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Addressing some actual flaw(s) in this game - Open Discussion


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This post is for FE fans alike.

Note: I'll not be talking about the story, voice performance, art direction, etc. Those are subjective. I'm only sharing my experience with a certain in-game feature.

Now FE: SoV is finally out for everyone to enjoy, and the game's reviews are slowly pouring in. Let's talk about some of the issues that players may or may not experience.

Personally, I find the "Storage System" and "Item Management" in this game are extremely frustrating.

1. Instead of grouping the same item together, the game treats each one as a unique entry on the item list. Consequentially, you have to scroll through a long list of junk before finding the 'item' you need

2. Unable to highlight/select the amount of items you want to sell while visiting a blacksmith; you are stuck with confirming the same prompt over and over again for each item sold

(Would you like to sell an "Orange"? Y/N

Would you like to sell an "Orange"? Y/N

Would you like to sell an "Orange"? Y/N

...) Jesus Louise!

 

 

20170519_163453.jpg

Edited by Generic_Enemy_Knight_#???
Typo
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Units being able to double another unit as long as they have at least one point higher Speed. I'm finding it to especially be a problem on Celica's side, since there's a ton of enemy Mercenaries with ridiculously high speed running around in her chapters.

Mages not being able to move normally in deserts. Another mostly Celica's side problem, given how badly the desert chapters in her side are designed.

Edited by AzureSen
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The camera in dungeons is pretty wonky. I have the n3DS ,so i can use the nub, but it still feels like it over & undershoots where i want it to go, or goes for that weird "below" camera that helps no one. The 3 hit combo and dash abilities are also kind of off and weird and dont feel that great to use. I'm not asking for zelda here, but maybe ape ocarina if nothing else is all I'm saying. Apparently they wanted this type of movement for Fates at one point (just for the castle, i think) so I'm guessing they'll try to bring this back at some point so here's hoping they improve it.

There is also just...no reason why, in dungeons, you can't swap around the units in the skirmish map. Like I get it, they wanted to keep the "Order" mechanic for dungeons for some reason but that reason is stupid. There's several different configurations and you can't account for all of them. if the people you're trying to train are on the left but all the enmies are on the right rather than in the middle or all on the left its just like...well, ok, guess Forsyth isnt getting any exp for a while.

 

also just another "they should have altered the maps" comment for the road. That Act I map with all the cavaliers and miles of empty space designed to just annoy you, the player, when one runs away is just bad design no matter how you  look at it. Actually while I'm thinking on it, the retreat mechanic for the enemies is really annoying. IT does nothing but draw out maps and its even worse when the cavaliers decide to run across the entire map to the single health spot. The modern FEs do that too, but no where near as much as Gaiden/Echoes did/does.

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(Laughs at the orange thing)

9 minutes ago, r_n said:

There is also just...no reason why, in dungeons, you can't swap around the units in the skirmish map. Like I get it, they wanted to keep the "Order" mechanic for dungeons for some reason but that reason is stupid. There's several different configurations and you can't account for all of them. if the people you're trying to train are on the left but all the enmies are on the right rather than in the middle or all on the left its just like...well, ok, guess Forsyth isnt getting any exp for a while.

I actually do prefer having the arrangement in the game. Having a battle preparation screen in the dungeons where battles are frequent can get in the flow If you don't like how your team is arranged, just rearrange them for the next battle. The order isn't that hard to remember, either. It's always the same formation with the same order, and the enemies' starting position isn't hard to remember, either. You can also choose not to strike first so that you can move the units however you want and wait for enemy phase.

Agreeing on the retreat mechanic though. It bugged me in Radiant Dawn too.

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37 minutes ago, nocturnal YL said:

(Laughs at the orange thing)

I actually do prefer having the arrangement in the game. Having a battle preparation screen in the dungeons where battles are frequent can get in the flow If you don't like how your team is arranged, just rearrange them for the next battle. The order isn't that hard to remember, either. It's always the same formation with the same order, and the enemies' starting position isn't hard to remember, either. You can also choose not to strike first so that you can move the units however you want and wait for enemy phase.

