1-Up!
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/FireEmblemPoR.html
Segmented run on normal difficulty
Verifier Responses
Decision: Reject
Reason: Tough verdict to lay down considering the faster time but all the verifiers agree that without the polish this is a decrease in play-quality from what we already have. I really hope the runner considers redoing this run.
This run will be available for a month. After that this link will no longer work.
http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/fepor-v.mp4
Segmented run on normal difficulty
Verifier Responses
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I've been waiting a long time for someone to improve one of the existing runs, but this is not the kind of run I was hoping to see. It might sound weird and unfair, but I honestly compare any run for this game (or series, for that matter) to the existing Radiant Dawn run when it comes to play quality. The controls for this game are the same and so I fully expect a segmented Path of Radiance run to at least come somewhat close to that run's level of precision with the cursor. Unfortunately, I was disappointed right from the start when I saw that the Prologue was slower than both existing runs. The runner had a few good moves here and there, but nothing like what you should see from a segmented run.
I kept a log of very brief comments on each chapter as I watched the run, but most of the time I ended up using different words to say the same thing: "Sloppy" or "could use more polishing." Very often he would use B to speed up cursor movement like an improvement should, but then accidentally attempt to move a unit to the wrong tile. He'd then have to watch unit move all the way over there just so he could cancel the action and try again. One or two of these in a long segment I'd be willing to let slide, but it happened frequently.
As for planning, I'll leave this to people who are better at it than I am, but more than once I had a gut feeling that something wasn't quite right (5, 13, 24, 28). Chapter 17-2 was a more obvious problem, because the runner didn't rescue Ike and use the gaps in the forest. Strange because it's used in the Hard mode run and should've been much more effective in this one because there were only two units on the map. Things like inventory management also seemed to come up on a regular basis, so I really got the feeling this was planned as on-the-fly. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't doubt that it cost time overall.
As a bit of a side note, the runner lowered weight on every single forged weapon...including Marcia's Javelins. This was entirely useless because of the way weapon weight works in this game. It only wasted maybe half a second every time it happened, but it looks bad when you know the formula. The only explanation I can think of for this happening so many times is lack of research.
Unfortunately, I have to vote to reject this run. The final time may be lower, but the execution is not up to current SDA standards. Sorry.
I kept a log of very brief comments on each chapter as I watched the run, but most of the time I ended up using different words to say the same thing: "Sloppy" or "could use more polishing." Very often he would use B to speed up cursor movement like an improvement should, but then accidentally attempt to move a unit to the wrong tile. He'd then have to watch unit move all the way over there just so he could cancel the action and try again. One or two of these in a long segment I'd be willing to let slide, but it happened frequently.
As for planning, I'll leave this to people who are better at it than I am, but more than once I had a gut feeling that something wasn't quite right (5, 13, 24, 28). Chapter 17-2 was a more obvious problem, because the runner didn't rescue Ike and use the gaps in the forest. Strange because it's used in the Hard mode run and should've been much more effective in this one because there were only two units on the map. Things like inventory management also seemed to come up on a regular basis, so I really got the feeling this was planned as on-the-fly. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't doubt that it cost time overall.
As a bit of a side note, the runner lowered weight on every single forged weapon...including Marcia's Javelins. This was entirely useless because of the way weapon weight works in this game. It only wasted maybe half a second every time it happened, but it looks bad when you know the formula. The only explanation I can think of for this happening so many times is lack of research.
Unfortunately, I have to vote to reject this run. The final time may be lower, but the execution is not up to current SDA standards. Sorry.
Quote:
- Saw no cheating. The only time it may have come in was in a brief video skip in Segment 39, but I don't see how that could have helped the player at that point.
- You can use the ingame timer, to the best of my knowledge. This run does beat the existing time, coming in at 2:19:52.
- Most of the strategies were solid, and some of them were really cool. The best ones were when everyone was lined up to Shove/Smite, when weapons broke to prevent further counterattacks, and when Calil assassinated the one boss. One thing really irking me about strategies, though, is how you continually decreased the Weight of your weapons. Once the Strength of the wielder matches the Weight of the weapon, you no longer receive a speed penalty, and decreasing the Weight is just a waste of time and money. This is a fairly basic tenet of the game, and the fact that you didn't seem to know this shows me that you may not be as knowledgeable of this game as you should be. There were also odd times when it looked like you didn’t quite know what you were going to do, or hadn’t accounted for something and had to adjust on-the-fly to your own detriment. Particular instances would be things like directing Mordecai and Lethe in Chapter 9, and having Ike’s Vulnerary run out in Chapter 17-3. Finally, I do think you could have gone deeper and looked for more options in some places. Isn't there a Laguz Lance you can pick up that would kill Ena faster in Chapter 21? Couldn't you have manipulated Oscar's Speed so that he could have taken out the Priest in one round in Chapter 7? Was there more efficient ways of inventory management or character rearrangement?
- Overall quality of play felt sloppy, especially in the early chapters. It did get better towards the end, but that may have been because fewer actions had to be taken. This is my major gripe with this run. It's quite heavily segmented, but the player still makes lots of mistakes, many of which occur right at the beginning of the segment. I don't know what the player's situation with recording was, but I do feel like if you bobble the menus that badly, especially at the beginning of a segment, you should just soft reset and try it again. The overall time lost fairly negligible in the grand scheme of the run (probably less than a minute), but it just feels like a lot of the run was done in long, uninterrupted sittings with only catastrophic failure stopping segments, thus nullifying one of the major strong points of a segmented run. There were just too many times where it looked like you were flailing about, wrestling with the controls and selecting every possible action except the correct one. So even though you had a better time than the existing run, the actual quality of the run is worse.
Verdict: Reject, but strongly encourage the player to try again, tightening up their control of the game and doing a bit more research.
- You can use the ingame timer, to the best of my knowledge. This run does beat the existing time, coming in at 2:19:52.
