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That map is a hosed up slog. Thosel reinforcement waves are some absolute horse poo poo.
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Jul 29, 2021 10:28
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 16:35 |
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goatface posted:That map is a hosed up slog. Thosel reinforcement waves are some absolute horse poo poo. Oh, the reinforcements have not yet begun to be horse poo poo.
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Jul 29, 2021 10:50
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All they do is suck up your time and weapon uses. Even the latter isn't so much of a problem given the money and gems being passed out.
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Jul 29, 2021 11:10
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It does feel like every map is specifically made so you'll play it very, very slowly and defensively, which is just not fun to play. And honestly, it may end up not being fun to watch, the videos keep getting longer and longer and SRPGs just don't give a lot of spectacle. It's just bad game design all around and I can only imagine it'll also get very luck-based if the power curve keeps increasing.
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Jul 29, 2021 13:23
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TheMcD posted:Since I started outright cheating pretty soon on my first playthrough, I thought the third postgame dungeon was just completely insane and impossible to do legit, but it does seem like if you take everything the hack gives you, there are ways around things. I still think that, honestly. I took one look at them and said "gently caress it, I'm turning on infinite money and I'm buying everyone legendary weapons and 2-3 stat accessories". I didn't cheat on stats in any way (though I'd been using Rebirth Seals aggressively and most of my characters were capped in 3-4 areas by then), but even then, I don't want to imagine how much grinding I'd have needed to do to get the necessary equipment legitimately. (Okay, I also got pretty aggressive with savestates toward the end, because gently caress the final boss design.) I guess in a sense I'm not supporting the argument that it's impossible (I could have just spent hours and hours grinding money), but nobody should do it.
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Jul 29, 2021 15:17
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Explopyro posted:I still think that, honestly. Well, "legit" in this case means "using infinite money and cheated stat boosters to abstract out infinite money grinding and character grinding with rebirth seals", since that is still "taking what the game gives you" (i.E. infinite EXP and gold). It's not the cleanest definition of "legit", but it works for me.
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Jul 29, 2021 15:42
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New video! I hate this map so much. I'm sure there's a better approach than what I did, but I'll be hosed if I can figure that out. Also, there's some insane reinforcements here.
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Aug 4, 2021 10:06
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Berserked Assassin MVP
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Aug 4, 2021 15:16
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The nastiest part of this one is how close they start the enemies to you; once you can get the starting areas cleared out, it's really not that bad and you can more or less just let them come to you. (On the right side, if not doing it the way you did, you really have to be proactive and kill everything on your first turn to get some breathing room.) I was rewarded here for my heavy investment in flying units (I was using all three pegs and Cormag), I didn't have to do any shenanigans with leaving half my army behind since the flyers could cross from one battlefield to the other as needed. Still, I think the overall approach ended up being pretty similar, the forests blunt a lot of it. Berserking the assassin was pretty clever, I'm impressed how much work he did for you. I found the assassins pretty manageable as long as you're careful not to let them attack you on enemy phase (ranged lances and/or magic take them out quickly enough). This map is honestly pretty interesting, even if it's a slog to play through; at least here, more or less what you see is what you get (I think the next one is the one with the nasty surprise that pissed me off...).
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Aug 4, 2021 16:51
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New video! How do you make postgame maps worse? Desert maps, of course! Desert maps with ridiculous bosses that practically force a single strategy!
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Aug 11, 2021 16:51
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So, Dragon Blood isn't related to Dragon Tears as far as I know. It's a replacement for Boots/Swiftsoles that's also had a bunch of other stat boosts tacked onto it. It gives +5 HP, +2 to all other stats (except CON), and +1 movement. Around this point, they start giving out a whole bunch of them; as far as I know, there are no Boots in the hack at all. This map is pretty awful, and just unpleasant to play. Even with my focus on flying units, it was still a huge slog. One thing I really disliked in this hack that becomes very noticeable here (hi Vanessa), is its frequent use of Wyvern Knights as generic enemies. It doesn't matter what your characters' stats are, etc, any Wyvern Knight alive on enemy phase within range to attack you is a non-negligible chance of having to reset. They have enough strength that a Pierce trigger will just outright kill a character (and a Pierce crit is guaranteed to kill anyone from full, which is nasty given the overall boosted crit odds in Sacred War). And since Pierce is level% to trigger, it's significantly worse than Assassins (especially when you factor in their huge movement).
