Amount of Dragon Time Crystal Charges

[Emobot7]

So, apparently, the amount of Dragon Time Crystal charges (Engage version of the Divine Pulse or Mila's Turnwheel) on normal difficulty would be infinite? And on maddening (and potentially on hard as well) it would be 10 charges. Its what I seen and understood as of now at least.

Personally, I'd rather the amount of charges was a separate option at this point because while I think its completely fine for some players to want to have the extra cushion of infinite charges, I don't really see much difference between playing in casual mode and playing with infinite charges. 

This is not a thread to look down on people who are fine with having infinite charges or to play game on lower difficulty, I just wanted to know how people felt about the amount of charges of the Dragon Time Crystal and what it imply. 

Personally, as someone who alway played his first game on classic/normal, I'm honestly tempted to make Engage my first Fire Emblem in which I play on Hard on my first playthrough as if the difficulty is similar to Three House, I believe 10 charges would be more than enough for me.

[Maimishou]

I'm glad normal has infinite charges. I suck at these games, I'm not going to deny that. While I would prefer Phoenix Mode over a rewird feature myself, if it's going to be there I'd at least like to be able to use it as much as I need without having to worry too hard about running out of charges. I'm fine with it being limited on higher difficulties but on the easiest one? I'm in full suppor tof there being no limit.

[Polemarco]

The mechanics of going back in time don't bother me, but that if having infinites takes away the fun of the strategy a bit, according to me, I'll probably also play on difficult for the same reason, so it's understandable (although you can also decide not to). use it if it doesn't end up being too much of a challenge on normal)

[Popers1328]

I think it's a good change, here's my spiel on Turnwheel/Divine Pulse/Dragonic Time Crystals (Do they seriously have to keep making the name longer) which explains why that is.

I basically agree with every argument why it can be harmful. It discourages strategy, doesn't punish players for their mistakes, it's obsoletes permadeath and so on. The thing is, not every person playing cares that much about strategy and some just wan to cheat and not get punished for mistakes. Having it there for those players is fine and for other players it's nice to be able to rewind a misclick or truly terrible RNG screwing them over at the end of a map they just really don't want to replay. The issue with Three Houses implementation (which relates to problems with the game's core design) is that the game was designed and balanced with Divine Pulse in mind and actively discourages players from not using it.

Here's how Three Houses does that:
- When Sothis gives you the power she tells you to use it to protect your students. Byleth also uses it in a cutscene to save Edelgard. This tells the player that it is their job as a teacher to always use Divine Pulse to save their students.
- The game automatically activates Divine Pulse when you would normally get a game over. This tells the player that they aren't supposed to get a game over and reset when someone dies, they are SUPPOSED to use Divine Pulse.
- The player is rewarded with more uses as they spend renown and complete certain paralogues. This tells the player the Divine Pulse is an integrated game mechanic that's a part of the game's experience and NOT a quality of life feature for people who want it.
- The game gives you a very small roster of characters to work with and is designed around you maximizing your investment into those characters. Any character other character is someone you might replace in your team to put that investment into them instead or to use as an adjutant. The game is not designed around permadeath and if permadeath isn't a valid option, it tells the player they should just use Divine Pulse because you're not supposed to let anyone die.

Here's how it seems Engage fixes that:
- As far as we know Draconic Time Crystals are just something that's given to you and is not involved in the story or cutscenes at all. This tells the player that this power is not a part of the world and should be seen as separate and not a part of the game's intended experience.
- The game automatically activates Divine Pulse if Alear dies, but if you press B the game will ask you if you want a Game Over instead. This tells the player that it's okay to choose not to use Divine Pulse and just reset if they prefer.
- The player gets all 10 uses at the beginning. While we technically don't know if that actually is all of them, it' s very reasonable to conclude that it is and there's likely no function to get more. This avoids the problem of the player feeling like the game wants them to use it by giving it out as a reward.
- The game gives you every character in a single playthrough instead of dividing it's cast into thirds so you actually have options in case somebody dies. Characters have far less investment, mostly just EXP and bond ranks (which you can make up for with arena training and spending bond crystals), instead of months of irreplaceable tutoring you can't make up for if someone dies. This allows Permadeath to be a viable game mechanic.
- Maybe this one's not fair but in the Japanese trailer they released on Christmas they introduced the mechanic as being for beginners and basically called it overpowered. Anyone in Japan who saw that trailer knows that Draconic Time Crystals are a mechanic to help people who need it and not an integrated part of the game everyone is supposed to use which is the mentality people should have about it.

