Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.

[Use the Falchion]

On 8/20/2021 at 8:56 AM, Alastor15243 said:

okay, so not only does Ingrid blame Dedue personally for the Tragedy of Duscur, but Dedue doesn't blame her. Dedue's frankly being a saint here, due to a mix of being selfless and self-loathing.

Dedue: Save your breath. There were countless people like you in the capital. People who spat, threw things – insults and stones alike – wherever they pleased. Their anger was natural. I do not begrudge them. You owe me no apology. And I will keep my distance on all other occasions. But on the field of battle, allow me to aid you. If you were to fall, His Highness would grieve.

This does get a little fleshed out in Ingrid & Dedue's B-Support as well as Dedue & Dimitri's B-Support (showing more of Ingrid's SORELY mistaken anger and her perspective on it, as well as Dedue's true feelings about certain things), but yeah, it's rough. 

[Alastor15243]

29 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said:

This does get a little fleshed out in Ingrid & Dedue's B-Support as well as Dedue & Dimitri's B-Support (showing more of Ingrid's SORELY mistaken anger and her perspective on it, as well as Dedue's true feelings about certain things), but yeah, it's rough. 

Well, I suppose I'll be commenting on that soon enough. I can't remember if either of those are among my upcoming supports.

[Alastor15243]

Three Houses Day 16: The Day Alastor Was Supposed To Do The Chapter But Which Wound Up Devolving Into Something Else

So I'm moving to class-change Felix into brawler (deeply regretting not getting him enough of an axe rank to go into bandit for death blow) when I'm reminded that according to their class bases, the first-fighting line is supposed to be a speedy class set. I find that frankly hilarious, because more than half of the characters given a talent in grappling are slow as shit. We've got Raphael, Balthus, Alois, Caspar...

...Wait, Alois has 40% and Caspar has 45%?

...I distinctly remember Alois and Caspar being so slow they could barely double anything but the slowest enemies.

...Guess it was bad luck I guess.

Well anyway, I'm gonna have Felix be a brawler and then maybe bring him back to brigand for death blow later.

...Ah yes, and with Sylvain becoming an archer, we're introduced to a concept that I find frankly baffling: the chance-based success of promotions. Why, and please pretend I know how the fuck to roll my “r”s when you imagine me saying this, why, prrrrrrray tell, would you put a chance-based system in a part of the game where the player has infinite fucking access to save scumming?

And I know, I know that the RNs for whether you pass or fail a class test are determined and rigged at the start of the month or something, that's not my specific point. If anything, that makes it worse.

So, devs, you recognized that people could easily just save right before the test and keep trying until they succeeded unless you did something to address it, so you did. So why, when you were already in that state of mind, did you not then realize that people could still do that to avoid wasting seals?

Why even make failing the test consume a seal then? Just make it so they don't, and then make the seals more expensive to compensate!

...But anyway, let's get going. I'd do the supports, but that'll take ages and I've got a fight to do today.

...And also, the supports, like, don't matter at all for gameplay.

...I still haven't discussed that yet, have I? Alright then. Guess now's as good a time as any. Here's why I absolutely hate how this game handles supports.

Now, the support system has gone through... a large number of different variations, some better than others. But the differences between how each game handles supports can generally be broken down into two categories: how you get them, and what they do.

I believe that Echoes had the best system for the former (with the other 3DS games very, very close behind), while the affinity system of the GBA games and Tellius games had the best system for the latter. For me, the best overall support system goes to Fates, due to the addition of not just child units, but also reclass options, to give the supports you get more significance and weight. A pity, then, that the support conversations themselves are generally so shit in that game. Taking that into account, I guess the best overall support system is probably Path of Radiance's.

The game with the worst combination of those two things... is Three Houses.

A major, recurring complaint about the GBA games is the frankly asinine requirements for getting these conversations, to the point that a great deal of casual players at the time didn't even know they existed, because it was one of the few things the tutorial didn't explain to the player, and it's something that almost never actually comes up in normal play when you don't know about it. And even when you do, the task you need to do (keeping units directly adjacent to each other) is so strict, and the length of time you have to do it for so high, that you pretty much have to just stop playing the game and grind them out if you ever want to see them.

Later games in the series would make repeated attempts to modify this system to be more reasonable, easy and fun to interact with. The Tellius games would gate supports not by the number of turns two units spend next to each other, but by the number of chapters in which they are both deployed. This was a massive improvement, simply because the old system slowed you down so much, while this system could be enjoyed even if you were doing an LTC run. That's low turn count, for those of you who don't know. But the Awakening and Fates games improved it further still by making it once again something that is built up by how you use the units together in battle, just in a far more engaging and non-abusable way than simply having units stand still next to each other for five centuries.