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Aug 11, 2021 18:29
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There's no overstating just how miserable this feels to play, and that's just by watching someone else do it, I imagine it's even worse when you're playing yourself. It incentivices you to, essentially, not play - 20 deployment slots but you're better off using few units and camping hard. Endless reinforcements and stupidly high stats that break the caps, plus legendary weapons, just accentuate the issue. Giving you the chance to buy infinite legendary weapons and grind endlessly yourself feels like a bandaid rather than a genuine fix, and that's likely because whoever's behind this thinks this is acceptable difficulty instead of being just a slog. That there's another set of even worse maps after this makes me fear for the LPer's sanity.
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Aug 11, 2021 19:57
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New video! We're coming close to the end of the Rift, and we're starting to run out of bosses for the hack to throw at us. It's really pulling out all the stops now.
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Aug 18, 2021 09:43
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That was long even if part of it was just you skipping turns and checking with Phantom in fear of reinforcements that were triggered by a completely different thing.
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Aug 18, 2021 21:09
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This was the map that pissed me off the most, I think, just because of what a huge dick move the spawning boss squadrons are (Valter's, in particular, given how much move they have and how many Wyvern Knights are in it; I found I basically had to kill them all the turn they got into range, or at least one character was going to be dying). That said, somehow I completely failed to notice the snag that dried up all the rivers; that would've made things a bit easier in the final stretch. I lured all the enemies out one by one using phantoms, but it was tricky to then kill them without getting into range of something else when they were all funnelling out the same bridge from the island. (I remember thinking, when I saw that island, that it was probably designed to be an attractive Peacemaker target, but I didn't have a Mage Knight so I couldn't test that to see if it would work.) I'm finding myself at a loss for things to say about these, they're just stat inflation and loads of enemies. I was still using legendary weapons sparingly at this point, and somehow got through it, so there's a technical sense in which you can argue the difficulty is fair, it's just not much fun to play.
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Aug 19, 2021 01:26
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Honestly I admire the LP to go to 100%, but the Rift has long since grown stale for me:/ I'm not above skipping through the video, but those are some heavy skips:D The main game was really interesting, this bonus is rather not - does it lead somewhere, or are there interesting gimmicks later on?
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Aug 19, 2021 08:35
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I find the first few turns of "how do we survive the initial situation" more interesting than the rest. That part is still like a little puzzle game, the rest is just a slog because they don't seem to have any ideas beyond more units with more stats.
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Aug 19, 2021 11:13
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New video! The final map of the Rift. But we don't really have a lot of bosses left for the hack to use. Unless...?
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Aug 25, 2021 11:56
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It's finally over, and at least it seemed like an interesting map instead of just an endless pile of reinforcements. Too bad there's still more.
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Aug 25, 2021 16:12
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"This is kind of an anticlimax" could have been a good thread title.
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Aug 25, 2021 17:25
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This map is a lot harder if you're reluctant to use Divinestones, I'm not sure why I didn't (especially when they just hand you one here). This is probably the best place to use them, too, since the final boss of the last thing is arbitrarily invulnerable to them. The Latona staff makes the petrification a lot more manageable, since it cures status on everyone in addition to healing. You still have the problem of it negating doubling when you get hit, but that's something you can work around (it does feel cheap though). The Lyon thing confused me too, but yes, you get him after I think 2 floors of the Tower in the new patch? It's annoying (I'd have preferred being able to train him up outside without having to repeat floors). If you stay in this patch, you could get Lyon after clearing Lagdou/Rift three times as usual (hahahaha sigh). I didn't end up actually using him but I think I should have, he can summon and cast Hel and both of those things would have been very helpful in the bullshit to come. As for that bullshit... ooh boy. Have fun.
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Aug 25, 2021 19:49
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New video!  The second tower begins. This is where Sacred War gets really fun. And by fun I mean painful.
