Fire Emblem: Three Houses (26th July 2019)

[drahkon]

5 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Have you thought about which path you'll take when you do play this? I went with team Dimitri and LOVED it. Blue Lions FTW!

I only know that there are three paths/houses to choose from. Which characters, story lines, etc. are part of which house...no idea.
So no, I have not thought about it. Should I?

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by drahkon

[Hero-of-Time]

Just now, drahkon said:

I only know that there are three paths/houses to choose from. Which characters, story lines, etc. are part of which house...no idea.
So no, I have not thought about it. Should I?

Not really. I was just curious if you had put any thought into it yet.

[drahkon]

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Not really. I was just curious if you had put any thought into it yet.

Given that I usually choose by color and the fact that there is no orange path to take, it'll probably be blue

This will also be my first Fire Emblem game. Anything I should know? I heard that there is permadeath in the series? I.e. if characters die they are gone for good?

[Hero-of-Time]

Just now, drahkon said:

Given that I usually choose by color and the fact that there is no orange path to take, it'll probably be blue

This will also be my first Fire Emblem game. Anything I should know? I heard that there is permadeath in the series? I.e. if characters die they are gone for good?

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

Permadeath used to be a locked thing but in the more modern FE games you can turn it off. Personally, I turn it off. It allows me to be more reckless in my approach.  Plus, a lot of people who do play with it on seem to restart a map if a character dies. If that's the case then you may as well play with it off. Peer on IGN used to do this and it always baffled me. 

[drahkon]

I might actually have to think about it. Given the fact that I enjoy permadeath in many games (especially roguelites/-likes) it should be an easy choice. But in more story driven games I'm not too fond of the mechanic.

Well...I have a few days to make up my mind

[Sméagol]

2 hours ago, drahkon said:

I might actually have to think about it. Given the fact that I enjoy permadeath in many games (especially roguelites/-likes) it should be an easy choice. But in more story driven games I'm not too fond of the mechanic.

Well...I have a few days to make up my mind

There's permadeath, but not an iron man autosave function. If someone dies, you have options.

[Jonnas]

@drahkon

As I'm playing through the game myself (slowly, at my personal pace), I have a few pointers that might be relevant for you:

1. If you choose to dedicate yourself to an Ironman run (a.k.a. permadeath on, and move on with any losses you suffer), there are older FEs better geared towards this. Older FEs would often throw new units at you every chapter, since they expected you to lose a few units along the way. This game is designed differently, giving you a core army of 8 relevant characters from the start (any of them can still die, except for the house leader you chose, since he/she is the de facto main character), and expecting you to build and customize them over time (you can still recruit more units, like students from other houses, teachers, school staff, etc., but they aren't as involved in the main plot). In other words, the permadeath angle is given very little attention here;
2. That said, there's a mechanic called Divine Pulse, which allows you to rewind the clock and redo previous actions, just in case you made a mistake. I personally dislike this mechanic, but it's there, and you should know about it;
3. Before you pick your House, you get the opportunity to learn a bit about the students, leaders, and the countries they represent, and that's what you should base your opinion on. The basic gist of it is that Black&Red Eagles represent a grandstanding empire (featuring mostly high society), Blue Lions represent a chivalric kingdom with honest traditional values (featuring mostly noble warriors and soldiers), and Golden Deer represents an allied federation of minor kingdoms (featuring a healthy mix of nobles and commoners);
4. In order to see everything the game has to offer, you'll need to play it three times, because the story takes very different directions depending on which House/country you choose at the beginning. Just saying, since you mentioned reselling the game immediately after playing it once.

[drahkon]

2 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

that's what you should base your opinion on.

Nope. Blue it is

2 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

Just saying, since you mentioned reselling the game immediately after playing it once.

In this case I'll either resell it if I don't like it or after I've played all stories

[drahkon]

The game arrived today

I've read that the Maddening difficulty is a bit cheap/tedious and Hard isn't hard at all...weird. I went with Hard, because I don't like games that fake difficulty by being cheap/tedious.

Anyways, with this being my first Fire Emblem (I actually own Path of Radiance; bought it day-one back in 2005, opened it but never played it ) I didn't know about the fact that once the main character loses their HP it's all over. Yes, permadeath exists, but I thought that you could resurrect at least the main guy. Needless to say, I lost the tutorial
Knowledge is power, they say, so the next attempt was easy enough.

After that some true Persona-gameplay emerged. Didn't know about that. Absolutely love it Did everything I can for now and the mock battle can commence.

So far so good. It's early days (1 hour) but I'm enjoying it.

