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The Great LTC Debate Thread (Yay? Nay? Burn in Hell?)


Kngt_Of_Titania
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Why should luck play a part in who wins something? Are you both implying that there is strategy in getting a screwed Micaiah and trying to win a draft like that? Also, note that FE10 drafts require more considerable RNG abuse if miccy is not spd blessed...

Since FE is a PvE game and there is no hidden information, there is a theoretical point where there will be an absolute best turncount possible for any given combination of units. In other words, drafting will eventually reach a point where the only thing that matters is the RNG, as every draft pick will have been the absolute best it can be.

Edit: Technically you could require people to have exactly average stats (either via the use of a fixed growth patch or w/e) but that's kind of ehhhh

Edited by Paperblade
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I like how in FESS characters are judged not by their inherent quality but rather how little they slow down Seth.

But that is their inherent quality. It's not their fault that Seth breaks the game so hard you have to rate units by what they can do to clear a path for him. Unless you have a Sethless tier list, that's just the way to play even moderately efficiently. I'm not talking dondon levels of speed or anything. Even the speed I played at Seth was that important.

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Part of the fun of FE for me is seeing what the RNG does each time. I never reset for RNG. I think that cheapens it. Unless the RNG shat on every single one of my units, (like Marcia getting two empty levels in a row in PoR.) i dont do anything about it. (then again, i dont draft. But if i did, i doubt i would RNG abuse.)

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Since FE is a PvE game and there is no hidden information, there is a theoretical point where there will be an absolute best turncount possible for any given combination of units. In other words, drafting will eventually reach a point where the only thing that matters is the RNG, as every draft pick will have been the absolute best it can be.

Edit: Technically you could require people to have exactly average stats (either via the use of a fixed growth patch or w/e) but that's kind of ehhhh

I like that idea. But then there's the problem that not every player in the draft is going to have access to said patch...meh. I would love to play a fixed growth version of FE10 HM :3.

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I like that idea. But then there's the problem that not every player in the draft is going to have access to said patch...meh. I would love to play a fixed growth version of FE10 HM :3.

Yeah, people wanting to play on cart/not wanting to pirate is why a balanced/fixed mode patch will probably never catch on unless there are enough changes to make it a new experience (such as RR/Shin Mode/etc.)

imo the best way to solve this (edit: that being that at some point variance in drafts will become more important than strategy/picks) is so that there is variance in the actual PvP portion of the game (ie the drafting) but I really have no idea how to do that.

Edited by Paperblade
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Since FE is a PvE game and there is no hidden information, there is a theoretical point where there will be an absolute best turncount possible for any given combination of units. In other words, drafting will eventually reach a point where the only thing that matters is the RNG, as every draft pick will have been the absolute best it can be.

Edit: Technically you could require people to have exactly average stats (either via the use of a fixed growth patch or w/e) but that's kind of ehhhh

Yeah, RNG being a factor is a problem. But, I dunno. My point was just that, in my estimation at least, Micaiah's speed is hugely important to turncount, and I think enough so to create a very large difference in your team's capability. To me, that's important enough to want averaged out, while leaving (most of?) the rest of the game to chance. That said, this is an arbitrary line I'm drawing, and I'm not an expert on FE10 or drafts, so I could just be exaggerating it's impact.

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Or people could stop treating drafts as super competitive "omg must win" affairs and instead simply play the cards they're dealt. If they do badly because Micaiah is screwed, nobody is going to ban them from drafts or something. Drafts aren't interesting when you just use the same strategies over and over again any more than other types of playthrough.

Edited by Anouleth
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Agreed. Winning drafts is great and all, but RNG abusing for certain stats just ... sort of seems like it would take the fun out of it.

Also, if your LTC strategy depends solely on a unit being ridiculously blessed in a certain area that they are not likely to be extremely blessed in ... that's a shaky strategy that would either be impossible to replicate unless your unit is likely blessed or if you purposely RNG abuse. :\

Edit: All right, I'm Ike now!

Edited by Boron
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Or people could stop treating drafts as super competitive "omg must win" affairs and instead simply play the cards they're dealt. If they do badly because Micaiah is screwed, nobody is going to ban them from drafts or something. Drafts aren't interesting when you just use the same strategies over and over again any more than other types of playthrough.

but that's stupid

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Agreed. Winning drafts is great and all, but RNG abusing for certain stats just ... sort of seems like it would take the fun out of it.

People were initially attracted to drafts because it was a good way to mix things up and play the game in a new way. Drafts as they currently are seem to be the complete opposite.

