I'm willing to give Fiona a try. I've never invested in her, and Meg was a fun project before (on Normal mode), so perhaps she'll surprise me. But for the time being, call me a Skeptical Sanaki.

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

I partially agree here, partially not. Because while you can remove the "personal" skills and put them on other units, I think that it's often not worth doing so, due to capacity concerns. There are definitely some skills that are strong enough or important enough to really be worth the capacity cost on whoever you give them to. Stuff like Paragon or Nihil, for instance. But then there are other skills which typically aren't worth the capacity cost so are largely only usable by characters who get them as personal skills. For instance, I'm not typically in any rush to take Fortune away from Meg or Imbue away from Fiona, because they don't generally feel worth it on other units, but that doesn't mean that they aren't nice to have and genuine perks of using those units.

Well, I'd agree that it varies from skill-to-skill. Stuff like Tauroneo's Resolve or Tormod's Celerity, players tend to insist on taking off right away. They're great skills, and their "host units" have availability issues that prevent them from making good use of them.

But, let's say we've gotten to a point of the game where Meg is... benched. Fully benched. No chance of her seeing combat. In that context, there are three choices: 1) leave Fortune on Meg; 2) remove Fortune from Meg, and assign it to another unit; or 3) remove Fortune from Meg, and sell it. Per the Wiki, the Fortune scroll has a value of 6K gold, which I believe means it sells for 3K. That can go towards affording a rare item, or a pricy forge. Certainly, in that case, option 1 is doing the least for me. Even if nobody wants the skill, it'd be my best interest to sell it.

And, should I even wait until Meg is benched? Suppose I'm ironmanning, and an untrained Meg has survived into Part III. How much is she gonna be doing there? Shovebotting? Fishing for hidden items? If she dies, Fortune dies with her. So even if I'm deploying her, it may be in my best interest to remove Fortune, and sell the scroll.

[Jotari]

16 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Oh boy, I missed it. It must've gotten lost amidst the "Ludveck discourse".

Anyway, I would agree that Fiona has the potential to be good, certainly. Moreso than the likes of Meg and Lyre. But I don't agree when it comes to getting her there. You say "it's easy to catch lower leveled units up in RD", but I have to disagree. BEXP exists, but it's better used on already-strong units, or on "investment units" who've capped a couple stats already. And on Hard Mode, you get less of it, and it's less effective. As for Paragon, you can't even apply it until a unit is in second-tier (excepting Micaiah). You could early-promote Fiona with a Master Seal, sure. But then you're missing out on a bunch of levels, and kneecapping her EXP gain, even with Paragon. Finally, most of the chapters you can deploy her in are ledge- or swamp-heavy, undermining her mobility advantage.

Now, I'm willing to give Fiona a try. I've never invested in her, and Meg was a fun project before (on Normal mode), so perhaps she'll surprise me. But for the time being, call me a Skeptical Sanaki.

Well, I'd agree that it varies from skill-to-skill. Stuff like Tauroneo's Resolve or Tormod's Celerity, players tend to insist on taking off right away. They're great skills, and their "host units" have availability issues that prevent them from making good use of them.

But, let's say we've gotten to a point of the game where Meg is... benched. Fully benched. No chance of her seeing combat. In that context, there are three choices: 1) leave Fortune on Meg; 2) remove Fortune from Meg, and assign it to another unit; or 3) remove Fortune from Meg, and sell it. Per the Wiki, the Fortune scroll has a value of 6K gold, which I believe means it sells for 3K. That can go towards affording a rare item, or a pricy forge. Certainly, in that case, option 1 is doing the least for me. Even if nobody wants the skill, it'd be my best interest to sell it.

And, should I even wait until Meg is benched? Suppose I'm ironmanning, and an untrained Meg has survived into Part III. How much is she gonna be doing there? Shovebotting? Fishing for hidden items? If she dies, Fortune dies with her. So even if I'm deploying her, it may be in my best interest to remove Fortune, and sell the scroll.