But in every case, in every iteration, in every version both good or bad of how the support system works... there is a recurring theme holding them all together.

When you get near the end of the game and unlock that A support or that S support, that is the culmination of a deliberate, concerted effort on the player's part to get there.

“I'm gonna have Seth and Franz stay neck and neck basically the whole game because I really want that +3 atk and +3 def.”

“Soren probably isn't the best fit for this map, but I'm deploying him anyway because I've gotta see what comes next in his support with Ike, it's getting intense.”

“I'm going to pair Morgan up with Nah because their support set is goddamned adorable.”

“I'm going to have Azura sing for basically nobody but Laslow until they get married, and I'm going to have Laslow fight alongside Keaton as much as possible all the while, because I want him to get rally speed and strength as soon as possible.”

Usually, when you get a support, it's because you tried to get a support, because whether for gameplay or story reasons, you wanted to. As that sample quote about Soren above shows, that's true to a degree even with the system with damned near the laxest requirements in the entire series. Sure, you'll probably unlock a stray C support here or there in certain games, but if your reaction to getting an A support unlocked is surprise, because you weren't even thinking about it...

...then you are playing Three Houses.

Support building in Three Houses has gameplay effects so utterly bland and meaningless, and unlocking requirements so wholly divorced from player agency, that if you removed it entirely and made it so that those “flanking” accuracy and avoid bonuses scaled with your professor level instead, then I literally would not notice the difference. Because supports in Three Houses are no longer about the player actively trying to cultivate synergy between specific pairs or groups of allies. Oh no.

In Fire Emblem, you seek out supports.

In Three Houses, supports seek out you.

By the fucking truckload.

In Three Houses, unlocking an A support, any A support, between any two units you're using, is not an achievement. It is an inevitability. It is a fucking force of nature. You don't need to change the way you play to get them. You don't even need to think about them to get them. You just get them. Their requirements are so lax, and support points are so plentiful, that you will be maxing out damned near every combination of supportable units you deploy.

You get a maxed support chain! And you get a maxed support chain! Every single person in your entire army gets six to eight maxed out support chains!

Gone are the days when unlocking a support conversation represented the latest triumphant milestone of your efforts to play matchmaker with your army and ship your favorite characters, or improve the combat performance of your favorite units with effective, fun or crazy concepts for combat synergy. Instead of only seeing the supports you want to see, in this game you're shown basically all of them. So many that it's basically impossible to remember any of them.

So many that I inevitably find myself sick and tired of every single character in the game, to the point that I genuinely do not consider myself a remotely mentally competent judge of whether or not Three Houses at large has a good cast, because they so egregiously overstay their welcome that they can legally be defined as emotional squatters.

So many that if I were to marathon all of the supports I unlocked over the course of my first playthrough with the text set to auto-advance, and started playing Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy on a separate TV at the same time, there is a non-negligible chance that I would be putting the disk in for Return of the King before I ran out of supports to play.

And if I weren't routinely overexposed to the point of extreme nausea with my entire roster, and I still somehow managed to have emotional investment in these characters... well, then I'd probably be livid with how they handled paired endings in this game, because I don't give a shit about the cast, and I'm still pretty pissed off.

For the first time in the entire goddamned series, a game with shippable characters and paired endings has neither a limit on the number of supports you can get, nor a super special ultimate pairing rank you can only get once.

“But how can you possibly have a shipping system without one of those things?”

Excellent question!

You can't!

But the shambling corpse of a support system Koei Tecmo Frankenstein'd together sure as hell gave it the ol' horrifying college try!

You see... the way pairings work in Three Houses... is that when you approach the ending stretch of the game... you start unlocking your A ranks. You then proceed to be exposed to a grotesque cavalcade of ambiguous, non-committal flirtiness, like a g-rated swingers party, as damned near every single combination of potentially-romantic characters in your army starts talking to each other with romantic music in the background as the game basically does everything in its power to sell the idea that they might be falling in love... while leaving themselves enough plausible deniability to cover their ass in the far more likely event that literally nothing comes of this whatsoever.

And then, after the avatar gets first dibs on who to get hitched with, only then does the game figure out, without your input, mind, exactly who's going to be winding up with who, based on who had the most overflow support points with who and who's already been taken by someone else, whether that be Byleth or someone else the game paired up with someone before them in the sorting list.

They had to add a fucking feature to the DLC to help you figure out who's on track to be marrying who, because for the first time in the entire goddamned series, that is otherwise both not obvious and almost entirely out of the player's control.