Agreeing on the retreat mechanic though. It bugged me in Radiant Dawn too.

"if you dont like it, just rearrange them for the next battle" except there's no way to determine how the enemies spawn. I had like 3 consecutive battles where they were in totally different positions. They could have just given the same option Heroes does if you REALLY want to keep the flow: make it an option before you start the first turn (hit the l button or something), but otherwise jump you straight into the battle

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My experience is that if they're the same enemy type in the same dungeon, they'll spawn the same. This doesn't apply to enemies that correspond to other enemy symbols than the one you touched (the ones that show up like reinforcements), whose position roughly correspond to their relative position to the enemy symbol you touched.

I know this sounds confusing, so here's an example: Suppose you see two Gargoyles in front of you, and you touch the left one. The reinforcement will appear at the top-right.

This is just what I've deduced from my experience though, so take it with a grain of salt.

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One thing that was kind of cheese was that aside from a few set battles, you can just turtle out all dungeon battles for 3 turns using Invoke and killing the high Mov enemies, then when you retreat the enemies just despawn. I've abused this to get out of battles where I had to face off against three different hordes at the same time.

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The Act 2 chapter where you must keep three green units alive to recruit them after the battle. It was terrible in Gaiden, and in this game's Hard/Classic mode, I found no means of keeping one of them alive past turn 4 besides using the turnwheel to reroll his dodges on enemy phase. There were too many enemies targeting him. I'll bet he'd survive in normal mode, but this is dreadful design. And no, they didn't retain the retreat glitch for this map from Gaiden.

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In Act 3, after the first Fernand battle, you fight a groupof Arcanists in the forest while it's raining. That battle made me officially hate Arcanists, especially the ones with Mire.

That particular battle was bullshit because the terrain only benefitted them.

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1 hour ago, Gustavos said:

The Act 2 chapter where you must keep three green units alive to recruit them after the battle. It was terrible in Gaiden, and in this game's Hard/Classic mode, I found no means of keeping one of them alive past turn 4 besides using the turnwheel to reroll his dodges on enemy phase. There were too many enemies targeting him. I'll bet he'd survive in normal mode, but this is dreadful design. And no, they didn't retain the retreat glitch for this map from Gaiden.

I had to redo that one once too, not because I couldn't save the three dudes, but because they stole all of my EXP... I was on Hard Classic, and the NPCs didn't need to rely on dodges.

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2 hours ago, Gustavos said:

The Act 2 chapter where you must keep three green units alive to recruit them after the battle. It was terrible in Gaiden, and in this game's Hard/Classic mode, I found no means of keeping one of them alive past turn 4 besides using the turnwheel to reroll his dodges on enemy phase. There were too many enemies targeting him. I'll bet he'd survive in normal mode, but this is dreadful design. And no, they didn't retain the retreat glitch for this map from Gaiden.

I had no trouble. I just had Genny use Invoke and let the illusion soldiers go to work. The only one who came close to dying was Leon, but he lived

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12 hours ago, Gustavos said:

The Act 2 chapter where you must keep three green units alive to recruit them after the battle. It was terrible in Gaiden, and in this game's Hard/Classic mode, I found no means of keeping one of them alive past turn 4 besides using the turnwheel to reroll his dodges on enemy phase. There were too many enemies targeting him. I'll bet he'd survive in normal mode, but this is dreadful design. And no, they didn't retain the retreat glitch for this map from Gaiden.

I had no real problems on Hard Classic (first time clear, no resets), but that may be because...

A: I got lucky and didn't have to worry about Valbar's crew that much aside from Leon (he almost died, but still had a small amount of HP left.).
B: I played super aggressively with a Leather Shield Celica in an attempt to draw away the enemies from Valbar's group. 
C: I promoted as soon as possible instead of waiting until 20 like I would for other FE titles (based off forum suggestions). Although granted, this is not really possible for this particular battle unless one farms the graveyard for EXP.

