650 replies to this topic

[Lord Raven]

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, 05 February 2012 - 11:22 PM.

[The_Purple_Knight]

I had michai with 19 speed once but that was because she capped magic skill and speed very very early and I was able to bexp abuse her . I imagine she would have to have been blessed in all 4 stats to have gotten the 19 spied anyway .

[Balcerzak]

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.

[Paperblade]

Bal, keep in mind that most people (and by most I mean "everyone but you and Horace") don't make a video recording of their drafts. >_>

[General Banzai]

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.

[General Horace]

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.

[Balcerzak]

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.

[Othin]

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, 06 February 2012 - 04:29 AM.

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

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.

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, 06 February 2012 - 05:44 AM.

[Anouleth]

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.

[aku chi]

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.
...

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?

As this thread evidences, I mostly agree with you on this point. But you are mistaken if you believe that there will be many resets in a draft competition where restarting is heavily penalized. There have been several draft competitions on GameFAQs' FE9 board that penalize restarting, but very few restarts have been reported. The good news: very little stat blessage or lucky RNG has been reported.

[zahlman]

So why do we go around putting LTC on a pedestal above everything else?

Because it's easy to measure.

WRT restarts and RNG abuse, I really should just make that patch I've been thinking about :P

[Toothache]

This should more be a debate about the RNG system in this game in general, not just specifically about LTC.

It is increasingly often, I notice, that when fans play games enough times, they start to notice things in their game that can be exploited, either glitches, tricks or techniques that can be applied. This is the case with the RNG in the Fire Emblem games. The cat is out of the bag, it is well known in these parts how the RNG works, and thus how to abuse it to a more favourable outcome. That's not a bad thing to make use of - speedruns make use of glitches or generally hidden or obscure things all the time, and whether intentional or not, that is the way the games are made.

The RNG in the Fire Emblem games is notably fixed, at least for the earlier games (pre-FE9). Repeat the same order of moves again, and the game plays out exactly the same. Change one move, and you change the outcome, and thus you can manipulate events to give you the outcomes you want. Hit rates, criticals, level ups and misses, all of these can be manipulated to the players favour. I see there is a certain reluctance to make use of this knowledge, as if it trivialises the game in some way to understand exactly how things work. A hidden truth has been revealed, and now the games have been seen in a different light, from that of a mere player, to a controller. People see the games in a different way - if we are not at the whims of randomness, and we can manipulate things to our favour, then we can do what we like? It becomes too easy - trivial, almost, to even play them.

From my perspective, I do not see that at all. There have been tool-assisted speedruns done of the Fire Emblem games, and I am working on one myself. The experience of TASing this game has taught me a lot, not just about the understanding of the RNG, how the game remembers things and so on, it has taught me the value of efficiency in gameplay. Even with the ability to manipulate the RNG, certain things are so unlikely to happen that they never will occur, and since TASing is all about lowest time taken overall, there needs to be a balance struck between an event occurring and the time taken to make that happen. Several times I've had to make compromises given the limits of the RNG (and yes there are limits, even 65536 possibilities cannot cover everything), and perform slower actions to make up for the time taken to perform them.

I think what's happening here is there is an ethical debate going on. We have the knowledge to do something, but is it right to do so? The games are supposedly balanced with the RNG in mind - swords are meant to be accurate but moderately damaging, axes are meant to be inaccurate but powerful, but none of that matters when you can just rig axes to hit all the time. Change the order of your actions on the turn, fiddle around with the cursor, send useless units into the arenas - all these things are ways of changing the game to our advantage. While intentional or not, this level of RNG manipulation IS part of the games - it is how they are programmed. I am somewhat confused by the constant reluctance for people to accept this. Computers are incredibly stupid - they do what they are told and no more. The fact that we understand how a computer thinks should mean nothing to us ethically. Yes, it does change the perspective we have on games, and yes it makes it less fun to others. But, given this knowledge, there's a new possibility that can arise from this.

LTC players, from where it currently stands is divided into two categories - those who choose to use the knowledge available to aid in their pursuit of lowest turn counts, and those who don't. Competition is derived from those who have the most sound strategies as well as those able to manipulate the games to their advantage, using dozens if not hundreds of resets, save states, battle saves, etc. Only the most persistent win, it seems; the old adage 'If you can't beat them, join them' rarely holds true, and people stick steadfast to their guns and refuse to take part in what is possible - or what is necessary - to win at a LTC or draft competition. People take some notion of a higher ground by refusing the knowledge available and sticking to the way they have learned how to play. Personally, I feel those people are stagnant.

Draft playthroughs have changed, from the days when people didn't know about the games or how to manipulate them, to the days when it is virtually common knowledge how it works. Change is always reluctant, but things are always changing. Those who refuse to adapt or evolve are doomed to fail. The lid cannot be put back on the Pandora's Box now - it is open, and we must learn to accept the fate that it has left.

Edited by Toothache, 06 February 2012 - 12:10 PM.

