Grand Conquest change proposals

[Clogon]

Most people dislike this event because it is one of the few events that make them lose in a way that they cannot plan for. People don't like failing and they especially hate it when it is not entirely their fault. The enemies are randomly picked in the pool of players. There is no way to plan for the spawning enemies. You can't choose who or where you deploy your reinforcements (I have failed to S rank because the units I needed spawned in a way that was disadvantaged to me). FE generally reward careful planning but you can't plan for the RNG of the units and their spawn time and area. I think this should be the only thing that is fixed. If you can plan which units you are facing and decide who and which position you deploy your reinforcements, it would be a lot less frustrating as it removes a great RNG factor.

 

My team is good enough to almost face tank the majority of the units warping in so the warping actually helps me kill faster. I have quite a bit of Wings of Mercy+Galeforce flyers so the 10 turn limit isn't much of an issue. That being said, I disagree with the general populace's opinion of increasing the S rank turn limit and nerfing the reinforcements. The rest of the game is easy enought. This is literally the only game mode that is challenging enough to cause players with a bunch of OP units to deploy to have a failure rate. 

The removal of the turn limit is fine if they punished the players going beyond the 10 turn count similar to TT's speed score. The removal of Warping to forts make them way too easy to conquer. Even now, 2 ranged flyers and dancer is enough to instantly conquer any camp.

I hope more events will take from a pool of player created units instead of just random easy to deal with PVE units.

[Johann]

3 minutes ago, Clogon said:

Most people dislike this event because it is one of the few events that make them lose in a way that they cannot plan for. People don't like failing and they especially hate it when it is not entirely their fault. The enemies are randomly picked in the pool of players. There is no way to plan for the spawning enemies. You can't choose who or where you deploy your reinforcements (I have failed to S rank because the units I needed spawned in a way that was disadvantaged to me). FE generally reward careful planning but you can't plan for the RNG of the units and their spawn time and area. I think this should be the only thing that is fixed. If you can plan which units you are facing and decide who and which position you deploy your reinforcements, it would be a lot less frustrating as it removes a great RNG factor.

 

My team is good enough to almost face tank the majority of the units warping in so the warping actually helps me kill faster. I have quite a bit of Wings of Mercy+Galeforce flyers so the 10 turn limit isn't much of an issue. That being said, I disagree with the general populace's opinion of increasing the S rank turn limit and nerfing the reinforcements. The rest of the game is easy enought. This is literally the only game mode that is challenging enough to cause players with a bunch of OP units to deploy to have a failure rate. 

The removal of the turn limit is fine if they punished the players going beyond the 10 turn count similar to TT's speed score. The removal of Warping to forts make them way too easy to conquer. Even now, 2 ranged flyers and dancer is enough to instantly conquer any camp.

I hope more events will take from a pool of player created units instead of just random easy to deal with PVE units.

Taking out the turn limit is enough to make the reinforcements thing not as critical, since the only way to win right now is to constantly advance before time runs out. If you can at least make small gains over a longer time, then at least it's not so frustrating fight wave after wave. Plus, if a player gets locked into a grueling battle that takes a long time, they're not going to be able to fight many more battles within that round anyway. More to the point, however, the only reliably strategy involves using specific skills, when this mode, like every other, should encourage players to explore all kinds of setups.

While the fights may be easy for some players, if people are frustrated, they won't play it.

[Clogon]

1 hour ago, Johann said:

Plus, if a player gets locked into a grueling battle that takes a long time, they're not going to be able to fight many more battles within that round anyway.

This would only be true if we had unlimited stamina. Even if it takes 20mins per battle, that is still a possible 48 stamina to be used.

1 hour ago, Johann said:

While the fights may be easy for some players, if people are frustrated, they won't play it.

This is why game balance is difficult. The F2P who propergate the game's existence with free advertising can't clear the super difficult maps with a high success rate because they don't have the resources causing them to quit. The dolphins and whales who are keeping the game up float get bored because the game is too easy causing them to quite.