Also, thus far (Chapter 3, beat Desiax as Alm, beat the first battle as Celica) I had no real reason to use Invoke save for some some occasions for out of curiosity and for kicks. I usually just let my characters handle everything like vanilla Fire Emblem. Shields are pretty useful!
- - - - -
Man, playing Echoes (and Heroes) makes me happy since Pair Up is gone. It was an okay system, but I find creating strategies to be so much easier without Pair-Up.  I would not mind seeing Pair-Up retired and being exclusive to Awakening and Fates, but that is a different topic entirely.
* * * * *

1. Dungeon Camera - I have to echo this complaint. I still have my original (busted, L&R buttons do not work) Launch DS and sometimes it is difficult to see what is going on. I have been ambushed several times because I couldn't see the enemy coming because of the camera (and because I was happily cutting grass and breaking crates).

2. Village Scenes (Opinion) - While I like visual novels and their style, I do not feel it fits with Fire Emblem. Instead, I would have liked a more open ended approach to villages like they did with dungeons (so being able to run around and walk up to people to talk to them instead of the VN point and click style). Item interactions can remain even if they went this route, see the game Skies of Arcadia as a reference.

3. Witches & Cantors (Opinion) - Well, teleporting Witches as just as annoying as I heard them to be. I probably wouldn't mind seeing this type of enemy near the end-game or post-game where I expect this type of "Power Level BS," but seeing them early as mid-game is somewhat troubling.

Also, Cantors with their summons are rather annoying. So far I just had to deal with one Cantor, but I can easily see the chaos as soon as there is more than one Cantor on the map. Then there is the fact that Witches are apparently also summonable, so I am not looking forward to "Cantor Hell" some speak of.

Give me Forts with Reinforcements like the GBA titles instead. Heck, I'm tempted to even say I rather have the "enemy phase reinforcements" that ambush you instead of dealing with Witches and Cantors (if they do ramp up to get insane later in Echoes). At least with the former players can plan around it after their first initial experience...

4. CG Cutscenes (Opinion) - While they look nice visually, the animations are rather stiff compared to Awakening and Fates. This is most apparent when seeing Alm and his generic army charge at the enemy. If the animations were smoothly, I feel the CG would have been a whole lot better.

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Witches in general. Their AI is jacked. Sometimes they'll all teleport and gang up on someone, sometimes none of them will, sometimes they'll murder someone and sometimes they'll suicide themselves against someone for no reason. 

Most of the time it ends up feeling completely RNG and random. 

Edited by ckc22
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58 minutes ago, ckc22 said:

Witches in general. Their AI is jacked. Sometimes they'll all teleport and gang up on someone, sometimes none of them will, sometimes they'll murder someone and sometimes they'll suicide themselves against someone for no reason. 

Most of the time it ends up feeling completely RNG and random. 

From what I heard, they mostly target units on the outer edge of the formation.

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These all seem like pretty nit picky gripes to me. Not grouping oranges and having to re order your units to train a low level unit really isnt a "flaw" of the game just a mild inconvenience if youre an impatient person.

The annoying map fights are in my opinion a flaw of the game. The enemies are always spawning and I JUST WANT TO VISIT A SHRINE but that means I have to battle 5 groups of annoying enemies like cantors to get to it. Witches are also obnoxious and on hard mode make you restart a chapter upwards of 5 times before completing it. Also the enemy placement is piss poor, all the enemies spawn in one huge clump in the middle of an open field and just charge at you. Believe it or not my units cant fight 10 cantors in a row with the awful resistance growths in this game. Some maps are phenomenal like the sand stronghold fight but in general the maps are just a blank field with a clump of enemies in the middle. In my opinion the game just needs more enemy variety (more classes, enemy weapons, etc), better maps and optional map fights.

 

I still give the game a solid 9.5/10 though for being such a superb strategy game with a great story, voice acting, characters, and fan fare. Not to mention its just fun as hell, but it could have been a smidge better with the maps and enemy variety.

