Chapter 18

[Walter]

Man I could really use some help with this Chapter. Give me some pointers, I've tried it several times and I'm getting my ass stomped.

[sleeve]

Nightveil, use gate as chokepoint, sleep Eris, I skipped the miners part and worked wonders

[Klinestife]

Ignore everything Klara says. Trigger them instantly and then run at the main gate. Use the gate as a choke point. Silence or sleep Eris (I prefer silence because mages will run right into your front lines when silenced for some reason) and taunt the other two bosses. Clear out everyone around them and then kill them.

[Firerain]

Forget the miners, trigger the fighting straight away. use as many CC abilities as possible, Night Veil, Silence, Sleep etc. <-- these are all dark magic spells. Get mages to make Puddles and Lightning bolt them to death. I used 1 Ranger, 2 Sharpshooters, 2 Sorcerers, 1 Overlord, 1 Vanguard, 1 Templar, 1 Bishop and 1 Warlock. didnt lose a single person and killed all enemies on the map in 17 turns.

[Killer29687]

The miners is a trap, tried multiple times trying to get that event done… using 3 healers to warp your stranded character safety puts too much strain on the main force and the highest movement a unit can have for that terrain is 7, aka Andrea the assassin, even with that she cannot escape as the enemy units block/ area of control. One time however tho I was able to withstand via 1hp to escape to safety… still that’s rng and the various bugs this game can give. This is the most toxic

[Walter]

Thanks, I skipped the miners, did the choke point, worked like a charm.

[Davos]

Chapter 18 honestly feels like a mistake. The cutscenes before the mission, then the introduction of the stealth as a whole new mechanic, are all specifically designed to tell you to do the mission this way with the revolt. It'll be easier she says. But then they throw 3 crowned enemies at you you can't kill fast enough, all while sacrificing one unit to their death surrounded by enemies before you even reach the main target. Even if you were to somehow go ham and just focus the main target somehow, you would inevitably lose people, which on permadeath cannot be viable which basically forces you to fail the entirety of the set up and piece by piece take almost the full amount of turns available to you to clear them out so the crowns are killable, in clear contrast to the games focus on being efficient for extra XP. How on earth could this have been the intended design?

Have the devs discussed this at all?

[Vinnie]

Originally posted by Davos:

Chapter 18 honestly feels like a mistake.

How on earth could this have been the intended design?

Have the devs discussed this at all?

As you progress through the game, you'll realize that Klara's plans and strategies are kind of a meme. She's like Wimp Lo from Kung Pow. They tought her tactics wrong, as a joke.

Further into the game you'll learn her story on how she killed her savior, his friend and his dad by accident because of a stupid mistake, and then there's that time she intentionally doesn't send Eden reinforcements when she's mad at him and that little move would cost them the whole army and dreams of defeating Balastar.

We need to face the facts, Klara is a dum dum.

If anyone still has issues with chapter 18 on hard difficulty, here's a video on how to do it fast and easy by using the structures at your advantage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cds5i2He2JU

[Rogdhor]

I managed to win with the "klara's scenario" with 6 men standing in final round, where I had the window to DPS Kaspar once he is 6 cells away from his men (not counting the two other commanders).
First try to aggro the full army as far as possible to gain one round to let you clean around the boss, but you will loose that first guy with the miners quickly anyway. And the main idea is to stop (slow) the return of the army from joining back Kaspar with 2 tanks and some ranged heal, potions. Though, after the third attempt, I used several redo to optimise and this is not a good strat for permadeath for sure.
Silencing Eris is quite needed because she hurts. A good combo is also to use water+lightning from Elemantalist and Eden, and taunting the commander.

[i dnt play this game]

Why would you design the mission in such a way that freeing the miners is retarded? The easy fix to this mission design is to not move the main force to the other gate as soon as the miners are free, why wouldnt the plan be to flank the main force that comes out with the miners? Is Klara terminally retarded? As it stands, even if you have sacred calling, rescuing the person who triggers the event flag is impossible, it's a lose-lose situation all around, and worse you are forcing a suboptimal scenario on the player who...actually successfully completed the optional stealth condition. Why on earth is the better strategy to IGNORE Klara's suggestion? It's just really bad from a narrative standpoint too. Not to mention ON TOP OF THAT, you waste 4-5 turns in a game with aggressive turn limits, to do something that actively puts you in a WORSE position than auto triggering the guards.