 

I, being part of the later portion, literally only play this new mode and nothing else because it is challenging. I have basically stopped playing every other mode and just do the daily quests as it's too easy. The only reason why I stopped spending money in this game is because my units are good enough to trivialize every other content.

TT used to be fun now it is just auto battle for max rewards. I used to manually play every time and get top 5k now I can't even be bothered to auto and get all rewards.

I hope Nintendo finds a solution that can cater to both groups.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Clogon

[Rafiel's Aria]

Okay, so round one is done. I like reading through what other people's feedback, so I'll provide a little of my own.

Battle Style - I honestly think this would just be more fun if they were normal battles with more characters. Have each team deploy 7 or 8 members at a time. Keep the dancer limit and the no repeat units rule, and you'll be fine. You can receive a score based on how quickly you defeat the enemy team and capture their base. Maybe also get points depending on how many of your own units survive. The teleporting is annoying. You can try to plan for it, but with the turn limit rule, it's better to just charge in than to be careful and plan.

If they're going to keep the RD style teleporting at and all, I'd like to see a list of my reinforcements as well as a list of the team's reinforcements so I can at least pretend to plan for what's ahead. 

Stamina - I like the stamina. It gives everyone a fair shot at the mode, so you don't have to be awake for every single hour of the thing to do well. I'm fine with having 8 at the moment, but I think it would be nice to have more Grand Conquest related quests to give out a few more Lances, especially for later rounds. Or maybe we can get one free one a day like how we get free flags during the VG. I feel a bit odd going into another round having used most of my Lances, since I didn't know whether or not our tiers would reset. I do know now, so I can be smarter and save. 

On a separate note...how many rounds are there for this? Three? 

Rewards - They're not bad. The tier rewards are nice. But I wish there were two types of final rewards, one that tallied your army's overall performance and then its performance in the final round, so even if you manage to get screwed over in the last match, if your army did well overall, you don't miss out on a chunk of feathers. 

Other - I wish there was a way to tell how many more points you needed to level up your GC tier.

 

 

[THE underdog]

My change proposals:

 

1. New rewards for every battle - I didnt really take this event too seriously, so I just auto battled my way up to tier 17 and said, screw those two orbs. Today I went up to tier 18 - wow, I thought each battle will start at tier 1 with fresh rewards - means I can safely auto battle until I reach tier 20 - THATS PRETTY LAME IMO.

 

2. I generally dislike Rival Domains because of units respawning - perma death is needed here.

 

3. As far as the actual game mode is concerned - I think I hate it - cant really get into it. They should build an arena mode around it - with perma death etc.

[Chrom-ulent]

The RD style of giant maps, respawning, and turn limits means that traditional FE strategies are useless. I can't chew through six enemies guarding the enemy fortress with only one or two turns left. Wings of Mercy is king, and Cain has become more valuable than Hector for SI.

As for the actual mode, the final rewards stink. I get assigned to a team of bums with a map disadvantage, so I get one measly coin when others get 30+. They need to have an individual performance reward too. Most of us can't be bothered to keep playing when we top out tiers, but then that screws over everyone on the team.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Chrom-ulent

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's an objectively minor thing, but one other change I'd really like to see is for battles to give exp, SP, and hero merit, as per normal. This would both make the mode feel more rewarding, and provide a little added incentive for keeping your units alive.

Heck why not have difficulty modes at level 5, 15, etc. (or whatever), like tempest trials? I'm always looking for excuses to level up both skill fodder and new faces. This would also let new players experience the mode more; having the lowest requiring swaths of units with level around 30 or higher pretty much gates out anyone who hasn't been playing at least a month or two.

[Chrom-ulent]

1 minute ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's an objectively minor thing, but one other change I'd really like to see is for battles to give exp, SP, and hero merit, as per normal. This would both make the mode feel more rewarding, and provide a little added incentive for keeping your units alive.

Heck why not have difficulty modes at level 5, 15, etc. (or whatever), like tempest trials? I'm always looking for excuses to level up both skill fodder and new faces. This would also let new players experience the mode more; having the lowest requiring swaths of units with level around 30 or higher pretty much gates out anyone who hasn't been playing at least a month or two.

