The Mechanic I Want To See Return The Most

The Mechanic I Want To See Come Back The Most Is:

Fatigue (Thracia 776)

     It’s no big secret that I love the fatigue mechanic from Thracia 776. It’s one of the few mechanics I can think of that’s designed to counter low manning. One of the biggest problems with the Fire Emblem franchise as a whole is that you can beat it with a small team of super soldier juggernauts whose stats are way better than the enemy’s. Fatigue is the one of the two mechanics I’ve seen that try to counter juggernauting (the other one being debuffs from Fates). Granted, Thracia 776 can still be beaten with a tiny handful of units, but that’s not because of any shortcomings of the fatigue mechanic, but rather because of how ludicrously overpowered the infinite range warp staff is.

                       Fatigue adds an extra layer of strategic depth to the game by preventing the player from being able to use the same units over and over again. By doing so the player is encouraged to use different units so that if two units are fatigued out the player will have backup units ready to go. If the player knows that they’ll need a certain unit for future chapters they can decide to have a unit sit a chapter out so that they won’t fatigue in preparation for said future chapter. No other mechanic encourages widespread unit rotation like fatigue which is what makes it awesome.

   Unfortunately not everyone feels the same way about fatigue. In fact, there are a lot of outspoken critics of the fatigue mechanic. I’ve been coming across the same arguments over and over again to the point where I feel like I can respond to said arguments. So here we go:

__________________________________________________________

• Argument # 1: “Fatigue prevents me from using any unit that I want. Any mechanic that arbitrarily prevents me from using my favorite unit is automatically bad. Limiting player freedom is something no video game should ever do.”

                        If I had to pick the most common complaint it would easily be this one by a mile. Most people who don’t like Thracia’s fatigue mechanic usually play a certain way. They identify which units they like and they only use those units for the entire game. Then comes along fatigue which prevents them from doing that and forces them to use more units. They don’t like playing differently so we get this argument.

                     First of all, there’s nothing wrong with making the player use different units. In fact, I consider it to be an overwhelming positive that fatigue forces the player to adjust their normal style of play and adapt so that this never becomes a permanent obstacle. If anything, the series as a whole needs to do a better job of forcing people to play differently. The fact that this throws people off is a good thing.

                      Second, there is nothing arbitrary about the fatigue mechanic. I’ll admit that this is a quote of somebody who admitted that they never played the game, but I’ve seen other people express this kind of sentiment so it’s worth addressing. For those of you who don’t know how fatigue works in Thracia let me summarize this a bit for you. Whenever a unit fights, dances, or uses a staff, their fatigue meter grows by a certain amount. When that fatigue meter becomes greater than or equal to that unit’s max HP they are forced to sit out the next chapter. There is nothing arbitrary about fighting, dancing or using a staff. All of those things are deliberate choices on the part of the player.

       Last, but not least, is the sentiment about player freedom. Dondon151 once said something about the dismount mechanic along the lines of “the crucial question to ask when examining the FE 5 dismounting mechanic is, does it add something to the game by taking something away from it?”

                       While he was talking about the dismount mechanic I believe we can ask that same question about fatigue: Does fatigue add something to the game by taking something away from it? I would argue that it does. Preventing the player from being able to use the same units over and over again forces the player to use more units, figure out when the best time to use their favorite units, is and it forces the player to adjust their tactics and thinking. All of these things are good things. Also, Fire Emblem is a strategy game, not an open world sandbox. Player freedom is not the end all be all of a strategy game. Challenging the player’s mental capabilities and actually making them think tactically should be the end result of a game like this.

____________________________________________________________

Argument # 2:  Fatigue hurts healers way more than combat units. Therefore it’s bad.

If this were any other Fire Emblem game I’d probably agree that this undermines the fatigue mechanic. However this is Thracia 776, aka the game where staff users are great. Staves in this game are at their strongest and every staff bot in the game is at worst pretty good and at best one of the Top 5 Best Units in the Series, Safy (Both Mekkah and Ronaldo at one point have even put Safy in the Top 3 Best Units in the Series). If anyone in Thracia needed a nerf, it would be the staff users.

