Acacia Sgt Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 2 minutes ago, Jotari said: Well it's not the only possibility, it is possible there are other smaller religions. Though her "service" to the empire and with how fundamentalist the Duma Faithful makes it seem unlikely they would acknowledge other faiths, still though, possible. Well, DLC added the Overclasses, which are said to be the blessings of old gods, so... 3 minutes ago, Jotari said: Wait does she reference Mila in her level ups? Honestly the idea of their maybe being Mila faithful in Rigel if that's the case isn't the most farfetched thing. Like I said, there are a whole bunch of Mila statues being maintained around the continent. Only the one right inside the Duma Temple itself is in disrepair. Side note, it actually would have been quite cool and given him more presence if the Mila statues swapped to Duma statues once you entered Rigel. Sure it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense with the whole receiving blessings for promotion, but that doesn't make a tonne of sense to begin with considering Mila's dead (and it could be handwaved the first time you visit one with the characters saying they're praying to Mila at a Duma statue since they're siblings or something, so they're still appealing to Mila, just in a place of Duma worship). Just in one, but it is: "The Mother is with me." So yeah. That would've been cool. The statues could be explained in that Duma and Mila didn't divide the continent until much later, so statues of both siblings could be across the entire continent. We just only find the Mila ones... for some reason. 6 minutes ago, Jotari said: Well the faiths were reunited at the end of the game, so a grass roots movement for that isn't insane. Still though, given her general character I feel the opposite is more likely for Tatiana. Compared to the likes of SIlque, she honestly doesn't seem that devout. In all her quotes the only actual reference to religion I could find is her calling herself a sinful servant in her final base conversation for hoping Zeke doesn't get his memories back. And coupled with her stated reason for being a Cleric, due to the kindness of the Clerics in her orphanage, I get the feeling she's more of a "Career Priest". As in it for the lifestyle rather than the actual religious adherence. I mean maybe I'm looking into that too much since there's not a whole lot to analyze with her, but it is an interesting enough facet for a character that's she also could have manifested (okay, headcanon time, she's such laissez faire cleric she doesn't even know how many gods she's meant to be worshiping and gets confused because she knows Mila exists so therefore assumes she's in service to both of them, it would be in character with the scatterbrained part of her personality). That could be doable, yes. Though wanting to reach out into the other religion in a genuine matter could be more in line with her upbringing. Since Mila's teachings do aling with what she wants to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 (edited) 8 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said: Well, DLC added the Overclasses, which are said to be the blessings of old gods, so... Just in one, but it is: "The Mother is with me." So yeah. That could be doable, yes. Though wanting to reach out into the other religion in a genuine matter could be more in line with her upbringing. Since Mila's teachings do aling with what she wants to do. Honestly that makes it seem way more like she's just a Mila Faithful living in Rigel. As she absolutely is living her life by Mila's teachings, whether by doctrine or not. It was the clerics kindness that made her want to be a cleric and she talks again about kindness when rescuing Zeke in the memory prism. And really the idea of there being some small sects of Mila faithful inside Rigel isn't all that ridiculous. It's only very recently the countries have decided to go to war with each other. They keep to their own halfs of the land, but people (like Conrad's mother and Sabre) did still traverse the iron curtain and settle down in the other nation, some of them bringing their faith with them over the years isn't ridiculous. It's not like the gods are ancient enemies, they're depicted as siblings so an air of tolerance would historically be natural. And we also can't ignore the fact that Tatiana is locked up when we first meet her. Like sure, yeah that's to keep Zeke in line. But it's not like there's a whole cabal of imprisoned people to threaten possibly rebellious soldiers. Some good old fashioned discrimination for her religion could also justify her imprisonment. Quote That would've been cool. The statues could be explained in that Duma and Mila didn't divide the continent until much later, so statues of both siblings could be across the entire continent. We just only find the Mila ones... for some reason. Yes, even in the very temple of Duma himself there are no Duma statues only, Mila -_- Clearly Alm and co have a mental block where they just can't perceive the existence of Duma statues. Either that or Duma, right from the very start had a Muslim style "Thou shall not depict the image of god" style policy. Also naturally the Furia harbor Mila statue should have been described as a Naga statue. They went ot the trouble to redesign the thing but didn't think to stick a more appropriate god onto it. Edited May 26, 2021 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 22 minutes ago, Jotari said: Yes, even in the very temple of Duma himself there are no Duma statues only, Mila -_- Clearly Alm and co have a mental block where they just can't perceive the existence of Duma statues. Either that or Duma, right from the very start had a Muslim style "Thou shall not depict the image of god" style policy. There is a Duma statue in the game, in Fear Mountain Shrine, and interacting with it asks if you want to test yourself in battle... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 1 hour ago, Jotari said: Yeah, I did actually look up the chapters afterwards to fact check myself and saw there's another boat full of archanists. So he's not down in south Zofia completely alone, but I think the Cantor still brings enough to the table both in gameplay, narrative and presence to warrant a proper name (I'm guessing the "one at the very end" is the map where Conrad shows up to save Celica that wasn't in Gaiden? I certainly remembered that, but with its limited deployment, reused map, just generally easiness and sort of transtionary period between part 1 and 2, I guess I kind of categorized it away in my brain as a cutscene). The Cantor's name is Georg, but he prefers to go by his last name. It's a big family - a whole set of them show up on Celica's side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted May 26, 2021 Author Share Posted May 26, 2021 Shadows of Valentia Day 3: The Entry Formerly Intended To Be Known As “Movin' On Up (Movin' On Up)” Before The Majority Of It Became Devoted To A Rant About A Certain Game Mechanic That Alastor, To Put It Lightly, Does Not Particularly Care For And so we enter the thief's shrine, and immediately run into a hilariously cowardly guard who promptly fucks off from watch duty when he sees us. “Eek! Stay away from me! I'm only the stupid watchman! I just watch things! EEEEEEEK!” Oooooooooooh yes. And now we get to hear the battle prep theme of Alm's army for the first time. And I really like it. The other prep theme of this game? Not so much. But this one is really nice, and I kinda wish someone did a mashup of it and Resolve (Dark), because there's a part of this song that really meshes well with the big flute part of Resolve (Dark). ...Okay, so uh... I'm not sure if it's enough to take off an entire tier, but I'm noticing a significant problem here that the other 3DS games didn't have. This game doesn't actually show you what the formation looks like when you're planning unit order. For dungeons at least, it's like the old games before proper unit formation control, where you just have to blindly arrange unit order and then check the results. While you might argue that you're not preparing for a specific battle so they can't really let you see enough to make unit positioning useful, I'd disagree. Just seeing who's going to be in front, and who's gonna be close to who, and what area coverage you have between your units' movement ranges would be really useful if they just showed you an empty map and showed you which unit slot in the roster represented which starting position for generic battles. At any rate, I put Kliff and Faye closer to the front of the list, swapping with Gray and Tobin, hoping that'll help. But I really can't know. My highest priority is to get Faye to level 3, and then it's to get as many levels into Kliff as I can, because he's the one who will benefit the most from overflow levels before promotion. Oh yes. And now we see the far more ominous and less obnoxiously blaring remix of the dungeon theme from the original game, as we're given free reign to run around, smashing boxes and avoiding or engaging enemies in the room. We'll be engaging them, of course. But I'll try to only go into each dungeon once. So I only get the fights on the way in and out. Gotta make them count. Man, I like the narrations characters give when they enter dungeons. But at any rate, this place is tiny since it's a starting dungeon, and we swiftly meet our first foe and get the jump on him with a Paper-Mario-style first strike. Lukas gets his level from chip damage due to maxing on bonus exp last time, and he only gets HP, skill and luck. Not encouraging for his long-term use, all things considered. Kliff leveled up HP and speed. The lack of defense levels is quite concerning, but the speed is welcome. He can now double the occasional level 3 enemy this place will throw his way. The battle's swiftly over, and Faye gets a level: skill and defense. The defense is nice. She has a pretty good defense growth, and strength too. At least by this game's standards. It can make her pretty nasty in basically anything you put her in, but obviously her utility as a cleric trumps most arguments of putting her in anything else. Ah yes, and the game tells me about fatigue. I've never seen this become a problem. Generally you get enough food to deal with it. It's kind of a throwaway mechanic, where you can almost pretend it doesn't exist 99% of the time. Due to camera issues after running away, I fail to get the drop on the second group, and have to fight them at full health. No big deal. ...Kliff gets skill and luck for level 5. Yeah, coming from a high growth game to a low growth game makes getting levels like these, especially in the early game, hurt a lot more than they were probably meant to. Ah yeah, so, I'm finding pieces of silver everywhere, in crates and in the grass. These are used for forging, and I'm not sure