Basically I think Rewinds as a mechanic work best when implemented and identified to the player as a QoL feature so players feel more comfortable choosing not to use it, while still having it there as an option for people who do want it. The only real changes I would make to Engage's system are to make it not appear at all if you toggle it off in the options or at the start of the game and give it infinite uses regardless of difficulty. If it has limited uses, that tells the player it's a resource to take advantage rather than an overpowered cheat mechanic that enhances Quality of Life for people who just suck at the game and don't care or they misclicked or something. Having infinite uses tells the player it's up to them to decide what's appropriate, whether that be none, 3, 10, or as much as you want.

Any attempts to change or weaken it's effects in order to lessen it's impact on players who don't want to be overpowered miss the whole point of Rewinds. It should be there for people who want it but also not designed in a way that's intrusive for people who don't. I myself feel a lot more comfortable going into Engage without using any Rewinds which is something I would absolutely never do in Three Houses. I plan to Ironman the game on Hard mode in my first playthrough and God knows I'm not Ironmanning 3H.

[Mirron]

From what people have said even with ten charges it was challenging enough. Now, they probably aren't major FE fans, but to me it says that it's hard enough that you'll probably wind up using them all, and so long as the difficulty is primarily stuff that is on the field as opposed to off the field reinforcements this is a positive step for people who are against it, as it means the game is being extremely tactical. I'm not really worried as I've never had any issue not using it unless needed so it'll just depend on how difficult the game is now.

[Lynsanity]

Frankly I'm just glad Fire Emblem hasn't implemented an EXP share mechanic to keep all your units the same level. I'm scarred by my other favourite series, Pokemon, making Exp All mandatory and recently removing the "Set" battle style. The FE equivalent would be, idk, always prompting you to Turnwheel after every character loss, and auto-leveling even your benched characters.

Of course series veterans will still be able to self-impose their own challenges. The only thing to discuss is how new players will ever find the same appeal of the series, if babying features are presented as the default playstyle. I always liken it to if a Mario platformer gave you invincibility and flight at the start of every level, unless you go into the settings and turn it off. That shouldn't be the default! But as long as game developers have these ideas of "people have less time to play video games now" or "we have to compete with mobile games", default settings will just keep getting easier and easier.

[Shadow Mir]

7 minutes ago, Lynsanity said:

I'm scarred by my other favourite series, Pokemon, making Exp All mandatory

Ack. When was that? Scarlet and Violet?

[Lynsanity]

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Ack. When was that? Scarlet and Violet?

Yes. Though I was already annoyed with it as far back as X and Y when it was set to "On" by default. I think difficulty easing things like this should always be opt-ins, not opt-outs.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Lynsanity said:

Yes. Though I was already annoyed with it as far back as X and Y when it was set to "On" by default. I think difficulty easing things like this should always be opt-ins, not opt-outs.

Personally, I didn't mind going out of my way to get another mon up to speed with the rest of my longer-time party. This sounds like it'll make that harder when they'll still be getting experience without me having any say in the matter...

Edited January 9, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Emobot7]

On 1/9/2023 at 3:01 PM, Lynsanity said:

On 1/9/2023 at 2:50 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Ack. When was that? Scarlet and Violet?

Yes. Though I was already annoyed with it as far back as X and Y when it was set to "On" by default. I think difficulty easing things like this should always be opt-ins, not opt-outs.

Actually, exp all was made mandatory since Sword and Shield. And yeah, I do believe it should remain an option. For me, one of my biggest grip with Violet and Scarlet is the fact we don't have set mode anymore. I know you're not forced to use the switch mode but its annoying to constanly have to press B whenever you beat a pokemon and I think I did use it a couple of time by mistake because i was too into it and meant to switch pokemon anyway.

 

On 1/9/2023 at 2:43 PM, Lynsanity said:

I always liken it to if a Mario platformer gave you invincibility and flight at the start of every level, unless you go into the settings and turn it off.

Thats actually a really good comparison. Like, we know the amount is different for hard and normal so why is it so complicated to make an option unrelated to difficulty which allow to change the amount of charge? I'd be happy with that myself. More option is never a bad thing especially if its ain't an very hard option to add in the game. 

 

On 1/8/2023 at 10:35 PM, Popers1328 said:

Having infinite uses tells the player it's up to them to decide what's appropriate, whether that be none, 3, 10, or as much as you want.

