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Junpei posted:If it's supposed to be a corruption, I'd go with Valharra. Like this ヴァルハラ I thinks is "Valhalla" While This バーハラ Is what the location is called
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Jan 1, 2017 20:28
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Onmi posted:Like this ヴァルハラ I thinks is "Valhalla" I meant if I was going to do a localization. I only know a little bit of spoken Japanese, mostly from watching anime and video games. Like "Sonna bakana" means "This cannot be!" and other short phrases and words.
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Jan 1, 2017 21:12
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If you wanted a corrupted version of Valhalla, I think the best way would be to have the vowels have shifted. So Velhella (or Velhelle) or something? Instantly recognizable as a mangled Valhalla but doesn't look like a translation fuckup. Not sure if having "hell" in there is fitting or not though. Alternatively the Valla suggestion mentioned earlier, if you want something that's less obvious .
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Jan 2, 2017 15:53
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Junpei posted:If it's supposed to be a corruption, I'd go with Valharra. But that still has the l/r thing so it also looks like a translation mistake rather than an intentional corruption. Onmi posted:Like this ヴァルハラ I thinks is "Valhalla" Google translate says Bahara. Vahala or maybe Vahal seems like a decent corruption of Valhalla that doesn't look like it involves galbage tlansration. (Of course just calling it Valhalla and not having to deal with the issue would be the easiest way around it.) vvv Or that. That works, too. vvv vilkacis fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Jan 3, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 17:00
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See you guys lie trapped by wanting a literal translation. The best translation is clearly "Alvis' Bitchim' Castle"
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Jan 2, 2017 17:36
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Hello widows, widowers, and widowmakers! Welcome to the New Year!  But first...reflect on what happened last update. Imagine you're a 12 year old playing this game for the first time. You're a Japanese school-boy, and you just watched your favorite hero get demolished. You had a whole Generation to stop Manfloy and his goons, and you failed. You throw your controller down, you cry to your parents, you go to school, get home from school...and then you ignore your Super Famicom for a day or two. You take as much time as you need to process all that happened...  And then you grimace. You gird up your loins, pick the game back up, and bring those save files up. And upon hitting that START button...you get...this:    The intense battle over control of the capitol sent most of the powerful lords to their grave. Only Lord Alvis’ plan went without a hitch as he successfully gained full control of the kingdom.  After overthrowing the two opposing kingdoms, Silesia and Lenster, Lord Alvis unified the continent. And with the overwhelming support of the people, he became the first emperor of the Grandbell Empire.DARN THAT DASTAAARD!!   The people who once enthusiastically welcomed Emperor Alvis were now experiencing extreme hardship under his oppresive rule.Oh there's our typical Fire Emblem plot! Except this time, we actually got to SEE what it was like before the "big, huge military power" started getting out of control.  We, as the 10-12 year old child, feel a very palpable sense of guilt for not stopping all this. We established all the way in Chapter 1 that Isaac didn't deserve any of what happened to it; it was all a frame job by Manfloy and his Sect, and we could never do a blasted thing to stop it.  Never...until now. Alvis and co. did wrong...and there WILL be a reckoning!!  King Dannan of Isaac was a merciless ruler, taking much after his father, Duke Langbart. He dropped the social standing of the Isaacian people to that of slaves, while he himself indulged in the pleasures of the royal palace at Rivough.  Dannan’s second oldest son, Johan, presided over Isaac Castle while his youngest, Johalva, presided over Sophara. Dannan’s confidant General Harold administered the remote Ganeishire Castle. He as well relied heavily on oppressive governing tactics to control the citizens."Relied heavily on oppressive governing tactics" + Already angry about Chapter 5 = Dead Man Walking  Prince Shanan had organised a liberation army based in the northern isolated village of Tilnanogue.Shanan...wait! You couldn't mean...   It is! It IS him!  Bwahahaha! AWESOME! Now we get to PLAY as him!  Among the army of young soldiers was one who the Isaacian citizens referred to as ‘the Bringer of Light’. He was also revered as the Imperial Prince of Grandbell.Oh? And is that who I think it is  ? Yes it is~! Prince Celice, IN the flesh! Oh yeah!   BOOM!! Now THAT'S how you do a time skip! THAT'S how you ride the waves of excitement and anger that every li'l kid in the world is feeling!    Dannan: Don’t tell me you haven’t done anything yet. Prince Shanan’s rebel army gets larger each year and they’re meddling with my affairs! Don’t you know they’re harbouring Sigurd the Traitor’s son? With them on the loose my position as King of Isaac is completely being undermined! You tell me how to explain this to His Majesty the Emperor! Harold: I thoroughly understand your concerns, but I have matters under control. We’ve located the rebel army’s hideout, and I have already dispatched forces to subdue them. They have nowhere to run now, so you can sit back and relax as we eliminate the threat. Dannan: Well, we’ll see. But listen closely, Harold. Do not underestimate them! The problem isn’t with the younger rebels, it’s with Oifey and Shanan. You overlook those two and the complications will be far reaching!Like, "whoa, Oifaye and Shanan! Those two guys grew up on the team that we controlled in Gen 1! Better watch out for THOSE two!" Harold: Yes, I understand, but I have information that both Oifey and Shanan are presently away from the rebel hideout in Tilnanogue. Dannan: What? Then what are you waiting for!? Order your men to attack! The Isaacian citizens have made the rebel army out to be some kind of liberation army. They’re treating them like heroes! But I think it’s time to teach them a little lesson. Harold, kill every last one of them! I’ll be back in Rivough awaiting your good news.Pah. Like that's gonna happen on the intro chapter  .    Skasaha: Subjugation forces have left Ganeishire and are heading this way!!  Lakche: Let ’em come! At least we don’t have to waste our time going to them. We can confront the enemy and make an advance on Ganeishire all in one shot. Skasaha: Lakche, you’re crazy! Prince Shanan is still at Yied Shrine, and Oifey hasn’t made it back either. It’s just us! How do you expect us to take them on!?Same way Sigurd always did I guess. Lakche: Skasaha! You’re not scared, are you? This is our chance to see a little action. Shanan still thinks of us as kids. That’s why we almost never get to fight, but we’ve had enough training! Skasaha: But Lakche… Lakche: I’m… I’m so sick of running! Those animals out there have killed too many of my friends! The imperial troops chased us girls… taking us out one after another. If it weren’t for Prince Shanan rescuing me, I wouldn’t be here now! I will never, ever forget what those girls had to go through! Skasaha: Lakche, I know it was horrible, but we…  Celice: I’m sure Shanan gave him strict orders to keep me out of danger. Because if Shanan hadn’t, he would’ve been the first one out there. He is just itching to get into battle. Lakche: Oh, that’s right. I completely forgot about you, sir. Celice: Lakche, I’m not a kid anymore! I can fight just as well as any of you! Anyway, we can’t just turn our backs on Tilnanogue. The people here have done far too much for us already.   Lana: Sir, I’m not staying behind! Celice: I’m not going let you get yourself killed out there. Nuns and warfare DO NOT mix! Lana: Nuns can fight too, you know. I feel just as strongly about this as Lakche does. The imperial troops are becoming crueler with each passing day. It’s dangerous just to be a girl anymore! But I don’t plan to go down without a fight. I have my own means of warfare! Celice: I’m sorry, Lana. You’re right. This is everyone’s battle. Alright. We should get going. It’s hard to say how this is going to turn out… But let’s give it everything we’ve got! Lana: Sorry if I got a little outta hand, sir. Celice: Haha! No problem… Okay. Skasaher, Lakche, Lana… Let’s move!  And there we are! The start of Chapter 6! Now let's see what enemies we got:      Mr. Harold here has what I like to call our first "recoverable item". He's the guy you can get the 2nd Return Ring from if you never bought the Return Ring in Gen 1, or didn't manage to pass it down. We DID pass it down though, so his Return Ring dies with him. Anyways, we got ourselves an all new party, and rating them all at once is going to drag this update to a halt. So I put an overview of all five of them in Testposter instead of the main update. Here they are! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lana Overview Lakche Overview Skasaha Overview Celice Overview --------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Anyway, this is the first instance of what I like to call "Sub Exclusive Moments". I might have covered this before, but, your mothers are not guaranteed to have kids. If they get killed before marrying, their children are replaced by what we call "Substitute Characters". They're mostly carbon copies, except they miss out on Inherited Items, and also tend to have inferior base stats, growths, and skills. Also, their conversations DO differ from their respective child characters at certain points, and this here is our first example of that... SKASAHA AND LAKCHE (+1 Luck for Lakche)  Skasaha: Well, take it easy, alright? We don’t need you pulling any of your stunts out here. Lakche: I’m not a child! You don’t have to speak to me like that.And this is where the differences start... Skasaha: Prince Shanan tells me you’ve got an iron will just like our mother did. Lakche: Aira… Yeah, I have no memories of her whatsoever. How about you, Skasaha? Skasaha: Of course I don’t remember anything! You forget we’re twins or something? We weren’t even two years old yet at the time. We fled to Isaac with Oifaye. But she never showed up. Maybe she didn’t survive the Battle of Barhara after all… Lakche: Skasaha! You promised you’d never say that! She is alive!! Don’t you ever let me catch you saying that again! Skasaha: …I’m sorry, Lakche. Yeah, I shouldn’t have said that.Aaand then we have the Roddlevan and Radney conversation... RODDLEVAN AND RADNEY (+1 Luck for Radney)  Roddlevan: Radney, are you alright? Radney: Yeah, I’m managing. Roddlevan: Well, take it easy, alright? We don’t need you pulling any of your stunts out here. Radney: I’m not a child! You don’t have to speak to me like that. Roddlevan: Sorry. Hey, you know Johan and Johalva, right? Man, I can’t figure them out. Radney: They’re driving me nuts. Geez, I can’t stand men. They make me want to puke! Roddlevan: You just hate men because of the imperial troops. Not all men are like that. Radney: Yeah, I know. But I still get freaked out when I’m around a guy....Huh. Does the man-hate also apply to Lakche, or does that not count? Since she and Skasaha talked about their mom instead  ? Roddlevan: Any guy? Radney: Well, I can handle being around you and Sir Celice. Roddlevan: Hmph… So how about Shanan? Radney: Roddlevan!!*laugh track*  Also, yes; I will give an overview on all the Substitute characters as well. They're just going to be at the end of the update rather than the middle of it.  Whoo, first fight of Gen 2! And uh...   Yyyeah...remember what I said about Celice before? About how he's a guy that starts slow, but then evolves into the most awesome fighter ever?   Yeah, we're just skipping past the "slow" part. This is back in the days where "Seize" was the only objective FE games ever had; so the faster Celice goes, the more turns we save!  Speaking of slow, nothing much happened that Enemy Phase; but that won't be the case for us!  For example, Lakche. She's Level 1, she's got Elite, and the Silver Blade is just strong enough to ORKO almost every non-Armour unit in the Chapter.  Might as well have some fun with that!  Strike 1! .gif) Strike 2!  And strrrike 3! You're out! .gif) Granted, Celice is fragile enough to die here if you're careless; but then, that's why I put him on a Mountain. Do that, and Celice will be guaranteed to survive this next wave of axe fighters. He'll slurp up 4 Levels from the likes of them, get awesome stat ups, recover his HP with the Live Ring and Libro Staff, and then...well, that's basically the whole strategy right there. Heck, you won't even need the Libro Staff after a certain point; this Chapter was designed to accomodate even the most miserable of planners. Everyone can beat this chapter, even if they ended up with all Sub characters, and didn't give Celice anything good. So needless to say, these enemes have about as much of a chance of beating us as a one-legged man does of winning a butt kicking contest. Speaking of which...   HAI OIFAYE  !  Delmud: Lana might be out here fighting for all you know. Ha! More characters! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Delmud Overview Lester Overview Oifaye Overview ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Moving right along...  The Live Ring heals what little HP Celice lost...  Lana uses the Libro Staff to get 35 EXP per pop...  And everyone but Oifaye moves in Celice's direction! Because again, he's already at a high enough level to easily cap. How do I know that? Well, let's talk about that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The War Room Part 8: (Hitting 30 in Gen 2) This one will probably be very short, but it's still worth making just for how valuable this knowledge is. Now, like I said, pure melee units tend to have the hardest time capping their level; combat is their only way of getting EXP, and this game already moves slowly enough as it is. So because of that, there are four very dangerous pitfalls that you want to avoid... quote:1) Obsessing over ALWAYS having the Elite Ring on someone before EVERY fight in the Arena, even when they're already high leveled. Now, we can avoid No. 4 easily enough; but the only way to calculate No.'s 1-3 is to figure out exactly how much EXP you get from each and every fight in the Arena WITH THE ELITE RING EQUIPPED...and then factor that in to how much EXP you already have. That's around 35 fights that I had to calculate using the following formula... code:code:quote:Chapter 7: Level 11 (24 EXP) So if you're in Chapter 7, you need to buy the Elite Ring and have Level 11 w/24 EXP; that's what you need before you can Level 30 off of JUST Arena fights. And if you're on Chapter 8, see six Civilians, and wondering which combat unit to give them to? Do NOT feed ANY of them to ANYONE who's cleared the Arena, and is Level 18(64) or higher. You're only wasting EXP if you do so. Now then... ------------------------------------------------------------------------  Come at me, bros!  I was hoping that this Bow Armour would target Lakche; Celice isn't killing him anyway, so that would have made him easier to leech Gold and EXP off of . But oh well.      And there we go. See that "blue ring of light" around Celice? That's the Live Ring healing animation, and I put it there in GIMP. That's howI put that there in GIMP, and that's how you know that the Live Ring healed Celice that turn. Otherwise, I'd have to post two screenshots at the start of every turn.  Anyway, I do wish the west Bow Armour had gone for Lakche instead. Celice will still seize Ganeishire in the same amount of turns, but the rest are going to be slowed down a turn.  Oh well; this just means that I'll have Lester bait him with his Silver Bow while having the others wait outside it's Range. Lester will probably land either 1 or 2 hits; Delmud will then rush in, steal with the Thief Sword, and Aira will finish the job in order to get buffer. It's not the ideal situation, but it's fine.  Plus, this helps demonstrate what I was saying about “Normal A.I.” compared to “Hard A.I.”. This never would have happened had I switched to Hard A.I. If I had, the Bow Armour would ALWAYS have gone for the “7 Defense & 22 Evade” unit instead of the “12 Defense & 48 Evade” unit. I am, therefore, making things harder on myself by adding in more randomness; and that's precisely what I wanted.  Besides, it feels more like an actual strategy game that way! I've never played FE14, so I don't know if it's guilty of this or not, but... I don't like the direction that FE11-13 went in in terms of “difficulty”. When I start having to base all my moves on “ok, what will make the A.I. do such and such” and “ok, which turn are those reinforcements going to spawn” and “ok, which completely OP enemies are going to move, and which ones are going to stay still till I get in range”... Can I really call it a strategy game? Or is it more like a glorified puzzle game? One where I don't even get to see all the relevant pieces till it's too late?  I didn't mind the enemy stat boosts, I loved the fact that they would alter enemy formations based on difficulty level, I appreciated them changing their weapons based on said difficulty levels...all of that was fine.   But man...some of the stuff that Lunatic!FE12 pullled... I'm not the kind of guy who generally throws his controller across the room or anything, but...I remember how it's reinforcements would never come at a consistent time. Uber powerful Wyverns would spawn from all four corners of the map, Vyland would ambush my rearguard...and I couldn't figure on which turn they would show up! Sometimes Vyland would show up at Turn 4, sometimes Turn 3, sometimes Turn 6...and I couldn't figure out when the dracoknights would show up either!  Lakche finished off the Bow Armour, in case you're curious. But yeah, I got my rear stomped over and over again just trying to figure out the logic behind their appearance. I though maybe there was some kind of invisible line that I had to not cross; so I tried having my own dracoknights go everywhere I could. I crossed into every part of the map I could think of, just trying to see what might trigger those reinforcements. But that didn't work either! I got so frustrated one day, that I look online, found a guide that told me exactly which reinforcements there were, and what caused them to appear... http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe12/guia/ENG_capitulo-19.htm And just about snapped my DS in half when I saw the “Enemy Reinforcements” section.  Like...what the heck? Reinforcements come when I attacked one of the thieves?! Those generic, no-name thieves with NO unique portraits or line of dialogue? The SAME thieves that I know are going to destroy a village (they could do that in FE12) WITH a recruitable character in it?!  That's the kind of difficulty I don't like; the kind you could never predict on your first try without a guide. Reinforcements that trigger when you attack a certain kind of generic unit...just when has THAT ever been a part of the series? Has there been any other Fire Emblem that did that?  