- Most of the strategies were solid, and some of them were really cool. The best ones were when everyone was lined up to Shove/Smite, when weapons broke to prevent further counterattacks, and when Calil assassinated the one boss. One thing really irking me about strategies, though, is how you continually decreased the Weight of your weapons. Once the Strength of the wielder matches the Weight of the weapon, you no longer receive a speed penalty, and decreasing the Weight is just a waste of time and money. This is a fairly basic tenet of the game, and the fact that you didn't seem to know this shows me that you may not be as knowledgeable of this game as you should be. There were also odd times when it looked like you didn’t quite know what you were going to do, or hadn’t accounted for something and had to adjust on-the-fly to your own detriment. Particular instances would be things like directing Mordecai and Lethe in Chapter 9, and having Ike’s Vulnerary run out in Chapter 17-3. Finally, I do think you could have gone deeper and looked for more options in some places. Isn't there a Laguz Lance you can pick up that would kill Ena faster in Chapter 21? Couldn't you have manipulated Oscar's Speed so that he could have taken out the Priest in one round in Chapter 7? Was there more efficient ways of inventory management or character rearrangement?
- Overall quality of play felt sloppy, especially in the early chapters. It did get better towards the end, but that may have been because fewer actions had to be taken. This is my major gripe with this run. It's quite heavily segmented, but the player still makes lots of mistakes, many of which occur right at the beginning of the segment. I don't know what the player's situation with recording was, but I do feel like if you bobble the menus that badly, especially at the beginning of a segment, you should just soft reset and try it again. The overall time lost fairly negligible in the grand scheme of the run (probably less than a minute), but it just feels like a lot of the run was done in long, uninterrupted sittings with only catastrophic failure stopping segments, thus nullifying one of the major strong points of a segmented run. There were just too many times where it looked like you were flailing about, wrestling with the controls and selecting every possible action except the correct one. So even though you had a better time than the existing run, the actual quality of the run is worse.
Verdict: Reject, but strongly encourage the player to try again, tightening up their control of the game and doing a bit more research.
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Everything above I agree with. A few places video was slight choppy, and in once chapter a noticeable amount of frames were lost (1 second or so). But with all that said, I dont think any technical issues should cause a reject.
Game play was just as the above said. Seemed a bit unplanned/unpracticed. When I was attempting this game, I attempted each segment at least 20 times to be sure I knew exactly the order of things to do. And I was not using B to move faster. Adding that in, WAY more practice should be needed. But once I found out how deep planning the run had to go, I stopped. Thanks to Molotov for the info btw and saving me from running this game...
I can see this becoming a situation similar to the BK run Jumpman__ did. Great improvement, sloppy play. But this run is not a SS. And it is rather known, each segment can be treated as a run all by itself and one segment can cause the entire thing to be rejected. Segmented runs should be polished. Many segments were not polished in this run. Because of this, I give this a reject. I believe that this time could come down way more just by better execution. Perhaps some new strats can be used, but overall this looked really really well in that department. I too had a few moments when I thought Chapter 28 could have been ended one turn sooner and I also dont understand why you would allow a weapon to break to stop attacking but not get the kill. Why not just not attack in the first place?
Sorry but due to slop play in a segmented run, this is a reject.
Game play was just as the above said. Seemed a bit unplanned/unpracticed. When I was attempting this game, I attempted each segment at least 20 times to be sure I knew exactly the order of things to do. And I was not using B to move faster. Adding that in, WAY more practice should be needed. But once I found out how deep planning the run had to go, I stopped. Thanks to Molotov for the info btw and saving me from running this game...
I can see this becoming a situation similar to the BK run Jumpman__ did. Great improvement, sloppy play. But this run is not a SS. And it is rather known, each segment can be treated as a run all by itself and one segment can cause the entire thing to be rejected. Segmented runs should be polished. Many segments were not polished in this run. Because of this, I give this a reject. I believe that this time could come down way more just by better execution. Perhaps some new strats can be used, but overall this looked really really well in that department. I too had a few moments when I thought Chapter 28 could have been ended one turn sooner and I also dont understand why you would allow a weapon to break to stop attacking but not get the kill. Why not just not attack in the first place?
Sorry but due to slop play in a segmented run, this is a reject.
Quote:
There were noticeable dropped frames in two places – once in segment 34 (around 1:49:00) and the aforementioned one in segment 39 (around 2:19:54). No cheating was observed at either point, or throughout the run in general.
Before verifying this run, I decided to re-watch the current run for this category in order to accurately judge where the improvements in this run came from. I was disappointed by the run's apparent lack of knowledge of certain parts of the game (low weight forges, not knowing Shinon and Gatrie dump their inventories into the convoy when they leave), chapter-to-chapter planning leading to unused items, bad stat management, a few suspect strategies, and what looked like fewer than ten attempts per segment (especially noticeable in Endgame).
I hoped that this run would improve each of these issues while adding play quality closer to that of the Radiant Dawn run. Like Molotov, following that run as it happened, with its consistently high play quality and willingness to go for very RNG dependent strategies, spoiled me a bit. Unfortunately, this run failed to live up to those expectations and replicated many of the old run's problems as well!
Quality of Play: Quickly managing inventories, menus, and the map is difficult and takes practice, but there were frequent movement errors in nearly every segment, and often near the beginning of segments. With the level of precision expected of segmented runs, I don't know why the runner thought this was fine in the short BExp grinding (before any levels too) segments or most of the very quick chapters I don't know. This improves about halfway through the run, but I'm not sure if this was due to improved skill, more attempts, or the typically simpler to execute strategies. The old run certainly didn't seem to have this many movement errors, despite using the slower cursor speed.
There were several spots where it looked like something unexpected caused the runner to switch strategies on the fly, and each time caused a decent chunk of time to be lost. Particularly 7, 9, and 13, but I'll cover those later.
General potential improvements: These things happened frequently and could easily shave seconds or more if fixed.
Unnecessary vulnerary use: In a segmented run, healing items shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary, even if it means a reset. This happened much more often than in the old run, and it looked avoidable in all but one case (25, and even then Tanith might be able to dodge the ballista – but this looked like a pretty luck-based chapter). It even cost some extra time in 17-3 with the sword equip as the runner mentioned.
Accepting bad level ups: There were plenty of times early on where Ike and Titania missed Str or Spd and paid for it in later chapters. This wasted a lot of time in 2, 7, 9, 12, and 13. This even required an unplanned BExp level later on to get Ike to double Bertram. The Endgame Pure Water and Ike's survival problems could have been fixed with this too.