I'm all that happy with how they're obtained. Hunting for blades of grass to swipe isn't exactly engaging. But whatever. I mean there are other ways of getting them later. Ah yes, I found a chest with an iron sword, and I know Ram wine is hidden here somewhere. I'll see if I can find it. Kliff got HP and speed again. That's five levels now and not a single proc of a 40% defense growth rate. I can't say I'm not disappointed. JESUS. Tobin got defense again, making him two for three in proccing defense. At a ten percent lower growth rate. Thankfully Gaiden promotions will buff screwed stats to the class's minimum, but I wanted to give Kliff a head start in bulk in whatever class he was getting himself into. Anyway, I couldn't find the Ram Wine. I'll see if it's actually in the shrine area and if not, see if I can find it on my way out. ...Yep, the boss has it, as it turns out. Alright then. This is the first remotely challenging battle I've come across, but that's mostly because Kliff's taking a lot of damage from not increasing his defense once. I wanted to give the boss kill to Kliff, but I have to kill everyone in one turn or people might die, and the only way Lukas can contribute is if he kills the boss, so I had to give it to him. I was rewarded for this decision with... a lucksauce level up. Damn it. … ...FUCK. I COULD'VE GIVEN KLIFF THE BOSS KILL BECAUSE THAT INSTANTLY ENDS THE MAP. Right, so we rescue the captive woman, a cleric named Silque. She's apparently from a place called Novis. Is that... is that Celica's location? I'll have to check. I'm pretty sure it is. Yep, sounds like Silque knows Celica. ...And then she gives us... ...Ugh. She gives us Mila's Turnwheel. (Deep inhale) ...Okay. Here comes the rant that has been more than a year and a half in the making. I. Fucking. HATE. Mila's Turnwheel. It annoys me in principle, it scares me in execution, and I'm disgusted by the impact it had on the next game. I cringe at what it does to gameplay, I looooooathe entirely the attitude towards its relationship to the story, and I sincerely, sincerely hope that it goes the way of save tiles, gets abandoned after two games, and never darkens the doorstep of this franchise ever, ever again. With that being stablished, permit me to explain myself. Which is going to be difficult, because I've had so much time to think about all the myriad ways this mechanic pisses me off that the part of my brain allocated to storing my opinions on the subject has become just this medusoid web of vitriol it's gonna be a pain in the ass to untangle. But I'll try. Let me start by saying that I would have no issue with this feature whatsoever if it had been what was added to the series instead of casual mode. I actually think that, as an optional feature, it's far superior to casual mode in terms of giving people wary of permadeath a set of “training wheels” with which to play the game anyway. It has the same effect of keeping a single mistake from being reset-worthy, but it also teaches you more of the strategies you'd make use of in proper classic mode in order to proceed, because you still can't finish a level with any dead units without repercussions. You don't have to restart for a single unit death, but you still at least have to figure out how to get through the level without that unit dying. If it were genuinely an optional feature, I would have no issue with it. Now, of course, the most common response to this is “But Alastor, it is an optional feature. If you don't like it, just don't use it.” Alas, it's not remotely that simple. A mechanic you technically aren't physically forced to use is not the same thing as a mechanic where the developers didn't design the game assuming you're using it, or a mechanic whose inclusion has had no impact on the design of the rest of the game. And the turnwheel, or divine pulse, or rewinds, or whatever you want to call the mechanic (I'll be calling it the turnwheel for the purposes of this playlog)... is only the first of those three things. If the developers genuinely intended this mechanic as an optional accessibility feature the game wasn't balanced around, then they would not have: Made it a constantly-present feature on every mode and difficulty Fully integrated it as a thing that is canon to the story Prevented it from disabling achievements Given it limited uses that you can upgrade through an in-game macguffin hunt Made its use more scarce in dungeons These are not the hallmarks of a casual mode analogue the game wasn't balanced around. These are the hallmarks of a special attack that the game was balanced around. The only reason the turnwheel would have limited uses at all is if whoever came up with that idea genuinely believed that giving it limited uses would be sufficient to make it a balanced mechanic. As crazy as it is to believe, all the signs point to the fact that the developers of this game genuinely saw the turnwheel as something that didn't break the game in half. I maintained this interpretation of the devs' decisions in the days where SoV was the newest game, and 3H has resoundingly, and tragically, vindicated me on this. I am quite certain it's impossible to play Three Houses and not come to the conclusion that the devs expected everyone, from the newest of newcomers to the most grizzled of veterans, to be making liberal, shameless use of the turnwheel mechanic whenever they can. And that is not a good thing. Because if there somehow are ways to organically and satisfyingly “necessitate” a save-scumming mechanic in the standard gameplay of a series like Fire Emblem, then one thing I know with absolute moral certainty is that Three Houses did not manage to find a single goddamned one of them. In fact, Three Houses' attempts to validate the existence of the turnwheel mechanic amount to little more than liberally coating its gameplay in bullshit and lies. But that is a topic for a month or two from now. Back onto the subject, the point is that I can't “just not use” the turnwheel and act like it doesn't exist, because there are clearly things other than the player's own bad decision-making that this was intended to be a crutch for. And it shouldn't be a crutch for them, because it's a wholly inadequate crutch for them. It's painfully obvious to me that the turnwheel was added as a mechanic to make sure that the game's woefully outdated and dinosaurian game mechanics and map design didn't send the less patient among its buyers into a frothing rage, without them actually having to fix any of these things. Which brings me to the next argument I've heard in defense of the turnwheel's implementation: “It allows me to save myself from bullshit crits and ambush spawns I didn't deserve to lose to.” This argument... drives me up the wall. Because it essentially amounts to thanking the developer for passing what should have been the developer's job onto the player. Imagine if you went to a restaurant and ordered a fruit salad, and when the waiter brought the bowl out, there was a little metal instrument placed to the side of your silverware. When you ask what it is, they say that it's to make it easier for you to get all of the numerous pits and seeds out of your fruit salad while you eat it. Do you thank the restaurant for supplying you with this instrument so you don't have to eat all the pits and seeds in your fruit salad? Or do you wonder where the restaurant gets off expecting you to pay for this when they decided to make a vitally important part of the meal's preparation your job when it's supposed to be theirs? Likewise, if a game genuinely has unfair bullshit in it (like imbalanced crit rates with insufficient options for defense, or ambush spawns), and that results in undeserved unit deaths or game overs, then 1, it shouldn't be the player's job to weed those undeserved deaths out of their experience, and 2, that isn't remotely fair to the people who don't want to use the turnwheel to finish the game. If a game has bad mechanics in it, the appropriate response is to fix or remove them, not to keep them in and hope that as long as they never cause anyone to lose nobody will mind. I am going to have so much more to say about this particular point when we get to Three Houses, because while in Shadows of Valentia the turnwheel was merely used as a band-aid over pre-exising issues they didn't want to fix, in Three Houses, due to the maps being designed from the ground-up with the knowledge that rewinds are a thing, the devs seemed to feel they had full license to create all-new game mechanics and chapter gimmicks that would have gotten anyone who suggested them before the advent of the turnwheel summarily thrown out of the nearest plate glass window. But the argument I most strongly and emphatically disagree with? “The turnwheel actually has literally no impact on the difficulty whatsoever. Either way, you still have to come up with the right combination of moves to win. It's no harder to beat a map without the turnwheel than with it, it just takes longer.” The only situation where I feel this argument even has the slightest amount of merit is in extremely brutal difficulty levels like FE12 Lunatic, or in highly strict challenge runs like LTCs. Challenges where finding one very specific combination of moves and lucky dice rolls to get the ideal result is either a couple steps removed from mandatory (FE12 Lunatic) or the entire point (LTCs). When the objective is to find the perfect combination of moves and do it until it works, or when the game is designed to have extreme levels of trial and error to merely survive, then yes, I can see the turnwheel as a convenient feature to get around the massive amounts of luck and trial-and-error involved in doing challenges the series' mechanics were not built to withstand. In all other cases? No. Not even close. The turnwheel has a massive amount of impact on the difficulty of gameplay. The biggest reason being that it allows you to get away with strategies that would be dangerous to unthinkable without it. Let me give an example. Suppose that, hypothetically, you're playing on classic, and there's a map similar to Chapter 21 of Conquest, where you're being endlessly swarmed by enemies who don't give you EXP, and you're trying to make your way to the boss to kill them and end the map. Halfway through it, you realize that you have an opening to send one of your best fliers across the map to just barely be able to attempt a kill on the boss and end the map far sooner than you could have hoped. The catch is, whether or not it's due to shaky accuracy on the flier or relying on a killer weapon crit, the attack only has a 50% chance to kill, and should it fail, you don't have the ability to return them to safety, and so that unit will almost assuredly die on the coming enemy phase. Would you take that chance? ...Well... ...That depends entirely on how you're playing the game. If you're playing on classic