To cap off this argument (this will be my last reply on this topic) after turning it over in my head I’ve decided to be honest and upfront
Warning, things get personal. Tldr: sorry, I react strongly to negativity. /srs
This conversation has caused me much stress and anxiety, although this last comment cut deeper in what I believe to be an unintentional way.
To rip the bandaid off and state cleanly, your usage of the word “bro” triggered a lot of gender dysphoria for me. It may seem silly I know or that I’m blaming you but I really don’t blame you for this. “Bro” as a term is something used commonly and without second thought, I personally have used it frequently. So before I go further I want to ask that you don’t refer to me in that way again, no hard feelings, just a request.
Secondly, I’ll be very upfront yes it was very hypocritical of me to talk about tone. Tone in my own writing is something I struggle with as an autistic person especially with matters that make me highly emotional. Fire Emblem is my special interest and as such talks of negativity stir up really strong emotions in me, especially in matters relating to how I play the game.
This conversation especially has lead me to realize that being in this space is detrimental to me emotionally. To state it with no intent of being sarcastic or backhanded, a space this negative is not a place that someone who thinks so positively about a lot of these games can find much agreement in, and honestly I am still coming to terms with that.
I’ve been wanting to step away from the discussion side of the forums for a while now but couldn’t because it did just bring such emotions out of me but I do want to make an effort to step away this time, this space isn’t for me and that’s fine, it’s just how it is.
I’ll still use this space for posting my creative endeavors in romhacking of course but as for discussion based threads I think I’m going to step away.
Lastly as a final note I genuinely do think that it’s a little insincere to pull up dictionary definitions of things like cheat codes, I understand where you’re coming from but terms like “cheat codes” carry specific connotations that dictionary entries can’t really capture so for your future discussions I hope you don’t make that a habit as it doesn’t contribute to anything but as a “gotcha” moment.
Second, the entire point was that this view you hold is obnoxious and toxic. That it’s frustrating and annoying. Look at what was actually initially said, okay?
As a response, this sounds honorable and of noble intention, but then turning around and saying
means you don’t actually respect these people. You feel they are cheating. That they are playing the game wrong is the clear implication from the words you have actually penned, even if that is not the meaning you meant.
I hope this doesn’t come across as me trying to lecture you cause i do respect you a lot but i’ve been noticing you’ve been replying a lot to these community threads that go off topic.
By no means do I mean to say you should voice your opinions and have a say of the matter but as you’ve said these have been a major stressor for you.
I’ve been through a period of life where I felt i needed to argue what’s on my mind, I’ve told this story once in another post. I was debating with my mom about something i don’t remember until my aunt told me " I wasn’t talking very respectfully to my mom" it wasn’t my intention but that shock me a lot.
Sometimes true strength is to let things lie. Matter of fact is all the arguments in the world as logically sound and evidence base will have little effect to the other party. humans are irrational and to persuade change a person can’t put themselves in opposition to the other.
Discussion’s fun until it starts to make both parties’s day worse in which case it might be time to pull back and laugh about it.
I think this whole argument has kind of devolved into what “cheating” means in the context of playing Fire Emblem. Does cheating mean that you undermine the intentions of the creator’s design by making things easier? If anything, what do “creator intentions” mean in this case?
If I add cheat codes into my game as a fun tool or secret, do I now have to design my game around the possibility that those cheat codes could be used? Obviously not. However, this is because cheat codes are presented in such a manner that a normal player probably won’t confuse them for being an intentionally designed-for mechanic. The Fire Emblem equivalent to this would be something like save states, which are obviously not something any good designer should be making their hacks around. (Obviously, FE rom hack creators aren’t in control of the functions of emulators, but you get the idea)
I think the confusion here is that you and Ghost believe that the presentation of Casual Mode as an authentic option makes it so, while Ysor believes that the very concept of Casual Mode is so unbalanced and poorly designed in comparison to the original work that it acts more like a cheat code. So while Ysor is critiquing the concept of Casual Mode being presented as a “game mode”, it is still being presented that way at the end of the day, and until we come to an agreement that such a mode is on par with stuff like save states, 100% growths, Perfect Luck, etc., then it is not unreasonable to believe that casual mode is an “alternative means of playing Fire Emblem” on par with playing Fire Emblem on Easy Mode.
