Your best & worst changes of 2018

[Shiki]

See title. We know the event calender so 2018 has come to an end for FEH. Might as well review the year for ourselves, hm?

[Garlyle]

Since I came after the demotions, the best change that happened was the introduction of Combat Manuals, with Aether Raid as 2nd best.

Worst thing that hit me was without a doubt Forging Bonds - I couldn't find any other mode this boring and uninspiring. 2019 can fix it.

[redlight]

Off the top of my head

Best things to happen IMO were new prfs for old units, combat manuals, mass demotions, bonus unit stats for bonus units (f2p units), grails

Worst things were bonus unit kills, AR blessings and whatnot, GC and Rival Domains are such a snoozefest

Edited December 14, 2018 by silveraura25

[Jingle Jangle]

Best:

• Bride Tharja
• Summer Camilla
• Morgans, Karla, (Summer) Noire, Maribelle, Silvia, Nina,  Flora, and Aversa  all made it in the game this year.
• It made Grima interesting
• Getting TT and ghb units through Grails
• Combat Manuals
•  Aether Raid
• Mass Demotions
• The daily summoning event
• Tempest Trails changes 
• Lots of new personal weapons for older characters

Worst

• Hero Rises poll, IS  subtly influenced it. I want a free Winter Tharja
• Legendary Lyn and other questionable alts
• AR blessings
• bonus unit kills in the arena
• The slow burn of new characters after book 2 ended
• ever-increasing BST ceiling 
• even more overpowered skills
• Relay Defense

Overall I liked this year for the most part.

Edited December 14, 2018 by Jingle Bells

[redlight]

Oh, I forgot to mention CYL rejects being put in banners throughout the year.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Best changes -

Demotions

Combat Manuals

Free summon tickets

Forging Bonds

 

Worst changes -

Bold Fighter

Vengeful Fighter

Special Fighter

Brave Veronica

Trenches

Arena bonus unit kill scoring

[Cute Chao]

Best: Combat Manuals

Worst: Ratio of male : female seasonals on banners, especially since this doesn't look to be changing at any point.

[XRay]

Worst:
Arena Bonus Unit Kill Bonus
Aether Raids Mythic Blessings Bonus

Best:
Combat Manuals
Demotions
 

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Best:

- tactic drills (good way to learn about some uncommon strategies)

- two battles less in the arena

- combat manuals 

- cutscenes

 

Worst

- relay defense

- new bonus unit system in the arena

- almost each banner since summer (except CYL2 and FE4)

- aether raids (since I dislike arena)

Edited December 15, 2018 by Necrofantasia

[redlight]

33 minutes ago, Etheus said:

Vengeful Fighter

Trenches

VF does powercreep QR, but it's rather tame. And anyways, VF was introduced in 2017

I don't know if you were actively playing in 2017, but horses were getting out of control. I will say this though, melee cavalry units should've been allowed to have least move onto the trench tile then stop their movements. Was it a harsh nerf? Yes. Was it necessary, yes?

[Ice Dragon]

Best: Making armors great again.

Worst: Relay Defense, which was a cool idea, but was executed poorly.

[DarkAlf]

Best:

1. Combat Manuals - cleared my barracks significantly
2. Free Summon Tickets - better chance for F2Ps to summon a 5* hero
3. Clearing of 5* pool - hopefully they'll reorganize the pool again next year
4. Tempest Trials changes - shortened from 14 days to 10, and points needed halved
5. Tactics Drills - the Grandmaster ones are fun challenges, even if I can't always figure them out myself
6. Aether Raids initially - before the addition of Mythic Heroes

Worst:

1. Relay Defense - especially the first week, when it cost stamina; I hope they execute it better whenever it returns - if at all
2. Aether Raids bonus points - for mythic heroes and merges
3. Blessed Gardens expansion to 3+ teams - I didn't mind the change to 2 when they did, but I felt they went to 3 teams too quickly; I'd have waited until 2-year anniversary to go to 3 teams

[Poimagic]

Best: Manuals, Demotions, free ranged flying units, Brave Eph

Worst: Bonus kills

[redlight]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Best: Making armors great again.

Worst: Relay Defense, which was a cool idea, but was executed poorly.

I'm personally of the opinion that it was fine up until Infernal. Abyssal was dogshit tho

I really liked it encouraging using units as expendables that you try to use as much as possible as sacrificial pawns whether it be to do kamikaze attacks or sacrifice by being a wall

[Hilda]

Best: combat manuals

Worst: new blessings for Aether Raid

[Ice Dragon]

34 minutes ago, silveraura25 said:

I'm personally of the opinion that it was fine up until Infernal. Abyssal was dogshit tho

I really liked it encouraging using units as expendables that you try to use as much as possible as sacrificial pawns whether it be to do kamikaze attacks or sacrifice by being a wall

I had a few issues with it, but my biggest problem with Relay Defense was how repetitive the mode felt.