And the worst part, the absolute worst part... is that the support boosts aren't even fun! They aren't special! They're bland as shit! They're almost without exception just a boost to the hit and avoid you get by flanking an enemy! If you're really lucky, certain pre-determined combinations of units will get you some more attack power, and those are automatic at base. There's no affinities, there's no personalized stat bonuses, no children or new classes that come from the union, nothing. There is no meaningful way that making a conscious effort to get two characters supports with each other is going to alter your experience of playing the game.

That is why I hate Three Houses's support system. I hate it because it turned the support system from a meaningful mechanic that I am working towards... to a meaningless mechanic that I am assaulted with.

...And... I just used up literally all the time I have today.

...Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I guess.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Awesome, I disagree with just about everything you had to say today.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I believe that Echoes had the best system for the former (with the other 3DS games very, very close behind), while the affinity system of the GBA games and Tellius games had the best system for the latter.

The affinities didn't really matter in the GBA games because, with vaguely efficient play, there's almost no chance of running up against the support cap. I'm not gonna forgo Eliwood's fast support with Hector in anticipation of getting, say, A with Lyn and B with Marcus. They matter in Tellius, sure, but in a "Earth > everything else" kind of way.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

In Three Houses, unlocking an A support, any A support, between any two units you're using, is not an achievement. It is an inevitability. It is a fucking force of nature. You don't need to change the way you play to get them. You don't even need to think about them to get them. You just get them. Their requirements are so lax, and support points are so plentiful, that you will be maxing out damned near every combination of supportable units you deploy.

The game is putting the agency for building those supports into the hands of the characters, rather than the player. Why wouldn't two people who go to school and fight a war together not have at least three conversations together? Should they only want to get to know each other better if their beloved Teach engineers it?

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

And the worst part, the absolute worst part... is that the support boosts aren't even fun! They aren't special! They're bland as shit! They're almost without exception just a boost to the hit and avoid you get by flanking an enemy! If you're really lucky, certain pre-determined combinations of units will get you some more attack power, and those are automatic at base. There's no affinities, there's no personalized stat bonuses, no children or new classes that come from the union, nothing. There is no meaningful way that making a conscious effort to get two characters supports with each other is going to alter your experience of playing the game.

Support ranks do matter, though? Like, if it's between a linked attack boost from 3 non-supportive allies (+9 Hit), and 3 A-supportive allies (+30 Hit), that's a difference of 21 Hit. And this is magnified further when it comes to gambits.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

And then, after the avatar gets first dibs on who to get hitched with, only then does the game figure out, without your input, mind, exactly who's going to be winding up with who, based on who had the most overflow support points with who and who's already been taken by someone else, whether that be Byleth or someone else the game paired up with someone before them in the sorting list.

Good by me. Let the player work towards certain paired endings, without giving them total control over it. That way, it comes across as a more organic choice by the characters at hand. If anything, this harkens back to FE4's system, wherein characters needed no explicit permission to "tie the knot".

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Ah yes, and with Sylvain becoming an archer, we're introduced to a concept that I find frankly baffling: the chance-based success of promotions. Why, and please pretend I know how the fuck to roll my “r”s when you imagine me saying this, why, prrrrrrray tell, would you put a chance-based system in a part of the game where the player has infinite fucking access to save scumming?

This is the one thing I agree with today - in terms of gameplay, chance-based certifications are really dumb. Obviously, devs are counting on you not resetting the game, because of how long it takes to shut down and restart it. Lore-wise, I kind of like how the certification odds resemble a percent grade one might receive on a test.

[Samz707]

I'm only on the "Tier one" promotions but I really hope the later-tiers still let me easily get 100 chance to pass them.

Yeah I don't like Chance promotions, it's not as awful as some "Let's throw randomness in for the sake of it!" things the series has done before (Like Awakening Pair-Up) but I still don't like it.

[Alastor15243]

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

The affinities didn't really matter in the GBA games because, with vaguely efficient play, there's almost no chance of running up against the support cap. I'm not gonna forgo Eliwood's fast support with Hector in anticipation of getting, say, A with Lyn and B with Marcus. They matter in Tellius, sure, but in a "Earth > everything else" kind of way.

Which is exactly why I clarified the distinction between what they do and how you get them. The affinity system is, ignoring children and reclassing, my favorite manifestation of what they do.

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

The game is putting the agency for building those supports into the hands of the characters, rather than the player. Why wouldn't two people who go to school and fight a war together not have at least three conversations together? Should they only want to get to know each other better if their beloved Teach engineers it?