Well one slightly annoying thing about Meg is that they're forced deploy in part 3. Because the Dawn Brigade literally doesn't have enough unit to out pace the deployment limit. So you're just kneecapping yourself by not using them. Fiona is just a really unfortunate unit, transfer her to the sixth or seventh chapter of Path of Radiance and she'd be godly, but she not only suffers from Radiant Dawn's mounted bias, bit also Radiant Dawn's Dawn Brigade bias.

As far as the personal skills go, one thing that kind of annoys me about them is that you can't reassign them for zero capacity. I can't just take Paragon off Astrid and give it to someone else for a few maps and then return it to her. Taking a personal skill off a unit is kind of a major decision because once you remove it there's no going back.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well one slightly annoying thing about Meg is that they're forced deploy in part 3. Because the Dawn Brigade literally doesn't have enough unit to out pace the deployment limit. So you're just kneecapping yourself by not using them. Fiona is just a really unfortunate unit, transfer her to the sixth or seventh chapter of Path of Radiance and she'd be godly, but she not only suffers from Radiant Dawn's mounted bias, bit also Radiant Dawn's Dawn Brigade bias.

For the record, I'm not saying "don't use them in Part III", I'm saying "take any skills and items of value off of them in case they die". Meg still has value as a warm body blocking the central ledge in III-13, for instance. Same with Fiona, or anyone else you've left untrained.

Yeah, Fiona feels like she's in the wrong game. Her base level, stats, and weapon rank seem "fine" for any unit joining in the seventh chapter of a given campaign. Like, compared to Treck, she has the same HP, Strength, and Defense, with higher "everything else", and starting at C Lances rather than D. Treck's only advantages are E Swords, and starting at a lower level. But Treck, while perhaps the worst Cavalier in FE6, is pretty much universally regarded as "fine enough, I guess". Definitely not a basement-tier unit. Because he exists in a game where enemy stats are lower, he has more chapters to level in, and the map designs are far friendlier to cavalry.

22 minutes ago, Jotari said:

As far as the personal skills go, one thing that kind of annoys me about them is that you can't reassign them for zero capacity. I can't just take Paragon off Astrid and give it to someone else for a few maps and then return it to her. Taking a personal skill off a unit is kind of a major decision because once you remove it there's no going back.

Nah, I'm fine with this. It makes removing a semi-personal skill a choice with consequences. If I could just put it back on for free whenever, there'd be no gravity to removing it in the first place. It's kind of like pawning off a weapon in FE4, and then buying it back.

Having said that, I do think the game should warn the player the first time they're about to remove a skill. Make it clear what they're getting into, so they don't make a choice that they expect to be easily reversible.

[Jotari]

16 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

For the record, I'm not saying "don't use them in Part III", I'm saying "take any skills and items of value off of them in case they die". Meg still has value as a warm body blocking the central ledge in III-13, for instance. Same with Fiona, or anyone else you've left untrained.

Yeah, Fiona feels like she's in the wrong game. Her base level, stats, and weapon rank seem "fine" for any unit joining in the seventh chapter of a given campaign. Like, compared to Treck, she has the same HP, Strength, and Defense, with higher "everything else", and starting at C Lances rather than D. Treck's only advantages are E Swords, and starting at a lower level. But Treck, while perhaps the worst Cavalier in FE6, is pretty much universally regarded as "fine enough, I guess". Definitely not a basement-tier unit. Because he exists in a game where enemy stats are lower, he has more chapters to level in, and the map designs are far friendlier to cavalry.

Nah, I'm fine with this. It makes removing a semi-personal skill a choice with consequences. If I could just put it back on for free whenever, there'd be no gravity to removing it in the first place. It's kind of like pawning off a weapon in FE4, and then buying it back.

Having said that, I do think the game should warn the player the first time they're about to remove a skill. Make it clear what they're getting into, so they don't make a choice that they expect to be easily reversible.

