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Tae posted:I think I usually stop my hard mode runs here because this map is super difficult to do, but then I never have a support going between Lance and Alan at this point. Maybe I should bite the bullet and just have a B/C between Lance/Alan/Roy next time I get here. It's the one I had to restart the most so far, and it was purely because I hadn't gotten a single good level-up at that point I don't think (thankfully that changed at this point) and had like a single C support so my team was getting creamed by the initial charge of cavalry. And chokepointing them off at the bridges didn't help much because the Nomads are pretty ridiculous. Once I got a decent strat down and some good RNG for the first couple turns the rest was pretty simple though.
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Apr 29, 2015 17:08
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Endorph posted:honestly my big problem with your writing is that you're ridiculously hyperbolic Burning, seething hate for a character can carry an LP.
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Apr 29, 2015 17:16
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not really
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Apr 29, 2015 17:18
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 If the character deserves the ire go for it I say.
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Apr 29, 2015 17:25
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Well if said character provides enough material for that, it can work. Maybe. Otherwise that'll just wear thin and you'll be beating a dead horse that way.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:16
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Other than supports I dunno if Clarine ever says a thing for the rest of the game so even if she deserved it (I think she's fun, far better than Roy or most of the dull non-characters in this game) there would be no material really.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:20
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Rigged Death Trap posted:
Ah yes, the main character of a duology of 30+ hour JRPGs and one of the 57 playable characters who will (optionally) have a single scene between now and the end of the game are definitely comparable.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:26
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God drat are you all really so invested in a lovely character/sacred FE cows? Who cares. Do your thing Melth.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:42
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Insurrectionist posted:Other than supports I dunno if Clarine ever says a thing for the rest of the game so even if she deserved it (I think she's fun, far better than Roy or most of the dull non-characters in this game) there would be no material really. One of the major flaws of FE6 is since every character who joins you can die permanently (bar Roy and Merlinus), they disappear from the plot once recruited. Outside of support conversations, the only time a character will ever speak after joining your crew is if they unlock a sidequest or can recruit someone else. It is entirely possible to play through the game with an army consisting only of Roy supported by Merlinus and Guinevere, and it's written to accommodate that. FE7 remedied the problem somewhat by having a few characters get a non-specific injury that still let them hang around in plot scenes, like Marcus and Oswin, and it even had at least one scene that changed if a character died beforehand. It's not until FE9 added base conversations that the series really started letting characters be relevant after they were recruited, though, and that game also had a lot of cutscenes that changed if a character died during the Greil Mercenaries arc. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 18:46
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Victis posted:God drat are you all really so invested in a lovely character/sacred FE cows? Who cares. Do your thing Melth.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:58
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Endorph posted:its not really about clarine i just thought it was annoying to read. Agreed. I understand if you don't like a character, but to go on that big of a rant is a bit off putting. In regards to this map on hard map, this is certainly a wake up call if you just squeaked through the first three chapters. Coincidentally, this is when I realized just how great Roy is as a support character, because Lance and Alan both really enjoy those offensive buffs and the dodge boost. Roy might not be a great fighter, but when he's sitting between those two and getting support boosts from both he can certainly hold his own.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:38
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Endorph posted:its not really about clarine i just thought it was annoying to read. The guy dedicated as many screenshots to not liking Clarine as he did to the ostensible subject of the LP. Hell, there's more screenshots of Clarine recruiting Rutger than about the stream of pirates. And it was mostly "she said this because of her character gimmick, which I do not like."
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Apr 29, 2015 23:44
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Alright, I'm just not seeing this so-called "rant" really. Let alone "that big of a rant". I said less about her than I do about most characters and I pointed out several scenes she's in that I liked. Critical? Yes but not even harsh most of time- heck, most of what she said outright went without comment. A rant? No. The closest I came to a rant was my 3 sentence character summary in her character section. Three sentences do not constitute a rant. A list of her negative attributes does not constitute a rant. Saying I hate her as a character does not constitute a rant. The only other part where I was very critical at all- even though she elsewhere said all sorts of obnoxious or stupid things (like her ridiculous "Hmph! I will not be friendly with you!" to Roy after he politely welcomed her to the group) was when she recruited Rutger. There I called her a twerp, which is pretty much the mildest insult ever, and summed up her attitude as thinking the world revolves around her.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:44
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Melth posted:Alright, I'm just not seeing this so-called "rant" really. Let alone "that big of a rant". That is your problem Melth, you use 10 words where 5 will do. Quite frankly your LPs devolve into ridiculous amount of words when the main draw is seeing the S-Rank. You're much more wordy on the plot than you are on the gameplay, and it becomes increasingly hard to read. I don't want you to take this the wrong way, you're legitimately good at playing the games and doing them in a way thats right, I greatly enjoy that part of the LP and I mean it's even in the title. I'm only saying this because I think your LP could be better, and I'd like to think you'd prefer that I honestly critique you than just shut up and clap.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:58
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more like 100 words where 5 will do
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Apr 30, 2015 00:10
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Melth, story analysis is fine. I enjoy it, as long as it doesn't go overboard. There isn't much story in FE 6 to analyze. You have an eye for finding small details, keeping track of things, and planning ahead. The problem is that when it comes to the plot, you're so keen on finding little tidbits of information that I think you see things in the plot that aren't there. When you see some strange decision by a character, consider which is more likely - does this show some mysterious and compelling thing about the character or that the writers weren't thinking clearly? Let's bring up Athos. You said, IIRC, that Athos withholds his aid from the party because he wants to test them. I think it's more likely the writers realized that a teleporting, extremely powerful, and very knowledgeable character could have solved the plot in minutes, and so they had to make up an excuse. I mean, Athos WAS more than capable of fighting Nergal. Nergal had to retreat after their first battle and in the final chapter Athos can just nuke Nergal with that Light spell he brought along. Don't take this personally. We're just trying to give you constructive criticism.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:36