Forging: I know it's been mentioned to death, but lowering the weight of forges is completely pointless. Hit might not be worth it either in the midgame. One thing I would've liked to see more of was adding crit to the forges – the last Silver Lance was too little, too late (actually I don't think it got a single crit heh). By making crits more likely, both time and weapon uses could be saved and a few more risky strategies could be used. For most weapons it looks like it's only slightly more expensive than forging hit and weight together too. I can only see it as a net benefit.
Magic animations: I noticed that the tome animations are a bit longer than the others, and yet there were several times where you left a unit in range of nonmoving and/or unrequired mages on enemy phase unnecessarily.
Titania's Counter: There were a few times in short segments where Counter activated needlessly. No more than a few seconds over the course of the run, but it helps.
Character movement: There were a few times where you move a unit away when they're in no danger. Again, mostly early on.
Hit/Dodge manipulation: Okay, this one is entering the realm of infeasibility (or insanity), but for the short and easy segments it could still be a possibility. It looked like the dodge animation of mounted units takes up some extra time unless it's a spell.
I also made some notes on each segment/chapter while I watched; it's paraphrased below to include the most relevant strategy critiques.
Ch. 2 – Ike doesn't get Str on his first level up here, and seconds later fails to ORKO a bandit. This happens several more times during the chapter. Ike shouldn't need to use a vulnerary here. In fact, it looked like he could easily solo the top if he got that Str and dodged enough. It looked like Oscar did more harm than good tbh. I also noted that Ike didn't get Spd during his second level up, but it turned out that his speed problems didn't crop until after BExp. Finally, an extra turn is spent killing the fleeing Ikanau, which wouldn't have happened if Ike had the Str to kill one of the other bandits.
Ch.3 – Maybe go until Marcia kills all three enemies? In what looks like a copied strategy from the old run, Shinon provokes some fighters as he makes his way to the Elixir. This Elixir is not used in either run.
Ch. 5 – Shinon using a vulnerary was completely pointless. Also, was this method faster than the old run's 'archer lock'? I feel like there's something faster here, but I don't know what.
Ch. 6 – Looked like you moved the forest units back too far. Titania misses Spd here, which I think would've allowed her to double Kotaff in 9. Not sure about the Myrms in the same chapter.
Ch. 7 – This chapter is ugly. Really ugly. There were some luck-based things I thought of that could potentially save time here, but then again this is a long painful chapter. Starts off questionably by having Soren attack at all, then by having Oscar attack the weird 2 Str fighter that Ike could've ORKOed. If Oscar attacked the Soldier that Soren did, the end result would've been the same with time saved. Of course, that assumes Oscar can double it. Since the soldier has a javelin equipped and Oscar's AS is only one less than Soren's I would lean towards yes though.
Moving on, had Titania gotten Str in both of her level ups, she could've ORKOed one of the Knights. Maybe it's possible to do it with one by manipulating enemy growths. Next is the strange situation with Oscar and Ike. Oscar doing almost no damage to the Knight looks bad and there's probably a better way to handle those three enemies, but let's stick with this strategy. If Ike had all the strength he needed, he would've killed the Knight with that crit avoiding damage. This much damage appears to have been unexpected, so what happens next looks like Titania doing improvised damage control to make sure Ike survives. She ignores the Mage she should've OHKOed to kill the other Knight. Instead, Ike should've taken the other Knight, while Oscar took on the bottom left Soldier. Titania attacking Balmer on the next turn baffles me. Instead of using all her movement to attack at close range, she should've Short Spear'd (or even Jav'd) Balmer from the side of the Knight. This allows her to damage the Knight, kill the Priest with Steel Axe next turn, and finish off the Knight on enemy phase. I'm almost certain that it's one of those 'never move unless seeking a heal' enemies, but even if it isn't, it's still better than the Oscar disaster that happens here. Additionally, with the Mage killed earlier, Shinon can finish up faster. Phew.
Ch. 8 – For a segmented run, I was amazed at how mediocre this Ike was. This chapter was certainly slower than the old run's. Due to the worse stats, Ike gets hit a lot more often and takes much more damage when he does. He even needs to use vulneraries. Ideally, you'd have max speed Ike here (potentially helped by the Speedwing) avoiding hits/damage to avoid the defend square heals.
Ch. 9 – Due to Titania's poor level ups, she misses lots of OHKOs/ORKOs. If her Hand Axe had boosted crit, she also could've gone for a critical KO on Kotaff, saving some more time. Those mages don't move either, so there's no reason to fight them.
Ch. 11 – Something about all those mounted knights at the end felt wrong to me. I'm also certain that forging a Steel Lance for Marcia here or the next chapter would save time.
Ch. 12 – With a forged Steel Lance, Marcia can OHKO all of the generics. Which is more than you can say about Ike's forged Steel Sword. Also, Marcia misses a Raven and Ike's low Speed messes up the 2 turn completion.
Ch. 13 – One AI soldier runs around for a while, Ike can't double more Ravens. Titania doesn't use her forged Hand Axe on Halberdiers for some reason (with a better Ch. 9 there would be more uses too), Gatrie can't reach an enemy due to a prior movement error, so he just guards the defend square instead…
Ch. 17-3 – This one's been mentioned a few times now, and I don't have anything to add really.
Ch. 17-4 – I think you could've saved half a second if Oliver missed.
Ch. 18 – Marcia goes around a Knight near the Bishop for some reason instead of plowing right through him. Because of this, the general can't attack her, wasting some time. Attacks an untransformed Raven that can't be OHKOed towards the end when there was one that could be. That one transforms and can no longer be OHKOed. Then again, I don't know if the attacked Raven was about to transform.
Ch. 21 – Ike and his silly vulneraries again. With a critical forge, you could probably go for a OHKO on Ena. Not sure if it's worth it though.
Ch. 25 – This chapter looked good overall, but I have a gut feeling that Marcia's weapons could've been better.
Ch. 28 – I have to go with everyone else saying that it looked like this could have been better. I don't have any ideas though.
