Fire Emblem Heroes: Like Fire Emblem But It's Chibi And It Lives In Your Phone

[MatsuriSakuragi]

My biggest thought on the game is that it needs more content and more room for strategy. 4 heroes on the field just isn't enough and it doesn't feel like Fire Emblem to me. And I know the game is new and all that, but I shouldn't be in the endgame after just a month of playing, in my opinion. Like, I've already cleared all of the content in the game bar a couple 9-x Lunatic dungeons simply because I haven't bothered doing them yet. And even then, it all feels very same-y. There isn't enough variance in the gameplay to make different characters feel unique enough for me to care about leveling any up when I already have a higher-tier version of the same type.

I think the game would benefit from having bigger teams (6-8?), bigger fields, and more obstacles to make you actually have to think rather than "rush in and kill" or "fuck it's Takumi again, kite him until you can punish him".

[commandercool]

Well, skill inheritance might shake up the sameyness quite a bit. It might end up being degenerately broken and I'm sure there will still be cookie cutter strategies with it, but it should make things interesting.

For me much of the excitement comes from the tension of trying to chain together arena wins without losing a single unit. That does make it pretty challenging, although it kind of sucks when a map or really crappy enemy team ruins the run without any chance to outplay it. The only risk/reward tradeoffs really have to do with hoping that AI makes certain decisions since the game has no RNG, and I'm guessing if you take the time to figure out the AI's decisionmaking process then that goes away too.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

See that's the thing. If you're smarter than the AI, you're really not likely to lose if you know what you're doing. The chokiest parts are just bad matchups where you have units that do literally 0 damage to opponent units. I wanna play against actual humans who can (easily) outsmart me.

[commandercool]

The problem with that is that Fire Emblem isn't really built for PVP. Characters have an effective swing (range of attack, not sure if that's a universal term outside of tabletop gaming) of 3-4 squares (or higher in the normal games, but still fairly homogeneous) and *someone* has to go first. And the person who steps into the enemy range first is at a huge disadvantage. There are abilities that mitigate this (Dance, Smite) but they leave your character exposed.

I think most games would probably be an exercise in infinite passed turns on both sides because whoever goes first most likely loses. The game only really works when there's a computer to move forward recklessly, or at least take obvious bait the player lays out. I feel like the only way to make it work with two human players would be to hide information. Either have fog of war or don't allow players to see exactly which units their opponent has until they get close or something, which is going to lead to a lot of bad-feeling situations.

And I know Awakening had PVP, but it wasn't really fun. It was ridiculously grindy to get your units playable for it which didn't help, and that isn't really a problem here, but there were still either a lot of standoffs or players using mobility abilities that don't exist in Heroes (and probably shouldn't exist in Heroes) to get a first hit without taking a huge risk.

Maybe an asymmetrical game would be best? One team has three characters but is walled up in a defensible position, and the other team has four but has to beat the defensive team within ten turns or they lose? Something like that might work.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Yeah, I exploit the hell out of the computer's willingness to go first most of the time because it lets me decide where to put my own units.

[commandercool]

That's usually how you succeed at traditional Fire Emblem too. It's just how the game is played. Things are more complicated, but the principle is the same.

[Mеа]

The original games too have the same problem of not having any fodder units to be creative or risky with.

I think introducing something like CO powers / super powers from advance wars would be a neat solution to the stalemate problem. Unlike regular skills, any of your units can charge your CO power gauge. You also get bonus charge if one of your units die (but not for killing, so that the receiving side can maintain some momentum). It could even make players choose between killing units or spreading damage depending on the situation.
We could also go days of ruin -esque and give bonus charge if the leader unit kills an enemy unit. Also days of ruin -esque, we could limit the activating CO power / super power action to the leader unit so that you won't have access to the super power anymore if they die. This can give more depth and strategic priority targets, and also somewhat solves the issue of not having any fodder units to be willing to initiate with.

Possible leader skills / super powers I'm thinking of are like +1 movement to all units, +6 to all ally mounted unit stats (or flyers, etc.), lead unit gets extra action, all enemy units lose 20% hp and allies recover 20% hp, etc.

:e and if there's still stalemates, make it so it charges by one every 3 turns or something

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Leader skills would be genuinely interesting but super prone to power creep, so they'd have to be careful.

[Conqueror]

anyone manage to clear lunatic ursula?

pulled a 4* effie from her banner so im trying to make a 3*frobin lucina takumi effie team

heard cecilia does a great job neutralizing the ninjas but mine is only at 3* lvl 20 sadly

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I beat the Hard version but the Lunatic version is stupid as hell. It may as well simply be impossible unless you have the ideal setup thanks to those dumb ninjas.

[commandercool]

Yeah, all of these things have been facetanking challenge checks so far (and will probably continue to be that way, since there aren't THAT many ways you can make a tricky level in this game) and this is a rough one. We got three days though, so I'm just gonna level up my 4* Cecilia and hope that does it. The prize is not only actually decent this time, but also drops at 4*, so I want her for PVP in the next rotation. I can finally use Camilla again since the bonus character will finally be not green.