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You used something like 500 words to complain about Clarine; I think that qualifies as a a rant.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:43
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I don't really see the problem with verbosity here. It's an exhibition of something he wants to show off, not a college essay. If Melth wants to be overly critical of the story and spend five hundred words complaining about a character, let him. The bigger question is where were all of these complaints about his style for the previous game? What makes these first few chapters of FE6 different from the entirety of FE7? Paragraphs were spent gushing about Nino and Jaffar and complaining about Ephidel and Vaida, and none of them contributed anything worthwhile to gameplay, but they were read with little complaint. I'm not saying that "oh, you didn't mention it before, your argument is invalid", but I'm just wondering why it's all surfacing now? As for my preferences, if Melth wants to spend more time complaining about Clarine and Narshen than talking about the actual map, then he's welcome to. Especially because it seems as though that Clarine and Narshen were the most notably part of the map to him. It's not exactly like FE6 has a bunch of interesting things to talk about this early anyway.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:26
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And especially since he already did this map in his last LP.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:30
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It's entirely his decision whether he wants to keep the advice we're trying to give him to improve his LP, but I think that criticism is extremely important and valuable in honing anything that you attempt to create. Furthermore, I am also entitled to my opinion regarding his LP, and I don't think that thread attempts to create a hugbox for him are a good enough reason to just throw my hands up and walk away, especially since I really want to follow his LP for the technical insights but can't because it is unreadable.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:34
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Trasson posted:I don't really see the problem with verbosity here. It's an exhibition of something he wants to show off, not a college essay. If Melth wants to be overly critical of the story and spend five hundred words complaining about a character, let him. Bystander effect, nobody wants to be first. Probation fear, while we're trying to be constructive, there's a big fear that someone goes running to a mod and we wind up probated. Also it was Melths first LP and there was a very real fear he might take it the wrong way. At the end of his FE7 LP, I mentioned he should try to work on cutting it down, this was after making a few subtle comments. Since it's been brought up by more people, people feel more comfortable saying it. The fact was people did complain about it they were just ignored. We're now into LP 2, and like you said, the game doesn't exactly have a lot to talk about at this point, so the updates shouldn't be that long. SC Bracer posted:It's entirely his decision whether he wants to keep the advice we're trying to give him to improve his LP, but I think that criticism is extremely important and valuable in honing anything that you attempt to create. Furthermore, I am also entitled to my opinion regarding his LP, and I don't think that thread attempts to create a hugbox for him are a good enough reason to just throw my hands up and walk away, especially since I really want to follow his LP for the technical insights but can't because it is unreadable. Also this.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:36
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SC Bracer posted:It's entirely his decision whether he wants to keep the advice we're trying to give him to improve his LP, but I think that criticism is extremely important and valuable in honing anything that you attempt to create. Furthermore, I am also entitled to my opinion regarding his LP, and I don't think that thread attempts to create a hugbox for him are a good enough reason to just throw my hands up and walk away, especially since I really want to follow his LP for the technical insights but can't because it is unreadable. No hyperbole here, no sir. Woe betide the man who comes between a Fire Emblem fanboy and his waifu.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:02
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Francis posted:Woe betide the man who comes between a Fire Emblem fanboy and his waifu. Excuse me I have a husbando and he isn't even in this game.  So I don't know what you're on about.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:15
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Francis posted:No hyperbole here, no sir. While I routinely say that "every character is someone's favorite," but I have a hard time imagining the person for whom Clarine is waifu. And I say that as someone who enjoys her archetype a lot. Anyway, I think all worthwhile criticism's on this topic's probably been brought forth, and we've certainly spent more time on Clarine than she will ever be worth, so can we please quit debating whether or not it's OK to say the things that have already been said? Let's talk about more important thing, like how people like to structure their Clarine/Dieck/Rutger triangle, and what one does with the person with support space left over, or...I dunno. Something. Actually, I do have another thought. FE6 is clearly meant to evoke FE1, becoming in some ways the Most Stock Fire Emblem, but I feel like Gweneviere, at least in terms of how early she's introduced and her relationship to the villain, might actually be a king of interesting divergence point, and I can't help but feel that if something more were done with her, there could have actually been something really interesting at the heart of the story. I mean, that's not the FE6 we got, but somehow, I feel something wasted in her.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:30
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Excuse me I have a husbando and he isn't even in this game. I think you're forgetting a certain dashing paladin with some massive hard mode stats.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:30
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Trasson posted:The bigger question is where were all of these complaints about his style for the previous game? What makes these first few chapters of FE6 different from the entirety of FE7? Paragraphs were spent gushing about Nino and Jaffar and complaining about Ephidel and Vaida, and none of them contributed anything worthwhile to gameplay, but they were read with little complaint. Personally? I wasn't following it because I'm actively playing through FE7 on my WiiU. I have to agree though. It's one thing to be incredibly thorough in a technical or informative LP, but it's another to write essays on how much you do or don't like a character.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:43
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Tyty posted:Personally? I wasn't following it because I'm actively playing through FE7 on my WiiU. Yeah, this is the big issue here. The technical end of the lp is fine and genuinely interesting. But in order to read it I have to go through excessively long diatribes that in the end use way too many words to get to the point. It's not just the Clarine thing (which could have been cut down to a short like 2 sentence summary of why Melth doesn't like her), it's the long-winded analysis of a plot Melth obviously doesn't care about.