I think as a mechanic it just encourages you to do exactly as you describe. Remove Fortune and Imbue from Meg and Fiona. But then if they start unexpectedly growing well and becoming more valuable, you can't just give them their skills back. Even in Genealogy if you sell a weapon off someone it's not permanent, they can buy it back at a cost. But removing the free capacity just makes it so you've already consigned that unit to the bench because they immediately lost not only a lot of their functionality, but even their potential functionality too.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I agree with Jotari on this one; I actually think the inability to reassign the skill to a character makes it feel like LESS of a personal skill. Instead it's something they just happen to start with, and something that in the vast majority of cases I end up removing.

Part of the problem IMO is that "can use this skill for free" is generally not advantageous in the early to middle parts of the game. It doesn't matter that Soren can use Adept for free since I don't have that many significant skills to assign anyway. Someone will have space for Adept, and fast units make far better use of Adept than slow ones (both because the rate is higher, but also because doubling means more chances to proc it and turn a non-kill into a non-kill). So even as a big Soren fan I almost always hand the skill to someone else, turning into "distinctly not a personal skill any more". Late in the game, however, and particularly for the Tower, I finally have more useful skills than I have capacity for them, so having one for free is handy. But it's not worth putting the skill on an inferior user for most of the game just to take advantage of this free skill late.

It's even more egregious with Tormod and Tauroneo. If Celerity/Resolve could be reassigned to them for free, it would give them both (particularly Tormod, who badly needs it) a nice lategame. They would uniquely be able to combine it with another quality skill in the lategame. As is, it's obviously not worth it to keep Celerity/Resolve on them while they're away, and there's nothing tying it to them thereafter.

Anyway I definitely do like Fates/3H/Engage personal skills, though I feel on the whole Engage's were a bit undertuned and there are certainly a few stinkers otherwise (and cases like Cyril which are just insulting). I think they're a neat way to give some personality to the character, though some do so more effectively than others.

[Florete]

7 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

BEXP exists, but it's better used on already-strong units, or on "investment units" who've capped a couple stats already.

I really dislike this argument, because everything is better used on already-strong units. That's a given. Using a unit like Fiona comes with the necessary cost of giving her some of those resources that would be "better" used elsewhere, otherwise you're probably not really using her at all. 

Hard mode having less BEXP is a real problem, though.

7 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

But, let's say we've gotten to a point of the game where Meg is... benched. Fully benched. No chance of her seeing combat. In that context, there are three choices: 1) leave Fortune on Meg; 2) remove Fortune from Meg, and assign it to another unit; or 3) remove Fortune from Meg, and sell it. Per the Wiki, the Fortune scroll has a value of 6K gold, which I believe means it sells for 3K. That can go towards affording a rare item, or a pricy forge. Certainly, in that case, option 1 is doing the least for me. Even if nobody wants the skill, it'd be my best interest to sell it.

Honestly, even if you're actively using Meg, Fortune is better off removed and sold. Enemies don't commonly have crit and Meg has naturally high Luck. Giving her that skill was a really baffling decision.

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well one slightly annoying thing about Meg is that they're forced deploy in part 3. Because the Dawn Brigade literally doesn't have enough unit to out pace the deployment limit. So you're just kneecapping yourself by not using them. Fiona is just a really unfortunate unit, transfer her to the sixth or seventh chapter of Path of Radiance and she'd be godly, but she not only suffers from Radiant Dawn's mounted bias, bit also Radiant Dawn's Dawn Brigade bias.

They're not force-deployed, you just have enough deployment slots for everyone. And on kneecapping yourself, I'd argue the opposite, that you're kneecapping yourself by insisting on deploying and using them at all, except maybe as simple Shove/Rescue bots.

