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On August 01 2019 01:54 Duka08 wrote:
The narrative and characters in Conquest were so bad that it made me put the game down before I finished despite how good the actual gameplay was. Maybe that means I'll actually like the other aspects of Three Houses even if the overall SRPG approach is less inspired.
Maybe I'm the problem D:
Haha I've had this thought many times when it comes to FE.
I think of FE10 as one of the best games I ever played (Nostalgia plays a part I'm sure), and every FE I've played afterwards just feels so bad... This one is no different so far. F all the monastery stuff, pls just give me simple gameplay with a great story, great music, and challenging maps.
Preferred it when your units were locked into a class. No reclassing and all that bs just a straightforward promotion path.
To each their own, I'm sure this game will sell wayyyy better than FE10 ever did.
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Reclassing is my biggest gripe with the new games, but it's unfortunately here to stay. It was handled pretty well in Conquest, but I've barely played any maps in three houses so far despite having spent hours in the daily life stuff.
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Given the disagreement over reclassing as a mechanic over the.last 10 years, I'm surprised there hasn't been more community pushback given how reclassing went from an optional feature to being a core gameplay mechanic that is mandatory for the player to engage.
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My Unit became overwhelmingly popular, and it got inseparable with class changes. I don't think they're going to get much resistance from the new core audience.
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On August 01 2019 23:49 TheYango wrote:
given how reclassing went from an optional feature to being a core gameplay mechanic that is mandatory for the player to engage.
Mind elaborating more on this? I never played anything older than Awakening so this sounds interesting. Do you mean promoting or secondary class (or both)
The My Unit difference makes sense but I usually don't go insane changing classes (other than promoting). I'm also not usually pushing Lunatic or higher though...
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Netherlands45349 Posts
I think its fun and good because I can be more versatile with the charactets and units that I want to play with. It also makes "stacking classes" a thing though ill admit so it does take away some strategic stuff but honestly I think for most people the control over the characters and roster much more important.
Also my Bow Rider Bernadetta is a fucking monster moves superfast hits from far away and does high dmg.
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I don't know if it's exactly mandatory, but it's really hard to have enough resources to clear map objectives if you ignore the class change seals. Your options are so limited that it's borderline not fun to play. The first My Unit/Joker class changes in particular blow the game wide open as far as how many options you have in Conquest.
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On August 02 2019 00:58 Kipsate wrote:
I think its fun and good because I can be more versatile with the charactets and units that I want to play with. It also makes "stacking classes" a thing though ill admit so it does take away some strategic stuff but honestly I think for most people the control over the characters and roster much more important.
Yeah this is sort of the feeling I get when I play. There's soooooooo many fuckin characters and support lore and huge team size that it really feels like they just want you to pick the ones you actually like or want to use most, and just try to make it work. And reclassing helps a bit since you can fill any holes in your line up if you have your favorites chosen but don't have a particular role (or if you just hate all of the characters of a specific class lol).
That's the way I'd imagine most people use the secondary classing, not abusing it, just trying to have more fun with the characters they prefer. The min/maxing angle and late promoting and reclassing after maxing out and all that is a whole different story that's only going to affect the minority pushing the harder difficulties.
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On August 02 2019 01:02 chocorush wrote:
I don't know if it's exactly mandatory, but it's really hard to have enough resources to clear map objectives if you ignore the class change seals. Your options are so limited that it's borderline not fun to play. The first My Unit/Joker class changes in particular blow the game wide open as far as how many options you have in Conquest.
I actually think its fine in 3H for the reclass stuff. A lot of the paths requires certain weapon ranks to take certifications properly. And Byleth gets very low weapon rank stuff on your first playthrough. If you aren't using NG+ stuff, you are going to be severely locked to a 1 set path you choose unless you heavily use Byleth over many of your students. And by heavily, I mean like clearing half or more of the map with them, making them carry your team alone basically.
On my first play through my Byleth did not even get to a Master class because they just couldn't get high enough weapon ranks to take the certification. So I don't really know where you are going to have so much weapon skill that you can reclass at will to other things, when getting the 1st one in your first playthrough is already extremely hard to do.
In my second playthrough, I could see having the ability to swap around classes for sure, just because of what the NG+ stuff allows. But by that point you are playing for difficulty rather than everything, so the ability to be flexible is fine imo.
I think 3H did a fine job with classes. You basically plan ahead of what you want a characters master class to be, and there is generally 1 or 2 routes through the classes you can go to get to that class at the end.