[Othin]

Personally, even with all my experience with FE, I feel perfectly able to play games in a fluid manner, responding to events rather than having things all planned out. And yet when I talk to players such as Anouleth, they seem to have no comprehension of how to get to where I am from where they are. Perhaps you're right: For some players, Pandora's Box has been opened, and there's no going back. But this is not an inherent disease of the series when played enough; it is merely the price of giving in to LTC, that when immersed deep enough within it, it can make it impossible to ever play the game as it once was again. (See the thread asking about what it would be like to be "blind" again.) This, if true, confirms LTC as the disease that can become impossible to cure, permanently draining the life from FE.

If this is the case, then for FE to live, LTC must be kept from spreading and from infecting anyone else. You tell us to adapt, but all there is left to "adapt" to would be this pitiful, empty shell of a series, its countless options all scorched down to so few for no reason at all.

Edited by Othin, 06 February 2012 - 12:30 PM.

[aku chi]

Blimey, all this talk of the opening Pandora's Box and the disease of LTCing is shocking. I didn't realize that LTC drafts were such serious business... When I play Fire Emblem, I prefer to have fun (whether it's a fluid playstyle or an objective-oriented, strategy-finding playthrough), but maybe that's just me.

[Anouleth]

This should more be a debate about the RNG system in this game in general, not just specifically about LTC.

It is increasingly often, I notice, that when fans play games enough times, they start to notice things in their game that can be exploited, either glitches, tricks or techniques that can be applied. This is the case with the RNG in the Fire Emblem games. The cat is out of the bag, it is well known in these parts how the RNG works, and thus how to abuse it to a more favourable outcome. That's not a bad thing to make use of - speedruns make use of glitches or generally hidden or obscure things all the time, and whether intentional or not, that is the way the games are made.

The RNG in the Fire Emblem games is notably fixed, at least for the earlier games (pre-FE9). Repeat the same order of moves again, and the game plays out exactly the same. Change one move, and you change the outcome, and thus you can manipulate events to give you the outcomes you want. Hit rates, criticals, level ups and misses, all of these can be manipulated to the players favour. I see there is a certain reluctance to make use of this knowledge, as if it trivialises the game in some way to understand exactly how things work. A hidden truth has been revealed, and now the games have been seen in a different light, from that of a mere player, to a controller. People see the games in a different way - if we are not at the whims of randomness, and we can manipulate things to our favour, then we can do what we like? It becomes too easy - trivial, almost, to even play them.

It's not that it's easy. It's that it's boring and predictable. Games like Diablo are interesting because they are unpredictable games. Not only are the maps randomised, but the monsters and the items are random too. And you can play with the most unpredictable creature of all: humans.

LTC players, from where it currently stands is divided into two categories - those who choose to use the knowledge available to aid in their pursuit of lowest turn counts, and those who don't. Competition is derived from those who have the most sound strategies as well as those able to manipulate the games to their advantage, using dozens if not hundreds of resets, save states, battle saves, etc. Only the most persistent win, it seems; the old adage 'If you can't beat them, join them' rarely holds true, and people stick steadfast to their guns and refuse to take part in what is possible - or what is necessary - to win at a LTC or draft competition. People take some notion of a higher ground by refusing the knowledge available and sticking to the way they have learned how to play. Personally, I feel those people are stagnant.

Toothache, this isn't about some sort of moral high ground here. The issue is that I, and it seems many others, feel that exercising control over the RNG makes the game less fun to play. It means that in many drafts, you simply see players using the same strategies over and over again, because control over the RNG has removed the unpredictable element from the game. That is not interesting. What is interesting is having to come up with new solutions to new problems.

Moreover, while it would be nice if everyone had access to lua scripts or whatever to have complete foresight of the RNG, a significant proportion of players prefer to play on carts, or without those things, or on platforms where such things are just impossible. This puts these people at a major disadvantage and might encourage them to play in the same way as their competitors to keep up. I don't think that's a good thing that RNG abuse has become so prevalent. If anything, it is the drafters who are stagnant because they insist on playing the game the same way rather than make a change and try something new.

Say there was a "perfect" TAS of FE6 that could not be improved upon. Would there be any satisfaction in merely copying it? Of course not. You would move on to a game that hadn't been exhaustively explored and construct a TAS of that. Or perhaps you would add some new limitation on and try to TAS around that limitation. Having found the solution to one "puzzle", you would not then just solve the same puzzle over and over again. You would go and find a new "puzzle".

Draft playthroughs have changed, from the days when people didn't know about the games or how to manipulate them, to the days when it is virtually common knowledge how it works. Change is always reluctant, but things are always changing. Those who refuse to adapt or evolve are doomed to fail. The lid cannot be put back on the Pandora's Box now - it is open, and we must learn to accept the fate that it has left.

So we must all learn to play in the exact same way? Fuck that. I am not going to go and copy PKL's strategies down to the letter because you think that it's somehow "progress".

[Red Fox of Fire]

Blimey, all this talk of the opening Pandora's Box and the disease of LTCing is shocking. I didn't realize that LTC drafts were such serious business... When I play Fire Emblem, I prefer to have fun (whether it's a fluid playstyle or an objective-oriented, strategy-finding playthrough), but maybe that's just me.