[lenticular]

6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Anyway, I would agree that Fiona has the potential to be good, certainly. Moreso than the likes of Meg and Lyre. But I don't agree when it comes to getting her there. You say "it's easy to catch lower leveled units up in RD", but I have to disagree. BEXP exists, but it's better used on already-strong units, or on "investment units" who've capped a couple stats already. And on Hard Mode, you get less of it, and it's less effective. As for Paragon, you can't even apply it until a unit is in second-tier (excepting Micaiah). You could early-promote Fiona with a Master Seal, sure. But then you're missing out on a bunch of levels, and kneecapping her EXP gain, even with Paragon. Finally, most of the chapters you can deploy her in are ledge- or swamp-heavy, undermining her mobility advantage.

Well, to start with, I will disclaim that I don't touch Hard difficulty in RD, and honestly think of it more as a gimmick than something that's actually worth my time or thought. (I am vehemently opposed to the removal of UI and QoL in the name of difficulty; does it show?) So it's certainly possible that some of what I'm about to say might not apply if you are playing on Hard.

But with that out of the way, let's get into it. Because of the way that bexp scaling works in RD, there really isn't that much value in trying to save it. Raising Fiona from her starting level of 9 up to level 20 costs (sum over x from 10 to 20 of 50*x) = 8250 bexp. If you save that 8250 bexp until endgame and use it as your final push to get a tier 3 unit up to level 20, then that's only good for a little bit under three levels (going from --/--/17 to --/--/20 costs 8850 bexp). Now, obviously you're not going to wait until the very last minute to spend your bexp, but there's scaling between these two extreme points and the basic principle remains that the sooner you use your bexp, the more you get out of it.

Then there's the overall structure of the Dawn Brigade chapters. After the first couple of chapters, Part 1 is basically just a cavalcade of over-powered carry units who can basically solo anything you throw at them: Sothe, Volug, Tauroneo, Nailah, Black Knight. The basic pattern is to pick two or three units who you're going to use longterm, give them as much favouritism as you can, and then lean on your OP units the rest of the way. You need to level up enough units to get through 3-13, but trying to spread your xp around the entire Dawn Brigade is just making things unnecessarily hard for yourself.

So we basically end up with a situation whereby you're encouraged to use bexp early and you're encouraged to show favouritism to a small number of Dawn Brigade units. And yeah, obviously you're going to have an easier time of things if you decide to focus on Jill, Zihark and Nolan. I'm not disputing that. But I'd say that Fiona is probably a better target for investment than someone like Leonardo or Aran since she actually has a payoff if you do so. And OK, "better than Leonardo and Aran" isn't exactly the highest of praise, but it's a lot higher than I normally see people rate her.

I also find that the concerns about maps that are unfriendly to mounted units are overstated. Cavalry units are still generally more mobile than infantry units even in indoor maps, because they have canto. There are ledges in 1-7, 1-E, 3-12 and 3-13, sure, but all of those levels have routes through the map that don't require taking them. 3-6 has swamp, but also has enemies that charge at you meaning it can easily be approached defensively without having any of your units set foot in the swamp. And then in part 4 you can send her with the Greil Army to avoid the cavalry-unfriendly maps there. Sure, she definitely doesn't get many maps to really show off the true power of cavalry, but she also doesn't have any (forced) maps that make cavalry completely useless like 3-4, 3-7, or 4-3.

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

But, let's say we've gotten to a point of the game where Meg is... benched. Fully benched. No chance of her seeing combat. In that context, there are three choices: 1) leave Fortune on Meg; 2) remove Fortune from Meg, and assign it to another unit; or 3) remove Fortune from Meg, and sell it. Per the Wiki, the Fortune scroll has a value of 6K gold, which I believe means it sells for 3K. That can go towards affording a rare item, or a pricy forge. Certainly, in that case, option 1 is doing the least for me. Even if nobody wants the skill, it'd be my best interest to sell it.

That's fair. I always forget that selling skill scrolls is a thing, to be honest.

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

And, should I even wait until Meg is benched? Suppose I'm ironmanning, and an untrained Meg has survived into Part III. How much is she gonna be doing there? Shovebotting? Fishing for hidden items? If she dies, Fortune dies with her. So even if I'm deploying her, it may be in my best interest to remove Fortune, and sell the scroll.