normally, losing this flier would be reset-worthy, so it's a matter of how much you value the 50% chance of getting to skip the rest of the map compared to the equal 50% chance you'll have to do everything you've already done in this chapter all over again. How lucky were you to get this far? Do you think you could easily replicate these results? If you don't take this chance and then you lose, do you think you'll get another shot at this? Are you willing to roll the dice with that really nice level your favorite character got? If you're ironmanning the game, the idea would be sheer madness. Risking losing one of your best units for the rest of the game in order to end the battle early is something you'd only ever even consider if you were near the very, very end of the game, or if your confidence you can get everyone else out alive without doing this were absolutely rock bottom. It would be a move with massive consequences, only to be considered by the truly desperate. If you're playing with the turnwheel, however, giving this a shot would be an absolute no-brainer. Where's even the risk? If it doesn't work, just rewind and either try again with new RNG or cut your losses and save the remaining rewinds for doing the rest of the map normally. You have almost nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying it. The fundamental aspect of the turnwheel that causes it to make the game so much easier is that it allows for the attempting of much, much bigger risk-taking and of less reliable strategies without the same risk-and-reward assessments that things like hit rates and crit rates are supposed to facilitate. It allows you to reap the benefits of a lucky start for longer even after ruining it with multiple mistakes, it lets you get away with things that in other playstyles would be suicidal, and it allows you to beat a chapter in spite of mistakes that you might not even have developed the ability to recognize in advance, which these games, when done properly, are supposed to give you everything you need to do. Alright. I've said my piece for now. I've gone on long enough as it is. My objections to the turnwheel in this game... moooooostly amount to irritation and an objection in principle. Fortunately, while the way it was implemented was incredibly and justifiably ominous, the system, very fortunately, can at least mostly be ignored. Like the save tile system of Shadow Dragon, no part of gameplay was actually changed to reflect it, and it won't be until the next game tries with gusto to validate its existence as the standard way to play Fire Emblem when I'll be able to demonstrate with concrete examples just how horribly things can go wrong when you try to do that. ...Let's wrap up for today by finishing this conversation, getting out of the shrine, and class changing everyone. One thing I will say positively about the turnwheel's implementation here is that they contextualize it in a way that (in stark contrast to Three Houses), satisfyingly and clearly answers the question of “how the hell can anything go wrong in the story ever if the main character has time powers?”. The answer: you don't have time powers. As Silque says, “You don't use it. It uses you”. It's not a magical medallion that lets you go back in time. When you use the turnwheel in gameplay, you're playing the role of the fickle and inscrutable forces of destiny, re-contextualizing what you've done between the point you rewind from and the point you rewind to as a bad timeline you send a prophecy of into the past so Alm can see what goes wrong and do something differently. Which is handily demonstrated by Alm seeing a horrific vision of a crumbling Zofia castle surrounded by a sea of graves. Whenever something bad happens in the story, it's not because Alm was an idiot and forgot about his time powers, it's because Mila decided not to warn him, and the hell if we know what her reasons for that are. ...That said... while it works here... this is not an explanation I could imagine working for every story. Especially not, say, “Shadows of Jugdral”. If a tale that full of perpetual death and loss and betrayal and disgrace all happened while Sigurd had a magical amulet from the gods giving him divine prophecies and warnings to guide him along the right path, then even if he kept his faith in the gods' plan for him all the way to the very final moment when he realized that helping him win was never the gods' plan... ...lemme just link this short scene I wrote on the subject. It should demonstrate what I think would realistically happen after that. https://forums.serenesforest.net/index.php?/topic/87173-baldo’s-turnwheel-short-scene/ Now then... Ah, “The Mother is either telling you what you could be... or what once was”. This is referring to the turnwheel's ability to play back past events via prisms you can collect. Cute. Anyway, Silque joins, and that means we now have our first healer. We'll be getting our second very swiftly. If I decide to do the DLC, the plan will be to give the healer to Celica's group, because Alm's side gets two to three, while Celica only gets one. ...So, these are explicitly Mila shrines. All of them. Right? ...So why are there so many shrines to Mila... in Rigel? But anyway... let's see... ...I've decided to go with people's suggestions and make Kliff an archer. That seems a sound idea. He's easily got the best overall growths of anyone who could realistically become that class, and that res and high range will be great for countering dark mages with mire, who will be plentiful. I'm pretty excited to see how he turns out as a bow knight. Everyone else? Same plan as before. Faye's a cleric, Gray's a mercenary, and Tobin's a mage. The reason people recommend you make Tobin a mage is because his high base speed and early access to excalibur allow him to reliably double enemies consistently through the early part of the game where mages are at their most useful, and then when their poor movement starts catching up to them, he can promote, gain the physic spell, and use that for the rest of the game to stay useful as a support unit. The reasons to make Faye a cleric are obvious. Not only does having two healers give me more options, but I can also let my two healers perpetually heal each other to exp grind and keep either of my healers from wearing themselves out, and Faye gets an extremely powerful and badass spell at the end of the game that nobody else can get. Gray's a mercenary because we really want to have at least one, and because his biggest weaknesses are compensated for by the mercenary's ridiculously good promotion bases. All Faye gets from promotion is a single point of speed, but she won't be needing much to be useful. Tragically, all Kliff gets from archer is a single point of HP. Which means he really could've used the defense points he by all rights should have gotten. Well, at least he'll have the option of attacking from a distance until he can get more bulky, and at least his defense growth only drops from 40 to 35 as an archer. Gray gets a whopping 3 skill and 6 speed from becoming a mercenary (what did I tell you?), and that's gonna make him really good. Basically another Alm for the most part. Weaker, but even faster. All Tobin gets from class changing to mage is 4 HP, meaning those two defense procs he got were ultimately pointless. Shame. Anyway, you can also make offerings to Mila that will cause the statue to totally refresh your party's stamina and the turnwheel's charges. I always use the otherwise-completely-useless alcoholic items (in this case the leftover ale), because the devs gave up on the idea of letting adults use them as food items. Alright, I got Silque, I got the class changes, I got the Ram Wine, I got the mana herbs... let's go back to the surface and end there. Oh wait! There's another part! Ah yes, the fountains! These are limited-use stat boosters you can give to your party. I give one point of speed each to Silque and Faye, and then one more to Lukas in the hopes that this will give me a better chance to use him with his poor speed growth. If there were four though, I would have given two each to Silque and Faye. But I couldn't decide which one I wanted to give the tie breaker to, so I considered other options. Ooh, nice! Yeah, so, we see the first instance of members of your party being people you can talk to at shrines and in villages. Here Gray's talking about how much of a mess the world is. These conversations are constantly changing throughout the game depending on what's most recently happened, and I really like how these flesh characters out. Three Houses does something similar, but my drastically reduced emotional investment in that cast makes it harder to appreciate that. No enemies on the way out. I'm pretty sure normally there are, I guess this is an exception. Now then, back to Ram Village to deliver the Ram wine, and we can end for today, at long last. The allegedly “Greedy Old Man” gives us some very valuable cheese he originally planned to have with the wine, cheese that will be very useful for a future sidequest. Job well done. Yeah, I think we can leave off for today. I may not have done much, but I've certainly said plenty. And I'll be ready to say more tomorrow! Stay safe, everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 (edited) Silque being from Novis makes it a shame Celica can no longer recruit her. Though it then gives the amusing scenario of Silque staying inside that cave should you not recruit her. Nevermind the Shrine, she's still holing herself up deep in a cave for pretty much no reason, when Ram Village is closer and makes for a better staying place. XD I'm not touching the Turnwheel rant with even a ten-foot pole. I'm just glad it made getting the Dracoshield easier and that's all I'm saying on the matter. Edited May 26, 2021 by Acacia Sgt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lenticular Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: I. Fucking. HATE. Mila's Turnwheel. I like Mila's Turnwheel and I like Divine Pulse, but I do understand why you hate them. Different priorities and perspectives and what have you. But there are two parts to your rant that I take issue with. 25 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Let me start by saying that I would have no issue with this feature whatsoever if it had been what was added to the series instead of casual mode. I actually think that, as an optional feature, it's far superior to casual mode in terms of giving people wary of permadeath a set of “training wheels” with which to play the game anyway. It has the same effect of keeping a single mistake from being reset-worthy, but it also teaches you more of the strategies you'd make use of in proper classic mode in order to proceed, because you still can't finish a level with any dead units without repercussions. You don't have to restart for a single unit death, but you still at least have to figure out how to get through the level without that unit dying. I think that Turnwheel and Casual mode serve different purposes and largely appeal to different types of players. Casual mode has the advantage of not needing you to keep everyone alive if you don't want to and not having any long-term consequences. Some players are mostly just along for the ride, want to enjoy the story, don't want to think too hard, don't have much time, or whatever. I don't particularly enjoy Casual mode, you (I presume) don't particularly enjoy Casual mode, but there are people out there who do enjoy it and for whom Turnwheel would not be an adequate replacement. Playing with permadeath + Turnwheel is -- mostly -- harder than playing in Casual mode, which would suck for people who like Casual precisely because it makes the games easier. And at the same time, there are people (me, for instance) who enjoy Turnwheel but don't enjoy Casual mode. Turnwheel allows me to undo boneheaded mistakes, failures of concentration, failed perception checks, fat-fingering, and all manner of other player errors that aren't about fundamental errors in strategy or tactics. It saves me from myself without making me feel as if keeping people alive doesn't matter, which Casual does. Neither one of the two systems eliminates the need for the other. 