Would it be shocking to learn that some people find taking LTC drafts seriously fun?

[13th]

Would it be shocking to learn that some people find taking LTC drafts seriously fun?

OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

The truth is, people do these LTCs for fun. I find the concept of minimum turns per chapter very unfun. But PKL, Kopfjager, and others all treat it like its the funnest thing in the world.

Now that doesn't mean they have the right to complain about people who don't think so. But it also means the opposite. We cannot complain about them.

I have put it short and sweet for you people.

[Othin]

Would it be shocking to learn that some people find taking LTC drafts seriously fun?

The current LTC drafts being discussed here? To me, yes, quite shocking.

OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

The truth is, people do these LTCs for fun. I find the concept of minimum turns per chapter very unfun. But PKL, Kopfjager, and others all treat it like its the funnest thing in the world.

Now that doesn't mean they have the right to complain about people who don't think so. But it also means the opposite. We cannot complain about them.

I have put it short and sweet for you people.

I cannot complain about people liking LTC. But when LTC begins to stamp out all other FE discussion, I'd say that's within my right to complain.

[Paperblade]

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?

It's possible to train an average/below average Micaiah, but it's not really that feasible under LTC.

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.

I'm not talking about HM. RNG abusing on HM is much more difficult because almost no one emulates it and there are no battle saves. Also, you totally ignored the fact that like 20 posts ago, someone even said that if you don't RNG abuse Micaiah you are put in a huge hole. You are theorycrafting except you lack even numbers that would hint you are correct.

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

I worded that poorly--I meant that if Seth is not banned, it doesn't matter what you pick because either Seth is free and lolseth, Seth is picked (why) and you have him and win or don't and lose.

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.

Don't patronize me--I was one of the first people to play through Lunatic.

Here's the thing: FE12 growths? Really fucking high. Most units' growths before class boosts are good enough to be a thing in pretty much any other game (sans maybe HP growth). Marth after class boosts has offensive growths that make Dart and Sain envious, and the only reason we raise him is to kill Medeus (although that's probably more a result of being locked to a shitty class that doesn't get promo boosts). Most units are looking at 70-100% HP growths and 60-80% growths in Str/Spd. You also have the Bonds from supports to catch you up, and on your second+ playthrough the lunatic statboosters.

Also, 60 hit on an FE12 boss? Between supports (keep in mind Marth and MU both support just about everyone and most good units have an inbred support chain). In fact, I went to check my FE12 playthrough, and Catria had a pitiful 100% hit rate on Hardin (who has 30 Speed, giving him the most avoid any boss will have in the game) with an unforged Silver Lance--due to the fact that the Lightsphere completely negates terrain bonuses. Checked the final and the lowest hit from a blue unit in the entire 2 turns was... 100%.

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.

Really? I call them porchmonkeys because THAT IS THEIR NAME IN THE SOUTH.

That's what you sound like. Did you ever stop to consider the reason why that term is used? If you do not like the connotations that people take from the words you use, perhaps you should put a little more thought into your posts.

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.

And this is where your actual logic takes a jump off a cliff, now in the form of a double standard. The point of any playthrough is to beat the game. Look:

Max Gold: Beat the game with the most gold
LTC: Beat the game in the lowest number of turns
Speedruns: Beat the game with low amount time on the clock
LLR: Beat the game with a low amount of EXP gained

etc. etc.

So again, why is beating the game in a low number of turns inherently more serious/better/devoted/whatever term you want to use, even though there are other playstyles that are also measurable?

Casual is a catch-all term because we need to describe the type of runs that fail to meet any other criteria;

Why?

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).

You have changed your stance from a binary switch between LTC-Everything Else to Things That Are Clearly Defined-Everything Else.

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).

Again, PKL explicitly said that Micaiah being above average is a huge advantage, your theorycraft (again without numbers) means nothing. Jill/Nolan cannot be everywhere at once. In a draft, especially in rout (or rout-like) chapters such as most-chapters-Micaiah-is-in it is inherently more useful to have two combat units that can go to different parts of the map where enemies are, as basic logic dictates that this would make things go faster.

You are ignoring the point--stop it.

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.

Yes I am well aware of this. In any playthrough (or game for that matter), I could restart until things went my way (well, you are supposed to in speedruns but they are kind of a different monster and I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the subject), but I don't see what that proves. I could also stack the deck in Poker or whatever card game you prefer, but what good would that be?

Also, dondon had an entire video of RNG mishaps for FE5. RNG exists beyond level ups (I will agree FE5 was somewhat overboard in this regard but that does not mean we can just ignore it). For example, iirc he said the first couple turns of his 4x strategy was very luck reliant.

I haven't played HHM in a while but I distinctly remember Marcus not being actually invincible in the late game (and maybe even midgame idr for sure)

Would it be shocking to learn that some people find taking LTC drafts seriously fun?

Edited by Paperblade, 06 February 2012 - 03:30 PM.