Strategy Question: Why not take everyone into battle?

[HangarPilot]

At the start of a mission you have the option to select who take and who to leave behind. In "most games" this is because the party is limited to 4/6/8 so you have to make strategic choices.

In this game, it defaults to taking everyone (I think I'm up to a roster of 15ish) ... but you can choose to "bench" some if you want to. My question is, should you?

I mean, sure, it makes battle kind of unwieldy managing 15+ characters ... on the other hand ... you can split up and take on multiple objectives. When staring at a map with 20+ bad guys should I really try to take them on with just?

I can assume "taking everyone" dilutes the XP pool making ALL 15 characters "meh" ... versus taking the same small group every time so they level faster. However, the risk there is losing a high-value member and having to replace them with a level 1 recruit you've never leveled up.

I know it sounds like I'm kind of answering my own question, but I see both sides. I'm hoping some hard-core, permadeath, FE masters out there can explain the strategy here.

Is there a "sweet spot" group size? Do have a "core" group but rotate other members in/out to try to keep the rest of the roster from falling too far behind? I'm kind of at a loss...

[FroBodine]

This is a great question, and I look forward to hearing from the developer. I hope taking more characters doesn't dilute the experience point pool.

[HangarPilot]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

This is a great question, and I look forward to hearing from the developer. I hope taking more characters doesn't dilute the experience point pool.

I think it has to since you get XP for each combat encounter hit. Hypothetically, if you go in with 15 guys and they each get, say, 4 "whacks" in ... each character would get "some" XP. Math says 15 guys x 4 whacks would mean it took 60 total whacks to clear the map. Go in with only 6 guys instead and they'd each have to do 10 whacks to clear that same level. That's more than twice the hits and XP per character ... but those you have sitting on the bench get zero.

[eturulja]

Originally posted by HangarPilot:

At the start of a mission you have the option to select who take and who to leave behind. In "most games" this is because the party is limited to 4/6/8 so you have to make strategic choices.

In this game, it defaults to taking everyone (I think I'm up to a roster of 15ish) ... but you can choose to "bench" some if you want to. My question is, should you?

I mean, sure, it makes battle kind of unwieldy managing 15+ characters ... on the other hand ... you can split up and take on multiple objectives. When staring at a map with 20+ bad guys should I really try to take them on with just?

I can assume "taking everyone" dilutes the XP pool making ALL 15 characters "meh" ... versus taking the same small group every time so they level faster. However, the risk there is losing a high-value member and having to replace them with a level 1 recruit you've never leveled up.

I know it sounds like I'm kind of answering my own question, but I see both sides. I'm hoping some hard-core, permadeath, FE masters out there can explain the strategy here.

Is there a "sweet spot" group size? Do have a "core" group but rotate other members in/out to try to keep the rest of the roster from falling too far behind? I'm kind of at a loss...

Max party size is 14 in the later third of the game, and there are a lot of enemies. You should be able to keep everyone fairly on level throughout the end game even if you're using 14. You're going to have to start splitting up into groups more often.

I tend to stick with a core group, but it can be pretty large. There's a lot of "utility" as well that doesn't require as high of levels (healers, status effect causers, etc) so you can funnel into fewer units while still having valuable lower level units.

[FroBodine]

Thank you for the response. I'm just curious as to what your thinking was for having such a huge party size. Most games let you play four, six, or maybe eight team members at the most in fights. 14 seems very high and could get overwhelming keeping track of all their stars, abilities, who is good at what, etc.

Just curious. I have always preferred games with a smaller squad of dudes to manage in battle. But, so far I'm really enjoying this game from only the few missions I've done so far. I hope it doesn't explode my brain once I'm commanding 14 dudes.

You say you stick with a core group. What team size do you prefer? Eight? Ten? Twelve? Again, just curious so we have an idea of how the pros play.

[Rer]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

Most games let you play four, six, or maybe eight team members at the most in fights. 14 seems very high and could get overwhelming keeping track of all their stars, abilities, who is good at what, etc.

Just for some external input, this is just not true. There are *plenty* of games in this genre that let you actively use rosters of this size. Fire Emblem has been doing it for multiple decades at this point, just as an example.

[FroBodine]

I have never played a Fire Emblem game. They let you command upwards of 15 soldiers in a single battle? Wow!