Either way, that's an example of the game designers breaking their own rules. Every other game up to that point had set a standard; that reinforcements would only appear once a certain amount of Turns had passed. They MIGHT be triggered once you passed a certain point in the map too, but the games would usually make said triggers relatively obvious. FE6 had one or two moments that didn't mark those triggers well, but that's FE6. That entry was known for being rough around the edges.  What I just posted though? That had NEVER happened before in the series; or at least, not in any non-FE5 game. If some of FE5's maps did that, then those get the same seal of disapproval that FE12's Chapter 19 got. I didn't feel like I was struggling because I played badly; it was like I was getting my butt kicked because the designers tried too hard to make things “difficult”.  They knew that a reasonable FE player would take out the Thieves first (so they can't destroy the village) and rescue said village as quickly as possible; so they specifically designed the map to punish players for doing something that any FE veteran would naturally try to do.  And why do they do that? Well, I think at least part of it is precisely because of how fixed the A.I is in the later games. FE4's “Hard A.I.” makes it so that the game's enemies follow a fixed set of behaviors, and the later games all seem to model their A.I in a similarly predictable fashion. It never takes long to figure out exactly what makes it tick. So suppose you're a game designer, and you're trying to make your enemies hard, despite them being predictable in everything they do. How else are you supposed to do that...  Except by bumping up the enemies stats to unholy proportions and pulling cheap stunts like that upon the player?  I hate that kind of Kaizo nonsense...but at the same time, I can't imagine many other ways of working with an A.I that's completely fixed. One can always say “clever map design” and “creative situations that challenge you in new, unexpected ways”, but...that's not always easy to do when you've done 12 games, and have to design something like 25 Chapters for each one. That's why I rather like the randomness that FE4's “Normal A.I.” brings; I'd much prefer to be challenged by an A.I.'s unpredictability than by it's unfair advantages.  That's why I'm wondering if perhaps some more randomness in the A.I. would help the designers not have to rely on as much of that Kaizo nonsense. The challenge that said designers are trying to create would come partially from just having to adapt to the A.I. doing different things every time you attempted a chapter. No more nonsensical reinforcement triggers, no more enemies appearing that you couldn't see on the "Map Preparations" screen, no more having to manipulate the A.I. in all kinds of goofy ways...just a good clean fight.  Like, maybe each generic enemy would have a 35% chance of targetting the PC with the lowest amount of Defense, a 35% of targetting the PC with the 2nd lowest amount of defense, a 20% chance of targetting the PC with the 3rd lowest amount of defense, and then a 10% chance of targetting the PC with the 4th lowest amount of defense. They'd still be biased toward attacking your more vulnerable units; you just can't build your entire strategy around that assumption.  It's not that I'd want the A.I. to be as dumb as the Normal A.I. in this game; I'd just want it to be random enough to where some of the challenge comes from having to adapt to it acting slightly different each time, rather than from the cheap tricks I mentioned.   Anyway, I could've had Lester move further, but Delmud is lagging behind. I need to lure the guy far enough west that Delmud can actually reach him next turn. In addition, I need to make sure NOT to heal Lester if he gets hit by the Armour. Why's that?  Well, do you see that MBandit to the right there? He's going to start moving next turn, and he's going to start moving next turn. He's got 5000G to steal for Delmud, but I also need to weaken him to the point where Delmud can kill him with the Thief Sword; that way I can have Delmud steal his Gold AND visit the village on the same turn.  But there's a problem; Lester has Charge. If you guys recall, it has a chance of activating 2-20 extra rounds of combat if the user happens to have 25+ HP. This means that I won't usually know how many times Lester will actually attack someone.  Fortunately, the MBandit doesn't have any 2 Range potential; and I've never seen them attack my units. So, just have Delmud steal from this guy...  Finish off the Armour with Lester...  And then we can move on to bigger and better things. Lester moves on to rescue the northeast village, and Lakche's going south so she can grind off these guys later...  This is Johalva and his platoon of men...  And this is Johan and HIS platoon of men. Remember? They're Lord Dannan's two sons that were mentioned in the map narration. They're neutral now, but they're going to turn red the instant we conquer Ganeishire. And, here's something odd about their soldiers...  Both platoons have a special Talk conversation with Delmud and Lester; but ONLY those two. I have no idea why the game's so picky about who can and can't talk to them, but...here you go.   If it were me, I'd go for someone a little more... Er!? Why am I telling you this! Lester/Delmud: ......  Hehe... Anyway, Celice is gonna take care of Johan when the time comes, and Lakche's gonna pacify Johalva.  And I'm also skipping a turn here; nothing really happened on that one.  Let's just skip to the MAIN EVENT!!   Boo...thank you so much for this line . And Celice? Thank you so much for being awesome. You may start slow, but that doesn't matter when raising you saves turn. Even the Efficiency guys at Serenes Forest like you!  Now let's finish this! Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 09:58 on May 26, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 23:08
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   Oh HAI Levin! You're looking very, uh...alive, today... ...   Levin: Hey, drop the ‘king’ bit, okay? Once the Battle of Barhara was over and the empire took control of Silesia, I just kinda… Well, let’s just say my shrink has had steady work for a while. My mother may have perished with Silesia, but she at least kept her dignity to the very end. While I’m just wasting away as a bard again… Celice, I don’t care what Oifaye may have told you. Don’t EVER address me as ‘King Levin’ again. Got it?Ok, so we have a...vague idea of what he was doing. Still curious about the "survived flaming meteors" part... Celice: Geez… Sorry, Levin. Levin: Haha! I’m just giving you a hard time. So it looks like you guys have finally made your move. There’s no better place than Isaac to raise an army to take on the empire. Celice: Yes, the Isaacian people are very strong. And their hatred for the empire is unparalleled. Of course, things would all be that much easier if Prince Shanan was with us. Levin: Did Shanan take off and go to that shrine in Yied? Celice: Yes. He got word that his royal family’s heirloom, the Divine Balmung, was there. But people say a dark bishop governs that region, so we’re all a little worried.The "Balmung" is another Holy Weapon, just like the Mistoltein and Tyrfing. One can see how it'd be cool to have THAT on our side. Levin: Sheesh… Right. He’ll be just fine. That reminds me, Celice. I’ve got a favour to ask. Celice: Sure, anything! What’s up?And now...my favorite track in the entire game...   Levin: So I took her to a remote area of Silesia and have been taking care of her all this time. But things there got a little too hairy for my taste, so we made our way here. But now I have to go to Lenster and… well, she’s slowing me down a bit. Celice...  Levin: I think she’s been through quite a bit. She hasn’t a single memory of what happened to her before I picked her up.Well, nice to know that he got to do something good while things were going to hell. People sometimes complain about his character development in Gen 1 being undone by Gen 2, but it sounds like he at least stuck it out till Silesia was overthrown. It wasn't till after that that he started "wasting away as a bard". Celice: That poor girl! You go on ahead and leave her with me, Levin. But please, try to hurry back. She probably won’t feel right with you being gone. Levin: Yeah, I suppose. Look, I’ll be back once you get this country under control. Good luck to you, Celice. Celice: Levin, you too! I am kind of iffy on him not helping us out with this though. Just what's he planning to do that's more important than THIS?!  Celice: Julia, I’m sure you’ll be sad with Levin gone, but don’t you worry. I’ll keep you safe till he gets back. Actually, I’m not all that strong yet… But you’ll see! I’ll be strong enough to protect everybody here someday! And then I can save all the people from the empire! I’ll be strong someday… just like my father was. Julia: Celice…Honestly though; I've seen a lot of games do the whole "innocent, fragile maiden with a heart of gold" theme, but I've never heard one knock it out of the park as thoroughly as FE4 did. I love whatever chimes Yuka Tsujiyoko used as the main instrument; and I think xylophones were what provided the percussion? Whatever those instruments were, it set the song apart from every other one in the soundtrack. Plus, it also gets bonus points for reminding me of Gotoh's theme... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlOXcPCyNKA Yes, the original Gotoh theme; NOT the pitched up version from every one of the remakes. I don't understand why they increased the pitch so much in all the remakes...but it didn't sound nearly as good to me as it did on the NES.  