Makes sense, because there is limited stamina unlike the regular RDs which are zero stamina, keep trying until you win.

Would be actually good to level up units if getting KO'd didn't mean that experience goes down the toilet.

[SilverWolfLaguz]

I personally think RD-style battles are an interesting way to spice up the game. That being said, things I would change...

1. More rewards. Even if it's just doubling the amount of orbs in the tiers that get them or replacing the regular badges with orbs.

2. Give the 3rd place team a bonus multiplier ala the Voting Gauntlet. If 1st place is too far ahead, as in has more than the other two combined, give them a hurting modifier, 0.9x and down, decreasing if they still manage to stay too far ahead. 2nd place will either have a consistent 1x multiplier, or if too far behind 1st, a smaller modifier than 3rd but still helping.

3. This is more of an address to the RD system in general. A newly-spawned unit will have to wait a turn before being able to teleport.

4. As several have already said, increase the turn limit. Even 15 would help.

5. Nobody respawns, player or enemy. If the enemy brigade gets wiped out, you instantly win with full score (minus any unclaimed camps?). Likewise, if your brigade gets wiped out, you instantly lose.

6. As I despise Horse Emblem and have a brigade of mostly infantry and armours, penalize horse-heavy brigades in some fashion.

[TheNiddo]

tbqh, I don't think this mode is salvageable. 

RD battles were already iffy at best. This mode is basically an overly complicated version of that. 

Hate the teleporting, hate how min-maxed the enemy units can be on the higher difficulties, hate the overworld map that doesn't tell you enough information and looks completely cluttered, hate that your GC tier and stamina spears don't reset, hate that the weak rewards are tied mostly to how your team performs and that its trying to be somewhat tactical with no way to communicate with others, hate the random buffs that you can only see before starting battle, hate the horrible maps, there's just nothing good in all of this mess.

The more I play this mode the more it falls apart. Some of the issues would be easily fixable, but other issues? Not so much. I think it would be best if they just scrapped it all together. I like large maps with large armies when they are done well. FE10? Did then amazingly well. Awakening? Did them pretty badly. FE:H? Pretty much unplayable. 

[XRay]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I've not been impressed by the overlay strategy game which seems to have more to do with how good/active your teammates are than anything else but it's possible I'm underestimating it. It wasn't very well explained so I haven't really understood all the nuances of it yet. I would probably be more inspired to if I liked the battle gameplay, which certainly makes up the majority of the mode's gameplay time-wise. (In fact, if the mode is supposed to be about the battle overlay strategy, then surely the case for replacing it with something faster - like core FEH gameplay - is even stronger!)

I think they could have made the strategy on the over-world map more relevant if they included some form of communication with your allies. For example, instead of advancing further and further spreading the front line too thin, holding certain choke points would be better. In order to do that effectively though, you need coordination to tell your allies to stop expanding the front.

58 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Heck why not have difficulty modes at level 5, 15, etc. (or whatever), like tempest trials? I'm always looking for excuses to level up both skill fodder and new faces. This would also let new players experience the mode more; having the lowest requiring swaths of units with level around 30 or higher pretty much gates out anyone who hasn't been playing at least a month or two.

I like that idea. It will help make new players feel more included.

6 hours ago, Clogon said:

The removal of the turn limit is fine if they punished the players going beyond the 10 turn count similar to TT's speed score. The removal of Warping to forts make them way too easy to conquer. Even now, 2 ranged flyers and dancer is enough to instantly conquer any camp.

5 hours ago, Johann said:

More to the point, however, the only reliably strategy involves using specific skills, when this mode, like every other, should encourage players to explore all kinds of setups.

I generally discourage penalizing players. I think @Clogon's idea would be more palatable if it was worded as an additional way to earn points, such as capturing the fortress by turn 10 to incentivize players to do things quickly.

Currently, the ways to earn points are:
1. Foes Defeated.
2. Camps Held.
3. Fortress Defense.
4. Fortress Offense.

