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Yeah Lunatic CQ has only minor changes from Hard until about 2/3 of the way through (e.g. I think the soldier gets to the houses a turn earlier on Lunatic Ch. 8 or the DV moving in Ch. 12). The difficulty jump is a lot less than in previous games--though part of that is the difficulty curve being better throughout (most hard modes in previous FEs are hard at the beginning and taper off while Conquest's difficulty is much more consistent, and arguably even ramps upward toward the end).
IMO the right way to do what you're suggesting would probably be for them to attempt another "Lunatic+"-like mode that has both the skills and the stat inflation (though not so much as Awakening L+).
The other option which I've seen suggested is adding stricter turn requirements to the turn limit chapters and adding turn limits to some of the chapters that have none. Adding the necessity of going fast actually helps to fix some of Conquest's poorer maps that are interesting conceptually but uninteresting in practice due to the lack of incentive to actually progress quickly through the map.
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I think there certainly cases where time restrictions would have been a welcome addition, but I can understand why the developers would have elected not to do so for certain maps.
For example, (Yango knows about this) chapter 20 I died several times at first because of the wind mechanic. While I can't speak with certainty, I'm sure that level would have become exponentially harder if I had to clear it in X amount of turns. Of course that being said, if I'm already playing on Lunatic, then would that be as big of a concern? That's hard to judge.
The other thing they could do for time restrictions is get creative for having turtling disincentives. So for example, instead of having "clear the map in X turns" they could use more thieves, untimely enemy reinforcements, having to protect A unit from B attacker, etc. Or they could get super creative and do a map where you're on one end of the map and they are a bunch of enemies on the opposite end of the map, but both parties are racing to get to the middle of the map. And that's just one example!
Basically I what I'm trying to say is that I think there are a lot of ways to create time pressure without actually doing "clear map in X turns". The StarCraft II campaign was really, really good about creating time pressure without saying "clear the map in X minutes".
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Side objectives are actually much harder to balance than turn limits though, because you have to weigh their long-term effect on the game at large. If they're not significant enough, people will just skip them and they won't have accomplished your goal. If they're too impactful, then they might dramatically impact how you have to balance the rest of the game because of the difference in resources available to a player who skipped side objectives vs. one who didn't.
For example, I'd argue that not getting all 3 villages in Ch.8 can have a significant effect on how hard a player feels Ch. 10 is 2 chapters later, since options they could otherwise leverage to reduce the difficulty such as early-promoting a unit may become unavailable depending on how much money they got from Ch. 8. Or a previously discussed example--how usable Leo is as a lategame unit correlates heavily to obtaining side objectives that allow you to invest in him (Horse God/Calamity Gate from Ophelia's paralogue, extra side objective Secret Books and Speedwings).
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Hmm, interesting points you make. I think you're absolutely right that the consequences of side objectives can have substantial impact later due to a snowballing effect.
What I want to note is that if the primary objective is time based, there are (in my opinion) more interesting ways to make the primary objective time based rather than just saying "clear the chapter in 20 turns".
The other thing I wanted to note about side objectives - not saying this is good or bad - is that players (obviously) get rewarded for completing side objectives. For example: If you made it to all the houses in chapter 8, then you're going to have an easier go at it. However, in order to get to all of the houses you need to be of certain skill. I think it's a safe assumption that to clear chapter 8 and visit all the houses is more difficult than just clearing chapter 8. But I would imagine that there would exist a group of players who can clear chapter 8 but not visit all the houses.
Because of this, the better players get rewarded, while the worse players struggle more. It would seem to me that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, if you get my drift. To be more blunt, I would think this promotes feast or famine game play (though I'm greatly exaggerating to get my point across). And for this I'm a little conflicted about. On one hand it almost seems like a backwards way of thinking about things (in my opinion), but on the other hand I think it makes sense to reward the players who can complete your bonus objectives.
I think one solution would be to make the rewards of the bonus objectives have trivial impact on game play, or to have no effect at all. Cosmetic rewards come to mind. That being said, if the rewards have minimal impact on game play, then is there enough incentive to complete the side objects?