Anyways, Julia gets a new item from Lana, so I'm sending her west to Talk to her. But hey, wait a tic...what's Julia like as a unit?   Umm...I really don't know. Pursuit, Continue, and Awareness are all nice to have, but there's no point in really rating her till we can actually use her...huh. I wonder if she's got any Holy Blo-  ...Oh...Ohhhhhhh.... ...  A, anyways, here's what Lakche and Lana are doing. And hey, we got Talk conversations! I never got these in the actual playthrough, so uh...wanna see me?! LESTER TALKS TO LANA (+1 Luck for Lana)  Lester: I bet you were. But you be careful out here. Mother would be a wreck if anything happened you. Lana: Yes, but do you know what she told me? She said that we are greatly indebted to the people of Isaac and we should do whatever we can to help them. Lester: Yeah, we wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for them. …So where is mother now? Lana: She’s working at the convent in Tilnanogue. Lester: I see. Lana, we need to do our best out here for mother and our missing father. Someday we’ll be able to return with mother to her hometown of Jungby. Lana: I hope so, Lester.Alright, so we just outright confirmed that Aideen's alive in the Child conversation. And then we get a nice bit of character development in the Sub conversation. DIMNA TALKS TO MANA (+1 Luck for Mana)  Dimna: Mana? You’re fighting too!? Mana: Yeah, I was so worried about Sir Celice. Dimna: Hmm… I thought so. Mana: Thought what? Dimna: Ah, nothin’. Just don’t get your hopes up. He’s of royal blood, you know. He’s actually a member of the Grandbell Royal Family. In all reality, we shouldn’t even be near him. Just don’t get yourself hurt. Okay, Mana? Mana: Dimna, you have it all wrong! I’m merely trying to keep him out of danger! Dimna: Really? Er… Sorry. I’m just trying to watch out for you. Mana: I know, Dimna, and I appreciate it.I never knew about these little differences between the Sub and Child character Talks until now; I just assumed they were copied and pasted for both versions. When I see them now though? The Sub conversations are actually turning out to be more interesting than the Child conversations; I'm kind of wishing the writers had just included the Sub parts into the Child parts as well, and just axed the whole "finding our mothers" bit from the Sub conversations. It's like I'm being punished for playing well! Still, I do think I have a better idea of whether or not the Child characters have the same traits as their Subs. We'll find out later that Lana also has a thing for Celice, and I just thought of how large portions of the Sub dialogue is copy and pasted from the Child dialogue. So maybe Lakche DOES dislike men like Radney does. Who knows? OIFAYE TALKS TO CELICE    Oifaye: Things are getting worse. People all over the continent are being oppressed. As a result, there are uprisings popping up all over the place. Celice: So it’s not just Isaac, is it… Oifaye, there’s no way we can help them, is there? Oifaye: Well, we just don’t have the manpower to take on the empire. Celice: But Isaac’s war of liberation is already under way. There’s no turning back now. Oifaye: And we can’t keep you in hiding now that your whereabouts have been leaked. I just wish we were more prepared… But we have no choice now. Celice: Sorry that I sort of got things rolling before it was time. I’m just tired of seeing the people of Isaac still suffering under Dannan’s rule. Please understand my reasoning, Oifaye. Oifaye: I do. Anyway, we need to move now and lay in an attack on Rivough. We must move before the empire has a chance to send reinforcements!That is one thing I'm kind of curious about, now that I look at this Chapter again; what were these guys doing before? It doesn't sound like they would have liked to do this whole all-out assault thing until later; yet it obviously works out in the end. So what were they doing BEFORE this fight started? Doing an occasional guerilla strike when the Imperial Soldiers were off-guard? Swooping to the rescue whenever Dannan tried to put down a peaceful protest? And then maybe they'd seize Ganesheire sometime later, and turn it into their military stronghold? And, for that matter, why did Shanan and Oifaye leave the hideout unprotected? They sound like the two most capable military leaders, so you'd think they'd have left one or the other there in case of this exact scenario, but...I'm not military expert. I'm curious as to how liberation armies of their sort operate, so if we have any military historians here, feel free to talk about that.  Speaking of Rivough, here it is!  Dannan: Where the hell were my sons!? Tell ’em to strike the rebel army at once! Dannan, baby! You're gonna need more than that!  Ergh, that's Celice's army, thank you very much.   Johan: I could never fight Lakche. Argh… What am I gonna do.Well Johan, we'll just have to find the answer to that, NEXT TIME, on let's Max Rank FE4! For now, we'll take a brief look at the Sub Characters, update the AAAA Run Stats, and then I'll see you sometime later! But can Celice and his army possibly succeed in liberating Isaac? Will Levin and Shanan return in time to aid us in our conquest? Can we defeat the combined might of Johan and Johalva's forces-   PFAHAHAHAHAHA!! Yeah, I'm sure the next update's gonna be real tough. Stalwart resistance on all sides; gonna take a miracle to make it through this one. Hehehe... God bless you everyone! SUB CHARACTER OVERVIEWS Mana Overview Radney Overview Roddlevan Overview Tristan Overview Dimna Overview And here's our final Gen 1 wrap-up post; look forward to Chapter 6 Part 1 tomorrow! On New Years! CURRENT AAAA RANKED RUN STATS (END OF GEN 1): Time Taken This Update: ~16 minutes and 28 seconds Total Time Elapsed Over the Run: 14 hours, 36 minutes, 17 seconds~ Turns Taken This Update: 10 Turns Total Turns Elapsed Over The Run: 218 Turns Levels Gained This Update: 14 Levels Total Levels Gained: 550 Levels Things I Regret: In the Prologue, I regret the fact that Noish had to hang back as I rigged levels for Sigurd in the Prologue. In Chapter 1, I should've brought Midir to guarantee that Kinbois's men would be taken down without issue. On Chapter 2, I regret the fact that Ardan built up so many love points with Aira even though that pairing's been written out of the route, I regret making that positioning mistake with Fin, and I wish I hadn't made that careless mistake with Sigurd attacking that guard near Boldo (even if it did end up working out). I regret deciding to not just get Deirdre to Level 30 by the end of Chapter 2. I regret wasting something like 12 minutes rigging Aideen a win against Keimos, when it ultimately didn't end up doing much for Jamka anyway. And I could have manipulated Dew's Gold a bit better so that Aira got just 18,000G instead of 22,470G. On Chapter 3, I regret selling Deirdre's Aura tome! I'll bet she TOTALLY could've kicked Manfloy's butt, if ONLY I hadn't taken that away  !!On Chapter 4, I regret spending so much time disabeling the Arena bug for Fury's Arena fights; her combat stats didn't even matter once I promoted her! I also regret not having Claude turn around sooner. I also regret not repairing the Return Staff before giving it to Aideen. On Chapter 5, I regret not having Dew sit tight after slaying that General; I didn't really accomplish much by moving him around outside, so I probably wasted about a minute or so. Level 1-11: 32 > 45 HP, 8(13) > 12(17) Str, 1 > 6 Mag, 8 > 14 Skl, 8 > 12 Spd, 6 > 8 Lck, 7(12) > 12(17) Def, 1 > 4 Res! Level 1-4: 30 > 33 HP, 10 > 11 Str, 0 Mag, 13 > 16 Skl, 13 > 15 Spd, 7 > 8 Lck, 7 > 8 Def, 0 Res! Level 1-2: 29 > 30 HP, 2 > 3 Str, 9 Mag, 8 > 9 Skl, 8 Spd, 16 > 17 Lck, 2 Def, 7 Res!
Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 23:17
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Oh man, Gen 2. The eugenics payoff is ludicrous...but next update has the best of it 
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Jan 5, 2017 23:28
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That Celice is honestly terrifying.theshim posted:Oh man, Gen 2. The eugenics payoff is ludicrous...but next update has the best of it Remind me, with the LPs eugenic choices next update has the Holsety paradrop (Pegasusdrop?), right?
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Jan 5, 2017 23:37
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Omobono posted:That Celice is honestly terrifying. Yyyyyep, that's right !
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Jan 5, 2017 23:53
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I'm sure it's supposed to be dramatic and all, but my immediate interpretation to the ellipsis is basically "sorry this kid has such a lame name".  Fionordequester posted:
Well okay, he's entitled to one mistake after the nuns line. Fionordequester posted:
Skasaha: "Of course you know all this already, but I feel as if there is some kind of presence watching us that could use this information." Lakche:
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Jan 6, 2017 00:00
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Oh, right, the DB comparisons were a thing. Glad to see they're back for now, and holy hell, Celice. For level 11 that's insanity.
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Jan 6, 2017 00:28
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SMaster777 posted:Oh, right, the DB comparisons were a thing. Glad to see they're back for now, and holy hell, Celice. For level 11 that's insanity. Yeah. I was wondering whether or not to do so, since I had kind of run through everyone in DBZ...but then I figured that I could get some mileage out of the sequel series. I'll retire the joke if I find that I just can't do them without forcing them. But for now, well...I'll see what I can do.