                                As for the argument that fatigue doesn’t hurt combat units all that much I have a couple of things to say. The first is: How is that worse than letting the player use them for the whole game? Being able to use a character for 5 - 10 levels before fatiguing is still a major improvement over letting the player spam them endlessly.

                         Another point is that if someone plays casually (in other words, they’re not trying to beat the game as fast as they can) they’re probably going to have said unit fatigue more often than an ltc veteran so they would switch out more frequently. Also, how frequent does a player need to switch out certain units before fatigue is considered either a good mechanic or a bad one? I still consider what we have now in Thracia to be a lot better than not having fatigue at all.

___________________________________________________________

               

• Argument # 3: Fatigue can make the game unwinnable under the wrong circumstances.

                  While it’s true that this can happen I think we need to ask ourselves one very important question: How did the player get to that point? Getting into this kind of unwinnable situation doesn’t happen with bad RNG rolls. It happens over time as the player makes one bad decision after another. The player has nobody to blame but themselves.

                          There are ways to avoid this outcome. For starters you could manage your money properly so that you can buy S drinks at the appropriate stores or you could simply use enough units so that the situation never becomes unwinnable. You could also reset when a unit dies instead of choosing to play without them. All of these things are in the player’s control.

                          If a future Fire Emblem game wants to change this by having a unit’s stats decrease then that’s cool too. However, the stat decrease must be significant. None of this “- 10 accuracy” or “prevents unit from gaining experience” bullcrap. I’m talking about cutting stats in half or dividing them by 4. Those would be real consequences.

                          Once again I consider this to be a positive for fatigue since this tells me that the mechanic has real consequences and punishes bad tactics. If someone were to ask me “Would you rather have a mechanic have a huge impact on a game or no impact at all?” I’d opt for the former instead of the latter. Having a huge impact is still having some kind of impact and has a reason to exist. A mechanic that makes no difference begs the question of why it exists, which is why I’m not a fan of the “fatigue” system in Shadows of Valentia. The “fatigue” system in Echoes has basically no impact whatsoever since the game is pretty generous with anti fatigue materials and it’s impact is limited only to the dungeons anyway.

____________________________________________________________

                Overall, I still love fatigue and the fact that the arguments against it are pretty bad tell me that this mechanic holds up under scrutiny. I’d love to see this in future titles and even with a few tweaks I believe this can have a very positive impact on the series as a whole.

The Two Mechanics That Need To Die

The Two Mechanics I Never Want To See Ever Again in Fire Emblem:

My Unit

                  Back when my blog was first starting out I made a post specifically about why I do not like My Unit as a mechanic. You can read it here: http://thecrusadergrant.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-unit.html

                    While I still hold those sentiments for the most part there is something else I would like to add to that. My Units are also bad for the gameplay of the games they’re in. They’re always dominant on the battlefield, so much so that everyone else more often than not look pretty scrubby by comparison. Robin is usually put in the same tier as Sigurd in terms of being disgustingly overpowered. Kris (the My Unit of FE 12) is usually pretty close to Robin in terms of sheer dominance and Corrin is also ridiculously good. So basically, My Unit is a travesty to the storytelling, characterization and gameplay of whatever game they happen to be in.

S rank supports and the Second Generation Mechanic

                 The other mechanic that needs to die a thousand deaths are the S rank supports and the Second Generation Mechanic. S rank supports are usually poorly written to the point of being comical or jarring and can have the effect of reducing the cast to fetish fuel. One moment two characters will talk about pies, the next moment they’re getting married. Supports were better when they were limited. That way the writers didn’t have the burden of having to write anywhere near as many lines of dialogue so they could focus more on character building. Then you add the fact that My Unit, the character who is supposed to be the player, can bang virtually any member of the cast and it turns into something that resembles the remains of Edward and Alphonse’s mother after their failed transmutation of her.

                             As far as children go, Holy War is the only game that did it right. In Holy War the children have a valid, justifiable reason to exist in the narrative of the game and the mechanics are even better too since your choices matter a great deal more than in Awakening or Fates. In Awakening you could argue that there’s at least some justification for having children since time travel is a thing. Unfortunately this causes problems but that at least makes A LOT more sense than the stupid hyperbolic time chamber that Fates brought up. It seems like the only reason why Fates implemented the children mechanic is because Awakening had it and people liked that about Awakening.

