Why did I start these other games?

That's why it's your job to make sure that DOESN'T happen.
Set up barriers
Place allies outside of enemy range
There are ways around that

Did I get the kids? Yes? Have trouble? Of course. Did I grind? No. Did I make use of them? Yes.
Do you know WHY it's tough? Because it's a video game
Video games tend to have CHALLENGES that you have to overcome. I dissaprove of grinding because grinding takes all the fun out of a challenge. There's nothing fun about mindlessly fighting the same enemies over and over again until you've gained enough numbers to one shot the enemy.
That's not overcoming a challenge, that's just pressing the same button over and over again until you get stronger.
By grinding you don't learn how to deal with enemy formations, you don't learn how to properly manage resources, you don't learn how to plan out your next move.
You don't learn anything, you're essentially spitting in the game's face and saying "This is too hard, I'm gonna go fight some easy ass mooks over and over again until it's easy".

Play the game how you want, but just realize you're taking the "Strategy" part out of "Strategy Role Playing Game" by grinding.

 

That's your way of playing, not mine.

If that's how you want to view it, that's fine, but don't go taking out your hate on grinding on other people that do it. Just because people grind doesn't mean it gets rid of the strategy in the game. Sure it might be that you can one-shot a lot of the enemies, but so what? If some people are going to grind that much, leave them to it, it's their choice. And if someone wants to go right through it like you without grinding, that's your choice as well. But don't go taking out your frustrations on other people just because it's not being played the way you would expect to play it. Hell, you could even consider grinding a strategy, since it's one way to play the game. Being a strategy game doesn't entitle you to having to play the game right through the same way as everyone else. There are a million ways of playing games, and if people grind, it's their choice, and their "strategy" on playing the game.

 

So what?
That destroys the challenge that's what.
That's like if in Megaman if I pressed the jump button enough times I could skip the level.

Strategy requires thought
Grinding does not

Of course
You are free to play the game any way you want.
But certain genres are DEVELOPED by the DEVELOPERS to be played in certain ways.
By all means, go ahead and skip EVERY SINGLE CUTSCENE in Metal Gear Solid and skip EVERY SINGLE CODEC CALL and run through the game pumping people with a shot gun.
But that's not how the developer intended you to play the game. Fire Emblem is a strategy game. It was designed with strategy in mind. When you take out the strategy part in it by grinding then you are essentially rejecting a part of the game that the developers wanted you to play(IE, the challenge and thinking part)
Just like how if you went through Pokemon only using one Pokemon, you are rejecting a part of the game that the developers designed for you to incorporate(the "gotta catch em all" part)

 

Um, I've yet to see a megaman game where you could just hit jump and skip through everything. That, or I've forgotten exactly how high you can jump.
But that depends on what your doing. Because I sure as hell am betting that on Hard and Lunatic, grinding will probably be a necessity without dying all the time and starting over (assuming you play classic mode, which you should be doing)

Strategy requires thought, ergo, you think about grinding and how much you should grind and who you should grind before continuing. Strategy can be something that lasts through the whole game, or something you use differently on each level. It all depends on the player, which isn't up to you on how they play, or define their own versions on strategy.[/quote]

First off, I've never played a Metal Gear Solid game, so I wouldn't understand that analogy, but I'm guessing it's also the same as skipping scenes in KH and just doing the fighting?
Besides, even if the developers designed it that way, doesn't mean it has to be played that specific way. There's different levels of strategy, and each person thinks differently, so you can't say one person is wrong and another is right.

HAHAHAHAHA!!! You just made me remember all of my childhood playing Pokemon. Still, I only ever played it for what story it had, so meh.

 

Let me break that down for you because it seems to have gone RIGHT above your head

Jumping is an incredibly easy thing to do in Megaman
Clearing a level is not
Grinding to beat an enemy is the same as jumping in the same place over and over and over again to clear the level
You're not using any actual skill or putting any actual thought into clearing the level
You're just jumping.

..........
WHAT!?
No seriously
WHAT!?
Do you know what a mindless task is?
It's a task that requires little to any thought and even lower amounts of execution. IE: Something a monkey can do
That's what grinding is. It does not take thought beyond "This is too hard" to grind. It's not a strategy, it's a reflex.
There is no "thinking about who to grind next" as there is no downside to getting that wrong. Part of a strategy is that if you don't follow the strategy to a T then things could go wrong. With grinding there IS no going wrong. You can't plan grinding wrong, there's no error.