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Jan 6, 2017 00:36
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Idea on your... lecture about Modern Fire Emblem Difficulty: Make the AI change behaviors on a map-by-map basis. If the enemies on a map are supposed to be guarding a fortress, have them get into a tight formation, rotate wounded units out for healthy ones so the healers can heal them up, and don't have them actively seek out unit to kill. If they're assaulting a guarded fortress you're guarding, have them try to break through your defensive lines, focus fire on staff-users and try to sneak through openings. It would make narrative sense at least. Your thoughts, Fion?
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Jan 6, 2017 02:59
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Junpei posted:Idea on your... lecture about Modern Fire Emblem Difficulty: I didn't go on for too long on said lecture, did I? I'll make sure to shorten the length of those in the future if I did. Anyways, your idea would be pretty sweet, if executed well. You would have to be careful not to have them be too exploitable though. For example, luring them away in a way that you counter kill one of them, run away, let them go back to their fortress, heal up, then rinse and repeat till you've whittled them all down. Perhaps if they were in defensive formation, but then went to "offensive" A.I. once you got into one of their movement ranges? FE12 did that at times, but that made sense.
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Jan 6, 2017 03:28
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I can't get over the Axe Fighters' incredibly silly walk. That's so dumb, I love it. Also, if it isn't much of a bother, could you put the children's parents in their character analysis posts? I completely forgot who came from who (ignoring Celice, obviously) and that does have an effect on growths and all. Talking about children, Lester always confused me. IntSys decides that children are connected to mothers...then puts a child that looks literally identical to Lex. Who may be anyone's son. And this isn't the only example of this. I guess they wanted to make sure the player knew there were "canon" pairings, but it's so weird.
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Jan 6, 2017 04:40
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Blaze Dragon posted:I can't get over the Axe Fighters' incredibly silly walk. That's so dumb, I love it.  Blaze Dragon posted:Also, if it isn't much of a bother, could you put the children's parents in their character analysis posts? I completely forgot who came from who (ignoring Celice, obviously) and that does have an effect on growths and all. Your wish has been granted! I put the links into the update for anyone curious; in fact, here they are right now if you don't want to reload all that! Lana Overview Lakche Overview Skasaha Overview Delmud Overview Lester Overview Blaze Dragon posted:Talking about children, Lester always confused me. IntSys decides that children are connected to mothers...then puts a child that looks literally identical to Lex. Who may be anyone's son. And this isn't the only example of this. I guess they wanted to make sure the player knew there were "canon" pairings, but it's so weird. I know! And the weird thing is, Lex isn't even Lester's canon father  !
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Jan 6, 2017 05:08
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Fire Emblem 14 actually has some interesting stuff with AI on Conquest, including (if I remember right) some level of randomization. It includes things like enemies ignoring a unit if their defense is too high to do any damage, and enemies who move differently each time you reload your turns. Unfortunately, it also has some weird reinforcement triggers and bullshit one-chapter-only rules. It's maybe worth a look, unlike the other two campaigns, but stick to normal until you know the ropes. It can get rough, and a lot's changed from earlier games.
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Jan 6, 2017 06:40
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I have to disagree with your discussion on how to improve the fire emblem AI as someone who dev's Fire Emblem Romhacks. While a degree of Randomness is nice, it also violates rule 1 when it comes to game design. "Every game is someones first game." I'll use an example. Even though I'm hacking an already existing FE game, I still edited Chapter 1 in such a way that a new player would pick up the basics of how the combat worked and everything they needed to know in the first few turns. Wendy, a Lance/Sword unit is one of the only ones in range of a Mercenary who can do no damage to her, but will double her. Moving and attacking with the lance teaches Lances>Swords and Armors are Slow and Tanky. However on the next turn, a mage will move just into range of Wendy's movement, so when a new player moves Wendy to go attack said mage, they'll see they're taking damage now. "Armors are slow and tanky, but not against magic users." My own solution to difficulty is to provide the player with interesting scenario's to overcome, and multiple ways to go about it. I think it was Kaga himself who once said that when he was designing Fire Emblem, he was trying to make a game in which the player could take the war in their own way. They could slowly advance an invincible phalanx or try to blitz it. They could let units die as if they were disposable or try to protect all of them. In a way, I do craft a 'logic puzzle' for the player to solve, but I've always felt of it as a puzzle in the positive sense. "How can I achieve everything on offer here?" In the early chapters, you set it up in such a way the answer is obvious, and of course, another great thing about Fire Emblem is that the game is NEVER unbeatable. Dondon's 0% growth playthroughs are enough of an example to me that, even if your units never grow, it's not impossible to win. IntSys designed its games very well. So one always have to remember that all those late-game promoted units you receive that most new players pass over as "Useless" exist to fill in slots and make it so the player can always win. However, here are the rules I've found to make sure your maps difficulty is good and not bullshit 1. The map does not require that you have a specific unit that could very well be dead at this point. If the map hinges on the Mage you got 4 maps ago who might be dead or not raised, then your map design has failed. 2. No rear end in a top hat reinforcements, and no reinforcements without indication of where they will be and a warning of them coming. It's not difficult when you get spawned camp, it's not difficult when an unmarked unit dies and spawns an army. If said unit identifies himself as a coward with the power of an army (Lets call him Spandam... for reasons) and thus defeating him makes him freak out and call upon the forces of his army. That's one thing. That's a very clear indicator of what's going to happen, that gives the player a case of understanding what is at stake, and to balance a risk vs reward scenario. Indicate a 'home base' for Spandam, lets say he's trying to get there, but at the same time, he's carrying a Brave Weapon, or a Master Seal, or a White Gem, or whatever, a reward that, for the players point in the game, is worth to achieve. It's not a 'Puzzle" in killing Spandam will gain you the item and then trigger the reinforcements, it's strategy for the player to devise how can they get the kill and the item, while either avoiding the army or fighting back. 3. Every map should be beatable even if your units have been awfully developed, this is usually helped by deploying a crutch on this chapter as a new recruit. This is the reason recruits are paced they way they are in FE games. Growths up front, spread across chapters, crutches in the back, helping you get through the end-game. 4. Conversely, do not burden the player with circumstances they can't control. Sophia and Cecillia in FE6 are a good example of this, one is a horse-mounted unit on a map where Horses have limited movement. In the fog, with Dragons flying about. And the other is a level 1 unit with no stats on a mid-game chapter you have a time limit on. That's not to say "Don't give the player something to defend against." Defensive scenario's are fine. But nothing is more infuriating (And not really difficult) than a useless character who's a burden rather than a help. And this is an important rule. 5. Understand that no individual unit is a challenge to a player. "Boss Fights" in strategy games like Fire Emblem are a foolish attempt, you're either making a damage sponge or a gimmick. Neither of those things are challenging the player on anything else they learned across the game. I realize the idea of an entire army bounding together to down some giant foe is actually a really cool image to imagine, but in practice it doesn't work, this isn't an MMO raid, this is a strategy game. Focus on making the chapters themselves the difficult part, it's a collection of enemy forces, terrain, allied resources, curve balls. Don't be afraid to juke the player by having enemies spawn behind them or off to the side, so long as you obey Rule 2. Don't be afraid to have the boss, (And this is a case where Randomness can work) fake out the player and actually pretend to hide among the enemy. Develop your players skills, train them, and challenge them. Provide them with the resources to experiment and mix-match. There are more things to keep in mind, but I don't have my notes with me. So I can hardly go through it all.
