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


Kngt_Of_Titania
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1) Six ~30% misses is ridiculous even if you cram them into one map.

2) Well that sounds very impressive. Regardless, those double moves are immensely helpful, and if FE5 were to receive the same level of LTC focus as some of the more recent games, I'm sure we'd find that any run that would appear "decent" by their standards would use an enormous amount of them.

3) I was modeling my run after the ChinaFE run, especially that chapter. I brought in the same items as that run did (didn't try to match up the order, but I might have by accident; I think bringing in the same items was an accident anyway), and found that the chests had limited arrangements: I believe I was able to tell from just looking at the arrangements of the chests in a couple of rooms, that when they matched up with the ChinaFE configuration, that all the items would be in the same places. I left two chests, I think the Vulnerary and the Javelin, and was able to get all my characters out in somewhere in the 10-11 turn range I think. I brought a number of items, definitely including the Lockpick and Light and Flame Swords, but I don't remember what else.

4) I thought of that, but I was trying to specifically refer to points that were neither dodging attacks nor abusing for level ups. I personally RNG abused for Leaf's Move in 2 and 11x, but it would have come in handy in 11.

Edited by Othin
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I guess I was guilty of misinterpreting the point of the discussion here. It seems that whether or not RNG manipulation is a good thing is not the issue - it is more a case of LTC overshadowing all other forms of play style in the discussions around these forums.

The Fire Emblem games allow for many different ways to play - it has been mentioned before that the designers had this idea in mind when making the games. Yet, we seem to be barely accommodating for any other way to play than LTC. People enjoy the Fire Emblem games for a variety of different reasons, and finding your own way to experience and enjoy the games is part of the experience. As is, trying out a new play style. And there are a lot to choose from.

This goes back to an earlier point I made, but mistakingly aimed at the wrong sort of people. Adapt or fail. It is those people who do not accept more than one way to play are doomed to failure. We should be encouraging the variety possible in FE, it is not often in games that so many ways to legitimiately play a game exist. This does not invalidate my original intent though: people who are in a competition should learn to compete as best as they can, and that means using all tools at your disposal. You don't see Olympic athletes going 'oh you run faster than everyone, can you slow down for us?'. Even with the ability to manipulate the RNG, there is still a myriad number of strategies possible in the pursuit of lowest turn count, and the RNG manipulation does not mean you have to do things exactly as others do in order to compete (a common fallacy that has been banded around here). But I'm digressing.

The point is, there's enough discussion about LTC, and that's fine. It should not overshadow or discourage discussion about other sorts of play. I tried to start a discussion about ranked FE6 not so long ago, and that was mostly ignored or got some non-committal posts. I do not see why: ranked is as valid a way to play as LTC, or any other play style. Ranked play is just as possible to measure as LTC play. In fact, just because something is harder to evaluate doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed at all (I've seen this mentioned a few times).

On the tier lists, it should be a bit more clear about what the goals of ranking are actually for. It seems the goalposts change a lot. Perhaps more lists are in order for each of the various play styles: one for LTCs, one for ranked, etc. It would keep the relevant discussions easier to manage and allow for more diversity about the variety of ways to play FE.

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You don't see Olympic athletes going 'oh you run faster than everyone, can you slow down for us?'.

And yet, Olympic athletes are not permitted to use steroids, nor strap a jet pack on their back. Limits exist as to what we allow in competitions. If competition exists to judge who is the best at something, certain restrictions (like forbidding jet packs in foot races) are required to make the judgement we're interested in. Other restrictions, like banning steroids, exist because we are less interested in requiring competitors to take a drug with serious side effects than we are in seeing them perform slightly better.

In an analogous way, it is perfectly reasonable to set restrictions on Fire Emblem competitions. Hacking the game to give your units more mov and such (the jet pack equivalent) is an obvious restriction. Also reasonable, though, is forbidding tools that facilitate RNG manipulation (the steroid equivalent). Just like steroids, everybody can perform a little better with RNG manipulation, but we (as a community) might deem the costs unworthy of the reward. As a general rule, we should arrange the rules of the competition to maximize the demonstration of the skills we intend to judge. It can be argued, I am sure, that RNG manipulation can both equalize and discriminate FE-playing skill, and there is no obvious sweet spot for the amount of RNG manipulation to allow.

Of course, the preceding two paragraphs operated under the assumption that an amatuer FE draft competition is analogous to a professional athletic competition. In the case of an amatuer competition, I think that it is at least important to set draft rules to maximize fun for the participants (and perhaps, the viewers).