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Apr 30, 2015 04:56
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I missed most of the first LP, but reading through it to catch up, the excessive verbosity got on my nerves there as well. It's not even that you're wrong about poo poo (Clarine starts off as an entitled brat, this is true), you just use way too many words to say what you're meaning to say. Also, instead of taking a picture of each line of dialogue, try and transcribe or even summarize it, it'll cut down on a lot of needless not-strategy screenshots.
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Apr 30, 2015 05:02
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I think you are all being a little hyperbolic? I don't mind the text-heavy updates and haven't really noticed Melth picking overmuch on any one character. Besides like Florina it didn't seem excessive.
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Apr 30, 2015 05:12
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Cat Army 
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Jesus, you'd think the entire update was just "gently caress Clarine" over and over with pictures of her dying. I like the character analysis and plot analysis and overall the LP is given a voice. I'm not saying everyone has to like it, but if you just want to read a technical guide of how to S-Rank FE6, you could just go to GameFAQs.
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Apr 30, 2015 05:36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z36Xadupn5c
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Apr 30, 2015 05:44
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Ryushikaze posted:I missed most of the first LP, but reading through it to catch up, the excessive verbosity got on my nerves there as well. It's not even that you're wrong about poo poo (Clarine starts off as an entitled brat, this is true), you just use way too many words to say what you're meaning to say. Just hazarding a guess here, but maybe the same kind of mindset that makes somebody want to go through the ridiculous effort it takes to max rank a strategy game (seriously, Melth did more accounting that last thread than I ever have on my taxes) also makes them lose track of just how many words they're throwing at a character they don't like? I doubt he could switch off his, uh, Melth-ness that easily even if he wanted to.  Anyway, just wanted to say I've been really impressed with these LPs, I usually get into FE threads and then bail about halfway through when they start to get samey, but somehow I made it all the way through the FE7 one. So thanks, Melth (and Fedule for putting it in the Recommendation thread). 
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Apr 30, 2015 05:51
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I liked the updates? Words were fine. It's not like FE6 has an incredibly deep and serious plot, or well rounded and fully characterized characters. And the uninspired translation doesn't help matters. We don't ever need to see another line of dialog from Clarine to finish the game, or most of the minor characters for that matter! Without commentary all that's left is a bunch of map pictures with arrows on them and a bunch of level up screens. I don't think that's compelling reading.
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Apr 30, 2015 05:53
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 Pretty much a filler chapter with a random fight against bandits. The only important thing that happens has nothing to do with the battle and is at the end. That said, this is pretty much the first chapter to be interesting tactically and it’s fairly good that way. Chapter Summary: Roy helps some villagers deal with some bandits who’ve begun plaguing the area now that the Lycian armies are weakened. Then a priest of the Elimine church shows up asking Guinevere why she swiped the Fire Emblem back in Bern, which is the first Roy heard of that. Upon learning that she’s trying to end the war peacefully, he and his bodyguard accompany the group.  A wild bandits appeared!  Wow, better get out of there!  Uh… or the group of shoddily armed and untrained bandits could attack an army they barely outnumber head-on, yeah.  Merlinus, rather than Marcus, seems to handle this kind of secretarial work for Roy.  Right to the point!  Merlinus gives his typical, “This is a stupid sidequest. Let’s get on with the important stuff” line and Roy ignores him as usual  It’s a rather predictable dynamic at this point. They need at least one extra person in there adding to the conversation.   Don’t do it; it’s a trap! Battle Preparations & the Map: In normal mode, opening the gate was a perfectly reasonable strategy. In hard mode it’s a trick and almost certain death for no reason. Here’s what happens:  (Sidenote, I don’t think they explain very well that the gate will open if you stand a unit here to begin with)  A villager pops up to open it.  Dory is an idiot. He’s been living right next door to this giant gate blocking off the valley for a week and never noticed it.  Poof! A group of enemies who will otherwise never be encountered charge out immediately. Nomads and mercenaries are hardcore and they’re backed up by a small army. You can’t win that fight. Not with the brigands coming over the peaks at you. This particular trap is pretty emblematic of FE6’s gameplay really. There are quite a few occasions where reasonable tactics are punished by bunches of enemies popping up somewhere unexpected to slaughter you without warning.  