They locked all of the map nodes behind completing the previous node, meaning they necessarily had to be completed in order from the bottom up. The lower levels of the game mode were relatively trivial, meaning by the time I got to the higher levels, I was already dead bored of doing the maps. This wasn't an issue with Rival Domains because the lower levels are easy to auto-battle (and the higher levels are easy to auto-battle with a decent team).

By the time I was on map 3 or map 4, the maps just became a slog. Additionally, they put out 8 maps that ran for 2 weeks, which made things worse since I tend to like to do all versions of a map in a single sitting (e.g. all versions of a Grand Hero Battle map or all maps in a chapter on a single difficulty) rather than spread it out over multiple sittings.

Since the 8 nodes were actually 2 different maps alternating between each other, they could have made progression be for each map separately (so have a normal, hard, infernal, and abyssal for each map and make them unlock in two separate trees) rather than alternate the maps in a single unlock tree. That would've made things a bit more palatable for me since I could reasonably split the mode into two separate sittings, one for each tree.

Edited December 14, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[LordFrigid]

I’m not sure about best & worst, but:

Favorite: Wing Sword. I guess other new personal weapons & refinements were cool too.

Least favorite: Toss up between the initial Relay Defense and Arena bonus unit KOs.

[DehNutCase]

51 minutes ago, silveraura25 said:

I'm personally of the opinion that it was fine up until Infernal. Abyssal was dogshit tho

I was actually fine with Abyssal---even during the original 2 weeks when everyone was pushing 90 hp or so. Offensive units simply don't need that much stats to function, so the enemy getting 40 or so didn't really matter.

 

The 'nerfed' weeks were actually so easy that I just used the original brigade I used two weeks ago---meaning I didn't have to swap around units for combat triangle purposes or positioning.

Edit: I do agree with Ice Dragon that the original RD was a slog, though. (The nerfed version was so easy that I'm pretty sure I didn't have to do any map more than once or twice. Double Edit: I might be mis-remembering, though.)

Edited December 14, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Landmaster]

Best: Combat Manuals, Free Summon Ticket, Lon'qu and Navarre's Refines

Worst: Worthless Alts/OCs on Banners that could have gone to other characters, whatever TF Relay Defense was, too much Armor focus later in the year, 2 Unit Banners

[redlight]

32 minutes ago, Landmaster said:

Navarre's Refines

This. I am literally just going into AA to for the second match (because I want high scoring opponents) to enjoy some AoE cheese

[Shiki]

The Good:

1. Tactic Drills (By far my most favorite addition. Sometimes the solution is a bit convoluted but being able to play around with all kind of units is pretty cool.)
2. More personal weapons (aka Wing Sword, [insert name]'s weapons)
3. Combat Manuals (Though this made expanding barracks a bit pointless unless you're a collector).
4. Grails (finally GHB & TT units aren't handicapped by their finite amount of copies)
5. Forging Bonds (despite being a meager version of TT it's at least an attempt to flesh out the characters. I can respect that much.)

The Bad:

1. Arena & Aether Raid changes
   This one doesn't need explainations. Reliance on bonus units was a huge mistake but in general Arena needs a lot of fixes to be enjoyable again.
   But it's even more ridicilous with AR, a mode they just introduced into the game. AR was not bad, but now it became another mode where only the whales will thrive.
2. Summoning Pool & new skills
   There are 2 factors contributing to this issue.
   1. Demotions
      Sothe, L'Arachel, Morgan (M), Nanna, Shigure, Ares, Legault, Libra, Silvia and Silas, that's it. That's all we got this year. 10 demotions is very lacklustre and heavily bottlenecks access to new skills. In comparision we have almost double the 5*-exclusives before the demotion happened. This is even worse once you take the new Tier 4 skills in account.
      While we got a mass demotion in April we are now in a state we need another one very soon and more importantly to separate some units from the pool because it's unbelievably bloated by this point.
   2. Alts in the regular Summoning Pool
      It's one thing to have Alts. Every gacha has them, so you have to live with it. In fact I don't mind that Legendary Alts exists, as they do not pollute the regular summoning pool and have their own rotation. At worst I'm indifferent in regards to Seasonals for the same reason though we have way too many Seasonal banners for a game that ties its story progression with regular banner releases.
      But Alts in the regular pool shouldn't exist, especially in a game that can fall back to a huge roster of characters.
3. Allies Menu Changes
   What kind of incompentent fool thought that this was a good layout?
4. Divine Dew shortage
   While it's a good attempt to modernize old Legendary weapons and introduce new ones on existing characters you get way too few Dew to fully make use of this. People complain about getting only 2-3 refines each update but it's already hard to actually refine these before the next update comes in. It's that bad.
5. Relay Defense
   Eh. I list this as a bad thing but it's a really small thing. Relay Defense is just a map every two weeks with meager rewards so it's kinda forgettable. The difficulty lock was bizarre to look at and beyond Infernal the enemies became ridicilous, being only solvable by AI abuse or splashing around like Moby Dick.