51 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Let me give an example. Suppose that, hypothetically, you're playing on classic, and there's a map similar to Chapter 21 of Conquest, where you're being endlessly swarmed by enemies who don't give you EXP, and you're trying to make your way to the boss to kill them and end the map. Halfway through it, you realize that you have an opening to send one of your best fliers across the map to just barely be able to attempt a kill on the boss and end the map far sooner than you could have hoped. The catch is, whether or not it's due to shaky accuracy on the flier or relying on a killer weapon crit, the attack only has a 50% chance to kill, and should it fail, you don't have the ability to return them to safety, and so that unit will almost assuredly die on the coming enemy phase. Would you take that chance? ...Well... ...That depends entirely on how you're playing the game. If you're playing on classic normally, losing this flier would be reset-worthy, so it's a matter of how much you value the 50% chance of getting to skip the rest of the map compared to the equal 50% chance you'll have to do everything you've already done in this chapter all over again. How lucky were you to get this far? Do you think you could easily replicate these results? If you don't take this chance and then you lose, do you think you'll get another shot at this? Are you willing to roll the dice with that really nice level your favorite character got? If you're ironmanning the game, the idea would be sheer madness. Risking losing one of your best units for the rest of the game in order to end the battle early is something you'd only ever even consider if you were near the very, very end of the game, or if your confidence you can get everyone else out alive without doing this were absolutely rock bottom. It would be a move with massive consequences, only to be considered by the truly desperate. If you're playing with the turnwheel, however, giving this a shot would be an absolute no-brainer. Where's even the risk? If it doesn't work, just rewind and either try again with new RNG or cut your losses and save the remaining rewinds for doing the rest of the map normally. You have almost nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying it. While I appreciate your point about how Turnwheel isn't really optional when it comes to avoiding unfair game design elements (ambush spawns, witches, undefendable crits, Foreign Land And Sky, etc.), it absolutely is optional to use it this way. I cannot think of a single example across either Shadows of Valentia or Three Houses where you need to take a bad risk and rewind if it doesn't work. In both games, I absolutely can and have seen strategies that were >95% chance to succeed but still taken the time to stop and look for 100% strategies. Even though it doesn't matter. Even though I know I can rewind if the 95% fails. I will still look for the perfect strategy because I enjoy looking for the perfect strategy. Taking the 50% shot is only a no-brainer in the context of winning at any cost. It's a bit like warp-skipping, or low-manning, or other cheese strategies. If all you care about is whether you win or not, then of course you're going to try to do Turnwheel cheese, of course you're going to warp-skip... but wouldn't it be more fun to actually play the level? I certainly think so. And in this case and this case alone, the Turnwheel is 100% optional. To reiterate, I completely agree with you that there are some ways that the Turnwheel is baked into the game design and isn't avoidable but this isn't one of them. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: Oh wait! There's another part! Ah yes, the fountains! These are limited-use stat boosters you can give to your party. I give one point of speed each to Silque and Faye, and then one more to Lukas in the hopes that this will give me a better chance to use him with his poor speed growth. If there were four though, I would have given two each to Silque and Faye. But I couldn't decide which one I wanted to give the tie breaker to, so I considered other options. Changing the subject entirely: I really like the fountains, because unlike regular consumable stat boosters, there's much more incentive to use them immediately when you find them. Sure, you could leave them be and write down where they were and then go back for them later when you need them, but that's much more work than just using them immediately. It's nice to have what is effectively a limited-use consumable without having to worry about "too good to use" syndrome and picking the exactly perfect person to give them to at the exactly perfect time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted May 26, 2021 Author Share Posted May 26, 2021 16 minutes ago, lenticular said: While I appreciate your point about how Turnwheel isn't really optional when it comes to avoiding unfair game design elements (ambush spawns, witches, undefendable crits, Foreign Land And Sky, etc.), it absolutely is optional to use it this way. I cannot think of a single example across either Shadows of Valentia or Three Houses where you need to take a bad risk and rewind if it doesn't work. At that point I wasn't arguing that it wasn't optional, I was arguing that its presence makes the game easier (something many people argue it doesn't), and using that example to demonstrate that its presence and use radically alters what you can get away with, and thus does in fact affect difficulty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lenticular Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: At that point I wasn't arguing that it wasn't optional, I was arguing that its presence makes the game easier (something many people argue it doesn't), and using that example to demonstrate that its presence and use radically alters what you can get away with, and thus does in fact affect difficulty. OK, sure, but... why is that a bad thing? Isn't it a good thing if there's an optional way to make the game easier for those who choose to use it but that isn't forced on anyone who doesn't want it? I'm not sure what your point is here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 (edited) On 5/24/2021 at 8:18 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: I don't think I've tried this one yet. That's pretty perfect. Kind of funny, though, that a game with like 8 Fire Emblem characters used non-FE units to represent them. They're also enhanceable into - you guessed it - Alm and Celica. On that note, other spirits related to FE include the following: Spoiler Wrys (represented by a Kirby who runs away from you in a timed stamina battle) Nyna (represented by a Palutena who runs away from you, while a Ganondorf that represents Hardin is her ally) Bord & Cord & Barst (a trio of Simons that throw axes at you) Draug (stamina battle against a King K. Rool that has super armor, but moves slower, and has increased defense) Caeda (a jump-happy Lucina with a similarly jump-happy Marth as backup; there is a strong wind hazard, and the enemies have increased speed and reduced weight) Jagen (a Ganondorf with improved attack and defense, but also starts with damage) Navarre (a Marth that starts with a Killing Edge, in a stamina battle) Merric (Robin with stronger magic attacks and favors the use of his specials) Minerva (Lucina with Charizard; improved jump power and move speed) Linde (Robin with a zap floor and stronger magic attacks) Camus (a Marth that gets healed when he has taken significant damage, can crit, and has improved weapon power; also enhanceable) Tiki (Marth with the Tiki assist trophy appearing; this is enhanceable) Pegasus Sisters (a trio of Lucinas that have an extra midair jump) Medeus (Ridley in a stamina battle; Ridley grows giant after a time) Gharnef (Robin that primarily uses Nosferatu, on a slumber floor) Sigurd (Ike that gets improved defense when he's taken a lot of damage) Seliph (Marth that gets improved defense when he's taken a lot of damage; also accompanied by Ike, who references Sigurd) Deirdre (Palutena; your attack power is reduced) Julius (Robin with a lava floor hazard, stronger fire attacks, and stamina battle) Leif (Roy, with the chance to do critical hits, and is healed when he's heavily damaged) Lilina (Palutena that spams side specials, also accompanied by Roy, because yeah) Lyn (Zero Suit Samus with a Killing Edge, while the Lyn assist trophy appears as well; this one is enhanceable as well) Eliwood (Roy with a lava floor, increased fire power, and all fighters are easy to launch after a while) Hector (Simon with super armor and increased attack power; must be summoned first with cores from Lilina and two support spirits) Raven (Roy; all fighters get increased attack and lowered defence) Eirika (Lucina with improved stats, and an Ike partner) Lyon (Robin, with a giant Rldkey showing up once Robin is KOed) Mist (Zelda with Ike as backup) Soren (Robin with Ike as an ally) Sothe (Sheik that spams dash attacks) Ashnard (Ganondorf with Charizard; Stamina battle) Zelgius (Stamina battle against a Mii Swordfighter with super armor and stronger smash attacks wearing the armor and helmet of... his enhanced form) Gangrel (Wolf with Bayonetta as backup) Walhart (Ganondorf with super armor; this one is pretty obvious when you think about it) Anna (Lucina with sword items as the only items that spawn; of course, she opens a shop when you win) Ryoma (Chrom with a zap floor, but this time, the whole field is covered; once you win, he opens a dojo) Takumi (Pit times two that spams neutral specials with a strong wind hazard; there's two Pits, because... well, it'll make sense if you finished Conquest. Also of note, he's on the light side in The Final Battle) Hinoka (Lucina with an extra midair jump and a strong wind hazard) Sakura (Isabelle with a Corrin ally) Xander (summon with the cores of the three below spirits) Camilla (Corrin with Charizard; X Bombs are all that spawn) Leo (Robin with high gravity) Elise (Isabelle that's easily distracted by items, and exclusively healing items spawn) Azura (Corrin with Sudden Final Smash AND Double Final Smash. Also, she blocks Corrin in World of Light.) Garon (stamina battle against Ganondorf with a poison floor and reduced jump power for you; also, he's on the dark side in The Final Battle. Combine this with the fact that Takumi is on light, and...) Tsubasa Oribe (Inkling, with the Squid Sisters assist appearing; also enhanceable) On the Dread Fighter loop; No. It's not necessary, and by the time it's even doable, I'd say the Dread Fighter's passives outweigh a few more stat points. 