                              At this point I’m not sure how else you could implement the children mechanic without copying a different game. The only thing I could think of is to have a timeskip similar to how Holy War did it where both generations coexist. This would cause a lot of balancing issues though and even then it still would be really similar to how Awakening did it. While it’s fun to come up with optimal child builds it can get old after you do it enough and generally speaking I think there are more interesting mechanics to explore.

My Mechanics List Part 10

10 Mechanics I’d Like To See In Future Installments List

# 2 - Capturing (Thracia 776 style)

                     Back when I made my first post I talked about how money could be replaced by something. Everyone who played Thracia was able to instantly figure out that I was alluding to the capture system from Thracia 776. In that game capturing enemies eliminates the need for money. Sure you can choose to sell stuff and buy things from the money you get there but you had to use the capture system in order to get that stuff to sell anyway. As long as the player has enemies (and in a game like this the player will ALWAYS have enemies) they will always have stuff. Capturing can be a de facto method of getting the player to play faster because if an enemy has a rare weapon or item you don’t want them to use it too much because you want to use it for yourself. Chapter 17A of Thracia 776 comes to mind when talking about capturing. Capturing can also be used as a gaiden chapter objective which can be fun since the player is given an extra level of challenge due to the fact that the capture system nerfs the player’s stats.

                              The capture system also gives the player some flexibility in how they play. You can be like me and capture virtually anything that’s got a cool looking weapon or item, or you can capture very little and just get by with what you have. It’s all up to the player, which makes the mechanic brilliant. It also gives the game an incentive to have the constitution stat since constitution now affects more stuff than just attack speed. Interestingly enough it gives brave weapons an extra use and bulkier characters with high constitutions now have something extra going for them.

     So basically, I think we should replace money with the capture system. If we’re being frank money is only really needed to buy weapons, items and other things like that. The capturing system does all of that for you without having any of the balancing issues that money can bump into. It’s an all around cool system to have and I’d like to see it return. Bytheway, the “capture” system from Fates doesn’t count. It’s fluffy, superfluous and gimmicky. Nowhere near as cool as Thracia’s system.

_________________________________________________________

10 Mechanics That Should Be Gone In Future Games

# 2 - Warp

                  I was going to put something else here, but that something else has now been bumped to the # 1 spot. Basically there are going to be two mechanics vying for the number 1 spot on the “10 Mechanics That Should Be Gone In Future Games” list.

But I digress, we’re here to talk about warp. Yep, I’ve never been a fan of warp and quite frankly I think it needs to go. My main issue with warp (especially unlimited range warp) is that it can break a level into thousands of tiny little pieces. There’s a term that floats around in Fire Emblem circles called “warpskip”. As its name suggests warpskip is when players use the warp staff to “skip” entire levels. So instead of actually playing those levels they just bypass entire enemy armies, kill the boss, seize and move on to the next chapter.

                      What’s worse is that an unlimited range warp staff can break just about any level in any game. It is that good. I’ve been analyzing the map design of multiple Fire Emblem games in preparation for a new series of blog posts and I have a rule where warpskip doesn’t count against a map. Why? Because warp can break anything. Most games would have terrible map design if warpskip counted against them. Any character that can use Warp is automatically considered great, if not game-breaking, simply because of this staff. I wonder how good Safy would be if warp didn’t exist in Thracia 776. I imagine that she would still be a pretty good unit, but she wouldn’t be the game-breaker that she currently is.

I realize that this isn’t the first time I’ve been saying this either. Back when I made my “Ten Tips to Improve The Fire Emblem Series” list this was the first thing I talked about: http://thecrusadergrant.blogspot.com/2015/11/tips-to-improve-fire-emblem-1-get-rid.html

Too long didn’t read version: Warp is way too game-breaking. It eliminates the strategy of the game, it rewards the player for playing less of the game, not more and the series would be better off if Warp never returned.