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Sep 1, 2021 08:09
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Ugh. Everything about this is awful and this is the point where this hack lost everything that remained of my goodwill. I will maintain that Sacred War is a better, more complete experience if you never switch patches and pretend all of this doesn't exist. (This is also where I finally gave in and switched on infinite money to just spam legendaries, there's really nothing else that works.) There's not even really level design going on here; the earlier maps, for all their flaws, still had narratives and structure to them, and it was possible to appreciate or enjoy what they were going for even if in practice they were a bit too much of a slog. This? There's nothing interesting about this. It's enemy spam and the enemies are a faceless mass of uninteresting threats. I brought a full army to these, and basically every unit's inventory was a legendary weapon plus a pile of stat accessories (I didn't switch things around much, I think I bought everyone a Sol Seal, Luna Seal, and 1-2 Star Barriers, except the lucky few who got the limited-availability ones like Etherite/Dark Stone? I don't quite remember, and it might have gone better if I'd thought more about the distribution). And on top of that, I was checkpointing myself with savestates at the start of every turn. I got through it, but it was neither fun nor interesting. The one advantage of bringing a larger army here (and one thing I think you could be making better use of) is being able to arrange them to take advantage of support bonuses. Supports are basically the one axis of advantage we still get as the player relative to these overpowered enemies (they have the same tools as we do in stats and weapons). Oh, and the story is painfully bad. Hi, Anime God, you're a terrible character.
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Sep 1, 2021 14:26
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I guess now Sacred Stones is a true JRPG since you get to kill god in it. Sacred War, fixing mistakes! ...oh who am I kidding, this entire thing is a mistake. The number inflation is so hard that it actually kills strategy, since now you only have one possible weapon for each type, anything less than the legendaries isn't going to cut it here. That really isn't good design.
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Sep 1, 2021 15:18
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Explopyro posted:The one advantage of bringing a larger army here (and one thing I think you could be making better use of) is being able to arrange them to take advantage of support bonuses. Supports are basically the one axis of advantage we still get as the player relative to these overpowered enemies (they have the same tools as we do in stats and weapons). True, I've basically made gently caress all use of the support bonuses for how much time we spent setting them up. But here's the punchline: They're going to be essentially pointless entirely from now on because of something you should have been making better use of. You'll see.
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Sep 1, 2021 16:03
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Blaze Dragon posted:...oh who am I kidding, this entire thing is a mistake. The number inflation is so hard that it actually kills strategy, since now you only have one possible weapon for each type, anything less than the legendaries isn't going to cut it here. That really isn't good design. I completely agree with this, and it's hard to overemphasise how monotonous this makes everything. Even if the choices of weapons may not feel essential to the gameplay, you really feel the lack of it (and the lack of inventory spaces) here. Although I did find a few edge cases where other weapons made sense to use, occasionally one of the class-specific Brave weapons (Astra Sword, Storm Spear) would output more damage or allow me to avoid a counter. And I guess you could still use siege tomes. TheMcD posted:True, I've basically made gently caress all use of the support bonuses for how much time we spent setting them up. But here's the punchline: They're going to be essentially pointless entirely from now on because of something you should have been making better use of. You'll see. Okay, you have my curiosity piqued.
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Sep 1, 2021 16:19
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New video! In this video, we have some fun, because we've finally managed to acquire that which we've desired for so long.
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Sep 8, 2021 13:35
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... Yeah, I really should have used Lyon. My thinking at the time was some combination of "I don't feel like replaying that previous level if I leave to get him levels" and "replacing my team with non-canonical bonus characters feels against the spirit when there's new story content", but I don't know why I was willing to concede that much to the hack (and this story doesn't deserve that kind of goodwill). This is going to be cathartic to watch. Lyon can use Hel, too, which could be hilarious if it works on some of the bosses in here.
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Sep 8, 2021 17:54
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God, that writing is honestly awful. It may be even worse than the gameplay! If this is the tier of story they were going for, it would've been better to just leave the ruins as a series of battles, I genuinely felt like skipping forward in the video during the text segments. Also god, that Lyon. That's beautiful.
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Sep 8, 2021 20:59
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I lasted under a minute before skipping forward.
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Sep 8, 2021 21:47
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Blaze Dragon posted:God, that writing is honestly awful. It may be even worse than the gameplay! If this is the tier of story they were going for, it would've been better to just leave the ruins as a series of battles, I genuinely felt like skipping forward in the video during the text segments. goatface posted:I lasted under a minute before skipping forward. It's very much a thing. It's really weird they decided to add that in, but, well, it's here, and I guess we're reading it.
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Sep 10, 2021 10:08
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New video!  We take our new toy into the second tower. It can't deal.
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Sep 15, 2021 13:43
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This goes back to a point I made before: the number inflation in this game actually kills all possible tactics. The only way to face it is to go with big numbers too. No weapons but the legendaries are useful at this point, but you can get an infinite amount of them, so they were fully aware of it. And most characters won't keep up, but the game gives you someone with absurd stats and power in Lyon. It feels like the person behind this just thought that worked - putting band-aids on issues rather than fixing anything, and embracing just bigger and bigger numbers with little else to them.