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Jan 6, 2017 09:33
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Onmi posted:I have to disagree with your discussion on how to improve the fire emblem AI as someone who dev's Fire Emblem Romhacks. While a degree of Randomness is nice, it also violates rule 1 when it comes to game design. "Every game is someones first game." I'll use an example. Even though I'm hacking an already existing FE game, I still edited Chapter 1 in such a way that a new player would pick up the basics of how the combat worked and everything they needed to know in the first few turns. Wendy, a Lance/Sword unit is one of the only ones in range of a Mercenary who can do no damage to her, but will double her. Moving and attacking with the lance teaches Lances>Swords and Armors are Slow and Tanky. However on the next turn, a mage will move just into range of Wendy's movement, so when a new player moves Wendy to go attack said mage, they'll see they're taking damage now. "Armors are slow and tanky, but not against magic users." So you're afraid that by making the A.I. more random, the A.I. wouldn't act in a way that allowed the player to learn the game as they went along? Therefore you'd want the A.I. to be more predictable for at least the first few chapters? Onmi posted:Dondon's 0% growth playthroughs are enough of an example to me that, even if your units never grow, it's not impossible to win. IntSys designed its games very well. So one always have to remember that all those late-game promoted units you receive that most new players pass over as "Useless" exist to fill in slots and make it so the player can always win. One thing I would like to note; nobody has ever done 0% growths for Lunatic!FE12 and FE13. Someone once did one for H2!FE12, but never any higher than that. Would you say those difficulties in FE suffer because of that? Onmi posted:2. No rear end in a top hat reinforcements, and no reinforcements without indication of where they will be and a warning of them coming. It's not difficult when you get spawned camp, it's not difficult when an unmarked unit dies and spawns an army. If said unit identifies himself as a coward with the power of an army (Lets call him Spandam... for reasons) and thus defeating him makes him freak out and call upon the forces of his army. That's one thing. That's a very clear indicator of what's going to happen, that gives the player a case of understanding what is at stake, and to balance a risk vs reward scenario. Indicate a 'home base' for Spandam, lets say he's trying to get there, but at the same time, he's carrying a Brave Weapon, or a Master Seal, or a White Gem, or whatever, a reward that, for the players point in the game, is worth to achieve. It's not a 'Puzzle" in killing Spandam will gain you the item and then trigger the reinforcements, it's strategy for the player to devise how can they get the kill and the item, while either avoiding the army or fighting back. So would you say we're in agreement in regards to my frustrations about FE12!Chapter 19? Onmi posted:5. Understand that no individual unit is a challenge to a player. "Boss Fights" in strategy games like Fire Emblem are a foolish attempt, you're either making a damage sponge or a gimmick. Neither of those things are challenging the player on anything else they learned across the game. I realize the idea of an entire army bounding together to down some giant foe is actually a really cool image to imagine, but in practice it doesn't work, this isn't an MMO raid, this is a strategy game. Hmm...what about Grima from Chapter 25? I instantly fell in love with that one when I played it on Lunatic; his whole deal was that he was this uber powerful unit that you HAD to put down by like Turn 2; or else the infinite reinforcements would overwhelm you. Was that a fight that you would call gimmicky? Onmi posted:Focus on making the chapters themselves the difficult part, it's a collection of enemy forces, terrain, allied resources, curve balls. Don't be afraid to juke the player by having enemies spawn behind them or off to the side, so long as you obey Rule 2. Don't be afraid to have the boss, (And this is a case where Randomness can work) fake out the player and actually pretend to hide among the enemy. Develop your players skills, train them, and challenge them. Provide them with the resources to experiment and mix-match. That reminds me of FE13, actually. There would be tough reinforcements, but I can't remember a single time where the game didn't give you at least a brief warning that said reinforcements were coming. Of course, Lunatic+ was nonsense in it's own way, but they at least did well on that front. Onmi posted:There are more things to keep in mind, but I don't have my notes with me. So I can hardly go through it all. Oh, don't worry; if you do find them, you can post them whenever you wish  !
Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 10:17
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Fionordequester posted:So you're afraid that by making the A.I. more random, the A.I. wouldn't act in a way that allowed the player to learn the game as they went along? Therefore you'd want the A.I. to be more predictable for at least the first few chapters? EDIT: Addition, to clarify, their randomness should still follow a pattern I feel. I personally prefer to 'characterize' the enemy generics. "These guys are cowards, so they'll pick on weaker guys and attack in groups. These dudes are really noble so they'll always go after your strongest guys. These guys are bandits, so they'll try to soften the player up with ranged attacks and split them up by going after villages. Maybe add in some spawns in these forts here, to represent sneak attacks." That also gives the player a sense that they're fight an actual force, and not just enemy's in a video game. Fionordequester posted:One thing I would like to note; nobody has ever done 0% growths for Lunatic!FE12 and FE13. Someone once did one for H2!FE12, but never any higher than that. Would you say those difficulties in FE suffer because of that? Fionordequester posted:So would you say we're in agreement in regards to my frustrations about FE12!Chapter 19? Oh yeah that was loving dumb. Fionordequester posted:Hmm...what about Grima from Chapter 25? I instantly fell in love with that one when I played it on Lunatic; his whole deal was that he was this uber powerful unit that you HAD to put down by like Turn 2; or else the infinite reinforcements would overwhelm you. Was that a fight that you would call gimmicky? I consider that gimmicky yes. The best final maps in the series from the games I played are 4's, 5's, 9's and Fates Conquest/Birthright (Though the latter there falls weak) While the bosses themselves have a varying degree of gimmick (From 4's... we'll get to that, 5's being piss pathetic, 9's being immune to anyone but Ike and a buddy and Conquests... actually not being a gimmick at all besides having good skills) The maps themselves are often designed in a way that actually challenges the way you've played the game across the game. It's not that you can't tackle those chapters in unique ways. Hell I devised how to handle Conquest Lunatic in 1 turn for when I just don't feel like playing it (Especially since you have to do it back to back with an already difficult map with no saves unless you play on Casual, which I do because I'm a filthy casual.) But they challenge you the same way the other maps in the series did. My biggest failing grade for FE6's final two maps was that it basically threw out everything that made Fire Emblem Fire Emblem. There was no weapon triangle or varied unit types, there were no careful strategic objectives, there was nothing beyond "Do you have the over powered weapons? If yes, press here to nuke your way through the map." 7's Boss rush was interesting, but I never felt myself engulfed in its design. In both those games cases, the game stopped being the loving GAME. Fionordequester posted:That reminds me of FE13, actually. There would be tough reinforcements, but I can't remember a single time where the game didn't give you at least a brief warning that said reinforcements were coming. Of course, Lunatic+ was nonsense in it's own way, but they at least did well on that front. I don't even, necessarily, rule out the occasional rear end in a top hat reinforcement (Defining this as Spawn-moving reinforcements) so long as they don't have absurd move and spawn far enough away. It's a pacing tool, to get them closer to the right without making the player get shanked by them. Fionordequester posted:Oh, don't worry; if you do find them, you can post them whenever you wish I will, I've had a lot of years to think about FE and Map design, and I wont even claim to be a master of it. I'm still working through stuff. Making one of these games is not easy, and you'll really come to appreciate IntSys's mind for map design on many of them, where frankly, any attempt to change it is just you trying to be different. Onmi fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 10:46
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Onmi posted:In short, yes. There needs to be some logic that is followed, we have a set of 4 AI codes that govern unit behavior, so, one example is on a defense map. Units set to go after an objective will divert to fight your troops, meaning they wont go after the objective and the objective becomes pointless. With a certain AI code, they'll go for the objective but will only attack when an enemy is next to them. This leads to an 'exploit' where you can park a unit next to them to halt them. This became a big discussion between me and Dondon (Who is working on his own stuff) about whether we needed to go into uncharted territory to change the AI, or whether it was fine as is. One thing I learned is only flyers could have the AI, and cavaliers choked up the ground and brought the enemy to a stand still. Meanwhile they flyers had to be strong, otherwise they could be stalled, rather than just killed. There's more debate on it I don't have on me, but the short of it is. We need the AI to act in obvious ways. I find that so long as you're telling the player, it's fine. "These guys are going for the goal, keep that in mind as the player." and the like. Gotcha. Onmi posted:EDIT: Addition, to clarify, their randomness should still follow a pattern I feel. I personally prefer to 'characterize' the enemy generics. "These guys are cowards, so they'll pick on weaker guys and attack in groups. These dudes are really noble so they'll always go after your strongest guys. These guys are bandits, so they'll try to soften the player up with ranged attacks and split them up by going after villages. Maybe add in some spawns in these forts here, to represent sneak attacks." That also gives the player a sense that they're fight an actual force, and not just enemy's in a video game. That sounds clever; especially if you also had the Oifaye type point out stuff like "careful guys, bandits can be tricky because of [this or that reason]". That way you could make sure the players were following the same line of thought as the developers. Onmi posted:I consider that gimmicky yes... ...Huh. I actually really liked that Grima fight; was one of my favorite maps in that entire game actually. Then again, each attempt only lasted like, a few minutes; you either beat him by the end of Turn 2 or you didn't. I could easily see myself hating that map if it was more elaborate than it was. I agree with you on everything else though. Onmi posted:I will, I've had a lot of years to think about FE and Map design, and I wont even claim to be a master of it. I'm still working through stuff. Making one of these games is not easy, and you'll really come to appreciate IntSys's mind for map design on many of them, where frankly, any attempt to change it is just you trying to be different. Hmm...out of curiosity, how easy is it to get into making RomHacks without much programming knowledge? As things stand now, I can barely even use AviSynth correctly; so that's always been the most intimidating thing for me. Otherwise, I'd love to do simple stuff like noodle around with the growth rates of FE7 characters a bit, and small stuff like that; nothing super ambitious or anything.