I don't think there's that much value to this line of thought though. I mean, yeah, if we decide we aren't using Meg for combat at all then obviously she's not getting any use out of Fortune. But that would be the case regardless of how skills were implemented. If it was PoR style that was removable but vanished, or if it was modern FE style where she had it permanently, or anything else. If she's not seeing combat then the combat skill is useless.

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Part of the problem IMO is that "can use this skill for free" is generally not advantageous in the early to middle parts of the game. It doesn't matter that Soren can use Adept for free since I don't have that many significant skills to assign anyway. Someone will have space for Adept, and fast units make far better use of Adept than slow ones (both because the rate is higher, but also because doubling means more chances to proc it and turn a non-kill into a non-kill). So even as a big Soren fan I almost always hand the skill to someone else, turning into "distinctly not a personal skill any more". Late in the game, however, and particularly for the Tower, I finally have more useful skills than I have capacity for them, so having one for free is handy. But it's not worth putting the skill on an inferior user for most of the game just to take advantage of this free skill late.

Only tangentially related, but I'm now imagining a skill system similar to Tellius, except that instead of each skill having a set capacity, each unit has a specific capacity cost for each skill. So, Savior might cost 10 for most units, 0 for Fiona and Tibarn, 5 for -- let's say -- Tanith and Titania, 15 for Makalov, and 20 for Shinon and Oliver. I dunno how that would work out in practice, but I like the idea of it.

[Jotari]

40 minutes ago, lenticular said:

But with that out of the way, let's get into it. Because of the way that bexp scaling works in RD, there really isn't that much value in trying to save it. Raising Fiona from her starting level of 9 up to level 20 costs (sum over x from 10 to 20 of 50*x) = 8250 bexp. If you save that 8250 bexp until endgame and use it as your final push to get a tier 3 unit up to level 20, then that's only good for a little bit under three levels (going from --/--/17 to --/--/20 costs 8850 bexp). Now, obviously you're not going to wait until the very last minute to spend your bexp, but there's scaling between these two extreme points and the basic principle remains that the sooner you use your bexp, the more you get out of it.

Actually there is some strategic merit to waiting until the end to use you Bexp. A Bexp level up gives exactly three stats. So if you've capped your relevant stats, which you are very likely to do in Radiant Dawn, then a Bexp level up will enchance your stats with lower growths. One you've hit ten levels into third tier it's not strange to see level ups with just one stat increase. Simply put, the stronger your unit grows, the more value a Bexp level up has compared to a regular level up.

Course the endgame isn't nearly challenging to warrant such minmaxing at it most certainly is wiser to just use it when you need your army to be stronger, particularly for the Dawn Brigade.

[Dark Holy Elf]

39 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Well, to start with, I will disclaim that I don't touch Hard difficulty in RD, and honestly think of it more as a gimmick than something that's actually worth my time or thought. (I am vehemently opposed to the removal of UI and QoL in the name of difficulty; does it show?)

+1. I actually have played Hard (and did a challenge run on it to boot, perhaps as a defence mechanism against anyone who might say "you just don't play hard? skill issue") but I definitely agree that it's a terribly-designed mode. Removing UI and QoL is terrible, removing the weapon triangle is also pretty bad. And the things I might actually want a hard mode to do, like creating trickier enemy formations, making more bosses move, etc... the game doesn't do. Even the stat differences are only barely noticeable.

My feeling on Fiona is that she isn't objectively worth investing into (and is terrible if you don't invest into her) which makes her pretty "bad" but she does have neat and unique payoffs so investing into her does feel pretty good. This is a place where the usual "rate the units out of 10" doesn't really capture a unit's value. It is true both that Fiona has the least value if you decide to only invest in Jill/Nolan/Zihark/etc., but also true that she has more potential than the other Dawn Brigade also-rans.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Only tangentially related, but I'm now imagining a skill system similar to Tellius, except that instead of each skill having a set capacity, each unit has a specific capacity cost for each skill. So, Savior might cost 10 for most units, 0 for Fiona and Tibarn, 5 for -- let's say -- Tanith and Titania, 15 for Makalov, and 20 for Shinon and Oliver. I dunno how that would work out in practice, but I like the idea of it.