The latter half of this game so far seems like they are trying way too hard. These encounters are over-designed, to the point where they are extremely contrived scenarios. The monster battle in chapter 17 just hilighted everything wrong with the monster encounters, they are so much worse than three houses. RNG weaknesses are just a massive step back from the weakpoints of 3H.

[Vinnie]

Originally posted by Chickenc3:

Why would you design the mission in such a way that freeing the miners is r***d?

It's not. A lot of the chapters are designed for the lower difficulties. Your issue comes from playing on a higher difficulty so you need to think of a better way than the one working by default. And the better way is to ignore Klara. Personally I find this a merit not a flaw. And if someone's having trouble on the difficulty you're playing you should choose a lower one instead of complaining about not being able to beat the game on hard, IMHO. That being said, after beating Balastar on hard difficulty and maniac mode on I've compared how the final chapter plays out on the lowest difficulty and I was able to stop his troops at the first ally spawn. If the game seems impossible to you then it's not because it actually is, it's because on hard you often need to figure out an alternative way to succeed.

[i dnt play this game]

Originally posted by Vinnie:

Originally posted by Chickenc3:

Why would you design the mission in such a way that freeing the miners is r***d?

It's not. A lot of the chapters are designed for the lower difficulties. Your issue comes from playing on a higher difficulty so you need to think of a better way than the one working by default. And the better way is to ignore Klara. Personally I find this a merit not a flaw. And if someone's having trouble on the difficulty you're playing you should choose a lower one instead of complaining about not being able to beat the game on hard, IMHO. That being said, after beating Balastar on hard difficulty and maniac mode on I've compared how the final chapter plays out on the lowest difficulty and I was able to stop his troops at the first ally spawn. If the game seems impossible to you then it's not because it actually is, it's because on hard you often need to figure out an alternative way to succeed.

What? Good mission design is a mission that works and scales with each level of difficulty. Making the stealth puzzle the central gimmick of the mission, and then PUNISHING the player for interacting with it is simply not good design, no matter how you rationalize it. It's not about whether the mission is hard or not, that's not the point, the point is that the design is nonsensical. The players being clever and finding an alternate path does not change that.

[Vinnie]

Reread my comment. The design of the maps is for lower difficulties. Hard difficulty often requires top notch tactics and strategy that goes beyond the objective.

[i dnt play this game]

Yes and you're not getting my point. Whether or not a player is able to figure out an alternative solution does not forgive objectively bad design. Theres multiple ways to do every mission in Lost Eidolons, but none of them are as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ atrocious as level 18 in how badly designed they are. And yes I did it on hard maniac, but the difficulty level is IRRELEVANT when we're talking about mission design in a FE clone(it should scale), especially when we're talking about if a player should or should not interact with objectives that are tied to the map both on a narrative and mechanical level.

The narrative shortcoming is hillarious. Yes lets not flank the soldiers who come out with the miners, and let them die. Don't try and portray Klara as a brilliant strategist when she acts like a clown(on multiple occasions I might add).

[Vinnie]

I am getting your point. You're complaining about not being able to finish the mission on hard difficulty by following the exact instructions that are meant for playing the game on story and normal mode. What I don't get is why are you venting about it instead of simply lowering your difficulty at camp. You're not entitled to win the game on hard difficulty. The issue seems to be with some players' pride, not design. The design is great.

[i dnt play this game]

Absolute stupidity.

Imagine theres a jump puzzle in super mario bros, and the solution on hard mode is to glitch urself into the wall and go underneath the stage because if u interact with the level design the game punishes you. Imagine that you jumped to the end of the puzzle, and then the game just killed you.

No one smart is defending this level.

Heres a thought. How about the developers actually make the stealth puzzle HARDER? So that when you completely invalidate the stage by completing it, it's not stupid? The theme of the stage both narratively and mechanically is the stealth puzzle to free the miners, yet its good design to have people ignore it? Why is the penalty for failing the central mechanic of the stage the more favorable outcome? No one can possibly answer these questions to defend the stage without massive mental gymnastics, about how "the level is designed for Normal/Casual".

If the game isn't designed around Hard/Maniac, why did they name the non-permadeath mode casual? That's really the sticking point. It's the permadeath setting(maniac should be the intended way to play tbh).