9 hours ago, Jotari said: Another boss in this game I felt they could have named is the first Cantor Celica encounters. He uses a generic portrait for the cantor, but he has dialogue and that generic artwork actually made quite an impression on me on my first playthrough, I thought it looked crazy and distinct enough to actually be a specific character. I feel his presence and role in that chapter was distinct enough to justify a name. And even in plot, isn't he like the only Rigelian Celica faces in Chapter 1? Coming to think of it it's a bit strange he is all alone all the way down there looking for Celica. I'm quite sure all the other enemies fought are Zofian pirates or terrors working independently as mindless monsters. Nope. There are two more run-ins with the Duma Faithful after that, one of which introduces Masked Man. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Faye gets an extremely powerful and badass spell at the end of the game that nobody else can get. Which I would argue is impractical, because not only does said spell come extremely late, as in "the main game will likely be over before you get it" late, but the HP cost is exorbitant. Edited May 26, 2021 by Shadow Mir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted May 26, 2021 Author Share Posted May 26, 2021 4 minutes ago, lenticular said: OK, sure, but... why is that a bad thing? Isn't it a good thing if there's an optional way to make the game easier for those who choose to use it but that isn't forced on anyone who doesn't want it? I'm not sure what your point is here. The point is that I've had people, respected members of the community in fact, tell me that the turnwheel does not make things easier in any way. So in case that was still a common argument, I wanted to argue against it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Turnwheel. I can definitely understand a lot of what you're saying. I think your thoughts are quite well-put on this front. That said - at this point, I think there's been enough difference between us, in terms of what we view as "difficulty" and "good game design", that it would likely be impossible for me to make any arguments for rewind mechanics that strike any sort of a chord with you. So it's just a point to disagree on, I guess. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: ..Okay, so uh... I'm not sure if it's enough to take off an entire tier, but I'm noticing a significant problem here that the other 3DS games didn't have. This game doesn't actually show you what the formation looks like when you're planning unit order. For dungeons at least, it's like the old games before proper unit formation control, where you just have to blindly arrange unit order and then check the results. While you might argue that you're not preparing for a specific battle so they can't really let you see enough to make unit positioning useful, I'd disagree. Just seeing who's going to be in front, and who's gonna be close to who, and what area coverage you have between your units' movement ranges would be really useful if they just showed you an empty map and showed you which unit slot in the roster represented which starting position for generic battles. Yeah, this one's kind of disappointing. Would be nice if you could get a "formation preview", either in place of (or addition to) the list. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Tragically, all Kliff gets from archer is a single point of HP. Which means he really could've used the defense points he by all rights should have gotten. Well, at least he'll have the option of attacking from a distance until he can get more bulky, and at least his defense growth only drops from 40 to 35 as an archer. Unfortunately, the Archer line tends to do poorly in terms of stats. I find the merits of Bows, as a weapon type, to make up for that - but unit performance may depend on personal growths. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: We'll be engaging them, of course. But I'll try to only go into each dungeon once. So I only get the fights on the way in and out. Gotta make them count. RIP that one weird lady who wants you to return with 20 bandit scalps. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Oh wait! There's another part! Ah yes, the fountains! These are limited-use stat boosters you can give to your party. I give one point of speed each to Silque and Faye, and then one more to Lukas in the hopes that this will give me a better chance to use him with his poor speed growth. If there were four though, I would have given two each to Silque and Faye. But I couldn't decide which one I wanted to give the tie breaker to, so I considered other options. I tend to be a fan of these, even moreso than the series-standard "consumable boosters". The fountains encourage you to give the boosts right away (rather than hoarding them), while also letting you choose between splitting them up, or concentrating them in one unit. I think Lukas is a good investment - when he's not getting doubled, he can be among your best units. Especially with the Ridersbane, in cavalry-heavy Act 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punished Dayni Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: ...So, these are explicitly Mila shrines. All of them. Right? ...So why are there so many shrines to Mila... in Rigel? Let's count 'em. There's the Hidden Shrine, Fear Mountain Shrine, Lost Treescape and Duma Tower and Temple. Of them, we see the tower and temple ones desecrated, which we should ask how they work at all. The Lost Treescape I could understand from the perspective of the place being generally more tolerant of other views how a Mila shrine wasn't damaged. The Hidden Shrine, which has damaged statues to what I assume is Duma as well and which I thought might be implied to have had dark shit going down, but I didn't find any evidence. And Fear Mountain Shrine seems to make no sense, considering the Duma Faithful seem plenty involved there. Imagine if that one in particular was made up as an alter to Duma, though there's a statue to him in the same dungeon as well. At least there could be a justification of them existing before Mila and Duma split the land between then. What about Furia Harbour then, is it from before they left? Travellers from Valentia? Other worshippers left behind? 27 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Anyway, you can also make offerings to Mila that will cause the statue to totally refresh your party's stamina and the turnwheel's charges. I always use the otherwise-completely-useless alcoholic items (in this case the leftover ale), because the devs gave up on the idea of letting adults use them as food items. Not gonna lie, I just sell the alcohol. 24 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: In which Alastor talks about how the Turnwheel is a blight on the world(Put in spoilers by me for ease of reference and to confirm that's what I'm responding to) Spoiler ..Okay. Here comes the rant that has been more than a year and a half in the making. I. Fucking. HATE. Mila's Turnwheel. It annoys me in principle, it scares me in execution, and I'm disgusted by the impact it had on the next game. I cringe at what it does to gameplay, I looooooathe entirely the attitude towards its relationship to the story, and I sincerely, sincerely hope that it goes the way of save tiles, gets abandoned after two games, and never darkens the doorstep of this franchise ever, ever again. With that being stablished, permit me to explain myself. Which is going to be difficult, because I've had so much time to think about all the myriad ways this mechanic pisses me off that the part of my brain allocated to storing my opinions on the subject has become just this medusoid web of vitriol it's gonna be a pain in the ass to untangle. But I'll try. Let me start by saying that I would have no issue with this feature whatsoever if it had been what was added to the series instead of casual mode. I actually think that, as an optional feature, it's far superior to casual mode in terms of giving people wary of permadeath a set of “training wheels” with which to play the game anyway. It has the same effect of keeping a single mistake from being reset-worthy, but it also teaches you more of the strategies you'd make use of in proper classic mode in order to proceed, because you still can't finish a level with any dead units without repercussions. You don't have to restart for a single unit death, but you still at least have to figure out how to get through the level without that unit dying. If it were genuinely an optional feature, I would have no issue with it. Now, of course, the most common response to this is “But Alastor, it is an optional feature. If you don't like it, just don't use it.” Alas, it's not remotely that simple. A mechanic you technically aren't physically forced to use is not the same thing as a mechanic where the developers didn't design the game assuming you're using it, or a mechanic whose inclusion has had no impact on the design of the rest of the game. And the turnwheel, or divine pulse, or rewinds, or whatever you want to call the mechanic (I'll be calling it the turnwheel for the purposes of this playlog)... is only the first of those three things. If the developers genuinely intended this mechanic as an optional accessibility feature the game wasn't balanced around, then they would not have: Made it a constantly-present feature on every mode and difficulty Fully integrated it as a thing that is canon to the story Prevented it from disabling achievements Given it limited uses that you can upgrade through an in-game macguffin hunt Made its use more scarce in dungeons These are not the hallmarks of a casual mode analogue the game wasn't balanced around. These are the hallmarks of a special attack that the game was balanced around. The