Okay, and to wrap it up, some speculation on long-term strategies that need to be tested (if they haven't been already). First is the Full Guard. I have a feeling that it can be skipped. I counted one ballista shot each turn on the bridge aside from the first, which has two. Single shots won't kill Marcia, and she doesn't really face any substantial enemies until she drops Ike. Seems to me like she could take Reyson's Elixir and chug it for that chapter. Any other ballistae she should be able to dodge without too much trouble. As for that first turn, one is the weaker ballista type and, well, at least it's at the start of a segment. The other is Aether vs. Wrath+Resolve. W+R is probably necessary to take down Berserk Ashnard in Hard mode anywhere close to quickly, but I'm not so sure about Normal. If Ike's levels were manipulated enough, he should be able to beat Ashnard with two Aethers while avoiding being killed himself slightly slower than using W+R. The difference is that you get Occult scrolls for free, while both W and R take some substantial time. You could try rushing the center path in 27, potentially skipping Tanith for that chapter too.
Anyway, what this giant wall of text is saying is that I agree with pretty much everything the previous verifiers have said. The final time is improved, but it comes mostly from better strategies - the play quality is relatively sloppy, especially towards the beginning. I unfortunately have to reject this run, but I hope the runner will give it another go once they nail down the long-term planning and execution problems.
Before verifying this run, I decided to re-watch the current run for this category in order to accurately judge where the improvements in this run came from. I was disappointed by the run's apparent lack of knowledge of certain parts of the game (low weight forges, not knowing Shinon and Gatrie dump their inventories into the convoy when they leave), chapter-to-chapter planning leading to unused items, bad stat management, a few suspect strategies, and what looked like fewer than ten attempts per segment (especially noticeable in Endgame).
I hoped that this run would improve each of these issues while adding play quality closer to that of the Radiant Dawn run. Like Molotov, following that run as it happened, with its consistently high play quality and willingness to go for very RNG dependent strategies, spoiled me a bit. Unfortunately, this run failed to live up to those expectations and replicated many of the old run's problems as well!
Quality of Play: Quickly managing inventories, menus, and the map is difficult and takes practice, but there were frequent movement errors in nearly every segment, and often near the beginning of segments. With the level of precision expected of segmented runs, I don't know why the runner thought this was fine in the short BExp grinding (before any levels too) segments or most of the very quick chapters I don't know. This improves about halfway through the run, but I'm not sure if this was due to improved skill, more attempts, or the typically simpler to execute strategies. The old run certainly didn't seem to have this many movement errors, despite using the slower cursor speed.
There were several spots where it looked like something unexpected caused the runner to switch strategies on the fly, and each time caused a decent chunk of time to be lost. Particularly 7, 9, and 13, but I'll cover those later.
General potential improvements: These things happened frequently and could easily shave seconds or more if fixed.
Unnecessary vulnerary use: In a segmented run, healing items shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary, even if it means a reset. This happened much more often than in the old run, and it looked avoidable in all but one case (25, and even then Tanith might be able to dodge the ballista – but this looked like a pretty luck-based chapter). It even cost some extra time in 17-3 with the sword equip as the runner mentioned.
Accepting bad level ups: There were plenty of times early on where Ike and Titania missed Str or Spd and paid for it in later chapters. This wasted a lot of time in 2, 7, 9, 12, and 13. This even required an unplanned BExp level later on to get Ike to double Bertram. The Endgame Pure Water and Ike's survival problems could have been fixed with this too.
Forging: I know it's been mentioned to death, but lowering the weight of forges is completely pointless. Hit might not be worth it either in the midgame. One thing I would've liked to see more of was adding crit to the forges – the last Silver Lance was too little, too late (actually I don't think it got a single crit heh). By making crits more likely, both time and weapon uses could be saved and a few more risky strategies could be used. For most weapons it looks like it's only slightly more expensive than forging hit and weight together too. I can only see it as a net benefit.
Magic animations: I noticed that the tome animations are a bit longer than the others, and yet there were several times where you left a unit in range of nonmoving and/or unrequired mages on enemy phase unnecessarily.
Titania's Counter: There were a few times in short segments where Counter activated needlessly. No more than a few seconds over the course of the run, but it helps.
Character movement: There were a few times where you move a unit away when they're in no danger. Again, mostly early on.
Hit/Dodge manipulation: Okay, this one is entering the realm of infeasibility (or insanity), but for the short and easy segments it could still be a possibility. It looked like the dodge animation of mounted units takes up some extra time unless it's a spell.
I also made some notes on each segment/chapter while I watched; it's paraphrased below to include the most relevant strategy critiques.
Ch. 2 – Ike doesn't get Str on his first level up here, and seconds later fails to ORKO a bandit. This happens several more times during the chapter. Ike shouldn't need to use a vulnerary here. In fact, it looked like he could easily solo the top if he got that Str and dodged enough. It looked like Oscar did more harm than good tbh. I also noted that Ike didn't get Spd during his second level up, but it turned out that his speed problems didn't crop until after BExp. Finally, an extra turn is spent killing the fleeing Ikanau, which wouldn't have happened if Ike had the Str to kill one of the other bandits.
Ch.3 – Maybe go until Marcia kills all three enemies? In what looks like a copied strategy from the old run, Shinon provokes some fighters as he makes his way to the Elixir. This Elixir is not used in either run.
Ch. 5 – Shinon using a vulnerary was completely pointless. Also, was this method faster than the old run's 'archer lock'? I feel like there's something faster here, but I don't know what.
Ch. 6 – Looked like you moved the forest units back too far. Titania misses Spd here, which I think would've allowed her to double Kotaff in 9. Not sure about the Myrms in the same chapter.
Ch. 7 – This chapter is ugly. Really ugly. There were some luck-based things I thought of that could potentially save time here, but then again this is a long painful chapter. Starts off questionably by having Soren attack at all, then by having Oscar attack the weird 2 Str fighter that Ike could've ORKOed. If Oscar attacked the Soldier that Soren did, the end result would've been the same with time saved. Of course, that assumes Oscar can double it. Since the soldier has a javelin equipped and Oscar's AS is only one less than Soren's I would lean towards yes though.