Edited by RennacIsUnderrated
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To me, I suppose the short answer would be that it's a bit too faithful to the original for my liking. The series, and gaming as a whole, have come a long way since Gaiden was released, yet they opted to keep a lot of design choices or results of technological limitations that I feel didn't benefit the game in the first place. For example, I don't believe many here will argue that it's a good thing they reused maps again.

While I don't mind games taking their time, I feel like playing through Echoes is too much of a slog than it should be. Many units move short distances and there are a lot of maps where your movement is heavily restricted, the terrain bonuses are immense, and the Cantors are simply not fun to fight against. Dungeon exploration didn't do much to alleviate this, as you often run into enemies due to either some wonky controls or the poor camera/field of vision.

A special mention has to go to the AI, which they admitted they tweaked to be more in style with Gaiden. As people have brought up, Witches are not very fun to play against, but a real deal breaker for me has been the fact that the AI prioritizes Illusions, at least the weaker ones, meaning that Genny can completely trivialize the enemy phase and you can cheese the entire game that way - that's how I dealt with chapter 6 without grinding. Overall I used far less tactics in this game than other Fire Emblem games and relied more on brute force.

Echoes does many things right that I would love to see in future installments, but it does bother me they didn't iron out more of Gaiden's flaws while they were at it.

Edited by Thane
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17 minutes ago, Thane said:

To me, I suppose the short answer would be that it's a bit too faithful to the original for my liking. The series, and gaming as a whole, have come a long way since Gaiden was released, yet they opted to keep a lot of design choices or results of technological limitations that I feel didn't benefit the game in the first place. For example, I don't believe many here will argue that it's a good thing they reused maps again.

While I don't mind games taking their time, I feel like playing through Echoes is too much of a slog than it should be. Many units move short distances and there are a lot of maps where your movement is heavily restricted, the terrain bonuses are immense, and the Cantors are simply not fun to fight against. Dungeon exploration didn't do much to allievate this, as you often run into enemies due to either some wonky controls or the poor camera/field of vision.

A special mention has to go to the AI, which they admitted they tweaked to be more in style with Gaiden. As people have brought up, Witches are not very fun to play against, but a real deal breaker for me has been the fact that the AI prioritizes Illusions, at least the weaker ones, meaning that Genny can completely trivialize the enemy phase and you can cheese the entire game that way - that's how I dealt with chapter 6 without grinding. Overall I used far less tactics in this game than other Fire Emblem games and relied more on brute force.

Echoes does many things right that I would love to see in future installments, but it does bother me they didn't iron out more of Gaiden's flaws while they were at it.

YES, the invoke spell is so broken! I have genny use it every turn and have celica reheal her afterward so I always have 8 illusions on the map at all times. It makes every chapter so easy 

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I also Think the Dungeon aspect of the game is not great  (but it seems the experience is different depending what kind of 3ds you've got, and I have the oldest one). I actually think the VN aspect is the best addition of the game. I'm not talking about the design, i'm talking about how your units function within it, the kind of mesh up of the barracks and info camp talks from previews games done here to a level of perfection imo. hope I was clear enough 

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Personal: Not having a map that show the entire area. Not many use this fuction but against high mobility unity is very useful, specially when it also show their range. Is way better that toggle on off every single enemy range attack to see the most optimal position. The enemies range go out of your screen...

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yes the map is a good point. and another small ui thing that is really stupid is the fact the game is not calculating the damage a certain unit will do. I can't understand why not to include this feature, especially since it doesn't change anything in the game-play and is merely helping making things more convenient

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1 hour ago, SpearOfLies said:

Personal: Not having a map that show the entire area. Not many use this fuction but against high mobility unity is very useful, specially when it also show their range. Is way better that toggle on off every single enemy range attack to see the most optimal position. The enemies range go out of your screen...

THe maps can be so large, too. There's been several times where I've lost track of an enemy and even my unit. Even just as a toggle it would have been nice, especially when the enemies start running.