Edited December 14, 2018 by The Priest

[Alkaid]

Best:

• Combat Manuals: Great change for skill fodder hoarders like myself.
• 5* Demotions: Glad they cleared out most of the 3-4* available ones. We may still have some like Ares, Tailtiu and Silas, but there's not nearly as many you need to dodge now. No more 5* Merrics, Abels and junk is great.
• Weapon Refinements: Lots of really nice ones this year.
• Tempest Trials+ changes: Glad they streamlined the rewards a bit, though if you fight for rankings it's about the same as before.
• Bride Tharja happened (black wedding dress and all, 10/10)
• Summer Camilla and Cordelia happened (my most wanted summer alts, IS has me tapped)
• Noire, Ophelia, Nina and Aversa got in
• Hinoka finally got an alt and it's a cool one
• Adrift Camilla to complete her magic color coverage
• Book 2 OCs actually became obtainable (even if Surtr is broken, but I was really wanting Loki and the sisters)
• Aether Raids (initially)
• Forging bonds: They're pretty light, but supports were definitely something I'd been wanting to see in the game.
• Generally lots of flier love all year long (3 flying dragons, 2 archers, 2 daggers, 3 dancers, a healer, more mages, impressive refinements for Caeda, Camilla, Cherche, etc. It's been a big year for boosting flier team power and variety)
• Summoning tickets are a pretty nice idea

Worst:

• Relay Defense: At best it felt pretty pointless as a mode. At worst it was stat-bloated garbage.
• Power Creep: I accept it's inevitability in a gacha, but Tier 4 skills, more crazy skills and blessing creep felt a bit heavy so soon. Plus some units like Surtr getting the trainee bonus just because. My gut told me we wouldn't get a skill refinery to alleviate things and it was correct, so it's all been pure whale bait for the most part.
• Arena bonus kill system: Rather than improve the mode, they managed to make it worse with the lame cheerleader meta.
• Aether Raids (post 3.0): Mythic blessings and merges affecting lift really stinks. It was cool that the mode was a bit more of an even playing field and performance-based than arena, but they ruined it. Now it won't be possible to compete with people who can afford to take better advantage of the mythic lift bonuses.

I'm neutral on most stuff I didn't mention. Increased alt spam hasn't bothered me, and while Tactics Drills aren't really my cup of tea I don't think they're a negative thing.

Aside from the negative changes to arena and AR, I've been pretty happy with the game this year.

10 hours ago, Jingle Bells said:

Worst

• Hero Rises poll, IS  subtly influenced it. I want a free Winter Tharja

It's commendable how close she managed to get to Ike despite how hard IS pushed him.

[Ghostface233]

Best: Combat Manuals, Mass Demotes, Myrrh, More Juggral characters, Aether Raids, Grails

Worst: Aether Raid Blessings, Relay Defense, Duel Skills, Arena Bonus Unit Killpoints

[TheWill]

Best:

• Combat Manuals: The best quality of life change since the game launched. 
• Genealogy Banners: Honesty saved the terrible onslaught of regular banners from being a 1/10 this year. 
• Summon Tickets: Removed any urge I have to summon on current Hero Fest.
• Legendary Hero Choices: For the most part, pretty solid choices for Legendary Heroes this year. 
• Aether Raids: A damaged, but good mode. Hurt by the current meta.

Worst:

• Brave Veronica: Only due to the existence of Dazzling/Firesweep. 
• Awakening/Fates Seasonal Spam: With Love Abounds showing that other games can get love (and be successful), they completely dropped it after this seasonal to give us the same Fates royals and boring Awakening characters (Chrom, Tharja, Cordelia). 
• Awakening/Fates Regular Banner Spam: The first year was dedicated for each game in the franchise to catch up... Only to get spammed next year with Awakening/Fates banners putting them behind even more than they caught up. 
• Ignored 5* Bases: Luke/Mist still terrible with no weapon refine in sight. 
• Character Alts being included before the Regular version of a character: Noire and Mikoto following the precedent set by Charlotte. 
• Grails: Should have just added TT units to the permanent summon pool as 3-4 base units. Missed opportunity. 
• Story and Character Release Schedule: Still abysmally slow. 
• Powercreep: Self-explanatory. 

Honestly, kind of a bad year for Heroes and me. Here's to the Radiant Dawn banner picking up interest.

 

19 hours ago, Jingle Bells said:

Best:

• Bride Tharja
• Summer Camilla

Worst

• Legendary Lyn and other questionable alts

 

[Vaximillian]

15 minutes ago, TheWill said:

 

It’s called hypocrisy.