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Heh, I'm doing horribly in my current (first ever) draft, but I'm still having a lot of fun. Winning is cool and all, but I'd participate in a draft to have fun, not to win. And to see how well my characters cooperate or not.

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didnt we have one of these that did nothing, like twice..

I don't mind people who do LTC, but RNG abuse in FE12 means that you positioned your stuff crappily and need a better strategy. LTC sucks anyway, it's more of a "see if you can do it" thing than a fun thing for me and it's why I have no will to play SFDTT FE10 because I'll get competitive and i need tons of RNG abuse starting from the Prologue to win.. but oh well, winning isn't a problem to me anymore (though if something can go better I'll gladly redo it).

one time I did have a powerful Micaiah that I didn't RNG abuse for though :( She had like 16 Spd after a speedwing.

As it stands, by the way, tier lists are generally over with. There's only some rather nitpicky points you can make about random units in mid and low (and you won't be seeing any LTC arguments behind it either, unlike high tier units which have LTC + Efficiency to back them) but that's just about it. There's not much more to argue anymore, and there's too little to care about.

Edited by Mercenary Raven
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either way i was wrong, she was at 15 spd but she's generally strong enough to low turn some of the later Part 1 chapters with Resolve if she has her average speed.. (actually i had 13, i didnt use a speedwing, but that's low enough since 20 is too much RNG abuse and not worth it)

Edited by Mercenary Raven
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You are truly naive if you think people are resetting due to RNG (as opposed to fucking up hardcore with AI or something) rather than save state abusing due to RNG. Some people like playing on cart and letting absurd amounts of RNG abuse go unpunished puts them at an inherent disadvantage.

Shadow Dragon, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, and presumably New Mystery's system for RN handling essentially rules out the ability to save state. I certainly have never save-stated any of those games in any draft, because it would be impossible to replicate the results when I go to the "recording" phase, rather than the planning phase. Every strategy, or unrealistic event (level-ups, crits, dodges, etc.) was obtained after a series of resets, and the amount of time spent to do so, while non-negligible, was certainly never anywhere near prohibitive.

I will admit that I will often experiment with save states to develop a strategy, but the final runs are 100% compatible with anything produced on a cartridge. I can't speak for everyone on this matter, though. I just feel you're speaking in unwarranted absolutes, and certainly while there is some disadvantage, I think you're exaggerating it.

Part of the fun in drafts, I think, is seeing how certain characters (fail to) cooperate and how the player uses the characters' screwings and blessings to his/her advantage. Abusing for stats is all right if it's not a draft, but I think that if you abuse for stats in a draft, it's kind of ... low. Draft players shouldn't abuse for stats.

I disagree, part of the fun is adapting traditional strategies to limited deployment. Stat screwings never make for a more enjoyable play experience. Also, it's all well and good to decry "abuse", but everybody has their own definitions and interpretations on what constitutes abuse anyway. I can very well say, "Yes, RNG abuse should be discouraged", and be completely sincere, and then somebody else can point the finger right at me and tell me I'm an abuser. Because while what I do I do not consider to be abuse, I definitely exhibit selective pressures on the game's outcomes.

I play all the non SNES era games on the cart which means that RNG abusing is impossible for me.

Not true. On several occasions I've "RNG abused" on my FE7 cart playthroughs. It's not hard. Even when I was playing for ranks and decided to eliminate any blatant arrow-redrawing measures, you can (and I did) still take notes of actions performed, and reorder them to look for more favorable results. Calling it "impossible" is objectively false. Those playing on ROMs certainly possess important time-saving measures which give them an advantage, but it is by no means something that cannot be replicated.

Or people could stop treating drafts as super competitive "omg must win" affairs and instead simply play the cards they're dealt. If they do badly because Micaiah is screwed, nobody is going to ban them from drafts or something. Drafts aren't interesting when you just use the same strategies over and over again any more than other types of playthrough.

That's why you should experiment with drafting different units than the ones you used last time. There are oodles of viable combinations. If you're not being interested, or having fun in drafts because you're using the same team for the nth time and it's boring to you, then by all means shake it up with your choices. I don't think glorifying unfavorable RNG outcomes is going to inject life or excitement back into the game more often then it will just end up pissing people off, make them frustrated, and we'll have yet another casualty in the epidemic of uncompleted draft playthroughs.

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See people bashed on the "Minimum Resets" idea for rating characters, but I can see it contributing to much more interesting draft play than currently exists. For one it would probably allow drafts to finish much quicker because people aren't restarting over and over for certain turn counts; secondly it would, as others have explained, add a new dimension to strategy in that people would have to deal and adapt to potentially bad RNs rather than simply try the chapter over and over again until those bad RNs no longer exist. Meanwhile the unit picking phase isn't merely a mad dash for flying/cavalry units. Instead of asking "How many turns does this unit shave off" we're asking "How does this unit help my team win the map with minimal casualties?"

