What Should Conquest have been like?

[NekoKnight]

Now that I think about it, C15 is the perfect point to where the story could have turned around. You just had the massacre in the Opera House and Leo suggested a method of subtly subverting Garon. The seeds of rebellion are already sowing and then Azura drops the information that Garon is a slime monster (you shouldn't need this revelation but I'm working with what I got). The sensible thing should be to tell the Nohr sibs immediately and start brewing a resistance in secret, but Azura instead proposes the most insane plan and Corrin doesn't even question it. 

There were several problems with the pre-C15 chapters but they could have at leasy salvaged the plot at that point.

[Alcanoma]

Conquest has an interesting premise, thought there's still some stuff that come into my head. 

• Not making the whole story too black & white obviously. Hoshido isn't paradise, and Nohr isn't hell either.
• Have more character interactions.
• Remove the hate monster. Not everything need to happens because Anankos did it.
• The curse should NOT have been the main problem, Nohr's resources is far more interesting.
• Give Camilla and Elise divine weapons.
• King Garon should have more personality. Make him a strict but fair warrior instead of being blatantly evil. Give him a backstory, and a much fleshed out motivations. 
• Give Hoshido some REAL issues instead of the same things. There's plenty of others way to make this kingdom "darker" than some unnecessary racism/xenophobia BS.
• Think of different solutions to end the war than just blindly following Azura's plan until chapter 27.
• Takumi's corruption should have been more about his self-righteous than some stupid plot device. 
• Why there's absolutely no humans conflicts???

Edited May 10, 2017 by Alcanoma

[ViralN9]

I really, REALLY wanted to like the story, but it simply has far too many flaws. Rattling a few of the gripes I had off the top of my head.

• Iago and Hans are really nothing more than Saturday morning cartoon villains, makes them boring.
• Garon just sits there and looks menacing in all three routes. Could go multiple ways with this. Firstly they could make him a harsh but ultimately fair ruler that was forced into his actions due to the resource issues. Or they could of had him steadily decline and eventually succumb to possession by Anankos. Perhaps there could of been a Theoden/Wormtongue dynamic with Garon and Iago, with Iago being a manipulative agent of Anankos. Or if the crew was dead set in making Garon as much as a generic villain as possible they could of at least given us more info on how he and Nohr were like before he went completely insane.
• I liked that scene where Corrin lies about what they were doing and then threatens Iago right in front of Garon when he questions their loyalty. It showed the Corrin was starting to develop some real guile, and then they proceed to never use this guile again. Make Corrin use this more.
• And this is more of a gripe with the story of all the routes but I wish that Corrin being a dragon was given more story relevance than the legendary sword of plot devices.

Edited May 5, 2017 by ViralN9

[SavageVolug]

Ok, from a gameplay perspective and based off of the units you get that are Nohr exclusive I like Conquest a lot. I feel that there's more creativity in these maps than in Birthright or Revelations as a lot of those seem to lack creativity or just be too gimmicky for the most part. Things that I think should have been changed is, first of all Silas is an official retainer to Corrin along with Gunter and another cavalier (I'm borrowing traditions from previous games in terms of story and unit distribution). These three are with you from the start and throughout the game except for the Hoshido chapters and yes Felicia or Jacob is still with you as well. 

Garon would be a much more complex villain instead of being 1 dimensionally evil for the sake of being 1 dimensionally evil. There are moments of tenderness with his children including Corrin, perhaps moments where he remembers his deceased wives and when his children were younger. Instead of being harsh to Corrin he is of course surprised that Corrin chose to side with Nohr when he/she (Corrin)knows the truth and Corrin explains that he/she could not bring themselves to leave the only family they have ever known (or something like that). At which Garon embraces Corrin but then Iago chimes in with typical Iago nonsense, at which Garon rebukes Iago and his nonsense but tells Corrin that in order for the rest of the soldiers to trust and accept Corrin considering he was just with the enemy he should go on a solo mission taking only a few close comrades (meaning Silas, Gunter, Felica and the additional cavalier I mentioned). The story carries out roughly like normal but the Ice Tribe is a location that is revisited periodically (people from the Ice Tribe), what I mean is we don't just see the Ice Tribe once and then forget that they even exist. In fact the Ice Tribe is known for having powerful Cryomancers and Berserkers.

Also Arthur is a mercenary instead of a fighter, Hans and Iago are developed more but ultimately it is Iago pulling the strings and manipulating Garon to make horrible governing decisions (kind of like Lyon with the Grado Emperor in SS). Corrin's ability to transform into a dragon is of much greater significance, I would add a few more axe units to the game who are friends of Arthur's and a few more cavaliers, more outlaws, more mages. In short more of everything, also there would be Dark Magic in the game and I would add some Gaiden chapter by achieving additional objectives on the maps. The game would be longer than 27 chapters especially Revalation.

