objective What is your favourite map objective ?

[drattakbowser]

Clear map can be satisfied by us however I want to know who is the best condition to clear map.

[Etrurian emperor]

Defend. It tends to make for the more interesting maps. 

[lenticular]

Honestly, my favourite is to have a good variety. Defend objectives are cool, but they're cool because they tend to be rare.They change up the gameplay. If every map were a defend map, they'd get really old really fast. I picked rout, which is one of the least exciting objectives, but also the one that I think can see the most repetition without starting to seriously grate. Rout maps are the meat and potatoes of Fire Emblem, with other objectives being the gravy and the spices.

[ciphertul]

So what would you count Escape and Arrive as?

[Fabulously Olivier]

I love Defense maps. They line up well with my preferred playstyle, they throw a lot of enemies at you, and they tend to be pretty tense in a good way. Also, the story implications are just cool. Let me live out my Helm's Deep fantasies!

[ping]

To keep my habit of Binding Blade apologetics, I went with Seize, although I did give a second vote to Defeat Boss. I think these offer both map maker and player the greatest flexibility in how they plan their strategy. You can have the player be chased by overpowered enemies (e.g. the bridge map in FE3/12), you can offer rewards for moving towards the throne quickly (e.g. Raven and Lucius's recruitment map in BlaBla with a thief appearing at the north end of the map quite early), or you can have optional rewards that require the player to go out of their way and/or fight dangerous enemies to reach. And on a given map, a player can decide if they fight through the enemies head-on, or if they want to avoid certain enemies or reinforcement zones (Murdock's map in BinBla and Limstella's map in BlaBla are great examples of this). I will admit that Jahn's map overdoes this thing, though, but that's just not a very good map to begin with.

Personally, I think that Rout is overall the weakest objective. It takes away some of that flexibility, since the player has to eventually engage and kill every enemy on the map. Plus, there's that annoyance when Healing AI takes over. The pegasi on Erik's map in BlaBla are an awful example of this, and while I think I've played less than half of Gaiden, enemies planting themselves on the recover tiles is juuuust grrrreat.

[Whisky]

I agree with Ping though I voted for ‘Kill Boss’ instead of ‘Seize’. They’re pretty similar objectives and both allow for a lot of variety in how you, the player, choose to approach them. I think ‘Kill Boss’ allows for a bit more variety. I like a lot of the ‘Kill Boss’ objectives in Three Houses, and I think the desert chapter in Sacred Stones really would have benefitted from being a ‘Kill Boss’ objective instead of ‘Rout’. The goal would be to kill both bosses.

Speaking of ‘Rout’, I also agree with Ping that ‘Rout’ is a terrible objective.

Edited September 18, 2022 by Whisky

[Shadow Mir]

Rout. Seize is a shitty objective, no thanks to Binding Blade and its shitfest of long, winding maps. Even putting that game aside, seize is the objective of some of the worst designed maps in the series (I'm looking at YOU, Wooden Cavalry and Winds of Change!)

Edited September 18, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

I love Defend, but agree that if it ever got common it would overstay its welcome.

I think Defeat Bosses is probably the best in a vacuum. Having only a single boss is extremely vulnerable to degenerate tactics; having multiple really cuts down on that and encourages more "rout-like" play that doesn't require hunting down every last enemy; a good compromise IMO.

Rout itself avoids any degeneracy but (a) it's... ahhh, rather uncomfortable story-wise, and (b) you have to be very careful with both healing AI (e.g. FE7 Erik, as mentioned) and reinforcements. Nothing's stupider than being about to win a rout map then a dozen reinforcements appear to drag out the map (looking at you, Oliver's mansion), but if you had won these enemies just would have given up? I liked how Three Houses had relatively few Rout maps, and most of them had a good story reason for being that way (wiping out all the monsters in chapter 9, the mock battles, and making you feel like garbage for hunting down fleeing soldiers in Seteth/Flayn's paralogue and Randolph's map).

Fully agree that a variety of objectives is what you want.

[X-Naut]

I would rank the objectives as Seize > Rout > Defeat Boss =?= Defend > Survive and I voted for Seize alone. It's simply the most solid objective.

Defeat Boss is, on its own, a weak objective IMO; it's a single-point objective but without the extra nuance that makes Seize good. Defend is tricky to get right because the map needs to be able to pressure you or engage you in some way. They do make a good team though, with the former providing a proactive win condition while the latter requires you to engage other fronts instead of mobbing the boss. Or if there are multiple bosses that can solve the single-point problem.