Like I said, you can play the game by shitting on the buttons for all I care.
Just realize that you're WILLINGLY missing out on a chunk of the game by playing a game in certain ways. There are ways to play a game differently without having to lose the experience that was given to you.

 

Jube, I'm loving your posts. Seriously, I get excited when people actually understand how good games are developed.

Grinding is something I did when I was younger and didn't have the maturity or patience to actually strategize for the most difficult (and usually [though not necessarily], most important) sections of a game. It was never fun though, because it essentially was just doing the same thing over and over again. The reason it wasn't fun? I was playing a game designed for thinking, except I wasn't thinking. I was taking the easy way out. It may have been kinda fun when I was then strong enough to brute force my way past the tough parts, but coming back to those games, it was even better having been able to do the same things without excessive grinding. I first beat Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts II on Normal Mode around Level 60. I did it again years later, on Proud Mode, at Level 48, without grinding, and it was so much tougher and so much more satisfying. I knew how to get around his attacks, how to best maximize my damage output and survivability, and didn't have to keep wailing on easy targets on the Pride Lands' Peak. I chose two ways to play the game, but I had a lot more fun the second, more challenging way.

 

I'm just seeing a lot of big posts... Unusual to see ones at this length in the spam zone. o.o

 

You know, I'm just going to leave you at thinking people should play the way you think they should or the developers think you should, but the fact is that the moment that game is bought it's up to the person on how to play it, and you can't change it. Sure grinding might take away some challenge, but I'll stick with it when I want to, because I'd honestly grind instead of just flying through the game. Plus I'd like to challenge Ike, Marth, and Roy without dying right away, so excuse while I get my character strong enough to fight the insanely annoying bonus character who are still beating the crap out of me in one hit.
I'm not trying to say you're wrong entirely about what you're saying, but all I'm saying is that you're trying to get people to play one specific way when there's so many others, even if it's not how people thought it should be played. It's just taking a different route to get to the end.

I can't tell, are you touching your nose or not?

 

You do realize that grinding HELPS you fly through the game right?
That's the whole point of grinding. So that challenges that would require thought and tactics can be done with ease.

You could always

Spoiler

use tactics

. That usually helps the not dieing process.
I'm not forcing you to play any way.
I'm just making sure you realize ONE thing and that is you are NOT playing the full game "Fire Emblem: Awakening" that you payed for. As long as you can acknowledge that the way you play the game is robbing you of the full Fire Emblem experience then you can play any way you want.

 

Well, I'll be the first to admit that I grind because i suck, and with the bonus teams, including Marth, Ike, and Roy, they are not easy. I'm not kidding, I have most of my characters at a level 20 advanced class, just like them, and they're one-shotting, sometimes 2 shots, each of my teammates, and I'm talking about the stronger ones like Gerome and Severa who have the highest HP and attack, and hell, even Morgan, and they don't stand a chance. That's why most people say wait for your second playthrough to be strong enough, but I'm grinding so I can beat them and use them, although I'd rather get them through the DLC. Still, the funny thing is they're not even the strongest out there. Some bonus teams are even stronger, and I just want to be strong enough to face them. If you're too low, you're not going to damage them at all and they'll kill you.
But in my opinion, I'm not losing anything of the game because I play games for the story and not for the gameplay or genre, like strategy. So I'm not losing much of anything with grinding for me. Besides, like I said, when you put up the support conversations, it's inevitable that you're going to gain levels, so you'll end up being stronger anyways. It's not a crime to grind, and some people like me who just play for story don't find it a problem.

 

...it's not an opinion that you're losing things by playing games for anything that isn't gameplay. GOOD GAMES WERE MADE FOR GAMEPLAY. HENCE THEIR NAME.

It's not a crime to grind in a game emphasizing strategy. It's also not a crime to eat steak drenched in mustard using chopsticks, but I wildly recommend doing neither. Can't force that of course.

 

That's not entirely true. There are good games out there that have terrible gameplay. I don't really look at them at seperate things though. To me a video game is just one thing, and while i play it for the story, it's like reading a book for a story. I don't pay too much attention to the gameplay. Now if it's annoying to play sure I won't keep it, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game, it just means most people wouldn't want to play it.
And also, I'm going to go to the bathroom and see my breakfast come back up from that food analogy, thank you very much (which I'm not sure was a great analogy either). And a lot of people recommend a lot of things, doesn't mean it needs to be done. That's one of the things I hate the most; when people gang up saying a person should do this because they're "recommended" to do it, when the person recommending is really just trying to shove stuff down the other person's throat. So if you'll please, don't recommend anything to me, because I make my own choices on things.