only reason the turnwheel would have limited uses at all is if whoever came up with that idea genuinely believed that giving it limited uses would be sufficient to make it a balanced mechanic. As crazy as it is to believe, all the signs point to the fact that the developers of this game genuinely saw the turnwheel as something that didn't break the game in half. I maintained this interpretation of the devs' decisions in the days where SoV was the newest game, and 3H has resoundingly, and tragically, vindicated me on this. I am quite certain it's impossible to play Three Houses and not come to the conclusion that the devs expected everyone, from the newest of newcomers to the most grizzled of veterans, to be making liberal, shameless use of the turnwheel mechanic whenever they can. And that is not a good thing. Because if there somehow are ways to organically and satisfyingly “necessitate” a save-scumming mechanic in the standard gameplay of a series like Fire Emblem, then one thing I know with absolute moral certainty is that Three Houses did not manage to find a single goddamned one of them. In fact, Three Houses' attempts to validate the existence of the turnwheel mechanic amount to little more than liberally coating its gameplay in bullshit and lies. But that is a topic for a month or two from now. Back onto the subject, the point is that I can't “just not use” the turnwheel and act like it doesn't exist, because there are clearly things other than the player's own bad decision-making that this was intended to be a crutch for. And it shouldn't be a crutch for them, because it's a wholly inadequate crutch for them. It's painfully obvious to me that the turnwheel was added as a mechanic to make sure that the game's woefully outdated and dinosaurian game mechanics and map design didn't send the less patient among its buyers into a frothing rage, without them actually having to fix any of these things. Which brings me to the next argument I've heard in defense of the turnwheel's implementation: “It allows me to save myself from bullshit crits and ambush spawns I didn't deserve to lose to.” This argument... drives me up the wall. Because it essentially amounts to thanking the developer for passing what should have been the developer's job onto the player. Imagine if you went to a restaurant and ordered a fruit salad, and when the waiter brought the bowl out, there was a little metal instrument placed to the side of your silverware. When you ask what it is, they say that it's to make it easier for you to get all of the numerous pits and seeds out of your fruit salad while you eat it. Do you thank the restaurant for supplying you with this instrument so you don't have to eat all the pits and seeds in your fruit salad? Or do you wonder where the restaurant gets off expecting you to pay for this when they decided to make a vitally important part of the meal's preparation your job when it's supposed to be theirs? Likewise, if a game genuinely has unfair bullshit in it (like imbalanced crit rates with insufficient options for defense, or ambush spawns), and that results in undeserved unit deaths or game overs, then 1, it shouldn't be the player's job to weed those undeserved deaths out of their experience, and 2, that isn't remotely fair to the people who don't want to use the turnwheel to finish the game. If a game has bad mechanics in it, the appropriate response is to fix or remove them, not to keep them in and hope that as long as they never cause anyone to lose nobody will mind. I am going to have so much more to say about this particular point when we get to Three Houses, because while in Shadows of Valentia the turnwheel was merely used as a band-aid over pre-exising issues they didn't want to fix, in Three Houses, due to the maps being designed from the ground-up with the knowledge that rewinds are a thing, the devs seemed to feel they had full license to create all-new game mechanics and chapter gimmicks that would have gotten anyone who suggested them before the advent of the turnwheel summarily thrown out of the nearest plate glass window. But the argument I most strongly and emphatically disagree with? “The turnwheel actually has literally no impact on the difficulty whatsoever. Either way, you still have to come up with the right combination of moves to win. It's no harder to beat a map without the turnwheel than with it, it just takes longer.” The only situation where I feel this argument even has the slightest amount of merit is in extremely brutal difficulty levels like FE12 Lunatic, or in highly strict challenge runs like LTCs. Challenges where finding one very specific combination of moves and lucky dice rolls to get the ideal result is either a couple steps removed from mandatory (FE12 Lunatic) or the entire point (LTCs). When the objective is to find the perfect combination of moves and do it until it works, or when the game is designed to have extreme levels of trial and error to merely survive, then yes, I can see the turnwheel as a convenient feature to get around the massive amounts of luck and trial-and-error involved in doing challenges the series' mechanics were not built to withstand. In all other cases? No. Not even close. The turnwheel has a massive amount of impact on the difficulty of gameplay. The biggest reason being that it allows you to get away with strategies that would be dangerous to unthinkable without it. Let me give an example. Suppose that, hypothetically, you're playing on classic, and there's a map similar to Chapter 21 of Conquest, where you're being endlessly swarmed by enemies who don't give you EXP, and you're trying to make your way to the boss to kill them and end the map. Halfway through it, you realize that you have an opening to send one of your best fliers across the map to just barely be able to attempt a kill on the boss and end the map far sooner than you could have hoped. The catch is, whether or not it's due to shaky accuracy on the flier or relying on a killer weapon crit, the attack only has a 50% chance to kill, and should it fail, you don't have the ability to return them to safety, and so that unit will almost assuredly die on the coming enemy phase. Would you take that chance? ...Well... ...That depends entirely on how you're playing the game. If you're playing on classic normally, losing this flier would be reset-worthy, so it's a matter of how much you value the 50% chance of getting to skip the rest of the map compared to the equal 50% chance you'll have to do everything you've already done in this chapter all over again. How lucky were you to get this far? Do you think you could easily replicate these results? If you don't take this chance and then you lose, do you think you'll get another shot at this? Are you willing to roll the dice with that really nice level your favorite character got? If you're ironmanning the game, the idea would be sheer madness. Risking losing one of your best units for the rest of the game in order to end the battle early is something you'd only ever even consider if you were near the very, very end of the game, or if your confidence you can get everyone else out alive without doing this were absolutely rock bottom. It would be a move with massive consequences, only to be considered by the truly desperate. If you're playing with the turnwheel, however, giving this a shot would be an absolute no-brainer. Where's even the risk? If it doesn't work, just rewind and either try again with new RNG or cut your losses and save the remaining rewinds for doing the rest of the map normally. You have almost nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying it. The fundamental aspect of the turnwheel that causes it to make the game so much easier is that it allows for the attempting of much, much bigger risk-taking and of less reliable strategies without the same risk-and-reward assessments that things like hit rates and crit rates are supposed to facilitate. It allows you to reap the benefits of a lucky start for longer even after ruining it with multiple mistakes, it lets you get away with things that in other playstyles would be suicidal, and it allows you to beat a chapter in spite of mistakes that you might not even have developed the ability to recognize in advance, which these games, when done properly, are supposed to give you everything you need to do. Alright. I've said my piece for now. I've gone on long enough as it is. My objections to the turnwheel in this game... moooooostly amount to irritation and an objection in principle. Fortunately, while the way it was implemented was incredibly and justifiably ominous, the system, very fortunately, can at least mostly be ignored. Like the save tile system of Shadow Dragon, no part of gameplay was actually changed to reflect it, and it won't be until the next game tries with gusto to validate its existence as the standard way to play Fire Emblem when I'll be able to demonstrate with concrete examples just how horribly things can go wrong when you try to do that. I don't have much to comment on the extended arguments given, but I do have a few things to say on it. I'm trying to remember it disabling achievements, as a point you bring against it, but that is drawing a blank for me. But more than that, I will argue the limited uses it does have are then massively built upon, thus making it more of a trivial item as the game progresses and you find more cogs. That this can lead to a design that is thus more accommodating of design choices and other choice items mentioned throughout is a pretty obvious point you're making, but I'm not here to swing by and defend this as an option. An actual substantial limit on uses would in and of itself necessitate players realise they can't do so, but as you've mentioned, this is not the same as a design philosophy that accounts for these objectionable decisions in level design. This does not make the levels easier in and of themselves, but as you've mentioned allows for more of a freewheeling approach to map for players that can thus encourage overly lax play. I will comment that I have seen someone play the game on hard without turnwheels, but it'd be grindless that would make it really interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted May 26, 2021 Share Posted May 26, 2021 6 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: RIP that one weird lady who wants you to return with 20 bandit scalps. Also RIP the guy who wants the little statuette. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted May 27, 2021 Author Share Posted May 27, 2021 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Dayni said: I'm trying to remember it disabling achievements, as a point you bring against it, but that is drawing a blank for me. Oh no, I'm saying that it doesn't disable achievements, as part of a list of clues that it was never intended as an accessibility feature or easy mode. This game has achievements, and not only does using the turnwheel not disqualify you from achieving any of them, there's actually one achievement you need the turnwheel to get. Edited May 27, 2021 by Alastor15243 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punished Dayni Posted May 27, 2021 Share Posted May 27, 2021 Just now, Alastor15243 said: Oh no, I'm saying that it doesn't disable achievements, as part of a list of clues that it was never intended as an accessibility feature or easy mode. This game has achievements, and not only does using the turnwheel not disqualify you from achieving any of them, there's actually one achievement you need the turnwheel to get. Yeah, the way the bullet point reads against the sentence it's bulleted from made it read the other way around. Achievements within the game itself are I would argue barely relevant at all, especially with how the game doesn't really have a community connection to share them on and with nothing tied to them beyond getting them (see: me blitzrieging on Normal years ago). Point still taken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted May 27, 2021 Author Share Posted May 27, 2021 35 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: I can definitely understand a lot of what you're saying. I think your thoughts are quite well-put on this front. That said - at this point, I think there's been enough difference between us, in terms of what we view as "difficulty" and "good game design", that it would likely be impossible for me to make any arguments for rewind mechanics that strike any sort of a chord with you. So it's just a point to disagree on, I guess. I'd still be willing to hear them out, honestly. If you'd like to DM me I'd love to talk about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seazas Posted May 27, 2021 Share Posted May 27, 2021 (edited) 6 hours ago, Jotari said: Well there is the "Captain" from the Shadow Dragon prologue. https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_(Shadow_Dragon) Who I could have sword was of the soldier class and was named the Lieutenant. The Mandela Effect is hitting me hard right now 0.o Yeah, I did actually look up the chapters afterwards to fact check myself and saw there's another boat full of archanists. So he's not down in south Zofia completely alone, but I think the Cantor still brings enough to the table both in gameplay, narrative and presence to warrant a proper name (I'm guessing the "one at the very end" is the map where Conrad shows up to save Celica that wasn't in Gaiden? I certainly remembered that, but with its limited deployment, reused map, just generally easiness and sort of transtionary period between part 1 and 2, I guess I kind of categorized it away in my brain as a cutscene). Is Tatiana a member of the Duma Faithful? She's certainly a cleric, and it's probably not of Mila (then again there are a tonne of Mila statues hanging around Rigel for a nation she hasn't been influencing for centuries), but I can't recall her ever being noted as being aligned with the Duma Faithful. She certainly doesn't dress in their aesthetic (then again Halcyon doesn't either). Now that I think about it, whether she is noted as being part of them or not somewhere, it's a bit of a missed opportunity that isn't an aspect of her character. Because as she is, Tatiana is kind of flat as a character. She has a bit of charm in a ditzy sort of way, but there isn't all that much to her. She's just, Zeke's girlfriend. Letting her give a perspective on the non psychotically evil side of the Duma faithful like Halcyon would, I think, be a much appreciated dimension to her character. It doesn't really help that she only has a single support with Zeke. Straight up I'm not even going to bother reading what you have to say per what I say here. Maybe you have a worthwhile riposte, probably you don't, but I honestly don't care until we reach a point in our relationship when we can actually talk to each other. For what it's worth I didn't think you were singling me out. I read your post as you meaning what you wrote and nothing more, that's why I replied to it with further analysis of the two terms and what terms other lords in the series use to refer to their fathers. Listen Jotari, just listen for a second. I don't care if you don't like Alm, that doesn't matter to me anymore. Just STOP being apart of the small few that push a narrative of Gaiden Alm being this different extremely flawed guy. I'm sick of that crclejerk that's been going on for YEARS and it's another case of blaming Echoes for something it isn't at fault by. Kaga always gave Alm just about everything with Celica not getting the same treatment, Alm always had a rational super kind personality. That rebellious spirit you mentioned is nice as a concept, it never existed in Gaiden though. This version of Alm you prefer just doesn't exist, come on man. Awakening never cared for Gaiden, it didn't bother to dig into what it tried to do nor was it overly fond of the game. It didn't even acknowledge Alm and Celica's legacy properly and never answered where the Valentian Falchion went. Awakening's depiction of Alm is just wrong. Edited May 27, 2021 by Seazas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samz707 Posted May 27, 2021 Share Posted May 27, 2021 (edited) 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Shadows of Valentia Day 3: The Entry Formerly Intended To Be Known As “Movin' On Up (Movin' On Up)” Before The Majority Of It Became Devoted To A Rant About A Certain Game Mechanic That Alastor, To Put It Lightly, Does Not Particularly Care For And so we enter the thief's shrine, and immediately run into a hilariously cowardly guard who promptly fucks off from watch duty when he sees us. “Eek! Stay away from me! I'm only the stupid watchman! I just watch things! EEEEEEEK!” In all other cases? No. Not even close. The turnwheel has a massive amount of impact on the difficulty of gameplay. The biggest reason being that it allows you to get away with strategies that would be dangerous to unthinkable without it. While granted, my friend who I lent the game to did abuse turnwheel to crit warp Nuibaba with Alm (though I think this is the only time he did something like that.) and I did it use it occasionally (Though I think less than 10 times, not counting my attempts at Thales.) I do agree it's OP in Echoes but I never really felt like I was forced to use it. You should have had to go to a Mila Statue and sacrifice an item to get more always IMO, not just in dungeons but for every single use instead of being refunded after the battle. Granted, I didn't experience much IMO unfairness in Echoes myself. (Aside from maybe witches in how they're bipolar) but..well let me I guess explain. So, Unit formation dictating starting spot really sucks if an enemy attacks you on the world map, you do not get to actually reposition anyone before turn one, this led to Faye getting 1-shot before I could even move and having to reset (because I'm not accepting BS Deaths in any perma-death game.) my 3DS for it in a mid-game chapter. (She was a peg knight and Mounted bow dudes rushed her.) While that did annoy me, I'm going to be blunt and say 3H's implementation in my limited experience (That enemy mid-your-turn-reinforcement spawn on Miklan's chapter) pisses me off even more. Again, my only real unfair thing I have experienced is that one encounter, but at least there in Echoes, it feels like an oversight, yes it annoys me, but it doesn't feel like the devs are actively trying to be an asshole, it feels like an accident involving the unit placements in one map with one type of late-game enemy spawn. (The Big Forest map you fight Berkut and Ferdinand on.) Meanwhile, with the poorly modelled door reinforcements in Miklan's chapter in 3H, it is an intentional act of dickery, since they spawn on your turn and their spawn point isn't even clear enough to be realized as one if you aren't zoomed in. (and it's an FE title so obviously you're going to be zoomed out.) Sure, technically, Miklan's reinforcements are lower stats, but it's the kind of principle I guess, the fact it's the devs intentionally trying to screw you over by using unfair underhanded design as opposed to an accident due to some oversights. It's like the difference between an extremely unfair encounter in a randomly generated strategy game (Such as Classic X-Com) vs one in a fixed game. (Like Jagged Alliance 2), both are annoying but one has the fact that almost certainly more than one game developer sat down and thought this unfair encounter was totally fine, while the other is just getting unlucky with happenstance. So while technically the Echoes one screwed me over more by forcing a reset (while thankfully Bernadetta was somehow able to tank 2 dudes beating her up at once in 3H) it was well, an equivalent of an accident, while 3H felt more like being given the middle finger intentionally. That said, yeah, at least Echoes had the actual foresight to make sure it was technically just viewing the future as opposed to well, what I hear goes down in 3H since Byleth just sorta is an idiot. (Such as a certain death in a certain route, where they don't even try to hand-wave why Divine Pulse isn't an option from what I hear because that's totally good writing and this isn't Jojo Part 4 where the character with the super OP power is actually canonically an idiot who can't use it properly.) Best Part about the Stupid Watchman is that if you leave the Shrine and comes back, he has a new reaction to account for that. Eh, don't worry about the EXP since you can still revisit the shrine and still fight bandits in it. Edited May 27, 2021 by Samz707 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 27, 2021 Share Posted May 27, 2021 4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: There is a Duma statue in the game, in Fear Mountain Shrine, and interacting with it asks if you want to test yourself in battle... Ah yes. I think I recall that being a thing I kept on getting wrong a dozen times over. 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: It annoys me in principle, it scares me in execution, and I'm disgusted by the impact it had on the next game. I cringe at what it does to gameplay, I looooooathe entirely the attitude towards its relationship to the story, and I sincerely, sincerely hope that it goes the way of save tiles, gets abandoned after two games, and never darkens the doorstep of this franchise ever, ever again. Well...it's kind of been in three games already with the turn rewind feature they added to Shadow Dragon on the NES. 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: -turnwheel ranting- All that being said, I find the Retreat option in Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia to be far more broken than the turnwheel. As it is, effectively, a full map heal that also saves your game that you can initiate whenever you want (well outside the first handful of chapters). The only cost for retreating half way through a map is the meagre amount of time it takes to traverse an empty battlefield back to where you were engaging the enemy before hand. Hell I think it even gets rid of all the terrors summoned previously too. 