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Sep 15, 2021 15:38
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It comes down to a lack of options. The combat system is simple enough to be solved. Triangle advantage just stops mattering. Support is nice but unwieldy and only on the player's side. Then there's the whole fire emblem "keep everyone alive" plan, which precludes attritional warfare. Everything is rocket tag or plink.
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Sep 15, 2021 16:22
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Pierce is only rolled on a successful hit, yes. It's level% and I think these guys are all level 20 (I have seen some hacks that have enemies go above 20 but I don't think this one did that?), but if they're unable to hit, you won't be seeing Pierce either. If you have animations on, some of the strong enemies here start using the unique sprites otherwise reserved for specific characters of ours (I think we'll see more of this next floor). The Seth-class guy here literally just uses Seth's sprites, though that's not a huge surprise; IIRC we'll see Tana, L'Arachel, etc, in the upcoming floor. I don't know if this is actually supposed to mean anything (ooooh, spooky, we're fighting ourselves?) or if it's just the hacker wanting to differentiate enemies. Blaze Dragon posted:This goes back to a point I made before: the number inflation in this game actually kills all possible tactics. The only way to face it is to go with big numbers too. No weapons but the legendaries are useful at this point, but you can get an infinite amount of them, so they were fully aware of it. And most characters won't keep up, but the game gives you someone with absurd stats and power in Lyon. It feels like the person behind this just thought that worked - putting band-aids on issues rather than fixing anything, and embracing just bigger and bigger numbers with little else to them. This is a problem a lot of FE hacks run into, I've noticed, though I think it's even worse in Sacred War than the others I've played (e.g. ChinaFE, FEGirls) thanks to the stackable stat-boost items and absurd legendary weapons. I suspect, in part, this is due to a tendency of hackers to want to make every unit better, and at least somewhat good/satisfying to use? They like numbers going up and they're generally fans of the characters, so they boost everything, then realise that made the game too easy and pump up the enemies in an attempt to compensate. At least that's the best guess I can make as to what motivates it. The real issue I have with Sacred War at this point is that, in addition to the stat inflation, they've removed all weapon diversity, which gives you even fewer interesting decisions than you would otherwise have had.
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Sep 15, 2021 17:30
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I got tired of their map design a few levels into the postgame. It’s good to know that I was right to stop and that it was only getting worse.
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Sep 15, 2021 21:58
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Seems like every FE hack tries to be FE5 eventually.
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Sep 15, 2021 22:59
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New video!  Surprisingly enough, the second tower isn't actually that long. Because of that, we're actually going to finish it up today, though we aren't done just yet. TheMcD fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 17:22
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Honestly the first phase looked kind of cool, it was still a damage race but at least there you had an interesting concept in how she'd out-recover your damage. Then it just went back to big numbers. Kelik really was the highest point of this hack, and I'm glad he was back for the last map even if it's never explained why. Also the writing in this tower has been terrible but points for Ephraim telling God to her face that her plans have always failed so it'd make no sense for the "practical" him to follow them. That was a very Ephraim burn, at least.
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Sep 22, 2021 18:08
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 16:35 |
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There are aspects of this fight that are interesting; I think I agree the first phase does the best job of being an interesting boss fight in the Fire Emblem mechanics, though it's still not particularly engaging. The petrification nullifying counterattacks can also be interesting, but this hack already did that better on the last floor of the Ruins/Rift/whatever, and Latona makes it largely irrelevant anyway (though Latona isn't usually something that sees much use, so at least it has that going for it). If you're playing remotely fair, this fight is a huge slog, and the time limit can actually become something of a problem. (Especially when reinforcements are coming in every turn, if your units aren't completely invincible like Lyon is here, you more or less need to kill them all the turn they spawn or someone will get attacked by multiple, which is risky.) Myrrh is just arbitrarily locked out of using Divinestones against the boss, which I suspect is supposed to be a flavour thing (you can't use divine power against a divine being?), but it's pretty stupid. I think I remember her being able to use them on the other enemies here, just not the boss herself. I can't find much to say about this at this point, honestly. The sprite work is at least competently done, I don't much like the design but that's personal taste.
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Sep 22, 2021 21:22
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