I'm not quite sure what your point is here. Why does this point of realism make the game more fun?

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

Support ranks do matter, though? Like, if it's between a linked attack boost from 3 non-supportive allies (+9 Hit), and 3 A-supportive allies (+30 Hit), that's a difference of 21 Hit. And this is magnified further when it comes to gambits.

Yeah, the magnitude of the support matters, but not any of your efforts to get those magnitudes, and the effects of each individual relationship are largely uniform at the same magnitude. it's what I said earlier: if the flanking bonuses scaled with professor level rather than individual support rank, the end result on gameplay would be indistinguishable, because support ranks rise all-around almost entirely regardless of what supports you make individual efforts to raise.

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

Good by me. Let the player work towards certain paired endings, without giving them total control over it. That way, it comes across as a more organic choice by the characters at hand. If anything, this harkens back to FE4's system, wherein characters needed no explicit permission to "tie the knot".

At the price of making the actual emotional conclusion of their relationship happen offscreen and everything on-screen being obnoxiously vague. I just can't say it's worth it. And like I said, the fact that they felt the need to add DLC to remedy this speaks volumes about how weird the pairing system is.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So I'm moving to class-change Felix into brawler (deeply regretting not getting him enough of an axe rank to go into bandit for death blow) when I'm reminded that according to their class bases, the first-fighting line is supposed to be a speedy class set. I find that frankly hilarious, because more than half of the characters given a talent in grappling are slow as shit. We've got Raphael, Balthus, Alois, Caspar...

...Wait, Alois has 40% and Caspar has 45%?

...I distinctly remember Alois and Caspar being so slow they could barely double anything but the slowest enemies.

...Guess it was bad luck I guess.

As to that, I don't know if you mentioned this, but aside from the base stats of a class, stats get boosted or penalized depending on the class (also, in the case of mounted units, dismounting affects stats; of note, all cavalry classes except for Bow Knight have negative speed unless dismounted). Anyway, I don't know if it was bad luck or what, but it seems Caspar has the same issue in my run... I mean, I just booted up his and Mercedes's paralogue for the hack of it, and all he can double are the armors, and one Dark Mage that's inexplicably got armor-level AS (also, this map has the same crap that went on in one map in Awakening, and maybe a few other games, where you don't get to see the entirety of the enemy force until you actually commit to the fight; before then, all you can see is the Death Knight and a few monsters).

...Anyway, I strongly disagree with pretty much everything you said about the support system in this game; it cannot be anywhere near as bad as the GBA games, where you had to tether your units together for a shitload of turns just to get ONE of, let alone the 5 support conversations you could have in any run (and frankly, if you even got 5 supports with anyone in the GBA games, you'd likely have to have been playing at a snail's pace). It's especially egregious in the case of Serra and Renault, as the former has nothing but slow growing supports (her fastest supports are +2... and start at 0), and the latter comes late enough that you have to go out of your way to get supports with him because he comes late (also, much like Serra, all his supports are sloooooooooow). The worst of it, though, is Binding Blade, which has assloads of supports that are slow to achieve, to the point where I wonder who the hell thought greenlighting this crap was a good idea... I might have been able to forgive this if the bonuses were actually worth it, but most of the time they aren't.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Alastor15243]

12 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

...Anyway, I strongly disagree with pretty much everything you said about the support system in this game; it cannot be anywhere near as bad as the GBA games

Yeah, that's invariably the support system I've seen everyone bring up whenever they hear me say the Three Houses system is terrible. I understand the complaint, but at the same time it's hardly a defense of Three Houses', and also ignores the mountains of progress the series made since then making supports more realistic and engaging to get.

[Jotari]

One thing I can say in favor of Three House's support system is that they reduced some support chains to two conversations and some to four. While it's not ideal for the gameplay benefit aspect, I do like that they're willing to just say "Okay we just plain don't have enough material between these two, pretty unrelated, characters to string this shit out into three conversations, so let's just finish it in two" (or vice versa we have a lot to say so let's put like a half way support, though they is probably a non negligible contributing factor to the bloat).

[Florete]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The game is putting the agency for building those supports into the hands of the characters, rather than the player.

What does this even mean? Everything that results in two characters having a support conversation is controlled by the player, from getting the points to letting them have the conversation at all. Supports building at a rapid pace doesn't change this. It's not like two characters can ever support if the player is determined to keep them apart.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Which is exactly why I clarified the distinction between what they do and how you get them. The affinity system is, ignoring children and reclassing, my favorite manifestation of what they do.