Rout at least requires you to engage more of the map even if it's vulnerable to slogging when there are excessive reinforcements. And as Holy Elf said above there may be situations where the enemy won't lay down their arms and surrender; it's even more egregious in games where the AI lacks self-preservation. On the other hand, self-preservative AI can be the devil of Rout maps; although in a way, it does punish End Turn Emblem...

Survive is not an objective, unless you're throwing an absolutely insurmountable threat at the player. Otherwise you can call it a forced opportunity to grind.

[Baudshaw]

Seize, rout, and boss are so similar! I like defend/protect the best.

[Eltosian Kadath]

I wish there was an Escape option for the poll, especially All allies escape (like Conquest Chapter 21), or better yet how Thracia handles Escape map, as I kind think those are my favorite, although they are quite rare (outside of Thracia). Even the Tellius version where they simply incentivize you to have all allies escape with BEXP is a fun objective quirk.

Although Thracia is the master class in how interesting, and diverse the escape objective can be; from the more traditional fleeing from overwhelming reinforcements; to stealthing out of a city; to breaking past an overwhelming siege to relieve a city by "escaping" into it, while a smaller contingent of defenders has to prevent the escape point from being seized by the enemy before them; breaking into a highly defended prison to rescue captured allies, and getting them out to the escape point you started at safely; or recovering from a story based disaster as you have to bring half of your army out of the jaws of defeat back to your castle with the help of the other half of your army around said castle (I love this map, but it only really works thanks to how difficult it is to change a unit's starting position on a map, so those playing with quality of life hacks are really missing out on this one...).

Admittedly Seize is also a fairly robust objective, and of those listed probably my favorite, but perhaps I can convince @drattakbowser to add an escape option to the poll first.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Eltosian Kadath

[Yexin]

blame PoR and RD if i say Defend is my favorite map objective

[lenticular]

12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think Defeat Bosses is probably the best in a vacuum. Having only a single boss is extremely vulnerable to degenerate tactics; having multiple really cuts down on that and encourages more "rout-like" play that doesn't require hunting down every last enemy; a good compromise IMO.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. Having multiple bosses also goes some way towards mitigating another problem I have with the Defeat Boss objective. It always strikes me as the height of absurdity when I'm actively trying to avoid a boss, not because it's dangerous but because I want to avoid finishing the level before I've completed all of the side objectives. The Valley of Torment map in Three Houses is one of the worst for this, since the boss is mobile and there's a chest very near to where he starts. With multiple bosses, it's generally easier to avoid accidentally completing a map too soon.

And since we're talking about variants of standard objectives, I'll also say that I like Tellius's Arrive objective and the Fates version of Seize a lot more than I like classic flavour Seize. Having Seize be limited to the main Lord only feels too limiting to me. It's not as bad as "defeat the boss with the main Lord" objectives that several endgames have, but I prefer to be able to split my army in whatever way they will most effectively fight, rather than always be forced to send my Lord to the main objective, or else have to put up with the busywork of treking him across the map after I'm done killing everything. Allowing any unit to Seize/Arrive removes that particular annoyance.

And there's also the Defeat [number] Enemies from Radiant Dawn, which can be considered as Rout-adjacent but without some of the problems of that objective, since you don't need to worry about slaughtering enemy medics or chasing down that one unit who ran halfway across the map to heal. I'd definitely be happy to see that one brought back as an objective.

[Whisky]

I think that regardless of the main map objective, bonus objectives from Path of Radiance are a good way to supplement them. It can combine multiple objectives together that way.

[Jotari]

(Psst OP. It's rout,  not route)

I'd have to say escape maps. You get that tension of an enemy bearing down on you from defend, but a more progressive goal you need to work towards and explore the map to reach.

Is survive meant to be escape on the poll? Because I don't see much difference between defend and survive (I guess defend means you have a specific point to stop the enemy reaching while survive you have to just not die, but functionally they're going to work out pretty similar).

On 9/19/2022 at 4:59 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Rout. Seize is a shitty objective, no thanks to Binding Blade and its shitfest of long, winding maps. Even putting that game aside, seize is the objective of some of the worst designed maps in the series (I'm looking at YOU, Wooden Cavalry and Winds of Change!)