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And yet, Olympic athletes are not permitted to use steroids, nor strap a jet pack on their back. Limits exist as to what we allow in competitions. If competition exists to judge who is the best at something, certain restrictions (like forbidding jet packs in foot races) are required to make the judgement we're interested in. Other restrictions, like banning steroids, exist because we are less interested in requiring competitors to take a drug with serious side effects than we are in seeing them perform slightly better.

But I can also say that Olympic athletes don't roll dice to see where they start in a 100m dash or what handicaps they get in other competitions -- they are entirely reliant on skill and not random chance. RNG abuse, while it has a plethora of moral (cheating?) and practical issues, also is the only realistic way to equalize the playing field in that respect.

Ideally, you'd only allow a limited time to complete a draft, since RNG abuse does cost time and you'd have to make a compromise exactly WHAT events you'd want to force, but then we realize that some SF forum-goers have more RL obligations than others, so setting a limit of a week to complete a draft may be a joke for some people but extremely tight for others. Likewise, you could penalize restarts and savestating and battle saves, but then you rely on the honor system and you STILL have the RNG possibly screwing you out of a win you possibly deserved just because your Sain refused to gain a single point in STR or SPD (other than promo bonuses) in 30 levels.

Regardless, those double moves are immensely helpful, and if FE5 were to receive the same level of LTC focus as some of the more recent games, I'm sure we'd find that any run that would appear "decent" by their standards would use an enormous amount of them.

Just noticed this statement. I whole-heartedly agree, which is why you'd never see LTC in FE5, imo. It's just WAY too dependent on MOV growths with 1-3% issues or movement procs with 5-15% chances or C4 chest bullshit or crits ignoring DEF (they do, right?) or weird hit rates. I might even say FE5 is worse than FE12 H3 in this respect -- it's just we don't even THINK about LTC and FE5 together beyond SSS ranking just for this reason. I see SSS ranking staying the gold standard for FE5 until the end of time, frankly.

Edited by Kngt_Of_Titania
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or crits ignoring DEF (they do, right?)

Criticals double the attacker's attack, then apply the defender's defense.

RNG abuse makes things more boring, and that's all I'll say here.

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Kngt: Olympic athletes don't roll dice, but it's absurd to suggest that there are no random variables that may impact their performance. But they don't get to run the race as many times as they want just because they weren't in their best condition for whatever reason, or something else went wrong. That is what RNG abuse is: it is asking for perhaps hundreds of attempts at the 100-meter dash and being able to count your best one. Sometimes, the more skilled Olympic athlete really will lose, and they just have to accept that, move on, and maybe try again another time.

Take a look at baseball. Teams play several games, because the most skilled team won't necessarily win every game. Teams can't just make up for the random factors involved by demanding to redo their innings in a game until they're satisfied. In the same way, draft players must be willing to accept their loss in some drafts and make up for it in others.

aku chi: In reality, luck only becomes such a huge factor when you're moving so fast. Finding hidden items is the only place where funds requires much luck at all, and it's only a factor in one chapter in most games, while thieves can ensure an item pickup. If you're going for funds and Exp, you have to be moving slow enough that you'll have a bit of time to get your thieves where you need them and probably have other characters try a couple of times to get other items. And if they need a bit more time to get those items? You'll be losing time, but time won't be as huge of a concern, while funds can remain unaffected if you keep trying. This same idea applies to the other few times when luck really can make a difference with gaining Exp or funds. Meanwhile, you won't need to do the insane two-mages-against-ten-enemies-in-one-turn thing Kngt mentioned earlier that can become "necessary" for LTC runs; you already have to slow down, so you can use a sane, more reliable strategy instead.

As for my assertion that balancing three variables is far more difficult than simply optimizing for one, I believe this is self-evident. Any example of working with multiple variables at once should suffice as a demonstration; surely you are familiar with a few.

Or, to address it more directly, let's say we're going by percentages. By FE7's standards, 3 turns are worth just under 1% of the Tactics rank, while 1% of the Funds rank is 8,470 gold. So perfecting this would require, for example, finding any instances when you could trade a turn for ~2800 gold - and that doesn't sound too rare. Or trading that turn for a few levels, not sure about the exact amount. Or trading those levels for funds, or vice versa. This is like a computer trying to calculate a perfect chess game: there's just too much to think about; getting the perfect answer just isn't possible.

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Kngt: Olympic athletes don't roll dice, but it's absurd to suggest that there are no random variables that may impact their performance. But they don't get to run the race as many times as they want just because they weren't in their best condition for whatever reason, or something else went wrong. That is what RNG abuse is: it is asking for perhaps hundreds of attempts at the 100-meter dash and being able to count your best one. Sometimes, the more skilled Olympic athlete really will lose, and they just have to accept that, move on, and maybe try again another time.