 

The point Haya and Jube were making though is that games are composed of more than just their story. While there are certainly games that are lacking story wise and have excellent gameplay (Re:Coded, also FFX-2 to most people I know, haven't played it myself so I can't exactly vouche personally), and games that are excellent story wise but have pretty subpar gameplay, it takes a combination of those things that make the game what it is, for better or worse.

People can play a game however they want or for whatever they want, be it story, gameplay, graphics or otherwise, but by focusing in on just that aspect of the game, people will lose another, equally important part of what makes the game what it is.

 

So despite the fact that people say that you'll have a better chance by PLAYING through the game a second time, you're ignoring that and just grinding to do it one playthrough.
If something requires a second playthrough to beat then that's exactly what you should do: Play the game a second time.
That's what the SECOND playthrough is there for, if you were suppose to beat it in ONE playthrough then there would be no point of the game giving you the option of having a New Game+(Or atleast the closest that it gets for Fire Emblem).
Play through the game a second time on a harder difficulty and I'm sure you'll pick up skills and techniques that will help you defeat Marth, Ike and Roy. Also...

Then let me tell you
grinding isn't making you NOT suck. You should attempt to get better at the game. If you want to one shot everything then just play on easy mode.

Also playing a game for the story and ignoring the gameplay part is like watching a musical and then skipping every musical piece.

 

I never said that I wouldn't play through a second time. In fact, I never said anything about not playing a second time. The only thing I wanted was to fight the strong bonus teams right away, so that was one reason I did some grinding. You've got to get over the fact that people grind, plain and simple. You're not going to change anyone's opinion on anything telling them they're wrong at every turn. You're just going to end up getting into this kind of discussion with people not liking you. Try not to force what you think on others, and just them enjoy things the way they want to.

Not too mention, no one said grinding made me better. It just makes the game slightly easier. So what if I grind enough to one-shot an enemy? Get over it, play your own way, and deal with it. Plus, I'll have you know I am playing on Normal mode, and I'll probably grind on Hard and Lunatic just because I can, and at this point, just to annoy you further since you seem to hate it so much and won't let it go.

For most people, sure, but I'm not like most people. I usually just want a good story and I'm good. Now like with Kid Icarus: Uprising, which probably had a great story, I sold back right away the next day because I couldn't handle the gameplay...plus I kinda looked up the story a long time ago, and I only wanted to play it because it looked good. My point being, while it might be true that you're giving up one thing, for me it doesn't matter, because I just play games to enjoy their story and have a nice time playing it in my own way. It's done me fine up to this point, and it'll do be fine later.What those two have said mostly relates to those that take gaming a lot more serious than me. I play a lot of games and am serious when I play the ones I like, but I'm not all "YOU MUST USE STRATEGY FOR A STRATEGY GAME OR ELSE YOU'RE DOING IT COMPLETELY WRONG!!" etc.

 

This is EXACTLY what you are saying right now.
I've said once and I'll say it again
YOU CAN PLAY A GAME ANYWAY YOU WANT
HOWEVER
SIMPLY REALIZE THAT BY IGNORING EVERY OTHER ASPECT OF THE GAME THEN YOU ARE NOT EXPERIENCING A "VIDEO GAME"
YOU ARE EXPERIENCING A STORY
Based on what you are telling us, you have never played a video game. You have only watched and read stories.
Also if you like to only read stories you should probably

Spoiler

READ A BOOK

I'll deal with you, I've been dealing with people like you for ages.
I'm just informing you is all, no need to get defensive.

 

Vivid, nobody is ganging up on you. Nobody is forcing an opinion on you. Nobody is telling you to only do something in one specific way. You're on the internet, discussing something on a forum. You can AT ANY TIME leave the discussion. However, by choosing to continue the conversation, at least listen to what we're saying instead of deflecting everything like we're attacking you out of some sort of personal grudge or whatever. At least for me, I have nothing against you, so please stop bringing up those arguments.

If you want a good story, without gameplay, there are things called films, books, anime, TV series, graphic novels, radio dramas, musicals, etc. Just like those other forms of art/entertainment (yes, games can be art), I myself never like to see them ripped apart to only focus on one single thing and ignore everything else, if that makes sense? You can simply go about it the way you want, but at least give our words some thought, maybe try out a suggestion?

Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not ever going to be enjoyable. You can always get better at it. Put effort into things like well-designed games and you'll be rewarded well, I promise.