Jotari Posted January 28, 2023 Share Posted January 28, 2023 10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: Still not sure how to feel about Backup attacks. For sure, I think it's cool to have in, and it makes "boring" classes, like Fighter or Mercenary, have something interesting to do. But the fact that it appears to always do "10% of the enemy's max HP, rounded down, with 80 Hit" makes the units in the class, and their weapon choices, not stand out. What's the difference between Anna with an Iron Axe, and Boucheron with a Hammer? They'll do the exact same Backup attack, regardless of who they're targeting. I think it'd stand out more to make it akin to a Fates Attack Stance hit, hitying the foe once at half-damage (or maybe a lower proportion, like 30%, if that's overkill). But who knows? It might get more interesting. That kind of calculation does actually have some balancing elements to it. You can get a, frankly, stupid amount of avoid in this game. To the point where enemies won't even bother targeting you. But, if they can, they will try to surround you with enemies that can back attack, and no matter how evasive you are, set damage at 80% hit will eventually take you down unaided. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted January 28, 2023 Share Posted January 28, 2023 4 hours ago, Jotari said: That kind of calculation does actually have some balancing elements to it. You can get a, frankly, stupid amount of avoid in this game. To the point where enemies won't even bother targeting you. But, if they can, they will try to surround you with enemies that can back attack, and no matter how evasive you are, set damage at 80% hit will eventually take you down unaided. I hear you, and I can understand some balancing that goes into it. Someone like Anna, at least early on, would probably be giving worse backup attacks if it were based on her native Hit and physical Attack. That said, I worry that it creates a kind of "perverse incentive", where HP level-ups can actually hurt you. A 39 HP Louis could survive two chain attacks, plus a Mage who doubles with 16 damage per hit. But a 40 HP Louis dies to the exact same combination. Plus, it doesn't make much in-game sense. Why is this unit taking 0 damage from an enemy Swordfighter, but when that same enemy uses the same weapon as a backup attack, all of a sudden they're doing damage? As for the "stupid amounts of Avoid", while that's not something I've encountered yet, I don't doubt that it exists. It happened in 3H, so I wouldn't expect any different here. But we also see new weaoons with guaranteed Hit, like Surge. Why not more of those to counter sky-high Avoid? Or enemy skills that provide a similar Hit boost? I get that chain attacking can have an anti-juggernauting effect, and that's broadly a good thing, but I wonder if it's the best way they could've done it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Etrurian emperor Posted January 28, 2023 Share Posted January 28, 2023 On 1/26/2023 at 5:49 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: Yep, that seems to be what's happening. I fielded Chloe for this map, and I didn't get any dialogue about a "local governor". Ironically, it seems you get more interesting dialogue from the units you don't care enough about to field. Yeah sometimes that's really noticeable. Like in a burned down town the units I didn't take went on about how terrible it was, and then someone I did take with me said ''Lol that went great! Lets throw a party and eat lots of meat!'' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted January 28, 2023 Author Share Posted January 28, 2023 Engage Day 8: Interlude 2 Alright, let’s see here. Moment of truth. Now that we’ve got a master seal, time to see what promotion is like in this game! I’m probably not gonna actually use it just yet, but I do wanna see what promotions look like! Oh yeah, also, full disclosure, I played a tiny bit yesterday undocumented, figuring I’d get stuff out of the way to get more into the action and analysis today. I swiftly realized I still wanted to talk about things, however, so I stopped in short order. But I did discover that cats get fish for you. So, question answered! …Was R1 always the run button? I feel like it was something else in 3H. My reflexes basically compel me to press almost any other button to run whenever I start up the game. …Oh. Oh wow. This class changing system is pretty damned intricate and involved. Also, there are multiple copies of most classes depending on the weapons they’re using, which solves the mystery of Vander making it look like paladins are only able to use axes. So it looks like some people have innate proficiencies, and tragically Pepsiman here’s been working towards one he already has. Marth hasn’t gotten him any closer to being able to reclass. Another thing I notice is that you do gain skills from reclassing… it’s just you only get one, and only from promoted level 5. Honestly, the fact that you can only equip 2 skills at a time makes it sound like this game really de-emphasizes class-hopping for skill learning. It’s honestly a little disappointing. I wonder if promoted classes get more skill slots. Hmmmmmm… …Nope, not if Vander’s any indication. Really, I wish there were more skill slots. Five was a perfectly lovely number, and it helped make allies more distinct from each other. Now most of the ways characters are set apart are their classes and the emblems they wear. I’ll give it a shot to see if there are any benefits I’m not considering, but right now? Disappointed. But hey, guess I’ll hold out hope that something happens later in the game that expands the skill limit or something. But anyway… let’s take some time to plan ahead and think about what classes I want my current party to be in by the endgame if I keep using them. Pepsiman: I’m gonna keep him in a dragon class. He’s the only one who can access that category, and its whole deal is that it’s better at unlocking cool extra benefits for Emblems. With that in mind, however, he’s got nothing he needs to learn to grow further. …Wait… did he not have sword proficiency before? I notice that he has fist proficiency and only the sword proficiency is blue. Is blue the color of things you only have through Emblem progress, or does Emblem progress override the color of things that were already white before? …Further… I notice that promoted flier classes are available for male units… but not the unpromoted ones. And yet the way the game currently tells me I get to a promoted flier class is reclassing to an unpromoted one and then promoting. I have to assume those instructions change once I’m in a promoted class, because otherwise why the fuck would there be a point of having inaccessible promoted classes on this menu? So if men aren’t allowed to be unpromoted fliers, what aren’t women allowed to be? …I just scanned the list between Boucheron and Chloé… and the answer appears to be… nothing! Fucking nothing! None of the classes the game is currently showing to me are male-only! It’s only that fliers are female-only! Whyyyyyyyyyy? …Also, thieves are apparently a “special” class, y’know, like brides and dread fighters and dancers and the like. Neither basic nor promoted. Curious. Okay, enough sidetracking, back to thinking about my party’s future: Clanne: Now, I could go the obvious route with sage… but let’s consider my other options… …Nope, no consideration necessary. Maybe if a flying class were available, sure, but his strength is utter shit, so going into a hybrid class probably is not wise. …Weird that mage knights are faster than sages though. Okay, so he needs to take some time with Micaiah. Frame: …Proooobably a high priest. Which means she needs tome proficiency, which I’m assuming is from Celica. Oooooooh, my ironman senses do not like the idea of Framme spending any amount of time being the character I need to trust with Warp Ragnarok. Alfred: I really want someone to be a wolf knight, but holy shit, their defense is so terrible that it’s a downgrade from unpromoted cavalry and thieves. …Okay, no, scratch that. Thieves yes, but Alfred isn’t an ordinary cavalry unit, he’s a noble with the defense of a paladin. (Wait, does that mean thieves have the same base defense as paladins…?) In fact, some of his other stats are better than they would be as a paladin. Which is… depressing because I generally find him one of my more underwhelming units, and I generally only find him particularly useful while he’s engaged. I might drop him depending on how he turns out and what my options are, but if I had to choose a future for him… Honestly, I probably would go with wolf knight to fix his atrocious speed. Which means he needs to learn daggers. Who the hell teaches daggers? …Micaiah, apparently. Alright, well, if they were going to shoehorn that proficiency onto anyone, yeah, entirely fair, of course it would be her. Do any of the Emblems have more of an association with daggers than the one whose closest companion is a rogue? Not really. Alright, once Louis reaches level 4 with Micaiah, I’ll swap them and Alfred can start learning how to use daggers through Micaiah, and Louis can be a complete and total menace with Sigurd. And speaking of Louis… Louis: He’s already got everything he needs to become a lance general, which would be more than satisfactory the way he’s going. And really, amidst this list, I can’t think of anything that would be a better fit for him. A huge amount of his defense comes from his class, so switching him to anything else with his atrocious speed would really make his awesome utility suffer. Céline: She’s got her own personal promoted class that she already qualifies for. So that’s definitely an option. But she’s also probably my best candidate for a mage knight, and already has the prerequisites for it hammered out. I think I’ll probably make her both at some point. For someone like her, the mage knight skill that gives extra speed for using the opposite sort of attack at the enemy is pretty useful. Jean: I have absolutely no idea what to do with him. I’m just gonna keep healing with him and see how his stats shape up a bit first. But hopefully he’ll be a good candidate for a hybrid class. He thankfully has everything he needs to be a high priest if all else fails, so I don’t need to do much advance planning with him. Yunaka: Realistically she’s probably going to be my wolf knight. I don’t have much confidence that Alfred is going to stay competitive for very long, and I like Yunaka, and there’s no other class I can see that really makes use of her dagger proficiency. I’ll keep her in thief until she can learn pass, then hopefully by then I’ll have decided what side-weapon to give her. Of course, she’s already proficient in swords, so I have that to fall back on, though something tells me I miiiiight prefer lances. Not sure. Anna: If she winds up being the best axe user I can find (and sweet mother of christ I hope not), I’ll probably just make her a warrior. She can already do that. Vander: No interest in using long-term. Etie: Bow Knight has probably the shittiest and most class-inappropriate class skill I’ve ever seen. It’s a mounted archer, and it gains a bonus to accuracy for attacking without moving. Sure, you can bring it over to other classes where it’ll be less offensive, but I can scarcely remember the last time I got away with letting someone attack without moving. Still, mounted archery as a class is pretty tempting. I’ll see if I can spare an Emblem for her at some point. Boucheron: No interest in using. Chloé: So she already has staff proficiency, so she’s right on track to be a griffon knight… which seems to have replaced pegasi as the promoted non-dragon flier mount… for some fucksforsaken reason. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see griffons return, but why the fuck get rid of pegasi for it? She’s on the fringe of whether or not I use her, so I’m not sure whether I’ll make her a griffon knight or wyvern knight. Depends on how many other good fliers I get and what I need them to do. Aaaaand that’s my whole roster for now! Alright, some other miscellaneous cleanup, getting Anna a bond ring, and then we can check out Chapter 7. …Y’know, something I’ve noticed is that the side-to-side adjustment on menus is a tad over-sensitive. Half the time unless I really briefly tap the arrows to switch between things, I wind up switching over two instead of just one. Also, Anna’s luck is astonishingly bad for someone who has a luck% personal and is… well… Anna. I hope she at least has a good growth. I gave her an Elincia B to boost her speed and luck. You can apparently feed Lilith even when she isn’t at the pedestal. Alright, now for supports. Damn, I’m so used to there being a reminder that I have new ones that not having said reminder immediately visible on the menu throws me for a loop. Alright, here’s a talk between Pepsiman and Framme. Pepsiman’s swinging a sword while Framme watches, and that quirky “something ridiculous and awkward is about to happen” music plays. Framme: AHHH! Divine one, you look so shiny when you sweat! …Jesus Christ, Framme, you’re approaching what people in the medical fields refer to as “too thirsty to drown”. Oh god, the slightly blank, slightly mortified look on Pepsiman’s face when he discovers he has a fan club is just priceless. …I find it curious that even though all of these supports take place in the Somniel… nobody’s wearing the clothes they wear in the Somniel. It’s their battle clothes, not the casual wear I always see them in here. Okay, seriously, whoever voices Framme, she’s doing a great job. Her character is weird, and I find it equal parts endearing and annoying, but holy shit can this woman perform the part perfectly. Now for the C with Yunaka: … …That was actually a pretty clever play on words, having Pepsiman assume she must have been a mercenary, Yunaka going basically “sure, let’s go with that”, hiding her obvious past as some sort of killer/assassin, and going “well, obviously I’ve merc’d a time or two!”, which can simultaneously be read as a buffy-speak verb for “being a mercenary”… but is also as the slang term for violence and murder. Which, given by what has been implied about her past so far, is very much not a lie. Oh man, I’m loving the contracting eyes for levels of discomfort and panic. But yeah, she comes clean early on and admits she was lying about being a mercenary. Due to her past, I’m reading between the lines, she reflexively lies when she’s nervous, and that’s getting her into trouble now, so she’s trying to get on top of it. I actually like that. Hmm… Clanne and Etie have a C? …Oh hey, this conversation isn’t happening in the Somniel! It’s happening in a field in Firene. Curious. …Okay, actually this conversation was fairly charming, even though the bit about sleeping with the pickles under his pillow was a bit weird. Etie seems like a pretty chill lady. Oh, and Alfred and Céline have a support too! Lessee! …So they still use Pokemon-style fades to black to cover up any serious physical movement allegedly done in supports, which is kind of frustrating, though the improvements elsewhere kinda soften it. Céline expresses concern about the huge hole Alfred dug in the middle of a grassy non-Somniel field, thinking some of their people might fall into it. Like this particular plain is a spot that the Somnielites frequent. …Oh wow, they actually did animate Alfred digging, sort of. In a close-up, they had him lean forward in a way consistent with striking the shovel down from the shoulders up that we were allowed to see. …I am very confused. Alfred’s digging a well. What conceivable purpose would that serve in terms of getting water? They have a teleporting flying island that can take them anywhere. Why not just get water from like any river or lake in Firene? …And… …And to my eternal shock… Céline points this out! PFFFFFFF …Though that still begs the question of why people at the Somniel are complaining about not having enough water. And Alfred’s just like “oh hey, yeah! Wow, you sure are smart, Sis! Céline: Better that you should dress in pelts and furs to warn people of your barbaric mindset! Shit, she’s read my notes! Alright, time to get to Chapter 7 already. …No wait, first, since it’s apparently in Brodia, I’m gonna make a donation there. …Can’t yet, apparently. Okay. On to Chapter 7 then. …Okay, so… this blue-haired archer shoots at us, and at first it looks like we’re gonna have a repeat of the Feroxi border where we get into a fight because we didn’t announce ourselves before trying to enter foreign territory. But then we announce who we are, and… …He fucking just does extreme sports dogeza, leaping ten feet into the air before groveling at our feet. This is, uh, not what I expected from someone who I’m guessing is Brodian royalty. …I was correct. Apparently there are two princes. Bro-dians, if you will. …Alcryst, and his retainers Lapis and Citrinne. I’m noticing mineral-theming here. Pepsiman: I can’t say I feel very welcome. You still look like you’re ready to kill us. Okay, that made me smile. …So they did announce themselves. Or at least Queen Éve had the presence of mind to do so. And Citrinne chews us out for not “arriving in a more royal, more… resplendent manner” to make it more obvious we weren’t intruders. She kinda has a point, but I have a feeling this is intended to establish her as this game’s Lachesis. The Nanna-esque feather in her hair isn’t hurting that impression. Though I don’t believe troubadours as a class even exist in this game. Or if they do, I didn’t see them. …Oh shit, I hope people from different nations have unique classes between them! …Honestly, if Alcryst had a different personality, he would be super badass. I really like his character design, but his personality is disappointingly lame. …Is that a fucking razor blade he’s using as a hairclip? Whyyyyyyyyyy? So Brodia has Roy. Interesting. I wonder what he’s like? Alcryst doesn’t have it though. Curious how the crown royal sibling got the ring here, but the non-crown one got it in Firene. Aaaaaand in comes a fucking clown girl who’s apparently the second princess of Elusia, Hortensia. …Yet again the fact that nobody in Elusia knew there was a second divine dragon is reinforced, and also Hortensia rants at Alcryst about Brodia’s invasions of Elusia, and for the moment, no fucking sympathy with Elusia here. …What I want to know is how the hell Elusia managed to invade Brodia on the opposite fucking border without being noticed until they were behind the Brodia-Firene border guard. Alright, let’s see this map. …Okay, so, Hortensia and her two lady retainers, curiously enough… all have personal skills. And unless I’m very much mistaken, if they’re characters with personal skills who aren’t somehow in some way recruitable… then they’d be the first in the whole series to be that way. And speaking of which… Okay, Citrinne has a pretty nifty personal which lets her use healing items as melee aoe healing around her, a la the “azura’s salve” item from Fates. Lapis’s personal is basically the Genealogy charm ability, except only melee range, and at the cost of 10 crit. …No, sorry, read it backwards. It’s actually even worse than that. it only benefits her. Also, I was wondering what the fuck “smash attacks” were when I saw the “smash+” skill on the class list. Apparently, judging by the weapons I see on some enemies, we find that out now! It’s what blades, poleaxes and I’m guessing also greatlances do in this game! They can’t double, and also always attack last, but they are very strong and push the enemy back a space. Interesting. But if lances and axes get RD-style heavy weapons… are swords going to get RD-style ranged weapons? …Goodness I hope so. But that’s it for today. I don’t think I have enough time to actually do the battle, so I’ll leave that to either tomorrow or Monday. Alastor, signing off! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted January 28, 2023 Share Posted January 28, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: …Further… I notice that promoted flier classes are available for male units… but not the unpromoted ones. And yet the way the game currently tells me I get to a promoted flier class is reclassing to an unpromoted one and then promoting. I have to assume those instructions change once I’m in a promoted class, because otherwise why the fuck would there be a point of having inaccessible promoted classes on this menu? So if men aren’t allowed to be unpromoted fliers, what aren’t women allowed to be? …I just scanned the list between Boucheron and Chloé… and the answer appears to be… nothing! Fucking nothing! None of the classes the game is currently showing to me are male-only! It’s only that fliers are female-only! Whyyyyyyyyyy? Chloé: So she already has staff proficiency, so she’s right on track to be a griffon knight… which seems to have replaced pegasi as the promoted non-dragon flier mount… for some fucksforsaken reason. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see griffons return, but why the fuck get rid of pegasi for it? Feels like they wanted to stick to two generic flying classes, but wanted men to have access to both... while also keeping the series tradition of pegasi only having female riders. Gotta hand it to IS for sticking to their guns instead of falling to peer pressure. Which really shows when for Fates they had to specify those aren't Pegasi but a different kind of flying horse. XD Still, it begs to question why not then just have all three for Advanced classes. Or allow griffons and wyverns also usable as Base classes. Since yes, ditching pegasi is just weird. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: Alright, here’s a talk between Pepsiman and Framme. Pepsiman’s swinging a sword while Framme watches, and that quirky “something ridiculous and awkward is about to happen” music plays. Framme: AHHH! Divine one, you look so shiny when you sweat! …Jesus Christ, Framme, you’re approaching what people in the medical fields refer to as “too thirsty to drown”. Oh god, the slightly blank, slightly mortified look on Pepsiman’s face when he discovers he has a fan club is just priceless. Gotta say, this has been one of the better takes of Abhorrent Admirer that FE has done. XD If we gotta have one per game, might as well. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: …I find it curious that even though all of these supports take place in the Somniel… nobody’s wearing the clothes they wear in the Somniel. It’s their battle clothes, not the casual wear I always see them in here. Yeah, that's also a bit... questionable. Well, the handling of outfits in general. Either it'll get patched like how it was in TH or... not. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: …Though that still begs the question of why people at the Somniel are complaining about not having enough water. Which is curious since the Somniel does have a well and the water-filled grotto and... hmm, how the Somniel is kept water-filled, I wonder. Condensing the clouds all around them sounds like a logical solution, though then who does it? Sommie? 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: Bro-dians, if you will. Pft, ahaha, didn't see that one before. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: …Alcryst, and his retainers Lapis and Citrinne. I’m noticing mineral-theming here. Every country is themed. More obvious in the Japanese version for those names localization changed. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: So Brodia has Roy. Interesting. I wonder what he’s like? Well, ain't Roy's our boy? XD 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: Alcryst doesn’t have it though. Curious how the crown royal sibling got the ring here, but the non-crown one got it in Firene. I can think of a reason, but it's not a direct thing and... well, I can't say right now. So if/when you do find it, I can bring this back up if needed. Edited January 28, 2023 by Acacia Sgt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: I was correct. Apparently there are two princes. Bro-dians, if you will. Boo. Hiss. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: What I want to know is how the hell Elusia managed to invade Brodia on the opposite fucking border without being noticed until they were behind the Brodia-Firene border guard. I'm guessing they either flew, or traveled by boat. If they walked the whole way, yeah that'd be pretty dumb. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Oh shit, I hope people from different nations have unique classes between them! Would be a cool way to give units different class accessibility, beyond the traditional gender-exclusive classes. Which exist in this game, albeit barely. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Framme: AHHH! Divine one, you look so shiny when you sweat! …Jesus Christ, Framme, you’re approaching what people in the medical fields refer to as “too thirsty to drown”. Can confirm that Framme says the same of F!Alear. So if she's thirsty, it's for both flavors of Pepsi. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Y’know, something I’ve noticed is that the side-to-side adjustment on menus is a tad over-sensitive. Half the time unless I really briefly tap the arrows to switch between things, I wind up switching over two instead of just one. Same, it's quite frustrating. I also keep mixing up which menu I run through using L/R, and which one I need the D-pad or joystick for. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Chloé: So she already has staff proficiency, so she’s right on track to be a griffon knight… which seems to have replaced pegasi as the promoted non-dragon flier mount… for some fucksforsaken reason. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see griffons return, but why the fuck get rid of pegasi for it? Seeing units change mounts upon promotion has always boggled my mind. When Griffin Rider Cherche is talking to Minerva, is she talking to her mount, who turned into a Griffin? Or is she talking to her Wyvern, who still exists, but she just doesn't ride her anymore? I can vibe with "My Pegasus Knight promoted, and her Pegasus grew a horn!", but turning into another creature - or outright getting replaced - just feels wrong to me. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Really, I wish there were more skill slots. Five was a perfectly lovely number, and it helped make allies more distinct from each other. Now most of the ways characters are set apart are their classes and the emblems they wear. I’ll give it a shot to see if there are any benefits I’m not considering, but right now? Disappointed. But hey, guess I’ll hold out hope that something happens later in the game that expands the skill limit or something. I think 5 skills would be a bit nuts here, when you're also getting 3 or more skills from your Emblem Ring. Plus skills that are innate to each movement type (i.e. Backup doing chain attacks, Mystic ignoring terrain). And figuring out how each skill interacts with every other skill could become a real headache. That said, 2 equippable skill slots looks to be rather limiting. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Also, thieves are apparently a “special” class, y’know, like brides and dread fighters and dancers and the like. Neither basic nor promoted. Curious. Weird choice to make Thief a one-off (?) "special" class. Like, they could've had the choice to promote to Wolf Knight, plus add in classes like Trickster (Knife/Staff, Qi Master) and Assassin (Knife/Bow, Covert). Perhaps they ran out of time to include these kind of promotions? Who knows. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Clanne: Now, I could go the obvious route with sage… but let’s consider my other options… …Nope, no consideration necessary. Maybe if a flying class were available, sure, but his strength is utter shit, so going into a hybrid class probably is not wise. …Weird that mage knights are faster than sages though. Okay, so he needs to take some time with Micaiah. Frame: …Proooobably a high priest. Which means she needs tome proficiency, which I’m assuming is from Celica. Oooooooh, my ironman senses do not like the idea of Framme spending any amount of time being the character I need to trust with Warp Ragnarok. I went for these promotions! Just felt right for the Junior Stewards, even if they each demanded another proficiency. I've only had them promoted for a chapter, but I'm already happy with how they're doing. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Céline: She’s got her own personal promoted class that she already qualifies for. So that’s definitely an option. But she’s also probably my best candidate for a mage knight, and already has the prerequisites for it hammered out. I think I’ll probably make her both at some point. For someone like her, the mage knight skill that gives extra speed for using the opposite sort of attack at the enemy is pretty useful. I tend to be a sucker for personal promotions, particularly on a primary playthrough. With Celine as a Vidame, I now have three Spell-and-Staff units, and all is right with the world. That said, Mage Knight (Sword, I presume?) could be a cool way to run her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: …So they still use Pokemon-style fades to black to cover up any serious physical movement allegedly done in supports, which is kind of frustrating, though the improvements elsewhere kinda soften it. Shame they didn't put in the minimum set up to have character sit at a table for supports. Because almost all of Celine's supports involve drinking tea, which they appearently do standing up in the middle of a courtyard with no cups. Having characters sit down with cups in front of them really wouldn't be that difficult. Hell they could probably even use the rigging from Three Houses the to have the characters actually drink tea while talking about drinking tea. Imagine that! But, well, Fire Emblem hates tables. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Bro-dians, if you will. You're out doing Fire Emblem in bad humor right there >.> Though honestly I think the game does have some comedic scenarios that legitimately do work. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Alcryst doesn’t have it though. Curious how the crown royal sibling got the ring here, but the non-crown one got it in Firene. I think in that case Alfred wasn't given the ring because he was leaving the country. The ring was just chilling in the capital, and then Queen Eve gave it to Celine to take away when the invasion began. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: …Okay, so, Hortensia and her two lady retainers, curiously enough… all have personal skills. And unless I’m very much mistaken, if they’re characters with personal skills who aren’t somehow in some way recruitable… then they’d be the first in the whole series to be that way. I'm sure I've said this before, but I really wish Iago's outright cheating by having staves on a class that shouldn't with infinite uses had been rendered as a personal skill in Fates, rather than an enemy only skill. 9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: And speaking of which… Okay, Citrinne has a pretty nifty personal which lets her use healing items as melee aoe healing around her, a la the “azura’s salve” item from Fates. Unfortunately she can't use them if she's at full HP. And since she has paper thin defenses, you're not going to be letting her get damaged much. So it's one of those good ideas for skills on the complete wrong unit. At least for default classes. Side note, even though they only heal 15 HP as opposed to 20 like in some games, I'm finding Vulneraries to be way more useful than in pretty much every other Fire Emblem game. I think it might come down to the infinite use weapons giving you more available item slots since, mostly I only use two or three weapons per character. Fates and Valentia had infinite wepaons too, but Valantia has no room for item slots and Fates's attempt to balance weapons in weird ways encouraged more hoarding of multiple weapons on a single unit. While here, a good silver axe will do for almost all attacks unless you want to more over to effective damage or breaks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 New Fire Emblem still has the can't-edit-two-minute-old-post-because-it's-too-old glitch, it seems. 36 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: Would be a cool way to give units different class accessibility, beyond the traditional gender-exclusive classes. Which exist in this game, albeit barely. They kind of did that in Fates already with Nohr and Hoshido classes. (and I kind of do it in my current under develop project Praythi 609) 36 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: I think 5 skills would be a bit nuts here, when you're also getting 3 or more skills from your Emblem Ring. Plus skills that are innate to each movement type (i.e. Backup doing chain attacks, Mystic ignoring terrain). And figuring out how each skill interacts with every other skill could become a real headache. That said, 2 equippable skill slots looks to be rather limiting. Considering how expensive it is to actually buy equippable skills, I'm not finding two slots to be all that limiting. ANd just, in general, I'd like skills to be a bit more exclusive and not really be the defining feature of Fire Embelm combat. They still basically are here, but it's been moved from a load out to a super form you can give your characters. 36 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: Weird choice to make Thief a one-off (?) "special" class. Like, they could've had the choice to promote to Wolf Knight, plus add in classes like Trickster (Knife/Staff, Qi Master) and Assassin (Knife/Bow, Covert). Perhaps they ran out of time to include these kind of promotions? Who knows. I think the reason they didn't want to make Wolf Knight the natural promotion of thieves is that Wolf Knights are cavalry, so you'd be going Cover->Cavalry, losing access to the niche the character might have been using before. Still doesn't really explain why they didn't make Assassin or Trickster a thing though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted January 29, 2023 Author Share Posted January 29, 2023 Engage Day 9: Chapter 7 Alright, let’s get right into it! …Okay, one thing I’m noticing is that Hortensia and her retainers are… promoted. They’re not… entirely beyond what my army has the ability to fight, but they’re pretty damned strong for this early in the game. I’d put very good odds on them dipping as some sort of story event before we get there. …Granted, the droppable items they’re carrying somewhat mitigate this… but that wouldn’t be the first time enemies with droppable items left after the battle started. I believe Gangrel’s dragonstone was listed as droppable even in the chapter 8 battle prep. Okay, quick correction: they’re greataxes in this game, not poleaxes. Poleaxes are the anti-cavalry weapons in this game. Alright, beyond the trio of promoted units in back, I think this battle should be pretty straightforward, barring complicated reinforcements. I have to drop a lot of units in this map, probably due to the new recruits. But I do have a pretty healthy number of units at my disposal. I think I’ll be good. So I’m going with dropping Etie, Chloé, Boucheron and Vander. Alright, let’s begin. …Okay, Lapis has a pretty transparent crush on Alcryst. I like the voice acting for it though. …Wow… Rosado has… a deep voice. …A really deep voice. A… wait… are they… could… …let’s check what the tooltip says about… … … He. …The tooltip says he. That uh… okay yeah that… explains it. …I am suddenly quite interested in what his story is. I have a feeling, judging by the outrageous attempts to make his wyvern look cute, that he has a huge complex about never being allowed to ride pegasi. I hope so. I don’t think the franchise has ever explored the idea of a man who wants to ride a pegasus and being disappointed that he can’t. Alright, Alcryst opens up by one-shotting the flier at the edge of his range, just as I planned on the prep menu thanks to the ability to highlight individual enemy ranges. I’m still so giddy that they brought that back. Oh also, this music is kickass. I love the heroic-yet-ominous nature of it. It’s funny how yet again they introduce a mechanic with a situation where it’s a really bad idea to use it. Sure, smashing these guys off of their fancy defensive tiles would be useful, but the iron blade only has a 60% chance to hit. It’s a way better call to just nuke these guys with terrain-ignoring magic. Which I have plenty of. Between Clanne, Céline and now Citrinne, I have more than enough magical firepower to wreck these guys. …And now Hortensia reveals that she has a brainwashed Lucina Emblem ring. That fairly well cements the idea that we’re going to fight her, but I hope it also means we get the ring from