That's not something I have the answer to, I'm just thinking aloud!
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I don't think the pacing is that bad as is, as clearing things faster is usually easier than tanking everything enemy phase, which is a good incentive to play faster.
I'm actually a fan of busted enemy units, but only when the game gives you resources to deal with them. If they can balance staff availability with the games difficulty so that you use them liberally without trivializing the game, that's ideal for me.
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It's not a problem for most of the route, there's just a few stand-out maps where either the incentives to go fast aren't strong enough (e.g. ch. 14 the thieves utterly fail as a turtling disincentive because they only spawn from one side) or the turn limit isn't really strict enough (e.g. Ch. 18 the 20 turn limit is massive overkill).
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I think Yango you're a much, much better player of Fire Emblem than I am, because I used up my 20 turn limit on chapter 18 haha.
Some people like using slow moving armored units you know!
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Well, Conquest is easier for the developers to balance because of the lack of grinding. If the developers can expect players to be roughly a certain level, within a narrow band, they can easily tailor the difficulty to expected player strength. Adding a few key units and abilities in certain key points can provide players with an interesting puzzle to solve. In contrast, an overleveled party in Birthright/Revelations can overpower those few key additions, so the developers just resort to adding difficulty by brute force.
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I mean, given how stupid the unit balance is in Revelation, it's far more likely that they just didn't try in the first place.
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As long as they allow multiple ways to play to accommodate different teams, I don't usually have a problem. I get bored of heavily turtling, so I naturally use strategies that avoid it. There are going to be situations where some people are just not going to have had the right team and will rely on a really slow strategy.
Chapter 26 is a good example, where some teams may just not have the resources to deal with the mage half of the room, and they left you the possibility of turtling the golem half with Flora. I wouldn't dream of it personally, but I'm not bothered by the fact that the option is there.
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I just do the golem half regardless, lol. It's just so much easier.
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On March 16 2016 05:16 chocorush wrote:
As long as they allow multiple ways to play to accommodate different teams
I think for me this is probably one of the most important things to me - is if the game allows (or encourages) different strategies/army compositions.
And that's part of the fun. I like hearing how you guys did things differently compared to myself, or seeing how chocorush and Yango varied, or anyone else for that matter. Like it was cool to learn that Yango and I completed chapter 19 in similar methods, but used wildly different units to achieve our ends.
Being pigeon holed into one strategy is not something I'm a fan of, and it probably my biggest reservation about starting a run on Conquest Lunatic.
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I think multiple approaches is good, I just don't think "layer rallies on 1-2 range superunit, park in range of small # of enemies, let enemies bang their heads against a brick wall, rinse, repeat" should be considered one, lol.
Awakening and Birthright have a huge problem where this is essentially the dominant strategy for large portions of the game. Conquest largely does a good job making this not the dominant approach, but it still presents itself in a few chapters. It's why I hate Ch. 19 so much because for the most part, it's still by far the most painless way to play that map (aside from the 1-2 range part since all the enemies are 1 range). There's not really even a "fast" alternative to 19 because the speed at which you clear the map is still gated by the illusion mechanic.
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On March 16 2016 05:42 TheYango wrote:
I think multiple approaches is good, I just don't think "layer rallies on 1-2 range superunit, park in range of small # of enemies, let enemies bang their heads against a brick wall, rinse, repeat" should be considered one, lol.
What amuses me is how many people who use this strategy act like they just outsmarted AlphaGO. Like you, I also find it a pretty boring style to play. I feel like player phase based strategies are the actual strategies. Letting the AI suicide into you can be pretty funny every now and then but it's pretty much just exploiting a dumb AI.
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On March 16 2016 01:12 TheYango wrote:
It depends on which route you're on, since they're scaled a bit differently.
Lunatic Birthright is scaled largely through enemy density and just adding a bunch more enemy units/reinforcements, with some stat increases. This doesn't really make things hard, more overly tedious.
Lunatic Conquest is scaled largely through skills, status staves, and a few key enemy additions to certain maps e.g. extra status staff users, or a line of generals to block rescue-cheese. Enemy stats are for the most part unchanged from Hard. This makes the route feel mostly fair, with the main exception being Negative Chain Master Ninjas in lategame.