These are bad comparisons RNG abuse; they're trying to relate athletes performing at their best to a complete and utter crap shoot. A runner can watch film and work on his form to have a better race, in order to better prepare for a race. You can not better prepare for a level up. The better comparison here would be towards resetting because you made a mistake. Obviously not every runner will perform to the most they are capable of every time they race, just like you won't always lose a key unit because you made a mistake in predicting what an enemy would do.

Comparisons for level ups are hard for sports, because there is literally never a time where something is so random as to not have any means to fix.

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But I can also say that Olympic athletes don't roll dice to see where they start in a 100m dash or what handicaps they get in other competitions -- they are entirely reliant on skill and not random chance. RNG abuse, while it has a plethora of moral (cheating?) and practical issues, also is the only realistic way to equalize the playing field in that respect.

Ideally, you'd only allow a limited time to complete a draft, since RNG abuse does cost time and you'd have to make a compromise exactly WHAT events you'd want to force, but then we realize that some SF forum-goers have more RL obligations than others, so setting a limit of a week to complete a draft may be a joke for some people but extremely tight for others. Likewise, you could penalize restarts and savestating and battle saves, but then you rely on the honor system and you STILL have the RNG possibly screwing you out of a win you possibly deserved just because your Sain refused to gain a single point in STR or SPD (other than promo bonuses) in 30 levels.

That's because you see drafts as being super-competitive. Drafts were not originally a competition. They were about playing the game with characters you might not have tried before, playing the game in a way you hadn't considered. If Sain is still at base stats at level 20, you should see it not as a punishment but as an opportunity to try something new. Sure, you might not win, but drafting shouldn't be about winning. If you really want to "win", just lie about how many turns you took.

As for your complain about the honor system, the whole concept of drafts is entirely based on the honor system. There is no way to guarantee that a player did not use certain units and they got the turns they say they did without forcing everyone to post their Epilogue screens, and even those only count Battles and not how much the character Rescued or what staves they used. And as of yet no draft has ever adopted such a policy.

Just noticed this statement. I whole-heartedly agree, which is why you'd never see LTC in FE5, imo. It's just WAY too dependent on MOV growths with 1-3% issues or movement procs with 5-15% chances or C4 chest bullshit or crits ignoring DEF (they do, right?) or weird hit rates. I might even say FE5 is worse than FE12 H3 in this respect -- it's just we don't even THINK about LTC and FE5 together beyond SSS ranking just for this reason. I see SSS ranking staying the gold standard for FE5 until the end of time, frankly.

Well, it's not like you can go significantly faster than an FE5 SSS Rank anyway. In terms of turns, it's far stricter than any other ranking system and probably stricter than many efficiency tier lists. What other tier list goes so far as to have an "expected turncount" section? What other tier list has a "not recruited" section?

Edited by Anouleth
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These are bad comparisons RNG abuse; they're trying to relate athletes performing at their best to a complete and utter crap shoot. A runner can watch film and work on his form to have a better race, in order to better prepare for a race. You can not better prepare for a level up. The better comparison here would be towards resetting because you made a mistake. Obviously not every runner will perform to the most they are capable of every time they race, just like you won't always lose a key unit because you made a mistake in predicting what an enemy would do.

Comparisons for level ups are hard for sports, because there is literally never a time where something is so random as to not have any means to fix.

Let's say there's a race coming up. You need to improve your running skill by an arbitrary amount, let's call it 5. You have eight weeks to prepare. Maybe eight weeks is enough "levels" for you to gain five "points" in running. But maybe it turns out that it isn't. If it isn't, you don't get to do those weeks over; you'll just have to train for more weeks. You have to gain more "levels" instead of redoing the ones you already had, and maybe it won't be easy, maybe it'll cause problems, maybe you won't have enough "points" to do as well as you wanted in that particular race, and you just have to live with it.

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That's because you see drafts as being super-competitive. Drafts were not originally a competition. They were about playing the game with characters you might not have tried before, playing the game in a way you hadn't considered. If Sain is still at base stats at level 20, you should see it not as a punishment but as an opportunity to try something new. Sure, you might not win, but drafting shouldn't be about winning. If you really want to "win", just lie about how many turns you took.

As for your complain about the honor system, the whole concept of drafts is entirely based on the honor system. There is no way to guarantee that a player did not use certain units and they got the turns they say they did without forcing everyone to post their Epilogue screens, and even those only count Battles and not how much the character Rescued or what staves they used. And as of yet no draft has ever adopted such a policy.