[Evalle]

It's just my personal experience, but i found it useful to invest your efforts into even smaller roster, with some folks carry, and some folks just doing support/fill gaps duties. After difficulty spike in lvl 7 (had to retry in 3 times) i've found some tricks, that allowed me to have no problems further. If you arent running permadeath, there's good way to lvl up some folks, so they'll slightly outlvl content. Spoiler alert

Soon, there will be 2 missions with no timer, but they send 25all stats doomguy Richard after you. He's killable with warhammer, you loot at lvl7, and acolyte (one of healer's promotional class) Just sacrifice someone (non main) to set richard's back to warhammer wielder, attack once, provide extra turn with acolyte, attack twice, bye Richard. Then you can start cheesing. Look at those elite defenders you barely scratch with your archers, defenders and 1h non-axe wielders. Place you defender in front of this elite and just tank with counterattacking. Have healer behind your tank, providing heals. Shoot with your archers from behind your ranks. Switch your tank, when your current one leveled enough, so he starts to damage elite with counterattacks through shield. Dont kill that defender. You'll lvl up from doing 0 dmg (eventually 1-2-3 damage shield attacks. Your healer with lvl up for heals. Stop fire and give elite defenders time to regen his shield if necessary. Finish defender whenever you feel like you got enough and go further with bunch of overlvled guys

Long story short, when you see mission with no timer and beefy enemy defender, treat it as an opportunity to lvl up whole bunch of your non-axe wielders. And it's good idea, for your axe-wielders to take some secondary iron sword (if class allows) and lvl em as well.

[eturulja]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

Thank you for the response. I'm just curious as to what your thinking was for having such a huge party size. Most games let you play four, six, or maybe eight team members at the most in fights. 14 seems very high and could get overwhelming keeping track of all their stars, abilities, who is good at what, etc.

Just curious. I have always preferred games with a smaller squad of dudes to manage in battle. But, so far I'm really enjoying this game from only the few missions I've done so far. I hope it doesn't explode my brain once I'm commanding 14 dudes.

You say you stick with a core group. What team size do you prefer? Eight? Ten? Twelve? Again, just curious so we have an idea of how the pros play.

I usually have around 10-12 "core" units and then the others are pretty flexible depending on who gets good level ups (if I'm playing random growths). I think in the endgame it doesn't feel so much like you're moving 14 units as it does 2 groups of 6, or 3 groups of 4, since you'll be splitting for objectives more. I try to avoid map designs where everyone is in one big ball, except for one chapter later in the game that I think utilizes it in a cool way (I won't spoil it).

Originally posted by Evalle:

It's just my personal experience, but i found it useful to invest your efforts into even smaller roster, with some folks carry, and some folks just doing support/fill gaps duties. After difficulty spike in lvl 7 (had to retry in 3 times) i've found some tricks, that allowed me to have no problems further. If you arent running permadeath, there's good way to lvl up some folks, so they'll slightly outlvl content. Spoiler alert

Soon, there will be 2 missions with no timer, but they send 25all stats doomguy Richard after you. He's killable with warhammer, you loot at lvl7, and acolyte (one of healer's promotional class) Just sacrifice someone (non main) to set richard's back to warhammer wielder, attack once, provide extra turn with acolyte, attack twice, bye Richard. Then you can start cheesing. Look at those elite defenders you barely scratch with your archers, defenders and 1h non-axe wielders. Place you defender in front of this elite and just tank with counterattacking. Have healer behind your tank, providing heals. Shoot with your archers from behind your ranks. Switch your tank, when your current one leveled enough, so he starts to damage elite with counterattacks through shield. Dont kill that defender. You'll lvl up from doing 0 dmg (eventually 1-2-3 damage shield attacks. Your healer with lvl up for heals. Stop fire and give elite defenders time to regen his shield if necessary. Finish defender whenever you feel like you got enough and go further with bunch of overlvled guys

Long story short, when you see mission with no timer and beefy enemy defender, treat it as an opportunity to lvl up whole bunch of your non-axe wielders. And it's good idea, for your axe-wielders to take some secondary iron sword (if class allows) and lvl em as well.

Haha it's awesome reading stuff like this. Good strategy. ;) I'm going to have to make him more deadly!

[Bassprediger]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

This is a great question, and I look forward to hearing from the developer. I hope taking more characters doesn't dilute the experience point pool.

That was supposed to be a joke right?