her after we beat her. Ah, okay. Interesting. So when the bad guys use Emblems, they can’t engage. Interesting. But then why would Chapter 2 introduce us to the concept of enemies engaging? I have to suspect we’ll be dealing with engaging enemies in some capacity. But at least that’s one complication I don’t have to think about, I suppose. Let’s see, what skills does this add? …Oh shit, so Lucina specializes in dual strikes, does she? And that All For One looks pretty terrifying… assuming she has enough living allies to make it terrifying. …Hortensia on her own isn’t that hot shit though. In fact, her offensive stats are atrocious. I’m not too scared of her. …Oh shit. Yunaka is terrifying when she gets a kill. I almost got chills when she suddenly went “look what you made me do”. And thankfully that crit massively simplified my turn, since the enemy attacked her from behind rubble, which I didn’t consider when placing her there. Might have limited my options for finishing them off. Okay, Anna’s first level up is encouraging. HP, strength, dexterity, speed, and luck. I’ll keep going with her, see how she fares. Tragically, Alcryst missed the second pegasus, putting us in a tough spot for killing her. I had to use Warp Ragnarok for the Ragnarok and not the Warp. Something I really, really appreciate about engaging is that you can do it and then back out of it with zero consequences. No lost engage meter, no lost action, just everything canceled. I can check how much damage Warp Ragnarok does before committing to it, I can confirm that Sigurd can let someone reach somewhere, etc. While I’m still annoyed on principle at what’s left up in the air regarding descriptions, being able to physically check damage results with zero consequences is fantastic. Alright, first wave’s gone. I wound up engaging Yunaka too, so time to have her use her rapier on these armor knights while she still has it. …Okay, gotta be careful about this next wave. I’ve got two incoming cavalry, but one of them is protected by the healer, and the healer’s melee combat points are protected by Hortensia’s threat range. …Thankfully, Lodestar Rush appears to completely break through the healer’s protective shielding. Didn’t know that. Well that solves that matter. …Also something that is only now sinking in: when you use an engage super move, you don’t get counter-attacked. Wow, that is insanely important to keep in mind. …Especially against the boss we’re about to fight. …Something’s been bugging me about the battle version of the map theme, so I went online to check it and confirm. Yeah, it seems like halfway through the “might” version of the song, the meter changes from 3/4 to 4/4 for a bit. Fates did something similar with “Desire Below”, but personally I preferred that use of it. It made the battle version more frantic and unnerving, whereas the switch to 4/4 here just feels awkward. Shame, I really like the battle theme otherwise. Unfortunately I just barely couldn’t finish off the remaining axe cavalry. He’s not strong enough to kill anyone though, thankfully. Okay, so, thankfully the boss has a huge weakness: she can’t use All for One unless she’s in melee range. So I have to bait her in at range, with someone able to resist her magic attacks. And then buckle the fuck up. …Oh shit. That’s nice of the game. The attack line turns a sickly purple-black color when the enemy can use their special attack. Alright, I’ve got Alcryst positioned with his lighter iron bow and Jean guarding him. Time to bait in this boss. …Okay, she ain’t moving. Which means that since this is a kill boss map… let’s see if we can blitz her with our two high-move units. ….NOOOOOOOOPE! BETTER FUCKING NOT! It would’ve worked too, which is the worst part. It would’ve worked… riiiiiight up to the point that that revival stone activated. Thank goodness I’m catching wise to these things now. Okay, so, she won’t move in for a ranged attack. Which means she’s trying to bait me into letting her use her engage attack. Which is a problem, because I only have a hunch to go on as to how much damage the attack will do. …Thankfully, I notice, I do have a plan b: Bait in Rosado, who has a little bit of an only-bait-him zone at the northern part of the map, and see if he takes the bait. And whoever else in the bargain. …No dice. Fuck. Okay, what else can I do… …Oh wow. The game actually tells you how much damage a special attack will do if you move your unit in range of it while deciding where to go. And apparently it’ll only do 11 to Yunaka. …If I’ve calculated right… she should be fine. But just in case, I’m giving her a def tonic, and Pepsiman’s aura. …That attack was… actually pretty damned pathetic all in all. But now I’ve gotta get her out of commission quick. I LOVE her battle theme, incidentally. …It seems like poison actually has no impact on chain attacks. Shame. But I managed to win. Alas, she runs off without letting us have the ring, even though she does drop a master seal. …Um… apparently we’re not advancing forward… because the bridge is too damaged. Hold on… I could’ve sworn we were, like, at the other side by the end of the map. Am I mistaken? I’m annoyed I don’t have the map to look back at again, but I could’ve sworn the rightmost side of the bridge was the end of it. Are they trying to tell us it’s too dangerous to cross a bridge we already crossed? And only now are the heroes figuring out that the enemies who attacked Lythos castle were Elusian. …So they’re talking about the rings Elusia stole and the ring it was given, and they were apparently given Lyn. Why did they give Elusia the ring of the nomadic plainswoman? Why didn’t they give that to the region of wide open plains, or the desert, which also seems to be in Sacae’s repertoire given their nomads’ ability to cross deserts better than other horses? Yeah, we were pretty much at the other side by the time we won the battle according to this post-battle exploration. Are they seriously telling us we need to find a way around? And I’ve run into more animals I don’t know how to raise because I haven’t donated enough to Brodia. Kind of infuriating that the game does this to me when it didn’t let me donate to Brodia before this battle. …Oh hey, so the little girl I suspect is Pepsiman’s sister is using a similar laser attack to what Lumera used on the hooded girl I’m pretty sure is her back at Lythos! Iiiiiinteresting. Verrrrrry iiiinteresting. Okay yeah, so, with nobody around, she’s protecting villages from Corrupted with her powers. So if she is indeed evil, it’s gotta be a split personality, because she’s not putting on an act for anyone here. …Provided, of course, this game’s narrative isn’t entirely batshit insane. …Okay, so, at first I was like “this is really clumsy exposition, game. You can’t just have her talk to herself in the middle of nowhere. But then I realized she isn’t talking to herself, she’s talking to her “sibling”. Y’know, like they’re a ghost. So not quite so bad. Iiiiiinteresting… …So now she’s calling her sibling her brother. HMMMMMMMMMMMM… …The shops still haven’t updated their merchandise yet. I wonder what’s gonna trigger that… …I’m exploring forging, and I see an upgrade to thunder, and I’m gonna go out on a limb and see what it is, because judging by the stats it’s a pretty major improvement over basic thunder. …Elthunder, apparently. Alright. Well it feels like resources well spent, because it’s a major attack upgrade in exchange for only 5 less hit and a lot more weight (which doesn’t matter much anyway since it can never double). …Provided of course that the shops don’t finally upgrade next chapter or something and then immediately sell it. Which would be lame-as-shit timing. Anyway, I think that’s it for the day. I’ll resume tomorrow with another update, and hopefully we’ll get another Emblem ring! Alastor, signing off! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 10 hours ago, Jotari said: I think the reason they didn't want to make Wolf Knight the natural promotion of thieves is that Wolf Knights are cavalry, so you'd be going Cover->Cavalry, losing access to the niche the character might have been using before. Still doesn't really explain why they didn't make Assassin or Trickster a thing though. That bit is nothing new, though. When you promote Armor Knight to Great Knight, or Mage to Mage Knight, they change from their initial class type to Cavalry. Hell, Archer to Bow Knight is an explicit Covert to Cavalry transition. I'm worried there might actually be too many Cavalry classes among the promoted options. We've got 3 variants each of Paladin, Great Knight, Bow Knight, Mage Knight, and Wolf Knight, plus the one-off Royal Knight. If we count the variants individually, that's almost half of the total non-exclusive promoted classes. 10 hours ago, Jotari said: They kind of did that in Fates already with Nohr and Hoshido classes. (and I kind of do it in my current under develop project Praythi 609) Fair point. Although in that case, each character has a limited innate reclass pool (sometimes including cross-country classes, like Samurai Odin), with more attainable through supports. It's not a "Ryoma can reclass to any Hoshidan class, but no Nohrian class" model. And that sounds cool. I should check in more on that project. 11 hours ago, Jotari said: Side note, even though they only heal 15 HP as opposed to 20 like in some games, I'm finding Vulneraries to be way more useful than in pretty much every other Fire Emblem game. I think it might come down to the infinite use weapons giving you more available item slots since, mostly I only use two or three weapons per character. Agreed with the first part (Vulneraries good now), but not so much the second. Let's look at someone like Vander. I want him to have an Iron or Compact Axe (relatively light and accurate)... and a Hand Axe (ranged option, always welcome)... and a Steel Axe or Iron Greataxe (for the higher damage)... and a Hammer/Poleaxe (never know when you'll need the effective damage). Boom, four slots filled right there. And when we're talking units with multiple weapon types, or who are also offering staff support, it gets magnified. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: …Wow… Rosado has… a deep voice. …A really deep voice. A… wait… are they… could… …let’s check what the tooltip says about… … … He. …The tooltip says he. That uh… okay yeah that… explains it. …I am suddenly quite interested in what his story is. I have a feeling, judging by the outrageous attempts to make his wyvern look cute, that he has a huge complex about never being allowed to ride pegasi. I hope so. I don’t think the franchise has ever explored the idea of a man who wants to ride a pegasus and being disappointed that he can’t. Say hi to Forrest 2.0! Actually, yes, they have. That's the topic of Henry and Sumia's supports. Sumia wants to practice magic but her body isn't currently skilled at it. Henry wants to ride a pegasus but as a man he can't. The solution? Body Swap Hex! Yeah, that happened. Other than that, I'm pretty sure the topic has shown up occasionally throughout the series. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: Something I really, really appreciate about engaging is that you can do it and then back out of it with zero consequences. No lost engage meter, no lost action, just everything canceled. I can check how much damage Warp Ragnarok does before committing to it, I can confirm that Sigurd can let someone reach somewhere, etc. While I’m still annoyed on principle at what’s left up in the air regarding descriptions, being able to physically check damage results with zero consequences is fantastic. Oh yes, that's certainly nice. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: …So they’re talking about the rings Elusia stole and the ring it was given, and they were apparently given Lyn. Why did they give Elusia the ring of the nomadic plainswoman? Why didn’t they give that to the region of wide open plains, or the desert, which also seems to be in Sacae’s repertoire given their nomads’ ability to cross deserts better than other horses? Most of them were kinda arbitrary, come to think of it. On the other hand, some kinda do fit where they are, like Celica at Firene. Though yeah, I feel Micaiah would fit better on Elusia, maybe. Then again, it's likely more the gameplay speaking here, hence why you also got her this earlier too. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: And I’ve run into more animals I don’t know how to raise because I haven’t donated enough to Brodia. Kind of infuriating that the game does this to me when it didn’t let me donate to Brodia before this battle. More teases I guess. Not unlike the animals at the Lythos maps. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: Okay yeah, so, with nobody around, she’s protecting villages from Corrupted with her powers. So if she is indeed evil, it’s gotta be a split personality, because she’s not putting on an act for anyone here. …Provided, of course, this game’s narrative isn’t entirely batshit insane. It's fascinating reading this knowing what is true or not, I'll admit. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: …Okay, so, at first I was like “this is really clumsy exposition, game. You can’t just have her talk to herself in the middle of nowhere. But then I realized she isn’t talking to herself, she’s talking to her “sibling”. Y’know, like they’re a ghost. So not quite so bad. Iiiiiinteresting… …So now she’s calling her sibling her brother. HMMMMMMMMMMMM… Yeah, they aren't being subtle. 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: …I’m exploring forging, and I see an upgrade to thunder, and I’m gonna go out on a limb and see what it is, because judging by the stats it’s a pretty major improvement over basic thunder. …Elthunder, apparently. Alright. Well it feels like resources well spent, because it’s a major attack upgrade in exchange for only 5 less hit and a lot more weight (which doesn’t matter much anyway since it can never double). Well, Thunder actually has a very good use, perhaps even better than Elthunder or even Thoron, but you are still far from making use of it. I can go into more detail once we get there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted January 30, 2023 Author Share Posted January 30, 2023 Heads up that while I will continue the weekend updates to compensate, Tues-Thurs are pretty busy this week in particular so I think I'll have to skip them. At least this week. We'll see about moving forward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 (edited) 8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: …So they’re talking about the rings Elusia stole and the ring it was given, and they were apparently given Lyn. Why did they give Elusia the ring of the nomadic plainswoman? Why didn’t they give that to the region of wide open plains, or the desert, which also seems to be in Sacae’s repertoire given their nomads’ ability to cross deserts better than other horses? So the first three rings we discover Lumeria gave away were Celica, Micaiah and Lyn, which led me to the amusing idea that she just didn't like the female Emblems and wanted to surround herself by manly men Emblems in her own kingdom. Though, unfortunately her keeping Lucina for herself bucked that trend. 8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: Agreed with the first part (Vulneraries good now), but not so much the second. Let's look at someone like Vander. I want him to have an Iron or Compact Axe (relatively light and accurate)... and a Hand Axe (ranged option, always welcome)... and a Steel Axe or Iron Greataxe (for the higher damage)... and a Hammer/Poleaxe (never know when you'll need the effective damage). Boom, four slots filled right there. And when we're talking units with multiple weapon types, or who are also offering staff support, it gets magnified. Even with enemies with duel weapon types I'm finding myself having some slots available. Not every unit needs to have a smash and accurate weapon. Like I said, a silver weapon is good for most interactions. But, if it's not that, then some other explanation needs to exist for why Vulneraries suddenly feel so much better. Either it's just because the game is...sort of better than previous games and self healing is actually necessary and carefully planned against damage and HP thresholds. Or, more likely, it's because you have a lot more to do with your staff bots. In previous games not only do you not want to use Vulneraries because they take up an item slot, but also because they don't grant exp, so you'd rather top off HP with a healer even if a unit has a free action. But here, right form the start, your healers can also guard and even, on some very rare occasions, fight. Later they also get access to some really useful staves like Obstruct and Freeze. So, simply put, your staffbots aren't just staff bots anymore, they're doing a whole lot more, meaning the responsibility for healing falls a lot more on the individual characters that have been weakened. 6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said: On the other hand, some kinda do fit where they are, like Celica at Firene. Though yeah, I feel Micaiah would fit better on Elusia, maybe. Then again, it's likely more the gameplay speaking here, hence why you also got her this earlier too. Spoiler Even in gameplay it's a bit weird, as the character Lyn is initially paired with when you eventually get her is hilariously ill-suited for her. 6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said: Well, Thunder actually has a very good use, perhaps even better than Elthunder or even Thoron, but you are still far from making use of it. I can go into more detail once we get there. Really? Can you PM me? Or just drop it in a spoiler section? Edited January 30, 2023 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 (edited) 14 minutes ago, Jotari said: So the first three rings we discover Lumeria gave away were Celica, Micaiah and Lyn, which led me to the amusing idea that she just didn't like the female Emblems and wanted to surround herself by manly men Emblems in her own kingdom. Though, unfortunately her keeping Lucina for herself bucked that trend. Maybe because she was too similar to Marth? XD Spoiler She also kept Eirika, but perhaps since she came in a two-in-package with Ephraim she had no choice? lol 14 minutes ago, Jotari said: Hide contents Even in gameplay it's a bit weird, as the character Lyn is initially paired with when you eventually get her is hilariously ill-suited for her. Spoiler As someone who actually kept Lyn with Ivy, it's actually not that bad of a choice. Admittedly I started with Normal, but Engaged Ivy can one-round almost every boss. 14 minutes ago, Jotari said: Really? Can you PM me? Or just drop it in a spoiler section? I'll put it here but in spoilers. Spoiler Olwen's Bond Ring at S Rank gives you the Dire Thunder skill, which makes the Thunder tome, and only the Thunder tome, able to double always. Then, you can give it an Engrave that gives Might with a penalty that isn't that detrimental. In this case, Ike's a good one, since it boosts Might by 3... at the cost of adding 15 Weight. However, a tome like Thunder it matters not since you're going to use it to snipe from 3 Range, and thanks to Dire Thunder, it will always double. So, with the S Olwen Ring, Ike's Engrave, and +5 Forged, Thunder can become quite a beast, specially in the hands of someone like, say... Ivy. Flier movement plus high move? Destruction rains from the heavens in a thundery wrath! Have I already mentioned Ivy has become my most favorite character? She's a flying magic nuke! Edited January 30, 2023 by Acacia Sgt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said: Maybe because she was too similar to Marth? XD Reveal hidden contents She also kept Eirika, but perhaps since she came in a two-in-package with Ephraim she had no choice? lol Reveal hidden contents As someone who actually kept Lyn with Ivy, it's actually not that bad of a choice. Admittedly I started with Normal, but Engaged Ivy can one-round almost every boss. I'll put it here but in spoilers. Hide contents Olwen's Bond Ring at S Rank gives you the Dire Thunder skill, which makes the Thunder tome, and only the Thunder tome, able to double always. Then, you can give it an Engrave that gives Might with a penalty that isn't that detrimental. In this case, Ike's a good one, since it boosts Might by 3... at the cost of adding 15 Weight. However, a tome like Thunder it matters not since you're going to use it to snipe from 3 Range, and thanks to Dire Thunder, it will always double. So, with the S Olwen Ring, Ike's Engrave, and +5 Forged, Thunder can become quite a beast, specially in the hands of someone like, say... Ivy. Flier movement plus high move? Destruction rains from the heavens in a thundery wrath! Have I already mentioned Ivy has become my most favorite character? She's a flying magic nuke. Spoiler Oh cool. I haven't got Olwen's Bond Ring. Overall, the Bond Rings kind of disappoint me. Obviously they shouldn't be as good as Engage Rings, but they should still provide something other than stats. But the only one I've seen so far with an effect is Chrom's one, but I didn't get it to S rank because it's so costly. Which is another issue, to get the actual good bond rings you need to invest a tonne of bond fragments, which you'll probably only be able to do later in the game when you don't need them anyway because you have a full repertoire of Emblem rings already that you'll be using instead* Obviously there is one major exception to this in the game, but even then I don't think you'll have more than a handful of S ranked ones unless you get particularly lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 On 1/28/2023 at 12:15 PM, Alastor15243 said: …Further… I notice that promoted flier classes are available for male units… but not the unpromoted ones. And yet the way the game currently tells me I get to a promoted flier class is reclassing to an unpromoted one and then promoting. I have to assume those instructions change once I’m in a promoted class, because otherwise why the fuck would there be a point of having inaccessible promoted classes on this menu? So if men aren’t allowed to be unpromoted fliers, what aren’t women allowed to be? …I just scanned the list between Boucheron and Chloé… and the answer appears to be… nothing! Fucking nothing! None of the classes the game is currently showing to me are male-only! It’s only that fliers are female-only! Whyyyyyyyyyy? …Also, thieves are apparently a “special” class, y’know, like brides and dread fighters and dancers and the like. Neither basic nor promoted. Curious. These restricts remind me a lot of the DS games, with only promoted male fliers, and thieves being in the ranks of "special" classes. It feels strangely archaic, especially with reduced role thieves have in this game thanks to the chest change. On 1/28/2023 at 12:15 PM, Alastor15243 said: Framme: AHHH! Divine one, you look so shiny when you sweat! …Jesus Christ, Framme, you’re approaching what people in the medical fields refer to as “too thirsty to drown”. Yeah, her supports are kinda creepy, and really emphasize how weird the MC being literally worshipped make supports, 8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: I have to drop a lot of units in this map, probably due to the new recruits. But I do have a pretty healthy number of units at my disposal. I think I’ll be good. So I’m going with dropping Etie, Chloé, Boucheron and Vander. I am a bit surprised to see you dropping the first flier already. 8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Tragically, Alcryst missed the second pegasus, putting us in a tough spot for killing her. I had to use Warp Ragnarok for the Ragnarok and not the Warp. If only you had brought Etie to pick up the kill instead 9 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: Fair point. Although in that case, each character has a limited innate reclass pool (sometimes including cross-country classes, like Samurai Odin), with more attainable through supports. It's not a "Ryoma can reclass to any Hoshidan class, but no Nohrian class" model. I will note that the "cross-country" classes are mostly on the folks from Awakening, who are neither Nohrian, or Hoshidan. There is also Shura, but that mostly covers his odd heritage of coming from a family of Ninjas, but having grown up amongst Nohrians, as all of his other class lines are Nohrians. I guess there are also some oddities with replacement classes on children, but those are rather rare situations... 