Adding a few more ways to earn points and encouraging good play will help players explore different options:
5. Speed. (Capture enemy fortress by turn 10.)
6. Survival. (Use each unit in your brigade once or less, i.e. keeping your units alive.)

I would also remove the hard cap on Foes Defeated. Capping a player's score at 20 enemies seems stingy. They can make enemies worth less points after 20, so it would not penalize players who complete the map quickly from missing out on too many points.

7 minutes ago, SilverWolfLaguz said:

2. Give the 3rd place team a bonus multiplier ala the Voting Gauntlet. If 1st place is too far ahead, as in has more than the other two combined, give them a hurting modifier, 0.9x and down, decreasing if they still manage to stay too far ahead. 2nd place will either have a consistent 1x multiplier, or if too far behind 1st, a smaller modifier than 3rd but still helping.

That just discourages good play and there is no reward for holding the most territories. Luck would be the primary factor deciding who owns the most territories at the end.

9 minutes ago, TheNiddo said:

hate how min-maxed the enemy units can be on the higher difficulties

Lunatic is pretty reasonable though.

I think Infernal should stay as it is. Just as you would not expect free players to have good chance of getting into Tier 20 in Arena, I do not think it is reasonable to expect free players to have little trouble with Inferno in Grand Conquest either. Grand Conquest is still a form of player versus player competition, and whales who support the game the most should have some form of reward for doing so.

I think a good compromise would be to give everyone a one time daily stat bonus of HP +10 and Atk/Spd/Def/Res +4. It should make the higher difficulties feel more inclusive while still keeping the advantages that whales have.

 

[Ice Dragon]

Okay, new gripe. Your rank carries over to the next round and there are no new stamina restores to be obtained. They even added quests, but those only give an orb and some trivialities. I thought they learned their lesson from the first Voting Gauntlet. It seems they haven't.

 

14 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

On the other hand, the coin rewards are absolutely pitiful. I can make 27 coins per week off of Arena/AA. VGs give 135 for very minimal work. This gives.... at most 10 (that's 19 areas) per 44 hour battle. This is the equivalent to the 15 daily greeting feathers.

You get a maximum of 30 over the course of the 6-day event. That's pretty much no different from the 30 I get each week for Arena Assault, and that's more than half of the cost of leveling a first-tier Sacred Seal to second tier and a full 20% of the cost of leveling a first-tier Sacred Seal to third tier. The 15 daily greeting feathers are less than 1% of the cost of promoting a 3-star character to a 4-star character and less than one tenth of a percent of the cost of promoting a 4-star character to a 5-star character. That's not comparable at all.

Players who are stuck on poor teams can lose as many as 27 Sacred Seals over the entire event, which is equivalent to your entire week of Arena and Arena Assault.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Hilda]

5 hours ago, TheNiddo said:

tbqh, I don't think this mode is salvageable. 

RD battles were already iffy at best. This mode is basically an overly complicated version of that. 

Hate the teleporting, hate how min-maxed the enemy units can be on the higher difficulties, hate the overworld map that doesn't tell you enough information and looks completely cluttered, hate that your GC tier and stamina spears don't reset, hate that the weak rewards are tied mostly to how your team performs and that its trying to be somewhat tactical with no way to communicate with others, hate the random buffs that you can only see before starting battle, hate the horrible maps, there's just nothing good in all of this mess.

The more I play this mode the more it falls apart. Some of the issues would be easily fixable, but other issues? Not so much. I think it would be best if they just scrapped it all together. I like large maps with large armies when they are done well. FE10? Did then amazingly well. Awakening? Did them pretty badly. FE:H? Pretty much unplayable. 

I think people need to think outside of the Arena mode. Usual Arena builds dont work in Rival Domain battles. Also the effects of the map greatly affects how your Brigarde excells.
Stuff I have found very usefull and helpfull:

Healers: dazzling + wrathfull + gravity + double savage blow (horsies are the best for reach)
Flyiers with Guidance and Repostion
Units with mixed high bulk and a means to recharge heir health.
or High offense units with Galeforce.
Also wings of mercy Dancer
Chill and Smoke skills come in handy alot too

Its simple you weaken all enemy units and hinder their movement with the Healers and then Reposition them to safety, while everyone else waits outside of the attack range. On the next turn or 2 turns take over their base because their are weakened and easy to kill. your mixed bulk units ill kill them and not take much dmg, while your ranged units capture the base.