Fair enough. I've only been reading SF for the last 8-9 months and actively posting for the last 3, so I have no idea how drafts used to be; I can only base my argument on how they are now. As for whether the change is good or bad, it's not really for me to say -- although I do see the "FE drafts" forum here active and bustling atm, and the community it entails extremely civil as far as the internet goes, which has a tendency to bring out the douche in people.

Well, it's not like you can go significantly faster than an FE5 SSS Rank anyway. In terms of turns, it's far stricter than any other ranking system and probably stricter than many efficiency tier lists. What other tier list goes so far as to have an "expected turncount" section? What other tier list has a "not recruited" section?

Depends. If sheer LTC FE5 ever became popular, you'd have people doing things like forcing MOV on every single level up for Leaf or anybody who they plan to rescue him -- it's akin to buying craploads of boots in FE6, except with really insane RNG dependence. SSS rank can be a bitch at times (even from the easier chapters I've done to the time of this post), but from what I've played in my attempt so far, I don't NEED to do things as ridiculous as that; mostly it's more mild but irritating things like forcing staff misses or praying for a crit on C2, which I'm more than familiar with from working with LTC Lunatic FE12 (which is turning out in some ways to be evil as all hell -- I've been working on it since like a week or two after I joined SF, mostly from the need to restart an entire run to save 2-3 turns here or there).

Criticals double the attacker's attack, then apply the defender's defense.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Let's say there's a race coming up. You need to improve your running skill by an arbitrary amount, let's call it 5. You have eight weeks to prepare. Maybe eight weeks is enough "levels" for you to gain five "points" in running. But maybe it turns out that it isn't. If it isn't, you don't get to do those weeks over; you'll just have to train for more weeks. You have to gain more "levels" instead of redoing the ones you already had, and maybe it won't be easy, maybe it'll cause problems, maybe you won't have enough "points" to do as well as you wanted in that particular race, and you just have to live with it.

I didn't realize the gains I get from exercise/training were completely random. Oh wait...they're not.

Edited by Kngt_Of_Titania
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Guys. Guys. The olympics metaphor was cute at first, but I think we can stop with it now before it becomes even more incredibly strained.

And even though I enjoy LTC, I can sort of agree about the sort of tunnel vision a lot of people here seemed to have developed in regards to LTC. Not that that's unexpected, it sort of happens when you cavort with like minded people for an extended period of time.

Edited by Refa
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Wait, what required crit in Ch2? I don't think I ever needed that. I'm sure I didn't, because resetting for Leaf to gain Move was hard enough. I got 4 turns for that chapter; did you go faster or something?

Gains you get from exercising aren't entirely random. But that doesn't mean they're entirely under your control, either. Sometimes, things just go wrong. That's how all of life is.

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Depends. If sheer LTC FE5 ever became popular, you'd have people doing things like forcing MOV on every single level up for Leaf or anybody who they plan to rescue him -- it's akin to buying craploads of boots in FE6, except with really insane RNG dependence.

Something like that already exists, and it's called a TAS.

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Wait, what required crit in Ch2? I don't think I ever needed that. I'm sure I didn't, because resetting for Leaf to gain Move was hard enough. I got 4 turns for that chapter; did you go faster or something?

Depending on the boss's parameters (and I suppose if Eyvel has or has not gained a point of mag), Eyvel needs a crit to ORKO at range with the Fire Sword.

Edited by dondon151
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Something like that already exists, and it's called a TAS.

Now that you mention it, that's precisely what "perfect" LTC playthroughs seem to approach. They care about turns rather than absolute speed, but when savestates are used for RNG abuse, it seems they're trying to create the same sort of playthrough.

Now, I think TASes can be great to watch. But it's my understanding that TAS players don't even seem to act like a TAS actually entails playing the game, just performing it. As such, TASes do not actually replace playing the game. They supplement it, but they stay within their place. This, I think, is what LTC should do, or go back to doing.

dondon: Is that the only chance you have? You can't attack him with Fin or something to finish him off, or get a second round with Eyvel? I don't remember this chapter very well, but it can't have been that limited, can it?

Edited by Othin
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dondon: Is that the only chance you have? You can't attack him with Fin or something to finish him off, or get a second round with Eyvel? I don't remember this chapter very well, but it can't have been that limited, can it?

Actually, being my first time playing FE5 and trying to figure out the mechanics (like not knowing fire sword 2 range targeted RES), I had her attack at 1 range like an idiot (and had him whacked with the Brave Lance as well to improve my odds, as only one attack of the four needed to crit). It wasn't until later when I looked it up and played around with it that I felt stupid Facepalm_emote_gif.gif . C2's boss had an obscene amount of DEF.