7 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said: More teases I guess. Not unlike the animals at the Lythos maps. Need to give you an incentive for New Game+ 7 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said: Well, Thunder actually has a very good use, perhaps even better than Elthunder or even Thoron, but you are still far from making use of it. I can go into more detail once we get there. Only with some gatcha luck and, unless you are supper lucky, a lot of resources as well... 23 hours ago, Jotari said: Side note, even though they only heal 15 HP as opposed to 20 like in some games, I'm finding Vulneraries to be way more useful than in pretty much every other Fire Emblem game. I think it might come down to the infinite use weapons giving you more available item slots since, mostly I only use two or three weapons per character. Fates and Valentia had infinite wepaons too, but Valantia has no room for item slots and Fates's attempt to balance weapons in weird ways encouraged more hoarding of multiple weapons on a single unit. While here, a good silver axe will do for almost all attacks unless you want to more over to effective damage or breaks. If space for healing item were the deciding factor here, then the Tellius games with their dedicated item only space would see this effect far more. 1 hour ago, Jotari said: Even with enemies with duel weapon types I'm finding myself having some slots available. Not every unit needs to have a smash and accurate weapon. Like I said, a silver weapon is good for most interactions. But, if it's not that, then some other explanation needs to exist for why Vulneraries suddenly feel so much better. Either it's just because the game is...sort of better than previous games and self healing is actually necessary and carefully planned against damage and HP thresholds. Or, more likely, it's because you have a lot more to do with your staff bots. In previous games not only do you not want to use Vulneraries because they take up an item slot, but also because they don't grant exp, so you'd rather top off HP with a healer even if a unit has a free action. But here, right form the start, your healers can also guard and even, on some very rare occasions, fight. Later they also get access to some really useful staves like Obstruct and Freeze. So, simply put, your staffbots aren't just staff bots anymore, they're doing a whole lot more, meaning the responsibility for healing falls a lot more on the individual characters that have been weakened. My first thought is that the low move might be a part of it, as lower move makes it harder to reach a space to safely heal allies, and gives units less option in general, meaning less competition for vulnerary being the best option for a unit's best action available. Plus 15 health is a significant amount of health in this game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 35 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: I will note that the "cross-country" classes are mostly on the folks from Awakening, who are neither Nohrian, or Hoshidan. There is also Shura, but that mostly covers his odd heritage of coming from a family of Ninjas, but having grown up amongst Nohrians, as all of his other class lines are Nohrians. I guess there are also some oddities with replacement classes on children, but those are rather rare situations... Now that I realize they were going for something with that, the fact that Beruka doesn't have a ninja reclass, because she is obviously written as an assassin, makes a lot more sense. Still, I think even for the Awakening Trio they should have limited it. Selena having a pegasus and Odin going back to swordmaster are nice, but I see no reason Laslow should have gotten Ninja. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 (edited) 45 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: Only with some gatcha luck and, unless you are supper lucky, a lot of resources as well... True. So if you can get it quick and/or cheap, that's better. In the meantime, well, can put the rest of I stuff I mentioned in the spoiler tag into Thoron in the meantime. Edited January 30, 2023 by Acacia Sgt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted January 30, 2023 Author Share Posted January 30, 2023 5 hours ago, Jotari said: Selena having a pegasus and Odin going back to swordmaster are nice, but I see no reason Laslow should have gotten Ninja. He has access to assassin in Awakening via swordmaster. Probably went with that to differentiate him from Odin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: He has access to assassin in Awakening via swordmaster. Probably went with that to differentiate him from Odin. They could have given him Outlaw if they wanted to reference his reclass in Awakenig. Not exactly the same as Theif, but, neither is ninja. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted January 30, 2023 Author Share Posted January 30, 2023 37 minutes ago, Jotari said: They could have given him Outlaw if they wanted to reference his reclass in Awakenig. Not exactly the same as Theif, but, neither is ninja. I ain't complainin'. Replicate kicks ass for rally bots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: I ain't complainin'. Replicate kicks ass for rally bots. Oh there's definitely very real gameplay benefits to having non Corrin Ninja access on Conquest. Replicate kicks ass in general. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 19 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: …I am suddenly quite interested in what his story is. I have a feeling, judging by the outrageous attempts to make his wyvern look cute, that he has a huge complex about never being allowed to ride pegasi. I hope so. I don’t think the franchise has ever explored the idea of a man who wants to ride a pegasus and being disappointed that he can’t. There was a throwaway line in 3H about Hubert wanting to be a Pegasus Knight, but having a fear of heights. Also the "sexist Pegasi" thing. If they must contine with "only women can ride Pegasi", then I'd like to see that kind of exploration happen. Also, if I can't put Rosado in a dress from the Clothier, then I will burn the Somniel to the ground. 20 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Something I really, really appreciate about engaging is that you can do it and then back out of it with zero consequences. No lost engage meter, no lost action, just everything canceled. I can check how much damage Warp Ragnarok does before committing to it, I can confirm that Sigurd can let someone reach somewhere, etc. While I’m still annoyed on principle at what’s left up in the air regarding descriptions, being able to physically check damage results with zero consequences is fantastic. Yep, being able to "B-button out" of every phase of an action is really cool. You don't have to commit to a mistake. 20 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Okay, so, she won’t move in for a ranged attack. Which means she’s trying to bait me into letting her use her engage attack. Which is a problem, because I only have a hunch to go on as to how much damage the attack will do. Yeah, it's been harder to manipulate enemy AI this time around. Which ups the difficulty, but also feels like the game has more to hide. 20 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: So they’re talking about the rings Elusia stole and the ring it was given, and they were apparently given Lyn. Why did they give Elusia the ring of the nomadic plainswoman? Why didn’t they give that to the region of wide open plains, or the desert, which also seems to be in Sacae’s repertoire given their nomads’ ability to cross deserts better than other horses? If Elusia was already anti-Divine-Dragon when the Rings were first given out, then it would make sense to give them the one least suitable to their country. Alternatively, this version of Lyn retired to Ilia to be with Florina, so she's used to the cold. 20 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: And I’ve run into more animals I don’t know how to raise because I haven’t donated enough to Brodia. Kind of infuriating that the game does this to me when it didn’t let me donate to Brodia before this battle. Presumably, they expect you to come back to the Bridge for a skirmish. The whole "Donation" system seems oriented around skirmishes (i.e. adding "Silver" and "Gold" Corrupted). 20 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Iiiiiinteresting… …So now she’s calling her sibling her brother. HMMMMMMMMMMMM… I played with F!Alear, and she referred explicitly to her Spoiler Sister. Not sure why they started off with "sibling" if they were going to gender it later on. 20 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Elthunder, apparently. Alright. Well it feels like resources well spent, because it’s a major attack upgrade in exchange for only 5 less hit and a lot more weight (which doesn’t matter much anyway since it can never double). I forged an Elsurge pretty early on. Even though Surge can double, I usually only want to use it if it can one-shot the foe, since I don't want to take a counter-attack. So the added Weight was irrelevant, and it's not as though the spell lost any Hit. 11 hours ago, Jotari said: Even with enemies with duel weapon types I'm finding myself having some slots available. Not every unit needs to have a smash and accurate weapon. Like I said, a silver weapon is good for most interactions. TBH I'm not at a point yet where Silver weapons are widely buyable. So once that happens, that could change my calculus. Even then, though, I might want a Killer weapon into the mix, against enemies where the crit would make the difference. 11 hours ago, Jotari said: But, if it's not that, then some other explanation needs to exist for why Vulneraries suddenly feel so much better. Either it's just because the game is...sort of better than previous games and self healing is actually necessary and carefully planned against damage and HP thresholds. Or, more likely, it's because you have a lot more to do with your staff bots. Yeah that's a reasonable point. There are no "pure healers" this time around. There also aren't a ton of other means of self-healing, like Heal tiles and weapons with passive healing. At least, not in the early-to-midgame. 8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: If space for healing item were the deciding factor here, then the Tellius games with their dedicated item only space would see this effect far more. Only Path of Radiance had reserved space for items. Radiant Dawn had 7 slots that you could use for anything. But in that game, healing items were cracked, so of course they were popular. 11 hours ago, Jotari said: Which is another issue, to get the actual good bond rings you need to invest a tonne of bond fragments, which you'll probably only be able to do later in the game when you don't need them anyway because you have a full repertoire of Emblem rings already that you'll be using instead* I genuinely don't understand why it's so expensive to meld rings. It already takes a lot of investment to get the rings needed to meld, so why add an extra pile on top of it? I could spend 10K bond fragments to make an S-rank Ring... or to gacha 100 Rings, which would probably give me the one I was looking for in the first place. 8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: I will note that the "cross-country" classes are mostly on the folks from Awakening, who are neither Nohrian, or Hoshidan. There is also Shura, but that mostly covers his odd heritage of coming from a family of Ninjas, but having grown up amongst Nohrians, as all of his other class lines are Nohrians. I guess there are also some oddities with replacement classes on children, but those are rather rare situations... That is true. I'm not against cross-country innate classes, but the point was, at the end of the day, classes were rooted on a character-by-character basis. While there is a "Hoshidan Pool" and a "Nohrian Pool" of classes, simply being Hoshidan doesn't give someone easier access to a Hoshidan class outside of their innates than a Nohrian one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 7 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: I played with F!Alear, and she referred explicitly to her Hide contents Sister. Not sure why they started off with "sibling" if they were going to gender it later on. Easier to copy and paste script/audio files. 