This has been so far the best strategy for me.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Hilda

[Johann]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Okay, new gripe. Your rank carries over to the next round and there are no new stamina restores to be obtained. They even added quests, but those only give an orb and some trivialities. I thought they learned their lesson from the first Voting Gauntlet. It seems they haven't.

You get a maximum of 30 over the course of the 6-day event. That's pretty much no different from the 30 I get each week for Arena Assault, and that's more than half of the cost of leveling a first-tier Sacred Seal to second tier and a full 20% of the cost of leveling a first-tier Sacred Seal to third tier. The 15 daily greeting feathers are less than 1% of the cost of promoting a 3-star character to a 4-star character and less than one tenth of a percent of the cost of promoting a 4-star character to a 5-star character. That's not comparable at all.

Players who are stuck on poor teams can lose as many as 27 Sacred Seals over the entire event, which is equivalent to your entire week of Arena and Arena Assault.

Echoing these sentiments, though I think I'm more upset that some people are going to be earning like 15,000 or more feathers than I will, even if they barely play. But yeah that imbalance of rewards is pretty harsh.

I wish the "stamina" was really just a gradually refreshing multiplier, and that you could fight either as often as you wanted, or perhaps within 30 minutes. I just hate that this mode is barely playable once you've used your stamina recharges, and I have to sit back and watch my team squander any chance of a comeback.

[Clogon]

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Okay, new gripe. Your rank carries over to the next round and there are no new stamina restores to be obtained. They even added quests, but those only give an orb and some trivialities. I thought they learned their lesson from the first Voting Gauntlet. It seems they haven't.

Agreed.

 

1 hour ago, Johann said:

I just hate that this mode is barely playable once you've used your stamina recharges, and I have to sit back and watch my team squander any chance of a comeback.

Yeah, it sucks not being able to participate any longer...

7 hours ago, TheNiddo said:

hate how min-maxed the enemy units can be on the higher difficulties

They aren't min-maxed. They are player created. They don't all have optimal Boons/Banes nor do they all have good skill builds. They aren't even at +10. They are a big step up from your usual PVE content but this is PVP so it doesn't really compare. This is not much different than Arena but you face a greater veriety of units instead of horse meta.

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

This has been so far the best strategy for me.

The F2P don't have the reasources to beat infernal at a high success rate. The strategies available to them is limited by what they pull. That being said even I need more wings of mercy units.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Clogon

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Clogon said:

The F2P don't have the reasources to beat infernal at a high success rate.

That is what the friend list is for. Free players can send a friend request to any whale they see in Arena. Players can also visit various forums and other websites and make friends with whales there.

[Johann]

1 hour ago, Clogon said:

The F2P don't have the reasources to beat infernal at a high success rate. The strategies available to them is limited by what they pull. That being said even I need more wings of mercy units.

I'm F2P and I get S clears on Infernal without fail, to the point where I have to wait for enemy reinforcements to get my 20 kills. Incidentally, my own units are lacking Wings of Mercy 3 because every Cain I've pulled has been 5*'d and merged. Not to mention, anyone can just make friends with all kinds of people. Hell, they've added a thing that let's you browse through and add random players, and you might find someone who fills a role you need.

[NekoKnight]

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Okay, new gripe. Your rank carries over to the next round and there are no new stamina restores to be obtained. They even added quests, but those only give an orb and some trivialities. I thought they learned their lesson from the first Voting Gauntlet. It seems they haven't.

 

You get a maximum of 30 over the course of the 6-day event. That's pretty much no different from the 30 I get each week for Arena Assault, and that's more than half of the cost of leveling a first-tier Sacred Seal to second tier and a full 20% of the cost of leveling a first-tier Sacred Seal to third tier. The 15 daily greeting feathers are less than 1% of the cost of promoting a 3-star character to a 4-star character and less than one tenth of a percent of the cost of promoting a 4-star character to a 5-star character. That's not comparable at all.