[Ike]

Maddening is hard at first then it eases off, but if it's your first Fire Emblem I wouldn't have recommended it, it requires planning and knowing the mechanics.

Once you get further in the story you have the chance to revive Byleth when they die using Divine Pulse. 

[drahkon]

Just now, Ike said:

Once you get further in the story you have the chance to revive Byleth when they die using Divine Pulse. 

Who is this Byleth you speak of?
His name is Drahkon and I expect to you to remember it.

[Ike]

3 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Who is this Byleth you speak of?
His name is Drahkon and I expect to you to remember it.

[drahkon]

Forgot to mention: Every single character in this game is so freaking smug. First impressions aren't great. I think I will hate all of them Permadeath seems like a godsend.

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, drahkon said:

Forgot to mention: Every single character in this game is so freaking smug. First impressions aren't great. I think I will hate all of them Permadeath seems like a godsend.

Yeah, I found the 3 main characters to be pretty much all unlikable. Thankfully, Dimitri turns out great. 

[drahkon]

Man, I just got my balls rocked by critical hits and misses in the mock battle...holy cow. If it weren't for those I'd probably have won the fight

[Ike]

Aw, his first time being screwed over by the RNG.

[Jonnas]

As a Claude stan, I must advise y'all to chill, or fear the deer.

In fact...

5 hours ago, drahkon said:

I didn't know about the fact that once the main character loses their HP it's all over. Yes, permadeath exists, but I thought that you could resurrect at least the main guy. Needless to say, I lost the tutorial

Knowledge is power, they say, so the next attempt was easy enough.

2 hours ago, drahkon said:

Man, I just got my balls rocked by critical hits and misses in the mock battle...holy cow. If it weren't for those I'd probably have won the fight

...I see RNGesus has sufficiently punished you already. Congratulations on getting initiated so early.

An important piece of advice: have a plan for failure. If your attack has a 80% chance to hit, it might still miss. If the enemy only has a 50% chance to hit you, they likely will. Learning to deal with uncertainty should be key for your strategies. Use vulneraries if you must, they're cheap and easy to get.

5 hours ago, drahkon said:

I've read that the Maddening difficulty is a bit cheap/tedious and Hard isn't hard at all...weird. I went with Hard, because I don't like games that fake difficulty by being cheap/tedious.

The people saying Hard Mode is easy are FE veterans. Ever since Awakening, you can interpret the difficulties as "Normal -> For newcomers", "Hard -> Veterans can start here", and "Anything above that -> Feel like taking on a challenge?". There's also the fact that Maddening was added later in an update, so the comments you read may have come from people near launch, wondering why the highest difficulty at the time wasn't that high.

The biggest difference between Hard and Normal in this game is that Normal allows you to grind optional battles limitlessly, whereas in Hard Mode you need to spend activity points. There are also adjustments made to enemy skills and AI (for example, regular enemies on Normal never use battalion Gambits, whereas they use them liberally on Hard). If you're willing to put on the big boy boots from the get-go, Hard Mode's the place to start.

Maddening is where you need to plan carefully around the game's mechanics, AI, job system, etc. Some people might call it cheap because EXP is hard to come by, others will say it's cheap because the early game is the most difficult part, and others will say the frustrating part comes from the hit rates being more daunting there. Personally, I'm looking forward to trying it out, unforgiving hit rates are my jam.

[drahkon]

58 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

An important piece of advice: have a plan for failure. If your attack has a 80% chance to hit, it might still miss. If the enemy only has a 50% chance to hit you, they likely will.

Yeah...noticed this in the first battle after the mock battle

58 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

Use vulneraries if you must, they're cheap and easy to get.

Had to use them in order to not lose my precious characters

59 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

The biggest difference between Hard and Normal in this game is that Normal allows you to grind optional battles limitlessly, whereas in Hard Mode you need to spend activity points.

Good to know. That's actually a big deal as I really enjoy grinding exp. I'll keep going with Hard Mode for now but might actually turn it down because...the grind is all I live for

 

Seems like a lot of mechanics aren't explained very well. Had to look them up in the ingame Guide but even then they are pretty bare-bones. Kind of difficult for me to get to grips with everything. With permadeath looming I'm less likely to take a risk just to figure out how certain things work.

Also: Are the lessons as complicated as I think they are? Looks like every character could be anything (i.e. use any kind of weapon and class)?

[Jonnas]

1 hour ago, drahkon said:

Seems like a lot of mechanics aren't explained very well. Had to look them up in the ingame Guide but even then they are pretty bare-bones. Kind of difficult for me to get to grips with everything. With permadeath looming I'm less likely to take a risk just to figure out how certain things work.