Secondary Objective: Visit the top village for the Gant Lance Secondary Objective: Grind up some supports Secondary Objective: Do some shopping Reinforcements: Besides the gate trap, brigands with handaxes spawn from the top left fort and ones with steel axes from the bottom left one from about turn 12-20. Another pair with varied gear spawns from the two right forts every turn from 15 to 20 or so. Turn Limit: 15. Way too early for the reinforcements. Now this is a pretty cool battle. It’s the first one where there are any serious tactical choices to make. First, do I go around the standard top route or the gate shortcut or both? Ultimately I concluded that the standard top route was best. I don’t really have enough good units to do both at once. Further, in the confined space of the gate area, my giant army would really at a disadvantage because only the enemy can go over the peaks and they have better ranged attacks. I did consider some somewhat outside the box tactics. For example, Thany could sneak around the bottom and land Chad or Rutger on the fort on turn 2 with some rescue dropping. That bypasses the gate trap reinforcements and would open a second front. And at first glance, it should be a pretty easy fight for a dodge-y sword user on a fort. There are 2 problems though. First, every single one of those brigands has a handaxe, so the sword user can’t actually counter and kill them. Second, that mage is INSANE. It does enough damage to 2-hit kill anyone in the party- including Lugh and my healers- is fast enough to double most people, and hits almost 70 accuracy against Rutger or Chad on that fort. So no one can possibly handle that and because of the handaxes it doesn’t help anyway. The second big decision comes later and it’s deciding who best to send to harvest each group of brigand reinforcements. This is complicated by needing to continue to build supports and needing to keep both Roy and units who can kill Dory around. Besides that, there are finally enough enemies of tough enough types and in problematic enough terrain that one has to actually think about moves instead of just throwing troops at the problem. On the other hand, there are pretty much no side objectives to this map, so one can concentrate all resources on the battle. The War Room, Part 39 Now that I’m a little further into the game and there are more enemy types to look at, I’m trying to find out in more detail just how many levels stronger enemies are in hard mode. Unfortunately, I can’t find any discussion of this the way there was for HHM. The few links to explanations by people who had known were long since defunct. NeoRonTheNeuron said in this thread that the number of bonus pseudo-levels was 3+ (chapter/2) with that number doubled due to a glitch in the first 5 chapters. Although I can’t do anything extensive enough to be conclusive empirically, I decided to take a look at some enemies in game and crunch the numbers on them. To understand what I’m doing, you’ll want to look at these 2 pages: http://serenesforest.net/binding-blade/classes/base-stats/ http://serenesforest.net/binding-blade/classes/growth-rates/ Those charts tell you what stats generic enemies should end up with on normal mode. For example, a level 5 brigand would have started with 20 HP and then gained 4 levels with an 82% chance to gain more HP every time, ending up with an expected HP total of 23.28. The way enemies (including those who can be recruited) are powered up in hard mode is by giving them a number of additional levels worth of stats without increasing their real level. In FE7’s HHM, it was just a flat 5 through the game. Here it seems to be both a higher number and to increase with chapter. To get an estimate of that number I looked at the stats of a number of enemies, subtracted their classes’ base stats, divided those results by the class’s growths, and then subtracted the enemy’s level -1 from each of those. The result is the average number of secret HHM levels the unit would need to have to end up with each of those stat values. Averaging those then gives an estimator of how many bonus levels the enemy actually has. It’s not a perfect estimator by any means, but it’s a decent one. For starters, here’s the only enemy I happened to look at in chapter 1:  HP (7), Str (9), Skill (8.5), Speed (10), Luck (13), Def (0), Res (10) The numbers in parentheses are approximately how many bonus levels would be required on average to get each of those stats. The average is 8.2. Now here are 6 enemies from chapter 5:  HP (11), Str (11), Skill (11), Speed (13.5), Luck (17), Def (17), Res (0). Average 11.5  HP (11), Str (12), Skill (13), Speed (16), Luck (9), Def (16), Res (6). Average 11.9  HP (12), Str (11), Skill (15), Speed (10), Luck (15), Def (15), Res (5). Average 11.9  HP (14), Str (13), Skill (15), Speed (10), Luck (8), Def (5), Res (15). Average 11.4  HP (12), Str (12), Skill (8.5), Speed (11.5), Luck (12), Def (12.5), Res (8). Average 10.9  HP (14.5), Str (14.5), Skill (12), Speed (9.5), Luck (13.5), Def (19), Res (3.5). Average 12.3 The average of these averages is 11.7 (and as a reminder the chapter 1 one was 8.2). I also know the number for chapter 5 was 11 at minimum with certainty because one enemy had gained enough points in HP that he had to have 11 hidden levels. Both of those numbers are approximately 1 above NeoRontheNeuron’s formula’s prediction, but that could just be random fluctuation. I’d be interested in seeing the original discussion that formula came from if it’s still around somewhere. The Characters:  A bandit with even less plot significance than Damas, there’s not a whole lot to say about Dory. He’s evidently rather arrogant and significantly overestimates the abilities of his group and himself personally. And he’s dumb enough to not notice a giant gate right next to his house with people standing by to operate it. With that 19 Str and solid speed and defenses, he’s one heck of a boss though.  This thing makes him absolutely crazy. With it, he has about a 25% chance of instant killing anyone you fight him with. That’s a 25% chance of having to restart every time he attacks. It’s worse than fighting Zoldam- except that you can make Dory unequip this thing. What you need to do is attack from 2 squares away (or just stand there) so he’ll switch to his handaxe and attack on his turn. No one has the strength to kill him with a 2-ranged weapon at this point, but on your turn it’s now safe to fight him at 1 range (and then rescue out whoever attacked him to repeat it next turn). Playing Through:  Here we go; at long last there’s a chance to really do something clever tactically. First things first, Dieck needs a new iron sword.  And Chad moves past Wolt and takes his vulnerary. As prophesied, it may serve someone whose life is actually valuable very well. There are a pair of brigands who come over that western set of peaks and I want one decent swordsman to take them down, but no more. Chad fits the bill. He might also be good for triggering the gate later when I can handle the reinforcements.  