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Yeah, I didn't really breed super-units in 3H except in NG+ or bother with reclassing. I'm not even sure how much it would improve them as you only get 5 ability slots and 3 combat arts. Straight promotion feels very organic/appropriate for each character (except the ones who get screwed because the Master classes have PIT requirements for some). A few too many of the master classes are "you're now on a horse/pegasus/Wyvern" for my tastes, though.
In particular the hero being a pain to train in Heavy Armor/Riding/Flying or multiple weapons skills keeps them feeling like their own unit, which I kind of like.
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On August 02 2019 03:09 TheTenthDoc wrote:
Yeah, I didn't really breed super-units in 3H except in NG+ or bother with reclassing. I'm not even sure how much it would improve them as you only get 5 ability slots and 3 combat arts. Straight promotion feels very organic/appropriate for each character (except the ones who get screwed because the Master classes have PIT requirements for some). A few too many of the master classes are "you're now on a horse/pegasus/Wyvern" for my tastes, though.
In particular the hero being a pain to train in Heavy Armor/Riding/Flying or multiple weapons skills keeps them feeling like their own unit, which I kind of like.
I agree there are a lot of mounted units in the Master class area, but with the addition of dismounting at will, none of them are penalized greatly by having mounts.
The biggest disadvantage of these is that you have to actually get riding/flying skill so high up that if you didn't plan ahead then you have like no choice in a master class. Not that its a terrible thing though, since advanced classes are good enough in most cases to get you to end game with enough levels.
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Oh, the problem isn't them being penalized. It's mostly just that it equalizes mobility to such an extent that your "dedicated" mounted units feel less special.
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On August 02 2019 00:50 Duka08 wrote:
Mind elaborating more on this? I never played anything older than Awakening so this sounds interesting. Do you mean promoting or secondary class (or both)
Secondary classes.
What makes 3H different from the DS and 3DS era games with reclassing is that it's no longer simply an optional mechanic. The sub-game of "what is the best class for me to put X character in" is not an aspect of those games you are ever forced to engage with. You can, and it provides significant benefit to do so, but the core gameplay in all those games functions without ever engaging with the mechanic.
This is not the case in 3 Houses because there is no "default" progression for any unit. Meme Commoner-only runs aside, you are essentially required to play the subgame of choosing progression paths for every unit you recruit. There is no "ignore reclassing and play with default classes" because nobody has default classes. You have to be deciding and planning from the get-go what weapon ranks to raise your units in, and what class lines to send them down.
I personally don't mind this kind of optimization gameplay, but it bears noting that this is decidedly a gameplay cycle that is not fundamentally "Fire Emblem". It's not part of the core Fire Emblem experience and many traditional FE players may not like the fact that this sub-game is such a large part of time spent in the game. You don't really have the option to not engage with the JRPG planning/management aspects of the game like you did in previous games and just play the maps with units as they are. You have to engage with the new mechanics.
From a practical perspective its also worth noting that IS has historically been horrendous at actually designing and balancing these RPG planning/management aspects in prior Fire Emblems. Pretty much every such mechanic in prior games (e.g. reclassing in Awakening/Fates, forging in every game, etc.) has clear-cut, obviously-broken optimal solutions that people figure out after playing the game for a week. IS does not have a good track record in terms of designing these systems with the level of depth and balance needed for them to actually be engaging rather than just an easy way to trivialize the intended difficulty level of the game. Hell, never-mind these auxiliary mechanics, IS has been using the same core stat system for 30 years and still really hasn't fixed the system to not make funneling XP into 1-2 juggernauts the trivial optimum resource distribution, or the fact that 2-3 of your 8 core attributes are functionally worthless and are almost irrelevant to determining a unit's capabilities. In many ways adding on all these flashy auxiliary mechanics before fixing core design problems in your rules engine feels like its putting the cart before the horse.
On August 02 2019 00:58 Kipsate wrote:
I think its fun and good because I can be more versatile with the charactets and units that I want to play with. It also makes "stacking classes" a thing though ill admit so it does take away some strategic stuff but honestly I think for most people the control over the characters and roster much more important.
"Stacking" a bunch of classes to get skills is not really a real thing outside of Awakening Apotheosis and Fates PVP. In normal maingame play it's simply not actually worth the time and cost to do so.
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Isn't there essentially a "default" progression for every unit? They have standardized strengths, and even if you have no idea what's going on the characters themselves prompt you to change their goals. The game is easy enough where if you completely auto pilot the managment section, you should still rofl stomp the game with your lord + byleth.