Obviously, no one should be bullied for how they play Fire Emblem. Heck, I play with save states, so I can understand the sentiment behind wanting to see Casual Mode normalized as a way to play Fire Emblem. However, while this might be “valid” in the sense that my choices should be respected as an individual, it is not something that should merit serious consideration when discussing anything related to the game’s design.
I think I’d also like to see more invasive difficulty changes, something that really shakes up the game. My hack goes from 2rn to 1rn on Hard but I’d also like to see something like HP not recovering between chapters or switching the AS formula from [Spd - (Wgt - Con)] to [Spd - Wgt]. I think its at least worth experimenting with and I may do so in the future
If you’re gonna stand on this I’ll respond but I’m not too keen on being rough with you Wan. Just saying.
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By mode you mean modification, its a gameplay modifier. There are tons of game modes that can be considered cheating. Creative mode in Minecraft, Heaven and Hell(All enemies die in one hit) in Devil may cry, Auto acceleration + Smart steering in Mario Kart 8. Its not a concept specific to fire emblem or SRPGs at all. Cheating in the context of Fire emblem is stuff like glitches, exploits, save scrumming, rigging crits/levels, or resurrecting units. That last one is weird because main line Fire emblem was and still is designed around permadeath. Removing the penalty for making a mistake is a very simple to understand cheat. Fire emblem structures it weird but its still cheating, akin to having infinite health in GTA. I can ONLY fail if I can’t complete the mission/ secondary task. In this context the main task is surviving. To transfer this to fire emblem, I no longer have to worry about managing any of my units/resources and can instead focus entirely on clearing the objective with no regards to Risk/reward with my decisions.
This is what I meant when I said I didn’t want to be rough. No disrespect to you, but by no conceivable metric are you allowed to dictate how I personally view anything. My opinion is not up to you and in no way are you entitled to being viewed positively by me. I don’t care, nor will I ever care, about your opinion of MY opinion. Just because you don’t like what I think does not mean it should change.
I addressed this several times. I respect that you can chose to play the game how you want. I cannot stress enough how little I give a FUCK about someone enjoying things differently than I do. You are free to make your own decisions and enjoy whatever you want however you want. It makes no difference to me.
That should have been enough.
When did I say cheating was wrong? I never said it, you’re reading too far into that. You’re allowed to play with in game cheats. Hell its a single player game play with out of game cheats too. Do you need my permission? I play games with cheats ALL THE TIME. Saints row, GTA, Halo, Slay the spire, Bombrush Cyberfunk, The sims, Animal crossing, Tears of the kingdom, Breath of the wild, hell I even cheated in Stardew valley. Its a long list. Whether it was exploits, glitches, cheat code, or skips. I made the choice to do so. That choice its personal to me and should be respected but people don’t have to like that I played the game that way.
That’d be like if I said green was an ugly color and someone whose favorite color was green told me I, " didn’t respect green as an alternative color of preference" Like what??? My opinion of the color green doesn’t indicate my opinion of people who like green
I think you need to define “respect” in this context because we aren’t using the same definition.
And if you’re not going to answer this question, don’t respond.
The Phantom King of RandomMercenary is a good example of it. Well, the only one I can think of that implements the “two parties” concept.
You play as two lords from differents countries that are at war, so you can see the perspective from both sides.
Playable monsters sound great, the both of your comments gave me an idea:
Normal FE style fantasy setting. Maybe you fight a normal FE style war at first, and start hearing about this plague a good way into it, seeing as the war is more important, you choose to ignore the stories at first, until you see it’s horrifying results at first hand. Monstrosities that can barely even be called human anymore. Your main goal then becomes to find the plague’s roots and stop them before it’s too late, but as you play even your own soldiers start to slowly mutate, by the end of it, a good amount of your team are no longer fully human, they’ve become a pack of mutated… things that may cling onto the same goal as they did when human, maybe not even knowing why anymore, kinda like zombies in media who follow their old human daily routines.