Moving on, had Titania gotten Str in both of her level ups, she could've ORKOed one of the Knights. Maybe it's possible to do it with one by manipulating enemy growths. Next is the strange situation with Oscar and Ike. Oscar doing almost no damage to the Knight looks bad and there's probably a better way to handle those three enemies, but let's stick with this strategy. If Ike had all the strength he needed, he would've killed the Knight with that crit avoiding damage. This much damage appears to have been unexpected, so what happens next looks like Titania doing improvised damage control to make sure Ike survives. She ignores the Mage she should've OHKOed to kill the other Knight. Instead, Ike should've taken the other Knight, while Oscar took on the bottom left Soldier. Titania attacking Balmer on the next turn baffles me. Instead of using all her movement to attack at close range, she should've Short Spear'd (or even Jav'd) Balmer from the side of the Knight. This allows her to damage the Knight, kill the Priest with Steel Axe next turn, and finish off the Knight on enemy phase. I'm almost certain that it's one of those 'never move unless seeking a heal' enemies, but even if it isn't, it's still better than the Oscar disaster that happens here. Additionally, with the Mage killed earlier, Shinon can finish up faster. Phew.
Ch. 8 – For a segmented run, I was amazed at how mediocre this Ike was. This chapter was certainly slower than the old run's. Due to the worse stats, Ike gets hit a lot more often and takes much more damage when he does. He even needs to use vulneraries. Ideally, you'd have max speed Ike here (potentially helped by the Speedwing) avoiding hits/damage to avoid the defend square heals.
Ch. 9 – Due to Titania's poor level ups, she misses lots of OHKOs/ORKOs. If her Hand Axe had boosted crit, she also could've gone for a critical KO on Kotaff, saving some more time. Those mages don't move either, so there's no reason to fight them.
Ch. 11 – Something about all those mounted knights at the end felt wrong to me. I'm also certain that forging a Steel Lance for Marcia here or the next chapter would save time.
Ch. 12 – With a forged Steel Lance, Marcia can OHKO all of the generics. Which is more than you can say about Ike's forged Steel Sword. Also, Marcia misses a Raven and Ike's low Speed messes up the 2 turn completion.
Ch. 13 – One AI soldier runs around for a while, Ike can't double more Ravens. Titania doesn't use her forged Hand Axe on Halberdiers for some reason (with a better Ch. 9 there would be more uses too), Gatrie can't reach an enemy due to a prior movement error, so he just guards the defend square instead…
Ch. 17-3 – This one's been mentioned a few times now, and I don't have anything to add really.
Ch. 17-4 – I think you could've saved half a second if Oliver missed.
Ch. 18 – Marcia goes around a Knight near the Bishop for some reason instead of plowing right through him. Because of this, the general can't attack her, wasting some time. Attacks an untransformed Raven that can't be OHKOed towards the end when there was one that could be. That one transforms and can no longer be OHKOed. Then again, I don't know if the attacked Raven was about to transform.
Ch. 21 – Ike and his silly vulneraries again. With a critical forge, you could probably go for a OHKO on Ena. Not sure if it's worth it though.
Ch. 25 – This chapter looked good overall, but I have a gut feeling that Marcia's weapons could've been better.
Ch. 28 – I have to go with everyone else saying that it looked like this could have been better. I don't have any ideas though.
Okay, and to wrap it up, some speculation on long-term strategies that need to be tested (if they haven't been already). First is the Full Guard. I have a feeling that it can be skipped. I counted one ballista shot each turn on the bridge aside from the first, which has two. Single shots won't kill Marcia, and she doesn't really face any substantial enemies until she drops Ike. Seems to me like she could take Reyson's Elixir and chug it for that chapter. Any other ballistae she should be able to dodge without too much trouble. As for that first turn, one is the weaker ballista type and, well, at least it's at the start of a segment. The other is Aether vs. Wrath+Resolve. W+R is probably necessary to take down Berserk Ashnard in Hard mode anywhere close to quickly, but I'm not so sure about Normal. If Ike's levels were manipulated enough, he should be able to beat Ashnard with two Aethers while avoiding being killed himself slightly slower than using W+R. The difference is that you get Occult scrolls for free, while both W and R take some substantial time. You could try rushing the center path in 27, potentially skipping Tanith for that chapter too.
Anyway, what this giant wall of text is saying is that I agree with pretty much everything the previous verifiers have said. The final time is improved, but it comes mostly from better strategies - the play quality is relatively sloppy, especially towards the beginning. I unfortunately have to reject this run, but I hope the runner will give it another go once they nail down the long-term planning and execution problems.
Quote:
Prepare for a wall of text.
Video and Audio Quality are fine. A bit blurry but I'm guessing it's because the verification copy is just lower quality than what would be published. There's a skip in chapter 28 but that's about it.
Now, I am not experienced in doing LTCs myself in general, but I am familiar with the mechanics of the game, and I know of many LTC strategies. But as I was typing up comments for every chapter, one thing was common for basically every chapter: the execution was sloppy. Generally there were many mis-selects that the runner had to redo, and sometimes even had to completely re-move a character. I can count the number of segments on my hand that haven no execution errors. While each individual cursor mistake doesn't cost much (and having one or two in a longer segment is definitely forgiveable), there are many in this run and that really adds up to several minutes. To be blunt, the execution sucks if compared side-by-side to vykan12's execution; at best, vykan12's execution should just be "slightly better" than this run's for me to accept the execution. Call me unfair, but his Radiant Dawn run really set the (admittedly high) bar for future fire emblem runs, and I expect them to come reasonably close to this bar, which this run clearly doesn't.
Random things (Assume that I would say "sloppy play" in every chapter unless otherwise noted):
Chapter 2: Not sure why you didn't manipulate a strength level-up on Ike; it easily would've saved time to 1RKO the bandit right after the level-up, and helped out in the long run. Critical is good, but still...
Chapter 3-1: If you were going to give Ike a second Iron Sword from Rhys, why did you trade all three Iron Swords from Ike to Rhys in the previous chapter? Waste of time and lack of long-term planning.
Chapter 3-2: Strat looks fine, controlling Shinon didn’t.
Chapter 4: Prep was good. Strategy was fine.
Chapter 5: First turn, should've just done "End" instead of manually selecting two characters to wait... Also, why did he burn a vulnerary on Shinon? I can understand the chance of him dying, but you can reset; this is something easily luck-manipulate-able, especially since this is such an easy chapter.
Chapter 7: That awesome Titania level-up from before kicks in this level as she slaughters everything. Solid routing strategy.