Lastly a big drive to invading Hoshido has to do with the bad economy of Nohr. Hoshido on the other hand has plenty in terms of food and crops, so Nohr wants to bring Hoshido under Nohrian rule, and make sure that not only Hoshido has plenty of food but ALL of Hoshido's neighbors as well. 

I'm sure there are other things as well but I can't really remember anything else at the moment as I just finished Revelations.

[Megan]

I mean right off the bat everyone knew king garon was crazy af. I wish there was a build up. I mean it was just like the whole time you're doing King garons dumb tasks, you return only for him amd iago to still want you dead, and your siblings talk him out of it to give you another chance. That's all it felt like. 

It did make me a bit sad cause I love to level every single character to Max and 100% everything. Conquest doesn't let you but I completely understand why. I don't think they should change it or anything. Conquest was a nice challenge. Well at least for someone who's not super hard core usually anyway it was tough.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Megan

[SavageVolug]

55 minutes ago, Megan said:

I mean right off the bat everyone knew king garon was crazy af. I wish there was a build up. I mean it was just like the whole time you're doing King garons dumb tasks, you return only for him amd iago to still want you dead, and your siblings talk him out of it to give you another chance. That's all it felt like. 

It did make me a bit sad cause I love to level every single character to Max and 100% everything. Conquest doesn't let you but I completely understand why. I don't think they should change it or anything. Conquest was a nice challenge. Well at least for someone who's not super hard core usually anyway it was tough.

I feel that Fates does things to make the game "hard" just for the sake of the game being hard. Now most of the maps on Conquest I like, but it seems that the enemies themselves aren't the reason for why the map is hard and it feels like you have to do everything EXACTLY right with extreme precision otherwise you will have to restart. I mean I have to restart Fates' maps more often than I ever do for any map in Radiant Dawn now that's saying something. For example on chapter 8 of Conquest the main reason for me restarting was all the mages. That map has so many mages, and you don't have anybody that you can send to eliminate them such as a pegasus like you could in past games. Another example is chapter 9, due to a very good choking point that map should be a lot more doable than it is. However on hard mode and above (I don't know about normal) several of the spear units there have seal defense which is always the primary reason for me needing to restart. I really hate this skill. I don't see how it gives you any more of a strategic challenge and I feel if a unit has X amount of points in defense you should not be able to lower it just by engaging in combat with them and activating seal defense, I mean actually I don't like any of the nerfing skills but especially that one.

I don't know if you've played Birthright or Revelations yet but even on those you can only really grind on the Boo Camp and the reason for this is because the amount of experience you'll get from other maps is minimal. I think if grinding was going to be in the game and I'm pretty sure they were planning on this from the start, what they should have done is added some GBA style arenas to some of the maps and added a 50 floored tower to the world map that at least is accessible on Birthright and Revelations (like the tower in Sacred Stones) as I really don't like grinding on maps where I have to chase down the enemy I prefer fighting armies that are trying to kill me.

I guess what I'm saying is I've played 2 of the GBA Fire Emblem Games, and Radiant Dawn (Radiant Dawn I've played multiple times) and those games offered strategic challenges but they never felt frustrating (outside of a random 1% crit), while Fates does get frustrating and very quickly I also feel the EXP gain drops incredibly fast compared to past entries. So while I like the maps better that Conquest has and I prefer the classes in Nohr to most of the Hoshido classes the seal skills get to be very frustrating to me especially on levels where my tank does not have a lot of defense anyway. Also instead of poison strike I would have prefered it if instead it caused the Ninjas' weapons to work like the poison lance and other similar weapons of past entries. With poison strike I feel this skill makes sense but just needs a little adjusting a lot of the other skills though like draconic hex or seal defense don't make sense to me at all and I don't like them and prefer not to use them.

In short I'm agreeing with you and adding some of my thoughts on the game.

[Megan]

10 hours ago, SavageVolug said:

 

I don't know if you've played Birthright or Revelations yet but even on those you can only really grind on the Boo Camp and the reason for this is because the amount of experience you'll get from other maps is minimal. I think if grinding was going to be in the game and I'm pretty sure they were planning on this from the start, what they should have done is added some GBA style arenas to some of the maps and added a 50 floored tower to the world map that at least is accessible on Birthright and Revelations (like the tower in Sacred Stones) as I really don't like grinding on maps where I have to chase down the enemy I prefer fighting armies that are trying to kill me.