Also: Are the lessons as complicated as I think they are? Looks like every character could be anything (i.e. use any kind of weapon and class)?

The in-game guide is meant to be a tutorial, and with so many details going into the battles, it's best for it to be a guide. Some of the nitty-gritty stuff (for example, exactly what causes a unit to attack twice) can be abstract, so it's best to let a new player get a feel for the game, and look up that info later at their own pace. I do agree the guide itself is curt, so feel free to ask if there's anything still unclear (I would imagine the notion of weight and AS can be tricky for a first timer).

The lessons are a lot simpler than they look. You're just giving (well, allocating) Weapon Exp to a few students of your choosing. How much you can give depends on your maximum activity points, the student's current motivation, and a handful of other minor factors. When you try it out, how everything functions plays out clear as day. The trickier part is remembering that you also need to define goals for them, but that can be set at any time, anyway.

And yes, anybody can be anything, even if certain students can be more geared towards specific classes. For example, Ingrid is poised to go the path of a Pegasus Knight, Felix is a speedy Swordmaster, and Dedue is geared towards stocky classes (Armour Knight, Brigand, etc.), and the rate at which they learn certain weapons reflects this. But if you want to make Mercedes into a burly, heavily armoured knight, you can do it (I heard at least one story of a first-time player ending up with such a Mercedes, in an effort to make her less frail). The only limit (and it's an annoying one) is that quite a few late-game classes are gender specific.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Jonnas

[drahkon]

23 hours ago, Jonnas said:

I would imagine the notion of weight and AS can be tricky for a first timer

Yeah, I was confused when I was able to attack twice with a weapon (which I assume was down to that character having 4 more AS than the opponent) but not with a stronger weapon? So apparently something changes when you equip a different weapon (aside from the obvious more/less attack power).

23 hours ago, Jonnas said:

When you try it out, how everything functions plays out clear as day.

It does, indeed. I do, however, have a few questions:

• after a lesson everyone gets exp for their set goals, i.e. skills?
• no more than two skills can be improved upon in one lesson?
• aside from the above I can also focus on a few characters depending on how many activity points I have/motivation the students have?
  • regarding that: do those characters also get the exp after the lesson (if I am correct in the assumption that after every lesson every character gets exp) - to put it simply: some characters can gain exp twice during a lesson?

Edit: Nevermind. All of my questions have been answered

Decided to change a few of my students' goals. Chose some weird combinations like Faith and Heavy Armor for Mercedes Probably a bad idea, but I love playing around with skills and classes like that.

Looking forward to seeing what kind of abilities the different skills unlock by leveling them.

Edited April 22, 2020 by drahkon

[Jonnas]

8 hours ago, drahkon said:

Yeah, I was confused when I was able to attack twice with a weapon (which I assume was down to that character having 4 more AS than the opponent) but not with a stronger weapon? So apparently something changes when you equip a different weapon (aside from the obvious more/less attack power).

Yes. The weapon property that affects your AS is Weight (Wt). Steel weapons are heavier than Iron weapons, which are in turn heavier than Training weapons. AS is generally determined by "Character Speed" minus "Weight of the equipped weapon". Equipped shields also weight you down. Conveniently, you can always check your character's AS at any point, and you can see it change if you swap weapons (or if you unequip them).

One exception is gauntlets (weapon type introduced in this game), which work a bit differently: If a character with gauntlets attacks, they attack twice as often as they normally would've (so, twice by default, four times if the AS is high enough)

8 hours ago, drahkon said:

It does, indeed. I do, however, have a few questions:

• after a lesson everyone gets exp for their set goals, i.e. skills?
• no more than two skills can be improved upon in one lesson?
• aside from the above I can also focus on a few characters depending on how many activity points I have/motivation the students have?
  • regarding that: do those characters also get the exp after the lesson (if I am correct in the assumption that after every lesson every character gets exp) - to put it simply: some characters can gain exp twice during a lesson?

 

• Yes
• If you mean the goals, that's exactly right. If you only set one, you get 1.5 times more experience for that skill than you normally would've.
• Those characters you focus on (if you do it manually) get experience during the lesson for whatever skill you choose, and this is separate from the exp they get from the goals. (If you did it automatically, the game chose for you. When you see their motivation go down during the lesson, that's what I'm talking about)
  • Yes, this means some characters get exp twice. But only the ones with enough motivation.

EDIT: That's what happens when there's something in the background as I'm typing Good luck with your choices.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Jonnas

[drahkon]

Thanks for all the advice @Jonnas. Really appreciate it

13 hours ago, Jonnas said:

The weapon property that affects your AS is Weight (Wt). Steel weapons are heavier than Iron weapons, which are in turn heavier than Training weapons. AS is generally determined by "Character Speed" minus "Weight of the equipped weapon".