I'm not opposed to affinities in principle. It's just that, in GBAFE, they never really came up as significant. In Tellius, they were, but in a very unbalanced manner.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, the magnitude of the support matters, but not any of your efforts to get those magnitudes, and the effects of each individual relationship are largely uniform at the same magnitude. it's what I said earlier: if the flanking bonuses scaled with professor level rather than individual support rank, the end result on gameplay would be indistinguishable, because support ranks rise all-around almost entirely regardless of what supports you make individual efforts to raise.

Only assuming all units have supports with one another - and excluding the consideration of Might-boosting supports. Like, I'm using Constance on my current VW playthrough, and while she's a great unit, she gets notoriously lesser linked attack or gambit boosts than anyone else, due to her lack of supports. If it were just based on Professor Rank, she would receive the same boosts as everyone else.

As for attack boosts - let's just say there's a reason Raphael makes a better guard adjutant for Ignatz than anyone else. These boosts, few though they are, at least provide an additional motivator in how you use certain units.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm not quite sure what your point is here. Why does this point of realism make the game more fun?

 

13 minutes ago, Florete said:

What does this even mean? Everything that results in two characters having a support conversation is controlled by the player, from getting the points to letting them have the conversation at all. Supports building at a rapid pace doesn't change this. It's not like two characters can ever support if the player is determined to keep them apart.

The point is that the support levels coming easily, and the paired endings, are functioning as an implicit consequence of the player's explicit choices. Of course the player still chooses whom to deploy, and how to use them. But the relational growth comes across as more organic than forced. That said, I do concede that the player can still simply choose not to view the support. A hypothetical system, wherein the support happens automatically (and the player can choose whether to watch it or not) would fit more closely into my idealized "hands-off" model.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

At the price of making the actual emotional conclusion of their relationship happen offscreen and everything on-screen being obnoxiously vague. I just can't say it's worth it. And like I said, the fact that they felt the need to add DLC to remedy this speaks volumes about how weird the pairing system is.

Personally, I prefer the numerous conversations that play at possible romance, over the often cheesy and forced-feeling S-rank "love confessions" of the 3DS era. Especially when they can happen between any opposite-sex pair, regardless of apparent chemistry. But this may just be a difference of tastes.

[Alastor15243]

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

Only assuming all units have supports with one another - and excluding the consideration of Might-boosting supports. Like, I'm using Constance on my current VW playthrough, and while she's a great unit, she gets notoriously lesser linked attack or gambit boosts than anyone else, due to her lack of supports. If it were just based on Professor Rank, she would receive the same boosts as everyone else.

But isn't that a major red flag, that the most immediate example you can give of how the support system is noticeably different from my hypothetical version I used to insult it... is a way in which it is worse than my hypothetical version I used to insult it?

[lenticular]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Ah yes, and with Sylvain becoming an archer, we're introduced to a concept that I find frankly baffling: the chance-based success of promotions. Why, and please pretend I know how the fuck to roll my “r”s when you imagine me saying this, why, prrrrrrray tell, would you put a chance-based system in a part of the game where the player has infinite fucking access to save scumming?

I find this such a weird question. Personally, I don't enjoy save scumming, so I don't do it. On the other hand, if people do enjoy save scumming then they can do it. The question seems to suppose that there are people who dislike save scumming but are going to do it anyway? Am I reading that right? I do get that some people feel compelled to use this sort of exploit if they know it exists (even if it's not a mindset that I really comprehend) but I'm not sure I really agree that it's the developers' responsibility to protect those players from themselves.

Personally, I kinda like the chance based system. I can either risk my resources for a chance at an early promotion now, or wait until later for the guaranteed pass. It's not groundbreaking or exciting and I wouldn't be sad if it were patched out tomorrow, but I think it's a neat little system.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I still haven't discussed that yet, have I? Alright then. Guess now's as good a time as any. Here's why I absolutely hate how this game handles supports.

So, here are things that I personally enjoy about the Three Houses support system:

• There's no limit on how many support conversations I can see in a single run. No more having to pick and choose which ones I want to see. (Byleth S supports excepted, and I don't really care about them.)
• No conflict between story and gameplay considerations (eg, "I really want to see Ike's support conversations with Ranulf, but the avoid bonuses of supporting him with Oscar are too good to pass up"). If I want one support because I like the conversations but another for gameplay reasons, I can get both.
• No over-powered options (like the double-earth supports of Tellius). Likewise no "trap" options (like some bad choices of fathers in Awakening).
• Nothing that you need to look up how it works (or have played the game multiple times and know it inside out) to make informed decisions about.
• You don't need to have two people glued to each other any more, which is a system I've never enjoyed. I've always found it both inflexible and contrived.
• No important systems (eg children, reclassing) are locked behind supports, so I get to engage with it as much or as little as I feel like.

