"-Finally, please offer a final word about your own work.
Kaga: It’s not a big problem if some of your characters die in Fire Emblem; I want each player to create their own unique story. Don’t get caught up trying to get a “perfect ending.” Have fun!
I’m gonna try to avoid repeating what Scraiza said because I agree with them on most points
Rewards such as chests and villages that are hunted down by enemies are optional only in theory. In practice, because of how the human mind works, almost every player will try to get everything, which causes casualties, which causes the player to reset until everything is attained.
While this may be true for you, I would hardly say it affects the “95% of players” you mention later. The idea behind taking an easy 100% or a risky 101% that could result in something less depends largely on personality type, because personally, I’d always choose the previous choice. Why would you risk the 100% for something small and extra? Point is, that’s as subjective as fun is. Nothing “indirectly” encourages the player to play fast outside of their own drive to become a better player because, frankly, turtling is a FAR easier strategy than quick and efficient play and should NOT be rewarded in the same way.
In the end, who determines what is “fun”? It’s subjective, hence why I don’t think developers should punish a playstyle.
While this is true that fun is subjective, that cuts both ways. Developers shouldn’t “punish” a playstyle, and turtling is rarely “punished” in FE. To the developer’s eyes, they instead reward a faster, more efficient, and frankly, more difficult playstyle. It’s like being a good sniper in an FPS. It’s a far more rewarding and efficient playstyle than running and gunning. It doesn’t mean running and gunning is punished, it just means that sniping is rewarded. And sure, you mention that “the human mind” will always feel guilty about missing things, but as I said above, that’s about as subjective as fun. Plus, as Dan said, that’s not even the original way FE was intended to be played.
Aside from that, creating a game to make every playstyle equally viable is the video game design equivalent of anarchy (which, I mean, some people are into, but…) so there will always ALWAYS be an intended way to play ANY game.
I won’t even get into the hard time limits in XCOM because nobody in this thread has said that pointless time limits are a good choice for discouraging turtling. We all know that’s terrible.
As for the racing game analogy, there’s a big difference between encouraging the player to play fast and forcing them to use specific mechanics. Fire Emblem games that force you to use hyper-specific unit placement and specific units in order to get things would be a better equivalent to the example of deducting points specifically for drifting or using the handbrake. Encouraging the player to speed up their strategy and play more aggressively is VERY different. It’s the difference between encouraging a playstyle and forcing a playstyle. Midnight Sun Chapter 5 requires incredibly precise unit placement in order to just beat the chapter, much less get all the houses. Most people dislike that as much as I’m sure you do. The point is that a well-designed chapter rewards fast play, but still gives the player the flexibility to complete the chapter and get all the side rewards however they want to do so, BUT is still beatable if the player plays more slowly (obviously not every chapter should be the same, this is just a general overview). In fact, I would almost argue the racing game analogy helps the anti-turtling argument. If you don’t make use of what you have, you’re not gonna come in first. You can hardly expect to come first in a racing game while intentionally holding back and being safe. FE is no different.
I think some of the best ways to prevent turtling is making a map with multiple objectives accompanied with turn limits. This will force the player to divide the team and keep them from slowly approaching the objectives.
Another way would be using warp trap like in Thracia 776, but many would find it annoying instead.
Making hit rates higher whenever units are adjacent to each other is also a good thing, but it is hard to pull off unless you’re really good at scripting.
Like make hit rates higher for 2 units in combat if they’re adjacent? I’ve done this with a function that reduces shortbow and longbow stats at 1 and 3 range. It’s easy with ASM and the PreBattleCalcLoop in the Skill System.
The problem itself is not turtling, I commit it too before entering the realm, is the kind of map where you turtle.
These kind of maps are an example of why the hackers DO NOT let the player turtling.
In maps where there’s an Arena and this map has no “powerful” enemies, the player can easily farm money and EXP on the arena. This should be at all cost for new players of FE games avoidable. Not only some say is bad but you really take out the “Who should I use this time?” issue too, cuz some units are that broken and you keep feeding them with EXP unil promotion and the vicious circle keeps on.
You take out all the fun strategy part
The part of strategy in a FE hack has to be good, meaning that efforts are given to complete the map with ALL, all the recruitable units (if desired) and at least your choosen units leveled up 2 levels at minimum, all the villages are visited, all in a estimated period of time with enemies that are not strong but neither weak.
Makes the player careless and makes His/Her brain no work for a strategy
When I say careless, it means that te player in hacks he think there’s going to be no punishes for taking the hack easily and slow. Example:
You let a part of your map with lots of enemies and only a clash point (such as a bridge), this maneuver is effective but did you got for all your unit EXP or let them be used instead of blocking it with a good character? This maneuver is poorly thinked yet effective, but real strategy is when you think on how to solve a problem yet the same results are given for all of your units.