Lunatic Revelation is scaled through enemy stat inflation. It makes the route a huge slog to play and given the already poor unit balance, invalidates a bunch of your units who simply won't have the bases to keep up with the enemy stats at their join times.
In many ways I feel like Luna Rev is as easy if not easier than Luna Birth. Especially when you realize Corrin in the first half and Ryoma/Xander in the second half dominate completely. For the most part unless you want to challenge yourself and make guys like Odin or Arthur part of your core, its pretty simple (granted I still have 3 or 4 chapters to go so maybe endgame will go all out on stat inflation)
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I'm pretty sure Rev Odin is just outright unusable without grinding lol. He gets OHKOed and doubled by Paladins on his join chapter and does 1 damage back to them, and the chapter after is when unpromoted enemies stop appearing.
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On March 16 2016 08:15 TheYango wrote:
I'm pretty sure Rev Odin is just outright unusable without grinding lol. He gets OHKOed and doubled by Paladins on his join chapter and does 1 damage back to them, and the chapter after is when unpromoted enemies stop appearing.
Chap 21 has the whole floor = promote vs demote thing. Plus Rev keeps the entire grind system from Birthright. But yeah, actually having him survive his join is not easy...
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On March 16 2016 06:58 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2016 05:42 TheYango wrote:
I think multiple approaches is good, I just don't think "layer rallies on 1-2 range superunit, park in range of small # of enemies, let enemies bang their heads against a brick wall, rinse, repeat" should be considered one, lol.
What amuses me is how many people who use this strategy act like they just outsmarted AlphaGO. Like you, I also find it a pretty boring style to play. I feel like player phase based strategies are the actual strategies. Letting the AI suicide into you can be pretty funny every now and then but it's pretty much just exploiting a dumb AI.
Well i'm just doing that right now on chapter 25 and hoping the RNG is on my side with my monster Xander and Effie...If there's a single hallway, 6 ninjas, and some really annoying enmies on the other side of the hall way, I don't have that many other options lol.
edit: i'm a horrible fire emblem player i've resetted like 100 times already
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Shurikenbreaker + Lucky Seven on any of the outlaws
EDIT: Chocorush, when you did your Bow Knight playthrough, you did +Str, right? I was thinking of doing a +Mag Bow Knight on my next playthrough to use the Shining Bow, since Niles' Mag doesn't usually get there for the Shining Bow and he's not really a great Spirit Dust candidate when his bulk isn't good enough for him to take advantage of a 1-2 range weapon anyway. You also get a free Shining Bow from Nina's paralogue so it feels like a waste not to find a user for it.
Compared to something like +Mag Paladin, it'd have less baseline damage due to lower growths/caps and since +Mag Paladin gets free damage off of Defender and Elbow Room, but at the same time, the Shining Bow has higher base Mt than the Levin Sword, and since you don't get a Shockstick in Conquest, +Mag Paladin doesn't have WTC with magic weapons while Bow Knight does.
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On March 16 2016 15:47 TheYango wrote:
Shurikenbreaker + Lucky Seven on any of the outlaws
EDIT: Chocorush, when you did your Bow Knight playthrough, you did +Str, right? I was thinking of doing a +Mag Bow Knight on my next playthrough to use the Shining Bow, since Niles' Mag doesn't usually get there for the Shining Bow and he's not really a great Spirit Dust candidate when his bulk isn't good enough for him to take advantage of a 1-2 range weapon anyway. You also get a free Shining Bow from Nina's paralogue so it feels like a waste not to find a user for it.
Compared to something like +Mag Paladin, it'd have less baseline damage due to lower growths/caps and since +Mag Paladin gets free damage off of Defender and Elbow Room, but at the same time, the Shining Bow has higher base Mt than the Levin Sword, and since you don't get a Shockstick in Conquest, +Mag Paladin doesn't have WTC with magic weapons while Bow Knight does.
Would you ever recommed leaving corrin as prince/noble?
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EPT