Flavour-wise I definitely like this idea! I'm all for small things like this which both increase my feeling of a unit's personality, and create different strengths/weaknesses beyond just stats.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Only tangentially related, but I'm now imagining a skill system similar to Tellius, except that instead of each skill having a set capacity, each unit has a specific capacity cost for each skill. So, Savior might cost 10 for most units, 0 for Fiona and Tibarn, 5 for -- let's say -- Tanith and Titania, 15 for Makalov, and 20 for Shinon and Oliver. I dunno how that would work out in practice, but I like the idea of it.

I like that idea a lot. Not only would it lead to interesting character build potentials, but it'd be great for subtle interfacing characterization of the actual characters too. This unit is a real dick? Well he can use Provoke for next to no capacity because it just suits him to rile up enemies on the battlefield.

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Actually there is some strategic merit to waiting until the end to use you Bexp. A Bexp level up gives exactly three stats. So if you've capped your relevant stats, which you are very likely to do in Radiant Dawn, then a Bexp level up will enchance your stats with lower growths. One you've hit ten levels into third tier it's not strange to see level ups with just one stat increase. Simply put, the stronger your unit grows, the more value a Bexp level up has compared to a regular level up.

Course the endgame isn't nearly challenging to warrant such minmaxing at it most certainly is wiser to just use it when you need your army to be stronger, particularly for the Dawn Brigade.

Sure, you can use bexp that way if you want (though IMO you're almost always better using it for high tier two units at their lower caps than waiting until tier 3), but I don't find it that worthwhile. It does somewhat depend on the units, admitedly. You gain much more if you're using bexp on a unit who has capped luck and res than one who has capped strength and speed. But by and large, I find that it's better to use bexp early. 11 slightly-below-average level ups are more valuable than 3 slightly-above-average level ups, and 11 level ups now are much more valuable than 3 level ups later. It's a little fuzzy and handwavy, admitedly, but such is life.

36 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

My feeling on Fiona is that she isn't objectively worth investing into (and is terrible if you don't invest into her) which makes her pretty "bad" but she does have neat and unique payoffs so investing into her does feel pretty good. This is a place where the usual "rate the units out of 10" doesn't really capture a unit's value. It is true both that Fiona has the least value if you decide to only invest in Jill/Nolan/Zihark/etc., but also true that she has more potential than the other Dawn Brigade also-rans.

That's fair. A lot of disagreements about units actually turn out to be disagreements over rating philosophies instead. I would absolutely agree that she's the worst Dawn Brigade unit if you don't invest in her, but I prefer "terrible floor, decent ceiling" to "bad floor, bad ceiling".

[Florete]

4 minutes ago, lenticular said:

but I prefer "terrible floor, decent ceiling" to "bad floor, bad ceiling".

Agreed, and it's why I rate Fiona over Meg, despite the latter often being considered the better unit.

[SnowFire]

On 1/17/2024 at 5:29 PM, Jotari said:

The real best example of this falling flat imo is not Solm, it's Lythos. Like, what even is Lythos? We have the barest indication that humans even live there and it plays absolutely no role in the plot. Even when the villains conquer it there are no story consequences, it's just a different location because they'd already used up Elyos. Buball rights Lythos should be a bustling nation that is the centre of trade between all of the other countries, yet because they had to spend so much time perfectly balancing the other nations, there's neither time nor enough space on the roster to properly make Lythos feel like a real place. It's honestly astounding how poorly developed is. Like, literally the worst country in the series. Gra on the original NES was better.