I STILL haven't got down all the mechanics for FE5 -- for example, I've yet to "enjoy" the effects of fatigue. It's going to make it a fun run, for sure. Btw, I did 4 turn the chapter.

Edited by Kngt_Of_Titania
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I don't really like Low turn counts. It makes reading trough discussions a little boring for me, but if thats whats populair now, I guess I just have to suck it up.

Why don't you give it a whirl before saying whether or not you like it or not? I didn't think I would like it at first, but I tried it and it was fun.

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Let's say there's a race coming up. You need to improve your running skill by an arbitrary amount, let's call it 5. You have eight weeks to prepare. Maybe eight weeks is enough "levels" for you to gain five "points" in running. But maybe it turns out that it isn't. If it isn't, you don't get to do those weeks over; you'll just have to train for more weeks. You have to gain more "levels" instead of redoing the ones you already had, and maybe it won't be easy, maybe it'll cause problems, maybe you won't have enough "points" to do as well as you wanted in that particular race, and you just have to live with it.

Gains you get from exercising aren't entirely random. But that doesn't mean they're entirely under your control, either. Sometimes, things just go wrong. That's how all of life is.

I don't know if you've ever done any athletics seriously, but you improve athletic qualities through training, and they are not random in the slightest. If I want to run faster, I have to practice my technique, eat correctly, and do whatever appropriate weight training and exercises. There's no random element to it, if you don't improve whatever quality enough to win a race it's because some one else worked harder/smarter than you did. The only really random elements are injuries and being born with certain physical traits that aren't duplicable (Height, body proportions, and any kind of diseases or physical handicap) through training of some sort. Those things, however, are even worse comparisons to level ups, as I'm sure you're aware.

If drafts aren't supposed to be competitions, then that's fine, but most competitions have really minimal random variables and drafts have really prominent ones. I was only operating and speaking under the assumption "People want drafts to be as fair as possible", if they'd rather have them a little more luck dependent and be less for the sake of winning than doing them, that's totally cool too. It's also my mistake if so, that's fine.

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If you think the results of training can be entirely predictable, you're deluded. Stuff happens for plenty of reasons. Random injuries, major or minor, can disrupt the results of training or its ability to happen in the first place, as can a multitude of other factors. I don't know a ton about athletics, but I know enough to understand the existence of a multitude of relevant factors that we just can't track or control properly.

You say competitions are not random; I bring up baseball again. Or tennis, or anything else that involves a number of games against the same teams/players, all or some under what "should" be the same conditions. If the most skilled team would always win, there would be no need for multiple rounds; they would just win every time, or at least every comparable one. But they don't. They just rely on the larger number of games to try and balance it out.

Edited by Othin
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If you think the results of training can be entirely predictable, you're deluded. Stuff happens for plenty of reasons. Random injuries, major or minor, can disrupt the results of training or its ability to happen in the first place, as can a multitude of other factors. I don't know a ton about athletics, but I know enough to understand the existence of a multitude of relevant factors that we just can't track or control properly.

You say competitions are not random; I bring up baseball again. Or tennis, or anything else that involves a number of games against the same teams/players, all or some under what "should" be the same conditions. If the most skilled team would always win, there would be no need for multiple rounds; they would just win every time, or at least every comparable one. But they don't. They just rely on the larger number of games to try and balance it out.

I'm really not trying to be an ass, but it's obvious you don't know anything about personal training, or sports. If I want to run a mile at a certain speed, that is within my physical limitations with the body I was born with, there are things i need to do, and if I do those things I will be able to run a mile at that speed. The only exception is injury, which I acknowledged. If there are a multitude of other factors, can you name one? On the other hand, as it relates to Fire Emblem, if I want Micaiah to get speed on any level up, I can do jack all but hope she will when I train her enough to level up. If people want to make drafts more competitive and fair-and like I said it doesn't have to be that way-I can completely understand taking some random elements out of the equation.

Baseball and Tennis are not random, and are not made less random through multiple games. I can tell you why if you'd like to know, but I can tell you that you're just looking at why there are multiples rounds/sets/games wrong. I just don't think it's very prudent to the topic.

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Okay fuck it.

Sometimes, things go better or worse than expected, and sometimes, that's largely or entirely out of your control. Are we in agreement that with regard to virtually everything in real life, this is true?

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dondon: Is that the only chance you have? You can't attack him with Fin or something to finish him off, or get a second round with Eyvel? I don't remember this chapter very well, but it can't have been that limited, can it?

You can't get in a second round of combat with Eyvel, but you can finish him off with Fin. You generally are forced to pass up an Iron Bow this way (which sell for a decent amount).

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