Chapter 8-1: The BEXP abuse must've taken lots of resets; it shows, as Ike gets beefed up to level 15 with every level-up being either amazing, or a level-up with only a stat or two increasing in the very important areas (aka one of strength/speed/defense). Execution here was good.
Chapter 8-2: This is one of the easiest segments in the game, yet the runner still makes a mistake at the very beginning of it, and accidentally goes to the unit tab in the middle. In such an easy, relaxed segment, where all the runner has to do is "End", there really is no excuse for not resetting. And even worse, the runner should’ve luck-manipulated so Ike would dodge more attacks, eliminating the need to waste time with the vulnerary.
Chapter 9: Why did you decrease the weight of the Hand Axe to 8? You should not have to decrease the weight at all because Titania's strength is 13 at this point in the game. Waste of time and money (not that the latter is generally a big problem in this game lol). The actual chapter is basically a Titania Solo, and Ike recruits Marcia, one of the best characters in the game. There was a LOT of waiting and screw ups on one turn, easily up to 4-5 seconds. On the plus side, an amazing titania level-up which will very much come in handy
Chapter 10: Sneaking Chapter. Usual. Strategy was fine, execution was meh. Should've reset from any mistake since there is nothing luck-based at all in this segment.
Chapter 11-1: The runner means to power-level Marcia with BEXP but selects Boyd, then Mist mistakenly. He really should've reset right here... Yes he got amazing level-ups with Marcia, but that still doesn't excuse not resetting from that major blunder, especially since this segment had to manipulate only a few level-ups
Chapter 11-2: Again, blunder at the beginning, though it's not as big. More power-leveling and luck-manipulating Marcia.
Chapter 11-3: Marcia power-levels once again, into a Falcoknight.
Chapter 11-4: And the chapter finally starts. I question trading the weak slim lance (and even the iron lance) over to Marcia.
Chapter 12: Power-leveling Ike. Those levels made me wish I was the runner (aka AWESOME luck-manipulation). The chapter itself had better execution than the past 11 chapters (though it still doesn't meet my expectations); I would've recommended saving after the epic level-ups from Ike, and then doing this chapter.
Chapter 13: The runner puts the slim lance into convoy; why did he trade it over to Marcia in the first place in chapter 11? And again, he decreases the weight of the forged javelin when Marcia has plenty of strength to wield it. Anyways, good strategy to save time from the ravens and from other phase; I was particularly impressed with manipulating the starting positions of everyone via selecting and de-selecting units appropriately.
Chapter 14: roflstomp strategy. This was actually pretty decent execution-wise... at least relative to the past 13 chapters.
Chapter 15-1: Forged Steel Lance, decreased weight for no reason again. Very sloppy repositioning. It seemed like this was done on the runner's first attempt. Unacceptable.
Chapter 15-2: EZ. Marcia has JUST enough strength to ORKO Mordecai. Practically perfect. THIS is the kind of execution I'd like to see, despite it not being quite Vykan12 standards; if the entire run had execution of this quality, then I'd accept the execution part of the run.
Chapter 16: Seriously, why decrease weight? And ugh, that first turn is so ugly. Strat is fine i think. Why get the full guard? Sure it makes life easier, but you never actually NEED it, and it wastes a lot of time moving Volke up there. Everything that the full guard is useful for, can be luck-manipulated.
Chapter 17-1: Decreasing weight of forged javelins...Routing strat was good, having Marcia run out of steel lance uses to automatically switch to her forged javelin. Your comments mentioned getting the full guard for this chapter... so? Neither bowman can OHKO Marcia or even do substantial damage to her except with a critical, and you can easily luck-manipulate for Marcia to dodge or the sniper to not critical. Getting the full guard was a huge waste of time.
Chapter 17-2: While doing this in 3-turns is nice... Did the runner not know that there are spots Marcia can hide in among the deep forest, and avoid combat? IIRC you can still 3-turn by using those woods, so this chapter was just routed incorrectly in general.
Chapter 17-3: The major mistake is already noted by the runner, and really much can't be done about Ike getting hit thanks to him carrying Leanne. It would make more sense for the runner to put Marcia up front to take hits instead of Ike, but that would mean seeing the EXP counter going up by 1 every time an enemy attacked her (whereas Ike is already at level 20).
Chapter 17-4: Solid strat. And then Ike evolves.
Chapter 18: Why... do... you... decrease... forge… weight... Also, yay, Tanith and Reyson. Strat is fine, preventing reinforcements from arriving is a great thing in a route chapter.
Chapter 19: Decrease weight, seriously? Shove-fest strategy to 1-turn this chapter is very good, though execution was merely average.
Chapter 20-1: Again with the decreasing forge weights (facepalm)
Chapter 20-2: Um, what happened with your control of Tanith on turn 1? That's easily a reset, even by a bad runner's standards. The strategy itself is fine.
Chapter 21: More forge-weight-lowering. And with some luck manipulation, Ike could've dodged those javelin attacks, eliminating the need to use vulneraries. Ena activating Miracle is a luck-based time-waster that warrants a reset too; it wastes quite a chunk of time.
Chapter 22-1: I guess the main reason there's a save here in this short segment is to prepare for the 1% critical in the actual chapter, and for the runner's sanity; this is understandable.
Chapter 23: This is the other chapter where the full guard really comes in handy, and I'd still say that dodging the ballista attacks is luck-manipulate-able, even with Marcia's halved speed. There isn't a reason to not luck-manipulate dodges on these ballistas, and thus save tons of time from not getting the full guard in chapter 16.
Chapter 24: Execution is definitely seeing an improvement here, though it's still not quite up to expectations IMO.
Chapter 25: Is the vulnerary on Tanith necessary? Shouldn't you have manipulated her to dodge the earlier attacks so she won't die?
Chapter 26: You could've avoided having to use BEXP on Ike if you planned farther ahead in the past 5-6 chapters and manipulated the in-battle level-ups to include one more speed-up. Giving Marcia the 1-use javelin so she sees minimal combat AND the boss attacks Ike instead was good though.
Chapter 27: Or, you know, you could've luck-manipulated a magic-level up on Tanith from a previous chapter so Tanith wouldn't have to critical the first cat. Execution was actually relatively decent. I still think the runner should've manipulated Ike to get a wrath critical on the boss during enemy phase (it literally is a higher-than-50% chance, there really isn't an excuse to not do so), so he wouldn't have to waste time having Marcia go deal the finishing blow. And Ike runs away because he doesn't fight for his friends.