 

 

I'm in Act 3 now, and I don't like how the game sort of punishes you for moving around. I fumbled a few directions as celica, for instance, and woops instant paladin army for alm (who isn't at the forest yet). And then I needed to do a bunch of swapping over to alm, going down a few squares so i could lure the paladin away without them getting enemy advantage and agh what a mess. And then exactly one move later, ANOTHER paladin spawned. ANd so on. Promoting Atlas almost wasn't worth it just for that alone, even ignoring the extra units celica spawned on her side. There should be more of a cool down timer between spawns, if just as an enti-grind measure. Even if I didn't go out of my way for Atlas stuff, it also happened when I needed to go back down to recruit the pegasus sisters and would happen several more times if I went straight for Greith.

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5 hours ago, Thane said:

To me, I suppose the short answer would be that it's a bit too faithful to the original for my liking. The series, and gaming as a whole, have come a long way since Gaiden was released, yet they opted to keep a lot of design choices or results of technological limitations that I feel didn't benefit the game in the first place. For example, I don't believe many here will argue that it's a good thing they reused maps again.

While I don't mind games taking their time, I feel like playing through Echoes is too much of a slog than it should be. Many units move short distances and there are a lot of maps where your movement is heavily restricted, the terrain bonuses are immense, and the Cantors are simply not fun to fight against. Dungeon exploration didn't do much to alleviate this, as you often run into enemies due to either some wonky controls or the poor camera/field of vision.

A special mention has to go to the AI, which they admitted they tweaked to be more in style with Gaiden. As people have brought up, Witches are not very fun to play against, but a real deal breaker for me has been the fact that the AI prioritizes Illusions, at least the weaker ones, meaning that Genny can completely trivialize the enemy phase and you can cheese the entire game that way - that's how I dealt with chapter 6 without grinding. Overall I used far less tactics in this game than other Fire Emblem games and relied more on brute force.

Echoes does many things right that I would love to see in future installments, but it does bother me they didn't iron out more of Gaiden's flaws while they were at it.

I've literally tried this cheese with Genny and it hasn't worked yet lol... like literally everytime. I've even tested it a few times. Basically if Genny isnt in terrain or in an otherwise bad spot, using illusions won't save her as the AI takes the smart approach of killing the summoner. Now if you invoke a few turns before and send those units out usually the AI will hit the illusions but I've seen them on quite a number of occasions cherry pick kills on allies instead of illusions. I am playing on hard as well, not sure if that's a factor 

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Ok, so i need to make a complaint about the doors. Doors are meant to serve as shortcuts, however, the only way to open them is to take a long detour to go behind them so you can open them. If you're gonna make me go around, why even have the doors in the first place?

You could send your fliers over the doors for easy openings, but there's usually Archers armed with the Anti-Flier Art guarding them.

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38 minutes ago, Tsak said:

I've literally tried this cheese with Genny and it hasn't worked yet lol... like literally everytime. I've even tested it a few times. Basically if Genny isnt in terrain or in an otherwise bad spot, using illusions won't save her as the AI takes the smart approach of killing the summoner. Now if you invoke a few turns before and send those units out usually the AI will hit the illusions but I've seen them on quite a number of occasions cherry pick kills on allies instead of illusions. I am playing on hard as well, not sure if that's a factor 

I usually summon a couple illusions at the start of the battle and just let them go have fun. I've seen the AI go for illusoins like 90% of the time unless there's a bunch near Genny as you noticed. The illusoins were the onl thing that made the first desert map palpable since it took the heat off enough to get people into the dang fortress.

 

speaking of

There is absolutely 0 reason for them to not have altered the movement penalties to be more modern if nothing else. There's no tactics or strategy involved. There's no difficulty. It's just slowly ever so slowly having your units move to any action whatsoever as you hope that maybe the enemies will come out to you instead of milling about. Mages just get 2 extra squares compared to everyone else's ONE. Celica couldn't do anything on that first map solely because she was in a static position and could only move one square. 

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