Every unit could mutate and you’d have a hidden “mutation” counter per unit so to speak, where slowly you will start to see weird things sneak into their mannerisms and actions, without outright telling you they are starting to change. If you do not have met the conditions for keeping the unit, they will silently leave your team in the middle of the night without explanation, at the end you would have to fight them alongside the main boss. The conditions could be anything from getting them to support another unit in time, having them personally kill the man they swore revenge on, and so on.
I could honestly see someone making an FE8 remake with this concept in mind, ala. The Princess’s Lament. I think the player would probably have to be told about the potential dangers of mutation ahead of time, which unfortunately kinda drags the surprise of the whole idea a tad. However, I think that it’s better that players aren’t softlocked because the game takes away their units because of a hidden mechanic they had no knowledge of.
(The cast would also have to be, like, very small. Otherwise you have a bunch of vulnerable units in the backline waiting to be mutated through no fault of the player.)
I’m honestly kinda mixed on hard mode having “invasive” difficulty changes, since it really depends on how fun the “invasive” features are to play with. Radiant Dawn seems like the best example of this type of difficulty in the series, and it seems… kinda bad? I’d say removing QoL features like global range checking is artificial in its difficulty, and I’m also not a big fan of removing the weapon Triangle either. I think the only change I really agree with would be removing battle saves, but that is a feature specifically meant to be a cushion for mistakes rather than a QoL feature. For any game that has Divine Pulse, for example, removing that option (or harshly limiting it) would be a good feature on harder modes.
I’d say better invasive difficulty involves adding some extra factor to consider rather than removing or altering what already exists. So a universal turn limit to prevent stalling/grinding, or fatigue requiring you to switch out units, would probably be better to implement. But even these need to be tested rigorously, with the mode accomodating the new mechanics in a way that doesn’t frustrate the player unnecessarily.
Although I’m currently taking a break from development to binge games/anime, I would love to see everyone who participated in the classic vs casual conversation submit themselves to Dies Emblem, which is at least somewhat topical because it’s non-permadeath, but requires resources to revive defeated units. Your contributions to lowering the likeability of the cast (which has honestly gotten too high for my liking) would be greatly appreciated. For those of you who might think I am simply shilling…
I do need FEU views. And likes. Wanna know why? “I have a dream.” That one day, every person in this forum will control their OWN destiny. A land of the TRULY free, dammit. A nation of ACTION, not words. Ruled by HACKS, not #design-meta. Where “good design” changes to suit the individual, not the other way around. Where power and justice are back where they belong: in the hands of the hackers! Where every FE fan is free to think – to act – for himself! Fuck all these limp-dick forum posters and chicken-shit mini-mods. Fuck this 24/7 FEU spew of community threads and PME bullshit. Fuck “FEU pride”. Fuck the media! Fuck all of it! FEU is diseased. Rotten to the core. There’s no saving it – we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. BURN IT DOWN! And from the ashes, a new community will be born. Evolved, but untamed! The community posters will be purged, and the hackers will thrive – free to live as they see fit, they will make FEU GREAT AGAIN!
“What the hell are you talking about?”
You still don’t get it. I’m using community threads as a community driver to get Dies Emblem boosted… so I can end community threads as a community driver! In my new FEU, people will die and kill for what they IMPLEMENT IN A HACK! Not for likes, not for views! Not for what they’re told is “good design”. Every hacker will be free to fight their own wars!
(Senator Armstrong memeing aside, I really do think people are better off “making a hack that illustrates their viewpoints” than malding about them to the point of social collapse. One could say making a hack is infinitely harder than making a quick FEU post, but with the amount of mental and emotional energy that goes into some of these, I think people could genuinely churn out like a 5-chapter adventure using F2U/F2E assets.)
I’d love to see more unique settings - fantasy, sci-fi, modern!
Also, with mild fear of poking a settling hornets nest I want more casual mode built in. Doesn’t even have to be balanced just throw it in there for me so I don’t break something putting it in myself lol.