Well obviously, you can alway set your own limit but considering how easy it propably would have been to add an option unrelated to difficulty level, I think its a bit of a shame we have to do it ourself. 

Personally, I think the rewinds ability are a great quality of live feature and I don't mind using a few to salvage a chapter if thing doesn't go my way and while I could propably limit myself, I kinda worry having access to infinite rewind would slowly make me lose my capacity to plan more carefully, that I would stop caring about the challenge, a bit like it become harder to make mental calculation if you switch completely to a calculator for a while. 

Just to be clear, I know this isn't an huge issue and I'm might be over-reacting a bit. Simply puting a limit on oneself as long as you have enough willpower to stick to said limit would be enough to fix this issue but at the same time, I really don't understand why something they themselve considered to be for begginers has to be in the default normal setting. Its like they saying veteran should only play on Hard or on Maddening in a way and as a long time Fire Emblem who generally play most of my game on Normal, I find this a bit dissapointing. Like, I got no problem with casualisation, it make it so more people can play the game and thats good. My problem is that its feeling more and more like we got the choice between Easy and Hard in more recent games and that the Normal difficulty is just dissapearing. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by Emobot7

[Mirron]

I mean Hard mode is intended for Veterans I believe. That’s what I’ve heard said many times now. In spite of the name Normal is Easy mode. Games with a lower difficulty being the exception but still. 

[Kliss88]

On 1/9/2023 at 1:43 PM, Lynsanity said:

Frankly I'm just glad Fire Emblem hasn't implemented an EXP share mechanic to keep all your units the same level.

Isn't that kinda what Echoes did with the Exp you get at the end of the battles?

[FashionEmblem]

On 1/9/2023 at 7:22 PM, Emobot7 said:

Actually, exp all was made mandatory since Sword and Shield.

[obnoxious pedantic voice]: Um, actually, they first did it in Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee. Seems like everyone forgets that one because at the time it seemed like just a quirky spinoff instead of a harbinger of what's to come (forced exp share, cutting Pokemon, even easier story campaign).

With infinite rewinds + casual mode, you essentially give a green light to suicide strats. I don't think that's a fun way to play a strategy game, personally, but I'm not opposed to having the option exist. Even in strategy games without permadeath, like Triangle Strategy, I try to minimize deaths (though late enough into a map, I won't reset if a character hits 0 HP). I suppose there is some quality of life on not even having to bother rejiggering your strategy should a character die—for example, they were felled by an unlucky crit and you don't want to deal with fiddling with the RNG.

I think as long as the maps don't use rewind as a crutch, it's a fine mechanic. In Three Houses there are lots of instances, especially on Maddening, where the game surprises you and probably forces you to burn a Divine Pulse. Examples include same turn reinforcements, such as Chapter 5 thief hell in its NE corner, the Death Knight and his reinforcements appearing towards the end of Chapter 8, the Death Knight running away and changing the lose condition at Fort Merceus (outside BL), and Bernie and Petra's paralogue where the original win condition is fake even if you manage to stride/dance/warp your way to the destination on turn 1 (summoning reinforcements, including a 10-range meteor Hubert who can one shot most of your characters on Maddening).

After playing Three Hopes I understand Koe Tecmo's design choices—that game relies a good amount on surprising you into a bad position to create tension during a level. Problem is that the design philosophy ended up feeling cheap in an SRPG and Divine Pulse just served to paper over it—a mere band-aid. I do wish there were fewer charges of rewind for added challenge, maybe 3-5 on the highest difficulty, but frankly I don't care that much and will probably use all my available charges as needed.

[Shadow Mir]

12 hours ago, FashionEmblem said:

the Death Knight running away and changing the lose condition at Fort Merceus (outside BL)

I have failed to defeat him before he ran off. It ain't a game over, it only changes the objective to rout the enemy.

[FashionEmblem]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I have failed to defeat him before he ran off. It ain't a game over, it only changes the objective to rout the enemy.

I meant more that if you've strewn your units around the map without planning for the Death Knight to start his move in a blind playthrough, for example if you are going for the brave axe drop, then you might not have people near enough to kill him in time. I haven't lost that map due to the Death Knight escaping, but I have definitely had a couple of times where I only managed to just barely defeat him on the last turn before his escape. I'm not sure what triggers his flight, whether it starts on a specific turn or because the player's units cross over some area of the map, but it definitely can scramble your strategy and on Maddening enemy quality is high enough that you can have a tough time catching up to him.