[MewMewHeart]

anyone manage to clear lunatic ursula?

pulled a 4* effie from her banner so im trying to make a 3*frobin lucina takumi effie team

heard cecilia does a great job neutralizing the ninjas but mine is only at 3* lvl 20 sadly

Oh god so it's not just me pulling my hair out... from that map like I have half of the new banner (from other banners), but yet Nino, Felicia, and Setsuna are low leveled... and my Cecilia is leveled 23, so it's off to the training grounds for me.

[BT]

Hahaha, what. You can progress the KO with ____ quests if you happen to get those units in the voting gauntlet. That's priceless.

[MewMewHeart]

Hahaha, what. You can progress the KO with ____ quests if you happen to get those units in the voting gauntlet. That's priceless.

TBH it is funny, but so cheap.

[Jq1790]

Considering how stupid it is to have quests like that anyway it's a good thing to have ways around it, no?

[Mеа]

Setsuna setsuna setsuna setsuna setsuna setsuna why ever did I spend stones on the other 2 banners, this is my takumi bait n counter why

[Conqueror]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO2Sn_f2378

This absolute madman beat lunatic Ursula with just 3* units.

Key is FRobin ORKO'ing Ursula and a non-infantry unit who can tank a lot, and then add a dancer and healer for maximum turtling and running from ninjas.

[commandercool]

Ugh, I tried to pick Lucina to get the bonus feathers since she's obviously going to win, but my hand wouldn't select her. She's just too lame. Well, triple losses for me then.

I guess if I assume any random person on Team Lucina probably ranked in the lowest bracket because the army is so big (which probably isn't actually true, but nobody correct me) then I got about the same number of feathers overall by reaching higher ranks in the smaller armies.

[MewMewHeart]

Ugh, I tried to pick Lucina to get the bonus feathers since she's obviously going to win, but my hand wouldn't select her. She's just too lame. Well, triple losses for me then.

I guess if I assume any random person on Team Lucina probably ranked in the lowest bracket because the army is so big (which probably isn't actually true, but nobody correct me) then I got about the same number of feathers overall by reaching higher ranks in the smaller armies.

Yeah as I predicted the moment Lucina was announced to be in the competition I knew the Lucina fanboys or as I call them "FUUCBOIS" would pick her like seriously there are better LORDS THAN TERMINATOR WAIFU 2.0.

[commandercool]

Well, the BEST ones (cough Camilla, and to a much lesser extent Hector) weren't even options. Although maybe that's for the best, since I don't think I would be able to handle Lucina beating Camilla...

[OverlordChirei]

lucina is only winning because ike isn't out

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I don't think there's many characters that can challenge how popular Lucina is. And it also doesn't help that she's ridiculously strong in the game, too. She's already replaced MCorrin in my main team.

[Hikarin]

If FCorrin was in this tournament...

[commandercool]

So after spending a bunch of time leveling Cecilia to try to beat the Ursula on Lunatic and spending five stamina potions on different strategies, I'm convinced it's not doable with any combination units I own. 4*, max level Cecilia still gets completely trounced by the ninjas and Ursula one-shots her on top of that, almost every enemy can teleport if you don't one-shot them to sneak in and randomly one-shot a unit they're strong against, there's no time or space to maneuver, the enemies cover each other's weaknesses perfectly. Really don't feel like there's a single thing I can do that even gets me close to having a chance. The best I've managed is taking out two enemies before losing, which is basically nothing.

[Koog]

Welp, how to say this...

My phone got stolen :qq: (It's SO beatiful to see how people don't do anything when they see a robbery...)
And I didn't link my account to My Nintendo so there's no way to actually get it back...
I've rerolled in a Nox emulator, and today my family bought me a phone...
Now I made sure to actually link my account to Nintendo...
Anyways... here's my new ID 6263861411
Got some 5* at almost 40 so I'm working hard right now to max them... It's not Takumi but it's something...

[Conqueror]

Well, I copied the 3* cheesing strat and it worked! The main takeaway from the video was learning how to manipulate the AI so I could safely use my FRobin to kill the Wings of Mercy knight while technically being in range of the ninja which would instead attack my appropriately placed Effie. Props to my Olivia and Lissa who I brought up from 1* and the Effie I pulled from the banner yesterday. Could have probably also used my Gunter, Cherche, or maybe Robin as they also had high Def (higher than my Effie's, which was -Def) but Effie's attack made clearing things out pretty simple.

[Mеа]

I have some bitter things to say about a strategy game that requires this extent of stupid ai cheesing.

[Edible]

Sheesh.  Finally managed to beat Ursula Lunatic.

Turns out that the answer to all life's problems is dancers.

Edit: On a slightly more sobering note, with the launch event ending tomorrow we're about to see very quickly what sort of game FE:H will become.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

If there's no solid way to keep obtaining orbs after clearing all in-game content and no constant daily feed, I'll be dropping the game pretty fast. The game is already starved for content or anything that can be considered more fun than a slow grind. Even now, I'll open the app thinking I want to play, and close it when I realize there's... really nothing to do.

[commandercool]

Wow, holy shit, yeah. Having a dancer makes a HUGE difference, even a brutally underdeveloped 3* one. I haven't cracked the code yet on how to actually beat it, but I totally feel like I have a fighting chance all the sudden. Huh.