That is good to know.

13 hours ago, Jonnas said:

Conveniently, you can always check your character's AS at any point, and you can see it change if you swap weapons (or if you unequip them).

Yeah, I actually noticed that you can switch weapons and combat arts after you've chosen an enemy to attack. Took me only 4 hours of playtime...

One thing I'm worried about: What happens if I'm not strong enough to win the crucial story missions that seem to happen at the end of each month? I can't endlessly farm exp on Hard and there is no way to gauge whether I'll be strong enough for the story fights. It's why I can never decide whether to explore, take a seminar or fight.

[Jonnas]

7 hours ago, drahkon said:

Yeah, I actually noticed that you can switch weapons and combat arts after you've chosen an enemy to attack. Took me only 4 hours of playtime...

In the old days, I had to go back one menu in order to try attacking with a different weapon. The ability to switch weapons and arts in the preview menu was a QoL improvement introduced in FE: Awakening... and 3 years later, I still have muscle memory from the old days, taking the long way instead of pressing X So don't feel too bad for growing out of the habit after 4 hours.

7 hours ago, drahkon said:

One thing I'm worried about: What happens if I'm not strong enough to win the crucial story missions that seem to happen at the end of each month? I can't endlessly farm exp on Hard and there is no way to gauge whether I'll be strong enough for the story fights. It's why I can never decide whether to explore, take a seminar or fight.

Don't worry too much about it. Fire Emblem is designed in such a way that even low-level units have options against a stronger army (In fact, since stats gains in level ups are defined by the RNG, it's technically possible to have a bunch of weak units, even if they're the right level), it's just that, in those cases, brute-forcing through the enemy is no longer an option. Between gambits, combat arts, stat-boosting items, effective weaponry (Mace, Armourslayer, etc.), and conservative turtling tactics, there's always a way to win the day. Even if half of your army is dead going into the chapter, that still means the survivors are going to level up like crazy (In the entire series, I can only think of three instances you can genuinely screw yourself over by having your non-essential units die)

Also, in older FEs you could recruit new characters for your army from time to time. This one has something similar.

As for the indecision to explore, seminar, or fight...

• We already need to explore once per month, but there are two reasons as to why I'd do it a second time: either there's an event going on (like a tournament), or I really need to increase motivation for a handful of specific students ASAP (in which case I'll invite them for lunch, like the clique-making teacher I am);
  • (If I was doing some sort of unconventional build for Byleth (like, maybe aiming for horse-riding classes), I would also need to explore in order to receive formation from the other teachers and staff)
• If exploration isn't needed, I usually do an optional battle to unwind and gain Class EXP (imo, more important than regular EXP);
• If I'm not in the mood for a battle, a Seminar is the fastest option of them all. Also increases motivation across the board without too much effort.

Ultimately, it comes down to what you want to prioritize at that moment. If you feel like your army (or even just one unit) is underleveled, feel free to do a battle. I personally recommend that anyway, because FE gameplay isn't fully ingrained into you yet.

[drahkon]

Thanks again @Jonnas

Will keep all of your advice in mind once I get back to it. A certain game has me hooked and I can't stop Here's hoping I'll start up FE:TH tomorrow night.

[drahkon]

Haven't spent much time with it recently so I decided to give it two hours just now.

Completed two optional battles and one story battle.

Spoiler

Didn't necessarily like the fact that during the story battle I killed the leader and then he turned into a monster which immediately initiated another battle. I hate things like that...games throwing new stuff at you right after a long mission without the chance to resupply.

Wasn't too bad as I was able to pretty much gambit my way through the fight

To be honest...I'm not really thinking about my moves during fights. I just choose a unit, see what I can do with him/her and just do what deals the most damage. I don't really plan ahead, I don't think about stats, I don't understand battalions/gambits (do they give passive stats to my characters? Are the stats purely for when I'm attacking with the specific battalion?)...I'm worried that this approach will get me killed later on.
I also don't give any more thoughts to my characters' progression. I set their goals a while ago and now I just ride with it.

Feels like I'm doing this Fire Emblem-tactics-RPG-thing wrong.

Don't really enjoy the plot and pacing at the moment. Then again, it's still early days. Hopefully it'll pick up the pace soon.
And I still hate everyone. The main character is a bland, bored dick who seems quite disinterested at all times. The support cast is made up of arrogant pricks and the main NPCs are all dubious assholes.

So far...not very into it

Edited May 3, 2020 by drahkon