Players who are stuck on poor teams can lose as many as 27 Sacred Seals over the entire event, which is equivalent to your entire week of Arena and Arena Assault.

The point of the comparison is that it's a trivial amount, but thanks for doing the math, I guess.

In theory you could be earning 30 coins over the whole event, but that is unlikely. 10 coins is from holding at least 19 areas. Let's say all teams are fairly evenly matched and hold the same amount of areas. That's 5 coins per round, 15 for the whole event.  Still a long ways off from upgrading any seals.

 

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

The point of the comparison is that it's a trivial amount, but thanks for doing the math, I guess.

And that's the problem. It's not trivial. Did you even bother to read the numbers?

 

9 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

Still a long ways off from upgrading any seals.

No, it really isn't.

Do you receive feathers in 20,000-feather stacks? No, you don't. You get them a few hundred or maybe a few thousand at a time.

Assuming a 5-star promotion and a maxed Sacred Seal are roughly equivalent (the best measure is how quickly a player can acquire each of those), the difference between being very lucky and being very unlucky is equivalent to the difference between getting 4,000 feathers and 400 feathers. Even the difference between being very lucky and doing average is a difference of an approximate equivalent of 2,000 feathers, which is roughly the same as skipping the normal Arena for a week.

For players who buy orbs, the trade is even worse because feathers are worth less to us than they are to free-to-players. If I can normally acquire the feathers to promote 5 5-star characters at the same rate that I can acquire Sacred Coins to max 1 Sacred Seal, getting the average reward instead of getting very lucky (or getting very unlucky instead of getting the average reward) costs the equivalent of 10,000 feathers of progress.

[Clogon]

4 hours ago, XRay said:

That is what the friend list is for. Free players can send a friend request to any whale they see in Arena. Players can also visit various forums and other websites and make friends with whales there.

 

4 hours ago, Johann said:

I'm F2P and I get S clears on Infernal without fail, to the point where I have to wait for enemy reinforcements to get my 20 kills. Incidentally, my own units are lacking Wings of Mercy 3 because every Cain I've pulled has been 5*'d and merged. Not to mention, anyone can just make friends with all kinds of people. Hell, they've added a thing that let's you browse through and add random players, and you might find someone who fills a role you need.

Agreed. Sadly, it is easier for people to just complain than adapt.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

And that's the problem. It's not trivial. Did you even bother to read the numbers?

 

No, it really isn't.

Do you receive feathers in 20,000-feather stacks? No, you don't. You get them a few hundred or maybe a few thousand at a time.

Assuming a 5-star promotion and a maxed Sacred Seal are roughly equivalent (the best measure is how quickly a player can acquire each of those), the difference between being very lucky and being very unlucky is equivalent to the difference between getting 4,000 feathers and 400 feathers. Even the difference between being very lucky and doing average is a difference of an approximate equivalent of 2,000 feathers, which is roughly the same as skipping the normal Arena for a week.

For players who buy orbs, the trade is even worse because feathers are worth less to us than they are to free-to-players. If I can normally acquire the feathers to promote 5 5-star characters at the same rate that I can acquire Sacred Coins to max 1 Sacred Seal, getting the average reward instead of getting very lucky (or getting very unlucky instead of getting the average reward) costs the equivalent of 10,000 feathers of progress.

I hope they link Sacred Coins to individual rewards next time instead. Getting such a precious resource from luck sucks.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Clogon

[Johann]

48 minutes ago, Clogon said:

Agreed. Sadly, it is easier for people to just complain than adapt.

I don't think you understand why I said what I said, which upon rereading it, I can understand why. I wanted to point out that F2P status doesn't prevent people from having top level success with the battles (which is why I quoted you above). More to the point, people are absolutely right to complain because to do so may still require certain setups which they haven't invested in. I'm fortunate because my investments happen to align with the optimal strategy.

It's one thing when a player's strategy won't work and they have to come up with something new, but it's bad design if they have to completely shelve their favorite units and adhere to using a very narrow playstyle.