And if you think that's too easy, that everyone would simply turtle and nobody would ever restart, why not combine both restarts and turn counts into drafts? I know there are drafts that do this but in most drafts the emphasis is on turn counts, with restarts far less weighted. Why not make it the other way around, where the amount of restarts determines the winner, but in case of a tie turn counts are factored in?

In this way people still have to go at a moderate pace, but the game doesn't devolve into specific turn-by-turn strategies. And why not throw into the mix secondary requirements: Every character recruited, certain items collected, etc? There are hundreds of drafts on this forum and yet almost all of them seem primarily turncount-focused. Even the RULES for draft tournaments claims that drafts are about who beats the game with the lowest amount of turns. Doesn't that get boring? Sure in every draft you pull a different team but generally the game devolves into specific turn-by-turn strategies. You would think by now people would be bored.

I'm not against the idea of playing LTC. I'm against the idea of 1. Claiming LTC is THE way to play FE "hardcore" or "competitively" (and that all other ways of playing are "casual") and 2. Believing that FE should be balanced around LTC play (which mostly only applies to discussions on the FE13 board). I'm not saying we should eradicate LTC, but rather that we should throw all different kinds of playstyles into the draft tourney mix.

The developers of FE have stated multiple times in interviews that they want their game to accommodate many different playstyles. So why do we go around putting LTC on a pedestal above everything else? People have pointed out that there ARE drafts and tiers lists which rank in ways other than LTC; but these are always playing second-fiddle to the LTC versions.

Yeah, I've been an ass before when talking about LTC. A huge ass. I've used incendiary terms and underhanded insults and I've raised the ire of multiple members of this community. I apologize for that. I just think that LTC is only a tiny sliver of this series's potential and to focus on that and ignore everything else is not only boring but leads to a stagnation of discussion.

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Another thing I remember talking about with Paper a while back is if you get genuinely lucky with a units level ups, it may cause a problem among others, and cause them to rig level ups and such. And even then, there is no way of telling if the first person is being honest in the first place.

In a recent FE8 draft, I had a Vanessa that finished with like 20 defence (I think she got a dragonshield somewhere along the way) which allowed me to do stuff that she normally couldn't. Likewise, she was like 3 or 4 points screwed in strength, so that also took away other possibilities.

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See people bashed on the "Minimum Resets" idea for rating characters, but I can see it contributing to much more interesting draft play than currently exists. For one it would probably allow drafts to finish much quicker because people aren't restarting over and over for certain turn counts; secondly it would, as others have explained, add a new dimension to strategy in that people would have to deal and adapt to potentially bad RNs rather than simply try the chapter over and over again until those bad RNs no longer exist. Meanwhile the unit picking phase isn't merely a mad dash for flying/cavalry units. Instead of asking "How many turns does this unit shave off" we're asking "How does this unit help my team win the map with minimal casualties?"

And if you think that's too easy, that everyone would simply turtle and nobody would ever restart, why not combine both restarts and turn counts into drafts? I know there are drafts that do this but in most drafts the emphasis is on turn counts, with restarts far less weighted. Why not make it the other way around, where the amount of restarts determines the winner, but in case of a tie turn counts are factored in?

In this way people still have to go at a moderate pace, but the game doesn't devolve into specific turn-by-turn strategies. And why not throw into the mix secondary requirements: Every character recruited, certain items collected, etc? There are hundreds of drafts on this forum and yet almost all of them seem primarily turncount-focused. Even the RULES for draft tournaments claims that drafts are about who beats the game with the lowest amount of turns. Doesn't that get boring? Sure in every draft you pull a different team but generally the game devolves into specific turn-by-turn strategies. You would think by now people would be bored.

I'm not against the idea of playing LTC. I'm against the idea of 1. Claiming LTC is THE way to play FE "hardcore" or "competitively" (and that all other ways of playing are "casual") and 2. Believing that FE should be balanced around LTC play (which mostly only applies to discussions on the FE13 board). I'm not saying we should eradicate LTC, but rather that we should throw all different kinds of playstyles into the draft tourney mix.

The developers of FE have stated multiple times in interviews that they want their game to accommodate many different playstyles. So why do we go around putting LTC on a pedestal above everything else? People have pointed out that there ARE drafts and tiers lists which rank in ways other than LTC; but these are always playing second-fiddle to the LTC versions.