Belated reply to this: Lythos is certainly a storytelling failure and a case of being deeply, deeply underexplained (the main script being short is not an excuse; Vander / Framme / Clanne's supports should have covered this if it wasn't considered important enough to parade in front of you at any point).  But...   and I could be off on this...  I think it's dumb for a different reason.  I think there's a throwaway line that Lythos is reserved for the Divine Dragon and their attendants, meaning the place is closer to, like, an Antarctic research lab than an actual country.  Or perhaps a fantasy amped-up and larger idea of how the royal family has a palace right in the middle of friggin' Tokyo with a big garden and everything despite the insane land values in the area that you can't go live in or buy property at yourself.  So...  there wasn't even anyone that the Elusian forces were fighting or that stopped them, it was just a big nature reserve that people respected because their religious leader demigod said so.

Now, note that this makes fairly little sense, and if it was really true, would actually be kinda Not Cool to reserve so much apparently fertile and beautiful land for Lumera's personal garden or the like.  But I think that was the choice.  (If it was intended that Lythos was supposed to have people, then massive fail, yes.  And of course, Vander / Framme / Clanne should all be much stranger in the way that isolated people are if they just get supply shipments every week from worshippers but otherwise don't talk much with others, but instead they have such light and nonsensical supports that they talk about who is serving the Divine Dragon the best and making fan clubs and such.)

--

On Radiant Dawn Hard Mode: Note that there was a thread on this awhile back: 

 

So there is a way to play Hard Mode without the bizarre Quality of Life hatred nonsense in the shipped Hard Mode...  for all that it still has the issue that it's just not that different aside from reduced BExp favoring the use of pre-leveled characters over growth characters even more than Radiant Dawn already does.

[Acacia Sgt]

For its worth, the manga at least did put effort in portraying Lythos as an actual country, with a populace and everything.

6 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

I think there's a throwaway line that Lythos is reserved for the Divine Dragon and their attendants, meaning the place is closer to, like, an Antarctic research lab than an actual country. 

I think it may have been referring to the Somniel, which is indeed quite restrictive on who gets to visit.

[SnowFire]

Well that's just terrible then (assuming this wasn't the manga just making up stuff).  The plot already only barely grapples with WTF was going on with Sombron apparently eating an entire town in Elusia as well as (some/ most?) of the castle attendants, but if there was an Actual Populace, then WTF.  Like, FE8 is the classic example of an underexplored setting that was mostly interested in the royals, but it just openly said that yes, Eirika is abandoning her people to their fate, and life sucks with bandits & monster attacks and such afterward.  There's zero indication that Alear / Vander / etc. are fleeing and leaving An Actual Population Of Lythos to...  an Elusian occupation force? Death from Corrupted?  Who knows.  And then things get WORSE in C21-C24, which was fine when it was a big empty area (if perhaps an ecological disaster), but that is suddenly way more real.

I dunno.  To give the writers the barest smidgen of credit, I hope that either some of the writers didn't realize Lythos-ians existed, or saying that they did was some late-breaking addition or retcon.  Because wow if they were always intended to exist.

[Jotari]

43 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Belated reply to this: Lythos is certainly a storytelling failure and a case of being deeply, deeply underexplained (the main script being short is not an excuse; Vander / Framme / Clanne's supports should have covered this if it wasn't considered important enough to parade in front of you at any point).  But...   and I could be off on this...  I think it's dumb for a different reason.  I think there's a throwaway line that Lythos is reserved for the Divine Dragon and their attendants, meaning the place is closer to, like, an Antarctic research lab than an actual country.  Or perhaps a fantasy amped-up and larger idea of how the royal family has a palace right in the middle of friggin' Tokyo with a big garden and everything despite the insane land values in the area that you can't go live in or buy property at yourself.  So...  there wasn't even anyone that the Elusian forces were fighting or that stopped them, it was just a big nature reserve that people respected because their religious leader demigod said so.