Chapter 28: Strat looks fine. There's a very noticeable skip here, but it isn't too big of a deal.
Chapter 29: Buying Pure Water seems to be more of a sanity-thing rather than a necessity; it can be skipped, but at the potential cost of the runner's sanity. Ike then pwns the final boss.
Closing: Execution was overall sloppy, though it got noticeably better towards the end. Even if the execution was Vykan12 quality, though, I'd still be on the edge of rejecting this run because of a lack of long-term planning. Each individual chapter was planned very well standalone, with a few exceptions. However, much evidence points to the runner not planning out how to level-up characters minimally that'll help in the long run, what items to get, what items are NECESSARY to trade, or most of all, not manipulating luck enough and wasting time with vulneraries and such. With some more luck manipulation, vulneraries can be avoided, the Full Guard could've been skipped, and some characters could've gotten more ORKOs to save substantial time. Ena activating Miracle, and Ike not finishing the first boss of Chapter 27 in the enemy phase stand out to me in particular. Finally, it seems like the runner didn't know the mechanics of the game that well, as the runner proceeded to lower the weight of every forged weapon, which is never necessary in the entire game.
This run is faster, yes, but mainly because of a faster route. The execution, iirc, is even worse than the current run on the website, and it is just outright sloppy (particularly in the beginning, when it matters more), especially with the higher bars of standards set by Vykan. However, I do encourage the runner to try again, plan out more carefully (i.e. what is the minimum magic Tanith needs to ORKO stuff in this chapter? The deep forest in Chapter 17-2? etc), and most of all, practice the execution to meet our expectations.
REJECT
Video and Audio Quality are fine. A bit blurry but I'm guessing it's because the verification copy is just lower quality than what would be published. There's a skip in chapter 28 but that's about it.
Now, I am not experienced in doing LTCs myself in general, but I am familiar with the mechanics of the game, and I know of many LTC strategies. But as I was typing up comments for every chapter, one thing was common for basically every chapter: the execution was sloppy. Generally there were many mis-selects that the runner had to redo, and sometimes even had to completely re-move a character. I can count the number of segments on my hand that haven no execution errors. While each individual cursor mistake doesn't cost much (and having one or two in a longer segment is definitely forgiveable), there are many in this run and that really adds up to several minutes. To be blunt, the execution sucks if compared side-by-side to vykan12's execution; at best, vykan12's execution should just be "slightly better" than this run's for me to accept the execution. Call me unfair, but his Radiant Dawn run really set the (admittedly high) bar for future fire emblem runs, and I expect them to come reasonably close to this bar, which this run clearly doesn't.
Random things (Assume that I would say "sloppy play" in every chapter unless otherwise noted):
Chapter 2: Not sure why you didn't manipulate a strength level-up on Ike; it easily would've saved time to 1RKO the bandit right after the level-up, and helped out in the long run. Critical is good, but still...
Chapter 3-1: If you were going to give Ike a second Iron Sword from Rhys, why did you trade all three Iron Swords from Ike to Rhys in the previous chapter? Waste of time and lack of long-term planning.
Chapter 3-2: Strat looks fine, controlling Shinon didn’t.
Chapter 4: Prep was good. Strategy was fine.
Chapter 5: First turn, should've just done "End" instead of manually selecting two characters to wait... Also, why did he burn a vulnerary on Shinon? I can understand the chance of him dying, but you can reset; this is something easily luck-manipulate-able, especially since this is such an easy chapter.
Chapter 7: That awesome Titania level-up from before kicks in this level as she slaughters everything. Solid routing strategy.
Chapter 8-1: The BEXP abuse must've taken lots of resets; it shows, as Ike gets beefed up to level 15 with every level-up being either amazing, or a level-up with only a stat or two increasing in the very important areas (aka one of strength/speed/defense). Execution here was good.
Chapter 8-2: This is one of the easiest segments in the game, yet the runner still makes a mistake at the very beginning of it, and accidentally goes to the unit tab in the middle. In such an easy, relaxed segment, where all the runner has to do is "End", there really is no excuse for not resetting. And even worse, the runner should’ve luck-manipulated so Ike would dodge more attacks, eliminating the need to waste time with the vulnerary.
Chapter 9: Why did you decrease the weight of the Hand Axe to 8? You should not have to decrease the weight at all because Titania's strength is 13 at this point in the game. Waste of time and money (not that the latter is generally a big problem in this game lol). The actual chapter is basically a Titania Solo, and Ike recruits Marcia, one of the best characters in the game. There was a LOT of waiting and screw ups on one turn, easily up to 4-5 seconds. On the plus side, an amazing titania level-up which will very much come in handy
Chapter 10: Sneaking Chapter. Usual. Strategy was fine, execution was meh. Should've reset from any mistake since there is nothing luck-based at all in this segment.
Chapter 11-1: The runner means to power-level Marcia with BEXP but selects Boyd, then Mist mistakenly. He really should've reset right here... Yes he got amazing level-ups with Marcia, but that still doesn't excuse not resetting from that major blunder, especially since this segment had to manipulate only a few level-ups
Chapter 11-2: Again, blunder at the beginning, though it's not as big. More power-leveling and luck-manipulating Marcia.
Chapter 11-3: Marcia power-levels once again, into a Falcoknight.
Chapter 11-4: And the chapter finally starts. I question trading the weak slim lance (and even the iron lance) over to Marcia.
Chapter 12: Power-leveling Ike. Those levels made me wish I was the runner (aka AWESOME luck-manipulation). The chapter itself had better execution than the past 11 chapters (though it still doesn't meet my expectations); I would've recommended saving after the epic level-ups from Ike, and then doing this chapter.
Chapter 13: The runner puts the slim lance into convoy; why did he trade it over to Marcia in the first place in chapter 11? And again, he decreases the weight of the forged javelin when Marcia has plenty of strength to wield it. Anyways, good strategy to save time from the ravens and from other phase; I was particularly impressed with manipulating the starting positions of everyone via selecting and de-selecting units appropriately.