Yeah, I've been an ass before when talking about LTC. A huge ass. I've used incendiary terms and underhanded insults and I've raised the ire of multiple members of this community. I apologize for that. I just think that LTC is only a tiny sliver of this series's potential and to focus on that and ignore everything else is not only boring but leads to a stagnation of discussion.

Hey man, if there's a draft idea you want to see done, you can always write up the rules and host it yourself. It's not like Integrity is a dictator with an iron-fist stranglehold on the subforum, eager to quash new ideas, as crazy things like Tactician Star drafts have been brought up and experimented with. You don't even have to be a competitor if you don't want to be, as long as you are smart about putting together a cohesive ruleset, and diligent about updating during the drafting process, I'm sure nobody would care one way or the other that you don't have the time/energy/effort to actually want to run a playthrough. That kind of draft is an interesting idea, and I'd be curious to see how it would attract the interest of the community at large. I think at the moment, the draft scene is mostly focused on LTC mainly because that's what most people are familiar with, or perhaps what most people (currently participating) enjoy. If you can drag in a whole new subset of competitors who want to rock through the game Ironman style, that's pretty cool in my book. If you want to float a planning topic with input on the matter, I'd be happy to take any more specific ideas on the matter, or concerns on enforceability or reporting to discussing it over there in a different venue.

As far as getting bored, personally, I kind of do. That's why I rotate games, and have only ever rarely duplicated game drafts, typically after a long spell between and with either an entirely fresh set of picks, or pretty damn close. But I have to admit, I may not be the typical draft-player, and what works for me may not work for others who've got dozens.

I mean, I may not be the best defender of the "LTC cult" either, as I strictly prefer ranked play when I get my druthers, but I do have to admit that competing in LTC environment can be a lot of fun. And it definitely rankles me when I see people being incendiary against it, so you got to be a little more careful in recruiting your allies.

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People were initially attracted to drafts because it was a good way to mix things up and play the game in a new way. Drafts as they currently are seem to be the complete opposite.

Yeah, this is what it looked like to me: Drafts were good because they added randomness and uncertainty, so you wouldn't have the necessary characters to just stick to the same cookie cutter strategies you used in other LTC playthroughs. But RNG abusing takes that away, as you just get new cookie cutter strategies or make slight changes to the ones you have.

Bal: Personally, I've found that with the things I've wanted to do (more along the lines of minimal resets or ranked tier lists than drafts), I always get the impression that there won't be enough interest among the people here to bother with. Who knows how true that may be, but eh.

Edited by Othin
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You are absolutely wrong. There is a reason that people RNG abuse Micaiah's Speed and that is that it makes a world of difference in drafts. Without Speed, Micaiah lacks the offense/durability to gain levels, meaning it's more like Level 20 max Speed Micaiah (with her 20 Magic/25+ Luck/20 Res) vs. Level 3 average Micaiah.

Just off the top of my head for something that applies to any team ever, it saves 4 turns in 1-9, and you would be insane to think that having a combat capable unit with 1-2 range makes no difference in 1-8, 1-E, 3-6, 3-12, 4-P, and 4-3.

It's ENTIRELY possible to train Micky in both NM and HM with average SPD, provided she isn't SPD screwed and doubled by everything like a boss. In HM, we have Edward (EDWARD, the myrm with crazy SPD growth) struggling to double unless he gets somewhat lucky with SPD growth, and even a 20 SPD Micky won't double too much in 1-E (the enemies hang around 17 AS there, IIRC), meaning 20 SPD Micky only has evasion over a Micky that has 14-15 SPD, which is essentially an average Micky with proper BEXP usage or with speedwings used on her.

As for 4-P, I've had an average Micky (as in, I never RNG abused at all in the playthrough, just BEXP'd her SPD up; it was a casual run) basically solo half of the map in NM while standing in a bush because her evasion was so freaking high -- nothing ever touched her. What was a RNG abused Micky really going to have over THAT?

See, what I'm saying is not that Micky and her 1-2 range Thani bombing is useless, but rather that the only thing you probably gain by doing it is reliability of strats, not shaved turns (although I did forget about HM 1-9, that MIGHT save turns there, but I'd have to try it), if not only because she's way too frail to ever handle enough enemies at once to make a significant difference. If you're going that route, pick like Nolan or Jill or some shit, draco them, and RNG abuse STR/DEF -- you'd have a way better case there.

Seth is banned entirely in drafts because he marginalizes all other picks. Franz/Vanessa are also arguably overpowered (Franz moreso).

Also, are you kidding me? FE6 consistently puts you at incredibly low hit rates vs. bosses and sometimes even regular enemies. The entire game is a big roulette wheel. FE12 meanwhile has very high hit rates unless you are a Swordmaster with stacked supports (which is basically just Catria).

