Fire Emblem Catch All

DSGamer wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Jarring thing - characters who've fallen in battle, with Classic mode on (i.e. permadeath), still appear in cutscenes.

Very jarring to see zombie Hilda happily chatting with the rest of the gang.

Yeah. I don't think at this point Intelligent Systems intends for Classic mode to be the default.

Chaz made this observation (maybe on IRC) that the systems and difficulty curve in Awakening seemed geared towards a casual playthrough. I believe the above also happened in previous games.

All of the above is why I just decided to play Casual this time.

Totes. I went Classic out of habit. Felt incorrect to be Fire Emblem'ing without permadeath.

I should say that even though Intelligent Systems clearly has a different idea these days about what they think Fire Emblem should be, I think Three Houses is quite good so far.

I still would really enjoy a classic Fire Emblem experience. Actually, I would play a classic Advance Wars game if they made a new one or re-released the old ones. I think Fates was a gigantic mistake and I had significant doubts about the future of Fire Emblem.

That said, I think I understand now where they were headed with Fates, because Three Houses is more similar to Fates than it is to Blazing Blade and I really like it. It's clear they had an idea of how to keep the series fresh and Fates just was a terrible execution.

A lot of the systems that didn't make sense in Fates are either refined or make sense now with better presentation. I'm surprised at how much I like it.

Yeah, the execution on Fates was terrible. Just a mess of ideas that seemed pretty good but ended up being a hindrance rather than engaging and enjoyable over the course of three games.

The school setup here is a huge improvement, really. It's cliche in JRPGs to add in a school setting, but it works really well here (so far) and a big part of it is that you aren't playing a child, but young instructor. I also like that it isn't a real world setting, like most school settings.

Heh, I guess you answered one of the questions I had in my spoiler text, Jonman.

I remember beating Awakening and finding that characters I thought were dead were, in fact, still alive and just "retired". If there's a chance a character shows up in a cut-scene after they're first added to the roster, then they don't just die. They "retire" from injury and remain.

Which is, quite honestly, disappointing, but given that playing Sacred Stones resulted in characters being introduced and then... having no involvement in the story at all, I can see why they did it the route they did. It's just that "permadeath" makes it sound more dramatic than it is.

Permainjured is more like it

IMAGE(https://media.alienwarearena.com/media/f374df71f83ddef8bf15da0760268d67.jpg)

Oh, that's weird.

I had decided I was going to roll with classic mode, but if the only effect of losing someone is hampering your combat team moving forward, maybe I ought to pass on that then. I haven't moved past the getting introduced to the houses step yet (new Destiny patch this week ) so it wouldn't be too hard to change.

zeroKFE wrote:

Oh, that's weird.

I had decided I was going to roll with classic mode, but if the only effect of losing someone is hampering your combat team moving forward, maybe I ought to pass on that then. I haven't moved past the getting introduced to the houses step yet (new Destiny patch this week ) so it wouldn't be too hard to change.

That's what I did. Started really early on with Classic, then before I got too far in decided to switch.

DSGamer wrote:

I still would really enjoy a classic Fire Emblem experience. Actually, I would play a classic Advance Wars game if they made a new one or re-released the old ones.

Have you played Wargroove (Switch)? That gave me a really old-skool Fire Emblem vibe. And Warbits (iOS/Android)is very much an homage to Advance Wars.

ccesarano wrote:

Heh, I guess you answered one of the questions I had in my spoiler text, Jonman.

I remember beating Awakening and finding that characters I thought were dead were, in fact, still alive and just "retired". If there's a chance a character shows up in a cut-scene after they're first added to the roster, then they don't just die. They "retire" from injury and remain.

Which is, quite honestly, disappointing, but given that playing Sacred Stones resulted in characters being introduced and then... having no involvement in the story at all, I can see why they did it the route they did. It's just that "permadeath" makes it sound more dramatic than it is.

The thing is it's always been this way for "story characters". If your main Lord's close advisor or bodyguard went down in the old FE games, they would be back for story scenes. Way before classic/casual mode FE behaved this way.

Now maybe just more characters are relevant to the story.

Stele wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Heh, I guess you answered one of the questions I had in my spoiler text, Jonman.

I remember beating Awakening and finding that characters I thought were dead were, in fact, still alive and just "retired". If there's a chance a character shows up in a cut-scene after they're first added to the roster, then they don't just die. They "retire" from injury and remain.