In short, I basically like all the things that you hate about it. Though I will say that I'm not really a fan of how paired endings work. But then, I also don't really like paired endings in any Fire Emblem game, so it's not really a big loss for me.

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I find this such a weird question. Personally, I don't enjoy save scumming, so I don't do it. On the other hand, if people do enjoy save scumming then they can do it. The question seems to suppose that there are people who dislike save scumming but are going to do it anyway? Am I reading that right? I do get that some people feel compelled to use this sort of exploit if they know it exists (even if it's not a mindset that I really comprehend) but I'm not sure I really agree that it's the developers' responsibility to protect those players from themselves.

No, my point isn't that I feel pressured to save-scum, my point is that the sheer ease with which you can save-scum makes a mockery of the premise, and the fact that they clearly thought about the possibility of save-scumming and made moves to safeguard against it... but only half-assed those safeguards... just makes it more ridiculous. This isn't a "I hate having to do this" complaint, this is a "this is absurd" complaint. Like a massive iron gate in the middle of a foot-high wall.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Alastor15243

[lenticular]

8 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

No, my point isn't that I feel pressured to save-scum, my point is that the sheer ease with which you can save-scum makes a mockery of the premise, and the fact that they clearly thought about the possibility of save-scumming and made moves to safeguard against it... but only half-assed those safeguards... just makes it more ridiculous. This isn't a "I hate having to do this" complaint, this is a "this is absurd" complaint. Like a massive iron gate in the middle of a foot-high wall.

I'm still not seeing it. I don't see why there should be any compulsion to remove perfectly decent mechanics just because it's possible to save scum them. To me, having the basic half-arsed safeguard comes across more as "look, we didn't intend for you to be doing this, but if you really want to then we aren't going to try too hard to stop you". Which seems reasonable to me.

[Alastor15243]

21 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I'm still not seeing it. I don't see why there should be any compulsion to remove perfectly decent mechanics just because it's possible to save scum them. To me, having the basic half-arsed safeguard comes across more as "look, we didn't intend for you to be doing this, but if you really want to then we aren't going to try too hard to stop you". Which seems reasonable to me.

Why is that what it tells you? If they felt that way, why would they go to the elaborate trouble to rig the test RN in the first place, but wouldn't go to the far less strenuous trouble of just making failing an exam not consume a seal, and then making seals more expensive? Why would they rig the RN at all if they really weren't interested in stopping people from cheating?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But isn't that a major red flag, that the most immediate example you can give of how the support system is noticeably different from my hypothetical version I used to insult it... is a way in which it is worse than my hypothetical version I used to insult it?

The fact that I pointed out an aspect in which the existing support system is weaker than your proposed system, doesn't make the existing system worse than the proposed one. I would prefer a system that rewards existing bonds, and proclivities to build upon bonds, over one that treats all units equally (i.e. a flat boost from Professor Rank). The latter of which, the existing system clearly does not do - even if it treats units less differently than you might like (say, via an affinity system).

[Interdimensional Observer]

30 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Likewise no "trap" options (like some bad choices of fathers in Awakening).

Does such a thing truly exist? No Galeforce aside, I don't think so. Infinite leveling with high growths, the variable parent affect merely 33% of their kid's growths, stat cap modifiers are irrelevant. Class options and the skills they come with are more significant, but Awakening is devoid of strategy, and getting more than 1 level 15 promoted skill will make a unit's stats busted for anything not the hardest DLC, so skill acquisition is mostly for show and devoid of practical value.

Ignore the min-maxers.

 

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

That said, I do concede that the player can still simply choose not to view the support.

That'd be me. Never made a single support outside of the CF-minimal levels of Bylegard. Not entirely sure why I didn't, but I didn't do it once over three Hard runs.

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

If anything, this harkens back to FE4's system, wherein characters needed no explicit permission to "tie the knot".

Which was a mistake. That had a major gameplay-related outcome, it should be in the player's hands. Lewyn!Caipre is so inferior to Ced and Arthur, yet it's a mistake with a nonzero chance of feasibly happening. -Not that more than half the children in Genealogy can be screwed up, only made better.

The superficial such as 3H I'd be fine with it being random. Although why should it be a bother if a person wants a particular ending and doesn't want to look it up online? I never liked how Tales of Symphonia made it stupid easy to get Colette to show up in certain scenes (and let's face it, they were written for her), and that it required a conscious effort to get literally anyone else to take her place. Because you the player couldn't concisely decide at any point who took that place as Lloyd's most-bonded-with character.  