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Jan 6, 2017 11:50
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Fionordequester posted:Hmm...out of curiosity, how easy is it to get into making RomHacks without much programming knowledge? As things stand now, I can barely even use AviSynth correctly; so that's always been the most intimidating thing for me. Otherwise, I'd love to do simple stuff like noodle around with the growth rates of FE7 characters a bit, and small stuff like that; nothing super ambitious or anything. Romhacking very much follows the state of the programmer.  Everything is impossible until you know how to do it then it's brain dead simple. Messing with growth rates is super simple, there are modules for that. Making maps? Hasn't been easier than it is right now, Eventing? Much more complex, mostly in learning the syntax and doing grunt work. Fire Emblem Universe has a discord chat where a lot of hackers are. So if you ever wanted to do something and needed help, you could ask there. But don't be afraid to start simple and just mess around with things. Onmi fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 12:10
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Onmi posted:EDIT: Addition, to clarify, their randomness should still follow a pattern I feel. I personally prefer to 'characterize' the enemy generics. "These guys are cowards, so they'll pick on weaker guys and attack in groups. These dudes are really noble so they'll always go after your strongest guys. These guys are bandits, so they'll try to soften the player up with ranged attacks and split them up by going after villages. Maybe add in some spawns in these forts here, to represent sneak attacks." That also gives the player a sense that they're fight an actual force, and not just enemy's in a video game.
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Jan 6, 2017 12:32
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Onmi posted:Romhacking very much follows the state of the programmer. That '80s stock photo. Magnificent!
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Jan 6, 2017 13:59
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Crystalgate posted:This has the opposite effect on me. For example, if you go "these guys are bandits, so they'll try to soften the player up with ranged attacks" it just reminds me that I'm playing a video game since otherwise knights and really, most kinds or armies, would try that as well. Most "these are X, so they do Y" reasoning adds to the sense that I'm playing a video game rather than subtracting from it. I wonder how other feel about it though. I would say it depends on how strictly the units follow the script, and how complex said scripts are. Having very specific and rigid rules could be a recipe for exploitation (example: saying knights don't attack priests/clerics, because they're religious or something. Now you could have a player forming a priest wall and attacking the knights from behind it) unless there's a condition upon which the rule could be broken, or unless the game is designed to allow for such exploits (such as pairing the knights with ranged units who would shred your wall, giving knights some way to push through, or giving the knights ranged weapons themselves). Mind you, it is quite hard to design AI programs, moreso for anything that has random elements and not fixed states. For chess, the AI will simulate every possible move by both sides, decide which path has the most favorable outcomes, and make a move based on that. For simpler games like checkers, the computer can see every possible game state, and play a "prefect" game, unable to lose if victory was ever a possibility (we call games where all states can be calculated "solved"). You can't do that here, so you need to just give conditional orders for units. Are they trying to kill a single unit? Are they trying to maximize their damage? Are they trying to accomplish a specific goal? Which of these has priority? There's also the problem that if the brightest minds came together, wrote a comprehensive AI for enemy units, and tossed it into a game, the players would probably hate it. If the AI played like a person would, the superior numbers on the enemy side would overwhelm. Enemies would attack far less frequently (to avoid counters themselves), and likely group up into giant death-swarms that would overwhelm. Not to mention when you make something complex enough, weird stuff starts happening, especially if you're working with limited memory room. I recall one example of an older car that had the airbags deploy when you had some crazy combination of conditions met, like having the air conditioner on and the radio at a particular volume while you pressed the gas pedal and did something else to the dash simultaneously. You put a lot of moving parts together and they'll start crashing into each other. Usually just easiest to make the computer dumb, and tweak numbers to provide more difficulty. And actually re-seed your RNG.
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Jan 6, 2017 19:38
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There are some things that I would like a future FE's AI to do. -If their Hit is below, say, 50-60%, don't attack that unit using that weapon. -Have a general knowledge of unit strengths and weaknesses so they can use that knowledge (send high Hit attackers against Myrmidons/Swordmasters, use magic against Knights/Generals, etc.) -Don't attack a unit that will counter-kill them. -For the love of God: Make "Unit cannot counter-attack" a lower priority! I don't know how many times I've seen a Handaxe/Javelin bounce right of of Oswin's shiny armor for no damage, or something similar. It's an exploit we've all used at some point in our FE'ing experiences.
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Jan 7, 2017 03:29
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Junpei posted:There are some things that I would like a future FE's AI to do. See some of those sounds good in theory, but if the AI is only in range of you with attacks below 50, then what happens, does the AI sit there dumbly not knowing what to do? Does it walk away? What about Myrmidons, which are almost purely valued for their evasion and counter-kill status? Do we now redefine the role of that unit? How slow are we making the game here. As well, does that mean that now every enemy army has to deploy the same types of units to be able to match the players ever-evolving arsenal, that leads to the enemy ceasing to feel like a unique entity and basically just becoming clones of each other. One of the things I hated the most about the Black Fang was despite being 'assassins' they somehow had an entire church on one map (a castle producing nothing but monks) Nothing felt unique about them, they felt incredibly boring. One of the things FE6 actually does really well is that It's not like every enemy force has Pegasus Knights, that's Ilia's thing. Ilia's armies make sense for the region of Ilia. Lycian armies make sense for the region of Lycia and etc. etc. It's not homogenized. Where as the enemy having perfect knowledge of what to do either changes how enemies have to be developed (All enemies must have a high hit weapon, a piecing weapon/high mt weapon) By the way, we had a game where the enemy ignored units who they couldn't hit. It was called SRWJ, and it just made the units that couldn't be hit useless, because at most they could kill 1 enemy a turn. Also god, don't attack a unit that can counter kill? Well now this games slowing down to a horrendous grind of moving to attack the enemy. You're also penalizing the player for having strong units. Say you have an armorslayer, vs an entire horse of Armorknights, you're the only unit on the map, they will be ORKO'd attacking you, are they now supposed to sit there fiddling with their spears while you meticulously cut them down one by one? With the exception of the last, all of your suggestions, while in theory making the enemy smarter, actually just makes them slower to kill, makes the player use less fast units like the Myrmidon and rely more on bulky units who aren't evasive but will take minuscule damage, while being encouraged to use weaker weapons just so the enemy will attack them en masse.
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Jan 7, 2017 04:43
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Onmi posted:See some of those sounds good in theory, but if the AI is only in range of you with attacks below 50, then what happens, does the AI sit there dumbly not knowing what to do? Does it walk away? What about Myrmidons, which are almost purely valued for their evasion and counter-kill status? Do we now redefine the role of that unit? How slow are we making the game here. As well, does that mean that now every enemy army has to deploy the same types of units to be able to match the players ever-evolving arsenal, that leads to the enemy ceasing to feel like a unique entity and basically just becoming clones of each other. One of the things I hated the most about the Black Fang was despite being 'assassins' they somehow had an entire church on one map (a castle producing nothing but monks) Nothing felt unique about them, they felt incredibly boring. One of the things FE6 actually does really well is that It's not like every enemy force has Pegasus Knights, that's Ilia's thing. Ilia's armies make sense for the region of Ilia. Lycian armies make sense for the region of Lycia and etc. etc. It's not homogenized. Where as the enemy having perfect knowledge of what to do either changes how enemies have to be developed (All enemies must have a high hit weapon, a piecing weapon/high mt weapon) Oh. Sorry.
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Jan 7, 2017 05:02
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Junpei posted:Oh. No that's ok; I don't think you actually offended or upset Onmi or anything. He didn't, right Onmi?
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Jan 7, 2017 06:46
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Junpei posted:Oh. The only real mistake you made was in thinking the ai is playing by the same rules as the player. The player has to win every battle, the ai only needs to win 1.
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Jan 7, 2017 06:51
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Okay, newer, better ideas that don't bog down the pacing. -Give enemies more weaponry. Like, every endgame enemy unit should have multiple weapons, either varying in options covered (A Swordmaster with a Killing Edge, Armorslayer and Silver Sword), weapon types (A Paladin with a Silver Lance, Steel Blade and Killer Lance) or just plain old variety (A Sage with a Bolting, Rexcalibur and Physic). -On the other hand, less annoying out-of-reach enemies that make no sense but to annoy. I'm talking about Sleep/Silence/Berserk Assholes and Bolting Assholes. If you're going to have them, integrate them into the strategy the enemy is using! For example, give a Bishop a Mend and Sleep staves, then put his AI so that he only uses the Sleep staff if there's no one in range who need healing. Then make sure that when resolving enemy turn order the phalanx Generals go first, so that the wounded frontliners can rotate into the back in range of the Bishop, new meat can replace the position, then the Bishop(s) can take their turns casting Mend. That way, the only times they can use Sleep are when you're just arriving at the defensive formation or if you let up on the offense so no enemies get hurt. -Have enemies take their (and their allies's and enemies's) skills into account. If you can see their skills, they should be able to see your skills and plan around you activating an Astra or getting the boosts of Rally skills.