My Mechanics List Part 9

10 Mechanics I’d Like To See In Future Installments List

# 3 - Multiple Map Objectives

                 It’s a sad reflection on the current state of Fire Emblem when this is something I have to put in a list like this. If you look at the most recent Fire Emblem releases you realize that most all of them have 2 map objectives or less. To add insult to injury the games that came before the 3DS releases, Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem, also lacked map objective diversity. Interestingly enough Conquest is the only 3DS Fire Emblem that actually has multiple map objectives. For all the crap I’ve given that game it at least spiced things up by giving us different objectives. Not even Echoes can say that.

                           You could argue that Revelation and New Mystery of the Emblem technically had more than 2 objectives but the problem with that argument is that over 90 % of the game is one particular objective (Seize or Kill Boss) and a small handful were something else. The reason why I harp on this is because multiple map objectives tend to make a game more interesting to play. Different map objectives require different approaches. A rout level will play differently than an escape chapter. Seize maps play differently than defense chapters. Requiring the player to play differently, and think differently, is something that strategy games should at least strive to accomplish. Multiple map objectives can also augment the story quite nicely. Escape chapters do a wonderful job of enhancing narratives where the bad guys are pursuing the good guys and the good guys are desperately trying to outmaneuver them. Thracia 776 is the master at this.  

                     Games with 2 map objectives or less, on the other hand, tend to feel repetitive in their play style. When ‘Route Enemy’ is either the only objective, or the objective of a significant portion of the maps in the game, it encourages the player to rely on beating down the enemies with superior stats. Maps with only seize as the objective can get away with this somewhat since seize still requires the player to play aggressively, but even then it’s still nice to switch things up a bit.

                        There are a couple of caveats to this. The first caveat is that some map objectives don’t play all that differently from each other in the grand scheme of things. Escape and Arrival are pretty similar while Seize and Kill Boss are also near identical. Defense chapters have a bad reputation among some hardcore players for being too easy to trivialize since playing defensively is usually considered easier than going on the attack. Another caveat is that some games have one map objective, like the Marth games for examples, and yet can play very differently between chapters. The main reason for this has to do with the fact that seize maps lend themselves to a wider variety of possibilities than rout maps and the map design of the Marth games is at least pretty good all around. These caveats are valid points but there are solutions to this.

The first maybe to increase the number of map objectives in a given Fire Emblem. I’m going to take a leaf from an earlier post of mine where I was talking about this subject when bringing up ideas I had for my game: (http://thecrusadergrant.blogspot.com/2017/01/chapter-objectives-in-dark-crusade.html)

                “Escort NPC Chapters: Here the player’s job is simple: Help get NPCs from Point A to Point B, kill everything that stands in said NPCs way and make sure the NPCs don’t die. Ideally I’d like to have the NPCs programmed to continuously move forward whether the player does or does not. This means that if the player doesn’t do a good enough job killing off the enemies in front of them, the NPCs will die which will result in a game-over. Maps like this will have enemy reinforcements stationed behind and to the sides of the player after a certain time which could potentially cause the player’s units to be squished in on all sides. So if the player plays too slowly the NPCs will eventually outpace them and walk straight toward their deaths, but if the player plays too aggressively the enemies from behind will ambush them and wreak all kinds of havoc on them.

                                 “Obtain” Chapters: These chapters involve the player obtaining important items. This can be handled in two ways: (1) Stealing them with thieves or (2) Capturing enemies and getting their stuff. A different variant of this chapter idea will involve the player getting treasure before the enemies do. The map becomes a race to see who gets the most stuff. In order to beat these chapters you’ll need to block enemy units off from key points and you’ll need to play fast.

“Destroy Building” Chapters: Like the name says these chapters are all about destroying either one building or many. Sometimes these buildings have magical properties that will translate into gameplay (ie after attacking a certain magical building your character then falls asleep). If one of these chapters involve destroying multiple buildings then they would be spread all over the map which means that in order to beat them the player will have to spread their army into different “teams” in order to accomplish this objective. If it’s a “destroy one building” chapter then I guarantee you that it will be heavily fortified and that charging head long into the thick of combat will result in a game-over.