 

Yeah I played all three routes. I'd say revelations is like conquest without scouting. Not story wise but you get the nohrian characters and you can grind with scouting. Sadly I'm someone who likes to 100% everything so I'm currently leveling and Skilling up every unit on my revelations route currently. Lol

[SavageVolug]

Something that I've noticed about Fates in general is that I have to restart a lot of the maps more times than I have EVER had to do on any other FE game. Maybe I'm not as good of a player as I thought I was but, all I know is I do not need to restart maps nearly as much in games like Radiant Dawn (reputedly the hardest Fire Emblem game) Blazing Sword or Sacred Stones. Which when this is the case it feels like the game's difficulty wasn't tested or something, where while the games I've mentioned are a challenge they are also fun and enjoyable. I'm not really sure what the problem is but I keep trying to figure out why I have to restart so much and it seems to boil down to that unless I'm mistaken you need to almost do a scripted move set and there's no room for error. I can make mistakes with the Dawn Brigade and still proceed without losing a unit, but the moment I make a mistake in Fates it's game over. Where it's like this works, this doesn't, don't do this, do this etc. Granted this is more something that happens at earlier levels vs. later levels but still. Why does Fates feel like it's harder than Radiant Dawn which has the reputation of being the hardest game in the series?

[Jotari]

27 minutes ago, SavageVolug said:

Something that I've noticed about Fates in general is that I have to restart a lot of the maps more times than I have EVER had to do on any other FE game. Maybe I'm not as good of a player as I thought I was but, all I know is I do not need to restart maps nearly as much in games like Radiant Dawn (reputedly the hardest Fire Emblem game) Blazing Sword or Sacred Stones. Which when this is the case it feels like the game's difficulty wasn't tested or something, where while the games I've mentioned are a challenge they are also fun and enjoyable. I'm not really sure what the problem is but I keep trying to figure out why I have to restart so much and it seems to boil down to that unless I'm mistaken you need to almost do a scripted move set and there's no room for error. I can make mistakes with the Dawn Brigade and still proceed without losing a unit, but the moment I make a mistake in Fates it's game over. Where it's like this works, this doesn't, don't do this, do this etc. Granted this is more something that happens at earlier levels vs. later levels but still. Why does Fates feel like it's harder than Radiant Dawn which has the reputation of being the hardest game in the series?

Does it though? I thought Thracia had that reputation (possibly unjustified) due to all the bullshit it throws at you. Like I mean Radiant Dawn hard mode can be challenging but I was never under the impression it's widely considered the most difficult (not that it really matters for the point you're making though).

[Megan]

9 hours ago, SavageVolug said:

Something that I've noticed about Fates in general is that I have to restart a lot of the maps more times than I have EVER had to do on any other FE game. Maybe I'm not as good of a player as I thought I was but, all I know is I do not need to restart maps nearly as much in games like Radiant Dawn (reputedly the hardest Fire Emblem game) Blazing Sword or Sacred Stones. Which when this is the case it feels like the game's difficulty wasn't tested or something, where while the games I've mentioned are a challenge they are also fun and enjoyable. I'm not really sure what the problem is but I keep trying to figure out why I have to restart so much and it seems to boil down to that unless I'm mistaken you need to almost do a scripted move set and there's no room for error. I can make mistakes with the Dawn Brigade and still proceed without losing a unit, but the moment I make a mistake in Fates it's game over. Where it's like this works, this doesn't, don't do this, do this etc. Granted this is more something that happens at earlier levels vs. later levels but still. Why does Fates feel like it's harder than Radiant Dawn which has the reputation of being the hardest game in the series?

Fates is my first fire emblem game. I'm fairly new to the fire emblem scene. Sometimes I'll find myself restarting cause I'll be confident in a move that back fired lol. I'll send Niles into a fight with 10 health and I'm like well it's the last round. I hope he won't miss. Well he missed and died. Gah! Lol

[SavageVolug]

Welcome to the world of Fire Emblem Megan. I know all too well what you mean.

[SavageVolug]

On 5/12/2017 at 10:11 AM, Jotari said:

Does it though? I thought Thracia had that reputation (possibly unjustified) due to all the bullshit it throws at you. Like I mean Radiant Dawn hard mode can be challenging but I was never under the impression it's widely considered the most difficult (not that it really matters for the point you're making though).

You may be right I have not played Thracia yet although it is on my "To Play" list I just recall when I was going to get Radiant Dawn I read a little about it and at the time it sounded like people thought it was the hardest Fire Emblem game. So I was speaking from what people were saying at the time which granted may not have been the opinions of Fire Emblem fans as it was more comments on the Amazon product page.