Randomness does make some games enjoyable- see the popular roguelike genre, and FE's RNG growths of course. Not to mention Kaga who according to some was a hack better off gone from the franchise did consider making it so only one randomly-selected child per parent would be born on a given playthrough.

 

41 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

No, my point isn't that I feel pressured to save-scum, my point is that the sheer ease with which you can save-scum makes a mockery of the premise, and the fact that they clearly thought about the possibility of save-scumming and made moves to safeguard against it... but only half-assed those safeguards... just makes it more ridiculous. This isn't a "I hate having to do this" complaint, this is a "this is absurd" complaint. Like a massive iron gate in the middle of a foot-high wall.

FE has been liable to instances of save-scumming before. You can safely rig BEXP levels in PoR for all the Str/Mag & Spd you want, just need to reset. And battle saves have existed in some capacity in RD and Fates Casual. -But I still see your point.

The obvious solution would be for the game to auto-save upon choosing to attempting an exam. I'm almost certain that when Koei Tecmo added a "spend 30k Rupees to see which hidden skill got placed in this weapon, without needing to take the time racking up the kills to unlock the skill" option to Hyrule Warriors, they had it save after you spent the Rupees.

 

And, I read a few days ago BTW that 3H reportedly has a map name -without an actual map attached to it- labeled "Hyrule Castle". No, no Golden Triforce house DLC was planned. Rather, Three Houses was developed using the same engine as Hyrule Warriors, and the text is a remnant they didn't clean out, and the same engine as Fire Emblem Warriors too, seeing some of the other labels they left in the data.

Thus, Three Houses Warriors is entirely feasible, although maybe using an engine designed for Musous wasn't the best for an actual FE. I won't judge that. I've heard of weirder reuses, namely Dead or Alive's 3D fighting game engine being adapted for the series's beach volleyball spinoffs.

[Alastor15243]

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

The fact that I pointed out an aspect in which the existing support system is weaker than your proposed system, doesn't make the existing system worse than the proposed one. I would prefer a system that rewards existing bonds, and proclivities to build upon bonds, over one that treats all units equally (i.e. a flat boost from Professor Rank). The latter of which, the existing system clearly does not do - even if it treats units less differently than you might like (say, via an affinity system).

But that's not what was going on in your Constance example. It's not that your Constance is worse because you put less effort into her at that point (indeed, she's available way before you can even get your first B support), it's because she just can't have the same number of supports as your other units, because the devs didn't give her the capacity for them. She just has fewer support options than most other units in the army. And again, due to the ease with which supports build up, the existing bonds you're being "rewarded" for are a simple matter of seniority in the army anyway and not any reward for clever play.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

10 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But that's not what was going on in your Constance example. It's not that your Constance is worse because you put less effort into her at that point (indeed, she's available way before you can even get your first B support), it's because she just can't have the same number of supports as your other units, because the devs didn't give her the capacity for them. She just has fewer support options than most other units in the army. And again, due to the ease with which supports build up, the existing bonds you're being "rewarded" for are a simple matter of seniority in the army anyway and not any reward for clever play.

Yes, it's a way in which units are differentiated from one another, at least on any given route. Some just have access to more supports (and thereby, the rewards that come from said supports) than others. Because different pairings will have more or less reason than others (i.e. existing history, aligned personalities, or a clash of ideals) than others. It's not as though everybody will have something to talk about with everyone else - this isn't Fateswakening anymore. I don't see any of this as a bad thing.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Yes, it's a way in which units are differentiated from one another, at least on any given route. Some just have access to more supports (and thereby, the rewards that come from said supports) than others. Because different pairings will have more or less reason than others (i.e. existing history, aligned personalities, or a clash of ideals) than others. It's not as though everybody will have something to talk about with everyone else - this isn't Fateswakening anymore. I don't see any of this as a bad thing.

...I think you lost me. It sounds like you're simultaneously saying that it's a good thing not everyone has the same size social circle, but also that it's a good thing that gameplay punishes the people with smaller ones.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I think you lost me. It sounds like you're simultaneously saying that it's a good thing not everyone has the same size social circle, but also that it's a good thing that gameplay punishes the people with smaller ones.