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: ...Let's wrap up for today by finishing this conversation, getting out of the shrine, and class changing everyone. One thing I will say positively about the turnwheel's implementation here is that they contextualize it in a way that (in stark contrast to Three Houses), satisfyingly and clearly answers the question of “how the hell can anything go wrong in the story ever if the main character has time powers?”. The answer: you don't have time powers. As Silque says, “You don't use it. It uses you”. It's not a magical medallion that lets you go back in time. When you use the turnwheel in gameplay, you're playing the role of the fickle and inscrutable forces of destiny, re-contextualizing what you've done between the point you rewind from and the point you rewind to as a bad timeline you send a prophecy of into the past so Alm can see what goes wrong and do something differently. Which is handily demonstrated by Alm seeing a horrific vision of a crumbling Zofia castle surrounded by a sea of graves. Whenever something bad happens in the story, it's not because Alm was an idiot and forgot about his time powers, it's because Mila decided not to warn him, and the hell if we know what her reasons for that are. Ah, so that's the part of the game with that imagery in it. 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: ...That said... while it works here... this is not an explanation I could imagine working for every story. Especially not, say, “Shadows of Jugdral”. If a tale that full of perpetual death and loss and betrayal and disgrace all happened while Sigurd had a magical amulet from the gods giving him divine prophecies and warnings to guide him along the right path, then even if he kept his faith in the gods' plan for him all the way to the very final moment when he realized that helping him win was never the gods' plan... I mean...doesn't that already happen in Genealogy? 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Anyway, you can also make offerings to Mila that will cause the statue to totally refresh your party's stamina and the turnwheel's charges. I always use the otherwise-completely-useless alcoholic items (in this case the leftover ale), because the devs gave up on the idea of letting adults use them as food items. You actually use that feature? Beyond just knowing it's a thing, I've never once saw it as necessary to give Mila an offering for this as stamina is such a non issue in the game. And on the very rare times it does pop up, giving them the boat load of useless food I've hoarded solves the issue instantly. I didn't even know this feature recharges the Turnwheel, but even knowing that, given how short the dungeons are, I don't think I'll ever find the need to make use of it. 1 hour ago, Dayni said: I don't have much to comment on the extended arguments given, but I do have a few things to say on it. I'm trying to remember it disabling achievements, as a point you bring against it, but that is drawing a blank for me. But more than that, I will argue the limited uses it does have are then massively built upon, thus making it more of a trivial item as the game progresses and you find more cogs. That this can lead to a design that is thus more accommodating of design choices and other choice items mentioned throughout is a pretty obvious point you're making, but I'm not here to swing by and defend this as an option. An actual substantial limit on uses would in and of itself necessitate players realise they can't do so, but as you've mentioned, this is not the same as a design philosophy that accounts for these objectionable decisions in level design. This does not make the levels easier in and of themselves, but as you've mentioned allows for more of a freewheeling approach to map for players that can thus encourage overly lax play. I will comment that I have seen someone play the game on hard without turnwheels, but it'd be grindless that would make it really interesting. Yeah, this is pretty much my view. I don't have much issue with the turnwheel in concept. But they're way too generous with its use in the games its featured in so far. If there was only one to three uses of the turnwheel per chapter instead of like a dozen, then that decision to try and end the map early would be a lot more weighted. Or, better yet, if there were only a dozen or so uses of it permitted throughout the entire game. Turnwheel as a bandaid for bad luck or a single poor mistake makes sense to me. But such liberal use of the turnwheel makes it so only something like Foreign Land and Sky actually ever puts me at rick of losing a map. 36 minutes ago, Seazas said: You decided to make misinformed claims, thus I can respond with what I feel. Especially by furthering my annoyance by claiming I "never made any sort of solid argument" that is just silly. Gaiden and Echoes Alm aren't separate characters proven by the similarities in dialogue and actions, you didn't prove otherwise. Seems you didn't hear me the first two times. Perhaps you'll pay attention the third time. 14 hours ago, Jotari said: Honestly I don't expect any respectful communication to come out of this subject, at least with Seazas. So I'll say now that I won't engage any further on the topic in an argumentitive sense. But when stuff comes up in Alastor's playthrough that I have an opinion on then I will express my opinion. I'm not going to hide my feelings on the game just because someone else doesn't like them. But I won't get into an argument about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted May 27, 2021 Share Posted May 27, 2021 6 minutes ago, Jotari said: I mean...doesn't that already happen in Genealogy? Claude with time rewind powers for Genealogy remake confirmed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted May 27, 2021 Author Share Posted May 27, 2021 8 minutes ago, Jotari said: I mean...doesn't that already happen in Genealogy? Not to Sigurd. Certainly not to the degree that the existence of a divine prophecy artifact would require. But yeah, Claude certainly seems to have no issue accepting that the gods want the world to be sent into unimaginable chaos and agony. 8 minutes ago, Jotari said: All that being said, I find the Retreat option in Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia to be far more broken than the turnwheel. As it is, effectively, a full map heal that also saves your game that you can initiate whenever you want (well outside the first handful of chapters). The only cost for retreating half way through a map is the meagre amount of time it takes to traverse an empty battlefield back to where you were engaging the enemy before hand. Hell I think it even gets rid of all the terrors summoned previously too. That is also a really weird and dumb mechanic among many weird and dumb mechanics. The thing about Gaiden and Echoes that really annoys me though is the fact that extra grinding opportunities are so inescapable that it's really an action of just trying to minimize the number of them that the game throws at you, rather than just opting out of certain extra grinding mechanics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted May 27, 2021 Share Posted May 27, 2021 (edited) Now that I think about, I could seriously see them having Claude visit Sigurd either before game start, or after the prologue is finished, and give him a relic said to give you visions of the future thanks to Braggi. But only short-term future stuff, so Claude stuff like witnessing the Berhara BBQ is still Tower of Braggi and/or Major Braggi Holy Blood only. You read it here first, folks! Edited May 27, 2021 by Acacia Sgt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted May 27, 2021 Share Posted May 27, 2021 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Not to Sigurd. Certainly not to the degree that the existence of a divine prophecy artifact would require. But yeah, Claude certainly seems to have no issue accepting that the gods want the world to be sent into unimaginable chaos and agony. That is also a really weird and dumb mechanic among many weird and dumb mechanics. The thing about Gaiden and Echoes that really annoys me though is the fact that extra grinding opportunities are so inescapable that it's really an action of just trying to minimize the number of them that the game throws at you, rather than just opting out of certain extra grinding mechanics. Using retreat isn't really a grinding mechanic though. That's what I initially thought it would be, you can leave the battle part way through and maintain the exp if something goes south and a unit is about to die, but the killed enemies don't respawn when you go back into the map. Meaning there's absolutely no cost but a few turns moving across the depopulated map for retreating half way through a battle. Eh, unless your comment about grinding was unrelated to the retreat, if so then fair enough, but is it really grinding if it's unavoidable? Or is it just more of the actual game being played? I never exactly grind when playing Shadows of Valentia, but I don't think I ever feel like my units are over powered compared to the enemy, nor under powered against them, by just going through shrines in a pretty standard way (occasionally with a second visit here or there for promotions). What does make my units feel broken in Shadows of Valentia are ridiculously good combat skills like Hunter's Volley and Tigerstance. Edited May 27, 2021 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted May 27, 2021 Author Share Posted May 27, 2021 2 minutes ago, Jotari said: Using retreat isn't really a grinding mechanic though. That's what I initially thought it would be, you can leave the battle part way through and maintain the exp if something goes south and a unit is about to die, but the killed enemies don't respawn when you go back into the map. Meaning there's absolutely no cost but a few turns moving across the depopulated map for retreating half way through a battle. Nope, I misunderstood. Broken either way but thanks for the clarification. 2 minutes ago, Jotari said: Eh, unless your comment about grinding was unrelated to the retreat, if so then fair enough, but is it really grinding if it's unavoidable? Or is it just more of the actual game being played? It's the lack of structure that annoys me, the sense that the devs didn't have a solid grasp of the army strength the player would likely have at each stage of the game, because the way the game works makes it so fluid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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