1) When Seth IS available, he's free (either the whole game or until a certain chapter), not an actual pick.

2) It's not hit rates! It's growths -- enemy stats are so fucking high that in order to get people to reliably ORKO enough of them while living, either you resort to getting STR/DEF up past the average or start relying on crits, which hit the 25-30% chance range (and FE6 hit rates are bad, but they're not always THAT bad). Plus, hit rates can drop into the 55-60% range when you get a boss with like 25 SPD + a Gate adding like 20-30% extra AVO. FE12 H3 wins here, for sure.

Bolded for emphasis, this is an excellent example of my point.

http://www.merriam-w...ctionary/casual

I can only assume the definition you are using is

3 a (1) : feeling or showing little concern : nonchalant (2) : lacking a high degree of interest or devotion (3) : done without serious intent or commitment

Thank you for showing your inherent bias! Explain to me why LTC is more serious/devoted than any other playstyle, including ones that are arguably more difficult or time consuming (LLR, no restarts, ranked, max gold, speedruns, anything else I may be missing).

As for the italicized comment, I can only really call you ignorant. Paranoid, perhaps, but I quit tiering years ago because I felt unwelcome there. In fact, before I quoted your post, I already saw my dear friend Interceptor viewing the topic. I wonder what metaphor he'll use as a thinly veiled insult this time.

:facepalm:

Really? I call it casual because THAT IS ITS NAME IN SF. Busting out a dictionary and picking out choice definitions to try to make me sound elitist when I'm far from it is silly -- saying casual is vague is not trashing it. Casual is everything not included in another category, such as max gold, ranked, no restarts, LLR, speedruns...where the purpose is to beat the game only. Unfortunately, that can be done in numerous ways -- picking up all treasures, picking up none, using all knights because you feel like it, using no knights, spamming Marcus, using him rarely, spamming the crap out of paladins because you like using cavalry units; there are as many conditions as the player chooses to do. I would say that casual runs are where the player is looking to just have fun, but then that might imply (by your logic) that "challenge"-type runs where the player imposes additional restrictions are inherently NOT fun.

Casual is a catch-all term because we need to describe the type of runs that fail to meet any other criteria; I've never said that LTC is better than any other style of play or implied it in any shape or manner. I'm merely saying things like Speedruns, LTC, no restarts, ranked, etc. all have very rigid criteria where somebody else knows SPECIFICALLY what goals you're trying to reach, while casual does not (at least at this current time, as I've never seen anybody properly define it). And yes, you ARE being slightly paranoid because you're taking the most innocent statement and blowing it WAY out of proportion. If you want me to stop pointing it out, STOP DOING IT.

Again, you are wrong. If high stats were not useful, people would not RNG abuse for them, as it would be a waste of time.

This just in...sometimes people like having their favorite unit be UBER-major-muscles-strong, even if it has no tangible consequence other than inherently increasing the reliability of strats. There are times where it may have a tangible turn count advanatage, yes, but mostly on rout maps and RNG abusing the crap out of the best units for that map (like Nolan or Jill or Beastfoe Sothe for 3-6, if you drafted either of them).

Furthermore, the game easily allows you to manipulate events and restart maps OR makes things so that it doesn't matter turn-count-wise if you do or don't. In FE9 & 10, you get BEXP which nullifies RNG abuse a bit by allowing units to ram stat caps much more easily (and FE10 NM has battle saves), and FE11 & FE12 have their in-game battle save tiles which are essentially meant for that purpose. FE7's min. turn counts can be reached with Marcus doing 90% of the work most of the game, and dondon's FE5 0% growths run had him lose a grand total of...4 turns total because of lacking stats, IIRC? The best FE where rigging stats would convert to shaved turns in FE8, and that's really only in drafts where Seth is banned, because then otherwise you just have Seth run around killing everything with ease unless he gets uber-cursed.

Edited by Kngt_Of_Titania
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See people bashed on the "Minimum Resets" idea for rating characters, but I can see it contributing to much more interesting draft play than currently exists.

This is because by and large, tier lists are usually already run as if you could not reset, as would be clear to someone who actually knew anything about them. It would not make any difference aside from possibly depressing the position of low-luck characters.

The developers of FE have stated multiple times in interviews that they want their game to accommodate many different playstyles. So why do we go around putting LTC on a pedestal above everything else? People have pointed out that there ARE drafts and tiers lists which rank in ways other than LTC; but these are always playing second-fiddle to the LTC versions.

There are no LTC tier lists.

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