The new update's boost to NG+ renown is great! I just opened a new game on my file that I've cleared four times, and have been awarded the 10000 renown clear bonus four times, so I'm starting my run with 45,500 renown, going to have fun building stupid units right from the start this time.

I also broke and got the expansion pass. I don't like to buy DLC without knowing what's coming (Smash burnt me, none of the new fighters outside of Hero do anything for me), but I've already got 200 hours so far in FE, I know it'll be worth it.

I've heard that if you beat maddening mode the"true way" (no NG+/DLC), you get a new title screen. Very cool that they're acknowledging us purist! Also, the difficulty gap between hard and maddening is crazy big! Can rarely 1-shot anything, well except armors lul, meanwhile all my units now generally die in 1-2 hits. I have to actually wall and kite now, precisely plan out my positioning and attack order, play more thoughtfully and defensively rather than just stride in and mindlessly kill everything. Actually had to use gambits on regular enemies for the aoe dmg and stun, as well as needing to pay attention to battalion health now.

Before, stride/rescue/warp and the range meta felt like cheating, but now it feels necessary to have as many options as possible to even the playing field. Granted they're still OP, but with enemy archers able to deal relevant damage now the range meta doesn't feel so one sided, and since enemies are sturdier walking up and killing all or enough of them that you wont die to their counterattack isn't always possible. It's still possible to cheese some maps though, Lorenz's paralogue I beat in 1 turn. At the same time, you have maps like Ingrid's paralogue that gave me Echoes flashbacks with the endless enemy spawns, except these enemies are actually a threat. I just gave up on that one, I'm not using Ingrid anyway lul. So overall? That thread I made criticizing the game's lack of strategy? Yeah I take that back now, and I'm so glad for it, this is the experience I wanted out of the game! ^_^

Just finished the game on Hard - Blue Lions route. Final level was somewhat tricky to keep everyone alive, though once I took out the hordes of enemies the final boss was pretty easy to gang up on.

Overall, I loved the game though. Didn't quite break into my top 3 FE games (Path of Radiance, Blazing Blade, and Radiant Dawn), but the story was very good overall and it probably had the best character-writing in the series.

On the flip-side, and maybe its just that the game expects you to play all the routes, but I feel like a lot of key plot points were forgotten in Blue Lions.

Still...despite all this, I'm looking forward to playing more. Will likely do Edelgard's route yet...looking forward to it! 

I finally got to start this game the other day. 7 hours in and hooked. I knew I would be, but holy crap this is blowing my expectations out of the water so far. I'm with the Black Eagles on first play through. I cannot get enough of that battle music though, so good.

Yeah it does want you to play all routes, and even then I hear certain things still get no explanations. This leaves each individual route feeling less than satisfying, but I don't fault them too much for this as atleast all paths are in the base game, unlike a certain other Fire Emblem game oh snap!

Yep this still works on maddening. As said before, stride and warp gotta be dropped in future games, they only facilitate cheese plays like this.

Don't use warp, then. The vast majority of people who play Fire Emblem prefer to kill every last one of them and gather that juicy XP, anyway. 

Good buildup, though. 

But then people will claim I'm overleveled thus everything I say is invalid regardless of facts and evidence!

The thing is I should be able to use the strongest strategies, I shouldn't have to willfully ignore them, intentionally play sub optimally. Plus I lack the willpower, once I see a powerful strat, I cannot resist!

I've mentioned this story before, but I remember complaining to a friend when I played Pokemon Y how the move Acrobatics (I think that's what it's called) basically one-shots every CPU trainer, since almost no one has items equipped to their Pokemon in regular fights. Her response was, "Okay. So maybe don't use that move?" I had no response.

I honestly only used the Stride/Warp combination once my entire playthrough. It made the fight un-interesting and so I never bothered again. I did the same thing with the kids in Awakening/Fates...just because a game feature exists doesn't mean you're forced to use it.

Personally I don't really see an issue with game features that make the experience easier for others. The game is perfectly playable without it, and it doesn't impact my enjoyment any, I don't really see a need to play gate-keeper on things I like. 

I don't think that comparison fits here, Pokemon's main story is the equivalent to this game's normal mode. I'm playing on maddening, the mode that's intended to be difficult and involved. Pokemon's equivalent would be facing human opponents. However my issue here is not just about difficulty. In Pokemon, even when you're matched up with a weaker opponent, it's easy but you're still playing the game, interacting with your opponent. Now imagine if instead you beat your opponent instantly before they even threw out a Pokemon. That's what stride/warp allows for, to skip actually playing the game, which I think is a design flaw.