So here’s the deal. I have a long road to fight down and most of the enemies are going to charge forward. If they get onto those forts, I’m going to get bogged down trying to push them off where the terrain is not in my favor. I also have issues right now with most of my front line units being nowhere near the front line and none of them being capable of reaching the forts. It’s time to get clever.  One remarkably awful thing about this formation is that the way people were spaced out in some places and crowded in others can make it hard to rescue people like Dieck here after he moved. Ellen clears the way and gets one of the new heal staves.  Now Dieck can be carried.  The next cavalier takes Dieck but does not drop him  Thany takes him then and SHE drops him. A true rescue chain, moving him 11 spaces worth of movement in one turn despite no one being ideally positioned for it.  Now Rutger moves north.  And Ward rescues him.  Then Clarine takes him and drops him onto the other fort.  And then the rest move in (Lot and Marcus carry and drop Lugh). This formation is just about the best one conceivable after this turn. I took both forts even though both were out of reach, what’s more I took them with the ideal units for the job. Dieck, Thany, and Ellen have all been re-equipped. Many others have been moved at greater than full speed towards the new front. And everyone is in support positions with Clarine next to Dieck and Rutger and Alan next to Lance and Roy.  With everyone in proper position, the enemy fighters are helpless.  The inaptly named “Cath” which FE7 veterans may know as “Going My Way” plays during this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKBl_edYuoE Bishop Yodel makes an early appearance here. I’m not sure what someone so important is doing in the area himself.  You’ll note that this is the same theme that plays for Serra and Erk, a not dissimilar pair in some ways.  Saul, the priest in question, is off flirting with one of the local women.  When Dorothy comes running up.  And the villager takes her opportunity to slip away.  Of course, she’d been trying to get away before that.  She seems to be his chaperone as well as his bodyguard. The pair of them are half Kent/Sain and half Serra/Erk, though without any of the serious parts of the former. Still, they manage to be more fun than many other zany character pairs in this series with what little screen time they get.  You know, unless he actually wandered off after seeing Yodel, I’m not sure how he’d know that.   Now this line is interesting because he presents his joining as kind of a snap decision later on, not something he set out to do in the first place. Evidently he’s cleverer than he lets us know right now.  And they end on their usual joke. The duo might wear thin if they got more screen time, but like most FE6 characters they have very little dialogue beyond their introduction (besides support conversations).  And they leave to the east. But apparently don’t find us there. Also, they end up in the castle to the west. Elibe must be some kind of pac-man world.  Those brigands will be a while coming, so Chad just visits houses.  This one actually has semi-decent advice. At the very least, it informs new players that enemies sometimes come out of forts- which begins happening on this chapter. Of course, those enemies are a source of XP and devoting several people to just standing on forts is not an efficient use of resources.  So this turn is relatively easy. Just a matter of finding ways to keep everyone in support formations while still advancing and killing some of the enemies. Fighters are not the threat they were a few chapters ago, though mercenaries are still a big deal.  The cavaliers were further back and make a good front line, so they go in first. They’re also less accurate than the swordsmen, so I want to see if they hit or not before making my plans.  Next Rutger goes in for an awesome level.  Well I’m half done. This last fighter is surprisingly tough to deal with. It’s a shade faster than average which means nothing I have can double it. Of course, alone it isn’t a threat to my troops, but it does prevent me from deploying rapidly.  With some trade chaining a handaxe around, I can muster enough damage to have a chance at killing it.  As long as Marcus and Lugh get in on it too.  But that boxed Roy out and meant I didn’t even have enough people to rescue drop him. I foresee little for Thany to do next turn, so she carries Roy and will drop him somewhere useful.  Uh… ok!  I’ve just got to keep the momentum up, and that means moving as far as possible to attack. Only if I clear a lot of open space can I move my rear people up.  Javelins are handy on offense even against axe-wielders, but I use trading to make sure no one finishes their turn with one out.  I can’t kill the other fighter, but I can at least clear a space to drop Roy into.  Well that’s a pretty bad level.  Clarine could have survived due to getting a speed level before, but I have enough people injured that I didn’t want to have a healer added to the list.  Great. This is a very good Lugh so far. Mag is all he really needs to gain a lot of early, though this speed is excellent too.  After dropping Roy in, Thany of course waits at the farthest forward safe space. She may be useful trapping or finishing a nomad.  Speaking of people needing healing… In FE in general, but early in this one in particular, the Random Number God reigns supreme. No strategy you can concoct is miss proof. If you play conservatively, you can diminish luck’s impact significantly. But the trouble with that is that one of the results of FE6’s setup where the enemy is scattered and comes at you in small waves is that if you don’t eliminate the small waves, they quickly build up into a big group. And THEN you’re often in trouble. When you go on the offensive, you trade predictable luck for control over the enemy forces. As long as things go mainly the way the dice say they should, you choose which enemies live and which ones die. You can leave alive only the ones who are not in a position or class that is threatening, you can force them to attack targets they can’t beat, and so on. But of course, if you get a really bad string of misses- like REALLY bad- it can explode your plans completely when the enemies you needed dead miraculously live through everything.  