Chapter 14: roflstomp strategy. This was actually pretty decent execution-wise... at least relative to the past 13 chapters.
Chapter 15-1: Forged Steel Lance, decreased weight for no reason again. Very sloppy repositioning. It seemed like this was done on the runner's first attempt. Unacceptable.
Chapter 15-2: EZ. Marcia has JUST enough strength to ORKO Mordecai. Practically perfect. THIS is the kind of execution I'd like to see, despite it not being quite Vykan12 standards; if the entire run had execution of this quality, then I'd accept the execution part of the run.
Chapter 16: Seriously, why decrease weight? And ugh, that first turn is so ugly. Strat is fine i think. Why get the full guard? Sure it makes life easier, but you never actually NEED it, and it wastes a lot of time moving Volke up there. Everything that the full guard is useful for, can be luck-manipulated.
Chapter 17-1: Decreasing weight of forged javelins...Routing strat was good, having Marcia run out of steel lance uses to automatically switch to her forged javelin. Your comments mentioned getting the full guard for this chapter... so? Neither bowman can OHKO Marcia or even do substantial damage to her except with a critical, and you can easily luck-manipulate for Marcia to dodge or the sniper to not critical. Getting the full guard was a huge waste of time.
Chapter 17-2: While doing this in 3-turns is nice... Did the runner not know that there are spots Marcia can hide in among the deep forest, and avoid combat? IIRC you can still 3-turn by using those woods, so this chapter was just routed incorrectly in general.
Chapter 17-3: The major mistake is already noted by the runner, and really much can't be done about Ike getting hit thanks to him carrying Leanne. It would make more sense for the runner to put Marcia up front to take hits instead of Ike, but that would mean seeing the EXP counter going up by 1 every time an enemy attacked her (whereas Ike is already at level 20).
Chapter 17-4: Solid strat. And then Ike evolves.
Chapter 18: Why... do... you... decrease... forge… weight... Also, yay, Tanith and Reyson. Strat is fine, preventing reinforcements from arriving is a great thing in a route chapter.
Chapter 19: Decrease weight, seriously? Shove-fest strategy to 1-turn this chapter is very good, though execution was merely average.
Chapter 20-1: Again with the decreasing forge weights (facepalm)
Chapter 20-2: Um, what happened with your control of Tanith on turn 1? That's easily a reset, even by a bad runner's standards. The strategy itself is fine.
Chapter 21: More forge-weight-lowering. And with some luck manipulation, Ike could've dodged those javelin attacks, eliminating the need to use vulneraries. Ena activating Miracle is a luck-based time-waster that warrants a reset too; it wastes quite a chunk of time.
Chapter 22-1: I guess the main reason there's a save here in this short segment is to prepare for the 1% critical in the actual chapter, and for the runner's sanity; this is understandable.
Chapter 23: This is the other chapter where the full guard really comes in handy, and I'd still say that dodging the ballista attacks is luck-manipulate-able, even with Marcia's halved speed. There isn't a reason to not luck-manipulate dodges on these ballistas, and thus save tons of time from not getting the full guard in chapter 16.
Chapter 24: Execution is definitely seeing an improvement here, though it's still not quite up to expectations IMO.
Chapter 25: Is the vulnerary on Tanith necessary? Shouldn't you have manipulated her to dodge the earlier attacks so she won't die?
Chapter 26: You could've avoided having to use BEXP on Ike if you planned farther ahead in the past 5-6 chapters and manipulated the in-battle level-ups to include one more speed-up. Giving Marcia the 1-use javelin so she sees minimal combat AND the boss attacks Ike instead was good though.
Chapter 27: Or, you know, you could've luck-manipulated a magic-level up on Tanith from a previous chapter so Tanith wouldn't have to critical the first cat. Execution was actually relatively decent. I still think the runner should've manipulated Ike to get a wrath critical on the boss during enemy phase (it literally is a higher-than-50% chance, there really isn't an excuse to not do so), so he wouldn't have to waste time having Marcia go deal the finishing blow. And Ike runs away because he doesn't fight for his friends.
Chapter 28: Strat looks fine. There's a very noticeable skip here, but it isn't too big of a deal.
Chapter 29: Buying Pure Water seems to be more of a sanity-thing rather than a necessity; it can be skipped, but at the potential cost of the runner's sanity. Ike then pwns the final boss.
Closing: Execution was overall sloppy, though it got noticeably better towards the end. Even if the execution was Vykan12 quality, though, I'd still be on the edge of rejecting this run because of a lack of long-term planning. Each individual chapter was planned very well standalone, with a few exceptions. However, much evidence points to the runner not planning out how to level-up characters minimally that'll help in the long run, what items to get, what items are NECESSARY to trade, or most of all, not manipulating luck enough and wasting time with vulneraries and such. With some more luck manipulation, vulneraries can be avoided, the Full Guard could've been skipped, and some characters could've gotten more ORKOs to save substantial time. Ena activating Miracle, and Ike not finishing the first boss of Chapter 27 in the enemy phase stand out to me in particular. Finally, it seems like the runner didn't know the mechanics of the game that well, as the runner proceeded to lower the weight of every forged weapon, which is never necessary in the entire game.
This run is faster, yes, but mainly because of a faster route. The execution, iirc, is even worse than the current run on the website, and it is just outright sloppy (particularly in the beginning, when it matters more), especially with the higher bars of standards set by Vykan. However, I do encourage the runner to try again, plan out more carefully (i.e. what is the minimum magic Tanith needs to ORKO stuff in this chapter? The deep forest in Chapter 17-2? etc), and most of all, practice the execution to meet our expectations.
REJECT
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It seems like I am the last one to respond and since I don't have anything to add to the very detailed posts already made, I'll try and be the TL;DR response. The video is generally fine except for about 1 second being lost around the 2:20:00 mark. Its 99.99% there. As for game play, this run definitely has improvements that could be made. There are routing issues, bad luck, and execution errors. This is a segmented run which is expected to be very clean but this run is not.
Verdict: Rejected
Verdict: Rejected
Decision: Reject
Reason: Tough verdict to lay down considering the faster time but all the verifiers agree that without the polish this is a decrease in play-quality from what we already have. I really hope the runner considers redoing this run.
This run will be available for a month. After that this link will no longer work.
http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/fepor-v.mp4
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