Which is, quite honestly, disappointing, but given that playing Sacred Stones resulted in characters being introduced and then... having no involvement in the story at all, I can see why they did it the route they did. It's just that "permadeath" makes it sound more dramatic than it is.

The thing is it's always been this way for "story characters". If your main Lord's close advisor or bodyguard went down in the old FE games, they would be back for story scenes. Way before classic/casual mode FE behaved this way.

Now maybe just more characters are relevant to the story.

Oh. I didn't know this. Probably because I didn't let them die.

Finally got my first recruit out of house today! It was, of course, the kid that's dressed like a homeless child that does the sweeping and other tasks and is going to be so heart-broken when the inevitable twist comes.

Spoiler:

We all know the Church is gonna turn out to be evil, right? I mean, we are playing a JRPG after all, and it's not like they're doing a good job of hiding it.

I'm wondering if I'm not spending enough time focusing on my own skills and their advancement to recruit any of the other house's students. Evidently Catherine just needs you to reach a certain level? I wish it was a bit more clear on just what rank different skills or stats needed to be, but whatever. I'll keep trying.

Yeah I think you have to focus on training yourself with activity points early on to work on recruiting.

But also apparently if your have support levels with those in other houses the requirements to recruit are lessened or ignored. So I guess you could eat a lot of meals or whatever too.

I am comically bad at the advice box. You should never take my advice.

Hit chapter 5 last night. Still haven't stolen any other recruits but I'm trying.

Minor hint for end of chapter 4: get a thief before the battle.

Detail:

Spoiler:

Level 16 enemy that's super hard to kill if you're only 10-12. But it carries a dark seal that you can steal and then use to train a dark mage. Need about 18 speed on your thief to steal it.

Finally got a support scene with Edelgard. Seems leader supports are locked to story points.

Stele wrote:

And there's a mini game where visitors hide in the school and if you find them in time you get professor xp. Haven't tried it yet but it mentioned some extra bonuses if you find multiple people.

Did this last night. Some of you actually hid your visitor in a hard spot and I never found them. That's... not fun. Think the best way to do this is to just hide right by the online guy. Efficiency is key.

Once again designers make a system for fun but players will do the most expedient thing to get rewards. Hide and seek isn't fun when not finding the hider causes me to miss rewards until I get a new visitor.

I haven't even tried that yet, though part of it is due to not completely understanding the language involved. I think I hid my guy in a nearby spot, but by accident rather than on purpose. The manner in which that whole thing was explained has caused me to be disinterested in engaging.

I should probably give Felix something other than a fish, though.

It sounds like I'm a tad ahead of you, Stele. I'm about to complete Chapter 5 and move onto Chapter 6. You get battles for quests for the first time, but they give you two and each one takes up that whole day. Did any of the guides describe if you can unlock the ability to do more than one of those battles in time? Like, increase battle activity points? Or would that interfere with Hard Mode reducing potential grind?

By adding Raphael as an Adjutant to Ingrid for one battle, they developed C level support, so that might be a wonderful way to get other house students on your team. I know I could probably read a guide for efficiency, but I'm enjoying the discovery of the systems.

Jonman wrote:

I am comically bad at the advice box. You should never take my advice.

Just remember: don't give them actual advice. Tell them what they want to hear while making it sound like advice.

...assuming you can remember anything about the character asking the question, at least.

I've done decent overall, but every so often it's like "There is no good answer in here at all what is wrong with you".

ccesarano wrote:

Did any of the guides describe if you can unlock the ability to do more than one of those battles in time? Like, increase battle activity points? Or would that interfere with Hard Mode reducing potential grind?

You eventually get at least a 2nd Battle point via advancing Professor Level. I think it was at C?

ccesarano wrote:

It sounds like I'm a tad ahead of you, Stele. I'm about to complete Chapter 5 and move onto Chapter 6. You get battles for quests for the first time, but they give you two and each one takes up that whole day. Did any of the guides describe if you can unlock the ability to do more than one of those battles in time? Like, increase battle activity points? Or would that interfere with Hard Mode reducing potential grind?

By adding Raphael as an Adjutant to Ingrid for one battle, they developed C level support, so that might be a wonderful way to get other house students on your team. I know I could probably read a guide for efficiency, but I'm enjoying the discovery of the systems.

Thanks. I just saw a notice about adjutant but I wasn't even sure how to set it up. Definitely thought it would be a good idea for next battle.