Even my dodgiest unit with massive HM bonuses can’t really dodge tank at this stage of the game. He got lucky this time, but the true chance to hit was just about 75%.  Chad visits the last house.  We’ve seen this staring-eyed portrait somewhere before. It looked silly then but now it seems weirdly appropriate now as the shocked man describes what he saw at Araphen.  Wyvern riders.  Now actually dragons? That’s one of the things I definitely liked about the other translation patch, it got rid of this absurd wyvern/dragon mixup  A bad level for Ward as he softens up the enemy.  I really need people who can double nomads. Here Dieck moves as far toward the enemy back as he can to establish a new front line.  I need at least one of them dead. Perhaps I can surround this one if all else fails.  No good.  Well all else failed, so I surrounded one and try to actually kill the other.  A pretty typical Thany level.  Taking one more enemy down is of course worth Rutger getting hit.  This one has been alive for way too long. Unfortunately, Lot, who I’m trying to train, has to stay back to kill it.  Well that’s a really good level at least.  Always check to make darned sure one enemy can’t actually one round kill your units before putting them in range. Clarine will be hit bad but she’ll live.  Unexpectedly, these guys didn’t move even with a target in range. FE6 actually has a fair number of enemies who behave like that- but they all move if there’s a target they can kill in range. Since you can’t tell in advance which are merely stationary until someone enters their range and which are just waiting to snipe injured people. It can be tricky to advance toward groups like those two.  So as turn 5 begins, the map is actually looks mostly wrapped up. But the reinforcements will be trouble.  There were so few people in range that turn that everyone just had to kind of crowd forward.  Meanwhile, the first brigand finally crosses the peaks and Chad prepares to lure him away.  This lance is one of several such items named after characters from the manga adaptation of this game or something like that. I don’t know anything about that, but these weapons are usually somewhere between iron and steel on most of their stats and this is no exception.  So this is where the RNs just do not go my way. This guy has already dodged several attacks and he just keeps it up.  5 people attacked so far and he’s taken only a single hit for low damage. And as you can see, I can’t even attack with Roy or he’ll probably die. I have to occupy this spot at this point though and run a 20% or so risk of Roy being killed because otherwise he’d surely kill Lugh. Sometimes there’s just not a whole lot you can do if an enemy dodges 5 attacks that should have hit when you still have fragile people on the team and the terrain is rough.  Elen gets an ok level healing the only target in range.  So I survived that turn, but many of my units were badly roughed up. I can’t afford another unlucky turn.  Well first things first, Chad gets a great Chad level as he begins fighting the brigands at last.  And now the main attraction. I expected 2 fewer mercenaries as I made my plans, but then they just dodged too much so now I have a force of badly injured people with which to take out 5 tough enemies. This is going to be hard.  Well this is a decent bet on killing the nomad with a unit who can survive fights from mercenaries if need be. 81% success odds.  Darn.  And that guy kept dodging. And so did his buddies. I’ve… accomplished nothing. And all I have left are injured people I can’t heal easily due to the formation and terrain. This is looking like a game over. At this point I have to have Marcus javelin the nomad. It HAS to die even if Marcus is the one doing the killing. Then I have to give up on supports and have Lance and Rutger take down the mercenary in the middle of my lines. And then just brace for impact from the remaining 3.  Well it’s a mess and it required me to give a kill to Marcus and not gain any support, but this formation SHOULD work. Geez, 14 guys only managed to kill 2.  Next turn, Chad kills brigand number one.  Will Thany finally get a kill?  Yes and an amazing level! Ok, my luck is turning around it seems.  Rutger gets the last kill. I can then drop him around if need be.  Dieck lured another enemy into range and got a good level from him. He’d been falling a bit short on speed.  After that tense 2 turns, I’ve pretty much won and I can just advance while healing.  So it’s turn 9 when I make my move toward the castle itself.  As I mentioned before, that mage is overwhelmingly powerful. In a solo fight, it has good odds to kill anyone on my team- even Marcus. Heck, the two cavaliers together +Roy probably lose if they attack now, but I don’t need to.  Clarine heals and builds support bit by bit.  Well that was a lousy level.  As you can see, Alan and Lance can’t actually get enough damage to kill the mage even if they can both hit it. And they can’t, its avoid is spectacular somehow. Meanwhile, even with supports it will probably not miss and will 2-hit kill. So if I attack, I lose.  So I just give them both javelins and let it make the first move, then finish it safely next turn.  Chad finishes the last brigand.  Startlingly, this doesn’t even put him THAT far above average.  So turn 12 ended up being the fastest I could get here after that 2 turns of missing. That’s unfortunate since fortress reinforcements are about to start, but this is still my best chance to spawn the gate reinforcements.  Chad couldn’t get there in time. Instead he’ll move to the top right for when those brigands spawn.  These guys are a LOT less problematic when the Nomads are the front line, the mercenaries are in the rear, and you can slam them with 5 or 6 really good attackers at once.  Roy gets to work and gains some more speed. One day he may be able to double things.  All but one falls easily, then the healers move in to heal and support. Meanwhile, a small posse is preparing for the top reinforcements.  Of course, at the time I had no idea those guys had handaxes.  On my turn Lugh gets his best level yet weakening that brigand.  