7 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: TBH I'm not at a point yet where Silver weapons are widely buyable. So once that happens, that could change my calculus. Even then, though, I might want a Killer weapon into the mix, against enemies where the crit would make the difference. I've honestly not found much use for killer weapons. I am carrying them around, but I'm very infrequently using them. The enemy stat lines in Maddening make it so killer weapons deal very little damage, even if they crit. Every decision is so critical and it's so hard to take enemies down, it's pretty costly to rely on crits if they're not doing killing damage. Though I haven't tried to make a specific crit build. A killer axe on my berserker infused with a crit friendly Emblem could probably reach crit levels that are near guaranteed. 7 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: Yeah that's a reasonable point. There are no "pure healers" this time around. There also aren't a ton of other means of self-healing, like Heal tiles and weapons with passive healing. At least, not in the early-to-midgame. Yes, that's something too I've subconsciously noticed. On several times I've looked for a fort to plop someone on to recover health while they're useless on the map only for nothing to be in sight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted January 30, 2023 Author Share Posted January 30, 2023 Engage Day 10: Chapter 8 I’m not even gonna bother typing what chapter I do today until I actually know. For all I know there could be another paralogue. Oh, I just found the Arena! Let’s check this out… …Why do I feel like I’m about to fight Dark Link? …Ah, I see, so I can spend bond fragments to give characters a more advanced bond with their emblem? Well aside from gambling for better bond rings, which eventually will be worthless once I have more emblems, I don’t know of any other uses for bond fragments, so fuck it, sure. Let’s get Louis up to snuff with Micaiah. …Oh wow, this is really more efficient than actually having them fight together. Though Louis still had to beat Micaiah in a match, which probably wouldn’t have gone well if she had Thani instead of Shine. But with that, Louis can now inherit res +2 and +3! For a total of five extra res! …No wait, I unlocked them, but I can’t inherit them until level 5. Alright. Let’s try one more level then. Damn it, she’s just barely strong enough to wreck him. …But they still bond ranked up? …That’s… interesting. Is there any incentive to win at all? But yeah, now let’s get Louis’s res up. It unfortunately took nearly all of the SP he had saved up, but he has both now, and those are going to be the most important skills he can get for a whiiiiile. Alright, so, Louis is using Sigurd now. Now what to do with Micaiah…? Probably Clanne. Because I wanna re-check Alfred’s class list a bit… Right, so Alcryst has his own personal class… …Yeah what the fuck? I completely failed a spot check! Alfred has his own personal class too! One he already qualifies for! So no emblem training necessary for him. I just need some other way to justify his existence. …Apparently… you cannot equip res+2 and res+3 at the same time. Hell, I don’t even have res+2 anymore. Did that expenditure become pointless, or did I not notice you have to buy res+2 before res+3 becomes purchasable? Lemme check… …Unfortunately I don’t have the resources to check. It’s frustrating how little SP I’m getting from battles. I don’t think anyone’s managed to crack 1000 points yet. …Let’s just move onto the next battle then. Right, Brodia castle. So really? Is this gonna be a thing? Are we always gonna start each new area with a “save the country” arc that only takes two battles? …Well okay, game. I notice a colosseum. I wonder if we’re gonna get a repeat of Awakening’s arena battle. …Oh, so the castle isn’t under attack at the moment. And we get to meet Diamant! Nice! Which means we get his Emblem! Diamant seems… curiously overprotective of his father. Nagging him and almost scolding him for taking risks. Oh wow, the delivery of “humble as… ever… son… hehehe…” was pretty great. Really gives the sense that he feels bad about his son’s self-esteem issues and is doing his best to counteract them, but he really doesn’t know what to do. Interestingly… when I see King Morion, and they’re talking about the disparity between how he is here and his reputation on the battlefield and his invasions of Elusia… I’m reminded of what Garon probably could have been if they had made any effort to make the conflict between Nohr and Hoshido even remotely morally gray. Actually have Garon be a human being and loving father with understandable reasons for instigating conflict, but who instigates conflict nonetheless. …Not that I expect this story to delivery anything interesting in that front either, but like, the characterization proximity is nice. Man, this game’s use of tiny-eyed shock never ceases to tickle me. Diamant: There was… a person in there? …Ohp! And here’s the conflict. Elusian wyvern rider, huh? Could it be the evil sorceress? Oh, it’s not the sorceress, it’s… someone new! Oh, I’ve seen thumbnails of her! So this is Ivy, huh? Nice character design, gotta say. …Weirdly, Morion obeys Diamant’s order to go back in the castle (not without some snark). What was that they said about him being a terror in war? Okay, so let’s get into battle… …Jeeeesus. We don’t really get to deploy any extra units here. We don’t have extra room for the new recruits! I’ve really gotta start getting picky about who I use. Oh, this’ll be a tough choice… …Okay, so Diamant has a personal skill that’s cool in concept but probably underpowered due to the disadvantages. But still, being able to increase hit by 15 has gotta have its uses. …Roy also seems to have some interesting skills. The one I’m by far the most curious about is the one that increases his level by 5. Is that… are they saying he gets 5 level ups worth of stats to go with it, or is there some intrinsic benefit to being a higher level that I’m not aware of? But what’s really cool is they finally fucking fixed miracle! They actually made it into something genuinely interesting and reliable! Roy has an ability that basically says that as long as you have more than 30% of your max HP when combat starts, that combat cannot kill you. You’re guaranteed to keep at least 1 HP. The entire round of combat, incidentally, not just any individual hit. That’s badass. …Ooh, looks like we’re getting introduced to ballistae here! I wonder what their rules are? …The boss looks tricky. I’ve heard scary things about what Leif can do from the promo stuff, and it seems to be entirely warranted. Genealogy-boss-style automatic weapon switching, a defense buff for WTA… I’ll have to be careful. But for a moment I forgot what ring she had and thought she had an Emblem of Michalis or something. Slapping bright red hair on lords that almost never have it is kinda jarring. I wonder what they would’ve done if they had to write a corrupted Roy into the story. …Oh shit. …OH SHIT. IT’S A DEFENSE MAP, BABY! YEAAAAAAAAAH! I WAS HOPING WE’D GET ONE OF THESE! We still need to defeat Ivy to win, but letting enemies get to the castle is a lose condition, awesome! That explains the ballista! Okay, I’ve decided to drop Jean. It’s a shame, but I’m just not interested enough in him to keep him in the party. Clanne with Micaiah will take his place as the second of my two healers until he can promote and I can give staff utility to someone else. And in his stead… I bring in Alcryst! Yeah, why not? I still wanna see how this game treats archers in terms of balance in the long-term, so why not pick the lord one? Plus, y’know, ballista. Man, it feels weird not having an Emblem on Pepsiman, the guy whose entire deal is being better at using Emblems. But there just seems to be a better fit for all the ones I have. I think as soon as this battle is over, I’m giving him Roy and seeing how that works out. Main issue here is I’m not sure how aggressive the enemies are going to get. So I need to make a good mix of heading off enemies coming at me and not baiting in enemies who would have initially left me alone. Also, I just realized Pepsiman is fairly underleveled. I should start training him more, and I’ll try to get on that this batt- …I just remembered the main point of the arena I kinda glossed over. BRB. …Alright, so that was pretty cool. Pepsiman won all three fights and gained two levels. Excellent. Alright, back to the fight. …Y’know, maybe it would be nice to have a “skip all” button? Having to skip each individual cutscene and cinematic of the story intro and then wait for the next one I don’t want to watch to load got pretty damned annoying. Alright, let’s get this show on the road. …I was wondering when Diamant’s retainers were gonna show up. We’ve got a male cav named Amber (my condolences), who is… profoundly annoying. Like, his voice reminds me of fucking Benji-kun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ikGvLUbOuU He just sounds so profoundly infantile, and I really just kinda… don’t want to use him or interact with him in any way. At least once I’m not forced to deploy him. …Anyway he’s another lance cav, which feels like a waste, and now I’m wondering where the second retainer is. Will they show up mid-battle? Also, my mistake: upon listening to the Brodian chapter themes more (a lot more), I’ve realized it’s not just the battle version that switches awkwardly to 4/4 at one point. The map version does too, which is more than a little annoying, but it’s not the battle version’s fault. …So I was right, Rise Above doesn’t just raise your level by 5, it gives you 5 more levels worth of stats. At least according to the tutorial slide. Alright, that sounds awesome. I’ll definitely be seeing what Pepsiman can get out of this next chapter. But for now, it’s Diamant’s. …Okay, so, bad news and good news: bad news is that a lot more enemies are rushing the gates at once than I’m what you might call comfortable with. Good news: holy shit, Yunaka’s knife attack animations while engaged with Marth are metal as fuck. This woman moves like she’s had levitation powers her entire goddamned career. It’s beautiful. And I’m getting to use the ballista, and… so it just empowers your basic weapons to be long-range attacks with an accuracy buff? I mean, that’s super from a usability perspective, it fixes something I’ve complained about for ages. But also, in-universe, the actual fuck? So, I just had Amber give his steel greatlance to Louis so he could engage, gallop in, and one-shot a pegasus knight his javelin was just barely too weak to kill. And in doing so, I discovered that when the enemy doubles, they get both of their attacks before you when you use a heavy weapon like this. I mean, that makes sense. How are they gonna do the second attack if you hit and they’re smashed an entire tile away? Gotta let them get it in first or the second attack would make no sense. The ballista animation is only slightly better than it was in Three Houses. It does zoom in for the shot, but it zooms out again for the actual impact. Granted, said zoom-out is way more fluid and impactful than the embarrassing moon-gravity bullshit Three Houses had. Thankfully, I just barely had enough manpower to take out all the enemies rushing us, and mostly cushion Alcryst from the incoming warriors breaking down the walls. Lodestar Rush really helped. Unfortunately I can’t see how much HP the walls have left. Unless I’m missing something, the game doesn’t tell me. …Curiously the enemy doesn’t get both of their attacks first if they go first against a smashing weapon. Mechanically I suppose that isn’t necessary, since smashing weapons don’t smash on enemy phase, but it’s… weird, in a way I can’t properly describe. …So, heavy weapons are excellent for people with Emblems, because all of their drawbacks are negated while using them for special attacks. The enemy can’t counter, and by the looks of things, you can’t miss either. It seems chain attacks can’t break. Good to know. Excellent! Chain guard does defend against poison! Also good to know! Oh shit. Ivy’s on the move now. She’s fast, so I’ve gotta get as many units as possible in