Has the strategy changed?

[False Prophet]

One thing I notice during my playthrough of Fates is that it feel a lot less restrained compare to older titles. I admit that I'm a very cautious and orthordox - moving the army as a big mass, baiting, etc. It's no wonder my turn count of 6, 7 and 8 all exceeded 300. But with Fates, the pace is much more faster. I usually divided my army into two for princer attack and moving them all around the map, something that I'd had never done.

Does this mean the game now focused on individual, powerful units? To me, it isn't - I care even less for stats than I used to (which was already minimal). Not to mention that there is no weapon durability. I don't have to worry about sequence of attack anymore.

So why did this happen? Is it because of the map (I did the same in FE4), world map, calculation, reclassing, or?

Edited October 10, 2015 by False Prophet

[Reikken]

because they want to make the game more casual to appeal to a larger audience after tasting the success of Awakening

(actually I have have never even seen this game you're talking about and am making stuff up)

[arvilino]

The GBA games had a lot of 1-2 tile wide passageways in maps where that passageway is the only or quickest route through the chapter or the alternative path is on the other side of the map extremely far apart. It meant if you did play slowly the fighting ends up restricted or the passageways get clogged by enemies and ups your turn count as it restricts how much combat you can do per turn and progression through the chapter. The gap can be so big between quick and slow playstyles because playing slow creates more situations where these routes get blocked and adds more and more turns.

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/cap8.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe7/guiafe7/capitulo16efe7.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe8/guiafe8/capituloeph9fe8.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe8/guiafe8/capituloeph13fe8.htm

Take the ones I've linked to for example in the indoor chapters you literally couldn't move them all around the map because of the walls and bottlenecks, every character has to take the same paths with bottlenecks to the end. If an enemy or two gets in the passage and d in 1 or 2 rounds your entire army cannot progress any further(missing an enemy in one of these can be a killer to ranked runs of FE7) even if there were enemies behind it that they could take on, the outdoor chapters are similar with water or mountains instead of walls which is how even the weaker flying units can get rated quite highly. Fates while still having those kind of objects usually has the maps be a bit more open or multiple fronts.

[False Prophet]

The GBA games had a lot of 1-2 tile wide passageways in maps where that passageway is the only or quickest route through the chapter or the alternative path is on the other side of the map extremely far apart. It meant if you did play slowly the fighting ends up restricted or the passageways get clogged by enemies and ups your turn count as it restricts how much combat you can do per turn and progression through the chapter. The gap can be so big between quick and slow playstyles because playing slow creates more situations where these routes get blocked and adds more and more turns.

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/cap8.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe7/guiafe7/capitulo16efe7.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe8/guiafe8/capituloeph9fe8.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe8/guiafe8/capituloeph13fe8.htm

Take the ones I've linked to for example in the indoor chapters you literally couldn't move them all around the map because of the walls and bottlenecks, every character has to take the same paths with bottlenecks to the end. If an enemy or two gets in the passage and d in 1 or 2 rounds your entire army cannot progress any further(missing an enemy in one of these can be a killer to ranked runs of FE7) even if there were enemies behind it that they could take on, the outdoor chapters are similar with water or mountains instead of walls which is how even the weaker flying units can get rated quite highly. Fates while still having those kind of objects usually has the maps be a bit more open or multiple fronts.

Makes sense. And I suppose that I'm an aerial player now, thanks to Awakening. Usually an arrowhead formation with Dark Flier (Gale Force) and Wyvern Lord.

Also, is it me or do Pair up and stacked Rally also push the pace?

[HTakara82]

Can you give some examples from fates? Cause there's so many things in fates that discourages rambo units. Pair-Up bonuses are stupid low this time around and pairup partners don't attack, skills like galeforce only works if the unit is solo with no allies near it. Rallies got nerfed, they give only +2 instead of +4 like in Awakening, strong weapons like Silvers puts a -2 debuff on both STR and SKL everytime you attack with it, and it stacks, effectively if used a ton of times on enemy phase, will put you at 1 str and skill. Not to mention enemies will debuff the crap out of you too.

Edited October 10, 2015 by HTakara82

[Technoweirdo]

The GBA games had a lot of 1-2 tile wide passageways in maps where that passageway is the only or quickest route through the chapter or the alternative path is on the other side of the map extremely far apart. It meant if you did play slowly the fighting ends up restricted or the passageways get clogged by enemies and ups your turn count as it restricts how much combat you can do per turn and progression through the chapter. The gap can be so big between quick and slow playstyles because playing slow creates more situations where these routes get blocked and adds more and more turns.

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe6/guiafe6/cap8.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe7/guiafe7/capitulo16efe7.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe8/guiafe8/capituloeph9fe8.htm

http://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe8/guiafe8/capituloeph13fe8.htm

Take the ones I've linked to for example in the indoor chapters you literally couldn't move them all around the map because of the walls and bottlenecks, every character has to take the same paths with bottlenecks to the end. If an enemy or two gets in the passage and d in 1 or 2 rounds your entire army cannot progress any further(missing an enemy in one of these can be a killer to ranked runs of FE7) even if there were enemies behind it that they could take on, the outdoor chapters are similar with water or mountains instead of walls which is how even the weaker flying units can get rated quite highly. Fates while still having those kind of objects usually has the maps be a bit more open or multiple fronts.

Yeah, the chokepointing in the GBA games was rather ridiculous as was the whole one-route thing. On some maps, simply getting people through the halls to fight the last few enemies was a slog and nothing really happened during those turns. The more open design in the 3DS games combined with generally more aggressive enemies and the occasional wave of reinforcements meant that you'd be busy even when the turn counts are going higher than they ever were. In the rare hallway case, Pair Up also let more people squeeze through the same area without causing a jam.

I also feel the 3DS games have faster combat animations.

Not so much feeling: The ability to outright skip watching the entire enemy turn if you're going through a map for the umpteenth time.

Makes sense. And I suppose that I'm an aerial player now, thanks to Awakening. Usually an arrowhead formation with Dark Flier (Gale Force) and Wyvern Lord.

Also, is it me or do Pair up and stacked Rally also push the pace?

Well, Pair Up certainly gets Knights/Generals to places faster and you can de-pair on the same turn without assistance unlike Rescue which required a third unit.

Can you give some examples from fates? Cause there's so many things in fates that discourages rambo units. Pair-Up bonuses are stupid low this time around and pairup partners don't attack, skills like galeforce only works if the unit is solo with no allies near it. Rallies got nerfed, they give only +2 instead of +4 like in Awakening, strong weapons like Silvers puts a -2 debuff on both STR and SKL everytime you attack with it, and it stacks, effectively if used a ton of times on enemy phase, will put you at 1 str and skill. Not to mention enemies will debuff the crap out of you too.

Actually, that's just Rally Spectrum which would pretty much break the game otherwise. :P

Edited October 10, 2015 by Technoweirdo