With the mercenaries/nomads gone I can deal with the next waves more easily. But not as easily as you’ve think. Here’s the problem: there are 3 sources of brigands very far from each other. If I fail to kill all 4 total brigands every turn, I might actually be in some danger on that front. If this were FE7, I’d just stand around the fortresses and kill the brigands as they spawn. But this is 6, so the new brigands move first and that means they can’t be trapped- because they can go on peaks and I can’t. And a brigand on a peak is definitely one I can’t kill. Meanwhile, I want to keep grinding support as well as XP. That means Clarine, Rutger, and Dieck must stay together, as must Roy, Lance, and Alan. Those are my A and B teams so they need to be at different spawn points. But which one? I need Roy close to Dory to seize the throne, but I need Rutger or Dieck there to actually kill him easily in the first place.  But turn 15 is already here, I need to move several people right as fast as possible. Ultimately I decide on Rutger + Dieck + Clarine along with some support. This may have been unwise since killing Dory proves even tougher than expected.  A more normal Alan level. It’s really weird having Alan be the good one and Lance the mediocre one.  Bors is nearly untrainable.  Unlike Lot.  The right reinforcements now begin and behave as expected.  Lance is much more normal than Alan.  I’m also having predictable issues with having 3 groups and 2 healers. Roy needs a healer to take on Dory. The right group needs a healer for their support triangle. This leaves the top left group increasingly injured  The right group is stronger than it needed to be it seems and is now pushing upstream.  Chad continues to amaze.   Sweet!  And Roy gets another amazing level!  Not bad. There’s really not much to talk about now. It’s just me farming reinforcements repetitively for a while.  Now this guy is getting somewhere!  On turn 20, the reinforcements are finally almost done.  Well I can always count on Ward to be bad.  As I talked about, I begin rescue drop operations against Dory. Alan scores a lucky critical.  Alan is pulled safely out and the top group prepares to join in.  Second turn, Alan tries again.  I need this over with. With support, the critical evade chance is rather high.  Chad finally nets some defense from the second-last brigand.  The last one is killed before it can flee.  Alan kills Dory.  Very nice!  And XP grinding continues with the healers. Another unimpressive level from Clarine.  And on turn 22, I finally win. Curiously, no supports become available. Hopefully I’m close at least.  And here come Saul and Dorothy, late to the party.  Well that’s interesting.  This surprises the characters, but I’m not sure why. I mean, any survivors of the chapter 2 raid would report the truth. People investigating the princess’s disappearance would have noticed that she vanished after last being seen in a castle that the Lycians were about to attack. And so on.  They decide the church is probably on their side and decide to see the priest.  Looks like they were right.   Just as Dorothy predicted.  But he does get back to business. And here it is: the first mention of the chapter’s namesake.  Unexpected!  I was really expecting a “Because you just told me” answer the first time I played.  But no, the church put it together by reasoning that 1) the emblem went missing at the same time the princess went missing and 2) so she took it, duh. But if she just grabbed it and left, why is she surprised anyone doesn’t know?  So it seems the real question wasn’t whether she had it but why she left with it.  And now she reveals that this was her clumsy attempt to stop the war.  It’s ambiguous at this point if the church does or not, so there are several ways to interpret this question.  She reveals that she has a hazy idea that it somehow is used to acquire the Sword of Seals.  But doesn’t know any of the details. She just knew her brother thought it was important and didn’t want it falling into enemy hands, so she swiped it hoping that that would make him chicken out of the war altogether. That… was not really likely to work without knowing what it does or to what extent it would be important. Oh well, she gets points for trying at least.   Saul makes sure they’re all on the same page about what she did and why. I’m interested that he didn’t think this stuff should be secret from Roy. Maybe he figured he couldn’t keep Roy out of the loop forever so he might as well tell him now.  Yep, guess it wasn’t that important afterall.  Roy asked her that last chapter; get with the times, man!  She hints that she still has a plan but doesn’t want to reveal it till the time is right.  And Saul joins up, acting like this wasn’t his plan from the beginning.  … for what? Every chapter ends with her apologizing. Other times there was at least something to apologize for. Besides an excellent beginning, I think I played that chapter somewhat poorly, or at least imperfectly. That was somewhat because I didn’t know exactly what to expect from the reinforcements and somewhat because I was too focused on obtaining supports that proved to be out of reach anyway. Probably I should have sent Dieck up north and kept Rutger near Dory and given Chad less support. After the blessings he’d gotten, he was surprisingly capable of handing quite a few brigands at once. The trouble (if you can call it that) is that I got REALLY good level ups overall. Sure there were some bad ones and a few terrible ones, but those were on unimportant people by and large. The important people got great levels, and if I restarted to save some turns, I would lose all of that. That’s just not a good idea for the long term. Total Restarts: 0 (If my levels had been average, I’d definitely have restarted this one to save turns) Turn Surplus: -19 (Ouch, I went way overtime. There’s just one more chapter to prep supports before 7, but after that I need to start bringing this down) Things I Regret Missing: A couple of uses of Marcus’s silver lance on Rude, a Chapter 5 nomad Marcus had to kill Melth fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Apr 30, 2015 06:01