attacking range of her at once. Which is tricky, since I don’t know where she’ll land, and also my army is split up. I baited her in with Louis, and given she has 12/28 HP now and only one resurrection stone… I think she’s fucked. …Not quite as fucked as I perhaps hoped due to her pack of defensive skills. But between Warp Ragnarok, Louis’s javelin, and Alcryst’s ballista, we have more than enough to win. Yunaka gets the kill. Ivy: Gh… No… the ring… Wait, are we getting Leif!? …We did! Though apparently it’s tainted at the moment. Either this is gonna be cutscene magic or we need to do a quest to unlock it or something. Optional or story. Though I’m reminded of a scene from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical when the titular protagonist convinces the enemy, while in disguise, that he found the Scarlet Pimpernel, showing the ring the man was wearing as proof. The villain is excited for a second… and then immediately demands how the fuck he managed to get a ring off of someone who escaped on a horse. …Okay, so it wound up just being cutscene magic, like I said. And hilariously simplistic cutscene magic, too. We’ve got Leif. But I have to wonder why he’s the “Emblem of Genealogy”. …Oh! Ivy didn’t get away! She’s still here! Surrounded! That explains so fucking much of how we got that ring! …And then she flew away on her horse. Somehow. The simplistic story scenes make it impossible to fathom what is going on here. Alright, so the king of Elusia is at the border, demanding to speak with King Morion. And King Morion finally demands an explanation for Diamant’s absurd treatment of him. And we get it. Diamant’s got hangups and fears about his father dying now that the Fell Dragon is back and all of his bottled fear about being groomed to be prepared for his father’s death and succeed the throne is coming to the surface. …This feels like a really dumb and rushed emotional arc for Diamant. I really don’t like this. It could’ve been better if it were longer than a single chapter in length. And honestly I suspect it means they’re rushing character development because Morion is going to die. Oh my god. The soul-escaping gasp Alcryst lets out at the idea of him succeeding the throne in the event of Diamant and Morion’s death is… it’s hilarious. Morion: If we step into fear, we step out of Brodia. Cool line, but you’re the country that spends the most time “stepping out of” your country, what with your invasions of Elusia and all. Morion mentions a tournament with their strongest warriors that will be done in celebration of their victory. Well, I saw the arena. Checks out. Morion: I wanna see you transform into a mighty dragon! Whoosh! Roar! FINALLY. FUCKING FINALLY SOMEONE BRINGS IT UP THAT ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM THAT NOBODY HAS TALKED ABOUT EVEN ONCE. EIGHT FUCKING CHAPTERS INTO THE GAME, SOMEONE MENTIONS THAT PEPSIMAN SHOULD BE ABLE TO TURN INTO A DRAGON! And Pepsiman reacts to this awkwardly like it’s literally only just now occurred to him that he should be able to turn into a dragon, and I’m like do you literally go into sleep mode when other human beings aren’t around you? How have you not had time to think about this until now? And we just got 30,000 gold. That is a huge amount of money. It ties for FE7 Battle Preparations. I think only FE9’s ludicrous 70k payout is higher. Alright, I’m back from work, and fuck it. Since you’re gonna have a three-day-long drought and I have more time today than I expected, sure! Let’s have another update. …Uh… one of the knight NPCs just prayed. To me. In person. That was, uh… profoundly awkward, even though the prayer was entirely reasonable. Boucheron tells me he learned a lot from the fight at the castle. Which he didn’t participate in. In a dialogue line he’s less likely to use the more he actually participates. …I’m sorry, but that design decision to have generic bond fragment quotes be a thing that override normal dialogue was beyond asinine. Chloé: It’s not much of a fairy tale if the knight sits on the sidelines all the time, I’m just saying… (10 Bond Fragments) …Do… do characters start to complain if you don’t deploy them enough? Is that what the game’s doing here? I don’t know whether I love or despise that. …Helllloooooo… who’s this lady? She looks significantly older than Fire Emblem usually allows playable female characters to be. …Saphir? That’s a Brodian name to be sure, but her skin is dark, which isn’t the case with any other Brodian I’ve seen. Granted, I’ve seen a handful of dark-skinned NPCs here and there in Firene (including our very own shopkeeper), but the game hasn’t made it clear if that’s just ‘cuz, or if there’s some sort of worldbuilding behind that. I believe the fourth nation is predominantly darker-skinned, so I’m wondering if her family immigrated from there long enough ago to embrace Brodian naming customs, or if this is just a setting where they’re implying that these countries have just kinda had a minority of dark-skinned people since basically forever ago. She definitely looks either playable or like she’s gonna die, so I’m hoping I get her story. Okay, so, back to the Somniel. Yeah, I feel bad about neglecting the arena until now. This is a pretty handy location. I tried to train up Anna but tragically she only won against Jean. Lapis and Alcryst wiped the floor with her, resulting in minimal gain. But shouldn’t they logically be getting victory exp? So here’s something that’s just kinda occurred to me gradually… I’m pretty damned sure Diamante was one of the people I saw in that opening cutscene in the prologue. So that pretty much eliminates that whole thing being a distant flashback. It was the future. So I wonder what the fuck the story was behind it. Lilith is lying flat on her back, asleep with her tummy in the air. I want to pet her so badly, why doesn’t the game let me pet her when we’re out and about!? Alright, so, I’m giving Roy to Pepsiman. He’s long overdue for getting an Emblem back, and this is right up his alley. Swords, fire attacks, what’s not to love? …What the actual fuck. Leif gives proficiency with damned near everything. Whoever uses Leif enough could basically promote into whatever the fuck they please. I’m giving it to Diamant for now, but I’m going to think on that. Lessee… what’s Diamant’s promotion look like? So he gets axes and sol when he promotes? Noted. Duuuuuuly noted. I wonder when the hell I’ll start getting second seals. Apparently now! WOO! The shop updated! We’ve got infinite tonics, we’ve got some more staves, and we’ve got a couple of master and second seals! …We’ve got… ….We’ve got rewarp. Rewarp is back. Rewarp is back. Rewarp is heavily nerfed, but it’s fucking back! …And to my immense dismay, there appears to be no way to buy items in bulk. We’re back to Awakening in regards to tonic buying. …No game should ever let you hear a voice line in such rapid succession that it begins to feel artificial and synthetic. Even Three Houses, for all the “this one ye-I thank you” memes, let you buy items in bulk! Okay, so, the armory has new items. Including a fist art that gives you +5 defense, which is pretty cool. But what’s curious is that wind is both weaker and slightly less accurate than fire, for the same weight. Only advantage is the flier-slaying properties. I stopped by the Amiibo Gazebo, and Roy’s song is Beneath a New Light, the original, not the Heroes tweak. Leif’s is… fingers crossed… wait for it… …Not here. I just have the Micaiah one I forgot to get available. Why isn’t Leif here? Leif doesn’t have an outfit either! What gives? …Oh that’s nice! There’s a little section on the map fast travel menu that tells you if anything’s changed! That’s pretty coo- …Oh. …Oh no. Oh sweet mother of mercy of fuck. God help us all. Fishing is back. …Okay, there’s a cap on 3 times, that’s somewhat encouraging… …Lilith is helping me, that’s adorable… …Okay, this is acceptable. I won’t be doing it much, but it doesn’t feel like something I need to do much. Just if I want some fish for cooking. There also feels like significantly less min-max pressure, what with it not being a crucial source of some professor rank exp equivalent. Oh, I have a support with Alcryst? Let’s see… …Jesus Christ he’s groveling to a wolf. …He mentions the inconvenience him being eaten would be to his colleagues who would spend says looking for him without avail, and I’m sitting here wondering if he thinks Pepsiman wouldn’t fucking tell people what happened to him. …And… it worked. The wolf left. I do like that they actually showed him groveling on the ground though. Three Houses would never even attempt a pose that close to the ground. I can’t get over how Alcryst and Pepsiman have just about the same fucking shade of blue hair. Alright, what other supports do we have? Clanne and Louis C? …Louis has a line in this support that sounds… like an AI deepfake. Louis: My apologies. I thought I heard someone mention my prince’s name. The inflection feels choppy, like it’s heavily edited from multiple takes to the degree that it barely sounds like a human being anymore. It’s a mildly interesting support concept, but it feels like a Fates-style “one single support artificially chopped into three parts” setup here, with Louis agreeing to help Clanne rehearse for his meeting with Prince Alfred later, and then… it just ends. Alfred and Yunaka’s C. Yunaka is kinda shocked nobody’s been doing more thorough background checks on her and is actually kind of uncomfortable with how trusting everyone is. And Alfred uses this as an opportunity to chat with Yunaka and get to know her better. Yunaka: Think about it, chum! I could be an enemy spy! Alfred: Mmmm, probably not though. I trust you! Honestly, this is a pretty charming line read. “Maybe I shouldn’t look this gift knife in the serrated bevel” …Okay that’s a good line too. Anna and Lapis’s C. Apparently Lapis crafts things as a hobby and Anna’s little Ferengi gremlin ears hear profit in the wind. Yet again it’s an “intro to a story” conversation that’s more a tease of what’s to come, which is a bit frustrating. I’m looking at Anna’s class changing options, and I’m noticing that she has better overall stats when reclassed to basically any other type of unit but backup. I’ll keep that in mind, and also, I don’t like it. Alright, I remembered to cook this time, and now we have +2lck/+1def/+1res next battle. Speaking of… I’m not sure I’ll have time to do it… but let’s at least see what next chapter is about… …Oh wow, it’s just sunk in that we’re actually going to Elusia. Some part of me assumed that would be last, and we’d be backtracking to the “Queendom of Freedom” first. …So Morion didn’t take the ring to the big offscreen fight up ahead. …Oh, not so offscreen after all. Wow, this is actually a fairly elaborate war scene. More than I expected to be sure. …The fact that we haven’t been allowed to participate in this battle is just screaming even louder that Morion is going to die. …The Elusian king… is fighting unarmed. …And despite refusing based on honor to wear an Emblem ring himself… Morion just fucking stands there when he has the king dead to rights and lets this fucker put on his corrupted ring. …Oh shit. …Not that I didn’t see this coming a fucking mile away, but the specific fact that Lyn dealt the finishing blow is pretty harsh. What other FE lord can say they’ve orphaned another FE lord? …Y’know, assuming their mom is dead and not just irrelevant. …Okay, so… he’s still alive apparently? Just heavily incapacitated and we’re trying to save him? Uh, okay. Something tells me we won’t succeed though. His death sounds pretty important to the un-thwartable stage 1 of the bad guys’ plans if the king’s words are anything to go by. …Ivy’s just kinda… dead inside, apparently having accepted that her father expects her to die to cover their retreat. Oof. I hope this means we recruit her when we win! …Oh hey, another armor knight! With a good deal less defense and a bit more res. And a personal that gives her 2 more res when she waits. Interesting, but personally I prefer Louis a lot. …Yeah I’m not completing and editing this in the time I have left, sorry. I’ll leave this here and jump right into it on Friday. Alastor, signing off! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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