You really think The Wooden Cavalry would be better if you had to scour the map killing off all the enemies in the corners? I understand why people have issues with The Wooden Cavalry, but its map objective is not the issue. The only map objective that would work better for it than Seize would be Kill the Boss (which in practical terms is almost identical to Seize, it's just marginally easier to warp skip).

On 9/18/2022 at 10:13 PM, lenticular said:

Honestly, my favourite is to have a good variety. Defend objectives are cool, but they're cool because they tend to be rare.They change up the gameplay. If every map were a defend map, they'd get really old really fast. I picked rout, which is one of the least exciting objectives, but also the one that I think can see the most repetition without starting to seriously grate. Rout maps are the meat and potatoes of Fire Emblem, with other objectives being the gravy and the spices.

Honestly...I think I would like to see a game where defend is the only objective. I don't think it'd be as repetitive as it seems. Because if makes up the majority of the game then the game is going to be designed around it. Like, suddenly Obstruct is a crazy useful skill and Amoured Knights are among the better classes. Course it would be easy to fuck up, but some kind of tower defense Fire Emblem isn't the worst idea in the world. It would also have a very unique narrative to justify that decision. Like the characters are transporting around some kind of ring of power that  the villains are after.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Jotari

[Hawkwing]

I'll go with defend as my favorite. For better or worse, in several Fire Emblem games you tend to do more damage during the enemy phase than on the players turn, and defend maps take advantage of that. I do agree that they work best when spaced out throughout the game, though I wouldn't mind seeing defend maps be the focus of a Fire Emblem title. It would require being designed from the ground up, but I think mechanics like setting up traps and ambushes or spying on enemies before combat could be interesting to experience at least once.

Rout maps have never bothered me personally, though that could just be because I've played so many videogames were "kill everything" was the standard objective that I never saw it as unusual that Fire Emblem did the same. Rout maps with reinforcements can go to hell though (I don't count cantors because at least there are some interesting strategies for dealing with them, and killing the summoner causes their monsters to disappear. Standing on a fort is incredibly boring).

Defeat Boss and Seize are interesting on paper. In practice, they end up being either "rout maps you can end early" or "an excuse to bombard the player with reinforcements".

I'd be down for seeing more varied objectives in future games, such as assassinating a target and then escaping the map, or having to deal with multiple bosses and whichever one you defeat first leads to a route split, or having more engaging side objectives that go beyond "open a chest before a thief does" or "prevent the village from being destroyed".

[Shadow Mir]

On 9/22/2022 at 8:31 PM, Jotari said:

You really think The Wooden Cavalry would be better if you had to scour the map killing off all the enemies in the corners? I understand why people have issues with The Wooden Cavalry, but its map objective is not the issue. The only map objective that would work better for it than Seize would be Kill the Boss (which in practical terms is almost identical to Seize, it's just marginally easier to warp skip).

No. To be honest, I don't think you can do much, if anything, to improve a map that is almost all long range attackers. For the record, I generally don't have serious issues with long range enemies, mainly because on the maps they show up, they're almost always a small minority of enemies and worst comes to worst, they can be stalled out because long range weapons have very few uses. Wooden Cavalry flips that on its head, as not only are the long-rangers the huge majority of enemies, you can't feasibly stall them out.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

No. To be honest, I don't think you can do much, if anything, to improve a map that is almost all long range attackers. For the record, I generally don't have serious issues with long range enemies, mainly because on the maps they show up, they're almost always a small minority of enemies and worst comes to worst, they can be stalled out because long range weapons have very few uses. Wooden Cavalry flips that on its head, as not only are the long-rangers the huge majority of enemies, you can't feasibly stall them out.

So its unfair to blame Seize as a map objective.

[MadBoar]

One of my favorite chapters is chapter 26 of Path of Radiance. Even though it is officially a seize map, it is actually a defend map. You must protect Elincia from the hoards of enemies.  Chapter 10 of fates is also one of the greats. 

Edited September 25, 2022 by MadBoar

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Room-temperature take: "Defend" is never actually a win condition. It's a loss condition. The win condition in "Defend" maps is to "Survive" to the designated turn count, without triggering any of the loss conditions.

Anyway, I answered "Seize". It's very plain, but I would say there's a lot of thought that can go into it. It's not just "send in one dodgy 1-2 range unit who kills everyone on enemy phase" or "warp one player-phase monster to assassinate the boss". You can do the latter, but even then, you need to send the Lord to the Seize point as well. And if you can't do it on the same turn, your "bosskill" unit may be threatened by regular mooks.