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Wayne posted:Just hazarding a guess here, but maybe the same kind of mindset that makes somebody want to go through the ridiculous effort it takes to max rank a strategy game (seriously, Melth did more accounting that last thread than I ever have on my taxes) also makes them lose track of just how many words they're throwing at a character they don't like? I doubt he could switch off his, uh, Melth-ness that easily even if he wanted to. It's not just characters he doesn't like, it's everything. Melth's prolix nature is all over the last LP, even on stuff he liked. Again, my point isn't to say "stop what you're doing" it's to say "Use fewer words to the same or more effect." More directly, Melth, you used the same picture twice by mistake Melth posted:
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Apr 30, 2015 06:28
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Melth posted:
This is actually a case of the patch loving up and cutting off the rest of her dialog quote:Guinevere: Thrilling stuff. Also I personally localized it as Drake/Dracoknight, because they aren't Wyverns. And I also think this update was much better than the last Melth! It explained what needed to be explained and I didn't feel like I lost anything. Also, your problem with support points? That's because FE6 has BAD DESIGN. Instead of just letting you build supports up until they hit their caps, there is a POINT CAP per chapter of 120 points period. Not for each individual pairing, but for everyone period. The flipside is you can support more than once per chapter, and have Alance B on Chapter 1. It's dumb and stupid and I've gone with the FE9 style of support growths. Anyway as for this chapter, you accurately point out that this is filler, in fact it's probably the only major filler chapter in the game... so I replaced it.  Welcome to Thria, if you pay attention to what minor story there is. this is where the next Chapter takes place. Since this chapter serves no purpose besides introducing Dorothy and Saul and having Guinevere talk about the Fire Emblem, I changed it so that Roy, having fled from Laus (After killing Erik or not) is next trying to reach Thria, where Lord Orun, Hectors half brother, rules. Whether Hector is alive or not changes his specific reasoning, but either way, there's a path through Thria to Ostia, and it should be friendly territory. It is here that Roy discovers Thria overrun by 'Bandits' as well as the Monk Saul and the Soldier Dorothy surrounded and fighting for their lives. Joining the battle he routs the foe before being invited into castle Thria, where chapter 6 continues as normal. Except they aren't Bandits. They're Bern soldiers in disguise. There's not one 'Bandit' class enemy among them, and at a later turn, a Dracoknight will appear from that Fort by the lake. One thing I've always liked in FE6 is outside of these early nomads, the enemies always made sense for their location. You don't just find random bandit groups with Pegasus Knights in the middle of the Western Isles. Anyway, that would be a hint to the player that these Bandits are not what they seem. Roy himself will comment on it at the chapters end. Have the Monk Saul  And the Soldier Dorothy  I'll also do into a bit on what I wanted the Early Lycia arc to do. To me, this arc is about Roy getting to witness Zephiels mentality without having even met the man. The idea of humans betraying their friends for power. Erik turned upon his oaths and allies, servants killing their masters to usurp them, meeting Cath and hearing how her Marquiss torched her town. all the while trying to hold together a group of rookie knights, mercenaries and children all of whom are entrusting HIM with their lives. And he's only 15, he's got a potentially still dying or dead Hector weighing down on his conscience as everywhere he turns to help has suddenly become his enemy, and this continues when he reaches Ostia itself. Most importantly, Roy is running the hell away. He's not strong enough to turn and throw Bern out of his home, he's personally not a good enough leader to keep everyone alive (And you best believe if anyone dies that's weighing him down) And frankly there's very few Seize chapters, 4 is a Kill Boss chapter, 5 is a Rout, Chapter 6 is another Escape chapter, 7 is a Rout, and the newly created whole-cloth chapter 9 is a defense map. Only chapter 1, 2 and 8/8x are Seize (I know, your hearts are crying at the loss of our favourite victory condition)
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Apr 30, 2015 06:30
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that map seems mondo big
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Apr 30, 2015 07:25
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Cake Attack posted:that map seems mondo big It is, I2's 30 by 24, I've cut it down to 24x21  I think I'll edit it a little, but I was super happy with the larger map. It was one of those early maps I made. EDIT  Hmm, more like this, thinking some of your units will start north of the lake. Onmi fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Apr 30, 2015 |
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Apr 30, 2015 07:33
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Onmi posted:Except they aren't Bandits. They're Bern soldiers in disguise. There's not one 'Bandit' class enemy among them, and at a later turn, a Dracoknight will appear from that Fort by the lake. One thing I've always liked in FE6 is outside of these early nomads, the enemies always made sense for their location. You don't just find random bandit groups with Pegasus Knights in the middle of the Western Isles.
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Apr 30, 2015 09:31
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Endorph posted:Eh, I always figured that hey, random Ilian peg knights could turn to banditry, right? I mean they're already mercenaries, historically that's a leap plenty of people have made. Fair but it's always just struck me as weird when you have certain classes in certain forces, for one thing, it sort of makes every country the same. Which really is something I noticed in Awakening. Despite fighting two separate countries, I never noticed such a difference in the enemy force that I could go "Okay yeah this is a different army."
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Apr 30, 2015 09:38
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