Now, note that this makes fairly little sense, and if it was really true, would actually be kinda Not Cool to reserve so much apparently fertile and beautiful land for Lumera's personal garden or the like.  But I think that was the choice.  (If it was intended that Lythos was supposed to have people, then massive fail, yes.  And of course, Vander / Framme / Clanne should all be much stranger in the way that isolated people are if they just get supply shipments every week from worshippers but otherwise don't talk much with others, but instead they have such light and nonsensical supports that they talk about who is serving the Divine Dragon the best and making fan clubs and such.)

--

On Radiant Dawn Hard Mode: Note that there was a thread on this awhile back: 

 

So there is a way to play Hard Mode without the bizarre Quality of Life hatred nonsense in the shipped Hard Mode...  for all that it still has the issue that it's just not that different aside from reduced BExp favoring the use of pre-leveled characters over growth characters even more than Radiant Dawn already does.

That's fine, if it's the intention...but, like, if it is the intention then we aught to actually see that in the game. We say writing should by showing not telling, but by ignoring you're not showing or telling.

[samthedigital]

58 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

So there is a way to play Hard Mode without the bizarre Quality of Life hatred nonsense in the shipped Hard Mode...  for all that it still has the issue that it's just not that different aside from reduced BExp favoring the use of pre-leveled characters over growth characters even more than Radiant Dawn already does.

This option also works. I'm not sure if it's available via emulation though.

Edited January 21 by samthedigital

[Acacia Sgt]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

Well that's just terrible then (assuming this wasn't the manga just making up stuff).  The plot already only barely grapples with WTF was going on with Sombron apparently eating an entire town in Elusia as well as (some/ most?) of the castle attendants, but if there was an Actual Populace, then WTF.  Like, FE8 is the classic example of an underexplored setting that was mostly interested in the royals, but it just openly said that yes, Eirika is abandoning her people to their fate, and life sucks with bandits & monster attacks and such afterward.  There's zero indication that Alear / Vander / etc. are fleeing and leaving An Actual Population Of Lythos to...  an Elusian occupation force? Death from Corrupted?  Who knows.  And then things get WORSE in C21-C24, which was fine when it was a big empty area (if perhaps an ecological disaster), but that is suddenly way more real.

I dunno.  To give the writers the barest smidgen of credit, I hope that either some of the writers didn't realize Lythos-ians existed, or saying that they did was some late-breaking addition or retcon.  Because wow if they were always intended to exist.

There is mention of other people... but kinda tucked away. Like, some of the Lythian style clothing in the boutique have in their descriptions the mention of the, well, Lythians. Also, Clanne and Framme's parents very likely live in Lythos too.

There's a mention about how Sombron isn't just absorbing sovereign blood anymore. So it seems he's powering up with quantity over quality. He can still use their corpses as Corrupted to do his bidding, so might as well.

To be fair, the Elusian attack was only to steal the rings. Any surviving Elusian likely just retreated, and after that Lythos had no purpose anymore to keep attacking it... until Sombron decided to unseal Gradlon. Lumera mentions the castle at least is safe from Corrupted due to the essence/energy/spirits of the departed Divine Dragons, at the least.

[Etrurian emperor]

Speaking of Lythos. Did anyone ever bother to ask what happened to all the people living there when Sombron and his zombie army took over? Because its established that Sombrom eats civilians. Maybe he gobbled up Clanne and Framme's parents when Alear wasn't looking. 

As for an unpopular opinion. I think a Genealogy remake is going to be less impressive then Echoes. What made Echoes impressive is how they took a bland cast of complete nobodies and turned them into proper characters with great designs, interesting personalities and very engaging bonds among some of them such as Mae and Boey. They started from complete scratch which made it doubly impressive. Due to Heroes Genealogy doesn't have this advantage anymore. As far personalities, character designs and voice acting is concerned Heroes already revealed all the changes to us.

The ton of charm Echoes put into its writing helped disguise that its plot is a bare bones NES game but since there's less to fix with Genealogy there's also less in which a remake can impress by how much it improved.