[Clogon]

12 minutes ago, Johann said:

It's one thing when a player's strategy won't work and they have to come up with something new, but it's bad design if they have to completely shelve their favorite units and adhere to using a very narrow playstyle.

I wouldn't call it bad design. It is one that is disliked. But forcing players to do something different isn't always bad as it can lead them to enjoy a few found passion. I enjoy the fact that TT, AA, Arena, GHB and now GC all force you to use different set ups.

[XRay]

44 minutes ago, Johann said:

More to the point, people are absolutely right to complain because to do so may still require certain setups which they haven't invested in. I'm fortunate because my investments happen to align with the optimal strategy.

It's one thing when a player's strategy won't work and they have to come up with something new, but it's bad design if they have to completely shelve their favorite units and adhere to using a very narrow playstyle.

Grand Conquest requires the least investment out of all of the player vs player modes though. It does take time to build up 20 whale/dolphin friends, but players do not technically need to invest any resource into this mode at all, besides investing in their own representatives to make themselves more marketable, who are more than likely to be on their Arena team and get heavily invested in anyways.

Instead of creating one mode where all strategies work, I think Intelligent Systems is creating a variety of modes that can be best tackled with different types of resource management and combat strategies

Arena is the only mode so far where heavy investment on each individual unit is required if players want to succeed well. The best combat strategy here is to focus on having high coverage and one rounding your enemies.

Arena Assault requires much less investment on each individual unit, and the first team does not even need to have optimal skill set up since you can retry it again immediately with no consequences. The most affordable and reliably combat strategy is to mass produce a bunch of cheap counters. If you are lucky or a whale, you can also invest more heavily into this mode and run semi permanent teams or secondary Arena teams, but the primary benefit in running those teams is to save time and go into battle right away without looking at the enemy composition.

Edited April 16, 2018 by XRay

[Johann]

23 minutes ago, Clogon said:

I wouldn't call it bad design. It is one that is disliked. But forcing players to do something different isn't always bad as it can lead them to enjoy a few found passion. I enjoy the fact that TT, AA, Arena, GHB and now GC all force you to use different set ups.

Broadly speaking, games should strive to present as many solutions to the challenges they provide. Do understand, I really like GC and I think the mode has a lot of potential, but there are some glaring issues. About half of the problems are tied to it using Rival Domain's maps and rules. Like you, I'm glad that the different modes favor different setups, and by no means should things like WoM or Galeforce not help, but if using them is the only way to ensure consistent success here, then it's not going to be fun for players who don't use them (whether they can't or don't want to, especially for resource reasons).

To drive this home a little further, the Eirika you have as your representative is well invested and I'm sure she's an excellent fighter, but I have zero use for her in GC because she doesn't have the mobility. I'd rather use my 4* Gunter.

9 minutes ago, XRay said:

Grand Conquest requires the least investment out of all of the player vs player modes though. It does take time to build up 20 whale/dolphin friends, but players do not technically need to invest any resource into this mode at all, besides investing in their own representatives to make themselves more marketable, who are more than likely to be on their Arena team and get heavily invested in anyways.

It's true that even a brand new account can compete in this as much as anyone else, and that's definitely a good thing. The root of the problem isn't the investing or befriending parts, it's that the mode heavily favors a certain specific battle strategy. Players are then in a situation where they either have to a) invest in that strategy themselves, or b) makes friends with people who are presenting characters that support that strategy.

[XRay]

38 minutes ago, Johann said:

The root of the problem isn't the investing or befriending parts, it's that the mode heavily favors a certain specific battle strategy. Players are then in a situation where they either have to a) invest in that strategy themselves, or b) makes friends with people who are presenting characters that support that strategy.

I think that is what Intelligent Systems is trying to do by giving us various modes. No mode perfect, but having various modes that is best solved with different strategies is easier than trying to create a mode where a lot of different strategies are viable.

Having only one viable strategy so far is not too bad, considering players do not need to invest anything extra in Grand Conquest. I think they will make things easier and make more strategies viable after they get enough feedback.