That’s why most of the hackers and his hacks have Anti turtling such as:
Villages
You never know what a village has to offer:
Rare weapons
Gems or Money
Possible Rare Items (Angelic Robe, Dragon Shield, Talisman)
And if you threat the player with thiefs or bandits, the player will be “pushed” to go and save the village.
Really Strong Reinforcements
When I say “Strong” it means with good stats that are defeatable by your units but still make a theat to your units, and with an escort team is a mayor threat for the player. Many hacks implement this to make the player think either take them down or get the chapter done in the most quickly time he has left (ONLY if your chapter is estimated to be finished in X turns).
Punish the player for being so slow on complete the chapter with rewards
Some FE games punish the player for being slow, FE6 has a clearly example of this. Gaiden chapters in FE6 has requierements, either in Sacae or Illia the requirement is speed (less than 15 for example).
Instead of either useless gaidens or filler chapters, give weapons. FE7 & FE8 with the green unit “torture” is the same with FE6 but really more outraging for the player.
That’s why.
Actually what I meant was the enemy getting better hit rates whenever your units are too close to each other. Players will then avoid grouping their units too often.
You can be turtling with 2 units on a bridge.
Playing fast does not mean scatter all of your units on the map, especially if you are using skills.
To turtle you need to be able to block enemies on a certain spot, to do that you usually don’t rely on dodge enemies attacks, usually you use a unit slow enough to not double the enemy but not slow enough to be doubled. Taking the damage is not a problem when you are just going to take if from one or two enemies.
Even if all enemies have a 100% hitrate, if they can’t kill your unit what is the point? You can choke them in that spot and heal without any problem.
Not saying that it doesn’t depend on the units’ stats as well. If the player-enemy unit stats comparison is similar to that of Binding Blade Hard Mode (in which enemies can take down player units in mostly 2 hits but often miss), combined with some of the enemy units carrying ranged weapons as well, then it’ll work.
Marcus can take at least 2 hits from almost everything (considering the second one always coming from a ranged weapon).
The other units usually can survive a steel weapon hit and a ranged one.
After the first part of the game, you have a lot of units that can take even 3-4 hits.
Turtling implies that you can hold a position for as much as you want, blocking the enemy and kill them slowly.
If you hold a position for a long time, you will be attacked a lot of time and even if the enemies have shit hit rate, soon or later you will lose a unit.
And btw, an high enemy/player unit density in a point does not mean that the player is turtling, maybe he is just advancing with all of his units against a lot of enemies and it will make no sense for the enemy to receive a buff in this case.
Well, my point is that penalizing the player’s avoid rate for grouping their units can be a way to reduce the turtling tendency. Not the best, but it’ll work.
Since it works vice versa for the enemy units as well, it may also open up new strategies to the player-- like trying to get the AI to group the enemies together so enemy units with high avoid rate can be dispatched easily.
I don’t think just reducing avoid rate to reduce turtling tendacies will work much. If only dodge tanking cannot be used for turtling, you could just resort to other methods for turtling instead, like 1) very high def and/or res or (takes little to no damage from enemy attacks) or 2) pretty high level bow users (cannot attack or counterattack at melee range, which makes them very useful in chokepointing since only a maximum of 1 enemy will attack them at melee range).
Edit: Not to mention if you are reducing stats to reduce turtling tendacies, you will also have to reduce hp, def and res growths, bases and caps by a lot as well (though this might hurt some of the classes a lot and might make units in said classes pretty much not worth using at all).
I think the problem with that situation is not the turtling. If a high DEF unit like armored knights can almost take little to no damage at all then you just need to give the enemies hammers or armorslayers, or use mages instead, otherwise the player might as well send the tank unit on a solo Seth-like rampage. As for the bow units making chokepoints, you can simply use enemies with Pass ability or fliers (even if they will fall to the bow unit) to render the chokepoint useless.
Yeah, though fliers wouldn’t really work well with getting around bow users turtling if the chapters are indoor maps. And Pass skill is only effective if there is a space said enemy unit with Pass can move to in order to be a threat, and could be easily countered. Probably best thing to do would be to use a lot of ranged and siege enemies to counter that problem instead, or a skill that switches position of both the melee attacker and bow user after combat.
As for the high def turtling problem, yeah those work pretty well.
Dude, don’t give me that ninja cave flashback. Although I must admit that space-swapping thing is brilliant in a tight map.
Wait, Ninja Cave? Did FE Fates pull that crap with fliers in cave or something?