I do think the master class design is strange and the balance is super off. I'm kind of reveling in it anyways, I guess.
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Honestly all this sort of discussion makes me more interested really, even if it's "different" for FE. I'll take new things and pros+cons over "games good but the story is written by six year olds 4head"
Forgot to ask but does the three path branching let you restart "from the branch" so to speak and omit the first part leading up to it (like Fates, I think)? Or is there enough beforehand to warrant replaying from scratch each time
Not that I expect too many people to have played multiple branches all the way through yet given most of you were saying first full playthrough was about ~40hrs lol
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28090 Posts
On August 02 2019 11:28 EchelonTee wrote:
Isn't there essentially a "default" progression for every unit? They have standardized strengths, and even if you have no idea what's going on the characters themselves prompt you to change their goals. The game is easy enough where if you completely auto pilot the managment section, you should still rofl stomp the game with your lord + byleth.
I do think the master class design is strange and the balance is super off. I'm kind of reveling in it anyways, I guess.
Yea I've mostly been doing the defaults (with a few exceptions) and it's pretty hard to see myself losing at any point (playing hard/classic). I'm hoping Lunatic mode forces us to actually do some interesting strats tbh.
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Halfway through the deer route and I feel comfortable to share some thoughts on the game. This is not the Fire Emblem I was expecting when I think of Fire Emblem, nor was this the Fire Emblem I wanted. I prefer the classic FE style. That being said this is a good game, and I do enjoy playing it. Game play wise I think the immense flexibility provided should provide for interesting challenges for lunatic and the rumored infernal difficulties to come. I think there is going to be a lot of experimentation done to determine what is the most efficient way to spend the first half of the game in preparation for the 2nd half. I do wonder how unforgiving it will be compared to Conquest Lunatic in that sense.
Personally I really really really don't like the Monastery. I'm not the type of player to enjoy sidequests and grinding etc, which is precisely what the school is all about. Story missions end up being few and far between. Actual game play takes a backseat, which is so backwards for FE. That being said, I think there is a lot to be found with the paralogue maps. Every single paralogue map is more difficult than the story missions from what I have seen, and a lot of them have interesting objectives and map design that provide far more interesting a challenge than the story itself. I dislike having to find that in the paralogues, but happy that it is here.
Storywise...it's ok. The avatar is still really weak and cliche storywise, and I am not a fan by any means. Robin Corrin Kris Mark Byleth...none of them have had a truly positive impact on the story. I read through all the spoilers and seen the cutscenes. I do like Dimitri, especially post timeskip. I think what they have done with him isn't really like anything we have seen from FE lords. Edelgard may be my least favorite lord in the series, but I hate Dany Targ so. Claude ended up being far more generic than I had anticipated, but failed to have the same brilliance and subtle nuance I found in Eliwood, who I thought to be Claude's closest counterpart at first.
It's a fun game, and a great time sink, but it's not my favorite FE. Not sure if it's even in the top 5 for me.
I will say as a final point, I appreciate the risks IS took in this game, but I don't like the direction I think this implies they will be taken the series in moving forward, especially given the glowing praise the game receives from so very many people, veterans and newcomers alike.
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I just wish there weren't so many subsystems that all need much more explanation than what the game throws at you.
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They still failed to fix the fundamental problem with paralogues from Awakening/Fates which is that they disrupt the difficulty curve through the game. Certain paralogues like Sylvain's are unreasonably rewarding on top of already provinding a bunch of additional XP.
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On August 02 2019 11:38 Duka08 wrote:
Honestly all this sort of discussion makes me more interested really, even if it's "different" for FE. I'll take new things and pros+cons over "games good but the story is written by six year olds 4head"
Forgot to ask but does the three path branching let you restart "from the branch" so to speak and omit the first part leading up to it (like Fates, I think)? Or is there enough beforehand to warrant replaying from scratch each time
Not that I expect too many people to have played multiple branches all the way through yet given most of you were saying first full playthrough was about ~40hrs lol
Unfortunately you don't get to restart from the branch, and the Part 1 story missions are all identical (well, almost all). The only difference is story-based really (that said, the Black Eagles story in particular would be nonsensical if you could jump in at Part 2). That said, recruiting different people can get you different paralogues, and the distributions of character archetypes in the houses are fairly different. If you cheese with Stride I think they will feel pretty same-y though.
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