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Jan 7, 2017 07:23
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Fionordequester posted:No that's ok; I don't think you actually offended or upset Onmi or anything. He didn't, right Onmi? Absolutely not upset, it's always interesting to discuss the actual effects of changes to AI routines on combat and what they mean. FoolyCharged posted:The only real mistake you made was in thinking the ai is playing by the same rules as the player. The player has to win every battle, the ai only needs to win 1. Fooly has it correct. The player being unable to choose to not-attack on the enemy phase is something pretty key to enemy tactics (and advanced player tactics) the enemy AI doesn't need to reset if it loses one unit, it just has to pound one of yours into the dirt knowing it has infinite resources and you do not. Fire Emblem is less straight up war, and more Asymmetrical Warfare. In fact, I would say that is the main reason, in-story that sigurd's group did as well as it did, rather than its diversity. It's because both sides, in and out of the game, are fighting battles differently. Junpei posted:Okay, newer, better ideas that don't bog down the pacing. More weaponry is decently smart, but it is something to be careful about. For example with the killing edge, there's a reason the players lord starts with high luck and has a good luck growth, it's because Critical Hits to a loadbearing unit kind of suck for the player. There should always be careful consideration, splicing killer-weapons and slayers through the enemy force is good for tension, but be careful not to overload it. As for the skills, that's really hard. I mean, ignore how I think Astra is fundamentally an awful skill (I think the sheer idea of basically having to pray for a skill to activate is completely at odds with the ideas of a tactical or strategic game) And well... it's kind of hard to plan around stuff like Rallies and Astra. How do you plan around a 12.5% chance the enemy suddenly gets 5 attacks? How do you plan around the idea that an enemy may suddenly have boosted-stat. I think, for that to work, we have to scrap the ideas of Rally's and %triggering skills, and instead focus on buffing aura's and always active skills. (Which is something I did for Maiden of Darkness anyway, the only % activated skill is Cath's ability to turn her kills into Red-Gems, mainly because that would be very powerful in a limited funds game if it was always on.) And then, we provide enemy skills that give them their own bonuses when say... working together or in close proximity or under certain commanders (This is also something I've done.) That way it challenges the player not just in positioning and enemy danger, but in army composition, while still giving them a lot of resources to plan their own way past the enemy.
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Jan 7, 2017 08:31
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Onmi posted:As for the skills, that's really hard. I mean, ignore how I think Astra is fundamentally an awful skill (I think the sheer idea of basically having to pray for a skill to activate is completely at odds with the ideas of a tactical or strategic game) And well... it's kind of hard to plan around stuff like Rallies and Astra. How do you plan around a 12.5% chance the enemy suddenly gets 5 attacks? How do you plan around the idea that an enemy may suddenly have boosted-stat. Hmm...honestly, I like the %Skills so long as only your PC's have them (and some occasional bosses); I like to think of it as having your characters get the occasional "bonus". Like, they're not meant to be the bedrock of your strategy; they're just meant to give you a little smile here and there when they do activate. Fionordequester fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 09:52
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Genaro posted:I would say it depends on how strictly the units follow the script, and how complex said scripts are. Having very specific and rigid rules could be a recipe for exploitation (example: saying knights don't attack priests/clerics, because they're religious or something. Now you could have a player forming a priest wall and attacking the knights from behind it) unless there's a condition upon which the rule could be broken, or unless the game is designed to allow for such exploits (such as pairing the knights with ranged units who would shred your wall, giving knights some way to push through, or giving the knights ranged weapons themselves).
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Jan 7, 2017 12:06
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Crystalgate posted:I think you misunderstood what I was talking about. I was not talking about the mechanical implication. If you say knight don't attack priests/clerics because they're religious or something, you probably already lost me even before I get to test it out mechanically. Knights are not too religious to fight members of the clergy by being knights, there has to be a good explanation to why they are very religious. Ditto with the earlier example of bandits softening their enemies up with bows, why would only bandits do that and not, say knights? Unless you provide a good explanation to why bandits would be more inclined to deploy archers than anyone else, you are just reminding me that I'm fighting video game entities and not actual people. The same goes for most "these are X, so they do Y", there is usually no good reason to why X would do Y. Yeah, I was just making an example with the knights-not-attacking-clergy thing. Presumably you'd have a knight-like armored unit that did not share the same behavior, just with a different name to differentiate, and you'd throw in some story lines explaining yourself. For a game that reuses material as often as Fire Emblem, it's probably best to try and avoid hard-coded limitations (unless you're doing a game-specific units, like a Church Knight or something to that effect). In any of these circumstances, you could probably assume there'd be a house/village conversation in the game mentioning the specific behaviors of the units ("Those calling themselves bandits are cowardly types, they'll shoot you with their bows unless they think they can attack without getting hurt back!") to try and clue the player in. Going back to the original topic, any unit's AI can come down to a whole bunch of conditionals though, so their behavior will already be a large pile of "these are X, they do Y", just under different circumstances. We as players do that as well, and I think underestimate exactly how many things we take into account. If this move will expose your healer, don't do it. If there's a chokepoint, throw a high-def guy in there. If they have an armorslayer anywhere near, make sure it's not a knight. If he can kill stuff in one hit and that will leave him taking too many hits, put a lesser weapon on, or put a slightly lower def guy who can't kill him there. If this move puts him within range of a good unit, don't do it either. Only move there if I can capitalize on that position with counter-attacks or a follow-up sally by my other units, and if it moves me towards my objective. I mean, at the end of the day we kind of need the AI to be terrible. If we didn't get counter-kills, if god units were just avoided like the plague, if enemies ran away from your good units, we'd all hate it. Slow armored guys would be practically unusable even on smaller maps (enemies would just avoid them) and people like watching their super awesome dude go Dynasty Warriors on the enemy when allowed. Not to mention a good AI could probably go at least 1:5 against a player on any given map, so you'd be losing teammates left and right. We don't want them to be actual people. To weigh in on the %skill argument, I think it puts a wrinkle into thinking for the player. Critical hits for enemies force a level of planning (or praying) that the unit by itself couldn't accomplish. A swordmaster may only do 6 damage to your guy, but you have to respect that he could do 18, so you have to treat him better. You're forced to task ranged attacks, overwhelming defense, or risk the consequences. It's a way for the game to make the player at least respect the unit's 18 damage potential without giving him an unreasonable amount of strength. Skills are the same, and allow units to appear better than they are. Enemies using the same skills as players allows players to immediately identify and know the skills enemies are using in question without having to always look it up. Ridiculous skills like Astra I think are better suited to players (or bosses/mini-bosses), since those are generally not survivable unless you have extreme circumstances.
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Jan 7, 2017 15:57
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So an idea for a "Leadership" skill given to commanders that affect anyone in their army on the map: Calm Leadership: All units regenerate 50% HP when they end their turn Does that radically change anything? I've been told on Serenes Forest that I do have pretty good ideas.
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Jan 7, 2017 17:02
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Junpei posted:So an idea for a "Leadership" skill given to commanders that affect anyone in their army on the map: Can of Worms has a similar skill like that for his bosses in FEIV, that is "While Boss has full HP, all units regain 2 HP" and there are 3 units on the map that have this skill (This is the Shagall chapter) so it actually creates an issue where Shagall will regen the army, will be regened by his throne, will be regened by two other regenners who also regen each other. It takes a LOT to take the skill offline. and definitly makes the battle harder. You ALSO have this skill, Lachesis has it.
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Jan 7, 2017 18:07
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How about skills that give passive benefits (buffs to Hit, Evade, Crit. Evade, Crit, etc.) when at full HP? What if the enemy had versions of Fates's personal skills, like Chivalry, Pragmatic or Rose's Thorns?
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Jan 7, 2017 18:19
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FoolyCharged posted:The only real mistake you made was in thinking the ai is playing by the same rules as the player. The player has to win every battle, the ai only needs to win 1. Honestly, I disagree, at least for a sizable fraction of the FE Fanbase. The AI only has to kill a unit to win.
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Jan 8, 2017 09:11
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