I did ask another house student to assist with battle this month at least. Totally forgot to do that in ch 4, so missed some chance at support there.

Yeah, I wasn't sure how the support and all worked, and for many activities I've been trying to focus on my own house in order to keep motivation up. I couldn't even use all my instruction activity points last time because just about everyone was exhausted from the prior week's instruction.

Ferret wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Did any of the guides describe if you can unlock the ability to do more than one of those battles in time? Like, increase battle activity points? Or would that interfere with Hard Mode reducing potential grind?

You eventually get at least a 2nd Battle point via advancing Professor Level. I think it was at C?

C+.

So this month I'm going to have to waste 2 weeks battling to finish quests. Ugh.

There's another tip for future, try to get to C+ by the start of Ch 5.

Also got statues unlocked. Now there's a way to spend all that renown you get all the time.

Quick glance makes me think the path with +1 class XP should be the first one I go for. That would help all my team get mastery faster since class XP is separate.

Yup, I got all four statues up to +5% general XP, then the +1 Class XP.

This game gives you so many bonuses for so many things that I'm pretty sure it's not the grinding that makes it easy. There's just so many ways to buff your character stats.

Finished Chapter 5 today.

Well, things just got interesting.

I have a couple of questions for those farther along in the game.

1 - Is there somewhere in the UI to get a preview of what skills and abilities a class can grant you? I’m debating reclassing Byleth into an intermediate class and I’m not sure if I’m doing it too early.

2 - Do they retain levels for each class you upgrade? The advice is always to upgrade at 20, but I feel like I retained my beginning class when I went from Commoner to my first beginner class.

2 is a yes. You can reclass at almost any time outside of battle and always keep the levels in each class.

Am I a bad person for not wanting to watch all the support conversations? There’s just so many and they’re often kinda mundane.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Am I a bad person for not wanting to watch all the support conversations? There’s just so many and they’re often kinda mundane.

I say yes, but I'm also surprisingly delighted by how much I like these characters. However, because I'm using Japanese voice, I tend to just skip the spoken dialogue and move on right after I'm done reading the text. Allows them to move along far more snappier.

DSGamer wrote:

2 - Do they retain levels for each class you upgrade? The advice is always to upgrade at 20, but I feel like I retained my beginning class when I went from Commoner to my first beginner class.

Can't recall the answer to 1 quite yet, but to answer this one, keep in mind the "upgrade at 20" is not relevant at this point. Each class has their own set of class experience points, and at a base level you gain 1 per action (even if that action is simply getting hit, I think, but it may be just for counter-attacks and such). Skills unlock based on what equipment skill levels you have and when you've maxed a class level up as opposed to what your base level is.

ccesarano wrote:

Finished Chapter 5 today.

Well, things just got interesting.

Was up until 2am but couldn't quite get to the battle. I guess I'm skipping the 2nd side quest battle at this point. Forgot to level statues before the 1st side quest and couldn't get to C+ for a second battle point yet, so had to explore again for final weekend.

Did catch some gold and silver fish. The extra vendors are awesome and glad I did that quest. Looks like you can buy a lot of gifts from them and work i5n support from that side. Might do a bit more of that before advancing the week to the main battle.

When I did the side battle it automatically assigned the visiting student I had invited as adjutant to my character. I guess that was good? Or should I leave them alone to act and get more support that way? Not sure which is best.

Hopefully more story progress will be made this weekend.

ccesarano wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

Am I a bad person for not wanting to watch all the support conversations? There’s just so many and they’re often kinda mundane.

I say yes, but I'm also surprisingly delighted by how much I like these characters. However, because I'm using Japanese voice, I tend to just skip the spoken dialogue and move on right after I'm done reading the text. Allows them to move along far more snappier.

DSGamer wrote:

2 - Do they retain levels for each class you upgrade? The advice is always to upgrade at 20, but I feel like I retained my beginning class when I went from Commoner to my first beginner class.

Can't recall the answer to 1 quite yet, but to answer this one, keep in mind the "upgrade at 20" is not relevant at this point. Each class has their own set of class experience points, and at a base level you gain 1 per action (even if that action is simply getting hit, I think, but it may be just for counter-attacks and such). Skills unlock based on what equipment skill levels you have and when you've maxed a class level up as opposed to what your base level is.

Is there anywhere in the UI where they show this progress?

Bottom right of the status screen. Little picture of the character with a bar underneath. If it shows a star they’ve mastered it.