Why can't these both be true, though? Units have strengths in different areas, yes? Some have great growths, others strong proficiencies, still others learn clutch spells or combat arts. Why can't support access be a part of this balancing act? VW!Constance isn't a "bad unit" because she lacks support synergy - her Magic stat and Reason list both rival Lysithea's own, while her proficiencies are perfect for going Dark Flier. Her lack of connections, then, serves to make her less broken than she would be otherwise. One of her weak spots, for instance, is a poor hit rate on Resonant Flames from Nuvelle Flying Corps, even with linked attack boosts.

Does this make sense? Or at least, demonstrate internal consistency?

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Why can't these both be true, though? Units have strengths in different areas, yes? Some have great growths, others strong proficiencies, still others learn clutch spells or combat arts. Why can't support access be a part of this balancing act?

Oh it certainly could be, but I think we can safely say that it isn't. Consider: the character with no supports, Anna, is a huge competitor for worst character in the game.

[lenticular]

25 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Why is that what it tells you? If they felt that way, why would they go to the elaborate trouble to rig the test RN in the first place, but wouldn't go to the far less strenuous trouble of just making failing an exam not consume a seal, and then making seals more expensive? Why would they rig the RN at all if they really weren't interested in stopping people from cheating?

I'd hardly call the safeguards that they have "elaborate" or "strenuous". Instead, I'd say that they're fairly basic and probably didn't take all that much time and effort to implement. More than zero effort, obviously, but it doesn't come across to me as a concerted effort to prevent save scumming at all costs.

As for why not make your proposed change instead, I'd say that that would fundamentally change the mechanic. The risk/reward element of it would be gone, which would be especially relevant for seals that aren't infinitely purchasable -- Dark Seals (not that there's much reason to use them in the first place, but that's a separate issue), Abyssian Seals, and Master Seals prior to chapter 15. If you didn't consume your seal when you failed an exam then there would no longer be a question of whether I try my luck now or wait until later when it is guaranteed (or at least more likely). Instead you'd end up with a system where the best play is to attempt the exam every week until you finally get lucky. This doesn't sound like fun to me.

Fundamentally, I see it as a much bigger over-reaction to fundamentally change a mechanic in a way that affects non-save-scumming players than it is to add some code that will only ever be noticed by players who are save scumming. Regardless of how much time or effort either change would have taken to implement, I would much prefer they went with the change that preserved the artistic integrity of the game.

(None of which is to say that I think that the exam system  is some artistic masterpiece that is fundamental to the entirety of the game experience. It clearly isn't. But I'd still rather get the version of it that was intended than a version that sounds less fun to me but which was better at preventing save scummers.)

49 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Does such a thing truly exist? No Galeforce aside, I don't think so. Infinite leveling with high growths, the variable parent affect merely 33% of their kid's growths, stat cap modifiers are irrelevant. Class options and the skills they come with are more significant, but Awakening is devoid of strategy, and getting more than 1 level 15 promoted skill will make a unit's stats busted for anything not the hardest DLC, so skill acquisition is mostly for show and devoid of practical value.

Ignore the min-maxers.

That's a fair point. I'll admit that I'm not really super familiar with Awakening, so I was basing that particular comment on what I've seen others say about the game rather than my own experience of it.

[Anathaco]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Here's why I absolutely hate how this game handles supports.

Honestly I also disagree with these points. While I see the appeal of less, more exclusive and hard to reach supports… that just isn’t fun for me at all. If I want to see these characters interact I don’t want to have to spend 50 turns squatting them next to each other to watch it happen, and I don’t necessarily enjoy the children aspect of Awakening/Fates supports either. I prefer pairings and support partners to be story based rather than gameplay based, so even though that takes away the exclusivity of the final, romantic support, I’d much rather that than forcing pairings based on optimisation. In addition, the game relies on characterisation through all the dialogue available in the game, both in the monastery and in supports, so I understand why they made supports so easy to get. The 3H system is one that focuses purely on character building rather than any extrinsic reward, and while I see the issue with basically force feeding it to you, I think it’s a decent way to make sure first time players see a wide variety of interactions.

I also really like the way the bonuses are activated- within 2/3 spaces is good, but the new attack range version I think adds a lot more depth and thought to how to maximise bonuses.

That being said I do have complaints with the system as a whole. Some characters ARE needlessly over bloated with supports that don’t do a ton for them, and I think the smaller number of supports the DLC characters got might have been better than what the base cast was given- it allows all the aspects of a character to be explored without tons of overlap, and cuts out all the excess that doesn’t need to be there. And the timeskip based structure of the story means that supports can feel really disjointed when they take place over 5 years- maybe it would have been better to have some supports occur purely pre skip and others purely post skip- with a few exceptions like the Byleth/Ferdinand and Byleth/Caspar supports.