                               “Recruit” Chapters: These chapters are more rare, but there are instances of chapters where the main goal is to recruit units over to your side. One of the scenarios that these kind of chapters take place in is that recruitable allies are on the run from the bad guys who are doggedly pursuing them. It’s your job to rescue these poor souls before it’s too late. The recruitment requirements for characters in these chapters will usually be a little more complex than merely talking to them with your main character. For example there’s a character who joins without their equipment. In order to recruit this character you need to get that character’s stuff back. Another variant of this idea involves recruiting more NPC allies than the enemy.

                              In addition to having additional map objectives there’s also…

• Multi-Objective Chapters: Usually you have to fulfill two win conditions before beating the chapter.

                            I think you get the point. Adding new map objectives can spice things up and open the door for new potential strategies and possibilities. The second solution is to make sure the map design stays fresh enough to keep the game interesting. If future games do this they will be infinitely more fun to play because the strategy and effort required to beat it will be more thought provoking than merely increasing stats or warping allies to a spot on the map.

_______________________________________

10 Mechanics That Should Be Gone In Future Games

# 3 - Ambush Spawns

Ambush spawns are the bane of a player’s existence. They are notorious for frequently coming out of nowhere and punishing the player for something the player could have prevented had the game given them more fair warning. Ambush spawns thrive on unpredictability and interestingly enough they become less threatening with each successive playthrough of a given game. Once they lose their unpredictability they stop being as threatening which deprives them of their power.

If you can’t figure out where an ambush spawn comes from, the penalties can be harsh which leads me to believe that they’re nothing but cheap difficulty. There’s a better way of enemies providing reinforcements that can be challenging, but also fair. Conquest is proof of that. Heck the Tellius games have been able to surprise me from time to time.

                      Some advocates of ambush spawns have suggested that the game give the player hints about where an ambush spawn can come from but if you have to do that why not just make enemy reinforcements appear at the end of the enemy turn? With the right timing, the right location and the right kind of units being used as reinforcements you can still provide the player a legitimate turtle disincentive without needing to screw them over. As far as I’m concerned ambush spawning needs to die.

My Mechanics List Part 8

10 Mechanics I’d Like To See In Future Installments List

# 4 - Mila’s Turnwheel

                Yeah I know this one will come as a surprise to nobody seeing as how I gave this one away when I said this: “I also have to wonder if there’s a Fire Emblem game out there that recently invented a new mechanic that saves the player a lot of frustration without eliminating the strategy of the game altogether. If only such a mechanic existed. Oh wait….” (proceeds to show a picture of Mila’s Turnwheel.

http://thecrusadergrant.blogspot.com/2017/07/my-mechanics-list-part-3.html )

                                  But I do think it’s an awesome idea that deserves to become a staple of the series. Mila’s Turnwheel hits that perfect balance of being friendly to the player without dumbing down the series. You’re allowed to go back to any point in the map that you want, which is cool because it decreases the amount of restarts the player has to do. What makes Mila’s Turnwheel brilliant is that there’s a limited number of times the player can use it which prevents it from being abused so you still have to play carefully and tactically. I wouldn’t change a thing about Mila’s Turnwheel.

10 Mechanics That Should Be Gone In Future Games

# 4 - Pair-Up

I don’t like Pair-Up in either of its forms. In Awakening Pair-Up was way too overpowered. The stat boosts could get insane and the extra attack and defense were so good that pairing up was always the smart move to make. The previously mentioned extra attack and extra defense were completely random which made the mechanic all the less strategic.

Most people will generally agree that Awakening’s Pair-Up was bad, but a lot of people really like the Fates version of Pair-Up. Personally I’ve never liked the Fates version either. Sure it’s better than what Awakening gave us, but it’s still broken on its own merits. Dual Guard still encourages the player to beat down the enemy through brute force (aka superior stats). Even though the stat boosts aren’t as big, they’re still big enough when combined with tonics, rallies and all the other ways one can boost stats in Fates. It also auto-blocks Dual Strike attacks, which I’d like to point out is what enemies will do far more often than not, which implicitly encourages the mechanic. Dual Strike does an awesome job at encouraging tactical movement and it can make enemies all the more threatening but it made killing a bit too easy in my opinion. Enemies almost never use Dual Guard so you’re free to obliterate most of them using this method. Fire Emblem has been able to get along fine without Pair-Up and quite frankly I still think it’ll be fine if Pair-Up never returned.