Second-favorite would probably be "Defeat Bosses". I like buffing a single bosskill unit and sending them in to do the deed, but it's often trivial to achieve. That's where having a second, or even third, "commander" unit comes into play. You need to plan for both of them. Do you divide your forces, and designate separate bosskills for each of them? Or, if you use the same unit, how do you ensure they survive against all the enemies around boss-1? It's a question that doesn't always have a clear answer.

If I were picking a least-favorite, it would have to be "Rout". This one tends to just turn into "put a ball of stats with 1-2 range on a forest/fort tile". I feel like it requires the least thought of any of them. Not only that, but it's especially punishing in fog-of-war maps, where enemies stay hidden, and you basically have to weed 'em out. Or if reinforcements show up, often forcing you to go back to the starting point to deal with them.

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

So its unfair to blame Seize as a map objective.

Maybe, but it certainly doesn't help. Its design is so bad that I'd actively encourage warpskipping it. And honestly, Fates is the only game that even tries to make seize not shit (and STILL fails because it has its fair share of bad seize chapters too). All this being said, I prefer a FE game to have a variety of map objectives.

Edited September 25, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

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

Room-temperature take: "Defend" is never actually a win condition. It's a loss condition. The win condition in "Defend" maps is to "Survive" to the designated turn count, without triggering any of the loss conditions.

Anyway, I answered "Seize". It's very plain, but I would say there's a lot of thought that can go into it. It's not just "send in one dodgy 1-2 range unit who kills everyone on enemy phase" or "warp one player-phase monster to assassinate the boss". You can do the latter, but even then, you need to send the Lord to the Seize point as well. And if you can't do it on the same turn, your "bosskill" unit may be threatened by regular mooks.

Second-favorite would probably be "Defeat Bosses". I like buffing a single bosskill unit and sending them in to do the deed, but it's often trivial to achieve. That's where having a second, or even third, "commander" unit comes into play. You need to plan for both of them. Do you divide your forces, and designate separate bosskills for each of them? Or, if you use the same unit, how do you ensure they survive against all the enemies around boss-1? It's a question that doesn't always have a clear answer.

If I were picking a least-favorite, it would have to be "Rout". This one tends to just turn into "put a ball of stats with 1-2 range on a forest/fort tile". I feel like it requires the least thought of any of them. Not only that, but it's especially punishing in fog-of-war maps, where enemies stay hidden, and you basically have to weed 'em out. Or if reinforcements show up, often forcing you to go back to the starting point to deal with them.

How often has the series done multiple Kill Bosses as a goal? I think Grondor revisited might be that in Three Houses, but otherwise I'm drawing a blank. Ceallach and Valter should have been that as people have said, but they aren't. I think there was one bonus Hector mode chapter that involved capturing three castles or something in Blazing Blade, though my memories on nit are iffy (and that sounds more like multiple seize points ala Genealogy only smaller, instead of multiple boss kill). Is Grondor the only instances?

[lenticular]

14 minutes ago, Jotari said:

How often has the series done multiple Kill Bosses as a goal? I think Grondor revisited might be that in Three Houses, but otherwise I'm drawing a blank. Ceallach and Valter should have been that as people have said, but they aren't. I think there was one bonus Hector mode chapter that involved capturing three castles or something in Blazing Blade, though my memories on nit are iffy (and that sounds more like multiple seize points ala Genealogy only smaller, instead of multiple boss kill). Is Grondor the only instances?

It comes up at least one other time in Three Houses, in non-CF chapter 16, where you have to defeat Ladislava, Acheron, Ferdinand and Lorenz. I want to say it comes up somewhere else in Three Houses as well, though I can't immediately think of where.

Unrelated, another option that I like are maps with multiple possible objectives where you can choose which one you complete. Survive for n turns or kill the boss. Kill the boss or rout all other enemies. That sort of thing. More player choice is typically a good thing.

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Kill the boss or rout all other enemies.

You're saying kill every enemy except the boss? Have they ever done that? I could see it as a particularly unique recruitment method for a Douglas like character.

In general though, for most players the difference between rout and kill boss can look like this

Surprised no one has linked this video before now.

Edited September 25, 2022 by Jotari